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 SECOND EDITION 
 
 "THE ROBE'S ISLAND WRECK 
 AND OTHER STORIES" 
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 (With a Portrait Sketch by Castaine.) 
 
 Since the publication of the first edition of these 
 stories, Cobb's Island has been wrecked by the en- 
 croachments of the ocean. What was for a century 
 a great hunting and health resort, with hotels, cot- 
 tages, a church, and a life-saving station, is now wave- 
 swept and desolate. 
 
 In addition to "The Robb's Island Wreck" there are 
 seven stories in the collection. 
 
 "No more entertaining companion can be desired 
 than this bundle of simple tales. It fulfills all the re- 
 quirements of a vacation book; it is light, humorous 
 and clever; well-written." The Critic. 
 
 "We commend it to the lovers of good fiction." 
 The Independent. 
 
 "There are wholesome rounds of laughter lurking 
 all through the pages." Literary Weekly. 
 
 "Exceptionally bright, well-told tales, enjoyable to 
 read ana pleasant to remember." Hartford Cottrant. 
 
 "The stories are capital." Boston Advertiser. 
 
 "A main quality is their naturalness; they are told 
 with a pleasant humor and with no straining for ef- 
 fect, and they are genuinely American." Review of 
 Reviews. 
 
 "Pleasing in style, clean in humor, and brimful of 
 good cheer." St. Louis Post-Dispatch. 
 
 "From a peculiarly American point of view and 
 written in a brisk and telling way." New York 
 Times. 
 
 "There is a distinct quality about these stories." 
 Literary World. 
 
 "Delightfully American." San Francisco Chronicle. 
 
 "Has succeeded where it is very difficult to be suc- 
 cessful; it is American life throughout." Baltimort 
 Sun. 
 
 "Much vigor and directness of aim." The Nation. 
 
 "The Robb's Island Wreck and Other Stories" 
 and "Some of Our People", uniform in style and bind- 
 ing, $1.00 each, or both in a box, $2.00.
 
 SOME OF OUR PEOPLE.
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1898 
 
 BY 
 LYNN R. MEEKINS.
 
 
 i^"*'; "-Vit. ' A ''*<* A^ -I 
 
 m -^ 
 
 7
 
 SOME OF OUR PEOPLE 
 
 BY 
 
 LYNN ROBY MEEKINS 
 
 BALTIMORE 
 
 WILLIAMS & WILKINS COMPANY 
 MDCCCXCVIII
 
 TO MY WIFE.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 THE RETURNS FROM ST. MARY'S . . i 
 
 A HERO IN THE FLESH 36 
 
 DANIEL SPRING BUDSON 56 
 
 ABNER 71 
 
 ANDY RICK'S HANDY TRICKS . . . 101 
 
 PROFESSOR WINTERS 127 
 
 AN OFFENSIVE PARTISAN .... 144 
 
 SLUMBERING JOSEPH 172
 
 THE RETURNS FROM ST. 
 MARY'S. 
 
 H 
 
 . E came in when there was a lull in the 
 work, as he usually did, for he knew op- 
 portunity. Taking his seat in the chair that 
 tilted back, he soon had his cigar lighted 
 and he was one of us again. 
 
 "It's no use, boys, I can't stay away. 
 When a man touches printer's ink he is 
 charmed for life he may wander off but 
 he is bound to return, like Colonel Jones 
 who goes down in his private car once a 
 year just to get a drink of hard cider from 
 the old barrel in the barn." 
 
 The Major had been a great editor in the 
 glorious days when the editor wrote one 
 epoch-making editorial early in the week 
 and then wandered among the meeting 
 places of men to hear it talked about. Thus 
 had come a wide circle of acquaintances 
 and the call of his party and his election 
 to Congress, where he served with enough 
 success to perpetuate himself as an office- 
 holder for many years afterwards. He 
 i
 
 2 THE RETURNS FROM ST. MARY S. 
 
 had been consul and assistant secretary and 
 other things, landing at last under the 
 glorious protection of civil service reform 
 with an income that met his moderate 
 needs. He was destined for greater 
 honors, for Governor or for United States 
 Senator, but he forfeited the pleasures of 
 the rich for the comforts of the poor, and 
 enjoyed the reputation of being one of the 
 powers who made Governors and Senators, 
 although he kept his politics well con- 
 cealed so as not to forfeit the aegis of the 
 civil service law. 
 
 "But journalism is not what it used to 
 be, not what it was in my day and gener- 
 ation. We had papers then, we had editors 
 we did things. The paper was a being, 
 with good legs and strong lungs, and it 
 was out for a fight or a race or a shouting 
 match every day in the week, every day but 
 Sunday. Look at your papers to-day just 
 machines turning out endless miles of 
 wood pulp. You spoil white paper and 
 sell it at cost. And the Sunday abomin- 
 ation! Forty, fifty, sixty, sometimes a 
 hundred pages, slushing over the Day of 
 Rest an avalanche of horror. Why do you 
 do it? Even the Lord worked only six 
 days a week while you 
 
 "Oh, every man gets his day off."
 
 THE RETURNS FROM ST. MARY S. 3 
 
 "Boys," said the Major solemnly yet 
 kindly, "you don't count. You may think 
 you do but you don't. I used to harbor 
 the same vanity. As a member of Con- 
 gress I was an honorable; as consul to 
 Portugal I was both honorable and Re- 
 spected Sir; as an appointee in some other 
 offices I had an official entity which pleased 
 my pride, but now I belong to the Classi- 
 fied Service. And so do you. You are 
 cogs in the wheel. You are clerks in the 
 department store shooting orders and 
 money to the cashiers' desks and getting 
 back very little change. And a few of you 
 are floor walkers and counter superintend- 
 ents, and you report on the condition of 
 the stock. 'The Sensation Bargain Counter 
 needs new goods,' you say to the head 
 office, and you are at once ordered to obtain 
 the latest at the lowest rate, but to spare no 
 expense in getting it, and the next week 
 you are advertising 'How A Cross-Eyed 
 Girl Married the Best Man; Affidavit from 
 the Parson; Case Corroborated By Lead- 
 ing Oculists; Dangers of The Altar; Ex- 
 pected Groom Will Bring Suit For Dam- 
 ages; An Incredible Yet Actual Occur- 
 rence.' And your reporters what are 
 they? Messenger boys mere messenger 
 boys, sent out on errands. And your
 
 4 THE RETURNS FROM ST. MARY S. 
 
 editors what are they? Well-paid gentle- 
 men who answer the business-office tele- 
 phone. Oh, it is pitiful, pitiful, pitiful!" 
 
 The Major took a long draw at his cigar, 
 and we knew he was getting ready to say 
 something about the past. 
 
 "Boys," he said, "the good old times did 
 not pay as big salaries as you get but they 
 made up in glory what they lacked in cash. 
 With the big incomes of to-day the papers 
 can do marvelous things, but what is it to 
 sit at a desk and, by writing telegrams, 
 order what you can afford to buy just as 
 you would your groceries. It is all money 
 and bigness and organization and monopoly, 
 and the individual is swallowed up and lost. 
 Why, we had more brains in one of our 
 four page issues in the old times than you 
 have in your fifty-page atrocities of the 
 present. We made the man bigger than 
 the machine. It wasn't columns, but what 
 we put in them. And when we wanted 
 something we got it, even if the business 
 office went broke. You've a net of wires 
 over civilization that do your bidding; 
 you've long distance telephones; you've 
 bicycles, and heaven only knows what else. 
 Your enterprise to-day is simply ticks and 
 schedules and hellos and flimsey. Oh, 
 how I wish you could have known the
 
 THE RETURNS FROM ST. MARY'S. 5 
 
 old days the good old days, the days 
 when Dave Ross was in the full glory of 
 his career. There was a real reporter for 
 you. .When he went out we never knew 
 when he would come back, but when he 
 came he brought the worth of his salary 
 with him. If he had lived in the ancient 
 days and had been sent after the golden 
 fleece he would have brought it back or 
 there would have been a mutton famine 
 along the Mediterranean. He was the 
 loveliest, best natured and most innocent 
 liar that ever lived. There was not a par- 
 ticle of deceit in him but he could lie like 
 inspiration itself. He was absolutely hon- 
 est and he had no bad habits, but Lord! 
 how he could lie. I can see him now tall, 
 spare, placid as a glacier, smooth as a poli- 
 tician, glib as an auctioneer, looking like 
 a preacher and meeting every circumstance 
 of life as if he had received advance notice 
 of its coming. He was the man who did 
 our big work and he did it like the genius 
 that he was." 
 
 The Major paused again and waited for 
 one of the telegraph editors to put a head 
 on a piece of copy that had just come in. 
 
 "The first time we broke the business 
 office was when we began our feud with 
 the people across the street. They made
 
 6 THE RETURNS FROM ST. MARY S. 
 
 some slighting reference to us and we 
 promptly got out our book of synonyms 
 and let them have a broadside. They fol- 
 lowed with the rest of the dictionary, and 
 then I believe there were a few arrests for 
 criminal libel and interesting threats of 
 personal meetings and a whole lot of 
 bluster which kept the town on its tiptoes. 
 Just about that time a State election with 
 a United States Senatorship involved came 
 around and the fight was close. The re- 
 turns were important and we had to have 
 them. It was easy enough to get the main 
 part of the State but the problem was 
 Southern Maryland. There are four 
 counties down there and the single line of 
 railroad ended nowhere and the only tele- 
 graph office was fifty miles off. We heard 
 that the other fellows had decided upon a 
 grand coup, had hired a special train, and 
 couriers from every polling place, and all 
 that sort of thing. Of course we had to 
 toe the mark, and Dave Ross was ordered 
 to get the Southern Maryland returns in 
 any way and at any cost. That was the 
 commencement of the struggle which made 
 the business office groan every November. 
 It cost us all the way from five hundred to 
 a thousand dollars for about ten lines of 
 news but the glory of it! Oh, the glory
 
 THE RETURNS FROM ST. MARY S. ^ 
 
 of it! Just think of- the time when Dave 
 walked into the telegraph office and held 
 the wires until after breakfast. The oper- 
 ator's table was covered with a newspaper 
 and on the walls were pasted more papers 
 to keep out the cold. When Dave had no 
 more copy to send, what did he do? 
 simply said to the man: 
 
 " 'Telegraph your table cover and when 
 that gives out begin on the wall paper,' and 
 until eight o'clock in the morning we were 
 getting stale death notices, advertisements, 
 old cablegrams, and the good Lord only 
 knows what else. But we got the returns 
 and the other folks didn't. You couldn't 
 beat him. Why he would just spill money 
 all over the country, and the business office 
 would go into thirty days mourning. It 
 got so bad that even I who loved the fel- 
 low had to call him to account. 
 
 " 'Dave,' said I as severely as I could, 
 'your expense accounts are not satisfactory. 
 Now here is an item, ''For treating the 
 party in Southern Maryland, $68.05." We do 
 not mind the sixty-eight dollars we don't 
 kick against it at all, but the five cents, 
 what the devil do you mean by that?' 
 
 "Dave never moved an eye-lash but 
 called out to me, 'Oh, Major, that's all 
 right. One of 'em took a cigar.' Those
 
 8 THE RETURNS FROM ST. MARY'S. 
 
 were times when men meant something 
 when it wasn't the machine that did all the 
 work. And the climax of it all. Boys, it 
 was tragic but it was magnificent, the re- 
 turns from St. Mary's I mean." 
 
 It may be well to tell those who want to 
 know about this great race that after the 
 Potomac river leaves Washington it bends 
 towards the southwest and then makes a 
 huge curve to the northeast and rather sud- 
 denly makes a long and comparatively 
 straight run to its confluence with the 
 Chesapeake Bay; and also that the Chesa- 
 peake Bay, carrying the drainage of an 
 area larger than England and Scotland, has 
 come nearly two hundred miles almost due 
 south when it receives the Potomac's cur- 
 rents. Between the two is a full, fat and 
 fertile peninsula shaped like a Chinese foot, 
 and the toes of it are St. Mary's county. 
 The toes and more and its hundreds of 
 square miles are historic ground. It was 
 here that the Ark and Dove landed with 
 cargoes of gentlemen who had outgrown 
 the financial opportunities of their na- 
 tive land, and with them were underlings 
 whose offspring afterwards measured up to 
 the opportunities of the new world. It was 
 here that the historical Act of Religious 
 Toleration found its birth. The Catholics
 
 THE RETURNS FROM ST. MARY*S. p 
 
 claim it, on the ground that Lord Balti- 
 more, the Proprietor, was a Catholic. The 
 Protestants claim it, on the ground that the 
 majority of the local legislature who origi- 
 nated and passed it were Protestants, and 
 as a detail they throw in the statement that 
 before Lord Baltimore became a Catholic 
 he was a Protestant. At periods there are 
 rather unreligious disputes over this inter- 
 esting fact of history, but they generally 
 end in the agreement that there is enough 
 glory for both sides and all other denom- 
 inations, and thus it ends, and whatever 
 others may gain or lose the halo remains 
 with St. Mary's. In good truth it is a 
 friendly place for a halo. Here is a spot 
 unspoiled by the rush and tear of mod- 
 ern madness. Its life is as gentle and as 
 pure and as calm as the tides which rise 
 and fall in its lovely rivers. There are no 
 shouting currents tearing away its nerves 
 and its vitals, but in it and over it is a 
 spirit of repose as tranquil and as satisfied 
 as the life of its unequalled oysters which 
 cling to their homes and grow fat on what 
 the gods of the waters bring to them. 
 
 The Act of Religious Toleration is not 
 the only cause that boosts this modest and 
 retired county into occasional prominence. 
 Once a year it votes, and thereon hangs
 
 10 THE RETURNS FROM ST. MARYS. 
 
 Dave Ross. From the first effort to get 
 the Southern Maryland returns in the 
 night of the election or the early morning 
 thereafter there were difficulties which 
 seemed insurmountable. The only telegraph 
 station was a half hundred miles away. 
 The four counties are cut up by frequent 
 rivers and streams and there are outlying 
 islands which had to be reached by boats. 
 To gather the figures of the vote meant 
 many messengers, relays of horses and all 
 the facilities of speed and transportation 
 which the country afforded. It meant 
 more: It meant thorough preliminary or- 
 ganization and brilliant dashes at the 
 climax. It also meant resource, which is a 
 polite word for trickery of the sort which is 
 sometimes called enterprise. And thus it 
 was that nothing was left undone includ- 
 ing a few of the Ten Commandments to 
 win. 
 
 Ross' genius shone from the first. He 
 was a combination of Napoleon, Phil 
 Sheridan and Moseby in the intricacy and 
 dash and unexpectedness of his strategy. 
 The Major stated that there was only one 
 line of railroad in Southern Maryland. As 
 one who belongs to the Classified Service, 
 he has a right to forget, but really he 
 should have remembered that there was
 
 THE RETURNS FROM ST. MARY's. II 
 
 another line of road in that section. Rail- 
 road building in Southern Maryland has 
 been a fad since steam began to do some- 
 thing more than sing out of a kettle spout. 
 It has been more completely surveyed for 
 railroads than any spot on the map, but 
 generally the surveyors got tired, or if they 
 stood the strain the builders grew weary 
 after making a few miles of road bed, or if 
 they kept on, the money or something else 
 gave out and there it ended. But a road 
 was really built and it had a real engine 
 that drew one car for passengers and 
 freight until it reached a moment of despair 
 and quietly ran off the track and there- 
 after rusted in perfect peace. The weeds 
 grew taller between the ties and the line 
 was run no more. Except once. Dave 
 Ross had arranged his details with more 
 than usual publicity, and the Opposition 
 had apparently ascertained and checkmated 
 all his plans. But at the critical moment 
 when they expected Dave to appear he was 
 not to be found, and it took a whole week 
 for them to find out that Dave while pre- 
 tending to establish his base of operations 
 where the Opposition camped, as they 
 thought, on his heels, had played the shab- 
 by trick of reviving the old railroad and 
 using it as a short-cut to victory. Then
 
 12 THE RETURNS FROM ST. MARY S. 
 
 there were other things, such as hiring men 
 to tear away bridges and cut harness and 
 play various kinds of mean jokes upon the 
 Opposition's messengers. Dave's code of 
 morality in matters of this kind was per- 
 fectly simple: "Anything but murder to 
 win." And yet, as the Major said, Dave 
 had no bad habits. 
 
 When the climax approached, Dave had 
 a clean record of triumph. He usually beat 
 the Opposition; he was never beaten. 
 Sometimes they got their returns in the 
 same editions, but never earlier than 
 Dave's paper. After Dave used the old 
 road it went back permanently to its rust- 
 ing, and the regular line had to be the race 
 course. 
 
 Nothing could better show the conquer- 
 ing air of Dave Ross than his reception on 
 the crisp October day when he arrived to 
 complete his arrangements for the returns. 
 When autumn comes, Southern Maryland 
 and heaven are next-door neighbors, and 
 that Monday was angelic. It was just be- 
 ginning to depart in a sunset of matchless 
 splendor when Dave, with head erect and a 
 new overcoat across his arm, stepped off 
 the train. The conductor shook his hands; 
 the brakeman said good-bye and the engi- 
 neer looked from his cab to salute him.
 
 THE RETURNS FROM ST. MARY S. 13 
 
 But by this time he was in the midst of a 
 friendly circle, and the colored porters 
 were on the verge of a fight in their de- 
 termination to get his baggage checks and 
 his overcoat. 
 
 "Home again," exclaimed Dave to his 
 admirers. "Home again. Home again in 
 God's own country," and waving his hand 
 to the west, he added reverently, "Ah, 
 look at that sunset! There are no sunsets 
 like the sunsets of Southern Maryland. I 
 wish I could stay here forever. I tell you, 
 my good friends, that you are blest with 
 the finest place in the world. I take off 
 my hat to you. I take it off to Southern 
 Maryland," and he did so, as he continued, 
 "Hello, Bill. That pup I promised you 
 last year I intended to send it honest I 
 did What? year before last, was it? 
 Great Lord, how time does fly! That pup 
 was the finest dog that ever lived. Yes, 
 he's dead. Poisoned. But I've got an- 
 other one for you. Gentlemen, that pup 
 I'm going to send Bill just as soon as I 
 get back to the city is the most astonishing 
 dog you ever heard of. Missed him for 
 two days and where do yo-i suppose we 
 found him? Up in the guest chamber, 
 pointing a covey of partridges in a picture. 
 Why that dog Judge how are you? I
 
 14 THE RETURNS FROM ST. MARYS. 
 
 certainly am glad to see you. Up in the 
 office they always say, 'Dave, that is hard 
 work in Southern Maryland, why dt> you 
 do it?' and I just tell them that the privi- 
 lege of coming down here and meeting you 
 is all the recompense I want." 
 
 "I suppose you will win as usual this 
 year?" asked the Judge, after returning the 
 compliments. 
 
 "Win? Will I win? Will a duck swim? 
 Will an old maid pet a cat? Will a politi- 
 cian drink whiskey? Will Bill get that 
 pup? Well, I guess." 
 
 "Kernel Ross is come," was all the infor- 
 mation needed to make the hotel a ren- 
 dezvous. Some had preceded him, and he 
 arrived with an audience. There was an 
 easy explanation for this. He brought 
 money to a town where money was scarce. 
 He hired horses and carriages. He em- 
 ployed messengers. He treated liberally. 
 He was a prince of plenty and he cared 
 not how the business office groaned. 
 
 There are a great many colonels in some 
 parts of Southern Maryland and in this 
 town they were epidemic. So Ross be- 
 came a colonel, too, and there were times 
 when he was promoted to a full general- 
 ship, but to this he objected, because it cost 
 too much. At least, that is what he told
 
 THE RETURNS FROM ST. MARY'S. 15 
 
 Sam, the head waiter. "Sam," he said, 
 "you black nigger, you've robbed me 
 out of every cent I've got now. It cost 
 enough to be a colonel and I can't afford to 
 be a general. The office would kick at the 
 bill. Call me 'mister.' " 
 
 "We doan't know dat air word in dese 
 parts," replied Sam with a chuckle. 
 "Kernel, hab some mo' ob de tarrapin." 
 
 "Get away from here. No, come back. 
 I'd like to kill you, but the place where 
 you would go is overcrowded," and then 
 he lowered his voice, "Who is that young 
 fellow?" 
 
 A slender, pale-faced young man, evi- 
 dently under twenty-five years and not 
 over a hundred and twenty pounds, sat by 
 himself at the other end of the dining- 
 room. He was apparently about five feet, 
 seven. He had a good strong face and a 
 modest demeanor. Indeed, he seemed ob- 
 livious to his surroundings and entirely de- 
 voted to the food before him. 
 
 "He's de oder paper's man." To Sam 
 there were only two classes of papers, 
 Ross' and the other's. "He's been down 
 heah almos' a week." 
 
 "What has he been doing?" 
 
 "Riding around and gettin' ready. I'se 
 watched him fer you 'en he ain't done 
 nothin' to hurt."
 
 l6 THE RETURNS FROM ST. MARY'S. 
 
 "He looks wiry," was Dave's only re- 
 mark as he finished his inspection of the 
 man. "Sam, after the crowd goes to- 
 night, come to my room." 
 
 Dave had gone to the dining room early 
 to satisfy his appetite after his long jour- 
 neying. The crowd that had greeted him 
 it would be better, doubtless, to call it a 
 gathering, for it was not large enough for 
 a crowd had partaken of his hospitality. 
 "Gentlemen," he said in his buoyant way, 
 "hospitality in Maryland is not 'How are 
 ye?' but 'What'll ye have?' Kernel, set 'em 
 up." This colonel was the keeper of the 
 hotel and he had prepared the supper for 
 Dave, so that while the thirsty were 
 quenching the fires within Dave was get- 
 ting his more substantial refreshment. He 
 arose from it and re-entered the room 
 where his friends and admirers the re- 
 sults and consequences and incidents of his 
 previous campaigns were ripening under 
 the inspiration that burns more than it 
 quenches. The scene that followed for the 
 succeeding hours must go from us as one 
 of those misfortunes which belong to life 
 and literature. 
 
 Dave simply bloomed. "The Judge was 
 just saying that you gentlemen seemed to 
 miss something in the paper for a week or
 
 THE RETURNS FROM ST. MARY'S. 17 
 
 so last month," he said very calmly, "and 
 it may be you did. But, gentlemen, I can't 
 be. there all the time. I have to get away 
 to breathe once and a while. But the 
 paper is bigger than any man, and you 
 know yourselves it is the only one that 
 gives all the news to both parties. What 
 we say is so. If it isn't so it's got to be 
 so. We got the wrong man dead last 
 spring and when he came up to complain 
 we simply told him he had to stay dead 
 long enough for the funeral in order to 
 save our reputation. He that reform 
 movement. Rot! Just pure, unadulter- 
 ated not, and you know it, Judge, as well 
 as I do. They'll never win. Reform is a 
 Yankee word a Yankee plan to walk into 
 office on the heads of niggers. Why, we 
 won't let 'em win. Well, Dan, how are 
 you? I knew I missed something and it 
 was you. How are the little Dannies? 
 Well, I hope. What? Another one? Great 
 Lord, if the Democratic party doesn't keep 
 up its majority it won't be your fault. That 
 dog. Yes, I had it a fine Irish setter. 
 Gentlemen, that Irish setter I was going 
 to send Dan was the greatest dog you ever 
 heard of. He was so Irish that he could 
 always tell a Democrat from a Republican, 
 and well yes, Dan, he was poisoned with 
 2
 
 l8 THE RETURNS FROM ST. MARY'S. 
 
 Bill's pup, but I've got another one for you 
 and he will be sent down just as soon as I 
 get to the city. It's a long time between 
 honeymoons, as the old man said to 
 Xantippe, and I hope you gentlemen will 
 accept the compliments of the greatest 
 paper printed." 
 
 There was more of this and it lasted 
 rather late, but Dave kept his head, and 
 after he reached his room he was busy for 
 fully two hours receiving reports of those 
 who had served him. Sam was in his pay. 
 The hotel proprietor was his ally. Others 
 whom he wanted came at his bidding. He 
 had control of the situation. Questions as 
 to the other one satisfied him. He was a 
 young raw reporter who had been sent to 
 beat a man who had an uninterrupted re- 
 cord, who knew the country, who had 
 devised the schemes that had made success, 
 who was king of the whole situation. The 
 raw reporter's name was Devlin and he 
 kept away from the bar-room and went to 
 bed early. 
 
 Dave found that Devlin had prepared his 
 plans on his own lines and there was cause 
 for pride in this. It was an open tribute to 
 Dave Ross, and he accepted it smilingly, 
 and proceeded to do exactly the same 
 thing. "Even the Opposition endorse us,"
 
 THE RETURNS FROM ST. MARY S. IQ 
 
 he said. "But it is always that way. We 
 lead and the others follow." 
 
 This plan, in brief, was to establish the 
 straightest possible line of operation and 
 to connect the outlying points by the best 
 and swiftest messengers, so that the col- 
 lector of the returns with his relays of 
 horses could gather up the precious bits 
 of paper as he sped along. The same plan 
 and the same route made the contest a race 
 actual and direct. 
 
 Southern Maryland roads, unlike the 
 people down there, are not all good. Na- 
 ture, more than man, has made a few ex- 
 ceptions; but Nature did so many things 
 for Southern Maryland that its derelic- 
 tions in public highways may be pardoned. 
 These roads have bends and angles that 
 represent what Southern Marylanders have 
 lost during the several centuries in not 
 finding out that the shortest distance be- 
 tween points is not in triangles or semi- 
 circles. But, like the Southern Maryland- 
 ers, the roads amble peacefully and com- 
 fortably in-about and round-about and get 
 to their destinations as certainly, if not as 
 promptly, as if the Czar of Russia had 
 been road dictator and had, with his historic 
 rule, drawn his straight lines. This made 
 it difficult for quick work, but Dave Ross
 
 2O THE RETURNS FROM ST. MARYS. 
 
 was a man who often said that the one 
 thing in life that made him uncomfortable 
 was to be fettered by facts. And he sel- 
 dom was, especially when he was after 
 facts. 
 
 The situation then, was this: Two special 
 trains, each with an engine, tender and 
 passenger car, slept with disturbed dreams 
 at the end of the railroad, ready to wake 
 the moment the throttle was pulled, and 
 leap forward on the race. They were side 
 by side one, Dave Ross', on the main 
 track; the other, Devlin's, on the side 
 track. The man who first reached his train 
 captured the single line track and com- 
 manded the situation. If the arrivals of 
 the messengers were simultaneous, there 
 would have to be quick work, and Dave 
 Ross had taken the precaution to see that 
 the advantage would be on his side, for 
 the other fellow had to get off the switch, 
 before he could take the main track. 
 
 But behind the engines was that drive of 
 over thirty miles with dozens of side con- 
 nections, absolutely necessary to the full- 
 ness and accuracy of the returns. That 
 thirty odd miles with all its side issues 
 must be made within four hours, and bless 
 your peaceful soul, it took grit to do it. 
 
 Election day dawned bright and fair. At
 
 THE RETURNS FROM ST. MARY'S. 21 
 
 six o'clock P. M. the American sovereign 
 had completed his reign and had amiably 
 surrendered his sceptre to his politicians 
 for the other three hundred and sixty four 
 days of the year. It was just growing 
 dark, and the people crowded around the 
 polling places to learn the result. The 
 counting of the votes proceeded regularly, 
 except for occasional interruptions by 
 thirst. At each one of these places, Ross 
 and Devlin each had a messenger, and the 
 messengers were urging haste and were 
 restless under the discussions about marks 
 on Abraham Lincoln's ear instead of op- 
 posite his nose, or of irregularities of the 
 stamp on the sick-looking hickory tree 
 which never grew any larger after Andrew 
 Jackson died. 
 
 "The returns! For the Lord's sake, 
 hurry; we want the returns," they would 
 say, and the men counting would resent 
 this and light fresh cigars. 
 
 When a man races, he wants to be near 
 the other fellow or to know that the other 
 fellow is far behind him. This was a mat- 
 ter of great big chances and very small 
 margins, and the racers therefore remained 
 together; so while the messengers from the 
 different districts and sections were 
 speeding to make connections, Ross and
 
 22 THE RETURNS FROM ST. MARY'S. 
 
 Devlin were quietly waiting for the be- 
 ginning of the final race. They knew, for 
 instance, that the sixty-five mile run up 
 Calvert County was on, and that it was 
 superb; that it began with a heroic dash 
 ten of the best oarsmen of the bay in each 
 boat across the angry waters then a con- 
 test of horsemanship with every nerve 
 strained, with nostrils smoking and speed 
 unslacked, to end in the early hours at 
 Upper Marlboro', which would arouse 
 from its couch when the dust-covered vic- 
 tor stood in his stirrups and fired his two 
 revolvers to announce his triumph, as the 
 poor steed jumped its final length through 
 the streets to the telegraph office. 
 
 But Calvert be hanged! It was St. 
 Mary's that was needed to complete the 
 tale, and so from St. Inigoes, Valley Lee, 
 Patuxent, Milestone, Bay and Island Dis- 
 tricts, the men were coming, coming, com- 
 ing, and Ross and Devlin were waiting; 
 their horses neighing; their men looking 
 through the darkness with alert ears to 
 catch the sounds of hoofs and wheels. 
 
 Dave re-entered the modest tavern and 
 talked in his superior way to those who 
 had grown mellow under the evening's 
 hospitality. "Old man Jimson used to 
 say," he declared, "that whiskey never
 
 THE RETURNS FOM ST. MARY S. 23 
 
 killed a man, but it got him so he'd die. 
 But what of that? What of that? Who 
 gets out of this world alive? Think of 
 some of these goody-goody folks who 
 swear off on earth, expecting to make up 
 for lost time in the world to come, and who 
 find out that they've struck a Prohibition 
 town on the other side of the Styx. Once 
 more, Colonel, once more, and the gentle- 
 men will take the same; only make it a 
 little better, please; some of the best 
 quality this time. And Mr. Devlin it is 
 Mr. Devlin, I believe won't you join us?" 
 
 Devlin had just entered the hall, which 
 served both for office and loafing place, on 
 hio way to his room, and he paused to ac- 
 knowledge the invitation, and decline it. 
 He then went on upstairs. 
 
 "Won't take a drink in Southern Mary- 
 land! Gentlemen, that is rank treason. 
 But he'll feel like taking a barrel to- 
 morrow when he sees the paper of the 
 people. Won't he, gentlemen?" 
 
 "He will," was the Colonel's response, 
 "but it seems to me, sah, that you're doing 
 very little drinking yourself, sah; you 
 haven't touched your liquor, sah." 
 
 "Oh, that's all right," said Ross cheerily, 
 "I have to wait until after office hours." 
 
 It was past eight, and it was nearing the
 
 24 THE RETURNS FROM ST. MARY'S. 
 
 time for starting. Devlin came down 
 wrapped in woolens, and Ross arose and 
 put on his overcoat. Presently both stood 
 together on the front porch, looking si- 
 lently into the night. Suddenly Devlin 
 turned and said to Ross: 
 
 "Mr. Ross, is this to be a square deal?" 
 
 "I don't think I like that insinuation," 
 replied Ross. 
 
 "I mean no offence; nothing personal, 
 but well, in other years there have been 
 troubles." 
 
 "You mean the time your man, knowing 
 I was riding a timid horse, strewed news- 
 papers all along the road." Ross said this 
 with great satisfaction to himself. 
 
 "No, I mean nothing but the plain ques- 
 tion." 
 
 "Well," said Ross after a pause, "I might 
 ask the same thing of you, but I don't care 
 to, and in a case like this where it is paper 
 against paper, it is man against man, and 
 you will probably do just as I shall prob- 
 ably do anything to win. Is not that 
 true?" 
 
 Devlin laughed in a dry sort of way, and 
 replied, "Well, I suppose we will have to let 
 it go at that." 
 
 Then came a distant disturbance, a 
 thump thud thud, a dull, drum jolt and
 
 THE RETURNS FROM ST. MARY'S. 25 
 
 quick patter, patter, patter on the sleeping 
 earth, and in the bright moonlight was a 
 rising cloud, and suddenly in the midst of 
 it came a whoop of victory, and Ross had 
 forgot to say good-night to his rival and 
 had grasped the returns and leaped into 
 the carriage and a whisp of the whip had 
 sent the anxious horses that knew as well 
 as anybody that a race was in the wind- 
 forward on the course. 
 
 "Ahead as usual," exclaimed Ross, but 
 he at once began to incite the colored per- 
 son who was holding the reins to speed the 
 animals to greater effort. "By the way, 
 didn't I send you a rabbit dog once?" 
 
 "Yas, sah, ye did. Mighty good dog 
 'till he done got ruined." 
 
 "Ruined? How?" 
 
 "Done sot hisself up fer er coon dog. 
 Good rabbit dog but not ernuf fer coons." 
 
 "Shows what pride will do?" remarked 
 Dave, wisely. 
 
 The ride was eight miles. With the good 
 start, Ross felt in a measure secure, but this 
 did not keep him from urging the negro to 
 do his best with a faithful promise of a dog 
 that would be enough for coons or any 
 other beasts of the forest And the vision 
 of a real coon dog soon began its work, 
 for the negro, although busy with the
 
 26 THE RETURNS FROM ST. MARY'S. 
 
 horses, could not help humming a song. 
 Dave appreciated it, because the effect of 
 the chorus could be seen in the speed of 
 the horses. This was the song: 
 
 De ole man coon am a sly ole cuss, 
 
 Git erlong coon dog now, 
 De lady coon am a leetle bit wuss, 
 
 Git erhong coon dog now. 
 
 Oh, we hunts 'em when de night gits 
 
 dark, 
 
 Git erlong coon dog now, 
 'En dey runs when dey hears de big dogs 
 
 bark, 
 Git erlong coon dog now. 
 
 But 'deed ole coon hit's no use to try, 
 
 Git erlong coon dog now, 
 Fur when we comes out you'se got to 
 die, 
 
 Git erlong coon dog now. 
 
 "I'd ruther hab a good coon dog," ?aid 
 the negro, whose name was Zeke, "than 
 anything else in this here world." 
 
 "You'll get it," replied Dave. "But you 
 must drive for it. Git erlong, good horse 
 now, and be there ahead of the record." 
 
 The horses went over the uncertain roads 
 without regard to ruts or tracks, sometimes
 
 THE RETURNS FROM ST. MARY'S. 27 
 
 on a dead run, and the cool November air 
 cut the face and stirred the soul. The night 
 was perfect, a full moon shining from a 
 cloudless sky and stars outdoingthemselves 
 in trying to assist in the illumination. The 
 eight miles were made within the hour and 
 at the second point on the journey, where 
 the returns from Quantico were to inter- 
 cept the race, Dave's usual audience had 
 assembled. There was a cheer and Dave 
 simply said, "Thank you, gentlemen; but 
 where is my man from Quantico? Is he 
 here?" 
 
 "He is not, sah; bad roads, sah." 
 
 And Dave said something that cannot be 
 printed. And yet he had no bad habits. 
 
 It was a case of waiting, and Dave's 
 spirit chafed; but in a few minutes he re- 
 vived, and after telling his friends that his 
 rival had probably decided to turn the 
 other way and take the water route up the 
 Chesapeake, he became for a moment his 
 buoyant self. 
 
 "It's hard waiting, as Aunt Mary said 
 when Uncle Cyrus refused to die on 
 schedule time and the hot dinner for the 
 mourners got cold; but it's all right. Glad 
 to have a rest and to see you gentlemen. 
 Lovely night! Glorious! glorious! glori- 
 ous! By the way, Bob, how did that bird 
 dog get along?"
 
 28 THE RETURNS FROM ST. MARY'S. 
 
 "To tell you th- truth, Colonel, he got 
 along too well. His idea of a bird was a 
 chicken. I was obliged to get rid of him." 
 
 "Queer, that was a blooded dog." 
 
 "Just so, Colonel, just so. He preferred 
 my fancy breeds of poultry." 
 
 "That's one on me, gentlemen, and " 
 
 But just then there was a rushing sound 
 with horses on a run coming up the road 
 straight towards the group. And from the 
 other direction came another sound of pat- 
 tering hoofs. Devlin had arrived and 
 almost at the exact moment the messenger 
 had reached the place. 
 
 "Is it for Ross," asked Dave quickly. 
 
 "No, Devlin." 
 
 "Here," said Devlin, and hastily looking 
 at the returns to see if they were all right, 
 he entered his second carriage with the 
 fresh horses and was off and away without 
 a word to anyone. 
 
 It was ten minutes before Ross* man 
 came, and it seemed ten centuries. But 
 Dave knew his team on the second relay 
 was the swifter of the two and he kept his 
 nerve. He was sitting in the carriage 
 peering through the night, waiting for a 
 sound and oblivious to the presence of his 
 friends. Presently the hard knocks on the 
 road told of a horse running at its best, and
 
 THE RETURNS FROM ST. MARY S. 2Q 
 
 almost before the words can be spoken, the 
 papers were in Dave's hands and his own 
 horses, the fresh ones, of course, were leap- 
 ing through the night. 
 
 There was no joking this time; not even 
 the mention of a dog, and those seven 
 miles were travelled faster than they had 
 ever been before, z.nd the joy of it all was 
 that at the next stage Dave saw Devlin 
 waiting. Devlin's returns had not arrived; 
 Dave's had. Luck unspeakable! His fright 
 was now over. 
 
 "Howdy-do and good-bye," and he was 
 off with his fresh team of glorious bays, as 
 proud as emperors and as swift as the 
 breeze. 
 
 Nine miles faded away well within the 
 hour and Dave was at the last stretch of 
 the race, ahead, far ahead of his rival. 
 
 Eight miles more and then the special 
 train, and victory! 
 
 Why was that messenger late? The 
 stupid fool! Did he not know that every 
 moment was precious! What could have 
 happened! Great Jupiter! more delay! 
 Hear that watch tick! Every second is a 
 day; every minute a year! Not even yet 
 does he come. But what's that? The pat- 
 ter, patter! Hurry, for heaven's sake, 
 hurry!
 
 30 THE RETURNS FROM ST. MARY S. 
 
 "Horse stumbled. Fell. Broke my 
 arm." 
 
 Dave heard all .his, but broken arms 
 were trifles. "Send doctor's bill to office," 
 he called, as he grabbed the returns, and in 
 a minute he was on his way with Sam old 
 reliable, never beaten Sam wielding the 
 whip over the finest pair of horses in the 
 State, horses that were tearing up the road 
 like a whirlwind. 
 
 It happened that less than a half mile 
 from the place where the trains were wait- 
 ing was a bridge across a very respectable 
 stream, and for over two miles before the 
 bridge was reached was a flat marsh 
 country with a road meandering through it 
 in such a fashion that it kept travellers in 
 sight of one another for almost the entire 
 distance. 
 
 It also happened that when Dave was 
 well out of the woods upon this winding 
 road and Sam was keeping the horses to 
 the top of their speed, a shadowy some- 
 thing moved along the horizon and Dave 
 saw it. 
 
 Cold chills ran through his veins. He 
 took the whip from Sam's hands and 
 lashed the faithful beasts until Sam cried 
 out in protest.
 
 THE RETURNS FROM ST. MARY*S. 3! 
 
 "Kill them, will I? And you too, you 
 nigger, if you don't go faster! Great 
 heavens, man! He's gaining on us gain- 
 ing GAINING. Here, give me that whip 
 again! For God's sake, go GO GO." 
 This in frenzy to the horses, and then he 
 stood up and looked back, and the spectre 
 was measuring its steady lengths across the 
 marsh road. 
 
 Dave's mind was working intensely. A 
 half mile beyond the bridge was victory, 
 but it might as well be a thousand miles if 
 the horseman kept his gait, for his own 
 team was giving out. 
 
 Suddenly the thought he had been seek- 
 ing came like an inspiration. 
 
 "His horse may beat me, but his legs 
 can't," and with the genius of a general he 
 laid his plans. 
 
 "He can't swim the river, he must cross 
 that bridge!" That was plain. 
 
 And when the carriage passed to the 
 other side, Dave and Sam ran back and 
 began to throw the loose planks overboard 
 until a gap of seven feet had been made, 
 and Dave had said, the county might send 
 the bill to the paper. And then Dave or- 
 dered Sam to turn the team around, block 
 the other end of the bridge securely with 
 the horses and the carriage, and to do
 
 32 THE RETURNS FROM ST. MARY S. 
 
 everything, except murder, to delay the 
 Opposition. All this was done in feverish 
 haste, and the orders were shouted back as 
 Dave jumped forward on a dead run, his 
 pockets full of copy, his long legs measur- 
 ing the half mile of road to the special train 
 in marvellous strides. But Dave had been 
 a champion sprinter at college and he knew 
 his powers. 
 
 The spectre was approaching the bridge 
 and its human aspect grew at closer range. 
 It was coming so fast that Sam in mortal 
 terror lest it fall into the gap of the bridge, 
 called out: 
 
 "You can't git over; big hole in the 
 bridge, sah." 
 
 Therewas a slackening of speed; then the 
 rider saw in the moonlight and the horse 
 saw too, but the animal arose in the air and 
 when it landed it was on the other side of 
 the gap. 
 
 But the carriage and the horses, crouched 
 on their all fours, blocked the bridge at the 
 other end. 
 
 The horseman and the horse they 
 seemed part and parcel of the same mach- 
 ine whispered something to each other or 
 they seemed to do so, and without stop- 
 ping they arose again and when they came 
 down, they were over everything, and the
 
 THE RETURNS FROM ST. MARY S. 33 
 
 man leaned forward and threw his arms 
 around the beast and loved her, and she 
 skipped on in the pure delight of having 
 done it. 
 
 Sam and the team overtook Dave Ross 
 and carried him on. 
 
 "Deed, Kernel, hit couldn't er ben no 
 'uman horse ner person; hit were a ghost; 
 hit jest sailed right over dat bridge, 'en 
 it's feet didn't tech nothin' no how, 'en hit 
 had wings, 'cause I seen 'em; no, sah, hit 
 couldn't er " 
 
 But just then the whistle of Devlin's 
 special blew a triumphant blast, as the 
 train rounded the curve on the way to the 
 telegraph station. 
 
 ***** 
 
 "That night," resumed the Major, "I 
 waited and waited. Dave had never failed 
 us. Could he do it this time? Impossible! 
 The press room and the composing room 
 and all the other rooms rang their bells 
 and blew their whistles and blew their 
 whistles and rang their bells and messen- 
 gers were running to me saying it was time 
 to go to press. But I kept on waiting, and 
 I waited a few minutes over the limit be- 
 fore I let the paper go. Then I sent the 
 3
 
 34 THE RETURNS FROM ST. MARY S. 
 
 boy to get the first copy he could of our 
 despised contemporary, and when he 
 brought it, I fell back in my chair. It had 
 the returns from St. Mary's, and we were 
 whipped. 
 
 "Dave? He came in a couple of days 
 afterwards and wearily asked if we had 
 heard from St. Mary's county. Then I 
 told him what I had heard. Young Devlin 
 was a son of old Colonel Devlin of the 
 Confederate Cavalry, who was never at 
 home except on the back of a horse, and 
 young Jack Devlin could sit on a horse 
 before he could walk and he was the young 
 'un who was in at the death of every fox, 
 who jumped all the hurdles, took all the 
 fences, and won most of the tournaments. 
 Jumping the gap and the team was easy 
 business for him he would have jumped 
 the whole river if necessary, for he was on 
 Kate, the famous Kate, who knew and 
 loved him like as a sister loves a brother. 
 Dave's man Sam had cut Devlin's harness 
 and disabled his carriage, but Devlin had 
 expected that and Kate was in hiding for 
 the emergency. And the boy and the mare 
 won the victory. 
 
 "After that the papers got together and 
 there was no more racing, no more spe- 
 cials at a hundred dollars a line, no more
 
 THE RETURNS FROM ST. MARY'S. 
 
 groaning from the business office. And 
 Dave? He got a place in the State De- 
 partment and married a widow, and the 
 widow and the Classified Service have 
 tamed his impetuous soul, and if anybody 
 mentions dogs he changes the subject." 
 
 The Major arose and said good-night 
 and as he went out he was murmuring, 
 "The good old days. Oh, the good, good, 
 old, old days!"
 
 A HERO IN THE FLESH. 
 
 w, 
 
 HEN Oliver Cromwell was bestowed 
 with plenteous water upon the Cheston 
 baby great things were expected. The 
 greatness came. After a few normal years, 
 Oliver began to take on flesh. His par- 
 ents were the richest people in the county 
 and he was the only child. They hastened 
 to do everything possible to check the 
 calamity. But the less Oliver ate, the 
 more he grew. The air and the water and 
 all the elements conspired to make him fat. 
 It was not obesity, or any other of the big 
 words, but a simple and appalling surplus. 
 He actually seemed to bulge out of every 
 button-hole, and one good dame declared 
 that she honestly believed he had his 
 pockets full of himself. 
 
 Of course Salem laughed, but there came 
 a time when the people got used to him, 
 and when his fine mind developed its ex- 
 cellence in the public school and carried off 
 the honors at the academy, and when after 
 the death of his parents he succeeded to the 
 wealth and became the leading person of
 
 A HERO IN THE FLESH. 37 
 
 the village, there was, in his presence at 
 least, a general and respectful avoidance of 
 weights and measures. 
 
 Through it all Mr. Cheston was stately 
 and calm. He pursued the tenor of his 
 way with a deportment that was perfect, 
 with an affability that never languished. 
 But he could not steel himself against acci- 
 dents, especially those accidents that befall 
 human nature without respect to size, age 
 or position. It seems incongruous to say 
 that he fell in love. As a matter of fact the 
 precipitation was neither instantaneous nor 
 sensational. It was not the boulder rolling 
 from the precipice; rather was it the glacier 
 that had been gradually moving for years 
 but insensible of its own motion until it 
 reached the breaking off place. The warm- 
 ing influence which had slowly melted and 
 moved the heart of Mr. Cheston was as 
 gentle as it was unconscious. The glacier 
 does not realize that it is the small stream 
 flowing beneath its imperturbable calm that 
 carries it forward. Mr. Cheston was simi- 
 larly uniformed. On his way to his office 
 every morning, he passed a certain yard. 
 He was always punctual more punctual 
 than anyone else in the town except Mr. 
 James Cartwell, who breakfasted at seven 
 as regularly as the clock struck. When
 
 38 A HERO IN THE FLESH. 
 
 Mr. Cartwell started to his store at half- 
 past seven, his daughter Mary accompan- 
 ied him to the gate and after bidding him 
 good-bye turned to her flowers which 
 made the Cartwell front yard the most 
 fragrant and the most beautiful in all the 
 neighborhood. At five minutes to eight 
 Mr. Cheston came along and invariably 
 stopped to say good morning and to dis- 
 cuss the growth of particular plants in 
 which he had an intelligent interest. He 
 was generally rewarded with a decoration 
 for his button-hole. He soon came to ex- 
 pect this and for some reason which he 
 could not quite understand he resented in 
 his mind the presence of a third party at 
 these morning meetings. But often the 
 third party was there young Stephen 
 Moswell, slender, dapper and bright, a re- 
 cent graduate from the military school, 
 who seemed fonder of the front yard and 
 the flowers than Mr. Cheston himself, and 
 who often lingered after Mr. Cheston had 
 passed on to his office. 
 
 One morning Miss Mary was missing 
 from the yard and the day did not seem to 
 pass as smoothly as usual to Mr. Cheston. 
 The next and the next went by. He was a 
 practical man, giving his time and thought 
 to practical matters, but after the fourth
 
 A HERO IN THE FLESH. 39 
 
 day he spent an hour in honest introspec- 
 tion, and it was then he discovered that a 
 little current of something had been all the 
 time flowing beneath his unknowing heart. 
 He also found that Miss Cartwell had gone 
 away on a visit, and he felt, much to the 
 distress of his normal reasoning powers, 
 that it was not right for her to go and leave 
 him alone in his unsatisfied longings for 
 five minute chats with one on whom he 
 had never called socially in all his life. 
 
 He had never cared for society in the 
 sense of formal visiting. He always felt 
 uncomfortable in a crowded parlor. So it 
 happened that almost every evening he was 
 to be found at his office with Dr. Flook, a 
 dry, thin man with a sharp face and a posi- 
 tive tongue, the usual medical autocrat 
 who rules small towns and declares that 
 each generation he brings into the world is 
 worse than its predecessor. 
 
 On the fifth evening after Miss Cart- 
 well's departure Mr. Cheston was late in 
 reaching the office and the doctor opened 
 upon him rather savagely: 
 
 "Look here, Cheston," he said, "you 
 haven't been up to the mark lately. You're 
 absent minded. I believe you've got the 
 malaria. That is the fortune of benefac- 
 tors. They suffer for doing good. If you
 
 4O A HERO IN THE FLESH. 
 
 hadn't gone round bothering with sani- 
 tation and such things you would have kept 
 your health and you wouldn't have ruined 
 my practice. What this community needs 
 is not reform but quinine and whiskey; 
 they want to be sick so as to get dosed, and 
 you are interfering with their legitimate 
 pleasures by trying to make Salem too 
 healthy." 
 
 "That's something they'll never accuse 
 you of, Doctor," replied Cheston. 
 
 But it was evident that he was not up to 
 his general average. There were fits of 
 abstraction in which the doctor scored his 
 points so easily that he finally arose in dis- 
 gust and told his rival to take six grains on 
 going to bed and two grains every two 
 hours the next day until he had taken ten. 
 Mr. Cheston shortly afterwards closed the 
 office and walked slowly home. 
 
 It was curious how the details he had 
 never dwelt upon before came before his 
 mind. She had long eyelashes and a per- 
 fect nose. Her mouth was small and al- 
 most a cupid's bow. Her complexion, 
 thanks to fresh air and regular hours, was 
 a match to the tea roses, and there was a 
 fullness and freshness of health in her solid 
 sunny face that seemed as natural as a crop 
 of full blown sweet peas. It had never
 
 A HERO IN THE FLESH. 41 
 
 struck him as being extraordinary any 
 more than the blossoms on the vines, but 
 when he began to think about the other 
 girls of the town she seemed like a hardy 
 annual in a garden of pale exotics, which 
 was a perfectly foolish comparison, for 
 there were many other girls in Salem who 
 were ruddy-cheeked and weather-proof. 
 Then it came upon him that he always 
 liked to see her with her hat in hand, 
 for her hair was soft and flowing and pic- 
 turesquely irregular, like the Wandering 
 Jew in the hanging basket on the porch, 
 only of course it wasn't green, but was of 
 that indefinable hue which the sun some- 
 times leaves in the clouds after it has passed 
 the horizon. And he remembered, too, that 
 she was erect and graceful in form and that 
 she reminded him of heroines he had read 
 about in history, and he began to com- 
 pound them and evolve a perfect com- 
 posite. But after all, it was her eyes her 
 clear blue eyes as perfect as an October 
 sky and as changeful as bubbling springs 
 that looked most brightly upon him in his 
 solitude. Then all of these things came 
 over him in a wonderful wave, and inflating 
 his lungs to their utmost he gave a sigh, 
 and a sigh of this kind from three hundred 
 and fifty pounds of love and emotion made
 
 42 A HERO IN THE FLESH. 
 
 the floor creak, for he had reached his 
 home and was walking up and down, see- 
 ing "and thinking as he had never done 
 before. 
 
 Dr. Flook had been a surgeon in the 
 war with Mexico. "In one of our battles," 
 he was fond of relating, "a most extra- 
 ordinary thing happened. The fire was 
 terrific; the bullets were whistling all 
 around us, and at brief intervals pieces of 
 shell hissed through the air in uncomfort- 
 able nearness. In the midst of all this we 
 looked up in a tree, and there, sitting as 
 calmly as if we were a thousand miles away 
 and war was never known, was a mother 
 bird attending to her duty of bringing forth 
 another feathered generation. It was per- 
 fect peace in the midst of strife." 
 
 The doctor sometimes went further and 
 likened this to the town of Salem, "a quiet 
 retired sort of a place, sir, that is a part 
 of the world, but which attends to its work 
 in its own calm way and cares little for the 
 strivings and the excitement", of this run- 
 away age." 
 
 But there came a time when even Salem 
 was stirred from its business centre to its 
 suburban circumference, for the war be- 
 tween the States had begun and the men 
 who expected to put it down as they would
 
 A HERO IN THE FLESH. 43 
 
 a little riot were appalled at the future and 
 were calling for more troops and more 
 money and more guns. 
 
 Salem could no longer hide in its little 
 nest and every home was filled with appre- 
 hension. Habit was still dominant and all 
 looked to Mr. Oliver Cromwell Cheston 
 for the initiative. A meeting was called 
 and the men responded and with them 
 came the women all trying to keep up a 
 brave front but with tears underneath every 
 nervous laugh. The tension was strong 
 when Dr. Flook in a business like manner 
 arose and asked Mr. Cheston to take the 
 chair and it increased as the proceedings 
 went on and the call was made for volun- 
 teers. The first to answer was Mr. Ches- 
 ton. Dr. Flook was next and then the 
 others followed until forty-two had re- 
 sponded. There was a pause. Then Dr. 
 Flook, more nervous than the people had 
 ever seen him, ariose and said: 
 
 "I move that Mr. Cheston be elected 
 honorary captain of this company." 
 
 Diplomatic Doctor Flook! Always equal 
 to an occasion, he was worth his weight 
 in gold now! The vote was put by the 
 doctor and carried unanimously. 
 
 "I thank you for this honor," said Mr. 
 Cheston gravely, "but we are not here for
 
 44 A HERO IN THE FLESH. 
 
 mere honors. I expect to go with you into 
 the field and if I am to have any position 
 at all it must be an active one. I recog- 
 nize perfectly well that I have certain phys- 
 ical exaggerations which unfit me for com- 
 mand, but I shall take my place in the 
 ranks." 
 
 "Oh, no, you won't," interrupted the 
 doctor. "I move Mr. Cheston be elected 
 captain." 
 
 It was carried. 
 
 "My friends, I thank you doubly for this 
 and I promise you I will do the best I can. 
 Now let us proceed to business." 
 
 They wanted Dr. Flook to be the first 
 lieutenant but he was true to his profession 
 and would take no position except that of 
 surgeon. He nominated his young friend 
 Stephen Moswell for the lieutenancy and 
 within an hour the organization was com- 
 plete. 
 
 Thenceforth Salem knew no quiet. The 
 days were taken up with martial prepar- 
 ations; the nights with weeping, and before 
 the new company had caught step it was 
 ordered to the front. Never shall we for- 
 get the sight as these heroes marched 
 away to the beating of drums and the 
 breaking of hearts, Captain Cheston, calm 
 and majestic, plowing the sands and grow-
 
 A HERO IN THE FLESH. 45 
 
 ing to double proportions when contrasted 
 with the dapper Lieutenant Moswell. With 
 all the swing and dignity they could muster, 
 were the men, and bringing up the rear was 
 Captain Cheston's negro Jim sitting 
 proudly in the buggy drawn by Mr. Chest- 
 on's big gray horse. 
 
 The tearful mothers and sisters and 
 sweethearts and boys and girls followed the 
 procession for more than two miles and 
 then tramped sadly back to the homes 
 which were to know that the desolation of 
 war is not altogether in the march of 
 armies. And yet as they walked and cried 
 there came before them the vivid memory 
 of a figure imposing in its pride and re- 
 splendent in its importance not the big 
 captain nor the slim lieutenant nor any of 
 the soldier boys, but Jim black Jim sit- 
 ting in that buggy as if driving to glory. 
 
 This buggy was a peculiar vehicle un- 
 usually low and built with extraordinary 
 care. It was the talk of the town that it 
 was stronger than a stone wagon or a tim- 
 ber cart and that nothing could break it 
 down. Of course the various thicknesses 
 and reinforcements made it heavy but the 
 big gray horse which drew it and which 
 had drawn Mr. Cheston in it for many 
 years was a magnificent animal more than 
 equal to the task.
 
 46 A HERO IN THE FLESH. 
 
 The day was warm and the roads were 
 bad. But for three hours the big captain 
 led his men. Then they came to a halt for 
 dinner. Captain Cheston and Dr. Flook 
 stood under the shade and talked. 
 
 "Surgeon," said the captain, "you will 
 probably recall that in one of his cam- 
 paigns I think it was over the Alps Na- 
 poleon rode at the head of his troops in a 
 state carriage." 
 
 "I do not recall it," replied the doctor, 
 "but I suppose you are right." 
 
 "I remember it distinctly," and then with 
 a nervous laugh, as if not exactly proud of 
 what he was going to say, he added, "I'm 
 not a Napoleon exactly but I find that un- 
 less I follow his precedent you'll have to 
 have another captain." 
 
 "That's all right. The wonder is that 
 you've walked this far." 
 
 "But the men, Surgeon! How do you 
 think they'll take it?" he asked. 
 
 "Leave that to me," said the doctor as 
 he moved away, and soon the new soldiers 
 were asking their captain to occupy his 
 familiar place in the buggy. 
 
 If it had not been for that buggy Cap- 
 tain Cheston would never have reached the 
 front and this story would not have been 
 told, for he could not carry himself, and no
 
 A HERO IN THE FLESH. 47 
 
 horse's back was strong enough for his 
 weight, granting of course that he were 
 able to do the impossible by sitting astride 
 the animal. 
 
 Coming from a town on the border be- 
 tween the fighting sections, the new troops 
 were not long in reaching trouble. It oc- 
 curred in the afternoon of the next day. 
 They were plodding along a road of many 
 turns and angles and thickly lined with 
 trees. They were very sore and very blind 
 to the glories of war and longing for the 
 comforts of their town. Captain Cheston 
 was sitting in the buggy and the faithful 
 Jim was half asleep in the sunshine and the 
 reins were loose in his hands. Following 
 was the company. 
 
 Suddenly there was a noise ahead, and as 
 the buggy turned the bend of the road 
 Captain Cheston saw the enemy marching 
 towards him. His men had yet to see 
 them and the enemy did not seem to have 
 the faintest idea that the figure they beheld 
 was in command of troops. 
 
 But the doubt did not last. Standing 
 upright in the buggy Captain Cheston 
 called in his loudest tones and with the 
 most wonderful self-command: 
 
 "Surrender!" 
 
 Verily it was enough to command any
 
 48 A HERO IN THE FLESH. 
 
 obedience but the men in front were not 
 the kind that took orders from the enemy. 
 They did not surrender. They did not 
 even blanch with fear. They laughed. And 
 they were still smiling when they got 
 ready for the conflict. 
 
 It was all so quick that nobody to this 
 day can tell exactly how it occurred. Cap- 
 tain Cheston got out of the buggy with as 
 much dignity as he could and gave the or- 
 ders. There was a roar from both sides 
 and when the smoke cleared away the cap- 
 tain was seen to be holding himself up with 
 difficulty. His lips were tightly compressed 
 and before he could give another order 
 a second volley came from the front and 
 the captain fell. Then the men led by 
 Lieutenant Moswell rushed forward 
 around and beyond the prostrate body; and 
 the enemy, evidently under the belief that 
 there were several companies in the rear, 
 for they could only see to the corner of 
 the road, broke and ran. 
 
 Several of the men wanted to remain 
 with the prostrate captain but he waved 
 them on and when they hesitated he spoke 
 sharply and ordered them to join their 
 company. Dr. Flook had reached the side 
 of his friend and was seeking the wounds. 
 He worked quickly and skillfully and stop-
 
 A HERO IN THE FLESH. 49 
 
 ped the flow of blood and then told the 
 captain that the very best thing to be done 
 was for him to return to Salem. There 
 was no hospital near, nothing but woods 
 and war, and unless he got under cover 
 soon and had good attention the result 
 would be fatal. Captain Cheston had not 
 lost consciousness and although he ob- 
 jected to going back he saw the wisdom of 
 it and the result was that the doctor and 
 Jim fixed him as comfortably as possible 
 in the vehicle and the drive to Salem was 
 begun. Never did man strive more to 
 avoid the ruts and rough places than did 
 the steady, faithful Jim. The captain was 
 suffering intensely but he stood the pain 
 like a martyr and Jim kept up a running 
 stream of talk that ebbed only when the 
 captain closed his eyes for an occasional 
 moment of sleep. And once in his sleep 
 he mentioned the name Mary, which Jim 
 did not understand. 
 
 Some intuition told the Salem popula- 
 tion, which was now mainly women and 
 children, that news from the front was 
 coming and so people were watching. 
 Mothers lay awake straining their ears in 
 the hope and the fear of catching the sound 
 during the night. Sweethearts arose and 
 sat at windows, and every whisp of the wind 
 4
 
 SO A HERO IN THE FLESH. 
 
 was magnified a hundred fold. So when 
 Jim and his charge reached within a mile 
 of the village the bark of a friendly dog on 
 the roadside started the commotion. The 
 anxious ears were sure they heard the com- 
 ing of a heavy vehicle and in some un- 
 known way the intelligence spread from 
 house to house until the road was suddenly 
 filled with folks who did not exactly under- 
 stand why they were there. 
 
 But amidst the doubt the old gray the 
 old familiar servant of the captain hove in 
 sight and then Jim was seen and then 
 the captain himself. Not a word was said, 
 but silently, tearfully, the simple people 
 formed lines on each side of the buggy and 
 escorted it through the street. Captain 
 Cheston had sunk back from the weariness 
 of the all-night journey and had slept 
 longer than at any other time and when he 
 opened his eyes and saw his townspeople 
 and the town itself he tried to smile and 
 speak but at that very moment a thrill of 
 pain turned his countenance from joy to 
 suffering. 
 
 It was a great problem what to do with 
 him, but a few practical women ran ahead 
 and by the time the house was reached they 
 had turned the parlor into a bed-room, for 
 it was evident that they could never carry
 
 A HERO IN THE FLESH. SI 
 
 the captain up-stairs. It was with great 
 difficulty that they got him in bed but when 
 he finally reached the smooth, comfortable 
 resting place he went as peacefully to sleep 
 as a babe. Then there was a meeting at 
 the church and the outlining of a course of 
 action. The men were away and the wo- 
 men would have to nurse the captain, and 
 they decided to do this by relays, each of 
 those serving taking turns. 
 
 Naturally, through all the excitement and 
 uncertainty Black Jim rose steadily in pub- 
 lic importance, and a hole in the high hat 
 he wore elicited the open-mouthed rever- 
 ence of his race. But Jim subordinated his 
 own heroism in being hit in the hat and 
 gave his unstinted eulogy to his master. 
 
 "Captain Ol'ver was 'bleeged to be hit," 
 said Jim, calling Mr. Cheston by his first 
 name, and in a conclusive manner. "He 
 was 'bleeged to be hit. Blind men could 
 er hit him. He stood right before 'em 'en 
 never budge er inch, 'en when de bullets 
 come erlong he took 'em. I guess de 
 reason no more was killed was 'cause he 
 stopped 'em. I know he was a sight heav- 
 ier when we had to lift him up. He was 
 just weighed down wid lead. Eben de old 
 gray felt de difference." 
 
 "I guess he was mighty brave," put in an 
 adventurous auditor.
 
 52 A HERO IN THE FLESH. 
 
 "He was de bravest man that ever lived," 
 said Jim in a manner that left no room for 
 dispute. "It ain't nothin' fer one ob de 
 slim young men like Lootennant Moswell 
 'though I ain't sayin' nothin' agin him 
 to stand up 'en fight, 'cause dey kin slip 
 'tween de bullets. But Mars Ol'ver jest 
 'bleeged ter stop 'em, 'cause dare ain't no 
 room fer 'em ter git by, 'en he stood right 
 up 'en took 'em all 'till natcherally he fell 
 down." 
 
 "But, Jim, how do he live wid all dem 
 holes in him?" asked a more courageous 
 darkey. 
 
 "Doctor Flook was dare and plugged 
 'em up," was the prompt reply. 
 
 Mary Cartwell had returned to the vil- 
 lage just after the company had left and 
 she became one of the nurses of the stricken 
 captain. She arrived in the morning 
 and remained until one o'clock, when she 
 went home to dinner. She always kept 
 flowers by the bedside. One sunshiny day 
 when the blooms seemed to go well with 
 thoughts of love the captain said he was 
 sorry she was not in town when the com- 
 pany marched away. 
 
 She explained that she tried to return in 
 time but could not do so. "Mr. Cheston, 
 the sorrows of war are not alone with the
 
 A HERO IN THE FLESH. 53 
 
 men. We have the suffering without the 
 excitement, the suspense without the 
 knowledge, until often it conies too late." 
 
 "It is very true," said the captain. 
 
 "Even now I do not know where he is 
 or what he is doing. I only know that in 
 my heart is a constant prayer and that I am 
 proud of his bravery." 
 
 "To whom do you refer?" asked Captain 
 Cheston, uneasily. 
 
 "To Lieutenant Moswell. He took com- 
 mand after you fell, you know, and saved 
 the day for the company, and he is to be 
 made captain. Oh, if God will only keep 
 him!" 
 
 "You and Lieutenant Moswell are ?" 
 He could not finish the sentence. 
 
 "Engaged to be married," she replied, 
 "and you know now what agony I suffer 
 daily, waiting and hoping and yet fearing 
 to hear lest the news should be bad." 
 
 The sick man sank back on the pillow 
 and his eyes closed. 
 
 Well could Mary Cartwell fear to hear 
 the news, for the very next day it came and 
 it told ^ f a heroic advance and of a 
 mangled hero. Against all the wishes of 
 friends and relatives she determined to go 
 to him, and she did; and in that rude hos- 
 pital she became an angel of mercy, and
 
 54 A HERO IN THE FLESH. 
 
 soldiers who recovered wrote verses about 
 her and soldiers who died went to another 
 world with her name upon their lips. 
 
 With Dr. Flook off at the front the 
 medical resources of Salem were meagre, 
 and the proper precautions against blood 
 poisoning which might have saved Captain 
 Cheston's life were not taken. He felt 
 that he was going to die, and one morning 
 he abruptly asked the poor little man who 
 posed as a doctor while Dr. Flook was 
 away, if he knew how to write a will. He 
 did not but he would try, at least he would 
 write what Mr. Cheston dictated. 
 
 Very laboriously the little man took 
 down the words. There were many re- 
 membrances. His aunts were provided for; 
 Jim came in for a modest amount; Dr. 
 Flook was mentioned with touching affec- 
 tion; a good sum was left for the town, and 
 the church was not forgotten. 
 
 "And all the rest and residue of my es- 
 tate," he went on more slowly than before, 
 for which the little man was grateful, for 
 his fingers were getting cramped, "real, 
 personal or mixed, of which I shall die 
 seized and possessed, or to which I shall 
 be entitled at the time of my decease, I give 
 devise and bequeath, to be equally divided 
 between Miss Mary Cartwell and Stephen
 
 A HERO IN THE FLESH. 55 
 
 Moswell. I do this as a proof of my ad- 
 miration for the said Moswell who has 
 been permanently disabled in the service 
 of his country; and as an expression of 
 gratitude and love." He said this so 
 gently that the amanuensis looked up and 
 said: 
 
 "I did not catch the last word." 
 
 "Affection," said the sick man with a 
 sigh, "for Miss Cartwell who has been so 
 kind to me in my illness." 
 
 Others had been just as kind but they 
 did not count. 
 
 "And my only request is that once a year 
 she shall place upon my grave a few 
 flowers from her front yard." 
 
 "Is that all, sir?" asked the little man as 
 he choked down something. 
 
 "That is all. Call some one in and let it 
 be signed." 
 
 In a few minutes this was done and the 
 captain thanked them. 
 
 "I think I will go to sleep," he said 
 gently. 
 
 He went to sleep. And the only pro- 
 vision of the will that has not been obeyed 
 to the letter is the sentence about once a 
 year. Flowers are there all the time.
 
 DANIEL SPRING HUDSON. 
 
 "Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting, 
 
 The soul that rises with us our life's star- 
 Has had elsewhere its setting, 
 And cometh from afar." Wordsworth. 
 
 D 
 
 'ANIEL Spring Budson was the third 
 of five children. His father, who was in 
 comfortable circumstances, took some part 
 in local politics, being elected to several 
 humble offices and serving out the terms 
 with patriotic thoroughness. A turn of 
 fate or too much politics brought him to 
 poverty and this poverty was as grinding 
 on Daniel as on his father. It tended to 
 make the young man careless and although 
 he stood well in his classes and gathered a 
 slight acquaintance with Latin and Greek 
 and French and Italian this extra knowl- 
 edge did not aid his local reputation. He 
 was arrested for shooting game on the pre- 
 serves of a rich man, and, worse than that, 
 he became involved matrimonially with a 
 woman who was older than himself and
 
 DANIEL SPRING BUDSON. 57 
 
 who took no interest in literary matters be- 
 yond the society news in the county paper. 
 Of course the inevitable clash soon came. 
 
 But even amid poverty and disaster 
 Daniel Spring Budson kept his mind re- 
 markably alert. The people who spoke 
 slightingly of him and sympathized with 
 Mr. and Mrs. Budson for the misfortune of 
 having such a good-for-nothing son did 
 not know that he was storing his mind 
 with wonderful material. Voices sang to 
 him at night. In the daytime, visions of 
 beauty swam before his eyes. Dull words 
 entered his ear and became sentient. His 
 soul was full of exquisite music. 
 
 Amid the dreams was a constant longing 
 for the city. He could close his eyes and 
 see a time when he would be able to return 
 and buy the farm of the man who had had 
 him arrested, and better still, when he 
 could throw greet handsfull of gold into 
 the lap of the ever-complaining Mrs. 
 Budson. 
 
 The exact date of his going to the city 
 is not known but it was about the year 
 1884. He carried with him a roll of manu- 
 script. The few dollars he had were bor- 
 rowings from friends whose generosity 
 outran their prudence. His first mission 
 was to a newspaper office. He had read in
 
 58 DANIEL SPRING BUDSON. 
 
 the paper what journalism had done for 
 literature and he believed this as firmly as 
 he believed that it was hungry for new 
 talent, eager for the light of a new genius, 
 even if he did come from the backwoods. 
 So to the office of this able journal, with 
 absolutely the largest circulation, Daniel 
 Budson went. 
 
 After long waiting he was admitted to 
 the editorial presence. "I would like," he 
 said, "to contribute to your paper. I live 
 in the lower part of Arundel county " 
 
 "I am very sorry," the editor replied, 
 "but we don't need a correspondent at that 
 point." 
 
 "It is not that," said the young man. 
 "I have with me a specimen of my work." 
 He drew forth the bulk of foolscap and laid 
 it gracefully upon the desk. When the 
 editor saw it was poetry he quickly said, 
 "We never publish a poem more than a 
 third of a column long. I bid you good- 
 day, sir, and thank you for remembering 
 us." 
 
 Almost before Daniel Budson knew any- 
 thing at all he was slowly descending the 
 steps. But he was what the average poet 
 is not a philosopher and he found a 
 cheap hotel and went uncomplainingly to 
 bed.
 
 DANIEL SPRING BUDSON. 59 
 
 It was an unhappy trick of circumstance 
 that this inspired soul had to satisfy his 
 human longings on a fifteen cent breakfast, 
 but he did not mind it. Far above his di- 
 gestion was an ambition that consumed 
 even hopelessness and reduced hunger to 
 an humble basis. After breakfast, he wan- 
 dered to the neighborhood of a theatre and 
 loitered there until the manager would 
 condescend to see him. When ushered 
 into the presence of this theatrical auto- 
 crat he stammered a few words before he 
 finally reached the purpose of his visit. 
 
 "I don't like to take up your time," he 
 said modestly, "but I think I have a play 
 which you would like to produce." 
 
 The manager's face took on a patient 
 arctic expression as he asked languidly, 
 "What is it about?" 
 
 "It is a tragedy in blank verse," he re- 
 plied. "I have been impressed by the 
 noble richness of dramatic material in 
 American history; of a race of splendid 
 people driven from their homes by the 
 forces of civilization, and of the remarkable 
 varieties of character which this unprece- 
 dented conquest has produced, and as 
 eloquently and as forcibly and as poetically 
 as I could I have told the story in these 
 five acts."
 
 60 DANIEL SPRING BUDSON. 
 
 "Five acts did you say!" exclaimed the 
 manager. "Do you take this for a 
 Chinese theatre?" 
 
 "If I remember correctly," replied Dan- 
 iel Budson, modestly, but with dignity, 
 "nearly all of Shakespeare's plays have five 
 acts." 
 
 "Oh!" replied the manager laughingly, 
 "so you're another Shakespeare, are you?" 
 
 "That is for you to decide," said Mr. 
 Budson. 
 
 "Well, my young friend, I will be plain 
 with you. Even if you were ten Shakes- 
 peares rolled into one, we would no more 
 think of producing your five act play than 
 we would of burning the house. Shakes- 
 peare is all very well because he has three 
 centuries of fame and does not need ad- 
 vertising at twenty cents per line in the 
 local newspapers; but you must agree with 
 me that many of his plays lack dramatic 
 situations and if they were not such a fad, 
 they could never succeed. Take Hamlet, it 
 has really only one good situation in three 
 hours of talk, and the public of to-day 
 would never stand as much blank verse if 
 it had not been drilled into them by books 
 and schools and literature generally. You 
 mean well, doubtless, but you don't know." 
 
 "But surely you will read this for me,
 
 DANIEL SPRING HUDSON. 6l 
 
 and see if it has merit?" asked the young 
 man. 
 
 "Don't let me give you any false hope," 
 replied the manager. "Years ago we had a 
 stock company in this city, and we also had 
 good acting. And then we sometimes con- 
 sidered new plays. But now, every actor 
 we used to have, even in a minor part, has 
 become a star and all we do is to play at- 
 tractions. The idea of producing a new 
 play and especially the idea of presenting a 
 five act tragedy is prodigiously prepos- 
 terous. Why, young man, don't you know 
 that even 'Pinafore' failed here on its first 
 presentation?" 
 
 "No, I did not know it," answered the 
 young man sadly, "but I am glad to hear 
 it, and I thank you for your kind attention, 
 and I bid you good-morning." 
 
 He did not know what to do next, but 
 finally he thought of a university whose 
 fame had spread throughout the world. To 
 one of the head officers of this institution 
 he made his way. 
 
 "I have come," he said, "to seek your 
 advice and perhaps your assistance. I am 
 from Arundel county, from the same sec- 
 tion which gave to you the man who fur- 
 nished the millions for this great school, 
 and I crave your patience, not only that I
 
 62 DANIEL SPRING HUDSON. 
 
 may plead my cause, but that you may 
 show you appreciate a county which has 
 made this institution possible for the 
 world." 
 
 The professor looked at him somewhat 
 wildly, but repressed the emotion that 
 struggled in his countenance. 
 
 "I shall be glad to hear what you have 
 to say," he said. 
 
 "Doubtless you have read," said the 
 young man, "how Pythagoras recognized 
 in the temple of Hera the shield he had 
 borne as Euphorbus in the siege of Troy. 
 You also know of instances where the 
 human soul has reappeared in other bodies 
 after centuries of silence." 
 
 "Pardon me," exclaimed the professor, 
 "but I do not exactly catch the point." 
 
 "I am sir, the re-incarnation of William 
 Shakespeare. My soul recognizes as its 
 own the words attributed to him three 
 centuries ago. It feels in itself the same 
 powers that it then exercised, only they are 
 now stronger and greater and better. I have 
 mentioned this fact to no person, prefer- 
 ring to let the world fall upon it as a dis- 
 covery. But my experiences in this city 
 have been so discouraging that I must con- 
 fess to you that Daniel Spring Budson of 
 Arundel county is the sub-existent Wil-
 
 DANIEL SPRING BUDSON. 63 
 
 Ham Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-the- 
 Avon, in England. He was born in April, 
 1564; he married when he was eighteen 
 years old. He married unhappily, and his 
 father failed in business after a career in 
 politics. He was arrested for poaching. 
 He had thoughts and did writing about 
 which his rude and coarse companions 
 knew naught. After three centuries, all 
 these things are duplicated in my humble 
 career. I was born in April, 1864, just 
 three centuries after William Shakespeare, 
 and all the incidents of his chequered and 
 adventurous life up to the time of my 
 present age have their modern repetitions. 
 He was twenty years old when he set out 
 to a city to conquer fortune, and the day I 
 started for this city was my twentieth anni- 
 versary. I feel, sir, that the future is to be 
 a continuation of his illustrious life, and I 
 come to you asking that this university 
 take me up, so to speak, and give me and 
 my blank verse a satisfactory start towards 
 fortune." 
 
 It was a new experience for this most ad- 
 mirable scholar and he scarcely knew how 
 to meet it. Indeed it were better to leave 
 this unhappy episode and its painful revel- 
 ations out of this account entirely. For in 
 the course of the half hour which the
 
 64 DANIEL SPRING HUDSON. 
 
 scholar generously gave to the rustic, it 
 was proven beyond all peradventure that 
 Daniel Hudson did not know enough to 
 enter the Freshman class of the university. 
 To his protest that he was better informed 
 and knew more things and had a wider 
 knowledge in every direction than the pre- 
 existent Shakespeare, the response was a 
 sad shake of the head as if that meant 
 nothing and proved less. 
 
 "You entirely misapprehend the char- 
 acter and direction of modern education," 
 said the scholar. "Culture is no longer a 
 smatter of many things but deep drilling in 
 a few things. The world has grown so 
 enormously that the most a man can hope 
 is to know one or two things well, and any 
 university that tried to exist as schools ex- 
 isted in Shakespeare's day would amount 
 to a very little in scholarship." 
 
 "Do you mean to tell me," asked Mr. 
 Budson, "that if William Shakespeare were 
 here present in the flesh he could not 
 enter the Freshmen class of this univer- 
 sity?" 
 
 The scholar ignored the point and told 
 Mr. Budson that genius was a thing apart, 
 and that universities could not be main- 
 tained merely for the accommodation of 
 genius.
 
 DANIEL SPRING BUDSON. 6$ 
 
 "But, surely," protested Mr. Budson, as 
 a last effort, "you devote much attention to 
 the elegancies of literary expression." 
 
 The scholar laughed. "Oh, of course, 
 but it is more incidental than essential. 
 Form is merely a fashion. We mine the 
 gold here, but we are not goldsmiths, and 
 smithing is the trade that we pick up, if 
 we pick it up at all, along the outer edges 
 of our more important work." 
 
 "Then what shall I do?" asked the young 
 man in real desperation. 
 
 "My advice to you," said the scholar, "is 
 to go to New York. You will be able to 
 get the highest prices for your work there, 
 and you may achieve a reputation that will 
 pay you well, and in after years if you 
 should happen to become very famous and 
 are sufficiently old, this institution may re- 
 cognize you by inviting you to lecture." 
 
 Daniel Spring Budson went to New 
 York. Of his career there the details are 
 lacking. How he lived at first no one 
 knows, but then neither do we know how 
 Shakespeare lived in London in those first 
 indigent and melancholy days. Budson 
 did not hold horses as Shakespeare did, 
 but he might have been a conductor on a 
 cable car or he might have earned his food 
 on fugitive flights of mercenary fancy, pos- 
 5
 
 66 DANIEL SPRING BUDSON. 
 
 sibly exploiting the best soap or the merits 
 of a remedy for grip. At any rate we do 
 know that he became attached to a theatre 
 as utility man, filling humble parts when 
 needed, helping to smooth the passages of 
 new plays and giving voice and pen for 
 something less than twenty dollars a week. 
 In these hard but not necessarily cheerless 
 days he was sending his five-act tragedy to 
 the magazines and publishers, wasting his 
 patience and his postage stamps with he- 
 roic persistence. From the first magazine 
 came a printed letter informing him that 
 his article was not exactly adapted to its 
 columns but that the return did not signify 
 that it was lacking in merit. It would be 
 a dreary round to follow this manuscript 
 upon its unhappy journey. It simply did 
 not fit the places to which it was sent and 
 it was invariably returned with a courteous 
 note. After the magazines, he tried the 
 book-publishers, and here the delay was 
 longer and the letters were more discour- 
 aging. 
 
 "We regret," wrote one, "that the con- 
 dition of the book market does not justify 
 us in venturing upon the publication of a 
 long tragedy such as you have been kind 
 enough to submit to us. The problem of 
 putting forth a volume of verse, especially
 
 DANIEL SPRING HUDSON. 67 
 
 tragedy, is a very delicate matter, and a 
 risky undertaking in the peculiar state of 
 the public preference. We mention these 
 things so that you will understand why we 
 are regretfully obliged to return to you 
 your manuscript, with our most respectful 
 apologies for the delay, a delay that has 
 been made necessary by our sincere desire 
 to give to the tragedy every possible ad- 
 vantage of patient and complete consider- 
 ation." 
 
 But destiny was working out a kinder 
 fate. So useful had Daniel Budson been 
 around the theatre, that the managers in a 
 fortunate interval where nothing else was 
 in sight, consented to produce the tragedy 
 upon the stage. A drag net was cast and a 
 company of modern tragedians was se- 
 cured. Oh, the variety and characteristics 
 of this motley gathering! During the re- 
 hearsals, Daniel Budson was several times 
 on the verge of insanity. In vain he pro- 
 tested that a noble red man did not have a 
 Milesian accent. In vain he complained that 
 the English officer of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury did not shout heroics in Germanic gut- 
 turals. In vain he implored that Colonial 
 life did not present the same racial differ- 
 ences as in modern Castle Garden. But all 
 of these things went for naught. They
 
 68 DANIEL SPRING BUDSON. 
 
 were modern tragedians, and they knew 
 their business a good deal better than any 
 wild-eyed rustic. 
 
 The play was produced. By a liberal 
 distribution of free tickets there was a 
 large and patient audience. Through po- 
 liteness it remained until the fall of the 
 curtain, and each of the tragedians, shout- 
 ing heroics in his own manner, received 
 plaudits from his own friends. At sixes 
 and sevens, the play went through, and a 
 moderate success appeared to have been 
 scored. 
 
 But there was a difference in the morn- 
 ing! The critics jumped upon the pro- 
 duction like school boys on a foot-ball. 
 Several of them acknowledged that the 
 verse seemed to have a certain dignity, but 
 without exception they all claimed that the 
 movement was too slow, the construction 
 was involved, there was not enough action, 
 and there was too much language. They 
 were one voice, furthermore, in saying that 
 if the play was to continue, the author 
 would have to cut out most of the long 
 speeches and soliloquies, for the simple 
 reason that they delayed the performance 
 without compensating for the time they 
 wasted. 
 
 Daniel Budson ate no breakfast that
 
 DANIEL SPRING BUDSON. 69 
 
 morning, especially after he had read the 
 following: "At the Comet Theatre last 
 night, a tragedy was produced. It was by 
 Daniel Spring Budson, whose middle name 
 gives an idea of his gorgeous versification. 
 It was a blank verse melodrama, dealing 
 with Poor Lo, and a long list of white 
 men, and it was full of heroics and stage 
 thunder, ending in a general massacre of 
 Indians and dramatic proprieties. Fenni- 
 more Cooper and the yellow-covered 
 dreadful were dished up in one conglomer- 
 ate eruption of adjectives and aborigines. 
 Our old friend the border villain who used 
 to advance to the front of the stage and 
 shout, 'Belud!' and fire off a horse pistol, 
 was not in it in comparison with the volum- 
 inous hero who carried a stately presence 
 and an arsenal of revolvers and words. 
 The audience stood it with noble endur- 
 ance, and the actors struggled as if they 
 were trying to earn their salaries, but the 
 play is utterly preposterous, and the won- 
 der is that it ever found production on the 
 stage of such a theatre as the Comet." 
 
 In the middle of the week, when the audi- 
 ence had dwindled to a corporal's guard, 
 Daniel Budson read in the paper that a 
 famous farce company "last night played 
 its two thousandth performance to the
 
 7O DANIEL SPRING BUDSON. 
 
 usual crowded house," and "another rat- 
 tling farce with its high-kicking specialties 
 and the champion of the world, continues 
 to crowd the Saturn at every perform- 
 ance." 
 
 What became of Daniel Spring Hudson 
 no one knows. He disappeared, and the 
 singular part of it all is that no one took 
 the trouble to find out where he went. If 
 he had been a politician drawing a small 
 salary or anything of that sort there would 
 have been much commotion and the 
 searching of continents. But the poor 
 genius was not at home in this age of the 
 earth and he probably went his way to 
 another sphere. But shall we lose hope? 
 No! No! In another three hundred years 
 perhaps the cycle of genius will have made 
 another course and the world will be bet- 
 ter prepared for the coming.
 
 ABNER. 
 
 O 
 
 F course not. I understand why you 
 do not want it. Times are hard. No doubt 
 about it. It has been a bad year on the 
 crops, and you don't feel that you can 
 afford to spend money on books, but," and 
 here the agent bent confidentially forward, 
 "this is a work that you must have. I took 
 special pains to come to see you about it. 
 I came because I have read your letters 
 in the county paper letters that are at- 
 tracting attention outside of this county. 
 I knew from them that you were a man of 
 intelligence who could appreciate a great 
 work and so I came and I am glad I came. 
 As I walked up the lane I saw a handsome 
 young man for whom I predict a great 
 future your son, if I am not much mis- 
 taken?" 
 
 "My boy Abner." 
 
 "I knew it," asserted the agent with vic- 
 torious emphasis. "I knew it. The son of 
 his father, a regular chip off the old block. 
 That boy is going to be a great man. Mark 
 you! I say he will be a great man. It is 
 stamped on his face."
 
 72 ABNER. 
 
 "Abner is a good boy," said the old 
 gentleman, "and a good son. He has not 
 had the advantages that I had hoped to 
 give him. He was at school less than a 
 year; he ought to have been there several 
 years, but the farm had to be attended to 
 and I couldn't spare him. But he has 
 studied some and when he gets his chance 
 he will make his mark." 
 
 "Then I'm doubly glad I came," the 
 agent said with a tone of real interest. 
 "I'm in time to do you a very great service. 
 You want that boy of yours to succeed in 
 life. You want to help him. That's 
 natural. You can do it. This great work 
 is your chance. It's the practical educa- 
 tion of the century condensed in one vol- 
 ume. Nothing succeeds like success and 
 this book tells all about success. Put it in 
 the hands of your son and he will catch the 
 spirit of success just as quick as he would 
 catch the small pox or the measles. Allow 
 me to show you," and he moved still 
 closer. "Right here in these pages are the 
 lives of the successful men of America. 
 Not a few, mind you, but all every one 
 with portraits from photographs taken 
 specially for this great work. Did you 
 know, sir," and he drew himself up as if 
 for the communication of some all-impor-
 
 ABNER. 73 
 
 tant message, "that of all these men more 
 than two-thirds had the course of their 
 lives changed by the influence of books? 
 Books, sir, of people and about people who 
 had succeeded? Our great Emerson said 
 that biography was the best guide for 
 youth, and you remember that Carlisle de- 
 clared that biography was the only true 
 history. Why, sir, our biggest millionaires 
 owed their rise to fortune to what they 
 read, and what would have become of our 
 Presidents if they had missed the books 
 that launched them on the tide which taken 
 at its flood leads on to fortune?" 
 
 This came forth with all the happy elo- 
 quence of a man unfettered by fact or the 
 ethics of quotation. 
 
 "You want this book. You must have 
 it. It's the last copy, and as I feel an in- 
 terest in the success of your son I'm going 
 to let you have it for only three dollars, 
 although every other copy of the edition 
 sold for four. Take it, sir, and you will 
 see the day when you will thank me for 
 having brought it to you." 
 
 Poor Daniel Green! Fortune had cut 
 out great things for him, but he had not 
 measured up to his destiny. It might have 
 been different if circumstances had been 
 less hostile, but monopolies were so inso-
 
 74 ABNER. 
 
 lent, taxation was so unequal, politics was 
 so corrupt, and the world was so utterly 
 out of joint that he grew tired of striving, 
 and let the farm run down and his debts 
 run up while he railed at fate and wasted 
 his time and substance in letters to the 
 county paper. He dreamed of what he 
 could do, if he had the power, but while 
 government and national development and 
 iridescent possibilities of high offices seek- 
 ing good men claimed his thoughts and 
 his speculations, the whitewash faded from 
 his house, and the gates dropped from 
 their hinges, and the fences began to fall 
 away, as if in sympathy with his own dis- 
 couragement. 
 
 The trouble, too, was that his apathy in 
 material things had affected his son Abner. 
 Mrs. Green had died when the boy was ten 
 years old. This good woman, when in her 
 health, kept order on the farm by the force 
 of her practical common sense. But when 
 she was gone Mr. Green's few energies 
 drooped into those fine intentions which 
 see much and accomplish nothing. Abner 
 was now twenty-two, a man in age without 
 a man's education and experience. He 
 had been to school only ten months. There 
 his ambition began to take wings, and he 
 wanted to do something, but he could not
 
 ABNER. 75 
 
 leave his father, and that was the end of 
 it. Even John, who as a waif had come to 
 the farm and who had grown to the dignity 
 of the only hired man on the place, shared 
 the common restraint, but it must be said 
 in justice to him that he was the most use- 
 ful of the three, because he was not both- 
 ered by either imagination or ambition. 
 Content with wages that were never paid 
 he existed in the full satisfaction of all he 
 wanted to eat, and a comfortable place to 
 sleep. 
 
 Mr. Green was nursing the book on his 
 lap when Abner and John came from the 
 field, Abner, a fine, sturdy fellow, nearly 
 six feet tall, manly in bearing, and bright 
 in countenance; John, more round than 
 erect, older in years, but yet a child in 
 comparison with Abner. 
 
 "Abner," said Mr. Green, after John had 
 passed on to the house, "one of the sor- 
 rows of my life has been my inability to 
 give you a good education." 
 
 "That's all right father," he replied 
 cheerfully. 
 
 "My son, it isn't all right. I see now 
 that I have been selfish. I might have al- 
 lowed you to go to school. I can never 
 forgive myself for not allowing you to go, 
 but what's past is past we cannot recall
 
 76 A8NER. 
 
 it," and then changing his voice, he added, 
 in a more practical way, "I have bought 
 this book for you. It is a book on the 
 success of successful men. It tells how 
 they rose from even humbler circumstances 
 than those that surround you. My son, I 
 want you to read it. Study it. You will 
 find practical examples of what I have 
 often told you, that success is the grasping 
 of opportunity the reaching out. When I 
 am gone " 
 
 "Now, father, you must not say that." 
 
 "Yes, I must, my son. It will soon be 
 time for me to go. I feel it more and 
 more every day." 
 
 He had been saying this for ten years, 
 but as usual Abner listened as if he had 
 never heard it before. 
 
 "When I am gone," repeated the old 
 gentleman, "I want you to strike out in the 
 world. It's the only way you can conquer. 
 The soldier who never fights never wins 
 battles, and the mightiest battle that ever 
 was fought is the battle of life. Take the 
 book, Abner, and read it, and remember 
 that no circumstance is too small for your 
 attention. Look to the little things, and 
 you will be great in big things." 
 
 For once Mr. Green was right. Two 
 weeks afterwards he died. In those two 
 weeks the book had been read and re-read
 
 ABNER. 77 
 
 by the son, who found in it a hope he had 
 never felt before, an inspiration that had 
 never moved him. Way down in his soul 
 were longings for something broader and 
 better than the sunrise to sunset toil on 
 the farm, but they had not dared to find 
 expression until the words that he read 
 gave them voice, and opened his eyes to 
 the possibilities of achievement. At first, 
 it looked so big that his courage faltered, 
 but when he read how poor boys like him- 
 self had started on nothing, and moved up 
 the plane of life to the elevations of fame 
 and fortune, his heart grew stronger. 
 
 After the funeral came the public sale. 
 There were more debts than assets, and the 
 creditors pounced upon the little property 
 as soon as the law permitted. The people 
 came and crowded in the house and filled 
 the yard, for November was a dull month, 
 and they had nothing better to do. Abner 
 and John had wandered around, bidding 
 good-bye to everything. Then came the 
 auctioneer, with his blatant voice and 
 doarse wit, turning the long silence of the 
 old place into a bedlam of noise and laugh- 
 ter. After the farm had been been bought 
 in by Mr. Anthony Cobb, who held a 
 mortgage on it, Abner's emotions began 
 to get the better of him and he walked
 
 78 ABNER. 
 
 around the corner and turned toward the 
 big poplar tree where he hoped to find a 
 bit of solitude. 
 
 As he did so a young woman approached 
 from the opposite direction. She was tall 
 but not as tall as he. She was dressed 
 plainly but with attractive taste. It would 
 be wrong to call her beautiful but there 
 was a rare womanliness about her that 
 seemed a part of sunshine. Her face had 
 the repose of a practical mind and the 
 sweetness of an angel's amiability. Her 
 eyes were large and glorious, as serene and 
 lovely as the quiet blue of the autumn sky. 
 
 Jane Cobb! Many a time had she dis- 
 turbed Abner's thoughts and many a 
 struggle had he had with himself to forget 
 her. He had been with her at school; he 
 had watched her at church; he had com- 
 posed unwritten messages of which she 
 never knew, and now, of all persons, she 
 was standing face to face with him and he 
 with her and the big lump of nothingness 
 in his throat was making him feel like a 
 fool bereft of speech. 
 
 "How are you, Abner? I did not think 
 I'd come but as everybody else was here 
 and the day was so fine I changed my 
 mind. I want to tell you that I am very 
 sorry."
 
 ABNER. 79 
 
 "I thank you," and then with a forced 
 smile that partly dislodged the choking 
 sensation, he added, "I hope you will enjoy 
 it." 
 
 "No, Abner," she replied seriously, "I do 
 not enjoy it. It is the saddest thing in life, 
 this breaking up of a home, and when I said 
 I was sorry I meant that you have my 
 deepest sympathy. Are you going to 
 move away from the neighborhood?" 
 
 "I do not know," he answered. "I have 
 not any plans haven't had time to think 
 of plans." 
 
 She extended her hand to him and said, 
 "you will believe me, won't you, when I say 
 I'm sorry?" 
 
 "I do believe you," he replied, "and God 
 bless you for it. It's the only kind word 
 I've heard to-day." 
 
 And then feeling the lump coming back, 
 he hurried on around the house and left 
 Jane standing there as if she did not ex- 
 actly understand the young man. Abner 
 walked slowly along the side of the yard 
 which was at that time vacated, and sum- 
 moned all his will power to repress the 
 emotions which he felt to be unworthy of 
 him as a man. Finally, he turned the other 
 corner and mingled with the crowd. 
 
 A half hour later the people saw Abner
 
 So ABNER. 
 
 and John go down to the barn, but they 
 did not see them making their way over 
 the field under the cover of the fence nor 
 did they hear Abner saying, "Of course, I 
 guess they expect us to stay in the house 
 all night, but, John, I just can't do it. 
 It's not ours any longer." 
 
 "That's how I feel, Abner, but where are 
 we going to sleep to-night?" 
 
 "I'm blest if I know," and they both be- 
 came thoughtful. 
 
 They walked along at a good gait until 
 they came to the fence at the edge of the 
 woods, and as if controlled by a common 
 impulse they halted on the top rail and sat 
 there in solemn meditation. 
 
 "Anyhow, I'm glad it's over," said Abner 
 with a sigh. 
 
 "It was worse than the funeral," said 
 John. 
 
 There was another pause, but presently 
 Abner brought back his far-away thoughts. 
 
 "John," he said, "how would you like to 
 go to store-keeping?" 
 
 "What on?" 
 
 "Nothing, that's what all these million- 
 aires commenced on." 
 
 "We don't know nothin' about keepin' 
 store." 
 
 "We'll learn." 
 
 "Who's goin' to start us?"
 
 ABNER. 8l 
 
 "I was thinking if we could get old man 
 Cobb to let us have that house down at the 
 cross-roads we could borrow a dollar or 
 two and start in just for luck. There 
 ain't any store in this neighborhood and I 
 believe we could make enough anyhow to 
 live on. We've got to do something." 
 
 "No doubt about that. Where are we 
 goin' to get our supper and lodgin'?" 
 
 "John," replied Abntr with a slight tone 
 of resentment, "all these rich men had to 
 go round hungry before they struck luck. 
 If you're going to give in like this you'll 
 be poor the rest of your days." 
 
 John was silent. He propped his boot 
 heels on the second rail and bending his 
 body forward placed his elbows on his 
 knees and his chin in the palms of his 
 hands. 
 
 Abner was disposed to argue the point. 
 "I've read all about these rich men," he 
 said, "and I tell you that some of them 
 when they started out were no better off 
 than we are." Only a few lingering rays 
 of light were left of the day and the night 
 was rapidly encompassing the earth, but 
 from beneath his ill-fitting coat Abner 
 drew the priceless volume. 
 
 "You brung it, did you?" asked John in 
 evident disappointment. 
 6
 
 82 ABNER. 
 
 "Of course I brought it. This book is 
 worth more to me than the old farm. 
 
 "I guess it's mighty nice to know how 
 to read," said John, "mighty nice, but I 
 wish the old book had never come to the 
 house. You're not half as sociable as you 
 used to be. 'Course the book can talk to 
 you but who's goin' to talk to me?" 
 
 Abner laughed one of his cheery old 
 laughs the first since the day of his 
 father's death, and he followed it with a 
 slap on John's shoulder that threatened to 
 upset his equilibrium. 
 
 "Well, anyhow, it's good to hear a laugh 
 once more," John declared. "I'd begun to 
 think we'd gone into the long-faced busi- 
 ness for good." 
 
 Abner became serious. "I feel, John, as 
 if we'd escaped from somewhere; just like 
 a bird when it gets out of the cage." He 
 was turning the leaves as he spoke and 
 when he came to the page he wanted he 
 held it up, "Do you see that man?" 
 
 "Yes, I see him. He's pretty enough to 
 balk a mule." 
 
 "That man's worth forty millions of dol- 
 lars. Think of it! Forty millions! Lots 
 of them in here are worth millions, too, and 
 they were all poor. Some of them were 
 barefooted and you know we're not that
 
 ABNER. 83 
 
 bad off. I like this man because he didn't 
 do everything all at once. He started a 
 little store and worked up and up and up 'till 
 he owned about everything in sight, and he 
 says I can't see to read it, but I remember 
 his words he says 'begin modestly, deal 
 honestly, take good risks, and keep eter- 
 nally at it, and you'll succeed.' And I tell 
 you, John, that the reason these fellows got 
 along was because they had the nerve to 
 strike out. One over in the back part of 
 the book he's worth twenty millions 
 says, 'No young man will accomplish any- 
 thing or is worth anything unless he has 
 confidence in himself and the one next to 
 him in the book says, 'Nerve is better than 
 genius and pluck will beat luck every day 
 in the week.' " 
 
 "That's all right, Abner, but have you got 
 the nerve to ask old man Cobb?" 
 
 Abner hesitated and John had to repeat 
 the question. 
 
 "Yes, I have. As the fellow who made 
 ten millions said, 'Never put off anything. 
 If it's worth doing, do it at once.' I'll do it 
 this very night." 
 
 He sprang from the fence and called to 
 John to follow. Night had come on but 
 they knew the woods as well as they did 
 the public highway. They proceeded sheep
 
 84 ABNER. 
 
 fashion until they reached the milldam and 
 they went over the dam to the house of 
 Mr. Anthony Cobb. John remained at 
 the gate and Abner proceeded up the path. 
 Before he reached the door a sudden weak- 
 ness came upon him. He paused as if to 
 breathe a prayer. "Just so she don't come 
 to the door I can pull through," he mut- 
 tered to himself. 
 
 But she did come. "Why, Abner. Walk 
 right in," she said. "We are very glad to 
 see you." 
 
 "No no thank you, Jane thank you 
 I just wanted to see Mr. Cobb." 
 
 "I'm very sorry but he went to town 
 after the sale." The light shone through 
 the open door and disclosed John with his 
 elbows on the gate. "John, is that you?" 
 she asked and then she added, "Both of 
 you come in and have some supper." 
 
 John's listlessness disappeared as if by 
 magic and he opened the gate and started 
 forward but he was stopped by Abner's 
 words. "We are very much obliged but 
 you must excuse us." 
 
 Then with a good-night he went on 
 down the path and John followed him over 
 the dam in melancholy silence. 
 
 "Abner," he said presently, "when them 
 three millionaires of your'n were goin'
 
 ABNER. 85 
 
 hungry did they throw away chances and 
 starve for the fun of the thing or did they 
 do it just 'cause they had to?" 
 
 "John, you haven't any pride." 
 
 "Maybe not, but I've got an appetite as 
 big as this mill pond." 
 
 In that part of the country there is a 
 stream not large enough to be a river 
 almost too small to be a creek that winds 
 in and about for many miles, and wherever 
 it dips between ridges of high ground 
 there is a dam to intercept its progress and 
 to store up water power for a mill. The 
 dam at this point was a big embankment 
 of earth with a flour or grist mill at one 
 end and a saw mill at the other and with a 
 great rude trough of thick timber in the 
 middle for a flood gate to carry off the sur- 
 plus water. The machinery of this gate was 
 primitive and cumbrous big contrivances 
 of thick boards that to be operated had to 
 be raised by main force and awkwardness. 
 
 For more than a year the saw mill had 
 been idle. It was not much of a building 
 at best, simply a plain shed of ample pro- 
 portions with windows concealed by big 
 broad shutters, and roof of old shingles 
 that had grown tired of one another and 
 parted company and turned their faces to a 
 thousand different angles, as if inviting the
 
 86 ABNER. 
 
 sun to .warp them from their fastenings 
 and allow them to drop to the ground and 
 decay in peace. 
 
 Abner plunged through the darkness 
 with John following. When they reached 
 the saw mill he stopped. 
 
 "John," he said, "we've got to sleep 
 somewhere and I guess we'd better try 
 this." 
 
 "But how about supper?" 
 
 Abner replied, with a slight tone of dis- 
 gust, "Oh, go over into the orchard and 
 get some apples, and while you are gone 
 I'll pick out a place for a bed." 
 
 When John came back with his hat full, 
 Abner had selected the spot for the night's 
 rest. In all truth John was not happy and 
 he even said that he did not want to be a 
 millionaire and then he sank into a sleep 
 that many a millionaire would have given 
 his millions to enjoy. 
 
 Abner was sleepy but at first he could 
 not sleep. The face of Jane haunted him 
 with a fascination he had never seen before. 
 Much as he had liked her, he had never felt 
 what had come to him that day. When 
 she spoke so sweetly the few kind words it 
 seemed she seemed altogether different. 
 And yet he knew it was foolish for him to 
 think of her. She was beyond him. Her
 
 ABNER. 87 
 
 father had fully ten thousand dollars he 
 wasn't worth a cent and he was going to 
 ask her father, who was not an approach- 
 able man, the biggest favor he ever asked 
 anybody in his life. "But I'll do it," he 
 said, "I'll do it. That's how they all suc- 
 ceeded. They struck out." And then he 
 forgot about the sale and thought of Jane, 
 and as he thought of her he fell asleep and 
 dreamed that he was at the supper table 
 and she was helping him to hot biscuit and 
 steaming coffee and fried chicken smoth- 
 ered in rich brown gravy. 
 
 When Abner awoke the next morning, 
 John was standing over him. "Breakfast 
 is ready," he said, and Abner looked and 
 saw two biscuits and a piece of cold 
 chicken. Before he could recover from his 
 astonishment, John explained. 
 
 "I've been up more'n a hour. I thought 
 I'd go over and see if old man Cobb had 
 got back. Miss Jane asked me if I'd been 
 to breakfast. I didn't ask to be excused 
 I didn't but set right down and paralyzed 
 things. When she went out of the room 
 I put the two biscuits and chicken leg in 
 my pocket and I'm sorry it's not more." 
 
 The incongruity of the thing began to 
 dawn upon Abner. He had forsaken the 
 old home because Mr. Cobb had bought it
 
 88 ABNER. 
 
 and here he was occupying Mr. Cobb's saw 
 mill and eating his apples and John had 
 literally stolen a breakfast for him from the 
 Cobb home. The only excuse he could 
 make to himself was that nobody was using 
 the mill, and, anyhow, he couldn't think of 
 going back to the farm. Worse than all, 
 was the fact that Mr. Cobb was not at 
 home and would probably not return until 
 the next day. This meant mora waiting 
 and more loss of time. Indeed Mr. Cobb 
 did not return that night and the next day 
 a heavy rain set in. John trudged again to 
 the Cobb house only to find that they did 
 not expect him until late at night as he had 
 sent word that important business detained 
 him in town. 
 
 All through the afternoon the rain came 
 down dismally. It was very tiresome, 
 waiting in the old mill, but there was noth- 
 ing else to do, and Abner and John spent 
 the time as comfortably as they could, 
 Abner reading from his book and John 
 falling regularly to sleep as he read. When 
 nightfall came the steady pattering on the 
 old roof did not disturb them. The 
 soughing of the wind among the trees did 
 not bother them. The creaking of loose 
 boards, the rattling of the old shutters, was 
 no interference with their slumbers. But
 
 ABNER. 89 
 
 just before the break of day Abner awoke 
 and he suddenly realized that it was a very 
 unusual storm. He sat up and listened and 
 then nudged his companion, who also sat 
 up and listened. 
 
 "I wonder if it's been going on all 
 night?" 
 
 "Don't know," replied John, "but if it 
 has we'd better be moving. This old dam 
 won't stand much of a strain." 
 
 Abner made his way to the front of the 
 mill. By the first murky light of the dawn 
 he saw the universal wetness of everything 
 and as quickly observed that the water had 
 risen considerably in the pond. John 
 joined him and together they watched the 
 downpour. 
 
 "If it keeps on, the upper dam will break 
 sure as thunder," said John. "They're not 
 running the mill now and there's nobody 
 to look out for it, and if it breaks it's good- 
 bye here." 
 
 "Look, John," exclaimed Abner, "look! 
 it's getting higher. I'll bet she's broke. 
 This end is all right. Come on to the 
 other side to see how it is there." 
 
 They found everything safe as far as the 
 floodgates. They tried to lift the gates and 
 thus relieve the pressure, but they couldn't 
 budge the huge timbers. Several times
 
 90 ABNER. 
 
 they threw all their weight into the work, 
 but it was no use. Then Abner started in 
 a run toward the grist mill. They had not 
 jrone fifty yards when an exclamation told 
 that the break had begun. They reached 
 the place as soon as they could and found 
 a stream of water cutting a small channel 
 across the sand. In an instant Abner was 
 on his knees digging with his hands and 
 throwing the dirt to check it and John was 
 helping him with all his might and main. 
 But the stream was running faster than 
 they were hindering it. Abner looked 
 around for something to use for a shovel 
 or a board or a log but there was 
 nothing in sight. 
 
 "We can't do it," said John, "it's no use 
 to try." 
 
 But Abner did not heed him. His mind 
 was working with an intensity it had never 
 known. As if in a flash the stories in the 
 book of how men had saved railroad 
 trains or stopped machinery or measured 
 up to a crisis which involved life and 
 property went through his brain. If he 
 could only do something, what a satis- 
 faction it would be! Perhaps this was his 
 first great opportunity. But what could he 
 do? Suddenly the idea came. His ingen- 
 uity rose to the occasion. Spreading his
 
 ABNER. 91 
 
 coat tails so they would do the most good 
 he sat down in the middle of the channel 
 and with a voice more imperious than John 
 had ever heard he shouted: 
 
 "Pile the dirt back of me! pile the dirt 
 back of me!" Without a word John began 
 the work. The stream was checked. 
 There was a barrier to its flow and John 
 strengthened it by more sand, by pebbles, 
 by everything he could lay his hands on. 
 The emergency had been met but it was by 
 no means past. The water was chilling 
 Abner to the bone. 
 
 "Do you think I can get up?" he asked. 
 
 "If you do she'll start again," John re- 
 plied. 
 
 "Then I suppose I'll have to stay 'till 
 somebody comes." 
 
 It was not a cheerful situation but Abner 
 took matters as coolly as he could with 
 cold chills chasing through every nerve 
 and fiber. But there was no help. Even 
 when John began work again and piled in 
 more dirt with his hands all that he could 
 do could not take the place of the broad 
 back that stayed the water's flow. 
 
 "It's just this way, Abner," he said, "if 
 you get up the dam's gone." 
 
 Abner commanded him again, "Run up 
 to the other end and turn the water
 
 Q2 ABNER. 
 
 through the mill, not the floodgate but 
 the old saw mill." 
 
 Off John went as fast as his fat legs 
 could carry him. He threw the gate open, 
 letting the water through and starting the 
 buzz of machinery. Then as if frightened 
 at what he had done he hurried back to the 
 place where his luckless companion was 
 struggling with cramps and cold chills. 
 This time the situation seemed to impress 
 him humorously and he asked Abner if he 
 felt like a millionaire. 
 
 "If it's all the same to you," replied Ab- 
 ner, "I don't want to sit here more than a 
 week. If you've got any sense run up to 
 Cobb's and tell the old man if he don't 
 hurry down and help me out I'll let his old 
 dam go and sue him for damages to boot." 
 Again John started, and after he had 
 gone, for the first time Abner closed his 
 eyes as if sinking under the strain and the 
 cold, and he kept them closed until he 
 thought he heard the noise of approaching 
 footsteps. When he opened them his body 
 moved in a sudden start that threatened 
 the safety of the earth works which it sup- 
 ported. Coming towards him at full speed 
 with hands occupied with a tin pot and cup 
 and saucer and an umbrella was Jane Cobb. 
 
 It is curious how surprise acts upon hu-
 
 ABNER. 93 
 
 man vanity. Abner ought to have thought 
 of something worthy of the occasion but 
 the truth was that the first emotion that 
 went through him was the consciousness 
 that he had not been shaved for three days 
 and, worse still, that his face had not been 
 washed nor his hair combed since the 
 morning before. But he did not have time 
 to dwell upon such things. She was ap- 
 proaching and her speed was overpower- 
 ing. He had never seen her excited. She 
 was always so calm, so self possessed. Now 
 she was flushed and trembling. Before he 
 could speak she began to send between 
 her gasps words across the distance be- 
 tween them, a distance which she was 
 quickly destroying. 
 
 "Oh, Abner, isn't it awful! You'll catch 
 your death of cold. Father had started for 
 the upper dam. I put John on the horse 
 to overtake him. He'll be here soon. My! 
 but you are brave! Isn't it cold sitting 
 down there?" 
 
 "I've been in warmer places, but it won't 
 hurt me. I'm never sick, you know. Why, 
 Jane, what's that?" 
 
 She had quickly poured some coffee 
 from the pot and handed him the cup. 
 
 "I thought you'd be awfully chilly in- 
 side," she said, "so I brought it, but I'm
 
 94 ABNER. 
 
 afraid it's not good. I was in such a hurry 
 that I forgot all about the sugar. Drink it 
 right down." 
 
 She was standing at his side holding the 
 umbrella over him so far over him that 
 she was not fully protecting herself. 
 
 "I'll not drink a drop," he said, "until 
 you get under the umbrella. Don't bother 
 about me. I'm wet anyhow." 
 
 But she did mind and although she took 
 a step closer she did not leave him unpro- 
 tected. He put the cup to his mouth and 
 then more nervously than before she ex- 
 claimed, "Oh, wait a minute! Here are 
 some quinine pills. Take all of them," and 
 she poured a half dozen into his hand. 
 Obedient to her commands, he washed 
 them down with the coffee. 
 
 "That's the best coffee I ever drank in all 
 my life," he said. 
 
 "Why, Abner!" 
 
 "Yes, he said, bending forward and 
 looking up, "because you made it and be- 
 cause you brought it." 
 
 She gave a quick scream, "Don't move! 
 don't move!" she exclaimed and throwing 
 the umbrella down she jumped behind him, 
 and with hands full of dirt repaired the little 
 break that his movement had made. Then 
 she took the umbrella once more and stood 
 at his side.
 
 ABNER. 95 
 
 "I beg your pardon. I won't do it 
 again," he said, and he added, "J ane > you 
 are the most thoughtful person I ever 
 knew. At the sale you were the only one 
 who said a kind word to me and now " 
 
 "Do you think the water will get any 
 higher?" she quickly asked. 
 
 "No. But I don't care just so you are 
 here." 
 
 "Hold the umbrella, Abner, and I'll pour 
 you another cup of coffee. It's not very 
 warm but it's better than nothing." 
 
 He held the umbrella over her as far as 
 he could hold his arm and wished that his 
 arm were longer. It was a commonplace 
 matter pouring a cup of coffee but 
 somehow as she did it Abner forgot about 
 his unwashed and unshaven face and un- 
 combed hair and admired the girl at his 
 side, her graceful ways, her sweet, earnest 
 face. It made him glad that his better in- 
 tentions had conquered and that he had 
 saved the dam, if only for a few moments 
 of her devoted attention. When a young 
 man feels that a good woman is regarding 
 him as a hero, martyrdom is easy and pain 
 is naught. Courage comes just as the 
 flower blooms when the sun shines upon it. 
 He felt that he might like the saving of 
 dams as a steady occupation, provided she
 
 96 ABNER. 
 
 would rush to his rescue. An inexpress- 
 ible something surged through his heart, 
 and in the warmth it brought, the cramps 
 were forgotten and he was happy. He did 
 not know what it was, but he did not know 
 what love was, and he took the coffee as if 
 it had been water brought down between 
 the rain drops by an angel instead of being 
 poured from a tin pot by a girl enveloped 
 in a red shawl that, in all candor, was not 
 becoming to her purple dress. 
 
 "Jane," he said, "I'll never be able to 
 thank you for this. You are so good and 
 kind." 
 
 He might have said more but from the 
 distance came the sound of horses urged to 
 their utmost speed. 
 
 ***** 
 
 It was true that Abner had never been 
 ill but his experience that morning was 
 too much even for his fine health. It was 
 pneumonia, and for several days the doctor 
 feared the worst. But the worst stopped 
 at the narrow line that separates life from 
 death and when the recession began the 
 patient returned safely to consciousness 
 and strength. When he came to himself 
 it was an afternoon when the early winter's 
 sun was flooding the room with its warmth 
 and beauty he saw Jane sitting near the
 
 ABNER. 97 
 
 open fire, busily knitting. Before he could 
 speak she had glanced toward him and had 
 interpreted his wondering look. She arose 
 and went to the bedside. 
 
 "You must not talk," she said. "You are 
 not strong enough yet. You're getting 
 well now, you know, and the doctor said 
 you must be ouiet." 
 
 In his weakness and helplessness her 
 domination of him seemed the sweetest 
 tyranny he had ever known. And he smiled 
 as a child smiles when a mother tells him 
 that he must be a good boy. 
 
 But returning health brought its bless- 
 ing speedily and then came days when he 
 was allowed to speak, and the only sorrows 
 of those days were the absences of Jane 
 from the room, absences which she tried to 
 make, which Abner with every resource at 
 his command tried to unmake. One after- 
 noon she had read to him and he had asked 
 her to stop. 
 
 "I've something to say, Jane, and I'll get 
 better faster if you'll let me say it now. I 
 think you are the loveliest girl that ever 
 lived in this world." 
 
 She smiled slightly but instead of reply- 
 ing picked up her knitting and began work. 
 She had taken several stitches when Abner 
 spoke again. 
 
 "Jane, I love you." 
 7
 
 98 ABNER. 
 
 The smile went away and a warmth of 
 sweetness and roses of the old roses that 
 in summer bloomed out in the yard came 
 into her cheeks. 
 
 "I love you so much, Jane, that if you 
 can't love me, I don't think I care to get 
 well " 
 
 Then the smile came back, only it was 
 fuller and brighter now, and she turned her 
 chair so as to face her patient. 
 
 "Abner," she said, "If a man loves any- 
 body, do you think it's right for him to 
 talk about it to others before he tells her?" 
 and she put a significant accent on the 
 word. 
 
 "I don't understand," he said. 
 
 "Then I'll tell you. The second day af- 
 ter we brought you to the house you be- 
 came delirious, and got to talking about 
 being a millionaire and other things. I 
 did not feel it was exactly right for me to 
 nurse you, but father had to be away, and 
 John didn't know one medicine from an- 
 other, and we couldn't get anybody, and so 
 it seemed that I had to do it." 
 
 This hurt Abner's pride. He wished she 
 had explained it in some other way. 
 
 "And you began to talk about other 
 things that I did not care for anybody else 
 to hear, and so I sat here through the 
 days."
 
 ABXER. 99 
 
 "What other things, Jane?" 
 
 "Well, you went over all your plans 
 about the store and about getting rich, and 
 then about getting married. You wanted 
 a room where the sun shone in, and where 
 after you got through your work you could 
 come and sit and watch your wife while 
 she was knitting, and you said that you 
 would love her more and more every day." 
 
 She suddenly changed. "Father heard 
 you going over your plans about the store, 
 and he thinks it's a good idea and a fine 
 opportunity, and I rather think that when 
 you get up he will be willing to help you. 
 In fact, I believe John has been at work 
 down at the cross roads getting the old 
 house ready for you." 
 
 Abner could not find his words, his 
 thoughts were so confused, his emotions 
 so confusing. At last he was able to ask: 
 
 "Jane, when my mind came back, and 
 I could see and know, were you not knit- 
 ting?" 
 
 "Yes, Abner; I've been knitting nearly 
 all the time, but really I had to do it. 
 It's been so long since there has been any 
 knitting done in the house." 
 
 ***** 
 
 More than a year afterwards a man came 
 into the store and, after a few remarks on
 
 IOO ABNER. 
 
 the weather, pulled from a mysterious re- 
 gion of his innocent-looking coat a vol- 
 ume stamped in gilded letters. 
 
 "My friend," he said to John, "I want 
 to show you a book that you need; a book 
 that will add to the joys of life as long as 
 you stay upon the earth." 
 
 "What is it about?" 
 
 "It tells of the happiness of married peo- 
 ple. It is a guide to content, founded on 
 the experience of successful matrimony. 
 Nothing succeeds like success, and this 
 tells all about success." 
 
 "In the first place," replied John, "I'm 
 not the man you want, and secondly, there 
 is just about as much happiness around 
 this store now as we can accommodate."
 
 "ANDY RICK'S HANDY 
 TRICKS." 
 
 A.NDREW RICK was in trouble. He 
 was very much in trouble. The trouble 
 was all the greater because it was such a 
 little one. It is much easier to stop the 
 barking of a dog than the singing of a 
 mosquito, and Mr. Rick resented his state 
 of mind because he knew it to be entirely 
 unworthy of him. 
 
 It was this way. He stood at the head of 
 his party in Quantico County. His eleva- 
 tion to that autocracy had been entirely 
 creditable to his political abilities. Less 
 than five years before, as the new sheriff, 
 he had come to the county seat from the 
 obscurity of Ricktown. With him he had 
 brought Colonel Marcellus Bodson, a 
 grey-haired partisan who, in a lifetime of 
 office-seeking, had let his aspirations sink 
 from Congress through all the grades of 
 political possibility to the humble duties
 
 loa "ANDY RICK'S HANDY TRICKS." 
 
 of a deputy-sheriff. It was his last chance, 
 and he took it, partly because Andrew 
 Rick insisted, and largely because he needed 
 the income. This was sad, because the 
 Bodsons were people entirely unworthy of 
 their poverty, especially the daughter, 
 Miss Julia Bodson. 
 
 When the bosses tried to defeat Rick, 
 because they thought him the sort of man 
 who could be put aside, Rick, with the ac- 
 tive assistance of Bodson, utilized the pop- 
 ular sentiment against the bosses and 
 turned the tables. 
 
 So up came Rick. It was the happiest 
 moment of his life. He could never forget 
 the joy that filled him when he saw himself 
 chosen unanimously a chairman of the 
 County Committee. He was the Clerk of 
 the Court now, and his income was nearly 
 four thousand dollars, and there was really 
 no reason why the exhiliration of his first 
 victory should not have continued. But, 
 there are always buts even in politics it 
 did not last. He soon found out that the 
 throne of a boss was not an easy chair pad- 
 ded with roses. It had thorns. Safety, he 
 discovered, lay in getting all he could and 
 then getting out, and thus it was that he 
 began to lose sleep. 
 
 Ricktown needed a railroad. For years
 
 "ANDY RICK'S HANDY TRICKS." 103 
 
 Andrew Rick had failed to recognize this 
 fact, but now he saw it clearly. It needed 
 it because it would increase the price of 
 real estate. The fact that Andrew Rick 
 owned a large part of this real estate may 
 also have a parenthetical importance. To 
 get the road, it was necessary to secure 
 from the legislature a charter, and with it 
 legislation authorizing Quantico county to 
 endorse the bonds. A man must be in the 
 legislature to work it, and therefore Eras- 
 tus Crawley, a good gray patriot, who also 
 owned Ricktown land and who was in An- 
 drew's confidence, was nominated. Mr. 
 Crawley professed great reluctance about 
 accepting a place on the ticket, and Mr. 
 Rick told the people that he appreciated 
 Mr. Crawley's unselfishness in bowing to 
 his party at the sacrifice of his personal 
 preferences. The voters swallowed it all, 
 and Mr. Crawley was elected. Everything 
 went well, and the railroad scheme was be- 
 ing so quietly managed that it promised 
 perfect success. But it so happened that 
 the smoothness of its progress had a bad 
 effect on the political ambitions of Mr. 
 Crawley. He had been in office before. 
 The school in Ricktown district needed a 
 new teacher. In an unhappy moment Mr. 
 Crawley told Mrs. Crawley that he could
 
 104 ANDY RICKS HANDY TRICKS. 
 
 get it for their daughter Mary. After that 
 the idea took possession of Mrs. Crawley, 
 mind, body and soul, and Mr. Crawley was 
 sent off to town to see about it. He found 
 Andrew Rick in an unguarded interval, and 
 he went back home with the promise of 
 the boss that his daughter Mary should 
 have it. 
 
 This was the trouble. Ordinarily An- 
 drew Rick could have managed it. But 
 circumstances alter cases. Miss Julia Bod- 
 son, the daughter of Colonel Marcellus 
 Bodson. had quietly applied for the posi- 
 tion on her merits, without the formality 
 of first seeing the boss. She was young 
 and charming and gifted, and Miss Mary 
 Crawley was not any of these. To make 
 the case worse, Andrew's wife Jane had 
 always been an intense admirer of Miss 
 Bodson. When it was known that Miss 
 Julia wanted the place, she began to talk 
 about it and to sandwich it between the 
 mouthfuls of Andrew's meals. This made 
 Mr. Rick unhappy, and his appetite began 
 to fail. 
 
 "You know, Andrew," Mrs. Rick would 
 say, "I never bother you about offices, be- 
 cause I don't think women ought to have 
 any business with politics, but I do hope 
 you will get that school position for Julia.
 
 "ANDY RICK'S HANDY TRICKS." 105 
 
 She is the brightest girl in the county, 
 you know that, and she needs it and 
 everybody wants her to have it!" 
 
 That was the trouble again. Everybody 
 did want her to have it, and he knew it. 
 
 In his way Mr. Rick was a good man. 
 He was trusted, and his business career 
 had been without dishonor. People said 
 that if there was profit to be got out of any- 
 thing he generally got it, but then that 
 was more of a merit than a failing. These 
 same people sometimes said he was tricky 
 in politics, but they expected that, and in 
 a measure forgave it. A man in a rural 
 community can do a great many things, 
 provided his neighbors say "he is a good 
 man in his home." This could be asserted 
 of Andrew Rick with entire truthfulness. 
 There was never a better husband. He de- 
 lighted in making his wife happy, and 
 whenever the conversation reached a time 
 or subject when he could not say "yes," he 
 generally put on his hat and took a walk. 
 
 That was why he left the house and 
 started down town. He went at once to 
 Paul Reed's office. Reed was his ablest 
 lieutenant. He had come to him, so to 
 speak, from his predecessor. He always 
 respected him because he was one of the 
 few men who seemed to be serving the 
 party without wanting pay or office.
 
 io6 "ANDY RICK'S HANDY TRICKS." 
 
 He took his usual chair, and in a few 
 minutes conversation had drifted to the 
 legislature. 
 
 "I see you got a favorable report on your 
 railroad bill," said Reed. "I received a 
 printed copy to-day. Everything is there 
 and it is all right. When the road is built 
 I suppose you will be getting a thousand 
 dollars apiece for building lots carved out 
 of that twenty-dollars-an-acre farm of 
 yours." 
 
 Andrew laughed and said, "It's a good 
 thing for the county, isn't it? It will add 
 to the taxable basis, won't it?" 
 
 "Of course, of course, and incidentally 
 it may increase the bank accounts of An- 
 drew Rick and Erastus Crawley." 
 
 There was another laugh, but Andrew 
 grew a little red in the face. He liked 
 Reed, but he did wish that he would be a 
 little less personal. 
 
 "By the way, Andrew, I wanted to see 
 you about a matter. They are going to 
 appoint a teacher for the Ricktown school 
 next week, and Miss Julia Bodson wants 
 it." 
 
 Andrew's cheerfulness sank. 
 
 "I don't suppose there'll be any trouble 
 about it," Reed went on. "She is a charm- 
 ing young woman, too good by far for the
 
 "ANDY RICK'S HANDY TRICKS." 107 
 
 work, but I suppose she needs it, and she 
 ought to have it. I wish you would see 
 that it is pushed through at once." 
 
 Andrew shifted uneasily in the chair. 
 He tried to collect himself. He waited so 
 long that Reed asked, "You'll do it, won't 
 you?" 
 
 Andrew stammered. "Reed," he said, 
 "I've promised it to Crawley, for his daugh- 
 ter Mary." 
 
 "The devil you have!" 
 
 "I had to do it," pleaded Rick. "Craw- 
 ley's wife is set on it, and unless Mary 
 gets it I'd never hear the end of it, and 
 Crawley wouldn't have any more peace 
 as long as he lived." 
 
 Reed quickly comprehended the situa- 
 tion. He took up a paper-knife and tapped 
 on the desk as if to emphasize his thoughts. 
 
 "Look here, Rick," he said, "you are go- 
 ing too far, and it's about time that one of 
 your friends gave you a little plain advice." 
 
 Andrew looked at the young man in 
 amazement. 
 
 "I speak plainly," continued Reed, "be- 
 cause you need plain speech. You are get- 
 ting the idea that you are bossing this 
 county, and are looking upon the offices 
 as belonging to you for personal distribu- 
 tion. You get flattery and abuse, and you
 
 io8 "ANDY RICK'S HANDY TRICKS." 
 
 take both as tributes to your power. You 
 are making a mistake, and unless you draw 
 in your reins a little you will soon reach 
 the end of your rope." 
 
 "Reed," said Andrew, "keep your coat 
 on and talk sense." 
 
 "Well, I will," replied Reed. "You have 
 said once or twice lately that you're tired 
 of putting up with Bodson. You think 
 you have done too much for him. Now 
 the truth is, you have used him in your 
 work, and now that he is old and poor and 
 is drinking more that he ought to, you 
 want to visit all his weaknesses on his 
 family." 
 
 "Reed, you're going too far," said Rick 
 with emphasis as he arose. "When the 
 place was promised to Crawley, I didn't 
 know Julia Bodson was an applicant." 
 
 "That explains things, but it does not 
 excuse you. You had no business to 
 promise a school position. Such places 
 ought to be given on merit alone." 
 
 "Oh!" exclaimed the manager, with 
 some contempt in his voice, "you're turn- 
 ing civil service reformer, are you?" 
 
 "It's not a question of reform; it's a mat- 
 ter of justice." 
 
 "You can't run politics on theories," said 
 Andrew, standing in front of the desk with
 
 ANDY RICK'S HANDY TRICKS. IOO, 
 
 both hands in his trousers pockets. "You 
 can't distribute offices like prizes in a spell- 
 ing bee. You can't manage a party like a 
 sewing society, but you can talk beautifully 
 how the thing ought to be done and lay 
 down opinions that are as lovely as a 
 sixteen-year-old in a new gingham frock. 
 I know men in this country who are not 
 able to raise a crop of black-eyed peas, who 
 think they can run the United States Gov- 
 ernment better than the President, the Su- 
 preme Court and Congress all put to- 
 gether, and believe they ought to be draw- 
 ing five thousand dollars a year for sitting 
 on goods boxes and talking about the 
 weather. What has Bodson done for this 
 country? What, except to swash around 
 and speechify and get into debt? You've 
 got to judge a man by what he's done and 
 by what he does, and you've got to let him 
 manage his own affairs." 
 
 "But the party's affairs are not one man's 
 affairs." 
 
 "Yes, they are, if the party places him at 
 the head of its management, and I defy you 
 or anybody else to say that I have not tried 
 to do the best I could. I'mnotgoingtolet 
 up business principles now and run into 
 sentiment. When I make a promise I'll 
 stick to it, and what's more, I'm going to
 
 110 ANDY RICKS HANDY TRICKS. 
 
 depend on you to help me out. You drew 
 up that railroad bill for us!" 
 
 "I will not help you out in this school 
 appointment," replied Reed with consid- 
 erable deliberation; "and the sooner you 
 get old Crawley to release you from this 
 pledge the better it will be for you and the 
 party. As for the railroad bill, I don't care 
 a continental whether you get it through 
 or not." 
 
 Andrew stood in silence. He walked to 
 the fire and meditated, and looked to the 
 ceiling and yawned. 
 
 "Well," he said, as if tired of the con- 
 versation, "I'll see what I can do. I guess 
 I'll go home and go to bed."
 
 ANDY RICKS HANDY TRICKS. Ill 
 
 II. 
 
 THE next morning, which was Saturday. 
 Mr. Crawley, on his way home from the 
 legislature, which took a recess until Tues- 
 day, called at the house of Mr. Rick. The 
 two gentlemen went at once into executive 
 session. 
 
 "The bill is all right," said Crawley. "I 
 have promised to vote for things for near 
 about everybody in the legislature, and 
 they are going to run our railroad through 
 in return. Politics are just about as they 
 were twenty years ago when I was there, 
 the same old game of you vote for my 
 bill and I'll vote for your bill, you tickle 
 me and I'll tickle you." 
 
 "Don't let them put you off too long," 
 said Mr. Rick; "their promises might not 
 keep." 
 
 "That's all right," said Mr. Crawley, 
 "the bill is safe." 
 
 Then Mr. Crawley moved his chair a bit 
 closer and asked, "How about that little 
 appointment for my daughter?" 
 
 "I don't know," said Mr. Rick ambig- 
 uously. 
 
 "Ain't it all right?"
 
 112 ANDY RICKS HANDY TRICKS. 
 
 "Yes, I think it is. But you know Julia 
 Bodson has applied, and, to tell you the 
 truth, she's got a mighty strong sentiment 
 back of her." 
 
 "I don't care if she has," Mr. Crawley 
 broke in vigorously. "You promised the 
 place, and you've got to give it to her." 
 
 "Don't you see," expostulated Mr. Rick, 
 "I'm doing all I can? But look here, 
 Crawley, why can't you let her wait until 
 the next vacancy? It's going to be a hard 
 fight to make it this time, and she might 
 be defeated." 
 
 Mr. Crawley gasped, as if the proposi- 
 tion had taken his breath away. "Great 
 Scott, Andrew, you don't know what this 
 means. My wife is set on it. She brings 
 it up every time I go home. I won't get 
 any peace until it's done. If Mary should 
 have to give way to Julia Bodson, I'd just 
 as well buy a lot in that cemetery which 
 we are going to build when we get our 
 railroad to Ricktown." 
 
 "I know all that," said Mr. Rick, " but 
 it's a very ticklish position for me, and 
 will be very foolish for both of us if we go 
 to jeopardizing our railroad by a fight 
 over a little school appointment." 
 
 "It's not that at all," said Mr. Crawley. 
 "There isn't a bit of danger. You're just
 
 "ANDY RICK'S HANDY TRICKS." 113 
 
 afraid of Bodson; that's what you are. 
 Now why don't you act sensible? Drop 
 Bodson. You've done enough for him, 
 and if you'll keep on trying to drag him 
 along he's going to drag you down. He's 
 a fool, and you know it, and since he took 
 to drink in his old age he's worse than a 
 fool. No man ever makes anything by 
 backing a fool. Drop him, Andrew, drop 
 him, and let him shift for himself." 
 
 This sounded hard. Mr. Rick felt that 
 it was hard, but it did seem to be business- 
 like. He had wanted to say something of 
 the sort himself, but he couldn't do it. 
 Now it eased his mind to know that some- 
 one else had said it for him. 
 
 Saturday was a busy day at the court 
 house. Usually Mr. Rick had his hands 
 full, attending to his business ventures. 
 He left the work of the office to his dep- 
 uty. Late in the afternoon he entered the 
 office, and found Colonel Marcellus Bod- 
 son in a demoralized condition, also the 
 work. It made him angry. He had the 
 ideas of a man who had prospered on tem- 
 perance. He abhorred drunkenness. The 
 more he thought about it, the worse his 
 humor became. There was no one in the 
 room but the two men. Mr. Rick suddenly 
 stepped to the front of the desk on which 
 8
 
 114 ANDY RICKS HANDY TRICKS. 
 
 Colonel Bodson was resting his weary 
 brain. In crisp, clear-cut English he told 
 the colonel what he thought of him. 
 
 "This sort of thing must stop," he said. 
 "For three Saturdays the books have not 
 been kept up, and it can't go on any 
 longer." 
 
 It required several minutes to arouse the 
 colonel. When he did get awake, he was 
 vigorous and belligerent. 
 
 "Then why don't you come in here and 
 help?" he asked. "If it hadn't been for me 
 you would never have been clerk: but I 
 am your deputy, and therefore you must 
 draw three thousand dollars a year, while I 
 get a miserable six hundred dollars, and 
 do all the work. I want you to understand 
 that I've got as much right in this office as 
 you have." 
 
 Mr. Rick was nettled. He turned a 
 shade paler, and his fingers clutched ner- 
 vously at the leaves of the book. He did 
 not reply at once, for he objected to a 
 scene. He had expected the colonel to 
 cower at his reproof. 
 
 "If you want the books fixed, you had 
 better help do it," added the deputy ag- 
 gressively. "You haven't done an honest 
 day's work in this office for a month." 
 
 Mr. Rick's courage was not of the phy-
 
 "ANDY RICK'S HANDY TKICKS." 115 
 
 sical sort. At this attack he prepared for 
 a retreat. But before he could get him- 
 self started, Colonel Marcellus Bodson, un- 
 der the stimulus of his condition, advanced 
 again in heavier array than ever. 
 
 "I want to know," he said, "what you 
 mean by trading a school appointment for 
 Crawley's vote on that crooked railroad 
 bill of yours, and cheating my daughter 
 out of her rights?" 
 
 His voice was thick, but his anger was 
 unmistakable. As he spoke, his clearness 
 of mind seemed to increase. He arose 
 and steadied himself by holding to the 
 desk. Although physically uncertain, he 
 was intensely in earnest. 
 
 "I am waiting for an explanation," he 
 added with dignity. 
 
 Mr. Rick was totally unprepared for this 
 turn in the interview. As quickly as he 
 could, he asked the colonel to go home 
 and come back Monday and settle it then. 
 
 "No, I won't," said the colonel. "We'll 
 settle it now man to man." 
 
 "Then there is only one way," exclaimed 
 Rick, summoning all his courage. "Leave 
 the office." 
 
 "Not before you pay me what you owe 
 me." . i 
 
 "You have overdrawn your account, and 
 I don't owe you a cent."
 
 u6 "ANDY RICK'S HANDY TRICKS." 
 
 "You've tricked me, and used me," ex- 
 claimed Mr. Bodson, holding up his hand, 
 "and now you want to cheat me." 
 
 "I repeat, you've overdrawn your ac- 
 count." 
 
 The conversation was rapid. Each was 
 under great excitement. Suddenly Bodson 
 plunged toward Mr. Rick. He seemed to 
 have lost his balance, but Andrew believed 
 it to be an intentional advance. They were 
 near the entrance, and Mr. Rick met the 
 movement by grasping his deputy under 
 his arm. Before he could struggle, he 
 pushed him out of the office and locked the 
 door. 
 
 When Mr. Rick sat down he was trem- 
 bling from his head to his feet. Perspira- 
 tion was standing on his forehead. He had 
 never been in such a mess before. He 
 would have given a thousand dollars to be 
 out of it then. But it was not his fault. 
 He saw that clearly; and yet he knew peo- 
 ple would talk. 
 
 "It's always this way," he muttered to 
 himself. "When one thing goes wrong, 
 everything goes wrong." 
 
 It did go wrong with a vengeance. 
 
 He looked through the side window. 
 People were hurrying toward the front of 
 the court house. He locked the safes, and
 
 "ANDY RICK'S HANDY TRICKS." 117 
 
 closed the shutters. His nerves were still 
 rebelling, but he felt cooler when he turned 
 the key in the door and started home. 
 
 He drew near the outer vestibule of the 
 court house. Suddenly he saw men hold- 
 ing an improvised stretcher, on which was 
 the prostrate form of Colonel Bodson, 
 from whose face blood was flowing. Some- 
 how his heart suddenly grew sick. Even 
 the explanation, "The colonel fell down 
 the steps and was stunned that's all," did 
 not reassure him. He offered to help, but 
 he was not needed. 
 
 As soon as he could, he went miserably 
 towards his home.
 
 n8 "ANDY RICK'S HANDY TRICKS." 
 
 III. 
 
 HE entered the house, staring as if he 
 scarcely recognized it. But when he passed 
 on into the sitting-room, he came to him- 
 self as if from a shock. 
 
 Sitting near the window was Miss Julia 
 Bodson, chatting with Mrs. Rick and 
 praising the fancy work which she had just 
 completed. Mr. Rick stammered "Good 
 evening," but he was plainly not himself. 
 Suddenly his wife looked up and ex- 
 claimed: 
 
 "For mercy's sake, Andrew, what ails 
 you?" 
 
 "Nothing," he said, "only tired noth- 
 ing at all." 
 
 "I know there is," she asserted deci- 
 sively. "You are as white as a ghost. You 
 look as if you've got a chill, doesn't he, 
 Julia?" 
 
 "Indeed you do, Mr. Rick," said Miss 
 Julia, "and I am afraid that Mrs. Rick will 
 have to try her new remedy for the ague, 
 which she has been telling me about." 
 
 Mr. Rick attempted to smile, but it was 
 a ghastly failure. 
 
 "I must be going now," said Miss Bod-
 
 "ANDY RICK'S HANDY TRICKS." 119 
 
 son, "I suppose father has gone home?" 
 This to Mr. Rick. 
 
 "Yes," said Mr. Rick, "he has gone." 
 
 She arose, and was about to say good- 
 bye, when Mr. Rick looked at her and said, 
 as bravely as he could: 
 
 "Miss Julia, you must not be alarmed, 
 for it is not serious, but your father met 
 with an accident, and " 
 
 "How?" she asked breathlessly. 
 
 "He fell and cut himself that's all. It 
 was not serious." 
 
 Miss Bodson started towards the door. 
 
 "One moment, Miss Julia," said Mr. 
 Rick. "The colonel forgot to draw his 
 salary to-day, and may be you I mean he'll 
 need it. He might want some things. 
 
 "Thank you, Mr. Rick," said the girl 
 with candor, "we shall need it. Now, good- 
 bye." 
 
 They had not observed Mrs. Rick. She 
 had put on her hat and shawl, and when 
 Miss Bodson started she said: 
 
 "I am going with you, dear. Andrew, 
 you'll find the supper on the table." 
 
 An hour afterwards Mrs. Rick returned. 
 The supper was untouched. 
 
 "I do think that some of these town folks 
 have the least sense of any people I ever 
 knew," was her first sentence. "They were
 
 120 "ANDY RICK'S HANDY TRICKS." 
 
 crowding in that room enough to suffocate 
 anybody, especially a man who had been in 
 a faint. The doctors were away and it did 
 seem that nobody understood just what 
 ought to be done, and so I had to order 
 them all out all except Mr. Reed and 
 Julia!" 
 
 "Is he much hurt?" asked Mr. Rick. 
 
 "After washing off the blood and 
 smoothing out his hair, Mr. Reed and I 
 got the bleeding stopped and wrapped his 
 head up in bandages and got him to drink 
 some hot coffee and eat a little piece of 
 toast, and all the time he was thanking me, 
 and I was telling him not to mind that, for 
 his folks would be glad to do the same for 
 us, and he said they certainly would, and 
 no, he ain't much hurt; he'll be all right 
 soon." 
 
 Sunday and Monday were days of torture 
 to Mr. Rick. It was noised around that 
 there had been a fight between the two 
 men, that Colonel Bodson had been dis- 
 charged and knocked down; all sorts of ru- 
 mors were flying over the town and 
 through the county. Mr. Rick refused to 
 discuss the matter, except to deny that 
 there had been any physical difficulty. To 
 his callers Col. Bodson stated that the dif- 
 ferences between Mr. Rick and himself
 
 "ANDY RICK'S HANDY TRICKS." 121 
 
 were purely personal, but that they were 
 of such a nature that he would not return 
 to his duties as deputy-clerk. 
 
 Early Tuesday morning Mr. Rick met 
 Mr. Crawley. The Honorable Erastus was 
 on his way to a train that would take him 
 to the State capital. 
 
 "You are the very man I want to see," 
 he exclaimed. "What's all this I hear about 
 Bodson? Discharged, is he? What in tar- 
 nation were you thinking about, to quarrel 
 with him now?" 
 
 "Why, Erastus," gasped Andrew, "you 
 were the very one to tell me to do it." 
 
 "Consarn it all," replied the old man 
 hotly, "there are more ways of getting a 
 man out of your house than kicking him 
 down the steps." 
 
 "I didn't kick him," retorted Mr. Rick, 
 warming up. "I didn't even discharge him. 
 He discharged himself." 
 
 "It's all the same. Why did you let him 
 do it? You know that bill comes to a vote 
 to-morrow, and you'll bust up everything. 
 Why in thunder didn't you make him hold 
 on?" 
 
 Mr. Rick was exceedingly wroth, but the 
 ruling passion was still strong. "You at- 
 tend to the bill," he said "and I'll attend to 
 this."
 
 122 "ANDY RICK'S HANDY TRICKS." 
 
 Mr. Crawley was in a hurry, but he tar- 
 ried long enough to add with great ear- 
 nestness, "For the Lord's sake, fix it up 
 somehow!" 
 
 Whatever his other faults may have been, 
 Mr. Rick was a man of action. He took 
 the dilemma by the horns. He went to see 
 Mr. Reed. He no longer dictated; he en- 
 treated. 
 
 "Paul," he said, with unwonted humility, 
 "if you will get me out of this, there isn't 
 anything in the world that I won't do for 
 you." 
 
 "All right," replied Reed, "get out of it." 
 
 "But how?" 
 
 "Ask the commissioners to vote for Miss 
 Bodson, and invite the Colonel to come 
 back into your office." 
 
 "You know that I can't do that. I've 
 promised Crawley, and I must keep my 
 word. Colonel Bodson is welcome to take 
 his place again, but the school position 
 
 "Well," interrupted Reed, "I'm just re- 
 vising a nice little editorial that is to come 
 out in the Quantico Weekly the morning the 
 commissioners meet to elect a teacher. I 
 happen to own a large part of that great 
 organ of public opinion. Here it is. It is 
 headed 'Andy Rick's Handy Tricks,' and 
 it is full of salt for your wounds."
 
 "ANDY RICK'S HANDY TRICKS." 123 
 
 Mr. Rick took the proof and slowly read 
 it, as if it were a death sentence. 
 
 "You wouldn't do that?" he implored. 
 
 "Oh, yes, I will, unless you agree to cer- 
 tain things. When is that bill to be voted 
 on?" 
 
 "Crawley said he'd get it through to- 
 morrow." 
 
 "How is your health?" 
 
 "All right." 
 
 "There is where I differ from you. It 
 seems to me that you are going to be ill 
 for a few days. Do you feel any symp- 
 toms?" 
 
 Something began to dawn on the mind 
 of Rick, and he said he didn't know; he 
 was not positive either way. 
 
 "Well, you do look as if you need rest. 
 You will therefore please get sick to-night, 
 and be sure that you do not show yourself 
 until Sunday morning. In the meanwhile 
 it will be well for you not to hinder your 
 convalescence by thinking of school ap- 
 pointments." 
 
 "Reed, you don't intend " 
 
 "Never mind what I intend. I'll save 
 you if you'll do as I say; but if you don't 
 get sick and stay sick, 'Andy Rick's Handy 
 Tricks' goes into the Quantico Weekly Sat- 
 urday morning."
 
 124 "ANDY RICK'S HANDY TRICKS." 
 
 Mr. Rick did not arise from his bed 
 the next morning, and his indisposition 
 continued throughout the day. Late in the 
 evening a telegram came announcing the 
 passage of the railroad bill. He felt like 
 celebrating, but it was out of the question. 
 Then came the hardest part of it all the 
 enforced confinement during the rest of the 
 week. 
 
 "I hardly know what's the matter with 
 Andrew," said Mrs. Rick to Miss Julia 
 Bodson, who had called to inquire about 
 him, bringing with her a dainty pudding for 
 the invalid. "Sometimes I think it's his 
 liver, and then again I believe it's nervous 
 prostration. He says all he needs is rest, 
 but the doctor has given him a lot of med- 
 icine which seems to be doing him good." 
 
 Not even the artless Jane knew that the 
 medicine was promptly administered out 
 of the window; and the old gardener who 
 found a lot of pills on the ground is still 
 speculating as to what variety of seed they 
 are.
 
 "AND* KICK'S HANDY TRICKS." 125 
 
 IV. 
 
 SATURDAY came. The contest was to be 
 settled i nd the contestants were in town. 
 With Mr. and Mrs. Crawley was Miss 
 Mary in a new dress, tight shoes and abun- 
 dant ribbons. She was trembling in the 
 expectation of the honor. Mr. Crawley 
 rushed to the house of Mr. Rick, but was 
 informed that he could not be seen. He 
 came back mumbling words with the odor 
 of brimstone. 
 
 The commissioners met. Paul Reed was 
 there. The first vote taken resulted in four 
 for Miss Julia Bodson and one for Miss 
 Mary Crawley. Just after the election was 
 announced a letter was sent to the board, 
 and in it Miss Bodson thanked the gentle- 
 men for their kindness and regretted ex- 
 tremely that the circumstances were such 
 that she could not accept the honor. Then, 
 the election of Miss Mary Crawley fol- 
 lowed. 
 
 Reed went up to explain matters to the 
 invalid. "It was this way," he said, "Miss 
 Bodson applied for the school place be- 
 fore I asked her to be my wife, and as long 
 as she had applied she was too proud to
 
 126 "ANDY RICK'S HANDY TRICKS." 
 
 be defeated, and I honor her for it and did 
 all I could to help her cause. Andrew, I'm 
 glad to see you looking so much better." 
 
 "I knew all along," put in Mrs. Rick, 
 "that when you got to fighting for Julia, it 
 would turn out this way. You couldn't 
 help falling in love with her. I must say 
 that I'm glad that both of you had pride 
 enough to make her win. But, my! 
 Wasn't old Mrs. Crawley as mad as a hor- 
 net, to think that a Bodson had beaten a 
 Crawley, even though Mary did get the 
 place!" 
 
 Later in the evening Andrew grew 
 strong enough to dress himself and go 
 down-stairs. He picked up the Quantico 
 Weekly. There was no editorial in it on 
 "Andy Rick's Handy Tricks."
 
 PROFESSOR WINTERS. 
 
 Ni 
 
 EAR the front of the hall was a large 
 tree, and under it a group of seniors had 
 lingered after the recitation. The day's 
 work was over, and there was none of the 
 rush of the earlier hours. They had gos- 
 siped a few minutes, when a tall, smooth- 
 faced gentleman emerged from the build- 
 ing and sauntered coolly by. 
 "Good afternoon, Professor." 
 "Good afternoon, gentlemen." 
 He bowed his head slightly as he spoke, 
 in acknowledgment of the salutation, but 
 showed no emotion in the formality. His 
 placid face seemed fixed in an expression 
 of exact complacency. It was hard to an- 
 alyze it, but if there was anything in it of 
 a characteristic sort it was a hazy sugges- 
 tion of a far-away smile, a kind of skepti- 
 cal appreciation of the humorous absurd- 
 ity of life and living. The man himself did 
 not walk, in the proper meaning of the 
 word. He moved as if propelled by an in- 
 terior machine that had been well oiled and 
 that did its work in its own peculiar way.
 
 128 PROFESSOR WINTERS. 
 
 When he passed it was an easy matter for 
 the gossips to take up his name and sport 
 with it. 
 
 "I wonder," said Ohio, "if Professor 
 Winters ever had an emotion beyond a 
 placid smile, and " 
 
 "A smile is not an emotion, it is an ex- 
 pression," interrupted Pennsylvania. 
 
 "I think that he has," put in New York, 
 seriously. "I believe he is a man of deep 
 feeling, only he does not show it." 
 
 "And now is the Winters of our discon- 
 tent made glorious summer by this Duke 
 of York, or words to that effect," said 
 Ohio, and the group smiled obligingly. 
 
 "All the same," said New York again, 
 "I believe that Winters is a man of more 
 heart than any of you give him credit for." 
 
 "Oh, come, now," interrupted Ohio, 
 "don't be ridiculous. Old Winters prob- 
 ably has an anatomical mainspring that he 
 winds once a week, or he may have a stor- 
 age battery that he charges every ten days, 
 but it is all bosh to say he has such a thing 
 in him as a heart." 
 
 "I was not speculating," said New York, 
 "but was speaking from experience. I went 
 to him the other day on a little matter on 
 which I wanted some impartial advice, and 
 he gave me just the assistance I needed, and
 
 PROFESSOR WINTERS. 129 
 
 I came away stronger for having gone. He 
 is a gentleman and a scholar, all wool and 
 a yard or so wide." 
 
 A young man, tall and dark-haired, 
 strong of limb, with melancholy, clear-cut 
 features, which are oftenest called classic, 
 had listened to the conversation with 
 increasing interest. When he heard this 
 last sentence he moved off and sauntered 
 down the grove in the direction the profes- 
 sor had taken. He looked as if he was try- 
 ing to solve a doubt; then he seemed to 
 pull himself together more vigorously and 
 swung out his arms and went forward in 
 a brisk walk. 
 
 In five minutes he was at the residence 
 of Professor Winters. He found the pro- 
 fessor at home. Knowing that Mr. Win- 
 ters was one of the most industrious men 
 of the faculty, and, in addition to his large 
 work, a constant contributor to period- 
 icals and a rapid worker in everything he 
 undertook, it seemed strange to find such 
 perfect system in the working-room, and 
 it increased the impression that Professor 
 Winters was a higher development of a 
 human machine in which ordinary emo- 
 tions and weaknesses had no place. The 
 professor turned from his desk by the win- 
 dow and asked his visitor to be seated. 
 9
 
 130 PROFESSOR WINTERS. 
 
 "This is Mr. Hall, of the senior class, I 
 believe." 
 
 The young man bowed, paused a mo- 
 ment after sitting down, and then, in a 
 clear, straightforward voice, said, "Pro- 
 fessor, I have come to you for some ad- 
 vice. I am very anxious to finish my 
 course and get my degree, but there are 
 certain circumstances at home which make 
 it doubtful, if not impossible. The trouble 
 is a lack of finances. I do not think my 
 father will be able to keep me here another 
 term. I have no resources of my own, nor 
 do I know of any one to whom I could 
 apply, and I came to ask you if you will 
 suggest to me any way by which I may 
 earn enough to graduate. I came to you 
 because I thought you would give me prac- 
 tical advice and not because I wished any 
 sympathy." 
 
 As soon as the last six words had been 
 uttered Hall would have given anything to 
 recall them, but it was too late, and the 
 professor was smiling as if appreciating 
 them. 
 
 "Perhaps," he said, "you are one of those 
 who believe that sympathy is the weakness 
 of women and the luxury of the rich." 
 
 "Oh, no, not at all," replied Hall. "I 
 think it is sometimes very manly and often
 
 PROFESSOR WINTERS. 131 
 
 very strengthening, but in a case of dollars 
 and cents it is rather rather " 
 
 "Inadequate." 
 
 "Thank you. It doesn't give one enough 
 to stand on and just now I need something 
 solid." 
 
 "Well, we will eliminate sympathy as a 
 factor in the problem; but you will let me 
 say that I think it would be a great pity for 
 you to be obliged to give up at this time 
 when your chances seem so excellent. In 
 the first place, are you sure that your father 
 will not be able to bear the expenses of 
 the remainder of the term? They will not 
 be heavy." 
 
 "He has not said so, but I am expecting 
 every day to hear it. My sister has had to 
 give up her school position in order to 
 nurse those at home, and I know that 
 father has debts to meet. I have tried to 
 do something in the way of writing, but 
 my articles will not be paid for until they 
 are published." 
 
 The professor smiled. "We will also 
 eliminate that. Have you thought of any- 
 thing else?" 
 
 "It seems to me that I have thought of 
 everything, and nothing." 
 
 "Could you not borrow enough from 
 some of your friends at home? You will 
 soon be able to pay it back."
 
 13* PROFESSOR WINTERS. 
 
 "I know of no one, and besides that, my 
 father, as I said before, has debts which 
 must be met. He has sacrificed and the 
 family have sacrificed comforts to keep me 
 here, and since the fever came in the house 
 I know that they need every cent of the 
 income, which is not large in such a place 
 as Waverly." 
 
 "Waverly? By the way, is my old friend 
 Pindar there now?" 
 
 "Yes, sir. He is at the head of the high 
 school." 
 
 "I cannot understand Pindar. He was the 
 brightest man of our class, and yet he bur- 
 ies himself in a town." 
 
 "Waverly is a pleasant place to be bur- 
 ied in," said Hall loyally, but somewhat 
 ambiguously. 
 
 "Doubtless it is; but a man of his ability 
 has no right to bury himself anywhere. It 
 seems to me that Pindar ought to be will- 
 ing to help you out." 
 
 "There are certain circumstances that 
 make this impossible," said Hall, coloring 
 a little. 
 
 "As I understand it, then," continued the 
 professor, "you are not absolutely sure 
 that you cannot stay here. That being the 
 case, my advice to you is to wait until you 
 hear something definite from your father.
 
 PROFESSOR WINTERS. 133 
 
 You naturally feel sorry that your family 
 is making certain sacrifices for you, but 
 you should remember that you will be able 
 to doubly repay all that has been done if 
 you are graduated and do as well as your 
 career here promises." 
 
 "Thank you, Professor," said Hall, as he 
 arose. 
 
 "Suppose you let me know as soon as 
 you do hear." 
 
 "I will, with pleasure, and I thank you 
 again." 
 
 Before Hall had gone out of the room 
 the professor had returned to his work, 
 and as the young man glanced back 
 through the closing door he saw him writ- 
 ing away as if nothing had interrupted his 
 labors. 
 
 Hall carried a very heavy heart that week. 
 He saw Professor Winters in the recitation- 
 room, and late Friday afternoon he saw 
 him going toward the station with a sat- 
 chel, but he had no conversation with him. 
 The letters from home were brief bulletins 
 of the condition of the sick. "As to that 
 other matter, my son," said a postscript, 
 "I cannot tell until next week." 
 
 Monday arrived, and with it the resump- 
 tion of the routine. 
 
 Tuesday morning Professor Winters had 
 a visitor.
 
 1^4 PROFESSOR WINTERS. 
 
 "You must pardon me," said Hall. "I 
 received a letter in the early mail, and the 
 news was so good that I had to come to 
 tell you. It's all right. I can finish my 
 course." 
 
 "I am very glad to hear it," said the pro- 
 fessor. 
 
 Hall's joy was too great, apparently, to 
 be subdued by the impervious tranquillity 
 of Mr. Winters. In his enthusiasm he 
 pulled out the letter. 
 
 "You must let me read what father 
 writes," he said. " 'It seems to me, my 
 son, that Providence has a way of step- 
 ping in just when hope seems well-nigh 
 hopeless, and of making all things right. 
 How it happened or who was the instru- 
 ment of it, I do not know and cannot tell, 
 but the matters which pressed most have 
 been lifted and you can finish your course.' 
 And look, Professor, at this postscript! it 
 is by my sister 'It has done us more good 
 than all the doctors and all the medicines. 
 God bless you!' " 
 
 The professor's composure was lightened 
 by an indefinite smile, and he repeated, "I 
 am very glad to hear it." 
 
 "I thought you would be, and that's why 
 I came to tell you," replied Hall.
 
 PROFESSOR WINTERS. 135 
 
 "If you will wait a moment I will walk 
 over to the hall with you," said the profes- 
 sor. 
 
 As they went Professor Winters ques- 
 tioned Hall as to his plans after gradua- 
 tion. "I have only one suggestion to 
 make," he said, as they were parting, "and 
 that is do not decide too hastily. Do not 
 commit yourself to a place when better op- 
 portunities may occur. If you come to me 
 before you decide I shall be glad to do 
 what I can to help you." 
 
 Hall thanked him and said that he would 
 follow his advice. 
 
 ***** 
 
 There was the usual scene on com- 
 mencement-day crowds of pretty girls in 
 summer dresses showering smiles and 
 compliments on restless young men; 
 groups of proud parents trying to feel 
 comfortable, and some of them feeling very 
 uncomfortable in the effort; assortments 
 of styles and faces from the four points of 
 the compass; professors unbending their 
 dignity and condescending to anecdote and 
 repartee; flowers for the favorites, and 
 general impatience to do r.nd to see and to 
 hear, and to have it all over with and rush 
 away to dinner with bright words for 
 everybody, a little gossip in the corners,
 
 136 PROFESSOR WINTERS. 
 
 and a plenty of romance under the trees, 
 and the whispering of vows that were to be 
 forgotten before the summer flirtations 
 reached the middle of August. 
 
 In the audience everybody was nervous 
 to see, and on the stage everybody was 
 nervous about being seen. Each actor in 
 the little drama of the day had his admir- 
 ers, and everybody but the garrulous old 
 graduate who had come back to find that 
 he antedated modern history had some- 
 body to love a little bit and to applaud very 
 much. 
 
 Most of them looked at Professor Win- 
 ters, who had leaped higher into fame be- 
 cause he had been selected to fill the presi- 
 dency of a rich university which a Western 
 plutocrat had established; but they could 
 not get up much enthusiasm for him be- 
 cause, as one of them expressed it, he was 
 "enveloped too heavily in his own refriger- 
 ation." 
 
 And, after all, a professor isn't much on 
 commencement-day, except as a figure on 
 the platform to fill up the background. 
 Moreover, the proceedings had begun, and 
 as the orators one by one went through 
 their greatest efforts they were the heroes, 
 and they got the applause and the attention 
 and the flowers. The proceedings moved,
 
 PROFESSOR WINTERS. 137 
 
 as all commencement proceedings do, with 
 a sublime disregard of the hardness of the 
 benches or of the flight of time. And 
 when they were nearing the conclusion, 
 everybody was intellectually gorged and 
 otherwise hungry. 
 
 But when the valedictory was reached 
 most of them forgot their hunger, or pre- 
 tended that they did, and welcomed the tall 
 young man with the classic face most 
 heartily. 
 
 Everybody, too, seemed to applaud 
 everybody but an old gentleman and a 
 young lady who sat beside him, whose de- 
 linquency was fully made up by a well- 
 conditioned man sitting next to them, who 
 clapped his fat hands until his face was 
 beaded with perspiration. 
 
 Henry Hall was such a fine fellow, and 
 had won the valedictory honors so well, 
 that all his classmates indorsed his fame; 
 and as he stood before the audience, grace- 
 ful and self-possessed, the demonstrations 
 were really fine. He saw his father settle 
 himself for the test; he saw his sister bend 
 forward as if wanting to inspire him for 
 his ordeal, and he read in the genial face 
 of Professor Pindar something which ap- 
 peared to say, "My boy, the Waverly High 
 School is with you."
 
 138 PROFESSOR WINTERS. 
 
 And then, when the quiet came, he be- 
 gan. His oration was on "Optimism as a 
 Force of Civilization." He spoke well. In 
 a minute he said something that brought 
 forth a ripple of applause. This gave him 
 confidence, and the confidence was in- 
 creased when he saw that he had the com- 
 plete attention of his audience. He con- 
 tinued admirably. The next applause was 
 more general and more generous, and it 
 got better all along. The points in his ad- 
 dress were well placed, and each one 
 scored. When he closed, the assemblage 
 responded beautifully, giving him a demon- 
 stration that eclipsed anything of the day. 
 
 The little group was happy. Professor 
 Pindar beamed like an aurora borealis. 
 Miss Hall was pale at the beginning, but 
 when the applause sealed her brother's 
 triumph she turned to her father with a big 
 red spot in each cheek and a moist uneasi- 
 ness around her eyes, and the Rev. Dr. 
 Hall, not trusting to speech, let his big 
 hand fall at his side, where it clasped a 
 smaller hand in an expression of joy that 
 meant more than all the syllables in the 
 language. 
 
 When the benediction was pronounced 
 and the band began to play, the group, led 
 by Professor Pindar, made their way to the
 
 PROFESSOR WINTERS. 139 
 
 stage. Henry Hall met them, and Profes- 
 sor Pindar, slapping him on the back and 
 exclaiming "Good boy," kept on until he 
 laid his hand on the shoulder of his old 
 classmate. 
 
 "Winters," he said, "I want you," and 
 before Winters could object he was pulled 
 along and brought face to face with the 
 group. 
 
 "Dr. Hall Professor Winters. Miss 
 Hall Professor Winters," and as Profes- 
 sor Winters bowed Pindar continued, "You 
 are going to dine with us. You promised, 
 you know. We positively won't eat with- 
 out you, and I am as hungry as a men- 
 agerie. 
 
 "Well," replied Professor Winters, "as 
 I have an appointment with Mr. Hall I 
 shall be glad to go with you, provided you 
 let us two walk together and get our talk 
 over before the festivities begin." It was 
 agreed, and off they started. 
 
 The party had a table to themselves. 
 Pindar presided, and somehow in the ar- 
 rangement of the guests, which was no 
 arrangement at all beyond the accidental 
 taking of seats, Professor Winters and 
 Miss Hall were in conversational proxim- 
 ity. Compliments and congratulations 
 were heaped upon the graduate until his
 
 140 PROFESSOR WINTERS. 
 
 blushes threatened to take away his ap- 
 petite. 
 
 "It's the same old thing, this commence- 
 ment experience," said Pindar; "the same 
 old thing, except new faces and new fash- 
 ions." 
 
 "And yet it always has a fresh interest," 
 said Dr. Hall. "A commencement is more 
 than anything else an epoch in life about 
 the only epoch that some of us have. All 
 the other things are incidents." 
 
 "Of course," Professor Winters was say- 
 ing to Miss Hall, "I shall be sorry to leave. 
 It has been pleasant here, and one gets 
 attached to a place, even when its person- 
 nel is constantly changing. A college is 
 something like a great big mill, that grinds 
 out graduates, but the miller and the as- 
 sistant millers love the mill even though 
 the grist is constantly going away." 
 
 Pindar said something about chaff, but it 
 made no impression, because Miss Hall 
 was speaking. 
 
 "I know that Henry will be sorry to part 
 with you," she said, "for he has mentioned 
 you so often in his letters that we all felt 
 as if we were acquainted with you." 
 
 Henry and the professor exchanged glan- 
 ces and smiled, and when the smile seemed 
 to beget an air of mystery Henry ended it 
 by saying:
 
 PROFESSOR WINTERS. 141 
 
 "Professor Winters has offered me a 
 position in his new university an under- 
 professorship." 
 
 Then there were volleys of questions and 
 replies, and when Henry said, "Yes, I have 
 accepted," Pindar spread out his hands and 
 exclaimed, "Bless you, my children!" 
 Then, leaning his elbows on the table, 
 which he should not have done, he inter- 
 locked his fingers, and continued with un- 
 natural seriousness: 
 
 "There are secrets that should be kept 
 forever inviolable, and there are secrets 
 that outlive the rights of secrecy. Perhaps 
 you folks did not know that a certain 
 pedagogue named Winters surreptitiously 
 came to Waverly about five months ago 
 and did certain things that enabled a cer- 
 tain young man to graduate. Of course 
 I promised him never to tell, but what's a 
 promise among friends?" 
 
 "Pindar," said Winters, "you are a 
 traitor." 
 
 The effect was peculiar. Dr. Hall laid 
 down his fork and gazed at the professor. 
 Henry Hall blushed still more deeply, and 
 Miss Hall's eyes filled up again with the 
 moist uneasiness, but something was added 
 to it.
 
 142 PROFESSOR WINTERS. 
 
 In the conversation which followed Win- 
 ters ruined the reputation of a lifetime. He 
 lost his composure entirely. 
 
 "Now, please don't thank me," he said, 
 nervously. "It was a small matter simply 
 taking up a note and waiting a few months 
 longer for payment. I was selfish about 
 it. I saw Mr. Hall's ability, and I wanted 
 him to go with me in our new university. 
 I'll take him for security and really I must 
 soon be going; and. Miss Hall, if you are 
 ready I'll be very glad to show you the 
 buildings." 
 
 ***** 
 
 In the last week in August, Ohio, Penn- 
 sylvania and New York sat smoking on 
 the veranda of a hotel in the Adirondacks. 
 They had met that day after spending the 
 summer at various resorts. When the talk 
 drifted back to college days, Ohio re- 
 marked: 
 
 "I see that Winters is getting a strong 
 faculty for his new university. By the 
 way" this to New York "did you ever 
 find out whether or not Winters really had 
 a heart?" 
 
 "I think," replied New York, "that you 
 had better ask Hall's sister." 
 
 "You don't mean " 
 
 "Yes, I do mean it, and it's a very funny
 
 PROFESSOR WINTERS. 143 
 
 story. I passed through Waverly a few 
 weeks ago on a coaching trip and was told 
 all about it. Winters has an old classmate 
 there who was courting Miss Hall with a 
 great deal of industry. Well, Winters made 
 him a visit and cut him out. It was a 
 pretty mean thing to do, and it proved to 
 me that while Winters may have a heart 
 he has no soul. No man with a soul could 
 play such a trick on a friend." .
 
 AN OFFENSIVE PARTISAN. 
 
 w, 
 
 HEN the Hon. Warwick Jones drove 
 over from the county-seat to Forkbridge 
 district and offered Stephen Booz the 
 nomination for Sheriff, Mr. Booz said, 
 frankly, that he did not want it. 
 
 "That's all very well," replied Mr. Jones, 
 "but you've got to take it. We've been 
 running things a little too strong for the 
 people, and that independent movement is 
 getting dangerous. The other districts are 
 going to give us a hard pull, and Fork- 
 bridge's majority must be our salvation. 
 The folks around here have confidence in 
 you, and your name will carry the ticket 
 through. We can't help what you wish; 
 you've got to take it." 
 
 "But the expense " 
 
 "Oh, that's all right. You don't want 
 to spend your money? Very well. I'll get 
 enough out of the others to supply you." 
 
 "How much?" 
 
 "Will a thousand do?" 
 
 "Better make it two. And look here if 
 I go on the ticket, not a soul is to know
 
 AN OFFENSIVE PARTISAN. 145 
 
 about my consent until I give it. Fix it up 
 yourself, and give me the time to straighten 
 out a few things." 
 
 So it was settled. The Hon. Warwick 
 Jones drove back home, and told the two 
 men associated with him in the ring the re- 
 sults of his visit. "It will cost us about 
 fifteen hundred dollars," he said, "and at 
 least half of it will go into old Booz's 
 pocket; but we've got to do it or be whip- 
 ped." 
 
 ***** 
 
 Mr. Booz was not new in politics, 
 although his name had never been on a 
 ticket. Early in his experience he had 
 found out that the man who handled the 
 finances had a safer and surer way of mak- 
 ing money than the man who ran for office. 
 This fact was impressed upon his mind by 
 the prosperity of the bosses and the 
 chronic bankruptcy of the candidates. So 
 when he plunged into affairs of state it was 
 as a district manager, and not as a party 
 champion. His partisanship had a finan- 
 cial value, and it was chiefly for the finan- 
 ces that he was a partisan, his idea of poli- 
 tical economy being entirely personal. 
 
 And yet he was a man of decided in- 
 fluence. He knew the people knew their 
 weaknesses. He had their confidence, be- 
 10
 
 146 AN OFFENSIVE PARTISAN. 
 
 cause he always paid his debts; he lived 
 plainly and well, and he put on no unneces- 
 sary airs. To Mr. BDOZ, open irregularity 
 of any kind was worse than criminal it 
 was foolish; but quiet cunning was another 
 thing. 
 
 Mr. Booz's political education had taught 
 him that a thorough preparation was worth 
 a year of open campaigning. Thus he be- 
 gan at once. 
 
 Sunday came. He had heard that an ap- 
 peal was to be made to pay off part of the 
 church debt. He was promptly on hand 
 with a pleasant salutation for everybody. 
 It was a plain rural congregation, in a 
 region uncontaminated by railroads and 
 the larger accessories of civilization. The 
 minister got only four hundred dollars a 
 year, and the church finances were corres- 
 pondingly modest. 
 
 Just after the sermon a request was made 
 for one hundred dollars. As usual, two of 
 the members were asked to take up the 
 contributions. Results came tardily but 
 gradually the items added up to about sixty 
 dollars. 
 
 Here was Booz's opportunity. Beckon- 
 ing to one of the solicitors, he said, in a 
 whisper which was quite distinct to those 
 near him, "Put me down for forty dollars." 
 
 This gave great satisfaction.
 
 AN OFFENSIVE PARTISAN. 147 
 
 At the end of the service the minister 
 came down from the pulpit, shook hands 
 with his people, and finally reached MX 
 Booz. 
 
 "Brother Booz," he said. "I'm glad to 
 see you here, sir very glad to see you, sir, 
 and I want to thank you for your generos- 
 ity." 
 
 "Not generosity, my dear sir," said Mr. 
 Booz, cheerily, "but duty, plain duty. I 
 don't come to hear your fine sermons as 
 often as I ought, and when I do come it is 
 right for me to make up a little for my de- 
 ficiency, especially when you and your 
 church are doing such good work for us. 
 In fact, I don't know of a country church 
 anywhere that could give us more interest- 
 ing services or a better congregation than 
 we have had to-day." 
 
 All this fell into fruitful soil, and at every 
 dinner that day the name of Booz got its 
 meed of praise. 
 
 Two days afterward Mr. Booz, while 
 driving along the road, met Rev. Josiah 
 Brown, the pastor of the colored church. 
 
 "Good-morning, Mr. Booz." 
 
 "Good-morning, Mr. Brown. How are 
 you getting along at your church?" 
 
 "Slowly, sir, slowly. The people hev no 
 money scarcely, and it's hard to make both
 
 148 AN OFFENSIVE PARTISAN. 
 
 ends meet. We wanted to fix up the church, 
 but I guess we'll hev to wait till times gits 
 better." 
 
 "That's bad, very bad. I don't like to 
 see a useful man like you hampered in that 
 way. I suppose twenty dollars wouldn't 
 help you much, would it?" 
 
 "Twenty dollars! 'Deed it would, sir 
 'deed it would." 
 
 "Well, now, if you will just take the 
 money and go ahead, and not mind about 
 where it came from, I'll be glad to give it 
 to such a good cause." 
 
 Rev. Mr. Brown was profuse yes, su- 
 perabundant in his thanks. The two crisp 
 ten-dollar notes made his face look ten 
 years younger. Booz knew perfectly well 
 that what he said about not being known 
 in the matter would give an impetus to the 
 spreading of his name in a quiet and effect- 
 ive way. If anything will set the average 
 negro talking, it is a half-secret. 
 
 That night Mr. Booz had eaten his sup- 
 per, and was enjoying his pipe on the 
 porch. Suddenly he looked up and said to 
 his wife, the faithful, industrious helpmate 
 whose management had enabled him to be- 
 come a self-made man: 
 
 "Miranda, you were talking some time 
 ago of having the folks here?"
 
 AN OFFENSIVE PARTISAN. 149 
 
 "Yes, Stephen; but you said it would be 
 too much trouble." 
 
 "Did I? Well, I guess I was wrong. 
 Suppose you do it. I believe I would en- 
 joy it myself. And, Miranda, while you 
 are about it, why not make it a nice affair? 
 Get all the folks here, young and old. 
 We're travelling along in life, and I don't 
 see why we shouldn't celebrate a little, and 
 show our friends that we are glad to see 
 them." 
 
 "I declare, Stephen, you're getting real 
 sensible." 
 
 "Oh, I showed that a good while ago." 
 
 "I'd like to know when?" 
 
 "When I married you, of course. And, 
 Miranda, that knot was tied twenty-five 
 years ago this Wednesday two weeks. It's 
 been so pleasant, let's have it tied over 
 again, and invite the people to see it done." 
 * * * * * 
 
 These little ripples in the uneventful life 
 of Forkbridge district had a decided effect 
 upon the reputation of Mr. Booz. His 
 name had always been respected; now it 
 was becoming popular. 
 
 A week after the silver wedding anni- 
 versary, which the correspondent of the 
 county paper described as "the grandest 
 society event Forkbridge district had
 
 J|l50 AN OFFENSIVE PARTISAN. 
 
 | known for years," the convention met in 
 
 I the court-house at Quantico. It was about 
 
 | fifteen miles from Forkbridge, the modest 
 
 metropolis of Forkbridge district, and 
 
 Forkbridge was just a mile from the Booz 
 
 farm. 
 
 Mr. Booz knew that the news of the 
 convention's work would reach the village 
 shortly after supper. He had eaten his 
 evening meal, and was standing at the 
 front gate. 
 
 "Miranda," he said, "I am going down 
 to the store to get a new bridle strap. Any 
 errands you want?" 
 
 "Not that I know of." 
 
 He walked slowly at first; then quick- 
 ened his step; then slowed up again as he 
 neared the village. He went at once to the 
 store, and began to make his purchase and 
 talk about the weather and the crops. 
 
 Suddenly the rumbling of wheels was 
 heard, and in a minute more one of the del- 
 egates to the convention had drawn up his 
 team in front of the store. 
 
 "What's the news?" asked several at 
 once. 
 
 The delegate descended from the car- 
 riage as if he had a message from the 
 President, and in self-important tones an- 
 nounced, "They've nominated Stephen 
 Booz for Sheriff."
 
 AN OFFENSIVE PARTISAN. 151 
 
 "They've done what?" demanded Booz, 
 appearing at the door. 
 
 "They've nominated you for Sheriff." 
 
 "Get out!" 
 
 "It's a fact. Nominated you unani- 
 mously." 
 
 "Well, well," says Booz, musingly, "if 
 this don't beat creation! I know it's a big 
 honor, gentlemen, but it's such a surprise 
 that I don't know what to say. Seems to 
 me, though, they'll have to get somebody 
 else." 
 
 To this there were general protests, and 
 amid them Mr. Booz, wearing an expres- 
 sion of troubled indecision, started home. 
 The news had quickly spread, and he met 
 several people on his way. The greetings 
 with each were about the same. 
 
 "I see they've nominated you for Sher- 
 iff?" 
 
 "Yes, yes. But if I'd know'd they were 
 going to do it, I'd stopped the whole 
 thing." 
 
 "Won't you accept?" 
 
 "That depends that depends/ 
 
 When he reached home, Miranda asked 
 the old question so familiar in the country: 
 
 "What's the news?" 
 
 "Bad news." 
 
 "What?"
 
 152 AN OFFENSIVE PARTISAN. 
 
 "They've nominated me for Sheriff." 
 Mrs. Booz, with all her practical mind, 
 was a woman of ambition. She sighed for 
 the experience of town life, and this long- 
 ing had been intensified by the social suc- 
 cess of the wedding anniversary. 
 
 "Bad news?" she exclaimed. "Well, I 
 guess not, and if you don't take it, there'll 
 be trouble in this family." 
 
 ***** 
 
 The contest in the district was undoubt- 
 edly to hinge on the temperance question. 
 
 Michael Cassin's liquor store in Fork- 
 bridge had done great injury. Cassin was 
 a man whose moral record was worse than 
 his whiskey, if such a thing were possible. 
 He was a drunkard himself, and he encour- 
 aged drunkenness. His miserable saloon 
 became the one foul blot upon the repu- 
 tation of the neighborhood. But a man 
 seldom gets too low to wield a certain in- 
 fluence. It was so in Cassin's case. He 
 had a strength among the rough elements 
 of the population that made his assistance 
 desirable in a political contest. On the 
 other hand, the decent people had decided 
 to make a plain fight against him, and de- 
 termined to vote for no one who did not 
 say that he would favor local option and 
 temperance reform in the district.
 
 AN OFFENSIVE PARTISAN. 153 
 
 The leader of the temperance party was 
 John Canton, an old man, who was so 
 good and so earnest that he never knew 
 how to be politic or suspicious. 
 
 Booz knew Canton well, and to his house 
 he made a visit. They talked about neigh- 
 borhood topics for a while, until Mr. Can- 
 ton remarked, "I see they've nominated 
 you for Sheriff?" 
 
 "Yes," was the reply, "they have, but 
 why in the world they did it I don't know; 
 I'm too settled down to go to running into 
 politics, and yet people come nagging at 
 me to accept. Now, Mr. Canton, I want 
 to ask a favor of you; I want you to tell me 
 just what to do. Ought I to take it or 
 not? You know how I stand, and how I 
 feel about the interests of this district, and 
 there is nobody whose opinion I'd rather 
 have than yours." 
 
 Mr. Canton stroked his white beard 
 meditatively, felt flattered at being ap- 
 proached in such a way, and finally said, 
 "Brother Booz, I think you owe it to your 
 district to accept." 
 
 When Mr. Booz passed down the road 
 on his way home there was a smile on his 
 face. He did not smile often, and when he 
 did smile it meant something. 
 
 The next day, just after twilight, Booz
 
 154 AN OFFENSIVE PARTISAN. 
 
 and Cassin met at an obscure fence corner 
 just outside the village. They talked low 
 and earnestly. 
 
 "Cassin," said Booz, "I must depend on 
 you again, and you'll be paid for it better 
 than ever; but don't talk too friendly about 
 me; don't let the temperance people have a 
 chance to think I ain't for them and against 
 you. Just get your boys all right, and 
 make them keep their mouths shut. You 
 understand?" 
 
 "Yes, Mr. Booz, I'll do it." 
 
 "And look here, Cassin, you're patron- 
 izing your own bar too much. Don't make 
 a fool of yourself." 
 
 Mr. Booz found it convenient to have 
 some important business to transact at 
 Quantico, a ruse for a conference with the 
 Hon. Warwick Jones. He drifted into Mr. 
 Jones' office as if it were an accident, but 
 just as soon as the doors were closed the 
 real business began. Mr. Jones gave him 
 a thousand dollars in cash, with a promise 
 of five hundred more in two weeks. 
 
 "I suppose you know," said Mr. Jones, 
 after he had handed him the money, "that 
 the other side has endorsed young Madi- 
 son for re-election?" 
 
 "So I heard." 
 
 "Well, he must be defeated. We've got 
 to down him if we lose half of our ticket,
 
 AN OFFENSIVE PARTISAN. 155 
 
 but we want to do it without losing any of 
 it. You see, he has made the best State's 
 Attorney we have ever had, and he is grow- 
 ing so confoundedly strong with the people 
 that we must head him off, or he and his 
 independent following will run away with 
 us. I hear he is mighty popular in your 
 district because he prosecuted the liquor 
 people?" 
 
 "Yes; they think right smart of him up 
 there." 
 
 "And I hear that the temperance ques- 
 tion is going to play the devil with you this 
 fall?" 
 
 "It'll try, but politics ain't a monoply. 
 Two can play at it." 
 
 "That's the point, and when you play I 
 want you to win. Now," after a pause, 
 "how will you manage it?" 
 
 "Leave it to me. I'll go home and look 
 over the ground, and" holding up the 
 thousand dollars "place this fertilizer 
 where it will grow the biggest crop." 
 
 Booz went home, but the more he looked 
 over the ground, the worse he liked it. 
 Mike Cassin's store was an argument too 
 big for him to get over. He could not de- 
 nounce it openly, because he depended up- 
 on Cassin's assistance. The best thing he 
 could do was to preserve an uncomfortable
 
 156 AN OFFENSIVE PARTISAN. 
 
 neutrality. And everybody knows what 
 lukewarmness is in a temperance fight. 
 
 At first the people were surprised, then 
 suspicious, and finally critical. 
 
 The decent sentiment was rapidly con- 
 solidating, and it all favored Madison. 
 
 Henry Madison was an excellent speci- 
 men of young manhood, a handsome, 
 vigorous fellow, with a sterling integrity 
 that had been tried and proven. As the 
 prosecuting attorney he had done more to 
 punish rascality in the county than any 
 three of his predecessors. He had been 
 particularly severe on violations of the 
 liquor laws, and the people believed in him. 
 "Our hopes of purifying this district," said 
 Mr. Canton, "depend on Mr. Madison's re- 
 election." 
 
 Booz knew that something had to be 
 done, and done quickly, but he saw no 
 solution for his dilemma. 
 
 A severe case of blues was the conse- 
 quence. He walked up and down the floor 
 of his room. Occasionally he stepped to 
 the window to look out and see if some 
 kind angel would be good enough to give 
 him an idea. 
 
 While he was thinking and gazing, an 
 extraordinary incident took place. Two 
 young men approached the house and ling-
 
 AN OFFENSIVE PARTISAN. 157 
 
 ered under his window. He recognized 
 them. One was his son, John Booz, as 
 harum-scarum a fellow as the county con- 
 tained, who more than made up for all the 
 staidness of his parents. The other was 
 Joseph Hendrow, the hired man, and the 
 companion of John in all his adventures. 
 These two boys they were boys of over 
 twenty years were practical jokers, and 
 nothing was too extravagant for their mis- 
 chief-making. On this occasion Mr. Booz 
 could see by the moonlight that they were 
 striving to stifle their laughter. Then they 
 began to talk, and Mr. Booz caught such 
 fragments as these: 
 
 "It'll scare him to death." 
 
 "I'm 'most sorry we did it. Come to 
 think it all over, it's a solemn thing playing 
 with a corpse that way." 
 
 "Yes, it is. But old Cassin ruined him, 
 and he always said he'd haunt Cassin." 
 
 Mr. Booz was now filled with curiosity. 
 He slipped quietly down-stairs, and ap- 
 pearing suddenly before the boys, de- 
 manded, "What have you two fellows been 
 doing?" 
 
 They faltered at first, but finally told 
 their story. 
 
 The two roisterers and Jim Barnes, a 
 boy of sixteen who lived on the adjoining
 
 158 AN OFFENSIVE PARTISAN. 
 
 farm, had found the corpse of "Catfish 
 Bob," the meanest and ugliest tramp in the 
 district. When a young man, Bob had been 
 brought from the city to Forkbridge. He 
 was a good worker, and he accumulated 
 some money, but Cassin put out his snares 
 and lured him to his den. He rapidly be- 
 came a drunken loafer. From loafing he 
 drifted into thieving, and he combined the 
 vices so well that he was never sober ex- 
 cept when in jail, and was never out of jail 
 except through a miscarriage of justice. 
 Everybody considered him a nuisance, and 
 only two days before, Cassin had told him 
 never to come into his place again under 
 penalty of a thrashing. When the boys 
 found Bob's corpse it was cold. Twilight 
 was deepening into darkness, and as they 
 discussed what to do with it a sudden mis- 
 chief seized them. They would take the 
 body and palm it off in some w?y on Cas- 
 sin. He had caused the wreck of Bob's 
 life; that wreck should now haunt his con- 
 science, if conscience he had. One of the 
 bovs went to the saloon it was on the 
 edge of the village, near the woods in 
 which the corpse was found to see what 
 could be done. 
 
 He found Cassin just drunk enough to 
 be surly, and no one else in sight.
 
 AN OFFENSIVE PARTISAN. 159 
 
 He drew Cassin to the other side of the 
 house and talked with him, while the other 
 two boys slipped the corpse into the sa- 
 loon, and set it up in the darkest corner. 
 Then Cassin was called, and with as much 
 art as they could bring into play they made 
 it appear that the stranger had invited them 
 to join him in a drink. A glass was passed 
 to the corpse, and quietly drained, and 
 while Cassin was replacing the bottle the 
 corpse was rearranged. Then with osten- 
 tatious good-byes they left Cassin alone 
 with the mysterious stranger. Jim Barnes, 
 however, remained to watch developments, 
 and they were now waiting for his appear- 
 ance. 
 
 At first Mr. Booz was too much aston- 
 ished by the story to say anything, but at 
 last he stammered out: "Boys, you ought 
 to be cowhided. It's awful. Suppose the 
 shock kills Cassin?" 
 
 The boys began to be frightened but just 
 then Jim Barnes came running up the lane. 
 His breath was short, but between gasps 
 he blurted out: "About five minutes after 
 you left, old Cassin asked the fellow if he 
 was going to pay up. No answer. Then 
 he asked again. No answer. Then Cassin 
 told him if he didn't settle he would come 
 over and shake it out of him. No answer.
 
 l6o AN OFFENSIVE PARTISAN. 
 
 Til make you talk,' says Cassin. No an- 
 swer again. Then Cassin walked around 
 and struck a match, and saw it was Bob. 
 Well, he fired up like gunpowder, and 
 pitched right on him. 'Didn't I tell you 
 not to come here no more?' he bawled, and 
 then, cursing and swearing, he hit him, 
 knocked him over, and kicked him toward 
 the door. Cassin waited a while for Bob 
 to get up, but of course he didn't. Bob 
 was laying flat on his back. Cassin lit a 
 match and held it over Bob's face, and 
 when he saw that he was dead he jumped 
 back as if he had been shot. I had enough, 
 and I left." 
 
 "Boys," said Mr. Booz, "this is a dan- 
 gerous piece of business, and I warn you 
 not to say a word about it to anybody. 
 Mind, not a word." 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Mr. Booz walked around the corner of 
 the house with his head bowed deep in 
 thought. Unconsciously he took the little 
 path that led to the yard gate, and he was 
 suddenly awakened from his abstraction by 
 a click of the latch and the whisper of a 
 hoarse voice. 
 
 "Mr. Booz, I want to see you." 
 "Why, Cassin, is that you? What's the 
 matter?"
 
 AN OFFENSIVE PARTISAN. l6l 
 
 "I'm in trouble. Can you walk down the 
 road with me a piece? I don't want to go 
 in-doors." 
 
 They walked in silence for a minute, and 
 then Booz asked him to tell his story. 
 
 "Mr. Booz, I'm afraid I've killed that 
 tramp Bob. But it was in self-defence; it 
 was in self-defence; I swear it was." 
 
 Booz always let the other man speak 
 first. He reserved his opinions and con- 
 clusions. His idea now was to let Cassin 
 tell his story, and then to exculpate him of 
 any guilt in the matter; but as soon as he 
 saw what a brilliant lie Cassin was con- 
 cocting, he determined to encourage it to 
 the end. 
 
 "How did it happen?" he asked. 
 
 "You know, sir, that I told him not to 
 come in my place again. But he did come, 
 and he ordered drinks and wouldn't pay for 
 them, and when I tried to make him pay, 
 he grabbed up an axe and said he would 
 split my head open." 
 
 This was too much even for Booz. He 
 gasped audibly. 
 
 "Did you say anything, sir?" 
 
 "No. Goon." 
 
 "I watched my chance and hit him, and 
 then I waited for him to git up; but he 
 didn't git up, and when I looked at him 
 ii
 
 l62 AN OFFENSIVE PARTISAN. 
 
 close he was dead. Oh, sir, what must I 
 do?" 
 
 Booz's sympathy had gradually oozed 
 out under the pressure of Cassin's mendac- 
 ity. In its stead a brilliant idea came. 
 
 "Cassin," said he, "wasn't it you who 
 taught Bob to drink?" 
 
 "Yes, sir; I guess I did, but but I never 
 killed anybody before." 
 
 "No, not right at once. You generally 
 poison them with that whiskey of yours. 
 Now, Cassin, who was present when this 
 affair took place?" 
 
 "Nobody but us two, sir. Your boys 
 and Jim Barnes was there just before, but 
 they left, and we was alone together." 
 
 "That's bad very bad." 
 
 "Bad? How, sir?" 
 
 "Simply this, Cassin. People won't be- 
 lieve your testimony. They are down on 
 you here. You're a bad character." 
 
 "I know it, Mr. Booz I know it; but I 
 never killed anybody before." 
 
 "But your whiskey has." 
 
 The fellow's anxiety was becoming in- 
 tense. 
 
 "Tell me, Mr. Booz, what to do. I've 
 served you. Please don't turn your back 
 on me now."
 
 AN OFFENSIVE PARTISAN. 163 
 
 "Cassin, my advice to you is to leave this 
 neighborhood, and leave it for good. I'll 
 buy your place and pay you in cash." 
 
 "But if they discover " 
 
 "Leave that to me. What if those boys 
 should swear that they found that corpse in 
 the woods and carried it in your house? 
 Do you understand?" 
 
 Cassin understood, and his gratitude was 
 almost pathetic. The two men went back 
 to the house. The deed for the sa- 
 loon was drawn up and the money was 
 paid. Of course Booz got a bargain; he 
 always did; but justice compels the admis- 
 sion that he paid a hundred dollars more 
 than Cassin asked, simply because the 
 saloon-keeper, in his fear and remorse, 
 offered the property at half its value, and 
 Booz's conscience, tough as it was, 
 couldn't go quite that far, especially when 
 the party's money was paying for it. 
 * * * * * 
 
 People spoke of Bob's death as a very 
 good riddance, and there were no suspicions 
 of foul play. The next evening Cassin 
 quietly left the neighborhood, never more 
 to return. He carried with him a plentiful 
 supply of advice and almost two-thirds the 
 value of his property. Both came from 
 Stephen Booz.
 
 164 AN OFFENSIVE PARTISAN. 
 
 When it was announced that Cassin had 
 gone, there was general surprise. Booz 
 did not wish to encourage it too exten- 
 sively, so he spent the whole night in 
 thought and in transferring these thoughts 
 to paper. It was rather hard on the sta- 
 tionery, but Booz knew the tremendous 
 importance of saying just enough and no 
 more, and the less he said, the more he 
 wanted, and the more he said, the less he 
 wanted. It was the struggle of a great in- 
 tellect over a campaign trick. At last the 
 result came, and it came in this form, care- 
 fully written on a large sheet of paper: 
 
 "NOTICE! 
 
 "This place will no longer be an eyesore to 
 the town. It has been bought by me, and it 
 will be closed, pending repairs, to be opened 
 by my son, John Booz, as a first-class store. 
 No liquors of any kind will be kept or sold. 
 All bills for liquor owed Michael Cassin are 
 cancelled. 
 
 "STEPHEN Booz." 
 
 When the people read this the next 
 morning they were thoroughly astonished. 
 Astonishment soon gave way to pleasure. 
 Even the old topers liked it. The debts
 
 AN OFFENSIVE PARTISAN. 165 
 
 that had been hanging over them so long 
 were taken off. They could begin all over 
 again. Through all the excitement, Booz 
 maintained an impassive serenity. It was 
 a good bargain for him. He knew very 
 well that he would never collect the bills, 
 if he tried twenty years. Moreover, he had 
 had the only good liquors and the best 
 bottles quietly removed to his house at 
 night, and when the old bottles and bar- 
 rels were rolled out of the saloon and 
 publicly destroyed, the liquid that flowed 
 from them was mainly water sufficiently 
 flavored to give it an aroma of alcohol and 
 wickedness. It was a great time for Mr. 
 Booz, and he accepted all the thanks and 
 congratulations with the easy manner of a 
 professional philanthropist. 
 
 "Ah, Brother Booz," said Mr. Canton, 
 wringing his hand piously, "let me thank 
 you for your good work in purging this 
 district of that saloon." 
 
 "Mr. Canton, I've only done my duty, 
 sir, as I understood it. You people have 
 been accusing me of all sorts of things, and 
 saying that I was opposed to temperance. 
 While you preached I acted, and I think I 
 have done more in one day's work than my 
 enemies have done in five years. I hope 
 that we will understand one another better 
 hereafter."
 
 l66 AN OFFENSIVE PARTISAN. 
 
 Mr. Canton said unhesitatingly that he 
 and his followers had done Mr. Booz an 
 injustice. The reaction was even greater 
 than the former opposition. The tide 
 turned decisively toward Booz. He had 
 all the currents just where he wanted them, 
 and he was so confident of his control that 
 he began to direct them against Madison. 
 The first results were successful, and he 
 easily foresaw the defeat of the courageous 
 young attorney. In the abundance of his 
 confidence he sat down and began a letter 
 to the Hon. Warwick Jones. He wrote: 
 
 "Forkbridge, October 25. 
 "Mr. Warwick Jones: 
 
 "Dear Sir I think we're all right. I've 
 settled the temperance business by buying out 
 Cassin, and thus removing the big point on 
 which they were fighting. I will be elected 
 sure, and I'm quite certain that the ticket is 
 safe. As to Madison," here he turned to 
 another of the small sheets of paper on 
 which he was writing, and continued "we 
 will defeat him in this district without a doubt, 
 if you will only send us five or ten more tons 
 of that fertiliser." 
 
 A knock sounded on the door, and a 
 voice announced, "Mr. Booz, a gentleman 
 in the parlor wants to see you."
 
 AN OFFENSIVE PARTISAN. 167 
 
 Booz went down and confronted Madi- 
 son. He was surprised, but he concealed 
 his feelings in an extra show of cordiality. 
 In Forkbridge, hospitality is a religion 
 above politics or business. 
 
 "Mr. Booz, I hope we are alone," said 
 Madison. "I wish to talk to you confi- 
 dentially about a little matter." 
 
 "Certainly, sir; go ahead. We are safe. 
 But" with a laugh "I warn you before- 
 hand that I cannot vote for you." 
 
 "Are you sure?" asked Madison, with 
 peculiar emphasis. 
 
 Booz grew serious. "I don't under- 
 stand," he said. 
 
 "Then I'll explain. In the first place, 
 I'm going to win in this election." 
 
 Booz smiled. 
 
 "And what's more, you're going to help 
 me." 
 
 Booz's smile grew broader. 
 
 "You think you have checkmated me in 
 buying out Cassin's store and shutting up 
 that saloon. It's a neat trick, but it may 
 be an expensive one to your family." 
 
 "Expensive? How?" Mr. Booz's smile 
 faded away. 
 
 "Who killed 'Catfish Bob'?" 
 
 "Killed? Whiskey, I guess." 
 
 "It did? Why did Cassin run away just 
 after his death?"
 
 l68 AN OFFENSIVE PARTISAN. 
 
 "Did he run? I thought he just moved." 
 
 "I'll ask you a third question. Who pre- 
 tended that they found Bob's body, and 
 smuggled it into Cassin's store?" 
 
 Booz became strangely uneasy. "What 
 do you mean?" he asked. 
 
 "I mean that circumstances I know of 
 point to your son as one of the figures in a 
 mystery that may demand an investigation 
 from me as prosecuting attorney of this 
 county." 
 
 Just then Mrs. Booz opened the door. 
 Booz grasped the opportunity, and arose 
 from his seat. "You want me? All right. 
 Mr. Madison will excuse me a minute." 
 And before Mrs. Booz could say anything 
 he was pushing her out and closing the 
 door behind him. As soon as he could he 
 asked, "Where's John?" John was in the 
 yard, and straight to him the candidate for 
 Sheriff went. 
 
 "John," he said, "who was with you 
 when you found that corpse?" 
 
 "I was by myself, but I called the other 
 boys from the road just as soon as I found 
 it." 
 
 "Where's Jim Barnes?" 
 
 "Why, Mr. Madison has taken him in 
 his law office down to Quantico."
 
 AN OFFENSIVE PARTISAN. 169 
 
 Booz turned at once toward the house. 
 He did not hear his son ask, "What's the 
 matter?" for he was thinking and deciding 
 what to do. He returned to the room, 
 and resumed his seat with as much ease 
 as he could. 
 
 "Excuse this interruption, Mr. Madison. 
 I had to get some money for my wife. 
 Wives are almost as bad as assessment 
 committees. But we were speaking about 
 the Cassin matter. Surely, Mr. Madison, 
 you do not think that my son could be 
 guilty of anything so wrong?" 
 
 "Perhaps not; but an investigation like 
 this would be a serious affair a very seri- 
 ous affair. Suppose that evidence of blows 
 should be found on Bob's body? Suppose 
 that not two weeks before his death your 
 son quarrelled with him?" 
 
 Booz knew very well that Cassin had 
 struck Bob; he knew how ugly the whole 
 affair would look. For a minute he left 
 Mr. Madison's question unanswered, but 
 he finally raised his head, and with a smile 
 said: "Mr. Madison, I don't think you will 
 be defeated. The sentiment in this district 
 is very strong in your favor." 
 
 "I esteem your opinion very highly, Mr. 
 Booz, and I take your word for it."
 
 170 AN OFFENSIVE PARTISAN. 
 
 ''You wouldn't do me a favor, I sup- 
 pose?" said Mr. Booz, with another smile. 
 
 "Certainly, if I could." 
 
 "Well, send that boy Barnes up here for 
 about two hours." 
 
 Both men looked at each other, and 
 Madison laughed heartily. 
 
 "No, I can't do that," he replied; "it 
 wouldn't be safe." 
 
 When Madison left, Booz's smile settled 
 down into a rugged frown. He walked to 
 the yard where John was, and taking him 
 by the shoulder, said: "John, if you find 
 any more corpses around this district, let 
 'em alone. Mind, I tell you, let 'em 
 alone." 
 
 And going into the house, he slammed 
 the door, and marched up-stairs to finish 
 his letter. He destroyed the second sheet 
 on which he had written, and took a fresh 
 one, and after the words, "As to Madison," 
 he continued: 
 
 "It is impossible to defeat him. Sentiment 
 here is too strong. Everybody is for him. 
 The rest of the ticket, though, can be put 
 through. I've used the fertilizer you recom- 
 mended. It has been well distributed. Please 
 send me five or ten tons more as soon as you 
 can. Am sorry about Madison, but it can't be 
 helped. Yours, in haste, 
 
 "Stephen Boo*."
 
 AN OFFENSIVE PARTISAN. 171 
 
 The Hon. Warwick Jones frowned and 
 swore when he read that letter, for he knew 
 that Booz was a true prophet. And so in- 
 deed he was.
 
 SLUMBERING JOSEPH. 
 
 WE 
 
 'E are on a single track railroad. There 
 is no store of any kind in the place and the 
 hucksters are so irregular that good house- 
 wives who are members of church have 
 been known to wager things on whether or 
 not these condescending gentlemen with 
 the hooded wagons would be around. 
 When the meat fails to come from the city 
 and the huckster either sells out before he 
 reaches Sunnyside or forgets to come at 
 all we eat eggs. This explains why a Sun- 
 nyside cook-book is more worn in the egg 
 chapters than in all the other portions, and 
 surely in the world there is not a place 
 where the egg is more wondrously and 
 more beautifully diversified than in Sunny- 
 side Park. 
 
 We were talking about it one night at 
 the doctor's, after conversation had devel- 
 oped that everybody had eaten eggs for 
 breakfast that day and Mrs. Bloom had to 
 send around and borrow the remaining 
 supply because company had come un- 
 expectedly for luncheon.
 
 SLUMBERING JOSEPH. 173 
 
 "If the doctrine of the transmigration of 
 the soul be true," said the doctor, "I do 
 not believe it is true, but you cannot always 
 tell about x such things, and if in the next 
 existence we should find it true, I think, as 
 friends and neighbors, we should all agree 
 to flock together." 
 
 The idea of flocking, by a correct but un- 
 expected logical process, led on to the prop- 
 osition that we form a literary club. We 
 were distinctly not literary. Indeed, our 
 only literary passions were those resulting 
 from the neglect of the train clerk to throw 
 off our morning papers. But we needed 
 something to bring us together and stimu- 
 late our intellectual faculties, and the idea 
 seemed to fit. It was agreed to with con- 
 siderable enthusiasm and we promptly cal- 
 led upon the doctor for all details of or- 
 ganization. He had particular notions 
 concerning the carrying-out of the plan, 
 and he said: 
 
 "Let us select a new name, a good Am- 
 erican name. Let us do honor to one of 
 our own writers whose work has been 
 ignored in the naming of clubs." 
 
 Immediately there was a general desire 
 that the doctor supply the name of the un- 
 remembered genius. But he replied that it 
 was best to put it off until the next meeting,
 
 174 SLUMBERING JOSEPH. 
 
 when the suggestions of all could be re- 
 ceived and acted upon. 
 
 We followed his advice and the next 
 meeting was a great success. All the lit- 
 erature we knew was carefully gone over, 
 and it was really surprising how familiar 
 we were with most of the names. Our 
 combined intelligence gave us a higher and 
 a finer appreciation of ourselves; in fact we 
 had begun to soar upon the wings of self- 
 admiration when the business of the even- 
 ing pulled us suddenly back to the earth. 
 
 What name was best? Which should we 
 select? Irving? He was promptly ob- 
 jected to because he had been overused in 
 the literary club business. Edgar Allen 
 Poe? He went down without a particle of 
 justification before the opposition of a vice- 
 president of a woman's temperance so- 
 ciety. Then Howells was mentioned, and 
 he was unjustly slaughtered in the primar- 
 ies because Mrs. Hopson said his women 
 were not satisfactory. Then Mr. Bloom 
 suggested Longfellow, but the young Hen- 
 derson girl replied that if he were chosen 
 she would not be able to think of the club 
 without repeating, "Life is real, life is 
 earnest," and that was worse than Mark 
 Twain's "Five cent fare." 
 
 "Why not Mark Twain?"
 
 SLUMBERING JOSEPH. 175 
 
 The question came from several mem- 
 bers. At first the double name was con- 
 sidered undesirable and when a Twain 
 Club was mentioned, Wilson, who thinks he 
 is a wit, quietly but promptly said that it 
 sounded like the deuce. We were getting 
 deeper and deeper when the doctor pro- 
 posed that we compromise the matter. 
 This we finally did and we called it the 
 Shakespeare Club. 
 
 When it came to the election of officers, 
 Hopson gave us a great surprise mainly 
 because he seldom talked on the trains 
 going in or coming out, and we got the im- 
 pression that he was a man who had 
 emptied too much of the fountain of youth 
 into the currents of trade. But we were 
 mistaken. 
 
 "It seems to me that there is only one 
 man for president," Hopson said rather 
 solemnly. "Our recent literature has 
 pointed the way. We have as a popular 
 hero a medical detective; we have in our 
 later novels all sorts of diagnoses, analyses 
 and clinics. And Pegasus when not gal- 
 loping over a graveyard or drawing an am- 
 bulance is capering nimbly to a doctor's 
 gig. I therefore nominate the doctor. 
 
 But while we applauded Hopson we de- 
 clined to follow his advice. Our member-
 
 176 SLUMBERING JOSEPH. 
 
 ship was almost two-thirds feminine, and 
 we left the presidency open, authorizing 
 every meeting to select its presiding officer, 
 if it wished one, and to alternate between 
 the sexes. In this way we avoided any 
 possible complication arising from the re- 
 newal of the fight for equal suffrage. 
 
 From the successful beginning of the 
 Shakespeare Club, Sunnyside Park grew in 
 sociability. Because he has a lot around 
 his house, the average suburbanite soon 
 begins to imagine that his fence encloses 
 the larger part of the world. We had be- 
 gun to be selfish, to draw ourselves into 
 our own shells. There was no general 
 purpose to bring us together. The men 
 came home at night, ate their dinners, sat 
 around and went to bed. Occasionally 
 there had been a reception and we had 
 gone to it as complainingly as boys to 
 school. Gradually there had come over us 
 a vague suspicion that suburban life was 
 not the joyous existence the real estate 
 men had pictured. The Shakespeare Club 
 came at the right moment. We began very 
 timidly, and our first proceedings consisted 
 mainly of refreshments, but in good time 
 we attacked the question of Shakespearean 
 criticism. Owing to our inexperience and 
 the individual reluctance to open the way,
 
 SLUMBERING JOSEPH. 177 
 
 we had to abandon the plan of skirmishers 
 and make a general assault. So every 
 member was ordered to present his or her 
 views on the women of the immortal bard. 
 The sketches were to be brief, in order that 
 they might be crowded into one evening. 
 We did our duty faithfully, and the pro- 
 gram started out with great promise, but 
 gradually it fagged and a feeling of despair 
 settled like a nightmare upon us. The 
 trouble was we had all pilfered from the 
 same book, and we sat there a lot of 
 crushed and self-convicted plagiarists. 
 
 We dropped literature and sought to 
 drown its memory in the dissipation of 
 cards and theatricals. The club's popular- 
 ity continued with all except Sarah Dorton 
 and John Black, who were approaching 
 matrimony in long executive sessions 
 which were disturbed once a week by the 
 club meeting. Next to the club, John and 
 Sarah were the main reliance of the Park. 
 They had expected to be married before, 
 but owing to the unlooked-for and very in- 
 opportune inconsistency of a jury in up- 
 holding a will from which John, as the 
 counsel of the plaintiff, had great hopes, 
 the date had been postponed. The match 
 met with the favor of the Park's popu- 
 lation, but it was being too long drawn out. 
 
 12
 
 178 SLUMBERING JOSEPH. 
 
 The Dorton house was the highest in the 
 place. Gradually it became a Park weak- 
 ness to regulate the night by the lone light 
 in the parlor. "John is still there" was 
 always understood. It grew so habitual 
 that some of the ladies would go to sleep 
 at early hours and wake up between eleven 
 and twelve to see if the light was burning. 
 It thus happened that John and Sarah be- 
 gan to interfere with sound slumber, and 
 certain married men contended that if the 
 nuptials were not celebrated within a rea- 
 sonable time there would be an epidemic of 
 insomnia in the Park. Worse than this, 
 however, was the effect on Mr. Dorton. 
 He was erratic, not to say mildly insane, 
 over his furnace and was of the belief that 
 if he did not attend to it the last thing 
 every night, "the whole family," to use the 
 doctor's plagiarized joke, "would wake up 
 some morning and find themselves cre- 
 mated." It was not pleasant for this mid- 
 dle-aged banker to arise after John went at 
 midnight and make a trip to the cellar, 
 even if he did regard the young man who 
 was to become his son-in-law with unusual 
 affection. John knew thi? and offered to 
 go down and fix the furnace before his 
 leave-taking, but Sarah assured him that it 
 would never do to suggest such a thing to
 
 SLUMBERING JOSEPH. 179 
 
 her father, who was greatly devoted to the 
 proprieties. 
 
 Near the end of October the Shakes- 
 peare Club met at the Addersly house, and 
 the evening was typical of our literary en- 
 tertainments. There was music, and fol- 
 lowing it were cards in which about one- 
 half of the members participated. The rest 
 of us formed in circles and gossiped. On 
 this particular evening, however, we left 
 the card-players in the library and assem- 
 bled in the parlor. As usual, the ladies 
 monopolized the conversation, and it did 
 not take long for the servant question to 
 arise in all its grim and ghastly vigor. It 
 was declared, without any attempt at con- 
 tradiction, that the tariff and the silver and 
 all other such issues, then uppermost in 
 the heated political campaign, were trifles 
 compared to the servant question. 
 
 "Why, I hear the men saying they have 
 too many changes in politics, too many 
 elections, and all that sort of thing. They 
 say one President in four years is too 
 much, and getting a new Congress every 
 two years is a nuisance. The reformers, 
 the ah, what do you call them? wig- 
 wams?" appealed Mrs. Addersly to Henry 
 Wilson. 
 
 "Perhaps you mean mugwumps."
 
 I8o SLUMBERING JOSEPH. 
 
 "Thank you. Those mugwumps I read 
 all about it in the papers, you know say 
 please, Mr. Wilson, what do you call this 
 turning around of people who have places 
 in politics?" she asked again, accompany- 
 ing the question with a rotary motion of 
 her right hand. 
 
 "Rotation in office." 
 
 "They are opposed to this rotation in 
 office," Mrs. Addersly continued briskly, 
 talking swifter and becoming more elo- 
 quent all the time. "Why bless you, my 
 dears," she exclaimed in peroration, "the 
 servant question is a million times worse 
 than rotation in office it's perpetual mo- 
 tion. I've had six new ones in five weeks, 
 and / know." 
 
 "Here is an idea," said Wilson. "Most 
 of our trouble comes from the furnaces. 
 The girls from the city won't bother with 
 them, not only because they dislike it, but 
 because they think it's a man's work, and 
 that they ought not to be called upon to 
 perform it. Now, we can't each afford to 
 hire a man, because the furnace itself is ex- 
 pense enough, but by sharing the cost I 
 do not see why we cannot do it easily. In 
 other words, co-operate?" 
 
 "I am in favor of that," said Mrs. Dor- 
 ton innocently but positively, and when
 
 SLUMBERING JOSEPH. l8l 
 
 everybody laughed she thought a moment 
 and then she laughed too. 
 
 If the Shakespeare Club had done noth- 
 ing else for Sunnyside Park, this service 
 alone would have doubly justified its exist- 
 ence. The Park is composed of two set- 
 tlements, one on the lower avenue and the 
 other further up on the hill, a good walk- 
 ing distance from the former. Six of the 
 houses were scattered in the upper settle- 
 ment, and these six families met in solemn 
 conclave and determined to try co-opera- 
 tion as a solution of the furnace question. 
 
 Everything was ready except the man, 
 but when there is a need there is someone 
 to fill it. Out of the doubt Joseph came. 
 Whence he came or how he came, no one 
 knew. Our only knowledge was that he 
 appeared. He had heard we wanted a man 
 to attend furnaces. He respectfully applied 
 for the place. Hopson argued it out in this 
 irregular manner: The Shakespeare Club 
 was responsible for Joseph; the Shakes- 
 peare Club came from the doctor's idea 
 about flocking; and the doctor's idea about 
 flocking came from an egg: therefore Jos- 
 eph was ab ovo. He was past middle age, 
 with a deep black, solemn face, and with a 
 certain manly dignity, in spite of his stoop- 
 ing shoulders and his curious legs. His
 
 182 SLUMBERING JOSEPH. 
 
 language was so unnaturally stilted that we 
 first questioned his mental soundness, but 
 when the doctor said that big words and 
 big linen dusters and big pills were three 
 failings of the negro race, we accepted the 
 explanation and admitted Joseph to our re- 
 spect. When asked what pay he expected, 
 Joseph replied: 
 
 "With your kind permission, I'll accept 
 the customary rememberation for employ- 
 ment of that char-ract-ter." When we in- 
 sisted that he name a figure, he replied: 
 "I'll be pleased to accommerdate my pre- 
 dilections to your circumferences." Fin- 
 ally, we offered him a dollar a week each, 
 or six dollars in all, extremely good wages 
 for a man of his class. 
 
 He was reticent about his home, but said 
 in a general way that he resided out in the 
 country near the "elected cars." 
 
 Joseph was taken in hand by Mr. Dor- 
 ton, who was the furnace expert of the 
 Park, and was diligently trained. When 
 Mr. Dorton announced that he would be 
 willing to trust his furnace to Joseph's 
 management, we were at first incredulous, 
 and then glad. Most of us remained up an 
 hour later that night congratulating our- 
 selves on this good fortune. 
 
 Nor were our expectations vain. Joseph 
 was a blessing. He doubled the comfort
 
 SLUMBERING JOSEPH. 183 
 
 and cheerfulness of the Park. Not only 
 did he attend to the furnaces perfectly, but 
 he became the factor that regulated our hap- 
 piness. There were no more late break- 
 fasts or cold houses, and we had hot water 
 for our bath tubs. He came before six 
 and started the drafts. By seven there was 
 a glow in each of the six houses. He be- 
 came the herald of the morning, crying out 
 gossip and pious philosophy in the dawn. 
 As a result, the cooks were always up to 
 greet him, and his thin, penetrating voice 
 often drifted into the second-story where 
 we were lazily recognizing the necessity of 
 meeting the duties of another day. 
 
 "They say the most unsartin thing is a 
 cat," he declared one morning. "You set 
 it down and you can't tell which-a-way it 
 will jump. But the most unsartin thing is 
 a day. You kin never tell how it's agoin 
 to come out. I say to you, sister, as a 
 lowly member of the Church of Zion, dat 
 we'd all better be layin' up treasures in 
 heaven, where the moth of dis world will 
 not break in and corrupt." He paused a 
 moment, and then he went on more sol- 
 emnly than ever. "Sometimes it appears 
 to me dis life desembles one of these fine 
 new furnaces of the which I am the super- 
 intendent and manager. It's mighty purty
 
 184 SLUMBERING JOSEPH. 
 
 when it starts out clean inside, shiny on 
 the kiver, drafts all on and a plenty of nice 
 new coal; little slow at first, but a burnin' 
 faster an' faster, and gitten hotter and hot- 
 ter and sendin' nice warm air all through 
 the house and makin' joy all 'round; but 
 bime-by the blue flame gits white, black 
 coal turns to ashes; grates chock up with 
 clinkers, and where is the heat then? All 
 burned out. Jest like life jest like life. 
 And ole Mr. Shakespeare could a writ a 
 whole book on it." 
 
 Gradually the Shakespeare Club occupied 
 itself more and more with chronicling the 
 curious mistakes and elaborate views of 
 Joseph. We found ourselves waking in the 
 morning in the hope of catching something 
 new from his sunrise conversations. Wil- 
 son finally said that between the sitting up 
 of John Black and Sarah Dorton and the 
 waking up to hear Joseph, an epidemic of 
 insomnia was absolutely certain. 
 
 "What in heaven's name does that negro 
 know about Shakespeare?" we asked; and 
 before we could solve the mystery something 
 happened. A burglary not far from our place 
 caused a general purchase of firearms. One 
 morning, about five o'clock, Hopson heard 
 a person trying to effect an entrance into 
 his house. Without pausing to investigate,
 
 SLUMBERING JOSEPH. 185 
 
 he began to fire in the direction of the 
 noise. The man made a dash for the next 
 house, and another volley sent him on to 
 the third, by which time the Park was 
 aroused and new pistols were being tried 
 by their owners. Finally the man was 
 heard running through the lower field, and 
 afterwards there was silence. We had to 
 attend to our own furnaces that morning, 
 and we felt like dealing rashly with Hop- 
 son. His claim, that as Joseph was an 
 hour ahead of time the mistake was nat- 
 ural, did not entirely remove our sense of 
 wrong. Later in the day the following 
 note was received and circulated: 
 
 Gentlemen, Mr. Hopson, Sir: Kindly in- 
 form the gentlemen of your place that a dollar 
 a week do not include bein' shot at. I know 
 I were a little early, but hereafter you needn't 
 look for me till daybreak. 
 
 Respectfully, JOSEPH MACBETH. 
 
 P. S. 'Tis a vile thing to die, my gracious 
 
 lord, 
 
 When men are unprepared and look not 
 for it. Shakespeare. 
 
 It was the first time we knew his last 
 name. Its inappropriateness soon ap- 
 peared; for this Macbeth did not murder 
 sleep. He acquired a habit of slumbering
 
 l86 SLUMBERING JOSEPH. 
 
 at his work. We found that he carried a 
 volume of Shakespeare, and when he and 
 Shakespeare were left together he soon 
 nodded. 
 
 The Shakespeare Club felt itself in honor 
 bound to solve the mystery of Joseph's 
 book. He did not want to tell us at first, 
 but finally he confessed that it was given 
 him in return for five coupons. Anybody 
 using five bottles of Dr. Quack's "Conser- 
 vator of Health" and sending on the cou- 
 pons would receive any one of more than 
 a hundred of the classics of literature. "I 
 took this," Joseph explained, "because it 
 had the most pages, and I'd heard our 
 preacher mention the gentleman's name." 
 
 "What do you think of Shakespeare?" 
 
 "I went to a circus onct," he replied, 
 "and saw a man pile more things than you 
 kin git in a two-horse cart on top of one- 
 another and keep 'em balanced. Seems to me 
 Mr. Shakespeare's mostly as wonderful as 
 that man was. He kin pile more big words 
 on top of each other and tangle 'em more'n 
 anybody I ever read after and the more 
 they try to git away the more he holds 'em. 
 And he's down on doctors he's down on 
 doctors, and I like him for that." 
 
 It seemed that someone was ill at Jos- 
 eph's house. At first he reported it to be
 
 SLUMBERING JOSEPH. 187 
 
 a case of "ommonia," but he afterwards 
 pronounced it a mild case of "remission fe- 
 ver." His ability to mispronounce dis- 
 eases became a source of unending mirth 
 to the club. Wilson declared that he had 
 heard him call general debility "promis- 
 cuous devility," and nervous prostration, 
 "nervous consternation," but while Mr. 
 Wilson never lied he had a very industri- 
 ous fancy. Rheumatism of course became 
 "rheumatics" it generally does with ne- 
 groes and one of Joseph's favorite ail- 
 ments was a "delectation of the heart." It 
 ran through all the grades of elaborate 
 mispronunciation, culminating in a ver- 
 sion of inflammation of the tonsils that 
 went beyond credulity. 
 
 In the midst of our hilarity came a great 
 shock. Joseph was found asleep at his 
 post. The Dorton house was so arranged 
 that the building proper was independent 
 of the cellar. Joseph had a key to the cel- 
 lar-door, and came and went without inter- 
 ference with anyone. John Black had 
 quickly grasped the possibilities of the ar- 
 rangement, and had contracted with Jos- 
 eph at a consideration of an extra dollar a 
 week to remain in the cellar and attend to 
 the furnace after his call was over. For a 
 while all went well, but one cold December
 
 l88 SLUMBERING JOSEPH. 
 
 night, Joseph fell asleep and awoke to find 
 the fuel burned out, the furnace cold, and 
 Mr. Dorton standing angrily over him. He 
 opened his eyes, looked wildly at the day- 
 light coming through the cellar window, 
 and, muttering what seemed to be words of 
 apology and alarm, walked to the step, lift- 
 ed the door and hastened in a straight line 
 across the field. We all had to attend to 
 our own fires that morning, and when we 
 found out the cause our indignation was 
 promptly concentrated upon the head of 
 John Black. 
 
 That night we had to look to our fur- 
 naces again, and we spent the evening 
 regretting Joseph and abusing John 
 Black. All at once our happiness had 
 gone under a cloud. 
 
 "Strange how much depends upon one 
 man sometimes, and he only getting six 
 dollars a week," said Mary. 
 
 "Seven," I replied. 
 
 "Oh, yes; John the villain!" 
 
 We looked, for the next morning with 
 anxiety. Would Joseph return? The Wil- 
 son rooster the Cochin-China which Wil- 
 son boasts so much of mistook the moon- 
 light for dawn and crowed us into error. 
 But we kept still and waited. Five o'clock 
 struck. Tick! tick! tick! Half-past five
 
 SLUMBERING JOSEPH. 189 
 
 what was that noise! A steady tread on 
 the frozen road. Nearer and nearer it 
 came. We heard the click of the key in the 
 cellar lock. Joy unspeakable! It was 
 Joseph. 
 
 By the time he emerged from the cellar, 
 Eliza, our cook, was on the back porch 
 with her morning greeting. 
 
 Joseph was very humble. "I would be 
 deeply obligated, Miss Eliza," he said, "if 
 you would signify to the gentleman and 
 lady that I was overcome with a spell of 
 the dropsy. When I am in that condition 
 I jest naturally slumber. It appears to me 
 my eyelids is so asphyxiated that they 
 won't separate." This apology delivered 
 to the cook of each of the six houses led to 
 the name of Slumbering Joseph. 
 
 After that Joseph had other fits of slum- 
 bering. He became more irregular in his 
 work. He talked to the cooks of symp- 
 toms, and spoke medical terms with learn- 
 ed gravity. He developed a mania for pat- 
 ent medicine almanacs and carefully cut 
 patent medicine advertisements from the 
 newspapers. A meeting of the Shakespeare 
 Club gathered together many of his lin- 
 gual eccentricities. Wilson's report was 
 probably the most interesting, although 
 possibly not the most reliable. According 
 to his account, Joseph spoke as follows:
 
 IQO SLUMBERING JOSEPH. 
 
 "There are three unsartain things in this 
 world: viz, namely: A cat is unsartain, a 
 day is unsartain, but the most unsartain 
 thing is ailments. Here are treatises giv- 
 ing us information on the subject, and still 
 it's mighty hard to understand. For inci- 
 dents, here's marasmus and troubles of the 
 liver, and typhoid fever and information of 
 the throat, and mighty near two dozen 
 other epidemics, and here are the symp- 
 toms by which is meant the feelings, that 
 is to say, the convolutions and convul- 
 sions and in these symptoms I find such 
 things as a 'forlorn feeling,' 'a feeling of de- 
 pression,' 'a general desire for inactivity,' 
 'a great inclination to rest,' and 'a lack of 
 willingness to work.' Have you ever felt 
 this way, sister?" 
 
 The cook replied that she was frequently 
 tired, "which," Wilson added, "is not a 
 symptom, but a general condition," and 
 Joseph continued: "That's it perzactly, 
 All these words mean perzactly that, but 
 there is hope, sister; there is hope. One 
 bottle cures everything from stone bruise 
 to cholera morbus and the recuperation of 
 the hair." 
 
 The doctor, who lived on the lower ave- 
 nue, and who undoubtedly had a jealous 
 feeling in regard to our experiment in co-
 
 SLUMBERING JOSEPH. IQI 
 
 operation, spoke up: "The man's crazy on 
 nostrums, and before you know it he'll 
 have all your servants ruining themselves 
 with patent medicines. You had better 
 speak to him about it." 
 
 We intended to do so, but Joseph devel- 
 oped melancholy tendencies and hinted at 
 misfortunes, which we felt without knowing 
 what they were. One day we suggested 
 to him that he call in the doctor. The 
 effect was astonishing. The whites of his 
 eyes seemed to grow into moons floating 
 through the consternation of his startled 
 countenance. "They kill," he replied 
 tremblingly, at the same time drawing an 
 almanac from his pocket. Opening this 
 well-worn pamphlet he pointed to para- 
 graphs relating to cases miraculously cured 
 after physicians had given up all hope; to 
 testimonials of people who had been ruined 
 by doctors in health and in purse and then 
 snatched from untimely graves by only two 
 bottles, and finally to the experience of a 
 man seventy-eight years old, who, thanks 
 to the efficacy of the medicine, "could jump 
 up and pop his feet together twice before 
 he touched the ground." 
 
 In some respects Joseph was a diplo- 
 matist. He thought he saw a temporary 
 advantage in the impression the book had 
 created, and he quickly followed it up:
 
 IQ2 SLUMBERING JOSEPH. 
 
 "Times is a little tight, sir; a little de- 
 tracted, sir; and maybe you might want to 
 favor the old man by permitting him to 
 draw this week's remembration in advance. 
 I'd be greatly obligated, sir." 
 
 He got the dollar. That evening he did 
 not come to fix the furnace. There was a 
 meeting of the Shakespeare Club, and we 
 discussed this second dereliction with 
 great earnestness. We still believed in him, 
 but our faith was weakened by the discov- 
 ery that he had drawn all his pay in ad- 
 vance including John Black's extra dollar. 
 The next day he did not appear. The third 
 day he was missing. We were in the depths 
 of despair. We never knew until then how 
 necessary Joseph was to our comfort. We 
 determined if possible to find him. A good 
 servant is too priceless in our vicinity to be 
 let go if any inducement can prevail. On 
 inquiry, we ascertained that a few hours 
 after his disappearance from Sunnyside, he 
 was seen on the electric car bound for the 
 city. Late at night he returned on the 
 same car. After that no one had seen or 
 known anything of him. We called on the 
 doctor and asked him if he would go with 
 us to Joseph's home. 
 
 After diligent searching, we found Jos- 
 eph's house, but there was no sign of life
 
 SLUMBERING JOSEPH. 193 
 
 around it. We pushed on through the dark 
 hall, and in another room, by the light of 
 the only window we saw Joseph leaning 
 over the bed intently gazing into the 
 wasted face of a woman, almost as black as 
 h ; was. The room was cold. He had a 
 gaunt look, but the hungriness of his face 
 was almost lost in the intensity of his gaze. 
 He seemed totally oblivious to everything 
 except the woman. 
 
 "You'll be all right soon," he said ten- 
 derly and confidently. "All right soon, 
 wife." There were no big words now. "The 
 other medicine wasn't strong enough," he 
 went on. "I thought it was, but I mistook 
 your symptoms. But this this why Sa- 
 rinda, I told you yesterday, and I tell you 
 again, I've saved and saved and got 'em 
 to pay my wages in advance, and we've 
 starved and starved jes for this, to save 
 your life. It cost twenty dollars. Its 'lec- 
 tricity, Sarinda. 'Lectricity. Here's what 
 the book says." And he read a lot of non- 
 sense about magnetism and magnetic cur- 
 rents and the compound terms familiar in 
 that sort of quackery. 
 
 "Sometimes it cures first day, sometimes 
 second day, but it's sure on the third. This 
 is the third day, Sarinda, and it must it 
 must work. Look at me, wife. Look at
 
 Ip4 SLUMBERING JOSEPH. 
 
 Joseph. Tell me you feel stronger tell 
 me " 
 
 Her eyes closed, and Joseph, in his sus- 
 pense, fell upon his knees. 
 
 He ceased praying and bent over her 
 again appealingly. 
 
 "Sarinda, the time is come. Give me a 
 sign. Lift up your hand, and look at me. 
 Look, wife, look." 
 
 Almost imperceptibly the hand moved, 
 the eyes began to unclose, but just as the 
 hand was clear of the bed and the eyes half 
 open there came a collapse. 
 
 Joseph stood for a moment as if stunned. 
 Then his poor trembling hand went hope- 
 lessly to his forehead. After a pause he 
 bent down and listened. The look of fear 
 in his face deepened into indescribable ag- 
 ony as the awful suspicion came over his 
 scattered senses. He sprang to his feet, 
 crying with a voice like the desperate roar 
 of a despairing animal: "They lied. They 
 lied. And I have gone and killed her." 
 
 When we went on into the room Joseph 
 was furiously tearing almanacs and circu- 
 lars amid cries and imprecations, and 
 around him were the fragments of the nos- 
 trum advertisments. So engrossing was 
 his fury he did not notice us, and when we 
 tried to get him into the next room we had 
 to remove him by main force.
 
 SLUMBERING JOSEPH. IQ5 
 
 When we returned, the doctor had made 
 his examination. "She is not dead," he 
 said. "She has only fainted from weakness, 
 but she is as near starvation as any person 
 I ever saw. I feel quite confident that good 
 care and proper nourishment will save 
 her." 
 
 The Shakespeare Club had tried many 
 things from taffy-pullings and progressive 
 euchre to musicales and an evening with 
 Browning, but charity had not come within 
 its experiences. We were anxious for nov- 
 elties, and the case of Joseph and Sarinda 
 appealed to us strongly, especially when we 
 learned that Joseph's slumbers and other 
 irregularities were caused by his attentions 
 at the bedside of his wife, and that in his 
 poor misguided way he had starved himself 
 as well as Sarinda in order to buy med- 
 icines in whose efficacy he had such abso- 
 lute faith. 
 
 We held a series of festivals and dona- 
 tion parties, and on the proceeds Joseph 
 and Sarinda returned speedily to health. 
 In presenting her acknowledgments, Sa- 
 rinda, who was not as intellectual as Jos- 
 eph, said: "I never was sick nohow till 
 Joe done gone crazy on sniptoms and ail- 
 ments."
 
 IQ6 SLUMBERING JOSEPH. 
 
 Sarinda is the cook for Mr. and Mrs. 
 John Black (nee Dorton) who were mar- 
 ried after John got a new trial of the will 
 case and won it, and Joseph still attends to 
 the furnaces. He does not talk as much to 
 the cooks as he formerly did, because Sa- 
 rinda, having lost faith in her husband's in- 
 fallibility, is making experiments in domes- 
 tic tyranny. 
 
 The doctor says that this is a fine illus- 
 tration of human nature, and Wilson used 
 it to aid a point in his alleged humorous 
 lecture before the Club on "The Despot- 
 ism of the Weaker Sex When It Holds 
 the Stronger Hand."
 
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