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Title: The Best Short Stories of 1919, and the Yearbook of the American Short Story

Editor: Edward J. O'Brien

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Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF 1919, AND THE YEARBOOK OF THE AMERICAN SHORT STORY ***




Produced by Suzanne Lybarger, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net









THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF 1919
             AND THE
YEARBOOK OF THE AMERICAN SHORT STORY

     EDITED BY
  EDWARD J. O'BRIEN

  EDITOR OF "THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF 1915"
   "THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF 1916"
   "THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF 1917"
   "THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF 1918," ETC.

     BOSTON
  SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
     PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1918, by Margaret C, Anderson, Charles Scribner's Sons,
Smart Set Company, Inc., and The Century Company.

Copyright, 1919, by The Boston Transcript Company.

Copyright, 1919, by The Century Company, Harper & Brothers, The
Bellman Company, The Pictorial Review Company, The Ridgway Company,
The Curtis Publishing Company, The American Hebrew, and The McCall
Company.

Copyright, 1920, by Gulielma Fell Alsop, Sherwood Anderson, Edwina
Stanton Babcock, Djuna Barnes, Frederick Orin Bartlett, Agnes Mary
Brownell, Maxwell Struthers Burt, James Branch Cabell, Horace Fish,
Susan Glaspell Cook, Henry Goodman, Richard Matthews Hallet, Joseph
Hergesheimer, Will E. Ingersoll, Calvin Johnston, Howard Mumford
Jones, Ellen N. La Motte, Elias Lieberman, Mary Heaton O'Brien, and
Anzia Yezierska.

Copyright, 1920, by Small, Maynard & Company, Inc.



       *       *       *       *       *

                      TO
                ANZIA YEZIERSKA

       *       *       *       *       *




BY WAY OF ACKNOWLEDGMENT


Grateful acknowledgment for permission to include the stories and other
material in this volume is made to the following authors, editors, and
publishers:

To the Century Company, Miss Margaret C. Anderson, Editor of The Little
Review, Harper & Brothers, The Bellman Company, The Pictorial Review
Company, Charles Scribner's Sons, The Ridgway Company, The Curtis
Publishing Company, The Smart Set Company, Inc., The Editor of The
American Hebrew, The McCall Company, Miss G. F. Alsop, Mr. Sherwood
Anderson, Miss Edwina Stanton Babcock, Miss Djuna Barnes, Mr. Frederick
Orin Bartlett, Miss Agnes Mary Brownell, Mr. Maxwell Struthers Burt, Mr.
James Branch Cabell, Mr. Horace Fish, Mrs. George Cram Cook, Mr. Henry
Goodman, Mr. Richard Matthews Hallet, Mr. Joseph Hergesheimer, Mr. Will
E. Ingersoll, Mr. Calvin Johnston, Mr. Howard Mumford Jones, Miss Ellen
N. La Motte, Mr. Elias Lieberman, Mrs. Mary Heaton O'Brien, and Miss
Anzia Yezierska.

Acknowledgments are specially due to _The Boston Evening Transcript_ for
permission to reprint the large body of material previously published in
its pages.

I shall be grateful to my readers for corrections, and particularly for
suggestions leading to the wider usefulness of this annual volume. In
particular, I shall welcome the receipt, from authors, editors, and
publishers, of stories published during 1920 which have qualities of
distinction, and yet are not printed in periodicals falling under my
regular notice. Such communications may be addressed to me at _Bass
River, Cape Cod, Massachusetts_.

E. J. O.




CONTENTS[1]


[Note 1: The order in which the stories in this volume are printed
is not intended as an indication of their comparative excellence; the
arrangement is alphabetical by authors.]

                                                                    PAGE
INTRODUCTION. By the Editor                                         xiii

THE KITCHEN GODS. By G. F. Alsop                                       3
  (From _The Century_)

AN AWAKENING. By Sherwood Anderson                                    24
  (From _The Little Review_)

WILLUM'S VANILLA. By Edwina Stanton Babcock                           34
  (From _Harper's Magazine_)

A NIGHT AMONG THE HORSES. By Djuna Barnes                             65
  (From _The Little Review_)

LONG, LONG AGO. By Frederick Orin Bartlett                            74
  (From _The Bellman_)

DISHES. By Agnes Mary Brownell                                        82
  (From _The Pictorial Review_)

THE BLOOD-RED ONE. By Maxwell Struthers Burt                          96
  (From _Scribner's Magazine_)

THE WEDDING-JEST. By James Branch Cabell                             108
  (From _The Century_)

THE WRISTS ON THE DOOR. By Horace Fish                               123
  (From _Everybody's Magazine_)

"GOVERNMENT GOAT." By Susan Glaspell                                 147
  (From _The Pictorial Review_)

THE STONE. By Henry Goodman                                          167
  (From _The Pictorial Review_)

TO THE BITTER END. By Richard Matthews Hallet                        178
  (From _The Saturday Evening Post_)

THE MEEKER RITUAL. By Joseph Hergesheimer                            200
  (From _The Century_)

THE CENTENARIAN. By Will E. Ingersoll                                225
  (From _Harper's Magazine_)

MESSENGERS. By Calvin Johnston                                       237
  (From _The Saturday Evening Post_)

MRS. DRAINGER'S VEIL. By Howard Mumford Jones                        269
  (From _The Smart Set_)

UNDER A WINE-GLASS. By Ellen N. La Motte                             297
  (From _The Century_)

A THING OF BEAUTY. By Elias Lieberman                                305
  (From _The American Hebrew_)

THE OTHER ROOM. By Mary Heaton Vorse                                 312
  (From _McCall's Magazine_)

"THE FAT OF THE LAND." By Anzia Yezierska                            326
  (From _The Century_)

THE YEARBOOK OF THE AMERICAN SHORT STORY, NOVEMBER,
1918, TO SEPTEMBER, 1919                                             351

Addresses of American Magazines Publishing Short
Stories                                                              353

The Biographical Roll of Honor of American Short
Stories                                                              355

The Roll of Honor of Foreign Short Stories in
American Magazines                                                   364

Volumes of Short Stories Published, November,
1918, to September, 1919: An Index                                   366

Articles on the Short Story, October, 1918, to
September, 1919                                                      372

Magazine Averages, November, 1918, to September,
1919                                                                 381

Index of Short Stories Published in American Magazines,
November, 1918, to September, 1919                                   384




INTRODUCTION


I should like to take the text for my remarks this year on the American
Short Story from that notable volume of criticism, "Our America" by
Waldo Frank. For the past year, it has been a source of much questioning
to me to determine why American fiction, as well as the other arts,
fails so conspicuously in presenting a national soul, why it fails to
measure sincerely the heights and depths of our aspirations and failures
as a nation, and why it lacks the vital _élan_ which is so
characteristic of other literatures. We know, of course, that we are
present at the birth of a new national consciousness in our people, but
why is it that this national consciousness seems so tangled in evasion
of reality and in deep inhibitions that stultify it? Mr. Frank suggests
for the first time the root of the cancer, and like a skilful surgeon
points out how it may be healed. His book is the first courageous
diagnosis of our weakness, and I think that the attentive and honest
reader will not feel that he is unduly harsh or spiritually alienated
from us. Briefly put, he finds that our failure lies in not
distinguishing between idealism in itself and idealization of ourselves.
We regard a man who challenges our self righteousness and self
admiration as an enemy of the people. What we call our idealism is
rooted in materialism and the goal we set ourselves virtuously is a goal
of material comfort for ourselves, and, that once attained, perhaps also
for others.

"No American can hope to run a journal, win public office, successfully
advertise a soap or write a popular novel who does not insist upon the
idealistic basis of his country. A peculiar sort of ethical rapture has
earned the term American.... And the reason is probably at least in part
the fact that no land has ever sprung so nakedly as ours from a direct
and consciously material impulse...."

Mr. Frank goes on to point out that because our dreams are founded on a
material earth, they none the less have a hope of heaven, and that the
American story is really a debased form of wish fulfilment. "While the
American was active in the external world--mature and conscious
there--his starved inner life stunted his spiritual powers to infantile
dimensions.... What would satisfy him must be a picture of the contents
of real life, simplified and stunted to the dream-dimensions of the
infant. And with just this sort of thing, our army of commercialised
writers and dramatists and editors has kept him constantly supplied.

"There is nothing more horrible than a physically mature body moved by a
childish mind. And if the average American production repels the
sensitive American reader the reason is that he is witnessing just this
condition.... The American is aware of the individual and social
problems which inspire the current literatures of Europe. He is
conscious of the conflicts of family and sex, of the contrasts of
poverty and wealth. Of such stuff, also, are his books. Their _body_ is
mature: but their mental and spiritual _motivation_ remains infantile.
At once, it is reduced to an abortive simplification whereby the reality
is maimed, the reader's wish fulfilled as it could only be in fairyland.
But the fairyland is missing: the sweet moods of fairyland have withered
in the arid sophistications of American life.... And yet the authors of
this sort of book are hailed as realists, their work is acclaimed as
social criticism and American interpretation. And when at times a
solitary voice emerges with the truth, its message is attacked as morbid
and a lie.

"It is easy to understand how optimism should become of the tissue of
American life. The pioneer must hope. Else, how can he press on? The
American editor or writer who fails to strike the optimistic note is set
upon with a ferocity which becomes clear if we bear in mind that hope is
the pioneer's preserving arm. I do not mean to discredit the validity of
hope and optimism. I can honestly lay claim to both. America was builded
on a dream of fair lands: a dream that has come true. In the infinitely
harder problems of social and psychic health, the dream persists. We
believe in our Star. And we do not believe in our experience. America
is filled with poverty, with social disease, with oppression and with
physical degeneration. But we do not wish to believe that this is so. We
bask in the benign delusion of our perfect freedom.... Yet spiritual
growth without the facing of the world is an impossible conception."

Mr. Frank instances the case of Jack London as an example of how
inhibition may crush an artist, while rewarding him with material
success. "The background of this gifted man was the background of
America. He had gone back to primal stratum: stolen and labored and
adventured. Finally, he had learned to write. Criticism grew in him. He
pierced the American myths. He no longer believed in the Puritan God....
But what of this experience of passion and exploration lives in his
books? Precisely, nothing. London became a 'best-seller.' He sold
himself to a Syndicate which paid him a fabulous price for every word he
wrote. He visited half the world, and produced a thousand words a day.
And the burden of his literary output was an infantile romanticism under
which he deliberately hid his own despair. Since the reality of the
world he had come up through was barred to his pen, he wrote stories
about sea-wolves and star-gazers: he wallowed in the details of bloody
combat. If he was aware of the density of human life, of the drama of
the conflict of its planes, he used his knowledge only as a measure of
avoidance. He claimed to have found truth in a complete cynical
dissolution. 'But I know better,' he says, 'than to give this truth as I
have seen it, in my books. The bubbles of illusion, the pap of pretty
lies are the true stuff of stories.'"

You may say that this is a hard saying. Perhaps it is. But as I was
writing this morning, I received a letter from which I shall quote as a
living human document. It came to me from an American short story writer
whose work I have not had occasion to mention previously in these
studies. This artist has done work which ranks with the very best that
has been produced in America, but it very seldom finds its way into
print for the very reasons that Mr. Frank has mentioned. There is no
compromise in it. It offers us no vicarious satisfaction of our self
esteem. "I have only a blind, consuming passion of ideas. And this blind
passion of ideas drove me and hounded me till I had to tear loose from
everything human to follow it. For two years I lived in savage
isolation. I thought myself strong enough to live alone and think alone,
but I am not. What writes itself in me is too intense for the light
weight American magazines. My last story took me months to write and I
had to ruin it by tacking on to it a happy ending or starve."

Now you may say that the writer of this letter should not have isolated
himself from humanity. But in reality he did not. His stories are
instinct with the very pulse of humanity. The American editor fears
their reality, and so the writer really found that humanity had turned
from him. Meanwhile, the unpublished work of this writer, who is dying,
is America's spiritual loss. In the same way America lost Stephen Crane
and Harris Merton Lyon and many another, and is losing its best writers
to Europe every day. This annual volume is a book of documents, and that
is my excuse for quoting from these two writers. You will find the
indictment set forth more fully by a master in a recent novel, "The
Mask," by John Cournos, another writer whom America has lost as it lost
Whistler and Henry James.

It is not easy to play the part of Juvenal in this age, and I shall not
do it again, but it is because my faith in America is founded on her
weaknesses as well as her strength that I make this plea for sincerity
and artistic freedom. America's literature must no longer be the product
of a child's brain in a man's body, if it is to be a literature, and not
a form of journalism.

To repeat what I have said in these pages in previous years, for the
benefit of the reader as yet unacquainted with my standards and
principles of selection, I shall point out that I have set myself the
task of disengaging the essential human qualities in our contemporary
fiction which, when chronicled conscientiously by our literary artists,
may fairly be called a criticism of life. I am not at all interested in
formulæ, and organized criticism at its best would be nothing more than
dead criticism, as all dogmatic interpretation of life is always dead.
What has interested me, to the exclusion of other things, is the fresh,
living current which flows through the best of our work, and the
psychological and imaginative reality which our writers have conferred
upon it.

No substance is of importance in fiction, unless it is organic
substance, that is to say, substance in which the pulse of life is
beating. Inorganic fiction has been our curse in the past, and bids fair
to remain so, unless we exercise much greater artistic discrimination
than we display at present.

The present record covers the period from November, 1918, to September,
1919, inclusive. During these eleven months, I have sought to select
from the stories published in American magazines those which have
rendered life imaginatively in organic substance and artistic form.
Substance is something achieved by the artist in every act of creation,
rather than something already present, and accordingly a fact or group
of facts in a story only attain substantial embodiment when the artist's
power of compelling imaginative persuasion transforms them into a living
truth. The first test of a short story, therefore, in any qualitative
analysis is to report upon how vitally compelling the writer makes his
selected facts or incidents. This test may be conveniently called the
test of substance.

But a second test is necessary if the story is to take rank above other
stories. The true artist will seek to shape this living substance into
the most beautiful and satisfying form, by skillful selection and
arrangement of his material, and by the most direct and appealing
presentation of it in portrayal and characterization.

The short stories which I have examined in this study, as in previous
years, have fallen naturally into four groups. The first group consists
of those stories which fail, in my opinion, to survive either the test
of substance or the test of form. These stories are listed in the
yearbook without comment or a qualifying asterisk. The second group
consists of those stories which may fairly claim that they survive
either the test of substance or the test of form. Each of these stories
may claim to possess either distinction of technique alone, or more
frequently, I am glad to say, a persuasive sense of life in them to
which a reader responds with some part of his own experience. Stories
included in this group are indicated in the yearbook index by a single
asterisk prefixed to the title.

The third group, which is composed of stories of still greater
distinction, includes such narratives as may lay convincing claim to a
second reading, because each of them has survived both tests, the test
of substance and the test of form. Stories included in this group are
indicated in the yearbook index by two asterisks prefixed to the title.

Finally, I have recorded the names of a small group of stories which
possess, I believe, an even finer distinction--the distinction of
uniting genuine substance and artistic form in a closely woven pattern
with such sincerity that these stories may fairly claim a position in
our literature. If all of these stories by American authors were
republished, they would not occupy more space than five novels of
average length. My selection of them does not imply the critical belief
that they are great stories. A year which produced one great story would
be an exceptional one. It is simply to be taken as meaning that I have
found the equivalent of five volumes worthy of republication among all
the stories published during the eleven months under consideration.
These stories are indicated in the yearbook index by three asterisks
prefixed to the title, and are listed in the special "Rolls of Honor."
In compiling these lists, I have permitted no personal preference or
prejudice to consciously influence my judgment. To the titles of certain
stories, however, in the "Rolls of Honor," an asterisk is prefixed, and
this asterisk, I must confess, reveals in some measure a personal
preference, for which, perhaps, I may be indulged. It is from this final
short list that the stories reprinted in this volume have been selected.

It has been a point of honor with me not to republish an English story,
nor a translation from a foreign author. I have also made it a rule not
to include more than one story by an individual author in the volume.
The general and particular results of my study will be found explained
and carefully detailed in the supplementary part of the volume.

As in past years it has been my pleasure and honor to associate this
annual with the names of Benjamin Rosenblatt, Richard Matthews Hallet,
Wilbur Daniel Steele, and Arthur Johnson, so it is my wish to dedicate
this year the best that I have found in the American magazines as the
fruit of my labors to Anzia Yezierska, whose story, "Fat of the Land",
seems to me perhaps the finest imaginative contribution to the short
story made by an American artist this year.

EDWARD J. O'BRIEN.

OXFORD, ENGLAND,
    October 29, 1919.




THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF 1919

NOTE.--The order in which the stories in this volume are printed is not
intended as an indication of their comparative excellence; the
arrangement is alphabetical by authors.




THE KITCHEN GODS[2]

[Note 2: Copyright, 1919, by The Century Company. Copyright, 1920,
by Gulielma Fell Alsop.]

BY GULIELMA FELL ALSOP

From _The Century_


The lilies bloomed that day. Out in the courtyard, in their fantastic
green-dragoned pots, one by one the tiny, ethereal petals opened.
Dong-Yung went rapturously among them, stooping low to inhale their
faint fragrance. The square courtyard, guarded on three sides by the
wings of the house, facing the windowless blank wall on the fourth, was
mottled with sunlight. Just this side of the wall a black shadow, as
straight and opaque as the wall itself, banded the court with darkness;
but on the hither side, where the lilies bloomed and Dong-Yung moved
among them, lay glittering, yellow sunlight. The little box of a house
where the gate-keeper lived made a bulge in the uniform blackness of the
wall and its shadow. The two tall poles, with the upturned baskets, the
devil-catchers, rose like flagstaffs from both sides of the door. A huge
china griffon stood at the right of the gate. From beyond the wall came
the sounds of early morning--the click of wooden sandals on cobbled
streets and the panting cries of the coolies bringing in fresh
vegetables or carrying back to the denuded land the refuse of the city.
The gate-keeper was awake, brushing out his house with a broom of twigs.
He was quite bald, and the top of his head was as tanned and brown as
the legs of small summer children.

"Good morning, Honorable One," he called. "It is a good omen. The lilies
have opened."

An amah, blue-trousered, blue-jacketed, blue-aproned, cluttered across
the courtyard with two pails of steaming water.

"Good morning, Honorable One. The water for the great wife is hot and
heavy." She dropped her buckets, the water splashing over in runnels and
puddles at her feet, and stooped to smell the lilies. "It is an
auspicious day."

From the casement-window in the right balcony a voice called:

"Thou dunce! Here I am waiting already half the day. Quicker! quicker!"

It sounded elderly and querulous, a voice accustomed to be obeyed and to
dominate. The great wife's face appeared a moment at the casement. Her
eyes swept over the courtyard scene--over the blooming lilies, and
Dong-Yung standing among them.

"Behold the small wife, cursed of the gods!" she cried in her high,
shrill voice. "Not even a girl can she bear her master. May she eat
bitterness all her days!"

The amah shouldered the steaming buckets and splashed across the bare
boards of the ancestral hall beyond.

"The great wife is angry," murmured the gate-keeper. "Oh, Honorable One,
shall I admit the flower-girl? She has fresh orchids."

Dong-Yung nodded. The flower-girl came slowly in under the guarded
gateway. She was a country child, with brown cheeks and merry eyes. Her
shallow basket was steadied by a ribbon over one shoulder, and caught
between an arm and a swaying hip. In the flat, round basket, on green
little leaves, lay the wired perfumed orchids.

"How many? It is an auspicious day. See, the lilies have bloomed. One
for the hair and two for the buttonholes. They smell sweet as the breath
of heaven itself."

Dong-Yung smiled as the flower-girl stuck one of the fragrant, fragile,
green-striped orchids in her hair, and hung two others, caught on
delicate loops of wire, on the jade studs of her jacket, buttoned on the
right shoulder.

"Ah, you are beautiful-come-death!" said the flower-girl. "Great
happiness be thine!"

"Even a small wife can be happy at times." Dong-Yung took out a little
woven purse, and paid over two coppers apiece to the flower-girl.

At the gate the girl and the gate-keeper fell a-talking.

"Is the morning rice ready?" called a man's voice from the room behind.

Dong-Yung turned quickly. Her whole face changed. It had been smiling
and pleased before at the sight of the faint, white lily-petals and the
sunlight on her feet and the fragrance of the orchids in her hair; but
now it was lit with an inner radiance.

"My beloved Master!" Dong-Yung made a little instinctive gesture toward
the approaching man, which in a second was caught and curbed by Chinese
etiquette. Dressed, as she was, in pale-gray satin trousers, loose, and
banded at the knee with wide blue stripes, and with a soft jacket to
match, she was as beautiful in the eyes of the approaching man as the
newly opened lilies. What he was in her eyes it would be hard for any
modern woman to grasp: that rapture of adoration, that bliss of worship,
has lingered only in rare hearts and rarer spots on the earth's surface.

Foh-Kyung came out slowly through the ancestral hall. The sunlight edged
it like a bright border. The doors were wide open, and Dong-Yung saw the
decorous rows of square chairs and square tables set rhythmically along
the walls, and the covered dais at the head for the guest of honor. Long
crimson scrolls, sprawled with gold ideographs, hung from ceiling to
floor. A rosewood cabinet, filled with vases, peach bloom, imperial
yellow, and turquoise blue, gleamed like a lighted lamp in the shadowy
morning light of the room.

Foh-Kyung stooped to smell the lilies.

"They perfume the very air we breathe. Little Jewel, I love our old
Chinese ways. I love the custom of the lily-planting and the day the
lilies bloom. I love to think the gods smell them in heaven, and are
gracious to mortals for their fragrance's sake."

"I am so happy!" Dong-Yung said, poking the toe of her slipper in and
out the sunlight. She looked up at the man before her, and saw he was
tall and slim and as subtle-featured as the cross-legged bronze Buddha
himself. His long, thin hands were hid, crossed and slipped along the
wrists within the loose apricot satin sleeves of his brocaded garment.
His feet, in their black satin slippers and tight-fitting white muslin
socks, were austere and aristocratic. Dong-Yung, when he was absent,
loved best to think of him thus, with his hands hidden and his eyes
smiling.

"The willow-leaves will bud soon," answered Dong-Yung, glancing over her
shoulder at the tapering, yellowing twigs of the ancient tree.

"And the beech-blossoms," continued Foh-Kyung. "'The earth is the
Lord's, and the fullness thereof.'"

"The foreign devil's wisdom," answered Dong-Yung.

"It is greater than ours, Dong-Yung; greater and lovelier. To-day,
to-day, I will go to their hall of ceremonial worship and say to their
holy priest that I think and believe the Jesus way."

"Oh, most-beloved Master, is it also permitted to women, to a small
wife, to believe the Jesus way?"

"I will believe for thee, too, little Lotus Flower in the Pond."

"Tell me, O Teacher of Knowledge--tell me that in my heart and in my
mind I may follow a little way whither thou goest in thy heart and in
thy mind!"

Foh-Kyung moved out of the shadow of the ancestral hall and stood in the
warm sunlight beside Dong-Yung, his small wife. His hands were still
withheld and hidden, clasping his wrists within the wide, loose apricot
sleeves of his gown, but his eyes looked as if they touched her.
Dong-Yung hid her happiness even as the flowers hide theirs, within
silent, incurving petals.

"The water is cold as the chill of death. Go, bring me hot water--water
hot enough to scald an egg."

Foh-Kyung and Dong-Yung turned to the casement in the upper right-hand
wing and listened apprehensively. The quick chatter of angry voices
rushed out into the sunlight.

"The honorable great wife is very cross this morning." Dong-Yung
shivered and turned back to the lilies. "To-day perhaps she will beat me
again. Would that at least I had borne my lord a young prince for a son;
then perhaps--"

"Go not near her, little Jewel. Stay in thine own rooms. Nay, I have
sons a-plenty. Do not regret the childlessness. I would not have your
body go down one foot into the grave for a child. I love thee for
thyself."

"Now my lord speaks truly, as do the foreign devils to the shameless,
open-faced women. I like the ways of the outside kingdom well. Tell me
more of them, my Master."

Foh-Kyung moved his hands as if he would have withdrawn them from his
apricot-colored sleeves. Dong-Yung saw the withheld motion, and swayed
nearer. For a moment Dong-Yung saw the look in his eyes that engulfed
her in happiness; then it was gone, and he looked away past her, across
the opening lily-buds and the black rampart of the wall, at something
distant, yet precious. Foh-Kyung moved closer. His face changed. His
eyes held that hidden rapture that only Dong-Yung and the foreign-born
priest had seen.

"Little Jewel, wilt thou go with me to the priest of the foreign-born
faith? Come!" He withdrew his hand from his sleeve and touched Dong-Yung
on the shoulder. "Come, we will go hand in hand, thou and I, even as the
men and women of the Jesus thinking; not as Chinese, I before, and thou
six paces behind. Their God loves men and women alike."

"Is it permitted to a small wife to worship the foreign-born God?"
Dong-Yung lifted her eyes to the face of Foh-Kyung. "Teach me, O my Lord
Master! My understanding is but young and fearful--"

Foh-Kyung moved into the sunlight beside her.

"Their God loves all the world. Their God is different, little Flower,
from the painted images, full of blessings, not curses. He loves even
little girl babies that mothers would throw away. Truly his heart is
still more loving than the heart of a mother."

"And yet I am fearful--" Dong-Yung looked back into the shadows of the
guest-hall, where the ancestral tablets glowed upon the wall, and
crimson tapers stood ready before them. "Our gods I have touched and
handled."

"Nay, in the Jesus way there is no fear left." Foh-Kyung's voice dropped
lower. Its sound filled Dong-Yung with longing. "When the wind screams
in the chimneys at night, it is but the wind, not evil spirits. When
the summer breeze blows in at the open door, we need not bar it. It is
but the summer breeze from the rice-fields, uninhabited by witch-ghosts.
When we eat our morning rice, we are compelled to make no offering to
the kitchen gods in the stove corner. They cannot curse our food. Ah, in
the Jesus way there is no more fear!"

Dong-Yung drew away from her lord and master and looked at him
anxiously. He was not seeing her at all. His eyes looked beyond, across
the fragile lily-petals, through the solid black wall, at a vision he
saw in the world. Dong-Yung bent her head to sniff the familiar sweet
springtime orchid hanging from the jade stud on her shoulder.

"Your words are words of good hearing, O beloved Teacher. Nevertheless,
let me follow six paces behind. I am not worthy to touch your hand. Six
paces behind, when the sun shines in your face, my feet walk in the
shadow of your garments."

Foh-Kyung gathered his gaze back from his visions and looked at his
small wife, standing in a pool of sunshine before him. Overhead the lazy
crows flew by, winging out from their city roosts to the rice-fields for
the day's food.

"Tea-boiled eggs!" cried a vender from beyond the wall. A man stopped at
the gate, put down his shoulder-tray of food, and bargained with the
ancient, mahogany-scalped gate-keeper. Faint odors of food frying in oil
stole out from the depths of the house behind him. And Dong-Yung, very
quiet and passive in the pose of her body, gazed up at Foh-Kyung with
those strange, secretive, ardent eyes. All around him was China, its
very essence and sound and smell. Dong-Yung was a part of it all; nay,
she was even the very heart of it, swaying there in the yellow light
among the lily-petals.

"Precious Jewel! Yet it is sweeter to walk side by side, our feet
stepping out into the sunlight together, and our shadows mingling
behind. I want you beside me."

The last words rang with sudden warmth. Dong-Yung trembled and
crimsoned. It was not seemly that a man speak to a woman thus, even
though that man was a husband and the woman his wife, not even though
the words were said in an open court, where the eyes of the great wife
might spy and listen. And yet Dong-Yung thrilled to those words.

An amah called, "The morning rice is ready."

Dong-Yung hurried into the open room, where the light was still faint,
filtering in through a high-silled window and the door. A round, brown
table stood in the center of the room. In the corner of the room behind
stood the crescentic, white plaster stove, with its dull wooden
kettle-lids and its crackling straw. Two cooks, country women, sat in
the hidden corner behind the stove, and poked in the great bales of
straw and gossiped. Their voices and the answers of the serving amah
filled the kitchen with noise. In their decorous niche at the upper
right hand of the stove sat the two kitchen gods, small ancient idols,
with hidden hands and crossed feet, gazing out upon a continually hungry
world. Since time was they had sat there, ensconced at the very root of
life, seemingly placid and unseeing and unhearing, yet venomously
watching to be placated with food. Opposite the stove, on the white
wall, hung a row of brass hooks, from which dangled porcelain spoons
with pierced handles. On a serving-table stood the piled bowls for the
day, blue-and-white rice patterns, of a thin, translucent ware, showing
the delicate light through the rice seeds; red-and-green dragoned bowls
for the puddings; and tiny saucer-like platters for the vegetables. The
tea-cups, saucered and lidded, but unhandled, stood in a row before the
polished brass hot-water kettle.

The whole room was full of a stirring, wakening life, of the crackling
straw fire, of the steaming rice, all white and separate-kerneled in its
great, shallow, black iron kettles, lidded with those heavy hand-made
wooden lids, while the boiling tea water hissed, and spat out a snake of
white steam.

With that curious democracy of China, where high and low alike are
friendly, Dong-Yung hurried into her beloved kitchen.

"Has the master come?" asked the serving maid.

"Coming, coming," Dong-Yung answered. "I myself will take in his
morning rice, after I have offered the morning oblations to the gods."

Dong-Yung selected two of the daintiest blue-and-white rice-pattern
bowls. The cook lifted off the wooden lid of the rice-kettle, and
Dong-Yung scooped up a dipperful of the snow-white kernels. On the tiny
shelf before each god, the father and mother god of the household,
Dong-Yung placed her offering. She stood off a moment, surveying them in
pleased satisfaction--the round, blue bowls, with the faint tracery of
light; the complacent gods above, red and green and crimson, so
age-long, comfortably ensconced in their warm stove corner. She made
swift obeisance with her hands and body before those ancient idols. A
slant of sunshine swept in from the high windows and fell over her in a
shaft of light. The thoughts of her heart were all warm and mixed and
confused. She was happy. She loved her kitchen, her gods, all the
familiar ways of Chinese life. She loved her silken, satin clothes,
perfumed and embroidered and orchid-crowned, yet most of all she loved
her lord and master. Perhaps it was this love for him that made all the
rest of life so precious, that made each bowl of white rice an oblation,
each daily act a glorification. So she flung out her arms and bent her
head before the kitchen gods, the symbol of her ancient happiness.

"Dong-Yung, I do not wish you to do this any more."

Dong-Yung turned, her obeisance half arrested in mid-air. Foh-Kyung
stood in the doorway.

"My lord," stammered Dong-Yung, "I did not understand your meaning."

"I know that, little Flower in my House. The new meaning is hard to
understand. I, too, am but a blind child unused to the touch of the
road. But the kitchen gods matter no more; we pray to a spirit."

Foh-Kyung, in his long apricot-colored garment, crossed the threshold of
the kitchen, crossed the shadow and sunlight that striped the bare board
floor, and stood before the kitchen gods. His eyes were on a level with
theirs, strange, painted wooden eyes that stared forth inscrutably into
the eating centuries. Dong-Yung stood half bowed, breathless with a
quick, cold fear. The cook, one hand holding a shiny brown dipper, the
other a porcelain dish, stood motionless at the wooden table under the
window. From behind the stove peeped the frightened face of one of the
fire-tenders. The whole room was turned to stone, motionless, expectant,
awaiting the releasing moment of arousement--all, that is, but the
creeping sunshine, sliding nearer and nearer the crossed feet of the
kitchen gods; and the hissing steam fire, warming, coddling the hearts
of the gods. Sun at their feet, fire at their hearts, food before them,
and mortals turned to stone!

Foh-Kyung laughed softly, standing there, eye-level with the kitchen
gods. He stretched out his two hands, and caught a god in each. A
shudder ran through the motionless room.

"It is wickedness!" The porcelain dish fell from the hand of the cook,
and a thousand rice-kernels, like scattered pearls, ran over the floor.

"A blasphemer," the fire-tender whispered, peering around the stove with
terrified eyes. "This household will bite off great bitterness."

Foh-Kyung walked around the corner of the stove. The fire sparked and
hissed. The sunshine filled the empty niche. Not since the building of
the house and the planting of the tall black cypress trees around it, a
hundred years ago, had the sunlight touched the wall behind the kitchen
gods.

Dong-Yung sprang into life. She caught Foh-Kyung's sleeve.

"O my Lord and Master, I pray you, do not utterly cast them away into
the burning, fiery furnace! I fear some evil will befall us."

Foh-Kyung, a green-and-gold god in each hand, stopped and turned. His
eyes smiled at Dong-Yung. She was so little and so precious and so
afraid! Dong-Yung saw the look of relenting. She held his sleeve the
tighter.

"Light of my Eyes, do good deeds to me. My faith is but a little faith.
How could it be great unto thy great faith? Be gentle with my kitchen
gods. Do not utterly destroy them. I will hide them."

Foh-Kyung smiled yet more, and gave the plaster gods into her hands as
one would give a toy to a child.

"They are thine. Do with them as thou wilt, but no more set them up in
this stove corner and offer them morning rice. They are but painted,
plastered gods. I worship the spirit above."

Foh-Kyung sat down at the men's table in the men's room beyond. An amah
brought him rice and tea. Other men of the household there was none, and
he ate his meal alone. From the women's room across the court came a
shrill round of voices. The voice of the great wife was loudest and
shrillest. The voices of the children, his sons and daughters, rose and
fell with clear childish insistence among the older voices. The amah's
voice laughed with an equal gaiety.

Dong-Yung hid away the plastered green-and-gold gods. Her heart was
filled with a delicious fear. Her lord was even master of the gods. He
picked them up in his two hands, he carried them about as carelessly as
a man carries a boy child astride his shoulder; he would even have cast
them into the fire! Truly, she shivered with delight. Nevertheless, she
was glad she had hidden them safely away. In the corner of the kitchen
stood a box of white pigskin with beaten brass clasps made like the
outspread wings of a butterfly. Underneath the piles of satin she had
hidden them, and the key to the butterfly clasps was safe in her
belt-jacket.

Dong-Yung stood in the kitchen door and watched Foh-Kyung.

"Does my lord wish for anything?"

Foh-Kyung turned, and saw her standing there in the doorway. Behind her
were the white stove and the sun-filled, empty niche. The light flooded
through the doorway. Foh-Kyung set down his rice-bowl from his left hand
and his ivory chop-sticks from his right. He stood before her.

"Truly, Dong-Yung, I want thee. Do not go away and leave me. Do not
cross to the eating-room of the women and children. Eat with me."

"It has not been heard of in the Middle Kingdom for a woman to eat with
a man."

"Nevertheless, it shall be. Come!"

Dong-Yung entered slowly. The light in this dim room was all gathered
upon the person of Foh-Kyung, in the gleaming patterned roses of his
gown, in his deep amethyst ring, in his eyes. Dong-Yung came because of
his eyes. She crossed the room slowly, swaying with that peculiar grace
of small-footed women, till she stood at the table beside Foh-Kyung. She
was now even more afraid than when he would have cast the kitchen gods
into the fire. They were but gods, kitchen gods, that he was about to
break; this was the primeval bondage of the land, ancient custom.

"Give me thy hand and look up with thine eyes and thy heart."

Dong-Yung touched his hand. Foh-Kyung looked up as if he saw into the
ether beyond, and there saw a spirit vision of ineffable radiance. But
Dong-Yung watched him. She saw him transfigured with an inner light. His
eyes moved in prayer. The exaltation spread out from him to her, it
tingled through their finger-tips, it covered her from head to foot.

Foh-Kyung dropped her hand and moved. Dong-Yung leaned nearer.

"I, too, would believe the Jesus way."

In the peculiar quiet of mid-afternoon, when the shadows begin to creep
down from the eaves of the pagodas and zigzag across the rice-fields to
bed, Foh-Kyung and Dong-Yung arrived at the camp-ground of the
foreigners. The lazy native streets were still dull with the end of
labor. At the gate of the camp-ground the rickshaw coolies tipped down
the bamboo shafts, to the ground. Dong-Yung stepped out quickly, and
looked at her lord and master. He smiled.

"Nay, I do not fear," Dong-Yung answered, with her eyes on his face.
"Yet this place is strange, and lays a coldness around my heart."

"Regard not their awkward ways," said Foh-Kyung as he turned in at the
gate; "in their hearts they have the secret of life."

The gate-keeper bowed, and slipped the coin, warm from Foh-Kyung's hand,
into his ready pocket.

"Walk beside me, little Wife of my Heart." Foh-Kyung stopped in the wide
graveled road and waited for Dong-Yung. Standing there in the sunlight,
more vivid yet than the light itself, in his imperial yellow robes, he
was the end of life, nay, life itself, to Dong-Yung. "We go to the house
of the foreign priest to seek until we find the foreign God. Let us go
side by side."

Dong-Yung, stepping with slow, small-footed grace, walked beside him.

"My understanding is as the understanding of a little child, beloved
Teacher; but my heart lies like a shell in thy hand, its words but as
the echo of thine. My honor is great that thou do not forget me in the
magnitude of the search."

Dong-Yung's pleated satin skirts swayed to and fro against the imperial
yellow of Foh-Kyung's robe. Her face colored like a pale spring blossom,
looked strangely ethereal above her brocade jacket. Her heart still beat
thickly, half with fear and half with the secret rapture of their quest
and her lord's desire for her.

Foh-Kyung took a silken and ivory fan from an inner pocket and spread it
in the air. Dong-Yung knew the fan well. It came from a famous jeweler's
on Nanking Road, and had been designed by an old court poet of long ago.
The tiny ivory spokes were fretted like ivy-twigs in the North, but on
the leaves of silk was painted a love-story of the South. There was a
tea-house, with a maiden playing a lute, and the words of the song,
fantastic black ideographs, floated off to the ears of her lover.
Foh-Kyung spread out its leaves in the sun, and looked at it and smiled.

"Never is the heart of man satisfied," he said, "alone. Neither when the
willow fuzz flies in the spring, or when the midnight snow silvers the
palms. Least of all is it satisfied when it seeks the presence of God
above. I want thee beside me."

Dong-Yung hid her delight. Already for the third time he said those
words--those words that changed all the world from one of a loving
following-after to a marvelous oneness.

So they stepped across the lawn together. It was to Dong-Yung as if she
stepped into an unknown land. She walked on flat green grass. Flowers in
stiff and ordered rows went sedately round and round beneath a lurid
red brick wall. A strange, square-cornered, flat-topped house squatted
in the midst of the flat green grass. On the lawn at one side was a
white-covered table, with a man and a woman sitting beside it. The four
corners of the table-cloth dripped downward to the flat green grass. It
was all very strange and ugly. Perhaps it was a garden, but no one would
have guessed it. Dong-Yung longed to put each flower plant in a dragon
bowl by itself and place it where the sun caught its petals one by one
as the hours flew by. She longed for a narrow, tile-edged path to guide
her feet through all that flat green expanse. A little shiver ran over
her. She looked back, down the wide graveled way, through the gate,
where the gate-keeper sat, tipped back against the wall on his stool, to
the shop of the money-changer's opposite. A boy leaned half across the
polished wood counter and shook his fist in the face of the
money-changer. "Thou thief!" he cried. "Give me my two cash!" Dong-Yung
was reassured. Around her lay all the dear familiar things; at her side
walked her lord and master. And he had said they were seeking a new
freedom, a God of love. Her thoughts stirred at her heart and caught her
breath away.

The foreigners rose to greet them. Dong-Yung touched the hand of an
alien man. She did not like it at all. The foreign-born woman made her
sit down beside her, and offered her bitter, strong tea in delicate,
lidless cups, with handles bent like a twisted flower-branch.

"I have been meaning to call for a long time, Mrs. Li," said the
foreign-born woman.

"The great wife will receive thee with much honor," Dong-Yung answered.

"I am so glad you came with your husband."

"Yes," Dong-Yung answered, with a little smile. "The customs of the
foreign born are pleasant to our eyes."

"I am glad you like them," said the foreign-born woman. "I couldn't bear
not to go everywhere with my husband."

Dong-Yung liked her suddenly on account of the look that sprang up a
moment in her eyes and vanished again. She looked across at the priest,
her husband, a man in black, with thin lips and seeing eyes. The eyes
of the foreign woman, looking at the priest, her husband, showed how
much she loved him. "She loves him even as a small wife loves,"
Dong-Yung thought to herself. Dong-Yung watched the two men, the one in
imperial yellow, the one in black, sitting beside each other and
talking. Dong-Yung knew they were talking of the search. The
foreign-born woman was speaking to her again.

"The doctor told me I would die if I came to China; but John felt he had
a call. I would not stand in his way."

The woman's face was illumined.

"And now you are very happy?" Dong-Yung announced.

"And now I am very happy; just as you will be very happy."

"I am always happy since my lord took me for his small wife." Dong-Yung
matched her happiness with the happiness of the foreign-born woman,
proudly, with assurance. In her heart she knew no woman, born to eat
bitterness, had ever been so happy as she in all the worlds beneath the
heavens. She looked around her, beyond the failure of the foreign
woman's garden, at the piled, peaked roofs of China looking over the
wall. The fragrance of a blossoming plum-tree stole across from a
Chinese courtyard, and a peach-branch waved pink in the air. A wonder of
contentment filled Dong-Yung.

All the while Foh-Kyung was talking. Dong-Yung turned back from all the
greenness around her to listen. He sat very still, with his hands hid in
his sleeves. The wave-ridged hem of his robe--blue and green and purple
and red and yellow--was spread out decorously above his feet. Dong-Yung
looked and looked at him, so still and motionless and so gorgeously
arrayed. She looked from his feet, long, slim, in black satin slippers,
and close-fitting white muslin socks, to the feet of the foreign priest.
His feet were huge, ugly black things. From his feet Dong-Yung's eyes
crept up to his face, over his priestly black clothes, rimmed with stiff
white at wrist and throat. Yes, his face was even as the face of a
priest, of one who serves between the gods and men, a face of seeing
eyes and a rigid mouth. Dong-Yung shuddered.

"And so we have come, even as the foreign-born God tells us, a man and
his wife, to believe the Jesus way."

Foh-Kyung spoke in a low voice, but his face smiled. Dong-Yung smiled,
too, at his open, triumphant declarations. She said over his words to
herself, under her breath, so that she would remember them surely when
she wanted to call them back to whisper to her heart in the dark of some
night. "We two, a man and his wife"--only dimly, with the heart of a
little child, did Dong-Yung understand and follow Foh-Kyung; but the
throb of her heart answered the hidden light in his eyes.

The foreign-born priest stood up. The same light shone in his eyes. It
was a rapture, an exaltation. Suddenly an unheard-of-thing happened. The
outside kingdom woman put her arms around Dong-Yung! Dong-Yung was
terrified. She was held tight against the other woman's shoulder. The
foreign-born woman used a strange perfume. Dong-Yung only half heard her
whispered words.

"We are like that, too. We could not be separated. Oh, you will be
happy!"

Dong-Yung thought of the other woman. "In her heart she is humble and
seemly. It is only her speech and her ways that are unfitting."

"We are going into the chapel a moment," said the priest. "Will you
come, too?"

Dong-Yung looked at Foh-Kyung, a swift upward glance, like the sudden
sweep of wings. She read his answer in his eyes. He wanted her to come.
Not even in the temple of the foreign-born God did he wish to be without
her.

A coolie called the foreign-born woman away.

The priest, in his tight trousers, and jacket, black and covered with a
multitude of round flat buttons, stood up, and led the way into the
house and down a long corridor to a closed door at the end. Dong-Yung
hurried behind the two men. At the door the priest stood aside and held
it open for her to pass in first. She hesitated. Foh-Kyung nodded.

"Do not think fearful things, little Princess," he whispered. "Enter,
and be not afraid. There is no fear in the worship of Jesus."

So Dong-Yung crossed the threshold first. Something caught her breath
away, just as the chanting of the dragon priests always did. She took a
few steps forward and stood behind a low-backed bench. Before her, the
light streamed into the little chapel through one luminous window of
colored glass above the altar. It lay all over the gray-tiled floor in
roses and sunflowers of pink and gold. A deep purple stripe fell across
the head of the black-robed priest. Dong-Yung was glad of that. It made
his robe less hideous, and she could not understand how one could serve
a god unless in beautiful robes. On the altar beneath the window of
colored flowers were two tall silver candlesticks, with smooth white
tapers. A wide-mouthed vase filled with Chinese lilies stood between
them. The whole chapel was faintly fragrant with their incense. So even
the foreign-born worshipers lit candles, and offered the scent of the
lilies to their spirit God. Truly, all the gods of all the earth and in
the sky are lovers of lit candles and flowers. Also, one prays to all
gods.

The place was very quiet and peaceful, mottled with the gorgeous,
flowerlike splashes of color. The waiting candles, the echoes of many
prayers, the blossoms of worship filled the tiny chapel. Dong-Yung liked
it, despite herself, despite the strangeness of the imageless altar,
despite the clothes of the priest. She stood quite still behind the
bench flooded and filled with an all-pervading sense of happiness.

Foh-Kyung and the black-robed priest walked past her, down the little
aisle, to a shiny brass railing that went like a fence round before the
altar. The foreign-born priest laid one hand on the railing as if to
kneel down, but Foh-Kyung turned and beckoned with his chin to Dong-Yung
to come. She obeyed at once. She was surprisingly unafraid. Her feet
walked through the patterns of color, which slid over her head and
hands, gold from the gold of a cross and purple from the robe of a king.
As if stepping through a rainbow, she came slowly down the aisle to the
waiting men, and in her heart and in her eyes lay the light of all love
and trust.

Foh-Kyung caught her hand.

"See, I take her hand," he said to the priest, "even as you would take
the hand of your wife, proud and unashamed in the presence of your God.
Even as your love is, so shall ours be. Where the thoughts of my heart
lead, the heart of my small wife follows. Give us your blessing."

Foh-Kyung drew Dong-Yung to her knees beside him. His face was hidden,
after the manner of the foreign worshipers; but hers was uplifted, her
eyes gazing at the glass with the colors of many flowers and the shapes
of men and angels. She was happier than she had ever been--happier even
than when she had first worshiped the ancestral tablets with her lord
and master, happier even than at the feast of the dead, when they laid
their food offerings on the shaven grave-mounds. She felt closer to
Foh-Kyung than in all her life before.

She waited. The silence grew and grew till in the heart of it something
ominous took the place of its all-pervading peace. Foh-Kyung lifted his
face from his hands and rose to his feet. Dong-Yung turned, still
kneeling, to scan his eyes. The black-robed priest stood off and looked
at them with horror. Surely it was horror! Never had Dong-Yung really
liked him. Slowly she rose, and stood beside and a little behind
Foh-Kyung. He had not blessed them. Faintly, from beyond the walls of
the Christian chapel came the beating of drums. Devil-drums they were.
Dong-Yung half smiled at the long-known familiar sound.

"Your small wife?" said the priest. "Have you another wife?"

"Assuredly," Foh-Kyung answered. "All men have a great wife first; but
this, my small wife, is the wife of my heart. Together we have come to
seek and find the Jesus way."

The priest wiped his hand across his face. Dong-Yung saw that it was wet
with tiny round balls of sweat. His mouth had suddenly become one thin
red line, but in his eyes lay pain.

"Impossible," he said. His voice was quite different now, and sounded
like bits of metal falling on stone. "No man can enter the church while
living in sin with a woman other than his lawful wife. If your desire is
real, put her away."

With instant response, Foh-Kyung made a stately bow.

"Alas! I have made a grievous mistake. The responsibility will be on my
body. I thought all were welcome. We go. Later on, perhaps, we may meet
again."

The priest spoke hurriedly.

"I do not understand your meaning. Is this belief of such light weight
that you will toss it away for a sinful woman? Put her away, and come
and believe."

But Foh-Kyung did not hear his words. As he turned away, Dong-Yung
followed close behind her lord and master, only half comprehending, yet
filled with a great fear. They went out again into the sunshine, out
across the flat green grass, under the iron gateway, back into the Land
of the Flowery Kingdom. Foh-Kyung did not speak until he put Dong-Yung
in the rickshaw.

"Little Wife of my Heart," he said, "stop at the jeweler's and buy thee
new ear-rings, these ear-rings of the sky-blue stone and sea-tears, and
have thy hair dressed and thy gowns perfumed, and place the two red
circles on the smile of thy cheeks. To-night we will feast. Hast thou
forgotten to-night is the Feast of the Lanterns, when all good Buddhists
rejoice?"

He stood beside her rickshaw, in his imperial yellow garment hemmed with
the rainbow waves of the sea, and smiled down into her eyes.

"But the spirit God of love, the foreign-born spirit God?" said
Dong-Yung. "Shall we feast to him, too?"

"Nay, it is not fitting to feast to two gods at once," said Foh-Kyung.
"Do as I have said."

He left her. Dong-Yung, riding through the sun-splashed afternoon,
buying colored jewels and flowery perfume and making herself beautiful,
yet felt uneasy. She had not quite understood. A dim knowledge advanced
toward her like a wall of fog. She pressed her two hands against it and
held it off--held it off by sheer mental refusal to understand. In the
courtyard at home the children were playing with their lighted animals,
drawing their gaudy paper ducks, luminous with candle-light, to and fro
on little standards set on four wheels. At the gate hung a tall
red-and-white lantern, and over the roof floated a string of candle-lit
balloons. In the ancestral hall the great wife had lit the red candles,
speared on their slender spikes, before the tablets. In the kitchen the
cooks and amahs were busy with the feast-cooking. Candles were stuck
everywhere on the tables and benches. They threw little pools of light
on the floor before the stove and looked at the empty niche. In the
night it was merely a black hole in the stove filled with formless
shadow. She wished--

"Dong-Yung, Flower in the House, where hast thou hidden the kitchen
gods? Put them in their place." Foh-Kyung, still in imperial yellow,
stood like a sun in the doorway.

Dong-Yung turned.

"But--"

"Put them back, little Jewel in the Hair. It is not permitted to worship
the spirit God. There are bars and gates. The spirit of man must turn
back in the searching, turn back to the images of plaster and paint."

Dong-Yung let the wall of fog slide over her. She dropped her
resistance. She knew.

"Nay, not the spirit of man. It is but natural that the great God does
not wish the importunings of a small wife. Worship thou alone the great
God, and the shadow of that worship will fall on my heart."

"Nay, I cannot worship alone. My worship is not acceptable in the sight
of the foreign God. My ways are not his ways."

Foh-Kyung's face was unlined and calm, yet Dong-Yung felt the hidden
agony of his soul, flung back from its quest upon gods of plaster and
paint.

"But I know the thoughts of thy heart, O Lord and Master, white and
fragrant as the lily-buds that opened to-day. Has thy wish changed?"

"Nay, my wish is even the same, but it is not permitted to a man of two
wives to be a follower of the spirit God."

Dong-Yung had known it all along. This knowledge came with no surprise.
It was she who kept him from the path of his desire!

"Put back the kitchen gods," said Foh-Kyung. "We will live and believe
and die even as our fathers have done. The gate to the God of love is
closed."

The feast was served. In the sky one moon blotted out a world of stars.
Foh-Kyung sat alone, smoking. Laughter and talk filled the women's wing.
The amahs and coolies were resting outside. A thin reed of music crept
in and out among the laughter and talk, from the reed flute of the cook.
The kitchen was quite empty. One candle on the table sent up a long
smoky tongue of flame. The fire still smoldered in the corner. A little
wind shook the cypress-branches without, and carried the scent of the
opened lilies into the room.

Dong-Yung, still arrayed for feasting, went to the pigskin trunk in the
corner, fitted the key from her belt into the carven brass wings of the
butterfly, and lifted out the kitchen gods. One in each hand, she held
them, green and gold. She put them back in their niche, and lifted up a
bowl of rice to their feet, and beat her head on the ground before them.

"Forgive me, O my kitchen gods, forgive my injurious hands and heart;
but the love of my master is even greater than my fear of thee. Thou and
I, we bar the gates of heaven from him."

When she had finished, she tiptoed around the room, touching the chairs
and tables with caressing fingers. She stole out into the courtyard, and
bent to inhale the lily fragrance, sweeter by night than by day. "An
auspicious day," the gate-keeper had said that morning. Foh-Kyung had
stood beside her, with his feet in the sunshine; she remembered the
light in his eyes. She bent her head till the fingers of the lily-petals
touched her cheek. She crept back through the house, and looked at
Foh-Kyung smoking. His eyes were dull, even as are the eyes of sightless
bronze Buddhas. No, she would never risk going in to speak to him. If
she heard the sound of his voice, if he called her "little Flower of the
House," she would never have the strength to go. So she stood in the
doorway and looked at him much as one looks at a sun, till wherever else
one looks, one sees the same sun against the sky.

In the formless shadow she made a great obeisance, spreading out her
arms and pressing the palms of her hands against the floor.

"O my Lord and Master," she said, with her lips against the boards of
the floor, softly, so that none might hear her--"O my Lord and Master, I
go. Even a small wife may unbar the gates of heaven."

First, before she went, she cast the two kitchen gods, green and gold,
of ancient plaster, into the embers of the fire. There in the morning
the cook-rice amahs found the onyx stones that had been their eyes. The
house was still unlocked, the gate-keeper at the feast. Like a shadow
she moved along the wall and through the gate. The smell of the lilies
blew past her. Drums and chants echoed up the road, and the sounds of
manifold feastings. She crept away down by the wall, where the moon laid
a strip of blackness, crept away to unbar the gates of heaven for her
lord and master.




AN AWAKENING[3]

[Note 3: Copyright, 1918, by Margaret C. Anderson. Copyright, 1919,
by The John Lane Company.]

BY SHERWOOD ANDERSON

From _The Little Review_


Belle Carpenter had a dark skin, grey eyes and thick lips. She was tall
and strong. When black thoughts visited her she grew angry and wished
she were a man and could fight someone with her fists. She worked in the
millinery shop kept by Mrs. Nate McHugh and during the day sat trimming
hats by a window at the rear of the store. She was the daughter of Henry
Carpenter, bookkeeper in the First National Bank of Winesburg, Ohio, and
lived with him in a gloomy old house far out at the end of Buckeye
Street. The house was surrounded by pine trees and there was no grass
beneath the trees. A rusty tin eaves-trough had slipped from its
fastenings at the back of the house and when the wind blew it beat
against the roof of a small shed, making a dismal drumming noise that
sometimes persisted all through the night.

When she was a young girl Henry Carpenter made life almost unbearable
for his daughter, but as she emerged from girlhood into womanhood he
lost his power over her. The bookkeeper's life was made up of
innumerable little pettinesses. When he went to the bank in the morning
he stepped into a closet and put on a black alpaca coat that had become
shabby with age. At night when he returned to his home he donned another
black alpaca coat. Every evening he pressed the clothes worn in the
streets. He had invented an arrangement of boards for the purpose. The
trousers to his street suit were placed between the boards and the
boards were clamped together with heavy screws. In the morning he wiped
the boards with a damp cloth and stood them upright behind the dining
room door. If they were moved during the day he was speechless with
anger and did not recover his equilibrium for a week.

The bank cashier was a little bully and was afraid of his daughter. She,
he realized, knew the story of his brutal treatment of the girl's mother
and hated him for it. One day she went home at noon and carried a
handful of soft mud, taken from the road, into the house. With the mud
she smeared the face of the boards used for the pressing of trousers and
then went back to her work feeling relieved and happy.

Belle Carpenter occasionally walked out in the evening with George
Willard, a reporter on the Winesburg Eagle. Secretly she loved another
man, but her love affair, about which no one knew, caused her much
anxiety. She was in love with Ed Handby, bartender in Ed Griffith's
Saloon, and went about with the young reporter as a kind of relief to
her feelings. She did not think that her station in life would permit
her to be seen in the company of the bartender, and she walked about
under the trees with George Willard and let him kiss her to relieve a
longing that was very insistent in her nature. She felt that she could
keep the younger man within bounds. About Ed Handby she was somewhat
uncertain.

Handby, the bartender, was a tall broad-shouldered man of thirty who
lived in a room upstairs above Griffith's saloon. His fists were large
and his eyes unusually small but his voice, as though striving to
conceal the power back of his fists, was soft and quiet.

At twenty-five the bartender had inherited a large farm from an uncle in
Indiana. When sold the farm brought in eight thousand dollars which Ed
spent in six months. Going to Sandusky, on Lake Erie, he began an orgy
of dissipation, the story of which afterward filled his home town with
awe. Here and there he went throwing the money about, driving carriages
through the streets, giving wine parties to crowds of men and women,
playing cards for high stakes and keeping mistresses whose wardrobes
cost him hundreds of dollars. One night at a resort called Cedar Point
he got into a fight and ran amuck like a wild thing. With his fist he
broke a large mirror in the wash-room of a hotel and later went about
smashing windows and breaking chairs in dance halls for the joy of
hearing the glass rattle on the floor and seeing the terror in the eyes
of clerks, who had come from Sandusky to spend the evening at the resort
with their sweethearts.

The affair between Ed Handby and Belle Carpenter on the surface amounted
to nothing. He had succeeded in spending but one evening in her company.
On that evening he hired a horse and buggy at Wesley Moyer's livery barn
and took her for a drive. The conviction that she was the woman his
nature demanded and that he must get her, settled upon him and he told
her of his desires. The bartender was ready to marry and to begin trying
to earn money for the support of his wife, but so simple was his nature
that he found it difficult to explain his intentions. His body ached
with physical longing and with his body he expressed himself. Taking the
milliner into his arms and holding her tightly, in spite of her
struggles, he kissed her until she became helpless. Then he brought her
back to town and let her out of the buggy. "When I get hold of you again
I'll not let you go. You can't play with me," he declared as he turned
to drive away. Then, jumping out of the buggy, he gripped her shoulders
with his strong hands. "I'll keep you for good the next time," he said.
"You might as well make up your mind to that. It's you and me for it and
I'm going to have you before I get through."

* * *

One night in January when there was a new moon George Willard, who was,
in Ed Handby's mind, the only obstacle to his getting Belle Carpenter,
went for a walk. Early that evening George went into Ransom Surbeck's
pool room with Seth Richmond and Art Wilson, son of the town butcher.
Seth Richmond stood with his back against the wall and remained silent,
but George Willard talked. The pool room was filled with Winesburg boys
and they talked of women. The young reporter got into that vein. He
said that women should look out for themselves that the fellow who went
out with a girl was not responsible for what happened. As he talked he
looked about, eager for attention. He held the floor for five minutes
and then Art Wilson began to talk. Art was learning the barber's trade
in Cal Prouse's shop and already began to consider himself an authority
in such matters as baseball, horse racing, drinking and going about with
women. He began to tell of a night when he with two men from Winesburg
went into a house of prostitution at the County Seat. The butcher's son
held a cigar in the side of his mouth and as he talked spat on the
floor. "The women in the place couldn't embarrass me although they tried
hard enough," he boasted. "One of the girls in the house tried to get
fresh but I fooled her. As soon as she began to talk I went and sat in
her lap. Everyone in the room laughed when I kissed her. I taught her to
let me alone."

George Willard went out of the pool room and into Main Street. For days
the weather had been bitter cold with a high wind blowing down on the
town from Lake Erie, eighteen miles to the north, but on that night the
wind had died away and a new moon made the night unusually lovely.
Without thinking where he was going or what he wanted to do George went
out of Main Street and began walking in dimly lighted streets filled
with frame houses.

Out of doors under the black sky filled with stars he forgot his
companions of the pool room. Because it was dark and he was alone he
began to talk aloud. In a spirit of play he reeled along the street
imitating a drunken man and then imagined himself a soldier clad in
shining boots that reached to the knees and wearing a sword that jingled
as he walked. As a soldier he pictured himself as an inspector, passing
before a long line of men who stood at attention. He began to examine
the accoutrements of the men. Before a tree he stopped and began to
scold. "Your pack is not in order," he said sharply. "How many times
will I have to speak of this matter? Everything must be in order here.
We have a difficult task before us and no difficult task can be done
without order."

Hypnotized by his own words the young man stumbled along the board
sidewalk saying more words. "There is a law for armies and for men too,"
he muttered, lost in reflection. "The law begins with little things and
spreads out until it covers everything. In every little thing there must
be order, in the place where men work, in their clothes, in their
thoughts. I myself must be orderly. I must learn that law. I must get
myself into touch with something orderly and big that swings through the
night like a star. In my little way I must begin to learn something, to
give and swing and work with life, with the law."

George Willard stopped by a picket fence near a street lamp and his body
began to tremble. He had never before thought such thoughts as had just
come into his head and he wondered where they had come from. For the
moment it seemed to him that some voice outside of himself had been
talking as he walked. He was amazed and delighted with his own mind and
when he walked on again spoke of the matter with fervor. "To come out of
Ransom Surbeck's pool room and think things like that," he whispered.
"It is better to be alone. If I talked like Art Wilson the boys would
understand me but they wouldn't understand what I have been thinking
down here."

In Winesburg, as in all Ohio towns of twenty years ago, there was a
section in which lived day laborers. As the time of factories had not
yet come the laborers worked in the fields or were section hands on the
railroads. They worked twelve hours a day and received one dollar for
the long day of toil. The houses in which they lived were small cheaply
constructed wooden affairs with a garden at the back. The more
comfortable among them kept cows and perhaps a pig, housed in a little
shed at the rear of the garden.

With his head filled with resounding thoughts George Willard walked into
such a street on the clear January night. The street was dimly lighted
and in places there was no sidewalk. In the scene that lay about him
there was something that excited his already aroused fancy. For a year
he had been devoting all of his odd moments to the reading of books and
now some tale he had read concerning life in old world towns of the
middle ages came sharply back to his mind so that he stumbled forward
with the curious feeling of one revisiting a place that had been a part
of some former existence. On an impulse he turned out of the street and
went into a little dark alleyway behind the sheds in which lived the
cows and pigs.

For a half hour he stayed in the alleyway, smelling the strong smell of
animals too closely housed and letting his mind play with the strange
new thoughts that came to him. The very rankness of the smell of manure
in the clear sweet air awoke something heady in his brain. The poor
little houses lighted by kerosene lamps, the smoke from the chimneys
mounting straight up into the clear air, the grunting of pigs, the women
clad in cheap calico dresses and washing dishes in the kitchens, the
footsteps of men coming out of the houses and going off to the stores
and saloons of Main Street, the dogs barking and the children
crying--all these things made him seem, as he lurked in the darkness,
oddly detached and apart from all life.

The excited young man, unable to bear the weight of his own thoughts,
began to move cautiously along the alleyway. A dog attacked him and had
to be driven away with stones and a man appeared at the door of one of
the houses and began to swear at the dog. George went into a vacant lot
and throwing back his head looked up at the sky. He felt unutterably big
and re-made by the simple experience through which he had been passing
and in a kind of fervor of emotion put up his hands, thrusting them into
the darkness above his head and muttering words. The desire to say words
overcame him and he said words without meaning, rolling them over on his
tongue and saying them because they were brave words, full of meaning.
"Death," he muttered, "night, the sea, fear, loveliness." George Willard
came out of the vacant lot and stood again on the sidewalk facing the
houses. He felt that all of the people in the little street must be
brothers and sisters to him and he wished he had the courage to call
them out of their houses and to shake their hands. "If there were only a
woman here I would take hold of her hand and we would run until we were
both tired out," he thought. "That would make me feel better." With the
thought of a woman in his mind he walked out of the street and went
toward the house where Belle Carpenter lived. He thought she would
understand his mood and that he would achieve in her presence a position
he had long been wanting to achieve. In the past when he had been with
her and had kissed her lips he had come away filled with anger at
himself. He had felt like one being used for some obscure purpose and
had not enjoyed the feeling. Now he thought he had suddenly become too
big to be used.

When George Willard got to Belle Carpenter's house there had already
been a visitor there before him. Ed Handby had come to the door and
calling Belle out of the house had tried to talk to her. He had wanted
to ask the woman to come away with him and to be his wife, but when she
came and stood by the door he lost his self-assurance and became sullen.
"You stay away from that kid," he growled, thinking of George Willard,
and then, not knowing what else to say, turned to go away. "If I catch
you together I will break your bones and his too," he added. The
bartender had come to woo, not to threaten, and was angry with himself
because of his failure.

When her lover had departed Belle went indoors and ran hurriedly
upstairs. From a window at the upper part of the house she saw Ed Handby
cross the street and sit down on a horse block before the house of a
neighbor. In the dim light the man sat motionless holding his head in
his hands. She was made happy by the sight and when George Willard came
to the door she greeted him effusively and hurriedly put on her hat. She
thought that as she walked through the streets with young Willard, Ed
Handby would follow and she wanted to make him suffer.

For an hour Belle Carpenter and the young reporter walked about under
the trees in the sweet night air. George Willard was full of big words.
The sense of power that had come to him during the hour in the darkness
of the alleyway remained with him and he talked boldly, swaggering
along and swinging his arms about. He wanted to make Belle Carpenter
realize that he was aware of his former weakness and that he had
changed. "You will find me different," he declared, thrusting his hands
into his pockets and looking boldly into her eyes. "I don't know why but
it is so. You have got to take me for a man or let me alone. That's how
it is."

Up and down the quiet streets under the new moon went the woman and the
boy. When George had finished talking they turned down a side street and
went across a bridge into a path that ran up the side of a hill. The
hill began at Waterworks Pond and climbed upwards to the Winesburg Fair
Grounds. On the hillside grew dense bushes and small trees and among the
bushes were little open spaces carpeted with long grass, now stiff and
frozen.

As he walked behind the woman up the hill George Willard's heart began
to beat rapidly and his shoulders straightened. Suddenly he decided that
Belle Carpenter was about to surrender herself to him. The new force
that had manifested itself in him had he felt been at work upon her and
had led to her conquest. The thought made him half drunk with the sense
of masculine power. Although he had been annoyed that as they walked
about she had not seemed to be listening to his words, the fact that she
had accompanied him to this place took all his doubts away. "It is
different. Everything has become different," he thought and taking hold
of her shoulder turned her about and stood looking at her, his eyes
shining with pride.

Belle Carpenter did not resist. When he kissed her upon the lips she
leaned heavily against him and looked over his shoulder into the
darkness. In her whole attitude there was a suggestion of waiting.
Again, as in the alleyway, George Willard's mind ran off into words and,
holding the woman tightly, he whispered the words into the still night.
"Lust," he whispered, "lust and night and women."

* * *

George Willard did not understand what happened to him that night on the
hillside. Later, when he got to his own room, he wanted to weep and
then grew half insane with anger and hate. He hated Belle Carpenter and
was sure that all his life he would continue to hate her. On the
hillside he had led the woman to one of the little open spaces among the
bushes and had dropped to his knees beside her. As in the vacant lot, by
the laborers' houses, he had put up his hands in gratitude for the new
power in himself and was waiting for the woman to speak when Ed Handby
appeared.

The bartender did not want to beat the boy, who he thought had tried to
take his woman away. He knew that beating was unnecessary, that he had
power within himself to accomplish his purpose without that. Gripping
George by the shoulder and pulling him to his feet he held him with one
hand while he looked at Belle Carpenter seated on the grass. Then with a
quick wide movement of his arm he sent the younger man sprawling away
into the bushes and began to bully the woman, who had risen to her feet.
"You're no good," he said roughly. "I've half a mind not to bother with
you. I'd let you alone if I didn't want you so much."

On his hands and knees in the bushes George Willard stared at the scene
before him and tried hard to think. He prepared to spring at the man who
had humiliated him. To be beaten seemed infinitely better than to be
thus hurled ignominiously aside.

Three times the young reporter sprang at Ed Handby and each time the
bartender, catching him by the shoulder, hurled him back into the
bushes. The older man seemed prepared to keep the exercise going
indefinitely but George Willard's head struck the root of a tree and he
lay still. Then Ed Handby took Belle Carpenter by the arm and marched
her away.

George heard the man and woman making their way through the bushes. As
he crept down the hillside his heart was sick within him. He hated
himself and he hated the fate that had brought about his humiliation.
When his mind went back to the hour alone in the alleyway he was
puzzled, and stopping in the darkness, listened, hoping to hear again
the voice, outside himself, that had so short a time before put new
courage into his heart. When his way homeward led him again into the
street of frame houses he could not bear the sight and began to run,
wanting to get quickly out of the neighborhood that now seemed to him
utterly squalid and commonplace.




WILLUM'S VANILLA[4]

[Note 4: Copyright, 1919, by Harper & Brothers. Copyright, 1920, by
Edwina Stanton Babcock.]

BY EDWINA STANTON BABCOCK

From _Harper's Magazine_


The letter came while Mr. Pawket was chopping wood. His ax rested on a
stump and piles of white chips breathed fragrance around him as he stood
watching the buckboard of the Rural Free Delivery wind down the country
road.

The Rural Free Delivery consisted of a white horse, a creaking
buckboard, and a young woman of determined manner. A Rough Rider's hat
sat with an air of stern purpose on the Rural Free Delivery's dark head,
and a pair of surgeon's gauntlet gloves heightened her air of official
integrity.

As the buckboard approached the group of tulip-trees opposite Mr.
Pawket's residence he shoved back his hat and pulled a blue-spotted
handkerchief out of his hip pocket; passing the handkerchief over his
face, he greeted the Rural Free Delivery:

"Hot enough fer yer?"

It was really not so very hot, but if Mr. Pawket had not asked this
question he would have felt lacking in geniality. He did not, however,
go forward to intercept possible mail. There was the little iron box
with his name on it nailed to the tulip-tree; there was the red signal
to be adjusted. It pleased Mr. Pawket to realize that the government had
all this planned out for his special convenience and he was careful not
to upset régime. He watched the Rural Free Delivery climb down from the
buckboard, go to the little box on the tree, deposit one letter, lock
the box, and set up the signal. When the ceremony was concluded Mr.
Pawket came out from behind the barn. Walking with the heavy,
bent-kneed tread of the life-long farmer, he leaned upon the bars by the
cow-sheds.

"Many gitten 'em to-day?" he inquired.

The Rural Free Delivery climbed back into the buckboard; she pulled on
the gauntlets, replying with black-eyed reserve:

"Finn's folks had two--a asthma circler and a letter from that son they
thought was drownded. Mis' Sweetser's got a paper--- the one her
daughter is a manicurer sends her. And there's a box yet for the Grant
girl--her graduatin'-dress, I expect--seems she's too high-toned to wear
anything but machine-made."

The Rural Free Delivery whipped up the white horse and the stern
contours of the Rough Rider hat disappeared down the winding, shadowed
road. At last Mr. Pawket, rousing from the reverie induced by news of
the resurrection of Finn's boy, took down the bars and crossed the road
to the post-box. Dragging from his pocket a cluster of huge barn keys,
he sought among them for the infinitesimal key of the box. This small
key had the appearance of coquetting with Mr. Pawket--it invariably
disappeared behind the larger keys and eluded his efforts to single it
out; it seemed to him flirtatious, feminine; and as he stood like an old
Druid invoking the spirit of the tulip-tree, he addressed this small key
with benevolent irony.

"You'm a shrimp, that's what you are," Mr. Pawket said to the key.
"Nothin' but a shrimp.... Why in tarnation don't they have a key you can
see?... I'd hate to lose you on a dark night, I would," eying the key
severely.

But the shrimp key at least did its work, and Mr. Pawket with
unconcealed feelings of wonder and concern drew forth from the box the
letter. It was a large, rich-looking letter. The envelope was thin and
crackly, embossed with purple designs of twisted reptiles coiling around
a woman's face, and in one corner were small purple letters forming the
words "Hotel Medusa." The handwriting on the envelope was bold and
black, and the dark seal bore impress of a small winged form that Mr.
Pawket took to be a honey-bee. He regarded the letter suspiciously,
studying it from every position as he entered the kitchen door.

"Say, Mother, here's a letter. What'll I do with it?"

Mrs. Pawket came sighing from the washtub. She wrinkled her forehead as
one harried by the incessant demands of the outside world. Wiping her
hands on her wet apron, she took the letter, regarding it
contemptuously.

"Leave it be on the parlor mantel," advised Mrs. Pawket. "The twins is
comin' up the road. I can hear them hollerin' at that echo down by the
swamps. Leave it be; they'll attend to it."

Mr. Pawket, having carried out this injunction, stood by the door
considering whether it was worth while to go back to his chopping. The
sun was in the middle of the sky; he sniffed odors of the kitchen and
discerned a rich atmosphere known to his consciousness as "dinner-time."

"Now I'm here I may as well stay," he remarked to his wife. He sat
heavily down in a Turkey-red-covered rocking-chair, quoting facetiously:

    "Ef yer never want to be sad and sorry
    Just keep away from hurry and worry."

"The Rural says Finn's folks has heard from that young feller was
drownded."

Mrs. Pawket raised a disapproving face from contemplating a small kettle
of Irish stew, remarking, severely: "Much the Rural knows about it.
She's into everybody's business."

Mr. Pawket demurred. "Well, carr'in' the mail and all, she's liable to
sense a good deal. Some says she's always been foreknowledged. 'Twuz the
Rural foretold the blizzit last winter; 'twuz the Rural found out Hank
Jellaby's nephew was married. Wasn't it her knowed all the time who sot
Mullins's barn afire? There's a good many depends on the Rural for
keeping up with things."

Soon the sun was a green glare through the tulip-trees; that meant it
was half past twelve, and the twins raced in. They were hoarse from
intriguing with the echo in the swamp; but as they entered the gate
(careful to swing it the wrong way and squeeze through) they discussed
a tingling problem in mental arithmetic.

"If Mrs. Fenton gave her son two wapples" (snuffle), "and her nephew one
naple" (snuffle), "and two wapples to her son's friend, reservin' one
napple for herself and conservin' four rapples for the household, what
would be the sum of these given napples multiplied by four?"

Reciting this appalling chorus, the twins faced their grandfather, who,
poising his battered sun-hat on his knees, from the depths of his
arm-chair looked proudly, if fearfully, upon them.

"Say, Gramp', kin' you answer it?" demanded the twins.

Standing before him in the kitchen doorway, they mouthed it,
curly-headed, croaking synchronous challenge. They scraped their shoes
on a scraper near the door; one peered furtively under a covered dish on
the table while the other washed hands and face in a tin basin under the
grape-arbor. Together they made strange "snorting" noises of repressed
masculinity as, seizing knife and fork from the pile in the center of
the table, they took seats, elbows on plates, instruments waving in air.

"Kin you answer it?"

Mr. Pawket hedged. He also drew a chair up to the table and, spearing a
slice of bread with his knife, bent bushy brows.

"'Kin I answer it?' Well, that's a nice question. Would yer teacher like
me to answer it? No, he wouldn't. It's for your learnin', ain't it? Not
for mine. I'm all finished with them conundrums. Of course," went on Mr.
Pawket, airily--"of course I never done figurin' like that when I was a
boy. Them apples, now. Seems to me it all depends on the season. Ef the
lady was a widder, like as not she was took advantage of. I mistrust she
wouldn't be no judge of apples; not bein' a farmer, how could she know
that there's years when apples is valleyble, and other years when you
insult the pigs with 'em? But then--you talk about apples--Well, as for
a fine apple, whether it's Northern Spy or Harvest Moon...." Thus Mr.
Pawket skilfully directed the conversation into channels more familiar.

At last the twins, in a fine, concerted action of chewing, balanced
large slices of buttered bread on the flats of their hands, eyed their
grandparents, and, after swallowing with peculiar heavy efforts of the
epiglottis, remarked, simultaneously:

"Willum is comin' home."

Mr. Pawket started. He reached for his spectacles, solemnly polished
them, and put them on. Mrs. Pawket, bearing a large leaning tower of
griddle-cakes toward the table, halted as one petrified.

The twins bent over their plates, humped their shoulders, observing,
"That's what they all say down to the Center."

"Mr. Sykes heard it into the feedstore."

"Mis' Badger says it."

"They was all talkin' about it into the undertaker's."

"He's going to build a new house."

"His wife thinks she's goin' to like it here."

Mr. Pawket took off his spectacles. His wife! Willum with a wife?

The twins, now devouring griddle-cakes, turned on him with unmoved
faces.

"It's going to be a show-place. The butcher can tell yer all about it--a
grand house like a big railroad station, all gold pipes and runnin'
water."

One twin turned the syrup-jug upside down; there ensued a slight scuffle
between the two, each ardently attempting to hold his plate under the
golden falling globules.

"They'm goin' to have five ottermobiles, and one for the cook to run
herself around in; there's goin' to be one room all canary-birds, and
there's goin' to be a g'rage with painted winders and a steeple like a
church."

Mrs. Pawket sat down. She fanned herself with her apron.

"Set up to the table and eat, Mawther," feebly advised Mr. Pawket.

The twins, rapidly and scientifically consuming griddle-cakes, jaws
working, unemotional eyes watching the effect of their statements,
continued:

"They goin' to build on Cedar Plains."

"She's got the ideers."

"He's got the money."

"Just their ice-box alone is goin' to cost 'em two hundred dollars."

Mr. Pawket, with sudden irritation: "Now, now, now, that ain't sensible,
that ain't. Willum had ought to have talked it over with me. I'd like to
'a' reasoned with him. I could have showed him catalogues.... And them
two buildin' on Cedar Plains--it's onreasonable. It'll come hard on his
wife. She won't have no near neighbors; and look at how far they'll have
to go for weddin's and fun'rals and all."

Mrs. Pawket, suddenly bethinking her, rose and went into the "front"
room, or parlor, where, from a large mantelpiece ranged with
sugary-looking vases stuffed with brilliantly dyed grasses she plucked
the recently arrived letter. Looking at it upside down and with
nonchalance of disapproval, she put the letter before the twins,
commanding:

"Do as Grammar tells you and read it."

"That's right," said Mr. Pawket, spooning up gravy. He retucked a
kitchen towel in his neck, approving: "I don't know but what we ought to
read it. There may be sumpin' in it somebody wants we should know."

The twins handled the letter casually; they attacked the superscription
with glib unconcern.

"Hot-hell Medusa." began one twin, confidently.

He was instantly corrected by the other twin. "Yah--it is not
Hot-hell--it's _Ho_tel Medusa, It'ly. Yah!"

"It'ly? It'ly?" mused Mr. Pawket. "Well, I made out the I T, all right.
Now I ought to 'a' guessed the rest, It'ly bein' a place I'm familiar
with."

The twins were in conference.

"Medusa--you know who she was," remarked the elder twin by four seconds.

"Don't, huh? Snakes for hair--hey? Look at you and you turn into
stone--hey?"

"Shut up! She did not!"

"Shut up! She did!"

But the other twin busied himself with the post-mark.

"A. Malfi," he painfully deciphered....

"Say, Gramp', what's a Malfi?"

His brother remained engrossed with the embossed head of Medusa.

"Snakes for hair--turned 'em to stone--cut off her head," he chanted, in
blissful retrospect.

Mr. Pawket, reaching across the table, seized this student by the
collar. "Now, now, now! Whose head you cuttin' off?"

"Hern," explained this bloodthirsty twin. "She was a bad woman."

"Hey! Hey! Hey!" roared Mr. Pawket, with sudden severity. "None of that
talk here! You mind your own business, young man. Don't you give us none
of that gab." He turned to Mrs. Pawket: "What did I say about that new
young feller that's come to teach school? He ain't here for no
good--that's what I said!" Mr. Pawket studied the face on the envelope
with a sort of curious horror, concluding, "Ef she's what you say she
is, see to it that you don't take no more notice of her capers."

The twins now registered aggrieved expressions; they scratched curly
heads with perturbed spoons. "Medusa's hist'ry." They roared it in hurt
explanation.

After some discussion of the curious anatomical outline of the supposed
honey-bee on the seal, Mrs. Pawket finally slit the envelope with a
dinner-knife, and the twins, holding the letter between them, gave a
dashing, if slightly incorrect, reading.

     "AMALFI--IT'LY--HOTEL MEDOOSA.

     "DEAR MR. AND MRS. PAWKET,--This letter is from William Folsom, the
     little orphan boy for whom you did so much. What do you think? This
     boy who boarded with you summers is coming back to America with his
     wife, an Italian lady you are both sure to love! On account of
     unforeseen business necessity, Mrs. Folsom and I are forced to give
     up our charming ... vill ... villain ... villy...."

Here one twin ran down. The other twin looked over his brother's
shoulder, breathing thickly.

"Vanilla," he chewingly instructed.


     "Vanilla ... our charming vanilla, and on account of recent
     dev-dev-devil-elope-ments we are leaving It'ly at once. You
     remember the fine old property my father owned, called Cedar
     Plains? As I remember, it was not far from your farm where I spent
     so many happy summers. It is on Cedar Plains that Mrs. Folsom and I
     plan to erect our new home, an I ... talian van ... vill ... v...."

"Vanilla." This time it was Mr. Pawket who blandly supplied the word.

     "I shall count on you as good friends and neighbors and I am
     anxious to have my wife meet you. We have placed the building of
     our new home in the hands of an architect friend of mine who is to
     be on the spot until all is completed. Our beloved household
     furnishings have already been shipped to America and we are living
     for the present in this hotel. We shall come home by a somewhat
     cir-cus-to-us route, not arriving until our new home is ready for
     us. Won't you two good friends take Mr. Badgely as a boarder, and
     do give him that stunning old room I used to have?

     "With the kindest good wishes to you both,

     "Your boy,

     "WILLIAM FOLSOM."

The twins, having completed what had been for them a daring undertaking,
now looked about for release from an atmosphere grown suddenly boresome.
The elder by four seconds went to the door and, affecting intense
maturity, spat out from it. The younger, dipping his head in the
water-butt near the leader, took a small comb from his pocket and, using
the disturbed water-butt as a mirror, began parting into ideal
smoothness his upward-turning locks.

The first twin, seeing his brother's back turned, dug into his pockets
and, having brought out with an air of modest pride a fish-line, a
morsel of gingerbread, a bit of resin, human tooth, part of a human
bone, a kitten's skull, a chewed piece of gum, and an incredibly
besmirched Sunday-school card, extracted from these omens a large rusty
screw, which he proffered to his grandmother, muttering, "For your
Everything Jar." With a sudden shame at having been seen sympathizing
with the interests of a woman, this twin then seized his hat and fled
whooping down the road to school, followed by his brother, who, holding
between his vision and the sun a small bit of crimson glass, exulted in
the contemplation of a deep red universe.

Mrs. Pawket, bundling the dinner-dishes into a pan and pouring hot water
from the teakettle over them, sighed. Mr. Pawket, having again retired
to the Turkey-red-covered chair, watched his wife somewhat dazedly; he
was still thinking of the contents of "Willum's" letter.

"Comin' home by a cir-cus-to-us route," he soliloquized ... "and
devil-elopements. I suppose he knows what he's doin', but it all sounds
kindy resky to me. Did you get it that A. Malfi was his wife's maiden
name? Don't it sound sorter like a actress to you? One of them sassy,
tricky furriners, I'll bet. 'N' a vanilla--what call has Willum got to
build a vanilla, his age? A mansion, now--I could onderstand how the boy
would hanker for a mansion--he always had big feelin's, Willum had--but
a vanilla! Say, you ever seen one of them there contraptions?"

Mrs. Pawket, washing the dishes, hung up the soap-shaker and cast her
eyes upward as in an effort of memory. She reached for a dish-towel,
replying, somewhat evasively, "Where my mother come from they had 'em
a-plenty; there was one on every street."

Her husband regarded her with deep respect. "Ye don't say?"

Mrs. Pawket squeezed out the dishmop with a thoughtful air; she cast a
hasty, authoritative glance at the range, banging the door shut with a
decision that made Mr. Pawket jump as she snapped:

"Just the same, this here ain't no place for a vanilla. A vanilla around
these parts would be the same as if you was to wear your Sunday silk hat
out a-plowin'. They hain't got good judgment, them two hain't."

The old farmer regarded his wife with serious attention. Lighting his
pipe, he lay back in the Turkey-red chair, puffing in silence. At last
he laid the pipe down and, laboriously pulling off his boots, hummed an
air which had for its sole motif the undynamic suggestion:

    "By and by
     By and by
     By and by. By and by. By and by."

At last the thumping of stocking feet ceased with the drone of the
drowsy voice; a bit of sunlight filtering first through the tulip-trees,
then through the little low kitchen window, let it be seen that Mr.
Pawket had lapsed into slumber. His wife looked at him with an
expressionless face. Wringing her hands out of the dish-water, she
carried the pan to the door; with contemptuous words of warning to some
chickens near by, she flung the contents on the grass. Going further
into the door-yard she dragged up some bleached clothing and stuffed it
into a clothes-basket. Choking the range full of coal, wrenching into
place a refractory coal-scuttle, she turned the damper in the stove-pipe
and set the stove-plates slightly a-tilt. Then she seized the tin
wash-basin, and, setting up a small mirror against the window, loosened
her hair and dragged her face and head through a severe toilet whose
original youthful motive of comeliness had been lost in habitual effort
of tidiness. This done, Mrs. Pawket donned a clean white apron and
draped around her neck a knitted orange tie which she pinned with a
scarlet coral breast-pin.

Having thus dressed for the afternoon and for the feared, desired, but
seldom experienced visitation called "company," Mrs. Pawket took from
her pocket the screw her grandson had bestowed upon her. Suddenly, with
the expression of one who in the interests of art performs dangerous
acrobatic feats, she dragged a chair in front of a cupboard. Climbing,
with many expressions of insecurity, on this chair, Mrs. Pawket reached
a bony hand into the cupboard, groping on the top shelf for an object
which her fingers approached tremulously. This object with considerable
care Mrs. Pawket brought down to earth and set upon the kitchen table.
It was a short, stumpy bowl or jar, upon which curious protuberances of
all kinds clustered. The protuberances encircled the jar in something
like the way fungus circles a tree hole, in strange and various
patterns.

Mrs. Pawket, the light deepening in her eyes, took from her apron pocket
the screw; holding it very daintily in one work-worn hand, with the
other she dove into further recesses and produced, wrapped in an oily
bit of newspaper, a large lump of putty.

Now a solemn ritual began. Breaking off a bit of the putty, Mrs. Pawket
welded it on the jar near the other protuberances; while the putty was
soft she fixed in it the screw, arranging that implement by a method
best calculated to display its screw characteristics. Then Mrs. Pawket's
eyes grew darker, a flush came into her wrinkled cheeks; she wrung the
moisture from her brow in a sort of agony of creative pleasure. As one
who performs an action sacred in its heightened detachment and
mechanical efficiency, she rummaged with desperate insistence on another
and higher shelf of the cupboard, this time bringing forth a very small
vial of gilt varnish and an equally small paint-brush with which to
apply it. Mrs. Pawket then observed that her hand was shaking and chid
herself severely:

"Look at me! Soon as I see how pritty this here Everything Jar is
gettin' to be, I go and get excited. If I'm goosefleshed now, what'll I
be when the Everything is finished?"

But the Everything Jar was a long way from finished and the unsatisfied
ache of the creative artist made heavy Mrs. Pawket's breast. She
surveyed the ceramic, half-erupt with a medley of buttons, screws,
safety-pins, hooks, knobs, all covered with their transforming gilt, and
tried to imagine how it would seem to have it completed. Then the
ultimate anxiety beset her--when completed, should the Everything be
bestowed upon the minister's family or--this a recent and daring
inspiration--should it be conferred upon Willum's wife, the mistress of
the proposed vanilla? Mrs. Pawket was fairly tortured by uncertainty.
She shook the sleeping Mr. Pawket by the shoulder.

"Say, look at the Everything. I just now put on that last screw. Ain't
it handsome?"

As he blinked at the fantastic jar gleaming with golden excrescences, a
deep sense of beauty thrilled Mr. Pawket.

"Hey, Maw," he chuckled. "That's the best yet. My! ain't it pritty? It
beats that lamp-shade ye made out er the tinfoil. Now the question is,
who ye goin' to give it to?"

"It's fer the vanilla," returned Mrs. Pawket, calmly.

Mr. Pawket put up his hand and wrung out his ear; he thought he could
not have heard aright; such aplomb, such dashing assurance as was his
wife's! His gray beard vibrated with curiosity.

"For the vanilla," the artist repeated, firmly. "I take it Willum's wife
won't be too proud to accept a notion or two fer her parlor. 'Tain't
likely that she, being so long in a furrin country, has had much chance
to go through the stores and pick out bric-à-brac. I don't know but what
she would be thankful for an ornament or so."

"Ornaments?" Mr. Pawket dwelt reverently upon the word. "Ornaments? I
dunno but what you got it right, though I wouldn't never have thought of
it myself." He leaned over the table the better to gloat upon the golden
jar. "Well," he summed up--"well, wimmen do beat all for mind-readin'.
First she sets up house-keepin', it's _ornaments_ she's goin' to hanker
fer--something fer the center-table most likely; and here you, who she
'ain't never see, stands all ready with an Everything fer her!"

A few days after the excitement produced by Willum's letter the
architect arrived. He was a tall, old-young man with the preoccupied air
of having reduced all human existence to exact diagrams. He was,
however, strangely intoxicated by the quiet and beauty of his country
surroundings. On the evening of his arrival he installed himself happily
in the spare room of the Pawkets' farm-house, acting, as Mrs. Pawket
marveled, as "if he hadn't never lived up in them classy city beehives."

Mr. Badgely, however, seemed to the farmer and his wife unnaturally
ecstatic over the ordinary manifestations of the physical universe. He
would stand for hours looking off over soft sunrise country; he would
hang over the bars by the cow-sheds, staring down the red road or
gazing pensively up at the ancient outlines of the Pawkets' homestead.
When the old farmer went up to him with knockkneed, rheumatic tread,
inquiring, "Well, how goes it?" the architect would reply:

"Oh, heavenly! Such depth! Such substance! Such integrity!"

When Mr. Pawket, fearing such brain lesions as he could not diagnose,
saw that these epithets were directed toward his own home in its
tulip-tree setting, he would range himself alongside of the architect,
eye his residence critically, and expectorate as he avowed:

"It wants roofing. Come vacation I'm goin' ter put the twins to scrapin'
them pesky mossback shingles; then I may go with the tide and buy me a
fancy tin roof."

Mr. Badgely would sweep him with an unseeing look. He would stretch five
very long fingers toward the façade of the farm-house, muttering, "Of
course not the dormers; they obtrude, I think, and the note is
pseudo-foreign. We should try to evolve something absolutely American,
don't you think? But the pilasters, the door paneling, positively Doric
in their clean sobriety! The eastern development, now; there may have
been reason for the extreme slant toward the east--it orients well, but
with a certain shock...."

"Shock? I guess yes," Mr. Pawket would reply. "'Twuz struck by
lightnin', tore down considerable." Then Mr. Pawket would remember that
Willum had asked him to be all the help he could to the architect, so he
would cast his eyes up to the sun as one who dovetails multitudinous
engagements, remarking: "What say we go down to Cedar Plains now? Fool
around a little. Kindy block the thing all out, as it were."

Once Mr. Pawket had added, "Ef we can't do nothin' else, you can tell me
ef you want any of them trees left a-standin'."

The dreaming architect had turned on him like one under sudden electric
compulsion; he shook himself into unbelievable alertness.

"The--er--trees? Left standing?"

Mr. Pawket smiled indulgently. He scratched a match on the seat of his
overalls and lighted his pipe, answering between puffs: "I guess you 'm
new to the business, ain't ye? Don't ye know, boy, the fust thing ye do
when ye set out to build a house is to lay all the trees low? Some does
it with dunnamite; some does it with mules and swearin'--anything to
root out the pesky things."

An extraordinary look of terror had swept the architect's face.

"Nervous," noted Mr. Pawket, "nervous! Maw'll have to feed him up with
buttermilk and put drops into his coffee. Them city people is always
nagged into nerves." The old man continued in fatherly fashion:

"Now, you wantin' to make all clear for anything as sizable as a
vanilla, fust thing we do is to 'scratch off the trees.' I can git you
plenty fellers handy with ax and saw, but when it comes to them cussed
roots, why, then, you 'm goin' to want dunnamite."

The architect bowed his head thoughtfully. As the two took the little
bronzed path leading to the natural park-land dark with tapering cedars,
he gave a puzzled look at the old farmer. At last he seemed struck by an
idea and said, slowly:

"Do you know, Mr. Pawket, we architects are often a little vague; we
need so much to--er--confer--and--er--ahem!--consult. Now, really, I
should be so interested. Just what are your personal preferences with
regard to the construction of an Italian villa?"

Mr. Pawket was for the moment slightly dazed. He surmised that the
question placed him somewhat at a disadvantage; yet, somehow, it seemed
to him that he knew a good deal about Italian villas. Gathering together
certain impressions derived from the conversation of the twins, from a
picture seen on a calendar, from the one lurid film of his experience,
and from certain opulent descriptions of the building of the Tabernacle,
it seemed to him that he knew a little something about occult species of
architecture. He not immodestly presented his ideas.

"I take it"--squashing ruminatively through puddles--"I take it that the
vanilla idee is kinder intricate, ain't it?--somethin' fancy and grand
like a castle? Two or three cupolos, er course, and all run around with
stoops and balconies; marble staircases inside." Mr. Pawket added this
carelessly as one used to the larger handling of details. "High
sideboards set out in silver in the dinin'-room--a reel handsome
phonnygraft into the front room and statoos on the gateposts."

The architect receiving this preliminary sketch with such silent
respect, Mr. Pawket gained courage and resumed:

"Wall-papers I ain't so sure about." The old farmer took out a large
clasp-knife and, paring his thumb-nail, continued, somewhat loftily: "I
presume that is as the lady of the house commands. Some favors blue, but
there's a many as is great hands for red. I see a house once had dead
animals, stuffed codfish, and shot ducks all over the wall-paper into
the dinin'-room; 'twuz reel tony! As fer the yard--well, I mistrust that
Willum, bein' sociable and always interested into the open air, would
want circular seats around whatever trees was left standin'. Ye could
paint 'em red, white, and blue, ye know. And he'd like a pond, maybe,
with a white swan shovin' back and forth."

* * *

At last came the day when vans of imported laborers arrived and began
quick breaking of ground and laying of foundations on Cedar Plains.
Parts of the superb heating system, the installing of which was the
architect's special care, numerous white bath-tubs--these things were
deposited before the eyes of the excited Mr. Pawket, who, in the absence
of the owner of the proposed villa, felt that he must be very vigilant
in overseeing. Every day the old man appeared at Cedar Plains, boots
spattered, overalls greased and clayey, making his anxious comments to
the architect, who received them thoughtfully, with the air of putting
all suggestions into immediate execution.

So the building of the "vanilla" proceeded, but it proceeded under the
stigma of an outraged countryside. The "show-place" confidently
predicted seemed not to evolve; outside of insane expenditures for
heating and bathing and the sanitary care of laundry and food, there
were few evidences that the villa was to be magnificent. Development
after development not only puzzled the neighboring farmers, but incensed
them. Men driving by "Willum's vanilla" pointed it out, tongue in
cheek, with derisive whip; their women folks, veiled and taciturn,
leaned forward in curious wonder to condemn silently. Such complacent
agriculturists as owned "ottermobiles" came from miles away to view the
thing; they halted their machines by the roadside and went in parties up
through the tapering cedars to where stood the slowly rising square
white walls, which they stared at with patronizing guffaws. It was the
fashion for the youth of Brook Center to spend Sunday afternoons down in
Cedar Plains, where among the dark trees they found the rosy trail of
arbutus; where strawberries hung in the rank green grass, and where, of
autumn days, wandering over the sweet stubble, they confessed to each
other those innocent melancholies of beings that have never known
sorrow.

On the edge of the plains where the russet path met the highway was an
old well. Here the brooding boys and girls were accustomed to bring
their loves and quarrels; here they hoisted the bucket from its
glittering black depths, poured water on tight bunches of anemone, fern,
and Dutchman's breeches, took long, gasping country drinks, and played
all the pranks youth plays when relaxed beside its subtle, laughing
ally--water. As the Sunday sun went down the boys and girls discussed
the strange phenomenon of the new house whose enigmatic walls gleamed
through the fields of their once free rovings. They uttered dark
hearsay: "Some says them two is crazy; that's why they been chased out
er It'ly." The twins, playing stick-knife in the soft turf that edged
the road, flatly contradicted this:

"They are not crazy, neither; they 'm as common sense as you are."

"Well, ef they ain't crazy, why they goin' to have stone floors? Why
they got them big old stone jars that come yesterday? Why ain't they
goin' to have no stair carpets? Why ain't they goin' to have no
window-curtings?"

"They are, too, crazy, and they gone and built that old vanilla right on
where we used to pick checkerberries, and he's goin' to put a outlandish
Dago top right on this here well, the kind they have in It'ly where they
all wear rags and eat lemon-skins."

"Nobody won't keep me from drinkin' out of this well when it's got a
Dago top."

"Nobody won't never stop me from goin' on Cedar Plains if I've got a
mind ter. I got as good a right as they got."

"I'd just as soon heave a rock right now at that there vanilla. I don't
care for it. I ain't afraid of no tin-faced I-talian dudes."

At last came a letter announcing the proposed arrival of the villa
furniture. The buckboard with the white horse halted again under the
tulip-tree and this time Mr. Pawket with unwonted sense of haste
intercepted the letter. The Rural, whose Rough Rider hat was now
discarded for a black-velvet tam-o'-shanter adorned with a coquettish
pink rose, rigidly resigned it to his eager grasp.

Mr. Pawket, for all his preoccupation, was not blind to the pink rose;
he quickly got its sense and made the usual deduction.

"When does the weddin' take place?" he asked, facetiously.

The rigidity around the corners of the Rural's mouth did not lessen as
she replied with the evasion Brook Center found piquant, "Next day after
Never."

Having successfully warded off inquiry as to personal plans, the Rural
returned to her rightful prerogatives of newsmonger, demanding:

"How's Mis' Pawket's Everything gittin' along? I got a couple
shoe-buttons fer her. She'd better hurry up and finish it; I hear there
is four more in town startin' Everything Jars. Seems there's a sort of
rivalry of who's goin' to be the first to get a Everything into the
vanilla."

A look of calamity shaded Mr. Pawket's face, but he accepted the two
shoe-buttons with dignified reserve.

"All she needs now is a harness buckle and a couple peanut-shells," he
explained, nonchalantly. "I can get them fer her easy enough; the twins
have been helping her some, one with a sinker and the other with a hook
and eye. 'Tain't likely any one can git their jar in afore hern. I
wouldn't advise nobody to nerve themselves up to it. There's been
rumors," added Mr. Pawket, gravely--"there's been rumors as some one is
tryin' to git up a rockery fer the vanilla. Now I wouldn't advise 'em
to. The lady will want to tinker with that herself. But if everybody is
itchin' to help, why don't they take up a nice collection er white
door-knobs to trim up the garden paths?"

The mail maiden smiled a contemptuous smile; her black eyes held like
sediment the look of repudiation.

"Ah, door-knobs!"--scornfully. "What's the use Of givin' up your curios
and souvenirs to folks like that? They don't know how to appreciate it!
I got a better use for my door-knobs. They 'm peculiar, them two is;
they don't know nothin'. You heard that about the bedrooms, I presume?"

Mr. Pawket, a worried look settling on his kind face, peered up at the
Rural; he took off his sun-hat and fanned himself with it.

"The bedrooms?" he questioned, falteringly. "D' ye mean that comical
cage-like where they goin' to sleep outdoors?"

The Rural smiled scornfully; she adjusted the pink rosebud with a
haughty, gauntleted hand.

"I mean the walls," shortly. "Plaster walls. Yes, sir, that's what I
mean and I know what I'm talkin' about--rough walls, plaster, like a
cellar. I know what I'm talkin' about, for it's my intended has the job;
he's 'most crazy about it, my intended is, it's gone all over the Center
and every one laughin' and teasin' him about it.... She's wrote it
herself in a letter with that same honey-bee onto the envelope. 'I want
the bedroom walls to be rough plaster,' that's what she's went and
wrote, 'of a pale yellow colorin' Mr. Badgely will choose. Please allow
him to mix the color' (ain't it awful?) 'and put it on very rough' (she
says). 'I want the grain especially coarse and rich' (she says).
'_Coarse and rich_'!" The Rural lifted dramatic eyes, inquiring again,
"Ain't that _terrible_?"

Mr. Pawket hesitated. An idea of loyalty possessed him; he made a feeble
attempt at seeming to support the unknown lady's taste.

"Er course, as I look at vanillas--" he began, weakly.

But the Rural interrupted him with a vicious clip of her lean brown
jaws. "Vanillas?" with scornful inflection. "_Vanillas?_" She lashed the
white horse into a sprawling stagger as she snapped, "She don't know
nothin' about vanillas!" and rattled confidently away, calling back,
scornfully; "She don't know nothin'; she 'ain't never had no
instruction; she don't reelize that there's such things as wall-papers.
'Coarse and rich,'" sneered the Rural. She peered back over her trim
young shoulder, adding: "They say their furniture has come. Everybody is
down to the junction, studyin' it. I'm glad it ain't mine."

It was true that the furniture had arrived. Braving the vicissitudes of
sea routes; badly shipped by an Italian warehouse, and roughly handled
at an American port, still the furniture had arrived. It had been dumped
out of its crated cars at the little Brook Center station. To the lover
of Flemish and Spanish carving, to the connoisseur of Genoese cabinets
and Italian intarsia, to the student of time-fumed designs and forms,
the coming of this furniture might well have been an event; for by a
freak of destiny, on the little platform of an obscure country junction
were assembled the hoardings of centuries of tradition, the adored
heirlooms of a long line of ancestry. One huge case, half wrecked,
showed the gleam of Florentine brasses; another, crated and roped,
revealed faded Genoese brocades; slender broken legs and edges of carved
flaps protruded from battered sheathings. To some minds all this might
have spelled a certain sort of poetry; to the curious group assembled at
the junction it spelled eccentricity and, what was worse, a fixed and
immoral shabbiness of existence!

The junction agent pointed out a half-crated table standing by itself;
it looked inconceivably old and was of a timber unknown to Brook Center.
Its rickety four legs, wrapped separately, tapered off into carvings of
opulent nymphs and the wild, laughing faces of dryads and fauns--these
legs were observed by the curious groups at the junction to be badly
worn and honeycombed with worm-holes.

"For the vanilla," it was whispered from one to another; the junction
agent, hand over mouth, bowed himself backward in mirth. "They say it's
all from her home, and this is the dinin'-room table. My! My! My! ain't
it awful, all them old, ancient things?"

Mr. Pawket, affecting a connoisseurship unconsciously copied from the
architect, bent over the table, examining it; with vague puzzlement he
passed his hand over its cut and hacked surface--surface on which
hundreds of monks of the time of Clement III had whetted their restless
knives.

"I don't onderstand it; I don't onderstand it"--the old farmer feebly
shook his head--"unless it's she ain't used to nothin' better and he's
kep' his mouth shut. 'Twould be like Willum to pertend he didn't care;
he was always biddable. M' wife could feed him anythin' from pot-cheese
to pork; he was always a great hand to keep the peace."

The junction master watched in leering silence the brittle collection of
household fittings being lifted into carts. "Well, I guess I'm glad it
ain't _me_ is goin' to have 'em for neighbors," he observed, feelingly.
"They 'll fall back on you a good deal, one thing and another; they 'm
pretty well broken down in pocket--you can see that."

Mr. Pawket in dumb disappointment climbed up into his wagon and stooped
to take the reins. For a few moments he chewed violently with his front
teeth before he spat desperately into the junction geranium-bed,
asserting with dignity:

"Oh, I guess you got no call to worry. 'Tain't as if they didn't have no
friends in this country. Willum's sort of son to me, my own boy bein'
long dead. Ef the worst comes to the worst I don't know but what I could
make a fist to help him out. Whoa, there!" Mr. Pawket, rising in his
seat, backed his team truculently. "Ef anythin's needed," he observed,
superbly, "I shall see to it myself--'twould n't take me long to buy him
a dining-room table and a few little fixin's so's he could hold up his
head in the world."

All the way home Willum's friend pondered the thing. Once when the
horses stopped to drink at a wayside trough he slapped his knee fiercely
and said: "That's the ticket! Yes, sir, that's the size of it!" At
dinner, after the twins had taken their departure, he suggested his plan
to his wife; to his immense relief she met the thing in his own spirit.

"A golden-oak dinin'-table, anyway," argued Mr. Pawket. "One or two
fancy fixin's so they can hold up their heads in the world."

"And shut people's mouths," agreed his wife. "That hotel-keeper's girl,
now, I never see any one more sassy--she with an Everything only half
done and sayin' she's goin' to be the first to get one into the vanilla,
and yet talkin' something terrible behind them and their furniture's
backs."

"How's your Everything?" asked Mr. Pawket, suddenly; a grim
determination shot into the eyes under his hairy brows.

For answer his wife rose. Unwrapping some white mosquito-netting, she
presented to view a large, bulbous object encircled with protuberances,
excrescenced with golden knobbiness--this object, strangely sticky,
smelled something like bananas; it was the Everything, completed and
unveiled. Mr. and Mrs. Pawket gazed upon it in silent admiration. As
they stood lost in contemplation of its conglomerate goldiness, there
came the sound of a sprightly whistle and light step, and the architect
appeared in the doorway.

Mr. Badgely had by this time become an intimate member of the farm
household. The two old people beamed upon him; Mr. Pawket waved him
excitedly toward the table, announcing:

"Well, sir, it's finished. Take it or leave it; I don't know as you
could find one any handsomer."

Mr. Badgely started theatrically. He was clad in white flannels and a
white silk shirt; a golden-brown tie matched the brown of a dreaming
fire in his eyes, and there were brown silk socks upon his shapely
calf-skinned feet. The Pawkets, even in their absorption, noted that, if
not really young, the architect suggested something very like youth. His
dapper figure now bent reverently over the kitchen table on whose
red-and-white-checkered cloth reposed the gold jar; he drew a long
breath.

"The--er--Everything!" he murmured. After a long and careful scrutiny of
the golden object, he turned to Mr. Pawket.

"Really--it--it defies description--it is so--er--genuine! I confess I
never have seen anything quite like it--anywhere. Mrs. Pawket, I do
congratulate you."

"There's a rage for 'em now," explained Mr. Pawket, proudly, "but 't was
she started the first one. She began the hull thing; we was foolish
enough to mention ourn to the hotel-keeper's daughter, and now, as fur
as I can gather, there's six Everythings started right here in Brook
Center."

Mr. Badgely showed deep emotion. "Really, six Everythings? You surprise
me. I had no idea the community boasted such--er--creative feeling."

The old farmer looked at the young man, then at his wife. "Tell him what
you goin' to do," he commanded. Mrs. Pawket, however, twisted nervously
at the end of the white mosquito-netting and said she felt too shy. Mr.
Pawket with manly decision relieved her of the burden of explanation.

"Seems she's had it in her mind to finish that there Everything in time
to have it on the center-table in the vanilla," he said; "and now she's
gone and got me so het up with interest that I got to take a hand, too.
Now, fer instance, the furniture--" The old man hitched himself nearer
to the architect, saying in sepulchral tones of parental anxiety:
"'Tain't fer me to interfere, but I seen the stuff. I been down to the
junction and see what they got. Well, say, ain't it pitiful, all that
old, ancient furniture?"

Mr. Badgely nodded his head with another sort of concern. "Perfectly
rotten carelessness. But I've sent to town for a corking man who handles
these things; he's coming out to-morrow with his staff. After all, it's
merely a question of understanding period, and American restoration is
diabolically clever."

But the old farmer waved the younger man grandly aside. "That's as may
be; that's as may be," he said, hastily. "Put it in the kitchen or use
it in the g'rage--I ain't one to advise waste; but see here, my young
man"--he stared impressively into the architect's face--"I knowed
Willum's folks. I know what he's used to and what he's got a right to
expect. Ef he's lost money, that ain't none of my business, and ef he's
married an Eyetalian, that ain't no reflection on _her_. As I take it,
they 'm all sorter down at heel in It'ly, and it seems they got now so
they don't know no better. But I knowed Willum's folks. I know he should
hold up his head in his own country."

A faint color stole into Mr. Pawket's gray-bearded face. Mrs. Pawket's
eyes were fixed admiringly on her husband. Mr. Badgely bent his head in
respectful listening. Mr. Pawket struck an attitude close to the
Everything Jar. He was glad that the twins, with their habit of shrewd
analysis, were not there as he said:

"I ain't rich--but," with a significant cough, "I ain't no one to stand
by and see the hull Center pokin' the finger er shame at Willum and his
furniture. The vanilla ... well, what's done is done, and it can't be
helped: seems it's what they set their hearts on and some folks like to
be strange-appearin', but the furniture--well, it don't suit, that's
all! Willum's the kind should have what 's all the go--plush and satin
and chenille-like." The old farmer looked at the architect meaningly; he
felt himself suddenly a man of the world; he stood almost straight in
his wrinkled boots, looking around the little kitchen fiercely and
roaring: "Golden oak or bird's-eye maple! I got catalogues. Spare no
expense. Get him what he needs. I'll back you!"

It was a moment full of significance. The architect, a man of many
subtle perceptions, was quite aware of it. He himself had been worried
over the general attitude of the country community toward the villa,
which, he could see, had deeply disappointed and mortified anticipation.
Rumors had reached him that the neighborhood not only repudiated the new
building on the grounds of general distaste, but that a movement of
ostracism had begun by which the intents and purposes of the occupants
of the villa were to be balked and frustrated. Brook Center, so Mr.
Badgely had divined, was keen for patronizing the newly arrived Italian
lady with gifts of decorated umbrella-stands, lamp-shades, and
door-mats; but, on the other hand, it had severely decided not to be
patronized by the expected householders. Supplies of milk and cream
could not be promised; fresh eggs, it appeared, were needed for home
consumption; pranks were planned by the young people to further
humiliate the supposedly downtrodden and financially embarrassed Willum.
There had even been talk of filling up the well--now topped by a
graceful Italian canopy--with mud and stones; and one enterprising
spirit had already chalked upon the bucket, "We don't want no Dagos to
Brook Center." In short, it had begun to seem to the architect that the
immediate atmosphere was unpropitious for a serene home-coming. Now, as
he faced the eager old farmer, something like a solution dawned on him.

"Er--expense"--the architect repeated Mr. Pawket's word--"er--do I
understand, sir, that besides that very rare and (ahem!) imposing
specimen of Mrs. Pawket's handiwork--this Everything Jar--do I
understand you to mean that you are so good as to wish to assist in
the--er--interior furnishings?"

The old farmer eyed him with delight.

"That's the ticket," he roared. "You got it right; you're the man for my
money." He struck an attitude of almost intoxicated satisfaction,
roaring again: "Golden oak, that's what; none too good for such as him.
Get him what he's used to. _Him_ with that old, ancient furniture!" Mr.
Pawket pressed a roll of extremely faded one-dollar bills into the
architect's hand, repeating: "A golden-oak set fer the dinin'-room. I
know where they have it slick and shinin'. Take yer catalogue and make
yer pick. Cost! By the great gander! what do I care fer cost?" A fervor
like that of a whirling dervish seized the old farmer. "Golden oak!" he
roared. Red-plush parlor suite." His gaze, falling upon the Everything,
became radiant. He hitched his suspenders with broad effects of swagger,
repeating once more, "It's what he's used to and the best ain't too good
for how he was brought up."

* * *

At last arrived the morning of the day when the owners of the villa
were expected, and it found the architect in a curious mixture of dread,
amusement, doubt, and eagerness. The villa, its tiled roof melting
softly through the filed tapers of dark cedars, was, he knew, what it
should be. He walked about the winding drives, his eyes dwelling upon
clumps of imported cypress and rare fruit-trees, his approving glance
sweeping over vistas landscaped by his own art, which clever art had set
stone benches in lovely little dells or by pools where a mossy nymph
sprayed the surrounding ferns.

Everything was as it should be. The walls of the white villa would soon
be softened by young vines newly sprouting; the terraces had stretches
of arcades and flowers; large terra-cotta pots filled with acacias and
oleanders massed well against the white of the steps and the blue of the
country sky. The whole scene was almost Italian--sunny, graceful,
restful. The architect smiled happily and knew himself justified of his
undertaking.

But within--within, where most he had dreamed mellowness--where most he
had desired the sense of ripe and harmonious surroundings? Oh, the thing
was too horrible, too outrageous! Could they possibly understand? Could
William Folsom and this Italian wife of his ever be made to see how
unavoidable, inevitable it had all been? Badgely, anxiously gnawing his
lower lip, shook his head. "I'm a fool," he muttered; "and yet I vow I
know of no other way. Talk about vendettas! they are queer here, really
queer--if one were sufficiently to antagonize them!..."

The architect directed his steps to the big stucco garage, still a
little raw-looking with its green shutters and tiles; there he
encountered the head of the workmen who were engaged in restoring the
much-suffering villa furniture. The alert, gray-clad man met him at the
door and shook his head deprecatingly.

"Don't ask me about those heavenly things!" He waved despairing hands.
"They are too lovely. I've been quoting Tasso to that little signorina
of a writing-desk. But, dear man, we can't possibly install any of it
for at least a month. These things are exquisite, priceless, but so
antique they've got to be mothered like babies. The chests are about
the only things in condition, and they've lost their hinges and I've got
to have the lovely brasses copied."

Stepping into the smartly cushioned car, Mr. Badgely sat himself down.
He gave the order dreamily. With a perturbed yet dauntless expression he
lay back on the soft cushions, gazing up to the whirling green of the
trees as the car flew along the country road.

"It all depends on her--it really all depends upon her. If she's the
real thing she'll understand and play the game; if she isn't--" He shook
his head, put one long leg over the other, and groaned.

When, however, the train stopped at the Brook Center Junction and
William Folsom, laughing, waved his hat, Mr. Badgely drew a long breath
of relief, for at Folsom's side stood a tall, graceful cosmopolite, a
being dark-eyed, daring, with the keen, lovable face of the aristocrat
of the spirit--in short, a perfection of feminine understanding in very
assured tailoring.

"She'll do," the architect told himself. His greetings were suave and
deliberate, but of necessity, almost before the car sprang away from the
junction, he began to explain that which was heavily on his mind.
William Folsom leaned back in the car, his shining eyes dwelt upon old
landmarks; he chuckled as he listened.

"You see, dear lady, your welcome is to be of the people--the
_forestiere_--I wonder if I can make you understand in so short a time
as we have? The entire countryside is at the villa now; they all told me
they were coming to greet you--so"--he shot a look at Folsom--"I invited
them."

The owner of the vanilla gave a mild war-whoop. "Oh, I say, this is
enchanting! Badgely, old chap, I can picture your sufferings." Then,
with a droll look at his wife: "She understands, bless her! She isn't
the idol of her own town for nothing!" Folsom turned and sketched the
architect's perturbation to his wife.

"Have the goodness to mention the--er--Everything," insisted Mr.
Badgely, grimly. "Have you ever seen one? No? Well, then, you needn't be
so funny." He added desperately: "They are there now arranging
the--er--golden oak and the (ahem!) the red-plush suite." He shuddered,
reiterating: "Really, Billy, the thing was _necessary_. I didn't dare
refuse. You've no idea how these people are antagonized by an Italian
villa. It seems sort of shameful to them. They foam at the mouth. Why,
unless I had been tactful you'd have had vendetta and Mafia and
everything else wished on you."

Mrs. Folsom tried to comprehend. "The poor Littles!" She had a marvelous
voice full of bird-like stirrings. Then she looked thoughtfully at the
architect. "But we will say to them 'Forget it,'" adding, with a little
pride, "I am learning William's slangs."

"Dear old gump, you forget that I was brought up in this very
neighborhood." Folsom soothed the despairing architect, but he laughed
immoderately. "His precious artistic sensibilities are having perfect
duck fits," he shouted. "He's as mad as a wet hen."

But Mrs. Folsom leaned back, taking fresh breaths of air. "This is a
green country," she announced, "and you have a little brown brook that
winds, and great trees like cathedrals. Do you think that with all this
around me I shall be staying to the _salon_ remarking continuously upon
the Jar of Everythings?"

Both men laughed and the architect kissed her hand.

When the car swept around the white shell drive and halted by the lower
terrace, Folsom, with a whoop like a boy, sprang out; he ran joyfully
forward, for there stood the old couple whose faces, to his home-coming
sense, seemed like those of parents. Mr. Pawket trembled slightly; he
stood high-collared and coattailed, upon the glittering steps. Mrs.
Pawket, in black silk, clove to his arm. The twins, in the heated
wretchedness of Sunday clothes, stepped forward, and in the interests of
sentiment stuck forth two wads of tightly bound pink roses. The Rural,
blushing in a costume of very bright blue, wearing elbow mitts, and
carrying a pink feather fan, introduced a sweet-smelling young man as
"my intended."

Among the small groups of peering and excited neighbors was Mr. Fripp,
the junction agent.

"Seems there's a good deal of excitement in the air. We 'ain't all been
out like this sence the mad dog was shot down to Galloway's." When this
gentleman was presented to Mrs. Folsom he drew himself up, looked at her
suspiciously, and said, "Pleased to meet you." He cast the eye of a
worldling over her quiet traveling costume and retired to nudge the
Rural and remark: "Well, I see the furniture money 'ain't been spent on
_her_ back."

The lady of the vanilla looked about her with pure happiness. She met
all introductions radiantly, sniffing rapturously at the twins' roses,
lifting first one, then the other stodgy bunch.

"But you are all so kind!" The clear voice rippling with novelty and
excitement gave a sense of thrill to the occasion. The mistress of the
vanilla held Mrs. Pawket's perspiring hand.

"To know this lady--like the mother of Weeliam--and Mr. Pawket, my first
American of the famous farmer trrribes!"

The stranger's insecurity of English had its immediate triumph. The
countryside had expected that she would chatter Italian like a predatory
organ-grinder, but around this picturesque _naïveté_ they clustered as
they would around a lost child. Jessica Folsom met the architect's eyes
triumphantly, but he edged to her side and bent to whiff the roses,
muttering, "The worst is yet to come."

However, the slender figure of Mrs. Folsom drifted from one to the other
of her welcomers, unembarrassed, friendly, appealing. She put them
immediately at their ease as she announced:

"We shall all at once have tea. On the terrace--my little _festa_! I,
who find the home of my fathers in your new green country." A lovely
color coming into her dark face, she burst into undulating Italian. "The
first Dago she's spoke sence she's got here," commented Mr. Fripp, in an
undertone. Once more he creaked up to the mistress of the villa, saying,
loudly:

"Too bad about the furniture!"

The new-comer turned upon the junction agent liquid, long-lashed eyes.
"Ah the _garnitures_ of Bella Fortuna, they have been--how do you say
it, Weeliam?--dislocated, smashed in traveling the great waves." She
appealed anxiously to the junction agent. "I fear they are in great
distress of breaking, but"--a light came into the appealing dark
eyes--"but in your so practical country shall we not find the new?"

Mrs. Pawket, hearing this, suddenly nudged her husband, and Mr. Pawket
realized that his moment had come. He took one or two ponderous steps
forward, wiping his brow, clearing his throat. In his buzzing brain he
sensed a great occasion, like a wedding or a funeral. He got a glimpse
of Mrs. Pawket nodding her head urgently and mouthing his words after
him as he roared:

"That's as may be; that's as may be." Again Mr. Pawket cleared his
throat. He felt, as he afterward expressed it, "like he was grindin' a
corn-hopper with nothing into it." Suddenly his gaze fell upon Willum,
his boy, now a glad-looking man with a tender light in his eyes and his
arm around his dark-eyed wife. This, Mr. Pawket felt, was as it should
be. It gave him sudden eloquence.

"I dunno," he said, and he bent a severe eye upon the Rural, Mr. Fripp,
and the hotel-keeper's daughter--"I dunno but what we was gettin' a
little sour-hearted, here in Brook Center. There has been some spites
and a good many mean doin's and sayin's--namin' no names. What we didn't
have was big feelin's. Everybody was nesty and nifty, and we all thought
we know'd it all; but it seems that yet for all we didn't know much
about vanillas nor that they could turn out so purty as this here
vanilla has gone and turned."

William Folsom poked the architect in the ribs. "Hear! Hear!" he
murmured, in a subdued voice.

Mr. Pawket mildly waited for these asides to conclude before he resumed:
"Howsomever, it seems that one dear to us"--he fixed his eyes on Willum,
but in spite of him his gaze wandered off to Willum's lady--"one dear to
us has got back from foreign lands and built a vanilla." The old farmer
turned to Mrs. Folsom with a burst of eloquence. "Sence that has
happened, by gum! our whole lives is changed and we know more about
It'ly than I ever thought we should; and so with regards to this here
new vanilla house and a few little presents and one thing and another,
why, all I can say is, Mrs. Folsom, we've gone and did as we'd be done
by."

There was something very like a cheer at the conclusion of these
remarks. Meanwhile, at a sign from the architect, the great carved doors
of the villa swung open and the little group pressed in.

They stepped into the cool, dim court with its paved floors and
delicately woven stairways. Mrs. Folsom clasped her hands with pleasure
over a wide window-seat which gave on a western slope where the gold sun
was speared by the tall black trees. But Folsom, to whom the architect
gave a nervous cue, hurried to the _sala da mangiare_, and thrust back
its sumptuous Genoese curtains.

There under the iron candelabra of the Medicis stood a shining table of
varnished splendor; on it, as if hoping to deaden its aggressive luster,
was a marvelous strip of Paduan lace, while around its stodgy newness
were six smug chairs of a very palpable "golden oak." Folsom threw up
his hands in apparent joy and astonishment.

"Great Harry!" The young man's voice was extraordinarily exalted. He
bent over and touched the varnished surfaces with a reverent hand. "A
perfectly new dining-table--a present--a complete set of absolutely
unused chairs! Oh, I say! This won't do--it's preposterous! Somebody has
been getting gay." The young man first looked suspiciously at the
architect, then turned and with severe eyes surveyed Farmer Pawket's
shamefaced elation.

"So it's you, sir," he said. "Now look here!" Folsom strode up and put
his firm hand on the old man's chest. "Brace up and tell what you know
about this. Look me in the eye and tell me you didn't do it. No, you
can't hide behind Mother Pawket." Folsom's grave glance reduced Mrs.
Pawket to a helpless flutter. "She's probably put you up to it; she's a
designing woman." Folsom went eagerly over to the dark-eyed Italian
lady. "Jessica dearest, look at all this. Golden oak. _Store furniture_,
by Jove! Mr. Pawket's gift to you and me."

The lady of the vanilla did not betray Mr. Badgely's hope of her.
Widening her lovely eyes at the rich solidities before her, she slipped
to the old man's side and seized his hands. A strange sense of fog
enveloped Mr. Pawket; he stole a scared glance sidewise at the Rural.
"It was all for me," the vibrant voice insisted. "This Weeliam he is
_favorito_--he thinks the whole world is for his gift; but kind Signor
Pawket thinks only of me; he knew"--with exquisite slow arrangement of
accents--"how interested and happy I should be to at once understand the
practical American ways--and he knew, with such understanding, how I
must save and guard the poor destructed--what you call
them?--_foornitures_, of my own people."

"Now, now, now!" protested Mr. Pawket, feebly.

Mr. Fripp, however, nodded to the Rural. "Well, it seems she knowed all
the while that that there furniture warn't no good."

At last, at the architect's somewhat desperate solicitation, they all
turned their steps to the _salon_. Mr. Badgely, making pathetic
dumb-show, dragged William Folsom to the rear.

"Nerve yourself," he whispered, "nerve yourself. I'm afraid it's going
to be worse than I feared. It seems that there were actually six of
them--only one is not quite finished. The competition was very
tense--and they all arrived in my absence. Old man, hold me! I'm about
all in!"

Mr. Folsom, with appropriate concern, put his arm about his friend.
Together they braced to meet any shock. When at last they lifted their
eyes it was to stand locked in awe and admiration. Over the shoulders of
the group in front of them they could see into the _salon_. It was
furnished with a sofa and six chairs upholstered in scarlet plush. There
was also a center-table on which was spread a red plush cover. On this
table, each with a card tied with a ribbon bow and bearing the name of
its maker, stood ranged in solid splendor six golden "Everythings."




A NIGHT AMONG THE HORSES[5]

[Note 5: Copyright, 1918, by Margaret C. Anderson. Copyright, 1920,
by Djuna Barnes.]

BY DJUNA BARNES

From _The Little Review_


Toward dusk, in the summer of the year, a man dressed in a frock coat
and top hat, and carrying a cane, crept through the underbrush bordering
the corral of the Buckler farm.

As he moved small twigs snapped, fell and were silent. His knees were
green from wounded shrubbery and grass, and his outspread hands tore
unheeded plants. His wrists hurt him and he rested from time to time,
always caring for his hat and knotted yellow cane, blowing through his
moustache.

Dew had been falling covering the twilight leaves like myriad faces,
damp with the perspiration of the struggle for existence, and half a
mile away, standing out against the darkness of the night, a grove of
white birches shimmered, like teeth in a skull.

He heard the creaking of a gate, and the splashing of late rain into the
depths of a dark cistern. His heart ached with the nearness of the
earth, the faint murmur of it moving upon itself, like a sleeper who
turns to throw an arm about a beloved.

A frog began moaning among the skunk cabbages, and John thrust his hand
deep into his bosom.

Something somnolent seemed to be here, and he wondered. It was like a
deep, heavy, yet soft prison where, without sin, one may suffer
intolerable punishment.

Presently he went on, feeling his way. He reached a high plank fence
and sensing it with his fingers, he lay down, resting his head against
the ground.

He was tired, he wanted to sleep, but he searched for his hat and cane
and straightened out his coat beneath him before he turned his eyes to
the stars.

And now he could not sleep, and wondered why he had thought of it;
something quick was moving the earth, it seemed to live, to shake with
sudden immensity.

He heard a dog barking, and the dim light from a farm window kept
winking as the trees swung against its square of light. The odor of
daisies came to him, and the assuring, powerful smell of the stables; he
opened his mouth and drew in his moustache.

A faint tumult had begun. A tremor ran under the length of his body and
trembled off into the earth like a shudder of joy,--died down and
repeated itself. And presently he began to tremble, answering, throwing
out his hands, curling them up weakly, as if the earth were withholding
something precious, necessary.

His hat fell off, striking a log with a dull hollow sound, and he
pressed his red moustache against the grass weeping.

Again he heard it, felt it; a hundred hoofs beat upon the earth and he
knew the horses had gone wild in the corral on the other side of the
fence, for animals greet the summer, striking the earth, as friends
strike the back of friends. He knew, he understood; a hail to summer, to
life, to death.

He drew himself against the bars, pressing his eyes under them, peering,
waiting.

He heard them coming up across the heavy turf, rounding the curve in the
Willow Road. He opened his eyes and closed them again. The soft menacing
sound deepened, as heat deepens, strikes through the skin into the very
flesh. Head on, with long legs rising, falling, rising again, striking
the ground insanely, like needles taking terrible, impossible and
purposeless stitches.

He saw their bellies, fawn colored, pitching from side to side, flashing
by, straining the fence, and he rose up on his feet and silently,
swiftly, fled on beside them.

Something delirious, hysterical, came over him and he fell. Blood
trickled into his eyes down from his forehead. It had a fine feeling for
a moment, like a mane, like that roan mare's mane that had passed
him--red and long and splendid.

He lifted his hand, and closed his eyes once more, but the soft pounding
did not cease, though now, in his sitting position, it only jogged him
imperceptibly, as a child on a knee.

It seemed to him that he was smothering, and he felt along the side of
his face as he had done in youth when they had put a cap on him that was
too large. Twining green things, moist with earth-blood, crept over his
fingers, the hot, impatient leaves pressed in, and the green of the
matted grass was deathly thick. He had heard about the freeness of
nature, thought it was so, and it was not so.

A trailing ground pine had torn up small blades in its journey across
the hill, and a vine, wrist-thick, twisted about a pale oak, hideously,
gloriously, killing it, dragging it into dust.

A wax Patrick Pipe leaned against his neck, staring with black eyes, and
John opened his mouth, running his tongue across his lips snapping it
off, sighing.

Move as he would, the grass was always under him, and the crackling of
last autumn's leaves and last summer's twigs--minute dead of the
infinite greatness--troubled him. Something portentous seemed connected
with the patient noises about him. An acorn dropped, striking a thin
fine powder out of a frail oak pod. He took it up, tossing it. He had
never liked to see things fall.

He sat up, with the dim thunder of the horses far off, but quickening
his heart.

He went over the scene he had with Freda Buckler, back there in the
house, the long quivering spears of pot-grass standing by the window as
she walked up and down, pulling at them, talking to him.

Small, with cunning fiery eyes and a pink and pointed chin. A daughter
of a mother who had known too many admirers in her youth; a woman with
an ample lap on which she held a Persian kitten or a trifle of fruit.
Bounty, avarice, desire, intelligence--both of them had always what they
wanted.

He blew down his moustache again thinking of Freda in her floating
yellow veil that he had called ridiculous. She had not been angry, he
was nothing but a stable boy then. It was the way with those small
intriguing women whose nostrils were made delicate through the pain of
many generations that they might quiver whenever they caught a whiff of
the stables.

"As near as they can get to the earth," he had said and was Freda angry?
She stroked his arm always softly, looking away, an inner bitterness
drawing down her mouth.

She said, walking up and down quickly, looking ridiculously small:

"I am always gentle, John--" frowning, trailing her veil, thrusting out
her chin.

He answered: "I liked it better where I was."

"Horses," she said showing sharp teeth, "are nothing for a man with your
bile--poy-boy--curry comber, smelling of saddle soap--lovely!" She
shrivelled up her nose, touching his arm: "Yes, but better things. I
will show you--you shall be a gentleman--fine clothes, you will like
them, they feel nice." And laughing she turned on one high heel, sitting
down. "I like horses, they make people better; you are amusing,
intelligent, you will see--"

"A lackey!" he returned passionately throwing up his arm, "what is there
in this for you, what are you trying to do to me? The
family--askance--perhaps--I don't know."

He sat down pondering. He was getting used to it, or thought he was, all
but his wordy remonstrances. He knew better when thinking of his horses,
realizing that when he should have married this small, unpleasant and
clever woman, he would know them no more.

It was a game between them, which was the shrewder, which would win out?
He? A boy of ill breeding, grown from the gutter, fancied by this woman
because he had called her ridiculous, or for some other reason that he
would never know. This kind of person never tells the truth, and this,
more than most things, troubled him. Was he a thing to be played with,
debased into something better than he was, than he knew?

Partly because he was proud of himself in the costume of a groom, partly
because he was timid, he desired to get away, to go back to the stables.
He walked up to the mirrors as if about to challenge them, peering in.
He knew he would look absurd, and then knew, with shame, that he looked
splendidly better than most of the gentlemen that Freda Buckler knew. He
hated himself. A man who had grown out of the city's streets, a fine
common thing!

She saw him looking into the mirrors, one after the other, and drew her
mouth down. She got up, walking beside him in the end, between him and
them, taking his arm.

"You shall enter the army--you shall rise to General, or Lieutenant at
least--and there are horses there, and the sound of stirrups--with that
physique you will be happy--authority you know," she said shaking her
chin, smiling.

"Very well, but a common soldier--"

"As you like--afterward."

"Afterward?"

"Very well, a common soldier."

He sensed something strange in her voice, a sort of irony and it took
the patience out of him:

"I have always been common, I could commit crimes, easily, gladly--I'd
like to!"

She looked away. "That's natural," she said faintly, "it's an instinct
all strong men have--"

She knew what was troubling him, thwarted instincts, common beautiful
instincts that he was being robbed of. He wanted to do something final
to prove his lower order; caught himself making faces, idiot faces, and
she laughed.

"If only your ears stuck out, chin receded," she said, "you might look
degenerate, common, but as it is--"

And he would creep away in hat, coat and cane to peer at his horses,
never daring to go in near them. Sometimes when he wanted to weep he
would smear one glove with harness grease, but the other one he held
behind his back, pretending one was enough to prove his revolt.

She would torment him with vases, books, pictures, making a fool of him
gently, persistently, making him doubt by cruel means, the means of
objects he was not used to, eternally taking him out of his sphere.

"We have the best collection of miniatures," she would say with one knee
on a low ottoman, bringing them out in her small palm.

"Here, look."

He would put his hands behind him.

"She was a great woman--Lucrezia Borgia--do you know history--" She put
it back again because he did not answer, letting his mind, a curious
one, torment itself.

"You love things very much, don't you?" she would question because she
knew that he had a passion for one thing only. She kept placing new
ladders beneath his feet, only to saw them off at the next rung, making
him nothing more than a nervous irritable experiment. He was uneasy,
like one given food to smell and not to taste, and for a while he had
not wanted to taste, and then curiosity began, and he wanted to, and he
also wanted to escape, and he could do neither.

Well, after he had married her, what then? Satisfy her whim and where
would he be? He would be nothing, neither what he had been nor what
other people were. This seemed to him, at times, her wish--a sort of
place between lying down and standing up, a cramped position, a slow
death. A curious woman.

This same evening he had looked at her attentively for the first time.
Her hair was rather pretty, though too mousy, yet just in the nape of
the neck, where it met the lawn of the collar it was very attractive.
She walked well for a little woman too.

Sometimes she would pretend to be lively, would run a little, catch
herself at it, as if she had not intended to do it, and calm down once
more, or creeping up to him, stroking his arm, talking to him, she would
walk beside him softly, slowly, that he might not step out, that he
would have to crawl across the carpet.

Once he had thought of trying her with honesty, with the truth of the
situation. Perhaps she would give him an honest answer, and he had
tried.

"Now Miss Freda--just a word--what are you trying to do. What is it you
want? What is there in me that can interest you? I want you to tell
me--I want to know--I have got to ask someone, and I haven't anyone to
ask but you."

And for a moment she almost relented, only to discover that she could
not if she had wished. She did not know always what she meant herself.

"I'll tell you," she said, hoping that this, somehow, might lead her
into the truth, for herself, if not for him, but it did not. "You are a
little nervous, you will get used to it--you will even grow to like it.
Be patient. You will learn soon enough that there is nothing in the
world so agreeable as climbing, changing."

"Well," he said trying to read her, "And then?"

"That's all, you will regret the stables in the end--that's all." Her
nostrils quivered. A light came into her eyes, a desire to defy, to be
defied.

And then on this last night he had done something terrible, he had made
a blunder. There had been a party. The guests, a lot of them, were
mostly drunk, or touched with drink. And he too had too much. He
remembered having thrown his arms about a tall woman, gowned in black
with loose shoulder straps, dragging her through a dance. He had even
sung a bit of a song, madly, wildly, horribly. And suddenly he had been
brought up sharp by the fact that no one thought his behavior strange,
that no one thought him presumptuous. Freda's mother had not even moved
or dropped the kitten from her lap where it sat, its loud resolute purr
shaking the satin of her gown.

And he felt that Freda had got him where she wanted him, between two
rungs. Going directly up to her he said:

"You are ridiculous!" and twirled his moustache, spitting into the
garden.

And he knew nothing about what happened until he found himself in the
shrubbery crawling toward the corral, through the dusk and the dampness
of the leaves, carrying his cane, making sure of his hat, looking up at
the stars.

And now he knew why he had come. He was with his horses again. His
eyes, pressed against the bars, stared in. The black stallion in the
lead had been his special pet, a rough animal, but kindly, knowing. And
here they were once more, tearing up the grass, galloping about in the
night like a ball-room full of real people, people who wanted to do
things, who did what they wanted to do.

He began to crawl through the bars, slowly, deftly, and when half way
through he paused, thinking.

Presently he went on again, and drawing himself into the corral, his hat
and cane thrown in before him, he lay there mouth to the grass.

They were still running, but less madly, one of them had gone up the
Willow Road leading into a farther pasture, in a flare of dust, through
which it looked immense and faint.

On the top of the hill three or four of the horses were standing,
testing the weather. He would mount one, he would ride away, he would
escape. And his horses, the things he knew, would be his escape.

Bareback, he thought, would be like the days when he had taken what he
could from the rush of the streets, joy, exhilaration, life, and he was
not afraid. He wanted to stand up, to cry aloud.

And he saw ten or twelve of them rounding the curve, and he did stand
up.

They did not seem to know him, did not seem to know what to make of him,
and he stared at them wondering. He did not think of his white shirt
front, his sudden arising, the darkness, their excitement. Surely they
would know, in a moment more.

Wheeling, flaring their wet nostrils, throwing up their manes, striking
the earth in a quandary, they came on, whinnied faintly, and he knew
what it was to be afraid.

He had never been afraid and he went down on his knees. With a new
horror in his heart he damned them. He turned his eyes up, but he could
not open them. He thought rapidly, calling on Freda in his heart,
speaking tenderly, promising.

A flare of heat passed his throat, and descended into his bosom.

"I want to live. I can do it--damn it--I can do it. I can forge ahead,
make my mark."

He forgot where he was for a moment and found new pleasure in this
spoken admission, this new rebellion. He moved with the faint shaking of
the earth like a child on a woman's lap.

The upraised hoofs of the first horse missed him, but the second did
not.

And presently the horses drew apart, nibbling here and there, switching
their tails, avoiding a patch of tall grass.




LONG, LONG AGO[6]

[Note 6: Copyright, 1919, by The Bellman Company. Copyright, 1920,
by Frederick Orin Bartlett.]

BY FREDERICK ORIN BARTLETT

From _The Bellman_


When the brakeman swung back the door and with resonant indifference
shouted in Esperanto "Granderantal stashun," Galbraithe felt like
jumping up and shaking the man's hand. It was five years since he had
heard that name pronounced as it should be pronounced because it was
just five years since he had resigned from the staff of a certain New
York daily and left to accept the editorship of a Kansas weekly. These
last years had been big years, full of the joy of hard work, and though
they had left him younger than when he went they had been five years
away from New York. Now he was back again for a brief vacation, eager
for a sight of the old crowd.

When he stepped from the train he was confused for a moment. It took him
a second to get his bearings but as soon as he found himself fighting
for his feet in the dear old stream of commuters he knew he was at home
again. The heady jostle among familiar types made him feel that he had
not been gone five days, although the way the horde swept past him
proved that he had lost some of his old-time skill and cunning in a
crowd. But he did not mind; he was here on a holiday, and they were here
on business and had their rights. He recognized every mother's son of
them. Neither the young ones nor the old ones were a day older. They
wore the same clothes, carried the same bundles and passed the same
remarks. The solid business man weighted with the burden of a Long
Island estate was there; the young man in a broker's office who pushed
his own lawn mower at New Rochelle was there; the man who got aboard at
One Hundred and Twenty-fifth Street was there. There was the man with a
Van Dyke, the man with a mustache and the fat, smooth-shaven man and the
wives, the sisters and the stenographers of all these. They were just as
Galbraithe had left them--God bless 'em.

Swept out upon Forty-second Street, he took a long, full breath. The
same fine New York sky was overhead (the same which roofed Kansas) and
the same New York sun shone down upon him (even as in its gracious
bounty it shone upon Kansas). The thrill of it made him realize as never
before that, though the intervening years had been good to him, New York
was in his blood. His eyes seized upon the raw angular buildings as
eagerly as an exiled hill-man greets friendly mountain peaks. There are
no buildings on earth which look so friendly, once a man gets to know
them, as those about the Grand Central. Galbraithe noticed some new
structures, but even these looked old. The total effect was exactly as
he had left it. That was what he appreciated after his sojourn among the
younger cities of the West. New York was permanent--as fixed as the pole
star. It was unalterable.

Galbraithe scorned to take cab, car or bus this morning. He wanted to
walk--to feel beneath his feet the dear old humpy pavement. It did his
soul good to find men repairing the streets in the same old places--to
find as ever new buildings going up and old buildings coming down, and
the sidewalks blocked in the same old way. He was clumsy at his
hurdling, but he relished the exercise.

He saw again with the eyes of a cub reporter every tingling feature of
the stirring street panorama, from gutter to roof top, and thrilled with
the magic and vibrant bigness of it all. Antlike, men were swarming
everywhere bent upon changing, and yet they changed nothing. That was
what amazed and comforted him. He knew that if he allowed five years to
elapse before returning to his home town in Kansas he wouldn't recognize
the place, but here everything was as he had left it, even to the men on
the corners, even to the passers-by, even to the articles in the store
windows. Flowers at the florist's, clothing at the haberdasher's, jewels
at the jeweler's, were in their proper places, as though during the
interval nothing had been sold. It made him feel as eternal as the
Wandering Jew.

Several familiar landmarks were gone but he wondered if they had ever
been. He did not miss them--hardly noticed any change. New buildings
fitted into the old niches as perfectly as though from the first they
had been ordained for those particular spots. They did not look at all
the upstarts that all new buildings in Kansas did.

He hurried on to Park Row, and found himself surrounded by the very
newsboys he had left. Not one of them had grown a day older. The lanky
one and the lame one and the little one were there. Perhaps it was
because they had always been as old as it is possible for a boy to be,
that they were now no older. They were crying the same news to the same
indifferent horde scurrying past them. Their noisy shouting made
Galbraithe feel more than ever like a cub reporter. It was only
yesterday that his head was swirling with the first mad excitement of
it.

Across the street the door stood open through which he had passed so
many times. Above it he saw the weatherbeaten sign which had always been
weatherbeaten. The little brick building greeted him as hospitably as an
open fire at home. He knew every inch of it, from the outside sill to
the city room, and every inch was associated in his mind with some big
success or failure. If he came back as a vagrant spirit a thousand years
from now he would expect to find it just as it was. A thousand years
back this spot had been foreordained for it. Lord, the rooted stability
of this old city.

He had forgotten that he no longer had quarters in town, and must secure
a room. He was still carrying his dress-suit case, but he couldn't
resist the temptation of first looking in on the old crowd and shaking
hands. He hadn't kept in touch with them except that he still read
religiously every line of the old sheet, but he had recognized the work
of this man and that, and knew from what he had already seen that
nothing inside any more than outside could be changed. It was about nine
o'clock, so he would find Hartson, the city editor, going over the rival
morning papers, his keen eyes alert to discover what the night staff had
missed. As he hurried up the narrow stairs his heart was as much in his
mouth as it had been the first day he was taken on the staff. Several
new office boys eyed him suspiciously, but he walked with such an air of
familiarity that they allowed him to pass unquestioned. At the entrance
to the sacred precinct of the city editor's room he paused with all his
old-time hesitancy. Even after working five years for himself as a
managing editor, he found he had lost nothing of his wholesome respect
for Hartson. The latter's back was turned when Galbraithe entered, and
he waited at the rail until the man looked up. Then with a start
Galbraithe saw that this was not Hartson at all.

"I--I beg pardon," he stammered.

"Well?" demanded the stranger.

"I expected to find Mr. Hartson," explained Galbraithe.

"Hartson?"

"I used to be on the staff and--"

"Guess you're in the wrong office," the stranger shut him off abruptly.

For a moment Galbraithe believed this was possible, but every scarred
bit of furniture was in its place and the dusty clutter of papers in the
corner had not been disturbed. The new city editor glanced suspiciously
toward Galbraithe's dress suit case and reached forward as though to
press a button. With flushed cheeks Galbraithe retreated, and hurried
down the corridor toward the reportorial rooms. He must find Billy
Bertram and get the latter to square him with the new city editor. He
made at once for Billy Bertram's desk, with hand extended. Just beyond
was the desk he himself had occupied for so long. Bertram looked up and
then Galbraithe saw that it was not Bertram at all.

"What can I do for you, old man?" the stranger inquired. He was a fellow
of about Bertram's age, and a good deal of Bertram's stamp.

"I'm looking for Billy Bertram," stammered Galbraithe. "Guess he must
have shifted his desk."

He glanced hopefully at the other desks in the room but he did not
recognize a face.

"Bertram?" inquired the man who occupied Bertram's desk. He turned to
the man next to him.

"Say, Green, any one here by the name of Bertram?"

Green lighted a fresh cigarette, and shook his head.

"Never heard of him," he replied indifferently.

"He used to sit here," explained Galbraithe.

"I've held down this chair fifteen months, and before me a chump by the
name of Weston had that honor. Can't go back any further than that."

Galbraithe lowered his dress suit case, and wiped his forehead. Every
one in the room took a suspicious glance at the bag.

"Ever hear of Sanderson?" Galbraithe inquired of Green.

"Nope."

"Ever hear of Wadlin or Jerry Donahue or Cartwright?"

Green kicked a chair toward him.

"Sit down, old man," he suggested. "You'll feel better in a minute."

"Ever hear of Hartson? Ever hear of old Jim Hartson?"

"That's all right," Green encouraged him. "If you have a line in that
bag you think will interest us, bring it out. It's against office rules,
but--"

Galbraithe tried to recall if, on his way downtown, he had inadvertently
stopped anywhere for a cocktail. He had no recollection of so doing.
Perhaps he was a victim of a mental lapse--one of those freak blank
spaces of which the alienists were talking so much lately. He made one
more attempt to place himself. In his day he had been one of the star
reporters of the staff.

"Ever hear of--of Galbraithe?" he inquired anxiously.

By this time several men had gathered around the two desks as interested
spectators. Galbraithe scanned their faces, but he didn't recognize one
of them.

"Haven't got a card about your person, have you?" inquired Green.

"Why, yes," answered Galbraithe, fumbling for his case. The group
watched him with some curiosity, and Harding, the youngest man, scenting
a story, pushed to the front. With so many eyes upon him Galbraithe grew
so confused that he couldn't find his card case.

"I'm sure I had it with me," he apologized.

"Remember where you were last night?" inquired Green.

"Just got in this morning," answered Galbraithe. "I--here it is."

He drew out a card and handed it to Green. The group gathered closer and
read it.

"Harvey L. Galbraithe, Trego County Courier."

Green solemnly extended his hand.

"Glad to meet you, Mr. Galbraithe. Up here on business, or pleasure?"

"I used to work here," explained Galbraithe. "I came up on a vacation to
see the boys."

"Used to work on this sheet?" exclaimed Green, as though doubting it.

"I left five years ago," answered Galbraithe.

"Holy Smoke!" exclaimed Green, with a low whistle. "You are sure some
old-timer. Let's see--that's over fifteen hundred days ago. When did you
come on?"

"Just before the Spanish War," answered Galbraithe eagerly. "Hartson
sent me to Cuba."

Harding came closer, his eyes burning with new interest.

"Gee," he exclaimed, "those must have been great days. I ran across an
old codger at the Press Club once who was with Dewey at Manila."

He spoke as Galbraithe might speak of the Crimean War. He pressed the
latter for details, and Galbraithe, listening to the sound of his own
voice, allowed himself to be led on. When he was through he felt
toothless, and as though his hair had turned gray.

"Those were the happy days," exclaimed Harding. "The game was worth
playing then--eh, old man?"

"Yes," mumbled Galbraithe. "But don't any of you know what has become of
Hartson?"

"Haydon would probably remember him--"

"Haydon?" broke in Galbraithe. "Is he here?"

He looked wistfully about the room to the corner where the exchange
editor used to sit.

"He died last spring," said Green. "Guess he was the last leaf on the
tree."

"He came on five years ahead of me," said Galbraithe. "He and I did the
barrel murders together."

"What was that story?" inquired Harding.

Galbraithe looked at Harding to make sure this was not some fool joke.
At the time nothing else had been talked of in New York for a month, and
he and Haydon had made something of a name for themselves for the work
they did on it. Harding was both serious and interested--there could be
no doubt about that.

The details were as fresh in Galbraithe's mind as though it were
yesterday. But what he was just beginning to perceive was that this was
so because he had been away from New York. To those living on here and
still playing the old game that story had become buried, even as
tradition, in the multiplicity of subsequent stories. These younger men
who had superseded him and his fellows, already had their own big
stories. They came every day between the dawn and the dark, and then
again between the dark and the dawn. Day after day they came
unceasingly, at the end of a week dozens of them, at the end of a month
hundreds, at the end of a year thousands. It was fifteen hundred days
ago that he had been observing the manifold complications of these
million people, and since that time a thousand volumes had been written
about as many tragedies enacted in the same old setting. Time here was
measured in hours, not years. The stage alone remained unchanged.

Galbraithe made his feet, so dazed that he faltered as with the palsy.
Harding took his arm.

"Steady, old man," he cautioned. "You'd better come out and have a
drink."

Galbraithe shook his head. He felt sudden resentment at the part they
were forcing upon him.

"I'm going back home," he announced.

"Come on," Harding encouraged him. "We'll drink to the old days, eh?"

"Sure," chimed in Green. The others, too, rose and sought their hats.

"I won't," replied Galbraithe, stubbornly, "I'm going back home, I tell
you. And in ten years I'll be twenty-five years younger than any of
you."

He spoke with some heat. Harding laughed but Green grew sober. He placed
his hand on Galbraithe's arm.

"Right," he said. "Get out, and God bless you, old man."

"If only Haydon had been here--" choked Galbraithe.

"I expect he's younger than any of us," replied Green, soberly. "He's
measuring time by eternities."

Galbraithe picked up his bag.

"S'long," he said.

He moved toward the door, and the entire group stood stock still and
without a word watched him go out. He moved along the narrow corridor
and past the city editor's room. He went down the old stairs, his
shoulders bent and his legs weak. Fifteen hundred days were upon his
shoulders. He made his way to the street, and for a moment stood there
with his ears buzzing. About him swarmed the same newsboys he had left
five years before, looking no older by a single day. Squinting his eyes,
he studied them closely. There was Red Mick, but as he looked more
carefully he saw that it was not Red Mick at all. It was probably Red
Mick's younger brother. The tall one, the lanky one and the little lame
one were there, but their names were different. The drama was the same,
the setting was the same, but fifteen hundred days had brought a new set
of actors to the same old parts. It was like seeing Shakespeare with a
new cast, but the play was older by centuries than any of Shakespeare's.

Galbraithe hailed a taxi.

"Granderantal stashun," he ordered.

Peering out of the window, he watched the interminable procession on
street and sidewalks. He gazed at the raw angular buildings--permanent
and unalterable. Overhead a Kansas sun shone down upon him--the same
which in its gracious bounty shone down upon New York.




DISHES[7]

[Note 7: Copyright, 1919, by The Pictorial Review Company.
Copyright, 1920, by Agnes Mary Brownell.]

BY AGNES MARY BROWNELL

From _The Pictorial Review_


"Well, I guess that's the last of that!" Myra Bray said grimly, and
blinked at the smashed fragments of the cup.

It had been so fragile, that even the sound of its breaking was thin and
evanescent like a note blown, not struck. Now as it lay on the floor, it
seemed dwindled to nothing more than the fine gilt stem that had been
its handle, and irregular pinkish fragments like fallen petals.

"Myry Bray! Butterfingers!" Myra apostrophized herself, and darted a
quick, sidelong glance in the direction of old Mrs. Bray, her
mother-in-law.

It had been old Mrs. Bray's cup. This was old Mrs. Bray's house. When
Myra married Marvin Bray it had been with the understanding that they
must make their home with his mother, now that Nellie was gone.

Old Mrs. Bray said nothing. The pink cup had belonged to Nellie;
Marvin's had been blue. They had been old-time Christmas gifts; and they
had never been used. They were too fine to use. All those years they had
stood side by side on an upper shelf of the safe, along with the
majolica pickle-dish, the cracker-jar that Abbie Carter had painted in a
design of wheat-heads, the lemonade-set that George's wife had presented
upon the occasion of a visit, and a collection of little china
souvenirs--trays and miniature pitchers with "Souvenir of the Springs"
inscribed upon them.

"At least the saucer's safe," ventured Myra, after a pause. She had only
just come to live with old Mrs. Bray. She wondered how she would take
it. "Well--might's well sweep up the muss!"

Old Mrs. Bray spoke. Myra thought she detected a quiver in her voice:

"Pick 'em up," her mother-in-law directed, "and put 'em here in my
apron." Myra obeyed. Old Mrs. Bray gathered up her apron and went away
to her room. She did not emerge till nearly supper-time.

Once Myra had gone to her door. It was inhospitably closed. Myra thought
she detected a faint chinking sound. "Now I wonder"--thought Myra--"is
she agrievin' or asulkin'? I'd ruther it was asulkin'--an old pink chiny
cup! I'd buy her another, only I s'pose it wouldn't make it up to
her--Nellie's and all. Mebbe if I hurried and put off my waist, I could
finish up her challis. She don't need the challis, and I do the waist.
But mebbe it might take her mind off--losin' Nellie and then losin' the
cup. I expect that come hard to Mother Bray."

Myra smoothed her hair and put on a fresh afternoon percale. To see Myra
with her thin brown face, her slicked-back black hair which showed white
threads like ravellings, in her afternoon house-dress of gray percale,
one would never have taken her for a bride. Yet Myra had a very bridal
feeling, sitting in her own home, with her own sewing, instead of
running the machine in the shop, as she had done before her marriage.
That it was, in reality, her husband's mother's home, and her husband's
mother's sewing, scarcely altered the case. It was home, not shop. She
had been married in August, when work fell slack. Now it was October.
She had not broken anything until to-day.

Myra sewed and rocked and looked up at the framed portraits of Marvin
and Nellie and Frank as children--the girl in queer plaid, and a locket;
the boys in gilt-braided suits. Old and crude as the drawing was, it had
a look of them--that steady, serious look of Marvin which he had never
lost, and Nellie's--bold and managerial. Frank had died. Poor mother.
She had known trouble.

At five, old Mrs. Bray came stiffly out. She had a curious, secretive
air, not in the least mournful nor accusative, as Myra had feared. Myra
held up the dress--a soft, gray challis with lavender pipings. Old Mrs.
Bray's eyes widened like a pleased child's.

"Want to try it on?" suggested Myra.

"It ain't done!"

"To the last hook." She began to assist her mother into the new dress.

Mrs. Bray was a pretty old woman. There was about her an effect of
fragile bloom like that of her old cup. In her gray-and-lavender she was
like a quaint pastel.

"There!" cried Myra, standing off to view the effect.

"I ain't agoin' to take it off!" declared old Mrs. Bray suddenly; and
waited for the remonstrance.

Nellie had always said: "Why, mother! Of course you'll take it off right
away! Wear your good clothes out at home!"

To her surprise, Myra assented. "Keep it on, and let Marvin see how fine
you look."

"Wun't you need me about supper?"

"Now you just set and let me get supper alone to-night."

"I'll set the table," decided old Mrs. Bray. "I guess just laying plates
won't hurt it none."

Myra set about her biscuits. Marvin had to have his hot bread. Suddenly
she heard a little splintering crash, followed by a whimpering
wail--"Myry! Oh, Myry! I've broke the sasser!" The last remnants of
Nellie's saucer, with their pink, fluted edges like ravished petals, lay
spread out at old Mrs. Bray's feet.

"Now ain't that just too bad! (I s'pose she was touching it, for old
times' sake--and her trembly old fingers and all, she let it slip.)
Never mind, Mother; you got the blue one yet. And mebbe that saucer can
be mended--"

Her mother with a jealous sweep of old hands, gathered up the fragments
of the broken saucer. "I don't want mended dishes," she said
resentfully, and went stiffly away to her room.

That night, when they were alone, Myra told Marvin about Nellie's cup
and saucer. "And I just know she's akeeping of the pieces, and amourning
over them," she finished. "Such things get to have associations. I
'most wish it had been your cup that got broke. She's got you, and
Nellie's gone."

"Gone--what's a hundred miles!"

"I'm afraid she misses Nell."

"Now don't you go getting notions in your head. Nell was a master hand
for work, but she didn't keep things up a mite better than you--not so
good, to my notion. You're restfuller. Nell couldn't rest herself nor
let anybody else. Nell couldn't atouched them biscuit--fact!"

"I try to keep things up as much like Nell as I can. I'd ruther use
white table-cloths myself, but Nell always used the checkered. And my
own chiny set the folks gave me--but I know Mother'd feel strange
without her old white ones. There's lots of pretty chiny in the safe,
but Nell always used it so careful. I've never used a piece. And yet,
just adustin' that pink cup I had to go and drop it! I don't s'pose it
was ever drunk out of."

"What's the good," argued Marvin, "of having things too fine to use?"

"You and me, Marvin, think the same about them things. But Nell and
Mother--they're different."

"You're a good woman, Myry."

It pleased Myra to be told that she was good, and that her biscuits
surpassed those of the capable Nell. But such compliments, for all their
practicality and worth, sent no flush to her sallow cheek.

In her woman's magazine, which came to her monthly, lovers (and more
rarely, husbands) were always breathing into the heroine's ear, "I love
you. How beautiful you are!" or sentiments in that tenor. Marvin had not
told her he loved her. He had asked her seriously and respectfully to
marry him, when it became apparent that the efficient Nell was about to
wed. And he had never told her that she was beautiful. She could not
have believed him if he had.

Two days after the accident to the pink cup, the majolica pickle-dish
was found shattered in front of the safe, when Marvin came out to start
the kitchen fire. No one could account for its being there. The safe
doors were ajar, and they decided that the majolica dish must have got
pushed too near the edge of the shelf, and that a sudden jar had
dislodged it. The safe doors were never remembered to have been left
open before; the majolica dish had always sat well back; and nothing
more jarring than Marvin's step disturbed the habitual quiet of the
house. Still, how else account for it? "Mebbe Tom leaped up and done
it," suggested old Mrs. Bray. The sleepy Tom, a handsome Tiger-stripe,
sunk in bodily comfort, seemed to eye her reproachfully. He had not
leaped in years.

Old Mrs. Bray carried away with her the fragments of the majolica
pickle-dish and that afternoon, and other afternoons, she passed in the
solitary privacy of her room.

Still her retirement seemed to work her no ill. From these solitary
vigils she always emerged dressed in her gray-and-lavender. Ordinarily
the ladies Bray wore percale on week day afternoons--fresh ones, but
prints for all that. That had been Nell's way. Although old Mrs. Bray
had a closet hung with good wool dresses, and even one festival silk.

Myra's trousseau had been so simple as scarcely to deserve the name. She
had been married in a neat, dark suit, turned out in the shop where she
had been employed for more than seven years. Myra had been "on skirts"
for most of the seven years; and her dress had been almost a
uniform--skirt and blouse. But she had secretly sewed for herself
another sort of dress--house-dresses for the afternoon, of inexpensive,
but delicate and light-colored fabrics, made a little "fussy." These she
never wore. Old Mrs. Bray never wore fussy clothes; and it had not been
Nell's way. The gray-and-lavender challis had been in the nature of an
experiment. Old Mrs. Bray was plainly pleased; but she rarely wore it.
She said it would make it common.

So the Brays, as in Nellie's régime, continued to wear the common gray
percales, and to eat off the common white crockery. And with a strange,
bewitched pertinacity, the fine, decorative bits of china, shut away on
their upper shelf in the safe continued to get themselves broken.

Once it was one of the glasses of George's wife's lemonade-set. These
glasses had ornate gilt bands about the brim, and painted flowers upon
the side. Taking down the set one day, to show George's wife's gift to a
caller (gifts were never gifts in fee simple in the Bray household.
Always part possession seemed vested in the donor) old Mrs. Bray let
slip one of the glasses. The fragments lay in a path of sun, struck
through and through with light, they seemed to possess a strange, new
iridescence.

"Now ain't that too bad!" sympathized the caller. "Spoils the whole set.
You want to get every bit of that glass up and in the ash-can. Glass is
awful to grind in."

Old Mrs. Bray gathered up the pieces. They sent out strange gleams like
rude gems. Myra and the caller watched sympathetically the eager
abruptness of her departure.

"Your mother-in-law is some shaky," observed the caller. "She hadn't
ought to go to handle such delicate things."

"I expect she won't come out again," Myra said. "It always makes Mother
feel bad to break things."

Old Mrs. Bray did not come out again till after the caller had departed.
She had on her gray-and-lavender dress. "Always when Mother breaks a
dish seems like she goes and puts on her gray-and-lavender," thought
Myra; but she only said, "You look nice in that dress, Mother."

"I know I do," returned old Mrs. Bray serenely, "but I don't aim to make
it common, Myry."

At holiday time, Nell and her husband came for a visit. Nell immediately
proceeded to take the reins of government. She was a big, good-looking
woman, younger than Myra. She had a large, well-modeled face with bloomy
cheeks, golden brown eyes, fringed thick as daisies, and crisply
undulating waves of dark hair. She disposed of their greetings in short
order, retired to her old room to change into serviceable work things,
and issued her ultimatum.

"Now don't go to any fuss, Myry. John and me ain't company. Treat us
like the family. You've changed the roaster, ain't you, Myry? This ain't
near so good a place for it. I've brought you one of my hens,
Mother--all dressed and ready. We'll have it for dinner. Now Myry, don't
you go to getting out a white table-cloth. Get one of them red-checkered
ones. I s'pose those are your weddin' dishes--well, leave 'em be, now
you got them down. But we won't use 'em common--the old white ones is
plenty good enough. Folks that use their best every day has got no best.
You might get the potatoes on now, Myry."

"Let me finish settin' the table, Myry," pleaded old Mrs. Bray. A moment
later there was a crash, "Oh, Nellie! Oh, Myry! I didn't go to do it! My
arm breshed it."

"Marvin's souvenir pitcher his Aunt Mat give him one Fair time! It must
a' be'n fifteen year old!"

"I didn't go to do it!" quavered old Mrs. Bray.

"Who ever heard of such a thing? Of course you didn't do no such crazy
thing! But that don't save its being broke. Here--let me sweep it up."

"Don't you sweep them pieces up!" shrilled her mother.

This voice of high command on the part of her little old subservient
mother gave Nell pause. She stood, dust-pan in hand, looking down upon
that stiffly stooping figure garnering into her gathered apron a little
heap of splintered china.

"Mother must be getting childish," Nell said to Myra, when old Mrs. Bray
had trotted stiffly away with her spoils.

Myra did not reply. She hoped Nell would not discover that ravished
shelf of prized old china.

"Well--Nell got ye in hand?" inquired Nell's husband, John Peebles, at
dinner. The good-natured wink which accompanied the words, the hearty
voice and friendly manner, robbed the words of offense. They seemed
rather a humorous gibe directed against Nell. These two got along
excellently well. There was about John Peebles an effect of tender
strength, re-assuring and at the same time illuminating--responsive to
weakness, but adamant to imposition. Even the managerial Nell had not
succeeded in piercing that armored side of him--his 'thus far and no
further.'"

"Aw--you!" said Nell, adoringly.

"I bet Nell's met her boss!" grinned Marvin. "He don't go so fur as to
beat ye, does he, Nell?"

"Smarty!" returned Nell. Her eyes crinkled up at the corners. She had
met her match, and she knew it and gloried in it. But she didn't want
any sass from the family.

She had none. They submitted without demur. The dish-pan sunned in the
old place. The towels dried along a line of her own stretching. "John
and me don't mean to make you any work," she assured them. They made no
work. It seemed there had never been so much leisure.

"Myry," inquired Nell, "where's that other glass that goes with George's
wife's lemonade-set?"

"Oh, it must be 'round som'ers," Myra returned vaguely.

"Round som'ers! Why ain't they all together?" Nell prodded in further
search.

"Where's my pink gilt cup and saucer Aunt Em gimme one Christmas?"

"Ain't it there?" ventured Myra, with a cowardly shrinking from
confession, not so much on her own account as for old Mrs. Bray. There
was the majolica pickle-dish, the gilt, beflowered lemonade-glass, Abbie
Carter's cracker-jar, certain of the fragile souvenir pin-trays stacked
in a corner of the shelf.

"Here's Marvin's blue one. It's funny where them things can be. I always
kept them here together, on this shelf."

"They're som'ers," Myra repeated vaguely.

Old Mrs. Bray had sat throughout this conversation, making buttonholes
in a new gray percale. Once, when Nell was back at the sink, she reached
out a wavering, fat old arm, and gave Myra's apron-string a tug, as a
bad child pulls a cat's tail in a sort of impish humor. Her eyes, blue
and shining as a child's saucer, looked very wise. A little laugh
clucked in her throat.

"Mother--you feel chilly? You want to keep out of drafts," cautioned
Nellie from the sink.

"Never felt more chipper!" averred old Mrs. Bray.

She had not spent an afternoon in her room since Nell's arrival. To-day,
however, after dinner, she withdrew with an air of intending to remain
there for some time. She took her buttonholes with her. It was likely
that Nell could not content herself until she had searched every
cupboard and pantry for the missing treasure.

"I declare--it is the beatin'est thing! Whatever can have become of
them?" she apprized Myra. "You find much time to read, Myry?"

Myra found time to read her woman's magazine from cover to cover, in the
course of the month. Some things she read more than once--those frankly
impossible stories in which the heroines were always beautiful and
always loved. Myra had never known a heroine; the women of her
acquaintance were neither beautiful nor adored; and were probably quite
comfortably unaware of this lack.

"I'm getting notional," Myra accused herself fearfully. The Family
Doctor Book, a learned and ancient tome, confirmed these suspicions. It
treated of this, and related matters, with a large assurance, like a
trusty confidant.

"Funny how long Mother stays in her room!" wondered Nell.

"Mebbe she's fell asleep. Old people need all the sleep they can get.
It's mostly so broken."

"I'm agoing to see!" deposed Nell.

Myra had never invaded that withdrawn privacy. But Nell, with her
grenadier step, went swiftly and threw open the door.

"What on earth! Mother!"

Old Mrs. Bray's voice streamed quavering out, "Oh, Nellie! Don't scold
me! Myry!--"

Somehow Myra was there--past the affronted Nell in the door. In the
instant silence they made a strange tableau.

Old Mrs. Bray in her fine gray-and-lavender gown was seated before her
little wash-hand-stand. The floral pitcher in its floral bowl had been
set to one side on the floor. What covered the towel-protected top of
the stand, was Nellie's looted treasure.

There were the fragments of the pink cup and saucer; the leaf-green and
brown majolica bits that had been the pickle-dish; the iridescent curved
sides of George's wife's lemonade-glass; Aunt Em's shattered souvenir
pitcher; Abbie Carter's cracker-jar with its smashed wheat-heads. Myra
only looked bewilderedly; but on Nell's gaping face apprehension
succeeded stupefaction and dissolved in its turn into a great brimming
tenderness.

"Scold you, Mother? Oh, Mother--what must you think me! (Oh, poor
Mother--poor Mother--she's gone daft!)"

"I always admired pretty broken bits of chiny," old Mrs. Bray confessed.
"But the pitcher was a accident--reely it was, Nellie. I never went to
let that fall. My arm breshed it. But the sasser and the pickle-dish and
George's wife's lemonade-glass and Abbie Carter's cracker-jar--I done
them apurpose. And I can't say I regret the pitcher, nuther."

"Yes, Mother! Yes, yes! It's all right; I understand. (Myry, don't you
leave her! I thought she was gettin' childish, but Oh--to think--I'll
have John go for Doc Bradley right away. Let 'er amuse herself--but
don't you leave her alone a minute! Poor Mother! Poor old Mother!
Aplayin' with broken chiny dishes!)"

"What's Nell awhisperin' to ye?" inquired old Mrs. Bray, sharply.
"There's nothin' to whisper about as I know. Did ever you see anything
purtier than this pink chiny piece, Myry? It broke so clean, and curved
as a petal. And this here piece of George's wife's lemonade-glass--it's
handsome as a brooch. See how the flower come out! Why, Myry, I've set
here and fairly eat off these dishes!"

"Yes, Mother. But sha'n't we put them up now! Some one might drop
in--Nell bein' here."

She could not bear that Marvin and John and the doctor should see this
pitiful child's play.

Old Mrs. Bray assented with the utmost good nature. She drew up a box of
lacquer and proceeded to lay her china service carefully and dextrously
away. She set the box quite openly along the shelf beside her bonnet-box
and the snug, little brown round pasteboard roll that held her little
old round muff. Presently they heard steps in the sitting-room. Some one
had dropped in--but it was only Marvin and John and old Doc Bradley.

Marvin's face held a look of scared apprehension; John's withheld
judgment; Nell was frankly red-eyed. She had been walking fiercely back
and forth in the yard unable to face again that piteous picture.

The only unclouded faces there were Doc Bradley's and old Mrs. Bray's.
She gave him a shrewd look. He returned it in kind. "So--o--" said old
Mrs. Bray, noting their various scrutiny. There was even an effect of
state about her as she settled herself in her special rocker. But she
said, quite simply and conversationally,

"Do you want I should tell you about them dishes?"

"Well--it was thisaway. And understand--I don't blame nobuddy. Folks are
different. I always loved pretty dishes, but I never got to use 'em.
First on account of you being little"--she eyed Nellie and Marvin with
benignant allowance--"and after that, because of Nell always bein' agen'
using things common. She's like her father. He was thataway. He was a
good man, but he 'lowed good things shouldn't be used common. And then
when Myry come with her purty weddin' dishes and all, I'd hoped she'd be
sort o' different--more like me. But seem like she favored Nell. But I'd
never thought of breakin' them if it hadn't a be'n for the pink cup.
That give me the idee. That very night I broke the sasser to it. I
figured I'd get the use of them dishes some way."

Old Mrs. Bray clucked pleasantly, and resumed.

"I'd always wanted to wear one o' my good dresses afternoons, too.
Well--Myry made me one. And she was reel good about wantin' me to wear
it common. I had a good man. I've had good children. I've lived a long
life. But two things I wanted, I never had--pretty dishes to use, and to
be dressed up afternoons. Myry makin' me that dress turned my head, I
reckon. And the pink cup finished it."

"I take the full blame. It was me done both--broke the cup and sewed the
dress"--spoke up Myry. "And it's you I favored all along, Mother. If you
knew how I've honed to set the table with my weddin' dishes. And I could
show you--I've got some things you've never
seen--house-dresses--pink--sprigged--"

"Meanin' no offense, Nellie--and Marvin--you can't help bein' like your
pa. I guess I'm just a foolish old woman."

"We're all like we're made," sounded the oracular accents of Mr.
Peebles. "Joke's on you all right, Nell."

"I guess I'm it," she admitted cheerfully.

Doc Bradley looked sharply at Myra when she let him out. Perhaps he
noted the pathos of that thin face; those speaking eyes, that seemed to
confess a secret longing.

"If you should feel the call, just break a few dishes on your own
account!" he advised her. "I like to see folks get what they want. If
they want it bad enough, they'll get it." He thought it might be a
dress, perhaps--something pretty. Women in Myry's case have odd notions.

Myry had an odd notion. She wanted to be told that she was beautiful and
loved.

"You little black stringy thing!" she told herself fiercely. "He's fond
of you. And good to you. He's like his pa; he won't show it common. And
anyways--you beautiful!"

But every month she read, with a new and avid interest, those
far-fetched, extravagant tales of beautiful and beloved women.

During the remainder of Nell's stay, old Mrs. Bray and Myra felt a
certain delicacy about inaugurating the use of the white cloths, the
wedding china, and the pretty bits on the safe-shelf. But when the
Peebles's visit was over, the table achieved a patterned whiteness and a
general festive appearance. Old Mrs. Bray donned the gray-and-lavender
every afternoon, and Myra bloomed out in pink print. She scarcely ever
went abroad now, but for all that, her world was infinitely widened.
Once Marvin, dangling from two spread fingers a tiny yoke, inquired
doubtfully, "Do you think it's big enough to go round his neck?"

He was always urging her to have help in, and not to tire herself out.
But curiously, he never noted the pink print any more than if it had
been dull slate. That had not been his pa's way; and it was not his way.
But he was good to her. What more could a woman ask?

After Nell came, he felt aggrieved--quite useless and in the way. The
women were always displaying things--digging them out from the bottoms
of drawers--clouds of soft, white things, with here and there a rift of
color in tassel or tufting.

There came a night when he sat alone. In the beginning, he had tried to
read--he picked up her woman's magazine, eyeing it curiously, that these
silly, floppy sheets should hold, as they did, women's eyes. There were
pictures in it--always pictures--pictured embraces, with words beneath.
"How beautiful you are! I love you--I love you! How beautiful you are!"
Always harping on the same thing--love and beauty. As if life were a
sentimental thing like that!

He flung it down. How could he stay his mind on such stuff, when
Myry--when Myry--

Nell, important and managerial, occasionally came out and elbowed him
about in some mysterious search. At such times, old Mrs. Bray, done up
for the night in a highly flowered and mantle-like garment, came
creeping inquiringly in.

"Now, Nell--you know what Myry told ye--if you was to fergit now--"

"All right, Mother. I won't forget."

"You know where to find 'em--"

"Yes, I know where to find 'em."

"Now, Nell, I promised Myry--"

"What did you promise Myry?" Marvin flared in sudden jealousy. Both
women eyed him, as from a great and unattainable height. Then Nell's
capable back disappeared beyond Myry's door; and his mother's little old
grotesque and woolly figure was swallowed up by the black hall.

Again he took up the magazine. Again looked at the picture. Again,
scarcely seeing them, he read the words. Again he sat; and again Nell
elbowed him importantly, and his mother in her snail-like wrappings,
came creeping in to remind Nell--

When Doc Bradley came out, at first he thought the man, sprawled loosely
in the chair, must be asleep--till he lifted his eyes. They were
sleepless and inflamed like a watch-dog's.

"Hold on! Wait a minute! Nell's boss now. You don't want to go in
looking that way--you'd skeer 'im!"

"What'll I say?" inquired Marvin hoarsely; "Myry's a good woman--she 's
been a good wife to me--too good--"

"Tell 'er something she don't know! Say something fond-like and
foolish."

"You can come in now," granted the lofty Nell.

Somehow, old Mrs. Bray had preceded him. But he never saw her. He never
even saw the managerial Nell. He saw his wife's face, looking so little
and white from out a ruffled lace cap. There were circles of ruffles
about her thin wrists. There was a lace ruffle in the neck of her gown.
For these were Myry's coronation robes; it was about this adorning that
old Mrs. Bray had continuously cautioned Nell. Nell, in that smug,
proprietary manner of hers, had turned back a blanket--enough to show
the tiny yoke which he had dangled, and the neck which it encircled, and
the red and wrinkly head on top of that---

Like a well-conned article of catechism, words came to Marvin--words he
could never have got from his pa.

"Oh, Myry--I love you! How beautiful you are!"

A strange cosmetic glowed on Myra's white cheek. Happiness is the surest
beautifier. He might never say it again. It was not likely that he
would. He favored his pa. But she had had her great moment--her
beautiful and beloved moment. She smiled drowsily up at old Mrs. Bray,
beaming beneficently above; and remembered, in an odd flash, the pink
china cup. This was her cup--full and running over.

"Come on out now, and let her sleep," ordered the dictatorial Nell.
"Who'd a' thought, now, Myry had her little vanities? That lace cap now,
and them ruffles--for Marvin! Some folks has the strangest notions."

"'Tain't notions!" protested old Mrs. Bray.

"Oh, yes, it is! And all right, if you feel that way--like you and your
dishes, now."

"Myry and me both is powerful set on dishes," exulted old Mrs. Bray.




THE BLOOD-RED ONE[8]

[Note 8: Copyright, 1918, by Charles Scribner's Sons.]

BY MAXWELL STRUTHERS BURT

From _Scribner's Magazine_


It was a February evening, so it seems, about five o'clock, and old Mr.
Vandusen, having left his hat and ulster in the coatroom, had retraced
his steps along the entrance hall of the St. Dunstan Club to the wide
doorway that led into the first-floor library. He usually sought the
library at this time of day; a little group of men, all of whom he knew
well, were as a rule to be found there, and they were friendly, not
overly argumentative, restful. Now he paused between the heavy
portières, partly drawn aside, and peered for a moment into the room.
The light from the hall behind him made a pool of faint illumination at
his feet, but beyond that there was only a brown darkness, scented with
the smell of books in leather bindings, in which the figures of several
men, sprawled out in big chairs before the window, were faintly visible.
The window itself, a square of blank fog-blurred dusk, served merely to
heighten the obscurity. Mr. Vandusen, a small, plump shadow in the
surrounding shadows, found an unoccupied chair and sank into it
silently.

"And that's just it," said Maury suddenly, and as if he was picking up
the threads of a conversation dropped but a moment before; "and that's
just the point"--and his usually gentle voice was heavy with a
didacticism unlike itself--"that affects most deeply a man of my
temperament and generation. Nemesis--fate--whatever you choose to call
it. The fear that perhaps it doesn't exist at all. That there is no such
thing; or worse yet, that in some strange, monstrous way man has made
himself master of it--has no longer to fear it. And man isn't fit to be
altogether master of anything as yet; he's still too much half devil,
half ape. There's this damned choked feeling that the world's at loose
ends. I don't know how to put it--as if, that is, we, with all the
devilish new knowledge we've acquired within the past fifty years, the
devilish new machines we've invented, have all at once become stronger
than God; taken the final power out of the hands of the authority,
whatever it is, toward which we used to look for a reckoning and
balancing in the end, no matter what agony might lie between. Perhaps
it's all right--I don't know. But it's an upsetting conclusion to ask a
man of my generation offhandedly to accept. I was brought up--we all
were--to believe in an ordered, if obscure, philosophical doctrine that
evil inevitably finds its own punishment, and now--!"

"But--" began Tomlinson.

Maury interrupted him. "Yes, yes," he said, "I know all that; I know
what you are going to say. I am perfectly aware of the fact that the
ways of Nemesis are supposed to be slow ways--exceedingly. I am aware of
the fact that in the Christian doctrine the process is not usually
completed until after death, but nowadays things are different. How,
since all else moves so swiftly, can a just God afford any longer to be
patient? Time has been obliterated in the last four years; space and
centuries telescoped; the sufferings of a century compressed into a few
cycles of months. No, there is something wrong, some break in the rhythm
of the universe, or those grotesque ghouls who started the whole thing,
those full-bodied, cold-blooded hangmen, who for forty years have been
sitting back planning the future of men and women as they planned the
cards of their sniggering skat games, would awake to a sun dripping
blood." He paused for a moment. "And as for that psychiatric cripple,
their mouthpiece," he concluded sombrely, "that maimed man who broods
over battle-fields, he would find a creeping horror in his brain like
death made visible."

"And you think he will not?"....

In the darkness Mr. Vandusen suddenly sat up very straight and tried to
pierce with his eyes the shadows to the right of him.

Again the chair creaked.

"And you think he will not?" asked the voice again.

The words fell one by one into the silence, like stones dropped into a
pool by a precise hand. As the ripples of sound they created died away
in the brown dusk, the room seemed for a moment to hold a hushed
expectation that made ordinary quiet a matter of movement and sound.
From the drab street outside the voice of a newsboy, strident and
insistent, put a further edge to the sharp minute. "N'extra!" he
shouted. "N'extra! 'Nother big raid on west'n front!"

It was Torrance who asked the question. "What--" he said. "But,
but--why--!" And then his wheezing inarticulateness broke like a
dislocated bellows.

Mr. Vandusen, leaning forward in his chair, did not realize at the time
the unreasonableness of the sharp blaze of irritation that at the
interruption burned within him. It was not until much later, indeed,
that he realized other odd circumstances as well: Torrance's broken
amazement, for instance; the silence of Maury, and Wheeler, and, above
all, of Tomlinson. At the moment he realized nothing, except an intense
curiosity to hear what the man who had just sat down next to him had to
say. "An extraordinary voice! Altogether extraordinary! Like a bell,
that is, if a bell could by any chance give a sense of an underlying
humor." And yet, even considering all this, when one is old and has
heard so many voices--But here he was quite rigid in the darkness. "Do
be quiet!" he whispered sharply. "Can't we be quiet!"

"Thanks!" said the voice, with its cool, assured inflections. "There is
nothing so very extraordinary. Men's brains are not unalike.
Merely--shall I go on?"

And before Mr. Vandusen's hurried assent could be uttered, the quiet
tones assumed the accent of narration. "Good," they said. "Very well,
then. But first I must ask of you a large use of your imagination. I
must ask you, for instance, to imagine a scene so utterly unlike this
February night that your eyes will have to close themselves entirely to
the present and open only to my words. I must ask you to imagine a
beech forest in early November; a beech forest dreaming beneath the
still magic of warm, hazy days; days that come before the first sharp
cold of winter. Will you imagine that?"

"Yes!" murmured Mr. Vandusen; and he noticed that the other men did not
answer at all.

"The mild sunlight," continued the voice, "filters through the naked
boughs and touches the smooth silver trunks and the moss about their
feet with a misty gold as iridescent as the wings of dragonflies. And as
far as you can see on every side stretch these silver boles, dusted with
sunlight; in straight lines, in oblique columns, until the eye loses
itself in the argent shadows of the distance.

"In the hidden open places, where the grass is still green toward its
roots, wild swine come out of the woods and stare with small red eyes;
but save for the crackling of the twigs beneath their feet it is very
quiet. Marvellously so. Quiet with the final hush of summer. Only rarely
a breeze stirs the legions of the heaped-up gray leaves, and sometimes,
but rarely, one hears far off the chattering of a squirrel. So!--that is
my forest.

"Through it runs like a purple ribbon a smooth, well-kept road. And it,
too, adds to the impression of stillness, as the untenanted handiwork of
man always does. On the rolled, damp surface are the marks of the cloven
feet of the swine.

"Now there is a snapping of dead wood, a rustling of leaves, and an
immense tusker--a grizzled leader of a herd--comes ponderously through
the sun-dappled aisles to the edge of the road. For a moment he stands
there, secure and unperturbed, and then suddenly he throws up his head,
his little eyes wide and startled, and, wheeling, charges back to where
his satellites are browsing. There is a breathless scurrying of huge
bodies; then utter silence again, except that far away a limb cracks.
But only for a moment is the road deserted. It seems as if the shadow of
the great tusker was still upon it when, beyond the bend, a horn, sweet
as a hunting-horn, blows once, twice, ends in a fanfare of treble notes,
and a long, gray motor-car sweeps into view, cutting the sunlight and
the pooled shadow with its twinkling prow. Behind it is another, and
another, and another, until six in all are in sight; and as they flash
past one has a glimpse, on the seats of the landaulets, of a number of
men in long cloaks and helmets; big and little men; fat men and
sharp-featured; elderly men and young men, and particularly of one man,
in the second car from the front, who looks straight ahead of him and is
not interested in the chatter of his companions. He is a stern man,
rather terrible, and his face wears a curious pallor. On the crest of a
wooded slope, a quarter of a mile away, the giant boar sniffs the odor
of the gasolene and delicately wrinkles his nose.

"And this," said the voice, "this convoy of motor-cars, these horns,
almost as gay as the hunting-horns of former days, was, as you have
guessed, The Maimed Man--as you choose to call him--come back to a
hunting-lodge to rest, to slip from his shoulders for a while, if he
could, the sodden cloak he had been wearing for the past three years and
as many months.

"It was dark when they came to the hunting-lodge, a long, two-storied
building of white plaster and timber-work above. The sun had been gone a
while beyond the low hills to the west, and in the open place where the
house stood only a remnant of the red dust of the sunset still floated
in the pellucid air. Here the beeches gave way to solid ranks of pines
and firs, and the evening sweetness of these fell upon the senses like
the touch of cool water upon tired eyes. The headlights of the
motor-cars cut wide arcs of blinding light in the gathering darkness.
One by one the cars stopped before the entrance with throbbing engines
and discharged their loads. The short flight of stairs became for a few
minutes a swaying tableau of gray cloaks. There was a subdued ringing of
spurs. The lamps from within the doorway touched the tips of the helmets
so that they twinkled like little stars.

"The Maimed Man descended slowly and passed between his waiting suite.
The scent of the pines had stirred his heart with memories. He was
thinking of the last time he had been here, years before--well, not
really so many years before, only four years, and yet it seemed like a
recollection of his boyhood. He paused inside the threshold to remove
his cloak. A hand, with a curious lack of duplication to it, stretched
itself forward. The Maimed Man turned abruptly to see a servant with one
arm bowing toward him. For a moment he paused, and then:

"'You are wounded?' he asked, and, although nothing was further from his
desire, his voice had in it a little rasping sound; anger it seemed,
although it might very well have been fear.

"The man turned a brick-red. He had never quite been able to recover
from the feeling that in some way to be crippled was a shameful thing.
He had been very strong before.

"'At Liège, your Majesty,' he murmured. 'In the first year.'

"'Always the left arm,' said The Maimed Man. 'Always the left. It seems
always so.' But now he was angry. He turned to one of his suite. 'Can I
not escape such things even here?' he asked. He went up without further
words to his rooms. From his study a long door of glass opened onto a
balcony. He remembered the balcony well. He opened the door and stepped
out. The twilight had gone now. The night was very still and touched
with a hint of crispness. Stars were beginning to show themselves. The
black pines that came down to the edge of the clearing were like a great
hidden army."

There was a little pause.

"And so," said the voice, "I can come now almost at once to the first of
the two incidents I wish to tell you. I choose only two because there is
no need of more. Two will do. And I shall call the first 'The story of
the leaves that marched.'

"The warm days still held, and at the hunting-lodge there was much
planning to keep things moving and every one busy and content. But
secret planning, you understand. The Maimed Man is not an easy person
for whom to plan unless he thinks that he has the final decision
himself. There were rides and drives and picnics and, in the afternoons,
usually a long walk, in which the older and stouter members of the suite
either stayed at home or else followed painfully in the rear of their
more active companions. The Maimed Man is a difficult person to keep up
with; he walks very fast across country, swinging his stick, choosing,
it would seem, the roughest ways. It is almost as if he wished to rid
himself of others; and he is inordinately proud of his own activity. It
was a curious sight to see his straggling attendants, spread out through
the silver vistas of the beeches, like earnest trolls, all in one way or
another bent upon a common end. And I suppose it was on account of this
trick of The Maimed Man that one afternoon, toward dusk, he found
himself almost completely alone, save for myself, who managed somehow to
keep step, and a silent huntsman in gray who strode on ahead with the
quiet, alert step of a wild animal.

"It was very still. There was no breeze at all. Not a sound except the
sound of the dead leaves beneath our feet; and The Maimed Man was not,
as was his usual wont, talking. Indeed, he seemed very preoccupied,
almost morosely so. Every now and then he cut with his stick at a bush
or a yellowed fern as he passed. Presently the trees opened upon a
little glade swimming in sunlight. And then there was a brook to cross,
and beyond that a gentle slope before the trees began again. The
sunlight was pleasantly warm after the coolness of the forest, and the
slope, with its soft dried grass, seemed an inviting place to rest. The
Maimed Man continued until he had reached the farther belt of trees, and
then he turned about and faced the sinking sun, that by now was changing
itself into a nebulous radiance on the horizon. The forest stretched in
gentle billows as far as the eye could see.

"'We will stop here,' said The Maimed Man, 'until the others catch up.
Lazy-bones! If they had one-half the work to do that my poorest man has
to the south they would not lose their legs so readily.' Then he sat
down and lit a cigarette. I sat beside him. Farther up on the slope, in
the shadow of the trees, sat the huntsman. We waited. The sun burned
away its quivering aura and began to sink blood-red below the hills.
Long shadows fell, penetrated with the dancing flecks of twilight.

"'Here they come!' said The Maimed Man suddenly. 'I see gray moving.
There--below there, amongst the trees!' He pointed with his cane. Far
back in the secret aisles of the forest across the brook there did
indeed seem to be a movement. The Maimed Man half arose to his feet. 'I
will shame them, the lazy-bones,' he said, and then he sat down again,
with an odd, soft collapse.

"For, you see, it was very still, as I have said. Not a trace of wind.
The forest seemed to be slumbering. And yet there had come out of it,
and across the open place, and up the slope, so that it touched the hair
and chilled the cheek, something that was not wind and yet was like it.
A little clammy cat's-paw. So! And then was gone. And on its heels came
the leaves. Yes, millions of them. But not blown; not hurriedly. Very
hesitatingly; as if by their own volition. One might have said that they
oozed with a monstrous slowness out from between the crepuscular
tree-trunks and across the open space toward the brook. Gray leaves,
creeping forward with a curious dogged languor. And when they came to
the brook they paused on its farther edge and stopped, and the ones
behind came pushing up to them. And looking down upon them, they might
have been the backs of wounded men in gray, dragging themselves on their
knees to water....

"I don't know how long this moment lasted--minutes perhaps; perhaps no
longer than the drawing in and letting out of a breath. It was broken by
the figure of a man--an upstanding man, this time--who stepped out of
the forest opposite and, halting for a moment on the edge of the
clearing, looked up to where The Maimed Man was sitting. Then he
signalled to some one behind him, and presently one by one the figures
of the belated suite appeared. They formed themselves in a little group
and with some precision marched across the clearing. As they trampled
upon the stricken leaves by the brookside the fixed stare in The Maimed
Man's eyes faded, and he watched them with a rigid attention. Shortly
they came to where he had got to his feet. A huge elderly man with a red
face led them.

"'But your Majesty,' he objected, 'it is not fitting. You should not
leave us in this way. Even here, is it altogether safe?'

"The Maimed Man did not answer. Covertly and with a sly shamefacedness,
unlike himself, he was trying to read the expression in the huntsman's
face. But that faithful fellow's eyes were bland. There was no sign that
he had seen anything out of the ordinary....

"There is no need," said the voice, "for delay. From this to the second
incident I would describe to you is only a step. I shall not go into
details. For these I can safely trust to your imaginations. And yet I
would not, of course, have you gather that what I have just told you is
without background--was out of a clear sky. Naturally, it was not; it
was a cumulation, an apex. Such things do not happen altogether
suddenly. There is a nibbling away at the banks, a little rivulet here
and there, and then, all at once, a torrent like a hunted river under
the moon. I called the first apex 'The story of the leaves that
marched'; I shall call the second 'The mist that came up suddenly.'

"Two weeks had passed; quiet days, slow weeks, quiet and slow as the
sunlight through the trees. The two doctors at the hunting-lodge, round,
sharp-spoken men, with big, near-sighted spectacles, rubbed their hands
together and nodded with certainty when they held their daily
consultations. 'He is improving rapidly,' they said. 'The lines in his
face are going. A little more exercise, a little more diversion--so!'
They imagined crosses on their chests.

"Have you ever known mist on a moonlight night in a forest? Not a woods,
not an open country with timber scattered through it, but a real forest;
so limitless, so close-pressing, that one has the same sense of
diminished personality and at the same time the same sense of all
obstructions cleared away between oneself and the loneliness of the
universe that one has at sea. As if, that is, you found yourself, a mere
shadow in the darkness, kneeling close before an altar on which blazed,
so that you could not altogether raise your head, the magnificence of a
star. But mist in a moonlight forest is even more disembodying than mist
on a moonlight sea. There are the dark masses of the trees, showing
every now and then above the changing wraiths of white, and the summits
of half-seen hills, to give an impression of a horizon near yet
seemingly unattainable.

"They had finished supper in the great oak-ceilinged room down below,
where a fire burned in the stone embrasure, and the soft lights of
candles in silver candelabra made only more tenebrous the darkness
overhead. The Maimed Man leaned back in his chair and peered with
narrowed eyelids through the smoke of his cigar at the long table
stretching away from him. For a moment he felt reassured; a hint of the
old assurance that had once been one of his greatest gifts. It was
partly a physical thing, stirring in his veins like the cool blood that
follows the awakening from healthy sleep. The sight of all these friends
of his, these followers of his, with their keen, sunburnt faces, or
their wrinkled and wise ones--! Surely he occupied a position almost
unassailable; almost as unassailable as that of the God of Force whose
purposes of late had at times puzzled him in a new and disturbing way--.
What nonsense! He gripped power as securely as he could grip, if he
wished, his sword. What strength in heaven or earth could break a man's
will, provided that will had been sufficiently trained? He felt
pleasantly tired from the walk of the afternoon; he thought that he
would go up to his rooms for a while, perhaps write a personal letter or
two, afterward come down again for a game of cards. He stood up; the
long double lines of men at the table rose with him, as a unit, at
attention. The Maimed Man looked at them for a prolonged second, his
heart stirred with pride; then he wheeled about and departed.

"In his workroom above, two secretaries were writing at a table under
the rays of a green-shaded lamp. They jumped to their feet as he
entered, but he waved them aside.

"'I shall return in a moment,' he said. 'First I wish to finish my
cigar.'

"He opened the glass door onto the balcony, but, as it was cool, he
stepped back and asked for his military cloak. When this was adjusted,
he stepped once more into the moonlight.... And then, suddenly, there
was no moonlight at all, or just the faintest glimmer of it, like light
seen through milky water. Instead, he had stepped into a swirling vapor
that in an instant lost him completely from the door he had just left; a
maelstrom of fog, that choked him, half blinded him, twisted about him
like wet, coiling ropes, and in a dreadful moment he saw that through
the fog were thrust out toward him arms of a famine thinness, the
extended fingers of which groped at his throat, were obliterated by the
fog, groped once more with a searching intentness.

"'God!' said The Maimed Man. 'God!'--and fought drunkenly for the wall
behind him. His hands touched nothing. He did not even know in which
direction the wall lay. He dreaded to move, for it seemed as if there
was no longer a railing to save him from falling. There was no solidity
anywhere. The world had become a thing of hideous flux, unstable as when
first it was made. Gelid fingers, farther reaching than the rest,
touched the back of his neck. He gave a hoarse, strangled cry and reeled
forward, and fell across the balustrade that came up out of the mist to
meet him. And slowly the mist retreated; down from the balcony and
across the open place beneath. A narrow line of dew-brightened grass
appeared and grew wider. The tops of the trees began to show. But The
Maimed Man could not take his eyes off the mist, for it seemed to him
that the open place was filled with the despairing arms of women and of
children, and that through the shifting whiteness gleamed the whiteness
of their serried faces. Behind him was the warm glow of the room,
shining through the glass doors. But he did not dare go in as yet; it
was necessary first to control the little flecks of foam that despite
his endeavor still wet his lips. For you see," said the voice, and in
the darkness its accents took on a slow, rhythmical sombreness, like the
swish of a sword in a shuttered room, "this was far worse than the
leaves. For, after all, the dead are only the dead, but to the living
there is no end."

At least a minute--fully a minute--must have passed, a minute in which
the brown shadows of the library, held back for now this long while by
the weaving magic of the voice, stepped forward once more into their
places, while Mr. Vandusen waited for the voice to continue. Then the
spell broke like a shattered globe, and, with a sudden realization of
many things, he leaned forward and felt the chair to the right of him.
There was no one there. He paused with his hand still on the leather
seat. "Would you mind telling me," he asked, and he found that he was
speaking with some effort and with great precision, "if any of you know
the gentleman who has just left?"

"Left?" said Tomlinson sharply.

"Yes--left."

Tomlinson's voice was incredulous. "But he couldn't have," he insisted.
"From where I am sitting I would have seen him as he reached the door.
Although, if he really is gone, I can say, thank the Lord, that I think
he's a faker."

On silent feet young Wheeler had departed for the hall. Now he returned.
"It may interest you to know," he said, "that I have just interviewed
the doorman and the boy who is stationed at the steps leading back, and
they both say no one has come in or out in the last half-hour."

Suddenly his careful voice rose to a high note. "What the devil--!" he
sputtered. He strode over to the electric switch. "For Heaven's sake,
let's have some light," he said. "Why do we always insist upon sitting
in this confounded darkness?"




THE WEDDING JEST[9]

[Note 9: Copyright, 1919, by The Century Company. Copyright, 1920,
by James Branch Cabell.]

BY JAMES BRANCH CABELL

From _The Century_


I. CONCERNING SEVERAL COMPACTS

It is a tale which they narrate in Poictesme, telling how love began
between Florian de Puysange and Adelaide de la Forêt. They tell also how
young Florian had earlier fancied other women for one reason or another;
but that this, he knew, was the great love of his life, and a love which
would endure unchanged as long as his life lasted.

And the tale tells how the Comte de la Forêt stroked a gray beard and
said:

"Well, after all, Puysange is a good fief--"

"As if that mattered!" cried his daughter, indignantly. "My father, you
are a deplorably sordid person."

"My dear," replied the old gentleman, "it does matter. Fiefs last."

So he gave his consent to the match, and the two young people were
married on Walburga's eve, on the last day of April.

And they narrate how Florian de Puysange was vexed by a thought that was
in his mind. He did not know what this thought was. But something he had
overlooked; something there was he had meant to do, and had not done;
and a troubling consciousness of this lurked at the back of his mind
like a small formless cloud. All day, while bustling about other
matters, he had groped toward this unapprehended thought.

Now he had it: Tiburce.

The young Vicomte de Puysange stood in the doorway, looking back into
the bright hall where they of Storisende were dancing at his marriage
feast. His wife, for a whole half-hour his wife, was dancing with
handsome Etienne de Nérac. Her glance met Florian's, and Adelaide
flashed him an especial smile. Her hand went out as though to touch him,
for all that the width of the hall severed them.

Florian remembered presently to smile back at her. Then he went out of
the castle into a starless night that was as quiet as an unvoiced
menace. A small and hard and gnarled-looking moon ruled over the dusk's
secrecy. The moon this night, afloat in a luminous, gray void, somehow
reminded Florian of a glistening and unripe huge apple.

The foliage about him moved at most as a sleeper breathes as Florian
descended eastward through the walled gardens, and so came to the
graveyard. White mists were rising, such mists as the witches of Amneran
notoriously evoked in these parts on each Walburga's eve to purchase
recreations which squeamishness leaves undescribed.

For five years now Tiburce d'Arnaye had lain there. Florian thought of
his dead comrade and of the love which had been between them--a love
more perfect and deeper and higher than commonly exists between men; and
the thought came to Florian, and was petulantly thrust away, that
Adelaide loved ignorantly where Tiburce d'Arnaye had loved with
comprehension. Yes, he had known almost the worst of Florian de
Puysange, this dear lad who, none the less, had flung himself between
Black Torrismond's sword and the breast of Florian de Puysange. And it
seemed to Florian unfair that all should prosper with him, and Tiburce
lie there imprisoned in dirt which shut away the color and variousness
of things and the drollness of things, wherein Tiburce d'Arnaye had
taken such joy. And Tiburce, it seemed to Florian--for this was a
strange night--was struggling futilely under all that dirt, which shut
out movement, and clogged the mouth of Tiburce, and would not let him
speak, and was struggling to voice a desire which was unsatisfied and
hopeless.

"O comrade dear," said Florian, "you who loved merriment, there is a
feast afoot on this strange night, and my heart is sad that you are not
here to share in the feasting. Come, come, Tiburce, a right trusty
friend you were to me; and, living or dead, you should not fail to make
merry at my wedding."

Thus he spoke. White mists were rising, and it was Walburga's eve.

So a queer thing happened, and it was that the earth upon the grave
began to heave and to break in fissures, as when a mole passes through
the ground. And other queer things happened after that, and presently
Tiburce d'Arnaye was standing there, gray and vague in the moonlight as
he stood there brushing the mold from his brows, and as he stood there
blinking bright, wild eyes. And he was not greatly changed, it seemed to
Florian; only the brows and nose of Tiburce cast no shadows upon his
face, nor did his moving hand cast any shadow there, either, though the
moon was naked overhead.

"You had forgotten the promise that was between us," said Tiburce; and
his voice had not changed much, though it was smaller.

"It is true. I had forgotten. I remember now." And Florian shivered a
little, not with fear, but with distaste.

"A man prefers to forget these things when he marries. It is natural
enough. But are you not afraid of me who come from yonder?"

"Why should I be afraid of you, Tiburce, who gave your life for mine?"

"I do not say. But we change yonder."

"And does love change, Tiburce? For surely love is immortal."

"Living or dead, love changes. I do not say love dies in us who may hope
to gain nothing more from love. Still, lying alone in the dark clay,
there is nothing to do as yet save to think of what life was, and of
what sunlight was, and of what we sang and whispered in dark places when
we had lips; and of how young grass and murmuring waters and the high
stars beget fine follies even now; and to think of how merry our loved
ones still contrive to be even now with their new playfellows. Such
reflections are not always conducive to philanthropy."

"Tell me," said Florian then, "and is there no way in which we who are
still alive may aid you to be happier yonder?"

"Oh, but assuredly," replied Tiburce d'Arnaye, and he discoursed of
curious matters; and as he talked, the mists about the graveyard
thickened. "And so," Tiburce said, in concluding his tale, "it is not
permitted that I make merry at your wedding after the fashion of those
who are still in the warm flesh. But now that you recall our ancient
compact, it is permitted I have my peculiar share in the merriment, and
I drink with you to the bride's welfare."

"I drink," said Florian as he took the proffered cup, "to the welfare of
my beloved Adelaide, whom alone of women I have really loved, and whom I
shall love always."

"I perceive," replied the other, "that you must still be having your
joke."

Then Florian drank, and after him Tiburce. And Florian said:

"But it is a strange drink, Tiburce, and now that you have tasted it you
are changed."

"You have not changed, at least," Tiburce answered, and for the first
time he smiled, a little perturbingly by reason of the change in him.

"Tell me," said Florian, "of how you fare yonder."

So Tiburce told him of yet more curious matters. Now the augmenting
mists had shut off all the rest of the world. Florian could see only
vague, rolling graynesses and a gray and changed Tiburce sitting there,
with bright, wild eyes, and discoursing in a small chill voice. The
appearance of a woman came, and sat beside him on the right. She, too,
was gray, as became Eve's senior; and she made a sign which Florian
remembered, and it troubled him. Tiburce said then:

"And now, young Florian, you who were once so dear to me, it is to your
welfare I drink."

"I drink to yours, Tiburce."

Tiburce drank first; and Florian, having drunk in turn, cried out: "You
have changed beyond recognition!"

"You have not changed," Tiburce d'Arnaye replied again. "Now let me tell
you of our pastimes yonder."

With that he talked of exceedingly curious matters. And Florian began to
grow dissatisfied, for Tiburce was no longer recognizable, and Tiburce
whispered things uncomfortable to believe; and other eyes, as wild as
his, but lit with red flarings from behind, like a beast's eyes, showed
in the mists to this side and to that side, and unhappy beings were
passing through the mists upon secret errands which they discharged
unwillingly. Then, too, the appearance of a gray man now sat to the left
of that which had been Tiburce d'Arnaye, and this new-comer was marked
so that all might know who he was; and Florian's heart was troubled to
note how handsome and how admirable was that desecrated face even now.

"But I must go," said Florian, "lest they miss me at Storisende and
Adelaide be worried."

"Surely it will not take long to toss off a third cup. Nay, comrade, who
were once so dear, let us two now drink our last toast together. Then
go, in Sclaug's name, and celebrate your marriage. But before that let
us drink to the continuance of human mirth-making everywhere."

Florian drank first. Then Tiburce took his turn, looking at Florian as
Tiburce drank slowly. As he drank, Tiburce d'Arnaye was changed even
more, and the shape of him altered, and the shape of him trickled as
though Tiburce were builded of sliding fine white sand. So Tiburce
d'Arnaye returned to his own place. The appearances that had sat to his
left and to his right were no longer there to trouble Florian with
memories. And Florian saw that the mists of Walburga's eve had departed,
and that the sun was rising, and that the graveyard was all overgrown
with nettles and tall grass.

He had not remembered the place being thus, and it seemed to him the
night had passed with unnatural quickness. But he thought more of the
fact that he had been beguiled into spending his wedding-night in a
graveyard in such questionable company, and of what explanation he could
make to Adelaide.


II. OF YOUNG PERSONS IN MAY

The tale tells how Florian de Puysange came in the dawn through
flowering gardens, and heard young people from afar, already about their
maying. Two by two he saw them from afar as they went with romping and
laughter into the tall woods behind Storisende to fetch back the
May-pole with dubious old rites. And as they went they sang, as was
customary, that song which Raimbaut de Vaqueiras made in the ancient
time in honor of May's ageless triumph.

Sang they:

   "May shows with godlike showing
    To-day for each that sees
    May's magic overthrowing
    All musty memories
    In him whom May decrees
    To be love's own. He saith,
    _I wear love's liveries
    Until released by death_.

    "Thus all we laud May's sowing,
    Nor heed how harvests please
    When nowhere grain worth growing
    Greets autumn's questing breeze,
    And garnerers garner these--
    Vain words and wasted breath
    And spilth and tasteless lees--
    Until released by death.

    "Unwillingly foreknowing
    That love with May-time flees,
    We take this day's bestowing,
    And feed on fantasies
    Such as love lends for ease
    Where none but travaileth,
    With lean, infrequent fees,
    Until released by death."

And Florian shook his sleek, black head. "A very foolish and
pessimistical old song, a superfluous song, and a song that is
particularly out of place in the loveliest spot in the loveliest of all
possible worlds."

Yet Florian took no inventory of the gardens. There was but a happy
sense of green and gold, with blue topping all; of twinkling, fluent,
tossing leaves and of the gray under side of elongated, straining
leaves; a sense of pert bird-noises, and of a longer shadow than usual
slanting before him, and a sense of youth and well-being everywhere.
Certainly it was not a morning wherein pessimism might hope to flourish.

Instead, it was of Adelaide that Florian thought: of the tall,
impulsive, and yet timid, fair girl who was both shrewd and innocent,
and of her tenderly colored loveliness, and of his abysmally unmerited
felicity in having won her. Why, but what, he reflected, grimacing--what
if he had too hastily married somebody else? For he had earlier fancied
other women for one reason or another: but this, he knew, was the great
love of his life, and a love which would endure unchanged as long as his
life lasted.


III. WHAT COMES OF MARRYING HAPPILY

The tale tells how Florian de Puysange found Adelaide in the company of
two ladies who were unknown to him. One of these was very old, the other
an imposing matron in middle life. The three were pleasantly shaded by
young oak-trees; beyond was a tall hedge of clipped yew. The older women
were at chess, while Adelaide bent her meek, golden head to some of that
fine needle-work in which the girl delighted. And beside them rippled a
small sunlit stream, which babbled and gurgled with silver flashes.
Florian hastily noted these things as he ran laughing to his wife.

"Heart's dearest!" he cried. And he saw, perplexed, that Adelaide had
risen with a faint, wordless cry, and was gazing at him as though she
were puzzled and alarmed a very little.

"Such an adventure as I have to tell you of!" said Florian then.

"But, hey, young man, who are you that would seem to know my daughter so
well?" demanded the lady in middle life, and rose majestically from her
chess-game.

Florian stared, as he well might.

"Your daughter, madame! But certainly you are not Dame Melicent."

At this the old, old woman raised her nodding head.

"Dame Melicent? And was it I you were seeking, sir?"

Now Florian looked from one to the other of these incomprehensible
strangers, bewildered; and his eyes came back to his lovely wife, and
his lips smiled irresolutely.

"Is this some jest to punish me, my dear?" But then a new and graver
trouble kindled in his face, and his eyes narrowed, for there was
something odd about his wife also.

"I have been drinking in queer company," he said. "It must be that my
head is not yet clear. Now certainly it seems to me that you are
Adelaide de la Forêt, and certainly it seems to me that you are not
Adelaide."

The girl replied:

"Why, no, messire; I am Sylvie de Nointel."

"Come, come," said the middle-aged lady, briskly, "let us have an end of
this play-acting! There has been no Adelaide de la Forêt in these parts
for some twenty-five years, as nobody knows better than I. Young fellow,
let us have a sniff at you. No, you are not tipsy, after all. Well, I am
glad of that. So let us get to the bottom of this business. What do they
call you when you are at home?"

"Florian de Puysange," he answered speaking meekly enough. This capable
large person was to the young man rather intimidating.

"La!" said she. She looked at him very hard. She nodded gravely two or
three times, so that her double chin opened and shut.

"Yes, and you favor him. How old are you?" He told her twenty-four. She
said inconsequently: "So I was a fool, after all. Well, young man, you
will never be as good-looking as your father, but I trust you have an
honester nature. However, bygones are bygones. Is the old rascal still
living, and was it he that had the impudence to send you to me?"

"My father, madame, was slain at the Battle of Marchfeld--"

"Some fifty years ago! And you are twenty-four. Young man, your
parentage had unusual features, or else we are at cross-purposes. Let
us start at the beginning of this. You tell us you are called Florian de
Puysange and that you have been drinking in queer company. Now let us
have the whole story."

Florian told of last night's happenings, with no more omissions than
seemed desirable with feminine auditors.

Then the old woman said:

"I think this is a true tale, my daughter, for the witches of Amneran
contrive strange things, with mists to aid them, and with Lilith and
Sclaug to abet. Yes, and this fate has fallen before to men that have
been over-friendly with the dead."

"Stuff and nonsense!" said the stout lady.

"But, no, my daughter. Thus seven persons slept at Ephesus, from the
time of Decius to the time of Theodosius--"

"Still, Mother--"

"And the proof of it is that they were called Constantine and Dionysius
and John and Malchus and Marcian and Maximian and Serapion. They were
duly canonized. You cannot deny that this thing happened without
asserting no less than seven blessed saints to have been unprincipled
liars, and that would be a very horrible heresy--"

"Yet, Mother, you know as well as I do--"

"And thus Epimenides, another excellently spoken-of saint, slept at
Athens for fifty-seven years. Thus Charlemagne slept in the Untersberg,
and will sleep until the ravens of Miramon Lluagor have left his
mountains. Thus Rhyming Thomas in the Eildon Hills, thus Ogier in
Avalon, thus Oisin--"

The old lady bade fair to go on interminably in her gentle, resolute,
piping old voice, but the other interrupted.

"Well, Mother, do not excite yourself about it, for it only makes your
asthma worse, and does no especial good to anybody. Things may be as you
say. Certainly I intended nothing irreligious. Yet these extended naps,
appropriate enough for saints and emperors, are out of place in one's
own family. So, if it is not stuff and nonsense, it ought to be. And
that I stick to."

"But we forget the boy, my dear," said the old lady. "Now listen,
Florian de Puysange. Thirty years ago last night, to the month and the
day, it was that you vanished from our knowledge, leaving my daughter a
forsaken bride. For I am what the years have made of Dame Melicent, and
this is my daughter Adelaide, and yonder is her daughter Sylvie de
Nointel."

"La! Mother," observed the stout lady, "but are you certain it was the
last of April? I had been thinking it was some time in June. And I
protest it could not have been all of thirty years. Let me see now,
Sylvie, how old is your brother Richard? Twenty-eight, you say. Well,
Mother, I always said you had a marvellous memory for things like that,
and I often envy you. But how time does fly, to be sure!"

And Florian was perturbed.

"For this is an awkward thing, and Tiburce had played me an unworthy
trick. He never did know when to leave off joking; but such posthumous
frivolity is past endurance. For, see now, in what a pickle it has
landed me! I have outlived my friends, I may encounter difficulty in
regaining my fiefs, and certainly I have lost the fairest wife man ever
had. Oh, can it be, madame, that you are indeed my Adelaide!"

"Yes, every pound of me, poor boy, and that says much."

"And that you have been untrue to the eternal fidelity which you swore
to me here by this very stream? Oh, but I cannot believe it was thirty
years ago, for not a grass-blade or a pebble has been altered; and I
perfectly remember the lapping of water under those lichened rocks, and
that continuous file of ripples yonder, which are shaped like
arrow-heads."

Adelaide rubbed her nose.

"Did I promise eternal fidelity? I can hardly remember that far back.
But I remember I wept a great deal, and my parents assured me you were
either dead or a rascal, so that tears could not help either way. Then
Ralph de Nointel came along, good man, and made me a fair husband, as
husbands go--"

"As for that stream," then said Dame Melicent, "it is often I have
thought of that stream, sitting here with my grandchildren where I once
sat with gay young men whom nobody remembers now save me. Yes, it is
strange to think that instantly, and within the speaking of any simple
word, no drop of water retains the place it held before the word was
spoken; and yet the stream remains unchanged, and stays as it was when I
sat here with those young men who are gone. Yes, that is a strange
thought, and it is a sad thought, too, for those of us who are old."

"But, Mother, of course the stream remains unchanged," agreed Dame
Adelaide. "Streams always do except at high water. Everybody knows that,
and I see nothing remarkable about it. As for you, Florian, if you
stickle for love's being an immortal affair," she added, with a large
twinkle, "I would have you know I have been a widow for three years. So
the matter could be arranged."

Florian looked at her sadly. To him the situation was incongruous with
the terrible archness of a fat woman.

"But, madame, you are no longer the same person."

She patted him upon the shoulder.

"Come, Florian, there is some sense in you, after all. Console yourself,
lad, with the reflection that if you had stuck manfully by your wife
instead of mooning about graveyards, I would still be just as I am
to-day, and you would be tied to me. Your friend probably knew what he
was about when he drank to our welfare, for we should never have suited
each other, as you can see for yourself. Well, Mother, many things fall
out queerly in this world, but with age we learn to accept what happens
without flustering too much over it. What are we to do with this
resurrected old lover of mine?"

It was horrible to Florian to see how prosaically these women dealt with
his unusual misadventure. Here was a miracle occurring virtually before
their eyes, and these women accepted it with maddening tranquillity as
an affair for which they were not responsible. Florian began to reflect
that elderly persons were always more or less unsympathetic and
inadequate.

"First of all," said Dame Melicent, "I would give him some breakfast.
He must be hungry after all these years. And you could put him in
Adhelmar's room--"

"But," Florian said wildly, to Dame Adelaide, "you have committed the
crime of bigamy, and you are, after all, my wife!"

She replied, herself not unworried:

"Yes, but, Mother, both the cook and the butler are somewhere in the
bushes yonder, up to some nonsense that I prefer to know nothing about.
You know how servants are, particularly on holidays. I could scramble
him some eggs, though, with a rasher. And Adhelmar's room it had better
be, I suppose, though I had meant to have it turned out. But as for
bigamy and being your wife," she concluded more cheerfully, "it seems to
me the least said the soonest mended. It is to nobody's interest to rake
up those foolish bygones, so far as I can see."

"Adelaide, you profane equally love, which is divine, and marriage,
which is a holy sacrament."

"Florian, do you really love Adelaide de Nointel?" asked this terrible
woman. "And now that I am free to listen to your proposals, do you wish
to marry me?"

"Well, no," said Florian; "for, as I have just said, you are no longer
the same person."

"Why, then, you see for yourself. So do you quit talking nonsense about
immortality and sacraments."

"But, still," cried Florian, "love is immortal. Yes, I repeat to you,
precisely as I told Tiburce, love is immortal."

Then said Dame Melicent, nodding her shriveled old head:

"When I was young, and served by nimbler senses and desires, and housed
in brightly colored flesh, there were many men who loved me. Minstrels
yet tell of the men that loved me, and of how many tall men were slain
because of their love for me, and of how in the end it was Perion who
won me. For the noblest and the most faithful of all my lovers was
Perion of the Forest, and through tempestuous years he sought me with a
love that conquered time and chance; and so he won me. Thereafter he
made me a fair husband, as husbands go. But I might not stay the girl he
had loved, nor might he remain the lad that Melicent had dreamed of,
with dreams be-drugging the long years in which Demetrios held Melicent
a prisoner, and youth went away from her. No, Perion and I could not do
that, any more than might two drops of water there retain their place in
the stream's flowing. So Perion and I grew old together, friendly
enough; and our senses and desires began to serve us more drowsily, so
that we did not greatly mind the falling away of youth, nor greatly mind
to note what shriveled hands now moved before us, performing common
tasks; and we were content enough. But of the high passion that had
wedded us there was no trace, and of little senseless human bickerings
there were a great many. For one thing"--and the old lady's voice was
changed--"for one thing, he was foolishly particular about what he would
eat and what he would not eat, and that upset my house-keeping, and I
had never any patience with such nonsense."

"Well, none the less," said Florian, "it is not quite nice of you to
acknowledge it."

Then said Dame Adelaide:

"That is a true word, Mother. All men get finicky about their food, and
think they are the only persons to be considered, and there is no end to
it if once you begin to humor them. So there has to be a stand made.
Well, and indeed my poor Ralph, too, was all for kissing and pretty talk
at first, and I accepted it willingly enough. You know how girls are.
They like to be made much of, and it is perfectly natural. But that
leads to children. And when the children began to come, I had not much
time to bother with him; and Ralph had his farming and his warfaring to
keep him busy. A man with a growing family cannot afford to neglect his
affairs. And certainly, being no fool, he began to notice that girls
here and there had brighter eyes and trimmer waists than I. I do not
know what such observations may have led to when he was away from me; I
never inquired into it, because in such matters all men are fools. But I
put up with no nonsense at home, and he made me a fair husband, as
husbands go. That much I will say for him gladly; and if any widow says
more than that, Florian, do you beware of her, for she is an untruthful
woman."

"Be that as it may," replied Florian, "it is not quite becoming to speak
thus of your dead husband. No doubt you speak the truth; there is no
telling what sort of person you may have married in what still seems to
me unseemly haste to provide me with a successor; but even so, a little
charitable prevarication would be far more edifying."

He spoke with such earnestness that there fell a silence. The women
seemed to pity him. And in the silence Florian heard from afar young
persons returning from the woods behind Storisende, and bringing with
them the May-pole. They were still singing.

Sang they:

   "Unwillingly foreknowing
    That love with May-time flees,
    We take this day's bestowing,
    And feed on fantasies--"


IV. YOUTH SOLVES IT

The tale tells how lightly and sweetly, and compassionately, too, then
spoke young Sylvie de Nointel:

"Ah, but, assuredly, Messire Florian, you do not argue with my pets
quite seriously. Old people always have some such queer notions. Of
course love all depends upon what sort of person you are. Now, as I see
it, mama and grandmama are not the sort of persons who have real
love-affairs. Devoted as I am to both of them, I cannot but perceive
they are lacking in real depth of sentiment. They simply do not
understand such matters. They are fine, straightforward, practical
persons, poor dears, and always have been, of course, for in things like
that one does not change, as I have often noticed. And father, and
grandfather, too, as I remember him, was kind-hearted and admirable and
all that, but nobody could ever have expected him to be a satisfactory
lover. Why, he was bald as an egg, the poor pet!"

And Sylvie laughed again at the preposterous notions of old people. She
flashed an especial smile at Florian. Her hand went out as though to
touch him, in an unforgotten gesture. "Old people do not understand,"
said Sylvie de Nointel in tones which took this handsome young fellow
ineffably into confidence.

"Mademoiselle," said Florian, with a sigh that was part relief and all
approval, "it is you who speak the truth, and your elders have fallen
victims to the cynicism of a crassly material age. Love is immortal when
it is really love and one is the right sort of person. There is the
love--known to how few, alas! and a passion of which I regret to find
your mother incapable--that endures unchanged until the end of life."

"I am so glad you think so, Messire Florian," she answered demurely.

"And do you not think so, mademoiselle?"

"How should I know," she asked him, "as yet?" He noted she had
incredibly long lashes.

"Thrice happy is he that convinces you!" says Florian. And about them,
who were young in the world's recaptured youth, spring triumphed with an
ageless rural pageant, and birds cried to their mates. He noted the red
brevity of her lips and their probable softness.

Meanwhile the elder women regarded each other.

"It is the season of May. They are young and they are together. Poor
children!" said Dame Melicent. "Youth cries to youth for the toys of
youth, and saying, 'Lo! I cry with the voice of a great god!'"

"Still," said Madame Adelaide, "Puysange is a good fief."

But Florian heeded neither of them as he stood there by the sunlit
stream, in which no drop of water retained its place for a moment, and
which yet did not alter in appearance at all. He did not heed his elders
for the excellent reason that Sylvie de Nointel was about to speak, and
he preferred to listen to her. For this girl, he knew, was lovelier than
any other person had ever been since Eve first raised just such
admiring, innocent, and venturesome eyes to inspect what must have
seemed to her the quaintest of all animals, called man. So it was with a
shrug that Florian remembered how he had earlier fancied other women for
one reason or another; since this, he knew, was the great love of his
life, and a love which would endure unchanged as long as his life
lasted.




THE WRISTS ON THE DOOR[10]

[Note 10: Copyright, 1919, by The Ridgway Company. Copyright, 1920,
by Horace Fish.]

BY HORACE FISH

From _Everybody's Magazine_


Between his leather easy-chair at one end of his drawing-room and the
wall with his wife's portrait at the other, Henry Montagu was pacing in
a state of agitation such as he had never experienced in his fifty years
of life. The drawing-room was no longer "theirs." It was his--and the
portrait's. The painting was of a girl who was not more beautiful in
radiance of feature and lovable contour of body than the woman a
generation older who had died two months ago.

Suddenly he stopped short in the middle of the room, his hands in his
pockets. "My God!" he cried.

Then he shut his teeth on the words as sharply and passionately as he
had uttered them, and raised one of his hands to his brow. There were
drops of cold sweat upon it.

Mr. Montagu was a simple, selfish, good-natured business-man, never
given to imaginative thoughts or to greater extremes of mood than the
heights and depths of rising and falling stocks. Yet his experience of
the last two hours had shown him to himself as a creature wretchedly
inadequate to face the problem that confronted him--the simple problem
of widowerhood.

He was not bitter at his wife's death. Not only did he consider himself
too sensible for that, but he _was_ too sensible. Death is an inevitable
thing. And the one fact involving the simplicity of the problem was no
more than many another man had borne without a thought--his
childlessness.

Yet as if the whole two months in their strangeness their sad novelty,
had been concentrating their loneliness for an accumulated spring at
him, the last two hours had driven home to him that this secondary fact
had _not_ been inevitable, that what he was suffering to-night could
have been avoided.

He had not wished to have children, and neither had the beautiful woman
whose painted spirit smiled down so pitilessly now on his tragedy of
jangled nerves and intolerable solitude. Deliberately and quite frankly,
without even hiding behind the cowardly excuse of the tacit, they had
outspokenly chosen not to.

After his desperate exclamation, he had laughed and thrown himself into
his chair. He had forced the laugh, seeking to batter down with it a
thrill that was akin to fright at an abrupt realization that in those
two dreadful hours he had done three unprecedented things. He had spoken
aloud there by himself, an action he had always ascribed exclusively to
children and maniacs; he had harbored absurd temptations; and finally he
had ejaculated "My God!" which he had thought appropriate to a man only
in the distresses of fiction or after complete ruin on the Stock
Exchange.

That exclamation had sprung from him when he had caught himself thinking
how gladly he would give half his fortune if he could have a companion,
even his butler, for the rest of the evening, his whole fortune, exactly
as if he had died, if he could but have a son to give it to.

That freedom from care, which they had chosen to call freedom from
responsibility, had been their mutual property, but to-night, in his
hopeless solitude, it seemed that he was paying the whole price for it.
She had met the unknown, but with the known--himself, her whole
life--beside her, and her ordeal was over. His, he felt now, was worse,
and already beginning. After all, he reflected, there was a certain
rough justice in it; the one spared longer in the world of bodily people
bore, in consequence, the reverting brunt of their double selfishness.
But the remnant of life seemed a poor thing to-night. The further it
stretched, in his suddenly stirred imagination, the poorer, the emptier,
it seemed.

And having stirred, after a whole lifetime of healthy sleep, his
imagination gripped him in a strong and merciless embrace. It seemed to
twist him about and force him to look down the vista of the coming years
and at all their possibilities, even the desecrational one of marrying
again and calling into life the son that he had never wanted before. At
the thought, he flushed with the idea that the portrait's eyes were
reading his face, and compelled himself to look bravely at it; but as he
met the lovely eyes strange questions darted into his brain: whether he
would not rather have been solely to blame; whether his all-possessive
love of her would not be more flawless now if she had been a flawless
eternal-feminine type, longing for motherhood, but denying it for his
sake; whether he would not be happier now in looking at her portrait if
some warm tint from a Renaissance Madonna had mellowed the radiant
Medici Venus who smiled from the frame. He was seized by a desire to
turn the gazing picture to the wall.

Half-way across the room, he checked the impulse with a gasp of
self-disgust, but with hands raised involuntarily toward it he cried:

"_Oh, why didn't we?_"

As he stood trembling with his back to it, the second absurd temptation
of the night assailed him--to dash on his hat and go to Maurice's, a
restaurant of oblique reputation to which his wife had once accompanied
him out of curiosity, and which, in a surprising outburst of almost
pious prudery, she had refused to visit again. Nor had she ever allowed
him to go thereafter himself, and though she had made no dying request
of him, he knew that, if she had, that would have been it.

In his shaken state the thought of his one club, the Business Men's, was
repugnant. Maurice's, expansive, insinuating and brilliant, called to
his loneliness arbitrarily, persistently. But with a glance over his
shoulder at the portrait, he put the thought away. Then, straightening
up, he walked to his chair again, sat tensely down, and faced the long
room and his childish terror at its emptiness.

Innocent as had been his impulse toward Maurice's and full as was
Broadway with places as glittering and noisy, his morbid duty to debar
that one resort seemed to him to condemn him to the house for the night.
Why was it the butler's night out? Even to know that he was below
stairs--Would other nights be like this? _Every_ night--The possibility
turned him cold. His thoughts were racing now, and even as he gripped
the arms of the chair a still worse terror gripped his mind. His
loneliness seemed to have become an actual thing, real as a person, a
spirit haunting the luxurious, silent house. He was facing the door, and
its heavy mahogany, fixing his attention through his staring gaze,
seemed to be shutting him alone with the dead. Save for his trembling
self and his wife's painted eyes, the big room was lifeless. It was
beyond the closed door that his imagination, now running beyond control,
pictured the presence of his frightful guest--his own solitude, coming
in ironical answer to his craving for companionship.

Were those live eyes of the dead creating his sense of an impending life
in the house? Was it his wife, who, never having created a child for
him, was forcing on him now a horrible companion? Again he started
desperately toward the picture, again he caught himself, again he cried,
"My God!" and faced his terror passionately, facing too, this time, the
closed door.

"You fool! You fool!"

His voice sounded weak and strange to him as if indeed some one else had
spoken. The paralyzing thought that such a mood of panic could be the
beginning of real madness had shaken his voice and his whole body, and
again Maurice's, now as a positive savior, rushed into his mind. But he
threw the idea of refuge contemptuously away. He would stand his ground
and not leave the house that night; yet even as he stood, he asked
himself if this was not because he feared to open the door.

With a gasp, he drew himself up in the center of the room, and in a
surge of determined anger, with his eyes on the door, facing it as he
would have faced an enemy before he attacked, he deliberately gave his
mind to his fear, letting it sweep through him, trying to magnify it,
reading every horror that he could into the imagined presence that he
intended to dispel, and then, tormenting himself with slow steps, he
walked to the door, reached his hand to the knob, and opened it.

Though his mouth opened for a cry of terror, no sound came from him as
he staggered back, and a waiting figure pitched into the room, rushed
wildly past him with a whimper like that of a wounded animal, and flung
itself, face forward, into the empty chair.

As if through the same doorway that had given entrance to the desperate
wretch, his terror seemed to leave him. While he stood gasping, with
pounding heart, staring at the limp, shuddering manhood that had hurled
itself into his home, Henry Montagu suddenly felt himself a man again.

With the cold plunge of his senses into rationality, they told him that
he was in the presence of some fatal and soul-sickening tragedy, yet
this horror that had dashed into the hollow privacy of his house was at
least real to him. Overwhelmed as he was by the frightful appearance of
the young man, who was now weeping abandonedly, he had no fear of him,
and his first act was a practical one--he swiftly, quietly closed the
door. It was done in an instinct of protection. It would be useless to
question him yet, but that he was a fugitive, and from something
hideous, Montagu took for granted.

He stood looking across the room at his outlandish guest, trying to
docket the kaleidoscopic flock of impressions that had flown into his
mind from the instant he swung back the door. Though noble, even
splendid in its slender lines, the youth's figure had half-fallen,
half-sprung through the doorway, animal-like. There had not been even a
ghost of sound in the hallway, yet it was as if he had been in the act
of hurtling himself against the closed door, hammering at it with
upraised hands. Mr. Montagu had been horrified by it instantaneously, as
by a thing of violence with every suggestion of the sordid, but the poor
sobbing fellow who now lay in the chair with his arms and head drooping
over the big leather arm seemed to him as immaculately dressed as
himself. Remembering the fleeting posture at the door, his eyes went
involuntarily to the hanging, graphic hands. In the light of his
reading-lamp they gleamed white, and as he watched, his heart sinking
with pity at their thinness, two slow red drops rolled from under the
cuffs down the palms, and fell to the floor.

"Good God!" breathed Henry Montagu.

He had never doubted for the fraction of a second that his guest was a
criminal, and in every sense a desperate one, but, just as
instinctively, he felt certain that no matter what the horror he had run
from, he was more sinned against than sinning. Every line in the boy's
fragile, pathetic figure went straight to the older man's heart. It came
to him, almost joyously, that there had been premonition in his strange
mood of longing for a son. As an end to this nerve-racking night, there
was work to do--for the remainder of it, at least for a brief moment, he
had a companion in his grim, empty house.

"Thank God!" he exclaimed aloud.

"Thank God! Thank God!"

The young man had spoken, and Mr. Montagu, as he heard the words,
remembered that between the sobs there had been, in faint, broken
syllables, "My God! My God!" again and again, and that he had understood
at last what it was to hear that from a man who was neither ruined by
the Stock Exchange nor the weak victim of childish terror. But now, this
repetition of his varied expression startled him. It was like an echo of
himself.

Again he shook himself together. If the boy could speak, it was time to
question him. He had not yet seen his face, beyond a flashing imprint on
his brain of a look of terrific fear and terrific exultation as it had
dashed past him, but he was prepared to like it. He braced himself,
walked over and stood in front of the chair. With an object--even this
object--to justify it, he gladly surrendered himself now to the fatherly
instinct he had so bitterly struggled against, and he felt that he would
like, with his first words, to put his hand reassuringly on the crumpled
shoulder. But the night had left his nerves still raw--in his
sensitivity he could not bear the thought that the trembling figure
would shrink from his touch, and he kept his hand firmly at his side.

"My boy," he said gently, "you mustn't be afraid of me. Tell me what
you've done."

The young man raised his head, sank back in the chair, and looked at
him.

Not once in the long evening of lonely terror, not when he had first
heard himself talking aloud, not when he had dashed at his wife's
portrait, not when he had faced the thought of madness, had Mr. Montagu
had such a shock. An eternally lost soul, a damned thing staring at
paradise, seemed to gaze at him out of the boy's eyes. He thought he was
seeing all the sins of the world in them, yet the look was appallingly
innocent. He seemed to be discovering those sins in the dark, ravening
eyes, but to be feeling them in himself as if the forgotten, ignored
innermost of his own life were quaking with guilt under the spell of
this staring presence. In the state of horrified sympathy to which it
had precipitated him, he morbidly felt almost responsible for the
brooding evil in the boy as well as aghast at it. But even this sense of
sin, implying as it did a skeleton of naked, primal right and wrong
seemed of small import to his astounded mind beside the nameless,
unmentionable sorrow that pervaded the face and stabbed at Henry
Montagu's heart. He knew without question that he was looking at
tragedy--worse than he had supposed the world could hold or any human
thing, in any world, be subject to. It was a man's face in every line
and poise and suggestion, but for all its frightful knowledge he had to
call it beautiful--the clear-cut word "handsome" ran away from it like a
mouse into a hole, leaving it a superb horror that, as soon as his
paralyzed muscles could respond to his instinct, drove his hand to his
face to shut away the deliberate, searching gaze.

"Done?" answered the young fellow at last. "What have I done? _Good
God!_"

For the third time, it was one of his own three exclamations totally new
to him that night, and the coincidence drove home to him, this time,
with a sense of omen. But his guest was speaking again, and, forcing
himself to look calmly at the tragic face he listened breathlessly.

"I've done a thing never accomplished in human life before, a thing
more terrific than the world's entire history, from the moment of the
first atom crawling on it has ever known!"

He could not have spoken more solemnly and convincingly if he had
reverently murdered, one by one, a whole nation of people, and it was
some such picture that came into Henry Montagu's mind as, shivering and
fascinated, he watched him and listened.

But the young man said no more.

"If--if you will tell me what you've done," said Mr. Montagu haltingly,
his pity sweeping every caution away, "or simply what you want of me, I
will do anything for you that I possibly can."

"There is nothing in this world," answered the boy wearily, "that
anybody can do for me." But suddenly, impulsively, he added: "There is
just one thing, that you can do--not for me, but for yourself. Don't ask
me questions. For your own sake don't!"

"But--" began Mr. Montagu.

"If you knew who I am or what I am, and what I've deliberately done,"
cried the boy, "you'd curse this night, and curse me, the longest day
you lived! What--what is _your_ name?"

"Henry Montagu," said his host simply.

He pondered it. "That has a nice sound. I like it. And I--I like you. So
don't ask me questions!"

The elder man was looking down at the thin white hands again, and the
_naïve_ comment brought a sudden contraction to his throat. "Poor little
boy!" was on his lips, but an intuition like a woman's warned him that
the words would make the desolate figure weep again, and his utmost
strength quailed from the thought of seeing it, now that he had seen the
face. As the white hands clasped themselves together, he had seen that
the under sides of the wrists were bruised and dark. Facially, nothing
could have been more unlike than this youth to the paint and plaster
symbols that crowded before him from his memory, yet the red drops that
he had seen drip to the floor, the wickedness and waste that he seemed
to expiate and represent, the whole obvious torment of his being, had
forced a simile upon him which he now blurted out.

"Whoever and whatever you are, whatever terrible thing you've done, I
only know that you make me think of--of--Oh, the crown of thorns, the
cross--you know what I mean!"

"Some one with a crown of thorns?" said the young man wonderingly. "Who
was that?"

Mr. Montagu stared at him incredulously. That any man, no matter how
base a criminal, and one, indeed, who had cried out again and again the
name of God, should not know the story and the name of God's son,
astonished him, for the moment, more than anything yet had done.

"Oh, yes, yes, I remember now," continued the boy. "Yes, that was very,
very sad. But I'm selfish and preoccupied with my own dreadful trouble,
and that whole history, tragic as it was, was a very happy one compared
with mine!"

With a cold shudder, Henry Montagu believed him. He realized that as yet
he had done nothing for him. Food and drink had occurred to him, but in
the minutes that they had passed together the stranger had grown more
virile. He was no longer the incredible figure of wretchedness that had
dashed into the room. He was sitting forward in the chair now, his eyes
on the portrait.

"Is that your wife?" he asked.

"My--my dead wife," answered Mr. Montagu.

His own eyes reverting again and again to the lacerated wrists, he did
not see the changing expressions in his visitor's as they studied the
eyes of the portrait; but as the boy now leaped impulsively to his feet
he saw in them a fierce gleam that was like the hatred of a maniac. He
thrilled with renewed terror as the boy once more sprang to him like an
animal, and with a growl in his throat rushed toward the portrait.

"Stop!" he shouted, and the boy almost cringed to a halt in the middle
of the floor.

When, after his first chill of horror at the act itself, Henry Montagu
realized that the desecration was his own thought, his own impulse
carried into fierce determination, he sank weak and dizzy into the chair
that the boy had left. But again he mastered his frightened mind and
thrust away from it the sinister oppression of omen and coincidence.
Unwillingly but helplessly, he was letting into his thoughts the theory
that, after he had opened the door instead of before he had opened it,
the room had been harboring a maniac. And the theory stabbed him. A
mushroom growth of tenderness had germinated in his pity and was growing
nearer and nearer to a personal liking for the beautiful, pathetic
figure of youth that stood before him, wilted and helpless again, in the
center of the room.

"My boy," he said quietly, "I ought to resent that but strangely enough
I don't find myself resenting the idea of your taking strange liberties
in my house. In fact, I--I had that same impulse. I nearly did that
myself, just before you burst in here."

The young man looked at him in amazement.

"_You_ were going to turn--Mrs. Montagu's picture to the wall? Wh--why,
you old dirty beast!"

To Henry Montagu there was no vulgarity in the words. Their huge
reproach of him drove every other quality out of them and a deep color
into his face.

"But I--I quelled the impulse. And y--you would actually have done it!"
he stammered.

"I had a reason and a right to!" cried the young man. "I'd never seen it
before and if it repelled me I had a right never to look at it again!
But she was _your wife_!"

Once more he stood, his eyes avoiding the portrait and wandering
hungrily about the rest of the beautiful room.

"Well," he said, after a few moments, "good-by!" And he walked toward
the door.

"Stop!" cried Mr. Montagu again. He sat forward on the edge of the
chair, trembling. After hours of successive surprises, the simple
announcement of his visitor's departure had struck him cold with the
accumulated force of his past lonely terror and his present intense
curiosity. Again the boy had obeyed his command with a visible shiver,
and it hurt the older man by recalling to him the suggestion of crime,
of the place and the tragedy he must have escaped from, the unknown
cloud he was under. But however involved in the horrible he might become
by detaining him, shaken and filled with inexplicable grief as he was by
his presence, worst of all was the fear of being alone again after a
frightful, brief adventure in his life, vanished and unexplained. He
wanted to reassure and comfort the wavering, sorrowful boy, but all he
could stammer in apology for his shout was: "Wh--where are you going?"

"What difference does it make to _you_ where I go?" asked the boy
drearily. "If you must know, I'm going to Maurice's."

Mr. Montagu sprang to his feet. With bitten lips he kept himself silent
at this final thrust of the hypernatural, but the damp beads had
returned to his brow. His terror lasted only a moment, and in his
resurging desire to hold back the boy, he demanded both curiously and
assertively:

"What are you going to _Maurice's_ for?"

He had not supposed that there was a particle of color in the pitiful
face, but as the boy answered, a delicate flesh-tint seemed to leave it,
turning him deathly white.

"I--I want to look at the women," he said.

At his agitation and pallor, the hectic whisper of his voice, above all,
the light of fiendish hate that leapt into his beautiful eyes and
ravaged their look, a physical sensation crept through the older man
from head to foot and held him motionless.

But it was not horror at the boy himself. As he stood there wan and
shivering before him, every best instinct in Henry Montagu rushed
uppermost, and he felt that he would give anything in his life, gladly
devote, if not actually give, that life itself, to set the boy right
with the world. And with his terror gone and his horror going, he
impulsively walked across the room and stood between him and the door.

"Why do you leave me this way? You mustn't mind what I say to you or how
I say it, for it can't be any more abrupt or strange than the way you
came here. I don't want you to go to Maurice's. And if you do, I'm going
with you."

"No! No!" cried the boy fearfully.

"I don't want you to leave me. I want you to confide in me. I want you
to trust me, and to tell me, without fear, what it is you've done."

"No, no, no, no! Don't ask me to!" cried the boy.

"I do ask you to. I have some right to know. I'd be justified in
detaining you if I wanted to--"

"You couldn't!" cried the trembling youth passionately.

"I said I'd be _justified_. Are _you_, in dashing like a shot into my
life and then leaving me without a word to explain it? I've played host
to you gladly, though you've torn my nerves to pieces. Remember how you
came here!"

"Yes! Yes!" ejaculated the boy bitterly. "I'm an intruder! I forced
myself on you and I know it! God knows I know it!"

"I didn't mean it unkindly. I tell you, I want you to _stay_! I want you
to, no matter what you are or what you've done. You've admitted that
you've done something--something terrific--"

"And I have!" cried the boy, his eyes lighting wildly. "At last, at
last! I've done it, I've _done_ it!"

"And in spite of it, I want you to stay! Whatever it is, I want to
protect you from the consequences of it!"

"Look to yourself!" cried the boy. "You'll curse me yet for coming here!
Let me go, and protect _yourself_!"

"I am no longer considering myself, I've done that too much in my life,
and to-night I'm reckless. No matter _what_ the crime you've done--"

"Crime?" His visitor flashed wondering eyes upon him. "You fool! You
fool!" Again, the exclamation was like an echo of himself, but Mr.
Montagu had no time to entertain the thought, for the boy was stammering
out his astonishment in hysterical syllables. "I--a criminal!
_I_--I--Oh, I might have _known_ it would seem that way to you! But
_I_--"

Again under the penetrating gaze his host felt himself morbidly guilty,
but there was a thrill of gladness in his heart that now welcomed the
grim alternative of the boy's simple madness.

"Stay with me!" he cried. "Sleep here, and rest, and then--"

"Let me go to Maurice's!" cried the boy desperately. "You'll regret it
if you don't! Oh, for the pity of God, for pity of _yourself_, let me
leave you while I still _offer_ to leave you!"

Mr. Montagu backed himself against the door.

"Why do you want to go there?" he demanded. "What is it you want to look
at the women in Maurice's for?"

The boy hung fire under the determined voice.

"The--the women who go to Maurice's are--are--of a--certain _kind_,
aren't they?"

"Some of them--most of them," said Mr. Montagu. "If you've never been
there, why do you want so to go? They're not unusual; simply--painted
women."

"Painted?" repeated the boy in astonishment. He turned to the portrait.
"_That's_ a painted woman, too. Aren't they _alive_ at Maurice's?"

In his marvel at the enormous innocence of it, Mr. Montagu wondered, for
the first time, what the young man's age could definitely be, but in a
moment he remembered the one pitiful way to account for the pathetic
question, and his voice was very gentle as he said:

"My boy, if you have your heart set on going to Maurice's, you shall go.
But surely, after this mysterious time together in my house, and knowing
that whatever you may be I welcome your companionship, you won't refuse
my request to let me go with you? To say that I've enjoyed it would be
to put a queer word to a terrible business that I have no way of
understanding. But until you came I was bitterly, hungrily lonely--"

"Don't! Don't!" cried the boy. He had begun to tremble at the earnest
tenderness of the voice. "I can't bear it! You don't know what you're
talking about! Oh! let me go to Maurice's, and let me go alone! If you
insist on going with me I can't stop you--"

"I do insist," said Mr. Montagu.

"But I can plead with you not to! And I can warn you what the price will
be! Oh--" and he stretched out his hands in so imploring a gesture that
his host could see the dull, dried blood of his cruelly injured
wrists--"for God's sake, for _God's_ sake, believe what I tell you! _If
you leave this house with me to-night, you're lost!_ Oh, God, God, I see
you don't believe me! Tell me this, I beg of you, I demand of you--did
you _feel_ that I was in the hall to-night, before you opened the door?"

"Yes," said Mr. Montagu.

"Had I made any noise?"

"No."

"Then I can prove to you that I know what I'm saying! I _did_ that! I
_made_ you feel me! Till after you let me in, I wasn't strong enough to
make a sound! Yet I made you know I was there! Am I telling the truth,
then? When I started to leave you, and now, even now, in warning you I
was doing, I _am_ doing, a more unselfish thing, a decenter thing, than
any you've ever done in all your years of life! It's because I like you
more than I want to! I'm unselfish, I tell you! I _wanted_ you to go to
Maurice's with me! I intended to make you, as I made you let me in! But
if you do, you'll find me out! I'll tell you! I won't be able to conceal
it! You'll know the truth about me! You've said all this was
mysterious--for your own sake, let it stay so! You needn't think all
truths are beautiful, and the truth about me is the most ghastly in the
universe!"

"I _want_ to find you out," said Mr. Montagu, steadying his voice. "I
want to know the truth."

"By that cross and crown of thorns that mean so much to you and nothing
at all to me," implored the boy, "_don't go!_ I swear to you, _mine is a
more terrible secret than any living heart has ever held!_ You'll hate
me, and I don't want you to! Oh, _while_ I don't, while I'm _merciful_
to you, believe me, and let me go alone! No loneliness that _you_ could
ever suffer would equal the price that you will pay if you go with me!"

Though the sense of horror sweeping indomitably through him was worse
than any he had felt before, Mr. Montagu's answer was deliberate and
resolute:

"I told myself only a few minutes ago that I would sacrifice anything in
my life, almost my life itself, to--well, to this. Do you mean that the
price would be--my--death?"

He threw every possible significance demandingly into the word, and the
boy's voice was suddenly quiet in its tensity as he gazed back at him.

"It would be worse than death," he said solemnly. "If you let me go, and
face your loneliness here, there's a chance for you, though I've warned
you as it is. If you leave the house with me to-night, you're as lost as
I am, and I am irretrievably damned and always have been damned. As
truly as you see me standing before you now, the price is--madness."

"Come," said Mr. Montagu, and without another word he opened the door.

At Maurice's, Mr. Montagu led the way to the far side of the big room,
threading in a zigzag through the gleam of bright silver, the glitter of
white linen, the crimson of deep carnations. Maurice's in its own way
was admirably tasteful; as distinctively quiet and smooth in its manners
and rich hangings as it was distinctly loud in its lights and ragged in
its music. No after-theatre corner of Broadway had a crisper American
accent of vice, or displayed vice itself more delicately lacquered. The
place was as openly innocent as a street, with a street's sightless and
irresponsible gaze for what occurred in it. And nothing remarkable
occurred, save the fungus growth of what was to occur elsewhere.

Mr. Montagu, on the way to the table, looked several times over his
shoulder, ostensibly to speak to his companion, but in reality to see
whether the extraordinary boy was running the gantlet of eyes he had
presupposed he would. And each time he met inquisitive faces that were
not only staring but listening.

His own conspicuousness was grilling, but it was part and parcel of his
insistent bargain; he could understand, quite sympathetically, how the
youth's appearance, as awful as it was immaculate, should pound open the
heart of any woman alive; and his suppressed excitement was too powerful
for him to resent even the obvious repugnance in the faces of the men
until he imagined an intentional discourtesy to the boy on the part of
the waiter.

To himself, the man was over-servile, and elaborately cautious in
pulling out his chair, but he stood, with his face quite white, and his
back to the boy, and pulled out none for him. Henry Montagu had never
yet bullied a waiter, and he did not bully now. But with an icy glare
of reproof at the man, he rose and set the chair for his guest himself.

"Shall I order for you?" he asked gently as the boy sat quietly down;
and made irritably incisive by the tendency of near-by men and women to
listen as well as watch, he emphasized his expensive order of foods and
wines, repeated each item loudly to cheapen the listeners, and sent the
man scuttling.

In his intense desire to see the effect of the queerly chosen place on
his queerly chosen companion, he now turned to him. And as he saw the
effect, every shock of the night seemed to recoil upon him. The feeling
of mystery; the foreboding, despite his courage and his conviction that
the boy was mad, of the imminent unknown; his recurrent and absorbing
curiosity to learn the gruesome secret that he had declared; all rushed
one by one back upon him, and then as swiftly left him to the simple
grip of horror at his face. It was gazing at woman after woman, here,
there and yonder, throughout the large room, deliberately, searchingly,
venomously, its great eyes and set lips and every tense haggard line
fuller and fuller of an undying hate that eclipsed even that which had
shaken Henry Montagu before they came. Appalled and fascinated, he
looked with him, and back at him, and with him again, to the next and
the next. There were women there, and ladies of every sort, good, bad
and indecipherable; yet in every instance the childlike, horribly
sophisticated eyes had picked their victim unerringly, deterred by
neither clothes, veneer, nor manner.

As he stared with him from frightened female face to frightened female
face, Mr. Montagu realized shamefully that his own features were
helplessly mirroring the detestation of the boy's, and he changed from
very pale to very red himself as woman after woman flushed crimson under
his gaze. Yet the boy's face grew calm and his voice was perfectly so as
he turned at last from his horrid review and met the eyes of his host.

"I see what you meant, now, by 'painted' women. Well, they'd much
_better_ be dead!"

At the tone, cruelly cool as if he planned to see that they were, Mr.
Montagu shivered. "Why, _why_ do you hate them like that?" he
whispered.

The fierce anger flickered dangerously in the great eyes again.

"Because they're my enemy! Because they and the wicked thing they mean
are my prowling, triumphant enemy, and the enemy of all others like me!"

"Oh, my boy, my boy!" pleaded the man of the world, sickly. "You don't
realize it, but I can tell you from appearances--some of those women you
stared at are here with their _husbands_!"

"So was _your_ wife when she came here," said the boy.

Mr. Montagu fell back in his chair with a gasp. As swiftly as it had
leapt into his mind, the frightful implication of the words leapt out
again in his amazement at the boy's knowledge of the incident.

But the waiter stepped between them with the order, and in obvious
terror now instead of simple aversion, clattered it down with trembling
hands.

"Go away! Go away!" commanded Mr. Montagu angrily. "_I'll_ arrange it!
Go!" And the waiter escaped.

"How did you know?" he asked; but without waiting for a reply he poured
out the boy's wine and his own, and took a long hasty draft.

"Now, how did you?"

"Oh!" cried the boy piteously. "Don't ask me! I shouldn't have said it!
I knew I'd let it out if you came here with me! I'll be telling you
everything in a minute, and you'll go stark mad when you know!"

The inference rushed again upon Henry Montagu, a worse vague horror than
any yet, and he almost sprang from his chair.

"Are you going to tell me my wife was unfaithful to me, and
with--with--"

"Fool! Fool!" cried the boy. "I wish to God she _had_ been unfaithful to
you! I tried to make her, I can tell you that! Then there'd have been at
least half a chance for _me_! But now that she's dead, there's no chance
for either of us, even you! Unless--O God!--unless you'll control
yourself and think! I beg you again, I beg of you, _think_ again! Go
away from here, go now, without asking me anything more, and there's
just a shade of a chance for you! I told you there was none if you left
the house, but there may be, there may be! Go home, and forget this, and
be satisfied your wife loved you, for she did. She kept herself for you
_at my expense_! Go now, and they'll let you go. But if you stay here
and talk to me, you'll leave this place in manacles! I'm here, _among
those women_, and I'm with you! My secret will come out and drag you
down, as I planned it should before I began to like you! And you like
me, too--I feel it. For _my_ sake, then, for God's sake and for your
sake, _won't you go_?"

"No!" cried Mr. Montagu, almost roughly in his eagerness. "I don't judge
you, but it's your duty, and in your power, to put me where I can! I
harbored you, thinking you were a frightened fugitive, and you weren't.
I'm your voluntary host in circumstances of mysterious horror and you
ask me to quit you in ignorance! I won't! You sicken me with a doubt
about the wife I loved--Who are you? What are you?"

"If you believed I knew as much of her as I said I did," cried the boy,
"why don't you believe me when I assure you that she loved you? What
more should _you_ demand? I meant everything I said, and more--your wife
was nothing but a licensed wanton, _and you knew it_! You ask me who and
what I am--so long as she loved you, who are _you_, and what are _you_,
to point a finger at her?"

A rush of instinctive fury filled the man, but he felt as dazed at
finding himself angry at the beautiful unhappy youth, as if he had known
him for years, and he only gasped and stared.

"If you think I'm crazy," cried the boy, "I'll show you, as I showed you
once before, that I know what I'm talking about! I'll tell you something
that was a secret between you two, and your wife didn't tell me, either!
The night you'd been here, after you'd gone home, _after you were locked
in your room_, you disputed about this place! She refused to come here
again, and she refused to tell you why! But I know why!"

Once more Mr. Montagu gasped and with a thrill of wondering terror.

"Who are you and what are you?" he demanded. "I command you to solve
this mystery and solve it now!"

His voice had risen to a shout, but a sudden lump in his throat silenced
it, for the boy was weeping again.

"Oh," wept the boy, "if you've liked me at _all_, put it off as long as
you can, for you'll make me tell you I hate you, and _why_ I hate you!"

"_Hate_ me?"

It had struck Henry Montagu like a flail in the face, wiping away his
anger, his astonishment at the boy's uncanny knowledge, even his
astonishment that the word was able to strike him so.

"I--I've suffered enough through you!" he stammered painfully. "And if
I've got to suffer more, I insist on doing it now and getting it over
with!"

"Don't! don't! It will _never_ be over with!" gulped the boy.

"I'm _through_!" cried Mr. Montagu. "_Who_ are you? _What_ are you?"

At the determined finality of the voice the boy quivered like a helpless
thing, and his stuttering ejaculations came as if shaken out of him by
the shivering of his body.

"Wh--_who_ am I?"

"_Yes!_"

"Wh--_what_ am I?"

"_Yes!_"

Never yet had he been so awful as in the torment and majesty that gazed
like fate at Henry Montagu now, and the frightful fire of the eyes
seemed to dry up the tears on his cheeks at its first flare of accusing
righteousness.

"_I'm the child that you and your wife refused to have!_"

As the aghast man shrank back before his blighting fury, he leaned
farther and farther toward him.

"_Now_ do you know why I hate you as no human thing can hate? _Your
wilful waste has made my hideous want!_ Now do you know why I said I'd
done a more terrific thing than had ever been done in the world's
history before? _I've gotten in!_ At last, at last, I've gotten in, in
spite of you, and after she was dead! I've done a greater and more
impossible thing than that great Mystery the world adores! I've gotten
in despite you, and without even a _woman's_ help! When we spoke of
_that_ life once before to-night, I shocked you! Do you believe _now_
that my history is more terrible, or not? He suffered, and suffered, and
He died. But He'd _lived_! His torture was a few hours--for mine
to-night, I've waited almost as many years as He did, and to what end?
_To nothing!_ God, God, do you see _that_?"

He twisted open his hands and held out his bruised wrists before the
trembling man's eyes. "For all those years--"

He suddenly drew himself to his full height and threw them passionately
above his head in the posture that had haunted Henry Montagu from the
first instant's glimpse of him.

"For all those endless years, ever since your marriage-night, I've stood
beating, beating, beating at the door of life until my wrists have bled!
And you didn't hear me! You couldn't and she wouldn't! You didn't want
to! You wouldn't listen! And you--you never have heard that desperate
pounding and calling, not even to-night, though even so, with that woman
out of the way, I made you _feel_ me! But _she'd_ heard me, the ghoul!
She heard me again and again! I made her! I told her what she was, and
that you knew it, and I meant it! Her marriage certificate was her
license! She gave you a wanton's love, and you gave her just what you
got! And I made her understand that! I made her understand it right here
in this place! That's why I wanted to come here--I could see only her
picture, and I wanted to see a _real_ one of them! Until to-night, I
could never see either of you, but I always knew where you were!

"And when you brought her here, I made her look at that enemy of me and
my kind that I could always _feel_--those women that she was one of and
that she _knew_ she was one of when I screamed it at her in this place!
For _I was with you two that night! I was with you till after you'd gone
home, you demons!_ That's why she'd never come near the place again, the
coward, the miserable coward! That's why I hate her worse than I hate
you! There's a pitiful little excuse for the men, because they're
_stupider_.

"For the hideous doom of all our hopeless millions, the women are more
wickedly to blame, because they must face the fact that we are waiting
to get in. God, God, I'd gladly be even a woman, if I could! But you're
bad enough--bad enough--bad enough to deserve the fate you face
to-night! And now, God help you, you're facing it, just as I said you
would! You deserve it because you were put here with a purpose and you
flatly wouldn't fulfil it! God only demands that mankind should be made
in His image. In a wisdom that you have no right to question. He lets
the images go their own way, as you've gone yours. Yet you, and all
others like you, the simple, humble image-workers, instead of rejoicing
that you have work to do, set your little selves up far greater than
Great God, and actually decide whether men shall even _be_!

"You have a lot of hypercritical, self-justifying theories about
it--that it's better for them not to live at all than to suffer some of
the things that life, even birth itself, can wither them with. But there
never yet was any living creature, no matter how smeared and smitten,
that told the truth when he said he wished he'd never been born, while
we, the countless millions of the lost, pound and shriek for
life--forever shriek and hope! That's the worst anguish of the
lost--they hope! I've shown what can be done through that anguish, as
it's never been shown before. Even the terrible night that woman died, I
hoped! I hoped more than ever, for knowing then that for all eternity it
was too late, I hoped for _revenge_! And revenge was my right! Yes,
every solitary soul has a right to _live_, even if it lives to wreck,
kill, madden its parents! And now, oh, God, I've got my revenge when I
no longer want it! The way you took me in, the way you wanted me to stay
when I'd almost frightened you to death, made me want to spare you! It
was my fate that I--I liked you--I--_more_ than liked you. And I tried
to save you! Oh, God, God, _how_ I've tried!"

As he stood with his hands thrown forth again and his wretched eyes
staring into those of the white-faced man, Henry Montagu met the wild
gaze unflinchingly. He had sat dumbstruck and shuddering, but the
spasmodic quivering of his body had lessened into calmness, and his
whispered, slow words gained in steadiness as they came: "My boy, I
admit you've nearly driven me to madness just now. I was close to the
border! I can't dispute one shred of reproach, of accusation, of
contempt. Your fearful explanation of this night, the awful import of
your visit and yourself have shaken me to the center of my being. But
its huge consistency is that of a madman. You poor, you pitiful, deluded
boy, you tell me to believe you are an unborn soul, while you stand
there and exist before my eyes!"

The boy gave a cry of agony--agony so immortal that as he sank into his
chair and clutched the table, an echoing moan of it wrenched from the
older man.

"I _don't_ exist! Didn't I tell you my secret was more terrible than any
living heart had ever held? I'm real to you since I made you let me into
your thoughts to-night. I'm real to you, and through your last moment of
consciousness through eternity I always will be! But I won't be with
you! You don't believe me yet, but the moment you do, I won't be here!
And I never can be real to any other creature in the universe--_not even
that prostitute who refused to be my mother_! I don't exist, and never
can exist!"

"But you do! You do! You do! You're there before me now!" gasped Mr.
Montagu through chattering teeth. "How can you deny that you're sitting
here with me in this restaurant? I forgive you--I love you, and I
forgive you, but, thank God, _I see through you at last_! You're a
fanatic, a poor, frenzied maniac on this subject, and you've morbidly
spied on and studied me as a typical case of it; through your devilish
understanding and divination you've guessed at that conversation between
me and my wife, and like the creature I pictured you in my house, a
ravening, devouring thing, you've sought to drag me into your hell of
madness! But you shan't! I tell you I see through you at last, you
pitiful mad creature! You know you're there before my eyes, and just so
truly as you are, not one syllable do I believe of what you've told me!"

As the boy sprang with a venomous shout to his feet, all the hate in
his terrible being sprang tenfold into his eyes.

"Do you call me 'mad,' and 'creature'? Do you dare deny me, now, after
all I've told you? You coward, you _coward_! You've denied me life, but
you can't deny this night! The people in this place will let you know
presently! I tried to spare you. Though I'd thirsted for my revenge I
pleaded with you, _prayed_ to you to spare yourself! If you'd stayed in
the house, you might have come to your senses and forgotten me! But what
hope for you is there _now_? Do you still believe I exist? Look back at
the night! Do you remember the portrait? You commanded me to
stop--commanded, as you've always commanded my fate, and I was
powerless. To me, that was a parental command--from _you_, you who
deliberately _wouldn't_ be my parent! Did you see me wince under it? If
you hadn't done it, you'd have found me out right then! I'm not a
physical thing, and I couldn't have moved it! I only _said_ I was going
to Maurice's! I couldn't have come here if you hadn't brought me! When
you wondered, as we were starting out, whether I had a hat, I stooped
down in the hall. But you only thought I picked one up! As we came in
here, you only _thought_ I checked it! Did you see the man stare as you
reached out to take my check away from me? Have I eaten or drunk
to-night? I've not, for I'm not a _creature_! And mad, I? Look to
yourself, as I told you to look before it was too late! You fool, you've
been staring inoffensive women out of countenance, with all the hate
from my face printed on yours, and in the eyes of all these people
you've been sitting here for half an hour talking to yourself, and
ordering wine and food for an empty chair! _You_ won't ever believe
you're mad, but every one else will!"

"So help me God," cried Henry Montagu, white and trembling, "you're
there! I swear you're there!"

"So help you God, I'm _there_!" cried the boy frightfully, pointing
straight at him.

"Right there, in your brain, there, there, and _only_ there! I'm no more
flesh and blood than--than I _ever_ was, _because, you murderer, you and
your damned wife never would let me be_! Well, do you see through me
_now_?"

"No! No!" screamed Mr. Montagu. "I _don't_ see through you! I don't!"
But as he leaned forward to clutch at him in his terror, all that he
could see before him was a closed door beyond a dozen tables, a disused
entranceway diagonally opposite the one that had let them in. "I _don't_
believe you!" he wailed. "Oh, my God, my God, my God, _where are you_?"
He turned frantically to the men and women nearest him. "You saw him!
There _was_ a boy with me, wasn't there? Wasn't there? Yes, see, there,
isn't he going for that door? Oh, my boy, my boy!" And he dashed toward
it. He heard the terrible screams of women, and chairs and a table
crashed in his wake. He reached it. It was locked.

Desperately sobbing, he hurled himself against it.

It seemed to him as if all the men in the restaurant fell upon him.
Strong, merciless hands dragged down and pinioned the wrists with which
he had beaten against the door.




"GOVERNMENT GOAT"[11]

[Note 11: Copyright, 1919, by The Pictorial Review Company.
Copyright, 1920, by Susan Glaspell Cook.]

BY SUSAN GLASPELL

From _The Pictorial Review_


Joe Doane couldn't get to sleep. On one side of him a family were crying
because their man was dead, and on the other side a man was celebrating
because he was alive.

When he couldn't any longer stand the wails of the Cadaras, Joe moved
from his bedroom to the lounge in the sitting-room. But the lounge in
the sitting-room, beside making his neck go in a way no neck wants to
go, brought him too close to Ignace Silva's rejoicings in not having
been in one of the dories that turned over when the schooner
_Lillie-Bennie_ was caught in the squall last Tuesday afternoon and
unable to gather all her men back from the dories before the sea
gathered them. Joe Cadara was in a boat that hadn't made it--hence the
wails to the left of the Doanes, for Joe Cadara left a wife and four
children and they had plenty of friends who could cry, too. But Ignace
Silva--more's the pity, for at two o'clock in the morning you _like_ to
wish the person who is keeping you awake was dead--got back to the
vessel. So to-night his friends were there with bottles, for when a man
_might_ be dead certainly the least you can do is to take notice of him
by getting him drunk.

People weren't sleeping in Cape's End that night. Those who were neither
mourning nor rejoicing were being kept awake by mourners or rejoicers.
All the vile, diluted whisky that could be bought on the quiet was in
use for the deadening or the heightening of emotion. Joe Doane found
himself wishing _he_ had a drink. He'd like to stop thinking about dead
fishermen--and hearing live ones. Everybody had been all strung up for
two days ever since word came from Boston that the _Lillie-Bennie_ was
one of the boats "caught."

They didn't know until the _Lillie-Bennie_ came in that afternoon just
how many of her men she was bringing back with her. They were all out on
Long Wharf to watch her come in and to see who would come ashore--and
who wouldn't. Women were there, and lots of children. Some of these sets
of a woman and children went away with a man, holding on to him and
laughing, or perhaps looking foolish to think they had ever supposed he
could be dead. Others went away as they had come--maybe very still,
maybe crying. There were old men who came away carrying things that had
belonged to sons who weren't coming ashore. It was all a good deal like
a movie--only it didn't rest you.

So he _needed_ sleep, he petulantly told things as he rubbed the back of
his neck, wondered why lounges were made like that, and turned over. But
instead of sleeping, he thought about Joe Cadara. They were friendly
thoughts he had about Joe Cadara; much more friendly than the thoughts
he was having about Ignace Silva. For one thing, Joe wasn't making any
noise. Even when he was alive, Joe had made little noise. He always had
his job on a vessel; he'd come up the Front street in his oilskins, turn
in at his little red house, come out after a while and hoe in his garden
or patch his wood-shed, sit out on the wharf and listen to what Ignace
Silva and other loud-mouthed Portuguese had to say--back to his little
red house. He--well, he was a good deal like the sea. It came in, it
went out. On Joe Cadara's last trip in, Joe Doane met him just as he was
starting out. "Well, Joe," says Joe Doane, "off again?" "Off again,"
said Joe Cadara, and that was about all there seemed to be to it. He
could see him going down the street--short, stocky, slow, _dumb_. By
dumb he meant--oh, dumb like the sea was dumb--just going on doing it.
And now--

All of a sudden he couldn't _stand_ Ignace Silva. "_Hell!_" roared Joe
Doane from the window, "don't you know a man's _dead_?" In an instant
the only thing you could hear was the sea. In--Out--

Then he went back to his bedroom. "I'm not sleeping either," said his
wife--the way people are quick to make it plain they're as bad off as
the next one.

At first it seemed to be still at the Cadaras. The children had gone to
sleep--so had the friends. Only one sound now where there had been many
before. And that seemed to come out of the sea. You got it after a wave
broke--as it was dying out. In that little let-up between an in, an out,
you knew that Mrs. Cadara had not gone to sleep, you knew that Mrs.
Cadara was crying because Joe Cadara was dead in the sea.

So Joe Doane and his wife Mary lay there and listened to Annie Cadara
crying for her husband, Joe Cadara.

Finally Mrs. Doane raised on her pillow and sighed. "Well, I suppose she
wonders what she'll do now--those four children."

He could see Joe Cadara's back going down the Front street--broad, slow,
_dumb_. "And I suppose," he said, as if speaking for something that had
perhaps never spoken for itself, "that she feels bad because she'll
never see him again."

"Why, of course she does," said his wife impatiently, as if he had
contradicted something she had said.

But after usurping his thought she went right back to her own. "I don't
see how she will get along. I suppose we'll have to help them some."

Joe Doane lay there still. He couldn't help anybody much--more was the
pity. He had his own three children--and you could be a Doane without
having money to help with--though some people didn't get that through
their heads. Things used to be different with the Doanes. When the
tide's in and you awake at three in the morning it all gets a good deal
like the sea--at least with Joe Doane it did now. His grandfather,
Ebenezer Doane, the whaling captain--In--Out--Silas Doane--a fleet of
vessels off the Grand Banks--In--Out--All the Doanes. They had helped
make the Cape, but--In--Out--Suddenly Joe laughed.

"What are you _laughing_ at?" demanded his wife.

"I was just laughing," said Joe, "to think what those _old_ Doanes would
say if they could see us."

"Well, it's not anything to laugh at," said Mrs. Doane.

"Why, I think it is," good-humoredly insisted her husband, "it's such a
_joke_ on them."

"If it's a joke," said Mrs. Doane firmly, "it's not on _them_."

He wasn't sure just _who_ the joke was on. He lay thinking about it. At
three in the morning, when you can't sleep and the tide's in, you might
get it mixed--who the joke was on.

But, no, the joke _was_ on them, that they'd had their long slow deep
_In_--_Out_--their whaling and their fleets, and that what came after
was _him_--a tinkerer with other men's boats, a ship's carpenter who'd
even work on _houses_. "Get Joe Doane to do it for you." And glad enough
was Joe Doane to do it. And a Portagee livin' to either side of him!

He laughed. "You've got a funny idea of what's a _joke_," his wife said
indignantly.

That seemed to be so. Things he saw as jokes weren't jokes to anybody
else. Maybe that was why he sometimes seemed to be all by himself. He
was beginning to get lost in an _In_--_Out_. Faintly he could hear Mrs.
Cadara crying--Joe Cadara was in the sea, and faintly he heard his wife
saying, "I suppose Agnes Cadara could wear Myrtie's shoes, only--the way
things are, seems Myrtie's got to wear out her _own_ shoes."

Next day when he came home at noon--he was at work then helping Ed.
Davis put a new coat on Still's store--he found his two boys--the boys
were younger than Myrtie--pressed against the picket fence that
separated Doanes from Cadaras.

"What those kids up to?" he asked his wife, while he washed up for
dinner.

"Oh, they just want to see," she answered, speaking into the oven.

"See _what_?" he demanded; but this Mrs. Doane regarded as either too
obvious or too difficult to answer, so he went to the door and called,
"Joe! Edgar!"

"What you kids rubberin' at?" he demanded.

Young Joe dug with his toe. "The Cadaras have got a lot of company,"
said he.

"They're _crying_!" triumphantly announced the younger and more truthful
Edgar.

"Well, suppose they are? They got a right to cry in their own house,
ain't they? Let the Cadaras be. Find some fun at home."

The boys didn't seem to think this funny, nor did Mrs. Doane, but the
father was chuckling to himself as they sat down to their baked
flounder.

But to let the Cadaras be and find some fun at home became harder and
harder to do. The _Lillie-Bennie_ had lost her men in early Summer and
the town was as full of Summer folk as the harbor was of whiting. There
had never been a great deal for Summer folk to do in Cape's End, and so
the Disaster was no disaster to the Summer's entertainment. In other
words, Summer folk called upon the Cadaras. The young Doanes spent much
of their time against the picket fence; sometimes young Cadaras would
come out and graciously enlighten them. "A woman she brought my mother a
black dress." Or, "A lady and two little boys came in automobile and
brought me kiddie-car and white pants." One day Joe Doane came home from
work and found his youngest child crying because Tony Cadara wouldn't
lend him the kiddie-car. This was a reversal of things; heretofore
Cadaras had cried for the belongings of the Doanes. Joe laughed about
it, and told Edgar to cheer up, and maybe he'd have a kiddie-car himself
some day--and meanwhile he had a pa.

Agnes Cadara and Myrtie Doane were about of an age. They were in the
same class in high school. One day when Joe Doane was pulling in his
dory after being out doing some repairs on the _Lillie-Bennie_ he saw a
beautiful young lady standing on the Cadaras' bulkhead. Her back was to
him, but you were sure she was beautiful. She had the look of some one
from away, but not like the usual run of Summer folk. Myrtie was
standing looking over at this distinguished person.

"Who's that?" Joe asked of her.

"Why," said Myrtie, in an awed whisper, "it's Agnes Cadara--in her
_mourning_."

Until she turned around, he wouldn't believe it. "Well," said he to
Myrtie, "it's a pity more women haven't got something to mourn about."

"Yes," breathed Myrtie, "isn't she _wonderful_?"

Agnes's mourning had been given her by young Mrs. MacCrea who lived up
on the hill and was herself just finishing mourning. It seemed Mrs.
MacCrea and Agnes were built a good deal alike--though you never would
have suspected it before Agnes began to mourn. Mrs. MacCrea was from New
York, and these clothes had been made by a woman Mrs. MacCrea called by
her first name. Well, maybe she was a woman you'd call by her first
name, but she certainly did have a way of making you look as if you
weren't native to the place you were born in. Before Agnes Cadara had
anything to mourn about she was simply "one of those good-looking
Portuguese girls." There were too many of them in Cape's End to get
excited about any of them. One day he heard some women on the beach
talking about how these clothes had "found" Agnes--as if she had been
lost.

Mrs. MacCrea showed Agnes how to do her hair in a way that went with her
clothes. One noon when Joe got home early because it rained and he
couldn't paint, when he went up-stairs he saw Myrtie trying to do this
to _her_ hair. Well, it just couldn't be _done_ to Myrtie's hair. Myrtie
didn't have hair you could do what you pleased with. She was all red in
the face with trying, and being upset because she couldn't do it. He had
to laugh--and that didn't help things a bit. So he said:

"Never mind, Myrtie, we can't all go into mourning."

"Well, I don't care," said Myrtie, sniffling, "it's not fair."

He had to laugh again and as she didn't see what there was to laugh at,
he had to try to console again. "Never mind, Myrt," said he, "you've got
_one_ thing Agnes Cadara's not got."

"I'd like to know what," said Myrtie, jerking at her hair.

He waited; funny she didn't think of it herself. "Why--a father," said
he.

"Oh," said Myrtie--the way you do when you don't know _what_ to say. And
then, "_Well_,----"

Again he waited--then laughed; waited again, then turned away.

Somebody gave Mrs. Cadara a fireless cooker. Mrs. Doane had no fireless
cooker. So she had to stand all day over her hot stove--and this she
spoke of often. "My supper's in the fireless cooker," Mrs. Cadara would
say, and stay out in the cool yard, weeding her flowerbed bed. "It
certainly would be nice to have one of those fireless cookers," Mrs.
Doane would say, as she put a meal on the table and wiped her brow with
her apron.

"Well, why don't you kill your husband?" Joe Doane would retort. "Now,
if only you didn't have a _husband_--you could have a fireless cooker."

Jovially he would put the question, "Which would you rather have, a
husband or a fireless cooker?" He would argue it out--and he would
sometimes get them all to laughing, only the argument was never a very
long one. One day it occurred to him that the debates were short because
the others didn't hold up their end. He was talking for the fireless
cooker--if it was going to be a real debate, they ought to speak up for
the husband. But there seemed to be so much less to be said for a
husband than there was for a fireless cooker. This struck him as really
quite funny, but it seemed it was a joke he had to enjoy by himself.
Sometimes when he came home pretty tired--for you could get as tired at
odd jobs as at jobs that weren't odd--and heard all about what the
Cadaras were that night to eat out of their fireless cooker, he would
wish that some one else would do the joking. It was kind of tiresome
doing it all by yourself--and kind of lonesome.

One morning he woke up feeling particularly rested and lively. He was
going out to work on the _Lillie-Bennie_, and he always felt in better
spirits when he was working on a boat.

It was a cool, fresh, sunny morning. He began a song--he had a way of
making up songs. It was, "I'd rather be alive than dead." He didn't
think of any more lines, so while he was getting into his clothes he
kept singing this one, to a tune which became more and more stirring. He
went over to the window by the looking-glass. From this window you
looked over to the Cadaras. And then he saw that from the Cadaras a new
arrival looked at him.

He stared. Then loud and long he laughed. He threw up the window and
called, "Hello, there!"

The new arrival made no reply, unless a slight droop of the head could
be called a reply.

"Well, you cap the climax!" called Joe Doane.

Young Doanes had discovered the addition to the Cadara family and came
running out of the house.

"Pa!" Edgar called up to him, "the Cadaras have got a _Goat_!"

"Well, do you know," said his father, "I kind of _suspected_ that was a
goat."

Young Cadaras came out of the house to let young Doanes know just what
their privileges were to be with the goat--and what they weren't. They
could walk around and look at her; they were not to lead her by her
rope.

"There's no hope now," said Joe, darkly shaking his head. "No man in his
senses would buck up against a _goat_."

The little Doanes wouldn't come in and eat their breakfast. They'd
rather stay out and walk round the goat.

"I think it's too bad," their mother sighed, "the kiddie-car and the
ball-suit and the sail-boat were _enough_ for the children to
bear--without this goat. It seems our children haven't got _any_ of the
things the Cadaras have got."

"Except--" said Joe, and waited for some one to fill it in. But no one
did, so he filled it in with a laugh--a rather short laugh.

"Look out they don't put you in the fireless cooker!" he called to the
goat as he went off to work.

But he wasn't joking when he came home at noon. He turned in at the
front gate and the goat blocked his passage. The Cadaras had been
willing to let the goat call upon the Doanes and graze while calling.
"Get out of my way!" called Joe Doane in a surly way not like Joe Doane.

"Pa!" said young Joe in an awed whisper, "it's a _government_ goat."

"What do I care if it is?" retorted his father. "_Damn_ the government
goat!"

Every one fell back, as when blasphemy--as when treason--have been
uttered. These Portuguese kids looking at _him_ like that--as if _they_
were part of the government and he outside. He was so mad that he bawled
at Tony Cadara, "To _hell_ with your government goat!"

From her side of the fence, Mrs. Cadara called, "Tony, you bring the
goat right home," as one who calls her child--and her goat--away from
evil.

"And keep her there!" finished Joe Doane.

The Doanes ate their meal in stricken silence. Finally Doane burst out,
"What's the matter with you all? Such a fuss about the orderin' off of a
_goat_."

"It's a _government_ goat," lisped Edgar.

"It's a _government_ goat," repeated his wife in a tense voice.

"What do you mean--government goat? There's no such animal."

But it seemed there was, the Cadaras had, not only the goat, but a book
about the goat. The book was from the government. The government had
raised the goat and had singled the Cadaras out as a family upon whom a
government goat should be conferred. The Cadaras held her in trust for
the government. Meanwhile they drank her milk.

"Tony Cadara said, if I'd dig clams for him this afternoon he'd let me
help milk her to-night," said young Joe.

This was too much. "Ain't you kids got no _spine_? Kowtowing to them
Portuguese because a few folks that's sorry for them have made them
presents. They're _ginnies_. You're Doanes."

"I want a goat!" wailed Edgar. His father got up from the table.

"The children are all right," said his wife, in her patient voice that
made you impatient. "It's natural for them to want a few of the things
they see other children having."

He'd get _away_! As he went through the shed he saw his line and picked
it up. He'd go out on the breakwater--maybe he'd get some fish, at least
have some peace.

The breakwater wasn't very far down the beach from his house. He used
to go out there every once in a while. Every once in a while he had a
feeling he had to get by himself. It was half a mile long and of big
rocks that had big gaps. You had to do some climbing--you could imagine
you were in the mountains--and that made you feel far off and different.
Only when the tide came in, the sea filled the gaps--then you had to
"watch your step."

He went way out and turned his back on the town and fished. He wasn't to
finish the work on the _Lillie-Bennie_. They said that morning they
thought they'd have to send down the Cape for an "expert." So _he_ would
probably go to work at the new cold storage--working with a lot of
Portagee laborers. He wondered why things were this way with him. They
seemed to have just happened so. When you should have had some money it
didn't come natural to do the things of people who have no money. The
money went out of the "Bank" fishing about three years before his father
sold his vessels. During those last three years Captain Silas Doane had
spent all the money he had to keep things going, refusing to believe
that the way of handling fish had changed and that the fishing between
Cape's End and the Grand Banks would no longer be what it had been. When
he sold he kept one vessel, and the next Winter she went ashore right
across there on the northeast arm of the Cape. Joe Doane was aboard her
that night. Myrtie was a baby then. It was of little Myrtie he thought
when it seemed the vessel would pound herself to pieces before they
could get off. _He_ couldn't be lost! He had to live and work so his
little girl could have everything she wanted--After that the Doanes were
without a vessel--and Doanes without a vessel were fish out of sea. They
had never been folks to work on another man's boat. He supposed he had
never started any big new thing because it had always seemed he was just
filling in between trips. A good many years had slipped by and he was
still just putting in time. And it began to look as if there wasn't
going to be another trip.

Suddenly he had to laugh. Some _joke_ on Joe Cadara! He could see him
going down the Front street--broad, slow, _dumb_. Why, Joe Cadara
thought his family _needed_ him. He thought they got along because he
made those trips. But had Joe Cadara ever been able to give his wife a
fireless cooker? Had the government presented a goat to the Cadaras when
Joe was there? Joe Doane sat out on the breakwater and laughed at the
joke on Joe Cadara. When Agnes Cadara was a little girl she would run to
meet her father when he came in from a trip. Joe Doane used to like to
see the dash she made. But Agnes was just tickled to death with her
mourning!

He sat there a long time--sat there until he didn't know whether it was
a joke or not. But he got two haddock and more whiting than he wanted to
carry home. So he felt better. A man sometimes needed to get off by
himself.

As he was turning in at home he saw Ignace Silva about to start out on a
trip with Captain Gorspie. Silva thought he _had_ to go. But Silva had
been saved--and had _his_ wife a fireless cooker? Suddenly Joe Doane
called.

"Hey! Silva! You're the government goat!"

The way Doane laughed made Silva know this was a joke; not having a joke
of his own he just turned this one around and sent it back. "Government
goat yourself!"

"Shouldn't wonder," returned Joe jovially.

He had every Doane laughing at supper that night. "Bear up! Bear up!
True, you've got a father instead of a goat--but we've all got our
cross! We all have our cross to bear!"

"Say!" said he after supper, "every woman, every kid, puts on a hat, and
up we go to see if Ed. Smith might _happen_ to have a soda."

As they were starting out, he peered over at the Cadaras in mock
surprise. "Why, what's the matter with that _goat_? That goat don't seem
to be takin' the Cadaras out for a soda."

Next day he started to make a kiddie-car for Edgar. He promised Joe he'd
make him a sail-boat. But it was up-hill work. The Cape's End Summer
folk gave a "Streets of Bagdad" and the "disaster families" got the
proceeds. Then when the Summer folk began to go away it was quite
natural to give what they didn't want to take with them to a family
that had had a disaster. The Doanes had had no disaster; anyway, the
Doanes weren't the kind of people you'd think of giving things to. True,
Mr. Doane would sometimes come and put on your screen-doors for you, but
it was as if a neighbor had come in to lend a hand. A man who lives
beside the sea and works on the land is not a picturesque figure. Then,
in addition to being alive, Joe Doane wasn't Portuguese. So the Cadaras
got the underwear and the bats and preserves that weren't to be taken
back to town. No one father--certainly not a father without a steady
job--could hope to compete with all that wouldn't go into trunks.

Anyway, he couldn't possibly make a goat. No wit or no kindness which
emanated from him could do for his boys what that goat did for the
Cadaras. Joe Doane came to throw an awful hate on the government goat.
Portagees were only Portagees--yet _they_ had the government goat. Why,
there had been Doanes on that Cape for more than a hundred years. There
had been times when everybody round there _worked_ for the Doanes, but
now the closest his boys could come to the government was beddin' down
the Cadaras' government goat! Twenty-five years ago Cadaras had huddled
in a hut on the God-forsaken Azores! If they knew there was a United
States government, all they knew was that there _was_ one. And now it
was these Cadara kids were putting on airs to _him_ about the
government. He knew there was a joke behind all this, behind his getting
so wrought up about it, but he would sit and watch that goat eat leaves
in the vacant lot across from the Cadaras until the goat wasn't just a
goat. It was the turn things had taken. One day as he was sitting
watching Tony Cadara milking his goat--wistful boys standing by--Ignace
Silva, just in from a trip, called out, "Government goat yourself!" and
laughed at he knew not what.

By God!--'t was true! A Doane without a vessel. A native who had let
himself be crowded out by ignorant upstarts from a filthy dot in the
sea! A man who hadn't got his bearings in the turn things had taken. Of
a family who had built up a place for other folks to grow fat in. _Sure_
he was the government goat. By just being alive he kept his family from
all the fancy things they might have if he was dead. Could you be more
of a _goat_ than that?

Agnes Cadara and Myrtie came up the street together. He had a feeling
that Myrtie was _set up_ because she was walking along with Agnes
Cadara. Time had been when Agnes Cadara had hung around in order to go
with Myrtie! Suddenly he thought of how his wife had said maybe Agnes
Cadara could wear Myrtie's shoes. He looked at Agnes Cadara's feet--at
Myrtie's. Why, Myrtie looked like a kid from an orphan asylum walking
along with the daughter of the big man of the town!

He got up and started toward town. He wouldn't stand it! He'd show 'em!
He'd buy Myrtie---- Why, he'd buy Myrtie----! He put his hand in his
pocket. Change from a dollar. The rest of the week's pay had gone to Lou
Hibbard for groceries. Well, he could hang it up at Wilkinson's. He'd
buy Myrtie----!

He came to a millinery store. There was a lot of black ribbon strewn
around in the window. He stood and looked at it. Then he laughed. Just
the thing!

"Cheer up, Myrt," said he, when he got back home and presented it to
her. "You can mourn a _little_. For that matter, you've got a _little_
to mourn about."

Myrtie took it doubtfully--then wound it round her throat. She _liked_
it, and this made her father laugh. He laughed a long time--it was as if
he didn't want to be left without the sound of his laughing.

"There's nothing so silly as to laugh when there's nothing to laugh at,"
his wife said finally.

"Oh, I don't know about that," said Joe Doane.

"And while it's very nice to make the children presents, in our
circumstances it would be better to give them useful presents."

"But what's so useful as mourning?" demanded Doane. "Think of all Myrtie
has got to mourn _about_. Poor, poor Myrtie--she's _got_ a father!"

You can say a thing until you think it's so. You can say a thing until
you make other people think it's so. He joked about standing between
them and a fireless cooker until he could see them _thinking_ about it.
All the time he hated his old job at the cold storage. A Doane had no
business to be ashore _freezing_ fish. It was the business of a Doane
to go out to sea and come home with a full vessel.

One day he broke through that old notion that Doanes didn't work on
other men's boats and half in a joke proposed to Captain Cook that he
fire a ginnie or two and give him a berth on the _Elizabeth_. And Bill
Cook was _rattled_. Finally he laughed and said, "Why, Joe, you ought to
be on your own vessel"--which was a way of saying he didn't want him on
_his_. Why didn't he? Did they think because he hadn't made a trip for
so long that he wasn't good for one? Did they think a Doane couldn't
take orders? Well, there weren't many boats he _would_ go on. Most of
them in the harbor now were owned by Portuguese. He guessed it wouldn't
come natural to him to take orders from a Portagee--not at sea. He was
taking orders from one now at the cold storage--but as the cold storage
wasn't where he belonged it didn't make so much difference who he took
orders from.

At the close of that day Bill Cook told him he ought to be on his own
vessel, Joe Doane sat at the top of those steps which led from his house
down to the sea and his thoughts were like the sails coming round the
Point--slowly, in a procession, and from a long way off. His father's
boats used to come round that Point this same way. He was lonesome
to-night. He felt half like an old man and half like a little boy.

Mrs. Cadara was standing over on the platform to the front of her house.
She too was looking at the sails to the far side of the
breakwater--sails coming home. He wondered if she was thinking about Joe
Cadara--wishing he was on one of those boats. _Did_ she ever think about
Joe Cadara? Did she ever wish he would come home? He'd like to ask her.
He'd like to know. When you went away and didn't come back home, was all
they thought about how they'd get along? And if they were getting along
all right, was it true they'd just as soon be without you?

He got up. He had a sudden crazy feeling he wanted to _fight_ for Joe
Cadara. He wanted to go over there and say to that fireless cooker
woman, "Trip after trip he made, in the cold and in the storm. He kept
you warm and safe here at home. It was for you he went; it was to you
he came back. _And you'll miss him yet._ Think this is going to keep up?
Think you're going to interest those rich folks as much next year as you
did this? Five years from now you'll be on your knees with a _brush_ to
keep those kids warm and fed."

He'd like to get the truth out of her! Somehow things wouldn't seem so
_rotten_ if he could know that she sometimes lay in her bed at night and
cried for Joe Cadara.

It was quiet to-night; all the Cadara children and all the Doanes were
out looking for the government goat. The government goat was increasing
her range. She seemed to know that, being a government goat, she was
protected from harm. If a government goat comes in your yard, you are a
little slow to fire a tin can at her--not knowing just how treasonous
this may be. Nobody in Cape's End knew the exact status of a government
goat, and each one hesitated to ask for the very good reason that the
person asked might know and you would then be exposed as one who knew
less than some one else. So the government goat went about where she
pleased, and to-night she had pleased to go far. It left the
neighborhood quiet--the government goat having many guardians.

Joe Doane felt like saying something to Mrs. Cadara. Not the rough, wild
thing he had wanted to say a moment before, but just say something to
her. He and she were the only people around--children all away and his
wife up-stairs with a headache. He felt lonesome and he thought she
looked that way--standing there against the sea in light that was
getting dim. She and Joe Cadara used to sit out on that bulkhead. She
moved toward him, as if she were lonesome and wanted to speak. On his
side of the fence, he moved a little nearer her. She said,

"My, I hope the goat's not lost!"

He said nothing.

"That goat, she's so tame," went on Joe Cadara's wife with pride and
affection, "she'll follow anybody around like a dog."

Joe Doane got up and went in the house.

It got so he didn't talk much to anybody. He sometimes had jokes, for
he'd laugh, but they were jokes he had all to himself and his laughing
would come as a surprise and make others turn and stare at him. It made
him seem off by himself, even when they were all sitting round the
table. He laughed at things that weren't things to laugh at, as when
Myrtie said, "Agnes Cadara had a letter from Mrs. MacCrea and a
_mourning_ handkerchief." And after he'd laughed at a thing like that
which nobody else saw as a thing to laugh at, he'd sit and stare out at
the water. "Do be _cheerful_," his wife would say. He'd laugh at that.

But one day he burst out and said things. It was a Sunday afternoon and
the Cadaras were all going to the cemetery. Every Sunday afternoon they
went and took flowers to the stone that said, "Lost at Sea." Agnes would
call, "Come, Tony! We dress now for the cemetery," in a way that made
the Doane children feel that they had nothing at all to do. They filed
out at the gate dressed in the best the Summer folk had left them and it
seemed as if there were a fair, or a circus, and all the Doanes had to
stay at home.

This afternoon he didn't know they were going until he saw Myrtie at the
window. He wondered what she could be looking at as if she wanted it so
much. When he saw, he had to laugh.

"Why, Myrt," said he, "_you_ can go to the cemetery if you want to.
There are lots of Doanes there. Go on and pay them a visit.

"I'm sure they'd be real glad to see you," he went on, as she stood
there doubtfully. "I doubt if anybody has visited them for a long time.
You could visit your great-grandfather, Ebenezer Doane. Whales were so
afraid of that man that they'd send word around from sea to sea that he
was coming. And Lucy Doane is there--Ebenezer's wife. Lucy Doane was a
woman who took what she wanted. Maybe the whales were afraid of
Ebenezer--but Lucy wasn't. There was a dispute between her and her
brother about a quilt of their mother's, and in the dead of night she
went into his house and took it off him while he slept. Spunk up! Be
like the _old_ Doanes! _Go_ to the cemetery and wander around from grave
to grave while the Cadaras are standin' by their one stone! My
father--he'd be glad to see you. Why, if he was alive now--if Captain
Silas Doane was here, he'd let the Cadaras know whether they could walk
on the sidewalk or whether they were to go in the street!"

Myrtie was interested, but after a moment she turned away. "You only go
for near relatives," she sighed.

He stood staring at the place where she had been. He laughed; stopped
the laugh; stood there staring. "You only go for _near_ relatives."
Slowly he turned and walked out of the house. The government goat, left
home alone, came up to him as if she thought she'd take a walk too.

"Go to hell!" said Joe Doane, and his voice showed that inside he was
crying.

Head down, he walked along the beach as far as the breakwater. He
started out on it, not thinking of what he was doing. So the only thing
he could do for Myrtie was give her a reason for going to the cemetery.
She _wanted_ him in the cemetery--so she'd have some place to go on
Sunday afternoons! She could wear black then--_all_ black, not just a
ribbon round her neck. Suddenly he stood still. Would she _have_ any
black to wear? He had thought of a joke before which all other jokes he
had ever thought of were small and sick. Suppose he were to take himself
out of the way and then they didn't _get_ the things they thought they'd
have in place of him? He walked on fast--fast and crafty, picking his
way among the smaller stones in between the giant stones in a fast, sure
way he never could have picked it had he been thinking of where he went.
He went along like a cat who is going to get a mouse. And in him grew
this giant joke. Who'd _give_ them the fireless cooker? Would it come
into anybody's head to give young Joe Doane a sail-boat just because his
father was dead? They'd rather have a goat than a father. But suppose
they were to lose the father and _get_ no goat? Myrtie'd be a mourner
without any mourning. She'd be _ashamed_ to go to the cemetery.

He laughed so that he found himself down, sitting down on one of the
smaller rocks between the giant rocks, on the side away from town,
looking out to sea.

He forgot his joke and knew that he wanted to return to the sea. Doanes
belonged at sea. Ashore things struck you funny--then, after they'd once
got to you, hurt. He thought about how he used to come round this Point
when Myrtie was a baby. As he passed this very spot and saw the town
lying there in the sun he'd think about her, and how he'd see her now,
and how she'd kick and crow. But now Myrtie wanted to go and visit
him--_in the cemetery_. Oh, it was a joke all right. But he guessed he
was tired of jokes. Except the one _great_ joke--joke that seemed to
slap the whole of life right smack in the face.

The tide was coming in. In--Out--Doanes and Doanes. In--Out--Him too.
In--Out--He was getting wet. He'd have to move up higher. But--_why
move?_ Perhaps this was as near as he could come to getting back to sea.
Caught in the breakwater. That was about it--wasn't it? Rocks were queer
things. You could wedge yourself in where you couldn't get yourself out.
He hardly had to move. If he'd picked a place he couldn't have picked a
better one. Wedge himself in--tide almost in now--too hard to get
out--pounded to pieces, like the last vessel Doanes had owned. Near as
he could come to getting back to sea. Near as he deserved to come--him
freezing fish with ginnies. And there'd _be_ no fireless cooker!

He twisted his shoulders to wedge in where it wouldn't be easy to wedge
out. Face turned up, he saw something move on the great flat rock above
the jagged rocks. He pulled himself up a little; he rose; he swung up to
the big rock above him. On one flat-topped boulder stood Joe Doane. On
the other flat-topped boulder stood the government goat.

"Go to hell!" said Joe Doane, and he was sobbing. "Go to _hell_!"

The government goat nodded her head a little in a way that wagged her
beard and shook her bag.

"Go home! Drown yourself! Let me be! Go 'way!" It was fast, and choked,
and he was shaking.

The goat would do none of these things. He sat down, his back to the
government goat, and tried to forget that she was there. But there are
moments when a goat is not easy to forget. He was willing there should
be _some_ joke to his death--like caught in the breakwater, but he
wasn't going to die before a _goat_. After all, he'd amounted to a
little more than _that_. He'd look around to see if perhaps she had
started home. But she was always standing right there looking at him.

Finally he jumped up in a fury. "What'd you come for? What do you _want_
of me? How do you expect to get home?" Between each question he'd wait
for an answer. None came.

He picked up a small rock and threw it at the government goat. She
jumped, slipped, and would have fallen from the boulder if he hadn't
caught at her hind legs. Having saved her, he yelled: "You needn't
expect _me_ to save you. Don't expect anything from _me_!"

He'd have new gusts of fury at her. "What you out here for? Think you
was a _mountain_ goat? Don't you know the tide's comin' in? Think you
can get back easy as you got _out_?"

He kicked at her hind legs to make her move on. She stood and looked at
the water which covered the in-between rocks on which she had picked her
way out. "Course," said Joe Doane. "Tide's in--you fool! You damned
_goat_!" With the strength of a man who is full of fury he picked her up
and threw her to the next boulder. "Hope you kill yourself!" was his
heartening word.

But the government goat did not kill herself. She only looked around for
further help.

To get away from her, he had to get her ashore. He guided and lifted,
planted fore legs and shoved at hind legs, all the time telling her he
hoped she'd kill herself. Once he stood still and looked all around and
thought. After that he gave the government goat a shove that sent her in
water above her knees. Then he had to get in too and help her to a
higher rock.

It was after he had thus saved the government goat from the sea out of
which the government goat had cheated him that he looked ahead to see
there were watchers on the shore. Cadaras had returned from the
cemetery. Cadaras and Doanes were watching him bring home the government
goat.

From time to time he'd look up at them. There seemed to be no little
agitation among this group. They'd hold on to each other and jump up and
down like watchers whose men are being brought in from a wreck. There
was one place where again he had to lift the government goat. After this
he heard shouts and looked ashore to see his boys dancing up and down
like little Indians.

Finally they had made it. The watchers on the shore came running out to
meet them.

"Oh, Mr. Doane!" cried Mrs. Cadara, hands out-stretched, "I am
_thankful_ to you! You saved my goat! I _have_ no man myself to save my
goat. I _have_ no man. I _have_ no man!"

Mrs. Cadara covered her face with her hands, swayed back and forth, and
sobbed because her man was dead.

Young Cadaras gathered around her. They seemed of a sudden to know they
had no father, and to realize that this was a thing to be deplored.
Agnes even wet her mourning handkerchief.

Myrtie came up and took his arm. "Oh, Father," said she, "I was so
'fraid you'd hurt yourself!"

He looked down into his little girl's face. He realized that just a
little while before he had expected never to look into her face again.
He looked at the government goat, standing a little apart, benevolently
regarding this humankind. Suddenly Joe Doane began to laugh. He
laughed--laughed--and laughed. And it _was_ a laugh.

"When I saw you lift that goat!" said his wife, in the voice of a woman
who may not have a fireless cooker, but--!

Young Joe Doane, too long brow-beaten not to hold the moment of his
advantage, began dancing round Tony Cadara with the taunting yell, "You
ain't _got_ no pa to save your goat!" And Edgar lispingly chimed in,
"Ain't _got_ no pa to save your goat!"

"Here!" cried their father, "Stop devilin' them kids about what they
can't help. Come! Hats on! Every Doane, every Cadara, goes up to see if
Ed. Smith might _happen_ to have a soda."

But young Joe had suffered too long to be quickly silent. "You ain't
_got_ no pa to get you soda!" persisted he.

"Joe!" commanded his father, "stop pesterin' them kids or I'll _lick_
you!"

And Joe, drunk with the joy of having what the Cadaras had not,
shrieked, "You ain't _got_ no pa to lick you! You ain't _got_ no pa to
lick you!"




THE STONE[12]

[Note 12: Copyright, 1919, by The Pictorial Review Company.
Copyright, 1920, by Henry Goodman.]

BY HENRY GOODMAN

From _The Pictorial Review_


"Martha Sloan is goin' the way o' Jim," said Deems Lennon to his wife.
"See," and he pointed through the open window toward the cemetery. "I
seen her before Jim's stone, beggin' on her knees an' mumblin' with her
hands stretched out. She been that way a number o' times when I come
upon her as I was fixin' up the graves."

Mrs. Lennon, a stout, pleasant-faced woman, looked in the direction
indicated by her husband. Together they watched Martha Sloan,
white-haired, thin, and bent, making her way up the cemetery path. She
was nervous and her walk was broken by little, sudden pauses in which
she looked about.

"Poor soul," said Mrs. Lennon, "she's afraid. She ain't been herself
sence Dorothy died. Losin' the two children right after Jim has broken
her up completely."

"She's afraid for herself," said her husband. "If you heard her up there
by that stone you'd have thought she was speakin' to some one alive, to
some one who could do her things."

"Oh well, that's enough to make any one queer," Mrs. Lennon said. Then
she stopped, and watched the figure on the hillside.

"Look," said Mrs. Lennon, "look at her. She's down on her knees."

Deems stood by her near the window.

"That's it," he exclaimed. "That's exactly what she's been doing now for
some time. I heard her speak. I don't know where she got the idea. She
thinks Jim's following her--reaching out for her--trying to grasp her. I
heard her plead. I don't know what'll come of it."

They were both startled when, as suddenly as Martha Sloan had knelt, she
rose from her place before the gravestone and, moving in nervous haste,
ran down the pathway.

"Deems, we must go to her," said Mrs. Lennon. "Maybe we can do something
for her." And as they both hurried into the kitchen and out of the
house, Martha Sloan, panting and white-faced with fright, rushed to the
house.

"Deems," she gasped. "Deems, it's Jim. He's reaching out. He's reaching
out to seize me."

"Martha, calm yourself," said Deems, taking Martha Sloan's shaking hand
in his. "That ain't right. You're sensible. You mustn't think so much of
it. You must keep your mind away."

"That's right, Martha," Mrs. Lennon said, as she helped Martha Sloan
into the house. "You mustn't keep thinking of Jim, and keep going up
there all the time. There's many things waiting for you at home, and
when you're through there why don't you come over to us?"

But Martha Sloan, either not hearing or not heeding the words of Deems
and his wife, sat huddled, nervously whispering, more to herself than to
her friends. "It's Jim. It's his hand reaching out to me. He took
Dorothy. He took Joseph, and he's reaching out now to me. He can't stand
having me living."

She was nervous and in the power of a fear that was stronger than her
will. She sat uneasily looking about her as if knowing that she was safe
in the house of friends, but as if feeling herself momentarily in the
presence of something strange and frightful. She cast frightened looks
about her, at the room, at Mrs. Lennon, and at Deems. She looked at them
in silence as if she did not know how to speak to them until, prompted
by great uneasiness, she spoke in a loud whisper, "Take me home. Take me
home, Deems. I want to get away."

Deems slipped into his coat, said to his wife, "I'll be back soon,"
then, helping Martha from the chair, walked out with her.

"Come now, Martha, you know us well enough. We're your friends, aren't
we? And we tell you there's nothing to fear. It's all your believing.
There's nothing after you. There's nothing you need fear."

"You don't know. It was he took my two children. He took Dorothy. When
they laid her out in the parlor, I could just see him standing at her
head. He was cruel when he lived. He beat them; Dorothy and Joseph, they
hated him. And when they laid out Joseph after his fall, when the bridge
gave way, Jim was standing by his head, and his eyes were laughing at me
like he'd say, 'I took him, but now there's you.' And he's trying for me
now."

Deems was pleased that she was speaking. He hoped that in conversing she
would find respite from her thoughts.

"No, Martha," he said, "that wasn't Jim took Dorothy and Joseph. You
know there's a God that gives and takes. Their years were run. Can't you
see, Martha?"

"It was Jim who took. He couldn't see them living. When he lived he
couldn't see them growing up to be themselves. He took them like he took
me from you. D' you remember, Deems, how he came and in no time I was
his? He owned me completely."

Deems was silent. There was no arguing. Even now there was vividly alive
in his mind, and, he knew, in the minds of the other villagers, the
recollection of that sense of possession which went with Jim Sloan. He
recalled that William Carrol had hanged himself when he could not pay
Jim Sloan the debt he owed him. It was true that Jim Sloan had owned his
children as if they were pieces of property. The whole village had
learned to know this fact soon after these children had grown up. Deems,
recalling his feelings for Martha Sloan, remembered now the amazement,
the astonishment, with which he had viewed the change that came over
Martha immediately after her marriage to Jim Sloan.

She had been light-hearted and joyful as if overflowing with the
vitality natural to the country about the village. There had been
gladness in her laugh. Immediately after her marriage all this had
changed.

Martha had been wont to run lightly about her father's house. Her
movements had become suddenly freighted with a seriousness that was not
natural to her. Her laughter quieted to a restrained smile which in turn
gave way to a uniform seriousness. The whole village noted and remarked
the change. "He is older than she," they said, "and is making her see
things as he does."

When they reached the house, Martha, without a word, left Deems and
hurried in. Deems turned away, looking back and shaking his head, the
while he mumbled to himself, "There's no good in this. There's no good
for Martha."

He was struck motionless when suddenly he beheld Martha by the window.
He had thought her slightly composed when she had left him, for her
manner was more quiet than it had been. Now he was startled. Out of the
window she leaned, her eyes fastened on the distant gravestone--white,
large, and dominating--a shaft that rose upright like a gigantic spear
on the crest of the hill. He watched her face and head and saw that her
movements were frightened. As she moved her head--it seemed she was
following something with her eyes which, look as closely as he could, he
failed to make out--there was a jerkiness of movement that showed her
alert and startled.

From the musty, dark parlor Martha looked out on the cemetery. There,
clear in the evening light, stood the large white stone--a terrible
symbol that held her. To her nervous mind, alive with the creations of
her fear, it seemed she could read the lines,

JAMES SLOAN
BORN SEPT. 14, 1857
DIED NOV. 12, 1915

and below it, stamped clearly and illumined by her fright,

HIS FAITHFUL WIFE
MARTHA SLOAN
BORN AUG. 9, 1871. DIED----

At the thought of the word "Died," followed by the dash, she recoiled.
The dash reaching out to her--reaching to her--swept into her mind all
the graspingness of James which had squeezed the sweetness out of
life--all the hardness which had marked his possession of her. Was it
her mind, prodded by terror, that visualized it? There, seeming to
advance from the hill, from the cemetery, from the very gravestone which
was beginning to blot and blurr in her vision, she saw a hand--his hand!
It was coming--coming to her, to crush what of life was left in her.

Even in her own mind, it was a miracle that she had survived Jim's
tenacity. When Jim had died, she began suddenly to recover her former
manner of life. She began to win back to herself. It was as if, the
siege of Winter having lifted, the breath and warmth of Spring might now
again prevail.

Then had come the horrors of uncontrollable dreams followed by the death
by fire of Dorothy. That had shaken her completely.

She recalled their rescuing Dorothy, how they had dragged her out of the
fire, her clothes all burned off. They had sought to nurse her back to
health, and in the week before her daughter died she had learned
something of what had happened the night of the fire. In her sleep
Dorothy had heard herself called and she thought it was her father's
voice. She had arisen when she seemed to see beside her her father as he
had looked in life.

She had followed him to the barn and suddenly he had told her that he
had come back to take her with him as he had promised to before his
death. In her struggle to escape him she had flung the lantern. In the
parlor they had laid out Dorothy--a blackened, burnt frame.

All her care and love and solicitude she concentrated on Joseph. She
thought that perhaps by an intenser, all embracing love for Joseph she
would be enabled to defeat the spell that she felt hanging over her
life. Then, when it seemed that life would begin anew to take on a
definite meaning--Joseph, grown up, was giving purpose to it--she
remembered that some one had knocked timidly on the door and had
announced in a frightened voice: "Mrs. Sloan! There's been a terrible
accident, the bridge fell----?" She remembered that she had screamed,
"My Joseph! My boy!" and then had found herself in the parlor, the body
laid out on the couch.

She remembered suddenly that the parlor had seemed to contain the
presence of Jim. She had looked up to see dimly what seemed the figure
and face of her dead husband. In the eyes that seemed to be laughing she
read the threat, "I took him, but now there's you."

As these recollections flooded and flowed through her mind, a frightened
nervousness seized upon Martha, standing by the window. Somehow she was
being held by a fear to move. Something seemed to have robbed her of the
strength and resolution to turn from the window.

There came to her the impression that there was some one in the room
with her. The feeling grew subtly upon her and added to her fear of
turning around. So she kept her eyes looking out of the window up at
where the shaft of the gravestone stood. But, more clearly now than
before, she sensed something that seemed to reach out from the
gravestone and carry to her, and at the same time there grew the feeling
that the presence in the room was approaching her.

She was held in fright. All her nervous impulses impelled her to flight.
Like a whip that was descending over her head, came the mirage from the
gravestone until, in a mad, wild attempt to evade it, she flung about in
the room as if to dash across and away from the window. Suddenly she was
halted in her passage by the presence of Jim. The dim parlor was somehow
filled with a sense of his being there, and in the dusk near the
mantelpiece and at the head of the couch, there stood in shadowy outline
her husband, come back.

"Jim!" she uttered, in a frightened gasp, and threw her hands outward to
protect herself from his purpose. But she saw clearly the shadowy face
and eyes that said unmistakably, "I have come for you."

She was terror-bound. There was no advance, for moving forward meant
coming closer to that presence, meant walking into his very grasp.

She was about to speak, to plead for herself, to beg, "Jim, leave me."

In her terror and dread of his approach, she turned hastily to the
window and leaped down. Wildly she scrambled up, bruised and shaken, and
screaming hoarsely, while in unthinking terror she moved her hands, as
if beating off unwelcome hands, she ran pantingly up the road which led
to Deems's house.

The silence and the air of happy quietness that filled the house of her
friends seemed to lay a spell upon Martha. Caring for her as if she were
of the household, Deems and his wife were gratified by the change that
apparently was coming over their charge.

In their room, after Martha had bid them good night, Deems questioned
his wife.

"And how is Martha behavin', now?"

"You couldn't tell she's the same woman. Remember how she was when we
found her at the door that night--all mumbling and frightened so she
couldn't talk? Well, now she's calm and happy like. What she needed was
being with some one."

The quietness of her surroundings had had its effect on Martha. They
showed in the calm self-possession with which she walked about,
persisting in her efforts to help Mrs. Lennon in her household work. The
atmosphere of bustling activity--Deems's coming and going from the
village, from the cemetery, whither he went with his trowel and spade to
keep in repairs the many graves and plots on the hillside--all this
seemed to have drawn on some reservoir of unsuspected vitality and
composure within Martha.

These were the visible effects. In fact, however, there had grown in
Martha's mind a plan--a desire to cut herself forever free of Jim's
sinister possession--and this plan she fed from a reservoir of nervous
power that was fear and terror converted into cunning and despair. She
went about the house not as if relieved of fear of Jim, but cautiously,
as if somewhere in back of her mind was a way out, a way out, to win
which required care and watchfulness.

In this spirit she observed Deems's movements about the house until she
learned where he left his lantern and the box where he put away his
trowel and mallet and chisel. Now that the plan was clear in her own
mind, there was nothing to do but carry it out. She would cut the
dreadful tie that held her to Jim--the tie, the potency of which gave to
the dead man the power of holding her so completely. Reckoning thus, she
became wary of her companions as if fearing that they might in some way
interfere with her plans if they got wind of them. She knew that her
every move was watched, for she found that Mrs. Lennon had constituted
herself her guardian. Since her coming to the house, she had never left
its shelter, finding at first that companionship and reassurance which
gave her courage and resolution against Jim and the power to survive the
terror of thought of him, and finding finally that, with the formation
of her plan, she would have to conceal it from Deems and his wife. She
came to this conclusion in this wise.

One day, in the kitchen she came upon a newly sharpened cleaver, its
edge invisibly thin and its broad, flat side gleaming in the sun. Mrs.
Lennon was by the window and from without came the sounds of Deems
chopping wood.

Her mind was filled with a sudden clearness of thought and, swinging the
cleaver in the air, she said to Mrs. Lennon:

"You know--here's how I can break away from Jim. When he reaches
out--reaches out for me, I can just cut off his hand."

Mrs. Lennon stood motionless, startled by the unexpected words. She had
thought Martha's mind free of all fears of Jim. She was brought up
sharply by this sudden speech and gesture. "Deems," she called, "Deems,
come here."

Deems had taken the cleaver hastily from Martha's hands, and that night
told his wife that Martha would have to be watched closely. He feared
that Martha was becoming deranged.

Martha had discovered that she was watched when one night she left her
room. She heard the door open and instantly she felt the hands of Mrs.
Lennon on her arm and heard a gentle, persuasive voice asking her to
return to bed.

It was the next day, in the dusk of a turn in the hallway, that Martha
once more felt the presence of Jim. If her life in the peaceful
household of her friends had brought an outward calm, a mantle of repose
and quiet, this was instantly torn up by the vision that formed before
her eyes in the half dim hallway. Instantly she was the old Martha, held
in the grasp of terror. Her face was drawn in tense, white lines, her
lips were deformed, and with trembling gaunt hands she thrust back the
apparition. Her screams, "Jim, let me be, let me be," brought Mrs.
Lennon running and called Deems from his work in the wood-shed.

They found her in a faint on the floor. They carried her to her room and
put her to bed, Mrs. Lennon speaking to her, soothing and trying to
bring her back to her former calm.

There followed a few days of rain which seemed in some way to make
Martha less uneasy and restless. Deems and his wife, seeing her silent
and apparently resting, felt that slowly the terror she had been
suffering was being washed out. Martha's attitude encouraged this
feeling. She rested in silence, attentive to the dropping of the rain
and learning once more to wear her old-time composure.

When Deems returned toward nightfall one day, it was with the news that
the incessant rains had done serious damage in the cemetery. Dripping
from the drenching he had received in his tour of inspection, his boots
muddy, and his hands dirty from holding to the precarious bushes, he
shook with cold as he reported on what he had found. In his narrative he
had quite forgotten the presence of Martha who sat by, silent and
waxen-faced.

"And you ought to see," he said, turning to his wife, "how the rain has
run down those graves. You know, it's loosened Jim Sloan's stone so, I'm
afraid it'll fall against the first heavy blow."

Martha's exclamation "Oh!" recalled to him her presence. He stopped
talking for a while, then hoping to blot out the effects of his
statement he began a lively story of the number of trees that had fallen
across the road, and how he had been told that over at Rampaco the
post-office had been struck by lightning.

He did not know it, but Martha was deaf to his reports. She had her own
thoughts. She felt herself curiously strong of will, and there raced in
her blood the high determination to act that very night. Not for nothing
had she spent the rain drenched days in terrified silence in her room.
All of her energies that were still capable of being mustered to her
resolve, she had converted in the crucible of her will, and huddled in
terror, she had forged the determination to go out when the time came
and to cut herself free of the fiendish power that was searing her mind
and slowly crushing her. She remembered that in her faint, when she lay
limp and inert, a thing of dread, she had felt herself crumple up at the
touch of Jim--Jim reaching out to her. Now she would cut herself free of
him at the very source of his power over her. She would go that very
night.

She cast a glance toward the closet where Deems kept his trowel and
chisel. She would have need of them, she knew. She said "Good night"
rather more loudly and vehemently than she had intended, for she was
feeling nervous.

She was awakened by a feeling of cold. As she sat up she saw that the
door was open. What was it drew her eyes through the hallway and out
into the open and brought her up suddenly? There came upon her an
eeriness that startled and chilled her, and suddenly, as if it were
coming at her through the open door, fingers out-thrust, there appeared
the hand.

She was out of bed on the instant. Somehow in her throat she repressed
the upstartled cry, "Jim," by an effort that strained all her nerves and
made her face bloodless white. She could not, however, repress
completely the instinctive movement of her hands to ward off the
menacing hand. Suddenly a panic seized her and in terrified haste she
moved to the closet and, feeling a moment, took what she knew was
Deems's chisel.

Do what she could, she could not stem the flow of panic, and suddenly as
she began to pant and breathe heavily with the strain of terror, she
began also to gasp her pleadings to Jim.

"Don't, Jim. Don't take me," and, as if not at all of her own volition,
but at that of a guiding power, she moved out of the house, ghastly in
the night, mumbling and shivering.

She was still atremble--she was now chilled by the dampness of ground
and air--when she stood by Jim Sloan's gravestone. White it gleamed
against the sky, and now Martha's trembling and murmuring turned into a
furious industry as she raised the chisel to the stone.

"Jim--you'll let me be, won't you? You'll let me be? I want 'a live
yet." She began a frenzied hacking at the gravestone, seeing nothing but
the play of her chisel, and the white, fearful stone towering over her,
hearing nothing but the rasp of the chisel--not even hearing the rattle
of the loosened gravel as it slid from under the stone.

Deems Lennon and his wife were awakened by a heavy crash. "What can it
be?" he asked his wife, and then left the bed and ran up to Martha's
room. She was gone. Instantly they were both fully awake.

"It's Jim's grave she's gone to," ventured Deems. "Remember the way she
said 'Oh!' that time I told how the rain loosened the stone? Come on,
we'll go see."

In the dark when they were near the spot where the stone used to stand,
they heard a moaning. They approached and found Martha caught under the
stone, her body crushed, her dying breath coming slowly and heavily,
carrying her words, "Let me go! Jim, let me go!"




TO THE BITTER END[13]

[Note 13: Copyright, 1919, by The Curtis Publishing Company.
Copyright, 1920, by Richard Matthews Hallet.]

BY RICHARD MATTHEWS HALLET

From _The Saturday Evening Post_


The feud between Hat Tyler and Mrs. Elmer Higgins sprang out of a chance
laugh of Elmer's when he was making his first trip as cadet. Hat Tyler
was a sea captain, and of a formidable type. She was master of the
_Susie P. Oliver_, and her husband, Tyler, was mate. They were bound for
New York with a load of paving stones when they collided with the
coasting steamer _Alfred de Vigny_, in which Elmer was serving his
apprenticeship as a cadet officer.

The old cadet had just come up on the bridge from taking a sounding--he
even had a specimen of the bottom in his hand, he said later, sand with
black specks and broken shell--when something queer attracted his
attention half a point on the starboard bow. It was a thick foggy night,
ships bellowing all round, and a weird-looking tow coming up astern with
a string of lights one over another like a lot of Chinese lanterns. It
was probably these lights that had drawn the mate's attention away from
the ship's bows.

At all events he was standing with a megaphone to his ear hearkening for
noises on the port hand when Elmer took him by the elbow and called out:
"What in the name of Sam Hill would you call that great contraption
mouching across our bows? My sorrows, Fred, it's a schooner!"

The mate went cold along his spine, and the vertebræ distributed there
jostled together like knucklebones on the back of a girl's hand, and he
yelled "Port helm!"

"I told Fred," Elmer said in discussing this circumstance later with
his cronies of the Tall Stove Club--he had got back safe and sound to
Winter Harbor by that time--"I says to him, 'Fred, we're going to bump
into that ship jest as sure as taxes!' There he stood, swearing a blue
streak. I never knew a man to be so downright profane over the little
things of life as he was. And I was right when it come to that too.
There was that long Spanish ghost of a schooner dead in our path, with
her port light shining out there as red as an apple. They wanted me to
say later--I know the skipper come to me personally and says, 'Elmer,
now you know you didn't see no light.' 'Captain Tin,' I says to him, 'I
have got the greatest respect for you as a man, and I would favor you in
all ways possible if 'twas so 'st I could; but if I was to testify the
way you want me to I would go against conscience. I wouldn't feel that I
could go on paying my pew tax. These people here want to know the truth
and I am going to give it to them.' Yes, sir, I saw the light as plain
as plain, and I pointed it out to Fred, but the devil and Tom Walker
couldn't have prevented them ships from walking right up and into each
other, situated as they was then.

"My conscience, warn't there works when those two come together! 'Fred,'
I says--I was down on my knees; throwed there, you understand--'we're
hit!' 'Tell me something I don't know, will you?' he says. He always was
comical, jest as comical as he could be. 'Get down there and look at her
snout,' he said to me. 'Find out which of us is going to sink.' That was
Fred all over--one of these fellows, all bluster, where it's a bucket of
wind against a thimbleful of go-ahead."

"I know him," interposed another member of the Tall Stove Club. "I knew
the whole family. He never amounted to nothing till he got to going to
sea."

"Well, I down off the bridge," went on Elmer, "and I up on the fo'c'stle
head, and there I see the schooner leaning over sort of faintish, jest
the way a man will when he's sick to his stomach, and I says to myself,
'That ship's going the way of the wicked.' I sung out to Fred to keep
the _Alfred_ going slow ahead, so as to give the crew a chance to come
aboard, and it warn't no time before they was swarming up into our
chains like so many ants out of a hill that has been knocked
galley-west. I see we was all wrinkled up forward ourselves--the
_Alfred_ was a tin ship--and it warn't to be wondered at when you come
to consider that the _Susie Oliver_ was jest as full as she could hold
of paving stones.

"And the next thing I knew there was Jed Tyler, right out of the blue
sky, standing side of me in his shirt sleeves, and looking down,
mournful enough. 'Where's Hat?' I sung out to him. 'Drowned,' he says.
'Drowned, am I?' Hat sung out. 'I guess that's just another case of the
thought being father to the wish, that's what I guess!'

"So I leaned down, and my stars, there was Hat Tyler! She'd come up jest
as she was--there she was sitting on the fluke of the starboard anchor.
And warn't she immense! I down over the ship's side with a rope, and s'
I, 'Heave and away, my girl!' and I got a grip of her, and away she come
over the rail, mad as a wet hen, and jest as wet, too, with her hair
stringing down, and her dander up, if ever I see a woman with her dander
up."

"I hear she leads Tyler a life," said a member.

"Well, I laughed; I couldn't help it," continued Elmer, moving his ears
at the recollection of it.

"'Hat,' I says, 'you never was caught out this way before in all your
born days,' I says. She was fit to be tied. 'Laugh!' she says. 'You
great booby!' 'Hat,' I says, 'I shall give up, I know I shall.' 'It's
jest your ignorance,' she says. 'I know it,' I says, 'but I couldn't
help it no more than if you had slid a knife into me.' And I out with
another. 'Come down into my cabin,' I says, 'and I will give you a
little something in a glass.' And down she come, past all them sailors,
in the face and eyes of everybody."

"She didn't lose nothing by what I hear," said Zinie Shadd. "They tell
me the underwriters had just as good as told her that they wouldn't let
the schooner go to sea again."

And now by your leave a word from Hat herself. There are two sides to
every story. She told her tale just across the street from the ship
chandler's, where the Tall Stove Club held its meetings. In Mrs.
Kidder's bake-shop were gathered the henchmen of Hat Tyler.

"Well, I never see your equal for falling on your feet," Lena Kidder
said admiringly. "If I've told my husband once I've told him twenty
times I'd rather have Hat Tyler's luck than a license to steal."

"Everybody has got a right to their own opinion on that point," said Hat
Tyler heavily, sinking her jaws toward the mug of milk which Mrs. Kidder
had set before her.

Hat Tyler was certainly a handful. Her shoulders were wide, as she often
said herself, her cheeks were brick-red, her voice was as deep as the
fattest gold pipe on the church organ, and the palm of her hand rasped
when she took hold of a body. There wasn't a hornier-handed woman in the
county. She wore tarred rope round her girth for a belt, knotted at the
ends with star knots. She was what Margaret Fuller had in mind when she
said to Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Let them be sea captains if they will."

"Where was you when she hit, Hat?" asked Mrs. Kidder.

"Asleep," said Mrs. Tyler. "I come up out of my bunk all standing, and
went out on deck just as I was. And lo and behold, I had just time to
get a grip on that anchor when the _Oliver_ give a lurch and over she
went. She didn't shilly-shally, I can tell you, with that load of paving
stones in her belly. Let me have another quart of milk, Lena. Talking's
thirsty business. Well, I thought I'd get my never-get-over, waiting for
those men to get a rig ready for me. And then who should I see but that
fool Elmer Higgins looking down at me. 'Hang on, Hat,' he said, 'while I
think what to do,' 'Think what to do!' I says. 'If you're any part of a
man you'll fling me a rope.' 'Jest half a second,' he says. 'Rome wasn't
built in a day.' 'It was burned up in a night, though,' I says quick as
a flash, and I guess that floored him. 'Can't you lift me up, man?'
'Much as ever I can,' he says. 'And you call yourself an able seaman,' I
said to him. 'I would sell out if I was you.'"

"He's going round with a different version, Hat," said Lena Kidder.
"Didn't he laugh as he says he did?"

"Laugh? I would like to see the man that would laugh," said Hat in her
great hardy voice. Her fist closed round the mug of milk. "I'll have him
laughing on the wrong side of his face."

"He says he give a bellow fit to wake the dead."

"That man? He stood there like a brazen image, and I had to say to him:
'Are you going to let me stand here in this perishing cold without so
much as lifting a hand? Just you stir your stumps and hotfoot a slug of
square-faced gin into me if you know what's for your own best good.'

"That man? Why, I taught him all he knows. I was sailing my own ships
when he was a deckhand."

The truth was--and Pearl Higgins, his wife, could never quite forget it
or forgive it--Elmer had once shipped before the mast on Hat Tyler's
ships; and Hat was not likely to forget it either. Rumor had it that Hat
and Elmer had been as thick as thieves at one time, and that it was
You-tickle-me-and-I'll-kiss-you between them then. But if such was the
case they had later had a falling out, and Elmer had gone one way and
Hat another.

"As a matter of fact I was more glad than sorry at what took place," Hat
now continued. "That cargo of paving stones up and shifted and started
her in a new place. She was leaking like a sieve. That little rat of an
underwriter said to me: 'If I were you, as soon as I got out of sight of
land I would turn round and kick the stern off her with a tap of my
foot.' 'Maybe I will, for all you know,' I said. I'd like to see them
bamboozle me!"

"Trust you, Hat!" said Lena Kidder in a voice of admiration.

"And so Elmer Higgins has the cast-iron nerve to say that he laughed at
me to my face, does he?" continued Mrs. Tyler. "Well, he lies when he
says it."

So the lie was passed, and hostilities began; for before night word came
to Pearl Higgins that Hat Tyler was back in town running down her
husband for his part in the rescue. Elmer's wife, a dark thin-featured
woman, had felt all along that Elmer had never been able to shake off
vestiges of that time when he and Hat had been so kind of hand-in-glove;
and she had privately determined to put the woman at a safe distance
once and for all.

"The long and short of it is," she said grimly when Elmer had come home
and spread his navigation books on the kitchen table "she's round town
calling you a liar; and now I suppose you'll be just meek enough to put
up with it."

Elmer took off his spectacles and rubbed his brow thoughtfully.

"I shouldn't wonder if it was a case of necessity, mamma," he said
musingly. "If I know one thing better than another it is that I would
want to go in training for a spell before crossing that woman. I know
when I was before the mast with her--"

Pearl Higgins burst into tears promptly. "I think you might spare me an
account of that," she sobbed. "I'm sure I don't want to hear about your
goings-on with anyone so ignorant as Hat Tyler. Yes, she is; she's
ignorant, and comes of ignorant people. What does she amount to, I'd
like to know? There's nothing to her at all. And now," she blazed forth
in fierier tones, "you're half in sympathy with the woman this blessed
minute! I suppose you think just because you rescued her from a watery
grave you're in duty bound to side in with her and take her part against
your own wife. I don't know how it is, but everything seems to fall out
in that woman's favor."

"Well, ain't it so!" said Elmer, not as a question but as if the full
force of the proposition had just struck him. "Now you mention it, I
don't know that I ever knew Hat Tyler to come off second best in a
transaction. I was talking to a party only the other day, and he said
the same thing himself. He says, 'Hat's a smart woman, Elmer.'"

"Why didn't you have her then, when you might have had her?"

"Always said I wouldn't marry a woman that had the heft of me," said
Elmer sagely with a fond twinkle at his Pearl. "I know that night when I
saw her arm on the fluke of that anchor I said to myself, 'I done just
right to steer clear of you, my lady.' There 't was, bare to the
shoulder, freckled all the way up, and jest that pretty size!"

"It's as big as a stovepipe!" shrieked Pearl.

"'T was smooth as a smelt," Elmer averred dreamily, "and jest of a
bigness to work, and work well, in a pinch. A woman like that would be
some protection to a man, Pearl. I wish you could have seen how she
clim up into those anchor chains. But I said to myself, 'That woman has
got too much iron in her blood to go with my constitution!'

"But she's smart; Hat is smart. All is, a man never knows how to take
her. But she's smart as a steel trap."

"Well, I wish she'd shut it then," said Pearl Higgins grimly.

Silence reigned; and in that silence could be heard the steeple clock
ticking on the mantel and the sound of waves lapping under the house.
They were living in Pearl's father's house. Pearl's father had been a
seaman and wharf owner, and in his declining years had established a sea
grill on one of his wharves, and lived up over it. To get to the Higgins
home you ascended an outside staircase.

The subject of Hat Tyler had a fatal fascination for Pearl Higgins.

"Do you know what I heard downtown this morning?" she resumed. "They say
Jim Rackby's going to make her skipper of the new schooner. After she's
just lost one by not keeping her eyes open too! The luck of some women!
I don't pretend to know how she does it. A great coarse thing like
her----"

"Still there's a different kind of a send-off to her, I was going to
say," said Elmer. "Hat's a seaman, I'll say that for her."

"I guess there ain't much you won't say for her," Pearl retorted.

"Then again, when the _Alfred_ run her down she had the right of way."

"I guess her weight give her that," countered his wife.

Elmer got up and stared across the harbor at the new schooner which Hat
was to command. The _Minnie Williams_ sat on the ways resplendent, her
masts of yellow Oregon pine tapering into a blue sky. A mellow clack of
calking hammers rang across the water.

"Those ways are pitched pretty steep, it seems to me," he said. "When
she goes she'll go with a flourish."

Among those who swore by Elmer for a man of wisdom was Jim Rackby, the
owner of the schooner. Next day the two men met in her shadow. The ship
had just been pumped full of water, and now the calking gang were going
round staring up with open mouths to see where the water came out.
Taking advantage of their absorption Jim Rackby asked Elmer in low tones
whether he considered Hat Tyler a fit person to be intrusted with a
ship.

"I don't know a better," Elmer answered in the same low tone.

"How about her losing this last ship?"

"I wouldn't say this to my wife, it would only aggravate her," said
Elmer, grinding up a piece off his plug, "but the loss of that ship is
only another example of what that woman can do in the way of pure
calculation when she sets out to. There she had that good-for-nothing
schooner on her hands. Why, she had to come in here on these very flats
and squat and squirt mud up into her seams, trip after trip, as I've
seen with my own eyes, to keep the cargo from falling out as much as
anything, let alone water coming in; and as soon as the mud had washed
out it was all hands on the pumps, boys, for dear life.

"Well, as I say, she took that ship out there in a fog, like a cat in a
bag you might say, and filled up with paving stones to boot, and she
planted her right there where the _Alfred_ could come slap up against
her and give the owners a chance to say 'Good morning' to the
underwriters. And she owner of a good fourth at the time. Why, she's got
dollars laid away now where you and I have got buttons. And, mind you,
the underwriters had as good as told her that that would be her last
trip. The insurance was going to fall in as soon as she made port. Now
ain't that what you would call a smart woman, laying all joking aside?
But I wouldn't want my wife to hear this, Jim. There's a little jealousy
mixed in there, between you and me and the bedpost."

"Well," said Rackby, satisfied, "I had always understood that she was
one of these kind that if they was let out they would always find their
way home somehow."

"Yes, sir!" said Elmer heartily. "Why, I was over here the day they was
stepping the mainmast, and Hat was going to slip a five-dollar gold
piece under the mast for luck, the way the last man did, but she thought
better of it. I see her change her mind at the last minute and reach in
and take out a bright penny and creep that under quick, thinking the
Lord would never notice the difference. I never knew a woman that was
more downright fore-handed. Yes, sir, she's a dabster!"

How true it is that we never know our friends in this world so largely
made up of conjecture! Could Hat have known how powerfully Elmer had
pleaded her cause, and at a time when it was half lost, would she have
moved heaven and earth, as she was moving them, to bring him into
disrepute? Would she have looked at him when they met with a dagger in
either eye and one between her teeth? Would she have tugged that rope
girdle tighter about her hips and passed him, as she did, with only a
resolute quiver of her person?

Elmer was in hopes that she would come round in time. "She's not much of
a hand to hold a thing up against a body, Hat isn't," he tried to tell
himself. And yet a vague presentiment, something like trouble in the
wind, oppressed him.

Affairs were in this posture when launching day dawned fair. The _Minnie
Williams_ stood ready on the ways, dressed in her international code
flags, which flew from all trucks. Sails of stiff new duck were bent to
the booms, anchor chains had been roused up and laid on the windlass
wildcat, a fire was kindled in the galley and a collation laid in the
saloon. The owner was aboard.

Hat Tyler was very much in evidence, fore and aft, giving orders to the
crew as to what was to be done as soon as the ship left the ways.

"I want that starboard hook dropped the minute we get the red buoy
abeam. Understand? Jake Hawkins, you stand by the windlass. Take care
when you snub her not to break that friction band. And stand by to let
go the other hook in case we need it. This harbor ain't much bigger than
a ten-quart can, when all is said."

Hat was dressed in a splendid traveling suit of heavy brocaded stuff.
She wore an enormous green-and-purple hat and carried a green bottle
with red, white and blue streamers tied round its neck. Being skipper
and a lady at one and the same time, she had chosen to christen the ship
herself.

"What's in the bottle, Hat?" sang out one of her admirers.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Hat retorted wittily. She was in high
spirits.

"Ain't it a waste of good stuff!" shouted another. "I guess it ain't
everybody that can be trusted to christian a ship these hard times."

"It ain't the last drink she will get either," a more remote voice
floated up to her. "I hear she's taking rum to France from Porto Rico."

Hat Tyler took a firmer grip of the bottle under its streamers, for this
was the voice of Pearl Higgins.

Time pressed. Already the shore gang were splitting out the keel blocks.
The whole town stood at gaze. The children had been let out of school. A
group of the larger ones were gathered on the after deck, ready to sing
America when the ship took the water. It was a gala day. Hat felt that
all eyes were centered on her, and her commands rolled along the decks
like so many red-hot solid shot.

The strokes of the men under her keel rang faster and faster yet. When
the last block was split out from under that oaken keel it was expected
that the ship would settle on the ways, that two smooth tallowed
surfaces would come together, that the ship and all her five hundred
tons would move the fraction of an inch, would slip, would slide, would
speed stern foremost into what is called her native element. But ships
are notional, and these expectations are sometimes dashed.

And now Elmer and his wife, who were stationed ankle deep in that yellow
sea of chips under her prow, could see the brows of the shore gang
beaded with sweat, and a look of desperate hurry in the eyes of the
youngster coming with the paint pot and painting the bottom of the keel
as the blocks fell one by one. Well he might hurry; for sometimes the
ship trips the last dozen blocks or so, and thus stepped on with all
that tonnage they snap and crackle, and splinters fly in every
direction.

Nothing now held the ship but a single iron dog which bound the two
tallowed surfaces together. One stroke of the maul knocked this away.
Still the ship hung fire.

"Run back and forth thwartships, you there; all you good people!" cried
Hat hoarsely. "See if we can't start her that way."

So the ship's launching company ran back and forth, and fore and aft,
until their tongues were hanging out. Elmer nudged his wife and asked
her if she remembered that night when they had danced up and down
themselves at a moonlight launching. Pearl replied with a trace of acid
that she had good cause to remember it. It was then that Elmer had
screwed his courage to the speaking point.

In vain, all in vain Hat Tyler roared her orders. The _Minnie Williams_
budged not, nor felt a thrill of life along her keel. The crowd beside
the ways scarcely drew breath; the suspense was racking.

At length the ship's company stopped for lack of breath; and in a moment
of hush a voice cried: "You better get out of that traveling suit, Hat
Tyler. You won't travel to-day."

It was Pearl Higgins. She followed up her witty saying by a peal of
jeering laughter, which punctured the tense mood of that great throng of
friends and neighbors; and such a roar of laughter went up at Hat's
expense that the _Minnie Williams_--and Hat no less--quivered from stem
to stern.

The sea captain burst frankly into tears.

"No, sir," Elmer said to a member of the Tall Stove Club who had missed
the launching, "I never see Hat go all to pieces the way she did then.
She was all broken up over it. Well, she might have mistrusted that
Pearl had a bone to pick with her. Pearl had been between a sweat and a
shiver to get in a word, and she see her chance and let her have it
slap. 'T was just what the doctor ordered. It come in so kind of comical
too. There was Hat, all twittered up in that great poison-green hat of
hers with the little heap of crab apples over one eye--and she stood
there and couldn't say ay, yes or no. And then it was boo-hoo, you know,
same as women will when a thing ain't jest according to their liking.
Hat's a smart woman, all right enough, but she don't show to her best
advantage when she blubbers. I stood there looking at her and I couldn't
think of nothing but that old adage that runs: 'Hell is nothing to put
alongside of a woman that has been laughed at.' 'Pearl,' I says, 'you've
done it now. You can't tell me you haven't made an enemy of that woman.'
And Pearl says to me, 'That great baby! I guess she'll survive.' 'Well,'
I says, 'the fat's in the fire.' And Pearl says to me, ''T won't hurt
her if she does lose a little flesh over it.' I don't know why it is
these women can't live together in peace without kicking up such a touse
all the time over trifles."

Elmer was not free on the occasion itself to spend himself in narrative,
however. His wife kept him close by her after her triumph. In grim
silence she preceded him up the outside staircase, threw open the door
to the house of Higgins and marched in. She commanded him to fetch a hod
of coal. She rattled her irons, touched her finger to the bottom of a
hot one--tszt--and brought it down on the ironing board with a masterful
jounce. And then she glared out of the window at the massive stern of
the _Minnie Williams_.

"I guess she'll know better another time," she said grimly.

"Ain't you two women been at swords' points long enough?" pleaded Elmer.

"If she thinks she can walk all over me she'll find she's mightily
mistaken."

"All is, I mistrust she won't leave a stone unturned," Elmer said,
scratching his ear. He was deep in the study of navigation again. "Hat's
contrary; yes, she is; she's mulish when she's crossed. And I don't know
when I've seen her get her back up the way she did to-day."

He spoke as briefly as possible on the subject, however. Good navigation
began at home; and there were shallows there that would put to shame the
terrors of Pollock Rip Slue. As he was going to bed near the hour of
midnight he did just say that he would rather not have Hat Tyler for an
enemy.

"There's no telling when she may bob up and put a spoke in your wheel,"
he said, taking off his necktie.

"You see to it that you put on a clean collar in the morning," said
Pearl Higgins from the bed. "The one you've got on's filthy dirty."

"I wish you could see it in a little different light Pearl," said her
spouse. "It ain't as if Hat Tyler was the fiend incarnate. But she'll
naturally hanker to get back at you; and with me away and all----"

"I can take care of myself, thank you," said Pearl.

"Still and all, I don't like to leave you with things this way."

"A precious lot you care how you leave things--going off at your age and
getting into this awful war when there ain't a particle of need of it."

"Ain't we had that all out once?"

"And then you stand up there and defend that woman."

"Now, Pearl----"

"Yes, you are! You're defending her, and I shouldn't wonder if you
didn't think as much of her as ever you did in your heart of hearts. Oh,
if you only knew how it wrings me to think of you and she together!"

"There, there! Why, in those days I hadn't so much as--I didn't so much
as know you were on earth."

"We can't ever forget our first loves," said Pearl. "It's no use your
standing up there and letting on. I know what I know. Put out the light
and get into bed. Your feet are getting cold standing there that way."

Her mouth turned into the pillow, she went on: "I remember just as well
as if it was yesterday when her father lay dying--you know how much he
thought of that horse of his, and how it always had red tassels hung on
its ears the first day of spring, and the brass on the harness was
enough to put your eyes out, he worked over it so. He thought the world
of that horse, and when he see he was going to go, he got up and said,
'Hat, shoot the horse. I won't be quiet in my grave for thinking what
kind of treatment it may be getting.' And what does she do but out into
the barn and shoot the gun into the air, and come back and let on like
the horse is gone. And her poor father lying there at his last gasp."

"Still and all," said Elmer, "wouldn't it have been kind of too bad to
put a young horse like that out of its misery? It warn't a day over ten
years old."

"And now what?" continued Pearl. "I heard only to-day that she's been to
the first selectman about having our place here condemned on the ground
that it's unsafe. And the next thing I know I'll be turned out of house
and home and won't know which way to turn nor where to lay my head.
After I've slaved like a dog all my life and worse--and what thanks do I
get for it? Why, my husband--walks away--and leaves me--in the lurch.
That's how much he--thinks of me. Ain't you _never_ coming to bed?"

Elmer, who had stood listening, now in fact had his lips ready puffed to
blow out the light.

But he did not blow.

Instead he said, "My soul and body, what was that?"

A fearful sound smote upon their ears. Something had shouldered the
house. The stovepipe in the kitchen fell down, there followed the sound
as of some scaly creature dragging its body across the linoleum. Then
there came a fall of plaster, and the kitchen stove itself appeared
stealthily through the bedroom wall.

"My conscience!" said Elmer Higgins at the height of his mystification.

But we anticipate. It will be well at this point to look in on the
affairs of Hat Tyler for a moment. When it became apparent that the
_Minnie Williams_ would not leave the ways until softer weather had
loosened up the launching grease the crowd drifted away from her. The
cook banked his fires and the crew went ashore for a carouse.

Then it was that Hat had it out with Tyler. Jed said himself afterward
that it was a regular old-fashioned session, but further than that he
would not commit himself, beyond saying that of course Hat was
sensitive--awful sensitive--and just as thin-skinned as she could be,
and it was only natural she should get up on her high horse when once
she had him alone. It was not till near midnight that, red of eye and
with her hair stringing down any old how, she put her head out of the
companionway and looked vengefully at the Higgins place across the way.

"If looks could kill," Tyler said, thrusting his jaw out with hers,
"there wouldn't be a grease spot left of that shack, would there, Hat?"

Hat made no answer. She had felt an indefinable sensation at the soles
of her feet.

"We're away, Tyler, we're away!" she gasped.

It was even so. Swift as a swallow on the wing and noiseless as a thief
in the night the _Minnie Williams_ left the smoking ways, with that deep
and graceful bow always so thrilling to beholders when there are
beholders; the first and most beautiful motion of the ship.

"You christian her, Hat!" cried Tyler. "I'll drop the hook."

Hat broke the bottle over her stern works at the very moment that a roar
of chain going out at the hawse pipe forward set the sleeping gulls
flapping seaward. The _Minnie Williams_ floated there lightly as a
feather drifted from the wings of sleep, soundless save for the chain
rattling out of her lockers. She had chosen that whimsical hour of the
night to take her first bath, and who should say the lady nay?

Now by insensible degrees the near shore receded and the far shore drew
near. Still slack chain rattled out of the hawse pipe.

Hat strode forward.

"For the Lord's sake, ain't you going to snub this ship!" she cried in a
voice hoarse with fury.

Jed Tyler thrust a ghastly dewy face out of the windlass room.

"I can't do it, Hat!" he gasped.

"You can't! Don't tell me you can't! Everything's been done that's been
tried. You drop that hook or I'll know the reason why!"

"The friction band's broke square in two."

"Oh, damn it all, if I must say so--there!" said Hat bitterly, for she
was not captain in name only. "If there's any such thing as break it's
break at a time like this. Let go that port anchor."

"Both wildcats will turn idle the way things are here."

"You do as I say! The weight of the chain may check her in some."

Tyler dropped his other hook.

"How much chain have we got on that starboard anchor? Do you know?"

"About one hundred and seventy-five fathoms."

Hat went aft again and gave a calculating glance. When the chain had
been paid out to the bitter end the ship would bring up perforce if the
anchor had caught on, for the bitter end had a round turn taken about
the foot of the foremast, and was shackled to the keelson with a monster
shackle. But--what was the width of the harbor at this point?

"Give her port helm, you ninny," said Hat, wrapping herself in her arms.
She shivered, partly because the night was chill and partly from nervous
excitement. There was no time to be lost.

"Can't. The rudder's bolted in the amidships position," said Jed in
shaking accents.

This had been done to make sure that that giant tail-piece should meet
the water squarely, as otherwise the thrust of the ship might snap the
rudder post like a pipe-stem.

"Well, I guess the horse is out of the stable, then, that's what I
guess," Hat said hoarsely. "She's launched herself now with a
vengeance."

They fell silent. With the indifference to danger of a sleepwalker the
_Minnie Williams_ marched across the starlit harbor.

Presently Hat brought down a heavy hand on her spouse's lean shoulder.

"You see what she's going to do, don't you?" she cried. "She's going to
mix it with the Higgins place, that's what she's going to do! Give them
a blue light. They're awake. I see a light burning in that south
window."

Tyler fetched a blue light; but his matches were wet with the sweat of
his efforts in the windlass room. He could not strike fire.

"What are you doing? What are you doing, man?" shrieked Hat. "Come, if
you can't strike a light give them a shot out of that shotgun. The whole
place is coming down round their ears in a minute."

"I give away the last cartridges I had yisterday to a boy that come
asking for them."

"I suppose you'd give 'em the shirt off your back if they come asking
for it," cried Hat. "I never saw such a man. Get up the patent fog
horn."

"I ain't got the key to the box," said Jed in the sulky tones of a man
who can't begin to comply with the demands upon him.

"Ain't got the key! This is a pretty time to come telling me that. Run
forward and see if you can't kink up the chain in the hawse pipe
somehow."

Jed Tyler affected not to hear this. There was a glorious crash coming,
and for his part he meant to be an eyewitness. Followed a marvelous
silence, during which with fateful celerity the _Minnie Williams_
stalked the unsuspecting Higgins house. The seaward end of the wharf on
which it stood had rotted away and fallen in, and nothing now remained
but the line of spiles, which rose out of the water like a row of bad
teeth from which the gums had fallen away. And on top of each spile
roosted a huge sea gull of marvelous whiteness, fatted with the spoils
of the harbor.

So quietly had the _Minnie Williams_ stolen upon them that the spiles on
which they slept stirred and swayed out before they took note of the
invasion. At the touch they rose shrieking on the night air with a vast
flapping of wings.

The ship passed between the long rows of spiling with nice judgment.
Certainly in the circumstance she was doing the best she could by
herself and her owners. At the left of her lay a little steamer tied up
for the winter, the top of her stack swathed like a sore thumb; and only
twenty feet to the right, under water, lurked, as Hat well knew, a cruel
weed-grown stone abutment. To the fine angular stern of the _Minnie
Williams_ the Higgins place would be like nothing so much as a pillow
stuffed with eiderdown.

That fated residence stood forlorn in the starshine. It was old, it was
gray, it suffered from some sort of shingle mange, and blue and yellow
tin tobacco signs were tacked on here and there. The crazy outside
staircase was like an aspiration that had come to nothing.

No knight of old ever couched lance against the shield of his enemy with
surer aim than that which distinguished the _Minnie Williams_ when she
set her main boom against the house of Higgins to overthrow it. And it
availed it nothing that it was founded upon a rock.

"My God, Tyler, can't you see what's taking place?" yelled Hat Tyler.

Tyler unquestionably could. He had set a cold corn-cob pipe between his
teeth; he answered nothing, but his fascinated saucer eyes were fixed on
the precise spot where as it seemed the boom was destined to be planted.
This was at a place about six feet below the square of soapstone with a
hole in it, through which the stovepipe passed. He was not disappointed.
The boom in fact exerted its whole pressure against the body of the
stove itself, with the result which we have seen. The stove made its way
across the kitchen and appeared in the bedroom at the moment when Elmer
had made up his lips to blow the flame.

Nor was this all. The inexorable stern of the _Minnie Williams_ followed
after, raising the roof of the Higgins place with the skillful care of
an epicure taking the cover off his favorite dish. The roof yielded with
only a gentle rippling motion, and the ship's lifeboat, which hung from
davits aft, scraped the remains of supper off the supper table with her
keel.

Zinie Shadd, returning late from a lodge meeting which had wound up with
a little supper in the banquet hall, felt a queer stir through his
members to see the Higgins place alter its usually placid countenance,
falter, turn half round, and get down on its knees with an apparently
disastrous collapse of its four walls and of everything within them. The
short wide windows narrowed and lengthened with an effect of bodily
agony as the ribs of the place were snapped off short all round the
eaves.

"God help them poor creatures inside!" he was moved to utter out of the
goodness of his heart. "She went in jest as easy," he recounted later to
one of his cronies. "It warn't no more exertion for her than 't would be
to you to stick your finger through a cream puff."

"How come it they 'scaped with a whole skin?"

"I don't see for the life of me. Elmer says himself it's just another
case of where it's _for_ a man to live, and if it ain't for him to he
won't, and if it's for him to be will, and that's about all there is to
it."

Elmer's exact phrase has been that he guessed nothing coming from the
sea side would ever cheat the gallows.

Pearl Higgins told a friend of hers that the one thing that came into
her mind as she lay there was that the place had been torpedoed.

"I knew what it was just as well as I wanted to," she said. She had
known all along that if any place would get it it would be the Higgins
place, on account of its exposed position, right in line with anything
that showed up at the mouth of the harbor. Of course if she had stopped
to think she would have known that a torpedo didn't come through a house
at the snail's pace the stove was moving at when it looked through at
her.

"But my land, at a time like that what is a body to think?" she
inquired. Of course as soon as she could get her wits together she could
see that it was her own stove, and nothing to be afraid of in itself if
only she knew what was animating it.

There was the rub. The truth is, the performance of the stove, at that
hour of the night, too, was so wholly out of the ordinary that she and
Elmer had not so much as stirred out of their tracks for the fraction of
a second it took the thing to come clear into the room. Pearl said later
that she thought she was seeing things.

"Scared? I was petrified! I couldn't stir hand or foot," she told her
friend. "You talk about your flabbergasted women! I never had such a
feeling come over me before."

Of course neither of them had the faintest notion of what was at the
back of it, and that made it all the worse. Pearl lay there under the
clothes as limp as a rag, and the main boom of the _Minnie Williams_,
which as we know was the thing behind it all, urged the stove forward
until it was in square contact with the foot of the bed.

Now if there was one thing on which Pearl Higgins prided herself it was
her bed. It was a mountainous, whale-backed, feather-bedded four-poster,
built in the days of San Domingo mahogany, and quite capable of
supporting the weight of a baby elephant without a quiver. Equipped with
the legs of a colossus it had a frame to match. Tradition had it that a
governor of the state had once lain in it. If there was one thing sure,
therefore, it was that the bed would not collapse. But then again the
_Minnie Williams_ was a lady not to be denied. She must come on; she
could not help it for her heart, for the bitter end of the chain cable
was not yet, and she still had way on her.

The bed, the stove and the boom met, they fitted together as if they had
been made for one another from the beginning, they engaged each other
like vertebra in a spine, they stiffened. There came a fearful rending
of laths; the mopboard buckled; two vases of alabaster fell from the
parlor mantel, and almost at the same moment the red plush clock with
the stone cuckoo-bird over the dial and the music box "where its gizzard
should have been," as Elmer always said, fell likewise. Pearl said
afterward she knew that had gone because it started playing there on the
floor at a great rate. And the next thing she knew she was in the parlor
herself; and such a mess! She didn't know as she ever wanted to lay eyes
on it again after that night's works.

Elmer, uncertain what part to play, walked along with the bed, still
carrying the hand lamp in his hand, to light the _Minnie Williams_
along, and dodging falling walls and plaster. He said when questioned by
Zinie Shadd that he hadn't felt any particular alarm, on account of the
deliberate way she had come poking in there, with a kind of a
root-hog-or-die look about her; and he said he never for a minute
doubted his ability and Pearl's to make good their escape if the worst
came to the worst.

It really wasn't until the parlor went, as he explained to the Tall
Stove Club, that he took it into his head to look over his shoulder; and
it was then that he saw the lifeboat sweeping on victoriously across the
kitchen, or what had been the kitchen. And on top of that he saw Hat
Tyler looking down as cool as a cucumber, and her husband standing
beside her.

"She had come on deck jest as she was," he stated at that time with a
quiet chuckle, "and I never see anything like so much interest showing
in a human countenance before."

Hat Tyler might well show interest; for after the house came the
land--and the land, well she knew it, was made of sterner stuff. A
shriek from Pearl told Elmer that his wife had found her tongue, as he
phrased it. The fact is she had caught sight of Hat Tyler standing over
her like an avenging fury.

But precisely at this moment the chain cable, which had all this time
lain lethargic on the floor of the harbor, roused itself link by link,
tautened, took a grip on the hook and snubbed the ship. None too soon,
it had run out to the bitter end.

Pearl Higgins' bed halted, the stove halted, and Elmer set down his
lamp. The boom receded. With the same swanlike ease she had used in
effecting an entrance, the _Minnie Williams_ floated out into the stream
again.

And in the very instant of that heaven-sent reversal Hat Tyler cried in
trumpet tones, "Travel yourself, and see how you like it!"

A shriek of demoniac laughter came on the heels of that. There were none
present to laugh with Hat, but that laugh of hers rang in Pearl Higgins'
ears like the last trump. She got herself over the side of the bed in
short order. Too late, alas! Hat Tyler's had been a Parthian shot. The
ship was out of the house altogether by then, and the roof had settled
back over its joists at a rakish angle. The whole after part of the
house was mashed into a neat concavity which would have made a perfect
mold for the _Minnie Williams'_ stern, and the _Minnie Williams_ was in
the stream again, with not a scratch about her.

"Ain't that something?" Elmer Higgins said, standing at the edge of this
declivity. "Ain't that something huge?"

"Stand there and gawk! I would if I was you!" cried his wife. "Oh, will
I ever get that laugh out of my ears if I live to be a hundred? Did ever
you hear anything so hateful? I think you're a pretty small part of a
man myself! The least you could have done was to have lit into her when
you had the chance.

"But no, not you! What do you do but stand there and never so much as
open your mouth!"

"I was so kind of took aback," Elmer advanced, "what with one thing and
another, I couldn't seem to lay my hands on jest the words I wanted. And
she standing there jest as she was too. Ain't she immense? Where you
going to look to for a solider woman than Hat?"

"It's just like her for all the world, pushing herself in where she's
not wanted," sobbed Pearl miserably. "The gall of her! And she just
itching to get this house out of the way too! I suppose you'll be just
contrary-minded enough now to say that she didn't do it on purpose?"

"No," said Elmer, solemn as a judge. "She forelaid for it all right, all
right. I been saying right along she warn't a woman to sit quiet under a
blow, and I told you as much at the time, mamma, if you'll recollect. I
said, 'When Hat hits back I look out from under.'"

He picked a lump of plaster out of his ear and lifted high the lamp.

"But my grief, my grief, when all is said and done, ain't she a
dabster!" he whispered with a tinge of admiration. "And warn't
it--warn't it nice calculation?"




THE MEEKER RITUAL[14]

[Note 14: Copyright, 1919, by The Century Company. Copyright, 1920,
by Joseph Hergesheimer.]

BY JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER

From _The Century_


I. THE ROCK OF AGES

The entire pretension is so ridiculous that it is difficult to credit
the extent of its acceptance. I don't mean McGeorge's story, but the
whole sweep of spiritism. It ought to be unnecessary to point out the
puerility of the evidence--the absurd babble advanced as the speech of
wise men submerged in the silent consummation of death, the penny tricks
with bells and banjos, the circus-like tables and anthropomorphic Edens.
Yet, so far as the phrase goes, there is something in it; but whatever
that is, lies in demonstrable science, the investigations of the
subconscious by Freud and Jung.

McGeorge himself, a reporter with a sufficient education in the actual,
tried to repeat impartially, with the vain illusion of an open mind,
what he had been told; but it was clear that his power of reasoning had
been disarranged. We were sitting in the Italian restaurant near his
paper to which he had conducted me, and he was inordinately troubled by
flies. A small, dark man, he was never without a cigarette; he had
always been nervous, but I had no memory of such uneasiness as he now
exhibited.

"It's rather dreadful," he said, gazing at me for an instant, and then
shifting his glance about the white plaster walls and small flock of
tables, deserted at that hour. "I mean this thing of not really
dying--hanging about in the wind, in space. I used to have a natural
dread of death; but now I'm afraid of--of keeping on. When you think of
it, a grave's quite a pleasant place. It's restful. This other--" He
broke off, but not to eat.

"My editor," he began anew, apparently at a tangent, "wouldn't consider
it. I was glad. I'd like to forget it, go back. There might be a story
for you."

Whatever he had heard in connection with the Meeker circle, I assured
him, would offer me nothing; I didn't write that sort of thing.

"You'd appreciate Lizzie Tuoey," he asserted.

McGeorge had been sent to the Meeker house to unearth what he could
about the death of Mrs. Kraemer. He described vividly the location,
which provided the sole interest to an end admitted normal in its main
features. It was, he said, one of those vitrified wildernesses of brick
that have given the city the name of a place of homes; dreadful. Amazing
in extent, it was without a single feature to vary the monotony of
two-storied dwellings cut into exact parallelograms by paved streets;
there was a perspective of continuous façades and unbroken tin roofs in
every direction, with a grocery or drug-store and an occasional saloon
at the corners, and beyond the sullen red steeple of a church.

Dusk was gathering when McGeorge reached the Meekers. It was August, and
the sun had blazed throughout the day, with the parching heat; the smell
of brick dust and scorched tin was hideous. His word. There was, too, a
faint metallic clangor in the air. He knew that it came from the
surface-cars, yet he could not rid himself of the thought of iron
furnace-doors.

He had, of course, heard of the Meekers before. So had I, for that
matter. A crack-brained professor had written a laborious, fantastic
book about their mediumship and power of communication with the other
world. They sat together as a family: the elder Meekers; the wife's
sister; a boy, Albert, of fourteen; Ena, close to twenty; and Jannie, a
girl seventeen years old and the medium proper. Jannie's familiar spirit
was called Stepan. He had, it seemed, lived and died in the reign of
Peter the Great; yet he was still actual, but unmaterialized, and
extremely anxious to reassure every one through Jannie of the supernal
happiness of the beyond. What messages I read, glancing over hysterical
pages, gave me singularly little comfort, with the possible exception of
the statement that there were cigars; good cigars Stepan, or Jannie,
explained, such as on earth cost three for a quarter.

However, most of what McGeorge told me directly concerned Lizzie Tuoey.
The Meekers he couldn't see at all. They remained in an undiscovered
part of the house--there was a strong reek of frying onions from the
kitchen--and delegated the servant as their link with the curious or
respectful or impertinent world.

Lizzie admitted him to the parlor, where, she informed him, the sittings
took place. There wasn't much furniture beyond a plain, heavy table, an
array of stiff chairs thrust back against the walls, and on a mantel a
highly painted miniature Rock of Ages, with a white-clad figure clinging
to it, washed with a poisonous green wave, all inclosed in a glass bell.
At the rear was a heavy curtain that, he found, covered the entrance to
a smaller room.

Lizzie was a stout, cheerful person, with the ready sympathies and
superstitions of the primitive mind of the south of Ireland. She was in
a maze of excitement, and his difficulty was not to get her to talk, but
to arrest her incoherent flood of invocations, saints' names, and
credulity.

Her duties at the Meekers had been various; one of them was the playing
of mechanical music in the back room at certain opportune moments. She
said that Stepan particularly requested it; the low strains made it
easier for him to speak to the dear folks on this side. It couldn't
compare, though, Stepan had added, with the music beyond; and why should
it, Lizzie had commented, and all the blessed saints bursting their
throats with tunes! She swore, however, that she had had no part in the
ringing of the bells or the knocks and jumps the table took.

She had no explanation for the latter other than the conviction that the
dear God had little, if any, part in it. Rather her choice of an agent
inclined to the devil. Things happened, she affirmed, that tightened her
head like a kettle. The cries and groaning from the parlor during a
sitting would blast the soul of you. It was nothing at all for a
stranger to faint away cold. The light would then be turned up, and
water dashed on the unconscious face.

She insisted, McGeorge particularized, that the Meekers took no money
for their sittings. At times some grateful person would press a sum on
them; a woman had given two hundred and seventy dollars after a
conversation with her nephew, dead, as the world called it, twelve
years. All the Meekers worked but Jannie; she was spared every annoyance
possible, and lay in bed till noon. At the suggestion of Stepan, she
made the most unexpected demands. Stepan liked pink silk stockings. He
begged her to eat a candy called Turkish paste. He recommended a "teeny"
glass of Benedictine, a bottle of which was kept ready. He told her to
pinch her flesh black to show--Lizzie Tuoey forgot what.

Jannie was always dragged out with a face the color of wet laundry soap.
She had crying fits; at times her voice would change, and she'd speak a
gibberish that Mr. Meeker declared was Russian; and after a trance she
would eat for six. There was nothing about the senior Meeker Lizzie
could describe, but she disliked Mrs. Meeker intensely. She made the
preposterous statement that the woman could see through the blank walls
of the house. Ena was pale, but pretty, despite dark smudges under her
eyes; she sat up very late with boys or else sulked by herself. Albert
had a big grinning head on him, and ate flies. Lizzie had often seen him
at it. He spent hours against the panes of glass and outside the kitchen
door.

It wasn't what you could name gay at the Meekers, and, indeed, it hadn't
been necessary for the priest to insist on the girl finding another
place; she had decided that independently after she had been there less
than a month. Then Mrs. Kraemer had died during a sitting. She would be
off, she told McGeorge, the first of the week.

The latter, whose interest at the beginning had been commendably
penetrating, asked about Mrs. Meeker's sister; but he discovered nothing
more than that--Lizzie Tuoey allowed for a heretic--she was religious.
They were all serious about the spiritism, and believed absolutely in
Jannie and Stepan, in the messages, the voices and shades that they
evoked.

However, questioned directly about Mrs. Kraemer's presence at a sitting,
the servant's ready flow of comment and explanation abruptly dwindled to
the meager invocation of holy names. It was evidently a business with
which she wanted little dealing, even with Mrs. Kraemer safely absent,
and with no suspicion of criminal irregularity.

The reporting of that occurrence gave a sufficiently clear impression of
the dead woman. She was the relict of August, a naturalized American
citizen born in Salzburg, and whose estate, a comfortable aggregate of
more than two millions, came partly from hop-fields in his native
locality. There was one child, a son past twenty, not the usual inept
offspring of late-acquired wealth, but a vigorously administrative youth
who spent half the year in charge of the family investment in Germany.
At the beginning of the Great War the inevitable overtook the Salzburg
industry; its financial resources were acquired by the Imperial
Government, and young Kraemer, then abroad, was urged into the German
Army.

McGeorge, with a great deal of trouble, extracted some additional angles
of insight on Mrs. Kraemer from the reluctant Lizzie.

She was an impressive figure of a lady in fine lavender muslin ruffles,
a small hat, blazing diamonds, and a hook in her nose, but Roman and not
Jew. A bullying voice and a respectful chauffeur in a glittering car
completed the picture. She had nothing favorable to say for the location
of the Meeker house; indeed, she complained pretty generally, in her
loud, assertive tones, about the inefficiency of city administration in
America, but she held out hopes of improvement in the near future. She
grew impatiently mysterious--hints were not her habit--in regard to the
good shortly to enfold the entire earth. Lizzie gathered somehow that
this was bound up with her son, now an officer in a smart Uhlan
regiment.

A man of Mrs. Kraemer's type, and the analogy is far closer than common,
would never have come to the Meekers for a message from a son warring in
the north of France. It is by such lapses that women with the greatest
show of logic prove the persistent domination of the earliest emotional
instincts. After all, Lizzie Tuoey and Mrs. Kraemer were far more alike
than any two such apparently dissimilar men.

At this point McGeorge was lost in the irrelevancy of Lizzie's mind. She
made a random statement about Mrs. Meeker's sister and a neighbor, and
returned to the uncertain quality of Jannie's temper and the limitations
of a medium. It seemed that Jannie was unable to direct successful
sittings without a day between for the recuperation of her power. It
used her up something fierce. Stepan as well, too often recalled from
the joys of the beyond, the cigars of the aroma of three for a quarter,
grew fretful; either he refused to answer or played tricks, such as an
unexpected sharp thrust in Albert's ribs, or a knocked message of
satirical import, "My! wouldn't you just like to know!"

McGeorge had given up the effort to direct the conversation; rather than
go away with virtually nothing gained, he decided to let the remarks
take what way they would. In this he was wise, for the girl's sense of
importance, her normal pressing necessity for speech, gradually
submerged her fearful determination to avoid any contact with an affair
so plainly smelling of brimstone. She returned to Miss Brasher, the
sister, and her neighbor.

The latter was Mrs. Doothnack, and, like Mrs. Kraemer, she had a son
fighting in the north of France. There, however, the obvious similitude
ended; Edwin Doothnack served a machine-gun of the American
Expeditionary Forces, while his mother was as poor and retiring as the
other woman was dogmatic and rich. Miss Brasher brought her early in the
evening to the Meekers, a little person with the blurred eyes of recent
heavy crying, excessively polite to Lizzie Tuoey. Naturally, this did
nothing to increase the servant's good opinion of her.

The sister soon explained the purpose of their visit: Edwin, whose
regiment had occupied a sacrifice position, was missing. There his
mother timidly took up the recital. The Meekers were at supper, and
Lizzie, in and out of the kitchen, heard most of the developments. When
the report about Edwin had arrived, Mrs. Doothnack's friends were
reassuring; he would turn up again at his regiment, or else he had been
taken prisoner; in which case German camps, although admittedly bad,
were as safe as the trenches. She had been intensely grateful for their
good will, and obediently set herself to the acceptance of their
optimism, when--it was eleven nights now to the day--she had been
suddenly wakened by Edwin's voice.

"O God!" Edwin had cried, thin, but distinct, in a tone of exhausted
suffering--"O God!" and "Mummer!" his special term for Mrs. Doothnack.
At that, she declared, with straining hands, she knew that Edwin was
dead.

Miss Brasher then begged darling Jannie to summon Stepan and discover
the truth at the back of Mrs. Doothnack's "message" and conviction. If,
indeed, Edwin had passed over, it was their Christian duty to reassure
his mother about his present happiness, and the endless future together
that awaited all loved and loving ones. Jannie said positively that she
wouldn't consider it. A sitting had been arranged for Mrs. Kraemer
to-morrow, so that she, without other means, might get some tidings of
the younger August.

Mrs. Doothnack rose at once with a murmured apology for disturbing them,
but Miss Brasher was more persistent. She had the determination of her
virginal fanaticism, and of course she was better acquainted with
Jannie. Lizzie wasn't certain, but she thought that Miss Brasher had
money, though nothing approaching Mrs. Kraemer; probably a small, safe
income.

Anyhow, Jannie got into a temper, and said that they all had no love for
her, nobody cared what happened so long as they had their precious
messages. Stepan would be cross, too. At this Albert hastily declared
that he would be out that evening; he had been promised moving-pictures.
That old Stepan would be sure to bust his bones in. Jannie then
dissolved into tears, and cried that they were insulting her dear
Stepan, who lived in heaven. Albert added his wails to the commotion,
Mrs. Doothnack sobbed from pure nervousness and embarrassment, and only
Miss Brasher remained unmoved and insistent.

The result of this disturbance was that they agreed to try a tentative
sitting. Stepping out into the kitchen, Mrs. Meeker told Lizzie that she
needn't bother to play the music that evening.

Here the latter, with a sudden confidence in McGeorge's charitable
knowledge of life, admitted that Jannie's bottle of Benedictine was kept
in a closet in the room behind the one where the sittings were held. The
Meekers had disposed themselves about the table, the circle locked by
their hands placed on adjoining knees, with Jannie at the head and Mrs.
Doothnack beyond. The servant, in the inner room for a purpose which she
had made crystal clear, could just distinguish them in a dim, red-shaded
light through the opening of the curtain.

By this time familiarity with the proceeding had bred its indifference,
and Lizzie lingered at the closet. The knocks that announced Stepan's
presence were a long time in coming; then there came an angry banging
and a choked cry from Albert. The table plainly rocked and rose from the
floor, and Jannie asked in the flat voice of the tranced:

"Is Edwin there? Here's his mother wanting to speak to him."

The reply, knocked out apparently on the wood mantel, and repeated for
the benefit of the visitor, said that those who had won to the higher
life couldn't be treated as a mere telephone exchange. Besides which, a
party was then in progress, and Stepan was keeping waiting Isabella,
consort of King Ferdinand, a lady who would not be put off. This
business about Edwin must keep. Miss Brasher said in a firm voice:

"His mother is much distressed and prays for him to speak."

The answer rattled off was not interpreted, but Lizzie gathered that it
was extremely personal and addressed to Miss Brasher. There was a
silence after that, and then the table rose to a perceptible height and
crashed back to the floor. In the startling pause which followed a
voice, entirely different from any that had spoken, cried clear and low:

"O God!"

This frightened Lizzie to such an extent that she fled to the familiar
propriety of the kitchen; but before she was out of hearing, Mrs.
Doothnack screamed, "Edwin!"

Nothing else happened. The firm Miss Brasher and her neighbor departed
immediately. Jannie, however looked a wreck, and cold towels and
Benedictine were liberally applied. She sobbed hysterically, and wished
that she were just a plain girl without a call. Further, she declared
that nothing could induce her to proceed with the sitting for Mrs.
Kraemer to-morrow. Stepan, before returning to Isabella of Castile, had
advised her against it. With such droves of soldiers coming over, it was
more and more difficult to control individual spirits. Things in the
beyond were in a frightful mess. They might see something that would
scare them out of their wits.

Mrs. Meeker, with a share of her sister's aplomb, said that she guessed
they could put up with a little scaring in the interest of Mrs. August
Kraemer. She was sick of doing favors for people like Agnes's friend,
and made it clear that she desired genteel associates both in the here
and the hereafter. Jannie's face began to twitch in a manner common to
it, and her eyes grew glassy. At times, Lizzie explained, she would fall
right down as stiff as a board, and they would have to put her on the
lounge till she recovered. Her sentimental reading of Jannie's present
seizure was that she was jealous of Ferdinand's wife.

Not yet, even, McGeorge confessed, did he see any connection between the
humble little Mrs. Doothnack and Mrs. Kraemer, in her fine lavender and
diamonds. He continued putting the queries almost at random to Lizzie
Tuoey, noting carelessly, as if they held nothing of the body of his
business, her replies. While the amazing fact was that, quite aside from
his subsequent credulity or any reasonable skepticism, the two presented
the most complete possible unity of causation and climax. As a story,
beyond which I have no interest, together they are admirable. They were
enveloped, too, in the consistency of mood loosely called atmosphere;
that is, all the details of their surrounding combined to color the
attentive mind with morbid shadows.

It was purely on Lizzie Tuoey's evidence that McGeorge's conversion to
such ridiculous claims rested. She was not capable of invention, he
pointed out, and continued that no one could make up details such as
that, finally, of the Rock of Ages. The irony was too biting and
inevitable. Her manner alone put what she related beyond dispute.

On the contrary, I insisted, it was just such minds as Lizzie's that
could credit in a flash of light--probably a calcium flare--unnatural
soldiers, spooks of any kind. Her simple pictorial belief readily
accepted the entire possibility of visions and wonders.

I could agree or not, he proceeded wearily; it was of small moment. The
fate waited for all men. "The fate of living," he declared, "the curse
of eternity. You can't stop. Eternity," he repeated, with an
uncontrollable shiver.

"Stepan seemed to find compensations," I reminded him.

"If you are so damned certain about the Tuoey woman," he cried, "what
have you got to say about Mrs. Kraemer's death? You can't dismiss her as
a hysterical idiot. People like her don't just die."

"A blood clot." His febrile excitement had grown into anger, and I
suppressed further doubts.

He lighted a cigarette. The preparations for Mrs. Kraemer's reception
and the sitting, he resumed, were elaborate. Mr. Meeker lubricated the
talking-machine till its disk turned without a trace of the mechanism. A
new record--it had cost a dollar and a half and was by a celebrated
violinist--was fixed, and a halftone semi-permanent needle selected.
Lizzie was to start this after the first storm of knocking, or any
preliminary jocularity of Stepan's, had subsided.

Jannie had on new pink silk stockings and white kid slippers. Her head
had been marcelled special, and she was so nervous that she tore three
hair-nets. At this she wept, and stamped her foot, breaking a bottle of
expensive scent.

When Mrs. Kraemer's motor stopped at the door, Lizzie went forward, and
Mrs. Meeker floated down the stairs.

Stopping him sharply, I demanded a repetition of the latter phrase. It
was Lizzie's. McGeorge, too, had expressed surprise, and the girl
repeated it. Mrs. Meeker, she declared, often "floated." One evening she
had seen Mrs. Meeker leave the top story by a window and stay suspended
over the bricks twenty feet below.

Mrs. Kraemer entered the small hall like a keen rush of wind; her manner
was determined, an impatience half checked by interest in what might
follow. She listened with a short nod to Mr. Meeker's dissertation on
the necessity of concord in all the assembled wills. The spirit world
must be approached reverently, with trust and thankfulness for whatever
might be vouchsafed.

The light in the front room, a single gas-burner, was lowered, and
covered by the inevitable red-paper hood, and the circle formed. Lizzie
was washing dishes, but the kitchen door was open, so that she could
hear the knocks that were the signal for the music. They were even
longer coming than on the night before, and she made up her mind that
Stepan had declared a holiday from the responsibilities of a control. At
last there was a faint vibration, and she went cautiously into the dark
space behind the circle. The curtains had always hung improperly, and
she could see a dim red streak of light.

The knocks at best were not loud; several times when she was about to
start the record they began again inconclusively. Stepan finally
communicated that he was exhausted. Some one was being cruel to him.
Could it be Jannie? There was a sobbing gasp from the latter. Mrs.
Kraemer's voice was like ice-water; she wanted some word from August,
her son. She followed the name with the designation of his rank and
regiment. And proud of it, too, Lizzie added; you might have taken from
her manner that she was one of us. Her version of Mrs. Kraemer's
description sounded as though August were an ewe-lamb. McGeorge,
besotted in superstition, missed this.

Independently determining that the moment for music had come, Lizzie
pressed forward the lever and carefully lowered the lid. The soft
strains of the violin, heard through the drawn curtains, must have
sounded illusively soothing and impressive.

"Stepan," Jannie implored, "tell August's mamma about him, so far away
amid shot and shell."

"Who is my mother?" Stepan replied, with a mystical and borrowed
magnificence.

"August, are you there?" Mrs. Kraemer demanded. "Can you hear me? Are
you well?"

"I'm deaf from the uproar," Stepan said faintly. "Men in a green gas. He
is trying to reach me; something is keeping him back."

"August's alive!" Mrs. Kraemer's exclamation was in German, but Lizzie
understood that she was thanking God.

"Hundreds are passing over," Stepan continued. "I can't hear his voice,
but there are medals. He's gone again in smoke. The other----" The
communication halted abruptly, and in the silence which followed Lizzie
stopped the talking-machine, the record at an end.

It was then that the blaze of light occurred which made her think the
paper shade had caught fire and that the house would burn down. She
dragged back the curtain.

McGeorge refused to meet my interrogation, but sat with his gaze
fastened on his plate of unconsumed gray macaroni. After a little I
asked impatiently what the girl thought she had seen.

After an inattentive silence McGeorge asked me, idiotically I thought,
if I had ever noticed the game, the hares and drawn fish, sometimes
frozen into a clear block of ice and used as an attraction by provision
stores. I had, I admitted, although I could see no connection between
that and the present inquiry.

It was, however, his description of the column of light Lizzie Tuoey saw
over against the mantel, a shining white shroud through which the
crudely painted Rock of Ages was visible, insulated in the glass bell.
Oh, yes, there was a soldier, but in the uniform that might be seen
passing the Meekers any hour of the day, and unnaturally hanging in a
traditional and very highly sanctified manner. The room was filled with
a coldness that made Lizzie's flesh crawl. It was as bright as noon; the
circle about the table was rigid, as if it had been frozen into
immobility, while Jannie's breathing was audible and hoarse.

Mrs. Kraemer stood wrung with horror, a shaking hand sparkling with
diamonds raised to her face. It was a lie, she cried in shrill,
penetrating tones. August couldn't do such a thing. Kill him quickly!

The other voice was faint, McGeorge said, hardly more than a sigh; but
Lizzie Tuoey had heard it before. She asserted that there was no chance
for a mistake.

"O God!" it breathed. "Mummer!"

This much is indisputable, that Mrs. Kraemer died convulsively in the
Meeker hall. Beyond that I am congenitally incapable of belief. I asked
McGeorge directly if it was his contention that, through Stepan's
blunder, the unfortunate imperialistic lady, favored with a vignette of
modern organized barbarity, had seen Mrs. Doothnack's son in place of
her own.

He didn't, evidently, think this worth a reply. McGeorge was again lost
in his consuming dread of perpetual being.


II. THE GREEN EMOTION

Virtually buried in a raft of ethical tracts of the Middle Kingdom, all
more or less repetitions of Lao-tsze's insistence on heaven's quiet way,
I ignored the sounding of the telephone; but its continuous bur--I had
had the bell removed--triumphed over my absorption, and I answered
curtly. It was McGeorge. His name, in addition to the fact that it
constituted an annoying interruption, recalled principally that, caught
in the stagnant marsh of spiritism, he had related an absurd fabrication
in connection with the Meeker circle and the death of Mrs. August
Kraemer.

Our acquaintance had been long, but slight. He had never attempted to
see me at my rooms, and for this reason only--that his unusual visit
might have a corresponding pressing cause--I directed Miss Maynall, at
the telephone exchange, to send him up. Five minutes later, however, I
regretted that I had not instinctively refused to see him. It was then
evident that there was no special reason for his call. It was
inconceivable that any one with the least knowledge of my prejudices and
opinions would attempt to be merely social, and McGeorge was not
without both the rudiments of breeding and good sense.

At least such had been my impression of him in the past, before he had
come in contact with the Meekers. Gazing at him, I saw that a different
McGeorge was evident, different even from when I had seen him at the
Italian restaurant where he had been so oppressed by the fear not of
death, but of life. In the first place, he was fatter and less nervous,
he was wearing one of those unforgivable soft black ties with flowing
ends, and he had changed from Virginia cigarettes to Turkish.

A silence had lengthened into embarrassment, in which I was combating a
native irritability with the placid philosophical acceptance of the
unstirred Tao, when he asked suddenly:

"Did you know I was married?" I admitted that this information had
eluded me, when he added in the fatuous manner of such victims of a
purely automatic process, "To Miss Ena Meeker that was."

I asked if he had joined the family circle in the special sense, but he
said not yet; he wasn't worthy. Then I realized that there was a valid
reason for his presence, but, unfortunately, it operated slowly with
him; he had to have a satisfactory audience for the astounding good
fortune he had managed. He wanted to talk, and McGeorge, I recalled, had
been a man without intimates or family in the city. Almost uncannily, as
if in answer to my thought, he proceeded:

"I'm here because you have a considerable brain and, to a certain
extent, a courageous attitude. You are all that and yet you won't
recognize the truth about the beyond, the precious world of spirits."

"Material."

However, I indicated in another sense that I wasn't material for any
propaganda of hysterical and subnormal seances. His being grew inflated
with the condescending pity of dogmatic superstition for logic.

"Many professors and men of science are with us, and I am anxious, in
your own interest, for you to see the light. I've already admitted that
you would be valuable. You can't accuse me of being mercenary." I
couldn't. "I must tell you," he actually cried out, in sudden surrender
to the tyrannical necessity of self-revelation. "My marriage to Ena was
marvelous, marvelous, a true wedding of souls. Mr. Meeker," he added in
a different, explanatory manner, "like all careful fathers, is not
unconscious of the need, here on earth, of a portion of worldly goods.
For a while, and quite naturally, he was opposed to our union.

"There was a Wallace Esselmann." A perceptible caution overtook him, but
which, with a gesture, he evidently discarded. "But I ought to explain
how I met the Meekers. I called." I expressed a surprise, which he
solemnly misread. "It became necessary for me to tell them of my
admiration and belief," he proceeded.

"I saw Mrs. Meeker and Ena in the front room where the sittings are
held. Mrs. Meeker sat straight up, with her hands folded; but Ena was
enchanting." He paused, lost in the visualization of the enchantment.
"All sweet curves and round ankles and little feet." Then he
unexpectedly made a very profound remark: "I think pale girls are more
disturbing than red cheeks. They've always been for me, anyway. Ena was
the most disturbing thing in the world."

Here, where I might have been expected to lose my patience disastrously,
a flicker of interest appeared in McGeorge and his connection with the
Meekers. A normal, sentimental recital would, of course, be
insupportable; but McGeorge, I realized, lacked the coördination of
instincts and faculties which constitutes the healthy state he had
called, by implication, stupid. The abnormal often permits extraordinary
glimpses of the human machine, ordinarily a sealed and impenetrable
mystery. Hysteria has illuminated many of the deep emotions and
incentives, and McGeorge, sitting lost in a quivering inner delight, had
the significant symptoms of that disturbance.

He may, I thought, exhibit some of the primitive "complex sensitiveness"
of old taboos, and furnish an illustration, for a commentary on the
sacred Kings, of the physical base of religious fervor.

"An ordinary prospective mother-in-law," said McGeorge, "is hard enough,
but Mrs. Meeker----" He made a motion descriptive of his state of mind
in the Decker parlor. "Eyes like ice," he continued; "and I could see
that I hadn't knocked her over with admiration. Ena got mad soon, and
made faces at her mother when she wasn't looking, just as if she were a
common girl. It touched me tremendously. Then--I had looked down at the
carpet for a moment--Mrs. Meeker had gone, without a sound, in a flash.
It was a good eight feet to the door and around a table. Space and time
are nothing to her."

Silence again enveloped him; he might have been thinking of the
spiritistic triumphs of Mrs. Meeker or of Ena with her sweet curves.
Whatever might be said of the latter, it was clear that she was no
prude. McGeorge drew a deep breath; it was the only expression of his
immediate preoccupation.

"It was quite a strain," he admitted presently. "I called as often as
possible and a little oftener. The reception, except for dear Ena, was
not prodigal. Once they were having a sitting, and I went back to the
kitchen. Of course Lizzie Tuoey, their former servant, was no more, and
they had an ashy-black African woman. Some one was sobbing in the front
room--the terrible sobs of a suffocating grief. There was a voice, too,
a man's, but muffled, so that I couldn't make out any words. That died
away, and the thin, bright tones of a child followed; then a storm of
knocking, and blowing on a tin trumpet.

"A very successful sitting. I saw Jannie directly afterward, and the
heroic young medium was positively livid from exhaustion. She had a shot
of Benedictine and then another, and Mr. Meeker half carried her up to
bed. I stayed in the kitchen till the confusion was over, and Albert
came out and was pointedly rude. If you want to know what's thought of
you in a house, watch the young.

"Ena was flighty, too; it irritated her to have me close by--highly
strung. She cried for no reason at all and bit her finger-nails to
shreds. There was a fine platinum chain about her neck, with a diamond
pendant, I had never seen before, and for a long while she wouldn't tell
me where it had come from. The name, Wallace Esselmann, finally emerged
from her hints and evasions. He was young and rich, he had a waxed
mustache, and the favor of the Meekers generally.

"Have you ever been jealous?" McGeorge asked abruptly. Not in the degree
he indicated, I replied; however, I comprehended something of its
possibilities of tyrannical obsession. "It was like a shovelful of
burning coals inside me," he asserted. "I was ready to kill this
Esselmann or Ena and then myself. I raved like a maniac; but it
evidently delighted her, for she took off the chain and relented.

"At first," McGeorge said, "if you remember, I was terrified at the
thought of living forever; but I had got used to that truth, and the
blessings of spiritualism dawned upon me. No one could ever separate Ena
and me. The oldest India religions support that----"

"With the exception," I was obliged to put in, "that all progression is
toward nothingness, suspension, endless calm."

"We have improved on that," he replied. "The joys that await us are
genuine twenty-two carat--the eternal companionship of loving ones, soft
music, summer----"

"Indestructible lips under a perpetual moon."

He solemnly raised a hand.

"They are all about you," he said; "they hear you; take care. What
happened to me will be a warning."

"Materialize the faintest spirit," I told him, "produce the lightest
knock on that Fyfe table, and I'll give you a thousand dollars for the
cause." He expressed a contemptuous superiority to such bribery. "By
your own account," I reminded him, "the Meekers gave this Esselmann
every advantage. Why?"

McGeorge's face grew somber.

"I saw him the next time I called, a fat boy with his spiked mustache on
glazed cheeks, and a pocketful of rattling gold junk, a racing car on
the curb. He had had Ena out for a little spin, and they were discussing
how fast they had gone. Not better than sixty-eight, he protested
modestly.

"Albert hung on his every word; he was as servile to Esselmann as he was
arrogant to me. He said things I had either to overlook completely or
else slay him for. I tried to get his liking." McGeorge confessed to me
that, remembering what the Meekers' old servant had told him about
Albert's peculiar habit, he had even thought of making him a present of
a box of flies, precisely in the manner you would bring candy for a
pretty girl.

"It began to look hopeless," he confessed of his passion. "Ena admitted
that she liked me better than Wallace, but the family wouldn't hear of
it. Once, when Mr. Meeker came to the door, he shut it in my face. The
sittings kept going right along, and the manifestations were wonderful;
the connection between Jannie and Stepan, her spirit control, grew
closer and closer. There was a scientific investigation--some professors
put Jannie on a weighing-machine during a séance and found that, in a
levitation, she had an increase in weight virtually equal to the lifted
table. They got phonograph records of the rapping----"

"Did you hear them?" I interrupted.

"They are still in the laboratory," he asserted defiantly, "But I have a
photograph that was taken of an apparition." He fumbled in an inner
pocket and produced the latter. The print was dark and obscured, but
among the shadows a lighter shape was traceable: it might have been a
woman in loose, white drapery, a curtain, light-struck; anything, in
fact. I returned it to him impatiently.

"That," he informed me, "was a Christian martyr of ancient times."

"Burned to a cinder," I asked, "or dismembered by lions?"

"Can't you even for a minute throw off the illusion of the flesh?"

"Can you?"

He half rose in a flare of anger; for my question, in view of his
admissions, had been sharply pressed.

"All love is a sanctification," McGeorge said, recovering his temper
admirably. "The union of my beloved wife and me is a holy pact of
spirits, transcending corruption."

"You married her against considerable opposition," I reminded him.

"I had the hell of a time," he said in the healthy manner of the former
McGeorge. "Everything imaginable was done to finish me; the powers of
earth and of the spirit world were set against me. For a while my human
frame wasn't worth a lead nickel."

"The beyond, then, isn't entirely the abode of righteousness?"

"There are spirits of hell as well as of heaven."

"The Chinese," I told him, "call them Yin and Yang, spirits of dark and
light. Will you explain--it may be useful, if things are as you say--how
you fought the powers from beyond?"

"Do you remember what Lizzie Tuoey thought about Jannie and Stepan?" he
asked, apparently irrelevantly. "That time Stepan had an engagement with
Isabella of Spain." I didn't. "Well, she said that Jannie was jealous of
the queen."

McGeorge had, by his own account, really a dreadful time with what was
no better than common or, rather, uncommon murder. Two things were
evident on the plane of my own recognition--that he had succeeded in
holding the illusive affections of Ena, no small accomplishment in view
of her neurotic emotional instability, and that the elder Meekers had an
interest in the most worldly of all commodities, not exceeded by their
devotion to the immaculate dream of love beyond death.

The girl met McGeorge outside the house; he called defiantly in the face
of an unrelenting, outspoken opposition. It was in the Meeker front room
that he first realized his mundane existence was in danger. He could
give no description of what happened beyond the fact that suddenly he
was bathed in a cold, revolting air. It hung about him with the
undefinable feel and smell of death. A rotten air, he described it, and
could think of nothing better; remaining, he thought, for half a minute,
filling him with instinctive abject terror, and then lifting.

Ena, too, was affected; she was as rigid as if she were taking part in a
séance; and when she recovered, she hurried from the room. Immediately
after McGeorge heard her above quarrelling with Jannie. She returned in
tears, and said that they would have to give each other up. Here
McGeorge damned the worlds seen and unseen, and declared that he'd never
leave her. This, with his complete credulity, approached a notable
courage or frenzy of desire. He had no doubt but they would kill him.
Their facilities, you see, were unsurpassed.

Worse followed almost immediately. The next morning, to be accurate,
McGeorge was putting an edge on his razor--he had never given up the old
type--when an extraordinary seizure overtook him; the hand that held the
blade stopped being a part of him. It moved entirely outside his will;
indeed, when certain possibilities came into his shocked mind, it moved
in opposition to his most desperate determination.

A struggle began between McGeorge in a sweating effort to open his
fingers and drop the razor to the floor, and the will imposing a deep,
hard gesture across his throat. He was twisted, he said, into the most
grotesque positions; the hand would move up, and he would force it back
perhaps an inch at a time. During this the familiar, mucid feel closed
about him.

I asked how the force was applied to his arm, but he admitted that his
fright was so intense that he had no clear impression of the details.
McGeorge, however, did try to convince me that his wrist was darkly
bruised afterward. He was, he was certain, lost, his resistance
virtually at an end when, as if from a great distance, he heard the
faint ring of the steel on the bath-room linoleum.

That, he told himself, had cured him; the Meekers, and Ena in
particular, could have their precious Wallace Esselmann. This happened
on Friday, and Sunday evening he was back at the Meeker door. The frenzy
of desire! Love is the usual, more exalted term. Perhaps. It depends on
the point of view, the position adopted in the attack on the dark enigma
of existence. Mine is unpresumptuous.

They were obviously surprised to see him,--or, rather, all were but
Ena,--and his reception was less crabbed than usual. McGeorge, with what
almost approached a flash of humor, said that it was evident they had
expected him to come from the realm of spirits. In view of their
professed belief in the endless time for junketing at their command,
they clung with amazing energy to the importance of the present faulty
scheme.

Ena was wonderfully tender, and promised to marry him whenever he had a
corner ready for her. McGeorge, a reporter, lived with the utmost
informality with regard to hours and rooms. He stayed that night almost
as long as he wished, planning, at intervals, the future. Sometime
during the evening it developed that Jannie was in disfavor; the
sittings had suddenly become unsatisfactory. One the night before had
been specially disastrous.

Stepan, in place of satisfying the very private curiosity of a
well-known and munificent politician, had described another party that
had made a wide ripple of comment and envious criticism among the
shades. It had been planned by a swell of old Rome, faithful in every
detail to the best traditions of orgies; and Stepan's companion, a
French girl of the Maison Dorée, had opened the eyes of the historic
fancy to the latent possibilities of the dance.

Jannie, at this, had spoiled everything, but mostly the temper of the
munificent politician, by a piercing scream. She had gone on, Ena
admitted, something terrible. When Mr. Meeker had tried to bundle her to
bed, she had kicked and scratched like never before. And since then she
declared that she'd never make another effort to materialize shameless
spirits.

Argument, even the temporary absence of Benedictine, had been
unavailing. Very well, Mrs. Meeker had told her grimly, she would have
to go back to cotton stockings; and no more grilled sweetbreads for
supper, either; she'd be lucky if she got scrapple. She didn't care;
everything was black for her. Black it must have been, I pointed out to
McGeorge; it was bad enough with worry limited to the span of one
existence, but to look forward to a perpetuity of misery--

McGeorge returned the latter part of the week with the plans for their
marriage, an elopement, considerably advanced; but only Jannie was at
home. She saw him listlessly in the usual formal room, where--he almost
never encountered her--he sat in a slight perplexity. Jannie might be
thought prettier than Ena, he acknowledged, or at least in the face. She
had quantities of bright brown hair, which she affected to wear, in the
manner of much younger girls, confined, with a ribbon, and flowing down
her back. Her eyes, too, were brown and remarkable in that the entire
iris was exposed. Her full under lip was vividly rouged, while her chin
was unobtrusive.

That evening she was dressed very elaborately. The pink silk stockings
and preposterous kid slippers were in evidence; her dress was black
velvet, short, and cut like a sheath; and there was a profusion of lacy
ruffles and bangles at her wrists. To save his soul, McGeorge couldn't
think of anything appropriate to talk about. Jannie was a being apart, a
precious object of special reverence. This, together with her very human
pettishness, complicated the social problem. He wanted excessively to
leave,--there was no chance of seeing Ena,--but neither could he think
of any satisfactory avenue of immediate escape.

Jannie's hands, he noticed, were never still; her fingers were always
plaiting the velvet on her knees. She would sigh gustily, bite her lips,
and accomplish what in an ordinary person would be a sniffle. Then
suddenly she drew nearer to McGeorge and talked in a torrent about true
love. She doubted if it existed anywhere. Spirits were no more faithful
than humans.

This, for McGeorge, was more difficult than the silence; all the while,
he told me, his thoughts were going back to the scene in the bath-room.
He had no security that it wouldn't be repeated and with a far different
conclusion. He had a passing impulse to ask Jannie to call off her
subliminal thugs; the phrasing is my own. There was no doubt in his
disordered mind that it was she who, at the instigation of the elder
Meekers, was trying to remove him in the effort to secure Wallace
Esselmann.

She dissolved presently into tears, and cried that she was the most
miserable girl in existence. She dropped an absurd confection of a
handkerchief on the floor, and he leaned over, returning it to her.
Jannie's head drooped against his shoulder, and, to keep her from
sliding to the floor, he was obliged to sit beside her and support her
with an arm. It had been a temporary measure, but Jannie showed no signs
of shifting her weight; and, from wishing every moment for Ena's
appearance, he now prayed desperately for her to stay away.

McGeorge said that he heard the girl murmur something that sounded like,
"Why shouldn't I?" Her face was turned up to him in a way that had but
one significance for maiden or medium. She was, he reminded me, Ena's
sister, about to become his own; there was a clinging, seductive scent
about her, too, and a subtle aroma of Benedictine; and, well, he did
what was expected.

However, no sooner had he kissed her than her manner grew inexplicable.
She freed herself from him, and sat upright in an expectant, listening
attitude. Her manner was so convincing that he straightened up and gazed
about the parlor. There was absolutely no unusual sight or sound; the
plain, heavy table in the center of the room was resting as solidly as
if it had never playfully cavorted at the will of the spirits, the
chairs were back against the walls, the miniature Rock of Ages, on the
mantel, offered its testimony to faith.

One insignificant detail struck his eye--a weighty cane of Mr. Meeker's
stood in an angle of the half-opened door to the hall, across the floor
from where Jannie and he were sitting.


III

After a little, with nothing apparently following, the girl's expectancy
faded; her expression grew petulant once more, and she drew sharply away
from McGeorge, exactly as if he had forced a kiss on her and she was
insulted by the indignity. Lord! he thought, with an inward sinking,
what she'll do to me now will be enough!

He rose uneasily and walked to the mantel, where he stood with his back
to Jannie, looking down absently at the fringed gray asbestos of a gas
hearth. An overwhelming oppression crept over him when there was a
sudden cold sensation at the base of his neck, and a terrific blow fell
across his shoulders.

McGeorge wheeled instinctively, with an arm up, when he was smothered in
a rain of stinging, vindictive battering. The blows came from all about
him, a furious attack against which he was powerless to do anything but
endeavor to protect his head. No visible person, he said solemnly, was
near him. Jannie was at the other side of the room.

"Did you see her clearly while this was going on?" I asked.

Oh, yes, he assured me sarcastically; he had as well glanced at his
diary to make sure of the date. He then had the effrontery to inform me
that he had been beaten by Mr. Meeker's cane without human agency. He
had seen it whirling about him in the air. McGeorge made up his mind
that the hour of his death had arrived. A fog of pain settled on him,
and he gave up all effort of resistance, sinking to his knees, aware of
the salt taste of blood. But just at the edge of unconsciousness the
assault stopped.

After a few moments he rose giddily, with his ears humming and his ribs
a solid ache. The cane lay in the middle of the room, and Jannie stood,
still across the parlor, with her hands pressed to scarlet cheeks, her
eyes shining, and her breast heaving in gasps.

"Why not after such a violent exercise?"

McGeorge ignored my practical comment.

"She was delighted," he said; "she ran over to me and, throwing her arms
about my neck, kissed me hard. She exclaimed that I had helped Jannie
when everything else had failed, and she wouldn't forget it. Then she
rushed away, and I heard her falling up-stairs in her high-heeled
slippers."

Naturally he had half collapsed into a chair, and fought to supply his
laboring lungs with enough oxygen. It's an unpleasant experience to be
thoroughly beaten with a heavy cane under any condition, and this, he
was convinced, was special.

I asked if he was familiar with Havelock Ellis on hysterical impulses,
and he replied impatiently that he wasn't.

"There are two explanations," I admitted impartially, "although we each
think there is but one. I will agree that yours is more entertaining.
Jannie was jealous again. The Roman orgies, the young person from the
_grands boulevards_, were more than she could accept; and she tried, in
the vocabulary lately so prevalent, a reprisal. But I must acknowledge
that I am surprised at the persistent masculine flexibility of Stepan."

"It was at the next sitting," McGeorge concluded, "that Stepan
announced the wedding of Ena and me. The spirits awaited it. There was a
row in the Meeker circle; but he dissolved, and refused to materialize
in any form until it was accomplished."

"To the music of the spheres," I added, with some attempt at ordinary
decency.




THE CENTENARIAN[15]

[Note 15: Copyright, 1919, by Harper & Brothers. Copyright, 1920, by
Will E. Ingersoll.]

BY WILL E. INGERSOLL

From _Harper's Magazine_


There were few who knew--and, frankly, there were few who seemed to care
to know--what Old Dalton meant when he mumbled, in his aspirate and
toothless quest for expression of the thoughts that doddered through his
misty old brain, "Thay wur-rld luks diff'rent now--all diff'rent now,
yagh!" Sometimes he would go on, after a pause, in a kind of laborious
elucidation: "Na, na! Ma there, now, she's gone. I--egh, egh--I went to
school 'long of her; an' et didn't matter so much, mun, about th' rest
going, 's long as she wer' here. But now--she's gone, ey. Agh-m! Ey, now
she's gone-like, an' th' ain't nobody to help me keep--keep a-hold o'
things. I'm a hundred years old, mun. Agh-m! You wouldn't--you wouldn't
know what I was meanin', now, when I tell you this here world has growed
all yellow-like, this month back. Ey, that's it, mun--all queer-like.
Egh, it's time I was movin' on--movin' on."

Part of this monologue--a very small part--was Old Dalton's own,
repeated over and over, and so kept in mind ever since the more
initiative years a decade ago when he first began to think about his
age. Another part of the utterance--more particularly that about "movin'
on"--consisted of scraps of remarks that had been addressed to him,
which he had hoarded up as an ape lays away odds and ends, and which he
repeated, parrotlike, when the sun and his pipe warmed Old Dalton into
speech. But that idea that the earth was growing yellow--that was a
recent uncanny turn of his fancy, his own entirely.

He was pretty well past having any very definite inclination, but there
seemed no special reason why the old man should wish to "move on." He
appeared comfortable enough, pulling away at his blackened old pipe on
the bench by the door. No man above fifty, and few below that age,
enjoyed better health than he had; and many of fifty there are who
_look_ nearer death than Old Dalton did.

"Crack me a stick 'r two o' wood, grampa," his married
great-granddaughter, with whom he lived, would sometimes say; and up and
at it the old man would get--swinging his ax handily and hitting his
notch cleanly at every clip.

Assuredly, his body was a wonderful old machine--a grandfather's clock
with every wheel, bearing, and spring in perfect order and alignment.
Work had made it so, and work kept it so, for every day after his smoke
Old Dalton would fuss about at his "chores" (which, partly to please
him, were designedly left for him to do)--the changing of the bull's
tether-picket, watering the old horse, splitting the evening's wood,
keeping the fence about the house in repair, and driving the cows o'
nights into the milking-pen.

To every man in this world is assigned his duty. To every man is given
just the mental and physical equipment he needs for that duty. Some men
obtusely face away from their appointed work; some are carried afield by
exigency; some are drawn by avarice or ambition into alien paths; but a
minor proportion of happy ones follow out their destiny. There do not
occur many exceptions to the rule that the men who find their work and
do it, all other conditions being equal, not only live to old age, but
to an extreme, a desirable, a comfortable, and a natural old age.

Old Dalton had been built and outfitted to be a simple, colloquial
home-maker, family-raiser, and husbandman. His annals were never
intended to be anything more than plain and short. His was the function
of the tree--to grow healthily and vigorously; to propagate; to give
during his life, as the tree gives of its fruit and shade, such
pleasant dole and hospitable emanation as he naturally might; and in the
fullness of time to return again to the sod.

He had found and done thoroughly this appointed work of his. He was
doing it still, or at least that part of it which, at the age of one
hundred years, fittingly remained for him to do. He was tapering off,
building the crown of his good stack. When Death, the great Nimrod,
should come to Old Dalton, he would not find him ready caught in the
trap of decrepitude. He would find him with his boots on, up and
about--or, if in bed, not there except as in the regular rest intervals
of his diurnal round.

And the fact that he, a polyp in the great atoll of life, had found his
exact place and due work was the reason that, at one hundred years, life
was yet an orange upon the palate of Old Dalton.

Nanny Craig--who later became Mother Dalton--had, in remote eighteen
hundred and twenty, been a squalling, crabbed baby, and had apparently
started life determined to be crotchety. If she had adhered to this
schedule she would have been buried before she was sixty and would have
been glad to go. But Old Dalton--then young Dave Dalton--married her out
of hand at seventeen, and so remade and conserved her in the equable,
serene, and work-filled atmosphere of the home he founded that Nanny far
outdid all her family age records, recent or ancestral, and lived to
ninety-three. She was seven years younger than Dave, and now three
months dead.

Dave had missed her sorely. People had said the Message would not be
long coming to him after she went. Perhaps if he had been in the usual
case of those who have passed the seventh decade--weary and halt and
without employment or the ability or wish for it--he would have brooded
and worried himself into the grave very soon after the passing of his
old "mate" and one living contemporary. But he was a born, inured, and
inveterate worker, and as long as there were "chores" for him to do he
felt ample excuse for continuing to exist. Old Dalton still had the
obsession, too, that while and where he lived he was "boss" and manager;
and one solid, sustaining thought that helped to keep him living was
that if he died the Dalton farm (it was the original old homestead that
these young descendants of his occupied) would be without its essential
head and squire.

So sturdy, so busy, and so well had he been always that all the deaths
he had seen in his journey down a hundred years of mortality had failed
to bring home to him the grave and puissant image of death as a personal
visitant.

"Ey, I'm always out wur-rkin' when they send fur me, I guess," was the
joke he had made at eighty and repeated so often since that now he said
it quite naively and seriously, as a fact and a credible explanation.

But, although it took time to show its effect, Nanny's going hit him a
little harder than any of the other deaths he had witnessed. She had
traveled with him so long and so doughtily that he had never been able
to form any anticipative picture of himself without her. Indeed, even
now it felt as if she had merely "gone off visitin'," and would be back
in time to knit him a pair of mitts before the cold weather came.

It was the odd idea about the world growing "yellow-lookin'"--sometimes
he said "red-lookin'" and at other times seemed not quite certain which
description conveyed the vague hue of his fancy--that appeared to be
pulling him to pieces, undermining him, more than any other influence.
Most people, however, were accustomed to consider the hallucination an
effect of Mother Dalton's removal and a presage of Old Dalton's own
passing.

This odd yellowness (or redness), as of grass over which chaff from the
threshing-mill has blown, lay across the old pasture on this afternoon
of his second century, as Old Dalton went to water the superannuated
black horse that whinnied at his approach.

"Ey, Charley," he said, reflectively, as he took the old beast by the
forelock to lead it up to the pump--"ey, Charley-boy"; then, as the
horse, diminishing the space between its forefoot and his heel with a
strange ease, almost trod on him--"ey, boy--steady there, now. Es yur
spavin not throublin' ye th' day, then? Ye walk that free. S-steady,
boy--ey!"

But Grace, the granddaughter, glancing across the pasture as she came
to the kitchen door to empty potato peelings, put it differently.

"See how hard it be's gettin' for grampa to get along, Jim," she said to
her husband, who sat mending a binder-canvas at the granary door. "I
never noticed it before, but that old lame Charley horse can keep right
up to him now."

Jim Nixon stuck his jack-knife into the step beside him, pushed a rivet
through canvas and fastening-strap, and remarked, casually: "He ought to
lay off now--too old to be chorin' around. Young Bill could do all the
work he's doin', after he comes home from school, evenings."

"He's not bin the same sence gramma died," Gracie Nixon observed,
turning indoors again. "It ain't likely we'll have him with us long now,
Jim."

The old man, coming into the house a little haltingly that evening,
stopped sharply as his granddaughter, with a discomposingly intent look,
asked, "Tired to-night, grampa?"

"Ey?" His mouth worked, and his eyes, the pupils standing aggressively
and stonily in the center of the whites, abetted the protest of the
indomitable old pioneer. "Tired nothin'. You young ones wants t'l maind
yur own business, an' that'll--egh--kape yous busy. Where's me pipe,
d'ye hear, ey? An' the 'bacca? Yagh, that's it." The old man's fingers
crooked eagerly around the musty bowl. He lit, sucked, and puffed
noisily, lowering himself on a bench and feeling for the window-sill
with his elbow. "In my taime," he continued, presently, in an aggrieved
tone, "young ones was whopped fur talkin' up t'l thur elders like that.
Lave me be, now, an' go 'n' milk thame cows I just fetched. Poor beasts,
their bags es that full--ey, that full. They're blattin' to be eased."

With indulgent haste, the young couple, smiling sheepishly at each other
like big children rebuked, picked up their strainer-pails and went away
to the corral. The old man, his pipe-bowl glowing and blackening in time
to his pulling at it, smoked on alone in the dusk. In the nibbling,
iterative way of the old, he started a kind of reflection; but it was as
if a harmattan had blown along the usual courses of his thought, drying
up his little brooklet of recollection and withering the old aquatic
star-flowers that grew along its banks. His mind, in its meandering
among old images, groped, paused, fell pensive. His head sank lower
between his shoulders, and the shoulders eased back against the wall
behind his bench. When Jim Nixon and his wife, chasing each other
merrily back and forth across the dewy path like the frolicsome young
married couple they were, reached the door-yard, they found the old man
fallen "mopy" in a way uncommon for him, and quite given over to a
thoughtless, expressionless torpor and staring.

"You'll be tired-like, grampa, eh?" Jim Nixon said, as he came over to
the veteran and put a strong hand under Old Dalton's armpit. "Come on,
then. I'll help you off to your bed."

But the old man flamed up again, spiritedly, although perhaps this time
his protest was a little more forced. "Ye'll not, then, boy," he
mumbled. "Ye'll just lave me be, then. I'm--egh, egh"--he eased
gruntingly into a standing position--"I'm going to bed annyway, though."
He moved off, his coattail bobbing oddly about his hips and his back
bowed. The two heard him stump slowly up the stairs.

Jim Nixon drew the boot-jack toward him and set the heel of his boot
thoughtfully into the notch. "They go quick, Gracie," he observed, "when
they get as old as him. They go all at onct, like. Hand me thon cleaver,
an' I'll be makin' a little kindlin' for th' mornin'."

The alcove where the old man's bed stood was only separated by a thin
partition from the room where the young couple slept; and the sounds of
their frolic, as they chased, slapped, and cast pillows at each other,
came to him companionably enough as he drew the blankets up about his
big, shrunken chest and turned the broad of his back to the comfortable
hay-stuffed bed-tick.

But all the merry noise and sociable proximity of the young people
staved not off the great joust with loneliness this mighty knight of
years had before he slept--a loneliness more than that of empty house
and echoing stair; more than that, even, of Crusoe's manless island;
utterly beyond even that of an alien planet; of spaces not even coldly
sown with God-aloof stars--the excellent, the superlative loneliness of
one soul for another. It is a strange, misty, Columbus-voyage upon which
that hardy soul goes who dares to be the last of his generation.

There was in that bed a space between him and the wall--a space kept
habitually yet for the Nanny who never came to fill it, who never again
would come to fill it. (There would have been no great demonstration on
the old man's part even if she had miraculously come. Merely a grunt of
satisfaction; perhaps a brief, "Ey, ma--back?" and then a contented
lapsing into slumber.) His want of her was scarcely emotional; at least
it did not show itself to him that way. It took more the form of a kind
of aching wish to see things "as they was" again. But that ache, that
uneasiness, had upon Old Dalton all the effect of strong emotion--for it
rode him relentlessly through all these days of his December, its weight
and presence putting upon the tired old heart an added task. The
ordinary strain of life he might have endured for another decade, with
his perfect old physique and natural habits of life. But this extra
pressure--he was not equipped for that!

"They go quick, at that age," his granddaughter's man had said. But,
although even he himself did not know it, Old Dalton had been "going"
for weeks--ever since the first confident feeling that "ma" would come
back again had given place to the ache of her coming long delayed.

To-night it was cold in bed for August. Old Dalton wished "they" would
fetch him another quilt.

But it should not have been cold that August evening. Beyond the wooden
bed a small, rectangular window with sash removed showed a square of
warm sky and a few stars twinkling dully in the autumnal haze. An
occasional impatient tinkle of the cow-bell down in the corral indicated
midges, only present on bland days and nights when there is in the air
no hint of frost to stiffen the thin swift mite-wings.

High summer, and he was cold! Bedlam in the next room, and he was
lonely! His sensations were getting out of hand, beyond the remedial
influences and friendly fraternal sounds of this world he had so long
tenanted. By a score of years he had exceeded his due claim upon
earth's good offices to man. He was a trespasser and an alien in this
strange present--he with his ancient interests, fogy ways of speech and
thought, obsolete images and ideals, and mind that could only regard
without attempt at comprehension the little and great innovations of the
new age.

"We c'u'd make shift well enough with the things we had whin I was a
lad," Old Dalton had often said to those who talked to him of the fine
things men were inventing--the time-savers, space-savers, work-savers;
"we c'u'd make shift well enough. We got along as well as they do now,
too, we did; and, sir, we done better work, too. All men thinks of,
these days, is gettin' through quick. Yagh, that's it, that's
it--gettin' through quick-like, an' leavin' things half done."

So is a man born and implanted in his own generation. And if by strength
he invades the next generation beyond, he does not go far before he
finds he is a stranger utterly. In the current talk of men there are new
smartnesses of speech built upon the old maternal tongue. There are new
vogues of dress, new schools of thought, new modes even of play.
Perhaps, again, new vices that the older simpler life kept dormant give
the faces of this fresh generation a look and a difference strange and
sinister.

A hundred years old! There are to be found, notably in steadily moving
rural communities, not a few who endure to ninety hardily enough; but
rare and singular are the cases where a man is to be found, except as
dust in a coffin, a century after his birth. Old Dalton had inherited
from his mother the qualities that are the basis of longevity--a nature
simple and serene, a physique perfect in all involuntary functions and
with the impulse of sane and regular usages to guide voluntary ones, an
appetite and zest for work. She had married at eighteen and had lived to
see her son reach his eightieth year, herself missing the century mark
by only a few months.

But Old Dalton had breasted the tape, the first of his race to do it.
And if it had not been for this wave of loneliness; this parching,
astringent wind of sorrow that seemed to dry up the oil of his joints,
evaporate the simple liquor of his thought, put out the vital sparkle
in his eye; and now, latest act of dispossession, to milk his old veins
of their warmth--if it had not been for this influence and prescience,
Old Dalton might have run hardily quite a good little way into his
second century.

But somewhere, afar and apart, the finger was about to descend upon the
chronometer that timed his race. The dust atoms that a hundred years ago
had been exalted to make a man now clamored for their humble
rehabilitation. Man shall never, in this mortal body we use, exemplify
perpetual motion.

Old Dave Dalton turned in his bed. Something beyond the chilliness was
wrong with him, and he did not know what it was. There is no condition
so vexatious as an unexplainable lack of ease; and Old Dalton twisted,
gathered up his knees, straightened them again, tensed, relaxed, shifted
the bedclothes, and busily but vainly cast about for the source of his
disquiet.

Ah!--the thought slipped into his mind like a late guest.

"Et's thame sticks I forgot, ey," the old man muttered as he forthwith
and arduously rose into a sitting position and pushed the blankets off
him. "Ey, ey, that's it--the sticks for the mornin'!"

The chopping of the wood for the morning fire, in order that the sower,
haymaker, or harvester, as the seasonal case might be, should have as
little delay as possible in getting to his field or meadow; this had
been a regular chore of Old Dalton's, a function never omitted before in
all the scope of his methodical and assiduous days.

"Ey, but I never thought now that I'd ever lave that job not done," he
muttered as he shuffled slowly and sheepishly down the stairs. "Ey, ey
... ma!"

There she was, at the foot of the stairs! Old Dalton saw her, as plainly
as if it had been daylight. Gray apron with its horseshoe pattern almost
obliterated by many washings, waist bulging halely, shoulders bowed
forward, old wool hood tied over her head. There she was, with her
visage, that in all their years together had not changed for him,
squeezed and parched into the wrinkles of her thirty-four thousand days.
(The only difference Old Dalton could see, as he stopped, his elbows
bent a little, and regarded her in his quelling masculine way, resided
in the eyes. Instead of being held downcast in the old attitude of
deference, they now looked across at him, straight level,
and--summoning!)

Immobile age and Old Dalton's habit kept him from any visible expression
of the welcome that lay warm (though tempered by an odd feeling of
strangeness due to that look she carried in her eyes) in his soul.

"Ey, ma--back?" he murmured, as he looked her up and down a moment, to
get used to the sight of her, and then edged on in a vague, indifferent
way toward the outside door and the chip-pile.

Mother Dalton followed, without comment or change of expression, but a
tear seemed to flit and zigzag its way down the dried courses of her
thousand wrinkles. She stood in the doorway, facing the moon as it rose
above the roof of the granary. If she was a little translucent for so
solid-shaped an old presence, Old Dalton did not notice it, as he picked
up his ax and went handily to his wood-chopping.

She maintained her position on the step quietly, her hands folded across
her waistband, her feet bluish and bare upon the pine sill. But, though
she did not interrupt by word or movement, Old Dalton (who had used to
be no more conscious of her than of the wind or the daylight) felt
to-night as embarrassed by her proximity as though she were a stranger
and a hostile presence. He was sweating and irritable when he finished
his sticks; and, as he stood his ax against the end of a log, twisted
his head around sharply, with the intent of asking the old woman why she
was "gappin' there, place o' goin' and gettin' thon bed warmed up."

But the old pioneer himself fell agape as he encountered the look on her
face. There is a vast respect in the country for that many-phased
quality called "second sight"; and, if Old Dalton had ever seen signs of
the possession of it on a human face, he saw them on his old woman's
now. It struck him, too, for the first time definitely, as he groped
about in the fog of his old mind for the reason she looked so queer, so
like a stranger to him, that Mother Dalton had brought some odd quality
back from this "visit" she had been making.

There grew upon Old Dalton something of fear. He stood fumbling and
tetering, his hands wandering nervously up and down the edge of his
coat.

Mother Dalton stood upon that step, facing the half-moon that looked
down from above the grove. Her glance was not directed toward him, but
up and away. In the pupils of her eyes was a shine which seemed a
refraction of the silver-gray beams of the moon. There was about her
gaze a something heavy, mournful, and boding which old Dave could not
understand, but which made him think of the expression she had lifted in
the old homesteading days toward the hail-cloud that swept from eastward
to beat down their little, hard-sown crop.

"They 's trouble a-comin'." The voice was hers--at least it came from
her direction--yet it seemed to Old Dalton that the words came not from
her, but _through_ her. "Ey, Davie ... there 's trouble a-comin' ...
trouble a-comin'. Ess time you was movin' ... movin' on...."

Old Dave Dalton had never, in the long, long course of his years, had a
sensation like that which took him, as the queer voice melted away,
blending imperceptibly with the homely rustlings and lowings of the farm
night. The ache he had carried in his heart for those last weeks seemed
suddenly to bulge and burst, like a bubble. The old moon, the hills and
trees and trail of his long travel; the night, the world, and the odd
old figure over against him, were bundled up with a sudden vast
infolding in a blanket of black, a corner of which seemed thrust against
his mouth, gagging him and cutting off his breath. He was lifted, lifted
as in a great wind--lifted by shoulders, crown, and knees, and whirled
around--around ... then set again on his feet very softly, with the
blackness gone and the clear country night above him as before.

He should have been giddy after that cataclysm, but he stood upright and
steady. He should have been tired and shaken, but he was fresh and calm.
He should have been heavy and stiff and held to the earth by the ball
and chain of a hundred years; yet he seemed scarcely more solid,
scarcely less light, than an embodied wind. He should have been (for
the atmosphere of the home in which you have dwelt for a century is not
so easily dissipated) a doddering old corporeality, yet he felt he was
now all thought and glorious essence of life. He should have seen on the
step that old wife who had stood so uncannily by while he sweat over his
wood-splitting; yet the presence that moved toward him from the pine
sill, though wholly familiar and intimate and full of kind emanations,
had neither wrinkles nor grayness nor any of the attributes and
qualities of mortality. He should have bespoken that kindred presence in
halting colloquialities, yet the greeting he gave flowed from him in the
form of a thought untranslated into any sluggish medium of language. He
should have been filled with a vague curiosity about that trouble she
had just presaged, yet now he knew wholly....

"Let us thank God that our sojourn ended within the bourne of His
peace!" was the thought exchanged as these two dutiful ones, cleared and
lightened for swift voyaging, turned their faces toward the Gates of the
Day.

On the earth they had left midnight was wearing toward morning--the
morning of August the First, Nineteen Hundred and Fourteen!




MESSENGERS[16]

[Note 16: Copyright, 1919, by The Curtis Publishing Company.
Copyright, 1920, by Calvin Johnston.]

From _The Saturday Evening Post_

BY CALVIN JOHNSTON


The group before the fire at the Engineers' Club were listening, every
one--though nothing was being said; nor was it the crackle of apple logs
or fluttering sails and drowning cries of the northeaster in the chimney
that preoccupied them. Rather some still, distant undertone in their own
breasts, arresting their conversation, gestures, thoughts--they glanced
at one another surreptitiously, uneasily.

"But listen--I am telling you," said old Con O'Connel, the railroad
builder, his voice rolling and sweet as the bells of Shandon: "To-night
I hear a footfall in the rain--that of Tim Cannon, the messenger."

So that was the undertone which had arrested their thoughts; the rush of
footfalls symbolizing to the group, every one, the pursuit of himself by
a belated messenger. They settled themselves, relieved and smiling;
after all the thing had been naturally suggested to them by the echo of
rain on the broad plate windows. And they nodded their heads to Con,
still listening.

The footfall of Tim Cannon, a name of ancient days on the P. D.
Railroad; but as the story does not concern him except as Molly Regan's
messenger I will leave him come into it in his own time and take up with
the Regans themselves.

Two of them there were to begin with--young Michael, swinging a lusty
pick in a construction gang of the Great Southwest Railway; and Molly, a
pretty bride with solemn wondering gaze and air of listening to things
which no one else could hear.

Often Mike would smile at her queer fancies that there are things to
learn and do beyond the day's work, and after the Great Southwest has
been builded and he has laid aside pick and shovel to become track boss
at Turntable Station this queerness of Molly's leads her into playing a
great joke on her husband.

For she saves her odd pennies against his birthday and presents him with
a book. "A book of higher knowledge, it is," she says, while Mike
scratches his head in awe; and she must kiss him for the kind interest
he takes and that evening read to him a page in a voice like the song of
soldiers marching. Mike toils after in mind with his big fists gripping
and forehead glistening in the struggle to remember the journey, but at
the end a darkness comes down on him, and the two gaze at each other
uneasily and the page is read over again.

But devil a bit can Mike remember of it, so that he sits despairing with
his head between his hands. "Do not mind, Molly," he says then; "you
shall study on alone at the higher knowledge, having a joy of it which
is not for me." He says this, looking up to smile, and yet the big hands
hold on to hers as if fearing she was being stolen away.

But Molly answers him back so clear and strong that the song of soldiers
marching is nothing to it. "'T is only the joke I am playing. Am I the
wife to bother you with learning when you know already so much," she
says, "and have the care of the section on your mind, with ties to lay
straight and rails to spike fast so that the great railroad may run?"
And when he speaks once more of the study she should make of knowledge
Molly closes the big book and sets it on the mantel along with the
clock.

"'T is for ornament, and now you know why I bought it from the peddler,"
she explains; "for every household of pretension must have a book."

So they admire the shiny binding and gold letters, and after five years
when their new cottage is built it is given a shelf of its own.

Danny is born, the same who in Molly's lifetime shall be an official of
the great railroad; and when in the course of time he is turned a sturdy
boy of seven, with coal-black eyes and a round cropped head, she would
place the book in his hands for purposes of learning. But detecting the
fear of Michael as he smokes in the evening with eyes on the shelf, that
the mysterious volume may contain matter treasonable to their state and
condition, she ignores the higher knowledge completely and is content to
send Danny only to the Turntable school.

A cruel one he is to the old master there, inking the pages of his
reader and carving a locomotive on his desk; and when he is twelve he
has decided against all books and school and is interested only in
things of the Turntable yard.

So that one evening he comes home, and when Molly kisses him because he
brought all his books as if to study Danny explains, "Mother, I am now a
man and have a job calling crews, so study is of no more use."

He stacks his reader and arithmetic on the shelf by the old book, and
Michael hearing the news that evening laughs with pleasure that the boy
has completed his education so soon and promises to put half Danny's
salary in bank in his own name. Time passes and the books fade in their
bindings, and are forgotten even by Molly; but the eyes of her shine
more clearly than ever as if studying in pages which no one else could
see. When Danny is about eighteen years old, and already operator at
Turntable, she notices that a habit has come over him of pausing in the
doorway at dusk, and there he will stand gazing out into the yards with
folded arms till at last his mother asks the reason with timid
eagerness.

"'T is the lanterns," says Dan. "Beckon they do to things beyond
Turntable."

"To things beyond," repeats Molly with hand on her heart. "Turn to me,"
she says; and Dan does so, grinning at his fancy; but as she studies the
black-browed face a fierce frown like the fluff and smoke of powder
passes over it, with the white teeth gleaming out.

"Beckon they do, mother," he says steadily, "to the job of trainmaster
and superintendent, and even beyond to places high and powerful. And
there I must trample my way whoever has to be pulled down to make
room."

In that instant she sees him as he is, the Regan of them all; and after
a bit she smiles and nods, but never again does she ask about the
beckoning of the lanterns.

So time passes again, and Dan goes up to division headquarters at Barlow
to dispatch trains, and Michael gives a last order as assistant
roadmaster and comes home to his long sickness. And now Molly is alone
in the little house, settled down to keep blooming the memories of it
along with the hollyhocks of the garden beyond the lattice with the
morning-glory vines trailing over. Time fades her face, but 't is still
uplifted and lighted, and later she is seen among the flowers till they
die in the fall, and winter coming down she sits at her window knitting
a shawl as the snow is knitted without.

But deep is her grieving over Dan, who is by this time superintendent,
with his policy of pull-down and trample-under, dreaded by all round
him. Two or three times a year he will stop his special at Turntable,
and seated in the little parlor he seems a glowing metal mass of a man
to Molly, standing apart in awe of him. But the time is at hand when she
must appeal to him or never at all in this world, so the saints inspire
her to speak a message to the man of power and she smiles with shy pride
of their confidence in her.

"Faith, I will talk to him as a boy again," she plans; "'Danny,' I will
say, 'when the lanterns of the yard do beckon to your ambition is there
not one light above and beyond, brighter than all the others, which
beckons the spirit?' Then he will be guided by it," reasons old Molly
with her solemn gaze fixed on the future of Dan.

But it chances that Dan's visit is delayed and Molly feels that the
saints are impatient of her worldly lingering.

"I must put the message into writing lest it be lost entirely," she says
then. "Anyhow Danny will read it over and over in memory of me, having
that tender a heart toward his mother, for all his hardness to others."

So that the message of the farthest lantern is at last about to be
written, on an evening when the little cottage with crusted eaves and
hoary glimmering windows seems but the bivouac of winter elves in folk
story. And as old Molly by the cleared table, with pen in hand and
bottle of ink and the paper she bought when Michael died--to write his
second cousin in Kildare a letter of sympathy, y' understand--as old
Molly makes ready for the writing, after a stick laid on the fire and
hearth brushed, the snow drifts solidly to the window but is swept clean
of the doorstep, leaving a scratch of firelight under the door on the
path beyond.

"The Farthest Lantern," she writes, as a headline, for 't is certain
that Danny before reading will wish to know what it is about; and then
pleased with the successful beginning she holds it up to the shaded lamp
to read over, then because of the wrinkled hands shaking lays it down on
the table, surely as steady as rock.

Divil a thing can she make out except blots and scratches, so that the
headline is done over with more care. And only then it becomes plain
that what with the rheumatism and palsy Molly has written her last,
except scratches, which the most credulous could not accept at all as a
message of interest, y' understand.

Now well would it be for old Mistress Regan's memory if she had put
aside the message with resignation and thought no more about it. But
there is no doubt that the look of solemn wonder flitted suddenly from
her face, leaving it haggard and fierce, and that like a stab with a
dagger she drove the splintering pen into the desk as into the breast of
an enemy. So much is known, for there is little done that can be
screened from mortal ken.

As for her thoughts--here no man can tell, for she held her words behind
grim set lips. But the guess cannot be far amiss that when old Molly
discovered she was destined to die with never a word of warning or
counsel to Dan she broke into bitter revolt. Not a word of all the
wisdom she had stored with this one purpose could be written or spoken
to him--and it never was. Far be it from me to blackguard an old lady
fallen in with disappointment but it is a fact proved by witness that
her trembling hands upraised and her lips, always so faintly smiling,
curled as with a curse--and whether it was launched at the fiend or
heaven itself is not for me to say who have no proof that her voice was
heard above the howling of the blizzard.

But this I know, that on the instant she hears a summons that breaks
the spell of anger as no threat of purgatory would have done. A moment
she hesitates, the old hands sink unclenching, the fierceness fades from
her eyes, and once again with wondering uplifted look Molly Regan turns
to the things beyond, which no one else may see.

At the wide-open welcoming door she stands, peering amid the squall of
snow; and there in the center of the blur of light stands Tim the
messenger, in aftertime the ruin of Dan Regan's fortunes.

The boy's hands are clasped as those of a frozen corpse, the wind
whistles in his rags, but he glowers at her with narrowed brows and a
gleam of teeth. Here he is, come to demand retribution for her rebellion
against the will of God, and since Molly cannot live to pay it is
ordained that she shall give instead into Tim Cannon's hands the means
of trampling under Dan Regan and his fortune. 'T is little we know.

"Come," says Molly, "come in to the fire, and the hot coffee; you are
frozen with the wind and snow. Glory be, that I am still here to make
comfortable for the waif on my doorstep."

The wisp of old woman in mourning dress, with blown white hair and
out-stretched hand; the crackling hearth, and coziness of the room
beyond--these are hostess and haven enough to any waif of winter
tempest; and Molly knowing it to be so steps aside for him, laughing
with eagerness to see him at the fireside, dry and warm in Danny's old
clothes, sniffing the steam of his coffee cup.

But this is no ordinary outcast, y' understand, submissive to charity,
but an agent of retribution, who stands with frozen folded hands, and
wind whistling in his rags, looking on with a threatening manner. And
when the moment has come for him to enter, and not until then, he stalks
stiffly past the outheld hand to the center of the room and turns slowly
in his tracks to study the features of the place, as an agent of destiny
should always do. His pinched little face is dirty, his black hair
tousled by the storm, which has blown away his cap; and now the
lamp-light touching his temple reveals the deep scar there. A wild and
awesome waif is this, and Molly studying with startled interest his
behavior feels at last that she is entertaining some veteran campaigner
of regions beyond Turntable to whom the mischances of earthly wandering
in cold and snow are nothing.

Not a word does he say but spreads his stiffened fingers before the
blaze, and Molly with the strangest of hopes dawning so soon after her
rebellion bustles briskly about the coffee making. And presently it is
brewed and Tim Cannon stands by the table drinking and munching toast
and cold meat.

"Ye must be seated in the chair," urges Molly, "and be comfortable, and
it will seem like home to you."

At this Tim Cannon rubs his scar with remembrance of his drunken
grandfather and their home in the city slums. Then he eats the faster
till he is done, studying her with peculiar interest.

"You should have seen the money before I began the eats," he says by way
of advice on the entertainment of wayfarers.

"Do you mean you can't pay?" asks Molly after a moment's reflection.
"Now what am I to do?"

"Throw me out," instructs Tim, with contempt of her ignorance.

"Into the storm? Oh, no!"

"Why not?" he asks with suspicion.

"Faith, I wouldn't treat a dog so," replied Molly.

"Sure, not a dog," agrees Tim; and waiting to be driven out stands
arrow-straight in Danny's old clothes, which are too big for him,
wondering what the dog has to do with the matter.

"But you can pay," says Molly after a moment. Faintly and eagerly she
speaks, her hand pressing her heart to steady it in against the impulse
of hope. "You can pay for that and much more--food and drink and warmth
all the days of my life--and without money." Tim shrewdly glances his
question, but Molly shakes her head for answer.

"To-night I will keep secret and plan how to arrange it--and you may
sleep here on the sofa before the fire and dream of good things for
to-morrow; and only then"--she nods with mystery in her smile--"I will
say what ye are to do."

And Tim gives her a glance of his level eyes, reflecting in the wisdom
of experience that here is crooked business to be done for his keep.

"Sure," he answers in a way to inspire confidence, and the bargain being
struck Molly says good night, and the guest is soon stretched in sleep
on the couch.

After a time the shadows move up closer to him, the fire flickering on
the blackened log as the spirit clings to a body dying; the wind falls
till only the deep breathing of the sleeper is heard, and the loud
ticking of the clock--it strikes two with a crash, and Tim rouses.

As an old campaigner he rises from sleep without recoil or startled look
at the cloaked figure standing with ink and paper at the table in the
center of the room.

"Whist!" she says, and for a moment marvels at the nature of a boy who
rises to the alarm in the middle of the night, awake and ready; the
indifference with which he buttons his coat whilst hearing the snow he
has just escaped snarl threateningly against the window. "Whist!" says
Molly, hesitating to tell the reason for her coming at that hour, lest
it shock or frighten him. But the bearing of the meager boy and the
level glance of the untamable blue eyes once more assure her that he has
not been sent here from beyond Turntable to fail her at extremity.

"Y' understand, Timothy, that I am an old lady who may die any
time--perhaps to-night, having such warning in the unsteady beating of
my heart--and so I am come at once to explain matters and have you
settle my affairs for me on earth. Do not be afraid----"

"What of?" asks Tim.

"First," resumes Molly eagerly, "I have planned to explain to you a
moment--that 't is a duty I promised myself to do and have long
neglected."

"What is that?" asks Tim.

"A duty? Why, the same as made me take you in this night."

"How did it make you?" asks Tim, and listens with skepticism to her
explanation.

"'T will be the same with you, settling my affairs on earth," says Molly
in conclusion; "if you promise to do it 't is then a duty, and of course
you would not fail--through storm and hardship and fear, you would
go----"

"A duty," says Tim with reflection; "if you die you'll never know
whether I 'tend to it."

"Why, that would make no difference. You would 'tend to it because you
promised. You would follow the Farthest Lantern, as I will explain
presently."

Queerly he looks round, studying the flicker of fire, the cozy room,
even the clothes he is wearing; then the uplifted old face under the
white hair with its expression of listening to things he cannot hear.

"I promise," he says, and laughs in a fierce puzzled way--the only laugh
ever heard from him. And he has forgotten and Molly has forgotten to
name the price to be paid for his trouble.

"Here is a pen you may fit in the broken holder," she says; "write what
I cannot for the palsy in my hand. Now, as I tell you--'t is the letter
of the Farthest Lantern--the lantern which beckons to duty."

But Tim fumbles the pen. "I never learned how," he explains, "to write
the letters"; and on the instant feels the hand at his shoulder tremble
and clutch, looks up a moment to see two great tears roll down her
cheeks--and curses with a mighty smother in the breast of him.

"You need not curse," says Molly faintly; "'t is the will of the saints
after all."

She nods, listening, and then the boy watches her glide from the room,
and for a long time sits on the hearth before the fire, his chin locked
in his hands.

So after all it has come about that the message of the Farthest Lantern
is never written at all. And neither is it spoken, for Tim scratching on
the door of Molly's room at daybreak receives no cheery word of
greeting; and after a moment's reflection entering with the lamp he
finds her silent forever.

Without reverence he stares at the face on the pillow, having no
knowledge of death's ghostly significance; and scowling he brushes away
the cold beads which gather on his forehead. 'T is certain that an
outcast in a strange house with a dead person will be marked for
suspicion by the neighbors; and Tim Cannon has had cause enough to avoid
the police. Yet queerly enough he sets the lamp, shining brightly, by
the bedside, and sometimes seated and sometimes moving about, but never
leaving the chill room for the warm fireplace next door, he keeps her
company.

One neighbor hears of Molly's death from a vagabond at her door in the
morning and runs to call to others "Come, Aunt Molly is dead." On their
way to the Regan cottage they agree that the vagabond is a suspicious
character and look about for him. But Tim has disappeared; nor do they
see him again until entering the room where Molly lies, with lamp
burning brightly and grim little sentry returned to await them.

Later when questioned he explains his presence in a few words. "I'll be
on the way," he says then.

No one offers him shelter or money or food, being a suspicious
character. Indeed all the company approve when a man stops him to
examine the package in his pocket. But as it is found to consist of only
an ink bottle and some paper with a broken pen he is permitted to go.

"It is suspicious," they agree. "What can the likes of him want with
letter writing?"

But they are broad-minded people of Turntable, and let him go on
condition that he stay away.

And 't is on this same day Dan Regan catches the stride that shall make
destiny for railroads, and lands his great job with the P. D. System.

All of two months after Molly's funeral--in fact the very morning of Dan
Regan's departure from Barlow and the Great Southwest Railroad to take
his position as general manager of the P. D.--a ragged gossoon with a
scar over his temple peeps from the box car of a through train halted
for a change of engines near the depot platform. It is Tim Cannon,
surprised every morning at waking to find himself out of the den of the
city slums, where morning, noon and night his grandfather--being in
liquor at the time--would drive him out to steal some trifle good for a
drink at the pawnbroker's saloon. And having no knowledge that a living
is to be gained by a more honorable profession than crime he peeps out
with suspicion on the open streets and yards, where it is impossible to
hide from a patrolman.

But hunger drives him out into the open, snarling under his breath; and
presently toward the depot lunch stand, groaning under the weight of
sinkers and pies, Timothy is making his way by fits and starts and
glancing suspicion in every direction. So that he is overcome with
chagrin when in spite of all his caution a young man steps from behind
the car unnoticed and taps him smartly on the shoulder.

Quite an elegant young gentleman, in pink shirt and gay suspenders, who
says: "See Dan Regan, yonder, up the platform, who is now off from his
old job as superintendent here to become general manager of the P. D.
All the luck he has, and myself with a headpiece of solid gold knocking
at Opportunity, who has on her door 'Nobody Home,'" says the young man
in gloom.

To the switch engine signaling down the yard he gives the high sign in
answer that he will be there in the course of time, and as Tim prowls
round the corner of the station he follows after to see what is meant by
it.

"What, are you not going out again in the box car, young hobo?" he asks.

"It is a fine home if you have but the bread," says Tim.

"A home?" repeats the other. "Mr. James Craney, I am," he informs with
dignity; "chief clerk to the general yardmaster, who has no other but
me. Is it reasonable, young hobo, as man to man, that you can jolly me
along?"

He peers round the corner, and for the first time Regan, a towering
figure of a man, turns so that Tim can see his face. The bell of the
special rings faintly as the sweep of his glance takes in Mr. Craney and
the vagabond boy; then he steps on board and in a moment the glittering
brass spark of the car amid the flying dust cloud flings Regan's last
signal to the G. S. Railroad.

But the towering black-browed man lingers in the mind's eyes of Timothy;
a giant who has stepped out of the unknown and swept him with slow
smoldering glance and then stepped back again.

Thus they meet and part, and the great man holds no more memory of the
vagabond than if he had never been; but in the bony little breast under
the rags the heart leaps high, and on the instant Tim takes up the trail
which Destiny, a far-sighted old creature, has long since blazed out for
him.

"He is the big boss," says the boy with awe, gazing after the spangle of
the flying train.

"I would not envy Regan if I were you," advises Craney. "See how he has
gone--with no friend to bid him godspeed because of the way he has kept
us all under."

But the boy still gazes after the spangle in the dust. "Divil a bit will
Regan care whether he be godspeeded or not," he says, so boldly that
Craney considers him with respect.

"I see that yourself has ambition along of the rags," he says with
meditation. "Then I know a job where you may use the ambition freely and
never a chance to part with the rags," he says. "A job which is the
equal of Regan's in every way, only on a smaller scale, you understand;
where you will be general manager of a railroad and all the other
officials to boot, including your own pay-master. Do I interest you?"

Tim nods in respect to the big words and Mr. Craney instructs him:
"Whist! Arrange your running time to meet me passing the yard-limit post
yonder at six one P.M."

And to make it official he scribbles a train order in his note-book for
Tim to sign with his mark, as his drunken grandfather has educated him
to do.

Then Mr. Craney strolls away to answer the signals of the engine that
there are cars to be weighed, and Tim prowling professionally past the
lunch counter in the waiting room, steals a banana and a sandwich, which
he has for breakfast in the shade of a pile of ties. There he watches
the making up of trains, the flying switches, the flatheads scuttling
along packing the journal boxes; and far beyond he can see the machine
shops with the forked tongues of blacksmiths' forges and the blink of
brasses in the roundhouse.

A great groan of iron and steam and toil swells in the smoky light, and
the bells call to him so that he begins prowling everywhere from end to
end of the yards. The noon comes with blowing of whistles; and hungry
again he goes back to the lunch counter while the waiter is busy and
sandwiches are easy prey. But instead of stealing them he comes out on
the platform with empty hands and stares back, not understanding why it
is so, till the groan of the work hour swelling again calls up the
memory of black-browed Regan who has been big boss of it all.

"'T is sure he would never run and hide from a policeman," says Tim, and
ponders how Regan would act in his place. "He would go hungry if he was
not strong enough to take what he wanted to their faces--that is what
Regan would do," he says; and despising sandwiches and sinkers which
have to be stolen in secret he struts proudly about with his rags and
hunger till the six o'clock whistle blows and Mr. Craney meets him at
the yard limit.

Now be it explained that just below this spot the Great Southwest had
built its first freight house, abandoned as the village of Barlow grew
away from it into a big town. Long ago the foundations have been wiped
out, but in Regan's time it still stands, a ramshackle ruin on the edge
of the right of way, which some official with economy has leased out
instead of tearing down.

"This is the Terminal Building," explains Mr. Craney as they come up,
"of the Barlow Suburban Railway." And he points out the sagging track of
rust-eaten rails which wanders away across the town's outskirts. "In
here," he explains, escorting Tim up the incline of the platform and
through the sliding door of the wareroom, "we have a stall for the
motive power, which is a horse, and in the corner a cot for the general
manager, who drives him. 'T is only three runs must be made daily across
pleasant hills and fields and then a hearty supper when you collect
fares enough to pay for it, and an infant's sleep here rocked by the
trains as they pass. Then up in the morning in jolly good time to get
the limekiln workers on the job by seven. Observe, young hobo," he says,
"that I keep nothing up my sleeve. The job is here for you to take or
leave, for better or worse; and I throw in this cap with the gold
braid," he says, unwrapping one of the bundles he carries.

"Gimme it," replies Tim with decision; and the suburban car arriving at
the moment, the driver turns in thirty-five cents as the day's revenue,
and Mr. Craney pays him seventy cents as wages and discharges him with
thanks.

"You are now installed, young manager, and so on," he tells Tim; and
after presenting the cap with gold braid, which comes down over his
manager's ears, he shows him how to reverse the horse and work the
combination of the harness, which is woven of wire and rope and old
trunk straps.

"All aboard, Barlow Suburban!" he calls then, so quickly that a young
lady passenger must run the last few steps and be assisted into the car
by himself.

"You will be most active as superintendent of motive power," he shouts
to Tim as he dusts the bony nag with the reins, and the battered little
car bumps along. "Old Charley is an heirloom who has come down to me
along of the cursed railway," he explains.

"Do not frighten away the gadfly which is his train dispatcher or he
will sit down in the track till the whistle blows."

Further instructions he gives also, and they have gone about a mile out
into the fields when the young lady passenger having dropped her fare
into the box rings the bell and is helped off at a wild-rose bush where
a path leads over a hill to a farmhouse.

"Sweet creature," says Mr. Craney with gloom. "Drive on!" And never a
word more does he speak till they reach the end of the line and the
house where he lives alone. "We are total strangers," he explains then,
"though she has boarded at the farmhouse half the summer and is named
Katy O'Hare and is telephone lady in town."

When Tim asks why Katy O'Hare and himself do not become acquainted: "'T
is the fatal circumstances of me," he answers; and invites his official
to dinner, unwrapping his other bundle.

The cheap old cottage is also fallen upon fatal circumstances, with
shutters and panes broken and seams of its walls opening to the weather;
the barns and sheds are but heaps of boards, and the crooked, rusty
switch seems but a fork of lightning which has so wrecked and blackened
the whole Craney homestead that Tim's rags are an ornament to it. And
yet Mr. Craney snaps his fingers and dances a jig. "Now ruin and
mortgage may swallow you as it has me," he says with ridicule, and
knocks some splinters from the house to build a fire in the yard between
four bricks which he knocks from the chimney.

He brings the coffeepot from the kitchen and then kicks it away that he
may boil the coffee in an old can as a courtesy to the young hobo; and
sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs he sets out from his bundle.

"Never can we become acquainted," resumes Mr. Craney; "because how could
I ask her to be mine and all the time about to be swallowed up," he
says, "by the Barlow Suburban, which has already swallowed my father who
built it, and his estate and my own earnings for five years?" And now he
makes plain that he is seizing the opportunity to travel away in search
of fortune, having found a manager in rags who can afford to live on the
dividends of the Suburban.

"We are not engaged; far from it," he says; "yet never would I desert
her to walk such ties as the Barlow Suburban, more cruel than the ties
which bind us together." So he makes out a time card. "In the morning
she goes to work, and back at evening; and some day she may be minded to
ride at noon for the sake of the exercise which is to be had on the B.
S. car." He gives Tim this time card and the key to the box which the
nickels are dropped in. "Good-by; I can trust you." He points up to the
sky. "Do not leave her walk; you solemnly promise! Good-by!"

And having turned his coat wrong side out he twists a red handkerchief
round his neck and is gone. And as he becomes smaller with distance
Timothy feels his own body swell larger with importance; having tried
the key in the fare box he leaves the nickel there as a come-on, and
kicks the horse to his feet as he has seen the truckmen do in the city
slums.

After a bit the lime burners arrive from the kiln half a mile away, and
Tim drives them to Barlow. All the way he thinks of the smoky yards with
the groan of toil rising from them, where all have dwelt so long, afraid
of Regan.

"Myself will rise up to be big boss," he says.

Well the gossoon understands, with the scar on his temple and body
still marked from the drunkard's blows that no one can rule except by
fear, so he speeds up Charley with slaps of the reins, and after
unhitching at the terminal chases him up the incline and into the stall
with a stick. "Never let me see you staggering or sitting down on the
job," he warns in kindly caution, so that Charley may save himself some
of the beatings.

With a smolder in his eyes and drumbeat in his bony little breast Tim
sits on his pallet below a lantern hung to a beam, listening whilst the
old building rolls and pitches to the passing trains and loose shingles
hoot in the blast above. And 't is worthy of note that spiders swing
down from cobwebbed rafters to glare at him with interest as a comrade
weaving a web of his own; and the mice do not come out at present, but
scurry all to set their nests in order and be ready for the part they
are to play in the history of Tim the messenger. 'T is little we know.

In a few days Tim has made a study of the Suburban's affairs; six or
seven of the lime burners ride with him on weekdays, and also Katy
O'Hare; but on Sunday he has no passengers, the kiln being closed down
so that the burners may convalesce from riding on the Suburban, and Katy
choosing to walk along the path by the rosebush with sidelong glance and
blush lest the elegant young gentleman with whom she is not acquainted
be on the car platform. In the evening Tim dines at the lunch wagon
across the track for a dime, and morning and noon munches a loaf with
indignation of Charley, who draws a hatful of oats three times a day.

But soon after he has cut the ration to two hatfuls Charley sits down on
the track, indifferent to the gadfly and all the beatings, till they
compromise on two and a half hatfuls, Tim rubbing his scar with
remembrance.

"Sure, the horse is like I used to be with my old man; when I was hungry
I was afraid of being starved and kicked; but after I had been starved
and kicked I was not afraid of going hungry or of the old man either."

'T is live and let live we must, so he feeds Charley just little enough
to keep him afraid of getting still less, which is the secret of all
contented relations between employer and employed, y' understand.

Only a short time afterward Tim raises the car fare to ten cents,
recking little of the lime burners' wrath and the high glances of Katy
O'Hare at the hard little face and hunched ragged body as he drives on,
clenching the reins in his fists. Divil a bit does he seek their
goodwill or anybody's, knowing that there is profit to be made only from
the fear that people have of him as they have of Regan.

At evening when he makes bold to stroll through the yards among the
roadmen some tale of Regan will send him scurrying back light-hearted to
the old terminal to count his money, hidden in a can behind some loose
bricks in the wall.

"Buy and sell and trample them all, I will, some day," he says, and
dances a banshee dance with shuffling feet and flinging arms. The
spiders--who are all misers--glare down on him with a poison joy, and
hasten to spin a web over the cranny where the can of treasure is
buried. "No thief will suspect what is hidden there now," says Tim; and
opens another deposit in another cranny, where a spider with golden
spots mounts guard. But the mice having set their nests in order only
look on at all this, so as not to take their part in his history before
it is time.

Drafty and echoing and chill the old terminal is that same night, and
for the first time the boy sitting cross-legged with his tattered toga
of old sacks wrapped round him is aware of the loneliness. In a sort of
vision a cozy room with sparkling hearth rises to mind, and the old
woman welcoming him on the snowy doorstep; the hard lines at the corners
of his mouth melt away, a dimple coming into the brown cheek, which had
never known dimple before, and he curses softly with a gleam of white
teeth.

"Sure, the old dame had a message to send, and I could have carried it,"
he muses; "because," he admits uneasily, "'t was a promise."

And hereupon by the arrangement of Destiny the mice having all in order
take their cue and come out boldly into his history. In the corner along
of Tim is a rubbish of old records upon which he has thrown the package
brought from Molly's cottage--thrown it the first evening of his
coming, with no thought of it since, being preoccupied with the business
of pull-down and trample-under. But now the mice gnawing at the string
open the package, and the little bottle of ink comes rolling across the
floor directly before his eyes. And this appearance of the ink bottle
being so timed to his mood the boy reaches for the rest of the package
and laying aside the pen unfolds the sheets of paper.

One of them he examines curiously, placing it between his elbows under
the lantern as he stretches flat on the floor. He knows very well 't is
Molly's beginning of the message of the Farthest Lantern, and though he
is not an educated person--often cursing the printing in books which
makes them so hard to understand--it is certain that Tim Cannon alone of
all the world can read what is written here. The eagerness of things
beyond, which had been Molly Regan's, the falter of disappointment when
discovering that she could not reveal them to Dan, the fierce bitterness
of her rebellion--all are written plainly in the cramped scribbling and
broad hideous scratches. The huge black blots were threats and
prophecies of death, struck from the pen in her hand by a Providence
impatient of her lingering.

The vagabond raises his eyes, his body flat and motionless. "All she
wanted," he says sullenly, "was to write a page 'cause it was duty." It
was another duty which had made her take him in that freezing night. He
is resentful toward some thing or power--he does not know what--that
Molly was prevented from writing this message.

"I might have stayed till I learned how to write it for her," he says;
and all at once is tremendously sorry that it is too late to do this;
too late to knock on the cottage door and be welcomed by the old dame to
the cheerful room; to show he would keep his promise; too late to leave
pull-down and trample-under behind him and begin all over again.

Just this far Tim Cannon lets his musings lead him; then fiercely, in a
scorn of his own musings and loneliness, rouses up to sit a while,
cross-legged, darting deliberately the untamable blue eye to the dark
corners, and listening, as if daring all these bright memories, which
would lure him from his purpose of being boss like Regan, to come out
in the open and halt him.

Presently in cold defiance of them he tears across the page of yellowed
writing; no doubt, remembering Dan, a spirit looks wistfully down upon
the vagabond with the scroll in his fist. Again and again he tears
deliberately. The very scratches of Molly's message are tatters. Tim
Cannon is himself again.

And the great door at the end of the building rolls back and a towering
figure stands whipping in the storm; slowly he comes up to the lantern;
the visitor is Regan.

"Where is Craney, who owns the car line?" he asks.

"He is gone; I am the manager," says Tim, rising. And after he has
explained, "No matter," nods Regan.

At the great man's feet lies his mother's message, and as he muses with
resentment and wonder that circumstances should drive him here to parley
with a ragged boy on the highway of his destiny the last tatters drift
away on the draft which has followed him in from the storm. 'T is a
ghostly way Fate has with things neglected.

"The car line could be made to pay," begins Regan craftily, "and I might
risk a few dollars to buy it in."

"Craney would sell if he was by," replies the boy.

"No matter; you can put through the deal as his manager, making all the
money for yourself. Perhaps fifty dollars," says Regan, careful not to
overbid and make Tim think the deal of too great importance.

There is a tone and movement to the air round Regan which electrifies
his companion, and at once they are conspiring together.

"You will abandon the run; suspend the service," says Regan,
deliberating; "and because your regular passengers might take hold and
operate it themselves you shall drive the horse away into the woods with
one trace broken and his side plastered over with clay as if he has been
in an accident--having first wrecked the car."

Tim nods, his own eyes glittering red, as Regan makes plain how it is to
be done. From the top of the high hill at the end of the line the car is
to be turned loose with brakes unset, so that it will leave the track
where it curves at the bottom.

"There it will take the plunge of thirty feet into the creek bed," he
says; "and when it lies in splinters at the bottom you will be handed
the money."

"And how will wrecking the car make the road belong to you?" asks Tim.

The man of power smiles at his shrewdness, and is frank with information
so that he will not be tempted to ask someone else. The Barlow Suburban
has an agreement with the state which is called a charter, he explains,
which will be forfeited if cars are not run for a certain number of
days. "So I can buy in the property from the state officials that I
know," he adds, "and operate it with new cars." He does not say with
steam cars, though by the foresight of old Craney the builder this is
permitted by the charter.

The conspiracy is now complete and as Regans puts on his raincoat Tim
makes bold to tell him: "Some day I will be boss like yourself, Mr.
Regan."

"So you may," nods the other with rare good humor, and departs for his
car.

And Dan can afford to be good-humored this night, having found a way of
escape from difficulties which have threatened to ruin his new career at
its very beginning. For a line of the P. D. building into this territory
has been held up by the Great Southwest, which warns openly that it will
bankrupt and destroy the town of Barlow if its competitor is granted
right of way or terminals. To avoid long delay in the courts Regan
himself, with the prestige of old command in this territory, has been
sent to open the way. But never a friend has he found in his old
headquarters town; the politicians whom he once ruled with a rod of iron
are in fact rejoiced to break one of their own across the head of him.
Not a loophole is left open to the P. D.

"'T is a wall of China," thinks Regan, "and what will my new directors
say of a manager who cannot persuade or bribe his old fellow citizens to
receive him with a new railroad in his hands?"

"Our new line will be the fortunes of Barlow," he has argued, but the
citizens in control laugh at him.

"The G. S. will do better by us, with new machine shops, and even build
a branch into your own territory," is the answer he has taken back to
his car from the final conference this very night.

As his first repulse the man of pull-down and trample-under has not
known how to take it, pacing his car like a madman who mistakes his own
fits for the destruction of the world. The lanterns which beckoned from
a boy at Turntable blinked now in mockery; suddenly across the yards his
eye, as dark as the stormy sky, steadied to a single spark--the beam of
Tim Cannon's lantern through the dingy window.

"'T is in the old freight house, leased to the Barlow Suburban!" he
thought aloud. "The Barlow Suburban!" And already he was into his
stormcoat and on his way to parley with the ragged boy posted like a
sentry on the highway of his destiny. So Regan discovered the only
unguarded gateway into Barlow.

Now the scheme is brewed and Tim settles down to count the gain in money
and in the interest he will make with Regan; the old building reels and
shingles whir away like bats in the gale, but he only laughs dourly, the
scrawny little breast hurting and straining with the ambition to be
mounting on bigger storms than this. By dawn he is as drunk with
scheming as ever his old grandfather with whisky, and yet his nerves do
not tremble as he goes about the business of the day, kicking Charley to
his feet and hitching with a scowl to the limekiln crew.

With deliberation he drives into the sheeted rain, and his look into the
gulch at the bottom of the last hill, where the wreck will presently
lie, is calculating and steady. In action Tim does honor to himself and
to the great men who are of his company this day; the horse is plastered
with clay and stoned far out into some woods, the brake thrown off for
the plunge from the crest of the hill--and then as the car starts
rolling and Tim grins boldly up into the black tumbling sky a dazzle of
light strikes through his plotting little brain.

And in this instant the little vagabond who has arrived at Barlow and
his tremendous partnership with Dan Regan by the route leading through
Molly's cottage on a stormy night--in this instant with the car rumbling
on its way to wreck itself and the Suburban, Tim Cannon understands
that the thing will not do at all. The tremendous partnership is not,
nor ever can be.

Such a revelation has come to many an ambitious man about to commit a
crime or betray a trust. Cowardice or conscience may unnerve him; or on
the other hand he may be fearless and willing, and yet not able to go
on, realizing suddenly the thing will not do at all. It is not destined.
And then remorse or dread seizes on the coward, and disappointment on
the bold who would have gone on if it had been so destined.

But divil a bit does remorse seize on Tim Cannon, being a person of no
moral convictions whatever; and as for dread and disappointment--one
moment he steadies his darkling blue eyes on the aspect of them, and the
next is racing after the car, swinging aboard, and setting the brakes,
though the wheels lock and coast on down the rails, slippery with rain.
For it is not the nature of him to falter or to parley with
fortune--when she declares against him he takes his loss though it be
that of life or limb, and quits the game.

Y'understand that perhaps his knees quake and buckle and a yelp of
terror is driven out of his bony breast--beating so high with ambition
but a moment before--but the spirit does not quail as he releases the
brake, sets it again slowly, carefully; the wheels revolve and begin to
feel the grip of the brake shoe. Still the car seems streaking to such a
wreck as will mangle him with broken rods and torn sheet steel at the
bottom of the gulch. Instead, by a miracle it takes the curve with only
a roar and crash of glass. Tim Cannon has held the car to the rails and
the Barlow Suburban to its charter.

The storm deepens and darkens round the lonely little car and its
driver, who stands erect and still with hands on the brake considering
his treason to Regan's ambitions and his own. The cause does not have to
be searched for.

"Sure, I had promised Craney to manage this railroad till he got back,"
says Tim Cannon as a matter of course.

He has it in mind to hasten and explain to Regan, but lingers a moment
in musing, unusual for him when business is to be done.

"'T was a wise old dame," he says; and recalls what Molly had stated as
a matter of fact. "If you promise--then 't is a duty." She had said
that; and: "Through storm and hardship and fear you would go--because
you promised."

"Sure!" agrees Tim, disgusted that he has not remembered this before
making the deal with Regan. "I will explain to him," says Tim, "that I
promised Craney."

All of a sudden a vast respect fills him--not reverence, for he has
none, but a respect for this wise woman who knew what was in a man so
much better than he knew himself.

Then stepping down he plunges into the depths of storm on his way back
to Barlow.

The great man laughs at his tale that the job is not done.

"You are a boy of brains, and I am not surprised at the news you bring,"
he says. "How much is the price risen, you little robber? A hundred?
Go," he says, "and finish quickly. I am not the man to haggle, be it
five hundred and a job on my railroad to boot."

And as Tim shakes his head: "What now, I ask you?"

"After starting the car down to the wreck I won't let it get away from
me, but catch it and set the brakes and ride it wild to the bottom."

"Why be such a fool as that?" demands Regan.

"'T is on account of promising Mr. Craney to manage the Suburban till he
gets back," explains Tim.

It strikes home to Regan that this is the crisis of his life, and Tim
feels his wrath as the toss of tempest. 'T would be an easy matter to
kidnap the boy here an' now, and send his own agent to wreck the car,
but even then the scheme is blocked. Tim must be accounted for
afterward. The boy must see his passengers and tell of the accident or
there will be search made for him under the wreckage, and talk in the
papers, reminding the town of the Suburban's existence, and Regan's
enemies that a charter is about to be forfeited.

"Hold!" says Regan to Tim at the door. "My word I'll not touch you
again," and the boy drops his hands from his neck, all but wrung by a
shake of the madman pacing the car. Yet his gaze lies level and clear
and there is a steadiness to the bedraggled front which baffles Regan,
such assurance being beyond nature in a boy.

"Whist!" he says warily, understanding somehow that nothing is to be
gained here by argument or threats; "since you were fool enough to bind
yourself with a promise, hold your tongue till I can find Craney."

"'T will hold," promises Tim.

Down past the terminal and out the Suburban track, bedraggled and
undaunted, stalks the vagabond along the way of knowledge. Nor does he
look up till coming on faithful old Charley, who has found his way back
to the car and stands waiting to be hitched. Tim halts, surveying him
knowingly.

"Faith, Charley, she was a wise one," he says.

From that hour he takes up the plod of duty, keening in that little
minor whistle which all car drivers pick up from the wind and drumming
of hoofbeats on frozen ground. And he is always on time in every
weather, so that presently the lime burners relent and joke him, and
Katy in pity for the outcast would pat his cheek friendlily--but never
an encouragement do they receive from Tim standing at his brake and
speaking sternly to Charley, meager and windbitten but unconquerable by
humor or kindness as he has been by threat and danger.

All day a bright rage chars the bony breast; at evening it smolders as
if having no more fuel in the wasted body. Yet Tim sits cross-legged
with old sacks folded round him, staring unwaveringly into the
loneliness. And from his boyhood's ashes he resurrects with terrific
will and fearlessness the great things which had been born within him;
in fact he craves and will have no company but them, torment him as they
will. He reflects with derision that the lime burners and Katy do not
understand what goes on within him. But Regan would understand! How the
great things in that man would have raged if he had bound them tight and
fast with a promise. Regan was not such a fool.

"Never again do I promise the duty," says Tim.

The wise old woman had warned him that what a person promises that must
he do, but like a fool he had not profited by the warning.

Even in his ignorance the vagabond understands much of Molly. In his
first musings on these subjects the night of Dan's coming to bargain
with him for the wreck of the car he had foolishly torn up the page she
had written over.

He had torn up that fragment of message because the memory of the cozy
room and hearth fire had tempted his thoughts away from these hardships
and loneliness; he resented Molly's smile and welcome as an attempt to
lure him from the way of ambition, much as the pity of Katy and
good-humor of the lime burners would do. Now he understood that Molly
offered no such temptation; that to herself the fire and comforts were
as nothing; far away and beyond these had dwelt her thoughts in some
place as lonely and echoing as the old terminal. There in wisdom and
sorrow she had pondered her duty; how to keep the promise she had made.
"Dam' luck, she had," Tim Cannon swears roundly. Of course she had also
been a fool to bind herself with a promise; but to die before she had
found a way to keep it was harder still, somehow.

As for himself--his only duty is to manage Craney's road till he
returns. After that the things within him can be let loose, and many
exploits be expected of them.

"And if Craney does not come back! Sure," sneers Tim to the dark and
loneliness, "I'll be no worse than the old dame who died on the job!"

One day Katy speaks of returning to town for the winter, and he tells
her sternly that the road is run for her convenience and she is expected
to ride on it.

And so she continues to do, without further argument about returning to
town; and he is mildly interested in the journeys she makes after that,
on Sunday afternoons. To the old Craney homestead she journeys and sits
on the doorstep, sometimes speaking of the young man who has left his
railroad to be run for her sake, and then wandered away with his coat
wrong side out in search of fortune.

"Never a bit of encouragement did I give him," she will always conclude,
with blushes; "but when he returns his welcome will not be the same I
would offer a stranger."

Once she thanks Tim for attending his trust so faithfully, but he does
not reply. It is not worth while; she could not understand--that he does
this thing because it is promised and inevitable, not because he
relishes it.

As Craney's orders are to arrange the Sunday schedule to Katy's
convenience he sits erect on a stone, watching from a distance till she
starts toward the car. The things within him burn and torment, and keep
him company; he will not let them go or even quiet them by promises of
what he will achieve when this duty is done and off his hands. Instead
he holds them at bay, coldly.

Till one Sunday afternoon a message mutters out of the northern sky;
from Regan it comes, shaking the very ground which the vagabond, as if
understanding it, grips in his nervous fingers. "'T is like the guns in
battle," he says, and that night strolling among the men up the yard
learns that the roar is that of dynamite where the construction gangs of
Regan's new line are breaching the distant hills for entrance into Great
Southwest territory.

Regan is coming on, undaunted by the refusal of Barlow to let him
through; day by day the iron rumor swells in the northern sky, and Tim
sleeping or waking presses close after the vision of a giant of bronze
with half-lidded smoldering eyes who juggles men and steel in the
burning dusk beyond the construction camps.

Defiant of the winter winds, even to refusing the jacket which Katy buys
for him, he shivers with the chill of exhaustion, for now he must
struggle the more fiercely with ambition, night and day. Yet on he
plods, keening in that strange little whistle. All this bleak stretch of
his history he crosses, in a sort of delirium loading the battered old
car with company of the make-believe kind whom he has watched the
children in the city parks playing with long ago. The ghost of a
jack-in-the-box which he had once dragged away from a playground and
murdered with a stick in his den appears by night in the terminal
building. It smiles forgivingly and he frowns back.

When the snow falls he marches ahead of Charley, a shovel on his
shoulder, storming the drifts. A rope round his body keeps the whipping
rags together, and he wears an old sack for a waistcoat. The limekiln
closes down and there is no passenger left but Katy, so Tim breaks into
the treasure holes in the wall to buy oats and bread. Once again the
Barlow Suburban is devouring its master. And now the rumble of dynamite
sinks lower and lower like the death rattle of Regan's destiny and one
afternoon dies away entirely.

That night Tim sits cross-legged on his pallet by his rusty little
stove, awe-stricken, as if somehow a battle waited on him. And out of
that dread stillness under the northern sky Regan comes to him, streaked
red with the clay of the camps.

"Craney is lost or dead," he says. "I have searched high and low; now it
is up to you."

The boy listening intently agrees with Regan. "'T is too bad I promised
Craney and have the duty."

"You are far from a fool," says Regan; "look out of the window here with
me." And as they stare up the yards, awink with the colored lamps of the
switch stands: "Do you see the giant black engines and cars, and the
shops beyond with their roaring mountains of machinery; the tracks
stretching thousands of miles, all swarming with trains and men? Such
are the playthings of me; have you a game which can beat that? Listen."
He holds up his hand, and out of the simmering dusk rises the groan of
iron and steam and toil. "It is marching music like the bands of
armies," says Regan. "D' you understand? You must; you can feel it! Such
armies I command and will bring you up in the way of commanding if you
but keep the bargain you made."

"Is it walk off the duty, you mean?" asks Tim astonished.

"But listen again, as man to man," says Regan, patient and crafty and
desperate. "I have no way into Barlow, bold as I have been in building
to its very walls. A few crooks who run the town keep me out. My end of
track is now a mile from the Barlow limits on the north, and there as if
I had given up hope I have bought land for depots and set engineers to
work laying out yards, and masons raising foundations. By building in
from the north I have not called my enemies' attention to the Suburban,
which enters from the southeast; nobody has even thought of it as my
means of breaking in. But if you will carry out the deal you made with
me," says Regan, "I will own the Suburban and throw my rails from the
present end of track to the Suburban right of way and into this town in
a single night! Think over it well; on this spot where you sit among
tumbledown walls you will raise up"--the man's tones thrilled like a
prophecy--"you will raise up a station of stone and glass. The sounds in
here, instead of running mice and the pawing of the old horse and your
own curses on poverty, will be the footsteps of hurrying people, their
laughs and cries of welcome and godspeed. Ah, Timothy," breathes Regan,
"think well!"

But Timothy, wilder and gaunter than ever, sets his teeth. "'T would be
walkin' off the duty."

Dan Regan grinds out the word after him. "Duty! What is this, I ask of
you, but duty? The duty to thousands of people who want this road in
Barlow, instead of duty to one man, Craney, who has set you to guard a
thing he does not want and has deserted himself? He will never come
back. Now ask what you want of me. The price, whatever it is! And where
do you come by this false notion of duty?" he demands with an
inspiration.

"'T was an old woman--she was the wise one," says Tim, and explains, as
in confidence, about his visit to the cottage on that snowy night. "She
was putting it into a message," he says, "but her hand was too old and
shaky--and I did not know my letters to write it for her. She had a
beginning all blotted and scratched--I brought it away, and tore it up
the first night you came here. The Farthest Lantern, it was. Here is the
pen she broke by stabbing into the table, she was that mad!"

The Farthest Lantern!

Remotely Dan Regan hears the word, with a little shock, as a challenge
whispered in darkness; he shrugs his shoulders.

"Come, Timothy," he urges.

Now memory has seized on the word, sending it echoing through his brain;
but he goes on, impatient of the start which Tim has given him, and not
yet realizing how it was done.

"Will you help those crooks of Barlow against myself and all the good
people of the town? Will you cheat Craney of the price of his road in
case he ever comes back? Is this duty? I tell you, no!" And in a flash
of afterthought: "The wise old woman herself would cry 'No' from the
grave of her. I tell you as one who knows. For she was Regan's mother,
and her message of the things she saw beyond the day's work at
Turntable--was to me!"

With terrible fascination Tim gazes at the man racked by the old powers
of pull-down and trample-under, which Tim himself holds imprisoned in
Regan's breast. And as the last words drive home the vagabond answers,
high and clear: "Sure, you must know then. Tell me true, Mr. Regan--'t
will not be breaking the promise?"

Through the dingy panes in the corner wink the lights as did those of
Turntable long ago; but they do not beckon.

"I will ditch the car now," says Tim.

"I might be mistaken----" Regan's voice is hollow; the memories of a
lifetime cloud his vision. "Perhaps you would do well not to trust me,"
he says; the warning of a hypocrite to satisfy his startled conscience
as once more his gaze lifts bold and far along the road which lies
through the corner guarded by this scarecrow of a boy.

"Sure, I trust you," answers Tim in that singing voice the likes of
which was never heard out of him before, and ties his tatters round him
against the cold outside. The promise has been kept, the duty done, he
is at last on the road with Regan.

The man holds the pen in his hand--the pen his mother had tried to write
her last, her life's message with, and failed. Fearfully he gazes on
this gaunt campaigner of destiny, delivering his unspoken message by
deed and bearing and duty done, through storm and danger, indifferent to
bribe and threat.

But now this Tim Cannon nods and is on his way like any credulous boy to
clear the highway of fortune for Regan, by the wreck of the Suburban
car.

"Hold!" Regan's head is bowed and he is listening. "No, I cannot pass
here," he answers in thought, and in a strained, quiet voice tells Tim:
"You trust me too late."

The miracle of Molly's messenger has not been worked in vain.

Light had broken in flashes from the vagabond's countenance since the
great things within him were set free to join this mighty partnership.
Halted now in his tracks he listens too, gloomily, wrathfully hearing in
fact what Regan does not--a quickening footfall, the tug at the latch,
the rumble of the door. Craney comes in.

He is almost as gaunt as Tim and covered with the grime on the road.

"What? Are you not yet swallowed up by the cursed Suburban?" he asks,
astonished. "Then you will give me word of Katy O'Hare, and I am gone by
the through freight. Fortune was not in the direction I took," he adds
by way of explaining; "so I am beating up west and south; 't is a far
search and leaves me little time between trains."

"There is time enough!" Regan has him by the arm. "You are Craney of the
Suburban. Come!"

And so terrible is the grip he is fallen into that Mr. Craney is dragged
out and through the dark with hardly perceptible struggle.

Tim Cannon watches them out with ghastly nonchalance; once more fortune
has declared against him and he takes his loss, biding only Craney's
return to throw up his job and be gone.

The night passes and a faint iron rumor drifts down from the northern
sky where the P. D. construction gangs are breaking camp; then a boom of
dynamite. The campaign is on again; no need of concealment now, the
Suburban has passed safely into Regan's hands.

The red coal in the rusty stove crumbles, the lantern smokes out.

"I was just too late; 't is little I know," thinks Tim Cannon.

A burly battered man enters the door and leads out the horse; the gang
at his heels attack the old building with pick and bar; to a ripping of
shingles the dawn twinkles through; the battle which the outcast had
halted so long is passing over his body.

The battered man shakes the iron bar in his hand, pointing it
significantly at walls and roof tumbling about; Tim looks at him
scornfully, and the gang tear at the flooring with picks and axes.

Why it is so, I cannot say, who make no pretense of sorcery, but 't is
certain that the mice linger and spiders swing low from the rafters with
presentiment of tragedy as Tim Cannon stands his last guard in the
corner of the doomed old terminal. Twice he catches glimpses of Regan
without, compelling this storm of men and steel.

The floor is now torn up to his very feet; the far end of the building,
roof and walls, has been scattered like chaff. Indifferently Tim watches
the battered man point to him with the iron bar and waits calmly to be
dragged away by the gang.

Mr. Craney running lightly along the last remaining girder to Tim's
corner presses some folded bills and a paper into his hand.

"Salary and honorable discharge," he explains; "and invitation to the
wed----"

And his voice being smothered by a great crash within and without he
signals with his hands that not a moment is to be lost in saving
themselves alive.

Above all the uproar is a shriller yell, a rush of staggering men past
the end of the terminal, a heavy clang of steel; fighting. "Regan is
crossing the Great Southwest main!" shrieks Mr. Craney over his
shoulder.

In fact the P. D. frog for the main-line crossing is set in only after a
sharp skirmish with a G. S. force rushed up to prevent it. And then
Regan, threatened with police and military by his gathering enemies,
passes them the court order obtained during the night. By this order
they are enjoined from tearing up the frog, even before it has been laid
down! Such is the forethought of genius.

Regan's special, ordered out since midnight, stands drumming up the
line, and Tim lurking in his corner sees the signal he gives as he
crosses the track. The special glides down between them, and once more
the vagabond watches through the flying dust clouds the flash of Regan's
car, signaling farewell.

Now he is free to pick and choose where he will, but Tim Cannon girds
his rags with fierce regret; the great things within him cling to this
spot; he cannot break away, and he curses in a cold agony of
disappointment.

"I was too late. Never again will I promise the duty."

"You gang boss!" crashes a voice behind him; "breach me the wall at the
corner."

And the battered man and his crew fly at it with pick and bar.

With twisted face and hand clenched on his breast the boy stares at
Regan, who has just sent his car home without boarding it at all.

"My path lies through this corner; last night you blocked it; to-day I
will pass."

'T is a poor sort of triumph over the vagabond, whose body straightens
and stiffens proudly.

"Which I never could do with you on guard! Come; first through the
breach, Timothy! 'T is your right. Now we are through--catch stride here
in fortune's highway. You are on duty with Dan Regan!"

This queer sentimental thing the man does in honor of his mother's
messenger, and never again through all the years is the spell broken
which draws the man of pull-down and trample-under away and upward to
the things which the pretty colleen of long agone saw beyond the day's
work at Turntable. 'T is little we know.




MRS. DRAINGER'S VEIL[17]

[Note 17: Copyright, 1918, by Smart Set Company, Inc. Copyright,
1920, by Howard Mumford Jones.]

BY HOWARD MUMFORD JONES

From _The Smart Set_


If the house had been merely shabby I doubt whether I would have been
interested. Every residence section has its shabby houses, monuments to
departed aspirations, falling into slow decay in the midst of weedy
yards, sometimes uninhabited and sometimes sheltering one or two members
of the family who apparently have been left, like the ancient furniture,
to be forgotten. The paint cracks and peels, the windows fall into
impossible angles or are boarded up, the porches sag, the chimneys lose
a brick or two and come in time to look like stumps of teeth. By and by
the whole structure seems to sink into the grass under the burden of its
neglect, and only a faint tenacity, a melancholy inertia keeps it from
crumbling altogether. Then suddenly the inhabitants die, the neighbors
awake to a sudden sense of change, and that is all.

The Drainger house was such a house, but it was more. It was mysterious,
uncommunicative. In the midst of the commonplace residence block, with
its white cottages, its monotonous lawns and uninteresting gardens, the
contrast was startling, secretive, contemptuous. The tall grass waved
ironically at the neat grassplots which flanked it. The great untrimmed
elms sent branches to beat against the decaying shingles, or downward
into the faces of passers-by, with patrician indifference to the law.
They had, indeed, the air of ragged retainers, haughty and starving, and
yet crowding about the house as if to hide the poverty of their master
from the eyes of the vulgar. City ordinances required the laying of
cement walks; the rotting boardwalk in front of the Drainger mansion
was already treacherous, and no one complained.

The building itself was extraordinary. Built in the days when Crosby had
been a lumber town and building material had consequently been cheap,
its pretensions were immense. A tall, six-sided tower occupied
two-thirds of the front, an elaborate affair, crowned by rusty ironwork
in lieu of battlements. Windows were inserted at appropriate intervals,
suggesting a donjon keep or a page from Walter Scott. The heavy brown
shutters were never opened. There was a grim angularity to the deep
porch below, a military cut to the bare front door which added to the
forbidding character of the place. Behind this imposing front the rest
of the building lay like the parts of a castle, each portion a little
lower than the preceding. There were four of these sections, like four
platforms, their flat roofs crowned with further rusty ironwork. The
windows were infrequent and all barred, and a massive elm to the east of
the house threw over them a gloomy and impenetrable shade. Although the
whole building had been painted brown, time and the weather had combined
to make it almost black, the only patch of color being the rich green of
the mossy shingles on the roof of the porch.

I had first noticed the Drainger house because of its oddity. Then I was
impressed by its air of speechless and implacable resentment. So far as
I could observe it was empty; no foot disturbed the rank grass or
troubled the dismal porches. The windows were never thrown open to the
sunlight. The front door, in the month I had spent in Crosby, remained
locked. I had once observed a grocery wagon standing in front of the
house, but this, I assumed, was because the driver wished to leave his
horse in the shade.

Proceeding homeward one night to my cousin's, Mark Jedfrey, with whom I
was spending the summer, I was startled, when I came in front of the
Drainger place, to see a light in the front window of the tower on the
ground floor. It was moonlight, and the heavy shadows sculptured the old
mansion into fantastic shapes, revealing a barred window inscrutably
facing the moon, carving the top of the house into gargoyles of light
and throwing the porch into Egyptian darkness. The light through the
shutter of the window was therefore as unexpected as a stab. I paused
without knowing it. Apparently I was observed; there was a light sound
of footsteps from the invisible porch and the creaking, followed by the
shutting, of the front door. Immediately afterwards the light was
extinguished.

The person who had been on the porch had moved so quickly and so
quietly, and the street, drenched in the July moonlight, seemed so
still, that I wondered a moment later whether to credit my senses. At
any rate, it was not my business, I concluded, to stand staring at a
strange house at one o'clock in the morning, and I resumed my walk home.

A week later, a change in the routine of my daily life made me a regular
visitant in the neighborhood. Twice a day I passed the Drainger house.
In the morning it seemed to resist the genial sunlight, drawing its
hedge of shade trees closer about it and remaining impervious to all
suggestions of warmth. And on my return from the office in the evening
it was as sealed, as autumnal as ever. The pleasant sounds of human
intercourse, the chatting of women on the steps or the whirr of
lawn-mowers should, I fancied, at least unshutter a window or burst open
a frigid door. But the warm impulses of neighborhood life, like the
cries of the boys at their evening game of baseball, broke unheeded
against that clifflike impassivity. No one stirred within; no one, not
even the paper boy, dared to cut across the front yard; and a pile of
yellowing bills on the front steps testified to the unavailing temerity
of advertisers.

There was nothing to show I had not dreamed the episode of the light, as
I had begun to think of it. I could have made inquiries--Helen, Mark's
wife, knows everybody--but I did not. I could have consulted the
directory. But I preferred to keep the house to myself. I had a secret
sense of proprietorship (I am, I suppose, a romantic and imaginative
soul) and I preferred that the mystery should come to me. My alert
devotion must, I thought, have its reward. Indeed, my daily walks to
and from my work took on the character of a silent duel between the
expressionless walls and my expressionless face, and I was not going to
be beaten in taciturnity.

One Friday morning, well into August, I was surprised and curious to see
a woman standing under the elms in the front of the Drainger mansion.
The neighborhood was, for the moment, deserted. I concealed my eagerness
under a mask of impassivity. I thought myself masterly as, pretending an
interest in nothing, I yet watched the place out of the tail of my eye.
Imagine my increasing surprise to observe that as I approached, the
person in question came slowly down to the junction of her walk with the
sidewalk, so that, as I drew near we were face to face.

"You are Mr. Gillingham?" she asked.

I stopped mechanically and raised my hat. I visit Crosby regularly,
where I am well known, so that I was not surprised to be thus accosted
by one who was a stranger to me. She was about forty, obviously a
spinster, and clad in a costume not merely out-of-date, but so far
out-of-date as to possess a false air of theatricalism. I can best
describe her (I am not clever in matters of dress) by saying that, with
the exception that she was not wearing a hoopskirt, she appeared to have
stepped out of _Godey's Lady's Book_. A Paisley shawl was wrapped
tightly around her head, although the morning was warm, and its subdued
brilliance clashed oddly with the faded lemon of her dress. Her face was
small, the features regular, but her complexion was more than sallow, it
was yellow, the yellow of dying grass and sunless places. A spot of
rouge glared on either cheek, and, with her eyes, which were black and
brilliant, gave her face the look of fever. Her dark hair, just visible
under the shawl, deepened the hectic quality of her features, although,
as a matter of fact, she was not ill.

"You are a lawyer?" she continued, her brilliant eyes searching my face,
I thought with some boldness, and without waiting for an answer she
said, "Come," and walked abruptly toward the house.

I followed her. On the porch we paused; my companion turned and searched
the street, which was still empty, a fact which seemed to increase her
satisfaction, and without giving me a glance, unlocked the front door
with a key which she was carrying.


II

She led me into the house and through two of the rooms into a third
before we paused. The transition from sunlight to darkness had been too
rapid for my eyes, so that, for some moments I could only stand
ridiculously in the middle of the room. I was conscious of the presence
of a third person--intensely conscious--and exceedingly uncomfortable.
My conductor busied herself pushing forward a chair which, fortunately,
she placed under the shuttered window. To this I stumbled.

"You are a lawyer?" asked a voice from the darkness.

I was startled.

The voice sprang from the corner I was facing as though it were a live
thing that had seized upon me. It was the voice of a woman, of great age
apparently, and yet it possessed a fierce, biting energy that no amount
of years could weaken.

"This is Mr. Gillingham," said my conductor with, I thought, a shade of
asperity. "Of course he's a lawyer."

To this there succeeded a silence, broken only by the sibilant drawing
in of the younger woman's breath.

"I am indeed a lawyer," I said at length. "In what way can I be of
service?"

"We see no one," said the imperious voice abruptly. "You must therefore
pardon the manner in which I have had you called in."

I was now able to discern something through the gloom.

The speaker sat in extreme shadow. Her dress was a blur in the darkness,
faintly outlining her person, which seemed to be of medium height,
though in the great chair she looked shrunken and huddled together. Her
eyes, faint points of light, were steadfastly fixed on mine, but her
face was, I thought, in such deep shadow that I could not make it out.

But the concentration points, so to speak, were not her eyes, but her
hands. They lay in her lap motionless, and yet they were
extraordinarily alive. Even in that light their emaciated condition
testified to her extreme age; but they were not decrepit, they seemed to
glow with a steady light, an inward and consuming energy.

"You may leave us, Emily," said the voice, and Emily, who had been
hovering with what I somehow felt to be a hint of malice, unwillingly
withdrew. The other closed her eyes until the shutting of the door
assured us of privacy.

"I am dying," she began suddenly in her strange, impersonal manner.

"Do not interrupt me," she added coldly as I was about to utter some
inanity. "I desire to be certain of one thing while there is time,
namely, that my wishes respecting the disposition of my body shall be
respected--in every particular."

Her manner indicated nothing out of the ordinary. She might have been
speaking of the merest commonplace.

"You are a lawyer. How can I so arrange that the directions I will leave
must be carried out after my death?"

"Ordinarily," I managed to stammer, "directions in such matters when
given to the heirs, have the binding force----"

There was a second's pause.

"That is not what I wish," continued the inflexible voice. "I wish to
compel attention to my instructions."

"A provision can be inserted in your will," I said at length, "which
would make the inheritance of your property conditional upon the
fulfillment of your wishes."

She seemed to consider this. Her hands moved slightly in her lap.

"And if those conditions were not fulfilled?"

"Your estate would go elsewhere as you might direct."

There was prolonged pause. Her eyes disappeared, and try as I would, I
could not distinguish her face. Her hands shifted, and she spoke.

"Step to the door and call my daughter. I am Mrs. Drainger."

I might have been the servant. I arose and groped my way toward the
door. She neither offered me any direction as to its location, nor
commented upon the gloom in which I hesitated.

I reached the door and, opening it, was about to call, when I was aware
of Miss Drainger's presence; she seemed to have materialized, a pale
specter, out of the dusk, and I was again conscious of vague malice.

"Your mother wished me to call you," I said, holding the door open.

Her strange eyes searched mine for a brief moment as she entered the
room.

Suddenly Miss Drainger, poised in the gloom over her mother's chair,
seemed to my startled sense like a monstrous pallid moth. The
impression, though momentary, was none the less vivid. I felt choked,
uncomfortable. An instant only, and Mrs. Drainger's voice recalled me to
my senses.

She gave directions for the bringing of a box containing some documents
she wished. Miss Drainger said nothing, but turned abruptly, gave me
another sidelong glance and left the room.

In the time she was absent neither of us spoke. The strange woman in the
corner shrank, it seemed to me, deeper into the dusk, until only her
extraordinary hands remained; and I sat in my uncomfortable and ancient
chair, the little streaks of sunlight from the blind making odd patterns
on my legs and hands.

The return of the daughter with a tin box which she placed in my hands
was followed by an extraordinary moment. I became, if I did not deceive
myself, increasingly conscious of a silent struggle going on between the
two. Mrs. Drainger, in her biting, inflexible voice, again requested her
daughter to leave us. Emily demurred and in the interval that followed I
had a sense of crisis. Nay, I fancied more; upon hearing Emily's brief
protest Mrs. Drainger slowly clenched her hands, and the movement was as
though she were steadily bending her daughter's will to her purpose. At
length, with the same sibilant in-taking of the breath I had observed
before, Emily turned and swept through the door, her face unusually
yellow, the little spots of rouge on her cheeks burning suddenly.

The box she had given me contained a will made by Mrs. Drainger,
together with a few securities totaling no great value, and other less
important documents. This will she now directed me to modify so that
the inheritance of the property upon her death would be conditional upon
the fulfillment by the heir of certain conditions which she said she
would indicate in writing.

I asked why those conditions could not now be indicated.

"You are all alike," she said bitterly. "All alike in your curiosity. I
prefer to put them in writing."

I assured her of the inviolability of her confidence and rose.

"Stay," she commanded. "If that girl asks you any impertinent questions
send her to me."

Her hands moved quickly as she spoke. The concentration of her voice
alarmed me so that I could think of nothing to say. I bowed and
withdrew. It was only when I was once outside the room that I recalled,
curiously enough, at no time during my interview had I seen Mrs.
Drainger's face.

Miss Emily was not visible. I was about to search for the street door
when, in her usual extraordinary manner, she appeared out of the gloom.

"What did she want?" she demanded, almost fiercely, her eyes holding me
as though they were hands.

I explained as best I could why I could not tell her.

"Humph!" she ejaculated, and without further speech led me to the door.

"There will be fees, I suppose," she said contemptuously, staring at her
hand upon the doorknob. "Do not expect much. You are the only person who
has entered this house for a year."

I was embarrassed how to reply.

"Poverty is like contagion. People flee from it," she added with a
mirthless laugh, and opened the door.

I bade her farewell. She stared at me, a shrewd look in her black eyes,
but said nothing. The instant I was on the porch the door was shut and
locked behind me.


III

On my way to Jedfrey's office I could not shake off my unfavorable
impression of Miss Drainger. I assured myself again and again that the
oddity of their manner of life was sufficient reason for her
peculiarities, and yet the same picture of her kept recurring to my
mind--a vision of her flitting to and fro in that great house like a
monstrous evil moth. I imagined her pale face with its spots of rouge
and her lemon dress so unlike any costume I had ever seen. I pictured
her materializing, as I phrased it, out of the shadows; hovering
expectantly (I knew not why) over the gaunt form in the great chair by
the window; or peering out of the unopened shutters as she moved from
room to room. I positively grew ashamed of myself for my fancies.

The following morning a square, yellowed envelope (everything about that
place seemed to lack freshness), addressed in the fine, regular hand of
a generation ago, caught my eye in the heap of mail, and putting aside
more important matters, I at once opened it. The note was from Mrs.
Drainger, evidently written in her own hand, and contained the provision
I was to insert in the will. It was sufficiently queer. She desired that
upon her death no one should venture to see her face, which would be
covered, she wrote, by a thick veil, and she was particularly anxious
that her daughter Emily should respect her wishes. Otherwise her
property was to go elsewhere.

The energy and clarity exhibited by the old lady on the previous day
forbade any notion that this preposterous idea sprang from a mind
touched by the infirmities of age, and yet her stipulation was so
peculiar, so irrational that I pondered long over my duty in the case.
What Mrs. Drainger wanted was, in one sense, absurdly simple--merely the
revision of her will, scarcely more than the retyping of that simple
document; but I was conscious of a deeper demand; as though, to the
support of her desires, she had called in my person upon the assurance,
even the majesty of the law. I could not justify her breaking of what I
instinctively took to be a determined habit of seclusion except by
postulating deeper issues than I saw on the surface. There was no reason
why I should not revise the document and be done with it; queerer
provisions have been made in other wills. Yet, to make the inheritance
conditional upon so strange a request might be unfair to Miss Drainger.
It was true, I distrusted her; but that was not to the point, and this
provision was one that she would have every natural incentive to break.

A further thought occurred--there might be other children not known to
me who would expect some share in the modest estate; finding the
property willed to Emily upon so tenuous a provision, they might easily
charge that that provision had been broken, when proof and disproof
would be equally difficult, and Mrs. Drainger's wish that her companion
(despite her singular testament) be her sole heir would then not be met.
The will simply provided that, should Emily forfeit her right to the
property the estate should go to a local charity; no mention was made of
other children; but this silence did not disprove their existence.

I was too well aware of the ease with which so singular a document could
be attacked in court, not to be uneasy. I resolved finally again to
consult my client (if the name could attach to so imperious a lady) and
briefly announcing my absence to Mark Jedfrey, I sought the Drainger
residence.

The old house looked as deathlike as ever. It seemed incredible that
human existence could be possible within its sunless walls. Indeed, my
persistent efforts at the rusty bell-handle produced only a feeble echo,
and the round-eyed interest of a group of urchins, who volunteered,
after a time, that nobody lived there. I was beginning to agree with
them when a key was turned in the lock and the weatherbeaten door
yielded a few cautious inches. Miss Emily looked out at me.

"It's you," she said ungraciously, and seemed rather to hope that I
would disappear as at the uttering of a charm.

"I wish to see your mother," I said.

She hesitated. At length, opening the door scarcely enough to admit me,
she bade me enter, and disappeared. The house was as dismal as ever.

"Come in here," she said, appearing after her usual sudden fashion in a
dim doorway and looking more like a wraith than ever.

Her eyes burned me as I walked cautiously into the other room.

It was one I had not seen, but Mrs. Drainger was seated, as before, in
the obscurest corner, a blur of white in which her pale hands looked
like pallid lumps of flame. I faced my invisible client.

"I have come about the will," I began, and was immediately conscious of
Miss Emily's voracious interest. The opening was, as I recognized too
late, scarcely diplomatic.

"Will?" said the daughter in a harsh voice. "You are making a will?
You--you----"

She looked enormously tall and unpleasant as she spoke.

"Yes, my dear," responded Mrs. Drainger dryly.

"You? _You_?" continued the daughter rapidly. "After all these years? It
is incredible. It is incredible." She laughed unpleasantly with closed
eyes.

Then, conscious that she was betraying emotions not meant for me, she
turned to my chair. "You will understand that the information is
something of a shock for a daughter. My mother's condition----"

"Mrs. Drainger," I ventured to interrupt, "wishes merely to make certain
changes in an instrument already drawn up." I was conscious of a stir,
whether of gratitude or of resentment, from the darkened corner.

Emily seemed momentarily bewildered.

"You frightened me," she said at length with a frankness palpably false.

"I quite understand," I retorted, the sham being, I thought, tolerably
obvious. "And now if your mother and I----"

She took the hint.

"I will leave you," she said.

It was evident I had not won her gratitude.

As the door closed behind her I heard a low sound from Mrs. Drainger.

"I am afraid--afraid," she murmured weakly. I think forgetting my
presence; and then, as if suddenly conscious of a slip:

"Old women, Mr. Gillingham, have their fancies. Death seems at times
uncomfortably close."

I murmured some polite deprecation, but I was sure it was not death that
frightened her.

Drawing from my pocket her letter and the copy of the will I had
prepared I explained as best I could why I had come. I was tolerably
confused. I could not question her entire sanity, and as I did not wish
in any way to hint at what I felt concerning Emily I soon involved
myself in a veritable dust of legal pedantry. Finally I asked whether
there were other children.

Mrs. Drainger heard me out in ironic silence.

"I have no others," she admitted at length, and added after a second,
"Thank heaven!"

"There remains only one other matter," I said. "The provisions of your
will are such that unless she knows them in advance Miss Emily will
almost inevitably forfeit the inheritance."

"I am aware of that," said the voice, and the pale hands moved
imperceptibly. "I am quite well aware of what I am doing, Mr.
Gillingham, and I repeat, my daughter is not to ask impertinent
questions."

I bowed, somewhat ruffled. I added that it would be necessary to witness
her signature in the usual manner. She seemed surprised to learn that
two persons were necessary, and remained silent.

"Call Emily," she directed.

"Emily will not do," I objected, "since she is a possible beneficiary."

"I am aware," she responded coldly. "Call Emily."

Emily, being summoned, was directed to procure the presence of a Mrs.
Mueller, living near by, who occasionally helped with the work. She
seemed unusually tractable and departed on her errand without comment.

For some three or four minutes Mrs. Drainger did not speak. I could not,
of course, see her face; but once or twice her hands shifted in her lap,
and I thought she was perturbed. My own conversational efforts had been
so uniformly unfortunate that I concluded to remain silent.

"You will see an old, worn woman," she said musingly. "But it does not
matter."

The entrance of Miss Emily followed by that of a stout, comfortable
German woman prevented the necessity of a reply. I explained what was
wanted; Emily assisted me in making it clear to Mrs. Mueller, and then
withdrew to the door, where she assumed an attitude of
disinterestedness--too obviously assumed it, I thought.

It became necessary to have more light, and Emily went to the window
and opened the shutter. I turned to where Mrs. Drainger sat, the will in
my left hand, my fountain pen in the other, and in that attitude I
hesitated for a brief moment of incredulity. I thought I was looking at
a woman without a head.

A second's glance showed how mistaken I was. The thin, emaciated figure,
clad like her daughter's, in a fashion long forgotten, was, as I had
surmised, somewhat shrunken by age. Her strange hands, loosely held in
her lap, were wrinkled with a thousand wrinkles like crumpled parchment,
and yet, even in that crueler light, they conveyed the impression of
power. They seemed like antennæ wherewith their owner touched and tested
the outer world. As I sought the reason for this impression I saw that
the face and head were entirely wrapped in the thick folds of a black
veil, which was so arranged that the eyes alone were visible. These
seemed to swim up faintly as from the bottom of a well.

My imperceptible pause of surprise drew from Emily that sudden in-taking
of breath I have before remarked, and I could not but feel that she
intended, as I felt, a subtle sarcasm in the sound. Accordingly I made
no comment, secured Mrs. Drainger's signature without difficulty, then
that of Mrs. Mueller (who, during the whole procedure, uttered no word),
and added my own with as natural an air as I could manage. Miss Emily
led Mrs. Mueller away and I offered the completed document to Mrs.
Drainger.

"Keep it," she said with some feebleness and then, more loudly,

"I will take care. Keep it. Make her call for it when it is time. Now
let her come to me."

My search for the daughter necessitated my going through the several
rooms, so that I had a tolerable notion of the house. Miss Emily's
inheritance would not be great, although the lot was itself valuable.
The furniture was all old and of just that antiquity which lacks value
without acquiring charm. I remarked a vast what-not in one corner; one
table promised well, and there were one or two really fine engravings;
but for the most part the upholstered chairs were shabby, the tables and
desks old and cracked, and the carpets of a faded elegance. The kitchen
into which I passed was notably bleak, and the decrepit wood-stove
seemed never to have held a fire.

Miss Drainger came in the back entrance as I entered the kitchen. Her
face was paler than I had ever seen it. She confronted me silently.

"If you are through," she said bitingly, "I will let you out the front
door."

I observed mildly that her mother wanted her and accompanied her into
the sitting room. I hesitated how best to broach the matter I had in
mind without giving offense and resolved, unfortunately, on a deliberate
lie.

"My fee has been paid," I said, awkwardly enough.

She searched my face. I affected to be busy with my hat.

"I see," she commented with a short, cynical laugh. "Sometimes it is
done that way, sometimes in ways less pleasant. We are quite used to it.
I suppose I had better thank you."

I felt my face flush scarlet.

"It is not necessary," I faltered and was grateful to get out of the
house without further blunders.

I filled my lungs with the sweet August morning in positive relief,
feeling that I had been in the land of the dead.


IV

I had no further contact with the Draingers for some days. Indeed, the
whole curious episode was beginning to fade in my mind when, some three
weeks later, a dinner that Helen was giving recalled my experience and
added fresh interest to my relations with them. I sat next to one of
those conventionally pretty women who require only the surface of one's
attention, and I was preparing to be bored for the rest of the evening
when I caught a chance remark of Isobel Allyn's.

Mrs. Allyn (everybody calls her Isobel) was talking across the table to
Dr. Fawcett.

"You've lost your mysterious veiled lady," she said.

"Yes," said Fawcett.

Fawcett is a good fellow, about forty-five, and inclined to be
reticent.

"Veiled lady?" shrilled some feminine nonentity, much to Fawcett's
distaste. "How thrilling! Do tell us about it!"

"There is nothing to tell," growled Fawcett.

Isobel, however, is not easily swept aside.

"Oh, yes, there is," she persisted. "Dr. Fawcett has for years had a
mysterious patient whose face, whenever he visits her, remains
obstinately invisible. Now, without revealing her features, the lady has
had the bad taste to die."

I leaned forward.

"Is it Mrs. Drainger, Fawcett?"

He turned to me with mingled relief and inquiry.

"Yes. How did you know?"

I promised myself something later and remained vague.

"I had heard of her," I said.

His eyes questioned mine.

"Everyone must have heard of her but me," came the same irritating
voice. "Aren't you going to tell us?"

"Merely a patient of mine," said Fawcett impolitely. "She has just
died--at an advanced age."

It was cruel, but justified.

Isobel was penitent.

"I am sorry," she said prettily, and Helen hastily introduced the
subject of automobiles, concerning which she knows very little.

I sought out Fawcett on the porch after dinner.

"About Mrs. Drainger," he said. "How did you know?"

"I am, I suppose, her lawyer--or was, rather," I explained. "I have her
will."

"I thought soulless corporations and bloated bondholders were more your
line."

"They are," I said, and briefly recounted how I had come to be Mrs.
Drainger's attorney.

Fawcett's cigar glowed in the dark. His wicker chair creaked as he
shifted his weight.

"The daughter is a curious creature," he observed slowly, "something
uncanny about her, even devilish. Somehow I picture her striding up and
down the shabby rooms like a lioness. The town has grown, the
neighborhood changed, and I don't believe either of them was aware of
it. They lived absolutely in the past. So far as I could see they hated
each other--not, you understand with any petty, feminine spite, but
splendidly, like elemental beings. I never went into the house without
feeling that hot, suppressed atmosphere of hate. And yet there they
were, tied together, as absolutely alone as though they had been left on
a deserted island.

"Tied together--I fancy that's it. Emily could, of course, have gone
away. And yet I have a queer fancy, too, that so long as Mrs. Drainger
wore her veil the girl could not leave; that if she had once uncovered
her face the tie between them would have been broken. The old lady knew
that, certainly, and I think Emily knew it, too, and I fancy she must
have tried again and again to lift the covering from her mother's face.
But Mrs. Drainger--she was will incarnate--was always just too much for
her."

I told him about the provisions of her will.

"Ah," he said, "it is even clearer now. My theory is right. The veil
was, as it were, the symbol that held them together. But now, I wonder,
does the will represent the old lady's revenge, or her forgiveness?"

"We shall know shortly," I interjected.

Fawcett nodded in the dark.

"Captain Drainger built the house," he continued inconsequentially,
"back in the forties for himself and his young bride, and, though it
looks bleak enough now, it was for the Crosby of those days a mansion of
the first class. The captain, the tradition is, was a wild, obstinate
fellow with black hair and brilliant eyes (I fancy Emily has much of her
father in her), and nobody was greatly surprised, when the war broke
out, to have him at first lukewarm, and then avowedly a Confederate. Of
course he might as well have professed atheism or free love in this
locality--he might better have blown his brains out--which he
practically did, anyway. Public sentiment forced him out of the state
and over Mason and Dixon's line, and he entered the rebel army as a
cavalry captain, and deliberately (we heard) got himself killed. Of
course the Drainger fortune, fair enough for those days, went to pieces
at once.

"Mrs. Drainger immediately adopted the policy of complete seclusion she
was to follow ever after. When the captain left, it was said they would
not speak; at any rate, she broke off her friendships, refused herself
to callers, and saw nobody. Her condition served her as an excuse, but
everybody knew, I guess, the real reason why she kept to herself. There,
alone with an old servant who died a year or so later, she walked the
floor of that mockery of a house, or sat brooding over the coming of the
child. It must have been pleasant! Emily was born just before we heard
of the captain's death.

"One or two of her nearest friends tried to comfort her, but she would
see no one except the doctor--who, by the way was my father. I have
inherited the Draingers, you see."

Fawcett's cigar was out, but he did not light another.

"My mother, from whom I got all this, said there was something
magnificent in the way Mrs. Drainger suffered, in the way she resented
any intrusion upon her self-imposed solitude. My mother was a courageous
woman, but she said she was positively frightened when Mrs. Drainger, a
tall, fair woman with straight, level eyes, came to the door in answer
to her knock.

"'You may go back, Lucy Fawcett,' she said. 'A rebel has no friends,'
and shut the door in my mother's mortified face.

"At first there was some grumbling and ill-natured talk, but it soon
ceased. People who knew her family (she was a Merion) saw pretty clearly
that Mrs. Drainger's heart had, for most purposes, stopped beating when
the captain found the bullet he was looking for, and tumbled from his
horse. What was left was the magnificent shell of a woman in that great
shell of a house--that, and the child. I can picture her sitting upright
in some great chair by the shuttered window, peering out at the rank
grass and the elm trees, or else wandering, always majestic, from room
to room with her baby in her arms, listening to the silence. She cut
herself off from the world of the living as though she had been buried,
and she tried to bring up Emily as though they were in the land of the
dead.

"Emily was, of course, her only friend, her only companion, her only
link with life. Tragically enough, she was to fail her. She grew up, a
solitary, imperious child, I imagine much as she is now. She strikes me
as being one of those unfortunate natures who are as old at twelve as
they ever will be. Mother hinted at terrible scenes between the woman,
like a tragedy queen, and her baby, the child stormily demanding to be
like other children, the mother stonily listening and never bending her
ways. The will of the mother--I grow fanciful--was like ice-cold metal,
the child was hot with life, and the result was passionate rebellions,
followed by long weeks of sullen silence. And always Mrs. Drainger
hugged her isolation and hugged her child to that isolation because she
was her father's daughter. How or on what they lived, nobody knows.

"You understand," Fawcett interposed, "that this is mainly conjecture.
They were long before my day then. I am merely putting together what I
heard and my own inferences from what I have seen. And it seems to me,
looking back, that Mrs. Drainger set, as it were, when the captain died,
into that terrible fixed mold she was to wear ever after, and the lonely
child with the brilliant black eyes was not merely fighting solitude,
she was beating her passionate little fists against the granite of her
mother's nature. And I fancy that at an early age (she was very mature,
mind), Emily came to hate her mother quite earnestly and
conscientiously, and, so to speak, without meanness or malice.

"Of course it was impossible to keep the girl totally confined. She did
not, it is true, go to school, but she went out more or less, and in a
queer, unnatural way she made friends. That was later, however. She
never went to parties, since her mother would not give any and she was
proud--all the Draingers are proud. And she had no playmates. Until she
was a young woman, so far as human intercourse was concerned, Emily
might as well have had the plague in the house.

"But she went out as she grew older. For instance, she went to church,
not, I fancy, because she had any need of religion, but because it was a
place she could go without embarrassment or comment."

There was a moment of silence as though Fawcett was pondering how to
continue, and I heard the blur of voices from the hall and prayed that
nobody would come.

"We lived across the street from them in those days," he resumed, "and I
was a young cub from the medical school, home only at vacations. I
really don't know all that happened. Indeed, it seems to me that I have
known the Draingers only by flashes at any time. They were always
wrapped in mysterious human differences, and even when you saw her on
the street some of that surcharged atmosphere of silence seemed to color
Emily's face. She had grown up then. Her clothes were quite orthodox,
and she was handsome as a leopard is handsome, but always she struck me
as haunted by a vague fear, a fear of the house, perhaps, and of her
mother's power to rule her. I used to fancy, watching her return to
their sombre dwelling, that she was drawn back as to a spider's web by
the fascination of its tragic silences. The story of her life is like a
strange book read by lightning, with many leaves turned over unseen
between the flashes."

"You were in love with her!" I cried.

"No," he said slowly. "I might have been, but I wasn't. You are right,
though, in guessing there was love in her story, only it was not I, it
was Charlie Brede who, so to speak, sprang the trap.

"She got to know him at church. Charles was an honest, ordinary, likable
boy with a face like a Greek god and a streak of the most unaccountable
perversity. His obstinacy was at once intense and wild. That made him
interesting and, though there was no greatness behind it, any woman
would have loved his face. Don't imagine, furthermore, because I have
supposed they met at church, that he was narrowly pious. Everybody went
to church in those days--there was nowhere else to go. Charlie was, in
short, an ordinary, well-behaved youngster, except that his face hinted
at possibilities he couldn't have fulfilled, and except for his dash of
narrow rebellion. I don't see how, to such a stormy creature as Emily,
he could have been bearable.

"The affair had got well along when I came home in the spring. At first,
I gathered from the talk, Emily had met him only away from the house
(it was not home), at church or downtown, or in such ways as she could
unsuspiciously contrive. Then somehow Charlie suspected something queer
and insisted, in one of his obstinate fits, on his duty to call.

"I know this because they stood for a long time under the trees in front
of our house, Charles's voice booming up through the scented darkness as
he argued. Emily put him off with various feminine subterfuges--she was,
I remember, rather magnificent in her despairing diplomacy--and I
thought for a while she would succeed. Then I heard Brede's voice,
wrathful and sullen, with a quality of finality.

"'If you are ashamed of me----' he said, and walked off.

"It was the one statement she could not outwit. Emily stood for a
moment, then--I can imagine with what terrific surrender of pride--ran
after him.

"'Charlie, Charlie!' she called. He stopped. She came up to him. There
was a low murmur of voices, and I thought she was crying.

"'Tuesday, then,' he said, and kissed her.

"Emily waited until he was well away, and in the moonlight I could see
her raise her hands to her head in a gesture that might have been
despair, that might have been puzzlement. Then she crossed the street
into the blackness of their porch.

"Did she love him? I don't know. Do you?"

The question hung motionless in the air. Fawcett lit another cigar.

"One would have expected something regal about the man Emily Drainger
should choose. You agree with me, I suspect, that she is--or
was--leonine, terrific. Perhaps she was deceived by his face. Perhaps,
after the manner of lovers, she found splendid lights and vistas in the
Charlie Brede the rest of us considered rather ordinary. Or perhaps,
since she had lived her solitary life so long, pestered and haunted by
her mother, any pair of lips would have awakened in her the same
powerful and primitive impulses. He was her man, and she wanted him, and
she was not to get him. I have even thought that she did not love him
at all: that she was quite willing to feign a passion in order to escape
from that terrible mother with her eyes forever focused on her tragedy,
her mother, and that gaunt, grim house. I am superstitious about that
house. Nothing good can come out of it. It warped Mrs. Drainger out of
all semblance to human nature, and it was warping Emily, and Mrs.
Drainger was somehow the presiding genius, the central heart of that
sinister fascination.

"Charlie called that Tuesday night, I know, because I stayed home to
see. I was quite unashamed in doing so. He had, I must say, courage. But
he did not see Emily. There were two chairs on the porch, and, to the
enormous surprise of the neighborhood, which had not seen Mrs. Drainger
for years, she occupied one of those chairs and Charlie the other, and,
after a fashion, they conversed. I could not hear what they said, but
there was in Mrs. Drainger's calm, in her placid acceptance of the
situation, a quality of danger. I had an impulse to cry out. She made me
think of a steel instrument ready to close. And, as Charlie had an
obstinate streak in him, it became fairly evident that we were
witnessing a duel--a duel for the possession of Emily Drainger. Mute
obstinacy was pitted against will, and Emily, enchained and chafing, was
permitted only to stand by.

"Considered from Mrs. Drainger's point of view, she was not, I suppose,
so hideously unfair. One doesn't shut off the last ray of light from the
prisoner's dungeon or grudge clothing to a naked man. And her daughter
was, as I have intimated, her only link with the living. Hers was the
selfishness of narrow hunger, if you will, of an almost literal
nakedness. And yet one cannot live alone with the dead for twenty years
and remain sane. Since Mrs. Drainger's life was to Mrs. Drainger
entirely normal, she could not, in the nature of the case, imagine what
she was condemning Emily to. The mother thought of Brede, I fancy, as of
some spiritual calamity that would rob her of half her soul, and she
brought to the issue her one power--her power of breaking people's
wills, and fought him as fiercely as she would have fought the devil.

"Charlie called again Friday and had again the pleasure of Mrs.
Drainger's society. He called again next week; this time both Emily and
Mrs. Drainger entertained him. The result was, I imagine, even more
unsatisfactory--what Mrs. Drainger wanted. If it had not been so
terrific, it would have been funny. Some of us, indeed, took to making
wagers on the contest. He called repeatedly. Whether he saw Emily or
not, there was always Mrs. Drainger.

"It is not her mere presence, mind, that was disconcerting. The old lady
was somehow sinister in her silent intensity, in her subtle power of
infiltration. Emily seemed, so far as I could see, thoroughly cowed.
Strain as she would at her leash, the keeper held her, and the tedious
pattern of their struggling conversation concealed bright chains. This,
Mrs. Drainger seemed to say, is what you are coming to. And Charlie
would look appealingly at Emily, and she at him, and they both looked at
the imperturbable monster of a woman, and on Charlie's lips the
desperate proposals to go somewhere, to do something, to get out of it,
died before he could utter them. Only mute obstinacy held him there.
Mrs. Drainger, if she could not prevent his coming, could at least hold
Emily dumb.

"It lasted some four weeks. At length--what was bound to happen--the
weakest snapped. A week went by, and Charlie did not come. Emily haunted
the porch in an ironic appearance of freedom. Mrs. Drainger, in some
subtle way, knew that she had won, that the girl was eternally hers.
Emily's face was pitifully white: she was suffering. Was it love? Or was
it her passionate hatred of the prison that held her, the guardian that
kept her helpless?

"Then, one evening, Charlie came up the street. He looked unwell, as
though the contest of wills had somehow broken him. He walked straight
to the porch where Emily sat. She rose to meet him--I think she was
trembling.

"'Good-bye,' he said, and held out his hand.

"Apparently she did not ask why he had failed her, or where he was
going, or how he came so abruptly to bid her farewell. She took his hand
for a moment, and, with the other, steadied herself against the chair,
and so they stood looking at each other. There must have been queer
lights in their eyes--desire baffled in some strange way, wounded
pride, and an eating, mortal sickness. Charlie's hand dropped, he ran
down the walk, crossed the street straight toward me so that I saw his
white face, and walked away. We never saw him again. Emily stood
watching him, perhaps hoping that he would look back. If he did there
was still a possibility. But he did not, and she heard, I suppose, the
iron gates clang to. She went abruptly into the house. An hour later I
saw her go out, and after an interval, return."


V

The story lay between us like a damp mist.

Fawcett seemed to have forgotten me, but my silence clung to him with
mute tenacity.

"What I should know," his voice rumbled on, "I don't know--that is, of
course, the scene between the two afterwards. When Emily Drainger
returned to her house that night something awful happened. What it was,
she alone now knows. But the next flash I had of their history came
three or four years later--when I had taken up my father's practice
after his death. I have said the Draingers were an inheritance; he had
been called in to see Mrs. Drainger several times and on those times had
seen what I saw later, but I had been away. I could not question him and
he was, above everything, scrupulously exact in keeping the confidences
of his patients--even with me. At any rate, I was called in to see Mrs.
Drainger as my father's son. I saw for the first time that her face was
entirely shrouded in the thick black veil she wore ever after; and the
wearing of that veil dates, I think, from the night that Charlie Brede
and Emily Drainger looked with baffled wonder into each other's eyes.

"Imagine living with the thing. Imagine the torture of patience, the
fixity of will required to keep it eternally on. Do you know how
bandages feel after a time? Think of shrouding your head for twenty
years. But think also of the slow stealthiness with which the mute
reproach of that shrouded face would creep into your nerves if you had
to live with it; think of the imaginative persistency which saw, in this
covering of the features, not merely just the tie that would hold Emily
to her forever, but the tedious process of revenge for an injury not
known to us, for some monstrous moment between the two that only the
dull walls of the house could hear.

"Think, too, of the ingenuity of that symbol. Its very helplessness
forbade to Emily the exultation of revilement. Good Heavens! It is bad
enough to be tied by your own weakness to a face that you hate, but to
be chained forever to that thing, to rise up with it and lie down with
it, to talk to it, to insult it, to listen to it, and yet never see your
sarcasms strike home! Think of hating a black veil for twenty years!

"Emily, of course, had changed. She met me at the door as she met you.
She was a shell burned out by one fierce moment of fire. Something had
toppled in her and collapsed, and only by the pitiless and continual
irony of her silence could she hide her inward loathing. With me she was
proud and acid, but in her mother's room, whither she led me, her
silence was like a frightened, defensive covering which might, at any
moment, be stripped from her, leaving her indecently, almost physically
bare. Her pride, in sum, was broken, but not her hatred. That smoldered
where before it had flamed.

"Mrs. Drainger had some minor complaint, I have forgotten what. Emily
followed me into the room where she sat--she seems to me always to have
been sitting with patient intensity in some corner of that house. I
recall the stab of surprise with which I searched the shadowy room for
the austere and beautiful face of the Mrs. Drainger we knew, and how, in
my confusion, I could see nothing but her hands. Emily mocked me with
her eyes, but did not speak. Then I saw.

"I remember I asked Mrs. Drainger, for some reason, to remove the veil.
I was raw in those days. Emily stiffened behind me and, I thought,
started to speak, but the rigid silence of Mrs. Drainger was never
broken. Her very speechlessness rebuked me. I prescribed for her and got
out of the house.

"If you will believe me, Gillingham," Fawcett went on with a change of
voice, "I have visited that house for twenty years and during that time
Mrs. Drainger, so far as I know, has never divested herself of her veil.
I got that much out of Emily. But I could get no more. She seemed to
freeze when I sought after reasons. I do not know what she had done, but
I do know that the wearing of that black mantle represented to them that
flaming crisis in their relationship when Emily lost forever her one
hope of escape.

"I have watched them for twenty years. Twenty years--think of it! They
were like two granite rocks, clashed once together, and thereafter
frozen into immobility. They have never changed. All pretense of
affection had dropped from them--even before me. There was only naked
hate. Year after weary year, seeing no one, never going anywhere, they
have rasped and worn each other merely by being what they are.

"And now the ultimate ingenuity, the last refinement of unhappiness! The
veil, I say, is a symbol of their shuddering cohesion which death would
normally destroy. But the will of this woman, as it triumphed over life,
she has made to triumph over death: if Emily removes the veil she
becomes, with her lack of training, her useless equipment, a helpless
beggar; if she does not remove it, if she never sees her mother's face,
she will be tormented by memory, bound forever, as she was in life, to a
blank and inscrutable shawl. Is it forgiveness--or justice, mercy or
revenge?"

Fawcett broke off as a swirl of guests flooded the coolness of the
porch.

"I will tell you what happens," I said when I could.

"Do," he returned. "And you must take precautions."


VI

On my way to the office next morning, it suddenly dawned on me what
Fawcett meant. How, in truth, was I to ascertain whether the singular
provision of Mrs. Drainger's will had or had not been met? Fawcett had
not, he said, been present at the death; and even if he had been, there
must elapse a considerable time in which Emily would necessarily be
alone with her mother's body.

The more I pondered, the more puzzled I grew. It seemed grotesque that
Mrs. Drainger should have overlooked this situation. Moreover, I was
naturally curious. Fawcett's narrative justified me in all I had
thought, but it had not given a motive for the veil, nor for the
tenacity with which Mrs. Drainger clung to it.

The house looked unchanged as I turned into the street on which it
faced. Death was, it said, of so little consequence to the walls which
had immured and conquered life itself. There was in the very lack of
change a great irony. A barren device of crêpe on the door, one lower
window partly open--that was all. The very papers yellowing before the
door had not been swept away.

Mrs. Mueller, the woman who had witnessed the signing of the will, was
standing on the steps that led to the street. If my relations with the
Draingers had been odd, they were to conclude as strangely. The woman
was apparently expecting me, and her manner testified to recent terror.

"What do you want?" I asked.

"_She_ told me," Mrs. Mueller said, "to get you."

Her hunted look and the solemn glance she gave me testified that _she_
was as real to her as though Mrs. Drainger had not for twenty-four hours
been dead. "She told me if a certain thing happened I was to call you."

Suddenly I saw. That tremendous woman was reaching at me over the very
boundaries of life.

"I don't like it," continued Mrs. Mueller with an indescribable accent
of fear and a sidelong look at me for support. "I don't like it. But she
said the day before she died, she said, 'If Miss Emily uncovers my face
when I am dead, you are to tell Mr. Gillingham,' she said. And she made
me promise to watch."

She seemed to want to tell me something she could not put in words.

"It is terrible," she went on in a vague, haunted manner, "what I saw."

"What?"

"She was always a queer woman. 'If Miss Emily uncovers my face,' she
said, 'you are to call Mr. Gillingham.' And she made me watch. I didn't
want to. So when she died I came right over."

"How did you know when to come?"

"I don't know," she answered helplessly. "I just came. She told me Miss
Emily wasn't to see me, but I was to watch. It is terrible."

We were at the door. I had a sudden distaste for the woman, though she
was quite simply honest, and, as it were, the helpless and unconscious
spy that Mrs. Drainger, in her grave, had set upon her daughter. I was
anxious to get it over with.

"You will see," she said again and brought me into the house.

Her terror was beginning to affect me. She was quite unable to tell me
what she had seen, but her whole manner expressed a dazed horror, not so
much of some concrete fear as of the ghastly position in which she found
herself.

She led me to the door of the room in which I had last seen Mrs.
Drainger alive, but no inducement could make her come in, nor could I
get from her anything more explicit. Poor soul! I do not wonder at her
terror.

The room was as before. The shuttered windows admitted only faint bars
and pencils of light. The dim chairs and shadowy tables were
discernible, but, as if they yielded precedence to death, the most solid
object in the obscurity was the coffin in which Mrs. Drainger's body
lay. I advanced to it. The mistress of this ill-fated mansion seemed to
have grown larger in death; her body was no longer shrunken and her
folded hands still retained faintly their peculiar luminous quality. I
could see in the shadow that around her face there was no longer the
black mantle, but the face puzzled me--I could not make it out, and,
opening the shutter, I let in the light.

I stepped again to the side of the coffin. Could this be the queenly
beauty of whom Fawcett had spoken? For, where the features should have
been there was, naked to the light, only a shapeless, contorted mass of
flesh in which, the twisted eyelids being closed, there seemed to my
horrified gaze no decent trace of human resemblance!

I turned half-sick from the sight. Emily Drainger, tall, pallid yellow,
her great eyes burning with an evil glow, her lemon dress an unhealthy
splotch in the doorway, stood regarding me.

"The will--the will!" she cried. "She thought she could stop me, but she
could not!"

"Who--what has done this?" I pointed involuntarily to her mother's face.

She seemed to expand before my eyes with evil triumph.

"I--_I_," she cried at length, her black eyes holding me as I stood,
weak and faint, clinging unconsciously to the coffin for support.
"_Twenty years ago!_ But"--she laughed hysterically and came to look at
the shapeless, brutalized face--"I never knew, until she died, that it
was done so well!!"




UNDER A WINE-GLASS[18]

[Note 18: Copyright, 1918, by The Century Company. Copyright, 1920,
by Ellen N. La Motte.]

BY ELLEN N. LA MOTTE

From _The Century_


A little coasting-steamer dropped anchor at dawn at the mouth of
Chanta-Boun Creek, and through the long, hot hours she lay there, gently
stirring with the sluggish tide, waiting for the passage-junk to come
down from Chanta-Boun Town, twelve miles farther up the river. It was
stifling hot on the steamer, and from side to side, whichever side one
walked to, came no breeze at all. Only the warm, enveloping, moist,
stifling heat closed down. Very quiet it was, with no noises from the
after-deck, where under the awning lay the languid deck-passengers,
sleeping on their bedding rolls. Very quiet it was ashore, so still and
quiet that one could hear the bubbling, sucking noises of the large
land-crabs, pattering over the black, oozy mud, or the sound of a lean
pig scratching himself against the piles of a native hut in the village,
that stood, mounted on stilts, at the mouth of the creek.

The captain came down from the narrow bridge into the narrow saloon. He
was clad in yellow pajamas, his bare feet in native sandals, and he held
a well pipe-clayed topee in one hand. He was impatient at the delay of
the passage-junk coming down from up-river, with her possible trifling
cargo, her possible trifling deck-passengers, of which the little
steamer already carried enough.

"This long wait is very annoying," he commented, sitting upon the worn
leather cushions of the saloon bench. "And I had wished for time enough
to stop to see the lonely man. I have made good time on this trip, all
things considered, with time to spare to make that call, somewhat out
of our way. And now the good hours go by while we wait here uselessly."

"The lonely man?" asked the passenger, who was not a deck-passenger. He
was the only saloon-passenger, and because of that he slept first in
one, then in the other, of the two small cabins, alternating according
to which side the wind blew from.

"You would not mind, perhaps," continued the captain, "if, after all, in
spite of this long delay, we still found time for the lonely man? An
unscheduled call, much out of our way--oh, a day's sail from here, and
we, as you know, go slowly----"

"Three days from now, four days from now, it matters little to me when
we reach Bangkok," said the passenger, largely, "but tell me of this
man."

Upon the sideboard, under an inverted wine-glass, sat a small gilt
Buddha, placed there by the China boys. The captain fixed his eyes upon
the Buddha.

"Like that, immovable and covered in close, sitting still in a small
space--covered in. Some one turned a wine-glass over on him, long ago,
and now he sits, still and immovable like that. It makes my heart ache."

"Tell me, while we are waiting."

"Three years ago," began the captain, dreamily, still looking at the
tiny gilt Buddha in its inverted wine-glass, "he came aboard, bound for
nowhere in particular. To Bangkok, perhaps, since we were going that
way; or to any other port he fancied along the coast, since we were
stopping all along the coast. He wanted to lose himself, he said. And,
as you have seen, we stop at many remote, lonely villages such as this
one. And we have seen many lonely men, foreigners, isolated in villages
such as this one, unknown, removed, forgotten. But none of them suited
him. He had been looking for the proper spot for many years. Wandering
up and down the coast in cargo-boats, in little coasting vessels, in
sailing-vessels, sometimes in native junks, stopping here and there,
looking for a place where he could go off and live by himself. He wanted
to be quite absolutely to himself. He said he would know the place
immediately if he saw it, recognize it at once. He said he could find
himself if he could get quite absolutely away. Find himself--that is,
recover himself, something, a part of him which he had lost. Just
temporarily lost. He was very wistful and very eager, and said I must
not think him a fool or demented. He said he only wanted to be by
himself, in the right spot, to accomplish his purpose. He would
accomplish his purpose and then return.

"Can you see him, the lonely man, obsessed, going up and down the China
coast, shipping at distant ports, one after another, on fruitless
quests, looking for a place to disembark? The proper place to disembark,
the place which he would recognize, would know for his own place, which
would answer the longing in him that had sent him searching round the
world, over the seven seas of the world, the spot in which he could find
himself again and regain what he had lost.

"There are many islands hereabouts," went on the captain, "hundreds.
Desert. He thought one would suit him. So I put him down on one, going
out of my way to find it for him. He leaned over the rail of the bridge
and said to me, 'We are getting nearer.' Then he said that he saw it. So
I stopped the ship and put him down. He was very grateful. He said he
liked to be in the Gulf of Siam. That the name had a picturesque sound,
the Pirate Islands. He would live all by himself on one of the Pirate
Islands, in the Gulf of Siam. Isolated and remote, but over one way was
the coast of Hindu-China, and over the other way was the coast of Malay.
Neighborly, but not too near. He would always feel that he could get
away when he was ready, what with so much traffic through the gulf, and
the native boats now and then. He was mistaken about the traffic, but I
did not tell him so. I knew where he was and could watch him. I placed a
cross on the chart, on his island, so that I might know where I had left
him; and I promised myself to call upon him from time to time, to see
when he would be ready to face the world again."

The captain spread a chart upon the table.

"Six degrees north latitude," he remarked, "ten thousand miles from--"

"Greenwich," supplied the passenger, anxious to show that he knew.

"From her," corrected the captain.

"He told me about her a little. I added the rest from what he omitted.
It all happened a long time ago, which was the bother of it. And because
it had taken place so long ago, and had endured for so long a time, it
made it more difficult for him to recover himself again. Do you think
people ever recover themselves? When the precious thing in them, the
spirit of them, has been overlaid and overlaid, covered deep with
artificial layers?

"The marvel was that he wanted to regain it, wanted to break through.
Most don't. The other thing is so easy. Money, of course. She had it,
and he loved her. He had none, and she loved him. She had had money
always, had lived with it, lived on it; it got into her very bones. And
he had not two shillings to rub together; but he possessed the
gift--genius. But they met somewhere, and fell in love with each other,
and that ended him. She took him, you see, and gave him all she had. It
was marvelous to do it, for she loved him so. Took him from his
four-shilling attic into luxury; out of his shabby, poor worn clothes
into the best there were; from a penny bus into superb motors, with all
the rest of it to match. And he accepted it all because he loved her,
and it was the easiest way. Besides, just before she had come into his
life he had written--well, whatever it was, they all praised him, the
critics and reviewers, and called him the coming man, and he was very
happy about it, and she seemed to come into his life right at the top of
his happiness over his work. And she sapped it. Didn't mean to, but did;
cut his genius down to the root. Said his beginning fame was quite
enough for her, for her friends, for the society into which she took
him. They all praised him without understanding how great he was or
considering his future. They took him at her valuation, which was great
enough. But she thought he had achieved the summit; did not know, you
see, that there was anything more.

"He was so sure of himself, too, during those first few years, young and
confident, aware of his power. Drifting would not matter for a while; he
could afford to drift. His genius would ripen, he told himself, and time
was on his side. So he drifted, very happy and content, ripening; but
being overlaid all the time, deeper and thicker, with this intangible,
transparent, strong wall, hemming him in, shutting in the gold, just
like that little joss there under the wine-glass.

"She lavished on him everything without measure; but she had no
knowledge of him, really. He was just another toy, the best of all, in
her luxurious equipment. So he traveled the world with her, and dined at
the embassies of the world, East and West, in all the capitals of Europe
and Asia, but getting restive finally, however, as the years wore on.
Feeling the wine-glass, as it were, although he could not see it.
Looking through its clear transparency, but feeling pressed, somehow,
aware of the closeness. But he continued to sit still, not much wishing
to move, stretch himself.

"Then sounds from the other side began to filter in, echoing largely in
his restricted space, making within it reverberations that carried vague
uneasiness, producing restlessness. He shifted himself within his space,
and grew aware of limitations. From without came the voices, insistent,
asking what he was doing now. Meaning what thing was he writing now; for
a long time had passed since he had written on which called forth the
praise of men. There came to him within his wine-glass, these demands
from the outside. Therefore he grew very uneasy and tried to rise, and
just then it was that he began to feel how close the crystal walls
surrounded him. He even wanted to break them, but a pang at heart told
him that that was ingratitude; for he loved her, you see. Never forget
that.

"Now you see how it all came about. He was aware of himself, of his
power. And while for the first years he had drifted, he was always aware
of his power. Knew that he had only to rise to assume gigantic stature.
And then, just because he was very stiff, and the pain of stiffness and
stretching made him uncouth, he grew angry. He resented his captivity,
chafed at his being limited like that, did not understand how it had
come about. It had come about through love, through sheer sheltering
love. She had placed a crystal cup above him to keep him safe, and he
had sat safe beneath it all these years, fearing to stir, because she
liked him so.

"It came to a choice at last: his life of happiness with her or his
work. Poor fool, to have made the choice at that late day! So he broke
his wine-glass, and his heart and her heart, too, and came away. And
then he found that he could not work, after all. Years of sitting still
had done it.

"At first he tried to recover himself by going over again the paths of
his youth, a garret in London, a studio off Montparnasse, shabby,
hungry; all no use. He was done for, futile. Done himself in for no
purpose, for he had lost her, too. For, you see, he planned, when he
left her to come back shortly, crowned anew; to come back in triumph,
for she was all his life. Nothing else mattered. He just wanted to lay
something at her feet in exchange for all she had given him. Said he
would. So they parted, heart-broken, crushed, neither one understanding.
But he promised to come back with his laurels.

"That parting was long ago. He could not regain himself. After his
failure along the paths of his youth, his garrets and studios, he tried
to recover his genius by visiting again all the parts of the world he
had visited with her. Only this time, humbly. Standing on the outside of
palaces and embassies, recollecting the times when he had been a guest
within. Rubbing shoulders with the crowd outside, shabby, poor, a
derelict. Seeking always to recover that lost thing.

"And he was getting so impatient to rejoin her. Longing for her always.
Coming to see that she meant more to him than all the world beside.
Eating his heart out, craving her. Longing to return, to reseat himself
under his bell. Only now he was no longer gilded. He must gild himself
anew, just as she had found him. Then he could go back.

"But it could not be done. He could not work. Somewhere in the world, he
told me, was a spot where he could work, ... Where there were no
memories. Somewhere in the seven seas lay the place. He would know it
when he saw it. After so many years of exclusion, he was certain he
would feel the atmosphere of the place where he could work. And there he
would stay till he finished, till he produced the big thing that was in
him. Thus, regilded, he would return to her again. One more effort,
once more to feel his power, once more to hear the stimulating rush of
praise, then he would give it up again, quite content to sit beneath his
wine-glass till the end. But this first.

"So I put him down where I have told you, on a lonely island, somewhat
north of the equator, ten thousand miles away from Her. Wistfully, he
said it was quite the right spot; he could feel it. So we helped him,
the China boys and I, to build a little hut, up on stilts, thatched with
palm-leaves. Very desolate it is. On all sides the burnished ocean, hot
and breathless, and the warm, moist heat close around. Still and
stifling. Like a blanket, dense, enveloping. But he said it was the
spot. I don't know. He has been there now three years. He said he could
do it there, if ever. From time to time I stop there if the passengers
are willing for a day or two's delay. He looks very old now and very
thin, but he always say it's all right. Soon, very soon now, the
manuscript will be ready; next time I stop, perhaps. Once I came upon
him sobbing. Landing early in the morning--slipped ashore and found him
sobbing, head in arms and shoulders shaking. It was early in the
morning, and I think he'd sobbed all night. Somehow I think it was not
for the gift he'd lost but for her.

"But he says over and over again that it is the right spot, the very
right place in the world for such as he. Told me that I must not mind
seeing him so lonely, so apparently depressed. That it was nothing. Just
the Tropics, and being so far way, and perhaps thinking a little too
much of things that did not concern his work. But the work would surely
come on. Moods came on him from time to time that he recognized were
quite the right moods in which to work, in which to produce great
things. His genius was surely ripe now; he must just concentrate. Some
day, very shortly, there would be a great rush; he would feel himself
charged again with the old, fine fire. He would produce the great work
of his life. He felt it coming on; it would be finished next time I
called.

"This is the next time. Shall we go?" asked the captain.

Accordingly, within a day or two, the small coastwise steamer dropped
her anchor in a shallow bay off a desert island marked with a cross on
the captain's chart, and unmarked upon all other charts of the same
waters. All around lay the tranquil spaces of a desolate ocean, and on
the island the thatched roof of a solitary hut showed among the palms.
The captain went ashore by himself, and presently, after a little lapse
of time, he returned.

"It is finished," he announced briefly; "the great work is finished. I
think it must have been completed several weeks ago. He must have died
several weeks ago, possibly soon after my last call."

He held out a sheet of paper on which was written one word, "Beloved."




A THING OF BEAUTY[19]

[Note 19: Copyright, 1919, by The American Hebrew. Copyright, 1920,
by Elias Lieberman.]

BY ELIAS LIEBERMAN

From _The American Hebrew_


Simonoff told it to me over the coffee cups. It was the twilight hour on
Second avenue and we were enjoying a late afternoon chat. The gates of
the human dam, shut all day long, had been opened and the rushing,
swirling stream of men and women beat past us relentlessly--past the
door of the Café Cosmos open to the sights and sounds of the street.

Every person in that human torrent seemed eager to reach a haven of
rest. Not that their faces looked tired or haggard. But each gave the
impression that something had been worn off in a subtle, persistent
process--a certain newness, freshness, gloss, call it what you will.
Shadows of men and women they were in the twilight as they scurried
past. And yet the rhythm of their footsteps beat upon the ear as
steadily as the roar of many waters.

"The ghosts are having a holiday," said Simonoff.

His voice was barely audible in the hum of conversation. Simonoff was
one of those rare teachers on the lower East Side who neither taught
night school nor practised law after his daily duties were over. His
passion was to understand his fellow men--to help them, if
possible--although, for a reformer, he was given entirely too much to
dreaming. His café bills for a year, when added together, made a
surprisingly large total. But then Simonoff never bothered with useless
mathematics.

A hand organ outside was droning the "Miserere." Children of the
tenements, like moths drawn to globes of brilliant light on midsummer
nights, hovered about the organ and danced. There was a capricious
abandon about their movements which fascinated Simonoff. He had a way of
running his slender fingers through his wavy, brown hair, when he was
emotionally stirred.

"The dancing maidens of Trebizond were not more graceful than these," he
sighed as his eyes followed the sinuous movements of two ragged little
tots. "They outgrow it after a while."

"Never," I protested. "The Grand street halls----"

"I mean the search for beauty," drawled Simonoff. "This is the dance of
Greek maidens at the sacrificial rites to Demeter. The Grand street
thing is a contortion before the obese complacency of the great god
Jazz. And Jazz has no soul."

Through the ever-gathering darkness the electric lights began to twinkle
like blue-white diamonds against purple velvet. The lights in the café
too were turned on by a pottering waiter whose flat-footed shuffle had
become familiar to us through many years of observation.

A bedraggled looking person entered the café, clutching awkwardly a
dozen or more cut roses. He passed from table to table and offered them
for sale. The price was ridiculously small.

It seemed strange to me that Simonoff's face should turn so white. His
manner suggested great agitation. When the peddler reached him, Simonoff
purchased the entire stock and gave him in payment far in excess of the
amount asked. The happy vender directed one searching glance at him,
then went out whistling.

"What will you do with all those roses?" I asked.

"Give them away," he answered, "to the dirtiest, most woebegone, most
forlorn little children I can find. I shall do this in memory of John
Keats."

I looked my astonishment.

"'A thing of beauty is a joy forever,'" Simonoff intoned dreamily. "But
there's a story connected with it."

"I suspected it," I said quietly. "When a school teacher consents to
part with a perfectly good dollar for a dozen wilted roses, there must
be an esoteric reason."

"Materialist," he laughed.

The dancing and the scurry of pattering feet had both ceased. The
sounds of the night were now more soothing, more harmoniously blended.
The earliest arrivals of the theatre crowd were besieging the sidewalk
ticket office of the burlesque house opposite. Simonoff launched into
his narrative.

* * *

I was sitting here one evening all alone. The day had been particularly
trying. I had been visited by my district superintendent, a perfect
paragon of stupidity. He had squatted in my class room until I wished
him and his bulk on the other side of the Styx. When it was all over I
came here, glad to shake off the chalk dust and the pompous
inconsequence of my official superior. Suddenly I was startled out of my
brooding.

"You are unhappy," I heard a voice murmur ever so softly. It seemed like
the sighing of a night wind through the tree tops.

I looked up. Before me stood a young man with deep blue eyes, blond
hair, exquisite daintiness of feature and unnaturally pale complexion.
He was dressed in soft gray tweeds. In the crook of his left elbow he
carried roses. Their fragrance permeated the café and, for once, the
odor of stale tobacco was not dominant.

"You are unhappy," he repeated mildly as if it were the most natural
thing in the world for him to say.

"I am," I answered frankly. "The world is a stupid place to live in."

"You must not say that," he reproached quietly. "It is we who are
stupid. The world is beautiful. Won't you accept a rose?" Like a prince
in a fairy story he bowed grandly and offered me an American Beauty
still moist with the mock dews of the florist.

"But why do you honor me thus?" I asked, taking the flower and inhaling
its fragrance.

He looked a bit put out as if I were asking the obvious thing. "You were
sad, of course, and a thing of beauty----"

"Is a joy forever," I concluded.

He flushed with pleasure.

"I am so glad you have read my Endymion," he exclaimed delightedly.
"Suppose we walk out together and preach the gospel of beauty to those
who like yourself forget the eternal in the trivial. I have some
powerful sermons here." He caressed his roses as a mother would stroke
the head of a child.

Along the avenue we were followed by hordes of little girls with starved
eyes. My good samaritan picked the poorest and the most wistful for his
largesse of roses. And to each one as he handed the flower he repeated
the famous line from the work of the great romantic poet.

"'A thing of beauty is a joy forever.'"

Soon there were only two left. These my friend was inclined to withhold
from the clamoring tots who assailed us.

"After all they are young," he said. "Their sad moments vanish like the
mists. But the sorrows of the years of discretion are not thrown off so
easily. They persist like scars long after the original bruise has
healed."

We entered a hallway to escape our little friends. From a door ajar on
the first story a man's voice floated down to us. It was high pitched
and strident, as if a relentless lawyer were arraigning a criminal.

"My friends," we heard, "how long are you going to remain blind to your
condition? The interests of capital and labor are diametrically opposed
to each other. You are the producers of the world's wealth and yet you
submit to exploitation by the class of parasites who fatten upon your
ignorance and your unwillingness to unite. Workingmen of the world, you
have nothing to lose but your chains."

"Slavinsky, the great agitator, probably rehearsing his speech for the
party rally at Cooper Union tomorrow," I explained.

"Agitator?" questioned the apostle of beauty. "He is agitated, indeed,
and unhappy. I shall give him a rose."

Slavinsky sputtered with amazement when the rose was offered to him.

"A joy forever!" he mocked. "It isn't such a joy to work for starvation
wages, to be bled by profiteers, to be flayed alive by plutes. I tell
you, Mister--"

"You are addressing Keats, John Keats."

"I tell you, Mister Keats, there ain't no beauty when you're up against
it. I tell you--"

"Won't you accept this rose?"

"I'll take it," growled Slavinsky with unnecessary fierceness. "It ain't
Nature's fault. She don't go in for profiteering." The agitator's
conversational style was more colloquial though no less vehement than
his platform manner.

"Did you note the omission?" Keats inquired when we were again on the
avenue.

"It isn't impoliteness," I replied. "Men of his class are too stirred by
cosmic problems to say 'Thank you.'"

"It is a beautiful thing to say, nevertheless, and the world needs it."
I thought the eyes of John Keats--a fitting name for such a fantastic
personality--were filling with tears.

My companion held his rose before him as if it were a charm against the
sordidness about him. He had a way of peering at the people we passed as
if he were looking for someone he had lost in the crowd. At Sixteenth
Street we turned into the small park at the right of the avenue, which
with its neighbor on the left keeps alive the memory of green and
growing things among the dwellers of the tenements.

It was at the fountain that he first saw her. John Keats had an abrupt
manner, for all his gentleness, of proceeding along the path of his
desires.

"At last I have found you," he said to the tall girl who was watching a
group of youngsters at play near the gushing waters. In the darkness I
could see only a pair of flashing eyes under a broad-brimmed straw and a
cape of soft blue hanging gracefully from her shoulders.

She scrutinized both of us with the intuitive glance of one who has
learned to tread warily amid dangerous surroundings. Apparently her
preliminary examination was satisfactory. She put us into the
non-poisonous class. Keats had flattened the palm of his right hand
against his breast and was offering the last rose to her with the other.
His manner was of the stage but not offensively so.

"At last I have found you," repeated my curious acquaintance. "For all
your laughter you are unhappy. You are consumed with yearning, even as I
am. Pray accept a rose."

With a murmured repetition of his formula he gave he his last flower.

His manner was earnest and the girl had immediately rejected the
assumption that we were mocking her.

"This is a mistake," she explained, hesitating about the rose. "I don't
think you know who I am."

"A lady of high degree, I am sure," responded Keats gallantly. There was
a peculiar quaintness about his English, which like his name, took me
back to the early nineteenth century. The coincidence of his name did
not strike me as unusual, because the telephone directory is full of
such parallels.

"No high degree about me," laughed the girl. "I'm a saleslady at
Marmelstein's, that's all. What you said about being unhappy is true
sometimes. When you came up I was just thinking."

Her voice with its overtone of sadness sounded in the semi-darkness like
the faint tremolo of mandolins serenading in the distance.

"But there need be no unhappiness," contended Keats. "We must shut out
from our sight everything but beauty, pure beauty. At this moment I am
supremely happy."

He looked at her. There was an unreality about him for which I could not
account. Like a mirage of the park he seemed. In a twinkle of the
incandescents, I thought, he might vanish. The girl from Marmelstein's
looked at him as if fascinated. Romance had come and touched her heart
with a magic wand. She sniffed at the rose pensively.

"I couldn't just tell you why I was feeling queer. Marmelstein's is a
nice place, honest. You see all sorts of people during the day and it's
interesting to work there. But there's something missing--I don't know
what."

"Beauty, my lady, beauty," declared Keats.

Out of the shadows a fourth form had materialized, a thickset man who
approached us with a firm stride. He patted my friend gently on the
shoulder.

"You're a bad boy, John," he reproached, "giving me the slip that way. I
had the time of my life looking for you. The moment my back was turned
you vamoosed from the waiting room. That wasn't kind. If I hadn't a
known how fond you wuz of roses, I would a been stumped, stumped for
good. I trailed you by them roses."

The girl sensed that there was something wrong.

"Lady, farewell," said Keats.

With a little moan she saw him being led off.

"What's wrong?" I asked the intruder.

"Bugs on beauty, that's all. Thinks he's a guy named John Keats who
wrote poems. Harmless case. Wouldn't hurt a fly. I was bringing him over
to see his mother when he give me the slip. Gee, but I can breathe easy
now."

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever," declared the spirit of Keats.

"Sure, sure," said the attendant, lighting a cigar.

When I turned to leave the park the girl from Marmelstein's came up to
me.

"What happened?" she inquired. Her fists were clenched and she was
breathing heavily.

I explained.

"He was such a gentleman," she sobbed softly.




THE OTHER ROOM[20]

[Note 20: Copyright, 1919, by The McCall Company. Copyright, 1920,
by Mary Heaton O'Brien.]

BY MARY HEATON VORSE

From _McCall's Magazine_


It was after John MacFarland was Captain of Black Bar Life-Saving
Station for nearly twenty years. Every summer evening all that time I
would see him and Mis' MacFarland driving along to the station, for in
the summer the crew is off for two months and only the Captain stays
there from sundown to sunup.

I never saw her drive past without thinking how she hated to look at the
sea. She never sat where she could see salt water. She had been going
out to Black Bar all these years and never once had seen the boat-drill.
This was because she knew, on account of her husband's being a
life-saver, what the sea does to the vessels and the men in them.

When Mis' MacFarland's married daughter died and her little
granddaughter Moira came to live with her, I would see all of them, the
Captain, Mis' MacFarland and Moira, driving to the station summer
evenings, Moira's head peeping out between them like a little bird. And
I would always think how Mis' MacFarland hated the sea, and I'd be real
glad that the blowing of the sand grinds the station windows white till
you can't see through them.

Then John MacFarland died all of a sudden just at the end of the summer.
He had been building a yawl out there at the station for nearly two
years, and she was just ready to la'nch. I remember meeting him on the
boardwalk and him telling me about that boat of his, and thinking what a
fine figure of a man he was for over sixty. And next I heard he was
dead.

Then Mis' MacFarland had a spell of sickness, and that is how I came to
be housekeeper to her and Moira. And I remember how she struck me the
first day, for there she was sitting looking out over the bay watching
the boats as though the sight of them gave her pleasure. I was so
surprised I spoke right out:

"Why, Mis' MacFarland," says I, "I thought you couldn't abide the look
of salt water."

"I don't seem to feel there's the difference between land and sea I used
to," she says in her gentle, smiling way. "We learn."

I wanted to ask her how we learned what I saw she'd learned, for, if you
can understand me, _she seemed to have gotten beyond grief_, but before
I could speak Moira came running in and it seemed as if the joy in her
heart shone out of her so the place was all lighted up. Her face was
tanned so brown that her blue eyes looked strange, and against her skin
the fair hair around her forehead looked almost silver.

"Where you been," I said, "to have so much fun?"

"In the back country," says she. "I'm always happy when I come from in
back."

"Were you alone?" She stopped a minute before she answered.

"Yes--I suppose so," as if she didn't quite know. It was a funny answer
but there was a funny, secret, joyful look on her face that suddenly
made me take her in my arms and kiss her, and quite surprised to find
myself doing it.

Then she sat down and I went around getting supper; first I thought she
was reading, she was so still. Then my eyes happened to fall on her and
I saw she was _listening_; then suddenly it was like she _heard_. She
had the stillest, shiningest look. All this don't sound like much, I
know, but I won't forget how Moira and Mis' MacFarland struck me that
first day, not till I die.

When I went to bed I couldn't get 'em out of my mind and I found myself
saying out loud:

"There's joy and peace in this house!"

It was quite a time before I sensed what had happened to Mis' MacFarland
and what made her change so toward the sea. She'd sit by the window, a
Bible in her hands and praying, and you would catch the words of her
prayer, and she was praying for those she loved--for the living and the
dead. That was only natural--but what I got to understand was that _she
didn't feel any different about them_. Not a bit different did she feel
about the living and the dead!

They were all there in her heart, the dead and the living, and not
divided off at all like in most folks' minds.

I used to wonder about Moira, too, when she'd have these quiet
spells--like she was _listening_, but not to any sounds. Then next you'd
feel as if she was gladder than anything you'd ever known, sitting there
so still with that listening look on her face--only now like I told you,
as if she'd _heard_. She'd be so happy inside that you'd like to be near
her, as if there was a light in her heart so you could warm yourself by
it.

It's hard to tell just how I came to feel this. I suppose just by living
with folks you get to know all sorts of things about them. It's not the
things they say that matters. I knew a woman once, a pleasant-spoken
body, yet she'd pizen the air about her by the unspoken thoughts of her
heart. Sometimes these thoughts would burst out in awful fits of
anger--but you'd know how she was inside, if she spoke to you always as
gentle as a dove.

I'd like to be near Moira those times and yet it made me uneasy, too,
her sitting so still, listening, and Mis' MacFarland, as you might say,
always looking over the edge of eternity. It was all right for _her_ but
I'd wonder about Moira. I wondered so hard I took it up with Mis'
MacFarland.

"Do you think you're doing right by that child?" I asked her right out
plain.

"Why, how do you mean?" she says in her calm way.

"Teaching her things that's all right for us older people to know but
that don't seem to me are for young things."

"Teaching her things!" says Mis' MacFarland. "I haven't taught Moira
nothing. If you mean them still, quiet, happy spells of hers, she's
always had 'em. _She_ taught _me_. It was watching her when she was
little that taught me----"

"Taught you what?" I asked her when she wouldn't go on.

"It's hard to say it in words--taught me how near all the rest is."

I didn't get her, so I asked what she meant by "the rest."

"The rest of creation!" says she. "Some folks is born in the world
feeling and knowing it in their hearts that creation don't stop where
the sight of the eyes stop, and the thinner the veil is the better, and
something in them sickens when the veil gets too thick."

"You talk like you believed in spooks and God knows what," I says, but
more to make myself comfortable than anything else.

"You know what I mean, Jane McQuarry," says she. "There's very few
folks, especially older ones, who haven't sometimes felt the veil get
thinner and thinner until you could see the light shining through. But
we've been brought up to think such ideas are silly and to be ashamed of
'em and only to believe in what we can touch and taste and, in spite of
stars shining every night over our heads, to think creation stops with
heavy things like us. And how anyone who's ever seen a fish swimming in
the water can think that--I don't know. What do they know of us and how
can they imagine folks on legs walking around and breathing the air that
makes 'em die? So why aren't there creatures, all kind of 'em, we can no
more see than a fish can us?"

I couldn't answer that, so I went back to Moira.

"She'll get queer going on like this," I said. "Thin veils and light
shining through and creatures that feel about us like we do about fishes
are all right for old folks who've lived their lives. She's got to live
hers and live it the way ordinary folks do."

"Ain't she happy?" asked Mis' MacFarland. "Don't she like rolling a hoop
and playing with the other children? Didn't you say only yesterday her
mischief would drive you out of your senses?"

I couldn't deny this. Unless you'd seen her as I had, she was just like
any other happy little girl, only happier maybe. Like, I said, you could
see her heart shine some days, she was so happy. About that time I
found out more how she felt. One still night, for no reason, I got out
of my bed and went into Moira's room and there she was sitting up in her
bed, her eyes like starlight.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Why--I--don't know--I'm waiting for something!"

"Waiting! At this time of the night! How you talk! You lie right down,
Moira Anderson, and go to sleep," says I, sharp.

"I can't yet," she says, turning to me. "I haven't been able to find it
for two days now. I've not been good inside and I drove it away."

"For mercy's sake, speak plain! What did you drive away?"

"Why, don't you know?" says she. "You lose your good when you're unkind
or anything."

"Your _good_!" I says. "Where do you get it from?" For she spoke as
though she were talking of something that was outside herself and that
came and went.

"It comes from out there," she says, surprised that I didn't know.

"From out there?"

"Oh, out there where all the things are you can _feel_ but can't see.
There's lots of things out there."

I sat quiet, for all of a sudden I knew plain as day that she thought
she was feeling what everybody else in the world felt. She hadn't any
idea she was different.

"You know," she said, "how it is when you sit quiet, you know it's
there--something good, it floods all over you. It's like people you love
make you feel, only more. Just like something beautiful that can get
right inside your heart!"

Now this may seem queer to you, for Moira was only a little girl of
twelve, but there was a look on her face of just sheer, wonderful love,
the way you see a girl look sometimes, or a young mother. It was so
beautiful that it brought tears to my eyes. That was the last time I
worried about Moira for a long time, for, think I, anything as beautiful
as that is holy even if it ain't regular.

I told Mis' MacFarland about our talk.

"What do you think she means when she says 'her good'? Is it like
feeling God's near?" I asked. She shook her head.

"I don't believe it," she said. "It's more human than that. I think it's
someone _out there_ that Moira loves--"

"How you talk!" I said. "Someone out there! If you keep on like this
you'll be fey, as my old grandmother used to call it."

"Well," she said, "when you get to where I am, lots of things that seem
curious at first thought don't seem a mite more curious than birth or
death. Not as curious even, when you come to think about it. What's
there so curious I'd like to know, Jane McQuarry, about sensing the
feelings of somebody else off to a distance? How about your own mother,
the night your brother was lost at sea; didn't she know that and hadn't
you all mourned him dead for two months before the real word came to
you?"

I couldn't deny this, and I felt that the wind was taken out of my
sails. I suppose it was all along with that feeling of hers, with not
making a difference between those that were dead and those that were
not. All the world was mysterious, and she had a sense of the wonder of
the least blade of grass in it, so the things that were not so usual as
you might say didn't disturb her any.

"Why," says she, "sometimes I sit in a maze just to look at this room."

"Why, what ails this room?" said I.

'T was a room like many you've seen hereabouts, with a good horse-hair
sofy and the mahogany furniture nice and shiny from being varnished
every spring, and over the sofy was thrown a fur rug made in lozenges of
harp seal and some other fur and a dark fur border. It was real
pretty--it was always wonderful to me that folks like Eskimos can make
the things they do. There was some little walrus ivory carvings on the
what-not, and on the mantel a row of pink mounted shells, and the model
of her father's barkentine when he was in the China trade was on the
wall in a glass case.

There's many rooms alike here in this town, with the furniture kept so
nice and the things the men's brought back with 'em from the north and
south, as you'd expect in a seafaring town--

"What ails this room?" I said.

"Why, it's the folks who made it," says she. "So many and from so far.
The whole world's here!" She went on like that until it seemed to me the
room was full of folks--savages and Eskimos and seafaring men dead a
long while ago, all of 'em. It was wonderful if you looked at it that
way.

"So," she said, jumping out on me sudden, "what's there strange about
Moira feeling like she does when there's rooms like this? It's less
common, but it's no more wonderful."

I saw what she meant, though at the time her explanation of Moira seemed
just nonsense to me. Though I'll say I could tell myself when Moira lost
what she called "her good." She'd be like a lost child; she'd be like a
plant without water and without sun.

Except for that she grew up just like any other girl, a favorite with
the children, and a lovely dancer. Only there it was--she had something
that other children didn't. It came and went, and when it went away she
would grow dim like a smoky lamp. I got so used to it that it just
seemed to me like a part of Moira. Nothing that marked her off from
nobody, or that gave you anything like a queer and creepy feeling about
her. Quite the contrary. She just seemed to have an abiding loveliness
about her that everybody else ought to have but didn't, not so much.

When Kenneth Everett came along, "Well," thinks I, "I might have saved
myself the worry." For worry I always had for fear that this other
feeling of hers would cut her off from the regular things in life. It
would have been all very well in another time in the world when a girl
could go off and be a saint, but there was no such place for a girl to
go in a town like ours.

There was no one but Moira for Kenneth from the first. He was as dark as
she was fair; sunlight and starshine they seemed to me. It used to make
me happy just to see him come storming in calling out, "Moira!" from the
time he passed the Rose of Sharon bush at the gate.

Things in those days seemed right to me. Maybe I didn't see far enough;
maybe I wanted too much for her--all the things it seems to me a woman
in this life ought to have--and that I hadn't understood what made
Moira the way she was. No wonder he loved her. I wish I could make you
feel the way Moira looked. You had to feel it in your heart some way.
She was fair and her face was tanned with the wind to a lovely golden
color and her cheeks were smooth like ripe fruit and her eyes were blue
and steady, so dark sometimes they seemed black--seeing eyes, that
looked beyond what Mis' MacFarland called "the veil of things." She
always seemed to me as if the spirit of the sea and the dunes between
them was more her father and mother than anything else. That's a
fanciful idea, but she gave you thoughts like that. She was the kind
that makes even plain bodies like me fanciful.

There was days when she looked to me like something out of a lovely
dream--if you can imagine a girl that's been dreamed by the sea and the
dunes come true.

I can't quite tell when I first sensed what Kenneth felt about the times
Moira was _away_, for as she went to the back country--you know how wild
and secret that back country behind the town is--so there was what you
might call the back country of the spirit she used to go to. I guess I
found out how he felt one afternoon when he was waiting for her to come
back from the dunes. She flew in as if she was helped by wings and she
was _listening_--I'd got so used to it by now, it was so part of her,
that I forgot how it might strike lots of folks.

He jumped toward her. "Oh, I've been waiting such a time, Moira! I'm so
glad you're back!"

I knew he'd seen she was "away" and he was putting himself between her
and whatever it was. For a moment she stood looking at him puzzled, as
if it had taken her a minute to come back, and then she was as glad to
see him as he was her.

"Well," thinks I, "when she gets married all her odd ways will go."

I took to watching them, and then and again I'd see him, as you might
say, bring her back to real earth from the shining spot to which her
thoughts went. Then sometimes after he'd go she'd be restless like she
was when she was little when she'd lost "her good."

I could tell Mis' MacFarland was watching her, too, as she'd sit there
praying like she did so much of the time, though it often seemed to me
that her prayers wasn't so much prayers as a kind of getting near to
those she loved.

I was sure then, as I ever was of anything, that Moira loved Kenneth. At
the sound of his voice, light would come to her eyes and color to her
face and her hand would fly to her breast as if there wasn't enough air
in the world for her to breathe. Yet there was something else, too. She
was always sort of escaping from him and then coming back to him like a
half-tamed bird, and all the time he came nearer and nearer to her
heart. All the time he had more of her thoughts. He fought for them.

He loved her. It seemed he understood her. He sensed all that was in her
heart, the way one does with those we love. He'd look at her sometimes
with such anxious eyes as if he was afraid for her, as if he wanted to
save her from something. I couldn't blame him. I'd felt that way myself,
but I'd gotten used to her ways.

Now I saw all over again that there was strange thoughts in her
heart--thoughts that don't rightly belong in the kind of world we live
in now.

It seems queer to you, I suppose, and kind of crazy, but I couldn't
someway see what would become of Moira without "her good." If you'd
lived with her the way I did all those years you'd have seen something
beautiful reflected in her like the reflection of a star in a little
pool at evening, only I couldn't see the star myself, just the
reflection of it, but she saw the star.

I couldn't blame Kenneth; he wanted for her all the things I'd wanted
for her always--and I couldn't bring myself to feel that the reflection
of a star was better than the warm light of the fire from the hearth,
but it was the star that had made her so lovely.

All this time Mis' MacFarland talked liked nothing was going on and all
the time I knew she was watchin'. I'd try and sound her and she'd manage
not to answer.

There came a time when I couldn't hold in. Moira'd been out all day on
the dunes and toward night the fog had swept over us.

She came back out of the fog with a look on her face like a lost soul. I
knew what had happened--I knew what was wrong--yet I couldn't help
crying out:

"What's the matter?"

She just looked at me the way animals do when they suffer and can't
understand. Her mouth was white and her eyes were dark, as if she was in
pain, and when Kenneth came she ran to him as if she would have thrown
herself in his arms to hide. They went out on the porch and that was
when I could hold in no longer.

"What do you think about it?" I asked Mis' MacFarland right plain out.

"About what?" she asked.

I looked to where they was sitting. 'T was a wet night; the windows and
trees seemed like they was crying. The great drops that fell from them,
plop--plop, was like tears. There was a rainbow around the street light
that made it look like the moon had dropped down close. Mis' MacFarland
looked at them and she just shut her mouth and she shook her head and I
could tell she wasn't pleased. Then says she:

"Look!"

The light fell on Moira's face and she was seeing out into the night and
I knew she was _out there_. Kenneth spoke and she answered and yet she
wasn't with him.

He got up and walked up and down. He spoke again, and again she
answered, but Moira's voice answered without Moira. Her face was shining
like silver.

_She'd heard_--she'd found it again.

Then he stood in front of her and said in a strange sort of a voice:

"Moira, what are you doing?"

"Dreaming," she said.

"What are you dreaming about?"

"I don't know--"

"It's not about me, it's nothing about me. Moira, look at me!"

I tell you his tone made my heart bleed. She didn't answer, but looked
out into the fog in that absorbed, happy way of hers.

"Moira," he said again, "Moira!" He couldn't get her; he couldn't reach
her, any more than if she'd stepped into another world. He put his hands
on her shoulders and turned her to him.

"Moira!" he said; his voice was husky with fear. "What do you find out
there?" She turned to him as in a dream. She looked at him and she
looked like some spirit when she spoke.

"I find the one I love!" she said.

"What do you mean?" he said. "What do you mean?"

"The one I love," she said again.

"Do you mean there's someone you love better than you do me?"

She nodded, with that flooding look of wonder on her face.

"I didn't know," she said next. "I didn't know--not--until now--all
about it."

"All about it?" he cried.

"Yes, the meaning of what I felt--that it's someone as real as you, as
real as me--that I love someone out there--someone I can't see."

"Moira!" His voice sent shivers down my back. "You're crazy--you're
mad--you mean--you mean--you love someone you've never met--someone you
_can't see_?" She nodded.

"I've loved him always," she said. "All my life I've known him for ever
and ever--I know him more than anything in the world--from the time I
could think he has lived in my heart--I didn't know him until now--I
only suffered when he wasn't there, and went wandering and searching for
him--and you've kept me from him--for I didn't know--"

"Moira," he called to her in his pain, "don't think these things--don't
feel these things--"

But she only looked at him kindly and as if she were a long way off.

"I love him," she said, "better than life."

He stared at her then, and I saw what was in his mind. He thought she
was crazy--stark, staring crazy. Next he said, "Good night, Moira--my
darling, Moira." And he stumbled out into the fog like a man that's been
struck blind.

But I knew she wasn't crazy. Maybe 't was living with Mis' MacFarland
made me believe things like that. Maybe 't was Moira herself. But I
didn't feel she was any more crazy than I do when I've heard folks
recite, "I know that my Redeemer liveth."

But this isn't the end--this isn't the strangest part! Listen to what
happened next.

There was a storm after the fog and strange vessels came into the
port--and Moira came to Mis' MacFarland and her eyes were starry and
says she:

"I'm going to get 'em to put me aboard that vessel," and she points to a
bark which is a rare thing to see nowadays in these waters.

"He's out there," says she.

I didn't doubt her--I didn't doubt her any more than if she'd said the
sun was shining when my own eyes were blinded by the light of it.

"Go, then," says Mis' MacFarland.

I tell you Moira was dragged out of that house as by a magnet. The sky
had cleared and lay far off and cold, and the wrack of the broken clouds
was burning itself up in the west when I saw a dory cast off from the
vessel.

It was a queer procession came up our path, some foreign-looking
sailors, and they carried a man on a sort of stretcher, and Moira walked
alongside of him. I saw three things about him the same way you see a
whole country in a flash of lightning.

One was that he was the strangest, the most beautiful man I had ever
looked on, and I saw that he was dying.

Then in the next breath I knew he belonged to Moira more than anyone on
earth ever had or would. Then all of a sudden it was as if a hand caught
hold of my heart and squeezed the blood from it like water out of a
sponge, for all at the same time I saw that they hadn't been born at the
right time for each other and that they had only a moment to look into
each other's faces--before the darkness of death could swallow him.

I couldn't bear it. I wanted to cry out to God that this miracle had
come to pass only to be wiped out like a mark in the sand. He was as
different from anyone I'd ever seen as Moira was. How can I say to you
what I saw and felt. I knew that he belonged to Moira and Moira belonged
to him. If I'd have met him at the ends of the earth I'd have known
that they belonged together. We all dream about things like this when
we're young--about there being a perfect love for us somewhere on
earth--but there isn't, because we're not good enough.

The perfect flower can't bloom in most gardens. What these two had was
love beyond love--the thing that poor, blundering mankind's been working
for and straining toward all down the ages.

Love was what they had, not dimmed and tarnished, not the little flicker
that comes for a moment and is gone, like in most of our lives, but the
pure fire. The love that mankind tries to find in God--the final wonder.
Some of us, at most, have a day or hour--a vision that's as far off and
dim as northern lights.

Mis' MacFarland and me looked at each other and, without saying
anything, we walked from the room. I saw tears streaming down her face
and then I realized that I couldn't see for my own, I was crying the way
you may do twice in your life, if you're lucky, because you've seen
something so beautiful, poor, weak human nature can't bear it.

After a long time Mis' MacFarland spoke.

"It has to happen on earth, once in a while," she said, "the heart's
desire to millions and millions of people living and dead--the dream of
all who know the meaning of love. Sometimes it must come true."

That's how it made me feel, and I've always wanted to be a witness to
what I saw--but there aren't many to whom you dare to tell it.

After a time we went back and he was lying there, his face shining like
Moira's had when she'd found him in the dark spaces where she'd had to
search for him. His hair was like dark silver, and his eyes were young
like Moira's and blue as the sea at dawn. Wisdom was what was in his
face, and love--and he lay there, quiet, holding Moira's hand in his.

But even as I looked a change came over him and I saw the end wasn't far
away, and Moira saw it and clung fast to him.

"Take me with you," she said. "I have found you and can't leave you.
I've looked for you so often and I couldn't find you. We lost each
other so many times and the road together was so blind."

"It's all the same," he said, "she knows." He nodded to Mis' MacFarland.
"It's all the same."

Mis' MacFarland motioned to me and I came to her and I was trembling
like a leaf.

"It's only walking into another room," she said.

Moira sat beside him, his hand in hers, pleading with her eyes. He
turned to Mis' MacFarland--"You make her understand," he said, "we all
have to wait our turn. You make her understand that we're all the same."

And we knew that he was talking about life and death. And then, as I
watched, I saw the life of him was ebbing out and saw that Moira knew
it. And then he was gone, just like the slow turning out of a light.

Moira turned to Mis' MacFarland and looked at her, and then I saw she'd
gotten to the other side of grief, to where Mis' MacFarland was--to the
place where there wasn't any death.




"THE FAT OF THE LAND"[21]

[Note 21: Copyright, 1919, by The Century Company. Copyright, 1920,
by Anzia Yezierska.]

BY ANZIA YEZIERSKA

From _The Century_


In an air-shaft so narrow that you could touch the next wall with your
bare hands, Hanneh Breineh leaned out and knocked on her neighbor's
window.

"Can you loan me your wash-boiler for the clothes?" she called.

Mrs. Pelz threw up the sash.

"The boiler? What's the matter with yours again? Didn't you tell me you
had it fixed already last week?"

"A black year on him, the robber, the way he fixed it! If you have no
luck in this world, then it's better not to live. There I spent out
fifteen cents to stop up one hole, and it runs out another. How I ate
out my gall bargaining with him he should let it down to fifteen cents!
He wanted yet a quarter, the swindler. _Gottuniu!_ my bitter heart on
him for every penny he took from me for nothing!"

"You got to watch all those swindlers, or they'll steal the whites out
of your eyes," admonished Mrs. Pelz. "You should have tried out your
boiler before you paid him. Wait a minute till I empty out my dirty
clothes in a pillow-case; then I'll hand it to you."

Mrs. Pelz returned with the boiler and tried to hand it across to Hanneh
Breineh, but the soap-box refrigerator on the window-sill was in the
way.

"You got to come in for the boiler yourself," said Mrs. Pelz.

"Wait only till I tie my Sammy on to the high-chair he shouldn't fall on
me again. He's so wild that ropes won't hold him."

Hanneh Breineh tied the child in the chair, stuck a pacifier in his
mouth, and went in to her neighbor. As she took the boiler Mrs. Pelz
said:

"Do you know Mrs. Melker ordered fifty pounds of chicken for her
daughter's wedding? And such grand chickens! Shining like gold! My heart
melted in me just looking at the flowing fatness of those chickens."

Hanneh Breineh smacked her thin, dry lips, a hungry gleam in her sunken
eyes.

"Fifty pounds!" she gasped. "It ain't possible. How do you know?"

"I heard her with my own ears. I saw them with my own eyes. And she said
she will chop up the chicken livers with onions and eggs for an
appetizer, and then she will buy twenty-five pounds of fish, and cook it
sweet and sour with raisins, and she said she will bake all her strudels
on pure chicken fat."

"Some people work themselves up in the world," sighed Hanneh Breineh.
"For them is America flowing with milk and honey. In Savel Mrs. Melker
used to get shriveled up from hunger. She and her children used to live
on potato peelings and crusts of dry bread picked out from the barrels;
and in America she lives to eat chicken, and apple strudels soaking in
fat."

"The world is a wheel always turning," philosophized Mrs. Pelz. "Those
who were high go down low, and those who've been low go up higher. Who
will believe me here in America that in Poland I was a cook in a
banker's house? I handled ducks and geese every day. I used to bake
coffee-cake with cream so thick you could cut it with a knife."

"And do you think I was a nobody in Poland?" broke in Hanneh Breineh,
tears welling in her eyes as the memories of her past rushed over her.
"But what's the use of talking? In America money is everything. Who
cares who my father or grandfather was in Poland? Without money I'm a
living dead one. My head dries out worrying how to get for the children
the eating a penny cheaper."

Mrs. Pelz wagged her head, a gnawing envy contracting her features.

"Mrs. Melker had it good from the day she came," she said begrudgingly.
"Right away she sent all her children to the factory, and she began to
cook meat for dinner every day. She and her children have eggs and
buttered rolls for breakfast each morning like millionaires."

A sudden fall and a baby's scream, and the boiler dropped from Hanneh
Breineh's hands as she rushed into her kitchen, Mrs. Pelz after her.
They found the high-chair turned on top of the baby.

"_Gevalt!_ Save me! Run for a doctor!" cried Hanneh Breineh as she
dragged the child from under the high-chair. "He's killed! He's killed!
My only child! My precious lamb!" she shrieked as she ran back and forth
with the screaming infant.

Mrs. Pelz snatched little Sammy from the mother's hands.

"_Meshugneh!_ what are you running around like a crazy, frightening the
child? Let me see. Let me tend to him. He ain't killed yet." She
hastened to the sink to wash the child's face, and discovered a swelling
lump on his forehead. "Have you a quarter in your house?" she asked.

"Yes, I got one," replied Hanneh Breineh, climbing on a chair. "I got to
keep it on a high shelf where the children can't get it."

Mrs. Pelz seized the quarter Hanneh Breineh handed down to her.

"Now pull your left eyelid three times while I'm pressing the quarter,
and you will see the swelling go down."

Hanneh Breineh took the child again in her arms, shaking and cooing over
it and caressing it.

"Ah-ah-ah, Sammy! Ah-ah-ah-ah, little lamb! Ah-ah-ah, little bird!
Ah-ah-ah-ah, precious heart! Oh, you saved my life; I thought he was
killed," gasped Hanneh Breineh, turning to Mrs. Pelz. "_Oi-i!_" she
sighed, "a mother's heart! always in fear over her children. The minute
anything happens to them all life goes out of me. I lose my head and I
don't know where I am any more."

"No wonder the child fell," admonished Mrs. Pelz. "You should have a red
ribbon or red beads on his neck to keep away the evil eye. Wait. I got
something in my machine-drawer."

Mrs. Pelz returned, bringing the boiler and a red string, which she tied
about the child's neck while the mother proceeded to fill the boiler.

A little later Hanneh Breineh again came into Mrs. Pelz's kitchen,
holding Sammy in one arm and in the other an apron full of potatoes.
Putting the child down on the floor, she seated herself on the unmade
kitchen-bed and began to peel the potatoes in her apron.

"Woe to me!" sobbed Hanneh Breineh. "To my bitter luck there ain't no
end. With all my other troubles, the stove got broke'. I lighted the
fire to boil the clothes, and it's to get choked with smoke. I paid rent
only a week ago, and the agent don't want to fix it. A thunder should
strike him! He only comes for the rent, and if anything has to be fixed,
then he don't want to hear nothing."

"Why comes it to me so hard?" went on Hanneh Breineh, the tears
streaming down her cheeks. "I can't stand it no more. I came into you
for a minute to run away from my troubles. It's only when I sit myself
down to peel potatoes or nurse the baby that I take time to draw a
breath, and beg only for death."

Mrs. Pelz, accustomed to Hanneh Breineh's bitter outbursts, continued
her scrubbing.

"_Ut_!" exclaimed Hanneh Breineh, irritated at her neighbor's silence,
"what are you tearing up the world with your cleaning? What's the use to
clean up when everything only gets dirty again?"

"I got to shine up my house for the holidays."

"You've got it so good nothing lays on your mind but to clean your
house. Look on this little blood-sucker," said Hanneh Breineh, pointing
to the wizened child, made prematurely solemn from starvation and
neglect. "Could anybody keep that brat clean? I wash him one minute, and
he is dirty the minute after." Little Sammy grew frightened and began to
cry. "Shut up!" ordered the mother, picking up the child to nurse it
again. "Can't you see me take a rest for a minute?"

The hungry child began to cry at the top of its weakened lungs.

_"Na, na_, you glutton." Hanneh Breineh took out a dirty pacifier from
her pocket and stuffed it into the baby's mouth. The grave, pasty-faced
infant shrank into a panic of fear, and chewed the nipple nervously,
clinging to it with both his thin little hands.

"For what did I need yet the sixth one?" groaned Hanneh Breineh, turning
to Mrs. Pelz. "Wasn't it enough five mouths to feed? If I didn't have
this child on my neck, I could turn myself around and earn a few cents."
She wrung her hands in a passion of despair. "_Gottuniu!_ the earth
should only take it before it grows up!"

"Pshaw! Pshaw!" reproved Mrs. Pelz. "Pity yourself on the child. Let it
grow up already so long as it is here. See how frightened it looks on
you." Mrs. Pelz took the child in her arms and petted it. "The poor
little lamb! What did it done you should hate it so?"

Hanneh Breineh pushed Mrs. Pelz away from her.

"To whom can I open the wounds of my heart?" she moaned. "Nobody has
pity on me. You don't believe me, nobody believes me until I'll fall
down like a horse in the middle of the street. _Oi weh!_ mine life is so
black for my eyes. Some mothers got luck. A child gets run over by a
car, some fall from a window, some burn themselves up with a match, some
get choked with diphtheria; but no death takes mine away."

"God from the world! stop cursing!" admonished Mrs. Pelz. "What do you
want from the poor children? Is it their fault that their father makes
small wages? Why do you let it all out on them?" Mrs. Pelz sat down
beside Hanneh Breineh. "Wait only till your children get old enough to
go to the shop and earn money," she consoled. "Push only through those
few years while they are yet small; your sun will begin to shine, you
will live on the fat of the land, when they begin to bring you in the
wages each week."

Hanneh Breineh refused to be comforted.

"Till they are old enough to go to the shop and earn money they'll eat
the head off my bones," she wailed. "If you only knew the fights I got
by each meal. Maybe I gave Abe a bigger piece of bread than Fanny. Maybe
Fanny got a little more soup in her plate than Jake. Eating is dearer
than diamonds. Potatoes went up a cent on a pound, and milk is only for
millionaires. And once a week, when I buy a little meat for the Sabbath,
the butcher weighs it for me like gold, with all the bones in it. When I
come to lay the meat out on a plate and divide it up, there ain't
nothing to it but bones. Before, he used to throw me in a piece of fat
extra or a piece of lung, but now you got to pay for everything, even
for a bone to the soup."

"Never mind; you'll yet come out from all your troubles. Just as soon as
your children get old enough to get their working papers the more
children you got, the more money you'll have."

"Why should I fool myself with the false shine of hope? Don't I know
it's already my black luck not to have it good in this world? Do you
think American children will right away give everything they earn to
their mother?"

"I know what is with you the matter," said Mrs. Pelz. "You didn't eat
yet to-day. When it is empty in the stomach, the whole world looks
black. Come, only let me give you something good to taste in the mouth;
that will freshen you up." Mrs. Pelz went to the cupboard and brought
out the saucepan of _gefülte_ fish that she had cooked for dinner and
placed it on the table in front of Hanneh Breineh. "Give a taste my
fish," she said, taking one slice on a spoon, and handing it to Hanneh
Breineh with a piece of bread. "I wouldn't give it to you on a plate
because I just cleaned out my house, and I don't want to dirty up my
dishes."

"What, am I a stranger you should have to serve me on a plate yet!"
cried Hanneh Breineh, snatching the fish in her trembling fingers.

"_Oi weh!_ how it melts through all the bones!" she exclaimed,
brightening as she ate. "May it be for good luck to us all!" she
exulted, waving aloft the last precious bite.

Mrs. Pelz was so flattered that she even ladled up a spoonful of gravy.

"There is a bit of onion and carrot in it," she said as she handed it to
her neighbor.

Hanneh Breineh sipped the gravy drop by drop, like a connoisseur sipping
wine.

"Ah-h-h! a taste of that gravy lifts me up to heaven!" As she disposed
leisurely of the slice of onion and carrot she relaxed and expanded and
even grew jovial. "Let us wish all our troubles on the Russian Czar! Let
him bust with our worries for rent! Let him get shriveled with our
hunger for bread! Let his eyes dry out of his head looking for work!"

"Pshaw! I'm forgetting from everything," she exclaimed, jumping up. "It
must be eleven or soon twelve, and my children will be right away out of
school and fall on me like a pack of wild wolves. I better quick run to
the market and see what cheaper I can get for a quarter."

Because of the lateness of her coming, the stale bread at the nearest
bake-shop was sold out, and Hanneh Breineh had to trudge from shop to
shop in search of the usual bargain, and spent nearly an hour to save
two cents.

In the meantime the children returned from school, and, finding the door
locked, climbed through the fire-escape, and entered the house through
the window. Seeing nothing on the table, they rushed to the stove. Abe
pulled a steaming potato out of the boiling pot, and so scalded his
fingers that the potato fell to the floor; whereupon the three others
pounced on it.

"It was my potato," cried Abe, blowing his burned fingers, while with
the other hand and his foot he cuffed and kicked the three who were
struggling on the floor. A wild fight ensued, and the potato was smashed
under Abe's foot amid shouts and screams. Hanneh Breineh, on the stairs,
heard the noise of her famished brood, and topped their cries with
curses and invectives.

"They are here already, the savages! They are here already to shorten my
life! They heard you all over the hall, in all the houses around!"

The children, disregarding her words, pounced on her market-basket,
shouting ravenously: "Mama, I'm hungry! What more do you got to eat?"

They tore the bread and herring out of Hanneh Breineh's basket and
devoured it in starved savagery, clamoring for more.

"Murderers!" screamed Hanneh Breineh, goaded beyond endurance. "What are
you tearing from me my flesh? From where should I steal to give you
more? Here I had already a pot of potatoes and a whole loaf of bread and
two herrings, and you swallowed it down in the wink of an eye. I have to
have Rockefeller's millions to fill your stomachs."

All at once Hanneh Breineh became aware that Benny was missing. "_Oi
weh!_" she burst out, wringing her hands in a new wave of woe, "where is
Benny? Didn't he come home yet from school?"

She ran out into the hall, opened the grime-coated window, and looked up
and down the street; but Benny was nowhere in sight.

"Abe, Jake, Fanny, quick, find Benny!" entreated Hanneh Breineh as she
rushed back into the kitchen. But the children, anxious to snatch a few
minutes' play before the school-call, dodged past her and hurried out.

With the baby on her arm, Hanneh Breineh hastened to the kindergarten.

"Why are you keeping Benny here so long?" she shouted at the teacher as
she flung open the door. "If you had my bitter heart, you would send him
home long ago and not wait till I got to come for him."

The teacher turned calmly and consulted her record-cards.

"Benny Safron? He wasn't present this morning."

"Not here?" shrieked Hanneh Breineh. "I pushed him out myself he should
go. The children didn't want to take him, and I had no time. Woe is me!
Where is my child?" She began pulling her hair and beating her breast as
she ran into the street.

Mrs. Pelz was busy at a push-cart, picking over some spotted apples,
when she heard the clamor of an approaching crowd. A block off she
recognized Hanneh Breineh, her hair disheveled, her clothes awry,
running toward her with her yelling baby in her arms, the crowd
following.

"Friend mine," cried Hanneh Breineh, falling on Mrs. Pelz's neck, "I
lost my Benny, the best child of all my children." Tears streamed down
her red, swollen eyes as she sobbed. "Benny! mine heart, mine life!
_Oi-i!_"

Mrs. Pelz took the frightened baby out of the mother's arms.

"Still yourself a little! See how you're frightening your child."

"Woe to me! Where is my Benny? Maybe he's killed already by a car. Maybe
he fainted away from hunger. He didn't eat nothing all day long.
_Gottuniu!_ pity yourself on me!"

She lifted her hands full of tragic entreaty.

"People, my child! Get me my child! I'll go crazy out of my head! Get me
my child, or I'll take poison before your eyes!"

"Still yourself a little!" pleaded Mrs. Pelz.

"Talk not to me!" cried Hanneh Breineh, wringing her hands. "You're
having all your children. I lost mine. Every good luck comes to other
people. But I didn't live yet to see a good day in my life. Mine only
joy, mine Benny, is lost away from me."

The crowd followed Hanneh Breineh as she wailed through the streets,
leaning on Mrs. Pelz. By the time she returned to her house the children
were back from school; but seeing that Benny was not there, she chased
them out in the street, crying:

"Out of here, you robbers, gluttons! Go find Benny!" Hanneh Breineh
crumpled into a chair in utter prostration. "_Oi weh!_ he's lost! Mine
life; my little bird; mine only joy! How many nights I spent nursing him
when he had the measles! And all that I suffered for weeks and months
when he had the whooping-cough! How the eyes went out of my head till I
learned him how to walk, till I learned him how to talk! And such a
smart child! If I lost all the others, it wouldn't tear me so by the
heart."

She worked herself up into such a hysteria, crying, and tearing her
hair, and hitting her head with her knuckles, that at last she fell into
a faint. It took some time before Mrs. Pelz, with the aid of neighbors,
revived her.

"Benny, mine angel!" she moaned as she opened her eyes.

Just then a policeman came in with the lost Benny.

"_Na, na_, here you got him already!" said Mrs. Pelz "Why did you carry
on so for nothing? Why did you tear up the world like a crazy?"

The child's face was streaked with tears as he cowered, frightened and
forlorn. Hanneh Breineh sprang toward him, slapping his cheeks, boxing
his ears, before the neighbors could rescue him from her.

"Woe on your head!" cried the mother. "Where did you lost yourself?
Ain't I got enough worries on my head than to go around looking for you?
I didn't have yet a minute's peace from that child since he was born."

"See a crazy mother!" remonstrated Mrs. Pelz, rescuing Benny from
another beating. "Such a mouth! With one breath she blesses him when he
is lost, and with the other breath she curses him when he is found."

Hanneh Breineh took from the window-sill a piece of herring covered with
swarming flies, and putting it on a slice of dry bread, she filled a cup
of tea that had been stewing all day, and dragged Benny over to the
table to eat.

But the child, choking with tears, was unable to touch the food.

"Go eat!" commanded Hanneh Breineh. "Eat and choke yourself eating!"

* * *

"Maybe she won't remember me no more. Maybe the servant won't let me
in," thought Mrs. Pelz as she walked by the brownstone house on
Eighty-fourth Street where she had been told Hanneh Breineh now lived.
At last she summoned up enough courage to climb the steps. She was all
out of breath as she rang the bell with trembling fingers. "_Oi weh!_
even the outside smells riches and plenty! Such curtains! And shades on
all windows like by millionaires! Twenty years ago she used to eat from
the pot to the hand, and now she lives in such a palace."

A whiff of steam-heated warmth swept over Mrs. Pelz as the door opened,
and she saw her old friend of the tenements dressed in silk and diamonds
like a being from another world.

"Mrs. Pelz, is it you!" cried Hanneh Breineh, overjoyed at the sight of
her former neighbor. "Come right in. Since when are you back in New
York?"

"We came last week," mumbled Mrs. Pelz as she was led into a richly
carpeted reception-room.

"Make yourself comfortable. Take off your shawl," urged Hanneh Breineh.

But Mrs. Pelz only drew her shawl more tightly around her, a keen sense
of her poverty gripping her as she gazed, abashed by the luxurious
wealth that shone from every corner.

"This shawl covers up my rags," she said, trying to hide her shabby
sweater.

"I'll tell you what; come right into the kitchen," suggested Hanneh
Breineh. "The servant is away for this afternoon, and we can feel more
comfortable there. I can breathe like a free person in my kitchen when
the girl has her day out."

Mrs. Pelz glanced about her in an excited daze. Never in her life had
she seen anything so wonderful as a white tiled kitchen, with its
glistening porcelain sink and the aluminum pots and pans that shone like
silver.

"Where are you staying now?" asked Hanneh Breineh as she pinned an apron
over her silk dress.

"I moved back to Delancey Street, where we used to live," replied Mrs.
Pelz as she seated herself cautiously in a white enameled chair.

"_Oi weh!_ what grand times we had in that old house when we were
neighbors!" sighed Hanneh Breineh, looking at her old friend with misty
eyes.

"You still think on Delancey Street? Haven't you more high-class
neighbors up-town here?"

"A good neighbor is not to be found every day," deplored Hanneh Breineh.
"Up-town here, where each lives in his own house, nobody cares if the
person next door is dying or going crazy from loneliness. It ain't
anything like we used to have it in Delancey Street, when we could walk
into one another's rooms without knocking, and borrow a pinch of salt or
a pot to cook in."

Hanneh Breineh went over to the pantry-shelf.

"We are going to have a bite right here on the kitchen-table like on
Delancey Street. So long there's no servant to watch us we can eat what
we please."

"_Oi!_ how it waters my mouth with appetite, the smell of the herring
and onion!" chuckled Mrs. Pelz, sniffing the welcome odors with greedy
pleasure.

Hanneh Breineh pulled a dish-towel from the rack and threw one end of it
to Mrs. Pelz.

"So long there's no servant around, we can use it together for a napkin.
It's dirty, anyhow. How it freshens up my heart to see you!" she
rejoiced as she poured out her tea into a saucer. "If you would only
know how I used to beg my daughter to write for me a letter to you; but
these American children, what is to them a mother's feelings?"

"What are you talking!" cried Mrs. Pelz. "The whole world rings with you
and your children. Everybody is envying you. Tell me how began your
luck?"

"You heard how my husband died with consumption," replied Hanneh
Breineh. "The five-hundred-dollars lodge money gave me the first lift in
life, and I opened a little grocery store. Then my son Abe married
himself to a girl with a thousand dollars. That started him in business,
and now he has the biggest shirt-waist factory on West Twenty-ninth
Street."

"Yes, I heard your son had a factory." Mrs. Pelz hesitated and
stammered; "I'll tell you the truth. What I came to ask you--I thought
maybe you would beg your son Abe if he would give my husband a job."

"Why not?" said Hanneh Breineh. "He keeps more than five hundred hands.
I'll ask him he should take in Mr. Pelz."

"Long years on you, Hanneh Breineh! You'll save my life if you could
only help my husband get work."

"Of course my son will help him. All my children like to do good. My
daughter Fanny is a milliner on Fifth Avenue, and she takes in the
poorest girls in her shop and even pays them sometimes while they learn
the trade." Hanneh Breineh's face lit up, and her chest filled with
pride as she enumerated the successes of her children.

"And my son Benny he wrote a play on Broadway and he gave away more than
a hundred free tickets for the first night."

"Benny? The one who used to get lost from home all the time? You always
did love that child more than all the rest. And what is Sammy your baby
doing?"

"He ain't a baby no longer. He goes to college and quarterbacks the
football team. They can't get along without him.

"And my son Jake, I nearly forgot him. He began collecting rent in
Delancey Street, and now he is boss of renting the swellest
apartment-houses on Riverside Drive."

"What did I tell you? In America children are like money in the bank,"
purred Mrs. Pelz as she pinched and patted Hanneh Breineh's silk sleeve.
"_Oi weh!_ how it shines from you! You ought to kiss the air and dance
for joy and happiness. It is such a bitter frost outside; a pail of coal
is so dear, and you got it so warm with steam-heat. I had to pawn my
feather-bed to have enough for the rent, and you are rolling in money."

"Yes, I got it good in some ways, but money ain't everything," sighed
Hanneh Breineh.

"You ain't yet satisfied?"

"But here I got no friends," complained Hanneh Breineh.

"Friends?" queried Mrs. Pelz. "What greater friend is there on earth
than the dollar?"

"_Oi!_ Mrs. Pelz; if you could only look into my heart! I'm so choked
up! You know they say, a cow has a long tongue, but can't talk." Hanneh
Breineh shook her head wistfully, and her eyes filmed with inward
brooding. "My children give me everything from the best. When I was
sick, they got me a nurse by day and one by night. They bought me the
best wine. If I asked for dove's milk, they would buy it for me;
but--but--I can't talk myself out in their language. They want to make
me over for an American lady, and I'm different." Tears cut their way
under her eyelids with a pricking pain as she went on: "When I was poor,
I was free, and could holler and do what I like in my own house. Here I
got to lie still like a mouse under a broom. Between living up to my
Fifth Avenue daughter and keeping up with the servants I am like a
sinner in the next world that is thrown from one hell to another."

The door-bell rang, and Hanneh Breineh jumped up with a start.

"_Oi weh!_ it must be the servant back already!" she exclaimed as she
tore off her apron. "_Oi weh!_ let's quickly put the dishes together in
a dish-pan. If she sees I eat on the kitchen table, she will look on me
like the dirt under her feet."

Mrs. Pelz seized her shawl in haste.

"I better run home quick in my rags before your servant sees me."

"I'll speak to Abe about the job," said Hanneh Breineh as she pushed a
bill into the hand of Mrs. Pelz, who edged out as the servant entered.

* * *

"I'm having fried potato _lotkes_ special for you, Benny," said Hanneh
Breineh as the children gathered about the table for the family dinner
given in honor of Benny's success with his new play. "Do you remember
how you used to lick the fingers from them?"

"O Mother!" reproved Fanny. "Anyone hearing you would think we were
still in the push-cart district."

"Stop your nagging, Sis, and let ma alone," commanded Benny, patting his
mother's arm affectionately. "I'm home only once a month. Let her feed
me what she pleases. My stomach is bomb-proof."

"Do I hear that the President is coming to your play?" said Abe as he
stuffed a napkin over his diamond-studded shirt-front.

"Why shouldn't he come?" returned Benny. "The critics say it's the
greatest antidote for the race hatred created by the war. If you want to
know, he is coming to-night; and what's more, our box is next to the
President's."

"_Nu_, Mammeh," sallied Jake, "did you ever dream in Delancey Street
that we should rub sleeves with the President?"

"I always said that Benny had more head than the rest of you," replied
the mother.

As the laughter died away, Jake went on:

"Honor you are getting plenty; but how much _mezummen_ does this play
bring you? Can I invest any of it in real estate for you?"

"I'm getting ten per cent. royalties of the gross receipts," replied the
youthful playwright.

"How much is that?" queried Hanneh Breineh.

"Enough to buy up all your fish markets in Delancey Street," laughed Abe
in good-natured raillery at his mother.

Her son's jest cut like a knife-thrust in her heart. She felt her heart
ache with the pain that she was shut out from their successes. Each
added triumph only widened the gulf. And when she tried to bridge this
gulf by asking questions, they only thrust her back upon herself.

"Your fame has even helped me get my hat trade solid with the Four
Hundred," put in Fanny. "You bet I let Mrs. Van Suyden know that our box
is next to the President's. She said she would drop in to meet you. Of
course she let on to me that she hadn't seen the play yet, though my
designer said she saw her there on the opening night."

"Oh, Gosh! the toadies!" sneered Benny. "Nothing so sickens you with
success as the way people who once shoved you off the sidewalk come
crawling to you on their stomachs begging you to dine with them."

"Say, that leading man of yours he's some class," cried Fanny. "That's
the man I'm looking for. Will you invite him to supper after the
theater?"

The playwright turned to his mother.

"Say, Ma," he said laughingly, "how would you like a real actor for a
son-in-law?"

"She should worry," mocked Sam. "She'll be discussing with him the
future of the Greek drama. Too bad it doesn't happen to be Warfield, or
mother could give him tips on the 'Auctioneer.'"

Jake turned to his mother with a covert grin.

"I guess you'd have no objection if Fanny got next to Benny's leading
man. He makes at least fifteen hundred a week. That wouldn't be such a
bad addition to the family, would it?"

Again the bantering tone stabbed Hanneh Breineh. Everything in her began
to tremble and break loose.

"Why do you ask me?" she cried, throwing her napkin into her plate. "Do
I count for a person in this house? If I'll say something, will you even
listen to me? What is to me the grandest man that my daughter could
pick out? Another enemy in my house! Another person to shame himself
from me!" She swept in her children in one glance of despairing anguish
as she rose from the table. "What worth is an old mother to American
children? The President is coming to-night to the theater, and none of
you asked me to go." Unable to check the rising tears, she fled toward
the kitchen and banged the door.

They all looked at one another guiltily.

"Say, Sis," Benny called out sharply, "what sort of frame-up is this?
Haven't you told mother that she was to go with us to-night?"

"Yes--I----" Fanny bit her lips as she fumbled evasively for words. "I
asked her if she wouldn't mind my taking her some other time."

"Now you have made a mess of it!" fumed Benny. "Mother'll be too hurt to
go now."

"Well, I don't care," snapped Fanny. "I can't appear with mother in a
box at the theater. Can I introduce her to Mrs. Van Suyden? And suppose
your leading man should ask to meet me?"

"Take your time, Sis. He hasn't asked yet," scoffed Benny.

"The more reason I shouldn't spoil my chances. You know mother. She'll
spill the beans that we come from Delancey Street the minute we
introduce her anywhere. Must I always have the black shadow of my past
trailing after me?"

"But have you no feelings for mother?" admonished Abe.

"I've tried harder than all of you to do my duty. I've _lived_ with
her." She turned angrily upon them. "I've borne the shame of mother
while you bought her off with a present and a treat here and there. God
knows how hard I tried to civilize her so as not to have to blush with
shame when I take her anywhere. I dressed her in the most stylish Paris
models, but Delancey Street sticks out from every inch of her. Whenever
she opens her mouth, I'm done for. You fellows had your chance to rise
in the world because a man is free to go up as high as he can reach up
to; but I, with all my style and pep, can't get a man my equal because
a girl is always judged by her mother."

They were silenced by her vehemence, and unconsciously turned to Benny.

"I guess we all tried to do our best for mother," said Benny,
thoughtfully. "But wherever there is growth, there is pain and
heartbreak. The trouble with us is that the Ghetto of the Middle Ages
and the children of the twentieth century have to live under one roof,
and----"

A sound of crashing dishes came from the kitchen, and the voice of
Hanneh Breineh resounded through the dining-room as she wreaked her
pent-up fury on the helpless servant.

"Oh, my nerves! I can't stand it any more! There will be no girl again
for another week," cried Fanny.

"Oh, let up on the old lady," protested Abe. "Since she can't take it
out on us any more, what harm is it if she cusses the servants?"

"If you fellows had to chase around employment agencies, you wouldn't
see anything funny about it. Why can't we move into a hotel that will do
away with the need of servants altogether?"

"I got it better," said Jake, consulting a note-book from his pocket. "I
have on my list an apartment on Riverside Drive where there's only a
small kitchenette; but we can do away with the cooking, for there is a
dining service in the building."

The new Riverside apartment to which Hanneh Breineh was removed by her
socially ambitious children was for the habitually active mother an
empty desert of enforced idleness. Deprived of her kitchen, Hanneh
Breineh felt robbed of the last reason for her existence. Cooking and
marketing and puttering busily with pots and pans gave her an excuse for
living and struggling and bearing up with her children. The lonely
idleness of Riverside Drive stunned all her senses and arrested all her
thoughts. It gave her that choked sense of being cut off from air, from
life, from everything warm and human. The cold indifference, the
each-for-himself look in the eyes of the people about her were like
stinging slaps in the face. Even the children had nothing real or human
in them. They were starched and stiff miniatures of their elders.

But the most unendurable part of the stifling life on Riverside Drive
was being forced to eat in the public dining-room. No matter how hard
she tried to learn polite table manners, she always found people staring
at her, and her daughter rebuking her for eating with the wrong fork or
guzzling the soup or staining the cloth.

In a fit of rebellion Hanneh Breineh resolved never to go down to the
public dining-room again, but to make use of the gas-stove in the
kitchenette to cook her own meals. That very day she rode down to
Delancey Street and purchased a new market-basket. For some time she
walked among the haggling push-cart venders, relaxing and swimming in
the warm waves of her old familiar past.

A fish-peddler held up a large carp in his black, hairy hand and waved
it dramatically:

"Women! Women! Fourteen cents a pound!"

He ceased his raucous shouting as he saw Hanneh Breineh in her rich
attire approach his cart.

"How much?" she asked pointing to the fattest carp.

"Fifteen cents, lady," said the peddler, smirking as he raised his
price.

"Swindler! Didn't I hear you call fourteen cents?" shrieked Hanneh
Breineh, exultingly, the spirit of the penny chase surging in her blood.
Diplomatically, Hanneh Breineh turned as if to go, and the fishman
seized her basket in frantic fear.

"I should live; I'm losing money on the fish, lady," whined the peddler.
"I'll let it down to thirteen cents for you only."

"Two pounds for a quarter, and not a penny more," said Hanneh Breineh,
thrilling again with the rare sport of bargaining, which had been her
chief joy in the good old days of poverty.

"_Nu_, I want to make the first sale for good luck." The peddler threw
the fish on the scale.

As he wrapped up the fish, Hanneh Breineh saw the driven look of worry
in his haggard eyes, and when he counted out for her the change from her
dollar, she waved it aside.

"Keep it for your luck," she said, and hurried off to strike a new
bargain at a push-cart of onions.

Hanneh Breineh returned triumphantly with her purchases. The basket
under her arm gave forth the old, homelike odors of herring and garlic,
while the scaly tail of a four-pound carp protruded from its newspaper
wrapping. A gilded placard on the door of the apartment-house proclaimed
that all merchandise must be delivered through the trade entrance in the
rear; but Hanneh Breineh with her basket strode proudly through the
marble-paneled hall and rang nonchalantly for the elevator.

The uniformed hall-man, erect, expressionless, frigid with dignity,
stepped forward:

"Just a minute, Madam, I'll call a boy to take up your basket for you."

Hanneh Breineh, glaring at him, jerked the basket savagely from his
hands.

"Mind your own business," she retorted. "I'll take it up myself. Do you
think you're a Russian policeman to boss me in my own house?"

Angry lines appeared on the countenance of the representative of social
decorum.

"It is against the rules, Madam," he said stiffly.

"You should sink into the earth with all your rules and brass buttons.
Ain't this America? Ain't this a free country? Can't I take up in my own
house what I buy with my own money?" cried Hanneh Breineh, reveling in
the opportunity to shower forth the volley of invectives that had been
suppressed in her for the weeks of deadly dignity of Riverside Drive.

In the midst of this uproar Fanny came in with Mrs. Van Suyden. Hanneh
Breineh rushed over to her, crying:

"This bossy policeman won't let me take up my basket in the elevator."

The daughter, unnerved with shame and confusion, took the basket in her
white-gloved hand and ordered the hall-boy to take it around to the
regular delivery entrance.

Hanneh Breineh was so hurt by her daughter's apparent defense of the
hallman's rules that she utterly ignored Mrs. Van Suyden's greeting and
walked up the seven flights of stairs out of sheer spite.

"You see the tragedy of my life?" broke out Fanny, turning to Mrs. Van
Suyden.

"You poor child! You go right up to your dear, old lady mother, and I'll
come some other time."

Instantly Fanny regretted her words. Mrs. Van Suyden's pity only roused
her wrath the more against her mother.

Breathless from climbing the stairs, Hanneh Breineh entered the
apartment just as Fanny tore the faultless millinery creation from her
head and threw it on the floor in a rage.

"Mother, you are the ruination of my life! You have driven away Mrs. Van
Suyden, as you have driven away all my best friends. What do you think
we got this apartment for but to get rid of your fish smells and your
brawls with the servants? And here you come with a basket on your arm as
if you just landed from steerage! And this afternoon, of all times, when
Benny is bringing his leading man to tea. When will you ever stop
disgracing us?"

"When I'm dead," said Hanneh Breineh, grimly. "When the earth will cover
me up, then you'll be free to go your American way. I'm not going to
make myself over for a lady on Riverside Drive. I hate you and all your
swell friends. I'll not let myself be choked up here by you or by that
hall-boss-policeman that is higher in your eyes than your own mother."

"So that's your thanks for all we've done for you?" cried the daughter.

"All you've done for me?" shouted Hanneh Breineh. "What have you done
for me? You hold me like a dog on a chain. It stands in the Talmud; some
children give their mothers dry bread and water and go to heaven for it,
and some give their mother roast duck and go to Gehenna because it's not
given with love."

"You want me to love you yet?" raged the daughter. "You knocked every
bit of love out of me when I was yet a kid. All the memories of
childhood I have is your everlasting cursing and yelling that we were
gluttons."

The bell rang sharply, and Hanneh Breineh flung open the door.

"Your groceries, ma'am," said the boy.

Hanneh Breineh seized the basket from him, and with a vicious fling sent
it rolling across the room, strewing its contents over the Persian rugs
and inlaid floor. Then seizing her hat and coat, she stormed out of the
apartment and down the stairs.

Mr. and Mrs. Pelz sat crouched and shivering over their meager supper
when the door opened, and Hanneh Breineh in fur coat and plumed hat
charged into the room.

"I come to cry out to you my bitter heart," she sobbed. "Woe is me! It
is so black for my eyes!"

"What is the matter with you, Hanneh Breineh?" cried Mrs. Pelz in
bewildered alarm.

"I am turned out of my own house by the brass-buttoned policeman that
bosses the elevator. _Oi-i-i-i! Weh-h-h-h!_ what have I from my life?
The whole world rings with my son's play. Even the President came to see
it, and I, his mother, have not seen it yet. My heart is dying in me
like in a prison," she went on wailing. "I am starved out for a piece of
real eating. In that swell restaurant is nothing but napkins and forks
and lettuce-leaves. There are a dozen plates to every bite of food. And
it looks so fancy on the plate, but it's nothing but straw in the mouth.
I'm starving, but I can't swallow down their American eating."

"Hanneh Breineh," said Mrs. Pelz, "you are sinning before God. Look on
your fur coat; it alone would feed a whole family for a year. I never
had yet a piece of fur trimming on a coat, and you are in fur from the
neck to the feet. I never had yet a piece of feather on a hat, and your
hat is all feathers."

"What are you envying me?" protested Hanneh Breineh. "What have I from
all my fine furs and feathers when my children are strangers to me? All
the fur coats in the world can't warm up the loneliness inside my heart.
All the grandest feathers can't hide the bitter shame in my face that my
children shame themselves from me."

Hanneh Breineh suddenly loomed over them like some ancient, heroic
figure of the Bible condemning unrighteousness.

"Why should my children shame themselves from me? From where did they
get the stuff to work themselves up in the world? Did they get it from
the air? How did they get all their smartness to rise over the people
around them? Why don't the children of born American mothers write my
Benny's plays? It is I, who never had a chance to be a person, who gave
him the fire in his head. If I would have had a chance to go to school
and learn the language, what couldn't I have been? It is I and my mother
and my mother's mother and my father and father's father who had such a
black life in Poland; it is our choked thoughts and feelings that are
flaming up in my children and making them great in America. And yet they
shame themselves from me!"

For a moment Mr. and Mrs. Pelz were hypnotized by the sweep of her
words. Then Hanneh Breineh sank into a chair in utter exhaustion. She
began to weep bitterly, her body shaking with sobs.

"Woe is me! For what did I suffer and hope on my children? A bitter old
age--my end. I'm so lonely!"

All the dramatic fire seemed to have left her. The spell was broken.
They saw the Hanneh Breineh of old, ever discontented, ever complaining
even in the midst of riches and plenty.

"Hanneh Breineh," said Mrs. Pelz, "the only trouble with you is that you
got it too good. People will tear the eyes out of your head because
you're complaining yet. If I only had your fur coat! If I only had your
diamonds! I have nothing. You have everything. You are living on the fat
of the land. You go right back home and thank God that you don't have my
bitter lot."

"You got to let me stay here with you," insisted Hanneh Breineh. "I'll
not go back to my children except when they bury me. When they will see
my dead face, they will understand how they killed me."

Mrs. Pelz glanced nervously at her husband. They barely had enough
covering for their one bed; how could they possibly lodge a visitor?

"I don't want to take up your bed," said Hanneh Breineh. "I don't care
if I have to sleep on the floor or on the chairs, but I'll stay here for
the night."

Seeing that she was bent on staying, Mr. Pelz prepared to sleep by
putting a few chairs next to the trunk, and Hanneh Breineh was invited
to share the rickety bed with Mrs. Pelz.

The mattress was full of lumps and hollows. Hanneh Breineh lay cramped
and miserable, unable to stretch out her limbs. For years she had been
accustomed to hair mattresses and ample woolen blankets, so that though
she covered herself with her fur coat, she was too cold to sleep. But
worse than the cold were the creeping things on the wall. And as the
lights were turned low, the mice came through the broken plaster and
raced across the floor. The foul odors of the kitchen-sink added to the
night of horrors.

"Are you going back home?" asked Mrs. Pelz as Hanneh Breineh put on her
hat and coat the next morning.

"I don't know where I'm going," she replied as she put a bill into Mrs.
Pelz's hand.

For hours Hanneh Breineh walked through the crowded Ghetto streets. She
realized that she no longer could endure the sordid ugliness of her
past, and yet she could not go home to her children. She only felt that
she must go on and on.

In the afternoon a cold, drizzling rain set in. She was worn out from
the sleepless night and hours of tramping. With a piercing pain in her
heart she at last turned back and boarded the subway for Riverside
Drive. She had fled from the marble sepulcher of the Riverside apartment
to her old home in the Ghetto; but now she knew that she could not live
there again. She had outgrown her past by the habits of years of
physical comforts, and these material comforts that she could no longer
do without choked and crushed the life within her.

A cold shudder went through Hanneh Breineh as she approached the
apartment-house. Peering through the plate glass of the door she saw the
face of the uniformed hall-man. For a hesitating moment she remained
standing in the drizzling rain, unable to enter and yet knowing full
well that she would have to enter.

Then suddenly Hanneh Breineh began to laugh. She realized that it was
the first time she had laughed since her children had become rich. But
it was the hard laugh of bitter sorrow. Tears streamed down her furrowed
cheeks as she walked slowly up the granite steps.

"The fat of the land!" muttered Hanneh Breineh, with a choking sob as
the hall-man with immobile face deferentially swung open the door--"the
fat of the land!"




THE YEARBOOK OF THE AMERICAN SHORT STORY

NOVEMBER, 1918, TO SEPTEMBER, 1919

ADDRESSES OF AMERICAN MAGAZINES PUBLISHING SHORT STORIES


NOTE. _This address list does not aim to be complete, but is based
simply on the magazines which I have considered for this volume._


Adventure, Spring and Macdougal Streets, New York City.

Ainslee's Magazine, 79 Seventh Avenue, New York City.

All-Story Weekly, 280 Broadway, New York City.

American Boy, 142 Lafayette Boulevard, Detroit, Michigan.

American Magazine, 381 Fourth Avenue, New York City.

Argosy, 280 Broadway, New York City.

Atlantic Monthly, 41 Mt. Vernon Street, Boston, Mass.

Black Cat, Salem, Mass.

Catholic World, 120 West 60th Street, New York City.

Century, 353 Fourth Avenue, New York City.

Christian Herald, Bible House, New York City.

Collier's Weekly, 416 West 13th Street, New York City.

Cosmopolitan Magazine, 119 West 40th Street, New York City.

Delineator, Spring and Macdougal Streets, New York City.

Everybody's Magazine, Spring and Macdougal Streets, New York City.

Good Housekeeping, 119 West 40th Street, New York City.

Harper's Bazaar, 119 West 40th Street, New York City.

Harper's Magazine, Franklin Square, New York City.

Hearst's Magazine, 119 West 40th Street, New York City.

Ladies' Home Journal, Independence Square, Philadelphia, Pa.

Liberator, 34 Union Square, East, New York City.

Little Review, 24 West 16th Street, New York City.

Live Stories, 35 West 39th Street, New York City.

McCall's Magazine, 236 West 37th Street, New York City.

McClure's Magazine, 76 Fifth Avenue, New York City.

Magnificat, Manchester, N. H.

Metropolitan, 432 Fourth Avenue, New York City.

Midland, Moorhead, Minn.

Munsey's Magazine, 280 Broadway, New York City.

Outlook, 381 Fourth Avenue, New York City.

Pagan, 7 East 15th Street, New York City.

Parisienne, 25 West 45th Street, New York City.

Pictorial Review, 216 West 39th Street, New York City.

Queen's Work, 3200 Russell Avenue, St. Louis, Mo.

Red Book Magazine, North American Building, Chicago, Ill.

Reedy's Mirror, Syndicate Trust Building, St. Louis, Mo.

Saturday Evening Post, Independence Square, Philadelphia, Pa.

Scribner's Magazine, 597 Fifth Avenue, New York City.

Short Stories, Garden City, Long Island, N. Y.

Smart Set, 25 West 45th Street, New York City.

Snappy Stories, 35 West 39th Street, New York City.

Stratford Journal, 32 Oliver Street, Boston, Mass.

Sunset, 460 Fourth Street, San Francisco, Cal.

Today's Housewife, Cooperstown, N. Y.

Touchstone, 1 West 47th Street, New York City.

Woman's Home Companion, 381 Fourth Avenue, New York City.

Woman's World, 107 South Clinton Street, Chicago, Ill.




THE BIOGRAPHICAL ROLL OF HONOR OF AMERICAN SHORT STORIES


NOVEMBER, 1918, TO SEPTEMBER, 1919

NOTE. _Only stories by American authors are listed. The best sixty
stories are indicated by an asterisk before the title of the story. The
index figures_ 1, 2, 3, 4, _and_ 5 _prefixed to the name of the author
indicate that his work has been included in the Rolls of Honor for_
1914, 1915, 1916, 1917, _and_ 1918 _respectively. The list excludes
reprints._

(5) ABDULLAH, ACHMED (_for biography, see_ 1918).
    Dance on the Hill.
   *Honorable Gentleman.

ALSOP, GULIELMA FELL. Born in Allegheny, Pa., graduated from
  Barnard College and from the Woman's Medical College of
  Pennsylvania, spent a year in special work at Vienna, and
  became attached to St. Elizabeth's Mission Hospital for Chinese
  women and children at Shanghai, China, where she eventually
  became physician-in-charge. She has travelled widely in
  Europe and Africa and her first volume will be published
  shortly.
   *Kitchen Gods.

(345) ANDERSON, SHERWOOD (_for biography, see_ 1917).
   *Awakening.

(345) ANDREWS, MARY RAYMOND SHIPMAN (_for biography, see_
1917).
    Queen.

(345) BABCOCK, EDWINA STANTON (_for biography, see_ 1917).
   *Facing It.
   *Willum's Vanilla.

BARNES, DJUNA. Born at Cornwall-on-Hudson, N. Y., in 1892.
  Educated at home. Chief interests: drawing and writing.
  Author of "Book of Repulsive Women," 1915, and "Passion
  Play," 1918. Lives in New York City.
   *Night among the Horses.
   Valet.

BARTLETT, FREDERICK ORIN. Born at Haverhill, Mass., in 1876,
  educated at Proctor Academy, Hanover, N. H., and Harvard
  University. Spent six years in newspaper work on Boston
  papers. Author of "Mistress Dorothy," 1901; "Joan of the
  Alley," 1905; "Web of the Golden Spider," 1909; "Seventh
  Noon," 1910; "Prodigal Pro Tem," 1911; "Forest Castaways,"
  1911; "Lady of the Lane," 1912; "Guardian," 1912; "Whippen,"
  1913; "Wall Street Girl," 1916; "Triflers," 1917, and many
  short stories. Lives in Cambridge, Mass.
  *Long, Long Ago.

(234) BROWN, ALICE (_for biography, see_ 1917).
   Praying Sally.

(5) BROWNELL, AGNES MARY (_for biography, see_ 1918).
   *Dishes.
   *Love's Labor.

(3) BURNET, DANA. Born at Cincinnati, Ohio, 1888, and educated
  at Woodward High School, Cincinnati, and Cornell University.
  Connected with the New York _Evening Sun_ since
  1911. Author of "Poems," 1915; "Shining Adventure," 1916,
  and many short stories. Lives in New York City.
    Butterfly.
    Orchid.

(145) BURT, MAXWELL STRUTHERS (_for biography, see_ 1917).

    * Blood-Red One.

    Shining Armor.

(5) CABELL, JAMES BRANCH (_for biography, see_ 1918).
    * Wedding Jest.

CAYLOR, N. G.
    * Area of a Cylinder.

COHEN, OCTAVUS ROY. Born at Charleston, S. C., in 1891. Educated
  at Porter Military Academy and Clemson College. Married
  Inez Lopez, 1914. Civil engineer 1909 and 1910; newspaper
  man 1910-12; practised law 1913 to 1915, since which he has
  devoted himself exclusively to writing. Author of "The Other
  Woman," 1917 (with J. V. Glesy); "Six Seconds of Darkness,"
  1918; "Polished Ebony," 1919. Lives in Birmingham, Ala.
    Queer House.

COLLIER, TARLETON.
    Gracious Veil.

(2) COMFORT, WILL LEVINGTON. Born at Kalamazoo, Mich.,
  1878. Educated in the Detroit public schools, served in Fifth
  U.S. Cavalry during the Spanish-American War, and as war
  correspondent in the Philippines, China, Russia and Japan, 1899
  to 1904. Author of "Routledge Rides Alone," 1910; "Fate
  Knocks at the Door," 1912; "Down Among Men," 1913; "Midstream,"
  1914; "Red Fleece," 1915; "Lot and Company," 1915;
   "Child and Country," 1916; "The Hive," 1918. Lives in Santa
    Monica, Cal.
    Skag.

(24) COWDERY, ALICE (_for biography, see 1917_).
    Spiral.

CRAM, MILDRED. Born in Washington, D. C, 1889. After four
  years of study in New York private schools, went abroad for
  six years of travel. Chief interests: music, the theater, house-keeping,
  and short stories. First short story: "A Stab at Happiness,"
  published in All-Story Weekly, 1915. Author of "Old
  Seaport Towns of the South," 1917, and "Lotus Salad," 1920.
  Lives in New York City.
    McCarthy.

CRANSTON, CLAUDIA.
  *Invisible Garden.

(45) DOBIE, CHARLES CALDWELL (_for biography, see 1917_).
  Called to Service.

(3) DREISER, THEODORE. Born at Terre Haute, Ind., 1871.
  Educated in the public schools of Warsaw, Ind.,  and Indiana University,
  and married in 1898. Engaged in newspaper work in
  Chicago and St. Louis, 1892-4; editor of Every Month. 1895-8;
  special editorial work, 1898-1905; editor of Smith's Magazine,
  1905-6; Broadway Magazine, 1906-7; Butterick publications,
  1907-10. Organized National Child's Rescue campaign, 1907.
  Author of "Sister Carrie," 1900; "Jennie Gerhardt," 1911;
  "Financier," 1912; "Traveller at Forty," 1913; "Titan," 1914;
  "Junius," 1915; "Plays of the Natural and Supernatural,"
  1916; "Hoosier Holiday," 1916; "Free," 1918; "Twelve Men,"
  1919; "Hand of the Potter," 1919; "Hey-Rub-a-Dub," 1920;
  "Bulwark," 1920. Lives in New York City.
    *Old Neighborhood.

(5) "ELDERLY SPINSTER" (Margaret Wilson) (_for biography,
  see 1918_).
     Mother.

FISH, HORACE. Born in New York City, 1885. His first story,
"Fuego," was published in Harper's Magazine in 1912. He
lives in New York City.
    *Wrists on the Door.

(45) GEER, CORNELIA THROOP (_for biography, see 1918_).
  Study in Light and Shade.

GILLMORE, INEZ HAYNES. See IRWIN, INEZ HAYNES.

GIOVANNITTI, ARTURO.
    *Eighth Day.

(45) GLASPELL, SUSAN. (_for biography, see 1917_).
   *Busy Duck.
   *"Government Goat."
   *Pollen.

(5) GOODMAN, HENRY (_for biography, see_ 1918).
  *Stone.

(5) HALL, MAY EMERY (_for biography, see_ 1918).
  Lamp of Remembrance.

(34) HALLET, RICHARD MATTHEWS (_for biography, see_ 1917).
  *Anchor.
  *To the Bitter End.

HARRISON, DON.
  *Mixing.

HARRISON, GROVER.
  Greatest Gift.

(25) HECHT, BEN (_for biography, see_ 1918).
  Dog Eat Dog.
  Yellow Goat.

(5) HERGESHEIMER, JOSEPH (_for biography, see_ 1918).
  *Meeker Ritual.

(2345) HURST, FANNIE (_for biography, see_ 1917).
  *Humoresque.

IMRIE, WALTER MCLAREN. A young Canadian writer, who served
  in the Canadian Hospital Service during the war. Lives in
  Toronto, Ont.
   Daybreak.

INGERSOLL, WILL E. Born at High Bluff, Manitoba, in 1880. Two
  months later his father continued his journey west to Shoal
  Lake, Manitoba, where he took up a homestead. Received his
  education partly at the village school, partly from the Anglican
  clergyman who was a friend of his father, but mostly from a
  trunk full of books which his father and mother had brought
  from the East. Came to Winnipeg in his early twenties with
  one hundred and fifty dollars; hired a garret and wrote hard
  while the money lasted; placed his first story with Everybody's
  Magazine, August, 1905, and has been in journalism since. He
  is now on the Winnipeg Free Press. Author of "Road that
  Led Home," 1918. Lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
  *Centenarian.

(3) IRWIN, INEZ HAYNES (INEZ HAYNES GILLMORE). Born at
  Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1873. Educated in the Girls' High
  School and Normal School, Boston, and Radcliffe College.
  Married to Will Irwin. Author of "June Jeopardy," 1908;
  "Maida's Little Shop," 1910; "Phoebe and Ernest," 1910;
  "Janey," 1911; "Phoebe, Ernest and Cupid," 1912; "Angel
  Island," 1913; "Ollivant Orphans," 1915; "Lady of Kingdoms,"
  1917. Lives in Scituate, Mass.
    Treasure.

IRWIN, WALLACE. Born at Oneida, N. Y., 1876. Educated at
  Denver High School and Leland Stanford University. Engaged
  in newspaper work in San Francisco, 1901; editor of
  Overland Monthly, 1902; on the staff of Collier's Weekly,
  1906-7; member of Committee on Public Information, 1917-19.
  Author of "Love Sonnets of a Hoodlum," 1902; "Rubaiyat
  of Omar Khayyam, Jr.," 1902; "Fairy Tales up to Now," 1904;
  "Nautical Lays of a Landsman," 1904; "At the Sign of the
  Dollar," 1904; "Chinatown Ballads," 1905; "Random Rhymes
  and Odd Numbers," 1906; "Letters of a Japanese School Boy,"
  1909; "Mr. Togo, Maid of All Work," 1913; "Pilgrims into
  Folly," 1917. Lives in New York City.
  *Wandering Stars.

(25) JOHNSTON, ARTHUR (_for biography, see_ 1918).
  *Riders in the Dark.

(12) JOHNSTON, CALVIN. Born at Springfield, Mo., October 6,
  1876. Educated in the common schools. Short story writer.
  Chief interests: Establishing National Commercial Airways;
  writing posthumous novel. Author of "The Pariah," published
  in Harper's Weekly, December 9, 1905; "Veteran's Last Campaign,"
  Harper's Monthly, June, 1906.
  *Messengers.

JONES, HOWARD MUMFORD.
  *Mrs. Drainger's Veil.

(45) KLINE, BURTON (_for biography, see_ 1917).
  Living Ghost.

LA MOTTE, ELLEN N.
  *Under a Wine-Glass.

(5) LIEBERMAN, ELIAS (_for biography, see_ 1918).
  *Thing of Beauty.

(4) LONDON, JACK (_for biography, see_ 1917).
   On the Makaloa Mat.

MACMANUS, SEUMAS.
   Far Adventures of Billy Burns.
   Tinker of Tamlacht.

MAXWELL, HELENA. Born November 22, 1896, in Iowa City,
  Iowa. Her father was Scotch, and was a surgeon in the regular
  army at the time of the Spanish-American War. Lived
  most of her life in Iowa. Attended school in Washington,
  D. C. Lived much in the South. Now a Senior at the University
  of Idaho, at Moscow, Idaho, where her husband, Baker
  Brownell, is an assistant professor of journalism. Chief interests,
  aside from writing, are Bach, the New Republic, woman
  suffrage, and climbing mountains. First story was written at
  the age of nine, offered to The Youth's Companion for $100.
  It was not accepted. First published story was in The Pagan,
  September, 1919, "West of Topeka."

(2) MITCHELL, MARY ESTHER. Born in New York City, 1863.
  Educated at the public schools of Bath, Me., and Radcliffe College.
  First short story published in the Youth's Companion,
  1892 or 1893. Lives in Arlington, Mass.
   Jonas and the Tide.

(3) MONTAGUE, MARGARET PRESCOTT. Born at White Sulphur
  Springs, W. Va., in 1878, and educated at home and in private
  schools. Author of "The Poet, Miss Kate and I," 1905; "Sowing
  of Alderson Cree," 1907; "In Calvert's Valley," 1908;
  "Linda," 1912; "Closed Doors," 1915. Lives in White Sulphur
  Springs, W. Va.
  *England to America.

MORAVSKY, MARIA. Born in Warsaw, Poland, Dec. 31, 1890.
  Received her primary school education in Poland and University
  education in Russia. Came to America in 1917. First
  short story published in English, "Friendship of Men," Harper's
  Magazine, Feb., 1919. Chief interests, poetry, travelling, psychology,
  and the welfare of humanity. Published several books
  in Russian between 1914 and 1917, including "By the Harbor,"
  "Cinderella Thinks," "Orange Peels," and "Flowers in the
  Cellar." Used to write stories for the leading Russian magazines.
  "I think America taught me how to write better fiction,
  for the art of short story writing is more highly developed here.
  At first I wrote in Polish, then in Russian. I changed to English
  because yours is the richest language in the world. I try
  reverently to learn it well." Lives in New York City.
   Friendship of Men.

MURRAY, ROY IRVING.
  *First Commandment with Promise.

MUTH, EDNA TUCKER.
   White Wake.

NICHOLL, LOUISE TOWNSEND. Born in Scotch Plains, N. J., in
  1890, graduated from Smith College and has been on the staff
  of the New York Evening Post since 1913. Her chief interest
  is poetry, and she is now Associate Editor of Contemporary
  Verse. She is the author of a critical volume on John Masefield,
  to be published this season. Lives in New York City.
  Her first short story, "The Little Light," was published in the
  Stratford Journal in February, 1919.
   Little Light.

(4) NORTON, ROY (_for biography, see_ 1917).
   This Hero Thing.

PAGE, HELEN. Born in Chestnut Hill, Mass., 1892. Graduated
  from the Misses Brown School, Providence, R. I., and Pratt
  Institute, Brooklyn, N. Y. Has been an errand girl in a department
  store, sold coats and suits, clerked in a book section,
  written advertising copy for woman's wear, written free lance
  articles, done publicity work, and is now conducting a tea
  room in Greenwich Village, New York City. "Rebound" is
  her first published story.
  *Rebound.

(5) PATTERSON, NORMA (_for biography, see_ 1918).
   What They Brought Out of France.

(5) PAYNE, WILL (_for biography, see_ 1918).
   Best-Laid Plan.

(2) PICKTHALL, MARJORIE L.
  Third Generation.
(5) PRATT, LUCY (_for biography, see_ 1918).
  *Man Who Looked Back.

RAVENEL, BEATRICE. Born in Charleston, South Carolina. Educated
  at private school and Radcliffe, specializing in English.
  Chief interest: her daughter of fifteen, and books. First short
  story published in the Harvard Advocate, 1891. Lives in
  Charleston, South Carolina.
   High Cost of Conscience.

RENDEL, LAWRENCE.
   Mother.

(35) SEDGWICK, ANNE DOUGLAS (MRS. BASIL DE SELINCOURT)
  (_for biography, see_ 1918).
  *Autumn Crocuses.
  *Evening Primroses.

SEIFFERT, MARJORIE ALLEN. Born in Moline, Ill. Studied music
  for seven years and composed many songs, married and has two
  children. Began writing poetry in 1915, and short stories in
  1918. First story published, "The Neighbor," Reedy's Mirror,
  Oct. 25, 1918. Graduate of Smith College. Author of "A
  Woman of Thirty," 1919. Lives in Moline, Ill.
   Peddler.

SIDNEY, ROSE.
   Grapes of the San Jacinto.

(12345) SINGMASTER, ELSIE (_for biography, see_ 1917).
   Recompense.

SOLON, ISRAEL. Was born in the government of Grodno, Russia,
  in 1875 or 1876. Came to Chicago in 1889. "My interest in
  writing goes back to my earliest memories of myself. I can
  still see myself as a little boy of three or four, sitting of Sabbath
  evenings, rubbing my eyes with my fists while my father
  recites wondrous tales of men and beasts in lands and times
  far removed from our own. I began reading for myself about
  the age of six or seven, and have kept at it ever since." Education
  acquired at odd times and places, after working hours
  and between working periods; took English courses at Lewis
  Institute, Chicago. Has been both an amateur and a professional
  labor agitator. All his interests concern themselves with
  social and intellectual problems. First story, "The Glorious
  Surrender," published in The Bulletin of the International
  Glove Workers' Union, April and May, 1912. Now lives in
  New York City.
  *"Boulevard."

(2345) STEELE, WILBUR DANIEL (_for biography, see_ 1917).
  *Accomplice After the Fact.
  *"For They Know Not What They Do."
  *For Where Is Your Fortune Now?
  *Goodfellow.
  *Heart of a Woman.
  *"La Guiablesse."
  *Luck.

SUTHERLAND, MARJORIE.
   School Teacher.

(1234) SYNON, MARY (_for biography, see_ 1917).
  *Loaded Dice.

(5) VENABLE, EDWARD C.
   Race.

(345) VORSE, MARY HEATON (_for biography, see_ 1917).
  *Gift of Courage.
  *Man's Son.
  *Other Room.
  *Treasure.

(5) WILLIAMS, BEN AMES (_for biography, see_ 1918).
  *Field of Honor.

WILLIAMS, MARGARET CLARK.
  *Drunken Passenger.

WILSON, MARGARET ADELAIDE.
   Perfect Interval.

WOOD, JULIA FRANCIS. Born in Leavenworth, Kansas, but has
  always lived in Kansas City, Mo. Educated at Smith College,
  Columbia University, and University of Madrid, Spain. Teaches
  French in a private school. Chief interests: people, travel, and
  the theatre. First short story, "Cupid and Jimmy Curtis,"
  Century, Oct., 1910.
   "It Is the Spirit that Quickeneth."

WORMSER, G. RANGER.
   Child Who Forgot to Sing.
   Little Lives.

YEAMAN, ANNA HAMILTON. Born in Rye, N. Y., and is married.
  She is of Southern ancestry. Was educated in private schools,
  and published her first short story, "Concerning Christopher,"
  in Leslie's Monthly, 1902. Author of "My Lil' Angelo," 1903.
  Lives in Madison, N. J.
   To the Utmost.

YEZIERSKA, ANZIA. Born in Russia in 1886. Came to New York
  in 1895. Her schooling began in the sweatshop when she was
  nine years old--ten and twelve hours a day, seven days a week,
  for a dollar and a half. She is driven by one desire: to learn
  how to write. Her hours of work to earn mere bread and
  rent have been so long that she has never had yet a chance to
  learn good English in her opinion, and that is why she writes
  in dialect. Her first story, "The Free Vacation House," appeared
  in The Forum, December, 1915. Lives in New York
  City.
  *"Fat of the Land."
  *Miracle.




THE ROLL OF HONOR OF FOREIGN SHORT STORIES IN AMERICAN MAGAZINES

NOVEMBER, 1918, TO SEPTEMBER, 1919


NOTE. _Stories of special excellence are indicated by an asterisk. The
index figures 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 prefixed to the name of the author
indicate that his work has been included in the Rolls of Honor for 1914,
1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918 respectively. The list excludes reprints._


I. ENGLISH AND IRISH AUTHORS

ATKEY, BERTRAM. MacKurd.

(12345) AUMONIER, STACY. *Brothers.
  Mrs. Huggins's Hun.

(3) BEERBOHM, MAX. *Hilary Maltby.

(34) BERESFORD, J. D. *Reparation.

(1235) BLACKWOOD, ALGERNON. *Little Beggar.

BURKE, THOMAS. Miss Plum-Blossom of Limehouse.

DE LA MARE, WALTER. Promise.

DESMOND, SHAW. Heads on the Mountain.

(45) DUDENEY, MRS. HENRY. "Missing."

(4) DUNSANY, LORD. *Last Dream of Bwona Khubla.

EDGINTON, MAY. Money.

(12345) GALSWORTHY, JOHN. *Bright Side.
  *Spindleberries.

JESSE, F. TENNYSON. Wanderers.

LOCKHART, LUCY. Miss Allardyce's Soldier.

MARE, WALTER DE LA. _See_ De la Mare, Walter.

(45) MORDAUNT, ELINOR. *Peepers All.
  *Set to Partners.

ROBINSON, LENNOX. *Sponge.

(34) WYLIE, I. A. R. *Colonel Tibbit Comes Home.
  *John Prettyman's Fourth Dimension.
  *Thirst.


II. TRANSLATIONS

(5) ALAI'HEM, SHOLOM. (_Yiddish._) *Eva.

BOISSIÈR, JULES. (_French._) Opium Smokers in the Forest.

(345) CHEKHOV, ANTON. (_Russian._) *Dialogue Between a Man and a Dog.

D'ANNUNZIO, GABRIELE. (_Italian._) Hero.

DIMOV, OSSIP. (_Russian._) "Six P.M."

DOLORES, CARMEN. (_Brazilian._) *Aunt Zézé's Tears.

DUHAMEL, GEORGES S. (_French._) *Lieutenant Dauche.

FRANCE, ANATOLE. (_French._) *Red Riding-Hood Up-to-Date.

IBÁÑEZ, VICENTE BLASCO. (_Spanish._) *Abandoned Boat.
  *Functionary.
  *"In the Sea."
  *Serbian Night.
  *Which Was the Condemned?

JACOBSEN, J. P. (_Danish._) Two Worlds.

LAGERLÖF, SELMA. (_Swedish._) *Donna Micaela.

LEMAÎTRE, JULES. (_French._) *Two Presidents.

LEVEL, MAURICE. (_French._) All Saints' Day.

MARTINEZ, RAFAEL AREVALO. (_Spanish._) Man Who Resembled a Horse.

PAPINI, GIOVANNI. (_Italian._) Beggar of Souls.

PEREZ, J. L. (_Yiddish._) *Bontje the Silent.

PINSKI, DAVID. (_Yiddish._) *Another Person's Soul.

TCHEKOV, ANTON. (_Russian._) _See_ Chekhov, Anton.

(5) VILLIERS DE L'ISLE, ADAM. (_French._) Queen Ysabeau.




VOLUMES OF SHORT STORIES PUBLISHED

NOVEMBER, 1918, TO SEPTEMBER, 1919: AN INDEX


NOTE. _An asterisk before a title indicates distinction. This list
includes single short stories, collections of short stories, textbooks,
and a few continuous narratives based on short stories previously
published in magazines. Volumes announced for publication in the autumn
of 1919 are listed here, though in some cases they had not yet appeared
at the time this book went to press._


I. AMERICAN AUTHORS

ABDULLAH, ACHMED. *Honorable Gentleman. Putnam.

ANDERSON, ROBERT GORDON. Little Chap. Putnam.

ANDERSON, SHERWOOD. *Winesburg, Ohio. Huebsch.

ANDREWS, MARY RAYMOND SHIPMAN. *Joy in the Morning. Scribner.

AUSTIN, F. BRITTEN. According to Orders. Doran.

BACON, JOSEPHINE DASKAM. Square Peggy. Appleton.

BACON, PEGGY. True Philosopher. Four Seas.

BEACH, REX ELLINWOOD. Too Fat to Fight. Harper.

BERCOVICI, KONRAD. *Dust of New York. Boni and Liveright.

BROOKS, ALLEN. Silken Cord. Frank C. Brown.

BURROUGHS, EDGAR RICE. Jungle Tales of Tarzan. McClurg.

CABELL, JAMES BRANCH. *Jurgen. McBride.

CHAPMAN, WILLIAM GERARD. Green Timber Trails. Century.

CLEMENS, SAMUEL LANGHORNE ("MARK TWAIN"). *Curious
    Republic of Gondour. Boni and Liveright.

COBB, IRVIN S. *From Place to Place. Doran.
  *Life of the Party. Doran.

COCHRAN, JEAN CARTER. *Foreign Magic. Doran.

COHEN, OCTAVUS ROY. Polished Ebony. Dodd, Mead.

DAVIES, ELLEN CHIVERS. *Tales of Serbian Life. Dodd, Mead.

DAVIS, SAM. First Piano in Camp. Harper.

DODGE, HENRY IRVING. He Made His Wife His Partner. Harper.

DREISER, THEODORE. *Twelve Men. Boni and Liveright.

DUNNE, FINLEY PETER. *Mr. Dooley; on Making a Will. Scribner.

DYKE, HENRY VAN. See Van Dyke, Henry.

FILLMORE, PARKER. *Czechoslovak Fairy Tales. Harcourt, Brace and Howe.

FORD, SEWELL. Shorty McCabe Gets the Hail. Clode.

FOSTER, JOHN MCGAW. Crowded Inn. Pilgrim Press.

FRASER, W. A. Bulldog Corner. Doran.

FUESSLE, NEWTON A. Flesh and Phantasy. Cornhill Co.

GATE, ETHEL M. * Tales from the Secret Kingdom. Yale Univ. Press.

GLASS, MONTAGUE. Potash and Perlmutter Settle Things. Harper.

GREEN, ANNA KATHARINE. Room Number 3. Dodd, Mead.

GRENFELL, WILFRED T. Labrador Days. Houghton Mifflin.

HARPER, WILHELMINA, _editor_. Off Duty. Century.

HART, WILLIAM S., _and_ HART, MARY. Pinto Ben. Britton.

HEARN, LAFCADIO. "Fantastics." Houghton Mifflin.

"HENRY, O." (SIDNEY PORTER). *Waifs and Strays. Doubleday, Page.

HERGESHEIMER, JOSEPH. *Happy End. Knopf.

HOLMES, ROY J., _and_ STARBUCK, A., _editors_. *War Stories. Crowell.

HURST, FANNIE. *Humoresques. Harper.

ILES, AUGUSTUS. Canadian Stories. Privately printed.

JAMES, HENRY. *Landscape Painter. Scott and Seltzer.
  *Traveling Companions. Boni and Liveright.

JOHNSON, ALVIN. *John Stuyvesant, Ancestor. Harcourt, Brace and Howe.

KING, BASIL. *Going West. Harper.

KYNE, PETER B. Green Pea Pirates. Doubleday, Page.

LA MOTTE, ELLEN N. *Civilization. Doran.

LASSELLE, MARY A., _editor_. *Short Stories of the New America. Holt.

LOAN, CHARLES EMMETT VAN. _See_ Van Loan, Charles Emmett.

LONDON, JACK. *On the Makaloa Mat. Macmillan.

MACFARLANE, PETER CLARK. Exploits of Bilge and Ma. Little, Brown.

MACMANUS, SEUMAS. *Lo, and Behold Ye! Stokes.

MATHIEWS, FRANKLIN K., _editor_. Boy Scout's Book of Stories. Appleton.

MEANS. *More. E. K. Putnam.

MONTAGUE, MARGARET PRESCOTT. *Gift. Dutton.

MORLEY, CHRISTOPHER. *Haunted Bookshop. Doubleday, Page.

"NAOMI, AUNT." Jewish Fairy Tales and Legends. Bloch Pub. Co.

NEWTON, ALMA. *Blue String. Duffield.

O'BRIEN, EDWARD J., _editor_. Best Short Stories of 1918. Small, Maynard.

O'HIGGINS, HARVEY J. *From the Life. Harper.

PACKARD, FRANK L. Night Operator. Doran.

PARKER, SIR (HORATIO) GILBERT. Wild Youth and Another. Lippincott.

PATTERSON, MADGE LISBETH. Marco, the Gypsy Elf. Hine Bros.

PIER, ARTHUR STANWOOD. Dormitory Days. Houghton Mifflin.

PORTER, ELEANOR H. Across the Years. Houghton Mifflin.
    Tangled Threads. Houghton Mifflin.
    Tie that Binds. Houghton Mifflin.

PORTER, SIDNEY. _See_ "Henry, O."

POST, MELVILLE DAVISSON. *Mystery at the Blue Villa. Appleton.

PROUTY, OLIVE HIGGINS. Good Sports. Stokes.

RAYMOND, ROBERT L. At a Dollar a Year. Marshall Jones.

REED, MARGERY VERNER. Futurist Stories. Kennerley.

REEVE, ARTHUR B., _editor_. *Best Ghost Stories. Boni and Liveright.

RINEHART, MARY ROBERTS. Love Stories. Doran.

RUSSELL, JOHN. *Red Mark. Knopf.

SAWYER, RUTH. Doctor Danny. Harper.

SCOTT, TEMPLE. Silver Age. Scott and Seltzer.

SHOLL, ANNA MCCLURE. Faery Tales of Weir. Dutton.

SPOFFORD, HARRIET PRESCOTT. *Elder's People. Houghton Mifflin.

STREET, JULIAN. After Thirty. Century.

TERHUNE, ALBERT PAYSON. Lad: a Dog. Dutton.

"TWAIN, MARK." _See_ Clemens, Samuel Langhorne.

VANARDY, VARICK. Something Doing. Macaulay.

VAN DYKE, HENRY. *Broken Soldier and the Maid of France. Harper.
  *Valley of Vision. Scribner.

VAN LOAN, CHARLES EMMETT. Score by Innings. Doran.
    Taking the Count. Doran.

VORSE, MARY HEATON. *Prestons. Boni and Liveright.

WELLES, HARRIET. *Anchors Aweigh. Scribner.

WESTERMAN, PERCY F. Secret Channel. Macmillan.

WHITE, EDWARD LUCAS. *Song of the Sirens. Dutton.

WIGGIN, KATE DOUGLAS. *Ladies-in-Waiting. Houghton Mifflin.

WILSON, HARRY LEON. *Ma Pettengill. Doubleday, Page.

WITWER, HARRY CHARLES. "Smile a Minute." Small, Maynard.


II. English and Irish Authors

BEERBOHM, MAX. *Happy Hypocrite. Lane.

BELL, JOHN JOY. Just Jemima. Revell.

"BIRMINGHAM, GEORGE A." (J. O. HANNAY). Our Casualty. Doran.

"CABLE, BOYD" (CAPTAIN EWART). Air Men o' War. Dutton.

CARLETON, WILLIAM. *Stories of Irish Life. Stokes.

"CHASE, BEATRICE." _See_ Parr, Olive Katharine.

COLUM, PADRAIC. *Boy Who Knew What the Birds Said. Macmillan.

"CUMBERLAND, GERALD." *Tales of a Cruel Country. Brentano's.

"DEHAN, RICHARD." (CLOTILDE GRAVES.) *Sailor's Home. Doran.

DOWSON, ERNEST. *Poems and Prose. Boni and Liveright.

DOYLE, CONAN A. Doings of Raffles Haw. Doran.

DUNSANY, LORD. *Unhappy Far-off Things. Little, Brown.

GARSTIN, CROSBIE. Mud Larks. Doran.

GRAVES, CLOTILDE. _See_ "Dehan, Richard."

HANNAY, J. O. _See_ "Birmingham, George A."

JACOBS, W. W. *Deep Waters. Scribner.

LOCKE, W. J. *Far-Away Stories. Lane.

LYONS, A. NEIL. *London Lot. Lane.

MARSHALL, ARCHIBALD. *Clintons and Others. Dodd, Mead.

MASEFIELD, JOHN. *Tarpaulin Muster. Dodd, Mead.

MAXWELL, W. B. *Life Can Never Be the Same. Bobbs-Merrill.

MERRICK, LEONARD. *Man Who Understood Women. Dutton.
  *While Paris Laughed. Dutton.

MUNRO, HECTOR H. ("_Saki_"). Toys of Peace. Lane.

NEBINSON, MARGARET WYNNE. *Workhouse Characters. Macmillan.

*NEW DECAMERON. McBride.

O'BRIEN, EDWARD J., _editor_. Great Modern English Stories.
   Boni and Liveright.

ORCZY, EMMUS, BARONESS. League of the Scarlet Pimpernel. Doran.

PARR, OLIVE KATHARINE. ("BEATRICE CHASE.")
  Completed Tales of My Knights and Ladies. Longmans.

PERTWEE, ROLAND. *Old Card. Boni and Liveright.

REYNOLDS, MRS. BAILIE. *"Open, Sesame!" Doran.

"ROHMER, SAX." (ARTHUR SARSFIELD WARD.) Tales of Secret Egypt. McBride.

"SAKI." _See_ Munro, Hector H.

"TANK MAJOR." Tank Tales. Funk and Wagnalls.

WALLACE, EDGAR. Tam o' the Scoots. Small, Maynard.

WARD, ARTHUR SARSFIELD. _See_ "Rohmer, Sax."


III. TRANSLATIONS

BLASCO, IBÁÑEZ, VICENTE. (_Spanish._) _See_ Ibáñez, Vicente Blasco.

CARY, M., _editor_. (_French._) French Fairy Tales. Crowell.

CHEKOV, ANTON. (_Russian._) *Bishop. Macmillan.

DUHAMEL, GEORGES. ("DENIS THÉVENIN.") (_French._)
  *Civilization. 1914-1917. Century.

IBÁÑEZ, VICENTE BLASCO. (_Spanish._) *Luna Benamor. Luce.

KELLER, GOTTFRIED. (_German._) *Seldwyla Folks. Brentano's.

KINCAID, CHARLES AUGUSTUS. (_India._)
  *Tales from the Indian Epics. Oxford Univ. Press.

KOROLENKO, V. (_Russian._) *Birds of Heaven. Duffield.

PINSKI, DAVID. (_Yiddish._) *Temptations. Brentano's.

SCHWIEKERT, HARRY C., _editor._ (_Russian._)
  *Russian Short Stories. Scott, Foresman.

SUDERMANN, HERMANN. (_German._) *Iolanthe's Wedding. Boni and Liveright.

TCHEKOV, ANTON. (_Russian._) _See_ Chekhov, Anton.

"THÉVENIN, DENIS." (_French._) _See_ Duhamel, Georges.

UNDERWOOD, EDNA WORTHLEY, _editor._ (_Balkan._)
  *Short Stories from the Balkans. Marshall Jones.

VINGY, ALFRED DE. (_French._) *Military Servitude and Grandeur. Doran.

ZAMAÇOIS, EDUARDO. (_Spanish._) *Their Son: The Necklace. Boni and Liveright.


A SELECTED LIBRARY LIST


I. TEN BOOKS BY AMERICAN AUTHORS

ANDERSON, SHERWOOD. Winesburg, Ohio. Huebsch.

CABEL, JAMES BRANCH. Jurgen. McBride.

COBB, IRVIN E. From Place to Place. Doran.

DREISER, THOEDORE. Twelve Men. Boni and Liveright.

HEARN, LAFCADIO. Fantastics. Houghton Mifflin.

"HENRY, O." (SIDNEY PORTER.) Waifs and Strays. Doubleday, Page.

HERGESHEIMER, JOSEPH. Happy End. Knopf.

HURST, FANNIE. Humoresques. Harper.

JAMES, HENRY. Travelling Companions. Boni and Liveright.

O'HIGGINS, HARVEY J. From the Life. Harper.


II. Ten Books by English and Irish Authors

BEERBOHM, MAX. Happy Hypocrite. Lane.

COLUM, PADRAIC. Boy Who Knew What the Birds Said. Macmillan.

DOWSON, ERNEST. Poems and Prose. Boni and Liveright.

DUNSANY, LORD. Unhappy Far-Off Things. Little, Brown.

LYONS, A. NEIL. London Lot. Lane.

MASEFIELD, JOHN. Tarpaulin Muster. Dodd, Mead.

MERRICK, LEONARD. Man Who Understood Women. Dutton.
    While Paris Laughed. Dutton.

NEW DECAMERON. McBride.

PERTWEE, ROLAND. Old Card. Boni and Liveright.


III. TEN BOOKS OF TRANSLATIONS

CHEKOV, ANTON. (_Russian._) Bishop. Macmillan.

DUHAMEL, GEORGES. ("DENIS THÉVENIN.") Civilization. 1914-1917. Century.

IBÁÑEZ, VICENTE BLASCO. (_Spanish._) Luna Benamor. Luce.

KELLER, GOTTFRIED. (_German._) Seldwyla Folks. Brentano's.

KOROLENKO, V. (_Russian._) Birds of Heaven. Duffield.

PINSKI, DAVID. (_Yiddish._) Temptations. Brentano's.

SUDERMANN, HERMANN. (_German._) Iolanthe's Wedding. Boni and Liveright.

UNDERWOOD, EDNA WROTHLEY, _editor_. (_Balkan._)
  Short Stories from the Balkans. Marshall Jones.

VIGNEY, ALFRED DE. (_French._) Military Servitude and Grandeur. Doran.

ZAMAÇOIS, EDUARDO. (_Spanish._) Their Son: The Necklace. Boni and Liveright.




ARTICLES ON THE SHORT STORY

OCTOBER, 1918, TO SEPTEMBER, 1919

_The following abbreviations are used in this index_:--

_Am._                   American
_Ath._                  Athenæum
_Atl._                  Atlantic Monthly
_Bel._                  Bellman
_B. E. T._              Boston Evening Transcript
_Book_                  Bookman
_Cath. W._              Catholic World
_Ch. D. News_           Chicago Daily News
_Every_                 Everyman
_Lib._                  Liberator
_Liv. Age_              Living Age
_Mir._                  Reedy's Mirror
_Nat._                  Nation
_Nat. (London)_         London Nation
_N. Rep._               New Republic
_New S._                New Statesman
_N. Y. Sun_             New York Sun
_N. Y. Times_           New York Times
_N. Y. Trib._           New York Tribune
_Pag._                  Pagan
_Strat. J._             Stratford Journal
_Touch._                Touchstone

Anderson, Sherwood.
  Reviews of "Winesburg, Ohio." By H. W. Boynton. Book. Aug. (49:729.)
  By Floyd Dell. Lib. Sept. (46.)
  By M. A. N. Rep. June 25. (19:257.)
  By Hart Crane. Pag. Sept. (60.)

Austin, F. Britten.
  Review of "According to Orders."
  By Dorothy Scarborough. N. Y. Sun. March 2. (2.)

Barbusse, Henri.
  Review of "We Others." By Dorothy Scarborough. N. Y. Sun. Dec. 22, '18. (9.)

Belgian Writers, Contemporary.
  _See_ MARLOW, GEORGES.

BERESFORD, J. D.
  Dostoievsky Under the Lens. N.Y. Trib. Dec. 1, '18. (pt. 3, p. 3.)

Bierce, Ambrose.
  Reviews of "Can Such Things Be?" By Edwin F. Edgett, B. E.T. Feb. 26.
    (pt. 2. p. 6.)
  By Dorothy Scarborough. N.Y. Sun. March 2. (7.)
  _See also_ O'SULLIVAN, VINCENT.

Boccaccio, Triumph of. By L. C.-M. Ath. June 13. (473.)

BOYNTON, H.W.
  Adventures and Riddles. Book. May. (321.)
  Anderson's "Winesburg, Ohio." Book. Aug. (49:729.)

Burke, Thomas.
  Review of "Out and About London." By Edwin F. Edgett. B. E. T. April 5.
    (pt. 3. p. 8.)

Burt, Maxwell Struthers.
  Review of "John O'May." By Dorothy Scarborough. N. Y. Sun. Nov. 24, '18.
    (5.)

C.-M., L.
  Triumph of Boccaccio. Ath. June 13. (437.)

Cable, George W.
  Review of "Lovers of Louisiana." By Catherine Postelle. Mir. March 21.
    (159.)

Canfield, Dorothy.
  Reviews of "Home Fires in France." By Emily Grant Hutchins. Mir.
    March 29. (28:178.) By Dorothy Scarborough. N.Y. Sun. Nov. 17, '18. (l)
    By Dorothea Lawrance Mann. B. E. T. April 30. (pt. 2. p. 6.)

Carleton, William.
  Review of "Stories of Irish Life." Ath. Aug. 15. (750.)

CASSERES. BENJAMIN DE.
  Moore's "A Story-Teller's Holiday." N. Y. Sun. Jan. 5. (2.)

Clémenceau, Novelist.
  By Roy Temple House. Mir. March 14. (151.)

Conrad, Joseph.
  By Frank Pease. Nat. Nov. 2, '18. (107:510.)
  By Joseph J. Reilly. Cath. W. May. (109:163.)
  By M.K. Wisehart. N.Y. Sun. Mar. 2. (4.)
  By E. Preston Dargan. Dial. June 28. (66: 638.)
  By Edward Moore. New S. Sept. 13. (13:590.)
  By John Cowper Powys. Mir. Sept. 4. (28:600.)

COURNOS, JOHN.
  How to Read the Russian Novelists. Every. Sept. 6. (14:517.)

CRANE, HART.
  Review of Anderson's "Winesburg, Ohio." Pag. Sept. (60.)

DARGAN, E. PRESTON.
  Voyages of Conrad. Dial. June 28. (66:638.)

DAVIS, ROBERT H.
  The Late Charles E. Van Loan. Book. May. (280.)

DELL, FLOYD.
  Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio," and Dreiser's "Twelve Men." Lib. Sept. (46.)

Dostoievsky Under the Lens.
  By J. B. Beresford. N. Y. Trib. Dec. 1, '18. (pt. 3. p. 3.)

Doyle, A. Conan.
 Review of "Danger!" By Edward N. Teall. N. Y. Sun. March 9. (12.)

Dreiser, Theodore.
  Reviews of "Twelve Men." By Floyd Dell. Lib. Sept. (46.) By Edwin F.
    Edgett. B. E. T. Apr. 30. (pt. 2. p. 6.)

Duhamel, Georges, Historian of Ambulance Heroism.
  By Alvan F. Sanborn. B. E. T. March 12. (pt. 2. p. 5.)

Duncan, Norman.
  By C. K. Trueblood. Dial. Dec. 28, '18. (65:615.)

Dunne, Finlay Peter.
  Reviews of "Mr. Dooley: On Making a Will." By Edmund Lester Pearson.
    B. E. T. Sept. 10. (pt. 2. p. 8.) By Francis Hackett. N. Rep. Sept. 24.
    (20:235.)

DUNSTER, H.
  Henry James: A Personal Memoir. Ath. June 27. (518.)

EDGETT, EDWIN F.
  Bierce's "Can Such Things Be?" B. E. T. Feb. 26. (pt. 2. p. 6.)
  Burke's "Out and About London." B. E. T. Apr. 5. (pt. 3. p. 8.)
  Dreiser's "Twelve Men." B. E. T. Apr. 30. (pt. 2. p. 6.)
  James's "Travelling Companions." B. E. T. May 7. (pt. 3. p. 4.)
  Locke's "Far-Away Stories." B. E. T. July 19. (pt. 3, p. 6.)
  Marshall's "The Clinton's." B. E. T. May 10. (pt. 3. p. 10.)
  Merrick's "While Paris Laughed." B. E. T. Feb. 1. (pt. 3. p. 8.)
  Noyes's "Walking Shadows." B. E. T. Dec. 14, '18. (pt. 3. p. 6.)
  Van Dyke's "Valley of Vision." B. E. T. Mar. 19. (pt. 3. p. 4.)
  Wharton's "The Marne." B. E. T. Dec. 21, '18. (pt. 3. p. 8.)
  White's "Song of the Sirens." B. E. T. Mar. 15. (pt. 3. p. 8.)

EGAN, MAURICE FRANCIS.
  Van Dyke's "The Valley of Vision." Book. Sept. (50:71.)

Evans, Caradoc.
  Review of "My People," and "Capel Sion," by Constance Mayfield Rourke.
    N. Rep. Feb. 1. (18:30.)

Fox, Jr., Novelist of the South, John.
  By R. M. B. E. T. July 23. (pt. 2. p. 8.)

Freeman, Mary E. Wilkins.
  Review of "Edgewater People." By Dorothy Scarborough. N. Y. Sun. Feb. 2.
    (12.)

Fuessle, Newton A.
  Review of "Flesh and Phantasy." By Dorothea Lawrance Mann. B. E. T. July
    16. (pt. 2. p. 6.)

GEROULD, KATHARINE FULLERTON.
  Remarkable Rightness of Rudyard Kipling. Atl. Jan. (123:12.)

GOLDBERG, ISAAC.
  Blasco Ibáñez. B. E. T. March 26. (pt. 2. p. 5.)
  Blasco Ibáñez. Strat. J. May. (4:235.)
  South American Tales. B. E. T. Sept. 17. (pt. 2. p. 6.)

Gorky, Maxim.
  "Maxim the Bitter." Nat. (London). Aug. 23. (25:611.)

HACKETT, FRANCIS.
  Review of Dunne's "Mr. Dooley: On Making a Will." N. Rep. Sept. 24.
    (20:235.)

Harker, L. Allen.
  Review of "Children of the Dear Cotswolds." By Dorothy Scarborough. N. Y.
    Sun. Dec. 15, '18. (5.)

Harris, Joel Chandler.
  Review of "Uncle Remus Returns." By Elsie Clews Parsons. Dial. May 17.
    (491.)

"Henry, O."
  By Robert Cortes Holliday. Ch. D. News. March 19.
  _See also_ O'SULLIVAN, VINCENT.

HOLLIDAY, ROBERT CORTES.
 Amazing Failure of O. Henry. Ch. D. News. March 19.

HOOKER, BRIAN.
  Concerning Yarns. Book. May. (308.)

HOUSE, ROY TEMPLE.
  Clémenceau, Novelist. Mir. March 14. (151.)

HULL, HELEN R.
  Literary Drug Traffic. Dial. Sept. 6. (67:190.)

HUTCHINGS, EMILY GRANT.
 Canfield's "Home Fires in France." Mir. March 29. (28:178.)

Ibáñez, Blasco.
  By Isaac Goldberg. Strat. J. May. (4:235.)
  By Isaac Goldberg. B. E. T. Mar. 26. (pt. 2. p. 5.)

James, Henry.
  By H. Dunster. Ath. June 27. (518.)
  Reviews of "Travelling Companions." By Edwin F. Edgett. B. E. T. May 7.
    (pt. 3. p. 4.) By Edna Kenton. Book. Aug. (49:706.) By Philip Littell.
    N. Rep. July 30. (19:422.) By William Lyon Phelps. N. Y. Times Apr. 20.
    (24:209.)

"KEITH, KATHARINE." (MRS. DAVID ADLER.)
  Feodor Sologub. Dial. June 28. (66:648.)

KENNON, HARRY B.
  Marshall's "The Clintons." Mir. June 5. (28:372.)

KENTON, EDNA.
  James's "Travelling Companions." Book. Aug. (49:706.)

Kipling, Rudyard.
  By Katharine Fullerton Gerould. Atl. Jan. (123:12.)
  By Joseph J. Reilly. Cath. W. Aug. (109:588.)

LAIT, JACK (JACQUIN L.)
  Charlie Van Loan--as Jack Lait Knows Him. Am. Dec. '18. (39.)

Latzko, Andreas.
  Review of "Men in Battle." ("Men in War.") Nat. (London.) Jan. 4.
    (24:410.)

LE GALLIENNE, RICHARD.
  Oscar Wilde: Poet and Teller of Children's Tales. Touch.
  Dec., '18. (4:212.)

LITTELL, PHILIP.
  James's "Travelling Companions." N. Rep. July 30. (19:422.)

Locke, William J.
  Review of "Far-Away Stories." By Edwin F. Edgett. B. E. T. July 19.
    (pt. 3. p. 6.)

M. A.
  Anderson's "Winesburg, Ohio." N. Rep. June 25. (19:257.)

M. R.
  John Fox, Jr. B. E. T. July 23. (pt. 2. p. 8.)

MCFEE, WILLIAM.
  Idea. Book. Aug. (49:647.)

MANN, DOROTHEA LAWRANCE.
  Canfield's "The Day of Glory." B. E. T. April 30. (pt. 2. p. 6.)
  Fuessle's "Flesh and Phantasy." B. E. T. July 16. (pt. 2. p. 6.)

MARLOW, GEORGES.
  Chronique de Belgique. Mercure de France. 1er juillet. (134:134.)

Marshall, Archibald.
  Reviews of "The Clintons and Others." By Edwin F. Edgett. B. E. T. May
  10. (pt. 3. p. 10.) By Harry B. Kennon. Mir. June 5. (28:372.)

MASSON, THOMAS L.
  How to Read Short Stories. Mir. May 15. (28:305.)

MASTERMAN, C. F. G.
 Stephen Reynolds. Nat. (London). Feb. 22. (24:609.)

Maupassant's Paris, Guy de.
 By Arthur Bartlett Maurice. Book. Aug. (49:652.)

MAURICE, ARTHUR BARTLETT.
  Guy de Maupassant's Paris. Book. Aug. (49:652.)

Merrick, Leonard.
  Reviews of "While Paris Laughs." By Edwin F. Edgett. B. E. T. Feb. 1.
    (pt. 3. p. 8.)
  By Dorothy Scarborough. N. Y. Sun. Feb. 9. (1.)

MICHENER, CARROLL K.
  White's "The Song of the Sirens." Bel. March 29. (26:357.)

MOORE, EDWARD.
  Note on Mr. Conrad. New S. Sept. 13. (13:590.)

Moore, George.
  Reviews of "A Story-Teller's Holiday." By Benjamin de Casseres. N. Y.
  Sun. Jan. 5. (2.) By J. S. Watson, Jr. Dial. Dec. 14, '18. (65:534.)

MORAVSKY, MARIA.
  Greenhorn in America. Atl. Nov., '18. (122:663.)

Morley, Christopher.
  Review of "The Haunted Bookshop." By Edmund Lester Pearson. Book. Sept.
    (50:78.)

MURRY, J. MIDDLETON.
  Tchehov's "The Bishop." Ath. Aug. 22. (777.)

MYERS, WALTER L.
  On Mediocrity and Its Excellences. Dial. Sept. 6. (67:193.)

Nodier, Charles.
  By George Saintsbury. Ath. Sept. 5. (857.)

Noyes, Alfred.
  Review of "Walking Shadows." By Edwin F. Edgett. B. E. T. Dec. 14, '18.
    (pt. 3. p. 6.)

O'Brien, Edward J.
  Review of "The Best Short Stories of 1918." By Dorothy Scarborough.
    N. Y. Sun. Feb. 23. (6.)

O'Brien, FitzJames.
  _See_ O'SULLIVAN, VINCENT.

O'SULLIVAN, VINCENT.
  En Marge de la Littérature américaine. Mercure de France. 1er juillet.
    (134:5.)
  La Littérature américaine. Mercure de France. 16 janvier. (131:246.)

PARSONS, ELSIE CLEWS.
  Harris's "Uncle Remus Returns." Dial. May 17. (491.)

PEARSON, EDMUND LESTER.
  Morley's "Haunted Bookshop." Book. Sept. (50:78.)
  Dunne's "Mr. Dooley: On Making a Will." B. E. T. Sept. 10. (pt. 2. p. 8.)

PEASE, FRANK.
  Joseph Conrad. Nat. Nov. 2, '18. (107:510.)

PHELPS, WILLIAM LYON.
James's "Travelling Companions." N. Y. Times. Apr. 20. (24:209.)

POSTELLE, CATHERINE.
  Cable's "Lovers of Louisiana." Mir. March 21. (159.)
  Wharton's "The Marne." Mir. March 14. (152.)

POWYS, JOHN COWPER.
  Real Romance. (Joseph Conrad.) Mir. Sept. 4. (28:600.)

REILLY, JOSEPH J.
  Passing of Kipling. Cath. W. Aug. (109:588.)
  Short Stories of Joseph Conrad. Cath. W. May. (109:163.)

Reynolds, Stephen.
  By C. F. G. Masterman. Nat. (London). Feb. 22. (24:609.)

ROBERTS, R. ELLIS.
  Mr. Booth Tarkington Through British Eyes. Liv. Age. March 1. (300:541.)

ROURKE, CONSTANCE MAYFIELD.
  Evans's "My People," and "Capel Sion." N. Rep. Feb. 1. (18:30.)

RUGGIERO, GUIDO DE.
  Giovanni Verga and the Realists. Ath. July 11. (600.)

SAINTSBURY, GEORGE.
  Charles Nodier. Ath. Sept. 5. (857.)

SANBORN, ALVAN F.
  Georges Duhamel. B. E. T. March 12. (pt. 2. p. 5.)

Sawyer, Ruth.
  Review of "Doctor Danny." By Dorothy Scarborough. N. Y. Sun. March 9.
    (11.)

SCARBOROUGH, DOROTHY.
  Austin's "According to Orders." N. Y. Sun. March 2. (2.)
  Barbusse's "We Others." N. Y. Sun. Dec. 22, '18. (9.)
  Bierce's "Can Such Things Be?" N. Y. Sun. March 2. (7.)
  Burt's "John O'May." N. Y. Sun. Nov. 24, '18. (5.)
  Canfield's "Home Fires in France." N. Y. Sun. Nov. 17, '18. (1.)
  Freeman's "Edgewater People." N. Y. Sun. Feb. 2. (12.)
  Harker's "Children of the Dear Cotswolds." N. Y. Sun. Dec. 15, '18. (5.)
  Merrick's "While Paris Laughed." N. Y. Sun. Feb. 9. (1.)
  O'Brien's "Best Short Stories of 1918." N. Y. Sun. Feb. 23. (6.)
  Sawyer's "Doctor Danny." N. Y. Sun. March 9. (11.)
  Some Stories in the Christmas Magazines. N. Y. Sun. Dec. 8, '18. (7.)
  Some Stories in the February Magazines. N. Y. Sun. Feb. 2. (5.)
  Some Stories in the March Magazines. N. Y. Sun. March 2. (8.)
  Some Stories for the New Year. N. Y. Sun. Jan. 5. (12.)
  Van Dyke's "Valley of Vision." N. Y. Sun. Mar. 16. (12.)
  Welles's "Anchors Aweigh." N. Y. Sun. Mar. 16. (8.)
  Wharton's "The Marne." N. Y. Sun. Jan. 5. (1.)
  White's "Song of the Sirens." N. Y. Sun. Mar. 16. (11.)
  Wormser's "The Scarecrow." N. Y. Sun. Dec. 29, '18. (9.)

Sologub, Feodor.
  By "Katharine Keith." (Mrs. David Adler.) Dial. June 28. (66:648.)

South American Tales.
  By Isaac Goldberg. B. E. T. Sept. 17. (pt. 2. p. 6.)

Tarkington, Booth.
  By R. Ellis Roberts. Liv. Age. March 1. (300:541.)

TCHEHOV, ANTON.
  Letters. I. Ath. April 4. (149.)
  II. Ath. April 18. (215.)
  III. Ath. April 25. (249.)
  IV. Ath. May 2. (282.)
  V. Ath. May 23. (378.)
  VI. Ath. June 6. (441.)
  VII. Ath. June 27. (538.)
  VIII. Ath. July 11. (602.)
  IX. Ath. July 25. (667.)
  X. Ath. Aug. 8. (731.)
  XI. Ath. Sept. 5. (858.)

Tchehov, Anton.
  Review of "The Bishop." By J. Middleton Murry. Ath. Aug. 22. (777.)

TEALL, EDWARD N.
  Doyle's "Danger!" N. Y. Sun. March 9. (12.)

TRUEBLOOD, C. K.
  Norman Duncan. Dial. Dec. 28, '18. (65:615.)

Van Dyke, Henry.
  Reviews of "The Valley of Vision." By Edwin F. Edgett B. E. T. March 19.
    (pt. 3. p. 4.)
  By Dorothy Scarborough. N. Y. Sun. March 16. (12.)
  By Maurice Francis Egan. Book. Sept. (50:71.)

Van Loan, Charles E.
  By Robert B. Davis. Book. May. (280.) By Jack Lait.
  Am. Dec., '18. (39.)

Verga, Giovanni, and the Realists.
  By Guido de Ruggiero. Ath. July 11. (600.)

WATSON, J. S., JR.
  Moore's "A Story-Teller's Holiday." Dial. Dec. 14, '18. (65:534.)

Welles, Harriet.
  Review of "Anchors Aweigh." By Dorothy Scarborough.
  N. Y. Sun. March 16. (8.)

Wharton, Edith.
  Reviews of "The Marne." By Edwin F. Edgett. B. E. T. Dec. 21, '18.
    (pt. 3. p. 8.)
  By Catherine Postelle. Mir. March 14. (152.)
  By Dorothy Scarborough. N. Y. Sun. Jan. 5. (1.)

White, Edward Lucas.
  Reviews of "The Song of the Sirens." By Edwin F.
  Edgett. B. E. T. March 15. (pt. 3. p. 8.)
  By Caroll K. Michener. Bel. March 29. (26:837.)
  By Dorothy Scarborough. N. Y. Sun. March 16. (11.)

Wilde, Oscar: Poet and Teller of Children's Tales.
  By Richard Le Gallienne. Touch. Dec. '18. (4:212.)

WISEHART, M. K.
  Joseph Conrad Described by Jo Davidson. N. Y. Sun. March 2. (4.)

Wormser, G. Ranger.
  Review of "The Scarecrow." By Dorothy Scarborough. N. Y. Sun. Dec. 29,
    '18. (9.)




MAGAZINE AVERAGES FOR 1919

_The following table includes the averages of American periodicals
published from November, 1918, to September, 1919, inclusive. One, two,
and three asterisks are employed to indicate relative distinction.
"Three-asterisk stories" are of somewhat permanent literary value. The
list excludes reprints_.

   ___________________________________________________________________________
                                        |      |              |
                                        |      |              |
                                        | No.  |     No. of   |   Percentage
                                        | of   |  Distinctive | of Distinctive
                                        | Sto- |    Stories   |    Stories
        Periodicals                     | Ries |   Published  |   Published
                                        | Pub- |              |
                                        |lished|______________|_______________
                                        |      |    |    |    |     |     |
                                        |      |  * | ** | ***|  *  |  ** |***
   _____________________________________|______|____|____|____|_____|_____|___
                                        |      |    |    |    |     |     |
                                        |      |    |    |    |     |     |
   American Magazine (except September) |   43 |  8 |  3 |  1 |  19 |   7 |  2
   Atlantic Monthly                     |   19 | 17 | 12 |  7 |  89 |  63 | 37
   Bellman (Nov.-June)                  |   31 | 18 |  6 |  3 |  58 |  19 | 10
   Catholic World                       |    9 |  6 |  2 |  0 |  66 |  22 |  0
   Century                              |   35 | 28 | 20 | 11 |  80 |  57 | 32
   Collier's Weekly                     |  114 | 29 | 10 |  0 |  25 |   9 |  0
   Cosmopolitan                         |   66 | 11 |  3 |  2 |  17 |   5 |  3
   Delineator                           |   40 |  9 |  1 |  0 |  23 |   3 |  0
   Everybody's Magazine                 |   46 |  9 |  2 |  2 |  20 |   4 |  4
   Good Housekeeping                    |   30 |  9 |  6 |  3 |  30 |  20 | 10
   Harper's Bazar                       |   33 | 10 |  7 |  4 |  30 |  21 | 12
   Harper's Magazine                    |   60 | 50 | 36 | 19 |  83 |  60 | 32
   Hearst's Magazine                    |   71 | 13 |  7 |  3 |  18 |  10 |  4
   Little Review (except July and       |    9 |  9 |  9 |  7 | 100 | 100 | 72
     September)                         |      |    |    |    |     |     |
   Metropolitan                         |   53 | 17 | 12 |  6 |  32 |  23 | 11
   Midland                              |   13 | 12 |  6 |  4 |  92 |  46 | 31
   New York Tribune                     |   70 | 33 | 16 |  8 |  47 |  23 | 11
   Pagan                                |   46 | 20 | 14 |  5 |  44 |  30 | 11
   Pictoral Review                      |   44 | 25 | 20 | 13 |  57 |  45 | 30
   Reedy's Mirror                       |   25 |  8 |  4 |  2 |  32 |  16 |  8
   Saturday Evening Post                |  308 | 51 | 19 |  8 |  17 |   6 |  3
   Scribner's Magazine                  |   49 | 36 | 21 |  8 |  74 |  43 | 16
   Smart Set                            |  135 | 25 | 12 |  4 |  19 |   9 |  3
   Stratford Journal                    |   32 | 28 | 20 | 14 |  88 |  63 | 44
   To-day's Housewife                   |   35 |  6 |  1 |  0 |  17 |   3 |  0
   ===========================================================================

_The following tables indicate the rank, during the period between
November, 1918, and September, 1919, inclusive, by number and percentage
of distinctive stories published, of the twenty-one periodicals coming
within the scope of my examination which have published an average of 15
per cent in stories of distinction. The lists exclude reprints, but not
translations._


BY PERCENTAGE OF DISTINCTIVE STORIES

    1.  Stratford Journal (including translations)      88%
    2.  Harper's Magazine                               83%
    3.  Century                                         80%
    4.  Scribner's Magazine                             74%
    5.  Bellman (January-June)                          58%
    6.  Pictorial Review                                57%
    7.  New York Tribune (including translations)       47%
    8.  Pagan (including translations)                  44%
    9.  Harper's Bazar                                  33%
   10.  Metropolitan                                    32%
   11.  Reedy's Mirror                                  32%
   12.  Good Housekeeping                               30%
   13.  Collier's Weekly                                25%
   14.  Delineator                                      23%
   15.  Everybody's Magazine                            20%
   16.  Smart Set                                       19%
   17.  American Magazine (except September)            19%
   18.  Hearst's Magazine                               18%
   19.  Saturday Evening Post                           17%
   20.  Cosmopolitan                                    17%
   21.  To-day's Housewife                              17%


BY NUMBER OF DISTINCTIVE STORIES

    1.  Saturday Evening Post                                            51
    2.  Harper's Magazine                                                50
    3.  Scribner's Magazine                                              36
    4.  New York Tribune (including translations)                        33
    5.  Collier's Weekly                                                 29
    6.  Stratford Journal (including translations)                       28
    7.  Century                                                          28
    8.  Pictorial Review                                                 25
    9.  Smart Set                                                        25
   10.  Pagan (including translations)                                   20
   11.  Bellman (January-June)                                           18
   12.  Metropolitan                                                     17
   13.  Hearst's Magazine                                                13
   14.  Cosmopolitan                                                     11
   15.  Harper's Bazar                                                   10
   16.  Good Housekeeping                                                 9
   17.  Delineator                                                        9
   18.  Everybody's Magazine                                              9
   19. Reedy's Mirror                                                     8
   20. American Magazine (excluding September)                            8
   21. To-day's Housewife                                                 6

_The following periodicals have published during the same period eight
or more "two-asterisk stories." The list excludes reprints, but not
translations. Periodicals represented in this list during 1915, 1916,
1917, and 1918 are represented by the prefixed letters a, b, c, and d
respectively._

    1.  abcd  Harper's Magazine                                          36
    2.  abcd  Scribner's  Magazine                                       21
    3.     d  Stratford Journal (including translations) 20
    4.  abcd  Century                                                    20
    5.   bcd  Pictorial  Review                                          20
    6.  abcd  Saturday Evening Post                                      19
    7.    bd  New York Tribune (including translations)                  16
    8.     b  Pagan (including translations)                             14
    9.    cd  Atlantic Monthly                                           12
   10.     b  Metropolitan                                               12
   11.  abcd  Smart Set                                                  12
   12.  abcd  Collier's Weekly                                           10
   13.        Little Review                                               9

_The following periodicals have published during the same period four or
more "three-asterisk stories." The list excludes reprints, but not
translations. The same signs are used as prefixes as in the previous
list._

    1.  abcd  Harper's Magazine                                          19
    2.    cd  Stratford Journal (including translations) 14
    3.   acd  Pictorial Review                                           13
    4.  abcd  Century                                                    11
    5.  abcd  Scribner's Magazine                                         8
    6.     d  New York Tribune (including translations)                   8
    7.   abc  Saturday Evening Post                                       8
    8.     d  Little Review                                               7
    9.    cd  Atlantic Monthly                                            7
   10.    ac  Metropolitan                                                6
   11.     b  Pagan (including translations)                              5
   12.     a  Midland                                                     4
   13.        Harper's Bazar                                              4
   14.     d  Smart Set                                                   4

_Ties in the above lists have been decided by taking relative rank in
other lists into account. The New York Tribune, The Pagan, and The
Stratford Journal gain their rank chiefly through translations of
foreign stories, and allowance should be made for this in any
qualitative estimate._




INDEX OF SHORT STORIES PUBLISHED IN AMERICAN MAGAZINES

OCTOBER, 1918, TO SEPTEMBER, 1919

_All short stories published in the following magazines and newspapers,
October, 1918, to September, 1919, inclusive, are indexed._


   American Magazine (except Sept.)
   Atlantic Monthly
   Bellman (Jan.-June)
   Catholic World
   Century
   Collier's Weekly
   Delineator
   Everybody's Magazine
   Good Housekeeping
   Harper's Magazine
   Ladies' Home Journal
   Liberator
   Little Review (except Sept.)
   Living Age (Jan. 1-Sept. 6)
   Metropolitan
   Midland (except Sept.)
   New Republic
   New York Tribune
   Pagan (except Sept.)
   Pictorial Review
   Reedy's Mirror
   Saturday Evening Post
   Scribner's Magazine
   Stratford Journal
   Sunset Magazine
   Touchstone (Nov.-Jan.)

_Short stories of distinction only, published in the following magazines
and newspapers during the same period, are indexed._

   Adventure
   Ainslee's Magazine
   All-Story Weekly
   American Boy
   Argosy
   Black Cat (except Sept.)
   Christian Herald
   Cosmopolitan
   Harper's Bazar
   Hearst's Magazine
   Live Stories
   McCall's Magazine
   McClure's Magazine
   Magnificat
   Munsey's Magazine
   Parisienne
   Queen's Work
   Red Book Magazine
   Short Stories
   Smart Set
   Snappy Stories
   To-day's Housewife
   Woman's Home Companion (except Sept.)
   Woman's World

_Certain stories of distinction published in the following magazines
during this period are indexed, because they have been specially called
to my attention._

   American Hebrew
   American Jewish Chronicle
   Rod and Gun in Canada

_One, two, or three asterisks are prefixed to the titles of stories to
indicate distinction. Three asterisks prefixed to a title indicate the
more or less permanent literary value of the story, and entitle it to a
place on the annual "Rolls of Honor." An asterisk before the name of an
author indicates that he is not an American. Cross references after an
author's name refer to previous volumes of this series. (H) after the
name of an author indicates that other stories by this author, published
in American magazines between 1900 and 1914, are to be found indexed in
"The Standard Index of Short Stories," by Francis J. Hannigan, published
by Small, Maynard & Company, 1918. The figures in parenthesis after the
title of a story refer to the volume and page number of the magazine. In
cases where successive numbers of a magazine are not paged
consecutively, the page number only is given in this index._

_The following abbreviations are used in the index_:--

   _Adv._       Adventure
   _Ain._       Ainslee's Magazine
   _All._       All-Story Weekly
   _Am._        American Magazine
   _Am. B._     American Boy
   _Am. Heb._   American Hebrew
   _Am. J. Ch._ American Jewish Chronicle
   _Arg._       Argosy
   _Atl._       Atlantic Monthly
   _B. C._      Black Cat
   _Bel._       Bellman
   _Book._      Bookman
   _Cath. W._   Catholic World
   _Cen._       Century
   _C. Her._    Christian Herald
   _Col._       Collier's Weekly
   _Cos._       Cosmopolitan
   _Del._       Delineator
   _Ev._        Everybody's Magazine
   _G. H._      Good Housekeeping
   _Harp. B._   Harper's Bazar
   _Harp. M._   Harper's Magazine
   _Hear._      Hearst's Magazine
   _L. H. J._   Ladies' Home Journal
   _Lib._       Liberator
   _Lit. R._    Little Review
   _Liv. Age_    Living Age
   _L. St._      Live Stories
   _Mag._        Magnificat
   _Mc. C._      McClure's Magazine
   _McCall._     McCall's Magazine
   _Met._        Metropolitan
   _Mid._        Midland
   _Mir._        Reedy's Mirror
   _Mun._        Munsey's Magazine
   _N. Rep._     New Republic
   _N. Y. Trib._ New York Tribune
   _Pag._        Pagan
   _Par._        Parisienne
   _Pict. R._    Pictorial Review
   _Q. W._       Queen's Work
   (_R_)         Reprint
   _Red Bk._     Red Book Magazine
   _R. G. C._    Rod and Gun in Canada
   _Scr._        Scribner's Magazine
   _S. E. P._    Saturday Evening Post
   _Sh. St._     Short Stories
   _Sn. St._     Snappy Stories
   _S. S._       Smart Set
   _Strat. J._   Stratford Journal
   _Sun._        Sunset Magazine
   _Tod._        To-day's Housewife
   _Touch._      Touchstone
   _W. H. C._    Woman's Home Companion
   _Wom. W._     Woman's World
   (161)              Page 161
   (II. 161)          Volume II, page 161
   (See 1915)         See "Best Short Stories of 1915"

ABDULLAH, ACHMED. (ACHMED ABDULLAH NADIR KHAN EL DURANI EL
      IDRISSYDH**.) ("A. A. NADIR.") (1881- .) (_See 1915, 1916,
      1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
   *Assassin. All. Dec. 28, '18. (92:195.)
 ***Dance On the Hill. Harp. M. Nov. '18. (137:703.)
    Footling Tobias. P. Col. March 15. (10.)
   *Himself to Himself Enough. All. March 15. (95:54.)
 ***Honorable Gentleman. Pict. R. Sept. (30.)
  **Outside the Mosque. Am. B. June. (5.)
  **Yellow Wife. Mun. July. (67:259.)

ADAMS, SAMUEL HOPKINS. (1871- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917,
      1918._) (_H._)
    "Cab, Sir?". Ev. Sept. (50.)
    Half a Million, Cold. Ev. April. (31.)
    I. I. I. Ev. March. (22.)
    Mister Hune. Ev. June. (38.)

ADDISON, THOMAS. (_See 1915, 1916, and 1918._)
    Side Line of Puttees. Ev. June. (50.)
    Twenty Per Cent Potter. Ev. May. (44.)

AGEE, FANNIE HEASLIP LEA. _See_ LEA, FANNIE HEASLIP.

AKINS, ZOE. (1886- .)
    Big Chief Departs. Met. Dec '18. (11.)
    New York's a Small Place. Met. July. (37.)

*ALAI'HEM, SHOLEM. (_See 1918._)
 ***Eva. Pag. Jan. (13.)

ALDRICH, BESS STREETER.
    Long-Distance Call from Jim. Am. Aug. (48.)
    Mother's Dash for Liberty. Am. Dec. '18. (11.)
    Mother's Excitement over Father's Old Sweetheart. Am. July. (46.)

ALEXANDER, SANDRA.
    War and Marguerite. Met. Jan. (39.)

*ALIX, MARIUS.
   *Two Sisters. N. Y. Trib. Jan. 19. (Pt. 4 p. 7.)

ALLAN, M. BUTLER.
    Black and White. Pag. Feb. (43.)

ALMOND, LINDA STEVENS. (_See H._)
   *Quest of the Angel Child. N. Y. Trib. March 9. (Pt. 7 p. 7.)

ALSOP, GULIELMA FELL.
 ***Kitchen Gods. Cen. Sept. (98:621.)

"AMID, JOHN." (M. M. STEARNS.) (1884- .)
    (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Ambushed. Mir. Nov. 29, '18. (27:614.)
   *Matthew Loveland. Bel. Dec. 7, '18. (25:631.)
    Offer to Buy. Mid. Nov.-Dec. '18. (4:282.)
    Wind. Bel. April 26. (26:463.)

ANDERSON, FREDEREICK IRVING. (1877- .) (_See 1915, 1916, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Hokum! S. E. P. April 12. (8.)
    Philanthropist. Pict. R. March. (14.)
    Siamese Twin. S. E. P. Feb. 8. (34.)

ANDERSON, SHERWOOD. (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
 ***An Awakening. Lit. R. Dec. '18. (13.)

ANDERSON, WILLIAM ASHLEY. (_See 1915, 1916, and 1917._)
    Disobediently Married. S. E. P. June 28. (10.)

ANDERTON, DAISY.
  **Emmy's Solution. Pag. Feb. (25.)

ANDREWS, MARY RAYMOND SHIPMAN. (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
   *He That Loseth His Life Shall Find It. G. H. Dec '18. (14.)
   *Mr. Boyle. Scr. July. (66:54.)
   *More Than Millionaires. L. H. J. April. (20.)
 ***Queer. Scr. March. (65:272.)
  **Swallow. Scr. Aug. (66:153.)

*ANNUNZIO, GABRIELE D'. (RAPAGNETTA) _See_
      D'ANNUNZIO, GABRIELE. (RAPAGNETTA).

ANONYMOUS.
    At 7:30 P.M. I First Saw Him. Fascinating Story of an American
      War Bride Told by Herself. L. H. J. May. (7.)
   *Avenging Wall. N. Y. Trib. July 20. (Pt. 7 p. 7.)
   *Grandfather. N. Y. Trib. Sept. 7.
   *Guigaud. N. Y. Trib. March 9. (Pt. 8 p. 6.)
    Meeting. N. Y. Trib. Nov. 17, '18.
  **On the Station Platform. N. Y. Trib. Sept 14.
  **Prie Dieu. N. Y. Trib. June 15. (Pt. 9 p. 6.)
    "The Chandelier." N. Y. Trib. June 29. (Pt. 7 p. 7.)
    Tie. N. Y. Trib Aug 17.

*ATKEY, BERTRAM.
 ***MacKurd. S. E. P. Aug. 9. (12.)

*AUMONIER, STACY. (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._)
 ***Brothers. Liv. Age Feb. 1. (300:286.)
 ***Mrs. Huggin's Hun. Cen. Jan. (97:289.)

AUSTIN, F. BRITTEN. (_See 1915, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
  **Final Hour. S. E. P. March 15. (28.)
    In 1920? S. E. P. May 17. (29.)
    Reprisal. S. E. P. Feb. 8. (3.)
    Secret Service. S. E. P. May 10. (13.)
    Through the Gate of Horn. S. E. P. June 28. (46.)

*AVERCHENKO, ARKADYI. (_See 1915 and 1916._)
  **Debutant. Pag. June. (16.)

AVERY, HASCAL T.
   *Caveat Emptor. Atl. Nov. '18. (122:615.)
   *Change of Venue. Atl. Feb. (123:199.)


BABCOCK, EDWINA STANTON. (_See 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
 ***Facing It. Pict. R. June. (12.)
 ***Willum's Vanilla. Harp. M. April. (138:616.)

BABONEAU, J. R. T.
   *Hermit. Cath. W. May. (109:236.)

BACHMANN, ROBERT A. (_See H_)
    Average--1000 Per Cent. Am. June. (22.)

BACON, JOSEPHINE DASKAM. (1876- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Film of Fate. S. E. P. March 15. (5.)
    Girl Who Stepped Along. L. H. J. Feb. (28.)
    Ru of the Reserves. S. E. P. April 19. (18.)
    Superior Perrys. L. H. J. March. (22.)

BAILEY, (IRENE) TEMPLE. (_See 1915 and 1917._)
   *Emperor's Ghost. Scr. Feb. (65:203.)
    Returned Goods. S. E. P. June 14. (20.)
    Sandwich Jane. S. E. P. May 10. (18.)

BAKER, KATHARINE. (_See 1915, 1916, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Enjoy the Day. Scr. April. (65:470.)
    Melisande's Garden. Scr. Jan. (65:77.)

BALLEN, VIRGINIA.
    Madonna of the Wilderness. Sun. Aug. (29.)

BALMER, EDWIN. (1883- .) (_See 1915, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
   *Eleven Eighty-Three and One-Half Rear. Hear. April. (25.)
    Five Days Leave. Met. Jan. (26.)
    Trailing Destroyer. Ev. June. (24.)

BANKS, HELEN WARD. (_See 1917 and 1918._)
    Great Grandfather's Car. Del. Aug. (19.)
    Red Haired Mascot. Del. July. (19.)

BARBOUR, RALPH HENRY. (1870- .) (_See 1915 and 1916._) (_H._)
   *Funerals of Monsieur Dudinot. Col. April 12. (18.)
  **Wonderful Night. Harp. May. (138:849.)

*BARGONE, CHARLES. _See_ FARRÈRE, CLAUDE.

BARILLIER, BERTHE CARIANNE LE. _See_ BERTHEROY, JEAN.

BARNARD, FLOY TOLBERT. (1879- .) (_See 1916, 1917, and 1918._)
   *Amateur Missionary. Cen. Aug. (98:497.)

BARNES, DJUNA.
 ***Night Among the Horses. Lit. R. Dec. '18. (3.)
 ***Valet. Lit. R. May. (3.)

BARRETT, ARABEL MOULTON.
   *'Melia. Cath. W. Jan. (108:517.)

BARTLETT, FREDERICK ORIN. (1876- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Camping On Fifth. S. E. P. Dec. 7, '18. (12.)
    Chateau Thierry. S. E. P. Nov. 2, '18. (8.)
    Lion's Den. S. E. P. Jan. 25. (26.)
 ***Long, Long Ago. Bel. Jan. 11. (26:44.)
    Man in the Mirror. L. H. J. Sept. (10.)
    Mufti. S. E. P. May 17. (36.)

BARTLEY, NALBRO. (1888- .) (_See 1917 and 1918._)
    Booked Solid. S. E. P. June 14. (45.)

*BASHFORD, HENRY HOWARTH. (1880- .)
  **Happy Ghost. Liv. Age. June 7. (301:605.)
  **Last of the Aristocrats. Liv. Age May 10. (301:338.)

BEACH, REX (ELLINGWOOD). (1877- .)
   *Too Fat to Fight. Cos. Jan. (14.)

BEALE, WILL C. (_See 1918._)
    Receipted in Full. Am. Nov. '18. (46.)

BEALLE, NANNA.
    Up Lift. Pag. July-Aug. (50.)

BEARD, WOLCOTT LE CLÉAR. (1867- .) (_See 1915._) (_H._)
    Lady Gaunt. Scr. Jan. (65:100.)

BECHDOLT, FREDERICK RITCHIE. (1874- .) (_See 1917._)
    Hocus Pocus. Sun. Sept. (33.)
   *Joaquin Murieta. S. E. P. Sept. 27. (20.)

BEER, RICHARD CAMERON. (_See 1918._)
    Timothy J. S. E. P. June 21. (46.)

BEER, THOMAS. (1889- .) (_See 1917 and 1918._)
   *Chameleon. S. S. July. (37.)
  **House of Atreus. Cen. July. (98:314.)
    Jellyfish. S. E. P. May 10. (41.)
    Old Men's Peace. S. E. P. June 14. (28.)

*BEERBOHM, MAX. (1872- .) (_See 1915 and 1916._)
 ***Hilary Maltby. Cen. Feb. (97:445.)

BEHRMAN, S. N. (_See 1917 and 1918._)
  *"Honorary Pall Bearers Were--". S. S. April. (121.)
  **Return. S. S. Nov. '18. (113.)

*BELL, J(OHN) J(OY). (1871- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
  **Wound. Bel. Dec. 21, '18. (25:692.)

BELL, LILIAN (LIDA). (MRS. ARTHUR HOYT BOGUE.) (1867- .) (_See 1917._)
    My "Affair" With Jimmie. L. H. J. Aug. (14.)

BENNETT, FLORENCE MARY.
   *Knight of the Broad Brim. Strat. J. Aug. (5:97.)

BENTINCK, RICHARD.
    Henry Jones. L.B., W.S.S. S. E. P. Nov. 30, '18. (21.)

*BERESFORD, JOHN DAVYS. (1873- .) (_See 1916 and 1917._) (_H._)
 ***Reparation. Harp. M. Aug. (139:297.)

*BERTHEROY, JEAN. (BERTHE CARIANNE LE BARILLIER.) (1860- .) (_See 1918._)
   *First Kiss. N. Y. Trib. Feb. 16. (Pt. 4 p. 7.)
    Imperishable Flower. N. Y. Trib. Jan. 5. (Pt. 4 p. 4.)
  **Last Smoke. N. Y. Trib. Aug. 3.
    Maria Louisa. N. Y. Trib. Sept. 28.

*BESLIERE, JEAN.
   *Death of Baron von Frankenstein. N. Y. Trib. May 11. (Pt. 9 p. 6.)

*BINET, VALMER. (_See 1918._)
    Race of Kings. N. Y. Trib. April 13. (Pt. 9 p. 6.)
    What He Fought For. N. Y. Trib. May 25. (Pt. 9 p. 6.)

"BIRO."
    Darkening Shadows. Pag. Dec. '18. (5.)

BISHOP, OLA.
    MacIvor Temper. Met. Sept. (40.)

BLACKTHORN, PETER.
   *Photographer of Silver Mountain. Atl. Jan. (123:43.)

*BLACKWOOD, ALGERNON. (1869- .) (_See 1915, 1916 and 1918._) (_H._)
 ***Little Beggar. Liv. Age June 28 (301:784.) Harp. B. Aug. (41.)

BLOCK, RALPH.
    Dilettante. Strat. J. April. (4:223.)
  **Sin. Lit. R. June. (29.)

BLOCK, RUDOLPH. _See_ "LESSING, BRUNO."

*BOISSIERE, JULES.
 ***Opium Smokers in the Forest. Strat. J. March. (4:123.)

*BONHOMME, PAUL.
  Apparition. N. Y. Trib. June 22. (Pt. 9 p. 7.)

BOOGHER, SUSAN M.
    Reality. Mir. Nov. 8, '18. (27:568.)

BOOTH, EDNA MARY.
    Being a Man. Scr. Aug. (66:208.)

BORDEN, LUCILLE.
   *Road to Christmas Night. Cath. W. Dec. '18. (108:304.)

*BOSANQUET, THEODORA.
    Mr. Blint and the Discreditable Spectres. Liv. Age Aug. 30. (302:537.)

*BOTTOME, PHYLLIS. (MRS. FORBES DENNIS.) (_See 1916, 1917 and 1918._) (_H._)
   *Heroes. Del. July. (7.)

BOYER, WILBUR S. (_See 1917._) (_H._)
   *Longies. Ev. June. (32.)
   *Penny Lunch. Ev. Aug. (105.)

BRADLEY, MARY HASTINGS. (_See H._)
   *Fairest Sex. Met. March. (31.)
    Very Best Man. Del. Aug. (10.)

*BRAMAH, ERNEST.
   *Celestial Laureate. Liv. Age April 12. (301:80.)

BROUN, HEYWOOD.
    Fifty-first Dragoon. N. Y. Trib. April 13. (Pt. 7 p. 7.)
   *Red Magic. N. Y. Trib. March 16. (Pt. 7 p. 3.)

BROWN, ALICE. (1857- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
  **Black Pearls. Harp. M. Sept. (139:472.)
  **Moleskin Coat. Pict. R. March. (12.)
 ***Praying Sally. Harp. M. Feb. (138:310.)

BROWN, HEARTY EARL. (1886- .) (_See 1918._)
   *Milky Way. Atl. June. (123:760.)
  **Vacation of Charlie French., Atl. July. (124:53.)

BROWN, KATHARINE HOLLAND. (_See 1915, 1916, 1917 and 1918._) (_H._)
    Gift. Scr. June. (65:687.)
    Gilded Pill of Venice. L. H. J. Jan. (26.)
    Miss Louisa Plays. Del. June. (13.)
   *Talisman. Scr. Sept. (66:297.)

BROWN, RAY. (1865- .)
    Mr. Fox's Martires. Del. March. (15.)
    Mother and the Swiss Family Robinson. Del. April. (11.)

BROWN, RAYMOND J.
    Job He Wanted. Col. Sept. 6. (24.)

BROWN, ROYAL. (_See 1917 and 1918._)
    An Almost Married Man. June. (30.)
    She Couldn't Marry Both. L. H. J. Sept. (18.)

BROWN, WARREN W.
    Witch Cat. Sun. June. (37.)

BROWNELL, AGNES MARY. (_See 1917 and 1918._)
 ***Dishes. Pict. R. April. (30.)
    Love's Labor. Pict. R. May. (12.)
   *Secret Chamber. Del. July. (10.)

BRUBAKER, HOWARD. (1892- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917 and 1918._) (_H._)
    Amateur Investor. Harp. M. July. (139:289.)
  **Bird of Passage. Harp. M. June. (139:73.)
   *Boy Power. Harp. M. March. (138:519.)
   *Tangled Web. Col. Nov. 16, '18. (12.)
    Unmarried Miss Brazelton. Col. June 28. (9.)

BULGER, BOZEMAN (MAJOR). (_See 1915, 1916, and 1917._)
    For One Performance Only. Ev. April. (65.)
    Signal Tipper. S. E. P. Sept. 27. (40.)

*BURKE, THOMAS. (1887- .) (_See 1916._)
 ***Miss Plum Blossom of Limehouse. Sn. St. Feb. 4. (23.)

BURNET, DANA. (1888- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._)
 ***Butterfly. S. E. P. Nov. 16, '18. (5.)
    Making of William Simms. Scr. July. (66:77.)
 ***Orchid. Ev. Aug. (11.)
    Road in the Shadow. Scr. April. (65:455.)
    Servants of Peace. S. E. P. Jan. 25. (77.)

BURNETT, WHIT.
    After-beat. Pag. Dec. '18. (14.)

BURT, MAXWELL STRUTHERS. (1882- .) (_See 1915, 1917, and 1918._)
 ***Blood Red One. Scr. Nov. '18. (64:569.)
  **Scarlet Hunter. Harp. B. May. (36.)
 ***Shining Armor. Harp. M. July. (139:182.)

BUSS, KATE (MELDRAM). (_See 1917._)
   *Book of Chronicles. Bel. March 29. (26:356.)

BUTLER, ELLIS PARKER. (1869- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Dried Goldfish. Col. Sept. 27. (24.)
    Lover's Leap. Harp. M. June. (139:137.)
    Romance. S. E. P. May 10. (12.)
   *Silly Billy. Sn. St. Dec. 4, '18. (35.)
   *Number Five. Met. Sept. (17.)

*BUXTON, RICHARD.
   *Choice. Liv. Age Sept. 6. (302:588.)

"BYRNE, DONN" (BRYAN OSWALD DONN BYRNE). (1888- .)
   (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H_)
   *Beulah Land, Cos. April (67.)


CABELL, JAMES BRANCH. (1879- .) (_See 1915 and 1918._) (_H._)
 ***Wedding Jest. Cen. Sept. (98:588.)

CAHN, ED (EDWIN D.). (_See 1915._) (_H._)
   *Balancing the Love Ledger. Mun. June. (67:99.)
   *Obliterating Multitude. S. S. April. (67.)
   *Woodland Adonis. R. G. C. June. (13.)

*CAMBRY, ADRIENNE.
    Dreams of Youth and Age. N. Y. Trib. Feb. 23. (Pt. 4, p. 7.)

CAMPBELL, MARJORIE PRENTISS.
    Me or the Dog. Del. May. (9.)

CANFIELD, DOROTHY (DOROTHEA FRANCES CANFIELD FISHER). (1879- .)
   (_See 1915, 1916, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Day of Glory. Col. Jan. 11. (5.)

*CARAGIALE, I. L.
   *Great Invention. Pag. Sept. (35.)

CARR, MARY.
  **Call of the Green. N. Y. Trib. March 9. (Pt. 7 p. 5.)

CARY, LUCIAN. (_See 1918._)
  **Fear. Col. June 7. (7.)
  **Gun Crank. Col. Nov. 30, '18. (11.)
    Ice Cream and Cake. Col. Aug. 23. (7.)
   *Porky. Col. Feb. 22. (7.)
    Prince of Beulah City. Col. March 8. (7.)
    Upper Class Stuff. Col. May 10. (10.)
    What Do They Know? Col. June 21. (10.)
    What Women Will Never Learn. Col. Jan. 18. (11.)
    Where Romance Is. Col. May 31. (10.)

*CASTLE, AGNES (SWEETMAN) _and_ CASTLE, EGERTON. (1858- .) (_See 1917._)
   *Auguste and the Supreme Being. Adv. June 18. (33.)

CASTLE, EVERETT RHODES. (_See 1917 and 1918._)
    All Heart. S. E. P. March 15. (97.)
    Bred in the Bone. S. E. P. May 10. (45.)
    Fortune in Oil. S. E. P. April 5. (33.)
    Frost on the Peach. S. E. P. July 26. (36.)
    Sucker List. S. E. P. June 14. (12.)

CATHER, WILLA SIBERT. (1875- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
  **Scandal. Cen. Aug. (98:434.)

CAVENDISH, JOHN C.
   *Interlude. S. S. July. (115.)

CAYLOR, N. G.
 ***Area of a Cylinder. S. S. July. (107.)

*"CENTURION."
   *Behind the Lines. Cen. Feb. (97:465.)
   *Tenth Man. Cen. Jan. (97:303.)
   *Watches of the Night. Cen. June. (98:189.)

CHAMBERS, ROBERT W(ILLIAM). (1865- .) (_See 1915 and 1917._)
   *Yezidee. Hear. July. (8.)

CHANNING, GRACE ELLERY (GRACE ELLERY CHANNING STETSON.) (1862- .)
   (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    From Generation to Generation. S. E. P. March 8. (33.)
    Values Revised. S. E. P. March 29. (5.)

CHASE, FRANK WALTER.
    Eleventh Telegram. Col. May 17. (18.)

CHASE, MARY ELLEN. (1887- .)
  **Marigolds. Harp. M. May. (138:819.)
  **Return to Constancy. Harp. M. Nov. '18. (137:846.)

*CHEKOV, ANTON PAVLOVICH. (1860-1904.)
   (_See 1915, 1916 and 1917 under_ TCHEKOV.) (_1918._) (_H._)
 ***Dialogue Between a Man and a Dog. Strat. J. June. (4:291.)

CHESTER, GEORGE RANDOLPH. (1869- .) (_See 1915, 1916 and 1917._) (_H._)
    His Honor the Burglar. S. E. P. Feb. 1. (42.)
    Peanut Hull. S. E. P. March 22. (5.)
    Sacred Wolloh. S. E. P. Feb. 8. (5.)

*CHESTERTON, GILBERT KEITH. (1874- .)
   *Fire of Swords. Hear. Feb. (8.)

CHILD, RICHARD WASHBURN. (1881- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917 and 1918._) (_H._)
   *Avenger. S. E. P. Sept. 27. (8.)
    With a Letter from Trotzky. S. E. P. April 26. (10.)

*CHOLMONDELEY, MARY. (_See 1916._) (_H._)
    Stars in Their Courses. Met. Feb. (33.)

CHURCH, F. S.
    Extremists. Scr. Aug. (66:214.)

CHURCHILL, DAVID.
    Igor's Ring. Met. Aug. (32.)

CHURCHILL, ROY P.
    Hidden Powers of "E. T." Am. Jan. (10.)

CLIVE, JULIAN.
    What Mariquita Knew. Mir. Aug. 14. (28:552.)

CLOUD, VIRGINIA WOODWARD. (_See 1917 and 1918._) (_H._)
   *Door. Bel. April 12. (26:407.)
   *Robin's Wood. Bel. Jan. 25. (26:98.)

COBB, IRVIN S(HREWSBURY). (1876- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Hoodwinked. S. E. P. July 19. (8.)
    John J. Coincidence. S. E. P. Aug. 9. (3.)
  **Life of the Party. S. E. P. Jan. 25. (8.)

COHEN, OCTAVIUS ROY. (1891- .) (_See 1917 and 1918._)
    All That Glitters. S. E. P. March 8. (123.)
    Alley Money. S. E. P. June 7. (32.)
    Amateur Hero. S. E. P. Jan. 18. (10.)
    Backfire. S. E. P. Feb. 8. (24.)
    Cock a Doodle Doo. S. E. P. Sept. 13. (12.)
   *Duotones. Pict. R. Sept. (26.)
    Fight That Failed. S. E. P. May 24. (32.)
    House Divided. S. E. P. March 1. (16.)
    Light Bombastic Toe. S. E. P. Aug. 16. (12.)
    Not Wisely But Too Well. S. E. P. Feb. 22. (24.)
    Painless Extraction. S. E. P. March 22. (33.)
    Pool and Ginuwine. S. E. P. Jan. 4. (12.)
    Poppy Passes. S. E. P. Feb. 15. (46.)
 ***Queer House. Pict. R. Nov. '18. (8.)
    Quicker the Dead. S. E. P. May 31. (16.)
    Tempus Fugits. S. E. P. Feb. 1. (14.)
    Twinkle Twinkle Movie Star. S. E. P. July 12. (14.)
    Without Benefit of Virgie. S. E. P. April 26. (26.)

COLLIER, TARLETON. (_See 1915, 1916, and 1918._) (_H._)
  **Glimpse. Strat. J. March. (4:149.)
 ***Gracious Veil. Mid. May-June. (5:130.)

*COLUM, PADRAIC. (1881- .) (_See 1915, 1916 and 1918._)
  **St. Brighid's Feast. Tod. Feb. (8.)

COMFORT, WILL LEVINGTON. (1878- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917 and 1918._) (_H._)
 ***Skag. S. E. P. April 5. (18.)
   *Straight As a Flame. Pict. R. Feb. (8.)

COMFORT, WILL LEVINGTON, _and_ DOST, ZAMIN KI.
   *Blue Boar. S. E. P. Aug. 23. (18.)
   *Elephant Concerns. S. E. P. Sept. 6. (32.)
   *Fear. S. E. P. Aug. 9. (18.)
   *Hand of God. S. E. P. July 19. (14.)
   *Hunting Cheetah. S. E. P. June 14. (18.)
   *Jungle Laughter. S. E. P. May 31. (22.)
   *Monkey Glen. S. E. P. May 17. (22.)
   *Monster Kabuh. S. E. P. July 5. (18.)

COMSTOCK, SARAH. (_See 1915._) (_H._)
    Lost Lady Trail. Harp. M. Dec. '18. (138:111.)

CONDON, FRANK. (_See 1916, 1917, and 1918._)
    Eclipse Handicap. Col. June 14. (7.)
    Gone But Not Forgotten. Col. April 12. (7.)
    Nothing to Do. Col. Sept. 13. (9.)
    Omar the Strong Man. Col. Aug. 2. (7.)
    Pope's Mule. Col. Jan. 25. (6.)
    Rain Makers. Col. Dec. 21, '18. (7.)

CONNOLLY, JAMES BRENDAN. (1868- .) (_H._) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._)
   *Flying Sailor. Col. Aug. 9. (12.)
   *Good by the Horse Boat. Col. July 26. (11.)
   *Jack o' Lanterns. Col. June 28. (7.)
   *London Lights. Col. Aug. 16. (10.)
   *Lumber Boat. Col. July 5. (7.)
   *Undersea Man. Col. July 12. (7.)
   *U 212. Col. July 19. (7.)

*CONSTANT, JACQUES.
    Two Godmothers. N. Y. Trib. Nov. 3, '18.

COOK, MRS. GEORGE CRAM. _See_ GLASPELL, SUSAN.

COOKE, MARJORIE BENTON. (_See 1915, 1916, 1917 and 1918._)
    Arabella Upon Setebos. Pict. R. July. (10.)

COOPER, COURTNEY RYLEY. (1886- .) (_See 1917._) (_H._)
    Homeward Bound. Pict. R. March. (28.)
    Scotty of the Circus. Pict. R. Aug. (27.)

COWDERY, ALICE. (_See 1915 and 1917._) (_H._)
 ***Spiral. Harp. M. Nov. '18. (137:803.)

COX, ELEANOR ROGERS. (_See 1918._)
  **Enchantment Laid Upon Cuchulain by Queen Faud.
    N. Y. Trib. March 23. (Pt. 7 p. 6.)
  **Planting of the Trees. Del. April. (14.)

CRABB, ARTHUR. (_See 1917 and 1918._)
    Alibi. Col. May 17. (11.)
    "Compromise Henry?" Col. Sept. 6. (16.)
    Disorderly Conduct. Col. Jan. 4. (14.)
    G. L. J. Col. May 3. (10.)
    Greatest Day. Col. July 12. (11.)
    Harold Child, Bachelor. L. H. J. Sept. (15.)
    Number 14 Mole Street. Col. March 29. (10.)
    Perception. Col. Sept. 27. (11.)
    Pleasant Evening. Col. March 1. (10.)
    Smoke Girl. L. H. J. May. (12.)
    What Fools Women Are! L. H. J. Aug. (15.)
    Wonderful Penny. L. H. J. April. (25.)

CRABBE, BERTHA HELEN. (1887- .) (_See 1916, 1917, and 1918._)
    Matter of Importance. Bel. Feb. 8. (26:158.)

CRAFT, MAGDELENE.
   *"Blessed Are the Dead". Mid. March-April. (5:93.)

CRAM, MILDRED R. (_See 1916 and 1917._)
    And Then Some ----. Col. March 22. (11.)
    David and His Little Sling. Col. May 10. (13.)
    Incorruptible One. Col. Aug. 30. (9.)
    Invisible Pyramid. S. E. P. May 3. (28.)
    Lotus Salad. Col. June 14. (11.)
 ***McCarthy. Scr. Nov. 18. (64:587.)
    Man's Job. S. E. P. Feb. 15. (41.)
    Signor Pug. Col. Feb. 8-15. (7:13.)
   *Twenty Five Years After. L. H. J. Feb. (10.)
  **Woman You Couldn't Forget. Harp. B. Dec. '18. (41.)

CRANE, MIFFLIN.
  **Reunion. S. S. Dec. '18. (51.)

CRANSTON, CLAUDIA. (_See 1918._)
    Invisible Garden. Atl. Sept. (124:356.)

CRAWFORD, NELSON ANTRIM.
    Cornflower Blue. Mir. April 18. (28:243.)

CRUMP, IRVING. (_See H._)
    Romeo's Twins. Met. Sept. (23.)

CURTIS, WILLIAM FULLER. (1873- .)
    Pope and the Poilu. Cath. W. June. (109:368.)

CURTISS, PHILIP (EVERETT). (1885- .)
   (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
  **"Anonymous, '71." Harp. M. July. (139:160.)
  **Fakir. Scr. Sept. (66:367.)

CURWOOD JAMES OLIVER. (1878- .) (_See 1917 and 1918._) (_H._)
    Wapi, the Walrus. G. H. Nov. '18. (17.) Dec. 18. (36.)


DALRYMPLE, C. LEONA. (1885- .) (_See 1915 and 1918._) (_H._)
    In Blossom Time. Pict. R. April. (16.)
    When Love Is Young. Pict. R. Sept. (20.)

DAMON S. FOSTER.
  **As One Would Not. Lit. R. Dec. '18 (22).

*D'ANNUNZIO, GABRIELE. (RAPAGNETTA) (1864- .)
 ***Hero. Pag. March. (13.)

DAVIES, MARY CAROLYN.
   *Fugitives. S. S. Aug. (67.)
   *Subtle Thread. S. S. Aug. (33.)

DAVIESS, MARIA THOMPSON. (_See 1915 and 1916._) (_H._)
    From Bayonet to Knitting Needles. Del. Feb. (7.)

DAVIS, CHARLES BELMONT. (1866- .) (_See 1915 and 1916._) (_H._)
   *Beaded Butterfly. Col. Feb. 1. (10.)
    Distant Fields. Met. May. (16.)
    Wattlesburg Tennis Champion. L. H. J. July. (21.)

DAVIS, J FRANK. (_See 1917 and 1918._)
  **Dose of His Own Medicine. Am. April. (20.)
    List of Props. Col. May 3. (18.)

DAY, CURTISS LA Q.
    Thirty Lashes of Kiboko. Sun. Sept. (45.)

DAY, HOLMAN FRANCIS. (1865- .) (_See 1915 and 1918._) (_H._)
    Horn Has Two Ends. S. E. P. Sept. 6. (14.)

*DE LA MARE, WALTER.
 ***Promise. Liv. Age Feb. 8. (300:368.)

DE LA ROCHE, MAZO. _See_ ROCHE, MAZO DE LA.

*DELARUE MADRUS, LUCIE. (_See 1917 and 1918._)
    Country Town. N. Y. Trib. June 1. (Pt. 9 p. 6.)
   *Good Ship Hope. N. Y. Trib. March 30. (Pt. 8 p. 4.)
  **Lesson. N. Y. Trib. Aug. 31.
   *Tears of the Shepherd. Tod. Nov. '18. (7.)

DELL, ETHEL M. (_H._)
    Rosa Mundi. Pict. R. May. (14.)

*DE MELLO, EMILIA MONCORVO BANDEIRA. _See_ DOLORES, CARMEN.

*DENNIS, MRS. FORBES. _See_ PHYLLIS BOTTOME.

DERBY, JEANNETTE. (_See 1918._)
    Candle Light. Pag. March. (43.)
    Ivan Peter Pomonik. Pag. June. (50.)

DERIEUX, SAMUEL A. (_See 1916, 1917, and 1918._)
   *One Friend Jim Taylor Lacked. Am. May. (31.)
   *Paradise Regained. Am. Feb. (20.)
   *Trial in Tom Belcher's Store. Am. June. (29.)

*DESMOND, SHAW.
 ***Heads on the Mountain. Scr. Sept. (66:308.)

*DEVI, SETTA.
  **Wedding Dress. Liv. Age May 31. (301:544.)

DEWING, E. B. (_See H._)
  **Pig ---- Pig. Pag. May. (22.)

DICKEY, HERBERT SPENCER.
   _See_ FROST, WALTER ARCHER, _and_ DICKEY, HERBERT SPENCER.

DICKSON, HARRIS. (1868- .) (_See 1915, 1916 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Daughter of Hurricane Bob. Met. Aug. (16.)
    Eye of the Guns. Met. Nov. '18. (21.)
    Mademoiselle of the Mottled Tent. Del. May. (8.)
   *Mutiny. Cos. Feb. (36.)

*DIMOV, OSSIP. (_See 1916 and 1918._)
 ***'Six P. M.' Strat. J. April. (4:186.)

DOBIE, CHARLES CALDWELL. (1881- .) (_See 1916, 1917, and 1918._)
 ***Called to Service. Harp. M. Jan. (138:256.)
  **Choice. Harp. M. May. (138:775.)
  **Gray Socks. Harp. M. April. (138:591.)
  **Overnight. Harp. M. Dec. '18. (138:78.)

DODGE, HENRY IRVING. (1861- .) (_See 1916, 1917 and 1918._) (_H._)
    Below Par for a Day. S. E. P. May 17. (20.)

*DOLORES, CARMEN. (EMILLA MONCORVO BANDERIA DI MELLO.) (1852-1910.)
 ***Aunt Zézé's Tears. Strat. J. April. (4:179.)

DOST, ZAMIN KI. _See_ COMFORT, WILL LEVINGTON, _and_ DOST, ZAMIN KI.

DOUNCE, HARRY ESTY. (_See 1917._)
  **House on the Bay. Cen. Dec. '18. (97:155.)

DOWST HENRY PAYSON. (1876- .) (_See 1915._) (_H._)
    Church That John Built. S. E. P. July 5. (16.)
    Dancin' Fool. S. E. P. May 3-10. (5, 23.)
    Vanishing Client. S. E. P. May 17. (14.)

DRAYHAM, WILLIAM. (_See 1915 and 1916._)
   *Here's to the Dead. S. S. Feb. (121.)

DREISER, THEODORE. (1871- .) (_See 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
   *Hand. Mun. May. (66:679.)
   *Love. N. Y. Trib. May 18. (Pt. 7, p. 2.)
 ***Old Neighborhood. Met. Dec. '18. (27.)

DRESSER, JASMINE STONE VAN. _See_ VAN DRESSER, JASMINE STONE.

DRIGGS, LAURENCE LA TOURETTE. (_See 1917 and 1918._)
    Two Boys of Twenty. L. H. J. Aug. (29.)

DUBOIS, BOICE.
    Twenty Pages Next to Reading. S. E. P. Sept. 6. (45.)

*DUDENEY, MRS. HENRY E. (1866- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
 ***"Missing". Harp. M. June. (139:28.)
   *Taking the Waters. Liv. Age May 3. (301:298.)

DUGANNE, PHYLLIS.
    Crabbed Youth. S. E. P. Dec. 28, '18. (24.)
    Girl With the Cough. L. H. J. June. (13.)

DUGO, GORDON.
    Good Luck, and Keep Your Nose Down. S. E. P. June 28. (53.)

*DUHAMEL, GEORGE S. ("DENIS THÉVENIN.")
 ***Lieutenant Dauche. Cen. May. (98:29.)

DUNBAR, OLIVIA HOWARD. (OLIVIA HOWARD DUNBAR TORRENCE.)
   (1873- .) (_See 1915._) (_H._)
   *Scaling Zion. Scr. April. (65:489.)

*DUNSANY, EDWARD JOHN MORETON DRAX PLUNKETT, _18th_ BARON. (1878- .)
  (_See 1915, 1916, and 1917._)
 ***Last Dream of Bwona Khubla. Atl. Sept. (124:353.)

DURAND, MRS. ALBERT C. _See_ SAWYER, RUTH.

DUTTON, LOUISE ELIZABETH. (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Cinderella's Eyes. Met. Aug. (38.)
    Love. S. E. P. Aug. 2. (10.)

*DUVERNOIS, HENRI.
    Country Cousin. N. Y. Trib. Aug. 10.

DWYER, JAMES FRANCIS. (1874- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H_)
   *Happy Kate. Del. July. (13.)
   *Off Kismayu. Col. Sept. 20. (6.)
  **Race Between Life and Death. Am. Dec. 18. (47.)
  **"Sink o' the World". Col. Aug. 23. (10.)
    Tree of a Thousand Romances. L. H. J. April. (17.)

DYKE, HENRY VAN. _See_ VAN DYKE, HENRY.


EASTMAN, REBECCA HOOPER. (MRS. WILLIAM FRANKLIN EASTMAN.) (_See 1915._) (_H._)
    Girl With Henna Hair. S. E. P. April 26. (33.)
    Lilac Lady. G. H. April. (55.)

EATON, WALTER PRICHARD. (1878- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
   *Boy Who Was Bored. Harp M. Nov. '18. (137:765.)
    Recording Angel. Met. May. (28.)
    "Twins and Poor Mother". L. H. J. May. (24.)

EDGAR, RANDOLPH. (_See 1916 and 1917._)
    Wide, Wide World. Bel. June 28. (26.)

EDGINTON, MAY. (_See 1918._) (_H._)
    All We Like Sheep ----. S. E. P. July 5. (12.)
 ***Money. S. E. P. March 22. (10.)
    Partnership. Sun. April. (21.)

"ELDERLY SPINSTER". (MARGARET WILSON.) (1882- .) (_See 1918._)
 ***Mother. Atl. Feb. (123:228.)

ELDRIDGE, PAUL. (_See 1918._)
    Clothes. Pag. Dec. 18. (27.)
    Time. Pag. Jan. (32.)
    Worms and Butterflies. Pag. April. (22.)

ELLERBE, ALMA MARTIN ESTABROOK, (1871- .) _and_ ELLERBE, PAUL LEE.
   (_See 1915 under_ ESTABROOK, ALMA MARTIN, _and 1917
     under_ ELLERBE, ALMA ESTABROOK.)
   (_See "H." under_ ELLERBE, PAUL LEE.)
   *Differing Needs of Men. Wom. W. June. (11.)

ELLIS, WILLIAM T. (1873- .)
    Woman Who Helped Mary. L. H. J. Dec '18. (21.)

ENGLAND, GEORGE ALLAN. (1877- .) (_See 1916._) (_H._)
   *On Grand Cayman. Mun. Jan. (65:719.)

*ERVINE, ST. JOHN G(REER). (1883- .) (_See 1915._) (_H._)
    Raided. Cen. Nov. '18. (97:116.)

*EVANS, CARADOC.
 ***Redemption. (R.) Mir. Dec. 13, '18. (27:668.)

EVANS, IDA MAY. (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Dollar Wise, Dollar Foolish. S. E. P. Jan. 11. (24.)
    Double Harness. Am. Feb. (40.)
    Ethel Lavvander's Husband. Ev. Dec '18. (30.)
    Heavy Mantle of Helen. G. H. Sept. (37.)
    Kitchen Police. G. H. May. (23.)
    Peppergrass. S. E. P. April 5. (151.)
    Reveille for Mabel Hatson. S. E. P. Jan. 25. (57.)
    Truth and Mercy. S. E. P. Aug. 2. (30.)

EVANS, M. PRICE.
   *Coward. Cath. W. April. (109:93.)


*"FARRÈRE, CLAUDE." (CHARLES BARGONE.) (1876- .)
  **Three Drops of Milk. Pag. Jan. (5.)

FAULKLAND, L. D.
    Getaway of Pat Mullen. L. H. J. Dec. '18. (13.)

FEEHAN, MARY.
  **Padre Gilfillan. Cath. W. March. (108:809.)

FELDMAN, CECYLE.
    Study of a Child. Pag. Jan. (43.)

FERBER, EDNA. (1887- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    April 25th, as Usual. L. H. J. July. (10.)
   *Farmer in the Dell. Col. Sept. 6. (5.)
   *Un Moros Doo Pang. Col. Jan. 4. (10.)

FIELD, CHESTER, JR.
    When Experts Disagree. S. E. P. Sept. 6. (49.)

FIELD, LOUISE MAUNSELL.
    How Would Stella Take It? L. H. J. Feb. (27.)

FIELDER, HELEN WARD.
   *Original Mister Santie Claws. Sun. Jan. (44.)

FINGER, CHARLES J.
   *Shep. Mir. June 26. (28:420.)

FINN, MARY M. (_See 1917._)
    Storm in the Meehan Family. Am. Nov. '18. (27.)

FISH, HORACE. (_See H._)
 ***Wrists on the Door. Ev. May. (50.)

FISHER, DOROTHY CANFIELD. _See_ CANFIELD, DOROTHY.

*FLETCHER, A. BYRES. (_See 1916 and 1917._)
    *£1000 Punch. Hear. June. (8.)

FLOWER, ELLIOTT. (1863- .) (_See 1915 and 1917._) (_H._)
    Confusion of Cyrus. Bel. March 1. (26:238.)
   *Medal Man. Strat. J. April. (4:201.)

FOLSOM, ELIZABETH IRONS. (1876- .) (_See 1916, 1917, and 1918._)
  **Caesar's Wife. Met. Sept. (26.)
    Face in the Crowd. Bel. March 15. (26:294.)
    Fiddler's Bill. Pag. Nov. '18. (5.)
   *High Cost. Sun. March. (42.)
   *Rain on the Roof. S. S. Jan. (49.)

FOOTE, JOHN TAINTOR. (_See 1915, 1916, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Cherrie. Met. July. (21.)
    Last Shall Be First. S. E. P. Dec. 14, '18. (9.)

FORBES, ESTHER.
  **Garden of Kurd Mirza. Cen. Sept. (98:643.)

FORBES, HELEN. (_See 1916._)
    In the Shelter of Trees. Pag. July-Aug. (41.)

FORD, SEWELL. (1868- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    For instance, Joe Stitt. S. E. P. June 14. (38.)

*FORGE, HENRY DE.
   *Claudmet's Idea. N. Y. Trib. March 16. (Pt. 8 p. 5.)

FOSTER, MARY.
  **An Uncanonized Saint. Cath. W. July. (109:513.)

FRAIKEN, WANDA I.
   *Harbor of Friends. Mid. Nov.-Dec. '18. (4:308.)
  **Love Everlasting. Mid. May-June. (5:101.)

*"FRANCE, ANATOLE." (JACQUES ANATOLE THIBAULT.) (1844- .)
 ***Red Riding Hood Up to Date. Touch. Dec. '18. (4:179.)

FRANK, FLORENCE KIPER. (1886- .) (_See 1915 and 1916._)
   (_See also "H." under_ KIPER, FLORENCE.)
   *Day. Mid. July-Aug. (5:168.)

*FRANKAU, GILBERT. (_See 1916._)
    J. C. Col. Jan. 11. (11.)

*FRANZ, HENRY.
    Bouquet of Saxifrage. N. Y. Trib. Feb. 9. (Pt. 4 p. 5.)
    Last Letter. N. Y. Trib. Dec. 15, '18.

FREDERICK, JUSTUS GRORGE. (1882- .) (_H._)
    Without Illusion. Pag. Dec. '18. (35.)

*FRIEDLAENDER, V. H. (_See 1916 and 1918._)
   *Anvil. Bel. March 22. (26:326.)
    Motive. Bel. June 21. (26:688.)

FROST, WALTER ARCHER. (1876- .) (_See 1916, H._)
    _and_ DICKEY, HERBERT SPENCER.
    Fool and Her Money. Met. Sept. (37.)

FULLERTON, HUGH STEWART. (_See 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    George--the Most Accommodating Man in the World. Am. May. (26.)
    Man Who Made His Bluff Come True. Am. July. (26.)
    Revenge. Am. March. (45.)


*G., E. S.
   *Invasion of Ballymullen. Liv. Age July 26. (302:219.)

GALE, ZONA. (1874- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918_.) (_H._)
    Girl Who Gave Her Eyes. L. H. J. Feb. (11.)
    Mamie's Father. G. H. July. (63.)
   *Peace in Friendship Village. G. H. June. (63.)
   *Success and Artie Cherry. Harp. M. May. (138:791.)

*GALSWORTHY, JOHN. (1867- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
 ***Bright Side. Hear. May. (?)
 ***Spindleberries. Scr. Dec. '18. (64:688.)

GARLAND, ROBERT. _See_ ROBERTS, KENNETH L. _and_ GARLAND, ROBERT.

GATLIN, DANA. (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Darya. Del. Aug. (16.)
    Missy "Cans" the Cosmos. L. H. J. March. (21.)

GAUT, HELEN LUKENS. (MRS. JAMES H.) (1872- .)
    Dash and Question Mark. Sun. Feb. (29.)

GEBHART, MYRTLE.
    "Jusqu'au Bout". N. Y. Trib. March 30. (Pt. 7 p. 3.)

GEER, CORNELIA THROOP. (1894- .) (_See 1917 and 1918._)
 ***Study in Light and Shade. Cen. Nov. '18. (97:121.)

GEROULD, GORDON HALL. (1877- .) (_See 1915 and 1918._) (_H._)
    Dead Men's Shoes. Scr. July. (66:25.)

GEROULD, KATHARINE FULLERTON. (1879- .)
   (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
   *Blue Star. Harp. M. April. (138:678.)
  **"Go Look See". McC. July. (25.)

GIBBS, GEORGE. (1870- .) (_See H._)
    Right Hand Man. L. H. J. Feb. (17.)

*GIBBS, PHILIP. (_See 1915._)
   *Last Ambulancek. G. H. May. (30.)

GILBERT, GEORGE. (1874- .) (_See 1916 and 1918._)
  **Attar of Roses. All. Nov. 16, '18. (90:672.)
    Mottled Slayer. Sun. Aug. (17.)
   *Peppermint Watermelon. Arg. Sept. 27. (112:678.)
    Pit of Death. Sun. March. (17.)
    What Put Courage Back into Pat Brennan. Am. July. (20.)

GILCHRIST, BETH BRADFORD. (_See H._)
   *Crossways. Harp. M. June. (139:120.)
    Gulf. Harp. M. Sept. (139:499.)
  **His Financee. Harp. M. July. (139:234.)

GILCHRIST, R. MURRAY.
    Gallant Squire. Bel. March 8. (26:266.)
    Whistling Lad. Bel. June 7. (26:633.)

GILLMORE, INEZ HAYNES. _See_ IRWIN, INEZ HAYNES.

GINGER, BONNIE R. (_See 1915._) (_H._)
    "Hand of God". Ev. July. (54.)

GIOVANNITTI, ARTURO.
 ***Eighth Day. Lib. May. (32.)

GIRRICER, DANA.
   *His Pretty Mother. N. Y. Trib. March 23. (Pt. 7 p. 8.)

GLASPELL, SUSAN (KEATING). (MRS. GEORGE CRAM COOK.) (1882- .)
   (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
 ***Busy Duck. Harp. M. Nov. '18. (137:828.)
 ***"Government Goat". Pict. R. April. (18.)
 ***Pollen. Harp. M. March. (138:446.)

GODFREY, WINONA. (1877- .) (_H._)
    Girl Behind Virginia. Am. Dec. '18. (41.)

GOODLOE, ABBIE CARTER. (1867- .) (_See 1915, 1916, and 1918._) (_H._)
  **Trafficker. Scr. May. (65:563.)

GOODMAN, HENRY. (_See 1918._)
 ***Stone. Pict. R. Feb. (28.)

GORDON, ARMISTEAD CHURCHILL. (1855- .)
   (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
   *Hadenbrook's Independence. Scr. Dec '18. (64:660.)
  **White Horse. Harp. M. Dec. '18. (138:128.)

GORRINGE, KATHARINE PARROTT.
    Terrible Tour with Henrietta. Sun. Sept. (25.)

GRAEVE, OSCAR. (1884- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Bad Actor. Col. April 5. (12.)
    Between Friends. Col. May 24. (10.)
    Crane and the Layout Lady. Col. Nov. 30, '18. (7.)
   *Day Has Not Come. Col. Aug. 9. (7.)
    Friends of Fortune. S. E. P. Aug. 23. (3.)--Aug. 30 (26.)
    Hunger. Col. April 26. (10.)
    It Was May. S. E. P. March 22. (85.)
    Pleasure Hound. Col. Jan. 25. (10.)
    Sisters. Col. July 26. (7.)
    Will You Wait For Me? S. E. P. May 24. (45.)

GRANT, ETHEL WATTS MUMFORD. (_See_ MUMFORD, ETHEL WATTS.)

GRAY, DAVID. (1870- .) (_See 1915 and 1917._) (_H._)
    Hare, the Tortoise and the Earthquake. S. E. P. Aug. 23. (16.)

GRAY, PHILIP.
    Post Mortem. Pag. June. (48.)

GREENE, OLIVE WARD.
    Mother Goes on a Strike. Am. Aug. (22.)

GREENFIELD, WILL H.
    Fate's Postscript. Mir. Dec. 13, '18. (27:676.)

GREENMAN, FRANCES. (_See 1917 and 1918._) (_H._)
    Patriotic Pinns. L. H. J. Nov. '18. (30.)

GREGG, ALBERT SIDNEY.
    Selling a Stray Dog. Col. Sept. 27. (30.)

GRIFFITH, HELEN SHERMAN. (_See H._)
    Antoinette. Del. June. (19.)


HACKETT, FRANCIS. ("F. H.")
  **Whisky. N. Rep. July 2. (19:279.)

HACKNEY, LOUISE WALLACE.
    Margaret's Thought. L. H. J. April. (28.)

HAINES, DONAL HAMILTON. (1886- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Duel. Ev. Feb. (18.)
   *Seven. Col. May 24. (13.)
  **Whole Truth. Col. Dec. 7, '18. (15.)

HALDEMAN JULIUS, EMANUEL. _See_ JULIUS, EMANUEL HALDEMAN.

HALE, LOUISE CLOSSER. (1872- .) (_See 1915, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Beaux. Del. Nov. '18 (17.)
    House That Patty Built. Ev. July. (30.)
    Masculine Mold. S. E. P. March 1. (14.)

HALL, GLADYS.
   *Threads of Gold. All. Sept. 6. (101:280.)

HALL, H. S.
   *Hole in the Fence. Scr. May (65:601.)
  **Open Hearth. Scr. April. (65:433.)
   *Where the Bessemer Blows. S. E. P. Aug 30. (8.)

"HALL, HOLWORTHY" (HAROLD EVERETT PORTER.) (1887- .)
   (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    "Could You Use Three?" Am. March. (29.)
    In Close Retirement. Col. Sept. 13. (5.)
    Inside Story of McBride. Am. April. (12.)
    Man With the World's Record. Am. Feb. (11.)
    Old Blowhard. Col. March 22. (8.)
    One Thousand Dollars Down. Am. May. (21.)
    Rebuilt. S. E. P. July 26. (10.)
    Sold Out. Col. May 10. (7.)
    Two Who _Had_ to Go to Washington. Am. Jan. (29.)
    Wealthy Clubman. Col. April 26. (7.)

"HALL, HOLWORTHY." _and_ KAHLER, HUGH.
    Sitpatter and the Nucleus System. S. E. P. July 5. (8.)

HALL, MAY EMERY. (1874- .) (_See 1917 and 1918._)
 ***Lamp of Remembrance. Strat. J. June. (4:341.)

HALL, WILBUR JAY. (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._)
    Boarding House Clause. Sun. June. (27.)
    He Walloper. Sun. July. (35.)

HALLET, RICHARD MATTHEWS. (1887- .) (_See 1915, 1916, and 1917._)
 ***Anchor. Cen. March. (97:577.)
    Beef, Iron and Wine. S. E. P. Aug. 16. (16.)
  **Everything in the Shop. S. E. P. Aug 9. (16.)
   *Limping In. S. E. P. May 17. (10.)
    Shackling. S. E. P. Aug. 30. (42.)
 ***To the Bitter End. S. E. P. May 31. (8.)

HAMBY, WILLIAM HENRY. (1875- .) (_See 1917 and 1918._) (_H._)
    Bloom of the Peach. S. E. P. May 10. (49.)
    John R. Fires an Expert. Ev. July. (59.)
    Simplex Cox Sells the Land of Little Rain. Sun. Dec '18. (27.)

*HAMILTON, COSMO. (_See 1915, 1916, and 1918._)
    Key to Paradise. Met. Feb. (21.)

HAMILTON, GERTRUDE BROOKE. (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Regenerating Fires. G. H. July. (36.)
    Where He Spent the Night. G. H. Feb (45.)

HARRIS, KENNETT. (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Bird In the Hand. S. E. P. Feb. 22. (14.)
    Eye of the Beholder. S. E. P. July 19. (18.)
    Getting Even. S. E. P. Nov. 9, '18. (11.)
    Metamorphosis of Mary Ann. S. E. P. June 21. (8.)
    Prince and the Piker. S. E. P. Nov 2, '18. (5.)

HARRISON, DON.
 ***Mixing. Mid. July-Aug. (5:174.)

HARRISON, GROVER.
   *Beauty Is Truth. Pag. May. (38.)
 ***Greatest Gift. Strat. J. Sept. (5:144.)

HARVEY, ALEXANDER. (1868- .) (_See 1915, 1916, and 1918._)
    Intellectual Solitude. Mir. Jan. 3. (28:5.)

HASKELL, HELEN E.
   *Compensation. All. Nov. 9, '18. (90:545.)

HATHAWAY, FRANCES.
  **"They Called Her Annie Laurie." Scr. March. (65:330.)

HATTERSLEY, LELIA CHOPIN.
    Telegram. Mir. Dec. 13, '18. (27:650.)

HAUKLAND, ANDREAS.
  **From "The White Nights." Pag. Dec. '18. (45.)

HAWES, CHARLES BOARDMAN. (1889- .) (_See 1916, 1917, and 1918._)
  **Old Man Who Never Came Back. Arg. June 7. (108:558.)
  **Passage East. Bel. May 17. (26:546.)

HEARN, L. CABOT.
    Chinaman's Head. Cen. June. (98:194.)
    Might Have Beans. Cen. April. (97:758.)
    Ski. Cen. May. (98:39.)

HECHT, BEN. (1896- .) (_See 1915, 1917, and 1918._)
 ***Dog Eat Dog. Lit. R. April. (14.)
 ***Yellow Goat. Lit. R. Dec. '18. (28.)

HEGGER, GRACE.
    It Was the Cat. Del. April. (19.)

*HEIDENSTAM, VERNER VON.
  **Fig tree. Pag. June. (13.)
  **Theme With Two Variations. Strat. J. Aug. (5:55.)

HENRY, ARTHUR. (1867- .) (_See H._)
    Mr. Peebles' Adventure in Crime. L. H. J. Feb. (21.)

HEPENSTALL, W. B.
   *Voice in the Glen. L. St. April. (57.)

*HERBERT, A. P.
  **Fireman. Liv. Age. Feb. 15. (300:425.)

HERGESHEIMER, JOSEPH. (1880- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
   *Adventure's End. S. E. P. Sept. 6. (10.)
    Bread. S. E. P. Nov. 30, '18. (5.)
  **Lonely Valleys. S. E. P. March 15. (13.)
  **Meeker Ritual. Cen. June. (98:145.)
  **Order for Merit. S. E. P. March 1. (12.)

HERON, VENNETTE.
   *Jury. S. S. Jan. (35.)

HERRICK, ELIZABETH. (_See 1915 and 1917._) (_H._)
   *Ever the Wide World Over. Scr. March. (65:345.)

HEWES, ROBERT E.
    La Banda. Met. Aug. (40.)

HEYWARD, DU BOSE.
   *"Brute, The." Pag. Nov. '18. (19.)

HILL, AMELIA LEAVITT.
   *Little Blue Angel of Rheims. Mun. Dec. '18. (65:401.)

*HINGELIN, EMILE.
    Shell and the Music Box. N. Y. Trib. Nov. 10, '18.

*HIRSCH, CHARLES HENRY. (1870- .) (_See 1918._)
    Face In the Void. N. Y. Trib. May 18. (Pt. 9 p. 6.)
    Under the Evening Star. N. Y. Trib. Dec 1, '18.

*HODGSON, WILLIAM HOPE.
   *Waterloo of a Hard Case Skipper. Ev. July. (42.)

HOEFER, W. R.
    Female of the Species. S. E. P. May 31. (12.)
    Gertie. S. E. P. Aug. 23. (12.)
    Unearned Increment. S. E. P. Aug 2. (12.)
    Vive La Bull Pen. S. E. P. May 3. (32.)

HOLBROOK, WEARE.
   *Penitent. Mid. May-June. (5:136.)

HOLLINGSWORTH, CEYLON. (_See 1915, 1916, and 1917._) (_H._)
    Scotty and the Swaggers Imp. Col. Aug. 30. (13.)

HOPKINS, WILLIAM JOHN. (1863- .) (_See 1915 and 1916._) (_H._)
   *Salt of the Sea. Scr. Dec. '18. (64:747.)

HOPPER, JAMES MARIE. (1876- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Pony Trio. Ev. Nov. '18. (29.)

HOSP, EDNA WILMA.
    Borrowed Son. L. H. J. June. (19.)

HOUSTON, MARGARET BELLE. (_See 1917 and 1918._) (_H._)
    Girl In the Tinsel Dress. L. H. J. Dec. '18. (9.)
    Major Bobbin, Spug. G. H. Dec. '18. (19.)

HUBBELL, SUSAN S.
  **Alabaster Box. Bel. April 5. (26:380.)

HUGHES, RUPERT. (1872- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
   *Chicken feed. Cos. Aug. (69.)

HULL, ALEXANDER. (_See 1917 and 1918._)
   *Shark. Arg. Aug. 16. (111:338.)
    Star in Arcadia. Sun. Sept. (31.)
    Strain of the Two Jaspers. Bel. April 19. (26:430.)
    Why Old Timmins Stood In with the Boss. Am. April. (29.)

HULL, HELEN R. (_See 1915, 1916, 1917 and 1918._)
   *Emptyness. Touch. Dec. '18. (4:209.)

HUNGERFORD, EDWARD. (1875- .) (_See H._)
    Town Hero, L. H. J. March. (15.)

HURST, FANNIE. (1889- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917 and 1918._) (_H._)
   *Comeback. Cos. Feb. (14.)
   **Even As You and I. Cos. April. (22.)
   *"Heads!" Cos. Nov. '18. (22.)
 ***Humoresque. Cos. March. (32.)

HURST, S. B. H. (_See 1918._)
   *Echo. Adv. June 18. (115.)
   *Gleaning. Adv. Dec. 3, '18. (36.)

HUSSEY, L. M.
  **Illusion. S. S. Aug. (37.)

HYDE, V. D.
   *Good Tidings. Mid. Nov.-Dec. '18. (4:295.)


*IBÁÑEZ, VICENTE BLASCO. (1867- .)
 ***Abandoned Boat. N. Y. Trib. Feb. 16. (Pt. 3 p. 4.);
      Strat. J. May. (4:255.)
 ***Functionary. N. Y. Trib. Feb. 2. (Pt. 3 p. 4.); Strat. J. May. (4:245.)
 ***"In the Sea". N. Y. Trib. Feb. 9. (Pt. 3 p. 4.)
 ***Serbian Night. N. Y. Trib. Jan. 5. (Pt. 4 p. 7); Hear. Aug. (21.)
 ***Which Was the Condemned? N. Y. Trib. April 6. (Pt. 7 p. 5.)

IMRIE, WALTER MCLAREN.
 ***"Daybreak". N. Y. Trib. Feb. 16. (Pt. 3 p. 3.)

INGERSOLL, WILL F. (_See 1918._) (_H._)
 ***Centenarian. Harp. M. May. (138:811.)

IRELAND, MORGAN.
  **Old Ladies of Babylon. Pag. Sept. (32.)

IRWIN, INEZ HAYNES. (INEZ HAYNES GILLMORE.). (1873- .)
   (_See 1915 under_ GILLMORE, INEZ HAYNES, _and 1916, 1917,
     and 1918, under_ IRWIN, INEZ HAYNES.)
   (_See "H." under_ GILLMORE, INEZ HAYNES.)
    At the Green Parrot. Met. March. (17.)
    Spring. Sun. April. (29.)
    Their Quiet, Simple Christmas. L. H. J. Dec. '18. (17.)
 ***Treasure. Lib. Feb. (26.)

IRWIN, WALLACE. (1875- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Free. S. E. P. Dec. 14, '18. (3.)
    His Face. S. E. P. Nov. 16, '18. (11.)
    Platinum and Diamonds. S. E. P. Sept. 27. (29.)
    Trackless Wilderness. S. E. P. Jan. 18. (6.)
 ***Wandering Stars. S. E. P. Sept. 20. (8.)

IRWIN, WILL(IAM HENRY). (1873- .) (_See 1915, 1916, and 1918._)
    Carleton Burglary. S. E. P. Sept. 6. (22.)
  **Moral Weapon. S. E. P. Sept. 13. (3.)


*JACOBS, W(ILLIAM) W(YMARK). (1863- .)
   (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
  **Dirty Work. Hear. Dec. '18. (34:420.)
   *Husbandry. Hear. Sept. (26.)

*JACOBSEN, JENS PETER. (1847-1885.)
    There Should Have Been Roses. Pag. March. (9.)
 ***Two Worlds. Pag. May. (6.)

JAY, MAE FOSTER. (_See 1918._)
    Hill Folks. Sun. March. (22.)

*JEPSON, EDGAR. (1864- ) _(See 1915 and 1916._)
    Albert's Return. S. E. P. May 10. (26.)
    Daffy. S. F. P. Nov 23, '18. (14.)
    L 2002. Met. Nov. 18. (29.)

*JESSE, F(RYNIWYD) TENNYSON. (_See 1916 and 1918._) (_H._)
  **Lovers of St. Lys. Met. Aug. (43.)
 ***Wanderers' Touch. Dec '18. (4:196.)

JOHNSON, ALVIN SAUNDERS. (1874- .) (_See 1916, 1917, and 1918._)
   *Evalina. N. Rep. July 2. (19:276.)
    Ivan the Terrible. N. Rep. Nov. 23 '18. (17:101.)

JOHNSON, ARTHUR. (1881- .) _(See 1915, 1916, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Flight From the Fireside. Harp. M. Feb. (138:408.)
 ***Riders In the Dark. Met. April. (16.)

JOHNSON, BURGES. (1877- .) (_See 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Knight of the Table Cloth. Harp. M. Feb. (138:425)

JOHNSTON, CALVIN. (_See 1915 and 1917._) (_H._)
 ***Messengers. S. E. P. May 31. (42.)

JOHNSTON, CHARLES. (1867- .) (_See 1915, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
   *Great Little Soldier. Atl. March. (123:329.)

JONES, FLANK GOEWEY (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Silky Way. S.E.P. March 29. (28.)

*JONES, H. J.
    Five to One. Liv. Age. July 12. (302:99.)

JONES, HOWARD MUMFORD
   *"Mrs Drainger's Veil." S. S. Dec. '18. (61.)

JORDAN, ELIZABETH (GARVER). (1867- .) (_See 1915, 1916, and 1917._) (_H._)
    Anne Tucker Meets the Great. S. E. P. April 19. (12.)
    John Henry's Dressing Gown. S. E. P. May 31. (20.)
    Young Alvord Meets a Crisis. S. E. P. Aug 16. (41.)

JULIUS, EMANUEL HALDEMAN. (1888- .) (_See 1917 and 1918._)
    For Art's Sake. Strat. J. Jan. (4:27.)

JULIUS, MR. AND MRS. EMANUEL HALDEMAN.
  **Dreams and Compound Interest. Atl. April. (123:444.)


KAHLER, HUGH. _See_ "HALL, HOLWORTHY," _and_ KAHLER, HUGH. (_See 1917._)

KELLAND, CLARENCE BUDINGTON. (1881- .)
   (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    His Father's Keeper. Col. Jan 11. (6.)
    Marriage, Limited. Pict. R. Aug. (14.)
    Pleasure and Business--Mixed. Pict. R. May. (10.)
    Wrapped In Silk. Pict. R. March. (21.)

KELLEY, ETHEL MAY. (1878- .) (_See 1915 and 1916._) (_H._)
    What Little Girls Are Made Of. Ev. Sept. (44.)

KELLY, ELMINA.
   *Nerve of John Philander Keene. Col. Nov. 2, '18. (13.)

KENNEDY, HUGH.
    Delbart, Timber Cruiser. S. E. P. March 22. (119.)

KENNON HARRY B. (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._)
    Springtime. Mir. April 11. (28:202.)
    Units. Mir. Jan. 10. (28:18.)
    When George Did It. Mir. March 14. (28:150.)

KENYON, CAMILLA E. L. (_See 1917 and 1918._) (_H._)
    Camofleurs. Sun. Nov '18. (17.)
    Coming of Joy. Sun. Aug. (39.)
    Claudia And the Conquering Hero. Sun. June. (21.)
    Dust and Ashes. Sun. April. (26.)

KERR, SOPHIE. (1880- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._)
   (_See 'H' under_ UNDERWOOD, SOPHIE KERR.)
   *Clear Spring. S. E. P. Feb. 15. (60.)
    Little Sister to Husbands. S. E. P. May 31. (38.)
  **Spree d'Esprit. Harp. M. Dec. '18. (138:25)
   *Sun Ripe. S. E. P. Jan. 11. (12.)

KIPER, FLORENCE _See_ FRANK, FLORENCE KIPER.

*KIPLING, RUDYARD. (1865- ). (_See 1915, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
   *In the Interests of the Brethren. Met. Dec. '18. (31.)

KLINE, BURTON. (1877- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._)
  **As Man to Man. Strat. J. Nov. '18 (3:235.)
   *"Attainment". Strat. J. Feb. (4:104.)
   *Knight, a Knave, and Antoinette. L .H. J. March. (7.)
 ***Living Ghost. Harp. B. July. (28.)

KLING, JOSEPH. (_See 1918._) (_H._)
    Petite Drole--. Pag. Nov. '18. (29.)

KOMROFF, MANUEL.
    En Route. Mir. Jan. 31. (28:59.)
   *In a Russian Tea House. Cen. July. (98:323.)

*KNUDSEN, HUGO.
    Anguish, Tinted Gold. Pag. Feb. (8.)

KUMMER, FREDERIC ARNOLD. (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Melting of Fatty McGinn. Col. Nov. 23, '18. (7.)


*LAGERLÖF, SELMA OTTILIANA LOVISA. (1858- .) (_H._)
 ***Donna Micaela. Strat. J. Dec. '18. (3:255.)

LA MOTTE, ELLEN N.
   *Homesick. Cen. April. (97:721.)
 ***Under a Wine Glass. Cen. Dec. '18. (97:150.)
  **Yellow Streak. Cen. March. (97:607.)

LANE, ROSE WILDER. _See_ O'BRIEN, FREDERICK _and_ LANE, ROSE WILDER.

LANGEBEK, DOROTHY WYON MAY.
   *Growing Pains. Strat. J. July. (5:28.)

LAPHAM, FRANK.
    Woman Tamer From Wyoming. Am. June. (38.)

LARDNER, RING W. (1885- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    "Along Came Ruth." S. E. P. July 26. (12.)
    Busher Reenlists. S. E. P. April 19. (3.)
    Courtship of T. Dorgan. S. E. P. Sept. 6. (8.)

LARSON, EMMA MAURITZ. (_See 1915 and 1916._) (_H._)
    Gunnar Trails a Star. Del. Jan. (15.)

LAUFERTY, LILLIAN.
    Shoulder to Lean On. Sun. May. (17.)

*LAWRENCE, D(AVID) H(ERBERT). (1885- .) (_See 1915 and 1917._) (_H._)
  **Eleventh Commandment. Met. Aug. (26.)

LAWSON, CORA SCHILLING.
    Girl that Henry Had to Fire. Am. Aug. (52.)

LEA, FANNIE HEASLIP (MRS. H. P. AGEE.) (1884- .)
   (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Elena Ricardo Sings. G. H. Sept. (30.)
    Friday to Monday. S. E. P. May 3. (13.)
    Jenny. Pict. R. Jan. (20.)
    Lady Moon. G. H. Jan. (19.)
    Moon of Nanakuli. Col. Feb. 8. (10.)
    'Neath the White and Scarlet Berry. Sun. Jan. (0.)
    Trail that is Always New. Harp. M. Sept. (139:525.)
    Vamp. G. H. Aug. (65.)
    Where the Apple Reddens. Sun. Feb. (17.)

LEE, JENNETTE (BARBOUR PERRY). (1860- .)
   (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
   *Captain Ethan's Victory. Del. May. (15.)
   *Day the Clock Was Set Ahead. McCall. March. (7.)
    Mr. Peebles' Investment. G. H. April. (26.)
   *Parlor Car Tramp. McCall. June. (12.)

*LE GALLIENNE, RICHARD. (1866- .) (_See 1915, 1916, and 1917._) (_H._)
   *"Dance of Life." Sn. St. May 4. (29.)
   *Lady Lilith. S. S. March. (75.)

*LEMAÎTRE, JULES.
 ***Two Presidents. Strat. J. Nov. '18. (3:207.)

LENNON, THOMAS LLOYD.
  *Burning Crosses. Mir. R. Dec. 20, '18. (27:695.)

"LESSING, BRUNO" (RUDOLPH BLOCK). (1870- .) (_See 1916._) (_H._)
    Aura of Wen Chang. Col. July 19. (17.)
    Cat That Got the Bird. L. H. J. June. (21.)

*LÉTAING, LOUIS.
    Substitute. N. Y. Trib. July 27. (Pt. 7. p. 6.)

*LEVEL, MAURICE. (_See 1917 and 1918._)
 ***All Saints Day. Hear. Sept. (33.)
   *Carmelite Nun. Tod. March. (9.)
    "Officer and Gentleman." N. Y. Trib. Dec. 29, '18.
   *Robber. N. Y. Trib. July 13. (Pt. 7. p. 4.)
    Slacker. N. Y. Trib. Sept. 21.

LEVERAGE, HENRY. (_See 1917 and 1918._)
    Fabricated. S. E. P. Jan. 18. (24.)
   *Skywaymen. All. Feb. 15. (94:30.)

LEVICK, MILNES.
   *Pride of the Lowly. S. S. Feb. (61.)

LEWARS, ELSIE SINGMASTER. _See_ SINGMASTER, ELSIE.

LEWIS, ADDISON. (1889- .) (_See 1917 and 1918._)
   *Little Spanish Count. Bel. Feb. 15. (26:185.) Mir. June 5. (28:367.)
    Seven Prayers. Mir. April 11. (28:205.)
  **What Good Is an Imagination? Mir. Nov. 1, '18. (27:551.)

LEWIS, O(RLANDO) F(AULKLAND). (1873- .) (_See 1918._)
    H. H. W and Weebee. L. H. J. April. (26.)
    Jack Burton Slacker. L. H. J. Dec '18. (15.)
    Man Who Went Singing. L. H. J. (25.)
    When Foch Spoke to Johnnie. L. H. J. April. (10.)

LEWIS, SINCLAIR. (1885- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._)
    Cat of the Stars. S. E. P. April 19. (5.)
    Enchanted Hour. S. E. P. Aug. 9. (8.)
   *Kidnapped Memorial. Pict. R. June. (10.)
    Might and Millions. Met. June. (30.)
    Moths In the Arc Light. S. E. P. Jan. 11. (5.)
    Shrinking Violet. S. E. P. Feb. 15. (9.)
  **Things. S. E. P. Feb. 22. (8.)
    Watcher Across the Road. S. E. P. May 24. (5.)

LIEBE, HAPSBURG. (_See 1915 and 1918._) (_H._)
    From the Other Side. Col. Sept. 6. (9.)
   *Gleaners. Col. Sept. 20. (9.)

LIEBERMAN, ELIAS. (1883- .) (_See 1916 and 1918._) (_H._)
   *Michaelson's Masterpiece. Am. Heb. Dec. 20, '18.
  **Moment Musical. Am. Heb. Nov. 1, '18. (651.)
  **Notkin Talks to a Star. Am. Heb. Jan. 17. (257.)
 ***Thing of Beauty. Am. Heb. June 27. (105:160.)
   *What's Your Hurry? Am. Heb. March 21.

LIGHTON, WILLIAM RHEEM. (1866- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
   Billy Fortune and the Twin Idea. Sun. Feb. (37.)

LINCOLN, JOSEPH C(ROSBY). (1870- .) (_See 1915._) (_H._)
 *Safe and Sane. Red Bk. July. (83.)

LIPSETT, EDWARD RAPHAEL. (1868- .) (_See 1915 and 1916._) (_H._)
 *Serenade. Del. March. (11.)

LOAN, CHARLES EMMETT, VAN. _See_ VAN LOAN, CHARLES EMMETT.

*LOCKHART, LUCY.
 ***Miss Allardyce's Soldier. Liv. Age. May 17. (301:417.)

LONDON, JACK. (1876-1916.) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
   *Bones of Kahekili. Cos. July (95.)
   *In the Cave of the Dead. Cos. Nov. '18. (74.)
 ***On the Makaloa Mat. Cos. March. (16.)

LOON, HENDRIK WILLEM VAN. _See_ VAN LOON, HENDRIK WILLEM.

LORENTE, MARIANO JOAQUIN. (_See 1918._)
    An Expert in Graphology. Strat. J. Jan. (4:39.)
  **'Ome, Sweet 'Ome. Mir. April 4. (28:192.)

LOWE, CORINNE. (_See 1917._) (_H._)
    Alice Through the Working Class. S. E. P. May 3. (18.)
    Miss Wife. S. E. P. Feb. 1. (5.)

LOWELL, AMY. (1874- .) (_See 1915, 1916, and 1918._)
  **Dried Marjoram. Atl. May. (123:636.)
   *One Winter Night. Touch. Dec. '18. (4:222.)

LUCAS, JUNE RICHARDSON.
   *Hopper. Ev. April. (28.)

LUTHER, CALVIN H. (_See H._)
    Golden Fruit. Scr. Aug. (66:185.)
  **Hunting of Bud Howland. Scr. July (66:49.)

LYNN, MARGARET. (_See 1915 and 1917._) (_H._)
  **Mourners. Atl. Nov. '18. (122:644.)

*LYONS, A(LBERT MICHAEL) NEIL. (1880- .) (_See 1916._) (_H._)
   *'Arold, New Style. Liv. Age. Aug. 23. (302:476.)


MABIE, LOUISE KENNEDY. (_See 1915 and 1917._) (_H._)
    Miss Gilsey--Head Waitress. Am. Jan. (40.)
    One In a Million. L. H. J. March. (14.)

MCBLAIR, ROBERT.
   *Mademoiselle. Tod. Nov. '18. (3.)

*MACCARTHY, DESMOND.
  **Most Miserable of Men. Liv. Age. Jan. '18. (300:159.)

MCCOY, WILLIAM M. (_See 1917 and 1918._)
    Guardsmen. Met. June. (13.)

MCCUTCHEON, GEORGE BARR. (1866- .) (_See 1918._) (_H._)
    Sand. N. Y. Trib. Feb. 23. (Pt. 4 p. 8.)

MACFARLANE, PETER CLARK. (1871- .) (_See 1917 and 1918._) (_H._)
    African Golf. S. E. P. Feb. 8. (14.)
    Bilge and Ma Get a Sub. S. E. P. Nov. 16, '18. (14.)
    Cross and Double Cross. S. E. P. Jan. 18. (12.)
    High, Low and Close. S. E. P. June 28. (34.)
    Last Patrol. S. E. P. March 15. (111.)
    Maisie's Kind Heart. S. E. P. May 24. (17.)
    Partners. S. E. P. June 21. (53.)
    Saving Doctor Mallow. S. E. P. Sept. 27. (45.)
    Teufel Hunden. S. E. P. Dec. 21, '18. (27.)
    Wire Entanglement. S. E. P. April 5. (12.)
    Worm Turneth. S. E. P. Sept. 13. (20.)

MACGRATH, HAROLD. (1871- .) (_See 1915, 1917 and 1918._) (_H._)
    Yellow Typhoon. S. E. P. Feb. 8. (17.)

*MACHEN, ARTHUR. (1863- .) (_See 1917._)
   *Drake's Drum. Liv. Age June 14. (301:655.)

MCINTYRE, CLARA F.
   *Man's Reach. Mid. May-June. (5:140.)

MACKENDRICK, MARDA.
    Heart of Fire. Met. July. (21.)

MACMANUS, SEUMAS. (1870- .) (_See 1915, 1916, and 1917._) (_H._)
 ***Far Adventures of Billy Burns. Mag. Aug. (24:186.)
 ***Tinker of Tamlacht. Mag. June. (24:92.)

*MACONECHY, J.
    Rapunzel. Liv. Age July 5. (302:43.)

MACVANE, EDITH. (1880- .) (_See 1916._) (_H._)
    Golden Voice. S. E. P. April 12. (10.)

*MADRUS, LUCIE DELARUE. _See_ DELARUE MADDRUS LUCIE.

MAGIL, MYRON EM.
   *Reprisals. Pag. Sept. (18.)

MARSDEN, GRIFFIS.
    Little Bob Crawls Under. Sun. July. (42.)

MARSH, GEORGE T. (_See 1915, 1916, and 1917._) (_H._)
  **Land Of His Fathers. Scr. June. (65:751.)

*MARSHALL, ARCHIBALD.
   *Wimpole's Chair. Sn. St. April 18. (67.)

MARSHALL, MARGUERITE MOOERS.
    "He Is So Different." Del. Sept. (7.)

MARTIN, HELEN R(EIMENSNYDER). (1868- .) (_See H._)
    Her Wifely Duty. Pict. R. Feb. (14.)

MARTIN, KATHARINE. (_See 1917._)
    When Bud Joined the Militants. L. H. J. Nov. '18. (21.)

*MARTINEZ, RAFAEL AREVALO.
 ***Man Who Resembled a Horse. Lit. R. Dec. '18. (42.)

MASON, GRACE SARTWELL. (1877- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Blind Spot. S. E. P. Jan. 4. (5.)
    Only Old Person Left In the World. Am. Feb. (29.)
    Schooner Ahoy. S. E. P. Aug. 16. (20.)

MASSON, THOMAS L(ANSING). (1866- .) (_See 1916._) (_H._)
   *Man On the Other Side. L. H. J. July. (17.)

MATTESON, HERMAN HOWARD. (_See 1918._)
    Bag of Black Diamonds. Am. Aug. (28.)
    Prayer Rug. Col. Dec. 14, '18. (11.)
    Waltzing Mouse. Col. Sept. 13. (11.)

"MAXWELL, HELENA." (_See 1918._)
 ***West of Topeka. Pag. Sept. (49.)

*MAXWELL, WILLIAM BABINGTON. (_See 1917._) (_H._)
    Joan of Arc. S. E. P. March 15. (127.)
  **Never Too Late. Hear. Jan. (38.)

MEANS, E. K. (_See 1918._) (_H._)
   *Family Ties. Mun. Sept. (67:715.)
   *First High Janitor. All. Feb. 8. (93:555.)
   *'Fraid Cat. All. April 12. (96:53.)
  **Giving It Away. All. Jan. 18. (93:25.)
   *Lover's Guide. All. June 7. (98:23.)
   *Monkey Lodge. All. Dec. 7, '18. (91:371.)
   *Rebellion. All. Sept. 20. (101:556.)

MEREDITH, FLOYD.
    So Unreasonable. Pag. Nov. '18. (36.)

*MERLETAUX, PIERRE.
   *Love Letter. N. Y. Trib. March 23. (Pt. 8 p. 6.)

*MERRICK, LEONARD. (1864- .) (_See H._)
   *Picq Plays the Hero. Harp. B. Nov. '18. (28.)

MICHELSON, MIRIAM. (1870- .) (_See H._)
  **Yellow Streak. Mun. Nov. '18. (65:347.)

MICHENER, CARROLL K.
  **Confidence. Scr. Feb. (65:224.)
    In the Garden of Forbidden Fruit. Del. March. (16.)

*MILLE, PIERRE. (1864- .) (_See 1917 and 1918._)
   *Agony of Friedrich Weckel. N. Y. Trib. Jan. 26. (Pt. 4 p. 6.)
    Glimpse of the Future. N. Y. Trib. June 29. (Pt. 7 p. 6.)
    Lonely Lives. N. Y. Trib. June 8. (Pt. 8 p. 5.)
    Salute. N. Y. Trib. Nov. 24, '18.
    Two of Them. N. Y. Trib. April 20. (Pt. 9 p. 6.)

MILLER, ALICE DUER. (1874- .) (_See 1915 and 1916._) (_H._)
    His Wife. S. E. P. April 12. (13.)
    How Violet Lost Her Sense of Humor. S. E. P. Feb. 8. (10.)
    Miss Whitely's Situation. S. E. P. Sept. 27. (12.)
    New Stoics. S. E. P. Nov. 9, '18. (16.)

MILLER, HELEN TOPPING. (_See 1915, 1916, and 1917._)
   *Mary of Mulesback. S. E. P. Sept. 13. (50.)

MILLER, WARREN H. (1876- .)
    Pease of the Navy. Ev. Nov. '18. (19.)

MILLS, DOROTHY CULVER. (_See 1918._)
    Aspen Manages. Ev. Aug. (44.)
    Getting Acquainted. Ev. Feb. (56.)
    Something Different. Del. Jan. (7.)
    Thistledown. Del. Aug. (12.)

*MILNE, ALAN ALEXANDER. (_See 1915._)
   *Mullins. Liv. Age. Aug. 2. (302:297.)
  **Return. Col. Sept. 27. (16.)

MINNIOLRODE, MEADE. (_See 1916 and 1917._)
    After They've Seen Paree. S. E. P. Sept. 20. (43.)
    Hottentot Bazaar. S. E. P. Aug. 16. (34.)

MITCHELL, GEORGE WINTER.
   *It Was Worth It. Strat. J. Nov. '18. (3:244.)

MITCHELL, MARY ESTHER. (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
   *God Behind the Gift. Harp. M. Aug. (139:414.)
  **His Hour. Harp. M. Jan. (138:176.)
 ***Jonas and the Tide. Harp. M. June. (139:48.)

MITCHELL, RUTH COMPORT. (MRS. SANBORN YOUNG) (_See 1916, 1917, and 1918._)
    '---- by July 15th." Ev. April (26.)
    Pilgrim Idyl. Mir. Nov. 22, '18. (27:595.)
   *Roses In Snow. McCall. March. (13.)

MITCHELL, RUTH COMFORT, _and_ YOUNG, SANBORN.
   *Old Man Hicks Was Right. Harp. M. Sept. (139:609.)

MITCHELL, SILAS WEIR. (_See H._)
    Consultation. Mir. March 28. (28:182.)

MOITORET, ANTHONY F.
   *First and Only Cruise of the "Caoutchouc". Harp. M. Jan. (138:281.)

MONTAGUE, MARGARET PRESCOTT. (1878- .) (_See 1915 and 1916._) (_H._)
 ***England to America. Atl. Sept. (124:322.)
  **Gift, The. Atl. March. (123:365.)

*MONTMORENCY, J. E. G. DE.
  **In Carlo Quies, In Terra Pax. Liv. Age. Jan. 4. (300:54.)

MOONEY, RALPH E.
    Improbable. S. E. P. May 17. (70.)
    Professor Goes "Over the Top" L. H. J. May. (28.)
    Professor Goes to War. L. H. J. Feb. (18.)
    Tire Jockey. S. E. P. Aug. 16. (28.)

MORAVSKY, MARIA.
   *Black City. Harp. M. Sept. (139:579.)
 ***Friendship of Men. Harp. M. Feb. (138:333.)

*MORDAUNT, ELINOR. (_See 1915, 1917, and 1918._)
    Avenging. Met. April. (13.)
  **Little Moses. Met. June. (16.)
 ***Peepers All. Met. Feb. (28.)
 ***Set to Partners. Met. July. (27.)
  **Strong Man. Met. March. (24.)
   *Wise Woman. Met. May. (23.)

MORGAN, BYRON. (_See 1918._)
    Bear Trap. S. E. P. July 26. (14.)
    Hippopotamus Parade. S. E. P. Feb. 15. (14.)
    Secondhand Ghosts. S. E. P. March 29. (12.)

MORGAN, DOROTHY.
    Sandwiches and Beer. Met. June. (33.)

MORLEY, CHRISTOPHER (DARLINGTON). (1890- .) (_See 1917 and 1918._)
    Pert Little Hat. Met. Jan. (42.)

MOROSO, JOHN ANTONIO. (1874- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Spuds. Ev. May. (30.)
    Stolen Girl. Am. June. (46.)

MORRIS, CHARLOTTE FITZHUGH. (_See 1916._)
    Underfed Nursling. Atl. Aug. (124:226.)

MORRIS, EDWIN BATEMAN. (_H._)
   "Leave." Ev. Jan. (45.)

MORRIS, GOUVERNEUR. (1876- .) (_See 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
   *Delivered Letter. Harp. B. April. (44.)

MOUNT, T. E.
  **Little Ticket Collector. S. S. Sept. (77.)

MUMFORD, ETHEL WATTS. (MRS. ETHEL WATTS MUMFORD GRANT.)
   (1878- .) (_See 1915, 1916, and 1917._) (_H._)
   *Lucky Eye. Mun. March. (66:281.)

MUNSON, GORHAM B.
    King of the Strange Marshes. Pag. Feb. (5.)

MURRAY, ROY IRVING. (_See 1915 and 1916._)
 ***First Commandment With Promise. Scr. June. (65:742.)

MUTH, EDNA TUCKER. (_See 1915 and 1916._)
 ***White Wake. Mid. Jan.-Feb. (5:3.)

*'MYN.
    Godson and the Sausage. N. Y. Trib. Feb. 2. (Pt. 4 p. 6.)


NADIR, MOISHE.
   *Nobless Oblige. Pag. Sept. (15.)

NEIDIG, WILLIAM JONATHAN. (1870- .) (_See 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Comrade Nix. S. E. P. Sept. 20. (12.)
    Faith Cure. S. E. P. May 17. (17.)
   *Kincaider and the Kettle of Tar. S. E. P. July 5. (57.)

NICHOLL, LOUISE TOWNSEND.
 ***Little Light. Strat. J. Feb. (4:94.)

NICHOLSON, MEREDITH. (1866- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Governor's Day Off. L. H. J. March. (17.)
    Miss O'Rourke and True Romance. Met. Jan. (11.)
   *Wrong Number. Scr. May. (65:549.)

NORRIS, KATHLEEN. (1880- .) (_See 1915, 1916, and 1917._) (_H._)
    Consider the Lilies. G. H. June. (50.)
    Home to Mother. G. H. Aug. (40.)
    Sisters. G. H. May. (58.)
    Young Mrs. Jimmy. G. H. July. (20.)

NORTON, GUY W. (_See 1916._)
    Flash. Col. Jan. 18. (7.)
    Gentleman's Game. Col. Nov. 16, '18. (8.)

NORTON, ROY. (1869-1917.) (_See 1915, 1916, and 1917._) (_H._)
   *Intercession. Harp. B. Aug. (34.)
    On the Beach. Col. Feb. 22. (12.)
 ***This Hero Thing. Harp. B. July. (34.)

*NOYES, ALFRED. (1880- .) (_See 1916 and 1918._) (_H._)
    *Lighthouse. Book. Nov. '18. (48:295.)
     May Margaret. L. H. J. Nov. '18. (13.)


*OBEY, ANDRÉ..
    Last Judgment. N. Y. Trib. Dec. 8, '18.

O'BRIEN, FREDERICK _and_ LANE, ROSE WILDER.
   *O'Lalala the Gambler. Cen. Aug. (98:446.)

O'BRIEN, MARY HEATON VORSE. _see_ VORSE, MARY (MARVIN) HEATON.

O'BRIEN, SEUMAS. (1880- .) (_See 1915, 1916, and 1917._)
   *Mermaid and the Piper. Wom. W. July. (12.)

OLMSTED, STANLEY. (_See 1915._) (_H._)
   *When the Light Came Up. Hear. July. (16.)

O'NEIL, GEORGE.
  **I Tell You a Fairy Tale. S. S. Nov. '18. (104.)

*ONIONS, MRS. OLIVER. _See_ RUCK, BERTA.

OPPENHEIM, JAMES. (1882- .) (See _1915, 1916, and 1918._) (_H._)
   *Heart of Ruth. Tod. Jan. (15)

O'REILLY, EDWARD S. (_See 1916, 1917, and 1918._)
    Bride of Bacoor. Pict. R. June. (29.)
    Double Barreled Friendship. Pict. R. May. (16.)
    Galvanized Gringo. Pict. R. Jan. (16.)
    Mavericks All! Pict. R. July. (20.)
    When Tondo Went to War. Pict. R. Nov. '18. (16.)

OSBORNE, WILLIAM HAMILTON. (1873- .)
   (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Afraid? S. E. P. Feb. 15. (70.)
    Campbells Are Coming. S. E. P. Dec. 14, '18. (34.)
    Disbarred. S. E. P. March 1. (24.)
    Live Bait. S. E. P. July 12. (10.)
    Man Snatches. S. E. P. March 22. (3.)
    On the Sly. S. E. P. Sept. 6. (18.)
    Outrage or Two. S. E. P. Aug. 23. (8.)
    Seat of the Emotions. S. E. P. June 21. (14.)
    To Save His Face. S. E. P. March 8. (111.)

 OSBOURNE, LLOYD. (1868- .) (_See 1915 and 1917._) (_H._)
    Lovers Three. S. E. P. Feb 22. (5.)

"OXFORD, JOHN BARTON." _See_ SHELTON, RICHARD BARKER.


*P., F.
    Amateur. Liv. Age July 19. (302:162.)

PAGE, HELEN.
 ***Rebound. Cen. Nov. '18. (97:65.)

PAINE, ALBERT BIGELOW.  (1861- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Great Roundtop Vegetable Drive. Harp. M. May. (138:857.)
    Reserved Seats. Harp. M. Aug. (139:449.)

*PAPINI, GIOVANNI. (1881- .) (_See 1915 and 1916._)
 ***Beggar of Souls. Strat. J. Feb. (4:59.)

PARADISE, VIOLA.
  **Charles Hemenway Goes To War Lib. June. (22.)

PARMENTER, CHRISTINE WHITING.  (_See 1918._)
    Behind the Barrier. Met. Aug. (29.)
    Her Choice of a Husband. Am. Aug. (43.)
    McRitchie's Raise. Am. Nov. '18. (40.)
    Uncle Jed. Met. March. (36.)

PASSANO, L. MAGRUDER.
   *Double Haunt. Pag. May. (48.)
  **Old See Yourself. Pag. Sept. (41.)

*"PATLANDER."
   *Brigadier's Yarn. Liv. Age May 17. (301:427.)

PATTERSON, NORMA. (1891- .) (_See 1918._)
    What They Brought Out of France. Pict. R. May. (3.)

PATTULLO, GEORGE. (1879- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    A. W. O. L. S. E. P. Nov 9, '18. (10.)
    In Wilhelm's Bed. S. E. P. April 12. (6.)
    M'sieu Joe Hicks on Bolshevism. S. E. P. Sept 27. (10.)
    Order Is Orders. S. E. P. July 26. (6.)
    Quitter. S. E. P. Nov. 23, '18. (11.)

PAYNE, WILL. (1865- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
 ***Best Laid Plan. S. E. P. March 22. (13.)
    Doctor Holt's Conversion S. E. P. Dec. 28 '18. (14.)
    Packet of Letters. Pict. R. Aug. (5.)

PEARCE, JOHN I. JR.
    Choice. Pag. Feb. (51.)

*PECK, WINIFRED.
  **Last of Her Lovers. Liv. Age March 8. (300:595.)

PELLEY, WILLIAM DUDLEY. (_See 1916, 1917 and 1918._)
  **Curse. Pict. R. Feb. (25.)
   *Just Plain Wife. Pict. R. Dec. '18. (18.)

*PEREZ, ISAAC LOEB. (1851- .) (_H._)
 ***Bontje the Silent. Strat. J. Jan. (4:3.)
  **Story Told By a Purim Rabbi. Pag. Sept. (9.)

PERRY, LAWRENCE. (1875- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Come Back. Ev. Aug. (32.)
  **Deeper Vision Harp. M. July. (139:204.)
    Nothing But a Prayer. Ev. Sept. (23.)
    Squizzer's Big Moment. S. E. P. June 21. (18.)

*PERTWEE, ROLAND. (_See 1916, 1917, and 1918._)
  **Vincent from the Vicarage. Hear. June. (39.)

PETERS, SALLY. (_See 1915._)
    Guest Room. Pag. April. (5.)

PHILLIPS, M. J. (_See H._)
    But We Can Have Quite a Lot. S. E. P. Aug 9. (50.)

'PICCOLO.'
   *Spaces of Uncertainty. N. Rep. Sept 24. (20:228.)

PICKTHALL, MARJORIE. (LOWRY CHRISTIE.) (_See 1915, 1916, and 1918._) (_H._)
   *Seventh Dream. L. H. J. Aug. (12.)
 ***Third Generation. Bel. Dec. 14, '18. (25:663.)

*PINSKI, DAVID. (1872- .)
 ***Another Person's Soul. N. Y. Trib. March 2. (Pt. 7 p. 6.)
    Man Who Was Not. N. Y. Trib. Dec. 22, '18.

*PLARR, VICTOR GUSTAVE.
  **Alsatian Episode. Liv. Age June 14. (301:689.)

POPE, LAURA SPENCER PORTOR. _See_ PORTOR, LAURA SPENCER.

PORTER, HAROLD EVERETT. _See_ "HALL, HOLWORTHY."

PORTOR, LAURA SPENCER. (LAURA SPENCER PORTOR POPE.)
   (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
   *Monkey with the Green Pea Jacket. Harp. M. May. (138:736.)

POST, MELVILLE DAVISSON. (1871- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
  **Five Thousand Dollars Reward. S. E. P. Feb. 15. (12.)
  **Sunburned Lady. Hear. Dec. '18. (34:416.)
   *Thing On the Hearth. Red Bk. May. (23.)

POTTER, GRACE.
   *Libbie. Sn. St. March 4. (53.)

POTTLE, MRS. JULIET WILBOR TOMPKINS. _See_ TOMPKINS, JULIET WILBOR.

PRATT, LUCY. (1874- .) (_See 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
  **Bearing a Torch. Pict. R. Aug. (22.)
 ***Man Who Looked Back. Pict. R. Nov. '18. (12.)

*PROUTY, OLIVE HIGGINS. (1882- .) (_See 1916 and 1917._) (_H._)
   *Doughboys and Doughnuts. Am. Dec. '18. (16.)

PULVER, MARY BRECHT. (1883- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Earned Increment. S. E. P. Aug. 30. (10.)
    Love Story. S. E. P. April 19. (10.)
    Mr. Swinney and the Lyric Muse. S. E. P. March 29. (101.)
    Pursuit of Knowledge. Ev. Sept. (16.)
    Treat 'Em Rough. S. E. P. March 1. (5.)

PUTNAM, NINA WILCOX. (1888- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Anything Once. S. E. P. May 10. (10.)
    Glad Hand. S. E. P. Aug. 2. (14.)
    Holy Smokes. S. E. P. Jan. 4. (21.)
    Nothing Stirring. S. E. P. Sept. 20. (32.)
    Now Is the Time. S. E. P. June 14. (10.)
    Return of the Salesman. S. E. P. March 15. (9.)
    Shoes. S. E. P. Aug. 30. (18.)
    Those Beastly Bolsheviki. S. E. P. Nov. 16, '18. (8.)


*RAISIN, OVRO'OM. (_See 1918._)
  **Game. Strat. J. July. (5:3.)
  **Village That Had No Cemetery. Strat. J. July. (5:10.)
  **Without An Address. Strat. J. July. (5:14.)

*RAMBEAU, JEAN.
   *Vase. N. Y. Trib. April 6. (Pt. 9 p. 6.)

RANCK, REITA LAMBERT. (_See 1918._)
    Baby Fever. Mir. Aug. 7. (28:525.)
   *Billeted. Strat. J. April. (4:213.)
  **Bond Between. N. Y. Trib. Jan. 26. (Pt. 3 p. 7.)
   *Hot Water Bottle. Strat. J. Sept. (5:161.)
   *Thing!, The. Bel. Jan. 18. (26:69.)
    "Welcome Home." Bel. May 24. (26:571.)

RAVENEL, BEATRICE.
   *"As One Lady to Another."Harp. M. March. (138:494.)
    Dear Child. S. E. P. April 19. (131.)
 ***High Cost of Conscience. Harp. M. Jan. (138:235.)
    Just a Few Men. S. E. P. March 8. (81.)

RAYMOND, ROBERT L.
    Shipbuilders. Atl. May. (123:669.)

REDINGTON, SARAH.
   *Parthenon Freeze. Scr. Aug. (66:171.)

REESE, LOWELL OTUS. (_See 1916, 1917, and 1918._)
    Epidemic. S. E. P. March 1. (30.)
    For Unto Us. S. E. P. Jan. 11. (38.)
    Lost Goats. S. E. P. Feb. 15. (85.)
    Music of Hell. S. E. P. April 5. (143.)
    Pilgrim. S. E. P. May 10. (90.)
    Sad Milk Bottles. S. E. P. Jan. 25. (38.)
    When Strangers Meet. S. E. P. Feb. 8. (66.)

RENDEL, LAWRENCE.
 ***Mother. S. S. May. (29.)

RHODES, EUGENE MANLOVE. (1869- .) (_See 1915 and 1916._) (_H._)
    No Mean City. S. E. P. May 17. (5)-24. (28.)

RHODES, HARRISON (GARFIELD). (1871- .) (_See 1915 and 1918._) (_H._)
    Cliff Walk. Col. May 31. (7.)
   *Henry. Ev. Aug. (60.)
    Importance of Being Mrs. Cooper. Harp. M. Feb. (138:295.)
  **Little Miracle at Tlemcar. Col. Aug. 16. (7.)
   *Man Who Bought Venice. Col. Apr. 19. (12.)

RICE, ALICE (CALDWELL) HEGAN. (1870- .) (_See 1915 and 1918._) (_H._)
   *Beulah. Harp. M. Aug.(139:337.)
    Reprisal. Del. Aug. (20.)

RICH, BERTHA A. (_See 1916, 1917, and 1918._)
    Yellow Streak In David. Am. July. (52.)

RICHMOND, GRACE (LOUISE) S(MITH). (1866- .) (_See 1917 and 1918._) (_H._)
    Back from Over There. L. H. J. Feb. (20.)
    Fighting Father. L. H. J. Jan. (7.)

RICHTER, CONRAD. (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._)(_H._)
    Swanson's "Home Sweet Home." Ev. Aug. (70.)

RIDEOUT, HENRY MILNER. (1877- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
   *Golden Wreath. S. E. P. April 26. (5.)
   *Runa's Holiday. S. E. P. March 1. (10 )
   *Surprising Grace. S. E. P. Nov. 2, '18. (12.)

RIGGS, KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN. _See_ WIGGIN, KATE DOUGLAS.

RINEHART, MARY ROBERTS. (1876- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Salvage. S. E. P. June 7. (3.) 14. (16.)

RITCHIE, ROBERT WELLES. (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._)
    Sling of David. Sun. Aug. (21.)

RIVERS, STUART. (_See 1918._)
    Call of the Gods. Scr. Sept. (66:346.)
    Girl Who Wouldn't. Met. Sept. (19.)

ROBERTS, KENNETH L. (_See 1917 and 1918._)
    _and_ GARLAND, ROBERT. (_See 1916._)
    Brotherhood of Man. S. E. P. Aug. 30. (3.)

ROBINSON, GERTRUDE. (_See H._)
   *Cumberers. Strat. J. March. (4:146.)

*ROBINSON, LENNOX.
  **Sponge. Liv. Age. July 26. (302:227.)

ROCHE, MAZO DE LE. (_See 1915 and 1916._) (_See H. under_ DE LA ROCHE, MAZO.)
  **Merry Interlude. Harp. B. June. (36.)

*ROCHON, JEAN.
    Adoption. N. Y. Trib. July 6. (Pt. 9 p. 7.)
    Christmas Package. N. Y. Trib. Dec. 22, '18.

ROE, ROBERT J.
   *How the War Came to Marly. Sn. St. March 4. (69)

ROE, VINGIE E. (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    At El Rancho Rosa. Met. Dec. '18. (33.)
    Blue Chap A Dog That Knew. L. H. J. July. (23.)
    King of Smoky Slopes. Pict. R. July. (14.)
    Love. Del. Dec '18. (7.)
    Lumber Jack. Ev. Dec. 18. (18.)
    Mr. Fisher's Hornpipe. Sun. Dec. '18. (17.)
    Monsieur Bon Coeur. Sun. Jan. (37.)
    Renegade. Sun. May (27.)

ROOF, KATHERINE METCALF. (_See 1915 and 1918._) (_H._)
   *Reincarnate Greatness of the Walter Smiths. Bel. Nov 9, '18. (25:519.)

ROSENBLATT, BENJAMIN. (1880- .) (_See 1915, 1916, and 1917._) (_H._)
  **Mashka. Am. J. Ch. Nov. '18. (5:610.)

ROSIER, MARGUERITE HENRY.
   *Those Who Sit In Darkness. N. Y. Trib. April 27. (Pt. 9 p. 6.)

ROSSER, ANGIE OUSLEY.
    Gage d'Amour. Met. Jan. (33.)

ROUSE, WILLIAM MERRIAM. (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
   *Heart of a Man. Arg. Aug. 23. (111:390.)
  **Postage Stamp. Mid. March April. (5:75.)

ROWLAND, HENRY C(OTTRELL). (1874- .) (_See 1918._) (_H._)
    Black Book. Met. May. (13.)
    Traps. Del. Sept. (15.)

*"RUCK, BERTA." (MRS. OLIVER ONIONS.)
    Autobiography of a Wedding Cake. L. H. J. Jan. (21.)
    My Goddaughter's Godson. L. H. J. Feb. (8.)

RUD, ANTHONY M.
    Cross Eye's Double Cross. S. E. P. Aug. 23. (50.)

RUSSELL, ALICE DYAR.
    "Don't Tell Dad." Del. Sept. (22.)
    Plain Gingham With a Hem. Del. June. (12.)

RUSSELL, JOHN (1885- .) (_See 1916, 1917, and 1918._)
  **Amok. Col. June 21. (7.)
    Peg Post. Col. March 15. (6.)
    Red Mark. Col. April 5. (7.)
  **Slanted Beam. Col. May 3. (7.)

RYAN, KATHRYN WHITE.
    Altar Boy. Cath. W. Nov. '18. (108:250.)

RYERSON, FLORENCE. (_See 1915, 1917, and 1918._)
    Harold, the Last of the Saxons. Pict. R. Dec. '18. (20.)
    Orpheus and the Amazing Valentine. Met. Dec. '18. (21.)


SADLIER, ANNA T. (1854- .)
    Better Part. Cath. W. Feb. (108:660.)

SANGSTER, MARGARET E. (_See 1915, 1916, and 1918._)
   *Ghosts of Happiness. C. Her. July 26. (42:810.)

*"SAPPER." See *MCNEILE, H. C.

*"SAPPER." (_See 1917._)
    Real Test. S. E. P. Aug. 23. (38.)

SAWHILL, MYRA. (_See 1917._)
   *Trap. Am. May. (49.)

SAWYER, RUTH. (MRS. ALBERT C. DURAND.) (1880- .)
   (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
   *"If Ever a Sorrow Takes Ye ----". Ev. March. (43.)
    Into Her Own. G. H. June. (36.)
    Lad Who Outsang the Stars. G. H. March. (30.)
    Last of the Surgical. G. H. Feb. (37.)

SCHWAB, JENNIE A.
    Nigger. Pag. June. (7.)

SCOGGINS, C. E.
    And So To Bed. Col. June 7. (12.)
    Jerry Remembers Something. S. E. P. Jan. 25. (14.)
    Place to Sleep. Col. Dec. 7, '18. (12.)
    Thanks to the Dog. Col. June 21. (18.)

SEAMAN, AUGUSTA HUIELL.
    Pamela's Mite. Del. Sept. (19.)
    Sacrificing of Susanna. Del. May. (19.)

SEDGWICK, ANNE DOUGLAS. (MRS. BASIL DE SELINCOURT.) (1873- .)
   (_See 1915, 1916, and 1918._) (_H._)
 ***Autumn Crocuses. Atl. Aug. (124:145.)
 ***Evening Primroses. Atl. July. (124:7.)

SEIFERT, SHIRLEY L.
    Fetters of Habit. S. E. P. Aug. 30. (52.)
    Girl That Was Too Good Looking. Am. July. (39.)

SEIFFERT, MARJORIE ALLEN. (1885- .) (_See 1918._)
   *County In Michigan. Mir. Nov. 15, '18. (27:585.)
    Musical Temperament. Mir. Nov. 29, '18. (27:613.)
  **Old Channel. Mir. June 5. (28:355.)
 ***Peddler. Mir. Dec 6, '18. (27:627.)

SELINCOURT, MRS. BASIL DE. _See_ SEDGWICK, ANNE DOUGLAS.

SHAWE, VICTOR. (_See 1917._)
    Convex, Plane and Concave. S. E. P. Sept. 20. (16.)
    How Dreams Come True. S. E. P. May 31. (70.)
    Rye Hay Williams S. E. P. June 28. (62.)
    Way of the Range. S. E. P. May 3. (10.)

SHELTON, LOUISE DEFORREST. (_See H._)
   *Triangle. S. S. Nov. '18. (35.)

SHELTON, (RICHARD) BARKER. (_See 1916 and 1917, under_ "OXFORD, JOHN BARTON.")
   (_See 1918._) (_H._)
    Arcady the Blest. S. E. P. June 7. (40.)
    Happy Endings. S. E. P. Aug. 2. (36.)
    Just a Da Biz'. Met. April. (21.)

SHORE, VIOLA BROTHERS.
    Mess of Pottage. Pag. June. (26.)

SHUTE, HENRY AUGUSTUS. (1856- .) (_See H._)
   *Beany and Plupy. Del. June. (10.)
    Wheeler. Del. Sept. (14.)

SICKLER, ELEANOR VORE.
    Comb Honey. Sun. Nov. '18. (34.)

SIDNEY, ROSE.
 ***Grapes of San Jacinto. Pict. R. Sept. (12.)

SIMPSON, JOHN LOWREY. (_See 1917._)
  **And the Mayor Replied. Cen. Nov. '18. (97:23.)
    Deportations. Cen. Feb. (97:544.)
  **To Light a Cigarette. Cen. Jan. (97:365.)

SINGMASTER, ELSIE. (ELSIE SINGMASTER LEWARS.) (1879- .)
   (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
  **Golden Mountain. Harp. M. Dec. '18. (138:46.)
   *Hangman. Bel. May 3. (26:492.)
   *Old Vanity. Pict. R. Aug. (21.)
  **Recompense. Strat. J. Dec. '18. (3:288.)
   *Salvage. Bel. Dec. 28, '18. (25:715.)

SMALE, FRED C. (_See 1916._)
    Field of Shadows. Scr. Aug. (66:237.)

SMITH, MAXWELL.
    In High C!. S. E. P. May 31. (57.)
   *Ticker Tape. S. E. P. Aug 9. (41.)
    Wooden Hand. S. E. P. May 24. (14.)

SNEDDON, ROBERT W. (1880- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
   *House of Accursed Memory. L. St. Sept. (67.)
   *Nameless Thing. Arg. July 12. (110:35.)
   *"Three Old Men." L. St. July. (47.)
   *Valley of Mystery. Met. Sept. (34.)

SOLON, ISRAEL.
 ***Boulevard. Lit. R. Dec. '18, (53.) _and_ Jan. (51.)
   *How It Is Sometimes. Am. March. (146.)
  **Man Who Jumped Into the Sea. Pict. R. Dec. 18. (10.)

SOTHERN, EDWARD HUGH. (1859- .) (_See 1917 and 1918._)
  **Image. Scr. Aug. (66:147.)
   *Kingdom. Scr. April. (65:485.)

*SOUTAR, ANDREW. (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._)
   *"Home to Roost." Sn. St. June 18. (31.)

SPEYER, LEONORA.
    McGregor Decides It. S. E. P. Aug. 16. (10.)

*SPUR, JACK.
    Tank Commander. Liv. Age March 15. (300:670.)

STEARNS, M. M. _See_ 'JOHN AMID.'

STEELE, ALICE GARLAND. (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Chap He Might Have Been. L. H. J. Nov. '18. (12.)
  **Flaming Sword. Wom. W. Feb. (7.)
    Share Number 4302. L. H.  J. July. (20.)

*STEELE, FLORA ANNIE (WEBSTER). (1847- .) (_See H._)
   *Segregation. Bel. May 10. (26:522.)

STEELE, MURIEL HOWARD.
   *Mr. Blue, Kidnapper. Harp. M. July. (139:261.)

STEELE, WILBUR DANIEL. (1880- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
 ***Accomplice After the Fact. G. H. Aug. (22.)
 ***For Where Is Your Fortune Now? Pict. R. Nov. '18. (27.)
 ***"For They Know Not What They Do." Pict. R. July. (18.)
 ***Goodfellow. Harp. M. April. (138:655.)
 ***Heart of a Woman. Harp. M. Feb. (138:384.)
 ***"La Guiablesse." Harp. M. Sept. (139:547.)
 ***Luck. Harp. M. Aug. (139:371.)

STELLMAN, LOUIS J. (_See 1915._)
    Last Voyage. Sun. Dec. '18. (43.)

STERNE, ELAINE. (1894- .)
    Hicks Is Hicks. S. E. P. Dec. 14, '18. (14.)
    I Don't Want to be Catty, But----. S. E. P. Aug. 30. (36.)

STETSON, GRACE ELLERY CHANNING. _See_ CHANNING, GRACE ELLERY.

STOCK, RALPH. (_See 1915 and 1918._) (_H._)
    Barter. S. E. P. March 29. (94.)
    Black Beach. Col. Sept. 13. (16.)
    Bonfire In the Hills. Col. Nov. 9, '18. (13.)
    Mascot. Col. Aug. 2. (11.)

STOLPER, B. J. (_See 1918._)
    Necromancer. Bel. Feb 22. (26:211.)
    Patch of Wolfskin. Bel. May 31. (26:598.)

STRAHAN, KAY CLEAVER. (MRS. WILLIAM NICHOLAS STRAHAN.)
   (1888- .) (_See 1915._) (_H._)
    Thistle Down. G. H. Sept. (46.)

STREET, JULIAN (LEONARD). (1879- .) (_See 1915 and 1918._) (_H._)
    After Forty. S. E. P. April 5. (6.)
    Little Bunch of Temperament. S. E. P. Dec 21, '18. (3.)
   *Sunbeams, Inc. S. E. P. June 28. (5.)

STURTZEL, H. A.
    High Finesse. Pag. April. (32.)

SULLIVAN, FRANCIS WILLIAM. (1887- .) (_See 1915 and 1917._) (_H._)
    Duchess of Meretricia. Met. Nov. '18. (16.)

SUTHERLAND, MARJORIE.
 ***School Teacher. Mid. March April. (5:51.)

SYNON, MARY. (1881- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
  **Don't You Cry For Me. Pict. R. April. (14.)
  **Hussy. G. H. Jan. (32.)
 ***Loaded Dice. Scr. Nov. '18. (64:524.)
   *Tis the Way of Woman. McCall. Sept. (5.)


*TALLENTS, S. G.
  **Dancer. Liv. Age Sept. 6. (302:611.)

TALMADGE, DAVID H. (_See H._)
   *Fortunes of War. Sun. May. (38.)

TARKINGTON, (NEWTON) BOOTH. (1869- .)
   (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
  **"Gammire." Col. Dec 14, '18. (7.)
  **Girl Girl Girl! Met. Aug. (13.)

TERHUNE, ALBERT PAYSON (1872- .) (_See 1917 and 1918._) (_H._)
    Cash Wyble. S. E. P. Jan. 25. (67.)
    Cash Wyble, Bolshevist. S. E. P. April 19. (14.)
    Jinx. S. E. P. Sept. 27. (16.)
    Laugh. S. E. P. Aug. 23. (10.)
    Wallflower. S. E. P. Feb. 1. (10.)
    When He Came Home. S. E. P. March 8. (14.)

*THIBAULT, JACQUES ANATOLE. _See_ "FRANCE, ANATOLE."

TILDESLEY, ALICE L. (_See 1916._)
    Carrington Blood. S. E. P. Aug. 23. (42.)
    Shanes Disagree. S. E. P. Feb. 1. (24.)
    Very Righteous Man. S. E. P. April 19. (163.)

*TILSLEY, FREDERICK.
    His Own Language. Liv. Age March 1. (300:563.)

TITUS, HAROLD. (1888- .) (_See 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Gyp of the Barrens. Del. July. (16.)

TOMPKINS, JULIET WILBOR. (MRS. JULIET WILBOR TOMPKINS POTTLE.)
   (1871- .) (_See 1915, 1916, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Plaster Saints. S. E. P. June 14. (5.)

TONJOROFF, SVETOZAR (IVANOFF). (1870- .) (_See 1915._) (_H._)
   *Enemy of the State. L. H. J. Aug. (23.)
    Price of Empire. L. H. J. June. (26.)

TOOHEY, JOHN PETER.
    Her Son. S. E. P. Aug 9. (10.)
    Jimmy Aids the Uplift. S. E. P. Aug. 30. (12.)
    Pie for the Press Agent. S. E. P. June 21. (12.)

TOOKER, HELEN V.
  **Leaven. Cen. Aug. (98:487.)

TOOKER, LEWIS FRANK. (1855- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
  **Little Speckled Hen. Cen. Nov. '18. (97:91.)
   *Red Shadow. Cen. Jan. (97:332.)

TORRENCE, OLIVIA HOWARD DUNBAR. _See_ DUNBAR, OLIVIA HOWARD.

TORREY, GRACE. (_See 1917._) (_H._)
    J. A., 1760. S. E. P. June 28. (18.)

TRAIN, ARTHUR (CHENEY). (1873- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
   *Drafted. S. E. P. Dec. 7, '18. (24.)
    In re: Sweet Land of Liberty. S. E. P. Aug. 16. (18.)
    "Lallanaloosa Limited". S. E. P. Sept. 13. (18.)
    "Matter of McFee". S. E. P. Aug. 30. (20.)
    Tutt and Mr. Tutt. S. E. P. June 7. (8.)
    Tutt and Mr. Tutt. S. E. P. July 5. (28.)
    Tutt vs. the "Spring Fret." S. E. P. Aug. 2. (22.)

TRITES, WILLIAM BUDD. (1872- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._)
    Marjorie's Hands. S. E. P. March 29. (10.)

TURNER, GEORGE KIBBE. (1869- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Banker's Secret. S. E. P. Aug. 23. (22.)
    Blue Stock. S. E. P. Aug. 2. (18.)
    Insurance Money. S. E. P. Jan. 25. (18.)
    Investor's New Arabian Nights. S. E. P. June 28. (14.)
    Nance in a State of War. S. E. P. Dec. 28, '18. (8.)
    Veiled Lady and the Prophet. S. E. P. Sept. 20. (20.)

TURNER, MAUDE SPERRY. (_See 1917 and 1918._)
   *Glistening White Road. Del. Dec. '18. (12.)
    Mother Ann. Del. March. (8.)
   *Orchid of the Holy Ghost. Del. April. (7.)
    Ultimate Alimony. Del. Nov. '18. (9.)


UNDERWOOD, SOPHIE KERR. _See_ KERR, SOPHIE.

UPDEGRAFF, ROBERT R. (_See 1918._)
    Sixth Prune. S. E. P. April 5. (28.)


Vail, Laurence. (See 1916 and 1917.)
  Album, The. Bel. Feb. 1. (26:126.)

*VALDAGNE, PIERRE. (_See 1918._)
    House of François Salars. N. Y. Trib. Aug. 24.
    Unappreciated Heroism. N. Y. Trib. May 4. (Pt. 9 p. 6.)

*VALDEMIR, HJORT.
  **Flowers of the Desert. N. Y. Trib. April 20. (Pt. 7 p. 8.)
   *In the Sulu Seas. N. Y. Trib. May 25. (Pt. 7 p. 6.)

VAN DRESSER, JASMINE STONE. (_See 1918._)
    Fatal Signboard. Met. Jan. (29.)

VAN DYKE, HENRY. (1852- .) (_See 1915, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
  **Broken Soldier and the Maid of France. Harp. M. Dec. '18. (138:1.)
    City of Refuge. Scr. Jan. (65:69.)
    Hearing Ear. Scr. Dec. '18. (64:670.)
   *Sanctuary of Trees. Scr. Feb. (65:145.)

VAN LOAN, CHARLES EMMITT. (1876-1919.)
   (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Hasher. S. E. P. March 8. (5.)
    Vamp. S. E. P. Dec. 14, '18. (5.)

VAN LOON, HENDRIK WILLEM. (1882- .) (_See 1916 and 1917._)
    Shop Talk. Ev. Feb. (48.)

VENABLE, EDWARD CARRINGTON. (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._)
 ***Race. Scr. March. (65:302.)

*VERGNET, PAUL.
   *Père Bauchet's Gift. Tod. Jan. (8.)

VERNON, GRENVILLE.
  **Turn of the Wheel. S. S. Dec. '18. (37.)

*VILLIERS DE L'ISLE, ADAM.
 ***Queen Ysabeau. Pag. July-Aug. (7.)

*VON HEIDENSTAM, VERNER. _See_ HEIDENSTAM, VERNER VON.

VON WIEN, FLORENCE E. (_See 1918._)
    Magic Rug. Pag. Dec. '18. (53.)

VORSE, MARY (MARVIN) HEATON. (MARY HEATON VORSE O'BRIEN.)
   (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
  **Box Stall. Harp. M. Aug. (139:399.)
 ***Gift of Courage. Pict. R. Sept. (14.)
  **Magnificent Suarez. Harp. M. April. (138:696.)
 ***Man's Son. Harp. M. March. (138:463.)
 ***Other Room. McCall. April. (7.)
 ***Treasure. Met. Feb. (11.)


WAGNER, ROB.
    Gladhanding the Landers. S. E. P. May 17. (45.)

WALKER, HENRY C.
    Man Who Thought He Was a Failure. Am. March. (27.)

WALL, R. N. (_See 1917 and 1918._) (_H._)
    Lillie Of the Valley. L. H. J. May. (16.)

*WALLACE, EDGAR. (1875- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Billy Best. Ev. Jan. (34.)
    Cloud Fishers. Ev. Nov. '18. (39.)
    Day With Von Tirpitz. Ev. March. (54.)
    Début of William Best. Ev. April. (58.)
    Infant Samuel. Ev. June. (64.)
    Kindergarten. Ev. Dec. '18. (42.)
    Red Beard. Col. May 24. (7.)
    Wager of Rittmeister. Ev. Feb. (46)
    Woman In the Story. Ev. May. (54)

WALLACE, ELIZABETH. (1866- .)
    Child and the Mountain. Pag. Feb. (16.)

WARD, HERBERT DICKINSON. (1861- .) (_See 1916._)
    White Admiral of the Woods. L. H. J. Aug. (9.)

WEIMAN, RITA. (1889- .) (_See 1915._)
    Footlights. S. E. P. May 17. (53.)
    Madame Peacock. S. E. P. July 12. (5.)

WELCH, ALDEN W.
    Woman in the Brook. L. H. J. Sept. (21.)

WELLES, HARRIET. (_See 1917 and 1918._)
  **Admiral's HollyhocKs. Scr. Dec '18. (64:718.)
  **Between the Treaty Ports. Scr. Nov. '18. (64:569.)
  **Climate. McCall. May. (5.)
   *Flags. Scr. Feb. (65:210.)
  **Guam--and Effie. Scr. Jan. (65:41.)
   *Réturn. Scr. June. (65:716.)

WELLMAN, RITA.
  **Beautiful Helmet Maker. S. S. March. (101.)

WELLS, LEILA BURTON. (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    Mary and the Man. Harp. M. Jan. (138:176.)

WESTON, GEORGE (T). (1880- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
   *It Isn't What You've Earned. S. E. P. Nov. 9, '18. (8.)
  **"I Wish He Was Dead". Pict. R. July. (25.)
    Lobster and the Wise Guy. S. E. P. Dec. 28, '18. (5.)
  **One Who Was Left. Pict. R. Aug. (29.)
  **Salt of the Earth. S. E. P. Nov. 30, '18. (9.)
    Strictly According to Plan. S. E. P. Sept. 13. (14.)

WHARTON, ANTHONY.
    Sunset. S. E. P. Sept. 13. (8.)

WHARTON, EDITH. (NEWBOLD JONES.) (1862- .)
   (_See 1915, 1916, and 1918._) (_H._)
   *Refugees. S. E. P. Jan. 18. (3.)
  **Seed of Faith. Scr. Jan. (65:17.)

WHITAKER, ANN.
     Heart of Patricia. Del. April. (12.)

WHITE, ALICE AUSTIN.
     Man Who Married a Real Woman. S. E. P. July 19. (36.)

WHITMAN, STEPHEN FRENCH. (_See 1915 under_ WHITMAN, STEPHEN.) (_H._)
   **Zampy. S. E. P. Sept. 6. (20.)

WIEN, FLORENCE E. VON. _See_ VON WIEN, FLORENCE E.

WILEY, HUGH. (_See 1917 and 1918._)
     Boom A Loom Boom. S. E. P. July 19. (10.)
     Four Leaved Wildcat. S. E. P. March 8. (9.)
    *Sandbar Romeo. S. E. P. Aug 30. (6.)

WILLIAMS, BEN AMES. (1889- .) (_See 1917 and 1918._)
  ***Field of Honor. Am. March. (21.)
    *Gam. S. E. P. Aug 16. (6.)
     Ghost of Sergeant Pelly. Col. April 26. (21.)
    *Mildest Mannered Man. Ev. Jan. (31.)
     Ninth Part of a Hair. S. E. P. June 7. (18.)
   **They Grind Exceeding Small. S. E. P. Sept 13. (46.)
    *Unconquered. Ev. March. (32.)

WILLIAMS, MARGARET CLARK.
  ***Drunken Passenger. N. Y. Trib. April 13. (6.)
     One Who Understood. N. Y. Trib. May 18. (Pt. 7 p. 3.)

WILSON, HARRY LEON. (1867- .) (_See 1915, 1916, and 1918._) (_H._)
    *As to Herman Wagner. S. E. P. Jan. 25. (3.)
    *Can Happen. S. E. P. Dec. 21, '18. (8.)
    *Change of Venus. S. E. P. Dec 7, '18. (3.)
    *Curls. S. E. P. Jan 11. (8.)
    *Taker Up. S. E. P. Jan. 4. (8.)

WILSON, MARGARET. _See_ "ELDERLY SPINSTER."

WILSON, MARGARET ADELAIDE. (_See 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
    *Passing of John Enderby's Fear. Bel. Jan. 4. (26:15.)
  ***Perfect Interval. Bel Nov. 2, '18. (25:495.)

WINSLOW, THYRA SAMTER. (1889- .) (_See 1917 and 1918._)
    *Romantic Journeys of Grandma. S. S. April. (55.)

WITWER, H. C. (_See 1916, 1917, and 1918._)
     "As You Were!" Col. March 29. (7.)
     Fools Rush Out! Am. May. (40.)
     Fool There Wasn't. Col. Aug. 30. (5.)
     Harmony. Col. March 1. (7.)
     Just Like New! Col. Jan. 4 (5.)
     Little Things Don't Count. Am. April. (10.)
     Midsummer Night's Scream. Col. Dec. 7, '18. (7.)
     Plain Water. Col. Nov. 2, '18. (7.) Nov. 9, '18. (9.)
     She Supes to Conquer. Col. May 17. (7.)
     Somewhere in Harlem. Col. Feb 1. (8.)
     "There's No Base Like Home." Col. April 19. (7.)
     You Can Do It! Am. Nov. '18. (19.)

*WODEHOUSE, PELHAM GRENVILLE. (1881- .)
   (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
     Spring Suit. S. E. P. July 12. (18.)
     Woman Is Only a Woman. S. E. P. June 7. (14).

WOLFE, WILLIAM ALMON. (1885- .) (_See 1916, 1917, and 1918._) (_H._)
     Arms and the Job. Col. Feb. 15. (8.)
     Broken Threads. Col. Sept. 20. (7.)
     Business Ethics. S. E. P. Sept. 6. (53.)
     Crock of Gold. Ev. Feb. (29.)
     Crucible. Col. April 12. (10.)
     December the Twenty-fifth. Col. Dec. 21, '18. (13.)
     Girl In Brown. Col. March 29. (15.)
     Jimmy, the Unimpressive. Am. March. (11.)
    *On with the Race. Col. July 5. (13.)
     Things Unsaid. Col. Nov. 9, '18. (8.)

WOOD, EUGENE. (1860- .) (_See 1918._) (_H._)
     Miss Glaffy's Getaway. Del. Feb. (10.)

WOOD, JULIA FRANCIS. (_See 1918._) (_H._)
  ***"It is the Spirit that Quickeneth." Atl. Dec. '18. (122:769.)

WORMSER, G. RANGER.
    *Blue Moon. Sn. St. Dec. 4 '18. (61.)
  ***Child Who Forgot to Sing. Touch. Jan. (4:267.)
  ***Little Lives. S. S. Nov. '18. (27.)
   **Shoes. Col. March 8. (10.)
   **Spring. S. S. May. (57.)
   **Sun Seeker. Mun. March. (66:225.)

WORTS, GEORGE FRANK. (_See 1918._)
     Bungalow In Bayside. L. H. J. April. (14.)
     Five Men. L. H. J. Dec. '18. (14.)
     Wharf Rat. Col. Sept. 20. (13.)

WRIGHT, RICHARDSON (LITTLE). (1886- .)
(_See 1915 and 1918._)
    *Cask of Oolong. S. S. Nov. '18. (51.)
     Gods-Kissed Mr. Shelley. L. H. J. Sept. (9.)
     Motor Of the Most High. S. E. P. June 14. (76.)

*WYLIE, I(DA) A(LENA) R(OSS). (1885- .)
(_See 1916, 1917, and 1918._)
     An Episcopal Scherzo. G. H. Jan. (46.)
   **Bridge Across. G. H. Nov. '18. (12.)
  ***Colonel Tibbit Comes Home. Harp. B. Jan. (24.)
  ***John Prettyman's Fourth Dimension. G. H. Feb. (17.)
  ***Thirst. G. H. April. (34.)
   **Tinker--Tailor. G. H. March. (33.)


YATES, L. B. (_See 1915, 1916, and 1918._) (_H._)
     Minglin' With the Moonbeams. S. E. P. June 14. (88.)
     Night Owls and Humming Birds. S. E. P. May 31. (28.)
     Old King Baltimore. S. E. P. Aug. 30. (14.)
     Voice of the Charmer. S. E. P. Feb. 15. (28.)

YEAMAN, ANNA HAMILTON. (_See H._)
  ***To the Utmost. Cen. April. (97: 730.)

YEZIERSKA, ANZIA. (_See 1915 and 1918_.)
  ***"Fat of the Land." Cen Aug (98: 466.)
  ***Miracle. Met. Sept. (29.)

YOUNG, SANBORN. _See_ MITCHELL, RUTH COMFORT, _and_ YOUNG, SANBORN.

YOUNG, MRS. SANBORN. _See_ MITCHELL, RUTH COMFORT.

*YVIGNAC, HENRI D'. (_See 1918._)
     Midinette. N. Y. Trib. March 2. (Pt. 8. p. 6.)


ZGLINITZKI, H. DE.
     Weaker Vessel. Strat. J. May. (4: 275.)




ADDENDA


CHADBOURN, PHILIP.
  ***Russian Peasant Goes to War. Touch. June. (5:183.)

*CHESTERTON, GILBERT KEITH. (1874- .) (_See H._)
    *Conversion of an anarchist. Touch. Sept. (5: 435.)

CRABBE, BERTHA HELEN. (1887- .) (_See 1916, 1917, and 1918._)
  ***Boy from Silver Hollow. Touch. March. (4: 477.)
    *Poor Youth. Touch. Aug. (5: 378.)

"HENRY, ETTA." (_See 1918_.)
   **Waste. Touch. Feb. (4: 380.)

HULL, HELEN R. (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, and 1918._)
    *Fusing. Touch. July. (5: 316.)
  ***Preparation Touch. Aug. (5: 353.)
 ***Return. Touch. May. (5: 125.)

LOWELL, AMY. (1874- .) (_See 1915, 1916, and 1918._)
    *"And Pity 'Tis, 'Tis True." Touch. Aug. (5: 369.)

MACCLELLAN, N. G.
     "Legend of Sarasota Bay. Touch. April. (5: 80.)

WHEELER, ELEANOR P.
   **Beginnings. Touch. Aug. (5: 388.)

NOTE: The following stories should be added to the Roll of Honor for
this year:

CHADBOURN, PHILIP.
     Russian Peasant Goes to War.

CRABBE, BERTHA HELEN. (_For biography, see 1917._)
     Boy from Silver Hollow.

HULL, HELEN R.
    *Preparation.
    *Return.

Owing to shipping difficulties, a complete file of The Touchstone failed
to reach me in time to credit it in my table of magazine averages.
During the eleven months considered, it published sixteen stories. All
of these stories achieved at least one star; 9 of them achieved at least
two stars; and 7 achieved three stars. Therefore The Touchstone may be
credited with 100% of one star stories; 56% of two-star stories; and 44%
of three-star stories. With these data the reader may add The Touchstone
in its appropriate place among the various subsidiary lists which follow
the main table of magazine averages.





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