3E 
 
 
 AI E 
 
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 QEWITT&SNELUH6 
 BOOKSELLERS 
 

[Page 13 
 
 "ONE NIGHT, IN A HIGH GALE, SUSAN WAS DRAGGING HIM BESIDE 
 
 HER " 
 
SUSAN S ESCORT 
 
 AND OTHERS 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 A MAN WITHOUT. A COUNTRY" " IN HIS NAME" 
 
 "LIFE IN SYBARIS" "TEN TIMES ONE " ETC. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 BY W. T. SMEDLEY 
 
 NEW YORK AND LONDON 
 HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
 
 1897 
 
Copyright, 1897, by HARPER & BROTHERS. 
 
 All rigtils reterved. 
 
OF the stories in the present volume "Susan s Escort," "Aunt 
 Caroline s Present," " Both Their Houses," " Colonel Ingham s Jour 
 ney," and "A New Arabian Night" have appeared in HARPER S 
 MAGAZINE; "One Good Turn," "The Minister s Black Veil," and 
 "Bread on the Waters," in the New York Independent; "From 
 Generation to Generation," in the New England Magazine; "Only 
 a Fly," in the Chautauquan ; "Mrs. De Laix s Indecision," in Once 
 a Week; "From Making to Baking," "The First Grain Market," 
 and "Pharaoh s Harvest," in the Northwestern Miller. "King 
 Charles s Shilling" and "Colonel Clipsham s Calendar" were issued 
 by the McClurc syndicate. 
 
 34C39G 
 
A PKEFACE 
 
 THIS is a volume of what are technically called 
 " short stories." Alas, such stories may seem too long 
 to some readers ! And yet the author of such stories 
 always hopes that the reader may wish they were a 
 little longer. 
 
 It is difficult to find a fit title for such a collection. 
 It had been determined in council that this book 
 should be called "Short Stories, Old and New." In 
 this title was a subtle reference to the magazine Old 
 and New, which is still remembered by its editor. 
 Alas, in the evening paper published the day of this 
 great decision was announced another collection as 
 very meritorious, called, " Short Stories, New and 
 Clef." 
 
 Those of us who do not dislike the short story, 
 and are willing, in writing, to accept its somewhat 
 stern requisitions, look back, of course, with serious 
 pride, to the methods and the names used by our great 
 American master, Hawthorne. It pleased him to call 
 his first collection "Twice -Told Tales." Would it be 
 possible, with a proper modesty, to name this collection 
 in a like fashion? "Tell it again," the children say, 
 when they are pleased. Such is the highest of compli- 
 
vi A PREFACE 
 
 ments, whether to Scheherezade, our great mistress, or 
 to our dear Stevenson. Might we say, without vani 
 ty, " Thrice-Told Tales," or would the transcendental 
 mathematicians permit us to say "Tales of a Quater 
 nion ( " 
 
 No, you cannot do that. For in this volume are 
 some tales which have already been printed more than 
 two million times. The reader will find others which 
 he has never seen. Some of them are old, as has been 
 intimated older than the average reader. Some of 
 them are fresh, with the vigorous flush of youth, and 
 stumble as they make their modest bows and courtesies. 
 So far was that name justified, " Stories, Old and Xew." 
 But every person in the Trade sees that you cannot 
 have a title-page so varied as one which should say, 
 "Tales, some of which have been told two million 
 times, while others have not been told at all." The 
 meanest errand-boy would refuse to carry such a title 
 from the retail shop to the jobber. 
 
 The descriptive title is difficult and dangerous. 
 When I first submitted a collection like this to the 
 public. I called it "If, Yes, and Perhaps." "If" was 
 for the possible stories, "Yes" was for the true stories, 
 "Perhaps" was for the probable stories. These might 
 have been, but one did not know; "perhaps" was the 
 best you could say of them. This volume might claim 
 a similar character. Some of these stories are true, 
 some of them are only possible, some of them, let us 
 hope, are probable. The public, however, could make 
 nothing of the title, "If, Yes, and Perhaps" ; so that, 
 after struggling through five or six editions, we were 
 obliged to do what we have done here to give to the 
 
A PREFACE vil 
 
 volume the name of the first story in the collection. 
 And thus we let our clear Susan and her Escort usher 
 in tho others. 
 
 There are critics, generally of the ecclesiastical type, 
 who disapprove of probable stories. They consider 
 the success of a story-teller to be gained when no one 
 can imagine that his story is true. I had the honor, 
 myself, to be called "a forger and a counterfeiter" by 
 the editor of one of the journals called religious I do 
 not know why. He had mistaken one of my stories 
 for a narrative of an event in history. He thought, 
 and I suppose still thinks, that a parable should have 
 no resemblance to real life. But the masters in litera 
 ture are against him. Indeed, we have the highest 
 authority for saying that instruction by parable is that 
 form of instruction which best reaches the masses of 
 mankind, and which is remembered the longest. The 
 critics of a hundred years ago spoke of " Invented 
 Example." No one of them proposed that the example 
 thus invented should appear to the reader incredible. 
 The only value of " invented examples " was that they 
 should, in substance and foundation, conform to life. 
 
 For four thousand years, be the same more or less, 
 short stories have been in the world. It may be 
 guessed, then, that they have come to stay. I find 
 none better than those of the Indian sage, Bidpai, and 
 I do not know when he wrote them, nor does any one 
 else. But Mr. Kipling s are as good, when he describes 
 the loves and the hates of the descendants of Bidpai s 
 heroes. If one may judge who has read thousands 
 with delight, and has with equal delight written his 
 
vili A PREFACE 
 
 share, the days of the short story will not be ended 
 while we have Miss Jewett and Mrs. Slosson and Mr. 
 Wister and Mr. Davis and Mr. Barrie and Mr. Kipling 
 to write them. 
 
 EDWAKD E. HALE. 
 ROXBURY, April 8, 1897. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 SUSAN S ESCORT 1 
 
 ONE GOOD TURN 26 
 
 THE MINISTER S BLACK VEIL 42 
 
 AUNT CAROLINE S PRESENT 59 
 
 COLONEL CLIPSHAM S CALENDAR 76 
 
 BREAD ON THE WATERS 100 
 
 GENERAL GLOVER S TRUE STORY 162 
 
 BOTH THEIR HOUSES 177 
 
 COLONEL INGHAM S JOURNEY 210 
 
 A NEW ARABIAN NIGHT 230 
 
 ONLY A FLY 249 
 
 JOHN RICH AND LUCY POOR 279 
 
 FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION 307 
 
 MRS. DE LAIX S INDECISION 328 
 
 KING CHARLES S SHILLING 340 
 
 FROM MAKING TO BAKING 363 
 
 THE FIRST GRAIN MARKET 383 
 
 PHARAOH S HARVEST . 392 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 ONE NIGHT, IN A HIGH GALE, SUSAN WAS DRAGGING 
 
 HIM BESIDE HER " Frontispiece 
 
 HE SAT, WITH HIS CHIN ON HIS HANDS". . . Facing p. 14 
 MAC, SAID SHE, l SHALL NOT WANT YOU ANY 
 
SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 SUSAN S ESCOET 
 
 SUSAN ELLSWORTH is as nice a girl as I know. I wish 
 that you and I, dear readers, knew- more such. She 
 lived just out from Boston ; not at Jamaica Plain, but 
 at one of the most convenient stations on that admi 
 rable Providence Railroad my road, so far as a per 
 son may be said to own it who by many punch-tickets 
 builds up the fortunes of the stockholders. Susan 
 Ellsworth was and is a school-mi stress in one of the 
 public schools of Boston. Like most such ladies, she 
 had a fancy for living at a great distance from her 
 school, and went and came by rapid or slow transit as 
 the gods and Mr. Whitney might provide. This was 
 in the daytime, and was easy. 
 
 But Susan had more difficulty in the evenings. Her 
 brothers lived, one in Alaska, one in Yokohama, and 
 a third was studying medicine in Vienna. She was 
 engaged then to a man far away, and is now, if, in 
 deed, she be not married before this story goes to 
 press. Still, she had what I may call a passion for 
 evening concerts and lectures nay, let me whisper it, 
 
2 SU8A14 S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 for a rollicking, laughing burlesque, if the Vokeses or 
 some other nice people came along, and, most of all, 
 for the opera when it was really good. Now, all these 
 brothers were earning their own board bills, so that 
 Susan Ellsworth was not fleeced by them, as most 
 good school-mistresses known to me are by their broth 
 ers. And as her salary was good, she could indulge 
 her passion for these evening entertainments, for she 
 was still young. 
 
 She tried at first bold independence. Boston, she 
 said, was a civilized city. The streets were light, and, 
 after electricity came in they were very light even at 
 night. So she pretended to be bold when she was 
 frightened. She went into the station at Park Square 
 by rail. She took street- car or sidewalk to the Insti 
 tute, the Opera-house, to Mr. Kale s reading, to the 
 Old South lectures, to the Museum, or wherever she 
 went. When the entertainment was over she crowded 
 into a car, or put herself in the wake of some large 
 walking party going her way. And so she pretended 
 to herself and to fellow -graduates from Vassar, to 
 whom she wrote descriptions of her independent Bos 
 ton life, that she was not afraid. 
 
 All the same she was afraid, and knew she was; 
 and she was always well pleased when, just in time 
 for the theatre train out to Keadville, she found her 
 self safe in that hospitable station. 
 
 And one night her fears were justified. She had 
 gone to a natural-history lecture. It was really the 
 best thing in Boston that winter, the most exciting, 
 the newest, and the most entertaining. So dear Bos 
 ton had let it wisely alone, and there were not a hun- 
 
dred people in the hall. No one, as fate ordered, went 
 Susan s way, and so it happened that a drunken dog 
 on two legs staggered up to her, and asked if he should 
 not see her home. Susan was horribly frightened. 
 She said nothing, but almost ran. Fortunately that 
 friendly policeman, the old man who patrols that sec 
 tion, came round the corner. She gasped rather than 
 spoke. He saw the trouble, gave the drunken dog a 
 bit of his mind, and walked with Susan to the station. 
 But she had learned her lesson very thoroughly. She 
 dared not try mock courage again, nor purchase her 
 independence so dearly. For a fortnight, almost a 
 month, she was horribly dependent. 
 
 " Dear Sarah, if you are going to the opera to-night, 
 may I join your party ? I have a ticket, but," etc. 
 
 " Dear Mr. Primrose, are you going to hear the 
 bishop ? May I," etc., etc. 
 
 " Dear Mrs. Armitage, would it trouble you and Mr. 
 Armitage," etc., etc., etc. 
 
 And generally it proved that Mr. Primrose was not 
 going, or that Sarah was to stay in town, or that it 
 would trouble Mr. and Mrs. Armitage. Sometimes 
 poor Susan bought two tickets to the opera and treat 
 ed some cub of a pupil. But this was intolerable in 
 the long-run. She really thought she should have to 
 abjure the world, have her beautiful hair all cut off, 
 give up all the modest amusements and vanities of her 
 life, and enter a convent. 
 
SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 II 
 
 But necessity is the mother of invention. One day 
 when Susan was at Hollander s to be measured for a 
 new walking-dress she saw whence her safety might 
 come. For she actually stepped back a moment for a 
 lady to pass her, and then it proved that the ladv was 
 no flesh-and-blood lady, but only the frame of a lady, 
 with her frock stretched over her neatly, and a bonnet 
 where the head is usually. Susan recovered herself 
 from her little blunder, passed her hand within the 
 gack, and lifted the pretty creature from the ground. 
 She found that she was by no means heavy. 
 
 You see, of course, what she determined on. In two 
 days she had made for herself an Escort. She bought 
 a cheap and light gossamer overcoat, a travelling-cap, 
 a dozen toy masks, and at a second-hand clothing store 
 a pair of badly worn check pantaloons. She also 
 bought rattan enough, and the wire of hoop-skirts, for 
 her purpose. She sewed to the bottom of the panta 
 loons two right-foot arctics, which Hugh had left when 
 he went to Vienna, because they matched only too 
 well. From the rattan, with an old umbrella slide, she 
 made a backbone and two available legs to support the 
 mackintosh, and on the top of the backbone she could 
 adjust either of the masks which she preferred with 
 the travelling-cap. The whole thing would shut to 
 gether like a travelling -easel. The mask would go 
 into her leather bag, which, like others of her sex, she 
 carried everywhere. The rest could then be slid into 
 a long umbrella -case, rather large for a patent um- 
 
brella, but not so large as to challenge attention. Susan 
 finished her little manikin early in the afternoon. The 
 hours crawled, they stood still, till evening came, when 
 she was first to put him to his trial. He was to go to 
 Lohengrin with her, and she had bought only one 
 ticket for both. 
 
 Fortunately it rained like fury. It did not seem 
 curious that one should carry two umbrellas. She 
 might be returning one; for virtuous and true people, 
 like Susan, do return umbrellas sometimes. Arrived 
 in Boston, Susan went outdoors to that sheltered lee 
 where you wait for Cambridge street-cars. In an in 
 stant she had opened up her new friend to his own 
 proportions, and in a moment more, by an act not dis 
 similar, she opened her own umbrella. A moment 
 more, and she slid her arm under the cape she had 
 sewed on his mackintosh, and they crossed Park Square 
 together. 
 
 He was a little man, he stooped in walking, and was 
 ungraceful in movement. But most men are this and 
 do thus, as Susan said bravely and truly to herself. He 
 was not so tall as she ; neither were any of the school 
 boy cubs on whom she had been depending. He had 
 nothing to say ; neither had they. . Better than this, 
 he said nothing ; alas, most of them were not so wise ! 
 He could be squeezed into a very small corner if they 
 were waiting for a crowd, or at a crossing; but they 
 stepped out and tried to perform deeds of gallantry. 
 So that, as she walked with him, delighted to see how 
 people turned out for them, Susan, as she balanced his 
 advantages and his disadvantages, said that the good 
 far surpassed the evil, as Kobirison Crusoe did on a 
 
6 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 similar emergency, and as the reader will, if he will 
 fairly compare the plus and the minus of this well- 
 governed world. Both parties sped down Boylston 
 Street safely, and arrived without any adventure be 
 fore the Boston Theatre. There Susan walked into 
 the alley by the side with him, as if she had been a 
 carefully attended ballet-girl a little late. In a second 
 more his face was in her bag and his bones in her lio-ht 
 
 o o 
 
 umbrella -case, and Susan alone as it seemed, but 
 really never less alone was on her way up to the fam 
 ily-circle, where her two umbrellas took place beside 
 her, in time for her to see daybreak in the opera. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Prosperous and happy girl, Susan followed her new 
 career with success and cheerfulness such as she had 
 never looked forward to. There was in her life none 
 of the embarrassment which the other girls felt, who 
 did not know whether they should or should not insist 
 on paying their own car fares when their attendants 
 offered to pay. Her escort never proposed that they 
 should stop on their way to the train to eat an ice, and 
 never terrified her by waiting so long in the ice-cream 
 saloon that she thought they had both missed the train. 
 Her escort never annoyed her by depreciating Wagner, 
 or by overpraising that sweet air in Trovatore. On 
 the other hand, she saw 7 in a week that the other girls 
 regarded her with a certain sort of respect, not to say 
 admiration and awe, which she had never been con 
 scious of before. To be met in the street, now with a 
 
dark Italian, now with a foolish-looking Irishman, now 
 with a German who scowled and knew everything, now 
 with a light-hearted Yankee who seemed a Harvard 
 Junior or Sophomore this affected Susan s reputation 
 among her young friends of her own sex. They were 
 not surprised. No ; they knew she was well worthy 
 of any amount of admiration. Not surprised no. 
 only well yes, it was different from what it was 
 the year before, when Susan had been poking about 
 as if she were nobody and nobody cared for her. 
 
 It would be wrong to say that Susan cared for re 
 spect or admiration so cheaply bought. But if you had 
 asked her, she would have owned that she was glad that 
 she was no longer the subject of commiseration among 
 her young friends. In truth, she took a higher grade 
 than a girl engaged to only one person, and hers is a 
 grade much higher than the girl who has six brothers. 
 
 Yet I really think it was a mistake that one evening 
 when Susan, having a pocketful of complimentary 
 tickets for the recital, took Mr. Mackintosh into Chick- 
 ering Hall with her, and let him sit by her side to lis 
 ten, instead of leaving him with her umbrella in the 
 anteroom. But the recital was really first-rate, so the 
 audience was very small. Susan was very much inter 
 ested in the success of the young lady who was giving 
 her first concert, and she thought that every seat that 
 was filled was an advantage to her. But you see, of 
 course, that it made other people talk. Here was this 
 handsome young man sitting by Susan, and for a week 
 her fair friends were asking who he was, and how she 
 came to know him. But she did not at first appreciate 
 this, so she made the mistake more than once, and I 
 
SUSAN S ESCOKT, AND OTHERS 
 
 think he heard more good music than was good for 
 him. 
 
 But as for her, in " these halcyon days of his first 
 success," she enjoyed her winter as she had never en 
 joyed a winter before. If you choose, in Boston, there 
 is nothing you may not see and hear and know and 
 understand in the heavens above, or the earth beneath, 
 or the^waters that are supposed to be under the earth. 
 Susan found her time full, her hands full, her heart 
 full, and her brain very much more than full. When 
 she was not in school she was writing up her notes or 
 reading, that she might be in a measure prepared for 
 Mr. Barton, or Mr. Goodale, or Mr. Shaler, or Mr. 
 Wright, or the rest of the savants. She knew the dif 
 ference between a kame and a drumlin ; she knew the 
 difference between a moth and a behemoth, and how 
 the trunk of one was related to the trunk of the other. 
 She knew that she was herself an ascidian, and she 
 was as eager as any one to work out the links which 
 connected her with her grandfather s great-grandfather. 
 She dipped into Biichner and Helmholz, and even went 
 back to Helvetius and D Holbach that she might get 
 the doctrine at the fountain. So she understood that 
 if a giraffe without a long neck only wants one enough, 
 he will get it by stretching up his neck to the top of 
 the palm-trees ; and that if a seal on the beach wants 
 a pair of legs, and tries for them hard enough, he will 
 develop them, and that what there is left of his tail 
 will dwindle down into insignificance. This is the 
 doctrine of the nisus, or effort. Susan, who was a 
 good girl, satisfied herself with the effort to be very 
 wise, and hoped that it would come out all right ; but 
 
little did she think all the time how the same doctrine 
 was soaking into Mr. Mackintosh s empty head, and 
 what a nuisance it would be to her. 
 
 This is the reason why I feel sure it would have been 
 better to have left him in his case with the umbrellas 
 at the door. But, as you will see, it was an annoyance, 
 if you were walking to a lecture with a party, to have 
 to make some ridiculous excuse for staying outside; 
 and also it seems rather cheap to confess that you al 
 ways go to the play or lecture with a man who cares 
 nothing about Shakespeare or geology, and prefers to 
 stay elsewhere. It was to the scientific lectures and 
 the really first-class concerts that she took him most, 
 for to those a school-mistress of her grade was almost 
 sure to have free tickets sent her. As to places where 
 she paid for tickets, she never dreamed of taking him 
 into the house there. 
 
 But it was really as great a misfortune to him as it 
 was to her. Empty-headed creature as he was, of 
 course he listened to nothing, heard nothing, and un 
 derstood nothing at first. And it never occurred to 
 Susan that things would not stay on this easy and 
 cheerful basis. But nothing stays on the thoroughly 
 comfortable basis. People always attempt improve 
 ments, which often result in ruin. So it is that Vol 
 taire says that " the better is the enemy of the good." 
 
 One night there were some very bright and wonder 
 ful stereoscopes. And poor addle-pated Mr. Mackin 
 tosh could not help having the rays come through his 
 gray glass eyes into that empty camera-obscura of his 
 head. And of course the picture could not help show 
 ing itself all upside-down and hind side before. But it 
 
10 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 amused him and pleased him. And that night his 
 mask had very large ears, so that he could not help 
 listening a little. And then he listened more. For the 
 man was gesticulating and quoting and illustrating and 
 making it very plain, so that if Mr. Mackintosh would 
 only " make an effort," as Mrs. Chick said, all would be 
 well. I suppose he did " make an effort," as far as 
 rattan and whalebone could, and so he formed that 
 habit, which proved bad for him, of listening to the 
 man more. As for keeping his eyes and ears open, he 
 could not help that, for none of the masks were made 
 with eyes or ears that opened or shut, and he had to 
 look and listen whether he wanted to or not. The rest 
 of us are more fortunate. 
 
 Susan, quite unconsciously, hurried on the mischief 
 which had been begun, by talking to him herself as 
 they walked home from the lectures and concerts. I 
 do not think she did this for practice in talking. For 
 she talked a good deal in the school-room, and, though 
 she is a modest girl, I think she must know that with 
 out special practice she is as good a talker as you shall 
 meet with in a long day. But she was sensitive and 
 conscious about the deception which she was keeping 
 up with Mr. Mackintosh or with the public in the 
 affair of Mr. Mackintosh. Dr. Primrose preached that 
 terrible sermon of his about "Truth" just then, and 
 made it clear that any conscious deception was a lie, 
 whether you said a word or not. This worried her a 
 little. For was she not consciously deceiving every 
 loafer on Washington Street or Boylston Street ? Had 
 she not made Mr. Mackintosh on purpose that she 
 might deceive them ? But a certain under-conscious- 
 
11 
 
 ness that she meant no wrong sustained her against 
 Dr. Primrose, and at first the stings of conscience only 
 pricked her so deep as to make her resolve that she 
 would not be found out no, not if she met Dr. Prim 
 rose and Mrs. Primrose both. So she thought it more 
 prudent that was the word she used in discussing it 
 with herself to keep up an animated conversation with 
 Mr. Mackintosh in the street when she observed that 
 any one was near them. And indeed this proved so 
 agreeable, as conversation is apt to when you do all the 
 talking, that she kept it up all the time from the lect 
 ure or concert to the station. After they came to the 
 station she always folded him up in some recess of the 
 ladies waiting-room. For Providence Railroad con 
 ductors are pitiless, and would have been sure to de 
 mand a ticket for him. 
 
 " That is a magnificent harmony at the end of the 
 third act." No audible reply but one so seldom hears 
 both sides of a conversation. "I was not sure but 
 Gloria strained a little in striking the non ; but it was 
 all so good that it is absurd to pick out flaws." Again 
 Mr. Mackintosh s voice is lost as those firemen rush by. 
 Or, " Could you quite follow him in what he said about 
 the permanence of type? How can it be, if the type 
 is permanent, that we should notice the transition, as 
 Mr. Shaler pointed it out Tuesday ? But then, I am 
 not quite sure if Mr. Shaler and Mr. Barton quite agree 
 about that. You must remind me to ask him. Or we 
 might send a note to Notes and Queries" Now, if the 
 bishop himself had heard that, or Mrs. Bishop, neither 
 would have minded, or remembered afterwards, that 
 Mr. Mackintosh said nothing. 
 
SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 IV 
 
 But, alas! simple Susan carried on this rattling and 
 interesting conversation quite too far and too long. 
 Mr. Mackintosh had been making all the nisus, or 
 effort, he could in listening to the stereoscope man, 
 and he had all the encouragement of the success of 
 the giraffe and the seals. Now, here was this bright, 
 wise, merry Susan Ellsworth, who bore him along, 
 who was the result of just such efforts as he was 
 making. And he found it much more agreeable to 
 listen to her sweet, low-toned voice just in his ear, her 
 breath fragrant as clover, and her hand under his arm 
 beating a pulse in keeping with all she said he found 
 this much more agreeable than straining his poor little 
 new wits to make out what the man on the platform a 
 hundred feet away was howling about. So he was al 
 ways distressed when any of her friends joined them 
 to take advantage of his protection, and when Susan 
 turned away from him to speak to Maud or Clara. To 
 say the truth, this did not happen often. For Maud 
 and Clara had the same proper pride about hitching on 
 upon other people s escorts as had governed Susan in 
 her independent days. 
 
 While poor Mr. Mackintosh made this nisus, or effort, 
 to hear, he was all the time making wild and futile 
 efforts to speak. For these he had wretched organs 
 and more wretched opportunities. For one night in 
 the family-circle, where Susan had unfolded him after 
 they had passed the ticket-gate, he had seen the police 
 man seize two boys who were catcalling, and hale them 
 
SUSAN S ESCORT" 13 
 
 off he knew not whither. So poor Mr. Mackintosh was 
 frightened, and did not dare to try experiments in 
 doors. Then, as soon as they came to the railway sta 
 tion, Susan always ruthlessly shut him up, and he had 
 no organization at all. Literally he " went to pieces," 
 and it was not slang to say so. One night, in a high 
 gale, Susan was dragging him beside her or rather 
 behind her and he tried to speak, but nothing but a 
 great howl came out, which was half a sneeze. She 
 did not suspect that he had anything to do with it. 
 And the poor creature was dreadfully mortified by his 
 failure. 
 
 But another night, very imprudently, she left him 
 sitting in a chair, in the anteroom of the hall of the 
 " Sons of Idleness." The hall had been hired for a 
 " reception " which was given by the graduates of Vas- 
 sar to one of the professors who was going to Germany 
 on his sabbatical visit. Susan thought she was safe in 
 leaving Mr, Mackintosh in a dark corner without fold 
 ing him up. And so she was. He sat, with his chin 
 on his hands, as she left him, and thus he had, for once, 
 the chance to try his various gruntings and bowlings, 
 and to pass through the experiments of the ascidian to 
 the more articulate language of the man. 
 
 Fortunately for him, he had some lessons just when 
 he needed them most and expected them least. 
 
 For one of the other escorts, who had been taken 
 into the reception hall, came running out, and help 
 lessly rushed up and down the waiting-room, annoyed 
 that he found no one there. But in his despair he saw 
 Mr. Mackintosh. 
 
 " Ugh ah glad to see somebody ugh could you 
 
14 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 can you yes would you tell me, please ugh, you 
 know don t you see ? where the water is ? Miss 
 Maelstrom ugh is faint you know !" 
 
 Mr. Mackintosh s time had come. Imitation was his 
 cue, clearly, as in Kosenthal and Prendergast. With 
 one sublime effort he echoed the other, wondering, as 
 he did so, whether perhaps he had as much brain. 
 
 "Ugh" tremendously prolonged "ah" shorter, 
 but very long "glad to see somebody" this hope 
 lessly indistinct from eagerness, like an Edison turned 
 three times too fast ; "could you can you can you 
 could you" this slower "water Maelstrom ugh 
 ah yes, you know." But fortunately, in his ag 
 ony gesticulating like a schoolboy who forgets his 
 piece, he pointed his finger to the looking-glass, where 
 stood pitcher and tumbler in full sight of both of 
 them. 
 
 " Ugh oh thanks yes so much so much 
 obliged, you know thanks ugh, oh, Miss Maelstrom" 
 and Mr. Knowitz vanished with his tumbler. 
 
 Mr. Mackintosh had tried and had succeeded, and on 
 these sounds he practised all the evening. 
 
 Would she give him another chance for practice? 
 Alas, no ! or it seemed no. That night as they went 
 home there was a great group of Yassarites, all bub 
 bling over with fun effervescing and spluttering as so 
 many bottles of XX might do which had been warmed 
 at a sociable all the evening. And he thought Susan 
 had never been so remorseless as she was in undoing 
 him that night. The next evening was worse. A gen 
 tleman joined her on the other side. And poor Mack- 
 
HE SAT, WITH HIS CHIN ON HIS HANDS 
 
SUSAN S ESCORT 15 
 
 intosh was afraid for his very life as they swung along. 
 It was not till the third night that he had a chance, or 
 so it seemed to the poor witless creature. 
 
 But on the third night the chance came. Susan was 
 in the highest spirits. The night was clear and cold, 
 and they devoured the pavement as she rushed him 
 along. "Well, my dear Mac," said she, mercilessly, 
 "that was first-rate. I do not wonder women want 
 to speak, if they could speak like that. Mac, if I 
 could get Mr. Edison to give me one of his rollers, I 
 would attach it to you, and you should repeat the end 
 of Mr. Bryce s lecture." 
 
 " Ugh ah you know well Miss Susan ugh, ah 
 give me a chance you know and I will do- em-all." 
 The end was badly run together. 
 
 "What, you my dear Mac?" This was all Susan 
 said, and she almost dropped him in the gutter in her 
 surprise, and she lost her own speech for laughing. She 
 laughed so that she shook him from his cap to his arc 
 tics, and all the poor breath he had in his limp ribs was 
 knocked out of him. And when she came to herself, 
 all she could say was, " Poor dear Mac ! I beg your 
 pardon, but" then she broke down again "but who 
 ever dreamed of your talking ?" 
 
 But then it was poor Mac s turn. She had to listen, 
 and he told her, with many unnecessary " ughs" and 
 " ahs," and " you knows," and " don t you sees," that 
 he was sure he only needed more practice to speak quite 
 
16 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 well. It was true that he could not manage r, and he 
 always called th d ; but so did many gentlemen he met. 
 He needed extra breath, but " ugh" and " oh" seemed 
 to help in this. And when he had not an idea, he 
 could fill in with "don t you see" and "you know." 
 
 " You poor dear thing," said Susan, compassionate! v, 
 as she unscrewed his head and put it in her bag, " you 
 are really eloquent." 
 
 VI 
 
 But the reader will see that a good girl like Susan 
 could not shut up the face just now eager in its en 
 treaties, and go to sleep, after she had silenced it, with 
 out serious thought. Here was a matter of conscience 
 more formidable than that question about veracity 
 which Dr. Primrose had started. Was it quite hon 
 orable in her, was it fair nay, was it right to start 
 this poor feeble creature in his career, to let him par 
 take of a little taste of the wonders of science, of art, 
 and of music, and then to snuff him out like a candle, 
 simply because she chose to? Susan tossed in her bed 
 a good deal before she went to sleep, with these ques 
 tions troubling her. And early in the morning, when 
 the singing birds first awakened her by their carols to 
 the rising sun, she rose, screwed Mr. Mackintosh to 
 gether, tied him to an arm-chair in her entry, and left 
 him to enjoy the sunrise. As she went to sleep again 
 she could hear him practising an imitation of this 
 morning hymn of the birds, who were Plymouth Kock 
 cockerels. The poor brainless creature did not know 
 any better ; he had taken it for granted that these were. 
 
SUSAN S ESCORT 17 
 
 the morning songs of men. Susan was pleased with 
 herself for this act of mercy, and she did not take him 
 to pieces till it was time for her to go to school. 
 
 As it happened, he was this time shut up and, so to 
 speak, ceased to be as an individual longer than had 
 ever happened to him before. For, to her delight, as 
 the school recess came, Susan received a card, and visit 
 close following, from George Farmer, the fine young 
 engineer officer to whom, as I said, she was engaged. 
 By good luck, and by good strategy of his own, he had 
 got himself ordered to Boston, to make a contract for 
 some ice for the meat -cars of the Cattaraugus and 
 Opelousas Railroad. With good luck, this ice contract 
 and certain subsidiary negotiations were made to last a 
 fortnight, and during that whole time Susan needed no 
 escort other than George, and, in truth, thought very 
 little of any other. But at length the last day of 
 George s visit came, as last days will, and then she 
 began to think how dreadful it would be to have 
 nobody but Mr. Mackintosh to go anywhere with her. 
 Still, she was less disposed than ever to cut off her 
 hair and to retire into a convent. 
 
 Wisely, therefore, the girl submitted the question to 
 her lover. But she did it in a guarded w r ay, which I 
 would not recommend to other good girls in a like po 
 sition ; if, indeed, there ever may be such girls. As 
 they came home from the Symphony on that wretched 
 farewell night she said : " George, I want your ad 
 vice. You are so good, and and you are never jeal 
 ous. You see, when you are away, I have no one to 
 go with me to the concerts, you know, and the lect 
 ures." 
 
18 
 
 " No ; you used to boast of your independence when 
 I first knew you." 
 
 "I know yes, I did. But I was very foolish." 
 And then she told him of that horrid fright she had 
 had. And he was very angry, and swore just a little 
 and made her promise to run no such risk again. 
 This made it easier for her to go on. 
 
 " No ; I knew you would not let me. That is why I 
 did not write you about it. But what I did you 
 must not be angry was to take a poor stick there was, 
 with nothing to do, to come and go with me. You do 
 not mind that, do you ?" And here she looked up at 
 him with her most roguish and confiding smile. But 
 George s face clouded ; she could see it did. 
 
 "I don t know," said he. "That would depend. 
 What sort of a creature is he an old man ?" 
 
 " Oh, I do not know. Don t be jealous, now. I do not 
 suppose he is very oJd ; perhaps he is very young. You 
 see, he was deaf and dumb and blind and could 
 hardly walk. So I did not suppose you would care." 
 
 At this George grinned a somewhat ghastly smile, 
 and said he didn t care quite so much ; but asked how, 
 if the man was deaf, he could enjoy the concerts. 
 
 You will observe also that Susan wandered from 
 Dr. Primrose s instructions. She said Mr. Mackintosh 
 u was" deaf and dumb she hardly dared say "he is" 
 and there was conscious deception again. In an 
 swer to her lover she said : " Enjoy the concerts ? 
 Who ever said he enjoyed the concerts?" She was a 
 little reassured, as women are, because lie had made an 
 unimportant mistake. " You do not suppose I ever 
 bought a concert ticket for him, do you ? No ; I take 
 
19 
 
 him as I would a cab after the concert was over. 
 Dear George, you must not be jealous of him more 
 than you would be of a cabman." 
 
 " You do not take a cabman s arm," said George, a 
 little irresolutely ; and Susan shuddered as she recol 
 lected with how firm a grip she had to take all the 
 arm Mr. Mackintosh had. "What is the wretch s 
 name ?" continued he. 
 
 "Name?" said Susan. "Do you ask your cabman s 
 name? I never asked him. We call him Mr. Mackin 
 tosh, from the coat he wears, but I never asked him 
 his name. I do not believe he has any." 
 
 This encouraged George a little ; but still he said he 
 did not think it was nice or wise, and that nobody but 
 as innocent and sweet a girl as Susy would ever have 
 fallen into so silly a plan. He even asked if other 
 girls in Boston had to hire their escorts. At which 
 Susy said that other girls had escorts who did not live 
 in the Eocky Mountains, or in Opelousas either; and 
 at that Mr. George had to come down from his high 
 horse. It ended by a compromise. She agreed, when 
 she went anywhere alone, to order a cab regularly at 
 a stable he named, and he declared that the next time 
 he came to Boston he should pay the bill. Whether 
 she would let him or not was left undecided in the 
 final ceremonies of the farewell. For he left in that 
 horrible train which goes off at eleven at night, and 
 there was no question but that he must go. 
 
 So all Susan had got by asking advice was that she 
 was worse off than she was when she asked for it. 
 This is what is apt to happen, dear Clara, when you 
 do not tell your whole story to your adviser. 
 
20 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 VII 
 
 And now she must deal with Mr. Mackintosh alone, 
 by her own unassisted sense, such as it was. Reallv 
 it was stronger, as the reader has seen, in the inventive 
 and mechanical lines than it was in the philosophical 
 and ethical lines. 
 
 Of course she could have left Mr. Mackintosh where 
 he was his legs and arms in the glazed umbrella-case, 
 his masks in her alligator-skin bag, and his arctics on 
 the floor of her closet. But, as has been said, she did 
 not think this fair. She had thought of burning him 
 up. But she was too strong a Protestant ; her rem 
 iniscences of Smithfield and John Rogers were too 
 strong, and that she would not do. She had called 
 him into such being as he had, poor creature, and she 
 would not destroy her own work. " That would be 
 simply mean," she said to herself ; " that would not be 
 fair." 
 
 So she took another morning when the cocks were 
 crowing, and screwed him together, and tied him to a 
 chair as before. Poor Mr. Mackintosh did not know 
 how long he had ceased to exist, any more than Mr. 
 Hyde knew how long Dr. Jekyll had been running the 
 machine. Nor was the poor thing as wretched as the 
 girl chose to fancy him. For, as he had none of that 
 essence which loves and fears, hopes, admires, and 
 worships, he had nothing worth remembering, if he 
 could remember, as he could not ; and nothing to look 
 forward to, if he could look forward, as he could not. 
 But this, simple Susan did not consider. She simply 
 
SUSANS ESCORT 21 
 
 screwed him together. He listened to the cock-a-doo- 
 dles, as he did before; and if he had thought, as he 
 could not and did not, he would have thought that 
 this was thus and then was now. 
 
 Then Susan went to bed and slept till the dressing- 
 bell rang. As she dressed, she began a little note to 
 George, for she had promised to write to him twice 
 a day. But after breakfast, before school-time, she 
 came up and brought Mr. Mackintosh into her room 
 and locked the door. He had never been in that room 
 before. 
 
 u Mac," said she, " I shall not want you any more. 
 What do you want to do? What do you like to do 
 most?" 
 
 "Oh, ugh, ah you know don t you see well, you 
 know 
 And Susan was patient, for she often had such re 
 marks addressed to her by her partners who were not 
 skilful in extempore speech. So she waited. And at 
 last it came, as gas comes after the puff of air in a 
 poor gas-pipe. 
 
 If you know, Miss Susan I could go to some of 
 those parties receptions like that of the Sons of 
 Idleness. Indeed, Miss Susan, I can talk as well as 
 the young men I see there." 
 
 " I think you can," said Susan. " I should be 
 ashamed of my work if you could not. I had thought 
 of that, Mac. But I cannot do it, for you have no 
 pumps nor patent-leather shoes. And your trousers 
 are not good. I have no money to throw away on 
 parties. Think of something else, Mac." 
 
 It is not worth the while to load the page with poor 
 
22 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 Mac s " ohs" and " ughs " and other " spaces." In sub 
 stance he then asked if he might not be a juryman. " I 
 thought I could ; you know they do not have to know 
 anything, and, indeed, are better when they do not." 
 
 "-That is good, Mac. I had not thought of that, but 
 I will," said the girl. And so she took his head off and 
 shut him up, and took this plan into consideration. 
 
 But of course she did not assent to it. That same 
 day she read the Court Calendar, and was distressed to 
 think that she had yielded even for an hour. When 
 she went home she put Mac together, and told him that 
 this would not do. 
 
 " Then," said he, very piteously, " might I not be an 
 under-editor to an independent journal? You know 
 they do not have any opinions, and are very proud that 
 they do not. I am sure I never had any opinions. I 
 do not know what an opinion is." But this time Susan 
 was not deceived ; this was only the jury plan under 
 another form. 
 
 Then Mac pleaded, quite eloquently for him, that he 
 might stay just what he was. He had seen the red- 
 capped messenger men at the station. He envied one 
 of them his one arm, because practically poor Mac had 
 no arms at all. " JSTow I could not go of errands, Miss 
 Susan. But you say yourself I do my work well. You 
 could fasten me at the door, and any one who wanted 
 me would unfasten me." 
 
 " My dear Mac, you do not see. The secret would 
 be discovered, and then the roughs would not mind 
 you. Don t you see, Mac, you cannot knock a man 
 down? You might as well be a woman, for all the 
 good you are in your own business, unless people think 
 
=*& 
 
 " MAC, SAID SHE, l SHALL NOT WANT YOU ANY MORE " 
 
SUSAN S ESCORT 
 
 you are a man. And if they do think so, it is because 
 I consciously deceive them. Oh dear ! Oh dear! I 
 wish you had never been born !" And the poor girl 
 broke out crying. But she did not say, " I wish I had 
 never been born," for the memory of George s last kiss 
 came to her 
 
 " I had thought," said Mac, " of voting. What you 
 say of women reminds me that they cannot vote ; but 
 I can." 
 
 "No, you can t," said Susan, smartly, for she knew. 
 "You have not registered, and you have not been as 
 sessed." 
 
 " I could register," said Mac. 
 
 " You can t register ; it s a very smart person who 
 knows how to register ; and, besides, you can t read the 
 Constitution. So it would be of no use if you could 
 register." 
 
 " No," said Mac, sadly, " I cannot read the Constitu 
 tion. You don t think I could be a minister ?" 
 
 " No, you couldn t. There are some kinds that know 
 very little, but they all have to know something." 
 
 " Nor a doctor ?" 
 
 " N-o, Mac ; at least, I believe not. I think they 
 have to know something." 
 
 " Nor a lawyer ?" 
 
 " No, certainly not. You have no eye-teeth. And 
 they have to be cut before you are a lawyer. I heard 
 Judge Jeffries say so." 
 
 And then they waited. " I will talk to you again 
 by-and-by," she said. And then she ran down-stairs to 
 meet the postman, and found just a little postal card, 
 on which George had written in French that she was 
 
24 SUSAN S ESCOET, AND OTHEES 
 
 the dearest girl in the world, and that he should always 
 love her. Immediately on this she took Mr. Mackin 
 tosh to pieces, dressed herself for the Appalachian 
 Club, went to Boston, and tried her pretty cab for the 
 first time. It was really an elegant little coupe, and 
 the stable-keeper had put the driver in livery. George 
 had written to him from Springfield that the coupe 
 must wait for Miss Ellsworth every evening. 
 
 But the next morning Susan brought her little drama 
 to an end. 
 
 She screwed Mr. Mac together once more, and said, 
 " Tell me yourself what you want to be." 
 
 "Could I not be Vice-President," he said; "till the 
 President died, you know ; or Lieutenant-Governor, or 
 something like that ?" 
 
 " Oh no, Mac ; they might not know when to un 
 screw you." 
 
 " Could I not be a trustee ? I believe trustees have 
 to be cautious, and not do the rash things other people 
 do." 
 
 " I had thought of that, Mac, and I inquired. But 
 you would have to give bonds. Now, no one would 
 give bonds for you. I am sure I would not." This 
 was cruel in Susan ; but sometimes she is cruel. 
 
 " Then, Miss Susan, why cannot I be what I am ?" 
 
 " Because I do not want you." 
 
 "But somebody else might want me. I could stand 
 in front of tailors shops with new clothes on. I should 
 like to be that. I see a great many young men who do 
 that and nothing else, and they seem to like it very 
 much." 
 
 "You dear old Mac 1" cried the girl; "you have 
 
SUSAN S ESCORT 25 
 
 more sense than any of us at least, more than I have. 
 It is the best sense possible to be what you are, and 
 pretend to nothing more. I knew that, though I have 
 never tried it, for Mr. Emerson says so." 
 
 So she went with him to Cutter & Dresser s that 
 very day. They are the great ready-made clothing 
 men. And they took Mac at once off her hands liter 
 ally. And they put on him that handsome Garrick you 
 saw me wearing yesterday. That was the way I came 
 to know the story. 
 
 And will you believe it ? one day when they had 
 dressed him in a costumer s suit as Dromio of Syracuse, 
 old Mac forgot, and began walking up and down the 
 balcony on which he was standing. The people in the 
 street saw it, and fancied he was a wonderful autom 
 aton. They stopped in hundreds to see him, and of the 
 hundreds scores went in to buy. 
 
 That was the beginning of the triumphant success of 
 Cutter & Dresser. They owed it all to Susan, and I 
 think they will send her a pair of salt-spoons for her 
 wedding. 
 
ONE GOOD TUEN 
 
 HELEN MELCHEK was just going to bed. Twice she 
 looked doubtfully at the old bureau, which had been 
 her mother s ; once she half crossed the room towards it. 
 The third time her resolution gave way, and she opened 
 the upper drawer and took out her journal-book. She 
 sat down, opened it, read the last entry, which was, in 
 truth, rather forlorn, paused again, with her pen in her 
 hand ; but then, without any further hesitation, wrote 
 quickly and steadily thus : 
 
 " Friday, December 2Qtli. Another good-for-nolhing day. I have 
 hesitated before I would even waste good ink on telling the story of 
 such wasted hours. I did better in those days of the early journals, 
 which say Washed my doll s clothes, Ironed my doll s clothes. 
 If Clara and John would only let me, now, I would send Bridget 
 off to-morrow, and would wash and iron my own. Why, I should 
 then, at least, be good for something ! 
 
 "I have no longer even the wretched occupation of going to Dr. 
 Hunter s. He says my wrist is all right, if only I do nothing. And 
 that is just what I am good for. It is lucky for me that he has done 
 with me ; for I gave him my last two dollars, and I shall have to go 
 on foot till dividend day if I save this bright quarter for the contri 
 bution-box. For that matter, I may just as well stay at home as go 
 out. It is all one with such a do-nothing as I am. I even told John 
 Orcutt, at the doctor s, that his time was more valuable than mine, 
 and I let him take my turn, first among the patients, when he would 
 have been last. Then I sat reading the American Orthopedist for the 
 
ONE GOOD TURN 27 
 
 hour, while the others went in. It was just as well. What was I 
 good for ? Poor John Orcutt ! I wonder if lie understood how bit 
 ter was my satire !" 
 
 And with this exclamation-point Helen Melcher went 
 to bed. 
 
 II 
 
 The Eecording Angel copied Helen s entry into his 
 big book in much fewer words than I have used. They 
 have a shorthand there which we cannot yet imitate. 
 
 And the Recording Angel smiled with that grave, 
 queer, sweet smile of his, which no artist as yet has 
 given us on canvas. It had been a busy day with him ; 
 for he had had all John Orcutt s entry to make, and all 
 the entries of all the lives in all the places and all the 
 countries which hinged on John Orcutt s. And so the 
 Recording Angel did not think Helen Melcher s day so 
 insignificant as she did. 
 
 The truth is that that particular day of hers kept 
 him very busy for a long time, and we shall see. In 
 fact, he had to ask for more assistants, and he had them 
 granted him ; for they are very kind there to servants 
 as faithful as he. 
 
 Ill 
 
 John Orcutt was not in any sense what you would 
 call an important man. He was an honest, rather slow 
 coach, unimaginative, but perfectly willing to do his 
 duty, if anybody told him just what it was. He was 
 not very bright in finding it out for himself. Indeed, 
 
28 
 
 SUSAN S ESCOKT, AND OTHERS 
 
 a difference in that very faculty is one of the rather 
 critical distinctions between men. John Orcutt sat in 
 the pew next at the right of Helen s pew. That is the 
 way she came to know his name. 
 
 When at Dr. Hunter s that day Helen had bitterly said 
 to him that his time was more precious than hers, and 
 had let him go first into the surgeon s room, he had not 
 enough wit to see that she was bitter or sad. What he 
 knew was that in the printing-office that morning a 
 heavy chase had fallen on his foot. He was lame, and 
 he was afraid that some of the little bones were broken. 
 He had had to take a cab to do the errands which his 
 chief had given him; he had just finished that crit 
 ical interview with their counsel, Kent & Marshall, 
 about the libel ; he was late at Dr. Hunter s, whose 
 office was full when he arrived, and, except for Hel 
 en s good-nature, he would have had to sit there an 
 hour. 
 
 As it was, it did not take the great surgeon two min 
 utes to tell him that nothing was the matter. In an 
 other minute his boot was on, and in another he had 
 called a cab and was driving quickly back to the office. 
 
 His chief was delighted to see him. 
 
 " I had not looked for you before five," he said, " and 
 you so lame, too ! I had just telegraphed Marcy at 
 enormous length ; but now you are here, I will leave 
 the office to you and catch the express myself. Per 
 sonal presence moves the world. I will be back Mon 
 day morning. Lead with the judiciary, then take Bul 
 garia or the Fisheries, then as you choose ; only," 
 said the chief, as he pulled on his overcoat and lifted 
 down his travelling-sack, " Claghorn is to say nothing, 
 
ONE GOOD THEN 29 
 
 not if you have to kill him. We say nothing about 
 silver and about Scotland Yard, you know." 
 
 And so John Orcutt was left in charge of the journal 
 from five o clock, Friday, till breakfast-time, Monday, 
 while the great man swung himself to the train and to 
 the capital. And so, also, at the very moment when 
 Helen was making her forlorn entry about John Orcutt 
 in her diary the great chief, thanks to her, was rushing 
 along, asleep, as fast as steam would pull him, two 
 hundred miles from home. 
 
 IV 
 
 Let us follow his story first, and then we will go back 
 to John Orcutt, in the office. The great editor arrived 
 at the seat of government at last, long after breakfast- 
 time. But he did not stop for breakfast; nay, he 
 scarcely stopped to wash his face and hands. He called 
 a cab, and in ten minutes was at the bureau of his 
 friend, the great officer of state, to whom he had been 
 telegraphing. 
 
 "Are you a foreign minister?" said the. messenger, 
 who sat at the door, surprised at the unknown visitor. 
 
 " I am a domestic minister," said the editor, bluntly, 
 and pushed by the unavailing lackey. 
 
 General Marcy, whom he had come so far to see, was 
 at his desk, working as if he were never tired. A young 
 man at another desk looked pale and " dead-beat," and, 
 if he had spoken, would have said that the place of 
 private clerk to a Secretary of State is not the elegant 
 sinecure which men imagine it. A Pueblo blanket lay 
 
30 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 on a sofa, on one side, rudely tossed, as it had been 
 thrown back after the secretary had caught his hour s 
 nap at three that morning. By each of the gentlemen 
 was a cup of coffee. 
 
 The great secretary turned to the editor as he en 
 tered, almost as if he had expected him : 
 
 "Is it you, my good fellow ? It is so like you to come 
 on. But I supposed that was out of the question." 
 
 " I thought so myself when I wired you." And then 
 the editor at once observed a certain doubt on his 
 friend s face, and added : " You have my despatch ?" 
 
 " Despatch. Yes, I think so ; of course. When ? Gil 
 bert, did we have any despatch from from Mr. ?" 
 
 But he did not add the name. Gilbert had produced 
 the despatch and brought it to his chief. The editor 
 was quite quick enough to see that it had never been 
 read or even opened before. 
 
 " You are just in time," said Marcy, not so much as 
 waiting to apologize, " for me to read you the full text 
 of our despatch in its last revision. I had Clinton here, 
 well, till two o clock last night, and Maxwell and the 
 chief himself sat where you are sitting. These are the 
 rough drafts ; most of it, of course, is mine. But the 
 chief himself drew this, and I am bound to say it is in 
 his best style. Mr. Gillott, here, was good enough to 
 make a clean copy while I caught a nap there. I have 
 been sketching the instructions, which will go with it, 
 to Franklin and to Stowell. Mr. Gillott will give us 
 clean drafts of these while I am reading. Put up your 
 feet, and I will read." 
 
 So he rang for a cup of coffee and some oysters for 
 his guest, and while Orcutt partook of this scant re- 
 
ONE GOOD TUKN 31 
 
 faction the great secretary read to him that cele 
 brated despatch on the length of the marine league and 
 the true limits of blockade. Logical and clear, it moved 
 steadily from point to point, and compelled conviction. 
 It asserted the rights of mankind in language which was 
 absolute ; it stated the position of the nation in the 
 maintenance of these rights for the world as for itself. 
 It ended with ten lines of sharp and indignant com 
 ment on the pettiness and duplicity of the despatches, 
 to which it replied, from two great powers. 
 
 The reading occupied the better part of an hour. 
 When Marcy had finished he and his friend looked 
 each other steadily in the eye for a minute without 
 speaking, without winking. But the editor smiled 
 gravely in approval. 
 
 " Will it do ?" 
 
 " It is simply perfect," said he. " It sends one back 
 to the Protector and John Milton. While you read I 
 gradually forgot our modern races, nor remembered 
 the existence of a leading article. Do ? Why, you 
 redeem diplomacy when you make such a record of 
 common-sense?" 
 
 The secretary was well pleased. He even blushed. 
 " I am glad you were the first person to hear it after it 
 was put together." 
 
 " So am I," said the other ; and again there was a 
 long pause. The secretary rang for two more cups of 
 coffee. 
 
 " You have something to say," he said, at last. 
 
 " Perhaps," said the other. " Yes ; I have. Charles 
 you men here } r ou do not know the country as well 
 as we do. 
 
32 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 "You are always saying that," replied the great 
 diplomatist, annoyed. 
 
 "Because it is true. You are shut up here in your 
 palaces. You are reading letters from consuls and 
 plenipotentiaries. We are knocking about among men 
 who speak bad English and buy lean cattle to fatten 
 them." And he paused again. 
 
 " Yes ?" said the secretary, uneasily. 
 
 " And in a word," said the editor. " Charles I 
 wish well I hate to say it I wish you would cut off 
 your snapper at the end. It is good as gold. It is 
 better. It is perfect as repartee. It is threat without 
 threatening. But it is threat all the same. Charles, 
 the country will not back you in it." 
 
 " Fudge !" 
 
 " Charles, I know the country. This country is not 
 prepared for that war. Those ten lines mean war 
 and will make war. This country will cheer you at 
 the beginning, and abandon you as sure as you live. 
 Say to your chief that I say so." 
 
 " You want me to cut off my perfect conclusion ?" 
 
 " Yes. And you had rather cut off your left hand." 
 
 " Of course I had," said the secretary. " John, it is 
 the only passage which I care a penny for in the de 
 spatch." 
 
 " I knew you would say so." 
 
 The great man walked up and down his office three 
 times. Mr. Gillott still copied on the instructions. No 
 one said anything. 
 
 Then the secretary came to the writing-table, and 
 drew two broad strokes of a pen across the offending 
 passage. He rang and ordered his carriage. " I 
 
ONE GOOD TURN 
 
 will take it to the chief. You have conquered, Gali 
 lean !" 
 
 But neither of them smiled, even. They almost 
 crushed each other s hands as they parted. The editor 
 looked at his watch, and went to his breakfast. 
 
 Bearers of despatches travel quickly, and in a very 
 few days this critical despatch was read in the chan 
 celleries of both of the sovereigns to whom it was ad 
 dressed. There was a little sovereign and a great 
 sovereign. The little sovereign would wait to do what 
 the great sovereign bade him ; and the great sovereign 
 would do what his great chancellor advised him. 
 
 The great chancellor bade his man Friday read the 
 Marcy despatch aloud to him, which he did. The great 
 chancellor then sent the man Friday to bed, and read 
 it again and again himself, before he followed the 
 man Friday s example. The next morning, over his 
 coffee, he read it again. He then summoned the Field- 
 Marshal Julius and the Secretary of the Admiralty, 
 whose name was Nearchus, and he said : " Gentle 
 men, you may give holidays to your people. This 
 breeze has blown over." And when they both seemed 
 surprised for their departments had been at work day 
 and night for weeks the great chancellor said : " Be 
 tween ourselves, gentlemen, we must not fight till we 
 have a better case. These people yonder put the thing 
 so well that all Europe and all the neutral powers 
 will be with them ; and I do not mind saying to you. 
 
34 
 
 our friends of the opposition would handle us badly 
 at home. Now, if they had bragged never so lit 
 tle, if I could appeal to wounded pride or national 
 honor, could say they had insulted us, that would be 
 one thing, and we would gladly send you gentlemen to 
 blow them all out of the water or into the land. But 
 as it is well, I suppose it is as well. The truth is, 
 their paper is better than our paper. Jove ! gentle 
 men, it is as calm as the New Testament." They 
 waited a minute more, and he smiled and nodded : 
 " That is all, gentlemen ; there will be no war." 
 
 When the Recording Angel wrote that down in his 
 shorthand he smiled that queer smile again, and he 
 said to himself : " That is pretty well for Helen Mel- 
 cher s good-natured self-sacrifice." 
 
 VI 
 
 We must not forget John Orcutt. 
 
 John Orcutt was too unimaginative a person to be 
 surprised much at anything. There was nothing in the 
 office of To-day which, sooner or later, he had not done. 
 In his time he had swept the floor, he had watered it 
 with a water-pot, he had set type, he had unfolded 
 newspapers from the mail. He had folded other news 
 papers. He had made out bills and he had collected 
 them. Also he had failed to collect them. He had 
 written book notices and theatre notices, and critiques 
 on Wagner s music. He had reported a baseball match 
 in the afternoon, and with the same pen a discussion on 
 predestination in the evening. He had eaten good din- 
 
ONE GOOD TURN 35 
 
 ners with the political clubs, and he had returned from 
 them to write a notice of Browning s last poem. He 
 had been "responsible" before now; and as nothing 
 surprised him, he was not surprised to find himself u re 
 sponsible" again. While he had been discharging his 
 other offices the chief had been " responsible." 
 
 John Orcutt now thought he would take the comfort 
 of being "responsible." The chiefs office was much 
 larger than the little cell which he usually occupied. 
 That was one comfort. At his side were the choicest 
 English and French and German papers. While he sat, 
 the grave, pale little boy, who opened the mails and 
 distributed to the different gentlemen their specialties, 
 brought in fresh copies of the London Spectator, Le 
 Nord, Le Temps, the Revue des Deux Mondes, and the 
 Journal Officiel. For the chief liked to have the first dip 
 into them. And so John Orcutt, having, for a wonder, 
 no inventors to hear with new projects for the enfran 
 chisement of mankind, put a pin into the loose sheets 
 of the Journal Officiel, turned to the non-official part 
 of it of course, and began to cut the leaves. He saw in 
 a moment that there was nothing for which his public 
 cared. But there was a curious report on the food of 
 infants, presented to the Academic de Medecine, in 
 Paris, by Leon Broussais. It went deep into detail, 
 and he who did not understand before about goat s 
 milk, ass s milk, cow s milk, and woman s milk did 
 afterwards. John Orcutt looked through the details in 
 the elaborate tables, put the whole in a cover, and sent 
 it to his classmate, Flanders. Thirty-six hours after 
 wards, on Sunday morning, he found this note on his 
 desk : 
 
36 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 "DEAR ORCUTT, I thank you, or, reverently, I thank the good 
 God, for your Frenchman and his report. People will believe a 
 printed scrap from Europe when they will not listen to an Angel of 
 Light at home. Our orphan board met quarterly meeting at noon 
 to-day. I carried Broussais s paper, and I utterly floored the old 
 fogies with it. Dear boy, it means one hundred live babies this sum 
 mer, cooing and playing in their mothers arms, instead of one hun 
 dred little crosses over mounds in the cemetery. I cannot thank 
 you enough. Shall I send back the paper ? 
 
 " Yours always, W. FLANDERS." 
 
 When the Recording Angel entered this business of 
 the hundred babies on William Flanders s book, he 
 directed two of his assistants to make cross-references 
 to that entry in Helen Melcher s book and in John 
 Orcutt s, and he smiled with that queer smile of his 
 again. 
 
 VII 
 
 And, to go back again, John Orcutt still sat, Friday 
 night, in the " responsible " chair. To him there came 
 in the chief of ship-news. 
 
 " It is not our affair," said this gentleman. " But 
 clearly this complication in the Marquesas Islands is 
 not understood by the gentlemen in Babylon." 
 
 Alas! John Orcutt felt that he did not understand 
 it, and could not. But he did what a responsible editor 
 should do. 
 
 " All right," he said. " You can leave the papers 
 with me." 
 
 Now there was among the young men who did "gen. 
 eral work " reported baseball matches to-day and 
 discussions on quaternions to-morrow one serious fel- 
 
ONE GOOD TURN 37 
 
 low, named Pringle, whom John Orcutt liked. He 
 hardly knew why. He had never spoken to the young 
 fellow, except to nod as they met in the wash-room. 
 But Pringle was always at his desk five minutes before 
 he had to be, always was the last man there at night, 
 even long after the others were gone. In overlooking 
 proof one week Orcutt had noticed that Pringle s copy 
 was always clean, and he knew that in eighteen months 
 he had never been blown up for a lie or an exaggera 
 tion. So, as soon as the ship-news chief went out, John 
 Orcutt struck his bell, and sent for Mr. Pringle. 
 
 The young man came, amazed. They were often 
 sent for in the morning, but never before had he been 
 in the chiefs office at eleven at night. 
 
 " What are you doing, Mr. Pringle ?" asked John. 
 
 " I am making rather a curious tabular statement, 
 from my own notes, comparing the number of catches 
 on the fly made in a temperature of 80 against those 
 made at an average temperature of 60." 
 
 " Would it do as well on Monday, or is any one else 
 doing the same thing?" 
 
 Mr. Pringle was quite sure no one else was doing it. 
 He had not even suggested it to any of the other men, 
 so eager was he that To-day only should have the glory 
 of the discovery, if discovery there were. In the slang 
 of the office he called the glory " Kudos." 
 
 " Then I will thank you to take those letters and 
 papers, which Mr. Atwood has left me. and sift out 
 this Fiji and Marquesas business. I do not know, but 
 I suspect that our admiral is wrong. I do not know, 
 but I think that there is no French admiral there. I 
 do know that the Babylon papers are wholly wrong. 
 
38 SUSAN S ESCOKT, AND OTHERS 
 
 Have the goodness to look up the international law. 
 Do not forget the cases of the Wild -flyer and of 
 the Pilgrim, which are, I think, the leading cases. 
 Look at Porter s account of his occupation of Mar 
 quesas. Take as much space as you like, but be sure 
 that we are right and not wrong. I will hold back 
 the press if you choose. I am sorry to keep you 
 up." 
 
 " That is of no consequence," said the young man, 
 his face all beaming with delight. " I shall have four 
 hours clear." 
 
 "And I think no one will interrupt you," said John 
 Orcutt, laughing. " Good-night." 
 
 " Good -night, sir." And the happy young fellow 
 took away the papers. 
 
 When the great editor returned on Monday morn 
 ing he drove directly to John Orcutt s home. It 
 was in the fifth story of the Wellington Apartment 
 Hotel. 
 
 " Mrs. Orcutt, I am sure you will give me breakfast. 
 Heaven knows what I might find at my quarters ! I 
 want to talk to your husband." And at this moment 
 John Orcutt appeared. 
 
 "John, I was just in time. They hated me, but they 
 listened. They had not looked at my telegram, had 
 not even lighted their pipes with it. John, we saved 
 them from the greatest blunder they have made yet. 
 And to say that is to say a great deal, as you know. 
 But all is well that ends well. They are saved ; the 
 country is saved ; nay, the world is saved, till some 
 body somewhere makes another blunder. We will 
 
ONE GOOD TUKN 39 
 
 try to forget this one. Now I want to talk about 
 ourselves. I bought our paper Sunday as I crossed 
 the ferry. Who wrote our leader on this island 
 row ?" 
 
 The chiefs manner was perfectly impassive. He 
 broke his egg without the least feeling. Was the 
 leader all right or all wrong? John Orcutt had not 
 the faintest idea. But the truth must be told. 
 
 " Young Mr. Pringle did it," said he. " I told him 
 the truth must be found and stated, and I gave him 
 four hours to do it." 
 
 The chief looked gravely at John and nodded. In 
 a minute he said : " I knew you did not write it, nor 
 L Estrange, nor Walter, nor Webb. Indeed, I did not 
 know we had a man in the office who could write it. 
 No, nor the man in the country. I knew I could 
 not." 
 
 John Orcutt was well pleased to find that the arti 
 cle was all right. He had feared, indeed, since Satur 
 day, that it might be all wrong. 
 
 "What do you say his name is Pringle?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "I guess his father was in the law school in my 
 time. Send him in to me at two o clock." 
 
 At two o clock Mr. Pringle knocked at the "re 
 sponsible" door. He knew he was to see the chief. 
 Whether he were to be dismissed from the office or 
 not, he did not know. 
 
 But the chief even rose and shook hands. " Mr. 
 Pringle, I am so glad to see you. I ought to be 
 ashamed, but I did not know before yesterday how 
 
40 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 we were wasting the force of our office. I think it 
 may please you to know that when I met Chancellor 
 Guilford yesterday, as we were coming out of church, 
 he asked who wrote our articles on international law, 
 and he said that he should read your paper on the 
 Occupation of Eimatara to his classes." 
 
 Mr. Pringle blushed and stammered out his thanks 
 and satisfaction. 
 
 " Do you read German ? v continued the eager chief. 
 
 " Of course, sir." 
 
 " Good. Please take these Vienna papers, and this 
 Rundschau yes and somewhere here here they are 
 these pamphlets, and look up for us this man Kohl- 
 schutter s discussion of Nationality. I thought I 
 should have to do it myself. I suppose he is a son of 
 the old Kohlschutter, or maybe grandson. Take all 
 the time you want. Mr. Orcutt says you only had 
 four hours Friday night." 
 
 " Yes, sir ; but I studied that matter in the fore 
 castle, when I was before the mast. 
 
 " Good !" said the chief again. " Here is a line to 
 Mr. MeElrath. He will fix your salary for the present 
 at $2000. I will speak to Mr. Orcutt about your work. 
 Unless you wish, you will do no more baseball at 
 present. Good-morning. Come round when you can, 
 and let me introduce you to my wife. You had bet 
 ter move your things into Mr. What s -his -name s 
 vacant office; next Mr. Orcutt s, you know. Good- 
 morning." 
 
 Before Edward Pringle moved a thing, he went into 
 the empty office and wrote this despatch to Mary 
 Underwood ; 
 
ONE GOOD TURN 41 
 
 "DEAR MARY, My salary is raised to $2000. Say Thursday, or 
 Thursday week. EDWARD." 
 
 And she telegraphed back : 
 
 "Thursday week, if you insist upon it. Always yours, 
 
 "MARY." 
 
 VIII 
 
 When the Kecording Angel entered this last cor 
 respondence he bade his clerks make cross-references 
 to it in the great editor s book and in John Orcutt s 
 book, but he asked to have Helen Melcher s book 
 brought to him, that he might make the entry there 
 with his own hand. 
 
 " Somehow," said the Kecording Angel, with that 
 grave smile of his, " I am more glad for this one than 
 I am for all the others. Wars and rumors of wars, life 
 and death yes yes, they are all very grand and very 
 important ; but they are all grand and important only 
 if and as they help to making happy homes. 
 
 "And how good it is," he said, as he dipped his pen 
 in his best golden ink, " that when that sad girl did 
 that unselfish thing in that surgeon s anteroom she 
 made this heaven of a happy home for Edward Pringle 
 and Mary Underwood, not for time only, but for all 
 eternity !" 
 
THE MINISTER S BLACK VEIL 
 
 WITH FULL PARTICULARS 
 
 [THIS curious and pathetic story has been told by Mr. Hawthorne 
 in his very best style. It is now classical as one of the " Twice-Told 
 Tales." I would not undertake to tell it for the third time but that 
 I do not believe that many readers have seen the original documents. 
 Mr. Hawthorne, indeed, carefully keeps them out of sight, and, with 
 his love of mystery, he leaves the reader to guess what Mr. Hooper s 
 reasons were for wearing the veil, if, indeed, Mr. Hawthorne himself 
 knew. Now the truth is that many a man of to-day, particularly as 
 he steps into a street-car or enters any other public place in what is 
 called our modern civilization, wishes he had a veil on. Women 
 have this resource, and avail themselves of it how much I do not 
 know ; for, of course, when they are deeply veiled I cannot tell who 
 the} r are. The only men I ever saw with veils on were.sojjne work 
 men on the Lake Superior Canal. They said they wore the veils to 
 keep off the mosquitoes. But, for aught I know, they may have 
 all been retired clergymen earning their living honestly, and their 
 names may have been "Hooper." But, as I did not ask them their 
 story, we will let them pass, and go back to our own version of the 
 original Parson Hopper and his Black Veil.] 
 
 Mr. Hooper woke one morning after a broken sleep. 
 He was more silent at breakfast than was bis babit. 
 Mrs. Hooper saw this, and she knew tbe reason. Sbe 
 had seen it while be dressed himself, and she knew the 
 
THE MINISTER S BLACK VEIL 43 
 
 reason then. But all her comment was to hurry into 
 her kitchen a little earlier than usual, and take in her 
 own hand a certain preparation of egg on toast which 
 he was fond of. "If he is worried, -he shall have his 
 egg," said the good woman to herself. And Mr. 
 Hooper had it, and ate it all, and thanked her for it. 
 But he talked little at breakfast, and Mrs. Hooper 
 knew why. 
 
 A messenger had come from her brother the night 
 before to say that Plinlimmon would sail on Thursday, 
 if the wind served, for England. Now Plinlimmon was 
 to take in his ship the return which Parson Hooper 
 was to make for the last year s purchases in London 
 for the silk dress, the silk stockings, the muslin neckties, 
 the books, the gamboge and senna and other medicines. 
 Mrs. Hooper s cousin Avery had made and sent out the 
 selection, and had bidden Mr. Hooper send the returns 
 in mink or beaver, clapboards, sassafras, and gold 
 thread. But, of course, he had left it to Mr. Hooper s 
 judgment how much or how little of each of these 
 various staples should be intrusted Plinlimmon. And 
 here was the great decision to be made to-day. Poor 
 Mr. Hooper must find oat how much gold-thread there 
 was on sale, and how much sassafras, and the rest. He 
 must take final advice with her brother and the other 
 merchants, and so do the best possible thing for her 
 cousin Avery. Mrs. Hooper knew too well that she 
 must not oppose him. She had suggested that he should 
 leave the whole affair to her brother, and Mr. Hooper 
 had said " No." She could not understand, he had said, 
 but it was one of those personal things which he must 
 determine. 
 
44 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 So he left her, with his brow clouded. He had called 
 her attention to what he supposed to be the rise in the 
 price of gold-thread. He had asked her whether she 
 had heard from "the Indian" anything about the num 
 ber of minks killed last winter. So far he had confided 
 in her. But only so far. And she knew that he went, 
 in perplexity, to a disagreeable morning. 
 
 But if Mr. Hooper was depressed when he left 
 home, he was more depressed when he returned. Yet 
 his brother-in-law had been most kind. He had ready 
 for him, in the little counting-room, notes of the pieces 
 of all the various articles which the Averys had sug 
 gested for shipment. He had given his own advice. 
 He had consulted with neighbors ; and as Mr. Glover, 
 the brother-in-law, was one of the largest merchants, 
 and as Mr. Hooper s and Avery s little venture was one 
 of the smallest, even Mr. Hooper felt that all possible 
 care had been given as to the grounds for his decision. 
 And he had gone so far as to determine that twelve 
 hundred cedar clapboards, of a fashion that had found 
 favor in London, should be that day packed away in 
 the recesses of the hold of Plinlimmon s vessel. For 
 the rest, he had told Mr. Glover he would decide. 
 
 And so he had started to walk home, and to make 
 his decision on the way. Then it was that misfortune 
 began. For, just as he crossed from the counting-room 
 to the more quiet side of the street, that he might med 
 itate undisturbed, excellent Madam Cockrell had seen 
 him, and had borne down on him. 
 
 " Dear Mr. Hooper, I am so glad to see you ! I am 
 so taken up to-day, and so busy with Kuth and Eunice 
 and all the girls. You do not know, indeed, that Kuth 
 
THE MINISTER S BLACK VEIL 45 
 
 is to go to Biddeford with Chauncy, and not a thing 
 ready ! I said to ray husband that I did not see how I 
 could go and see your wife, and he did not seem to 
 think that he could go. But now I have caught you ; it 
 is so lucky, and you will do just as well. Will you tell 
 Mrs. Hooper that I have seen Dinah, and that Dinah 
 says that if she will give her up Monday afternoon, so 
 that she can go up to the Tetlows then and kind of 
 finish off their washing she can stop for me half an 
 hour earlier on Tuesday, and then be at your house by 
 eleven. Or, if you must have her Monday, and will let 
 her know by Silas when he passes by, then she will see 
 Miriam at Judge Lee s," etc., etc., etc., etc. Mr. Hoop 
 er could not repeat more of the message, far less Mrs. 
 Hooper, and least of all this chronicler. 
 
 " She said she had caught me," said the poor minis 
 ter. " How often they say that ! As if I were escaping 
 from my keepers. She caught me, indeed, and after 
 she had walked half-way home with me without her 
 hood on, and I tried to think out about the gold-thread 
 and the sassafras my dear, I believe I am going crazy. 
 I was all confused whether your brother said ten or ten 
 dozen. I do not know, and I know he wants to know 
 in the morning." 
 
 Poor Mrs. Hooper did what she had done hundreds 
 of times before in similar catastrophes. She sympa 
 thized, soothed, and wondered. She led back to the 
 success about the clapboards. Privately she despatched 
 Gotham, who was chopping wood, with a note to her 
 brother. And, before Mr. Hooper had finished the egg 
 and wine she had hastily beaten up for him, lest he 
 should be chilled by his walk, a note from the wharf 
 
46 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 supplied, in black and white, the necessary information. 
 And, in the secret silence of the study, Parson Hooper 
 recomposed himself as he could to the unusual and dis 
 agreeable calculation. What his brother Glover would 
 have done in five minutes this excellent man wasted a 
 day upon, and even then was sure that he did not do it 
 well, because Mrs. Cockrell had "caught him." Not 
 even when Avery s letters arrived, eight months after, 
 and expressed even enthusiasm about the success of the 
 venture, was Parson Hooper wholly soothed. 
 
 II 
 
 To persons unused to ministerial life in New Eng 
 land at the beginning of the last century, it will seem 
 that no such misfortune could happen again to Parson 
 Hooper within a year. But that is because they are 
 unused to it. His wife could tell them better. The 
 very next day it was Wednesday the good man told 
 his wife that he should give the morning to the Gold- 
 thwaites at the mills. The troubles of the Gold- 
 thwaites were : 1, bodily, in that the} were poor ; 2, 
 mental, in that they knew not what to do ; 3, spirit 
 ual, in that each one had quarrelled with each other 
 of the whole clan of Goldthwaites. On Parson Hoop 
 er, as the clear-headed, sound adviser and peace 
 maker of the whole town, devolved the solution of 
 all problems and the reunion of the broken fam 
 ily. And to this work he gave up Wednesday, and 
 went forth as cheerfully as Amadis ever went to 
 battle : 
 
47 
 
 " Lo ! he returned all wounded and forlorn, 
 His dream of glory lost in shades of night." 
 
 To Mrs. Hooper, and to her alone, he told the story 
 of his discomfiture. 
 
 He had seen Seth Goldthwaite alone. That was 
 necessary. And no one knew he had come in. lie 
 had seen old grandsire Tetlow, who had married the 
 widow Goldthwaite. This visit also was secret, as if 
 he had been Nicodemus. He had seen Lucas and Phi 
 lemon as they were hewing the timbers for their new 
 barn. Then he had left them to " cross lots," by par 
 donable guile. For both these " contrary" men be 
 lieved that he was on his way to the school at the 
 Falls, and he did not undeceive them. His visit to 
 Fairfax Shiprnan, who had married Eachel Gold 
 thwaite, must be as secret as the dew from heaven, 
 and none this side the Eecording Angel must know 
 he took to her ten pieces of eight and a joe from 
 Mother Tetlow. 
 
 "And I went by the quarry, and just as I had to 
 cross the country road, of all men in the world the 
 doctor appeared in his gig. Of course he knew me. 
 Of course he guessed I was going to the school. I 
 must ride. He would stop and bring me home. My 
 dear Mary, if I had lisped a word about Eachel Ship- 
 man it would have gone over the town. So I had to 
 go with him. I have been at the Falls since noon. 
 The doctor has brought me home, and here I am, 
 with poor Eachel s money in my pocket. My dear 
 Mary, I wished for the invisible hat of Jack the Giant- 
 killer !" 
 
48 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 And in this grievous wail of the good man the first 
 suggestion of the veil came in. 
 
 Before it was light the next morning he had saddled 
 the bay mare. And before the sun rose Rachel Ship- 
 man had her money. 
 
 Ill 
 
 But the week was not ended. No, indeed. "The 
 end is not yet," as good Parson Hooper would have 
 said. In the long ride to Mr. Shipman s in the gray 
 of the morning he had studied over his sermons as best 
 he might, and in the ride back again he had gone over 
 the order of the argument again. But the whole was 
 hazy, and he knew it was. All intermingled with the 
 logical flow of predestination and free-will, sanctih ca- 
 tion and duty, came in the refrain of poor Mrs. Ship 
 man s entreating words as she stood on the doorstep 
 and whispered them in his ear. It was a long dis 
 tance, and of course he was late to his breakfast after 
 he returned. Then he told his wife the whole story. 
 And now he could go into the study and begin his 
 notes for a brief of the sermons. But his mind would 
 not work well. The Goldthwaites and the Shipmans 
 and the Tetlow r s, and all their gossip, would interfere 
 with the argument. The good man put on his hat and 
 boots, stopped at the dairy door to tell his wife that 
 he was going to walk in the cedar pasture, so as to 
 think out the sermons in the open air, and jumped 
 lightly over the fence into the orchard on his way 
 thither. 
 
THE MINISTER S BLACK VEIL 49 
 
 Better for him had he taken the longer way ; for, 
 as he passed through the orchard, Nick Tainter saw 
 him and joined him instantly. 
 
 "So glad to find you, Parson! Didn t dare go in! 
 Miss Hooper said you was busy writin , V I thought 
 I must wait tell ye come out. All night I ve been 
 thinkin about it, V I knew I must come V ask ye. 
 Now, tell me, Parson, ef Solomon s Temple hed a 
 nethermost chamber five cubits high, en the middle 
 chamber was six cubits broad, en the third chamber 
 was seven cubits broad, how would them priests and 
 Levites turn round?" etc., etc., etc., in that strangest 
 and saddest of half coherency and half folly in which 
 the mathematical mind of New England is so apt to 
 give way. 
 
 Poor Parson Hooper ! he knew the morning was 
 gone for him now. How often the poor man had said 
 that here was the one point where his dear Saviour s 
 example failed him ! " He could cure these poor, crazy 
 people," the good parson said, "and I can t." Still he 
 was willing to do his part. He could always soothe, 
 and he would always soothe. How much time or how 
 little he ought to give to them and their vagaries he 
 could never decide. And yet he could never bring 
 himself to accept the more trenchant views of Mrs. 
 Hooper into which discussion this story need not go. 
 Enough to say that the brief of the sermons was more 
 hazy than ever, and was intermixed now with the di 
 mensions of the nethermost chamber. And to-morrow 
 would be Friday. In a working minister s life, most 
 days are. 
 
 When dinner came, Nick Tainter was provided with 
 
50 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 a bit of pie and cheese to walk home with, and told to 
 read carefully the books of Chronicles, and good Mr. 
 Hooper, still perplexed, but ready to see the droll side 
 of the adventure, joined the family at their meal. 
 Here was a new element. His wife s pretty sister, 
 Martha Glover, had come down from Boston. She had 
 been expected, but not expected so soon. She was a 
 pet with the parson, as she was, indeed, with all the 
 household. And the blackest clouds of Goldthwaites 
 or of Tainters vanished before her sunshine. 
 
 By the time they came to the dumplings, Mr. Hooper 
 was in his best mood, and, with all his latent fun, and 
 with infinite kindness as well, he told the story of poor 
 Nick s troubles about the nethermost chamber, and of 
 his own crafty and ingenious solutions. But then his 
 face clouded a little, and he said, sadly enough : " It is 
 all well enough to laugh at, but what will become of 
 my sermons ? I am sure I do not know." And so he 
 told, in a humorous vein, and not as seriously as I have 
 told it, the history of Tuesday and Wednesday and 
 Thursday: how Mrs. Cockrell had "caught him," how 
 the doctor had insisted on his riding, and now how 
 poor Nick had recognized him the moment he leaped 
 the fence. Indeed, if he had not told the story, you 
 would not be reading it now. 
 
 "My dear brother Oliver," said the laughing girl, 
 " you must do as I do. You must wear a veil. You are 
 too attractive by half to all these people. Now, what 
 do I do when I want a bit of ribbon, or some buttons, 
 or some muslin, early in the morning before I am 
 dressed in a walking -dress, you know when I just 
 want to run into Cornhill and out again ? Why, I put 
 
THE MINISTER S BLACK VEIL 51 
 
 on a veil ! If I meet anybody, he thinks it is the Gov 
 ernor s cook or one of Judge Sewall s maids. I get 
 my buttons, and nobody is the wiser. I might be a 
 squaw, and nobody would know." And they all laughed 
 at the conceit, which supposed that the light, merry 
 girl should not be recognized anywhere. But she was 
 pleased with her fancy, and she followed it out into its 
 details. And she made the parson and Mrs. Hooper, 
 and even little Deborah Hooper, discuss the color of 
 the veil whether it should be white, or light blue, 
 or dark blue, or green, or purple. But Parson Hooper 
 said that he wouldn t have it green, because his eyes 
 were strong and good ; and as for white, he thought it 
 was unbecoming. " As to that," the merry girl said, 
 " no one could tell until they had tried." 
 
 She was sure, she said, that she could find muslin or 
 some sleazy stuff in her sister s boxes or drawers, and 
 that afternoon she should put a veil in every hat in 
 the house. And so she did. While the parson, in the 
 quiet of his own den that afternoon, took a long nap, 
 and then addressed himself to the mysteries of predes 
 tination again, Miss Martha captured every hat in the 
 house. In one she sewed a white veil, in one a green, 
 in one a light blue, and in one a very dark blue. She 
 could find no purple muslin, and so had to give up that 
 fancy. But she revenged herself by putting in one a 
 veil of cherry color. 
 
 She was wild to try the experiment, and a little be 
 fore sunset she tapped at his door and said he must 
 come to walk with her. The good man did as he was 
 bid ; and, to her infinite joy, as he took the first hat 
 which offered, carrying it absently in his hand till they 
 
52 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 had crossed the door-yard, he did not notice the pink 
 veil till, when the hat was fairly on his head, it fell be 
 fore his eyes. 
 
 The girl screamed with delight at her success. And, 
 when he fell in with her humor, and walked on with 
 the veil ; when even the two old cows, waiting to be 
 milked, turned with horror and fled when they saw 
 him, she clapped her hands with delight and did not pre 
 tend to suppress her shouts of laughter. A jolly walk, 
 indeed, they both had of it, and when they came back 
 to supper it would be hard to say which of them made 
 the more absurd and amusing story from the adventure. 
 
 " Indeed, my dear sister, you must let him do it ! In 
 deed, my dear Oliver, you must wear one or the other 
 of them always, whenever you go abroad, if it \vere 
 only for the love of me ! When Mrs. Cockrell sees you 
 she will say, That man looks just like our dear Mr. 
 Hooper; but it isn t he, because Mr. Hooper never wears 
 a veil. And when the doctor sees you he will say, 
 Umph ! there s one of Pyecroft s patients ; the old fool 
 has made him wear a veil ! and you, my dear Oliver, 
 you will be the happiest of men. Your sermons will 
 be perfectly magnificent, and every day you will bless 
 your wise little sister Martha." 
 
 IV 
 
 And so it proved, indeed, that the minister s Saturday 
 was tranquil and happy. Not that anybody saw him 
 with a veil on, always excepting Jotham, who saw 
 everything that went and came. And Jotham asked 
 
58 
 
 no questions. Why should he ask questions ? There 
 were many things in that house, from Hebrew down 
 and from Marlborough pies up, which he did not under 
 stand. Possibly the presence in the house of a cheery, 
 wide-awake sister Martha, determined to make the best 
 of everything, had its part in the improvement of 
 the minister s spirits. He had his quiet morning in 
 his study. He had his lonely walk in the afternoon 
 among the cedars ; and, to amuse Martha, when he 
 went out, he let the rose-colored veil fall over his face. 
 And for half an hour he forgot it, as he wove back 
 and forward that web of foreknowledge into which 
 were wrought the patterns drawn from the Gold- 
 thwaites quarrels. And as he came home in the even 
 ing, with the sermon well thought out, he dropped the 
 veil again as he crossed the orchard, so that he might 
 please the laughing girl who awaited his return. 
 
 Martha hardly knew one hat from another, certainly 
 did not care, as she stitched the veils into the linings. 
 But Mrs. Hooper knew very well which was the Sun 
 day hat ; and when she and Martha started for meeting 
 together in the chaise on the Sabbath morning she left 
 the Sunday hat, carefully brushed, in full sight of her 
 husband, and secreted all the others. Now this hat, 
 as the powers ordered, was the hat with the dark-blue 
 veil. Mr. Hooper always preferred to walk to meeting 
 alone. Indeed, if he could start an hour before the 
 rest, and carry a crumb of comfort to some wretched 
 home, he said that was his best preparation. But this 
 time he followed hard after the party in the chaise. Of 
 course, he had folded the veil back so that it rested 
 above his head, nor did any one suspect that it was 
 
54 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 there. But as he walked alone and shook out again 
 that web work of foreknowledge on which he was to 
 preach, again the phantoms of the Goldthwaites lives 
 ran across his thought ; and as, in his puzzle, he tried 
 to w r ipe the furrows from his forehead, unconsciously 
 for a moment he lifted the hat from his head. It was 
 but a moment, and when he put it back the blue veil 
 fell and floated before his eyes. It did screen out the 
 sun. It screened off the dust of the road. His puzzled 
 thoughts did flow more smoothly for the moment. He 
 would not break that flow for the world, and he let 
 the veil hang. It was at that moment that Jotham 
 Lee passed him, as he paced along so slowly and 
 thoughtfully. It was he who announced, as Mr. Haw 
 thorne has told, to the wondering loafers on the steps 
 of the meeting-house that "the minister was wearing 
 a veil." 
 
 Meanwhile the bell slowly tolled. It would have 
 tolled all day if the minister had not come. Mr. 
 Hooper did walk slowly. The veil soothed him more 
 than he knew. And even when he approached the 
 group of those waiting for him he did not know how 
 late he was. Indeed, he was roused from this thought 
 only by a coarse oath of that brute, Cephas Gold- 
 thwaite, who said, as if half daring the minister to 
 hear : 
 
 " Ef he would wear that rag into meetin , I d go in 
 an hear him, n I have not been into meetin twelve 
 months to-day." 
 
 Parson Hooper turned on the brute, took off his hat, 
 and looked at him, with a look of love which might 
 have softened a stone. 
 
THE MINISTER S BLACK VEIL 55 
 
 " Go in then, Cephas, with your wife, and I will Avear 
 the rag, as you say." 
 
 He tore the lining out upon the instant, adjusted the 
 veil over his eyes, and, as the hushed assembly stood 
 on both sides, bowing as he passed, he bowed to the 
 right and left, and, with the mysterious veil upon his 
 face, mounted the pulpit stairs. 
 
 Mr. Hawthorne seems to have confounded two tra 
 ditions of Mr. Hooper s life in the earlier part of his 
 story. But when we come to the scene in church, all 
 the traditions are at one. " That mysterious emblem 
 was never once withdrawn. It shook with his meas 
 ured breath as he gave out the psalm ; it threw its ob 
 scurity between him and the holy page as he read the 
 Scriptures ; and while he prayed the veil lay heavily 
 upon his uplifted countenance. 
 
 "There was something which made the sermon great 
 ly the most powerful effort that they had ever heard 
 from their pastor s lips. The subject had reference 
 to secret sin, and those sad mysteries which we hide 
 from our nearest and dearest and would fain conceal 
 from our own consciousness, even forgetting that the 
 Omniscient can detect them. A subtle power was 
 breathed into his words." 
 
 When Mr. Hawthorne goes on to say " that the man 
 of hardened breast " listened now as never before, he 
 recalls the memory of that brutal Cephas Goldthwaite, 
 who had dared the minister to wear the veil. And well 
 may that memory be renewed from that day to this 
 day. It was Cephas Goldthwaite to whom Mr. Hooper 
 was speaking; it was for Cephas Goldthwaite that he 
 prayed with his veiled face turned up to heaven ; it 
 
56 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 was the certainty of what was hidden in Cephas Gold- 
 thwaite s life which gave the dramatic power to the 
 story of David as he read. And if, after he had begun 
 the sermon, the puzzle of foreknowledge all drifted 
 away like a morning cloud, if in place of it the clear 
 sunlight of the Holy Spirit poured down and lighted 
 every heart in that amazed multitude, all this was be 
 cause Parson Hooper had determined that for once 
 Cephas Goldthwaite should hear the truth of God, if no 
 word ever spoke to him again. And it was because the 
 Spirit, thus wooed and thus won, did speak to Cephas 
 Goldthwaite as he sat there in a maze because of this 
 it was that he who came in a brute wen.t out a man. 
 He pressed his poor wife s hand tenderly before he 
 left the hard form which was the seat assigned to 
 them. He shook his brother s hand cordially, as from 
 different doors they met upon the green that brother 
 to whom he had not spoken since his father s funeral. 
 To grandsire Tetlow as he passed him he said : " Send 
 round Nathan for a barrel of apples there is waiting" ; 
 and as he, of all men, lifted Madam Hooper into her 
 chaise he said, in a half-whisper : " Mistress Hooper, 
 do you tell the parson that this day he has saved a 
 soul from hell !" 
 
 Well might the people in that town, and their chil 
 dren to Mr. Hawthorne s day, say that the preacher 
 "had discovered their hoarded iniquity." They waited, 
 of course, for a brief interval till he came out, the last 
 of all. " He paid due reverence to the hoary heads, 
 saluted the middle-aged with kind dignity as their 
 friend and spiritual guide, greeted the young with 
 mingled authority and love, and laid his hands on the 
 
THE MINISTER S BLACK VEIL 57 
 
 little children s heads to bless them. Such was always 
 his custom on the Sabbath day. Strange and bewil 
 dered looks repaid him for his courtesy." 
 
 I do not pretend more than Mr. Hawthorne has 
 done to give the exact date, or place of this strange in 
 cident, in which was bound up so much of the future of 
 that man. As always happens, and as the reader sees, 
 when tradition once got hold, it had its way. First of 
 all, the dark- blue veil torn from one which had once 
 screened Mrs. Hooper s eyes in snow-storms became 
 black as the story passed from generation to genera 
 tion. As the reader has seen, Mr. Hooper, the happy 
 husband of a cheerful wife, " became a comely bache 
 lor of thirty." He never chose to tell why he wore 
 the veil at first ; nor, indeed, to tell why he wore it 
 afterwards : and so posterity in its report did as re 
 porters will, and made a mystery of shame and peni 
 tence, when there was no such mystery in the beginning. 
 Mr. Hooper found out that his sister Martha was right. 
 If his veil were down, he could pursue a train of 
 thought without being asked to remember the appoint 
 ments of a washerwoman. He could go on the errands 
 which he had determined instead of being led to and 
 fro by the vagaries of wayfarers. He could command 
 his own time for the service of God and man, instead 
 of giving it up to chattering with loafers, without ap 
 parent rudeness ; he could obey that great instruction 
 of the Master to his disciples, that when they went on 
 his imperial mission they should not stop on the way 
 to salute vagrants. " Salute no man by the way," he 
 would say, seriously, to his wife when she asked him, 
 cautiously, whether he had better wear his veil on such 
 
58 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 or such an errand. If he did wear it, she was sure that 
 he went on the Master s service. 
 
 Little wonder that the good man s life became more 
 and more serene. Little wonder if his real cheerful 
 ness were more and more tender. Little wonder if 
 men and women with whom he talked found his words 
 were more weighty and his counsel more sure. It was 
 no vain thing for him to take up one of the threads 
 spun by the Eternal Wheels, as they move in infinite 
 certainty, and to weave that thread into the pattern of 
 such a life as a Goldthwaite or a Tetlow was living. 
 No foolish interruption tangled the thread or broke it. 
 It came to be an easy thing that the clear mirror 
 of the good man s thought reflected directly the ray 
 which fell upon it from the Sun of Righteousness. No 
 hammer of Thor broke that mirror ruthlessly. It was 
 left as the God of Heaven made it. Why multiply 
 words? The good man s eye was single now. And 
 from this Sunday all that men saw of him was full of 
 Light. 
 
AUNT CAROLINE S PRESENT 
 
 I. NOW WE SHALL KNOW 
 
 YES. We were really married. 
 
 The minister had said we were one, and he had 
 given us his blessing. He had taken my hand, and the 
 tears were in his eyes as he wished me all happiness. 
 He kissed Eleanor, whom he had christened twenty 
 years before, and he blessed her again. " God bless 
 you, my child !" he said. Then we turned round, so 
 that the other people in the room could see us, and 
 the procession of sympathizing friends came up and 
 wished us well. 
 
 The sixth person in the procession was Aunt Caro 
 line. She is Eleanor s aunt, but I like her quite as 
 much as Eleanor does ; the kindest, sweetest, most lov 
 ing aunt that ever came in when she was wanted, and 
 stayed away when she was not wanted ; that ever sent 
 ice-cream across to your house on a summer s evening, 
 or called to take your Southern cousins to ride when 
 she knew they bored you to death. Aunt Caroline 
 was sixth in the procession of welcome. 
 
 " Dear Felix," she said at once, " dear Eleanor, my 
 present well, it is too big to be carried about much, 
 and so well, I have told the man to carry it to 
 your new house, and when you come it will be there 
 
60 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 before you to welcome you. I do hope you will 
 like it." 
 
 " Like it ! of course we shall like it, Aunt Caroline. 
 We should like it if it were only a lump of coal." And 
 in her tenderness Eleanor kissed her aunt again and 
 again. 
 
 Fifty times on the wedding journey did we go back 
 to the present, and wonder what it was which was so 
 large. I was sure it was a cast of the Laocoon. El 
 eanor was quite sure it was a library bookcase. Some 
 times I thought it was the Cyclopaedia Britannica up 
 to Marplot, which was as far as that cyclopedia had 
 then gone. Sometimes I hoped it was Larousse, which 
 would be better still. At last, after such a fortnight 
 of October and red maples, and purple tupelos and 
 glorious sunsets, and cozy reading of Browning by the 
 firesides of comfortable inns after fourteen days of 
 exquisite life and happy love, we drove up to the 
 pretty little house which was to be our happy home, 
 and I lifted Eleanor from the buggy, and I said, 
 " Welcome home, sweetheart and darling !" 
 
 And she kissed me, and she ran before me into the 
 house, and she said, " Now we shall know." 
 
 II. WHAT WE FOUND 
 
 Alas ! we did know, only too soon. 
 
 Bridget had lighted up the new parlor for our re 
 ception with the effulgence of her own enthusiasm. 
 There was a large carcel burning on the centre table. 
 This lamp was a present from Uncle Tristram. On 
 
AUNT CAROLINE S PRESENT 61 
 
 the mantel were too bronze branches in which she had 
 placed four red wax-candles, and she had lighted them 
 all. These branches were a present from my cousin 
 Jotham. On the other side of the room, on the piano 
 forte, were two student - lamps of different patterns. 
 These were presents from Ernest Gabler and Submit 
 Shattuck, and Bridget had lighted both of them. 
 
 All this light and sweetness were to do fit honor to 
 Aunt Caroline s present, which was at the other end of 
 the room as we entered, and obtruded itself from the 
 very first instant. Indeed, it was impossible to escape 
 it at any moment while you were in that room. It 
 was a thoroughly horrible picture from the parable of 
 the Prodigal Son. It had escaped by misfortune from 
 some " chamber of horrors." I do not know its real 
 history, though I have, alas ! had time enough to study 
 it since those days. But I cannot think calmly on its 
 history; it even makes me sick; and excepting that 
 the name " Melgrum " appears rather prominently un 
 der the feet of one of the swine, I have no clew to its 
 origin. I can only suppose, as I do, that " Melgrum " 
 was some overgrown oaf in some high -school, who 
 made himself disgusting by caricaturing the boys and 
 the masters. I think the masters, in the hope to be 
 rid of him, reported that he was a genius, and per 
 suaded some kind brewer to give him money enough 
 to go to Munich to u study art." Arrived there, I 
 think he had just learned what are the crudest, the 
 most fiery and piercing pigments concocted, when he 
 painted this picture, before his studies in anatomy, 
 composition, or perspective had begun. I think the 
 Bavarian government forbade its public exhibition, 
 
62 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 and that it was then surreptitiously sent to this coun 
 try for sale. I think dear Aunt Caroline was en 
 trapped or lured into the warehouse where it was ex 
 hibited just when the thousand dollars was burning in 
 her pocket-book which she meant to spend for Elea 
 nor s present. I think she told her companion, Mrs. 
 Jabez Flynn, how much she meant to spend, that Mrs. 
 Flynn privately told this to the perjured villain who 
 is the master of the picture - shop, and that he, with 
 an awful audacity, bade the attendant bring this pict 
 ure forward and place it under the lights for exhibi 
 tion. I think he mentioned twelve hundred dollars 
 as the price, but consented to be forced down to one 
 thousand. And then and thus I think our fate was 
 sealed. 
 
 The size of the picture was eight feet by six. The 
 frame was enormous, and very costly. The conception 
 was absurd. In the middle of the picture you saw a 
 large group intended to represent a company of people 
 feasting, who were the Prodigal Son, his father and 
 mother, and other guests called in on the occasion of 
 his return. A gallery above them in the background 
 was filled with people singing, and under the gallery, 
 but beyond the guests, you could dimly discern other 
 people dancing, with tambourines over their heads. 
 All this transpired under certain columns and arches, 
 but all in the open air. On the right hand, in what 
 would be the distance had "Melgrum" known how to 
 represent distance, stood a man in his shirt-sleeves feed 
 ing hogs with Indian-corn. On the other side, of the 
 same size and character, was a butcher cutting the 
 throat of a calf. From something Aunt Caroline 
 
AUNT CAROLINE 8 PRESENT 
 
 dropped, I believe it was the happy union of three 
 subjects on one canvas which determined her to buy 
 the picture. As she said, with real enthusiasm, " It 
 does not represent a part of the parable ; the whole 
 parable is there." 
 
 III. HOW PEOPLE LIKED IT 
 
 Here was the picture, occupying practically the whole 
 of one wall of our parlor, which was to have been so 
 pretty the room in which, as our plans were made, 
 dear Eleanor was to spend the greater part of her life. 
 We looked at it a little, we received silently Bridget s 
 enthusiastic admiration of it, but we passed as quickly as 
 we could to see how the dining-room was arranged, and 
 how my workshop looked. And it ended in my put 
 ting Eleanor into my own easy-chair there, going back 
 into her parlor for one of the reading-lamps, and bid 
 ding Bridget extinguish the others and the candles. 
 Eleanor spent the evening with me in my den, and I 
 read Coventry Patmore s Betrothal to her. 
 
 But we could not do that all the time. She could 
 not be in my room when I had men there on business. 
 She had a feeling of pride, indeed, which for a long 
 time made her keep up a gallant struggle for the par 
 lor, which was her own room, she said. "Why should 
 I go up-stairs and sit in a bedchamber, when I have 
 such a pretty room of my own ?" She would say this. 
 She would say, " I am sure dear Aunt Caroline did not 
 mean to make me to be a vagrant in my own house." 
 Queer, now, that sense of pride. I have known men 
 who had it. I have known men who really thought 
 
64 SUSAN S ESCOJRT, AND OTHERS 
 
 that when they had done a gallant eight hours work 
 down -town they had a right at home to the things 
 home was made for. Philanthropists and politicians 
 and tramps, map -peddlers and others, would follow 
 them to their homes, and yet these men would act 
 ually refuse to grind their axes for them there. So 
 poor Eleanor said she would stand for her rights in her 
 pretty parlor. She would not be driven out from it 
 by that hateful butcher ; she would not have those 
 dirty pigs trampling over her carpet, she said ; she 
 would not hear those tambourine women clinking their 
 old parchment things. 
 
 But she overestimated her own abilities. I have 
 noticed that most men do who think they can keep 
 bores out of their houses. I have a large circle of 
 friends in and near Netherstone, and so has Eleanor. 
 They were making their wedding calls, and they al 
 ways found the Prodigals as Eleanor called all the 
 people in the picture, quadrupeds and bipeds had 
 stepped in before them. Eleanor had not simply to 
 keep the odious creatures out of her own mind and 
 heart ; she had to keep them out of her visitors . 
 
 " I could bear it," she said, " if I were alone. I can 
 turn my back to it. See, I have my work-table and 
 my things here, and here is my writing-desk I look 
 exactly the other way. But it is the callers. Every 
 body looks at the Prodigals first and last; and in spite 
 of all my skill it is the central and chief subject of 
 conversation." 
 
 In truth, visitors might be divided into three classes 
 as regarded the picture. These were, first, the frank, 
 unpretending people, who did not value their own opin- 
 
AUNT CAROLINE S PRESENT 65 
 
 ions highly, but still had opinions. These people said 
 how could they do otherwise ? that they disliked 
 the picture very much. Some of them asked Eleanor 
 how she could have such an absurd thing there. Most 
 of them, it is true, thought this was not kind. But 
 even of this set there were but few who had sense 
 enough and self-control enough to say nothing. Had 
 it been an ugly figure on the paper-hanging, I do not 
 think they would have spoken of it. Had the room 
 been inconveniently low, I do not think many of these 
 people would have said, "How low this ceiling is!" 
 But a mistaken etiquette has come in, and people think 
 they must speak of pictures as you must speak of the 
 weather, of the election, of health, and of the opera. 
 So was it that even judicious people asked if it were 
 painted in Munich, or they were reminded by it of a 
 picture they had seen in Antwerp, or they said the 
 subject had not been often treated, or said it had. The 
 most carefully trained of this class said it was " very 
 instructive." Other some said that it must have taken 
 a great deal of pains and study. And my poor wife 
 as the various nice people of the town and the neigh 
 borhood called upon her came to know all the possi 
 ble changes of these judicious remarks, as you know 
 the changes on the nearest chime of bells. She said 
 she could tell what they were going to say before they 
 opened their mouths. 
 
 The second class was larger. It was the body of 
 people, quite un instructed in fine art, who wanted to 
 be instructed, wanted to think right, and wanted to 
 say right, if they could only find out what right was. 
 Well, I have a right to say that there was nobody in 
 
66 SUSAN S ESCOKT, AND OTHERS 
 
 Netherstone whose opinion on such matters was re 
 garded more highly than mine. I had shown my pho 
 tographs at the Lend -a -Hand Club one winter. I 
 was president of the Reading Club, and we had read 
 Mrs. Jameson, and all the people who could had 
 brought pictures. So long as there were art unions, 
 the book-store men always sent the art-union agents 
 first of all to me. Indeed, if anybody in that neigh 
 borhood knew what was good in art, I did. Class 
 number two consisted of people who, of themselves, 
 would have detested the picture, but, seeing it in my 
 house, knew they ought to like it. They made horri 
 ble attempts to like it. " How very natural that pig s 
 tail is !" " How red the sunset is !" " See how angry 
 his face is !" " It is so interesting to see the costume ! 
 I never understood before about the coat of many col 
 ors ;" and so on. They would keep my poor wife 
 standing before the abomination all through the wed 
 ding call. When I came home from the office she 
 would be dead with fatigue, and when I soothed her, 
 and asked the reason, she would sigh out, " Oh, it was 
 the Prodigals again !" 
 
 Smallest of all, yet I ought to say most disagreeable 
 of all, the three classes of visitors were those who 
 abused it up and down. Smallest because, as I have 
 hinted, it required courage in my house to say that one 
 of my pictures was hopelessly bad, and had no redeem 
 ing point in it. But this the thoroughly disagreeable 
 people of our acquaintance, the people we least liked, 
 sometimes had courage enough to say, or what Mr. 
 Ward calls " cussedness" enough. These people, there 
 fore, were the only people of all who made wedding 
 
67 
 
 calls on us in the month after our return who said 
 what we ourselves said to each other. Yet such is the 
 perversity of human nature that we were not pleased 
 when they did say it; for they seemed to say it be 
 cause they thought it would displease us. When we 
 assented moderately, they were not satisfied with such 
 assent. They required stronger language or none. 
 But who would, who could, gratify such cynical and 
 hateful wretches ? Were we to give up dear, kind Aunt 
 Caroline to their gossip and brutal jeers ? No, indeed ! 
 The unfriendly criticism was as bad as the friendly. 
 
 " It is all horrid, perfectly horrid !" This was my 
 wife s exclamation to me almost every day. 
 
 Yet Aunt Caroline looked in on us herself so often 
 and so kindly that it was impossible to carry the dread 
 ful thing to the attic, to the cellar, or to the furnace. 
 And when she came without saying much about her 
 own present she still brooded over it with an eye so 
 loving and tender, her whole great heart went out to it 
 with such delight, that for the moment my poor Eleanor 
 would be rewarded for the struggle she had made. 
 Now she was glad she had not dashed at that little 
 pig with her scissors to cut out his "natural tail"; 
 now she was glad she had not brought " Morning Sun 
 Stove Polish " from the kitchen to rub it over the face 
 of the butcher who killed the fatted calf. So much 
 occasional reward had she for a moment as the recom 
 pense for days of wretchedness. 
 
 After the various wedding calls on us were over, and 
 after we had returned them, there came a certain lull. 
 In the midst of it Eleanor made a little visit of forty- 
 eight hours to Miss Stearns, her dear old schoolmis- 
 
"68 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 tress. I improved the occasion, and sent for Copper 
 head, the village upholsterer, and with his aid I moved 
 the Prodigals into the dining-room. The first time 
 Aunt Caroline called she looked for it in its usual place, 
 and her face fell. But I told her boldly that the light 
 was better in the dining-room, and that I thought the 
 festivity which was suggested by the picture was ap 
 propriate to that altar of the appetites. Dear Aunt 
 Caroline! she also had perfect confidence in my good 
 taste in fine art, and she abjectly and modestly assent 
 ed. So that when my dear wife came home she could 
 receive a morning visit without terror. 
 
 But when one saves at the spigot, one may lose at 
 the bung. Your skirmishers are successful, but just in 
 their flush of victory your centre is forced, and the 
 battle is lost. While we triumphed in the serenity of 
 morning calls it happened that I had to give a little 
 dinner-party to Sir William Hartley, the distinguished 
 botanist, who had brought me letters from Professor 
 Sabbati. I had sent to Cincinnati for the L Estranges 
 to come up and meet him ; Armstrong had been very 
 good and had ridden over from the college; Eleanor s 
 pretty sister Grace was staying with us ; and we had 
 the two Carter girls, Felix Carter s twin daughters. 
 
 I do not say that Eleanor and I had forgotten. That 
 is impossible. But I always sat with my back to it, 
 and she with her right side to it, and we had fallen 
 into the habit of leaving the room without looking at 
 it. In summer we had a light gauze hung over it, to 
 keep off the flies. 
 
 But it was just before Christmas that Sir William 
 came with the letter of introduction. ~No flies then. 
 
The most agreeable of travellers was he. And all the 
 others came, as nice as they could be. He took Eleanor 
 in to dinner, I took in Sarah Carter, and the others 
 were arranged just as they liked. He was telling a 
 very merry story about the Ameer of Cabool as he ate 
 his soup, and he had just come to the point, when 
 Bridget took his plate away, and as he looked up he 
 saw the pigs and the forlorn Prodigal. 
 
 Well-bred as he was, he lost command of himself. 
 He faltered, and for a moment said nothing. Then he 
 turned to Eleanor with an agonized smile, and said, 
 "I beg your pardon, I was saying oh yes, it was the 
 officinalis, not the maritime but the two resemble each 
 other closely." 
 
 All the other people stared. Of course every one on 
 his side looked up at the wall to see what had dashed 
 him so. 
 
 Eleanor declared, as she cried about it afterwards, 
 that from that moment he talked to her as if she were 
 an idiot. And when he went away from Netherstone 
 without so much as calling on her, she said: " I should 
 not think he would. I should not think he would want 
 to see anybody that had such abominations on her 
 walls." 
 
 So, when Eleanor went to her mother s at Christ 
 mas, I had Copperhead again. This time we moved 
 the hateful thing into my study. I packed up some 
 hundred and fifty books, took down one set of shelves, 
 moved all the encyclopaedias into the closet, and old 
 Copperhead and I hung the Prodigals on the vacant 
 wall I thus gained. There was an awful cross light, 
 but this was so much the better. I turned my own 
 
70 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 desk so that my back should see it as I wrote. As for 
 the visitors, I hoped their good angels would be with 
 them. 
 
 Aunt Caroline came in to see Eleanor on her return. 
 It was New Year s Day. She went in to lunch with 
 us. It was so lately that I had told her how good the 
 light was in the dining-room that my heart sank with 
 my mortification when, as she sat at Eleanor s right, 
 just where Sir William Hartley had sat, I saw her look 
 up at the wall, where we had hung Yernet s " Gideon " 
 in place of the Prodigals. 
 
 The surprise on her face was very distinct, but the 
 good woman said nothing. 
 
 "We have moved the picture your picture the 
 Prodigal, into my study," I said. And then, with 
 the audacity of despair, I added, by a sudden im 
 pulse, " I am going to have my Bible class there to 
 see it." 
 
 Aunt Caroline said nothing, but I hoped she was not 
 displeased. 
 
 Before I slept I atoned for that awful lie. I wrote 
 a note to each of the Bible class, and asked them to 
 take tea with us Thursday evening, and they came. 
 
 I received them in the parlor. I am always afraid 
 of them on Sunday, when I have prepared the lesson. 
 How much more afraid was I now ! But I asked after 
 their fathers and their mothers. Mr. Clarkson, the 
 superintendent, was most cordial and affable. Eleanor, 
 dear soul, showed photographs, and at last the welcome 
 announcement of supper took us all to the table. Meat 
 and drink warm all hearts. I loitered at the meal as 
 long as I dared. But when the last boy had eaten the 
 
AUNT CAROLINE S PRESENT 71 
 
 last bonbon a warning look across the table from my 
 wife compelled me to act. 
 
 "Would you not like to come into my work-room, 
 anc l and see my great picture of the Prodigal Son ?" 
 Thus far I had not lied. 
 
 " Oh yes, sir." " Oh yes, sir." " Mrs. Ames told me 
 all about it." " Mrs. Wenceslaus was speaking of it." 
 
 I knew that these two people represented two classes 
 of critics. Woe is me ! 
 
 We filed through the hall into my library. The 
 picture was well lighted. The young people arranged 
 themselves. Mr. Clarkson happened to be at one end 
 of the platoon, and I was at the other. I think two 
 girls giggled, but I shall never know. 
 
 I cleared my throat. " The picture is partly what is 
 called realistic and partly allegorical. In the middle 
 you see the great columns divide what may be called 
 the picture of the present from the other pictures, 
 which may be called the pictures of the past. In the 
 right-hand picture of the past you see the poor young 
 Prodigal, pale to show he is hungry, looking eagerly at 
 the husks. You see how the swine are eating them, 
 just as the Bible says. Then in the background, in the 
 picture of the present, you see the dancers ; those per 
 sons in the gallery are the band of music." 
 
 I thought I should die as I went through with this 
 galimatias. Mr. Clarkson with a rod pointed out the 
 different figures as I alluded to them. 
 
 JSTo boy spoke, and no girl. 
 
 "There was silence deep as death 
 As I drifted on my path, 
 And the boldest held his breath 
 For a time." 
 
72 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHEKS 
 
 It became oppressive. Even the boys and girls felt 
 that something must be said, and Jabez Proctor, inva 
 riably silent in the Sabbath-school when any subject of 
 ethics or of faith was discussed, with one great effort 
 asked : " Be them hogs Berkshires or natives ? The 
 tails is too tight twisted for natives, and the legs is 
 long for Berkshires." 
 
 Mr. Clarkson, with a bold invention, of which I was 
 not guilty, said, " These are the hogs of the breed of 
 Edom," but he was hardly heard. A loud guffaw burst 
 through all the ranks, and but little that was edifying 
 came from the study of Aunt Caroline s picture that 
 evening. 
 
 The slow world turned still on its axis. At last nine 
 o clock came, and the children went away. 
 
 IV. WHAT WE DID THEN 
 
 This is only one instance in a hundred of the annoy 
 ance given me, and more often given Eleanor, by a 
 present meant most kindly. It is provoking to have 
 such a presence in the house asserting itself almost 
 every hour of every day. You may say one should be 
 philosophical and forget it. I only wish you would 
 try. Fortunately for Eleanor and me, March was a 
 very warm month, and I really saw, on the 10th, two 
 large flies on my window-pane. x\ny other year 1 
 should have killed them. But not now. I ran to the 
 linen closet. With my own hands I brought out the 
 lace with which we protected the " Prodigal." In a 
 few minutes it was screened from all danger, and for a 
 
73 
 
 little a weight was lifted from me. Aunt Caroline 
 called the next day, and came into my work-room. I 
 said, with a sense of guilt, " Have you noticed how 
 early the flies come, and how annoying they are?" 
 Aunt Caroline said nothing. 
 
 It would be absurd to say we did not enjoy life in 
 that house. We did enjoy it, though not long. At the 
 end of the winter we enjoyed it much more than at 
 the beginning. We understood life more, and of course 
 we enjoyed it more. Eleanor knew me better, I knew 
 her better, and we both knew better what mutual life 
 or double life is call it what you will, so you know 
 that it is real life. But I do say there was not a fore 
 noon, nor an afternoon, nor an evening, when the 
 Prodigal Son, or his father, or his elder brother, or the 
 butcher, or some dancer, or perhaps one of the pigs, 
 did not walk out of that horrid picture and interfere 
 with our enjoyment or profit of the day. 
 
 I will not say that this was the reason why in the 
 end of the spring we gave up housekeeping for a little. 
 It was my reason, but it may not have been Eleanor s. 
 We dismissed Bridget and Delia. I boxed up a few 
 books, and we took lodgings for the summer on Tower 
 Hill, that most charming and cool of hilltops, which 
 overlooks ISTarragansett Pier so prettily. Here we 
 spent a pleasant summer. Eleanor sewed and sketched 
 and read to her heart s content. I earned my daily 
 bread with my good-natured old brain and my diligent 
 pen. I took my bath in the surf every morning, and 
 we sat in the shade to see the others bathe. And in 
 the afternoon I read aloud the last Howells of the day. 
 So pleasantly the summer ran by, without husks or 
 
74 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 swine, without penitent Prodigals or jealous brothers, 
 till September closed in, when one morning I was a 
 little late at breakfast. Eleanor was sitting after 
 breakfast on the hotel piazza with Mrs. Partelow, and 
 I was talking grand politics with Julius Tucker, when 
 Yanderdyke, one of those disagreeable fellows who like 
 to tell bad news, came up to me and said : 
 
 " Are not 3*011 Mr. Throop ?" 
 
 I said I was. 
 
 "From-Netherstone?" 
 
 I said yes, I was from Netherstone. 
 
 " Then I suppose that means you, 1 he said, and with 
 a certain satisfaction he thrust the morning journal 
 into my hand, pointing out to me a short telegraphic 
 paragraph under the head, 
 
 "FIRE IN NETHERSTONE, OHIO. 
 
 "A fire in Netherstone, Ohio, yesterday, destroyed the houses of 
 Mr. Felix Throop and Mrs. William Jackson. Loss $15,000." 
 
 I called my poor little wife, and told her the disas 
 trous news. We escaped our S3 7 mpathetic friends at 
 once, and rushed home to the cottage to pack for our 
 return. In less than an hour came a despatch from 
 John Bradford confirming the story. " So late that 
 we saved hardly anything." 
 
 Eleanor had borne the news most bravely up till now. 
 But when this despatch came she fairly laughed with 
 joy. She crossed from her trunk and sat on my 
 knee, and said, " I can bear anything, now I know 
 that; I am sure we shall be happy, wherever we 
 begin." 
 
75 
 
 By the afternoon of the next day we were at Neth- 
 erstone. As we came to the last stop, Eleanor, who 
 had been resting her head on my shoulder, looked up 
 and smiled. 
 
 " Felix, there is one comfort," said she. 
 
 " Indeed there is," said I. 
 
 " We shall never see those horrid pigs again." 
 
 " Never," said I. " It s an ill wind that blows no 
 body any good." 
 
 I had telegraphed Bradford to meet us, and he and 
 many of my friends were at the station. 
 
 " It was so late," said Bradford, " and so sudden. 
 The wind was hard from the northwest." 
 
 " But," said Mr. Clarkson, " there is one thing, Mrs. 
 Throop, which will delight you." 
 
 " Yes ?" said Eleanor, cheerfully. " What is that ?" 
 
 " It was the courage and pluck of young Proctor, of 
 the Bible class, you know. When things w T ere at the 
 worst he got three or four of his mates together, they 
 dashed in the blinds and windows of the library, and 
 entered it by ladders. With his own knife he cut the 
 great picture from the frame, and that is saved !" 
 
COLONEL CLIPSHAM S CALENDAR 
 
 COLONEL CLIPSHAM led a curious life, but, for a man 
 at his age, not an unpleasant one. His professional du 
 ties were not oppressive, and he had entered into a 
 career which made it almost sure that they never 
 would be oppressive. He had a very comfortable suite 
 of rooms in his sister s house, and alwa} T s breakfasted 
 with her family. As will be seen, they did not often 
 expect him at dinner; but nieces and nephews, sister 
 Prue and her husband Wintergreen, were always glad 
 if he did look in at that meal. For the rest, Clipsham 
 was a general favorite in Tarn worth, where he lived ; 
 and if there were not a german every evening, or a 
 progressive -euchre party on his list, why, there was 
 the Thursday Club, and the Whist Club, and the Chess 
 Club, and the Union, and the Association, and the pret 
 ty new room of the Harvard Club. "As to that," 
 said Clipsham, truly, if you had asked him how he 
 spent his evenings, " I am never so happy as I am with 
 a novel or with the newspaper at home." But it was 
 to be observed that he seldom enjoyed this acme of 
 his happiness at the top-notch of his life s tide. 
 
 The one thing of which Clipsham s friends were 
 sure was this, that he would never go into public life. 
 
77 
 
 True, he always voted ; he even voted for the school 
 eommittee, which most of the people in Tamworth 
 forgot to do. But it was also true that he did not at 
 tend primary meetings. And it was by a series of 
 rather curious circumstances that the public was led to 
 place that confidence in him which has now lifted him 
 so far out of the run of machine-made politics. It is 
 the business of this story to tell, for the first time, so 
 far as I know, the way those circumstances followed 
 each other. 
 
 Clipsham was a man of iron memory. And this was 
 not all pig-iron. One might say steel memory, or a 
 memory of watch-springs, if we understood better than 
 we do the action of the mechanism of memory. By 
 this I mean that he recollected what are called little 
 things at the right moment, as well as he remembered 
 the big things all along his life. He remembered that 
 the national debt was $2,198,765,432.10 when it was at 
 that precise amount, but he also remembered that he 
 had told the washerwoman s boy to come round at a 
 quarter past eight Friday evening and he would give 
 him a ticket to the circus. On such a combination, of 
 what I call the pig-iron memory and what I call the 
 watch-spring memory, does much of the good cheer 
 and success of a happy life depend. 
 
 But on a fatal day, after Clipsham was thirty-three 
 years old, he thought he forgot something. I do not 
 myself believe he did. If he did, it was before break 
 fast, when no one ought to be asked to remember any 
 thing not whether Semiramis is the name of an em 
 press or of a toadstool. But he thought he forgot 
 something. And so it was that he went down to Mr. 
 
78 SUSAN S ESCOKT, AND OTHEKS 
 
 Backup s shop and bought this calendar, oi which I am 
 going to tell you the story. 
 
 There it is. He gave it to me on the day of his in 
 auguration. You see it has the days of the week on 
 one scroll, and the days of the month on another. 
 Then you turn this cog at the beginning of the month, 
 and you are ready for thirty-one more days, if there be 
 so many. The only defect in the machine is that you 
 might suppose that there were thirty-one days in Feb 
 ruary. But, as Judge Marshall said, " The court is ex 
 pected to know something." 
 
 Now Clipsham is a charming public speaker. He 
 tells a story well in particular, he tells with great 
 good-humor a story to his own disadvantage. He re 
 members well that has been said. He passes, by a 
 sudden change what do singers call it, modulation? 
 from grave to gay, or from gay to grave. Best of all, 
 he never says one word about himself. Then he never 
 pretends that he does not like to speak. He does like 
 to speak. A man would be an ass who did not like to 
 speak if he spoke as well as Clipsham does. He makes 
 no introductions to his speech. When he has done he 
 makes no " conclusion." Just when you are hoping he 
 will say more he sits down. And he never makes a 
 long speech. These spring from sterling qualities, 
 which are not often united in one handsome, graceful, 
 intelligent young man of thirty-three. 
 
 So it is that Clipsham is much invited to public din 
 ners. As for that, we all are. But generally the in 
 vitation is accompanied with a request that in accept 
 ing you will pay for your ticket a dollar and a half, 
 or three dollars, or five, or ten according as the hon- 
 
COLONEL CLIPSHAM S CALENDAR 79 
 
 ored guest of the evening is a college professor, doctor 
 of divinity, an agent from Japan, or a travelling Eng 
 lish lecturer. Now, as most of us can bolt our modest 
 dinner of mock-turtle, fried oysters, charlotte-russe, and 
 coffee at any eating-houseeven the most fussy, noisy, 
 and showy for less than the lowest of these prices, our 
 invitations are not so attractive. To Clipsham the 
 invitation always came with a ticket. That is quite a 
 different thing, and Clipsham, who was in a good many 
 college societies, was the great-grandson of a Cincin- 
 natus, and a grandson of a hero of Lundy s Lane, and 
 son of the man who stormed Chapultepec and held the 
 block-house at Gannon s Three Corners Clipsham, I 
 say, who was a member of the United Guild of Men 
 of Letters, and of the Consolidated Sodality of Lovers 
 of Art Clipsham, whose good-humor and good-fel 
 lowship had related him to pretty much all the as 
 sociations in Tarn worth, and, indeed, in that whole 
 State, found that he was bidden to a public dinner 
 almost every day. Indeed, sometimes the " bids," as 
 his childish nephews called them, overlapped each 
 other. 
 
 This was the reason why he dined so seldom with 
 his sister. On the other hand, it was the reason why 
 you met him so seldom at a restaurant or public 
 table. 
 
 You would generally find him if you went up-stairs 
 to the great dining-room of whichever Delmonico or 
 Wormley or Parker or Young of Tamworth happened 
 on that day to entertain the " Soul of the Soldiery," 
 or the " Brothers in Adversit} 7 ," or the " Xu Kappa 
 Omega," or whatever sodality happened to be holding 
 
80 SUSAN S ESCOET, AND OTHERS 
 
 its annual dinner. And if you looked in at the right 
 moment, Clipsham would be making a speech, and a 
 very good speech too. 
 
 II 
 
 Clipsham s little niece, Gertrude, is the first heroine 
 of this story. And it is on her that the plot turns, 
 more than on Elinor May, who is the other heroine. 
 Gertrude has the run of the house, but never ought to 
 go to her uncle s room unless he asks her. And this 
 Gertrude knows perfectly well. 
 
 But on this day of which I speak, some impulse of 
 Satan, as the old indictments would tell you, and Dr. 
 Watts would confirm them, led Gertrude into the 
 "study," as the room was called. The same Mani- 
 chean divinity whose name begins with S, but shall 
 not be mentioned again, moved her to take down the 
 calendar mentioned before, and to try the screws. She 
 twirled them this way, she twirled them that. Of a 
 sudden she heard Kate Connor, the girl who made the 
 beds. 
 
 Gertrude feared detection. She hung up the calen 
 dar hastily and fled. But, alas! she left M., which 
 stands for Monday, and 10, which stands for the tenth 
 day of the month, both one notch too high. T., W., 
 Th., F., and the rest all followed M., and the engage 
 ments for the month were all set one day wrong. 
 
 Kate Connor did not, in fact, enter the room. But 
 guilty Gertrude thought she would, and the result was 
 the same. Gertrude was called by her mother before 
 
81 
 
 she had any chance to go back again, and was made 
 ready for a tennis-party at Mrs. Fisher s. And now it 
 is that, strictly speaking, this story begins. 
 
 George Clipsham came home to dress for dinner. He 
 stopped a moment, and took down the cyclopaedia to 
 look at the account of the battle of Bennington. For 
 he had been turning over a speech which he was to 
 make at a Grand Army gathering, and he remembered 
 that Plunkett s mother was a Stark. He wanted to 
 make a good allusion to Molly Stark and her widow 
 hood. But as he passed his desk he took the fatal cal 
 endar, which guilty Gertrude had not had time to 
 hang on its peg. Clipsham hung it up without a 
 thought, but did look to see, to his amazement, that 
 the Grand Army dinner was done and gone yesterday. 
 The calendar said he was to dine with the graduates 
 of the Western Reserve College to-day. "Lucky I 
 did not fire the battle of Bennington at them," said 
 Clipsham to himself; "but what will Plunkett say?" 
 
 The truth was that Clipsham had this dreadful cold 
 which you all have had. And just as you and I deter 
 mined that we would go to Florida another winter if 
 our lives were spared, Clipsham had determined. Hand 
 kerchiefs? he was bankrupt in buying them. Hear 
 ing? he had been stone-deaf all the week. He did 
 not cough very badly, but the cold was just on that 
 juncture of the pharynx with the larynx where it is 
 uncomfortable to have it. He had stayed at home the 
 day before and nursed it glycerine and whiskey, taken 
 with a very small spoon, was his remedy and he had 
 persuaded himself that he could go out to-day. 
 
 To tell the whole truth, his sister Prue had had pea- 
 
82 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 soup and salt codfish for dinner the day before, and 
 the children had been very noisy. Clipsham had deter 
 mined to change the scene. So he had determined to 
 dine with the Grand Army to-day, and now the cal 
 endar said the Grand Army dinner was " done and 
 gone." "Well," said Clipsham to himself, "I could 
 not have spoken aloud anyway. And I should not 
 have heard a word they said. Western Reserve it is 
 to-day. Lucky I looked !" And he went on with his 
 dressing, and thought over some old Harvard stories 
 which would do to tell to the Western Reserve gradu 
 ates. 
 
 As he went out, furred, and even veiled, and with 
 those horrid arctics on which made him limp with pain, 
 Prue met him at the door. 
 
 "Dear George, you are not going out with that 
 dreadful cough? Why, I was sure of you. I have 
 asked Mrs. Oliphant and the Pryces to meet you, and 
 I have such a lovely pair of canyasbacks." 
 
 George intimated that he didn t hear. 
 
 Prue shouted her bill of fare, physical and meta 
 physical, into his ear. 
 
 George was sorry. But he was all ready, and to the 
 hotel dinner he went, and left those canvasbacks be 
 hind. Prue s would be warm, alas! and at the Hotel 
 Jefferson that was more doubtful. 
 
Ill 
 
 The waiters all know George to a man, and he was 
 shown to the reception parlor instantly. The reader 
 understands what George did not why a third of the 
 guests were in uniform. Of course they were, for it 
 was the Grand Army of the Eepublic. But George, 
 who thought it was the Western Keserve dinner, was 
 surprised that the college men wanted to bring out 
 their old blue frocks and bright buttons. " But that 
 was all right," he said, "if they chose to." Oddly 
 enough, his friend Colonel Plunkett was receiving the 
 guests, and Clipsham slipped into his hand the note of 
 apology he had written. Plunkett slipped it into the 
 little pocket of his uniform coat, and found it there 
 two years afterwards, when he dressed for the same 
 anniversary again. Clipsham mumbled an apology to 
 Plunkett, which, quite of course, Plunkett, in shaking 
 hands with half the soldiers in the State, did not hear. 
 
 Clipsham is a bright man, and one would have said 
 that he would have caught the thread of the occasion 
 earlier than he did. But he did not hear one word in 
 five that any one said. As for the uniforms, all the 
 world knows that five-sixths of the college men of the 
 West served in the war. Besides, they had introduced 
 Clipsham to Professor Schmidgruber, who had just ar 
 rived, as the agent from the government of Hesse-Cas- 
 sel to study Western education. Clipsham was inter 
 ested in the savant, and they talked very earnestly, the 
 savant speaking directly into Clipsham s ear. 
 
 So it was that when Clipsham got a card at the din- 
 
84 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 ner- table from Plunkett, who was presiding, which 
 said, " You next," he knev/ that now was his turn to 
 speak, without having known much of what had been 
 said before him. 
 
 And a very good speech it was. Not one word about 
 the war, nor the bird of freedom, nor the American 
 soldier, nor Molly Stark, as there would have been had 
 Clipsham understood the truth, that he was speaking 
 to a Grand Army post. Instead of this he spoke, with 
 serious feeling, on the work which educated men can 
 render in any community. What he had been saying 
 to the German he now said aloud. There is the secret 
 of a good speech. He spoke to the men before him as 
 if they were all scholars, all men of conscience, and all 
 leaders in the villages or towns where they lived. He 
 told some good stories, he made some good jokes ; but 
 his speech was not in the least commonplace, and it 
 ended with a very serious pledge as to the duty they 
 would all do to their country. 
 
 It was received rapturously yes, wildly. Indeed, 
 as the reader will understand, it was better received 
 than it would have been by the graduates whom Clip- 
 sham thought he was addressing. Every one of these 
 good fellows was pleased that one of the most accom 
 plished men of letters in Tain worth spoke to him as an 
 equal with equals. They had only too much of soldier 
 talk, and were glad to hear something sung or said to 
 another tune. Clipsham had gone deeper down than 
 the average and commonplace, as he was apt to do. 
 
 Now you would say that, before he left the hotel, he 
 would have found out his mistake, or that, at all events, 
 he would have understood it from the newspapers next 
 
COLONEL CLIPSIIAM S CALENDAR 85 
 
 morning. But there you are quite wrong. In the first 
 place, he only stayed " to listen to two more speeches," 
 as he said. For it did not seem courteous to go away 
 the moment he had himself spoken. In fact, he did 
 not hear one word of either of them. As for the news 
 papers, Clipsham generally looked at them, though not 
 always. He never looked, however, at what the re 
 porters called their " sketches" of his speeches. "Why 
 should I make myself miserable?" said Clipsham. 
 " Nobody else reads the things, and why should I?" 
 If he had stayed long at his office next morning, or 
 looked in at the club, he might have found that his 
 calendar was all wrong. But instead of this he took 
 Dr. Schmidgruber to. examine the high -school; so he 
 remained quite sure that he had spoken to the college 
 men the night before, and that to-night he was to speak 
 to the carriage-builders. In fact, as the reader knows, 
 he would meet the college men, and the carriage-build 
 ers night would not come till to-morrow. 
 
 And it all happened just as before, as it says in the 
 Arabian Nights and in Grimm s fairy tales. Only this 
 time Clipsham sat at the cross table, because he was to 
 respond for Harvard, and was among the more distin 
 guished guests. But little did the poor fellow know 
 what he was to respond for. He did know that the 
 Carriage - builders Association of the country brings 
 together a remarkable body of men. He had dined 
 with them a year or two before. Their business re 
 quires an interest in design, a knowledge of the physi 
 cal structure of the world, an acquaintance with all 
 sorts and conditions of men, all combined with remark 
 able tact and promptness. Observe that carriage- 
 
66 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 builders, like railroad men, are always trying to an 
 nihilate time, or to give us more of it, Avhich is the 
 same thing. 
 
 "Ye shall become as gods transcendent fate !" 
 
 So Clipsham knew he was to speak to a bright set. 
 In point of fact, he did speak to the triennial gather 
 ing of the graduates of the Western Reserve College, 
 one of the oldest and largest of the Western uniA T ersi- 
 ties. And he told them things which it Avas very good 
 for them to hear, but Avhich people did not very often 
 tell them at these meetings. He told them that man 
 is man, because he can control matter by spirit ; that 
 this shoAVs that he is a child of God. He told them 
 that the child of God works Avith God, and that 
 here is the difference between Avork and labor: that 
 Avork eleA T ates man, Avhile labor fatigues man. He 
 charged them to see that the men whom they employed 
 should not be mere laborers, but should become felloAv- 
 Avorkmen with God. He said they might rest from 
 their labors, but that their Avorks Avould always follow 
 them. And he said, very seriously, that this Avas no 
 matter of book-learning; that they would not find it in 
 Seneca or Aristotle, but that they would find it in pro 
 portion as they Avere men of honor and truth, as they 
 forgot themselves and consecrated their workshops 
 into temples. . 
 
 Then he sat doAvn, and, just as it was the night be 
 fore, the speech AA T as received Avith cheers. The trutli 
 is that at any such college gathering in America the 
 men are only playing at being men of letters. Every 
 man of us is a Avorkman, or ought to be ashamed if he 
 
87 
 
 is not. As for poor Clipsham, the nervous excitement 
 of speaking brought on a lit of coughing, and lie had 
 to excuse himself and go home. 
 
 lie soaked his feet in hot water with mustard, put a 
 porous plaster on his chest, and went to bed with a 
 lump of sugar by his side on which he had dropped 
 Aver s Cherry Pectoral. But he slept all night, and 
 did not need the sugar. 
 
 Four days went on in this way, with four different din 
 ners. Nobody told Clipsham he was all wrong, because 
 nobody knew. On the other hand, everybody thought 
 he was all right, and said he had never made such good 
 speeches in his life. The next night he really went to 
 the carriage-builders dinner. But he thought he was at 
 the annual meeting of the Chautauquan Literary Cir 
 cle. That is to say, he thought he was speaking to a 
 large company of people who, in the midst of every 
 sort of daily occupation, read regularly in a systematic 
 course. So in fact he was. And the carriage-builders 
 liked his speech all the better that he made no pretence, 
 as they said any other lawyer would have done, to a 
 knowledge of their business. He said nothing about 
 varnish, or the strength of ash, of which he knew noth 
 ing ; and he did not once allude to the hub of the uni 
 verse, the wheel of time, the chariot of the sun, or Dr. 
 Holmes s "One-Hoss Shay," which had been worked to 
 death at their celebrations. 
 
88 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 IV 
 
 The two other dinners on the calendar that week 
 were at the joint anniversary of the Chautauquan Cir 
 cle, as has been said, and at the anniversary of the 
 trustees of a fund left for the education of that sub- 
 tribe of Ojibwas whom the first settlers had found 
 fishing on the point which makes Tain worth harbor. 
 These Ojibwas had long since gone where other Ojib 
 was, I fear, are going. But the fund remained, as 
 funds will, to curse the descendants of the trustees. 
 And the only way which had been devised to use up 
 the annual interest was to have the trustees dine to 
 gether, with such of their friends as wished to meet 
 them, after they had chosen themselves again into office 
 at their annual meeting. At the Chautauquan dinner, 
 accordingly, Clipsham went rather carefully into a dis 
 cussion of the movements of American immigration, and 
 the elements which have contributed to the making up 
 of American civilization. This was on Friday, and all 
 through the week Clipsham had never forgotten the 
 day of the week, although that mischievous Gertrude 
 had thrown him out in the use he made of the several 
 days as they came. Meanwhile his cold grew no bet 
 ter. His deafness grew upon him, and he sent for the 
 doctor. The doctor told him he must stay at home. 
 Clipsham said he could well do that, that for once there 
 was no evening engagement; and he looked up the 
 serial called " My Friend the Boss," which he was read 
 ing, which was full of allusions to his Tarn worth 
 friends. Little did he think, as he discussed the side- 
 
COLONEL CLIPSHAM S CALENDAR 
 
 bone of the nice turkey his sister Prue had provided, 
 that the trustees dinner was cooling while they await 
 ed his arrival at the Hotel Jefferson. The truth was 
 that they were entitled to that excuse which he wrote 
 at the beginning of the week to Colonel Plunkett, and 
 which Plunkett still had, unread, in the handkerchief 
 pocket of his dress uniform. 
 
 But all the staying at home over Sunday, and all the 
 whiskey and glycerine, and all the Cherry Pectoral 
 which could be administered did Clipsham no good, 
 and on Monday morning he asked the doctor if a 
 change of air would not help him. The doctor said of 
 course it would. It was clear it would not harm him, 
 for he w r as past much harming. He was deaf as a 
 post ; his nose and throat and all the passages to them 
 were inflamed, and red with the inflammation ; his eyes 
 were drooping with watering, and he said he was as 
 stupid as an owl. The doctor gave his permission for 
 a journey to Colorado. Clipsham looked on his cal 
 endar, and with his pencil marked off all the dinner 
 parties, and wrote letters of excuse for the next three 
 weeks. But there was one engagement he could not 
 manage so easily, for here his conscience pricked him. 
 
 It was the city election. Clipsham knew in his heart 
 of hearts that he had not done his duty in this affair. 
 He had not gone to one meeting where his friend Gor 
 don had summoned him, to obtain a competent, non- 
 partisan school committee. He was afraid there was a 
 "job" at the almshouse, and he had not looked into 
 that. He distrusted the reigning Mayor, yet he had 
 not lifted a finger to dethrone him. Now if he went 
 to Colorado he should be away on election day, and 
 
90 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 should not give even one vote against the rascals and 
 one in favor of honest men. 
 
 But Clipsham did so wish to go to Colorado ! He 
 had promised his cousin Lucy that he would visit her 
 on the way and she wrote such a pretty letter ! 
 
 Clipsham compromised with himself. He would go 
 to Colorado because he wanted to and his cold was 
 so bad. But he saw on the calendar that on Monday 
 night there was a meeting of the Friends of Good 
 Government at the Mechanics Hall. He knew who 
 called this meeting, and that it was in the right inter 
 est. John Fisher and all the rest had signed the call. 
 He would go to that meeting. That would show 
 which side he was on. He would not go on the noon 
 train; he would wait until the evening train, which 
 went at 9.30. And his presence there would, in prac 
 tice, show his colors as well as if he stayed in Tarn- 
 worth nine whole days, sneezing and coughing, to vote 
 at the end of them. 
 
 Indeed, he might be in his coffin if he stayed, and a 
 man cannot vote when he is in his coffin. 
 
 So, when Monday came, Clipsham sent his trunk to 
 the train, ordered a carriage for himself an hour before 
 the train started, and went down to the hall. The 
 truth was that the citizens meeting was not to take 
 place until the next night. But Gertrude had changed 
 all that, and Clipsham found, to his surprise, that the 
 large hall was not lighted. However, the smaller hall 
 was. An assiduous gentleman whom he did not know, 
 who had been drinking more than was good for him, 
 asked him in ; and Clipsham, regretting that the friends 
 of order made so poor a show, went in. As has been 
 
COLONEL CLIPSHAM S CALENDAR 91 
 
 said, he was not used to primary meetings. Once in, 
 it was like all other meetings, though not very large. 
 There were two hundred men there, of whom he did 
 not recognize three. The president was a man who 
 had once tried to sell him a horse. The Mayor was 
 making a speech, and Clipsham supposed from this 
 that that officer had been frightened, and was trying 
 to "get good," as the children say. But whether he 
 knew them or not, they knew him. Three or four 
 showily dressed men met him and led him to a front 
 seat, and expressed their pleasure at his presence. In 
 a moment after, the Mayor s motion was carried, and a 
 committee was sent out nominated from a list which 
 had been prepared in his office that afternoon to sug 
 gest a ticket for aldermen. 
 
 Then it was that another man, who also had been 
 drinking more than was good for him, arose and said 
 that they were honored by the presence of a gentleman 
 whom they had often heard in public, and who was 
 known to be interested in all public affairs, and that 
 he hoped Mr. Clipsham would address them on the 
 great issues before them ; and all the people shouted 
 " Clipsham ! Clipsham !" Why he was there the leaders 
 wondered, but they supposed, in their low way, that he 
 had quarrelled with John Fisher and his set, and had 
 come over to them to see what they would give him. 
 
 The truth was, as the reader sees, that he had come 
 to a meeting which was one day earlier than the meet 
 ing which he had meant to come to. 
 
 Clipsham himself did not hear the man who spoke, 
 and did not know what they were shouting at. But 
 when another man came to lead him to the platform 
 
92 
 
 SUSAN S ESCOKT, AND OTHERS 
 
 he knew what that meant, and he stepped up and sailed 
 in. And a capital speech he made. It was that speech 
 which put him into what people call public life. For 
 my part, I think he had been in very public life before. 
 He was pleased at being called upon so early; he was 
 pleased at being recognized as in some sort a leader ; 
 and he said to himself, as he mounted the steps, that 
 this was what he had come for, and that, if they wanted 
 him to lead, he had better lead. He did not quite know 
 what to do or say about the Mayor. For here was the 
 Mayor at his side. If he had repented of the dirty jobs 
 he had been in, Clipsham thought, he would let him off; 
 and he did. But he did not let off anybody else in that 
 meeting. He exposed, from cellar to cupola, the dis 
 graceful jobs about building the new school-house op 
 posite Prue Wintergreen s house, and the unkind audi 
 ence howled with delight as they saw Alderman Bob 
 Lyon and Councilman Bill Stuggs held up under Clip- 
 sham s pitiless ridicule. One of these gentlemen had 
 led him to the stand, and the other was secretary of the 
 meeting ; but this Clipsham did not know. Clipsham 
 could see that the assembly was a low-lived set, and mad 
 enough was he with Fisher and the rest who had signed 
 the call and then stayed comfortably at home. So, 
 after dissecting every nasty job which his hearers had 
 been engaged in for five years, he closed with a really 
 eloquent denunciation of the indifference of educated 
 men and holders of property in the management of the 
 affairs of the city. His own conscience pricked him, 
 as has been said, and he spoke all the better for that. 
 The closing passage, where he describes the rich manu 
 facturer, who could not sign his name if the public 
 
COLONEL CLIPSHAM S CALENDAR 93 
 
 schools had not taught him, and could not squeeze on 
 a pay-roll if the public school had not taught him, yet 
 who, when he is rich and prosperous, will not go to a 
 meeting which cares for the schools, and does not know 
 a schoolmaster when he meets him in the streets, has 
 gone into the reading-books; and if you will go to^the 
 graduating exercises of the Lavinia Academy you may 
 hear it spoken. 
 
 Well, that one fellow held that angry assembly by 
 the mere force of audacity and truth, and they did not 
 even remember that they could pelt him to death with 
 their private gin-bottles and other " pocket pistols." 
 When he had finished his speech he did not wait to 
 hear what followed. He did not care to hear the hisses 
 nor curses. He did see the scowls, but he had not sup 
 posed that everybody would like his speech. He bowed 
 himself away from the hall, and in half an hour he was 
 asleep in his berth as his train started for the West. 
 
 By great good luck it happened that the chief short 
 hand man of a newspaper unfriendly to the crew had 
 been sent to " do " the meeting. It was supposed that 
 a square or two of " matter" would be all the result of 
 his probing such an ulcer. But he caught the position 
 in an instant. He wrote down every word of Clip- 
 sham s speech, and the next morning Tamworth and 
 the State had it all. Such head-lines ! 
 
 BILL STUGGS ENLIGHTENED ! 
 
 A LIVELY CAUCUS ! 
 
 A CITIZEN S PROTEST ! 
 
 LIGHT IN DARK PLACES I 
 
94 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 And the public soon knew that, for once, the little 
 coterie which had "run" Tamworth for some years 
 had been told the truth by one modest, quiet gentle 
 man, who had no axe to grind and no ring behind 
 him. 
 
 That man was Clipsham. While he Avas doing the 
 mountains and canons of Colorado, events were making 
 him, without the slightest suspicion of it himself, the 
 most popular man in the State. So soon as there was 
 a chance, the Friends of Good Government put him 
 in nomination for Governor and Governor he was 
 chosen. He will be Governor till he wishes to go to 
 the United States Senate. 
 
 " But who was Elinor May ?" asks my kind reader, 
 Emma, who has followed this little story with the faith 
 fulness which has given a charm to other stories, and 
 who remembers something said in the beginning about 
 the heroine. My dear Emma, can there be no story 
 without a wedding at the end ? No, there cannot be, 
 if the story is quite perfect. So you shall hear who 
 Elinor May was, for it belongs to the calendar also, 
 and can be told in a few words. 
 
 So soon as Clipsham had determined to go to Colo 
 rado, the doctor asked him if he should stop in St. 
 Louis. He said he certainly should. Then the doctor 
 told him that he must call on some friend of his named 
 Day, and gave him the address. The doctor took a 
 card and wrote on it : " Colonel George Clipsham, intro 
 duced by Dr. Jones." Clipsham was lying on a long 
 
95 
 
 extension chair, carefully wrapped up in a Zuiii blanket, 
 and he asked the doctor to put down the name and 
 street on this fatal calendar; and there the doctor put 
 it, just as Clipsham bade him. Before Clipsham started 
 upon his journey, he copied all the lines from his calen 
 dar into his pocket-book. There was not much, and he 
 did not look at the dates. Thej came thus : 
 
 M. Speak at Caucus. 
 
 Tu. Stop over at Aunt Lucy s. 
 
 W. Day, 999 Olive Street, (This in the doctor s writing ) 
 
 But Clipsham never noticed that the dates were 
 wrong. He copied the entries into his own note-book ; 
 and thus it happened, as we say, that many pleasant 
 things followed. Elinor and George do not think any 
 thing "happened." They think it was all made in 
 heaven. This I know that they had that mischievous 
 Gertrude for their only bridesmaid. 
 
 For so it was that, on the evening when Clipsham 
 meant to call on Mrs. Day in St. Louis, he was in Chi 
 cago. He looked at his diary, and he found this entry. 
 " How queer it is ! said he. " I thought Jones said 
 these people lived in St. Louis as indeed Dr. Jones 
 did. But Clipsham had formed the notion that his 
 memory was failing, so he consulted the hotel clerk as 
 to how he should find the street. The clerk never 
 heard of it, but saw in a moment that it should be 
 Ohio Street, and that Clipsham had copied it wrong. 
 Clipsham went to ISTo. 999, as he thought he had been 
 bidden. Here he sent in the card : " Colonel George 
 Clipsham, introduced by Dr. Jones." After a mo 
 ment s delay he was admitted, and a very charming 
 
96 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 lady came forward to meet him. Clipsham bowed, 
 and said she was very kind to be so informal, and to 
 permit him to be, but he was a traveller, and had but 
 one night in Chicago ; and then he was presented to 
 Elinor, and I think the whole thing was pretty much 
 finished then, as far as he was concerned and so would 
 you, if you knew Elinor Clipsham as well as I do. Then 
 there was a little inquiry about Dr. Jones. But that 
 did not come out very well. In the first place, Clip- 
 sham did not hear very well. In the second place, he 
 was a good deal preoccupied with Elinor. In the third 
 place, the Dr. Jones he was talking about was the lead 
 ing physician of Tamworth, and the Dr. Jones they 
 were asking about w r as the Rev. Dr. Jones, president 
 of the theological seminary at New Berea. But she 
 was well-bred ; she saw there was some mistake, and 
 she let it pass. 
 
 A very pleasant evening Clipsham had. It proved 
 that he heard Miss Elinor much better than he had 
 heard anybody for a fortnight. The journey had been 
 of use already. Then they fell to singing duets, even 
 on this slight acquaintance. She plays a charming ac 
 companiment, and he sings admirably when he has no 
 cold. She was tolerant that evening, though his voice 
 was all wrong. Then, when her father came in, it 
 proved that they were all going to Colorado Springs 
 on the next day but one; and so it was very easy for 
 Clipsham to make up his mind that he had business 
 which would keep him over a day in Chicago. Al 
 though he did not tell them so, he made his resolution 
 to stay before he left the house. 
 
 When he had gone away, Elinor s mother said she 
 
97 
 
 pitied him because he had such a horrid cold. " But, 
 mamma," said Elinor, "did you ever know a cold make 
 a man say Day instead of May ? He kept calling 
 you Mrs. Day. : 
 
 Mrs. May had not observed this ; but it was even so. 
 As for Clipsham, when he met them at the train, and 
 took his seat with them in the same Pullman, he was 
 no such fool but that he could see that their seats were 
 taken for Mrs. May, Mr. May, and Miss May. But then 
 he supposed the P. P. C, man had written this wrong. 
 When, however, the names which they had themselves 
 put on the books with which they travelled proved to 
 be May, Clipsham gave up his conviction that he knew 
 their names better than they did. As he went on, in 
 deed, he began to be wondering whether he could not 
 persuade Miss Elinor to change hers. He was very 
 soon on that plane of conversation where he called her 
 < Miss Elinor." t 
 
 Yes, a Pullman is a very nice place when the com 
 pany is good. They sang in the twilight, for Clip- 
 sham s voice improved very fast, and his hearing gained 
 so that he could hear Miss Elinor, even when she spoke 
 in very low tones of experiences of hers which she 
 would not care to have that Russian merchant hear 
 who was on his way to Alaska. The Pullman people 
 had not then advanced so far as to have a piano in the 
 car between the saloon and the smoking-room. But 
 these two people found that they could sing without 
 any accompaniment. At the stations Clipsham always 
 managed to bring in something : if there were no flow 
 ers there were queer crullers, or if there were no crullers 
 there were fossils. Sometimes there was half an hour s 
 
98 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 detention, and then he and Miss May would have a 
 good, brisk, constitutional walk together. 
 
 Now, Clipsham had mining interests in Colorado, and 
 Mr. May had smelting interests; and while Mr. May 
 attended to the smelting, Colonel Clipsham would wait 
 with them. And while Clipsham inquired about the 
 mining, the Mays were not far away. And the " Gar 
 den of the Gods" was more divine than ever, when 
 they dismissed the carriage one evening, and under the 
 moonlight walked home together, while those old di 
 vinities looked down, in still approval of what these 
 younger people said and did. Altogether, the journey 
 out, and the journey there, and the journey home, were 
 charming. Clipsham never received one newspaper all 
 the time, and he did not dream that he was growing 
 famous. As for the Mays, they never asked nor cared 
 whether he was a public man or a private man. It was 
 enough for them that Rev. Dr. Jones had recommended 
 him. Nay, they did not long think of that. For, give 
 him a chance, George Clipsham is anywhere his best 
 recommendation. He is a modest man, but you cannot 
 be with him a day without seeing that he is a brave, 
 quiet, true, Christian gentleman. He thinks very little 
 of himself, but is glad nay, eager if he can, to make 
 other people happy and good, and to serve the world 
 where he has a chance to serve it. 
 
 Nothing, indeed, could have been better or brighter 
 or more happy in its results than this Colorado jour 
 ney. Clipsham threw off his cold entirely, and before 
 the journey was over he had undertaken to take care 
 of Elinor to the end of her days, if she would let him. 
 She, on her part, has taken such good care of him from 
 
COLONEL CLIPSHAM S CALENDAR 99 
 
 that day to this that he has never made the wrong 
 speech in the wrong place, and he has never had that 
 "horrid influenza" again. 
 
 When he came back to Tamworth, in all the exuber 
 ance of his new life, he did manage to ask Dr. Jones 
 how he had contrived to write "Day" instead of 
 " May." For the calendar still hung there, and there 
 was the " D," perfectly plain, in the doctor s hand 
 
 writing. 
 
 Then it was that a thorough examination and ex 
 planation ensued, and then Gertrude, in tears, confessed 
 to her mother, for she, poor child, had never forgotten 
 her sin. But she had perfect absolution. A beautiful 
 doll, open-eyes-shut-eyes, was given her, and she has 
 never been scolded from that day to this. 
 
 You would say that Clipsham would have called on 
 Mrs. Day in St. Louis on his first visit there. But he 
 has never done so. His wife says she is afraid to have 
 him. lie says he has found out that there are no nice 
 daughters there. 
 
 Both he and Elinor bless Gertrude every day of 
 their lives for her little experiment on his calendar. 
 
BREAD ON THE WATERS 
 
 "ONLY think, Matty, papa passed right by me 
 when I was sitting with my back to the fire and stitch 
 ing away on his book-mark, without my once seeing 
 him ! But he was so busy talking to mamma that he 
 never saw what I was doing, and I huddled it under a 
 newspaper before he came back again. Well, I have 
 got papa s present done, but I cannot keep out of 
 mamma s way. Matty dear, if I will sit in the sun, 
 and keep a shawl on, may I not sit in your room and 
 work ? It is not one bit cold there. Eeally, Matty, it 
 is a great deal warmer than it was yesterday." 
 
 "Dear child," said Matty, to whom everybody came 
 so readily for advice and help* u I can do better for 
 you than that. You shall come into the study ; papa 
 will be away all the morning, and I will have the fire 
 kept up there, and mamma shall never come near 
 you." 
 
 All this, and a thousand times more, of plotting and 
 counterplotting was going on among four children and 
 their elders in a comfortable, free -and -easy -seeming 
 household in Washington, as the boys and girls, young 
 men and young women, were in the last agonies of 
 making ready for Christmas. Matty is fully entitled 
 
BREAD ON THE W.VPSRS; ."> > >> > > t > ; ; 101 
 
 to be called a young woman when we see her. She 
 has just passed her twenty-first birthday. But she 
 looks as fresh and pretty as when she was seventeen, 
 and certainly she is a great deal pleasanter, though she 
 be wiser. She is the oldest of the troop. Tom, the 
 next, is expected from Annapolis this afternoon, and 
 Beverly from Charlotte. Then come four boys and 
 girls whose ages and places the reader must guess at 
 as we go on. 
 
 The youngest of the family were still young enough 
 to write the names of the presents which they would 
 be glad to receive, or to denote them by rude hiero 
 glyphs, on large sheets of paper. They were used to 
 pin up these sheets on certain doors, which, by long 
 usage in this free-and-easy family, had come to be re 
 garded as the bulletin -boards of the establishment. 
 Wellnigh every range of created things had some rep 
 resentation on these bulletins from an ambling pony 
 round to a " boot-buttener," thus spelled out by poor 
 Laura, who was constantly in disgrace, because she al 
 ways appeared latest at the door when the children 
 started for church, to ride, or for school. The young 
 sters still held to the theory of announcing thus their 
 wants in advance. Horace doubted whether he were 
 not too old. But there was so much danger that no 
 body would know how much he needed a jig-saw that 
 he finally compromised with his dignity, vfrote on a 
 virgin sheet of paper " jig-saw," signed his name, Hor 
 ace Molineux, December 21," and left his other pres 
 ents to conjecture. 
 
 And of course at the very end, as Santa Claus and 
 his revels were close upon them, while the work done 
 
103 , SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 had been wonderful, that which we ought to have 
 done, but which we had left undone, was simply terri 
 ble. Here were pictures that must be brought home 
 from the frame -man, who had never pretended he 
 would send them; there were ferns and lycopodiums 
 in pots which must be brought home from the green 
 house ; here were presents for other homes, which must 
 not only be finished, but must be put up in paper and 
 sent before night, so as to appear on other trees. 
 Every one of these must be shown to mamma, and ap 
 proved by her, and praised ; and every one must be 
 shown to dear Matty, and praised and approved by 
 her. And yet by no accident must Matty see her own 
 presents or dream that any child has remembered her, 
 or mamma see hers or think herself remembered. 
 
 And Matty has all her own little list to see to, while 
 she keeps a heart at leisure from itself to soothe and 
 sympathize. She had to correct the mistakes, to repair 
 the failures, to respect the wonder, to refresh the dis 
 couragement of each and all the youngsters. Her 
 own Sunday scholars are to be provided with their 
 presents. The last orders are to be given for the 
 Christmas dinners of half a dozen families of vassals, 
 mostly black, or of some shade of black, who never 
 forgot their vassalage as Christmas came round. Tur 
 key, cranberry, apples, tea, cheese, and butter must 
 be sent to each household of these vassals, as if every 
 member were paralyzed except in the muscles of the 
 jaw. But, all the same, Matty or her mother must be 
 in readiness all the morning and afternoon to receive 
 the visits of all the vassals who, so far as this form 
 of homage went, did not seem to be paralyzed at all. 
 
BREAD ON THE WATERS 103 
 
 For herself, Matty took possession of the dining- 
 room as soon as she could clear it of the breakfast 
 equipage, of the children, and of the servants; and 
 here, with pen and ink, with wrapping-paper and 
 twine, with telegraph blanks and with the directory, 
 and with Yenty as her Ariel messenger not so airy 
 and quick as Ariel, but quite as willing Matty 
 worked her wonders, and gave her audiences, whether 
 to vassals from without or puzzled children from 
 within. 
 
 Yenty was short for Yentidius. But this name, 
 given in baptism, was one which Yenty seldom heard. 
 
 Matty corded up this parcel, and made Yenty cord 
 up that ; wrote this note of compliment, that of in 
 quiry, that of congratulation, and sent Yenty on this, 
 that, and another errand with them ; relieved Flossy s 
 anxieties, and poor Laura s, in ways which have been 
 described; made sure that the wagon should be at the 
 station in ample time for Beverly ; and at last, at 
 nearly one o clock, called Aunty Chloe (who was in 
 waiting on everybody as a superserviceable person on 
 the pretence that she was needed), bade Aunty pick up 
 the scraps, sweep the floor, and bring the room to 
 rights. And so, having attended to everybody beside 
 herself, to all their wishes and hopes and fears, poor 
 Matty or shall I not say dear Matty? ran off to 
 her own room to finish her own presents and make 
 her own last preparations. 
 
 She had kept up her spirits as best she could all the 
 morning, but at any moment when she was alone her 
 spirits had fallen again. She knew it, and she knew 
 why. And now she could not hold out any longer. 
 
104 
 
 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 She and her mother, thank God, never had any secrets. 
 And as she ran by her mother s door she could not 
 help tapping, to be sure if she had come home. 
 
 Yes, she had come home. " Come in !" and Matty 
 ran in. 
 
 Her mother had not even taken off her hat or her 
 gloves. She had flung herself on the sofa, as if her 
 walk had been quite too much for her; her salts and 
 her handkerchief were in her hands, and when she saw 
 it was Matty, as she had hoped when she spoke, she 
 would not even pretend she had not been in tears. 
 
 In a moment Matty was on her knees on the floor 
 by the sofa, and somehow had her left arm round about 
 her mother s neck. 
 
 "Dear, dear mamma! What is it? What is the 
 matter?" 
 
 " My dear, dear Matty," replied her mother, just 
 succeeding in speaking without sobs, and speaking the 
 more easily because she stroked the girl s hair and 
 caressed her as she spoke, " do not ask, do not try to 
 know. You will know, if you do not guess, only too 
 soon. And now the children will be better, and papa 
 will get through Christmas better, if you do not know, 
 my darling." 
 
 " ISTo, dear mamma," said Matty, crossing her moth 
 er s purpose almost for the first time that she remem 
 bered, but wholly sure that she was right in doing so 
 "no, dear mamma, it is not best so. Indeed, it is not, 
 mamma ! I feel in my bones that it is not !" This she 
 said with a wretched attempt to smile, which was the 
 more ghastly because the tears were running down 
 from both their faces, 
 
BREAD ON THE WATERS 105 
 
 " You see, I have tried, mamma. I knew all day 
 yesterday that something was wrong, and at breakfast 
 this morning I knew it. And I have bad to hold up 
 with the children and all these people with the feel 
 ing that any minute the hair might break and the 
 sword fall. And I know I shall do better if you tell 
 me. You see, the boys will be here before dark, and 
 of course they will see ; and what in the world shall I 
 say to them ?" 
 
 " What, indeed !" said her poor mother. " Terrible 
 it is, dear child, because your father is so wretched. I 
 have just come from him. He would not let me stay, 
 and yet for the minute I was there I saw that no 
 one else could come in to goad him. Dear, dear papa, 
 he is so resolute and brave, and yet any minute I was 
 afraid that he would break a blood-vessel and fall dead 
 before me. Oh, Matty, Matty, my darling, it is terri 
 ble!" 
 
 And this time the poor woman could not control 
 herself longer, but gave way to her sobs, and her voice 
 fairly broke, so that she was inarticulate as she lay 
 her cheek against her daughter s on the sofa. 
 
 "What is terrible? Dear mamma, you must tell 
 me !" 
 
 " I think I must tell you, Matty, my darling. I be 
 lieve if I cannot tell some one I shall die." 
 
 Then Mrs. Molineux told the whole horror to Matty. 
 Here was her husband charged with the grossest plun 
 der of the Treasury, and charged even in the House of 
 Representatives now. It had been whispered about 
 before, and had been hinted at in some of the lower 
 newspapers, but now even a committee of invest iga- 
 
!06 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHEES 
 
 tion of Congress had noticed it, and had " given him 
 an opportunity to clear himself." There was no less a 
 sum than forty-seven thousand dollars, in three sepa 
 rate payments, charged to him at the Navy Depart 
 ment as long ago as the second and third years of the 
 war. At the Navy they had his receipt for it. Not 
 that he had been in that department then any more 
 than he was now. He was then chief clerk in the 
 Bureau of Internal Improvement, as he was now com 
 missioner there. But this was when the second Eio 
 Grande expedition was fitted out ; and from Mr. Moli- 
 neux s knowledge of Spanish, and his old connection 
 with the Santa Fe trade, this particular matter had 
 been intrusted to him. 
 
 " Yes, dear mamma !" 
 
 " Well, papa has it all down in his own cash-book ; 
 that book he carries in his breast-pocket. There are 
 the three payments, and then all the transfers he made 
 to the different people. One was that old white-haired 
 Spaniard with the hair-lip, who used to come here at 
 the back door, so that he should not be seen at the 
 department. But it was before you remember. The 
 others were in smaller sums. But the whole thing was 
 done in three weeks, and then the expedition sailed, 
 and papa had enough else to think of, and has never 
 thought of it since, till ten or fifteen days ago, when 
 somebody in the Eleventh Auditor s office discovered 
 this charge, and his receipt for this money." 
 
 " Well, dear mamma ?" 
 
 " Well, dear child, that is all, but that now the news 
 papers have got hold of it ; and the Committee on Re 
 trenchment, who are all new men, with their reputa- 
 
BREAD ON THE WATERS 
 
 107 
 
 tions to make, have got hold of it, and some of them 
 really think, you know, that papa has stolen the money !" 
 And she broke down, crying again. 
 
 " But he can show his accounts, mamma !" 
 " What are his accounts worth ? He must show the 
 vouchers, as they are called. He must show these 
 people s receipts, and what has become of these people; 
 what they did with the money. He must show every 
 thing. Well, when the Copperhead first spoke of it 
 that was a fortnight ago papa was really pleased. 
 For he said it would be a good chance to bring out a 
 piece of war history. He said that in our bureau we 
 had never had any credit for the Kio Grande successes; 
 that they were all our thunder ; because then he could 
 laugh about this horrid thing. He said the Navy had 
 taken all the honors, while we deserved them all. And 
 he said if these horrid Copperhead and Argus and Scor 
 pion people would only publish the vouchers half as 
 freely as they published the charges, we should get a 
 little of the credit that was our due." 
 
 " Well, mamma, and what is the trouble now?" 
 
 " Why, papa was so sure, that he would do nothing 
 until an official call came. But on Monday it got into 
 Congress. That hairy man from the Yellowstone 
 brought in a resolution or something, and the com 
 mittee was ordered to inquire. And when the order 
 came down, papa told Mr. Waltsingham to bring him 
 the papers, and, Matty, the papers were not there !" 
 
 " Stolen !" cried Matty, understanding the crisis for 
 the first time. 
 
 Yes perhaps or lost hidden somewhere. You 
 have no idea of the work of those days night work 
 
108 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 and all that. Many a time your father did not undress 
 for a week." 
 
 " And now he must remember where he put a horrid 
 file of paper eleven, twelve years ago. Mamma, that 
 file is stolen. That odious Greenhithe stole it. He 
 lives in Philadelphia now, and he has put up these 
 newspapers to this lie." 
 
 Mr. Greenhithe was an under clerk in the Internal 
 Improvement Bureau, who had shown an amount of 
 attention to Miss Matty which she had disliked and 
 had refused to receive. She had always said he was 
 bad, and would come to a bad end ; and when he was 
 detected in a low trick, selling stationery which he 
 had stolen from the supply-room, and was discharged 
 in disgrace, Matty had said it was good enough for 
 him. 
 
 These were her reasons for pronouncing at once that 
 he had stolen the vouchers and had started the rumors. 
 
 " I do not know. Papa does not know. He hardly 
 tries to guess. He says either way it is bad. If the 
 vouchers are stolen, he is in fault, for he is responsible 
 for the archives; if he cannot produce the vouchers, 
 then all the country is down on him for stealing. I 
 only hope," said poor Mrs. Molineux, " that they won t 
 say our poor old wagon is a coach and six," and this 
 time she tried to smile. 
 
 And now she had told her story. All last night, 
 while the children were asleep, Mr. Molineux had been 
 at the office, even till four o clock in the morning, taking 
 old dusty piles from their lairs and searching for those 
 wretched vouchers. And mamma had been waiting 
 shall one not say, had been weeping? here at home. 
 
BEEAD ON THE WATERS 109 
 
 That was the reason poor papa had looked so haggard 
 at breakfast this morning. 
 
 This was all mamma had to tell. She had been to 
 the office this morning, but papa would not let her stay. 
 He must see all comers, just as if nothing had happened, 
 was happening, or was going to happen. 
 
 Well! Matty did make her mother take off her 
 sacque and her hat and her gloves. She even made her 
 drink a glass of wine and lie down. And then the 
 poor girl retired to her own room, with such appetite 
 as she might for taking the last stitches in worsted- 
 work ; for stippling in the light into drawings ; for 
 writing the presentation lines in books ; and for do 
 ing the thousand little niceties in the way of finish 
 ing touches which she had promised the children to 
 do. 
 
 Her dominant feeling yes, it was a dominant pas 
 sion, as she knew was simply rage against this mis 
 erable Greenhithe, this cowardly sneak who was thus 
 taking his revenge upon her because she had been so 
 cold to him. Or was it that he made up to her because 
 he was already in trouble at the oifice and hoped she 
 would clear him with her father? Either way, he was 
 a snake and a scorpion, but he had worked out for 
 himself a terrible revenge. Poor Matty! she tried to 
 think what she could do, how she could help, for this 
 was the habit of her life. But this was hard indeed. 
 Her mind would not take that turn. All that it would 
 turn to was to the wretched and worse than worthless 
 question, what punishment might fall on him for such 
 utter baseness and wickedness ? 
 
 All the same, the children must have their lunch, and 
 
110 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 they must not know that anything was the matter. 
 Oh -clear! this concealment was the worst of all ! 
 
 So they had their lunch ; and poor Matty counselled 
 again, and helped again, and took the last stitches and 
 mended the last breaks, and waited and wondered, 
 and tried to hope, till at five o clock an office messenger 
 came up with this note : 
 
 "4.45 P.M. 
 
 " DEAR MATTY, I shall not come up to dinner. There is pressing 
 work here. Tell mamma not to sit up for me. I have my key. 
 
 "I have had no chance to get my things for the children. Will 
 you see to it ? Here is twenty dollars, and if you need more let them 
 send in the bill. I had only thought of that jig-saw was it? that 
 Horace wants. See that the dear fellow has a good one. 
 
 " Love to Tom and Bev. Ever your PAPA." 
 
 " Poor, dear papa !" said Matty, aloud, shedding tears 
 in spite of herself. To be thinking of jig-saws and of 
 the children in all this horrid hunt ! as if hunting for 
 anything was not the worst trial of all, always ; and at 
 once the brave girl took down her wraps and put on 
 her walking-shoes, that her father s commissions might 
 be met before their six-o clock dinner, and she deter 
 mined that, first of all, she would meet Tom at the 
 station. 
 
 At the station she met Tom. That was well. Matty 
 had not been charged to secrecy. That was well. She 
 bade Tom send up his valise and walk up the avenue 
 with her, and he did. She told him all the story, not 
 without adding her suspicions and giving him some 
 notion of her rage. 
 
 And Tom was angry enough ; there was a crumb of 
 comfort there. But Tom went off on another track. 
 
BEE AD ON THE WATERS 111 
 
 Tom disbelieved the Navy Department ; he had been 
 long enough at Annapolis to doubt the red-tape of the 
 bureau with which his chiefs had to do. "If the Navy 
 paid the money, the Navy had the vouchers." That 
 was Tom s theory. He knew a chief clerk in the Navy, 
 and Tom was for going at once round there. 
 
 But Matty held him in check, at least for the mo 
 ment. Whatever else he did, he must come home first. 
 He must see mamma, and he must see the children, 
 and he must have dinner. She had not told him yet 
 how well he looked and how handsome he was. And 
 there were a few minutes as they walked homeward, 
 and he must help her about the jig-saw and some other 
 things for the children. Ah ! happy she would have 
 been last Monday had anybody given her twenty dol 
 lars, with carte-llancke for spending it ; and now, how 
 wretched it all was ! But, all the same, the jig-saw 
 was bought, and mamma and Beverly and Laura and 
 Florence indeed, everybody but Tom and Matty her 
 self were cared for out of this hateful twenty-spot 
 hateful, though it were so kind. 
 
 And they came home to dinner. And as dinner 
 closed, Beverly came in, noisy and cheery, from the 
 Southern train, and he found his dinner ready. And 
 after Tom had seen him, Tom slipped off pretended 
 he had unfinished preparations to make. Tom went 
 right to the department, forced his way in, because he 
 was Mr. Molineux s son, and found his poor father 
 with Ziegler, the chief clerk, still on this wretched and 
 fruitless overhauling of the old files. Tom stated 
 frankly, in his offhand and businesslike way, what 
 his theory was. Neither Ziegler nor Tom s father be- 
 
112 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 lieved in it in the least. Tom knew nothing, they 
 said. The Navy paid the money, but the Navy was 
 satisfied with our receipt, and should be. Tom con 
 tinued to say, " If the Navy paid the money, the Navy 
 must have the vouchers," and at last, more to be rid of 
 him than with any hope of the result, Mr. Molineux let 
 the eager fellow go round to his friend Eben Eicketts 
 and see if Eben would not give an hour or two of his 
 Christmas-eve to looking up the things. Mr. Molineux 
 even went so far as to write a frank line to Mr. Eick 
 etts, and enclosed a letter which he had had that day 
 from the chairman of the House committee a letter 
 which was smooth enough in the language, but horribly 
 rough in the thing. 
 
 Ah me ! Had not Eicketts read already in the Even 
 ing Lantern a terrible attack on Molineux, stating that 
 he had not appeared before the committee at noon, be 
 cause he had not dared ; and that the committee itself 
 deserved to be impeached because Mr. Molineux was 
 not already under arrest. " But if a purblind commit 
 tee thus sleeps at the post of duty, an Argus-eyed press 
 and an awakened country," etc., etc., to the end of that 
 chapter. Eben Eicketts had read, and was willing, if 
 he could, to serve. 
 
 So he, with Tom, went round and found a Navy De 
 partment messenger, and opened and lighted up the 
 necessary rooms, and there they spent six hours of 
 their night before Christmas. 
 
 Meanwhile Beverly finished his fruit, had a frolic 
 with the children, and then called his mother and Mat 
 ty away from them. 
 
 "What in thunder is the matter?" asked the poor boy. 
 
BREAD ON THE WATERS 113 
 
 And they told him. How could they help telling 
 him ? And so soon as the story was finished the boy 
 had his coat on, and was pulling on his boots. He 
 went right down to his father s office ; he made old 
 Stratton admit him, and told his father he had re 
 ported for duty. 
 
 Neither of them had come home at four o clock in 
 the morning. Mrs. Molineux and Matty got such sleep 
 as may be imagined. The children were only crazy to 
 know what Santa Glaus would put in their stockings. 
 
 And so went by the eve of Christmas for that fam- 
 
 II. CHRISTMAS MORNING 
 
 And at last Christmas morning dawned, gray enough 
 and grim enough. 
 
 In that house the general presenting Avas reserved 
 for evening, after dinner, when in olden days there had 
 always been a large Christmas-tree lighted and dressed 
 for the children and their little friends. As the chil 
 dren had grown older and the trees at the Sunday-school 
 and elsewhere had grown larger, the family tree had 
 grown smaller; and on this day was to be simply a 
 typical tree, a little suggestion of a tree, between the 
 front windows, while most of the presents of every sort 
 and kind were to be dispersed where room could be 
 made for them in any part of the front parlors. All 
 the grand ceremonial of present-giving was thus re 
 served to the afternoon of Christmas, because then it 
 was certain papa would be at home, Tom and Beverly 
 would both be ready, and. indeed, as the little people 
 
114 
 
 confessed, they themselves would have more chance to 
 be quite ready. 
 
 But none the less was the myth of Santa Glaus and 
 the stoekings kept up, although that was a business of 
 less account, and one in which the children themselves 
 had no share, except to wonder, to enjoy, and to re 
 ceive. You will observe that there is a duality in most 
 of the enjoyments of life ; that if you have a long- 
 expected letter from your brother who is in Yokoha 
 ma, by the same mail or the next mail there comes a 
 letter from your sister who is in Cawnpore. And so it 
 was of Christmas at this Molineux house. Besides the 
 great wonders, like those wrought out by Aladdin s 
 slave of the lamp, there were the wonders, less gigantic 
 but not less exquisite, of the morning hours, wrought 
 out by the slave of the ring. How this series of won 
 ders came about the youngest of the children did not 
 know, but were still imaginative enough, and truly 
 wise enough, not to inquire. 
 
 While, then, the two young men and their father 
 were at one or the other department, now on step-lad 
 ders handing down dusty old pasteboard boxes, now 
 under gaslights running down long indexes with in 
 quiring fingers and unwinking eyes, Matty and her 
 mother watched and waited, till eleven o clock came, 
 not saying much of what was in the hearts of both, 
 but sometimes just recurring to it, as by some invisible 
 influence an influence which would overcome both of 
 them at the same moment. For the mother and daugh 
 ter were as two sisters, not parted far, even in age, and 
 not parted at all in sympathy. For occupation they 
 were wrapping up in thin paper a hundred barley dogs, 
 
BREAD ON THE WATERS 115 
 
 cats, eagles, locomotives, suns, moons, and stars, with 
 little parcels of nuts, raisins and figs, large red apples, 
 and bright Florida oranges all of which were destined 
 to be dragged out of different stockings at daybreak. 
 
 "And now, dear, dear mamma," said Matty, "you 
 will go to bed please do, dear mamma !" This was 
 said as she compelled the last obstinate eagle to accept 
 his fate and stay in his wrapping-paper, from which he 
 had more than once struggled out, with the instincts of 
 freedom. " Please do, dear mamma ; I will sort these 
 all out, and will be quite sure that each has his own. 
 At least, let us come up-stairs together. I will comb 
 your hair for you that is one of the little comforts. 
 And you shall get into bed, and see me arrange them, 
 and if I do wrong you can tell me." 
 
 Poor mamma, she yielded to her, as who does not 
 yield, and because it was easier to go up-stairs than to 
 stay. And the girl led her up and made herself a toilet- 
 woman indeed, and did put her worn-out mamma into 
 bed, and then hurried to the laundry, where she was 
 sure she could find what Diana had been bidden to re 
 serve there a pair of clean stockings belonging to each 
 member of the family. The youngest children, alas ! 
 who would need the most room for their spread eagles 
 and sugar locomotives, had the smallest feet and legs. 
 But nature compensates for all things, and Matty did 
 not fail to provide an extra pair of her mother s longest 
 stockings for each of " the three," as the youngest w r ere 
 called in the councils of their elders. So a name was 
 printed by Santa Glaus on a large red card and pinned 
 upon each receptacle, FLOSSY or LAURA, while all were 
 willing to accept of his bounties contained within, even 
 
116 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 if they did not recognize yarn or knitting as familiar. 
 Matty hurried back with their treasures. She brought 
 from her own room the large red tickets, already pre 
 pared, and then, on the floor by her mother s side, as 
 sorted the innumerable parcels, and filled each stocking 
 full. 
 
 Dear girl ! she had not wrongly guessed. There was 
 just occupation enough, and just little enough, for the 
 poor mother s anxious tired thought. Matty was wise. 
 She asked fewer and fewer questions ; fewer and fewer 
 she made her journeys to the great high fender, where 
 she pinned all these stiff models of gouty legs. And 
 when the last hung there quietly, the girl had the ex 
 quisite satisfaction of seeing that her mother was fast 
 asleep. She would not leave the room. She turned 
 the gaslight down to a tiny bead. She slipped off her 
 own frock, put on her mother s heavy dressing-gown, 
 lay down quietly by her side without rousing her, and 
 in a little while for with those so young this resource 
 is wellnigh sure she slept too. 
 
 It was five o clock when she was wakened by her 
 father s hand. He led her out into his own dressing- 
 room, and before she spoke she kissed him ! 
 
 She knew what his answer would be. She knew 
 that from his heavy face. But, all the same, she tried 
 to smile, and she said : 
 
 " Found ?" 
 
 " Found? No, no, dear child, nor ever will be. How 
 is mamma ?" % 
 
 And Matty told him, and begged him to come and 
 sleep in her own little room, because the children would 
 come in in a rout at daybreak. But no, he would not 
 
BREAD ON THE WATERS 117 
 
 hear to that. " Whatever else is left, dear Matty, we 
 have each other. And we will not begin on what will 
 be a new life to all of us we will not begin by bating 
 a jot of the dear children s joys. Matty, that is what 
 I have been thinking of all the way as I walked home. 
 But maybe I should not have said it but that Beverly 
 said it just now to me. Dear fellow, I cannot tell you 
 the comfort it was to me to see him come in ! I told 
 him he should not have come, but he knew that he 
 made me almost happy. He is a fine fellow, Matty, 
 and all night long he has shown the temper and the 
 sense of a man." 
 
 For a moment Matty could not say a word. Her 
 eyes were all running over with tears. She kissed her 
 father again, and then found out how to say, " I shall 
 tell him what you say, papa, and there will be two 
 happy children in this house, after all." 
 
 So she ran to Beverly s room, found him before he 
 was undressed, and told him. And the boy who was 
 just becoming a man, and the girl who, without know 
 ing it, had become a woman, kissed each other; held 
 each other for a minute, each by both hands ; looked 
 each other so lovingly in the eyes, comforted each other 
 by the infinite comfort of love, and then said good 
 night, and were asleep. Tom had stolen to bed, with 
 out waking his mother or his sister, some hours before. 
 
 Yes, they all slept. The little ones slept, after all 
 their being so certain that they should not sleep one 
 wink from anxiety. This poor jaded man slept because 
 he must sleep. His poor wife slept because she had 
 not slept now for two nights before. And Matty, and 
 Tom, and Beverly slept because they were young, and 
 
118 
 
 brave, and certain, and pure, and because they were 
 between seventeen and twenty-two years of age. This 
 is all to say that they could seek God s help and find it. 
 This is to say that they were wellnigh omnipotent over 
 earthly ills so far, at the least, that sleep came when 
 sleep was needed. 
 
 But not after seven o clock. Yenty and Diana had 
 been retained by Flossy and Laura to call them at five 
 minutes of seven, and Laura and Flossy had called the 
 others. And at seven o clock, precisely, a bugle-horn 
 sounded in the children s quarters, and then four gro 
 tesque riders, each with a soldier-cap made of news 
 paper, each with a bright sasH girt round a dressing- 
 gown, each with bare feet stuck into stout shoes, came 
 storming down the stairs, and, as soon as the lower 
 floor was reached, each mounted on a hobby-horse or 
 stick, and, with riot not to be told, came knocking at 
 Matty s door, at Beverly s, and at Tom s. And these 
 all appeared, also with paper soldier- hats upon their 
 heads and girt in some very spontaneous costume, and 
 so the whole troupe proceeded with loud fanfaron and 
 drum- beat to mamma s door, and knocked for admis 
 sion, and heard her cheery "Come in." And papa 
 and mamma had heard the bugle-calls, and had wrap 
 ped some sort of shawls around their shoulders, and 
 were sitting up in bed, they also with paper soldier- 
 hats upon them ; and one scream of " Merry Christ 
 mas !" resounded as the doors flew 7 open ; and then a 
 wild ravage of kissing and hugging as the little ones 
 rushed for the best places they could find on the bed, 
 not to say in it. This was the Christmas custom. 
 
 And Tom rolled up a lounge on one side of the bed, 
 
BREAD ON THE WATERS 119 
 
 which, after a fashion, widened it ; and Beverly brought 
 up his mother s easy-chair, which had earned the name 
 of "Moses seat," on the other side ; and thus in a min 
 ute the great broad bed was peopled with the whole 
 family as jolly, if as absurd, a sight as the rising sun 
 looked upon. And then Flossy and Beverly were de 
 puted to go to the fender and to bring the crowded, 
 stiff stockings, whose crackle was so delicate and ex 
 quisite. And so, youngest by youngest, they brought 
 forth their treasures not indeed gold, frankincense, 
 and myrrh, but what answered the immediate purposes 
 better: barley cats, dogs, elephants, and locomotives; 
 figs, raisins, walnuts, and pecans. 
 
 Yes, and for one noisy half -hour not one person 
 thought of the cloud which hung over the house only 
 the night before ! 
 
 But such happy forgetfulness cannot last forever. 
 There was the Christmas breakfast. And Tom tried 
 to tell of Academy times, and Beverly tried to tell 
 stories of the University. But it was a hard pull. 
 The lines under papa s eyes were only too dark. And 
 all of a sudden he would start, and ask just the wrong- 
 question. Matty had put the newspapers out of the 
 way. Not that she had looked at them, but the 
 chances were too bad but that there would be some 
 thing cruel about the investigation. And nobody 
 asked for the papers ! That was perhaps the strangest 
 thing of all. And poor blundering Laura must needs 
 say " That is the good of Christmas, that there are no 
 horrid newspapers for people to bother with," when 
 everybody above Horace s age knew that there were 
 
120 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 papers somewhere ; and soon Horace was big enough to 
 see what he had not been told in words that some 
 thing was going wrong. 
 
 And as soon as breakfast was done Flossy cried out, 
 " And now papa will tell us the story of the bear ! 
 Papa always tells us that on Christmas morning. Laura, 
 you shall come ; and, Horace, you shall sit there." And 
 then her poor papa had to take her up and kiss her and 
 say that this morning he could not stop to tell stories, 
 that he had to go to the department. And then Flossy 
 and Laura fairly cried. It was too bad. They hated 
 the department. There never could be any fun but what 
 that horrid old department came in. And when Hor 
 ace found that Tom was going to the department too, 
 and that Bev meant to go with him, he was mad, and 
 said he did not see what was the use of having Christ 
 mas. Here he had tin-foil and plaster up-stairs, and 
 little Watrous had lent him a set of Government medals, 
 and they should have such a real good time if Bev 
 would only stay. He wished the department was at 
 the bottom of the Potomac. Matty fairly had to take 
 the scolding boy out of the room. 
 
 Mr. Molineux, poor fellow, undertook the soothing 
 of Flossy. " Anyway, old girl, you shall meet me as 
 you go to church, and we will go through the avenue 
 together, and I will show you the new Topsy girl sell 
 ing cigars at Pierre s tobacco-shop. She is as big as, 
 Flossy. She has not got quite such golden hair, but 
 she never says one word to her papa, because she is 
 never cross to him." 
 
 " That s because he is never kind to her," said the 
 quick child, speaking wiser than she knew. 
 
BREAD ON THE WATERS 121 
 
 For Matty, she got a word with Tom, and he too 
 promised that they would be away from the depart 
 ment in time to meet the home party, and that all of 
 them should go to church together. 
 
 And, accordingly, as Mrs. Molineux with her little 
 troop crossed F Street they met the gentlemen all com 
 ing towards them. They broke up into groups, and 
 Tom and Matty got their first real chance for talk 
 since they had parted the night before. No ! Tom had 
 found no clew at the Navy Department. And al 
 though Eben Ricketts had been good as gold, and had 
 stayed and worked with Tom till long after midnight, 
 Eben had only worked to show good-will, for Eben 
 had not the least faith that there was any clew there. 
 Eben had said that if old Mr. Whilthaugh, who knew 
 the archive rooms through and through, had not been 
 turned out, they could do in fifteen minutes what had 
 cost them six hours, and that old Mr. Whilthaugh, 
 without looking, could tell whether it was worth while 
 to look. But old Mr. Whilthaugh had been turned 
 out, and Eben even did not know precisely what had 
 become of him. He thought he had gone back into 
 Pennsylvania, where his wife came from, but he did 
 not know. 
 
 "But, Matty, if nothing turns up to-day I go to 
 Pennsylvania to-morrow to find this old Mr. Whilt 
 haugh. For I shall die if I stay here ; and all the 
 Eben Eickettses in the world will never persuade me 
 that the vouchers are not in that archive room. If the 
 Navy did the work, the Navy must have the vouchers." 
 
 Then Matty ventured to ask, what she and her moth 
 er had wondered about once and again, why these par- 
 
122 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 ticular bits of paper were so necessary. Surely other 
 vouchers, or certified copies, or books of account could 
 be found somewhere ! 
 
 u Yes; I knew you would say so. And if it were 
 all yesterday, and were all in these lazy times of peace, 
 you would say true. But, you see, in the first place, 
 this is ever so long ago. Then, in the second place, it 
 was in the heat of war, when everything was on a gi 
 gantic scale, and things had to be done in unheard-of 
 ways. Then, chiefly, this particular business involved 
 the buying up of I do not know who among the rebels 
 in Texas, and among their allies on- the other side the 
 Rio Grande. This old Spaniard, whom mamma re 
 members, and whom I just remember, he was the chief 
 captain among the turncoats, and there were two or 
 three others, F. F. men, in their places First Family 
 men, that means, you know but after they did this 
 work they did not stay in their places long. No, papa 
 says he was mighty careful ; that he had three of the 
 scoundrels sworn before notaries, or rather before one 
 notary, and had their receipts and acknowledgments 
 stamped with his notary s seal. Still, it did not do to 
 have a word said in public then. And after everything 
 succeeded so perfectly, after the troops landed with 
 out a shot, and found all the base ready for them corn 
 and pork, and just where they wanted it why, then 
 everybody was too gratified to think of imagining that 
 papa had stolen the money that bought the pork and 
 the corn." 
 
 " I wish they were only half as grateful now," he 
 said, after a pause. 
 
 " Tom," said Matty, eagerly, " who was that notary?" 
 
BREAD ON THE WATERS 123 
 
 "I thought of that too," said Tom. "There is no 
 doubt who it was; it was old Gilbert. You must re 
 member his sign, just below Faulkner s, on the avenue. 
 But, in the first place, Gilbert died just after our reach 
 ing Kichmond. In the second place, he never knew 
 what the papers were ; and he executed twenty such 
 sets of papers every day, very likely. All he could 
 say, at the very best, would be that at such a time fa 
 ther brought in an old Spaniard and two or three other 
 Greasers, and that he took their acknowledgments of 
 something." 
 
 " I do not know that, Tom," said the girl, without 
 flinchino- at his mannish information. "If notaries in 
 
 o 
 
 Washington are anything like notaries in novels, that 
 man kept a record or register of his work. If he was 
 not very unlike everybody else who lives and works 
 here, he left a very destitute widow when he died. 
 Tom, I shall go after church and hunt up the widow 
 Gilbert. I shall ask her for her husband s books, and 
 shall tell her why I want them." 
 
 The girl dropped her voice and said : " Tom, I shall 
 ask her IN His NAME." 
 
 " God grant it does any good, dear girl," said he. 
 " Far be it from me to say that you shall not try- 
 But here he stopped speaking, for he felt Matty s arm 
 shake in his, and her whole frame trembled. Tom had 
 only to keep his eyes before him to see why. 
 
 Mr. Greenhithe, Matty s old admirer, the clerk who 
 had been dismissed for stealing, was standing, impu 
 dent, on the steps of the church, and even touched his 
 hat to her as she went by. 
 
 Tom resisted his temptation to thrash him then and 
 
124 SUSAN S ESCOKT, AND OTHERS 
 
 there. He led his sister within the door of the church, 
 but did not go in with the others. He took her on 
 one side, under the gallery stairs. 
 
 " Matty, I believe I will tackle that man !" 
 
 " Oh, fora !" 
 
 u Yes, Matty, I can keep my temper, and he cannot 
 keep his. He has one advantage over most knaves, 
 that he is not only a knave of the first water, but he is 
 sometimes a fool, too. If it were only decent and right 
 to take him into Downing s saloon and give him just 
 one more glass of whiskey than the blackguard would 
 care to pay for, I could get at his whole story." 
 
 " But, Tom, I thought you were so sure the Navy 
 had the papers !" 
 
 " Well, well !" said Tom, a little annoyed, as eager 
 people are when other eager people remember their 
 words against them, " I was sure I was wholly sure 
 till I left Eben Ricketts last night. But after that 
 well, of course we ought to pull every string." 
 
 "Tom!" (this with a terrible gulp) "Tom, you don t 
 think I ought to speak with him ?" 
 
 " Matty !" 
 
 " Why, Tom, yes ; if he does know if he is holding 
 this up in terror, Tom, I could make him do what I 
 chose once, Tom. You don t think I ought to try ?" 
 
 " Matty, if you ever speak to that snake again I will 
 thrash him within an inch of his life, and I will never 
 say a word to you as long as you live !" 
 
 " That s my dear Tom !" And, hidden as they were 
 under the stairs, and crying as she was under her veil, 
 she flung her arms around him and kissed him. 
 
 " All the same," said Tom, after he had kissed her 
 
BREAD ON THE WATERS 
 
 125 
 
 again and again " all the same, I shall find out, after 
 church, where the snake is staying. I shall go to the 
 hotel and take a cigar. I shall offer him one, and he 
 is so mean and stingy that he will take it. Perhaps 
 this may be one of his fool-days. Perhaps somebody 
 else will treat him to the whiskey. No, Matty, honor 
 bright! / will not, though that ten cents might give us 
 all a merry Christmas. Honor bright, I will not treat! 
 But I am not a saint, Matty ! If anybody else treats, 
 I must not be expected to be far away." 
 
 Then he wiped her eyes with his own handkerchief 
 and led her into church. Their own pew was already 
 full. He had to take her back into Dr. Metcalf s pew. 
 So Matty was spared one annoyance which was pre 
 pared for her. 
 
 Directly in front of her father s pew, sitting in the 
 most conspicuous seat on the other side of the aisle, 
 was the hateful Mr. Greenhithe. Had he put him 
 self there to watch Matty s face? If he did, he 
 was disappointed. If he had persuaded himself he 
 was to see a pale cheek or tearful eyes, or that he 
 was going to compel her to drop her veil, he had 
 reckoned quite without his host. Whenever he did 
 look that way all he saw was the face of Horace. 
 Horace was engaged in counting the large tassels on 
 his side of the pulpit curtains; in counting, also, the 
 number of small tassels between them, and, from the 
 data thus obtained, in calculating how many tassels 
 there must be on all the curtains to the pulpit, and how 
 many on the curtains behind the rail to the chancel. 
 
 Mr. Greenhithe, therefore, had but little comfort in 
 studying Horace s face. 
 
126 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 .Just as the Creed was finished, when the rest of the 
 church was still, the sexton led up the aisle a grim-look 
 ing man with a shaggy coat and a very dirty face, and 
 brought him close to the door of Mr. Molineux s pew, 
 as if he would fain bring him in. Mr. Molineux was 
 at the end of the pew, but happened to be turning away 
 from the aisle, and the sexton actually touched him. 
 He turned round and looked at the stranger, evidently 
 did not know him, but, with the instinct of hospitality, 
 stepped into the aisle and offered him his seat. The 
 stranger was embarrassed, hesitated as if he would 
 speak, then shook his head in refusal of the attention, 
 and, crossing the aisle, took a seat offered him there, in 
 full sight of Mr. Molineux, and, indeed, of Matty. 
 
 Poor girl ! The trifle of course it was a trifle- 
 upset her sadly. 
 
 Was the man a marshal or a sheriff ? Would they 
 really arrest her father on Christmas-day, in church ? 
 
 Ill 
 
 Yes, it was, as you have said, a very curious Christ 
 mas service for all those people. 
 
 What Horace turned his mind to, at intervals, has 
 been told. 
 
 Of the older members of our little company who sat 
 there near the head of the side aisle, it may be said, in 
 general, that they did their best to keep their hearts 
 and minds engaged in the service, and that sometimes 
 they succeeded. They succeeded better while they 
 could really join in the hymns and the prayers than 
 
BKEAD ON THE WATERS 127 
 
 they did when it came to the sermon. Good Dr. Gill, 
 overruled by one of those lesser demons whose work is 
 so apparent though so inexplicable in this finite world, 
 had selected for the text of his sermon of gladness the 
 words "Search and look." And so it happened it was 
 what did not often happen with him he must needs 
 repeat those words often at the beginning and end, in 
 deed, of every leading paragraph of the sermon. Now 
 this duty of searching and looking had been just what 
 all the five elder members of the Molineux family had 
 been solidly doing each in his way or hers, directly or 
 by sympathy in the last forty-eight hours. To get 
 such relief as they might from it they had come to 
 church, to look rather higher if they could. So that 
 it was to them more a misfortune than a matter of 
 immediate spiritual relief that their dear old friend, 
 who loved each one of them with an intimate and pe 
 culiar love, happened to enlarge on his text just as he 
 did. 
 
 If poor Mr. Molineux, by dint of severe self-com 
 mand, had succeeded in abstracting his thoughts from 
 disgrace almost certain from thinking over, in horrible 
 variety, the several threads of inquiry and answer by 
 which that disgrace was to be avoided or precipitated 
 how was it possible to maintain such abstraction while 
 the worthy preacher, wholly unconscious of the blood 
 he drew with every word, ground out his sentences in 
 such words as these : 
 
 . "Search and look, my brethren. Time passes faster 
 than we think. Our gray hairs gather apace above our 
 foreheads. And the treasure which we prized beyond 
 price in years bygone has, perhaps, amid the cares of 
 
this world, or in the deceitfulness of riches, been thrust 
 on one side, neglected, and at last forgotten. How is 
 it with you, dear friends? Are you the man? Are 
 you the woman ? Have you put on one side the very 
 treasure of your life as some careless housewife might 
 lay aside on a forgotten shelf this parcel or that, once 
 so precious to her? Dear friends, as the year draws to 
 a close, awaken from such neglect. Brush away the 
 dust from these forgotten caskets. Lift them from 
 their hiding-places and set them forth, even in your 
 Christmas festivities. Search and look!" 
 
 Poor Airs. Molineux had never wished before so 
 earnestly that a sermon might be done. She dared not 
 look round to see her husband for a while, but after one 
 of these invocations not quite so terrible as the rest, 
 perhaps she stole a glance that way, to find that she 
 might have spared her anxiety. Two nights of "search 
 ing and looking" had done their duty by the poor 
 man, and, though his head was firmly braced against 
 the column which rose from the side of their pew, his 
 eyes were closed, and his wife was relieved by the cer 
 tainty that he was listening, as those happy members 
 of the human family listen who hear best when their 
 lids are tight pressed over their eyeballs. As for Bev 
 erly, he was assuming the resolute aspect of a sailor 
 under fire, and was imagining himself taking the whole 
 storm of Fort Constantine as he led an American 
 squadron into the bay of Sevastopol. Tom did not 
 know what the preacher said, but was devising the 
 method of his interview with Greenhithe. Matty did 
 know. Dear girl! She knew very well! And with 
 every well-rounded sentence of the sermon she was 
 
BREAD ON THE WATERS 129 
 
 more determined as to the method of her appeal to Mrs. 
 Gilbert, the widow of the notary. She would search 
 and look there. 
 
 Yes ; and it was well for every one of them that they 
 went to that service! The sermon at the worst was 
 but twenty minutes. "Twenty minutes in length," 
 said Beverly, wickedly, "and no depth at all." But 
 that was not true nor fair. Nor was that, either way, 
 the thing that was essential. By the time they had all 
 sung 
 
 "Praise God, from whom all blessings flow," 
 
 even before the good old doctor had asked for Heaven s 
 blessing upon them, it had come. To Mr. Molineux 
 it had come in an hour s rest of mind, body, and soul. 
 To Matty it had come in an hour s calm determination. 
 To Mrs. Molineux it had come in the certainty that 
 there was One Eye which sees through all hiding-places 
 and behind all disguises. To the children it had come, 
 because the hour had called up to them a hundred 
 memories of Galilee and Nazareth, of Mary Mother, 
 and of children made happy, to supplement and help 
 out their legends of Santa Claus. Yes, and even Bev 
 erly the brave and Tom the outraged, as they stood to 
 receive the benediction of the preacher, were more of 
 men and less of firebrands than they had been. They 
 all stood with reverence ; they paused a moment, and 
 then slowly walked down the aisle. 
 
 " Where is your father, Horace ?" said Mrs. Molineux, 
 a little anxiously, as she came where she could speak 
 aloud. Horace was waiting for her. 
 
 "Papa? He went away with the gentleman who 
 
130 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 came in after service began. They crossed the street, 
 and took a carriage together/ 
 
 "And did papa leave no message?" 
 
 " Why, no! He did not turn round ! The strange 
 man the man in the rough coat just touched him 
 and spoke to him half-way down the aisle. Then papa 
 whispered to him, and he whispered back. Then, as 
 soon as they came into the vestibule here, papa led 
 him out at that side door, and did not seem to remem 
 ber me. They almost ran across the street, arid took 
 George Gibbs s hack. I knew the horses." 
 
 " That s too bad," said Laura ; " I thought papa 
 would walk home with us and tell us the story of the 
 bears." 
 
 Poor Mrs. Molineux thought it was too bad too, but 
 she said nothing. 
 
 And Matty, when she joined her mother, said, " I 
 shall feel a thousand times happier, mamma, if I 
 go and see Mrs. Gilbert now." And she explained 
 who Mrs. Gilbert was. " Perhaps it may do some 
 good. Anyway, I shall feel as if I were doing some 
 thing. I will be home in time to finish the tree and 
 things, for Horace will like to help me." 
 
 And the poor girl looked her entreaties so eagerly 
 that her mother could not but assent to her plan. So 
 she made Beverly go up the avenue with her Bever- 
 1} T , who Avould have swum the Potomac and back for 
 her, had she asked him as he was on his way to join 
 his father at the bureau. 
 
 As they came out upon the broad sidewalk, that 
 odious Greenhithe, with some one whom Beverly called 
 
BEE AD ON THE WATERS 131 
 
 a blackguard of his crew, pushed by them, and he had 
 the impudence to turn and touch his hat to Matty 
 again. 
 
 Matty s hand trembled on Beverly s arm, but she 
 would not speak for a minute, only she walked slower 
 and slower. Then she said, " I am so afraid, Bev, that 
 Tom and he will get into a quarrel. Tom declares he 
 will go into Willard s and find out whether he does 
 know anything." 
 
 But Beverly, very mannish, tried to reassure her 
 and make her believe that Tom would be very self- 
 restrained and perfectly careful. 
 
 On Christmas-day the Jew s dry-goods store which 
 had taken the place of old Mr. Gilbert s notary s 
 office was closed not perhaps so much from the Is 
 raelite s enthusiasm about Christmas as in deference 
 to what in New England is called " the sense of the 
 street." Matty, however, acting from a precise knowl 
 edge of Washington life, rang boldly at the green door 
 adjacent, Beverly still waiting to see what might turn 
 up, and when a brisk " colored girl " appeared Matty 
 inquired if Mrs. Munroe was at home. 
 
 Now all that Matty knew of Mrs. Munroe was that 
 her name was on a well -scoured brass plate on the 
 door. 
 
 Mrs. Munroe was in. Beverly said he would wait in 
 the passage. Mrs. Munroe proved to be a nice mother 
 ly sort of person, who, as it need hardly be said, was 
 stone-deaf. It required some time for Matty to adjust 
 her speaking apparatus to the exigency, but when this 
 was done Mrs. Munroe explained that Mr. Gilbert 
 was dead ; that an effort had been made to continue 
 
132 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 the business with the old sign and the old good-will, 
 under the direction of a certain Mr. Bundy, who had 
 sometimes been called in as an assistant. But Mr. 
 Bundy, after some years, paid more attention to whis 
 key than he did to notarying, and the law business 
 had suffered. Finally Mr. Bundy was brought home 
 by the police one night with a broken head, and then 
 Mrs. Gilbert had withdrawn the signs, cancelled the 
 lease, turned Mr. Bundy out-of-doors, and retired to 
 live with a stepsister of her brother s wife s father 
 near the Arsenal good Mrs. Munroe was not certain 
 whether on Delaware Avenue, or whether on T Street, 
 U Street, or Y Street. And, indeed, whether the lady s 
 name were Butman, before she married her second 
 husband, and Lichtenfels afterwards, or whether his 
 name were Butman and hers Lichtenfels, Mrs. Mun 
 roe was not quite sure. Nor could she say whether 
 Mrs. Gilbert took the account- books and registers 
 there were heaps on heaps of them, for Mr. Gilbert 
 had been a notary ever since General Jackson s day 
 or whether Bundy did not take them, or whether they 
 were not sold for old paper, Mrs. Munroe was not 
 sure. For all this happened all the break-up and 
 removal while Mrs. Munroe was on a visit to her 
 sister not far from Brick Church, above Little Falls, 
 on your way to Frederick. And Mrs. Munroe offered 
 this visit as a constant apology for her not knowing 
 more precisely every detail of her old friend s business. 
 This explanation took a good deal of time, through 
 all of which poor Beverly was fretting and fuming and 
 stamping his cold feet in the passage, hearing the oc 
 casional questions of his sister, uttered with thunder 
 
BREAD ON THE WATERS 133 
 
 tone in the "sitting-room" above, but hearing no word 
 of the placid widow s replies. 
 
 When Matty returned and held a consultation with 
 him, the question was, whether to follow the books of 
 account to Georgetown, where Mr. Bundy was under 
 stood to be still residing, or to the neighborhood of the 
 Arsenal, in the hope of finding Mrs. Gilbert, Mrs. Lich- 
 tenfels, or Mrs. Butman, as the case might be. Eeaders 
 should understand that these two points, both unknown 
 to the young people, are some six miles asunder, the 
 original notary s office being about half-way between 
 them. Beverly was more disposed to advise following 
 the man. He was of a mind to attack some one of his 
 own sex. But the enterprise was, in truth, Matty s 
 enterprise. Beverly had but little faith in it from the 
 beginning, and Matty was minded to follow such clew 
 as they had to Mrs. Gilbert, quite sure that, woman 
 with woman, she should succeed better with her than 
 man with man, Beverly with Bundy. Beverly assent 
 ed to this view the more readily because Matty was 
 quite willing to undertake the quest alone. She was 
 very brave about it indeed. " Plenty of nice people at 
 the Arsenal," or near it, whom she could fall back upon 
 for counsel or information. So they parted. Matty 
 took a street-car for the east and south, and Beverly 
 went his ways to the Bureau of Internal Improvement 
 to report for duty to his father. 
 
 This story must not follow the details of Matty s 
 quest for the firm of " Gilbert, Lichtenfels, or Butman." 
 Certain it is that she would never have succeeded had 
 she rested simply on the directory or on such crude in 
 formation as Mrs. Munroe had so freely given. But 
 
134 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 Matty had an English tongue in her head, a courteous, 
 which is to say a confiding, address with strangers ; she 
 seemed almost to be conferring a favor at the moment 
 when she asked one; and she knew, in this business, 
 that there was no such word as fail. After one or 
 two false starts some very stupid answers, and some 
 very blunt refusals she found her quarry at last, bv 
 as simple a process as walking into a Sunday-school of 
 colored children, where she heard singing in the base 
 ment of a little chapel. 
 
 In a few r words Matty explained her errand to the 
 superintendent, and that it was necessary that she 
 should find Mrs. Gilbert before dark. 
 
 " Ting !" One stroke of the bell called hundreds of 
 eager voices to silence. 
 
 " Who knows where Mrs. Gilbert lives? It is at Mrs. 
 Butman s house or Mrs. Lichtenfels s." 
 
 Twenty eager hands contended with each other for 
 the honor of giving the information, and in three min 
 utes more Matty, all encouraged by her success, was on 
 her way. 
 
 And Mrs. Gilbert was at home. Good fortune num 
 ber two ! Matty s star was certainly in the ascendant! 
 Matty sent in her card, and the nice old lady presented 
 herself at once remembered who Matty was, remem 
 bered how much business Mr, Molineux used to bring 
 to the office, and how grateful Mr. Gilbert always was. 
 She was so glad to see Matty. And she hoped Mr. 
 Molineux was well, and Mrs. Molineux and all those 
 little ones ! She used to see them every Sunday as they 
 went to church, if they went on the avenue. 
 
 Thus encouraged, Matty opened on her sad story, 
 
BREAD ON THE WATERS 135 
 
 and was fairly helped from stage to stage by the 
 wonder, indignation, and exclamations of the kind old 
 lady. When Matty came to the end, and made her un 
 derstand how much depended on the day-book, register, 
 and ledger of her husband, it was a fair minute before 
 she spoke. 
 
 " We will see, my dear ; we will see. I wish it may 
 be so, but I m all afeard. It would not be like him, my 
 dear. It would not be like any of them. But come 
 with me, my dear, we will see we will see." 
 
 Then as Matty followed her through devious ways, 
 out through the kitchen, across a queer bricked yard, 
 into a half-stable, half- woodshed, which the good wom 
 an unlocked, she went on talking : 
 
 "You see, my dear child, that though notaries are 
 called notaries as if it were their business to give notice 
 the most important part of their business is keeping 
 secrets. Now when a man s note goes to protest, the 
 notary tells him what has happened which he knew 
 very w r ell before ; and then he comes to the notary and 
 begs him not to tell anybodj^ else, and of course he 
 does not. And the business of a notary s account-books, 
 as my husband used to say, is to tell just enough and 
 not to tell any more." 
 
 "Why, my dear child, he would not use blotting- 
 paper in the office ! He would always use sand. Blot 
 ting-paper? Never! he would say. Blotting-paper 
 tells secrets ! 
 
 With such chatter they came to the little chilly 
 room, which was shelved all around, and to Matty s 
 glad eyes presented rows of green and blue and red 
 boxes, and folio and quarto books of every date from 
 
136 SUSAN S ESCOKT, AND OTHERS 
 
 1829 to 1869 forty years, in which the late Mr. Gil 
 bert, and Mrs. Gilbert after him, had been confirming 
 history, keeping secret what he knew, but making sure 
 what, but for him, might have been doubted by a scep 
 tic world. 
 
 Things were in good order. Mrs. Gilbert was proud 
 to show that they were in good order. The day-book 
 for 1863 was at hand. Matty knew the fatal dates 
 only too well. And the fatal entries were here. 
 
 Ho\v her heart beat as she began to read : 
 
 Cr. To Thomas Molineux, Esq. (B. I. I.) 
 
 Official authentication of signature of Felipe Garza $1 25 
 Same Authentication of sig. of Jose B. Du Camara 1 25 
 Same Authentication of sig. of Jacob II. Cole. . 1 25 
 
 And this was all ! Poor Matty copied it all ; but all 
 the time she begged Mrs. Gilbert to tell her if there 
 were not some note-book or journal that would tell 
 more. And kind Mrs. Gilbert looked eagerly for what 
 she called the " diry." At the proper dates, at intervals 
 of a week or two, Matty found similar entries, the 
 names of the two Spaniards appearing in all three, but 
 other names in place of Cole s, just as Tom had told 
 her already. By the time she had copied all of these 
 Mrs. Gilbert had found the dirij. Eager, and yet heart 
 sick, Matty turned it over with her old friend. 
 
 This was all : 
 
 " Mr. Molineux here. Very private. Papers in R. G. E." 
 
 And then followed a little burst of unintelligible 
 shorthand. 
 
 Poor Matty ! She could not but feel that here would 
 
BKEAD ON THE WATERS 137 
 
 not be evidence good for anything, even in a novel. 
 But she copied every word carefully, as a chief clerk s 
 daughter should do. She thanked the kind old lady, 
 and even kissed her. She looked at her watch. Heav 
 ens! how fast time had gone! And the afternoons 
 were so short ! 
 
 " Yes, my dear Miss Molineux, but they have turn 
 ed, my dear; the day is a little longer and a little 
 lighter." 
 
 Did the old lady mean it for an omen, or was it only 
 one of those chattering remarks on meteors and weather- 
 change of which old-age is so fond ? Matty wondered, 
 but did not know. Fast as she could she tripped bravely 
 on to the avenue for her street-car. 
 
 " The day is longer and lighter." 
 
 Meanwhile Tom was following his clew in the public 
 rooms at Willard s, to which, as he had prophesied, Mr. 
 Greenhithe had returned, after the unusual variation 
 in his line of a morning spent in the sanctuary. Tom 
 bought a copy of the Baltimore Sun and went into one 
 of the larger rooms resorted to by travellers and loaf 
 ers, and sat down. But Mr. Greenhithe did not appear 
 there. Tom walked up and down through the pas 
 sages a little uneasily, for he was sure the ex-clerk had 
 come into the hotel. He even went up and looked 
 in at the ladies sitting-rooms to see if perhaps some 
 Duchess of Devonshire of high political circles had 
 found it worth while to drag Mr. Greenhithe up there 
 by a single hair. No Mr. Greenhithe ! Tom was forced 
 to go and drink a glass of beer to see if Mr. Green 
 hithe was not thirsty. But at that moment, though 
 
138 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 Mr. Greenhithe was generally thirsty in the middle of 
 the day, and although many men were thirsty at the 
 time Tom hung over his glass of lager, Mr. Greenhithe 
 was not thirsty. It was only as Tom passed the bill 
 iard-room that he saw Mr. Greenhithe playing a game 
 of billiards by way of celebrating the new birth of a 
 regenerated world. 
 
 What to do now ! Tom could not, in common de 
 cency, go in to look on at the game of a man he wanted 
 to choke. Yet Tom would have given all his chances 
 for rank in the Academy to know what Greenhithe was 
 talking about. Tom slowly withdrew. 
 
 As he withdrew, whom should he meet butane of 
 his kindest friends, Commodore Benbow ! When the 
 boys made their " experimental cruise" the year before, 
 they had found Commodore Benbow s ship at Lisbon. 
 The commodore had taken a particular fancy to Tom, 
 because he had known his mother when they were boy 
 and girl. Tom had even been invited personally to the 
 flag-ship, and was to have been presented at court but 
 that they had sailed too soon. 
 
 To tell the whole truth, the commodore was not 
 overpleased to see his protege hanging about the bar 
 and billiard-room on Christmas-day. For himself, his 
 whole family were living at Willard s, but he knew 
 Tom s father was not living there, and he thought Tom 
 might be better employed. 
 
 Perhaps Tom guessed this. Perhaps he was in de 
 spair. Anyway, he knew " Old Benbow," as the boys 
 called him, would be a good counsellor. In point of 
 statistics, " Old Benbow" had just turned forty, had not 
 a gray hair in his head, could have beaten any one in 
 
BREAD ON THE WATERS 139 
 
 Tom s class, whether in gunnery or at billiards ; could 
 have demonstrated every problem in Euclid while they 
 were fiddling over the forty-seventh proposition. He 
 was at the very prime of well-preserved power, but 
 young nineteen called him "Old Benbow," as young 
 nineteen will, in such cases. 
 
 Bold with despair or with love for his father, Tom 
 stopped " Old Benbow," and asked him if he would 
 come into one of the sitting-rooms with him. Then he 
 made this venerable old man his confidant. The com 
 modore had seen the slurs in the Scorpion, and the 
 Argus, and the Evening Lantern. " A pity," said he, 
 "that Newspaper Row, which can do so much good, 
 should do so much harm. What is Newspaper Row ? 
 Three or four men of honor, three or four dreamers, 
 three or four schoolboys, three or four fools, and three 
 or four scamps. And the public, Molineux which is 
 to say, you and I accept the trumpet-blast of one of 
 these heralds precisely as we do that of another. Prac 
 tically," said he, pensively, " when we were detached to 
 serve with the Thirteenth Corps in Mobile Bay, I found 
 I liked the talk of those light-infantry men who had 
 been in every scrimmage in the war quite as much as 
 I did that of the band-men who played the trumpets 
 on parade. But this is neither here nor there. I had 
 read this rigmarole. I thought of coming round to see 
 your father, but I knew I should bother him. What 
 can I do, my boy ?" 
 
 Then Tom told him, rather doubtfully, that he had 
 reason to fear that Mr. Greenhithe was at the bottom 
 of the whole scandal. He said he wished he did not 
 think that Mr. Greenhithe had himself stolen the papers. 
 
140 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 " If I am wrong, I want to know it," said he. " If I 
 am right, I want to know it. I do not want to be do 
 ing any man injustice. But I do not want to keep old 
 Eben Eicketts over at the department hunting for a 
 file of papers which Greenhithe has hidden in his trunk 
 or has put into the fire." 
 
 " No, no, no, indeed !" said " Old Benbow," musing. 
 " No, no, no !" 
 
 Then, after a pause " Tom," said he, li come round 
 here in an hour. I know that young fellow your friend 
 is playing with and I wish he were in better company 
 than he is, I think I know enough of the usages of 
 modern society to interview him and his companion 
 though in that regard times have changed since I 
 was of your age. Come here in an hour or give me 
 rather more, come here at half-past two and we will 
 see what we will see." 
 
 So Tom went round to the Nav\r Department. And 
 here he found the faithful Eben faithful to him, though 
 utterly faithless as to any success in the special quest 
 which was making the entertainment of his Christmas 
 holiday. Vainly did Tom repeat to him his own for 
 mula : 
 
 " If the Navy did the work, the Navy has the 
 vouchers." 
 
 "My dear boy," Eben Eicketts repeated a hundred 
 times, " though the Navy did the work, the Navy did 
 not provide the pork and beans ; it did not arrange in 
 advance for the landing; least of all did it buy the 
 Greasers. I will look where you like, for love of your 
 father and you, but that file of vouchers is not here, 
 never was here, and never will be found here." 
 
BREAD ON THE WATERS 141 
 
 An assistant like this is not an encouraging adviser. 
 And, in short, the vouchers were not found in the 
 Navy Department in that particular midday search. 
 At twenty minutes past two Tom gave it up unwill 
 ingly, bade Eben Ricketts good-bye, washed his hands 
 from the accretions of coal-dust, which will gather even 
 on letter-boxes in Navy Departments, and ran across in 
 front of the President s House to Willard s. He looked 
 up at the White House, and wondered how the people 
 there were spending their Christmas-day. 
 
 Commodore Benbow was waiting for him. He took 
 him up into his own parlors. 
 
 "Molineux, your Mr. Greenhithe is either the most 
 ingenious liar and the best actor on God s earth, or he 
 knows no more of your lost papers than a child in heav 
 en. I went back to the billiard-room after you left me. 
 I walked up to Millet that was Lieutenant Millet play 
 ing with Greenhithe and shook hands. He had to 
 introduce me to your friend. Then I asked them both 
 to come here; told Millet I had some papers from 
 Montevideo that he would be glad to see, and that I 
 should be glad of a call when they had done their 
 game. Well, they came. I am sorry to say your 
 friend 
 
 " Oh, don t, my dear Commodore Benbow, don t 
 call him my friend, even in joke; it makes me feel 
 awfully." 
 
 " I am glad it does," said the commodore, laughing. 
 " Well, I am sorry to say that the black sheep had 
 been drinking more of the whiskey down-stairs than 
 was good for him, and, no fault of mine, he drank 
 more of my Madeira here than he should have done ; 
 
142 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 and, Tom, I do not believe he was in any condition to 
 keep secrets. Well, first of all, it appears that he has 
 been in Bremen and Vienna for six months he only 
 arrived in New York yesterday morning." 
 
 Tom s face fell. 
 
 "And next you may take this for what it is worth, 
 but I believe he spoke the truth for once he certainly 
 did if there is any truth in liquor or in swearing. For 
 when I asked Millet what all this stuff about your 
 father meant, Greenhithe interrupted, very unneces 
 sarily and very rudely, and said, with more oaths than 
 I will trouble you with, that the whole was a damned 
 lie of the newspaper- men ; that they had lied about 
 him (Greenhithe) and now were lying about old Moli- 
 neux. That Molineux had been very hard on him, and 
 very unjust to him, but he would say that he was 
 honest as the clock honest enough to be mean and 
 that he would say that to the committee if they would 
 call on him and so on, and so on." 
 
 "^fuch good would he do before the committee," 
 said poor Tom. And thus ended Tom s investiga 
 tion. 
 
 " Come to me if I can help you, my boy," said " Old 
 Benbow." " It is always the darkest, old fellow, the 
 hour before day." 
 
 Tom was astronomer enough to know that this old 
 saw was as false as most old saws. But with this 
 for his only comfort he returned to the bureau to seek 
 Beverly and his father. 
 
 Neither Beverly nor his father was there. Tom 
 went directly home. His mother was eager to see 
 him. She had come home alone, and, save Horace and 
 
BKEAD ON THE WATERS 143 
 
 Laura and Flossy and the Brick, she had seen nobody 
 but a messenger from the bureau. 
 
 The Brick was the family name for Robert, one of 
 the 3 7 oungest of this household. 
 
 Of Beverly s movements this day the story must be 
 more briefly told. They took more time than Tom s ; 
 as much, indeed, as his sister s after they parted. But 
 they were conducted by means of that marvel of mar 
 vels, the telegraph, the chief of whose marvels is that 
 it compels even a long-winded generation like ours to 
 speak in very short metre. 
 
 Beverly began with Mr. Bundy at Georgetown. 
 Georgetown is but a quiet place on the most active 
 of days. On Christmas-day Beverly found but little 
 stirring out of doors. Still, with the directory, with 
 the advice of a saloon-keeper, and the information of a 
 police-officer, Beverly tracked Mr. Bundy to his lair. 
 
 It was not a notary s office; it was a liquor-shop of 
 the lowest grade, with many badly painted signs, which 
 explained that this was "Our House," and that here 
 Mr. Bundy made and sold with proper license, let 
 us be grateful Tom -and -Jerry, smashes, cocktails, 
 and did other deeds " without a name." On this oc 
 casion, however, even the door of "Our House" was 
 closed. Mr. Bundy had gone to a turkey -shooting 
 match at Fairfax Court-house. The period of his re 
 turn was very doubtful. He had never done anything 
 but keep this drinking- room since old Mrs. Gilbert 
 turned him out-of-doors. 
 
 With this information master Beverly returned to 
 town. He then began on his own line of search. 
 
144 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 Relying on Tom s news, he went to the office of the 
 Western Union Telegraph and concocted this despatch, 
 which he thought a masterpiece : 
 
 "GREENSBURG, Westmoreland Co., P;>. 
 " To Robert John WhiUlmugli : 
 " When and where can I see you on important business? Answer. 
 
 "BEVERLY MOLINEUX, for TlIOMAS MOLINEUX." 
 
 Then he took a walk, and after half an hour called 
 at the office again. The office was still engaged in 
 calling Greensburg. Greensburg was eating its Christ 
 mas dinner. But at last Greensburg was called. Then 
 Beverly received this answer : 
 
 " Whilthaugh has been dead more than a year. 
 
 "GREENSBURG." 
 
 To which Beverly replied : 
 
 " Where does his wife live, or his administrator ?" 
 
 To which Greensburg, having been called a second 
 time with difficulty, replied : 
 
 " His wife is crazy, and we never heard of any property. 
 
 "GREENSBURG." 
 
 With this result of his investment as a non-dividend 
 member of the great Western Union Mutual Informa 
 tion Club, Beverly returned home, chewing the cud of 
 sweet and bitter fancies. 
 
 " There is no speech nor language," sang the choir 
 in St. Matthew s as he passed, "and their voice is not 
 heard. But their line has gone out through all the 
 
BREAD ON THE WATERS 145 
 
 earth," and Tom heard no more, as he passed on. As 
 he walked, almost unwillingly, up the street to the 
 high steps of his father s house, Matty, out of breath, 
 overtook him. 
 
 " What have you found, Bev ?" 
 
 " Nothing," said the boy, moodity. And poor Matty 
 had to confess that she had hardly more to tell. 
 
 They came into the house by the lower entrance, 
 that they need not attract their mother s attention. 
 But she was on the alert. Even Horace and the 
 younger children knew by this time that something- 
 was wrong. 
 
 Horace s story about the strange man and papa was 
 the last news of papa. Papa had not been at the bu 
 reau. The bureau people waited for him till two, and 
 he did not come. Then Stratton had come round to 
 see if he was to keep open any longer. Stratton had 
 told Mrs. Molineux that her husband had not been 
 there since church. 
 
 Where in the world was he ? Poor Mrs. Molineux 
 had not known where to send or to go. She had just 
 looked in at the doctor s, but he was not there. 
 
 Tom had appeared first to her tedious waiting. Tom 
 would not tell her, but he even went and looked in on 
 Newspaper Row, which he had been abusing so. For 
 Tom s first thought was that a formal information had 
 been lodged somewhere, and that his father was ar 
 rested. But Newspaper Row evidently was unsuspi 
 cious of an} 7 arrest. Tom even walked down to the old 
 jail, and made an absurd errand to see the deputy- 
 marshal. But the deputy-marshal was at his Christ 
 mas dinner. 
 10 
 
146 SUSAN S ESCOKT, AND OTHERS 
 
 Tom told all this, in the hall, to Beverly and to 
 Matty. Everything had failed, and papa was gone. . 
 Who could the man in the shag coat be? The three 
 went together into the parlor. 
 
 X 
 
 For a little, Matty and Horace and Tom and Bev 
 erly then made a pretence of arranging the tree. But, 
 in truth. Mrs. Molineux, in the midst of all her care, 
 had done that while they were all away. 
 
 Dinner was postponed half an hour, and they gath 
 ered all in the darkness, looking at the sickliest blaze 
 that ever rambled over half-burned Cumberland coal. 
 
 The Brick came climbing up on Tom s knees and bade 
 him tell a story ; but even Laura saw that something 
 was wrong, and hushed the child, and said she and 
 Flossy would sing one of their carols. And they sang 
 it, and were praised ; and they sang another, and were 
 praised. But then it was quite dark. And nobody 
 had any heart to say one word more. 
 
 " Where is papa?" said the Brick. 
 
 " Where indeed !" everybody wanted to say, and no 
 one did. 
 
 But then the door-bell rang, and Chloe brought in a 
 note. 
 
 " He s waiting for an answer, mum." 
 
 And Tom lighted the gas. It popped up so bright 
 that little Flossy said : 
 
 "The people that sat in darkness saw a great 
 light." 
 
 This was just as Mrs. Molineux tore open the note. 
 For the instant she could not speak. She handed it to 
 the three ; 
 
BREAD ON THE WATERS 147 
 
 FOUND ! Home in half an hour. All right. Thank God ! 
 
 <( T. M." 
 
 " Saw a great light indeed," said Horace, who for 
 once felt awed. 
 
 IV 
 
 For half a minute, as it seemed afterwards, no one 
 spoke. Then Matty flew to her mother and flung her 
 arms around her neck, and kissed her again and again. 
 
 Tom hardly knew what he was doing, but he recov 
 ered self-command enough to know that he must try 
 to be manly and businesslike, and so he rushed down 
 stairs to iind the man who brought the note. It proved 
 to be a man he did not know. Not a messenger from 
 the bureau, nor one from the Navy Department least 
 of all an aid of the assistant marshal s. He was an 
 innocent waiter from the Seaton House, who said a 
 gentleman called him and gave him the note, told him 
 to lose no time, and gave him half a dollar for coming. 
 He had asked for an answer, though the gentleman 
 had not told him to. 
 
 Tom wrote: 
 
 " Hurrah ! All s well. All at home. T." 
 
 and gave this note to the man. 
 
 They all talked at once, and they all sat still without 
 talking. The children must it be confessed ? asked 
 all sorts of inopportune questions. At last Tom was 
 even fain to tell the story of the bear himself, by way 
 of silencing the Brick and Laura ; and, with much cor- 
 
148 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 rection from Horace, had got the bear well advanced in 
 smelling at the almond candy and the figs, when a car 
 riage was heard on the street, evidently coming rapidly 
 towards them. It stopped at the door. The bear was 
 forgotten as all the elders in this free-and-easy family 
 rushed out of the parlor into the hall. 
 
 Papa was there, and was as happy as they. With 
 papa, or just behind him, came in the man with the 
 rough coat, whose face at church had been so dirty, 
 whose face now was clean. To think that papa should 
 have brought the deputy -marshal with him ! 
 
 For by the name of the deputy -marshal had this 
 mysterious stranger been spoken of in private by the 
 two young men since the fatal theory had once been 
 advanced that he had come into the church to arrest 
 Mr. Molineux. 
 
 The unknown, with great tact, managed to keep in 
 the background, while Mrs. Molineux kissed her hus 
 band, and while Matty kissed him, and while among 
 them they pulled off his coat. But Mr. Molineux did 
 not forget. He made a chance in a moment to say : 
 " You must speak to our friend who has brought me 
 here. No one was ever so welcome at a Christmas din 
 ner. Mr. Kuj^pers, my dear ; Mr. Kuypers, Matty, dear. 
 These are my boys, Mr. Kuypers." 
 
 Then, as the ladies welcomed the stranger and the 
 boys shook hands with him, Mr. Molineux added 
 what hardly any one understood " It is not every 
 friend who travels fifteen hundred miles to jog a 
 friend s memory/ 
 
 And they all huddled into the parlor. But in a mo 
 ment more Mrs. Molineux had invited Mr. Kuypers if, 
 
BREAD ON THE WATERS 149 
 
 after his journey, he would not like to go to his room. 
 And he, with good feeling, which he showed all the 
 evening, gladly took himself out of the way. And so, 
 as Tom returned from showing him up-stairs, the par 
 lor was filled with those " God made there," as the 
 little boy used to say, and with none besides. 
 
 "Now tell us all about it, dear papa," cried Tom. 
 
 " I was trying to tell your mother. But there is not 
 much to tell. Poor Mr. Kuypers had travelled all the 
 way from Colorado the moment he heard I was in 
 trouble. Yesterday he bought the Scorpion in the 
 train and found the committee was down on us. He 
 drove here from the station as soon as the train 
 came in. He missed you here, and drove by mis 
 take to Trinity. That made him late with us. And 
 so, as the service had begun, he waited till it was 
 done." 
 
 " Well !" said Bev, perhaps a little impatiently. 
 
 " But as soon as we were going out he touched me, 
 and said he had come to find me in the matter of the 
 Rio Grande vouchers. Do you know, Eliza, I can af 
 ford to laugh at it now, but at the moment I thought 
 he was a deputy of the Sergeant-at-arms ?" 
 
 "There!" screamed Tom. "I said he was a deputy- 
 marshal !" 
 
 " I said, Certainly, and I laughed, and said they 
 seemed to interest all my friends. Then he said, Then 
 you have them? If I had known that I would have 
 spared my journey. This threw me off guard, and I 
 said I supposed I had them, but I could not find them. 
 And he said, eagerly this was just on the church-steps 
 < But I can. 
 
150 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 " Then he said he had a carriage waiting, and he bade 
 me jump in. 
 
 " So soon as we were in the carriage he explained 
 what I ought to have remembered, but cannot now 
 recollect for the life of me that after General Trebou 
 returned from Texas there was a court of inquiry ; that 
 there was some question about these very supplies 
 the beans and the coffee particularly. They had noth 
 ing to do with the landing nor with the Mexicans. 
 And the court of inquiry sent one day from the War 
 Department, where they were sitting, to our office for 
 an account, because we were said to have it. Mr. Kuy- 
 pers was their messenger to us, and, because we had 
 bound them all together, the whole file was sent as it 
 was. He took them, and, as it happened, he looked 
 them over, and, what was better, he remembered them. 
 
 " Well, that court of inquiry was endless, as those 
 army inquiries always are. Mr. Kuypers Avas in at 
 tendance all the time. He says he never shall forget 
 it, if other people do. 
 
 "So as soon as he saw that we were in trouble at 
 the bureau that / was in trouble, I mean," said Mr. 
 Molineux, stoutly " he knew that he knew what no 
 body else knew that the vouchers were in the papers 
 of that court of inquiry." 
 
 " And he came all the way to tell ? What a good 
 fellow !" 
 
 " Yes, he came on purpose. He says he could not 
 help coming. He says he made two or three tele 
 grams, but every time he tried to telegraph he felt 
 as if he were shirking. And I believe he was right. 
 I believe we should never have pulled through with- 
 
BREAD ON THE WATERS 151 
 
 out him. Personal presence moves the world, as Eli 
 Thayer used to say." 
 
 "And you found them?" asked Mrs. Molineux, 
 faintly essaying to get back to the story. 
 
 " Oh yes, we found them ; but not in one minute. 
 You see, first of all, I had to go to the chief clerk at 
 the War Department and get the department opened 
 on a holiday. Then we had no end of clerks to disturb 
 at their Christmas dinners, and at last we found a good 
 fellow named Breen who was willing to take hold with 
 Mr. Kuypers. And Mr. Kuypers himself "here he 
 dropped his voice" why, we have not three men in 
 all the departments who know the history of this gov 
 ernment, or the system of its records, as he does! 
 
 " Once in the office, he went to work like a master. 
 Breen was amazed. Why, we found those documents 
 in less than half an hour! 
 
 "Then I sent Breen with a note to the Secretary. 
 He was good as gold ; came down in his own carriage, 
 congratulated me as heartily well, almost as heartily 
 as you do, Tom ; and took us both round, with the 
 files, to Mr. McDermot, the chairman of the House 
 committee. He was dining with his mess at the Sea- 
 ton House; but we called him out, and, I declare, I 
 believe he was as much pleased as we were. 
 
 "I only stopped to make him give me receipts for 
 the papers, because they all said it was idle to take 
 copies, and here we are !" 
 
 In the hush that followed, the Brick made his way 
 up on his father s knee, and said : 
 
 "And now, papa, will you tell us the story of the 
 bear? Tom does not tell it very well." 
 
152 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 They all laughed they could well afford to laugh 
 now and Mr. Molineux was just beginning upon the 
 story of the bear when "Mr. Kuypers reappeared. He 
 had in this short time revised his toilet, and looked, 
 Mrs. Molineux said, in an aside, like the angel of light 
 that he was. "Bears!" said he. "Are there any 
 bears in Washington ? Why, it was only last Mon 
 day that I killed a bear, and I ate him on Tuesday." 
 
 " Did you eat him all ?" said the Brick, whose rev 
 erence for Mr. Kuypers was much more increased by 
 this story than by any of the unintelligible conversa 
 tion which had gone before. But just as Mr. Kuypers 
 began on the story of the bear, Chloe appeared with 
 beaming face and announced that dinner was ready. 
 
 That dinner which this morning every one who had 
 any sense had so dreaded, and which now seemed a 
 festival indeed ! 
 
 Well! there was great pretence in fun at form in 
 marshalling. And Mr. Kuypers gave his arm to Mat 
 ty, and Horace his to Laura, and Beverly his to Flossy, 
 and Tom brought up the rear with the Brick on his 
 shoulders. And Mr. Molineux returned thanks and 
 asked a blessing all together. And they fell to on the 
 turkey and on the chicken-pie. And they tried to talk 
 about Colorado and mining ; about Gold Hill, and Hale 
 and Norcross, and Uncle Sam and Overman and Yel 
 low Jacket. But, in spite of them all, the talk would 
 drift back to Bundy and his various signs, "^Our House" 
 and "Tom -and -Jerry," to the wife of Mr. Whilt- 
 hangh, to Commodore Benbow, to old Mrs. Gilbert 
 and Delaware Avenue. And this was really quite as 
 much .the fault of Mr. Kuypers as it was of any of the 
 
BREAD ON THE WATERS 153 
 
 Molineux family. He seemed as much one of them as 
 Tom himself did. This anecdote of failure and that of 
 success kept cropping out; Waltsingham s high-bred 
 and disguised enthusiasm for the triumph of the office, 
 and the satisfaction Eben Eicketts would feel when he 
 was told the Navy never had the vouchers all were 
 commented on. Then Mrs. Molineux would start and 
 say, " We are talking shop again. You say the autumn 
 has been mild in the mountains?" and yet in two min 
 utes they would be on the trail of " Search and Look" 
 again. 
 
 It was in one of these false starts that Mr. Kuypers 
 explained why he had come, which, in Horace s mind, 
 and perhaps in the minds of the others, had been the 
 question most puzzling of all. 
 
 " Why !" said Horace, bluntly " had you ever heard 
 of papa before ?" 
 
 "Had I heard of him ?" said Mr. Kuypers. " I think 
 so. Why, my dear boy, your father is my oldest and 
 kindest friend !" 
 
 At this exclamation, even Mrs. Molineux looked 
 amazed, Tom laid down his fork and looked to see if 
 the man were crazy, and Mr. Molineux himself was 
 thrown off his balance. 
 
 Mr. Kuypers was a well-bred man, but this time he 
 could not conceal his amazement. He laid down knife 
 and fork both, looked up, and almost laughed as he 
 said, with wonder : 
 
 " Don t you know who I am ?" 
 
 "We know you are our good angel to-day," said 
 Mrs. Molineux, bravely, " and that is enough to 
 know." 
 
154 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 " But don t you know why I am here, or what sent 
 me ?" 
 
 Mr. Molineux said that he understood very well that 
 his friend had wanted to see justice done, and that he 
 had preferred to see to this in person. 
 
 " I thought you looked queer," said Mr. Kuypers, 
 frankly ; " but still I did not know I was so changed. 
 Why, don t you remember Bruce? You remember 
 Mrs. Chappell, surely ?" 
 
 "Are you Bruce?" cried Mr. Molineux and he 
 fairly left his chair and went round the table to the 
 young man. " Why, I can see it now. But then- 
 why, you were a boy, you know and this black 
 beard 
 
 " But pray explain pray explain," cried Tom. " The 
 mysteries increase on us. Who is Mrs. Chappell, and, 
 for that matter, who is Bruce, if his real name be not 
 Kuypers ?" 
 
 And they all laughed heartily. People got back 
 their self-possession a little, and Mr. Kuypers ex 
 plained. 
 
 " I am Bruce Kuypers," said he, " though your fa 
 ther does not seem to remember the Kuypers part." 
 
 "No," said Mr. Molineux, "I cannot remember the 
 Kuypers part, but the Bruce part I remember very 
 well." 
 
 " My mother was Mrs. Kuypers before she married 
 Mr. Chappell, and Mr. Chappell died when my brother 
 Ben was six years old and little Lizzy was a baby." 
 
 " Lizzy was my godchild," said Mrs. Molineux, who 
 now remembered everything. 
 
 "Certainly she was, Mrs. Molineux; and last month 
 
BREAD ON THE WATERS 155 
 
 Lizzy was married to as good a fellow as ever presided 
 over the melting of ingots. We marry them earlier at 
 the West than you do here. 
 
 " Where Lizzy would have been," lie said, more grave 
 ly, addressing Torn again, " where my mother would 
 have been, or where I should have been but for your 
 father and mother here it would be hard to tell. And 
 all to-day I have taken it for granted that to him, as to 
 me, this has been one part of that old Christmas ! Sure 
 ly you remember ?" He turned to Mrs. Molineux. 
 
 Yes. Mrs. Molineux did remember, but her eyes 
 were all running over with tears, and she did not 
 say so. 
 
 "Mr. Molineux," said Bruce Kuypers, again address 
 ing Tom, " seventeen years ago this blessed day there 
 was a Christmas morning over beyond Massachusetts 
 Avenue such as you never saw, and such as I hope you 
 may never see. 
 
 " There was fire in the stove because your father had 
 sent the coal. There was oatmeal mush on the table 
 because your father had paid my mother s scot at your 
 father s grocer s. But there was not much jollity in 
 that house, and there were no Christmas presents but 
 what your mother had sent to Bruce and Ben and 
 Flora, and even to the baby. Still, we kept up such 
 courage as we could. It was a terribly cold day, and 
 there was a wet storm. 
 
 " All of a sudden a carriage stopped at the door and 
 in came your father here. 
 
 " He came to say that that day s mail had brought a 
 letter from Dr. Wilder, of the Navy, covering the full 
 certificate that William Chappell s death was caused 
 
156 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 by exposure in the service. That certificate was what 
 my mother needed for her pension. She never could 
 get it, but your father here had sifted and worried and 
 worked. The Macedonian arrived Thursday at New 
 York, and had Dr. Wilder on board ; and Friday after 
 noon your father had Wilder s letter, and he left his 
 own Christmas dinner to make light my mother s and 
 mine. 
 
 u That was not all. Your father, as he came, had 
 stopped to see Mr. Birdsall, who was then Speaker of 
 the House. He had seen the Speaker before, and had 
 said kind things about me. And that day the Speaker 
 told him to tell me to come and see him at his room at 
 the Capitol next day. Oh, how my mother dressed 
 me up ! Was there ever such a page seen before ? 
 What with your father s kind words and my dear 
 mother s extra buttons, the Speaker made me his own 
 page the next day, and there I served four years. It 
 was then that I was big enough to go into the War 
 Department, and Mr. Goodsell he was the next Speak 
 er, if you remember recommended me there. 
 
 " After that," said Bruce Kuypers, modestly, " I did 
 not see you so often, but I did use to see you some 
 times, and I did not think" this with a roguish twin 
 kling of the eye " that you forgot your young friends 
 so soon." 
 
 " I remember you," said Tom. " I used to think you 
 were the grandest man in Washington. You gave me 
 the first ride on a sled I ever had when there was 
 some exceptional fall of snow." 
 
 " I think we all remember Mr. Kuypers now," said 
 Matty, and she laughed while she blushed. " He al- 
 
BREAD ON THE WATERS 157 
 
 ways brought things for our stockings. I have a 
 Noah s ark up-stairs now that he gave rne. In my 
 youngest days I had a queer mixture of the name Bruce 
 and the name Santa Glaus. I believe I thought Santa 
 Claus s name .was Nicholas Bruce. I am sure I did 
 not know that Mr. Bruce had any other name." 
 
 " If you had said you were Mr. Chappell," said Mr. 
 Molineux, " I should have known you in a minute." 
 
 "But I was not," said the young man, laughing. 
 
 " Well, if you had said you were Bruce, I should have 
 known." 
 
 " Dear me, yes. But I have been a man so long 
 and at Gem City nobody calls me Bruce but my mother 
 and Lizzy. So I said I was Mr. Ivuypers, forgetting 
 that I had ever been a boy. But now I am in Wash 
 ington again, and I shall remember that. Things 
 change here very fast in ten years. But not so fast as 
 they change at the mines." 
 
 And now everybody was at ease. How Avell Mrs. 
 Molineux recalled to herself what she would not speak 
 of that Christmas -day which Mr. Kuypers told his 
 story of! It was in her young married life. She had 
 her father and mother to dine with her, and the event 
 was really a trial in her young experience. And then, 
 just as the old folks were expected, her husband had 
 come dashing in, and had asked her to put dinner a 
 little later because he had this good news for the poor 
 widow Chappell. And she had to tell her father and 
 her mother when they came that they must all wait 
 for his return. 
 
 The widow Chappell was one of those waifs who 
 seem attracted to Washington by some fatal law. It 
 
158 
 
 bad been two or tbree months before that Mr. Moli- 
 neux had been asked to hunt her up and see for her. 
 A letter had come asking him to do this from Mrs. 
 Fales in Koxbury, and Mrs. Fales had sent money for 
 the Chappells. But the money had gone on back rent 
 and shoes and the rest, and the wolf was very nenr 
 the Chappells door when the telegraph announced the 
 Macedonian. Mr. Molineux had telegraphed instanter 
 to this Dr. Wilder. Dr. Wilder had had some sense 
 of Christmas promptness. He remembered poor Chap- 
 pell perfectly, and mailed that night a thorough cer 
 tificate. This certificate it was which Mr. Molineux 
 had carried to the poor old tenement above Massachu 
 setts Avenue, and this had made happy that Christmas- 
 day and this. 
 
 " Why," said Mr. Bruce Kuypers, almost as if he 
 were thinking aloud, " it seems so queer that Christ 
 mas comes and goes with you and you have forgotten 
 all about that stormy day and your ride to Mrs. Chap- 
 pell s. Why, at our place we drink Mr. Molineux s 
 health every Christmas-day, and I am afraid the little 
 ones used to think you had a red nose, a gray beard, 
 and came down chimneys !" 
 
 " As at another house," said Matty, " they thought 
 of Mr. Bruce of Noah s-ark memory." 
 
 "Anyway," said Mr. Molineux, "any crumbs of 
 comfort Ave scattered that day were bread on the 
 waters /" 
 
 Of Mr. Kuypers s quick journey the main points 
 had been told. Six days before, by some good luck, 
 which could hardly have been expected, the Gem City 
 
BREAD ON THE WATERS 159 
 
 Medium?* despatch from Washington was full enough 
 to be intelligible. It was headed " ANOTHER SWINDLER 
 NAILED." It said that Mr. Mallinox, of the Internal 
 Improvement Office, had feathered his nest with $500,- 
 000 in the war, in a pretended expedition to the Rio 
 Grande. It had now been discovered that there never 
 was any such expedition, and the correspondent of 
 the Associated Press hoped that justice would be done. 
 
 The moment Bruce Kuypers read this he was anx 
 ious. Before an hour passed he had determined to 
 cross to the Pacific train eastward. Before night he 
 was in a sleeping-car. 
 
 Day by day, as he met Eastern papers, he searched 
 for news of the investigation. Day by day he met it. 
 But, thanks to his promptness, he had arrived in time. 
 They were all hushed to silence when he told his 
 growing anxiety from day to day ; and when he told 
 how much he was moved at finding that he should ar 
 rive on Christinas -day they were certainly as much 
 moved as he. 
 
 And after the dinner another procession, not wholly 
 unlike the rabble rout of the morning, moved from 
 the dining-room to the great front parlor, where the 
 tree was lighted, and parcels of gray and white and 
 brown and yellow lay around on mantel, on piano, on 
 chairs, on tables, and on the floor. 
 
 No ! this tale, too long already, will not tell what 
 the presents were to all the ten to Yenty, Chloe, Dia 
 na, and all of their color. Only let it tell that all the 
 ten had presents. To Mr. Kuypers s surprise and to 
 every one s surprise indeed there were careful parcels 
 for him, as for the rest ; but it must be confessed that 
 
160 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 Horace and Laura had spelled Chipah a little wildly. 
 The truth was that each separate person had feared 
 that he would feel a little left one side, he to whom 
 so much was due that day ; and each person several 
 ly, down to Brick himself, had gone secretly to select 
 from his own possessions something very dear, and 
 had wrapped it up and marked it for the stranger. 
 When Mr. Kuypers opened a pretty parcel, to find 
 Matty s own illustrated Browning, he was touched 
 indeed. When in a rough brown paper he found the 
 Brick s jack-knife, labelled "For the Man" the tears 
 stood in his eyes. 
 
 The next day the Evening Lantern contained this 
 editorial article : 
 
 "The absurd fiasco regarding the accounts of Mr. Molineux, 
 which has occupied the correspondents of the provincial press for 
 some days, and has even been adverted to in New York journals 
 claiming the title of metropolitan, came to a fit end at the Capitol 
 yesterday. The wiseacre owls who started it did not see fit to put 
 in an appearance before the committee. Mr. Molineux himself sent 
 to the chairman a most interesting manuscript volume, which is 
 indeed a valuable historical memorial of times that tried men s souls. 
 The committee, and other gentlemen present, examined this curious 
 record with great interest. Not to speak of the minor details, an 
 autograph letter from the late lamented General Trebou gives full 
 credit to the Bureau of Internal Improvement for the skill with which 
 they executed the commission given them in a department quite 
 out of their line. Our brethren of the Argus will be pleased to 
 know that every grain of oats and every spire of straw paid for by 
 the now famous $47,000 is accounted for in detail. The authenti 
 cated signatures of the somewhat celebrated Camara and Garza and 
 the mythical Captain Cole appear. Very valuable letters, throwing 
 interesting light on our relations with the government of Mexico, 
 from the pens of the lamented Adams and Prigg, show what were 
 the services of those two Spanish turncoats and their allies. 
 
BREAD ON THE WATERS 161 
 
 "We cannot say that we regret the attention which has thus 
 been given to a very important piece of history, too long neglected 
 in the rush of more petty affairs. We take the occasion, however, 
 to enter our protest once more against this preposterous system of 
 Resolution, in which, as it were, in echo to every niaiserie of every 
 hired pen in the country, the House degrades itself to the work, of 
 the common scavenger ; orders at immense expense an investigation 
 into some subject where all well-informed men are fully advised 
 and at a cost of the national treasure." 
 
 Etc., etc., etc., to the end of that chapter. 
 
 But I fear no one at the Molineux mansion read 
 the Lantern. They had " found a man " and did not 
 need a lantern to look farther. It was as Mr. Moli 
 neux had said : " He had cast his bread upon the 
 waters, and had found it after many days." 
 
GENERAL GLOVER S TKUE STORY 
 
 [TiiE following story is better than most stories are, because it is 
 exactly true, excepting the names given to the parties and places. 
 The gentleman whom I have called " General Glover" has permitted 
 me to put it in writing, that it may give the same courage to other 
 persons which it has given to him and to me. But, at his request, I 
 have changed every name in the story from those which he gave me; 
 and I assure the most curious reader or critic that he will find it im 
 possible to ascertain by any conjecture who are the parties described. 
 No incident, however, in the story, is drawn in the slightest degree 
 from imagination. I tell the tale as it was told to me, and print it after 
 it has had the revision of "General Glover." E. E. HALE, writing in 
 1888.] 
 
 I was riding across country to Duluth when my old 
 friend General Glover came into the palace-car. We 
 two were born at very nearly the same time; we like 
 each other and respect each other. We have knocked 
 about the world a good deal, and do not meet each 
 other as often as we wish we did ; but when we meet 
 we begin where we left off, and enjoy the meeting. At 
 least, I am sure I do, and I think he does. 
 
 As soon as the first inquiries were passed I said to 
 him : " I want you to tell me again your story of the 
 letter you wrote to a stranger. At the time you told 
 me I repeated it to my wife, and afterwards to one or 
 two other persons; but now I am afraid to tell it, it is 
 
GENERAL GLOVER S TRUE STORY 163 
 
 so strange, and I am always thinking that ray imagina 
 tion has added something to it." 
 
 General Glover looked at me with a surprise not 
 wholly of amusement. It was quite clear to me that 
 the story was a serious matter to him, as it was to me; 
 and he told it to me for the second time. I think it was 
 four years ago since I heard it first, and it speaks as 
 well for my memory as for his that I should recognize 
 each slightest detail as a thing which had impressed 
 itself upon his careful mind, so that this narrative was 
 identically the same as the first was. It was as if you 
 had struck a second impression from a stereot}^pe plate 
 which you had not used for four years. 
 
 " I was sitting at my desk at Xeres," he said, " an<^ 
 working through my daily mail. My custom was to 
 attend to the business of the firm first, and to leave the 
 personal letters to be answered in the afternoon. It 
 was now afternoon, and I turned to the six or eight 
 letters which I had for answer. 
 
 " Among these was one from a man for whom I had 
 secured a place in the Navy in the outset of the Civil 
 "War. If you remember, I was then at the head of the 
 Bunting Board, and had a great deal to do with the 
 enlargement of the Navy. Also, I was myself connect 
 ed with the service. I had been in service on the sea 
 board all my life, and knew, naturally enough, a great 
 many sailors in the merchant marine. Hundreds of 
 such men came to me, and it was with my recommen 
 dation of them that they received their places in that 
 volunteer service which was of such infinite advantage 
 to the country in the war. Among these hundreds 
 was a good fellow who had been, I should say, in the 
 
164 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 coasting trade; but I do not remember what he had 
 been. He wanted to serve the country, and, at my 
 recommendation, he was appointed, as other men were 
 appointed, a masters mate. As a master s mate he did 
 his duty, rose to be a master, afterwards obtained a 
 lieutenant s commission, and so went wellnigh through 
 the war, until, by an accident not, I think, a wound- 
 he was so far disabled that he could no longer go to 
 sea. I did not know this at the time; there was no 
 reason why I should know it ; I had nothing to do 
 with him, and he had nothing to do with me. lie was 
 to me no more than one post in this rail-fence which 
 we are passing now is, as distinct from another. I 
 had signed the papers, I suppose, during the Avar, of 
 thousands of men who had more or less to do with our 
 Bunting Board, and this man, his name or his affairs, 
 made no more impression upon me than the rest of 
 them did. 
 
 " But among the letters of this particular afternoon, 
 as I said, was a letter from this man. It was a gentle 
 manly letter, short and to the point, in which he told 
 me that he received his appointment on my recommen 
 dation ; that, after some years of service he had been 
 obliged to cease going to sea, on account of the acci 
 dent of which I speak. He now asked me if I were 
 willing to write to the head of the Pension Bureau to 
 ask that his claim might be examined and acted upon 
 immediately. He said that neither he nor his counsel 
 had succeeded in obtaining any letters from the Pen 
 sion Office telling them when action would be taken 
 on his claim. He remembered that I was the person 
 who originally introduced him into the Navy, and he 
 
165 
 
 thought a letter from me might obtain an answer where 
 he had failed. 
 
 " I recalled, as well as I could, the circumstances in 
 which he first came to me, and I said, in a short letter, 
 what I could do to his advantage, in order that he 
 might use my recommendation, so far as it went, in his 
 application, and then I went on with my other letters. 
 
 " I had finished the whole correspondence when 
 something, which I do not understand and you do 
 not understand, made me take this letter to him out 
 from the pile. I opened it, looked at his letter again, 
 and looked at tbe letter which I had written to the 
 Pension Bureau. Clearly, I had done all he asked 
 me for, and I folded both envelopes again and 
 sealed them. I went on with my other work. Still, I 
 was haunted with the feeling that this thing was left 
 unfinished, and I opened both the letters once more. I 
 read his letter again, I read my letter to the Pension 
 Bureau, and I read the note which I had written to 
 him. This time, after reading his letter to me and mine 
 to him once and again, I enclosed in my envelope to 
 him some money, without saying why, for indeed I did 
 not know. This * finally finished my correspondence, 
 as I supposed; I sealed the letter again, and, finding 
 that I could do nothing in my office, put on my coat, 
 took all the letters I had been writing, passed from my 
 private room through the counting-room, and left the 
 letters for the mail. 
 
 "But I was not permitted to leave the door of the 
 office. In obedience to the impulse which I had now 
 obeyed twice, I went back to the mailing-box, took out 
 my letter to him again, went back to my private office, 
 
166 
 
 / 
 
 and read it once more ; read his letter now for the third 
 or fourth time, and this time wrote a new letter to my 
 old friend Colonel Sharp, who lived in the town from 
 which the officer had written to me. I asked Sharp to 
 be good enough to find him, to find what his condition 
 was, and that of his family, and if he found that they 
 needed any help, to render it to them at my expense, 
 if it should be necessary. I sealed and stamped this 
 letter, added it to my mail, and this time I was per 
 mitted to leave my office and to go to my home. 
 
 "We had a nightly mail at that time from Xeres to 
 Abydos, which was the city in which he was living, 
 and, as I learned afterwards, my letter to him arrived 
 the next morning. It will save trouble if I give you a 
 name for him. We will call him Needles, though that 
 is not his name. 
 
 " Thirty-six hours after I had written I received his 
 reply. I have it now, and I will show it to you at 
 some time. It was a most modest and simple narrative 
 of the steady decline of his fortunes since the accident 
 which I have described. It seemed he had a wife and 
 four or five children, of whom he spoke with pride and 
 confidence. But he had been educated as a sailor, and 
 knew no arts but those of a sailor ; he had no way of 
 earning a living, now that he could not go to sea ; and 
 he had gone through all the misery of sickness, en 
 forced idleness, of his income becoming less and less, 
 until it w r as nothing. 
 
 " He and his wife had sold every article of property 
 and dress which they could sell for the food and 
 clothing of their children. They had been obliged to 
 withdraw their children from school, because they 
 
GENERAL GLOVER S TRUE STORY 167 
 
 could not present a proper appearance there. It was 
 under such circumstances that, needing his pension, of 
 course, he had written to me the modest letter which I 
 had received, asking for my assistance in hastening the 
 decision on it. 
 
 " On the night before his present writing that is, 
 on the evening which immediately followed the after 
 noon of my writing to him he and his wife and chil 
 dren were cowering around the little stove which 
 warmed their lodging. The fire in it was maintained 
 by coals and cinders which the children had picked up 
 in the street. He had not a cent to pay for any arti 
 cle of food, and he and the children were all hungry. 
 They reviewed the position as well as they could, and 
 it was then that his wife said that she was sure that 
 brighter times must be before them. For she still be 
 lieved that God did not mean that people should perish 
 who had not intentionally offended Him or fought 
 against His law. She knew that they had done their 
 duty as well as they knew how, and she believed that 
 God would carry them through. She had no ground 
 for this belief excepting her certainty that neither she 
 nor her husband nor her children had intentionally 
 done what was wrong. With such comfort as they 
 could get from such expressions as hers they all went 
 to bed, the earlier because they had nothing to eat, and 
 perhaps because the fire was not very satisfactory. 
 
 " For the same reason they slept, or stayed in bed, 
 late in the morning. One is not tempted to rise early 
 when he has nothing to do and nothing to eat. But 
 they did rise, though late, and were rekindling the 
 fire, I think, when the postman stopped at the door, 
 
168 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHEKS 
 
 and brought in the letter which I had three times 
 opened, and in which I had, as I say, enclosed the 
 money. 
 
 " Needles wrote to me that when the bill fell to the 
 ground from the letter, as it did, he felt as he should 
 have felt if it had dropped from the hand of an angel. 
 He had not asked me for money ; he had not asked 
 anybody for money. He asked me for my influence in 
 the Pension Bureau. Without asking, the money had 
 come. He felt, and his wife felt, as if it had come in 
 answer to their prayer." 
 
 As General Glover told me this story I was re 
 minded of a phrase of my friend Mr. Naylor, who used 
 to say that there was no condition in human life in 
 which a check on New York would not answer most 
 purposes. It was clear enough that the crisp green 
 back which had been enclosed in General Glover s let 
 ter had been quite as valuable a workman in that 
 starving family as Aladdin s slave of the ring would 
 have been. 
 
 A skilful child was at once despatched to buy the 
 materials for breakfast, and they were well engaged in 
 the first meal which they had eaten for several clays 
 when another party appeared upon the stage. This 
 time it was not the postman; it was Colonel Sharp, to 
 whom General Glover s fourth letter had been written. 
 I wish I could give the reader an idea of General 
 Glover s description of Colonel Sharp s methods. He 
 sat, cheering all parties by his lively talk I wish I 
 were talking with him now and when he saw that 
 the breakfast was well finished he took Needles with 
 him to the great post-office at Abydos. Colonel Sharp 
 
GENERAL GLOVER^S TRUE STORY 169 
 
 was a pretty important person in that city, and, break 
 ing all lines of defence, he soon found himself with Mr. 
 Needles in the private room of the postmaster, whom, 
 for the purpose of this story, we will call Mr. Eow- 
 land Hill. General Glover went on to describe the in 
 terview. 
 
 " Sharp told Mr. Hill that there was a deserving 
 man who had served the country, and that I was in 
 terested in him, and Hill shook hands with official 
 cordiality, and said he should be interested in any 
 friend of mine and his. 
 
 " Colonel Sharp said that he wanted Hill to appoint 
 Mr. Needles to a good place in that post-office. Mr. 
 Hill at once assumed the official air of distress, and ex 
 plained how many hundreds of applications he received 
 every day from very deserving people ; but he would 
 put Mr. Needles s name on the list, and would send for 
 him the first time he had an opportunity. 
 
 " Colonel Sharp said, at this, that he was very glad 
 Mr. Needles interested Mr. Hill, that neither of them 
 was much occupied, and that they would stay in the 
 private office until the opportunity should occur. At 
 this announcement that the office would need three per 
 manent chairs for some time, Mr. Rowland Hill was 
 more startled. In short, said Colonel Sharp to him 
 good-naturedly, the official methods will not answer 
 in this case. Mr. Needles deserves the place ; he must 
 have the place ; General Glover and I both mean that 
 he shall have the place ; and you may as well give it to 
 him now as to give it to him next week. There are 
 men who can say such things, who have earned the 
 right to say them by long and distinguished service to 
 
170 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 the country. Mr. Hill knew perfectly well that this 
 was one of those cases, and when, therefore, Mr. Nee 
 dles walked home that morning to his wife it was to 
 explain to her that he was to go on duty in the post- 
 office of Abydos, with a proper salary, that afternoon. 
 
 "All this he explained," said General Glover, "in 
 the letter of which I told you, which I received thirty- 
 six hours after I enclosed the bill to him." 
 
 Here ends the first half of General Glover s story to 
 me as he told it on the train. I wish the reader to ob 
 serve, however, that this first half is accompanied by a 
 second half, which transpired several years after. 
 
 Mr. Needles did his work so well in the new office 
 that every one liked him. Had it not been indoor 
 work, and he a sailor, needing outdoor life, this story 
 would end here. But the close confinement of the 
 office was bad for him, and the doctor told him that he 
 could not stand it. He did not write this to General 
 Glover till he had found where he must go. Then it 
 proved that in a bureau which is under the Treasury, 
 which I will call the Bureau of Ked Tape, they needed 
 an outdoor invoice man. It was work that he could 
 do, and he applied to be transferred there. He wrote 
 to General Glover, to tell him why he wanted to re 
 move, and asked for his help at Washington. 
 
 Help at Washington, indeed ! The head of the 
 Treasury had been at the general s side in those old 
 days of 61 and 62, and, as soon as the mail could send 
 it, the new appointment was made secure. 
 
 And from that time, for many years, there was no 
 correspondence between General Glover and these 
 friends. 
 
GENERAL GLOVER^S TRUE STORY 171 
 
 Yes ! years passed away ; I do not know how many. 
 General Glover, who is a man of a thousand duties, 
 all of which he does well, went hither, went thither, 
 and may not have thought of the letter or the answer 
 once in a month. Needles never wrote to him. He 
 never wrote to Needles. As I said, borrowing his 
 phrase as we flew along in the express train, one such 
 man, till the letter came, did not differ from another 
 more than one post in a rail-fence from that which is 
 next to it. 
 
 But the letter, and what came from it, made a dif 
 ference. Yes, and the memory of that letter, and the 
 picture of the stove, and the children and their mother 
 sleeping late, and all the rest which I have told you, 
 did sometimes come back to General Glover. 
 
 And so when, as I say, years had gone by, as he was 
 one day making a visit in the great roaring city which 
 I have called Abydos, he told the story, as he told it to 
 me and as I have told it to you. He was making a 
 call at the Hotel Esterhazy on Mrs. Fonblanque, whom 
 perhaps you know, and he told this story. 
 
 " You say he lives in this city ?" said she, very much 
 interested in the story. "Do you never go to see 
 them?" 
 
 " No," he said ; " I have never been to see them." 
 
 " Might I see them ? Where do they live ? What is 
 his name ?" she asked, somewhat eagerly. 
 
 And the general confessed that since he began to 
 tell the story he had been feeling for the name, but it 
 had escaped him. 
 
 " If you had not asked me, however, I think I should 
 have caught it. Queer that I cannot recall it." 
 
172 SUSAN S ESCOET, AND OTHERS 
 
 " And you have not seen him?" said she. 
 
 " No. I should not know the man from Adam if he 
 came in at that door." And at that instant, as if the 
 man were coming, a knock was heard at the door. A 
 servant entered with a card " For General Glover." 
 
 The general read it, and bade the man say he would 
 see the gentleman in the reading-room. He turned to 
 Mrs. Fonblanque : " What were you asking me ?" 
 
 " I was asking the name of the man whose story you 
 told me." 
 
 " Yes you were. And I did not know it." 
 
 " You said," continued she, " that you should not 
 know him if he came in at that door." 
 
 " I did so. And here is his name." 
 
 " Do not tell me that this is that man s card." 
 
 " It is his card, and I am going down to see him." So 
 he left Mrs. Fonblanque to her reflections. 
 
 Sure enough, there was his friend. He was twenty 
 years older than when, as a young man, he flung him 
 self into his country s cause. There were the marks of 
 his accident, and there were the marks of his twenty 
 years work. And both these men went back, in mem 
 ory, to those eager days when the war began. But it 
 was not of them that the younger had come to talk. 
 He was in trouble again. " You will think I am always 
 in trouble, and you will think I always fall back on 
 you." 
 
 General Glover is not one of those people who turn 
 over their own benefactions like savory bonbons; he 
 does not often think of them indeed. He said, cheer 
 ily, that, quite on the other hand, it was long since he 
 had heard from his friend. 
 
173 
 
 " Nor would you hear from me now," said the other, 
 " if I could help it. But I cannot help it. I come to 
 you, of course. My life is all to change, and I do not 
 know how. I come to you to ask. I should do wrong," 
 he said, very seriously, "connected as you and I have 
 been, if I did anything without your advice nay, with 
 out your permission." 
 
 The general looked at him with surprise. But the 
 man was not weak he was not chattering compliment. 
 He was speaking with the deepest seriousness. "My 
 life, since I entered the Navy, has been all wrought in 
 with your instructions. I should be wrong if I did not 
 come for them now." 
 
 Then he unfolded his budget of miseries, and ex 
 plained that he was worse off than lie had been that 
 day of the postman and the letter. Worse off, because 
 a second fall is worse than the first. 
 
 This was the story : 
 
 At the time when he was transferred from the post- 
 office to the Bureau of Eed Tape, at the general s 
 intercession, it had been necessary, under such civil- 
 service rules as then existed, that he should file a 
 proper certificate of character, and he had done so. 
 
 Now this certificate, alas ! was headed by the most 
 distinguished of General Glover s friends in that city, 
 Governor Oglethorpe ! 
 
 But in the course of five or six years there had grown 
 up a great feud in the party, and Governor Oglethorpe 
 headed one side and Mr. Clodius headed the other. 
 
 And a week before the time we have come to, Mr. 
 Clodius had been appointed from Washington to be the 
 head of our Bureau of Eed Tape. 
 
174 
 
 And every man in the office knew that all their cer 
 tificates had been examined on Wednesday, and that 
 all Governor Oglethorpe s men would be dismissed on 
 Friday. 
 
 It was now Thursday evening. 
 
 " I only heard of this to-day," said the officer we are 
 interested in. "I would not tell my wife. But she 
 knew something was the matter. But when the even 
 ing paper came, I saw you were here at the Esterhazy ; 
 and then I knew it was all right." 
 
 All right, dear friend !" said the general, in real 
 distress. " It is all wrong. I do not know this Clodius 
 have hardly heard of him. I am out of politics these 
 five years. None of them know me or care for me. I 
 cannot help you." 
 
 " Oh yes, you can help me," said the man, simply 
 and confidently. " And }^ou will. That is why I 
 came. I told my wife it was all right and it is." 
 
 " My dear fellow, you understand nothing about it. 
 Even the people at Washington do not care for me 
 now. They have forgotten me. I would gladly help 
 you ; but 1 am as powerless as a child." 
 
 Still he was touched how could he help being 
 touched? by the man s simple faith. 
 
 " Of course, I will write a letter for you. But it will 
 do no good. Your Mr. Clodius cares nothing for me or 
 mine. Stay here, however, and I will go and write it." 
 
 So he crossed the hotel floor to the private office, 
 where, not the " gentlemanly clerk," but Mr. Mann, 
 the wise director of the whole, was sitting. 
 
 "Mann," said the general, "do you know this 
 Clodius?" 
 
GENERAL GLOVER 5 S TRUE STORY 175 
 
 "I should think I did," said he. "He sat in that 
 chair half an hour ago. William !" and he struck his 
 bell. " See if Mr. Clodius is in 75." 
 
 " No, no ; I do not want to see him. But who knows 
 him well enough well, to tell him a story?" 
 
 " I should think I did. I have got him this office in 
 the Red Tape Bureau. He would not be there but for 
 me." 
 
 "Is that possible?" said the general, a little awe 
 struck. " I want to tell him about one of the people 
 in it." 
 
 "There are paper and ink. Write a note to me, and 
 it shall go to him. Man to be kept in ? He shall stay 
 in. If there is anything Clodius wants, it is to oblige 
 me. At least, those were the last words he said to me 
 when he left this room." 
 
 The general wrote his note, in a few lines, as such 
 men can. Mr. Mann endorsed it, " Please see to this." 
 The waiter -took it to 75. 
 
 There came back a card, with "All right Mr. 
 Clodius." And fifteen minutes after General Glover 
 had left the reading-room he returned with this card 
 to his friend. 
 
 " I told you so," said the man, eager, modest, and 
 simple in his gratitude. " I told you that it would be 
 wrong for me to do anything without consulting you." 
 
 And General Glover went back to Mrs. Fonblanque, 
 and told her the end of the story. 
 
 I told a story somewhat like this to a very wise man 
 last week, and he forced himself to say : " Yes, it shows 
 how closely we are all jumbled together in this little 
 
176 
 
 world." But he forced himself to say this, and at the 
 bottom of his heart he was wondering if it did not show 
 a great deal more. And General Glover thinks, and 
 Mrs. Fonblanque thinks, and Needles thinks, and his 
 wife thinks, and I think, that it shows a great deal 
 more. 
 
 We think that outside the people that write letters 
 and put them in the post-office there are unseen people 
 who tell them what to say. We think that behind you 
 and me, who come arid go, there are sometimes unseen 
 hands which show us where to go and where to come. 
 
 And those of us who write stories sometimes put into 
 them such tales of crisis as that in which Jane Eyre 
 hears the cry of her lover, though he is two hundred 
 miles away. But we do not put in such things merely 
 to serve the purpose of the story. We put them in be 
 cause, if we did not put them in, the story would not 
 be true to life. 
 
BOTH THEIR HOUSES 
 
 A STORY OF TRUE LOVE 
 
 " I SHALL not go, old fellow ; that is the whole of it !" 
 
 " I shall be awfully lonely," said Fritz, in reply. 
 
 " Of course you will, and of course I shall. But some 
 time or other we must be lonely. Each of us has been 
 lonely before." 
 
 " But what will mother say ?" 
 
 "That I have to find out this morning," said Eo- 
 mayne. " And I will put it through before I am an 
 hour older. I tell you, old fellow, the way is to make 
 up your mind, and then hold on. Wax in your ears, 
 like that old fellow we had to do in the Greek ; no 
 such word as fail, and all that. I thought this all out 
 at church, when he was talking about something else. 
 The minute I heard Lucia say that mother was going 
 to turn that black gown again, I said, Why should she 
 turn it? I have seen it turned four times already. 
 And then, of course, it came over me that the gown 
 was to be turned so that she need not buy a new gown. 
 And she did not want to buy a new gown because she 
 wanted me to go to Princeton. Then I said : l Prince 
 ton be hanged ! I will go into business. : 
 12 
 
178 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTIIEKS 
 
 " And you never thought of me, Ro," said Fritz, a 
 little sadly. 
 
 "Dear old fellow, yes, I thought of you. But the 
 difference is, you like it and I hate it. You know the 
 difference between an abscissa and a horseshoe when 
 you see them ; I have to look in a book to see which is 
 which. You will have your part, which is harder than 
 mine. You will have to live alone in those college bar 
 racks, and we shall only have good times together in 
 vacation. I shall stay, and do something I like every 
 blessed day of my life. Do not make it any harder for 
 me. I am going to see mother now." 
 
 " In short, my dear mother, for this once I must have 
 my way." And he kissed her tenderly, and stroked 
 her smooth cheek with his hand. 
 
 His mother was crying ; but when she paused before 
 ans\yering those words, he felt that she yielded the 
 point. He knew how she hated to give it up ; he hated 
 to pain her; but he had determined the night before. 
 He had gone on his knees in prayer that he might carry 
 through his wish ; and though he had often prayed be 
 fore, he had never knelt to pray. The boy determined ; 
 he meant to succeed ; and he succeeded. 
 
 Their father had died so long ago that there was lit 
 tle left to either boy of his presence but the memory 
 of his form. Three little girls and two boys had cow 
 ered around Mrs. Montague on the day of the funeral. 
 Of these, the younger did not remember their father 
 at all, and Eomayne and Fritz only remembered that 
 he kissed them when they went to bed, and told them 
 how he used to ride to mill with a bag of corn. Then 
 
BOTH THEIR HOUSES 179 
 
 had come happy years to them, and even to their moth 
 er not so desolate and black as she had imagined they 
 would be, in foresight. The girls grew up cheerful and 
 light-hearted. The boys were ready, obedient, well- 
 meaning, unselfish, and brave. They breakfasted on 
 milk and oatmeal, where, had their father lived, they 
 would have breakfasted on beefsteak with an omelet. 
 But they were as sturdy and strong on the one diet as 
 on the other. They enjoyed life ; they made life cheer 
 ful in the household ; and, had Mrs. Montague known 
 it, the mere necessity that they should go on all her 
 errands, should split the wood for the fires and kindle 
 them in the morning, should black their own boots, and 
 in general be their own servants, Avas giving them an 
 education which they would certainly have lost, had 
 not Mr. Montague been thrown from his horse, and 
 had not the handsome salary stopped which he had re 
 ceived as treasurer of the Kosciusko Rolling-mill. 
 
 " Fritz shall study enough for him and me, dear moth 
 er ; and I will work enough for me and him, and for 
 you and Effie and Lucia and Poll." 
 
 " I do not know what you will do," said she, and she 
 kissed him heartily. " But I do know you are a good 
 boy, and for just this once, I suppose, you must have 
 your way." 
 
 But she had a good crying fit after she left him. She 
 did come down to tea, but she said little. She left them 
 all at their evening occupations very early, and said 
 she had something to do up-stairs. This was a thing 
 which had never happened before ; nor did it ever hap 
 pen again. For years, with bated breath, it was spoken 
 of as "the night mamma went up-stairs." 
 
180 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 But indeed it marked an epoch. The next morning, 
 when they met for breakfast, Romayne had gone down 
 town. He had "gone into business," whatever that 
 meant. He had made the fire ; the teakettle boiled 
 if the proofreader will let us say so but he was not 
 there. They breakfasted without Romayne. 
 
 II 
 
 For after the boy had milked the cow himself, as he 
 always did, and had made his breakfast of a quart, more 
 or less, of milk and a dozen biscuit, more or less, he had 
 left a line with his mother, to say that she might not 
 see him till evening. Nor did she. Every evening, at 
 a late supper, he turned up, always with some amusing 
 tales of the day s experience in this difficult matter 
 of " finding a place." His sisters and Fritz observed, 
 among themselves, that these stories were rather vague, 
 and did not hang very closely together. But Mrs. Mon 
 tague was somewhat preoccupied. So, if the boy must 
 "go into business," he must; what "business" was, she 
 scarcely knew ; but she did know that he might be 
 trusted to do nothing dishonorable, and that when any 
 thing permanent came to his hand she would know as 
 soon as any one. If he were not to answer the wish 
 and prayer of her heart by going to college, it was of 
 little account to her whether he went to work with Mr. 
 Black or Mr. White, Mr. Green or Mr. Brown, or wheth 
 er he sold stocks or sugar, coffee or coal. She knew 
 that some of her nicest friends were "in business," and 
 that some of the nicest of them had a good deal of 
 
BOTH THEIR HOUSES 181 
 
 money. If this should happen to Romayne, why, there 
 would be some compensation for her distress that he 
 would not go to the university. 
 
 Accordingly her distress was all the more agonizing, 
 and the first blow the boy had given her was repeated 
 in one twice as hard, when, at the end of the month, 
 he told her that for all those thirty-one days, Sundays ex- 
 cepted, he had been at work with Mr. Galen, the plumber. 
 
 That his father s son should be a plumber! She 
 thought her heart would break ; she was sure it would. 
 
 But when people think their hearts will break they 
 do not. The very fact that they can stop to think 
 about it shows that the shock is not fatal. And Mrs. 
 Montague did survive this disgrace, as she called it, to 
 her family for many years. Oddly enough, as will hap 
 pen to people of her build, she came to persuade herself 
 that she had seen the advantages of the plumber s busi 
 ness, and had been the person to suggest it to Romayne. 
 She sometimes even wondered if it would not have been 
 better if Fritz had gone to the Galens with his brother 
 Fritz, who, after some years, was a leading professor 
 in the University of New Padua. The introductory 
 section of this story was needed only that the reader 
 might understand better the relations in which Ro 
 mayne lived with the people of the little city which 
 was their home, and so might follow intelligently the 
 details of this little story. 
 
 The boy had that heavenly gift with tools with which 
 some people are born, and some, alas! are not like this 
 author, and possibly this reader. It is a gift as distinct 
 as that for music or for painting. From the first mo 
 ment when he offered himself on trial to old Galen, old 
 
182 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 Galen loved him, he held the pipe in such a loving way, 
 and used the solder so that hardly a drop fell upon the 
 tiles. Both the younger Galens took to him also. He 
 was not afraid of work ; he was not in the least above 
 his business. If the work were dirty, why, it was dirty, 
 that was all ; there was water enough and soap enough 
 when he chose to be clean. So was it that when he 
 had passed that first month of experiment which old 
 Galen had insisted on, he knew more of the business 
 than nine boys out of ten would have known in three 
 months, and old Galen then gladly made with him the 
 permanent agreement the announcement of which had 
 so distressed his mother. 
 
 Then in the evening he was forever reading hy 
 draulics, hydrostatics, any book on physics in the pub 
 lic library, he devoured them all. If he understood 
 them, well. If he did not understand them, he knew 
 that he did not, and highly resolved that some day he 
 should. By the time his two years with the Galens 
 were up he knew as much of their business as they did, 
 and of its principles and theory he knew a great deal 
 more; and he had money enough of his own in the 
 savings-bank to be able to go to New Haven, and for 
 six months to take such a course as he had blocked out 
 for himself in the Sheffield School. 
 
 Meanwhile, every housekeeper understands how it 
 was that Mrs. Montague became reconciled to his ca 
 reer. Actually in the house with her was some one 
 who understood the unintelligible nay, who could do 
 the impossible. This mysterious cobweb of pipes be 
 neath her feet, which modern civilization hides so care 
 fully, because it is all-important that it should be visi- 
 
BOTH THEIR HOUSES 183 
 
 ble her own son knew about it all. As some sainted 
 " beloved hearer," sitting Sunday after Sunday in her 
 pew, admires the esoteric wisdom of the dear " rector," 
 who understands all about foreknowledge, and evolu 
 tion, and Gnosticism, and sanctification, arid Tract No. 
 90, and the fall of man, and the Isidorian Decretals, of 
 which she knows nothing nay, is in that second or 
 third power of ignorance that she knows that she 
 knows nothing so Mrs. Montague admired as she 
 loved this more than prophet, who knew where the 
 traps were, and why they were there ; who never mis 
 took an outlet pipe for an inlet pipe, and to whom a 
 self-acting valve was as little mysterious as a waffle- 
 iron was to her. More than this, the prophet could do 
 the thing he said should be done. More than this, ; he 
 was her own dear, handsome boy, who was so sweet 
 and cunning when he was a baby. Most of all for 
 there was a climax he sent in no bill at the end of the 
 quarter. All housekeepers will now understand why 
 Fritz s college charges were paid so easily ; all sanita 
 rians will understand why the doctor s visits became so 
 few. And when Romayne returned from New Haven, 
 when he went into partnership with young Mol. Galen, 
 and they took the old stand, with the new title of 
 " Sanitary Engineer," one understood how Mrs. Mon 
 tague delighted in the new rugs Romayne gave her for 
 a birthday present, and how she enjoyed the bays and 
 the landau in which he insisted she should ride on Sat 
 urday and go to church on Sunday. 
 
 Romayne had been a favorite in the town since those 
 days when he was such a cunning baby. As why should 
 
184 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 he not be, indeed ? People do not give their plumbing 
 orders to a young man because he was a pretty baby ; 
 but when they have always known him and always 
 liked him, and now he understands his business, they 
 are glad they can give him their plumbing orders. The 
 town was growing like fury in wealth and population 
 growing faster than any town in the State as every 
 American town always is that one ever hears of. Busi 
 ness came to the sanitary engineers on the right hand 
 and on the left. The State insane asylum was estab 
 lished in Verona, and Montague & Galen s bid was a 
 mile below anybody else s bid. And when the work 
 was done, Dr. Berzelius spoke of it in the Convention 
 of Alienists at Saratoga as a miracle of intelligent en 
 gineering. Simplicity and strength are as possible in 
 plumbing as in a pyramid ; and Romayne said in all 
 quarters that they proposed to finish every job so that 
 they might never see it again. He had an excellent 
 staff under him. His own success attracted young fel 
 lows like him from the high-school, who saw now that 
 the profession on which depends the purity of every cup 
 of cold water which one Christian gives another is a pro 
 fession quite as well worth following as any. So the 
 firm of Montague & Galen was a prosperous firm, extend 
 ing its business not only over all that State, but over all 
 the region around it. 
 
 III 
 
 And while every one with whom we have to do 
 was virtuous, they still had cakes, and what they liked 
 better than ale ; that is to say, the plumbers and the 
 
BOTH THEIR HOUSES 185 
 
 plumbers boys did their work well for eight hours 
 a day ; they slept nine hours every night, and this left 
 seven hours to each for his meals, for his dressing and 
 undressing, and for any avocations which he might pur 
 sue outside his vocation. Saturday afternoon nobody 
 plumbed at all no, nor soldered. So there was plenty 
 of opportunity for " a little conversation." " What is 
 it all for," says Mr. Emerson, " but a little conversa 
 tion?" And on very much the same lines of time, Ro- 
 mayne s sisters studied their French verbs, practised 
 their music, kneaded the bread on Wednesday, and at 
 tended to their other duties, while they also found sev 
 eral hours a day for " a little conversation." And the 
 young people of New Padua also had discovered many 
 agreeable methods for using the conversation hours. 
 
 o o 
 
 Indeed, it was as pleasant a place as I have ever known. 
 There were horseback parties and picnic parties, pond- 
 lily parties and bathing parties ; there was a Chau- 
 tauqua Circle and an Exclamation Society and a Frank 
 Stockton Club. They had everything except hornets 
 nests to make them comfortable, and they enjoyed life, 
 or, as the vernacular says, they " had a good time," as 
 young people know how. Years went on, and the 
 business of the firm extended with every year you 
 might almost say that it extended itself. That early 
 phrase of Romayne s, " We never want to see a job a 
 second time," went far and wide, and eventually the 
 firm took it as a sort of trade-mark. It made the head 
 ing of their note-paper, so that they had not to seek 
 for business in general. It was only on a great occa 
 sion, like that of the completion of the hospital, that 
 they appeared as competitors for a contract. Indeed, 
 
186 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 after their reputation was established, builders and con 
 tractors came to seek them. 
 
 Nobody enjoyed this popularity more than Mrs. 
 Montague. Indeed, as has been said, she came to 
 think that it was largely of her own making. She 
 early persuaded herself that it was she who had 
 sent Romayne to Mr. Galen, and had conceived the 
 idea of training him as a sanitary engineer. And now, 
 as her household cares diminished under Romayne s 
 almost lavish provision for her comfort, she felt it her 
 duty to give her leisure time to enlarging the business 
 of the firm. Romayne would have gone wild had he 
 known that such touting and solicitation were going 
 on in his interest as his mother carried forward all the 
 time. Bat, in truth, it came to be considered a sort of 
 joke among the people of the county. Mr. Whitbread 
 could not stake out the corners of a new wing to the 
 bakery but Mrs. Montague s bays would be seen at 
 Mrs. Whitbread s door. Mrs. Montague would make 
 a state call on that lady, and before she had gone 
 would say she hoped Mr. Whitbread would not forget 
 old friends in contracting for the water- works. All 
 this eagerness of hers was bred by a passionate love 
 of Romayne; from her conscientious determination, 
 formed on that first night when he " went into busi 
 ness" and she went up-stairs, that, in every way in 
 which a mother could, she would go into business too, 
 and would loyally support him. 
 
 To her point of view all public institutions were ac 
 counted as the best conceivable, or of the lowest degra 
 dation, according as they did or did not use the traps 
 and faucets in which our firm was interested. She 
 
BOTH THEIR HOUSES 187 
 
 made herself a life member of the Indian Association 
 because when she called at the office in Philadelphia 
 she saw that Mr. Welsh had the right faucets and 
 water bowls ; and she threw her whole influence against 
 the State administration because in the Capitol at Ilar- 
 risburg she saw that theirs were all wrong. 
 
 Romayne had to caution her once and again, as far 
 as a son can caution a mother whom he loves. For 
 the rest, when some ill-natured person brought him a 
 bit of gossip about one or another success of hers as a 
 drummer, he had to make as light of it as he could, to 
 persuade himself that the story was an exaggeration, 
 and to trust that such things did not happen often. 
 
 IV 
 
 It was necessary to explain Mrs. Montague s methods 
 and her enthusiasm in the cause of sanitary reform, that 
 the reader may understand a breach which she brought 
 about, wholly unintentionally, in the social life of our 
 little community. We have always been on good terms 
 with the people in what we call the other village, al 
 though, in a way, we pity them. Their population is 
 not so large as ours by five or six hundred ; indeed, 
 had our census been as well taken as theirs there would 
 have been more difference. But they are always fussy 
 about such things, and took more pains with theirs 
 than we did with ours. They have their own post- 
 office, which is foolish in them, and they are apt to 
 drive to the O. and C. depot instead of coming over to 
 our station, which is all a piece of their independent 
 
188 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 nonsense, for which we do not care a straw. But they 
 are good people all the same, though none of them 
 come to our churches ; and when they have to come to 
 our stores, as they do, we are always glad to see them. 
 Some of our ladies exchange calls with some of their 
 ladies. Well, there was a Mrs. Hood over there, a lady 
 indeed, and she had established a seminary for girls. 
 It was a good plan, we all thought, for she had been 
 left at her husband s death with several young daugh 
 ters of her own, and we thought they could help in 
 the school, and would count more in the catalogue. 
 Mrs. Hood made a very good school of it ; she adver 
 tised it in our county paper, which was a good move 
 of hers, and it became very popular. The other village 
 they call it New Padua, though it should really be 
 only another ward of our city is but a mile and a half 
 from us. So that from the Montague house, which 
 stands quite high, you could see perfectly easily when 
 Mrs. Hood built a brick L to her husband s old house, 
 and, indeed, the Argus announced that this new build 
 ing was necessary as a dormitory for the seminary. 
 Then was it that Mrs. Montague reflected, for the first 
 time, that Mrs. Hood was a stranger in the neighbor 
 hood, that she was a Presbyterian like herself, and that 
 everything made it proper that she should go and call 
 on her, and pa}^ her the civilities which one of the old 
 families ought to be ready to offer. Mrs. Hood s chil 
 dren, it is true, had all been born in New Padua, and 
 it had never occurred to Mrs. Montague before that 
 
 4* O 
 
 she owed these courtesies. But she had not had this 
 carriage long, and she had more time now than she 
 once had. 
 
BOTH THEIR HOUSES 189 
 
 So she made her visit, and was very pleasantly re 
 ceived. Mrs. Hood is a charming person, and she sent 
 for that pretty girl Rosaline French, one of the schol 
 ars, when she proved to be a second - cousin of the 
 Montagues. There was some sponge-cake, and some 
 phosa, which was then a new brew, to which Mrs. 
 Montague was not accustomed. So the visit went off 
 very nicely, and Mrs. Hood had said she should be glad 
 to be the collecting agent for the Indian Association in 
 New Padua, and Mrs. Montague rose to go. It was 
 then that Mrs. Hood said that Michael had better drive 
 out by the back way, because the front avenue was so 
 lumbered up with timber for the new wing ; and then 
 that Mrs. Montague, availing herself of the chance, said, 
 so graciously : 
 
 "When you come to the finishing, and put in your 
 bath-tubs and your pipes, you must come and make my 
 boy a visit. Here is his card. Perhaps you do not 
 know that Montague & Galen are all my boys. I call 
 the Galens so, for they are very nice fellows. And 
 really, Mrs. Hood, when health is at stake one cannot 
 be too careful." 
 
 To which last remark Mrs. Hood assented very cord 
 ially, and indeed a little at length, as a school-mistress 
 should. 
 
 " And then," said Mrs. Montague, when she described 
 the interview to Fritz, " she had the impudence to say 
 that she should take great care of the plumbing ; that 
 she had consulted Professor Thingamy about it, and 
 had made her contract already. Impudent minx ! I 
 could have struck her." 
 
 It was this interview, more important in village pol- 
 
190 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 itics than can be imagined, which made a certain divi 
 sion in the social relations which I have described as 
 so harmonious before. Fritz thought best not to tell 
 his brother of it at the time, but Komayne found it 
 out soon enough, for all that. As it happened, in 
 deed, I think Romayne knew quite as much about 
 the Hood affair as Mrs. Montague did. For though 
 he had never seen Mrs. Hood, he had seen her oldest 
 daughter, and had liked her very much. There was 
 a party at the Hoods , and in a frolic somebody had 
 proposed blindman s- buff, and Romayne had been 
 blinded and had caught Miss Hood. For him that 
 was the beginning. He guessed her well, I do not 
 know how, for he had really never seen her to know 
 her before. Afterwards there happened one of those 
 queer accidents which bring people together. He 
 bought the resin for the firm, and such paints and 
 whiting and chemicals as they used a good deal of, at 
 an old-established drug-store. It had grown up to be 
 a large wholesale business from being the little variety 
 store of the village. A queer place it was. It had the 
 little six-by-eight panes to the windows which it had in 
 Mad Anthony s time, when Utrecht was laid out long 
 before the name was changed. When you went in, it 
 was a perfect curiosity shop. There was a tortoise- 
 shell which Hugh had brought up from the pond when 
 he was a boy ; there was an alligator which he had shot 
 in the St. John s River years afterwards ; and scattered 
 along on the shelves the dusty relics of two generations 
 of village shopkeeping boxes, flower-pots, jugs all 
 without a label or a mark, but remembered, I suppose, 
 somewhere in old Roger s brain. A shop without a 
 
BOTH THEIR HOUSES 191 
 
 sign, which never advertised, and yet which did half 
 the business of the manufacturers of the count} 7 in 
 chemicals and other drugs. 
 
 At the door of this museum Romayne drew up one 
 day, held the reins in his hand as he pushed the door 
 open, and cried, " Mr. Roger, you may as well wire for 
 half a ton of copperas ; we haven t as much as I thought." 
 And he had just taken his seat again in his wagon, 
 when a lady called to him from the steps, and to his 
 surprise he saw his pretty friend Miss Hood. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said she, " but Mr. Roger isn t 
 in. I was waiting for him. But I will leave your 
 order with him if you like. He cannot be gone far, 
 for I found the door unlocked, as you did." 
 
 ISTo, Romayne would not think of troubling her with 
 the order. Indeed, he remembered that he must see Mr. 
 Roger about some resin. He left the horses, and for 
 twenty minutes had a nice talk with her in the snuffy 
 old shop. It w T as astonishing how well they knew 
 each other when Roger came in from the post-office, 
 where fortunately the mail had been late. And this 
 Avas only their second time of meeting ! 
 
 The second time, but not the last. Fortune favors 
 the brave and the young. Romayne was hand in glove 
 with our new Presbyterian minister. He was a very 
 good fellow, who had come to us about the time when 
 the new firm was established. He liked Romayne, and 
 Romayne had frozen to him at once. He was in and 
 out at Lawrence s every other day, to talk about the 
 Christian Endeavor Society and the Sunday-school and 
 the Board of Charities, and he was very fond of Mrs. 
 Lawrence, who often made him stay to lunch. At 
 
192 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 lunch one day whom should he meet but Miss Hood. 
 It proved that Mrs. Lawrence had been a scholar at the 
 seminary, and knew her. Afterwards he met her there 
 again, and one day he walked home with her. I do 
 not say that Lawrence tried to make a match between 
 them, or that his wife did. Let us hope they had other 
 business in hand, and left such matters to take care 
 of themselves, which is generally safe. But I do 
 know that, without any arrangement on anybody s 
 part, Romayne was a little apt to find out the days 
 when Miss Hood made Mrs. Lawrence a visit. And if 
 he had then known that his mother had been over to 
 see her mother, and to ask for a job for him, his wrath 
 would have been awful. 
 
 He was destined to find it out, however, by slow de 
 grees. "When his mother gave a great party to the Sul- 
 lys, who came up to Yerona when their son was married, 
 she invited half the county and nine-tenths of the New 
 Padua people, but sent no cards to the Hoods. It was a 
 regular out-of-door fete, where there was, as Red Jacket 
 would say, all the room there was ; and really, to ask 
 the Higginses and not ask the Hoods was a very marked 
 thing. But Mrs. Hood was even with her, and when, 
 in June, Dr. Witherspoon came to make the annual ad 
 dress at the exhibition, and the seminary sent out an 
 elegant invitation card engraved in Philadelphia, there 
 was one of these cards exhibited in every parlor in 
 Verona except at Mrs. Montague s. And yet, I sup 
 pose that there was not a man in the place who 
 wanted so much to be invited in a regular way to the 
 exhibition as poor Romayne Montague. But young 
 people cannot always have what they want, and so he 
 
BOTH THEIR HOUSES 193 
 
 had to sit in the gallery as the exhibition went on, just 
 as all the uninvited towns-people did. And he could 
 not show his face at the reception, as every other young 
 man did, whether he hailed from Yerona or New 
 Padua. 
 
 But Eomayne was not the man to be turned from a 
 plan by one bit of pasteboard more or less no, not 
 though the pasteboard bore upon it an engraving from 
 Philadelphia. He had found out that he liked Miss 
 Hood better than he liked any other girl that he ever 
 saw ; and he did not care if her mother was such a 
 fool as to leave plumbers out from her parties. As to 
 his mother, he had asked no questions when she had 
 omitted the Hoods and the seminary girls from her 
 list. He had thought it a pity that twenty or more 
 of the young people whom every fellow wanted to see 
 should not be at his mother s party. But he had long 
 since learned that her ways were past his finding out. 
 He would have been glad if he could have had a card 
 to Mrs. Hood s. But if he could not why, he could 
 not. And he would find out whether her daughter had 
 any objection. He followed up such chances as Mrs. 
 Lawrence s cordiality gave him. He knew he could 
 make other chances. And it was not long, indeed, be 
 fore he had an opportunity. 
 
 Oddly enough, it was all about copperas again. The 
 half -ton had all gone in some purification that was 
 needed at the town-house, and, with a pleasant mem 
 ory of the day he ordered it, JRomayne drove round 
 
194 
 
 again to Roger s. The old fellow came out on the 
 steps as the bays stopped in their quick career. He 
 was still holding in his hand a great bunch of lavender, 
 he had brought in from the garden. Under his heavy, 
 beetling brow there was a good - natured smile, for 
 Romayne was one of his favorites ; and would have 
 been one had he not been so good a customer. He 
 told him to come in, that he had a new line of goods to 
 show him, and Romayne readily assented. To his sur 
 prise, he found Miss Hood there again, and, for the first 
 time, he united her and Roger in his thought, supposing 
 now that there was some relationship of which he had 
 never heard. The old fellow must be her granduncle. 
 What was the new "line of goods" I never heard. 
 I know that Romayne never knew. What with the 
 lavender, and some thyme and sweet-marjoram which 
 old Roger went and brought, and a botanical discussion 
 about the Didynamia and Labiatce, and the microscope 
 which was produced, and the length of some doubtful 
 stamens, half an hour went by, and the new line of 
 goods was never produced. Then Miss Hood rose and 
 said she must go. To Roger she said, " To-morrow 
 morning, if you please, Mr. Roger." And Montague 
 was watchful enough to observe that she did not say 
 "Uncle George " or " Cousin George." Then, as she 
 went to the door, and he with her, it was impossible 
 that they should not see the high black cloud in the 
 west. It was impossible that he should not protest 
 against her walking home. He did protest ; he begged 
 her to let him take her home under the protection of 
 his buggy, and she very prettily and very pleasantly 
 acceded. 
 
BOTH THEIR HOUSES 195 
 
 I do not know whether she had any idea of what was 
 going to happen. I do know he did. He did not care 
 a cent for the shower after she was fairly in the car 
 riage with a rug and the boot over her knees. And he 
 drove very slowly. 
 
 Then he said, squarely : " I was mortified and sorry 
 that my mother and I were not asked to your mother s 
 party, Miss Hood. Plumbers have dirty hands while 
 they are at work, but they are very necessary people 
 in modern civilization." 
 
 The girl was astonished, as well she might be; but 
 she was quick and well-bred, and she rallied in time to 
 say that he must not hold her responsible for her moth 
 er s visiting-list. He observed with interest and with a 
 certain pleasure that she made no pretence of mistake 
 or omission. 
 
 "I do not care much for your mother s visiting-list," 
 said he, in reply. And then he added : " I leave my 
 mother s severely alone. But I care a great deal about 
 yours, Miss Hood. You are good enough to let me take 
 you home now. I wish I might have the honor and 
 pleasure of calling to-morrow, as the old-fashioned peo 
 ple did, to be sure that you have taken no cold." 
 
 She was again surprised. But, as before, she was 
 self-possessed when she answered, and her answer was 
 a difficult one. For she knew that, after what had 
 passed between their mothers, Mrs. Hood would not 
 let him come into the house. She did what was wise, 
 therefore. She answered one part of the question, and 
 let the other go. 
 
 "Indeed, Mr. Montague, I rate your profession very 
 highly. I have cause to have I not ? from the mo- 
 
196 
 
 ment I take my bath in the morning till I turn off the 
 cold water when the girls go to bed. You do not know 
 that I have the gymnastics in charge. And with sixty 
 girls there is a deal of hot and cold water. It was 
 Eve s cosmetic, you know." 
 
 But he would not laugh; he would have an answer 
 to his question, and he said so. And she, poor child, 
 had to face the music, as our national proverb says. 
 
 " Mr. Montague, my mother and your mother do not 
 understand each other, so that I cannot ask you to the 
 house. It is not my house. But And she paused, 
 for she ought not to have said " but." 
 
 He waited thirty seconds, and the bays walked slow- 
 
 iy- 
 
 "But?" said he then, with a tone of inquiry. 
 
 And now there was a pause of a minute. 
 
 "But?" he said again, as before. 
 
 " You ought not to make me say, Mr. Montague," 
 said she. " But we are not fools, either of us. I have 
 a great respect for plumbers ; I have said that. I will 
 add that I am always glad to see the head of the pro 
 fession in this county, though I must not invite him to 
 my mother s house. I am glad to see him at the Chau- 
 tauqua, at Mr. Roger s, at Mrs. Lawrence s. I am glad 
 to accept his invitation to ride in his buggy when it 
 rains, although I observe that he does not ask me to 
 his mother s house." 
 
 This was bravely said and well said. And from that 
 moment all things went well with Komayne and Miss 
 Hood. She had not permitted any nonsense of the 
 novels to stand between her and one of the most intel 
 ligent young men of the region. She had not been un- 
 
BOTH THEIR HOUSES 197 
 
 womanly ; she had not made any advances. But, as 
 she said herself when the conversation began, she had 
 not acted like a fool, or as the average novel of the 
 first half of the century would have required her to 
 act. 
 
 It may be observed here that one difficulty which the 
 American novelist has in creating a plot for his country 
 which would pass muster in Europe is, that the greater 
 part of his country men and women do not act like 
 sheer fools in delicate or difficult circumstances. Now 
 half the received plots require action of this sort, or 
 there is no story. This observation, thrown out by a 
 friend of the court, is commended to the critics. 
 
 So, as I said, the affairs of these two people sped well, 
 notwithstanding the objections of the two mothers. If 
 they did not meet at his home or at hers, there were a 
 plenty of places where they did meet. They met at the 
 Chautauqua Circle and at the Exclamation Club. When 
 the young people made a horseback party, and the 
 Hood girls joined, it seemed natural that Eomayne, on 
 the Iowa gray, should take care of Miss Hood on that 
 pretty pacer she had bought from Miss Yernon. When 
 Eomayne spoke at the town meeting which Mr. Gar- 
 field had set agoing, the Hood girls were there ; and 
 when Mol. Galen walked home with Bianca and Tom 
 with Portia, who were both grown-up young ladies now, 
 it was quite of course that Eomayne should walk home 
 with their sister. In such rides and walks and talks 
 they found out everything about each other. She 
 found that he was generous, impetuous, and true. He 
 found that she was true, impetuous, and generous. 
 They had common tastes, which came out in their bot- 
 
198 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 anizing, in her water-colors and his scientific draughts 
 manship, in his study of physics and hers of the higher 
 mathematics, where she had the school professors to 
 help her. They read the same books ; she knew the last 
 half of stanzas of which he could quote only the first. 
 They had the same memories of Kollo, and had won 
 dered together about the lady and the tiger. Severest 
 test of all, and most charming, she was perfect in her 
 Miss Austen, and in any competitive examination would 
 have done as well as Romayne if questioned about Mr. 
 Knightley, John Knigbtley, Isabella, and Mr. Elton. 
 With these like regards for little things, who shall won 
 der if they agreed on the greatest thing of all ? One 
 happy day, as they returned together from an excur 
 sion of the Mountain Club, in which, ir deed, they had 
 early been lost, so that they heard little of the stratifi 
 cation, and nothing of the erosion when, as they re 
 turned, he asked her the central question, whether she 
 would receive him in her house if she had one, or would 
 come and live in his if he had one, then, without a 
 "but," she said she would, as frankly as he had asked 
 her. And it was not long before she said to him that 
 from that first day at Roger s she had seen how differ 
 ent he was from other men. "From the blindfold 
 day? Did it begin with the blindfold day?" It did 
 with him; he was sure of that. She would not say it 
 did with her, but there was a charming blush when 
 she said nothing. And what "rr" was was clear to 
 both of them. 
 
BOTH THEIR HOUSES 199 
 
 VI 
 
 If Eomayne had a hard task when, at sixteen, he told 
 his mother that for one month her son had been a 
 plumber, he had a harder task when, as a young man 
 of position in the town and respected of all men, he 
 had to tell her that he was engaged to be married to 
 the daughter of Mrs. Hood, of the " Female Seminary." 
 She did not stop to ask whether a seminary could be 
 male, or how it could be female ; she did not devote 
 herself to any such side issue. She cried, with scorn, 
 " One of those Hood girls !" and then declared that she 
 would hear no explanation. There was no excuse and 
 could be none. For her, she should leave the county, 
 or would do so if she could sell the house. No, she did 
 not know the girls apart ; she did not know how many 
 of them there were; and none of them should come 
 into her house. If, on these terms, Eomayne chose to 
 marry her, he might marry, that was all. 
 
 Whether Mrs. Hood expressed herself with a like 
 severity did not appear. So far as the social politics 
 or interests of our village went, it was of the less impor 
 tance. We had a strong party, led by the Lawrences 
 and by old Mr. Roger, who thought well of the Hoods, 
 and who repeated Mrs. Montague s ejaculations only 
 with amusement, not to say ridicule. For Eomayne 
 himself, he did not seem to suffer so much under his 
 mother s displeasure as she might have wished. Per 
 haps he remembered that other outburst of displeasure, 
 when he had taken Saturn for the star of his fortune, 
 and had gone into the mysteries of lead and solder. 
 
200 SUSAN S ESCOKT, AND OTHEKS 
 
 He told his lady-love of his mother s wrath, in terms 
 as much modified as the truth would permit, as they 
 took a charming drive one day up that pretty pass of 
 Winnococksen River, where he knew they would meet 
 nobody. She was tender and sympathetic and wise. 
 So sympathetic was she, and so sorry that she should 
 come in between him and his mother, that he pressed 
 her a little to know precisely what did pass on that 
 fatal first interview, when the peace of two houses was 
 interrupted and the course of true love ruffled. He 
 had never heard the story from his mother indeed, 
 he had never heard it at all, though he had often 
 heard of it. To his surprise the dear girl seemed con 
 fused by his request, and answered it but lamely. 
 Why, indeed, should they not have had their plumbing 
 done by our home talent ? Why should they send to 
 Philadelphia, or Lancaster, or wherever they did send 
 to? lie did not know who his rival was, and he did 
 not care or he said to himself that he did not care. 
 All the same, he was surprised, not to say annoyed, 
 that Juliet, who was so frank about everything else, 
 should not answer a plain question. And he said so 
 to her, bluntly. 
 
 Juliet was more confused than before. For a minute 
 she said nothing. But after a minute she rallied. She 
 turned in the carriage, so that she could look him in 
 the face, and said : " Romayne, you do not want me 
 to give my mother away, as you boys say in your 
 horrid slang. Really, I do not know just what either 
 of our mothers said to the other. It is better that I 
 should not know, and I think better that you should 
 not know, And I am sure you and I have much more 
 
BOTH THEIR HOUSES 201 
 
 important things to talk of." And she looked so pretty 
 that he could not help kissing her. How could he be 
 expected to? And why should the bays be in such a 
 hurry ? They would not often be in a shady pass as 
 lovely as this. The bays were made to walk more 
 demurely ; Juliet and Romayne made their peace under 
 the shade of the maples and in the echoing of the bab 
 ble of the brook. 
 
 But when Romayne gathered up the reins again, 
 and let the eager bays resume their trot, he said, with 
 a good-natured laugh, "All the same, there is a 
 mystery, I see, and I suppose I shall never know what 
 it is." * 
 
 " Mystery there is," said Juliet, " if you choose to 
 call it so. But if you command it, rash boy as the 
 people in the Arabian Nights do always, though for 
 their own ruin if you demand it, I will reveal it to 
 you that night when your dear Father Lawrence 
 makes us one." 
 
 c lf that night ever comes," said Romayne, impa 
 tiently. " I never knew days pass by so slowly." 
 
 " Do not say that of to-day, dear boy. I am sure 
 the sun is setting only too soon." 
 
 VII 
 
 Of course Mrs. Hood had to let Romayne come into 
 her house now. There was a certain stiffness about 
 her welcome at first, but Bianca and Portia and the 
 other sisters were always cordial, and Romayne would 
 not be made a stranger. The whole establishment 
 
202 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 might be called well-nigh perfect of its kind. Romayne 
 did not wonder, after he had seen the arrangements, 
 that the school was so popular. The school -girls 
 seemed to come and go as if they were at home, and 
 surely no one of them could ever have had a home 
 more comfortable, not to say more luxurious. Every 
 thing was on that scale of generous living which the 
 true American likes, not to say is used to ; and every 
 thing had a certain elegance which the true American 
 does not always know how to maintain. It was not 
 that the things were expensive, though some of them 
 were. It was not that they were pretty, though most 
 of them were. The charm of the place was that who 
 ever was the lady director and director it was clear 
 there was had put in just what she chose, just what 
 she liked. She had not thought of money one way or 
 the other. 
 
 "Wealth, as mere wealth, is of course simply vulgar," 
 said Mrs. Hood one day, putting in eight words what 
 Romayne felt was the spirit or essence of her vigorous 
 use of money. But, all the same, it was clear that 
 there was in this establishment money enough to use, 
 and this was another mystery to him. People who 
 had a million in the new four-per-cents were not apt 
 to keep boarding-schools. And people who lived by 
 keeping boarding-schools were not apt, so far as he 
 knew, to have a dozen good horses in the stables, to 
 have Corots and D Aubignes on the walls, to have 
 orchids and allemandias from their own greenhouses 
 and early strawberries from their own hot-beds. But 
 as to the origin of all these things, Romayne asked 
 no questions, not even of Juliet. He was going to 
 
BOTH THEIR HOUSES 203 
 
 take her, priceless as she was, for her own dear sake. 
 He asked no questions about dowries or settlements, 
 and nobody asked him any. He gave little thought 
 to these mysteries. His only eagerness was to have a 
 day appointed for the wedding, and then to drag along 
 the hours by what strength he could till that day 
 should come. He had bought his own house on the 
 Willow Road, just as you drive out from the town to 
 the Bromwich turnpike. Mrs. Hood and Juliet were 
 making visits to Philadelphia to select the furniture. 
 When he could go with them, all went well. When 
 they would not let him go, or when he had to go off to 
 see the work at Me G raw College or at Titus ville, all 
 was horribly gray and cold. Still the world turned on 
 its axis and revolved around the sun at the rate, for 
 the first movement, of about fourteen miles a minute 
 in that latitude, and for the other movement at the 
 rate of more than a thousand standard miles a min 
 ute. So that Master Romayne was scarcely within 
 the truth when he said that time went slowly. It did 
 not go as fast as he wished. But it did move with 
 the same rapidity which is observed by mercantile men 
 when they have large notes falling due. 
 
 Meanwhile he was attentive to all the ladies at the 
 seminary. He made friends with Mrs. Hood and all 
 Juliet s nice sisters. He tried to devise little atten 
 tions which he could pay to each of them. In a hun 
 dred ways he made the sisters understand that it is 
 a good thing, to have a new brother. It is said that 
 women despise the girl whom their brother marries, 
 because they never wanted to marry him themselves. 
 This is not always true. And far less is it true, as 
 
204 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 Miss Brooks could tell us, that sisters despise the man 
 who is going to marry their sister. 
 
 " What is that everlasting book ?" said Portia one 
 day to Bianca. 
 
 " The book, fortunately, is not everlasting ; it is Ge 
 ology in Thirteen Lessons. My class is at the seventh, 
 and I am at the tenth. I have to be well up, for that 
 Beryl Hitchcock is as quick as a flash, and knows 
 much more than the book does." 
 
 " It is just so with Rose and Lily in the botany," 
 said poor Portia. " But I switch them off on analyzing, 
 and they go to work on that, and forget that I have 
 not asked any questions. Now, when you study miner 
 alogy and geology and such you cannot switch them 
 off on analyzing. It would not do to put a pound of 
 dynamite under the school-house to see if the founda 
 tions are on a rock. Poor, dear Juliet, who will do the 
 hydrostatics when she is away? She is in the experi 
 ment-room now." 
 
 " Portia, you do not want to talk about experiments," 
 said Bianca, resolutely, for she knew very well that 
 Portia had something on her mind. For herself, there 
 fore, she must postpone the study of the ice sheet till 
 she was alone. " Do you remember what the child said 
 in Venetia: I do not want to talk of butterflies, nurse. 
 I want to talk of widows. 
 
 " But, Portia," continued Bianca, knowing her sister 
 was the least bit slow, " I am sure you do not want to 
 talk about widows. You want to talk about brides 
 or bridegrooms, or one bride or one bridegroom." 
 
 " I don t," said Portia. " I want to talk about wed 
 ding presents. It is so hard to get anything for a man. 
 
BOTH THEIE HOUSES 205 
 
 You know I had made up my mind And then 
 followed all the pros and cons about a landscape by 
 Richards, which she had seen ; about a complete outfit 
 for a travelling artist, all because poor Romayne had 
 brought to Portia a little water-color sketch of his 
 own ; and then about a fac-simile of the folio Shake 
 speare. As Bianca knew, Portia had fully resolved, 
 as much as four times, to buy each of these, for this 
 part of this discussion was not new. 
 
 Bianca gently intimated that the things cost no 
 more and no less than they did when Portia made 
 her last decision, and that probably Romayne s tastes 
 and wishes had not changed. 
 
 " He has not changed, but I have changed." Bianca 
 looked up, amazed at Portia s tragic air. " You know, 
 mamma said we must economize. Mamma said I could 
 not take Juliet s place, and you could not. She did 
 not know who could. And she said something about 
 reefing sails which I did not understand. Only this I 
 do understand, and that made me wonder why you 
 bought the caramels yesterday that we may be poor, 
 very, very poor. Mamma said this about the sails 
 Sunday, and I have walked to the village every day 
 since, to train myself to do so when we give up the 
 coupe." 
 
 Bianca tried to be sympathetic, but she could only 
 scream. " You poor, darling, good girl !" said she ; " is 
 this your mystery ? Dear mamma must be more care 
 ful in her oracles. Why, my child, the school will be 
 fifty times as prosperous when we have a man on the 
 home staff. I should not wonder if it ceased to be a 
 seminary and became an institute." 
 
206 
 
 VIII 
 
 Terror in Portia s heart, rage in Mrs. Montague s 
 heart, in Romayne s heart wonder whether the week 
 would never end these are the emotions to be depict 
 ed by those who act in our little tragedy. For Bianca s 
 heart, I think a willingness to let things take their 
 course ; and for Juliet s, who shall tell " a maiden s 
 meditations, fancy bound " ? And the world spun 
 round, though Romayne thought it did not ; the moon 
 rushed round a quarter of her revolution ; the week 
 came to an end ; even the day came to an end. 
 
 They had no minister at New Padua, or rather he 
 had a sore throat, and was studying evolution at Halle. 
 So our Father Lawrence went over there to marr}^ 
 them. All the people went over. Strangest of all, 
 Mrs. Montague went over. 
 
 " Not that I go willingly," she said to Effie at the 
 last moment, as the girl arranged some magnificent 
 diamonds which Romayne had given his mother; "I 
 do not go willingly, and no one thinks I go willingly. 
 But who knows ? They may be married by the bishop. 
 They were never very sound. Then there must be 
 some one to give my son away." 
 
 For Mrs. Montague leans to the third primitive 
 secession, and is doubtful about other rituals than her 
 own. So she went to her martyrdom. She herself 
 saw to the toilets of her daughters, in a fashion, so that 
 those wretched girls at the Hoods should not in any 
 sort eclipse them. How many there were she did not 
 know, she said ; she believed they made up most of the 
 
BOTH THEIR HOUSES 207 
 
 scholars. Her own " exhibit," as the managers of fairs 
 say, was perfect. Her coachman Michael was in a 
 new livery with an immense favor. Otto was on the 
 box with Michael, with a bigger favor. Only Fritz 
 was in Mrs. Montague s carriage ; and the girls, with 
 Komayne, were in their own carriage behind, with An 
 ders as grand as Michael, and Francois with him on 
 the box, each with gorgeous favors. Even the horses 
 had favors covering the blinders, which the grooms had 
 compelled the chambermaids to make for them. Then, 
 in that great drag which the Montagues send to the 
 station for their guests, followed every man and wom 
 an of the staff of the house. Actually old Katy, the 
 housekeeper, who had carried Romayne to the font 
 when he was baptized, locked the side door and put the 
 key in her pocket. For there was not one person in 
 that house who would stay away from Eomayne s 
 wedding. Had Mrs. Montague stayed, I do not know 
 who would have got her supper. 
 
 " I should have been frightened out of my skin," 
 said she. 
 
 And at the seminary everything was elegant and 
 just right. It was " ever so pretty." Since Mrs. Hood 
 bought the Flinders lot, and made her own avenue 
 through the maples, the approach to the house has 
 been "about as fine as they make." To-night this 
 was blazing with electric light, and the designs for the 
 illumination, without being showy, were all convenient, 
 pretty, and, to us country people, wholly new. The 
 greenhouse must have been emptied, I should have 
 said, such was the show of plants at the entrance. But 
 afterwards, when I took Bianca in there to get a part 
 
208 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 of this story from her and to have "a little conver 
 sation," I did not see but it was as brilliant as ever. 
 Anyway, we entered through a tropical garden. I saw 
 that dried -up Mr. Roger from the apothecary store, 
 and Hugh Roger by him. Juliet had not forgotten 
 her old friends. 
 
 We were shown to various disrobing-rooms by pret 
 ty maids, who had little favors of orange blossoms. 
 Strauss s orchestra from New York was playing music 
 so ravishing that I would have pardoned Father Law 
 rence if the service all went out of his head as he 
 listened. Romayne came up with me and some of the 
 other fellows. He made his sister carry in for Juliet 
 the great blue box which held her bouquet. 
 
 A minute more and Effie came out again, blushing 
 her prettiest, and said, " Juliet wants to see you, Ro." 
 
 And Ro went into that mysterious bride-chamber, 
 which he had never seen before. And there stood his 
 own dear girl, wonderful and gracious. Her veil lay 
 across a great table waiting for the bridemaid to put 
 it on her at the last moment. The damask in which 
 Madam Mifflin, her great-grandmother, had been mar 
 ried had been dug out of a Ginevra chest. Madam 
 Mifflin s skeleton was not found with it, for she lived 
 to dance at Madison s second inauguration. This bro 
 cade was to be worn to-night. And Romayne said, 
 u Oh, my darling, I am afraid to kiss you. " 
 
 " Never fear that," said she. " We will do it again 
 when I am ninety to remember to-night by." 
 
 " It seemed to me," said he, " that the day would 
 never be done." 
 
 " But it is, you see. When will you learn to be rea- 
 
BOTH THEIR HOUSES 209 
 
 sonable? Romayne, when you say such things I am 
 afraid for you." 
 
 " Afraid for me, Juliet ?" 
 
 " I am afraid that you will forget that the pressure 
 increases with the squares, and even with the cubes, 
 and if your lower ranges are to stand it long, you 
 must put in heavier tubing." 
 
 "Oh, now you can laugh; you may say anything," 
 said the happy fellow, only wondering that she chose 
 to chaff him just now. 
 
 "You goose!" said she; "do you not know why I 
 have called you ?" 
 
 " I hoped you called me to marry me," said he, rue 
 fully. 
 
 " I called you to explain to you the mystery." 
 
 " My darling, you are so beautiful, I forgot there 
 was a mystery." 
 
 " That is enough," said Juliet. " I thought you 
 were perfect; now I know you are. All the more shall 
 you know." Then, with a tragic pause : " Do you see 
 this key ? Do you see yon door ? Open it." And she 
 stood silent, not quite daring to look up. 
 
 Romayne opened the door. Within was a perfect 
 plumber s equipment pincers, clippers, big solderers, 
 little solderers, bismuth strip, super -strip, sub -strip, 
 saws, augers, test bottles, cinnamon and rose-water, 
 piping of every size all were there. 
 
 "Romayne, your own Juliet does the plumbing for 
 the seminary. This is my mystery and my mother s." 
 
COLONEL INGHAM S JOUKNEY 
 
 [THE artist Turner is said to have slipped away from London ouce 
 in the month of May, to have gone down to Hull in a pea-jacket, 
 and persuaded a whaler to take him as a passenger. So he had a 
 chance to study arctic fogs and icebergs, and the various forms of 
 tempest, to his heart s content. And there are critics who think they 
 can trace in his work afterwards the result of this weird experience. 
 
 We were talking of this vacation of Turner s one Christmas even 
 ing, which we spent together the Inghams, the Carters, and the 
 Hackmatacks at Haliburton s house. A funny smile came over Ing- 
 ham s face, which George Hackmatack understood, and he said at 
 once, "What do you know of Baffin s Bay, Ingham ?" for George 
 knew that Ingham s smile meant that he had gone beyond Turner. 
 
 Now Ingham is a silent man, especially in the matter of his own 
 achievements. He is much more apt to squeeze the sponges of the 
 people around him, and to make out their biographies, than to give 
 anybody much hint of his own. But the children began an attack 
 when they found there was a chance of a story, and we gave him 
 no mercy till he began. 
 
 When he had finished, I did not wonder that he had never told it 
 before.] 
 
 It was all a philosophical experiment. I had given 
 a great deal of thought and study to the problems of 
 Sleep. I once lectured on Sleep all through the West 
 ern cities, with illustrations by the audience. That was, 
 
COLONEL INGHAM S JOUKNEY 211 
 
 however, my last winter on the " Lyceum Platform." 
 The committees thought I ought to furnish my own 
 illustrations. Since then I have only been asked to 
 lecture in the charitable courses, where they do not pay. 
 
 It is queer, when you think of it, that the problem 
 has not been worked out before. Here is this untiring 
 soul, clothed upon with a body which grows tired. The 
 body needs rest, and finds .it in sleep. Where is the 
 man meanwhile? This infinite soul, who half an hour 
 ago was listening to Isaiah, or walking with Orion across 
 the heavens, where has he gone while the body is cov 
 ered up in bedclothes ? You do not think the soul has 
 pulled the blanket round his neck, do you ? 
 
 I had brooded over this a good deal, when one night, 
 as my terrestrial globe stood in a strong light from a 
 kerosene lamp, which made a very decent sun for it, I 
 was showing Blanche Stockhardt, who is one of my 
 pets, how nearly opposite to Jerusalem is Pitcainrs 
 Island, the modern paradise, and then I turned it to 
 make noon over this Boston of ours, and to show the 
 child how it was midnight in China. 
 
 Of course at that moment the mystery of Sleep was 
 explained to me, and it has been no mystery since. 
 
 You see, do you not? The soul has no care about 
 distance. Of course the moment when this body does 
 not need him, though for only an hour of night, the 
 soul has only to pass across there where it is day, and 
 start up another machine, which is just ready to be 
 awakened. 
 
 In that moment I saw that there are two of me one 
 here in Boston, and the other there in the Chinese 
 Empire. I did not then know the name of the place, 
 
212 SUSAN S ESCOKT, AND OTHERS 
 
 but as soon as I got Franquelin & Hue s map I found 
 it. Here it is (said Ingham, crossing the room) : it is in 
 this little oasis in the great desert of Gobi. It is a place 
 called Pe-ling, but it is not to be confounded with the 
 Pe-ling Mountains. They are quite different, as the 
 Chinese post-office once explained to me. This Pe-ling 
 is a little leather town, where they have a one-horse 
 sort of a tannery. The other, as I call him, wakes 
 when I sleep. His name out there is Kan-schau. He 
 is a man who keeps account of skins as the people 
 bring them in. He is a sort of civil-service man, who 
 gets his income once a month from the government. 
 
 [I need hardly say that we were aghast when Ingham went into 
 this detail on subjects of which we thought he could not possibly 
 know anything. But we knew him quite too well to interrupt. 
 When his engine is thrown off the track it breaks all travel on all 
 lines for that day, and numberless jack screws are needed before an} 7 
 traffic can be renewed. So we let him go on.] 
 
 II 
 
 You know I had had to do with that region, only it 
 was farther north. I spent the better part of a summer 
 once working with the telegraph at Kofpo Ston, a 
 pretty place on Lake Baikal, on the Russian side of 
 the line. There we had more or less to do with Chi 
 nese traders, and I made one of them teach me a little 
 colloquial Chinese by the Mastery method of Prender- 
 gast. It only requires you to commit one hundred and 
 seventeen words to memory in sixteen different phrases. 
 So soon as Blanche Stockhardt had gone I found my 
 
COLONEL ING HAM S JOURNEY 213 
 
 Chinese lexicon, and wrote the other body a note, ask 
 ing about his health and his habits. The next day, as 
 I tell you, I hunted up the Franquelin atlas, and found 
 the place. I did not know his name I mean, of course, 
 my name out there. But I directed the note, which 
 was written in the first-chop, gold-button, highest Man 
 darin language of all, to " The Most Sensible Man in 
 Pe-ling." 
 
 But this was the letter which, as I said, was returned 
 to me by the Chinese, post-office, with the statement 
 that they had searched all through the Pe-ling Moun 
 tains, and there was no such person there as the one 
 mentioned on the letter. The truth is that our Pe-ling 
 our antipodes on the parallel of latitude latitude 
 42 23 north, longitude 110 east, has, as I said, noth 
 ing to do with the Pe-ling Mountains. It was, on the 
 whole, much better that that letter did not hit him ; for, 
 when I got no answer, I hit on a much better plan. 
 And so it was that I saw Turner, as I tell you. 
 
 [He had not told us any such thing. But this is Ingham s way. 
 And, as I say, it is so risky to interrupt him that \ve always let hirn 
 go on.] 
 
 It occurred to me one day that if the Chinese body 
 kept at the accurate distance of longitude, as, in theo 
 ry, it certainly would when I, Fred Ingham, walked 
 north on the TOth meridian, Kaolin, as I then called 
 my other machine, would walk north on the 110th. If 
 I walked or rode west to Albany four or five degrees 
 of longitude Kaolin would, of course, go west on his 
 parallel say to Ling-shaw. Clearly enough, then, if I 
 wanted to talk matters over with him, he and I had 
 
214 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 only to go to the north pole I on the meridian of 70, 
 and he on that of 110. And on this simple plan I 
 went to work. It is a much easier business than you 
 think it, when you begin to think, as everybody does, 
 by supposing an expedition there to be a government 
 affair, with measurements of magnetic force, and decli 
 nation, and dip, and all that. 
 
 I cared nothing for the dip what I wanted was to 
 see my other self, Kaolin. 
 
 ["I should think lie was beside himself when he started," said 
 George, in a whisper. But, for reasons stated, no one dared speak 
 aloud. Little Annie pulled at George eagerly to keep him quiet,] 
 
 Of course (continued Ingham), if a man cares about 
 the difference between Tetmpus arcticus and Telrapus 
 borealis, he must carry a lot of books with him and a 
 man of science. If he carries a man of science, he must 
 carry the man s rations and his cook, and a man to drag 
 his sled, and so on. Hence what are called "expedi 
 tions." But if a man is only going to see a friend, or 
 to see himself, as I was "veluti in speculo " as the Vul 
 gate hath it and if he only cares for Tetrapus arcti 
 cus as so much good carbon and nitrogen, to be torn in 
 pieces and devoured for the body s fuel, why, he goes 
 as I might go to Young s or to Parker s for my lunch, 
 without an " expedition " to carry me. 
 
 I began by running down to New London. All this 
 was long ago, and they still carried on the whale-fishery 
 there. Yes, Ned, I went to your cousins, or your wife s 
 cousins, those princes, the Perkinses : they were in that 
 business then. 
 
 Then and there I learned, what I fancy most of you 
 
215 
 
 do not know, that there is such a charm about that 
 arctic life that the whalemen always want to be left for 
 the winter when the ship comes home with oil. This 
 is the way that the trade has been carried on of late 
 years. You send up a ship, as soon as the ice is open, 
 with a full crew. You join the men you left the last 
 autumn. They have been fishing from the shore all 
 the time except in the very dead of winter, and trying 
 out their oil. You take on board the oil they have 
 made, and spend the summer making more. Then you 
 bring back all your oil. But the point is, as Mr. Per 
 kins told me, that all the men are eager to stay. It is 
 a reward to stay. You leave those who have behaved 
 well, and the half which comes home is sour and dis 
 appointed. 
 
 Well, I did not tell my whole plan to the Perkinses. 
 They agreed to send me as far north as they could. 
 They agreed to take aboard an extra boat for my pur 
 poses. As it proved, their captain no, it was not 
 Budington, it was another man advanced my plans in 
 every way, though he did not quite know what they 
 were. 
 
 [No one had said it \vas Budington. But the reader must under 
 stand, once for all, that this ejaculatory or parenthetical manner is in 
 Ingham s way, and must be taken for granted.] 
 
 So I got my traps together and started. We were 
 to put in at Upernavik, as they all do. Yes, there is a 
 Lowernavik, or was, but that has nothing to do with it. 
 The Governor was very civil only too civil. His 
 daughter was pretty. You remember her picture. No, 
 not in Hayes s book: before that. No, not in Parry s: 
 
216 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 she was a baby then. I have her picture somewhere. 
 And it was at a party he gave us and some English 
 men from Hull that I met Turner. 
 
 Had you rather I should tell you about Turner, or 
 about Kaolin or Kan-schau? For really I am talking 
 too much. I am doing all the talking. 
 
 [And Ingham looked at his watch. The children cared nothing 
 for Turner : they hardly knew who he was. They clamored for the 
 north pole and Kau-schau ; and Ingham, well pleased, went on.] 
 
 Ill 
 
 As I said, I had no scientific purposes. I was not to 
 write a book, or to present a report. I was not even 
 going into society, as men call society. I was only 
 going to meet my other self not my better half, whom 
 I already knew I had left at home. (And here Ingham 
 looked affectionately at Polly, who was knitting by the 
 fire.) I wanted to see myself just as others see me. So 
 I meant to rely, as at bottom all the grandest expedi 
 tions rely, on the native Greenlanders. I found plenty 
 of them ready to be hired. I had not to tell them 
 whether we were going north, south, east, or west. 
 Enough for them that they had good guns given them, 
 such a harpoon and such shark hooks and cod hooks 
 as they never saw before, promise of good wages, and 
 instructions to report on board the Sarah, with eight 
 dogs, on the morning she sailed. 
 
 Then came a great piece of luck. Baffin s Bay in win 
 ter is much like this water-bottle when it left the ice 
 
217 
 
 machine, and had a solid block of ice frozen in it close 
 to each side. Baffin s Bay, on the 20th of June, is much 
 like this same bottle now, where the ice block floats 
 as it chooses in melted water. It is as the turn of 
 a straw, it is the chance of the wind, whether the 
 "pack" of ice hugs the east coast or the west. By 
 good luck that spring it held close in to the west coast; 
 by good luck the winds were northeasterly, and the 
 "pack" all drifted west. We cracked north in the 
 Sarah, in no time. The captain meant to leave me at 
 the beginning of Smith Sound, but he found that open, 
 and he said he could not resist the temptation of sailing 
 up. It was early July. The days were all one ; the 
 sun was " ever so high " at midnight. The sky oh, it- 
 was so clear ! as if we had been in Spain. In one day 
 we hardly tacked twice we ran all through that 
 rather critical channel, which took its discoverers all 
 summer, and my good captain said he was fairly 
 tempted to run to the north pole. 
 
 But of course he was for whales, and must not go 
 exploring. He landed me and my traps, and my two 
 men, and my eight dogs, and my whale-boat, under the 
 lee of a bold cliff that runs out say here, if you will 
 look at my map, Clara. Here is Baffin s Bay, this will 
 do for Kennedy Land, and here we are at Cape Douglas- 
 Digges. They gave us three cheers. I gave them three, 
 and the Greenlanders howled something ; the dogs 
 howled more. They filled away for the south, and we 
 sent our blessing with them. No, I did not feel lonely. 
 A man carries the middle of the world with him. The 
 world is just as level, as hilly, as large, as small, there 
 as it is anywhere. The sea was all open at the north, 
 
218 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 only the wind hauled a little more into the north. I 
 did not like that then, but it proved an advantage, as 
 3^ou will see. 
 
 A good whale-boat like that will carry, with crowd 
 ing, eighteen men. We were but three, with eight 
 dogs and with Jan s sled, which I laid bottom up over 
 the bow, and the dogs rather liked to crawl in under 
 neath to sleep. I liked to have them, for they are 
 not very sociable brutes, and they have few entertain 
 ing tricks. I had no reason for staying a moment at 
 Douglas-Digges. Jan and Hans were the most good- 
 natured men-Fridays who ever walked in salt-water to 
 pack stores away. We hauled and lifted, and got the 
 bags and the little barrel and the two boxes fitted to 
 my mind, after some trial. Then I stepped my little 
 mast, Jan called in his dogs, whipped the sulky ones, 
 and I cast off ; she had been fastened to a bowlder of 
 basalt which had rolled down from the cliff, and the 
 tide was on the flow. 
 
 I had rigged her with a leg-of-mutton sail just as 
 we saw those boats at Huelva, George. Jan generally 
 sat forward on his sled. But I could tend the sail as I 
 sat in the stern. You know you steer a whale-boat 
 with an oar. 
 
 Well, you do not care anything about our log. But 
 the truth is that that day s success and the next told 
 the whole story. Days we call them. But really 
 when at midnight you have the sun nearly as high as 
 our noon sun is at Christmas, you do not say much 
 about this day or that day. Briefly, I cracked on, 
 sometimes eight knots an hour, as I sailed for forty- 
 one hours. I could not go quite to the north. But my 
 
COLONEL INGHAM S JOURNEY 219 
 
 boat sailed very well into the wind. I soon got tired 
 of holding an oar for a rudder, and so did Hans, and 
 we lashed our steering oar to a davit and a cleat. I 
 made very long tacks, running once twenty-nine knots 
 on the same course to the east of north, and once fifteen 
 knots and more to the west of north. The wind came 
 round to the west and southwest. I thought then, and 
 afterwards I was sure, that in those forty-one hours of 
 that steady pull I made near two hundred miles north 
 ing; that is, you see, nearly three degrees. And, as I 
 say, with that one long bit, in less than two days from 
 the Sarah, it proved that my success w r as won if it 
 were success, after all. 
 
 Forty-one hours, on the whole, towards the pole, 
 brought me, alas! to land again. I was afraid.it was 
 land first when I was taking the sun s declination, 
 which I did every hour. I had, indeed, nothing else to 
 do. The sea was as dull there as it always is. I 
 thought my horizon was bad, and then with my binoc 
 ular I became sure it was not the sea. Sure enough, 
 "low land, and all was well" no longer. For when 
 we came to that beach our hard work began. I had 
 brought rollers from Upernavik, and when we beached 
 her, heavy as she was, we harnessed the dogs, and with 
 their help we dragged her high and dry, above any 
 tide, upon a sort of dry lichen there was, where we 
 could see that deer had been. To my horror, however, 
 there was neither ice nor snow. There was a low hill, 
 but I got little comfort from the prospect at the top. 
 
 Here, you see, I was about five degrees, say three 
 hundred and fifty miles, from the pole, and I and two 
 men and eight dogs were to travel there and back in, 
 
220 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 say, twenty-five days. It was as if you had to go to 
 Syracuse and back, from Boston, with no road. The 
 vehicle was a large two-handed boy s sled not what 
 you call a double-runner, Dick, but twice as wide and 
 twice as long as your clipper-sledrigged with a pole 
 for two men to haul at. But the land coast ran sheer 
 east and west, and I would not lose even a day by 
 cruising along either way. Eight over the lichen I 
 started due north, harnessing the dogs to drag, and 
 taking enough canned food for ten days for me and 
 Jan and Hans. If the guns would not do the rest, 
 why, we must come back. 
 
 Awful work that first day, and the second ! We 
 made only twenty-three miles north in both. Then we 
 came to the strangest flat steppe there is this side of 
 Siberia, ankle-deep in lichen, what people call reindeer- 
 moss, I suppose. The sled flew over it as it would over 
 rough snow. If we had not watched those brutes they 
 would have dragged it away from us and mankind. 
 At last we took turns in riding, merely to keep them 
 back after they fed. Fed ? Yes. They had blood and 
 fat and all things they liked, more than was good for 
 them, for the deer would stand to be shot. They were 
 no more afraid of us than the paroquets were of poor 
 Cowper. Their tameness was shocking to me. As for 
 fire, the only trouble was to keep from setting fire to 
 too much of this lichen, and so setting the north half of 
 the world in a blaze. This lucky hit lasted us three 
 full days more. We could not keep at our work more 
 than eleven hours a day ; but in those eighty hours, 
 more or less, we did make nearly a degree and a half 
 of latitude. When we came to the sea again we were 
 
221 
 
 two hundred and fifty miles farther north than man 
 had ever been known to be. 
 
 But we did come to the sea. And now we had no 
 boat, and it was quite too cold to swim far; that is, the 
 water was. I had no quarrel with the air. Happily the 
 tide was out, the beach was wide, and the coast trended 
 north-northwest, a point west. How well I remember! 
 Over the beach sand, though we were dead tired, I 
 forged on, fairly running the dogs, for I knew this sand 
 gave easy dragging compared with what the upland was 
 beginning to be. The lichen had given out, or was 
 giving out, and there were loose stones, as there had 
 not been before. That was Tuesday, as I well remem 
 ber. Till Friday night, I know, we ran the dogs, or 
 made them work all through the hours of low tide, six, 
 and sometimes seven. Five or six hours at high tide 
 we all slept and I tell you the dogs slept sound on 
 the upland. ]S T o trouble about their eating or ours; 
 only a monotonous bill of fare. Seals galore ! a stupid 
 seal at every headland, and lying on the shore in herds 
 or flocks sometimes, so that they were fairly in the 
 way. You do not like train-oil, Clara, because you 
 always see it rancid ; but in the open air, warm from 
 the blubber, if you had been walking and running a 
 week, you might fancy it. 
 
 That coast is just like the Jersey shore. It is flat as 
 your hand, as we say. There is one stretch where we 
 ran almost due north thirty-six miles, if the sextant 
 did not lie. In those days between Tuesday and Fri 
 day I made more than two degrees. Still open sea 
 on the west of me. If I had only had my whale- 
 boat! But I did have the dogs, and they were as 
 
222 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 well as horses are said to be. My horse is always 
 sick. 
 
 It was that lucky bit of beach beach hardly broken 
 by a crack of inlet which gave us our last success. 
 Sometimes we had to go into the water knee -deep 
 at some inlet, and once I went in as high as my 
 armpits. That time it was a carry when we floated 
 the sled, and swam the dogs, and took the bags and 
 boxes and the barrel in our arms. But the hard run 
 afterwards warmed us very soon, I can tell you, and 
 dried us. 
 
 And now, if you have counted, you can see we were 
 near half-way. I mean we were near the pole and 
 the pole was, of course, half-way back to Douglas- 
 Digges. By my last three declinations, when I came 
 into camp that Friday night night we called it in 
 broad sunshine, I was only twenty -four miles and a 
 little more from the pole twenty-one minutes of lati 
 tude, Dick, if you are particular: quite as close, that, ns 
 the vernier of my sextant would read for me. 
 
 But here the shore began to trend west, and even 
 south of west. I had been conscious for some time 
 that I was running up a bay like Chesapeake Bay, 
 and I was now near the head of it. I fed the dogs 
 on the last seal we had killed you knock them on the 
 head with an axe, Harry and we all got into our bags 
 for sleep, I a good deal excited now as to the issue. 
 Before supper was done it had clouded over. I was 
 glad I had made my observations. When I took the 
 sun at noon which was after we camped I had staked 
 out a north and south line. By this I tested my com 
 pass, which pointed about south-southwest. The varia- 
 
tion was 152 south. So untrue is it that the constant 
 needle points to any pole but its own. 
 
 When I waked in the morning it was snowing, and 
 my bag had six inches of snow on it. Yes, Clara, you 
 sleep in a bag of felt, inside a bag of canvas, inside a 
 bag of India-rubber cloth. After you are in the bag 
 you button it up over your head, with only a little 
 nose-hole for air. So it does not much matter whether 
 it snows or not. I rolled Hans over Jan and waked 
 them, and explained that we were to leave their dear 
 sea and cross the land again. Hans said we should 
 find deer, but I doubted. I only told them both that 
 we had not far to go. Nor had we. Rough it was, 
 very hard it was, while the snow lasted. But by noon 
 this cleared away, and at six I let them camp. There 
 was old snow, and in an hour they had built a snow hut 
 under the lee of a hill. We slept like bears, and the 
 next day Sunday there were but eleven miles, as I 
 counted, between me and the pole. 
 
 IV 
 
 1 let Hans, who had hurt his foot, stay in the hut 
 with the dogs. 
 
 The sun had come out again. The world was white 
 with new snow. 
 
 I was almost provoked that the country was so unin 
 teresting. 
 
 It was not flat. 
 
 It was not mountainous. 
 
224 
 
 There was no great cup in the midst of which a 
 pole rose high to the sky. 
 
 There was no sugar-loaf, like the Peak of Teneriffe, 
 rising in my horizon northward. 
 
 There was only a vulgar rolling country, beautiful as 
 new snow is always beautiful, but as little varied- 
 well, as that stretch is between Tobolsk and Smilkelsk, 
 if you take the lower road. 
 
 I bade Jan take his gun, and put in his pouch a can 
 of beef. For me, I carried nothing but hardtack and 
 cartridges. 
 
 It was Sunday morning. 
 
 Up and down. Not a tree, not a bush, not a rock, 
 not a sound, not a beast, not a bird. I was sorry 
 we had not worn our snow-shoes. But Jan drew 
 the empty sled : he was sure we should strike a 
 deer. 
 
 Up and down. North, still north. One hour, two 
 hours, three. About eleven I called a halt. I ate two 
 or three biscuits, and gave Jan as many. 
 
 Why was I so hopelessly sleepy ? 
 
 Half an hour s rest; and as I was rousing myself I 
 saw poor Jan, without an apology, drop bodily on the 
 ground and go to sleep. 
 
 It was not cold enough for him to be stupefied. Why 
 were we so sleepy ? 
 
 On the whole, I thought I would leave Jan. He 
 had cleared the snow to the ground. And I covered 
 him with a heavy bearskin he had upon the sled. My 
 march was now less than an hour. I would take his 
 beef for a lunch. I knew he would sleep till I came 
 back again. 
 
COLONEL INGHAM S JOURNEY 225 
 
 North for the last tramp of all 1 
 I took the sled with me. 
 
 As I pulled up a long slope there is, just before 
 you come to the pole itself, it seemed to me that I 
 should die with sleep. Still, of mere will power, I 
 pressed on until I turned the summit, and looked still 
 north. 
 
 A wide, flat plain a hundred feet below me stretched 
 I cannot tell how far away. Perhaps a mile and a 
 half from me a black spot. Was it a man ? The bi 
 nocular settled that. It was a man, and he was lying 
 on a sled, asleep. 
 
 But for me, had it been the angel Uriel, I could not 
 have gone to him. I was dead with sleep. I just re 
 member having sense to unroll my bag, which I carried 
 as a knapsack, and crawling into it, and then I was at 
 once unconscious. 
 
 How long I slept I do not know, but it must have 
 been hours : that I knew afterwards. 
 
 When I awoke I did not know where I was. But I 
 heard snoring. The bag was not buttoned. I had 
 beer too sleepy. 
 
 I pushed my head out, and at that moment a man 
 fell heavily to the ground at my side. He had fallen 
 asleep as he sat watching me. 
 
 He was in the winter costume of Northern China 
 a fur cap, a fur pea-jacket, trousers of deerskin. I had 
 seen hundreds of such traders on the Baikal. 
 
 It was Myself my Other Self ! He had come to 
 meet me ! I was wholly prepared to speak to him. I 
 cried to him in these words : 
 
226 SUSAN S ESCOKT, AND OTHERS 
 
 I 
 
 But he heard nothing; he lay like a log. 
 
 I shook him. I rolled him over. He only groaned 
 in his sleep. But it was as if he were dead only 
 he breathed. Then I remembered how I had been 
 sleeping ! I remembered how stupidly Jan was sleep 
 ing! 
 
 Could it be ? it was that Jan s other self was three 
 miles south of us, on the opposite meridian ! 
 
 And I? and Kaolin? Of course he must sleep while 
 I waked ; I must sleep while he waked. This was the 
 basis of the whole journey. 
 
 No one had ever thought that one soul could carry 
 on two bodies at the same time. Of course, then, we 
 could not talk to each other. 
 
 All we could do was to write, and await an answer. 
 
 I wrote in my best handwriting, in Chinese, this note : 
 
 "My brother nay, myself ; I see you are well. My name is 
 Frederic Inglmm. What is yours ? What grief that we cannot hear 
 each other s voices, or see each other s eyes ?" 
 
 Then I crept into my bag, and forced myself to go 
 to sleep. I did not sleep long. When I woke there 
 was a note in my hand, which said : 
 
227 
 
 "I am culled Kan-schau. My rank is of the blue button of the 
 province of Fi. I am the government inspector of furs. May your 
 waking be joyful!" 
 
 I think he saw the situation, and poked me hard as 
 his last conscious act. But this made no difference. I 
 should have waked, of course, as soon as he slept. 1 
 had with me Wells s Smaller Dictionary, and I made 
 out most of what he wrote. Then I bethought me 
 what I should say. What did I want to say? What 
 do you ever want to say in a letter ? Of course he 
 knew what I was, and I knew what he was, for I was 
 he, and he was I. So far there was no need to write. 
 
 As for the inspection of furs, I cared nothing for 
 that. Nor did he care, I think, much about my home- 
 mission work in District K. 
 
 It seemed a pity to talk politics. As to fine art, I 
 did not know the Chinese words for "realistic, or 
 u Pre-Raphaelite." 
 
 It is not the first time that, having an opportunity 
 to address a friend, I found that I had very little to say 
 to him. 
 
 What I did was this always a good thing to do : I 
 opened my can of beef, which I had taken from Jan, 
 and placed under it a bit of hardtack. I wrote : 
 
 " Feed yourself from my stores. Eat of rny bread and meat. If 
 only you might sit with my family at my table ! But, alas ! our 
 destiny forbids." 
 
 Then I crept back into my bag, counted ten thousand, 
 and imagined a flock of sheep jumping over a wall, un 
 til I lost myself in slumber. 
 
 I awoke to find this note : 
 
228 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 " 1 am made new by your bounty. Eat of my last bird s-nest. It 
 is indeed life to death, and strength to faintness. We must now turn 
 our backs on each other. But I leave a guide for your instruction." 
 
 Dead asleep I found him, but this message, and a 
 Chinese envelope with his Chinese address, were in his 
 hand. 
 
 I fastened in a parcel a volume of my essays, a small 
 flask of cordial, and a picture alphabet for his children. 
 I wrote my address on an envelope, and on the parcel 
 1 placed a card with this : 
 
 " FAREWELL. 
 
 "We shall not soon meet again. I shall rejoice in your joy, I 
 shall sorrow in your sorrow. Polly, my wife, will gladly hear of 
 the welfare of yours. Farewell." 
 
 I left it in his hands, but as I did so that horrid drow 
 siness came over me. I fell ; but waked to find, in a 
 sort of Pidgin-English, this billet by my side. I was 
 alone. 
 
 II By -by. Top-notch muchee good for him all the ways. By-by. 
 Two Lapland men behind this Kan-schau. Muchee-muchee, him go 
 and help them. By-by." 
 
 Could my gold-chop Chinese be as bad as his Eng 
 lish? The prints of his feet in the snow were clear 
 enough. But he had gone. I looked at the sun, which 
 was near noon when I left Jan, and it was now quite 
 on the other side of the sky. I looked at my watch, 
 which Bond had made for me, for safety s sake at this 
 point, and had arranged for it a dial of twenty-four 
 hours. It was half-past twenty-three o clock. Poor 
 
229 
 
 Jan had been asleep twelve hours, or had waked to 
 find me gone. 
 
 I retraced my own steps, and found him just rous 
 ing. I knew one of Kan-schau s Laplanders was going 
 to sleep at the same moment. 
 
 Jan never knew how long lie slept. In three hours 
 more we had joined Plans, and with two snow-rabbits 
 which he had knocked over, and a few specimens of 
 Grassus inequalis which he had killed for the dogs, 
 we all feasted. We all slept twelve hours. I suppose 
 Kan-schau was making a long pull home. 
 
 I have never seen him again. 
 
A NEW ARABIAN NIGHT 
 
 THE President of the United States could not sleep. 
 
 He had been in bed an hour. He had calculated the 
 interest on the national debt at three per cent., at three 
 and a half, and at four per cent., and still he could not 
 sleep. He had estimated a payment of $9,000,000 a 
 month for one year, $10,000,000 a month the next year, 
 and so on, and when it would all be paid. 
 
 And still he could not sleep. The truth was that 
 the President had spent the afternoon at the reception 
 of Mr. Jaffrey, who was then the Secretary of State. 
 Mr. Jaffrey had four handsome daughters, to be re 
 membered among the finest women in the world. The 
 President and Miss Gertrude were on the pleasantest 
 terms. He sat by her an hour as she presided at the 
 coffee-urn, and without so much as thinking of it he 
 drank a great deal more coffee than was good for him, 
 or, at the least, for his sleeping faculty. 
 
 So it was that he lay awake. He thought it was his 
 anxiety about the interoceanic canal. It was not. It 
 was Miss Gertrude s coffee. 
 
 The President pulled out his repeater and struck it. 
 
 One and two quarters. 
 
 He lay calculating the national debt, as he thought, 
 for about ten hours. Then he struck the repeater 
 again. 
 
A NEW ARABIAN NIGHT 231 
 
 One and three quarters. 
 
 He calculated more. He calculated, at compound 
 interest, four and a quarter a year, how large a sink 
 ing-fund would pay it if Thus and So. 
 
 He struck his repeater again, after what he thought 
 eleven hours. 
 
 Two o clock. 
 
 " This will never do," said the President. " I will do 
 as Aaron the Wise would have done." He tumbled 
 out of bed, he lighted the gas, he began to dress, and 
 rang for his valet, who was a black man from a Caro 
 lina plantation, named Mesrour. 
 
 " Mesrour, go across the square to Mr. Jaffrey s, and 
 say I want to see him." 
 
 "Yes, sare," said Mesrour, who was surprised, but 
 pretended to be surprised at nothing. 
 
 Mr. Jaffrey also was surprised. But he also, like a 
 loyal and well-bred diplomatist, pretended to be sur 
 prised at nothing. 
 
 "Jaffrey," said the President, as he met him under 
 the great porch of the White House, "it is pleasanter 
 out-doors than in. I cannot sleep, and I have called 
 you that we may go to walk together, and see how my 
 people live." 
 
 " I hear and I obey," said Jaffrey, pretending to laugh, 
 but thinking in the bottom of his heart that there were 
 disadvantages in being the recipient of Executive fa 
 vors. 
 
 "You see, Jaffrey, I have not many subjects. In 
 Virginia yonder they are the Governor s subjects, and 
 in Baltimore yonder it is the same, with another Gov 
 ernor. Only the people of this city, and the red-skins 
 
232 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 and those who skin them in the Territories, who are 
 my real subjects. And of these here I do not know 
 how they live. Let us go and see. Will not that be a 
 good thing to do? Perhaps there are reforms needed. 
 Perhaps I may send a special message to the House. 
 Or the Commissioners of the District would take a hint 
 from me eh, Jaffrey ?" 
 
 Jaffrey tried to rise to the occasion. He saw that 
 the President was in earnest, and really wanted to do 
 the right thing. For him, he had been happily in bed, 
 and he wished he were there still. But he and the 
 President had gone through too many campaigns to 
 gether in the field and in the caucus for him to flinch 
 now. He knew and he respected this tender spot in 
 the President s heart, and if an hour s tramping up 
 and down the Avenue would help him, why, Jaffrey 
 was not the man to say no. 
 
 "No, Mesrour, you need not go," said the President 
 to the faithful negro, who followed them out into the 
 night, as he would have followed his master under a 
 shower of fire, unless he had been sent back. 
 
 So the two walked down the Avenue towards the 
 Capitol. 
 
 And the poor President was disappointed. There 
 was a moon. The shadows were picturesque. But it 
 was all commonplace, Western, and dull. He had 
 hoped well, after midnight, you know, alone and 
 on foot, you know- But things would not look 
 strange. 
 
 The grog-shops were all shut. Even at Willard s 
 there was hardly a light. Hardly a hell in the second 
 story had a light in the windows. 
 
A NEW ARABIAN NIGHT 233 
 
 " Jaffrey," he said, rather sadly, for he was disap 
 pointed, " were you ever in Bagdad ?" 
 
 " Oh yes, when I was minister to Persia, you know. 
 The Secretary sent me word about some excavations- 
 Mosul, Nineveh, or somewhere and I went down to 
 Bagdad." 
 
 " And is Bagdad like Washington, Jaffrey ? Is the 
 street the main street, you know quite as well lighted 
 and quite as dead after midnight, or are there well, 
 are there dervishes and nautch-girls and calenders ?" 
 
 "What is a calender?" said Jaffrey. "There was a 
 calender in John Gilpin, but I never knew what he 
 was or did." 
 
 " Nor I," said the President, " no more nor the dead, 
 as my excellent Mesrour would say. But, Jaffrey, look 
 yonder. What is that? That is not commonplace." 
 
 And he pointed down one of those dirty streets to 
 the south of the Avenue, which no one by any acci 
 dent goes into if he can help himself, where was a tall 
 column of yellow fire. " There is an adventure," said 
 the bebored and ennuye President. "Let us go and 
 see." 
 
 Mr. Jaffrey also was curious. He thought he knew 
 Washington, and he knew that there was no foundery 
 in those regions. When they came near the spot it 
 seemed more mysterious than ever. The flames rose 
 behind a high brick wall. In front of this a modest 
 brick house, of the kind which ambitious speculators 
 built seventy years ago, before men knew which was to 
 be the court end of Washington, was brilliantly lighted. 
 A duet of a p iano and violin was heard from within. 
 
 The President bade Jaffrey ring, and he did so. 
 
234 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 " I have a desire to enter this house," said the Presi 
 dent, " and to see who is giving this concert." 
 
 " They are a party who have become intoxicated," 
 replied Jaffrey, " and I fear that we may experience ill 
 usage." 
 
 " I must enter," said the President, " and you must 
 devise some stratagem by which we can obtain admis 
 sion." 
 
 " I hear and I obey," said Jaffrey, laughing as before ; 
 and at that moment a neatly dressed negro girl opened 
 the door. 
 
 " Madam," said the courtly Jaffrey, " we are two 
 merchants from St. Louis, who have been in Washing 
 ton some days. A merchant here invited us to an en 
 tertainment to-night, and we went to his house. We 
 ate and drank with him till it was time to depart, and 
 going out into the night we have missed our way to 
 the hotel, and we do not know its name. We trust, 
 therefore, in your generosity that you will admit us to 
 pass the rest of the night in your house. By doing this 
 you will obtain a reward in heaven." 
 
 The girl ran back, evidently consulted with her mis 
 tress, and then opened the inner door, and said, "Come 
 in." The President entered, therefore, with Jaffrey. 
 They left their hats where they were bidden, and passed 
 into the concert-room. The performance went on as 
 if they had not been seen. But as soon as the sonata 
 ended, the party present arose, and a lady said : 
 
 " Welcome are our guests ; but we have a condition 
 to impose upon you, that ye speak not of that which 
 doth not concern you, lest ye hear that which will not 
 please you." 
 
A NEW ARABIAN NIGHT 235 
 
 They answered, " Good," and from that moment they 
 were treated as if they had always been companions of 
 their hosts. 
 
 In the next moment a black butler threw open the 
 large door which parted them from a dining-room, and 
 said, " Supper is served, madam." 
 
 The company went in in form, the President and 
 Jaffrey making the last two of the long procession. 
 
 The President took his seat rather timidly, the more 
 so that Mr. Jaffrey was taken quite to the other end of 
 the other side of the table. There were flowers ar 
 ranged in high vases, so that he could not so much as 
 see his faithful companion. He was received with 
 more display of courtesy than would have been shown 
 were this an ordinary boarding-house, but certainly 
 with less interest in his personality than if, when he 
 was Secretary of State, he had presented himself as a 
 guest at the English minister s. On one side a lady 
 sat, on the other a large man "gentleman," the Pres 
 ident would have said, had he met him in a legislative 
 assembly. The gentleman seemed to present the Presi 
 dent to the lady as he sat down. But if he did, the 
 President was none the wiser. 
 
 The table was elegantly furnished and decorated. 
 The President fell into talk with the gentleman by him. 
 In a little the lady opposite spoke to that gentleman. 
 The talk was on some matter of detail as to what would 
 turn up the next day in the Senate, whether it were 
 best that the ladies should take some friends to the 
 gallery. It happened that the President knew the 
 order of business, and he gave the information needed, 
 
236 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 and so, without formality, he soon found himself in 
 conversation with the others, and recognized as if he 
 were a familiar member of their company. 
 
 One seat was still vacant at the end of the table, 
 and one nearly opposite the President. But this was 
 not for many minutes. Before the next remove two 
 young men came in, looking a little flushed in the 
 face, but perhaps even more carefully dressed than any 
 one else ; although, as the President had observed, 
 with some little annoyance, every one, excepting him 
 self and Mr. Jaifrey, was in full evening dress. When 
 these two young men came in they were greeted by a 
 cordial hand-clapping, which ran all around the board. 
 They smiled and bowed, but said nothing, and applied 
 themselves one to his fillet of beef and one to his roast 
 capon. 
 
 So soon, however, as this course was removed, in 
 the little lull while the servants were changing the 
 plates and rearranging the table, the lady who sat at 
 the head, far away from the President, struck her glass 
 with her knife, and thus secured absolute silence. " We 
 will hear the report," she said. And all cried, " Hear! 
 hear!" 
 
 The young man with light hair rose to his feet, 
 seemed embarrassed, but read from a slip of paper, 
 " Nine ounces silver, four ounces nickel, two pounds 
 seven ounces and a half copper." 
 
 The announcement was received with new hand- 
 clapping. Then the other, who had black hair, rose 
 and said, " One ounce seven pennyweights gold," and 
 the applause was renewed. But nothing more was 
 said. The servants brought round the next course, 
 
A NEW ARABIAN NIGHT 237 
 
 and the dozen streams of broken conversation began 
 to flow again. As for the President, he was a good 
 deal troubled. Where was he, and what was this re 
 port? Were these people debasers of the currency? 
 Was he sharing the food of a lot of people virtually 
 counterfeiters? He shuddered as he remembered the 
 denunciations in the last report of the Mint Master, 
 who had been bitter in his protests as to the quantity 
 of degraded money which came in to him. 
 
 But the President was wary. He showed no fear. 
 He did let his fork fall upon the table, so as to judge 
 for himself by the ring whether it were silver or al- 
 bata, Silver unmistakably! With the indifferent tone 
 of an old diplomat, he said to the lady by him : 
 
 " I am very stupid. Am I growing deaf? I did not 
 understand where all this bullion came from." 
 
 " Not understand ? Why, it came from the straw, of 
 course. 1 
 
 " Straw ?" said the President " what straw ?" 
 
 "Why, where do you suppose you are?" said she, 
 amazed in her turn. 
 
 " I suppose I am at an elegant dinner-party, by the 
 side of a very charming lady." 
 
 " As you will," said she ; " certainly she is by the 
 side of a very flattering gentleman. But, pardon me, 
 I do not know what countryman you are. I do not 
 recognize your patois. Still, it is not in many coun 
 tries that a table like this what shall I say ? grows 
 on every tree. That is a bad metaphor." And she 
 laughed very prettily. 
 
 " Certainly not in any country I have visited," said 
 the President. 
 
238 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 " And certainly the club here, the ladies and gentle 
 men around us, would not expect the lady president 
 yonder to furnish it for them every night." 
 
 The President started when he heard the lady presi 
 dent spoken of. But he saw in a moment that he need 
 not be afraid. 
 
 "Of course, then," she continued, " it would not be a 
 club. It is a club well, because the suppers come 
 from the straw." 
 
 "What straw? said the President again, somewhat 
 stupidly. 
 
 " Why, what straw is full of gold and silver and 
 nickel and copper ? Do you not know ? Why, indeed, 
 did you come? The only straw which yields such 
 returns as they have reported is the straw from the 
 street-cars. Our friend here contracts to furnish clean 
 straw every morning, and her people clean out the cars 
 at midnight. Valentine and Asa yonder are the smelt 
 ers. They graduated at the Argo Works in Colorado. 
 The club lives on the products. Why, if they had 
 reported only two ounces copper, seven ounces nickel 
 voildtout! we should have had short commons to 
 morrow night a fish-ball and a cracker and a glass 
 of water each. But if a traveller like you knows what 
 gold is worth, you see we shall not starve at least, for 
 twenty-four hours." 
 
 The President felt as if he had already been repaid 
 for his adventure, and understood better than before 
 what became of the national currency. 
 
 But he tried to conceal any annoyance, and indeed 
 he unbent to the Bohemian carelessness of the occa 
 sion more than he had done, poor man, since he was 
 
A NEW ARABIAN NIGHT 239 
 
 at an Alpha Delta supper in New Padua. Once and 
 again he led up to talk which he thought would show 
 who his neighbors were. But, ah me ! though he was 
 an old diplomat, these people were too much for him. 
 He had wormed secrets out of Bismarck in Berlin ; he 
 had been more than a match, in his Western frankness, 
 for Clemenceau; and Sagasta had told him secrets 
 which he never told to any other man. But the woman 
 at his right and the man at his left told him no secrets, 
 and at the end of two hours the President did not 
 know whether they knew who he was, and he did 
 know very well that he did not know who they were. 
 It was more than two hours, it was nearly three, when 
 the Queen of the Feast clapped her hands and pointed 
 to a gentleman who had sung one or two merry songs 
 before. At the signal he began to sing " We won t 
 go home till morning," and the whole company joined 
 in the chorus. With the last words, the stately butler 
 flung up the heavy curtains of the one window, and lo ! 
 in the east the first streak of dawn. In less than two 
 minutes the President and Jaffrey found themselves on 
 the sidewalk walking up the Avenue. 
 
 As they walked home the President was silent till 
 they came to Fourteenth Street, and Mr. Jaffrey, if 
 possible, was more silent. But as they turned in at 
 that side-gate by which you go up to the White House, 
 the President said to the Secretary : 
 
 " Jaffrey, this is very mysterious." 
 
 u Yes, it is very mysterious," said the other. 
 
 " We cannot have such things right under the shadow 
 of the Capitol without inquiry." And the President 
 
240 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 spoke with a certain firmness of tone which terrified 
 his Secretary. For Mr. Jaffrey knew very well that 
 when he spoke in that tone he was immovable. In 
 truth, it was the power to speak in that tone which 
 had made him President. 
 
 Mr. Jaffrey thought, indeed, that any inquiry into 
 the proceedings of a horde of Bohemians would be 
 absurd. It would be sure to get into the papers, and 
 there was no saying where it might end. But he knew 
 the President s tone, so he made no opposition. But 
 he said : " Yes, indeed, there must be an inquiry. I 
 will send a note to the Commissioners of the District." 
 
 " Fiddle-stick !" said the President. " Commissioners 
 of the Town Pump ! I shall make the inquiry myself." 
 
 " Make it yourself !" said Mr. Jaffrey, startled out of 
 his usual tact. " But you have no authority in this 
 District. You are not even a Justice of the Quorum." 
 
 "Quorum be hanged!" said the President. " I shall 
 make the inquiry." And Mr. Jaffrey knew he had lost 
 the point by the suddenness of his ejaculation. The 
 President at once thanked him for his good company, 
 and said, " I think I shall sleep now." 
 
 Poor Mr. Jaffrey went home quite sure that he 
 should sleep now. 
 
 The next morning the President sent over to the 
 librarv of the Department of State, and bade them send 
 him the Arabian Nights. Then, while the office-seekers 
 were kept at bay by his private secretaries, the Presi 
 dent lighted a cigar, and found what the Caliph Haroun- 
 al-Raschid would have done in the same circumstances. 
 He varied the detail so as to fit the civilization of the 
 nineteenth century and the longitude of Washington. 
 
A NEW ARABIAN NIGHT 241 
 
 He struck the bell, saw the steward, and ordered a 
 specially nice lunch at two o clock for about four-and- 
 twenty people. Then with his own hand, on gilt- 
 edged note-paper, he wrote an invitation which said 
 that the President of the United States invited to 
 lunch that day the lady of the house where he had 
 supped last night, and all her guests. 
 
 " There," said he to himself, as he sent off the note 
 by his private messenger; "let us see how much power 
 that has, though I am not a Justice of the Quorum." 
 Then he sent a message to Mr. Jaffrey that he must 
 come to lunch, and gave the next three hours to the 
 office-seekers. 
 
 But at two o clock the office-seekers had all gone, 
 and the President was in that pretty oval room which 
 so often changes its name and its furniture at the 
 White House, waiting for his guests. Nor did he have 
 to wait long. A series of coupes and other carriages 
 drove up under the porte-cochere, and twenty-four ladies 
 and gentlemen were shown in by the ceremonious 
 butler. The President recognized at once his courteous 
 hostess of last night. She made her apologies very 
 simply for those of the company who had been called 
 out of town. In a moment more, lunch was announced. 
 She took the President s arm ; Mr. Jaffrey gave his to 
 another lady who had come in the same carriage with 
 her, and the rest followed, much at their own sweet 
 will. The talk at table was quite as gay as it had 
 been the night before. But the President had a better 
 chance than the night before to talk with his very 
 agreeable companion. 
 
 When at last they were playing with their iced fruits, 
 
 10 
 
242 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHEES 
 
 the President spoke a little louder than he had done, so 
 that all other conversation was hushed. He said : " La 
 dies and gentlemen, I was very much interested in your 
 club last night, and greatly enjoyed your hospitality. 
 My curiosity was excited, but I was not so rude as to 
 ask questions of my hosts. My morning sleep has not 
 allayed it, and, as you see, I am now fortunate enough 
 to reverse our positions. A host may ask questions 
 where a guest must be silent." Then he laughed. " I 
 shall question you now." 
 
 "As you please," said the lady; and, as it happened, 
 all the others said, " As you please." 
 
 Then Mr. Jaffrey remembered how he had told the 
 President that he could not make any inquiry, and here 
 was the inquiry half over. 
 
 " All my life long," said the President, "since I read 
 the Arabian Nights and John Gilpin, I have wanted 
 to know what a calender was. Am I right in thinking 
 that some of you are calenders ?" 
 
 With one voice, even to Mr. Jaffrey s surprise, all the 
 twenty-four answered, " We are all calenders." 
 
 " The wish of my heart is answered," said the Presi 
 dent. 
 
 "Easily gratified, Mr. President," said the first of his 
 guests. 
 
 "I will gladly tell you what are my functions as a 
 calender," said a gentleman near him. 
 
 THE STOKY OF THE FIRST CALENDER 
 
 " A calender is defined by Mr. Lane as * a royal mendi 
 cant. We are all royal, because we are born from the 
 sovereign people. We are all mendicants, because we 
 
A NEW ARABIAN NIGHT 243 
 
 live by our wits on the work of the industrious. My 
 business and that of my wife is to stretch new boots for 
 millionaires. They send to us their boots as they come 
 from the makers. We walk in them a few clays, till 
 that horrid new look is gone, and then we send them 
 to our patrons. It is not the easiest way to earn one s 
 living, but it does not involve the hardest toil. The busi 
 ness grows upon our hands, or, I should say, on our feet, 
 and we are bringing up to it our sons and daughters." 
 Then the Bohemian opposite told his story. 
 
 THE STORY OF THE THIRD * CALENDER 
 
 " My business is to write autographs for collectors. 
 My sons are both dressed neatly in the uniform of pages 
 at the Capitol. Every one in the House end of the 
 building thinks Gustavus is a Senate page ; every one 
 at the Senate end thinks Horace is a House page. They 
 are pretty boys, and, for a dollar, either will take the 
 autograph-book of any travelling fanatic and have it 
 filled the same day with distinguished names. If you 
 have little poems written you must pay two dollars. I 
 sit down-stairs in the committee-room of the Commit 
 tee on Cross-purposes. It is very seldom that any one 
 comes in. If he does, he thinks I am private secretary 
 to somebody else. My boys books are filled much 
 faster than any of the other pages , so that we are very 
 popular. Frankly," he said, laughing, " I cannot often 
 attend a party like this, for these are our best hours, 
 and each hour of them is worth ten dollars." 
 
 * For reasons only known to the elect, the story of the Second Cal 
 ender is untold in correct editions of the Arabian Nights. 
 
244 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 THE FOURTH CALENDER S STORY 
 
 " This is an off week with me. There are six of us 
 in all ; three work one week, and three another. I and 
 ray two friends" and two stout gentlemen bowed as 
 he waved his hand "run an elevator on the Sixth 
 Avenue in New York. It takes belated travellers up 
 to the Died rich Street station of the elevated road. The 
 contrivance is simple two scales, one at the top, one 
 at the bottom, connected by ropes which pass over pul 
 leys. I and my friends weigh more than six hundred ; 
 the average passenger weighs only a hundred and fifty. 
 When from above we see three people on the lower 
 scale, we leap upon the upper, and it goes down at 
 once. Then we run up-stairs as quickly as we can, 
 leaving, however, number three to take the money, 
 while he who did take it becomes number one, and 
 goes up with us. As you see, Mr. President, we have 
 to run up-stairs all the time for a week, always going 
 down on the elevator. It is a very fatiguing occupa 
 tion, but it is very lucrative, and so we are able to lie 
 off half the time." 
 
 All this time Mr. Jaffrey was looking straight at the 
 lady opposite him, and pretending not to know her. 
 But now it was her turn, and she said : 
 
 STORY OF ANOTHER CALENDER 
 
 " My business is to return calls for the wives of Sen 
 ators and Secretaries. I make Mrs. Jaffrey s calls every 
 Thursday. I do not know what she does that morning 
 after ten o clock. I go to her house then with a visi 
 ble pair of curling-irons. But when I go down-stairs I 
 
A NEW ARABIAN NIGHT 245 
 
 hide them in a muff, and have her card-case and her 
 list. Then the coachman drives me up and down the 
 different streets, and I leave her cards for her. I can 
 do it quite as accurately as she does, and sometimes I 
 think I do it better. As for my husband here 
 
 "Stop! stop!" cried Mr. Jaffrey ; for he was afraid 
 she was going to say that the husband made his calls 
 for him. 
 
 Then, amid general laughter, they heard 
 
 THE STORY OF THE LAST CALENDER 
 
 " My business," he said, in rather a foreign accent, 
 "is to provide what we call Dromios; you say substi 
 tutes. On the regulation list of Adams, Allison, Amos, 
 Anderson, Andrews, as you hear it called in the House, 
 when the yeas and nays are ordered, there are many 
 gentlemen who would like to do something else, if only 
 the press were not after them in their absences. For 
 two dollars a day we provide substitutes for them, well 
 got up. For three dollars we give a man who will frank 
 the documents." 
 
 " How much a day if he draws the checks ?" said Mr. 
 Jaff rev, laughing. But the President hushed him down. 
 He was now intensely interested. He heard this calen 
 der s story to the end. When Mesrour came in the mo 
 ment after with a message, the President pretended 
 there was an important despatch. Of course the party 
 melted away. Only the President kept Mr. Jaffrey and 
 this last calender. 
 
 When they were quite alone, he said to the calender, 
 " Have you have you could you find a man who 
 would who would personate me?" 
 
246 
 
 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 " Of course, Eccellenza," said the Italian. " Our Mr. 
 Jones did you last night at some private theatricals in 
 Baltimore. He is as like as the figure yonder." And 
 he pointed to the mirror. 
 
 " Jaffrey," said the President, "you know I am dead 
 sick of all this. If I could have a change ! The thing 
 will kill me if I cannot run away before the session 
 ends/ 
 
 Jaffrey was beside himself with alarm. But it was 
 just like last night. The President had the bit in his 
 teeth again. 
 
 " Six long weeks before the adjournment. I might 
 have a month shooting buffaloes in Manitoba, and leave 
 this man here. Jaffrey, dear fellow, let me go !" 
 
 Jaffrey remonstrated. He took the President into a 
 corner, and pleaded with him. But you might as well 
 plead with a northeast wind. 
 
 " Jaffrey, I will go. That is all." Then turning to 
 the Italian, and speaking in his choicest Tuscan, he said : 
 " Domani, saro eternamente obbligato," and the man 
 withdrew. Again Mr. Jaffrey begged and begged. But 
 the President was like iron. 
 
 And the next day the man came with the simulated 
 President. The real President was startled himself 
 Jaffrey was more startled when the creature threw 
 off the mackintosh which disguised him. Once and 
 again he and the President even deceived the wary 
 Secretary, alert though he was, by changing places 
 when he was talking to the Italian. The President s 
 madness was complete. This man should not leave the 
 private office. He would leave it himself. He called 
 
A NEW ARABIAN NIGHT 247 
 
 Mesrour. It proved that his carpet-bag was ready pack 
 ed. He covered himself with the stranger s water-proof, 
 and he and Mesrour went to the B. and O. station, leav 
 ing poor Jaffrey in agony with the other. 
 
 But things did not work so badly, after all. The new 
 incumbent was very teachable. Fortunately a great 
 general died, and all public receptions were given up. 
 Then it was said that the President had a cold, and 
 could not be abroad. Then he did go abroad, and to 
 every one s amazement developed a very marked passion 
 for driving four-in-hand. At last, on the Fourth of July, 
 there had to be a levee. The President said one or two 
 queer things, but the court journals said the reports of 
 them were all lies. On the whole, Mr. Jaffrey s times 
 were not so hard as he feared by no means so hard as 
 when his chief was at home. For many days he had 
 a despatch from a Mr. Thompson at the Northwest : 
 u All well." " O. K." " Quite right/ At last these 
 stopped ; and then Jaffrey knew that his friend was in 
 Manitoba slaughtering the few remaining buffaloes. 
 But the lull in despatches was longer than he liked. 
 Mr. Jaffrey began to be uneasy, when, late one night, 
 the door-bell rang, and Mesrour appeared! His story, 
 alas ! even with all his reiterations, was a very short 
 one. 
 
 All had gone well as far as the Butte a Carcajou. 
 Then they crossed to the Dog Knoll. Jaffrey verified 
 these names afterwards. They forded the White Sand 
 River in a torrent of rain. Then Mesrour s story was 
 unintelligible, until, after they had crossed Bar River 
 three times on one accursed morning, they came too 
 suddenly on a herd of buffalo. The beasts did not flee, 
 
248 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 as they were meant to do; they turned and charged 
 the little hunting-party. The Presfdent was the last 
 to turn his horse; the poor creature stumbled, fell upon 
 his master and, on the instant, five hundred buffaloes 
 passed over them ! 
 
 A wretched rag from his coat and a few fragments 
 of letters, with what was left of a gold repeater, were 
 all which Mesrour could bring to verify his tale. 
 
 The body had been buried where it fell. 
 
 Mr. Jaffrey retired for an hour, leaving poor Mes 
 rour asleep on a lounge in the reception-room. Then 
 he came and waked the faithful negro. 
 
 " Not one word of this to any man." 
 
 " Nevare, massa !" 
 
 " Nor woman !" 
 
 " No ! nor woman, massa." 
 
 " Go back to your duty at the White House to-night. 
 Say you have been west on a private message." 
 
 That is what Mesrour did. No public announcement 
 of the President s death was thought necessary by the 
 Secretary of State. Times were prosperous. As al 
 ways, the country governed itself without much regard 
 to Washington. The incumbent of the White House 
 confided in the Secretary, and the Secretary confided 
 in the incumbent of the White House. 
 
 "And so," said Scheherezade, as she finished her story 
 " so ended the tales of the calenders. But this is 
 nothing to the story of ; Newspaper Row, if it please 
 your Highness graciously to lengthen our lives, and to 
 hear it to-morrow morning." 
 
 But this was the end of the Arabian Nights Enter 
 tainments in Washington. 
 
ONLY A FLY 
 
 I. THE FLY 
 
 MRS. MITCHELL was a good housekeeper, and hospita 
 ble. She was so good a housekeeper that, in that busi 
 ness, she had risen to the highest rank. That is to say, 
 she was not hospitable to flies. Housekeepers of the 
 second rank are so governed by a chance remark of 
 Uncle Toby s as to think there is room enough in their 
 houses, at least in winter, for the flies and for all other 
 guests also. So they let the flies go into one cell and 
 another, and lay the eggs which will make the next 
 August miserable to all. Mrs. Mitchell had risen above 
 this form of hospitality, and her house had no room 
 for flies. 
 
 So after she had bidden Lawrence good-bye, instead 
 of returning to her knitting she went to the window 
 to catch and kill a large fly that was trying to pass 
 through it, Lawrence was on his way to New York. 
 With his overcoat on one arm, and his umbrella in one 
 hand, with a rather large valise in the other hand, he 
 had come in to take leave of his grandmother. He 
 had put down the valise that he might kiss her better. 
 She had risen from her deep, easy -chair to kiss him. 
 She had said : 
 
 " Do not work too hard, dear boy, and I pray God 
 every night to bless you." 
 
250 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 " Good-bye, grandmamma." 
 
 " Good-bye !" 
 
 And they both thought it was all over. 
 
 But it was not all over; in fact, as it proved, this 
 was the beginning, or the prologue before the plav. 
 For when Mrs. Mitchell went to the window, and 
 struck it rather hard in her pursuit of the fly struck, 
 indeed, two or three times Lawrence, who was rapidly 
 passing in the shrubbery below, thought she had re 
 membered some forgotten commission, and was tapping 
 on the window for him to return. So he set down the 
 heavy valise on the ground, ran back to the side steps, 
 ran up them two at a time, ran into her room, and 
 said : 
 
 " Yes ! What is it, grandmamma ?" 
 
 "My dear boy, there is nothing. Oh, you thought I 
 called you ? Oh no, I am sorry you came back. I 
 was only catching this fly !" And she showed what 
 was left of it on a napkin. 
 
 Lawrence laughed, really good-naturedly. Of course 
 he was* tempted to do something else. But he only 
 laughed, said " Good-bye" again, and ran down the 
 steps. He rescued the valise from the care of an old 
 statue of the god Terminus, who was watching it, and 
 ran, a little faster than before, through Billy Kelley s 
 alley. Billy Kelley s alley was a short cut by which 
 he came to Yin ton Street, which took him to the elec 
 tric car. He had not been late for this car, but he was 
 not early for it. It was the car which would take him 
 to the northern stations, where was the train which 
 connected with the Cattaraugus and Opelousas, which, 
 at Trefethen, connected with the Midlands, which would 
 
ONLY A FLY 251 
 
 take him to the Hudson River at Albany, and so on to 
 New York, where he was going. So he ran through 
 Billy Kelley s alley. The weight of the valise helped 
 him in running down Yinton Street. But it did not 
 help him quite enough, for he was a hundred paces 
 short of the electric track when the "Limits" car 
 passed, the through car which he needed for the north 
 ern stations. He waved his umbrella. But the con 
 ductor was looking the other way, and the motor-man 
 did not look at all. If they had seen him they would 
 both have laughed and gone faster. So Lawrence had 
 to wait for the Bradstreet Avenue car, and to take his 
 chances of a connection at Cheever Square. 
 
 He looked at his watch rather uneasily, but said, 
 aloud, cheerfully in tone, " ffa ira. We will put it 
 through." Nor did he once say to himself, what is the 
 first thing which occurs to me and my intelligent 
 readers, " If it had not been for grandmamma s ridicu 
 lous fly, I should have hit the Limits car." But if he 
 had said this, it would have been true. 
 
 II. BRADSTREET AVENUE 
 
 The Bradstreet Avenue car was an open car, with 
 the seats running across. If it had not been a car of 
 that build, this story would never have been written, 
 far less printed ; for then all would have been changed. 
 
 Lawrence s seat was the last of those in front of the 
 smoking people. He lifted in his valise and followed 
 it. The two women who sat next the street preferred 
 to have him pass them, treading upon their twenty 
 
252 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 toes, and, of necessity, wiping the mud from his boots 
 upon their dresses. For reasons known to themselves 
 and to no others, they refused to move in so that he 
 might take the outer seat. So he was the better 
 placed in the little incident which followed. 
 
 This was the little incident: As the car ran happily 
 along James Street, which runs along the edge of the 
 water at the foot of the hill, Lawrence, who was read 
 ing a newspaper, felt a jar, heard a crash, looked up 
 and saw a large horse in front of him in the car, in 
 place of the people who had been on the seat. In an 
 instant more his own car rose from the right-hand 
 track, rolled over, and while Lawrence guarded his 
 head with his arm he rolled over with it. Something 
 struck him on the head, and for the next nine hours he 
 knew nothing. 
 
 But I know all, and the reader of these lines shall 
 know all. What Lawrence could not have told, I tell. 
 
 Pinckney Street, Myrtle Street, and Chestnut Street 
 descend at right angles to James Street, and cross it. 
 The hill by which they descend is as steep a hill as will 
 tolerate the ascent or descent of horses. Indeed, no 
 one who could help it would drive up or down Pinck 
 ney Street. 
 
 But there is one set of men who cannot help it. 
 They are the men who drive the city s ash-carts. For 
 every one has coal fires on Pinckney Street, and there 
 are many ashes left nay, some cinders which must 
 be carried away. And on this particular day when 
 Lawrence was in the Bradstreet Avenue car, on his 
 way to the northern stations, that he might go to New 
 York and make his fortune, ash-cart No. 47 was stand- 
 
ONLY A FLY 253 
 
 ing at the door of Mrs. Cowan s house, No. 89, with 
 a very heavy load, the horse facing downhill. The 
 wheels were very carefully blocked, and the stout stick 
 made for the purpose held up the thills. At that mo 
 ment little Jonas Cowan, with a yellow paper kite, 
 rushed out from the back passage of his mother s house, 
 into which the ash-man had just plunged. Jonas Cow 
 an trailed behind him his yellow paper kite, that it 
 mio-ht have the better chance in the street. Jonas 
 
 o 
 
 was still in petticoats, and knew as little about kites as 
 the reader knows about quaternions. 
 
 The kite passed within three feet of the nose of the 
 horse of the ash -cart. The horse started. Pegasus 
 would have started. A saw-horse would have started 
 if it could. The horse started. The guardian stick 
 flew up. The wheels cleared the stones which blocked 
 them. The whole ton of ashes pressed heavily down on 
 the poor horse. He could not help himself he trotted. 
 He then broke into a run. He rushed down Pinckney 
 Street just as the Bradstreet Avenue car passed it. 
 And he did the only thing a horse with an ash-cart be 
 hind him could do he leaped into the open car. 
 
 It was this horse whom Lawrence saw almost with 
 his last intelligent sight of anything before the police 
 man in attendance picked him up and carried him to 
 the hospital. 
 
 III. THE HOSPITAL 
 
 The humorous disposition of motor -men and con 
 ductors, which makes them look cheerfully on the mis 
 fortunes or failures of passengers, has been referred to. 
 
254 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 But this disposition did not prevent the officers in 
 charge of the Bradstreet Avenue car from feeling the 
 seriousness of the position when it was overturned. 
 
 They rang in the police and emergency corps. Two 
 or three ambulances were in attendance before the 
 wreck was wholly cleared away, so that the bed of 
 an ambulance was ready for Lawrence before the 
 stanchion of the car was lifted off his thighs, binding 
 him to the broken floor. Fortunately for him, perhaps, 
 he was insensible, and knew nothing of the handling, 
 rough of necessity, by which he was lifted to this bed. 
 
 It was in the middle of the night, in the faintest twi 
 light given by a screened lamp, that he looked around 
 him first, in the white bed in which they placed him 
 in the hospital. The first thing he really learned was 
 that his arm was tied so that he could not move it. 
 The next was that when he tried to move his legs 
 the effort cost him great pain. This accounted for 
 certain very absurd dreams which he now vainly tried 
 to recall, which had been haunting him just before. 
 His effort was enough to make his attendant lean over 
 the bed and speak to him. 
 
 In a whisper this man said, kindly, " How do you 
 feel now?" 
 
 " Feel ?" said Lawrence, " I feel as if I were tied into 
 a bed and could not get out of it. How in thunder 
 did I get here?" 
 
 " You must not speak aloud. You will wake the 
 others. You are all right. Only there was an acci 
 dent, and you were knocked in the head." And then 
 for the first time Lawrence made out that he had a 
 cloth round his head. That is to say, this was the first 
 
ONLY A FLY 255 
 
 time that he knew when the good-natured attendant 
 removed the compress and replaced it by another new 
 ly wet with iced water. He was not much disposed to 
 talk. lie asked some questions about the horse, the 
 sudden apparition of which he remembered, and then 
 obeyed the nurse s requisition, put gently in manner 
 but firmly in substance, that he should hold his tongue 
 if he could, and that he had better go to sleep. With 
 some little help he found an easier attitude for himself, 
 and then, sooner than he expected, he obeyed both in 
 junctions. 
 
 And this was the beginning of weeks on weeks of 
 hospital life. His right arm had been broken in two 
 places, above the elbow and below. Both fractures 
 were simple, there was no difficulty about placing 
 the bones, and the surgeons were encouraging about 
 them. For the rest, one thigh was terribly scraped 
 and scratched and torn in its fleshy integuments, and 
 groups of doctors came and felt and poked and punch 
 ed, to determine what were certain internal injuries, 
 real or suspected, probable or doubtful. At first they 
 affected to withdraw from the bedside before they 
 talked of these. But after a few days, when Lawrence 
 had approved himself a person of nerve and sense, such 
 affectation came to an end, and they discussed his 
 make-up in his own hearing, much as if he were the 
 stenographer taking notes of their conversation. All 
 this added one entertainment, and that one of the most 
 important, to Lawrence s monotonous day. They told 
 him squarely, very soon after he had won their confi 
 dence, that it would be some weeks before they should 
 let him go. 
 
256 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 The hospital people had not found who he was till 
 late in the evening. But then the contents of his valise 
 had revealed his name, and his aunt s address had been 
 found. In the morning she appeared, and his cousin 
 Frank, a bright boy, who from that time was his best 
 medium in communicating with the outward world. 
 After a day, the authorities permitted Lawrence to 
 dictate a letter. At his bidding Frank wrote the presi 
 dent of the International Lubricant Compai^, Limited, 
 to explain what was the accident which had happened 
 to Mr. Lawrence Mitchell. The letter said, in a some 
 what bold, copy-book hand, that it would be six weeks 
 probably before he would be able to report at the Lu 
 bricant office. He explained also that, so soon as his 
 trunks arrived in Kew York, whither they had been 
 sent, there would be found in the tray of No. 2 the 
 memoranda on the destructive distillation of colza, pe 
 troleum, lard, and sperm oil, with Mr. L. M. s notes 
 on the same. For the use of these reports and notes, 
 Mr. L. M. enclosed his key. 
 
 At the end of ten days a note, which Lawrence 
 thought rather stiff, was received in reply from the 
 president. In a way it expressed a certain regret for 
 the accident. It said that the tables and notes had 
 been found, and were in the hands of Mr. Vance, who 
 would address Mr. Mitchell a separate note regarding 
 them. The key was enclosed, carefully done up in a 
 small envelope. The trunks were awaiting Mr. Mitch 
 ell s order. It would be impossible for the Interna 
 tional Lubricant to wait six weeks for the opportunity 
 to retain his services. And accordingly the president 
 hoped that Mr. Mitchell would consider their contract 
 
ONLY A FLY 257 
 
 at an end. He hoped also that Mr. Mitchell would 
 soon be restored to health. And he had the honor to 
 be the most humble and obedient of Mr. Mitchell s 
 servants. And this was all. 
 
 After Lawrence had read the letter, it happened that 
 Frank came in, and brought his grandmother for her 
 first visit to the hospital. Dear old lady, she was most 
 kind and sympathetic. She was most eager to have 
 him well enough to come to the house again. She had 
 brought the Chautauquan and a couple of other mag 
 azines to cheer him. He kissed her affectionately as 
 she went away. But as she and Frank left the ward, 
 he wrote with his left hand in his note-book: 
 
 How little dear grandmamma thinks that I am laid up here, and 
 have lost my salary, and a position for life, because she killed that 
 old fly. fa ira! We must put this through." 
 
 IV. THE TERKACE 
 
 AVe measure life now by inches and now by miles, 
 now by hours and now by years. To Lawrence, when 
 he saw the horse in front of him, the next second 
 seemed of paramount importance ; its weight and worth 
 were more than all other seconds together. But, only 
 half an hour before, he had been looking forward for 
 five years at once, thinking of the time when Mr. Olive, 
 the treasurer and selling agent of the International Lu 
 bricant, would probably withdraw from active duty, 
 and when there would be a promotion, all along the 
 line, among the subordinates in that concern. 
 
 And now that Lawrence was in bed, the important 
 
258 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 part of life, far the most important part, seemed the 
 period before the doctors let him get out. He could 
 not compare against this the period before he should 
 be at the World s Fair, or at his next Commencement, 
 or before the end of the century. 
 
 Even before he was to get out of bed there was 
 another period which had a special interest. If all 
 went well, and there was no risk of bad weather, or of 
 taking cold, his bed could be put on the rails and run 
 out upon the Terrace. 
 
 The Terrace was on the same floor. At ten every 
 morning, if the sun shone bright, the fortunate beds on 
 his right hand and on his left were pushed out upon 
 the Terrace. What was much more important, the 
 people in the beds went also. Neither bed nor inmate 
 returned till nearly four, if the weather were bright. 
 And in dear, glowing, golden October the weather, 
 thank God, almost always was bright. A young doc 
 tor with the least possible German lisp, a man with 
 curly golden hair, who always seemed to Lawrence 
 like Apollo when he came into Vulcan s smithy, told 
 Lawrence that before many days, if all went well, he 
 should go upon the Terrace. So was it that he count 
 ed hours and days between the now and the Terrace, 
 ten times as closely as he counted them between now 
 and New-year, or between now and his birthday. 
 
 At last the happy day came. The modest elms in 
 the hospital garden showed their best golden leaves 
 against the dark blue of heaven. A maple, which good 
 old Dr. Chittenden had sent from Yermont thirty years 
 before, blazed its most brilliant scarlet. A gingko-tree, 
 which was the gift to the garden of young Dr. Isukara 
 
ONLY A FLY 259 
 
 from Nagasaki, was contributing the orange. And the 
 day was simply heaven to Lawrence, as in triumph the 
 casters of his bed ran down the slope of his threshold 
 and he was under the open sky of God. Not Baron 
 Trenck, when he emerged from the water-passage on 
 the north side of the glacis at Magdeburg, was hap 
 pier. And I do not think that Baron Trenck was half 
 so grateful. 
 
 And it lasted. When Frank s school was out, he 
 hurried to the scene. For all worthy men and boys, 
 and all good angels, had known that on this day, the 
 llth of October, as if to celebrate the greatest event in 
 modern history, Lawrence was to be moved to the Ter 
 race. He had wanted nothing till now but to look on 
 the gingko and the sassafras and the maple and the 
 elms and the green grass and the blue sky, and on the 
 white beds and blue parasols of the others. And now 
 he was not tired of their endless variety. But now he 
 let Frank bring him a light table, with the last two 
 numbers of the Chautauquan, and The Making of Mod 
 ern Europe, and Prof. McClintoek s Mediceval Poetry. 
 Not that he wanted to read himself, but the others 
 might. And it looked social to have a book or two. 
 
 And Frank showed him a spring butterfly he had 
 been making from a long Waterbury watch-spring and 
 four bits of binders board. And they entertained 
 each other, and, as it proved, all their neighbors on 
 the Terrace, as they made him flap his ungainly wings, 
 now slow, now fast ; fast when he struck down, slow as 
 he caught the upward slope and made time to strike 
 fast again. The butterfly would fall now on No. 37, 
 now on No. 11, and Frank would run and bring him 
 
oO SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 back. And all the Terrace, or their end of the Terrace, 
 watched for these uncertain visits. Frank had brought 
 his lunch, but at ten minutes of two he had to go away 
 to school. 
 
 Then the pretty girl who was reading to No. 29 went 
 away. And the sun went round towards the west, as 
 the sun will, so that No. 29 had to move her parasol 
 to the other side of her bed. No. 29 was next Law 
 rence, but through the morning the pretty girl had sat 
 between him and No. 29, and the parasol had cut off 
 even his sight of the pretty girl. Now he could see 
 that No. 29 was a pretty girl also perhaps the sister 
 or the cousin of the reader. 
 
 Now Lawrence told his attendant that he might put 
 up his pillow two or three holes higher, and that he 
 would try to read. They let him read now as much 
 as he wanted to, because he did not read with his hips 
 or right hand. 
 
 So he could see that No. 29 was peeping in between 
 two uncut pages of a magazine. She had tried to cut 
 them with a spoon, but it had no edge ; and then with 
 a hairpin, but the paper was too strong, and the hairpin 
 only bent in her hand. So it was that Lawrence care 
 fully threw his tortoise-shell knife, with its ivory paper- 
 cutter open, across to No. 29, and said, pleasantly, " Try 
 this cutter." And those were the first words he ever 
 spoke to Clara Fitch. 
 
 Now she started, for she was really surprised, and 
 thanked him very prettily. And when she had cut her 
 magazine, and read it all, she asked him if he would not 
 like to see it. And he stretched his left arm as far as 
 he could to take it, and then offered her his Song and 
 

 ONLY A FLY 261 
 
 Legend of the Middle Ages. And it proved that she 
 had had to give up her Chautauqua reading in the 
 spring, and she did not know what the new year s 
 course was. And he asked her to look at the Komance 
 ballads, and he said he remembered a better translation 
 of Aucassin than Bourdillon s, and repeated some of it. 
 And she asked him to read an amusing story in her 
 magazine about the last scholar in an old school. And 
 the time seemed very short before the attendants came 
 and trundled them all off again, like so many people 
 in Noah s Ark, to the compartments where they be 
 longed. 
 
 V. THE INTERNATIONAL LUBRICANT 
 
 Meanwhile the affairs of the International Lubricant 
 dragged and halted wretchedly. This Mr. Yance who 
 was to write to Lawrence personally about the destruc 
 tive distillation of oils, did write to him personally. 
 And Lawrence, though he thought he had been badly 
 treated, wrote him in Frank s best handwriting a care 
 ful and exhaustive letter on the subject, telling him 
 some things he did not know, and making some sug 
 gestions as to business which he had not the courage 
 to take. 
 
 The truth was that Mr. Yance looked on the whole 
 work of the International Lubricant as a contrivance 
 for putting in his pocket three thousand dollars every 
 year. Whether their oils made things go easier he did 
 not care, he hardly knew. Now Lawrence was glad 
 enough to have his salary once a month he would not 
 have objected if it had been called his wages, for then 
 
262 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 he would have had them every week. But as he read, 
 and tried experiments, and destroyed oil by distillation 
 in them, he was always hoping and fancying, and pray 
 ing indeed, that some wheel somewhere would run easier 
 because he worked. There was a little poem he was 
 forever humming, about a railroad fireman who was 
 hurrying to his sweetheart on a train ; and Lawrence, 
 as he hummed, was always thinking that some of his oil 
 was on the slide of the piston of that man s engine. 
 When a formula came out, in his planning, rather better 
 than the one he had tried before, he made some little 
 side figures on the back of an envelope, to see how far 
 it might abridge the passage of a steamer across the 
 Atlantic. He did not dirty his fingers with this colza 
 because he was A by himself A, or Lawrence by him 
 self Lawrence, but because he was partaker in a great 
 firm called " The Universe." 
 
 But Mr. Yance did his work as Yance by himself 
 Yance. 
 
 The same difference was once observed between two 
 women who were grinding in the same mill. One of 
 them was taken and the other was left. 
 
 Mr. Yance had no tears when he was told that this 
 wide - awake, inventive, destructive, and constructive 
 young man of science was not, after all, to be taken 
 into the works. He had not opposed the appointment. 
 But certainly he had not suggested it. When, there 
 fore, the president had told him that Mr. Mitchell 
 could not come for some weeks, that there had been 
 a bad accident, Mr. Yance said he was very sorry. 
 This was not true. Then he had taken the occasion to 
 say that his office was very much pressed that he had 
 
ONLY A FLY 263 
 
 hoped Mr. Mitchell would relieve him. Then he had 
 waited a moment for the president, and the president 
 had said nothing. Then Mr. Yance had said that per 
 haps they might make some temporary arrangement. 
 And still the president said nothing. Then after half 
 a minute more Mr. Yance said that there was an in 
 telligent young man who had been doing some cal 
 culating and copying for him at home, who understood 
 the detail alread} 7 , and that perhaps he might take him 
 into the office as an assistant till some better arrange 
 ment could be made. 
 
 This is the sort of half- plan which hard-pressed presi 
 dents are apt to be pleased with. And the president 
 of the I. L. said that if the young man had some 
 experience Mr. Yance might engage him, and Mr. 
 Yance suggested a low salary for the young man. So 
 that was settled. 
 
 Now the young man of experience was in fact a 
 brother of Mrs. Yance, who had been dismissed from 
 his last employment because his cash would never 
 balance at night. By employing him in Lawrence s 
 place the I. L. saved, or thought it saved, eighteen 
 hundred dollars a year. 
 
 Had Mr. Yance ever heard of Lawrence s grand 
 mother, or had Eugene, who was the brother of Mrs. 
 Yance, they would have said, " We owe this good fort 
 une to the old lady s wish to kill that fly." In a wav 
 they did, but not wholly. If Mr. Yance had not been 
 what he was, and the president what he was, things 
 would not have fallen out that way. 
 
264 
 
 VI. THE TERRACE AGAIN 
 
 Meanwhile Lawrence, who had no longer to look 
 forward to his first day on the Terrace, looked forward 
 for his second and third and fourth. And there is no 
 harm in saying that he looked forward with hope that 
 the good angels might appoint his place next to the 
 place of No. 29, whom he soon came to know as Miss 
 Clara Fitch. On the second day he had no such luck ; 
 and it was impossible to ask her to ask her push-people 
 to put her next to him. Lawrence did not know 
 whether he wanted to be out early, so that no other 
 bed might be thrust before his, or late, so as to urge 
 his pusher to put him next her. He did what was 
 wise that is, he took his pushers into full confidence. 
 If he had not, they would have known what he wanted. 
 And it was just as well that they should know. He 
 had already made himself a favorite with everybody, 
 and the pushers were as eager as he was to secure his 
 object. 
 
 Whether they told the pushers of the women s ward 
 what they wanted I do not know, nor will this reader 
 ever know. Only this I know that the chances, by 
 the law of chances, were 476 to 1 that these two 
 patients would not come together on any special day 
 on the Terrace ; and that, as things went, ordered or 
 not I do not say, it " happened,- as we are fond of say- 
 ing, that, four days out of five of that autumn, Law 
 rence was rolled to the berth on the right or left of 
 Miss Fitch, or Miss Fitch rolled to the place on the left 
 or right of Mr, Mitchell, For this the reader may ac- 
 
ONLY A FLY 2G5. 
 
 count as he pleases. Besides this I only know that 
 of the arrangements necessary for this purpose Miss 
 Clara Fitch knew nothing. Nor can I tell what she 
 wanted. What Lawrence Mitchell wanted I have told 
 already. 
 
 So it was not on one day only that these young peo 
 ple were able to exchange their magazines, their paper- 
 knives, or their fans. And Lawrence began to give 
 Frank more specific orders as to what he was to bring 
 from his grandmother s house, or from the libraries, or 
 from the book-stores. 
 
 Miss Fitch s cousins came with a certain regularity 
 to read to her, between eleven and two. These hours 
 Lawrence and Frank had to themselves, either for 
 studies of lubricants, or for discussions about the model 
 of the Vigilant and Valkyrie, or for experiments on the 
 butterfly. But about a quarter before two the visitors 
 went away, and the patients were screwed up in their 
 beds to have their mid-day meals. These did not last 
 long, and then there were nearly two hours when Law 
 rence could direct his attention and attentions to his 
 pretty neighbor, and gratify, so far as he and Frank 
 and the telegraph and the mail and the special-delivery 
 stamps could, any wishes she had expressed the day 
 before. Frank brought him, very early in the affair, 
 a lovely long beefsteak-and-chop-turner, far more avail 
 able for passing things from bed to bed than any other 
 kind of tongs. 
 
 For instance, one happy Tuesday, when the raw- 
 boned and skinny cousin left, with ill-disguised satis 
 faction, as the dinner-trays came, Lawrence began at 
 once with Miss Clara. 
 
266 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 " Your cousin is reading you The Eing and the 
 Book. " 
 
 " Yes," said she, good-naturedly, but pretending to 
 yawn, " and I am dreadfully tired. We are working 
 at the third explanation of the mystery. It is very 
 subtle, but it is very long." 
 
 " If I had to initiate anybody into the great company 
 of Browningites, I should not begin at that end," said 
 Lawrence, boldly. 
 
 " Is not one end as good as another ? They used to 
 tell me to begin with the inner end of my embroidery 
 silks, but I did not know that you handled poets in 
 that way." 
 
 " They say," said he, " that you can read Emerson up 
 the page as well as down. But, with Browning, you 
 have to begin with the beginning, and go step by step 
 to the end." 
 
 "Do you ever get there?" said she, laughing. 
 
 "Indeed you do, indeed } 7 ou do, if you do not break 
 your neck in a hurry at the first. But how is it, Miss 
 Fitch, that you did not begin in our dear Chautauqua? 
 That was what started me." 
 
 " Chautauqua ?" 
 
 " Yes, but long before you began. I have their vol 
 ume here. Let mo read you some of my favorites." 
 
 How fortunate that Lawrence should have had the 
 volume! Fortunate, but that he had foreknown, fore 
 seen, and prepared for the whole conversation ! When 
 Skin-and-Bones finished her screed of the " Ring and 
 the Book" on Monday, Lawrence had telegraphed to 
 Frank to bring him his nice volume of the Chautauqua 
 selections from Browning. Thus it was that he " hap- 
 
ONLY A FLY 26? 
 
 pened to have" that little volume lying at his side. 
 And so it was that they had that pleasant afternoon as 
 he read her his favorites. And so he ventured to say 
 when they parted, " I hope we may be near each other 
 again. 1 
 
 And near each other again they were, as has been 
 said. Four pleasant days out of five they were near 
 each other. And if it rained, and Lawrence had to 
 stay in the ward, the imprisonment seemed to give him 
 only new opportunity to show Miss Fitch how long his 
 arms were. 
 
 Lawrence did not dare send a regular order for 
 flowers to Galvin to be delivered every day to Miss 
 Fitch in Ward C. C. But he did make Frank bring 
 him cut flowers every day, and with the beefsteak- 
 tongs it was easy to pass a carnation or a maurandia 
 across to her. 
 
 Of course there would come botches. That odious 
 fifth day would come, when the men s ward was too 
 late, or Ward C. C. was too late, so that Lawrence had 
 to get along as he might with a deaf Swede on one side 
 of him and a cross Russian on the other. But when 
 this happened he called it " the fortune of war," and 
 made plans more extravagant than ever for the next 
 day. The pushers and nurses never saw his temper 
 ruffled. 
 
 VII. FOLGER FITCH 
 
 Sometimes there was an embarrassment of riches on 
 the Terrace. People knew at what hour they might 
 come, and they did not always come at the hour when 
 
268 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 there was most room for them. Frank \vas furious 
 one day when he had brought a long new Waterbury 
 watch-spring, and some butterfly wings twice as large 
 as they had ever tried, and all was ready for an ex 
 periment on a magnificent scale he was furious be 
 cause an old gray-haired college professor came in just 
 as his cousin Lawrence got to work. The tools and 
 the tray had to be pushed aside, while the two men 
 talked about the correlation of forces, and poor Frank 
 was left to walk up and down the garden and blow 
 thistledown. 
 
 Miss Fitch had three regular visitors, who came in 
 turn. Lawrence did not know their names, but prac 
 tically he and Frank had christened them Nasturtium, 
 Clover Blossom, and Skinflint. I do not say that 
 Lawrence ever used these names, but he understood 
 them when Frank used them. To the great surprise, 
 not to say anger, of Skinflint, when she arrived on 
 time one day, with her "Ring and Book, she found a 
 good-natured looking gentleman sitting on the camp- 
 stool which she generally filled. And while she would 
 gladly have stunned him to earth with one of her chill 
 ing Medea glances, it was hardly reasonable for her to 
 do so, because, as she saw, he was poor dear Clara s 
 father. 
 
 For Mr. Folger Fitch had given up a day from the 
 works that he might come down to the hospital him 
 self and see how his darling Clara was coming on. 
 
 Now, whatever were the senior cousin s duties or 
 rights in the business, it was clear that Clara s father 
 had as good rights, or better. Clara herself was very 
 quick and very good-natured. She was really greatly 
 
ONLY A FLY 269 
 
 obliged to her three cousins for the promptness with 
 which they had rallied to care for her as soon as they 
 heard of her accident. And she did not choose that 
 Miss Astrsea should be hurt, even if she were unreason 
 able. So she told her that she must not go away; she 
 made her father understand that now was a good 
 minute for him to see the superintendent, and as he 
 turned to go to the office she introduced him to Law 
 rence. 
 
 "Father, this is Mr. Mitchell. He was hurt when I 
 was, and he is very careful for all of us." 
 
 So Folger Fitch and Lawrence Mitchell began talk 
 ing together. Mr. Fitch bowed courteously, gave his 
 hand to Lawrence, and hardly let him speak before he 
 thanked him, he really knew not why. Lawrence, who 
 was waiting for Frank s arrival, showed him where 
 Frank s seat was, and begged him to sit down. As he 
 did so, Lawrence laid down his paper. He knew Mr. 
 Fitch at once as one of the largest manufacturers of 
 light wagons in the country. And he said, "What I 
 am reading will interest you. It is Sir Charles Trefe- 
 then s paper on the effect produced by high rates of 
 speed on the lubricants employed." 
 
 At once he dashed into conversation. There fol 
 lowed what is one of the happiest bits of talk always, 
 when an accomplished man of science, who has touched 
 a subject from the theoretic end, meets an accomplished 
 man of affairs, who has begun at the end of practical 
 experience. 
 
 Clara had to call, laughing, to her father once, to tell 
 him he must really go and thank the superintendent 
 and the doctor, and that then he might come back and 
 
270 SUSAN S ESCOKT, AND OTHERS 
 
 talk as much as he would. He laughed and said to 
 Lawrence that he always obeyed her. But he was 
 soon back again, and the two plunged into questions 
 about patent axles, and metal on metal, what friction 
 was and what it was not. 
 
 Lawrence delighted him by showing him a computa 
 tion lie had made in his absence, on a bit of blotting- 
 paper, as to the number of years of efficient life added 
 to the people of the United States if only some inven 
 tion made the light carriages of the United States do 
 their average work of a day in five minutes less time 
 than was needed the year before. He laughed, and said : 
 
 " When they broke me to pieces the other day, be 
 cause my car, for want of proper oil, perhaps, was not 
 fifteen feet farther forward, I was on my way to the 
 International Lubricant Company, where I was to be a 
 superintendent." 
 
 Folger Fitch s face clouded as he said, " I know 
 them." 
 
 Lawrence wondered on what unfortunate subject he 
 had spoken then. In an instant he changed it. 
 
 "I wonder you gentlemen leave your carriages to 
 the chances of wayside blacksmiths and hostlers. Why 
 not oil a carriage as carefully as a sewing-machine? I 
 should like to show you my drawings for a self-oiler, 
 which I would fill at New 7 - year s Day, and which 
 would need no other oiling for a year." 
 
 " Have you thought of that ?" said Folger Fitch. " I 
 have, too." 
 
 And at that moment Miss Astraea abandoned her 
 book at last and gave him a chance to speak to his 
 daughter. 
 

 ONLY A FLY 271 
 
 VIII. FREEDOM 
 
 And at last it proved that there were no internal 
 injuries in Lawrence s make-up, and, perhaps, never had 
 been any. Auscultating and thumping and rubbing 
 and rolling him over and back revealed nothing amiss. 
 The two breaks in the arm had knit firmly. The 
 wounds in the leg had healed, as a healthy youngster s 
 will. And the doctor and the surgeon and all said that 
 the rapid recovery was due mostly to his patience, that 
 he had never complained, and had shown no desire to 
 go away. He might go now, as soon as he chose, if 
 only he would report once a week at the hospital, for 
 them to make wholly sure of the " internal injuries." 
 So his grandmother s carriage came, and Frank, in 
 great state, to take him away. 
 
 Lawrence sent his card round to Ward C. C., where 
 was Miss Clara, not so fortunate. But she was much 
 better, and very pretty she looked, as he came to say 
 good-bye. And Lawrence made the nurse say that Dr. 
 Lavender had said that the next week Miss Fitch 
 might drive out for an hour. And Lawrence made 
 her promise that he might bring his grandmother s 
 carriage to take her. And so it was. 
 
 Miss Astra3a had to go, too, and Lawrence could say 
 nothing, as he turned from his seat to speak to them, 
 but that black was black and white white, and matters 
 of equal import. Still, he was driving the horses that 
 were dragging her carriage, and he had so far a sort of 
 charge of her. That was as it should be, and sometime 
 he would say something more to her. 
 
272 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 And the day carne when he did. With an occasional 
 ride, with a bunch of flowers to-day or a new book to 
 morrow, or a call on the Terrace, he managed to keep 
 up a flitting arid occasional intercourse with Miss Clara 
 until the happy day when she also was told that her 
 cure could be perfected outside the hospital doors. 
 
 It was determined that before she took the long 
 journey to Phaetonville, where the works were, she 
 should spend a week at the Trefoils house. For Clara 
 had been on her way to the Trefoils on that fatal 
 morning when the little boy s kite frightened the horse 
 that ran away with the cart which smashed the car in 
 which Lawrence and Clara, all unconscious of each 
 other s existence, were sitting. 
 
 O 
 
 And before Clara could go about freely, there were 
 long mornings when she could sit in Mrs. Trefoil s 
 back parlor, and Lawrence would make long morning 
 visits there. Florence Trefoil was the cousin whom 
 he and Frank liked best of the three hospital visitors. 
 She was the one whom they had nicknamed Clover 
 Blossom, because one morning she had a clover blos 
 som in her button-hole. And it almost always hap 
 pened that when Lawrence called on Clara, Florence 
 would be summoned from the room just for a minute, 
 and often these minutes extended to hours. Or some 
 times Florence had to go to the weekly meeting of the 
 Society for the Employment of the Upper Classes. 
 And in these long visits of Lawrence s to Clara, after 
 he was quite sure that he did not tire her, he read 
 Browning to her, or Austin Dobson. Or sometimes 
 he did not. 
 
 But it was not long it was before the visit was 
 
ONLY A FLY 273 
 
 over that he had persuaded her that that fortunate 
 and happy ride in the James Street car, which was the 
 first ride they ever took together, was not to be the 
 last not by any means. 
 
 "Why not forever ride, we two, 
 With life forever old, yet new ?" 
 
 He was sure he did not know. And Clara, dear child, 
 she did not know either. And she was very sweet 
 and pretty when she told him so. 
 
 So it was that the very next day he made his grand 
 mother order out the carriage which was a property 
 quite distinct from the victoria or the carry-all or the 
 village-cart, and seldom appeared and old George the 
 coachman got himself up in special magnificence, and 
 took the state whip and held it more vertically than 
 ever. Lawrence helped his grandmother up -stairs, 
 and she made the state call on Mrs. Trefoil and An 
 gela Trefoil and Florence, and on our pretty Clara, 
 in the most cordial and tender way. And Miss As- 
 trasa, the other cousin, happened in to make an inci 
 dental inquiry about the choice of a treasurer for the 
 Occupation Society, and she joined in the congratu 
 lations and general overflow of enthusiasm, with just 
 acridity enough to remind them all that they were 
 human. It was well that they should remember that 
 life is not made up of such fortunate events as acci 
 dents to street railways. 
 
 Just as Lawrence s grandmother had finished her 
 visit as they came to that sacred period in such occa 
 sions when everybody stands up for a quarter of an 
 hour and is particularly cordial because they are all 
 
274 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 saying good-bye the dear old lady turned to Lawrence 
 and said: 
 
 "My dear boy, as I have sat at home, and sent to 
 inquire after you, I have thought so often that if you 
 had not come back to speak to your old grandmother 
 again, you would have taken another car, and all this 
 would not have happened." 
 
 "My dear grandmother," said Lawrence, "IF is a very 
 wicked word. But on this occasion, if I had not seen 
 you that last time why, the world would have come 
 to an end." 
 
 N 
 
 IX. LUBRICANTS 
 
 In New York things did not move so smoothly. In 
 the office of the International Lubricant there seemed 
 to be more grit and drag, and consequent friction, than 
 anywhere else. 
 
 Six months before, the half-yearly accounts had 
 shown some bad falling off in sales, a heavy accumula 
 tion of manufactured goods, and the loss of some old 
 customers. The president tried to persuade himself and 
 the few stockholders who came to the annual meeting* 
 that this was only a temporary check. It was true that 
 they passed a dividend, he had said; but that would 
 not happen again. The absence of their largest orders, 
 those from Hubbs & Tyre, was due only to the death 
 of old Mr. Hubbs. The president had written to Mr. 
 Tyre, and he was sure that matter would be made all 
 right and any difficulty smoothed over. Every one 
 knew that the great depression of business had checked 
 travel, the president said. If people did not travel 
 
ONLY A FLY 275 
 
 they did not oil the wheels, he said. And so the lubri 
 cants were stored up in the warehouses, instead of be 
 ing used up on the axles. But this was, of course, but 
 temporary, he said, and the lubricants existed all the 
 same. They would be sold, sooner or later, and then 
 the company would have their dividends again. 
 
 This seemed to him very satisfactory. But the 
 younger stockholders grumbled. And it was after a 
 motion from Mr. Hustler, an attorney who always 
 made a fuss at corporation meetings, that the directors 
 who were re-elected had promised to take some new 
 steps to keep the old corporation even with the time. 
 
 It was in taking these new steps that they had 
 hunted up a young scientific expert named Lawrence 
 Mitchell, with whom the reader is acquainted. When 
 people talked of putting new life into the company, he 
 was the new life. Unfortunately, grandmamma s fly 
 and the means taken for its destruction had interfered 
 with Mr. Mitchell s duties in lubricating the machinery 
 of the I. L. corporation. And, in fact, as all hot wheels 
 will do when they are hard driven, its working wheels 
 grew hotter and needed more attention. 
 
 Neither Mr. Vance nor the president was the person 
 to give them that attention. Far less was Mr. Eugene 
 Ripka, who had been called in to assist Mr. Yance. Mr. 
 Vance had long since passed that dangerous line in 
 business which marks the point when a man is glad 
 because the mail is small and the morning visits few. 
 Mr. Vance was glad when he could shut his desk at 
 half-past three and take it for granted that nobody 
 would come in before the office closed at four. He 
 had come to that very dangerous point when an official 
 
276 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 says, "I do not see that we can do anything about it," 
 and when he is very glad to say so. And his new 
 clerk, Eugene Eipka, was only too willing to indulge 
 him in these early departures. " I shall not go till five, 
 sir, if you care to leave the office to me." Mr. Eipka 
 came early, and opened the letters. He stayed late, 
 sent off the mail and filed the copies. There never 
 was a summer when Mr. Vance was able so often to 
 take the early afternoon train to his suburban home. 
 
 This was very pleasant for Mrs. Yance and her boys 
 and girls. But, in spite of such prosperity, the sales of 
 lubricants did not seem to advance. Mr. Yance and 
 the president had one or more conversations in which 
 Mr. Yance recommended the renting of the upper 
 story of the larger factory to some enterprising young- 
 electric - light men. But this annoyed the president, 
 who was trying at the same moment to find store 
 room for the oils which no one had ordered. When 
 the principal of an establishment wants to enlarge 
 its work, and the chief agent wants to let its vacant 
 rooms, you may be quite sure that its affairs need more 
 than mechanical oiling. 
 
 So sure is this sign that the story need not stop to 
 describe Mr. Hustler s unfriendly visit to the office, 
 nor how he insisted on examining the books. Nor 
 need we tell in detail how he insisted that the presi 
 dent should call a special stock-meeting, and, when the 
 president refused, how he obtained the necessary sig 
 natures and called it over the president s head. When 
 the meeting was held, at half-past ten one morning in 
 the office, poor Mr. Yance was beside himself because 
 he could not get the safe open. He had two or three 
 
ONLY A FLY 277 
 
 locksmiths to help him. For Mr. Eugene Eipka had 
 not come in, and only he knew the combination. 
 When the safe was opened, in personal presence of the 
 stockholders, the books were there. And Mr. Vance 
 showed, with some pride, quite a large cash balance 
 which lie had been hoarding with a view to a dividend. 
 But, alas! inquiry at the banks where this balance was 
 kept proved that Mr. Eugene Eipka had drawn it all, 
 at several distinct periods of the day before ; and in 
 quiry at his rooms showed that he had not been seen 
 since six in the evening. 
 
 He has never been seen by Mr. Yance or the presi 
 dent since, and the International Lubricant is in the 
 hands of a receiver. 
 
 X. THE MORAL 
 
 A brief statement of this appeared in the Argus 
 the day after Lawrence and Clara were married. He 
 showed it to her in the palace-car as they started on 
 their wedding journey. He told her the story, as from 
 time to time he had heard it from his uncle Mr. Smiley, 
 who was one of the smaller stockholders. 
 
 " They would say," said he, " that all this happened 
 because my grandmother killed a fly. But it did hap 
 pen, if anything happens, because Mr. Yance is lazy, 
 the president is obstinate, and this Mr. Eipka is a 
 rascal." 
 
 Then, after a pause, he said : 
 
 11 Some would say that you and I are in this car be 
 cause my grandmother killed a fly." 
 
278 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHEKS 
 
 And Clara said, " But it does happen because you 
 are brave and kind and loving and true " And he 
 interrupted her to say, " And because you are the dear 
 est girl who lives." 
 
 But Clara checked him and said: 
 
 "Because we are all under guidance, and God is on 
 the side of people who try to do their duty." 
 
 And he said, " And also, because some things are 
 written in heaven." 
 
 When they came to New York they went to Tiffa 
 ny s and picked out a curious pin, made to represent 
 a large fly in enamel. It had two eyes made from 
 small diamonds. 
 
 They sent it as their wedding present to grand 
 mamma. 
 
JOHN RICH AND LUCY POOR 
 
 I LIKE John Eich. I always liked him. We went 
 to school together, and he " prompted " me one day 
 when the master asked me what was the southern cape 
 of Greenland. I thought it was Cape Good-bye, but 
 John Kich told me it was Cape Farewell. So I got an 
 "approbation card," and John Eich got a bad mark 
 for " communicating." 
 
 People say John Eich is lazy. I do not think so ; 
 and after I have told this story I want some intelligent 
 reader to tell me if he thinks so. The fact is that 
 some people always think " them littery fellows " are 
 laz}^. Because we do not always work with our coats 
 off, and because our hands are not blistered, people 
 think we are lazy. Just read this story, and then write 
 and tell me if you think so. 
 
 John Eich was in love with Lucy Poor, and she with 
 him. But her father disliked their marriage, because, 
 he said, John was only one of those literary fellows, 
 and that he had no regular income. He said if John 
 would go into a bank, or apply himself to business, 
 that would be one thing. But he said that to have 
 nothing but writing for a business, that was another. 
 
 John was what is called a hack-writer. Macaulav 
 
280 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 says the race of Grub Street hacks is extinct. I do 
 not know where the Grub Street hacks have gone ; 
 John Kich is not at all extinct. Dr. Johnson, who 
 was a hack himself, and a very good one, too, does not 
 use the word at all, as I found when I wrote my ex 
 cellent story of the journey Joshua Cradock took in a 
 hack. He went half round the world in one, and his 
 wife went round the other half in another, and they 
 met at Lake Baikal. But the modern dictionaries will 
 tell you that in literature a man is a hack who writes 
 what other people want him to write. Some of them 
 add that he is underpaid. 
 
 Now I have a certain respect for people who do 
 what they are wanted to do. There are people who 
 will only do what they themselves want to do. And I 
 observe that they are rather proud of this. But I was 
 brought up in the Christian religion, in which people 
 are taught to work for others, if it is honest work. So 
 I have a certain affection for hacks. Whether John 
 Kich is lazy, because he is a hack, you shall see. 
 
 II 
 
 It is true that John Rich never works in the half- 
 hour after breakfast. Not if he can help it. But on 
 this day I am telling you about he lay on the sofa, 
 which is a good long sofa and wide, and read To-day. 
 Now To-day happened to say that Mr. Gansevoort s in 
 come had been " sworn," whatever that is, at three hun 
 dred and fifty thousand dollars for the last year. For 
 this was all in the antediluvian days of the income-tax. 
 
JOHN RICH AND LUCY POOR 281 
 
 John Kich said to Miss Clara, his secretary : 
 
 " Miss Clara, they talk of this three hundred and fifty 
 thousand dollars as if it were a large income. Will 
 you tell me what Monte Cristo s income was ?" 
 
 Miss Clara said that she believed Monte Cristo s 
 fortune was seven million dollars, and that his income 
 was, if estimated at five per cent. and here John Rich 
 interrupted her, and said : 
 
 " Yes, I thought so. Five times seven is thirty-five. 
 That is only three hundred and fifty thousand dollars 
 a year. And Gansevoort has the same income as 
 Monte Cristo. Would you mind telling me how much 
 that is in a day I mean, how much it makes if there 
 are three hundred and thirteen days in a year? Leap- 
 year does not come often." 
 
 Miss Clara did her little sum promptly, and said that 
 Monte Cristo s and Mr. Gansevoort s income was eleven 
 hundred and eighteen dollars a day. Did he mind the 
 cents? 
 
 No, John Rich said he did not mind the cents. 
 
 " I was thinking," he said, " that when you and I do 
 four thousand words in an hour, at three cents a word, 
 that is one hundred and twenty dollars an hour. Nine 
 hours would be one thousand and eighty dollars. There 
 will be thirty-eight dollars more needed, and we should 
 do thirty-eight dollars in nineteen minutes more." 
 
 Miss Clara said yes. But she said that really there 
 were more than thirty-eight dollars to care for ; there 
 were thirty-eight dollars and twenty-one cents. 
 
 " Could you get Miss Annie and Louise and Hattie 
 and that little black -eyed girl to help us? Perhaps 
 Ysabel would come, and Helen and Mabel." 
 
282 
 
 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 Miss Clara said she would see. If not, there was the 
 German lady, who would like to come, and Mrs. William 
 Penn, who was on the staff before she was married, 
 was now on a visit in town. She would like to come. 
 
 So John Eich asked her to telegraph to these ladies, 
 and if they could not come to make up the full staff of 
 ten. And he never said another word about it. Miss 
 Clara did the whole. How well she did it you shall 
 see. 
 
 Ill 
 
 John Rich, you must know, is a favorite with editors. 
 I will tell you why. First, as has been intimated, he 
 is not above his business. He is a hack, and he knows 
 it. This means that he is willing to do what other 
 people want, as well as he can. He has no nonsense 
 about its being another man s place to do it, or that this 
 or that should not be expected of him. Then he has 
 no nonsense about waiting for an inspiration, if the 
 work has to be done to-day. His work is ready, I 
 mean, when he says it shall be. If you write to him 
 for an article on Baffin s Bay, and he says you shall 
 have it February 31st, you will have it on the 31st 
 of February, whenever that day comes round, as well 
 done as he can write it. Maybe Admiral Belcher 
 would make a better article, but this is John Rich s 
 best, and you know it is. There it is, absolutely ready 
 for the press. Not a comma wanting not a gaiter 
 button, as Napoleon the Little said. And it is just as 
 long as he promised, and as short. Did his first note 
 say four hundred and twelve words? The second 
 
JOHN KICH AND LUCY POOR 283 
 
 note, which goes with the article, will not say, " I have 
 overrun your limit, but you can cut it down." 
 
 More than this, he never rolled up any copy in his 
 life. He would die first. 
 
 Now from all this it happens that his copy is ready 
 for press the moment it enters the editor s office. Sup 
 pose that editor wants to go to the farewell dinner to 
 Sir Walter Besant, and suppose he has two forms of the 
 magazine to make up. Here comes in John Rich s ar 
 ticle at the moment when the editors cab-horse is paw 
 ing impatiently at the door, as John Rich would not 
 say. The editor is perfectly sure that he has what he 
 asked for. He sends the article up to the printing- 
 office, knowing that it will be all right. It will not 
 say that William III. was the uncle of John Lackland. 
 Far better than this, it will not overrun the space given 
 to it. Its proof has been read in the typewriter copy 
 before it came to the editor. So the editor gives it out 
 at once, goes to the dinner-party, and the next time he 
 meets John Rich asks him for six more articles. 
 
 All which it might be wished that young writers 
 would remember. 
 
 In the case of our story, John Rich told Miss Clara 
 that she might write to Mr. McClure this note : 
 
 "DEAR MR. McCLURE, I will send on Mondays for your syn 
 dicate a leader for weeklies of eight hundred words. The old terms. 
 Let me know if you wish them longer or shorter. 
 
 " Always yours, JOHN RICH." 
 
 And he said to Miss Clara : 
 
 " Same to Irving Syndicate, New Syndicate, Amer 
 ican Syndicate, Bacheller Syndicate, and Live Question 
 
284 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 Bureau, only changing Monday, of course, to Tuesday, 
 Wednesday, etc. One a day here." And Miss Clara 
 wrote the six notes that morning, and he signed them. 
 Then he dictated these notes : 
 
 "DEAR ALLEN, I will begin The Memoir of the Century at 
 once. You suggested eight thousand two hundred words a number. 
 Let it be so. The book is mine after twelve months. The old rate. 
 " Always yours, JOHN RICH." 
 
 And he said to Miss Clara : 
 
 " Same to L Estrange for the serial novel. Say we 
 will send the title when he wants it. They like it to 
 run ten numbers. 
 
 " Same, changing what is necessary, to Hariy. He 
 wants short love stories, alternating with adventure. 
 Look at his note. I think they are seven thousand 
 four hundred words something to fit their pages. Of 
 course, we do what they wish." 
 
 Then John Rich made some notes on his blotting- 
 paper, and asked Miss Clara to look up the advertise 
 ment of the Chicago HeraWs prize competition. " I 
 do not mean to try for their stories. We have too 
 many now to write. But what they call an Epic 
 pleased me. I will try that on alternate days for ten 
 days. That will give you young ladies an hour off on 
 those days. You can arrange about the hours with the 
 other ladies. I like to have you first after breakfast, 
 and first after lunch. And, Miss Clara, please have a 
 riding-skirt here, or wear up something in the morning 
 with which you can mount a horse. Pleasant days we 
 shall want to get some air. And, if you can help it, do 
 not engage any one who is afraid of a boat, or who 
 
JOHN KICH AND LUCY POOR 285 
 
 does not row well. We shall want to be on the river 
 or the harbor afternoons. Before breakfast I like to 
 be alone." 
 
 "I could come round then just as well," said Miss 
 Clara, inquiringly. 
 
 " Oh no," said John, " we will take it easily. I 
 should be sorry to forget how to make p and q. As 
 things stand, there are eleven letters of the alphabet 
 which I write in exactly the same way. 
 
 " Now we will clear off the mail, and then we can 
 go to work to-morrow morning." 
 
 IV 
 
 And so they did, if you call this work. Lucy Poor s 
 father does not, as I told you. Tuesday morning John 
 Rich got out of bed at twenty-three minutes before 
 seven, as he always does. He dressed, and in his room, 
 by his desk, found a nice cup of coffee ready for him. 
 He wrote that leader, which I think you may remem 
 ber, called " Forests and Sinking Funds." The New 
 Syndicate placed it in twenty-three Sunday papers on 
 the twelfth day after. Then John Rich took To-day 
 and lay on the sofa till his breakfast-bell rang, lie 
 was ready for his breakfast, and his breakfast was 
 ready for him. Then he walked round the garden, he 
 wrote Lucy Poor a little note, he ordered Doogue to 
 send her a box of flowers. She lived, alas ! eight miles 
 away, at Waban. At half-past eight Miss Clara came 
 in. She was quite ready for the ride. But they had 
 their stent of four thousand words to do first. John 
 
286 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 lay on the sofa, she sat at her desk, and he dictated. 
 It was that story of " The Pine-tree and the Palm." 
 You read it that day you went up the North River, 
 when you forgot to look at the scenery. John had it 
 all in mind had had it in mind since he thought of it 
 at the Alpha Delta dinner. Both he and Miss Clara 
 were in good condition for writing, and in thirty-two 
 minutes and fourteen seconds the work was done in 
 her pretty short-hand. 
 
 John had been putting on his shoes and gaiters ever 
 since the fence broke down in the story, you remem 
 ber while the blind boy ran for the doctor, and missed 
 the way. 
 
 " Boot and saddle !" he cried, when he saw that Miss 
 Clara s pencil had reached the bottom of page twenty. 
 " Boot and saddle !" and they both mounted. He lives 
 just out of town. Miss Clara rides well, and they go 
 so often that the horses, though they are hired, know 
 their riders. They both knew, Miss Clara and John 
 Rich, that they had saved the time for the ride by 
 writing fast, and that Madame Gutenschrift would be 
 at her desk in sixty minutes from the time they started. 
 But, with the Park and the Arboretum and the Brook- 
 way and the Fen-way, you can have a good scamper 
 in eighty minutes, and so at one minute past ten John 
 was at the work-room again, and Miss Clara hanging 
 up her hat before she sat down in the Round- room at 
 her pet typewriter. 
 
 Typewriters are quite human, and they know their 
 mistresses and are known of them. 
 
JOHN RICH AND LUCY POOR 
 
 As for John Kich, he went into his own room and 
 shook hands with Madame Gutenschrift, who was an 
 old friend. I do not myself think that madamc writes 
 nearly as fast as Miss Clara does. But she thinks she 
 does. And it made no difference ; for in the Me 
 moirs you have to look up the authorities, and there 
 is more or less walking around and marking passages 
 for copying. 
 
 " Good-morning, madam e. You look as if you were 
 glad to be at honest work again." Madame laughed, 
 and said that everything seemed natural. And John 
 began, even as he unbuttoned his gaiters : 
 
 a On the 1st of January, 1801, men thought that," 
 etc., etc. Is it not written, or printed, in the first 
 volume of the Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century ? 
 He walked up and down for a little while. He then 
 lay on the sofa with a rug drawn over his feet. Sharp 
 at eleven Nora came in with two cups of coffee, that 
 kind which is the color of the cheek of a brunette in 
 Seville, and with a little plate of those nice stamped 
 biscuits, like miniature waffles, which come in tin boxes 
 from Peek & Frean. John stopped long enough to 
 thank Nora, and he sipped his coffee as he walked up 
 and down. As for madame, she had to take her 
 chances for hers when he paused in dictation to take 
 down a volume of the Annual Register. So they 
 forged on, she, brave little woman, never flinching. 
 Her book was paged, as all the books were, and ruled 
 for two-hundred words a page, so that he need only 
 
288 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 look over her shoulder to see where they were. But 
 he knew the rate so well that he did not even look 
 over her shoulder. The stream flowed on placidly and 
 surely till quarter of twelve, and then he said : 
 
 " Where are we, madame?" 
 
 "We have just turned thirty-nine." 
 
 "Good," said John. "I guessed as much. I hope 
 you are not too tired. We are nearly through." 
 
 This meant that the little woman, with all his stops 
 and waits, had written her seven thousand eight hun 
 dred words in an hour and three-quarters. Two hun 
 dred words more filled the morning s stent, and in less 
 than a hundred seconds John dictated them, coming 
 out at " may be surprised to hear that at such an era " 
 
 "That will do for to-day, madame. There will be 
 lunch in the Round-room, and some of the other ladies 
 are there. I shall walk in the garden." 
 
 VI 
 
 John Kich had, and still has, what the makers ad 
 vertise as a "gentle lure to exercise." It is a very 
 small sickle on the end of a hoe-handle. It is a tool 
 with which you can stir up the hard ground or cut 
 out pigweed or " pussly " without stooping. As John 
 walked round with his gentle lure you might mistake 
 him for a shepherd with his crook if the costume had 
 fitted. So John walked up and down in his garden for 
 the hour from twelve to one, most of the time in the 
 hemlock avenue. But when he came to a bed of 
 shortia or of pansies he would tickle the ground with 
 
JOHN RICH AND LUCY POOR 289 
 
 the gentle lure. He was turning over the lines of the 
 prologue of the prize poem. This is a good place to 
 say that it took the prize four months after. 
 
 He had just finished, to his mind, that fine verse 
 which you will remember, which ends with the line, 
 
 "Where should the soldier rest but where he fell ?" 
 
 when the rattle of a carriage drew him to the garden 
 gate that he might be hospitable. 
 
 The carriage was the Poors carry-all. But, alas! 
 Lucy was not in it. Mr. Poor and the two smallest 
 children and Mrs. Poor made the party, with Asaph, 
 who drove. 
 
 " No, we cannot stop a minute. We are late now. 
 Only Lucy sent round these lilies-of- the- valley to Miss 
 Clara, and I believe there is a note for you." 
 
 And so the carry-all drove away. And as it went 
 Mr. Poor said, in a half- whisper, which even Asaph over 
 heard, and in a grumbling tone : 
 
 " Think of a young fellow like that, who might be 
 at honest work, -fooling round in the garden at one 
 o clock in the day !" 
 
 Mr. Poor did not refer to what he was himself doino-. 
 
 VII 
 
 John went in, called Miss Clara from the Hound- 
 room, and gave her Lucy s flowers. This was after 
 he had read Lucy s note. Then he dictated to Miss 
 Clara the verses he had been hammering on while he 
 
 used the "gentle lure." It took literally but two min 
 is 
 
290 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 utes " it is so hard to make them in poetry." Then he 
 called Miss Clara back with him to the Round-room, 
 where all the staff were, coming or going. Madame 
 Gutenschrift even had her " things " on, for some after 
 noon shopping, before she began to put her eight 
 thousand words through the typewriter. 
 
 The buzz of talk ceased, a little slowly, as they saw 
 that the chief had something to say. 
 
 " Ladies, all," he said, " here is a note from Mr. and 
 Mrs. Viking, who will like to take us all, or as many 
 as will go, off in the Undine. There is just a good 
 sailing wind, and she will be at the Point at sharp 
 2.40. We shall go from here in the electric, and those 
 of you who want to get your best bonnets must turn 
 up as you can. We may not be back till eight. But 
 there will be some sort of shebang to bring us 
 home." 
 
 At this announcement there was general glee, for the 
 girls had all rather be on the sea, in decent weather, 
 than in the work-room. Then John Rich took his 
 own lunch clam chowder ad lib., and coffee likewise. 
 Then he lay clown and slept an hour. This gave him 
 and Miss Clara just ten minutes to go to the Point, and 
 at sharp 2.40 they, with all the young ladies, were 
 on the Undine. Old Captain Carver, the skipper, 
 nodded with an approving smile, hauled in the gang 
 way plank with his own hand, and cast off. 
 
 The Undine swept out gracefully, and all was well. 
 The girls all adjusted themselves to their favorite seats, 
 lounging-places, and partners, as if Mrs. -Viking s hos 
 pitality were not a novelty to them. 
 
 As for John Rich, he called Miss Ysabel; they found 
 
JOHN KICK AND LUCY POOR 291 
 
 a cool place in the shade of the forward water-tank, 
 and he began on the serial novel. 
 
 "I do not know that you will agree with me," he 
 had said to Miss Clara. " You and I take the short 
 story first, because we have to be fresh then. I have 
 put the serial novel after lunch well, you see, don t 
 you? Then the Reminiscences, and the Calendar. 
 and the Personals any fool could do them, even if 
 he were sitting on a jury." 
 
 So he gave Miss Ysabel four thousand words of the 
 serial. It was written on the Trollope plan, which is 
 a very good one. You take a skeleton story down from 
 your closet, and hang upon it the talk and the inci 
 dent of the last twenty-four hours. Miss Ysabel writes 
 fast ; she did the four thousand by quarter-past four. 
 Then John had a frolic with Oscar Viking, chasing 
 him from one end of the boat to the other, and hid 
 ing from him in the launch. But by half-past four 
 Oscar was tired. John beckoned Miss Louise, and 
 they finished the first part of the serial. It was going 
 to the Century, and they like eight thousand two hun 
 dred words there. 
 
 Mrs. Viking liked to put the children to bed early, 
 and so the yacht rounded to at the Point just at seven 
 o clock. John and Miss Clara went up in the street 
 car together, on the back seat. 
 
 "We have had a good time," he said, "and now 
 there is nothing to do which will keep anybody awake. 
 A fly could do the Personals and the Calendar and 
 not know he had touched them." 
 
 " That indeed," said Miss Clara ; and she bade him 
 good-bye. Then the car stopped and she went home, 
 
292 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 sure she should find a nice letter from Will Watrous. 
 And she did. Good girl. She went to bed early, and 
 she slept as good angels sleep, and was up at five in the 
 morning, so that all her day s work was on typewriter 
 before eight the next day. 
 
 As for John, he went into the house with Miss Louise 
 and Miss Mabel. As he said, they had nothing but 
 the "Personals" and the "Calendar," the least possible 
 work, though the best paid, as a reckless world orders. 
 Every girl had brought in her contribution in writing 
 that morning. Miss Clara had told them that they 
 had to furnish ten each. John had marked with red 
 pencil all there was in his mails, and these Miss Lilian 
 had copied. After afternoon tea on the deck he had 
 dictated every word of gossip which Mrs. Viking had 
 told him, or of such as her husband had brought from 
 the club. So now, as he took scrap by scrap from the 
 trayful of this stuff which lay beside him, he had only 
 to read, hardly to change the language of the words 
 before him, as he dictated : 
 
 " Miss Alice Black has accepted the position of gov 
 erness in the family of Kev. Dean Golightly in Copake." 
 
 "Mr. Frank Jones has joined the party to go to 
 Baffin s Bay in search for Mr. Peary." 
 
 " Mrs. Cleveland has changed her nurse, and Miss 
 Bridget Sullivan takes the place of Miss Nora Shay," 
 and so on, and so on. 
 
 " The only thing you have to be careful about," said 
 John to Miss Louise, who was new at all this, " is that 
 by no accident shall one word of the least possible in 
 terest, value, or use to anybody creep in. That belongs 
 in the news columns, but not in Personals. " 
 
JOHN KICK AND LTJCY POOR 293 
 
 And so Louise went off to copy her four thousand 
 words, and by 9.30 Miss Mabel had taken hers. Those 
 were the scraps of history of what has happened on 
 the 21st of July, since on that particular day of the 
 month Adam asked Eve to give him an old-fashioned 
 white rose. Of course John had made ready for this 
 all through the last year. All is, as you read, when 
 there is a date in history, you mark that passage for 
 copying, taking care only to mark about four thousand 
 words a day. These index themselves- as soon as they 
 are copied, and when you get round to that day in your 
 work, why, there you are. It is the only work, except 
 " Personals " and " Pleasantries," which does itself and 
 requires no thought. So it is best to leave it to the 
 end of the day. 
 
 Then John took his hat and went down to the Cas 
 tle Theatre, where they were doing A Fool and His 
 Money, and they did it very well. John had a good 
 laugh with the Trenholms for an hour, and came home 
 and went to bed. 
 
 Lucy Poor s father was also at the Castle Theatre. 
 He did not like to talk to Lucy about her lover, for he 
 was fond of her, as every one is. But as he undressed 
 that night he said to her mother : 
 
 " That lazy dog, John Eich, was lounging at the 
 theatre to-night ; and this afternoon as we came up the 
 harbor I saw him fooling with some boys on Viking s 
 boat. You know what he was doing at his own house 
 when we called there. He certainly knows how to 
 waste time better than any one I ever saw." 
 
 Mrs. Poor did have the spirit to say, " My dear Le- 
 
294 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 onidas, if you had not been in those three places you 
 would not have seen him." 
 
 Then Leonidas changed the subject, and they went to 
 bed. 
 
 And so on, and so on, and so on. As the reader has 
 noticed in reading biography, the life of " these littery 
 fellars" furnishes little incident. John rose the next 
 day at twenty-three minutes before seven, and the next, 
 and the next, and always. On the particular Wednes 
 day which is the second day of this story, he wrote his 
 " Syndicate Leader " for the Irving Syndicate instead 
 of McClure s Syndicate, but that change is not much of 
 an " incident," even in a short story. At eight Miss 
 Clara came in as fresh as a rose. She did not say so, 
 but she had just had another charming letter from Will 
 Watrous. It came in her morning deliver} 7 . 
 
 "Were the girls tired last night?" said John Rich, a 
 little anxiously. 
 
 " Tired ? Not a bit ! It was a nice lark." 
 
 Did Miss Clara think they could stand the pace? 
 Why, of course she did. Of course they could. Really 
 there was more force than was needed. There was 
 always one understudy to fill any gaps. 
 
 "That s the use of the Champollion finger-board, 
 and having you all write alike. When we go into 
 politics we will make everybody do that. Let it be 
 our Leader for the American Syndicate." And Miss 
 Clara made a minute on Thursday s tickler. 
 
 " Are you ready ?" 
 
 " Quite so." 
 
 And so they finished " The Pine-tree and the Palm " 
 
JOHN RICH AND LUCY POOR 295 
 
 two thousand words more and began "The Pink 
 
 Pond-lily " for Scribner s. 
 
 After lunch Miss Clara was able to bring John the 
 day-book of the day before, with the total. 
 
 " We overran a little," she said. " Without counting 
 the Epic, we made forty-one thousand words." 
 
 They never counted, nor pretended to count, the tens 
 and units. Hundreds were all they cared for. 
 
 "Without the Epic," said he. "That is, after all, 
 the fun of the competitions. They introduce the ele 
 ment of uncertainty. If not, I would have written 
 to Aldrich and Stedman and Miss Thomas and Miss 
 Munro and asked them squarely if they were going into 
 this one. But one always enjoys a lottery." 
 
 And so they went on. The only really uniform 
 thing was John s walk with his " gentle lure " every 
 second day as he worked out the Epic. For the rest, 
 madam e did not always have the "Memoirs," nor 
 Ysabel the serial, nor any one person what John called 
 the " idiot s work," of evenings. 
 
 " It is but fair to change hands," he said. " No one 
 can stand the same thing forever. I should die if it 
 were not for the variety." 
 
 At the end of the month Miss Clara showed to John 
 Rich the ledger account made up to the thirty - first 
 day : 
 
 Twenty-six days, as per footing, page 111. . 1,108,600 words 
 
 An Epic, " The Sword and Plough " 1,300 " 
 
 (Epic uncertain until October 15th, when prizes will be 
 awarded.) 
 
 1,108,600 words, at 3 cents a word, is $33,258.00 
 
 Of this, $11,120.00 has been paid on the delivery of man 
 uscript and deposited. 
 
296 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 The inexperienced reader should understand that 
 there are three classes of publishers : 
 
 1st. Those who pay on the delivery of goods. Such 
 are Harper s, McClure s, the Century, and the Outlook. 
 
 2d. Those who pay on the printing of the articles. 
 Such are the Thunderer, the Unfortunates , and the 
 Firefly. 
 
 3d. Those who say they will pay on delivery, and do 
 not pay at all. Such are the Penny Trumpet and the 
 Catch-me-not. 
 
 So that afternoon John Rich wrote a note to Phile- 
 tus Baring, who was his classmate, and asked him to 
 buy as many Refined Sugar bonds, which guarantee 
 seven per cent, interest, as $11,120 would pay for. 
 
 The President of the hour had proposed two or three 
 wars the week before, so the market was deranged, 
 and John got his seven-per-cents. at ninety-five and a 
 quarter. 
 
 The next morning he excused Madame Gutenschrift, 
 ordered a cab, and went down -town to the Thread- 
 needle Street of the town. Philetus gave him the 
 bonds, and told him the market had already rallied. 
 
 John took his bonds to the Second National and 
 deposited them as collateral. The well-pleased cashier 
 was glad to lend him $10,000 at four-and-a-half per 
 cent, on such excellent gilt-edged security. 
 
 John went back to Philetus s office and bought 
 $10,000 more of bonds. He carried these to the bank 
 and deposited them, and the cashier lent him $9000 
 more on that security. 
 
 John went back to Philetus and bought $8400 more 
 of bonds, And so on for an hour he went backward 
 
JOHN RICH AND LUCY POOR 297 
 
 and forward. At the end of that time, by the prudent 
 use of his $11,000, he had bought some 50,000 face 
 value of seven-per-cent. bonds. He would receive on 
 them $3500 a year. On $40,000 of the money he would 
 pay $1800 interest. That is to say, he would receive 
 $1700 to pay him for his two hours work in going 
 backward and forward from the bank to the broker. 
 But he took all the risk of the Sugar Company s going 
 to the dogs. 
 
 " For my part," said John to Miss Clara, when she 
 entered the transaction on the books, " I had rather 
 have written a short story. But this is what men call 
 doing business. You do not add a barleycorn to the 
 wealth of the world, but somebody pays you a thou 
 sand or two dollars for doing it." 
 
 Mr. Poor was the brother-in-law of an under-teller 
 in the Second National. So he heard of this transac 
 tion, which should have been confidential; and he be 
 gan to wonder if John Eich had in him, after all, the 
 making of a man of business. 
 
 Things would not always run so smoothly. For, 
 alas, this is a finite world ! One Friday afternoon, for 
 instance, John had gone out to meet an engagement. 
 He had pressed every one in the morning, and so had 
 gained an hour, and he had told Miss Louise that he 
 must keep her half an hour late and she must stay to 
 dine. All this that he might preside at the annual 
 meeting of the Society for Providing Occupation for 
 Badly Educated Ladies, of which he was vice-president. 
 Mrs. Randolph, the president, had "had a stroke." 
 
 He gave his hour and a half to counting in a quorum, 
 
298 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 laying on the table, and ruling on points of order all 
 of it good honest time, worth five cents for every sec 
 ond and he came home. On his desk was a pencil 
 note from Lucy : 
 
 " I came round hoping you could join me. So sorry you arc 
 out! Here are some pansies for your button-hole." 
 
 So much for public spirit and saving the world ! 
 
 But John Rich fined himself for this. The next 
 morning, before Miss Clara began on the short story 
 for the day, he said : 
 
 " We have had forty - five days of this, Miss Clara. 
 How do the girls stand it ?" 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Kich, you know they enjoy it ! You know 
 how fond they are of each other! They count it all 
 a lark it is so much better than office -work, you 
 know." 
 
 " And you," he said, almost paternally, " how do you 
 stand it ?" 
 
 " Do I look ill ?" said she, turning round with her 
 pretty blush. "Miss Lucy said I was the picture of 
 health." 
 
 " Then you would try three months of it?" 
 
 " Three months ? Three years !" said the brave 
 girl. 
 
 " Three months let it be," said John. " And write 
 for Miss Annie. I see that old Mr. Lancelot is dead, 
 and she will be free again." 
 
 "I hope she takes no one s place ?" asked Miss Clara, 
 anxiously. 
 
 " Oh no ! We cannot spare one of them. We may 
 need one or two more." 
 
JOHN RICH AND LUCY POOR 299 
 
 So the stent was increased some days from nine 
 hours to ten. And they contracted for twelve chapters 
 of " Reminiscences." 
 
 The next month followed much as by pattern. You 
 see that this " litrary fooling" as Leonidas Poor called 
 it which he could not call work differs from work in 
 some points where it has an advantage. For instance, 
 John took the whole party to Weirs, on Lake Win- 
 nipiseogee, for a change. He sent down six new Cham- 
 pollion typewriters the day before; and after lunch 
 they all took the afternoon train to Weirs. It is, you 
 know, a lovely ride. 
 
 You can write in a good car on a good railwaj^ not 
 as handsomely, but nearly as legibly, as you can at 
 home. So John did his afternoon stents with Miss 
 Ysabel and Miss Hattie as they rode, and they had the 
 scenery ready to his eye and to everybody s pencils. 
 So he wrote that day the blood-curdling story of Mrs. 
 Dustin and the Pennacook Indians, that you read in 
 Frank Leslie. Mrs. Penn, who holds a light pencil, did 
 the illustrations for it evenings. Readers from a dis 
 tance should understand that as they travelled they 
 were on the route of Mrs. Dustin s captivity, and that 
 they saw the bronze statue of the heroine planted in 
 the place where she killed the Indian. 
 
 You get up to Weirs about five o clock. Their rooms 
 had been ordered, and Mr. At \vood gave them a good 
 supper. In the ride they had picked up any amount of 
 " Personal" from the friends who had come in to in 
 terrupt them. And in the evening, while John dic 
 tated the "Personal" and the "Calendar," the girls 
 
300 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 were out on the lake in canoes or boats. There proved 
 to be a good many young men whom they knew who 
 had come down on the morning train. Will Watrous 
 was there, and young Viking, and his classmate Olaf, 
 and three or four more. So that evening, and indeed 
 all the evenings of the week, went very pleasantly. 
 
 When the Globe announced in its "Personals" of 
 Thursday that Mr. John Rich was at the hotel at 
 Weirs, Mr. Poor passed the paper across to his wife, 
 with a wicked thumb-nail mark against that paragraph. 
 
 " That s the way he wastes his time," he said, vicious 
 ly " a man who really has some eye for business." 
 
 All the same, when Miss Clara got back to the ledger 
 Saturday night, she entered on the credit side 242,700 
 words for the week. At three cents a word, this made 
 $7281. For that week they beat Mr. Gansevoort. Mr. 
 Gansevoort s income was only 6730.73 in a week. 
 And he had all the risk of that President who was so 
 fond of making wars. 
 
 "People will keep on reading short stories and news 
 papers," said John Rich, "though there should be 
 eleven rumors of twelve wars." 
 
 All this would stop once a week, on Saturday after 
 noon. Thanks to the beneficent institution of Sunday, 
 as John Rich would say, there was one day when a 
 man did not have to think of leaders, or serials, or me 
 moirs, or reminiscences, or novels. He said that " Per 
 sonals" and "Calendars" never required any thought, 
 any day in the week. 
 
 They would all crowd a little on Friday even on 
 
JOHN KICK AND LUCY POOR 301 
 
 Thursday afternoons so that Saturday evening there 
 was nothing to do. And then it was that John Eich, 
 instead of arranging "Personals" and other tric-trac, 
 took the electric for the Tenterden Junction and walk 
 ed across to Waban to spend Saturday night and Sun 
 day at his aunt Priscilla s. She lived, you know, next 
 door to the Poors. Mr. Leonidas Poor might be as 
 grumpy as he pleased. lie could not keep John from 
 coming in to tea, or from walking up and down the 
 River Road with Lucy, or from spending the evening 
 in the sitting-room while she played to him, or while 
 they sang together, or while Olive read the last Steven 
 son aloud to them ; or if there was a symphom 7 concert 
 at Stoughton, from driving over there together. In 
 that household Mrs. Poor did much as she chose, and 
 had things much as she chose. And as she liked John 
 Rich very much, Mr. Poor s grumpiness was practically 
 nothing to anybody but himself. 
 
 And the Saturday evenings were only too short. 
 And Sunday morning, if Aunt Priscilla asked Lucy to 
 breakfast, Lucy was not so stuck up but she would come; 
 and on. the alternate Sundays John would go over to 
 the Poors to breakfast. And while Lucy got up her 
 lesson for her Sunday-school class, John was generally 
 able to help her. And it always happened that there 
 was not room in the carry -all for her, so thev generally 
 started together to walk to church, she and John. Why, 
 you know it is only two miles if you go through the 
 school-house lane. Then John waited through the 
 Sunday-school in fact, before long he had a class there, 
 the boys were so fond of him ! His subject was the 
 athletic games introduced at Jerusalem and Ca3sarea, 
 
302 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 by Herod the Great. He would carry Josephus s An 
 tiquities from the library. But practically the instruc 
 tion was largely in object-lessons. They had that little 
 room to themselves where the sexton stands when he 
 rings the bell. 
 
 As for the rest of Sunday, I do not know so much. 
 They were a little apt to disappear. John was apt to 
 have a horse and buggy in which he could go to drive, 
 and it was understood that Lucy had some protegees at 
 South Natick, whom she used to visit. John was him 
 self an officer in the Home for Sick Dogs, and they 
 sometimes went over there to see how Bruno and Bis 
 marck were getting on. Always, however, they arrived 
 at Aunt Priscilla s in time for a late tea, and either at 
 Aunt Priscilla s or at the Candlers , or the Pettingills 
 or the Poors , they had sacred music if they were not 
 walking together in the shrubbery. There was never 
 a word said about articles of any sort. Nobody asked 
 anybody about the denouement of a story. Nobody 
 talked of Mr. Davis or Miss Wilkins or Miss Jewett, or 
 even of Mr. Howells. If there were any conversation 
 on literary subjects, it was of far-away times. 
 
 When August came the staff and John Rich went 
 to Niagara together. As has been said, on a good rail 
 way, like the New York Central, one writes very de 
 cently, and you can work the typewriter if it be 
 work to run the typewriter; the Leonidas Poors of 
 this world think it is not. Dr. Holmes once said to 
 me that he thought he wrote better in a moving car 
 than he did anywhere else. He asked if there were 
 not some slight impulse of blood to the head which 
 
JOHN BICH AND LUCY POOK 303 
 
 quickened the work of the brain. I thought it was 
 only the impulse of the devil proposing that you should 
 write when you had no proper implements and what 
 you wrote was illegible. But Wagner and Pullman 
 and Mr. Depew have changed all that. 
 
 They took ten days at Cape Breton, and looked up 
 Louisburg. And on this trip Mrs. Poor and Lucy went 
 with them. They had some grand friends whom they 
 wanted to visit there. Generally Madame Gutenschrift 
 and Mrs. Penn matronized the parties ; they took their 
 six little girls with them, who made nice companions 
 for the working party if, as has been said, this be work. 
 
 They roughed through the winter as well as they 
 could. You can stand a good deal in our polar lati 
 tude through December, and even January. You forget 
 how bad it was last year, and you say, "the days begin 
 to lengthen." You buy new arctics, and you get a 
 good deal of fun out of Thanksgiving and Christmas. 
 It is not till the liar February appears that hope begins 
 to leave you. And so, early in February, John Rich 
 bade Miss Clara write to the Pennsylvania Railroad 
 for his two palace-cars and the dining-room again, 
 and went off to Manatee and Punto Gordo and Punta 
 Rassa and the Fountain of Life, oranges, and orange 
 blossoms. They came back keeping pretty near the 
 fresh strawberry line by New Orleans and a Missis 
 sippi steamer, and Glenwood Springs and Banff, and 
 so by Point Keweenaw and Mackinaw, in time for the 
 young people to be at class-day on the 20th of June at 
 Harvard. Will Viking had the poem that year, and 
 they were all engaged eleven spreads deep at Cam 
 bridge. 
 
804 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 "The only way to do it," said John Rich, "is to 
 keep steadily to your hours. Jump out of bed at 
 twenty -three minutes before seven, if that is your time. 
 If your time is twenty-seven minutes after six, get 
 up then. If you have promised Mr. McClure eleven 
 hundred words, send him eleven hundred. If you only 
 promised him nine hundred, do not bother him with 
 more." And to the young authors who came to him 
 with their manuscripts at the stations, or asked him 
 at Niagara to look over them while the others were 
 in the Belle of the Foam or under the cataract, John 
 would give like advice. 
 
 " Do not try to tell a story till there is a story 
 to tell. 
 
 " Then tell it as well as you can, in as few words as 
 will do. 
 
 " First, second, and last, forget yourself while you 
 are doing it, and never bother about style." 
 
 From which year s career for this was, in a way, 
 an exceptional year one triumph came to John Rich. 
 It was after class-day. Miss Clara s monthly return 
 had been larger than ever. The dilatory people were 
 paying up, and there was a new President, who did not 
 make wars. So John Rich bought more sugar, and 
 took more money on collateral than ever. 
 
 As he read his To-day one morning before he went 
 to after - breakfast work, a note came in the mail 
 marked "Personal and particular." Miss Clara did not 
 open it. 
 
 "This is a victory," said John Rich, grimly, as he 
 read. The note was this : 
 
JOHN KICH AND LUCY POOR 305 
 
 " DEAR MR. RICH, A mortgage has fallen in, by the death of old 
 Gradgrind. It amounts to three thousand four hundred dollars, 
 and makes all my wife s independent property. Might I have a 
 minute with you before Saturday, to consult you about reinvest 
 ing it ? Always yours, 
 
 "LEONID AS POOR." 
 
 To which John Rich dictated this reply : 
 
 "DEAR MR. POOR, You know I would do anything to serve 
 you. But really, in a case like this, you ought to consult some man 
 of business." 
 
 Then he made lamplighters of Mr. Poor s note. 
 
 That exceptional year came to an end on the 7th 
 of July. Exceptional it was, John Rich said, because 
 at the end of it nobody made any objection to his 
 marrying the dearest girl in the world. She had 
 agreed on the place where they would build their lit 
 tle cottage, and then Dr. Primrose married them, and 
 they went on their wedding journey. 
 
 As they read their Ilowells together, just as you pass 
 the oldest rocks in the world, between Schenectady and 
 Syracuse, John shook hands with a sad - looking man 
 who came into the Wagner palace from the smoking 
 car and took his seat. His seat was on the sunny side, 
 three chairs in front of Lucy s. Lucy asked her hus 
 band who this downcast-looking man was. 
 
 " Oh, you do not know him ? He was the year be 
 fore me in college. That is Gansevoort." And then, 
 after a thoughtful pause, " Lucy, his income is only 
 three hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. Ours, 
 even outside the investments, the work of our hands, 
 
 20 
 
306 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 has panned out twelve hundred and thirty-four dollars 
 more than his. There is Clara s figure." 
 
 And he showed her Miss Clara s memorandum on 
 the back of a card 
 
 $351,234. 
 
 " You see how sad he looks. Don t you think I 
 ought to share our surplus with him?" 
 
 " Poor man, I am afraid the girl he wanted to marry 
 would not look at him !" 
 
 The only grief about their wedding journey was that 
 they could not stay to Clara s wedding. She married 
 Will Watrous the next day, and she had ten brides 
 maids Annie and Louise and Ysabel and Lizzie and 
 Minnie and Hattie and Lilian and Mabel, and the 
 others of their nice travelling-parties. 
 
 The next day there were four weddings, and the 
 next four more. And now those young people are 
 Mrs. Viking and Mrs. Olaf and Mrs. Brown and Mrs. 
 Green and Mrs. White and Mrs. Black and Mrs. Gray 
 and Mrs. Bistre. 
 
FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION 
 
 A STORY OF CHRISTMAS CHRISTIANITY 
 
 " COME and see the new moon, grandam ! Come, 
 come, thee must come and see the new moon ! And put 
 money in thy pocket, grandam, and put thy right foot 
 on the ladder, and face this way and look over that 
 shoulder, and then thee will have money for a month." 
 
 " And little good will the money do me," said the 
 poor woman, not moving a finger. " Be there another 
 moon? Then it s fifty-nine days since we started on 
 this weary, weary sea. And in my heart I know we 
 shall never see land." 
 
 "Thee knows no such thing, grandam," cried one 
 of the children and another; "and thee must come 
 and see the moon." 
 
 " For before she is full thee will be seeing sugar and 
 spice and everything nice, and medlars and pears and 
 plums, and thee will be hungry for all of them, and 
 thee will need all thy money to buy them for Abner 
 and for Willie." 
 
 This was the speech of that pretty Anne Fortune, 
 who could make the poor sea-sick woman do what she 
 chose. And she succeeded this time, as she had done 
 
308 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 so often, and dragged her up the narrow ladder to the 
 deck in triumph. And so Goody Wakelin saw the 
 third moon of their voyage. 
 
 They were all on the Mayflower. Yes, the famous 
 Mayflower. But this was not the famous voyage. 
 This was one of the later voyages of the brave old ship, 
 before she disappeared and was broken up and changed 
 into old junk in some dockyard on the river. It was 
 to America she was coming; and Goody Wakelin was 
 in theory taking charge of the children. And really 
 Abner and Anne had charge of her. For they had the 
 omnipotence of youth, and she, sick and careworn, 
 looked back far more than was well for her, and had 
 to be cajoled or scolded into looking forward. Her 
 complaining began again as she turned from the new 
 moon. 
 
 "But where is my dear Lord? Why does He not 
 say to the sea, Be still ? Why does He not come to 
 me and lead me by still waters?" 
 
 The poor children did not know, and did not tell 
 her. They could only beg her again to stay and see 
 the people on deck, and so far they succeeded. They 
 found for their poor captive a lee under the shelter 
 of a big cask, which was a part of the deck freight ; 
 and in spite of herself she watched the reflection of 
 the afterglow on the clouds behind. Just then a 
 
 O 
 
 group of seamen around the foremast began singing 
 Simeon s hymn : 
 
 "Lord, because rny heart s desire 
 
 Hath wished long to see 
 
 My only Lord and Saviour, 
 
 Thy Son, before I die." 
 
FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION 309 
 
 Some of the women and children gathered round 
 them, and joined in the familiar words. And it was 
 with jubilant joy that they sang the last verse : 
 
 "The Gentiles to illuminate 
 
 And Satan over-quell, 
 And eke to be the glory of 
 Thy people Israel." 
 
 The whole deck cheered, one may say, as the sacred 
 song was ended. For the " Amen, amen, amen !" which 
 rose from so many lips was indeed the cheer of con 
 querors. And the ship s boatswain, a modest-looking 
 young fellow, with a friendly face and a blazing eye, 
 stepped forward and said, " Let us pray." He spoke 
 perhaps fifty words in the strain of triumph, and again 
 came the glad " Amen, amen !" And then the young 
 fellow said, what lingered in the hearts of those chil 
 dren till they died : 
 
 "You see, mates, it is not the hair of His head ye 
 are to look for, nay, nor the grip of His fingers and 
 His thumb. It is as twere midnight, black and dark, 
 here, and ye heard the cheer of His voice out of the 
 fo castle as He called ye from the poop yonder. It 
 is not His face that ye want; it is Him. It is Him I 
 long to see, 
 
 " The only Lord and Saviour, 
 Thy Son, before I die. " 
 
 "Amen, amen, amen!" rang from the crowd. And 
 as the children lifted their grandmother down the com 
 panion-way, the dear old soul said, "Amen, my dar 
 ling. How wicked I was when I came up-stairs ! I see 
 it now, and I will not whine any more." 
 
310 
 
 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 II 
 
 Sixty-five years make more or less, as you take them. 
 The three children Abner, William, and Anne were 
 sixty-five years older in the year 1690 than they were 
 in the spring of. 1625. But they did not take life any 
 less joyously perhaps they took it more joyously. 
 Anne Fortune was no longer Anne Fortune. She had 
 been Abner s wife well, if they had known about 
 golden weddings, theirs would have passed already. 
 Her children s children were tumbling round, some in 
 the great lean-to, sailing boats in the water-tank, some 
 in the cherry-trees, picking cherries and eating them. 
 Will Wakelin had just come across from Plymouth, 
 and had brought some ribbons for Comfort and Ruth, 
 some pepper and ginger for the kitchen, and the new 
 dasher for the churn which he had bidden Silas Meek 
 finish for him at the mill. And he and his wife- 
 Aunt Hitty, as the children called her had walked 
 across from their house. They all sat together under 
 the great elm as the sun went down. On the com 
 mon the green between two roads the bigger boys 
 were playing the ball-game which we now call lacrosse. 
 There were three or four Sogkonate boys among them, 
 quite enough to give a savage flavor, not to say color, 
 to the game. 
 
 "I was telling your wife, Will," says the Anne 
 Fortune of the Mayflower, " that the little brats here 
 have been making me tell them old-time stories of 
 the sea and of the old country. And I told them 
 o that night when we coaxed thy grandmother up 
 
FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION 311 
 
 on deck, and showed her the new moon over her 
 shoulder." 
 
 " And, indeed, there is the same moon now," cried 
 Aunt Ilittj "as new as ever!" 
 
 And, sure enough, the faint white sickle, only two 
 days old, appeared above the apple-orchard. And the 
 children twisted their necks into absurd contortions, 
 that they might see it over their left shoulders. 
 
 " And did you tell them," said Will, a little seriously, 
 " how we sang, and she sang, and how they all sang? 
 Little did I know about the Gentiles then. And thy 
 mother, Hitty, told me stories that same night about 
 the old times which I shall never forget." 
 
 " And Arnold, the boatswain, spoke to us that night, 
 and yes, here is the Elder, Arnold s son, has come just 
 in time for supper. Hold up, Elder, hold up ! We 
 were talking of your father. Now, Elder, you have 
 not far to go John, take the Elder s horse and. 
 Elder, there will be a plate and a spoon for you. 
 Elder, we were talking of the times before you were 
 born." 
 
 And so the boys were called from the ball-field, and 
 their brothers and sisters from the orchard, and young 
 Abner and Silas from the barn, as little Hitty and 
 Salome came out beaming from the great kitchen and 
 announced that supper was on the table. 
 
 The older people sat mostly at one end of the long- 
 table, "Little Hitty," who was five feet seven if she 
 were an inch in height, presided at the other end, and 
 the children drew up stools or short settles in the space 
 between. The party was not large for this hospitable 
 house. There were but twenty-seven in all. The Elder 
 
312 SUSAN S ESCOKT, AND OTHERS 
 
 asked God s blessing, the mugs were filled, now with 
 cider, now with milk, the meats, cold and warm, were 
 served, and with good appetite they all fell to, with 
 viands such as 
 
 "Kings and prophets waited for, 
 And sought, but never found." 
 
 " Oh, Anne, do you remember the night when the 
 pea-soup was sour on the ship, and old Watrous threw 
 his plate into the sea?" 
 
 " And, Will, I can see thee standing by the kettle, 
 and how thee let David Antrim carry off the long cut 
 because thee knew what was under it" and so on. 
 and so on. 
 
 And after the supper the children gathered in 
 groups on the grass before the lean-to, arid the old 
 people brought their chairs under the great elm, and 
 Abner gave to the Elder the Bible, and asked him to 
 read the song of Simeon. And he did. And then 
 all at once children, fathers and mothers, and grand 
 fathers and grandmothers stood in a circle, and the 
 Elder offered prayer. And then, with Abner s lead, 
 they sang as they had sung on the deck of the ship : 
 
 "The Gentiles to illuminate 
 
 And Satan over-quell, 
 And eke to be the glory of 
 Thy people Israel." 
 
 " Thy kingdom come, indeed," said the Elder. 
 " The good Lord heard and answered." 
 
 "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. I 
 think of that every night when the children come and 
 kiss me/ 
 
FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION 313 
 
 " Indeed," said the Elder, " there is no such heaven 
 as a happy home." 
 
 " And do you think, Elder, that the Lord Christ will 
 long delay His coming? Are there not signs in the 
 sky and trembling of men s hearts?" 
 
 " Dear friend," said the Elder, " when I see those 
 redskins eating their bread and milk with our children, 
 when I go from door to door and every one praises 
 the Lord because He is good, I see that it is as the good 
 Lord says. He cometh not with observation. He has 
 already come." 
 
 Ill 
 
 A perfect September day. A spacious and elegant 
 house on a quiet street in Boston. The large hall 
 divides three generous parlors on the right from three 
 as generous on the left. In the most westerly of the 
 last three is a large company of ladies and gentlemen 
 around an admirably furnished dinner-table. The time 
 is one o clock in the afternoon, the dinner-hour in 
 Boston in 1740. 
 
 At the right hand of Mrs. Arnold, the hostess, sits 
 the Reverend George Whiten* eld, who is the guest of 
 honor of the occasion. Rightly or not, every one in 
 the company addresses him as " Dr. Whitefield." Mrs. 
 Arnold, dignified, gracious, and self-possessed, is, none 
 the less, more or less dashed in the presence of a guest 
 so distinguished and, for good reason, so much honored. 
 At the other end of the table, at the right of Morton 
 Arnold, her husband, sat Parson Webb of the New 
 North Church, Morton Arnold s minister. Thus Morton 
 
314 SUSAN S ESCORT, AJTD OTHERS 
 
 Arnold would have called that gentleman, not meaning 
 that he owned him in any sense, but rather that when 
 John Webb preached in the New North Church he 
 listened. 
 
 We are not strangers to these people. Morton 
 Arnold is the oldest son of that Elder Arnold in the 
 last chapter, who asked the blessing at Marshfield 
 fifty years before. Mrs. Arnold is the younger of the 
 two girls who served the supper to the others, of which 
 by accident Elder Arnold partook. Morton was one 
 of the boys who played lacrosse on the green. That 
 portrait by Smibert, at which Whitefield is looking as 
 he speaks with Madam Morton, is a picture of Elder 
 Arnold. The world s gear has prospered in Morton 
 Arnold s hands ; his dunfish are in favor among the 
 monks at Yallombrosa see what a noble fish that is 
 from which Madam Arnold helps Whitefield ! And as 
 the repast closes, these figs and oranges and raisins 
 have all been selected by his own agents in Alicante 
 and Barcelona. 
 
 Just before they left the table Morton Arnold was 
 trying to catch his wife s eye, so that she might ask 
 Dr. Whitefield to return thanks. But she had brought 
 round the conversation with her distinguished guest so 
 far as to venture to ask him his opinion on Dr. BengePs 
 theory of the Apocalypse, which theory was a fashion 
 able one at that moment with regard to the second 
 coming of Christ. Did Dr. Whitefield think that the 
 Treaty of Utrecht was the closing of the fifth seal ? 
 or whatever was the particular question of the hour. 
 Whitefield felt, perhaps, that this was not a very good 
 moment for exegetical discussion ; he simply said, and 
 
FEOM GENERATION TO GENERATION 315 
 
 she never forgot it, " My dear madam, if you and I 
 can welcome the dear Lord in our hearts, we need not 
 be troubled if we do not see Him in the sky." And at 
 this moment she caught her husband s eye, she saw his 
 purpose, and she said : 
 
 " Thank you, Dr. Whitefield, thank you indeed ! I 
 will try to remember what you say. Now we must not 
 keep all the people waiting. Will you return thanks ?" 
 
 And the company all stood with bowed heads while 
 Whitefield thanked the good God for the feast which 
 they had enjoyed, and, in words which faltered, asked 
 for his strength for the duty which was before him. 
 
 No one sat down. All repaired to the great ball; 
 mantles or other outer gear were thrown over the 
 ladies shoulders, the men took their canes and hats, 
 and in a stately procession they moved towards the 
 New North Church. The whole town and the whole 
 neighborhood knew that Whitefield was to preach 
 there, and as they approached Hanover Street, which 
 had taken its new name from the dynasty hardly a 
 generation old, their way was already blocked by the 
 throngs of people who were passing around the meet 
 ing-house. The meeting-house itself had been filled 
 long before. 
 
 Morton Arnold was not surprised. He turned back 
 and spoke to Whitefield, who was following him close, 
 with Madam Arnold on his arm, and said : 
 
 "It is as I told you, Dr. Whitefield. There will be 
 no room in the church. I shall send forward Michael 
 and Samuel, and the town-crier is in waiting, who will 
 give notice that the meeting will be held and you will 
 preach under the Quaker Tree on the Common." 
 
316 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 Little did Whitefield know why he used the word 
 Quaker in connection with the tree. Mrs. Arnold 
 knew that it was because Mary Dyer had been hanged 
 there nearly a hundred years before. All the party 
 turned back to Arnold s house. 
 
 He had foreseen all this, and his own chariot and 
 horses were in readiness to take Dr. Whitefield and 
 Mrs. Arnold and two other guests to the Common. 
 They arrived at the tree, near the marsh or pond in 
 the more distant part of the Common, before the great 
 mass of the people. Still, there were hundreds there, 
 who had had the foresight to guess that the New 
 North Meeting-house would not be large enough for 
 the assembly. At Mrs. Arnold s direction the horses 
 were removed from the carriage and led away some 
 where, so that Whitefield might stand in the carriage 
 himself as the throng of people drew near. And then 
 there flowed up, in a living stream, the crowd of men 
 and women yes, of children as well, led by their 
 mothers each eager to get a front place in the throng, 
 and filling in, thousand upon thousand, thousand upon 
 thousand, around the speaker. 
 
 Whitefield was pale he did not seem excited ; he 
 sometimes said a word to the three ladies with whom 
 he had come. And they, with reverent understanding 
 that they were not to sit in this accidental pulpit, 
 stepped down from the chariot, and grouped them 
 selves with those who were in the front. A little cir 
 cle of grass, not ten feet across, separated him from his 
 hearers. The gathering of the crowd was rapid, it was 
 silent as the gathering of the same people in their 
 churches might have been, a.nd there was but little 
 
FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION 317 
 
 delay, therefore, before, in a voice which broke some 
 times with emotion, Whitefield led the prayers of this 
 assembly in a fervent appeal to the present God. 
 
 The service went forward much as it might have 
 done in the new brick meeting-house. An occasional 
 cry of " Amen !" or " Praise the Lord !" breaking in on 
 the preacher s voice, made indeed the only exception 
 from the ordinary decorous conduct of Sunday service. 
 The sermon was an eager, passionate description of the 
 Saviour s personal presence and movement in Nazareth, 
 at the well of Samaria, in Edom, by the seaside at Tyre, 
 and at last at Jerusalem. Whitefield made the Divine 
 Man live, even for the dullest negro who listened to 
 him with open mouth and unwinking eyes. It was as 
 if He spoke to them ; it was as if He took them by the 
 hand. And then, not in many words, but with intense 
 feeling, he showed them that the love with which Jesus 
 spoke was God s love, the power with which He acted 
 was God s power, the eternal wisdom of His instruction 
 was God s wisdom. "This is incarnation," he cried. 
 " You see the living God lives and moves and has His 
 being by the side of the brook of Sharon, on the hill 
 side in Nazareth, and in the streets of Jerusalem !" So 
 passionate and eager was this statement that a cho 
 rus of "Amen! amen! amen!" fairly interrupted the 
 speaker. He almost trembled as he stood silent, but 
 he waved his hand as if to quell the half -applause 
 which thus expressed itself, and, pointing with that 
 thin, bony finger quite into the middle of the crowd, 
 then almost frowning, as if he could hardly find words 
 for his message, he cried, "You say Amen! and 
 what is the use of my showing you how God can be 
 
318 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 present in the form of man as He walked in Nazareth 
 and Jerusalem unless you are willing that God shall 
 be incarnate in your own lives, as you go and come 
 under these trees or in those streets of Boston ? Is it 
 any use for you that God should have been incarnate 
 then, if you mean to resist the Holy Spirit and will not 
 let Him be incarnate now ? Now is the time accepted, 
 and this is the day of salvation, and you will know 
 what it is to be saved if, as your Saviour did, you will 
 speak God s word, you will do God s deed, and will go 
 about your Father s business. O God, my God, that 
 Thou wilt incarnate Thyself in the hearts of Thy ser 
 vants here to-day !" 
 
 And so that address was ended. A moment more, 
 and in eager words of prayer, words which poured over 
 each other as if he could not hold them back in his 
 passion of love and reverence, he continued the same 
 appeal. The men around him knew that he saw God 
 and heard Him and was alive with the infinite life. 
 
 That evening as Madam Arnold s grandchildren gath 
 ered around her, as she kissed them before they went 
 to bed, her husband read to them the passage which 
 came in order in the Bible, and the children felt that 
 his prayer had in it an eager reality to which they 
 had not been accustomed in the evening service of the 
 household. And their grandmother kept them for a 
 moment, as she did not always keep them, and said to 
 them : 
 
 " Do not forget this day do not forget this day. He 
 said to me that we are not to look in the clouds for our 
 Saviour. And I am sure, John, you will remember 
 what you heard on the Common. You know that you 
 
FKOM GENERATION TO GENERATION 319 
 
 are one of the children of God ; and when you choose, 
 God lives and moves and has His being in you." 
 
 Our business with this story is that John Arnold 
 never forgot those words. And in a thousand straits 
 of his after-lifeboy, youngster, adventurer, emigrant, 
 and leader of men ; in sorrow or in joy, in weakness 
 and in strength John Arnold knew how to find the 
 infinite companionship, and to go about his business as 
 those do who are almighty. 
 
 IV 
 
 Fifty-two years more. John Arnold, this very boy 
 who saw and heard Whitefield, is standing, a little 
 nervous, at the door of a great " frame house," not far 
 from a hospitable log-cabin. From the great chimney 
 of the cabin pour torrents of blue smoke, which indi 
 cate an important function within. John Arnold is a 
 tall, handsome man, whose hair is hardly grizzled ; he 
 looks ready, is ready, to tramp his five -and -twenty 
 miles through the woods any day. Yet John Arnold 
 has been left at home this time while the boys went 
 to the campaign. 
 
 He is dressed in a well-preserved blue uniform coat, 
 rather old-fashioned, but of French cut and Revolu 
 tionary times, and in clean and new buckskin breeches. 
 He looks uneasily at the sky, to see how far down the 
 sun has gone, and once or twice walks to the corner of 
 the barn, listening. 
 
 And at last he is rewarded. " Tap, tap, tap," the 
 sound of a drum is heard ; and then four 2 reat lumber 
 
320 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 wagons rattle across the corduroy road, each flying an 
 American flag, and well filled with jovial young men, 
 cheering and waving their hats. This is the party which 
 John Arnold has been waiting for. 
 
 They are the contingent from all this neighborhood 
 to Mad Anthony s army. And Mad Anthony Gen 
 eral Wayne has crushed the Shawnee forces in de 
 cisive fights. One might almost say the Shawnee 
 army, so well trained and so elated by their victories 
 over Harmon and St. Clair were the enemy, and so 
 well supplied by their English allies. But now they 
 are utterly beaten and utterly broken. Now there is 
 some peace for the settlers, so far as Indians go, for 
 a hundred thousand years. 
 
 And Colonel Arnold "old Colonel John Arnold," 
 as the boys call him has declared that his new house 
 shall never offer food or drink to man or beast till the 
 boys come home. 
 
 Now, on this bright September day,. the boys have 
 come. And the tin-kitchens in the log-cabin have been 
 roasting meat all day, and the great potash kettle has 
 been boiling hams, and the very ashes have been bak 
 ing potatoes, and the new cider is already drawn, and 
 every woman and girl in the neighborhood is in her 
 best gown to wait on the table. Well might John 
 Arnold wish to hurry their coming. And here, at last, 
 they have come. 
 
 No ! One does want to describe the color of every tur 
 key poult, the brown crust and the black clove of every 
 ham, the flood of red gravy which followed every knife 
 as every haunch of venison w r as cut. One wants to tell 
 how every Phoebe blushed, or every Hitty, when her 
 
FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION 321 
 
 own John or Silas or Cephas found her and hugged 
 her and kissed her. One would be glad to repeat the 
 words with which Parson Meigs, who had come all the 
 way up from Marietta, thanked God and asked His 
 blessing. But we must not make the story too long. 
 Enough that the boys and the girls and the boys fa 
 thers and mothers sat at a more than royal feast. For 
 indeed few kings can give such feasts. They are re 
 served for States like Ohio, one of whose proud mot 
 toes is, "In Ohio no man was ever hungry." 
 
 It is after the feast that we have to do with a few 
 of the party. Colonel John is still within, trying to 
 persuade some little boys that they can eat some more 
 doughnuts, and cutting for them some more squash 
 pies. But here, on the western side of the old log-house, 
 a little secluded from the rest, is a group of a dozen, 
 half of them soldiers and the other half "sweethearts 
 and wives." The men are smoking their cob pipes. The 
 women, neither appalled by the smoke nor ashamed to 
 be where they are, are pretending to open the knap 
 sacks, pulling out what they find there, and comment 
 ing on the campaign. 
 
 But the talk grew more serious. Captain Nat, as 
 the bo}^s called Arnold s son, had told of Wayne s 
 speech when he dismissed them. Then with a good 
 deal of feeling he said, choking a little as he began : 
 
 " I was glad when the old man said he had no more 
 use for us, and that there d be no more use for us in a 
 million years. I tell you, Sally, it s these old gray- 
 beards, who ve smelt powder all their lives it s they 
 that pray for peace. l Now, boys, says he, your homes 
 are your own, and you ve nobody to fear. Make em 
 
 21 
 
322 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 homes as is homes, says he. And that s what you and 
 I are for." 
 
 " Bring in the kingdom, " said James Southworth. 
 And his wife, Alice, pressed his weather-beaten hand, 
 from which the forefinger had been shot away, a little 
 more closely. 
 
 " Yes, bring in the kingdom. That s as good a word 
 as any. No more drums, no more wars and fightings. 
 Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. " : And 
 he looked up into the western sky, and pointed to the 
 white sickle of the moon two days old. " They do 
 things without trumpets or drums up there." 
 
 "Why, there s the new moon," said Alice South worth. 
 " Constant, your grandsire used to tell a story about the 
 new moon on the Mayflower" And then she looked 
 round, and with great satisfaction said, " Why, we were 
 all there ! Constant, you were there, and you, William 
 Holmes, and you, James, and you, Captain Nat ; Cephas 
 Collier, you were there, and your wife of course the 
 Brewsters were there." She pointed, as she spoke, to 
 the Hitty Meek of this generation, as if all men and 
 women knew that she was a Brewster. 
 
 " Do you remember, Cicely, how your grandmother 
 used to sing : 
 
 " My only Lord and Saviour, 
 Thy Son, before I die ? 
 
 " I thought I saw him, Thursday night, though it 
 was pitch-dark, when Hiram knocked, knocked, knocked 
 so loud at the door, and I started out of bed all fright 
 ened. Victory, said he, victory ! The war s done, 
 and the boys are coming home ! Dark it was as mid- 
 
FKOM GENERATION TO GENERATION 323 
 
 night ; but when I waked up my baby to tell him his 
 father was coming home" here the young mother s 
 voice broke" I thought I saw my Saviour s face, and 
 I thought I heard the angels singing, Peace on earth 
 and good will among men. : And all excited, and 
 with tears and sobs, she flung herself on her husband s 
 knees and threw her arms around his neck. 
 
 Every one was hushed for a moment, and then in 
 his clear tenor Cephas sang : 
 
 " Israel s strength and consolation, 
 
 Hope of all the earth thou art ; 
 Long desired of every nation, 
 Joy of every waiting heart " 
 
 and all the rest, men and women, joined in. 
 
 " And now," said James, " we are not the men and 
 you are not the women to go round singing them 
 hymns without doing something about it. And we ve 
 talked it all over, we boys have, and you girls will 
 all come in. We know that without asking. You 
 see, we ve seen the place. Why, we camped there 
 Wednesday night, and we talked it all over round 
 the fire. We ll go and take out our claims there next 
 week, and we ll have the cabins built by Thanksgiving. 
 Cicely, there s just what you want ; the south wind 
 blows over a bend of the river, which cools it. Hitty, 
 there s just what you want, for there s a little swell 
 of the land and great thick woods of black-walnut that 
 keeps off the northwest wind. Why, it s the king 
 dom of heaven now, if you can only keep sin and the 
 devil out of it. I says to Cephas, says I, as the sun 
 went down that night, says I, i Cephas, there s nothing 
 
324 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 in the Book of Kevelations that beats that ! I don t 
 know nothing about chrysoprase or chalcedony, but 
 there s nothing finer than them maples and chestnuts 
 and oaks and hickories and that s where we re going 
 to make our town. : 
 
 " The Gentiles to illuminate 
 
 And Satan over-quell, 
 And lliou to be the glory of 
 Thy people Israel." 
 
 Cicely interrupted him as she half sang and half said 
 these words. 
 
 "And, first of all," said her husband, " nobody is to 
 be hungry there. Nobody is to ask God s blessing on 
 his breakfast any day if he thinks there s one cabin in 
 the township where there s not enough to eat." 
 
 " And, in the second place," said Hiram Meek," there s 
 to be no fools there. There s to be a nice, pretty school- 
 house ; and, Cicely, your sister is to come from Ipswich 
 and teach in it." 
 
 "And, in the third place," said William Holmes, 
 " there s to be no drunkards there. " There s to be no 
 eleven o clocks nor eye-openers, nor no other devil s 
 drinks." 
 
 "In short," said his wife, "all this means that every - 
 body is to love his brother as himself." 
 
 " And his sister," said that demure little Hitty, who 
 always had the last word, and was, without knowing 
 it, stroking the back of a great sunburnt hand. 
 
 " And that means," said Captain Nat Arnold, who 
 from a sort of childlike integrity and purity had be 
 come regarded as a father of these boys " that means 
 that the whole town shall love God and love man. 
 
FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION 325 
 
 Boys and girls and their fathers and their mothers will 
 grow up to love God because they love man, and to 
 love man because they love God. And this will be at 
 the ferry and the blacksmith s shop, and when they are 
 hoeing corn, and when the girls are husking it, just as 
 much as in the meeting-house or at the Friday meet 
 ing." 
 
 "And where is the place, and when shall we go 
 there, and what is its name?" said Mary Chilton, the 
 youngest and the prettiest of the girls, with a far-away 
 look, as. if she were trying to make real the figure in 
 a dream. 
 
 "We might call it Bethlehem," said her older sister. 
 
 " Or we might call it Nazareth," said Alice. 
 
 " Let s call it Mayflower," said Hitty. 
 
 " No matter, no matter," said Nat" Old Nat," the 
 boys called him, because he was almost twenty-seven 
 "no matter what we call it, so it is only Kingdom 
 Come." 
 
 " Amen," said Cicely ; and she sang, and they joined 
 her in singing, the old verse which her grandmother s 
 great-grandfather had sung on the Mayflower: 
 
 "Lord, because my heart s desire 
 
 Hath wished long to see 
 
 My only Lord and Saviour, 
 
 Thy Son, before I die." 
 
 And as September and October and November went 
 by, the young men went out with their axes. They 
 took with them their brothers and their cousins, and 
 they had built ten new cabins before Thanksgiving- 
 day. It is one hundred and two years since Wayne s 
 
326 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 victory. Yet no word that was spoken on that after 
 noon has been lost, nor any song that was sung. And 
 the cheer and thanksgiving of that evening have re 
 peated themselves a thousand thousand times in the 
 pretty village which gave thanks that day. 
 
 ISTo canal ever passed through their meadows. No 
 railroad ever sought a track through the valley. I 
 do not know on what page of the post-office register 
 you will find it, and we cannot turn it up in the right 
 county in the census. But on Thanksgiving- day, in 
 John Arnold s barn, they held an old-fashioned Thanks 
 giving. The mothers carried their babies to the meet 
 ing, and the babies did not cry. And Morton Arnold, 
 the great-great-grandson of the other Elder Arnold- 
 he preached to them that day. " On these two com 
 mandments hang all the law and the prophets." I do 
 not know what the old Elder would have said. But 
 when Morton Arnold had finished his sermon he said : 
 
 " Dear brethren, if the time allowed, I would go 
 back to the deck of the Mayflower, and tell you what 
 my grandsire has told me of the coming over. And I 
 would tell you a story of the Old Colony how my 
 grandsire s father played ball with the redskins. Or 
 I would tell you what my father has told me, of the 
 day when the great George Whitefield preached on 
 Boston Common, and the captain heard him. But 
 now there is no time," he said. "But the elders will 
 not be hurt if we take another day for that, and hold 
 a special meeting. And on this day six weeks hence 
 we will call in all the neighbors, and I will tell those 
 old stories. Every one of them will show us how the 
 Lord has visited and redeemed His people. Every one 
 
FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION 327 
 
 of them will show how He has truly come to every 
 heart that was open to His coming. If they sought 
 their God, they found Him. And in every age the dear 
 Lord Christ has set up His altar and has been present 
 with His own. And now," said he, "we will not sing 
 from the new hymn-book. We will sing one verse of 
 Simeon s hymn, as the elders sang it on the May 
 flower." And he deaconed out the words they sang : 
 
 "The Gentiles to illuminate 
 
 And Satan over-quell, 
 And thou to be the glory of 
 Thy people Israel." 
 
 And it was as the Elder proposed. When Christmas- 
 day came round, the girls hung the barn with red and 
 yellow ears of corn, and outside the men built a great 
 bonfire. And the people came in from the Crossing, 
 and from Hound s Ferry, and some from the village at 
 the Mill. I believe it was the first Christmas cele 
 brated in Ohio. And it was that festival which gave, 
 in all that region, to that sort of religion the name of 
 " Christmas Christianity." 
 
MRS. DE LAIX S INDECISION 
 
 THERE were six caps to be trimmed, and, by some 
 accident, Lucinda had bought ribbon enough for only 
 four. 
 
 Mrs. De Laix was not so very sorry. She would not 
 for the world tell Lucinda that she did not fancy that 
 shade. Rather than have Lucinda suspect it, she would 
 wear all the caps in turn, till she could craftily be rid 
 of the ribbon and get more. As this was to be so, she 
 determined to go down -town herself for the ribbon 
 for the other two. And, lest she should wound Lu 
 cinda, she took Clara with her. 
 
 She determined to try Stearns s shop, which is at the 
 corner of Temple Place. 
 
 So she waved her hand and stopped the electric 
 car. The street was horribly crowded. But the car 
 stopped at just the right spot, and Mrs. De Laix and 
 Clara worked their way through the crowd of passen 
 gers to the door. But when they came there, Mrs. 
 De Laix said : 
 
 "Clara, dear, I think I will go on to Whitney s. I 
 believe Lucinda bought her ribbon here. I should like 
 to see that nice woman at Whitney s to thank her for 
 the crochet needles." And then, to the car-conductor, 
 " I am very much obliged to you. But I believe we will 
 go on to Winter Street," 
 
329 
 
 Alas! it was not so easy. The South Boston cars 
 which had been waiting for their turn at the curv 7 e 
 were now running in. Mrs. De Laix s car had lost its 
 right of way. It was fully two minutes before the 
 South Boston cars ran through. And then only could 
 Mrs. De Laix s car and Clara s start again. "When they 
 started well, it is not two hundred yards to Whitney s 
 they were there in a minute. Half the car had to 
 leave at that corner. Mrs. De Laix and Clara left. 
 They were not more than an hour in buying satisfac 
 tory ribbon "fair and square." And it will not be 
 till the last chapters of this little tale that we shall 
 meet them again. 
 
 Eeaders in that small section of the world which un 
 derstands the transit arrangements of Boston will know 
 that the stoppage of that particular car at the corner 
 of Temple Place delayed not only the passengers in it, 
 but the passengers in twenty or more cars behind it, 
 which had to stand in what we call a " block " in Boston 
 a quarter mile of cars waiting until that South Bos 
 ton procession could hurry by. In these cars there were 
 some six hundred persons, each of whom lost from his 
 day s work one, two, or three minutes, as it might hap 
 pen. It is with the fortunes of two of these persons, 
 and with other fortunes connected with theirs, that this 
 story has now to deal. 
 
 When the late Mr. De Laix died, he left his property 
 half a million dollars, more or less to a trustee, to 
 pay to Mrs. De Laix the income in monthly payments. 
 It was admirably invested, so that, one year with an- 
 
330 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 other, even in these days so wretched for capitalists, 
 Mrs. De Laix received two or three thousand dollars on 
 the first of every month from her faithful friend, Mr. 
 Mahsteff. His father had been a clerk with Mr. De 
 Laix in St. Petersburg. 
 
 But such high interest means constant watchfulness. 
 On the other hand, constant watchfulness was the de 
 light of Mr. Mahsteff; and on this very afternoon, two 
 cars behind Clara and Mrs. De Laix, he was in his car, 
 on his way down-town, to a meeting of the committee 
 of the bond-holders of the first mortgage on the K. and 
 L. L. Railroad. His friend s investment in these bonds 
 was so large that his presence, of necessity, would con 
 trol the action of this meeting. Indeed, at all the pre 
 vious meetings of this little syndicate he had been, of 
 course, chairman, and had, in fact, directed the whole 
 procedure. At his motion, in truth, it had been deter 
 mined that the bond-holders should act together, and 
 that all their bonds should be sold or held, when the 
 moment came, by one order. 
 
 When, at last, Mr. Mahsteff s car arrived at Scollay 
 Square, he looked at his watch, to find that it was al 
 ready four o clock, the moment for which the bond 
 holders had been summoned on his own motion. He 
 leaped from the car to call a cab. Alas, no cab ! He 
 lost a minute by running back to the museum. Alas, 
 no cab there! He must go on foot he who had not 
 run since he strained his sartorial muscle. Perhaps he 
 should meet a cab or overtake one ! No, poor Mah 
 steff no such luck ! It is fully six minutes past four 
 when he arrives at the double elevator in the lofty Ex 
 change Building. 
 
MES. DE LAIX S INDECISION 331 
 
 Can that be Mr. Snapp who leaves the descending- 
 elevator just as Mr. Mahsteff ascends? Impossible 
 they cannot have adjourned ! 
 
 But, alas ! they have adjourned. From a dull office- 
 boy, who pretends to know nothing, and perhaps does 
 know nothing, Mr. Mahsteff learns that at four pre 
 cisely Mr. Snapp had called the four gentlemen present 
 to order. In a moment he showed that he represent 
 ed a quorum of stock. In two minutes more he had 
 voted the others doubtful and yet non-resistant that 
 a telegram should be sent to Denver, before the close 
 of business there, to accept the terms of the D. P. and 
 I. road for the purchase of this block of bonds. Then 
 he had said he would carry the telegram himself, that 
 it was but two o clock at Denver, and there would yet 
 be time. 
 
 Clear enough it was that faithful Mr. Mahsteff had 
 been sold, as well as his bonds and Mrs. De Laix s. lie 
 thought of this, he thought of that, of an injunction 
 here, of a "combine" there. But his adversary had 
 not been thinking, he had been acting, and Mr. Mah 
 steff and his friends had been given over, by Mrs. 
 De Laix s unfortunate indecision, to the tender mercies 
 of the great railway market of the Rocky Mountains. 
 
 In the electric car next but one behind Mr. Mahsteff 
 had been sitting and dreaming Alfred Skimpole. Al 
 fred was a tall, pale boy growing six inches a year 
 whom his father was trying to make practical, by in 
 trusting him with the humblest detail of the business 
 of his office. He was an affectionate boy, and he want- 
 
332 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 ed to do right. But to-day, as he came in from Brook- 
 line, he had seen, for the first time since October, a red- 
 crested nut-hatcher, and he had not refrained, perhaps 
 need not have refrained, from the pleasure of crossing 
 Muddy Brook in pursuit, to see where she was build 
 ing. All papa had bidden Alfred do was to take the 
 parcel to the Boston office before four, and give it per 
 sonally to Mr. Eeddiman. Alfred knew his watch was 
 a little fast, and he would have " plenty of time," as 
 dreamers always expect to have, and as they never 
 have. 
 
 As the electrics went and stopped, as one woman 
 and another conversed with the conductor before she 
 came on board, even Alfred s dreams began to take a 
 somewhat dismal color. He looked at his watch more 
 and more often. He persuaded himself that it was six 
 minutes fast, not four. At last he was so nervous that, 
 when they arrived in time at Winter Street, he left 
 the shebang altogether, and, with speed for which noth 
 ing but the six inches growth of last year prepared, 
 ran down the middle of the street, cursed by teamsters 
 and cabmen. He arrived breathless in High Street, a 
 minute and a half after Mr. Reddiman had gone. 
 
 "Said he would be back at five. Said he dussn t 
 wait no longer. Said perhaps ye father ad sent um 
 heself. Said perhaps et was no matter. Said he would 
 be back at five." Such were the oracles of the porter 
 who was left in charge of the office. 
 
 Alfred Skimpole s father was the celebrated head 
 of the engineering firm of Skimpole, Adgers & Horn 
 blende, to which had been intrusted by the city of Bos- 
 
MRS. DE LAIX S INDECISION 333 
 
 ton its case to be brought before Mr. Cleveland s com 
 mission on harbor improvement. The commission had 
 the last of its many meetings that day, and took the 
 pleasant boat for New York and Washington that night. 
 On the boat, between Fall River and Boston, the three 
 members one of whom was from Texas, one from 
 Washington Territory, and one from Philadelphia - 
 drew up their report on such documents as they had. 
 They were rather annoyed that the city of Boston had 
 given them so few reliable statistics. 
 
 The statistics were in the parcel which Alfred did 
 not give to Mr. Reddiman. 
 
 They arrived in Washington late at night on the 
 next day, after the report of the commission had been 
 presented. 
 
 Mr. Eeddiman and Mr. Hornblende and Mr. Adgers 
 and Mr. Skimpole made twenty visits to Washington 
 as the summer passed, hoping to get a supplementary 
 report presented, explaining that the claims of the city 
 of Boston had not been properly attended to. Such a 
 supplementary report was at last got in, as the reader 
 may remember, as the last year of Mr. Cleveland s sec 
 ond administration passed. But, alas! the River and 
 Harbor Bill was then well forward, and although at 
 two o clock in the morning a desperate effort was 
 made to bring in an amendment, the Senate threw it 
 out on a conference, and the appropriation was never 
 made. 
 
 It is to the lack of this appropriation, joined Avith 
 the unfortunate sinking of two coal barges in the most 
 critical points of the harbor, that the steady decline in 
 the foreign and coastwise commerce of Boston, for the 
 
334 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the 
 twentieth, was due. 
 
 If the Recording Angel would give us an opportunity 
 to look in at his day-books and ledgers, so that we 
 could show the reader what happened to five hundred 
 and ninety-eight other people in the twenty cars which 
 were held back on that eventful day, the stories would 
 be interesting, as are all stories of human life. But the 
 space given to us is limited, so that these two speci 
 mens must be taken as an illustration of what hap 
 pened to all. 
 
 There was John Sidney, on his way, with a lovely 
 bouquet of flowers, to see Alice Yernon before she 
 took the carriage for the train to Mount Desert. John 
 Sidney missed her, and in fact never saw her again. 
 Before the summer was over, she had given her hand, 
 and let us hope her heart, to Wallace Carruthers. 
 There was Dr. Morton, whose cab had broken down, 
 who was on his way to meet Dr. Fothergill in consul 
 tation at East Boston. Morton is a courageous person, 
 and always presses forward ; but he missed the proper 
 ferry-boat, the driver. waiting for him at the dock sup 
 posed that he would not come, Morton was too late in 
 consultation, Fothergill missed the proper artery, and 
 the patient died. There was poor old Johanna Steven 
 son, with her basket of clean clothes, on her way to the 
 Benedict Club. Poor soul, she came in late, and the 
 porter was cross to her. He said Mr. Whymper had 
 waited till the last minute, and then had gone without 
 one of the shirts which she had promised. Poor 
 Whymper, I am sorry to say, thought he was the worst- 
 dressed man at the Round Robin Club when it met ; 
 
MRS. DE LAIX S INDECISION 335 
 
 his spirits were depressed through the whole evening; 
 he made an unfavorable impression upon Mr. Thread- 
 needle, who was watching him all the time, and Mr. 
 Threadneedle engaged for his confidential book-keeper 
 that other man who had come from a Western college, 
 and who cheated him and his of all that belonged to 
 them before five years were over. All such incidents 
 are at the service of the writers for the Spiders Wei), 
 Two Tales, and of other persons who are on the look 
 out for plots for their stories. There are plots enough 
 for stories, if only we would keep our eyes open, and 
 would only ask ourselves what follows, or what might 
 follow, on the different contingencies of human life 
 which we are pleased to call commonplace. 
 
 As for Mrs. De Laix, with whom we began, she and 
 Clara went happily home from Mr. Whitney s. She 
 had seen the nice girl at the counter, and had had a 
 pleasant conference with her. It was true that Mr. 
 Whitney had not established the shop intending that 
 half an hour should be given to friendly talk across 
 the counter between nice and rich old ladies and hard 
 working women clerks. But such things happened ; 
 and in this case it happened. Mrs. De Laix was never 
 very prompt or quick in such conversation. 
 
 She and Clara went home, and for a few days suc 
 ceeded in concealing the new ribbons from Lucinda. 
 When the caps finally appeared, Lucinda expressed the 
 proper surprise at the shade of ribbon which she had 
 not seen before, and Mrs. De Laix, on the whole, en 
 joyed her triumph. 
 
 But, alas ! she enjoyed this triumph as the lady at 
 
336 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 the head of a Southern plantation might enjoy her suc 
 cess in baking a batch of cream cakes, when her hus 
 band announced that the cotton-worm had got into the 
 fields, and that there would not be a boll of cotton in 
 the autumn. Mr. Mahsteff had kept secret for a week 
 or two the fatal sale of the bonds to the Denver wreck- 
 master. Then he had been obliged to confess to Mrs. 
 De Laix that on the 1st of June he should not be able 
 to send her any dividend. He said, however, cheerfully, 
 that she must recollect that, however these Western se 
 curities came out, more than half her fortune was in 
 real estate in Boston, and that it was in those parts of 
 Boston about which there could be no contingency in 
 the future. He told her that if she wanted money for 
 her summer expenses, he could readily advance it to 
 her on a mortgage of some of her landed property. 
 But Mrs. De Laix, of course, had money enough in the 
 bank to carry her down to Boar s Head, and to carry 
 Clara and Lucinda, and all the others who were in the 
 habit of making their summer holiday with her. It 
 was not in that summer, and it was not in the next 
 summer, that Mrs. De Laix saw fully what happened 
 when half her property was swamped by the Denver 
 speculators; nor was it for two years that she knew 
 what was going to happen when the coal barges sank 
 in the harbor of Boston, and the coasting trade of that- 
 city was transferred to the harbors of Salem and Port 
 land. 
 
 But as year passed after year particularly after 
 poor Mr. Mahsteff went home one night perplexed and 
 troubled, and was found dead in his bed the next 
 morning because a clot of blood had stuck in the 
 
337 
 
 wrong place in the back of his neck Mrs. De Laix s 
 outlook on the world appeared, even to herself, opti 
 mist as she was, darker and darker with each new day. 
 She did not sell her elegant house on Commonwealth 
 Avenue, although it was taxed awfully and she had 
 nothing with which to pay the taxes. She did not sell 
 it, because there was nobody in the world who would 
 buy such a castle. Half the houses on Commonwealth 
 Avenue had signs upon them indicating that they were 
 for sale. But even these signs were becoming illegible 
 with the stress of weather since the time when they 
 had been placed there. And as you passed in the even 
 ing you saw that there was no longer electricity or gas 
 in the parlors or chambers; there was only a snuffy 
 light in some basement, which was inhabited by the 
 keeper of the house, who was waiting in the hope, not 
 very sanguine, that a purchaser might appear. Event 
 ually, however, any question of sale was settled, when 
 the authorities of the town, doubtful how they should 
 meet the annual necessities of their city debt, seized the 
 house, and pretended to sell it at a sheriff s sale. Mrs. 
 De Laix could not remain in it while an auction was 
 going on ; and after conference with such of her friends 
 as had not emigrated to Europe, or gone to Denver or 
 to other places to escape the destruction which was set 
 tling down over the city of their birth, she determined 
 that she and Clara and Lucinda must leave the house 
 which, as she said, had always been fatal to her. 
 There were a good many homes open to her. There 
 was her sister in Canada, there was her brother in the 
 Fiji Islands. She had a cordial letter from her uncle 
 in Valparaiso, and a proposal was made to her that 
 
 29 
 
338 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 she should make a long winter visit in Paris with a 
 lady who was acquainted with the second Madam 
 Mackay. But all these invitations involved ready 
 money. Ready money was the first thing which had 
 disappeared in Mrs. De Laix s calculations. The very 
 little that she had was needed for postage-stamps, to 
 pay for such distant correspondence, and Lucinda and 
 Clara had always been dependent upon her for their 
 pocket-money and for the modest milliners bills which 
 they contracted from year to year. 
 
 Mrs. De Laix, Clara, and Lucinda, the minister of 
 their church, and the president of the sewing society 
 connected with that church, had one final conference 
 on the day before the sheriff s sale was to take place 
 in her mansion. It appeared that, in the old prosper 
 ous times, Mrs. De Laix had made herself a life mem 
 ber of the " Society for the Protection and Care of Old 
 Ladies who had Known Better Days. It proved that 
 from this life membership it resulted that she had a 
 right to name an inmate once in four years. It proved 
 that in the last twelve years Mrs. De Laix had never 
 named her inmate. The society maintained an agree 
 able home on the heights of Dorchester, and yet there 
 were not a great many people living in this home. 
 For some reason or other, the persons who had lived 
 there had gone to other places ; they had found spend- 
 ing-money, and they had accepted the invitations of 
 their Valparaiso relatives. Mrs. De Laix would gladly 
 do the same, but she had no spending-money. It was 
 therefore determined, quite readily on the part of all 
 persons, that she should name herself and Clara and 
 Lucinda as the three inmates for the home. And that 
 
MRS. DE LAIX S INDECISION 339 
 
 afternoon, with the scanty remnants of their clothing, 
 and a few photographs which reminded them of the 
 past, they established themselves in the pleasant par 
 lors of the institution. 
 
 The next morning they occupied themselves in put 
 ting their rooms to rights, and in laying the articles of 
 their clothing in the drawers of the neat bureaus and 
 wardrobes. As Mrs. De Laix took out the six caps, 
 which still remained, with the history of which this 
 little story began, her attention was called to the dif 
 ference between the gray ribbons of one and the lav 
 ender of another. She called Clara to her. 
 
 " Clara, my dear," said she, " do you remember the 
 day when we bought these ribbons?" 
 
 And Clara said she did. 
 
 " Clara," said Mrs. De Laix, " do you know, I some 
 times wish that, instead of going on to Whitney s that 
 day, we had bought the ribbons at Stearns s." 
 
KING CHARLES S SHILLING 
 
 I HAD come up the Congo to a point, well, say sixty 
 miles below Housa, when something happened to the 
 connecting-rod of the steamer, and she was laid up for 
 repairs for twenty-four hours. I was glad of the chance 
 to stretch my legs and -to try for game, and started off, 
 as soon as the engineer made this report, with my two 
 boys, as they were called, Philip and Mendi John. 
 Philip was of no great use but as an interpreter with 
 the other, who has a great deal of good woodcraft in 
 him and other working capacity. We had great 
 luck, as how could a man fail to, going through 
 meadows and woods which never saw an entomologist 
 before? I had bagged and chloroformed and stuck, 
 well, twenty-five fine butterflies, and had left a dozen 
 traps for moths, to be examined when we came back 
 the next day. We had lunched under a grove of 
 pepper- trees, when I saw what I afterwards knew 
 better, but what then I had never seen a magnificent 
 specimen of Vanessa, larger than Erckhard s, and, as I 
 supposed, rightly, wholly new. I simply called to the 
 boys that they were not to leave the place, and started 
 after him. 
 
 A blessed tramp, he led me up hill and down dale. 
 
KING CHARLES S SHILLING 341 
 
 Hot oh, how hot it was ! Bamboos here, pepper-trees 
 there, plantains, bananas, palm-trees now in the shade, 
 now in the sun, and this lovely, flattering flatterer ahead 
 of me with the wiles and wit of a siren and an oread 
 combined. But I was too much for him. After an 
 hour I had the splendid creature there he is now, 
 framed and under glass, hanging on the wall, opposite 
 where I write. I slung my box on my back after I 
 had chloroformed him and fixed him, and then started 
 back to my men. 
 
 If I had found them, there would have been no story. 
 The truth was that my handsome wood-nymph there, 
 the Vanessa, had bewitched the brooks and the paths 
 so that everything ran the wrong way. Even the sun 
 in the heavens, when he shone at all, shone in the 
 wrong quarter. Most of the time the sky was over 
 cast, so that the poor sun himself could not shine at all. 
 And who was I, to know my road there, in the king 
 dom of Mandara, upper or lower, if the sun in the sky 
 did not know his? I tramped and I tramped. I had 
 lost my own tracks long before. At last I came to a 
 path tolerably well beaten, and it brought me out on 
 the river in sight of the smoke-stacks of the Princess 
 Beatrice f Not a bit of it. It brought me out on the 
 slope of a hill, in a large banana patch, with a village 
 of sixty or seventy huts just below me. 
 
 I will not say I was frightened, for there is no good 
 in telling tales out of school. But I will not say I was 
 not, for there is no good in lying. The sun, wherever 
 he was, was well near setting. For it was six by my 
 watch. I could not keep it up much longer. So I 
 boldly went down into the village. 
 
342 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 Half a dozen little curs snapped at me, just as if I 
 had been in a village of the Yanktons or in the Sahara. 
 I made nothing of them, but pressed on ; and then, 
 meeting a pleasant fellow as black as the knave of 
 clubs, with a handsome, good-natured face, clad in a 
 long, blue nightgown, made in a Manchester print-shop 
 for a bed-curtain, I made a salaam to him in the best 
 fashion of Bel-el-djeree. And he, restraining his laugh 
 ter, made one in quite another fashion to me. Then 
 he advanced and boldly offered me his hand as an Eng 
 lishman might have done, much to my surprise. He 
 said something, also, but 1 knew not what, and I took 
 precious good care not to lisp a word of Arabic. 
 
 What I did was to lay my head on one side, as if I 
 were desirous of sleeping, and to put my finger in my 
 mouth, as if I wanted to eat. I had learned the first 
 signal from the ballet and the second from Mother 
 Nature and the Navajo Indians. He laughed good- 
 naturedly and pointed to the village. A group of boys 
 and girls, with a few uncles and aunts, fathers and moth 
 ers, were assembled already to see the wonder. For 
 myself, I was asking myself whether they would sing, 
 as they did to Mungo Park : 
 
 "Let us pity the white man; 
 No mother has he to bring him milk, 
 No wife to grind his corn." 
 
 But I am not writing for Mr. Fewkes or the Ethno 
 logical Society. So I will only say that my guide was 
 evidently a top-sawyer in the crowd, and that he made 
 them march right and left as he would. Before ten 
 minutes had passed I was lying on two or three nice, 
 
KING CHARLES S SHILLING 343 
 
 sweet mats of an indescribable perfume, and a gentle 
 black woman, dressed also in a high-colored Manchester 
 chintz, had brought me a cup of coffee. After this 
 there was enough to eat, and of the best, too. And, to 
 make the story as short as I can, in this house I spent 
 the night, on these same mats, indeed. Conversation is 
 very hard when it has to be confined to pantomime. 
 I described the river as well as I could, and the play of 
 the walking- beam of the engine of the Princess Bea 
 trice. Of one thing I may say I am certain that my 
 friend had seen her or had not. But whether he had 
 seen her or not I do not know. At one time I thought 
 he had, and went on with inquiries as to the distance 
 that might part me from her at that moment. But 
 afterwards I had reason to think that he supposed I 
 described the jumping up and down of some monkeys 
 who had been playing upon the tree. Such are the 
 dangers of sign-language. 
 
 After a little conversation of this sort I intimated 
 that I would like to go to sleep. He intimated that 
 there was no better time or place. With a considera 
 tion I had not expected,, he stretched a mat, or sort of 
 curtain, across the room, or house for there was but 
 one room under the roof and I found myself in my 
 bedroom. I cannot say that I went to bed. I was al 
 ready in my bed, a rapidity of comfort which I have 
 not found in more elaborate forms of civilization. 
 
 It was the next morning that the revelation came 
 which I am trying to write out in this story. I was 
 wakened early from a sound sleep by the singing of 
 the birds, I believe it is called by the poets. It was, 
 in fact, the rasping and exasperating screaming of 
 
344 SUSAN S ESCOET, AND OTHERS 
 
 cocks, guinea-hens, geese, and ducks, for these African 
 villages are nothing without their poultry. It is easy 
 to dress when you have not undressed, and it was 
 scarcely six o clock when I found myself, not at table, 
 for we were all on the ground, but at breakfast, with a 
 larger company than the night before. The fare was 
 much what it was then. There were plenty of ba 
 nanas, much finer than the newsboy ever sold me on a 
 train. The resistance piece was a platter of rice, with 
 boiled chicken and butter, all together. The chicken 
 was jointed, so that one could take hold of any piece 
 he wished. For we ate as Adam and Eve did, if in 
 deed they had come as far as kabobs of chicken. 
 
 As I bent forward to take a side-bone which looked 
 attractive, a fine old fellow in a white nightgown hap 
 pened to see, hanging from my watch-chain, an old, 
 very old, silver shilling. It was a shilling of Charles 
 I., in perfect condition, which I had dug up years before 
 in our orchard when I was setting out some quince- 
 trees. When the old man saw this he bent over eagerly 
 and begged me to show it to him, that he might exam 
 ine it. His manner was perfectly courteous, but I con 
 fess I thought I looked my last on my shilling. All 
 these tokens of Manchester were enough to show that 
 they had learned the value of money. This was the 
 first time they had seen that I had any, and I was 
 graceless enough to think that it would be long be 
 fore I handled my luck-penny again. 
 
 But in this I thought as a Philistine thinks, as you 
 shall see. 
 
 I gracefully unhitched it from the chain and gave it 
 to him with my best manner. What says Jacob Ab- 
 
KING CHARLES S SHILLING 345 
 
 bott : " When you grant, grant cheerfully." Old Night 
 gown showed it eagerly to Blue Nightgown and to 
 Red Nightgown, on the other side. Their faces beamed 
 with astonishment and delight. Then they pointed 
 out to each other the stamp on the obverse with evi 
 dent joy. Then, with great ceremony, they handed 
 back the piece to me. If it had been sacred it could 
 not have been more reverently handled. Then Blue 
 and Red Nightgowns scrambled up from their haunch 
 es, more rapidly than gracefully, and hurried from the 
 house. What all this meant I could not guess. 
 
 And I was more mystified when they returned, this 
 time again with a certain ceremony, for what I might 
 call an escort, rather than a body-guard, came with 
 them. Through the great open doorway I could see 
 the procession come, of ten or twelve men. I could see 
 it open to the right and left to make a passage for Red 
 and Blue and stand fixed as they two came in. In 
 stantly the mats were cleared from all platters as if 
 the meal were done. Then they put down a great 
 covered basket, tightly tied. 
 
 With endless manipulations and ceremonies it was 
 opened. The covers and cloths, napkins and mats 
 taken out from it were numberless. But at last we 
 came to a handsome necklace, made of three gold coins, 
 and, say, thirty silver coins. This really elegant thing 
 they handed fearlessly to me. You know I am a bit 
 of an expert in coins. The three -gold pieces, which 
 were made, so to speak, the centre of the necklace, 
 were perfect Portuguese joes, as perfect as if they had 
 been struck yesterday. The silver coins, also fresh 
 from the mint, were English shillings, exactly like 
 
346 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 mine, but that they were not in the least worn, of the 
 coinage of Charles I. As everybody knows, these are, if 
 in good condition, among the very rarest coins in the 
 world, poor Charles having, for reasons well known to 
 history, very little silver to coin. If my hosts had 
 shown amazement, certainly I showed much more. 
 The joes, as I said, were fresh from the mint of King 
 Joannes of Portugal, the fourth of that name. 
 
 In another wrapper, where I found a husk or two of 
 Indian corn, was a very handsome wampum necklace, 
 of Narragansett manufacture. It has been my busi 
 ness to study wampum, not to say to make it, to buy 
 it, and to sell it. I have never seen more perfect 
 beads than these, white and black both, and all in the 
 best forms. I have no doubt that the string was in 
 the same condition as when it was traded away by 
 Canonicus or some of his men. 
 
 This revelation was more extraordinary than the 
 other. Silver and gold, almost of their nature, go all 
 over the world, but wampum does not. How did this 
 necklace it was not a belt come here? 
 
 I expressed by every sign by raising of the e} 7 e- 
 brows, holding up of my open palms and radiant 
 smiles my interest, curiosity, and surprise, I might 
 say puzzled amazement. Then I handed back the two 
 necklaces, respectfully, to Red-Gown. Then the cere 
 mony continued. More mats were withdrawn from 
 the basket. Another parcel was reached, larger than 
 the first. This was carefully opened, with sundry 
 prostrations, and a knock or two of the forehead upon 
 it. When all was opened it proved to be a bound 
 book, which was handed to me reverently. I opened 
 
KING CHARLES S SHILLING* o47 
 
 at the title-page, to find a perfect English Bible. For 
 an instant i thought it was a waif from Mungo Park s 
 equipment. No, it was of a date much earlier than 
 he. u Cum Privilegio. London, 10-12. Published by 
 the King s Printer." 
 
 How, when, or why by what agency of church, 
 state, or trade had these things found their way here ? 
 
 II 
 
 I did not choose to abate the reverence with which 
 I saw this book was regarded. I am as little given to 
 bibliolatry as any man. But in this case I made no 
 scruple. I bowed as low as Reel -Gown had bowed, 
 and touched my forehead to the volume. Then I com 
 manded silence. I opened at the Sermon on the Mount. 
 I read the first three beatitudes and the Lord s Prayer 
 aloud, as solemnly and with such dignity as I could ex 
 press. By a signal I made them all bow their heads. 
 And, with all my heart, I am sure, on my knees I said : 
 " Father in Heaven, tell me what to do, what to say, 
 and how to lead these people." I am sure they un 
 derstood that I offered prayer. 
 
 I gave back the book to the curious and dignified 
 old chief, who was, I think, a priest of some kind. I 
 carefully watched the folding of it in its mats and the 
 business of laying it away with the necklace. Then I 
 began a series of signs, and such interrogatories as can 
 be expressed by them, wishing all the time that I had 
 the skill of Harlequin or of Columbine or of Mr. Bell in 
 translating into " visible speech" the language of the ear. 
 
348 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 They led me out into the open air; they showed me 
 the sun, which was by this time half an hour high ; I 
 was made to understand that he rose at one spot in 
 one part of the year and at another at another season. 
 Then I felt that we were advancing. I had, the night 
 before, been made to understand that two doubled 
 fists made ten. Now, by repeated pilings together of 
 the fists of one and another chief and priest I was 
 taught that it was twenty -four tens of years since 
 these things came into their possession. The son 
 of Red-Gown was brought forward, a vigorous man 
 of fifty, and his son, a small lad of fifteen. I was 
 made to understand that Red-Gown s father s father s 
 father, seven generations back, brought these sacred 
 things from a country beyond the sunset. He had 
 preserved them, and, as I found afterwards, by oaths 
 the most sacred, in formulas more binding than any 
 thing which is known to book -ruled lands, he had 
 bound his children, and his children s children s chil 
 dren, to preserve them. 
 
 I say, " I was made to understand this." How much 
 I really gained from that long and trying conversation 
 in pantomime I do not now precisely know. But 
 when my interpreters appeared, my guesses were con 
 firmed or corrected, so that I find it now hard to say 
 at what moment I gained the correct ideas. 
 
 By this time they had missed me from the ship. 
 My black fellows had gone home at ten o clock at 
 night, and reported that I was lost. At sunrise they 
 sent these two out again and some volunteer skirmish 
 ers. By nine o clock some of Blue-Gown s people met 
 some of these scouts, and by ten I had Phil and John 
 
349 
 
 to talk for me. Red-Gown produced a man who had 
 taken a Mendi wife, and so, with four languages and 
 interpreters, we understood each other in a way. 
 
 The first time I was at home in Connecticut, some 
 five years after this happened, I made a run down to 
 Boston, and there, in their archives, I got their part of 
 the story. Strange enough it is, and you shall hear it 
 now. 
 
 It was in the year of grace 1645 that, in this same 
 village of Lower Mandara, looking much then as it 
 looks now, there was to be a first-class wedding. This 
 young fellow, as he was then, who is the hero of this 
 story henceforth his name was Telega was to he 
 married. And he was to be married to his sweetheart, 
 as it happened. I arn afraid it did not always happen 
 so. But all the accounts agree that it was a match of 
 his making. Nay, I believe they think, as I do, that 
 this is the reason why we ever hear of him again. 
 
 Well, the forms of marriage were not ours. But in 
 all countries lingers the tradition that the bridegroom 
 seizes the bride as, with her maidens, she goes unes 
 corted by him. So Pluto seized Proserpine in Enna. 
 And so to this day in a high wedding at church the 
 bride and her maidens walk up the aisle with the flow 
 ers they have gathered in their walk, and the bride 
 groom, rightly dressed, with his men, perhaps, steps 
 out and takes her for his own. So the bride walked 
 with her maidens that day ; so at an ambush, prepared 
 and known of all, Telega and his men seized her, and 
 then the procession passed on, he leading her to the 
 great central house of the village, where the rite would 
 come to an end. 
 
350 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 .Well, just as the tomtoms and banjoes were doing 
 their best that day, and the dancing-girls dancing their 
 best, down came a dozen Portuguese slave-drivers, with 
 quilted cotton jackets on, such as turned arrows, and 
 with guns loaded and matches burning. The dancing- 
 girls shrieked and ran. The tomtom men and boys 
 ran. And Telega and his father and his friends fought 
 like wild -cats. But what had they to fight with? 
 They were not even armed. It ended in the Portu 
 guese rascals clapping handcuffs on seventeen of them 
 and marching them off to a dhow which was waiting 
 for them on the river. It was, as the traditions agreed, 
 at the very bluff where the Princess Beatrice was 
 mending her connecting - rod the day I wandered so 
 far. Tradition is far more accurate, before books, 
 paper, and ink come in. 
 
 What happened then I do not know. But it is clear 
 enough that Telega and his neighbors were not used 
 to being slaves, and that they led the Portuguese a 
 wretched life. They knocked them down, they jumped 
 overboard, they set the barracootas on fire, and at the 
 last the Portuguese captain was glad enough to trade 
 Telega off to a man whose language he could not un 
 derstand, who had been blown south from Sallee, a 
 Moorish port where he had been trading. This man 
 of the unknown language was no other than Nathan 
 Gibbons, a master who had sailed out of Boston in a 
 ship rigged as a brigantine, whose name I do not know. 
 He looked around him in the Bight of Benin, he picked 
 up some cotton and some palm-oil and a little gold- 
 dust, lie watered his vessel and went back to Lisbon 
 with her. What happened then I do not know. I do 
 
KING CHARLES S SHILLING 351 
 
 know that four or five months after the wedding was 
 broken up Master Telega, the bridegroom, was landed 
 at Gibbons s wharf, in Boston. I know that Gibbons s 
 uncle was selling off the cargo, and that Telega was 
 advertised by poster and by town-crier to be sold as a 
 hearty, strong negro boy, just arrived from Africa. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Thus it is that I am able to fix the date much better 
 than if I had to rely on that business of the double 
 fists and the rising and setting of the sun. 
 
 There were no newspapers in Boston, but there was 
 a great deal of conversation, and whatever was posted 
 on the town-pump or at the town-house hard by, or 
 above the whipping-post or on the front of the meeting 
 house, was rapidly repeated from mouth to mouth. So 
 was it that the week had not ended before all the town 
 knew perfectly well that a " Ginny black" was offered 
 for sale. And in one and another conference, in which 
 Winthrop and Dudley and John Cotton took the lead, 
 as they came out from the Thursday lecture, the mat 
 ter was discussed in all its relations. When John Cot 
 ton and John Wilson went into the meeting-house 
 Thursday morning they did not know much about this 
 matter, and far less did they know what they thought 
 about it. But after the informal conversation with 
 the other Elders after the meeting was over and before 
 they left the house, both of them knew very well. 
 Winthrop knew what they thought and Dudley knew, 
 for in a fashion Winthrop and Dudley had had their 
 
352 
 
 share in telling John Cotton what it was as well that 
 he should think. And so when people went to meeting 
 on Sunday there was quite a general impression in 
 the congregation that before they came out they would 
 know what was to be done with the black man. 
 
 The meeting-house was always as full as it would 
 hold. On this occasion Wilson led the congregation 
 in prayer ; then he " deaconed out" one of the Psalms, 
 as versified for the congregation. Then Cotton led in 
 prayer, and after the prayer he announced the text of 
 his discourse. It was from Revelation, xviii., 10, 11, 
 12, and 13 : " Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, 
 that mighty city ! for in one hour is thy judgment 
 come. And the merchants of the earth shall weep and 
 mourn over her ; for no man buyeth their merchandise 
 any more : the merchandise of gold, and silver, and 
 precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and pur 
 ple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine-wood, and all 
 manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most 
 precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble, and 
 cinnamon, and odors, and ointments, and frankincense, 
 and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, 
 and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls 
 of men." 
 
 The first head was a description of Babylon in all its 
 glory. The second head showed that, although Boston 
 was but a small town now, nay, had been called " Lost 
 Town " in the sneers of the people around her, there 
 was every reason why, if Boston held firmly in her 
 loyalty to the living God, King of kings and Lord of 
 lords, Boston should have more wealth and trade and 
 rule and dominion than any of the principalities and 
 
353 
 
 powers of the heathen. The third head showed that 
 all this was impossible for Boston if she did not cleave 
 to the living God and did not live by His commands. 
 The fourth head showed, by full reference to the books 
 of the Old Testament, that God s people made no 
 slaves excepting in war. The fifth head pointed out 
 the denunciations of the prophets against the Syrians, 
 because they bought and sold slaves from the islands 
 of the West. And the sixth head brought all this to a 
 close in its denunciation of Babylon because she traded 
 in souls and slaves. 
 
 " I have read to you," he said, " from the Word of 
 God the names of some of those things which perish 
 with the using, which this great Babylon bought and 
 sold. I have read to you also the names of treas 
 ures which do not perish in the using, which this 
 Babylon pretended to sell and to buy. It is all as 
 Boston can buy corn and fish and fur, as Boston can 
 buy beaver and otter and skin of mink and skin of 
 bear, as Boston can send out her sassafras to England 
 and buy her cotton from the Indies ; so could Babylon 
 buy and sell cinnamon and frankincense." And then 
 he read the whole verse. " But woe to Babylon, be 
 cause she bought, or tried to buy, the souls of men! 
 Babylon the Great is fallen, because she bought those 
 slaves which her merchants captivated far away. And 
 woe to this town, which we thought the Lord founded ; 
 woe to His kingdom, which we thought was to come 
 even in this wilderness, in the clay Avhen our shipmen 
 and our merchants shall carry away from us our furs 
 and our spices, and shall bring back to us, for a recom 
 pense, slaves and the souls of men !" Then, pausing 
 
354 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 for a moment, he went on to address the King of kings 
 in prayer. The whole congregation, thrilled and ex 
 cited, rose to their feet and stood as he prayed, pouring 
 out the anger of his eloquence in eager words : 
 
 " O Lord God, spare Thy people, and save Thy heri 
 tage ! Let not the curse and the damnation fall on 
 this place which fell upon those heathen. Let not 
 Thine own people, the sheep of Thine own pasture and 
 the flock of Thine own hand, stray in the waste in 
 which the Gentiles strayed. Let them not taste the fruit 
 that was forbidden ; let them not drink of the waters 
 of Marah. Save, O God, save in this Thy time ! Blot 
 out from the book of Thy remembrance our follies and 
 sins in the days that are past. Remember Thine own 
 infinite mercy, and hold fast to Thine own purpose in 
 the redemption of this land ; and show Thy people, in 
 the light and majesty of Thine own Hoh r Spirit, how 
 to undo the chains that they have bound ; how to turn 
 back from the paths of their weakness and how to pro 
 claim liberty to the captive. Oh, rule in this Thy land, 
 Thou who art King of kings and God of gods, Thou 
 Lord of hosts ! Rule for our good, and do not trample 
 us under the feet of Thy vengeance. Save us, save, we 
 beseech Thee, O Lord ! Lift up him that is oppressed ; 
 break the bonds of him who is enslaved and set the pris 
 oner free. Save us, Lord Jesus, who hast been pleased, 
 in Thine own flesh, to lead captivity captive, and Thine 
 shall be the glory and the honor, the power and the do 
 minion, forever and ever., world without end. Amen." 
 
 And then he directed them to sing the Forty-fourth 
 Psalm. Wilson, as before, gave out the lines one by 
 one, and the congregation all joined in a fashion in the 
 
355 
 
 singing. Wilson pronounced the benediction, and the 
 assembly was dissolved. 
 
 There is no diary nor note-book which gives any ac 
 count of the conversation in excited circles on that day 
 or the next day. But in the colony records, brief as 
 fate but no less decided, is the memorandum : 
 
 " The Court wrote to Mr. Williams, of Pascataq, re 
 questing him to send the negro which he had of Mr. 
 Smyth, that they might send him back to Ginny." 
 
 IV 
 
 It was this promptness of the General Court which 
 brought about the dramatic close to the story, as it 
 was finally told me by my four interpreters. 
 
 At the first, even after the interest I had shown in 
 the necklaces and in the book, they had not understood 
 how intense was my curiosity and ho\v eager I was to 
 gratify it in every detail. As I have intimated already, 
 they had one detail and another of it to give me, such 
 as I should search for vainly, though I should go up 
 and down among the oldest people in Boston and ask 
 them to tell what they remembered of October, 1645. 
 Alas! so soon as we give ourselves over to printing- 
 presses and libraries this matter of tradition from 
 father to son and from mother to daughter dies out. 
 But this tale of the days and weeks and months which 
 Telega, the " Ginny black," spent in Boston, while they 
 were waiting for a mast-schooner to sail from Piscata- 
 qua, which might transfer him to a Guinea trader, 
 which should take him to the Congo, this tale had been 
 
356 
 
 repeated, without any Russian scandal" and without 
 any vagueness of detail, for seven generations. Cotton 
 and Wilson and Winthrop and Dudley, with all the 
 pride of paper and ink, have been more reticent. They 
 have not told whether he dined with them or break 
 fasted with them or took his tea with them. Winthrop 
 has not told by what efforts of interpreters he tried to 
 find out whether this man knew that he was a grand 
 son of Ham or whether he did not know. This is cer 
 tain, that Telega picked up some words of English, and 
 I found that they still had the name of the shillings 
 in the necklace ; they still knew and could speak the 
 word Smyth in a fashion, and more plainly the word 
 Cotton, and they knew as well that the wampum neck 
 lace was a treasure of a different sort from the string 
 of silver and gold. 
 
 Telega had seen and driven horses and oxen ; Telega- 
 had been taught to sail in a boat and to fish with 
 English fishing-tackle; Telega had once been trusted 
 with the care of sheep ; Telega had been able to tell 
 of the cocks and hens for whom he had scattered corn 
 morning and evening; and, at the last, when Telega 
 had been sent, as I found, to the Piscataqua for his 
 farewell sent with the blessings of priests and the 
 hearty hand-shaking of many others he had been told 
 that the money that was given to him was to be used 
 for any purpose of his passage, if he should find him 
 self in a strait. But, as the reader will see, he fell into 
 no misfortune which an intelligent black like himself, 
 with a smattering of two languages now, besides his 
 own, could not fairly meet. He had, carried in a bag 
 at his neck, concealed under his clothing, the three Joes 
 
KING CHARLES S SHILLING 357 
 
 and the thirty-one shillings which had been given him 
 by the Treasurer in the town-house in Boston, and he 
 had brought them out safely when he arrived at his 
 home. He had also brought with him a copy of the 
 Scriptures, which he had been made to understand was 
 more precious by far than the Joes and the shillings. 
 After he had gained some little knowledge of the Eng 
 lish language I suppose that one and another attempt 
 had been made to rescue his soul from its certain 
 danger. But it was clear enough that nobody pre 
 tended that he had thus gained any understanding of 
 the vital truths of the religion of John Cotton. There 
 had been no blasphemous baptizing, and he had been 
 left, unwillingly, I dare say, to worship such gods as he 
 found in the streams or the stars. Only John Cotton 
 had borne his testimony in a fashion by folding up and 
 giving him, as a precious keepsake, the copy of the 
 Bible which had with such reverence been shown to me. 
 As soon as I had been made to understand this I 
 begged that the book might be brought to me again. 
 I opened and examined it carefully, hoping to find 
 John Cotton s name or some notes from his hand. But 
 there was hardly a written word. Once or twice a 
 palpable printer s error had been corrected. For the 
 rest, it was as it had been when sent to Boston from 
 London. Why, oh, why, did not dear John Cotton, if 
 it were he, write something on that fly -leaf, which 
 seemed made for writing? Or, putting it in general, 
 why did people who wrote so much that is dull and 
 said so much that there was no need of saying why 
 did they hold the pen just when we, their children, are 
 most eager to read and to hear? 
 
358 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 This ends the story, so far as the Massachusetts rec 
 ords go. A year after the Bay people had to send 
 back a " Ginny interpreter" and another black, who 
 had slipped into their hands in much the same way. 
 Telega, who had had the name of " Cotton" given him 
 also in sign, I suppose, of the friendship of that great 
 preacher went, I think, to Bristol in England. Cer 
 tainly it was to some English town larger than the 
 American Boston. Clearly he was no fool, and in 
 Bristol he needed no one to take care of him. There 
 were enough of his own race there, though, I suppose, 
 none of his own village. For a special reason he was 
 eager to be at home. He had, however, to take care 
 what vessel he chose. Fortunately for him he did not 
 choose wrong. 
 
 Whatever the vessel was, as they passed the latitude 
 of the Strait of Gibraltar they fell in with a pirate 
 rover from Sallee, one of the Moorish ports. Of the 
 fight which followed, all my story-tellers had much 
 more to tell than of anything that happened to him 
 in Piscataqua or in Boston. In that fight poor Telega 
 had a bullet shot through his chest, and of this shot, 
 I was told, he bore the mark when he died, seventy 
 years after. 
 
 His real dangers did not begin and this he knew 
 until he was in the Bight of Benin. Had not his Eng 
 lish captain been true as steel, he would have sold him 
 there to the first Portuguese trader he found. But 
 Telega had not chosen a knave or a pirate among the 
 
KING CHARLES S SHILLING 359 
 
 Bristol ship -masters. He had chosen a God-fearing 
 man who would have kept his promise though he had 
 " promised to his loss." I was told, in delightful de 
 tail, how he was kept below until the ship was fairly 
 at her anchorage off the mouth of the river. Then I 
 was told how on a dark night in July he was called, 
 and how the English captain bade him good-bye. He 
 was put upon a boat, with a good store of hard bread 
 and a bit of dried beef, and, what he prized more, what 
 we might call a carbine, a short fire-arm or long pistol 
 of that time, with a horn of powder, a poucli with 
 match and bullets, and a flint and steel. The captain 
 fell on his knees on the deck and prayed to his God, 
 and bade Telega good-bye. A sea-breeze was blowing, 
 so that the sailors could put sail on the boat, and when 
 morning came she was well up the river. I was told 
 how long they hid themselves from Portuguese ma 
 rauders, and then, at length, which I could have well 
 spared, I was told where, at last, he was landed on the 
 northern bank not an hour too early, as it proved. 
 
 In what followed, in this long story, the reason ap 
 peared for his pressing haste. On the morning of the 
 fourth day after he parted from his Bristol friends, he 
 came out on the hill-side where I first saw the village. 
 It was a year to a day since his wedding procession 
 had been interrupted so wretchedly. He knew that, 
 and he knew what depended on the passage of a year. 
 By all the customs of his tribe his sweetheart, his al 
 most wife, was a widow for that year. But it was 
 for that year only. When the year was ended she 
 might be betrothed again. Telega did not believe that 
 there would be any careful astronomy in this affair. 
 
360 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 He knew very well that when twelve moons were over, 
 every man in the village would think he had a right 
 to the prettiest girl, and the most charming in the vil 
 lage. Here was his reason for refusing to wait with 
 the English captain till he should have gone on to 
 Fernando Po, and till he should have come up the river 
 to trade for ivory. 
 
 As I have said, he was not an hour too early. 
 
 As he approached the village no one met him. " He 
 was afeared, it was so still." This was Philip s phrase 
 to me in interpreting. He hurried all the faster. He 
 passed a close grove of pepper-trees, to see in it the 
 pretended ambush of a bridegroom and his men in full 
 dress, waiting for the bride s procession. 
 
 Telega had been stealing along as a cat does, and this 
 merry group did not see him, but he seems to have 
 seen his advantage. He passed them on the instant, 
 he went twenty paces farther, he hid himself under a 
 heavy tuft of banana plants, and he had not to wait 
 long. The bride came, wretched enough, for all her 
 bridal toggery. She had insisted on wearing two or 
 three sea-gull feathers, which were tokens of deepest 
 mourning. She wept as if she were at her husband s 
 funeral. She flung away a bunch of flowers which the 
 new bridegroom s mother gave to her. None the less 
 was this a bridal procession. Banjoes and tomtoms 
 and the whole village behind and before made this 
 certain. 
 
 A large stone to-day marks the corner where Telega, 
 gun in hand, sprang out like a tiger, and, in literal fact, 
 seized his bride. Pluto was not less expected in Enna. 
 The girl screamed now to some purpose, and in a min- 
 
KING CHARLES S SHILLING 361 
 
 ute was sobbing with her head upon his shoulder. The 
 banjoes and the tomtoms were silent, and bridegroom 
 number two, with his handsome cohort of "best men" 
 hearing nothing after they should have heard music 
 and song after a mysterious minute or two came out 
 from their lair to learn what had hindered the pro 
 cession. 
 
 At this point the story, which I heard two or three 
 times at least once as. we went up the river, twice as 
 we came down varied in its forms. Who can wonder, 
 after nearly two hundred and fifty years? But there 
 can be no doubt that when Telega caught his bride 
 with his left arm, and when she sobbed on his shoulder, 
 his right hand held the matchlock, and he blew the 
 match to be sure that it was a live coal. And when 
 that braggart bridegroom number two came up, howl 
 ing and storming, Telega turned over his bride to one 
 of her women, dropped the gun to a level, and, in the 
 very classic language of Mandara, told bridegroom 
 number two that if he did not keep a civil tongue in 
 his head he would blow his brains out. Nay, more, I 
 am afraid that Elder Cotton s seed had sprouted so ill 
 that Telega would have done what he said had there 
 been occasion. 
 
 But there was no occasion. The game was played 
 through. There were elders in the village who had 
 as much to do with its affairs as in that other village 
 of mud- walls and thatched roofs called Boston, where 
 John Cotton and John Wilson and Thomas Dudley 
 and John Winthrop did the thinking for the rest, and 
 told them what was right and what was wrong. Nay, 
 the evident public opinion of the procession was in favor 
 
362 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 of the handsome young traveller, who had been in 
 Europe, not to say America, and had brought home 
 its latest fashions. There were bride-maidens, as you 
 saw, and they Avhispered, " Twere better by far to 
 have matched our fair cousin to her old sweetheart." 
 And so, after some flourishing of clubs and knives, 
 much scolding, swearing, threatening, and other de 
 bating, three or four elders, much like those I have 
 described, I think, stilled all voices and bade the tom 
 toms and the banjoes begin again. 
 
 I doubt if it were the march in Midsummer-Niyhfs 
 Dream, but it answered every purpose of that mid 
 summer noonday as well. Bridegroom number two 
 sulked off. But all his men joined in the procession, 
 and afterwards, I fancy, partook of the banquet. And, 
 though his cabin was not occupied for a day or two, 
 a sufficiently good cabin w r as found for all purposes of 
 Telega and his bride. 
 
 This happy conclusion to a story so sad was brought 
 about when the General Court in the Bay voted to send 
 the " Ginny black man" home. But I should never 
 have heard of it but for King Charles s Shilling. 
 
FROM MAKING TO BAKING 
 
 I. MAKING 
 
 " WHAT is it, Arundel ?" said the president, kindly. 
 " Take a chair, Arundel. I hope you do not want to 
 go as all the rest do." 
 
 "I am sure I do not want to go, sir," said Arundel, 
 with a little hesitation ; " but 1 cannot stay. When 
 I saw you in January I thought it was all arranged. 
 Indeed, it was all arranged, as perhaps you remember 
 I told you. But I have had bad news from home. 
 My younger sister has been sick. My mother must 
 take her to New York for an operation in the hos 
 pital. And in short there is no money. I am afraid 
 this is the same story which all the others tell you." 
 
 " Indeed, indeed, Arundel, I am very sorry for you. 
 But you must not be discouraged, my boy. Modern 
 surgery has resources which we knew nothing of five 
 years ago ; and because your sister goes to the hospital 
 you must not think she is not to come out again. New 
 York, you say? Does your mother know them all 
 there? Let me give her a letter to my brother there. 
 He is a real top-sawyer, Arundel," said the kind old 
 man, who wanted to make his favorite laugh. In an 
 instant, indeed, he was arranging for the sister, as if 
 she had been his own daughter, and as if this was the 
 affair Arundel had come upon as it was not. 
 
364 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 All this happened in the president s office of Lansing 
 College, which, as all the world knows or ought to 
 know is one of the best schools of practical agricult 
 ure in the world. 
 
 When the doctor could not think of more facilities 
 for John Arundel s sister or when John Arundel 
 would not let him the matter returned, about which 
 John Arundel had come. He had determined to leave 
 the college for Dakota for the summer, and to see 
 something more of the practice of agriculture. So 
 many of the other fellows had done the same thing, 
 that he knew very well what he was proposing, and 
 so did the president. It was no question of " if," 
 "whether," or "maybe." It was a plain bit of neces 
 sity. And though the president hated to have him go, 
 as Arundel knew he would, there was nothing for it. 
 When the interview had ended, which was all kindness 
 on the part of the older man, as it was all respect on 
 the part of the other, the young fellow had full leave 
 of absence for six months, and as many letters of intro 
 duction to be used in his own behalf in one pocket as 
 in another he had for his sister s advantage. A fare 
 well night with the Sigma Phi, and then John Arundel 
 was at the station in the gray of the morning, waiting 
 for the night express to take him westward to Chicago 
 and towards the bonanzas. 
 
 His first sight of his new home was not one of glad 
 omen. 
 
 " You will have to wait," said the foreman, to whom 
 he had been sent from the first office where he applied. 
 " I am going to a funeral, and so is Mr. Cutter indeed, 
 all of us here are ; but at one, if you will be here or 
 
FROM MAKING TO BAKING 365 
 
 you can wait. There is the Tribune. Only, I suppose, 
 you brought this with you." 
 
 " Let me go with you," said Arunclel, he hardly knew 
 why. But he had been alone for forty-eight hours, 
 and it was the instinct of companionship which spoke. 
 It was then explained to him, as they walked along, 
 that a balky horse had shied or started or backed, no 
 body knew what, and this Mr. Keating, an Englishman, 
 whom nobody knew much, had been pitched suddenly 
 from a harrow he was driving. He had broken his skull 
 and never spoke again. Such was the welcome which 
 greeted Arundel ; and in the offices of sympathy, as the 
 heads of the farms came around the dazed widow and 
 her children, he spent his first hours at his new home. 
 
 But life in that region was not largely given to offices 
 of sympathy, or to other ceremony. Before night fell, 
 Arundel was himself handling two half-broken horses 
 as well as he could, wondering whether either of them 
 was the particular brute that had cost Keating his life. 
 From time to time he met another man on duty like 
 his own, as they passed and repassed in the occasions 
 of their long tours of service. At eight in the evening 
 his day s work was over. He took his horses to the 
 stable, and rubbed them down, and waited until he was 
 sure that they were fed. Then, and not until then, he 
 found his own fodder and his own bed. 
 
 A neat enough bunk, in a great barrack where twenty 
 or more men slept this was the bed. He had his 
 choice between an under bunk, where a Swede, snoring 
 loudly, was already asleep above ; or an upper bunk, 
 where the man below did not snore at all. Wisely or 
 not, John chose the latter. There was little question 
 
366 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 of dressing or undressing, and little discussion in the 
 morning as to whose was this cardigan or that shirt. 
 For every man slept in the clothes he worked in. 
 There was no doubt whether one should wake or not, 
 for the hours when different gangs were needed were 
 distinctly proclaimed as approaching fifteen minutes 
 precisely before they came. If a man were as careful 
 as Arundel was about his work, he went himself to the 
 stable, to make sure there was no delay or stupidity 
 about the harnessing of the span he had to begin w r ork 
 with. He was fond of horses, and they soon knew it. 
 There were some sad screws on the place, but the own 
 ers interests were the same as those of the workmen 
 in this matter, and, on the whole, John s four-footed 
 partners in this business were not a bad company. He 
 soon knew them all and they knew him. And he soon 
 knew the stable-hands w r ell enough to do much as he 
 chose in the selection of teams, when any change was 
 made. He did not dislike his work, and knew it must 
 be done. He had no companionship but his horses in 
 their long drives. But generally he knew them and 
 they trusted him ; and for his thoughts there were al 
 ways home and the boundless future. 
 
 With thrashing he had nothing to do. He was one 
 of the last gang of reapers, and when he reported his 
 last day s work in that affair he knew that the im 
 mense winter crop was in. 
 
 "They drove their handsome horses down, they drove them back 
 
 again, 
 
 While click, click, click, the rattling knives cut off the heavy grain. 
 Before it falls the waiting straw with tightest tie is twined, 
 And the well-ordered sheaves are left in still array behind." 
 
FROM MAKING TO BAKING 367 
 
 II. CARRYING 
 
 " Mr. Arundel," said the boss, " I sent for you to ask 
 you if you could go with this wheat to Philadelphia?" 
 
 " Certainly, sir," said John, and he started as he said 
 so, for he had been wanting for a week to go to the 
 East, and yet he could hardly account for the wish. 
 He knew it was, to some degree, sentimental. For a 
 week he had been at work with the gang of men who 
 had been loading these very cars of which Mr. Pegram 
 had spoken. He had amused himself in wondering 
 whether one particular wheat grain or another which 
 walked home in his shoes with him was, or was not, his 
 own production. Had he, or had he not, a share in its 
 harvesting? By and large, or speaking in general, he 
 had now done wellnigh everything in this business of 
 giving men their daily bread. Thus he had been on 
 the harrow in those first days, he had driven seeders 
 for other days, he had taken all his turns with corn- 
 planting and cultivating ; and, when he was transferred 
 to the wheat-harvesting side, he had not lost a quarter 
 of an hour from his own stents, while more than once 
 he had taken work which belonged to fellow-workmen. 
 So the fancy had taken him, that it was in a way un 
 kind to let these creatures of his hand go off on their 
 long journey without offering them an escort at the 
 start. Indeed, he knew enough to know, not, of course, 
 which cars his own children were in, but that it was 
 certain that these three last trains had, each of them, 
 hundreds of bushels of wheat which would not have 
 existed but for him. 
 
So he answered Mr. Peg nun s request with a certain 
 readiness which surprised even that leader of men. 
 But in that office there was little reference to senti 
 ment. If the young man would go, that was enough. 
 
 " If I could have my way, Arundel, those four cars 
 you loaded last should not go at all. The stuff does us 
 no good, and I would not like to have any man know 
 who shipped it. Anyway, it must not be mixed with 
 the rest. That is the reason why I want some one to 
 go with it to Philadelphia and be there. Of course, I 
 have written. But I know what letters are. If you 
 are there, you will see that a separate delivery is made 
 and a separate receipt taken for it. Here are the num 
 bers C, 12,211, 23,419, 21,501, and 11,798. 
 
 Arundel understood perfectly. He did not say so, 
 but he knew that no one ought to be surprised if all 
 this wheat sprouted before they came to the Delaware, 
 and appeared as a lovely green meadow might when 
 the cars were opened. Again he said he should be glad 
 to go. And Mr. Pegram gave him a note to the local 
 superintendent to ask that he might have a " drover s 
 pass " to go with this train to the sea. 
 
 The local superintendent honored this request, and 
 John found himself for a week or two a resident of 
 the several cabooses which carried the stern lights 
 of the trains that drew the four fatal cars that held 
 the musty grain of which the firm was so thoroughly 
 ashamed. 
 
 The company in the cabooses was not large, but was 
 of all sorts and conditions of men whom this moving 
 world brings together. In each caboose were eight or 
 ten bunks for sleep; four seats which commanded the 
 
FROM MAKING TO BAKING 
 
 bunk above, so that those who sat there could look 
 forward or aft like pilots in a little pilot-house, and 
 other seats on the ground-floor; a stove where you 
 could warm up your coffee or a plate of hash for 
 which you had foraged at some station, or could even 
 scramble an egg, if you were luxurious ; two packs of 
 cards, black beyond belief with the thumb marks of 
 firemen off duty ; one or two old newspapers, and a 
 train directory of prehistoric times these were the 
 essential appurtenances of these moving palaces. Im 
 agine a nine-cornered bit of looking-glass tacked up by 
 the side of a window, a colored lithograph of the battle 
 of Resaca, a pretty cigar girl in flaunting colors of the 
 gaudiest chromo, each nailed up for study and admira 
 tion, and a few comic scraps from newspapers pasted 
 on the walls of the car, and you have the non-essentials. 
 
 This particular caravan was bound to Philadelphia; 
 for it was foreordained, though John Arundel did not 
 know this, that the wheat of his harvesting should be 
 shipped from that port to Antwerp. Thirteen days 
 were enough for the land journey, and on the four 
 teenth day John had taken his duplicate receipts for 
 the several cars of the several trains, and he could re 
 port with absolute certainty that the idiotic or ab 
 normal wheat had gone to its own place. The truth 
 is that it was not nearly so bad as its reputation, and 
 there was no spring garden of verdure when the cars 
 were opened. 
 
 It was John s first visit at the seaboard, if an arrival 
 in landlocked Philadelphia may thus be called. When 
 he left the elevator office, he pushed his inquiries up 
 and down the river, and soon found himself at the pier 
 
 24 
 
370 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 where the steamship lay. He wondered whether he 
 might go on board, tried the experiment, and found, 
 as in a busy world one is apt to find, that nobody cared 
 if, whether, who, or what he was, and that he might 
 go where he chose. So that he had the amusement of 
 examining, for the first time in his life, the interior of 
 a great ocean steamer. It was then and there that he 
 fixed an idea, which had floated vaguely before him 
 in his long caboose journey. He determined that he 
 would go to Europe in the Arteveld if, as it proved, 
 she carried to Antwerp the grain which was the fruit 
 of his three months industry. 
 
 In a couple of days more this was determined. He 
 learned, at a second visit to the elevator office, that the 
 Arteveld would take several thousand bushels of wheat. 
 And though, of course, no man knew which particular 
 kernels would go to that contingent, John easily fig 
 ured out, from what he knew of the elevator com 
 partments, that some of his handiwork, if he might 
 call it so, was to cross the water. 
 
 So John put on a cardigan jacket and a tweed cap, 
 and went to the engineer s room on board the Arteveld 
 and engaged himself on the outward trip as a stoker. 
 As he reported for duty the day before the ship sailed, 
 carrying his little kit with him to the gangway, a cab- 
 horse at his side fell and some confusion followed. 
 Arundel himself helped the passengers from the cab. 
 It proved that they were coming to see the Arteveld, 
 and he showed them the passengers gangway. The 
 faces of the two women haunted him for half an hour 
 before he could fix them. Then he recollected that 
 they were the widow and daughter of Keating, whom 
 
FROM MAKING TO BAKING 371 
 
 he had seen at the funeral which began his service on 
 the bonanza farm. The dice-box of life had been so 
 shaken that he fell in with them again at the begin 
 ning of this second act in his drama. 
 
 III. SHIPPING 
 
 Yes, it is a very hard life, this of a stoker on an 
 ocean steamer. John s wardrobe was not large, but it 
 was much larger than he needed. A pair of drawers, 
 a pair of shoes these are enough. The watches, at 
 that time, were four hours each, of steady wheeling of 
 coal from the bunkers to the furnaces back and forth, 
 back and forth, with hardly a change. Then, while a 
 man was off duty he slept, or played cards, or read, or 
 loafed alone. No one cared, so only when the watch 
 was called again he was on hand. At that time, on 
 that line, there were but two daily terms of duty, the 
 stokers being divided into three watches. And at this 
 they had all the work which even stout young men 
 like them cared to do. 
 
 But nothing lasts forever. The mere dead monoto 
 ny of this thing helped, in a way, the hours to go by, 
 though it would be hard to say that they ever flew. 
 The men of the watches cared, in general, little for the 
 history of the passage of the ship, and knew less. But 
 Arundel was inquirer enough to put himself now and 
 then into a costume which would be visible on the 
 upper decks, and he found that they were making a 
 passage better than was usual with the Arteveld. In 
 deed, on the thirteenth day from Philadelphia they 
 
372 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 were at Antwerp. On the next day the ship was de 
 serted by all these butterfly travellers who had sup 
 posed that she was rushing through the ocean for their 
 satisfaction, and that more serious business of giving 
 the world its daily bread began. For Arundel, he 
 declined all invitations to return in the ship. He took 
 his well-earned wages and receipted for them, went 
 ashore and dressed himself like an Aryan of the nine 
 teenth century, abandoning the costume of a savage 
 of the Garden of Eden, and went to see the Antwerp 
 Cathedral. 
 
 He spent a day in sight-seeing, and then returned in 
 thought to his Dakota kernels. How were those quarts, 
 pecks, and bushels faring which had no friend in Europe 
 excepting him ? 
 
 Sure enough, at the pier (" on t wharf" is what An- 
 t-werp means) he found his children. He did not, in 
 the bottom of his heart, much approve of the way in 
 which they were handled. Antwerp had not then the 
 facilities she has now, and things were done in what 
 seemed a primitive fashion to this young critic who had 
 seen Chicago and Milwaukee. But he knew life and 
 his own limitations too well to offer advice. He went 
 from place to place, following the wheat along as it 
 travelled, till he found a squad of men and of women 
 shovelling the grain into bags, in which it was to be 
 carried inland. The force of workmen was ridiculously 
 small, and John Arundel, determined to see what he 
 could see, went to the foreman, took off his hat as he 
 saw the others do, pointed at himself, at a shovel, and 
 at an empty bag, and looked an inquiry. 
 
 The Dutch boss, who might have been called so in 
 
FROM MAKING TO BAKING 373 
 
 his own language, took in the situation in an instant, 
 laughed good-naturedly, and said, in perfectly good 
 
 English : 
 
 " You want to go to work ? Certainly, and bring a 
 dozen others, if you will." Then he took John s name, 
 appointed him a shovel, and in five minutes more he 
 was shovelling corn like the rest. Only, he said to him 
 self, "How in the world did he know I was a Yankee?" 
 As if, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, 
 in the twinkle of his eye and his gait as he walked, he 
 was not pronounced to all men around as an American. 
 
 Before a week was over he could make himself un 
 derstood, when he asked for his bread-and-butter at 
 the workmen s lodging-house to which the friendly boss 
 had directed him. Every night at some theatre of the 
 people, Sunday at church, he listened with all his ears 
 to the new dialect ; and it did not seem so unfamiliar 
 to him. And when, at the end of ten days, in which 
 his grain and much more grain had been "sacked" at 
 last, by the joint efforts of some dozens of them of 
 both sexes and all nations, John was quite ready for a 
 new adventure. 
 
 He was standing in the office, with the afternoon 
 report of the bags which his gang had filled, tied, and 
 delivered, when a well-to-do Flemish miller was talking 
 with the boss. John understood, after a minute, that 
 the miller wanted to hire a hand. Without a second s 
 thought, finding that his employer was looking at him, 
 he said, as the miller stopped speaking, "Ask him if I 
 shall do." The boss laughed, and said he was thinking 
 of proposing it. The miller was easy to please. He 
 expected to pay little, and he knew the world too well 
 
374 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 to expect to receive much. American wheat was 
 wholly new to him. And perhaps an American mill- 
 hand might give points for the grinding. The bargain 
 was soon made, and John bade his friendly boss good 
 bye forever, to report on Friday morning at the train 
 for Little Merode. 
 
 IV. GRINDING 
 
 American wheat was certainly a novelty in all that 
 region. Indeed, if Mr. Fraikin had not been a very 
 new-fangled and impetuous man, it was generally 
 agreed that there would be no American wheat there 
 now. But the truth was that the local harvest of all 
 that region had virtually failed. Of course, a few 
 bushels of wretched grain would be found here and 
 there. But unless people meant to live on roots and 
 acorns and oatmeal, the stuff of which white bread is 
 made must be brought from somewhere else. And so 
 Mr. Fraikin had determined that he might as well 
 grind it, as he had the stones and the mills, as let his 
 stones be mould- worn for want of use, and his machinery 
 rust before his eyes. Great were the wonderings, in 
 more languages than one, as the bags of foreign wheat, 
 seen here for the first time, were transferred to his 
 simple granaries. 
 
 It was Saturday night when this transfer was com 
 pleted, after a day of hard work by the very limited 
 force of horses and men which had it in charge. Arun- 
 del recommended himself at once by his handiness with 
 the great Flemish horses that took so large a part of 
 
FROM MAKING TO BAKING 375 
 
 this business. He tried his new accomplishment in 
 speaking Flemish with the other hands, had his neat 
 quarters assigned him, and thanked God that the next 
 day there would be no work to do. At breakfast he 
 appeared in his Sunday suit, a queer enough contrast 
 in appearance to his fellow- workmen in theirs. When 
 the bells rang, a group of them walked to the church 
 together. In the church porch and outside they all 
 lingered. John did not know why ; but he did know 
 that " The dumb man s borders still increase," so he 
 asked no questions, waited, and learned. After a min 
 ute or more, the family of Mr. Fraikin drove up in 
 two carriages to the little church, and with some cere 
 mony alighted. Then John saw that all the group 
 with him uncovered themselves, for the first time, and, 
 as the family entered, joined themselves to the little 
 procession as if they were of the family also. In the 
 church, a dozen or twenty chairs, together, seemed to 
 have been waiting for them. In these they all sat 
 down, and after hats and parasols and shawls had been 
 arranged, and hymn-books handed from one to another, 
 John saw that the young woman who sat next to him, 
 who was one of those who came in the second carriage, 
 was the daughter of John Keating, the same with 
 whom he had crossed the ocean, and whom he had 
 first seen at her father s funeral. 
 
 Grinding by wind-power is a very different business 
 from grinding by steam. And the quaint, queer wind 
 mills where John Arundel was now at work always 
 seemed to him as if they had stepped out of one of 
 Rembrandt s pictures. There are days when no whis 
 tling will bring a breeze, and after all has been done 
 
376 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 that can be done in the way of holy-stoning floors and 
 other cleaning up, of patching and other repairing, a 
 good deal of time goes by, with this or that hand lying 
 on the shady side of the mill, smoking or lounging, or 
 singing with the others. On such a day John Arun- 
 del lay on the ground reading a copy of the Journal 
 des Enfans which had stra}^ed into the office, when a 
 party of children from the house came running up in 
 their play. John caught a ball which one of them 
 threw, and gave him a return ball, to the little fellow s 
 great glee. In a moment the boy had run up and was 
 talking to him, and so in a minute more he found him 
 self on his feet, with his cap in his hand, talking to 
 Lucy Keating, the children s governess. To both of 
 them, of course, it was a pleasure to talk English. 
 
 A minute more, and another of the children reported. 
 This was the oldest of all, Hilda, who had torn the 
 ribbon from her hat, and brought it up for repairs. 
 Miss Keating was not unused to such accidents, pro 
 duced needle and thread, and set things in order, while 
 John, on his part, stood the cross-questioning of all the 
 children, who knew the mills well and all their belong 
 ings, as to the American wheat and ho\v it came there. 
 It was quite natural for him. to turn to Miss Keating 
 and say, " I do not know if you know that this famous 
 wheat came in the Arteveld. I saw you on board of 
 her." 
 
 She started with some surprise, and owned she had 
 not seen him. He laughed and said she would not be 
 likely to see him, and told of his engaging himself as a 
 stoker. " No," said the girl, " I certainly saw nothing 
 of your under-water place of torment," and then she 
 
FKOM MAKING TO BAKING 377 
 
 paused, and said almost unconsciously, " but I was sure 
 I had seen you somewhere, when we met in the church 
 on the first Sunday." Arundel did not say, of course, 
 that it was at her father s funeral that they had met, 
 but something in the sad expression of his face re 
 minded her how she had looked up once as she had 
 stood by an open grave and had seen his expression 
 of sad sympathy. But she only said, " Ah, yes ! I re 
 member now," and at once called the children to go 
 farther on their walk. 
 
 You see it had happened, as we say for convenience, 
 that on the famous journey to Antwerp, on which Mr. 
 Fraikin had bought the American wheat, his wife had 
 commissioned him to bring her an English governess. 
 And so it happened that he had gone to his cousin, the 
 wife of the Reverend Herr Pastor Somebody, and it 
 had happened again that she had been told the week 
 before of Lucy Keating and her wish to find a place as 
 English teacher, and so it happened that she and Mr. 
 Fraikin and John Arundel had all gone together, in 
 different cars of one train, to Little Merode, and so it 
 happened that they were talking together in English 
 here and now. 
 
 V. MIXING 
 
 " You teach so sweetly the English, dear Mees Lucy, 
 and you show so well Karl his algebra, and he so de 
 lights the playing with you his duets, that it is indeed 
 wicked that no one has taught you also the Latin." 
 Such was the intelligible statement, meant to be com 
 plimentary, which was made to Lucy Keating by Ma- 
 
378 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 dame Fraikin, when it was determined that Karl must 
 go to the Lycee at Bruxelles for his Latin. 
 
 He was a quiet boy, but when he heard this he said : 
 " Why does not Jan teach me my Latin Jan at the 
 mill, I mean ? lie knows Latin better than the Herr 
 Pastor does, or any one else. He reads Latin in a little 
 book he has in his pocket." In fact, Karl had found 
 Arundel reading from his pocket Horace, in one of 
 those days of calm. 
 
 Lucas, the cross cousin who lived with them, learning 
 to be a miller, and snubbing the children by way of 
 relaxation, laughed at this, and said Karl did not know 
 the difference between Latin and English or French. 
 His interpellation was fortunate, for it enlisted the 
 boy s mother on his side. She did not want to send 
 him away from home, and would not have thought of 
 it but that his father had made a point of the Latin. 
 
 It was known that Mees Lucy had known Arundel 
 in America, and now she was summoned into council. 
 By this time she knew that he was a senior from Lan 
 sing, and had taken the "academical course" there. 
 She said that he could not have gone so far without 
 knowing Latin well. She had heard him say he had 
 been a teacher, but what he had taught she did not 
 know. In truth, she had only met him two or three 
 times, as the younger children had, when she had them 
 with her out of doors. 
 
 But this was quite enough for Madame Fraikin. 
 And when the new week began, it was quite settled 
 that John should begin every day at the house, with 
 two hours teaching of Karl in his Latin. At the mills, 
 also, his functions changed, and, as he came to speak 
 
FROM MAKING TO BAKING 379 
 
 Flemish more and more easily, he found himself as 
 signed to those hundred and one duties of detail or 
 supervision which come of course in an old-time es 
 tablishment like that, where there is none too much 
 system, *but where, somehow, if you are not impatient, 
 everything gets itself done in time. 
 
 And when Christmas came, this mad but wise specu 
 lation of M. Fraikin in the American wheat had been 
 repeated once and again, with a success which sur 
 prised every one who does not know how to combine 
 madness and wisdom. At first he went to Antwerp 
 to buy the wheat himself; afterwards he sent Monsieur 
 Jan, as Arundel was generally called. Then Monsieur 
 Jan told him how he could send his own orders by 
 telegraph to America, and land his own wheat some 
 times in Havre. And there was not a baker in Hesdin, 
 or Hasebrouck, or Arras but had come to see the mill 
 ing, to feel of the flour and taste it, and at last to buy. 
 And when the great French army contractors, Badaud 
 and Yaurien, actually were forced by their principals 
 to buy, because General Boulanger had seen some of 
 the American bread at a dinner given by the mayor 
 of Guise, then the triumph of M. Fraikin and of the 
 wise madness was complete. 
 
 As to the prosperities of family life which followed, 
 such as Madeleine s new pony and her mother s dog 
 cart, the children associated them all with the arrival, 
 side by side, of Monsieur Jan at the mills and Mees 
 Lucy in the school-room ; for which theory of theirs, 
 as the reader knows, there was less or more founda 
 tion. 
 
380 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 What became clear enough to Monsieur Jan and 
 Mees Lucy in long walks together of Saturday after 
 noons, in reading Shelley and Tennyson together, in 
 puzzling over Egmont and Wallenstein together, by 
 way of helping Madeleine in her German, was that 
 they did things together a thousand times better than 
 they could do them alone. He found out that he could 
 not live without her, and it seemed as if she could not 
 live without him. He told her so one day, and she 
 blushed and smiled, and tried to speak, and at last did 
 speak, and told him that he made her very happy. 
 
 But when he came to speak to M. Fraikin about this, 
 and to say that he wanted to return to America to pro 
 vide a home for her, that mad- wise man would not 
 hear of it. Home in America, indeed ! Belgium was 
 emptying herself that people might make homes in 
 America. There were more empty houses in Belgium 
 than in the United States. Why, here was the old 
 cottage that they say Louis XIV. slept in with a 
 little new shed for the cow, and a piazza in front, and 
 a bow- window at the side, it would be a charming place 
 for a young couple. Monsieur Jan should stay on a 
 salary, and introduce those steel buhrs he was always 
 talking about ; and they should be married at Easter. 
 
 VI. BAKING 
 
 Married at Easter they were. Mrs. Keating came 
 over from Bromwich for the wedding. When it came 
 to the making of the cake there was a great ceremo 
 ny, half Belgian, half English, and half American. All 
 
FROM MAKING TO BAKING 381 
 
 the ladies proceeded in state to the kitchen to assist 
 and superintend. Behind them, M. Fraikin and Karl 
 and Monsieur Jan lugged a sack of wheat flour. Then 
 it was formally opened, and Lucy herself thrust in a 
 tin scoop once and again and lifted the good flour her 
 self, and poured it into the pans. And then, by arts 
 known to them, she and Madame Fraikin and Mrs. 
 Keating mixed the cake and baked it. 
 
 And Karl concocted a jingling poem, which may be 
 translated thus : 
 
 " This is the cake mamma made ; 
 It was made from the meal papa made. 
 It was ground in the mill you all of you know, 
 Which grandmamma s grandpapa built long ago ; 
 And the good God sent all the winds to blow, 
 And make the wheels fly round, that so 
 We should have the meal papa made. 
 
 " The corn, it came in Miss Lucy s ship 
 In which she crossed the terrible deep. 
 They sailed by night and they sailed by day. 
 Till they all had sailed the whole of the way ; 
 And the corn has never stopped nor stayed 
 Till now in the cake mamma has made. 
 
 " The corn was made by Monsieur Jan 
 A very wonderful corn-making man. 
 He took a spade and dug in the ground, 
 And planted some grains of corn he found ; 
 And the good God sent the winds to blow 
 And the sun to shine that the corn might grow, 
 And He told Monsieur Jan the wheat to take 
 And give Miss Lucy a wedding cake. 
 
 And here is the corn that Jan made." 
 
 And at the wedding supper Master Karl was made 
 
382 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 to read his ode, with great applause, before Lucy cut 
 the cake. 
 
 And when, the next morning, she and Jan had their 
 first breakfast in the King Louis cottage, she would 
 not let him touch a mouthful of anything else till he 
 and she had broken a biscuit which she had made from 
 the Arteveld flour. This was their wedding sacrament. 
 
THE FIRST GRAIN MARKET 
 
 THE girl sang cheerily, as she took her place in the 
 canoe : 
 
 "The squirrel said cliee to the wood-thrush, 
 The wood-thrush said whee to the squirrel, 
 
 And the sun rose. 
 The squirrel hid in the bark, 
 And the wood-thrush flew to the south, 
 
 But the sun rose." 
 
 And sure enough, as she sang, the first bright line 
 of the sun s disk could be seen above the horizon s 
 edge. 
 
 She pointed to it gaylj 7 . 
 
 The boy was evidently more fond of his sister than 
 we are taught to believe is the habit of these people. 
 And it was clear that she knew how to make him fond 
 of her. She sat in the bow of her canoe, now hum 
 ming the refrain of her song, if it may be called so, 
 and, once and again, when he asked her, singing such 
 words as she fancied at the moment. All the time, 
 with split porcupine quills, she was embroidering for 
 him an ornament for the handle of a canoe-paddle. 
 The quills of different colors lay in the lap of her deer 
 skin coat, and the quaint, simple pattern came out, to 
 his delight, more and more plainly, as she sang and as 
 he paddled the boat along. 
 
384 
 
 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 The canoe had been lying in a little ditch, cut for the 
 purpose in the black mud of the bank of what we 
 should now call a bayou. They pushed out under the 
 heavy shade of the canebrake, upon the waters of the 
 motionless lake, which had, in fact, been left by the 
 river, in an old change of levels, but was still three or 
 four feet deep. The surface was covered in some 
 places by large, round, green shields, the leaves of 
 lotuses, and both boy and girl looked curiously for the 
 great seed-vessels. Now and then, as they shot by, he 
 cut off a ripe head with the copper knife which hung 
 at his belt. He would toss the very ripest to her, and 
 she would open the great cup and shake out the seeds, 
 to crack and nibble as they sailed. On the velvety sur 
 face of the great, green leaves of the plants were round 
 diamond drops, beautiful as if they had indeed come 
 from Golconda. Close before them, on the dull surface 
 of the lake, were thousands upon thousands of water 
 birds, quite indifferent to the neighborhood of the voy 
 agers until the boat was close upon them. Then one 
 and another, perhaps a hundred at a time, would rise, 
 always facing the wind. It seemed for a moment as 
 if they ran across the surface of the water till there 
 was momentum enough, if joined with the movement 
 of the wind in the opposite direction, to lift the bird 
 into the air. It was precisely as a boy runs with his 
 kite, to give it, by his earthly running, a chance to fly. 
 The air once caught, the bird stopped the motion of 
 its web-feet, and the wings lifted it on its way, long 
 streams of white foam following after the fugitives, 
 the babble of which was like the babble of a moun 
 tain stream. The boy pushed his canoe along through 
 
THE FIRST GRAIN MARKET 385 
 
 lilies, lily -pads, lotus leaves, and the bubbles left by 
 the escape of birds, and two or three minutes of such 
 rapid paddling as his brought them both into the very 
 heart of the great plantation (shall one call it ?) of wild- 
 rice, to which he had promised to bring her. 
 
 The exquisite plants rose above the girl s head, even 
 when she stood in the canoe, four, even five times as 
 high as she was. The wild-rice can hardly be described 
 to one who has not seen it, so delicate and fine are the 
 highest stems, each bearing a beautiful chandelier of 
 the blossoms and of the ripened fruit. A leaf of deli 
 cate green hangs right and left from a round stem as 
 green, and on the very top stem of all are clustered the 
 long spikes of rice, daintiest of food for ducks and teal, 
 and not to be despised by men. 
 
 The girl clapped her hands as she saw how plenteous 
 was the harvest, and, in joyful smiles, she expressed 
 her pleasure to her brother. Into the mouth of the 
 smallest and narrowest creek which can be conceived 
 he drove the boat. She helped him, by pulling hard 
 at the stems of rice on the right hand and the left, 
 until they were completely embosomed in it, he at his 
 end and she at hers. Then he took the paddle which 
 he had been using, and, as she bent down the tall stems 
 in a line over the boat, he beat them thoroughly. Or 
 she herself used the paddle of which she had worked 
 the handle, while he bent down stems for her to work 
 upon. Then they pushed the boat farther and farther 
 in. The ripe grains piled up upon the bottom and 
 around their feet. It was rough harvesting, but was 
 ample. When the boat would go no farther up that 
 particular creek, he backed out into the lake again and 
 
386 SUSAN S ESCOET, AND OTHERS 
 
 found another. It was not half an hour before the 
 canoe had all the cargo she could float, and boy and 
 girl both sat gingerly as he turned her head home 
 ward to her little dock, and again drove the congress 
 of web-footed senators away. As they came into the 
 trench which had been cut in the hard mud, the grace 
 ful girl sprang lightly ashore, but turned again, with 
 what in opera we should call a gesture of goodie. 
 He knew he need only wait for her a moment. Sure 
 enough, she was back again as soon as she had time 
 to run to the tepees and to return. And this time she 
 was heavily laden with a great string of baskets, Avhich 
 she had fastened together and carried on a long hickory 
 stick above her head. The load was indeed too heavy 
 for her, and her brother ran up the path to help her. 
 
 " JSTow you see why I have been so busy all the 
 summer, and all through the time of harvest, while the 
 other girls have been singing and dancing and fooling 
 away their time." 
 
 " I see that the baskets are for the rice, and I see 
 that they will empty the canoe, but I do not see why 
 you and I should gather rice for the others. And I 
 do not know why we should go before the others are 
 ready." 
 
 " The others ? The others ?" said she this with a 
 merry laugh, but with a gesture of scorn. " As if I 
 meant to work for them ! For them, indeed ! Let them 
 work for me ! 
 
 " No, White-wings," and now she spoke more seri 
 ously, " none of our rice will go into their storehouse. 
 I will do my share when the time comes, but this is 
 not for them. 
 
THE FIRST GRAIN MARKET 387 
 
 " White-wings, keep in y secret. Help me build my 
 grain-house and cover it. Go with me two more morn 
 ings, that we may have three canoe-loads in all. Help 
 me pack it in the baskets I have baskets enough 
 and be ready to move it when the time comes. 
 
 " White- wings, do this for me, and you shall have 
 the white totem. You shall have the white pine-tree." 
 And the girl put her hand under her leather jacket, 
 and drew out, hanging to a cord of deer s sinew, a 
 round bit of silver, on one side of which was a rude 
 image of a pine-tree. 
 
 The boy knew that it was the most precious thing 
 she had. lie had coveted it as the rarest of treasures, 
 and now she offered it to him for his own. 
 
 " White-wings," she said, " before I made the first 
 basket I had a dream. I dreamed that six black 
 swans oh, so large! would come down the lake 
 shore. And in the dream they stopped and bent their 
 long necks, all of them, where I stood. And I knew 
 they wanted rice, and I gave them rice, and the tallest 
 swan of all gave to me a kernel of yellow corn. 
 
 " I waked from my dream, and that morning I began 
 to make my baskets, that I might have the grain ready 
 for the swans when they should come. 
 
 "And I dreamed another dream. This time there 
 came six blue herons, and they bent their long necks 
 as they stood on their long legs. And I gave each of 
 them a fish, and they flew away. Then I worked all 
 the harder, that I might be ready for the herons when 
 they came. 
 
 " And three nights ago I dreamed again. And this 
 time six red deer came running from the east. And 
 
388 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 they were not afraid of me. They came and nibbled 
 grains of ripe rice from my hand. And I woke up 
 when I felt their cold noses on my fingers. 
 
 " That time I came to you, and my good brother has 
 helped me to fill the baskets." 
 
 As she talked they filled the baskets with the ripe 
 grain, and carried them where they could cover them 
 with corn-leaves, under an old willow. In hard work 
 for the rest of that day they palisaded them stoutly, 
 and made their enclosure so secure that it was safe 
 from rabbits. Of deer, so near the tepees, there was 
 no danger. 
 
 Carefully did the Indian girl watch the sun, morn 
 ing, noon, and night, as the days grew shorter. She 
 had driven a long peg into a cottonwood-tree, as high 
 as she could, and, day by day, on the ground, she made 
 her mark at noon, when the shadow was the shortest. 
 At last she summoned her brother. " See, White- 
 wings, see! The mark was here three days ago, and, 
 see, now the shadow is here so much shorter. They 
 will come soon. 1 
 
 Every morning at sunrise, while the village was still 
 at its laziest, the girl had, for a week before this, 
 climbed to her eyry in her own selected bare cotton 
 wood-tree, to be sure that no one escaped her eye upon 
 the larger lake. It was near a mile s walk for her 
 every day through the prairie, but she never hesitated. 
 Snow, rain, ice, or sunshine, it was all one for her. 
 
 And the very next day after she showed to White- 
 wings the telltale shadow which proved that the days 
 were growing longer, she was rewarded in her outlook. 
 
THE FIRST GRAIN MARKET 
 
 Far to the north, on the quiet lake, which was still not 
 frozen, were one, two, three more specks than she 
 could surely count. She hardly waited to count them, 
 indeed, so eager was she to .find her brother, and to 
 bring him to the shore. 
 
 It was not an hour before they were both there. 
 They built a fire, of which the smoke curled above 
 them. They stood out on the bank, hardly high enough 
 to be called a bluff, and, with tall canes, the tallest they 
 could cut, waved signals of welcome ; signals which 
 were readily discerned in that white, flat wilderness. 
 
 Within an hour or two more the strange canoes drew 
 near, in two lines. The strangers also waved signals 
 of recognition, and the leading boat ran fearlessly up 
 to the shore. Robert Cavalier de La Salle landed, and 
 freely took the offered hand of White-wings, the boy, 
 who knew already that such was the white man s sig 
 nal of welcome. 
 
 For Waketa, she had been recognized, on the moment, 
 by a tall, well-built, handsome Indian of the leading 
 crew. He was one of the eighteen Massachusetts 
 Indians whom La Salle took, with their squaws and 
 pappooses, because they had been to the Mississippi 
 before. 
 
 The girl looked gladly up in the face of the tall 
 stranger, welcomed his expression of eager joy, looked 
 up again and smiled, as any man might be glad to have 
 such a woman smile on him. 
 
 "Yes, I knew you would come. And I knew you 
 would come to-day. 
 
 " My dream said that when the sun was four days 
 towards the south the six black swans would come, the 
 
390 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 six white herons would come, the six deer would come. 
 And to-day is the fourth day, and you are here." 
 
 " And where is the token ?" asked her admirer, proud 
 of the eager eyes and curious gaze of those who looked 
 on. 
 
 The girl looked down a minute, and hesitated. 
 " Which was best, Waban ? Which was best ? 
 
 "He has the token. It is safe; no one else has it. 
 I am sure," she said, proudly, " you do not fear me. 
 
 "Waban, I knew that you were coming. I knew 
 you would not come alone. I knew six canoes would 
 come with you, for I saw six swans, six herons, and six 
 deer in my dream. 
 
 " Waban, we are ready for you. Tell the black chief 
 that we are ready." And she pointed to Cavalier de 
 La Salle. 
 
 Then White-wings and Waban, in a mixture of the 
 Winnebago language and French and English, ex 
 plained to the great leader that the village was but a 
 mile back behind the canebrake. He readily accepted 
 the invitation to a feast which, in his father s name, 
 White- wings gave him. Taking two of the whites 
 of his party, Waban, and the three babies and their 
 mothers, La Salle followed his guides to the encamp 
 ment, and, with his own civility, received the hurried 
 welcome which was offered. Stores of berries and rice 
 and corn were brought out, fifty fish were placed upon 
 the coals, and a sudden feast of welcome was impro 
 vised. 
 
 And Waketa took her lover, and led him to her 
 palisade, and showed him the hard-packed baskets of 
 rice which she and her brother had made ready. 
 
THE FIRST GRAIN MARKET 391 
 
 Waban, delighted with her foresight, ran back and 
 called the great chief. 
 
 It was hard to explain to La Salle that this welcome 
 store of provision was thus all ready for his winter 
 passage across to the Mississippi. 
 
 When, in three languages, the story of her dreams 
 was told to him, he held his hand over her, and blessed 
 her and hers. 
 
 "Dominus tibi benedicet, filia mea" It was a Christ 
 mas blessing. 
 
 And from his pouch he took a Portuguese joe of gold, 
 ten pine-tree shillings, and placed them in the hand of 
 the girl, compelling her to take them, though she would 
 gladly have shrunk away. 
 
 For this little story there is, alas! no written au 
 thority. But if it can ever be authenticated, here is 
 the record of the oldest harvest, and that of the first 
 sale on the Corn Exchange of Chicago. 
 
 And thus was consecrated that Christmas Day. 
 
PHARAOH S HARVEST 
 
 "LAND at last! Look round, Patience; look round, 
 Jack, and see how you like your new home." 
 
 The young man spoke to a boy ten years old and a 
 girl of twelve, as they cautiously climbed a rickety 
 ladder from a flat-boat which rose and fell on the 
 waves. The two children stepped on a rude wooden 
 wharf, which ran out over the rocks. It was their 
 older brother who addressed them. He then left them 
 to their fate, while, with a sailor in the boat, he lifted 
 to the wharf two or three bags of grain, on which 
 Patience and Jack had been sitting. 
 
 As soon as the first of these was on the wharf, Pa 
 tience took her place on it, while Jack rendered such 
 help as he could in landing the others. All went well 
 enough until, by a slip, the last bag fell heavily on the 
 boards. The leather cord, which was tied around its 
 mouth, gave way, and as much as half a peck of grain 
 rolled out upon the wharf. 
 
 " This will never do this will never do. We must 
 not waste good English wheat in this fashion." This 
 was the warning giving by a sunburned man in his 
 shirt-sleeves, who had just come down to the landing, 
 and who revealed himself for the first time. 
 
 ""We will waste nothing," said Martin Coram, the 
 oldest of the three. " But a land of plenty, like yours, 
 
PHARAOH S HARVEST 393 
 
 will not grudge a few handfuls of grain to the sparrows 
 eh, neighbor?" 
 
 And he lifted the heavy bag upon its end, opened 
 the mouth, and with his hands began scraping up the 
 wheat which had escaped. Patience and Jack helped. 
 He took a bit of stout whip-cord from his pocket, and 
 began with his knife to make holes, through which he 
 could lace it into the buckram. By the time these 
 were made and the cord inserted, the children had 
 gathered almost all which fell, and he drew up his cord 
 and made all safe. 
 
 The landsmen answered him, with a certain surliness 
 of manner : " The sparrows have enough, but we do 
 not mean to teach sparrows or hawks the taste of 
 English grain." And he turned away. As he did so, 
 the girl, Patience, rose, with her hands full of wheat, 
 which she had been gathering from a corner between 
 two bags. But she was too late for her brother. She 
 would have thrown it back for the birds but for the 
 surly words of the stranger. As it was, she put it 
 carefully in the great pocket which was fastened at her 
 waist. And on the future of those two handfuls of 
 wheat is built our little story. 
 
 The family of Corams, to which the two children 
 and their brother Martin belonged, were of the Eng 
 lish emigration, of near a thousand men, women, and 
 children, who arrived in Massachusetts Bay in June of 
 1030. After a fortnight of varied experience, sleeping 
 
394 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 in a barn to-night and under canvas to-morrow night, 
 riding on a pillion behind one brother, or steering a boat 
 for another, Patience found herself, with her father 
 and mother, her brothers and sisters, and especially 
 with the precious baby of the party, under the shelter 
 of a tent on the shore of Charles River, where, two 
 hundred and fifty years after, stood the house of one 
 of her descendants, on the land which her father staked 
 out on the morning of that day. The older brothers 
 and sisters were at work here and there, as the regimen 
 of a well-disciplined English yeoman s family directed. 
 And to Patience was left the oversight of the three 
 children younger than herself. It was not hard to set 
 Robert and Jotham to digging holes in the sand beside 
 the river, with the big shells they had found there. 
 The baby was too small to dig, too big to go to sleep, 
 and too resolute to be left alone. Patience had built 
 houses of pebbles on the chest on which she sat, she 
 had extemporized jackstraws from the big pine-nee 
 dles ; but one sport failed after another, and, at last, 
 with unwearying good temper, such as befitted her 
 name, she said, "Well, Tommy, let us see what we 
 have in our pocket." And from the great pocket which 
 hung from her belt appeared a spool of thread, the 
 comb which the other children knew only too well, 
 three or four nails which she had picked up in one 
 cruise or another, two or three little kerchiefs which 
 were tied round their necks in one and another crisis, 
 and at last a good handful of the wheat which Patience 
 had placed there on the day of the landing. This 
 served her purpose best of all. The wheat was ranged 
 in armies, it was pushed to and fro, it was dropped 
 
PHAKAOH S HARVEST 395 
 
 through holes, to be recovered by the baby s fingers, 
 till, happily and suddenly, the child developed drowsi 
 ness, gave way to one skilful, slow rendering of the 
 ballad of Robin Hood, and, in a minute more, was sleep 
 ing under a veil, on the rough bed which he shared 
 with his mother. Patience was left to her own devices. 
 She hastily pocketed again the various treasures which 
 had been the baby s playthings, till she came to the 
 armies of wheat-grains. " I mean to plant these," she 
 said. " I mean to have some bread of my own. Thee 
 knows, Martin," she said, gravely, to her brother, " the 
 Bible says, some an hundredfold. " And she rapidly 
 counted her grains. " Here are forty -three grains. A 
 hundredfold will be a great many." 
 
 Martin laughed good-naturedly at her confidence, 
 and said, " Thee must be careful, Pashe, or the sun will 
 burn them or the weeds choke them. The sun seems 
 to me hotter than it was yon, and thee sees how the 
 weeds grow. And who knows, dear little Pashe, where 
 next spring will find us ? Up and away, may be the 
 order." 
 
 "I do not know," said the girl, good-naturedly. 
 " But where we go, I will take my farm. See here, 
 Martin, I have this big basket, which the Indian wom 
 an gave me for a little bit of ribbon. Thee will show 
 me the good ground, I will fill the basket with good 
 ground, and I will plant my seed there. Then, if Ave 
 go to another plantation, we will carry the basket. 
 See how strong it is." 
 
 Martin was fond of the child, as well he might be, 
 and always humored her. They filled the basket to 
 gether, and then he bade her pick out the very largest 
 
396 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 and plumpest of her grains. "Thee does not want a 
 mean harvest, Pashe," he said; "good grain or none, 
 and good seed, if we are to have a hundredfold." So 
 the basket was filled two-thirds full from the rich soil 
 left in some overflow of Charles Kiver. Thirty plump 
 grains, such as would have delighted the vizier Joseph, 
 were planted in it, the basket was set away under the 
 slope of the tent, and, to tell the truth, it was forgotten 
 by everybody. 
 
 A cabin was built, after a fashion, partly of logs and 
 partly of planks, which had been diligently sawed out 
 by Jotham and Martin and Stedfast and their father. 
 Poor Mrs. Coram began to feel the joys of a stable 
 home, after seven months of ships and boats and tents 
 and bivouacs, and to say, between tears and prayers, 
 that it was a comfort there was wood enough to burn. 
 But alack and alas ! as March came in, as the ice in 
 the river melted, as the children brought up from the 
 river-bank prince s-pine and bits of green moss which 
 seemed as if summer might come, the goodman came 
 in, one night, quite excited, with one more proposal for 
 removal. 
 
 One of the magistrates, and two other men of sub 
 stance, had come on from the South River, as they 
 called it, to ask him if he would not come and direct 
 the setting up of their mill there, as he had so well 
 directed this at Watertown. There was a modest pride 
 in Coram s face as he told this to the family, while he 
 knew that the proposal would not be popular. But 
 the end of all was that it was agreed that he ought to 
 go. He would take Martin with him till the house 
 could be ready for the little ones, for house there was 
 
397 
 
 this time, or the beginning of one. And then, " by the 
 time you want to make your garden, mother," Mar 
 tin should come back with their own horse and with 
 another horse which could be borrowed, for mother to 
 ride upon and the little ones. The establishment at 
 Watertown was turned over to Stedfast, and Stedfast 
 should marry Hope Garfield a little earlier than had 
 been expected. By such bribery was Stedfast s vote 
 secured for the scheme. And, of course, Good wife 
 Coram consented, as she had consented to so many 
 schemes before. 
 
 " And thee will have a good patch of wheat here," 
 said the father to his son, as he left in the gray of the 
 morning, and looked around, with a certain regret, on 
 the improvements of the hard work of last October 
 and November. 
 
 Patience heard the words. Childlike, she said noth 
 ing. But, so soon as her brother and father left, she 
 ran back into the old tent, which had stood all winter 
 long as a storehouse, rummaged under the ropes, and 
 dragged out the Indian woman s forgotten basket. She 
 set it in a sheltered place, fenced it carefully from 
 chickens, and, with a gourd of her own, watered it 
 everv day when she did not forget it. When, upon 
 May-day itself, she lifted her little sister on the pillion 
 behind Martin, for the emigration to the South Eiver, 
 she gave to her care the heavy basket. " If thee will 
 take it, Polly, all the way, I will walk all the way. 
 Thee need riot give me thy place at all." And Polly 
 gladly fulfilled her share of the contract. 
 
398 
 
 II 
 
 And it proved, as it will prove in the world, that the 
 party who went on foot had quite as easy a journey 
 as those who went on horses. First of all, they had 
 some miles in a great birch canoe, which a friendly 
 Indian squaw on the river had lent Good wife Coram. 
 When it came to the carries, the children did their 
 part with the best. There were two more than when 
 they landed at Salem. For the gentle Madam Skeats 
 had died before Christmas, and that quiet gentleman, 
 her husband, had coughed his life away before two 
 months more. Here were the two orphans, Lawrence 
 and Mildred, whom Goodwife Coram had taken into 
 her shelter and into her heart, of course. With her 
 eight children, these two made the journey to Ded- 
 ham. 
 
 The new home was further advanced in the begin 
 ning than the old one had been when they left it. 
 The men of mark who wanted Coram s help had known 
 enough to know that he would be likely to stay if they 
 made things attractive to his family. Two or three 
 acres of meadow had been ploughed, a log-cabin built, 
 and thatched with marsh hay and reeds, and, as the 
 day of arrival chose to be one of the days in a New 
 England May when the wind blows from the south 
 west, where the Indian s heaven lies, everything seemed 
 cheerful and hopeful. 
 
 Coram s two horses were by far the most valuable 
 part of his wealth. At once he made for himself a 
 rouo-h harrow, and, under the moonlight, with the 
 
PHARAOH S HARVEST 
 
 boys help, broke up the newly ploughed land. He 
 would try oats, he would try barley, he would try 
 wheat. As for the new corn, which the Indian boys 
 showed him, he was incredulous. They might plant 
 that ; good old English wheat was good enough for 
 him. Patience said nothing while these larger labors 
 went on. But the next day she chose her own garden- 
 spot behind the house. She found a pick and a spade- 
 both far too heavy for her, but a fortunate rush of 
 water in the spring had broken up the surface so that 
 it was not sodded beyond her strength. In one in 
 terval and another, between baby-tending and plate- 
 washing, and other cares invented or suggested by her 
 mother, she made herself a bed big enough for all the 
 seeds she had and more. She planted apple-seeds which 
 her grandmother had given her in Kent. She planted 
 scarlet-beans which she had saved a year ago in the 
 old cottage in England. And, with most care of all, 
 she broke into a dozen bits the hard block of soil which 
 had caked together in the Indian basket, and set them 
 in her new garden, as she might have done as many 
 precious tulips, had she ever heard of such wonders. 
 
 Fortune favors the brave. And is there not indeed 
 a divinity among the powers set to rule this world who 
 has a special love for children and their enterprises? 
 Who shall say? But it seemed so. Before June was 
 over Goodman Coram had reason to wish that he had 
 listened more carefully to the Indian boys. They had 
 warned him that the meadow where he planted, which 
 seemed wholly out of reach of the stream, was, in ex 
 ceptional years, flooded when a freshet came. They 
 even showed him logs which had been floated there ; 
 
400 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 but they had to confess that these had been there ever 
 since they remembered. Coram had said, in his easy 
 way, that if the freshets had held off for ten years, 
 they would hold off a year longer. Anyway, he must 
 build the town mill and tend it; he could not be fell 
 ing timber for his fields and crops, as the others were. 
 
 And so poor Coram had the dismay, when he woke 
 one morning in the middle of June, of seeing that the 
 rain of the last week had started up in the hills sources 
 and streams such as he had never dreamed of in Eng 
 land. At night he had simply taken comfort that the 
 roof was so well thatched and the house so dry. But 
 in the morning here was the stream within a foot of 
 his little field, so carefully planted not four weeks 
 since. He looked wistfully on the field, sorrowfully 
 on the river. " No good craving for spilled milk," he 
 said, as he led Patience and her mother back to break 
 fast. " Lucky that I am a better millwright than I 
 am farmer." Lucky, indeed, for before an hour had 
 gone by some new rush of water came down, as some 
 beaver-dam gave way above, and all the little field was 
 under a torrent which even floated the logs which had 
 lodged in it in the freshet of old days. 
 
 And so it happened that, in Patience s little patch 
 behind the house, there ripened all the wheat which 
 the Coram family made in their second summer in the 
 bay. The seed, because it had been chosen of the best, 
 and because it was diligently watered with the slops 
 which Patience carried from her mother s kitchen, 
 throve marvellously. Goodman Coram and Martin 
 would praise Patience s farming almost every day. 
 " Thee will not have thy hundredfold, Pashe," Martin 
 
PHARAOH S HARVEST 401 
 
 would say, good-naturedly ; " I do not know what the 
 man sowed who got that, but not such wheat as we 
 sow. But thee will have a good twentyfold, and, 
 maybe, thirtyfold. And that is enough for a begin 
 ning in farming." 
 
 " The good Lord did not say that all bore a hundred 
 fold, even then and there," said the girl s mother, laugh 
 ing, " Some had a hundred and some thirty. And I 
 believe he loved one as. much as the other." 
 
 When Martin told her the time had come, Patience 
 cut her tall wheat with her own scissors. Her mother 
 kept the thirty tall stalks of straw, and laid them by 
 under the eaves for the time when Patience should 
 learn to braid them. And Patience with her own fin 
 gers, in the autumn twilight, picked all the big grains 
 from the husks. Martin himself marvelled that they 
 were so large, and his good-natured father praised Pa 
 tience that she picked her seed so well. So, as she 
 picked, the girl made two piles, one for u the best, the 
 very, very best," and another for what her father told 
 her to mark as second grade. She counted the full 
 grains which she called the " Pharaoh wheat," and she 
 had five hundred and seventy kernels. She made for 
 herself a little bag from a dish-clout, and sewed the 
 ends together, and hid it away with her treasures. 
 
 Ill 
 
 So, when October came, and the mill was running 
 briskly, if only there had been grain enough for it to 
 grind, Patience called Martin one afternoon and asked 
 
 26 
 
402 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 him how she was to plant "Pharaoh." " Lean kine 
 I will not plant at all," she said, laughing. " It shall 
 not be said of me that I started poor crops in this 
 brave, new world, which hath such wonders in it." 
 The scrap of Shakespeare had stolen to her ears from 
 a sailor on the ship. Neither she nor her brother 
 guessed where the sailor heard it, and still less that she 
 had misquoted it. Martin always petted her, and 
 would have done much more for her than make a 
 garden-bed. He went out at once, surveyed her present 
 possessions, and saw at a glance how they could be 
 enlarged. "I must bring thee some of the posies from 
 the woods," he said, " if there is ever a time when the 
 sun will not burn them before we can move them. 
 Thy beans do thee credit, like thy wheat, my darling, 
 and thee is the best farmer of us all." So he brought 
 his spade and his pick, he drove in pickets strong 
 enough to keep off any wandering pig, he warned her 
 that her worst enemies were the fowls she loved so 
 well, and then made her a bed big enough for her 
 heart s most earnest desire. He dammed off the strag 
 gling water which came down from the wood above. 
 There was space for the posies which were to come 
 from the swamp, there was a large corner where she 
 was to plant in the spring the Indian-corn which the 
 old squaw had given her, there were a dozen poles for 
 her beans, which were to be glorious in another sum 
 mer, there were long beds for her peas, and, in the 
 midst of all, well away from the rush of water from 
 the thatched roof, was a space especially raked and 
 sifted, where Pharaoh was to have his five hundred 
 and seventy-two full stalks of grain, " Thee shall have 
 
PHARAOH S HARVEST 403 
 
 a stalk for each day of the year, little one, and two 
 hundred and seven stalks more. With such good luck 
 as thee has had, we will have thirty-fold this time." 
 And with her own hand Patience planted Pharaoh as 
 he bade her. She had a bit of worn-out net which one 
 of the fishermen gave her, and she pinned this care 
 fully over Pharaoh s bed and the parts around it. She 
 drove off cocks and hens with unflinching perseverance, 
 and even taught the little spaniel who had followed all 
 their wanderings, that he must not leap inside that en 
 closure. Little had the girl to call her away from 
 home, and her watchfulness, therefore, was easy, until 
 the snow fell and protected all. If she had known it, 
 it enriched all ; " snow is the poor man s manure." 
 
 With that fall s success in the mill, and with work 
 which knew no such petty limits as twelve hours, or 
 even thirteen, Coram and Martin cleared a farm where 
 no freshets would sweep away their planting. Between 
 the stumps they compelled the horses to drag their 
 light plough. And, in a fashion, they got in their oats 
 and their barley, and their wheat. By this time, also, 
 Coram was willing to plant as much of the Indian s 
 corn as he planted of all the rest. " But this we will 
 make ready for in winter," he said. "We will keep 
 ourselves warm by felling the great pines yon, and by 
 burning them when they are felled." 
 
 And all was as he said. 
 
 His wheat harvest made but a poor show compared 
 with what he would have seen in Kent. His barley 
 was poorer yet. But the oats were full and strong. 
 "But nobody has such wheat in this land," said he, 
 after their little Harvest Home, "as the lasses do. 
 
404 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 How big is thy farm, Patience, and are there three 
 yards of it, or six? I only know that I must buy all 
 thy crop for planting another year, even if thee weighs 
 it against sixpences. Brave new land, is that what 
 thee calls it? It is a land where the lasses have better 
 farms than their own daddies have." 
 
 And little Patience, who was not so little now, 
 blushed crimson, and flung her arms around him with 
 out saying a word, and kissed him. 
 
 IV 
 
 Perhaps the origin of the "Pharaoh grains" has 
 been told in too much detail. But it seemed worth 
 while for younger readers, at least, who eat their daily 
 bread as if it came to them of course, without any 
 body s special effort or care, to be carried back to some 
 of the chances and difficulties of a beginning. The 
 story need not be told with the same mcety for a 
 year or two more. For enough has been told to show 
 why and how it happened that the little girl s handful 
 came to be planted separately, and why, from year to 
 year, the product was kept separately. It was no tri 
 fling task, after her third harvest, to lay out in suc 
 cession, on the large kitchen table, one and another 
 measure of the great yellow grains, and to put upon 
 the floor, in the old Indian basket, those which were a 
 little shrivelled, or for any reason not so full as the 
 others. A dozen, perhaps, had been pierced by a mis 
 erable little worm, hardly bigger round than a large 
 pin, who had worked his way out of them. Patience 
 
405 
 
 buried these behind the coals in the smouldering ashes 
 of the fireplace. Her beloved grains were far beyond 
 her counting now. And while she kept her first bag, 
 with a certain superstitious love or respect, she had to 
 make a much larger bag to hold the increase of her 
 harvest. Thirty times fifty is fifteen hundred, and in 
 another year thirty times fifteen hundred made forty- 
 five thousand grains. Patience, who is no longer little 
 Patience, but tall Patience, and, be it added in a whis 
 per, pretty Patience, did not even make this calculation. 
 But she did weigh her bao-s, and laid them in the cor- 
 
 O O 
 
 ner of the great meal-chest, of which she was now the 
 mistress. And thus she knew that Pharaoh had kept 
 up to his old standard. Not a grain of all that was 
 thus chosen was ever made into meal. No, it was 
 saved for autumn sowing. And all Patience s origi 
 nal garden, and more, well manured by Martin s loving 
 care, was needed for Pharaoh s tyrannical requisitions. 
 But two years was a long time for Goodman Coram 
 to remain in one home. He was one of those who 
 hunger for the horizon." And so soon as men began 
 to suspect that the sandy gravel of the bay shores was 
 not even equal to old Kent for farming land, so soon 
 also there began to be great rumors of "The Great 
 River of the West," as watering meadows to which the 
 little freshet-washed fields of the Neponset were as a 
 handkerchief pinned on the mainsail of a man-of-war. 
 This was not the great river of which we know the 
 name as Meschachipi, or Mississippi. It was a river 
 which the Minneapolis and St. Paul people would think 
 a very little river, but which was big to an Indian of 
 the bay, and which from its meadows fed young New 
 
406 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 England as the Mississippi valley feeds the New Eng 
 land of to-day. Coram had not been at the Dedham 
 home for two years before he was sent for to New 
 Plymouth for some advice as to their mill-gear. There 
 he met some of the traders to the "great river" and 
 came home full of enthusiasm with what they told him. 
 There was to be the place for a miller; there was to 
 be the region from which the country was to be fed. 
 
 Here it proved he was right, and, accordingly, he 
 led his vagrant family there when they had lived little 
 more than three years in their home on the Neponset 
 river. But this was a long time for an adventurer like 
 Goodman Corain. 
 
 And, once more, the family was divided. This time 
 Patience and Lawrence and Mildred and Martin were 
 of the party which went across the land, while the lit 
 tle children, with the mill-gear, and their mother and 
 the various stores, went in a trading vessel, out through 
 the bay, around by the perilous passage of Cape Cod 
 and Nantucket, anchored once and again in the Vine 
 yard Sound and in Long Island Sound, and then, by 
 favorable winds, pushed forward for a fortnight to the 
 great river. This time the inarching party came in 
 ahead of the sailing party, and this time Martin and 
 the boys, who could swing an axe with the best of the 
 men now, had made a good beginning for their father 
 and mother, in cutting the logs ready for lifting, so 
 that the cabin was soon built and there was but little 
 tent-life for the women before they were fairly estab 
 lished. That valley was as beautiful as it is now, and 
 Good wife Corain hoped that this time they had come 
 to the home where they were to remain. Surely her 
 
407 
 
 good man would hear of nothing that was better than 
 this. Here was to be the home which she had prom 
 ised herself so long. 
 
 Of all such emigration, the temptation is to the new 
 settler to come somewhere where he may plough at 
 once, without that irksome or tiresome business of cut 
 ting down the timber, burning it, and so creating a farm. 
 On the other side, as poor Coram found to his cost, in 
 the little Mattapan valley a meadow was a place not 
 to be trusted too fully, even if one go up on the second 
 terrace. Here, in their new Eden, they had the ex 
 ample of the squaws, who were the Indian farmers, and 
 were able to profit by some of their rough hydraulic 
 enginery. That is to say, their custom was to take a 
 good bit of land on an upper terrace, and to fortify 
 themselves by a low log rampart, which would not, in 
 deed, bear the pressure of a heavy freshet, but which 
 would be able to keep an accidental flood from the 
 highest water levels from ravaging the field. Even 
 before the cabin was well covered in, Coram and his 
 boys, who were as good to him as men, felled one and 
 another tree, so that it should answer such a purpose 
 of protection for a few acres, resolved not to be caught 
 again as they had been caught before. Nor were they. 
 The cabin itself stood on ground somewhat higher than 
 this terrace. For it is one of the peculiarities of that 
 beautiful river, pointing back, I suppose, to bits of its 
 geological history, that, as one lake after another gave 
 way in the formation of New England, different ter 
 races rose from the river, and you may take your 
 choice at what height you will live above the stream. 
 This time the father sowed his wheat in his field, and 
 
408 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 Lawrence and Martin sowed " Pharaoh " in what they 
 knew as "the upper garden." Pharaoh had become an 
 important element in the family life, and it was under 
 stood that Patience Avould not like to have her crop 
 mixed in with the more vulgar crop of the larger field. 
 It was no longer a crop to be watered with the suds 
 of the wash-tubs. It had to take the chances, with the 
 most democratic wheat, of the rain and the dew. But 
 when spring came, Patience was delighted to see how 
 firmly the stalks came up and how bravely they grew 
 under those hot suns and under those healthy spring 
 showers. Her father was as proud of her harvest as 
 he was of his own, and was willing to confess once and 
 again that she had the best show of them all. It was 
 really quite a large patch which grew from the careful 
 sowing of Lawrence and Martin, and when a hot July 
 crowned the work of the showers of May and June, 
 Goodman Coram himself confessed that never in his 
 best English experience had he seen better grain. 
 
 It was half-past three of a July morning. The east 
 ern sky was all a sea of pale pearly light ; in the lower 
 edge of it just the first suspicion of yellow. From his 
 tent, half hidden under some low patch pines, came 
 Lawrence Skeats, now a tall, handsome young fellow, 
 more than six feet high, with a paddle on his left shoul 
 der and an axe in his right hand. He was browned 
 with the sun, but the English glow still shone in his 
 cheeks, and such a mass of curly auburn hair blazed 
 
PHARAOH S HARVEST 409 
 
 round his head as never glorified Apollo. He sat on 
 the rail-fence, with his axe and with his paddle at his 
 side, watching the door of the log-cabin, over which 
 climbed scarlet-beans and ground-nut and Virginia- 
 creeper. The young fellow s thoughts were carried 
 back to his father s cottage at Hampshire, in the old 
 home. He sat whistling at first, and then humming 
 the song which he had heard his father sing in those 
 days: 
 
 " Hark ! hark ! the lark at heaven s gate sings, 
 
 And Phoebus gins arise, 
 His steeds to water at those springs 
 
 On dial iced flowers that lies ; 
 And winking Mary-buds begin 
 
 To ope their golden eyes, 
 With everything that pretty bin ; 
 
 My lady sweet, arise !" 
 
 He looked round at the last words, but on the high 
 ridge there was no Phoebus yet, only the long golden 
 streak which made it sure that Phoebus was coming. 
 
 Patience had promised her lover that she would be 
 up before sunrise, and go with him to the little bay on, 
 almost a pond, from which he had brought her her 
 pond-lilies, so that she might see the pretty daily mira 
 cle of their opening. She was, let us hope, not quite 
 so impatient as he was for the appointment at least, 
 it would not have been like her to say so. But, on the 
 other hand, she was not too late, and, by the time the 
 boy sang of the " winking Mary-buds," the girl pushed 
 open the door and came smiling towards him, offering 
 him her hand, and then insisting on carrying the pad 
 dle. A little walk not half a mile in which they 
 brushed the dew from the grass in the narrow path, 
 
410 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 and then the birch-canoe which Lawrence himself and 
 some friendly squaws had built the autumn before, 
 clean within as Patience s kneading-table, with a pret 
 tily dressed tasselled deer-skin for her to sit on, and a 
 bunch of wild roses on one side, and of white azalea 
 on the other. 
 
 " How sweet they are, Lawrence, and how nice in 
 thee to have them ready !" 
 
 The proud lad only blushed, intimated that they 
 were not half sweet enough for her, stepped into the 
 boat and pushed off, and in a minute they were in the 
 middle of the little lake. 
 
 What loving things he said to her, or Avhat kind 
 answers she made to him, who shall tell after two 
 hundred and fifty years ? Guess if you can, Maud and 
 Maurice, but they are not here written down. The 
 balance of the boat does not permit him to put his arm 
 around her, even if she would have permitted, and he 
 cannot press his lips upon her cheek, as sometimes he 
 had done. But there were only five or six jealous cu 
 bits between them, and he could see the play of the 
 blood as it went and came in her cheeks, and hear what 
 she said, though it were only in a whisper. And he 
 could sit and wonder how the good God himself could 
 make anything so beautiful as she. And the girl, hard 
 ly conscious of the intensity of his admiration, was 
 happy because he was happy, was happy because the 
 lake and the trees were so beautiful, and the reflection 
 of the trees in the still water. Was the morning dawn 
 always as exquisite as this? If it were, why, it was 
 wicked in them that they did not come out to see it 
 every day ! Something like this they said. But neither 
 
PHARAOH S HARVEST 411 
 
 of them said much. Both of them were the good 
 God s children, and had been so trained that they were 
 not afraid of Him. Each of them would have liked 
 to say just the words which John Milton perhaps 
 that very morning was thinking of putting into the 
 mouth of Eve : 
 
 " These are thy glorious works, Parent of Good." 
 
 But, of a sudden, the miracle was perfected for which 
 they had come. It was the girl who saw it first. 
 " There is one!" she cried, as a great white lily opened 
 itself to the sun. " Surely, it was not there before !" 
 
 No,, pretty Patience, or it was only, a bud before. 
 And lily buds open to the sun as quickly as girls change 
 into women. 
 
 Lawrence looked over his shoulder to see the " chal- 
 iced flower" floating on the lake, and skilfully drew 
 the boat to it, so that Patience might take it for her 
 prize. In the minute in which she did so, half a dozen 
 more had opened, and, as she looked up she saw them. 
 " There oh ! and there ! There Lawrence, look there ! 
 Oh, they are everywhere?" 
 
 Yes, that is the beauty of morning on such a lake, 
 where there are so many of these maiden-queens wait 
 ing to meet the sun -god. And Lawrence, delighted 
 that she so enjoyed the new pleasure which he had 
 prepared for her, skilfully pushed the boat from one to 
 another as she pointed. At last, indeed, there needed 
 no pointing or exclamation. The surface, just now 
 brown, or blue, or green, as it reflected shadow, or sky, 
 or tree, was everywhere flecked with the pure white of 
 
412 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHERS 
 
 the lilies, as they waited, hoping that the girl would 
 need them. 
 
 The space between them in the canoe was filled with 
 the mass of them which she had collected, when Law 
 rence for the first time looked northward in the sky. 
 In an instant his face changed. 
 
 O 
 
 " Patience, stand up look yon ! What is that 
 smoke ?" 
 
 " Smoke indeed," cried she, in dismay, like his own. 
 " Not near the house, thank God !" 
 
 And already he was driving the boat to the landing. 
 Three minutes and they are there ; two more, with no 
 thought of their cargo now, nor of axe or paddle, they 
 are running up the sloping bank. The smoke, and 
 even tongues of fire, were only too visible, just beyond 
 the northeast point, where the mountain had turned 
 the course of the river. 
 
 " I will run to the house and warn them," cried he. 
 " Do thou go right to the tent and wake Martin," and, 
 as he spoke, he threw back to her his whittle. "Cut 
 all the cords, bid Martin roll up the canvas, and we 
 will come for it." The girl caught the knife, and ran, 
 like Diana herself, to call her sleeping brother. 
 
 Yes, and neither of them bad a minute too much for 
 what they had to do. Lawrence thundered at the cabin 
 door. His cry waked all who were there, and some 
 sort of clothing was wrapped round the little ones. 
 Goodman Coram himself was away, caring for the 
 Windsor Mills. But the two boys who slept there 
 were made to put on shoes and breeches. Mrs. Coram, 
 with the girls, carried to the safe covert of the trees 
 such things of worth as women could handle. The 
 
PHARAOH S HARVEST 413 
 
 new baby, most precious of all, and the other little 
 ones were left there, under the care of the wondering 
 Robert. And in a few minutes more in time, thank 
 God ! Martin and Lawrence and the rest appeared, 
 stumbling through the thicket, with the great roll of 
 the tent-cover. Two of the young fellows climbed 
 upon the roof of the cabin. There was time still to do 
 their work well, though they could see that the fire 
 had turned the point, and could plainly hear its roar 
 as it rushed through the tall grasses of the meadow, 
 on which no rain had fallen for a fortnight. Before a 
 single burning leaf or straw fell upon it, the dangerous 
 thatch was covered with the canvas, and Martin at his 
 post, Lawrence at his, on the leeward side of the roof, 
 were throwing water over the sheet, as the hard-work 
 ing women supplied it in buckets from below. The air 
 grew hotter and hotter, but the women and the men 
 were wet from top to toe, and hardly felt or knew 
 whether they were hot or cold. Within thirty yards 
 of them there was nothing to feed the fire. A little 
 line of maples, which had been spared in chopping, 
 from some Indian s talk of their sugar, parted the 
 homestead lot from the broken field. And, after a 
 terrible hour, they knew that the fire storm had passed 
 them and was speeding its way down the valley. Men 
 and women, boys and girls, their faces were black with 
 smoke and with the crock of cinders. 
 
 The house was saved ! But the harvest on the mead 
 ows was gone ! 
 
 Jotham and Robert were sent down in Lawrence s 
 canoe to call back poor Coram to the scene of desola 
 tion, and on the night of the third day after the fire 
 
414 SUSAN S ESCORT, AND OTHEES 
 
 he was with his wife and children. Such men hope 
 ful and eager to make a change when none is necessary 
 are always the more depressed when misfortune falls 
 upon them which they have not expected. And now 
 it was Goodwife Coram who was encouraging her hus 
 band, and Patience who was trying to make him un 
 derstand that things were really not as bad as they 
 were on the night when they gathered so hopefully at 
 Watertown, glad that the voyage was well over. 
 
 " For now, dear father," said the girl, " we have a 
 house over our heads, we have enough to eat and to 
 drink, we have a field all broken up and ready to 
 plant again, and we have neighbors and friends within 
 five miles, to whom we can go to borrow salt or 
 sugar." 
 
 " And what are we to do," said poor Coram, gloomily, 
 " between this time and next summer, when the crops 
 will be ripe, Patience, if so be another fire does not 
 sweep down the valley and finish them again ?" 
 
 But here the good wife put in a word. She re 
 minded him that there would be as many shad and 
 salmon in the river as there had been in the spring, 
 that there would be as many pigeons and turkeys in 
 the sky as there had been for a thousand years, that 
 they had in the out-house, which had been preserved 
 so skilfully by the boys, the tubs of salt fish which they 
 had all worked together to lay down in April. " Thou 
 shalt not say that we are going to starve in a land 
 flowing with milk and honey. What was it, Nathan, 
 that thee told me of this Tartar wheat which people 
 plant in July and harvest in the early autumn? We 
 will send the boys to the fort with these skins and they 
 
PHAEAOH S HARVEST 415 
 
 shall bring up enough to us for all that we can eat, 
 and all that we can sell to the redskins here." 
 
 They were all sitting where they looked upon the 
 black ground, which was not even stubble, where the 
 fire had burned so savagely all Nathan Coram s stand 
 ing corn. Not a straw was left of the yellow acres 
 which had been so promising to his eye only eight days 
 before. This was the field which, in his wife s simple 
 husbandry, was to be covered with buckwheat before 
 the summer was over. " And then, father," said Pa 
 tience, "it will be time to put in our winter wheat." 
 And the sad man answered his daughter without any 
 smile this time. " Neither love nor money will buy 
 wheat for the planting at any of the forts. None of 
 them had our luck ; there was a blast here and a blight 
 there, and if our new mill cannot grind oats, and these 
 hard Indian-corns, I might as well have built them a 
 pigeon-coop as a windmill." 
 
 " But, father dear," pleaded Patience, " thee does not 
 remember anything. Thee thinks that all is gone when 
 all is not gone. Come up with me and see how thy 
 little apple-trees have been growing, and see what is 
 growing all around them and almost hiding them." 
 So she led the way to the upper garden, and there, sure 
 enough, screened from the cinders bv a stretch of the 
 
 O " > 
 
 maple forest, was the gorgeous yellow of " Pharaoh s" 
 harvest, just ready for the reaping. " If thou art as 
 wise, dear father, as I think, we will not cry over 
 spilled milk any longer, but we will all take our sickles 
 and attack Pharaoh on four sides. And this year he 
 shall be threshed and winnowed as men thresh wheat, 
 and not as women do in their farming. See if there 
 
416 
 
 is not seed-corn for another summer, and tell me if, at 
 the mill, anybody brings in better wheat than the mill 
 er s daughter? 1 
 
 And her father took her in his arms and kissed her. 
 And, after the harvest of the next summer, when there 
 had been no freshet and no fire, and no mildew and no 
 weevil, when Nathan Coram s crops of oats and barley 
 were such as he had never dreamed of in Kent, when 
 his great bins of Indian-corn were so big that he did 
 not know how it was to be husked or to be shelled, 
 first of all he and Lawrence and Martin threshed out 
 the English wheat, which had grown as never English 
 wheat did before. And they tied it in great bags and 
 stacked it, and Nathan Coram said to Lawrence : " We 
 will not eat a kernel of it, Lawrence. But when the 
 new house is finished and the wedding-day comes, the 
 boys shall carry it over there and Patience s wheat 
 shall be Patience s dowry." 
 
 And it was all so. And if any one, stumbling over 
 the old accounts of Governor Haynes or of Mr. Pyn- 
 chon, finds the credit or the debit for so many pecks or 
 so many bushels of "Pharaoh," it is because these old 
 settlers, for their planting, bought Lawrence Skeat s 
 best winter wheat, the best which was ever yet seen 
 on the river. 
 
 THE END 
 

 
 
 NOV 
 
 192* 
 
 LOAN 
 
 MAR li 1966 
 
 , 
 
; 23 
 PC. 211 
 
 340396 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY