LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 813 Ml772d I.H.S. 1 ~ - fc Wf. "7 ^t-v -X; -7 "^ -4 '^ \j " Hurry up -there, Bill! " Page 33. Daniel Trentworthy. A TALE OF THE GREAT FIRE OF CHICAGO, BY JOHN McGOVERN, AUTHOR OF "BURRITT DURAND," "GEOFFREY VAN LIEB," 1 BTO. CHICAGO: RAND, MCNALLY & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS, 148, 150, 152 AND 154 MONROE STREET; and 323 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. 1 889. COPYRIGHT, 1887, BY JOHN MCGOVERN. All rights reserved. COPYRIGHT, 1888, BY JOHN McGovKRN. All rights reserved. DANIEL TRENTWOBTHY. PROLOGUE. HUMAN history must deal with human interest. Events thought to be unimportant in their day may tower up with the ages as the death of Shakespeare. Events great as a royal marriage may be buried as deeply in a library as they could be inhumed in oblivion ; for what is oblivion but lack of interest by the living ? All is for the living; nothing for the dead. Let us then deal candidly with events, subjectively as to their merits, objectively as to the interest they arouse, at once and forever. By that means we may perhaps claim that in three centuries there have been but three events in the first class of human interest namely : Seventeenth century, the works and death of Shakespeare. Eighteenth century, the French Revolution. Nineteenth century, the destruction of Chicago. I shall tell a simple tale of the nineteenth century which may hold the reader's attention because of the august pres- ence of a kingly event. I shall ask the man of keen sym- pathy and sound imagination to pass through days that must seem longer than days. To a spectacle from which men will never turn away, I shall try to give the color it had in its 6 DANIEL TRENTWORTHY. own age ; yet, like Shakespeare, it was not for an age, but for all time. Madame de Sevigne made herself famous by writing a short letter: "I am going to tell you," said she, "a thing the most astonishing, the most surprising, the most marvel- ous, the most miraculous, the most magnificent, the most confounding, the most unheard of, the most singular, the most extraordinary, the most incredible, the most unforeseen the greatest, the rarest, the most common, the most public, the most private, and the most brilliant ; in short, a thing of which there is but one example in past ages, and that not an exact one, either ; a thing that we cannot believe in Paris how, then, will it gain credit in Lyons ?" And what was it that this clever woman told ? Only the engagement of marriage between a princess and a nobleman ! She thundered in her index, and gained an immortality not altogether to be despised. Can there be any prologue whatever for that chronicler who, having the Event of October, 1871, for his theme, ad- dresses a human interest that grows only the keener as de- cade after decade laps and whispers on the beach of time ? CHAPTER I. JOHN TRENTWOKTHT. THE Bank of El Dorado had a capital of ten millions. No depositor trifled with the time of the institution who could not draw his check for $50,000. No stock company hoped to have the confidence of the Pacific slope if it had not secured the permission of the officers of the Bank of El Dorado to -refer 'to them. / JOHN TRENTWORTHY. 7 The directors of the bank were men of unlimited means ; and by " means " they meant gold coins, for the greenbacks of the United States had never seemed quite good enough for the Bank of El Dorado. They might be good, and again they might not. Gold would be good. No one doubted that. Not only had the Bank of El Dorado unlimited means, but it had a man. "Arms and the man, I sing," said the poet. " Gold and the man," sang the lauders of the Bank of El Dorado. Gold was very well, but a financier was even better. John Trentworthy was the financier. Men said he was Midas. Whatever he touched turned to gold. " I am more fortunate than Midas," he would reply. " I do not have to eat gold." Is it not an extraordinary thing to be pivoted in the cen- ter of confidence ? Round about John Trentworthy clustered fifty millionaires, each dreaming of the happy moment when Trentworthy would start from some reverie and say : " My boy, I can use three or four and turn it over in sixty days." "Three or four" meant millions. The more it meant the more gleefully did the lending millionaire seek his down pil- low that night. A Niagara of molten gold was thundering over a precipice into an abyss of credit. In a frail bark, plying between two crags, John Trentworthy would carry such of the imploring millionaires as his fancy prompted him to favor. They shivered in agony as they looked up at the flood, but they were the envy of the craving host back on the hither crag. " He'll go down yet," the millionaire would say as he saw John Trentworthy land a rival millionaire safely with an added fortune. " He'll go down yet." But that was because the disappointed millionaire had not himself been taken across the abyss. 8 DANIEL TRENTWORTHT. Is it not an awful problem this " How shall I make money ? " Thus our disappointed millionaire has but five millions. He sits down, writes a little on paper, and presto ! he is a poor man ! Ah ! may God forgive him ; his wife must dismiss her servants and do her own housework ; his children must clamor for the advantages that other children have ; there will be no travel, and there will be the nethermost pit of impatience where one man with infinite faculties must attempt to please another man with infinite faculties. No, no ; it is a dream. The millionaire has not written on the paper. He is safe ! But is it any wonder that cold sweat stands out upon his brow ? John Trentworthy sits down and writes a few words on paper. Five millionaires have given him a million apiece. Presto ! it is ten millions. Is it. not easy? Ay, that it is, if only John Trentworthy be the man who does it. Still the millionaire who carries his bags of gold to John Trentworthy must have pangs and terrors. The wa\ T s of the magician are not the ways of the meek-spirited million- aires. Everything he does outside of his money-making frightens the rich men and amazes the populace. Hence, perhaps, a portion of his financial power. He learns how far a man may drive the fastest trotters. At the end of that measured line he erects a palace. There he keeps a room and a plate ready for each of sixty guests, whether one or none or sixty be present, If a king or an ambassador, a head man in the Orient or a fashionable states- man of the Occident, be at the Golden Gate, the Golden Gate opens only to the hospitable doors of John Trent- worthy's palace. From the palace to the city there stretches, as the crow flies, a costly drive "an incredible drive," said all previous horse-owners. And daily does this strange man ooze the excitement out of his body through the ribbons that hold his flying steeds to their swift gait. Perhaps that JOHN TBENTWORTHY. 9 vent gives him his coolness when he handles millions. In every part of the world the voices of the noble, the glorious, and the fortunate go up in recital of the wonders seen at John Trentworthy's palace. And all these stories, while they may vary as to the things seen, end with the same averment. The most wonderful of all the wonders was the man who closed his eyes and saw millions which the greedi- est people on earth had not before espied ; the man who drove fifteen leagues to his daily business ; the man whose word was law at the Bank of El Dorado, at London and at Vienna. " I wish we had him here," said each of the Rothschilds. " Commerce is developing wonderful financial genius," said the Barings. But the poor millionaires at the Golden Gate were too near their man. They would have felt easier had he lived in a small back room and done nothing else save close his eyes and see millions for the big four, or the big eight, or the big sixteen. Speculation it is a strange word. " Thou hast no specu- lation in those eyes," cries the wretched Macbeth. Specula- tion sight to see to see where it is cot, but will be. And perhaps not to be at all. Thus, speculation to see what others will deem probable. Thus, a town may be a city. To see that first is a fortune. The town may never reach a city's dignity. To see that last is ruin. The millionaires peered. But there was no speculation in their eyes. They must have the terrifying John Trent- worthy to see for them John Trentworthy the greatest speculator in the history of finance. 10 UANIEL TREUT WORTHY. CHAPTER II. BAD FOB DANIEL TREXTWOBTHY. OXE memorable week the owner of the palace has eaten with an especially large crowd of mandarins, duke.=, princes, sergeants, kings, poets, and statesmen. He has driveu in from the palace in a road time unprecedented. He has crossed under theinolten flood in the cockle-shell of his credit with an unusually large number of trembling millionaires. He has heard a chorus of prophecies from the stupid ar.d the disappointed all to the effect that he will go down. "Mr. Trentworthy, you seem more than commonly ex- cited, or absent-minded," a favored friend would say some expert judge of a horse. Generally a close student of men appreciates a student of some excellent animals. " Yes," Trentworthy would smile. " I have had news that my son is doing well at Harvard College.'"' For John Trentworthy had a son, a lad with perhaps the most enviable prospects of any young man in America. He was thoughtful, handsome, amiable, and ambitious to learn. It was expected that he would graduate from Harvard at an age which would permit him to take a course at a foreign university. Bonn would be super added to Harvard. Travel and the best of society would fit him for the close compan- ionship and confidence of the magician at the Golden Gate. Can we blame the poor young men at Harvard that they looked upon this heir of all good things, and questioned : " Why is it not so with us ? " Yet, so envious is man, the comrades of young Danie! Trentwortby had all that he had, except expectations. For BAD FOll DANIEL TRENTWORTBY. H the magician at the Golden Gate had often said that there was but one way to make a man, and that was by hard knocks. To spare his only son- to make him soft and ef- feminate would be to leave John Trentworthy without a successor. At the father's knee the boy heard this gospel of toil and attrition. At college the faculty preached it from constant and anxious letters they had received. Daniel Trentworthy's comrades did not covet his brains, his good nature, or his quiet spirit. As a matter of fact, it came about that he had nothing else they really wanted, for, one day, the president called the lad into a private room. "Mr. Trentworthy," the president said, as he glanced at a dispatch, " have you received any news from home to-day? " " No, sir," said the lad, growing uneasy. " Then it is my sad duty to say to you that your father is dead." " Is that so? " said the lad, mechanically, all his words, and all his thoughts, and all his blood coursing in a strange way through his body. u Yes : my dispatch puzzles me. It reads : ' Tell Trent- worthy Bank of El Dorado closed, and John Trentworthy dead. Directors.' " " My dear boy, have you no other relatives at home ? " "None," said the boy, with a swallowing sound. "Well, well, well," said the kind old scholar. "Leave it to me, and I will ascertain the particulars by telegraph." Now this had happened : A depositor, having need of a few hundred thousands, drew a check for the amount on the Bank of El Dorado a trifling matter. How handy are these banks ! You draw your check ; that suffices ; your cred- itor is paid. The cheek was presented. It was not paid. What was the matter with the check ? Nothing. What was the matter with the bank of El Dorado? Ah ! there you reach it ! Now, imagine such.a thing. No money in a bank wit-h-feen. 12 DANIEL TRENTWORTHY. millions. No money in John Trent worthy's bank and he How many thousand people stand in that cross-like crowd in the streets ? Enough to lift up that stone structure, if they could get hands on, as Ramesis made the children of Israel catch hold of the obelisks. It is truly an angry crowd. Plenty of Argonauts there. Dukes, royal drivers, palaces magic ! It fills the host with a demoniac sarcasm. Where is this magician ? Truly, where is he? he has driven his leagues to-day, as usual, for the hostlers have scraped his steeds. He bathes every day, for his health is of prime importance or was. Perhaps he is at the bathing place. Yes, he has gone down into the water. They will follow him. They want his life that which they deemed the glory of the coast but yesterday. But they cannot get his life. It was too proud to wait for them and their impotent wrath. John Trentworthy is drowned. He has gone down under the molten flood, before the very eyes of the millionaires who would so gladly have sat with him in his cockle-shell. It gives the little groups on the hither and thither crags a shock that brings them to their senses. Speculation comes to an end. Now the Bank of El Dorado is greater than any magician after all. The honor of fifty millionaires is a very sub- stantial financial fabric. The Bank of El Dorado opens the moment the dead body of John Trentworthy has been found. But they are a sorry lot of mourners. They mourn their gold millions of it. Anything that John Trentworthy had is the bank's theirs. Strange that they could not see through his magic so they say now. And yet John Trentworthy had simply lost in a game where one must win all the time. They telegraphed to Harvard : " Tell young Trentworthy that his father dies a debtor to the bank of El Dorado for BAD FOE DANIEL TRENT WOliTUT. 13 millions. We have taken possession of everything. We fear the young man will be left without support." They did not fear it, they knew it, but one of the most knowing of the stupids said it would be much better to say " fear." It was. They pitied the boy. But think how sad they were ! Think how they pitied themselves ! " My son," said the president of the college, " I cannot express my sorrow for you. I have never seen great ex- pectations swept away so suddenly or so completely, although the same kind of misfortune has often visited us here. You are left without money, and I believe your father's creditors mean to deny you to the last cent." " What shall I do ? " asked the young man. " In the present state of public feeling you would not want to go to San Francisco. You can earn your own living, can you not ? " " Yes, sir." No young man ever doubts this. It is strange that nothing but experience will teach a man that life is hard. "I think you had better seek some thriving Western city. Are you favorably impressed with Chicago ? " " Yes ; I will go there." "I have personal influence which may aid you in getting a foothold ; I cannot tell you how glad I shall be to put it at your service. I hear there is no place in the West where there is so good an opening for a young man. Wait here till the year is out." " No," said the young man, " I will go at once." How could he stay and face the scornful pity of the other young men whose fathers would not fail until the next panic, or those others whose fathers would never fail at all ? So he took the letters of the kind old president and rode toward Chicago. The city filled him with curiosity. That is, the gathering of metropolitan forces at Chicago had been so sudden as to become the talk of the world. The real 14 DANIEL TRENTWORTHY. estate speculators had concocted a glowing scheme. The star of empire had itself moved in the very zodiac of their scheme. What they had expected to make the world believe through the power of their enthusiasm, the world was forced to accept as fact through the imperious caprice of a nation's commerce. If Daniel Treiitworthy picked up a newspaper his eye rested on some tale of Chicago, and that tale was sure to be the most wonderful thing in the day's news. Men loved to read of the gold-diggers of the winter of ? 49 and spring of '50. But there was not enough of those chronicles. Here, however, at Chicago, there was a wonderland that crowded the rest of the world out of the columns of the daily press. The war was over. The boom was on. Real estate was held at the prices which it brings to-day, in 1887, when the city has 800,000 souls. It was the metropolis of Lincoln's State ; therefore when the body of the martyr lay on its cata- falque, in the Court House, all the Northwest came to hold the hand of Illinois as she sobbed over the greatest of the Western dead. The tomb of Douglas was here ; therefore Andrew Johnson swung around the circle and saw with his own eyes. Here were gathered the adventurous, the enthu- siastic, the crowded-out of the whole world. And they con- tinued to do wonderful things. They set great brick palaces on jack-screws ; they tunneled two miles under the lake for water that a dozen generations might drink ; they fathomed the descent of their river, and set at work to turn its flow backward. They raffled away their opera house, and a new owner came riding on his horse out of the West. And to this day that opera house has hardly been equaled for its qualities as an auditorium where the rich and the poor could alike hear and sec with ease. Even the murderers and the suicides rose to the spirit of public performance that was on the inhabitants. The bar- ber packed his wife's body in. a cask, and became the pro'to- JiAD FOR DAX1EL TRENTWORTUY. 15 fiend of all that sort ; the saloon-keeper cleared away the mid- night glasses from one of his tables, ran a hose from the gas-burner to the table, lay down on that table and breathed out of the gas-holder far away on Adams street. The papers of the world were full of it. The wonderful city said : " We will have oil." They bored and struck the first of the artesian wells, that spouted for the world's amazement. The city that had built the wigwam, and caucused Honest Old Abe on the nation as its President; that had nominated McClellan ; that had mustered Ellsworth and Mulligan; that had the lumber and the grain and the cattle of the con- tinent for sale this city seemed to call all young men; and the tide of buoyant and expectant life that rolled toward her showed the power of her allurements. Daniel Trentworthy rode around the lake-shore ; he crossed other lines of railroad and lines of telegraph poles that seemed hurrying to one center; he gazed with falling spirits over the foggy marsh out of which the second Rome had risen. It was so level, so flat, so watery, so rainy ! Why did the scream of the outflying locomotive startle him as it rushed away ? His woes came on him then, and he wept a little for his great father, the lamp of whose life had been ex- tinguished so suddenly. In what darkness had it Left his son f But, as he came forth from the depot beside the beautiful lake, he saw a long cavalcade and procession coming up the leading street of residences. All spectacular processions took that route. "What is it?" he asked. " It is Weston, finishing his walk from Portland, Me.," was the reply. Yes, Chicago was the end of the world for Weston, as it seemed for every other mortal. Daniel Trentworthy gazed on the little man as he bowed to his tens of thousands of ad- mirers. 16 DANIEL THENTWORTIIY. " If he can walk here, I can at least ride here," he smiled, and was happy that he belonged to th <( bright Christian capital of lakes and prairie." CHAPTEE III. NO DANGER OF FIRE ON" DE KOVEX STREET. As Daniel Trentworthy had left the train and crossed the dead-line where he became the legitimate prey of the hotel- runners, a man in gray, with a massive mustache which failed to hide a square chin a man with a cold gray eye betokening vast experience, and with a ponderous steel badge pinned to the lapel of his coat this formidable man fixed his cold steel eye and his cold steel badge on the young adventurer. "The Girard House," said the man, speaking not as a scribe, but as one having authority. Of course the young man did not want to go to the Girard House. " A dollar and a half a day," said the great man sternly, as though the visitor had harbored thoughts of foolish ex- pense. Expense was to be avoided. That was the look of the gray eye. " But where is the Girard House?" The young man's voice was getting faint. He was losing ground rapidly. "Right here," and the thumb went behind the immense badge. Surely enough. It was clearly a decoration of which the austere courier was proud. The doubt implied in the young man's query had been overwhelmed. " How far do we go ? " "It is right here at the end of the depot. Close to the depot. Near by the depot." NO DANGER OF FIRE ON DE KOVEN STREET. 17 He of the stern eye had said his sa} T . It was sufficient. Daniel Trentworthy was led away to the little Girard House, because it was adjacent to a depot which he would not again use. That argument had won the day. So, down at the end of the nastiest street this side of Erzeroum ; down at the end of a double row of chicken crates nearly a mile long ; down at the end of an avenue where green grocers' wagons, packed like sardines, carried away only a portion of the green things that must wither and mildew in a day ; within a few feet of a sewage la- goon that had not yet been drained into the Mississippi River to such an inn the boy was forced, by the power of one man over another, to go. However, he need not stay, for the great man's work was done when he led the guest to the register. Daniel Trentworthy wrote his name, and the glorious runner went back to the dead-line. It was easy enough, after dinner, there being no other great man at the Girard House, to pay the bill and seek a hotel in the region of the Court-house. How imposing is an edifice with a great dome, if it stands in the middle of a square, with an iron fence around it and the heart of a wonderful city at every gate. And if a solid line of hackney coaches surround it on four streets, how shall the mind escape the conclusion that there is a funeral of some hero within, or a Webster, or Clay, or Douglas, or Lincoln charming all those who can crowd into the rotunda ? Boom ! strikes the deep bell on the roof of the Court- house ; again, one, two ; one. two, three. Yes, it is doubtless a funeral oration. How thick the mist ; how insufferably thick the air ! It is a fitting day for such an event. " Why, my dear sir," exclaimed a bustling Chicagoan, "that is the hack-stand. The bell? why, yes, that is at box 123, on the North Side." , 2 18 DANIEL TRENTWORTUY. " What's that ? " " Oh, yes, I see. You are a stranger. It is a fire noth- ing but a fire." Ah, well, Daniel Trentworthy thinks it would take a very hot fire to burn much of this damp region. He feels as though he were in a cave. He hears much of " the North Side," " the South Side," "the West Side." The glibness with which an inhabitant, uses local terms always offends a new-comer. So Daniel buys a map of the city, and fixes these divisions in his mind. He finds that he may take a sheet of common note-paper for the site of Chicago. On the right edge is Lake Michigan ; on the other edges the low and level prairie. Two sluggish bay- ous lie lengthways of this sheet, in the center that is, one runs southward to the middle, and the other northward to the middle. Draw a line up and down the centre of the sheet ; the junction is at the middle of the sheet ; or, to be exact, about two rulings above the middle ; thence, to the lake at the right, a main bayou lies between ; blacken the right half of the middle ruling of the note-paper. Now Daniel has three divisions on his paper the West, twice as big as either the North or the South. So much adherence, in every-day speech, to this dividing of the city did not seem necessary to him, but the people thought so. If he crossed a bridge that turned on a pivot in the middle of the river, although he traveled only a hundred feet, he had gone from the South to the West side. It prob- ably came from the days of township government, for the three " sides" embraced as many towns, and taxes are still paid on this theory. By careful attention to these details of local custom, Daniel Trentworthy came to understand the city. The West Side was the Brooklyn, or bedchamber. The South Side had the business, or nine-tenths of it ; the North Side had the oldest trees and favorite houses, and prettiest park, and first cemetery, already abandoned. NO DANGER OF FIRE ON DE KOVEN STREET. 19 Counting across his sheet of paper, from prairie to lake, he found he could have about thirty long streets ; counting lengthways of his sheet, he could have about sixty shorter ones. It was decidedly a lake-shore city, twice as long as it was broad in its widest part, which would be the middle of the sheet. He marveled at the peculiar lay of these branch rivers. At their junction a square of land fitted on each side of the main conduit. Vessels coming down either branch turned a right angle as they took the principal channel to go into the lake. The top of the sheet would be Fullerton avenue ; the bottom Thirty-first street, the left side Western avenue. Across the sheet would be three miles, down the sheet six miles. All these measurements, of course, were ap- proximate, and yet the sheet of note-paper, with its two lines, one long and one short, represented well enough the great level plain of say eighteen square miles on which stood the city of Chicago. He fixed the Court-house at a point equally distant from the South Branch, the main channel and the lake. This was the heart of the city. A ring a mile out surrounding this Court-house would strike De Koven street, a humble avenue that was to be greatly exalted in history. A radius pointing to 137 De Koven street, at its junction with the mile circle, would run east of southwest ; the corresponding radius, running north of northeast, would reach the northern side of the circle precisely at the water works. The Court-house then was exactly half way, on a straight line, from De Koven street to the water works, at the lake shore on the North Side. A ring three miles out would touch Fullerton avenue, the top of the note-paper. At college Daniel had been in the habit of projecting the out- lines of the plans of great cities on his mind. Paris, London, Berlin, Rome, and Vienna were thus familiar to him, and this device of a sheet of note-paper had been the means by which he accomplished a seemingly wonderful (but rather 20 DAXIXL TRENTWORTHT. simple) undertaking. But no city is so easy to lay out in the mind as is Chicago. Daniel Trentworthy had suffered a great fall, but he knew very little about that. He spoke the words as he heard them spoken. His future had been one of great responsibilities, so he had thought a future from which he shrank. Now he had only to earn his own living. It looked easy and com- fortable. Here was a beautiful city. At the end of the street the air was pure and blue, for it stood over the lake. The streets were well paved and noiseless. The buildings were contin- uous, and five stories high. The men were young. At thirty-five he (Daniel) would undoubtedly be the owner of a block, like these others. Therefore he would see the city before he captured it. What were its sights ? The Douglas tomb, the Court-house cupola, the water works, the artesian well, and Lincoln Park. The artesian well was at the western limits. The tomb was at the southeastern limits. We know where the-Court-house and the water works stood. Lincoln Park was in the upper right corner of the sheet of paper. He did not care to sea De Koven street in those days. So when he found there were so few things to amuse the idler he bethought himself that idlers belonged farther East- ward, and presented himself to the honorable gentlemen who Avere to take his case in hand. In those days letters of recom- mendation meant something. The honorable president of the board, and the honorable deputy superintendent of the force, and the honorable mayor himself were pleased to hear from their learned friend. There was room for young men i i Chicago. For, when you have only 220,000 people in a city with eighteen square miles, you need a great many more peo- ple with whom to fill up. " Put him in with the boys," said the deputy to the presi- dent, for that would let the deputy out of it. NO DANGER OF FIltE ON DE KOVEN STREET. 21 " How would you like a place in an engine house ? " askocl the president. " That would suit me exactly," said the son of the presi- dent of El Dorado. So Daniel Trentworthy became a cub in the Long John engine house behind the Board of Trade that had just been finished. He was obedient and useful. The boys liked him. He did not get " hard." " It is wonderful how well that young feller knows the streets of this 'ere city," a fireman would observe. " We've got a big machine to haul, but we never take a roundabout way if he's along. He knows every foot of pavement, and he always seems to keep track of even the house-movings. I ain't seein' what we'd a done without him." From the Long John house to a certain corner was precise- ly the distance to be traversed by another engine coming up another street. Thus, whenever both crews worked in the same time and drove at breakneck speed toward that point, they would certainly come in collision with dire results. Not long after Daniel got on the rolls, this usual collision came about, a man on the Long John was killed, the engine house was hung with black, and Daniel was given the vacant place. He was now a pipeman, a full-fledged fireman one of as brave a lot of men as ever breathed fire and smoke, like Apollyon. One day there came into the engine house a slight man with a pale, narrow face and a weak voice. He spoke as if he had a sore throat. He asked for Daniel. " Didn't you once live in Lima ? " " Yes," said Daniel. " Well, when you were a little boy, and wore gingham aprons or frocks with a belt, do you remember that a printer boy used to print your name on a strip of paper, which you would fasten to your belt ? " 22 DANIEL TRENT WORTHY. " Yes. That was Harmon Holebroke." " That's my name. I live here in Chicago, and I heard you were here. Wouldn't you like to take your meals at our house and make your home there ? We would be glad to have you." So Daniel went to the house of his old friend, Harmon Holebroke. There he found the mother and a sister. Another sister was at school in a New England town. Harmon Holebroke was a printer on a morning daily news- paper. He was quiet and good. He did not drink. The foreman of the office had little sympathy for men who kept away from saloons, and had possibly given Harmon his sit- uation under a misapprehension. However, the foreman stood by his man after he had hired him. /'He's harmless, boys," the foreman would say. The greatest ethnological arid convivial authority in the office gave Harmon a careful and effective study. " Gentle- men," he said, " it's a sheep's-face." So for a while all the topers called Harmon Sheepface. But printers, after all, are the most intelligent of wage- laborers. Would that all leaders of men knew as much ! The great authority met his fate when he made the mistake of calling Harmon Holebroke Sheepface. The men, within a month, adopted the name of " Christian" for Harmon, and " Hogmouth" for the great man. Once fastened, neither of these appellations was ever shaken off. Now, " Hogmouth" had dwelt in that office many years. He had rechristened many a wight, and had long evaded the penalty of their revenge. To be the victim of the worst of all the nicknames, and to have his comrades seize it with avid- ity, as if it expressed some thought which had long sought relief, was more than he could bear with stoicism. One day he met Christian Holebroke and Daniel Trent worthy on the street. He invited them into a saloon to drink. They thanked him, but declined. He was partially intoxicated, and all his hatred of Holebroke flamed out. NO DANGER OF FIRE ON DE KOVEN STREET. 23 "You will drink with me or fight!" he cried. And Harmon, being more used to these things than Daniel, went into the saloon and pacified the drunken bully. It made a bad impression on Daniel. " You ought to have let me settle with that fellow," he said ruefully. But " Hogrnouth " was only the more dissatisfied. He de- nounced both Christian and his friend the fireman as men of the white feather, and did not go back to work for three weeks. Meantime the authorities behind Daniel gave him a little push forward. They appointed him one of a committee to re- port on the condition of that part of the city lying near West Twelfth street, and within the mile-circle drawn around the Court-house. He found that the streets had been laid out very closely together, and very narrow. They were solidly built up with cottages that had received one coat of poor paint. Situ- ated in a region near the smoke of the river tugs and planing mills, the cottages had blackened in a year's time. They all looked to be forty years old. The shingles were black, and lolled lazily in a good breeze. These streets were built east and west. The lots were not over 100 feet deep. Back of the cottages were sheds and barns, and board fences joined whole districts together. The alleys were sixteen feet across, but a pile of "dry stable-bedding from each barn would meet a pile across the way. The city had been much frightened by the Lake street fire, where a whole block on one side of this, the principal whole- sale street, burned, and set fire to another block on the other side of the street and two blocks eastward. The loss had been $3,000,000. The buildings were so high that the water froze before it reached the windows, after leaving the pipe. This had given an impetus to the present inspection. Daniel, book in hand, and with the badge of authority, was a most unwelcome visitor on De Koven, Forquer and Ewing streets. 24 DANIEL TRENTWORTHT. " Hogmouth" lived on Taylor. The householders ap- pealed to him. He worked on a newspaper, and therefore was an editor. " Pay no attention to him," said " Hogmouth." " I'll fix that fellow." So Daniel entered house after house, and sketched pile after pile of kindlings for a great fire. He was unfortunate enough to ask the old women if they did not feel somewhat insecure. " Maybe we doos, wid th' loikes av yez ter pit oot oor foires, yez tax-aiting thafe," they scolded. "They're do be goin' th' Coort-hoose bell, now, yez loafer, an' some poor woman's burnin' oot. Divil a bit yez moind phwile yez do be makin' yez pictchures av honest payple's hooses. We'll trun th' loike av yez into th' river av yer shows yer mug here agin at all ! " What filled the inspector with especial fear was the sight of great arks of fine shavings from the mills. Processions of these vast wagons, twice as long and high as ice carts, would file down the lanes and alleys, leaving ia the aggre- gate tons of their contents at the gateways of the inhabitants. The shavings were used for the bedding of both man and beast. After use they were piled in the alleys. Daniel's report, with drawings and detailed accounts of the fire material on hand, which solidly covered an area so large, made a nine da} r s' sensation in the city. " Hogmouth" went to his two aldermen, and those worthies came down so hard on the young inspector that he was privately cautioned that if he should have any more reports to make he would do well to draw them milder. This dampened his ardor. Meeting "Hogmouth" on the street, Daniel gave him a mauling, after the fashion approved in the Fire Department. Now, although this encounter pleased the boys at the Long John house, it resulted disastrously to Daniel, for "HURRY UP THERE, BILL!" 25 " Hogmouth " secured Daniel's arrest, and the authorities reduced him to his ordinary duties. There was a jollification on De Koven street over the downfall of the inspector. "Did yez hear phwat that thafe wor a goin' to be doin' wid us ? Well, thin, he do be buildin' a wall bechune us an' th' river, ter kape off thim lake breezes. Th' divil take him." This likelihood of fire was a sore subject. It made the denizens inad at the first thought. Why was that ? CHAPTER IV. " HURRY UP ThERfc, BILL ! " " I DO not believe you will stay in the Fire Department," prophesied Christian Holebroke. " The crowd doesn't suit you." But Daniel was young and hopeful. He liked the service. Besides, he was without the ties of family. The boys in their bunks were his family. He invented an apparatus that threw him out of bed and slid him down-stairs whenever an alarm sounded. Now, most of us would prefer a bed that had no such tricks. Yet, if we had invented it, perhaps there might be a delicious sense of enjoyment "as we found ourselves shooting down the slippery plank. Anyhow, it was so with Daniel. The Washington street tunnel, after a history which in- cluded the worst wreck that ever was cleared away, was completed with a great show of civic pride. It promptly be- gan leaking, and has leaked ever since. A couple of confi- dence men stationed themselves at the entrances and charged 26 DANIEL TRENTWORTEY. an extortionate entrance fee. But nothing could keep sight- seers out. The passage for vehicles separated at^the bed of the river, and there the great arch divided into two arches, with a wall between the teams which passed each other on their way through. The descent from Franklin street was rapid. Of course, the head of the center wall was a thing to be avoided by the descending drivers. Now, firemen, when they drive, avoid nothing. Every- thing avoids them. So, one day, ding-ding went the house alarm, tramp, tramp came the horses out of the stalls, of their own accord the good old fire laddies thump, came the boys down the plane, and out went the Long John, like a whirlwind, up LaSalle to Washington, and down Washing- ton, to the tunnel. Down the tunnel the engine thundered, racking from two wheels to two wheels, square in t\i3 center of the way, frightening every up-coming driver well-nigh to death, as might easily be done. Now, the Long John hud never met anything before that it had not knocked over. The solemn and bellowing ice cart was only a hollow delusion the Long John, the monster engine, had often demonstrated the flimsiness of all ice carts. But the buttress at the bottom of the tunnel was a new thing. The Long John, as we have said, first on two wheels, then on the two on the other side, its horses galloping at full tilt to keep from being run over, its drivers turned into furious demons who yelled thati all who loved their lives might vanish into the narrow walls pray- ing to God, and who, thus yelling, clanged on a soul-ter- rifying gong which drowned even the infernal clatter of the horses' hoofs the biggest, longest, heaviest engine in the city thus made its first entrance into that swift-de- scending tunnel. Dimly the buttress in the center loomed across the path of the terrible visitor. The demons in "HUE BY UP THERE, BILL!" 27 helmets yelled for the buttress to get out of the way, and then dashed on to overtake it in its flight. But, alas ! the next moment the Long John was a wreck, its horses were sprawling in the right passage-way, and the demons were turned into half-insensible firemen nothing but Chicago laddies, who wondered how it had come, and how it had come they were not killed. The wreck of the Long John brought the " Hogmouth" to the front once more. The Alderman from De Koven street set an investigation on foot to "bag" Daniel, but he escaped the blame, and was laid up at home for a few days, where Mary Holebroke's mother cared for him as she would have cared for her son Harmon. Had she not known Daniel when he was a boy ? " Never mind the engine house," she said to console him, " Mary will play you the pieces you like." And Mary's playing did console him mightily. He found himself buying the Boosey red books then new in the West, all the operas, all the masses, the great waltzes that then were pouring, one a week, on the world Strauss, Kela Bela, Offenbach. How strange that we should wait twenty years for another Blue Danube ! This young lady would take the scores that bothered Daniel so much, and forth would step the chords and fancies which eluded him so easity. How did she do it ? Who can tell ? She was a musician. She did it naturally. Now, Daniel was a dumb musician. He had whole masses in him. He could whistle the " Lohengrin" vorspiel for sixteen violins that is, he could whistle the part of one violin and hear the other fifteen* in his soul. " Oh, pshaw ! " you exclaim. " Save me from a whistler." Very true. But are you not sorry for a soul so full of music and yet so dumb ? Now, Mary Holebroke heard Daniel whistle Ferrando's 28 DANIEL TRENT WORTHY. bass aria, " Vuelta Zingara," at the beginning of " II Trov- atore." It astonished her. "Why, you whistle that just as it is written/' she said. "Of course I do," he said, in a tremor of pleasure, being at last appreciated. " Let me accompany you," she said. How extraordinary were his feelings as he chirruped through that mazy aria, feeling the accompaniment be- neath his thin performance. He had found his other half. The girl laughed and laughed. It was the oddest thing she had ever seen. She begged a repetition. There were thousands of tunes before them "The Monks and Their Convents," " The Wolf," " Why Do the Nations," " Ruddier Than a Cherry," " The Fair Land of Provence," the whole fourth scene of the fourth act of " The Huguenots." The maid looked out the window. The sun was setting. They had put in an afternoon of it. It seemed but a moment to Daniel. They went below to dinner, and paused in the garden. " I am glad I was hurt," he said. "Let me pin a geranium leaf on your coat," she said. "Put a violet with it, dear," the widow Holebroke sug- gested. Was it not a beautiful city and a beautiful world ? Peace, blessed peace ! No more of war. The lake rippling out there. The odors of May fondly hovering over the lilacs of June. The white linen passing by insensible stages into the gleaming silver of the home-table. The gentle face of the Christian, thankful for life, for even poor health, for his sis- ters, for his mother, for Chicago. Something was happening to Daniel. Yes, something was happening to Daniel. It stole upon him cautiously, because young men of his type are not easily allured from the peace of single life. He fell to asking how he could conform his whistle to the "HURRY UP THERE, BILL I " 29 conventions of society. He ended by concluding that the same persons who shuddered at the music he made would be satisfied if he were to whistle through a flute. He therefore paid $60 for an instrument of this kind. One-third of it, or one joint, was ivory. Then he strove to breathe all his tunes into it. Why did hi licart grow so sad, even while a great hope quickened within him ? "Never mind your flute. I'd rather hear you whistle. It's so odd ! " Mary Holebroke said. She looked at him with her gray eye. It was quarried out of the same agate that had made the eye of the great man of the Girard House. Daniel looked deep into it, and felt that he had no power. He did not like to seem odd, but there was no help for him. Odd he seemed, and glad enough he was to be the es- pecial object of that young gray-eyed lady's attention. So he whistled and she modulated and whipped the piano as it were her slave, and laughed and laughed. She had not been so amused before. And on Sunday Mary asked Daniel if he did not want to go over to the Foster Mission on the narrow Jefferson street, just below Polk. She had a class there. Did he wish to go ? The girl must have thought so. How swift the hour went. How well Daniel understood those newsboys and how little the good deacons knew of them ! The tough little pieces are raising Ned. " Look here, boys," cries the Dea- con, " you ain't in no theayter ! " That was to.o good. For how stern that copper in McVicker's Theatre was, to be sure ! Yet the deacon's idea of a theatrical performance was some sort of orgy, .such as the gamins knew would not be tolerated anywhere else save in a mission school. So went the daj 7 s until the winter season set in ; and though something had happened to Daniel, something of a more tangible essence was to come. Late one wintry day the fogs and smoke and dread of the winter's solstice had settled well down into the . South Side. On every hand the yellow 30 DANIEL TRENTWORTHY, flicker of the gas-lights fought a losing day against the gloom of it all. Ding-ding went the gong in the engine house again, and all knew there was a fire on the West Side, just over the South Branch. It was at the close of the working day in winter, near bridge and tunnel, in a city where a fire was counted a spectacle that none should miss, where the volunteer spirit was still in the department, and where men loved to show the fire that was in them. It was a blaze fifty feet wide by 150 feet long, three stories high. This was the evening's drama as it opened. In that din which delighted them the firemen galloped their engines into the adjacent streets, the hose was unreeled in miles, and the ladders were set against the machine shop that was on fire. The policemen took their places and ran a rope around the corner. Over the Lake street bridge, nearest the main channel ; over the Randolph street bridge next ; through the Washington street tunnel next, and over the Madison street bridge next, the home-goers hurried across the South Branch, and debouched into the streets that were fronted by the doomed structure. Twenty-five thousand peo- ple were gazing at the fire in as many minutes after the en- gines had stopped at the fire-plugs. "Rape back, d'yer moind ! " yelled the police. "Hurry up there, Bill !" bellowed the long silver trumpets of the marshals. A great, hoarse voice something entirely indistinguishable, yet terrifying a bull-like roar, yet husky, nigh to speechlessness. "Hurry up there, Bill ! " like the "deep-bellowing caves of the ocean," caves with faulty vocal chords, truly a cavernous speech. A voice that made the crowd fall back as no policeman's billy could do. " Hurry, up there, Bill ! " it rolled away, like the echo of cannon at sunrise. "How pretty the wires look! " exclaimed the host, as the " HURRY Z7P THERE, BILL! " 31 blaze burst through the windows and rested on the telegraph. The rain and fog had frozen on the wires, and they shone white as snow for blocks away. As the twenty-five thousand faces were lit up all the cries of Milton's demons seemed to come from the lips of the ex- asperated firemen. The "Hurry-up-there- Bills ! " grew into an orgy. The rites became an offering to Baal. "Toot- toot, " asked the engines. " Chuffy-chuffy-chuffy," they settled to their monotonous work as the building was seen to be badly off. And now the horns grow hoarser and the excitement of the multitude spreads to its uttermost limits, a quarter of a mile away. "My God!" cries a spectator, "they've no right to send men up there ! I know that roof. The whole thing is a rattle-trap." The longest ladder is to be put against the building. It will barely touch the roof. The wires are in the way. " Cut them wires ! " bellows the fog-horn voice through the trumpet. A man climbs up the nearest pole. Just then the ladder is let under the wires and raised again. It rests against the side of the building. " On my soul, I believe I saw that wall shake ! " cries the spectator. " I did, too ! " adds another. " Hurry up there, Dan ! " bellows the fog-horn. Daniel Trentworthy seizes the pipe, and three other firemen catch hold on the hose. They are already on the ladder. " Don't go on that roof ! " yell the crowd, now thoroughly of a belief that the building is rotten. Up the ladder the men toil. The hose is very heavy. " Come down ! Keep off that roof ! The wall's shaking ! " echo the thousands of throats. ' Oi'll shmash yer face, wid yer ! " cries a policeman to u 32 DANIEL TRENT WORTHY. loud-voiced warner. The officer has seen crowds scared be- fore. But -arther back than the officer could see the wave of warning rolled onward toward the ladder. " You'll get killed if you go up there ! Let the trap burn ! Good riddance of bad rubbish ! " " Hurry up there, Dan ! Hurry up there, Bill ! " re- sounded the deepest of all the fog-horns. The little group grasped the parapet. They tugged at the pipe and the hose. They hooked it to the coping. They sprang lightly to the roof. The vast crowd yeasted and writhed within itself. The cheer surged from block to block. Ah ! but a fireman is a brave man a Chicago fireman ! The man on the pole has not cut the wires. He yells that the boys want an ax. Up goes the ax, and is handed over the parapet. Then the four can no longer be seen. Perhaps there is the sound of an axman chopping. One, two, three. It may be an ax. Still the general noise is all-per- vading. " Oh, they do be pitting a hole t'rough th' roof. An' they be afther bavin' it oot now," explained the officer. Yes ; one, two, three. That is the ax. One, two, three ! What is that ? "Oh!" breathe the twenty -five thousand, as if it were their last gasp. For, after the third blow, there is a sound as of wind among pines ; a whirring as of sightless couriers of the air. There is a deep red gleam in the home of Orion, who is rid- ing on high over that roof. There is truly an opening in the roof, but it must be a large one. Then there comes a crash that strikes a heavy blow on the walls of every throbbing heart. The roof has gone down. The conflagration leaps to Orion, and Orion, smiting it with his sword, beats it back into its four walls. A million sparks loiter in the skies and "HURRY UP THERE, BILL!" 33 cluster into baleful constellations. Let no babe enter the world under their empire. Is it not awful that these .our lads should thus be fed to Moloch ? Yes, it is awful. It spoils the supper of many a Chicagoan who but a moment ago was impatient to reach his home. Four brave men have gone down into a hell of flame. " Well, the wall stood, after all," says one of the crowd. " I thought I saw it shake. I guess I was mistaken." " Yis, yez was mistook," says the officer. And what is that on the parapet ? It is a man's arm ! " Save him ! Save him !" goes up on every hand. " Hurry up there, Bill ' " rumbles the fog-horn. Two men start up the ladder. It is Daniel Trentworthy up there. He has clung to the hose and pulled himself to the coping. He crawls on the stones and lies on his face at full length. He gathers strength and peers down the outside. He is not far from, the ladder. "Hurry up there, Bill ! " bellows the trumpet. " Go down ! Go down ! " Daniel cries to his rescuers. "You shake the wall. I can come down." But firemen obey orders. "Hurry up there, -Bill!" resounds the deep horn. It is too late. The ladder's Aveight has been the last straw. There is a pendulous movement. The men on the ladder feel it, and drop at once to the ground. The wall moves outward as the pressure from the ladder lessens, and then, as the beams on the inside assert their weight, the movement begins the other way. Daniel Trentworthy is on his knees. He is on his feet. He stands on the coping, a black silhouette clearly limned upon a background of red flame. It is I>londin, walking be- fore the molten cataract, as the father of Daniel Trentworthy had done. One moment more the wall will be far off its 34 DANIEL TRENTWORTHY. center, sucked in by the flames. The ladder is there, but it cannot avail. The young man tarries until the crowd nearly faints with excitement. They ought to wait if he can. And it is neces- sary to his nature that he should commend his soul to God. The wall is slowly on its way inward perhaps a foot, per- haps eighteen inches. Now its motion accelerates. " He waits too long ! He can't jump now ! " they cry. He bends his knees. He gives a great spring. He is in the air. The wall is at forty-five degrees far behind him. " The wires ! The wires ! " resounds backward to Halsted street. There are three cross-trees on the tall poles. Each cross- tree or spar carries ten telegraph wires. The climber has clipped only three or four in all. The three tiers of wires gleam white in the air. Even be- fore the flying man reaches them the ice has melted and they disappear from sight. His arms project over the upper plane of wires. His body curls under as a snake's would, so anxious is the imperiled life to save itself. The three nearest and topmost wires snap under the shock, and the body lies for a moment on the second plane. But the shock has also dazed Daniel. His is only a dumb body, without thought. He has dropped through to the last tier before .his struggling, clutching arms and legs feel the resistance of a wire. But the momentum is out of his body. As he drops through to the under plane a hand seizes a wire. It holds him, but it cuts. The other hand seizes another wire. It cuts, for the blood can be seen in the vivid light. The arms might hold, but the body is afraid to trust them. The legs writhe upward, as if they were also hands, and finally one foot affects a lodgment. Then it slips, and the body swings full and fair toward the wall. There is a cry of horror. It is an awful tableau. The wall SOME NEWS FOR DANIEL. 35 is down with a resounding blow on the earth, and a cloud of dust and smoke obscures the vision. But the body has refused to let go, and the two wires have not broken. The hands pull upward and the teeth catch the wire. " He'll cut his t'roat, sure ! " observes the officer, who has seen many horrid sights. The ice rattles in showers from Canal to Clinton, to Jeff erson, to Desplaines, to Union, toHalsted. The wires groan and chant their well-practiced requiem. The poles sway like masts of "some tall admiral." Twenty-five thousand people grow stony-eyed and sick with terror. " HUBBY UP THEBE, BILL ! " roar all the fog-horns, as though Jericho's walls had toppled. CHAPTER V. SOME NEWS FOB DANIEL. IN an incredibly short time a long wagon had rushed under the wires, and a ladder standing straight up was shot, by lengthening apparatus, to the height of the pole. Like a cat a man ran up the swaying ladder, and the crowd, fearing that the machine would fall over, surged backward upon itself. Another climber followed closely after the first res- cuer, and as they cried to Daniel a hush went across the sea of faces. In a second that hush swept from Canal to Halsted street, five blocks. "Hang on, Dan, me boy ! We're here !" they said. The crowd heard it far away. But Daniel was only a dumb body, struggling like a wild beast in i snare. The commotion in the wires was something to frighten a stout heart, The athletic body curved and writhed, and. sought 36 DANIEL TRENTWOETHT. some immovable thing. As the climber touched Daniel he was aroused to another paroxysm of effort. The crowd broke forth again: "He'll fall yet! Get a rope ! " " Hurry up there, Bill ! " bellowed the trumpet. And, surely enough, up the ladder went another fireman with a rope. There was a greao noose in it. As ineffectual efforts were made to throw the rope upward and around the flying limbs of the wretched man, the ladder would wave far from a perpendicular. The crowd rushed forward and scrambled on the great wagon to give the contrivance a steadier base. At last a cheer rolled in from the outlying ranks. They had seen the noose rise up around Daniel and inclose his body. He was safe. Hurrah ! hurrah ! The dead were forgotten in the joy for the living. But Daniel, as he felt the rope, supposed it to be only the beginning of the end some greater despair that had fastened on him. Not only did he struggle to reach some solid support, but he franti- cally sought to detach ths rope. " Steady, boys ! He's crazy as a loon. We must go slow or he'll throw us off." Daniel hung by the two wires nearest the fire. His body ngled. The men pulled the rope gently, and he, letting go with one hand to relieve the pain, would clutch a wire nearer to the ladder. "Now, when he takes the next wire, catch his hand. Give me a firm hold on your belt, my lad. And you, Jerry, hold fast to me. Don't be afraid of the ladder. It can't go past the wires." Thus repared, they once more tightened the rope. To- ward them, with blood-shot, protruding eyes and bleeding face, came poor Daniel. He reached a torn hand forward, with the pitiful fear and doubt of a man who hoped for noth- ing. He felt a warm and soft grasp. Quick as lightning SOME NEWS FOR DANIEL. 37 the other hand clutched for the same strong and friendly arm and the top man was nearly wrenched from the ladder. The crowd expected all four men to come down in a mass. The ladder swung away from the wire; it creaked and turned on the pole of its axis. But those brave men had gone up that ladder to save Dan- iel. They fastened upon him like leeches. "Let him touch the ladder, boys ! " one of them said. And thus Daniel was quieted into insensibility. Down they came. A stretcher was at the wagon. " This is my number," said Harmon Holebroke. " Take him to my house, 257 South Clinton street." The nearest of the crowd strove to look at the young man who had slipped through death's door. Many of them fainted. Never had Chicago mourned as she mourned for the loss of her three firemen. Could money have restored them, millions would have been poured out. There came a funeral, the greatest that had coursed the streets since the pageant of Abraham Lincoln. The police in platoons, the Mayor, the old settlers, the fire engines draped, the catafalque, the knights, companions, brethren, and members of every asso- ciation in the city, and interminable lines of citizens in car- riages and on foot. Few men are so remembered. Many men would die for such a memorial. The great bell tolled all day long, a truly solemn performance, and one that gave thought even to the unthinking. Then after the trappings and the suits of woe there came the demand, loud and angry, for a scapegoat. The Board was to investigate the matter. Who was to blame ? Now a political investigation is a bird of a queer feather. Looking at ft as we do, one would not think that Daniel Trentworthy was to be blamed for the order of his superior or the rottenness of that roof, yet if we consider that Daniel was already a marked man, who had bidden defiance to the 38. DANIEL TRENTWORTHY. " inflooence" of De Koven street, we shall discover that he was seriously compromised. Why was he not killed ? So the relatives of the three other victims asked. Politically, it was clear that Daniel promised to furnish an acceptable scape- goat. The Board erased his name from the rolls, De Koven street gave its unanimous approval, and the wonderful city, grumbling a little, settled back to await the next matter of importance, which was to be the opening of the Pacific rail- ways. For weeks Daniel Trentworthy could not sleep. To drop into a doze of exhaustion was to seize a small wire and dan- gle fifty feet above the ground. To close his eyes was to see the horrid pit of flame and stagger in the heat that leaped toward him out of the red depths. He had saved himself by his nerve, and now, the doctors said, he must suffer the consequences. How grand a character is that mother in Israel who pays little attention to the social " duties" of women, being com- pelled to visit the sick and lay out the dead ! How often we say : " I would have been over to your house, but that I had an important engagement." Harriet Holebroke, Har- mon's mother, had no important engagements. She went to no dinner parties. She spent no evenings in the civilities of neighborhood life. But if she heard a neighbor were ill, she put on her bonnet and went. Even in summer, when her strawberries needed attention sorely, when the sparrows were counting her cherries, she put on her bonnet and went. If the doctor could not stop the paroxysms, she, with her great bag of hops, might do it. Life is a stern thing. She knew it. Yet she never said it. Into her hands had Daniel fallen. It was very well for him. She went about curing him in her methodical manner. " Humph ! " she said dryly, " he will get well." And finally, Daniel turned on his couch. Mary Holebroke pat at the window. SOME NEWS FOR DANIEL. 39 "Ah ! " thought Daniel, "my angel is with me. I felt her presence when I was on the wall. She has nursed me, ' Oh ! woman, in our hours of ease ! ' ' "You are better, aren't you, Daniel?" she said, looking at him with her gray eyes. " I should have been better before had I known you were here,'' he said, his face beaming with a smile. The maid's countenance grew cold. She looked out of the xfindow. She was uneasy. "Oh, what is that in the garden ? " she exclaimed, and ran to see. Poor Daniel ! He tried to gather his thoughts. Was not this Mary Holebroke, who had played for him ? Were they not lovers ? Had she not nursed him ? Ah ! now he had it. Alas ! what a sick man he must have been! He had never whispered a word of his love for the gray-eyed maid. He had blundered. He tried to leap from the bed and look in the garden. He was so lonesome he could not bear her absence. But the exertion showed him his weakness. He fell back with a moan, and Mrs. Holebroke, entering, pro- tested firmly that he must lie still, and that Mary must keep out of the sick-room. Daniel wondered at that, too. " Surely she has aided in nursing me!" he thought. "Will she ever speak to me again ? What a strange fate drove me to open my eyes, feeling that I was in Paradise ! What a perverse thing is the heart ! It was awake, and the mind was still asleep. A truant heart a truant heart ! I've lost her ! " he Availed. " I've lost her ! " He was too weak to bear the excitement of the moment. His forehead broke out in sweat, and he fell into a sleep. " Mary," said Mrs. Holebroke, " I told you not to disturb Daniel." "Yes, mamma. I sat quietly at the window. He awoke and spoke to me. I saw his mind was wandering, and ran out as fast as I could." 40 DANIEL TRENTWORTHY. "Mary," said the mother, "Daniel Trentworthy is a good young man. He lias acted as if he cared for you. Do not let him believe you return his feelings, unless you are quite sure about it. You are exactly like your aunt, Mary, and she never married, although she had dozens of opportunities." " Oh ! I shall marry," said Mary, tossing her head. Young ladies consider that affair entirely their own. " Well, I do not want to see you trifling with Daniel. You hear what I say, do you not ? " " There comes the ice-man. Yes we want ice all summer. Sixty cents a week ! Dear me, it was only forty last year. Mamma, forty cents a week ! " Mother and daughter completely misunderstood each other. The daughter rebelled at her mother's methods, econ- omies and ideas of duty. And Daniel Trentworthy, starting from another short sleep, wherein he had fought against letting the rescuers take him from the wires, found his forehead getting cold and sweaty and his heart thumping until it hurt him, because he remembered how greatly he had errc-d in supposing that he and Mary had pledged their love for each other. " She will not forgive me. She thought I took too much for granted. I do not blame her. How could I blame her for aii3 T thing ? I am' so glad I was saved. And yet, why was I not killed and the boys with families spared ? " Thus his emotions swayed. He was glad, and now he was sorry. It all depended on Mary. " She will not forgive me ! " the sick man moaned. The piano poured a gay flood of notes over the house. Daniel was in heaven again. "M'appari" "It was a dream." The chords came to him as a message of peace. How often had he whistled the air. He thought of his flute. " I will be a virtuoso yet," he cried. "M'appari! She loves me. I would not have escaped had she loved me not." SOME NEWS FOR DANIEL. 41 "Daniel," said Mrs. Holebroke, "you are not keeping still enough. I shall send for the doctor if your color does not go in a little while." " I feel much better, Mrs. Holebroke," he said. The piano ebbed away. It stopped. Mary, portfolio in hand, passed the door. She looked in. "Good morning," said Daniel, because he dared to say nothing else. " I am going to write a letter to Mercy. Shall I send her your love ? " " Mercy is a pretty name. Yes, send her my love." And with that the maiden passed on. The piano had whispered her love for him. But that gray eye ! Was it not cold ? Daniel was not so happy. He could only get peace when he thought of the music from " Martha." " Why did she play it ? Why did she play all my pieces ? " he asked. " Oh, the minx ; she loves me. She loves me." This enabled him to sleep. And sleep is good medicine for weak nerves. The maid wrote, at her window : " MY DEAR Sis : We are still in this prosy cit}*-, on this dusty Clinton street, and very little has happened since my last. Daniel Trentworthy, Harmon's friend, is still in bed all the time, and I wish he would get well. You know I told you how we ' played duets ' together before he was hurt. It was odd, wasn't it ? I couldn't get over it. And he never tired, it seemed to me. Harmon teased me about him until I almost dreaded the sight of him. "Well, of course, when they brought him home so nearly dead, that was an end of the whistling. And what do you think he had done, just before the fire? Why, to be sure, IK goes and buys a costly flute, on purpose to play with me. You know that boy who drove us wild at Lima, with practic- ing the flute ? That, I thought, was the worst ! Since he's 42 DANIEL TttENTWOnTUY. been sick, laws ! mother doesn't think there's anybody else in the house. It used to be Harmon ; now it's Daniel this, and Daniel that. < You'll wake Daniel ! ' or ' Wouldn't Daniel like some of that ? ' " He has an honest way about him that I kind o' like. He's a queer old fellow. Sometimes, when he is so tender and thankful to me I feel quite pleased. But my ! Merce, you needn't fear that I shall lose my head, even if he does lose his. He is nothing but a poor young man. Of course, he's smart. I never saw so smart a fellow. But what is he ? A fireman. Dear me ! that was a dreadful escape he had ! And, it seems, he has lost his place on the force. What he'll do next must be determined. But you know Harmon. He'd keep the whole fire department if it got out of a place. Dear me ! you and mother and Harm are all too good for me ! " You know I am not out of high school yet. I haven't finished flirting with the car conductors on West Madison street. Some of them are too sweet for any single thing. There is one who wears a blue coat and has a mustache. I wish our poor, sick Daniel had that mustache ! There I go again ! As I said, I am not yet out of school. And my heart is set on the tour in Europe. I want a piano lesson in Europe. I don't care if it lasts only half an hour. A half hour with Liszt or Von Billow ! I think I could make it worth something ; don't you ? " How am I to get it ! Merce, I'm going to marry for it, as sure as you're born. If Daniel had money there, you see ! You'll be sure Daniel will get me. But he will do no such thing, Sister Merce ! And I will tell you why. Because I can carry my eggs to a better market. Daniel is all Tery well. I think he aids me with my music. I declare, not one person in fifty but likes