JC6
 
 1 
 

 
 White Butterflies 
 
 AND 
 
 Other Stories 
 
 BY 
 
 KATE UPSON CLARK 
 
 NEW YORK 
 J. F. TAYLOR AND COMPANY 
 
 1900
 
 Copyright, 1900 
 BY J F. TAYLOR AND COMPANY
 
 To 
 
 E. P. C. 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED 
 
 2061718
 
 Contents 
 
 WHITE BUTTERFLIES i 
 
 "RALDY" 27 
 
 THE CHARCOAL BURNERS 49 
 
 CUPID AND MINERVA 74 
 
 THE CASE OF PARSON HEWLETT 88 
 
 "FOR LOOLY" 103 
 
 TOMLIN DRESSER'S DISAPPEARANCE - - - 142 
 
 DAFFODILS 158 
 
 "SOLLY" 173 
 
 TID'S WIFE 198 
 
 "YE CHRISTMAS WITCH" 209 
 
 DIREXIA 244 
 
 LYDDY WASHBURN'S COURTSHIP - 266
 
 White Butterflies. 
 
 IT was a large, bare house the only one on the sandy 
 Pine Hill road. An air of desolation surrounded it, 
 which young Mrs. Collis Wood felt painfully, as she 
 reined up her gentle pony in front of it. Gloomy ever- 
 green forests covered the hill, and even the little open- 
 ing around the house looked dark, though the sun was 
 shining. 
 
 She knocked at the door, and a stout, middle-aged 
 woman responded. Mrs. Wood introduced herself, and 
 the woman gave her own name as "Mrs. Keasbey Mrs. 
 Thomas Keasbey" with an air of pride. 
 
 "Perhaps you may know, Mrs. Keasbey," Mrs. Wood 
 proceeded, when they were seated in the plain little par- 
 lor, "that I have a class of girls which meets every Sunday 
 afternoon in the school-house just at the foot of the hill 
 here. Some of us enjoy driving out the two miles from 
 the village, and staying there an hour then, and we hope 
 it is a good thing for this neighborhood. T have noticed, 
 when I have been driving past here, that you have a very 
 bright, pretty girl. Wouldn't she like to join my class?" 
 
 In spite of the gratified expression which the easy 
 compliment brought to Mrs. Keasbey's flabby, but not 
 uncomely face, a flush of displeasure accompanied it. 
 
 "It was our Dorilla you saw, probably," she said, with 
 a nervous little laugh, "but she's been to school a sight. 
 Mr. Keasbey and I have traveled mostly during the last 
 three or four years, and Dorilla has been in a convent 
 down South not that we're specially religious, for we 
 7
 
 8 White Butterflies. 
 
 ain't but it was a good place for her, and she liked it. 
 She took all the prizes there and she reads most of the 
 time now. She's 'most seventeen, and we think maybe 
 she's gone to school enough. She's sort o' odd, and 
 we want to get her out of the way of it." 
 
 "Then wouldn't this be a good thing for her?" urged 
 the visitor. "There are several nice girls in this neigh- 
 borhood who go there, and it would be pleasant for a 
 stranger like your Dorilla to get acquainted with them." 
 
 "N no," dissented Mrs. Keasbey. "We may not stay 
 here very long. I guess it ain't worth while." 
 
 There was a pause. Mrs. Wood felt as though she 
 were expected to go, but she decided to make another 
 attempt. 
 
 "Perhaps Dorilla would really like to come," she sug- 
 gested. "Won't you let me ask her?" 
 
 "I don't know where she is. She may be off in the 
 woods somewhere, and I can't very well leave to hunt 
 after her, for Mr. Keasbey is home now, and I've got 
 work to do. I reckon she don't care to go." 
 
 At this moment the front door opened, and Dorilla 
 herself entered. Her attire, like her mother's, was soiled 
 and tawdry, but beyond this there was little resemblance 
 between them. Dorilla was tall, and slender, and fair. 
 Her black hair was as soft as silk, and hung in a long 
 braid down her back. Her eyes were dark, and their 
 expression was almost wild, but her rather large mouth 
 and nose were well-shaped and firm, and her whole 
 bearing was quiet and pleasing. It was no wonder that 
 Mrs. Wood had observed Dorilla Keasbey, when pass- 
 ing the lonely house on Pine Hill. 
 
 "See," said the girl, smiling, as she stood in the 
 doorway.
 
 White Butterflies. 9 
 
 She held out her round arm, from which the loose 
 sleeve fell away at the elbow. Three palpitating white 
 butterflies were ranged in a row upon the delicate, blue- 
 veined flesh. A fourth was fluttering around the girl's 
 head. 
 
 "Don't!" cried the mother, with a half shriek. "Push 
 'em off, Rill! Put 'em out doors!" 
 
 "Why?" asked the girl, pulling away, as her mother 
 tried to push her. "They like me, and I like them and 
 they are the sweetest things in the world." 
 
 At this point, she saw Mrs. Wood for the first time, 
 and Mrs. Keasbey performed the necessary introductions, 
 in a reluctant manner which the daughter could not fail 
 to observe. She listened with interest to the scheme 
 which the sweet-faced visitor proposed, only breaking 
 in when the advantages of knowing the "other girls" were 
 mentioned. 
 
 "I don't think I care much about them," she said, 
 with a warm gleam in her dark eyes, "but I know I 
 should like you and I think I will go." 
 
 "You better ask your father first," her mother warned 
 her. 
 
 "I think I can manage him." 
 
 "And you may bring your butterflies with you," Mrs. 
 Wood said, smilingly. 
 
 "I always carry one," said the girl, soberly. She rolled 
 up her loose sleeve, and showed, just above her elbow, 
 a singular birthmark. It stood out white, even against 
 Dorilla's white skin and was of the general shape of the 
 common white butterfly. 
 
 "How strange!" murmured the gentle visitor. 
 
 "Yes," said the girl, "and I have always chased white 
 butterflies ever since I was born. I feed them and keep
 
 10 White Butterflies. 
 
 them in my room and I suppose I tame them and 
 make them like me in that way. But I believe they 
 would like me anyway that there is something between 
 us. Don't you think that that might be?" 
 
 "Perhaps so," replied Mrs. Wood, slowly. "At any 
 rate, it is a beautiful omen. It betokens a white soul." 
 
 "In me?" questioned the girl, half-mockingly. 
 
 "Yes, you." 
 
 "Oh, you don't know!" she murmured, bitterly. 
 
 "What did you say, Rill?" demanded her mother, sus- 
 piciously. "Take care!" 
 
 Mrs. Collis Wood felt uncomfortable, and rose to 
 depart, more interested in this strange girl than ever. 
 
 "Then you will come on- Sunday?" she said. 
 
 "No," muttered the woman, thickly. "She can't go, 
 and she knows she can't." 
 
 Dorilla said nothing until she handed the reins to Mrs. 
 Wood. Then the girl intimated that she might appear 
 at the school-house on Sunday afternoon, after all, and 
 only laughed at the rather shocked and doubtful expres- 
 sion which, at these expressions of disobedient intent, 
 appeared on her visitor's face. She drove away, with the 
 vision in her mind of Dorilla standing there in the sun- 
 light, with the delicate, white-winged things settling 
 down upon her. Beside that picture, the sordid, shack4y 
 house, with its vulgar mistress and its sinister atmos- 
 phere, sank into insignificance. 
 
 Sure enough, on the following Sunday, the girl ap- 
 peared at the school-house, and after the lesson was over 
 and the others had left, she explained to Mrs. Wood that 
 she had come without the knowledge of her parents, 
 "but," she went on, "it didn't make any difference. A 
 lot of my father's friends came from the city last night,
 
 White Butterflies 11 
 
 and we had to get a big dinner for them this noon. 
 Father does some of the cooking, and Mikey and the 
 others help. Mother doesn't like to have me spoil my 
 hands. She and my father care a great deal more about 
 keeping them white than I do and while they were eat- 
 ing, I just crept away. They think I am in the woods 
 for I go off there by myself a great deal. It's no matter, 
 anyway." 
 
 "Oh!" breathed Mrs. Wood, still somewhat dubious as 
 to the propriety of receiving Dorilla into her class un- 
 der the circumstances, and wondering why these strange 
 parents should wish to keep the girl cooped up by herself 
 on Pine Hill; but her delight in the class, her evident 
 love for her young teacher, and, as the Sundays went by, 
 and she still came, her high ethical perceptions and her 
 thrist for spiritual light, determined Mrs. Wood to let 
 things go as Dorilla wished. She said one day to her: 
 "It is just as I said, Dorilla the omen is true you have 
 a white soul. You always know what is right, and see it 
 more quickly than any of the rest of us." 
 
 Again the mocking, half-distressed look came over 
 the girl's face, and her eyes filled. 
 
 "You don't understand," she repeated, in a voice full 
 of misery. 
 
 Mrs. Wood did not call again at the house at Pine Hill, 
 but sometimes she drove past it, on the chance of catch- 
 ing a' glimpse of Dorilla. One day she had seen a man 
 there who was undoubtedly Mr. Thomas Keasbey. He 
 was short, thick-set, slovenly, yet flashy, like his wife. 
 
 Occasionally Mrs. Wood managed to get Dorilla to 
 spend an afternoon with her in the village. Then they 
 had long, affectionate talks, in which each told the other 
 of the chief events of her life, though Dorilla was rather
 
 12 White Butterflies. 
 
 provokingly reserved in her accounts. Mrs. Wood gath- 
 ered, however, that she had been born on her grand- 
 father's farm, a little way from New York City; that 
 later the family had removed to the town, where they 
 had lived above Mr. Keasbey's locksmith shop; that they 
 had had periods of prosperity, during which they had 
 traveled abroad, dressed well and had everything. These 
 had been succeeded by times of poverty. Dorilla spoke 
 most lovingly of the sisters at the convent where she 
 had been so long. "I had been sick, but I grew well 
 and strong there," she said. "Oh, I loved the convent 
 so! If I were only there now!" She burst into tears 
 as she spoke, and sobbed long and passionately. 
 
 "Don't! Don't, Dorilla!" begged her gentle hostess. 
 "You shake so and sob so, you frighten me." 
 
 "Oh, you don't know!" wept the girl. 
 
 "Don't know what? Aren't they kind to you at home?" 
 
 "Oh, yes. My father is good to me, and proud that I 
 have had some education. He somehow expects to be- 
 come rich again, and then he will make a fine lady of 
 me, he says." 
 
 As Mrs. Wood stroked the girl's silken head, she cast 
 about in her mind for threads of recollection which might 
 unravel the mystery of Dorilla's tears. She remembered 
 seeing once a pleasant-looking young man sitting be- 
 side Dorilla on the Pine Hill doorstep. She had spoken 
 often of a certain "Mikey." Could there be a love af- 
 fair at the bottom of this grief? 
 
 A few questions revealed the fact that Dorilla did, 
 indeed, cherish an affection for "Mikey," which was dis- 
 approved by her father, who said that "Mikey" had no 
 "nerve," and would never "amount" to anything. 
 
 "But he is a gentleman, through and through," Do-
 
 White Butterflies. 13 
 
 rilla concluded, with dilating eyes and blazing cheeks, 
 "and I shall never like anybody else half so much. I 
 know his name isn't pretty but neither is mine. Do- 
 rilla! It is the softest, sickest name I ever heard of. My 
 mother got it out of a novel. But I must go." Dorilla 
 had stolen away from home as usual. 
 
 "I wish they would not keep you so closely," sighed 
 Mrs. Wood. "Why do you suppose they won't let you 
 have any friends?" 
 
 The girl's eyes assumed their most unhappy and in- 
 scrutable look. 
 
 "I I don't understand it myself," she stammered. 
 "Maybe it is because we are so poor now and my father 
 wants to wait until we can live better, before we have 
 friends. Good-bye." 
 
 The girl stooped her beautiful head to receive the kiss 
 which her young teacher offered her. As she walked 
 swiftly away in the direction of Pine Hill, a white but- 
 terfly went dancing along after her. 
 
 "I wonder," speculated the happy young wife, as she 
 stood watching the fair figure of the girl, and thinking 
 of the secret just revealed, which she fancied explained 
 Dorilla's excitement, "I wonder if I am doing right in 
 asking her so much to come here and all. It seems as 
 though it couldn't be wrong. At any rate, I will think 
 about it a little longer before I make any change." 
 
 One day, late in September, Thomas Keasbey, who was 
 at home oftener now than during the summer, asked 
 Dorilla to do a strange errand, strange even to her, who 
 was accustomed to strange errands. She was expert 
 with her pencil. He wished her to visit the rooms of 
 the Woman's Exchange in the village, buy a few articles
 
 14 White Butterflies. 
 
 there, and take such notice of the rooms that she could 
 make an accurate plan of them afterward. 
 
 The Woman's Exchange rooms were situated on the 
 second and top floor of what was called "the Bank Block" 
 in the village. They were three or four in number, and 
 were under the charge of a charitable organization of 
 women, prominent among whom was Mrs. Collis Wood. 
 Preserves, sweetmeats and needle-work were sold there, 
 as in most such places. In one room there was a sort 
 of an intelligence office in another, a small public 
 library. In the summer there were a good many city 
 boarders in the vicinity, who patronized the exchange. 
 It had been well-managed, and had more than paid for 
 itself, besides aiding many poor women. 
 
 Directly underneath these rooms was the village bank, 
 one of the richest and best-conducted country banks in 
 the State. Mr. Collis Wood was the cashier. He was a 
 young man, but he had grown up in the business and 
 understood it thoroughly. He had married the daughter 
 of the bank's president. Altogether, he possessed a 
 social and business standing second to none in the place. 
 
 Through a man who had assisted in the building of 
 the bank, Thomas Keasbey had ascertained that a steel 
 ceiling just above it was topped by a layer of cement, 
 three feet in thickness. This cement was as hard as 
 marble. Weeks might be required, with the limit of avail- 
 able hours per night, and with the only tools which 
 could be used in such a case, to cut a hole through such 
 a ceiling, large enough to admit the body of a man 
 yet such a hole Mr. Keasbey proposed to make. He had 
 secured a complete plan of the bank. Now he must get 
 the exact plan of the rooms above it. His daughter, with 
 her refined face, quick eye and skillful hand, was just the
 
 White Butterflies. 15 
 
 one to do the work unsuspected if he could only get 
 her to undertake it. 
 
 It was on a Saturday afternoon that Dorilla's father 
 asked her to make herself ready to go to the village. 
 When she had her hat and gloves on, he briefly out- 
 lined her errand. 
 
 "I am thinking of putting up a block of buildings 
 myself," he concluded, with a wink at his wife. 
 
 "Then why don't you go to the people who built this, 
 and ask them for the plan?" she inquired, with the cloudy 
 look in her eyes which always came when she was deeply 
 moved. 
 
 "I can't afford it, you little goose," he answered with 
 a laugh. "They would charge me big money." 
 
 Dorilla turned; slowly walked over the hill to the vil- 
 lage; did her errand, and gave the plan to her father, hav- 
 ing finished it as soon as she was well concealed by the 
 trees on her way home; but she felt vaguely uncomfort- 
 able over what she had done, and she went back into the 
 woods, after a little, and sat there on a rock, thinking for a 
 long time. 
 
 In her thought she lived over her life again. She re- 
 membered how fondly she had adored her father before 
 she went to the convent. During the years there, she 
 had seen little of him. She had usually spent her vaca- 
 tions with the sisters, who had made a pet of her. Now 
 and then she had staid with her father and mother at 
 some hotel. The quality of these hotels had declined 
 steadily during the last two years, and Thomas Keasbey 
 had grown gloomy and irritable. Still, when he had 
 come to the convent to see her, he had brought her beau- 
 tiful presents, and at the hotels he had been fond and 
 proud of her, and she had still loved him.
 
 16 White Butterflies. 
 
 This summer, however, during the ten or twelve weeks 
 since the Keasbeys had moved into the Pine Hill house, 
 Dorilla's feelings toward her father had undergone a 
 change. He was still kind to her and to her mother, 
 when he was himself; but he often drank deeply espe- 
 cially when the five or six friends, whom he called his 
 "business partners," came out to spend the night with 
 him. Dorilla could dimly recollect such scenes far back 
 in her childhood, but she had not known them in recent 
 years, and they shocked her. Her lessons in the school- 
 house had lent a new force to moral convictions formed 
 in the convent. They and the indirect influence of Mrs. 
 Collis Wood, in those long, delightful talks which Do- 
 rilla contrived to steal now and then on a weekday, were 
 insensibly altering the whole current of the girl's 
 thoughts. The squalor and confusion of the shackly 
 house on Pine Hill annoyed and chafed upon her more 
 and more. The atmosphere of tobacco smoke and rum 
 which ; filled it when the "friends" had been there nau- 
 seated and disgusted her. Her quick intuition led her to 
 believe that her father's "business" was not strictly legiti- 
 mate. The awful truth was only just beginning to dawn 
 upon her, but all summer, since she had come away from 
 the convent in early June, she had felt that matters were 
 not right. The drunken carousals, the oaths and allu- 
 sions to crime which her father always tried to stop in 
 her presence all of the circumstances which surrounded 
 her, distressed and mystified her. Mrs. Collis Wood often 
 felt as though the girl had in her an element of the super- 
 natural; but to Dorilla herself this element seemed even 
 stronger. She felt like two people. She could not realize 
 that she was the same girl who had chased the white 
 butterflies in the convent garden, studied her lessons in
 
 White Butterflies. IT 
 
 the quiet school-room, and built her fondest hopes on the 
 winning of first medals. Now there was this awful secrecy 
 these coarse men coming to the house at night al- 
 ways by night the constant injunctions to her to repeat 
 nothing which she heard said to make no acquaintances 
 these expectations of wealth in the near future and 
 then there was Mikey, with his handsome face, the love 
 which he had declared for her and which she herself 
 saw no harm in returning and yet to which her father 
 was so unalterably opposed. It was all so deeply con- 
 fusing and bewildering that it seemed to her like a 
 horrible nightmare. 
 
 That Saturday night, five of the "friends" had, come 
 for Sunday, and there was a great supper to clear away. 
 TJorilla wiped the dishes in the kitchen for her mother, 
 saying little or nothing. Then they both sat down for a 
 moment on the cool back steps. Presently Mrs. Keas- 
 bey spoke chidingly. 
 
 "What was you whispering and talking so with Mikey 
 for, Rilla? You know " 
 
 "Yes, I know," interrupted Dorilla, impatiently. "I'm 
 tired of hearing about it. I wish you would never men- 
 tion Mikey to me again." 
 
 Mrs. Keasbey fumed and fretted on weakly, but the 
 girl made no further reply. Suddenly a great white moth 
 came fluttering down out of the darkness and settled 
 upon her ruffled hair, swaying his velvet wings back and 
 forth. The mother started as she saw it. 
 
 "Where did that come from, Dorilla?" 
 
 "Where they always come from when I'm around," 
 laughed the girl, with a little note of triumph in her voice. 
 
 Mrs. Keasbey got up and went into the house. She 
 was half afraid of Dorilla when she was in this mood.
 
 18 White Butterflies. 
 
 v 
 
 Two terrible weeks followed. The men remained at 
 the house all the time, sleeping by day and roaming 
 abroad by night. Two or three times the girl questioned 
 her mother, but Mrs. Keasbey either answered nothing at 
 all, or in meaningless general terms. The housework, 
 even when performed after that lady's easy methods, was 
 a heavy burden, though the men attempted to help, and 
 one of them, who was a baker by trade, rendered con- 
 siderable assistance. They drank more than usual, and 
 Mr. Keasbey was taciturn and morose. Even Mikey was 
 nervous, and drank too much. Dorilla could not get away 
 on Sunday for the class at the school-house, nor any 
 visit with her teacher during the week. She was in- 
 wardly excited to the highest pitch. It seemed as though 
 she must go crazy. 
 
 On a certain Friday night the crisis came. For two 
 weeks, every evening, Thomas Keasbey and his men, 
 gathering singly, from different directions and at different 
 hours, had effected, by means of skeleton keys and other 
 simple tools, an entrance into the room which lay above 
 the vault of the bank. They had raised the carpet there, 
 removed some planks, and bored into the adamant ce- 
 ment below them. By cautious and persistent labor, they 
 had now hewn out a jagged hole in it, large enough to 
 admit them, one by one, into the bank below. The steel 
 ceiling had been partially drilled through. Every night, 
 the dust and fragments had been neatly swept into bags, 
 the planks and carpet had been replaced, the doors and 
 windows had been securely relocked, and the great bur- 
 glary had been a little nearer its consummation and 
 Thomas Keasbey had as yet no reason to fear that the 
 slightest suspicion had fastened upon their movements. 
 
 That day the men slept long and soundly. It was
 
 White Butterflies. 19 
 
 after six when they assembled for their evening meal. 
 The October night was warm and close, but they dared 
 not have a curtain up nor a window open. Dorilla and 
 her mother waited on them in silence. The men were 
 nervous and thirsty, but Thomas Keasbey would not let 
 them drink much. 
 
 "We want clear heads to-night, boys," he said. "Do- 
 rilla, fill the glasses once out of this bottle. When we 
 get back, maybe we'll have a little more." 
 
 They did not sit long at the table, and Mrs. Keasbey 
 and Dorilla, assisted by Mikey, cleared up after them in a. 
 few minutes. Mikey was very gentle that night. Even 
 Mrs. Keasbey, who was always "short" with him, in 
 spite of his solicitous efforts to please her, could not 
 help softening a little when she saw how deft and kind 
 he was; but when she marked the glances which passed 
 between him and Dorilla, her anger rose again. 
 
 "It will take more than Thomas Keasbey to part those 
 two," she mused. But in her soul she felt sure, after all, 
 that the iron will of her husband would effect his pur- 
 pose. It did not seem to her that anything could be 
 stronger than he. 
 
 Mikey at last joined the men in the parlor, into which 
 the door stood open. Dorilla could hear that the talking 
 which was going on there was excited, though it was 
 subdued in tone. 
 
 Mrs. Keasbey declared that she was so tired she 
 couldn't sit up a moment longer, and pottered off to her 
 room upstairs. It was only nine o'clock, but she recom- 
 mended that Dorilla should go to bed also. The girl 
 obediently followed up the stairs, and shut the door of her 
 room behind her. She heard her mother moving about on 
 the other side of the partition. Then all was silent there,
 
 20 White Butterflies. 
 
 but Dorilla herself made no preparations to retire for 
 the night. Instead, she sat by the open window, gazing 
 into the warm darkness, and listening to the rustling of 
 the pines. After awhile she went out and sat on the stair- 
 way. 
 
 Thomas Keasbey had heard his wife and daughter de- 
 part for their rooms, and he supposed that by this time 
 they were sound asleep. He was therefore talking un- 
 reservedly with the men in the parlor. Dorilla could 
 hear almost every word which was said there. She heard 
 directions given for the use of the explosives by means 
 of which the bank safe was to be blown open, and what 
 was to be done with the booty, when the job was com- 
 pleted and the smoke had cleared away. Then words 
 fell from Mikey which made her blood run cold : 
 
 "The cashier sleeps there now, while all this money 
 is there, as well as the watchman. We can manage the 
 watchman well enough, but two of them won't be so 
 easy and the cashier is likely to be an ugly customer 
 that Wood. They say he isn't afraid of the devil him- 
 self." 
 
 "Mike, you're a fool!" Dorilla heard Thomas 
 
 Keasbey rejoin fiercely. "What's that bottle of chloro- 
 form for? There's enough of it for four men, and it's 
 to use. Then there is that coil of rope, and you ought 
 to have three or four good gags in your pockets, every 
 one of you. Tie his hands and eyes as quick as you can 
 and don't ask again what you will do with any man who 
 gets in our way." 
 
 Dorilla heard allusions which showed her plainly what 
 use had been made of her drawings. The whole terrible 
 plot stood revealed to her in all its ghastliness. She re- 
 proached herself for a fool that she had not understood it
 
 White Butterflies. 21 
 
 from the first. Struck with a paralysis of horror, she 
 sat on the stairway, as though she should never move 
 again. 
 
 When the men began to push their chairs about on 
 the bare parlor floor, however, she rose and fled softly 
 into her room, closing the door and locking it behind 
 her. Then she flung herself on her bed and wept wildly, 
 wringing her hands and asking herself what she 
 should do. 
 
 She heard the clock strike twelve. There was a sound 
 of doors and windows opening and shutting. Then she 
 heard the men tramping off. Hoarse voices uttered a 
 few words under her window. She knew that the last 
 details of the elaborate plot were now arranged. Then 
 there was a dead silence. The very pines seemed to wait 
 and listen. 
 
 Once she sprang up, determined to fly to the village 
 and arouse her 'friend. She would tell Mrs. Wood of 
 the danger that threatened her husband and the bank. 
 Then they could go together and drive the men away. 
 The next day, the hole which had been made through the 
 ceiling could be filled up, and the Keasbeys and Mikey 
 and the rest could vanish quietly from the place. 
 
 Thus reasoned the child within her, but the woman 
 there laughed aloud at such silliness. "It would mean 
 the whole town awake and excited," said the wiser men- 
 tor. "It would mean twenty years in prison, perhaps, for 
 your father and for Mikey." 
 
 As she lay upon her bed, clutching the counterpane, 
 and shuddering and groaning aloud, her father's kind- 
 ness to her through all her life passed like a panorama 
 before her. His old tenderness and goodness blotted
 
 22 White Butterflies. 
 
 out for a moment all his sternness and all the vices which 
 had made her love him less this summer. 
 
 "It is for my sake that he is risking his life and his free- 
 dom to-night," she wept. "He wants to make a lady of 
 me." 
 
 It seemed as though real and sinewy hands caught her 
 heart between them and compressed it until it ached. She 
 could hardly breathe. She rushed to the window for air. 
 
 "And Mikey!" she panted. "I couldn't give up Mikey! 
 I don't so much mind the others. They are bad, through 
 and through. But my father isn't. Anyway, he has al- 
 ways been good to me. And Mikey is good. That is 
 what my father meant when he said that Mikey hadn't 
 any nerve. Mikey said he was going to get into some 
 sort of 'regular' business. I know now what he meant. 
 He knows that I could never bear to have him doing 
 things like this. He understands me. If he only gets 
 along right to-night, he will turn over a new leaf, and 
 become an honest man and father, too." 
 
 Then she thought of the sisters at the convent, and 
 their peaceful, virtuous lives. If they had quarrels or 
 troubles, they had never let her know it. She imagined 
 their dismay if they should learn that her father was a 
 burglar. 
 
 She thought, too, of Mrs. Collis Wood. Her beauti- 
 ful, innocent face seemed to rise out of the shadows and 
 confront the girl only an arm's length away, and her 
 eyes were brimming with reproachful tears. 
 
 "I loved you. I trusted you," the sweet mouth seemed 
 to say, "and how have you rewarded me? I did every- 
 thing in my power for you. I would have done more 
 if you would have let me and yet you have given over 
 the one I love best to robbers perhaps to murderers.
 
 White Butterflies. 23 
 
 You have let thieves steal my property, and that of many 
 other blameless people. Is this right?" 
 
 On the moment, the girl heard a fluttering in the dark- 
 ness. Black as it was, she could dimly discern in it the 
 shape of the great white moth, which had come to her 
 when she had sat with her mother on the kitchen steps. 
 She had kept it in her room, and had fed it ever since. 
 Now it had flown away. She had never known one to fly 
 away from her before. The superstition which had been 
 bred in her by her sequestered life, and by the singular pe- 
 culiarity which marked her, awoke with a passionate fer- 
 vor. 
 
 "Come back!" she cried, with a shriek, which she in- 
 stantly regretted, for she feared that it might have awak- 
 ened her mother but the moth had gone. She could 
 hear its great wings beating the darkness, just beyond 
 her reach. 
 
 "I must do it! It is right!" she murmured, over and 
 over again. She ran into the hall, and listened at her 
 mother's door. Mrs. Keasbey was breathing hard, and 
 had evidently heard nothing. Dorilla envied her mother 
 the power to sleep at such a time. Then the girl took 
 off her shoes, weeping bitterly, but with unfaltering move- 
 ments carrying out her determination. As she crept into 
 the shadows of the forest and stooped to refasten her 
 shoes, something brushed the air beside her. It was a 
 great white moth. She felt sure that it was the one which 
 had left her. Before she had risen, it had settled and was 
 swaying upon the loose ringlets above her forehead. 
 ******* 
 
 Two hours later, she was lying, more dead than alive, 
 upon the lace-covered bed of Mrs. Collis Wood. A serv- 
 ing woman stood over her, fanning her. There was a
 
 24 White Butterflies. 
 
 sudden rush of garments. White and startled, much as 
 she had seen it in her vision on the hill, the face of her 
 young teacher looked into Dorilla's. 
 
 "Can you bear it, Dorilla? Oh, I wonder if I ought to 
 tell you! You must know it soon, but are you strong 
 enough to bear it now?" 
 
 The girl nodded. All the fierceness and selfishness of 
 her nature seemed gone. She was melted down to utter 
 tenderness. 
 
 "My husband has been brought home. He is uncon- 
 scious, but the doctor says that he will be all right before 
 long and you have saved his life!" 
 
 She could not go on for the tears which choked her. 
 
 "Well?" said Dorilla, raising herself on her elbow. Her 
 voice showed that her nerves were strained to the last 
 pitch of endurance. 
 
 "But your father you know there was a hand-to-hand 
 fight between his men and ours and he was hurt, but 
 not seriously. He will have to, oh, my poor Dorilla! he 
 will probably have to serve a long term in prison. And 
 and nobody was shot but one he was shot dead the 
 one you called Mikey." 
 
 Dorilla fell back on the bed. She had heard now all 
 that she wanted to know. 
 
 Presently she sprang up and began with quivering 
 hands to arrange her dress. 
 
 "You better lie still," the serving-woman warned her. 
 "You don't look as if you'd oughter stand up. You'll 
 faint away, first you know." 
 
 "Dorilla!" cried Mrs. Collis Wood, throwing her arms 
 around the white and agitated girl, "don't think of leav- 
 ing me! You are going to live always with me now!" 
 . "I^p," said Dorilla, with the old dark look flashing
 
 White Butterflies. 25 
 
 from her wild eyes. "I love you, and I always shall but 
 I can't live in the world any more. Don't you see? My 
 heart is broken. I am young, I know and you think 
 I can get over things but I can't. I have tried to do 
 right, as you told me and it has broken my heart." 
 
 "But you are needed in the world! We need women 
 like you brave and unselfish, and with quick minds to 
 plan and do." 
 
 "No, I can't stand it," insisted the girl, wearily, but with 
 a trace of her old fire. "I will go and get my mother. 
 They will take us both there at the convent. Just help 
 me to get back to the convent. It will be the kindest thing 
 you can do for me. I want to live there always with the 
 sisters. You don't believe in masses for souls, or prayers 
 for the dead but don't you see I've got to? That's what 
 I shall do now offer them all the rest of my life for " 
 she stopped, and the strained look gave way on her face, 
 "I tell you my heart is broken." 
 
 She threw her arms around her friend, and they wept 
 together. 
 ******* 
 
 When they had bound up Thomas Keasbey's wounds 
 and led him away, it was broad daylight. His head was 
 bandaged, and he had one arm in a sling, but he could 
 see, and his mind was perfectly clear. Ever since the first 
 onslaught of the constables upon them, he had been 
 casting about for some explanation of the failure of the 
 plans upon which he had expended his best thought for 
 many months. He could not devise any. 
 
 The cashier's house was only a few doors away from the 
 bank. As, held between two of his captors, Thomas 
 Keasbey shuffled along past this house, he glanced down- 
 ward. There lay a great white moth, trampled and dead.
 
 26 White Butterflies. 
 
 He shook himself free for an instant, and with his sound 
 arm picked up the soiled, exquisite thing. Then he 
 turned furiously to the man beside him. 
 
 "It was a girl that gave us away, I reckon, wasn't it?" 
 The man hesitated a moment. Then he said: "Yes."
 
 "Raldy." 
 
 A STORY OF THE WISCONSIN RIVER. 
 
 "A A 7 HAT ' LL the y do? " 
 
 V y "I'm sure I don't know." 
 
 "Sim won't work, and they're poor as 
 poverty. It's a year since the wife died, and now the old 
 mother's gone. She brought in the pennies right smart." 
 
 "There he is now." 
 
 The two women stopped their whispering as the tall, 
 loosely-built figure of Sim Peebles came shambling along 
 the ragged street of "Dearborn City." 
 
 A look of unmistakable affliction rested upon his weak 
 but handsome face, and a rag of black stuff was tied 
 decently about his shabby hat. Two children, little more 
 than infants, came running to meet him from the low but 
 fierce-fronted house, into which he finally entered with 
 them, and then the two women went on with their inter- 
 rupted conversation. 
 
 "Who's a-doin' things for them, anyhow? Who fixed 
 her?" 
 
 "Him, I guess." 
 
 "Then he's smarter than I ever give him credit for." 
 
 A young woman who was walking hastily along the 
 street had come close upon them while they were en- 
 gaged in watching Sim Peebles, and had overheard these 
 latter remarks of that gentleman's critics. She was above 
 the medium height, and of a large and imposing figure, 
 though far from graceful. Her large hands swung almost 
 27
 
 28 White Butterflies. 
 
 fiercely as she walked, and her tread was hard and mascu- 
 line. With a mouth and chin handsomely and firmly 
 though somewhat coarsely moulded, her broad and pro- 
 jecting forehead, and brilliant, fearless blue eyes, added to 
 the heavy braids of flaxen hair which were wound neatly 
 about her head, made her face striking, and even comely. 
 The women turned with a start as they saw her, and 
 realized that she had overheard them. Geralda, or, as she 
 was commonly known, "Raldy," Scott was evidently a 
 woman of whose opinion they stood somewhat in awe. 
 
 "You didn't offer to help Sim Peebles yesterday," 
 Raldy Scott said disdainfully, pausing a moment in her 
 hurried walk. "He was alone there with that dead 
 woman and those little children, and yet you, his neigh- 
 bors, women with husbands and children of your own, 
 never offered to help him. You ought to be ashamed 
 of yourselves," she continued, her eyes flashing, and her 
 language, which had been much better than that of her 
 slatternly neighbors, taking on in her excitement more of 
 their peculiar Western twang. "And here, instead of 
 walking up to his door and saying, 'Sim, can't we help 
 you in your trouble?' you are standing in the street out- 
 side, wondering 'Who'll help him?' Raldy Scott despises 
 lazy, shiftless Sim Peebles as much as you do; but she 
 washed and dressed his dead mother for him, she fed his 
 children, and, not being quite a brute, she proposes to 
 take care of them till Sim Peebles can get somebody else. 
 He swam in, when the Dells were full of ice, and got my 
 father's body, so that his daughters could bury him de- 
 cently, and Mart and I don't forget it." 
 
 Raldy Scott swung along, leaving her listeners 
 half-stunned with her scathing rebuke.
 
 Raldy." 29 
 
 "Humph!" said one of them sullenly; "mebbe Raldy 
 Scott can't always carry things so high." 
 
 "But the men'll always stand up for her," said the other 
 one dejectedly. "They think she's pow'rful smart because 
 she's made two or three trips up in the pines and down 
 on the rafts with the men. It must 'a' ben since you 
 come here that she come back the last time with her 
 drunken old father. She sorter looked after him, I 
 reckon. He had fine airy ways, he had, and nothing but a 
 tipsy Irishman, after all; and she with breeches and coat 
 on, jest like the men. Oh," spitefully, "she ain't partick- 
 eler, Raldy Scott ain't; can swim and pole a raft with any 
 man in the Dells any day. Only since old Roy Scott died 
 she dresses like the rest of us. Her sister Mart's goin' to 
 get married. Likely she wants to, too"; and the two 
 women laughed viperishly. 
 
 "Perhaps she'll get Sim Peebles," said the other, as 
 they parted; "he's ben a likely young widower some time 
 now," and they laughed a coarse, hateful laugh as they 
 went to their homes. 
 
 The two or three scores of houses, many of them built 
 of logs, which formed the homely, straggling street of 
 Dearborn City, were inhabited almost wholly by lumber- 
 men. During a large part of the year these men were 
 away from their families, cutting wood in the pines; but 
 when the ice began to break, and the great spring flood 
 of the majestic Wisconsin rolled down from the north, 
 they massed their logs into rafts, and came floating down 
 the river to their homes. The village had been planted 
 in the midst of the forest, and from many of* its houses 
 were visible the high red walls of the river, as it shot 
 through its wonderful Dells, and the roar of its torrent 
 rose upon their hearing perpetually. Just below the site
 
 so White Butterflies. 
 
 of the village there was a break in the high red sandstone 
 which lined the river for miles with occasional rifts like 
 this one and here, when the current would permit, the 
 rafts paused in the spring long enough for those to land 
 who were not absolutely necessary to conduct the un- 
 wieldy argosies to the distant Mississippi. If the current 
 were too strong for the rafts to stop, as was generally the 
 case, the men sprang into the boiling rapids and swam 
 ashore. Many a life, even of experienced river pilots, 
 had been lost in the attempt, and it was in this way that 
 Roy Scott had perished. 
 
 He had indeed been an Irishman, and a dissipated one, 
 but he had belonged to a wealthy and honorable family. 
 He squandered his patrimony early in life, however, emi- 
 grated to the New World, and pushed into the wilds of 
 what was then the farthest West. There he became en- 
 amored of the exciting life of the lumbermen of the 
 Wisconsin, entered into it, met and married a quiet Swede 
 girl, the daughter of one of his hardy comrades, and from 
 their strange union had sprung the gentle Martha and the 
 large-featured, fair-haired Geralda, whose Northern 
 phlegm and endurance were united with the quick wit 
 and intense passion of her Irish ancestors. 
 
 Geralda Scott clung to the memory of her father with 
 an almost sublime devotion. His varied knowledge, a 
 certain bluff polish of manner which his wild and roving 
 life had never entirely obliterated, and his feats of 
 strength and bravery, which were many and remarkable, 
 she loved to dwell upon. From the upper windows of the 
 rude, high-fronted "shanty" in which she and her sister 
 lived, they could see plainly, some fifty feet below the top 
 of the red rock which bound the river, and a full two
 
 Raldy." si 
 
 hundred above the swirling rapids, the legend, in bold 
 white letters: 
 
 LEROY TALBOT SCOTT, 
 
 RIVER PILOT. 
 1843- 
 
 The girl never saw this without a secret thrill, for her 
 father, years before she was bor-n, had climbed unaided up 
 the beetling crag, and had hung by one hand between 
 heaven and earth while he had written it. 
 
 "Humph, Mart Scott!" she had said, sharply, to her 
 quiet and unimpassioned sister, "what are you made of 
 that you can hear these things, and yet sit there like a 
 block?" 
 
 But Martha, with her pale Northern face and stolid 
 Swede manner, cared more for the stout young pilot who 
 was going to marry her than for all the stories of her 
 reckless father's exploits. To her, whose frame was less 
 robust than Geralda's, and who had always lived at home 
 with her gentle mother, he had seemed only a carousing 
 debauchee, whose absence in the pines was a pleasant re- 
 lief, and whose coming was dreaded like the coming of a 
 cyclone. To tell the truth, Martha regarded Raldy, who 
 at sixteen had donned man's attire, as the disapproving 
 neighbor had truly said, and had gone, under the leal 
 though maudlin protection of her father, to do lumber- 
 men's work and share lumbermen's fare in the rough life 
 of the pineries she regarded Raldy with almost as much 
 dread as she had had of her dead father. But Raldy Scott, 
 though she might be dreaded, was thoroughly respected 
 by every man, woman and child in Dearborn City. She 
 was the soul of honor, and by hard work and economy she
 
 32 White Butterflies. 
 
 and Martha had managed to bury their father and mother 
 decently, and then to pay off the mortgage on their little 
 home. Raldy Scott had a brusque and forbidding man- 
 ner, but, as Sim Peebles and many another man and 
 woman had found out in times of trouble, underneath it 
 beat a kind and generous heart. 
 
 Raldy Scott was as good as her word; and when the 
 little funeral procession which followed Sim Peebles's 
 mother to the grave moved away from the desolate hut, 
 which Raldy's strong, neat hands had cleansed and puri- 
 fied, Raldy herself, with her brave, straightforward face 
 held up defiantly to her gaping neighbors, had led one of 
 the sobbing babies, while their shambling father, looking 
 strangely kempt and tidy, walked beside the other. Then 
 they had come home again to the little hut, and every day 
 through the dreary November weather Raldy Scott had 
 tended the orphaned children, and kept the cabin, 
 hastening home, when the little ones were safely in bed, 
 to Mart and her own trim, though only less humble, home. 
 
 "What you goin' to git for your pains, Raldy?" said a 
 kindly old lumberman to her one day. He had befriended 
 her father, and Raldy could not answer him curtly. 
 
 "Talk behind my back and experience," said Raldy, 
 half-smiling. But Mart was to be married at Christmas 
 time, so that Raldy felt she could afford to earn less for 
 a while; and, indeed, though she would not have allowed 
 it to herself, she was becoming almost fond of the life 
 which she was leading in Sim Peebles's cabin. 
 
 "You're a powerful hand to work, Raldy," said Sim to 
 her one day, as he sat watching her swift and energetic 
 movements about his cheerless little kitchen. 
 
 Raldy stopped, and squared her elbows, looking 
 straight at him from under her great forehead.
 
 Raldy." 33 
 
 "I'm setting you an example, Sim Peebles," she said 
 slowly. "You're clever, and you're kind. You did me a 
 great service once, and I'll never forget it; but if you had 
 half the work in you that I have, you wouldn't be so all- 
 possessed poor that you can't pay an honest woman for 
 tending your wee bits and cooking your venison." 
 
 Raldy's tone forbade reply or argument, and Sim 
 Peebles slunk guiltily away. 
 
 A day or two later he came in with a new brightness in 
 his face. 
 
 "Say, Raldy," he began, half-sheepishly for Sim 
 Peebles had been "raised" in semi-luxury in an Eastern 
 State, had loafed ever since he could remember, and 
 hardly knew whether the announcement which he was 
 about to make would be really creditable to him or not 
 "could you get along I mean, would you stay and 
 look after things here till I come back, if I go up in the 
 pines till spring?" 
 
 Raldy laughed a rather incredulous laugh. 
 
 "What are you going to do up in the pines?" she asked 
 at length. 
 
 "Chop," answered Sim Peebles succinctly. 
 
 "Humph! they've all gone long ago." 
 
 "No; there's a party going up to Stevens Point next 
 week, and strike off from there." 
 
 "You can't chop," said Raldy contemptuously. 
 
 "Yes, I can, too." 
 
 "Well, then, go." Raldy spoke crustily. She would 
 not give the peeping neighbors any chance to accuse her 
 of spending soft words on Sim Peebles. Yet, truth to 
 say, she no longer held him in the low respect which she 
 had expressed in the screed delivered to her gossiping 
 3
 
 34 White Butterflies. 
 
 neighbors, and which her language to him would seem to 
 indicate. In these long, quiet weeks since she had come 
 to live in his humble cabin, she had detected in the lonely, 
 saddened man qualities which had softened her heart to- 
 ward him. He loved his children, and though he knew 
 little enough how to care for them, he yet "minded" them 
 devotedly, in his own rough way. Then Sim Peebles's 
 almost womanish face was yet handsome and attractive 
 when it was clean and shaven; and one day Raldy had 
 come unexpectedly upon him with his eyes wet with tears, 
 gazing upon a picture, which her quick vision noted, be- 
 fore he could put it away, as a likeness of his old mother. 
 
 "Humph!" said Raldy to herself, quite angry at a little 
 secret tenderness which the sight had evoked in her. 
 "Sim Peebles puts on considerable about his mother; but 
 I notice he didn't get her a new dress while she was here, 
 and if she had enough to eat, it was because she hoed the 
 clearing and dug the potatoes." 
 
 Still, it was a fact, and Raldy, in a dim, unwilling way, 
 knew it, that she was daily growing to set a higher value 
 upon Sim Peebles than he deserved, and she felt this more 
 definitely than before when he told her that he was going 
 "up in the pines." There was in her a strange, an un- 
 reasoning aversion to having him go, glad as she was to 
 see him developing something of the courage of a man. 
 
 She had repelled so fiercely the young men who, won 
 to admiration by her spirit and good looks, had dared to 
 make her any overtures, that Raldy had never yet had a 
 regular love-affair; but, as is often the case with a strong 
 and self-reliant woman, weakness had won where force 
 had failed. She could not help acting a little more tender 
 and approachable than her wont as the day drew near for
 
 Raldy.' 
 
 35 
 
 Sim Peebles to go; and Sim poor Sim, who had come to 
 worship the very ground that Raldy trod Sim felt it, but 
 he did not dare to speak. 
 
 He was to start on a Monday, and Raldy had patched 
 and darned his clothes till he was fit to go. Sunday 
 morning she went, as usual, to the little Lutheran chapel, 
 the only place of worship which Dearborn City afforded, 
 and where her mother had been one of the most devoted 
 attendants; and having come home again, she got the 
 dinner and fed the children. Then she turned them out 
 to play in the clearing, and leaving the door ajar for it 
 was one of the mildest and pleasantest days of early 
 winter she went singing about her work. Sim Peebles 
 watched her as she moved here and there, and Raldy, 
 independent and imperious though she was, stole now and 
 then a furtive glance at him. 
 
 "He's handsome," she thought dreamily, as she gave 
 a casual glance at Sim's waving hair and large brown 
 eyes; "but," coming to herself a little, " how shiftless he 
 is! But he's kind," wandering off again, "and he's done 
 some brave deeds but no pride, no ambition. Still, he's 
 honest," thought Raldy again; "nobody ever said Sim 
 Peebles wasn't honest; there's nothing mean about Sim 
 Peebles, and that's one reason," excusingly, "why he's so 
 poor." Then her thoughts drifted off to what Mrs. Jenks 
 and Mrs. Smith, her hateful neighbors, would say, if she 
 should happen, by chance of course she wouldn't, even 
 if Sim should ask her but what would they all say, what 
 would Mart say, if she should ever happen to marry Sim 
 Peebles? 
 
 Here Raldy checked herself, for she was standing ab- 
 sently, with a plate of butter in her hand, the butter in
 
 36 White Butterflies. 
 
 great danger of slipping, and her song quite still. She 
 had been singing the old revival hymn : 
 
 "And when I pass from here to Thee, 
 Dear Lord, dear Lord, remember me." 
 
 Sim saw his opportunity, and seized it, and as she 
 hurried into the little pantry and out again, he spoke 
 quietly and earnestly: 
 
 "That's what I've been thinking, Raldy something 
 like, I mean. When I'm gone away, remember me." 
 
 "I'm not likely to forget you, with the youngsters 
 under my feet all day," retorted Raldy, with asperity. 
 
 "You have been very kind to me and mine," con- 
 tinued Sim, with a choice of words which proclaimed an 
 early training greatly superior to that of the rough men 
 around him. Raldy recognized this superiority. It 
 was, indeed, one of Sim's strongest claims upon her 
 favor. But she was not to be tempted from her role. 
 
 "I didn't suppose you had noticed it," she said tartly. 
 
 "Noticed it! Why, Raldy!" in a tone of deep re- 
 proach. "And you can't think I wanted to tell you 
 before I went away you can't think, Raldy, how it kind 
 o' spurs me up to try and be somebody. That's what 
 makes me want to go up river now. I want to show 
 you, Raldy I want ." But here Sim Peebles choked 
 up. His courage had given out. Raldy felt hers ooz- 
 ing out too. 
 
 "I guess I'll go home till supper," she said, and she 
 darted away. 
 
 After supper she put the children to bed, and then 
 brushed up the hearth and put the little cabin to rights, 
 Sim meanwhile devouring her, as usual, with his eyes.
 
 Raldy." 37 
 
 Raldy had captured him, soul and body, and the nearer 
 he came to the sublime sacrifice which he felt that he 
 was making for her sake, the more completely his pas- 
 sion dominated him. 
 
 Raldy moved for her hat and shawl, and murmured 
 something, in a manner strangely unlike herself, about 
 "going home to Mart," when Sim Peebles caught her 
 hand no man had ever dared to touch Raldy Scott's 
 person before and begged her to sit down for a moment 
 with him by the fire. 
 
 "You know," Sim said brokenly, and with a face like 
 ashes, "it's my last night, Raldy." With all his love, he 
 stood in absolute terror of her. 
 
 Raldy sat down with a strange docility, but Sim could 
 not speak, after all, and they sat for several moments in 
 silence. 
 
 "Well," said Raldy at last, getting up in her old arro- 
 gant way, "I guess I'll go." 
 
 "Say first," said Sim, swallowing hard, and catching 
 at her hand again, "tell me first, Raldy, that maybe, 
 when I come home, if I do well, Raldy, and turn out 
 better, that ," he paused. 
 
 "That what?" questioned Raldy, in so gentle a tone 
 that Sim took heart wonderfully. 
 
 "That maybe you'll you'll marry me, and live here 
 always, and see to the children." 
 
 It was all out now, and Sim drew a deep sigh as he 
 turned his handsome, effeminate face, almost strong in 
 its expression of intense love, full upon the strangely 
 hesitating woman. 
 
 Raldy dropped into her seat again, and buried her face 
 in her hands. Then she let them fall slowly, and said.
 
 38 White Butterflies. 
 
 with a serious and deliberative air which would have 
 daunted a less persistent suitor: 
 
 "You're an honest fellow, Sim, and you know that's- 
 a good deal to me and you're good-looking, but I de- 
 clare I don't know of any other earthly reason why I 
 should marry you. You couldn't support me. How 
 you have had to fly around to get enough to eat since I 
 have been here! And what wages have you paid me?" 
 
 Sim fairly cowered before her; but, with a woman's 
 perversity, Raldy Scott's love only burned the more 
 fiercely. 
 
 "It's all true," he said mournfully, "but don't you see, 
 Raldy, I'm turning over a new leaf? I'm going to work, 
 and I'm going to show you, and the rest of them, that I, 
 can be like other men." 
 
 As Raldy looked at him, a tear glittered in her eye. 
 
 "Well," she said, rising, and with no hint in her voice 
 of the tear, "when you come back'll be time enough to 
 see." 
 
 "Oh, but Raldy," cried poor Sim, who had reached 
 just the point where "despair sublimes to power," "won't 
 you tell me that you love me just a little?" He fell 
 on the floor at her feet, and buried his face in her dress. 
 "Haven't you any thought about me," he went on pite- 
 ously, "only that I'm a worthless fellow?" 
 
 "Sim, you fool," said Raldy, raising him up with more 
 tenderness than her words would seem to warrant, "do 
 you suppose that I would have let you go on this way if 
 I hadn't? Good-by, Sim;" and slipping away before he 
 could stop her, Raldy left him with such consolation as 
 he could gather from her last remark. 
 
 Sim did not go till nine o'clock the next morning, 
 and meant to have a few words more with Raldy before
 
 Raldy." 
 
 he left; but she was as cold and incisive as usual, when 
 she came at daybreak, and she went about her work in 
 a way that precluded further conversation. Once she 
 colored violently when Sim caught her eye, and some 
 tender words rose to his lips at the sight; but she looked 
 at him again so sternly that he was glad to withdraw into 
 himself, and dared not plead his cause any further. 
 
 The days of the winter wore slowly away, while Raldy 
 did her self-appointed task, and bore unflinchingly the 
 slurs of the gossips and the thousand little irksome trials 
 of her position. At last the intense cold began to yield. 
 March glided into April. The ice in the river thawed, 
 and daily among its floating masses came down great 
 rafts of logs, guided by sturdy lumbermen, whose cries 
 echoed and re-echoed from the mighty walls of the river, 
 and gladdened the waiting hearts in the little village. 
 
 "When will our men come?" an aged lumberman, too 
 old to go "up river" any more, shouted as one great raft 
 became wedged between rocks and ice, near enough for 
 a little conversation amid the tremendous tumult. 
 
 "In a week or two," shouted back a man who lived at 
 the next landing, and knew them well. There was no 
 time for further talk, for the great raft just then made 
 free, and swung into the current, and with the loud cries 
 of the men as they plied their heavy poles, and the rescu- 
 ing and clambering up of several who had been swept off, 
 as they often were in the dipping and swaying of the raft 
 on its perilous passage, it was carried out of sight, the 
 echoes of the hubbub lingering long after the vision had 
 vanished. 
 
 All along the straggling, forlorn, burned, stumpy 
 street of Dearborn City, with its staring hotel, its half- 
 dozen beer saloons, and its one small meeting-house,
 
 40 White Butterflies. 
 
 ran the good news, "The men will be back in a week or 
 two." Raldy Scott sang more blithely over her work, 
 while visions of Sim Peebles in an absurdly glorified 
 aspect floated all day through her mind, though, if any- 
 body had insinuated as much to her, she might have 
 raised the old shot-gun in the corner, which no man in 
 Dearborn City could handle better than she, and have 
 shot him dead on the spot. Still, she had to acknowl- 
 edge to herself the alarming extent of her infatuation, 
 and chide herself a little. "I don't care," her heart had 
 answered; "there's something about Sim Peebles that I 
 like, and if he likes me, what difference does it make to 
 anybody? There's nobody in this world who can dictate 
 to Raldy Scott"; and Raldy drew herself up proudly. 
 "He needs me I can see that I'm just the woman he 
 needs; and I like weak creatures. And he's honest, if 
 he is shiftless; he wouldn't defraud a man out of a cent." 
 
 Raldy's straightforward soul clung desperately to 
 that Sim Peebles was honest. He might drink some- 
 times, though Raldy had never seen him the worse for 
 liquor, but everybody called him "an honest fellow." 
 
 "Yes," Raldy said to herself over and over again, 
 "he's a true, well-meaning man, and I like him; and if 
 I want to marry him when he gets back, I'll do it, 
 whether Mart or anybody objects or not." 
 
 The days dragged somewhat as a week went by and 
 the men did not come; but Raldy read once again the 
 few books which her father had left her, and which she 
 had already worn threadbare, did her daily work, and 
 tried to be patient, and every afternoon she went with the 
 children down to the landing to watch the rafts. 
 
 It was Friday afternoon, and the April sunshine was 
 warm and bright, when the noise of a great drive,
 
 U 
 
 Raldy." 41 
 
 manned by strangers, having just died away, a new one 
 was heard coming down the Dells. The voices seemed 
 to Raldy's quick ear familiar ones. She had thrown her 
 long, heavy red cloak, such as all the Norse women wear, 
 around her to cover her house dress, which consisted, as 
 her mother's had before her, of a short stuff petticoat and 
 a black bodice over a coarse woollen waist, and she drew 
 her cloak closer, and gazed fixedly up the river, where the 
 rafts always shot suddenly into view around a great bend. 
 
 The voices grew more distinct: "Halloo!" "Bear a 
 hand!" "Shove her in, boys!" "Keep her steady!" And 
 the great drive came thundering into view, rising and 
 sinking, creaking and rubbing, the strong poles keeping 
 her clear of the rocks, and the shouts of the men coming 
 down with startling clearness on the gentle wind. 
 
 A cry arose from the men on shore. Yes, there were 
 their friends and neighbors, and there there was Sim 
 Peebles, straighter than his wont, standing on the very 
 edge of the logs, ready to leap into the current and swim 
 ashore, for it was impossible to push the raft to land. 
 Half-a-dozen others were beside him, mostly the older 
 ones, whose families needed them. The youngsters would 
 see the raft safe to its destination. 
 
 On swept the great drive, the men redoubling their 
 cries as the passage became narrower and more danger- 
 ous; and just as they shot under the great white name of 
 Leroy Scott, the river pilot, one after another of the 
 black figures who were waiting sprang into the water, 
 and began to struggle for the shore. 
 
 Raldy's pulses quickened, and a longing for her old 
 wild life came over her. She had more than once made 
 that leap herself, and no man of them all had battled more 
 stoutly and resolutely than she with the freezing rapids.
 
 42 White Butterflies. 
 
 One after another of the swimmers came safely through 
 the two or three rods of foaming, icy water, which were 
 all that were necessary in order to reach the shore; but as 
 Sim Peebles sank after his plunge, a dozen floating logs 
 passed over him. The logs were carried on, but he did 
 not rise; another moment; still he did not rise. 
 
 Raldy Scott paused for no second thought. A strap- 
 ping fellow near her was pulling off his coat; but before 
 he could do it, she had flung her heavy cloak aside, bared 
 her arms, and dashed past him. She was a bold and 
 vigorous swimmer, and fought her way desperately to the 
 place where Sim went down. Suddenly a man's white 
 face glared from the water, ten feet away. His eyes were 
 set, and his mouth was open. Raldy struggled toward 
 him, seized his collar, and with the assistance of the young 
 man, who had reached the spot just in time to help her 
 bring her burden in, she towed him ashore. Once there, 
 she lifted him as though he had been a baby, and poured 
 the water from his lungs, loosened his coarse shirt, 
 breathed into his bloodless lips, and poured a few drops 
 of brandy down his throat, chafing his hands and chest 
 meanwhile. Then she listened for his heart-beats, and a 
 look of relief passed over her stern face. 
 
 "He all right, boys," she said, turning carelessly to the 
 breathless crowd about her. "Here, you Sam Jenks, and 
 the rest of you, you can carry him home. You'll find 
 things all right there," and flinging her cloak around her, 
 Raldy called the children and strode off, and by the time 
 the men had fairly revived Sim Peebles, and had got him 
 home, Raldy was at the door to meet them, her drenched 
 clothes exchanged for dry ones, and the wet braids of her 
 fair hair alone revealing that she had dared, not an hour
 
 Raldy.' 
 
 before, the perils of the Dells of the Wisconsin for the 
 sake of Sim Peebles. 
 
 "I hope," said Mrs. Jenks viciously, as she passed out 
 with the rest of the crowd that had seen Sim safe home 
 "I hope you'll get paid somehow, Raldy, for all you've 
 done; and I rather guess," with a meaning, and to Raldy 
 an utterly maddening, leer "I rather guess you're going 
 to get something or other." 
 
 Mrs. Jenks discreetly passed out of ear-shot as she 
 uttered her last words, the effect of which upon Raldy was 
 rather impaired by the noise of the clink of glasses in the 
 dingy little saloon opposite, and the voice of Mr. Jenks, 
 raised purposely, so that Raldy might hear it "I give 
 you Raldy Scott, boys, the smartest girl on the Wisconsin 
 River." 
 
 Raldy's training had not, unfortunately, taught her, 
 much as she disliked drinking, to feel toward it exactly 
 as an "Ohio crusader," and she took a grim satisfaction in 
 imagining Mrs. Jenks's wrath when she too heard the 
 toast, as she could not well help hearing it, and in think- 
 ing that these rough men, no one of whom would dare to 
 speak to her save in the deepest respect, yet admired her 
 with all their souls. 
 
 In a few days Sim Peebles was all right again. He 
 seemed in excellent spirits; but it was not until he had 
 been at home for nearly a week that Raldy gave him any 
 chance to "speak out." Then he contrived it only by 
 desperately barricading the door, and sitting down in 
 front of it, just as she was about going home for the night. 
 
 "I want to tell you something," he said piteously, for 
 Raldy was severely on her dignity. 
 
 Raldy concluded to be cornered, and sat down to listen 
 to him.
 
 44 White Butterflies. 
 
 "I've saved up my pay," continued Sim, speaking a 
 trifle hurriedly, "and I've done well, Raldy. I can support 
 you well now. I got an extra job up there, and and 
 made some money out of that, and I've really done well, 
 Raldy; you ask the fellows if I haven't." 
 
 Something in his manner made the quick-witted 
 woman pause and look at him suspiciously; but as she 
 looked, she saw nothing but Sim Peebles's handsome face, 
 and great pleading brown eyes full of adoration for her, 
 and she flung her suspicions to the winds. 
 
 "Well," she said calmly, "if you have money, you'll 
 find use for it. I suppose you know by this time that I've 
 run up quite a bill at the store since you went away; I 
 told them there that I'd foot it, if you didn't." 
 
 "I'll foot it I'll foot everything," said Sim deliriously, 
 taking her nonchalance, as well he might, for direct en- 
 couragement; "I've got enough to last us well for a good 
 while, Raldy. And so it's all right, isn't it? isn't it, 
 Raldy?" 
 
 He rose to his full height with a sudden dilation of im- 
 petuous passion, which compelled the scornful woman's 
 admiration. Then he stretched out his arms to her 
 mutely, and she let them fold her in. 
 
 She had been starved for love. "Now," she said to her- 
 self, laying aside all of her coldness and her asperity 
 "now I will love him as other women love. I will marry 
 him. He has proved his love to me. He is going to be 
 a different man, and I am his motive. I will believe in 
 him; I will be a true wife to him, and a mother to his little 
 children." And she did not chide Sim Peebles as he 
 rained kisses upon her fair hair and her smooth, broad 
 forehead.
 
 "Raldy." 45 
 
 "To-morrow to-morrow, Raldy," pleaded her intoxi- 
 cated lover; "marry me to-morrow!" 
 
 "No," Raldy said thoughtfully, becoming herself again 
 suddenly, and tearing herself away from him "no; one 
 week from to-day I'll marry you, Sim. And if I put this 
 trust in you, Sim" with a sudden quiver in the clear 
 voice, which thrilled all through Sim Peebles's poor shiv- 
 ering soul "you won't disappoint me, Sim, you'll never 
 disappoint me?" 
 
 "Never, Raldy, never," he said, with an almost manly 
 tenderness, and he drew her unresisting face to him and 
 kissed her once again before she passed through the door 
 to her home. 
 
 Raldy's preparations for her wedding were few and 
 very private. She did not tell even Mart. "If I choose 
 to throw myself away," she said to herself for Raldy 
 Scott knew well that from the head of the Wisconsin to 
 the Mississippi there wasn't a woman to equal her "if I 
 choose to throw myself away on Sim Peebles, it's no- 
 body's business but my own. They'll talk enough after- 
 ward and they may." 
 
 At last came the morning of the day which Raldy had 
 set for her wedding; and Sim went about with a look 
 of bliss upon his face which would have told the story to 
 the whole neighborhood, in spite of his solemn promise 
 to Raldy not to reveal it, if she had not studiously kept 
 him busy upon the place in making up the garden. 
 
 They were to be married at noon. Eleven o'clock was 
 near at hand, and Raldy called out softly to Sim to see 
 to the children. She was going over to Mart's to put on 
 her best dress, and was hurrying out of the gate, when 
 she encountered Mrs. Jenks. 
 
 "Good-morning," said that lady beamingly.
 
 46 White Butterflies. 
 
 Instead of pushing past her contemptuously, as she 
 would usually have done, something made Raldy stop 
 civilly. 
 
 "Glad to see Sim's getting ahead a little," said Mrs. 
 Jenks, with a smirk. 
 
 Raldy stared at her mutely, and did not stir. 
 
 "Sorry he's come by his money just as he has, though," 
 went on Mrs. Jenks, sending her shaft well home. 
 
 The color left Raldy's steady face, and her mind flew 
 back to the momentary suspicion with which she had first 
 received the news of Sim's good fortune. 
 
 "How is that?" she said imperiously. 
 
 "Oh, don't you know?" rejoined Mrs. Jenks innocently. 
 "All Dearborn's talkin' about it. You kr~- 3im ain't 
 oversmart about coverin' up his tracks." 
 
 "Well?" said Raldy breathlessly, as her tormentor 
 paused. 
 
 "You know old Jake Torrey died up in the pines six 
 weeks ago?" 
 
 "Yes, yes," impatiently. 
 
 "And maybe you know he died all alone with Sim 
 Peebles?" 
 
 Raldy did not know it, but she bowed her head. 
 
 "At least," said Mrs. Jenks spitefully, "Sim thought he 
 was alone, but my Sam happened to be within hearing, 
 just out of sight, and he heard old Jake say, 'Take this 
 money, Sim, and send it to my daughter in Varmount,' 
 and he told him where, and Sim writ it down, and," went 
 on Mrs. Jenks, with satisfaction enough to atone for all 
 the innumerable slights and snubs that she had received 
 at Raldy's hands, "and then the old man dropped away; 
 but Sim, mind yer, he never said a word, not he, but he's 
 come all of a sudden by a big pile, so he makes his
 
 Raldy." 47 
 
 brag 'extra job,' he says, I hear." And Mrs. Jenks 
 passed on. 
 
 Raldy went a few steps further, her proud head bowed 
 a little, and her firm step slow and faltering. Then she 
 turned quickly, and re-entered Sim Peebles's little cabin. 
 The children were playing outside, and she closed and 
 bolted the door behind her as she went in. Then she 
 motioned to Sim to shX down opposite her. Her keen, 
 indignant eyes searched him through and through. He 
 looked back at her for a moment with all the fond joy of 
 an expectant bridegroom. Then the purpose of her gaze 
 seemed to penetrate him. The light went out from his 
 face, his eyelids drooped, his head fell. Then he groaned 
 aloud, and she knew that Mrs. Jenks's story was true. 
 
 "Sim," she said softly, "is it true? Tell me as you 
 would tell your Maker"; and there was a ring in her low 
 tone which compelled him to be honest with her. "Did 
 you take that money that Jake Torrey left you for his 
 daughter, and pretend that it was your own?" 
 
 "Oh, Raldy," he began weakly, "not all oh, not nearly 
 all. You can write " 
 
 She interrupted him sternly. "Did you take any of that 
 money, Sim?" 
 
 "Just enough," he said pleadingly, "just enough to pay 
 me for doing the business, you know, Raldy not much, 
 you know. Oh, Raldy, you won't cast me off for that, 
 will you? Oh, not now, Raldy, not now!" and the man, 
 putting his head in her lap, wept bitterly. 
 
 She stroked his hair tenderly, but her firm face did not 
 weaken. 
 
 "I have thought a great deal of you, Sim," she said in a 
 dry, hard voice, suddenly rising and pushing him from 
 her, "but now that I find that you are a mean and dis-
 
 48 White Butterflies. 
 
 honest man that you can cheat the dead, Sim that's all 
 over. I hope you'll get somebody to take care of the 
 children, Sim, for I must go. I reckon I'll go down to 
 Fond du Lac or Milwaukee, and go out to service. Mart's 
 married, and" wearily "I might as well." 
 
 She turned before his face, unlatched the humble 
 door, through which an hour hence she had thought to 
 walk as a bride, and before he could open his paralyzed 
 lips to speak, she was gone. And Sim Peebles never saw 
 her again.
 
 The Charcoal Burners. 
 
 THERE was not a cloud in the sky. The whole 
 long, undulating range of the Green Hills 
 stood out vividly in the light. This made the 
 smoke rising from the top of Sherbury more than usually 
 conspicuous. Sherbury was only a knoll, compared with 
 the loftiest of its neighbors: but it was peculiarly placed, 
 and could be seen as far up and down the valley as old 
 Killington itself. Since Josef Varvin had taken to burn- 
 ing charcoal up there, people called Sherbury "the Vol- 
 cano." The old Frenchman had built half-a-dozen great 
 kilns on the top of it, and its vast forests were falling in 
 order to feed them. It was said that he was growing rich. 
 He employed now about a hundred hands in felling trees 
 and tending the kilns. There was, therefore, quite a little 
 settlement on the summit of Sherbury, and the roads up 
 and down its sides were almost impassable from the wear 
 and tear of the heavy teams. Most of the families who 
 lived in this new "Smoke City," as it was called, were 
 Canadian French, like Josef Varvin himself. There was 
 no church, but once a month the Catholic priest came up 
 there to preach in the school-house. It was not consid- 
 ered by the inhabitants of the surrounding country that 
 a very high state of civilization prevailed in that part 
 of Sherbury township which was known as "Smoke 
 City." 
 
 It had to be admitted by everybody, however, that 
 there was a garden in Smoke City which could not be 
 excelled in the whole State of Vermont. It belonged 
 4 49
 
 60 White Butterflies. 
 
 to Pierre Beaubien, who had learned the florist's busi- 
 ness in Montreal, and it had been wrought by him out 
 of the primeval forest in the space of only five years. 
 I have said, "by him:" but Marie, his wife, and Pier- 
 rette, his daughter, had done as much in the matter, 
 perhaps, as had he himself. To be sure, they kept a 
 houseful of boarders during the busy time, and always 
 two or three, so that their domestic cares were not in- 
 considerable; but then Pierre had his work at the kiln 
 to do also, and sometimes there were whole days when 
 he could not touch his garden from morning to night. 
 
 On account of this garden, in which the Beaubiens 
 took a justifiable pride, it was felt among their neigh- 
 bors that they held themselves as quite the aristocracy 
 of Smoke City. Old Adolph Roney could read 
 and write both French Parisian French and Eng- 
 lish, and had a shelf of books hanging in his best room, 
 which was also his dining-room and kitchen, except 
 during the warmest weather. Pierre Beaubien and his 
 wife could not read a line in either tongue, and his 
 eighteen-year-old daughter, Pierrette, had never gone 
 to school until the family had come to Smoke City, five 
 years before. 
 
 . "These Beaubiens are clean people, and they know 
 how to make a garden," old Adolph would growl, as he 
 sat smoking his pipe beside his kitchen door, and look- 
 ing over toward the spring beauty bursting forth from 
 every nook and corner of his neighbor's far from exten- 
 sive inclosure opposite; "but why should his Pierrette 
 snub my Jeanne and my Marceline? Are Beaubiens any 
 better than Roneys? Am I not descended from that 
 famous count who was one of the generals of Louis XL? 
 Have I not read it all in the book on my shelf yonder?
 
 The Charcoal Burners. si 
 
 And who are they? They can scarcely tell the names 
 of their own grandfathers! Bah!" 
 
 And yet old Adolph was nettled by the hauteur of 
 his neighbors, though there was an inexpressive some- 
 thing a.bout them which exacted deference from every- 
 body. Even Josef Varvin, while he would not have 
 owned it for the world, felt it; but he was far enough 
 above his laborers to feel rather proud of the Beaubiens 
 and their airs, for which he reasoned they had not in- 
 sufficient grounds. "He liked to see the tall, straight 
 mother and daughter the daughter taller by a head 
 moving aBout among their bright blossoms, or training 
 the peas and hops which filled the ample vegetable 
 patch behind the flowers. 
 
 "At any rate, they don't gossip," Josef Varvin said 
 to his wife with a grin. 
 
 No, they did not gossip. They were too "high and 
 mighty" for that. Still, even the Beaubiens were inter- 
 ested when one day that bright day when there were 
 no clouds, and everything seemed to be at peace Larle 
 Pichaud had a strange visitor. Larle Pichaud was on 
 the very top of a kiln, when the stage which passed 
 through Smoke City twice a day came along. Suddenly 
 the vehicle stopped in front of the kiln, and a woman 
 sprang down from it, shouting angrily the name of the 
 handsome young charcoal burner, and daring him to come 
 and meet her. A crowd of the villagers gathered in less 
 than ten minutes, listening speechlessly while the woman, 
 pale with rage, stood pouring out a torrent of abuse, in 
 mingled French and English, upon his head. 
 
 Even Marie and Pierrette Beaubien had come 
 among the others, and with open mouths had 
 watched Larle Pichaud, who seemed too bewildered to
 
 52 White Butterflies. 
 
 know just what to do, while he scrambled down from 
 the kiln and stood before the woman, begging her to 
 keep still and to go to his house. His young wife, 
 who was scarcely older than Pierrette herself, and had 
 been her schoolmate, sat, white and scared, on a stump 
 near by, holding her three-months' baby. She was a 
 daughter of one of the charcoal burners, and her father 
 and brothers also were gazing on the scene with fierce, 
 menacing brows. Then everybody had heard Larle say, 
 "I thought you were dead, Aline," upon which the wom- 
 an had given him the lie and had sprung on him like 
 a wild beast. The men standing by tore her away from 
 him, but it took four of them to hold her and get her 
 to the cell at the back of Josef Varvin's barn, where of- 
 fenders against the law were usually locked up. Pierrette 
 Beaubien shrieked, as did all the other women, when 
 they saw Larle Pichaud's face bleeding, and traced the 
 marks of the woman's nails on his cheeks and forehead. 
 There had never been such a day as that in Smoke City. 
 Larle, as well as the woman, was finally arrested, but 
 before many weeks he came home to his distracted young 
 wife. The case had been settled somehow. All that 
 the people ever knew was that he had made love to 
 the hot-blooded young creature who was, however, older 
 than himself but had grown to hate her because of 
 her violent temper, and had broken off the match, two 
 years or more before. Then he had got married at once 
 to somebody else. It was easy enough; all the women 
 were wild after him. Another story was that the wronged 
 woman was always sweet and gentle until her lover had 
 deserted her, when she had been rendered insane by his 
 heartlessness, and after brooding over her sorrow till she 
 could bear it no longer, she had sought him out, and at-
 
 The Charcoal Burners. 63 
 
 tacked him before the very eyes of the innocent girl who 
 had married him. 
 
 Pierrette had her own theories of the matter, and 
 from that day she hated the sight of the handsome char- 
 coal burner by far the handsomest man in Smoke City 
 though previously she had greatly admired him, al- 
 ways secretly, and never with any glow of love. Pier- 
 rette had never been in love in her life, unless with her 
 ravishing beds of roses and chrysanthemums. 
 
 One day she met pretty Fernande Pichaud alone upon 
 the road, and said scornfully to her, "How could you 
 keep on loving Larle Pichaud, and let him come back 
 and live with you? Do you not believe that he used to 
 love that poor girl who flew at him?" 
 
 The young wife replied only by a frightened sob. 
 Pierrette had spoken very harshly. 
 
 "I would die before I would love him again, after 
 that for all his fine, black eyes," Pierrette had scoffed 
 on; "I would rather die than that he should ever kiss 
 me again." 
 
 Fernande had only cried the faster, and hugged closer 
 the babe in her arms while she hurried away. Pier- 
 rette Beaubien looked after her, her strong proud face, 
 brown and firm-set usually, now flushed and working 
 with passion. It was clearer in her mind than ever as 
 it might have been, and probably was, in the minds of 
 her neighbors that there was something radically dif- 
 ferent in the blood of the Beaubiens from this girl's and 
 the others'. 
 
 "Yes, I would die," repeated Pierrette to herself, as 
 she watched Fernande scudding off with her child; "I 
 would be torn limb from limb before I would let him 
 come back to me. I would take my baby in my arms
 
 54 White Butterflies. 
 
 and work in the kilns as my father does, before I would 
 touch a cent of Larle Pichaud's money again. I would 
 not care how black my face and hands got! Ugh!" 
 
 That summer the garden was a perfect dream of beauty. 
 It had never been so fine. It was perhaps three acres 
 in extent, and was fenced about rudely but closely with 
 brush, over which Pierre Beaubien had trained morning- 
 glories and convolvulus and clematis and honeysuckle, 
 until it was as fair as the very dawn. It seemed as though 
 he had but to tell a vine to grow in a certain way, in 
 order to make it take the direction he desired. There was 
 scarcely an uncovered space on the whole brush-fence. 
 It was either freshly green or gay with bloom every- 
 where. 
 
 August came, and the Beaubien garden was a tangle 
 of golden glory. Most people do not work much in 
 their gardens in August, but every morning, almost as 
 faithfully as in May and June, the Beaubiens were astir 
 by daybreak, weeding, watering, seed-gathering, train- 
 ing. The other dwellers in Smoke City might call 
 them "cold" and "stuck up," but there was a passion in 
 them for this little plot of ground and its products, 
 which proved that their "coldness" was not a thing of 
 universal application. And any one who ever thought 
 of such subjects must have admitted that their presence 
 in Smoke City was a distinct source of refinement and 
 elevation to the place with its unpainted cabins, its 
 smutty-faced men, its swearing teamsters, its unfenced 
 door-yards, still full of stumps from the recent clearing 
 of its forests, and its swarms of neglected, jabbering 
 children. There would have been almost nothing to re- 
 deem its sordidness and ugliness, but for that rare, sweet 
 garden of the proud, unneighborly Beaubiens.
 
 The Charcoal Burners. 55 
 
 There was a great rush of business as the fall came 
 on. The kilns had never time to cool off. The char- 
 coal had to be taken out almost before it was well burned 
 through. Josef Varvin was even compelled_ to use again 
 the large old kiln with which he had first begun the 
 business all by himself, and which he had not used now 
 for several years. It had not been very strong, to begin 
 with, and at last it had been patched up with skins 
 and timbers. Into the deep earth-hole beneath it a rude 
 causeway led, roofed over partly with earth and partly 
 v/ith boards. It was closed at the entrance with a 
 clumsy, but tight-fitting, door. One of the hands, who 
 had gone in there to warm himself on a cold day, had 
 pulled to this door and had fallen asleep. He had been 
 suffocated by the fumes of the charcoal. Josef Varvin 
 had found him insensible, and had with his own hands 
 carried him into the open air and tried to resuscitate 
 him, but without success. The old man had never got 
 over the shock. He was kind-hearted, and it had quite 
 unnerved him. The kiln had not been used since then. 
 But now sentiment and superstition were alike laid aside. 
 Josef Varvin must use any means in his power to fill 
 his orders. The old kiln was repaired afresh, and 
 once more the slow smoke came curling out from the 
 round hole in the top. 
 
 An influx of new workmen came too. Within the 
 space of a fortnight a dozen were added to the force. 
 The September haze was never so thick. The tourists 
 who climbed Killington and Pico declared that Sher- 
 bury Mountain must be on fire, because it was covered 
 with such a cloud of smoke. But all these were only the 
 signs of Josef Varvin's prosperity. The long loft above 
 the three rooms in which the Beaubiens lived had had
 
 56 White Butterflies. 
 
 two pallets laid beside the two beds there in which their 
 regular boarders slept, for two new men who could get no 
 other resting-place in the crowded little city. 
 
 One day Adolph Roney came hurrying into the Beau- 
 bien garden, where his neighbors were hard at work. 
 
 "A new man has come, Pierre," he said, deferentially. 
 "He is a nephew of mine Andre Reboul. But I can- 
 not take him, for my house is full. We would like to 
 have him near us, and we all know how well Madame 
 Beaubien would feed him. Cannot you make room for 
 him?" 
 
 It was finally decided that another pallet could be laid 
 upon the already well-filled floor of the Beaubien loft, 
 and one was hastily constructed. The Beaubiens were 
 thrifty. They meant to gather in all the pennies that 
 they found in their way. That night Andre Reboul 
 slept on the new husk pallet, and the next morning he 
 ate an abundant portion of the savory croquettes which 
 Pierrette fried for breakfast. 
 
 He was a tall, strong, good-looking fellow this new- 
 comer. Pierrette was half a head taller than her father, 
 but Andre Reboul was a head taller than she. He car- 
 ried himself well. He was not handsome with the pic- 
 turesque beauty of Larle Pichaud, but he had a firm, 
 well-curved cheek, a flowing black mustache, a master- 
 ful dark eye, and a well-set head. His voice was a trifle 
 harsh and thick, and he spoke no English. He watched 
 Pierrette sharply while she served the breakfast. It was 
 a new thing for her to be much noticed by men. Her 
 face was irregular, and her nose had a contemptuous turn 
 to it which was not likely to please a stranger, while her 
 tongue was well supplied with stinging words, which she 
 bestowed freely upon those who did not please her. She
 
 The Charcoal Burners. 57 
 
 liked the appearance of old Adolph's nephew, however, 
 and did not resent his observation. She was even 
 pleased when she fancied that his tone softened in ad- 
 dressing her. Seeing him, it suddenly occurred to her, 
 was like finding a plant in bloom which she had never 
 seen before. There was an interest in it. 
 
 When the dishes were washed, the kitchen swept, and 
 the soup set boiling for dinner, Pierrette went out to 
 her garden, but she did not seem to get along very fast. 
 Instead of cutting away dead stalks and collecting the 
 seeds in little papers, as she had been set to do, she found 
 herself leaning against the trellises and holding her shears 
 absently in her hands, while she looked toward the 
 woods in which the old kiln lay. Andre Reboul was at 
 work there. She imagined him coming along the road 
 to his dinner. Then she was seized with a sudden spasm 
 of fear lest the soup should burn, and she hurried into the 
 house to look after it. When she came out, her mother 
 said, "Why did you go in, child?" 
 
 "I wanted to see if the soup was burning." 
 
 "How could it?" asked her mother almost angrily. 
 Had not the soup boiled calmly away on the stove every 
 morning, now these many years? Was the girl going 
 crazy? 
 
 It seemed a long time to Pierrette before the sun 
 had reached the middle of his course. The table had 
 been laid. (There was no cloth on the Beaubien table 
 except on feast days.) Everything was shining neat. 
 The soup was done to a turn thick with peas and len- 
 tils and garlic. The tall young figure of Andre Reboul 
 came out from between the trees and into the road, just 
 as Pierrette had pictured it. There were six other men 
 in the family, all of them young and not ill-looking.
 
 58 White Butterflies. 
 
 Only two of them were married. They were to bring 
 their families down to Smoke City soon, if Josef Varvin 
 should decide that he would want them during the win- 
 ter. Pierrette had seen the others come to their dinners 
 now for many a day yet she had not watched for any 
 one of them to appear in sight upon the road. As she 
 turned back to place the mustard on the table and get 
 the tea, a sudden thought came over her. Did that 
 foolish wife of Larle Pichaud like to see him coming 
 along the road as she, Pierrette Beaubien, liked now to see 
 this stranger? Perhaps Fernande Pichaud had liked to see 
 him as much when she had known him only as long. Per- 
 haps she had kept liking it better and better day by day 
 through all those months. If she had a sudden under- 
 standing of the case came over the mind of the simple, 
 haughty French girl. 
 
 When the twilight drew on, Pierrette strayed, as usual, 
 out into the garden. Some of the men followed, and 
 strolled up and down the borders, smoking their pipes 
 and talking together. There were great bowers of nas- 
 turtiums in bloom. The beds of marigolds sent up a 
 pungent odor. Long lines of brilliant, speared gladiolus 
 seemed to be marching with banners across the garden. 
 Bushes of blood-red salvia were just beginning to flower. 
 
 "You did not cut away this bed of withered stalks, as 
 I bade you this morning," grumbled Pierre Beaubien to 
 his daughter as she came dreamily along the path. 
 
 "I worked all the morning," she protested. 
 
 "Oh, but so slow! Mon Dieu! I watched you. You 
 dropped your shears a dozen times. You are getting 
 too vain. Why is your hair braided so finely this even- 
 ing?" 
 
 Pierrette's brown face flushed like the salvias. She
 
 The Charcoal Burners. 59 
 
 tossed her head, and drew herself up until she towered 
 far above her shrunken little father. 
 
 "You want me like the Roneys and the Bellons, then?" 
 she said, scornfully. "You would like my hair hanging 
 off in little locks all over. That would be very tidy, I 
 think! People might at least keep themselves as well as 
 their gardens." 
 
 She tossed her head again and walked away. She was 
 in no mood to be scolded. She had hoped that Andre 
 Reboul would come out into the garden after supper, 
 like the other men, but, instead, he had gone over to see 
 his cousins. It piqued her very much. The next few 
 days she scarcely spoke to him, and she kept her fine, 
 gray eyes fixed on the ground whenever he drew near. 
 
 A week passed by, and Andre Reboul had not yet 
 walked in the garden with the other men in the twilight. 
 Some evenings he had had to go down and watch the 
 old kiln. Generally he spent the time with the Roneys. 
 Pierrette could hear their gay voices as they talked, 
 though seldom his. He was either very shy or very 
 morose. At any rate, he said little, and he spoke almost 
 always in that harsh, forbidding tone. But Pierrette 
 still fancied that, when he spoke to her, his voice sounded 
 different. She would not care for that, however, she told 
 herself. He did not seem to seek her society, and she 
 was determined that she would be as distant as he was. 
 
 On the evening of the tenth day after Andre Reboul 
 came to live in the Beaubien household he did not go 
 down to the old kiln, nor over to the next house. Two 
 or three of the boarders sat down on the rough door-step 
 and smoked their pipes; the others strolled about aim- 
 lessly, as usual. Pierre and Marie were picking late 
 beans, hurrying to get in all that they could before dark.
 
 60 White Butterflies. 
 
 Pierrette was clattering the dishes in the kitchen. One 
 of the young men came in and asked her for a drink 
 of water from the pump in the sink. She gave it to him, 
 good-humoredly enough, and then he lingered a moment, 
 chaffing her. 
 
 The sound of his bantering voice and a brief word or 
 two from her came plainly out at the door. Suddenly 
 Pierrette said, loudly and crossly, "I would thank you 
 to go about your business!" and the young fellow came 
 slinking, with a flushed face, out along the pathway. 
 Shortly afterward Pierrette came out also. Her move- 
 ments were slow and sulky, but she held herself up as 
 proudly as ever. She made her way to the aster bed 
 and stood there, gazing down at the beautiful flowers, 
 which the two or three light frosts of September had 
 not injured. To-night it was as warm as early August. 
 The flowers seemed to revel in the heat as though they 
 knew it would soon fail them. 
 
 Pierrette had not noticed that Andre Reboul was lean- 
 ing against the house when she came out. She had been 
 too angry with Nicholas Coigny, who had just tried to 
 kiss her, to pay much attention to her surroundings, and 
 she supposed that Andre had gone over to see his 
 cousins. 
 
 Presently she was aware that there was some one be- 
 side her, and she started a little when the voice of Andre 
 Reboul said softly, in his thick, broad French: "You 
 like these flowers the best?" 
 
 "No no," stammered Pierrette, warm waves of color 
 chasing each other over her strong French face; "I like 
 them all some at one time, some at another." 
 
 "You have been troubled," he went on, looking 
 squarely into her eyes.
 
 The Charcoal Burners. 6i 
 
 "I I did not say so." 
 
 "Oh, no!" The tall stranger spoke a little bitterly. 
 "You tell me nothing. You speak to me as though 
 as though I were a lump of charcoal. Mon Dieu! I 
 might be a dog!" 
 
 "I?" The girl lifted her thick, black eyebrows, in- 
 credulously. "I I did not dare to speak to you. I I 
 thought that it was you that treated me as though I 
 were a dog." 
 
 Then they laughed into each other's eyes. 
 
 "I have wanted to come out into the garden every 
 evening," he said, "but I was afraid that you would 
 snub me." 
 
 "Oh, you must have known better!" she smiled back 
 to him, reprovingly. "I would have liked to have you 
 come." 
 
 "Mon Dieu! Why did you not say so?" 
 
 "I am not running after people to come and walk in 
 my garden!" 
 
 They both laughed again. It seemed as though a chain 
 had been subtly clasped, joining them together in the 
 twinkling of an eye. 
 
 Silently they walked along to the other end of the 
 garden. The dew was as heavy as in midsummer, and 
 the vines shed drops upon them as they passed. Pier- 
 rette was almost trembling with a new excitement. She 
 thought, in her dim, unreasoning way, that it was a 
 kind of reaction from her wrath at Nicholas Coigny. 
 They stood still at last behind the trellis covered with 
 nasturtiums. No one could see them. Pierre and Marie 
 had just gone in, treading heavily with their baskets of 
 beans. 
 
 "That little idiot of a fellow troubled you just now m
 
 62 White Butterflies- 
 
 the kitchen?" began Andre Reboul, recurring to his for- 
 mer topic. 
 
 "He tried to kiss me!" 
 
 Pierrette threw back her shoulders and tossed her 
 head. 
 
 "He was not so much to blame! But all the same, I 
 came near rushing at him and pitching him over the 
 roof." The stalwart young fellow made a significant 
 motion upward with his outstretched arms. 
 
 "I would have liked to see you! Why did you not 
 do it?" 
 
 "I thought you would probably raise yourself up as 
 you did just now and say, 'Andre Reboul, leave me to 
 manage my own affairs !' " 
 
 "No I should have thanked you." 
 
 "Sacre! How is one to tell what a girl will like! You 
 have said such short words to me!" 
 
 "Nicholas Coigny knows well that most of the girls 
 in Smoke City like that sort of thing. Oh, I have seen 
 them! But I am not of that kind. No man has ever 
 kissed me and I have made every man's ears burn who 
 has tried it. But," she added under her breath, "I am 
 not pretty like Estelle Bellon and Fernande Pichaud." 
 
 "You are the prettiest girl I ever saw," he said, slowly. 
 
 "Oh!" she laughed, coquettishly, "I have heard that 
 men talk in that way just to flatter. I know how I look. 
 I am brown. I do not wear a veil like Estelle, and " 
 
 "Stop! stop! I will not let you!" 
 
 "Yes," she persisted, playfully, "my nose is too big, 
 and my eyes are too big. Oh, I am the homeliest girl 
 in Smoke City!" 
 
 "I would rather look at you and hear you talk than 
 all the girls I have ever seen in my life!"
 
 The Charcoal Burners. 63 
 
 "Oh!" she went on, still laughingly; "it is likely 
 that you talk so to girls very often. I have heard that 
 men do.'' 
 
 The young Frenchman's dark, well-shaped face 
 flushed. 
 
 "Before God," he said, in a low, passionate voice which 
 frightened her, "I never said so to any woman before. 
 I thought it when I saw you that first night, but I did 
 not imagine I should ever dare to tell you so. I dreamed 
 of you all night long." 
 
 "And yet you did not come into the garden," she mur- 
 mured, reproachfully. 
 
 "I did not dare to, I tell you. You seemed so cold 
 toward me, I thought you despised me. They told me 
 that you did despise everybody." 
 
 "I do," cried Pierrette, with a proud little laugh, 
 "everybody but you!" 
 
 "I think you must despise me when I come in all black 
 from the kiln. You are very neat. I never saw a girl 
 so neat." 
 
 Pierrette blushed with pleasure. She was neat, and 
 she knew it. 
 
 "I would not despise my good father," she retorted. 
 "He has to get all black, like the rest. I think I like you 
 best with the charcoal all over your face and hands. 
 Somehow you look bigger and stronger then!" 
 
 They walked slowly toward the house, in response to 
 a sharp summons from Marie. The damp chills of the 
 September night were beginning to make themselves felt 
 through the heat. Killington and Pico stood out from 
 among the shadows opposite, side by side, straight, steep, 
 towering up, as though with their needle-like points they 
 would pierce the very mysteries of the heavens. The
 
 64 White Butterflies. 
 
 man went directly to his pallet in the loft above, whither 
 all of his companions had repaired before him, while 
 Pierrette assisted her mother in some final household 
 labor. Her father was already asleep in the little bed- 
 room opening off from one end of the kitchen, and Pier- 
 rette entered presently her own tiny closet at the other 
 end; but when they were all quiet, she stole out under the 
 stars to look at the mountains again. She had always 
 loved to see them, but now she felt a deeper interest in 
 them than ever. 
 
 "They must love each other like people," she mused, 
 in her childish way. "How many, many years they must 
 have stood side by side!" 
 
 As she gazed, the same inexplicable feeling filled her 
 which she experienced when she looked at her garden 
 in its splendor, in the first exulting flush of some fortu- 
 nate morning. 
 
 "It must be beautiful to stand so always beside the 
 one you love as they do," she murmured. Then sleep- 
 iness overcame her unwonted sentimentalism, and she 
 crept off to her poor little bedroom; but she tossed un- 
 easily, instead of falling into her usual sound, dreamless 
 slumber. 
 
 The chief events of her meagre little life seemed to 
 pass in review before her. The principal one was the 
 affair of Larle Pichaud. She had never until lately been 
 able to consider the conduct of his silly little wife without 
 a curl of the lip. Now that conduct seemed no longer 
 contemptible. It might be possible to cling to a man 
 through everything and very sweet. Things had never 
 looked to her as they looked to-night. 
 
 The next two weeks were like a dream to Pierrette. 
 The cold weather hung off. It was nearly the first of
 
 The Charcoal Burners. 65 
 
 October, yet still the hard frosts delayed, and the warm, 
 bewitching evenings continued. There had been no 
 farther misunderstanding between Pierrette and Andre 
 Reboul. The two shy, proud souls, unlearned as they 
 were in the world's wisdom, had studied and compre- 
 hended each other, once for all. Kisses had passed be- 
 tween them now, and they had told each other of their 
 love, but no word had been uttered regarding marriage. 
 It was all too sacred and too new for that. 
 
 "I am not like these girls around here," Pierrette 
 Beaubien said to herself. "Now there was Fernande. 
 She had not known Larle Pichaud a month before they 
 were married. They know nothing of such heavenly joy 
 as mine any more than they can make or understand a 
 garden like ours. And Andre is different. Mon Dieu! 
 How glad I am that we are different from these rude 
 creatures. He has never kissed any one but me, I have 
 never kissed any one but him yet I am eighteen and he 
 is twenty. What is a kiss to these people? It is nothing!" 
 
 October came in cold and crisp, at last. The won- 
 derful garden was all ready for winter. The outside 
 doors were shut, and the warm mists from the kitchen 
 filled the little cabin. 
 
 One afternoon the work was done early, and Pierrette 
 was sitting by the window sewing. It was a gray, chilly 
 day, and the indefinable sadness of autumn was heavy 
 in the air. The happy young girl felt it, in spite of her 
 joy. Every one knew now that Andre Reboul was her 
 lover. Pierre and Marie were not pleased. They did not 
 see how they were going to get along without Pier- 
 rette, and they felt a certain fear of the still, harsh-voiced 
 young fellow who had come among them so recently. 
 The mother muttered fretfully when Pierrette went into 
 5
 
 66 White Butterflies. 
 
 the little shed for wood and Andre followed after her, 
 ostensibly to help her, but really, as Marie knew, to 
 snatch a kiss from her proud daughter. 
 
 "Who knows what he thinks, or what he has been do- 
 ing all his life?" she flung out crossly to her daughter. 
 
 "He is Adolph Roney's sister's son," returned Pier- 
 rette, calmly, but with a bright red spot burning in each 
 cheek. 
 
 "Oh, how he mumbled when he told your father that 
 he wanted you!" sniffed the older woman. "And who 
 are the Roneys? What kind of a kitchen does Marie 
 Roney keep? And such soup! And the beds! Adolph 
 Roney ! Faugh !" 
 
 Pierrette's face flamed angrily, but still she said noth- 
 ing. She thought of the silent mountains. Like Killing- 
 ton and Pico, her lover and she were to stand side by 
 side forever. 
 
 As she sat this afternoon, looking out at the ugly, 
 deep-rutted road, and glancing now and then to where 
 the smoke was curling up from the woods in the direc- 
 tion of the old kiln, she saw the Sherbury stage coming. 
 It stopped in front of Adolph Roney's a most uncom- 
 mon proceeding and a woman was helped out of it. 
 She was a young woman, though apparently some years 
 older than Pierrette, and was very smartly dressed. 
 Through her flimsy dotted veil her face shone red and 
 white. Pierrette gazed fixedly at this strange vision. 
 Her work fell from her hands. The little school-house 
 near by began to belch forth a tumultuous stream of 
 girls and boys. These also saw the new-comer picking 
 her way daintily up the path which led from the street 
 to Adolph Roney's door. The white-haired old French- 
 man happened to be at home, and he stood staring at
 
 The Charcoal Burners. 67 
 
 the woman, who was evidently an unexpected guest. 
 The children stood still in a body, and contemplated 
 the scene with undisguised interest. When Pierrette 
 saw them, she resumed her work. She was not going to 
 stare like them. 
 
 Some time elapsed long enough for the children to 
 disperse to their homes and then Adolph Roney came 
 out of his door with the stranger. They turned toward 
 the cabin of the Beaubiens. Pierrette felt a strange sink- 
 ing at her heart as she saw them. Perhaps they would 
 go past. No they stopped, and came up to the door. 
 They knocked, and Pierrette went to let them in. Her 
 strong young frame trembled when she saw that Adolph 
 Roney's kind old face looked troubled. The face of the 
 young woman with him looked saucy even insolent. 
 
 "This is Miss Delia Redmond, Pierrette," he said, 
 briefly. Pierrette nodded her head stiffly, and glared at 
 the gaudily-arrayed creature before her. 
 
 "I suppose Andre is down at the old kiln?" went on 
 Adolph Roney. Pierrette nodded again, speechlessly. 
 
 "You can come in and wait for him, madame," he 
 said courteously to his companion. 
 
 "I guess I won't," snapped the young woman, with a 
 viciousness which completed Pierrette's horrible dismay. 
 "He'll be surprised enough to see me. I'll come over 
 after supper. I want the fun of walking right in on him." 
 There was a disagreeable tang to her words. 
 "Don't say anything about my coming, please," she 
 concluded, as she turned away. She made a supercilious 
 gesture toward the French girl, and gave her a brilliant, 
 ugly smile as a parting salute. 
 
 Delia Redmond was fair-skinned and blue-eyed an 
 Irish girl, as Pierrette could tell by her talk, though she
 
 68 White Butterflies. 
 
 had used French words as though she could talk French 
 if she chose. She had an experienced, self-confident air. 
 She evidently knew what she was about. In her fierce, 
 undisciplined young soul Pierrette Beaubien hated her. 
 
 It was six o'clock, and the blackened troop of charcoal 
 burners came straggling along the road to their suppers. 
 Among them was Andre Reboul. Pierrette hardly knew 
 what she was doing as she put the victuals upon the 
 table. The men ate heartily, but she could not taste of 
 the porridge which her mother had seasoned so carefully. 
 Every moment she kept imagining that she heard foot- 
 steps at the door and that Delia Redmond was coming. 
 But the men finished eating, and yet she had not come. 
 
 Pierrette now could only long for a chance to tell 
 Andre of the expected visitor. He ought to be warned 
 against this wicked creature, who, Pierrette felt sure, 
 meant no good to him. 
 
 As she passed the window, the moon a glorious hun- 
 ter's moon was just rising. She would ask him to come 
 and see it. 
 
 "Look, Andre," she whispered, pointing up at it; 
 "come out on the doorstep with me, and watch the moon 
 rise." 
 
 As the door closed behind them, she caught his hand 
 eagerly. 
 
 "Some one is coming to see you right away, Andre," 
 she stammered, incoherently. "She will be here before 
 you know it. She has some grudge against you, I think. 
 She says her name is Delia Redmond. Who is she, 
 Andre?" 
 
 "What\do you say, Pierrette?" he asked, staring at her, 
 and his thick French sounding thicker than usual. 
 
 "Delia Delia Redmond. She is coming. Mon Dieu!
 
 The Charcoal Burners. 69 
 
 I fancy I hear her this minute! She seems angry with 
 you. She says she wants to surprise you." 
 
 "D n her!" he muttered. He looked around, as 
 
 though with a sudden impulse to escape. There had 
 been such a look on Larle Pichaud's face when the 
 woman had come a woman whom the stage brought, 
 just as it had brought Delia Redmond to accuse him. 
 An awful fear, which had been gathering in Pierrette's 
 innocent heart for the past hour, began to put on a 
 definite, blood-curdling shape. 
 
 "What will she do to you, Andre?" she whispered, 
 weeping and winding her strong young arms around 
 him. "Run away and hide, Andre! Quick! I will see 
 her. Oh, I will tear her eyes out! I will kill her!" 
 
 "No, no!" he muttered; "I will see her, and I will 
 make it right with her. I can't now, but I can soon 
 very soon and then I will tell you all about it, Pier- 
 rette. I should not have done it, but " 
 
 He stopped abruptly and shook himself from Pier- 
 rette's trembling embrace. There was a patter of foot- 
 steps on the path. Adolph Roney had some, and with 
 him was Delia Redmond. 
 
 Andre braced his broad back against the door and 
 faced the new-comers, looking straight into the woman's 
 smirking countenance. The moon shone full upon him. 
 
 "Good evening, Mr. Reboul," she said in French, and 
 with an affectation of great deference. "I suppose you 
 thought you had hidden yourself pretty well, but I have 
 found you at last. Where is that letter that you prom- 
 ised I should have a month ago?" 
 
 "I have found you at last!" Those were the exact 
 words of the woman who had attacked Larle Pichaud. 
 Pierrette heard nothing more. She slunk to one side
 
 70 White Butterflies. 
 
 among the shadows, and leaned fainting against a lilac 
 bush which grew there. Then a sudden flare of light ap- 
 peared, as some one from within opened the door. When 
 she came to herself, she saw Andre walking off with 
 Adolph and the woman in the direction of the Roneys'. 
 She was completely chilled through, but she felt as 
 though she could not face the scrutiny of her father and 
 mother. Where could she go to get warm? Oh, there 
 was the old kiln! There was a great fire going there, 
 she knew, and the passage-way dug in the earth was dark 
 and shut away from all peering eyes. 
 
 "A man was killed there once, I know," she murmured 
 dully to herself, "but I am not afraid. I should not care 
 if I were killed, too. At least, I should be warm there 
 and what have I to live for, anyway? People will de- 
 spise me after this, if I cling to Andre just as I despised 
 Fernande Pichaud. Everybody will know about this 
 woman by to-morrow, and how they will hoot at me in 
 their homes. They will say, 'That proud girl of Pierre 
 Beaubien's was deceived, as if she had been any com- 
 mon, empty-headed thing.' For that Delia Redmond 
 must have loved Andre, just as that poor woman had 
 loved Larle Pichaud and he might have yes he 
 might have told her that he loved her and have kissed 
 her as he kissed me. Oh, if I had only died last night! 
 Then I should never have known this! Yet I love him 
 so! I would give anything to have him fold me in his 
 arms just once more!" 
 
 Growing wilder and wilder as she stumbled on, she 
 reached the old kiln. The great, rough door at the end 
 of the passage-way fell toward her as she pulled at it, 
 and bruised her, but she lifted it easily and put it in 
 place behind her. As she had mused, the fire within
 
 The Charcoal Burners. 71 
 
 her had burned. When she had made the place all dark 
 and close, she threw herself on the earth warm and 
 grateful from the fire so near and sobbed despairingly. 
 
 "Mother of God!" she prayed, over and over. "My 
 heart is broken! Help me! Help me!" 
 
 * * * * 
 
 The next morning Andre Reboul came down to his 
 kiln. He was in a daze of unhappiness between his ex- 
 periences of the previous evening and the disappearance 
 of Pierrette, for whom he and several others had spent 
 a large part of the night in searching. Andre knew 
 nothing of the story of Larle Pichaud, or else he might 
 have conducted himself differently during the scenes of 
 the last evening. He was coming down to see if the 
 fires in his kiln were going, and then he was pre- 
 pared to resume the search for Pierrette. Suddenly he 
 saw the fresh footprints leading toward the old kiln, and 
 with an ominous sinking at his heart, he followed them 
 down to the long-used door. With shaking hands he 
 pulled at the old timbers, and in a moment the white light 
 was shining upon the prostrate form of Pierrette. 
 
 With a groan of horror he dropped upon his knees 
 beside her. He had heard the story of the chilled work- 
 man's death, if he had not heard the scandal regard- 
 ing Larle Pichaud. The place was full of gases from 
 the burning charcoal. In a wild hope that the fresh 
 air might revive her, he lifted her and bore her out into 
 the sunshine. He chafed her hands and bathed her face 
 with water from a spring close by, but when she still 
 gave no sign of life, he threw himself down in an agony 
 of despair, and grovelled among the dried leaves that were 
 heaped about her. 
 
 "Oh, Pierrette!" he cried, bending above her again,
 
 72 White Butterflies. 
 
 in a last vain hope of making her hear him; "don't you 
 see how it was? It was nothing nothing! I owed Delia 
 Redmond some money for ten weeks' board. I spent the 
 money in a lottery, and I lost it all. Wake up! It will be all 
 right, Pierrette I am earning so much now! I was 
 ashamed to have you know that I had been so thriftless! 
 I would not have had your father know it for any- 
 thing. I should have been afraid he would not have 
 let me have you. They said she liked me, Pierrette, 
 but I never liked her. I never kissed her, mignonne! 
 It was as I said I never loved any one but you! Oh, 
 wake up, wake up!" 
 
 But all his endearments were powerless to arouse 
 her, and, still murmuring fond, formless words into her 
 deaf ears, he struggled up to her father's house, carrying 
 her in his arms. The doctor was summoned from Sher- 
 bury at once, but Pierrette never breathed again. 
 * * * * 
 
 From that day Andre Reboul was seen no more 
 among the charcoal burners. Whither he went was 
 never known, but, though many years have passed since 
 then, on the top of Sherbury Mountain the smoke still as- 
 cends to the sky from the kilns of Smoke City. Dropped 
 in among them is a lovely garden as though a star had 
 fallen from heaven into its rough streets. It is tended 
 by a bent little old Frenchman and his wrinkled wife. 
 If you pause to praise it, the tears will gather in their 
 eyes and they will say, "Oh, you should have seen it 
 when our daughter our own Pierrette! took care of it. 
 She was strong as a man, and so beautiful! Every one 
 turned to look at her when she went by! The flowers 
 would bloom if she but told them. to. Alas ! our garden 
 will never look the same again. You have heard the
 
 The Charcoal Burners. 73 
 
 story, monsieur? No? Ah! It will break your heart. You 
 would like to hear it?" 
 
 And you will forget the smoke and the shouts of the 
 charcoal burners in listening to the broken words of the 
 old couple as they tell you of the tragedy of their 
 sad and simple lives.
 
 Cupid and Minerva. 
 
 A TALE WHICH ILLUSTRATES THE EMPTI- 
 NESS OF THE OLD LINES: 
 
 "The safest shield against the darts 
 Of Cupid, is Minerva's Thimble." 
 
 U TT is a most gratifying letter," exclaimed Mr. Michael 
 
 j_ Penrose, warmly. 
 
 "It is just splendid!" cried his young and pretty 
 sister Amy. "I am quite in love with that Mr. Men- 
 ninger." 
 
 "You in love with him!" rejoined her brother, in play- 
 ful disdain. "Why, puss, he is the very cleverest and 
 most distinguished literary critic in New York. My 
 impression is that he is old and gray and very rheu- 
 matic. At any rate, he wouldn't look at a dear little 
 goose like you." 
 
 "I don't know why," pouted Miss Amy. "If he can 
 praise my brother's books so highly, he mightn't scorn 
 me. I am thought to resemble my brother and maybe 
 I know more than some people think I do." 
 
 Mr. Michael Penrose murmured some reassuring 
 words to his sister and kissed her tenderly. Then he 
 proceeded to read the letter over again, Miss Amy peer- 
 ing at it from behind him. 
 
 "You needn't tell me," she insisted, "that anybody 
 with the rheumatism wrote that." 
 
 The hand in which the "gratifying letter" was in- 
 dited was, indeed, a bold and handsome one. 
 74
 
 Cupid and Minerva. 75 
 
 "I send you herewith," it ran, "a copy of the current 
 issue of 'The Age of Intellect/ containing my review of 
 your masterly work upon z\nemophilous Monocotyle- 
 dons. Three years ago I had the honor to commend 
 highly your first production (as you stated in your 
 preface) upon Entomostraca and Larvae evidently the 
 result of years of study. I have read since then with 
 great pleasure every article from your pen which has 
 come under my notice. It is my hope, as it is that of 
 every lover of science in America, that you may long be 
 spared to make the profound researches of which your 
 works bear evidence. 
 
 "I am, sir, with the deepest respect, 
 "Yours faithfully, 
 
 "Laurence Menninger." 
 
 "I wonder if he is German," suggested little Miss Amy. 
 
 "I have asked ever so many people about him," re- 
 sponded her brother, "but nobody seems to know him 
 personally. He has written the scientific reviews four 
 or five years for the 'Age' now, and has made them the 
 most important part of the magazine. It is said that he is 
 averse to society a perfect recluse and never goes to 
 the office. Probably he is old and rich dabbling in 
 scientific experiments all the time. I am thinking that 
 he might possibly help me to get a place as an in- 
 structor in some sort of a scientific institution. I would 
 like such work ever so much better than reading weak 
 MSS. for 'The Brain of the West.' Oh, if I could only 
 give all my time to original study!" 
 
 "It is a shame that you can't!" declared little Miss 
 Amy, severely, as she stroked the bowed head of her 
 gifted brother. "There ought to be a fund for geniuses like
 
 76 White Butterflies. 
 
 you, Mike, dear, so that you could compose wonderful 
 deep books all the time, and not bother to earn money." 
 
 "Oh, you precious little goose!" laughed her brother, 
 regaining his courage under her adoring sympathy; and 
 then he rose and went up to his own room. 
 
 It was a long apartment, with a curtained alcove at 
 one *end, where he slept and dressed. At the other 
 end were herbariums, cases of defunct bugs mounted 
 on long, slender insect pins, horrid snakes in alcohol 
 jars, perches covered with stuffed birds, minerals, vases 
 of dried grasses and similar memorabilia, until one could 
 scarcely make one's way around. The young man him- 
 self, thirty-two or three years old, robust, "well-looking," 
 as the English say, and full of zest and energy, seemed 
 out of place among these dusty treasures. 
 
 He took up a freshly prepared case of stuffed birds 
 and looked at them critically. 
 
 "I believe I'll send these to Mr. Laurence Menninger," 
 he mused. "They have considerable value, and he has 
 been so awfully good to me that I wish I could do some- 
 thing for him. I fancy the old fellow would appreciate 
 them." 
 
 There was no address upon Mr. Laurence Mennin- 
 ger's note beyond the letter head of "The Age of In- 
 tellect." Mr. Michael Penrose accordingly wrote and 
 asked him where he should send a package for him, par- 
 tially defining its nature. 
 
 "I hesitate about giving my address," began the letter 
 which the young author received in reply, "but your 
 kind desire to send me a valuable gift, of the fragile 
 nature which you suggest, is too warmly expressed to 
 allow me to decline, especially as you reside in the Far
 
 Cupid and Minerva. 77 
 
 West. I beg you, however, as for special reasons I shut 
 myself away from general society, to regard the number 
 which I send you as given in strict confidence. I thank 
 you most sincerely for the favor which you intend to 
 do me. 
 
 "Faithfully yours, 
 
 "Laurence Menninger. 
 "27 Hamilton Square, New York." 
 
 The birds reached their destination in safety, and 
 brought a brief but delightful acknowledgment from the 
 great reviewer. Several of the specimens were quite new 
 to him. Mr. Michael Penrose had captured them during 
 a trip which he had taken to Mexico, in order to prepare 
 a series of articles on that region for "The Brain of the 
 West." 
 
 A few months after this occurrence, Mr. Michael Pen- 
 rose came home one day with an excited look upon his 
 face. 
 
 "Amy, dear," he said, trying to speak calmly. "I have 
 come to an important crisis in my studies for my new 
 book on 'The Bats and Seals of the Oceanic Islands,' 
 and have got leave of absence from the office for three 
 weeks. I feel as though I must go to New York for 
 awhile, and get into that Genobel Collection. It isn't 
 large, you know, but it is choice and just what I need. 
 They say it is almost impossible to get into it, but I 
 shall bring all the influence I can to bear in the matter, 
 my publishers may be able to help, and there's that old 
 Mr. Menninger. He might manage it, if the others 
 couldn't." 
 
 "And now I shall know just how he looks!" exclaimed 
 sentimental little Miss Amy. "I imagine him, dear, as
 
 78 \Vhite Butterflies. 
 
 just forty-five that's such a sweet age for a man, you 
 know and with dark, flashing eyes, and a perfectly 
 awful manner like a king, you know and a fierce mus- 
 tache. As for the snuffy, rheumatic old duffer you fancy 
 him I don't take any stock in him at all." 
 
 "Well, I may not succeed in getting into his presence," 
 laughed her brother, as he began to make preparations 
 for his journey, "but if I ever do, I'll photograph him 
 for you just as I find him." 
 
 In New York, Mr. Michael Penrose paused at his 
 hotel only long enough to perform a hurried toilet be- 
 fore making his first attempt to enter the wonderful col- 
 lection, on which he felt the success of his new book 
 so greatly to depend. He found that his publishers and 
 the eccentric owner of the museum were at swords' points 
 over some book of his which they had refused to bring 
 out. There seemed nothing left for him but to throw 
 himself upon the good offices of Mr. Laurence Mennin- 
 ger, which he accordingly proceeded to do. 
 
 The house proved to be a grand mansion on a quiet, 
 old-fashioned, open square. Half-a-dozen of the same 
 stately sort of residences stood near it all that were left 
 in the down-town whirlpool when the world of fashion 
 had taken its flight twenty years before toward the Park. 
 
 "I know I'm a wretch to come, after what he wrote," 
 guiltily mused the young man, as he mounted the queer, 
 old marble steps, "but when he finds out my errand, 
 I somehow feel as though he would forgive me." 
 
 He rang the bell, and, card in hand, awaited the open- 
 ing of the door. 
 
 Suddenly a carriage drew up in front of the house, and 
 simultaneously the door in front of him opened, emitting 
 a tall young woman with such force and rapidity that
 
 Cupid and Minerva. 79 
 
 she almost dislodged the muscular assistant editor of 
 "The Brain of the West" 
 
 "I beg your pardon," she began, drawing herself up 
 haughtily, just in time to preserve both their lives. "I 
 was hastening to meet my friends in the carriage, and I 
 did not know that any one was here. Did you wish to 
 see my uncle?" 
 
 "Just my conception of him, precisely," flashed over 
 Mr. Michael Penrose's mind. "An elderly uncle the 
 term just fits him." 
 
 The young woman was shapely as well as tall, and her 
 head was fine and finely set upon a pair of noble shoul- 
 ders. The assistant editor of "The Brain of the West" 
 thought that he had never seen a more interesting speci- 
 men of womanhood, as this rather stern young person 
 stood before him, a slight color tinging her grave, hand- 
 some face. She glanced beyond him toward her friends 
 who were alighting from the carriage, though she politely 
 awaited his reply to her question. 
 
 He simply handed her his card, stammering for he 
 had not retained his self-possession as well as she had, 
 "I came to see if I might Mr. Laurence Menninger." 
 
 "Mr. Penrose," she said, in a voice not calculated to 
 displease her visitor. "I have heard of you, but I cannot 
 say whether Mr. Menninger will see you or not. He 
 does not often see people, but he might consent to re- 
 ceive you. Will you wait a few moments?" 
 
 "Wait a few moments!" He only wished that she had 
 asked him to do something long and difficult, such was 
 the delicate flattery of the deference which this enchant- 
 ing young woman had infused into her manner toward 
 him. Was it possible that this radiant being had read 
 his stupid books or was it only because she had heard
 
 so White Butterflies. 
 
 her uncle speak well of him that she seemed disposed 
 so favorably toward him? 
 
 Mr. Michael Penrose had never cared for society and 
 knew little about it. Women he had gauged, therefore, 
 as all such men do, by those of his own family his 
 mother, a calm, busy, practical housekeeper, with de- 
 cided views concerning woman's sphere; and his pretty 
 little sister bright, superficial and inconsequent. This 
 brilliant-faced, perfectly dressed New York woman, who 
 might have been either twenty or thirty, so fresh, yet 
 sedate, was her beauty, gave him the impression of a new 
 and intensely interesting species. "No wonder," he 
 mused, "that old Mr. Menninger does not need any other 
 society, with such a charming niece in the house. How 
 lucky that I happened to encounter her! It might have 
 chanced, I suppose, that I might have been here a dozen 
 times in the ordinary course of things without once see- 
 ing her." 
 
 Presently the young woman herself came back to him. 
 Her visitors had gone, and all traces had disappeared of 
 the slight embarrassment which she had shown after her 
 providential escape from a violent assault upon our peace- 
 able young scientist. 
 
 "I neglected to state to you before, Mr. Penrose," she 
 began, pleasantly, "that I am Miss Helen Laurence. Now 
 please tell me what was your errand with Mr. Menninger. 
 I am sure that he would not object, for I transact nearly 
 all his business for him." 
 
 "Your uncle is not well, then?" 
 
 "I am sorry to say that he is a great sufferer from the 
 gout." 
 
 "Ah!" thought her visitor. "Gout and rheumatism are 
 not so very dissimilar. I am a fair prophet, after all."
 
 Cupid and Minerva. si 
 
 Then aloud he replied to her question, and proceeded 
 to state his case with as much grace as he could muster. 
 
 When he concluded, Miss Laurence gave him a re- 
 assuring smile. "I am happy to tell you," she said, 
 "that we know the Genobels very well, and are on the 
 best of terms with them. If this is the urgent cause of 
 your wish to see my uncle to-day, you might as well 
 postpone it, for he is particularly unwell just now, and 
 if you will accept of my poor services, I shall be glad 
 to go with you at once to examine the Collection. I am 
 an indifferent scholar beside my learned uncle" she 
 smiled deprecatingly, and always with that subtle defer- 
 ence so flattering to her hearer "but I am still somewhat 
 familiar with scientific matters. I have read your books, 
 and I know how highly my uncle regards them." 
 
 Ecstasy! To be actually within reach of the Genobel 
 Collection, and to visit it in company with this lovely 
 creature who had read his books! It was too much! 
 
 He had supposed that a woman acquainted with science 
 must be a sort of monstrosity, hut here was one, blonde, 
 supple, elegant, beautiful. 
 
 Under the circumstances, he could not help distrust- 
 ing somewhat the accuracy of her knowledge, until they 
 were fairly within the walls of the famous collector, when 
 it was impossible not to gather, during the hour which 
 they spent there, that Miss Helen Laurence, however 
 modestly she might value herself, was no sciolist, but 
 an honest and thorough gleaner in his favorite fields. He 
 reflected again what a companion she must be for that 
 gouty old uncle of hers, with his elevated tastes, but most 
 probably irritable temper. Mr. Michael Penrose could 
 readily imagine what an angel she was to him. 
 
 There was not time to examine half of the things he
 
 82 White Butterflies. 
 
 wanted to see that afternoon, so the next day he went 
 again still under the guidance of Miss Helen Laurence. 
 She was allowed by the ugly, suspicious Herr Genobel, 
 who dogged their steps everywhere, to unlock drawers 
 and cabinets as she chose, and to handle everything at 
 pleasure. 
 
 After this second visit he was invited to stay to lunch- 
 eon with Miss Laurence, where he met her brother, who, 
 though not so accomplished a naturalist as his sister, 
 and also a rather taciturn and plain-looking young man, 
 was still a not unacceptable addition to their party. 
 
 As there was going to be a lecture on the following 
 evening by a friend of Mr. Penrose, upon the "Modern 
 Cromlech Builders," and in a hall not far away, he invited 
 Miss Laurence and her brother to accompany him 
 thither. They accepted the invitation. 
 
 A day later the brother called to drive him to the home 
 of a queer old electrician, who, Miss Laurence had re- 
 ported, had read Mr. Penrose's books, and was anxious 
 to meet him. Of course Miss Laurence was to go too. 
 
 Ten days of Mr. Michael Penrose's vacation passed 
 away, and upon looking back over them he found that he 
 had every day seen Miss Helen Laurence, yet had never 
 once been able to gain access to the chamber of her 
 eccentric uncle. 
 
 "Still, they have been the happiest days of my life," 
 he murmured hotly to himself as, after an evening at a 
 delightful reception to which he had been carried by Miss 
 Laurence and her brother, he returned to his hotel. 
 "Every day shows me more and more how noble and 
 sweet and wise she is!" 
 
 "A thousand fantasies 
 Begin to throng"
 
 Cupid and Minerva. 83 
 
 into his mind as he thinks of her and of the future. He 
 has always looked forward in a vague way to having 
 some time a home of his own, which, of course, will be 
 full of his beloved seaweeds and corals, strange bugs on 
 insect pins, birds on perches, gneiss and asbestos, but 
 to-night over and under and through them all let no 
 scientist dare to dispute the fact! shines the apotheosis 
 of Miss Helen Laurence, dignified and learned, yet fair- 
 browed and beautiful. And does his image haunt her 
 also? He can scarcely dare to hope so, but he cannot 
 help knowing that during his stay in New York, Miss 
 Laurence, once or twice in the face of her brother's re- 
 monstrances, has put off engagement after engagement 
 in order that she might show him some curio, the sight 
 of which he has long coveted, or attend some lecture 
 with him. And has she not declared within his hearing 
 he blushes to think of it that he is bound to become 
 one of the foremost scientific authorities of America? 
 She has been shocked to find that his studies are prose- 
 cuted during such hours as he can snatch from his exact- 
 ing duties as assistant editor of "The Brain of the West." 
 She had supposed that all his days and his nights were 
 given to science. She had also confided to him, now that 
 they are so well acquainted indeed, it seems as though 
 they had always known one another that she had pic- 
 tured him as a thin, elderly gentleman, with spectacles, 
 of course, and with a vast brow, cavernous eyes, and a 
 soul entirely above the delights of lunching and gadding 
 about, even for scientific purposes, with a young person 
 like herself. 
 
 When this disclosure was made to Mr. Michael Pen- 
 rose, he had, as was natural, laughed immoderately, and 
 had responded, with sparkling eyes and a beating- heart,
 
 84 White Butterflies. 
 
 that an eremite might well renounce his vows for such 
 a privilege; upon which, Miss Laurence, though neces- 
 sarily accustomed to compliments, had blushed a brilliant 
 carmine, and had asked him abruptly to restate his views 
 regarding the ears of saurians, in which she was pro- 
 foundly interested. 
 
 The final evening of his leave of absence had come, and 
 he strayed over to the handsome old house in Hamilton 
 Square to say his good-byes. The omnipresent brother 
 for once was away, but he would certainly be in about 
 nine, Miss Laurence assured him; and he promised, most 
 willingly, as may be surmised, to wait. 
 
 They sat down together in the pretty reception room 
 where she had introduced herself to him, and then began 
 to talk enthusiastically, as they always did. They had, 
 somehow, an infinity of interests in common, and the 
 young man had never found anybody's conversation so 
 suggestive and stimulating as hers. 
 
 They had been discussing a wonderful kind of dragon 
 fly, of which they had recently seen the only specimen 
 in this country, when the clock on the mantel struck half- 
 past eight. Its silvery chime seemed to send a cold chill 
 to Mr. Michael Penrose's heart, and to dry up the foun- 
 tain of his words. Miss Laurence, after several ineffect- 
 ual attempts to lead him to talk on as before, rallied him 
 upon his abstraction. 
 
 "Ah," she said, "your thoughts are not with me; they 
 are far over the sea, following that dragon fly to his 
 native haunts, and extracting from the formation of his 
 wings some curious theories for your new book. Indeed, 
 I will not urge you to wait. I will convey your good- 
 byes to my brother." 
 
 "Oh I you do not understand," protested the
 
 Cupid and Minerva. 85 
 
 young man, in confusion. "I I prefer to wait. I was 
 only thinking " He paused. 
 
 "It is of no consequence none at all," she protested, 
 in her turn, unheeding that she was hardly polite in her 
 haste. 
 
 "But, oh, it is of consequence!" he declared, impul- 
 sively, a sudden wave of feeling passing over him. "I 
 was thinking I was thinking that I I might never see 
 you again." 
 
 "Oh, yes, you will!" she laughed, constrainedly. "We 
 are all so well and you will soon come to New York 
 again." 
 
 Her cool words served to partially restore him to him- 
 self. 
 
 "I I have been so sorry not to see Mr. Menninger," 
 he went on, saying over again what he had already said 
 sufficiently often. "I had so much to say to him, and 
 now I have even more. Do you not suppose that he will 
 ever see me?" 
 
 A little shadow fell over her face as she looked steadily 
 into his eyes without answering him. "Mr. Penrose," 
 she began, at last, with some agitation in her manner, 
 "I have a confession to make to you; but first promise 
 that you will forgive me." 
 
 He bent forward a little to hear what she had to say, 
 eagerly promising what she desired. It was a critical 
 moment. 
 
 "Mr. Penrose," she began again, "I have deceived you. 
 But it seemed to happen so that I could deceive you with- 
 out really meaning to, and I could not bear to tell you 
 the truth. I thought you would be disappointed. My 
 uncle, though he has always been a student, has never 
 written anything beyond his ordinary correspondence.
 
 S6 White Butterflies. 
 
 His mind is now very feeble, and may fail entirely any 
 day. His name is James William Menninger. There is 
 no Laurence Menninger; or rather I am Laurence 
 Menninger." 
 
 She put her hands to her face in genuine shame and 
 distress. It was the final touch to upset his balance en- 
 tirely. He sprang to her side, tore her hands from her 
 face and kissed them passionately. 
 
 "Oh, how good you have been to me!" he whispered 
 to her "you, rich, beautiful, accomplished to me, a 
 poor, obscure editor " 
 
 And then she hushed his self-depreciations with such 
 decided yet agreeable words that for the next fifteen min- 
 utes saurians and trilobites, microbes and bacteria, poly- 
 poid excrescences and musical orthoptera, were for- 
 gotten. 
 
 It was but a few days after this that the mysterious 
 uncle died, and a few months later Miss Helen Laurence 
 went to visit Mr. Michael Penrose's mother by special 
 invitation. This brought the rumor into circulation that 
 Mr. Michael Penrose was about to be married, and as 
 nobody took the trouble to dispute the rumor, it was ac- 
 cepted everywhere as true. 
 
 But nobody, not even the inquisitive Miss Amy, knew 
 of the identity of Laurence Menninger with her prospec- 
 tive sister-in-law, until she came on, about a year after 
 Mr. Michael Penrose's introduction to the distinguished 
 critic, to attend her brother's wedding in New York, 
 and to bid him good-bye as he sailed with his bride for 
 a distant shore, where he had been appointed to conduct 
 some great archaeological explorations. "The Brain of 
 the West" would have to work out its own destiny hence- 
 forward without the aid of Mr. Michael Penrose.
 
 Cupid and Minerva. 87 
 
 The moment of Miss Amy's entrance into the hall of 
 the old house on Hamilton Square was chosen as the 
 proper time for initiating her into the great secret. 
 
 "I engaged," said her brother, leading forward his 
 promised bride, "to introduce you to-night to Mr. Lau- 
 rence Menninger, whose kindness to me has so much en- 
 deared him to you. Here he is. Behold his 'dark, flash- 
 ing eyes/ his 'perfectly awful manner/ his 'fierce mus- 
 tache'; and does he not bear his 'forty-five years' with 
 great grace?" 
 
 "At any rate," pouted Miss Amy, relieving herself of 
 her surprise by enthusiastically embracing her prospec- 
 tive relative, while the taciturn brother gazed admiringly 
 upon her from a distance "at any rate, I didn't say that 
 she was 'old and gray and very rheumatic!' " 
 
 But the beautiful bride seemed to be only flattered by 
 the bridegroom's preconceived notions of her as thus de- 
 scribed, and they all fell to talking merrily apropos of 
 a fine flower show just then in progress in New York 
 of the segregation of the homogeneous fluid in the cells 
 of drosera, which greatly affected, so the bride remarked, 
 to the deep interest of the bridegroom, the nervous mat- 
 ter in the plant, and the continuity of protoplasm.
 
 The Case of Parson Hewlett. 
 
 A TRUE STORY. 
 
 THE impression which Parson Hewlett first made 
 upon his Birchmont parish was very favorable. 
 It is said that all of the people, including Deacon 
 Aaron Rice, a famous judge of pulpit eloquence, thought 
 him "a most uncommon preacher"; Goodsir Giles, the 
 chief stickler for orthodoxy in the parish, declared the 
 new parson to be "as sound on the doctrines as Jeremy 
 Taylor himself" ; and he offered a prayer long enough to 
 satisfy even Dr. Hartshorn, who is said to have con- 
 sidered it a piece of irreverence in a clergyman to con- 
 sume less than an hour in making his "long prayer"; 
 while the women agreed in pronouncing him "the come- 
 liest minister in all the country round." Even old Mis- 
 tress Betty Weddell, who lived alone in her little cottage 
 among the pines on Birchmont Hill, said that the new 
 parson "knew how to speak to a body." 
 
 Mistress Betty has come down in history as a very cross 
 old woman. It turned out that the new parson did not 
 much care to speak to her, well as he knew how, when he 
 became better acquainted with her. 
 
 These remarks were all made upon the tenth day of Aug- 
 ust, 1767. The new pastor's full name was the Reverend 
 Jonathan Hewlett, late of the college at New Haven, and 
 later of Walpole, N. H. He wore "a great white wig and 
 a cocked-up hat, and made a dignified appearance." One 
 of his ministerial friends said of him to another: "He 
 88
 
 The Case of Parson Hewlett. 89 
 
 could do more execution with one nod of his wig than you 
 or I could in talking half an hour." 
 
 Yes, a man of power was' the Reverend Jonathan Hew- 
 lett, and the mark which he left upon the town of Birch- 
 mont, and, indeed, upon the whole county, has remained 
 to this day. 
 
 The story of his calling is thus told in the old town rec- 
 ords of Birchmont: "The vote was put whether the Town 
 was ready to make choice of a gentleman to settle with 
 them at present, and it past in the affirmative. Then, 
 according to the advice of the neighboring ministers, the 
 Town proceeded to Chuse and Call the Rev'd Mr. Jona- 
 than Hewlett to the work of the ministry among us. 
 Agreed and voted to give the said Mr. Jonathan Hewlett, 
 provided he Accepts and Settles among us, one hundred 
 pounds settlement; to be paid as followes, viz., sixty 
 pounds the first year and fourty pounds the second year. 
 As also an annual salary, to begin as followes; viz., fifty 
 pounds to be paid the first year, and to rise two pounds a 
 year for five years, and there to remain, and likewise to 
 find him his wood." 
 
 Shortly after Parson Hewlett's coming among them, 
 the people voted to make a new meeting-house for him 
 "forty-five feet long and thirty-five feet wide and twenty 
 foot post." Later, it was voted that when sixty families 
 were settled in the town, the salary should "rise one 
 pound upon each family that shall be added above sixty, 
 till it comes to be eighty pounds a year, and there to re- 
 main during his continuance with us in the work of the 
 ministry. It was likewise agreed upon and voted that the 
 selectmen shall lay out the minister's right in publick land 
 where the minister shall chuse." Then "a commity was 
 appointed to provide for the Rev'd Jonathan Hewlett's
 
 90 White Butterflies. 
 
 installation" and "to build him a house." All of which 
 looks as though Dr. Hartshorn and Deacon Rice and 
 Goodsir Giles and the rest had meant to be fair and 
 square, and even generous with the pastor they so much 
 admired, when they "settled" him; still, his subsequent 
 history leads us to believe that the preparations for his 
 reception and maintenance were very closely supervised 
 by the thrifty parson himself. He certainly found the 
 people ready and willing to do his bidding, however, and 
 if his life had but been in accordance with his prayers and 
 his profession, it is reasonable to believe that his parish- 
 ioners would have supported and loved him to the end. 
 But, like many another, Parson Hewlett had a nature 
 which grace failed to subdue, and, though his side of the 
 story has not come down to us so fully as has that of the 
 town, it is plain to see that he showed himself very soon to 
 be "an hard man, reaping where he had not sowed, and 
 gathering where he had not strown." His sound and doc- 
 trinal sermons, however, his grand looks and courtly 
 manners, and, above all, the innate respect for his office 
 which was a part of provincial human nature in those 
 days, kept Parson Hewlett in good and regular standing 
 among his people for several years. Then the mutterings 
 of discontent which had been making themselves heard 
 distantly here and there began to grow louder. Mistress 
 Betty Weddell was one of the first to "speak out." 
 
 "What's fair words," scolded the poor old woman, from 
 whom the parson had wrenched her share of the "min- 
 ister-tax," at his own convenience, instead of hers, 
 "What's fair words, when the Evil One is behind them? 
 Oh, I wish," tradition says that she confided to her neigh- 
 bors, "I wish that Parson Hewlett would go by my woods 
 some dark night on his high-stepping horse! How I
 
 The Case of Parson Hewlett. 91 
 
 would love to jump out of the bushes and 'Boh!' at him!" 
 But poor old Mistress Betty never had the chance she 
 coveted. 
 
 Goodsir Giles, too, had hard luck, and was not able to 
 pay his minister-tax any better than Mistress Betty; but 
 this did not deter Parson Hewlett from insistingupon his 
 rights in the matter. One morning he came around to 
 see the old Goodsir, and urged upon him with prayer 
 (very likely an hour long), the wickedness of putting off 
 the payment of his tax. 
 
 "But I tell you I can't pay a penny this year, parson," 
 explained Goodsir Giles, for the dozenth time; "I said so, 
 and I mean it. My wife has been sick this twelvemonth, 
 my hogs have died, my horse broke his neck in the pas- 
 ture, and I can't even pay my score at the mill." 
 
 "Tut, tut!" reproved the parson, "I can't believe that 
 you are so badly off as all that! Come now, and let us see 
 what you have." 
 
 Shrewdly exploring the premises, he discovered a fine 
 milch cow, which he proceeded to lead off for himself, 
 under the very eyes of its indignant owner. The poor 
 old Goodsir pleaded that this cow was all that stood be- 
 tween his family and starvation, but even this availed him 
 nothing. 
 
 "Ha, sirrah!" scolded the pompous parson, "pay your 
 debts before you lay up for the future. Read your Bible, 
 and learn from that, that the Lord will provide. If you 
 are needy, call upon the town." 
 
 Goodsir Giles had a better chance than Mistress Betty 
 to avenge himself upon the insolent parson. One day in 
 early spring, when the ice was still pretty firm in the 
 Birchmont River, Parson Hewlett crossed it in the morn- 
 ing to attend a "Conference" upon the other side. The
 
 92 White Butterflies. 
 
 sun was very warm at noon, and upon his return his 
 sleigh broke through the ice in the very middle of the 
 stream. Goodsir Giles, whose house was on the bank 
 close by, heard loud cries for help, and hurried out to see 
 what was the matter. His heart, which had been moved 
 by the piteous cries, hardened when he saw who was in 
 trouble. 
 
 "Help, help, Goodsir Giles, for God's sake!" roared the 
 haughty parson, now humble enough. 
 
 But the Goodsir was ready for him. He made a 
 trumpet of his two hands and bawled through it: "Keep 
 up your courage, parson! The Lord will provide! Call 
 upon the town!" Then he went back to his house. 
 
 It was a long, cold half-hour, tradition tells us, before 
 a chance passer-by rescued the doughty parson from his 
 perilous and uncomfortable position. He and his horse 
 were half dead from fright and exposure, but naughty 
 Goodsir Giles felt no compunctions. , 
 
 Parson Hewlett raised a large family, and, though he 
 was a very serious man, he had one humorous conun- 
 drum which he always asked of strangers to whom he 
 wished to make himself agreeable. 
 
 "How many children have I?" he would inquire jocu- 
 larly. "I have eleven sons, and every one of them has a 
 sister." 
 
 If the hearer, after scratching his head for a while over 
 the matter, worked out at last that there were twelve chil- 
 dren in the family, the parson would shake his hand heart- 
 ily and regard him as a man of great acumen. 
 
 One of these eleven sons, who ventured once too often 
 to remonstrate with his father upon the severities which 
 he practised upon the poor in collecting his salary, was 
 never forgiven by the stiff old man for his presumption;
 
 The Case of Parson Hewlett. 93 
 
 as a punishment the lad was apprenticed to a blacksmith, 
 and a blacksmith he remained to the end of his days, 
 having been granted far fewer privileges than fell to the 
 lot of his more discreet brothers. 
 
 In those days, the clergy all liked their toddy, and there 
 was not one in the county but was a discriminating judge 
 of rum and brandy ; but, in spite of this fact, and that Par- 
 son Hewlett himself liked only the choicest liquors, his 
 brethren well knew that the prudent old fellow would 
 serve them the cheapest brands when they gathered with 
 him for conference. Perhaps the parson was afraid they 
 would take more than was good for them, if too tempting 
 an article was supplied. 
 
 In spite of his hardness and closeness, however, even 
 this severe old theologian laughed when good old Deacon 
 Hastings, in a time of drought, prayed in meeting, in all 
 good faith: "O Lord, thou knowest how much we stand 
 in need of rain! We pray Thee that Thou wouldst send 
 it to us. We ask not that it should come in copious con- 
 fusion, O Lord; but we pray that Thou wouldst send it to 
 us in a gentle sizzle-sozzle." 
 
 And he laughed again when the same old man, noted 
 for his extraordinary petitions, prayed: "Remember also 
 our good neighbors, Brother Crane and Brother Felch, O 
 Lord, both of 'em living in the same house, and both 
 of 'em living with their second wives, singular circum- 
 stance, O Lord!" 
 
 The Revolutionary times came on. Parson Hewlett 
 was a Tory of the Tories, and tried his best to keep his 
 people with him; but the tide of patriotism grew grad- 
 ually higher and higher in the town, until at last it 
 culminated in an outspoken declaration against the injus- 
 tice of Great Britain. As this declaration marks the first
 
 94 White Butterflies. 
 
 general and public outbreak against the authority of Par- 
 son Hewlett, and widened more than anything else the 
 breach between them, it is reproduced here in full. It 
 ran as follows : 
 
 "At a meeting of the freeholders and other inhabitants of the 
 town of Birchmont on Monday, the fourth day of October, 1773. 
 to take into Consideration the Melancholly state of the province 
 of Massachusetts Bay, occasioned by the unnatural oppression 
 of the parent State of this province, after seriously debating the 
 matter [they] made choice of a committy to prepair a draft of 
 resolutions for the Town to Come into and then adjourned the 
 meeting to Monday the 25th inst. The Committee having Met 
 and Considered the matter do report that the Inhabitants of 
 this Town are possessed of the warmest sentiments of Loyalty 
 to and the highest respect for the sacred person, Crown, and 
 dignity of our Right and Lawful Sovereign, King George the 
 Third and the Illustrious House of Hanover, that this Town are 
 fair from once harbering a thought of Disuniting from the 
 parent State. But with the greatest Sorrow and Concern would 
 we His Majesties Most Dutiful and Loyall subjects the Inhabi- 
 tants of this Town say that the Humiliating and Violent oppres- 
 sive Mesurs of the parent State fill our Loyall minds with the 
 most fearful apprehensions of the Consequences; That the Ilegall 
 and unconstitutional strech of power put into the hands of the 
 Courts of Admiralty is a very Great Greevance and renders pre- 
 carious and uncertain the lives and property of the Honest In- 
 habitants of this province; that the parlement of Great Briton 
 assuming to themselves a power of making Laws Binding on us 
 in all cases is a very alarming curcomstance and threatens our 
 ruin; That the leavying taxes on us without our consent either 
 in person or by Reprisentative and establishing a board of 
 Comitions in the province to Collect the same, with all their 
 expensive attendants, Importing them by a fleet and Army to 
 Aw us into a complyance is a very grate greevance; that the 
 taking the payment of our governor out of [our] hands is a very 
 grate greevance. But the rendering Independent of the people 
 end altogether Dependent on the Crown the Judges of our Supe-
 
 The Case of Parson Hewlett. 95 
 
 rior Courts seems calculated to Compleat the Cystim of our 
 slavery and ruin; That the inhabitants of this town hould 
 sacred our excellent Constitution, so dearly purchased by our 
 forefathers; that we also hould Dear our possessions so Dearly 
 purchased by ourselves, where to settle this Town and Make it 
 more advantgeous to his Majesty and profitable to ourselves 
 and posterity we have been alarmed by the Yells of Saviges 
 about our ears, been shocked with seens of our Dearest Friends 
 and Nearest relations Butchered, Scalped and Captivated before 
 our Eyes, we, our wives and children forced to fly to garison 
 for safety. Therefore we must hold the man in the greatest 
 Scorn and Contempt who shall Endeavior to Rob us either of 
 Liberty or property; That certian Letters signed Thomas Hutch- 
 inson, Andrew Clive, Charles Paxton &c. which letters were 
 layde before the Honorable house of Representatives of this 
 province in their last session were wrote and sent to the gentle- 
 men to whom they were with a desire to overthrow our excel- 
 lent Constitution and Consequently Rob us of our Liberty and 
 Prosperity; That we look upon it as a Very Grate Frown of 
 Almighty God to permit a man to govern us that seems so much 
 Bent to Ruin the people he is set to protect and the place that 
 gave him Berth and Education; and it shall be our Constant 
 prayer that God would give us and the whole people of this 
 province Repentance for all our sins and especially those that 
 pulls down such a heavy judgement as an oppressive Governor; 
 that He would Continue our invaluable priviledges to us and 
 neaver suffer us to be Robed of them by Crafty, Designing 
 men, and that they may be transmitted down to the Latest pos- 
 teraty. 
 
 "The above Report being Repeatedly Read in Town meeting, 
 it was unanimously voted in the affirmative, and ordered that it 
 be recorded in the Town Book, and that a true copy of the same 
 be transmitted to the Comitee of Corispondence of the town 
 of Boston." x 
 
 1 This is a literal copy of the "Declaration of Rights," of the 
 town called in this story "Birchmont," as recorded in the "Town 
 Book,"
 
 96 White Butterflies. 
 
 "And a fig for the Tory sentiments of the Parson!" was 
 implied in every line of this fiery statement of "Grate 
 Greevances." The town fathers of Birchmont were not 
 infallible spellers; they were not even consistent in their 
 orthography, such as it was, but they knew enough to 
 spell "Liberty" with a capital letter, and they would no 
 more brook the petty tyranny of Parson Hewlett than the 
 encroachments of "Grate Briton." 
 
 At the very time when the grasping old man was clam- 
 oring at the loudest for his "back pay," for the collection 
 of his salary, originally much too large for the then young 
 and poor town to offer, had been hopelessly delayed by 
 the war, at this time imagine his wrath when he learned 
 of the following correspondence, now carefully preserved 
 among the archives of Birchmont: 
 To the Overseers of the Poor of Boston: 
 
 JULY gth, 1774. 
 
 SIRS, The Inhabitants of Birchmont have considered the 
 deplorable condition of your town, and, like the poor widow, 
 cast in their mite. They committed to me two barrels of flour 
 to be sent to you for the relief [of] the poor, which I have sent 
 by the bearer, desiring you would receive it for that purpose, and 
 please signify that you have received it, and you will oblige, 
 Your friend and servant, 
 
 AARON RICE. 
 
 Great pleasure was expressed throughout the poor but 
 generous little town (excepting, it may be safely asserted, 
 in the home of the Tory parson), when it was "signified" 
 as follows, that the flour had been received, 
 
 BOSTON, July 20, 1774. 
 
 .SiR, I received your favor of the gth instant, advising that 
 you had sent two barrels of flour for the relief of such poor
 
 The Case of Parson Hewlett. 97 
 
 people as do suffer by the shutting up of this port, which flour 
 I have received, and it shall be appropriated accordingly. The 
 distresses of this Town begin to come on, and I do expect them 
 to be great, but we are not intimidated, nor shall we give up 
 any of our liberties, although we are surrounded by fleets and 
 armies. Our Committee to employ the Poor are not together, 
 of which I am one, as well as one of the Overseers of the Poor, 
 so do in the name of both, return you thanks for your kind 
 donation and am, Gentlemen, 
 
 Your very humble servant, 
 
 SAM PARTRIDGE. 
 To Mr. Aaron Rice, Birchmont. 
 
 It must have been o'er exasperating to the Tory parson 
 that his town, in large arrears to himself, should be giving 
 away its substance to "rebels," whom he regarded as 
 much worthier of halters than of good flour; but he could 
 not help himself. 
 
 Finding that the money to pay him could not possibly 
 be raised, as the war continued, he devised a method of 
 punishment for the delinquents, of which we learn from 
 the following spirited entry in the Town Book, 
 
 "Agreed and voted that whereas the Rev. Mr. Hewlett 
 hath Desired the Town to come into some method by 
 which he may have his salary at the Time it becomes due 
 or the interest till it is paid: as for any methods being 
 come into other than is provided, [it is] impractable. 
 As for his having Interest, we acknowledge it is his just 
 rite. But it is an unusual thing for a minister to have 
 Interest for his salary, and we think it hard that Mr. 
 Hewlett should ask it of us, especially at such a time as 
 this, when the publick burthens are so great, and humbly 
 beseech the Rev. Mr. Hewlett to consider us in this 
 Difficult time, not only with regard to having interest, 
 but to make some further abatement in his salary, for we 
 7
 
 98 White Butterflies. 
 
 judge ourselves unable to fulfill our contract with him 
 without bringing ourselves and children into bondage." 
 
 But Parson Hewlett had no sympathy with the war 
 which was draining the resources of his people, and he 
 would not desist from his persecutions. He even insisted 
 upon having everything which was donated towards his 
 salary, such as beef, butter, wood, etc., valued upon a 
 specie basis. No depreciated continental currency, nor 
 its equivalents, for him! 
 
 The trouble between pastor and parish naturally grew 
 deeper and deeper, until, at a stormy town-meeting held 
 on the 26th of April, 1779, he was formally declared dis- 
 missed, and Birchmont guileless little town! fancied 
 itself rid of its arch-tormentor. The parson,, however, 
 insisted that no dismission was possible, under the cir- 
 cumstances, without the verdict of an ecclesiastical 
 council. One was accordingly called, which advised that 
 the parson remain for six months longer, and see if mat- 
 ters could not be composed. 
 
 Then a warrant was issued by the town, bidding the 
 constable to warn every man in Birchmont to assemble 
 at the meeting-house on the 2Qth of August, 1781, to see 
 "wheather they would dismiss and discharge the said Mr. 
 Hewlett from the work and business of dispencing the 
 word of God to the inhabitants of the said town." 
 
 The meeting voted unanimously to have nothing more 
 to do with the redoubtable parson: but still he stuck like 
 a burr, and though the doors of the meeting-house were 
 closed against him, he still preached every Sunday in his 
 own house, and a few faithful adherents came to hear him, 
 who, with his own family, must have constituted quite 
 an audience; and still he kept presenting his bills to the
 
 The Case of Parson Hewlett. 
 
 99 
 
 town, refusing to depart till they were paid, and institut- 
 ing lawsuits to bring his debtors to terms. 
 
 To the simple and law-abiding people of Birchmont, to 
 vv horn the great wig and grand presence of Parson Hew- 
 lett were a "holy terror," it must have seemed hopeless 
 that they should ever get rid of this specious nightmare. 
 They had tried every means known to them, and he had 
 met and baffled all their attempts to displace him. 
 Whither should they turn? 
 
 About this time the northeastern portion of Birchmont 
 began to petition to be made into a separate township. 
 The measure had encountered serious opposition, but one 
 day when the selectmen were assembled to consider the 
 matter, a happy thought struck Deacon Aaron Rice. 
 
 "It might do, brethren, to make a new town," he sug- 
 gested jocosely, "if we could only pack away Parson 
 Hewlett and his farm into it." 
 
 "It would be a stroke of generalship!" cried Dr. Harts- 
 horn. 
 
 "Why can't we do it?" echoed George Cannon. 
 
 "But it would make the shape of our town as kitty- 
 cornered as one of Mistress Weddell's Spanish-galleon 
 quilts," objected Deacon Rice, upon second thought. 
 
 "And the meeting-house would have to go, J> mused 
 Dr. Hartshorn. 
 
 "My brethren!" cried good George Cannon, "we never 
 can get rid of that old reprobate unless we do something- 
 radical. I tell you, it would be cheap if we could foist 
 him on another town by paying so small a price as the 
 meeting-house and the shapeliness of our town!" 
 
 So it came about that when the petition went in final 
 form to the Great and General Court of Massachusetts. 
 for the laying off of the northeast corner of the town of
 
 loo White Butterflies. 
 
 Birchmont into the new town of Leith, it was specified 
 that the separation was desired only upon the condition 
 that the house and farm of Parson Hewlett should be in- 
 cluded in the new township. 
 
 It must surely have been worth while to see the stately 
 parson when he learned of this checkmate move upon 
 the part of the people whom he had no doubt believed 
 to be completely in his power. Napoleon at Waterloo 
 could scarcely have felt more crestfallen. The old fellow 
 was fairly outwitted; and he could not circumvent the 
 will of the majority, though he still continued to harass 
 Birchmont for his unpaid salary, and in various other 
 ways to keep wagging tongues busy. Strong in doctrine 
 and lengthy in prayer as ever, he preached on for many 
 years in the old church, now restored to his use. He was 
 never able, however, to make so strong and advantageous 
 a contract with the town of Leith as he had made with 
 Birchmont, and he lived, during his latter years, chiefly 
 upon the produce of his farm. 
 
 It had almost seemed to the people among whom he 
 had dwelt for so long that his indomitable spirit would 
 never yield to the King of Terrors; but, in 1802, Parson 
 Hewlett's time came, as it must come to us all. 
 
 He was buried upon a burning summer's day, and his 
 coffin was carried from his house to the graveyard, 
 according to the custom of the period, by four "bearers," 
 chosen from among the most prominent men in the vicin- 
 ity. It is related of them that, the road being long and 
 mostly up hill, they were compelled when half the dis- 
 tance had been accomplished to lay down their burden 
 until they could recover their breath. As they waited, 
 good Deacon Rice, who, having never come to an open
 
 The Case of Parson Hewlett. 101 
 
 rupture with the parson, had been chosen as one of them, 
 mopped his dripping brow and remarked: 
 
 "The parson was a heavier man than he looked, my 
 brethren." 
 
 "Aye, aye," rejoined worthy George Cannon, with a 
 twinkle of unsanctified mirth in his eye, "it is a heavy load 
 that we have to carry ; but I bear it cheerfully, my breth- 
 ren, I bear it cheerfully!"
 
 *<For Looly." 
 
 * *~1 ~\ TELL, Tom, here's your month's wages." 
 
 \/%/ Old Tom Wicks's wrinkled and tobacco- 
 stained visage put on a grin of intense delight 
 as he took the gold piece that the distillery paymaster, 
 young Jim Baskins, handed him. 
 
 "And look Tiere," pursued that young man, whose 
 flashy attire indicated the would-be exquisite, "why don't 
 you use this money, Tom, to fix yourself up a little? 
 Here you've been working for us six months, and every 
 time you come around to get your pay you look poorer 
 than you did before. Now," continued Mr. Jim Baskins, 
 out of the kindness of a heart which really liked and pitied 
 the quiet, ragged old teamster, "take this money and get 
 yourself a suit of clothes." 
 
 The old man did not look displeased, but he shook his 
 head decidedly. 
 
 "I like ye fustrate, Jim," he said, "but I cayn't." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Why, Merce, my gal Mercy I do' know's you 
 
 knew I had a gal." 
 
 The old man stopped, and looked as though he won- 
 dered if he could quite trust Jim Baskins. Then he went 
 on, as though the recollection of that young person's kind 
 offices, which had been as numerous toward Tom Wicks 
 as their circumstances had permitted, had reassured him. 
 
 "Merce, you see, she ain't had no chance. An' thar's 
 Looly; she's the little 'un; she's goin' on 'leven now, 
 ye know?" 
 
 102
 
 "For Looly." 103 
 
 The young man laughed at his interrogative tone. 
 "No, I didn't know; but I do know now." 
 
 "Wa'al, she's right peart, Looly is; an' Merce she says, 
 says she, 'Looly 's got to have a chance.' She jest sots by 
 Looly more'n anything else in the world. An', Lord! 
 what'd she do when I got this chance to team it but, says 
 she, 'Now, paw, we've got this er money,' says she, 'an' 
 when thar's a lot saved, why, we'll take it, an' Looly shall 
 go to school, an' Looly shall have good clo'es,' says she. 
 'I'm too old,' says she goin' on twenty, Merce is. 'But,' 
 says she, Til fix things so 't Looly kin go, 'f ye'll give 
 me over the money,' says she." 
 
 "Most girls would have wanted it for themselves," 
 commented Mr. Jim Baskins, getting interested in old 
 Tom Wicks's strange daughter. 
 
 The old man shook his head. "Merce ain't that kyind. 
 She's most twice's old's the little 'un; named her herself 
 outen a book she read. Merce is a powerful hand to 
 read kin read anything an' everything; hez read all the 
 neighbors' books; reckon she'd 'a come down to Marlins- 
 burg to git books, on'y she ain't been down yer f'r two 'r 
 three years now; says she's 'shamed to come yer, 'count 
 of her clo'es; powerful proud, Merce is. 'But,' says she, 
 'Looly'll grow up harnsum an' smart,' says she, 'an' 
 Looly '11 have a chance, an' good clo'es; an' Looly shall 
 go to Marlinsburg an' everywhar, an' hold up her head 
 with anybody.' 'But,' says I" old Tom Wicks warmed 
 to his subject, as he saw the eager attention paid him by 
 his absorbed listener "says I, 'thar's the boys. Ye 
 cayn't keep them boys from the money,' says I them 
 boys they's two on 'em, eighteen an' sixteen y'rs old 
 they be, an' a powerful hard lot, Jake an' Lewt up ter 
 everything. 'They'll git holt of it, Merce,' says I; 'they'll
 
 104 White Butterflies. 
 
 steal it outen my pockets, or outen the teapot, or outen 
 any place ye chuse ter put it,' says I. An' Merce, she 
 says, says she, They will, will they? That money'll go 
 fer Looly,' says she. 'I'll hide it whar nobody cayn't git 
 
 it, boys nor nobody else,' she says; an' 'pon that she 
 
 Now ye won't never tell what I'm goin' ter say?" queried 
 the old man, pulling himself up short, and suddenly recol- 
 lecting that he was on the verge of disclosing a state 
 secret of stupendous proportions. The painfully curious 
 look he gave into the vain but honest face of Jim Baskins, 
 added to the bluff assurance of the latter that "he never 
 would, so help him!" delivered in the most convincing 
 manner, restored the old man's confidence, and he went 
 on: "She started" Tom Wicks lowered his voice im- 
 pressively "the fust night I drawed my pay, an' up she 
 skips it onto the mountain; an' she's got a iron box up 
 thar, an' she's dug a hole, an' thar she puts it, an' them 
 boys hain't no conceit o' whar the money goes ter. They 
 thinks I banks it 'r suthin' down yer. That's why I wants 
 it in gold," said the old man, apologetically. "Merce 
 says, 'It mought be ten years afore we'll get it all spent/ 
 says she, 'an' it'd better be gold.' " 
 
 "You do pretty much as 'Merce' says, don't you?" re- 
 marked the young man, with something of a sneer in 
 his tone. 
 
 Tom Wicks bristled. "Ye don't know Mercy 
 Wicks," he said, straightening up and looking at young 
 Baskins with warning in his eyes. "She's a prime 'un, 
 Merce is. Got a head lord, what a deep 'un she is! 
 Talks jes' like a book read so many novels. The old 
 woman she dips mostly; an' thar's Bet to hum she's 
 goin' on fifteen. Then thar was some more, but they 
 died when they was babies. But Bet she's sorter wooden-
 
 "For Looly." 105 
 
 headed, an' it's Merce 't keeps 'em all a-goin'. Merce 
 ain't had no chance, but she's a powerful smart gal." 
 
 "You haven't ever asked me up to your house, Tom," 
 said the young man, insinuatingly. 
 
 Tom Wicks understood him, but he hesitated. 
 
 "Do you have to ask 'Merce,' as you call her, before 
 you can invite anybody to tea?" 
 
 Young Baskins laughed good-humoredly, but his 
 words had a sarcastic sting in them for the fond father. 
 
 " 'Tain't much of a place to ask folks to," he said at 
 length. 
 
 "Well, I'd like to meet your family," persisted Jim 
 Baskins. "I've been a good deal interested in your ac- 
 count of them, and I'd like to see them." 
 
 "Merce, she says," suggested the old man, floundering 
 about in his attempt to avoid doing something which he 
 knew would displease his daughter "she says we're 
 too dog-on low an' poor to have respectable company, an' 
 she ain't a-goin' to have no other kind." 
 
 "She must be a very proud-spirited girl." Mr. Jim 
 Baskins ignored any inferences that might have been 
 drawn by a more captious person from Mr. Wicks's re- 
 monstrance. 
 
 "Wa'al, the old woman she ain't no great hand fer 
 cookin', an' Merce ain't never had nobody to tell her 
 how. She does the best she knows, but, lord wa'al, 
 I s'pose ye can come, 'f ye'll excuse the looks" the old 
 man's naturally hospitable disposition inclined him to 
 yield to Mr. Baskins's importunity "an" 'f Merce is 
 kinder cross, ye mustn't mind." 
 
 Mr. Jim Baskins smiled a complacent smile as he 
 glanced down at the tawdry plaids and checks of his 
 spring suit and the glittering chains and rings which
 
 106 White Butterflies. 
 
 bedecked his comfortable person. It must be a very 
 hard-hearted maiden, he thought, who could long be 
 angry with such as he. 
 
 "I'm not so terribly afraid of 'Merce' as you are," he 
 said. 
 
 The old man gave his head a significant twist, as much 
 as to say, "Wait until you see her," and turning his gaunt 
 horses away from the low distillery in front of which 
 they had been talking, they jolted away up the mountain 
 side and toward the lonely gulch, or hollow, in which 
 stood the small homestead of the Wicks family. It was a 
 weary ride, and the long spring day had vanished into a 
 starry night when Tom Wicks drew up with a startling 
 "Whoa!" in front of the squalid and unsavory-looking 
 abode where they were to alight. 
 
 Mr. Jim Baskins could not help giving a little gasp of 
 dismay when he saw it. He hadn't expected anything 
 quite so bad as that. 
 
 The old man vaguely felt his visitor's disappointment. 
 
 "I told you so," he said, half angrily, half sorrowfully. 
 "Ye needn't 'a come. I didn't urge ye." 
 
 "Who said anything?" began the young man, in con- 
 fused apology for his unspoken offence, when his speech 
 was cut short by the apparition of a young woman who 
 had opened the door at the sound of Tom Wicks's 
 "Whoa!" and was hurrying towards him. "Have you 
 got it, pa?" she asked, eagerly, and she had approached 
 quite close to him before she observed the young man 
 sitting on the other side. . 
 
 "Here's Mr. Baskins Jim Baskins, of Marlinsburg 
 Merce," he said, trying feebly to smile as he announced 
 his unwelcome guest. "He thought he'd kinder like ter
 
 "For Looly." 107 
 
 see the country hereabouts, and I brought him up to 
 supper with us." 
 
 Mercy Wicks's fine face darkened, and she looked 
 down instinctively upon her soiled and ragged dress and 
 her bare feet. Old Wicks could not have told what 
 there was in her motion that affected him this sudden 
 mortification on the part of a girl who had scarcely ever 
 in her life worn a better garb than the tattered and un- 
 sightly one in which she was clad at that moment; but 
 he felt just then as though he would rather have died 
 than have brought young Baskins up from Marlinsburg. 
 He rejoiced inwardly that he had had the courage to 
 suggest to that individual during their ride . up the 
 mountain that, in case there wasn't any place for him 
 to sleep in the Wicks cottage, there was a man a mile 
 further on who would keep him for a slight considera- 
 tion. 
 
 "There isn't much for supper," said Mercy, deliberately 
 regarding the interloper with wide blue eyes, and holding 
 herself erect with an air of dignity quite out of keeping 
 with her surroundings, "but what we've got, Mr. Baskins 
 can have too, I suppose. Supper is all ready." 
 
 Her voice was pleasant, in spite of the disapproba- 
 tion which deepened it, and her manner was that of a 
 person accustomed to authority; and although the light 
 braids of hair which hung far down her back bore visible 
 signs of neglect, and the details of her whole appearance 
 were far from prepossessing, there was something about 
 her which made the young man feel that her father's 
 eulogies upon her were not misplaced, and that she was a 
 girl capable of much heroism, albeit Mr. Jim Baskins was 
 not particularly susceptible to impressions, and his fibre 
 was coarse. He wondered whether, if she were attired
 
 108 White Butterflies. 
 
 after the fashion of the "set" of young ladies with whom 
 he associated in Marlinsburg, she would be "pretty." 
 This, however, was rather too much for Mr. Baskins's 
 imagination, and he did not long dwell upon it. 
 
 The supper consisted of a hoe-cake, a pitcher of mo- 
 lasses, some cold sliced bacon, and a pot of tea, and 
 though served in a style which was not particularly ap- 
 petizing, young Mr. Baskins was able to disregard that, 
 and to eat a hearty meal. The two "boys" were not pres- 
 ent, but their absence did not seem to be anything un- 
 usual, and nobody appeared to sorrow because they were 
 not there. 
 
 They were scarcely seated around the rickety table 
 when Mercy exclaimed, "Bet, where's ma?" 
 
 A tallow-faced girl, to whom Mr. Wicks had not 
 thought it necessary to introduce their visitor, rose from 
 the table, and turning herself slowly about, peered into 
 the recesses of the one room which formed the lower 
 story of the little cabin. 
 
 "I dun know," she answered, stupidly. 
 
 "Go out doors, Looly," said Mercy to the bright-faced 
 little creature who was sitting close beside her; "maybe 
 she's out there fell asleep, perhaps, under the big tree." 
 
 The child started obediently, and soon returned, say- 
 ing that her mother was indeed "out under the big tree," 
 but that she could not wake her up nor make her under- 
 stand that supper was ready. Her sister made no com- 
 ment upon this information, nor did anyone else, and the 
 meal went on in silence. 
 
 "Been having a big revival in Marlinsburg," began 
 Mr. Baskins, at last, in an attempt to promote socia- 
 bility. 
 
 "Ye don't say," responded Tom Wicks.
 
 "For Looly." 109 
 
 "Oh, yes; they're all getting religion down our way. 
 Moonshining'll have to go under, I reckon." 
 
 The old man looked half alarmed. He could not bear 
 to think for an instant that the great industry upon 
 which he was a pensioner could possibly "go under." 
 
 "Oh, not so bad as that," continued Mr. Baskins, with 
 a short laugh, observing his host's startled expression, 
 "but it does seem as if half Marlinsburg was going to 
 the meetings and getting converted. Old Sparhawk, 
 that railroad man down there, lives in that splendid 
 house, richest man in Marlinsburg, he's been converted; 
 and his son just come of age, I believe he's going 
 to be a parson, they say. Oh, there's no end of a fuss 
 down there. I don't take much stock in it myself." 
 
 Mercy was looking at him now, with wide-open, in- 
 terested eyes. 
 
 "I went to a meeting once, she said, with a simplic- 
 ity that disarmed all his previous criticism. 
 
 "Well, you didn't think much of it, did you?" he asked, 
 jokingly. 
 
 "Yes," she answered, gravely. "I liked it very much. 
 The man that preached it was up here on the camp- 
 ground he gave me a Testament. I've read it through 
 a great many times." 
 
 "Understand it all?" inquired the young man, cyn- 
 ically. 
 
 "No," she said, relaxing nothing of her seriousness. 
 "But I can understand some of it," she added, a moment 
 later. 
 
 "Pretty good hunting hereabouts?" asked Mr. Bas- 
 kins, abruptly. He wanted to change the subject of the 
 conversation. He had not counted upon the girl's tak- 
 ing it so much in earnest.
 
 no White Butterflies. 
 
 "Ask Merce," said the old man; "she an' the boys 
 mostly 'tends to the shootin'." 
 
 "So you can shoot?" interrogated Mr. Baskins, turn- 
 ing patronizingly to Mercy Wicks. 
 
 "Yes," said Mercy, pleasantly. 
 
 "Can you hit 'em on the wing?" inquired the young 
 man, jocularly. 
 
 "Every time," she returned, as good-humoredly. A 
 little scowl that had hitherto rested upon her face was 
 disappearing, and this unwonted social relaxation lent 
 her a look of interest and vivacity. Mr. Baskins began 
 to decide that, properly accoutred, she might, after all, 
 be "pretty." 
 
 He sat next her, and now he moved his chair a little 
 nearer to hers. 
 
 "Why don't you sometimes drive down with your 
 father to Marlinsburg?" he said. 
 
 "I don't get much time to drive around," replied 
 Mercy, shrinking into herself a little as she~ felt, rather 
 than observed, the slight change in his manner. 
 
 "I should be pleased to take you around the town," 
 he continued, with attempted gallantry. 
 
 "I can't go." Mercy turned abruptly to her father: 
 "You'd better go out and fetch in ma. She'll catch 
 her death out there in the damp." 
 
 The old man rose slowly and walked away. 
 
 "Are you going back to Marlinsburg to-night?" in- 
 quired Mr. Baskins's peculiar young hostess. She had 
 been perplexed upon this subject ever since he had 
 come, and her straightforward and untaught soul was 
 determined to discover his intentions. 
 
 "I don't know," replied her guest, in some embarrass-
 
 For Looly." in 
 
 ment. "Your father said something about a house not 
 far away where -they sometimes took lodgers." 
 
 ''You see, we. haven't any room in this house to keep 
 anybody," said Mercy, with frank seriousness. "I didn't 
 know but you came up to see somebody else." 
 
 "No," said the young man, looking intently into her 
 face. "I came up here expressly to see you." 
 
 "To see me?" she repeated, incredulously. 
 
 "Your father has told me a good deal about you, and 
 I thought I should like to get acquainted with you. He 
 warned me that you didn't like company very well." 
 
 "I wish pa would keep still," said Mercy, angrily. 
 
 At that moment the old man appeared at the door, 
 leading his wife by the hand. She was a flabby, stout old 
 creature, and even more untidy and unkempt-looking 
 than her daughters. 
 
 There was a fire burning on the ashy hearth, for it was 
 still early in May, and the evenings were chilly. The 
 old woman, after a staring survey of the newcomer, and 
 a word of welcome upon her introduction to him, dropped 
 into a large rocking chair in the chimney corner, and, 
 while Mr. Wicks and Jim Baskins engaged in a mono- 
 syllabic conversation, Mercy and her two sisters cleared 
 the supper table, and in a lame and perfunctory manner 
 washed the dishes. During the progress of her work, 
 Mr. Baskins had ventured to address several remarks to 
 A/Tercy, but she had answered him very briefly. It did 
 not suit that independent young person to have her father 
 bringing home with him young men tricked out as this 
 one was, and avowing that they had come "expressly 
 to see her." In truth, it was chiefly pondering upon this 
 strange avowal that had kept her so silent. The young 
 men in the neighborhood of "Wicks's Hollow" were all
 
 112 White Butterflies. 
 
 utterly disagreeable to her, and as she took no pains to 
 disguise her feelings, she was naturally not popular 
 among them. She had long ago given up all thought of 
 life as holding any especial sweetness or glory for herself. 
 Love was something that she had read a good deal about, 
 but she had long felt that there was nothing of that sort 
 in store for her. Therefore the idea of having a young 
 man come to see her aroused but faintly her long-sub- 
 dued desire for affection, and she felt only a vague and 
 unpleasant self-consciousness whenever she looked in 
 Mr. Baskins's direction. 
 
 When her work, over which she had busied herself 
 an unusually long time, offered no further excuse for her 
 to move about the room, she beckoned her father to 
 come to her, and held a whispered conversation with him 
 in a distant corner of the room. 
 
 "Not to-night," Mr. Baskins heard the old man say, 
 after a little. 
 
 "Oh, yes," pleaded the girl. "The boys may come 
 home any time now." 
 
 "But he's here," objected Tom Wicks, in a loud 
 whisper. 
 
 "I don't care," returned Mercy; "I don't want to see 
 him." 
 
 Mr. Baskins winced a little. He was used to being 
 made a great deal of among his "set" in Marlinsburg, 
 and though he cared little enough for this untaught 
 daughter of the backwoods, he did not enjoy such abso- 
 lute indifference on her part. 1 It was rather interesting to 
 see her blue eyes open wide, to hear her voice, and to 
 watch her stately figure as she moved around the room. 
 On the whole, he did not fancy the idea of her willing- 
 ness to be gone all the evening any more than her father
 
 "For Looly." 113 
 
 seemed to, and he understood very well, from what Tom 
 Wicks had told him, that she was asking for his month's 
 pay, in order to secrete it up on the mountain, and that 
 her father was protesting against such an tmcourteous 
 proceeding. On the whole, Mr. Jim Baskins concluded 
 that he had better be going. 
 
 "I wonder if I can find that place where they keep 
 people over night?" he remarked, interrogatively, as Mr. 
 Wicks, having evidently been worsted in his argument 
 with Mercy, prepared to resume his seat beside his guest. 
 
 "Sho, now," said the old man, looking appealingly 
 toward his daughter; "cayn't we fix him up " 
 
 "Now, pa, you know," interrupted Mercy, fiercely, 
 "there isn't a decent bed in the house." 
 
 "They ain't made o' down, I know," admitted her 
 father, meekly; "but sho, now, Merce, cayn't we git 
 him up " 
 
 "No, we can't," declared Mercy, peremptorily. And 
 here Jim Baskins, who could not help noticing that her 
 face had assumed a color and her eye a fire during this 
 discussion which made her positively handsome, inter- 
 rupted the discussion to decline any further effort to ar- 
 range quarters for him in the Wicks mansion. 
 
 "I wouldn't inconvenience you for anything, Miss 
 Mercy," he said, politely; "and although I appreciate 
 your kindness, Mr. Wicks, it is much better that I should 
 go elsewhere." 
 
 The genuine courtesy of his manner wakened Mercy's 
 sense of propriety, and she spoke repentantly and 
 eagerly. 
 
 "I'll show you the way," she said. "It isn't much 
 further for me to go past there. It is a pretty good 
 place much better than our house." 
 ft
 
 114 White Butterflies. 
 
 "I'll go with him if he's got to go," said Tom Wicks, 
 sullenly. 
 
 "No, you needn't," returned Mercy, the violence of 
 her manner all gone; and quietly taking down an old 
 straw hat and a worn shawl from a peg beside the door, 
 she put them on, and they walked out into the clear 
 starlight of the May night. 
 
 Everything was very still, and they hurried on some 
 distance without speaking. 
 
 "I should think you would be afraid to go upon the 
 mountain alone at night," said the young man at last. 
 
 She raised her shawl and showed a belt beneath it, 
 in which was thrust a shining revolver. Then she folded 
 her shawl together again, and drew herself up proudly. 
 
 "I'm not afraid when I have that on," she said. 
 "There's wildcats on the mountain," she added, "and 
 some foxes, but I don't mind them. I don't mind any- 
 thing" her voice dropped almost to a whisper "when 
 it's for Looly." 
 
 "You do it for Looly, then?" said Jim Baskins, pre- 
 tending ignorance. 
 
 "I don't know as I ought to tell you," she said, simply, 
 and looking at him hard in the dim light, "but father 
 says you're honest as the day is long, and so I don't mind 
 telling you. 'You see, the boys would get father's money 
 if it was left anywhere around the house, so I hide it up 
 on the mountain, and I'm going to spend it for Looly 
 one of these days." 
 
 "I should think you would have your father put it in 
 a bank." 
 
 "The boys think that is where he puts it, but pa 
 brings me up a newspaper now and then, and I'm always 
 reading how somebody has run off with the bank's
 
 "For Looly." 115 
 
 money; so when pa said, Tut it in a bank,' I said, 'No; 
 I'll hide it where it will be safe'; and I do. You'll surely 
 not tell?" 
 
 "Oh, no," he said, soberly. "I'm your friend, and I 
 think it's very nice that you are saving up your money 
 for your pretty little sister. Most girls would spend it for 
 themselves." 
 
 Mercy's fine face softened. "I'd rather have Looly 
 have things," she exclaimed, passionately, "than any- 
 thing else in the world." 
 
 "She is a very pretty little girl," said Jim Baskins, 
 patronizingly. 
 
 "She's very much nicer than Bet," Mercy continued 
 more quietly. "She can read and write and cipher some; 
 but Bet's dull enough." 
 
 "Who taught Looly all these things?" 
 
 "I did," said the girl. "I don't know who taught me. 
 I reckon pa began it. He can read, and so could ma 
 years ago, but she's forgotten how. Bet's hateful, too," 
 pursued Mercy, with a philosophical calmness of analysis, 
 "while Looly never is. I don't let Looly run around 
 as Bet does. I've seen lots of wickedness in this neigh- 
 borhood," she went on, with an air of experience, which 
 was amusing even to Mr. Jim Baskins's somewhat obtuse 
 perceptions, "but Looly shan't see any of it. I'm going 
 to give Looly a chance. But here's your place. Good- 
 night." 
 
 She turned from him abruptly, the flutter of her gar- 
 ments swept past him in the starlight, and he found 
 himself standing alone beside a faintly illumined house, 
 while a dark figure creeping up a hillside several rods 
 away showed him that the daring girl was already well 
 started on her errand of love.
 
 116 White Butterflies. 
 
 Then he went in. He found that everything was as 
 his young conductor had described it, and he was soon 
 asleep, and dreaming of young girls who walked like 
 empresses, abjured ceremony altogether, wore revolvers 
 in their belts, and climbed lonely mountains at dead of 
 night. 
 
 In the meantime Mercy was resolutely pursuing her 
 way up the mountain side, and it was a full hour after 
 she left Mr. Jim Baskins before she paused at all. Then 
 she threw herself down underneath a great pine tree 
 which had been struck by lightning, and which, stand- 
 ing by itself upon a little knoll, was easily discernible 
 from the valley below. 
 
 Beneath its bare and blasted limbs was a large brown 
 stone, as large as Mercy could lift, but she managed to 
 insert her hand beneath it, and to draw out therefrom 
 an iron box. This she unlocked, depositing her treasure 
 in it, and then she returned it to its hiding place. 
 
 "It's very strange," she soliloquized, "that that young 
 man should have come up from Marlinsburg to see me. 
 Any of the young fellows around Wicks's Hollow could 
 have told him that I didn't treat the young men very 
 well. Now there's Sally." "Sally" was Mercy's older 
 sister. "Ever since Sally married Bill, what a life she's 
 led! Sally was better than Bet too, but now it's drink- 
 ing and quarrelling and quarrelling and drinking every 
 minute. I wouldn't marry one of 'em not for anything; 
 and I wouldn't let Looly. Perhaps Looly'll grow up and 
 be like the ladies that ride by once in a while in their 
 carriages. Perhaps she will marry one of those fine 
 men such as we read about. I'd like that for me, too, 
 but not one of these men around here, nor like this 
 Mr. Baskins; but of course I can't; I haven't had any
 
 "For Looly." nr 
 
 diance. Looly shall be different. I won't have Looly 
 feel ashamed of herself as I do, not if I die for it." 
 
 There was a rustling in the bushes, and the girl sprang 
 up a trifle nervously, and peered into the darkness, 
 clutching her weapon more closely. Then she pulled her 
 shawl around her, and taking a different path from that 
 by which she had come, she was not long in reaching her 
 father's cabin. "The boys" had not come even yet, and 
 all the rest were asleep, excepting Bet, who sat beside 
 the sputtering candle, nodding in a stupid doze. The 
 foul air of the squalid interior struck with a new force 
 upon the girl's quickened sense. 
 
 "I wish it was different," she sighed aloud. "It isn't 
 as it ought to be; but dear me! dear me! I can't seem 
 to fix it"; and she wearily climbed the ladder that led 
 to the loft, and was soon asleep beside her little sister. 
 
 It was less than a week from the time that Mr. Bas- 
 kins had made his first visit to Wicks's Hollow that he 
 found his way thither again. This time he came on 
 horseback by himself, and early in the afternoon. Some- 
 how the thought of the proud girl whom he had seen 
 had haunted him. He wished, with a sort of unreason- 
 able persistence, to see her again, and as Jim Baskins, 
 though by no means refined, and not what would be 
 called a cultivated fellow, was clean, and had been 
 brought up by a neat and methodical mother, he thought 
 with real pity of Mercy's ignorance of the first principles 
 of tidiness and good housekeeping. 
 
 "I wonder," reflected Mr. Baskins "I wonder if she 
 couldn't learn a good deal out of one of these books that 
 they have about such things?" 
 
 He decided that probably she could, and he therefore 
 bought a work of that character; and as he happened that
 
 118 White Butterflies. 
 
 very day to come across a little book of the nature of a 
 tract, entitled "Cleanliness is Next to Godliness," he de- 
 termined to make up a package of books for Mercy, and 
 to inclose surreptitiously within it the two volumes which 
 he intended for her personal improvement. This pack- 
 age he finally concluded to take up to her himself. 
 
 He found her as indifferent to him as before. The 
 influences of the starlight, and of her repentance for her 
 rudeness to him, had made her very gentle and com- 
 municative during their evening walk together, but 
 Mercy had thought matters over thoroughly since 
 then, and she had made up her mind that, in case Jim 
 Baskins should ever come to Wicks's Hollow again 
 something wLich she thought very unlikely to happen 
 she would not be any more agreeable to him than was 
 absolutely necessary to insure the safe-keeping of the 
 secret which, not knowing of her father's previous con- 
 fidences, she felt that she had rather unwisely confided 
 to him. 
 
 But Mercy's indifference was not proof against a pack- 
 age of beautiful new books. 
 
 "For me?" she cried, when he had handed them to 
 her, and she had opened the bundle. "And Looly and 
 I can read them? See here, Looly! Isn't it splendid?" 
 
 Mercy's face grew rosy with pleasure, and her eyes 
 glowed. The young man forgot her tangled braids and 
 her tattered gown. She was positively beautiful. 
 
 She opened one book after another in bewildered 
 ecstasy, and could hardly wait until her visitor had gone, 
 to examine their contents. Mr. Baskins did not stay 
 very long. He saw her impatience, and it pleased, while 
 at the same time it piqued, him: When he rode away, he 
 mentally registered a vow to come soon again up to
 
 "For Looly.'" 119 
 
 Wicks's Hollow, and to observe what effect the works, 
 upon whose selection he had expended so much care, 
 had had upon the young girl whom he so much desired 
 to cultivate. 
 
 That night, when Mercy went to bed, she thought 
 more favorably than before of Mr. Jim Baskins. 
 
 "How good it. was of him to bring us so many books!" 
 she reflected, gratefully. "I shouldn't blame him nor 
 anybody else for despising us; but he has been very 
 kind to us, and the next time he comes, I'm going to 
 treat him better." 
 
 On the following morning Mercy was up betimes, and 
 as soon as her father and his horses disappeared behind 
 the brow of the hill that overhung Wicks's Hollow, she 
 sat down, with Looly beside her, to the pile of books. 
 "The boys" were off on a fishing expedition, Bet was 
 idling under the shade of a tree outside, and Mrs. Wicks 
 rocked and dipped in placid stupidity by the fire, all 
 oblivious of the breakfast table still standing, and of the 
 general disorder of the little cabin. 
 
 The cover of the volume on "Cleanliness is Next to 
 Godliness" was of an enticing blue, and Mercy hastened 
 to open it and to inspect its contents. The subject was 
 treated plainly and practically, and Mercy read on ab- 
 sorbedly after she had once begun. No such work had 
 ever before come under her notice, and Mr. Jim Baskins 
 had buihled even better than he knew in enclosing it 
 in his friendly package. 
 
 "That's the way people live," she said, raising her 
 head after a while, and looking sadly out of the window; 
 "nice people don't live as we do. That's the way I want 
 you to live, Looly dear little Looly!" She caught the
 
 120 White Butterflies. 
 
 delicate child up in her arms and kissed her. "And yet 
 how we live! How lazy, how very lazy, we are!" 
 
 She sat there for a moment, rocking and kissing the 
 child passionately, when a shadow fell across the door- 
 way, and Mercy saw that a young man was standing 
 there, and that a beautiful horse, from which he had 
 evidently just alighted, was tied to a tree, outside. 
 
 She sprang up and looked at him in curious surprise. 
 He was a gentleman this Mercy felt, without any defi- 
 nite thought on the subject, in every fibre of her being. 
 Then she looked down at herself, as she had looked when 
 her father had brought Jim Baskins up to see them, only 
 with a keener mortification, and from herself she looked 
 around upon the untidy room. If she had felt its mean- 
 ness and foulness a moment before, in the light shed 
 upon it by the illuminating little volume which she had 
 just been reading, how much more did she feel it in the 
 presence of this man, whose elegance and refinement 
 struck the girl with a sense of romance as if he had just 
 stepped out of one of the novels that she had read. His 
 glance rested, as he bowed to her in kindly greeting, 
 upon the disordered room, and Mercy herself almost felt 
 the little shudder which he gave as he took it all in. 
 
 "I know," she cried, without waiting for him to speak, 
 intuitively fathoming his thought, and as intuitively im- 
 ploring his leniency "I know I oughtn't to have let 
 things go so, but Mr. Baskins brought me up some books 
 to read, and so I sat right down to read them. It wasn't 
 nice; it wasn't right." 
 
 She spoke with an eagerness that, knowing nothing 
 of the experience through which she had been passing, 
 her visitor could not understand. 
 
 He murmured some formal words, politely disclaiming
 
 "For Looly." 121 
 
 the need of apology, but was interrupted by the drawling 
 tones of Mrs. Wicks, who had temporarily roused herself 
 to gaze upon the distinguished stranger. 
 
 "Law, Merce," she said, tugging at her chair so as to 
 bring it around where she could get a better view of 
 their visitor, "what ye goin' on so, fer? Cayn't ye give 
 the gentleman a chair?" 
 
 "Excuse me," said the young man, who seemed little 
 more than a boy, with his fresh face, slight mustache, and 
 crisp dark hair; "my name is Wesley Sparhawk, and I 
 live in Marlinsburg. I was about to take a ride across 
 the mountain, and my father suggested that I should 
 carry with me some Bibles and tracts, and distribute 
 them along the way. I'm not much used to such work," 
 he said, smiling into Mercy's eager face, "but I'm more 
 than willing to try and do a little good and I will leave 
 some with you, if you like." 
 
 Looly took a book that the stranger held out to her, 
 and gazed up into his handsome eyes with winning sweet- 
 ness. He had spoken rapidly, and Mrs. Wicks had not 
 been able to rouse herself enough to follow him. 
 
 "What?" she said, stupidly. 
 
 The sound of her crackling voice checked the answer- 
 ing 1 smile with which Wesley Sparhawk was looking 
 back into the child's face, and just then Bet came saun- 
 tering in at the door, adding another unpicturesque ele- 
 ment to the already far from pleasant scene. 
 
 "Some Bibles and tracts," repeated the young man. 
 
 "Ye don't mean it!" rejoined Mrs. Wicks, having 
 finally grasped his meaning. "Law! I've seen men 
 with sech things colporteurs, ain't it?" extricating the 
 word from the confusion of her memory with a ludicrous 
 effort "but ye don't look like that kind' ye don't reely."
 
 122 White Butterflies. 
 
 In response to this remark, which she evidently in- 
 tended to be highly complimentary, the young man 
 looked down at his clothes, as if with a sudden sense of 
 their unfitness, and blushed slightly. 
 
 "I'm not, exactly," he stammered, approaching her 
 with a tract in his hand, "but I trust that you will like 
 the books that I leave with you just as well." 
 
 Mercy had caught at the Testament which he had 
 given Looly, and was looking at it intently. 
 
 "I've one just like it," she said, proudly. "See here," 
 and she hastened to get the well-thumbed volume from 
 a shelf near by and to exhibit it. 
 
 "That's good," said Mr. Wesley Sparhawk, approv- 
 ingly, and noting the girl's glowing face and noble car- 
 riage with surprised interest. "Please accept this Bible;" 
 and he held out to her the most elegantly bound among 
 the half-dozen books that he carried. 
 
 Her hand trembled with pleasure as she took it. 
 "Thank you," she said, simply; "I love dearly to read." 
 
 The difference between the girl's language and her 
 mother's struck the young man with astonishment. This 
 slovenly, good-looking, majestic young daughter of the 
 backwoods interested him. 
 
 "I see you have a good many books," he said, point- 
 ing to the pile beside the chair where she had been 
 sitting. 
 
 "Yes," she said "some new ones that Mr. Baskins 
 sent us. Some of them tell about housekeeping and such 
 things. I've learned a great deal from them, and I mean 
 to read every word in them. It's for Looly more than 
 for the rest of us," she went on, in obedience to the look 
 of inquiry in his face. "It doesn't make much difference 
 about Bet and me we're older but I mean to give
 
 "For Looly." 123 
 
 Looly a chance to learn and have things, and I mean 
 to bring her up right. This is Looly." She gathered the 
 child to her affectionately. "I want her to grow up to be 
 a lady." 
 
 The terrible discrepancy between her desires and the 
 realistic squalor of the room seemed to strike the poor 
 girl with crushing force. Her self-command failed her 
 in her excitement; she put her apron to her face, and he 
 could see that she was crying quietly, while Mrs. Wicks 
 began a drawling remonstrance. The whole thing was 
 a total mystery to her. 
 
 The young man flushed with pity. The situation lay 
 revealed before him, and he felt an instinctive desire to 
 help this groping soul. 
 
 "I'm very sorry," he said. "I'm going to be away 
 several days, but when I come back, I shall stop again, 
 and leave you some more books." He handed some 
 tracts to Bet as he spoke, and bidding them all a cour- 
 teous good-morning, flung himself upon his horse and 
 rode away. 
 
 Mercy rose and wiped her eyes, and as she looked 
 after Mr. Wesley Sparhawk, riding up the mountain side, 
 her heart gave a quick, determined throb. "It shall be 
 different when he comes again," she resolved, and turn- 
 ing back into the unsightly room, she began, with a firm- 
 ness of touch and an energy of spirit not unlike that 
 which must have characterized the great reformers, to in- 
 augurate in her own small sphere an era of reform. 
 
 An hour later she sat over her little sister, curling 
 her long, light hair Mercy's pride, but hitherto only 
 occasionally reduced to order. Then Bet received what 
 that young woman described to her brothers later as a 
 "goin's-over," and afterward Mercy herself underwent
 
 124 White Butterflies. 
 
 a species of transformation. Then, thoroughly wearied, 
 but with a glow of pride more fervent than any that she 
 had ever known before, she sat down to gaze about her, 
 and to enjoy the result of her laboriously worked-out 
 resolution. Then she fell to reading. 
 
 That night she lay long awake, pondering on what 
 she had read, on the ways which she might use to bring 
 about certain needed reforms, and on the strange hap- 
 penings of the day. The thought of resentment toward 
 Mr. Jim Baskins had not occurred to Mercy. Instead, 
 her soul, which had scarcely ever known a small or a 
 selfish consideration, was filled with gratitude to him. 
 She understood now how it had been something more 
 than shame of their poverty which had made her so 
 averse to going anywhere or to having company, and 
 why the better class of their neighbors upon the moun- 
 tain had seemed to slight and shun them. She felt that 
 now she had found the key to better times for Wicks's 
 Hollow, and her soul rejoiced in that consciousness as 
 she fell asleep. 
 
 A few days later Mr. Jim Baskins paid another visit 
 to the locality which had come to hold such a fascina- 
 tion for him, and he was filled with an honest pleasure 
 when he saw signs of revolutionary tendencies among 
 the residents in the Wicks cottage as he drew rein before 
 the door. Beside the window, and showing unmistak- 
 able signs of careful attention to her toilet, sat Mercy 
 herself, awkwardly, but with feverish haste, sewing away 
 upon a piece of new calico. 
 
 "I'm making a dress for Looly," she announced, smil- 
 ingly, looking up at him with a tired and heated face 
 as he entered, but not deigning to rise. "I've enjoyed
 
 "For Looly." 125 
 
 those books so much! Looly and I have read nearly all 
 of them, haven't we, Looly?" 
 
 The child nodded, and crept close to her sister. 
 
 "I'm very glad," commented Mr. Baskins, with a beam- 
 ing face. "I thought you'd like them. And how nice 
 you look here! You must be expecting a beau, I guess." 
 
 Bet, who was lying on a settee in the corner, giggled 
 at this, and sat up, as though the conversation for once 
 began to assume an interesting complexion; and Mrs. 
 Wicks, who was stationed by the door in the inevitable 
 rocking chair, and engaged in her usual absorbing oc- 
 cupation of dipping snuff, cackled forth a feeble ex- 
 pression of mirth. 
 
 "Sal used ter have lots o' beaus," she remarked, 
 proudly, and smiling a weak but approving smile upon 
 Mr. Jim Baskins, as she thus endeavored to cover what 
 she considered to be one of Mercy's most important de- 
 ficiencies. "An' Bet seems ter please the young fellers 
 more'n Merce does," she continued. "Merce she cayn't 
 abide 'em, she says. I do' know I sh'd think -" And 
 here Mrs. Wicks's discourse relapsed into a mumble, 
 which neither Mr. Jim Baskins nor any of the others 
 present could very well understand. 
 
 "I liked this book best," said Mercy, ignoring the 
 recent turn of the conversation. Her heightened color 
 and uplifted head were the only indications that she 
 had heard what had just been said. She took up one of 
 the books as she spoke, and opened its leaves caress- 
 ingly, and though Mr. Jim Baskins could not under- 
 stand her fondness for it, nor for any other book, not 
 being a man much addicted to reading, he sat down and 
 devoted his energies to making himself agreeable to this 
 obdurate young woman. She was handsome enough to
 
 126 White Butterflies. 
 
 excite his profoundest admiration this afternoon, and 
 in her gratitude to him was uncommonly complaisant. 
 Her subdued laugh rang out pleasantly several times, 
 and Mr. Jim Baskins had to acknowledge to himself 
 that he had never heard a more melodious voice than 
 hers. It was not until the shackly wagon and lean 
 horses of old Tom Wicks came rattling down into the 
 Hollow that Mercy's visitor took any thought of the 
 flight of time. She politely invited him to stop to sup- 
 per again, but she did not urge him. She had been 
 civil, and even very pleasant, to Mr. Jim Baskins, but 
 she did not like him very well, after all, and she was 
 not sorry when he declined her invitation with thanks, 
 remounted his horse, and rode slowly away. To tell 
 the truth, Mr. Jim Baskins was getting to be somewhat 
 in love, and, as the Marlinsburg belles of that young 
 gentleman's "circle" would have expressed it, "with one 
 of those" or the belles might have said "them" "low- 
 down Wickses upon the mountain." 
 
 It was two or three days after this that another young 
 man flung himself from his horse and entered the Wicks 
 cabin. It was Mr. Wesley Sparhawk, who had been 
 playing, in a rather awkward but quite honest fashion, 
 the part of a missionary toward the benighted moun- 
 taineers in the region adjacent to his home. Young 
 Sparhawk had not found this improvised sort of "circuit- 
 riding" altogether productive of pleasure, and his face 
 was somewhat paler and his air more subdued than when 
 he had called before in Wicks's Hollow. Still, as Mr. 
 Wesley Sparhawk had a good deal of "bottom," he was 
 not disheartened. He was only a young man, accus- 
 tomed to no harder labor than such as pertained to the 
 care of his toilet and to the acquisition of his lessons at
 
 " For Looly." 127 
 
 school and at college, and he had found his long ride and 
 the numerous calls that he had made in his new capacity 
 excessively exhausting. He had rather dreaded appear- 
 ing again at the Wicks cottage, for scarcely in all his tour 
 had he encountered one so uninviting. But he remem- 
 bered the tall, fine-faced girl whom he had met there, and 
 he felt a strong desire to see her again, and to learn 
 whether the protestations that she had made so earnestly 
 had amounted to anything. 
 
 Mercy saw him coming, for, though she would not 
 have admitted it even to herself, she had been watching 
 for him for several days, and she looked around her home 
 at the various metamorphoses which she had accom- 
 plished, with a flutter of pride and delight. It was true 
 that Bet had hardly been able to keep up with the march 
 of civilization in Wicks's Hollow, and that Mrs. Wicks, 
 long since past regeneration, had absolutely refused to 
 submit to many of Mercy's regulations. She had even 
 roused herself to a more violent exertion than for several 
 years past, to denounce in unqualified terms the revolu- 
 tionary measures which undoubtedly contributed more 
 to her immediate discomfort than to her pleasure. There- 
 fore she still remained a blot of no small proportions upon 
 the landscape; but Mercy herself was fresh and neat, 
 Looly was as sweet as a daisy, and the cabin was as clean 
 as Mercy's strong young arms could make it. 
 
 Mr. Wesley Sparhawk paused upon the threshold, and 
 surveyed Mercy's rejuvenated domains with a smile of 
 surprised approval. 
 
 "I declare you've kept your word," he said, and as he 
 took her hand and looked into her proud eyes, the blood 
 flowed faster in his veins, She felt a thousand-fold re-
 
 128 . White Butterflies. 
 
 paid for the labor she had given, and also a new impulse 
 to continue the good work. 
 
 He came into the cabin and sat down, laying beside 
 her chair a pile of books and papers which he had 
 brought. A book which she had been reading lay on the 
 window sill; it was the book of which she had spoken 
 in such admiring terms to Mr. Baskins. He picked it 
 up and turned the leaves. 
 
 "This is a nice story," he said; "the only trouble with 
 it is thai it ends in such an improbable way." 
 
 The girl looked at him inquiringly. This was icono- 
 clastic. 
 
 "I mean," he explained, "that it was a pity the hero 
 should have married that girl. Not but that she was 
 noble and all that, but they had been brought up so 
 differently, of course, they could never be happy to- 
 gether. It isn't in reason," continued Mr. Wesley Spar- 
 hawk, marking the intense concern which the girl man- 
 ifested, and glad to be able to enlighten her ignorance. 
 "He had been brought up in the midst of elegance, and 
 her advantages " He checked himself. He had for- 
 gotten for a moment the circumstances under which he 
 was speaking. "It was different with her," he concluded, 
 lamely. 
 
 "Yes," said Mercy, in a low voice, "she had been poor 
 always, and hadn't had any chance." 
 
 "It made a nice story, only it couldn't ever have hap- 
 pened and turned out well in real life, you see. The 
 general test to apply to a painting or a story or almost 
 anything is, Is it natural? Is it practical? If it isn't, it 
 isn't good." 
 
 "Yes," said Mercy, gravely, "I understand." She drew 
 herself up a little, Her pride had been touched, how
 
 " For Looly." 129 
 
 deeply she did not know until long afterward. Her 
 large, toil-stained hands, especially disfigured by recent 
 unwonted exertions, opened and closed convulsively. 
 Was there, then, no chance that Looly should ever grow 
 up to marry a different sort of man from Sally's Bill 
 and the young men around Wicks's Hollow? And a 
 dim little hope which, in spite of her efforts to crush it, 
 had dared to bloom for herself in her innermost heart, 
 seemed to be trodden down in a moment. 
 
 The young man sat talking longer than he had meant 
 to. He felt, without formulating his feelings, that he 
 had hurt the girl's self-respect a little, and he tried to 
 make her forget it, by taking up book after book and 
 commenting laughingly upon them all. And Mercy for- 
 got everything else in listening to him, until she too be- 
 gan to impart her impressions of what she had been read- 
 ing; and her ideas were so unsophisticated, so daring, 
 so original, her face was so fair, and her eyes so luminous 
 while she told of them, that, unawares, the young man 
 was more charmed by her than he would have cared 
 to own. 
 
 "I wish you would go down to Marlinsburg to some 
 of the meetings," he said at last. "You would like 
 them." 
 
 Mercy shook her head. "I wouldn't go down there 
 for anything," she said. Her figure dilated a little, and 
 she held her head a trifle higher. "The Marlinsburg 
 people look at me so," she added, "I can't stand it. I've 
 only a sun-bonnet to wear and a calico dress, and I'm 
 never going anywhere again until we get enough money 
 saved to educate Looly. It's too late to do much for me, 
 but I mean to give her a good chance." 
 
 The young man asked some questions about this mat- 
 9
 
 130 White Butterflies. 
 
 ter, and Mercy told him what she was doing, though 
 not so fully as she had told Mr. Jim Baskins. 
 
 "And your father is saving this money for Looly?" 
 
 "He lets me save it," she said, smilingly. 
 
 The young man, accustomed as he had always been 
 to the luxuries of great wealth, glanced pitifully around 
 the bare little dwelling. To put away money, needed, it 
 seemed to him, to supply the daily wants of life, for such 
 a purpose as that for which this girl was hoarding it, 
 struck him as rather fine rather grand. He began to 
 admire from the bottom of his heart this strange exotic 
 among the regulation "poor white" growths of Wicks's 
 Hollow. 
 
 The clock struck six. 
 
 "I must go," said the young man, rising reluctantly: 
 "I've a fancy that you will go to the meetings some 
 time, if I'll come and get you," he added, as he rode 
 away. 
 
 She shook her head, but she smiled. She would rather 
 do even that than not to see him again. 
 
 "I reckon you will," he laughed back to her, and her 
 heart thrilled with intense regret as she watched him 
 disappear behind the hill. How handsome, how dis- 
 tinguished he was! How inferior to him Mr. Jim Bas- 
 kins appeared, as she mentally compared them! Yet 
 perhaps she should never see him again, and her heart 
 gave a great throb of pain as she thought, but she did not 
 stop to account for it. 
 
 It was now nearly time for her father to come home, 
 and Mercy hastened to kindle a fire, and to get every- 
 thing in readiness for his arrival. She had been very 
 watchful of him and attentive to his wants lately, and 
 no one had appreciated more warmly, or at least more
 
 "For Looly." 131 
 
 demonstratively, than he the efforts which she had been 
 making for the elevation of the Wicks family. 
 
 "Now ye don't, Merce!" he had exclaimed, when the 
 reforms had first begun in earnest. "Law, now, chile, 
 ye've had all the work to do for years, now, an' I allers 
 
 thought ye more'n done yer juty; but now Law, 
 
 Merce, I'm right smart proud o' ye; I reely be!" 
 
 Mercy loved her father next to Looly of all the family, 
 and his praise was very sweet to her; and so when the 
 hour drew on for him to appear earlier than usual on 
 this night, as it was Saturday, the day on which Mr. 
 Jim Baskins had made his first visit to Wicks's Hollow 
 she saw to it that her father should be well received. 
 A stern something within the girl, something which 
 must have descended to her from some far-back Puritan 
 ancestor, was constantly warning her against retrogres- 
 sion. 
 
 "I'm going to keep it up," she had said to herself 
 through shut teeth, when her mother and Bet had stood 
 like roaring lions, so to speak, in the way of her projects 
 "I'm going to keep it up, if it kills me." But it was 
 not going to kill her. Her plans once matured and 
 system once inaugurated, she had an executive ability 
 and a natural love of method which were gradually de- 
 veloping, and which made things easy for her. 
 
 Young Sparhawk remembered his parting words to 
 her. Indeed, they and Mercy Wicks's face had been in 
 his mind a great deal since he had made such an un- 
 expectedly long call at Wicks's Hollow, and he had 
 wanted to go and see her again even before he could in- 
 vent a reasonable excuse. But he learned that a camp 
 meeting was to be held in a grove half-way between 
 Marlinsburg and Wicks's Hollow, and he decided to
 
 132 White Butterflies. 
 
 invite Mercy to attend it on a certain afternoon with him. 
 As he mounted his buggy and took an early start for the 
 mountain, he could not conceal from himself that the 
 camp meeting would offer a pleasanter way of keeping 
 his promise to Mercy than bringing her down to Mar- 
 linsburg, where he was well known, and where he un- 
 derstood that no amount of deference to his acknowl- 
 edged desire to do good would mitigate the fact that he 
 was, in a small way, "waiting upon" a young woman in 
 just the social position of Miss Mercy Wicks. 
 
 Mercy, in the meantime, had passed through a rather 
 harrowing experience. Mr. Jim Baskins had made her 
 another visit, and his manner had been such that Mercy 
 had felt it incumbent upon her to treat him in a very 
 cavalier, not to say forbidding, way. In fact, so very 
 caustic had she been upon his departure that Mr. Jim 
 Baskins had left in high dudgeon, and she knew very 
 well that he would never come back. He had not "made 
 love" to Mercy, but her quick sense had detected strong 
 indications that he was about to do so, and she had felt 
 that that was something she could not and would not 
 allow. She had thought of it since with some misgivings. 
 How kind Jim Baskins had been to give her those books! 
 What a blessing they had proved to her! Perhaps she 
 had been too rude to him; and then perhaps she had 
 gleaned this impression from the stories that she had 
 read perhaps she ought to give Mr. Baskins back the 
 books he had brought her. This was much against 
 Mercy's inclinations, and she did not propose to do it 
 unless some new revelation of her duty should be made 
 to her. 
 
 When young Sparhawk drove up to the door, there- 
 fore, Mercy was sitting in a deep, brown study by the
 
 "For Looly." 133 
 
 window, with her sewing lying- unheeded in her lap; 
 but when his eyes met hers, a tell-tale glow overspread 
 her face, and she sprang up to welcome him. A voice 
 within him chided him a little as he saw her brighten- 
 ing face. Were these quite the circumstances under 
 which to do missionary work to the best advantage? 
 
 But it was a beautiful day, and he felt young and 
 happy, and he acknowledged to himself a very strong 
 desire to listen again to this frank girl's pleasant voice, 
 and to watch her as she made her odd comments upon 
 life and books. 
 
 But Mercy steadfastly refused to go to the meeting 
 with him. And when he found there was really no use 
 in urging her, he asked her suddenly if she wouldn't 
 drive a little way with him. 
 
 Her face flushed with pleasure, and her heart beat so 
 fast that she could scarcely answer him. 
 
 "To drive with you?" she repeated, wonderingly. This 
 was like the books that she had read. It was like a 
 beautiful dream. But she preserved outwardly her usual 
 calm dignity of demeanor as she made her preparations, 
 and amid the wide-mouthed but fortunately indistinct 
 comments of her mother and of Bet, she kissed Looly, 
 and drove away with Wesley Sparhawk. Their road lay 
 through piney, shady woods. The girl threw off her 
 ugly sun-bonnet, and her fair hair curled about her glow- 
 ing face as she talked gayly with him of the books which 
 she had read and of the scenes through which they had 
 been passing. 
 
 It was a delightful experience to him, and like a fairy 
 hour to her, and when he left her at the door of the 
 little cabin, he promised to come again soon, and to bring 
 her some books of which he had been telling her.
 
 134 White Butterflies. 
 
 Before many days he kept his word, and appeared, 
 bearing the parcel of books that he had promised. A 
 week later he came again, and another visit succeeded. 
 By this time the young man owned to himself that he 
 was the victim of a violent passion for the beautiful 
 backwoods girl, and Mercy knew in her secret heart that 
 she was living but for her lover's smile, and that the 
 days were dark when he did not come. Still, the young 
 man said nothing. So beautiful a dream should not be 
 disturbed, he reasoned in his blindness. 
 
 One evening, after , he had left her, Mercy watched 
 him out of sight, and Looly, who had come quietly up 
 beside her as she stood looking after him, twined her 
 arms around her sister, and they walked gravely in to- 
 gether. Then Mercy moved silently about the room pre- 
 paring supper. Her mother had grown almost afraid 
 of her, and very respectful, since this fine young man 
 had begun to come to Wicks's Hollow, and, indeed, 
 Mercy's manner, always dignified, had become almost 
 majestic during these glorified weeks which had seen 
 the growth of this love in her heart a love such as the 
 common souls by which she was surrounded could 
 neither appreciate nor understand. They had all felt a 
 subtle change in her, even to "the boys," but they had 
 dared to say very little to her, though at Bet, who was 
 constantly indulging in flirtations with the neighboring 
 farmers' sons, they were always flinging taunts and in- 
 nuendoes. To-night, however, when "Jake" came, he 
 had been drinking a little, and he had met Wesley Spar- 
 hawk as he had been going home. 
 
 "Fine beau ye have thar, Merce," he said, sulkily, as 
 he came in at the door. "Wonder 'f he'll be too stuck 
 up ter speak to his gal's relations after the weddin'?"
 
 "For Looly." 135 
 
 Mercy turned on him with flaming eyes, and seemed 
 to grow perceptibly taller as she looked at him. 
 
 "He's not my 'beau!' " she cried, passionately. "Don't 
 you ever say such a thing as that again"; and the boy, 
 excited though he was with drink, did not dare to re- 
 open his lips. 
 
 That night Mercy went early to bed, but her brother's 
 words rang in her ears, and she kept thinking, over and 
 over again, of the story about which Wesley Sparhawk 
 had talked with her weeks before. 
 
 "He had been brought up in luxury, and she so dif- 
 ferently." "They could never have been happy." "It 
 could never have happened in real life." 
 
 As she thought, she sobbed and cried until, with the 
 violence of her grief, although the night had worn then 
 into the small hours, she even wakened Looly, who 
 begged piteously to know why she was weeping. The 
 morning was growing red in the east before she finally 
 fell asleep. 
 
 The next day she read the story over again. Some- 
 how lately she had not thought much about it. After 
 she finished reading it, she laid the book down and 
 thought out a sequel to it. Her quickened imagination 
 devised a multitude of things which a girl like the one 
 in the story might do to shock and offend a fastidious 
 husband. No; such a thing could not happen in real 
 life, as Wesley Sparhawk had said. It ought not to 
 happen. People should marry people something like 
 themselves; and as she worked out the problem more 
 and more clearly and convincingly in her mind, a little 
 poem which she had read somewhere, and which had for 
 its refrain, 
 
 "I have dreamed my dream, 
 I have wakened at last,"
 
 136 White Butterflies. 
 
 flitted through her mind again and again as she went 
 sternly about her work. 
 
 In the afternoon she had usually sat down of late to a 
 long, happy time of sewing, or of reading with Looly, 
 but to-day Mercy could not work. She could only sit 
 and hold her little sister and cry silently as she kissed 
 and kissed the wondering child's face. It was only two 
 or three nights before, that she had made the long, lonely 
 journey up the mountain side to deposit some more 
 money for Looly. The boys were getting very impa- 
 tient lately because so little of their father's earnings 
 found its way into their hands, and Mercy was inwardly 
 fretted lest Jim Baskins in his pique had managed to 
 let them know her secret. She had, therefore, removed 
 the box in which she kept the money to an altogether 
 different part of the mountain, and had hidden it anew. 
 
 "Whatever happens to me, my pet, your future shall 
 be sure," she murmured in the child's ear. "Mercy will 
 see to it that her little Looly has a chance. She shall have 
 everything that Mercy can get for her." 
 
 Then she looked up and started, for a horse was can- 
 tering swiftly down the hill, and she knew that Wesley 
 Sparhawk had come again. 
 
 He alighted, fastened his horse, and came toward her. 
 She looked very grave and stately, and very cold, though 
 her lashes were wet, and she was holding her little 
 sister to her with desperate closeness. When he had left 
 her on the evening before, she had been all smiles and 
 warmth. He could not understand this sudden change. 
 He took a seat beside her underneath the great tree 
 where she had been sitting, and then she released Looly, 
 whispering in her ear, and the child silently disappeared, 
 leaving them alone together.
 
 " For Looly." 137 
 
 Young Sparhawk's face was very pale, and his lips 
 trembled, and as soon as the little girl had left them, he 
 began, impetuously: "I have come back because be- 
 cause I have thought it over a good many times, and I 
 want I want, as you say, Mercy I want to 'give you 
 a chance.' You are young yet, Mercy; don't you want 
 to go to school?" 
 
 She looked at him in vague bewilderment. ''I 
 couldn't," she gasped "Oh, no; it's out of the question. 
 There's Looly, and father, and Bet, and all of them, and 
 I couldn't. I'm twenty now, and oh, I couldn't that way, 
 anyway." 
 
 She stopped, for her voice began to choke. Her 
 sleeplessness of the night before, and the long strain 
 which she had been unconsciously enduring for the last 
 few weeks, and which had culminated in her terrible 
 mental struggle of the past twenty-four hours, had left 
 her very weak. She knew what he was going to say, 
 and a voice within her kept repeating: "It can never 
 be; it can never be." 
 
 "I've come, Mercy," he said, huskily, "to think every- 
 thing of you, and I believe you love me. Now the only 
 thing you need to make you all that all that is neces- 
 sary is an an education. I've plenty of money, Mercy, 
 and two or three years at a good boarding school would 
 
 be all that you would need, and then, then " And 
 
 in spite of the fact that he knew Bet to be furtively watch- 
 ing him from a convenient window, he seized Mercy's 
 hand and drew closer beside her. 
 
 "Don't you know," she said, with a great effort, and 
 in a strangely altered voice "don't you know in the 
 story he had been brought up in luxury, and she it 
 had been so different with her?"
 
 140 White Butterflies. 
 
 It was a raw and gusty day in the following March, 
 when Mr. Wesley Sparhawk, sitting in his father's ele- 
 gant library in Marlinsburg, was told that a visitor wished 
 to see him, and a moment later Mercy Wicks was shown 
 into the room. At first he did not know her, but she 
 quietly removed her woolen hood, and then, in spite of a 
 great change which had come over her face, he recog- 
 nized it. 
 
 "My God!" he cried, springing up and leading her ten- 
 derly to a seat. "What is it, Mercy? What ails you? 
 Have you been ill?" 
 
 She nodded mutely. Tears were trickling down her 
 face, and she coughed again and again. 
 
 "Ah, you have come to tell me," he cried, "that you 
 have changed your mind?" 
 
 "No, no/ 5 she said, unsteadily; "I was right; I see it 
 now more plainly than I saw it before; but, oh! it was 
 very sweet to have you love me!" 
 
 Her tears began to flow again, and the young man, 
 overcome by the pathos of her looks and of her words, 
 laid his head in his hands upon the table and sobbed 
 aloud. 
 
 When she grew calmer, she drew a small but heavy 
 bag from underneath her shawl. 
 
 "I came to bring you this," she said. "It's Looly's 
 money, you know, that I used to keep on the mountain. 
 I went up there, two or three weeks ago, and got it. I 
 was growing so weak that I knew I couldn't go again, 
 and I've brought it to you. You'll see that it is spent for 
 Looly you'll see that she has everything done for her 
 that this money can buy, won't you? for the love that 
 you said you had for me." 
 
 He bowed assent, and took the money in his hands.
 
 "For Looly." 
 
 He could not speak, but she had grown quite calm, and 
 went on to tell him about herself. 
 
 "I've been running down ever since you saw me," she 
 said. "They say it's quick consumption, or something 
 like that, and the doctor said that it would kill me to go 
 out to-day; but I felt able, and I wanted you to see to 
 this. I felt as if I could trust you, and you would know 
 just what kind of a lady I wanted Looly to be. If I'm to 
 die before she is grown up, of course it might as well 
 be soon as a little later. I think Looly'd better go away 
 somewhere before long. I've told pa, and he has prom- 
 ised to do just as you say. I rode down with him, and 
 I know he's in a hurry to go back, so I reckon I hadn't 
 better stay any longer, for you understand." 
 
 She rose weakly, and though he begged to be allowed 
 to take her home, she would only let him go with her 
 to the place where she was to join her father. 
 
 "I declare!" said one street idler to another, as he 
 saw them going by together, "who's that Wesley Spar- 
 hawk's helping along with such care? Looks like some- 
 body out of the backwoods, and I reckon it is. By the 
 way, I've heard he was just smitten with a daughter of 
 that old Wicks that lives up on the mountain in what 
 they call 'Wicks's Hollow.' Heard that he offered him- 
 self to her, and she wouldn't have him; but of course, that 
 couldn't possibly be so." 
 
 "Of course," rejoined his companion, with an incredu- 
 lous sneer, as they watched the strange pair out of sight. 
 
 A month later Mercy Wicks died.
 
 Tomlin Dresser's 
 
 Disappearance. 
 
 THE stage started from Vine Lake every morning at 
 seven. It reached Doremus about half-past nine. 
 If more housewives than usual stopped Gale 
 Truax, the handsome and accommodating driver, to 
 hand him a letter, or to ask him to buy a spool of silk 
 or a package of bird food for them in Doremus why, 
 then it was ten o'clock, instead of half-past nine, when the 
 stage drew up before the door of the Doremus post-office. 
 Ten o'clock was early enough, so that Gale Truax did 
 not usually have to hurry the housewives. 
 
 Tomlin Dresser's house was ten miles from Vine Lake, 
 on the road to Doremus. The neighborhood in which 
 he lived was in the latter town, but it was called Bashan. 
 It was in New England, and not many miles from a 
 famous college, though you might not have thought it. 
 There was more need of missionaries in Bashan than 
 there is in some parts of Ceylon or of Uruguay. 
 
 The Vine Lake stage usually reached Tomlin Dresser's 
 about a quarter before nine. It often stopped there. This 
 was not wholly because there were so many passengers 
 or packages to be left there, but was partly because 
 Tomlin Dresser's young wife Rose had come from Vine 
 Lake, and had known Gale Truax for years, as well as 
 many others who resided there. Gale Truax often had 
 messages for Rose from these various friends and ac- 
 quaintances. Besides, Rose was much tied at home with 
 142
 
 Tomlin Dresser's Disappearance, us 
 
 the care of her housekeeping and of her pretty baby, and 
 she had often to send to Doremus for little things which 
 she wanted, and which Gale Truax brought back with 
 him when the stage returned, about two in the afternoon. 
 
 It seemed to Tomlin Dresser one April morning, as 
 he was ploughing on the slope about twenty rods back of 
 his house, that Gale Truax stopped too long to talk with 
 Rose. 
 
 "He seems to have more nonsense to talk to my wife, 
 confound him!" muttered Tomlin Dresser, "than he talks 
 to all the girls in Doremus." 
 
 Tomlin had been ploughing for more than two hours. 
 It occurred to him now that he was tired. He would 
 sit down and rest, and then he could think. 
 
 Every one must have noticed that the same thing can 
 happen, day after day, for months, perhaps for years, with- 
 out attracting attention, until suddenly, without special 
 reason, one begins to think about it as if it were very 
 new. This was the way in which Tomlin Dresser be- 
 gan to think about the Vine Lake stage stopping in 
 front of his door. 
 
 As he sat on his plough chewing a blade of grass 
 the worst thing that Tomlin ever chewed the sound of 
 Rose's fresh, young laugh came floating up to him. 
 
 " that good-looking Gale Truax!" thought Tom- 
 lin Dresser, with unwonted profanity. "What's he say- 
 ing to my wife?" 
 
 Presently he heard Gale Truax chirrup to his horse, 
 and Rose's voice crying after him : 
 
 "Now, Gale, don't you forget two yards." 
 
 What a sweet voice it was! Tomlin Dresser had 
 courted Rose for two years, and he had been married 
 to her for two years more, but the sound of her voice
 
 144 White Butterflies. 
 
 thrilled him through and through to this day. He was 
 a sluggish man, too square-built, slow-motioned, slow- 
 spoken. He was of medium height, with straight black 
 hair, which was not often cut. There was only one 
 barber in Doremus, and he was generally busy when 
 Tomlin could get time to go to him. Tomlin hated to 
 wait, so he seldom went. Consequently now and usually 
 his hair was long in his neck and behind his ears. His 
 young beard was soft and black around his face, yet 
 growing already well up into his cheeks; his eyebrows 
 were black and straight; his eyes were black, and there 
 was a defect in one of them, which sometimes made him- 
 look cross-eyed, though the general effect one com- 
 monly got from looking at them was that they were 
 steady and level. They were very sombre almost too 
 intense. 
 
 Tomlin was very strong. There was probably not a 
 stronger farmer than he in all the country around Dore- 
 mus village. 
 
 "I ought to be strong," he said to himself now, as he 
 looked down on his brawny arms and passed his left 
 hand over the hard muscles of his right forearm. "I'm 
 strong, and I ought to be. I've worked like a dog, and 
 it's all been for her. First I thought she never was going 
 to look at me. Then I pitched in and earned my horse, 
 so that she would sorter notice me. Then when I could 
 see she was beginning to think of me, and thinking I 
 might maybe amount to something sometime, I worked 
 harder yet, and earned a patch o' land. Then she said 
 she'd have me, and I put in and got money enough to 
 build my house and barn, and since we got married and 
 moved in, Lord, how I've worked! And now there's 
 the young one. I'd work myself to death for them,
 
 Tomlin Dresser's Disappearance. 145 
 
 and I'll bet I'm a fool for doing it! The neighbors must 
 have noticed that confounded fool stopping here so every 
 day or two," pursued Tomlin Dresser, in his slow, sullen 
 way, the smouldering fire within him eating deeper and 
 deeper into his soul. "Likely as not they're laughing 
 in their sleeves at me for letting my wife flirt with that 
 good-looking Gale Truax. I've kinder seen it for weeks, 
 now, but I ain't thought about it as I'd oughter." 
 
 The sweat poured from him as he reflected. His head 
 drooped. He took off his hat, and rubbed his forehead 
 and neck hard with his clean, red handkerchief. 
 
 Suddenly a voice spoke just beside him. Rose had 
 come up so softly that he had not heard her, and was 
 standing there with the baby a beautiful baby per- 
 haps nine or ten months old, fair and blue-eyed like its 
 mother, whose golden hair, smoothed carefully when she 
 had twisted it into a generous knot that morning, was 
 now in little rings and curls all over her shining head. 
 Her face was rosy, her eyes laughing and sunny. She 
 looked as pretty and girlish and wilful, as she stood 
 gazing into her young husband's face, in her loose calico 
 gown, with her plump baby on her arm, as any ballroom 
 belle that was ever seen. 
 
 Her eyes grew clouded and anxious as she gazed into 
 his. 
 
 "What are you sitting down for, Lin?" she asked him. 
 "You sick?" 
 
 "I was well sorter tired like," stammered Tomlin 
 Dresser. 
 
 "I saw you out of the window, and I didn't know but 
 you'd got hurt or something. Says I to myself, 'Maybe 
 the horse has kicked him/ " 
 
 "No," returned Tomlin Dresser, shaking her off as 
 10
 
 146 White Butterflies. 
 
 she took hold of his arm with her free hand, and looked 
 searchingly into his face. "I'm all right. You'd better 
 go in." 
 
 The baby crowed at him, and stretched out his little 
 arms, but his father did not respond as he usually did. 
 
 "You'd better go in," he repeated, as Rose held the 
 baby out toward him, expecting him to take the child. 
 Tomlin only nodded to him, and turned away. 
 
 " Twouldn't hurt you to hold him a minute," hinted 
 Rose, pouting. 
 
 "I ain't got time. Take him in. Get along." 
 
 Tomlin turned and took hold of his plough. 
 
 "Why, Lin Dresser!" cried Rose, half in jest and half 
 in earnest. "I shouldn't think you liked us a bit should 
 we, Dick?" 
 
 She kissed the child, and pressed him close. 
 ' "Well, good-bye, crosspatch! I've got a good mind 
 to let your dinner burn." 
 
 She made up a playful face at her husband, and walked 
 with a leisurely step toward the house. 
 
 "What ails him?" she thought. "It can't be money 
 matters. He said he wasn't sick. What is it? Maybe 
 maybe " and Rose remembered, with a blush, Gale 
 Truax, and what a jolly talk they had had together at the 
 gate. Rose's father and mother had died in Vine Lake 
 when she was a little girl. She had never had brothers 
 nor sisters; but she had cousins still living there, and 
 one of them was going to be married soon. Gale Truax 
 had been telling her all about it. "Very well, if Tomlin 
 Dresser is going to act that way," thought his spirited 
 little wife, "I'll I'll well I'll teach him that he needn't 
 be so cross to baby and me." 
 
 She kissed the baby, and sat down to rock him to sleep.
 
 Tomlin Dresser's Disappearance. 147 
 
 There were tears in her eyes. Her husband had never 
 looked at her before just as he had looked at her that 
 morning. The recollection of it made her hot and angry. 
 Then the defect in his eye it had never seemed so glar- 
 ing to her as it had that morning; it made him look 
 fierce and ugly, somehow. A sort of a foreboding of evil 
 shadowed the girl's bright young spirit. She had never 
 rocked her baby to sleep before without singing to him, 
 but to-day she could not warble so much as a note. 
 
 In spite of her defiant feelings, Rose did not burn her 
 husband's dinner. Instead, she cooked it even more care- 
 fully than usual. The baby had a long nap, and while he 
 was asleep, Rose tidied her house up to the last point of 
 neatness. 
 
 When the stage came along after dinner, Gale Truax 
 stopped and held out Rose's parcel. Rose had wavered 
 between thinking that she would talk with him a good 
 while, and that she would just thank him coolly and let 
 him go right on. What she finally did was to run out 
 and get the parcel, take it merrily, and talk until she 
 heard pretty much all of the Doremus news. She laughed 
 a great deal, and she knew that she was looking very 
 flushed and pretty, for Gale Truax regarded her with 
 unmistakable admiration. When she turned at last to 
 go into the house, sha found that she had been talking 
 out at the gate for quite half an hour. There had been 
 no passengers, as was often the case, and Gale could 
 easily make up lost time. 
 
 "I don't care," thought pretty Rose Dresser, tossing 
 her head; "he needn't be so cross." But in her heart 
 she yearned over the dark-browed young fellow following 
 his horse through the toilsome furrows. In her secret 
 soul she believed that no other woman had ever been
 
 148 White Butterflies. 
 
 loved as she was loved by her husband. Rose was modest 
 enough about it. It was not, she had hundreds of times 
 said to herself, because she was so much more charm- 
 ing than other girls, but because no other man whom 
 she had ever seen or imagined was capable of loving so 
 ardently and so evenly and so long as Tomlin Dresser. 
 The sustained, unfaltering power of his will, the awful 
 self-obliterating humility of his love though poor Rose, 
 who had little enough education, could not have analyzed 
 it frightened her whenever she thought of it soberly. 
 Now she could not help a tremulous fear within her. 
 If Tomlin Dresser really were jealous, what might he 
 not do? 
 
 Supper time came. The baby was very gleeful, and 
 Rose played with him, with a good deal of noise and 
 demonstration, but Tomlin paid little heed to it all. Not 
 once did the dark look on his brow lighten. His eyes 
 were duller and smaller and more sullen than Rose 
 had ever seen them before. But she sang about the 
 house as though everything were as usual, got the baby 
 to sleep, and then sat down beside the lamp and sewed. 
 
 Tomlin Dresser took up a newspaper and read it for 
 a while. Then he dropped it and looked into the fire; 
 for the evening had come on chilly, and they were glad to 
 gather around the kitchen stove, through the open grate 
 of which the coals showed cheerily. 
 
 After a little he rose and began to pace slowly about 
 the room. His wife was humming some rattling revival 
 melody. At last she said: 
 
 "Lin, you make me as nervous as a fish, walking 
 around so. You're awfully poky to-night. Why don't 
 you sit down and keep still?"
 
 Tomlin Dresser's Disappearance 149 
 
 "I'll go out if I disturb you," he said, huskily, and tak- 
 ing up his hat, he strolled out into the night. 
 
 There was a bright moon, almost full, and he roamed 
 around in its light for an hour or more, first out into the 
 barn, where the horse and the cow were naturally sur- 
 prised to see their master at such an hour, and then 
 into the field where he had been ploughing during the 
 day. It has often been remarked that things put on a 
 very different look in the moonlight from that which 
 they assume in any other. Now, as Tomlin Dresser 
 wandered aimlessly about, his whole life looked to him 
 very different from what it had ever looked before. 
 
 When at last he went in and sought his bed, he found 
 Rose and the baby fast asleep. He locked the doors 
 softly, and lay down quietly in his place. The moon- 
 light made the room almost as light as day. He could 
 plainly see Rose's pretty face as she slept. 
 
 For hours he lay there wide awake. The moon sank 
 low, and still he could not sleep. The slow devouring 
 fire within him was burning more and more fiercely. 
 
 "She's sick of me," he was saying over to himself, 
 in his sure, deliberate way. "She's sick of me. At 
 first she was contented with a hard-working man, who 
 didn't care for any other women, and never had. She 
 was satisfied with me and Dick; but she's getting sick 
 of me, I can see. She'd rather have that Gale Truax, 
 with his curly mustache, and his 'Excuse me,' and all his 
 palaver." 
 
 Tomlin Dresser anathematized the handsome stage- 
 driver, with hot, reiterated imprecations. 
 
 "Well," he went on once more, in the same train of sim- 
 ple reasoning over which he was going again and again 
 "well, if she wants him, I want her to have him; I want
 
 150 White Butterflies. 
 
 her to have what she likes. If I was out of the way, 
 maybe she'd have him." 
 
 It did not occur to Tomlin Dresser, in the anguish of 
 his soul, that the course of reasoning which he had 
 adopted might do his wife an injustice. He did not 
 think of the lack of character, of stability of purpose, 
 which he was unconsciously attributing to her. 
 
 In his simple, unsophisticated mind she had always 
 stood unquestioned, like a goddess. Now she stood 
 unquestioned still. She had talked with Gale Truax in a 
 way which showed plainly to her husband that she loved 
 the handsome stage-driver the Adonis both of Vine 
 Lake and Doremus. He was glad enough to have her 
 smile upon him, of course. Any man would be, thought 
 Tomlin, bitterly. 
 
 She was not to blame, as he saw the matter now; at 
 least he did not blame her, though he heaped fresh 
 maledictions every hour upon the head of the dapper 
 youth who had stepped between them. 
 
 When Tomlin rose in the morning, he was unrefreshed, 
 He ate his breakfast in silence, and went out again to his 
 work. He had planned to go off to a distant lot to-day, 
 for he had ploughed as far as he meant to this year on the 
 hillside. When he was ready, however, he could not 
 bear to leave the vicinity of the house. He had a horrible 
 desire to see whether the stage stopped again. There 
 was a little more planting that he might do in the garden. 
 He would do it to-day. 
 
 The stage came along early. It stopped. Rose went 
 out to the gate with the baby on her arm. Again there 
 was a merry dialogue between her and Gale Truax, and 
 again she gave him an errand to do for her in the 
 village,
 
 Tomlin Dresser's Disappearance, isi 
 
 Tomlin Dresser ate his dinner as if he were in a dream. 
 He did not speak. Rose was saucy and indifferent. The 
 stage stopped again at two o'clock, and Gale Truax gave 
 her a parcel. 
 
 When Tomlin came in to supper, Rose showed him a 
 little fancy bon-bon basket. 
 
 "See here," she said, with a fresh desire to torment 
 him; "Gale brought this to Dick from Doremus. He 
 said that I could have some of the candy if I wanted to. 
 Of course, he knew I wouldn't let Dick eat it. Wasn't 
 he good? My husband, maybe, doesn't care to speak to 
 me; but luckily everybody doesn't dislike me so much." 
 
 She tossed her head, ate some of the candy, and threw 
 a piece of it toward Tomlin. He let it fall to the floor. 
 Then he picked it up it would save her trouble 
 for him to pick it up and threw it into the fire. His 
 sombre eyes were more lightless and wretched than she 
 had ever seen them. Besides, he looked very cross-eyed. 
 
 Rose went on mechanically with a song which she 
 had begun. Now and then she stopped in a conspicuous 
 way to enjoy her candy. 
 
 About nine o'clock she yawned, and remarked that 
 the baby was "a good deal better company than some- 
 body else that she might mention." Then she went off 
 to bed, and was soon asleep. Tomlin Dresser sat moodily 
 before the fire, or paced up and down the clean and pleas- 
 ant kitchen. He was filled with only one thought now. 
 He wanted to get away to get away from Rose and 
 Gale Truax and Doremus, and all the people whom he 
 had ever seen. Everything seemed warped and unnatural 
 to him. He felt as though he were crazy. Perhaps he 
 was. 
 
 At last he took ink and a pen from a shelf, and found a
 
 150 White Butterflies. 
 
 her to have what she likes. If I was out of the way, 
 maybe she'd have him." 
 
 It did not occur to Tomlin Dresser, in the anguish of 
 his soul, that the course of reasoning which he had 
 adopted might do his wife an injustice. He did not 
 think of the lack of character, of stability of purpose, 
 which he was unconsciously attributing to her. 
 
 In his simple, unsophisticated mind she had always 
 stood unquestioned, like a goddess. Now she stood 
 unquestioned still. She had talked with Gale Truax in a 
 way which showed plainly to her husband that she loved 
 the handsome stage-driver the Adonis both of Vine 
 Lake and Doremus. He was glad enough to have her 
 smile upon him, of course. Any man would be, thought 
 Tomlin, bitterly. 
 
 She was not to blame, as he saw the matter now; at 
 least he did not blame her, though he heaped fresh 
 maledictions every hour upon the head of the dapper 
 youth who had stepped between them. 
 
 When Tomlin rose in the morning, he was unrefreshed, 
 He ate his breakfast in silence, and went out again to his 
 work. He had planned to go off to a distant lot to-day, 
 for he had ploughed as far as he meant to this year on the 
 hillside. When he was ready, however, he could not 
 bear to leave the vicinity of the house. He had a horrible 
 desire to see whether the stage stopped again. There 
 was a little more planting that he might do in the garden. 
 He would do it to-day. 
 
 The stage came along early. It stopped. Rose went 
 out to the gate with the baby on her arm. Again there 
 was a merry dialogue between her and Gale Truax, and 
 again she gave him an errand to do for her in the 
 village,
 
 Tomlin Dresser's Disappearance, isi 
 
 Tomlin Dresser ate his dinner as if he were in a dream. 
 He did not speak. Rose was saucy and indifferent. The 
 stage stopped again at two o'clock, and Gale Truax gave 
 her a parcel. 
 
 When Tomlin came in to supper, Rose showed him a 
 little fancy bon-bon basket. 
 
 "See here," she said, with a fresh desire to torment 
 him; "Gale brought this to Dick from Doremus. He 
 said that I could have some of the candy if I wanted to. 
 Of course, he knew I wouldn't let Dick eat it. Wasn't 
 he good? My husband, maybe, doesn't care to speak to 
 me; but luckily everybody doesn't dislike me so much." 
 
 She tossed her head, ate some of the candy, and threw 
 a piece of it toward Tomlin. He let it fall to the floor. 
 Then he picked it up it would save her trouble 
 for him to pick it up and threw it into the fire. His 
 sombre eyes were more lightless and wretched than she 
 had ever seen them. Besides, he looked very cross-eyed. 
 
 Rose went on mechanically with a song which she 
 had begun. Now and then she stopped in a conspicuous 
 way to enjoy her candy. 
 
 About nine o'clock she yawned, and remarked that 
 the baby was "a good deal better company than some- 
 body else that she might mention." Then she went off 
 to bed, and was soon asleep. Tomlin Dresser sat moodily 
 before the fire, or paced up and down the clean and pleas- 
 ant kitchen. He was filled with only one thought now. 
 He wanted to get away to get away from Rose and 
 Gale Truax and Doremus, and all the people whom he 
 had ever seen. Everything seemed warped and unnatural 
 to him. He felt as though he were crazy. Perhaps he 
 was. 
 
 At last he took ink and a pen from a shelf, and found a
 
 152 White Butterflies. 
 
 sheet of paper in a table drawer. Tomlin was not a ready 
 writer, but he had composed before long a legible if not 
 an elegant letter. It said: 
 
 "Dear Rose: I am going away. I shall probably 
 never come back. There is money in the bank. The 
 book is in my desk in the parlor. Use it all you want. 
 There is a little more ploughing and planting to do. You 
 will have to get somebody to do it. I can't. Good-bye. 
 I want you to have a good time. Lin." 
 
 Not a word about the baby. What did he care about 
 the baby? His heart, his mind, his whole being, were 
 full of Rose, only Rose. He went into the bedroom, and 
 looked at her asleep in the moonlight. Her baby lay 
 upon her breast. Tomlin Dresser's powerful frame was 
 shaking like a cluster of green hop blooms in the August 
 breeze. His heart hammered, hammered against his 
 ribs with a force which seemed to him greater than the 
 force of his strong right arm, but he managed to creep 
 out again into the kitchen. Then he looked into his 
 pocketbook to see if he had money enough; brought a 
 valise, and tumbled a few things into it; got his hat, put 
 out the light, and stole softly away from the house 
 through the woodshed. 
 
 He had calculated to catch the midnight train to Bos- 
 ton, and he reached the Doremus station just as it was 
 coming into view around a curve half a mile away. The 
 next morning he was in Boston. 
 
 In the morning paper he read that a number of men 
 were wanted to ship ice to New York from some place in. 
 Maine. He went up there, was employed, and worked 
 hard all summer. Other men were discharged, but Tom-
 
 Tomlin Dresser's Disappearance. 153 
 
 lin was kept. He did the work of two men, the "boss" 
 said. When the ice job was finished, he was put to 
 work on lumber. 
 
 The winter came on, and Tomlin went up into the woods 
 chopping. He seldom spoke, and he acquired the nick- 
 name of "Tomfool" among his mates, with whom he 
 would not drink and carouse. He had a long pipe, 
 which, when work was over, every day, he smoked, 
 smoked, smoked, until he went to bed. All through the 
 summer and winter he was in a dazed and bewildered 
 frame of mind. He worked unceasingly, so that each night 
 he was utterly exhausted. He felt as though he had 
 turned into a machine. 
 
 April came around again. It found Tomlin Dresser 
 up at the headwaters of a great Maine river, sending off 
 rafts of logs. 
 
 One day it was soft and balmy, and he began to feel 
 as he had not felt for months. It seemed to him as 
 though his head had been sealed up with sealing-wax, 
 and that suddenly the sealing-wax had been broken and 
 his head was free. Pictures presented themselves before 
 him 'incessantly of his distant home upon the hillside. 
 He seemed to see his wife moving about the plain rooms 
 which he had taken such pleasure in planning conven- 
 iently and comfortably for her. He had had no clear 
 vision of her in his mind before since he had left Dore- 
 mus. Oh, how pretty she was! How red her lips were! 
 How merry her eyes! Instinctively he put out his arms 
 to gather her into them, and he groaned aloud when they 
 closed upon the empty air. He seemed to hear the baby 
 crowing and laughing. What a bright baby it was ! Oh, 
 what an interminable age it had been since he had seen 
 them! How could he have staid away so long!
 
 164 White Butterflies. 
 
 "Oh, yes!" he told himself, bewildered. "It is be- 
 cause Rose does not love me any longer. She loves 
 somebody else, and perhaps she has gone to live with 
 him." 
 
 "What!" cried an awakened voice within him! "Rose 
 live with somebody else ! You insult her. Rose is a good 
 girl. She is married to you, and she will stick to 
 you." 
 
 "Why," he asked of this voice, "do you think that she 
 loves me now?" 
 
 "Of course she does," answered the awakened voice. 
 "She is true and good. She promised to love, honor and 
 obey. Rose isn't the girl to go back on her promise. 
 She isn't like some of those creatures who live on the 
 edge of Bashan, and who have the finger of scorn pointed 
 at them by every honest man and woman. You wrong 
 her cruelly." 
 
 "But she did not laugh and talk with me for many a 
 long day as she laughed and talked with Gale Truax 
 at the gate; ay, and she laughed and talked with him for 
 weeks nearly every day." 
 
 "Oh, she is young and light-hearted," admitted the 
 awakened voice. "Perhaps you were not quite tender 
 enough toward her, and perhaps she liked to see how 
 jealous she could make you. Perhaps you were really 
 morose and ugly to her. Didn't she keep your little 
 house beautifully neat for you? Wasn't she a dutiful wife 
 to you? Couldn't you have overlooked a little folly on 
 her part, and wouldn't she have come around all right if 
 you had only shown her that you trusted her fully? What 
 a brute you were to go off and leave her to shift for 
 herself!" 
 
 This involuntary interview had the effect upon Tomlin
 
 Tomlin Dresser's Disappearance. iss 
 
 Dresser of a vivid, awful dream. He had come to him- 
 self at last. It is said that overweening love unhinges a 
 man; Tomlin Dresser had perhaps loved his wife too in- 
 tensely. At any rate, he felt now as though he were just 
 regaining his common sense, after having been without 
 ir for a long time. In a tremor of agitation, he rushed at 
 once to throw up his place, and two days later he reached 
 Doremus by an evening train. 
 
 He skulked off from his car on the side opposite the 
 station, leaped a fence, and was almost out of sight before 
 the train passed on. A little way from his home he over- 
 took two men in a wagon old neighbors of his. Their 
 talk sounded loud in the calm moonlit night. Tomlin 
 hurried to come nearer, though he kept close in the 
 shade of the bushes by the roadside. 
 
 "I never could understand Tomlin Dresser's going 
 off so," remarked one of them, an elderly man. "Some 
 think he was crazy." 
 
 "I don't know," replied the other, a young fellow, 
 shaking his head. "Some think there was foul play 
 there." 
 
 "Oh, but he wrote his wife a letter!" 
 "Do you know that he wrote his wife a letter?" 
 "Know? I know I've heard it all around." 
 "I don't believe he ever wrote her any letter. She's 
 that proud she won't tell anything, and nobody knows 
 anything for sure. I've heard that she thinks he was a 
 little mite off his head." 
 
 "Maybe. Anyhow she's showed pluck, if ever a wom- 
 an did." 
 
 "Well, she had to. It was pretty mean in Tomlin 
 Dresser to go off so, if he did know what he was about. 
 She didn!t have any home to go to, as some women
 
 156 White Butterflies. 
 
 have, so she just made up her mind to keep this one. 
 They say she is out in all weathers, raking and hoeing 
 and planting, and what not; takes care of the horse and 
 cow pretty much herself; nobody to help her most of the 
 time but that great hulking boy, that cousin of hers from 
 Vine Lake, and he's no good a simpleton if ever there 
 was one. She does all of the head-work, and a good share 
 of the hand-work. Rose is clever, but it's hard on her. 
 She looks a sight older than she did a year ago. They 
 say she's running down all the time. The doctor says, 
 I've heard, that she's going into a decline if something 
 doesn't happen pretty quick. They say she expects him 
 home again some time." 
 
 "Sho! Just like a woman. If Tomlin Dresser'd been 
 a-coming, he'd have come long before this time. I don't 
 believe he'll ever show his face in this part of the country, 
 nor anywhere else. I believe he's dead." 
 
 The other man began to rake up remarkable instances 
 of which he had heard of men who had returned after 
 mysterious disappearances, and Tomlin gradually fell 
 away behind them. About half a mile from his home he 
 left the main road for a short cut which he knew well. 
 In a few moments he was beside the little house. 
 
 It was about half-past eight. The curtain of the kitchen 
 window was up, and Tomlin looked in. 
 
 The "hulking boy" was mending a farm tool on one 
 side of the table, and Rose, with her lap full of sewing, 
 was sitting on the other side. She had dropped her work, 
 and her head was resting upon her arms on the table. 
 With a little stamp and shuffle upon the mat opposite the 
 door, such as he always used to give, he lifted the latch 
 and walked unsteadily in. Rose started up with a little 
 shriek, and her work fell in a heap to the floor.
 
 Tomlin Dresser's Disappearance. 157 
 
 "Oh, Lin!" she cried, and then she threw herself into 
 the strong arms which he opened to receive her. 
 
 He raised her from her feet as though she had been a 
 child. His heart smote him afresh when he felt her weight 
 to be so light. He bore her into the little bedroom, laid 
 her gently on the bed, and coyered her face with kisses. 
 
 "Oh, Lin!" she began, fast and pleadingly; "I want to 
 tell you that I am ashamed. I just talked with Gale 
 Truax, first, because I didn't think, and then to tease 
 you. I ought to have known better. I wouldn't do such 
 a thing now. I'm older, you see, and wiser than I used 
 to be. I haven't spoken to him since you went away. 
 I couldn't bear to see him any more. Oh, Lin, wasn't 
 it that that made you go off so? I haven't used all the 
 money. I tried to make it go as far as I could. I was 
 afraid you would not come back. Oh, Lin, it has nearly 
 killed me!" 
 
 "I guess I was sorter crazy-like," answered Tomlin 
 Dresser, swallowing hard. "I thought you didn't like me 
 any more, and it made me feel queer. Don't say any 
 more about it, Rose. We'll act as if it hadn't ever hap- 
 pened." 
 
 "Yes, we will," she agreed, still clinging to him fondly, 
 repentantly. 
 
 Tomlin Dresser went to the closet, hung up his coat 
 there, and took down an old one which he used to wear. 
 It was hanging in its old place. He put it on. He seemed 
 to hang away the ice and the lumber of Maine with his 
 coat. 
 
 "I see," he said, speaking to Rose, who was stooping 
 over the boy, pink and beautiful as ever, in his old place 
 on the bed "I see that hill patch ain't ploughed yet. 
 I'll go right to work on it in the morning."
 
 Daffodils. 
 
 THE STORY OF AN EASTER SUNDAY. 
 
 RE there always just two daffodil buds in that 
 bunch under the east window, Aunt Justinia?" 
 Miss Romaine Goddard stood pensively look- 
 ing down in the yellow glow of the soft March weather 
 at two daffodil buds, which had just revealed themselves 
 above the warm, brown earth among a cluster of tiny, 
 barren leaves. 
 
 "Oh, no," responded Miss Justinia Goddard, a little 
 argumentatively, as though her daffodils had been 
 maligned. "Sometimes there are a good many. Then 
 again there aren't any, and I think the plant may die; 
 but it doesn't. It always comes up somehow." 
 
 "There were just two buds on it when I was here 
 before." 
 
 Miss Romaine looked dreamily off into the distance. 
 
 "How you do remember, Romaine!" exclaimed her 
 aunt, staring at her. "It is fifteen years this month since 
 you were here before. Why, I can't even remember how 
 many buds there were under this window last year. It is 
 my sewing window, too." 
 
 "The buds were blasted that year, I recollect. They 
 never came to anything," her niece added, a little under 
 her breath. "But what is that noise?" she exclaimed, in 
 a different tone. "Poor little Le Roy! Something has 
 happened to him." 
 
 A boy of perhaps eight or nine came slowly around the 
 ZJ6
 
 Daffodils. 159 
 
 corner of the old house as she spoke. He was weeping 
 profusely, and shrieking at the top of his voice. 
 
 "I presume he has had some trouble about a postage- 
 stamp," suggested Miss Justinia, not unkindly, but with 
 perfect composure. 
 
 "I've lost my new Guatemala stamp," sobbed 
 Le Roy. 
 
 "There! I told you so!" ejaculated Miss Justinia. "If 
 Le Roy Goddard cries, or if he laughs, there's always a 
 postage-stamp at the bottom of it." 
 
 Le Roy went on to detail, in the pauses between his 
 heart-broken wails, exactly how he had lost the stamp. 
 He ended by implying that the only way of quieting him 
 was a financial one, as his special friend, Guy Rice, "down 
 by the village," had a Guatemala stamp at his disposal, 
 but charged an exorbitant price for it, refusing to "trade." 
 
 "I cannot give you any more money to buy stamps 
 with," said his aunt, severely. "You must learn to be 
 more careful." 
 
 Le Roy began to wail more fiercely than ever, but he 
 relaxed a little as his cousin Romaine put her hand into 
 her pocket. 
 
 "Here, dear," she said, indulgently, "run along and 
 buy your stamp." 
 
 "You will spoil him, Romaine," protested Miss 
 Justinia. 
 
 "That is just what you used to say of Justin," retorted 
 her niece, good-humoredly; "but I didn't." 
 
 "You beat all to remember," said her aunt again. 
 Justin had been the only son of her favorite brother. He 
 had been named for her, and brought up by her. He 
 was in business in the city, and as his wife had died when 
 their only child was very young, Le Roy had been
 
 160 White Butterflies. 
 
 put under the care of his aunt, as his father had been 
 before him. 
 
 Miss Justinia and her niece, who had come from 
 New York only the day before, had been standing, 
 throughout all of the interview with Le Roy, beside the 
 daffodils; but now they began to move away over the 
 brown turf toward the large old-fashioned garden. 
 
 "Fifteen years!" mused Romaine Goddard aloud. "I 
 can't believe that it has been even one year. Everything 
 seems just about the same. Lent had just begun then, 
 and it is not half gone now. I was twenty then, but I 
 don't feel so very much older now. Justin was capering 
 about here then, and now we have Le Roy. Justin used 
 to be devoted to me. Do you remember, Aunt Justinia?" 
 
 "I remember how he used to carry your letters to the 
 post-office," remarked her aunt, with some sternness. 
 "Well, thank fortune, that affair never amounted to any- 
 thing." 
 
 A delicate color crept up Romaine Goddard's refined 
 but strongly marked face. 
 
 "Why do you say that, Aunt Justinia?" she demanded, 
 with unexpected emphasis. 
 
 "Why why because it wasn't a suitable thing," 
 stammered her aunt, taken by surprise. 
 
 "But what was there about George Ober that was un- 
 suitable?" continued Romaine, her gray eyes flashing a 
 little. "He was not rich, and so my father did not like 
 him; for my poor father was determined that I should 
 marry a millionaire. Why do you suppose he felt so, 
 Aunt Justinia, when he knew that I should have enough 
 anyway? And was there anything else against George 
 Ober? You knew his family when they lived here. I 
 don't suppose you ever saw George after his boyhood?"
 
 Daffodils. iei 
 
 "Yes, I did. I saw him just once. It was in this very 
 garden, that very spring. You had not been gone a 
 week." 
 
 "That spring!" said Romaine Goddard, slowly. "What 
 do you mean, Aunt Justinia? You saw him here? And 
 you never told me?" 
 
 There was an old stone bench under an apple tree, just 
 on the edge of the garden. Romaine sank down upon 
 this bench, and nervously pulled her aunt down beside her. 
 
 "Tell me about it," she demanded. 
 
 "Why, child," remonstrated Miss Justinia, bristling a 
 little at her niece's tone, "there isn't any more to tell; that 
 is, much. He just came came right out here into the 
 garden, where I was puttering about just as I am to-day, 
 and asked for you." 
 
 "For me! And I never knew his ship had come in 
 at all!" 
 
 There was a hint of tears in the dignified Miss God- 
 dard's voice. Her aunt looked at her in dismay. 
 
 "Your father and mother didn't want you to know. 
 Your father told me so himself, when you went home; 
 and he said, too, that there was a prospect of a great 
 match for you there. I supposed that you had fallen in 
 with that. Girls generally do." 
 
 "Oh, that was such a spindling, silly fellow!" exclaimed 
 Romaine Goddard, in disgust. "I never thought of it for 
 a moment. I don't know how father and mother 
 could " 
 
 The hint of tears became more pronounced. Her aunt 
 looked at her sharply and disapprovingly. 
 
 "Romaine Goddard! At your age, and your father 
 not dead a year yet, and your mother gone long ago! 
 How can you go on so?" 
 11
 
 162 White Butterflies. 
 
 "I'm not blaming them," declared the younger woman, 
 the tears rolling down her cheeks in good earnest now. 
 "But tell me what he said, every word." 
 
 "Every word! Why, child, that was fifteen years ago." 
 
 "But sometimes we remember what happened twenty 
 years ago better than we do what happened last week. 
 Can't you think?" 
 
 Think! Miss Justinia could not forget it if she should 
 try. She had hoped and supposed, in her blind devotion 
 to Romaine's father, that her niece had forgotten her old 
 lover long ago. It had not occurred to this good woman 
 until this moment that perhaps Romaine had lived single 
 all these years because of that handsome young lieu- 
 tenant. 
 
 "Well," proceeded Miss Justinia, gazing disapprov- 
 ingly into her niece's eager face, "this young fellow, as I 
 was saying, all rigged up in his uniform, came striding 
 around the corner of the house there, lifting his hat, and 
 asking, in the most breathless way, for you. Then he 
 went on to inquire about the young man you were going 
 to marry. You see, your father had written him just 
 what he had written me, and had told him that his daugh- 
 ter, under the circumstances, desired to close the corre- 
 spondence with Lieutenant Ober." 
 
 "Oh, Aunt Justinia! Well?" 
 
 "And the young man's face was rather well pale, 
 and I felt sorry for him. I fancied he couldn't quite see 
 when he went away, and I thought you oughtn't to have 
 flirted with him so hard." 
 
 "Flirted!" breathed the younger woman. "You ought 
 to have known me better, Aunt Justinia. And why didn't 
 you tell me this fifteen years ago?" 
 
 "I didn't like to write it," explained Miss Justinia, with
 
 Daffodils. 163 
 
 some dignity; "and I didn't see you again not till your 
 mother died was it three years afterward? And I 
 haven't seen you since, have I? You know, Romaine, 
 that I'm odd; I don't pretend I'm not; I just live right 
 here in the old homestead, and I don't go out of the gate 
 once a month, except to the little gray chapel yonder. 
 I don't journey unless I have to. It's a hard day's ride 
 from here to New York, and I don't go unless there's a 
 funeral or something uncommon. But I've asked you 
 to come here again and again." 
 
 "Yes; and now perhaps you can guess why I haven't 
 come," confessed the younger woman, the despairing 
 tone in which she had spoken hitherto changing to one 
 of rebellion. "I felt as though my life had been spoiled, 
 and it happened here. I always loved the old place itself, 
 and I always loved you, Aunt Justinia, but I might as 
 well tell you the whole story, at our age. George Ober 
 was the only man I ever wanted to marry. Father 
 couldn't understand it; but I have always measured my 
 feeling for other men by the feeling I had for George 
 Ober, and I never cared half so much for any one else 
 as I did for him. Maybe you know how it is from expe- 
 rience, Aunt Justinia. We are two old maids together" 
 a pitiful look came into Romaine's gray eyes "but 
 you are so strong and self-contained that you never 
 would pour it all out so foolishly as I do." 
 
 She ceased, for an acute shadow passed over her aunt's 
 thin face, though she said nothing. No, Miss Justinia 
 could not "pour it all out so." She wished devoutly that 
 she could. 
 
 "I wonder how he had happened to come up here?" 
 Romaine began again, abruptly. 
 
 "Oh, there are some Obers down in the village here
 
 164 White Butterflies. 
 
 cousins of his. I never see them." Miss Justinia's tone 
 was full of scorn. 
 
 "Why? Aren't they respectable people?" 
 "Mercy! yes, child! Don't speak so cross. The Obers," 
 proceeded Miss Justinia, bent upon giving to the case 
 of her dead brother as good a showing as she could "the 
 Obers are all well enough; but they are an open-handed, 
 shiftless kind of folks the whole tribe. Your father 
 never liked them. And 'Ober' is such a name! I always 
 disliked it." 
 
 "It is just as good as Goddard," insisted Romaine, 
 amused in spite of herself at the turn of her aunt's argu- 
 ment. "And George's father, though he was only a poor 
 clerk, was just as noble as he could be. I suppose 
 George was about as old as Le Roy here when they went 
 to live in the city. After that Bessie, the sister, went to 
 school with me for years. They denied themselves every- 
 thing to educate her. I was at their house every day 
 almost, and I can't remember the time that George and 
 I didn't love each other. We never were really engaged, 
 but we always understood each other. He went to the 
 Naval Academy, and then he started on that long cruise. 
 He must have just come back when he was here. I sup- 
 pose my father's letter was waiting for him when he 
 reached port very likely before Lent began so he did 
 not answer my letters. I was proud, and would not write 
 until he wrote, and well, we have said enough for to- 
 day. I'm sure I never thought of our getting off on this 
 subject when we stood over the daffodils. Those two 
 blasted buds have followed me all my life but it is ab- 
 surd. His life hasn't been blasted, I suppose. He was 
 just a year older than I. Now he is thirty-six a staid, 
 middle-aged man, probably with a wife and half-a-dozen
 
 Daffodils. 166 
 
 children. Bessie died when we were sixteen, and the 
 Obers moved ever so far out West; but, though I've no 
 means of knowing, it is probably just as I say. He is 
 domestic and contented, and I I am 'the rich Miss God- 
 dard, with everything on earth to make her happy,' as 
 I overheard myself described at a party one evening." 
 
 She laughed bitterly and rose to walk further, when 
 Le Roy came bounding across the leafless beds. j 
 
 "It's dinner-time," he shouted to Aunt Justinia's dis- 
 may; "and here's the Guatemala stamp, like the one I 
 lost, and here's an Egyptian pyramid stamp, and here's 
 the Ionian Islands, and Finland. Aren't they pretty? 
 And I've got a lot more to trade." 
 
 He smiled broadly, put his treasures into an envelope 
 in his pocket, and confidingly clasped his cousin's hand 
 in his own, as they proceeded toward the dining-room. 
 
 "I'm going down to the hotel with Guy Rice," he 
 rambled on between portentous mouthfuls, after the noon 
 dinner had been served. 
 
 Miss Justinia and her niece had been talking about the 
 garden, and she had not paid much attention to Le Roy's 
 occasional remarks, but the word "hotel" now caught 
 her ear. 
 
 "I can't have you running to the hotel," she began, 
 sharply. "You have been to the village once to-day to 
 see Guy. It's two miles there. You have walked 
 enough." 
 
 Le Roy dropped his knife and fork and began to howl 
 dismally. Miss Justinia twisted his chair a little away 
 from the table. 
 
 "Go," she said, peremptorily, to the child "go, and 
 don't come back till you can stop crying. A great boy
 
 166 White Butterflies. 
 
 like you! What will Cousin Romaine think? After giv- 
 ing you that money, too." 
 
 "I can get some splendid stamps without any money 
 down at the hotel," blubbered Le Roy, making no motion 
 to obey orders. "Guy's got a lot there." 
 
 "Oh!" said Miss Justinia, weakening a little, for, like 
 John Gilpin's wife, she had a frugal mind. "I didn't un- 
 derstand. How do you get stamps for nothing down 
 there? I supposed you just wanted to tramp." 
 
 Le Roy's pudgy little face began to clear. "If you'd 
 'a' waited, I'd V told you before," he commenced, re- 
 proachfully; "but you just told me to 'go.' " 
 
 "I was hasty," admitted his aunt, with a sufficient show 
 of penitence. "Well?" 
 
 "There's a man at the hotel he's a Frenchman, or a 
 Russian, or a Kodak, or something," said Le Roy, 
 vaguely. "Anyhow, he likes little boys, and he's been 
 everywhere, and he gets sights of stamps, and he used to 
 know Guy's father, and he gave Guy some stamps, and 
 Guy says he knows he'll give me some. We won't stay 
 but just a minute." 
 
 "Well," Miss Justinia conceded after a pause, "you 
 may go if you will be back by four o'clock." 
 
 Le Roy finished his dessert in very short order, and 
 was soon on his way to "the hotel." He had left his cousin 
 convulsed with laughter. Whatever turn the conversa- 
 tion at table had chanced to take, Le Roy always brought 
 it up plump against postage stamps. Romaine had re- 
 marked that the number of a certain house in the city was 
 695, whereupon Le Roy had chirruped that he had ex- 
 actly 695 stamps in his album. She had descanted upon 
 the poetry of the Queen of Roumania, which elicited the 
 remark from Le Roy that he wished she would send him
 
 Daffodils. 167 
 
 some Roumanian stamps. A small boy who was men- 
 tioned as convalescing, but suffering from too little to do, 
 was gravely recommended by Le Roy to turn his atten- 
 tion to stamps. 
 
 After he had gone, Miss Justinia retired for a nap, 
 but Romaine, taking a book, strolled out again into the 
 rare March sunshine. She seated herself upon the old 
 stone bench, and fell to dreaming. Her book slipped 
 down upon the warm turf, and the years slipped as easily 
 away from her mind. Again she was the ardent girl of 
 twenty, writing letters on this very spot to her sailor 
 lover; again she felt the old dumb heartache which had 
 come when he did not answer them any more; again she 
 went through with the dull perplexity which had seized 
 her when she tried to account for it all. To think that 
 Aunt Justinia what close-mouthed creatures the God- 
 dards were! had held the key to the mystery for all 
 these years! 
 
 "Oh, if I had only known!" sighed Romaine Goddard 
 to herself. "He was poor, and so proud!" 
 
 And Aunt Justinia had said that he had been "pale," 
 that she thought he "could not quite see" as he walked 
 away. Oh, how he must have suffered! And Romaine 
 had fancied that he had, perhaps, flung the thought of 
 her lightly away from him. How strange that she had 
 scarcely heard his name mentioned in all these years! 
 Yet she felt sure that, if he had died, she should somehow 
 have heard of it. Suppose he should come back to the 
 city again? Suppose it should all be explained? He could 
 easily find her if he chose, and he could learn all about 
 her from others how she was free to do as she liked 
 now. But, nonsense! Men of thirty-six did not fancy 
 women of their own age. They liked fresh, young
 
 168 White Butterflies. 
 
 beauty. "And I was never beautiful," thought Romaine 
 Gpddard, with a pang. She wondered if she looked now 
 anything as she used to in those old days. Of course, 
 she must appear older; but still, people were often sur- 
 prised to learn that she was not in her twenties. Her 
 figure was as slender and graceful as ever. She won- 
 dered how she should look in a bright, flamboyant hat, 
 such as she had long since eschewed. If he should ever 
 come . Here she broke herself off, and laughed harshly. 
 
 "I think I had better read," she said, half aloud. 
 
 There was a sound of a horse's hoofs in the road. The 
 horse stopped, but Romaine did not look up. Her tem- 
 porary exaltation had been followed by the reaction which 
 usually succeeds such a vision. She felt old and lonely, 
 and though she was mechanically following the words 
 upon the page before her, still, in her far inner conscious- 
 ness, she was pondering whether she had not better sell 
 the great house in New York and come to live in the 
 old place with Aunt Justinia and Le Roy. 
 
 Suddenly a shadow fell across her book. It startled her, 
 and she gave a little cry. 
 
 "I beg your pardon," said a voice which she knew. 
 "I had no business to intrude upon you without first an- 
 nouncing myself, but " 
 
 "Why, George Lieutenant Ober," she began, feeling 
 as though the world must have passed away from her, 
 and she must have entered the realm of spirits. 
 "This is why where Aunt Justinia was speaking of 
 you to-day but oh, what does it all mean?" 
 
 She laughed feebly. Then she covered her face with 
 her hands. She felt that she was making herself unutter- 
 ably ridiculous. 
 
 "I am no ghost," he said, gravely, seating himself on
 
 Daffodils. 169 
 
 the old stone bench beside her. As he did this, she took 
 her hands down, and he looked keenly into her face. 
 
 "Oh, I am altered!" her heart cried within her, with 
 a passionate wish for the youth which she had lost, and 
 for which she had never grieved before. It shook the 
 calm which she had gained after the first surprise, but 
 his quiet voice brought her back to herself. 
 
 "I am very glad to see you again," he began. 
 
 The commonplace remark was well timed. 
 
 "Thank you. It is very pleasant," she replied, with an 
 assumption of gayety. "But I miss your uniform. Are 
 you no longer in the navy?" 
 
 "I threw up my commission years ago. I have had a 
 consulate over-seas, Romaine. My life has been passed 
 in foreign lands. I have not been very happy." 
 
 "I am sorry," she said, simply. 
 
 It seemed hopeless to her to try ever to untangle the 
 twisted threads of the last fifteen years; but, man-like, 
 George Ober cut the knot at a stroke. 
 
 "Yes, Romaine," he continued, dwelling on the old 
 name a little, "I have been very lonely. And you? Your 
 little cousin told me that you never married, after all." 
 
 The whole situation was revealed to her as by a glance, 
 and she blessed Le Roy and his mania. 
 
 "I never meant to marry!" she cried, indignantly. 
 
 "But but your father wrote me so, and your aunt 
 confirmed it." 
 
 "I found that out only to-day. I could not understand 
 your silence. Oh, it it " She paused. 
 
 "Why, Romaine," he exclaimed, his tone growing 
 
 buoyant, "I wish But first I must tell you that I 
 
 have not grown rich. I have enough, but I am not rich, 
 like you. If I had been rich" his voice thickened "I
 
 170 White Butterflies. 
 
 should not have submitted so tamely as I did fifteen 
 years ago." 
 
 "I hate money!'' she cried, passionately. "It has been 
 the bane " 
 
 "Mr. Ober," shrilled a boyish voice beside them, "you 
 said you had given us some Turkish stamps, but Guy and 
 I can't find 'em. We've looked the whole lot through, 
 too." 
 
 "My boy, I'll get them for you this very afternoon," 
 declared George Ober, springing to his feet. "I'll do 
 anything on earth for you." 
 
 Le Roy opened his eyes in blissful amazement at the 
 earnestness of this new and to him most desirable ac- 
 quaintance; and his expression deepened when his cousin 
 Romaine kissed him warmly, and gave him a whole dol- 
 lar to spend as he pleased. 
 
 "It was by the merest chance that I came here," George 
 Ober went on, as the boy ran off to join his playmate, 
 who was waiting by the gate. "I have not been in 
 America before for years, and I was going to sail for 
 the South Pacific in a fortnight; but my cousins in 
 the village wrote me a pressing invitation to come up 
 here, and so I came. To tell you the truth, I had hoped 
 to hear something of you, even though it should be as the 
 wife of another man. But nobody in the village seems 
 to know anything about your life nowadays." 
 
 "No," said Romaine. "I have riot made Aunt Justinia 
 a visit for fifteen years, and she does not talk about fam- 
 ily affairs. She sees only half-a-dozen people a year, 
 one might say." 
 
 "But my young stamp collector bore the name of God- 
 dard. I put a few questions to him, and then I galloped
 
 Daffodils. m 
 
 off so fast that I think he can hardly have recovered yet 
 from his astonishment." George Ober laughed. 
 
 "There!" said Romaine, "you look now as you used to." 
 
 "And you look exactly as you used to." 
 
 She flushed with pleasure. 
 
 "Let's have everything as we used to, Romaine." 
 
 "It has always been the same with me," she said, 
 softly. 
 
 Aunt Justinia came out on the veranda, and peered 
 over into the garden. 
 
 "We must go and see her," suggested Romaine, rising. 
 
 George Ober bent down to give her his arm. How 
 distinguished he had grown! 
 
 "George," she laughed up into his face, "I feel like a 
 girl, instead of a prosy, middle-aged old maid." 
 
 "You are always a girl to me, Romaine," he whispered. 
 
 He lingered a long time on the veranda. After a while 
 Le Roy came back. He looked displeased when he saw 
 that his hero had not departed. 
 
 "Your horse is pawing round awfully out there by the 
 post," he hazarded, with some emphasis; "and you know 
 we can't have those Turkish stamps till you get back to 
 the hotel." 
 
 Easter Sunday broke beautifully that year. There 
 was a great hubbub in the little country village, for there 
 was to be a wedding a very simple and quiet one at 
 the pretty gray chapel near Miss Justinia Goddard's. Her 
 niece, Miss Romaine Goddard, the great New York 
 heiress, was to marry the distinguished Mr. Ober, who 
 had been boarding at the hotel for several weeks. Some 
 hints of their romantic story had crept out, and every- 
 body was determined to witness the ceremony which was 
 at last to unite the long-severed pair. It was almost like
 
 172 White Butterflies. 
 
 the wedding at the end of "The Children of the Abbey." 
 I said that everybody was determined to go, but there 
 was one who was not. 
 
 Le Roy, who was forbidden always to touch his stamps 
 upon the Sabbath, was found, after a frantic search, at the 
 last moment, in a remote upper chamber of the barn, 
 surrounded by his treasures, which had recently received 
 large accessions. At first, with tears, he vehemently re- 
 fused to leave them; but by a judicious use of that wicked 
 bribery which even the most conscientious mothers and 
 aunts are sometimes compelled to employ, Aunt Justinia 
 lured him to appear at the wedding. His pockets were 
 bursting with stamps, and the prospects which had been 
 spread before him had not only dried his tears, but had 
 lent a glow to his countenance which was a positive in- 
 spiration to the whole company. Le Roy had become 
 the envy of all the young collectors in the neighborhood, 
 and his secret and perhaps not unjustifiable ambition 
 was to become the envy of the stamp collectors of two 
 hemispheres. 
 
 Romaine Goddard looked like a young girl, when, 
 leaning on her lover's arm, she stepped out of her aunt's 
 door to walk over to the church. As they passed the 
 sewing window, she noticed the daffodils. She had not 
 thought of them since the day when she had asked Miss 
 Justinia if there "were always just two buds in that par- 
 ticular bunch"; but the two little buds had sweetly grown 
 and grown under the spring sunshine, until now, as she 
 looked, two bright dewy blossoms breathed up to her a 
 fragrant congratulation upon her wedding day. 
 
 "See!" she said to her lover; "it is a good omen." 
 
 And as they walked across the April greensward, she 
 told him the story of the daffodils.
 
 "Sottyr 
 
 THE STORY OF A GENTLEMAN. 
 
 you ask 'em for any blue pieces, M'lancy?" 
 
 "No, I didn't. I've been workin' too hard to 
 think o' pieces blue pieces or any other kind." 
 
 "Now you knew I'd been a-wantin' blue pieces for a 
 week 'n' more, M'lancy. Seems 'sif you might '?' 
 thought about 'em." 
 
 "If I was a great big man, Solly Shedd, workin' out by 
 the day, an' knowin' consid'able about carpenterin' an' 
 plasterin', an' a little mite o' everything seems to me I 
 c'd raise money enough to buy some blue pieces for 
 myself! Beggin' for pieces, an' beggin' for pieces! I'm 
 sick o' hearin' you all the time beggin' for pieces!" 
 
 M'lancy Shedd's small, black eyes snapped with a dull, 
 contemptuous fire upon her husband. But Solly did not 
 resent her flings at him. 
 
 "I ain't beggin','' he persisted, humbly. "Everybody 
 asks for pieces. I give away jest as many as I git, I 
 know. Mis' Murchison had a lot o' blue pieces left from 
 them comf'tables the sassiety made last week. They'll 
 be all gone fust thing you know. You might 'a' thought 
 on 'em, M'lancy I swan you might." 
 
 But not even the tender reproach conveyed in Solly's 
 "I swan" seemed to move to repentance the hard-hearted 
 M'lancy, and she did not appear inclined to push the con- 
 tention any further. This was rather remarkable. It was 
 usually M'lancy who had the last word in the mild dis- 
 173
 
 174 White Butterflies. 
 
 putes of the Shedd family. But to-night M'lancy was 
 tired, as she had already informed her husband; besides, 
 she was out of patience with Solly for enjoying patch- 
 work. There had been a time when she had thought his 
 ingenuity and industry in this direction admirable, and 
 when she had boasted of it to everybody; but she had 
 lately heard people laughing over Solly's peculiarities in 
 this respect. This had put the matter in a new light be- 
 fore her, and she had begun to upbraid him bitterly for 
 spending so much time over useless patchwork. 
 
 "Seems 'sif you might be more like other men, Solly 
 Shedd. They ain't another man in Carley that pieces 
 bedquilts but you. Seems 'sif you acshally hated to git 
 a job at plantin' in the spring, 'cos you hate to leave the 
 bedquilts you've been fussin' over all winter. If there 
 was any gain in 'em, it would be different, but they ain't. 
 Nobody never wants 'em, an' here we've got as many as 
 a dozen on 'em. I don't s'pose you'd sell 'em if you 
 was offered ten dollars apiece for 'em." 
 
 Ten dollars was a great sum to M'lancy. 
 
 "Yes, I would too," protested Solly, meekly. "I should 
 kinder hate to, but I would. An' how can you say, 
 M'lancy, that I don't make no money outen my quilts? 
 That risin* sun 'o' mine took seventy-five cents premium 
 to the cattle show, an' last year the oak leaf one took 
 a dollar, an' the log cabin one fifty cents. My rose o' 
 Texas took a premium onst too. An' then I do' know 
 what we'd do cold nights in winter 'thout them quilts. 
 I don't never make 'em, M'lancy, on'y when I hain't 
 got another blessed thing to do you know I don't. 
 When they's ploughin' an' seedin' an' choppin', I don't 
 never sew them times." 
 
 To be just, this was true. Solly's own domain, which
 
 Solly." 175 
 
 he rented of Mr. Murchison, was only a garden, in which 
 he raised "sass" enough to supply the wants of his own 
 small family. M'lancy and the only scion of the Shedd 
 family, known as "Alfid," did a large part of the work in 
 this garden, and Solly went out by the day at anything for 
 which he was wanted. He was not especially efficient, 
 but "hired men" were scarce in Carley, and the farmers 
 were glad to have a man so faithful and honest as Solly, 
 even if he was not so quick nor so thorough as some 
 others; but when the "apple-pickin' " and the last fall 
 jobs were over, and until the "sleddin' " came on, Solly 
 was glad enough to settle down in a broken chair in the 
 tumble-down old farmhouse in which he resided, and 
 piece his beloved bedquilts till the demand for his serv- 
 ices revived. 
 
 "It's amazin'," he would say, "how you can git on with 
 a bedquilt when you give your mind to it." 
 
 And it was. Yet here late October had come, Solly's 
 woodpile was well supplied, there wasn't anything in par- 
 ticular to do, he was at work upon a ravishing "forget- 
 me-not" quilt, for which blue pieces were especially 
 needed, and M'lancy had worked all day at Mrs. Murchi- 
 son's, where blue pieces abounded even as coals at New- 
 castle, and she had not brought home one. It was hard, 
 and naturally Solly found it difficult to be reconciled. 
 Besides, Solly would never have treated M'lancy so, and 
 she knew it. Solly adored her, and put up with almost 
 everything from her, as the neighbors could have tes- 
 tified. Solly could not help being a little lame, for he 
 had been wounded in the army, and could not bend his 
 right knee, which made his gait a sort of succession of 
 peripatetic colons and semicolons, vastly amusing to the 
 small boys of the village. Neither could poor Solly help
 
 176 White Butterflies. 
 
 a constitutional state of bewilderment in his brain. There 
 was something wrong there, and Solly would not have 
 denied it. The look in his kindly eyes was not that of 
 a person who is quite sane and sensible; but poor Solly 
 was born so, and nobody laid up his deficiencies against 
 him except M'lancy. She thought, and had frequently 
 remarked in her husband's hearing, that "if Solly would 
 kinder stir round a little livelier, he might be smarter"; 
 but poor Solly in his ordinary every-day mood could not 
 do this, and M'lancy should have been the last one to re- 
 proach him with his lack of brilliancy, not only on sen- 
 timental grounds, but because she herself was considered 
 to be "a little lackin'/' while she did not possess Solly's 
 compensating amiability and unselfishness. In fact, 
 M'lancy had a very cross streak in her nature; but in 
 spite of this streak and of the far from exemplary char- 
 acter which she had borne before she married Solly, to 
 him she always seemed to be a pattern of the domestic 
 virtues, and he would believe no evil concerning her. 
 
 On this day, when Solly was reproaching his wife for 
 her failure to think of him and of his wants, there was 
 a reason for M'lancy 's comparative moderation and her 
 failure to reply to Solly's heartfelt protest, more potent 
 than her weariness or her impatience with his patch- 
 work. M'lancy had something on her alleged mind. 
 There was not room for more than one idea at a time in 
 that poor thick head, and perhaps the reason why she 
 had forgotten the pieces was because the idea which had 
 taken possession of her was of a different nature alto- 
 gether. 
 
 Mr. Murchison's eldest son Frank was building a new 
 house a little way down the road from the Shedds'. He 
 was going to be married very soon, and M'lancy had
 
 Solly." , 177 
 
 heard Frank's affairs talked over a good deal that day 
 while she had been cleaning paint and scrubbing floors 
 at the paternal mansion. It seemed that, young Frank 
 Murchison being a popular sort of fellow, his friends in 
 town had "taken hold," and helped him most efficiently. 
 It had been represented in M'lancy's presence that Frank 
 Murchison's new house a trim and tidy little domicile 
 was going to cost him hardly anything compared with 
 what he had expected to pay for it. 
 
 "I don't calc'late it's cost him more'n two or three 
 hundred dollars," muttered M'lancy, shortly after Solly 
 ceased excusing himself for doing patchwork. 
 
 "What you talkin' about, M'lancy?" inquired Solly, 
 as they walked lumberingly along. 
 
 Now he understood why she had been so mild for 
 M'lancy in answering his protests, and why she had 
 given him the last word. She was thinking of something 
 else. 
 
 "Nothin' much," returned M'lancy, provokingly. 
 
 "All right," said Solly. 
 
 They trudged on until a turn in the road brought them 
 in sight of the weather-beaten, broken-roofed old house in 
 which they lived. A few rods further on was the spruce 
 new residence of Mr. Reynolds, the best carpenter in 
 the village, who also ran the chief sawmill in the place. 
 
 "There!" exclaimed M'lancy, pointing to the Rey- 
 nolds abode, and then to their own poor lodging. "I'd 
 like to know, Solly Shedd I'd like to know why we 
 hain't got so good a house as Reynolds there? Say, why 
 hain't we?" 
 
 " 'Cos we hain't," answered poor Solly, with no sug- 
 gestion of humor in his voice, and with the sweat start- 
 12
 
 178 White Butterflies. 
 
 ing on his homely face at the sharp insistence in M'lancy's 
 voice. "I do' know no other reason, I'm sure." 
 
 "Waal, I do," returned M'lancy, viciously. "It's be- 
 cause Reynolds there works at his bench all winter, an' 
 gits pay for what he does, 'stid o' putterin' round, like 
 any old woman, piecin' bedquilts an' sech, that he don't 
 never git a cent for. Oh, you needn't say 'premiums' 
 to me! All the premiums you ever got, Solly Shedd ; 
 wouldn't pay for our carrysene for six months. I tell 
 ye Reynolds built a house 'cos he can do things he gits 
 paid for." 
 
 "I can't carpenter so good as he can; you know I can't, 
 M'lancy," protested Solly, miserably. 
 
 They entered at the creaking door, and M'lancy 
 began to bundle about and get some sort of a supper. 
 Alfid, an overgrown boy of fifteen, came in with a bag 
 slung over his shoulder. He had been nutting, and had 
 had "luck." He said nothing, but passed through the 
 room to a little lean-to, which he had converted into a 
 sort of shop for his own use, and in which he kept a 
 few tools. 
 
 "Now, there's Alfid," went on Solly. "Mebbe he can 
 carpenter some time as good as Reynolds, if he learns the 
 trade; but I never learnt the trade." 
 
 "I intend he shall learn the trade," said M'lancy, in a 
 high key. "I intend he sha'n't never learn to make bed- 
 quilts, whatever he does. An' I don't believe but what 
 you know as much about carpenterin' as Frank Murchi- 
 son does, an' with you 'n' Alfid together, I don't see any - 
 reason why we can't have a new house same as Frank 
 Murchison has." 
 
 "Same as Frank Murchison has!" echoed Solly, per- 
 fectly dumfounded at M'lancy's temerity.
 
 Solly." 179 
 
 "Yes, sir; same as Frank Murchison has," repeated 
 M'lancy, mimicking Solly's horrified manner. "I'll bet 
 you Mr. Murchison or Mr. Reynolds would give you, or 
 same as give you, a plot; 'tain't much for 'em to do, work- 
 in' for 'em long as you have. An' they's lots o' men 
 would help you, I know, same as they've helped Frank. 
 Oh, dear, if you could only git that pension, Solly!" 
 
 "Oh, lord, M'lancy! 'tain't no use. It's a year ago 
 sense I went to Square Mansfield about it, an' I ain't 
 heard nothin' about it sence. I sha'n't never hear no 
 more about it, M'lancy." 
 
 By this time M'lancy had some sort of a supper tossed 
 together, and Alfid was summoned from the lean-to. 
 Alfid never spoke unless he was spoken to, and his coun- 
 tenance was not entirely free from the vacant cast which, 
 in different ways, characterized the faces of his parents, 
 but he read many books, was ingenious in a mechani- 
 cal way, and some people thought he had a good deal 
 of sense. To M'lancy and Solly, of course, Alfid was an 
 intellectual luminary of the first rank. 
 
 They ate silently for a few moments; then M'lancy 
 added, as though there had been no turn or pause in 
 the conversation about the house, "An' Alfid'll help you 
 a lot." 
 
 Solly groaned. The idea of starting out to build a 
 house seemed to him too colossally preposterous to be 
 entertained for a moment. 
 
 "I think you'd orter go to Square Mansfield again, 
 an' see about a pension," went on M'lancy, whose ambi- 
 tion had received an unaccountable stimulus since she 
 had heard the inside history of Frank Murchison's new 
 house. 
 
 "Oh, I told him all about it, an' how I'd lost all my
 
 180 White Butterflies. 
 
 papers 'n' things," said Solly, despairingly. "An* how 
 the knee that was shot was the same one that was allers 
 stiff a little mite, you know. I had rheumatiz in it when 
 I was little, an' it's allers plagued me. It's been a sight 
 worse sence it was shot, of course, but I do' know as any- 
 body'd believe that. The square said they wa'n't much 
 chance for me, an' he said he'd tell me if they was a'ny 
 good news come for me, an' of course he would. 'Tain't 
 no use, M'lancy." 
 
 "But you was in lots o' battles," persisted the sanguine 
 M'lancy. 
 
 "Six on 'em, M'lancy six big ones, an' ten or a dozen 
 pretty hot skirmishes an' I never run away." 
 
 "An' didn't you capture a flag or somethin', Solly?" 
 
 "Yes. I seen one," said Solly, beginning to tell an 
 old, old story (which the modest fellow hated to allude 
 to), on purpose to pacify M'lancy "I seen a flag, an' all 
 the men was strugglin' along an' hollerin', 'Git it! git 
 it!' An' it seemed to be the handiest for me to git it; 
 so I run right along I was kinder scart, but I never 
 stopped for that an' at last I grabbed it, an' flung it 
 back among the fellers, for jest then they was a ball 
 come sizzin' along, an' took me right in my knee. The 
 men managed to drag me away, but I was in the hospital 
 for more'n three months afterwards. Why, Robin Car- 
 ter was there, M'lancy, an' Isr'el Warner; they was lots 
 o' Carley boys in the regiment. Robin Carter see me hit, 
 himself." 
 
 "An' when you got out o' the hospital, I s'pose you 
 went to fightin' ag'in," commented M'lancy, disgustedly. 
 
 "Course I did," said Solly, simply. "I wa'n't a-goin' 
 to have the Union go to pieces, not if I could help it. I 
 was awful scart lots o' times, but I never run away."
 
 Solly." m 
 
 "An* you can't work half so good when your leg's hurt 
 as you could if it hadn't 'a' been," sighed M'lancy. "Oh, 
 dear, Solly, you'd orter have a pension! An' " flashing 
 up again in a sudden burst of passion "if you was half 
 a man, Solly Shedd, you'd fly round an' get one." 
 
 "Waal, I guess I ain't," sighed Solly, with an air of 
 uncomfortable resignation, "for I know Square Mansfield 
 thinks I ain't got no chance, an' he orter know." 
 
 "They ain't no two shingles on the roof that touch 
 each other," complained M'lancy, attacking from another 
 quarter. 
 
 Solly merely gave a long, harassed sigh, but Alfid vol- 
 unteered the information that he could shingle the roof 
 well enough if he only had some shingles and some nails. 
 
 Mr. Murchison charged nothing for the rickety old 
 mansion, excepting the payment of the yearly taxes upon 
 it, and the making of repairs. The latter, whenever they 
 required expense, were generally allowed to remain un- 
 done. Solly had hard enough work to feed and clothe his 
 family, even with M'lancy ? s and Alfid's help, without 
 spending money for boards and nails and door-handles. 
 
 "Waal," said M'lancy, pitching her voice again well 
 up toward high C, "I've got a dollar Mis' Murchison 
 paid me to-day, but it sha'n't go toward nails nor shingles 
 nuther! I don't want nothin' done to this old hole not 
 a thing! Mebbe your pa'll have the gumption to stir 
 round 'n' try 'n' be somebody after the rain's wet him 
 through, drippin' in through the bedroom roof a few 
 nights." 
 
 Solly had never seen M'lancy so roused up as she was 
 now. Generally when the fit took her for a new dress for 
 herself, or a new suit of clothes for Alfid, or a melodeon, 
 or some other expensive luxury, she stormed around for
 
 182 White Butterflies. 
 
 a day or two, and then was content to wait, if the sum re- 
 quired was reasonable, until Solly could earn it. If what 
 she wanted was too extravagant to be afforded, some new 
 impression would drive the old one away very soon from 
 her shallow and variable mind; but now the clatter kept 
 up for a week at least, and most of the time, as Solly 
 happened to have no demand outside for his labor, he 
 sat by the fire and amused himself with piecing his bed- 
 quilts while M'lancy scolded. He had finally been up 
 to Mrs. Murchison's himself and procured some blue 
 pieces, so that he was well equipped for his work. 
 
 During the last week in October Mr. Murchison went 
 away for a visit, and as his son was very .busy in putting 
 the finishing touches upon his new house, Solly was en- 
 gaged to go up to the Murchison place every night and 
 morning to do the chores. He was just returning from 
 there for his breakfast on a certain Monday morning, 
 when, as he approached his own home, he saw signs of an 
 unusual disturbance. 
 
 "I could set down and bawl," whimpered M'lancy, as 
 her husband thrust his head anxiously in at the door. 
 "I'm clean used up! 'Tain't no use tryin' to have nothin'. 
 'Tain't no use tryin' to be nobody. I ain't never goin' 
 to try no more." 
 
 "What's the matter, Alfid?" demanded the perplexed 
 master of the house, finding that M'lancy went right on 
 like a mill, paying no heed to anything he said. 
 
 "Sumpin's got in an' e't up a lot o' ma's hens," replied 
 Alfid, succinctly. 
 
 "Oh, my!" moaned M'lancy. "Oh, my! I sha'n't have 
 no egg money, nor no chicken money, nor nothin'!" 
 
 She threw her apron over her head, like the old wom- 
 an in "Little Dorrit," and rocked back and forth, letting
 
 " Solly." iss 
 
 the salt pork in the spider burn in the abandon of her 
 grief. 
 
 "It's too bad, I swan!" said Solly, in heartfelt sym- 
 pathy, but rushing to rescue his breakfast. "I'm goin' 
 to have a job o' huskin' up to Square Mansfield's to-day, 
 M'lancy. Mebbe he'll give me some hens for you. I'll 
 ask him." 
 
 But M'lancy's loss had reminded her of all the priva- 
 tions and sufferings which she had ever been through, 
 and had made her very cross. Solly's gentle consolations 
 seemed to madden rather than soothe her. She sprang 
 out of her rocking chair, and confronted him with a 
 savage look upon her face. 
 
 "You'll git me some hens, will you, Solly Shedd? Well, 
 you'd orter do something for me, I think jest a little! 
 Lettin' me live in this old shanty, when you pretend to 
 think so much o' me! Jest by turnin' over your hand, 
 you might git a nice house for Alfid 'n' me. You might 
 git a pension, same as old 'Luke Travers got one he 
 wa'n't in the war near so long as you was, nuther an' 
 there you set from mornin' till night an' sew your old 
 bedquilts, an' let the rain drip through on to Alfid 'n' 
 me! You'd orter be trounced, Solly Shedd! That's what 
 you'd orter be!" 
 
 M'lancy, somewhat relieved, fell back into her rocking 
 chair and burst into a flood of tears. Alfid, apparently 
 quite impassive, ate away industriously at his breakfast, 
 which Solly had "dished up" while his wife was talking, 
 and which he too was now partaking of, as though he 
 did not know what else to do, but with a harried, 
 wretched expression upon his face. The echoes of her 
 own voice were all the reply vouchsafed to M'lancy's im- 
 passioned outburst/ and presently she too, after a few
 
 184 White Butterflies. 
 
 vague mutterings, drew up her chair beside her hus- 
 band's, and joined forces with him and Alfid. They 
 were late in getting through their meal, and as Alfid had 
 a long walk to school, he started presently on his way 
 thither, carrying his dinner-pail, filled carefully by his 
 own industrious forethought. Then Solly took his leave 
 for the field of his husking labors, giving his wife a 
 feeble, nerveless good-bye as he passed her; but M'lancy 
 made him no response. She was very "mad." Solly, in 
 his gentle, loving soul, had no idea how very "mad" she 
 was. 
 
 There was a train which left Carley at two o'clock. 
 M'lancy had found out this morning what it was when 
 anguish, or very marked ill-temper, "to a Pythian height 
 dilates you, and despair sublimes to power." Something 
 had occurred to her by means of which she might "apply 
 the screws" to Solly. It was indeed a desperate step, 
 and one which under ordinary conditions M'lancy would 
 have been too stupid and too lazy and too timid to un- 
 dertake. But just now she was roused out of her usual 
 sluggishness of thought and action. She "flew around," 
 and did a generous "bakin';" collected all the available 
 funds of the family several dollars, part of an accumu- 
 lation making just now for the purchase of a barrel of 
 flour put on her best clothes, packed a clumsy old- 
 fashioned satchel with her other belongings, set the 
 table for dinner, and then, almost without a pang, in the 
 intensity of her slow-burning wrath, started for the rail- 
 road station in time to catch the two-o'clock train. She 
 chose all of the wood paths and back roads for her route 
 to the station, and succeeded in getting there without 
 seeing anybody who cared to ask her any questions. No- 
 body took any special notice of her as she bought her
 
 Solly.' 
 
 185 
 
 ticket, waited a few moments, and presently moved away 
 on the train. M'lancy had gone. 
 
 That night, when Solly reached home after his day's 
 husking, he brought with him two fine hens for 'M'lancy. 
 She might forget him and his blue pieces, but he never 
 forgot her little wants. Her large ones were too large 
 for poor Solly to grasp, but Heaven knew that he would 
 have gratified them if he could. His homely, honest face, 
 half covered with stubbly yellow beard, was all alight now 
 as he came into the yard, thinking of the pleasure which 
 he was going to give M'lancy. The hens were Plymouth 
 Rocks, just the kind that she liked best. He walked 
 through the house. The fire in the kitchen seemed to be 
 freshly kindled, but nobody was visible. There was a 
 pounding in the lean-to. Alfid was there at work. 
 
 "See here, Alfid," he said, showing the hens at the 
 door of the boy's "shop"; "ain't them fine? Won't yer 
 ma be tickled, Alfid? Where is she?" 
 
 "I do' know," returned Alfid, looking up from a rough 
 bicycle which he was fashioning. "I come home from 
 school 'n' found the table was set, but they wa'n't no 
 fire., I made it up new. I guess likely somebody come 
 for ma to work." 
 
 "Likely," said Solly. He was sorry not to be able 
 to show the hens to M'lancy right away, but he put 
 them now into some shackly coops out in the decrepit 
 old barn behind the house, fed them, and went in to await 
 his wife's return. lie had learned to cook in the army, 
 and in reality excelled M'lancy in the culinary art, 
 though he would not have admitted it. So he and Alfid 
 got along well enough. As the evening wore on, and 
 still she did not come, they concluded that somebody
 
 186 White Butterflies. 
 
 had been suddenly taken ill, and that she felt obliged 
 to stay all night with the invalid. 
 
 The next morning a bright idea struck Alfid. "If 
 ma was goin' off so, I should think she would 'a' left a 
 letter," he said. 
 
 This commended itself to Solly, and together he and 
 Alfid searched the kitchen. From the melange upon 
 the dingy shelf on which the family clock rested, a mis- 
 sive was at last extracted. It said, in M'lancy's own 
 cramped and almost illegible chirography: 
 
 "I've gone off to Vermont to visit Cousin Emly's 
 folks. I aint comin back. I'm sick of livin in a leaky 
 house an not havin nothin. When I get tired of visitin 
 Cousin Emly's folks, I'm goin to git a place to work. 
 If you should ster round an git a pension or stop makin 
 bedquilts, an go to earnin, or git a decent house to live 
 in, mebbe I'd come back, but I wont till you do. I'll 
 send for Alfid when I git a place for him, but I dont 
 want to see you." 
 
 M'lancy's spelling was strictly phonetic, but Solly and 
 Alfid finally made it out. When they had read the 
 letter through in a fever-heat of impatience, Alfid bowed 
 his head on his hands and cried aloud. Even he could 
 not resist the feelings which were evoked in his stolid 
 breast by this plain announcement of the breaking up 
 of the little home. Solly, white and agitated, leaned 
 against the wall, too weak and excited to speak. Then 
 he took a sudden step forward, and lifted his poor be- 
 wildered head as if he would vindicate the sweet, strong 
 manhood within him. 
 
 "Alfid," he said, in a decided way which half startled 
 the boy, "we must git her back we must git her back
 
 Solly.' 
 
 187 
 
 as quick as we can. We can't do without her. You 
 won't leave me till we git her back, will you, Alfid?" 
 
 "No," promised the boy, doggedly, wiping his tear- 
 stained face "no, papa, I won't leave you, an' I'll help 
 you git her back." 
 
 "I'm goin' to stir right round," went on poor Solly, 
 as though the use of M'lancy's phrases might in some 
 way propitiate that offended deity, far away though 
 she were "I'm goin' to stir right round, Alfid; an' we'll 
 tell everybody your ma has gone off on a visit. She's 
 been kinder nervous lately. I've noticed it. It was a 
 good plan for her to go off visitin' for a while. It'll do 
 her good, Alfid. I'm goin' to stir round an' fix things 
 so 't she'll wanter come back pretty quick." 
 
 The two deserted beings looked into each other's eyes 
 with a new love and tenderness between them. It was a 
 solemn compact which they seemed to make, and Solly 
 appeared to drink in strength and will from the feeling 
 of his son's co-operation. 
 
 Alfid went off to school until something definite should 
 come up for him to do, and Solly went straight to Squire 
 Mansfield. Everybody who saw him remarked upon his 
 altered appearance. There was a pathetically eager ex- 
 pression in his dull eyes. His halting step seemed 
 quicker and firmer than it had ever been before. He 
 held his head up almost backward instead of hanging 
 helplessly forward as usual. His face was pale and re- 
 solved, and his lips moved constantly, as though whis- 
 pering words of cheer, beneath his stubbly beard. If 
 M'lancy had planned to "stir up" her husband, she had 
 accomplished her object. 
 
 After Solly had had a little talk with Squire Mans- 
 field, he went to see the two old soldiers who had served
 
 188 White Butterflies. 
 
 with him during the war, and who knew all about his 
 honorable record. Both of them were good-natured 
 fellows who liked Solly. When he asked them if they did 
 not think he ought to have a pension, both of them said 
 yes. 
 
 "You oughter had one long ago," said Israel Warner. 
 "Here's Luke Travers, never served outside the State, 
 jest staid in camp, an' caught cold, an' had the rheumatiz, 
 or somethin' like that, an' here he's drawed a big pension 
 these ten years." 
 
 "I s'pose I hain't had the cheek," confessed Solly. 
 "I'd lost my papers mostly, an' my knee allers was stiff a 
 little, you know." 
 
 "Waal," said the shrewd farmer, "I know all about 
 that knee o' yourn; I seen you in the hospital. Don't 
 harp on its bein' stiff when you was little, any more'n you 
 have to. Some folks git up petitions when they've lost 
 their papers an' things like that. You can take my horse, 
 if you're a mind ter, an' go round. Robin Carter an' I'll 
 stand by you every time." 
 
 Solly took the horse gratefully, and went back to the 
 Squire, who drew up a heading for a petition, and also 
 some affidavits for Robin Carter and Israel Warner to 
 sign. By the time that poor Solly laid his head upon 
 his pillow that night, grief-stricken as he was, he was 
 not quite forlorn. A great hope was blossoming in his 
 true, unselfish heart. 
 
 Solly was afraid that by the next morning the old dis- 
 trust of himself would take possession of his soul, and 
 that he should be afraid to follow out the lines of conduct 
 which he had laid out for himself; but, no! his heart was 
 still full of courage and determination, and he worked
 
 Solly." 189 
 
 away on his petition as intelligently as the very "smart- 
 est" man in Carley could have done. 
 
 By the end of the third day the Squire thought that 
 all was done which was necessary, and he sent the budget 
 off to Washington, with a few cautiously hopeful words 
 to Solly, which made the poor fellow's heart beat almost 
 to suffocation. 
 
 Every day now he felt the same courage and strength 
 which had nerved him ever since he had read M'lancy's 
 taunting letter. It seemed as though nothing could be 
 too hard for him to undertake in order to get her back. 
 
 When the budget had started for Washington in the 
 mail, Solly went up to see Mr. Murchison. 
 
 "You don't charge me much for that house of our'n, 
 Mr. Murchison," he said, briskly, "but it leaks dreadful. 
 I think it'll cost me 'most as much to fix it up decent 
 as it would to build a new one, an' it wouldn't never 
 be nothin' but an old one to the end of the chapter. 
 Now there's that lot I cleared. You know you said 
 I might have the wood from it if I'd get it away. I've 
 been thinkin' that would be a good place for a house." 
 
 "Well, well," exclaimed Mr. Murchison, who was a 
 good-hearted, well-to-do old farmer. He was so much 
 surprised that he was hardly able to catch his breath 
 at this announcement of Solly's temerity. 
 
 "O' course, I couldn't make such a grand one as 
 Frank's," explained Solly, modestly; "but M'lancy an' 
 me thought it would be nice to have a new house. I've 
 got a few weeks now when I ain't drove, an' I might 
 work on it, Alfid an' me." 
 
 "That would be very fine, Solly," said the old man, 
 looking out inquiringly at Solly's excited, working face 
 from under beetling gray eyebrows. "Very nice," he
 
 190 White Butterflies. 
 
 repeated; "but, like everything else, Solly, it costs 
 money." 
 
 "How much would you charge me for the piece o' 
 wood lot?" demanded Solly, with more manliness in his 
 tone than Mr. Murchison had imagined that he pos- 
 sessed. 
 
 "Oh, I wouldn't be hard on you, Solly. I'm glad to 
 see you're tryin' to do something for yourself. Well, 
 call it twenty dollars, and you can pay me for it as you 
 can work it." 
 
 "That's all I've got, sir," said Solly, but without any 
 of his old hang-dog expression. "I ain't got no cash, 
 but I can work it out. I'm obleeged to you, Mr. Murchi- 
 son very much obleeged." 
 
 "I'll have the deed made out right away," said the 
 old man, half facetiously. His heart was touched by 
 Solly's look and tone. 
 
 "I'm sure I'm obleeged to you!" cried Solly, with real 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 "And you want to begin pretty soon?" inquired Mr. 
 Murchison, waiving Solly's thanks, kindly. 
 
 "I'm goin' to begin to-morrer, Mr. Murchison," he 
 answered, decidedly. "It's Saturday, an' Alfid can help 
 me. You see" coloring up a little, for Solly was as 
 honest as the day "you see, M'lancy she's off to Ver- 
 mont visitin', an' I'd like to surprise her against she 
 comes back." 
 
 "I'm older'n I was once, Solly," said Mr. Murchison, 
 "but maybe I'll come round an' help you a little speck. 
 Frank's house is all done but some of the inside work, 
 an' I can come an' help you as well as not. I'd right 
 down like to," he added, smothering Solly's delighted 
 acknowledgments.
 
 Solly, 
 
 191 
 
 Solly went at once to the wood lot, which was about 
 half way between his old home and the railroad station, 
 and with a three-foot measure and a piece of string he 
 staked out painfully the limits of the little cellar which 
 he planned to dig. By the next night he and Mr. 
 Murchison and Alfid had dug a trench all around the 
 cellar, and a deep one through the middle. 
 
 "This woodland needs a sight o' dreenin'," Solly had 
 said. "M'lancy ketches cold awful easy, an' I hain't goin' 
 to have nothin' damp about our cellar, I can tell you." 
 
 On Monday not to Mr. Murchison's surprise, for he 
 had planned it, but very much to Solly's six of Jthe vil- 
 lage men came around with their shovels, and asked Solly 
 if he didn't want some help. By night the little cellar 
 was dug, and a firm stone wall was built nearly around it. 
 
 "Mr. Reynolds is gettin' out a lot o' timber for me 
 down at the mill," remarked Mr. Murchison to Solly, as 
 he was turning homeward that night. "You might as 
 well have it as anybody; I'll trust you, I guess. I've told 
 him to fetch it around here to-morrow." 
 
 Solly looked at his friend, dumb with excess of feel- 
 ing. "Now you're too good, Mr. Murchison, I swanny 
 you- be!" exclaimed Solly, with tears rising to his dull 
 blue eyes. 
 
 Young Frank Murchison drew up beside his father 
 and Solly just then. He was in a long wagon, in which 
 he had been carrying supplies to his new house. He 
 felt happy and generous, as a prospective bridegroom 
 should. 
 
 "When you come to want your doors and sashes, 
 let me know, Solly. I got out a good deal more of such 
 stuff than I needed, and I'd be glad to let you have some 
 of it for nothing."
 
 192 White Butterflies. 
 
 / 
 
 The village storekeeper was sitting in Frank's wagon. 
 "I've ordered a keg of nails for you, Solly," he said; "and 
 I want to help you about door-handles and locks and 
 hinges when you come to them. You've been a good 
 customer cf mine for nigh on to twenty years now, 
 Solly, and you've always paid your bills. I'd like to 
 chip in with the rest." 
 
 To say that Solly was overcome with these heaped-up 
 benefits is a very mild way of putting the case. M'lancy 
 was gone, but at this rate Solly felt that she would soon 
 be back again. 
 
 When people came to think about it, everybody dis- 
 covered that he liked Solly. As he had lived his honest, 
 plodding Iffe among them from day to day, no special 
 occasion had arisen for displaying this liking; but now 
 an occasion had arisen. Solly wanted a new house, 
 and his neighbors were bent on helping him to get 
 one. 
 
 Soon there was a "raisin' " in the wood lot. Early in 
 the morning and late in the evening Solly was at work 
 on the new house. He might not be able to "carpenter" 
 as well as Mr. Reynolds, but he did his best in this 
 emergency. The fever of his haste to "surprise M'lancy" 
 infected everybody. There was rarely an hour in the day 
 when some neighbor was not "chippin' in," as the Car- 
 ley people expressed it, to help Solly. 
 
 Two weeks from the day when M'lancy had deserted 
 her home, the roof a good, tight one was on a new 
 house for her. In fact, the new clapboards were mostly 
 on, and Solly, to use his own phrase, could "begin to see 
 his way through," and his heart beat high with hope. 
 As in the old Persian poem, the lover, with every stroke 
 of the long work which he was fated to do, cried, "Alas,
 
 Solly." 193 
 
 Shireen!" so, with every nail that poor Solly had driven 
 in this tiny new mansion of his, he had cried, "It's for 
 M'lancy!" 
 
 "When the plasterin's on," he said to Alfid, "I'm 
 a-goin' to write her a letter, an' tell her to come home 
 an' see what we've been a-doin'. I mean to make her 
 feel some cur'osity, Alfid." 
 
 Nobody knew how Solly's brain reeled as he regarded 
 the progress which had been made upon his new house. 
 Every morning, as he hurried feverishly down to the 
 wood lot, he expected to find that there was nothing 
 there that his house was but the baseless fabric of a 
 vision. But no, it stood there still, cheap and clumsy 
 to the eyes of an experienced architect, but palatial to 
 poor Solly's. 
 
 At the close of a certain day, the "plasterin' " being 
 nearly done, Solly and Alfid whose school had been a 
 good deal neglected since the house came on, a boy be- 
 ing in great demand at the wood lot were making their 
 weary way homeward, when Squire Mansfield drove up 
 behind them at a furious pace. 
 
 "Jump in, Solly; jump in, Alfid," he cried, joyously. 
 "I've got good news for you. It seems that your old 
 request for a pension had just come up on the calendar 
 when the new one was brought in. It wasn't likely the 
 old one would have amounted to much, but with the 
 new one on top of it, every respectable man in town 
 backing you up, as I might say, we've carried the day. 
 You've got your pension, and there's about a thousand 
 dollars back pay." 
 
 "What?" gasped Solly, climbing feebly into the car- 
 riage, and almost toppling over as he heard the squire's 
 words. 
 13
 
 194 White Butterflies. 
 
 That gentleman repeated himself, in even more ex- 
 plicit terms than before. 
 
 "I'm much obleeged to you, I'm sure, Square," Solly 
 said at last. The gratitude which he had felt during the 
 last few weeks, as he had never had occasion to use that 
 commodity in bulk before, was almost killing him. 
 
 There was nothing in the house to eat when Solly and 
 Alfid reached home but some crackers and cheese from 
 the store, some vegetables, and some pork. Solly had 
 ceased his day's work upon the house only twice since 
 he had begun it, to earn money for the current expenses 
 of Alfid and himself. 
 
 He did not want to get too deeply in debt. Now he 
 wished he had laid in a greater stock of provisions, but 
 he would do that before M'lancy came home. He ate 
 some crackers and cheese, and then sat down to compose 
 his letter, while Alfid puttered over the stove, getting 
 himself up a more elaborate repast. 
 
 Solly's letter, the joint production of Alfid's and his 
 own intellects, ran as follows: 
 
 "We wanter to see you awful bad. Alfid and me 
 have missed you awful bad. It most seems as if you 
 hadnt orter have gone so sudden" this was the only 
 word of reproach that patient Solly allowed himself. "We 
 want you to hurry and come home, They's news for 
 you. Youll be surprised, and Alfid and me think youll 
 like it. I'm all stirred up. My head feels awful bad 
 sometimes, I'm so stirred up. Hurry and come home to 
 Alfid and me. Your loving Solly." 
 
 It would be useless to try to picture M'lancy 's coun- 
 tenance as she spelled out her husband's letter. She 
 was plunged into a condition bordering upon lunacy, her
 
 Solly." 195 
 
 only clear convictions being that Solly really had news 
 for her agreeable news and that she must start at 
 once for home. 
 
 To this course "Cousin Em'ly and her folks" were 
 amply resigned. M'lancy had never been a favorite 
 among her relatives. She never received special invi- 
 tations to pay them visits, and Cousin Em'ly had been 
 pondering for days upon some means of getting rid of 
 her obnoxious guest, whose visit seemed destined to 
 last all winter. She hailed with alacrity the present crisis 
 therefore, and all her resources were brought into play 
 to get M'lancy to the railroad station in time to take the 
 very next train for home. Late in the afternoon of the 
 second day after Solly had sent his letter, she alighted at 
 the station in Carley. 
 
 There had been nobody on the train whom she knew, 
 or else she would have inquired concerning the welfare 
 of her family, and thus perhaps have received some hint 
 of that "news" of which Solly had spoken. 
 
 The station agent nodded pleasantly to her as she lum- 
 bered down from the cars with her satchel. She did not 
 know him very well, and a sudden feeling of shame 
 came over her as she realized that everybody might know 
 by this time how she had run away from home. She 
 thought she would not say a word to him, but he did 
 not wait for her to ask him any questions. Just as she 
 was hurrying past him he sang out, good-humoredly : 
 
 "Hullo, M'lancy! You and Solly have come to your 
 luck at last, hain't you?" 
 
 "Come to their luck at last"? What did he mean? 
 
 It was a wonder that M'lancy did not stop then and 
 there, and demand a full explanation of his words from 
 him. But something kept her silent.
 
 196 White Butterflies. 
 
 "Yes," she said, coloring up, and with a nervous little 
 laugh "yes, we have." 
 
 She stumbled along the road as fast as she could, past 
 the few houses near the station, then into the woods 
 which intervened before the next little group of dwellings. 
 
 Suddenly she came upon the cleared space in Mr. 
 Murchison's wood lot. There had been nothing upon 
 it when M'lancy had left Carley little more than three 
 weeks ago, but now a little house stood there nearly 
 completed. Men were bustling in and out of the doors. 
 There was a sound of pounding and scraping from within 
 it. Things were not usually managed with such rapidity 
 as this in Carley. What did it mean? M'lancy dropped 
 her satchel, and gazed upon the phenomenon open- 
 mouthed. Suddenly Alfid appeared at the door. 
 
 "Oh, ma! oh, ma!" he cried, joyously. He started 
 to come to her. Then he turned back toward the house. 
 "I wanter tell pa you've come!" he shouted. 
 
 M'lancy picked up her satchel again, and trudged 
 toward the unfinished door. Solly was shuffling along to 
 meet her, his hat upon the back of his head, his* whole 
 plain face glorified with his delight. He extended his 
 arms toward her, when suddenly he seemed to trip upon 
 a pile of rubbish which stood between them, and fell 
 heavily forward at her feet. She waited a moment, with 
 a broad smile upon her face, but he did not rise. Then 
 she saw that a stream of blood was flowing from his 
 mouth. 
 
 Screaming for help, she sat down upon the heap of 
 shavings and broken scantling over which he had fallen, 
 and took his head in her lap. As he did so, the loving 
 touch for which his soul had longed seemed to revive 
 him, and he opened his eyes feebly.
 
 Solly." 197 
 
 "I ain't pieced none sence you went away, M'lancy," 
 he whispered. "You needn't be afraid, I ain't goin' to 
 never do it no more." 
 
 "Oh, you may, Solly!" sobbed M'lancy, her hateful- 
 ness banished by the sight of the pale face in her lap, 
 and possibly somewhat mitigated also by the spectacle 
 of this mysterious new house. "You may piece bedquilts 
 all day, if yer wanter, Solly." 
 
 But poor Solly never spoke again. 
 
 M'lancy tried to think that it was the fall which had 
 killed him that he had stumbled in full possession of 
 his faculties; but the doctor said: 
 
 "No; it was a case of apoplexy. He fell because every- 
 thing turned black before his eyes, and his strength de- 
 parted." 
 
 Yes, it had been too much for poor Solly, this "stirrin' 
 round to try to be smarter," and to "git M'lancy back."
 
 Tid's Wife. 
 
 \\ THEN "Tid" came into the Tom Lake Range : he 
 \f V had but one acquaintance in the settlement 
 there. This was a man whose name was really 
 Peter Brown, but from "Pete" his habits of universal 
 curiosity had gradually changed it to "Peek" and as 
 "Peek" Brown he is forever distinguished in the annals 
 of the place. "Peek" had known "Tid" over on the 
 Wisconsin side, where his steady attention to business, 
 lack of "luck," and uncommunicativeness had made him 
 a marked and mysterious character. 
 
 "What's his name, anyhow, Peek?" asked Handy Gra- 
 ham, one of the old settlers. 
 
 "How should I know?" demanded Peek impatiently. 
 "He ain r t the sort o' chap to tell his affairs to everybody. 
 They did say over thar mind ye, 'twas only 'say' 
 that his last name was 'Slocum;' but the Tid' part, by 
 , that's too deep for me!" 
 
 "Likely it's short fer Timothy," suggested Handy, 
 speculatively. 
 
 "'Timothy!'" Mr. Brown gazed at his companion 
 as though he suspected his sanity. "Short fer that's 
 Tim.' Didn't ye know that?" 
 
 Peek's manner was overbearing, and Handy did not at- 
 tempt to push his case, or to advance a further theory 
 which had its origin in a certain sarcastic streak in his 
 nature, and which derived Tid from "tidbit," Tid being 
 almost a giant in stature. And thus it happened that Tid 
 came to be unquestioningly accepted throughout the 
 19*
 
 Tid's Wife. 199 
 
 Tom Lake settlement as "Tid," and nothing else, until 
 a certain day, when the "Slocum" postulate received 
 absolute confirmation. 
 
 That day was one of great excitement on the Tom 
 Lake Range. In order to understand this excitement 
 in all its bearings, we must premise that among the hun- 
 dred and fifty-odd denizens of the little mushroom village 
 there were but half-a-dozen women. One of these was 
 the wife of "Old Bill," the veteran of the place. She 
 was old and infirm, and seldom seen beyond her cabin 
 door. Another was a staid and respectable matron, the 
 mother of a row of sturdy urchins, and the wife of Jack 
 Peabody, known as "Copper-bottom Jack," who had 
 amassed a moderate fortune by mining and speculating, 
 and talked of "retiring" before long. The other four 
 women resided at "Gulick's" a long, low shanty of the 
 general character of a hotel, and with a barroom attach- 
 ment, which, in point of earnings, quite eclipsed all the 
 rest. Mrs. Gulick was a weak but well-meaning woman, 
 while of Bridget and Jane, the kitchen girls, and of 
 "Lize," the tawdry barmaid, perhaps the less said the 
 better. 
 
 As the winter and spring wore away, Tid was ob- 
 served to be fixing up his already comfortable "shanty" 
 a good deal, and then he disappeared for a full month. 
 May was well along, and the straits were open, when he 
 reappeared, riding in on the Houghton stage straight 
 from Detroit, via the "Soo," in company with a woman 
 a young woman a pretty woman whom he intro- 
 duced to the stage-driver and the one or two passengers 
 whom he knew as "My wife, Mis' Slocum." 
 
 Now, Tid, though possessed of sterling and acknowl- 
 edged virtues, had not had generally accredited to him
 
 200 White Butterflies. 
 
 the power of captivating the female sex. "Lize" and 
 "Jane" had unmercifully made fun of him, and it was 
 commonly supposed that he cared as little about women 
 as the representatives of the softer sex at Tom Lake cared 
 about him. Consequently, as the stage conveyed Tid and 
 his bride to their humble home, the "residents" to a man 
 surveyed the sight with open-mouthed wonder. 
 
 "Darned ef he hain't took us in like thunder!" said 
 Peek Brown, who had suspected nothing, and owned up 
 to the oversight like a man. 
 
 "She looks like consid'able of a gal." This was Gu- 
 lick's opinion, and fell with weight. 
 
 "What you good-lookin' fellers doin'," said Handy 
 Graham, poking Dan Morey, the handsomest man in the 
 place, facetiously in the ribs, "lettin' a chap like Tid 
 get ahead of ye like this?" 
 
 The idea of Tid's coming out in advance of Dan in 
 such a contest was indeed absurd, and made the good- 
 natured miners laugh. Enormously tall, large and ill- 
 built, with a gait like an elephant's, a hanging head, a 
 shock of tawny hair and whisker, dull blue eyes, and a 
 mouth always full of tobacco juice there was certainly 
 nothing attractive about Tid; while Dan, tall, straight, 
 with curling hair and beard, and a bearing like a king's 
 Dan Morey, though not implicitly to be trusted, was 
 certainly the sort of man in his appearance of whom 
 women are traditionally fond. 
 
 "I see her," said Dan, sententiously, "and, by ! she 
 
 is harnsum." 
 
 In reality, Mrs. Tid Slocum was simply a good-looking, 
 healthy and well-built young woman of twenty-five or 
 thereabout; but to the rough men of the place, who had 
 nothing at hand to compare with her but the senile wife
 
 Tid's Wife. 201 
 
 of "Old Bill," the faded and flavorless charms of Mrs. 
 Peabody and Mrs. Gulick, and the slatternly pertness of 
 the "girls" at Gulick's, she seemed a species of angel, as, 
 in her dark print gown, with a collar a veritable, shin- 
 ing, white linen collar her hair neatly brushed and 
 wound about her head, and a mien that commanded re- 
 spect, she took up her daily life among the disorderly in- 
 habitants of her husband's adopted home. Numerous 
 theories were hazarded as to the mystery of her accept- 
 ance of Tid, but no satisfactory conclusion was ever 
 reached, and, like the agitation in regard to her husband's 
 name, this also subsided, and the fact was gradually ac- 
 cepted as stubborn but irrefragable. 
 
 Mrs. Jack Peabody, except for now and then "running 
 in" to see "Old Bill's" wife, did not consider it expedient 
 for her to recognize socially the other women of the set- 
 tlement. After weighing the matter for a fortnight, how- 
 ever, and having watched Mrs. Slocum approvingly in 
 her daily peregrinations between the grocery and her 
 home, she mentally decided the important question, 
 "Ought we to visit her?" in the affirmative. Accordingly, 
 the very next day, arrayed in a well-preserved black 
 alpaca dress, and after a period of trying indecision be- 
 tween a faded straw bonnet, elegant a decade before, and 
 a marvellous new slatted sun-bonnet of her own manu- 
 facture and of recent date, she donned the latter article 
 and made a state call upon Mrs. Slocum. 
 
 While there But Mrs. Peabody's own graphic de- 
 scription, given later to her faithful spouse, covers the 
 ground much better than any other could possibly do. 
 "I set- down," said Mrs. Peabody, "an' I sez" Mrs. Pea- 
 body had been born in the State of Maine, and East and 
 West battled for the victory among her idioms "I sez,
 
 202 White Butterflies. 
 
 sez I, 'You come quite unexpected like,' sez I, 'but,' 
 sez I, 'I'm sure we're glad ter see yer,' sez I. 'Thar ain't 
 much time fer sercierty ter Tom Lake,' sez I. 'No,' sez 
 she, an' she talked along a spell, quiet an' purty enough, 
 when, aller a suddent, I heerd a voice say, kinder gentle 
 V pleasant-like couldn't ermagine whoser 'twas 
 'Lucy, say, whar be yer?' 'n' she jumps up, 'n' sez she, 
 quite perlite, 'Erxcuse me, my husband's a-callin' me,' 
 'n' do yer believe it? that was Tid a-callin', soft 'n' 
 sweet ye'd never 'a s'posed in yer life 't he could 'a 
 made sech a little noise ef he'd 'a tried. Wai, thar's a 
 keyhole in the door, 'n' I jumped up 'n' jest kinder 
 happened ter git in the line o' that yer keyhole w'at yer 
 laffin' at? 'n' that Tid he kissed her, 'n' I see him kinder 
 smooth her hair back from her face, 'n' he kinder whis- 
 pered to her what'd she been a-doin', 'n' who was in thar, 
 'n' she said, 'A-visitin' with Mis' Jack Peabody' 'n' all 
 these goin's on, his kissin' her, 'n' all that great, humbly 
 thing she acshally 'peared ter like it! 'N' ef he don't 
 jest worship her, I ain't no prophet." 
 
 Mrs. Peabody's notion of the functions of a prophet 
 was somewhat vague, but she evidently understood a 
 good deal of human nature. Her narrative had been 
 heard and repeated by everybody in the place before a 
 week passed away, and Tid suddenly found himself 
 treated with unwonted consideration. The man who 
 could caress a young woman like Mrs. Tid Slocum, and 
 have her " 'pear ter like it," was unmistakably no com- 
 mon character, and his claims were respected the more 
 deeply because he made no pretensions on account of his 
 superiority. There was the same swing to his awkward 
 gait, the same impassive look in his dull eye, the same 
 strict attention to business. Only now impressive
 
 Tid's Wife. 203 
 
 change! the men recognized self-control in what before 
 had been a supposed lack of controllable material. 
 
 A month after Mrs. Tid Slocum had taken up her 
 abode at the Lake, a troupe of strolling players came 
 along and gave an entertainment at Gulick's dancing- 
 hall, where once or twice a year a grand ball mingled the 
 society from half-a-dozen neighboring settlements with 
 that of the Lake. To this entertainment the population 
 of the place turned out en masse, and it so chanced 
 (though there was really no chance about it) that the seat 
 next to Mrs. Tid Slocum was picked out and persistently 
 occupied, even when the rest went out to refresh them- 
 selves during the entr'actes, by Mr. Daniel Morey not 
 the ordinary, rough, good-looking miner of every day, 
 but a positive dandy, arrayed in a sleek black coat and a 
 starched white shirt front, in which glittered a remarkable 
 diamond pin. His ambrosial locks were tossed with fas- 
 cinating grace from off his forehead, and his moustache 
 seemed to have acquired a new distinction. Mr. Daniel 
 Morey in the long-unaccustomed costume and manners 
 of older civilizations yet carried both so well that even 
 the jeers of his companions were not unmixed with ad- 
 miration, and could not discompose him. Whenever 
 Mrs. Slocum turned in his direction that evening, she en- 
 countered a pair of melting masculine eyes fixed full upon 
 her, and, though she rather shrank away toward Tid and 
 maintained outward calm, yet the admiration of so dis- 
 tinguished an individual could hardly have been lost upon 
 her. 
 
 The weeks wore away, and it began to be whispered 
 about among the miners that Dan Morey was getting 
 to be a frequent visitor at Tid Slocum's cabin; but Tid 
 preserved the same imperturbable demeanor toward the
 
 204 White Butterflies. 
 
 Adonis of the place as toward everybody else. It was 
 rumored by some imaginative person that his heart was 
 breaking. But even this blood-curdling suggestion 
 failed to throw any light upon the situation. Mrs. Jack 
 Peabody, however, who was propriety itself, resolved 
 upon breaking the social bond with which by her visit, 
 and, indeed, by a subsequent one also, she had united 
 herself to the fair new-comer, and she consequently vis- 
 ited her no more. So that Mrs. Tid Slocum, except for 
 the unremitting faithfulness and devotion of her husband 
 and occasional observed and more presumed calls from 
 Dan Morey, must have led a rather lonely life. But she 
 was not one of the kind to be pitied. She carried her 
 head high, worked briskly all day no such housekeeper 
 and seamstress had ever been seen at the Lake and ap- 
 peared not to observe even the disapproving defection of 
 Mrs. Jack Peabody. 
 
 Six months after the bright spring day when big, lum- 
 bering Tid Slocum had astounded his neighbors by 
 bringing his bride among them, Dan Morey was miss- 
 ing from his place beside the genial fire at Gulick's, and 
 "Old Bill," with whom he messed, could give no account 
 of him. Tid Slocum went regularly to work every day, 
 but shortly after Dan Morey was missed, some one re- 
 marked that Mrs. Tid Slocum "had been keepin' mighty 
 quiet lately." 
 
 The temptation to investigate the mystery was too 
 much for Peek Brown, who, as soon as Tid started for 
 work the next morning, stole up to the back-side of his 
 little shanty and made as thorough an examination as was 
 compatible with a tightly-locked door and uncommuni- 
 cative shutters. Tid had, evidently not without a pur- 
 pose, left behind him a slow fire, for the chimney gave off
 
 Tid's Wife. 205 
 
 a gentle smoke all the morning. Peek determined to go 
 quite around the house, even at the risk of being seen, 
 for it stood upon a knoll and close against the hillside. 
 Tid had put solid wooden shutters on every window of 
 his stout little cabin, but they were open in front, and 
 neat white curtains, hung shortly after Mrs. Tid's ar- 
 rival, were adroitly looped inside, so as to suggest some 
 occupancy of the place. Everything was in profound 
 quiet. The woman might be ill, but, ill or well, Peek was 
 morally certain that she was not there. 
 
 That night Tid went into Gulick's, still and unap- 
 proachable as usual, and ordered a stiff glass of rum- 
 and-water. While it was preparing, Peek stepped up 
 and remarked drily, "Wife ain't sick, is she? Lef town?" 
 There was quite a crowd present, and the answer to 
 Peek's question was awaited with breathless interest. 
 
 Tid took up his glass of rum-and-water and drained 
 it at a draught, his face meanwhile growing whiter and 
 whiter. Then he turned toward Peek, who instinctively 
 began to shrink away from him. His dull eyes emitted 
 a single sulphurous flash. Then he gathered up his 
 brawny fist like lightning, and planted a tremendous blow 
 in the middle of his interrogator's face. "Darn yer pic- 
 ter!" he shouted, in a voice so hoarse and unnatural that 
 none of the men would ever have recognized it; "ef ye 
 speak of her, 'n' mostly ef ye speak ag'in her, I'll kill 
 ye!" Then he turned sharply, and walked off to his 
 lonely cabin. The blow that he had dealt to Peek was 
 attended with permanent and disfiguring results, and Tid 
 Slocum's request was ever after respected, at least in his 
 presence. But his wife had undoubtedly deserted him. 
 
 A year and a half passed away, and as spring opened 
 the second spring after Tid's marriage the brisk
 
 206 White Butterflies. 
 
 sounds of reviving labor echoed through the Tom Lake 
 settlement. A newly-opened iron mine of untold rich- 
 ness had been located on the range, and owners of land in 
 the vicinity had sold it at a handsome advance. "Old 
 Bill" had died, and Jack Peabody had "sold out" and re- 
 turned to his native place in New England to begin life 
 again with a hundred thousand dollars in his pocket. 
 With these vicissitudes, and with the influx of new- 
 comers, there had been considerable change in the little 
 settlement; but still Tid Slocum, who had been more 
 prosperous perhaps than any of his old mates, grim and 
 silent as ever, lived alone in his trim little cabin. His 
 "luck" in worldly affairs had evidently "turned," and, 
 isolated and friendless though he was, he had yet sufficient 
 cause to congratulate himself. 
 
 One night, the chill in the evening air having driven 
 Gulick's guests inside, they were listening to the excit- 
 ing revelations of one of their comrades who had been 
 down in Chicago for the winter. The narrator was de- 
 tailing consequentially some triflng personal adventure, 
 when he suddenly broke off short, looked around cau- 
 tiously, and exclaimed: 
 
 "But, Lord, boys! I hain't told ye the biggest news of 
 all! I seen Tid's wife!" Amazed ejaculations broke from 
 one and another, and the little circle gathered closer. 
 "Yes," continued the man, in the same circumspect man- 
 ner, "I seen her, 'n' she seen me, 'n' she pulled her veil 
 over her face, and herried along. By George, but she 
 looked 's ef she was poor!" The excited interest of his 
 hearers led the narrator into a little display of human 
 nature, and he began to dwell with unnecessary minute- 
 ness upon the details of his story. "She had a bundle in 
 her hands, like sewin'-work, er suthin er other, 'n' I fol-
 
 Tid's Wife. 2or 
 
 lered her, ter a number" and the speaker took out a 
 notebook, and pronounced the number loudly by way of 
 corroborating his story " 'n' then, bein' kinder thirsty, 
 I stepped inter a saloon close by, 'n' a kinder good-look- 
 in' feller he cum in, 'n' we struck up quite an acquaint- 
 ance; 'n', bein' flush, I sez, sez I, 'I hope ye'll jine me?' 
 'O' course,' he sez; 'don't care 'f I do.'" 
 
 "Wai Tid's wife?" interrupted an auditor impatiently. 
 
 "Good Lord!" snapped the taleteller, crossly, "who's 
 a-tellin' this story, anyhow? Ef I ain't " 
 
 "Go on! go on!" cried the crowd, and Handy Graham 
 took hold of the interrupter's shoulders with an emphatic 
 shake and a "You shut up!" which quite restored the 
 equilibrium of the injured hero. 
 
 "After we'd treated back and forth a few times,' I sez, 
 sez I, p'intin' to the house I seen Tid's wife go in, 'Know 
 'em?' 'Yes,' sez he. 'How 'bout that woman 't jest 
 went in?' sez I. 'I've seen her often,' sez he; 'a sewin'- 
 woman 't sews fer 'em they're dress-makers,' sez he. 
 'I noticed her,' sez he, 'bein' uncommon good-lookin' 
 'n' sorter sad-like. Know her?' 'Wai,' sez I, 'middlin'. 
 Run away from her husband up in the mines with another 
 man. Hain't never seen no man round with her, have 
 ye?' sez I. 'No,' sez he, 'he must 'a left her fer I see her 
 often, bein' here frequent, 'n' I hain't seen no man near 
 her this winter: he must 'a left her.' 'He was jest that 
 kind,' sez I: I'll bet my pile he has gone and left her.' " 
 
 At that moment a muffled sound came from the door- 
 way, and Tid Slocum, with the same white face and flash- 
 ing eyes that some of the crowd remembered to have 
 seen once before, entered and walked up to the bar. Peek 
 Brown, who had been among the most absorbed of the 
 spell-bound audience of a moment before, shrank to half
 
 208 White Butterflies. 
 
 his usual size, and hid behind his companions; but he 
 need not have been frightened, for Tid simply ordered a 
 dram, which was served quietly to him by the brazen 
 Lize, and then walked stumblingly away. The next day 
 there was silence and gloom in Tid's little cabin, and his 
 face did not appear at Gulick's. In fact, Tid had 
 "vamosed," and the inhabitants of Tom Lake village 
 never saw him there again. 
 
 Ten years later, Jack Peabody and his wife, whose 
 well-earned wealth had been doubled and trebled by for- 
 tunate investments, visited the opera in grand style in one 
 of our great Eastern cities. The music was fine, and Mr. 
 Peabody and his wife, who had not misused their recent 
 opportunities for "culchah," were listening attentively 
 and with an acute admiration, when suddenly a couple 
 in an opposite box attracted Mr. Peabody's observant 
 eye. He raised his glass and called his wife's attention, 
 to the objects of his gaze, whereupon a prolonged scru- 
 tiny and discussion followed. 
 
 They saw a gaunt, enormous man, with dull blue eyes, 
 and a mass of tawny hair, which had evidently been the 
 despair of some unhappy barber. He was attired in a 
 rich but ill-worn suit of broadcloth, and by his side was 
 a woman, whose well-featured face, expensive dress, and 
 flashing jewels made her harmonize well with her sump- 
 tuous surroundings. She looked with a calm interest 
 upon the scenes which were being depicted before her, 
 but the man's rapt gaze never wandered from her face, 
 and to the bewildered pair who were surveying him he 
 was a mute but eloquent statue of love, adoration, for- 
 giveness. 
 
 "Yes," whispered Mr. Peabody to his wife, after a pro- 
 tracted and earnest canvass of the question, "it's them 
 by George, it's them!"
 
 Te Christmas Witch? 
 
 A TRUE NEW ENGLAND STORY OF THE LAST 
 CENTURY. 
 
 44 T TELL 'ee 'at she do dawnce aroun' it!" 
 
 Old Laban Trewis opened wide his solemnly blink- 
 ing eyes as he said this. His audience, the men and 
 boys gathered around the fire at the store of Mr. Mellen, 
 one of the chief citizens of Fenmarsh Village, looked awe- 
 stricken. Mr. Mellen himself, with the air of one who 
 had not suspected anything 'so bad as this, ejaculated, 
 "You don't mean to say so!" 
 
 "Aw, she do!" pursued old Laban, who, in spite of 
 many years' residence in the new world, still retained his 
 strong north-of-England vernacular. "She do thot! An' 
 they say she do burn candles to the front of an image- 
 like when she do say her prayers. Aw, she do be a 
 Papist, sure!" 
 
 The old man leaned back, proud of the attention which 
 had been yielded him, and convinced that his case 
 was proven. 
 
 "I seen the bush-like, out in a big box, settin' to the 
 right o' the door-stone all summer," drawled Lysander 
 Mingins, a young farmer from the Height-O'-Land part 
 of the town. The road by which he usually entered the 
 village ran past the small house, just on the outskirts of 
 it, in which all these strange events had taken place. 
 "I seen it," he went on, "but I didn't know nothin' about 
 its bein' a holly-bush." 
 
 14 209
 
 210 White Butterflies. 
 
 "You was too young when you come over," said Mr. 
 Mellen, the storekeeper. "You'd a' known a holly-bush 
 if you'd a' lived long enough in Old England." 
 
 "Wai, she do dawnce aroun' that holly-bush," chir- 
 ruped old Laban Trewis, again. "Fairweather folks can 
 tell 'ee of queer doin's enough over to their side 'e river. 
 It's bad luck for Fenmarsh they ever coom here." 
 
 "I should think they'd find out when they'd been 
 struck with lightning a few more times, and when 
 they'd lost a few more sheep and cattle by the foot-rot, I 
 should think they'd find out 'twa'n't no use goin' contrary 
 to the Almighty," said Mr. Mellen, solemnly. "An' 
 wa'n't the son's wife ravin' crazy before she come down 
 sick on her bed? That was before they left Fairweather, 
 wa'n't it?" 
 
 The door opened, and a stately figure entered. There 
 was a sort of a straightening up, and a putting on of dig- 
 nity among the gossiping group. It was Parson Bement 
 who was coming in grave, reverend, stern. As he closed 
 the door behind him, he took off his heavy woolen cap 
 and shook the snow from it. His high, narrow forehead, 
 his small, cold, deep-set eyes, his close-shaven, firm-set 
 jaws showed him to be a typical Puritan. Parson Bement 
 exacted his rights of everyone, and he meant to do justice 
 to all; but he felt that Papists, and other sects who did 
 not interpret the Bible as he himself did, were sinners 
 against high Heaven, and that they should be treated 
 accordingly. If Parson Bement had lived in another 
 land and in another age, he might have been that merci- 
 less Abbot, to whom the fearless Constance de Beverlev. 
 aided even by St. Hilda's gentle Abbess, and the 
 "haughty" but relenting Prioress of Tynemouth, appealed 
 in vain.
 
 "Yc Christmas Witch." 211 
 
 The parson saluted them all with serious politeness, 
 and made purchase at the counter of a pound of good 
 tobacco. 
 
 "And what is the news to-night, good Master Mellen?" 
 he asked, as his package was handed to him. 
 
 "They was jest sayin' as how the Mistress Maitland 
 have lost the only good cow she have left, sir." 
 
 The parson raised his eyes to the ceiling, and shook 
 his head. The eight or ten men and boys sitting on the 
 boxes and benches around the fire, eyed him narrowly. 
 
 "And the son is he no better, Master Mellen?" 
 
 "Worse, sir. He walks out, and can shovel the paths, 
 I see, but he do cough dreadful." 
 
 There was a suggestion in the storekeeper's tone that 
 it was to be expected that young Maitland's cough 
 should be worse, and that, perhaps, it was just and right 
 that it should be. 
 
 "I fear," said Parson Bement, in slow and measured 
 accents, "that the young man will follow his poor wife 
 ere many days. It may be that this severe climate does 
 not agree with them." 
 
 A grim smile played over the parson's hard face. The 
 men laughed a little. Old Laban Trewis seized this op- 
 portunity for repeating what he felt to be the most im- 
 pressive and sensational fact which had yet been elicited 
 concerning the Maitlands. 
 
 "I tell 'ee, Parson Bement," he hurried to say, "I tell 
 'ee, she be not a right-minded woman! She do have a 
 holly-bush in a box in her kitchen, an' it do have red 
 berries on it. I warrant she will pick 'em and hang 'em 
 about her house for 'e Christmas time them Papists set 
 such store by an' as I was coomin' by her house to- 
 night, I seen her, big 'n proud as she be I seen her,
 
 212 White Butterflies. 
 
 sir I seen her a-dawncin' aroun' her holly-bush. I seen 
 her mysel' through the kitchen-pane." 
 
 The parson's features betrayed the keenest interest, but 
 he merely shook his head. 
 
 "They hain't been to meetin', hev' they, sence they 
 come to town?" asked the Height-O'-Land farmer. 
 
 "They have not entered the house of prayer, to my 
 knowledge," said the minister, oracularly, "during the 
 two years since they came to Fenmarsh. My friend and 
 co-laborer, Dr. Dummer, the pastor of the Fairweather 
 church, said that all their losses and afflictions while in 
 his parish did not seem to soften their hearts. If they 
 prayed at all, it was by forms and in their own apart- 
 ments. They never worshipped with God's people. I 
 could not refuse to bury their dead for them, but I know 
 that they had read their Church of England service over 
 her body, very likely with the burning of candles and 
 other Papist mummery, before I came to pray. I fear all 
 is not well with them." 
 
 The parson drew his face down, but his air expressed, 
 after all, a certain sacred sense of triumph that a deserved 
 fate was overtaking miscreants. 
 
 "They're awful poor I know that," piped up a boy's 
 voice. It was that of Levi Fuller, the son of the town 
 constable, whose house lay near the small cottage of the 
 Maitlands. There was a strain of indignant pity in the 
 shrill half-protest. "They've mostly lived on the milk of 
 the cow," he went on, "an' now they hain't got nothin'." 
 
 A little qualm passed over the face of the pastor. Then 
 it resumed its usual expression of inscrutable calm. 
 
 "They that live against the Lord, from His wrath may 
 they not hope to be delivered!" he ejaculated, fervently. 
 
 "Mother sent 'em over a hunk o' dried beef this morn-
 
 "Ye Christmas Witch." 213 
 
 in'," proceeded the boy, as though driven by some fate- 
 ful force to tell the secrets of his family. There was a 
 certain defiance in his tone, too, as though one should 
 say, "If there is any heart in you, you, too, will pity these 
 unfortunate people." 
 
 "If old Lady Maitland is what some thinks," said Ly- 
 sander Mingins, significantly, "an' this dancin' an' the 
 rest looks mighty like it, them that helps her had better 
 take care. I believe" his voice grew thick and low 
 "I believe the's a curse on 'em." 
 
 Old Laban Trewis leaned forward and struck the floor 
 with his heavy cane. 
 
 "Did they keep a Thanksgivin'?" he thundered. "Xaw 
 they never even coom to the house o' Gawd ! But what 
 is it they'll keep so solemn 'n so gay, too? I tell 'ee it's 
 the Christmas time coomin' nex' week now! I tell 'ee, 
 they'll both on 'em dawnce aroun' the holly-bush then! 
 An' when I fust coom to this country, 'n lived down 
 Salem way, there w r as death 'n blight there among them 
 that had dawncin' roun' holly-bushes and Christmas- 
 keepin', an' they wa'n't no mincin' names then, I tell 
 'ee they was called by their right names then they was 
 called Witches!" 
 
 The old man sank back into his seat, almost exhausted 
 by his long and fiery speech. There was a rapid mingling 
 of talk as he concluded, during which he seized a chance 
 to order a glass of rum-and-water. In the midst of the 
 hubbub the door opened again, and there entered a slen- 
 der and singularly handsome young man. His face, in 
 spite of its high-bred beauty, was very sallow, and the ex- 
 pression of his sunken eyes and the sharpness of his long, 
 straight nose made him as one on whom the seal of death 
 is set. He coughed as he came in a cough which made
 
 2U White Butterflies. 
 
 even the hardest of the group about the fire to shudder. 
 On his head was a worn but still elegant cap of fur. His 
 cloak, though old and shabby, was of the richest materials, 
 and on its broad collar was embroidered a coat of arms. 
 His bearing, though that of a man whom illness has en- 
 feebled, was still proud and noble. 
 
 He bought a few cheap groceries, taking the packages 
 from the tradesman's hands as a duke might receive a 
 gift from his dependents. The parson deliberately turned 
 his back upon the youth. The sudden cessation of the 
 excited talk as he came in must have been noticed by 
 him, but his marble face expressed nothing beyond a 
 half-defined contempt. 
 
 As he closed the door behind him and went out into 
 the snowy night, the Fuller boy followed him. The store- 
 keeper quietly slipped out upon the big stone step of his 
 store to see what should be done. He saw the Fuller 
 boy take the sick man's parcels and offer him the strong, 
 if clumsy, support of his young arm, which was not re- 
 jected. The Fuller boy had a mother, who, while trying 
 hard to follow the severe theology of the day, still al- 
 lowed her somewhat strong mind, and her kind and 
 gentle heart to dwell chiefly upon the precepts of the 
 merciful Jesus. In the first place, she did not believe 
 half the stories which were afloat about the Maitlands. 
 In the second place, even if these stories were all true, 
 there was no excuse, she declared, for treating the unfor- 
 tunate family inhumanly. That the Maitlands were 
 proud and scornful, was true. They had been treated 
 in a way to make them so, reasoned Mrs. Fuller. But, 
 if they were poor, misguided "Papists," why not try to 
 win them over to the true faith by kindness and love? For 
 her own part, Mrs. Fuller and she was not the only one
 
 "Ye Christmas Witch.'* .216 
 
 loved to go by the little wooden house in which the 
 Maitlands lived, and see through the window the white- 
 haired, beautiful-faced old woman, as she sat sewing; or 
 hear her, as she played upon her spinet the only one in 
 town. Everybody loved to watch her, too, as she tended 
 her flower garden. Nobody had such flowers as she. 
 
 The men in the store, who separated to go to their va- 
 rious homes shortly after young Maitland left, commiser- 
 ated the Fuller boy, and expressed fears when they saw 
 Parson Bement's shocked look, as the storekeeper re- 
 lated what the boy had done that a new subject was 
 making ready to serve the Prince of Darkness. But the 
 boy did not know this, and as his mother told him in 
 few words and without emotion, as was the way with 
 New England mothers that he had done right this, 
 with the warm thanks of the sick man, when he had 
 parted from his young benefactor, made Levi Fuller quite 
 easy in his mind. 
 
 The heavy snows began to melt. One of those delight- 
 ful, sunny seasons which the stern New England winters 
 sometimes grant about Christmas time, came over Fen- 
 marsh. Young Maitland seemed to revive somewhat un- 
 der the gracious influences of the kindly sun. One morn- 
 ing, warmly wrapped, he sat out on the porch of their 
 little cottage, while "Lady Maitland," as his mother was 
 generally called throughout the village, brought forth her 
 boxes of chrysanthemums and set them in the sun be- 
 side him. There were five of the plants, large, strong, 
 and covered with nodding blossoms. Nobody else in 
 Fenmarsh had anything like them. The women there 
 envied "Lady Maitland" far more than her air of distinc- 
 tion and the experiences of splendor which it was 
 rumored that she had had her wonderful success with
 
 216 White Butterflies. 
 
 plants. What would they not give for such "artemishys" 
 as those! 
 
 The old lady, high-headed, perfectly erect, stern-faced, 
 but regally handsome, went on with her work as she 
 talked with her son. 
 
 "I was hoping," he said, "to go down to the graveyard 
 once more before the winter fairly closed in, and put a 
 bunch of flowers on Edith's grave." 
 
 Her face grew pale, and she fetched out another box of 
 tossing, beautiful flowers before she dared to speak. 
 
 "You must not think of it, Gerald," she said, calmly. 
 "In the spring you will be stronger. Our fortunes must 
 look up by that time. We shall hear from Elizabeth, and 
 she or some of our friends must come to us. We can 
 manage in some way to get through the winter but you 
 must keep quiet and warm. I am afraid it overtaxed you, 
 going out the other night." 
 
 "Not in the least," he hastened to say. "If you think 
 I am so far gone that my mother must go without her 
 morning cup of tea because I cannot face the night 
 air " 
 
 "It is no disgrace, Gerald," she hastened to cry, with 
 a note of exquisite pain in her voice. "Think what you 
 have been through the little one's death in Fairweather 
 then Edith's slow decline our losses of property the 
 burning of our buildings oh, you would be more than 
 human if you could endure it without breaking down. 
 You know you have always been delicate." 
 
 "But you you have endured it." He looked at her 
 with fond pride. They were all in all to each other. 
 
 She buried her face in a mass of yellow bloom, to hide 
 a tear which would trickle down her cheek. "He does not 
 know how my brain has reeled!" she murmured.
 
 "Ye Christmas Witch." 217 
 
 "Oh, yes!" she said brightly, turning her face from 
 him, and leaving the tear to shine like a drop of dew upon 
 the golden blossom, "I feel as strong and fresh as ever. 
 I have always been so strong, you know, dear!" 
 
 Two little children, muffled in stout, home-spun 
 woolen, had come along the street, and now they were 
 leaning against the gate and looking covetously at Lady 
 Maitland's wonderful chrysanthemums. She always re- 
 garded the village people with unconcealed scorn. 
 
 "What do you want, little girls?" she called out now. 
 Her tone was very cross. 
 
 The children dropped a courtesy in careful unison. 
 
 "Please, forsooth, a flower, mum, for Vashti and me." 
 
 Lady Maitland broke off the spray of yellow chrysan- 
 themums on which the tear was still glittering, shook it, 
 and gave it to the child. To little "Vashti," she gave a 
 red one. 
 
 The children took them with eyes glowing, and sniffed 
 in their spicy odors. The old woman's set face softened. 
 It was a mitigation of their vulgarity that these children 
 should so love flowers. 
 
 "You poor little things! how you do enjoy them!" she 
 said, kindly. 
 
 This encouraged them. Little Vashti came nearer. 
 
 "Please, forsooth," she said, trembling, "can can 
 Lois and I have you got a holly-bush?" 
 
 "Indeed I have," replied Lady Maitland; "and it is all 
 covered with beautiful red berries." 
 
 "He said so!" cried the child, clapping her hands and 
 then putting on a frightened look, as she saw that she had 
 almost broken her cherished spray of flowers by so doing; 
 "Uncle Laban Trewis said you had. Where is it?" 
 
 She began to push, child-like, past the stately figure,
 
 218 White Butterflies. 
 
 little Lois following hard after her, but the strong arm of 
 the mistress barred the way. 
 
 "What rude little girls!" she exclaimed, with a look 
 which made the innocent little things shrink back aghast. 
 "You should never enter a house without an invitation. 
 Did you never hear of such a rule as that?" 
 
 Little Vashti began to cry. 
 
 "I want to see the red berries," she sobbed. 
 
 "Oh, let them see it, mother," interposed the young 
 man, wearily. "It's little enough we have to please any- 
 body." 
 
 "Well, come, then," she said, impatiently. She led the 
 way in. "Here it is."' 
 
 There, in the full glory of a south window, stood the 
 famous holly-bush, as tall as little Vashti's head, and look- 
 ing brave enough, with its spreading, prickly leaves and 
 shining berries. 
 
 "Oh-h-h !" sighed the little ones, gazing with eyes like 
 stars upon the brilliant spectacle. 
 
 "I will cut a spray for each of you," said Lady Mait- 
 land, graciously. This done, they did not forget to thank 
 her, but even after they had done this, they still stood 
 gazing at her. 
 
 "Well," said the old lady, whose opinion of the man- 
 ners of the neighborhood was confirmed by the conduct 
 of these heedless little ones, "What now?" 
 
 They were very small probably not more than seven 
 years old, and their solemn aspect, as they looked from 
 the holly-bush to her, and from her to the holly-bush, 
 seemed unutterably ridiculous to her. She began to 
 laugh nervously. 
 
 "What now?" she repeated. 
 
 "Please, forsooth," began little Lois, timidly, and with
 
 "Ye Christmas Witch." 219 
 
 the awe-struck look in her big eyes growing deeper. 
 "Please, forsooth, would you dawnce around the holly- 
 bush for us?" 
 
 The usual pronunciation of the word "dance" was 
 short and flat to a degree in Fenmarsh, but the child had 
 heard Uncle Laban Trewis use the word in this connec- 
 tion, and she copied his manner. 
 
 Lady Maitland looked at her for a moment in indig- 
 nant bewilderment. Then a partial vision of the situation 
 came over her, and she burst into a harsh, wild laugh. 
 Any one hearing it would surely have thought it the 
 laugh of a crazy woman. Her son came hurrying in 
 from the porch. 
 
 "Fancy, Gerald!" she cried, amid hysterical sobs, which 
 were half of sardonic laughter, "these impertinent little 
 things ! What can they mean !" 
 
 She sat down in one of the stiff, high-backed chairs 
 against the wall, and fell to laughing again that dreadful 
 laugh. 
 
 "What is it?" exclaimed the young man, pulling little 
 Lois toward him. "What did you say to her? Tell me 
 quick." 
 
 The child choked up and began to cry bitterly, hiding 
 her face behind her flowers. Little Vashti came to her 
 assistance. 
 
 "She said," she began tremblingly. "She said, 'Won't 
 you dawnce around the holly-bush for us?' " 
 
 The young man looked puzzled and distressed. "Go 
 now," he said. 
 
 The little things, both of them sobbing by this time, 
 went slowly down the path to the road. As the young 
 man gazed after them, his face darkened. He and his 
 mother were, then, objects of suspicion as well as of dis-
 
 220 White Butterflies. 
 
 like. He had not cared for the dislike of the people a 
 Maitland could only disdain these lowly folk and all their 
 ways, but could it be that they thought his mother a 
 witch? 
 
 A cold sweat gathered on him as he recalled the Salem 
 murders, and the other outrages on helpless and inno- 
 cent unfortunates which had occurred nearer Fenmarsh. 
 The excitement over witches had died away, he thought. 
 Could it be that it was to start up again now, and that 
 the lightning strokes which had twice burned their build- 
 ings the death which had carried off his child and then 
 his young wife the plagues which had destroyed their 
 cattle that these were going to be laid to a curse from 
 the Almighty? "Ah," his soul cried in its anguish, "if 
 there be any foundation for the belief that misfortunes 
 follow those who are hated of God, then are we, indeed, 
 the objects of His sore displeasure!" 
 
 As the children departed, his mother had thrown her 
 head upon her arms, and, leaning on the plain kitchen 
 table, was weeping violently. As he thought, he stroked 
 her gray hair and tried to soothe her. 
 
 "Forget it, mother," he pleaded, "think of what the 
 future holds for us. It cannot hold anything worse than 
 we have suffered. I believe it will be like the beautiful 
 old times. Think of them." 
 
 "I can see it all now," she said, brokenly. "I did not 
 understand it before. I know now why the children look 
 so at me when I pass along the street; why people cross 
 over; and why the horses are whipped up when they go by 
 the house. They think I am a witch, and that I hold or- 
 gies, like the witches in 'Macbeth!' Oh, Gerald! isn't il 
 absurd!" she laughed wildly, "and yet isn't it awful!" 
 Now she began to weep.
 
 "Ye Christmas Witch." 221 
 
 "Don't, mother," he begged, "just think how it is al- 
 most Christmas-time, and remember what beautiful times 
 we used to have at the Hall how Elizabeth and I used 
 to trim the mantels, and how Edith would come over so 
 early and sing carols with us, and what lovely gifts we 
 used to have." 
 
 "Yes," said his mother, bitterly, calmed by his 
 gentleness. "But what do these recollections bring to 
 me? Memory seems no friend only a lash to sting me. 
 Edith and her beautiful babe are dead. Elizabeth where 
 is she? When we heard last from her and, just think, 
 Gerald, that was three years ago she was very ill at 
 your Uncle William's, and she, too, may be dead, for 
 all we know. Maitland Hall is wrested from us by a 
 false claim. I know your father never owed your Uncle 
 Richard any such sum as he claimed. I know he had no 
 right to take our home from us though he did produce 
 those dreadful papers in court to prove it. Then our 
 money is nearly gone. It is only by the closest man- 
 agement that we can get through the long, hard winter 
 which is just beginning. You are ill, and need delicacies 
 which we cannot buy. Why, Gerald, my brain whirls 
 so, when I think of it sometimes, that I can readily be- 
 lieve of myself that I am as crazy as these low village 
 people think." 
 
 "Poor mother! Poor mother!" he said, with stream- 
 ing eyes. 
 
 "Oh, my brave, beautiful boy! Forgive me!" she cried, 
 as she saw the look which crept over his stern, sunken 
 face. "Let us forget it all! W'e shall hear from Eliza- 
 beth. She is well and strong. She and Uncle William 
 have succeeded in getting back our home. They will 
 come to us with plenty of money, or else they will call
 
 222 White Butterflies. 
 
 us back to England. We cannot make the dead to live, 
 but there will be much comfort and happiness for us yet." 
 
 "How could I excite him so!" she murmured, as she 
 turned away from him. In her heart she felt that she 
 was but hastening the end. 
 
 "Bring in your chair, Gerald," she continued, brightly, 
 "I will cook the potatoes and cut the loaf." 
 
 With an air as though she were serving for her pleas- 
 ure the sovereign of her country, the stately woman 
 moved about the little room, performing the menial duties 
 which seemed so ill-suited to her; and thus the day passed 
 on. At nightfall, she saw that her son had visibly failed. 
 The exciting events of the day the startling glimpse into 
 the true feeling of the people around them, which had 
 been afforded by the little girl's absurd question about 
 the holly-bush, had unnerved and exhausted him. But 
 before they went to bed, the old woman sat down at her 
 spinet, and sang a tender Christmas song. 
 
 "Forget everything that is sad, Gerald," she said, 
 cheerily, as she kissed him good-night; "we will have a 
 happy Christmas to-morrow, in spite of everything. We 
 still have each other. Those who have passed away are 
 happy in a better world. We shall join them some time, 
 and how beautiful that will be! There is nothing sad, 
 any way you look at it. It is all bright, and by another 
 Christmas things may be so different with us!" She 
 laughed a laugh that had tears in it, but it was not grat- 
 ing and strange, like her laugh in the morning. He 
 kissed her. 
 
 "Good-night, mother," he said, "the brave mother who 
 will not be cast down." 
 
 The lights were put out, the little home was still, but 
 angels entered that night through the closed doors. The
 
 "Ye Christmas Witch." 223 
 
 messenger came, and, as ever, he found no resistance, 
 for who can resist the Angel of Death? 
 
 The Christmas morning broke clear and quiet. "Lady 
 Maitland" had fashioned, out of materials saved from 
 the wreck of their fortunes, a rich, embroidered garment 
 for her son, and, with her hands piled full of gay chrysan- 
 themums, she went into his room to take to him her 
 Christmas token. 
 
 "Good morning, Gerald!" she exclaimed, as she en- 
 tered his chamber. "Let me throw open the shutter. See 
 how the sunlight streams in. Is it not wonderful?" 
 
 There was a strange stillness. The smile with which 
 she had wreathed her face faded. With a cry of utter de- 
 spair she threw herself across his silent body, scattering 
 the flowers over the coarse white counterpane. The 
 warm, embroidered dressing-gown, over which she had 
 toiled so hard in secret, weaving in her desperate love 
 with every pictured blossom, fell to the floor. 
 . It was thus they found her, hours afterward. 
 
 "They ain't been no smoke outer Lady Maitland's 
 chimbly this mornin," said Mrs. Fuller to her husband, 
 the constable. It was ten o'clock, and he had just come 
 in from the barn. The soft weather had gone by. It 
 was blowing up cold from the north a bitter Christmas 
 day. It had not occurred to the Fullers that it was 
 Christmas day at all. 
 
 The stiff-legged, clumsy farmer walked to the last win- 
 dow, which overlooked the modest home of the Mait- 
 lands. The plain curtains had not been raised. Every- 
 thing looked still and deserted. 
 
 "I guess I'll go over," persisted Mrs. Fuller. 
 
 "I wish you'd let them pesky folks alone," snapped 
 her husband. "Fairweather folks is glad enough to get
 
 224 White Butterflies. 
 
 shet on 'em. Over there they call 'em Papists out'n out. 
 I seen John Gerrish yisterd'y. He says Parson Dum- 
 mer's right outspoken about 'em, same as Parson Be- 
 ment is here. Parson Dummer, he hain't so hard on 
 nobody as Parson Bement is, but Gerrish says even he 
 says the Maitlands ain't what they orter be!" 
 
 "I'm reely worried, Tobias," went on Mrs. Fuller, as 
 though she had not heard a word her husband was saying, 
 "about Lady Maitland. I don't mind her airs. She 
 never puts on none on 'em along o' me. She's good to 
 her friends, same as the rest on us be. When folks treat 
 her mean, she pays 'em back, o' course." As she spoke 
 she was winding a woolen comforter around her neck, 
 and donning her "camlet" cloak and hood. "I'm goin' 
 over," she said, shortly. "Levi saw Mr. Gerald out in 
 the storm the other night, gittin' groceries to the store. 
 He hain't been out much sense. I'm afeared they're both 
 on 'em down." 
 
 Mrs. Fuller did not mention to her husband that she 
 proposed to take with her a pail of milk and a package 
 of doughnuts, but she took them, just the same. 
 
 Repeated knocks at the Maitlands' doors produced no 
 effect. Mrs. Fuller came back for her husband, and, after 
 some reasoning, induced him to return with her and force 
 an entrance. Then the sad truth was known. Young 
 Gerald Maitland was dead. His proud mother, whose 
 brain, in the opinion of most of the village people, had 
 always been more or less cracked, was now undoubtedly 
 demented. 
 
 Mrs. Fuller would not call in any neighbors, till she 
 had first made a thorough investigation of the case and 
 of the house, herself. They had raised up the poor, faint- 
 ing mother, and had laid her upon a chintz-covered couch
 
 "Ye Christmas Witch/' 225 
 
 in the little sitting-room, but she was in such a fever and 
 seemed so weak and helpless that it was plain she must 
 be undressed and put to bed. Mrs. Fuller hurried up- 
 stairs to see that a room should be made ready for her. 
 The good woman's heart beat as she ascended the stairs. 
 Should she find in that secluded apartment any of the 
 strange charms and cabalistic manuscripts which were 
 rumored to belong to poor Lady Maitland? She opened 
 the door carefully. The light of noon poured in upon 
 the plain furnishings of the room, which were not unlike 
 those of Mrs. Fuller's own, excepting that, between the 
 windows, hung a crucifix, and in sockets placed on either 
 side of it in the wall were unlighted candles. A cushion 
 was beneath it in which there was a fresh impres- 
 sion. 
 
 "She's said her prayers there this blessed morning!" 
 sighed Mrs. Fuller. "I should think she'd a' found out 
 before this that prayin' in that way wouldn't avail." But, 
 still, in Mrs. Fuller's secret soul arose the unbidden ques- 
 tion, why, if the heart were sincere, prayer offered before a 
 crucifix should be not as acceptable as the same prayer of- 
 fered somewhere else? There was something of the nine- 
 teenth century, as well as of the eighteenth, in good Mrs. 
 Fuller's make-up. 
 
 "Any way," soliloquized the good woman, hurriedly, 
 for she heard a voice below which she recognized as that 
 of Mrs. Mingins, little Lois's mother, "I'll hide every- 
 thing, so that nobody else shall see it." So crucifix, 
 cushion, candles and all were hastily thrust between the 
 feather mattresses. The candlesticks alone remained to 
 tell the story, and they were not necessarily incendiary. 
 Mrs. Fuller was none too soon. She had scarcely time 
 to open an oaken chest near her, and pretend to be ex- 
 15
 
 226 White Butterflies. 
 
 amining its contents, when Mrs. Mingins' face appeared 
 at the door. 
 
 "Here's a clean nightgown for her," said Mrs. Fuller, 
 stopping for no conventionalities. "I'm so glad you've 
 come, Miss Mingins. Tell 'em to fetch her up, if they 
 can. I can manage her, if they'll get her up here." 
 
 "Who's goin' to take care on her?" said Mrs. Mingins, 
 doubtfully. "I'll tell ye frankly, Mis Fuller, I wouldn't 
 stay here for no money." 
 
 "I'll stay," said Mrs. Fuller, promptly. "I'll stay till 
 to-morrow, sure. Sarah Jane an' Levi can do the work 
 up to my house. Tell 'em to hurry up." 
 
 An hour later, thanks to Mrs. Fuller's judicious nurs- 
 ing, the poor, lonely mother lay in a gentle sleep. 
 
 Downstairs there was a great consultation; Parson 
 Bement, Doctor Dow, Tobias Fuller, Mr. Mellen and 
 several others from among the leading men in the village 
 were talking about the Maitlands. Nobody wanted to 
 watch overnight with the dead man. Nobody was clear 
 what sort of a funeral should be given him; but after 
 discussing the subject for a half-hour, Uncle Laban Tre- 
 wis, who had dug the graves in the village churchyard for 
 twenty years, was set to work digging a grave, a plain 
 coffin was procured, young Gerald Maitland was placed 
 in it, a prayer was said over him, and before the darkness 
 fell that night, his body lay at rest beside that of his 
 young wife. Mrs. Fuller had not been able to join much 
 in the discussion, but she was indignant when she found 
 how summarily matters had been settled. 
 
 "What if she comes to in the night?" she asked, 
 warmly. "What should I say to her? It's a shame to 
 bury him so quick! You hadn't orter a' consented to 
 it, Tobias! Wai, the least you can do is to lay the flowers
 
 "Ye Christmas Witch." 227 
 
 that was scattered on the coverlid, on his grave. Freeze? 
 What if they do freeze? It's a little mite o' mercy, any- 
 how." 
 
 Parson Bement thought this outburst anything but 
 truly pious, but Mrs. Fuller was not very amenable to his 
 counsels, and broke away from him as soon as she could, 
 on the pretext that the poor woman upstairs was in need 
 of her. 
 
 The nailing of the coffin had disturbed the sleeper. 
 When Mrs. Fuller came upstairs she found Lady Mait- 
 land sitting up in the bed, and gazing about her in be- 
 wilderment. 
 
 "What was that noise?" she said, faintly. "I thought 
 the Christmas greens had been put up long ago. I did 
 not order any decorations upstairs." 
 
 "No, no!" said Mrs. Fuller, soothingly. "That's all 
 right. You lie down." 
 
 "No," said the sick woman. "It is time for me to 
 get up. Did you hear the children sing this morning? 
 I must have slept through it myself but I know it was 
 lovely. What a charming voice Edith has! And Eliza- 
 beth's is almost as sweet." 
 
 "Yes, yes," said Mrs. Fuller, "but don't talk now. It 
 is growing dark, and it's cold. You'll ketch cold if you 
 set up so. Do lie down. You can't get up 'n dress 
 now. 'Tain't time." 
 
 "Why, Susan, is that you?" said the wandering woman, 
 cheerfully. "I thought it was who did I think it was? 
 I feel confused, some way. But I'll do as you say, Susan." 
 
 She lay down quietly enough. After this Mrs. Fuller 
 was constantly "Susan" to her. She went on with her 
 prattle. 
 
 "Are the children's gifts all ready?" she asked, per-
 
 228 White Butterflies. 
 
 emptorily. "I told you to set them in order in the great 
 hall. There was an embroidered gown for Gerald but 
 for Edith did I get anything for Edith? What was it?" 
 
 Her tone grew helpless and inquiring. There was 
 something very touching to Mrs. Fuller, who had never 
 seen Lady Maitland except in the proud, unbending char- 
 acter which she had chosen to assume always before the 
 village people, in the sweet, appealing looks she gave her 
 now, as a certain evidently much-trusted "Susan." 
 
 "Oh yes that's all right," she answered, half sob- 
 bingly. "There's something for everybody, I guess." 
 
 "And did you ever see anything so pretty?" pursued 
 the distracted invalid. "Elizabeth made the holly wreaths, 
 and wound in the mistletoe. I never saw anything so 
 pretty. Oh, it will be the best Christmas that the chil- 
 dren ever had. I am so glad!" 
 
 "You must not talk so much," said Mrs. Fuller, gently, 
 "Your fever is coming on again. Now try to keep still." 
 
 ."You see," went on the sick woman, paying not the 
 slightest heed to her nurse's words, "You see, Edith and 
 Gerald are very fond of each other. She is a sweet 
 girl, and they have always loved each other. If they 
 should marry, it would be well enough. Edith is not 
 rich, but Gerald will have the Hall, and there is an 
 abundance an abundance." 
 
 She repeated the words emphatically, as though to dare 
 Mrs. Fuller to deny them. 
 
 "Poor thing!" cried Mrs. Fuller, "I wonder if she will 
 understand to-morrow." 
 
 For she knew already, from what she had been able to 
 see in the short time she had been in charge of the house, 
 that there was little enough to pay for the keeping of 
 even this one poor creature in it, There were vegetables
 
 "Ye Christmas Witch/' 229 
 
 and apples in the cellar, a few supplies in the pantry, a 
 little money, but beyond something which, it had been 
 learned, was yet to be paid upon a mortgage which had 
 just been put upon the place, there was barely enough 
 of the whole Maitland estate to cover the young man's 
 funeral expenses, and to provide for the mother's wants 
 during the winter. 
 
 "She will have to go to the poorhouse," murmured 
 Mrs. Fuller, turning white about the lips herself at the 
 thought. The fall of pride involved seemed to extend 
 somehow to her, too at least, so that she could feel 
 something of the twinge which the proud woman on the 
 pillow would feel if she knew. 
 
 Levi slept that night on the couch in the little Maitland 
 sitting room, while his mother watched upstairs with the 
 sick woman. They both slept late the next morning. It 
 was nearly eight when Mrs. Fuller was awakened by a 
 violent shaking. Lady Maitland stood above her, with 
 an impatient expression on her face. She was quite 
 dressed, and with neatness. 
 
 "Susan!" she said, sharply; "why do you not wake 
 up? I have dressed entirely by myself. The children 
 
 " she looked around vaguely, "the children must be 
 
 out singing carols. It seems very lonely." 
 
 "Don't talk about 'carols' to-day," said Mrs. Fuller, 
 springing up and beginning to make her toilet. "Christ- 
 mas is over. Folks around here don't think much of 
 Christmas any way. I wouldn't say much about it if 
 I was you." 
 
 "Not Christmas to-day!" exclaimed the old woman, 
 severely. "Susan, you are insane! It is Christmas to- 
 day it is Christmas always. What are you thinking 
 about?"
 
 230 White Butterflies. 
 
 To this, the poor, weak mind was henceforth consistent. 
 With her it was indeed, "Christmas always" and, alas! 
 she could not know enough to heed kind Mrs. Fuller's 
 well-meant suggestion as to reticence, but babbled con- 
 tinually of Christmas and Christmas scenes but always 
 in the past. 
 
 In the town records of Fenmarsh for the year 1788, ap- 
 pears the following: 
 
 "On ye 25 of Dec. 1788, died: Gerald Maitland, aged 
 about 27. Ye mother of ye young man, who is strange 
 to ye most of ye townsfolk, is much distraught by his 
 death. She was taken on ye 29 to ye town farm, where 
 she could be cared for. Some say she do hold a pasture 
 lot in ye town of Fairweather. If it can be done, ye 
 charge for her keepe will be put on ye towne of Fair- 
 weather. Ye Doctor Dow pronounces her very crazy. 
 Her friends be not known, but ye Mistress Tobias Fuller 
 have writ a letter to one Elizabeth Maitland in England, 
 according to a letter found in an oaken, silver-banded 
 chest which was in ye house. If she heare not from said 
 Elizabeth Maitland, ye woman will come for a charge on 
 ye town of Fenmarsh, unless ye town of Fairweather 
 will take her up. Ye property of ye woman Margaret 
 Maitland is but ye oaken chest aforementioned, some 
 good old clothing, a spinet and some other good fur- 
 niture, some foolish flowering plants, and ye pasture lot 
 in Fairweather, which some say be mortgaged for all 
 it be worth. Ye house and place here be mortgaged, also. 
 It is feared ye woman, who be not more than sixty years 
 of age, and strong and well, but for ye sickness of her 
 mind, will come to be a pauper for ye rest of her life, 
 and a charge on ye towne of Fenmarsh." 
 
 In the records of the town of Fairweather, which were
 
 Ye Christmas Witch." 231 
 
 kept evidently by a much less scholarly person than those 
 of Fenmarsh, appears the following entry at about the 
 same time: 
 
 "Ye crazy woman, Margaret Maitland, be on ye town 
 of Fenmarsh. Said woman did lose her mind on acct. of 
 loosing her son on ye 25 of December. This being ye 
 Christmas Day, she do gabble of ye Christmas all ye 
 time. Said Margaret Maitland be a Papist and a witch. 
 Said woman have always had bad luck upon her. Ye 
 towne of Fairweather have no righte to take her from ye 
 towne of Fenmarsh. Her pasture lot be only 1,000 feet 
 square out of Square Ewing's large pasture lot. Square 
 Ewing held a mortgage on it, which be now foreclosed. 
 So it do be plain to ye lawyers of Fairweather yt ye witch 
 belong not to this towne, but to ye towne of Fenmarsh." 
 
 Each town employed lawyers in its behalf, and all 
 through the winter raged a violent fight between them re- 
 garding the keeping of poor Lady Maitland, whose fallen 
 estate began to be denoted by making her title "Mother." 
 She was usually quiet and docile. The poormaster could 
 not complain that she made any trouble. Through the 
 intercession of Mrs. Fuller, who had been faithful to the 
 Maitlands' interests through everything, the old wom- 
 an's spinet had been carried to the town-farm with her, 
 and she amused herself a great deal with playing upon it. 
 Nobody had wanted to buy the instrument, so it was not 
 strange that the privilege had been permitted. She had 
 her flowers, too, and seemed to tend them as skilfully as 
 ever. Common work, however, she would not do, and 
 her tone and manner toward those around her were al- 
 ways superior and condescending. She seemed perfectly 
 well, and offered no violence to anybody. There was 
 money enough realized from the sale of her effects to
 
 282 White Butterflies. 
 
 pay her board for a few weeks, for everything that could 
 be had been turned into money, excepting the spinet 
 and the oaken chest. Consequently, for the first two 
 months the controversy between the towns was not so 
 very violent. As the spring came on, and the money 
 began to give out, however, Fenmarsh redoubled its ef- 
 forts to get rid of its unwelcome burden. There had been 
 much illness among the paupers in Fenmarsh. This was 
 attributed by "Dick" White, the poormaster, to the pres- 
 ence of poor Mother Maitland. Early in March, Polly 
 Staunton, one of the oldest paupers, died with consump- 
 tion. This might have been regarded by Fenmarsh, 
 under some circumstances, as an event not to be espe- 
 cially mourned, but, as things stood, they declared it 
 to be largely the work of the evil spirits under the direc- 
 tion of Mother Maitland. 
 
 "So she's dead!" said Mrs. Fuller, who, not having 
 seen Mother Maitland for some weeks, was paying her 
 a short call. "It's rather of a mercy poor soul! I've 
 known Polly Staunton this forty year, and she's always 
 been a poor, ailin' critter. She's at rest, thank the Lord!" 
 
 "Dick" White looked at Mrs. Fuller mysteriously, and 
 pulled her to one side. 
 
 "I ain't never had sech luck with sickness sense I took 
 the farm," he said, complainingly. "They ain't no chance 
 o' sendin' Mother Maitland off to Fairweather, I'm 
 afeard, and the Lord only knows what'll happen to us. 
 What do you think, Mrs. Fuller? Is she a witch, 'r 
 ain't she? I'd like to know your opinion." 
 
 "Witch!" cried good Mrs. Fuller, impatiently. "She 
 ain't no more a witch, Dick White, than you or I be 
 not a mite. She's a poor, crazy woman that's all. Dr. 
 Dow says she won't never git right again, but Dr. Dow
 
 "Ye Christmas Witch." 33 
 
 don't know everything, no more'n anybody else. For 
 all you or I know, she may wake up some mornin' as 
 bright as ever. She's had trouble; but this witch talk! 
 It puts me out o' mind with the whole o' ye. I s'posed 
 witches had gone out er fashion. I hain't heered nothin' 
 on 'em sense the war. They ain't no use trumpin' 'em up 
 again, to my notion. I don't believe they ever was 
 witches, any way. I ain't no believer in ghosts, nor 
 witches, nuther. Don't you be scart by all this talk, 
 Dick White. Mis White's good to Mother Maitland, 
 'n I'm glad on it. 'Tain't clear whether it's Fairweather 
 or Fenmarsh had orter keep her, but as long as she stays 
 with us, you be as good to her as you hev been, 'n there 
 won't no harm come to ye. Now, you 'mark my words. 
 I can't help a-hopin'," she continued in a low voice, "that 
 a letter or somethin'll come from her folks in England. 
 I believe they'll pay suthin' sometime. Her money's 
 pretty much gone, I know, but I wouldn't wonder if the 
 pay came from somewheres or other." 
 
 The strong convictions of Mrs. Fuller had for a while 
 their effect upon Dick White. Then a sudden succession 
 of calamities fell upon the town-farm. The White's eldest 
 boy, a lad of fourteen or fifteen, fell from a beam and 
 broke his arm; one of the cows cast her calf; and a child 
 carelessly took a burning brand into the barn and it was 
 destroyed by fire. 
 
 Now Fenmarsh was all awake. The witch belonged to 
 P'airweather, and to Fairweather she must go. Accord- 
 ingly, one sunny May morning, poor Mother Maitland, 
 with her spinet, her oaken chest and her boxes of plants, 
 was unceremoniously bundled into Dick White's long 
 wagon and carted across the Connecticut River to the 
 town-farm of Fairweather.
 
 234 White Butterflies. 
 
 She was cheerful and composed over the move, ana 
 chatted incessantly as she passed along. She alwavs 
 called Dick White, "Richard," and as he was never harsh 
 with her, she treated him with benignant condescension. 
 
 "It is a pleasant day for Christmas," she said, dreamily, 
 "but I don't like to have it quite so warm at this season." 
 
 "A little while ago you was findin' it too cold for 
 Christmas," said Dick White, good-humoredly ; "you're 
 kinder hard to suit." 
 
 "The weather is too warm for Christmas Day," re- 
 peated Mother Maitland, with emphasis. "I fear the 
 church will be uncomfortably warm. The children have 
 been busy trimming it all the morning. I hope the exer- 
 tion has not been too much for them." 
 
 "I guess not," interposed Dick White drily. 
 
 "If it is too warm when we get there, Richard, I wish 
 you personally to see to having the windows opened. 
 My head will ache if the air is too close. You will please 
 attend to it, Richard." 
 
 "Wai, I ain't a-runnin* this here 'church' that we're 
 goin' to," said Dick White. "It's John Gerrish that 
 runs this concern, 'n I don't know how he'll feel about 
 givin' you plenty of air, I'm sure. I'm afeard he won't 
 step around so lively as to please ye as Laury 'n I hev." 
 
 She paid little heed to his warnings, but kept on prat- 
 tling of Christmas trimmings and the Christmas service, 
 until the good man was almost wild. 
 
 "Now, see here," he said kindly, "John Gerrish 'n his 
 wife won't put up with so much of this Christmas non- 
 sense as I do. You want to keep kinder quiet over here. 
 Fairweather folks don't like ye none too well. You was 
 kinder airy when ye used to live over here, 'n they don't 
 forgit it. Now, Mother Maitland." he went on impres-
 
 Ye Christmas Witch." 235 
 
 sively, "you're sensible enough about your plants 'n 
 takin' keer o' yerself why can't ye understand me? 
 You want to quit this Christmas talk, now you're going 
 to Fairweather." 
 
 She looked at him with vacant, unheeding blandness. 
 
 "I think if we pass a shop," she said, "I will stop and 
 buy a few more Christmas gifts for the tenants. I'm 
 sure I haven't enough." 
 
 "No; I guess ye haint!" ejaculated Dick White. " 'N 
 ye haint got no money to buy none with neither. Lord!" 
 he continued, under his breath, "crazy folks is funny! 
 I can't get an idea into her noddle to save me." 
 
 They rode on. John Gerrish met them as they drove 
 up to the door. He had no mind to receive this gracious, 
 queenly-looking woman, with her wandering far-away 
 eyes, and her tone of lofty condescension but the judge 
 had decided that Fairweather must take her; so that 
 nothing more was to be said. 
 
 "We're goin' to have another trial, mind ye, Dick 
 White," he said, crossly. "They all say they wa'n't fair- 
 play this time. She'll go kitin' back to Fenmarsh before 
 many weeks. Now, you mark me!" 
 
 "Be careful how you move the chest, Richard," said 
 Mother Maitland imperiously. "The Christmas gifts are 
 in it, and some of them are frail. Christmas Day will 
 be entirely spoiled if the gifts are injured " 
 
 "All right," said Dick White, pleasantly. 
 
 "Lord! does she go on like that?" asked John Gerrish. 
 "How did she get so much Christmas in her head?"' 
 
 "You know her son died on Christmas Day and it 
 was Christmas Day that she went crazy," said Dick 
 White soberly. "You wanter kinder humor her like 
 'n she won't make ye no trouble."
 
 236 White Butterflies. 
 
 "No broken arms, no cast calves, nor burnt barns, I 
 s'pose." John Gerrish spoke very sarcastically. 
 
 "She didn't break no arms, nor cast no calves, nor 
 burn no barns, as I know on," said Dick White dog- 
 gedly. 
 
 "Ye know she did," said John Gerrish under his 
 breath and through shut teeth, as he thrust his face close 
 against Dick White's. "Ye know she did: 'n I'd a sight 
 rather see the old black man himself comin' in at my 
 door, than yonder crazy woman 'n nobody knows why 
 better than you do, Dick White, you know it!" 
 
 "Don't be a fool!" 
 
 Dick White turned a little pale as he heard these 
 fearful words, and with just this brief exclamation, he 
 gathered up his reins and hurried off. 
 
 In the meantime, down the village street of Fenmarsh 
 paraded a procession of men and boys ringing bells, 
 beating tin pans and shouting till they were hoarse. 
 
 "Good riddance to the Christmas witch!" they cried. 
 "Down with the Papists! Over the hills and far away 
 goes Mother Maitland!" 
 
 The church-bell was rung. The town had the aspect 
 of a holiday. 
 
 In the middle of June the case was tried again, and this 
 time it went against Fenmarsh, as John Gerrish had pre- 
 dieted. No calamity had occurred in the poor-house at 
 Fairweather, except the breaking down of a pantry-shelf 
 loaded with dishes. The shelf was old and weak, but 
 no matter. Mother Maitland was at the bottom of it, in 
 spite of the fact that she was picking strawberries for a 
 barmecide Christmas feast, at the very moment when the 
 shelf gave way. 
 
 Then John Gerrish with a great ado carted back the
 
 "Ye Christmas Witch." 237 
 
 poor little woman, with the spinet, the chest and the 
 plants, to Dick White. 
 
 "You'll have to keep her now," he said triumphantly, 
 "till after the first of January, sure, for the case can't be 
 tried again till then, if it ever is." 
 
 So, unwillingly enough, Fenmarsh accepted the charge 
 again, and the Summer passed on without further inci- 
 dent. 
 
 It was three o'clock of a pleasant afternoon early in 
 September that the dwellers on Height-O'-Land saw a 
 cloud of dust rising on the Boston turnpike leading into 
 Fenmarsh. Out of the cloud of dust glimmered a sheen 
 of gold lace, cockades, and red uniforms. 
 
 On came the cavalcade, attracting immediate and uni- 
 versal attention as it swept along through the village 
 street. Small boys gathered as if by a miracle, or as if 
 a new Roderick Dhu had taught them to arise, as it 
 were, out of the ground. Heads appeared at windows. 
 All Fenmarsh was agape. 
 
 First came two outriders in red uniforms and gilt trap- 
 pings. Their horses were fine and fresh. Then came a 
 coach which was the grandest ever yet seen, at that time, 
 in Fenmarsh, though it would look clumsy and lumber- 
 ing enough to modern eyes. On the box was mounted 
 a liveried coachman with powdered wig, while a gor- 
 geous footman rode at the back of the vehicle. Two 
 outriders followed at a little remove behind the coach. 
 
 They paused in the village street but once, and that 
 was in front of Mr. Mellen's store, to ask if it were 
 known to him where dwelt a certain Mr. Tobias Fuller. 
 
 It was the footman who sought this information, and 
 when it was given, he sprang back to his place, and on 
 went the procession till it turned the curve leading to
 
 238 White Butterflies. 
 
 the Height-O'-Land road, passed the small white cottage 
 once occupied by the Maitlands, and paused at last be- 
 fore the low, comfortable farm-house of Constable To- 
 bias Fuller. At a discreet remove lingered the motley 
 crowd of curious villagers. Who, in the name of the 
 Continental Congress, were these lordly people, and 
 what could they possibly want with Tobias Fuller? 
 
 The footman opened the carriage-door and a gentle- 
 man, elegantly but plainly clad, sprang to the ground. 
 He, in his turn, assisted a lady to alight. Her fair young 
 face and stately bearing impressed at once the curious 
 lookers-on. 
 
 "You are Mistress Tobias Fuller," said this beautiful 
 creature graciously, "I am Elizabeth Maitland, of Mait- 
 land Hall, Warwickshire, now the Countess of El- 
 lerslie. Your letter to me was long delayed by falling 
 into the hands of a wicked man, who had doubtless re- 
 ceived and destroyed many others. At last it reached 
 me, however, and I hastened, as soon as illness would 
 permit, to come to America. Where is my mother?" 
 
 Her tone was piteous. She evidently feared the worst. 
 Could Mrs. Fuller tell her that her mother was a mind- 
 less pauper at the Fenmarsh town-farm upon the hill? 
 
 That excellent woman, who had been thrown into a 
 condition approaching panic by the sudden appearance 
 of so much scarlet and gold, was now thoroughly off her 
 balance. Her honest face grew red and white by turns, 
 while she dropped bewildered curtsies from time to time. 
 A countess, too! Merciful heavens! Poor Mrs. Fuller 
 felt that her cup was full! 
 
 "Do you not know where she is?" began the Countess 
 of Ellerslie again in a tone of the keenest distress. TMs 
 lent Mrs. Fuller a tongue.
 
 "Ye Christmas Witch." 239 
 
 "I do indeed, your honor forsooth," she commenced 
 in painful embarrassment. "Your mother is alive, and 
 she is livin' with Mr. Dick White, in the low red house, 
 with six maple trees before it, as you go along the first 
 road from here that turns to your right." 
 
 Her manner suggested something more than the em- 
 barrassment which might naturally be expected in an 
 humble village matron encountering a great personage. 
 
 "Is is she ill?" stammered the lady anxiously. 
 
 "She that is she is not quite well, mum you will 
 see," was all that good Mrs. Fuller could say, and the 
 lady, handing over the directions with great plainness to 
 the coachman, was shut into the carriage again, and the 
 superb cortege swept onward up the hill. 
 
 At the poor-house reigned the traditional calm which 
 is said to precede the tempest. Two of the older pauper 
 women, gaunt, hollow-eyed, unsightly, sat on a bench be- 
 neath the maple trees. The only old man among them was 
 raking up a little pile of rowan in the field near by. A 
 half-witted young woman, whose dull-faced, fatherless 
 child stood staring, thumb in mouth, at the robins in the 
 trees overhead, was helping to tidy the kitchen. Her 
 name was Letitia, commonly abbreviated to Tishy. 
 
 All of these were struck by a sort of an electric paraly- 
 sis, as the magnificent escort of the Countess of Ellerslie 
 hove in sight, climbing wearily, but with a certain eager- 
 ness, the long, hard hill. The noise brought Mother 
 Maitland to the front door. She had been in a garden- 
 plot behind the house, attending to her plants. As they 
 drew up, she stood there in placid dignity, her lips mov- 
 ing as they always did, and her whole air, as usual, as of 
 one in a dream.
 
 240 White Butterflies. 
 
 Elizabeth Maitland could not wait for the door to be 
 opened for her. 
 
 "Mother!" she screamed, "Oh, mother! I have found 
 you at last. Don't you know me? What is it? What 
 makes you look so? Oh, Arthur, Arthur, make haste 
 she is fainting !" 
 
 The Earl of Ellerslie was none too soon. As he 
 rushed to aid his wife, the old woman, white as the soft 
 summer clouds floating in the calm September sky 
 above her, fell, like one dead, into his arms. "Tishy" 
 brought water. She was quite collected, but if she had 
 known that she was waiting upon a live earl, she would 
 have fainted away more completely than had Mother 
 Maitland. The maid of the Countess ran hither and 
 thither, wringing her hands. She was far less useful 
 than "Tishy." 
 
 It was a long time before the poor mother came to 
 herself. The scarlet-coated outriders dismounted, and 
 lay down under the trees. The grand coach was drawn 
 up beside the grassy road, and the horses were tethered 
 to a stout sapling. Yet, still on the plain couch in the 
 rag-carpeted sitting room of the poor-house, large and 
 small bustled about, endeavoring to restore the poor de- 
 mented creature, whom, but a few moments before, they 
 had considered as hardly worth lifting a finger for. Dick 
 White, himself, had gone for Doctor Dow, and before 
 he could return with that functionary, who was, it is 
 needless to say, in a white heat of excitement, a goodly 
 portion of the population of Fenmarsh, and even of the 
 adjoining towns, were gathered in the vicinity of the 
 house, awaiting developments. 
 
 At last, when they were beginning to despair of ever 
 rousing her again, the eyes of Mother Maitland opened
 
 "Ye Christmas Witch." 241 
 
 wide, and rested upon the beautiful face of her long-lost 
 daughter. Then there came a strange look in them. 
 The terrible blow which had been given to the tilted 
 brain had restored its balance. The look was not the 
 wild, far-away, dreamy look of the last few months it 
 was the old, sane expression of the years gone by. 
 Mother Maitland was herself again. 
 
 "I have been in a dream, Elizabeth," she said, looking 
 about her with dilated eyes. "I thought, dear, that it 
 was the Christmas morning, and I heard you and Edith 
 and Gerald singing carols under my window, and it woke 
 me up." 
 
 . Thus the long dream of Christmas was ended, and the 
 kind, kind saint, who watches over the Christmas-keep- 
 ing, had restored this poor deluded one to her own. 
 
 "Poor mother!" sobbed Elizabeth Maitland but how 
 poor she did not know until the next day, when she ex- 
 tracted the full history of the trials of her family from the 
 reluctant lips of the worthy Mrs. Fuller. 
 
 The blunt, curt annals of the town furnish the sequel 
 of the story: 
 
 "Ye most strange happening of ye yeare 1789 hathe 
 beene ye law-suits over ye keepe of ye Christmas witch, 
 so-called, ye Mistress Margaret Maitland." 
 
 Then, after describing at length the law-suits between 
 Fairweather and Fenmarsh, the chronicler continues: 
 
 "Ye suit would have been opened again in ye winter 
 courte, but yt on ye 3 day of September, ye daughter of 
 ye Mistress Maitland did come, with many servants and 
 a great noise of horses and carriages, and take away ye 
 Mistress Maitland to England. Ye daughter, yt was 
 hight ye Countess of Ellerslie, is of great wealth and 
 power. Ye letters from her to her mother were stole by 
 1ft
 
 242 White Butterflies. 
 
 ye wicked uncle of ye Countess" (the word Countess 
 appears to have filled the soul of the town clerk of Fen- 
 marsh with the keenest delight, as he lugs it in wherever 
 he can). "Ye Countess hathe paid everybody in hard 
 gold for ye care of her mother. Ye Mistress Fuller she 
 hath give two flowered gowns and a great amber comb 
 and some spoones of solid silver. Ye young son of ye 
 Mistress Fuller, ye Countess will send to ye college at 
 Hanover, yt he may have good learning. Ye Countess 
 hath begged ye Mistress Fuller yt she would go to keep 
 Christmas at ye great house of ye Countess in England. 
 Ye minde of ye Mistress Maitland hath beene clear and 
 bright since ye Countess hathe come. Ye Parson Be- 
 ment and other Godly men held a sitting to find out for 
 themselves what proofs were offered yt ye Mistress was 
 a witch. It is now thought yt she was no witch. Ye 
 Countess hath ordered yt ye bodies of her brother and 
 his wife and child be dug up and carried to Boston, to be 
 put on ship for England. Ye Countess hath got back 
 ye inheritance ye wicked uncle would have got from her 
 family, so ye Mistress Maitland is rich again. A great 
 crowd came together to see her start away for England 
 in ye carriage with ye Countess on ye 6 day of Septem- 
 ber. Ye Countess threw out handfuls of silver money 
 as they passed away out of the village. Such grand 
 doings were never seen in ye town of Fenmarsh. Ye 
 Grandsir Laban Trewis, yt was sure he saw ye Mistress 
 Maitland dance around a holly-bush in ye kitchen of her 
 house, when ye Godly men asked him sharp about it, did 
 saye yt it might be the light of ye fire upon her, while 
 she did walk about, so it is thought yt she be no witch." 
 Which is no more of a "flattening-out" than befalls 
 many another sensational story of to-day or yesterday
 
 "Ye Christmas Witch." 243 
 
 but Uncle Laban Trewis felt it keenly, and never again 
 occupied so important a position in Fenmarsh, as on that 
 eventful night in the village store when he made the 
 blood curdle in every heart by telling of poor proud Lady 
 Maitland's holly-bush, and how she did "dawnce aroun' 
 it." 
 
 And to this day the old people of Fairweather will tell 
 you how the tradition has come down to them, of the 
 grief which was felt by the whole town, that the Countess 
 of Ellerslie should not have had to drive with her out- 
 riders to Fairweather, instead of to Fenmarsh, to find her 
 mother. Thus signally do poor, fallible mortals often 
 fail to recognize in time the quality of Fatel
 
 Direxia. 
 
 IT was a great change for Eliezer Denham and his 
 wife Eunice to go from Maine to Arkansas to live; 
 but a distant cousin, who had enticed them thither 
 early in the fifties, helped them through their "chills," 
 and put in their first "craps" for them. It took them a 
 long time to become acclimated, and two of their four 
 children died in the process. It seemed for a while as 
 though Direxia and Cyrus, the remaining two, must 
 succumb also, but they were evidently made of sterner 
 stuff than the others, for they came out strong and 
 healthy in the end as health went on the Allowee River. 
 It was a little black, unhealthy-looking river, very dif- 
 ferent from the sparkling, rapid New England streams 
 to which the Denhams were accustomed; but they grad- 
 ually became used to it, and, in a way, proud of it, for 
 they soon learned that it was the centre of everything in 
 their new home. The cluster of houses, a mile or more 
 away from Eliezer's modest, not to say shackly, farm- 
 house, was known as Allowee Fo' Corners. The rolling 
 elevations in the distance were the Allowee Hills, the 
 county was Allowee County, and the people were "Allo- 
 wee Folks." By the time that Eliezer and his wife had 
 lived among the Allowee Folks for ten years, they were 
 as much a part of them as though they had been born 
 there. Eunice "dipped" with zest, and Eliezer, who had 
 been guiltless of tobacco in their Maine home, went about 
 now with his mouth full, and with the regulation Allowee 
 rivulets of tawny juice oozing from each end of that ir- 
 244
 
 Direxia. 245 
 
 regular orifice. They were naturalized now without a 
 doubt, though they still retained the industrious and 
 orderly habits of their old home. 
 
 It was amusing to hear the Yankee and the Arkansas 
 idioms struggling for the mastery in the speech of Eliezer 
 and Eunice during these ten years. They had been plain, 
 poor farmer-folk up in Maine, and their talk had been the 
 essence of New England dialect, uncorrupted by the 
 learning of the schools, of which neither of them had had 
 more than a weather-beaten red school-house, dating 
 back to Revolutionary times, had given them. Direxia 
 and the baby Cyrus grew up with a pretty straight Allo- 
 wee vernacular. 
 
 Direxia, at fifteen, was long, lank, hollow-cheeked 
 and hollow-chested a typical Arkansas girl. She had 
 ceased to attend school at the log school-house, and was 
 engaged to "stan' up" in a few weeks with Derry Driggs, 
 the twenty-year-old son of a neighboring planter, of 
 about the same status as Eliezer Denham. She was of 
 the sort that matures early in tody, but late in mind. 
 Outside, though it was different inside, she had taken 
 on the semblance of the girls about her. Her dark hair 
 was drawn back tightly from her face, and done into a 
 "waterfall" at the back, which was in its turn covered 
 with a "net." Thus there was, as Mr. Howells says, 
 ample scope afforded for the expression of character. 
 And Direxia had character. Her full, rather bulging 
 forehead, long, curving nose, and square chin showed 
 this. But chiefly her eyes, gray, deep-set, and glowing, 
 revealed, even in the undeveloped state in which she re- 
 mained when she married Derry Driggs, that there was a 
 gleam of fire in her, inherited from some New England 
 ancestor. She was true to the core to the State of her
 
 246 White Butterflies. 
 
 adoption, and would not have admitted the New Eng- 
 land strain; but it was there, and in due course of time 
 it came out. 
 
 One evening in early October, Direxia and her hus- 
 band, who was universally known along the Allowee as 
 "Dank" Driggs, were sitting in front of a bright pine- 
 knot blaze. A chilliness had come on since the sun 
 went down, and Dank had graciously seconded Direxia's 
 suggestion that they should have a fire, since she evi- 
 dently proposed to make it herself. They had been 
 married five years now, and there were two children, who 
 were properly sleeping at this moment in their trundle- 
 bed. 
 
 As Direxia went out to gather a fresh apronful from 
 the pile of loose "wood-trash" which lay beside the door 
 outside, a carriage rolled by. It contained a lady, a fine- 
 looking, elderly gentleman, and two or three young peo- 
 ple. Direxia knew that they were Judge Burnley and his 
 family, and that they were from the county town of Thrall 
 ("T'rall"), ten miles away. 
 
 She came in, threw the contents of her apron upon 
 the little fire which she had started, and then sat down 
 reflectively in its light. Dank was smoking stupidly. 
 
 "Yer a ornary houn', Dank," began Direxia at last, 
 with perfect good-nature. 
 
 Dank dropped his smoking and looked at her out of 
 his wide, gentle eyes, which sat in his hairy face like 
 twin lakes in a region of unrestrained brushwood. 
 
 "I don' come at what you-uns er aimin' after," he 
 admitted, frankly. 
 
 "Yer promised me ye'd nail that clapboard, that's 
 been hangin' off this six months, and tinker that front 
 door so't I could shet it. An' hyar comes along the
 
 Direxia. 247 
 
 quality from T'rall, ridin' in their carriages, an' seein' 
 it all, same's we-uns was ornary niggers. Pap don' 
 hev no sech goin's on not if mammy's roun', he don'." 
 
 "I ben so durn druv, Rexy," pleaded her husband, 
 tacitly admitting the justice of her rebuke. 
 
 Direxia sighed. 
 
 " 'Tain't that," she said, shaking her head as though 
 the problem were one which she had long wrestled with, 
 and had found difficult. " Tain't that. It's long o' yer 
 bein' Allowee folks. Lord knows they-uns all got thayer 
 clapboards hangin', an' thayer doors out o' jint. I 'lowed, 
 when I was little, that everybody was thataway. Pappy 
 was a heap more keerful'n the rest but he war'n't so 
 durn keerful nayther. An' when I come to go to T'rall 
 when I got big enough so's I war'n't skeert to death, 
 an' could notice how they-uns had things then I see't 
 wa'n't any need o' this yer lettin' things go so no more'n 
 o' lettin' things go in the house yer. They's plenty as 
 says 'tain't no use tryin' to keep a kitchen up right along 
 but you-uns know, Dank, I kin do it. It's shifless- 
 ness, when women folks can't. I heer'n my mammy tell 
 how up to Maine, whar she was raised, they have things 
 slick right along. Lord knows, Dank, I hate the Yan- 
 kees bad as you-uns do. My Uncle Gid up thar, he wrote 
 my pap the meanest kyind of a letter. He called him a 
 'clay-eater,' an' Lord knows what, long o' his writin' up 
 thar that they-uns better not be helpin' our niggers to git 
 to Canady. Oh, he run on jest turrible. We-uns don' 
 kyar for Maine but min' you, Dank, they-uns has things 
 slick up thar, mammy says." 
 
 Dank gave a sleepy, indifferent grunt. Direxia be- 
 stowed a reproachful look on his hairy face in the flick- 
 ering light.
 
 248 White Butterflies. 
 
 "You-uns was a tumble smart scholar, down to the 
 old school-house, when I fust knowed ye, Dank," she 
 began again, reflectively. 
 
 Dank grinned. 
 
 "So I heern ye say, Rexy," he acknowledged, with 
 shame-faced delight. 
 
 "Yes," went on Direxia, still musingly, "I 'lowed ye 
 was goin' to turn out a powerful smart man, somehow. 
 I do' know what I thought ye was goin' fer to> do, but 
 I reckoned ye was goin' fer to do somethin' o' yuther." 
 
 Dank was not so happy now, but he still gazed at his 
 wife kindly enough from under his shock of black hair. 
 
 "Lawyers seems to be powerful likely sort o' fellers," 
 she pursued, tentatively. "I 'low ye never let on, Dank, 
 how as ever ye could be a lawyer now?" 
 
 There was a pathetic look on Direxia's colorless face, 
 which gave her large features a certain softness. It 
 seemed to touch her impassive husband as he watched 
 her curiously in the light of the fire. 
 
 "Sho, now, Rexy!" he began, deprecatingly, "who'd 
 ever 'a 'lowed ye was thinkin' thataway!" 
 
 "I heern Jedge Burnley down to T'rall, you know, 
 talkin' how, if the Yanks don' quit foolin' with we-uns 1 
 niggers, we-uns was goin' fer to give hit ter 'em an' 
 them other fellers talked too, an' they said they was 
 mostly lawyers. Ever since then I've thought a heap 
 about they-uns. They had on good clo'es, Dank, and 
 they talked so sort o' perlite like it was nice. I re- 
 membered how you-uns used to speak pieces down to the 
 school-house, an' I' lowed ye could have made a likely 
 speech same as they-uns, if you was only a' lawyer long 
 o' them. What do they have to do, Dank, to be a law- 
 yer? Couldn't you be a lawyer?"
 
 Direxia. 249 
 
 "Oh, gawnamighty, Rexy!" cried her husband, ap- 
 palled by the height of her ambitions, "you-uns are 
 crazy fer a fac', I 'low ye be! Why, gal, lawyers has 
 to shave ev'ry durn day o' their lives, an' ye said yes- 
 self they had to wear good clo'es. An' they have to 
 read stiddy, I reckon, in them great leather-covered 
 books on a shelf in the court-house. I 'low it takes 'em 
 nigh onto a lifetime to git to be a reg'lar lawyer an' 
 most on 'em has to go to college, an' Lord knows what 
 all. Then they've got to be 'admitted to the bar' I 
 don't rightly yunderstan' it, Rexy, but thar's a heap o' 
 trash like that yer. Why, thar wan't never none o' my 
 folks lawyers. I couldn't be a lawyer, no more'n I could 
 be a a dawg, Rexy. Who'd take keer o' you-uns, 
 an' the young uns in thar, ef I was to go off tryin' to 
 be a lawyer! I reckon all the folks on the Allowee would 
 think I'd gone plumb crazy!" Dank gave a great 
 guffaw, and relapsed into the depths of his whiskers 
 again, whence clouds of smoke soon began to reissue, 
 indicating that he was regaining his composure after 
 the excitement to which his wife's insane fancies had 
 subjected him. 
 
 Direxia sighed a long, quivering sigh. Nobody would 
 know how she had tried, since she had married, and had 
 begun to think, as she had never done in her slow, 
 unripe girlhood, to work out a grand destiny for her 
 yielding, good-natured husband in her mind. He had 
 been a good scholar for Allowee folks, as she had said, 
 and as she had grown older, and had begun to dimly 
 comprehend the little world in which she lived, on 
 which a new light had been thrown by her mother- 
 hood, she longed for a glimpse into the enchanted 
 region in which it seemed to her that these people from
 
 250 White Butterflies. 
 
 Trail must live. If her little "Voylet," and the baby 
 Earl could go with such people, could ride in such car- 
 riages why, life would be a different thing to them 
 from what it was to her, and to the dull and earthy 
 folk along the river valley. Thus dimly she had groped 
 through mazes of reasoning, until she had come to the 
 conclusion that, if Dank could occupy a different station 
 in life, her children's future would be assured. 
 
 Her husband marked the frown of reflection which 
 still lingered upon her brow. 
 
 "Yer pappy'd laugh, I reckon, Rexy, if I should tell 
 him what you-uns been say in' to me," he began at length, 
 hoping good-humoredly to dissipate the shadows which 
 hung about her. 
 
 "Don't ye tell him," she exclaimed, earnestly. "Now, 
 don't ye go fur to be that mean!" 
 
 He promised her, chuckling over the idea of her 
 pappy's dismay, if his daughter's wild project should ever 
 reach his ears but she paid no heed to his mirth. She 
 was in the grasp of what, for the region of the Allowee, 
 were profound emotions. 
 
 "Ye see, somehow, Dank," she began after a moment's 
 thought, "I'm sick sometimes o' bein' jest nobody down 
 yer in Allowee County. Pap an' mammy they think 
 I'm jest stuck-up an' bigotty, but I ain't. I don't be- 
 gretch nothin' to Jedge Burnley's folks, only I kin see 
 plain enough that they have a heap better times than 
 we-uns do. All we-uns do is jest gittin' up in the mawn- 
 in' an' fryin' a mess fer breakfast, an' then crawlin' roun', 
 an' washin' up, an' such-like, an' then fryin' another mess 
 fer dinner, an' then walkin' out, likely, down to Pappy's, 
 or the Fo' Corners or such a matter, an' then fryin' an- 
 other mess fer supper, an' then goin' to bed. Then the's
 
 Direxia. 251 
 
 goin' to church, an* camp-meetin'. That's better; but 
 seems to me, they-uns gets a heap more outen livin' than 
 we-uns do." 
 
 "Likely," admitted Dank, yawning immoderately, but 
 without a thought of disrespect to his wife. "Most I 
 'low now, Rexy, is I've got to tote that truck to the Fo' 
 Corners an' git it started fer Memphis bright an' soon 
 in the mawnin'," and Dank shuffled off to bed. 
 
 Direxia pondered over the coals a little longer. Then, 
 with a long sigh, she raked them up, and was soon asleep 
 beside her husband. She never approached him again 
 upon the subject of changing his vocation; but when the 
 carriages of the "quality" rolled by her humble cabin, 
 she would look after them longingly, and secretly cherish 
 a hope that had sprung up in her proud heart that her 
 children might enjoy this better living, of which she had 
 caught glimpses in her poor starved soul, even if she and 
 her husband were to be forever denied it. 
 
 When little Earl was six years old, the war broke out. 
 Dank Driggs was not very "f erce" at first, as the Allowee 
 Folks expressed it. One night he and Direxia rode 
 over to T'rall to hear Judge Burnley and the other "law- 
 yers" recite the outrages to which the South had been 
 subjected by the North, and to urge the young men to 
 enlist. Direxia came home burning hot. 
 
 "You-uns got to go, Dank," she said when they were 
 fairly started on the ride home. 
 
 Even her husband's phlegmatic temperament had been 
 stirred. He "reckoned likely" he should, "after a spell." 
 
 "You-uns got to go now," insisted Direxia, shrilly. 
 
 "Lord, Rexy," protested Dank, feebly, "who gwine 
 put in the craps fer you-uns? Ye'll starve, likely, lessen 
 I put to an' seed awhile."
 
 252 White Butterflies. 
 
 Direxia yielded and gave him a fortnight's grace. 
 Each night he -was so weary with the incessant appli- 
 cation which she required that he could not even get 
 over to the Fo' Corners for his nightly dram a serious 
 loss to his comfort. At the end of the two weeks, though 
 his work was far Jrom done, as he declared, he enlisted 
 with a recruiting agent who came around, and left Di- 
 rexia to manage the plantation as best she might. 
 
 That year another little one came, suffered awhile 
 and died. Direxia struggled on. The children helped 
 her in the fields, and her house, which it had been her 
 pride to keep neat, she left largely to manage itself. 
 The second year Dank came home. He was heartily 
 sick of soldiering, and sighed for the flesh-pots of his 
 own home again, but there was a draft, and he found 
 himself back in the field, where he staid until the end 
 of the war, with only occasional and brief visits to the 
 Allowee. Dank never rebelled against authority. Like 
 so many of the Southern "pore whites," to which class 
 he really belonged, though far better off than many of 
 them, he was gentle and yielding to the point of ef- 
 feminacy. 
 
 In 1865 Dank returned home for good poor but 
 happy. He wore a corporal's stripe on his sleeve, and 
 felt mightily set up thereby. There was another baby 
 now, and Direxia had managed the farm so well that 
 it was in better condition than it had ever been under 
 Dank's supervision. 
 
 One summer evening Dank was just starting for the 
 Fo' Corners, when Direxia, who was getting worried at 
 the habit of heavy drinking which he had acquired in 
 the army, persuaded him to sit down outside a moment 
 and listen to the reciting of a "piece" by Voylet, who
 
 Direxia. 253 
 
 was growing up a bright and forward little maiden with 
 more of beauty than her poor mother had ever possessed. 
 Dank listened with a glow of fatherly pride, and after 
 the child had been sent to bed, having lingered so long 
 and so comfortably that he felt loath to rise, he sat on, 
 smoking assiduously. 
 
 "Hit's mighty pleasant to have ye roun' again, Dank," 
 said Direxia, contemplating him, if not with wifely pride, 
 with at least some degree of affection. 
 
 "Hit's mighty nice to be here, Rexy," responded Dank 
 with profound civility. 
 
 "I 'low you-uns did right well, comin' off a corp'ral 
 so," continued Direxia, with a slight interrogative in- 
 flection in her tone. 
 
 "I reckon," rejoined Dank, complacently. 
 
 "I 'lowed ye'd come home a gineral, shore, Dank," 
 pursued his wife. Then, seeing that she had offended 
 him, she added hastily, "but hit's powerful smart in 
 you-uns to git to be a corp'ral. They ain't many did so 
 well in Allowee County." 
 
 Dank simply grunted. 
 
 "Don' you-uns git some Ian' or or somethin' some 
 extra pay o' yuther, fer bein' corp'ral, Dank, now the 
 war's over?" she asked a moment later. 
 
 "Women folks is durn fools," remarked Dank, imper- 
 sonally, taking time to blow out a cloud of smoke before 
 he deigned to notice her question. "Why, gal, hain't 
 ye sensed it that we-uns are mustered out now? They 
 ain't no army no more. Lord! We hain't drawed no 
 pay not fer a year or more! I reckon we-uns 'bleeged 
 to count ourselves lucky to git off with our skins, and 
 to have a place to settle down on ! 'Extry pay!' Wai 
 not much!"
 
 254 White Butterflies. 
 
 But Direxia was not to be driven from her main point, 
 even by such scorn as this. 
 
 "Dank, tell me this," she began a moment later, "an' 
 I won't pester you-uns no more. Ain't a corp'ral as big 
 as a jedge now?" 
 
 "Hit's diffrunt," began Dank, philosophically, after 
 something of a pause. 
 
 "Yes, hit's diffrunt," she repeated, eagerly, "but ain't 
 it somethin' like? Don't corp'rals go to Congress, an' 
 git to be somebody more'n Allowee Folks?" 
 
 "Huccom ye sech a durn fool!" he cried savagely 
 for him "I cayn't make out head nor tail to yer talk 
 nohow. I 'low I'm allers goin' to live down yer on the 
 Allowee now I've got back yer. Hit was good enough 
 for my pap, an' your pap, an' hit's good enough fer me. 
 Go to Congress! Lord! They ain't any Southerners 
 goin' to Congress for one while, not ef they-uns up 
 Nawth can help it, you bet! Congress! I 'low ye're 
 goin' crazy, shore, Rexy!" 
 
 Dank rose and shuffled off to the Fo' Corners, whence 
 
 he returned very drunk two or three hours later. The 
 
 last spark of hope in Direxia's heart that the social 
 
 position of herself and her children was ever to be 
 
 ' bettered by her husband, was out. 
 
 She devoted herself now to the training of her chil- 
 dren, and almost spoiled her health and her head in 
 trying to help them she had some dim notion of 
 helping herself also in the long evenings when Dank 
 was away with his mates, and the younger children were 
 asleep. Then a fifth child came, but, though Direxia 
 tended him with feverish care, he sickened and died 
 before he was three years old. The one next older, 
 the brightest and prettiest of them all, a boy on whom
 
 Direxia. 255 
 
 she had set bright hopes, followed him. Earl was heavy- 
 faced, gentle and forceless like his father; but Direxia 
 would not admit even to herself that he was not so 
 "likely" as "Voylet." 
 
 At fifteen Voylet was a beauty for the Allowee. She 
 had learned, as her fond mother told her neighbors, 
 everything that could be learned in the valley, and in 
 the fall she was going to T'rall to school. By saving 
 and pinching, in the true New England fashion though 
 Direxia might have stopped it if she had suspected 
 that she was copying so reprehensible a model she had 
 amassed a little fund, to which she was constantly add- 
 ing, by the most incessant labor, for the education of 
 her children. No lawyer, nor anybody else, she was 
 determined, should hold his head above her children, 
 on account of superior knowledge. With an innate 
 acuteness which seized and held fast the best of the con- 
 clusions at which she arrived by slow and painful mental 
 processes, she had discerned that education was the key 
 to that broader existence which she coveted for her chil- 
 dren, and she proposed to devote her life to securing it 
 for them. 
 
 Her father and mother did not survive the war many 
 years. They lived long enough to hear from their North- 
 ern friends of the sad changes which had taken place 
 during the five or six years which had passed since they 
 had written last; and to learn, in the most chaste and ex- 
 plicit New England plain speech, that they were regarded 
 as "Rebs" of the blackest dye, and as cut off forever from 
 the sweet influences of family affection. Eliezer retorted 
 in kind, and he and Eunice gave up at last a hope which 
 they had secretly cherished to go back to their old home 
 some time and "see the folks." In the better land to
 
 256 White Butterflies. 
 
 which they departed soon afterward, a land to which they 
 might have remained strangers for years to come if they 
 had only staid under the shadows of the salubrious blue 
 hills of the North, instead of subjecting their ignorant 
 Maine constitutions to the miasms of the Allowee in 
 that better land, no doubt, their foolish quarrels were all 
 settled. 
 
 Cyrus succeeded to his father's plantation, but the 
 money which the old people had saved, considerably over 
 a thousand dollars, despite the ravages of the war, fell 
 to Direxia. She put it hungrily by for her children, 
 though Dank thought he knew of other ways to spend 
 it. Direxia, despite her love for him, on this one mat- 
 ter was adamant. Those children were going to be edu- 
 cated. 
 
 ?. Cyrus had not turned out to be essentially different 
 [from the small planters around him. He drank more 
 than was good for him, and his "shif'less" young wife, 
 who had once been the belle of the Allowee, had faded 
 in a few years to be a dragged-out-looking woman, with 
 the clayey complexion and lustreless eyes which char- 
 acterized the female portion of the Allowee folks. Her 
 children were neglected, her house was worse even than 
 the average of her neighbors', and Direxia hated to go 
 to the poor cabin which her mother had kept spotlessly 
 neat through so many years. But Cyrus did not seem 
 to mind it. 
 
 "I've heern tell as how they's colleges fer gyurls now- 
 adays, same as they is fer boys," Direxia told her husband 
 one day, shortly after she learned of the amount of 
 money which had come to her from her parents. "If 
 they is, I reckon Voylet is goin'." 
 
 Dank had no opinion of this putting forward of worn-
 
 Direxia. 257 
 
 an-bodies, and he said so, but Direxia was far in ad- 
 vance of him, and, indeed, of her entire section. Voylet 
 was going to have the best kind of an education that 
 was to be had, and if colleges supplied that, why, to a 
 college Voylet should go. 
 
 In the fall, as Direxia had "reckoned," Voylet went 
 to Trail. A boarding-place was found for her in a re- 
 spectable family who had moved into town from the Allo- 
 wee. Friday nights some one drove in for her and 
 brought her home. 
 
 But one night in February, when the journey to town 
 had been made with infinite labor through liquid miles 
 of mud, Earl came home without Voylet. He brought 
 a lady-like note from that highly-educated young per- 
 son, saying that the roads were so "tumble" that she 
 thought she wouldn't go home this week, especially 
 as she had an invitation to attend a concert the next 
 evening and was having a powerful good time. 
 
 Direxia sniffed trouble immediately. The next morn- 
 ing she went in person, and brought her daughter home. 
 She learned then, what she had dimly suspected before, 
 that Voylet's young affections were fixed upon a mascu- 
 line object in the person of a journeyman plumber in 
 Trail. Direxia wept and pleaded, but as the weeks went 
 on, she saw that there was no use in opposition. Voylet 
 was wilful and spoiled, the young man seemed a "likely 
 enough" sort of a fellow, and devoted to her. Dank 
 thought it was a heap better for "the gyurl to settle down 
 as gyurls should, stid o' settin' out to git a heap o' 'larnin' 
 they hadn't no use fer" and, in the May following the 
 Trail educational experiment, Voylet was married, and 
 after a trip to Memphis she "settled down" in a little 
 home of her own. 
 17
 
 258 White Butterflies. 
 
 Now, Direxia concentrated all her hopes upon Earl. 
 The boy was not stupid, and when he left the log school- 
 house, where he had had a year of instruction from the 
 best teacher that the Allowee had ever known, it was 
 predicted that by a year more of solid study he might 
 be ready to enter the college in the next county, to 
 which Direxia's ambition had turned. The young teacher 
 had taken the pains to tutor Earl out of school hours 
 for a little extra pay, and had had a faculty of interesting 
 the boy, so that he had really done well. He was ac- 
 cordingly sent to school in T'rall, just as his sister had 
 been, only he boarded with her, and, to do her justice, 
 she attempted to second her mother's projects. He 
 worked through the year and came home in June, having 
 accomplished his task. 
 
 That summer Cyrus wanted extra hands, and Earl 
 went over to the old homestead and staid several weeks 
 with him. He earned some money by this means, but 
 he acquired a habit which was worse than any lack of 
 money. Officious neighbors brought the news of it to 
 Direxia. They thought she would not mind it much. 
 Dank drank enough, heaven knew. But there were not 
 so many hopes pinned to Dank as to Earl. Direxia was 
 wild at the thought of her son's future being imperilled 
 by a possible appetite for liquor, and she had long talks 
 with the boy on the subject before he started for col- 
 lege in the fall. He made her many fair promises, but 
 before another summer came around, he was expelled 
 for getting into some scrape while he was not himself, 
 and he came home to find his mother heart-broken. 
 
 The boy was sorry, but he was too shallow and too 
 easy-going to feel his disgrace and her disappointment 
 very long; and as Dank, who had had the "middlin'
 
 Direxia. 259 
 
 poorlys" ever since his army life, and had not lived in 
 a way to get over them, sickened during the spring, 
 and was not able to do a stroke of work all the season, 
 the boy had his hands full. In the fall Dank died, and 
 poor Direxia mourned him sincerely. The next year 
 she and Earl managed the plantation together. He did 
 not conquer his habits, but he was fond of her, and, 
 with the overweening love of a mother, she had man- 
 aged to forgive him, outwardly at least. 
 
 The year following, Earl was twenty-one. The wom- 
 en on the Allowee were old at forty, and though Direxia 
 was not much more than that, she felt that her life was 
 spent. She had cherished her poor little ideals, but she 
 had seen them shattered; and since Dank's death she 
 had felt that she had little to live for. 
 
 Earl, like all of the young fellows of the neighbor- 
 hood, among whom he had lost none of prestige by his 
 escapades, spent every evening away from home, and 
 usually in the store at the Fo' Corners. He was re- 
 garded as an oracle among his companions. His lan- 
 guage was good, and he knew more than any other 
 young man upon the Allowee. There had been some 
 talk about his studying law, but even his ambitious 
 mother did not encourage him to do so. She had a 
 blind feeling that, so long as he was at home where 
 she could look after him, he would not go quite to the 
 dogs. She was not so sure of it, if he should try to 
 shift for himself. Earl, though he enjoyed the distinc- 
 tion awarded him by his companions, seemed utterly 
 destitute of aspiration. It had seemed to be his duty, 
 after his father's death, to stay with his mother, and to 
 carry on the plantation as well as he could. He had 
 been content to rest in that place.
 
 260 White Butterflies. 
 
 One night he came home soberer than usual. Direxia 
 did not always sit up for him, but to-night she had hap- 
 pened to. His eyes were very bright, and he looked 
 handsome, though he had never been thought so good- 
 Jooking as his sister. 
 
 "I've got some news for you, mother," he began, al- 
 most before he had opened the door. 
 
 A sudden dread smote her heart. She had picked up 
 some of the phrases of civilization from her children, 
 but in her excitement she reverted to the old vernacular 
 in which she first talked and in which she thought. 
 
 "You-uns struck me all of a heap, Earl," she began, 
 tremulously, "but I 'low it's good news by yer looks." 
 
 "You're right it is," he rejoined, with smiling pride. 
 "Jinny Powers is going to marry me. I've made her 
 set the day already. I told her everything was ready 
 here for her, and I knew you were lonesome. She says 
 the wedding may come off the first of March." 
 
 It was now the middle of January. Direxia drew a 
 quick breath. She could not even congratulate her boy, 
 though the girl was well enough, and she could see that 
 he was perfectly happy. She sat dumb. 
 
 "Speak out, mammy!" he cried, with a spice of mas- 
 culine sternness in his tone. "Ain't you glad? Ain't I 
 a lucky fellow? Half the boys on the Allowee are after 
 Jinny and she's going to have me!" 
 
 "Hit's powerful pleasant, I 'low," stammered Direxia, 
 "I hope you'll make her a good husband, Earl I'm 
 shore I do an' that she'll make you a good wife. I I 
 ain't so dreadful lonesome 'cept long o' missin' your 
 pappy an' 'tain't likely she's goin' to be like he was to 
 me." 
 
 "Poor mammy!" cried the young man, too full of
 
 Direxia. 26i 
 
 happiness to reproach her for not entering more fully 
 into his joy. "You've had a hard time but you'll like 
 Jinny and she'll like you, and we'll enjoy ourselves now, 
 you'll see." 
 
 But to Direxia the thought of having this giddy young 
 Jinny Powers come into her own home as the mistress 
 thereof was very hard. She went to bed weeping un- 
 reasonably, and all through the next day she could not 
 keep her thoughts on her work. Her shining kitchen! 
 There was none like it on the Allowee. Jinny Powers 
 would doubtless allow her mother-in-law the privilege 
 of keeping it clean in the future, as she had done in the 
 past but Direxia was not sure that she should thor- 
 oughly enjoy that privilege under the changed con- 
 ditions of her life. 
 
 Earl went off soon after supper the next evening, and 
 Direxia sat down beside the lamp and gazed into the 
 fire through the tears which rolled silently down her 
 cheeks from time to time. At last, from sheer weari- 
 ness of her thoughts, she picked up the county paper, 
 published at Trail, and glanced idly over its columns. 
 She regarded with pride the advertisement of the 
 plumbers for whom Voylet's husband worked. Then 
 she read a story, at the silly sentimentalism of which 
 the hard-headed yet, after all, fiercely sentimental old 
 woman sniffed disdainfully. Then she turned to a col- 
 umn of local advertisements, and one among them caught 
 her eye. She read it over several times. It said: 
 "Wanted, a matron for the new orphan asylum, at once. 
 Apply to Mrs. Judge Burnley." 
 
 "A matron!" reflected Direxia. "I don't exactly know 
 what a matron is. I reckon it's somebody to look after 
 the housekeepin' for them pore little things. I reckon
 
 262 White Butterflies. 
 
 she'd likely have to see that the house was scrubbed 
 clean, and the young 'uns too, an' see to the cookin' an' 
 such-like." 
 
 "That yer would likely be powerful hard work," she 
 pursued a moment later. "Hit's a mighty big buildin', 
 that yer orphan asylum. I seen hit when I was to T'rall 
 many a time. I 'lowed hit was nigh about finished up. 
 Likely they're ready to move into it. They's a heap 
 o' orphans, I heern tell, an' now hit's got too small fer 
 'em in the old place pore little things, their pappies 
 was killed in the war. I'd like right well to do 'em a 
 good turn myself." 
 
 The next morning, Direxia put on her best mourn- 
 ing bonnet and shawl, and, harnessing a mule with her 
 own hands, started for T'rall, with the dimmest possible 
 ideas as to what she was going to do. She went at once 
 to the grand residence of Judge Burnley. 
 
 It was well along in the twilight when Direxia and the 
 mule were on their homeward way. There had been old 
 neighbors of the Driggses in T'rall, to whom Direxia 
 had referred Mrs. Burnley. They all testified to Direxia's 
 capabilities as a housekeeper, in the Allowee meaning 
 of the word. They told how she had run the farm when 
 her husband had been away. They said " 'Meers Dank 
 Driggs passed fer a powerful smart woman" up Allowee 
 way. 
 
 Direxia was going to undertake to be matron of the 
 great new orphan asylum, at a salary which seemed to 
 her too munificent to be true. As she rode along, her 
 thoughts kept time to the jogging of the old mule, 
 something like this: "Wai, Rexy Driggs! what in time 
 would Dank say if he was to know this yer? Likely 
 as not he does sense it up thar" and Direxia turned
 
 Direxia. i 263 
 
 her face reverently toward the sky, "Like as not he's a 
 laughin' fit to kill, same as he uster, when he was tickled 
 hyar. Wai, he wouldn't strike out to be a lawyer nor 
 a gineral. He was boun' fer to be a planter down in the 
 bottom of the Allowee, an' so he was. I ain't sayin' 
 but it was best so," with a guilty thought that she was 
 doing her kind, weak husband an injustice "but I al- 
 ways did think that Dank Driggs could have took his 
 place to be more 'count than ever he set up to be. Then 
 I was powerful onhappy because Voylet up an' got mar- 
 ried so before she had come to bein' sensible, 's ye 
 might say. I wanted Voylet to be like Jedge Burnley's 
 gals, and them as they goes with, but she ain't. She's a 
 nice gal Voylet is an' she takes powerful good keer of 
 her babby but she's a livin' along, fer all I see, not much 
 better'n I always was on the Allowee and I meant she 
 should have something a heap better. I do' know as 
 she was to blame. Likely she couldn't see it as I do. 
 An' then thar's Earl. I always thought he was the like- 
 liest boy in Allowee County. He mought have gone to 
 Congress he mought have been President likely, if 
 
 if ," Direxia could not name even to herself the 
 
 cause of the failure of her idol .to come up to her hopes 
 of him. She sobbed aloud as she rattled over the rough 
 
 road. "But " gathering her strength with a long 
 
 sigh "likely he won't git much worse. Likely Jinny 
 Powers'll change him. He's boun' to be the bigges' man 
 on the Allowee, 'out'en he gits worse. But 'tain't what 
 I planned fer him. An' now, after all this projeckin' to 
 git the res' to start out in the worl' an' be different 
 the old woman herself has had to do it fer 'em." She 
 laughed to herself, doubtful as she really felt in her 
 modest soul of her capacity to do the work which she
 
 264 White Butterflies. 
 
 had undertaken. "She's set out to be somebody, an' 
 she don' mean to give up till she's wore to a plumb 
 frazzle." 
 
 Direxia felt an exaltation akin to that with which 
 a sculptor regards the shape of the clay toward which 
 his thought has long been tending, but which has hith- 
 erto eluded his yearning touch. To her simple soul it 
 was an ambition of the loftiest kind to become the matron 
 of an orphan asylum. 
 
 For twenty years Direxia Driggs labored in the sphere 
 to which she had been called by the chance reading 
 of the T'rall paper that night. She became the pet of the 
 directors of the institution, who numbered some of the 
 leading women of the county. Her juicy idioms, her 
 strong yet gentle character, her loving devotion to duty, 
 made her the friend and favorite of them all. When 
 she died in 188 , the mourning for her was more like 
 the mourning for a great hero of the war than for "only 
 a woman" a plain, homely woman from the Allowee. 
 She had instilled into the children who had been under 
 her care her own lofty ambitions. She had lived to see 
 some of them realize her hopes for them hopes which 
 had been almost as fervent as those which she had cher- 
 ished for her own children, and which had ended so mis- 
 erably. In the broader life which she had entered 
 in her new sphere of labor she had found the happiness 
 which she had hoped for. It had been a realization such 
 as is seldom granted to mortals. 
 
 The lawn which stretches out in front of the orphan 
 asylum is one of the most beautiful in the South. Mag- 
 nolia and tulip trees, pink judas trees, bowers covered 
 with the vines of the multiflora rose all of the choicest 
 products of that favored clime have been taught to grow
 
 Direxia. 285 
 
 there; but on a little knoll, clear and high amid this 
 luxuriance of greenery and bloom, all the shrubs and 
 trees have been cut away, and only the velvet grass is 
 reverently allowed to grow. The knoll is crowned by 
 a costly statue. It was carved by one of the foremost 
 of living sculptors, and represents a woman in cap and 
 spectacles a homely, large-featured old woman but 
 with a look upon her face which is an inspiration to every- 
 one who beholds it. 
 
 On the base of the statue, cut deep into the living 
 stone, is the name "Direxia Driggs." "This woman," the 
 inscription goes on to say, "though her lot lay always 
 among the humble and afflicted, ever reached forward to 
 the things which are before, and taught to all about her 
 the sacred lesson that mortals should make the most of 
 such gifts as the providence of God bestows. She rests 
 from her labors, and her works, yea, even the praise 
 of a mighty host of those for whom she unselfishly toiled, 
 do follow her." 
 
 Those who know all of Direxia's pathetic story can- 
 not behold without tears the beautiful memorial, in its 
 inexpressible simplicity and dignity. 
 
 Voylet and Earl come there sometimes, and bring their 
 children to gaze upon the statue. They often say dully, 
 "It is monstrous strange how mammy was for pushin' 
 us all on to be somebody," and shake their heads. Their 
 hearts ache dumbly even Earl's, under his sodden skin 
 for the pangs which they know they caused her. But 
 it was not in them to be like her. They will be Allowee 
 Folks to the end of the chapter.
 
 Lyddy Washburrf s Courtship. 
 
 HE prettiest girl in Franklin County." That was 
 what they called Lyddy Washburn. Brown- 
 haired, blue-eyed, pink-cheeked, red-lipped, of 
 a tall and slender figure, and a graceful and spirited car- 
 riage, the youngest and only surviving daughter of a 
 well-to-do farmer what wonder that from far and near 
 suitors came for Lyddy Washburn's hand? But "Law!" 
 said that young woman, many times over, "there ain't no 
 hurry at all about my marry in' and settlin' down." Which 
 in those days was rank heresy, Lyddy's mother having 
 been married at fourteen, and all Lyddy's mates being 
 settled in homes of their own, leaving that independent 
 young woman to the tender mercies of a younger set of 
 companions by the time she was twenty-two years old. 
 But Lyddy tossed her head, looked in her glass, and sang 
 the more blithely over her wheel and her churn. 
 
 "Now, Lyddy," her mother said one day, "why don't 
 you marry Jotham Hunter? He's a likely young fellow as 
 ever lived, and sets consid'able store by you." 
 
 "Jotham Hunter!" laughed Miss Lyddy. "Law, moth- 
 er, he's got red hair!" 
 
 "Wa'al, his heart's right," pleaded Mrs. Washburn. 
 
 "No use, mother," said her fractious daughter. "You 
 can't get rid of me yet awhile; and don't ever say 
 'Jotham Hunter' to me again." 
 
 "Wa'al, tell me one thing," said Mrs. Washburn, her 
 ill-concealed anxiety making her voice sound strained 
 266
 
 Lyddy Washburn's Courtship. 267 
 
 and unnatural. "You hain't now, Lyddy, you hain't, 
 be you? a-goin' to take Tart Taylor?" 
 
 A bright flush swept over Miss Lyddy's beautiful face. 
 
 "Who said I was a-goin' to 'take Tart Taylor/ Mother 
 Washburn?" she said, a little sternly. "Better wait till I 
 get a chance, I think! An' if I was a-goin' to 'take Tart 
 Taylor,' I'd like to know what's the reason he ain't as 
 good as Jotham Hunter?" 
 
 "Wa'al," said the old lady, slowly (she always began 
 with "Wa'al"), "they do say that Tart can't keep from 
 liquor; and though" here Mrs. Washburn no doubt 
 voiced the feeling of everybody in those days "though 
 every man must have his dram, yet there ain't no sense 
 in gettin' drunk at every raisin' an' trainin' an' cattle 
 show, as they tell on Tart Taylor; an' he's got his 
 mother to take care of; an' no daughter o' mine, Lyddy 
 Washburn, shall ever live with that cross-grained, ugly 
 old Aunt Betty Taylor!" and the old lady for she was 
 well along in years, Lyddy being the youngest of thir- 
 teen children stood up defiantly before her daughter, 
 her excitement giving her unwonted courage. 
 
 Lyddy Washburn's temper was roused, and she 
 glanced at her mother with a contemptuous expression, 
 like the spoiled child that she was. 
 
 "You'd better be savin' your advice, mother " she 
 
 began, in a high, clear voice, when suddenly a long shad- 
 ow fell across the room from the doorway, and "Cap'n 
 Tart" (Mr. Tertius Taylor was called "captain" from 
 the fact that he was an officer of the militia) stood before 
 them, with his hat in his hand. 
 
 Mrs. Washburn tossed her head, and turned away with 
 a stiff nod, while Lyddy, with a heightened color and 
 unwonted nervousness of manner, welcomed the stately
 
 268 White Butterflies. 
 
 newcomer, whose military bearing and critical taste in 
 the matter of his female companions had set half the girls 
 in the county wild over him. It had been easy to see for 
 some weeks now that Captain Tart had made up his mind 
 to "have Lyddy Washburn," and that that captious dam- 
 sel was more complaisant toward him than toward any 
 of her other suitors. 
 
 It was now the middle of May. The lilacs were budded 
 in the front door yard, and the apple trees pink with 
 bloom a dangerous time for young folks in the state of 
 mind of these two, had thought cautious Mrs. Washburn, 
 and, not approving the match at all, she had made up her 
 mind to warn Lyddy in such a way that the immediate 
 danger should be tided over; but by her precipitance she 
 had ruined everything, and she felt it, for the girl's 
 blushes had convinced her that Lyddy's heart was 
 touched by Captain Tart's manly graces, and perhaps 
 by that very wildness which often seems to captivate 
 when it should repel. 
 
 "The fact is," said Mrs. Washburn, retailing the story 
 to her husband that evening "the fact is, 'Liakim, our 
 Lyddy's in love with that ere Tart Taylor. What ails 
 the girl?" 
 
 " 'Tain't no use," said sensible 'Liakim Washburn, 
 who was too sleepy to argue, and too fond of Lyddy to 
 think of opposing her " 'tain't no use, Mirandy, a-med- 
 dlin' in love matters. What 'ud 'a' been the use, now, 
 a-meddlin' 'twix' you an' me?" and with this half- 
 facetious, half-tender reminiscence the old farmer took up 
 his candle and went to bed. 
 
 That afternoon quite a scene had taken place-- between 
 "Cap'n Tart" and Lyddy, and though they did not know 
 it, they passed then the turning point of their lives; for
 
 Lyddy Washburn's Courtship. 269 
 
 Lyddy, in her excited state, was just impressionable 
 enough, and enough roused in his favor, by her defense 
 of Captain Tart, to make this meeting the decisive one. 
 But she did not forget herself. 
 
 "Won't you come in, Cap'n Taylor?" she said, cor- 
 dially, and with apparent calmness. 
 
 "No, thankee," said Captain Tart, eyeing the old lady 
 uneasily; "I come to see you a minit 'bout suthin'. S'pose 
 you walk down the border with me, an' look at them 
 posies you was tellin' of down to Jerushy Willitts's." 
 
 So Lyddy got her sun-bonnet, and they strolled "down 
 the border," where some daffodils and wonderful hya- 
 cinths, the only ones in town, and sent to Lyddy from 
 Boston, were just then the horticultural wonder of the 
 neighborhood. 
 
 "By the way," said Lyddy, gradually recovering her 
 composure, "have you seen Jerushy Willitts since dona- 
 tion?" 
 
 "No, I hain't," said Captain Tart; "but I see Adonijah 
 Brewer this mornin', an' he said Loisy Pettingill was 
 a-goin' to hev a quiltin' next Wednesday, and o' course 
 you'll be a-goin'. I come to see ef you'd ride home on 
 my pillion, come night." 
 
 Lyddy hesitated. Captain Tart had never made so 
 bold an advance as this, and Lyddy thought of her 
 mother. 
 
 "Jotham Hunter hain't asked you, has he, Lyddy?" 
 said Captain Tart, his forehead gathering in a scowl. 
 
 "No, no," said Lyddy, hastily. "I hain't had no invite 
 myself yet, you know; but, law!" recklessly deciding to 
 follow her own wishes in spite of her mother, "o' course 
 I shall have, an' I might as well come home with you as 
 anybody, I s'pose. Here's the flowers."
 
 270 White Butterflies. 
 
 "Purty, ain't they?" said Captain Tart, brightening up. 
 
 "Mebbe you'd like one for your button-hole," said 
 Lyddy, the something within her which had been roused 
 by her mother's words getting the better of her prudence. 
 "Here's a pretty one"; and she broke off a little stalk 
 which bore two twinkling blue stars, and twisting them 
 with a sprig of southernwood which grew beside it, began 
 to pin the posy on the lapel of Captain Tart's homespun 
 coat. That ended the whole matter for the young man. 
 Her bright hair was close to his shoulder, her pink face 
 almost against his breast. His breath floated down in her 
 face and her bosom heaved faster, as she made two 
 or three efforts to fasten the refractory flowers, and the 
 young man's eye glistened with a new tenderness. His 
 heart was all aflame. He thought of the "quiltin'," and 
 the ride home afterward, and could scarcely wait as he 
 thought. He decided that he must ask her then the final 
 question, and with her flowers breathing up perfume into 
 his face, and the remembrance of her tell-tale blushes in 
 his mind, he felt that her answer could not be "No." 
 Then, after lingering a moment at the door, he walked 
 away, his heart full of love, Lyddy, and anticipation. 
 
 Wednesday came, and as the "invite" had decorously 
 preceded it, Lyddy Washburn, with a party of merry 
 girls, walked, as was the custom, the two miles to Loisy 
 Pettingill's, to the quilting, arriving there at two in the 
 afternoon, and setting bravely to work at once upon the 
 gorgeous quilt, which was to be the chief adornment of 
 Loisy's "outfittin' " at her approaching nuptials. 
 
 The great "quiltin' bars" folded together fast, as skill- 
 ful fingers deftly sewed along the lines of the intricate pat- 
 tern, and by five o'clock, when supper was announced, 
 the quilt was reduced to so small a compass that "Miss
 
 Lyddy Washburn's Courtship. 271 
 
 Pettingill" insisted that everything should be put away 
 before the young men came. "Loisy and the rest can 
 finish it in no time to-morrow," said the hospitable lady, 
 "and I'm afraid that ef you go ahead as you've been 
 a-goin', you won't have no appetite for them sugar 
 doughnuts I've been a-makin'." 
 
 "Law!" the girls all broke in, in courteous deprecation, 
 "we hain't got along none; oughter 'a' had it off the 
 frames an hour ago." 
 
 "You go 'long!" said Loisy. "That quilt's an awful 
 big one, and amazin' hard to quilt; but I was bound I'd 
 have one jest like Lony Travers's, and I did." 
 
 "Yes," said Lyddy, thoughtlessly, "and I mean to have 
 one like it too." 
 
 "When is it goin' to be?" said Loisy, mischievously, 
 while the curiosity of all made them gather more closely 
 around Lyddy. 
 
 "Law!" said Lyddy, with a forced laugh, "I s'pose you 
 didn't know that Uncle Dari Mailers and I was a-goin' to 
 make a match." 
 
 "Uncle Dari Mailers" was the good-natured old hat- 
 maker of the village, who had lived single all his life, 
 because, rumor said, he had been jilted in his youth. He 
 was a queer but popular old fellow, and Lyddy's joke, 
 received with great laughter, diverted further attention 
 from her matrimonial prospects, and they went out into 
 the big kitchen to supper. 
 
 Such a supper! The "sugar doughnuts" adorned each 
 end of the table, while a great " 'lection cake" stuffed 
 with plums was the center-piece. Generous pitchers of 
 foaming cider were scattered here and there, while cold 
 pork-and-beans, flanked by "rye an' injun" bread, formed 
 a prominent feature of the entertainment. Great light
 
 272 White Butterflies. 
 
 biscuit, clear maple syrup, rich preserves of citron, cook- 
 ies full of caraway, fennel, and anise seeds, ginger bread, 
 mince pies, apple pies, and squash pies such was the 
 feast which the delicate damsels who had officiated at the 
 "quiltin' " were to taste before engaging in the revelry 
 of the evening; and such was the digestion of the sex in 
 the "good old times," that a doctor's bill, or even a 
 nightmare, seldom followed the free enjoyment of these 
 substantial dainties. 
 
 The evening came. The girls had previously gone 
 up into the big front chamber, with its lofty, puffy bed 
 and high, stiff bureau, to don such extra ribbons and 
 trinkets as they had reserved for the edification of the 
 young men who were expected shortly. Of course, they 
 all had gold beads, and most of them big brooches con- 
 taining a small painted likeness of some ancestor. 
 There were several pairs of gold earrings ; and the combs 
 the shell combs that towered half a foot above the 
 smooth luxuriance of our grandmothers' coiffures who 
 can describe them? 
 
 One by one the young men were admitted at the clang 
 of the great brass knocker Jotham Hunter and Adoni- 
 jah Brewer and Timothy Bassett and a dozen other 
 brown-faced, square-shouldered young fellows who had 
 never had a day's illness in their lives, and who. though 
 they knew little Greek, were well versed in such branches 
 as were taught in the district schools of their section, and, 
 better than that, had the industrious habits and the un- 
 bending integrity which have made our country what 
 it is. 
 
 Among the rest came Captain Tart, and more than one 
 knowing glance passed around as it was seen that in 
 his button-hole he wore, in observance of the May-time,
 
 Lyddy Washburn's Courtship. 273 
 
 and in proud display of the favor of the most courted 
 girl in town, the hyacinths and southernwood which 
 everybody knew were given him by Lyddy Washburn. 
 He had preserved them carefully in water, and his love 
 had grown with every whiff which he had drunk in of 
 their intoxicating perfume. 
 
 Lyddy's heart beat faster with mingled pleasure and 
 indignation as she saw her gift thus openly flaunted be- 
 fore them all, and she instinctively talked faster to Adoni- 
 jah Brewer, the prospective bridegroom; but she could 
 not long be angry, so utterly was her heart subdued by the 
 tenderness she felt for Captain Tart, and the manly beauty 
 of his face, which had won him the secret admiration of 
 every girl in Clearpond; and when he came up a few 
 moments later to beg her hand for a reel which was to 
 be danced in the great kitchen, she went tamely enough. 
 After the reel they "twirled the platter," and then the 
 apples were brought out, and Farmer Pettingill mixed a 
 bowl of his famous toddy, which he could make as no 
 one in all the country round. The glasses were filled and 
 refilled till the hilarity waxed rather noisy. Captain Tart 
 had drunk his glass at a draught. Then he looked up and 
 caught Lyddy's eye, in which there was a look that 
 stopped him as he was about to take more. She was very 
 pale, and hastily seeking her side, he said, tenderly, "Be 
 you sick, Lyddy?" 
 
 "No, no," said Lyddy, her color coming back in great 
 waves over her face. "The toddy's kinder strong; I 
 can't drink mine. You ain't goin' to drink no more, 
 Tart?" with a beseeching tone in her gentle voice which 
 went to the young man's heart. 
 
 "Not if you don't want me to, Lyddy," he said.
 
 274 White Butterflies. 
 
 "Well, please," and she turned away. There were too 
 many looking at them to talk any longer. 
 
 Jotham Hunter saw it all, and his jealous heart sank 
 within him. 
 
 "Tart ain't a-drinkin' so much as common to-night," 
 he remarked with affected carelessness to his neighbor, 
 but loud enough to be heard all about him. 
 
 "No," said the other, a coarser-grained fellow than the 
 rest, with a loud laugh, "but he'll be makin' up for it 
 after he gits out o' Lyddy Washburn's sight." 
 
 "That's so," said Jotham Hunter, with angry emphasis, 
 and with his face set toward Lyddy, who had heard every 
 word, till her slim figure dilated and her eyes blazed at 
 the young men in such a way that they were glad to 
 drop the conversation at once. 
 
 After the toddy there was an uproarious game of 
 "round the chimney," and though proud Lyddy Wash- 
 burn did not always condescend to participate in the 
 romping sport, she ran to-night, and received a kiss from 
 Captain Tart, the memory of which thrilled her to her 
 dying day; and then she set all tongues wagging by stub- 
 bornly refusing to catch Jotham Hunter whose melan- 
 choly not even the toddy, nor the smiles of Jerusha Wil- 
 litts, a young woman who affected him, could mitigate 
 in the least. 
 
 Then it was nearing midnight, and the "quiltin' party" 
 broke up, each young man taking his chosen "girl" to her 
 home on horseback on a pillion behind him, and those 
 unprovided for going in Farmer Pettingill's big hay 
 wagon. 
 
 The stars were bright and the air cool and bracing, 
 and the smell of the green earth and the apple-blossoms 
 set young blood astir. Lyddy sat firmly on her seat, per-
 
 Lyddy Washburn's Courtship. 275 
 
 haps clinging a little closer to Captain Tart than necessity 
 demanded, and they jogged slowly along till the merry 
 voices of the rest were lost in the distance. Then the 
 young man turned his horse into a lonely wood road 
 which led home by a roundabout way, where they could 
 talk without interruption. 
 
 "Oh, Tart!" said Lyddy, nervously, as she felt him give 
 spurs to the horse when they neared the turning. "Be 
 you goin' by the 'Lish Woodard farm? It's further." 
 
 "Why not?" said Captain Tart, as though that were the 
 only thing to do. " 'Tain't muddy. I drove my cattle 
 through there to-day, an', Lyddy," his voice growing 
 deeper "Lyddy, I've got suthin' to say to you." 
 
 She could not speak, for something seemed to suffocate 
 her, and they rode on in an electric silence through the 
 deep shadows of fragrant pines and hemlocks till they 
 came to a secluded spot, when Captain Tart vaulted in his 
 saddle and faced her, folding her in his arms as he did so. 
 Lyddy was frightened. It was well understood in the vil- 
 lage that Lyddy Washburn allowed none of the liberties 
 which were not strictly considered improprieties among 
 the young folks of the place, and no young man could 
 boast that she had ever given him a good-night kiss, or 
 allowed him to put his arm about her when going home 
 from any of the parties which abounded during the gay 
 country winters; and here, at twenty-two, she sat on Tart 
 Taylor's pillion, pressed close against his breast, his 
 handsome face caressing hers and without a protest! 
 
 "Oh, Lyddy!" said Captain Tart, almost choking with 
 the passion which overpowered him, "I can't wait another 
 minute till you tell me you'll marry me. Oh, Lyddy, you 
 will, won't you?" 
 
 Lyddy lifted her beautiful face to his and gave him a
 
 276 White Butterflies. 
 
 kiss, and he knew that she was his. Then they said noth- 
 ing for a long time, till they noticed suddenly that the 
 horse had stopped, and was leisurely chewing on an old 
 lilac bush which marked the spot where the " 'Lish 
 Woodard" homestead had once stood. 
 
 But they did not care. The stars, the night wind, laden 
 with the May sweetness it was heaven itself that they 
 were riding through, completed by the kisses and ca- 
 resses of an honest love. Captain Tart started up the 
 shrewd horse, which fell into an easy canter. Then he 
 said, anxiously, "Now, Lyddy, you'll ride on the pillion 
 behind me, come trainin', won't you?" 
 
 On the pillion behind Tart Taylor! On training-day! 
 Before everybody! Yes, she would do anything for him. 
 If he wished their engagement thus publicly proclaimed, 
 she was willing. So she told him "Yes," and her mind 
 went back to the training on the last Fourth of July, 
 when he rode at the head of the "milishy," so straight and 
 handsome that her heart fluttered at the thought that he 
 was now her lover. 
 
 Suddenly there was a low noise, which made the horse 
 start, and Captain Tart turn uneasily in his saddle. A 
 low, fiendish laugh, and a muttered "The devil!" were all 
 they heard afterward. Then there was a rustle in the 
 bushes, and Captain Tart put spurs to his horse. The 
 fleet creature darted on to the turning, when they rode 
 down the turnpike like the wind, till they reached Farmer 
 Washburn's great red house, where a light was burning 
 in the kitchen for Lyddy. She was all a-tremble when 
 her lover lifted her from the horse; but she saw no fear 
 nor tremor in his eye or on his firm-set lips. 
 
 "Why, Lyddy, dear," he said, folding her tenderly to 
 him, and soothing her with his great, rough hand, "didn't
 
 Lyddy Washburn's Courtship. 277 
 
 you know who that was in the thicket? Why, Lyddy" 
 he paused and choked a little "that was that was" 
 she looked up at him in terror "that was my mother." 
 
 Then, before she could fairly enter the hospitable door, 
 he had leaped to his saddle, and was gone. The horrid 
 fright had shattered their love dream, and spoiled the 
 beautiful evening which should have been the sweetest 
 of their lives. Alas ! it had done much more, but they aid 
 not know it then. 
 
 The next morning, before Lyddy's shaken nerves had 
 half recovered their tension, her mother entered her 
 chamber and roused her from the uneasy sleep into which 
 she had only just fallen. Lucifer matches were then un- 
 known, and the flint and matchlock were the only sub- 
 stitute. If these failed, there was no resource but to ride, 
 sometimes for miles, to the nearest house and beg some 
 fire. Farmer Washburn was too rheumatic this morning 
 to ride, and the hired men, and the two of Lyddy's broth- 
 ers who were still unmarried and at home, had eaten a 
 cold breakfast and were ploughing the "medder," and 
 could not leave. The fire was out, and Lyddy must get 
 up and ride a mile and a half, as fast as she could, to get 
 some coals. 
 
 She rose mechanically, and was dressed and on her 
 horse, with the foot-stove fastened securely beside her, 
 before she remembered that the nearest house, her brother 
 "Si" Washburn's, was to be reached ten minutes sooner 
 by passing over a section of the " 'Lish Woodard" road 
 than by the main highway. At the turning she hesitated ; 
 then, ashamed of her foolish fears, she reined her horse 
 resolutely into the wood road, and was soon near the 
 scene of the dreadful adventure of the night before. She 
 could not help hurrying a little as she approached the
 
 278 White Butterflies. 
 
 spot; but the bright rays of the six o'clock sun streamed 
 through the trees and showed only the innocent under- 
 brush below; so she rode on more quietly. Then her 
 thoughts turned to her lover, and the caresses he had 
 given her. It all seemed to her, in the bright morning, 
 like a feverish dream; and a guilty blush suffused her 
 pure face as she thought how he had embraced her, and 
 of the sweet words that he had whispered in her ear. 
 
 Suddenly a shadow fell across the sunshine, and she 
 was rudely roused from her tender reverie by the appear- 
 ance of the woman whose demoniac laugh and ejacula- 
 tion had chilled her blood the night before. She was 
 haggard and unkempt, and had apparently been wander- 
 ing all the night. As Lyddy looked at her, she could see 
 that "Aunt Betty," from some cause or other, was almost, 
 if not quite, frenzied, and she was about to put her horse 
 to his speed, when the woman checked her by a motion 
 of her hand. 
 
 "No, Lyddy Washburn," she said, in a harsh, angry 
 voice, "you needn't run away from Tart's mother. She'll 
 do ye no harm, though she heard all the billin' and cooin' 
 last night, and she knows ye've stole her darlin' away 
 from her her darlin'! her darlin'!" and she wrung her 
 hands wildly. 
 
 "He's all I've got, and little ye know, ye pink-faced 
 girl, how I love him the straightest and handsomest 
 man in all these parts. But, mark ye, Lyddy Washburn" 
 and her voice took on an unearthly depth and stern- 
 ness, "them red cheeks o' yourn'll be white, an' that shmy 
 hair thin an' gray, before ye'll take my boy away from 
 me. I feel it I know it!" 
 
 "You may be sure," said Lyddy Washburn, her horror 
 showing in her strained and excited voice "you may be
 
 Lyddy Washburn's Courtship. 279 
 
 sure, Betty Taylor, that as long as you live, I shall never 
 marry your son." 
 
 "Won't ye? won't ye?" said Aunt Betty, in a kind 
 of devilish glee. "I'll be sixty year come Michaelmas, 
 but the Lord'll give me strength to live past ye both. 
 Mark my words, ye proud young puppet! Mark me! 
 mark me!" and flinging up her withered hands, she 
 darted up the hillside with a savage cry, climbing the 
 steep like a spider, until she was out of sight. 
 
 Lyddy Washburn rode on mechanically, got her fire, 
 and was soon home again, but she could not have told 
 a word that was said at her brother's house, nor any- 
 thing of the people whom she saw after Aunt Betty left 
 her. A dull loathing and horror possessed her, and her 
 mother, noticing her pallid face and subdued manner, 
 sent her unheard-of proceeding! peremptorily to bed 
 right after dinner. Then Lyddy fell into a long, dream- 
 less sleep, and though the night that followed was wake- 
 ful and uncanny, her fresh young nature soon rallied, and 
 in a few days she had regained, to all appearance, her 
 sprightliness and her beauty. But Lyddy Washburn was 
 not the same. She had passed through a deep and a ter- 
 rible experience, and it had left its mark upon her soul. 
 
 Captain Tart had come the next Sunday night to make 
 his first regular "courtin'." Mrs. Washburn and good 
 Farmer 'Liakim had been duly informed of the state of 
 affairs, and had finally given a reluctant consent to the 
 match, though Mrs. Washburn had wept many tears in 
 private, in spite of her daughter's assurances that Captain 
 Tart would "steady down" now, and that she would 
 never, never marry him while his mother was living. She 
 shuddered at the thought of this more than even her 
 mother, who had only seen Aunt Betty "dressed and in
 
 280 White Butterflies. 
 
 her right mind," though she had heard frightful stories 
 of her ungovernable temper and her disgusting profanity. 
 These, strange to say, had seemed to be a product of her 
 age, though she had always been a termagant. Her chil- 
 dren were temperate and intelligent men and women, 
 though only Tertius was left now to care for her, the 
 others having either died or removed to distant places. 
 He seemed to be enough, however, for she was utterly 
 bound up in him. The idea of his marriage had long 
 tormented her. As time went on, she had come to hope 
 that, like many of his race, he would never marry. But 
 she began to notice his preference for Lyddy Washburn. 
 She saw him cherishing her flowers. She knew he was 
 to escort her from the quilting, and she felt instinctively 
 that he would take her home by the secluded wood road. 
 There she had stealthily waited for them to come, had 
 seen her son's caresses, had heard the words which she 
 fancied were to part him from her forever, had listened 
 till, wrought almost to madness, she had uttered the cry 
 which had so startled them. Then she had wandered, in 
 a sort of stupid craze, till morning around the spot where 
 the fatal words had been spoken. There she had been 
 met by Lyddy on her morning ride; but the solemn de- 
 termination that the girl had evinced in making her vow 
 had filled the agonized mother's heart with a fiendish 
 delight. 
 
 "I will not die! I will not die!" she chuckled to her- 
 self as she climbed the hillside; and a superhuman 
 strength seemed to descend upon her with the oath she 
 took. 
 
 The Fourth of July came a glorious, cloudless day. 
 The fife and drum ushered in the morning, and they 
 were accompanied by the peal of bells and roar of can-
 
 Lyddy Washburn's Courtship. 281 
 
 non. The mustering ground was early crowded with the 
 yeomanry of the county and their wives and daughters, 
 while blue coats and brass buttons blossomed thickly in 
 all directions. Before long the music started up anew, and 
 the procession began to form, in which the militia were to 
 march from the church green to the parade ground. It 
 was growing late, but the captain had not come. All necks 
 were craned to watch for him, when, lo! riding down the 
 road came Captain Tart, his bright uniform becoming 
 well his manly figure, while on the pillion behind him, in 
 a dress of delicate green, with a silver feather an heir- 
 loom in her family drooping above her lovely face, rode 
 Lyddy Washburn. She sat straight and stately in her 
 seat, and a murmur of admiration ran through the wait- 
 ing crowd. 
 
 The drum beat, and the men formed in line, but just 
 as they were about to march, someone passed a word 
 along, and with lifted caps they sent up three tremen- 
 dous cheers for the captain and his fair sweetheart. He 
 had, indeed, restrained his appetite for liquor of late, and 
 the match had come to be quite generally approved 
 among the towns-people. The appearance of the young 
 couple in such dashing and picturesque style at the 
 "trainin 5 ," completed the favorable impression, and even 
 Jotham Hunter and a score of other disappointed youths 
 were forced to admit that the Lord had evidently made 
 Captain Tart and Lyddy Washburn for each other. The 
 excitement caused by the advent of the handsome young 
 pair was easily kept up throughout the day, and that 
 "trainin' " was famous in the annals of the town as the 
 most successful that had ever been known there. 
 
 Every Sunday night thereafter Captain Tart steady 
 now, and becoming a most successful farmer came to
 
 282 White Butterflies. 
 
 see Lyddy Washburn, and they settled down into the 
 ordinary ways of "courtin'"; and when the Fourth of 
 July came around again, Lyddy rode again on the pillion 
 behind her lover, and again the enthusiasm at their 
 appearance was unbounded. 
 
 But still Lyddy would not marry him. Another year 
 went round, and still she refused. He pressed her for 
 her reason. 
 
 "We've been courtin' long enough, Lyddy, dear," said 
 the honest fellow, pleadingly. "I've got a good farm, and 
 can take care of you. Let's be cried right off, Lyddy." 
 
 But Lyddy was determined, and by-and-by she told 
 him her reason. Then he urged her no more, while the 
 hateful old woman on the hillside chuckled to herself, 
 and nursed herself more carefully. 
 
 Every Fourth of July for five years Lyddy rode with 
 Captain Tart at the mustering. Then she grew ashamed, 
 and would go no more, and Captain Tart himself, a few 
 years later, resigned his sword and his cocked hat to 
 another. 
 
 The village folk talked and talked for a while over 
 the "long courtin' Tart Taylor was a-makin' of Lyddy 
 Washburn." Then it began to be accepted as a settled 
 fact, and ceased to excite remark. 
 
 Mrs. Washburn scolded and wept as Lyddy went on in 
 her thirties, and a little gray began to creep into her hair, 
 and her complexion lost its bloom; but though one or 
 two farmers boldly came to try their luck at wooing away 
 from Captain Tart the still beautiful woman, she was 
 pathetically true to her only love, who was equally stead- 
 fast in his devotion to her. 
 
 As time crept on, her father and mother passed away, 
 and she went to live with a brother, whose motherless
 
 Lyddy Washburn's Courtship. 283 
 
 children she grew to love as her own; but still Aunt Betty 
 lived on, growing tougher and heartier apparently with 
 each successive year. There was something ghastly in 
 the thought that they were waiting for her to die. 
 
 Then Lyddy Washburn began 'to grow old and 
 wrinkled. She was over fifty, and her lover's rugged face, 
 with its look of pathetic patience and unfaltering resolu- 
 tion, lost its handsome contour, and his hale figure be- 
 gan to bow with time and hard work. 
 
 But still the old woman lived on, with a defiant per- 
 sistence which deepened Lyddy Washburn's secret con- 
 viction that she was a witch. 
 
 It was one lovely spring day, forty years from the time 
 when Lyddy Washburn had pledged her word to Captain 
 Tart to marry him, that the news was borne to the village 
 from the hill farm that Aunt Betty, at the age of one hun- 
 dred years, was dead at last. She had failed to outlive 
 them, after all. For several days before her death she 
 had been ailing, but no one had anticipated the end so 
 soon, and she had dropped away suddenly at the last, as 
 though the force of gravitation had at just that moment 
 grown too strong for her hold upon the tree of life. 
 
 It was forty years from the Fourth of July when Lyddy 
 Washburn, in her green habit and silver feather, had 
 first graced the pillion behind her lover at the training, 
 that she stood up in the church beside him, an old and 
 wrinkled woman, and became his bride. The fire and 
 passion of their early courtship had died away, but a holy 
 affection had taken its place, which brought, at the last, 
 genuine happiness to their blighted lives blighted by the 
 curse of a selfish and vindictive woman.
 
 LORDS FHE 'BELLS 
 
 BAKK 
 
 By A. c. 
 
 A STRONG 
 
 L 
 
 v -written by 
 
 ORDS OF THE NORTH is a t 
 
 dealing with the rivalries and intrigue^ MOCRAT - 
 
 and Honorable Hudson* 's Bay and 
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 romance was suggested by experi- 
 
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