30 лучших рассказов американских писателей / 30 Best American Stories

Комментарии. Н. А. Самуэльян

© Самуэльян Н. А., составление комментариев, 2014

© ООО «Издательство «Эксмо», 2016

Sherwood Anderson

An Awakening

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[1], 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[2]. When sold the farm brought in eight thousand dollars which Ed spent in six months. Going to Sandusky[3], on Lake Erie[4], 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, loneliness.’ 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.

John Kendrick Bangs

The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall

The trouble with Harrowby Hall was that it was haunted, and, what was worse, the ghost did not content itself with merely appearing at the bedside of the afflicted person who saw it, but persisted in remaining there for one mortal hour before it would disappear.

It never appeared except on Christmas Eve, and then as the clock was striking twelve, in which respect alone was it lacking in that originality which in these days is a sine qua non[5] of success in spectral life. The owners of Harrowby Hall had done their utmost to rid themselves of the damp and dewy lady who rose up out of the best bedroom floor at midnight, but without avail. They had tried stopping the clock, so that the ghost would not know when it was midnight; but she made her appearance just the same, with that fearful miasmatic personality of hers, and there she would stand until everything about her was thoroughly saturated.

Then the owners of Harrowby Hall caulked up every crack in the floor with the very best quality of hemp, and over this was placed layers of tar and canvas; the walls were made water-proof, and the doors and windows likewise, the proprietors having conceived the notion that the unexorcised lady would find it difficult to leak into the room after these precautions had been taken; but even this did not suffice. The following Christmas Eve she appeared as promptly as before, and frightened the occupant of the room quite out of his senses by sitting down alongside of him and gazing with her cavernous blue eyes into his; and he noticed, too, that in her long, aqueously bony fingers bits of dripping sea-weed were entwined, the ends hanging down, and these ends she drew across his forehead until he became like one insane. And then he swooned away, and was found unconscious in his bed the next morning by his host, simply saturated with sea-water and fright, from the combined effects of which he never recovered, dying four years later of pneumonia and nervous prostration at the age of seventy-eight.

The next year the master of Harrowby Hall decided not to have the best spare bedroom opened at all, thinking that perhaps the ghost’s thirst for making herself disagreeable would be satisfied by haunting the furniture, but the plan was as unavailing as the many that had preceded it.

The ghost appeared as usual in the room – that is, it was supposed she did, for the hangings were dripping wet the next morning, and in the parlor below the haunted room a great damp spot appeared on the ceiling. Finding no one there, she immediately set out to learn the reason why, and she chose none other to haunt than the owner of the Harrowby himself. She found him in his own cosy room drinking whiskey – whiskey undiluted – and felicitating himself upon having foiled her ghostship, when all of a sudden the curl went out of his hair, his whiskey bottle filled and overflowed, and he was himself in a condition similar to that of a man who has fallen into a water-butt. When he recovered from the shock, which was a painful one, he saw before him the lady of the cavernous eyes and sea-weed fingers. The sight was so unexpected and so terrifying that he fainted, but immediately came to, because of the vast amount of water in his hair, which, trickling down over his face, restored his consciousness.

Now it so happened that the master of Harrowby was a brave man, and while he was not particularly fond of interviewing ghosts, especially such quenching ghosts as the one before him, he was not to be daunted by an apparition. He had paid the lady the compliment of fainting from the effects of his first surprise, and now that he had come to he intended to find out a few things he felt he had a right to know. He would have liked to put on a dry suit of clothes first, but the apparition declined to leave him for an instant until her hour was up, and he was forced to deny himself that pleasure. Every time he would move she would follow him, with the result that everything she came in contact with got a ducking. In an effort to warm himself up he approached the fire, an unfortunate move as it turned out, because it brought the ghost directly over the fire, which immediately was extinguished. The whiskey became utterly valueless as a comforter to his chilled system, because it was by this time diluted to a proportion of ninety per cent of water. The only thing he could do to ward off the evil effects of his encounter he did, and that was to swallow ten two-grain quinine pills, which he managed to put into his mouth before the ghost had time to interfere. Having done this, he turned with some asperity to the ghost, and said:

‘Far be it from me to be impolite to a woman, madam, but I’m hanged if it wouldn’t please me better if you’d stop these infernal visits of yours to this house. Go sit out on the lake, if you like that sort of thing; soak the water-butt, if you wish; but do not, I implore you, come into a gentleman’s house and saturate him and his possessions in this way. It is damned disagreeable.’

‘Henry Hartwick Oglethorpe,’ said the ghost, in a gurgling voice, ‘you don’t know what you are talking about.’

‘Madam,’ returned the unhappy householder, ‘I wish that remark were strictly truthful. I was talking about you. It would be shillings and pence – nay, pounds, in my pocket, madam, if I did not know you.’

‘That is a bit of specious nonsense,’ returned the ghost, throwing a quart of indignation into the face of the master of Harrowby. ‘It may rank high as repartee, but as a comment upon my statement that you do not know what you are talking about, it savors of irrelevant impertinence. You do not know that I am compelled to haunt this place year after year by inexorable fate. It is no pleasure to me to enter this house, and ruin and mildew everything I touch. I never aspired to be a shower-bath, but it is my doom. Do you know who I am?’

‘No, I don’t,’ returned the master of Harrowby. ‘I should say you were the Lady of the Lake, or Little Sallie Waters.’

‘You are a witty man for your years,’ said the ghost.

‘Well, my humor is drier than yours ever will be,’ returned the master.

‘No doubt. I’m never dry. I am the Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall, and dryness is a quality entirely beyond my wildest hope. I have been the incumbent of this highly unpleasant office for two hundred years to-night.’

‘How the deuce did you ever come to get elected?’ asked the master.

‘Through a suicide,’ replied the spectre. ‘I am the ghost of that fair maiden whose picture hangs over the mantel-piece in the drawing-room. I should have been your great-great-great-great-great-aunt if I had lived, Henry Hartwick Oglethorpe, for I was the own sister of your great-great-great-great-grandfather.’

‘But what induced you to get this house into such a predicament?’

‘I was not to blame, sir,’ returned the lady. ‘It was my father’s fault. He it was who built Harrowby Hall, and the haunted chamber was to have been mine. My father had it furnished in pink and yellow, knowing well that blue and gray formed the only combination of color I could tolerate. He did it merely to spite me, and, with what I deem a proper spirit, I declined to live in the room; whereupon my father said I could live there or on the lawn, he didn’t care which. That night I ran from the house and jumped over the cliff into the sea.’

‘That was rash,’ said the master of Harrowby.

‘So I’ve heard,’ returned the ghost. ‘If I had known what the consequences were to be I should not have jumped; but I really never realized what I was doing until after I was drowned. I had been drowned a week when a sea-nymph came to me and informed me that I was to be one of her followers forever afterwards, adding that it should be my doom to haunt Harrowby Hall for one hour every Christmas Eve throughout the rest of eternity. I was to haunt that room on such Christmas Eves as I found it inhabited; and if it should turn out not to be inhabited, I was and am to spend the allotted hour with the head of the house.’

‘I’ll sell the place.’

‘That you cannot do, for it is also required of me that I shall appear as the deeds are to be delivered to any purchaser, and divulge to him the awful secret of the house.’

‘Do you mean to tell me that on every Christmas Eve that I don’t happen to have somebody in that guest-chamber, you are going to haunt me wherever I may be, ruining my whiskey, taking all the curl out of my hair, extinguishing my fire, and soaking me through to the skin?’ demanded the master.

‘You have stated the case, Oglethorpe. And what is more,’ said the water ghost, ‘it doesn’t make the slightest difference where you are, if I find that room empty, wherever you may be I shall douse you with my spectral pres – ’

Here the clock struck one, and immediately the apparition faded away. It was perhaps more of a trickle than a fade, but as a disappearance it was complete.

‘By St. George and his Dragon[6]!’ ejaculated the master of Harrowby, wringing his hands. ‘It is guineas to hot-cross buns that next Christmas there’s an occupant of the spare room, or I spend the night in a bath-tub.’

But the master of Harrowby would have lost his wager had there been any one there to take him up, for when Christmas Eve came again he was in his grave, never having recovered from the cold contracted that awful night. Harrowby Hall was closed, and the heir to the estate was in London, where to him in his chambers came the same experience that his father had gone through, saving only that being younger and stronger, he survived the shock. Everything in his rooms was ruined – his clocks were rusted in the works; a fine collection of water-color drawings was entirely obliterated by the onslaught of the water ghost; and what was worse, the apartments below his were drenched with the water soaking through the floors, a damage for which he was compelled to pay, and which resulted in his being requested by his landlady to vacate the premises immediately.

The story of the visitation inflicted upon his family had gone abroad, and no one could be got to invite him out to any function save afternoon teas and receptions. Fathers of daughters declined to permit him to remain in their houses later than eight o’clock at night, not knowing but that some emergency might arise in the supernatural world which would require the unexpected appearance of the water ghost in this on nights other than Christmas Eve, and before the mystic hour when weary churchyards, ignoring the rules which are supposed to govern polite society, begin to yawn. Nor would the maids themselves have aught to do with him, fearing the destruction by the sudden incursion of aqueous femininity of the costumes which they held most dear.

So the heir of Harrowby Hall resolved, as his ancestors for several generations before him had resolved, that something must be done. His first thought was to make one of his servants occupy the haunted room at the crucial moment; but in this he failed, because the servants themselves knew the history of that room and rebelled. None of his friends would consent to sacrifice their personal comfort to his, nor was there to be found in all England a man so poor as to be willing to occupy the doomed chamber on Christmas Eve for pay.

Then the thought came to the heir to have the fireplace in the room enlarged, so that he might evaporate the ghost at its first appearance, and he was felicitating himself upon the ingenuity of his plan, when he remembered what his father had told him – how that no fire could withstand the lady’s extremely contagious dampness. And then he bethought him of steam-pipes. These, he remembered, could lie hundreds of feet deep in water, and still retain sufficient heat to drive the water away in vapor; and as a result of this thought the haunted room was heated by steam to a withering degree, and the heir for six months attended daily the Turkish baths, so that when Christmas Eve came he could himself withstand the awful temperature of the room.

The scheme was only partially successful. The water ghost appeared at the specified time, and found the heir of Harrowby prepared; but hot as the room was, it shortened her visit by no more than five minutes in the hour, during which time the nervous system of the young master was well-nigh shattered, and the room itself was cracked and warped to an extent which required the outlay of a large sum of money to remedy. And worse than this, as the last drop of the water ghost was slowly sizzling itself out on the floor, she whispered to her would-be conqueror that his scheme would avail him nothing, because there was still water in great plenty where she came from, and that next year would find her rehabilitated and as exasperatingly saturating as ever.

It was then that the natural action of the mind, in going from one extreme to the other, suggested to the ingenious heir of Harrowby the means by which the water ghost was ultimately conquered, and happiness once more came within the grasp of the house of Oglethorpe.

The heir provided himself with a warm suit of fur under-clothing. Donning this with the furry side in, he placed over it a rubber garment, tightfitting, which he wore just as a woman wears a jersey. On top of this he placed another set of under-clothing, this suit made of wool, and over this was a second rubber garment like the first. Upon his head he placed a light and comfortable diving helmet, and so clad, on the following Christmas Eve he awaited the coming of his tormentor.

It was a bitterly cold night that brought to a close this twenty-fourth day of December. The air outside was still, but the temperature was below zero. Within all was quiet, the servants of Harrowby Hall awaiting with beating hearts the outcome of their master’s campaign against his supernatural visitor.

The master himself was lying on the bed in the haunted room, clad as has already been indicated, and then —

The clock clanged out the hour of twelve.

There was a sudden banging of doors, a blast of cold air swept through the halls, the door leading into the haunted chamber flew open, a splash was heard, and the water ghost was seen standing at the side of the heir of Harrowby, from whose outer dress there streamed rivulets of water, but whose own person deep down under the various garments he wore was as dry and as warm as he could have wished.

‘Ha!’ said the young master of Harrowby. ‘I’m glad to see you.’

‘You are the most original man I’ve met, if that is true,’ returned the ghost. ‘May I ask where did you get that hat?’

‘Certainly, madam,’ returned the master, courteously. ‘It is a little portable observatory I had made for just such emergencies as this. But, tell me, is it true that you are doomed to follow me about for one mortal hour – to stand where I stand, to sit where I sit?’

‘That is my delectable fate,’ returned the lady.

‘We’ll go out on the lake,’ said the master, starting up.

‘You can’t get rid of me that way,’ returned the ghost. ‘The water won’t swallow me up; in fact, it will just add to my present bulk.’

‘Nevertheless,’ said the master, firmly, ‘we will go out on the lake.’

‘But, my dear sir,’ returned the ghost, with a pale reluctance, ‘it is fearfully cold out there. You will be frozen hard before you’ve been out ten minutes.’

‘Oh no, I’ll not,’ replied the master. ‘I am very warmly dressed. Come!’ This last in a tone of command that made the ghost ripple.

And they started.

They had not gone far before the water ghost showed signs of distress.

‘You walk too slowly,’ she said. ‘I am nearly frozen. My knees are so stiff now I can hardly move. I beseech you to accelerate your step.’

‘I should like to oblige a lady,’ returned the master, courteously, ‘but my clothes are rather heavy, and a hundred yards an hour is about my speed. Indeed, I think we would better sit down here on this snowdrift, and talk matters over.’

‘Do not! Do not do so, I beg!’ cried the ghost. ‘Let me move on. I feel myself growing rigid as it is. If we stop here, I shall be frozen stiff.’

‘That, madam,’ said the master slowly, and seating himself on an ice-cake – ‘that is why I have brought you here. We have been on this spot just ten minutes, we have fifty more. Take your time about it, madam, but freeze, that is all I ask of you.’

‘I cannot move my right leg now,’ cried the ghost, in despair, ‘and my overskirt is a solid sheet of ice. Oh, good, kind Mr. Oglethorpe, light a fire, and let me go free from these icy fetters.’

‘Never, madam. It cannot be. I have you at last.’

‘Alas!’ cried the ghost, a tear trickling down her frozen cheek. ‘Help me, I beg. I congeal!’

‘Congeal, madam, congeal!’ returned Oglethorpe, coldly. ‘You have drenched me and mine for two hundred and three years, madam. To-night you have had your last drench.’

‘Ah, but I shall thaw out again, and then you’ll see. Instead of the comfortably tepid, genial ghost I have been in my past, sir, I shall be iced-water,’ cried the lady, threateningly.

‘No, you won’t, either,’ returned Oglethorpe; ‘for when you are frozen quite stiff, I shall send you to a cold-storage warehouse, and there shall you remain an icy work of art forever more.’

‘But warehouses burn.’

‘So they do, but this warehouse cannot burn. It is made of asbestos and surrounding it are fire-proof walls, and within those walls the temperature is now and shall forever be 416 degrees below the zero point; low enough to make an icicle of any flame in this world – or the next,’ the master added, with an ill-suppressed chuckle.

‘For the last time let me beseech you. I would go on my knees to you, Oglethorpe, were they not already frozen. I beg of you do not doo – ’

Here even the words froze on the water ghost’s lips and the clock struck one. There was a momentary tremor throughout the ice-bound form, and the moon, coming out from behind a cloud, shone down on the rigid figure of a beautiful woman sculptured in clear, transparent ice. There stood the ghost of Harrowby Hall, conquered by the cold, a prisoner for all time.

The heir of Harrowby had won at last, and to-day in a large storage house in London stands the frigid form of one who will never again flood the house of Oglethorpe with woe and sea-water.

As for the heir of Harrowby, his success in coping with a ghost has made him famous, a fame that still lingers about him, although his victory took place some twenty years ago; and so far from being unpopular with the fair sex, as he was when we first knew him, he has not only been married twice, but is to lead a third bride to the altar before the year is out.

Ambrose Bierce

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

Chapter I

A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama[7], looking down into the swift water twenty feet below. The man’s hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck. It was attached to a stout cross-timber above his head and the slack fell to the level of his knees. Some loose boards laid upon the ties supporting the rails of the railway supplied a footing for him and his executioners – two private soldiers of the Federal army[8], directed by a sergeant who in civil life may have been a deputy sheriff. At a short remove upon the same temporary platform was an officer in the uniform of his rank, armed. He was a captain. A sentinel at each end of the bridge stood with his rifle in the position known as ‘support,’ that is to say, vertical in front of the left shoulder, the hammer resting on the forearm thrown straight across the chest – a formal and unnatural position, enforcing an erect carriage of the body. It did not appear to be the duty of these two men to know what was occurring at the center of the bridge; they merely blockaded the two ends of the foot planking that traversed it.

Beyond one of the sentinels nobody was in sight; the railroad ran straight away into a forest for a hundred yards, then, curving, was lost to view. Doubtless there was an outpost farther along. The other bank of the stream was open ground – a gentle slope topped with a stockade of vertical tree trunks, loopholed for rifles, with a single embrasure through which protruded the muzzle of a brass cannon commanding the bridge. Midway up the slope between the bridge and fort were the spectators – a single company of infantry in line, at ‘parade rest,’ the butts of their rifles on the ground, the barrels inclining slightly backward against the right shoulder, the hands crossed upon the stock. A lieutenant stood at the right of the line, the point of his sword upon the ground, his left hand resting upon his right. Excepting the group of four at the center of the bridge, not a man moved. The company faced the bridge, staring stonily, motionless. The sentinels, facing the banks of the stream, might have been statues to adorn the bridge. The captain stood with folded arms, silent, observing the work of his subordinates, but making no sign. Death is a dignitary who when he comes announced is to be received with formal manifestations of respect, even by those most familiar with him. In the code of military etiquette silence and fixity are forms of deference.

The man who was engaged in being hanged was apparently about thirty-five years of age. He was a civilian, if one might judge from his habit, which was that of a planter. His features were good – a straight nose, firm mouth, broad forehead, from which his long, dark hair was combed straight back, falling behind his ears to the collar of his well fitting frock coat. He wore a moustache and pointed beard, but no whiskers; his eyes were large and dark gray, and had a kindly expression which one would hardly have expected in one whose neck was in the hemp. Evidently this was no vulgar assassin. The liberal military code makes provision for hanging many kinds of persons, and gentlemen are not excluded.

The preparations being complete, the two private soldiers stepped aside and each drew away the plank upon which he had been standing. The sergeant turned to the captain, saluted and placed himself immediately behind that officer, who in turn moved apart one pace. These movements left the condemned man and the sergeant standing on the two ends of the same plank, which spanned three of the cross-ties of the bridge. The end upon which the civilian stood almost, but not quite, reached a fourth. This plank had been held in place by the weight of the captain; it was now held by that of the sergeant. At a signal from the former the latter would step aside, the plank would tilt and the condemned man go down between two ties. The arrangement commended itself to his judgement as simple and effective. His face had not been covered nor his eyes bandaged. He looked a moment at his ‘unsteadfast footing,’ then let his gaze wander to the swirling water of the stream racing madly beneath his feet. A piece of dancing driftwood caught his attention and his eyes followed it down the current. How slowly it appeared to move! What a sluggish stream!

He closed his eyes in order to fix his last thoughts upon his wife and children. The water, touched to gold by the early sun, the brooding mists under the banks at some distance down the stream, the fort, the soldiers, the piece of drift – all had distracted him. And now he became conscious of a new disturbance. Striking through the thought of his dear ones was sound which he could neither ignore nor understand, a sharp, distinct, metallic percussion like the stroke of a blacksmith’s hammer upon the anvil; it had the same ringing quality. He wondered what it was, and whether immeasurably distant or nearby – it seemed both. Its recurrence was regular, but as slow as the tolling of a death knell. He awaited each new stroke with impatience and – he knew not why – apprehension. The intervals of silence grew progressively longer; the delays became maddening. With their greater infrequency the sounds increased in strength and sharpness. They hurt his ear like the thrust of a knife; he feared he would shriek. What he heard was the ticking of his watch.

He unclosed his eyes and saw again the water below him. ‘If I could free my hands,’ he thought, ‘I might throw off the noose and spring into the stream. By diving I could evade the bullets and, swimming vigorously, reach the bank, take to the woods and get away home. My home, thank God, is as yet outside their lines; my wife and little ones are still beyond the invader’s farthest advance.’

As these thoughts, which have here to be set down in words, were flashed into the doomed man’s brain rather than evolved from it the captain nodded to the sergeant. The sergeant stepped aside.

Chapter II

Peyton Fahrquhar was a well to do planter, of an old and highly respected Alabama family. Being a slave owner and like other slave owners a politician, he was naturally an original secessionist and ardently devoted to the Southern cause[9]. Circumstances of an imperious nature, which it is unnecessary to relate here, had prevented him from taking service with that gallant army which had fought the disastrous campaigns ending with the fall of Corinth[10], and he chafed under the inglorious restraint, longing for the release of his energies, the larger life of the soldier, the opportunity for distinction. That opportunity, he felt, would come, as it comes to all in wartime. Meanwhile he did what he could. No service was too humble for him to perform in the aid of the South, no adventure too perilous for him to undertake if consistent with the character of a civilian who was at heart a soldier, and who in good faith and without too much qualification assented to at least a part of the frankly villainous dictum that all is fair in love and war.

One evening while Fahrquhar and his wife were sitting on a rustic bench near the entrance to his grounds, a gray-clad soldier rode up to the gate and asked for a drink of water. Mrs. Fahrquhar was only too happy to serve him with her own white hands. While she was fetching the water her husband approached the dusty horseman and inquired eagerly for news from the front.

‘The Yanks[11] are repairing the railroads,’ said the man, ‘and are getting ready for another advance. They have reached the Owl Creek bridge, put it in order and built a stockade on the north bank. The commandant has issued an order, which is posted everywhere, declaring that any civilian caught interfering with the railroad, its bridges, tunnels, or trains will be summarily hanged. I saw the order.’

‘How far is it to the Owl Creek bridge?’ Fahrquhar asked.

‘About thirty miles.’

‘Is there no force on this side of the creek?’

‘Only a picket post half a mile out, on the railroad, and a single sentinel at this end of the bridge.’

‘Suppose a man – a civilian and student of hanging – should elude the picket post and perhaps get the better of the sentinel,’ said Fahrquhar, smiling, ‘what could he accomplish?’

The soldier reflected. ‘I was there a month ago,’ he replied. ‘I observed that the flood of last winter had lodged a great quantity of driftwood against the wooden pier at this end of the bridge. It is now dry and would burn like tinder.’

The lady had now brought the water, which the soldier drank. He thanked her ceremoniously, bowed to her husband and rode away. An hour later, after nightfall, he repassed the plantation, going northward in the direction from which he had come. He was a Federal.

Chapter III

As Peyton Farquhar fell straight downward through the bridge he lost consciousness and was as one already dead. From this state he was awakened – ages later, it seemed to him – by the pain of a sharp pressure upon his throat, followed by a sense of suffocation. Keen, poignant agonies seemed to shoot from his neck downward through every fiber of his body and limbs. These pains appeared to flash along well defined lines of ramification and to beat with an inconceivably rapid periodicity. They seemed like streams of pulsating fire heating him to an intolerable temperature. As to his head, he was conscious of nothing but a feeling of fullness – of congestion. These sensations were unaccompanied by thought. The intellectual part of his nature was already effaced; he had power only to feel, and feeling was torment. He was conscious of motion. Encompassed in a luminous cloud, of which he was now merely the fiery heart, without material substance, he swung through unthinkable arcs of oscillation, like a vast pendulum. Then all at once, with terrible suddenness, the light about him shot upward with the noise of a loud splash; a frightful roaring was in his ears, and all was cold and dark. The power of thought was restored; he knew that the rope had broken and he had fallen into the stream. There was no additional strangulation; the noose about his neck was already suffocating him and kept the water from his lungs. To die of hanging at the bottom of a river! – the idea seemed to him ludicrous. He opened his eyes in the darkness and saw above him a gleam of light, but how distant, how inaccessible! He was still sinking, for the light became fainter and fainter until it was a mere glimmer. Then it began to grow and brighten, and he knew that he was rising toward the surface – knew it with reluctance, for he was now very comfortable. ‘To be hanged and drowned,’ he thought, ‘that is not so bad; but I do not wish to be shot. No; I will not be shot; that is not fair.’

He was not conscious of an effort, but a sharp pain in his wrist apprised him that he was trying to free his hands. He gave the struggle his attention, as an idler might observe the feat of a juggler, without interest in the outcome. What splendid effort! – what magnificent, what superhuman strength! Ah, that was a fine endeavor! Bravo! The cord fell away; his arms parted and floated upward, the hands dimly seen on each side in the growing light. He watched them with a new interest as first one and then the other pounced upon the noose at his neck. They tore it away and thrust it fiercely aside, its undulations resembling those of a water snake. ‘Put it back, put it back!’ He thought he shouted these words to his hands, for the undoing of the noose had been succeeded by the direst pang that he had yet experienced. His neck ached horribly; his brain was on fire, his heart, which had been fluttering faintly, gave a great leap, trying to force itself out at his mouth. His whole body was racked and wrenched with an insupportable anguish! But his disobedient hands gave no heed to the command. They beat the water vigorously with quick, downward strokes, forcing him to the surface. He felt his head emerge; his eyes were blinded by the sunlight; his chest expanded convulsively, and with a supreme and crowning agony his lungs engulfed a great draught of air, which instantly he expelled in a shriek!

He was now in full possession of his physical senses. They were, indeed, preternaturally keen and alert. Something in the awful disturbance of his organic system had so exalted and refined them that they made record of things never before perceived. He felt the ripples upon his face and heard their separate sounds as they struck. He looked at the forest on the bank of the stream, saw the individual trees, the leaves and the veining of each leaf – he saw the very insects upon them: the locusts, the brilliant bodied flies, the gray spiders stretching their webs from twig to twig. He noted the prismatic colors in all the dewdrops upon a million blades of grass. The humming of the gnats that danced above the eddies of the stream, the beating of the dragon flies’ wings, the strokes of the water spiders’ legs, like oars which had lifted their boat – all these made audible music. A fish slid along beneath his eyes and he heard the rush of its body parting the water.

He had come to the surface facing down the stream; in a moment the visible world seemed to wheel slowly round, himself the pivotal point, and he saw the bridge, the fort, the soldiers upon the bridge, the captain, the sergeant, the two privates, his executioners. They were in silhouette against the blue sky. They shouted and gesticulated, pointing at him. The captain had drawn his pistol, but did not fire; the others were unarmed. Their movements were grotesque and horrible, their forms gigantic.

Suddenly he heard a sharp report and something struck the water smartly within a few inches of his head, spattering his face with spray. He heard a second report, and saw one of the sentinels with his rifle at his shoulder, a light cloud of blue smoke rising from the muzzle. The man in the water saw the eye of the man on the bridge gazing into his own through the sights of the rifle. He observed that it was a gray eye and remembered having read that gray eyes were keenest, and that all famous marksmen had them. Nevertheless, this one had missed.

A counter-swirl had caught Farquhar and turned him half round; he was again looking at the forest on the bank opposite the fort. The sound of a clear, high voice in a monotonous singsong now rang out behind him and came across the water with a distinctness that pierced and subdued all other sounds, even the beating of the ripples in his ears. Although no soldier, he had frequented camps enough to know the dread significance of that deliberate, drawling, aspirated chant; the lieutenant on shore was taking a part in the morning’s work. How coldly and pitilessly – with what an even, calm intonation, presaging, and enforcing tranquility in the men – with what accurately measured interval fell those cruel words:

‘Company!… Attention!… Shoulder arms!… Ready! … Aim!… Fire!’

Farquhar dived – dived as deeply as he could. The water roared in his ears like the voice of Niagara[12], yet he heard the dull thunder of the volley and, rising again toward the surface, met shining bits of metal, singularly flattened, oscillating slowly downward. Some of them touched him on the face and hands, then fell away, continuing their descent. One lodged between his collar and neck; it was uncomfortably warm and he snatched it out.

As he rose to the surface, gasping for breath, he saw that he had been a long time under water; he was perceptibly farther downstream – nearer to safety. The soldiers had almost finished reloading; the metal ramrods flashed all at once in the sunshine as they were drawn from the barrels, turned in the air, and thrust into their sockets. The two sentinels fired again, independently and ineffectually.

The hunted man saw all this over his shoulder; he was now swimming vigorously with the current. His brain was as energetic as his arms and legs; he thought with the rapidity of lightning:

‘The officer,’ he reasoned, ‘will not make that martinet’s error a second time. It is as easy to dodge a volley as a single shot. He has probably already given the command to fire at will. God help me, I cannot dodge them all!’

An appalling splash within two yards of him was followed by a loud, rushing sound, DIMINUENDO, which seemed to travel back through the air to the fort and died in an explosion which stirred the very river to its deeps! A rising sheet of water curved over him, fell down upon him, blinded him, strangled him! The cannon had taken an hand in the game. As he shook his head free from the commotion of the smitten water he heard the deflected shot humming through the air ahead, and in an instant it was cracking and smashing the branches in the forest beyond.

‘They will not do that again,’ he thought; ‘the next time they will use a charge of grape. I must keep my eye upon the gun; the smoke will apprise me – the report arrives too late; it lags behind the missile. That is a good gun.’

Suddenly he felt himself whirled round and round – spinning like a top. The water, the banks, the forests, the now distant bridge, fort and men, all were commingled and blurred. Objects were represented by their colors only; circular horizontal streaks of color – that was all he saw. He had been caught in a vortex and was being whirled on with a velocity of advance and gyration that made him giddy and sick. In few moments he was flung upon the gravel at the foot of the left bank of the stream – the southern bank – and behind a projecting point which concealed him from his enemies. The sudden arrest of his motion, the abrasion of one of his hands on the gravel, restored him, and he wept with delight. He dug his fingers into the sand, threw it over himself in handfuls and audibly blessed it. It looked like diamonds, rubies, emeralds; he could think of nothing beautiful which it did not resemble. The trees upon the bank were giant garden plants; he noted a definite order in their arrangement, inhaled the fragrance of their blooms. A strange roseate light shone through the spaces among their trunks and the wind made in their branches the music of Aeolian harps[13]. He had no wish to perfect his escape – he was content to remain in that enchanting spot until retaken.

A whiz and a rattle of grapeshot among the branches high above his head roused him from his dream. The baffled cannoneer had fired him a random farewell. He sprang to his feet, rushed up the sloping bank, and plunged into the forest.

All that day he traveled, laying his course by the rounding sun. The forest seemed interminable; nowhere did he discover a break in it, not even a woodman’s road. He had not known that he lived in so wild a region. There was something uncanny in the revelation.

By nightfall he was fatigued, footsore, famished. The thought of his wife and children urged him on. At last he found a road which led him in what he knew to be the right direction. It was as wide and straight as a city street, yet it seemed untraveled. No fields bordered it, no dwelling anywhere. Not so much as the barking of a dog suggested human habitation. The black bodies of the trees formed a straight wall on both sides, terminating on the horizon in a point, like a diagram in a lesson in perspective. Overhead, as he looked up through this rift in the wood, shone great golden stars looking unfamiliar and grouped in strange constellations. He was sure they were arranged in some order which had a secret and malign significance. The wood on either side was full of singular noises, among which – once, twice, and again – he distinctly heard whispers in an unknown tongue.

His neck was in pain and lifting his hand to it found it horribly swollen. He knew that it had a circle of black where the rope had bruised it. His eyes felt congested; he could no longer close them. His tongue was swollen with thirst; he relieved its fever by thrusting it forward from between his teeth into the cold air. How softly the turf had carpeted the untraveled avenue – he could no longer feel the roadway beneath his feet!

Doubtless, despite his suffering, he had fallen asleep while walking, for now he sees another scene – perhaps he has merely recovered from a delirium[14]. He stands at the gate of his own home. All is as he left it, and all bright and beautiful in the morning sunshine. He must have traveled the entire night. As he pushes open the gate and passes up the wide white walk, he sees a flutter of female garments; his wife, looking fresh and cool and sweet, steps down from the veranda to meet him. At the bottom of the steps she stands waiting, with a smile of ineffable joy, an attitude of matchless grace and dignity. Ah, how beautiful she is! He springs forwards with extended arms. As he is about to clasp her he feels a stunning blow upon the back of the neck; a blinding white light blazes all about him with a sound like the shock of a cannon – then all is darkness and silence!

Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge.

Eliza Calvert Hall

Aunt Jane’s Album

They were a bizarre mass of color on the sweet spring landscape, those patchwork quilts, swaying in a long line under the elms and maples. The old orchard made a blossoming background for them, and farther off on the horizon rose the beauty of fresh verdure and purple mist on those low hills, or ‘knobs’, that are to the heart of the Kentuckian[15] as the Alps to the Swiss or the sea to the sailor.

I opened the gate softly and paused for a moment between the blossoming lilacs that grew on each side of the path. The fragrance of the white and the purple blooms was like a resurrection-call over the graves of many a dead spring; and as I stood, shaken with thoughts as the flowers are with the winds, Aunt Jane came around from the back of the house, her black silk cape fluttering from her shoulders, and a calico sunbonnet hiding her features in its cavernous depth. She walked briskly to the clothes-line and began patting and smoothing the quilts where the breeze had disarranged them.

‘Aunt Jane,’ I called out, ‘are you having a fair all by yourself?’

She turned quickly, pushing back the sunbonnet from her eyes.

‘Why, child,’ she said, with a happy laugh, ‘you come pretty nigh skeerin’ me. No, I ain’t havin’ any fair; I’m jest givin’ my quilts their spring airin’. Twice a year I put ’em out in the sun and wind; and this mornin’ the air smelt so sweet, I thought it was a good chance to freshen ’em up for the summer. It’s about time to take ’em in now.’

She began to fold the quilts and lay them over her arm, and I did the same. Back and forth we went from the clothes-line to the house, and from the house to the clothes-line, until the quilts were safely housed from the coming dewfall and piled on every available chair in the front room. I looked at them in sheer amazement. There seemed to be every pattern that the ingenuity of woman could devise and the industry of woman put together, – ‘four-patches,’ ‘nine-patches,’ ‘log-cabins,’ ‘wild-goose chases,’ ‘rising suns,’ hexagons, diamonds, and only Aunt Jane knows what else. As for color, a Sandwich Islander[16] would have danced with joy at the sight of those reds, purples, yellows, and greens.

‘Did you really make all these quilts, Aunt Jane?’ I asked wonderingly.

Aunt Jane’s eyes sparkled with pride.

‘Every stitch of ’em, child,’ she said, ‘except the quiltin’. The neighbors used to come in and help some with that. I’ve heard folks say that piecin’ quilts was nothin’ but a waste o’ time, but that ain’t always so. They used to say that Sarah Jane Mitchell would set down right after breakfast and piece till it was time to git dinner, and then set and piece till she had to git supper, and then piece by candle-light till she fell asleep in her cheer.

‘I ricollect goin’ over there one day, and Sarah Jane was gittin’ dinner in a big hurry, for Sam had to go to town with some cattle, and there was a big basket o’ quilt pieces in the middle o’ the kitchen floor, and the house lookin’ like a pigpen, and the children runnin’ around half naked. And Sam he laughed, and says he, “Aunt Jane, if we could wear quilts and eat quilts we’d be the richest people in the country.” Sam was the best-natured man that ever was, or he couldn’t ’a’ put up with Sarah Jane’s shiftless ways. Hannah Crawford said she sent Sarah Jane a bundle o’ caliker once by Sam, and Sam always declared he lost it. But Uncle Jim Matthews said he was ridin’ along the road jest behind Sam, and he saw Sam throw it into the creek jest as he got on the bridge. I never blamed Sam a bit if he did.

‘But there never was any time wasted on my quilts, child. I can look at every one of ’em with a clear conscience. I did my work faithful; and then, when I might ’a’ set and held my hands, I’d make a block or two o’ patchwork, and before long I’d have enough to put together in a quilt. I went to piecin’ as soon as I was old enough to hold a needle and a piece o’ cloth, and one o’ the first things I can remember was settin’ on the back door-step sewin’ my quilt pieces, and mother praisin’ my stitches. Nowadays folks don’t have to sew unless they want to, but when I was a child there warn’t any sewin’-machines, and it was about as needful for folks to know how to sew as it was for ’em to know how to eat; and every child that was well raised could hem and run and backstitch and gether and overhand by the time she was nine years old. Why, I’d pieced four quilts by the time I was nineteen years old, and when me and Abram set up housekeepin’ I had bedclothes enough for three beds.

‘I’ve had a heap o’ comfort all my life makin’ quilts, and now in my old age I wouldn’t take a fortune for ’em. Set down here, child, where you can see out o’ the winder and smell the lilacs, and we’ll look at ’em all. You see, some folks has albums to put folks’ pictures in to remember ’em by, and some folks has a book and writes down the things that happen every day so they won’t forgit ’em; but, honey, these quilts is my albums and my di’ries, and whenever the weather’s bad and I can’t git out to see folks, I jest spread out my quilts and look at ’em and study over ’em, and it’s jest like goin’ back fifty or sixty years and livin’ my life over agin.

‘There ain’t nothin’ like a piece o’ caliker for bringin’ back old times, child, unless it’s a flower or a bunch o’ thyme or a piece o’ pennyroy’l – anything that smells sweet. Why, I can go out yonder in the yard and gether a bunch o’ that purple lilac and jest shut my eyes and see faces I ain’t seen for fifty years, and somethin’ goes through me like a flash o’ lightnin’, and it seems like I’m young agin jest for that minute.’

Aunt Jane’s hands were stroking lovingly a ‘nine-patch’ that resembled the coat of many colors.

‘Now this quilt, honey,’ she said, ‘I made out o’ the pieces o’ my children’s clothes, their little dresses and waists and aprons. Some of ’em’s dead, and some of ’em’s grown and married and a long way off from me, further off than the ones that’s dead, I sometimes think. But when I set down and look at this quilt and think over the pieces, it seems like they all come back, and I can see ’em playin’ around the floors and goin’ in and out, and hear ’em cryin’ and laughin’ and callin’ me jest like they used to do before they grew up to men and women, and before there was any little graves o’ mine out in the old buryin’-ground over yonder.’

Wonderful imagination of motherhood that can bring childhood back from the dust of the grave and banish the wrinkles and gray hairs of age with no other talisman than a scrap of faded calico!

The old woman’s hands were moving tremulously over the surface of the quilt as if they touched the golden curls of the little dream children who had vanished from her hearth so many years ago. But there were no tears either in her eyes or in her voice. I had long noticed that Aunt Jane always smiled when she spoke of the people whom the world calls ‘dead,’ or the things it calls ‘lost’ or ‘past.’ These words seemed to have for her higher and tenderer meanings than are placed on them by the sorrowful heart of humanity.

But the moments were passing, and one could not dwell too long on any quilt, however well beloved. Aunt Jane rose briskly, folded up the one that lay across her knees, and whisked out another from the huge pile in an old splint-bottomed chair.

‘Here’s a piece o’ one o’ Sally Ann’s purple caliker dresses. Sally Ann always thought a heap o’ purple caliker. Here’s one o’ Milly Amos’ ginghams – that pink-and-white one. And that piece o’ white with the rosebuds in it, that’s Miss Penelope’s. She give it to me the summer before she died. Bless her soul! That dress jest matched her face exactly. Somehow her and her clothes always looked alike, and her voice matched her face, too. One o’ the things I’m lookin’ forward to, child, is seein’ Miss Penelope agin and hearin’ her sing. Voices and faces is alike; there’s some that you can’t remember, and there’s some you can’t forgit. I’ve seen a heap o’ people and heard a heap o’ voices, but Miss Penelope’s face was different from all the rest, and so was her voice. Why, if she said “Good morning” to you, you’d hear that “Good mornin’” all day, and her singin’ – I know there never was anything like it in this world. My grandchildren all laugh at me for thinkin’ so much o’ Miss Penelope’s singin’, but then they never heard her, and I have: that’s the difference. My grandchild Henrietta was down here three or four years ago, and says she, “Grandma, don’t you want to go up to Louisville with me and hear Patti sing?” And says I, “Patty who, child?” Says I, “If it was to hear Miss Penelope sing, I’d carry these old bones o’ mine clear from here to New York. But there ain’t anybody else I want to hear sing bad enough to go up to Louisville or anywhere else. And some o’ these days,” says I, “I’m goin’ to hear Miss Penelope sing.”’

Aunt Jane laughed blithely, and it was impossible not to laugh with her.

‘Honey,’ she said, in the next breath, lowering her voice and laying her finger on the rosebud piece, ‘honey, there’s one thing I can’t git over. Here’s a piece o’ Miss Penelope’s dress, but where’s Miss Penelope? Ain’t it strange that a piece o’ caliker’ll outlast you and me? Don’t it look like folks ought ‘o hold on to their bodies as long as other folks holds on to a piece o’ the dresses they used to wear?’

Questions as old as the human heart and its human grief! Here is the glove, but where is the hand it held but yesterday? Here the jewel that she wore, but where is she?

‘Where is the Pompadour[17] now? This was the Pompadour’s fan!’

Strange, that such things as gloves, jewels, fans, and dresses can outlast a woman’s form.

‘Behold! I show you a mystery’ – the mystery of mortality. And an eery feeling came over me as I entered into the old woman’s mood and thought of the strong, vital bodies that had clothed themselves in those fabrics of purple and pink and white, and that now were dust and ashes lying in sad, neglected graves on farm and lonely roadside. There lay the quilt on our knees, and the gay scraps of calico seemed to mock us with their vivid colors. Aunt Jane’s cheerful voice called me back from the tombs.

‘Here’s a piece o’ one o’ my dresses,’ she said; ‘brown ground with a red ring in it. Abram picked it out. And here’s another one, that light yeller ground with the vine runnin’ through it. I never had so many caliker dresses that I didn’t want one more, for in my day folks used to think a caliker dress was good enough to wear anywhere. Abram knew my failin’, and two or three times a year he’d bring me a dress when he come from town. And the dresses he’d pick out always suited me better’n the ones I picked.’

‘I ricollect I finished this quilt the summer before Mary Frances was born, and Sally Ann and Milly Amos and Maria Petty come over and give me a lift on the quiltin’. Here’s Milly’s work, here’s Sally Ann’s, and here’s Maria’s.’

I looked, but my inexperienced eye could see no difference in the handiwork of the three women. Aunt Jane saw my look of incredulity.

‘Now, child,’ she said, earnestly, ‘you think I’m foolin’ you, but, la! there’s jest as much difference in folks’ sewin’ as there is in their handwritin’. Milly made a fine stitch, but she couldn’t keep on the line to save her life; Maria never could make a reg’lar stitch, some’d be long and some short, and Sally Ann’s was reg’lar, but all of ’em coarse. I can see ’em now stoopin’ over the quiltin’ frames – Milly talkin’ as hard as she sewed, Sally Ann throwin’ in a word now and then, and Maria never openin’ her mouth except to ask for the thread or the chalk. I ricollect they come over after dinner, and we got the quilt out o’ the frames long before sundown, and the next day I begun bindin’ it, and I got the premium on it that year at the Fair.

‘I hardly ever showed a quilt at the Fair that I didn’t take the premium, but here’s one quilt that Sarah Jane Mitchell beat me on.’

And Aunt Jane dragged out a ponderous, red-lined affair, the very antithesis of the silken, down-filled comfortable that rests so lightly on the couch of the modern dame.

‘It makes me laugh jest to think o’ that time, and how happy Sarah Jane was. It was way back yonder in the fifties. I ricollect we had a mighty fine Fair that year. The crops was all fine that season, and such apples and pears and grapes you never did see. The Floral Hall was full o’ things, and the whole county turned out to go to the Fair. Abram and me got there the first day bright and early, and we was walkin’ around the amp’itheater and lookin’ at the townfolks and the sights, and we met Sally Ann. She stopped us, and says she, “Sarah Jane Mitchell’s got a quilt in the Floral Hall in competition with yours and Milly Amos”. Says I, “Is that all the competition there is?” And Sally Ann says, “All that amounts to anything. There’s one more, but it’s about as bad a piece o’ sewin’ as Sarah Jane’s, and that looks like it’d hardly hold together till the Fair’s over. And,” says she, “I don’t believe there’ll be any more. It looks like this was an off year on that particular kind o’ quilt. I didn’t get mine done,” says she, “and neither did Maria Petty, and maybe it’s a good thing after all.”

‘Well, I saw in a minute what Sally Ann was aimin’ at. And I says to Abram, “Abram, haven’t you got somethin’ to do with app’intin’ the judges for the women’s things?” And he says, “Yes.” And I says, “Well, you see to it that Sally Ann gits app’inted to help judge the caliker quilts.” And bless your soul, Abram got me and Sally Ann both app’inted. The other judge was Mis’ Doctor Brigham, one o’ the town ladies. We told her all about what we wanted to do, and she jest laughed and says, “Well, if that ain’t the kindest, nicest thing! Of course we’ll do it.”

‘Seein’ that I had a quilt there, I hadn’t a bit o’ business bein’ a judge; but the first thing I did was to fold my quilt up and hide it under Maria Petty’s big worsted quilt, and then we pinned the blue ribbon on Sarah Jane’s and the red on Milly’s. I’d fixed it all up with Milly, and she was jest as willin’ as I was for Sarah Jane to have the premium. There was jest one thing I was afraid of: Milly was a good-hearted woman, but she never had much control over her tongue. And I says to her, says I: “Milly, it’s mighty good of you to give up your chance for the premium, but if Sarah Jane ever finds it out, that’ll spoil everything. For,” says I, “there ain’t any kindness in doin’ a person a favor and then tellin’ everybody about it.” And Milly laughed, and says she: “I know what you mean, Aunt Jane. It’s mighty hard for me to keep from tellin’ everything I know and some things I don’t know, but,’ says she, ‘I’m never goin’ to tell this, even to Sam.” And she kept her word, too. Every once in a while she’d come up to me and whisper, “I ain’t told it yet, Aunt Jane,” jest to see me laugh.

‘As soon as the doors was open, after we’d all got through judgin’ and puttin’ on the ribbons, Milly went and hunted Sarah Jane up and told her that her quilt had the blue ribbon. They said the pore thing like to ’a’ fainted for joy. She turned right white, and had to lean up against the post for a while before she could git to the Floral Hall. I never shall forgit her face. It was worth a dozen premiums to me, and Milly, too. She jest stood lookin’ at that quilt and the blue ribbon on it, and her eyes was full o’ tears and her lips quiverin’, and then she started off and brought the children in to look at “Mammy’s quilt.” She met Sam on the way out, and says she: “Sam, what do you reckon? My quilt took the premium.” And I believe in my soul Sam was as much pleased as Sarah Jane. He came saunterin’ up, tryin’ to look unconcerned, but anybody could see he was mighty well satisfied. It does a husband and wife a heap o’ good to be proud of each other, and I reckon that was the first time Sam ever had cause to be proud o’ pore Sarah Jane. It’s my belief that he thought more o’ Sarah Jane all the rest o’ her life jest on account o’ that premium. Me and Sally Ann helped her pick it out. She had her choice betwixt a butter-dish and a cup, and she took the cup. Folks used to laugh and say that that cup was the only thing in Sarah Jane’s house that was kept clean and bright, and if it hadn’t ’a’ been solid silver, she’d ’a’ wore it all out rubbin’ it up. Sarah Jane died o’ pneumonia about three or four years after that, and the folks that nursed her said she wouldn’t take a drink o’ water or a dose o’ medicine out o’ any cup but that. There’s some folks, child, that don’t have to do anything but walk along and hold out their hands, and the premiums jest naturally fall into ’em; and there’s others that work and strive the best they know how, and nothin’ ever seems to come to ’em; and I reckon nobody but the Lord and Sarah Jane knows how much happiness she got out o’ that cup. I’m thankful she had that much pleasure before she died.’

There was a quilt hanging over the foot of the bed that had about it a certain air of distinction. It was a solid mass of patchwork, composed of squares, parallelograms, and hexagons. The squares were of dark gray and red-brown, the hexagons were white, the parallelograms black and light gray. I felt sure that it had a history that set it apart from its ordinary fellows.

‘Where did you get the pattern, Aunt Jane?’ I asked. ‘I never saw anything like it.’

The old lady’s eyes sparkled, and she laughed with pure pleasure.

‘That’s what everybody says,’ she exclaimed, jumping up and spreading the favored quilt over two laden chairs, where its merits became more apparent and striking. ‘There ain’t another quilt like this in the State o’ Kentucky, or the world, for that matter. My granddaughter Henrietta, Mary Frances’ youngest child, brought me this pattern from Europe.’

She spoke the words as one might say, ‘from Paradise,’ or ‘from Olympus[18],’ or ‘from the Lost Atlantis[19].’ ‘Europe’ was evidently a name to conjure with, a country of mystery and romance unspeakable. I had seen many things from many lands beyond the sea, but a quilt pattern from Europe! Here at last was something new under the sun. In what shop of London or Paris were quilt patterns kept on sale for the American tourist?

‘You see,’ said Aunt Jane, ‘Henrietta married a mighty rich man, and jest as good as he’s rich, too, and they went to Europe on their bridal trip. When she come home she brought me the prettiest shawl you ever saw. She made me stand up and shut my eyes, and she put it on my shoulders and made me look in the lookin’-glass, and then she says, “I brought you a new quilt pattern, too, grandma, and I want you to piece one quilt by it and leave it to me when you die.” And then she told me about goin’ to a town over yonder they call Florence[20], and how she went into a big church that was built hundreds o’ years before I was born. And she said the floor was made o’ little pieces o’ colored stone, all laid together in a pattern, and they called it mosaic. And says I, “Honey, has it got anything to do with Moses and his law?” You know the Commandments[21] was called the Mosaic Law[22], and was all on tables o’ stone. And Henrietta jest laughed, and says she: “No, grandma; I don’t believe it has. But,” says she, “the minute I stepped on that pavement I thought about you, and I drew this pattern off on a piece o’ paper and brought it all the way to Kentucky for you to make a quilt by.” Henrietta bought the worsted for me, for she said it had to be jest the colors o’ that pavement over yonder, and I made it that very winter.’

Aunt Jane was regarding the quilt with worshipful eyes, and it really was an effective combination of color and form.

‘Many a time while I was piecin’ that,’ she said, ‘I thought about the man that laid the pavement in that old church, and wondered what his name was, and how he looked, and what he’d think if he knew there was a old woman down here in Kentucky usin’ his patterns to make a bed quilt.’

It was indeed a far cry from the Florentine artisan of centuries ago to this humble worker in calico and worsted, but between the two stretched a cord of sympathy that made them one – the eternal aspiration after beauty.

‘Honey,’ said Aunt Jane, suddenly, ‘did I ever show you my premiums?’

And then, with pleasant excitement in her manner, she arose, fumbled in her deep pocket for an ancient bunch of keys, and unlocked a cupboard on one side of the fireplace. One by one she drew them out, unrolled the soft yellow tissue-paper that enfolded them, and ranged them in a stately line on the old cherry center-table – nineteen sterling silver cups and goblets. ‘Abram took some of ’em on his fine stock, and I took some of ’em on my quilts and salt-risin’ bread and cakes,’ she said, impressively.

To the artist his medals, to the soldier his cross of the Legion of Honor[23], and to Aunt Jane her silver cups. All the triumph of a humble life was symbolized in these shining things. They were simple and genuine as the days in which they were made. A few of them boasted a beaded edge or a golden lining, but no engraving or embossing marred their silver purity. On the bottom of each was the stamp: ‘John B. Akin, Danville, Ky.’ There they stood,

‘Filled to the brim with precious memories,’ – memories of the time when she and Abram had worked together in field or garden or home, and the County Fair brought to all a yearly opportunity to stand on the height of achievement and know somewhat the taste of Fame’s enchanted cup.

‘There’s one for every child and every grandchild,’ she said, quietly, as she began wrapping them in the silky paper, and storing them carefully away in the cupboard, there to rest until the day when children and grandchildren would claim their own, and the treasures of the dead would come forth from the darkness to stand as heirlooms on fashionable sideboards and damask[24]-covered tables.

‘Did you ever think, child,’ she said, presently, ‘how much piecin’ a quilt’s like livin’ a life? And as for sermons, why, they ain’t no better sermon to me than a patchwork quilt, and the doctrines is right there a heap plainer’n they are in the catechism[25]. Many a time I’ve set and listened to Parson Page preachin’ about predestination and free-will, and I’ve said to myself, ‘Well, I ain’t never been through Centre College up at Danville, but if I could jest git up in the pulpit with one of my quilts, I could make it a heap plainer to folks than parson’s makin’ it with all his big words.’ You see, you start out with jest so much caliker; you don’t go to the store and pick it out and buy it, but the neighbors will give you a piece here and a piece there, and you’ll have a piece left every time you cut out a dress, and you take jest what happens to come. And that’s like predestination. But when it comes to the cuttin’ out, why, you’re free to choose your own pattern. You can give the same kind o’ pieces to two persons, and one’ll make a “nine-patch” and one’ll make a “wild-goose chase,” and there’ll be two quilts made out o’ the same kind o’ pieces, and jest as different as they can be. And that is jest the way with livin’. The Lord sends us the pieces, but we can cut ’em out and put ’em together pretty much to suit ourselves, and there’s a heap more in the cuttin’ out and the sewin’ than there is in the caliker. The same sort o’ things comes into all lives, jest as the Apostle says, “There hath no trouble taken you but is common to all men.”

‘The same trouble’ll come into two people’s lives, and one’ll take it and make one thing out of it, and the other’ll make somethin’ entirely different. There was Mary Harris and Mandy Crawford. They both lost their husbands the same year; and Mandy set down and cried and worried and wondered what on earth she was goin’ to do, and the farm went to wrack and the children turned out bad, and she had to live with her son-in-law in her old age. But Mary, she got up and went to work, and made everybody about her work, too; and she managed the farm better’n it ever had been managed before, and the boys all come up steady, hard-workin’ men, and there wasn’t a woman in the county better fixed up than Mary Harris. Things is predestined to come to us, honey, but we’re jest as free as air to make what we please out of ’em. And when it comes to puttin’ the pieces together, there’s another time when we’re free. You don’t trust to luck for the caliker to put your quilt together with; you go to the store and pick it out yourself, any color you like. There’s folks that always looks on the bright side and makes the best of everything, and that’s like puttin’ your quilt together with blue or pink or white or some other pretty color; and there’s folks that never see anything but the dark side, and always lookin’ for trouble, and treasurin’ it up after they git it, and they’re puttin’ their lives together with black, jest like you would put a quilt together with some dark, ugly color. You can spoil the prettiest quilt pieces that ever was made jest by puttin’ ’em together with the wrong color, and the best sort o’ life is miserable if you don’t look at things right and think about ’em right.

‘Then there’s another thing. I’ve seen folks piece and piece, but when it come to puttin’ the blocks together and quiltin’ and linin’ it, they’d give out; and that’s like folks that do a little here and a little there, but their lives ain’t of much use after all, any more’n a lot o’ loose pieces o’ patchwork. And then while you’re livin’ your life, it looks pretty much like a jumble o’ quilt pieces before they’re put together; but when you git through with it, or pretty nigh through, as I am now, you’ll see the use and the purpose of everything in it. Everything’ll be in its right place jest like the squares in this “four-patch,” and one piece may be pretty and another one ugly, but it all looks right when you see it finished and joined together.’

Did I say that every pattern was represented? No, there was one notable omission. Not a single ‘crazy quilt’ was there in the collection. I called Aunt Jane’s attention to this lack.

‘Child,’ she said, ‘I used to say there wasn’t anything I couldn’t do if I made up my mind to it. But I hadn’t seen a “crazy quilt” then. The first one I ever seen was up at Danville at Mary Frances’, and Henrietta says, “Now, grandma, you’ve got to make a crazy quilt; you’ve made every other sort that ever was heard of.” And she brought me the pieces and showed me how to baste ’em on the square, and said she’d work the fancy stitches around ’em for me. Well, I set there all the mornin’ tryin’ to fix up that square, and the more I tried, the uglier and crookeder the thing looked. And finally I says: “Here, child, take your pieces. If I was to make this the way you want me to, they’d be a crazy quilt and a crazy woman, too.”’

Aunt Jane was laying the folded quilts in neat piles here and there about the room. There was a look of unspeakable satisfaction on her face – the look of the creator who sees his completed work and pronounces it good.

‘I’ve been a hard worker all my life,’ she said, seating herself and folding her hands restfully, ‘but ’most all my work has been the kind that “perishes with the usin’,” as the Bible says. That’s the discouragin’ thing about a woman’s work. Milly Amos used to say that if a woman was to see all the dishes that she had to wash before she died, piled up before her in one pile, she’d lie down and die right then and there. I’ve always had the name o’ bein’ a good housekeeper, but when I’m dead and gone there ain’t anybody goin’ to think o’ the floors I’ve swept, and the tables I’ve scrubbed, and the old clothes I’ve patched, and the stockin’s I’ve darned. Abram might ’a’ remembered it, but he ain’t here. But when one o’ my grandchildren or great-grandchildren sees one o’ these quilts, they’ll think about Aunt Jane, and, wherever I am then, I’ll know I ain’t forgotten.

‘I reckon everybody wants to leave somethin’ behind that’ll last after they’re dead and gone. It don’t look like it’s worth while to live unless you can do that. The Bible says folks “rest from their labors, and their works do follow them,” but that ain’t so. They go, and maybe they do rest, but their works stay right here, unless they’re the sort that don’t outlast the usin’. Now, some folks has money to build monuments with – great, tall, marble pillars, with angels on top of ’em, like you see in Cave Hill and them big city buryin’-grounds. And some folks can build churches and schools and hospitals to keep folks in mind of ’em, but all the work I’ve got to leave behind me is jest these quilts, and sometimes, when I’m settin’ here, workin’ with my caliker and gingham pieces, I’ll finish off a block, and I laugh and say to myself, “Well, here’s another stone for the monument.”’

‘I reckon you think, child, that a caliker or a worsted quilt is a curious sort of a monument – ’bout as perishable as the sweepin’ and scrubbin’ and mendin’. But if folks values things rightly, and knows how to take care of ’em, there ain’t many things that’ll last longer’n a quilt. Why, I’ve got a blue and white counterpane that my mother’s mother spun and wove, and there ain’t a sign o’ givin’ out in it yet. I’m goin’ to will that to my granddaughter that lives in Danville, Mary Frances’ oldest child. She was down here last summer, and I was lookin’ over my things and packin’ ’em away, and she happened to see that counterpane and says she, “Grandma, I want you to will me that.” And says I: “What do you want with that old thing, honey? You know you wouldn’t sleep under such a counterpane as that.” And says she, “No, but I’d hang it up over my parlor door for a – ”’

‘Portière[26]?’ I suggested, as Aunt Jane hesitated for the unaccustomed word.

‘That’s it, child. Somehow I can’t ricollect these new-fangled words, any more’n I can understand these new-fangled ways. Who’d ever ’a’ thought that folks’d go to stringin’ up bed-coverin’s in their doors? And says I to Janie, “You can hang your great-grandmother’s counterpane up in your parlor door if you want to, but,” says I, “don’t you ever make a door-curtain out o’ one o’ my quilts.” But la! the way things turn around, if I was to come back fifty years from now, like as not I’d find ’em usin’ my quilts for window-curtains or door-mats.’

We both laughed, and there rose in my mind a picture of a twentieth-century house decorated with Aunt Jane’s ‘nine-patches’ and ‘rising suns.’ How could the dear old woman know that the same esthetic sense that had drawn from their obscurity the white and blue counterpanes of colonial days would forever protect her loved quilts from such a desecration as she feared? As she lifted a pair of quilts from a chair nearby, I caught sight of a pure white spread in striking contrast with the many-hued patchwork.

‘Where did you get that Marseilles[27] spread, Aunt Jane?’ I asked, pointing to it. Aunt Jane lifted it and laid it on my lap without a word. Evidently she thought that here was something that could speak for itself. It was two layers of snowy cotton cloth thinly lined with cotton, and elaborately quilted into a perfect imitation of a Marseilles counterpane. The pattern was a tracery of roses, buds, and leaves, very much conventionalized, but still recognizable for the things they were. The stitches were fairylike, and altogether it might have covered the bed of a queen.

‘I made every stitch o’ that spread the year before me and Abram was married,’ she said. ‘I put it on my bed when we went to housekeepin’; it was on the bed when Abram died, and when I die I want ’em to cover me with it.’ There was a life-history in the simple words. I thought of Desdemona[28] and her bridal sheets, and I did not offer to help Aunt Jane as she folded this quilt.

‘I reckon you think,’ she resumed presently, ‘that I’m a mean, stingy old creetur not to give Janie the counterpane now, instead o’ hoardin’ it up, and all these quilts too, and keepin’ folks waitin’ for ’em till I die. But, honey, it ain’t all selfishness. I’d give away my best dress or my best bonnet or an acre o’ ground to anybody that needed ’em more’n I did; but these quilts – Why, it looks like my whole life was sewed up in ’em, and I ain’t goin’ to part with ’em while life lasts.’

There was a ring of passionate eagerness in the old voice, and she fell to putting away her treasures as if the suggestion of losing them had made her fearful of their safety.

I looked again at the heap of quilts. An hour ago they had been patchwork, and nothing more. But now! The old woman’s words had wrought a transformation in the homely mass of calico and silk and worsted. Patchwork? Ah, no! It was memory, imagination, history, biography, joy, sorrow, philosophy, religion, romance, realism, life, love, and death; and over all, like a halo, the love of the artist for his work and the soul’s longing for earthly immortality.

No wonder the wrinkled fingers smoothed them as reverently as we handle the garments of the dead.

Kate Chopin

Ma’ame Pelagie

I

When the war began, there stood on an imposing mansion of red brick, shaped like the Pantheon[29]. A grove of majestic live-oaks surrounded it.

Thirty years later, only the thick walls were standing, with the dull red brick showing here and there through a matted growth of clinging vines. The huge round pillars were intact; so to some extent was the stone flagging of hall and portico. There had been no home so stately along the whole stretch of Cote Joyeuse. Everyone knew that, as they knew it had cost Philippe Valmet sixty thousand dollars to build, away back in 1840. No one was in danger of forgetting that fact, so long as his daughter Pelagie survived. She was a queenly, white-haired woman of fifty. ‘Ma’ame Pelagie,’ they called her, though she was unmarried, as was her sister Pauline, a child in Ma’ame Pelagie’s eyes; a child of thirty-five.

The two lived alone in a three-roomed cabin, almost within the shadow of the ruin. They lived for a dream, for Ma’ame Pelagie’s dream, which was to rebuild the old home.

It would be pitiful to tell how their days were spent to accomplish this end; how the dollars had been saved for thirty years and the picayunes hoarded; and yet, not half enough gathered! But Ma’ame Pelagie felt sure of twenty years of life before her, and counted upon as many more for her sister. And what could not come to pass in twenty – in forty – years?

Often, of pleasant afternoons, the two would drink their black coffee, seated upon the stone-flagged portico whose canopy was the blue sky of Louisiana. They loved to sit there in the silence, with only each other and the sheeny, prying lizards for company, talking of the old times and planning for the new; while light breezes stirred the tattered vines high up among the columns, where owls nested.

‘We can never hope to have all just as it was, Pauline,’ Ma’ame Pelagie would say; ‘perhaps the marble pillars of the salon will have to be replaced by wooden ones, and the crystal candelabra left out. Should you be willing, Pauline?’

‘Oh, yes Sesoeur, I shall be willing.’ It was always, ‘Yes, Sesoeur,’ or ‘No, Sesoeur,’ ‘Just as you please, Sesoeur,’ with poor little Mam’selle Pauline. For what did she remember of that old life and that old splendor? Only a faint gleam here and there; the half-consciousness of a young, uneventful existence; and then a great crash. That meant the nearness of war; the revolt of slaves; confusion ending in fire and flame through which she was borne safely in the strong arms of Pelagie, and carried to the log cabin which was still their home. Their brother, Leandre, had known more of it all than Pauline, and not so much as Pelagie. He had left the management of the big plantation with all its memories and traditions to his older sister, and had gone away to dwell in cities. That was many years ago. Now, Leandre’s business called him frequently and upon long journeys from home, and his motherless daughter was coming to stay with her aunts at Cote Joyeuse.

They talked about it, sipping their coffee on the ruined portico. Mam’selle Pauline was terribly excited; the flush that throbbed into her pale, nervous face showed it; and she locked her thin fingers in and out incessantly.

‘But what shall we do with La Petite[30], Sesoeur? Where shall we put her? How shall we amuse her? Ah, Seigneur[31]!’

‘She will sleep upon a cot in the room next to ours,’ responded Ma’ame Pelagie, ‘and live as we do. She knows how we live, and why we live; her father has told her. She knows we have money and could squander it if we chose. Do not fret, Pauline; let us hope La Petite is a true Valmet.’

Then Ma’ame Pelagie rose with stately deliberation and went to saddle her horse, for she had yet to make her last daily round through the fields; and Mam’selle Pauline threaded her way slowly among the tangled grasses toward the cabin.

The coming of La Petite, bringing with her as she did the pungent atmosphere of an outside and dimly known world, was a shock to these two, living their dream-life. The girl was quite as tall as her aunt Pelagie, with dark eyes that reflected joy as a still pool reflects the light of stars; and her rounded cheek was tinged like the pink crepe myrtle. Mam’selle Pauline kissed her and trembled. Ma’ame Pelagie looked into her eyes with a searching gaze, which seemed to seek a likeness of the past in the living present.

And they made room between them for this young life.

II

La Petite had determined upon trying to fit herself to the strange, narrow existence which she knew awaited her at Côte Joyeuse. It went well enough at first. Sometimes she followed Ma’ame Pelagie into the fields to note how the cotton was opening, ripe and white; or to count the ears of corn upon the hardy stalks. But oftener she was with her aunt Pauline, assisting in household offices, chattering of her brief past, or walking with the older woman arm-in-arm under the trailing moss of the giant oaks.

Mam’selle Pauline’s steps grew very buoyant that summer, and her eyes were sometimes as bright as a bird’s, unless La Petite were away from her side, when they would lose all other light but one of uneasy expectancy. The girl seemed to love her well in return, and called her endearingly Tan’tante[32]. But as the time went by, La Petite became very quiet, – not listless, but thoughtful, and slow in her movements. Then her cheeks began to pale, till they were tinged like the creamy plumes of the white crepe myrtle that grew in the ruin.

One day when she sat within its shadow, between her aunts, holding a hand of each, she said: ‘Tante Pelagie, I must tell you something, you and Tan’tante.’ She spoke low, but clearly and firmly. ‘I love you both, – please remember that I love you both. But I must go away from you. I can’t live any longer here at Côte Joyeuse.’

A spasm passed through Mam’selle Pauline’s delicate frame. La Petite could feel the twitch of it in the wiry fingers that were intertwined with her own. Ma’ame Pelagie remained unchanged and motionless. No human eye could penetrate so deep as to see the satisfaction which her soul felt. She said: ‘What do you mean, Petite? Your father has sent you to us, and I am sure it is his wish that you remain.’

‘My father loves me, tante Pelagie, and such will not be his wish when he knows. Oh!’ she continued with a restless, movement, ‘it is as though a weight were pressing me backward here. I must live another life; the life I lived before. I want to know things that are happening from day to day over the world, and hear them talked about. I want my music, my books, my companions. If I had known no other life but this one of privation, I suppose it would be different. If I had to live this life, I should make the best of it. But I do not have to; and you know, tante Pelagie, you do not need to. It seems to me,’ she added in a whisper, ‘that it is a sin against myself. Ah, Tan’tante! – what is the matter with Tan’tante?’

It was nothing; only a slight feeling of faintness, that would soon pass. She entreated them to take no notice; but they brought her some water and fanned her with a palmetto[33] leaf.

But that night, in the stillness of the room, Mam’selle Pauline sobbed and would not be comforted. Ma’ame Pelagie took her in her arms.

‘Pauline, my little sister Pauline,’ she entreated, ‘I never have seen you like this before. Do you no longer love me? Have we not been happy together, you and I?’

‘Oh, yes, Sesoeur.’

‘Is it because La Petite is going away?’

‘Yes, Sesoeur.’

‘Then she is dearer to you than I!’ spoke Ma’ame Pelagie with sharp resentment. ‘Than I, who held you and warmed you in my arms the day you were born; than I, your mother, father, sister, everything that could cherish you. Pauline, don’t tell me that.’

Mam’selle Pauline tried to talk through her sobs.

‘I can’t explain it to you, Sesoeur. I don’t understand it myself. I love you as I have always loved you; next to God. But if La Petite goes away I shall die. I can’t understand, – help me, Sesoeur. She seems – she seems like a saviour; like one who had come and taken me by the hand and was leading me somewhere – somewhere I want to go.’

Ma’ame Pelagie had been sitting beside the bed in her peignoir and slippers. She held the hand of her sister who lay there, and smoothed down the woman’s soft brown hair. She said not a word, and the silence was broken only by Mam’selle Pauline’s continued sobs. Once Ma’ame Pelagie arose to mix a drink of orange-flower water, which she gave to her sister, as she would have offered it to a nervous, fretful child. Almost an hour passed before Ma’ame Pelagie spoke again. Then she said: —

‘Pauline, you must cease that sobbing, now, and sleep. You will make yourself ill. La Petite will not go away. Do you hear me? Do you understand? She will stay, I promise you.’

Mam’selle Pauline could not clearly comprehend, but she had great faith in the word of her sister, and soothed by the promise and the touch of Ma’ame Pelagie’s strong, gentle hand, she fell asleep.

III

Ma’ame Pelagie, when she saw that her sister slept, arose noiselessly and stepped outside upon the low-roofed narrow gallery. She did not linger there, but with a step that was hurried and agitated, she crossed the distance that divided her cabin from the ruin.

The night was not a dark one, for the sky was clear and the moon resplendent. But light or dark would have made no difference to Ma’ame Pelagie. It was not the first time she had stolen away to the ruin at night-time, when the whole plantation slept; but she never before had been there with a heart so nearly broken. She was going there for the last time to dream her dreams; to see the visions that hitherto had crowded her days and nights, and to bid them farewell.

There was the first of them, awaiting her upon the very portal; a robust old white-haired man, chiding her for returning home so late. There are guests to be entertained. Does she not know it? Guests from the city and from the near plantations. Yes, she knows it is late. She had been abroad with Felix, and they did not notice how the time was speeding. Felix is there; he will explain it all. He is there beside her, but she does not want to hear what he will tell her father.

Ma’ame Pelagie had sunk upon the bench where she and her sister so often came to sit. Turning, she gazed in through the gaping chasm of the window at her side. The interior of the ruin is ablaze. Not with the moonlight, for that is faint beside the other one – the sparkle from the crystal candelabra, which negroes, moving noiselessly and respectfully about, are lighting, one after the other. How the gleam of them reflects and glances from the polished marble pillars!

The room holds a number of guests. There is old Monsieur Lucien Santien, leaning against one of the pillars, and laughing at something which Monsieur Lafirme is telling him, till his fat shoulders shake. His son Jules is with him – Jules, who wants to marry her. She laughs. She wonders if Felix has told her father yet. There is young Jerome Lafirme playing at checkers upon the sofa with Leandre. Little Pauline stands annoying them and disturbing the game. Leandre reproves her. She begins to cry, and old black Clementine, her nurse, who is not far off, limps across the room to pick her up and carry her away. How sensitive the little one is! But she trots about and takes care of herself better than she did a year or two ago, when she fell upon the stone hall floor and raised a great ‘bo-bo’ on her forehead. Pelagie was hurt and angry enough about it; and she ordered rugs and buffalo robes to be brought and laid thick upon the tiles, till the little one’s steps were surer.

‘Il ne faut pas faire mal à Pauline.’[34] She was saying it aloud – ‘faire mal a Pauline.’

But she gazes beyond the salon, back into the big dining hall, where the white crepe myrtle grows. Ha! how low that bat has circled. It has struck Ma’ame Pelagie full on the breast. She does not know it. She is beyond there in the dining hall, where her father sits with a group of friends over their wine. As usual they are talking politics. How tiresome! She has heard them say ‘la guerre[35]’ oftener than once. La guerre. Bah! She and Felix have something pleasanter to talk about, out under the oaks, or back in the shadow of the oleanders.

But they were right! The sound of a cannon, shot at Sumter[36], has rolled across the Southern States, and its echo is heard along the whole stretch of Cote Joyeuse.

Yet Pelagie does not believe it. Not till La Ricaneuse stands before her with bare, black arms akimbo, uttering a volley of vile abuse and of brazen impudence. Pelagie wants to kill her. But yet she will not believe. Not till Felix comes to her in the chamber above the dining hall – there where that trumpet vine hangs – comes to say good-by to her. The hurt which the big brass buttons of his new gray uniform pressed into the tender flesh of her bosom has never left it. She sits upon the sofa, and he beside her, both speechless with pain. That room would not have been altered. Even the sofa would have been there in the same spot, and Ma’ame Pelagie had meant all along, for thirty years, all along, to lie there upon it someday when the time came to die.

But there is no time to weep, with the enemy at the door. The door has been no barrier. They are clattering through the halls now, drinking the wines, shattering the crystal and glass, slashing the portraits.

One of them stands before her and tells her to leave the house. She slaps his face. How the stigma stands out red as blood upon his blanched cheek!

Now there is a roar of fire and the flames are bearing down upon her motionless figure. She wants to show them how a daughter of Louisiana[37] can perish before her conquerors. But little Pauline clings to her knees in an agony of terror. Little Pauline must be saved.

‘Il ne faut pas faire mal a Pauline.’ Again she is saying it aloud – ‘faire mal a Pauline.’

The night was nearly spent; Ma’ame Pelagie had glided from the bench upon which she had rested, and for hours lay prone upon the stone flagging, motionless. When she dragged herself to her feet it was to walk like one in a dream. About the great, solemn pillars, one after the other, she reached her arms, and pressed her cheek and her lips upon the senseless brick.

‘Adieu[38], adieu!’ whispered Ma’ame Pelagie.

There was no longer the moon to guide her steps across the familiar pathway to the cabin. The brightest light in the sky was Venus[39] that swung low in the east. The bats had ceased to beat their wings about the ruin. Even the mocking-bird that had warbled for hours in the old mulberry-tree had sung himself asleep. That darkest hour before the day was mantling the earth. Ma’ame Pelagie hurried through the wet, clinging grass, beating aside the heavy moss that swept across her face, walking on toward the cabin – toward Pauline. Not once did she look back upon the ruin that brooded like a huge monster – a black spot in the darkness that enveloped it.

IV

Little more than a year later the transformation which the old Valmet place had undergone was the talk and wonder of Cote Joyeuse. One would have looked in vain for the ruin; it was no longer there; neither was the log cabin. But out in the open, where the sun shone upon it, and the breezes blew about it, was a shapely structure fashioned from woods that the forests of the State had furnished. It rested upon a solid foundation of brick.

Upon a corner of the pleasant gallery sat Leandre smoking his afternoon cigar, and chatting with neighbors who had called. This was to be his pied à terre[40] now; the home where his sisters and his daughter dwelt. The laughter of young people was heard out under the trees, and within the house where La Petite was playing upon the piano. With the enthusiasm of a young artist she drew from the keys strains that seemed marvelously beautiful to Mam’selle Pauline, who stood enraptured near her. Mam’selle Pauline had been touched by the re-creation of Valmet. Her cheek was as full and almost as flushed as La Petite’s. The years were falling away from her.

Ma’ame Pelagie had been conversing with her brother and his friends. Then she turned and walked away; stopping to listen awhile to the music which La Petite was making. But it was only for a moment. She went on around the curve of the veranda, where she found herself alone. She stayed there, erect, holding to the banister rail and looking out calmly in the distance across the fields.

She was dressed in black, with the white kerchief she always wore folded across her bosom. Her thick, glossy hair rose like a silver diadem from her brow. In her deep, dark eyes smouldered the light of fires that would never flame. She had grown very old. Years instead of months seemed to have passed over her since the night she bade farewell to her visions.

Poor Ma’ame Pelagie! How could it be different! While the outward pressure of a young and joyous existence had forced her footsteps into the light, her soul had stayed in the shadow of the ruin.

Stephen Crane

The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky

I

The great pullman[41] was whirling onward with such dignity of motion that a glance from the window seemed simply to prove that the plains of Texas were pouring eastward. Vast flats of green grass, dull-hued spaces of mesquite and cactus, little groups of frame houses, woods of light and tender trees, all were sweeping into the east, sweeping over the horizon, a precipice.

A newly married pair had boarded this coach at San Antonio[42]. The man’s face was reddened from many days in the wind and sun, and a direct result of his new black clothes was that his brick-colored hands were constantly performing in a most conscious fashion. From time to time he looked down respectfully at his attire. He sat with a hand on each knee, like a man waiting in a barber’s shop. The glances he devoted to other passengers were furtive and shy.

The bride was not pretty, nor was she very young. She wore a dress of blue cashmere[43], with small reservations of velvet here and there and with steel buttons abounding. She continually twisted her head to regard her puff sleeves, very stiff, straight, and high. They embarrassed her. It was quite apparent that she had cooked, and that she expected to cook, dutifully. The blushes caused by the careless scrutiny of some passengers as she had entered the car were strange to see upon this plain, under-class countenance, which was drawn in placid, almost emotionless lines.

They were evidently very happy. ‘Ever been in a parlor-car before?’ he asked, smiling with delight.

‘No,’ she answered, ‘I never was. It’s fine, ain’t it?’

‘Great! And then after a while we’ll go forward to the diner and get a big layout. Finest meal in the world. Charge a dollar.’

‘Oh, do they?’ cried the bride. ‘Charge a dollar? Why, that’s too much – for us – ain’t it, Jack?’

‘Not this trip, anyhow,’ he answered bravely. ‘We’re going to go the whole thing.’

Later, he explained to her about the trains. ‘You see, it’s a thousand miles from one end of Texas to the other, and this train runs right across it and never stops but four times.’ He had the pride of an owner. He pointed out to her the dazzling fittings of the coach, and in truth her eyes opened wider as she contemplated the sea-green figured velvet, the shining brass, silver, and glass, the wood that gleamed as darkly brilliant as the surface of a pool of oil. At one end a bronze figure sturdily held a support for a separated chamber, and at convenient places on the ceiling were frescoes in olive and silver.

To the minds of the pair, their surroundings reflected the glory of their marriage that morning in San Antonio. This was the environment of their new estate, and the man’s face in particular beamed with an elation that made him appear ridiculous to the negro porter. This individual at times surveyed them from afar with an amused and superior grin. On other occasions he bullied them with skill in ways that did not make it exactly plain to them that they were being bullied. He subtly used all the manners of the most unconquerable kind of snobbery. He oppressed them, but of this oppression they had small knowledge, and they speedily forgot that infrequently a number of travelers covered them with stares of derisive enjoyment. Historically there was supposed to be something infinitely humorous in their situation.

‘We are due in Yellow Sky at 3:42,’ he said, looking tenderly into her eyes.

‘Oh, are we?’ she said, as if she had not been aware of it. To evince surprise at her husband’s statement was part of her wifely amiability. She took from a pocket a little silver watch, and as she held it before her and stared at it with a frown of attention, the new husband’s face shone.

‘I bought it in San Anton’ from a friend of mine,’ he told her gleefully.

‘It’s seventeen minutes past twelve,’ she said, looking up at him with a kind of shy and clumsy coquetry. A passenger, noting this play, grew excessively sardonic, and winked at himself in one of the numerous mirrors.

At last they went to the dining-car. Two rows of negro waiters, in glowing white suits, surveyed their entrance with the interest and also the equanimity of men who had been forewarned. The pair fell to the lot of a waiter who happened to feel pleasure in steering them through their meal. He viewed them with the manner of a fatherly pilot, his countenance radiant with benevolence. The patronage, entwined with the ordinary deference, was not plain to them. And yet, as they returned to their coach, they showed in their faces a sense of escape.

To the left, miles down a long purple slope, was a little ribbon of mist where moved the keening Rio Grande[44]. The train was approaching it at an angle, and the apex was Yellow Sky. Presently it was apparent that, as the distance from Yellow Sky grew shorter, the husband became commensurately restless. His brick-red hands were more insistent in their prominence. Occasionally he was even rather absent-minded and far-away when the bride leaned forward and addressed him.

As a matter of truth, Jack Potter was beginning to find the shadow of a deed weigh upon him like a leaden slab. He, the town marshal of Yellow Sky, a man known, liked, and feared in his corner, a prominent person, had gone to San Antonio to meet a girl he believed he loved, and there, after the usual prayers, had actually induced her to marry him, without consulting Yellow Sky for any part of the transaction. He was now bringing his bride before an innocent and unsuspecting community.

Of course, people in Yellow Sky married as it pleased them, in accordance with a general custom; but such was Potter’s thought of his duty to his friends, or of their idea of his duty, or of an unspoken form which does not control men in these matters, that he felt he was heinous. He had committed an extraordinary crime. Face to face with this girl in San Antonio, and spurred by his sharp impulse, he had gone headlong over all the social hedges. At San Antonio he was like a man hidden in the dark. A knife to sever any friendly duty, any form, was easy to his hand in that remote city. But the hour of Yellow Sky, the hour of daylight, was approaching.

He knew full well that his marriage was an important thing to his town. It could only be exceeded by the burning of the new hotel. His friends could not forgive him. Frequently he had reflected on the advisability of telling them by telegraph, but a new cowardice had been upon him. He feared to do it. And now the train was hurrying him toward a scene of amazement, glee, and reproach. He glanced out of the window at the line of haze swinging slowly in towards the train.

Yellow Sky had a kind of brass band, which played painfully, to the delight of the populace. He laughed without heart as he thought of it. If the citizens could dream of his prospective arrival with his bride, they would parade the band at the station and escort them, amid cheers and laughing congratulations, to his adobe home.

He resolved that he would use all the devices of speed and plains-craft in making the journey from the station to his house. Once within that safe citadel he could issue some sort of a vocal bulletin, and then not go among the citizens until they had time to wear off a little of their enthusiasm.

The bride looked anxiously at him. ‘What’s worrying you, Jack?’

He laughed again. ‘I’m not worrying, girl. I’m only thinking of Yellow Sky.’

She flushed in comprehension.

A sense of mutual guilt invaded their minds and developed a finer tenderness. They looked at each other with eyes softly aglow. But Potter often laughed the same nervous laugh. The flush upon the bride’s face seemed quite permanent.

The traitor to the feelings of Yellow Sky narrowly watched the speeding landscape. ‘We’re nearly there,’ he said.

Presently the porter came and announced the proximity of Potter’s home. He held a brush in his hand and, with all his airy superiority gone, he brushed Potter’s new clothes as the latter slowly turned this way and that way. Potter fumbled out a coin and gave it to the porter, as he had seen others do. It was a heavy and muscle-bound business, as that of a man shoeing his first horse.

The porter took their bag, and as the train began to slow they moved forward to the hooded platform of the car. Presently the two engines and their long string of coaches rushed into the station of Yellow Sky.

‘They have to take water here,’ said Potter, from a constricted throat and in mournful cadence, as one announcing death. Before the train stopped, his eye had swept the length of the platform, and he was glad and astonished to see there was none upon it but the station-agent, who, with a slightly hurried and anxious air, was walking toward the water-tanks. When the train had halted, the porter alighted first and placed in position a little temporary step.

‘Come on, girl,’ said Potter hoarsely. As he helped her down they each laughed on a false note. He took the bag from the negro, and bade his wife cling to his arm. As they slunk rapidly away, his hang-dog glance perceived that they were unloading the two trunks, and also that the station-agent far ahead near the baggage-car had turned and was running toward him, making gestures. He laughed, and groaned as he laughed, when he noted the first effect of his marital bliss upon Yellow Sky. He gripped his wife’s arm firmly to his side, and they fled. Behind them the porter stood chuckling fatuously.

II

The California Express on the Southern Railway was due at Yellow Sky in twenty-one minutes. There were six men at the bar of the ‘Weary Gentleman’ saloon. One was a drummer who talked a great deal and rapidly; three were Texans who did not care to talk at that time; and two were Mexican sheep-herders who did not talk as a general practice in the ‘Weary Gentleman’ saloon. The barkeeper’s dog lay on the board walk that crossed in front of the door. His head was on his paws, and he glanced drowsily here and there with the constant vigilance of a dog that is kicked on occasion. Across the sandy street were some vivid green grass plots, so wonderful in appearance amid the sands that burned near them in a blazing sun that they caused a doubt in the mind. They exactly resembled the grass mats used to represent lawns on the stage. At the cooler end of the railway station a man without a coat sat in a tilted chair and smoked his pipe. The fresh-cut bank of the Rio Grande circled near the town, and there could be seen beyond it a great, plum-colored plain of mesquite[45].

Save for the busy drummer and his companions in the saloon, Yellow Sky was dozing. The new-comer leaned gracefully upon the bar, and recited many tales with the confidence of a bard who has come upon a new field.

‘ – and at the moment that the old man fell down stairs with the bureau in his arms, the old woman was coming up with two scuttles of coal, and, of course – ’

The drummer’s tale was interrupted by a young man who suddenly appeared in the open door. He cried: ‘Scratchy Wilson’s drunk, and has turned loose with both hands.’ The two Mexicans at once set down their glasses and faded out of the rear entrance of the saloon.

The drummer, innocent and jocular, answered: ‘All right, old man. S’pose he has. Come in and have a drink, anyhow.’

But the information had made such an obvious cleft in every skull in the room that the drummer was obliged to see its importance. All had become instantly solemn. ‘Say,’ said he, mystified, ‘what is this?’ His three companions made the introductory gesture of eloquent speech, but the young man at the door forestalled them.

‘It means, my friend,’ he answered, as he came into the saloon, ‘that for the next two hours this town won’t be a health resort.’

The barkeeper went to the door and locked and barred it. Reaching out of the window, he pulled in heavy wooden shutters and barred them. Immediately a solemn, chapel-like gloom was upon the place. The drummer was looking from one to another.

‘But, say,’ he cried, ‘what is this, anyhow? You don’t mean there is going to be a gun-fight?’

‘Don’t know whether there’ll be a fight or not,’ answered one man grimly. ‘But there’ll be some shootin’ – some good shootin’.’

The young man who had warned them waved his hand. ‘Oh, there’ll be a fight fast enough if anyone wants it. Anybody can get a fight out there in the street. There’s a fight just waiting.’

The drummer seemed to be swayed between the interest of a foreigner and a perception of personal danger.

‘What did you say his name was?’ he asked.

‘Scratchy Wilson,’ they answered in chorus.

‘And will he kill anybody? What are you going to do? Does this happen often? Does he rampage around like this once a week or so? Can he break in that door?’

‘No, he can’t break down that door,’ replied the barkeeper. ‘He’s tried it three times. But when he comes you’d better lay down on the floor, stranger. He’s dead sure to shoot at it, and a bullet may come through.’

Thereafter the drummer kept a strict eye upon the door. The time had not yet been called for him to hug the floor, but, as a minor precaution, he sidled near to the wall. ‘Will he kill anybody?’ he said again.

The men laughed low and scornfully at the question.

‘He’s out to shoot, and he’s out for trouble. Don’t see any good in experimentin’ with him.’

‘But what do you do in a case like this? What do you do?’

A man responded: ‘Why, he and Jack Potter – ’

‘But,’ in chorus, the other men interrupted, ‘Jack Potter’s in San Anton’.’

‘Well, who is he? What’s he got to do with it?’

‘Oh, he’s the town marshal. He goes out and fights Scratchy when he gets on one of these tears.’

‘Wow,’ said the drummer, mopping his brow. ‘Nice job he’s got.’

The voices had toned away to mere whisperings. The drummer wished to ask further questions which were born of an increasing anxiety and bewilderment; but when he attempted them, the men merely looked at him in irritation and motioned him to remain silent. A tense waiting hush was upon them. In the deep shadows of the room their eyes shone as they listened for sounds from the street. One man made three gestures at the barkeeper, and the latter, moving like a ghost, handed him a glass and a bottle. The man poured a full glass of whisky, and set down the bottle noiselessly. He gulped the whisky in a swallow, and turned again toward the door in immovable silence. The drummer saw that the barkeeper, without a sound, had taken a Winchester from beneath the bar. Later he saw this individual beckoning to him, so he tiptoed across the room.

‘You better come with me back of the bar.’

‘No, thanks,’ said the drummer, perspiring. ‘I’d rather be where I can make a break for the back door.’

Whereupon the man of bottles made a kindly but peremptory gesture. The drummer obeyed it, and finding himself seated on a box with his head below the level of the bar, balm was laid upon his soul at sight of various zinc and copper fittings that bore a resemblance to armor-plate. The barkeeper took a seat comfortably upon an adjacent box.

‘You see,’ he whispered, ‘this here Scratchy Wilson is a wonder with a gun – a perfect wonder – and when he goes on the war trail, we hunt our holes – naturally. He’s about the last one of the old gang that used to hang out along the river here. He’s a terror when he’s drunk. When he’s sober he’s all right – kind of simple – wouldn’t hurt a fly – nicest fellow in town. But when he’s drunk – whoo!’

There were periods of stillness. ‘I wish Jack Potter was back from San Anton’,’ said the barkeeper. ‘He shot Wilson up once – in the leg – and he would sail in and pull out the kinks in this thing.’

Presently they heard from a distance the sound of a shot, followed by three wild yowls. It instantly removed a bond from the men in the darkened saloon. There was a shuffling of feet. They looked at each other. ‘Here he comes,’ they said.

III

A man in a maroon-colored[46] flannel shirt, which had been purchased for purposes of decoration and made, principally, by some Jewish women on the east side of New York, rounded a corner and walked into the middle of the main street of Yellow Sky. In either hand the man held a long, heavy, blue-black revolver. Often he yelled, and these cries rang through a semblance of a deserted village, shrilly flying over the roofs in a volume that seemed to have no relation to the ordinary vocal strength of a man. It was as if the surrounding stillness formed the arch of a tomb over him. These cries of ferocious challenge rang against walls of silence. And his boots had red tops with gilded imprints, of the kind beloved in winter by little sledding boys on the hillsides of New England.

The man’s face flamed in a rage begot of whisky. His eyes, rolling and yet keen for ambush, hunted the still doorways and windows. He walked with the creeping movement of the midnight cat. As it occurred to him, he roared menacing information. The long revolvers in his hands were as easy as straws; they were moved with an electric swiftness. The little fingers of each hand played sometimes in a musician’s way. Plain from the low collar of the shirt, the cords of his neck straightened and sank, straightened and sank, as passion moved him. The only sounds were his terrible invitations. The calm adobes preserved their demeanor at the passing of this small thing in the middle of the street.

There was no offer of fight; no offer of fight. The man called to the sky. There were no attractions. He bellowed and fumed and swayed his revolvers here and everywhere.

The dog of the barkeeper of the ‘Weary Gentleman’ saloon had not appreciated the advance of events. He yet lay dozing in front of his master’s door. At sight of the dog, the man paused and raised his revolver humorously. At sight of the man, the dog sprang up and walked diagonally away, with a sullen head, and growling. The man yelled, and the dog broke into a gallop. As it was about to enter an alley, there was a loud noise, a whistling, and something spat the ground directly before it. The dog screamed, and, wheeling in terror, galloped headlong in a new direction. Again there was a noise, a whistling, and sand was kicked viciously before it. Fear-stricken, the dog turned and flurried like an animal in a pen. The man stood laughing, his weapons at his hips.

Ultimately the man was attracted by the closed door of the ‘Weary Gentleman’ saloon. He went to it, and hammering with a revolver, demanded drink.

The door remaining imperturbable, he picked a bit of paper from the walk and nailed it to the framework with a knife. He then turned his back contemptuously upon this popular resort, and walking to the opposite side of the street, and spinning there on his heel quickly and lithely, fired at the bit of paper. He missed it by a half inch. He swore at himself, and went away. Later, he comfortably fusilladed the windows of his most intimate friend. The man was playing with this town. It was a toy for him.

But still there was no offer of fight. The name of Jack Potter, his ancient antagonist, entered his mind, and he concluded that it would be a glad thing if he should go to Potter’s house and by bombardment induce him to come out and fight. He moved in the direction of his desire, chanting Apache[47] scalp-music[48].

When he arrived at it, Potter’s house presented the same still front as had the other adobes. Taking up a strategic position, the man howled a challenge. But this house regarded him as might a great stone god. It gave no sign. After a decent wait, the man howled further challenges, mingling with them wonderful epithets.

Presently there came the spectacle of a man churning himself into deepest rage over the immobility of a house. He fumed at it as the winter wind attacks a prairie cabin in the North. To the distance there should have gone the sound of a tumult like the fighting of 200 Mexicans. As necessity bade him, he paused for breath or to reload his revolvers.

IV

Potter and his bride walked sheepishly and with speed. Sometimes they laughed together shamefacedly and low.

‘Next corner, dear,’ he said finally.

They put forth the efforts of a pair walking bowed against a strong wind. Potter was about to raise a finger to point the first appearance of the new home when, as they circled the corner, they came face to face with a man in a maroon-colored shirt who was feverishly pushing cartridges into a large revolver. Upon the instant the man dropped his revolver to the ground, and, like lightning, whipped another from its holster. The second weapon was aimed at the bridegroom’s chest.

There was silence. Potter’s mouth seemed to be merely a grave for his tongue. He exhibited an instinct to at once loosen his arm from the woman’s grip, and he dropped the bag to the sand. As for the bride, her face had gone as yellow as old cloth. She was a slave to hideous rites gazing at the apparitional snake.

The two men faced each other at a distance of three paces. He of the revolver smiled with a new and quiet ferocity.

‘Tried to sneak up on me,’ he said. ‘Tried to sneak up on me!’ His eyes grew more baleful. As Potter made a slight movement, the man thrust his revolver venomously forward. ‘No, don’t you do it, Jack Potter. Don’t you move a finger toward a gun just yet. Don’t you move an eyelash. The time has come for me to settle with you, and I’m goin’ to do it my own way and loaf along with no interferin’. So if you don’t want a gun bent on you, just mind what I tell you.’

Potter looked at his enemy. ‘I ain’t got a gun on me, Scratchy,’ he said. ‘Honest, I ain’t.’ He was stiffening and steadying, but yet somewhere at the back of his mind a vision of the Pullman floated, the sea-green figured velvet, the shining brass, silver, and glass, the wood that gleamed as darkly brilliant as the surface of a pool of oil – all the glory of the marriage, the environment of the new estate. ‘You know I fight when it comes to fighting, Scratchy Wilson, but I ain’t got a gun on me. You’ll have to do all the shootin’ yourself.’

His enemy’s face went livid. He stepped forward and lashed his weapon to and fro before Potter’s chest. ‘Don’t you tell me you ain’t got no gun on you, you whelp. Don’t tell me no lie like that. There ain’t a man in Texas ever seen you without no gun. Don’t take me for no kid.’ His eyes blazed with light, and his throat worked like a pump.

‘I ain’t takin’ you for no kid,’ answered Potter. His heels had not moved an inch backward. ‘I’m takin’ you for a – fool. I tell you I ain’t got a gun, and I ain’t. If you’re goin’ to shoot me up, you better begin now. You’ll never get a chance like this again.’

So much enforced reasoning had told on Wilson’s rage. He was calmer. ‘If you ain’t got a gun, why ain’t you got a gun?’ he sneered. ‘Been to Sunday-school?’

‘I ain’t got a gun because I’ve just come from San Anton’ with my wife. I’m married,’ said Potter. ‘And if I’d thought there was going to be any galoots like you prowling around when I brought my wife home, I’d had a gun, and don’t you forget it.’

‘Married!’ said Scratchy, not at all comprehending.

‘Yes, married. I’m married,’ said Potter distinctly.

‘Married?’ said Scratchy. Seemingly for the first time he saw the drooping, drowning woman at the other man’s side. ‘No!’ he said. He was like a creature allowed a glimpse of another world. He moved a pace backward, and his arm with the revolver dropped to his side. ‘Is this the lady?’ he asked.

‘Yes, this is the lady,’ answered Potter.

There was another period of silence.

‘Well,’ said Wilson at last, slowly, ‘I s’pose it’s all off now.’

‘It’s all off if you say so, Scratchy. You know I didn’t make the trouble.’ Potter lifted his valise.

‘Well, I ’low it’s off, Jack,’ said Wilson. He was looking at the ground. ‘Married!’ He was not a student of chivalry; it was merely that in the presence of this foreign condition he was a simple child of the earlier plains. He picked up his starboard revolver, and placing both weapons in their holsters, he went away. His feet made funnel-shaped tracks in the heavy sand.

Francis Marion Crawford

The Upper Berth

Chapter I

Somebody asked for the cigars. We had talked long, and the conversation as beginning to languish; the tobacco smoke had got into the heavy curtains, he wine had got into those brains which were liable to become heavy, and it was already perfectly evident that, unless somebody did something to rouse our oppressed spirits, the meeting would soon come to its natural conclusion, and we, the guests, would speedily go home to bed, and most certainly to sleep.

No one had said anything very remarkable; it may be that no one had anything very remarkable to say. Jones had given us every particular of his last hunting adventure in Yorkshire. Mr. Tompkins, of Boston, had explained at elaborate length those working principles, by the due and careful maintenance of which the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé Railroad[49] not only extended its territory, increased its departmental influence, and transported live stock without starving them to death before the day of actual delivery, but, also, had for years succeeded in deceiving those passengers who bought its tickets into the fallacious belief that the corporation aforesaid was really able to transport human life without destroying it.

Signor Tombola had endeavoured to persuade us, by arguments which we took no trouble to oppose, that the unity of his country in no way resembled the average modern torpedo, carefully planned, constructed with all the skill of the greatest European arsenals, but, when constructed, destined to be directed by feeble hands into a region where it must undoubtedly explode, unseen, unfeared, and unheard, into the illimitable wastes of political chaos.

It is unnecessary to go into further details. The conversation had assumed proportions which would have bored Prometheus[50] on his rock, which would have driven Tantalus[51] to distraction, and which would have impelled Ixion[52] to seek relaxation in the simple but instructive dialogues of Herr Ollendorff, rather than submit to the greater evil of listening to our talk. We had sat at table for hours; we were bored, we were tired, and nobody showed signs of moving.

Somebody called for cigars. We all instinctively looked towards the speaker. Brisbane was a man of five-and-thirty years of age, and remarkable for those gifts which chiefly attract the attention of men. He was a strong man. The external proportions of his figure presented nothing extraordinary to the common eye, though his size was above the average. He was a little over six feet in height, and moderately broad in the shoulder; he did not appear to be stout, but, on the other hand, he was certainly not thin; his small head was supported by a strong and sinewy neck; his broad, muscular hands appeared to possess a peculiar skill in breaking walnuts without the assistance of the ordinary cracker, and, seeing him in profile, one could not help remarking the extraordinary breadth of his sleeves, and the unusual thickness of his chest. He was one of those men who are commonly spoken of among men as deceptive; that is to say, that though he looked exceedingly strong he was in reality very much stronger than he looked. Of his features I need say little. His head was small, his hair is thin, his eyes are blue, his nose is large, he has a small moustache, and a square jaw. Everybody knows Brisbane, and when he asked for a cigar everybody looked at him.

‘It is a very singular thing,’ said Brisbane.

Everybody stopped talking. Brisbane’s voice was not loud, but possessed a peculiar quality of penetrating general conversation, and cutting it like a knife. Everybody listened. Brisbane, perceiving that he had attracted their general attention, lit his cigar with great equanimity.

‘It is very singular,’ he continued, ‘that thing about ghosts. People are always asking whether anybody has seen a ghost. I have.’

‘Bosh! What, you? You don’t mean to say so, Brisbane? Well, for a man of his intelligence!’

A chorus of exclamations greeted Brisbane’s remarkable statement. Everybody called for cigars, and Stubbs, the butler, suddenly appeared from the depths of nowhere with a fresh bottle of dry champagne. The situation was saved; Brisbane was going to tell a story.

I am an old sailor, said Brisbane, and as I have to cross the Atlantic pretty often, I have my favourites. Most men have their favourites. I have seen a man wait in a Broadway bar for three-quarters of an hour for a particular car which he liked. I believe the bar-keeper made at least one-third of his living by that man’s preference. I have a habit of waiting for certain ships when I am obliged to cross that duck-pond. It may be a prejudice, but I was never cheated out of a good passage but once in my life. I remember it very well; it was a warm morning in June, and the Custom House officials, who were hanging about waiting for a steamer already on her way up from the Quarantine, presented a peculiarly hazy and thoughtful appearance. I had not much luggage – I never have. I mingled with the crowd of passengers, porters, and officious individuals in blue coats and brass buttons, who seemed to spring up like mushrooms from the deck of a moored steamer to obtrude their unnecessary services upon the independent passenger. I have often noticed with a certain interest the spontaneous evolution of these fellows. They are not there when you arrive; five minutes after the pilot has called ‘Go ahead!’ they, or at least their blue coats and brass buttons, have disappeared from deck and gangway as completely as though they had been consigned to that locker which tradition ascribes to Davy Jones. But, at the moment of starting, they are there, clean shaved, blue coated, and ravenous for fees. I hastened on board. The Kamtschatka was one of my favourite ships. I say was, because she emphatically no longer is. I cannot conceive of any inducement which could entice me to make another voyage in her. Yes, I know what you are going to say. She is uncommonly clean in the run aft, she has enough bluffing off in the bows to keep her dry, and the lower berths are most of them double. She has a lot of advantages, but I won’t cross in her again. Excuse the digression. I got on board. I hailed a steward, whose red nose and redder whiskers were equally familiar to me.

‘One hundred and five, lower berth,’ said I, in the businesslike tone peculiar to men who think no more of crossing the Atlantic than taking a whisky cocktail at down-town Delmonico’s.

The steward took my portmanteau, greatcoat, and rug. I shall never forget the expression on his face. Not that he turned pale. It is maintained by the most eminent divines that even miracles cannot change the course of nature. I have no hesitation in saying that he did not turn pale; but, from his expression, I judged that he was either about to shed tears, to sneeze, or to drop my portmanteau. As the latter contained two bottles of particularly fine old sherry presented to me for my voyage by my old friend Snigginson van Pickyns, I felt extremely nervous. But the steward did none of these things.

‘Well, I’m d – d!’ said he in a low voice, and led the way.

I supposed my Hermes[53], as he led me to the lower regions, had had a little grog, but I said nothing, and followed him. One hundred and five was on the port side, well aft. There was nothing remarkable about the state-room. The lower berth, like most of those upon the Kamtschatka, was double. There was plenty of room; there was the usual washing apparatus, calculated to convey an idea of luxury to the mind of a North American Indian; there were the usual inefficient racks of brown wood, in which it is more easy to hand a large-sized umbrella than the common tooth-brush of commerce. Upon the uninviting mattresses were carefully bolded together those blankets which a great modern humorist has aptly compared to cold buckwheat cakes. The question of towels was left entirely to the imagination. The glass decanters were filled with a transparent liquid faintly tinged with brown, but from which an odour less faint, but not more pleasing, ascended to the nostrils, like a far-off sea-sick reminiscence of oily machinery. Sad-coloured curtains half-closed the upper berth. The hazy June daylight shed a faint illumination upon the desolate little scene. Ugh! how I hate that state-room!

The steward deposited my traps and looked at me, as though he wanted to get away – probably in search of more passengers and more fees. It is always a good plan to start in favour with those functionaries, and I accordingly gave him certain coins there and then.

‘I’ll try and make yer comfortable all I can,’ he remarked, as he put the coins in his pocket. Nevertheless, there was a doubtful intonation in his voice which surprised me. Possibly his scale of fees had gone up, and he was not satisfied; but on the whole I was inclined to think that, as he himself would have expressed it, he was “the better for a glass”. I was wrong, however, and did the man injustice.

Chapter II

Nothing especially worthy of mention occurred during that day. We left the pier punctually, and it was very pleasant to be fairly under way, for the weather was warm and sultry, and the motion of the steamer produced a refreshing breeze. Everybody knows what the first day at sea is like. People pace the decks and stare at each other, and occasionally meet acquaintances whom they did not know to be on board. There is the usual uncertainty as to whether the food will be good, bad, or indifferent, until the first two meals have put the matter beyond a doubt; there is the usual uncertainty about the weather, until the ship is fairly off Fire Island. The tables are crowded at first, and then suddenly thinned. Pale-faced people spring from their seats and precipitate themselves towards the door, and each old sailor breathes more freely as his sea-sick neighbour rushes from his side, leaving him plenty of elbow-room and an unlimited command over the mustard.

One passage across the Atlantic is very much like another, and we who cross very often do not make the voyage for the sake of novelty. Whales and icebergs are indeed always objects of interest, but, after all, one whale is very much like another whale, and one rarely sees an iceberg at close quarters. To the majority of us the most delightful moment of the day on board an ocean steamer is when we have taken our last turn on deck, have smoked our last cigar, and having succeeded in tiring ourselves, feel at liberty to turn in with a clear conscience. On that first night of the voyage I felt particularly lazy, and went to bed in one hundred and five rather earlier than I usually do. As I turned in, I was amazed to see that I was to have a companion. A portmanteau, very like my own, lay in the opposite corner, and in the upper berth had been deposited a neatly-folded rug, with a stick and umbrella. I had hoped to be alone, and I was disappointed; but I wondered who my room-mate was to be, and I determined to have a look at him.

Before I had been long in bed he entered. He was, as far as I could see, a very tall man, very thin, very pale, with sandy hair and whiskers and colourless grey eyes. He had about him, I thought, an air of rather dubious fashion; the short of man you might see in Wall Street, without being able precisely to say what he was doing there – the sort of man who frequents the Café Anglais, who always seems to be alone and who drinks champagne; you might meet him on a racecourse, but he would never appear to be doing anything there either. A little over-dressed – a little odd. There are three or four of his kind on every ocean steamer. I made up my mind that I did not care to make his acquaintance, and I went to sleep saying to myself that I would study his habits in order to avoid him. If he rose early, I would rise late; if he went to bed late, I would go to bed early. I did not care to know him. If you once know people of that kind they are always turning up. Poor fellow! I need not have taken the trouble to come to so many decisions about him, for I never saw him again after that first night in one hundred and five.

I was sleeping soundly when I was suddenly waked by a loud noise. To judge from the sound, my room-mate must have sprung with a single leap from the upper berth to the floor. I heard him fumbling with the latch and bolt of the door, which opened almost immediately, and then I heard his footsteps as he ran at full speed down the passage, leaving the door open behind him. The ship was rolling a little, and I expected to hear him stumble or fall, but he ran as though he were running for his life. The door swung on its hinges with the motion of the vessel, and the sound annoyed me. I got up and shut it, and groped my way back to my berth in the darkness. I went to sleep again; but I have no idea how long I slept.

When I awoke it was still quite dark, but I felt a disagreeable sensation of cold, and it seemed to me that the air was damp. You know the peculiar smell of a cabin which has been wet with sea-water. I covered myself up as well as I could and dozed off again, framing complaints to be made the next day, and selecting the most powerful epithets in the language. I could hear my room-mate turn over in the upper berth. He had probably returned while I was asleep. Once I thought I heard him groan, and I argued that he was sea-sick. That is particularly unpleasant when one is below. Nevertheless I dozed off and slept till early daylight.

The ship was rolling heavily, much more than on the previous evening, and the grey light which came in through the porthole changed in tint with every movement according as the angle of the vessel’s side turned the glass seawards or skywards. It was very cold – unaccountably so for the month of June. I turned my head and looked at the porthole, and saw to my surprise that it was wide open and hooked back. I believe I swore audibly. Then I got up and shut it. As I turned back I glanced at the upper berth. The curtains were drawn close together; my companion had probably felt cold as well as I. It struck me that I had slept enough. The state-room was uncomfortable, though, strange to say, I could not smell the dampness which had annoyed me in the night. My room-mate was still asleep – excellent opportunity for avoiding him, so I dressed at once and went on deck. The day was warm and cloudy, with an oily smell on the water. It was seven o’clock as I came out – much later than I had imagined. I came across the doctor, who was taking his first sniff of the morning air. He was a young man from the West of Ireland – a tremendous fellow, with black hair and blue eyes, already inclined to be stout; he had a happy-go-lucky, healthy look about him which was rather attractive.

‘Fine morning,’ I remarked, by way of introduction.

‘Well,’ said he, eyeing me with an air of ready interest, ‘it’s a fine morning and it’s not a fine morning. I don’t think it’s much of a morning.’

‘Well, no – it is not so very fine,’ said I.

‘It’s just what I call fuggly weather,’ replied the doctor.

‘It was very cold last night, I thought,’ I remarked. ‘However, when I looked about, I found that the porthole was wide open. I had not noticed it when I went to bed. And the state-room was damp, too.’

‘Damp!’ said he. ‘Whereabouts are you?’

‘One hundred and five – ’

To my surprise the doctor started visibly, and stared at me.

‘What is the matter?’ I asked.

‘Oh – nothing,’ he answered; ‘only everybody has complained of that state-room for the last three trips.’

‘I shall complain too,’ I said. ‘It has certainly not been properly aired. It is a shame!’

‘I don’t believe it can be helped,’ answered the doctor. ‘I believe there is something – well, it is not my business to frighten passengers.’

‘You need not be afraid of frightening me,’ I replied. ‘I can stand any amount of damp. If I should get a bad cold I will come to you.’

I offered the doctor a cigar, which he took and examined very critically.

‘It is not so much the damp,’ he remarked. ‘However, I dare say you will get on very well. Have you a room-mate?’

‘Yes; a deuce of a fellow, who bolts out in the middle of the night, and leaves the door open.’

Again the doctor glanced curiously at me. Then he lit the cigar and looked grave.

‘Did he come back?’ he asked presently.

‘Yes. I was asleep, but I waked up, and heard him moving. Then I felt cold and went to sleep again. This morning I found the porthole open.’

‘Look here,’ said the doctor quietly, ‘I don’t care much for this ship. I don’t care a rap for her reputation. I tell you what I will do. I have a good-sized place up here. I will share it with you, though I don’t know you from Adam.’

I was very much surprised at the proposition. I could not imagine why he should take such a sudden interest in my welfare. However, his manner as he spoke of the ship was peculiar.

‘You are very good, doctor,’ I said. ‘But, really, I believe even now the cabin could be aired, or cleaned out, or something. Why do you not care for the ship?’

‘We are not superstitious in our profession, sir,’ replied the doctor, ‘but the sea makes people so. I don’t want to prejudice you, and I don’t want to frighten you, but if you will take my advice you will move in here. I would as soon see you overboard,” he added earnestly, “as know that you or any other man was to sleep in one hundred and five.’

‘Good gracious! Why?’ I asked.

‘Just because on the last three trips the people who have slept there actually have gone overboard,’ he answered gravely.

The intelligence was startling and exceedingly unpleasant, I confess. I looked hard at the doctor to see whether he was making game of me, but he looked perfectly serious. I thanked him warmly for his offer, but told him I intended to be the exception to the rule by which everyone who slept in that particular state-room went overboard. He did not say much, but looked as grave as ever, and hinted that, before we got across, I should probably reconsider his proposal. In the course of time we went to breakfast, at which only an inconsiderable number of passengers assembled. I noticed that one or two of the officers who breakfasted with us looked grave. After breakfast I went into my state-room in order to get a book. The curtains of the upper berth were still closely drawn. Not a word was to be heard. My room-mate was probably still asleep.

As I came out I met the steward whose business it was to look after me. He whispered that the captain wanted to see me, and then scuttled away down the passage as if very anxious to avoid any questions. I went toward the captain’s cabin, and found him waiting for me.

‘Sir,’ said he, ‘I want to ask a favour of you.’

I answered that I would do anything to oblige him.

‘Your room-mate had disappeared,’ he said. ‘He is known to have turned in early last night. Did you notice anything extraordinary in his manner?’

The question coming, as it did, in exact confirmation of the fears the doctor had expressed half an hour earlier, staggered me.

‘You don’t mean to say he has gone overboard?’ I asked.

‘I fear he has,’ answered the captain.

‘This is the most extraordinary thing – ’ I began.

‘Why?’ he asked.

‘He is the fourth, then?’ I exclaimed. In answer to another question from the captain, I explained, without mentioning the doctor, that I had heard the story concerning one hundred and five. He seemed very much annoyed at hearing that I knew of it. I told him what had occurred in the night.

‘What you say,’ he replied, ‘coincides almost exactly with what was told me by the room-mates of two of the other three. They bolt out of bed and run down the passage. Two of them were seen to go overboard by the watch; we stopped and lowered boats, but they were not found. Nobody, however, saw or heard the man who was lost last night – if he is really lost. The steward, who is a superstitious fellow, perhaps, and expected something to go wrong, went to look for him, this morning, and found his berth empty, but his clothes lying about, just as he had left them. The steward was the only man on board who knew him by sight, and he has been searching everywhere for him. He has disappeared! Now, sir, I want to beg you not to mention the circumstance to any of the passengers; I don’t want the ship to get a bad name, and nothing hangs about an ocean-goer like stories of suicides. You shall have your choice of any one of the officers’ cabins you like, including my own, for the rest of the passage. Is that a fair bargain?’

‘Very,’ said I; ‘and I am much obliged to you. But since I am alone, and have the state-room to myself, I would rather not move. If the steward will take out that unfortunate man’s things, I would as leave stay where I am. I will not say anything about the matter, and I think I can promise you that I will not follow my room-mate.’

The captain tried to dissuade me from my intention, but I preferred having a state-room alone to being the chum of any officer on board. I do not know whether I aced foolishly, but if I had taken his advice I should have had nothing more to tell. There would have remained the disagreeable coincidence of several suicides occurring among men who had slept in the same cabin, but that would have been all.

That was not the end of the matter, however, by any means. I obstinately made up my mind that I would not be disturbed by such tales, and I even went so far as to argue the question with the captain. There was something wrong about the state-room, I said. It was rather damp. The porthole had been left open last night. My room-mate might have been ill when he came on board, and he might have become delirious after he went to bed. He might even now be hiding somewhere on board, and might be found later. The place ought to be aired and the fastening on the port looked to. If the captain would give me leave, I would see that what I thought necessary were done immediately.

‘Of course you have a right to stay where you are if you please,’ he replied, rather petulantly; ‘but I wish you would turn out and let me lock the place up, and be done with it.’

I did not see it in the same light, and left the captain, after promising to be silent concerning the disappearance of my companion. The latter had had no acquaintances on board, and was not missed in the course of the day. Towards evening I met the doctor again, and he asked me whether I had changed my mind. I told him I had not.

‘Then you will before long,’ he said, very gravely.

Chapter III

We played whist in the evening, and I went to bed late. I will confess now that I felt a disagreeable sensation when I entered my state-room. I could not help thinking of the tall man I had seen on the previous night, who was now dead, drowned, tossing about in the long swell, two or three hundred miles astern. His face rose very distinctly before me as I undressed, and I even went so far as to draw back the curtains of the upper berth, as though to persuade myself that he was actually gone. I also bolted the door of the state-room. Suddenly I became aware that the porthole was open, and fastened back. This was more than I could stand. I hastily threw on my dressing-gown and went in search of Robert, the steward of my passage. I was very angry, I remember, and when I found him I dragged him roughly to the door of one hundred and five, and pushed him towards the open porthole.

‘What the deuce do you mean, you scoundrel, by leaving that port open every night? Don’t you know it is against the regulations? Don’t you know that if the ship heeled and the water began to come in, ten men could not shut it? I will report you to the captain, you blackguard, for endangering the ship!’

I was exceedingly wroth. The man trembled and turned pale, and then began to shut the round glass plate with the heavy brass fittings.

‘Why don’t you answer me?’ I said roughly.

‘If you please, sir,’ faltered Robert, ‘there’s nobody on board as can keep this ’ere port shut at night. You can try it yourself, sir. I ain’t a-going to stop hany longer on board o’ this vessel, sir; I ain’t, indeed. But if I was you, sir, I’d just clear out and go and sleep with the surgeon, or something, I would. Look ’ere, sir, is that fastened what you may call securely, or not, sir? Try it, sir, see if it will move a hinch.’

I tried the port, and found it perfectly tight.

‘Well, sir,’ continued Robert triumphantly, ‘I wager my reputation as a A1 steward that in ’arf an hour it will be open again; fasteneed back, too, sir, that’s the horful thing – fastened back!’

I examined the great screw and the looped nut that ran on it.

‘If I find it open in the night, Robert, I will give you a sovereign. It is not possible. You may go.’

‘Soverin’ did you say, sir? Very good, sir. Thank ye, sir. Good-night, sir. Pleasant reepose, sir, and all manner of hinchantin’ dreams, sir.’

Robert scuttled away, delighted at being released. Of course, I thought he was trying to account for his negligence by a silly story, intended to frighten me, and I disbelieved him. The consequence was that he got his sovereign, and I spent a very peculiarly unpleasant night.

I went to bed, and five minutes after I had rolled myself up in my blankets the inexorable Robert extinguished the light that burned steadily behind the ground-glass pane near the door. I lay quite still in the dark trying to go to sleep, but I soon found that impossible. It had been some satisfaction to be angry with the steward, and the diversion had banished that unpleasant sensation I had at first experienced when I thought of the drowned man who had been my chum; but I was no longer sleepy, and I lay awake for some time, occasionally glancing at the porthole, which I could just see from where I lay, and which, in the darkness, looked like a faintly-luminous soup-plate suspended in blackness. I believe I must have lain there for an hour, and, as I remember, I was just dozing into sleep when I was roused by a draught of cold air, and by distinctly feeling the spray of the sea blown upon my face. I started to my feet, and not having allowed in the dark for the motion of the ship, I was instantly thrown violently across the state-room upon the couch which was placed beneath the port-hole. I recovered myself immediately, however, and climbed upon my knees. The port-hole was again wide open and fastened back!

Now these things are facts. I was wide awake when I got up, and I should certainly have been waked by the fall had I still been dozing. Moreover, I bruised my elbows and knees badly, and the bruises were there on the following morning to testify to the fact, if I myself had doubted it. The porthole was wide open and fastened back – a thing so unaccountable that I remember very well feeling astonishment rather that fear when I discovered it. I at once closed the plate again, and screwed down the loop nut with all my strength. It was very dark in the state-room. I reflected that the port had certainly been opened within an hour after Robert had at first shut it in my presence, and I determined to watch it, and see whether it would open again. Those brass fittings are very heavy and by no means easy to move; I could not believe that the clamp had been turned by the shaking of the screw. I stood peering out through the thick glass at the alternate white and grey streaks of the sea that foamed beneath the ship’s side. I must have remained there a quarter of an hour.

Suddenly, as I stood, I distinctly heard something moving behind me in one of the berths, and a moment afterwards, just as I turned instinctively to look – though I could, of course, see nothing in the darkness – I heard a very faint groan. I sprang across the state-room, and tore the curtains of the upper berth aside, thrusting in my hands to discover if there were any one there. There was some one.

I remember that the sensation as I put my hands forward was as though I were plunging them into the air of a damp cellar, and from behind the curtains came a gust of wind that smelled horribly of stagnant sea-water. I laid hold of something that had the shape of a man’s arm, but was smooth, and wet, and icy cold. But suddenly, as I pulled, the creature sprang violently forward against me, a clammy oozy mass, as it seemed to me, heavy and wet, yet endowed with a sort of supernatural strength. I reeled across the state-room, and in an instant the door opened and the thing rushed out. I had not had time to be frightened, and quickly recovering myself, I sprang through the door and gave chase at the top of my speed, but I was too late. Ten yards before me I could see – I am sure I saw it – a dark shadow moving in the dimly lighted passage, quickly as the shadow of a fast horse thrown before a dog-cart by the lamp on a dark night. But in a moment it had disappeared, and I found myself holding on to the polished rail that ran along the bulkhead where the passage turned towards the companion. My hair stood on end, and the cold perspiration rolled down my face. I am not ashamed of it in the least: I was very badly frightened.

Still I doubted my senses, and pulled myself together. It was absurd, I thought. The Welsh rare-bit I had eaten had disagreed with me. I had been in a nightmare. I made my way back to my state-room, and entered it with an effort. The whole place smelled of stagnant sea-water, as it had when I had waked on the previous evening. It required my utmost strength to go in, and grope among my things for a box of wax lights. As I lighted a railway reading lantern which I always carry in case I want to read after the lamps are out, I perceived that the porthole was again open, and a sort of creeping horror began to take possession of me which I never felt before, nor wish to feel again. But I got a light and proceeded to examine the upper berth, expecting to find it drenched with sea-water.

But I was disappointed. The bed had been slept in, and the smell of the sea was strong; but the bedding was as dry as a bone. I fancied that Robert had not had the courage to make the bed after the accident of the previous night – it had all been a hideous dream. I drew the curtains back as far as I could and examined the place very carefully. It was perfectly dry. But the porthole was open again. With a sort of dull bewilderment of horror I closed it and screwed it down, and thrusting my heavy stick through the brass loop, wrenched it with all my might, till the thick metal began to bend under the pressure. Then I hooked my reading lantern into the red velvet at the head of the couch, and sat down to recover my senses if I could. I sat there all night, unable to think of rest – hardly able to think at all. But the porthole remained closed, and I did not believe it would now open again without the application of a considerable force.

The morning dawned at last, and I dressed myself slowly, thinking over all that had happened in the night. It was a beautiful day and I went on deck, glad to get out into the early, pure sunshine, and to smell the breeze from the blue water, so different from the noisome, stagnant odour of my state-room. Instinctively I turned aft, towards the surgeon’s cabin. There he stood, with a pipe in his mouth, taking his morning airing precisely as on the preceding day.

‘Good-morning,’ said he quietly, but looking at me with evident curiosity.

‘Doctor, you were quite right,’ said I. ‘There is something wrong about that place.’

‘I thought you would change your mind,’ he answered, rather triumphantly. ‘You have had a bad night, eh? Shall I make you a pick-me-up? I have a capital recipe.’

‘No, thanks,’ I cried. ‘But I would like to tell you what happened.’

I then tried to explain as clearly as possible precisely what had occurred, not omitting to state that I had been scared as I had never been scared in my whole life before. I dwelt particularly on the phenomenon of the porthole, which was a fact to which I could testify, even if the rest had been an illusion. I had closed it twice in the night, and the second time I had actually bent the brass in wrenching it with my stick. I believe I insisted a good deal on this point.

‘You seem to think I am likely to doubt the story,’ said the doctor, smiling at my detailed account of the state of the porthole. ‘I do not doubt in the least. I renew my invitation to you. Bring your traps here, and take half my cabin.’

‘Come and take half of mine for one night,’ I said. ‘Help me to get at the bottom of this thing.’

‘You will get to the bottom of something else if you try,’ answered the doctor.

‘What?’ I asked.

‘The bottom of the sea. I am going to leave this ship. It is not canny.’

‘Then you will not help me to find out – ’

‘Not I,’ said the doctor quickly. ‘It is my business to keep my wits about me – not to go fiddling about with ghosts and things.’

‘Do you really believe it is a ghost?’ I enquired, rather contemptuously. But as I spoke I remembered very well the horrible sensation of the supernatural which had got possession of me during the night. The doctor turned sharply on me —

‘Have you any reasonable explanation of these things to offer?’ he asked. ‘No; you have not. Well, you say you will find an explanation. I say that you won’t, sir, simply because there is not any.’

‘But, my dear sir,’ I retorted, ‘do you, a man of science, mean to tell me that such things cannot be explained?’

‘I do,’ he answered stoutly. ‘And, if they could, I would not be concerned in the explanation.’

I did not care to spend another night alone in the state-room, and yet I was obstinately determined to get at the root of the disturbances. I do not believe there are many men who would have slept there alone, after passing two such nights. But I made up my mind to try it, if I could not get anyone to share a watch with me. The doctor was evidently not inclined for such an experiment. He said he was a surgeon, and that in case any accident occurred on board he must be always in readiness. He could not afford to have his nerves unsettled. Perhaps he was quite right, but I am inclined to think that his precaution was prompted by his inclination. On enquiry, he informed me that there was no one on board who would be likely to join me in my investigations, and after a little more conversation I left him. A little later I met the captain, and told him my story. I said that, if no one would spend the night with me, I would ask leave to have the light burning all night, and would try it alone.

‘Look here,’ said he, ‘I will tell you what I will do. I will share your watch myself, and we will see what happens. It is my belief that we can find out between us. There may be some fellow skulking on board, who steals a passage by frightening the passengers. It is just possible that there may be something queer in the carpentering of that berth.’

I suggested taking the ship’s carpenter below and examining the place; but I was overjoyed at the captain’s offer to spend the night with me. He accordingly sent for the workman and ordered him to do anything I required. We went below at once. I had all the bedding cleared out of the upper berth, and we examined the place thoroughly to see if there was a board loose anywhere, or a panel which could be opened or pushed aside. We tried the planks everywhere, tapped the flooring, unscrewed the fittings of the lower berth and took it to pieces – in short, there was not a square inch of the state-room which was not searched and tested. Everything was in perfect order, and we put everything back in its place. As we were finishing our work, Robert came to the door and looked in.

‘Well, sir – find anything, sir?’ he asked, with a ghastly grin.

‘You were right about the porthole, Robert,’ I said, and I gave him the promised sovereign. The carpenter did his work silently and skilfully, following my directions. When he had done he spoke.

‘I’m a plain man, sir,’ he said. ‘But it’s my belief you had better just turn out your things, and let me run half a dozen four-inch screws through the door of this cabin. There’s no good never came o’ this cabin yet, sir, and that’s all about it. There’s been four lives lost out o’ here to my own remembrance, and that is four trips. Better give it up, sir – better give it up!’

‘I will try it for one night more,’ I said.

‘Better give it up, sir – better give it up! It’s a precious bad job,’ repeated the workman, putting his tools in his bag and leaving the cabin.

But my spirits had risen considerably at the prospect of having the captain’s company, and I made up my mind not to be prevented from going to the end of this strange business. I abstained from Welsh rare-bits and grog that evening, and did not even join in the customary game of whist. I wanted to be quite sure of my nerves, and my vanity made me anxious to make a good figure in the captain’s eyes.

Chapter IV

The captain was one of those splendidly tough and cheerful specimens of seafaring humanity whose combined courage, hardihood, and calmness in difficulty leads them naturally into high positions of trust. He was not the man to be led away by an idle tale, and the mere fact that he was willing to join me in the investigation was proof that he thought there was something seriously wrong, which could not be accounted for on ordinary theories, nor laughed down as a common superstition. To some extent, too, his reputation was at stake, as well as the reputation of the ship. It is no light thing to lose passengers overboard, and he knew it.

About ten o’clock that evening, as I was smoking a last cigar, he came up to me, and drew me aside from the beat of the other passengers who were patrolling the deck in the warm darkness.

‘This is a serious matter, Mr. Brisbane,’ he said. ‘We must make up our minds either way – to be disappointed or to have a pretty rough time of it. You see I cannot afford to laugh at the affair, and I will ask you to sign your name to a statement of whatever occurs. If nothing happens tonight we will try it again tomorrow and next day. Are you ready?’

So we went below, and entered the state-room. As we went in I could see Robert the steward, who stood a little further down the passage, watching us, with his usual grin, as though certain that something dreadful was about to happen. The captain closed the door behind us and bolted it.

‘Supposing we put your portmanteau before the door,’ he suggested. ‘One of us can sit on it. Nothing can get out then. Is the port screwed down?’

I found it as I had left it in the morning. Indeed, without using a lever, as I had done, no one could have opened it. I drew back the curtains of the upper berth so that I could see well into it. By the captain’s advice I lighted my reading lantern, and placed it so that it shone upon the white sheets above. He insisted upon sitting on the portmanteau, declaring that he wished to be able to swear that he had sat before the door.

Then he requested me to search the state-room thoroughly, an operation very soon accomplished, as it consisted merely in looking beneath the lower berth and under the couch below the porthole. The spaces were quite empty.

‘It is impossible for any human being to get in,’ I said, ‘or for any human being to open the port.’

‘Very good,’ said the captain calmly. ‘If we see anything now, it must be either imagination or something supernatural.’

I sat down on the edge of the lower berth.

‘The first time it happened,’ said the captain, crossing his legs and leaning back against the door, ‘was in March. The passenger who slept here, in the upper berth, turned out have been a lunatic – at all events, he was known to have been a little touched, and he had taken his passage without the knowledge of his friends. He rushed out in the middle of the night, and threw himself overboard, before the officer who had the watch could stop him. We stopped and lowered a boat; it was a quiet night, just before that heavy weather came on; but we could not find him. Of course his suicide was afterwards accounted for on the ground of his insanity.’

‘I suppose that often happens?’ I remarked, rather absently.

‘Not often – no,’ said the captain; ‘never before in my experience, though I have heard of it happening on board of other ships. Well, as I was saying, that occurred in March. On the very next trip – What are you looking at?’ he asked, stopping suddenly in his narration.

I believe I gave no answer. My eyes were riveted upon the porthole. It seemed to me that the brass loop-nut was beginning to turn very slowly upon the screw – so slowly, however, that I was not sure it moved at all. I watched it intently, fixing its position in my mind, and trying to ascertain whether it changed. Seeing where I was looking, the captain looked too.

‘It moves!’ he exclaimed, in a tone of conviction. ‘No, it does not,’ he added, after a minute.

‘If it were the jarring of the screw,’ said I, ‘it would have opened during the day; but I found it this evening jammed tight as I left it this morning.’

I rose and tried the nut. It was certainly loosened, for by an effort I could move it with my hands.

‘The queer thing,’ said the captain, ‘is that the second man who was lost is supposed to have got through that very port. We had a terrible time over it. It was in the middle of the night, and the weather was very heavy; there was an alarm that one of the ports was open and the sea running in. I came below and found everything flooded, the water pouring in every time she rolled, and the whole port swinging from the top bolts – not the porthole in the middle. Well, we managed to shut it, but the water did some damage. Ever since that the place smells of sea-water from time to time. We supposed the passenger had thrown himself out, though the Lord only knows how he did it. The steward kept telling me that he cannot keep anything shut here. Upon my word – I can smell it now, cannot you?’ he enquired, sniffing the air suspiciously.

‘Yes – distinctly,’ I said, and I shuddered as that same odour of stagnant sea-water grew stronger in the cabin. ‘Now, to smell like this, the place must be damp,’ I continued, ‘and yet when I examined it with the carpenter this morning everything was perfectly dry. It is most extraordinary – hallo!’

My reading lantern, which had been placed in the upper berth, was suddenly extinguished. There was still a good deal of light from the pane of ground glass near the door, behind which loomed the regulation lamp. The ship rolled heavily, and the curtain of the upper berth swung far out into the state-room and back again. I rose quickly from my seat on the edge of the bed, and the captain at the same moment started to his feet with a loud cry of surprise. I had turned with the intention of taking down the lantern to examine it, when I heard his exclamation, and immediately afterwards his call for help. I sprang towards him. He was wrestling with all his might with the brass loop of the port. It seemed to turn against his hands in spite of all his efforts. I caught up my cane, a heavy oak stick I always used to carry, and thrust it through the ring and bore on it with all my strength. But the strong wood snapped suddenly and I fell upon the couch. When I rose again the port was wide open, and the captain was standing with his back against the door, pale to the lips.

‘There is something in that berth!’ he cried, in a strange voice, his eyes almost starting from his head. ‘Hold the door, while I look – it shall not escape us, whatever it is!’

But instead of taking his place, I sprang upon the lower bed, and seized something which lay in the upper berth.

It was something ghostly, horrible beyond words, and it moved in my grip. It was like the body of a man long drowned, and yet it moved, and had the strength of ten men living; but I gripped it with all my might – the slippery, oozy, horrible thing – the dead white eyes seemed to stare at me out of the dusk; the putrid odour of rank sea-water was about it, and its shiny hair hung in foul wet curls over its dead face. I wrestled with the dead thing; it thrust itself upon me and forced me back and nearly broke my arms; it wound its corpse’s arms about my neck, the living death, and overpowered me, so that I, at last, cried aloud and fell, and left my hold.

As I fell the thing sprang across me, and seemed to throw itself upon the captain. When I last saw him on his feet his face was white and his lips set. It seemed to me that he struck a violent blow at the dead being, and then he, too, fell forward upon his face, with an inarticulate cry of horror.

The thing paused an instant, seeming to hover over his prostrate body, and I could have screamed again for very fright, but I had no voice left. The thing vanished sudddenly, and it seemed to my disturbed senses that it made its exit through the open port, though how that was possible, considering the smallness of the aperture, is more than anyone can tell. I lay a long time on the floor, and the captain lay beside me. At last I partially recovered my senses and moved, and instantly I knew that my arm was broken – the small bone of my left forearm near the wrist.

I got upon my feet somehow, and with my remaining hand I tried to raise the captain. He groaned and moved, and at last came to himself. He was not hurt, but he seemed badly stunned.

Well, do you want to hear any more? There is nothing more. That is the end of my story. The carpenter carried out his scheme of running half a dozen four-inch screws through the door of one hundred and five; and if ever you take a passage in the Kamtschatka, you may ask for a berth in that state-room. You will be told that it is engaged – yes – it is engaged by that dead thing.

I finished the trip in the surgeon’s cabin. He doctored my broken arm, and advised me not to ‘fiddle about with ghosts and things’ any more. The captain was very silent, and never sailed again in that ship, though it is still running. And I will not sail in her either. It was a very disagreeable experience, and I was very badly frightened, which is a thing I do not like. That is all. That is how I saw a ghost – if it was a ghost. It was dead, anyhow.

Francis Scott Fitzgerald

Bernice Bobs Her Hair

I

After dark on Saturday night one could stand on the first tee of the golf-coupe and see the country-club windows as a yellow expanse over a very black and wavy ocean. The waves of this ocean, so to speak, were the heads of many curious eddies, a few of the more ingenious chauffeurs, the golf professional’s deaf sister – and there were usually several stray, diffident waves who might have rolled inside had they so desired. This was the gallery.

The balcony was inside. It consisted of the circle of wicker chairs that lined the wall of the combination clubroom and ballroom. At these Saturday-night dances it was largely feminine; a great babel[54] of middle-aged ladies with sharp eyes and icy hearts behind lorgnettes[55] and large bosoms. The main function of the balcony was critical, it occasionally showed grudging admiration, but never approval, for it is well known among ladies over thirty-five that when the younger set dance in the summer-time it is with the very worst intentions in the world, and if they are not bombarded with stony eyes stray couples will dance weird barbaric interludes in the corners, and the more popular, more dangerous, girls will sometimes be kissed in the parked limousines of unsuspecting dowagers.

But, after all, this critical circle is not close enough to the stage to see the actors’ faces and catch the subtler byplay. It can only frown and lean, ask questions and make satisfactory deductions from its set of postulates, such as the one which states that every young man with a large income leads the life of a hunted partridge. It never really appreciates the drama of the shifting, semi-cruel world of adolescence. No; boxes, orchestra-circle, principals, and chorus be represented by the medley of faces and voices that sway to the plaintive African rhythm of Dyer’s dance orchestra.

From sixteen-year-old Otis Ormonde, who has two more years at Hill School, to G. Reece Stoddard, over whose bureau at home hangs a Harvard[56] law diploma; from little Madeleine Hogue, whose hair still feels strange and uncomfortable on top of her head, to Bessie MacRae, who has been the life of the party a little too long – more than ten years – the medley is not only the centre of the stage but contains the only people capable of getting an unobstructed view of it.

With a flourish and a bang the music stops. The couples exchange artificial, effortless smiles, facetiously repeat ‘la-de-da-da dum-dum,’ and then the clatter of young feminine voices soars over the burst of clapping.

A few disappointed stags caught in mid-floor as they bad been about to cut in subsided listlessly back to the walls, because this was not like the riotous Christmas dances – these slimmer hops were considered just pleasantly warm and exciting, where even the younger marrieds rose and performed ancient waltzes and terrifying fox trots to the tolerant amusement of their younger brothers and sisters.

Warren McIntyre, who casually attended Yale, being one of the unfortunate stags, felt in his dinner-coat pocket for a cigarette and strolled out onto the wide, semi-dark veranda, where couples were scattered at tables, filling the lantern-hung night with vague words and hazy laughter. He nodded here and there at the less absorbed and as he passed each couple some half-forgotten fragment of a story played in his mind, for it was not a large city and everyone was Who’s Who to everyone else’s past. There, for example, were Jim Strain and Ethel Demorest, who had been privately engaged for three years. Everyone knew that as soon as Jim managed to hold a job for more than two months she would marry him. Yet how bored they both looked, and how wearily Ethel regarded Jim sometimes, as if she wondered why she had trained the vines of her affection on such a wind-shaken poplar.

Warren was nineteen and rather pitying with those of his friends who hadn’t gone East to college. But, like most boys, he bragged tremendously about the girls of his city when he was away from it. There was Genevieve Ormonde, who regularly made the rounds of dances, house-parties, and football games at Princeton[57], Yale[58], Williams[59], and Cornell[60]; there was black-eyed Roberta Dillon, who was quite as famous to her own generation as Hiram Johnson or Ty Cobb; and, of course, there was Marjorie Harvey, who besides having a fairylike face and a dazzling, bewildering tongue was already justly celebrated for having turned five cart-wheels in succession during the last pump-and-slipper dance at New Haven[61].

Warren, who had grown up across the street from Marjorie, had long been ‘crazy about her’. Sometimes she seemed to reciprocate his feeling with a faint gratitude, but she had tried him by her infallible test and informed him gravely that she did not love him. Her test was that when she was away from him she forgot him and had affairs with other boys. Warren found this discouraging, especially as Marjorie had been making little trips all summer, and for the first two or three days after each arrival home he saw great heaps of mail on the Harveys’ hall table addressed to her in various masculine handwritings. To make matters worse, all during the month of August she had been visited by her cousin Bernice from Eau Claire, and it seemed impossible to see her alone. It was always necessary to hunt round and find someone to take care of Bernice. As August waned this was becoming more and more difficult.

Much as Warren worshipped Marjorie he had to admit that Cousin Bernice was sorta dopeless. She was pretty, with dark hair and high color, but she was no fun on a party. Every Saturday night he danced a long arduous duty dance with her to please Marjorie, but he had never been anything but bored in her company.

‘Warren’ – a soft voice at his elbow broke in upon his thoughts, and he turned to see Marjorie, flushed and radiant as usual. She laid a hand on his shoulder and a glow settled almost imperceptibly over him.

‘Warren,’ she whispered ‘do something for me – dance with Bernice. She’s been stuck with little Otis Ormonde for almost an hour.’

Warren’s glow faded.

‘Why – sure,’ he answered half-heartedly.

‘You don’t mind, do you? I’ll see that you don’t get stuck.’

‘’Sall right.’

Marjorie smiled – that smile that was thanks enough.

‘You’re an angel, and I’m obliged loads.’

With a sigh the angel glanced round the veranda, but Bernice and Otis were not in sight. He wandered back inside, and there in front of the women’s dressing-room he found Otis in the centre of a group of young men who were convulsed with laughter. Otis was brandishing a piece of timber he had picked up, and discoursing volubly.

‘She’s gone in to fix her hair,’ he announced wildly. ‘I’m waiting to dance another hour with her.’

Their laughter was renewed.

‘Why don’t some of you cut in?’ cried Otis resentfully. ‘She likes more variety.’

‘Why, Otis,’ suggested a friend ‘you’ve just barely got used to her.’

‘Why the two-by-four, Otis?’ inquired Warren, smiling.

‘The two-by-four? Oh, this? This is a club. When she comes out I’ll hit her on the head and knock her in again.’

Warren collapsed on a settee and howled with glee.

‘Never mind, Otis,’ he articulated finally. ‘I’m relieving you this time.’

Otis simulated a sudden fainting attack and handed the stick to Warren.

‘If you need it, old man,’ he said hoarsely.

No matter how beautiful or brilliant a girl may be, the reputation of not being frequently cut in on makes her position at a dance unfortunate. Perhaps boys prefer her company to that of the butterflies with whom they dance a dozen times an but, youth in this jazz-nourished generation is temperamentally restless, and the idea of fox-trotting more than one full fox trot with the same girl is distasteful, not to say odious. When it comes to several dances and the intermissions between she can be quite sure that a young man, once relieved, will never tread on her wayward toes again.

Warren danced the next full dance with Bernice, and finally, thankful for the intermission, he led her to a table on the veranda. There was a moment’s silence while she did unimpressive things with her fan.

‘It’s hotter here than in Eau Claire,’ she said.

Warren stifled a sigh and nodded. It might be for all he knew or cared. He wondered idly whether she was a poor conversationalist because she got no attention or got no attention because she was a poor conversationalist.

‘You going to be here much longer?’ he asked and then turned rather red. She might suspect his reasons for asking.

‘Another week,’ she answered, and stared at him as if to lunge at his next remark when it left his lips.

Warren fidgeted. Then with a sudden charitable impulse he decided to try part of his line on her. He turned and looked at her eyes.

‘You’ve got an awfully kissable mouth,’ he began quietly.

This was a remark that he sometimes made to girls at college proms when they were talking in just such half dark as this. Bernice distinctly jumped. She turned an ungraceful red and became clumsy with her fan. No one had ever made such a remark to her before.

‘Fresh!’ – the word had slipped out before she realized it, and she bit her lip. Too late she decided to be amused, and offered him a flustered smile

Warren was annoyed. Though not accustomed to have that remark taken seriously, still it usually provoked a laugh or a paragraph of sentimental banter. And he hated to be called fresh, except in a joking way. His charitable impulse died and he switched the topic.

‘Jim Strain and Ethel Demorest sitting out as usual,’ he commented.

This was more in Bernice’s line, but a faint regret mingled with her relief as the subject changed. Men did not talk to her about kissable mouths, but she knew that they talked in some such way to other girls.

‘Oh, yes,’ she said, and laughed. ‘I hear they’ve been mooning around for years without a red penny. Isn’t it silly?’

Warren’s disgust increased. Jim Strain was a close friend of his brother’s, and anyway he considered it bad form to sneer at people for not having money. But Bernice had had no intention of sneering. She was merely nervous.

II

When Marjorie and Bernice reached home at half after midnight they said good night at the top of the stairs. Though cousins, they were not intimates. As a matter of fact Marjorie had no female intimates – she considered girls stupid. Bernice on the contrary all through this parent-arranged visit had rather longed to exchange those confidences flavored with giggles and tears that she considered an indispensable factor in all feminine intercourse. But in this respect she found Marjorie rather cold; felt somehow the same difficulty in talking to her that she had in talking to men. Marjorie never giggled, was never frightened, seldom embarrassed, and in fact had very few of the qualities which Bernice considered appropriately and blessedly feminine.

As Bernice busied herself with tooth-brush and paste this night she wondered for the hundredth time why she never had any attention when she was away from home. That her family were the wealthiest in Eau Claire; that her mother entertained tremendously, gave little diners for her daughter before all dances and bought hear a car of her own to drive round in, never occurred to her as factors in her home-town social success. Like most girls she had been brought up on the warm milk prepared by Annie Fellows Johnston and on novels in which the female was beloved because of certain mysterious womanly qualities always mentioned but never displayed.

Bernice felt a vague pain that she was not at present engaged in being popular. She did not know that had it not been for Marjorie’s campaigning she would have danced the entire evening with one man; but she knew that even in Eau Claire other girls with less position and less pulchritude were given a much bigger rush. She attributed this to something subtly unscrupulous in those girls. It had never worried her, and if it had her mother would have assured her that the other girls cheapened themselves and that men really respected girls like Bernice.

She turned out the light in her bathroom, and on an impulse decided to go in and chat for a moment with her aunt Josephine, whose light was still on. Her soft slippers bore her noiselessly down the carpeted hall, but hearing voices inside she stopped near the partly opened door. Then she caught her own name, and without any definite intention of eavesdropping lingered – and the thread of the conversation going on inside pierced her consciousness sharply as if it had been drawn through with a needle.

‘She’s absolutely hopeless!’ It was Marjorie’s voice. ‘Oh, I know what you’re going to say! So many people have told you how pretty and sweet she is, and how she can cook! What of it? She has a bum time. Men don’t like her.’

‘What’s a little cheap popularity?’

Mrs. Harvey sounded annoyed.

‘It’s everything when you’re eighteen,’ said Marjorie emphatically. ‘I’ve done my best. I’ve been polite and I’ve made men dance with her, but they just won’t stand being bored. When I think of that gorgeous coloring wasted on such a ninny, and think what Martha Carey could do with it – oh!’

‘There’s no courtesy these days.’

Mrs. Harvey’s voice implied that modern situations were too much for her. When she was a girl all young ladies who belonged to nice families had glorious times.

‘Well,’ said Marjorie, ‘no girl can permanently bolster up a lame-duck visitor, because these days it’s every girl for herself. I’ve even tried to drop hints about clothes and things, and she’s been furious – given me the funniest looks. She’s sensitive enough to know she’s not getting away with much, but I’ll bet she consoles herself by thinking that she’s very virtuous and that I’m too gay and fickle and will come to a bad end. All unpopular girls think that way. Sour grapes! Sarah Hopkins refers to Genevieve and Roberta and me as gardenia girls! I’ll bet she’d give ten years of her life and her European education to be a gardenia girl and have three or four men in love with her and be cut in on every few feet at dances.’

‘It seems to me,’ interrupted Mrs. Harvey rather wearily, ‘that you ought to be able to do something for Bernice. I know she’s not very vivacious.’

Marjorie groaned.

‘Vivacious! Good grief! I’ve never heard her say anything to a boy except that it’s hot or the floor’s crowded or that she’s going to school in New York next year. Sometimes she asks them what kind of car they have and tells them the kind she has. Thrilling!’

There was a short silence and then Mrs. Harvey took up her refrain:

‘All I know is that other girls not half so sweet and attractive get partners. Martha Carey, for instance, is stout and loud, and her mother is distinctly common. Roberta Dillon is so thin this year that she looks as though Arizona were the place for her. She’s dancing herself to death.’

‘But, mother,’ objected Marjorie impatiently, ‘Martha is cheerful and awfully witty and an awfully slick girl, and Roberta’s a marvellous dancer. She’s been popular for ages!’

Mrs. Harvey yawned.

‘I think it’s that crazy Indian blood in Bernice,’ continued Marjorie. ‘Maybe she’s a reversion to type. Indian women all just sat round and never said anything.’

‘Go to bed, you silly child,’ laughed Mrs. Harvey. ‘I wouldn’t have told you that if I’d thought you were going to remember it. And I think most of your ideas are perfectly idiotic,’ she finished sleepily.

There was another silence, while Marjorie considered whether or not convincing her mother was worth the trouble. People over forty can seldom be permanently convinced of anything. At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.

Having decided this, Marjorie said good night. When she came out into the hall it was quite empty.

III

While Marjorie was breakfasting late next day Bernice came into the room with a rather formal good morning, sat down opposite, stared intently over and slightly moistened her lips.

‘What’s on your mind?’ inquired Marjorie, rather puzzled.

Bernice paused before she threw her hand-grenade.

‘I heard what you said about me to your mother last night.’

Marjorie was startled, but she showed only a faintly heightened color and her voice was quite even when she spoke.

‘Where were you?’

‘In the hall. I didn’t mean to listen – at first.’

After an involuntary look of contempt Marjorie dropped her eyes and became very interested in balancing a stray corn-flake on her finger.’

‘I guess I’d better go back to Eau Claire – if I’m such a nuisance.’ Bernice’s lower lip was trembling violently and she continued on a wavering note: ‘I’ve tried to be nice, and – and I’ve been first neglected and then insulted. No one ever visited me and got such treatment.’

Marjorie was silent.

‘But I’m in the way, I see. I’m a drag on you. Your friends don’t like me.’ She paused, and then remembered another one of her grievances. ‘Of course I was furious last week when you tried to hint to me that that dress was unbecoming. Don’t you think I know how to dress myself?’

‘No,’ murmured Marjorie less than half-aloud.

‘What?’

‘I didn’t hint anything,’ said Marjorie succinctly. ‘I said, as I remember, that it was better to wear a becoming dress three times straight than to alternate it with two frights.’

‘Do you think that was a very nice thing to say?’

‘I wasn’t trying to be nice.’ Then after a pause: ‘When do you want to go?’

Bernice drew in her breath sharply.

‘Oh!’ It was a little half-cry.

Marjorie looked up in surprise.

‘Didn’t you say you were going?’

‘Yes, but – ’

‘Oh, you were only bluffing!’

They stared at each other across the breakfast-table for a moment. Misty waves were passing before Bernice’s eyes, while Marjorie’s face wore that rather hard expression that she used when slightly intoxicated undergraduate’s were making love to her.

‘So you were bluffing,’ she repeated as if it were what she might have expected.

Bernice admitted it by bursting into tears. Marjorie’s eyes showed boredom.

‘You’re my cousin,’ sobbed Bernice. ‘I’m v-v-visiting you. I was to stay a month, and if I go home my mother will know and she’ll wah-wonder – ’

Marjorie waited until the shower of broken words collapsed into little sniffles.

‘I’ll give you my month’s allowance,’ she said coldly, ‘and you can spend this last week anywhere you want. There’s a very nice hotel – ’

Bernice’s sobs rose to a flute note, and rising of a sudden she fled from the room.

An hour later, while Marjorie was in the library absorbed in composing one of those non-committal marvelously elusive letters that only a young girl can write, Bernice reappeared, very red-eyed, and consciously calm. She cast no glance at Marjorie but took a book at random from the shelf and sat down as if to read. Marjorie seemed absorbed in her letter and continued writing. When the clock showed noon Bernice closed her book with a snap.

‘I suppose I’d better get my railroad ticket.’

This was not the beginning of the speech she had rehearsed up-stairs, but as Marjorie was not getting her cues – wasn’t urging her to be reasonable; it’s an a mistake – it was the best opening she could muster.

‘Just wait till I finish this letter,’ said Marjorie without looking round. ‘I want to get it off in the next mail.’

After another minute, during which her pen scratched busily, she turned round and relaxed with an air of ‘at your service.’ Again Bernice had to speak.

‘Do you want me to go home?’

‘Well,’ said Marjorie, considering, ‘I suppose if you’re not having a good time you’d better go. No use being miserable.’

‘Don’t you think common kindness – ’

‘Oh, please don’t quote “Little Women”!’ cried Marjorie impatiently. ‘That’s out of style.’

‘You think so?’

‘Heavens, yes! What modern girl could live like those inane females?’

‘They were the models for our mothers.’

Marjorie laughed.

‘Yes, they were – not! Besides, our mothers were all very well in their way, but they know very little about their daughters’ problems.’

Bernice drew herself up.

‘Please don’t talk about my mother.’

Marjorie laughed.

‘I don’t think I mentioned her.’

Bernice felt that she was being led away from her subject.

‘Do you think you’ve treated me very well?’

‘I’ve done my best. You’re rather hard material to work with.’

The lids of Bernice’s eyes reddened.

‘I think you’re hard and selfish, and you haven’t a feminine quality in you.’

‘Oh, my Lord!’ cried Marjorie in desperation ‘You little nut! Girls like you are responsible for all the tiresome colorless marriages; all those ghastly inefficiencies that pass as feminine qualities. What a blow it must be when a man with imagination marries the beautiful bundle of clothes that he’s been building ideals round, and finds that she’s just a weak, whining, cowardly mass of affectations!’

Bernice’s mouth had slipped half open.

‘The womanly woman!’ continued Marjorie. ‘Her whole early life is occupied in whining criticisms of girls like me who really do have a good time.’

Bernice’s jaw descended farther as Marjorie’s voice rose.

‘There’s some excuse for an ugly girl whining. If I’d been irretrievably ugly I’d never have forgiven my parents for bringing me into the world. But you’re starting life without any handicap – ’ Marjorie’s little fist clinched, ‘If you expect me to weep with you you’ll be disappointed. Go or stay, just as you like.’ And picking up her letters she left the room.

Bernice claimed a headache and failed to appear at luncheon. They had a matinée date for the afternoon, but the headache persisting, Marjorie made explanation to a not very downcast boy. But when she returned late in the afternoon she found Bernice with a strangely set face waiting for her in her bedroom.

‘I’ve decided,’ began Bernice without preliminaries, ‘that maybe you’re right about things – possibly not. But if you’ll tell me why your friends aren’t – aren’t interested in me I’ll see if I can do what you want me to.’

Marjorie was at the mirror shaking down her hair.

‘Do you mean it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Without reservations? Will you do exactly what I say?’

‘Well, I – ’

‘Well nothing! Will you do exactly as I say?’

‘If they’re sensible things.’

‘They’re not! You’re no case for sensible things.’

‘Are you going to make – to recommend – ’

‘Yes, everything. If I tell you to take boxing-lessons you’ll have to do it. Write home and tell your mother you’re going’ to soy another two weeks.

‘If you’ll tell me – ’

‘All right – I’ll just give you a few examples now. First you have no ease of manner. Why? Because you’re never sure about your personal appearance. When a girl feels that she’s perfectly groomed and dressed she can forget that part of her. That’s charm. The more parts of yourself you can afford to forget the more charm you have.’

‘Don’t I look all right?’

‘No; for instance you never take care of your eyebrows. They’re black and lustrous, but by leaving them straggly they’re a blemish. They’d be beautiful if you’d take care of them in one-tenth the time you take doing nothing. You’re going to brush them so that they’ll grew straight.’

Bernice raised the brows in question.

‘Do you mean to say that men notice eyebrows?’

‘Yes – subconsciously. And when you go home you ought to have your teeth straightened a little. It’s almost imperceptible, still – ’

‘But I thought,’ interrupted Bernice in bewilderment, ‘that you despised little dainty feminine things like that.’

‘I hate dainty minds,’ answered Marjorie. ‘But a girl has to be dainty in person. If she looks like a million dollars she can talk about Russia, ping-pong, or the League of Nations[62] and get away with it.’

‘What else?’

‘Oh, I’m just beginning! There’s your dancing.’

‘Don’t I dance all right?’

‘No, you don’t – you lean on a man; yes, you do – ever so slightly. I noticed it when we were dancing together yesterday. And you dance standing up straight instead of bending over a little. Probably some old lady on the side-line once told you that you looked so dignified that way. But except with a very small girl it’s much harder on the man, and he’s the one that counts.’

‘Go on.’ Bernice’s brain was reeling.

‘Well, you’ve got to learn to be nice to men who are sad birds. You look as if you’d been insulted whenever you’re thrown with any except the most popular boys. Why, Bernice, I’m cut in on every few feet – and who does most of it? Why, those very sad birds. No girl can afford to neglect them. They’re the big part of any crowd. Young boys too shy to talk are the very best conversational practice. Clumsy boys are the best dancing practice. If you can follow them and yet look graceful you can follow a baby tank across a barb-wire sky-scraper.’

Bernice sighed profoundly, but Marjorie was not through.

‘If you go to a dance and really amuse, say, three sad birds that dance with you; if you talk so well to them that they forget they’re stuck with you, you’ve done something. They’ll come back next time, and gradually so many sad birds will dance with you that the attractive boys will see there’s no danger of being stuck – then they’ll dance with you.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Bernice faintly. ‘I think I begin to see.’

‘And finally,’ concluded Marjorie, ‘poise and charm will just come. You’ll wake up some morning knowing you’ve attained it and men will know it too.’

Bernice rose.

‘It’s been awfully kind of you – but nobody’s ever talked to me like this before, and I feel sort of startled.’

Marjorie made no answer but gazed pensively at her own image in the mirror.

‘You’re a peach to help me,’ continued Bernice.

Still Marjorie did not answer, and Bernice thought she had seemed too grateful.

‘I know you don’t like sentiment,’ she said timidly.

Marjorie turned to her quickly.

‘Oh, I wasn’t thinking about that. I was considering whether we hadn’t better bob your hair.’

Bernice collapsed backward upon the bed.

IV

On the following Wednesday evening there was a dinner-dance at the country club. When the guests strolled in Bernice found her place-card with a slight feeling of irritation. Though at her right sat G. Reece Stoddard, a most desirable and distinguished young bachelor, the all-important left held only Charley Paulson. Charley lacked height, beauty, and social shrewdness, and in her new enlightenment Bernice decided that his only qualification to be her partner was that he had never been stuck with her. But this feeling of irritation left with the last of the soup-plates, and Marjorie’s specific instruction came to her. Swallowing her pride she turned to Charley Paulson and plunged.

‘Do you think I ought to bob my hair, Mr. Charley Paulson?’

Charley looked up in surprise.

‘Why?’

‘Because I’m considering it. It’s such a sure and easy way of attracting attention.’

Charley smiled pleasantly. He could not know this had been rehearsed. He replied that he didn’t know much about bobbed hair. But Bernice was there to tell him.

‘I want to be a society vampire, you see,’ she announced coolly, and went on to inform him that bobbed hair was the necessary prelude. She added that she wanted to ask his advice, because she had heard he was so critical about girls.

Charley, who knew as much about the psychology of women as he did of the mental states of Buddhist contemplatives, felt vaguely flattered.

‘So I’ve decided,’ she continued, her voice rising slightly, ‘that early next week I’m going down to the Sevier Hotel barber-shop, sit in the first chair, and get my hair bobbed.’ She faltered noticing that the people near her had paused in their conversation and were listening; but after a confused second Marjorie’s coaching told, and she finished her paragraph to the vicinity at large. ‘Of course I’m charging admission, but if you’ll all come down and encourage me I’ll issue passes for the inside seats.’

There was a ripple of appreciative laughter, and under cover of it G. Reece Stoddard leaned over quickly and said close to her ear: ‘I’ll take a box right now.’

She met his eyes and smiled as if he had said something surprisingly brilliant.

‘Do you believe in bobbed hair?’ asked G. Reece in the same undertone.

‘I think it’s unmoral,’ affirmed Bernice gravely. ‘But, of course, you’ve either got to amuse people or feed ’em or shock ’em.’ Marjorie had culled this from Oscar Wide. It was greeted with a ripple of laughter from the men and a series of quick, intent looks from the girls. And then as though she had said nothing of wit or moment Bernice turned again to Charley and spoke confidentially in his ear.

‘I want to ask you your opinion of several people. I imagine you’re a wonderful judge of character.’

Charley thrilled faintly – paid her a subtle compliment by overturning her water.

Two hours later, while Warren McIntyre was standing passively in the stag line abstractedly watching the dancers and wondering whither and with whom Marjorie had disappeared, an unrelated perception began to creep slowly upon him – a perception that Bernice, cousin to Marjorie, had been cut in on several times in the past five minutes. He closed his eyes, opened them and looked again. Several minutes back she had been dancing with a visiting boy, a matter easily accounted for; a visiting boy would know no better. But now she was dancing with someone else, and there was Charley Paulson headed for her with enthusiastic determination in his eye. Funny – Charley seldom danced with more than three girls an evening.

Warren was distinctly surprised when – the exchange having been effected – the man relieved proved to be none other than G. Reece Stoddard himself. And G. Reece seemed not at all jubilant at being relieved. Next time Bernice danced near, Warren regarded her intently. Yes, she was pretty, distinctly pretty; and to-night her face seemed really vivacious. She had that look that no woman, however histrionically prescient, can successfully counterfeit – she looked as if she were having a good time. He liked the way she had her hair arranged, wondered if it was brilliantine that made it glisten so. And that dress was becoming – a dark red that set off her shadowy eyes and high coloring. He remembered that he had thought her pretty when she first came to town, before he had realized that she was dull. Too bad she was dull – dull girls unbearable – certainly pretty though.

His thoughts zigzagged back to Marjorie. This disappearance would be like other disappearances. When she reappeared he would demand where she had been – would be told emphatically that it was none of his business. What a pity she was so sure of him! She basked in the knowledge that no other girl in town interested him; she defied him to fall in love with Genevieve or Roberta.

Warren sighed. The way to Marjorie’s affections was a labyrinth indeed. He looked up. Bernice was again dancing with the visiting boy. Half unconsciously he took a step out from the stag line in her direction, and hesitated. Then he said to himself that it was charity. He walked toward her – collided suddenly with G. Reece Stoddard.

‘Pardon me,’ said Warren.

But G. Reece had not stopped to apologize. He had again cut in on Bernice.

That night at one o’clock Marjorie, with one hand on the electric-light switch in the hall, turned to take a last look at Bernice’s sparkling eyes.

‘So it worked?’

‘Oh, Marjorie, yes!’ cried Bernice.

‘I saw you were having a gay time.’

‘I did! The only trouble was that about midnight I ran short of talk. I had to repeat myself – with different men of course. I hope they won’t compare notes.’

‘Men don’t,’ said Marjorie, yawning, ‘and it wouldn’t matter if they did – they’d think you were even trickier.’

She snapped out the light, and as they started up the stairs Bernice grasped the banister thankfully. For the first time in her life she had been danced tired.

‘You see,’ said Marjorie it the top of the stairs, ‘one man sees another man cut in and he thinks there must be something there. Well, we’ll fix up some new stuff to-morrow. Good night.’

‘Good night.’

As Bernice took down her hair she passed the evening before her in review. She had followed instructions exactly. Even when Charley Paulson cut in for the eighth time she had simulated delight and had apparently been both interested and flattered. She had not talked about the weather or Eau Claire or automobiles or her school, but had confined her conversation to me, you, and us.

But a few minutes before she fell asleep a rebellious thought was churning drowsily in her brain – after all, it was she who had done it. Marjorie, to be sure, had given her conversation, but then Marjorie got much of her conversation out of things she read. Bernice had bought the red dress, though she had never valued it highly before Marjorie dug it out of her trunk – and her own voice had said the words, her own lips had smiled, her own feet had danced. Marjorie nice girl – vain, though – nice evening – nice boys – like Warren – Warren – Warren – what’s his name – Warren —

She fell asleep.

V

To Bernice the next week was a revelation. With the feeling that people really enjoyed looking at her and listening to her came the foundation of self-confidence. Of course there were numerous mistakes at first. She did not know, for instance, that Draycott Deyo was studying for the ministry; she was unaware that he had cut in on her because he thought she was a quiet, reserved girl. Had she known these things she would not have treated him to the line which began ‘Hello, Shell Shock!’ and continued with the bathtub story – ‘It takes a frightful lot of energy to fix my hair in the summer – there’s so much of it – so I always fix it first and powder my face and put on my hat; then I get into the bathtub, and dress afterward. Don’t you think that’s the best plan?’

Though Draycott Deyo was in the throes of difficulties concerning baptism by immersion and might possibly have seen a connection, it must be admitted that he did not. He considered feminine bathing an immoral subject, and gave her some of his ideas on the depravity of modern society.

But to offset that unfortunate occurrence Bernice had several signal success to her credit. Little Otis Ormonde pleaded off from a trip East and elected instead to follow her with a puppylike devotion, to the amusement of his crowd and to the irritation of G. Reece Stoddard, several of whose afternoon calls Otis completely ruined by the disgusting tenderness of the glances he bent on Bernice. He even told her the story of the two-by-four and the dressing-room to show her how fruitfully mistaken he and everyone else had been in their first judgment of her. Bernice laughed off that incident with a slight sinking sensation.

Of all Bernice’s conversation perhaps the best known and most universally approved was the line about the bobbing of her hair.

‘Oh, Bernice, when you goin’ to get the hair bobbed?’

‘Day after to-morrow maybe,’ she would reply, laughing. ‘Will you come and see me? Because I’m counting on you, you know.’

‘Will we? You know! But you better hurry up.’

Bernice, whose tonsorial intentions were strictly dishonorable, would laugh again.

‘Pretty soon now. You’d be surprised.’

But perhaps the most significant symbol of her success was the gray car of the hypercritical Warren McIntyre, parked daily in front of the Harvey house. At first the parlor-maid was distinctly startled when he asked for Bernice instead of Marjorie; after a week of it she told the cook that Miss Bernice had gotta holda Miss Marjorie’s best fella.

And Miss Bernice had. Perhaps it began with Warren’s desire to rouse jealousy in Marjorie; perhaps it was the familiar though unrecognized strain of Marjorie in Bernice’s conversation; perhaps it was both of these and something of sincere attraction besides. But somehow the collective mind of the younger set knew within a week that Marjorie’s most reliable beau had made an amazing face-about and was giving an indisputable rush to Marjorie’s guest. The question of the moment was how Marjorie would take it. Warren called Bernice on the ‘phone twice a day, sent her notes, and they were frequently seen together in his roadster, obviously engrossed in one of those tense, significant conversation as to whether or not he was sincere.

Marjorie on being twitted only laughed. She said she was mighty glad that Warren had at last found someone who appreciated him. So the younger set laughed, too, and guessed that Marjorie didn’t care and let it go at that.

One afternoon when there were only three days left of her visit Bernice was waiting in the hall for Warren, with whom she was going to a bridge party. She was in rather a blissful mood, and when Marjorie – also bound for the party – appeared beside her and began casually to adjust her hat in the mirror, Bernice was utterly unprepared for anything in the nature of a clash. Marjorie did her work very coldly and succinctly in three sentences.

‘You may as well get Warren out of your head,’ she said coldly.

‘What?’ Bernice was utterly astounded.

‘You may as well stop making a fool of yourself over Warren McIntyre. He doesn’t care a snap of his fingers about you.’

For a tense moment they regarded each other – Marjorie scornful, aloof; Bernice astounded, half-angry, half-afraid. Then two cars drove up in front of the house and there was a riotous honking. Both of them gasped faintly, turned, and side by side hurried out.

All through the bridge party Bernice strove in vain to master a rising uneasiness. She had offended Marjorie, the sphinx of sphinxes. With the most wholesome and innocent intentions in the world she had stolen Marjorie’s property. She felt suddenly and horribly guilty. After the bridge game, when they sat in an informal circle and the conversation became general, the storm gradually broke. Little Otis Ormonde inadvertently precipitated it.

‘When you going back to kindergarten, Otis?’ someone had asked.

‘Me? Day Bernice gets her hair bobbed.’

‘Then your education’s over,’ said Marjorie quickly. ‘That’s only a bluff of hers. I should think you’d have realized.’

‘That a fact?’ demanded Otis, giving Bernice a reproachful glance.

Bernice’s ears burned as she tried to think up an effectual comeback. In the face of this direct attack her imagination was paralyzed.

‘There’s a lot of bluffs in the world,’ continued Marjorie quite pleasantly. ‘I should think you’d be young enough to know that, Otis.’

‘Well,’ said Otis, ‘maybe so. But gee! With a line like Bernice’s – ’

‘Really?’ yawned Marjorie. ‘What’s her latest bon mot?’

No one seemed to know. In fact, Bernice, having trifled with her muse’s beau, had said nothing memorable of late.

‘Was that really all a line?’ asked Roberta curiously.

Bernice hesitated. She felt that wit in some form was demanded of her, but under her cousin’s suddenly frigid eyes she was completely incapacitated.

‘I don’t know,’ she stalled.

‘Splush!’ said Marjorie. ‘Admit it!’

Bernice saw that Warren’s eyes had left a ukulele he had been tinkering with and were fixed on her questioningly.

‘Oh, I don’t know!’ she repeated steadily. Her cheeks were glowing.

‘Splush!’ remarked Marjorie again.

‘Come through, Bernice,’ urged Otis. ‘Tell her where to get off.’

Bernice looked round again – she seemed unable to get away from Warren’s eyes.

‘I like bobbed hair,’ she said hurriedly, as if he had asked her a question, ‘and I intend to bob mine.’

‘When?’ demanded Marjorie.

‘Any time.’

‘No time like the present,’ suggested Roberta.

Otis jumped to his feet.

‘Good stuff!’ he cried. ‘We’ll have a summer bobbing party. Sevier Hotel barber-shop, I think you said.’

In an instant all were on their feet. Bernice’s heart throbbed violently.

‘What?’ she gasped.

Out of the group came Marjorie’s voice, very clear and contemptuous.

‘Don’t worry – she’ll back out!’

‘Come on, Bernice!’ cried Otis, starting toward the door.

Four eyes – Warren’s and Marjorie’s – stared at her, challenged her, defied her. For another second she wavered wildly.

‘All right,’ she said swiftly ‘I don’t care if I do.’

An eternity of minutes later, riding down-town through the late afternoon beside Warren, the others following in Roberta’s car close behind, Bernice had all the sensations of Marie Antoinette[63] bound for the guillotine[64] in a tumbrel. Vaguely she wondered why she did not cry out that it was all a mistake. It was all she could do to keep from clutching her hair with both bands to protect it from the suddenly hostile world. Yet she did neither. Even the thought of her mother was no deterrent now. This was the test supreme of her sportsmanship; her right to walk unchallenged in the starry heaven of popular girls.

Warren was moodily silent, and when they came to the hotel he drew up at the curb and nodded to Bernice to precede him out. Roberta’s car emptied a laughing crowd into the shop, which presented two bold plate-glass windows to the street.

Bernice stood on the curb and looked at the sign, Sevier Barber-Shop. It was a guillotine indeed, and the hangman was the first barber, who, attired in a white coat and smoking a cigarette, leaned non-chalantly against the first chair. He must have heard of her; he must have been waiting all week, smoking eternal cigarettes beside that portentous, too-often-mentioned first chair. Would they blind-fold her? No, but they would tie a white cloth round her neck lest any of her blood – nonsense – hair – should get on her clothes.

‘All right, Bernice,’ said Warren quickly.

With her chin in the air she crossed the sidewalk, pushed open the swinging screen-door, and giving not a glance to the uproarious, riotous row that occupied the waiting bench, went up to the fat barber.

‘I want you to bob my hair.’

The first barber’s mouth slid somewhat open. His cigarette dropped to the floor.

‘Huh?’

‘My hair – bob it!’

Refusing further preliminaries, Bernice took her seat on high. A man in the chair next to her turned on his side and gave her a glance, half lather, half amazement. One barber started and spoiled little Willy Schuneman’s monthly haircut. Mr. O’Reilly in the last chair grunted and swore musically in ancient Gaelic as a razor bit into his cheek. Two bootblacks became wide-eyed and rushed for her feet. No, Bernice didn’t care for a shine.

Outside a passer-by stopped and stared; a couple joined him; half a dozen small boys’ nose sprang into life, flattened against the glass; and snatches of conversation borne on the summer breeze drifted in through the screen-door.

‘Lookada long hair on a kid!’

‘Where’d yuh get ’at stuff? ’At’s a bearded lady he just finished shavin’.’

But Bernice saw nothing, heard nothing. Her only living sense told her that this man in the white coat had removed one tortoise-shell comb and then another; that his fingers were fumbling clumsily with unfamiliar hairpins; that this hair, this wonderful hair of hers, was going – she would never again feel its long voluptuous pull as it hung in a dark-brown glory down her back. For a second she was near breaking down, and then the picture before her swam mechanically into her vision – Marjorie’s mouth curling in a faint ironic smile as if to say:

‘Give up and get down! You tried to buck me and I called your bluff. You see you haven’t got a prayer.’

And some last energy rose up in Bernice, for she clinched her hands under the white cloth, and there was a curious narrowing of her eyes that Marjorie remarked on to someone long afterward.

Twenty minutes later the barber swung her round to face the mirror, and she flinched at the full extent of the damage that had been wrought. Her hair was not curls and now it lay in lank lifeless blocks on both sides of her suddenly pale face It was ugly as sin – she had known it would be ugly as sin. Her face’s chief charm had been a Madonna-like simplicity. Now that was gone and she was – well frightfully mediocre – not stagy; only ridiculous, like a Greenwich Villager[65] who had left her spectacles at home.

As she climbed down from the chair she tried to smile – failed miserably. She saw two of the girls exchange glances; noticed Marjorie’s mouth curved in attenuated mockery – and that Warren’s eyes were suddenly very cold.

‘You see,’ – her words fell into an awkward pause – ‘I’ve done it.’

‘Yes, you’ve – done it,’ admitted Warren.

‘Do you like it?’

There was a half-hearted ‘Sure’ from two or three voices, another awkward pause, and then Marjorie turned swiftly and with serpentlike intensity to Warren.

‘Would you mind running me down to the cleaners?’ she asked. ‘I’ve simply got to get a dress there before supper. Roberta’s driving right home and she can take the others.’

Warren stared abstractedly at some infinite speck oat the window. Then for an instant his eyes rested coldly on Bernice before they turned to Marjorie.

‘Be glad to,’ he said slowly.

VI

Bernice did not fully realize the outrageous trap that had been set for her until she met her aunt’s amazed glance just before dinner.

‘Why Bernice!’

‘I’ve bobbed it, Aunt Josephine.’

‘Why, child!’

‘Do you like it?’

‘Why Bernice!’

‘I suppose I’ve shocked you.’

‘No, but what’ll Mrs. Deyo think tomorrow night? Bernice, you should have waited until after the Deyo’s dance – you should have waited if you wanted to do that.’

‘It was sudden, Aunt Josephine. Anyway, why does it matter to Mrs. Deyo particularly?’

‘Why child,’ cried Mrs. Harvey, ‘in her paper on “The Foibles of the Younger Generation” that she read at the last meeting of the Thursday Club she devoted fifteen minutes to bobbed hair. It’s her pet abomination. And the dance is for you and Marjorie!’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Oh, Bernice, what’ll your mother say? She’ll think I let you do it.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Dinner was an agony. She had made a hasty attempt with a curling-iron, and burned her finger and much hair. She could see that her aunt was both worried and grieved, and her uncle kept saying, ‘Well, I’ll be darned!’ over and over in a hurt and faintly hostile tone. And Marjorie sat very quietly, intrenched behind a faint smile, a faintly mocking smile.

Somehow she got through the evening. Three boys called; Marjorie disappeared with one of them, and Bernice made a listless unsuccessful attempt to entertain the two others – sighed thankfully as she climbed the stairs to her room at half past ten. What a day!

When she had undressed for the night the door opened and Marjorie came in.

‘Bernice,’ she said ‘I’m awfully sorry about the Deyo dance. I’ll give you my word of honor I’d forgotten all about it.’

‘’Sall right,’ said Bernice shortly. Standing before the mirror she passed her comb slowly through her short hair.

‘I’ll take you down-town to-morrow,’ continued Marjorie, ‘and the hairdresser’ll fix it so you’ll look slick. I didn’t imagine you’d go through with it. I’m really mighty sorry.’

‘Oh, ’sall right!’

‘Still it’s your last night, so I suppose it won’t matter much.’

Then Bernice winced as Marjorie tossed her own hair over her shoulders and began to twist it slowly into two long blond braids until in her cream-colored negligée she looked like a delicate painting of some Saxon princess. Fascinated, Bernice watched the braids grow. Heavy and luxurious they were moving under the supple fingers like restive snakes – and to Bernice remained this relic and the curling-iron and a to-morrow full of eyes. She could see G. Reece Stoddard, who liked her, assuming his Harvard manner and telling his dinner partner that Bernice shouldn’t have been allowed to go to the movies so much; she could see Draycott Deyo exchanging glances with his mother and then being conscientiously charitable to her. But then perhaps by to-morrow Mrs. Deyo would have heard the news; would send round an icy little note requesting that she fail to appear – and behind her back they would all laugh and know that Marjorie had made a fool of her; that her chance at beauty had been sacrificed to the jealous whim of a selfish girl. She sat down suddenly before the mirror, biting the inside of her cheek.

‘I like it,’ she said with an effort. ‘I think it’ll be becoming.’

Marjorie smiled.

‘It looks all right. For heaven’s sake, don’t let it worry you!’

‘I won’t.’

‘Good night Bernice.’

But as the door closed something snapped within Bernice. She sprang dynamically to her feet, clinching her hands, then swiftly and noiseless crossed over to her bed and from underneath it dragged out her suitcase. Into it she tossed toilet articles and a change of clothing, Then she turned to her trunk and quickly dumped in two drawerfulls of lingerie and stammer dresses. She moved quietly but deadly efficiency, and in three-quarters of an hour her trunk was locked and strapped and she was fully dressed in a becoming new travelling suit that Marjorie had helped her pick out.

Sitting down at her desk she wrote a short note to Mrs. Harvey, in which she briefly outlined her reasons for going. She sealed it, addressed it, and laid it on her pillow. She glanced at her watch. The train left at one, and she knew that if she walked down to the Marborough Hotel two blocks away she could easily get a taxicab.

Suddenly she drew in her breath sharply and an expression flashed into her eyes that a practiced character reader might have connected vaguely with the set look she had worn in the barber’s chair – somehow a development of it. It was quite a new look for Bernice – and it carried consequences.

She went stealthily to the bureau, picked up an article that lay there, and turning out all the lights stood quietly until her eyes became accustomed to the darkness. Softly she pushed open the door to Marjorie’s room. She heard the quiet, even breathing of an untroubled conscience asleep.

She was by the bedside now, very deliberate and calm. She acted swiftly. Bending over she found one of the braids of Marjorie’s hair, followed it up with her hand to the point nearest the head, and then holding it a little slack so that the sleeper would feel no pull, she reached down with the shears and severed it. With the pigtail in her hand she held her breath. Marjorie had muttered something in her sleep. Bernice deftly amputated the other braid, paused for an instant, and then flitted swiftly and silently back to her own room.

Down-stairs she opened the big front door, closed it carefully behind her, and feeling oddly happy and exuberant stepped off the porch into the moonlight, swinging her heavy grip like a shopping-bag. After a minute’s brisk walk she discovered that her left hand still held the two blond braids. She laughed unexpectedly – had to shut her mouth hard to keep from emitting an absolute peal. She was passing Warren’s house now, and on the impulse she set down her baggage, and swinging the braids like piece of rope flung them at the wooden porch, where they landed with a slight thud. She laughed again, no longer restraining herself.

‘Huh,’ she giggled wildly. ‘Scalp the selfish thing!’

Then picking up her staircase she set off at a half-run down the moonlit street.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

1

As long ago as 1860 it was the proper thing to be born at home. At present, so I am told, the high gods of medicine have decreed that the first cries of the young shall be uttered upon the anesthetic air of a hospital, preferably a fashionable one. So young Mr. and Mrs. Roger Button were fifty years ahead of style when they decided, one day in the summer of 1860, that their first baby should be born in a hospital. Whether this anachronism[66] had any bearing upon the astonishing history I am about to set down will never be known.

I shall tell you what occurred, and let you judge for yourself.

The Roger Buttons held an enviable position, both social and financial, in ante-bellum Baltimore[67]. They were related to the This Family and the That Family, which, as every Southerner knew, entitled them to membership in that enormous peerage which largely populated the Confederacy[68]. This was their first experience with the charming old custom of having babies – Mr. Button was naturally nervous. He hoped it would be a boy so that he could be sent to Yale College in Connecticut, at which institution Mr. Button himself had been known for four years by the somewhat obvious nickname of ‘Cuff.’

On the September morning consecrated to the enormous event he arose nervously at six o’clock, dressed himself, adjusted an impeccable stock, and hurried forth through the streets of Baltimore to the hospital, to determine whether the darkness of the night had borne in new life upon its bosom.

When he was approximately a hundred yards from the Maryland Private Hospital for Ladies and Gentlemen he saw Doctor Keene, the family physician, descending the front steps, rubbing his hands together with a washing movement – as all doctors are required to do by the unwritten ethics of their profession.

Mr. Roger Button, the president of Roger Button & Co., Wholesale Hardware, began to run toward Doctor Keene with much less dignity than was expected from a Southern gentleman of that picturesque period. “Doctor Keene!” he called. “Oh, Doctor Keene!”

The doctor heard him, faced around, and stood waiting, a curious expression settling on his harsh, medicinal face as Mr. Button drew near.

‘What happened?’ demanded Mr. Button, as he came up in a gasping rush. ‘What was it? How is she? A boy? Who is it? What – ’

‘Talk sense!’ said Doctor Keene sharply. He appeared somewhat irritated.

‘Is the child born?’ begged Mr. Button.

Doctor Keene frowned. ‘Why, yes, I suppose so – after a fashion.’ Again he threw a curious glance at Mr. Button.

‘Is my wife all right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is it a boy or a girl?’

‘Here now!’ cried Doctor Keene in a perfect passion of irritation, ‘I’ll ask you to go and see for yourself. Outrageous!’ He snapped the last word out in almost one syllable, then he turned away muttering: ‘Do you imagine a case like this will help my professional reputation? One more would ruin me – ruin anybody.’

‘What’s the matter?’ demanded Mr. Button appalled. ‘Triplets?’

‘No, not triplets!’ answered the doctor cuttingly. ‘What’s more, you can go and see for yourself. And get another doctor. I brought you into the world, young man, and I’ve been physician to your family for forty years, but I’m through with you! I don’t want to see you or any of your relatives ever again! Good-bye!’

Then he turned sharply, and without another word climbed into his phaeton, which was waiting at the curbstone, and drove severely away.

Mr. Button stood there upon the sidewalk, stupefied and trembling from head to foot. What horrible mishap had occurred? He had suddenly lost all desire to go into the Maryland Private Hospital for Ladies and Gentlemen – it was with the greatest difficulty that, a moment later, he forced himself to mount the steps and enter the front door.

A nurse was sitting behind a desk in the opaque gloom of the hall. Swallowing his shame, Mr. Button approached her.

‘Good-morning,’ she remarked, looking up at him pleasantly.

‘Good-morning. I – I am Mr. Button.’

At this a look of utter terror spread itself over girl’s face. She rose to her feet and seemed about to fly from the hall, restraining herself only with the most apparent difficulty.

‘I want to see my child,’ said Mr. Button.

The nurse gave a little scream. ‘Oh – of course!’ she cried hysterically. ‘Upstairs. Right upstairs. Go – up!’

She pointed the direction, and Mr. Button, bathed in cool perspiration, turned falteringly, and began to mount to the second floor. In the upper hall he addressed another nurse who approached him, basin in hand. ‘I’m Mr. Button,’ he managed to articulate. ‘I want to see my – ’

Clank! The basin clattered to the floor and rolled in the direction of the stairs. Clank! Clank! It began a methodical decent as if sharing in the general terror which this gentleman provoked.

‘I want to see my child!’ Mr. Button almost shrieked. He was on the verge of collapse.

Clank! The basin reached the first floor. The nurse regained control of herself, and threw Mr. Button a look of hearty contempt.

‘All right, Mr. Button,’ she agreed in a hushed voice. ‘Very well! But if you knew what a state it’s put us all in this morning! It’s perfectly outrageous! The hospital will never have a ghost of a reputation after – ’

‘Hurry!’ he cried hoarsely. ‘I can’t stand this!’

‘Come this way, then, Mr. Button.’

He dragged himself after her. At the end of a long hall they reached a room from which proceeded a variety of howls – indeed, a room which, in later parlance, would have been known as the ‘crying-room.’ They entered.

Ranged around the walls were half a dozen white-enameled rolling cribs, each with a tag tied at the head.

‘Well,’ gasped Mr. Button, ‘which is mine?’

‘There!’ said the nurse.

Mr. Button’s eyes followed her pointing finger, and this is what he saw. Wrapped in a voluminous white blanket, and partly crammed into one of the cribs, there sat an old man apparently about seventy years of age. His sparse hair was almost white, and from his chin dripped a long smoke-coloured beard, which waved absurdly back and forth, fanned by the breeze coming in at the window. He looked up at Mr. Button with dim, faded eyes in which lurked a puzzled question.

‘Am I mad?’ thundered Mr. Button, his terror resolving into rage. ‘Is this some ghastly hospital joke?’

‘It doesn’t seem like a joke to us,’ replied the nurse severely. ‘And I don’t know whether you’re mad or not – but that is most certainly your child.’

The cool perspiration redoubled on Mr. Button’s forehead. He closed his eyes, and then, opening them, looked again. There was no mistake – he was gazing at a man of threescore and ten – a baby of threescore and ten, a baby whose feet hung over the sides of the crib in which it was reposing.

The old man looked placidly from one to the other for a moment, and then suddenly spoke in a cracked and ancient voice. ‘Are you my father?’ he demanded.

Mr. Button and the nurse started violently.

‘Because if you are,’ went on the old man querulously, ‘I wish you’d get me out of this place – or, at least, get them to put a comfortable rocker in here.’

‘Where in God’s name did you come from? Who are you?’ burst out Mr. Button frantically.

‘I can’t tell you exactly who I am,’ replied the querulous whine, ‘because I’ve only been born a few hours – but my last name is certainly Button.’

‘You lie! You’re an impostor!’

The old man turned wearily to the nurse. ‘Nice way to welcome a new-born child,’ he complained in a weak voice. ‘Tell him he’s wrong, why don’t you?’

‘You’re wrong. Mr. Button,’ said the nurse severely. ‘This is your child, and you’ll have to make the best of it. We’re going to ask you to take him home with you as soon as possible – some time to-day.’

‘Home?’ repeated Mr. Button incredulously.

‘Yes, we can’t have him here. We really can’t, you know?’

‘I’m right glad of it,’ whined the old man. ‘This is a fine place to keep a youngster of quiet tastes. With all this yelling and howling, I haven’t been able to get a wink of sleep. I asked for something to eat’ – here his voice rose to a shrill note of protest – ‘and they brought me a bottle of milk!’

Mr. Button sank down upon a chair near his son and concealed his face in his hands. ‘My heavens!’ he murmured, in an ecstasy of horror. ‘What will people say? What must I do?’

‘You’ll have to take him home,’ insisted the nurse – ‘immediately!’

A grotesque picture formed itself with dreadful clarity before the eyes of the tortured man – a picture of himself walking through the crowded streets of the city with this appalling apparition stalking by his side. ‘I can’t. I can’t,’ he moaned.

People would stop to speak to him, and what was he going to say? He would have to introduce this – this septuagenarian[69]: ‘This is my son, born early this morning.’ And then the old man would gather his blanket around him and they would plod on, past the bustling stores, the slave market – for a dark instant Mr. Button wished passionately that his son was black – past the luxurious houses of the residential district, past the home for the aged….

‘Come! Pull yourself together,’ commanded the nurse.

‘See here,’ the old man announced suddenly, ‘if you think I’m going to walk home in this blanket, you’re entirely mistaken.’

‘Babies always have blankets.’

With a malicious crackle the old man held up a small white swaddling garment. ‘Look!’ he quavered. ‘This is what they had ready for me.’

‘Babies always wear those,’ said the nurse primly.

‘Well,’ said the old man, ‘this baby’s not going to wear anything in about two minutes. This blanket itches. They might at least have given me a sheet.’

‘Keep it on! Keep it on!’ said Mr. Button hurriedly. He turned to the nurse. ‘What’ll I do?’

‘Go down town and buy your son some clothes.’

Mr. Button’s son’s voice followed him down into the: hall: ‘And a cane, father. I want to have a cane.’

Mr. Button banged the outer door savagely….

2

‘Good-morning,’ Mr. Button said nervously, to the clerk in the Chesapeake Dry Goods Company. ‘I want to buy some clothes for my child.’

‘How old is your child, sir?’

‘About six hours,’ answered Mr. Button, without due consideration.

‘Babies’ supply department in the rear.’

‘Why, I don’t think – I’m not sure that’s what I want. It’s – he’s an unusually large-size child. Exceptionally – ah – large.’

‘They have the largest child’s sizes.’

‘Where is the boys’ department?’ inquired Mr. Button, shifting his ground desperately. He felt that the clerk must surely scent his shameful secret.

‘Right here.’

‘Well – ’ He hesitated. The notion of dressing his son in men’s clothes was repugnant to him. If, say, he could only find a very large boy’s suit, he might cut off that long and awful beard, dye the white hair brown, and thus manage to conceal the worst, and to retain something of his own self-respect – not to mention his position in Baltimore society.

But a frantic inspection of the boys’ department revealed no suits to fit the new-born Button. He blamed the store, of course – in such cases it is the thing to blame the store.

‘How old did you say that boy of yours was?’ demanded the clerk curiously.

‘He’s – sixteen.’

‘Oh, I beg your pardon. I thought you said six hours. You’ll find the youths’ department in the next aisle.’

Mr. Button turned miserably away. Then he stopped, brightened, and pointed his finger toward a dressed dummy in the window display. ‘There!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’ll take that suit, out there on the dummy.’

The clerk stared. ‘Why,’ he protested, ‘that’s not a child’s suit. At least it is, but it’s for fancy dress. You could wear it yourself!’

‘Wrap it up,’ insisted his customer nervously. ‘That’s what I want.’

The astonished clerk obeyed.

Back at the hospital Mr. Button entered the nursery and almost threw the package at his son. ‘Here’s your clothes,’ he snapped out.

The old man untied the package and viewed the contents with a quizzical eye.

“’They look sort of funny to me,’ he complained, ‘I don’t want to be made a monkey of – ’

‘You’ve made a monkey of me!’ retorted Mr. Button fiercely. ‘Never you mind how funny you look. Put them on – or I’ll – or I’ll spank you.’ He swallowed uneasily at the penultimate word, feeling nevertheless that it was the proper thing to say.

‘All right, father’ – this with a grotesque simulation of filial respect – ‘you’ve lived longer; you know best. Just as you say.’

As before, the sound of the word ‘father’ caused Mr. Button to start violently.

‘And hurry.’

‘I’m hurrying, father.’

When his son was dressed Mr. Button regarded him with depression. The costume consisted of dotted socks, pink pants, and a belted blouse with a wide white collar. Over the latter waved the long whitish beard, drooping almost to the waist. The effect was not good.

‘Wait!’

Mr. Button seized a hospital shears and with three quick snaps amputated a large section of the beard. But even with this improvement the ensemble fell far short of perfection. The remaining brush of scraggly hair, the watery eyes, the ancient teeth, seemed oddly out of tone with the gaiety of the costume. Mr. Button, however, was obdurate – he held out his hand. ‘Come along!’ he said sternly.

His son took the hand trustingly. ‘What are you going to call me, dad?’ he quavered as they walked from the nursery – ‘just “baby” for a while? till you think of a better name?’

Mr. Button grunted. ‘I don’t know,’ he answered harshly. ‘I think we’ll call you Methuselah[70].’

3

Even after the new addition to the Button family had had his hair cut short and then dyed to a sparse unnatural black, had had his face shaved so dose that it glistened, and had been attired in small-boy clothes made to order by a flabbergasted tailor, it was impossible for Button to ignore the fact that his son was a poor excuse for a first family baby. Despite his aged stoop, Benjamin Button – for it was by this name they called him instead of by the appropriate but invidious Methuselah – was five feet eight inches tall. His clothes did not conceal this, nor did the clipping and dyeing of his eyebrows disguise the fact that the eyes under – were faded and watery and tired. In fact, the baby-nurse who had been engaged in advance left the house after one look, in a state of considerable indignation.

But Mr. Button persisted in his unwavering purpose. Benjamin was a baby, and a baby he should remain. At first he declared that if Benjamin didn’t like warm milk he could go without food altogether, but he was finally prevailed upon to allow his son bread and butter, and even oatmeal by way of a compromise. One day he brought home a rattle and, giving it to Benjamin, insisted in no uncertain terms that he should ‘play with it,’ whereupon the old man took it with a weary expression and could be heard jingling it obediently at intervals throughout the day.

There can be no doubt, though, that the rattle bored him, and that he found other and more soothing amusements when he was left alone. For instance, Mr. Button discovered one day that during the preceding week be had smoked more cigars than ever before – a phenomenon, which was explained a few days later when, entering the nursery unexpectedly, he found the room full of faint blue haze and Benjamin, with a guilty expression on his face, trying to conceal the butt of a dark Havana[71]. This, of course, called for a severe spanking, but Mr. Button found that he could not bring himself to administer it. He merely warned his son that he would ‘stunt his growth.’

Nevertheless he persisted in his attitude. He brought home lead soldiers, he brought toy trains, he brought large pleasant animals made of cotton, and, to perfect the illusion which he was creating – for himself at least – he passionately demanded of the clerk in the toy-store whether ‘the paint would come oft the pink duck if the baby put it in his mouth.’ But, despite all his father’s efforts, Benjamin refused to be interested. He would steal down the back stairs and return to the nursery with a volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica, over which he would pore through an afternoon, while his cotton cows and his Noah’s ark were left neglected on the floor. Against such a stubbornness Mr. Button’s efforts were of little avail.

The sensation created in Baltimore was, at first, prodigious. What the mishap would have cost the Buttons and their kinsfolk socially cannot be determined, for the outbreak of the Civil War drew the city’s attention to other things. A few people who were unfailingly polite racked their brains for compliments to give to the parents – and finally hit upon the ingenious device of declaring that the baby resembled his grandfather, a fact which, due to the standard state of decay common to all men of seventy, could not be denied. Mr. and Mrs. Roger Button were not pleased, and Benjamin’s grandfather was furiously insulted.

Benjamin, once he left the hospital, took life as he found it. Several small boys were brought to see him, and he spent a stiff-jointed afternoon trying to work up an interest in tops and marbles – he even managed, quite accidentally, to break a kitchen window with a stone from a sling shot, a feat which secretly delighted his father.

Thereafter Benjamin contrived to break something every day, but he did these things only because they were expected of him, and because he was by nature obliging.

When his grandfather’s initial antagonism wore off, Benjamin and that gentleman took enormous pleasure in one another’s company. They would sit for hours, these two, so far apart in age and experience, and, like old cronies, discuss with tireless monotony the slow events of the day. Benjamin felt more at ease in his grandfather’s presence than in his parents’ – they seemed always somewhat in awe of him and, despite the dictatorial authority they exercised over him, frequently addressed him as ‘Mr.’

He was as puzzled as anyone else at the apparently advanced age of his mind and body at birth. He read up on it in the medical journal, but found that no such case had been previously recorded. At his father’s urging he made an honest attempt to play with other boys, and frequently he joined in the milder games – football shook him up too much, and he feared that in case of a fracture his ancient bones would refuse to knit.

When he was five he was sent to kindergarten, where he initiated into the art of pasting green paper on orange paper, of weaving coloured maps and manufacturing eternal cardboard necklaces. He was inclined to drowse off to sleep in the middle of these tasks, a habit which both irritated and frightened his young teacher. To his relief she complained to his parents, and he was removed from the school. The Roger Buttons told their friends that they felt he was too young.

By the time he was twelve years old his parents had grown used to him. Indeed, so strong is the force of custom that they no longer felt that he was different from any other child – except when some curious anomaly reminded them of the fact. But one day a few weeks after his twelfth birthday, while looking in the mirror, Benjamin made, or thought he made, an astonishing discovery. Did his eyes deceive him, or had his hair turned in the dozen years of his life from white to iron-gray under its concealing dye? Was the network of wrinkles on his face becoming less pronounced? Was his skin healthier and firmer, with even a touch of ruddy winter colour? He could not tell. He knew that he no longer stooped, and that his physical condition had improved since the early days of his life.

‘Can it be – ?’ he thought to himself, or, rather, scarcely dared to think.

He went to his father. ‘I am grown,’ he announced determinedly. ‘I want to put on long trousers.’

His father hesitated. ‘Well,’ he said finally, ‘I don’t know. Fourteen is the age for putting on long trousers – and you are only twelve.’

‘But you’ll have to admit,’ protested Benjamin, ‘that I’m big for my age.’

His father looked at him with illusory speculation. ‘Oh, I’m not so sure of that,’ he said. ‘I was as big as you when I was twelve.’

This was not true – it was all part of Roger Button’s silent agreement with himself to believe in his son’s normality.

Finally a compromise was reached. Benjamin was to continue to dye his hair. He was to make a better attempt to play with boys of his own age. He was not to wear his spectacles or carry a cane in the street. In return for these concessions he was allowed his first suit of long trousers….

4

Of the life of Benjamin Button between his twelfth and twenty-first year I intend to say little. Suffice to record that they were years of normal ungrowth. When Benjamin was eighteen he was erect as a man of fifty; he had more hair and it was of a dark gray; his step was firm, his voice had lost its cracked quaver and descended to a healthy baritone. So his father sent him up to Connecticut to take examinations for entrance to Yale College. Benjamin passed his examination and became a member of the freshman class.

On the third day following his matriculation he received a notification from Mr. Hart, the college registrar, to call at his office and arrange his schedule. Benjamin, glancing in the mirror, decided that his hair needed a new application of its brown dye, but an anxious inspection of his bureau drawer disclosed that the dye bottle was not there. Then he remembered – he had emptied it the day before and thrown it away.

He was in a dilemma. He was due at the registrar’s in five minutes. There seemed to be no help for it – he must go as he was. He did.

‘Good-morning,’ said the registrar politely. ‘You’ve come to inquire about your son.’

‘Why, as a matter of fact, my name’s Button – ’ began Benjamin, but Mr. Hart cut him off.

‘I’m very glad to meet you, Mr. Button. I’m expecting your son here any minute.’

‘That’s me!’ burst out Benjamin. ‘I’m a freshman.’

‘What!’

‘I’m a freshman.’

‘Surely you’re joking.’

‘Not at all.’

The registrar frowned and glanced at a card before him. ‘Why, I have Mr. Benjamin Button’s age down here as eighteen.’

‘That’s my age,’ asserted Benjamin, flushing slightly.

The registrar eyed him wearily. ‘Now surely, Mr. Button, you don’t expect me to believe that.’

Benjamin smiled wearily. ‘I am eighteen,’ he repeated.

The registrar pointed sternly to the door. ‘Get out,’ he said. ‘Get out of college and get out of town. You are a dangerous lunatic.’

‘I am eighteen.’

Mr. Hart opened the door. ‘The idea!’ he shouted. ‘A man of your age trying to enter here as a freshman. Eighteen years old, are you? Well, I’ll give you eighteen minutes to get out of town.’

Benjamin Button walked with dignity from the room, and half a dozen undergraduates, who were waiting in the hall, followed him curiously with their eyes. When he had gone a little way he turned around, faced the infuriated registrar, who was still standing in the door-way, and repeated in a firm voice: ‘I am eighteen years old.’

To a chorus of titters which went up from the group of undergraduates, Benjamin walked away.

But he was not fated to escape so easily. On his melancholy walk to the railroad station he found that he was being followed by a group, then by a swarm, and finally by a dense mass of undergraduates. The word had gone around that a lunatic had passed the entrance examinations for Yale and attempted to palm himself off as a youth of eighteen. A fever of excitement permeated the college. Men ran hatless out of classes, the football team abandoned its practice and joined the mob, professors’ wives with bonnets awry and bustles out of position, ran shouting after the procession, from which proceeded a continual succession of remarks aimed at the tender sensibilities of Benjamin Button.

‘He must be the Wandering Jew[72]!’

‘He ought to go to prep school at his age!’

‘Look at the infant prodigy!’

‘He thought this was the old men’s home.’

‘Go up to Harvard!’

Benjamin increased his gait, and soon he was running. He would show them! He would go to Harvard, and then they would regret these ill-considered taunts!

Safely on board the train for Baltimore, he put his head from the window. ‘You’ll regret this!’ he shouted.

‘Ha-ha!’ the undergraduates laughed. ‘Ha-ha-ha!’ It was the biggest mistake that Yale College had ever made….

5

In 1880 Benjamin Button was twenty years old, and he signalised his birthday by going to work for his father in Roger Button & Co., Wholesale Hardware. It was in that same year that he began ‘going out socially’ – that is, his father insisted on taking him to several fashionable dances. Roger Button was now fifty, and he and his son were more and more companionable – in fact, since Benjamin had ceased to dye his hair (which was still grayish) they appeared about the same age, and could have passed for brothers.

One night in August they got into the phaeton attired in their full-dress suits and drove out to a dance at the Shevlins’ country house, situated just outside of Baltimore. It was a gorgeous evening. A full moon drenched the road to the lustreless colour of platinum, and late-blooming harvest flowers breathed into the motionless air aromas that were like low, half-heard laughter. The open country, carpeted for rods around with bright wheat, was translucent as in the day. It was almost impossible not to be affected by the sheer beauty of the sky – almost.

‘There’s a great future in the dry-goods business,’ Roger Button was saying. He was not a spiritual man – his aesthetic sense was rudimentary.

‘Old fellows like me can’t learn new tricks,’ he observed profoundly. ‘It’s you youngsters with energy and vitality that have the great future before you.’

Far up the road the lights of the Shevlins’ country house drifted into view, and presently there was a sighing sound that crept persistently toward them – it might have been the fine plaint of violins or the rustle of the silver wheat under the moon.

They pulled up behind a handsome brougham whose passengers were disembarking at the door. A lady got out, then an elderly gentleman, then another young lady, beautiful as sin. Benjamin started; an almost chemical change seemed to dissolve and recompose the very elements of his body. A rigour passed over him, blood rose into his cheeks, his forehead, and there was a steady thumping in his ears. It was first love.

The girl was slender and frail, with hair that was ashen under the moon and honey-coloured under the sputtering gas-lamps of the porch. Over her shoulders was thrown a Spanish mantilla[73] of softest yellow, butterflied in black; her feet were glittering buttons at the hem of her bustled dress.

Roger Button leaned over to his son. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is young Hildegarde Moncrief, the daughter of General Moncrief.’

Benjamin nodded coldly. ‘Pretty little thing,’ he said indifferently. But when the negro boy had led the buggy away, he added: ‘Dad, you might introduce me to her.’

They approached a group, of which Miss Moncrief was the centre. Reared in the old tradition, she curtsied low before Benjamin. Yes, he might have a dance. He thanked her and walked away – staggered away.

The interval until the time for his turn should arrive dragged itself out interminably. He stood close to the wall, silent, inscrutable, watching with murderous eyes the young bloods of Baltimore as they eddied around Hildegarde Moncrief, passionate admiration in their faces. How obnoxious they seemed to Benjamin; how intolerably rosy! Their curling brown whiskers aroused in him a feeling equivalent to indigestion.

But when his own time came, and he drifted with her out upon the changing floor to the music of the latest waltz from Paris, his jealousies and anxieties melted from him like a mantle of snow. Blind with enchantment, he felt that life was just beginning.

‘You and your brother got here just as we did, didn’t you?’ asked Hildegarde, looking up at him with eyes that were like bright blue enamel.

Benjamin hesitated. If she took him for his father’s brother, would it be best to enlighten her? He remembered his experience at Yale, so he decided against it. It would be rude to contradict a lady; it would be criminal to mar this exquisite occasion with the grotesque story of his origin. Later, perhaps. So he nodded, smiled, listened, was happy.

‘I like men of your age,’ Hildegarde told him. ‘Young boys are so idiotic. They tell me how much champagne they drink at college, and how much money they lose playing cards. Men of your age know how to appreciate women.’

Benjamin felt himself on the verge of a proposal – with an effort he choked back the impulse.

‘You’re just the romantic age,’ she continued – ‘fifty. Twenty-five is too wordly-wise; thirty is apt to be pale from overwork; forty is the age of long stories that take a whole cigar to tell; sixty is – oh, sixty is too near seventy; but fifty is the mellow age. I love fifty.’

Fifty seemed to Benjamin a glorious age. He longed passionately to be fifty.

‘I’ve always said,’ went on Hildegarde, ‘that I’d rather marry a man of fifty and be taken care of than marry a man of thirty and take care of him.’

For Benjamin the rest of the evening was bathed in a honey-coloured mist. Hildegarde gave him two more dances, and they discovered that they were marvellously in accord on all the questions of the day. She was to go driving with him on the following Sunday, and then they would discuss all these questions further.

Going home in the phaeton just before the crack of dawn, when the first bees were humming and the fading moon glimmered in the cool dew, Benjamin knew vaguely that his father was discussing wholesale hardware.

‘… And what do you think should merit our biggest attention after hammers and nails?’ the elder Button was saying.

‘Love,’ replied Benjamin absent-mindedly.

‘Lugs?’ exclaimed Roger Button, ‘Why, I’ve just covered the question of lugs.’

Benjamin regarded him with dazed eyes just as the eastern sky was suddenly cracked with light, and an oriole yawned piercingly in the quickening trees…

6

When, six months later, the engagement of Miss Hildegarde Moncrief to Mr. Benjamin Button was made known (I say ‘made known,’ for General Moncrief declared he would rather fall upon his sword than announce it), the excitement in Baltimore society reached a feverish pitch. The almost forgotten story of Benjamin’s birth was remembered and sent out upon the winds of scandal in picaresque and incredible forms. It was said that Benjamin was really the father of Roger Button, that he was his brother who had been in prison for forty years, that he was John Wilkes Booth in disguise – and, finally, that he had two small conical horns sprouting from his head.

The Sunday supplements of the New York papers played up the case with fascinating sketches which showed the head of Benjamin Button attached to a fish, to a snake, and, finally, to a body of solid brass. He became known, journalistically, as the Mystery Man of Maryland. But the true story, as is usually the case, had a very small circulation.

However, everyone agreed with General Moncrief that it was ‘criminal’ for a lovely girl who could have married any beau in Baltimore to throw herself into the arms of a man who was assuredly fifty. In vain Mr. Roger Button published his son’s birth certificate in large type in the Baltimore Blaze. No one believed it. You had only to look at Benjamin and see.

On the part of the two people most concerned there was no wavering. So many of the stories about her fiancé were false that Hildegarde refused stubbornly to believe even the true one. In vain General Moncrief pointed out to her the high mortality among men of fifty – or, at least, among men who looked fifty; in vain he told her of the instability of the wholesale hardware business. Hildegarde had chosen to marry for mellowness, and marry she did….

7

In one particular, at least, the friends of Hildegarde Moncrief were mistaken. The wholesale hardware business prospered amazingly. In the fifteen years between Benjamin Button’s marriage in 1880 and his father’s retirement in 1895, the family fortune was doubled – and this was due largely to the younger member of the firm.

Needless to say, Baltimore eventually received the couple to its bosom. Even old General Moncrief became reconciled to his son-in-law when Benjamin gave him the money to bring out his ‘History of the Civil War’ in twenty volumes, which had been refused by nine prominent publishers.

In Benjamin himself fifteen years had wrought many changes. It seemed to him that the blood flowed with new vigour through his veins. It began to be a pleasure to rise in the morning, to walk with an active step along the busy, sunny street, to work untiringly with his shipments of hammers and his cargoes of nails. It was in 1890 that he executed his famous business coup: he brought up the suggestion that all nails used in nailing up the boxes in which nails are shipped are the property of the shippee, a proposal which became a statute, was approved by Chief Justice Fossile, and saved Roger Button and Company, Wholesale Hardware, more than six hundred nails every year.

In addition, Benjamin discovered that he was becoming more and more attracted by the gay side of life. It was typical of his growing enthusiasm for pleasure that he was the first man in the city of Baltimore to own and run an automobile. Meeting him on the street, his contemporaries would stare enviously at the picture he made of health and vitality.

‘He seems to grow younger every year,’ they would remark. And if old Roger Button, now sixty-five years old, had failed at first to give a proper welcome to his son he atoned at last by bestowing on him what amounted to adulation.

And here we come to an unpleasant subject which it will be well to pass over as quickly as possible. There was only one thing that worried Benjamin Button; his wife had ceased to attract him.

At that time Hildegarde was a woman of thirty-five, with a son, Roscoe, fourteen years old. In the early days of their marriage Benjamin had worshipped her. But, as the years passed, her honey-coloured hair became an unexciting brown, the blue enamel of her eyes assumed the aspect of cheap crockery – moreover, and, most of all, she had become too settled in her ways, too placid, too content, too anemic in her excitements, and too sober in her taste. As a bride it been she who had ‘dragged’ Benjamin to dances and dinners – now conditions were reversed. She went out socially with him, but without enthusiasm, devoured already by that eternal inertia which comes to live with each of us one day and stays with us to the end.

Benjamin’s discontent waxed stronger. At the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in 1898 his home had for him so little charm that he decided to join the army. With his business influence he obtained a commission as captain, and proved so adaptable to the work that he was made a major, and finally a lieutenant-colonel just in time to participate in the celebrated charge up San Juan Hill[74]. He was slightly wounded, and received a medal.

Benjamin had become so attached to the activity and excitement of array life that he regretted to give it up, but his business required attention, so he resigned his commission and came home. He was met at the station by a brass band and escorted to his house.

8

Hildegarde, waving a large silk flag, greeted him on the porch, and even as he kissed her he felt with a sinking of the heart that these three years had taken their toll. She was a woman of forty now, with a faint skirmish line of gray hairs in her head. The sight depressed him.

Up in his room he saw his reflection in the familiar mirror – he went closer and examined his own face with anxiety, comparing it after a moment with a photograph of himself in uniform taken just before the war.

‘Good Lord!’ he said aloud. The process was continuing. There was no doubt of it – he looked now like a man of thirty. Instead of being delighted, he was uneasy – he was growing younger. He had hitherto hoped that once he reached a bodily age equivalent to his age in years, the grotesque phenomenon which had marked his birth would cease to function. He shuddered. His destiny seemed to him awful, incredible.

When he came downstairs Hildegarde was waiting for him. She appeared annoyed, and he wondered if she had at last discovered that there was something amiss. It was with an effort to relieve the tension between them that he broached the matter at dinner in what he considered a delicate way.

‘Well,’ he remarked lightly, ‘everybody says I look younger than ever.’

Hildegarde regarded him with scorn. She sniffed. ‘Do you think it’s anything to boast about?’

‘I’m not boasting,’ he asserted uncomfortably.

She sniffed again. ‘The idea,’ she said, and after a moment: ‘I should think you’d have enough pride to stop it.’

‘How can I?’ he demanded.

‘I’m not going to argue with you,’ she retorted. ‘But there’s a right way of doing things and a wrong way. If you’ve made up your mind to be different from everybody else, I don’t suppose I can stop you, but I really don’t think it’s very considerate.’

‘But, Hildegarde, I can’t help it.’

‘You can too. You’re simply stubborn. You think you don’t want to be like anyone else. You always have been that way, and you always will be. But just think how it would be if everyone else looked at things as you do – what would the world be like?’

As this was an inane and unanswerable argument Benjamin made no reply, and from that time on a chasm began to widen between them. He wondered what possible fascination she had ever exercised over him.

To add to the breach, he found, as the new century gathered headway, that his thirst for gaiety grew stronger. Never a party of any kind in the city of Baltimore but he was there, dancing with the prettiest of the young married women, chatting with the most popular of the debutantes, and finding their company charming, while his wife, a dowager of evil omen, sat among the chaperons, now in haughty disapproval, and now following him with solemn, puzzled, and reproachful eyes.

‘Look!’ people would remark. ‘What a pity! A young fellow that age tied to a woman of forty-five. He must be twenty years younger than his wife.’ They had forgotten – as people inevitably forget – that back in 1880 their mammas and papas had also remarked about this same ill-matched pair.

Benjamin’s growing unhappiness at home was compensated for by his many new interests. He took up golf and made a great success of it. He went in for dancing: in 1906 he was an expert at ‘The Boston,’ and in 1908 he was considered proficient at the ‘Maxixe,’ while in 1909 his ‘Castle Walk’ was the envy of every young man in town.

His social activities, of course, interfered to some extent with his business, but then he had worked hard at wholesale hardware for twenty-five years and felt that he could soon hand it on to his son, Roscoe, who had recently graduated from Harvard.

He and his son were, in fact, often mistaken for each other. This pleased Benjamin – he soon forgot the insidious fear which had come over him on his return from the Spanish-American War, and grew to take a naпve pleasure in his appearance. There was only one fly in the delicious ointment – he hated to appear in public with his wife. Hildegarde was almost fifty, and the sight of her made him feel absurd….

9

One September day in 1910 – a few years after Roger Button & Co., Wholesale Hardware, had been handed over to young Roscoe Button – a man, apparently about twenty years old, entered himself as a freshman at Harvard University in Cambridge. He did not make the mistake of announcing that he would never see fifty again, nor did he mention the fact that his son had been graduated from the same institution ten years before.

He was admitted, and almost immediately attained a prominent position in the class, partly because he seemed a little older than the other freshmen, whose average age was about eighteen.

But his success was largely due to the fact that in the football game with Yale he played so brilliantly, with so much dash and with such a cold, remorseless anger that he scored seven touchdowns and fourteen field goals for Harvard, and caused one entire eleven of Yale men to be carried singly from the field, unconscious. He was the most celebrated man in college.

Strange to say, in his third or junior year he was scarcely able to ‘make’ the team. The coaches said that he had lost weight, and it seemed to the more observant among them that he was not quite as tall as before. He made no touchdowns – indeed, he was retained on the team chiefly in hope that his enormous reputation would bring terror and disorganisation to the Yale team.

In his senior year he did not make the team at all. He had grown so slight and frail that one day he was taken by some sophomores for a freshman, an incident which humiliated him terribly. He became known as something of a prodigy – a senior who was surely no more than sixteen – and he was often shocked at the worldliness of some of his classmates. His studies seemed harder to him – he felt that they were too advanced. He had heard his classmates speak of St. Midas’s, the famous preparatory school, at which so many of them had prepared for college, and he determined after his graduation to enter himself at St. Midas’s, where the sheltered life among boys his own size would be more congenial to him.

Upon his graduation in 1914 he went home to Baltimore with his Harvard diploma in his pocket. Hildegarde was now residing in Italy, so Benjamin went to live with his son, Roscoe. But though he was welcomed in a general way there was obviously no heartiness in Roscoe’s feeling toward him – there was even perceptible a tendency on his son’s part to think that Benjamin, as he moped about the house in adolescent mooniness, was somewhat in the way. Roscoe was married now and prominent in Baltimore life, and he wanted no scandal to creep out in connection with his family.

Benjamin, no longer persona grata[75] with the debutantes and younger college set, found himself left much done, except for the companionship of three or four fifteen-year-old boys in the neighbourhood. His idea of going to St. Midas’s school recurred to him.

‘Say,’ he said to Roscoe one day, ‘I’ve told you over and over that I want to go to prep school.’

‘Well, go, then,’ replied Roscoe shortly. The matter was distasteful to him, and he wished to avoid a discussion.

‘I can’t go alone,’ said Benjamin helplessly. ‘You’ll have to enter me and take me up there.’

‘I haven’t got time,’ declared Roscoe abruptly. His eyes narrowed and he looked uneasily at his father. ‘As a matter of fact,’ he added, ‘you’d better not go on with this business much longer. You better pull up short. You better – you better’ – he paused and his face crimsoned as he sought for words – ‘you better turn right around and start back the other way. This has gone too far to be a joke. It isn’t funny any longer. You – you behave yourself!’

Benjamin looked at him, on the verge of tears.

‘And another thing, continued Roscoe, ‘when visitors are in the house I want you to call me “Uncle” – not “Roscoe,” but “Uncle,” do you understand? It looks absurd for a boy of fifteen to call me by my first name. Perhaps you’d better call me “Uncle” all the time, so you’ll get used to it.’

With a harsh look at his father, Roscoe turned away….

10

At the termination of this interview, Benjamin wandered dismally upstairs and stared at himself in the mirror. He had not shaved for three months, but he could find nothing on his face but a faint white down with which it seemed unnecessary to meddle. When he had first come home from Harvard, Roscoe had approached him with the proposition that he should wear eye-glasses and imitation whiskers glued to his cheeks, and it had seemed for a moment that the farce of his early years was to be repeated. But whiskers had itched and made him ashamed. He wept and Roscoe had reluctantly relented.

Benjamin opened a book of boys’ stories, ‘The Boy Scouts in BiminI Bay,’ and began to read. But he found himself thinking persistently about the war. America had joined the Allied cause during the preceding month, and Benjamin wanted to enlist, but, alas, sixteen was the minimum age, and he did not look that old. His true age, which was fifty-seven, would have disqualified him, anyway.

There was a knock at his door, and the butler appeared with a letter bearing a large official legend in the corner and addressed to Mr. Benjamin Button. Benjamin tore it open eagerly, and read the enclosure with delight. It informed him that many reserve officers who had served in the Spanish-American War were being called back into service with a higher rank, and it enclosed his commission as brigadier-general in the United States army with orders to report immediately.

Benjamin jumped to his feet fairly quivering with enthusiasm. This was what he had wanted. He seized his cap, and ten minutes later he had entered a large tailoring establishment on Charles Street, and asked in his uncertain treble to be measured for a uniform.

‘Want to play soldier, sonny?’ demanded a clerk casually.

Benjamin flushed. ‘Say! Never mind what I want!’ he retorted angrily. ‘My name’s Button and I live on Mt. Vernon Place, so you know I’m good for it.’

‘Well,’ admitted the clerk hesitantly, ‘if you’re not, I guess your daddy is, all right.’

Benjamin was measured, and a week later his uniform was completed. He had difficulty in obtaining the proper general’s insignia because the dealer kept insisting to Benjamin that a nice Y.W.C.A.[76] badge would look just as well and be much more fun to play with.

Saying nothing to Roscoe, he left the house one night and proceeded by train to Camp Mosby, in South Carolina, where he was to command an infantry brigade. On a sultry April day he approached the entrance to the camp, paid off the taxicab which had brought him from the station, and turned to the sentry on guard.

‘Get someone to handle my luggage!’ he said briskly.

The sentry eyed him reproachfully. ‘Say,’ he remarked, ‘where you goin’ with the general’s duds, sonny?’

Benjamin, veteran of the Spanish-American War, whirled upon him with fire in his eye, but with, alas, a changing treble voice.

‘Come to attention!’ he tried to thunder; he paused for breath – then suddenly he saw the sentry snap his heels together and bring his rifle to the present. Benjamin concealed a smile of gratification, but when he glanced around his smile faded. It was not he who had inspired obedience, but an imposing artillery colonel who was approaching on horseback.

‘Colonel!’ called Benjamin shrilly.

The colonel came up, drew rein, and looked coolly down at him with a twinkle in his eyes. ‘Whose little boy are you? he demanded kindly.

‘I’ll soon darn well show you whose little boy I am!’ retorted Benjamin in a ferocious voice. ‘Get down off that horse!’

The colonel roared with laughter.

‘You want him, eh, general?’

‘Here!’ cried Benjamin desperately. ‘Read this.’ And he thrust his commission toward the colonel.

The colonel read it, his eyes popping from their sockets.

‘Where’d you get this?’ he demanded, slipping the document into his own pocket.

‘I got it from the Government, as you’ll soon find out!’

‘You come along with me,’ said the colonel with a peculiar look. ‘We’ll go up to headquarters and talk this over. Come along.’

The colonel turned and began walking his horse in the direction of headquarters. There was nothing for Benjamin to do but follow with as much dignity as possible – meanwhile promising himself a stern revenge.

But this revenge did not materialize. Two days later, however, his son Roscoe materialized from Baltimore, hot and cross from a hasty trip, and escorted the weeping general, sans[77] uniform, back to his home.

11

In 1920 Roscoe Button’s first child was born. During the attendant festivities, however, no one thought it ‘the thing’ to mention, that the little grubby boy, apparently about ten years of age who played around the house with lead soldiers and a miniature circus, was the new baby’s own grandfather.

No one disliked the little boy whose fresh, cheerful face was crossed with just a hint of sadness, but to Roscoe Button his presence was a source of torment. In the idiom of his generation Roscoe did not consider the matter ‘efficient.’ It seemed to him that his father, in refusing to look sixty, had not behaved like a ‘red-blooded he-man’ – this was Roscoe’s favourite expression – but in a curious and perverse manner. Indeed, to think about the matter for as much as a half an hour drove him to the edge of insanity. Roscoe believed that ‘live wires’ should keep young, but carrying it out on such a scale was – was – was inefficient. And there Roscoe rested.

Five years later Roscoe’s little boy had grown old enough to play childish games with little Benjamin under the supervision of the same nurse. Roscoe took them both to kindergarten on the same day, and Benjamin found that playing with little strips of coloured paper, making mats and chains and curious and beautiful designs, was the most fascinating game in the world. Once he was bad and had to stand in the corner – then he cried – but for the most part there were gay hours in the cheerful room, with the sunlight coming in the windows and Miss Bailey’s kind hand resting for a moment now and then in his tousled hair.

Roscoe’s son moved up into the first grade after a year, but Benjamin stayed on in the kindergarten. He was very happy. Sometimes when other tots talked about what they would do when they grew up a shadow would cross his little face as if in a dim, childish way he realized that those were things in which he was never to share.

The days flowed on in monotonous content. He went back a third year to the kindergarten, but he was too little now to understand what the bright shining strips of paper were for. He cried because the other boys were bigger than he, and he was afraid of them. The teacher talked to him, but though he tried to understand he could not understand at all.

He was taken from the kindergarten. His nurse, Nana, in her starched gingham[78] dress, became the centre of his tiny world. On bright days they walked in the park; Nana would point at a great gray monster and say ‘elephant,’ and Benjamin would say it after her, and when he was being undressed for bed that night he would say it over and over aloud to her: ‘Elyphant, elyphant, elyphant.’ Sometimes Nana let him jump on the bed, which was fun, because if you sat down exactly right it would bounce you up on your feet again, and if you said ‘Ah’ for a long time while you jumped you got a very pleasing broken vocal effect.

He loved to take a big cane from the hat-rack and go around hitting chairs and tables with it and saying: ‘Fight, fight, fight.’ When there were people there the old ladies would cluck at him, which interested him, and the young ladies would try to kiss him, which he submitted to with mild boredom. And when the long day was done at five o’clock he would go upstairs with Nana and be fed on oatmeal and nice soft mushy foods with a spoon.

There were no troublesome memories in his childish sleep; no token came to him of his brave days at college, of the glittering years when he flustered the hearts of many girls. There were only the white, safe walls of his crib and Nana and a man who came to see him sometimes, and a great big orange ball that Nana pointed at just before his twilight bed hour and called ‘sun.’ When the sun went his eyes were sleepy – there were no dreams, no dreams to haunt him.

The past – the wild charge at the head of his men up San Juan Hill; the first years of his marriage when he worked late into the summer dusk down in the busy city for young Hildegarde whom he loved; the days before that when he sat smoking far into the night in the gloomy old Button house on Monroe Street with his grandfather – all these had faded like unsubstantial dreams from his mind as though they had never been. He did not remember.

He did not remember clearly whether the milk was warm or cool at his last feeding or how the days passed – there was only his crib and Nana’s familiar presence. And then he remembered nothing. When he was hungry he cried – that was all. Through the noons and nights he breathed and over him there were soft mumblings and murmurings that he scarcely heard, and faintly differentiated smells, and light and darkness.

Then it was all dark, and his white crib and the dim faces that moved above him, and the warm sweet aroma of the milk, faded out altogether from his mind.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The Yellow Wall Paper

It is very seldom that mere ordinary people like John and myself secure ancestral halls for the summer.

A colonial mansion, a hereditary estate, I would say a haunted house, and reach the height of romantic felicity, – but that would be asking too much of fate!

Still I will proudly declare that there is something queer about it.

Else, why should it be let so cheaply? And why have stood so long untenanted?

John laughs at me, of course, but one expects that in marriage.

John is practical in the extreme. He has no patience with faith, an intense horror of superstition, and he scoffs openly at any talk of things not to be felt and seen and put down in figures.

John is a physician, and perhaps – (I would not say it to a living soul, of course, but this is dead paper and a great relief to my mind) – perhaps that is one reason I do not get well faster.

You see, he does not believe I am sick!

And what can one do?

If a physician of high standing, and one’s own husband, assures friends and relatives that there is really nothing the matter with one but temporary nervous depression, – a slight hysterical tendency, – what is one to do?

My brother is also a physician, and also of high standing, and he says the same thing.

So I take phosphates or phosphites, – whichever it is, – and tonics, and journeys, and air, and exercise, and am absolutely forbidden to ‘work’ until I am well again.

Personally I disagree with their ideas.

Personally I believe that congenial work, with excitement and change, would do me good.

But what is one to do?

I did write for a while in spite of them; but it does exhaust me a good deal – having to be so sly about it, or else meet with heavy opposition.

I sometimes fancy that in my condition if I had less opposition and more society and stimulus – but John says the very worst thing I can do is to think about my condition, and I confess it always makes me feel bad.

So I will let it alone and talk about the house.

The most beautiful place! It is quite alone, standing well back from the road, quite three miles from the village. It makes me think of English places that you read about, for there are hedges and walls and gates that lock, and lots of separate little houses for the gardeners and people.

There is a delicious garden! I never saw such a garden – large and shady, full of box-bordered paths, and lined with long grape-covered arbors with seats under them.

There were greenhouses, too, but they are all broken now.

There was some legal trouble, I believe, something about the heirs and co-heirs; anyhow, the place has been empty for years.

That spoils my ghostliness, I am afraid; but I don’t care – there is something strange about the house – I can feel it.

I even said so to John one moonlight evening, but he said what I felt was a draught, and shut the window.

I get unreasonably angry with John sometimes. I’m sure I never used to be so sensitive. I think it is due to this nervous condition.

But John says if I feel so I shall neglect proper self-control; so I take pains to control myself, – before him, at least, – and that makes me very tired.

I don’t like our room a bit. I wanted one downstairs that opened on the piazza and had roses all over the window, and such pretty, old-fashioned chintz hangings! but John would not hear of it.

He said there was only one window and not room for two beds, and no near room for him if he took another.

He is very careful and loving, and hardly lets me stir without special direction.

I have a schedule prescription for each hour in the day; he takes all care from me, and so I feel basely ungrateful not to value it more.

He said we came here solely on my account that I was to have perfect rest and all the air I could get. ‘Your exercise depends on your strength, my dear,’ said he, ‘and your food somewhat on your appetite; but air you can absorb all the time.’ So we took the nursery, at the top of the house.

It is a big, airy room, the whole floor nearly, with windows that look all ways, and air and sunshine galore. It was nursery first and then playground and gymnasium, I should judge; for the windows are barred for little children, and there are rings and things in the walls.

The paint and paper look as if a boys’ school had used it. It is stripped off – the paper – in great patches all around the head of my bed, about as far as I can reach, and in a great place on the other side of the room low down. I never saw a worse paper in my life.

One of those sprawling flamboyant patterns committing every artistic sin.

It is dull enough to confuse the eye in following, pronounced enough to constantly irritate, and provoke study, and when you follow the lame, uncertain curves for a little distance they suddenly commit suicide – plunge off at outrageous angles, destroy themselves in unheard-of contradictions.

The color is repellant, almost revolting; a smouldering, unclean yellow, strangely faded by the slow-turning sunlight.

It is a dull yet lurid orange in some places, a sickly sulphur tint in others.

No wonder the children hated it! I should hate it myself if I had to live in this room long.

There comes John, and I must put this away, – he hates to have me write a word.

We have been here two weeks, and I haven’t felt like writing before, since that first day.

I am sitting by the window now, up in this atrocious nursery, and there is nothing to hinder my writing as much as I please, save lack of strength.

John is away all day, and even some nights when his cases are serious.

I am glad my case is not serious!

But these nervous troubles are dreadfully depressing.

John does not know how much I really suffer. He knows there is no reason to suffer, and that satisfies him.

Of course it is only nervousness. It does weigh on me so not to do my duty in any way!

I meant to be such a help to John, such a real rest and comfort, and here I am a comparative burden already!

Nobody would believe what an effort it is to do what little I am able – to dress and entertain, and order things.

It is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby. Such a dear baby!

And yet I cannot be with him, it makes me so nervous.

I suppose John never was nervous in his life. He laughs at me so about this wall paper!

At first he meant to repaper the room, but afterwards he said that I was letting it get the better of me, and that nothing was worse for a nervous patient than to give way to such fancies.

He said that after the wall paper was changed it would be the heavy bedstead, and then the barred windows, and then that gate at the head of the stairs, and so on.

‘You know the place is doing you good,’ he said, ‘and really, dear, I don’t care to renovate the house just for a three months’ rental.’

‘Then do let us go downstairs,’ I said, ‘there are such pretty rooms there.’

Then he took me in his arms and called me a blessed little goose, and said he would go down cellar if I wished, and have it whitewashed into the bargain.

But he is right enough about the beds and windows and things.

It is as airy and comfortable a room as any one need wish, and, of course, I would not be so silly as to make him uncomfortable just for a whim.

I’m really getting quite fond of the big room, all but that horrid paper.

Out of one window I can see the garden, those mysterious deep-shaded arbors, the riotous old-fashioned flowers, and bushes and gnarly trees.

Out of another I get a lovely view of the bay and a little private wharf belonging to the estate. There is a beautiful shaded lane that runs down there from the house. I always fancy I see people walking in these numerous paths and arbors, but John has cautioned me not to give way to fancy in the least. He says that with my imaginative power and habit of story-making a nervous weakness like mine is sure to lead to all manner of excited fancies, and that I ought to use my will and good sense to check the tendency. So I try.

I think sometimes that if I were only well enough to write a little it would relieve the press of ideas and rest me.

But I find I get pretty tired when I try.

It is so discouraging not to have any advice and companionship about my work. When I get really well John says we will ask Cousin Henry and Julia down for a long visit; but he says he would as soon put fire-works in my pillow-case as to let me have those stimulating people about now.

I wish I could get well faster.

But I must not think about that. This paper looks to me as if it knew what a vicious influence it had!

There is a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes stare at you upside-down.

I got positively angry with the impertinence of it and the everlastingness. Up and down and sideways they crawl, and those absurd, unblinking eyes are everywhere. There is one place where two breadths didn’t match, and the eyes go all up and down the line, one a little higher than the other.

I never saw so much expression in an inanimate thing before, and we all know how much expression they have! I used to lie awake as a child and get more entertainment and terror out of blank walls and plain furniture than most children could find in a toy-store.

I remember what a kindly wink the knobs of our big old bureau used to have, and there was one chair that always seemed like a strong friend.

I used to feel that if any of the other things looked too fierce I could always hop into that chair and be safe.

The furniture in this room is no worse than inharmonious, however, for we had to bring it all from downstairs. I suppose when this was used as a playroom they had to take the nursery things out, and no wonder! I never saw such ravages as the children have made here.

The wall paper, as I said before, is torn off in spots, and it sticketh closer than a brother – they must have had perseverance as well as hatred.

Then the floor is scratched and gouged and splintered, the plaster itself is dug out here and there, and this great heavy bed, which is all we found in the room, looks as if it had been through the wars.

But I don’t mind it a bit – only the paper.

There comes John’s sister. Such a dear girl as she is, and so careful of me! I must not let her find me writing.

She is a perfect, an enthusiastic housekeeper, and hopes for no better profession. I verily believe she thinks it is the writing which made me sick!

But I can write when she is out, and see her a long way off from these windows.

There is one that commands the road, a lovely, shaded, winding road, and one that just looks off over the country. A lovely country, too, full of great elms and velvet meadows.

This wall paper has a kind of sub-pattern in a different shade, a particularly irritating one, for you can only see it in certain lights, and not clearly then.

But in the places where it isn’t faded, and where the sun is just so, I can see a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, that seems to sulk about behind that silly and conspicuous front design.

There’s sister on the stairs!

Well, the Fourth of July[79] is over! The people are all gone and I am tired out. John thought it might do me good to see a little company, so we just had mother and Nellie and the children down for a week.

Of course I didn’t do a thing. Jennie sees to everything now.

But it tired me all the same.

John says if I don’t pick up faster he shall send me to Weir Mitchell in the fall.

But I don’t want to go there at all. I had a friend who was in his hands once, and she says he is just like John and my brother, only more so!

Besides, it is such an undertaking to go so far.

I don’t feel as if it was worthwhile to turn my hand over for anything, and I’m getting dreadfully fretful and querulous.

I cry at nothing, and cry most of the time.

Of course I don’t when John is here, or anybody else, but when I am alone.

And I am alone a good deal just now. John is kept in town very often by serious cases, and Jennie is good and lets me alone when I want her to.

So I walk a little in the garden or down that lovely lane, sit on the porch under the roses, and lie down up here a good deal.

I’m getting really fond of the room in spite of the wall paper. Perhaps because of the wall paper.

It dwells in my mind so!

I lie here on this great immovable bed – it is nailed down, I believe – and follow that pattern about by the hour. It is as good as gymnastics, I assure you. I start, we’ll say, at the bottom, down in the corner over there where it has not been touched, and I determine for the thousandth time that I will follow that pointless pattern to some sort of a conclusion.

I know a little of the principles of design, and I know this thing was not arranged on any laws of radiation, or alternation, or repetition, or symmetry, or anything else that I ever heard of.

It is repeated, of course, by the breadths, but not otherwise.

Looked at in one way, each breadth stands alone, the bloated curves and flourishes – a kind of ‘debased Romanesque’ with delirium tremens[80] – go waddling up and down in isolated columns of fatuity.

But, on the other hand, they connect diagonally, and the sprawling outlines run off in great slanting waves of optic horror, like a lot of wallowing seaweeds in full chase.

The whole thing goes horizontally, too, at least it seems so, and I exhaust myself in trying to distinguish the order of its going in that direction.

They have used a horizontal breadth for a frieze, and that adds wonderfully to the confusion.

There is one end of the room where it is almost intact, and there, when the cross-lights fade and the low sun shines directly upon it, I can almost fancy radiation, after all, – the interminable grotesques seem to form around a common centre and rush off in headlong plunges of equal distraction.

It makes me tired to follow it. I will take a nap, I guess.

I don’t know why I should write this.

I don’t want to.

I don’t feel able.

And I know John would think it absurd. But I must say what I feel and think in some way – it is such a relief!

But the effort is getting to be greater than the relief.

Half the time now I am awfully lazy, and lie down ever so much.

John says I mustn’t lose my strength, and has me take cod-liver oil and lots of tonics and things, to say nothing of ale and wine and rare meat.

Dear John! He loves me very dearly, and hates to have me sick. I tried to have a real earnest reasonable talk with him the other day, and tell him how I wished he would let me go and make a visit to Cousin Henry and Julia.

But he said I wasn’t able to go, nor able to stand it after I got there; and I did not make out a very good case for myself, for I was crying before I had finished.

It is getting to be a great effort for me to think straight. Just this nervous weakness, I suppose.

And dear John gathered me up in his arms, and just carried me upstairs and laid me on the bed, and sat by me and read to me till he tired my head.

He said I was his darling and his comfort and all he had, and that I must take care of myself for his sake, and keep well.

He says no one but myself can help me out of it, that I must use my will and self-control and not let my silly fancies run away with me.

There’s one comfort, the baby is well and happy, and does not have to occupy this nursery with the horrid wall paper.

If we had not used it that blessed child would have! What a fortunate escape! Why, I wouldn’t have a child of mine, an impressionable little thing, live in such a room for worlds.

I never thought of it before, but it is lucky that John kept me here, after all. I can stand it so much easier than a baby, you see.

Of course I never mention it to them anymore, – I am too wise, – but I keep watch of it all the same.

There are things in that paper that nobody knows but me, or ever will.

Behind that outside pattern the dim shapes get clearer every day.

It is always the same shape, only very numerous.

And it is like a woman stooping down and creeping about behind that pattern. I don’t like it a bit. I wonder – I begin to think – I wish John would take me away from here!

It is so hard to talk with John about my case, because he is so wise, and because he loves me so.

But I tried it last night.

It was moonlight. The moon shines in all around, just as the sun does.

I hate to see it sometimes, it creeps so slowly, and always comes in by one window or another.

John was asleep and I hated to waken him, so I kept still and watched the moonlight on that undulating wall paper till I felt creepy.

The faint figure behind seemed to shake the pattern, just as if she wanted to get out.

I got up softly and went to feel and see if the paper did move, and when I came back John was awake.

‘What is it, little girl?’ he said. ‘Don’t go walking about like that – you’ll get cold.’

I thought it was a good time to talk, so I told him that I really was not gaining here, and that I wished he would take me away.

‘Why, darling!’ said he, ‘our lease will be up in three weeks, and I can’t see how to leave before.

‘The repairs are not done at home, and I cannot possibly leave town just now. Of course if you were in any danger I could and would, but you really are better, dear, whether you can see it or not. I am a doctor, dear, and I know. You are gaining flesh and color, your appetite is better. I feel really much easier about you.’

‘I don’t weigh a bit more,’ said I, ‘nor as much; and my appetite may be better in the evening, when you are here, but it is worse in the morning, when you are away.’

‘Bless her little heart!’ said he with a big hug; ‘she shall be as sick as she pleases. But now let’s improve the shining hours by going to sleep, and talk about it in the morning.’

‘And you won’t go away?’ I asked gloomily.

‘Why, how can I, dear? It is only three weeks more and then we will take a nice little trip of a few days while Jennie is getting the house ready. Really, dear, you are better!’

‘Better in body, perhaps’ – I began, and stopped short, for he sat up straight and looked at me with such a stern, reproachful look that I could not say another word.

‘My darling,’ said he, ‘I beg of you, for my sake and for our child’s sake, as well as for your own, that you will never for one instant let that idea enter your mind! There is nothing so dangerous, so fascinating, to a temperament like yours. It is a false and foolish fancy. Can you not trust me as a physician when I tell you so?’

So of course I said no more on that score, and we went to sleep before long. He thought I was asleep first, but I wasn’t, – I lay there for hours trying to decide whether that front pattern and the back pattern really did move together or separately.

On a pattern like this, by daylight, there is a lack of sequence, a defiance of law, that is a constant irritant to a normal mind.

The color is hideous enough, and unreliable enough, and infuriating enough, but the pattern is torturing.

You think you have mastered it, but just as you get well under way in following, it turns a back somersault, and there you are. It slaps you in the face, knocks you down, and tramples upon you. It is like a bad dream.

The outside pattern is a florid arabesque, reminding one of a fungus. If you can imagine a toadstool in joints, an interminable string of toadstools, budding and sprouting in endless convolutions, – why, that is something like it.

That is, sometimes!

There is one marked peculiarity about this paper, a thing nobody seems to notice but myself, and that is that it changes as the light changes.

When the sun shoots in through the east window – I always watch for that first long, straight ray – it changes so quickly that I never can quite believe it.

That is why I watch it always.

By moonlight – the moon shines in all night when there is a moon – I wouldn’t know it was the same paper.

At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars! The outside pattern, I mean, and the woman behind it is as plain as can be.

I didn’t realize for a long time what the thing was that showed behind, – that dim sub-pattern, – but now I am quite sure it is a woman.

By daylight she is subdued, quiet. I fancy it is the pattern that keeps her so still. It is so puzzling. It keeps me quiet by the hour.

I lie down ever so much now. John says it is good for me, and to sleep all I can.

Indeed, he started the habit by making me lie down for an hour after each meal.

It is a very bad habit, I am convinced, for, you see, I don’t sleep.

And that cultivates deceit, for I don’t tell them I’m awake, – oh, no!

The fact is, I am getting a little afraid of John.

He seems very queer sometimes, and even Jennie has an inexplicable look.

It strikes me occasionally, just as a scientific hypothesis, that perhaps it is the paper!

I have watched John when he did not know I was looking, and come into the room suddenly on the most innocent excuses, and I’ve caught him several times looking at the paper! And Jennie too. I caught Jennie with her hand on it once.

She didn’t know I was in the room, and when I asked her in a quiet, a very quiet voice, with the most restrained manner possible, what she was doing with the paper she turned around as if she had been caught stealing, and looked quite angry – asked me why I should frighten her so!

Then she said that the paper stained everything it touched, that she had found yellow smooches on all my clothes and John’s, and she wished we would be more careful!

Did not that sound innocent? But I know she was studying that pattern, and I am determined that nobody shall find it out but myself!

Life is very much more exciting now than it used to be. You see I have something more to expect, to look forward to, to watch. I really do eat better, and am more quiet than I was.

John is so pleased to see me improve! He laughed a little the other day, and said I seemed to be flourishing in spite of my wall paper.

I turned it off with a laugh. I had no intention of telling him it was because of the wall paper – he would make fun of me. He might even want to take me away.

I don’t want to leave now until I have found it out. There is a week more, and I think that will be enough.

I’m feeling ever so much better! I don’t sleep much at night, for it is so interesting to watch developments; but I sleep a good deal in the daytime.

In the daytime it is tiresome and perplexing.

There are always new shoots on the fungus, and new shades of yellow all over it. I cannot keep count of them, though I have tried conscientiously.

It is the strangest yellow, that wall paper! It makes me think of all the yellow things I ever saw – not beautiful ones like buttercups, but old foul, bad yellow things.

But there is something else about that paper – the smell! I noticed it the moment we came into the room, but with so much air and sun it was not bad. Now we have had a week of fog and rain, and whether the windows are open or not the smell is here.

It creeps all over the house.

I find it hovering in the dining-room, skulking in the parlor, hiding in the hall, lying in wait for me on the stairs.

It gets into my hair.

Even when I go to ride, if I turn my head suddenly and surprise it – there is that smell!

Such a peculiar odor, too! I have spent hours in trying to analyze it, to find what it smelled like.

It is not bad – at first, and very gentle, but quite the subtlest, most enduring odor I ever met.

In this damp weather it is awful. I wake up in the night and find it hanging over me.

It used to disturb me at first. I thought seriously of burning the house – to reach the smell.

But now I am used to it. The only thing I can think of that it is like is the color of the paper – a yellow smell!

There is a very funny mark on this wall, low down, near the mopboard. A streak that runs around the room. It goes behind every piece of furniture, except the bed, a long, straight, even smooch, as if it had been rubbed over and over.

I wonder how it was done and who did it, and what they did it for. Round and round and round – round and round and round – it makes me dizzy!

I really have discovered something at last.

Through watching so much at night, when it changes so, I have finally found out.

The front pattern does move – and no wonder! The woman behind shakes it!

Sometimes I think there are a great many women behind, and sometimes only one, and she crawls around fast, and her crawling shakes it all over.

Then in the very bright spots she keeps still, and in the very shady spots she just takes hold of the bars and shakes them hard.

And she is all the time trying to climb through. But nobody could climb through that pattern – it strangles so; I think that is why it has so many heads.

They get through, and then the pattern strangles them off and turns them upside-down, and makes their eyes white!

If those heads were covered or taken off it would not be half so bad.

I think that woman gets out in the daytime!

And I’ll tell you why – privately – I’ve seen her!

I can see her out of every one of my windows!

It is the same woman, I know, for she is always creeping, and most women do not creep by daylight.

I see her in that long shaded lane, creeping up and down. I see her in those dark grape arbors, creeping all around the garden.

I see her on that long road under the trees, creeping along, and when a carriage comes she hides under the blackberry vines.

I don’t blame her a bit. It must be very humiliating to be caught creeping by daylight!

I always lock the door when I creep by daylight. I can’t do it at night, for I know John would suspect something at once.

And John is so queer, now, that I don’t want to irritate him. I wish he would take another room! Besides, I don’t want anybody to get that woman out at night but myself.

I often wonder if I could see her out of all the windows at once.

But, turn as fast as I can, I can only see out of one at one time.

And though I always see her she may be able to creep faster than I can turn!

I have watched her sometimes away off in the open country, creeping as fast as a cloud shadow in a high wind.

If only that top pattern could be gotten off from the under one! I mean to try it, little by little.

I have found out another funny thing, but I shan’t tell it this time! It does not do to trust people too much.

There are only two more days to get this paper off, and I believe John is beginning to notice. I don’t like the look in his eyes.

And I heard him ask Jennie a lot of professional questions about me. She had a very good report to give.

She said I slept a good deal in the daytime.

John knows I don’t sleep very well at night, for all I’m so quiet!

It only interests me, but I feel sure John and Jennie are secretly affected by it.

He asked me all sorts of questions, too, and pretended to be very loving and kind.

As if I couldn’t see through him!

Still, I don’t wonder he acts so, sleeping under this paper for three months.

Hurrah! This is the last day, but it is enough. John is to stay in town over night, and won’t be out until this evening.

Jennie wanted to sleep with me – the sly thing! but I told her I should undoubtedly rest better for a night all alone.

That was clever, for really I wasn’t alone a bit! As soon as it was moonlight, and that poor thing began to crawl and shake the pattern, I got up and ran to help her.

I pulled and she shook, I shook and she pulled, and before morning we had peeled off yards of that paper.

A strip about as high as my head and half around the room.

And then when the sun came and that awful pattern began to laugh at me I declared I would finish it today!

We go away to-morrow, and they are moving all my furniture down again to leave things as they were before.

Jennie looked at the wall in amazement, but I told her merrily that I did it out of pure spite at the vicious thing.

She laughed and said she wouldn’t mind doing it herself, but I must not get tired.

How she betrayed herself that time!

But I am here, and no person touches this paper but me – not alive!

She tried to get me out of the room – it was too patent! But I said it was so quiet and empty and clean now that I believed I would lie down again and sleep all I could; and not to wake me even for dinner – I would call when I woke.

So now she is gone, and the servants are gone, and the things are gone, and there is nothing left but that great bed-stead nailed down, with the canvas mattress we found on it.

We shall sleep downstairs to-night, and take the boat home to-morrow.

I quite enjoy the room, now it is bare again.

How those children did tear about here!

This bedstead is fairly gnawed!

But I must get to work.

I have locked the door and thrown the key down into the front path.

I don’t want to go out, and I don’t want to have anybody come in, till John comes.

I want to astonish him.

I’ve got a rope up here that even Jennie did not find. If that woman does get out, and tries to get away, I can tie her!

But I forgot I could not reach far without anything to stand on!

This bed will not move!

I tried to lift and push it until I was lame, and then I got so angry I bit off a little piece at one corner – but it hurt my teeth.

Then I peeled off all the paper I could reach standing on the floor. It sticks horribly and the pattern just enjoys it! All those strangled heads and bulbous eyes and waddling fungus growths just shriek with derision!

I am getting angry enough to do something desperate. To jump out of the window would be admirable exercise, but the bars are too strong even to try.

Besides, I wouldn’t do it. Of course not. I know well enough that a step like that is improper and might be misconstrued.

I don’t like to look out of the windows even – there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast.

I wonder if they all come out of that wall paper, as I did?

But I am securely fastened now by my well-hidden rope – you don’t get me out in the road there!

I suppose I shall have to get back behind the pattern when it comes night, and that is hard!

It is so pleasant to be out in this great room and creep around as I please!

I don’t want to go outside. I won’t, even if Jennie asks me to.

For outside you have to creep on the ground, and everything is green instead of yellow.

But here I can creep smoothly on the floor, and my shoulder just fits in that long smooch around the wall, so I cannot lose my way.

Why, there’s John at the door!

It is no use, young man, you can’t open it!

How he does call and pound!

Now he’s crying for an axe.

It would be a shame to break down that beautiful door!

‘John, dear!’ said I in the gentlest voice, ‘the key is down by the front steps, under a plantain leaf!’

That silenced him for a few moments.

Then he said – very quietly indeed, ‘Open the door, my darling!’

‘I can’t,’ said I. ‘The key is down by the front door, under a plantain leaf!’

And then I said it again, several times, very gently and slowly, and said it so often that he had to go and see, and he got it, of course, and came in. He stopped short by the door.

‘What is the matter?’ he cried. ‘For God’s sake, what are you doing?’

I kept on creeping just the same, but I looked at him over my shoulder.

‘I’ve got out at last,’ said I, ‘in spite of you and Jane! And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!’

Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!

Bret Harte

The Outcasts of Poker Flat

As Mr. John Oakhurst, gambler, stepped into the main street of Poker Flat on the morning of the twenty-third of November, 1850, he was conscious of a change in its moral atmosphere since the preceding night. Two or three men, conversing earnestly together, ceased as he approached, and exchanged significant glances. There was a Sabbath[81] lull in the air which, in a settlement unused to Sabbath influences, looked ominous.

Mr. Oakhurst’s calm, handsome face betrayed small concern in these indications. Whether he was conscious of any predisposing cause was another question. ‘I reckon they’re after somebody,’ he reflected; ‘likely it’s me.’ He returned to his pocket the handkerchief with which he had been whipping away the red dust of Poker Flat from his neat boots, and quietly discharged his mind of any further conjecture.

In point of fact, Poker Flat was ‘after somebody.’ It had lately suffered the loss of several thousand dollars, two valuable horses, and a prominent citizen. It was experiencing a spasm of virtuous reaction, quite as lawless and ungovernable as any of the acts that had provoked it. A secret committee had determined to rid the town of all improper persons. This was done permanently in regard of two men who were then hanging from the boughs of a sycamore in the gulch, and temporarily in the banishment of certain other objectionable characters. I regret to say that some of these were ladies. It is but due to the sex, however, to state that their impropriety was professional, and it was only in such easily established standards of evil that Poker Flat ventured to sit in judgment.

Mr. Oakhurst was right in supposing that he was included in this category. A few of the committee had urged hanging him as a possible example, and a sure method of reimbursing themselves from his pockets of the sums he had won from them. ‘It’s agin justice,’ said Jim Wheeler, ‘to let this yer young man from Roaring Camp – an entire stranger – carry away our money.’ But a crude sentiment of equity residing in the breasts of those who had been fortunate enough to win from Mr. Oakhurst overruled this narrower local prejudice.

Mr. Oakhurst received his sentence with philosophic calmness, none the less coolly that he was aware of the hesitation of his judges. He was too much of a gambler not to accept Fate. With him life was at best an uncertain game, and he recognized the usual percentage in favor of the dealer.

A body of armed men accompanied the deported wickedness of Poker Flat to the outskirts of the settlement. Besides Mr. Oakhurst, who was known to be a coolly desperate man, and for whose intimidation the armed escort was intended, the expatriated party consisted of a young woman familiarly known as the ‘Duchess’; another, who had won the title of ‘Mother Shipton’; and ‘Uncle Billy,’ a suspected sluice-robber and confirmed drunkard. The cavalcade provoked no comments from the spectators, nor was any word uttered by the escort. Only, when the gulch which marked the uttermost limit of Poker Flat was reached, the leader spoke briefly and to the point. The exiles were forbidden to return at the peril of their lives.

As the escort disappeared, their pent-up feelings found vent in a few hysterical tears from the Duchess, some bad language from Mother Shipton, and a Parthian volley[82] of expletives from Uncle Billy. The philosophic Oakhurst alone remained silent. He listened calmly to Mother Shipton’s desire to cut somebody’s heart out, to the repeated statements of the Duchess that she would die in the road, and to the alarming oaths that seemed to be bumped out of Uncle Billy as he rode forward. With the easy good humor characteristic of his class, he insisted upon exchanging his own riding horse, ‘Five Spot,’ for the sorry mule which the Duchess rode. But even this act did not draw the party into any closer sympathy. The young woman readjusted her somewhat draggled plumes with a feeble, faded coquetry; Mother Shipton eyed the possessor of ‘Five Spot’ with malevolence, and Uncle Billy included the whole party in one sweeping anathema[83].

The road to Sandy Bar – a camp that, not having as yet experienced the regenerating influences of Poker Flat, consequently seemed to offer some invitation to the emigrants – lay over a steep mountain range. It was distant a day’s severe travel. In that advanced season, the party soon passed out of the moist, temperate regions of the foothills into the dry, cold, bracing air of the Sierras[84]. The trail was narrow and difficult. At noon the Duchess, rolling out of her saddle upon the ground, declared her intention of going no farther, and the party halted.

The spot was singularly wild and impressive. A wooded amphitheater, surrounded on three sides by precipitous cliffs of naked granite, sloped gently toward the crest of another precipice that overlooked the valley. It was, undoubtedly, the most suitable spot for a camp, had camping been advisable. But Mr. Oakhurst knew that scarcely half the journey to Sandy Bar was accomplished, and the party were not equipped or provisioned for delay. This fact he pointed out to his companions curtly, with a philosophic commentary on the folly of ‘throwing up their hand before the game was played out.’ But they were furnished with liquor, which in this emergency stood them in place of food, fuel, rest, and prescience. In spite of his remonstrances, it was not long before they were more or less under its influence. Uncle Billy passed rapidly from a bellicose state into one of stupor, the Duchess became maudlin, and Mother Shipton snored. Mr. Oakhurst alone remained erect, leaning against a rock, calmly surveying them.

Mr. Oakhurst did not drink. It interfered with a profession which required coolness, impassiveness, and presence of mind, and, in his own language, he ‘couldn’t afford it.’ As he gazed at his recumbent fellow exiles, the loneliness begotten of his pariah trade, his habits of life, his very vices, for the first time seriously oppressed him. He bestirred himself in dusting his black clothes, washing his hands and face, and other acts characteristic of his studiously neat habits, and for a moment forgot his annoyance. The thought of deserting his weaker and more pitiable companions never perhaps occurred to him. Yet he could not help feeling the want of that excitement which, singularly enough, was most conducive to that calm equanimity for which he was notorious. He looked at the gloomy walls that rose a thousand feet sheer above the circling pines around him; at the sky, ominously clouded; at the valley below, already deepening into shadow. And, doing so, suddenly he heard his own name called.

A horseman slowly ascended the trail. In the fresh, open face of the newcomer Mr. Oakhurst recognized Tom Simson, otherwise known as the ‘Innocent’ of Sandy Bar. He had met him some months before over a ‘little game,’ and had, with perfect equanimity, won the entire fortune – amounting to some forty dollars – of that guileless youth. After the game was finished, Mr. Oakhurst drew the youthful speculator behind the door and thus addressed him: ‘Tommy, you’re a good little man, but you can’t gamble worth a cent. Don’t try it over again.’ He then handed him his money back, pushed him gently from the room, and so made a devoted slave of Tom Simson.

There was a remembrance of this in his boyish and enthusiastic greeting of Mr. Oakhurst. He had started, he said, to go to Poker Flat to seek his fortune. ‘Alone?’ No, not exactly alone; in fact (a giggle), he had run away with Piney Woods. Didn’t Mr. Oakhurst remember Piney? She that used to wait on the table at the Temperance House? They had been engaged a long time, but old Jake Woods had objected, and so they had run away, and were going to Poker Flat to be married, and here they were. And they were tired out, and how lucky it was they had found a place to camp and company. All this the Innocent delivered rapidly, while Piney, a stout, comely damsel of fifteen, emerged from behind the pine tree, where she had been blushing unseen, and rode to the side of her lover.

Mr. Oakhurst seldom troubled himself with sentiment, still less with propriety; but he had a vague idea that the situation was not fortunate. He retained, however, his presence of mind sufficiently to kick Uncle Billy, who was about to say something, and Uncle Billy was sober enough to recognize in Mr. Oakhurst’s kick a superior power that would not bear trifling. He then endeavored to dissuade Tom Simson from delaying further, but in vain. He even pointed out the fact that there was no provision, nor means of making a camp. But, unluckily, the Innocent met this objection by assuring the party that he was provided with an extra mule loaded with provisions and by the discovery of a rude attempt at a log house near the trail. ‘Piney can stay with Mrs. Oakhurst,’ said the Innocent, pointing to the Duchess, ‘and I can shift for myself.’

Nothing but Mr. Oakhurst’s admonishing foot saved Uncle Billy from bursting into a roar of laughter. As it was, he felt compelled to retire up the canyon until he could recover his gravity. There he confided the joke to the tall pine trees, with many slaps of his leg, contortions of his face, and the usual profanity. But when he returned to the party, he found them seated by a fire – for the air had grown strangely chill and the sky overcast – in apparently amicable conversation. Piney was actually talking in an impulsive, girlish fashion to the Duchess, who was listening with an interest and animation she had not shown for many days. The Innocent was holding forth, apparently with equal effect, to Mr. Oakhurst and Mother Shipton, who was actually relaxing into amiability. ‘Is this yer a damned picnic?’ said Uncle Billy with inward scorn as he surveyed the sylvan group, the glancing firelight, and the tethered animals in the foreground. Suddenly an idea mingled with the alcoholic fumes that disturbed his brain. It was apparently of a jocular nature, for he felt impelled to slap his leg again and cram his fist into his mouth.

As the shadows crept slowly up the mountain, a slight breeze rocked the tops of the pine trees, and moaned through their long and gloomy aisles. The ruined cabin, patched and covered with pine boughs, was set apart for the ladies. As the lovers parted, they unaffectedly exchanged a kiss, so honest and sincere that it might have been heard above the swaying pines. The frail Duchess and the malevolent Mother Shipton were probably too stunned to remark upon this last evidence of simplicity, and so turned without a word to the hut. The fire was replenished, the men lay down before the door, and in a few minutes were asleep.

Mr. Oakhurst was a light sleeper. Toward morning he awoke benumbed and cold. As he stirred the dying fire, the wind, which was now blowing strongly, brought to his cheek that which caused the blood to leave it – snow!

He started to his feet with the intention of awakening the sleepers, for there was no time to lose. But turning to where Uncle Billy had been lying, he found him gone. A suspicion leaped to his brain and a curse to his lips. He ran to the spot where the mules had been tethered; they were no longer there. The tracks were already rapidly disappearing in the snow.

The momentary excitement brought Mr. Oakhurst back to the fire with his usual calm. He did not waken the sleepers. The Innocent slumbered peacefully, with a smile on his good-humored, freckled face; the virgin Piney slept beside her frailer sisters as sweetly as though attended by celestial guardians; and Mr. Oakhurst, drawing his blanket over his shoulders, stroked his mustaches and waited for the dawn. It came slowly in a whirling mist of snowflakes that dazzled and confused the eye. What could be seen of the landscape appeared magically changed. He looked over the valley, and summed up the present and future in two words – ‘snowed in!’

A careful inventory of the provisions, which, fortunately for the party, had been stored within the hut and so escaped the felonious fingers of Uncle Billy, disclosed the fact that with care and prudence they might last ten days longer. ‘That is,’ said Mr. Oakhurst, sotto voce to the Innocent, ‘if you’re willing to board us. If you ain’t – and perhaps you’d better not – you can wait till Uncle Billy gets back with provisions.’ For some occult reason, Mr. Oakhurst could not bring himself to disclose Uncle Billy’s rascality, and so offered the hypothesis that he had wandered from the camp and had accidentally stampeded the animals. He dropped a warning to the Duchess and Mother Shipton, who of course knew the facts of their associate’s defection. ‘They’ll find out the truth about us all when they find out anything,’ he added, significantly, ‘and there’s no good frightening them now.’

Tom Simson not only put all his worldly store at the disposal of Mr. Oakhurst, but seemed to enjoy the prospect of their enforced seclusion. ‘We’ll have a good camp for a week, and then the snow’ll melt, and we’ll all go back together.’ The cheerful gaiety of the young man, and Mr. Oakhurst’s calm, infected the others. The Innocent with the aid of pine boughs extemporized a thatch for the roofless cabin, and the Duchess directed Piney in the rearrangement of the interior with a taste and tact that opened the blue eyes of that provincial maiden to their fullest extent. ‘I reckon now you’re used to fine things at Poker Flat,’ said Piney. The Duchess turned away sharply to conceal something that reddened her cheeks through its professional tint, and Mother Shipton requested Piney not to ‘chatter.’ But when Mr. Oakhurst returned from a weary search for the trail, he heard the sound of happy laughter echoed from the rocks. He stopped in some alarm, and his thoughts first naturally reverted to the whisky, which he had prudently cached. ‘And yet it don’t somehow sound like whisky,’ said the gambler. It was not until he caught sight of the blazing fire through the still-blinding storm and the group around it that he settled to the conviction that it was ‘square fun.’

Whether Mr. Oakhurst had cached his cards with the whisky as something debarred the free access of the community, I cannot say. It was certain that, in Mother Shipton’s words, he ‘didn’t say cards once’ during that evening. Haply the time was beguiled by an accordion, produced somewhat ostentatiously by Tom Simson from his pack. Notwithstanding some difficulties attending the manipulation of this instrument, Piney Woods managed to pluck several reluctant melodies from its keys, to an accompaniment by the Innocent on a pair of bone castanets. But the crowning festivity of the evening was reached in a rude camp-meeting hymn, which the lovers, joining hands, sang with great earnestness and vociferation. I fear that a certain defiant tone and Covenanter’s swing to its chorus, rather than any devotional quality, caused it speedily to infect the others, who at last joined in the refrain:

‘I’m proud to live in the service of the Lord,

And I’m bound to die in His army.’

The pines rocked, the storm eddied and whirled above the miserable group, and the flames of their altar leaped heavenward as if in token of the vow.

At midnight the storm abated, the rolling clouds parted, and the stars glittered keenly above the sleeping camp. Mr. Oakhurst, whose professional habits had enabled him to live on the smallest possible amount of sleep, in dividing the watch with Tom Simson somehow managed to take upon himself the greater part of that duty. He excused himself to the Innocent by saying that he had ‘often been a week without sleep.’ ‘Doing what?’ asked Tom. ‘Poker!’ replied Oakhurst, sententiously; ‘when a man gets a streak of luck, – nigger luck – he don’t get tired. The luck gives in first. Luck,’ continued the gambler, reflectively, ‘is a mighty queer thing. All you know about it for certain is that it’s bound to change. And it’s finding out when it’s going to change that makes you. We’ve had a streak of bad luck since we left Poker Flat – you come along, and slap you get into it, too. If you can hold your cards right along you’re all right. For,’ added the gambler, with cheerful irrelevance,

“‘I’m proud to live in the service of the Lord,

And I’m bound to die in His army.’”

The third day came, and the sun, looking through the white-curtained valley, saw the outcasts divide their slowly decreasing store of provisions for the morning meal. It was one of the peculiarities of that mountain climate that its rays diffused a kindly warmth over the wintry landscape, as if in regretful commiseration of the past. But it revealed drift on drift of snow piled high around the hut – a hopeless, uncharted, trackless sea of white lying below the rocky shores to which the castaways still clung. Through the marvelously clear air the smoke of the pastoral village of Poker Flat rose miles away. Mother Shipton saw it, and from a remote pinnacle of her rocky fastness hurled in that direction a final malediction. It was her last vituperative attempt, and perhaps for that reason was invested with a certain degree of sublimity. It did her good, she privately informed the Duchess. ‘Just you go out there and cuss, and see.’ She then set herself to the task of amusing ‘the child,’ as she and the Duchess were pleased to call Piney. Piney was no chicken, but it was a soothing and original theory of the pair thus to account for the fact that she didn’t swear and wasn’t improper.

When night crept up again through the gorges, the reedy notes of the accordion rose and fell in fitful spasms and long-drawn gasps by the flickering campfire. But music failed to fill entirely the aching void left by insufficient food, and a new diversion was proposed by Piney – storytelling. Neither Mr. Oakhurst nor his female companions caring to relate their personal experiences, this plan would have failed too but for the Innocent. Some months before he had chanced upon a stray copy of Mr. Pope’s ingenious translation of the Iliad. He now proposed to narrate the principal incidents of that poem – having thoroughly mastered the argument and fairly forgotten the words – in the current vernacular of Sandy Bar. And so for the rest of that night the Homeric demigods again walked the earth. Trojan bully and wily Greek wrestled in the winds, and the great pines in the canyon seemed to bow to the wrath of the son of Peleus[85]. Mr. Oakhurst listened with quiet satisfaction. Most especially was he interested in the fate of ‘Ash-heels,’ as the Innocent persisted in denominating the ‘swift-footed Achilles[86].’

So with small food and much of Homer[87] and the accordion, a week passed over the heads of the outcasts. The sun again forsook them, and again from leaden skies the snowflakes were sifted over the land. Day by day closer around them drew the snowy circle, until at last they looked from their prison over drifted walls of dazzling white that towered twenty feet above their heads. It became more and more difficult to replenish their fires, even from the fallen trees beside them, now half-hidden in the drifts. And yet no one complained. The lovers turned from the dreary prospect and looked into each other’s eyes, and were happy. Mr. Oakhurst settled himself coolly to the losing game before him. The Duchess, more cheerful than she had been, assumed the care of Piney. Only Mother Shipton – once the strongest of the party – seemed to sicken and fade. At midnight on the tenth day she called Oakhurst to her side. ‘I’m going,’ she said, in a voice of querulous weakness, ‘but don’t say anything about it. Don’t waken the kids. Take the bundle from under my head and open it.’ Mr. Oakhurst did so. It contained Mother Shipton’s rations for the last week, untouched. ‘Give ’em to the child,’ she said, pointing to the sleeping Piney. ‘You’ve starved yourself,’ said the gambler. ‘That’s what they call it,’ said the woman, querulously, as she lay down again and, turning her face to the wall, passed quietly away.

The accordion and the bones were put aside that day, and Homer was forgotten. When the body of Mother Shipton had been committed to the snow, Mr. Oakhurst took the Innocent aside, and showed him a pair of snowshoes, which he had fashioned from the old pack saddle. ‘There’s one chance in a hundred to save her yet,’ he said, pointing to Piney; ‘but it’s there,’ he added, pointing toward Poker Flat. ‘If you can reach there in two days she’s safe.’ ‘And you?’ asked Tom Simson. ‘I’ll stay here,’ was the curt reply.

The lovers parted with a long embrace. ‘You are not going, too?’ said the Duchess as she saw Mr. Oakhurst apparently waiting to accompany him. ‘As far as the canyon,’ he replied. He turned suddenly, and kissed the Duchess, leaving her pallid face aflame and her trembling limbs rigid with amazement.

Night came, but not Mr. Oakhurst. It brought the storm again and the whirling snow. Then the Duchess, feeding the fire, found that someone had quietly piled beside the hut enough fuel to last a few days longer. The tears rose to her eyes, but she hid them from Piney.

The women slept but little. In the morning, looking into each other’s faces, they read their fate. Neither spoke; but Piney, accepting the position of the stronger, drew near and placed her arm around the Duchess’s waist. They kept this attitude for the rest of the day. That night the storm reached its greatest fury, and, rending asunder the protecting pines, invaded the very hut.

Toward morning they found themselves unable to feed the fire, which gradually died away. As the embers slowly blackened, the Duchess crept closer to Piney, and broke the silence of many hours: ‘Piney, can you pray?’ ‘No, dear,’ said Piney, simply. The Duchess, without knowing exactly why, felt relieved, and, putting her head upon Piney’s shoulder, spoke no more. And so reclining, the younger and purer pillowing the head of her soiled sister upon her virgin breast, they fell asleep.

The wind lulled as if it feared to waken them. Feathery drifts of snow, shaken from the long pine boughs, flew like white-winged birds, and settled about them as they slept. The moon through the rifted clouds looked down upon what had been the camp. But all human stain, all trace of earthly travail, was hidden beneath the spotless mantle mercifully flung from above.

They slept all that day and the next, nor did they waken when voices and footsteps broke the silence of the camp. And when pitying fingers brushed the snow from their wan faces, you could scarcely have told from the equal peace that dwelt upon them which was she that had sinned. Even the law of Poker Flat recognized this, and turned away, leaving them still locked in each other’s arms.

But at the head of the gulch, on one of the largest pine trees, they found the deuce of clubs pinned to the bark with a bowie knife. It bore the following, written in pencil, in a firm hand:

BENEATH THIS TREE

LIES THE BODY

OF

JOHN OAKHURST,

WHO STRUCK A STREAK OF BAD LUCK

ON THE 23D OF NOVEMBER, 1850,

AND

HANDED IN HIS CHECKS

ON THE 7TH DECEMBER, 1850.

And pulseless and cold, with a Derringer by his side and a bullet in his heart, though still calm as in life, beneath the snow lay he who was at once the strongest and yet the weakest of the outcasts of Poker Flat.

The Convalescence of Jack Hamlin

The habitually quiet, ascetic face of Seth Rivers was somewhat disturbed and his brows were knitted as he climbed the long ascent of Windy Hill to its summit and his own rancho. Perhaps it was the effect of the characteristic wind, which that afternoon seemed to assault him from all points at once and did not cease its battery even at his front door, but hustled him into the passage, blew him into the sitting room, and then celebrated its own exit from the long, rambling house by the banging of doors throughout the halls and the slamming of windows in the remote distance.

Mrs. Rivers looked up from her work at this abrupt onset of her husband, but without changing her own expression of slightly fatigued self-righteousness. Accustomed to these elemental eruptions, she laid her hands from force of habit upon the lifting tablecloth, and then rose submissively to brush together the scattered embers and ashes from the large hearthstone, as she had often done before.

‘You’re in early, Seth,’ she said.

‘Yes. I stopped at the Cross Roads Post Office. Lucky I did, or you’d hev had kempany on your hands afore you knowed it – this very night! I found this letter from Dr. Duchesne,’ and he produced a letter from his pocket.

Mrs. Rivers looked up with an expression of worldly interest. Dr. Duchesne had brought her two children into the world with some difficulty, and had skillfully attended her through a long illness consequent upon the inefficient maternity of soulful but fragile American women of her type. The doctor had more than a mere local reputation as a surgeon, and Mrs. Rivers looked up to him as her sole connecting link with a world of thought beyond Windy Hill.

‘He’s comin’ up yer to-night, bringin’ a friend of his – a patient that he wants us to board and keep for three weeks until he’s well agin,’ continued Mr. Rivers. ‘Ye know how the doctor used to rave about the pure air on our hill.’

Mrs. Rivers shivered slightly, and drew her shawl over her shoulders, but nodded a patient assent.

‘Well, he says it’s just what that patient oughter have to cure him. He’s had lung fever and other things, and this yer air and gin’ral quiet is bound to set him up. We’re to board and keep him without any fuss or feathers, and the doctor sez he’ll pay liberal for it. This yer’s what he sez,’ concluded Mr. Rivers, reading from the letter: ‘“He is now fully convalescent, though weak, and really requires no other medicine than the – ozone” – yes, that’s what the doctor calls it – “of Windy Hill, and in fact as little attendance as possible. I will not let him keep even his negro servant with him. He’ll give you no trouble, if he can be prevailed upon to stay the whole time of his cure.”’

‘There’s our spare room – it hasn’t been used since Parson Greenwood was here,’ said Mrs. Rivers reflectively. ‘Melinda could put it to rights in an hour. At what time will he come?’

‘He’d come about nine. They drive over from Hightown depot. But,’ he added grimly, ‘here ye are orderin’ rooms to be done up and ye don’t know who for.’

‘You said a friend of Dr. Duchesne,’ returned Mrs. Rivers simply.

‘Dr. Duchesne has many friends that you and me mightn’t cotton to,’ said her husband. ‘This man is Jack Hamlin.’ As his wife’s remote and introspective black eyes returned only vacancy, he added quickly. ‘The noted gambler!’

‘Gambler?’ echoed his wife, still vaguely.

‘Yes – reg’lar; it’s his business.’

‘Goodness, Seth! He can’t expect to do it here.’

‘No,’ said Seth quickly, with that sense of fairness to his fellow man which most women find it so difficult to understand. ‘No – and he probably won’t mention the word “card” while he’s here.’

‘Well?’ said Mrs. Rivers interrogatively.

‘And,’ continued Seth, seeing that the objection was not pressed, ‘he’s one of them desprit men! A reg’lar fighter! Killed two or three men in dools!’

Mrs. Rivers stared. ‘What could Dr. Duchesne have been thinking of? Why, we wouldn’t be safe in the house with him!’

Again Seth’s sense of equity triumphed. ‘I never heard of his fightin’ anybody but his own kind, and when he was bullyragged. And ez to women he’s quite t’other way in fact, and that’s why I think ye oughter know it afore you let him come. He don’t go round with decent women. In fact’ – But here Mr. Rivers, in the sanctity of conjugal confidences and the fullness of Bible reading, used a few strong scriptural substantives happily unnecessary to repeat here.

‘Seth!’ said Mrs. Rivers suddenly, ‘you seem to know this man.’

The unexpectedness and irrelevancy of this for a moment startled Seth. But that chaste and God-fearing man had no secrets. ‘Only by hearsay, Jane,’ he returned quietly; ‘but if ye say the word I’ll stop his comin’ now.’

‘It’s too late,’ said Mrs. Rivers decidedly.

‘I reckon not,’ returned her husband, ‘and that’s why I came straight here. I’ve only got to meet them at the depot and say this thing can’t be done – and that’s the end of it. They’ll go off quiet to the hotel.’

‘I don’t like to disappoint the doctor, Seth,’ said Mrs. Rivers. ‘We might,’ she added, with a troubled look of inquiry at her husband, ‘we might take that Mr. Hamlin on trial. Like as not he won’t stay, anyway, when he sees what we’re like, Seth. What do you think? It would be only our Christian duty, too.’

‘I was thinkin’ o’ that as a professin’ Christian, Jane,’ said her husband. ‘But supposin’ that other Christians don’t look at it in that light. Thar’s Deacon Stubbs and his wife and the parson. Ye remember what he said about “no covenant with sin”?’

‘The Stubbses have no right to dictate who I’ll have in my house,’ said Mrs. Rivers quickly, with a faint flush in her rather sallow cheeks.

‘It’s your say and nobody else’s,’ assented her husband with grim submissiveness. ‘You do what you like.’

Mrs. Rivers mused. ‘There’s only myself and Melinda here,’ she said with sublime naivete; ‘and the children ain’t old enough to be corrupted. I am satisfied if you are, Seth,’ and she again looked at him inquiringly.

‘Go ahead, then, and get ready for ’em,’ said Seth, hurrying away with unaffected relief. ‘If you have everything fixed by nine o’clock, that’ll do.’

Mrs. Rivers had everything ‘fixed’ by that hour, including herself presumably, for she had put on a gray dress which she usually wore when shopping in the county town, adding a prim collar and cuffs. A pearl-encircled brooch, the wedding gift of Seth, and a solitaire ring next to her wedding ring, with a locket containing her children’s hair, accented her position as a proper wife and mother. At a quarter to nine she had finished tidying the parlor, opening the harmonium so that the light might play upon its polished keyboard, and bringing from the forgotten seclusion of her closet two beautifully bound volumes of Tupper’s ‘Poems’ and Pollok’s ‘Course of Time,’ to impart a literary grace to the centre table. She then drew a chair to the table and sat down before it with a religious magazine in her lap. The wind roared over the deep-throated chimney, the clock ticked monotonously, and then there came the sound of wheels and voices.

But Mrs. Rivers was not destined to see her guest that night. Dr. Duchesne, under the safe lee of the door, explained that Mr. Hamlin had been exhausted by the journey, and, assisted by a mild opiate, was asleep in the carriage; that if Mrs. Rivers did not object, they would carry him at once to his room. In the flaring and guttering of candles, the flashing of lanterns, the flapping of coats and shawls, and the bewildering rush of wind, Mrs. Rivers was only vaguely conscious of a slight figure muffled tightly in a cloak carried past her in the arms of a grizzled negro up the staircase, followed by Dr. Duchesne. With the closing of the front door on the tumultuous world without, a silence fell again on the little parlor.

When the doctor made his reappearance it was to say that his patient was being undressed and put to bed by his negro servant, who, however, would return with the doctor to-night, but that the patient would be left with everything that was necessary, and that he would require no attention from the family until the next day. Indeed, it was better that he should remain undisturbed. As the doctor confined his confidences and instructions entirely to the physical condition of their guest, Mrs. Rivers found it awkward to press other inquiries.

‘Of course,’ she said at last hesitatingly, but with a certain primness of expression, ‘Mr. Hamlin must expect to find everything here very different from what he is accustomed to – at least from what my husband says are his habits.’

‘Nobody knows that better than he, Mrs. Rivers,’ returned the doctor with an equally marked precision of manner, ‘and you could not have a guest who would be less likely to make you remind him of it.’

A little annoyed, yet not exactly knowing why, Mrs. Rivers abandoned the subject, and as the doctor shortly afterwards busied himself in the care of his patient, with whom he remained until the hour of his departure, she had no chance of renewing it. But as he finally shook hands with his host and hostess, it seemed to her that he slightly recurred to it. ‘I have the greatest hope of the curative effect of this wonderful locality on my patient, but even still more of the beneficial effect of the complete change of his habits, his surroundings, and their influences.’ Then the door closed on the man of science and the grizzled negro servant, the noise of the carriage wheels was shut out with the song of the wind in the pine tops, and the rancho of Windy Hill possessed Mr. Jack Hamlin in peace. Indeed, the wind was now falling, as was its custom at that hour, and the moon presently arose over a hushed and sleeping landscape.

For the rest of the evening the silent presence in the room above affected the household; the half-curious servants and ranch hands spoke in whispers in the passages, and at evening prayers, in the dining room, Seth Rivers, kneeling before and bowed over a rush-bottomed chair whose legs were clutched by his strong hands, included ‘the stranger within our gates’ in his regular supplications. When the hour for retiring came, Seth, with a candle in his hand, preceded his wife up the staircase, but stopped before the door of their guest’s room. ‘I reckon,’ he said interrogatively to Mrs. Rivers, ‘I oughter see ef he’s wantin’ anythin’?’

‘You heard what the doctor said,’ returned Mrs. Rivers cautiously. At the same time she did not speak decidedly, and the frontiersman’s instinct of hospitality prevailed. He knocked lightly; there was no response. He turned the door handle softly. The door opened. A faint clean perfume – an odor of some general personality rather than any particular thing – stole out upon them. The light of Seth’s candle struck a few glints from some cut-glass and silver, the contents of the guest’s dressing case, which had been carefully laid out upon a small table by his negro servant. There was also a refined neatness in the disposition of his clothes and effects which struck the feminine eye of even the tidy Mrs. Rivers as something new to her experience. Seth drew nearer the bed with his shaded candle, and then, turning, beckoned his wife to approach. Mrs. Rivers hesitated – but for the necessity of silence she would have openly protested – but that protest was shut up in her compressed lips as she came forward.

For an instant that awe with which absolute helplessness invests the sleeping and dead was felt by both husband and wife. Only the upper part of the sleeper’s face was visible above the bedclothes, held in position by a thin white nervous hand that was encircled at the wrist by a ruffle. Seth stared. Short brown curls were tumbled over a forehead damp with the dews of sleep and exhaustion. But what appeared more singular, the closed eyes of this vessel of wrath and recklessness were fringed with lashes as long and silky as a woman’s. Then Mrs. Rivers gently pulled her husband’s sleeve, and they both crept back with a greater sense of intrusion and even more cautiously than they had entered. Nor did they speak until the door was closed softly and they were alone on the landing. Seth looked grimly at his wife.

‘Don’t look much ez ef he could hurt anybody.’

‘He looks like a sick man,’ returned Mrs. Rivers calmly.

The unconscious object of this criticism and attention slept until late; slept through the stir of awakened life within and without, through the challenge of early cocks in the lean-to shed, through the creaking of departing ox teams and the lazy, long-drawn commands of teamsters, through the regular strokes of the morning pump and the splash of water on stones, through the far-off barking of dogs and the half-intelligible shouts of ranchmen; slept through the sunlight on his ceiling, through its slow descent of his wall, and awoke with it in his eyes! He woke, too, with a delicious sense of freedom from pain, and of even drawing a long breath without difficulty – two facts so marvelous and dreamlike that he naturally closed his eyes again lest he should waken to a world of suffering and dyspnoea[88]. Satisfied at last that this relief was real, he again opened his eyes, but upon surroundings so strange, so wildly absurd and improbable, that he again doubted their reality. He was lying in a moderately large room, primly and severely furnished, but his attention was for the moment riveted to a gilt frame upon the wall beside him bearing the text, ‘God Bless Our Home,’ and then on another frame on the opposite wall which admonished him to ‘Watch and Pray.’ Beside them hung an engraving of the ‘Raising of Lazarus[89],’ and a Hogarthian[90] lithograph of ‘The Drunkard’s Progress.’ Mr. Hamlin closed his eyes; he was dreaming certainly – not one of those wild, fantastic visions that had so miserably filled the past long nights of pain and suffering, but still a dream! At last, opening one eye stealthily, he caught the flash of the sunlight upon the crystal and silver articles of his dressing case, and that flash at once illuminated his memory. He remembered his long weeks of illness and the devotion of Dr. Duchesne. He remembered how, when the crisis was past, the doctor had urged a complete change and absolute rest, and had told him of a secluded rancho in some remote locality kept by an honest Western pioneer whose family he had attended. He remembered his own reluctant assent, impelled by gratitude to the doctor and the helplessness of a sick man. He now recalled the weary journey thither, his exhaustion and the semi-consciousness of his arrival in a bewildering wind on a shadowy hilltop. And this was the place!

He shivered slightly, and ducked his head under the cover again. But the brightness of the sun and some exhilarating quality in the air tempted him to have another outlook, avoiding as far as possible the grimly decorated walls. If they had only left him his faithful servant he could have relieved himself of that mischievous badinage which always alternately horrified and delighted that devoted negro. But he was alone – absolutely alone – in this conventicle!

Presently he saw the door open slowly. It gave admission to the small round face and yellow ringlets of a little girl, and finally to her whole figure, clasping a doll nearly as large as herself. For a moment she stood there, arrested by the display of Mr. Hamlin’s dressing case on the table. Then her glances moved around the room and rested upon the bed. Her blue eyes and Mr. Hamlin’s brown ones met and mingled. Without a moment’s hesitation she moved to the bedside. Taking her doll’s hands in her own, she displayed it before him.

‘Isn’t it pitty?’

Mr. Hamlin was instantly his old self again. Thrusting his hand comfortably under the pillow, he lay on his side and gazed at it long and affectionately. ‘I never,’ he said in a faint voice, but with immovable features, ‘saw anything so perfectly beautiful. Is it alive?’

‘It’s a dolly,’ she returned gravely, smoothing down its frock and straightening its helpless feet. Then seized with a spontaneous idea, like a young animal she suddenly presented it to him with both hands and said, —

‘Kiss it.’

Mr. Hamlin implanted a chaste salute on its vermilion cheek. ‘Would you mind letting me hold it for a little?’ he said with extreme diffidence.

The child was delighted, as he expected. Mr. Hamlin placed it in a sitting posture on the edge of his bed, and put an ostentatious paternal arm around it.

‘But you’re alive, ain’t you?’ he said to the child.

This subtle witticism convulsed her. ‘I’m a little girl,’ she gurgled.

‘I see; her mother?’

‘Ess.’

‘And who’s your mother?’

‘Mammy.’

‘Mrs. Rivers?’

The child nodded until her ringlets were shaken on her cheek. After a moment she began to laugh bashfully and with repression, yet as Mr. Hamlin thought a little mischievously. Then as he looked at her interrogatively she suddenly caught hold of the ruffle of his sleeve.

‘Oo’s got on mammy’s nighty.’

Mr. Hamlin started. He saw the child’s obvious mistake and actually felt himself blushing. It was unprecedented – it was the sheerest weakness – it must have something to do with the confounded air.

‘I grieve to say you are deeply mistaken – it is my very own,’ he returned with great gravity. Nevertheless, he drew the coverlet close over his shoulder. But here he was again attracted by another face at the half-opened door – a freckled one, belonging to a boy apparently a year or two older than the girl. He was violently telegraphing to her to come away, although it was evident that he was at the same time deeply interested in the guest’s toilet articles. Yet as his bright gray eyes and Mr. Hamlin’s brown ones met, he succumbed, as the girl had, and walked directly to the bedside. But he did it bashfully – as the girl had not. He even attempted a defensive explanation.

‘She hadn’t oughter come in here, and mar wouldn’t let her, and she knows it,’ he said with superior virtue.

‘But I asked her to come as I’m asking you,’ said Mr. Hamlin promptly, ‘and don’t you go back on your sister or you’ll never be president of the United States.’ With this he laid his hand on the boy’s tow head, and then, lifting himself on his pillow to a half-sitting posture, put an arm around each of the children, drawing them together, with the doll occupying the central post of honor. ‘Now,’ continued Mr. Hamlin, albeit in a voice a little faint from the exertion, ‘now that we’re comfortable together I’ll tell you the story of the good little boy who became a pirate in order to save his grandmother and little sister from being eaten by a wolf at the door.’

But, alas! that interesting record of self-sacrifice never was told. For it chanced that Melinda Bird, Mrs. Rivers’s help, following the trail of the missing children, came upon the open door and glanced in. There, to her astonishment, she saw the domestic group already described, and to her eyes dominated by the ‘most beautiful and perfectly elegant’ young man she had ever seen. But let not the incautious reader suppose that she succumbed as weakly as her artless charges to these fascinations. The character and antecedents of that young man had been already delivered to her in the kitchen by the other help. With that single glance she halted; her eyes sought the ceiling in chaste exaltation. Falling back a step, she called in ladylike hauteur and precision, ‘Mary Emmeline and John Wesley.’

Mr. Hamlin glanced at the children. ‘It’s Melindy looking for us,’ said John Wesley. But they did not move. At which Mr. Hamlin called out faintly but cheerfully, ‘They’re here, all right.’

Again the voice arose with still more marked and lofty distinctness, ‘John Wesley and Mary Em-me-line.’ It seemed to Mr. Hamlin that human accents could not convey a more significant and elevated ignoring of some implied impropriety in his invitation. He was for a moment crushed.

But he only said to his little friends with a smile, ‘You’d better go now and we’ll have that story later.’

‘Affer beckus?’ suggested Mary Emmeline.

‘In the woods,’ added John Wesley.

Mr. Hamlin nodded blandly. The children trotted to the door. It closed upon them and Miss Bird’s parting admonition, loud enough for Mr. Hamlin to hear, ‘No more freedoms, no more intrudings, you hear.’

The older culprit, Hamlin, retreated luxuriously under his blankets, but presently another new sensation came over him – absolutely, hunger. Perhaps it was the child’s allusion to ‘beckus,’ but he found himself wondering when it would be ready. This anxiety was soon relieved by the appearance of his host himself bearing a tray, possibly in deference to Miss Bird’s sense of propriety. It appeared also that Dr. Duchesne had previously given suitable directions for his diet, and Mr. Hamlin found his repast simple but enjoyable. Always playfully or ironically polite to strangers, he thanked his host and said he had slept splendidly.

‘It’s this yer “ozone” in the air that Dr. Duchesne talks about,’ said Seth complacently.

‘I am inclined to think it is also those texts,’ said Mr. Hamlin gravely, as he indicated them on the wall. ‘You see they reminded me of church and my boyhood’s slumbers there. I have never slept so peacefully since.’ Seth’s face brightened so interestedly at what he believed to be a suggestion of his guest’s conversion that Mr. Hamlin was fain to change the subject. When his host had withdrawn he proceeded to dress himself, but here became conscious of his weakness and was obliged to sit down. In one of those enforced rests he chanced to be near the window, and for the first time looked on the environs of his place of exile. For a moment he was staggered. Everything seemed to pitch downward from the rocky outcrop on which the rambling house and farm sheds stood. Even the great pines around it swept downward like a green wave, to rise again in enormous billows as far as the eye could reach. He could count a dozen of their tumbled crests following each other on their way to the distant plain. In some vague point of that shimmering horizon of heat and dust was the spot he came from the preceding night. Yet the recollection of it and his feverish past seemed to confuse him, and he turned his eyes gladly away.

Pale, a little tremulous, but immaculate and jaunty in his white flannels and straw hat, he at last made his way downstairs. To his great relief he found the sitting room empty, as he would have willingly deferred his formal acknowledgments to his hostess later. A single glance at the interior determined him not to linger, and he slipped quietly into the open air and sunshine. The day was warm and still, as the wind only came up with the going down of the sun, and the atmosphere was still redolent with the morning spicing of pine and hay and a stronger balm that seemed to fill his breast with sunshine. He walked toward the nearest shade – a cluster of young buckeyes – and having with a certain civic fastidiousness flicked the dust from a stump with his handkerchief he sat down. It was very quiet and calm. The life and animation of early morning had already vanished from the hill, or seemed to be suspended with the sun in the sky. He could see the ranchmen and oxen toiling on the green terraced slopes below, but no sound reached his ears. Even the house he had just quitted seemed empty of life throughout its rambling length. His seclusion was complete. Could he stand it for three weeks? Perhaps it need not be for so long; he was already stronger! He foresaw that the ascetic Seth might become wearisome. He had an intuition that Mrs. Rivers would be equally so; he should certainly quarrel with Melinda, and this would probably debar him from the company of the children – his only hope.

But his seclusion was by no means so complete as he expected. He presently was aware of a camp-meeting hymn hummed somewhat ostentatiously by a deep contralto voice, which he at once recognized as Melinda’s, and saw that severe virgin proceeding from the kitchen along the ridge until within a few paces of the buckeyes, when she stopped and, with her hand shading her eyes, apparently began to examine the distant fields. She was a tall, robust girl, not without certain rustic attractions, of which she seemed fully conscious. This latter weakness gave Mr. Hamlin a new idea. He put up the penknife with which he had been paring his nails while wondering why his hands had become so thin, and awaited events. She presently turned, approached the buckeyes, plucked a spike of the blossoms with great girlish lightness, and then apparently discovering Mr. Hamlin, started in deep concern and said with somewhat stentorian politeness: ‘I BEG your pardon – didn’t know I was intruding!’

‘Don’t mention it,’ returned Jack promptly, but without moving. ‘I saw you coming and was prepared; but generally – as I have something the matter with my heart – a sudden joy like this is dangerous.’

Somewhat mystified, but struggling between an expression of rigorous decorum and gratified vanity, Miss Melinda stammered, ‘I was only’ —

‘I knew it – I saw what you were doing,’ interrupted Jack gravely, ‘only I wouldn’t do it if I were you. You were looking at one of those young men down the hill. You forgot that if you could see him he could see you looking too, and that would only make him conceited. And a girl with YOUR attractions don’t require that.’

‘Ez if,’ said Melinda, with lofty but somewhat reddening scorn, ‘there was a man on this hull rancho that I’d take a second look at.’

‘It’s the first look that does the business,’ returned Jack simply. ‘But maybe I was wrong. Would you mind – as you’re going straight back to the house’ (Miss Melinda had certainly expressed no such intention) – ‘turning those two little kids loose out here? I’ve a sort of engagement with them.’

‘I will speak to their mar,’ said Melinda primly, yet with a certain sign of relenting, as she turned away.

‘You can say to her that I regretted not finding her in the sitting room when I came down,’ continued Jack tactfully.

Apparently the tact was successful, for he was delighted a few moments later by the joyous onset of John Wesley and Mary Emmeline upon the buckeyes, which he at once converted into a game of hide and seek, permitting himself at last to be shamelessly caught in the open. But here he wisely resolved upon guarding against further grown-up interruption, and consulting with his companions found that on one of the lower terraces there was a large reservoir fed by a mountain rivulet, but they were not allowed to play there. Thither, however, the reckless Jack hied with his playmates and was presently ensconced under a willow tree, where he dexterously fashioned tiny willow canoes with his penknife and sent them sailing over a submerged expanse of nearly an acre. But half an hour of this ingenious amusement was brought to an abrupt termination. While cutting bark, with his back momentarily turned on his companions, he heard a scream, and turned quickly to see John Wesley struggling in the water, grasping a tree root, and Mary Emmeline – nowhere! In another minute he saw the strings of her pinafore appear on the surface a few yards beyond, and in yet another minute, with a swift rueful glance at his white flannels, he had plunged after her. A disagreeable shock of finding himself out of his depths was, however, followed by contact with the child’s clothing, and clutching her firmly, a stroke or two brought him panting to the bank. Here a gasp, a gurgle, and then a roar from Mary Emmeline, followed by a sympathetic howl from John Wesley, satisfied him that the danger was over. Rescuing the boy from the tree root, he laid them both on the grass and contemplated them exercising their lungs with miserable satisfaction. But here he found his own breathing impeded in addition to a slight faintness, and was suddenly obliged to sit down beside them, at which, by some sympathetic intuition, they both stopped crying.

Encouraged by this, Mr. Hamlin got them to laughing again, and then proposed a race home in their wet clothes, which they accepted, Mr. Hamlin, for respiratory reasons, lagging in their rear until he had the satisfaction of seeing them captured by the horrified Melinda in front of the kitchen, while he slipped past her and regained his own room. Here he changed his saturated clothes, tried to rub away a certain chilliness that was creeping over him, and lay down in his dressing gown to miserable reflections. He had nearly drowned the children and overexcited himself, in spite of his promise to the doctor! He would never again be entrusted with the care of the former nor be believed by the latter!

But events are not always logical in sequence. Mr. Hamlin went comfortably to sleep and into a profuse perspiration. He was awakened by a rapping at his door, and opening it, was surprised to find Mrs. Rivers with anxious inquiries as to his condition. ‘Indeed,’ she said, with an emotion which even her prim reserve could not conceal, ‘I did not know until now how serious the accident was, and how but for you and Divine Providence my little girl might have been drowned. It seems Melinda saw it all.’

Inwardly objurgating the spying Melinda, but relieved that his playmates hadn’t broken their promise of secrecy, Mr. Hamlin laughed.

‘I’m afraid that your little girl wouldn’t have got into the water at all but for me – and you must give all the credit of getting her out to the other fellow.’ He stopped at the severe change in Mrs. Rivers’s expression, and added quite boyishly and with a sudden drop from his usual levity, ‘But please don’t keep the children away from me for all that, Mrs. Rivers.’

Mrs. Rivers did not, and the next day Jack and his companions sought fresh playing fields and some new story-telling pastures. Indeed, it was a fine sight to see this pale, handsome, elegantly dressed young fellow lounging along between a blue-checkered pinafored girl on one side and a barefooted boy on the other. The ranchmen turned and looked after him curiously. One, a rustic prodigal, reduced by dissipation to the swine-husks of ranching, saw fit to accost him familiarly.

‘The last time I saw you dealing poker in Sacramento, Mr. Hamlin, I did not reckon to find you up here playing with a couple of kids.’

‘No!’ responded Mr. Hamlin suavely, ‘and yet I remember I was playing with some country idiots down there, and you were one of them. Well! understand that up here I prefer the kids. Don’t let me have to remind you of it.’

Nevertheless, Mr. Hamlin could not help noticing that for the next two or three days there were many callers at the ranch and that he was obliged in his walks to avoid the highroad on account of the impertinent curiosity of wayfarers. Some of them were of that sex which he would not have contented himself with simply calling ‘curious.’

‘To think,’ said Melinda confidently to her mistress, ‘that that thar Mrs. Stubbs, who wouldn’t go to the Hightown Hotel because there was a play actress thar, has been snoopin’ round here twice since that young feller came.’

Of this fact, however, Mr. Hamlin was blissfully unconscious.

Nevertheless, his temper was growing uncertain; the angle of his smart straw hat was becoming aggressive to strangers; his politeness sardonic. And now Sunday morning had come with an atmosphere of starched piety and well-soaped respectability at the rancho, and the children were to be taken with the rest of the family to the day-long service at Hightown. As these Sabbath pilgrimages filled the main road, he was fain to take himself and his loneliness to the trails and byways, and even to invade the haunts of some other elegant outcasts like himself – to wit, a crested hawk, a graceful wild cat beautifully marked, and an eloquently reticent rattlesnake. Mr. Hamlin eyed them without fear, and certainly without reproach. They were not out of their element.

Suddenly he heard his name called in a stentorian contralto. An impatient ejaculation rose to his lips, but died upon them as he turned. It was certainly Melinda, but in his present sensitive loneliness it struck him for the first time that he had never actually seen her before as she really was. Like most men in his profession he was a quick reader of thoughts and faces when he was interested, and although this was the same robust, long-limbed, sunburnt girl he had met, he now seemed to see through her triple incrustation of human vanity, conventional piety, and outrageous Sabbath finery an honest, sympathetic simplicity that commanded his respect.

‘You are back early from church,’ he said.

‘Yes. One service is good enough for me when thar ain’t no special preacher,’ she returned, ‘so I jest sez to Silas, “as I ain’t here to listen to the sisters cackle ye kin put to the buckboard and drive me home ez soon ez you please.”’

‘And so his name is Silas,’ suggested Mr. Hamlin cheerfully.

‘Go ’long with you, Mr. Hamlin, and don’t pester,’ she returned, with heifer-like playfulness. ‘Well, Silas put to, and when we rose the hill here I saw your straw hat passin’ in the gulch, and sez to Silas, sez I, “Ye kin pull up here, for over yar is our new boarder, Jack Hamlin, and I’m goin’ to talk with him.” “All right,” sez he, “I’d sooner trust ye with that gay young gambolier every day of the week than with them saints down thar on Sunday. He deals ez straight ez he shoots, and is about as nigh onto a gentleman as they make ’em.”’

For one moment or two Miss Bird only saw Jack’s long lashes. When his eyes once more lifted they were shining. ‘And what did you say?’ he said, with a short laugh.

‘I told him he needn’t be Christopher Columbus to have discovered that.’ She turned with a laugh toward Jack, to be met by the word ‘shake,’ and an outstretched thin white hand which grasped her large red one with a frank, fraternal pressure.

‘I didn’t come to tell ye that,’ remarked Miss Bird as she sat down on a boulder, took off her yellow hat, and restacked her tawny mane under it, ‘but this: I reckoned I went to Sunday meetin’ as I ought ter. I kalkilated to hear considerable about “Faith” and “Works,” and sich, but I didn’t reckon to hear all about you from the Lord’s Prayer to the Doxology[91]. You were in the special prayers ez a warnin’, in the sermon ez a text; they picked out hymns to fit ye! And always a drefful example and a visitation. And the rest o’ the tune it was all gabble, gabble by the brothers and sisters about you. I reckon, Mr. Hamlin, that they know everything you ever did since you were knee-high to a grasshopper, and a good deal more than you ever thought of doin’. The women is all dead set on convertin’ ye and savin’ ye by their own precious selves, and the men is ekally dead set on gettin’ rid o’ ye on that account.’

‘And what did Seth and Mrs. Rivers say?’ asked Hamlin composedly, but with kindling eyes.

‘They stuck up for ye ez far ez they could. But ye see the parson hez got a holt upon Seth, havin’ caught him kissin’ a convert at camp meeting; and Deacon Turner knows suthin about Mrs. Rivers’s sister, who kicked over the pail and jumped the fence years ago, and she’s afeard a’ him. But what I wanted to tell ye was that they’re all comin’ up here to take a look at ye – some on ’em to-night. You ain’t afeard, are ye?’ she added, with a loud laugh.

‘Well, it looks rather desperate, doesn’t it?’ returned Jack, with dancing eyes.

‘I’ll trust ye for all that,’ said Melinda. ‘And now I reckon I’ll trot along to the rancho. Ye needn’t offer ter see me home,’ she added, as Jack made a movement to accompany her. ‘Everybody up here ain’t as fair-minded ez Silas and you, and Melinda Bird hez a character to lose! So long!’ With this she cantered away, a little heavily, perhaps, adjusting her yellow hat with both hands as she clattered down the steep hill.

That afternoon Mr. Hamlin drew largely on his convalescence to mount a half-broken mustang, and in spite of the rising afternoon wind to gallop along the highroad in quite as mischievous and breezy a fashion. He was wont to allow his mustang’s nose to hang over the hind rails of wagons and buggies containing young couples, and to dash ahead of sober carryalls that held elderly ‘members in good standing.’

An accomplished rider, he picked up and brought back the flying parasol of Mrs. Deacon Stubbs without dismounting. He finally came home a little blown, but dangerously composed.

There was the usual Sunday evening gathering at Windy Hill Rancho – neighbors and their wives, deacons and the pastor – but their curiosity was not satisfied by the sight of Mr. Hamlin, who kept his own room and his own counsel. There was some desultory conversation, chiefly on church topics, for it was vaguely felt that a discussion of the advisability or getting rid of the guest of their host was somewhat difficult under this host’s roof, with the guest impending at any moment. Then a diversion was created by some of the church choir practicing the harmonium with the singing of certain more or less lugubrious anthems. Mrs. Rivers presently joined in, and in a somewhat faded soprano, which, however, still retained considerable musical taste and expression, sang, ‘Come, ye disconsolate.’ The wind moaned over the deep-throated chimney in a weird harmony with the melancholy of that human appeal as Mrs. Rivers sang the first verse: —

‘Come, ye disconsolate, where’er ye languish, Come to the Mercy Seat, fervently kneel; Here bring your wounded hearts – here tell your anguish, Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal!’

A pause followed, and the long-drawn, half-human sigh of the mountain wind over the chimney seemed to mingle with the wail of the harmonium. And then, to their thrilled astonishment, a tenor voice, high, clear, but tenderly passionate, broke like a skylark over their heads in the lines of the second verse: —

‘Joy of the desolate, Light of the straying, Hope of the penitent – fadeless and pure; Here speaks the Comforter, tenderly saying, Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot cure!’

The hymn was old and familiar enough, Heaven knows. It had been quite popular at funerals, and some who sat there had had its strange melancholy borne upon them in time of loss and tribulations, but never had they felt its full power before. Accustomed as they were to emotional appeal and to respond to it, as the singer’s voice died away above them, their very tears flowed and fell with that voice. A few sobbed aloud, and then a voice asked tremulously, —

‘Who is it?’

‘It’s Mr. Hamlin,’ said Seth quietly. ‘I’ve heard him often hummin’ things before.’

There was another silence, and the voice of Deacon Stubbs broke in harshly, —

‘It’s rank blasphemy.’

‘If it’s rank blasphemy to sing the praise o’ God, not only better than some folks in the choir, but like an angel o’ light, I wish you’d do a little o’ that blaspheming on Sundays, Mr. Stubbs.’

The speaker was Mrs. Stubbs, and as Deacon Stubbs was a notoriously bad singer the shot told.

‘If he’s sincere, why does he stand aloof? Why does he not join us?’ asked the parson.

‘He hasn’t been asked,’ said Seth quietly. ‘If I ain’t mistaken this yer gathering this evening was specially to see how to get rid of him.’

There was a quick murmur of protest at this. The parson exchanged glances with the deacon and saw that they were hopelessly in the minority.

‘I will ask him myself,’ said Mrs. Rivers suddenly.

‘So do, Sister Rivers; so do,’ was the unmistakable response.

Mrs. Rivers left the room and returned in a few moments with a handsome young man, pale, elegant, composed, even to a grave indifference. What his eyes might have said was another thing; the long lashes were scarcely raised.

‘I don’t mind playing a little,’ he said quietly to Mrs. Rivers, as if continuing a conversation, ‘but you’ll have to let me trust my memory.’

‘Then you – er – play the harmonium?’ said the parson, with an attempt at formal courtesy.

‘I was for a year or two the organist in the choir of Dr. Todd’s church at Sacramento,’ returned Mr. Hamlin quietly.

The blank amazement on the faces of Deacons Stubbs and Turner and the parson was followed by wreathed smiles from the other auditors and especially from the ladies. Mr. Hamlin sat down to the instrument, and in another moment took possession of it as it had never been held before. He played from memory as he had implied, but it was the memory of a musician. He began with one or two familiar anthems, in which they all joined. A fragment of a mass and a Latin chant followed. An ‘Ave Maria’ from an opera was his first secular departure, but his delighted audience did not detect it. Then he hurried them along in unfamiliar language to ‘O mío Fernando’ and ‘Spiritu gentil,’ which they fondly imagined were hymns, until, with crowning audacity, after a few preliminary chords of the ‘Miserere,’ he landed them broken-hearted in the Trovatore’s donjon tower with ‘Non te scordar de mi.’

Amidst the applause he heard the preacher suavely explain that those Popish masses were always in the Latin language, and rose from the instrument satisfied with his experiment. Excusing himself as an invalid from joining them in a light collation in the dining room, and begging his hostess’s permission to retire, he nevertheless lingered a few moments by the door as the ladies filed out of the room, followed by the gentlemen, until Deacon Turner, who was bringing up the rear, was abreast of him. Here Mr. Hamlin became suddenly deeply interested in a framed pencil drawing which hung on the wall. It was evidently a schoolgirl’s amateur portrait, done by Mrs. Rivers. Deacon Turner halted quickly by his side as the others passed out – which was exactly what Mr. Hamlin expected.

‘Do you know the face?’ said the deacon eagerly.

Thanks to the faithful Melinda, Mr. Hamlin did know it perfectly. It was a pencil sketch of Mrs. Rivers’s youthfully erring sister. But he only said he thought he recognized a likeness to someone he had seen in Sacramento.

The deacon’s eye brightened. ‘Perhaps the same one – perhaps,’ he added in a submissive and significant tone ‘a – er – painful story.’

‘Rather – to him,’ observed Hamlin quietly.

‘How? – I – er – don’t understand,’ said Deacon Turner.

‘Well, the portrait looks like a lady I knew in Sacramento who had been in some trouble when she was a silly girl, but had got over it quietly. She was, however, troubled a good deal by some mean hound who was every now and then raking up the story wherever she went. Well, one of her friends – I might have been among them, I don’t exactly remember just now – challenged him, but although he had no conscientious convictions about slandering a woman, he had some about being shot for it, and declined. The consequence was he was cowhided once in the street, and the second time tarred and feathered[92] and ridden on a rail out of town. That, I suppose, was what you meant by your “painful story.” But is this the woman?’

‘No, no,’ said the deacon hurriedly, with a white face, ‘you have quite misunderstood.’

‘But whose is this portrait?’ persisted Jack.

‘I believe that – I don’t know exactly – but I think it is a sister of Mrs. Rivers’s,’ stammered the deacon.

‘Then, of course, it isn’t the same woman,’ said Jack in simulated indignation.

‘Certainly – of course not,’ returned the deacon.

‘Phew!’ said Jack. ‘That was a mighty close call. Lucky we were alone, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ said the deacon, with a feeble smile.

‘Seth,’ continued Jack, with a thoughtful air, ‘looks like a quiet man, but I shouldn’t like to have made that mistake about his sister-in-law before him. These quiet men are apt to shoot straight. Better keep this to ourselves.’

Deacon Turner not only kept the revelation to himself but apparently his own sacred person also, as he did not call again at Windy Hill Rancho during Mr. Hamlin’s stay. But he was exceedingly polite in his references to Jack, and alluded patronizingly to a ‘little chat’ they had had together. And when the usual reaction took place in Mr. Hamlin’s favor and Jack was actually induced to perform on the organ at Hightown Church next Sunday, the deacon’s voice was loudest in his praise. Even Parson Greenwood allowed himself to be non-committal as to the truth of the rumor, largely circulated, that one of the most desperate gamblers in the State had been converted through his exhortations.

So, with breezy walks and games with the children, occasional confidences with Melinda and Silas, and the Sabbath ‘singing of anthems,’ Mr. Hamlin’s three weeks of convalescence drew to a close. He had lately relaxed his habit of seclusion so far as to mingle with the company gathered for more social purposes at the rancho, and once or twice unbent so far as to satisfy their curiosity in regard to certain details of his profession.

‘I have no personal knowledge of games of cards,’ said Parson Greenwood patronizingly, ‘and think I am right in saying that our brothers and sisters are equally inexperienced. I am – ahem – far from believing, however, that entire ignorance of evil is the best preparation for combating it, and I should be glad if you’d explain to the company the intricacies of various games. There is one that you mentioned, with a – er – scriptural name.’

‘Faro,’ said Hamlin, with an unmoved face.

‘Pharaoh,’ repeated the parson gravely; ‘and one which you call “poker,” which seems to require great self-control.’

‘I couldn’t make you understand poker without your playing it,’ said Jack decidedly.

‘As long as we don’t gamble – that is, play for money – I see no objection,’ returned the parson.

‘And,’ said Jack musingly, ‘you could use beans.’

It was agreed finally that there would be no falling from grace in their playing among themselves, in an inquiring Christian spirit, under Jack’s guidance, he having decided to abstain from card playing during his convalescence, and Jack permitted himself to be persuaded to show them the following evening.

It so chanced, however, that Dr. Duchesne, finding the end of Jack’s ‘cure’ approaching, and not hearing from that interesting invalid, resolved to visit him at about this time. Having no chance to apprise Jack of his intention, on coming to Hightown at night he procured a conveyance at the depot to carry him to Windy Hill Rancho. The wind blew with its usual nocturnal rollicking persistency, and at the end of his turbulent drive it seemed almost impossible to make himself heard amongst the roaring of the pines and some astounding preoccupation of the inmates. After vainly knocking, the doctor pushed open the front door and entered. He rapped at the closed sitting room door, but receiving no reply, pushed it open upon the most unexpected and astounding scene he had ever witnessed. Around the centre table several respectable members of the Hightown Church, including the parson, were gathered with intense and eager faces playing poker, and behind the parson, with his hands in his pockets, carelessly lounged the doctor’s patient, the picture of health and vigor. A disused pack of cards was scattered on the floor, and before the gentle and precise Mrs. Rivers was heaped a pile of beans that would have filled a quart measure.

When Dr. Duchesne had tactfully retreated before the hurried and stammering apologies of his host and hostess, and was alone with Jack in his rooms, he turned to him with a gravity that was more than half affected and said, ‘How long, sir, did it take you to effect this corruption?’

‘Upon my honor,’ said Jack simply, ‘they played last night for the first time. And they forced me to show them. But,’ added Jack after a significant pause, ‘I thought it would make the game livelier and be more of a moral lesson if I gave them nearly all good pat hands. So I ran in a cold deck on them – the first time I ever did such a thing in my life. I fixed up a pack of cards so that one had three tens, another three jacks, and another three queens, and so on up to three aces. In a minute they had all tumbled to the game, and you never saw such betting. Every man and woman there believed he or she had struck a sure thing, and staked accordingly. A new panful of beans was brought on, and Seth, your friend, banked for them. And at last the parson raked in the whole pile.’

‘I suppose you gave him the three aces,’ said Dr. Duchesne gloomily.

‘The parson,’ said Jack slowly, ‘HADN’T A SINGLE PAIR IN HIS HAND. It was the stoniest, deadest, neatest BLUFF I ever saw. And when he’d frightened off the last man who held out and laid that measly hand of his face down on that pile of kings, queens, and aces, and looked around the table as he raked in the pile, there was a smile of humble self-righteousness on his face that was worth double the money.’

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment

That very singular man, old Dr. Heidegger, once invited four venerable friends to meet him in his study. There were three white-bearded gentlemen, Mr. Medbourne, Colonel Killigrew, and Mr. Gascoigne, and a withered gentlewoman, whose name was the Widow Wycherly. They were all melancholy old creatures, who had been unfortunate in life, and whose greatest misfortune it was that they were not long ago in their graves. Mr. Medbourne, in the vigor of his age, had been a prosperous merchant, but had lost his all by a frantic speculation, and was now little better than a mendicant. Colonel Killigrew had wasted his best years, and his health and substance, in the pursuit of sinful pleasures, which had given birth to a brood of pains, such as the gout, and divers other torments of soul and body. Mr. Gascoigne was a ruined politician, a man of evil fame, or at least had been so till time had buried him from the knowledge of the present generation, and made him obscure instead of infamous. As for the Widow Wycherly, tradition tells us that she was a great beauty in her day; but, for a long while past, she had lived in deep seclusion, on account of certain scandalous stories which had prejudiced the gentry of the town against her. It is a circumstance worth mentioning that each of these three old gentlemen, Mr. Medbourne, Colonel Killigrew, and Mr. Gascoigne, were early lovers of the Widow Wycherly, and had once been on the point of cutting each other’s throats for her sake. And, before proceeding further, I will merely hint that Dr. Heidegger and all his foul guests were sometimes thought to be a little beside themselves, – as is not unfrequently the case with old people, when worried either by present troubles or woeful recollections.

‘My dear old friends,’ said Dr. Heidegger, motioning them to be seated, ‘I am desirous of your assistance in one of those little experiments with which I amuse myself here in my study.’

If all stories were true, Dr. Heidegger’s study must have been a very curious place. It was a dim, old-fashioned chamber, festooned with cobwebs, and besprinkled with antique dust. Around the walls stood several oaken bookcases, the lower shelves of which were filled with rows of gigantic folios and black-letter quartos, and the upper with little parchment-covered duodecimos. Over the central bookcase was a bronze bust of Hippocrates[93], with which, according to some authorities, Dr. Heidegger was accustomed to hold consultations in all difficult cases of his practice. In the obscurest corner of the room stood a tall and narrow oaken closet, with its door ajar, within which doubtfully appeared a skeleton. Between two of the bookcases hung a looking-glass, presenting its high and dusty plate within a tarnished gilt frame. Among many wonderful stories related of this mirror, it was fabled that the spirits of all the doctor’s deceased patients dwelt within its verge, and would stare him in the face whenever he looked thitherward. The opposite side of the chamber was ornamented with the full-length portrait of a young lady, arrayed in the faded magnificence of silk, satin, and brocade, and with a visage as faded as her dress. Above half a century ago, Dr. Heidegger had been on the point of marriage with this young lady; but, being affected with some slight disorder, she had swallowed one of her lover’s prescriptions, and died on the bridal evening. The greatest curiosity of the study remains to be mentioned; it was a ponderous folio volume, bound in black leather, with massive silver clasps. There were no letters on the back, and nobody could tell the title of the book. But it was well known to be a book of magic; and once, when a chambermaid had lifted it, merely to brush away the dust, the skeleton had rattled in its closet, the picture of the young lady had stepped one foot upon the floor, and several ghastly faces had peeped forth from the mirror; while the brazen head of Hippocrates frowned, and said, – ‘Forbear!’

Such was Dr. Heidegger’s study. On the summer afternoon of our tale a small round table, as black as ebony, stood in the centre of the room, sustaining a cut-glass vase of beautiful form and elaborate workmanship. The sunshine came through the window, between the heavy festoons of two faded damask curtains, and fell directly across this vase; so that a mild splendor was reflected from it on the ashen visages of the five old people who sat around. Four champagne glasses were also on the table.

‘My dear old friends,’ repeated Dr. Heidegger, ‘may I reckon on your aid in performing an exceedingly curious experiment?’

Now Dr. Heidegger was a very strange old gentleman, whose eccentricity had become the nucleus for a thousand fantastic stories. Some of these fables, to my shame be it spoken, might possibly be traced back to my own veracious self; and if any passages of the present tale should startle the reader’s faith, I must be content to bear the stigma of a fiction monger.

When the doctor’s four guests heard him talk of his proposed experiment, they anticipated nothing more wonderful than the murder of a mouse in an air pump, or the examination of a cobweb by the microscope, or some similar nonsense, with which he was constantly in the habit of pestering his intimates. But without waiting for a reply, Dr. Heidegger hobbled across the chamber, and returned with the same ponderous folio, bound in black leather, which common report affirmed to be a book of magic. Undoing the silver clasps, he opened the volume, and took from among its black-letter pages a rose, or what was once a rose, though now the green leaves and crimson petals had assumed one brownish hue, and the ancient flower seemed ready to crumble to dust in the doctor’s hands.

‘This rose,’ said Dr. Heidegger, with a sigh, ‘this same withered and crumbling flower, blossomed five and fifty years ago. It was given me by Sylvia Ward, whose portrait hangs yonder; and I meant to wear it in my bosom at our wedding. Five and fifty years it has been treasured between the leaves of this old volume. Now, would you deem it possible that this rose of half a century could ever bloom again?’

‘Nonsense!’ said the Widow Wycherly, with a peevish toss of her head. ‘You might as well ask whether an old woman’s wrinkled face could ever bloom again.’

‘See!’ answered Dr. Heidegger.

He uncovered the vase, and threw the faded rose into the water which it contained. At first, it lay lightly on the surface of the fluid, appearing to imbibe none of its moisture. Soon, however, a singular change began to be visible. The crushed and dried petals stirred, and assumed a deepening tinge of crimson, as if the flower were reviving from a deathlike slumber; the slender stalk and twigs of foliage became green; and there was the rose of half a century, looking as fresh as when Sylvia Ward had first given it to her lover. It was scarcely full blown; for some of its delicate red leaves curled modestly around its moist bosom, within which two or three dewdrops were sparkling.

‘That is certainly a very pretty deception,’ said the doctor’s friends; carelessly, however, for they had witnessed greater miracles at a conjurer’s show; ‘pray how was it effected?’

‘Did you never hear of the “Fountain of Youth”?’ asked Dr. Heidegger, ‘which Ponce De Leon, the Spanish adventurer, went in search of two or three centuries ago?’

‘But did Ponce De Leon ever find it?’ said the Widow Wycherly.

‘No,’ answered Dr. Heidegger, ‘for he never sought it in the right place. The famous Fountain of Youth, if I am rightly informed, is situated in the southern part of the Floridian peninsula[94], not far from Lake Macaco. Its source is overshadowed by several gigantic magnolias, which, though numberless centuries old, have been kept as fresh as violets by the virtues of this wonderful water. An acquaintance of mine, knowing my curiosity in such matters, has sent me what you see in the vase.’

‘Ahem!’ said Colonel Killigrew, who believed not a word of the doctor’s story; ‘and what may be the effect of this fluid on the human frame?’

‘You shall judge for yourself, my dear colonel,’ replied Dr. Heidegger; ‘and all of you, my respected friends, are welcome to so much of this admirable fluid as may restore to you the bloom of youth. For my own part, having had much trouble in growing old, I am in no hurry to grow young again. With your permission, therefore, I will merely watch the progress of the experiment.’

While he spoke, Dr. Heidegger had been filling the four champagne glasses with the water of the Fountain of Youth. It was apparently impregnated with an effervescent gas, for little bubbles were continually ascending from the depths of the glasses, and bursting in silvery spray at the surface. As the liquor diffused a pleasant perfume, the old people doubted not that it possessed cordial and comfortable properties; and though utter skeptics as to its rejuvenescent power, they were inclined to swallow it at once. But Dr. Heidegger besought them to stay a moment.

‘Before you drink, my respectable old friends,’ said he, ‘it would be well that, with the experience of a lifetime to direct you, you should draw up a few general rules for your guidance, in passing a second time through the perils of youth. Think what a sin and shame it would be, if, with your peculiar advantages, you should not become patterns of virtue and wisdom to all the young people of the age!’

The doctor’s four venerable friends made him no answer, except by a feeble and tremulous laugh; so very ridiculous was the idea that, knowing how closely repentance treads behind the steps of error, they should ever go astray again.

‘Drink, then,’ said the doctor, bowing: ‘I rejoice that I have so well selected the subjects of my experiment.’

With palsied hands, they raised the glasses to their lips. The liquor, if it really possessed such virtues as Dr. Heidegger imputed to it, could not have been bestowed on four human beings who needed it more woefully. They looked as if they had never known what youth or pleasure was, but had been the offspring of Nature’s dotage, and always the gray, decrepit, sapless, miserable creatures, who now sat stooping round the doctor’s table, without life enough in their souls or bodies to be animated even by the prospect of growing young again. They drank off the water, and replaced their glasses on the table.

Assuredly there was an almost immediate improvement in the aspect of the party, not unlike what might have been produced by a glass of generous wine, together with a sudden glow of cheerful sunshine brightening over all their visages at once. There was a healthful suffusion on their cheeks, instead of the ashen hue that had made them look so corpse-like. They gazed at one another, and fancied that some magic power had really begun to smooth away the deep and sad inscriptions which Father Time had been so long engraving on their brows. The Widow Wycherly adjusted her cap, for she felt almost like a woman again.

‘Give us more of this wondrous water!’ cried they, eagerly. ‘We are younger – but we are still too old! Quick – give us more!’

‘Patience, patience!’ quoth Dr. Heidegger, who sat watching the experiment with philosophic coolness. ‘You have been a long time growing old. Surely, you might be content to grow young in half an hour! But the water is at your service.’

Again he filled their glasses with the liquor of youth, enough of which still remained in the vase to turn half the old people in the city to the age of their own grandchildren. While the bubbles were yet sparkling on the brim, the doctor’s four guests snatched their glasses from the table, and swallowed the contents at a single gulp. Was it delusion? even while the draught was passing down their throats, it seemed to have wrought a change on their whole systems. Their eyes grew clear and bright; a dark shade deepened among their silvery locks, they sat around the table, three gentlemen of middle age, and a woman, hardly beyond her buxom prime.

‘My dear widow, you are charming!’ cried Colonel Killigrew, whose eyes had been fixed upon her face, while the shadows of age were flitting from it like darkness from the crimson daybreak.

The fair widow knew, of old, that Colonel Killigrew’s compliments were not always measured by sober truth; so she started up and ran to the mirror, still dreading that the ugly visage of an old woman would meet her gaze. Meanwhile, the three gentlemen behaved in such a manner as proved that the water of the Fountain of Youth possessed some intoxicating qualities; unless, indeed, their exhilaration of spirits were merely a lightsome dizziness caused by the sudden removal of the weight of years. Mr. Gascoigne’s mind seemed to run on political topics, but whether relating to the past, present, or future, could not easily be determined, since the same ideas and phrases have been in vogue these fifty years. Now he rattled forth full-throated sentences about patriotism, national glory, and the people’s right; now he muttered some perilous stuff or other, in a sly and doubtful whisper, so cautiously that even his own conscience could scarcely catch the secret; and now, again, he spoke in measured accents, and a deeply deferential tone, as if a royal ear were listening to his wellturned periods. Colonel Killigrew all this time had been trolling forth a jolly bottle song, and ringing his glass in symphony with the chorus, while his eyes wandered toward the buxom figure of the Widow Wycherly. On the other side of the table, Mr. Medbourne was involved in a calculation of dollars and cents, with which was strangely intermingled a project for supplying the East Indies with ice, by harnessing a team of whales to the polar icebergs.

As for the Widow Wycherly, she stood before the mirror courtesying and simpering to her own image, and greeting it as the friend whom she loved better than all the world beside. She thrust her face close to the glass, to see whether some long-remembered wrinkle or crow’s foot had indeed vanished. She examined whether the snow had so entirely melted from her hair that the venerable cap could be safely thrown aside. At last, turning briskly away, she came with a sort of dancing step to the table.

‘My dear old doctor,’ cried she, ‘pray favor me with another glass!’

‘Certainly, my dear madam, certainly!’ replied the complaisant doctor; ‘see! I have already filled the glasses.’

There, in fact, stood the four glasses, brimful of this wonderful water, the delicate spray of which, as it effervesced from the surface, resembled the tremulous glitter of diamonds. It was now so nearly sunset that the chamber had grown duskier than ever; but a mild and moonlike splendor gleamed from within the vase, and rested alike on the four guests and on the doctor’s venerable figure. He sat in a high-backed, elaborately-carved, oaken arm-chair, with a gray dignity of aspect that might have well befitted that very Father Time, whose power had never been disputed, save by this fortunate company. Even while quaffing the third draught of the Fountain of Youth, they were almost awed by the expression of his mysterious visage.

But, the next moment, the exhilarating gush of young life shot through their veins. They were now in the happy prime of youth. Age, with its miserable train of cares and sorrows and diseases, was remembered only as the trouble of a dream, from which they had joyously awoke. The fresh gloss of the soul, so early lost, and without which the world’s successive scenes had been but a gallery of faded pictures, again threw its enchantment over all their prospects. They felt like new-created beings in a new-created universe.

‘We are young! We are young!’ they cried exultingly.

Youth, like the extremity of age, had effaced the strongly-marked characteristics of middle life, and mutually assimilated them all. They were a group of merry youngsters, almost maddened with the exuberant frolicsomeness of their years. The most singular effect of their gayety was an impulse to mock the infirmity and decrepitude of which they had so lately been the victims. They laughed loudly at their old-fashioned attire, the wide-skirted coats and flapped waistcoats of the young men, and the ancient cap and gown of the blooming girl. One limped across the floor like a gouty grandfather; one set a pair of spectacles astride of his nose, and pretended to pore over the black-letter pages of the book of magic; a third seated himself in an arm-chair, and strove to imitate the venerable dignity of Dr. Heidegger. Then all shouted mirthfully, and leaped about the room. The Widow Wycherly – if so fresh a damsel could be called a widow – tripped up to the doctor’s chair, with a mischievous merriment in her rosy face.

‘Doctor, you dear old soul,’ cried she, ‘get up and dance with me!’ And then the four young people laughed louder than ever, to think what a queer figure the poor old doctor would cut.

‘Pray excuse me,’ answered the doctor quietly. ‘I am old and rheumatic, and my dancing days were over long ago. But either of these gay young gentlemen will be glad of so pretty a partner.’

‘Dance with me, Clara!’ cried Colonel Killigrew

‘No, no, I will be her partner!’ shouted Mr. Gascoigne.

‘She promised me her hand, fifty years ago!’ exclaimed Mr. Medbourne.

They all gathered round her. One caught both her hands in his passionate grasp another threw his arm about her waist – the third buried his hand among the glossy curls that clustered beneath the widow’s cap. Blushing, panting, struggling, chiding, laughing, her warm breath fanning each of their faces by turns, she strove to disengage herself, yet still remained in their triple embrace. Never was there a livelier picture of youthful rivalship, with bewitching beauty for the prize. Yet, by a strange deception, owing to the duskiness of the chamber, and the antique dresses which they still wore, the tall mirror is said to have reflected the figures of the three old, gray, withered grandsires, ridiculously contending for the skinny ugliness of a shrivelled grandam[95].

But they were young: their burning passions proved them so. Inflamed to madness by the coquetry of the girl-widow, who neither granted nor quite withheld her favors, the three rivals began to interchange threatening glances. Still keeping hold of the fair prize, they grappled fiercely at one another’s throats. As they struggled to and fro, the table was overturned, and the vase dashed into a thousand fragments. The precious Water of Youth flowed in a bright stream across the floor, moistening the wings of a butterfly, which, grown old in the decline of summer, had alighted there to die. The insect fluttered lightly through the chamber, and settled on the snowy head of Dr. Heidegger.

‘Come, come, gentlemen! – come, Madam Wycherly,’ exclaimed the doctor, ‘I really must protest against this riot.’

They stood still and shivered; for it seemed as if gray Time were calling them back from their sunny youth, far down into the chill and darksome vale of years. They looked at old Dr. Heidegger, who sat in his carved arm-chair, holding the rose of half a century, which he had rescued from among the fragments of the shattered vase. At the motion of his hand, the four rioters resumed their seats; the more readily, because their violent exertions had wearied them, youthful though they were.

‘My poor Sylvia’s rose!’ ejaculated Dr. Heidegger, holding it in the light of the sunset clouds; ‘it appears to be fading again.’

And so it was. Even while the party were looking at it, the flower continued to shrivel up, till it became as dry and fragile as when the doctor had first thrown it into the vase. He shook off the few drops of moisture which clung to its petals.

‘I love it as well thus as in its dewy freshness,’ observed he, pressing the withered rose to his withered lips. While he spoke, the butterfly fluttered down from the doctor’s snowy head, and fell upon the floor.

His guests shivered again. A strange chillness, whether of the body or spirit they could not tell, was creeping gradually over them all. They gazed at one another, and fancied that each fleeting moment snatched away a charm, and left a deepening furrow where none had been before. Was it an illusion? Had the changes of a lifetime been crowded into so brief a space, and were they now four aged people, sitting with their old friend, Dr. Heidegger?

‘Are we grown old again, so soon?’ cried they, dolefully.

In truth they had. The Water of Youth possessed merely a virtue more transient than that of wine. The delirium which it created had effervesced away. Yes! they were old again. With a shuddering impulse, that showed her a woman still, the widow clasped her skinny hands before her face, and wished that the coffin lid were over it, since it could be no longer beautiful.

‘Yes, friends, ye are old again,’ said Dr. Heidegger, ‘and lo! the Water of Youth is all lavished on the ground. Well – I bemoan it not; for if the fountain gushed at my very doorstep, I would not stoop to bathe my lips in it – no, though its delirium were for years instead of moments. Such is the lesson ye have taught me!’

But the doctor’s four friends had taught no such lesson to themselves. They resolved forthwith to make a pilgrimage to Florida, and quaff at morning, noon, and night, from the Fountain of Youth.

The Birthmark

In the latter part of the last century there lived a man of science, an eminent proficient in every branch of natural philosophy, who not long before our story opens had made experience of a spiritual affinity more attractive than any chemical one. He had left his laboratory to the care of an assistant, cleared his fine countenance from the furnace smoke, washed the stain of acids from his fingers, and persuaded a beautiful woman to become his wife. In those days when the comparatively recent discovery of electricity and other kindred mysteries of Nature seemed to open paths into the region of miracle, it was not unusual for the love of science to rival the love of woman in its depth and absorbing energy. The higher intellect, the imagination, the spirit, and even the heart might all find their congenial aliment in pursuits which, as some of their ardent votaries believed, would ascend from one step of powerful intelligence to another, until the philosopher should lay his hand on the secret of creative force and perhaps make new worlds for himself. We know not whether Aylmer possessed this degree of faith in man’s ultimate control over Nature. He had devoted himself, however, too unreservedly to scientific studies ever to be weaned from them by any second passion. His love for his young wife might prove the stronger of the two; but it could only be by intertwining itself with his love of science, and uniting the strength of the latter to his own.

Such a union accordingly took place, and was attended with truly remarkable consequences and a deeply impressive moral. One day, very soon after their marriage, Aylmer sat gazing at his wife with a trouble in his countenance that grew stronger until he spoke.

‘Georgiana,’ said he, ‘has it never occurred to you that the mark upon your cheek might be removed?’

‘No, indeed,’ said she, smiling; but perceiving the seriousness of his manner, she blushed deeply. ‘To tell you the truth it has been so often called a charm that I was simple enough to imagine it might be so.’

‘Ah, upon another face perhaps it might,’ replied her husband; ‘but never on yours. No, dearest Georgiana, you came so nearly perfect from the hand of Nature that this slightest possible defect, which we hesitate whether to term a defect or a beauty, shocks me, as being the visible mark of earthly imperfection.’

‘Shocks you, my husband!’ cried Georgiana, deeply hurt; at first reddening with momentary anger, but then bursting into tears. ‘Then why did you take me from my mother’s side? You cannot love what shocks you!’

To explain this conversation it must be mentioned that in the centre of Georgiana’s left cheek there was a singular mark, deeply interwoven, as it were, with the texture and substance of her face. In the usual state of her complexion – a healthy though delicate bloom – the mark wore a tint of deeper crimson, which imperfectly defined its shape amid the surrounding rosiness. When she blushed it gradually became more indistinct, and finally vanished amid the triumphant rush of blood that bathed the whole cheek with its brilliant glow. But if any shifting motion caused her to turn pale there was the mark again, a crimson stain upon the snow, in what Aylmer sometimes deemed an almost fearful distinctness. Its shape bore not a little similarity to the human hand, though of the smallest pygmy size. Georgiana’s lovers were wont to say that some fairy at her birth hour had laid her tiny hand upon the infant’s cheek, and left this impress there in token of the magic endowments that were to give her such sway over all hearts. Many a desperate swain would have risked life for the privilege of pressing his lips to the mysterious hand. It must not be concealed, however, that the impression wrought by this fairy sign manual varied exceedingly, according to the difference of temperament in the beholders. Some fastidious persons – but they were exclusively of her own sex – affirmed that the bloody hand, as they chose to call it, quite destroyed the effect of Georgiana’s beauty, and rendered her countenance even hideous. But it would be as reasonable to say that one of those small blue stains which sometimes occur in the purest statuary marble would convert the Eve of Powers to a monster. Masculine observers, if the birthmark did not heighten their admiration, contented themselves with wishing it away, that the world might possess one living specimen of ideal loveliness without the semblance of a flaw. After his marriage, – for he thought little or nothing of the matter before, – Aylmer discovered that this was the case with himself.

Had she been less beautiful, – if Envy’s self could have found aught else to sneer at, – he might have felt his affection heightened by the prettiness of this mimic hand, now vaguely portrayed, now lost, now stealing forth again and glimmering to and fro with every pulse of emotion that throbbed within her heart; but seeing her otherwise so perfect, he found this one defect grow more and more intolerable with every moment of their united lives. It was the fatal flaw of humanity which Nature, in one shape or another, stamps ineffaceably on all her productions, either to imply that they are temporary and finite, or that their perfection must be wrought by toil and pain. The crimson hand expressed the ineludible gripe in which mortality clutches the highest and purest of earthly mould, degrading them into kindred with the lowest, and even with the very brutes, like whom their visible frames return to dust. In this manner, selecting it as the symbol of his wife’s liability to sin, sorrow, decay, and death, Aylmer’s sombre imagination was not long in rendering the birthmark a frightful object, causing him more trouble and horror than ever Georgiana’s beauty, whether of soul or sense, had given him delight.

At all the seasons which should have been their happiest, he invariably and without intending it, nay, in spite of a purpose to the contrary, reverted to this one disastrous topic. Trifling as it at first appeared, it so connected itself with innumerable trains of thought and modes of feeling that it became the central point of all. With the morning twilight Aylmer opened his eyes upon his wife’s face and recognized the symbol of imperfection; and when they sat together at the evening hearth his eyes wandered stealthily to her cheek, and beheld, flickering with the blaze of the wood fire, the spectral hand that wrote mortality where he would fain have worshipped. Georgiana soon learned to shudder at his gaze. It needed but a glance with the peculiar expression that his face often wore to change the roses of her cheek into a deathlike paleness, amid which the crimson hand was brought strongly out, like a bass-relief of ruby on the whitest marble.

Late one night when the lights were growing dim, so as hardly to betray the stain on the poor wife’s cheek, she herself, for the first time, voluntarily took up the subject.

‘Do you remember, my dear Aylmer,’ said she, with a feeble attempt at a smile, ‘have you any recollection of a dream last night about this odious hand?’

‘None! none whatever!’ replied Aylmer, starting; but then he added, in a dry, cold tone, affected for the sake of concealing the real depth of his emotion, ‘I might well dream of it; for before I fell asleep it had taken a pretty firm hold of my fancy.’

‘And you did dream of it?’ continued Georgiana, hastily; for she dreaded lest a gush of tears should interrupt what she had to say. ‘A terrible dream! I wonder that you can forget it. Is it possible to forget this one expression? – “It is in her heart now; we must have it out!” Reflect, my husband; for by all means I would have you recall that dream.’

The mind is in a sad state when Sleep, the all-involving, cannot confine her spectres within the dim region of her sway, but suffers them to break forth, affrighting this actual life with secrets that perchance belong to a deeper one. Aylmer now remembered his dream. He had fancied himself with his servant Aminadab, attempting an operation for the removal of the birthmark; but the deeper went the knife, the deeper sank the hand, until at length its tiny grasp appeared to have caught hold of Georgiana’s heart; whence, however, her husband was inexorably resolved to cut or wrench it away.

When the dream had shaped itself perfectly in his memory, Aylmer sat in his wife’s presence with a guilty feeling. Truth often finds its way to the mind close muffled in robes of sleep, and then speaks with uncompromising directness of matters in regard to which we practise an unconscious self-deception during our waking moments. Until now he had not been aware of the tyrannizing influence acquired by one idea over his mind, and of the lengths which he might find in his heart to go for the sake of giving himself peace.

‘Aylmer,’ resumed Georgiana, solemnly, ‘I know not what may be the cost to both of us to rid me of this fatal birthmark. Perhaps its removal may cause cureless deformity; or it may be the stain goes as deep as life itself. Again: do we know that there is a possibility, on any terms, of unclasping the firm gripe of this little hand which was laid upon me before I came into the world?’

‘Dearest Georgiana, I have spent much thought upon the subject,’ hastily interrupted Aylmer. ‘I am convinced of the perfect practicability of its removal.’

‘If there be the remotest possibility of it,’ continued Georgiana, ‘let the attempt be made at whatever risk. Danger is nothing to me; for life, while this hateful mark makes me the object of your horror and disgust, – life is a burden which I would fling down with joy. Either remove this dreadful hand, or take my wretched life! You have deep science. All the world bears witness of it. You have achieved great wonders. Cannot you remove this little, little mark, which I cover with the tips of two small fingers? Is this beyond your power, for the sake of your own peace, and to save your poor wife from madness?’

‘Noblest, dearest, tenderest wife,’ cried Aylmer, rapturously, ‘doubt not my power. I have already given this matter the deepest thought – thought which might almost have enlightened me to create a being less perfect than yourself. Georgiana, you have led me deeper than ever into the heart of science. I feel myself fully competent to render this dear cheek as faultless as its fellow; and then, most beloved, what will be my triumph when I shall have corrected what Nature left imperfect in her fairest work! Even Pygmalion[96], when his sculptured woman assumed life, felt not greater ecstasy than mine will be.’

‘It is resolved, then,’ said Georgiana, faintly smiling. ‘And, Aylmer, spare me not, though you should find the birthmark take refuge in my heart at last.’

Her husband tenderly kissed her cheek – her right cheek – not that which bore the impress of the crimson hand.

The next day Aylmer apprised his wife of a plan that he had formed whereby he might have opportunity for the intense thought and constant watchfulness which the proposed operation would require; while Georgiana, likewise, would enjoy the perfect repose essential to its success. They were to seclude themselves in the extensive apartments occupied by Aylmer as a laboratory, and where, during his toilsome youth, he had made discoveries in the elemental powers of Nature that had roused the admiration of all the learned societies in Europe. Seated calmly in this laboratory, the pale philosopher had investigated the secrets of the highest cloud region and of the profoundest mines; he had satisfied himself of the causes that kindled and kept alive the fires of the volcano; and had explained the mystery of fountains, and how it is that they gush forth, some so bright and pure, and others with such rich medicinal virtues, from the dark bosom of the earth. Here, too, at an earlier period, he had studied the wonders of the human frame, and attempted to fathom the very process by which Nature assimilates all her precious influences from earth and air, and from the spiritual world, to create and foster man, her masterpiece. The latter pursuit, however, Aylmer had long laid aside in unwilling recognition of the truth – against which all seekers sooner or later stumble – that our great creative Mother, while she amuses us with apparently working in the broadest sunshine, is yet severely careful to keep her own secrets, and, in spite of her pretended openness, shows us nothing but results. She permits us, indeed, to mar, but seldom to mend, and, like a jealous patentee, on no account to make. Now, however, Aylmer resumed these half-forgotten investigations; not, of course, with such hopes or wishes as first suggested them; but because they involved much physiological truth and lay in the path of his proposed scheme for the treatment of Georgiana.

As he led her over the threshold of the laboratory, Georgiana was cold and tremulous. Aylmer looked cheerfully into her face, with intent to reassure her, but was so startled with the intense glow of the birthmark upon the whiteness of her cheek that he could not restrain a strong convulsive shudder. His wife fainted.

‘Aminadab! Aminadab!’ shouted Aylmer, stamping violently on the floor.

Forthwith there issued from an inner apartment a man of low stature, but bulky frame, with shaggy hair hanging about his visage, which was grimed with the vapors of the furnace. This personage had been Aylmer’s underworker during his whole scientific career, and was admirably fitted for that office by his great mechanical readiness, and the skill with which, while incapable of comprehending a single principle, he executed all the details of his master’s experiments. With his vast strength, his shaggy hair, his smoky aspect, and the indescribable earthiness that incrusted him, he seemed to represent man’s physical nature; while Aylmer’s slender figure, and pale, intellectual face, were no less apt a type of the spiritual element.

‘Throw open the door of the boudoir, Aminadab,’ said Aylmer, ‘and burn a pastil.’

‘Yes, master,’ answered Aminadab, looking intently at the lifeless form of Georgiana; and then he muttered to himself, ‘If she were my wife, I’d never part with that birthmark.’

When Georgiana recovered consciousness she found herself breathing an atmosphere of penetrating fragrance, the gentle potency of which had recalled her from her deathlike faintness. The scene around her looked like enchantment. Aylmer had converted those smoky, dingy, sombre rooms, where he had spent his brightest years in recondite pursuits, into a series of beautiful apartments not unfit to be the secluded abode of a lovely woman. The walls were hung with gorgeous curtains, which imparted the combination of grandeur and grace that no other species of adornment can achieve; and as they fell from the ceiling to the floor, their rich and ponderous folds, concealing all angles and straight lines, appeared to shut in the scene from infinite space. For aught Georgiana knew, it might be a pavilion among the clouds. And Aylmer, excluding the sunshine, which would have interfered with his chemical processes, had supplied its place with perfumed lamps, emitting flames of various hue, but all uniting in a soft, impurpled radiance. He now knelt by his wife’s side, watching her earnestly, but without alarm; for he was confident in his science, and felt that he could draw a magic circle round her within which no evil might intrude.

‘Where am I? Ah, I remember,’ said Georgiana, faintly; and she placed her hand over her cheek to hide the terrible mark from her husband’s eyes.

‘Fear not, dearest!’ exclaimed he. ‘Do not shrink from me! Believe me, Georgiana, I even rejoice in this single imperfection, since it will be such a rapture to remove it.’

‘Oh, spare me!’ sadly replied his wife. ‘Pray do not look at it again. I never can forget that convulsive shudder.’

In order to soothe Georgiana, and, as it were, to release her mind from the burden of actual things, Aylmer now put in practice some of the light and playful secrets which science had taught him among its profounder lore. Airy figures, absolutely bodiless ideas, and forms of unsubstantial beauty came and danced before her, imprinting their momentary footsteps on beams of light. Though she had some indistinct idea of the method of these optical phenomena, still the illusion was almost perfect enough to warrant the belief that her husband possessed sway over the spiritual world. Then again, when she felt a wish to look forth from her seclusion, immediately, as if her thoughts were answered, the procession of external existence flitted across a screen. The scenery and the figures of actual life were perfectly represented, but with that bewitching, yet indescribable difference which always makes a picture, an image, or a shadow so much more attractive than the original. When wearied of this, Aylmer bade her cast her eyes upon a vessel containing a quantity of earth. She did so, with little interest at first; but was soon startled to perceive the germ of a plant shooting upward from the soil. Then came the slender stalk; the leaves gradually unfolded themselves; and amid them was a perfect and lovely flower.

‘It is magical!’ cried Georgiana. ‘I dare not touch it.’

‘Nay, pluck it,’ answered Aylmer, – ‘pluck it, and inhale its brief perfume while you may. The flower will wither in a few moments and leave nothing save its brown seed vessels; but thence may be perpetuated a race as ephemeral as itself.’

But Georgiana had no sooner touched the flower than the whole plant suffered a blight, its leaves turning coal-black as if by the agency of fire.

‘There was too powerful a stimulus,’ said Aylmer, thoughtfully.

To make up for this abortive experiment, he proposed to take her portrait by a scientific process of his own invention. It was to be effected by rays of light striking upon a polished plate of metal. Georgiana assented; but, on looking at the result, was affrighted to find the features of the portrait blurred and indefinable; while the minute figure of a hand appeared where the cheek should have been. Aylmer snatched the metallic plate and threw it into a jar of corrosive acid.

Soon, however, he forgot these mortifying failures. In the intervals of study and chemical experiment he came to her flushed and exhausted, but seemed invigorated by her presence, and spoke in glowing language of the resources of his art. He gave a history of the long dynasty of the alchemists, who spent so many ages in quest of the universal solvent by which the golden principle might be elicited from all things vile and base. Aylmer appeared to believe that, by the plainest scientific logic, it was altogether within the limits of possibility to discover this long-sought medium; ‘but,’ he added, ‘a philosopher who should go deep enough to acquire the power would attain too lofty a wisdom to stoop to the exercise of it.’ Not less singular were his opinions in regard to the elixir vitae. He more than intimated that it was at his option to concoct a liquid that should prolong life for years, perhaps interminably; but that it would produce a discord in Nature which all the world, and chiefly the quaffer of the immortal nostrum, would find cause to curse.

‘Aylmer, are you in earnest?’ asked Georgiana, looking at him with amazement and fear. ‘It is terrible to possess such power, or even to dream of possessing it.’

‘Oh, do not tremble, my love,’ said her husband. ‘I would not wrong either you or myself by working such inharmonious effects upon our lives; but I would have you consider how trifling, in comparison, is the skill requisite to remove this little hand.’

At the mention of the birthmark, Georgiana, as usual, shrank as if a redhot iron had touched her cheek.

Again Aylmer applied himself to his labors. She could hear his voice in the distant furnace room giving directions to Aminadab, whose harsh, uncouth, misshapen tones were audible in response, more like the grunt or growl of a brute than human speech. After hours of absence, Aylmer reappeared and proposed that she should now examine his cabinet of chemical products and natural treasures of the earth. Among the former he showed her a small vial, in which, he remarked, was contained a gentle yet most powerful fragrance, capable of impregnating all the breezes that blow across a kingdom. They were of inestimable value, the contents of that little vial; and, as he said so, he threw some of the perfume into the air and filled the room with piercing and invigorating delight.

‘And what is this?’ asked Georgiana, pointing to a small crystal globe containing a gold-colored liquid. ‘It is so beautiful to the eye that I could imagine it the elixir of life.’

‘In one sense it is,’ replied Aylmer; ‘or, rather, the elixir of immortality. It is the most precious poison that ever was concocted in this world. By its aid I could apportion the lifetime of any mortal at whom you might point your finger. The strength of the dose would determine whether he were to linger out years, or drop dead in the midst of a breath. No king on his guarded throne could keep his life if I, in my private station, should deem that the welfare of millions justified me in depriving him of it.’

‘Why do you keep such a terrific drug?’ inquired Georgiana in horror.

‘Do not mistrust me, dearest,’ said her husband, smiling; ‘its virtuous potency is yet greater than its harmful one. But see! here is a powerful cosmetic. With a few drops of this in a vase of water, freckles may be washed away as easily as the hands are cleansed. A stronger infusion would take the blood out of the cheek, and leave the rosiest beauty a pale ghost.’

‘Is it with this lotion that you intend to bathe my cheek?’ asked Georgiana, anxiously.

‘Oh, no,’ hastily replied her husband; ‘this is merely superficial. Your case demands a remedy that shall go deeper.’

In his interviews with Georgiana, Aylmer generally made minute inquiries as to her sensations and whether the confinement of the rooms and the temperature of the atmosphere agreed with her. These questions had such a particular drift that Georgiana began to conjecture that she was already subjected to certain physical influences, either breathed in with the fragrant air or taken with her food. She fancied likewise, but it might be altogether fancy, that there was a stirring up of her system – a strange, indefinite sensation creeping through her veins, and tingling, half painfully, half pleasurably, at her heart. Still, whenever she dared to look into the mirror, there she beheld herself pale as a white rose and with the crimson birthmark stamped upon her cheek. Not even Aylmer now hated it so much as she.

To dispel the tedium of the hours which her husband found it necessary to devote to the processes of combination and analysis, Georgiana turned over the volumes of his scientific library. In many dark old tomes she met with chapters full of romance and poetry. They were the works of philosophers of the middle ages, such as Albertus Magnus[97], Cornelius Agrippa[98], Paracelsus[99], and the famous friar who created the prophetic Brazen Head. All these antique naturalists stood in advance of their centuries, yet were imbued with some of their credulity, and therefore were believed, and perhaps imagined themselves to have acquired from the investigation of Nature a power above Nature, and from physics a sway over the spiritual world. Hardly less curious and imaginative were the early volumes of the Transactions of the Royal Society, in which the members, knowing little of the limits of natural possibility, were continually recording wonders or proposing methods whereby wonders might be wrought.

But to Georgiana the most engrossing volume was a large folio from her husband’s own hand, in which he had recorded every experiment of his scientific career, its original aim, the methods adopted for its development, and its final success or failure, with the circumstances to which either event was attributable. The book, in truth, was both the history and emblem of his ardent, ambitious, imaginative, yet practical and laborious life. He handled physical details as if there were nothing beyond them; yet spiritualized them all, and redeemed himself from materialism by his strong and eager aspiration towards the infinite. In his grasp the veriest clod of earth assumed a soul. Georgiana, as she read, reverenced Aylmer and loved him more profoundly than ever, but with a less entire dependence on his judgment than heretofore. Much as he had accomplished, she could not but observe that his most splendid successes were almost invariably failures, if compared with the ideal at which he aimed. His brightest diamonds were the merest pebbles, and felt to be so by himself, in comparison with the inestimable gems which lay hidden beyond his reach. The volume, rich with achievements that had won renown for its author, was yet as melancholy a record as ever mortal hand had penned. It was the sad confession and continual exemplification of the shortcomings of the composite man, the spirit burdened with clay and working in matter, and of the despair that assails the higher nature at finding itself so miserably thwarted by the earthly part. Perhaps every man of genius in whatever sphere might recognize the image of his own experience in Aylmer’s journal.

So deeply did these reflections affect Georgiana that she laid her face upon the open volume and burst into tears. In this situation she was found by her husband.

‘It is dangerous to read in a sorcerer’s books,’ said he with a smile, though his countenance was uneasy and displeased. ‘Georgiana, there are pages in that volume which I can scarcely glance over and keep my senses. Take heed lest it prove as detrimental to you.’

‘It has made me worship you more than ever,’ said she.

‘Ah, wait for this one success,’ rejoined he, ‘then worship me if you will. I shall deem myself hardly unworthy of it. But come, I have sought you for the luxury of your voice. Sing to me, dearest.’

So she poured out the liquid music of her voice to quench the thirst of his spirit. He then took his leave with a boyish exuberance of gayety, assuring her that her seclusion would endure but a little longer, and that the result was already certain. Scarcely had he departed when Georgiana felt irresistibly impelled to follow him. She had forgotten to inform Aylmer of a symptom which for two or three hours past had begun to excite her attention. It was a sensation in the fatal birthmark, not painful, but which induced a restlessness throughout her system. Hastening after her husband, she intruded for the first time into the laboratory.

The first thing that struck her eye was the furnace, that hot and feverish worker, with the intense glow of its fire, which by the quantities of soot clustered above it seemed to have been burning for ages. There was a distilling apparatus in full operation. Around the room were retorts, tubes, cylinders, crucibles, and other apparatus of chemical research. An electrical machine stood ready for immediate use. The atmosphere felt oppressively close, and was tainted with gaseous odors which had been tormented forth by the processes of science. The severe and homely simplicity of the apartment, with its naked walls and brick pavement, looked strange, accustomed as Georgiana had become to the fantastic elegance of her boudoir. But what chiefly, indeed almost solely, drew her attention, was the aspect of Aylmer himself.

He was pale as death, anxious and absorbed, and hung over the furnace as if it depended upon his utmost watchfulness whether the liquid which it was distilling should be the draught of immortal happiness or misery. How different from the sanguine and joyous mien that he had assumed for Georgiana’s encouragement!

‘Carefully now, Aminadab; carefully, thou human machine; carefully, thou man of clay!’ muttered Aylmer, more to himself than his assistant. ‘Now, if there be a thought too much or too little, it is all over.’

‘Ho! ho!’ mumbled Aminadab. ‘Look, master! look!’

Aylmer raised his eyes hastily, and at first reddened, then grew paler than ever, on beholding Georgiana. He rushed towards her and seized her arm with a gripe that left the print of his fingers upon it.

‘Why do you come hither? Have you no trust in your husband?’ cried he, impetuously. ‘Would you throw the blight of that fatal birthmark over my labors? It is not well done. Go, prying woman, go!’

‘Nay, Aylmer,’ said Georgiana with the firmness of which she possessed no stinted endowment, ‘it is not you that have a right to complain. You mistrust your wife; you have concealed the anxiety with which you watch the development of this experiment. Think not so unworthily of me, my husband. Tell me all the risk we run, and fear not that I shall shrink; for my share in it is far less than your own.’

‘No, no, Georgiana!’ said Aylmer, impatiently; ‘it must not be.’

‘I submit,’ replied she calmly. ‘And, Aylmer, I shall quaff whatever draught you bring me; but it will be on the same principle that would induce me to take a dose of poison if offered by your hand.’

‘My noble wife,’ said Aylmer, deeply moved, ‘I knew not the height and depth of your nature until now. Nothing shall be concealed. Know, then, that this crimson hand, superficial as it seems, has clutched its grasp into your being with a strength of which I had no previous conception. I have already administered agents powerful enough to do aught except to change your entire physical system. Only one thing remains to be tried. If that fail us we are ruined.’

‘Why did you hesitate to tell me this?’ asked she.

‘Because, Georgiana,’ said Aylmer, in a low voice, ‘there is danger.’

‘Danger? There is but one danger – that this horrible stigma shall be left upon my cheek!’ cried Georgiana. ‘Remove it, remove it, whatever be the cost, or we shall both go mad!’

‘Heaven knows your words are too true,’ said Aylmer, sadly. ‘And now, dearest, return to your boudoir. In a little while all will be tested.’

He conducted her back and took leave of her with a solemn tenderness which spoke far more than his words how much was now at stake. After his departure Georgiana became rapt in musings. She considered the character of Aylmer, and did it completer justice than at any previous moment. Her heart exulted, while it trembled, at his honorable love – so pure and lofty that it would accept nothing less than perfection nor miserably make itself contented with an earthlier nature than he had dreamed of. She felt how much more precious was such a sentiment than that meaner kind which would have borne with the imperfection for her sake, and have been guilty of treason to holy love by degrading its perfect idea to the level of the actual; and with her whole spirit she prayed that, for a single moment, she might satisfy his highest and deepest conception. Longer than one moment she well knew it could not be; for his spirit was ever on the march, ever ascending, and each instant required something that was beyond the scope of the instant before.

The sound of her husband’s footsteps aroused her. He bore a crystal goblet containing a liquor colorless as water, but bright enough to be the draught of immortality. Aylmer was pale; but it seemed rather the consequence of a highly-wrought state of mind and tension of spirit than of fear or doubt.

‘The concoction of the draught has been perfect,’ said he, in answer to Georgiana’s look. ‘Unless all my science have deceived me, it cannot fail.’

‘Save on your account, my dearest Aylmer,’ observed his wife, ‘I might wish to put off this birthmark of mortality by relinquishing mortality itself in preference to any other mode. Life is but a sad possession to those who have attained precisely the degree of moral advancement at which I stand. Were I weaker and blinder it might be happiness. Were I stronger, it might be endured hopefully. But, being what I find myself, methinks I am of all mortals the most fit to die.’

‘You are fit for heaven without tasting death!’ replied her husband ‘But why do we speak of dying? The draught cannot fail. Behold its effect upon this plant.’

On the window seat there stood a geranium diseased with yellow blotches, which had overspread all its leaves. Aylmer poured a small quantity of the liquid upon the soil in which it grew. In a little time, when the roots of the plant had taken up the moisture, the unsightly blotches began to be extinguished in a living verdure.

‘There needed no proof,’ said Georgiana, quietly. ‘Give me the goblet I joyfully stake all upon your word.’

‘Drink, then, thou lofty creature!’ exclaimed Aylmer, with fervid admiration. ‘There is no taint of imperfection on thy spirit. Thy sensible frame, too, shall soon be all perfect.’

She quaffed the liquid and returned the goblet to his hand.

‘It is grateful,’ said she with a placid smile. ‘Methinks it is like water from a heavenly fountain; for it contains I know not what of unobtrusive fragrance and deliciousness. It allays a feverish thirst that had parched me for many days. Now, dearest, let me sleep. My earthly senses are closing over my spirit like the leaves around the heart of a rose at sunset.’

She spoke the last words with a gentle reluctance, as if it required almost more energy than she could command to pronounce the faint and lingering syllables. Scarcely had they loitered through her lips ere she was lost in slumber. Aylmer sat by her side, watching her aspect with the emotions proper to a man the whole value of whose existence was involved in the process now to be tested. Mingled with this mood, however, was the philosophic investigation characteristic of the man of science. Not the minutest symptom escaped him. A heightened flush of the cheek, a slight irregularity of breath, a quiver of the eyelid, a hardly perceptible tremor through the frame, – such were the details which, as the moments passed, he wrote down in his folio volume. Intense thought had set its stamp upon every previous page of that volume, but the thoughts of years were all concentrated upon the last.

While thus employed, he failed not to gaze often at the fatal hand, and not without a shudder. Yet once, by a strange and unaccountable impulse he pressed it with his lips. His spirit recoiled, however, in the very act, and Georgiana, out of the midst of her deep sleep, moved uneasily and murmured as if in remonstrance. Again Aylmer resumed his watch. Nor was it without avail. The crimson hand, which at first had been strongly visible upon the marble paleness of Georgiana’s cheek, now grew more faintly outlined. She remained not less pale than ever; but the birthmark with every breath that came and went, lost somewhat of its former distinctness. Its presence had been awful; its departure was more awful still. Watch the stain of the rainbow fading out the sky, and you will know how that mysterious symbol passed away.

‘By Heaven! it is well-nigh gone!’ said Aylmer to himself, in almost irrepressible ecstasy. ‘I can scarcely trace it now. Success! success! And now it is like the faintest rose color. The lightest flush of blood across her cheek would overcome it. But she is so pale!’

He drew aside the window curtain and suffered the light of natural day to fall into the room and rest upon her cheek. At the same time he heard a gross, hoarse chuckle, which he had long known as his servant Aminadab’s expression of delight.

‘Ah, clod! ah, earthly mass!’ cried Aylmer, laughing in a sort of frenzy, ‘you have served me well! Matter and spirit – earth and heaven – have both done their part in this! Laugh, thing of the senses! You have earned the right to laugh.’

These exclamations broke Georgiana’s sleep. She slowly unclosed her eyes and gazed into the mirror which her husband had arranged for that purpose. A faint smile flitted over her lips when she recognized how barely perceptible was now that crimson hand which had once blazed forth with such disastrous brilliancy as to scare away all their happiness. But then her eyes sought Aylmer’s face with a trouble and anxiety that he could by no means account for.

‘My poor Aylmer!’ murmured she.

‘Poor? Nay, richest, happiest, most favored!’ exclaimed he. ‘My peerless bride, it is successful! You are perfect!’

‘My poor Aylmer,’ she repeated, with a more than human tenderness, ‘you have aimed loftily; you have done nobly. Do not repent that with so high and pure a feeling, you have rejected the best the earth could offer. Aylmer, dearest Aylmer, I am dying!’

Alas! it was too true! The fatal hand had grappled with the mystery of life, and was the bond by which an angelic spirit kept itself in union with a mortal frame. As the last crimson tint of the birthmark – that sole token of human imperfection – faded from her cheek, the parting breath of the now perfect woman passed into the atmosphere, and her soul, lingering a moment near her husband, took its heavenward flight. Then a hoarse, chuckling laugh was heard again! Thus ever does the gross fatality of earth exult in its invariable triumph over the immortal essence which, in this dim sphere of half development, demands the completeness of a higher state. Yet, had Aylmer reached a profounder wisdom, he need not thus have flung away the happiness which would have woven his mortal life of the selfsame texture with the celestial. The momentary circumstance was too strong for him; he failed to look beyond the shadowy scope of time, and, living once for all in eternity, to find the perfect future in the present.

Washington Irving

The Devil and Tom Walker

A few miles from Boston, in Massachusetts, there is a deep inlet winding several miles into the interior of the country from Charles Bay, and terminating in a thickly wooded swamp, or morass. On one side of this inlet is a beautiful dark grove; on the opposite side the land rises abruptly from the water’s edge, into a high ridge on which grow a few scattered oaks of great age and immense size. Under one of these gigantic trees, according to old stories, there was a great amount of treasure buried by Kidd[100] the pirate. The inlet allowed a facility to bring the money in a boat secretly and at night to the very foot of the hill. The elevation of the place permitted a good look out to be kept that no one was at hand, while the remarkable trees formed good landmarks by which the place might easily be found again. The old stories add, moreover, that the devil presided at the hiding of the money, and took it under his guardianship; but this, it is well known, he always does with buried treasure, particularly when it has been ill gotten. Be that as it may, Kidd never returned to recover his wealth; being shortly after seized at Boston, sent out to England, and there hanged for a pirate.

About the year 1727, just at the time when earthquakes were prevalent in New England, and shook many tall sinners down upon their knees, there lived near this place a meagre miserly fellow of the name of Tom Walker. He had a wife as miserly as himself; they were so miserly that they even conspired to cheat each other. Whatever the woman could lay hands on she hid away: a hen could not cackle but she was on the alert to secure the new-laid egg. Her husband was continually prying about to detect her secret hoards, and many and fierce were the conflicts that took place about what ought to have been common property. They lived in a forlorn looking house that stood alone and had an air of starvation. A few straggling savin trees, emblems of sterility, grew near it; no smoke ever curled from its chimney; no traveller stopped at its door. A miserable horse, whose ribs were as articulate as the bars of a gridiron, stalked about a field where a thin carpet of moss, scarcely covering the ragged beds of pudding stone, tantalized and balked his hunger; and sometimes he would lean his head over the fence, look piteously at the passer by, and seem to petition deliverance from this land of famine. The house and its inmates had altogether a bad name. Tom’s wife was a tall termagant, fierce of temper, loud of tongue, and strong of arm. Her voice was often heard in wordy warfare with her husband; and his face sometimes showed signs that their conflicts were not confined to words. No one ventured, however, to interfere between them; the lonely wayfarer shrunk within himself at the horrid clamour and clapper clawing; eyed the den of discord askance, and hurried on his way, rejoicing, if a bachelor, in his celibacy.

One day that Tom Walker had been to a distant part of the neighbourhood, he took what he considered a short cut homewards through the swamp. Like most short cuts, it was an ill chosen route. The swamp was thickly grown with great gloomy pines and hemlocks, some of them ninety feet high; which made it dark at noonday, and a retreat for all the owls of the neighbourhood. It was full of pits and quagmires, partly covered with weeds and mosses; where the green surface often betrayed the traveller into a gulf of black smothering mud; there were also dark and stagnant pools, the abodes of the tadpole, the bull-frog, and the water snake, and where trunks of pines and hemlocks lay half drowned, half rotting, looking like alligators, sleeping in the mire.

Tom had long been picking his way cautiously through this treacherous forest; stepping from tuft to tuft of rushes and roots which afforded precarious footholds among deep sloughs; or pacing carefully, like a cat, along the prostrate trunks of trees; startled now and then by the sudden screaming of the bittern, or the quacking of a wild duck, rising on the wing from some solitary pool. At length he arrived at a piece of firm ground, which ran out like a peninsula into the deep bosom of the swamp. It had been one of the strong holds of the Indians during their wars with the first colonists. Here they had thrown up a kind of fort which they had looked upon as almost impregnable, and had used as a place of refuge for their squaws and children. Nothing remained of the Indian fort but a few embankments gradually sinking to the level of the surrounding earth, and already overgrown in part by oaks and other forest trees, the foliage of which formed a contrast to the dark pines and hemlocks of the swamp.

It was late in the dusk of evening that Tom Walker reached the old fort, and he paused there for a while to rest himself. Anyone but he would have felt unwilling to linger in this lonely melancholy place, for the common people had a bad opinion of it from the stories handed down from the time of the Indian wars; when it was asserted that the savages held incantations here and made sacrifices to the evil spirit. Tom Walker, however, was not a man to be troubled with any fears of the kind.

He reposed himself for some time on the trunk of a fallen hemlock, listening to the boding cry of the tree toad, and delving with his walking staff into a mound of black mould at his feet. As he turned up the soil unconsciously, his staff struck against something hard. He raked it out of the vegetable mould, and lo! a cloven skull with an Indian tomahawk[101] buried deep in it, lay before him. The rust on the weapon showed the time that had elapsed since this death blow had been given. It was a dreary memento of the fierce struggle that had taken place in this last foothold of the Indian warriors.

‘Humph!’ said Tom Walker, as he gave the skull a kick to shake the dirt from it.

‘Let that skull alone!’ said a gruff voice.

Tom lifted up his eyes and beheld a great black man, seated directly opposite him on the stump of a tree. He was exceedingly surprised, having neither seen nor heard any one approach, and he was still more perplexed on observing, as well as the gathering gloom would permit, that the stranger was neither negro nor Indian. It is true, he was dressed in a rude, half Indian garb, and had a red belt or sash swathed round his body, but his face was neither black nor copper colour, but swarthy and dingy and begrimed with soot, as if he had been accustomed to toil among fires and forges. He had a shock of coarse black hair that stood out from his head in all directions; and bore an axe on his shoulder.

He scowled for a moment at Tom with a pair of great red eyes.

‘What are you doing in my grounds?’ said the black man, with a hoarse growling voice.

‘Your grounds?’ said Tom, with a sneer; ‘no more your grounds than mine: they belong to Deacon Peabody.’

‘Deacon Peabody be d – d,’ said the stranger, ‘as I flatter myself he will be, if he does not look more to his own sins and less to his neighbour’s. Look yonder, and see how Deacon Peabody is faring.’

Tom looked in the direction that the stranger pointed, and beheld one of the great trees, fair and flourishing without, but rotten at the core, and saw that it had been nearly hewn through, so that the first high wind was likely to below it down. On the bark of the tree was scored the name of Deacon Peabody. He now looked round and found most of the tall trees marked with the name of some great men of the colony, and all more or less scored by the axe. The one on which he had been seated, and which had evidently just been hewn down, bore the name of Crowninshield; and he recollected a mighty rich man of that name, who made a vulgar display of wealth, which it was whispered he had acquired by buccaneering.

‘He’s just ready for burning!’ said the black man, with a growl of triumph. ‘You see I am likely to have a good stock of firewood for winter.’

‘But what right have you,’ said Tom, ‘to cut down Deacon Peabody’s timber?’

‘The right of prior claim,’ said the other. ‘This woodland belonged to me long before one of your white faced race put foot upon the soil.’

‘And pray, who are you, if I may be so bold?’ said Tom.

‘Oh, I go by various names. I am the Wild Huntsman in some countries; the Black Miner in others. In this neighbourhood I am known by the name of the Black Woodsman. I am he to whom the red men devoted this spot, and now and then roasted a white man by way of sweet smelling sacrifice. Since the red men have been exterminated by you white savages, I amuse myself by presiding at the persecutions of quakers[102] and Anabaptists[103]; I am the great patron and prompter of slave dealers, and the grand master of the Salem witches[104].’

‘The upshot of all which is, that, if I mistake not,’ said Tom, sturdily, ‘you are he commonly called Old Scratch.’

‘The same at your service!’ replied the black man, with a half civil nod.

Such was the opening of this interview, according to the old story, though it has almost too familiar an air to be credited. One would think that to meet with such a singular personage in this wild lonely place, would have shaken any man’s nerves: but Tom was a hard-minded fellow, not easily daunted, and he had lived so long with a termagant wife, that he did not even fear the devil.

It is said that after this commencement, they had a long and earnest conversation together, as Tom returned homewards. The black man told him of great sums of money which had been buried by Kidd the pirate, under the oak trees on the high ridge not far from the morass. All these were under his command and protected by his power, so that none could find them but such as propitiated his favour. These he offered to place within Tom Walker’s reach, having conceived an especial kindness for him: but they were to be had only on certain conditions. What these conditions were, may easily be surmised, though Tom never disclosed them publicly. They must have been very hard, for he required time to think of them, and he was not a man to stick at trifles where money was in view. When they had reached the edge of the swamp the stranger paused.

‘What proof have I that all you have been telling me is true?’ said Tom.

‘There is my signature,’ said the black man, pressing his finger on Tom’s forehead. So saying, he turned off among the thickets of the swamp, and seemed, as Tom said, to go down, down, down, into the earth, until nothing but his head and shoulders could be seen, and so on until he totally disappeared.

When Tom reached home he found the black print of a finger burnt, as it were, into his forehead, which nothing could obliterate.

The first news his wife had to tell him was the sudden death of Absalom Crowninshield the rich buccaneer. It was announced in the papers with the usual flourish that ‘a great man had fallen in Israel.’

Tom recollected the tree which his black friend had just hewn down, and which was ready for burning. ‘Let the freebooter roast,’ said Tom, ‘who cares!’ He now felt convinced that all he had heard and seen was no illusion.

He was not prone to let his wife into his confidence; but as this was an uneasy secret, he willingly shared it with her. All her avarice was awakened at the mention of hidden gold, and she urged her husband to comply with the black man’s terms and secure what would make them wealthy for life. However Tom might have felt disposed to sell himself to the devil, he was determined not to do so to oblige his wife; so he flatly refused out of the mere spirit of contradiction. Many and bitter were the quarrels they had on the subject, but the more she talked the more resolute was Tom not to be damned to please her. At length she determined to drive the bargain on her own account, and if she succeeded, to keep all the gain to herself.

Being of the same fearless temper as her husband, she set off for the old Indian fort towards the close of a summer’s day. She was many hours absent. When she came back she was reserved and sullen in her replies. She spoke something of a black man whom she had met about twilight, hewing at the root of a tall tree. He was sulky, however, and would not come to terms; she was to go again with a propitiatory offering, but what it was she forbore to say.

The next evening she set off again for the swamp, with her apron heavily laden. Tom waited and waited for her, but in vain: midnight came, but she did not make her appearance; morning, noon, night returned, but still she did not come. Tom now grew uneasy for her safety; especially as he found she had carried off in her apron the silver teapot and spoons and every portable article of value. Another night elapsed, another morning came; but no wife. In a word, she was never heard of more.

What was her real fate nobody knows, in consequence of so many pretending to know. It is one of those facts that have become confounded by a variety of historians. Some asserted that she lost her way among the tangled mazes of the swamp and sunk into some pit or slough; others, more uncharitable, hinted that she had eloped with the household booty, and made off to some other province; while others assert that the tempter had decoyed her into a dismal quagmire on top of which her hat was found lying. In confirmation of this, it was said a great black man with an axe on his shoulder was seen late that very evening coming out of the swamp, carrying a bundle tied in a check apron, with an air of surly triumph.

The most current and probable story, however, observes that Tom Walker grew so anxious about the fate of his wife and his property that he sat out at length to seek them both at the Indian fort. During a long summer’s afternoon he searched about the gloomy place, but no wife was to be seen. He called her name repeatedly, but she was nowhere to be heard. The bittern alone responded to his voice, as he flew screaming by; or the bull frog croaked dolefully from a neighbouring pool. At length, it is said, just in the brown hour of twilight, when the owls began to hoot and the bats to flit about, his attention was attracted by the clamour of carrion crows that were hovering about a cypress tree. He looked and beheld a bundle tied in a check apron and hanging in the branches of the tree; with a great vulture perched hard by, as if keeping watch upon it. He leaped with joy, for he recognized his wife’s apron, and supposed it to contain the household valuables.

‘Let us get hold of the property,’ said he, consolingly to himself, ‘and we will endeavour to do without the woman.’

As he scrambled up the tree the vulture spread its wide wings, and sailed off screaming into the deep shadows of the forest. Tom seized the check apron, but, woeful sight! found nothing but a heart and liver tied up in it.

Such, according to the most authentic old story, was all that was to be found of Tom’s wife. She had probably attempted to deal with the black man as she had been accustomed to deal with her husband; but though a female scold is generally considered a match for the devil, yet in this instance she appears to have had the worst of it. She must have died game however; for it is said Tom noticed many prints of cloven feet deeply stamped about the tree, and several handsful of hair, that looked as if they had been plucked from the coarse black shock of the woodsman. Tom knew his wife’s prowess by experience. He shrugged his shoulders as he looked at the signs of a fierce clapper clawing. ‘Egad,’ said he to himself, ‘Old Scratch must have had a tough time of it!’

Tom consoled himself for the loss of his property with the loss of his wife; for he was a man of fortitude. He even felt something like gratitude towards the black woodsman, who he considered had done him a kindness. He sought, therefore, to cultivate a farther acquaintance with him, but for some time without success; the old black legs played shy, for whatever people may think, he is not always to be had for calling for; he knows how to play his cards when pretty sure of his game.

At length, it is said, when delay had whetted Tom’s eagerness to the quick, and prepared him to agree to any thing rather than not gain the promised treasure, he met the black man one evening in his usual woodman dress, with his axe on his shoulder, sauntering along the edge of the swamp, and humming a tune. He affected to receive Tom’s advance with great indifference, made brief replies, and went on humming his tune.

By degrees, however, Tom brought him to business, and they began to haggle about the terms on which the former was to have the pirate’s treasure. There was one condition which need not be mentioned, being generally understood in all cases where the devil grants favours; but there were others about which, though of less importance, he was inflexibly obstinate. He insisted that the money found through his means should be employed in his service. He proposed, therefore, that Tom should employ it in the black traffic; that is to say, that he should fit out a slave ship. This, however, Tom resolutely refused; he was bad enough in all conscience; but the devil himself could not tempt him to turn slave dealer.

Finding Tom so squeamish on this point, he did not insist upon it, but proposed instead that he should turn usurer; the devil being extremely anxious for the increase of usurers, looking upon them as his peculiar people.

To this no objections were made, for it was just to Tom’s taste.

‘You shall open a broker’s shop in Boston next month,’ said the black man.

‘I’ll do it tomorrow, if you wish,’ said Tom Walker.

‘You shall lend money at two per cent. a month.’

‘Egad, I’ll charge four!’ replied Tom Walker.

‘You shall extort bonds, foreclose mortgages, drive the merchant to bankruptcy – ’

‘I’ll drive him to the d – l,’ cried Tom Walker, eagerly.

‘You are the usurer for my money!’ said the black legs, with delight. ‘When will you want the rhino?’

‘This very night.’

‘Done!’ said the devil.

‘Done!’ said Tom Walker. – So they shook hands, and struck a bargain.

A few days’ time saw Tom Walker seated behind his desk in a counting house in Boston. His reputation for a ready moneyed man, who would lend money out for a good consideration, soon spread abroad. Everybody remembers the days of Governor Belcher, when money was particularly scarce. It was a time of paper credit. The country had been deluged with government bills; the famous Land Bank had been established; there had been a rage for speculating; the people had run mad with schemes for new settlements; for building cities in the wilderness; land jobbers went about with maps of grants, and townships, and Eldorados[105], lying nobody knew where, but which everybody was ready to purchase. In a word, the great speculating fever which breaks out every now and then in the country, had raged to an alarming degree, and everybody was dreaming of making sudden fortunes from nothing. As usual the fever had subsided; the dream had gone off, and the imaginary fortunes with it; the patients were left in doleful plight, and the whole country resounded with the consequent cry of ‘hard times.’

At this propitious time of public distress did Tom Walker set up as a usurer in Boston. His door was soon thronged by customers. The needy and the adventurous; the gambling speculator; the dreaming land jobber; the thriftless tradesman; the merchant with cracked credit; in short, every one driven to raise money by desperate means and desperate sacrifices, hurried to Tom Walker.

Thus Tom was the universal friend of the needy, and he acted like a ‘friend in need;’ that is to say, he always exacted good pay and good security. In proportion to the distress of the applicant was the hardness of his terms. He accumulated bonds and mortgages; gradually squeezed his customers closer and closer; and sent them at length, dry as a sponge from his door.

In this way he made money hand over hand; became a rich and mighty man, and exalted his cocked hat upon change. He built himself, as usual, a vast house, out of ostentation; but left the greater part of it unfinished and unfurnished out of parsimony. He even set up a carriage in the fullness of his vain glory, though he nearly starved the horses which drew it; and as the ungreased wheels groaned and screeched on the axle trees, you would have thought you heard the souls of the poor debtors he was squeezing.

As Tom waxed old, however, he grew thoughtful. Having secured the good things of this world, he began to feel anxious about those of the next. He thought with regret on the bargain he had made with his black friend, and set his wits to work to cheat him out of the conditions. He became, therefore, all of a sudden, a violent church goer. He prayed loudly and strenuously as if heaven were to be taken by force of lungs. Indeed, one might always tell when he had sinned most during the week, by the clamour of his Sunday devotion. The quiet Christians who had been modestly and steadfastly travelling Zionward[106], were struck with self reproach at seeing themselves so suddenly outstripped in their career by this new-made convert. Tom was as rigid in religious, as in money matters; he was a stern supervisor and censurer of his neighbours, and seemed to think every sin entered up to their account became a credit on his own side of the page. He even talked of the expediency of reviving the persecution of quakers and anabaptists. In a word, Tom’s zeal became as notorious as his riches.

Still, in spite of all this strenuous attention to forms, Tom had a lurking dread that the devil, after all, would have his due. That he might not be taken unawares, therefore, it is said he always carried a small bible in his coat pocket. He had also a great folio bible on his counting house desk, and would frequently be found reading it when people called on business; on such occasions he would lay his green spectacles on the book, to mark the place, while he turned round to drive some usurious bargain.

Some say that Tom grew a little crack brained in his old days, and that fancying his end approaching, he had his horse new shod, saddled and bridled, and buried with his feet uppermost; because he supposed that at the last day the world would be turned upside down; in which case he should find his horse standing ready for mounting, and he was determined at the worst to give his old friend a run for it. This, however, is probably a mere old wives fable. If he really did take such a precaution it was totally superfluous; at least so says the authentic old legend which closes his story in the following manner.

On one hot afternoon in the dog days, just as a terrible black thundergust was coming up, Tom sat in his counting house in his white linen cap and India silk morning gown. He was on the point of foreclosing a mortgage, by which he would complete the ruin of an unlucky land speculator for whom he had professed the greatest friendship. The poor land jobber begged him to grant a few months indulgence. Tom had grown testy and irritated and refused another day.

‘My family will be ruined and brought upon the parish,’ said the land jobber. ‘Charity begins at home,’ replied Tom, ‘I must take care of myself in these hard times.’

‘You have made so much money out of me,’ said the speculator.

Tom lost his patience and his piety – ‘The devil take me,’ said he, ‘if I have made a farthing!’

Just then there were three loud knocks at the street door. He stepped out to see who was there. A black man was holding a black horse which neighed and stamped with impatience.

‘Tom, you’re come for!’ said the black fellow, gruffly. Tom shrunk back, but too late. He had left his little bible at the bottom of his coat pocket, and his big bible on the desk buried under the mortgage he was about to foreclose: never was sinner taken more unawares. The black man whisked him like a child astride the horse and away he galloped in the midst of a thunder storm. The clerks stuck their pens behind their ears and stared after him from the windows. Away went Tom Walker, dashing down the streets; his white cap bobbing up and down; his morning gown fluttering in the wind, and his steed striking fire out of the pavement at every bound. When the clerks turned to look for the black man he had disappeared.

Tom Walker never returned to foreclose the mortgage. A countryman who lived on the borders of the swamp, reported that in the height of the thunder gust he had heard a great clattering of hoofs and a howling along the road, and that when he ran to the window he just caught sight of a figure, such as I have described, on a horse that galloped like mad across the fields, over the hills and down into the black hemlock swamp towards the old Indian fort; and that shortly after a thunderbolt fell in that direction which seemed to set the whole forest in a blaze.

The good people of Boston shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders, but had been so much accustomed to witches and goblins and tricks of the devil in all kinds of shapes from the first settlement of the colony, that they were not so much horror struck as might have been expected. Trustees were appointed to take charge of Tom’s effects. There was nothing, however, to administer upon. On searching his coffers all his bonds and mortgages were found reduced to cinders. In place of gold and silver his iron chest was filled with chips and shavings; two skeletons lay in his stable instead of his half starved horses, and the very next day his great house took fire and was burnt to the ground.

Such was the end of Tom Walker and his ill gotten wealth. Let all griping money brokers lay this story to heart. The truth of it is not to be doubted. The very hole under the oak trees, from whence he dug Kidd’s money is to be seen to this day; and the neighbouring swamp and old Indian fort is often haunted in stormy nights by a figure on horseback, in a morning gown and white cap, which is doubtless the troubled spirit of the usurer. In fact, the story has resolved itself into a proverb, and is the origin of that popular saying, prevalent throughout New England, of ‘The Devil and Tom Walker.’

Sarah Orne Jewett

The White Heron

I

The woods were already filled with shadows one June evening, just before eight o’clock, though a bright sunset still glimmered faintly among the trunks of the trees. A little girl was driving home her cow, a plodding, dilatory, provoking creature in her behavior, but a valued companion for all that. They were going away from whatever light there was, and striking deep into the woods, but their feet were familiar with the path, and it was no matter whether their eyes could see it or not.

There was hardly a night the summer through when the old cow could be found waiting at the pasture bars; on the contrary, it was her greatest pleasure to hide herself away among the high huckleberry bushes, and though she wore a loud bell she had made the discovery that if one stood perfectly still it would not ring. So Sylvia had to hunt for her until she found her, and call Co’! Co’! with never an answering Moo, until her childish patience was quite spent. If the creature had not given good milk and plenty of it, the case would have seemed very different to her owners. Besides, Sylvia had all the time there was, and very little use to make of it. Sometimes in pleasant weather it was a consolation to look upon the cow’s pranks as an intelligent attempt to play hide and seek, and as the child had no playmates she lent herself to this amusement with a good deal of zest. Though this chase had been so long that the wary animal herself had given an unusual signal of her whereabouts, Sylvia had only laughed when she came upon Mistress Moolly at the swamp-side, and urged her affectionately homeward with a twig of birch leaves. The old cow was not inclined to wander farther, she even turned in the right direction for once as they left the pasture, and stepped along the road at a good pace. She was quite ready to be milked now, and seldom stopped to browse. Sylvia wondered what her grandmother would say because they were so late. It was a great while since she had left home at half-past five o’clock, but everybody knew the difficulty of making this errand a short one. Mrs. Tilley had chased the horned torment too many summer evenings herself to blame anyone else for lingering, and was only thankful as she waited that she had Sylvia, nowadays, to give such valuable assistance. The good woman suspected that Sylvia loitered occasionally on her own account; there never was such a child for straying about out-of-doors since the world was made! Everybody said that it was a good change for a little maid who had tried to grow for eight years in a crowded manufacturing town, but, as for Sylvia herself, it seemed as if she never had been alive at all before she came to live at the farm. She thought often with wistful compassion of a wretched geranium that belonged to a town neighbor.

‘Afraid of folks,’ old Mrs. Tilley said to herself, with a smile, after she had made the unlikely choice of Sylvia from her daughter’s houseful of children, and was returning to the farm. ‘Afraid of folks,’ they said! I guess she won’t be troubled no great with ’em up to the old place!’ When they reached the door of the lonely house and stopped to unlock it, and the cat came to purr loudly, and rub against them, a deserted pussy, indeed, but fat with young robins, Sylvia whispered that this was a beautiful place to live in, and she never should wish to go home.

The companions followed the shady wood-road, the cow taking slow steps and the child very fast ones. The cow stopped long at the brook to drink, as if the pasture were not half a swamp, and Sylvia stood still and waited, letting her bare feet cool themselves in the shoal water, while the great twilight moths struck softly against her. She waded on through the brook as the cow moved away, and listened to the thrushes with a heart that beat fast with pleasure. There was a stirring in the great boughs overhead. They were full of little birds and beasts that seemed to be wide awake, and going about their world, or else saying good-night to each other in sleepy twitters. Sylvia herself felt sleepy as she walked along. However, it was not much farther to the house, and the air was soft and sweet. She was not often in the woods so late as this, and it made her feel as if she were a part of the gray shadows and the moving leaves. She was just thinking how long it seemed since she first came to the farm a year ago, and wondering if everything went on in the noisy town just the same as when she was there, the thought of the great red-faced boy who used to chase and frighten her made her hurry along the path to escape from the shadow of the trees.

Suddenly this little woods-girl is horror-stricken to hear a clear whistle not very far away. Not a bird’s-whistle, which would have a sort of friendliness, but a boy’s whistle, determined, and somewhat aggressive. Sylvia left the cow to whatever sad fate might await her, and stepped discreetly aside into the bushes, but she was just too late. The enemy had discovered her, and called out in a very cheerful and persuasive tone, ‘Halloa, little girl, how far is it to the road?’ and trembling Sylvia answered almost inaudibly, ‘A good ways.’ She did not dare to look boldly at the tall young man, who carried a gun over his shoulder, but she came out of her bush and again followed the cow, while he walked alongside.

‘I have been hunting for some birds,’ the stranger said kindly, ‘and I have lost my way, and need a friend very much. Don’t be afraid,’ he added gallantly. ‘Speak up and tell me what your name is, and whether you think I can spend the night at your house, and go out gunning early in the morning.’

Sylvia was more alarmed than before. Would not her grandmother consider her much to blame? But who could have foreseen such an accident as this? It did not seem to be her fault, and she hung her head as if the stem of it were broken, but managed to answer ‘Sylvy,’ with much effort when her companion again asked her name.

Mrs. Tilley was standing in the doorway when the trio came into view. The cow gave a loud moo by way of explanation.

‘Yes, you’d better speak up for yourself, you old trial! Where’d she tucked herself away this time, Sylvy?’ But Sylvia kept an awed silence; she knew by instinct that her grandmother did not comprehend the gravity of the situation. She must be mistaking the stranger for one of the farmer-lads of the region. The young man stood his gun beside the door, and dropped a lumpy game-bag beside it; then he bade Mrs. Tilley good-evening, and repeated his wayfarer’s story, and asked if he could have a night’s lodging.

‘Put me anywhere you like,’ he said. ‘I must be off early in the morning, before day; but I am very hungry, indeed. You can give me some milk at any rate, that’s plain.’

‘Dear sakes, yes,’ responded the hostess, whose long slumbering hospitality seemed to be easily awakened. ‘You might fare better if you went out to the main road a mile or so, but you’re welcome to what we’ve got. I’ll milk right off, and you make yourself at home. You can sleep on husks or feathers,’ she proffered graciously. ‘I raised them all myself. There’s good pasturing for geese just below here towards the ma’sh. Now step round and set a plate for the gentleman, Sylvy!’ And Sylvia promptly stepped. She was glad to have something to do, and she was hungry herself.

It was a surprise to find so clean and comfortable a little dwelling in this New England wilderness. The young man had known the horrors of its most primitive housekeeping, and the dreary squalor of that level of society which does not rebel at the companionship of hens. This was the best thrift of an old-fashioned farmstead, though on such a small scale that it seemed like a hermitage. He listened eagerly to the old woman’s quaint talk, he watched Sylvia’s pale face and shining gray eyes with ever growing enthusiasm, and insisted that this was the best supper he had eaten for a month, and afterward the new-made friends sat down in the door-way together while the moon came up.

Soon it would be berry-time, and Sylvia was a great help at picking. The cow was a good milker, though a plaguy thing to keep track of, the hostess gossiped frankly, adding presently that she had buried four children, so Sylvia’s mother, and a son (who might be dead) in California were all the children she had left. ‘Dan, my boy, was a great hand to go gunning,’ she explained sadly. ‘I never wanted for pa’tridges or gray squer’ls while he was to home. He’s been a great wand’rer, I expect, and he’s no hand to write letters. There, I don’t blame him, I’d ha’ seen the world myself if it had been so I could.

‘Sylvy takes after him,’ the grandmother continued affectionately, after a minute’s pause. ‘There ain’t a foot o’ ground she don’t know her way over, and the wild creatures counts her one o’ themselves. Squer’ls she’ll tame to come an’ feed right out o’ her hands, and all sorts o’ birds. Last winter she got the jay-birds to bangeing here, and I believe she’d ’a’ scanted herself of her own meals to have plenty to throw out amongst ’em, if I hadn’t kep’ watch. Anything but crows, I tell her, I’m willin’ to help support, – though Dan he had a tamed one o’ them that did seem to have reason same as folks. It was round here a good spell after he went away. Dan an’ his father they didn’t hitch, – but he never held up his head ag’in after Dan had dared him an’ gone off.’

The guest did not notice this hint of family sorrows in his eager interest in something else.

‘So Sylvy knows all about birds, does she?’ he exclaimed, as he looked round at the little girl who sat, very demure but increasingly sleepy, in the moonlight. ‘I am making a collection of birds myself. I have been at it ever since I was a boy.’ (Mrs. Tilley smiled.) ‘There are two or three very rare ones I have been hunting for these five years. I mean to get them on my own ground if they can be found.’

‘Do you cage ’em up?’ asked Mrs. Tilley doubtfully, in response to this enthusiastic announcement.

‘Oh no, they’re stuffed and preserved, dozens and dozens of them,’ said the ornithologist, ‘and I have shot or snared every one myself. I caught a glimpse of a white heron a few miles from here on Saturday, and I have followed it in this direction. They have never been found in this district at all. The little white heron, it is,’ and he turned again to look at Sylvia with the hope of discovering that the rare bird was one of her acquaintances. But Sylvia was watching a hop-toad in the narrow footpath.

‘You would know the heron if you saw it,’ the stranger continued eagerly. ‘A queer tall white bird with soft feathers and long thin legs. And it would have a nest perhaps in the top of a high tree, made of sticks, something like a hawk’s nest.’

Sylvia’s heart gave a wild beat; she knew that strange white bird, and had once stolen softly near where it stood in some bright green swamp grass, away over at the other side of the woods. There was an open place where the sunshine always seemed strangely yellow and hot, where tall, nodding rushes grew, and her grandmother had warned her that she might sink in the soft black mud underneath and never be heard of more. Not far beyond were the salt marshes just this side the sea itself, which Sylvia wondered and dreamed much about, but never had seen, whose great voice could sometimes be heard above the noise of the woods on stormy nights.

‘I can’t think of anything I should like so much as to find that heron’s nest,’ the handsome stranger was saying. ‘I would give ten dollars to anybody who could show it to me,’ he added desperately, ‘and I mean to spend my whole vacation hunting for it if need be. Perhaps it was only migrating, or had been chased out of its own region by some bird of prey.’

Mrs. Tilley gave amazed attention to all this, but Sylvia still watched the toad, not divining, as she might have done at some calmer time, that the creature wished to get to its hole under the door-step, and was much hindered by the unusual spectators at that hour of the evening. No amount of thought, that night, could decide how many wished-for treasures the ten dollars, so lightly spoken of, would buy. The next day the young sportsman hovered about the woods, and Sylvia kept him company, having lost her first fear of the friendly lad, who proved to be most kind and sympathetic. He told her many things about the birds and what they knew and where they lived and what they did with themselves. And he gave her a jack-knife which she thought as great a treasure as if she were a desert-islander. All day long he did not once make her troubled or afraid except when he brought down some unsuspecting singing creature from its bough. Sylvia would have liked him vastly better without his gun; she could not understand why he killed the very birds he seemed to like so much. But as the day waned, Sylvia still watched the young man with loving admiration. She had never seen anybody so charming and delightful; the woman’s heart, asleep in the child, was vaguely thrilled by a dream of love. Some premonition of that great power stirred and swayed these young creatures who traversed the solemn woodlands with soft-footed silent care. They stopped to listen to a bird’s song; they pressed forward again eagerly, parting the branches, – speaking to each other rarely and in whispers; the young man going first and Sylvia following, fascinated, a few steps behind, with her gray eyes dark with excitement.

She grieved because the longed-for white heron was elusive, but she did not lead the guest, she only followed, and there was no such thing as speaking first. The sound of her own unquestioned voice would have terrified her, – it was hard enough to answer yes or no when there was need of that. At last evening began to fall, and they drove the cow home together, and Sylvia smiled with pleasure when they came to the place where she heard the whistle and was afraid only the night before.

II

Half a mile from home, at the farther edge of the woods, where the land was highest, a great pine-tree stood, the last of its generation. Whether it was left for a boundary mark, or for what reason, no one could say; the woodchoppers who had felled its mates were dead and gone long ago, and a whole forest of sturdy trees, pines and oaks and maples, had grown again. But the stately head of this old pine towered above them all and made a landmark for sea and shore miles and miles away. Sylvia knew it well. She had always believed that whoever climbed to the top of it could see the ocean; and the little girl had often laid her hand on the great rough trunk and looked up wistfully at those dark boughs that the wind always stirred, no matter how hot and still the air might be below. Now she thought of the tree with a new excitement, for why, if one climbed it at break of day, could not one see all the world, and easily discover from whence the white heron flew, and mark the place, and find the hidden nest?

What a spirit of adventure, what wild ambition! What fancied triumph and delight and glory for the later morning when she could make known the secret! It was almost too real and too great for the childish heart to bear.

All night the door of the little house stood open and the whippoorwills came and sang upon the very step. The young sportsman and his old hostess were sound asleep, but Sylvia’s great design kept her broad awake and watching. She forgot to think of sleep. The short summer night seemed as long as the winter darkness, and at last when the whippoorwills ceased, and she was afraid the morning would after all come too soon, she stole out of the house and followed the pasture path through the woods, hastening toward the open ground beyond, listening with a sense of comfort and companionship to the drowsy twitter of a half-awakened bird, whose perch she had jarred in passing. Alas, if the great wave of human interest which flooded for the first time this dull little life should sweep away the satisfactions of an existence heart to heart with nature and the dumb life of the forest! There was the huge tree asleep yet in the paling moonlight, and small and silly Sylvia began with utmost bravery to mount to the top of it, with tingling, eager blood coursing the channels of her whole frame, with her bare feet and fingers, that pinched and held like bird’s claws to the monstrous ladder reaching up, up, almost to the sky itself. First she must mount the white oak tree that grew alongside, where she was almost lost among the dark branches and the green leaves heavy and wet with dew; a bird fluttered off its nest, and a red squirrel ran to and fro and scolded pettishly at the harmless housebreaker. Sylvia felt her way easily. She had often climbed there, and knew that higher still one of the oak’s upper branches chafed against the pine trunk, just where its lower boughs were set close together. There, when she made the dangerous pass from one tree to the other, the great enterprise would really begin.

She crept out along the swaying oak limb at last, and took the daring step across into the old pine-tree. The way was harder than she thought; she must reach far and hold fast, the sharp dry twigs caught and held her and scratched her like angry talons, the pitch made her thin little fingers clumsy and stiff as she went round and round the tree’s great stem, higher and higher upward. The sparrows and robins in the woods below were beginning to wake and twitter to the dawn, yet it seemed much lighter there aloft in the pine-tree, and the child knew she must hurry if her project were to be of any use.

The tree seemed to lengthen itself out as she went up, and to reach farther and farther upward. It was like a great main-mast to the voyaging earth; it must truly have been amazed that morning through all its ponderous frame as it felt this determined spark of human spirit wending its way from higher branch to branch. Who knows how steadily the least twigs held themselves to advantage this light, weak creature on her way! The old pine must have loved his new dependent. More than all the hawks, and bats, and moths, and even the sweet voiced thrushes, was the brave, beating heart of the solitary gray-eyed child. And the tree stood still and frowned away the winds that June morning while the dawn grew bright in the east.

Sylvia’s face was like a pale star, if one had seen it from the ground, when the last thorny bough was past, and she stood trembling and tired but wholly triumphant, high in the tree-top. Yes, there was the sea with the dawning sun making a golden dazzle over it, and toward that glorious east flew two hawks with slow-moving pinions. How low they looked in the air from that height when one had only seen them before far up, and dark against the blue sky. Their gray feathers were as soft as moths; they seemed only a little way from the tree, and Sylvia felt as if she too could go flying away among the clouds. Westward, the woodlands and farms reached miles and miles into the distance; here and there were church steeples, and white villages, truly it was a vast and awesome world

The birds sang louder and louder. At last the sun came up bewilderingly bright. Sylvia could see the white sails of ships out at sea, and the clouds that were purple and rose-colored and yellow at first began to fade away. Where was the white heron’s nest in the sea of green branches, and was this wonderful sight and pageant of the world the only reward for having climbed to such a giddy height? Now look down again, Sylvia, where the green marsh is set among the shining birches and dark hemlocks; there where you saw the white heron once you will see him again; look, look! a white spot of him like a single floating feather comes up from the dead hemlock and grows larger, and rises, and comes close at last, and goes by the landmark pine with steady sweep of wing and outstretched slender neck and crested head. And wait! wait! do not move a foot or a finger, little girl, do not send an arrow of light and consciousness from your two eager eyes, for the heron has perched on a pine bough not far beyond yours, and cries back to his mate on the nest and plumes his feathers for the new day! The child gives a long sigh a minute later when a company of shouting cat-birds comes also to the tree, and vexed by their fluttering and lawlessness the solemn heron goes away. She knows his secret now, the wild, light, slender bird that floats and wavers, and goes back like an arrow presently to his home in the green world beneath. Then Sylvia, well satisfied, makes her perilous way down again, not daring to look far below the branch she stands on, ready to cry sometimes because her fingers ache and her lamed feet slip. Wondering over and over again what the stranger would say to her, and what he would think when she told him how to find his way straight to the heron’s nest.

‘Sylvy, Sylvy!’ called the busy old grandmother again and again, but nobody answered, and the small husk bed was empty and Sylvia had disappeared.

The guest waked from a dream, and remembering his day’s pleasure hurried to dress himself that might it sooner begin. He was sure from the way the shy little girl looked once or twice yesterday that she had at least seen the white heron, and now she must really be made to tell. Here she comes now, paler than ever, and her worn old frock is torn and tattered, and smeared with pine pitch. The grandmother and the sportsman stand in the door together and question her, and the splendid moment has come to speak of the dead hemlock-tree by the green marsh.

But Sylvia does not speak after all, though the old grandmother fretfully rebukes her, and the young man’s kind, appealing eyes are looking straight in her own. He can make them rich with money; he has promised it, and they are poor now. He is so well worth making happy, and he waits to hear the story she can tell.

No, she must keep silence! What is it that suddenly forbids her and makes her dumb? Has she been nine years growing and now, when the great world for the first time puts out a hand to her, must she thrust it aside for a bird’s sake? The murmur of the pine’s green branches is in her ears, she remembers how the white heron came flying through the golden air and how they watched the sea and the morning together, and Sylvia cannot speak; she cannot tell the heron’s secret and give its life away. Dear loyalty, that suffered a sharp pang as the guest went away disappointed later in the day that could have served and followed him and loved him as a dog loves! Many a night Sylvia heard the echo of his whistle haunting the pasture path as she came home with the loitering cow. She forgot even her sorrow at the sharp report of his gun and the sight of thrushes and sparrows dropping silent to the ground, their songs hushed and their pretty feathers stained and wet with blood. Were the birds better friends than their hunter might have been, – who can tell? Whatever treasures were lost to her, woodlands and summer-time, remember! Bring your gifts and graces and tell your secrets to this lonely country child!

Jack London

The Terrible Solomons

There is no gainsaying that the Solomons[107] are a hard-bitten bunch of islands. On the other hand, there are worse places in the world. But to the new chum who has no constitutional understanding of men and life in the rough, the Solomons may indeed prove terrible.

It is true that fever and dysentery are perpetually on the walk-about, that loathsome skin diseases abound, that the air is saturated with a poison that bites into every pore, cut, or abrasion and plants malignant ulcers, and that many strong men who escape dying there return as wrecks to their own countries. It is also true that the natives of the Solomons are a wild lot, with a hearty appetite for human flesh and a fad for collecting human heads. Their highest instinct of sportsmanship is to catch a man with his back turned and to smite him a cunning blow with a tomahawk that severs the spinal column at the base of the brain. It is equally true that on some islands, such as Malaita, the profit and loss account of social intercourse is calculated in homicides. Heads are a medium of exchange, and white heads are extremely valuable. Very often a dozen villages make a jack-pot, which they fatten moon by moon, against the time when some brave warrior presents a white man’s head, fresh and gory, and claims the pot.

All the foregoing is quite true, and yet there are white men who have lived in the Solomons a score of years and who feel homesick when they go away from them. A man needs only to be careful – and lucky – to live a long time in the Solomons; but he must also be of the right sort. He must have the hallmark of the inevitable white man stamped upon his soul. He must be inevitable. He must have a certain grand carelessness of odds, a certain colossal self-satisfaction, and a racial egotism that convinces him that one white is better than a thousand niggers every day in the week, and that on Sunday he is able to clean out two thousand niggers. For such are the things that have made the white man inevitable. Oh, and one other thing – the white man who wishes to be inevitable, must not merely despise the lesser breeds and think a lot of himself; he must also fail to be too long on imagination. He must not understand too well the instincts, customs, and mental processes of the blacks, the yellows, and the browns; for it is not in such fashion that the white race has tramped its royal road around the world.

Bertie Arkwright was not inevitable. He was too sensitive, too finely strung, and he possessed too much imagination. The world was too much with him. He projected himself too quiveringly into his environment. Therefore, the last place in the world for him to come was the Solomons. He did not come, expecting to stay. A five weeks’ stop-over between steamers, he decided, would satisfy the call of the primitive he felt thrumming the strings of his being. At least, so he told the lady tourists on the makembo, though in different terms; and they worshipped him as a hero, for they were lady tourists and they would know only the safety of the steamer’s deck as she threaded her way through the Solomons.

There was another man on board, of whom the ladies took no notice. He was a little shriveled wisp of a man, with a withered skin the color of mahogany. His name on the passenger list does not matter, but his other name, Captain Malu, was a name for niggers to conjure with, and to scare naughty pickaninnies to righteousness from New Hanover to the New Hebrides. He had farmed savages and savagery, and from fever and hardship, the crack of Sniders and the lash of the overseers, had wrested five millions of money in the form of biche-de-mer, sandalwood, pearl-shell and turtle-shell, ivory nuts and copra, grasslands, trading stations, and plantations. Captain Malu’s little finger, which was broken, had more inevitableness in it than Bertie Arkwright’s whole carcass. But then, the lady tourists had nothing by which to judge save appearances, and Bertie certainly was a fine-looking man.

Bertie talked with Captain Malu in the smoking room, confiding to him his intention of seeing life red and bleeding in the Solomons. Captain Malu agreed that the intention was ambitious and honorable. It was not until several days later that he became interested in Bertie, when that young adventurer insisted on showing him an automatic 44-caliber pistol. Bertie explained the mechanism and demonstrated by slipping a loaded magazine up the hollow butt.

‘It is so simple,’ he said. He shot the outer barrel back along the inner one. ‘That loads it and cocks it, you see. And then all I have to do is pull the trigger, eight times, as fast as I can quiver my finger. See that safety clutch. That’s what I like about it. It is safe. It is positively fool-proof.’ He slipped out the magazine. ‘You see how safe it is.’

As he held it in his hand, the muzzle came in line with Captain Malu’s stomach. Captain Malu’s blue eyes looked at it unswervingly.

‘Would you mind pointing it in some other direction?’ he asked.

‘It’s perfectly safe,’ Bertie assured him. ‘I withdrew the magazine. It’s not loaded now, you know.’

‘A gun is always loaded.’

‘But this one isn’t.’

‘Turn it away just the same.’

Captain Malu’s voice was flat and metallic and low, but his eyes never left the muzzle until the line of it was drawn past him and away from him.

‘I’ll bet a fiver it isn’t loaded,’ Bertie proposed warmly.

The other shook his head.

‘Then I’ll show you.’

Bertie started to put the muzzle to his own temple with the evident intention of pulling the trigger.

‘Just a second,’ Captain Malu said quietly, reaching out his hand. ‘Let me look at it.’

He pointed it seaward and pulled the trigger. A heavy explosion followed, instantaneous with the sharp click of the mechanism that flipped a hot and smoking cartridge sidewise along the deck.

Bertie’s jaw dropped in amazement.

‘I slipped the barrel back once, didn’t I?’ he explained. ‘It was silly of me, I must say.’

He giggled flabbily, and sat down in a steamer chair. The blood had ebbed from his face, exposing dark circles under his eyes. His hands were trembling and unable to guide the shaking cigarette to his lips. The world was too much with him, and he saw himself with dripping brains prone upon the deck.

‘Really,’ he said, ‘…really.’

‘It’s a pretty weapon,’ said Captain Malu, returning the automatic to him.

The Commissioner was on board the Makembo, returning from Sydney[108], and by his permission a stop was made at UgI to land a missionary. And at UgI lay the ketch ARLA, Captain Hansen, skipper. Now the Arla was one of many vessels owned by Captain Malu, and it was at his suggestion and by his invitation that Bertie went aboard the Arla as guest for a four days’ recruiting cruise on the coast of Malaita. Thereafter the ARLA would drop him at Reminge Plantation (also owned by Captain Malu), where Bertie could remain for a week, and then be sent over to Tulagi, the seat of government, where he would become the Commissioner’s guest. Captain Malu was responsible for two other suggestions, which given, he disappears from this narrative. One was to Captain Hansen, the other to Mr. Harriwell, manager of Reminge Plantation. Both suggestions were similar in tenor, namely, to give Mr. Bertram Arkwright an insight into the rawness and redness of life in the Solomons. Also, it is whispered that Captain Malu mentioned that a case of Scotch would be coincidental with any particularly gorgeous insight Mr. Arkwright might receive…

‘Yes, Swartz always was too pig-headed. You see, he took four of his boat’s crew to TulagI to be flogged – officially, you know – then started back with them in the whaleboat. It was pretty squally, and the boat capsized just outside. Swartz was the only one drowned. Of course, it was an accident.’

‘Was it? Really?’ Bertie asked, only half-interested, staring hard at the black man at the wheel.

UgI had dropped astern, and the Arla was sliding along through a summer sea toward the wooded ranges of Malaita. The helmsman who so attracted Bertie’s eyes sported a ten penny nail, stuck skewerwise through his nose. About his neck was a string of pants buttons. Thrust through holes in his ears were a can opener, the broken handle of a toothbrush, a clay pipe, the brass wheel of an alarm clock, and several Winchester rifle[109] cartridges.

On his chest, suspended from around his neck hung the half of a china plate. Some forty similarly appareled blacks lay about the deck, fifteen of which were boat’s crew, the remainder being fresh labor recruits.

‘Of course it was an accident,’ spoke up the Arla’s mate, Jacobs, a slender, dark-eyed man who looked more a professor than a sailor. ‘Johnny Bedip nearly had the same kind of accident. He was bringing back several from a flogging, when they capsized him. But he knew how to swim as well as they, and two of them were drowned. He used a boat stretcher and a revolver. Of course it was an accident.’

‘Quite common, them accidents,’ remarked the skipper. ‘You see that man at the wheel, Mr. Arkwright? He’s a man eater. Six months ago, he and the rest of the boat’s crew drowned the then captain of the Arla. They did it on deck, sir, right aft there by the mizzen-traveler.’

‘The deck was in a shocking state,’ said the mate.

‘Do I understand – ?’ Bertie began.

‘Yes, just that,’ said Captain Hansen. ‘It was an accidental drowning.’

‘But on deck – ?’

‘Just so. I don’t mind telling you, in confidence, of course, that they used an axe.’

‘This present crew of yours?’

Captain Hansen nodded.

‘The other skipper always was too careless,’ explained the mate. He but just turned his back, when they let him have it.’

‘We haven’t any show down here,’ was the skipper’s complaint. ‘The government protects a nigger against a white every time. You can’t shoot first. You’ve got to give the nigger first shot, or else the government calls it murder and you go to Fiji. That’s why there’s so many drowning accidents.’

Dinner was called, and Bertie and the skipper went below, leaving the mate to watch on deck.

‘Keep an eye out for that black devil, Auiki,’ was the skipper’s parting caution. ‘I haven’t liked his looks for several days.’

‘Right O,’ said the mate.

Dinner was part way along, and the skipper was in the middle of his story of the cutting out of the Scottish Chiefs.

‘Yes,’ he was saying, ‘she was the finest vessel on the coast. But when she missed stays, and before ever she hit the reef, the canoes started for her. There were five white men, a crew of twenty Santa Cruz[110] boys and Samoans[111], and only the supercargo escaped. Besides, there were sixty recruits. They were all kai-kai’d. Kai-kai? – oh, I beg your pardon. I mean they were eaten. Then there was the James Edwards, a dandy-rigged – ’

But at that moment there was a sharp oath from the mate on deck and a chorus of savage cries. A revolver went off three times, and then was heard a loud splash. Captain Hansen had sprung up the companionway on the instant, and Bertie’s eyes had been fascinated by a glimpse of him drawing his revolver as he sprang.

Bertie went up more circumspectly, hesitating before he put his head above the companionway slide. But nothing happened. The mate was shaking with excitement, his revolver in his hand. Once he startled, and half-jumped around, as if danger threatened his back.

‘One of the natives fell overboard,’ he was saying, in a queer tense voice. ‘He couldn’t swim.’

‘Who was it?’ the skipper demanded.

‘Auiki,’ was the answer.

‘But I say, you know, I heard shots,’ Bertie said, in trembling eagerness, for he scented adventure, and adventure that was happily over with.

The mate whirled upon him, snarling:

‘It’s a damned lie. There ain’t been a shot fired. The nigger fell overboard.’

Captain Hansen regarded Bertie with unblinking, lack-luster eyes.

‘I – I thought – ’ Bertie was beginning.

‘Shots?’ said Captain Hansen, dreamily. ‘Shots? Did you hear any shots, Mr. Jacobs?’

‘Not a shot,’ replied Mr. Jacobs.

The skipper looked at his guest triumphantly, and said:

‘Evidently an accident. Let us go down, Mr. Arkwright, and finish dinner.’

Bertie slept that night in the captain’s cabin, a tiny stateroom off the main cabin. The for’ard bulkhead was decorated with a stand of rifles. Over the bunk were three more rifles. Under the bunk was a big drawer, which, when he pulled it out, he found filled with ammunition, dynamite, and several boxes of detonators. He elected to take the settee on the opposite side. Lying conspicuously on the small table, was the Arla’s log. Bertie did not know that it had been especially prepared for the occasion by Captain Malu, and he read therein how on September 21, two boat’s crew had fallen overboard and been drowned. Bertie read between the lines and knew better. He read how the Arla’s whale boat had been bushwhacked at Su’u and had lost three men; of how the skipper discovered the cook stewing human flesh on the galley fire – flesh purchased by the boat’s crew ashore in Fui; of how an accidental discharge of dynamite, while signaling, had killed another boat’s crew; of night attacks; ports fled from between the dawns; attacks by bushmen in mangrove swamps and by fleets of salt-water men in the larger passages. One item that occurred with monotonous frequency was death by dysentery. He noticed with alarm that two white men had so died – guests, like himself, on the Arla.

‘I say, you know,’ Bertie said next day to Captain Hansen. ‘I’ve been glancing through your log.’

The skipper displayed quick vexation that the log had been left lying about.

‘And all that dysentery, you know, that’s all rot, just like the accidental drownings,’ Bertie continued. ‘What does dysentery really stand for?’

The skipper openly admired his guest’s acumen, stiffened himself to make indignant denial, then gracefully surrendered.

‘You see, it’s like this, Mr. Arkwright. These islands have got a bad enough name as it is. It’s getting harder every day to sign on white men. Suppose a man is killed. The company has to pay through the nose for another man to take the job. But if the man merely dies of sickness, it’s all right. The new chums don’t mind disease. What they draw the line at is being murdered. I thought the skipper of the Arla had died of dysentery when I took his billet. Then it was too late. I’d signed the contract.’

‘Besides,’ said Mr. Jacobs, ‘there’s altogether too many accidental drownings anyway. It don’t look right. It’s the fault of the government. A white man hasn’t a chance to defend himself from the niggers.’

‘Yes, look at the Princess and that Yankee mate,’ the skipper took up the tale. ‘She carried five white men besides a government agent. The captain, the agent, and the supercargo were ashore in the two boats. They were killed to the last man. The mate and boson, with about fifteen of the crew – Samoans and Tongans[112] – were on board. A crowd of niggers came off from shore. First thing the mate knew, the boson and the crew were killed in the first rush. The mate grabbed three cartridge belts and two Winchesters and skinned up to the cross-trees. He was the sole survivor, and you can’t blame him for being mad. He pumped one rifle till it got so hot he couldn’t hold it, then he pumped the other. The deck was black with niggers. He cleaned them out. He dropped them as they went over the rail, and he dropped them as fast as they picked up their paddles. Then they jumped into the water and started to swim for it, and being mad, he got half a dozen more. And what did he get for it?’

‘Seven years in Fiji[113],’ snapped the mate.

‘The government said he wasn’t justified in shooting after they’d taken to the water,’ the skipper explained.

‘And that’s why they die of dysentery nowadays,’ the mate added.

‘Just fancy,’ said Bertie, as he felt a longing for the cruise to be over.

Later on in the day he interviewed the black who had been pointed out to him as a cannibal. This fellow’s name was Sumasai. He had spent three years on a Queensland[114] plantation. He had been to Samoa, and Fiji, and Sydney; and as a boat’s crew had been on recruiting schooners through New Britain, New Ireland[115], New Guinea[116], and the Admiralties[117]. Also, he was a wag, and he had taken a line on his skipper’s conduct. Yes, he had eaten many men. How many? He could not remember the tally. Yes, white men, too; they were very good, unless they were sick. He had once eaten a sick one.

‘My word!’ he cried, at the recollection. ‘Me sick plenty along him. My belly walk about too much.’

Bertie shuddered, and asked about heads. Yes, SumasaI had several hidden ashore, in good condition, sun-dried, and smoke-cured. One was of the captain of a schooner. It had long whiskers. He would sell it for two quid. Black men’s heads he would sell for one quid. He had some pickaninny heads, in poor condition that he would let go for ten bob.

Five minutes afterward, Bertie found himself sitting on the companionway-slide alongside a black with a horrible skin disease. He sheered off, and on inquiry was told that it was leprosy. He hurried below and washed himself with antiseptic soap. He took many antiseptic washes in the course of the day, for every native on board was afflicted with malignant ulcers of one sort or another.

As the Arla drew in to an anchorage in the midst of mangrove swamps, a double row of barbed wire was stretched around above her rail. That looked like business, and when Bertie saw the shore canoes alongside, armed with spears, bows and arrows, and Sniders, he wished more earnestly than ever that the cruise was over.

That evening the natives were slow in leaving the ship at sundown. A number of them checked the mate when he ordered them ashore. ‘Never mind, I’ll fix them,’ said Captain Hansen, diving below.

When he came back, he showed Bertie a stick of dynamite attached to a fish hook. Now it happens that a paper-wrapped bottle of chlorodyne with a piece of harmless fuse projecting can fool anybody. It fooled Bertie, and it fooled the natives. When Captain Hansen lighted the fuse and hooked the fish hook into the tail end of a native’s loin cloth, that native was smitten with so an ardent a desire for the shore that he forgot to shed the loin cloth. He started for’ard, the fuse sizzling and spluttering at his rear, the natives in his path taking headers over the barbed wire at every jump. Bertie was horror-stricken. So was Captain Hansen. He had forgotten his twenty-five recruits, on each of which he had paid thirty shillings advance. They went over the side along with the shore-dwelling folk and followed by him who trailed the sizzling chlorodyne bottle.

Bertie did not see the bottle go off; but the mate opportunely discharging a stick of real dynamite aft where it would harm nobody, Bertie would have sworn in any admiralty court to a nigger blown to flinders. The flight of the twenty-five recruits had actually cost the Arla forty pounds, and, since they had taken to the bush, there was no hope of recovering them. The skipper and his mate proceeded to drown their sorrow in cold tea.

The cold tea was in whiskey bottles, so Bertie did not know it was cold tea they were mopping up. All he knew was that the two men got very drunk and argued eloquently and at length as to whether the exploded nigger should be reported as a case of dysentery or as an accidental drowning. When they snored off to sleep, he was the only white man left, and he kept a perilous watch till dawn, in fear of an attack from shore and an uprising of the crew.

Three more days the Arla spent on the coast, and three more nights the skipper and the mate drank overfondly of cold tea, leaving Bertie to keep the watch. They knew he could be depended upon, while he was equally certain that if he lived, he would report their drunken conduct to Captain Malu. Then the Arla dropped anchor at Reminge Plantation, on Guadalcanal[118], and Bertie landed on the beach with a sigh of relief and shook hands with the manager. Mr. Harriwell was ready for him.

‘Now you mustn’t be alarmed if some of our fellows seem downcast,’ Mr. Harriwell said, having drawn him aside in confidence. ‘There’s been talk of an outbreak, and two or three suspicious signs I’m willing to admit, but personally I think it’s all poppycock.’

‘How – how many blacks have you on the plantation?’ Bertie asked, with a sinking heart.

‘We’re working four hundred just now,’ replied Mr. Harriwell, cheerfully; ‘but the three of us, with you, of course, and the skipper and mate of the Arla, can handle them all right.’

Bertie turned to meet one McTavish, the storekeeper, who scarcely acknowledged the introduction, such was his eagerness to present his resignation.

‘It being that I’m a married man, Mr. Harriwell, I can’t very well afford to remain on longer. Trouble is working up, as plain as the nose on your face. The niggers are going to break out, and there’ll be another Hohono horror here.’

‘What’s a Hohono horror?’ Bertie asked, after the storekeeper had been persuaded to remain until the end of the month.

‘Oh, he means Hohono Plantation, on Ysabel,’ said the manager. ‘The niggers killed the five white men ashore, captured the schooner, killed the captain and mate, and escaped in a body to Malaita. But I always said they were careless on Hohono. They won’t catch us napping here. Come along, Mr. Arkwright, and see our view from the veranda.’

Bertie was too busy wondering how he could get away to TulagI to the Commissioner’s house, to see much of the view. He was still wondering, when a rifle exploded very near to him, behind his back. At the same moment his arm was nearly dislocated, so eagerly did Mr. Harriwell drag him indoors.

‘I say, old man, that was a close shave,’ said the manager, pawing him over to see if he had been hit. ‘I can’t tell you how sorry I am. But it was broad daylight, and I never dreamed.’

Bertie was beginning to turn pale.

‘They got the other manager that way,’ McTavish vouchsafed. ‘And a dashed fine chap he was. Blew his brains out all over the veranda. You noticed that dark stain there between the steps and the door?’

Bertie was ripe for the cocktail which Mr. Harriwell pitched in and compounded for him; but before he could drink it, a man in riding trousers and puttees entered.

‘What’s the matter now?’ the manager asked, after one look at the newcomer’s face. ‘Is the river up again?’

‘River be blowed – it’s the niggers. Stepped out of the cane grass, not a dozen feet away, and whopped at me. It was a Snider, and he shot from the hip. Now what I want to know is where’d he get that Snider? – Oh, I beg pardon. Glad to know you, Mr. Arkwright.’

‘Mr. Brown is my assistant,’ explained Mr. Harriwell. ‘And now let’s have that drink.’

‘But where’d he get that Snider?’ Mr. Brown insisted. ‘I always objected to keeping those guns on the premises.’

‘They’re still there,’ Mr. Harriwell said, with a show of heat.

Mr. Brown smiled incredulously.

‘Come along and see,’ said the manager.

Bertie joined the procession into the office, where Mr. Harriwell pointed triumphantly at a big packing case in a dusty corner.

‘Well, then where did the beggar get that Snider?’ harped Mr. Brown.

But just then McTavish lifted the packing case. The manager started, then tore off the lid. The case was empty. They gazed at one another in horrified silence. Harriwell drooped wearily.

Then McVeigh cursed.

‘What I contended all along – the house-boys are not to be trusted.’

‘It does look serious,’ Harriwell admitted, ‘but we’ll come through it all right. What the sanguinary niggers need is a shaking up. Will you gentlemen please bring your rifles to dinner, and will you, Mr. Brown, kindly prepare forty or fifty sticks of dynamite. Make the fuses good and short. We’ll give them a lesson. And now, gentlemen, dinner is served.’

One thing that Bertie detested was rice and curry, so it happened that he alone partook of an inviting omelet. He had quite finished his plate, when Harriwell helped himself to the omelet. One mouthful he tasted, then spat out vociferously.

‘That’s the second time,’ McTavish announced ominously.

Harriwell was still hawking and spitting.

‘Second time, what?’ Bertie quavered.

‘Poison,’ was the answer. ‘That cook will be hanged yet.’

‘That’s the way the bookkeeper went out at Cape March,’ Brown spoke up. ‘Died horribly. They said on the Jessie that they heard him screaming three miles away.’

‘I’ll put the cook in irons,’ sputtered Harriwell. ‘Fortunately we discovered it in time.’

Bertie sat paralyzed. There was no color in his face. He attempted to speak, but only an inarticulate gurgle resulted. All eyed him anxiously.

‘Don’t say it, don’t say it,’ McTavish cried in a tense voice.

‘Yes, I ate it, plenty of it, a whole plateful!’ Bertie cried explosively, like a diver suddenly regaining breath.

The awful silence continued half a minute longer, and he read his fate in their eyes.

‘Maybe it wasn’t poison after all,’ said Harriwell, dismally.

‘Call in the cook,’ said Brown.

In came the cook, a grinning black boy, nose-spiked and ear-plugged.

‘Here, you, Wi-wi, what name that?’ Harriwell bellowed, pointing accusingly at the omelet.

Wi-wI was very naturally frightened and embarrassed.

‘Him good fella kai-kai,’ he murmured apologetically.

‘Make him eat it,’ suggested McTavish. ‘That’s a proper test.’

Harriwell filled a spoon with the stuff and jumped for the cook, who fled in panic.

‘That settles it,’ was Brown’s solemn pronouncement. ‘He won’t eat it.’

‘Mr. Brown, will you please go and put the irons on him?’ Harriwell turned cheerfully to Bertie. ‘It’s all right, old man, the Commissioner will deal with him, and if you die, depend upon it, he will be hanged.’

‘Don’t think the government’ll do it,’ objected McTavish.

‘But gentlemen, gentlemen,’ Bertie cried. ‘In the meantime think of me.’

Harriwell shrugged his shoulders pityingly.

‘Sorry, old man, but it’s a native poison, and there are no known antidotes for native poisons. Try and compose yourself and if – ’

Two sharp reports of a rifle from without, interrupted the discourse, and Brown, entering, reloaded his rifle and sat down to table.

‘The cook’s dead,’ he said. ‘Fever. A rather sudden attack.’

‘I was just telling Mr. Arkwright that there are no antidotes for native poisons – ’

‘Except gin,’ said Brown.

Harriwell called himself an absent-minded idiot and rushed for the gin bottle.

‘Neat, man, neat,’ he warned Bertie, who gulped down a tumbler two-thirds full of the raw spirits, and coughed and choked from the angry bite of it till the tears ran down his cheeks.

Harriwell took his pulse and temperature, made a show of looking out for him, and doubted that the omelet had been poisoned. Brown and McTavish also doubted; but Bertie discerned an insincere ring in their voices. His appetite had left him, and he took his own pulse stealthily under the table. There was no question but what it was increasing, but he failed to ascribe it to the gin he had taken. McTavish, rifle in hand, went out on the veranda to reconnoiter.

‘They’re massing up at the cook-house,’ was his report. ‘And they’ve no end of Sniders. My idea is to sneak around on the other side and take them in flank. Strike the first blow, you know. Will you come along, Brown?’

Harriwell ate on steadily, while Bertie discovered that his pulse had leaped up five beats. Nevertheless, he could not help jumping when the rifles began to go off. Above the scattering of Sniders could be heard the pumping of Brown’s and McTavish’s Winchesters – all against a background of demoniacal screeching and yelling.

‘They’ve got them on the run,’ Harriwell remarked, as voices and gunshots faded away in the distance.

Scarcely were Brown and McTavish back at the table when the latter reconnoitered.

‘They’ve got dynamite,’ he said.

‘Then let’s charge them with dynamite,’ Harriwell proposed.

Thrusting half a dozen sticks each into their pockets and equipping themselves with lighted cigars, they started for the door. And just then it happened. They blamed McTavish for it afterward, and he admitted that the charge had been a trifle excessive. But at any rate it went off under the house, which lifted up cornerwise and settled back on its foundations. Half the china on the table was shattered, while the eight-day clock stopped. Yelling for vengeance, the three men rushed out into the night, and the bombardment began.

When they returned, there was no Bertie. He had dragged himself away to the office, barricaded himself in, and sunk upon the floor in a gin-soaked nightmare, wherein he died a thousand deaths while the valorous fight went on around him. In the morning, sick and headachey from the gin, he crawled out to find the sun still in the sky and God presumable in heaven, for his hosts were alive and uninjured.

Harriwell pressed him to stay on longer, but Bertie insisted on sailing immediately on the Arla for Tulagi, where, until the following steamer day, he stuck close by the Commissioner’s house. There were lady tourists on the outgoing steamer, and Bertie was again a hero, while Captain Malu, as usual, passed unnoticed. But Captain Malu sent back from Sydney two cases of the best Scotch whiskey on the market, for he was not able to make up his mind as to whether it was Captain Hansen or Mr Harriwell who had given Bertie Arkwright the more gorgeous insight into life in the Solomons.

To Build a Fire

Day had broken cold and gray, exceedingly cold and gray, when the man turned aside from the main Yukon trail and climbed the high earth-bank, where a dim and little traveled trail led eastward through the fat spruce timberland. It was a steep bank, and he paused for breath at the top, excusing the act to himself by looking at his watch. It was nine o’clock. There was no sun nor hint of sun, though there was not a cloud in the sky. It was a clear day, and yet there seemed an intangible pall over the face of things, a subtle gloom that made the day dark, and that was due to the absence of sun. This fact did not worry the man. He was used to the lack of sun. It had been days since he had seen the sun, and he knew that a few more days must pass before that cheerful orb, due south, would just peep above the sky-line and dip immediately from view.

The man flung a look back along the way he had come. The Yukon[119] lay a mile wide and hidden under three feet of ice. On top of this ice were as many feet of snow. It was all pure white, rolling in gentle, undulations where the ice jams of the freeze-up had formed. North and south, as far as his eye could see, it was unbroken white, save for a dark hair-line that curved and twisted from around the spruce-covered island to the south, and that curved and twisted away into the north, where it disappeared behind another spruce-covered island. This dark hair-line was the trail – the main trail – that led south five hundred miles to the Chilcoot Pass[120], Dyea[121], and salt water; and that led north seventy miles to Dawson[122], and still on to the north a thousand miles to Nulato[123], and finally to St. Michael[124] on Bering Sea[125], a thousand miles and half a thousand more.

But all this – the mysterious, far-reaching hair-line trail, the absence of sun from the sky, the tremendous cold, and the strangeness and weirdness of it all – made no impression on the man. It was not because he was long used to it. He was a newcomer in the land, a chechaquo, and this was his first winter. The trouble with him was that he was without imagination. He was quick and alert in the things of life, but only in the things, and not in the significances. Fifty degrees below zero meant eighty-odd degrees of frost. Such fact impressed him as being cold and uncomfortable, and that was all. It did not lead him to meditate upon his frailty as a creature of temperature, and upon man’s frailty in general, able only to live within certain narrow limits of heat and cold; and from there on it did not lead him to the conjectural field of immortality and man’s place in the universe. Fifty degrees below zero stood for the bite of frost that hurt and that must be guarded against by the use of mittens, ear-flaps, warm moccasins, and thick socks. Fifty degrees below zero was to him just precisely fifty degrees below zero. That there should be anything more to it than that was a thought that never entered his head.

As he turned to go on, he spat speculatively. There was a sharp, explosive crackle that startled him. He spat again. And again, in the air, before it could fall to the snow, the spittle crackled. He knew that at fifty below spittle crackled on the snow, but this spittle had crackled in the air. Undoubtedly it was colder than fifty below – how much colder he did not know. But the temperature did not matter. He was bound for the old claim on the left fork of Henderson Creek, where the boys were already. They had come over across the divide from the Indian Creek country, while he had come the roundabout way to take a look at the possibilities of getting out logs in the spring from the islands in the Yukon. He would be in to camp by six o’clock; a bit after dark, it was true, but the boys would be there, a fire would be going, and a hot supper would be ready. As for lunch, he pressed his hand against the protruding bundle under his jacket. It was also under his shirt, wrapped up in a handkerchief and lying against the naked skin. It was the only way to keep the biscuits from freezing. He smiled agreeably to himself as he thought of those biscuits, each cut open and sopped in bacon grease, and each enclosing a generous slice of fried bacon.

He plunged in among the big spruce trees. The trail was faint. A foot of snow had fallen since the last sled had passed over, and he was glad he was without a sled, traveling light. In fact, he carried nothing but the lunch wrapped in the handkerchief. He was surprised, however, at the cold. It certainly was cold, he concluded as he rubbed his numb nose and cheek-bones with his mittened hand. He was a warm-whiskered man, but the hair on his face did not protect the high cheek-bones and the eager nose that thrust itself aggressively into the frosty air.

At the man’s heels trotted a dog, a big native husky, the proper wolf-dog, gray-coated and without any visible or temperamental difference from its brother, the wild wolf. The animal was depressed by the tremendous cold. It knew that it was no time for traveling. Its instinct told it a truer tale than was told to the man by the man’s judgment. In reality, it was not merely colder than fifty below zero; it was colder than sixty below, than seventy below. It was seventy-five below zero. Since the freezing point is thirty-two above zero, it meant that one hundred and seven degrees of frost obtained. The dog did not know anything about thermometers. Possibly in its brain there was no sharp consciousness of a condition of very cold such as was in the man’s brain. But the brute had its instinct. It experienced a vague but menacing apprehension that subdued it and made it slink along at the man’s heels, and that made it question eagerly every unwonted movement of the man as if expecting him to go into camp or to seek shelter somewhere and build a fire. The dog had learned fire, and it wanted fire, or else to burrow under the snow and cuddle its warmth away from the air.

The frozen moisture of its breathing had settled on its fur in a fine powder of frost, and especially were its jowls, muzzle, and eyelashes whitened by its crystalled breath. The man’s red beard and mustache were likewise frosted, but more solidly, the deposit taking the form of ice and increasing with every warm, moist breath he exhaled. Also, the man was chewing tobacco, and the muzzle of ice held his lips so rigidly that he was unable to clear his chin when he expelled the juice. The result was that a crystal beard of the color and solidity of amber was increasing its length on his chin. If he fell down it would shatter itself, like glass, into brittle fragments. But he did not mind the appendage. It was the penalty all tobacco-chewers paid in that country, and he had been out before in two cold snaps. They had not been so cold as this, he knew, but by the spirit thermometer at Sixty Mile[126] he knew they had been registered at fifty below and at fifty-five.

He held on through the level stretch of woods for several miles, crossed a wide flat of rigger-heads, and dropped down a bank to the frozen bed of a small stream. This was Henderson Creek, and he knew he was ten miles from the forks. He looked at his watch. It was ten o’clock. He was making four miles an hour, and he calculated that he would arrive at the forks at half-past twelve. He decided to celebrate that event by eating his lunch there.

The dog dropped in again at his heels, with a tail drooping discouragement, as the man swung along the creek-bed. The furrow of the old sled-trail was plainly visible, but a dozen inches of snow covered the marks of the last runners. In a month no man had come up or down that silent creek. The man held steadily on. He was not much given to thinking, and just then particularly he had nothing to think about save that he would eat lunch at the forks and that at six o’clock he would be in camp with the boys. There was nobody to talk to; and, had there been, speech would have been impossible because of the ice-muzzle on his mouth. So he continued monotonously to chew tobacco and to increase the length of his amber beard.

Once in a while the thought reiterated itself that it was very cold and that he had never experienced such cold. As he walked along he rubbed his cheek-bones and nose with the back of his mittened hand. He did this automatically, now and again changing hands. But rub as he would, the instant he stopped his cheek-bones went numb, and the following instant the end of his nose went numb. He was sure to frost his cheeks; he knew that, and experienced a pang of regret that he had not devised a nose-strap of the sort Bud wore in cold snaps. Such a strap passed across the cheeks, as well, and saved them. But it didn’t matter much, after all. What were frosted cheeks? A bit painful, that was all; they were never serious.

Empty as the man’s mind was of thoughts, he was keenly observant, and he noticed the changes in the creek, the curves and bends and timber jams, and always he sharply noted where he placed his feet. Once coming around a bend, he shied abruptly, like a startled horse, curved away from the place where he had been walking, and retreated several paces back along the trail. The creek he knew was frozen clear to the bottom, – no creek could contain water in that arctic winter, – but he knew also that there were springs that bubbled out from the hillsides and ran along under the snow and on top the ice of the creek. He knew that the coldest snaps never froze these springs, and he knew likewise their danger. They were traps. They hid pools of water under the snow that might be three inches deep, or three feet. Sometimes a skin of ice half an inch thick covered them, and in turn was covered by the snow. Sometimes there were alternate layers of water and ice-skin, so that when one broke through he kept on breaking through for a while, sometimes wetting himself to the waist.

That was why he had shied in such panic. He had felt the give under his feet and heard the crackle of a snow-hidden ice-skin. And to get his feet wet in such a temperature meant trouble and danger. At the very least it meant delay, for he would be forced to stop and build a fire, and under its protection to bare his feet while he dried his socks and moccasins. He stood and studied the creek-bed and its banks, and decided that the flow of water came from the right. He reflected a while, rubbing his nose and cheeks, then skirted to the left, stepping gingerly and testing the footing for each step. Once clear of the danger, he took a fresh chew of tobacco and swung along at his four-mile gait.

In the course of the next two hours he came upon several similar traps. Usually the snow above the hidden pools had a sunken, candied appearance that advertised the danger. Once again, however, he had a close call; and once, suspecting danger, he compelled the dog to go on in front. The dog did not want to go. It hung back until the man shoved it forward, and then it went quickly across the white, unbroken surface. Suddenly it broke through, floundered to one side, and got away to firmer footing. It had wet its forefeet and legs, and almost immediately the water that clung to it turned to ice. It made quick efforts to lick the ice off its legs, then dropped down in the snow and began to bite out the ice that had formed between the toes. This was a matter of instinct. To permit the ice to remain would mean sore feet. It did not know this. It merely obeyed the mysterious prompting that arose from the deep crypts of its being. But the man knew, having achieved a judgment on the subject, and he removed the mitten from his right hand and helped tear out the ice-particles. He did not expose his fingers more than a minute, and was astonished at the swift numbness that smote them. It certainly was cold. He pulled on the mitten hastily, and beat the hand savagely across his chest.

At twelve o’clock the day was at its brightest. Yet the sun was too far south in its winter journey to clear the horizon. The bulge of the earth intervened between it and Henderson Creek, where the man walked under a clear sky at noon and cast no shadow. At half-past twelve, to the minute, he arrived at the forks of the creek. He was pleased at the speed he had made. If he kept it up, he would certainly be with the boys by six. He unbuttoned his jacket and shirt and drew forth his lunch. The action consumed no more than a quarter of a minute, yet in that brief moment the numbness laid hold of the exposed fingers. He did not put the mitten on, but instead struck the fingers a dozen sharp smashes against his leg. Then he sat down on a snow-covered log to eat. The sting that followed upon the striking of his fingers against his leg ceased so quickly that he was startled. He had had no chance to take a bite of biscuit. He struck the fingers repeatedly and returned them to the mitten, baring the other hand for the purpose of eating, He tried to take a mouthful, but the ice-muzzle prevented. He had forgotten to build a fire and thaw out. He chuckled at his foolishness, and as he chuckled he noted the numbness creeping into the exposed fingers. Also, he noted that the stinging which had first come to his toes when he sat down was already passing away. He wandered whether the toes were warm or numb. He moved them inside the moccasins and decided that they were numb.

He pulled the mitten on hurriedly and stood up. He was a bit frightened. He stamped up and down until the stinging returned into the feet. It certainly was cold, was his thought. That man from Sulphur Creek had spoken the truth when telling how cold it sometimes got in the country. And he had laughed at him at the time! That showed one must not be too sure of things. There was no mistake about it, it was cold. He strode up and down, stamping his feet and threshing his arms, until reassured by the returning warmth. Then he got out matches and proceeded to make a fire. From the undergrowth, where high water of the previous spring had lodged a supply of seasoned twigs, he got his firewood. Working carefully from a small beginning, he soon had a roaring fire, over which he thawed the ice from his face and in the protection of which he ate his biscuits. For the moment the cold of space was outwitted. The dog took satisfaction in the fire, stretching out close enough for warmth and far enough away to escape being singed.

When the man had finished, he filled his pipe and took his comfortable time over a smoke. Then he pulled on his mittens, settled the ear-flaps of his cap firmly about his ears, and took the creek trail up the left fork. The dog was disappointed and yearned back toward the fire. This man did not know cold. Possibly all the generations of his ancestry had been ignorant of cold, of real cold, of cold one hundred and seven degrees below freezing point. But the dog knew; all its ancestry knew, and it had inherited the knowledge. And it knew that it was not good to walk abroad in such fearful cold. It was the time to lie snug in a hole in the snow and wait for a curtain of cloud to be drawn across the face of outer space whence this cold came. On the other hand, there was no keen intimacy between the dog and the man. The one was the toil-slave of the other, and the only caresses it had ever received were the caresses of the whiplash and of harsh and menacing throat-sounds that threatened the whiplash. So, the dog made no effort to communicate its apprehension to the man. It was not concerned in the welfare of the man, it was for its own sake that it yearned back toward the fire. But the man whistled, and spoke to it with the sound of whiplashes and the dog swung in at the man’s heel and followed after.

The man took a chew of tobacco and proceeded to start a new amber beard. Also, his moist breath quickly powdered with white his mustache, eyebrows, and lashes. There did not seem to be so many springs on the left fork of the Henderson, and for half an hour the man saw no signs of any. And then it happened. At a place where there were no signs, where the soft, unbroken snow seemed to advertise solidity beneath, the man broke through. It was not deep. He wet himself halfway to the knees before he floundered out to the firm crust.

He was angry, and cursed his luck aloud. He had hoped to get into camp with the boys at six o’clock, and this would delay him an hour, for he would have to build a fire and dry out his foot-gear. This was imperative at that low temperature – he knew that much; and he turned aside to the bank, which he climbed. On top, tangled in the underbrush about the trunks of several small spruce trees, was a high-water deposit of dry firewood – sticks and twigs, principally, but also larger portions of seasoned branches and fine, dry, last-year’s grasses. He threw down several large pieces on top of the snow. This served for a foundation and prevented the young flame from drowning itself in the snow it otherwise would melt. The flame he got by touching a match to a small shred of birch bark that he took from his pocket. This burned even more readily than paper. Placing it on the foundation, he fed the young flame with wisps of dry grass and with the tiniest dry twigs.

He worked slowly and carefully, keenly aware of his danger. Gradually, as the flame grew stronger, he increased the size of the twigs with which he fed it. He squatted in the snow, pulling the twigs out from their entanglement in the brush and feeding directly to the flame. He knew there must be no failure. When it is seventy-five below zero, a man must not fail in his first attempt to build a fire – that is, if his feet are wet. If his feet are dry, and he fails, he can run along the trail for half a mile and restore his circulation. But the circulation of wet and freezing feet cannot be restored by running when it is seventy-five below. No matter how fast he runs, the wet feet will freeze the harder.

All this the man knew. The old-timer on Sulphur Creek had told him about it the previous fall, and now he was appreciating the advice. Already all sensation had gone out of his feet. To build the fire he had been forced to remove his mittens, and the fingers had quickly gone numb. His pace of four miles an hour had kept his heart pumping blood to the surface of his body and to all the extremities. But the instant he stopped, the action of the pump eased down. The cold of space smote the unprotected tip of the planet, and he, being on that unprotected tip, received the full force of the blow. The blood of his body recoiled before it. The blood was alive, like the dog, and like the dog it wanted to hide away and cover itself up from the fearful cold. So long as he walked four miles an hour, he pumped that blood, willy-nilly, to the surface; but now it ebbed away and sank down into the recesses of his body. The extremities were the first to feel its absence. His wet feet froze the faster, and his exposed fingers numbed the faster, though they had not yet begun to freeze. Nose and cheeks were already freezing, while the skin of all his body chilled as it lost its blood.

But he was safe. Toes and nose and cheeks would be only touched by the frost, for the fire was beginning to burn with strength. He was feeding it with twigs the size of his finger. In another minute he would be able to feed it with branches the size of his wrist, and then he could remove his wet foot-gear, and, while it dried, he could keep his naked feet warm by the fire, rubbing them at first, of course, with snow. The fire was a success. He was safe. He remembered the advice of the old timer on Sulphur Creek, and smiled. The old-timer had been very serious in laying down the law that no man must travel alone in the Klondike after fifty below. Well, here he was; he had had the accident; he was alone; and he had saved himself. Those old-timers were rather womanish, some of them, he thought. All a man had to do was to keep his head, and he was all right. Any man who was a man could travel alone. But it was surprising, the rapidity with which his cheeks and nose were freezing. And he had not thought his fingers could go lifeless in so short a time. Lifeless they were, for he could scarcely make them move together to grip a twig, and they seemed remote from his body and from him. When he touched a twig, he had to look and see whether or not he had hold of it. The wires were pretty well down between him and his finger-ends.

All of which counted for little. There was the fire, snapping and crackling and promising life with every dancing flame. He started to untie his moccasins. They were coated with ice; the thick German socks were like sheaths of iron halfway to the knees; and the moccasin strings were like rods of steel all twisted and knotted as by some conflagration. For a moment he tugged with his numb fingers, then, realizing the folly of it, he drew his sheath-knife.

But before he could cut the strings, it happened. It was his own fault or, rather, his mistake. He should not have built the fire under the spruce tree. He should have built it in the open. But it had been easier to pull the twigs from the brush and drop them directly on the fire. Now the tree under which he had done this carried a weight of snow on its boughs. No wind had blown for weeks, and each bough was fully freighted. Each time he had pulled a twig he had communicated a slight agitation to the tree – an imperceptible agitation, so far as he was concerned, but an agitation sufficient to bring about the disaster. High up in the tree one bough capsized its load of snow. This fell on the boughs beneath, capsizing them. This process continued, spreading out and involving the whole tree. It grew like an avalanche, and it descended without warning upon the man and the fire, and the fire was blotted out! Where it had burned was a mantle of fresh and disordered snow.

The man was shocked. It was as though he had just heard his own sentence of death. For a moment he sat and stared at the spot where the fire had been. Then he grew very calm. Perhaps the old-timer on Sulphur Creek was right. If he had only had a trail-mate he would have been in no danger now. The trail-mate could have built the fire. Well, it was up to him to build the fire over again, and this second time there must be no failure. Even if he succeeded, he would most likely lose some toes. His feet must be badly frozen by now, and there would be some time before the second fire was ready.

Such were his thoughts, but he did not sit and think them. He was busy all the time they were passing through his mind. He made a new foundation for a fire, this time in the open, where no treacherous tree could blot it out. Next, he gathered dry grasses and tiny twigs from the high-water flotsam. He could not bring his fingers together to pull them out, but he was able to gather them by the handful. In this way he got many rotten twigs and bits of green moss that were undesirable, but it was the best he could do. He worked methodically, even collecting an armful of the larger branches to be used later when the fire gathered strength. And all the while the dog sat and watched him, a certain yearning wistfulness in its eyes, for it looked upon him as the fire-provider, and the fire was slow in coming.

When all was ready, the man reached in his pocket for a second piece of birch bark. He knew the bark was there, and, though he could not feel it with his fingers, he could hear its crisp rustling as he fumbled for it. Try as he would, he could not clutch hold of it. And all the time in his consciousness, was the knowledge that each instant his feet were freezing. This thought tended to put him in a panic, but he fought against it and kept calm. He pulled on his mittens with his teeth, and threshed his arms back and forth, beating his hands with all his might against his sides. He did this sitting down, and he stood up to do it; and all the while the dog sat in the snow, its wolf-brush of a tail curled around warmly over its forefeet, its sharp wolf-ears pricked forward intently as it watched the man. And the man, as he beat and threshed with his arms and hands, felt a great surge of envy as he regarded the creature that was warm and secure in its natural covering.

After a time he was aware of the first far-away signals of sensation in his beaten fingers. The faint tingling grew stronger till it evolved into a stinging ache that was excruciating, but which the man hailed with satisfaction. He stripped the mitten from his right hand and fetched forth the birch bark. The exposed fingers were quickly going numb again. Next he brought out his bunch of sulphur matches. But the tremendous cold had already driven the life out of his fingers. In his effort to separate one match from the others, the whole bunch fell in the snow. He tried to pick it out of the snow, but failed. The dead fingers could neither touch nor clutch. He was very careful. He drove the thought of his freezing feet, and nose, and cheeks, out of his mind, devoting his whole soul to the matches. He watched, using the sense of vision in place of that of touch, and when he saw his fingers on each side the bunch, he closed them – that is, he willed to close them, for the wires were down, and the fingers did not obey. He pulled the mitten on the right hand and beat it fiercely against his knee. Then, with both mittened hands, he scooped the bunch of matches, along with much snow, into his lap. Yet he was no better off.

After some manipulation he managed to get the bunch between the heels of his mittened hands. In this fashion he carried it to his mouth. The ice crackled and snapped when by a violent effort he opened his mouth. He drew the lower jaw in, curled the upper lip out of the way, and scraped the bunch with his upper teeth in order to separate a match. He succeeded in getting one, which he dropped on his lap. He was no better off. He could not pick it up. Then he devised a way. He picked it up in his teeth and scratched it on his leg. Twenty times he scratched before he succeeded in lighting it. As it flamed he held it with his teeth to the birch bark. But the burning brimstone went up his nostrils and into his lungs, causing him to cough spasmodically. The match fell into the snow and went out.

The old-timer on Sulphur Creek was right, he thought in the moment of controlled despair that ensued after fifty below, a man should travel with a partner. He beat his hands, but failed in exciting any sensation. Suddenly he bared both hands, removing the mittens with his teeth. He caught the whole bunch between the heels of his hands. His arm muscles not being frozen enabled him to press the hand-heels tightly against the matches. Then he scratched the bunch along his leg. It flared into flame, seventy sulphur matches at once! There was no wind to blow them out. He kept his head to one side to escape the strangling fumes, and held the blazing bunch to the birth bark. As he so held it, he became aware of sensation in his hand. His flesh was burning. He could smell it. Deep down below the surface he could feel it. The sensation developed into pain that grew acute. And still he endured it, holding the flame of the matches clumsily to the bark that would not light readily because his own burning hands were in the way, absorbing most of the flame.

At last, when he could endure no more, he jerked his hands apart. The blazing matches fell sizzling into the snow, but the birch bark was alight. He began laying dry grasses and the tiniest twigs on the flame. He could not pick and choose, for he had to lift the fuel between the heels of his hands. Small pieces of rotten wood and green moss clung to the twigs, and he bit them off as well as he could with his teeth. He cherished the flame carefully and awkwardly. It meant life, and it must not perish. The withdrawal of blood from the surface of his body now made him begin to shiver, and he grew more awkward. A large piece of green moss fell squarely on the little fire. He tried to poke it out with his fingers, but his shivering frame made him poke too far and he disrupted the nucleus of the little fire, the burning grasses and tiny twigs separating and scattering. He tried to poke them together again, but in spite of the tenseness of the effort, his shivering got away with him, and the twigs were hopelessly scattered. Each twig gushed a puff of smoke and went out. The fire-provider had failed. As he looked apathetically about him, his eyes chanced on the dog, sitting across the ruins of the fire from him, in the snow, making restless, hunching movements, slightly lifting one forefoot and then the other, shifting its weight back and forth on them with wistful eagerness.

The sight of the dog put a wild idea into his head. He remembered the tale of the man, caught in a blizzard, who killed a steer and crawled inside the carcass, and so was saved. He would kill the dog and bury his hands in the warm body until the numbness went out of them. Then he could build another fire. He spoke to the dog, calling it to him; but in his voice was a strange note of fear that frightened the animal, who had never known the man to speak in such way before. Something was the matter, and its suspicious nature sensed danger – it knew not what danger, but somewhere, somehow, in its brain arose an apprehension of the man. It flattened its ears down at the sound of the man’s voice, and its restless, hunching movements and the liftings and shiftings of its forefeet became more pronounced; but it would not come to the man. He got on his hands and knees and crawled toward the dog. This unusual posture again excited suspicion, and the animal sidled mincingly away.

The man sat up in the snow for a moment and struggled for calmness. Then he pulled on his mittens, by means of his teeth, and got upon his feet. He glanced down at first in order to assure himself that he was really standing up, for the absence of sensation in his feet left him unrelated to the earth. His erect position in itself started to drive the webs of suspicion from the dog’s mind; and when he spoke peremptorily, with the sound of whiplashes in his voice, the dog rendered its customary allegiance and came to him. As it came within reaching distance, the man lost his control. His arms flashed out to the dog, and he experienced genuine surprise when he discovered that his hands could not clutch, that there was neither bend nor feeling in the fingers. He had forgotten for the moment that they were frozen and that they were freezing more and more. All this happened quickly, and before the animal could get away, he encircled its body with his arms. He sat down in the snow, and in this fashion held the dog, while it snarled and whined and struggled.

But it was all he could do, hold its body encircled in his arms and sit there. He realized that he could not kill the dog. There was no way to do it. With his helpless hands he could neither draw nor hold his sheath knife nor throttle the animal. He released it, and it plunged wildly away, with tail between its legs, and still snarling. It halted forty feet away and surveyed him curiously, with ears sharply pricked forward. The man looked down at his hands in order to locate them, and found them hanging on the ends of his arms. It struck him as curious that one should have to use his eyes in order to find out where his hands were. He began threshing his arms back and forth, beating the mittened hands against his sides. He did this for five minutes, violently, and his heart pumped enough blood up to the surface to put a stop to his shivering. But no sensation was aroused in the hands. He had an impression that they hung like weights on the ends of his arms, but when he tried to run the impression down, he could not find it.

A certain fear of death, dull and oppressive, came to him. This fear quickly became poignant as he realized that it was no longer a mere matter of freezing his fingers and toes, or of losing his hands and feet, but that it was a matter of life and death with the chances against him. This threw him into a panic, and he turned and ran up the creek-bed along the old, dim trail. The dog joined in behind and kept up with him. He ran blindly, without intention, in fear such as he had never known in his life. Slowly, as he plowed and floundered through the snow, he began to see things again, the banks of the creek, the old timber-jams, the leafless aspens, and the sky. The running made him feel better. He did not shiver. Maybe, if he ran on, his feet would thaw out; and, anyway, if he ran far enough, he would reach camp and the boys. Without doubt he would lose some fingers and toes and some of his face; but the boys would take care of him, and save the rest of him when he got there. And at the same time there was another thought in his mind that said he would never get to the camp and the boys; that it was too many miles away, that the freezing had too great a start on him, and that he would soon be stiff and dead. This thought he kept in the background and refused to consider. Sometimes it pushed itself forward and demanded to be heard, but he thrust it back and strove to think of other things.

It struck him as curious that he could run at all on feet so frozen that he could not feel them when they struck the earth and took the weight of his body. He seemed to himself to skim along above the surface, and to have no connection with the earth. Somewhere he had once seen a winged Mercury[127], and he wondered if Mercury felt as he felt when skimming over the earth.

His theory of running until he reached camp and the boys had one flaw in it: he lacked the endurance. Several times he stumbled, and finally he tottered, crumpled up, and fell. When he tried to rise, he failed. He must sit and rest, he decided, and next time he would merely walk and keep on going. As he sat and regained his breath, he noted that he was feeling quite warm and comfortable. He was not shivering, and it even seemed that a warm glow had come to his chest and trunk. And yet, when he touched his nose or cheeks, there was no sensation. Running would not thaw them out. Nor would it thaw out his hands and feet. Then the thought came to him that the frozen portions of his body must be extending. He tried to keep this thought down, to forget it, to think of something else; he was aware of the panicky feeling that it caused, and he was afraid of the panic. But the thought asserted itself, and persisted, until it produced a vision of his body totally frozen. This was too much, and he made another wild run along the trail. Once he slowed down to a walk, but the thought of the freezing extending itself made him run again.

And all the time the dog ran with him, at his heels. When he fell down a second time, it curled its tail over its forefeet and sat in front of him, facing him, curiously eager and intent. The warmth and security of the animal angered him, and he cursed it till it flattened down its ears appealingly. This time the shivering came more quickly upon the man. He was losing in his battle with the frost. It was creeping into his body from all sides. The thought of it drove him on, but he ran no more than a hundred feet, when he staggered and pitched headlong. It was his last panic. When he had recovered his breath and control, he sat up and entertained in his mind the conception of meeting death with dignity. However, the conception did not come to him in such terms. His idea of it was that he had been making a fool of himself, running around like a chicken with its head cut off – such was the simile that occurred to him. Well, he was bound to freeze anyway, and he might as well take it decently. With this new-found peace of mind came the first glimmerings of drowsiness. A good idea, he thought, to sleep off to death. It was like taking an anaesthetic[128]. Freezing was not so bad as people thought. There were lots worse ways to die.

He pictured the boys finding his body next day. Suddenly he found himself with them, coming along the trail and looking for himself. And, still with them, he came around a turn in the trail and found himself lying in the snow. He did not belong with himself any more, for even then he was out of himself, standing with the boys and looking at himself in the snow. It certainly was cold, was his thought. When he got back to the States he could tell the folks what real cold was. He drifted on from this to a vision of the old-timer on Sulphur Creek. He could see him quite clearly, warm and comfortable, and smoking a pipe.

‘You were right, old hoss; you were right,’ the man mumbled to the old-timer of Sulphur Creek.

Then the man drowsed off into what seemed to him the most comfortable and satisfying sleep he had ever known. The dog sat facing him and waiting. The brief day drew to a close in a long, slow twilight. There were no signs of a fire to be made, and, besides, never in the dog’s experience had it known a man to sit like that in the snow and make no fire. As the twilight drew on, its eager yearning for the fire mastered it, and with a great lifting and shifting of forefeet, it whined softly, then flattened its ears down in anticipation of being chidden by the man. But the man remained silent. Later, the dog whined loudly. And still later it crept close to the man and caught the scent of death. This made the animal bristle and back away. A little longer it delayed, howling under the stars that leaped and danced and shone brightly in the cold sky. Then it turned and trotted up the trail in the direction of the camp it knew, where were the other food-providers and fire-providers.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft

Dagon[129]

I am writing this under an appreciable mental strain, since by tonight I shall be no more. Penniless, and at the end of my supply of the drug which alone makes life endurable, I can bear the torture no longer; and shall cast myself from this garret window into the squalid street below. Do not think from my slavery to morphine that I am a weakling or a degenerate. When you have read these hastily scrawled pages you may guess, though never fully realise, why it is that I must have forgetfulness or death.

It was in one of the most open and least frequented parts of the broad Pacific that the packet of which I was supercargo fell a victim to the German sea-raider. The Great War[130] was then at its very beginning, and the ocean forces of the Hun[131] had not completely sunk to their later degradation; so that our vessel was made legitimate prize, whilst we of her crew were treated with all the fairness and consideration due us as naval prisoners. So liberal, indeed, was the discipline of our captors that five days after we were taken I managed to escape alone in a small boat with water and provisions for a good length of time.

When I finally found myself adrift and free, I had but little idea of my surroundings. Never a competent navigator, I could only guess vaguely by the sun and stars that I was somewhat south of the equator. Of the longitude I knew nothing, and no island or coast-line was in sight. The weather kept fair, and for uncounted days I drifted aimlessly beneath the scorching sun; waiting either for some passing ship, or to be cast on the shores of some habitable land. But neither ship nor land appeared, and I began to despair in my solitude upon the heaving vastnesses of unbroken blue.

The change happened whilst I slept. Its details I shall never know; for my slumber, though troubled and dream-infested, was continuous. When at last I awaked, it was to discover myself half sucked into a slimy expanse of hellish black mire which extended about me in monotonous undulations as far as I could see, and in which my boat lay grounded some distance away.

Though one might well imagine that my first sensation would be of wonder at so prodigious and unexpected a transformation of scenery, I was in reality more horrified than astonished; for there was in the air and in the rotting soil a sinister quality which chilled me to the very core. The region was putrid with the carcasses of decaying fish, and of other less describable things which I saw protruding from the nasty mud of the unending plain. Perhaps I should not hope to convey in mere words the unutterable hideousness that can dwell in absolute silence and barren immensity. There was nothing within hearing, and nothing in sight save a vast reach of black slime; yet the very completeness of the stillness and homogeneity of the landscape oppressed me with a nauseating fear.

The sun was blazing down from a sky which seemed to me almost black in its cloudless cruelty; as though reflecting the inky marsh beneath my feet. As I crawled into the stranded boat I realised that only one theory could explain my position. Through some unprecedented volcanic upheaval, a portion of the ocean floor must have been thrown to the surface, exposing regions which for innumerable millions of years had lain hidden under unfathomable watery depths. So great was the extent of the new land which had risen beneath me, that I could not detect the faintest noise of the surging ocean, strain my ears as I might. Nor were there any sea-fowl to prey upon the dead things.

For several hours I sat thinking or brooding in the boat, which lay upon its side and afforded a slight shade as the sun moved across the heavens. As the day progressed, the ground lost some of its stickiness, and seemed likely to dry sufficiently for travelling purposes in a short time. That night I slept but little, and the next day I made for myself a pack containing food and water, preparatory to an overland journey in search of the vanished sea and possible rescue.

On the third morning I found the soil dry enough to walk upon with ease. The odour of the fish was maddening; but I was too much concerned with graver things to mind so slight an evil, and set out boldly for an unknown goal. All day I forged steadily westward, guided by a far-away hummock which rose higher than any other elevation on the rolling desert. That night I encamped, and on the following day still travelled toward the hummock, though that object seemed scarcely nearer than when I had first espied it. By the fourth evening I attained the base of the mound which turned out to be much higher than it had appeared from a distance, an intervening valley setting it out in sharper relief from the general surface. Too weary to ascend, I slept in the shadow of the hill.

I know not why my dreams were so wild that night; but ere the waning and fantastically gibbous moon had risen far above the eastern plain, I was awake in a cold perspiration, determined to sleep no more. Such visions as I had experienced were too much for me to endure again. And in the glow of the moon I saw how unwise I had been to travel by day. Without the glare of the parching sun, my journey would have cost me less energy; indeed, I now felt quite able to perform the ascent which had deterred me at sunset. Picking up my pack, I started for the crest of the eminence.

I have said that the unbroken monotony of the rolling plain was a source of vague horror to me; but I think my horror was greater when I gained the summit of the mound and looked down the other side into an immeasurable pit or canyon, whose black recesses the moon had not yet soard high enough to illuminate. I felt myself on the edge of the world; peering over the rim into a fathomless chaos of eternal night. Through my terror ran curious reminiscences of Paradise Lost[132], and of Satan’s hideous climb through the unfashioned realms of darkness.

As the moon climbed higher in the sky, I began to see that the slopes of the valley were not quite so perpendicular as I had imagined. Ledges and outcroppings of rock afforded fairly easy foot-holds for a descent, whilst after a drop of a few hundred feet, the declivity became very gradual. Urged on by an impulse which I cannot definitely analyse, I scrambled with difficulty down the rocks and stood on the gentler slope beneath, gazing into the Stygian[133] deeps where no light had yet penetrated.

All at once my attention was captured by a vast and singular object on the opposite slope, which rose steeply about an hundred yards ahead of me; an object that gleamed whitely in the newly bestowed rays of the ascending moon. That it was merely a gigantic piece of stone, I soon assured myself; but I was conscious of a distinct impression that its contour and position were not altogether the work of Nature. A closer scrutiny filled me with sensations I cannot express; for despite its enormous magnitude, and its position in an abyss which had yawned at the bottom of the sea since the world was young, I perceived beyond a doubt that the strange object was a well-shaped monolith whose massive bulk had known the workmanship and perhaps the worship of living and thinking creatures.

Dazed and frightened, yet not without a certain thrill of the scientist’s or archaeologist’s delight, I examined my surroundings more closely. The moon, now near the zenith, shone weirdly and vividly above the towering steeps that hemmed in the chasm, and revealed the fact that a far-flung body of water flowed at the bottom, winding out of sight in both directions, and almost lapping my feet as I stood on the slope. Across the chasm, the wavelets washed the base of the Cyclopean[134] monolith; on whose surface I could now trace both inscriptions and crude sculptures. The writing was in a system of hieroglyphics[135] unknown to me, and unlike anything I had ever seen in books; consisting for the most part of conventionalised aquatic symbols such as fishes, eels, octopi, crustaceans, molluscs, whales, and the like. Several characters obviously represented marine things which are unknown to the modern world, but whose decomposing forms I had observed on the ocean-risen plain.

It was the pictorial carving, however, that did most to hold me spellbound. Plainly visible across the intervening water on account of their enormous size, were an array of bas-reliefs whose subjects would have excited the envy of Doré[136]. I think that these things were supposed to depict men – at least, a certain sort of men; though the creatures were shewn disporting like fishes in waters of some marine grotto, or paying homage at some monolithic shrine which appeared to be under the waves as well. Of their faces and forms I dare not speak in detail; for the mere remembrance makes me grow faint. Grotesque beyond the imagination of a Poe or a Bulwer, they were damnably human in general outline despite webbed hands and feet, shockingly wide and flabby lips, glassy, bulging eyes, and other features less pleasant to recall. Curiously enough, they seemed to have been chiselled badly out of proportion with their scenic background; for one of the creatures was shewn in the act of killing a whale represented as but little larger than himself. I remarked, as I say, their grotesqueness and strange size, but in a moment decided that they were merely the imaginary gods of some primitive fishing or seafaring tribe; some tribe whose last descendant had perished eras before the first ancestor of the Piltdown[137] or Neanderthal Man [138]was born. Awestruck at this unexpected glimpse into a past beyond the conception of the most daring anthropologist, I stood musing whilst the moon cast queer reflections on the silent channel before me.

Then suddenly I saw it. With only a slight churning to mark its rise to the surface, the thing slid into view above the dark waters. Vast, Polyphemus[139]-like, and loathsome, it darted like a stupendous monster of nightmares to the monolith, about which it flung its gigantic scaly arms, the while it bowed its hideous head and gave vent to certain measured sounds. I think I went mad then.

Of my frantic ascent of the slope and cliff, and of my delirious journey back to the stranded boat, I remember little. I believe I sang a great deal, and laughed oddly when I was unable to sing. I have indistinct recollections of a great storm some time after I reached the boat; at any rate, I know that I heard peals of thunder and other tones which Nature utters only in her wildest moods.

When I came out of the shadows I was in a San Francisco hospital; brought thither by the captain of the American ship which had picked up my boat in mid-ocean. In my delirium I had said much, but found that my words had been given scant attention. Of any land upheaval in the Pacific, my rescuers knew nothing; nor did I deem it necessary to insist upon a thing which I knew they could not believe. Once I sought out a celebrated ethnologist[140], and amused him with peculiar questions regarding the ancient Philistine[141] legend of Dagon, the Fish-God; but soon perceiving that he was hopelessly conventional, I did not press my inquiries.

It is at night, especially when the moon is gibbous and waning, that I see the thing. I tried morphine; but the drug has given only transient surcease, and has drawn me into its clutches as a hopeless slave. So now I am to end it all, having written a full account for the information or the contemptuous amusement of my fellow-men. Often I ask myself if it could not all have been a pure phantasm – a mere freak of fever as I lay sun-stricken and raving in the open boat after my escape from the German man-of-war. This I ask myself, but ever does there come before me a hideously vivid vision in reply. I cannot think of the deep sea without shuddering at the nameless things that may at this very moment be crawling and floundering on its slimy bed, worshipping their ancient stone idols and carving their own detestable likenesses on submarine obelisks of water-soaked granite. I dream of a day when they may rise above the billows to drag down in their reeking talons the remnants of puny, war-exhausted mankind – of a day when the land shall sink, and the dark ocean floor shall ascend amidst universal pandemonium.

The end is near. I hear a noise at the door, as of some immense slippery body lumbering against it. It shall not find me. God, that hand! The window! The window!

Herman Melville

The Fiddler

So my poem is damned, and immortal fame is not for me! I am nobody forever and ever. Intolerable fate!

Snatching my hat, I dashed down the criticism and rushed out into Broadway, where enthusiastic throngs were crowding to a circus in a side-street nearby, very recently started, and famous for a capital clown.

Presently my old friend Standard rather boisterously accosted me.

‘Well met, Helmstone, my boy! Ah! what’s the matter? Haven’t been committing murder? Ain’t flyingg justice? You look wild!’

‘You have seen it, then!’ said I, of course referring to the criti-cism.

‘Oh, yes; I was there at the morning performance. Great clown, I assure you. But here comes Hautboy. Hautboy – Helmstone.’

Without having time or inclination to resent so mortifying a mistake, I was instantly soothed as I gazed on the face of the new acquaintance so unceremoniously introduced. His person was short and full, with a juvenile, animated cast to it. His complexion rurally ruddy; his eye sincere, cheery, and gray. His hair alone betrayed that he was not an overgrown boy. From his hair I set him down as forty or more.

‘Come, Standard,’ he gleefully cried to my friend, ‘are you not going to the circus? The clown is inimitable, they say. Come, Mr. Helmstone, too – come both ; and circus over, we’ll take a nice stew and punch at Taylor’s.’

The sterling content, good-humor, and extraordinary ruddy, sincere expression of this most singular new acquaintance acted upon me like magic. It seemed mere loyalty to human nature to accept an invitation from so unmistakably kind and honest a heart.

During the circus performance I kept my eye more on Hautboy than on the celebrated clown. Hautboy was the sight for me. Such genuine enjoyment as his struck me to the soul with a sense of the reality of the thing called happiness. The jokes of the clown he seemed to roll under his tongue as ripe magnum-bonums. Now the foot, now the hand, was employed to attest his grateful applause. At any hit more than ordinary, he turned upon Standard and me to see if his rare pleasure was shared. In a man of forty I saw a boy of twelve; and this too without the slightest abatement of my respect. Because all was so honest and natural, every expression and attitude so graceful with genuine good-nature, that the marvelous juvenility of Hautboy assumed a sort of divine and immortal air, like that of some forever youthful god of Greece.

But much as I gazed upon Hautboy, and much as I admired his air, yet that desperate mood in which I had first rushed from the house had not so entirely departed as not to molest me with momentary returns. But from these relapses I would rouse myself, and swiftly glance round the broad amphitheatre of eagerly interested and all-applauding human faces. Hark! claps, thumps, deafening huzzas ; the vast assembly seemed frantic with acclamation; and what, mused I, has caused all this? Why, the clown only comically grinned with one of his extra grins.

Then I repeated in my mind that sublime passage in my poem, in which Cleothemes the Argive vindicates the justice of the war. Ay, ay, thought I to myself, did I now leap into the ring there, and repeat that identical passage, nay, enact the whole tragic poem before them, would they applaud the poet as they applaud the clown? No! They would hoot me, and call me doting or mad. Then what does this prove? Your infatuation or their insensibility? Perhaps both; but indubitably the first. But why wail? Do you seek admiration from the admirers of a buffoon? Call to mind the saying of the Athenian, who, when the people vociferously applauded in the forum, asked his friend in a whisper, what foolish thing had he said?

Again my eye swept the circus, and fell on the ruddy radiance of the countenance of Hautboy. But its clear honest cheeriness disdained my disdain. My intolerant pride was rebuked. And yet Hautboy dreamed not what magic reproof to a soul like mine sat on his laughing brow. At the very instant I felt the dart of the censure, his eye twinkled, his hand waved, his voice was lifted in jubilant delight at another joke of the inexhaustible clown.

Circus over, we went to Taylor’s. Among crowds of others, we sat down to our stews and punches at one of the small marble tables. Hautboy sat opposite to me. Though greatly subdued from its former hilarity, his face still shone with gladness. But added to this was a quality not so prominent before; a certain serene expression of leisurely, deep good sense. Good sense and good humor in him joined hands. As the conversation proceeded between the brisk Standard and him – for I said little or nothing – I was more and more struck with the excellent judgment he evinced. In most of his remarks upon a variety of topics Hautboy seemed intuitively to hit the exact line between enthusiasm and apathy. It was plain that while Hautboy saw the world pretty much as it was, yet he did not theoretically espouse its bright side nor its dark side. Rejecting all solutions, he but acknowledged facts. What was sad in the world he did not superficially gainsay; what was glad in it he did not cynically slur; and all which was to him personally enjoyable, he gratefully took to his heart. It was plain, then – so it seemed at that moment, at least – that his extraordinary cheerfulness did not arise either from deficiency of feeling or thought.

Suddenly remembering an engagement, he took up his hat, bowed pleasantly, and left us.

‘Well, Helmstone,’ said Standard, inaudibly drumming on the slab, ‘what do you think of your new acquaintance?’

The last two words tingled with a peculiar and novel significance.

‘New acquaintance indeed,’ echoed I.

‘Standard, I owe you a thousand thanks for introducing me to one of the most singular men I have ever seen. It needed the optical sight of such a man to believe in the possibility of his existence.’

‘You rather like him, then,’ said Standard, with ironical dryness.

‘I hugely love and admire him, Standard. I wish I were Hautboy.’

‘Ah? That’s a pity now. There’s only one Hautboy in the world.’

This last remark set me to pondering again, and somehow it revived my dark mood.

‘His wonderful cheerfulness, I suppose,’ said I, sneering with spleen, ‘originates not less in a felicitous fortune than in a felicitous temper. His great good sense is apparent; but great good sense may exist without sublime endowments. Nay, I take it, in certain cases, that good sense is simply owing to the absence of those. Much more, cheerfulness. Unpossessed of genius, Hautboy is eternally blessed.’

‘Ah? You would not think him an extraordinary genius then?’

‘Genius? What! Such a short, fat fellow a genius! Genius, like Cassius[142], is lank.’

‘Ah? But could you not fancy that Hautboy might formerly have had genius, but luckily getting rid of it, at last fatted up?’

‘For a genius to get rid of his genius is as impossible as for a man in the galloping consumption to get rid of that.’

‘Ah? You speak very decidedly.’

‘Yes, Standard,’ cried I, increasing in spleen, ‘your cheery Hautboy, after all, is no pattern, no lesson for you and me. With average abilities; opinions clear, because circumscribed; passions docile, because they are feeble ; a temper hilarious, because he was born to it – how can your Hautboy be made a reasonable example to a heady fellow like you, or an ambitious dreamer like me? Nothing tempts him beyond common limit; in himself he has nothing to restrain. By constitution he is exempted from all moral harm. Could ambition but prick him; had he but once heard applause, or endured contempt, a very different man would your Hautboy be. Acquiescent and calm from the cradle to the grave, he obviously slides through the crowd.’

‘Ah?’

‘Why do you say ah to me so strangely whenever I speak?’

‘Did you ever hear of Master Betty?’

‘The great English prodigy, who long ago ousted the Siddons and the Kembles from Drury Lane[143], and made the whole town run mad with acclamation?’

‘The same,’ said Standard, once more inaudibly drumming on the slab.

I looked at him perplexed. He seemed to be holding the master-key of our theme in mysterious reserve; seemed to be throwing out his Master Betty too, to puzzle me only the more.

‘What under heaven can Master Betty, the great genius and prodigy, an English boy twelve years old, have to do with the poor commonplace plodder Hautboy, an American of forty?’

‘Oh, nothing in the least. I don’t imagine that they ever saw each other. Besides, Master Betty must be dead and buried long ere this.’

‘Then why cross the ocean, and rifle the grave to drag his remains into this living discussion?’

‘Absent-mindedness, I suppose. I humbly beg pardon. Proceed with your observations on Hautboy. You think he never had genius, quite too contented and happy, and fat for that ah? You think him no pattern for men in general? affording no lesson of value to neglected merit, genius ignored, or impotent presumption rebuked? all of which three amount to much the same thing. You admire his cheerfulness, while scorning his commonplace soul. Poor Hautboy, how sad that your very cheerfulness should, by a by-blow, bring you despite!’

‘I don’t say I scorn him; you are unjust. I simply declare that he is no pattern for me.’

A sudden noise at my side attracted my ear. Turning, I saw Hautboy again, who very blithely reseated himself on the chair he had left.

‘I was behind time with my engagement,’ said Hautboy, ‘so thought I would run back and rejoin you. But come, you have sat long enough here. Let us go to my rooms. It is only five minutes’ walk.’

‘If you will promise to fiddle for us, we will,’ said Standard.

Fiddle! thought I – he’s a jigembob[144] fiddler then? No wonder genius declines to measure its pace to a fiddler’s bow. My spleen was very strong on me now.

‘I will gladly fiddle you your fill,’ replied Hautboy to Standard. ‘Come on.’

In a few minutes we found ourselves in the fifth story of a sort of storehouse, in a lateral street to Broadway. It was curiously furnished with all sorts of odd furniture which seemed to have been obtained, piece by piece, at auctions of old-fashioned household stuff. But all was charmingly clean and cosy.

Pressed by Standard, Hautboy forthwith got out his dented old fiddle, and sitting down on a tall rickety stool, played away right merrily at Yankee Doodle[145] and other off-handed, dashing, and disdainfully care-free airs. But common as were the tunes, I was transfixed by something miraculously superior in the style. Sitting there on the old stool, his rusty hat sideways cocked on his head, one foot dangling adrift, he plied the bow of an enchanter. All my moody discontent, every vestige of peevishness fled. My whole splenetic soul capitulated to the magical fiddle.

‘Something of an Orpheus[146], ah?’ said Standard, archly nudging me beneath the left rib.

‘And I, the charmed Bruin,’ murmured I.

The fiddle ceased. Once more, with redoubled curiosity, I gazed upon the easy, indifferent Hautboy. But he entirely baffled inquisition.

When, leaving him, Standard and I were in the street once more, I earnestly conjured him to tell me who, in sober truth, this marvelous Hautboy was.

‘Why, haven’t you seen him? And didn’t you yourself lay his whole anatomy open on the marble slab at Taylor’s? What more can you possibly learn? Doubtless your own masterly insight has already put you in possession of all.’

‘You mock me, Standard. There is some mystery here. Tell me, I entreat you, who is Hautboy?’

‘An extraordinary genius, Helmstone,’ said Standard, with sudden ardor, ‘who in boyhood drained the whole flagon of glory; whose going from city to city was a going from triumph to triumph. One who has been an object of wonder to the wisest, been caressed by the loveliest, received the open homage of thousands on thousands of the rabble. But today he walks Broadway and no man knows him. With you and me, the elbow of the hurrying clerk, and the pole of the remorseless omnibus, shove him. He who has a hundred times been crowned with laurels, now wears, as you see, a bunged beaver. Once fortune poured showers of gold into his lap, as showers of laurel leaves upon his brow. To-day, from house to house he hies, teaching fiddling for a living. Crammed once with fame, he is now hilarious without it. With genius and without fame, he is happier than a king. More a prodigy now than ever.’

‘His true name?’

‘Let me whisper it in your ear.’

‘What! O Standard, myself, as a child, I have shouted myself hoarse applauding that very name in the theatre.’

‘I have heard your poem was not very handsomely received,’ said Standard, now suddenly shifting the subject.

‘Not a word of that, for heaven’s sake!’ cried I. ‘If Cicero[147], traveling in the East, found sympathetic solace for his grief in beholding the arid overthrow of a once gorgeous city, shall not my petty affair be as nothing, when I behold in Hautboy the vine and the rose climbing the shattered shafts of his tumbled temple of Fame?’

Next day I tore all my manuscripts, bought me a fiddle, and went to take regular lessons of Hautboy.

Edward Page Mitchell

The Tachypomp

A Mathematical Demonstration

There was nothing mysterious about Professor Surd’s dislike for me. I was the only poor mathematician in an exceptionally mathematical class. The old gentleman sought the lecture-room every morning with eagerness, and left it reluctantly. For was it not a thing of joy to find seventy young men who, individually and collectively, preferred x to XX; who had rather differentiate than dissipate; and for whom the limbs of the heavenly bodies had more attractions than those of earthly stars upon the spectacular stage?

So affairs went on swimmingly between the Professor of Mathematics and the junior Class at Polyp University. In every man of the seventy the sage saw the logarithm of a possible La Place[148], of a Sturm[149], or of a Newton[150]. It was a delightful task for him to lead them through the pleasant valleys of conic sections, and beside the still waters of the integral calculus. Figuratively speaking, his problem was not a hard one. He had only to manipulate, and eliminate, and to raise to a higher power, and the triumphant result of examination day was assured.

But I was a disturbing element, a perplexing unknown quantity, which had somehow crept into the work, and which seriously threatened to impair the accuracy of his calculations. It was a touching sight to behold the venerable mathematician as he pleaded with me not so utterly to disregard precedent in the use of cotangents; or as he urged, with eyes almost tearful, that ordinates were dangerous things to trifle with. All in vain. More theorems went on to my cuff than into my head. Never did chalk do so much work to so little purpose. And, therefore, it came that Furnace Second was reduced to zero in Professor Surd’s estimation. He looked upon me with all the horror which an unalgebraic nature could inspire. I have seen the professor walk around an entire square rather than meet the man who had no mathematics in his soul.

For Furnace Second were no invitations to Professor Surd’s house. Seventy of the class supped in delegations around the periphery of the professor’s tea-table. The seventy-first knew nothing of the charms of that perfect ellipse, with its twin bunches of fuchsias and geraniums in gorgeous precision at the two foci.

This, unfortunately enough, was no trifling deprivation. Not that I longed especially for segments of Mrs. Surd’s justly celebrated lemon pies; not that the spheroidal damsons of her excellent preserving had any marked allurements; not even that I yearned to hear the professor’s jocose table-talk about binomials, and chatty illustrations of abstruse paradoxes. The explanation is far different. Professor Surd had a daughter. Twenty years before, he made a proposition of marriage to the present Mrs. S. He added a little corollary to his proposition not long after. The corollary was a girl.

Abscissa Surd was as perfectly symmetrical as Giotto[151]’s circle, and as pure, withal, as the mathematics her father taught. It was just when spring was coming to extract the roots of frozen-up vegetation that I fell in love with the corollary. That she herself was not indifferent I soon had reason to regard as a self-evident truth.

The sagacious reader will already recognize nearly all the elements necessary to a well-ordered plot. We have introduced a heroine, inferred a hero, and constructed a hostile parent after the most approved model. A movement for the story, a Deus ex machina[152], is alone lacking. With considerable satisfaction I can promise a perfect novelty in this line, a Deus ex machina never before offered to the public.

It would be discounting ordinary intelligence to say that I sought with unwearying assiduity to figure my way into the stern father’s good-will; that never did dullard apply himself to mathematics more patiently than I; that never did faithfulness achieve such meagre reward. Then I engaged a private tutor. His instructions met with no better success.

My tutor’s name was Jean Marie Rivarol. He was a unique Alsatian[153] – though Gallic[154] in name, thoroughly Teuton[155] in nature; by birth a Frenchman, by education a German. His age was thirty; his profession, omniscience; the wolf at his door, poverty; the skeleton in his closet, a consuming but unrequited passion. The most recondite principles of practical science were his toys; the deepest intricacies of abstract science his diversions. Problems which were foreordained mysteries to me were to him as clear as Tahoe[156] water. Perhaps this very fact will explain our lack of success in the relation of tutor and pupil; perhaps the failure is alone due to my own unmitigated stupidity. Rivarol had hung about the skirts of the University for several years; supplying his few wants by writing for scientific journals, or by giving assistance to students who, like myself, were characterized by a plethora of purse and a paucity of ideas; cooking, studying and sleeping in his attic lodgings; and prosecuting queer experiments all by himself.

We were not long discovering that even this eccentric genius could not transplant brains into my deficient skull. I gave over the struggle in despair. An unhappy year dragged its slow length around. A gloomy year it was, brightened only by occasional interviews with Abscissa, the Abbie of my thoughts and dreams.

Commencement day was coming on apace. I was soon to go forth, with the rest of my class, to astonish and delight a waiting world. The professor seemed to avoid me more than ever. Nothing but the conventionalities, I think kept him from shaping his treatment of me on the basis of unconcealed disgust.

At last, in the very recklessness of despair, I resolved to see him, plead with him, threaten him if need be, and risk all my fortunes on one desperate chance. I wrote him a somewhat defiant letter, stating my aspirations, and, as I flattered myself, shrewdly giving him a week to get over the first shock of horrified surprise. Then I was to call and learn my fate.

During the week of suspense I nearly worried myself into a fever. It was first crazy hope, and then saner despair. On Friday evening, when I presented myself at the professor’s door, I was such a haggard, sleepy, dragged-out spectre, that even Miss Jocasta, the harsh-favored maiden sister of the Surd’s, admitted me with commiserate regard, and suggested pennyroyal tea.

Professor Surd was at a faculty meeting. Would I wait?

Yes, till all was blue, if need be. Miss Abbie?

Abscissa had gone to Wheelborough to visit a school friend. The aged maiden hoped I would make myself comfortable, and departed to the unknown haunts which knew Jocasta’s daily walk.

Comfortable! But I settled myself in a great uneasy chair and waited, with the contradictory spirit common to such junctures, dreading every step lest it should herald the man whom, of all men, I wished to see.

I had been there at least an hour, and was growing right drowsy.

At length Professor Surd came in. He sat down in the dusk opposite me, and I thought his eyes glinted with malignant pleasure as he said, abruptly:

‘So, young man, you think you are a fit husband for my girl?’

I stammered some inanity about making up in affection what I lacked in merit; about my expectations, family and the like. He quickly interrupted me.

‘You misapprehend me, sir. Your nature is destitute of those mathematical perceptions and acquirements which are the only sure foundations of character. You have no mathematics in you.

You are fit for treason, stratagems, and spoils. – Shakespeare. Your narrow intellect cannot understand and appreciate a generous mind. There is all the difference between you and a Surd, if I may say it, which intervenes between an infinitesimal and an infinite. Why, I will even venture to say that you do not comprehend the Problem of the Couriers!’

I admitted that the Problem of the Couriers should be classed rather without my list of accomplishments than within it. I regretted this fault very deeply, and suggested amendment. I faintly hoped that my fortune would be such —

‘Money!’ he impatiently exclaimed. ‘Do you seek to bribe a Roman senator with a penny whistle? Why, boy, do you parade your paltry wealth, which, expressed in mills, will not cover ten decimal places, before the eyes of a man who measures the planets in their orbits, and close crowds infinity itself?’

I hastily disclaimed any intention of obtruding my foolish dollars, and he went on:

‘Your letter surprised me not a little. I thought you would be the last person in the world to presume to an alliance here. But having a regard for you personally’ – and again I saw malice twinkle in his small eyes – ‘and still more regard for Abscissa’s happiness, I have decided that you shall have her – upon conditions. Upon conditions,’ he repeated, with a half-smothered sneer.

‘What are they?’ cried I, eagerly enough. ‘Only name them.’

‘Well, sir,’ he continued, and the deliberation of his speech seemed the very refinement of cruelty, ‘you have only to prove yourself worthy an alliance with a mathematical family. You have only to accomplish a task which I shall presently give you. Your eyes ask me what it is. I will tell you. Distinguish yourself in that noble branch of abstract science in which, you cannot but acknowledge, you are at present sadly deficient. I will place Abscissa’s hand in yours whenever you shall come before me and square the circle to my satisfaction. No! That is too easy a condition. I should cheat myself. Say perpetual motion. How do you like that? Do you think it lies within the range of your mental capabilities? You don’t smile. Perhaps your talents don’t run in the way of perpetual motion. Several people have found that theirs didn’t. I’ll give you another chance. We were speaking of the Problem of the Couriers, and I think you expressed a desire to know more of that ingenious question. You shall have the opportunity. Sit down some day, when you have nothing else to do, and discover the principle of infinite speed. I mean the law of motion which shall accomplish an infinitely great distance in an infinitely short time. You may mix in a little practical mechanics, if you choose. Invent some method of taking the tardy Courier over his road at the rate of sixty miles a minute. Demonstrate me this discovery (when you have made it!) mathematically, and approximate it practically, and Abscissa is yours. Until you can, I will thank you to trouble neither myself nor her.’

I could stand his mocking no longer. I stumbled mechanically out of the room, and out of the house. I even forgot my hat and gloves. For an hour I walked in the moonlight. Gradually I succeeded to a more hopeful frame of mind. This was due to my ignorance of mathematics. Had I understood the real meaning of what he asked, I should have been utterly despondent.

Perhaps this problem of sixty miles a minute was not so impossible after all. At any rate I could attempt, though I might not succeed. And Rivarol came to my mind. I would ask him. I would enlist his knowledge to accompany my own devoted perseverance. I sought his lodgings at once.

The man of science lived in the fourth story, back. I had never been in his room before. When I entered, he was in the act of filling a beer mug from a carboy labelled aqua fortis[157].

‘Seat you,’ he said. ‘No, not in that chair. That is my Petty Cash Adjuster.’ But he was a second too late. I had carelessly thrown myself into a chair of seductive appearance. To my utter amazement it reached out two skeleton arms and clutched me with a grasp against which I struggled in vain. Then a skull stretched itself over my shoulder and grinned with ghastly familiarity close to my face.

Rivarol came to my aid with many apologies. He touched a spring somewhere and the Petty Cash Adjuster relaxed its horrid hold. I placed myself gingerly in a plain cane-bottomed rocking-chair, which Rivarol assured me was a safe location.

‘That seat,’ he said, ‘is an arrangement upon which I much felicitate myself. I made it at Heidelberg. It has saved me a vast deal of small annoyance. I consign to its embraces the friends who bore, and the visitors who exasperate me. But it is never so useful as when terrifying some tradesman with an insignificant account. Hence the pet name which I have facetiously given it. They are invariably too glad to purchase release at the price of a bill receipted. Do you well apprehend the idea?’

While the Alsation diluted his glass of aqua fortis, shook into it an infusion of bitters, and tossed off the bumper with apparent relish, I had time to look around the strange apartment.

The four corners of the room were occupied respectively by a turning lathe, a Rhumkorff Coil, a small steam engine and an orrery[158] in stately motion. Tables, shelves, chairs and floor supported an odd aggregation of tools, retorts, chemicals, gas receivers, philosophical instruments, boots, flasks, paper-collar boxes, books diminutive and books of preposterous size. There were plaster busts of Aristotle[159], Archimedes[160], and Comte[161], while a great drowsy owl was blinking away, perched on the benign brow of Martin Farquhar Tupper[162]. ‘He always roosts there when he proposes to slumber,’ explained my tutor. ‘You are a bird of no ordinary mind. Schlafen Sie wohl[163].’

Through a closet door, half open, I could see a humanlike form covered with a sheet. Rivarol caught my glance.

‘That,’ said he, ‘will be my masterpiece. It is a Microcosm, an Android, as yet only partially complete. And why not? Albertus Magnus constructed an image perfect to talk metaphysics and confute the schools. So did Sylvester II[164]; so did Robertus Greathead. Roger Bacon[165] made a brazen head that held discourses. But the first named of these came to destruction. Thomas Aquinas[166] got wrathful at some of its syllogisms and smashed its head. The idea is reasonable enough. Mental action will yet be reduced to laws as definite as those which govern the physical. Why should not I accomplish a manikin which shall preach as original discourses as the Reverend Dr. Allchin, or talk poetry as mechanically as Paul Anapest? My android can already work problems in vulgar fractions and compose sonnets. I hope to teach it the Positive Philosophy.’

Out of the bewildering confusion of his effects Rivarol produced two pipes and filled them. He handed one to me.

‘And here,’ he said, ‘I live and am tolerably comfortable. When my coat wears out at the elbows I seek the tailor and am measured for another. When I am hungry I promenade myself to the butcher’s and bring home a pound or so of steak, which I cook very nicely in three seconds by this oxy-hydrogen flame. Thirsty, perhaps, I send for a carboy of aqua fortis. But I have it charged, all charged. My spirit is above any small pecuniary transaction. I loathe your dirty greenbacks, and never handle what they call scrip.’

‘But are you never pestered with bills?’ I asked. ‘Don’t the creditors worry your life out?’

‘Creditors!’ gasped Rivarol. ‘I have learned no such word in your very admirable language. He who will allow his soul to be vexed by creditors is a relic of an imperfect civilization. Of what use is science if it cannot avail a man who has accounts current? Listen. The moment you or anyone else enters the outside door this little electric bell sounds me warning. Every successive step on Mrs. Grimler’s staircase is a spy and informer vigilant for my benefit. The first step is trod upon. That trusty first step immediately telegraphs your weight. Nothing could be simpler. It is exactly like any platform scale. The weight is registered up here upon this dial. The second step records the size of my visitor’s feet. The third his height, the fourth his complexion, and so on. By the time he reaches the top of the first flight I have a pretty accurate description of him right here at my elbow, and quite a margin of time for deliberation and action. Do you follow me? It is plain enough. Only the A B C of my science.’

‘I see all that,’ I said, ‘but I don’t see how it helps you any. The knowledge that a creditor is coming won’t pay his bill. You can’t escape unless you jump out of the window.’

Rivarol laughed softly. ‘I will tell you. You shall see what becomes of any poor devil who goes to demand money of me- of a man of science. Ha! ha! It pleases me. I was seven weeks perfecting my Dun Suppressor. Did you know’ – he whispered exultingly – ‘did you know that there is a hole through the earth’s center? Physicists have long suspected it; I was the first to find it. You have read how Huyghens[167], the Dutch navigator, discovered in Kerguellen’s Land[168] an abysmal pit which fourteen hundred fathoms of plumb-line failed to sound. Herr Tom, that hole has no bottom! It runs from one surface of the earth to the antipodal surface. It is diametric. But where is the antipodal spot? You stand upon it. I learned this by the merest chance. I was deep-digging in Mrs. Grimler’s cellar, to bury a poor cat I had sacrificed in a galvanic experiment, when the earth under my spade crumbled, caved in, and wonder-stricken I stood upon the brink of a yawning shaft. I dropped a coal-hod in. It went down, down, down, bounding and rebounding. In two hours and a quarter that coal-hod came up again. I caught it and restored it to the angry Grimler. Just think a minute. The coal-hod went down, faster and faster, till it reached the center of the earth. There it would stop, were it not for acquired momentum. Beyond the center its journey was relatively upward, toward the opposite surface of the globe. So, losing velocity, it went slower and slower till it reached that surface. Here it came to rest for a second and then fell back again, eight thousand odd miles, into my hands. Had I not interfered with it, it would have repeated its journey, time after time, each trip of shorter extent, like the diminishing oscillations of a pendulum, till it finally came to eternal rest at the center of the sphere. I am not slow to give a practical application to any such grand discovery. My Dun Suppressor was born of it. A trap, just outside my chamber door: a spring in here: a creditor on the trap: need I say more?’

‘But isn’t it a trifle inhuman?’ I mildly suggested. ‘Plunging an unhappy being into a perpetual journey to and from Kerguellen’s Land, without a moment’s warning.’

‘I give them a chance. When they come up the first time I wait at the mouth of the shaft with a rope in hand. If they are reasonable and will come to terms, I fling them the line. If they perish, ’tis their own fault. Only,’ he added, with a melancholy smile, ‘the center is getting so plugged up with creditors that I am afraid there soon will be no choice whatever for ’em.’

By this time I had conceived a high opinion of my tutor’s ability. If anybody could send me waltzing through space at an infinite speed, Rivarol could do it. I filled my pipe and told him the story. He heard with grave and patient attention. Then, for full half an hour, he whiffed away in silence. Finally he spoke.

‘The ancient cipher has overreached himself. He has given you a choice of two problems, both of which he deems insoluble. Neither of them is insoluble. The only gleam of intelligence Old Cotangent showed was when he said that squaring the circle was too easy. He was right. It would have given you your Liebchen[169] in five minutes. I squared the circle before I discarded pantalets. I will show you the work – but it would be a digression, and you are in no mood for digressions. Our first chance, therefore, lies in perpetual motion. Now, my good friend, I will frankly tell you that, although I have compassed this interesting problem, I do not choose to use it in your behalf. I too, Herr Tom, have a heart. The loveliest of her sex frowns upon me. Her somewhat mature charms are not for Jean Marie Rivarol. She has cruelly said that her years demand of me filial rather than connubial regard. Is love a matter of years or of eternity? This question did I put to the cold, yet lovely Jocasta.’

‘Jocasta Surd!’ I remarked in surprise, ‘Abscissa’s aunt!’

‘The same,’ he said, sadly. ‘I will not attempt to conceal that upon the maiden Jocasta my maiden heart has been bestowed. Give me your hand, my nephew in affliction as in affection!’

Rivarol dashed away a not discreditable tear, and resumed:

‘My only hope lies in this discovery of perpetual motion. It will give me the fame, the wealth. Can Jocasta refuse these? If she can, there is only the trap-door and – Kerguellen’s Land!’

I bashfully asked to see the perpetual-motion machine. My uncle in affliction shook his head.

‘At another time,’ he said. ‘Suffice it at present to say, that it is something upon the principle of a woman’s tongue. But you see now why we must turn in your case to the alternative condition – infinite speed. There are several ways in which this may be accomplished, theoretically. By the lever, for instance. Imagine a lever with a very long and a very short arm. Apply power to the shorter arm which will move it with great velocity. The end of the long arm will move much faster. Now keep shortening the short arm and lengthening the long one, and as you approach infinity in their difference of length, you approach infinity in the speed of the long arm. It would be difficult to demonstrate this practically to the professor. We must seek another solution. Jean Marie will meditate. Come to me in a fortnight. Good-night. But stop! Have you the money – das Geld?’

‘Much more than I need.’

‘Good! Let us strike hands. Gold and Knowledge; Science and Love. What may not such a partnership achieve? We go to conquer thee, Abscissa. Vorwärts![170]’

When, at the end of a fortnight; I sought Rivarol’s chamber, I passed with some little trepidation over the terminus of the Air Line to Kerguellen’s Land, and evaded the extended arms of the Petty Cash Adjuster. Rivarol drew a mug of ale for me, and filled himself a retort of his own peculiar beverage.

‘Come,’ he said at length. ‘Let us drink success to the TACHYPOMP.’

‘The TACHYPOMP?’

‘Yes. Why not? Tachu, quickly, and pempo, pepompa, to send. May it send you quickly to your wedding-day. Abscissa is yours. It is done. When shall we start for the prairies?’

‘Where is it?’ I asked, looking in vain around the room for any contrivance which might seem calculated to advance matrimonial prospects.

‘It is here,’ and he gave his forehead a significant tap. Then he held forth didactically.

‘There is force enough in existence to yield us a speed of sixty miles a minute, or even more. All we need is the knowledge how to combine and apply it. The wise man will not attempt to make some great force yield some great speed. He will keep adding the little force to the little force, making each little force yield its little speed, until an aggregate of little forces shall be a great force, yielding an aggregate of little speeds, a great speed. The difficulty is not in aggregating the forces; it lies in the corresponding aggregation of the speeds. One musket ball will go, say a mile. It is not hard to increase the force of muskets to a thousand, yet the thousand musket balls will go no farther, and no faster, than the one. You see, then, where our trouble lies. We cannot readily add speed to speed, as we add force to force. My discovery is simply the utilization of a principle which extorts an increment of speed from each increment of power. But this is the metaphysics of physics. Let us be practical or nothing.

‘When you have walked forward, on a moving train, from the rear car, toward the engine, did you ever think what you were really doing?’

‘Why, yes, I have generally been going to the smoking car to have a cigar.’

‘Tut, tut – not that! I mean, did it ever occur to you on such an occasion, that absolutely you were moving faster than the train? The train passes the telegraph poles at the rate of thirty miles an hour, say. You walk toward the smoking car at the rate of four miles an hour. Then you pass the telegraph poles at the rate of thirty-four miles. Your absolute speed is the speed of the engine, plus the speed of your own locomotion. Do you follow me?’

I began to get an inkling of his meaning, and told him so.

‘Very well. Let us advance a step. Your addition to the speed of the engine is trivial, and the space in which you can exercise it, limited. Now suppose two stations, A and B, two miles distant by the track. Imagine a train of platform cars, the last car resting at station A. The train is a mile long, say. The engine is therefore within a mile of station B. Say the train can move a mile in ten minutes. The last car, having two miles to go, would reach B in twenty minutes, but the engine, a mile ahead, would get there in ten. You jump on the last car, at A, in a prodigious hurry to reach Abscissa, who is at B. If you stay on the last car it will be twenty long minutes before you see her. But the engine reaches B and the fair lady in ten. You will be a stupid reasoner, and an indifferent lover, if you don’t put for the engine over those platform cars, as fast as your legs will carry you. You can run a mile, the length of the train, in ten minutes. Therefore, you reach Abscissa when the engine does, or in ten minutes – ten minutes sooner than if you had lazily sat down upon the rear car and talked politics with the brakeman. You have diminished the time by one half. You have added your speed to that of the locomotive to some purpose. Nicht wahr?[171]’

I saw it perfectly; much plainer, perhaps, for his putting in the clause about Abscissa.

He continued, ‘This illustration, though a slow one, leads up to a principle which may be carried to any extent. Our first anxiety will be to spare your legs and wind. Let us suppose that the two miles of track are perfectly straight, and make our train one platform car, a mile long, with parallel rails laid upon its top. Put a little dummy engine on these rails, and let it run to and fro along the platform car, while the platform car is pulled along the ground track. Catch the idea? The dummy takes your place. But it can run its mile much faster. Fancy that our locomotive is strong enough to pull the platform car over the two miles in two minutes. The dummy can attain the same speed. When the engine reaches B in one minute, the dummy, having gone a mile a-top the platform car, reaches B also. We have so combined the speeds of those two engines as to accomplish two miles in one minute. Is this all we can do? Prepare to exercise your imagination.’

I lit my pipe.

‘Still two miles of straight track, between A and B. On the track a long platform car, reaching from A to within a quarter of a mile of B. We will now discard ordinary locomotives and adopt as our motive power a series of compact magnetic engines, distributed underneath the platform car, all along its length.’

‘I don’t understand those magnetic engines.’

‘Well, each of them consists of a great iron horseshoe, rendered alternately a magnet and not a magnet by an intermittent current of electricity from a battery, this current in its turn regulated by clock-work. When the horseshoe is in the circuit, it is a magnet, and it pulls its clapper toward it with enormous power. When it is out of the circuit, the next second, it is not a magnet, and it lets the clapper go. The clapper, oscillating to and fro, imparts a rotatory motion to a fly wheel, which transmits it to the drivers on the rails. Such are our motors. They are no novelty, for trial has proved them practicable.

‘With a magnetic engine for every truck of wheels, we can reasonably expect to move our immense car, and to drive it along at a speed, say, of a mile a minute.

‘The forward end, having but a quarter of a mile to go, will reach B in fifteen seconds. We will call this platform car number 1. On top of number 1 are laid rails on which another platform car, number 2, a quarter of a mile shorter than number 1, is moved in precisely the same way. Number 2, in its turn, is surmounted by number 3, moving independently of the tiers beneath, and a quarter of a mile shorter than number 2. Number 2 is a mile and a half long; number 3 a mile and a quarter. Above, on successive levels, are number 4, a mile long; number 5, three quarters of a mile; number 6, half a mile; number 7, a quarter of a mile, and number 8, a short passenger car, on top of all.

‘Each car moves upon the car beneath it, independently of all the others, at the rate of a mile a minute. Each car has its own magnetic engines. Well, the train being drawn up with the latter end of each car resting against a lofty bumping-post at A, Tom Furnace, the gentlemanly conductor, and Jean Marie Rivarol, engineer, mount by a long ladder to the exalted number 8. The complicated mechanism is set in motion. What happens?

‘Number 8 runs a quarter of a mile in fifteen seconds and reaches the end of number 7. Meanwhile number 7 has run a quarter of a mile in the same time and reached the end of number 6; number 6, a quarter of a mile in fifteen seconds, and reached the end of number 5; number 5, the end of number 4; number 4, of number 3; number 3, of number 2; number 2, of number 1. And number 1, in fifteen seconds, has gone its quarter of a mile along the ground track, and has reached station B. All this has been done in fifteen seconds. Wherefore, numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 come to rest against the bumping-post at B, at precisely the same second. We, in number 8, reach B just when number 1 reaches it. In other words, we accomplish two miles in fifteen seconds. Each of the eight cars, moving at the rate of a mile a minute, has contributed a quarter of a mile to our journey, and has done its work in fifteen seconds. All the eight did their work at once, during the same fifteen seconds. Consequently we have been whizzed through the air at the somewhat startling speed of seven and a half seconds to the mile. This is the Tachypomp. Does it justify the name?’

Although a little bewildered by the complexity of cars, I apprehended the general principle of the machine. I made a diagram, and understood it much better. ‘You have merely improved on the idea of my moving faster than the train when I was going to the smoking car?’

‘Precisely. So far we have kept within the bounds of the practicable. To satisfy the professor, you can theorize in something after this fashion: If we double the number of cars, thus decreasing by one half the distance which each has to go, we shall attain twice the speed. Each of the sixteen cars will have but one eighth of a mile to go. At the uniform rate we have adopted, the two miles can be done in seven and a half instead of fifteen seconds. With thirty-two cars, and a sixteenth of a mile, or twenty rods difference in their length, we arrive at the speed of a mile in less than two seconds; with sixty-four cars, each travelling but ten rods, a mile under the second. More than sixty miles a minute! If this isn’t rapid enough for the professor, tell him to go on, increasing the number of his cars and diminishing the distance each one has to run. If sixty-four cars yield a speed of a mile inside the second, let him fancy a Tachypomp of six hundred and forty cars, and amuse himself calculating the rate of car number 640. Just whisper to him that when he has an infinite number of cars with an infinitesimal difference in their lengths, he will have obtained that infinite speed for which he seems to yearn. Then demand Abscissa.’

I wrung my friend’s hand in silent and grateful admiration. I could say nothing.

‘You have listened to the man of theory,’ he said proudly. ‘You shall now behold the practical engineer. We will go to the west of the MississippI and find some suitably level locality. We will erect thereon a model Tachypomp. We will summon thereunto the professor, his daughter, and why not his fair sister Jocasta, as well? We will take them a journey which shall much astonish the venerable Surd. He shall place Abscissa’s digits in yours and bless you both with an algebraic formula. Jocasta shall contemplate with wonder the genius of Rivarol. But we have much to do. We must ship to St. Joseph the vast amount of material to be employed in the construction of the Tachypomp. We must engage a small army of workmen to effect that construction, for we are to annihilate time and space. Perhaps you had better see your bankers.’

I rushed impetuously to the door. There should be no delay. ‘Stop! stop! Um Gottes Willen[172], stop!’ shrieked Rivarol. ‘I launched my butcher this morning and I haven’t bolted the – ’

But it was too late. I was upon the trap. It swung open with a crash, and I was plunged down, down, down! I felt as if I were falling through illimitable space. I remember wondering, as I rushed through the darkness, whether I should reach Kerguellen’s Land or stop at the center. It seemed an eternity. Then my course was suddenly and painfully arrested.

I opened my eyes. Around me were the walls of Professor Surd’s study. Under me was a hard, unyielding plane which I knew too well was Professor Surd’s study floor. Behind me was the black, slippery, haircloth chair which had belched me forth, much as the whale served Jonah. In front of me stood Professor Surd himself, looking down with a not unpleasant smile.

‘Good evening, Mr. Furnace. Let me help you up. You look tired, sir. No wonder you fell asleep when I kept you so long waiting. Shall I get you a glass of wine? No? By the way, since receiving your letter I find that you are a son of my old friend, Judge Furnace. I have made inquiries, and see no reason why you should not make Abscissa a good husband.’

Still I can see no reason why the Tachypomp should not have succeeded. Can you?

O. Henry

Proof of the Pudding

Spring winked a vitreous optic at Editor Westbrook of the Minerva Magazine, and deflected him from his course. He had lunched in his favorite corner of a Broadway hotel, and was returning to his office when his feet became entangled in the lure of the vernal coquette. Which is by way of saying that he turned eastward in Twenty-sixth Street, safely forded the spring freshet of vehicles in Fifth Avenue, and meandered along the walks of budding Madison Square[173].

The lenient air and the settings of the little park almost formed a pastoral; the color motif was green – the presiding shade at the creation of man and vegetation.

The callow grass between the walks was the color of verdigris, a poisonous green, reminiscent of the horde of derelict humans that had breathed upon the soil during the summer and autumn. The bursting tree buds looked strangely familiar to those who had botanized among the garnishings of the fish course of a forty-cent dinner. The sky above was of that pale aquamarine[174] tint that ballroom poets rhyme with ‘true’ and ‘Sue’ and ‘coo.’ The one natural and frank color visible was the ostensible green of the newly painted benches – a shade between the color of a pickled cucumber and that of a last year’s fast-black cravenette raincoat. But, to the city-bred eye of Editor Westbrook, the landscape appeared a masterpiece.

And now, whether you are of those who rush in, or of the gentle concourse that fears to tread, you must follow in a brief invasion of the editor’s mind.

Editor Westbrook’s spirit was contented and serene. The April number of the Minerva had sold its entire edition before the tenth day of the month – a newsdealer in Keokuk had written that he could have sold fifty copies more if he had ‘em. The owners of the magazine had raised his (the editor’s) salary; he had just installed in his home a jewel of a recently imported cook who was afraid of policemen; and the morning papers had published in full a speech he had made at a publishers’ banquet. Also there were echoing in his mind the jubilant notes of a splendid song that his charming young wife had sung to him before he left his up-town apartment that morning. She was taking enthusiastic interest in her music of late, practising early and diligently. When he had complimented her on the improvement in her voice she had fairly hugged him for joy at his praise. He felt, too, the benign, tonic medicament of the trained nurse, Spring, tripping softly adown the wards of the convalescent city.

While Editor Westbrook was sauntering between the rows of park benches (already filling with vagrants and the guardians of lawless childhood) he felt his sleeve grasped and held. Suspecting that he was about to be panhandled, he turned a cold and unprofitable face, and saw that his captor was – Dawe – Shackleford Dawe, dingy, almost ragged, the genteel scarcely visible in him through the deeper lines of the shabby.

While the editor is pulling himself out of his surprise, a flashlight biography of Dawe is offered.

He was a fiction writer, and one of Westbrook’s old acquaintances. At one time they might have called each other old friends. Dawe had some money in those days, and lived in a decent apartment house near Westbrook’s. The two families often went to theatres and dinners together. Mrs. Dawe and Mrs. Westbrook became ‘dearest’ friends. Then one day a little tentacle of the octopus, just to amuse itself, ingurgitated Dawe’s capital, and he moved to the Gramercy Park neighborhood where one, for a few groats per week, may sit upon one’s trunk under eight-branched chandeliers and opposite Carrara[175] marble mantels and watch the mice play upon the floor. Dawe thought to live by writing fiction. Now and then he sold a story. He submitted many to Westbrook. The Minerva printed one or two of them; the rest were returned. Westbrook sent a careful and conscientious personal letter with each rejected manuscript, pointing out in detail his reasons for considering it unavailable. Editor Westbrook had his own clear conception of what constituted good fiction. So had Dawe. Mrs. Dawe was mainly concerned about the constituents of the scanty dishes of food that she managed to scrape together. One day Dawe had been spouting to her about the excellencies of certain French writers. At dinner they sat down to a dish that a hungry schoolboy could have encompassed at a gulp. Dawe commented.

‘It’s Maupassant[176] hash,’ said Mrs. Dawe. ‘It may not be art, but I do wish you would do a five-course Marion Crawford[177] serial with an Ella Wheeler Wilcox[178] sonnet for dessert. I’m hungry.’

As far as this from success was Shackleford Dawe when he plucked Editor Westbrook’s sleeve in Madison Square. That was the first time the editor had seen Dawe in several months.

‘Why, Shack, is this you?’ said Westbrook, somewhat awkwardly, for the form of his phrase seemed to touch upon the other’s changed appearance.

‘Sit down for a minute,’ said Dawe, tugging at his sleeve. ‘This is my office. I can’t come to yours, looking as I do. Oh, sit down – you won’t be disgraced. Those half-plucked birds on the other benches will take you for a swell porch-climber. They won’t know you are only an editor.’

‘Smoke, Shack?’ said Editor Westbrook, sinking cautiously upon the virulent green bench. He always yielded gracefully when he did yield.

Dawe snapped at the cigar as a kingfisher darts at a sun-perch, or a girl pecks at a chocolate cream.

‘I have just – ’ began the editor.

‘Oh, I know; don’t finish,’ said Dawe. ‘Give me a match. You have just ten minutes to spare. How did you manage to get past my office-boy and invade my sanctum? There he goes now, throwing his club at a dog that couldn’t read the “Keep off the Grass” signs.’

‘How goes the writing?’ asked the editor.

‘Look at me,’ said Dawe, ‘for your answer. Now don’t put on that embarrassed, friendly-but-honest look and ask me why I don’t get a job as a wine agent or a cab driver. I’m in the fight to a finish. I know I can write good fiction and I’ll force you fellows to admit it yet. I’ll make you change the spelling of “regrets” to “c-h-e-q-u-e” before I’m done with you.’

Editor Westbrook gazed through his nose-glasses with a sweetly sorrowful, omniscient, sympathetic, skeptical expression – the copyrighted expression of the editor beleagured by the unavailable contributor.

‘Have you read the last story I sent you – “The Alarum of the Soul”?’ asked Dawe.

‘Carefully. I hesitated over that story, Shack, really I did. It had some good points. I was writing you a letter to send with it when it goes back to you. I regret – ’

‘Never mind the regrets,’ said Dawe, grimly. ‘There’s neither salve nor sting in ’em any more. What I want to know is why. Come now; out with the good points first.’

‘The story,’ said Westbrook, deliberately, after a suppressed sigh, ‘is written around an almost original plot. Characterization – the best you have done. Construction – almost as good, except for a few weak joints which might be strengthened by a few changes and touches. It was a good story, except – ’

‘I can write English, can’t I?’ interrupted Dawe.

‘I have always told you,’ said the editor, ‘that you had a style.’

‘Then the trouble is – ’

‘Same old thing,’ said Editor Westbrook. ‘You work up to your climax like an artist. And then you turn yourself into a photographer. I don’t know what form of obstinate madness possesses you, but that is what you do with everything that you write. No, I will retract the comparison with the photographer. Now and then photography, in spite of its impossible perspective, manages to record a fleeting glimpse of truth. But you spoil every denouement by those flat, drab, obliterating strokes of your brush that I have so often complained of. If you would rise to the literary pinnacle of your dramatic senses, and paint them in the high colors that art requires, the postman would leave fewer bulky, self-addressed envelopes at your door.’

‘Oh, fiddles and footlights!’ cried Dawe, derisively. ‘You’ve got that old sawmill drama kink in your brain yet. When the man with the black mustache kidnaps golden-haired Bessie you are bound to have the mother kneel and raise her hands in the spotlight and say: “May high heaven witness that I will rest neither night nor day till the heartless villain that has stolen me child feels the weight of another’s vengeance!”’

Editor Westbrook conceded a smile of impervious complacency.

‘I think,’ said he, ‘that in real life the woman would express herself in those words or in very similar ones.’

‘Not in a six hundred nights’ run anywhere but on the stage,’ said Dawe hotly. ‘I’ll tell you what she’d say in real life. She’d say: “What! Bessie led away by a strange man? Good Lord! It’s one trouble after another! Get my other hat, I must hurry around to the police-station. Why wasn’t somebody looking after her, I’d like to know? For God’s sake, get out of my way or I’ll never get ready. Not that hat – the brown one with the velvet bows. Bessie must have been crazy; she’s usually shy of strangers. Is that too much powder? Lordy! How I’m upset!”’

‘That’s the way she’d talk,’ continued Dawe. ‘People in real life don’t fly into heroics and blank verse at emotional crises. They simply can’t do it. If they talk at all on such occasions they draw from the same vocabulary that they use every day, and muddle up their words and ideas a little more, that’s all.’

‘Shack,’ said Editor Westbrook impressively, ‘did you ever pick up the mangled and lifeless form of a child from under the fender of a street car, and carry it in your arms and lay it down before the distracted mother? Did you ever do that and listen to the words of grief and despair as they flowed spontaneously from her lips?’ ‘I never did,’ said Dawe. ‘Did you?’

‘Well, no,’ said Editor Westbrook, with a slight frown. ‘But I can well imagine what she would say.’

‘So can I,’ said Dawe.

And now the fitting time had come for Editor Westbrook to play the oracle and silence his opinionated contributor. It was not for an unarrived fictionist to dictate words to be uttered by the heroes and heroines of the Minerva Magazine, contrary to the theories of the editor thereof.

‘My dear Shack,’ said he, ‘if I know anything of life I know that every sudden, deep and tragic emotion in the human heart calls forth an apposite, concordant, conformable and proportionate expression of feeling. How much of this inevitable accord between expression and feeling should be attributed to nature, and how much to the influence of art, it would be difficult to say. The sublimely terrible roar of the lioness that has been deprived of her cubs is dramatically as far above her customary whine and purr as the kingly and transcendent utterances of Lear are above the level of his senile vaporings. But it is also true that all men and women have what may be called a sub-conscious dramatic sense that is awakened by a sufficiently deep and powerful emotion – a sense unconsciously acquired from literature and the stage that prompts them to express those emotions in language befitting their importance and histrionic value.’

‘And in the name of the seven sacred saddle-blankets of Sagittarius, where did the stage and literature get the stunt?’ asked Dawe.

‘From life,’ answered the editor, triumphantly.

The story writer rose from the bench and gesticulated eloquently but dumbly. He was beggared for words with which to formulate adequately his dissent.

On a bench nearby a frowzy loafer opened his red eyes and perceived that his moral support was due a downtrodden brother.

‘Punch him one, Jack,’ he called hoarsely to Dawe. ‘W’at’s he come makin’ a noise like a penny arcade for amongst gen’lemen that comes in the square to set and think?’

Editor Westbrook looked at his watch with an affected show of leisure.

‘Tell me,’ asked Dawe, with truculent anxiety, ‘what especial faults in “The Alarum of the Soul” caused you to throw it down?’

‘When Gabriel Murray,’ said Westbrook, ‘goes to his telephone and is told that his fiancée has been shot by a burglar, he says – I do not recall the exact words, but – ’

‘I do,’ said Dawe. ‘He says: “Damn Central; she always cuts me off.” (And then to his friend) “Say, Tommy, does a thirty-two bullet make a big hole? It’s kind of hard luck, ain’t it? Could you get me a drink from the sideboard, Tommy? No; straight; nothing on the side.’”

‘And again,’ continued the editor, without pausing for argument, ‘when Berenice opens the letter from her husband informing her that he has fled with the manicure girl, her words are – let me see – ’

‘She says,’ interposed the author: ‘“Well, what do you think of that!”’

‘Absurdly inappropriate words,’ said Westbrook, ‘presenting an anti-climax – plunging the story into hopeless bathos. Worse yet; they mirror life falsely. No human being ever uttered banal colloquialisms when confronted by sudden tragedy.’

‘Wrong,’ said Dawe, closing his unshaven jaws doggedly. ‘I say no man or woman ever spouts “high-falutin’” talk when they go up against a real climax. They talk naturally and a little worse.’

The editor rose from the bench with his air of indulgence and inside information.

‘Say, Westbrook,’ said Dawe, pinning him by the lapel, ‘would you have accepted “The Alarum of the Soul” if you had believed that the actions and words of the characters were true to life in the parts of the story that we discussed?’

‘It is very likely that I would, if I believed that way,’ said the editor. ‘But I have explained to you that I do not.’

‘If I could prove to you that I am right?’

‘I’m sorry, Shack, but I’m afraid I haven’t time to argue any further just now.’

‘I don’t want to argue,’ said Dawe. ‘I want to demonstrate to you from life itself that my view is the correct one.’

‘How could you do that?’ asked Westbrook, in a surprised tone.

‘Listen,’ said the writer, seriously. ‘I have thought of a way. It is important to me that my theory of true-to-life fiction be recognized as correct by the magazines. I’ve fought for it for three years, and I’m down to my last dollar, with two months’ rent due.’

‘I have applied the opposite of your theory,’ said the editor, ‘in selecting the fiction for the Minerva Magazine. The circulation has gone up from ninety thousand to – ’

‘Four hundred thousand,’ said Dawe. ‘Whereas it should have been boosted to a million.’

‘You said something to me just now about demonstrating your pet theory.’

‘I will. If you’ll give me about half an hour of your time I’ll prove to you that I am right. I’ll prove it by Louise.’

‘Your wife!’ exclaimed Westbrook. ‘How?’

‘Well, not exactly by her, but with her,’ said Dawe. ‘Now, you know how devoted and loving Louise has always been. She thinks I’m the only genuine preparation on the market that bears the old doctor’s signature. She’s been fonder and more faithful than ever, since I’ve been cast for the neglected genius part.’

‘Indeed, she is a charming and admirable life companion,’ agreed the editor. ‘I remember what inseparable friends she and Mrs. Westbrook once were. We are both lucky chaps, Shack, to have such wives. You must bring Mrs. Dawe up some evening soon, and we’ll have one of those informal chafing-dish suppers that we used to enjoy so much.’

‘Later,’ said Dawe. ‘When I get another shirt. And now I’ll tell you my scheme. When I was about to leave home after breakfast – if you can call tea and oatmeal breakfast – Louise told me she was going to visit her aunt in Eighty-ninth Street. She said she would return at three o’clock. She is always on time to a minute. It is now – ’

Dawe glanced toward the editor’s watch pocket.

‘Twenty-seven minutes to three,’ said Westbrook, scanning his time-piece.

‘We have just enough time,’ said Dawe. ‘We will go to my flat at once. I will write a note, address it to her and leave it on the table where she will see it as she enters the door. You and I will be in the dining-room concealed by the portieres. In that note I’ll say that I have fled from her forever with an affinity who understands the needs of my artistic soul as she never did. When she reads it we will observe her actions and hear her words. Then we will know which theory is the correct one – yours or mine.’

‘Oh, never!’ exclaimed the editor, shaking his head. ‘That would be inexcusably cruel. I could not consent to have Mrs. Dawe’s feelings played upon in such a manner.’

‘Brace up,’ said the writer. ‘I guess I think as much of her as you do. It’s for her benefit as well as mine. I’ve got to get a market for my stories in some way. It won’t hurt Louise. She’s healthy and sound. Her heart goes as strong as a ninety-eight-cent watch. It’ll last for only a minute, and then I’ll step out and explain to her. You really owe it to me to give me the chance, Westbrook.’

Editor Westbrook at length yielded, though but half willingly. And in the half of him that consented lurked the vivisectionist that is in all of us. Let him who has not used the scalpel rise and stand in his place. Pity ’tis that there are not enough rabbits and guinea-pigs to go around.

The two experimenters in Art left the Square and hurried eastward and then to the south until they arrived in the Gramercy neighborhood. Within its high iron railings the little park had put on its smart coat of vernal green, and was admiring itself in its fountain mirror. Outside the railings the hollow square of crumbling houses, shells of a bygone gentry, leaned as if in ghostly gossip over the forgotten doings of the vanished quality. Sic transit gloria urbis.[179]

A block or two north of the Park, Dawe steered the editor again eastward, then, after covering a short distance, into a lofty but narrow flat-house burdened with a floridly over-decorated facade. To the fifth story they toiled, and Dawe, panting, pushed his latch-key into the door of one of the front flats.

When the door opened Editor Westbrook saw, with feelings of pity, how meanly and meagerly the rooms were furnished.

‘Get a chair, if you can find one,’ said Dawe, ‘while I hunt up pen and ink. Hello, what’s this? Here’s a note from Louise. She must have left it there when she went out this morning.’

He picked up an envelope that lay on the centre-table and tore it open. He began to read the letter that he drew out of it; and once having begun it aloud he so read it through to the end. These are the words that Editor Westbrook heard:

‘Dear Shackleford:

‘By the time you get this I will be about a hundred miles away and still a-going. I’ve got a place in the chorus of the Occidental Opera Co., and we start on the road to-day at twelve o’clock. I didn’t want to starve to death, and so I decided to make my own living. I’m not coming back. Mrs. Westbrook is going with me. She said she was tired of living with a combination phonograph, iceberg and dictionary, and she’s not coming back, either. We’ve been practising the songs and dances for two months on the quiet. I hope you will be successful, and get along all right! Good-bye.

‘Louise.’

Dawe dropped the letter, covered his face with his trembling hands, and cried out in a deep, vibrating voice:

‘My God, why hast thou given me this cup to drink? Since she is false, then let Thy Heaven’s fairest gifts, faith and love, become the jesting by-words of traitors and fiends!’

Editor Westbrook’s glasses fell to the floor. The fingers of one hand fumbled with a button on his coat as he blurted between his pale lips:

‘Say, Shack, ain’t that a hell of a note? Wouldn’t that knock you off your perch, Shack? Ain’t it hell, now, Shack – ain’t it?’

‘Next to Reading Matter’

He compelled my interest as he stepped from the ferry at Desbrosses Street. He had the air of being familiar with hemispheres and worlds, and of entering New York as the lord of a demesne who revisited it in after years of absence. But I thought that, with all his air, he had never before set foot on the slippery cobblestones of the City of Too Many Caliphs[180].

He wore loose clothes of a strange bluish drab colour, and a conservative, round Panama hat without the cock-a-loop indentations and cants with which Northern fanciers disfigure the tropic head-gear. Moreover, he was the homeliest man I have ever seen. His ugliness was less repellent than startling – arising from a sort of Lincolnian ruggedness and irregularity of feature that spellbound you with wonder and dismay. So may have looked afrites or the shapes metamorphosed from the vapour of the fisherman’s vase. As he afterward told me, his name was Judson Tate; and he may as well be called so at once. He wore his green silk tie through a topaz ring; and he carried a cane made of the vertebrae of a shark.

Judson Tate accosted me with some large and casual inquiries about the city’s streets and hotels, in the manner of one who had but for the moment forgotten the trifling details. I could think of no reason for disparaging my own quiet hotel in the downtown district; so the mid-morning of the night found us already victualed and drinked (at my expense), and ready to be chaired and tobaccoed in a quiet corner of the lobby.

There was something on Judson Tate’s mind, and, such as it was, he tried to convey it to me. Already he had accepted me as his friend; and when I looked at his great, snuff-brown first-mate’s hand, with which he brought emphasis to his periods, within six inches of my nose, I wondered if, by any chance, he was as sudden in conceiving enmity against strangers.

When this man began to talk I perceived in him a certain power. His voice was a persuasive instrument, upon which he played with a somewhat specious but effective art. He did not try to make you forget his ugliness; he flaunted it in your face and made it part of the charm of his speech. Shutting your eyes, you would have trailed after this rat-catcher’s pipes at least to the walls of Hamelin. Beyond that you would have had to be more childish to follow. But let him play his own tune to the words set down, so that if all is too dull, the art of music may bear the blame.

‘Women,’ said Judson Tate, ‘are mysterious creatures.’

My spirits sank. I was not there to listen to such a world-old hypothesis – to such a time-worn, long-ago-refuted, bald, feeble, illogical, vicious, patent sophistry – to an ancient, baseless, wearisome, ragged, unfounded, insidious, falsehood originated by women themselves, and by them insinuated, foisted, thrust, spread, and ingeniously promulgated into the ears of mankind by underhanded, secret and deceptive methods, for the purpose of augmenting, furthering, and reinforcing their own charms and designs.

‘Oh, I don’t know!’ said I, vernacularly.

‘Have you ever heard of Oratama[181]?’ he asked.

‘Possibly,’ I answered. ‘I seem to recall a toe dancer – or a suburban addition – or was it a perfume? – of some such name.’

‘It is a town,’ said Judson Tate, ‘on the coast of a foreign country of which you know nothing and could understand less. It is a country governed by a dictator and controlled by revolutions and insubordination. It was there that a great life-drama was played, with Judson Tate, the homeliest man in America, and Fergus McMahan, the handsomest adventurer in history or fiction, and Señorita Anabela Zamora, the beautiful daughter of the alcalde[182] of Oratama, as chief actors. And, another thing – nowhere else on the globe except in the department of Trienta y tres in Uruguay does the chuchula plant grow. The products of the country I speak of are valuable woods, dyestuffs, gold, rubber, ivory, and cocoa.’

‘I was not aware,’ said I, ‘that South America produced any ivory.’

‘There you are twice mistaken,’ said Judson Tate, distributing the words over at least an octave of his wonderful voice. ‘I did not say that the country I spoke of was in South America – I must be careful, my dear man; I have been in politics there, you know. But, even so – I have played chess against its president with a set carved from the nasal bones of the tapir – one of our native specimens of the order of perissodactyle ungulates inhabiting the Cordilleras[183] – which was as pretty ivory as you would care to see.

‘But it was of romance and adventure and the ways of women that was I going to tell you, and not of zoological animals.

‘For fifteen years I was the ruling power behind old Sancho Benavides, the Royal High Thumbscrew of the republic. You’ve seen his picture in the papers – a mushy black man with whiskers like the notes on a Swiss music-box cylinder, and a scroll in his right hand like the ones they write births on in the family Bible. Well, that chocolate potentate used to be the biggest item of interest anywhere between the colour line and the parallels of latitude. It was three throws, horses, whether he was to wind up in the Hall of Fame or the Bureau of Combustibles. He’d have been sure called the Roosevelt[184] of the Southern Continent if it hadn’t been that Grover Cleveland[185] was President at the time. He’d hold office a couple of terms, then he’d sit out for a hand – always after appointing his own successor for the interims.

‘But it was not Benavides, the Liberator, who was making all this fame for himself. Not him. It was Judson Tate. Benavides was only the chip over the bug. I gave him the tip when to declare war and increase import duties and wear his state trousers. But that wasn’t what I wanted to tell you. How did I get to be It? I’ll tell you. Because I’m the most gifted talker that ever made vocal sounds since Adam[186] first opened his eyes, pushed aside the smelling-salts, and asked: “Where am I?”

‘As you observe, I am about the ugliest man you ever saw outside the gallery of photographs of the New England early Christian Scientists. So, at an early age, I perceived that what I lacked in looks I must make up in eloquence. That I’ve done. I get what I go after. As the back-stop and still small voice of old Benavides I made all the great historical powers-behind-the-throne, such as Talleyrand[187], Mrs. De Pompadour[188], and Loeb[189], look as small as the minority report of a Duma. I could talk nations into or out of debt, harangue armies to sleep on the battlefield, reduce insurrections, inflammations, taxes, appropriations or surpluses with a few words, and call up the dogs of war or the dove of peace with the same bird-like whistle. Beauty and epaulettes and curly moustaches and Grecian profiles in other men were never in my way. When people first look at me they shudder. Unless they are in the last stages of angina pectoris they are mine in ten minutes after I begin to talk. Women and men – I win ’em as they come. Now, you wouldn’t think women would fancy a man with a face like mine, would you?’

‘Oh, yes, Mr. Tate,’ said I. ‘History is bright and fiction dull with homely men who have charmed women. There seems – ’

‘Pardon me,’ interrupted Judson Tate, ‘but you don’t quite understand. You have yet to hear my story.

‘Fergus McMahan was a friend of mine in the capital. For a handsome man I’ll admit he was the duty-free merchandise. He had blond curls and laughing blue eyes and was featured regular. They said he was a ringer for the statue they call Herr Mees, the god of speech and eloquence resting in some museum at Rome. Some German anarchist, I suppose. They are always resting and talking.

‘But Fergus was no talker. He was brought up with the idea that to be beautiful was to make good. His conversation was about as edifying as listening to a leak dropping in a tin dish-pan at the head of the bed when you want to go to sleep. But he and me got to be friends – maybe because we was so opposite, don’t you think? Looking at the Hallowe’en mask that I call my face when I’m shaving seemed to give Fergus pleasure; and I’m sure that whenever I heard the feeble output of throat noises that he called conversation I felt contented to be a gargoyle with a silver tongue.

‘One time I found it necessary to go down to this coast town of Oratama to straighten out a lot of political unrest and chop off a few heads in the customs and military departments. Fergus, who owned the ice and sulphur-match concessions of the republic, says he’ll keep me company.

‘So, in a jangle of mule-train bells, we gallops into Oratama, and the town belonged to us as much as Long Island Sound[190] doesn’t belong to Japan when T. R. is at Oyster Bay[191]. I say us; but I mean me. Everybody for four nations, two oceans, one bay and isthmus, and five archipelagoes around had heard of Judson Tate. Gentleman adventurer, they called me. I had been written up in five columns of the yellow journals, 40,000 words (with marginal decorations) in a monthly magazine, and a stickful on the twelfth page of the New York Times. If the beauty of Fergus McMahan gained any part of our reception in Oratama, I’ll eat the price-tag in my Panama. It was me that they hung out paper flowers and palm branches for. I am not a jealous man; I am stating facts. The people were Nebuchadnezzars[192]; they bit the grass before me; there was no dust in the town for them to bite. They bowed down to Judson Tate. They knew that I was the power behind Sancho Benavides. A word from me was more to them than a whole deckle-edged library from East Aurora in sectional bookcases was from anybody else. And yet there are people who spend hours fixing their faces – rubbing in cold cream and massaging the muscles (always toward the eyes) and taking in the slack with tincture of benzoin and electrolyzing moles – to what end? Looking handsome. Oh, what a mistake! It’s the larynx that the beauty doctors ought to work on. It’s words more than warts, talk more than talcum, palaver more than powder, blarney more than bloom that counts – the phonograph instead of the photograph. But I was going to tell you.

‘The local Astors put me and Fergus up at the Centipede Club, a frame building built on posts sunk in the surf. The tide’s only nine inches. The Little Big High Low Jack-in-the-game of the town came around and kowtowed. Oh, it wasn’t to Herr Mees. They had heard about Judson Tate.

‘One afternoon me and Fergus McMahan was sitting on the seaward gallery of the Centipede, drinking iced rum and talking.

‘“Judson,” says Fergus, “there’s an angel in Oratama.”

‘“So long,” says I, “as it ain’t Gabriel, why talk as if you had heard a trump blow?”

‘“It’s the Señorita Anabela Zamora,” says Fergus. “She’s – she’s – she’s as lovely as – as hell!”

‘“Bravo!” says I, laughing heartily. “You have a true lover’s eloquence to paint the beauties of your inamorata. You remind me,’ says I, ‘of Faust’s wooing of Marguerite – that is, if he wooed her after he went down the trap-door of the stage.”

‘“Judson,” says Fergus, “you know you are as beautiless as a rhinoceros. You can’t have any interest in women. I’m awfully gone in Miss Anabela. And that’s why I’m telling you.”

‘“Oh, seguramente[193],” says I. “I know I have a front elevation like an Aztec[194] god that guards a buried treasure that never did exist in Jefferson County, Yucatan[195]. But there are compensations. For instance, I am It in this country as far as the eye can reach, and then a few perches and poles. And again,” says I, “when I engage people in a set-to of oral, vocal, and laryngeal utterances, I do not usually confine my side of the argument to what may be likened to a cheap phonographic reproduction of the ravings of a jellyfish.”

‘“Oh, I know,” says Fergus, amiable, “that I’m not handy at small talk. Or large, either. That’s why I’m telling you. I want you to help me.”

‘“How can I do it?” I asked.

‘“I have subsidized,” says Fergus, “the services of Señorita Anabela’s duenna, whose name is Francesca. You have a reputation in this country, Judson,’ says Fergus, ‘of being a great man and a hero.”

‘“I have,” says I. “And I deserve it.”

‘“And I,’ says Fergus, ‘am the best-looking man between the Arctic circle and Antarctic ice pack.’

‘“With limitations,’ says I, ‘as to physiognomy and geography, I freely concede you to be.’

‘“Between the two of us,” says Fergus, “we ought to land the Señorita Anabela Zamora. The lady, as you know, is of an old Spanish family, and further than looking at her driving in the family carruaje[196] of afternoons around the plaza, or catching a glimpse of her through a barred window of evenings, she is as unapproachable as a star.”

‘“Land her for which one of us?” says I.

‘“For me of course,” says Fergus. “You’ve never seen her. Now, I’ve had Francesca point me out to her as being you on several occasions. When she sees me on the plaza, she thinks she’s looking at Don Judson Tate, the greatest hero, statesman, and romantic figure in the country. With your reputation and my looks combined in one man, how can she resist him? She’s heard all about your thrilling history, of course. And she’s seen me. Can any woman want more?” asks Fergus McMahan.

‘“Can she do with less?” I ask. “How can we separate our mutual attractions, and how shall we apportion the proceeds?”

‘Then Fergus tells me his scheme.

‘The house of the alcalde, Don Luis Zamora, he says, has a patio, of course – a kind of inner courtyard opening from the street. In an angle of it is his daughter’s window – as dark a place as you could find. And what do you think he wants me to do? Why, knowing my freedom, charm, and skilfulness of tongue, he proposes that I go into the patio at midnight, when the hobgoblin face of me cannot be seen, and make love to her for him – for the pretty man that she has seen on the plaza, thinking him to be Don Judson Tate.

‘Why shouldn’t I do it for him – for my friend, Fergus McMahan? For him to ask me was a compliment – an acknowledgment of his own shortcomings.

‘“You little, lily white, fine-haired, highly polished piece of dumb sculpture,” says I, “I’ll help you. Make your arrangements and get me in the dark outside her window and my stream of conversation opened up with the moonlight tremolo stop turned on, and she’s yours.”

‘“Keep your face hid, Jud,” says Fergus. “For heaven’s sake, keep your face hid. I’m a friend of yours in all kinds of sentiment, but this is a business deal. If I could talk I wouldn’t ask you. But seeing me and listening to you I don’t see why she can’t be landed.”

‘“By you?” says I.

‘“By me,” says Fergus.

Well, Fergus and the duenna, Francesca, attended to the details. And one night they fetched me a long black cloak with a high collar, and led me to the house at midnight. I stood by the window in the patio until I heard a voice as soft and sweet as an angel’s whisper on the other side of the bars. I could see only a faint, white clad shape inside; and, true to Fergus, I pulled the collar of my cloak high up, for it was July in the wet seasons, and the nights were chilly. And, smothering a laugh as I thought of the tongue-tied Fergus, I began to talk.

‘Well, sir, I talked an hour at the Señorita Anabela. I say “at” because it was not “with.” Now and then she would say: “Oh, Señor,” or “Now, ain’t you foolin’?” or “I know you don’t mean that,” and such things as women will when they are being rightly courted. Both of us knew English and Spanish; so in two languages I tried to win the heart of the lady for my friend Fergus. But for the bars to the window I could have done it in one. At the end of the hour she dismissed me and gave me a big, red rose. I handed it over to Fergus when I got home.

‘For three weeks every third or fourth night I impersonated my friend in the patio at the window of Señorita Anabela. At last she admitted that her heart was mine, and spoke of having seen me every afternoon when she drove in the plaza. It was Fergus she had seen, of course. But it was my talk that won her. Suppose Fergus had gone there, and tried to make a hit in the dark with his beauty all invisible, and not a word to say for himself!

‘On the last night she promised to be mine – that is, Fergus’s. And she put her hand between the bars for me to kiss. I bestowed the kiss and took the news to Fergus.

‘“You might have left that for me to do,” says he.

‘“That’ll be your job hereafter,” says I. “Keep on doing that and don’t try to talk. Maybe after she thinks she’s in love she won’t notice the difference between real conversation and the inarticulate sort of droning that you give forth.”

‘Now, I had never seen Señorita Anabela. So, the next day Fergus asks me to walk with him through the plaza and view the daily promenade and exhibition of Oratama society, a sight that had no interest for me. But I went; and children and dogs took to the banana groves and mangrove swamps as soon as they had a look at my face.

‘“Here she comes,” said Fergus, twirling his moustache – “the one in white, in the open carriage with the black horse.”

‘I looked and felt the ground rock under my feet. For Señorita Anabela Zamora was the most beautiful woman in the world, and the only one from that moment on, so far as Judson Tate was concerned. I saw at a glance that I must be hers and she mine forever. I thought of my face and nearly fainted; and then I thought of my other talents and stood upright again. And I had been wooing her for three weeks for another man!

‘As Señorita Anabela’s carriage rolled slowly past, she gave Fergus a long, soft glance from the corners of her night-black eyes, a glance that would have sent Judson Tate up into heaven in a rubber-tired chariot. But she never looked at me. And that handsome man only ruffles his curls and smirks and prances like a lady-killer at my side.

‘“What do you think of her, Judson?’ asks Fergus, with an air.

‘“This much,” says I. “She is to me Mrs. Judson Tate. I am no man to play tricks on a friend. So take your warning.”

‘I thought Fergus would die laughing.

‘“Well, well, well,” said he, “you old doughface! Struck too, are you? That’s great! But you’re too late. Francesca tells me that Anabela talks of nothing but me, day and night. Of course, I’m awfully obliged to you for making that chin-music to her of evenings. But, do you know, I’ve an idea that I could have done it as well myself.”

‘“Mrs. Judson Tate,” says I. “Don’t forget the name. You’ve had the use of my tongue to go with your good looks, my boy. You can’t lend me your looks; but hereafter my tongue is my own. Keep your mind on the name that’s to be on the visiting cards two inches by three and a half – ‘Mrs. Judson Tate.’ That’s all.”

‘“All right,” says Fergus, laughing again. “I’ve talked with her father, the alcalde, and he’s willing. He’s to give a baile[197] to-morrow evening in his new warehouse. If you were a dancing man, Jud, I’d expect you around to meet the future Mrs. McMahan.”

‘But on the next evening, when the music was playing loudest at the Alcade Zamora’s baile, into the room steps Judson Tate in a new white linen clothes as if he were the biggest man in the whole nation, which he was.

‘Some of the musicians jumped off the key when they saw my face, and one or two of the timidest senoritas let out a screech or two. But up prances the alcalde and almost wipes the dust off my shoes with his forehead. No mere good looks could have won me that sensational entrance.

‘“I hear much, Señor Zamora,” says I, “of the charm of your daughter. It would give me great pleasure to be presented to her.”

‘There were about six dozen willow rocking-chairs, with pink tidies tied on to them, arranged against the walls. In one of them sat Señorita Anabela in white Swiss and red slippers, with pearls and fireflies in her hair. Fergus was at the other end of the room trying to break away from two maroons and a claybank girl.

‘The alcalde leads me up to Anabela and presents me. When she took the first look at my face she dropped her fan and nearly turned her chair over from the shock. But I’m used to that.

‘I sat down by her, and began to talk. When she heard me speak she jumped, and her eyes got as big as alligator pears. She couldn’t strike a balance between the tones of my voice and face I carried. But I kept on talking in the key of C, which is the ladies’ key; and presently she sat still in her chair and a dreamy look came into her eyes. She was coming my way. She knew of Judson Tate, and what a big man he was, and the big things he had done; and that was in my favour. But, of course, it was some shock to her to find out that I was not the pretty man that had been pointed out to her as the great Judson. And then I took the Spanish language, which is better than English for certain purposes, and played on it like a harp of a thousand strings. I ranged from the second G below the staff up to F-sharp above it. I set my voice to poetry, art, romance, flowers, and moonlight. I repeated some of the verses that I had murmured to her in the dark at her window; and I knew from a sudden soft sparkle in her eye that she recognized in my voice the tones of her midnight mysterious wooer.

‘Anyhow, I had Fergus McMahan going. Oh, the vocal is the true art – no doubt about that. Handsome is as handsome palavers. That’s the renovated proverb.

‘I took Señorita Anabela for a walk in the lemon grove while Fergus, disfiguring himself with an ugly frown, was waltzing with the clay-bank girl. Before we returned I had permission to come to her window in the patio the next evening at midnight and talk some more.

‘Oh, it was easy enough. In two weeks Anabela was engaged to me, and Fergus was out. He took it calm, for a handsome man, and told me he wasn’t going to give in.

‘“Talk may be all right in its place, Judson,” he says to me, “although I’ve never thought it worth cultivating. But,” says he, “to expect mere words to back up successfully a face like yours in a lady’s good graces is like expecting a man to make a square meal on the ringing of a dinner-bell.”

‘But I haven’t begun on the story I was going to tell you yet.

‘One day I took a long ride in the hot sunshine, and then took a bath in the cold waters of a lagoon on the edge of the town before I’d cooled off.

‘That evening after dark I called at the alcalde’s to see Anabela. I was calling regular every evening then, and we were to be married in a month. She was looking like a bulbul, a gazelle, and a tea-rose, and her eyes were as soft and bright as two quarts of cream skimmed off from the Milky Way. She looked at my rugged features without any expression of fear or repugnance. Indeed, I fancied that I saw a look of deep admiration and affection, such as she had cast at Fergus on the plaza.

‘I sat down, and opened my mouth to tell Anabela what she loved to hear – that she was a trust, monopolizing all the loveliness of earth. I opened my mouth, and instead of the usual vibrating words of love and compliment, there came forth a faint wheeze such as a baby with croup might emit. Not a word – not a syllable – not an intelligible sound. I had caught cold in my laryngeal regions when I took my injudicious bath.

‘For two hours I sat trying to entertain Anabela. She talked a certain amount, but it was perfunctory and diluted. The nearest approach I made to speech was to formulate a sound like a clam trying to sing ‘A Life on the Ocean Wave’ at low tide. It seemed that Anabela’s eyes did not rest upon me as often as usual. I had nothing with which to charm her ears. We looked at pictures and she played the guitar occasionally, very badly. When I left, her parting manner seemed cool – or at least thoughtful.

‘This happened for five evenings consecutively.

‘On the sixth day she ran away with Fergus McMahan.

‘It was known that they fled in a sailing yacht bound for Belize. I was only eight hours behind them in a small steam launch belonging to the Revenue Department.

‘Before I sailed, I rushed into the botica[198] of old Manuel Iquito, a half-breed Indian druggist. I could not speak, but I pointed to my throat and made a sound like escaping steam. He began to yawn. In an hour, according to the customs of the country, I would have been waited on. I reached across the counter, seized him by the throat, and pointed again to my own. He yawned once more, and thrust into my hand a small bottle containing a black liquid.

‘“Take one small spoonful every two hours,” says he.

‘I threw him a dollar and skinned for the steamer.

‘I steamed into the harbour at Belize[199] thirteen seconds behind the yacht that Anabela and Fergus were on. They started for the shore in a dory just as my skiff was lowered over the side. I tried to order my sailormen to row faster, but the sounds died in my larynx before they came to the light. Then I thought of old Iquito’s medicine, and I got out his bottle and took a swallow of it.

‘The two boats landed at the same moment. I walked straight up to Anabela and Fergus. Her eyes rested upon me for an instant; then she turned them, full of feeling and confidence, upon Fergus. I knew I could not speak, but I was desperate. In speech lay my only hope. I could not stand beside Fergus and challenge comparison in the way of beauty. Purely involuntarily, my larynx and epiglottis attempted to reproduce the sounds that my mind was calling upon my vocal organs to send forth.

‘To my intense surprise and delight the words rolled forth beautifully clear, resonant, exquisitely modulated, full of power, expression, and long-repressed emotion.

‘“Señorita Anabela,” says I, “may I speak with you aside for a moment?”

‘You don’t want details about that, do you? Thanks. The old eloquence had come back all right. I led her under a cocoanut palm and put my old verbal spell on her again.

‘“Judson,” says she, “when you are talking to me I can hear nothing else – I can see nothing else – there is nothing and nobody else in the world for me.”

‘Well, that’s about all of the story. Anabela went back to Oratama in the steamer with me. I never heard what became of Fergus. I never saw him anymore. Anabela is now Mrs. Judson Tate. Has my story bored you much?’

‘No,’ said I. ‘I am always interested in psychological studies. A human heart – and especially a woman’s – is a wonderful thing to contemplate.’

‘It is,’ said Judson Tate. ‘And so are the trachea and bronchial tubes of man. And the larynx too. Did you ever make a study of the windpipe?’

‘Never,’ said I. ‘But I have taken much pleasure in your story. May I ask after Mrs. Tate, and inquire of her present health and whereabouts?’

‘Oh, sure,’ said Judson Tate. ‘We are living in Bergen Avenue, Jersey City. The climate down in Oratama didn’t suit Mrs. T. I don’t suppose you ever dissected the arytenoid cartilages of the epiglottis, did you?’

‘Why, no,’ said I, ‘I am no surgeon.’

‘Pardon me,’ said Judson Tate, ‘but every man should know enough of anatomy and therapeutics to safeguard his own health. A sudden cold may set up capillary bronchitis or inflammation of the pulmonary vesicles, which may result in a serious affection of the vocal organs.’

‘Perhaps so,’ said I, with some impatience; ‘but that is neither here nor there. Speaking of the strange manifestations of the affection of women, I – ’

‘Yes, yes,’ interrupted Judson Tate; ‘they have peculiar ways. But, as I was going to tell you: when I went back to Oratama I found out from Manuel Iquito what was in that mixture he gave me for my lost voice. I told you how quick it cured me. He made that stuff from the chuchula plant. Now, look here.’

Judson Tate drew an oblong, white pasteboard box from his pocket.

‘For any cough,’ he said, ‘or cold, or hoarseness, or bronchial affection whatsoever, I have here the greatest remedy in the world. You see the formula, printed on the box. Each tablet contains licorice, 2 grains; balsam tolu, 1/10 grain; oil of anise, 1/20 minim; oil of tar, 1/60 minim; oleo-resin of cubebs, 1/100 minim; fluid extract of chuchula, 1/10 minim.

‘I am in New York,’ went on Judson Tate, ‘for the purpose of organizing a company to market the greatest remedy for throat affections ever discovered. At present I am introducing the lozenges in a small way. I have here a box containing four dozen, which I am selling for the small sum of fifty cents. If you are suffering – ’

* * *

I got up and went away without a word. I walked slowly up to the little park near my hotel, leaving Judson Tate alone with his conscience. My feelings were lacerated. He had poured gently upon me a story that I might have used. There was a little of the breath of life in it, and some of the synthetic atmosphere that passes, when cunningly tinkered, in the marts. And, at the last it had proven to be a commercial pill, deftly coated with the sugar of fiction. The worst of it was that I could not offer it for sale. Advertising departments and counting-rooms look down upon me. And it would never do for the literary. Therefore I sat upon a bench with other disappointed ones until my eyelids drooped.

I went to my room, and, as my custom is, read for an hour stories in my favourite magazines. This was to get my mind back to art again.

And as I read each story, I threw the magazines sadly and hopelessly, one by one, upon the floor. Each author, without one exception to bring balm to my heart, wrote liltingly and sprightly a story of some particular make of motor-car that seemed to control the sparking plug of his genius.

And when the last one was hurled from me I took heart.

‘If readers can swallow so many proprietary automobiles,’ I said to myself, ‘they ought not to strain at one of Tate’s Compound Magic Chuchula Bronchial Lozenges.’

And so if you see this story in print you will understand that business is business, and that if Art gets very far ahead of Commerce, she will have to get up and hustle.

I may as well add, to make a clean job of it, that you can’t buy the chuchula plant in the drug stores.

The Guilty Party

An East Side Tragedy

A red-haired, unshaven, untidy man sat in a rocking chair by a window. He had just lighted a pipe, and was puffing blue clouds with great satisfaction. He had removed his shoes and donned a pair of blue, faded carpet-slippers. With the morbid thirst of the confirmed daily news drinker, he awkwardly folded back the pages of an evening paper, eagerly gulping down the strong, black headlines, to be followed as a chaser by the milder details of the smaller type.

In an adjoining room a woman was cooking supper. Odors from strong bacon and boiling coffee contended against the cut-plug fumes from the vespertine pipe.

Outside was one of those crowded streets of the east side, in which, as twilight falls, Satan sets up his recruiting office. A mighty host of children danced and ran and played in the street. Some in rags, some in clean white and beribboned, some wild and restless as young hawks, some gentle-faced and shrinking, some shrieking rude and sinful words, some listening, awed, but soon, grown familiar, to embrace – here were the children playing in the corridors of the House of Sin. Above the playground forever hovered a great bird. The bird was known to humorists as the stork. But the people of Chrystie street were better ornithologists. They called it a vulture.

A little girl of twelve came up timidly to the man reading and resting by the window, and said:

‘Papa, won’t you play a game of checkers with me if you aren’t too tired?’

The red-haired, unshaven, untidy man sitting shoeless by the window answered, with a frown.

‘Checkers. No, I won’t. Can’t a man who works hard all day have a little rest when he comes home? Why don’t you go out and play with the other kids on the sidewalk?’

The woman who was cooking came to the door.

‘John,’ she said, ‘I don’t like for Lizzie to play in the street. They learn too much there that ain’t good for ’em. She’s been in the house all day long. It seems that you might give up a little of your time to amuse her when you come home.’

‘Let her go out and play like the rest of ’em if she wants to be amused,’ said the red-haired, unshaven, untidy man, ‘and don’t bother me.’

* * *

‘You’re on,’ said Kid Mullaly. ‘Fifty dollars to $25 I take Annie to the dance. Put up.’

The Kid’s black eyes were snapping with the fire of the baited and challenged. He drew out his ‘roll’ and slapped five tens upon the bar. The three or four young fellows who were thus ‘taken’ more slowly produced their stake. The bartender, ex-officio stakeholder, took the money, laboriously wrapped it, recorded the bet with an inch-long pencil and stuffed the whole into a corner of the cash register.

‘And, oh, what’ll be done to you’ll be a plenty,’ said a bettor, with anticipatory glee.

‘That’s my lookout,’ said the ‘Kid,’ sternly. ‘Fill ’em up all around, Mike.’

After the round Burke, the ‘Kid’s’ sponge, sponge-holder, pal, Mentor and Grand Vizier, drew him out to the bootblack stand at the saloon corner where all the official and important matters of the Small Hours Social Club were settled. As Tony polished the light tan shoes of the club’s President and Secretary for the fifth time that day, Burke spake words of wisdom to his chief.

‘Cut that blond out, “Kid,”’ was his advice, ‘or there’ll be trouble. What do you want to throw down that girl of yours for? You’ll never find one that’ll freeze to you like Liz has. She’s worth a hallful of Annies.’

‘I’m no Annie admirer!’ said the ‘Kid,’ dropping a cigarette ash on his polished toe, and wiping it off on Tony’s shoulder. ‘But I want to teach Liz a lesson. She thinks I belong to her. She’s been bragging that I daren’t speak to another girl. Liz is all right – in some ways. She’s drinking a little too much lately. And she uses language that a lady oughtn’t.’

‘You’re engaged, ain’t you?’ asked Burke.

‘Sure. We’ll get married next year, maybe.’

‘I saw you make her drink her first glass of beer,’ said Burke. ‘That was two years ago, when she used to came down to the corner of Chrystie bare-headed to meet you after supper. She was a quiet sort of a kid then, and couldn’t speak without blushing.’

‘She’s a little spitfire, sometimes, now,’ said the Kid. ‘I hate jealousy. That’s why I’m going to the dance with Annie. It’ll teach her some sense.’

‘Well, you better look a little out,’ were Burke’s last words. ‘If Liz was my girl and I was to sneak out to a dance coupled up with an Annie, I’d want a suit of chain armor on under my gladsome rags, all right.’

Through the land of the stork-vulture wandered Liz. Her black eyes searched the passing crowds fierily but vaguely. Now and then she hummed bars of foolish little songs. Between times she set her small, white teeth together and spake crisp words that the east side has added to language.

Liz’s skirt was green silk. Her waist was a large brown-and-pink plaid, well-fitting and not without style. She wore a cluster ring of huge imitation rubies, and a locket that banged her knees at the bottom of a silver chain. Her shoes were run down over twisted high heels, and were strangers to polish. Her hat would scarcely have passed into a flour barrel.

The ‘Family Entrance’ of the Blue Jay Cafe received her. At a table she sat, and punched the button with the air of milady ringing for her carriage. The waiter came with his large-chinned, low-voiced manner of respectful familiarity. Liz smoothed her silken skirt with a satisfied wriggle. She made the most of it. Here she could order and be waited upon. It was all that her world offered her of the prerogative of woman.

‘Whiskey, Tommy,’ she said as her sisters further uptown murmur, ‘Champagne, James.’

‘Sure, Miss Lizzie. What’ll the chaser be?’

‘Seltzer. And say, Tommy, has the Kid been around to-day?’

‘Why, no, Miss Lizzie, I haven’t saw him to-day.’

Fluently came the ‘Miss Lizzie,’ for the Kid was known to be one who required rigid upholdment of the dignity of his fiancée. ‘I’m lookin’ for ’m,’ said Liz, after the chaser had sputtered under her nose. ‘It’s got to me that he says he’ll take Annie Karlson to the dance. Let him. The pink-eyed white rat! I’m lookin’ for ’m. You know me, Tommy. Two years me and the Kid’s been engaged. Look at that ring. Five hundred, he said it cost. Let him take her to the dance. What’ll I do? I’ll cut his heart out. Another whiskey, Tommy.’

‘I wouldn’t listen to no such reports, Miss Lizzie,’ said the waiter smoothly, from the narrow opening above his chin. ‘Kid Mullaly’s not the guy to throw a lady like you down. Seltzer on the side?’

‘Two years,’ repeated Liz, softening a little to sentiment under the magic of the distiller’s art. ‘I always used to play out on the street of evenin’s ’cause there was nothin’ doin’ for me at home. For a long time I just sat on doorsteps and looked at the lights and the people goin’ by. And then the Kid came along one evenin’ and sized me up, and I was mashed on the spot for fair. The first drink he made me take I cried all night at home, and got a lickin’ for makin’ a noise. And now – say, Tommy, you ever see this Annie Karlson? If it wasn’t for peroxide the chloroform limit would have put her out long ago. Oh, I’m lookin’ for ’m. You tell the Kid if he comes in. Me? I’ll cut his heart out. Leave it to me. Another whiskey, Tommy.’

A little unsteadily, but with watchful and brilliant eyes, Liz walked up the avenue. On the doorstep of a brick tenement a curly-haired child sat, puzzling over the convolutions of a tangled string. Liz flopped down beside her, with a crooked, shifting smile on her flushed face. But her eyes had grown clear and artless of a sudden.

‘Let me show you how to make a cat’s-cradle, kid,’ she said, tucking her green silk skirt under her rusty shoes.

And while they sat there the lights were being turned on for the dance in the hall of the Small Hours Social Club. It was the bi-monthly dance, a dress affair in which the members took great pride and bestirred themselves huskily to further and adorn.

At 9 o’clock the President, Kid Mullaly, paced upon the floor with a lady on his arm. As the Loreley’s was her hair golden. Her ‘yes’ was softened to a ‘yah,’ but its quality of assent was patent to the most Milesian ears. She stepped upon her own train and blushed, and – she smiled into the eyes of Kid Mullaly.

And then, as the two stood in the middle of the waxed floor, the thing happened to prevent which many lamps are burning nightly in many studies and libraries.

Out from the circle of spectators in the hall leaped Fate in a green silk skirt, under the nom de guerre of ‘Liz.’ Her eyes were hard and blacker than jet. She did not scream or waver. Most unwomanly, she cried out one oath – the Kid’s own favorite oath – and in his own deep voice; and then while the Small Hours Social Club went frantically to pieces, she made good her boast to Tommy, the waiter – made good as far as the length of her knife blade and the strength of her arm permitted.

And next came the primal instinct of self-preservation – or was it self-annihilation, the instinct that society has grafted on the natural branch?

Liz ran out and down the street swift and true as a woodcock flying through a grove of saplings at dusk.

And then followed the big city’s biggest shame, its most ancient and rotten surviving canker, its pollution and disgrace, its blight and perversion, its forever infamy and guilt, fostered, unreproved and cherished, handed down from a long-ago century of the basest barbarity – the Hue and Cry. Nowhere but in the big cities does it survive, and here most of all, where the ultimate perfection of culture, citizenship and alleged superiority joins, bawling, in the chase.

They pursued – a shrieking mob of fathers, mothers, lovers and maidens – howling, yelling, calling, whistling, crying for blood. Well may the wolf in the big city stand outside the door. Well may his heart, the gentler, falter at the siege.

Knowing her way, and hungry for her surcease, she darted down the familiar ways until at last her feet struck the dull solidity of the rotting pier. And then it was but a few more panting steps – and good mother East River took Liz to her bosom, soothed her muddily but quickly, and settled in five minutes the problem that keeps lights burning o’ nights in thousands of pastorates and colleges.

* * *

It’s mighty funny what kind of dreams one has sometimes. Poets call them visions, but a vision is only a dream in blank verse. I dreamed the rest of this story.

I thought I was in the next world. I don’t know how I got there; I suppose I had been riding on the Ninth avenue elevated or taking patent medicine or trying to pull Jim Jeffries’s nose, or doing some such little injudicious stunt. But, anyhow, there I was, and there was a great crowd of us outside the courtroom where the judgments were going on. And every now and then a very beautiful and imposing court-officer angel would come outside the door and call another case.

While I was considering my own worldly sins and wondering whether there would be any use of my trying to prove an alibI by claiming that I lived in New Jersey[200], the bailiff angel came to the door and sang out:

‘Case No. 99,852,743.’

Up stepped a plain-clothes man – there were lots of ’em there, dressed exactly like preachers and hustling us spirits around just like cops do on earth – and by the arm he dragged – whom, do you think? Why, Liz!

The court officer took her inside and closed the door. I went up to Mr. Fly-Cop and inquired about the case.

‘A very sad one,’ says he, laying the points of his manicured fingers together. ‘An utterly incorrigible girl. I am Special Terrestrial Officer the Reverend Jones. The case was assigned to me. The girl murdered her fiancé and committed suicide. She had no defense. My report to the court relates the facts in detail, all of which are substantiated by reliable witnesses. The wages of sin is death. Praise the Lord.’

The court officer opened the door and stepped out.

‘Poor girl,’ said Special Terrestrial Officer the Reverend Jones, with a tear in his eye. ‘It was one of the saddest cases that I ever met with. Of course she was’ —

‘Discharged,’ said the court officer. ‘Come here, Jonesy. First thing you know you’ll be switched to the pot-pie squad. How would you like to be on the missionary force in the South Sea Islands[201] – hey? Now, you quit making these false arrests, or you’ll be transferred – see? The guilty party you’ve not to look for in this case is a red-haired, unshaven, untidy man, sitting by the window reading, in his stocking feet, while his children play in the streets. Get a move on you.’

Now, wasn’t that a silly dream?

The Ransom of Red Chief

It looked like a good thing: but wait till I tell you. We were down South, in Alabama – Bill Driscoll and myself – when this kidnapping idea struck us. It was, as Bill afterward expressed it, “during a moment of temporary mental apparition”; but we didn’t find that out till later.

There was a town down there, as flat as a flannel-cake, and called Summit, of course. It contained inhabitants of as undeleterious and self-satisfied a class of peasantry as ever clustered around a Maypole[202].

Bill and me had a joint capital of about six hundred dollars, and we needed just two thousand dollars more to pull off a fraudulent town-lot scheme in Western Illinois with. We talked it over on the front steps of the hotel. Philoprogenitiveness, says we, is strong in semi-rural communities; therefore and for other reasons, a kidnapping project ought to do better there than in the radius of newspapers that send reporters out in plain clothes to stir up talk about such things. We knew that Summit couldn’t get after us with anything stronger than constables and maybe some lackadaisical bloodhounds and a diatribe or two in the Weekly Farmers’ Budget. So, it looked good.

We selected for our victim the only child of a prominent citizen named Ebenezer Dorset. The father was respectable and tight, a mortgage fancier and a stern, upright collection-plate passer and forecloser. The kid was a boy of ten, with bas-relief freckles, and hair the colour of the cover of the magazine you buy at the news-stand when you want to catch a train. Bill and me figured that Ebenezer would melt down for a ransom of two thousand dollars to a cent. But wait till I tell you.

About two miles from Summit was a little mountain, covered with a dense cedar brake. On the rear elevation of this mountain was a cave. There we stored provisions. One evening after sundown, we drove in a buggy past old Dorset’s house. The kid was in the street, throwing rocks at a kitten on the opposite fence.

“Hey, little boy!” says Bill, “would you like to have a bag of candy and a nice ride?”

The boy catches Bill neatly in the eye with a piece of brick.

“That will cost the old man an extra five hundred dollars,” says Bill, climbing over the wheel.

That boy put up a fight like a welter-weight cinnamon bear; but, at last, we got him down in the bottom of the buggy and drove away. We took him up to the cave and I hitched the horse in the cedar brake. After dark I drove the buggy to the little village, three miles away, where we had hired it, and walked back to the mountain.

Bill was pasting court-plaster over the scratches and bruises on his features. There was a fire burning behind the big rock at the entrance of the cave, and the boy was watching a pot of boiling coffee, with two buzzard tail-feathers stuck in his red hair. He points a stick at me when I come up, and says:

“Ha! cursed paleface, do you dare to enter the camp of Red Chief, the terror of the plains?

“He’s all right now,” says Bill, rolling up his trousers and examining some bruises on his shins. “We’re playing Indian. We’re making Buffalo Bill’s show[203] look like magic-lantern views of Palestine in the town hall. I’m Old Hank, the Trapper, Red Chief’s captive, and I’m to be scalped at daybreak. By Geronimo![204] that kid can kick hard.”

Yes, sir, that boy seemed to be having the time of his life. The fun of camping out in a cave had made him forget that he was a captive himself. He immediately christened me Snake-eye, the Spy, and announced that, when his braves returned from the warpath, I was to be broiled at the stake at the rising of the sun.

Then we had supper; and he filled his mouth full of bacon and bread and gravy, and began to talk. He made a during-dinner speech something like this:

“I like this fine. I never camped out before; but I had a pet ‘possum once, and I was nine last birthday. I hate to go to school. Rats ate up sixteen of Jimmy Talbot’s aunt’s speckled hen’s eggs. Are there any real Indians in these woods? I want some more gravy. Does the trees moving make the wind blow? We had five puppies. What makes your nose so red, Hank? My father has lots of money. Are the stars hot? I whipped Ed Walker twice, Saturday. I don’t like girls. You dassent[205] catch toads unless with a string. Do oxen make any noise? Why are oranges round? Have you got beds to sleep on in this cave? Amos Murray has got six toes. A parrot can talk, but a monkey or a fish can’t. How many does it take to make twelve?”

Every few minutes he would remember that he was a pesky redskin, and pick up his stick rifle and tiptoe to the mouth of the cave to rubber for the scouts of the hated paleface. Now and then he would let out a war-whoop that made Old Hank the Trapper shiver. That boy had Bill terrorized from the start.

“Red Chief,” says I to the kid, “would you like to go home?”

“Aw, what for?” says he. “I don’t have any fun at home. I hate to go to school. I like to camp out. You won’t take me back home again, Snake-eye, will you?”

“Not right away,” says I. “We’ll stay here in the cave a while.”

“All right!” says he. “That’ll be fine. I never had such fun in all my life.”

We went to bed about eleven o’clock. We spread down some wide blankets and quilts and put Red Chief between us. We weren’t afraid he’d run away. He kept us awake for three hours, jumping up and reaching for his rifle and screeching: “Hist! pard,” in mine and Bill’s ears, as the fancied crackle of a twig or the rustle of a leaf revealed to his young imagination the stealthy approach of the outlaw band. At last, I fell into a troubled sleep, and dreamed that I had been kidnapped and chained to a tree by a ferocious pirate with red hair.

Just at daybreak, I was awakened by a series of awful screams from Bill. They weren’t yells, or howls, or shouts, or whoops, or yawps, such as you’d expect from a manly set of vocal organs – they were simply indecent, terrifying, humiliating screams, such as women emit when they see ghosts or caterpillars. It’s an awful thing to hear a strong, desperate, fat man scream incontinently in a cave at daybreak.

I jumped up to see what the matter was. Red Chief was sitting on Bill’s chest, with one hand twined in Bill’s hair. In the other he had the sharp case-knife we used for slicing bacon; and he was industriously and realistically trying to take Bill’s scalp, according to the sentence that had been pronounced upon him the evening before.

I got the knife away from the kid and made him lie down again. But, from that moment, Bill’s spirit was broken. He laid down on his side of the bed, but he never closed an eye again in sleep as long as that boy was with us. I dozed off for a while, but along toward sun-up I remembered that Red Chief had said I was to be burned at the stake at the rising of the sun. I wasn’t nervous or afraid; but I sat up and lit my pipe and leaned against a rock.

“What you getting up so soon for, Sam?” asked Bill.

“Me?” says I. “Oh, I got a kind of a pain in my shoulder. I thought sitting up would rest it.”

“You’re a liar!” says Bill. “You’re afraid. You was to be burned at sunrise, and you was afraid he’d do it. And he would, too, if he could find a match. Ain’t it awful, Sam? Do you think anybody will pay out money to get a little imp like that back home?”

“Sure,” said I. “A rowdy kid like that is just the kind that parents dote on. Now, you and the Chief get up and cook breakfast, while I go up on the top of this mountain and reconnoitre.”

I went up on the peak of the little mountain and ran my eye over the contiguous vicinity. Over toward Summit I expected to see the sturdy yeomanry of the village armed with scythes and pitchforks beating the countryside for the dastardly kidnappers. But what I saw was a peaceful landscape dotted with one man ploughing with a dun mule. Nobody was dragging the creek; no couriers dashed hither and yon, bringing tidings of no news to the distracted parents. There was a sylvan attitude of somnolent sleepiness pervading that section of the external outward surface of Alabama that lay exposed to my view. “Perhaps,” says I to myself, “it has not yet been discovered that the wolves have borne away the tender lambkin from the fold. Heaven help the wolves!” says I, and I went down the mountain to breakfast.

When I got to the cave I found Bill backed up against the side of it, breathing hard, and the boy threatening to smash him with a rock half as big as a cocoanut.

“He put a red-hot boiled potato down my back,” explained Bill, “and then mashed it with his foot; and I boxed his ears. Have you got a gun about you, Sam?”

I took the rock away from the boy and kind of patched up the argument. “I’ll fix you,” says the kid to Bill. “No man ever yet struck the Red Chief but what he got paid for it. You better beware!”

After breakfast the kid takes a piece of leather with strings wrapped around it out of his pocket and goes outside the cave unwinding it.

“What’s he up to now?” says Bill, anxiously. “You don’t think he’ll run away, do you, Sam?”

“No fear of it,” says I. “He don’t seem to be much of a home body. But we’ve got to fix up some plan about the ransom. There don’t seem to be much excitement around Summit on account of his disappearance; but maybe they haven’t realized yet that he’s gone. His folks may think he’s spending the night with Aunt Jane or one of the neighbours. Anyhow, he’ll be missed to-day. To-night we must get a message to his father demanding the two thousand dollars for his return.”

Just then we heard a kind of war-whoop, such as David[206] might have emitted when he knocked out the champion Goliath[207]. It was a sling that Red Chief had pulled out of his pocket, and he was whirling it around his head.

I dodged, and heard a heavy thud and a kind of a sigh from Bill, like a horse gives out when you take his saddle off. A niggerhead rock the size of an egg had caught Bill just behind his left ear. He loosened himself all over and fell in the fire across the frying pan of hot water for washing the dishes. I dragged him out and poured cold water on his head for half an hour.

By and by, Bill sits up and feels behind his ear and says: “Sam, do you know who my favourite Biblical character is?”

“Take it easy,” says I. “You’ll come to your senses presently.”

“King Herod[208],” says he. “You won’t go away and leave me here alone, will you, Sam?”

I went out and caught that boy and shook him until his freckles rattled.

“If you don’t behave,” says I, “I’ll take you straight home. Now, are you going to be good, or not?”

“I was only funning,” says he sullenly. “I didn’t mean to hurt Old Hank. But what did he hit me for? I’ll behave, Snake-eye, if you won’t send me home, and if you’ll let me play the Black Scout to-day.”

“I don’t know the game,” says I. “That’s for you and Mr. Bill to decide. He’s your playmate for the day. I’m going away for a while, on business. Now, you come in and make friends with him and say you are sorry for hurting him, or home you go, at once.”

I made him and Bill shake hands, and then I took Bill aside and told him I was going to Poplar Cove, a little village three miles from the cave, and find out what I could about how the kidnapping had been regarded in Summit. Also, I thought it best to send a peremptory letter to old man Dorset that day, demanding the ransom and dictating how it should be paid.

“You know, Sam,” says Bill, “I’ve stood by you without batting an eye in earthquakes, fire and flood – in poker games, dynamite outrages, police raids, train robberies and cyclones. I never lost my nerve yet till we kidnapped that two-legged skyrocket of a kid. He’s got me going. You won’t leave me long with him, will you, Sam?”

“I’ll be back some time this afternoon,” says I. “You must keep the boy amused and quiet till I return. And now we’ll write the letter to old Dorset.”

Bill and I got paper and pencil and worked on the letter while Red Chief, with a blanket wrapped around him, strutted up and down, guarding the mouth of the cave. Bill begged me tearfully to make the ransom fifteen hundred dollars instead of two thousand. “I ain’t attempting,” says he, “to decry the celebrated moral aspect of parental affection, but we’re dealing with humans, and it ain’t human for anybody to give up two thousand dollars for that forty-pound chunk of freckled wildcat. I’m willing to take a chance at fifteen hundred dollars. You can charge the difference up to me.”

So, to relieve Bill, I acceded, and we collaborated a letter that ran this way:

Ebenezer Dorset, Esq.:

We have your boy concealed in a place far from Summit. It is useless for you or the most skilful detectives to attempt to find him. Absolutely, the only terms on which you can have him restored to you are these: We demand fifteen hundred dollars in large bills for his return; the money to be left at midnight to-night at the same spot and in the same box as your reply – as hereinafter described. If you agree to these terms, send your answer in writing by a solitary messenger to-night at half-past eight o’clock. After crossing Owl Creek, on the road to Poplar Cove, there are three large trees about a hundred yards apart, close to the fence of the wheat field on the right-hand side. At the bottom of the fence-post, opposite the third tree, will be found a small pasteboard box.

The messenger will place the answer in this box and return immediately to Summit.

If you attempt any treachery or fail to comply with our demand as stated, you will never see your boy again.

If you pay the money as demanded, he will be returned to you safe and well within three hours. These terms are final, and if you do not accede to them no further communication will be attempted.

TWO DESPERATE MEN.

I addressed this letter to Dorset, and put it in my pocket. As I was about to start, the kid comes up to me and says:

“Aw, Snake-eye, you said I could play the Black Scout while you was gone.”

“Play it, of course,” says I. “Mr. Bill will play with you. What kind of a game is it?”

“I’m the Black Scout,” says Red Chief, “and I have to ride to the stockade to warn the settlers that the Indians are coming. I’m tired of playing Indian myself. I want to be the Black Scout.”

“All right,” says I. “It sounds harmless to me. I guess Mr. Bill will help you foil the pesky savages.”

“What am I to do?” asks Bill, looking at the kid suspiciously.

“You are the hoss,” says Black Scout. “Get down on your hands and knees. How can I ride to the stockade without a hoss?”

“You’d better keep him interested,” said I, “till we get the scheme going. Loosen up.”

Bill gets down on his all fours, and a look comes in his eye like a rabbit’s when you catch it in a trap.

“How far is it to the stockade, kid?” he asks, in a husky manner of voice.

“Ninety miles,” says the Black Scout. “And you have to hump yourself to get there on time. Whoa, now!”

The Black Scout jumps on Bill’s back and digs his heels in his side.

“For Heaven’s sake,” says Bill, “hurry back, Sam, as soon as you can. I wish we hadn’t made the ransom more than a thousand. Say, you quit kicking me or I’ll get up and warm you good.”

I walked over to Poplar Cove and sat around the post-office and store, talking with the chaw-bacons that came in to trade. One whiskerando[209] says that he hears Summit is all upset on account of Elder Ebenezer Dorset’s boy having been lost or stolen. That was all I wanted to know. I bought some smoking tobacco, referred casually to the price of black-eyed peas, posted my letter surreptitiously and came away. The postmaster said the mail-carrier would come by in an hour to take the mail on to Summit.

When I got back to the cave Bill and the boy were not to be found. I explored the vicinity of the cave, and risked a yodel or two, but there was no response.

So I lighted my pipe and sat down on a mossy bank to await developments.

In about half an hour I heard the bushes rustle, and Bill wabbled out into the little glade in front of the cave. Behind him was the kid, stepping softly like a scout, with a broad grin on his face. Bill stopped, took off his hat and wiped his face with a red handkerchief. The kid stopped about eight feet behind him.

“Sam,” says Bill, “I suppose you’ll think I’m a renegade, but I couldn’t help it. I’m a grown person with masculine proclivities and habits of self-defense, but there is a time when all systems of egotism and predominance fail. The boy is gone. I have sent him home. All is off. There was martyrs in old times,” goes on Bill, “that suffered death rather than give up the particular graft they enjoyed. None of ‘em ever was subjugated to such supernatural tortures as I have been. I tried to be faithful to our articles of depredation; but there came a limit.”

“What’s the trouble, Bill?” I asks him.

“I was rode,” says Bill, “the ninety miles to the stockade, not barring an inch. Then, when the settlers was rescued, I was given oats. Sand ain’t a palatable substitute. And then, for an hour I had to try to explain to him why there was nothin’ in holes, how a road can run both ways and what makes the grass green. I tell you, Sam, a human can only stand so much. I takes him by the neck of his clothes and drags him down the mountain. On the way he kicks my legs black-and-blue from the knees down; and I’ve got to have two or three bites on my thumb and hand cauterized.

“But he’s gone” – continues Bill – “gone home. I showed him the road to Summit and kicked him about eight feet nearer there at one kick. I’m sorry we lose the ransom; but it was either that or Bill Driscoll to the madhouse.”

Bill is puffing and blowing, but there is a look of ineffable peace and growing content on his rose-pink features.

“Bill,” says I, “there isn’t any heart disease in your family, is there?

“No,” says Bill, “nothing chronic except malaria and accidents. Why?”

“Then you might turn around,” says I, “and have a took behind you.”

Bill turns and sees the boy, and loses his complexion and sits down plump on the round and begins to pluck aimlessly at grass and little sticks. For an hour I was afraid for his mind. And then I told him that my scheme was to put the whole job through immediately and that we would get the ransom and be off with it by midnight if old Dorset fell in with our proposition. So Bill braced up enough to give the kid a weak sort of a smile and a promise to play the Russian in a Japanese war with him is soon as he felt a little better.

I had a scheme for collecting that ransom without danger of being caught by counterplots that ought to commend itself to professional kidnappers. The tree under which the answer was to be left – and the money later on – was close to the road fence with big, bare fields on all sides. If a gang of constables should be watching for anyone to come for the note they could see him a long way off crossing the fields or in the road. But no, sirree![210] At half-past eight I was up in that tree as well hidden as a tree toad, waiting for the messenger to arrive.

Exactly on time, a half-grown boy rides up the road on a bicycle, locates the pasteboard box at the foot of the fence-post, slips a folded piece of paper into it and pedals away again back toward Summit.

I waited an hour and then concluded the thing was square. I slid down the tree, got the note, slipped along the fence till I struck the woods, and was back at the cave in another half an hour. I opened the note, got near the lantern and read it to Bill. It was written with a pen in a crabbed hand, and the sum and substance of it was this:

Two Desperate Men.

Gentlemen: I received your letter to-day by post, in regard to the ransom you ask for the return of my son. I think you are a little high in your demands, and I hereby make you a counter-proposition, which I am inclined to believe you will accept. You bring Johnny home and pay me two hundred and fifty dollars in cash, and I agree to take him off your hands. You had better come at night, for the neighbours believe he is lost, and I couldn’t be responsible for what they would do to anybody they saw bringing him back. Very respectfully,

EBENEZER DORSET.

“Great pirates of Penzance!” says I; “of all the impudent –”

But I glanced at Bill, and hesitated. He had the most appealing look in his eyes I ever saw on the face of a dumb or a talking brute.

“Sam,” says he, “what’s two hundred and fifty dollars, after all? We’ve got the money. One more night of this kid will send me to a bed in Bedlam[211]. Besides being a thorough gentleman, I think Mr. Dorset is a spendthrift for making us such a liberal offer. You ain’t going to let the chance go, are you?”

“Tell you the truth, Bill,” says I, “this little he ewe lamb has somewhat got on my nerves too. We’ll take him home, pay the ransom and make our get-away.”

We took him home that night. We got him to go by telling him that his father had bought a silver-mounted rifle and a pair of moccasins for him, and we were going to hunt bears the next day.

It was just twelve o’clock when we knocked at Ebenezer’s front door. Just at the moment when I should have been abstracting the fifteen hundred dollars from the box under the tree, according to the original proposition, Bill was counting out two hundred and fifty dollars into Dorset’s hand.

When the kid found out we were going to leave him at home he started up a howl like a calliope and fastened himself as tight as a leech to Bill’s leg. His father peeled him away gradually, like a porous plaster.

“How long can you hold him?” asks Bill.

“I’m not as strong as I used to be,” says old Dorset, “but I think I can promise you ten minutes.”

“Enough,” says Bill. “In ten minutes I shall cross the Central, Southern and Middle Western States, and be legging it trippingly for the Canadian border.”

And, as dark as it was, and as fat as Bill was, and as good a runner as I am, he was a good mile and a half out of Summit before I could catch up with him.

Edgar Allan Poe

The Fall of the House of Usher

Son cœur est un luth suspendu;

Sitôt qu’on le touche il résonne.[212]

De Béranger.[213]

During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. I know not how it was – but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom pervaded my spirit. I say insufferable; for the feeling was unrelieved by any of that half-pleasurable, because poetic, sentiment, with which the mind usually receives even the sternest natural images of the desolate or terrible. I looked upon the scene before me – upon the mere house, and the simple landscape features of the domain – upon the bleak walls – upon the vacant eye-like windows – upon a few rank sedges – and upon a few white trunks of decayed trees – with an utter depression of soul which I can compare to no earthly sensation more properly than to the after-dream of the reveler upon opium – the bitter lapse into every-day life – the hideous dropping off of the veil. There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart – an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of the imagination could torture into aught of the sublime. What was it – I paused to think – what was it that so unnerved me in the contemplation of the House of Usher? It was a mystery all insoluble; nor could I grapple with the shadowy fancies that crowded upon me as I pondered. I was forced to fall back upon the unsatisfactory conclusion that while, beyond doubt, there are combinations of very simple natural objects which have the power of thus affecting us, still the analysis of this power lies among considerations beyond our depth. It was possible, I reflected, that a mere different arrangement of the particulars of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps to annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression; and, acting upon this idea, I reined my horse to the precipitous brink of a black and lurid tarn that lay in unruffled luster by the dwelling, and gazed down – but with a shudder even more thrilling than before – upon the remodeled and inverted images of the gray sedge, and the ghastly tree stems, and the vacant and eye-like windows.

Nevertheless, in this mansion of gloom I now proposed to myself a sojourn of some weeks. Its proprietor, Roderick Usher, had been one of my boon companions in boyhood; but many years had elapsed since our last meeting. A letter, however, had lately reached me in a distant part of the country – a letter from him – which, in its wildly importunate nature, had admitted of no other than a personal reply. The MS. gave evidence of nervous agitation. The writer spoke of acute bodily illness – of a mental disorder which oppressed him, and of an earnest desire to see me, as his best, and indeed his only personal friend, with a view of attempting, by the cheerfulness of my society, some alleviation of his malady. It was the manner in which all this, and much more, was said – it was the apparent heart that went with his request – which allowed me no room for hesitation; and I accordingly obeyed forthwith what I still considered a very singular summons.

Although, as boys, we had been even intimate associates, yet I really knew little of my friend. His reserve had been always excessive and habitual. I was aware, however, that his very ancient family had been noted, time out of mind, for a peculiar sensibility of temperament, displaying itself, through long ages, in many works of exalted art, and manifested, of late, in repeated deeds of munificent, yet unobtrusive charity, as well as in a passionate devotion to the intricacies, perhaps even more than to the orthodox and easily recognizable beauties, of musical science. I had learned, too, the very remarkable fact that the stem of the Usher race, all time-honored as it was, had put forth, at no period, any enduring branch; in other words, that the entire family lay in the direct line of descent, and had always, with very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain. It was this deficiency, I considered, while running over in thought the perfect keeping of the character of the premises with the accredited character of the people, and while speculating upon the possible influence which the one, in the long lapse of centuries, might have exercised upon the other – it was this deficiency, perhaps, of collateral issue, and the consequent undeviating transmission, from sire to son, of the patrimony with the name, which had, at length, so identified the two as to merge the original title of the estate in the quaint and equivocal appellation of the ‘House of Usher’ – an appellation which seemed to include, in the minds of the peasantry who used it, both the family and the family mansion.

I have said that the sole effect of my somewhat childish experiment of looking down within the tarn had been to deepen the first singular impression. There can be no doubt that the consciousness of the rapid increase of my superstition – for why should I not so term it? – served mainly to accelerate the increase itself. Such, I have long known, is the paradoxical law of all sentiments having terror as a basis. And it might have been for this reason only, that, when I again uplifted my eyes to the house itself, from its image in the pool, there grew in my mind a strange fancy – a fancy so ridiculous, indeed, that I but mention it to show the vivid force of the sensations which oppressed me. I had so worked upon my imagination as really to believe that about the whole mansion and domain there hung an atmosphere peculiar to themselves and their immediate vicinity – an atmosphere which had no affinity with the air of heaven, but which had reeked up from the decayed trees, and the gray wall, and the silent tarn – a pestilent and mystic vapor, dull, sluggish, faintly discernible, and leaden-hued.

Shaking off from my spirit what must have been a dream, I scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building. Its principal feature seemed to be that of an excessive antiquity. The discoloration of ages had been great. Minute fungI overspread the whole exterior, hanging in a fine, tangled web-work from the eaves. Yet all this was apart from any extraordinary dilapidation. No portion of the masonry had fallen; and there appeared to be a wild inconsistency between its still perfect adaptation of parts, and the crumbling condition of the individual stones. In this there was much that reminded me of the specious totality of old woodwork which has rotted for years in some neglected vault, with no disturbance from the breath of the external air. Beyond this indication of extensive decay, however, the fabric gave little token of instability. Perhaps the eye of a scrutinizing observer might have discovered a barely perceptible fissure, which, extending from the roof of the building in front, made its way down the wall in a zigzag direction, until it became lost in the sullen waters of the tarn.

Noticing these things, I rode over a short causeway to the house. A servant in waiting took my horse, and I entered the Gothic archway of the hall. A valet, of stealthy step, thence conducted me, in silence, through many dark and intricate passages in my progress to the studio of his master. Much that I encountered on the way contributed, I know not how, to heighten the vague sentiments of which I have already spoken. While the objects around me – while the carvings of the ceilings, the somber tapestries of the walls, the ebon blackness of the floors, and the phantasmagoric armorial trophies which rattled as I strode, were but matters to which, or to such as which, I had been accustomed from my infancy – while I hesitated not to acknowledge how familiar was all this – I still wondered to find how unfamiliar were the fancies which ordinary images were stirring up. On one of the staircases I met the physician of the family. His countenance, I thought, wore a mingled expression of low cunning and perplexity. He accosted me with trepidation and passed on. The valet now threw open a door and ushered me into the presence of his master.

The room in which I found myself was very large and lofty. The windows were long, narrow, and pointed, and at so vast a distance from the black oaken floor as to be altogether inaccessible from within. Feeble gleams of encrimsoned light made their way through the trellised panes, and served to render sufficiently distinct the more prominent objects around; the eye, however, struggled in vain to reach the remoter angles of the chamber, or the recesses of the vaulted and fretted ceiling. Dark draperies hung upon the walls. The general furniture was profuse, comfortless, antique, and tattered. Many books and musical instruments lay scattered about, but failed to give any vitality to the scene. I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow. An air of stern, deep, and irredeemable gloom hung over and pervaded all.

Upon my entrance, Usher arose from a sofa on which he had been lying at full length, and greeted me with a vivacious warmth which had much in it, I at first thought, of an overdone cordiality – of the constrained effort of the ennuyé[214] man of the world. A glance, however, at his countenance convinced me of his perfect sincerity. We sat down; and for some moments, while he spoke not, I gazed upon him with a feeling half of pity, half of awe. Surely, man had never before so terribly altered, in so brief a period, as had Roderick Usher! It was with difficulty that I could bring myself to admit the identity of the wan being before me with the companion of my early boyhood. Yet the character of his face had been at all times remarkable. A cadaverousness of complexion; an eye large, liquid, and luminous beyond comparison; lips somewhat thin and very pallid, but of a surpassingly beautiful curve; a nose of a delicate Hebrew model, but with a breadth of nostril unusual in similar formations; a finely molded chin, speaking, in its want of prominence, of a want of moral energy; hair of a more than web-like softness and tenuity; these features, with an inordinate expansion above the regions of the temple, made up altogether a countenance not easily to be forgotten. And now in the mere exaggeration of the prevailing character of these features, and of the expression they were wont to convey, lay so much of change that I doubted to whom I spoke. The now ghastly pallor of the skin, and the now miraculous luster of the eye, above all things startled and even awed me. The silken hair, too, had been suffered to grow all unheeded, and as, in its wild gossamer texture, it floated rather than fell about the face, I could not, even with effort, connect its arabesque[215] expression with any idea of simple humanity.

In the manner of my friend I was at once struck with an incoherence – an inconsistency; and I soon found this to arise from a series of feeble and futile struggles to overcome an habitual trepidancy, an excessive nervous agitation. For something of this nature I had indeed been prepared, no less by his letter than by reminiscences of certain boyish traits, and by conclusions deduced from his peculiar physical conformation and temperament. His action was alternately vivacious and sullen. His voice varied rapidly from a tremulous indecision (when the animal spirits seemed utterly in abeyance) to that species of energetic concision – that abrupt, weighty, unhurried, and hollow-sounding enunciation – that leaden, self-balanced, and perfectly modulated guttural utterance, which may be observed in the lost drunkard, or the irreclaimable eater of opium, during the periods of his most intense excitement.

It was thus that he spoke of the object of my visit, of his earnest desire to see me, and of the solace he expected me to afford him. He entered, at some length, into what he conceived to be the nature of his malady. It was, he said, a constitutional and a family evil, and one for which he despaired to find a remedy – a mere nervous affection, he immediately added, which would undoubtedly soon pass off. It displayed itself in a host of unnatural sensations. Some of these, as he detailed them, interested and bewildered me; although, perhaps, the terms and the general manner of the narration had their weight. He suffered much from a morbid acuteness of the senses. The most insipid food was alone endurable; he could wear only garments of certain texture; the odors of all flowers were oppressive; his eyes were tortured by even a faint light; and there were but peculiar sounds, and these from stringed instruments, which did not inspire him with horror.

To an anomalous species of terror I found him a bounden slave. ‘I shall perish,’ said he, ‘I must perish in this deplorable folly. Thus, thus, and not otherwise, shall I be lost. I dread the events of the future, not in themselves, but in their results. I shudder at the thought of any, even the most trivial, incident, which may operate upon this intolerable agitation of soul. I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect – in terror. In this unnerved – in this pitiable condition – I feel that the period will sooner or later arrive when I must abandon life and reason together, in some struggle with the grim phantasm, Fear.’

I learned, moreover, at intervals, and through broken and equivocal hints, another singular feature of his mental condition. He was enchained by certain superstitious impressions in regard to the dwelling which he tenanted, and whence, for many years, he had never ventured forth – in regard to an influence whose supposititious force was conveyed in terms too shadowy here to be restated – an influence which some peculiarities in the mere form and substance of his family mansion, had, by dint of long sufferance, he said, obtained over his spirit – an effect which the physique of the gray walls and turrets, and of the dim tarn into which they all looked down, had, at length, brought about upon the morale[216] of his existence.

He admitted, however, although with hesitation, that much of the peculiar gloom which thus afflicted him could be traced to a more natural and far more palpable origin – to the severe and long-continued illness – indeed to the evidently approaching dissolution – of a tenderly beloved sister, his sole companion for long years, his last and only relative on earth. ‘Her decease,’ he said, with a bitterness which I can never forget, ‘would leave him (him the hopeless and the frail) the last of the ancient race of the Ushers.’ While he spoke, the lady Madeline (for so was she called) passed slowly through a remote portion of the apartment, and, without having noticed my presence, disappeared. I regarded her with an utter astonishment not unmingled with dread; and yet I found it impossible to account for such feelings. A sensation of stupor oppressed me, as my eyes followed her retreating steps. When a door, at length, closed upon her, my glance sought instinctively and eagerly the countenance of the brother; but he had buried his face in his hands, and I could only perceive that a far more than ordinary wanness had overspread the emaciated fingers through which trickled many passionate tears.

The disease of the lady Madeline had long baffled the skill of her physicians. A settled apathy, a gradual wasting away of the person, and frequent although transient affections of a partially cataleptical[217] character, were the unusual diagnosis. Hitherto she had steadily borne up against the pressure of her malady, and had not betaken herself finally to bed; but on the closing in the evening of my arrival at the house, she succumbed (as her brother told me at night with inexpressible agitation) to the prostrating power of the destroyer; and I learned that the glimpse I had obtained of her person would thus probably be the last I should obtain – that the lady, at least while living, would be seen by me no more.

For several days ensuing her name was unmentioned by either Usher or myself; and during this period I was busied in earnest endeavors to alleviate the melancholy of my friend. We painted and read together; or I listened, as if in a dream, to the wild improvisations of his speaking guitar. And thus, as a closer and still closer intimacy admitted me more unreservedly into the recesses of his spirit, the more bitterly did I perceive the futility of all attempt at cheering a mind from which darkness, as if an inherent positive quality, poured forth upon all objects of the moral and physical universe, in one unceasing radiation of gloom.

I shall ever bear about me a memory of the many solemn hours I thus spent alone with the master of the House of Usher. Yet I should fail in any attempt to convey an idea of the exact character of the studies, or of the occupations in which he involved me, or led me the way. An excited and highly distempered ideality threw a sulphurous luster over all. His long, improvised dirges will ring forever in my ears. Among other things, I hold painfully in mind a certain singular perversion and amplification of the wild air of the last waltz of Von Weber. From the paintings over which his elaborate fancy brooded, and which grew, touch by touch, into vaguenesses at which I shuddered the more thrillingly because I shuddered knowing not why, – from these paintings (vivid as their images now are before me) I would in vain endeavor to deduce more than a small portion which should lie within the compass of merely written words. By the utter simplicity, by the nakedness of his designs, he arrested and overawed attention. If ever mortal painted an idea, that mortal was Roderick Usher. For me, at least – in the circumstances then surrounding me – there arose out of the pure abstractions which the hypochondriac contrived to throw upon his canvas, an intensity of intolerable awe, no shadow of which felt I ever yet in the contemplation of the certainly glowing yet too concrete reveries of Fuseli[218].

One of the phantasmagoric conceptions of my friend, partaking not so rigidly of the spirit of abstraction, may be shadowed forth, although feebly, in words. A small picture presented the interior of an immensely long and rectangular vault or tunnel, with low walls, smooth, white, and without interruption or device. Certain accessory points of the design served well to convey the idea that this excavation lay at an exceeding depth below the surface of the earth. No outlet was observed in any portion of its vast extent, and no torch or other artificial source of light was discernible; yet a flood of intense rays rolled throughout, and bathed the whole in a ghastly and inappropriate splendor.

I have just spoken of that morbid condition of the auditory nerve which rendered all music intolerable to the sufferer, with the exception of certain effects of stringed instruments. It was, perhaps, the narrow limits to which he thus confined himself upon the guitar, which gave birth, in great measure, to the fantastic character of his performances. But the fervid facility of his impromptus[219] could not be so accounted for. They must have been, and were, in the notes, as well as in the words of his wild fantasias (for he not unfrequently accompanied himself with rimed verbal improvisations), the result of that intense mental collectedness and concentration to which I have previously alluded as observable only in particular moments of the highest artificial excitement. The words of one of these rhapsodies I have easily remembered. I was, perhaps, the more forcibly impressed with it, as he gave it, because, in the under or mystic current of its meaning, I fancied that I perceived, and for the first time, a full consciousness on the part of Usher, of the tottering of his lofty reason upon her throne. The verses, which were entitled ‘The Haunted Palace,’ ran very nearly, if not accurately, thus:

I.

In the greenest of our valleys,

By good angels tenanted,

Once a fair and stately palace —

Radiant palace – reared its head.

In the monarch Thought’s dominion —

It stood there!

Never seraph spread a pinion

Over fabric half so fair.

II.

Banners yellow, glorious, golden,

On its roof did float and flow;

(This – all this – was in the olden

Time long ago)

And every gentle air that dallied,

In that sweet day,

Along the ramparts plumed and pallid,

A wingèd odor went away.

III.

Wanderers in that happy valley

Through two luminous windows saw

Spirits moving musically

To a lute’s well-tunèd law,

Round about a throne, where sitting

(Porphyrogene!)

In state his glory well befitting,

The ruler of the realm was seen.

IV.

And all with pearl and ruby glowing

Was the fair palace door,

Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing

And sparkling evermore,

A troop of Echoes whose sweet duty

Was but to sing,

In voices of surpassing beauty,

The wit and wisdom of their king.

V.

But evil things, in robes of sorrow,

Assailed the monarch’s high estate

(Ah, let us mourn, for never morrow

Shall dawn upon him, desolate!);

And, round about his home, the glory

That blushed and bloomed

Is but a dim-remembered story

Of the old time entombed.

VI.

And travelers now within that valley,

Through the red-litten windows, see

Vast forms that move fantastically

To a discordant melody;

While, like a rapid ghastly river,

Through the pale door,

A hideous throng rush out forever,

And laugh – but smile no more.

I well remember that suggestions arising from this ballad led us into a train of thought wherein there became manifest an opinion of Usher’s which I mention not so much on account of its novelty (for other men have thought thus) as on account of the pertinacity with which he maintained it. This opinion, in its general form, was that of the sentience of all vegetable things. But, in his disordered fancy, the idea had assumed a more daring character, and trespassed, under certain conditions, upon the kingdom of inorganization. I lack words to express the full extent or the earnest abandon of his persuasion. The belief, however, was connected (as I have previously hinted) with the gray stones of the home of his forefathers. The conditions of the sentience had been here, he imagined, fulfilled in the method of collocation of these stones – in the order of their arrangement, as well as in that of the many fungI which overspread them, and of the decayed trees which stood around – above all, in the long-undisturbed endurance of this arrangement, and in its reduplication in the still waters of the tarn. Its evidence – the evidence of the sentience – was to be seen, he said (and I here started as he spoke), in the gradual yet certain condensation of an atmosphere of their own about the waters and the walls. The result was discoverable, he added, in that silent, yet importunate and terrible influence which for centuries had molded the destinies of his family, and which made him what I now saw him – what he was. Such opinions need no comment, and I will make none.

Our books – the books which, for years, had formed no small portion of the mental existence of the invalid – were, as might be supposed, in strict keeping with this character of phantasm. We pored together over such works as the Ververt et Chartreuse of Gresset[220]; the Belphegor of Machiavelli[221]; the Heaven and Hell of Swedenborg[222]; the Subterranean Voyage of Nicholas Klimm by Holberg[223]; the Chiromancy of Robert Flud[224], of Jean D’Indaginé, and of De la Chambre; the Journey into the Blue Distance of Tieck[225]; and the City of the Sun of Campanella[226]. One favorite volume was a small octavo edition of the Directorium Inquisitorium, by the Dominican Eymeric de Cironne[227]; and there were passages in Pomponius Mela[228], about the old African Satyrs[229] and Œgipans[230], over which Usher would sit dreaming for hours. His chief delight, however, was found in the perusal of an exceedingly rare and curious book in quarto Gothic – the manual of a forgotten church – the Vigiliae Mortuorum secundum Chorum Ecclesiae Maguntinae.

I could not help thinking of the wild ritual of this work, and of its probable influence upon the hypochondriac, when, one evening, having informed me abruptly that the lady Madeline was no more, he stated his intention of preserving her corpse for a fortnight (previously to its final interment) in one of the numerous vaults within the main walls of the building. The worldly reason, however, assigned for this singular proceeding, was one which I did not feel at liberty to dispute. The brother had been led to his resolution, so he told me, by consideration of the unusual character of the malady of the deceased, of certain obtrusive and eager inquiries on the part of her medical men, and of the remote and exposed situation of the burial ground of the family. I will not deny that when I called to mind the sinister countenance of the person whom I met upon the staircase, on the day of my arrival at the house, I had no desire to oppose what I regarded as at best but a harmless, and by no means an unnatural precaution.

At the request of Usher, I personally aided him in the arrangements for the temporary entombment. The body having been encoffined, we two alone bore it to its rest. The vault in which we placed it (and which had been so long unopened that our torches, half smothered in its oppressive atmosphere, gave us little opportunity for investigation) was small, damp, and entirely without means of admission for light; lying, at great depth, immediately beneath that portion of the building in which was my own sleeping apartment. It had been used, apparently, in remote feudal times, for the worst purposes of a donjon-keep, and in later days, as a place of deposit for powder, or some other highly combustible substance, as a portion of its floor, and the whole interior of a long archway through which we reached it, were carefully sheathed with copper. The door, of massive iron, had been also similarly protected. Its immense weight caused an unusually sharp grating sound, as it moved upon its hinges.

Having deposited our mournful burden upon tressels within this region of horror, we partially turned aside the yet unscrewed lid of the coffin, and looked upon the face of the tenant. A striking similitude between the brother and sister now first arrested my attention; and Usher, divining, perhaps, my thoughts, murmured out some few words from which I learned that the deceased and himself had been twins, and that sympathies of a scarcely intelligible nature had always existed between them. Our glances, however, rested not long upon the dead – for we could not regard her unawed. The disease which had thus entombed the lady in the maturity of youth, had left, as usual in all maladies of a strictly cataleptical character, the mockery of a faint blush upon the bosom and the face, and that suspiciously lingering smile upon the lip which is so terrible in death. We replaced and screwed down the lid, and having secured the door of iron, made our way, with toil, into the scarcely less gloomy apartments of the upper portion of the house.

And now, some days of bitter grief having elapsed, an observable change came over the features of the mental disorder of my friend. His ordinary manner had vanished. His ordinary occupations were neglected or forgotten. He roamed from chamber to chamber with hurried, unequal, and objectless step. The pallor of his countenance had assumed, if possible, a more ghastly hue – but the luminousness of his eye had utterly gone out. The once occasional huskiness of his tone was heard no more; and a tremulous quaver, as if of extreme terror, habitually characterized his utterance. There were times, indeed, when I thought his unceasingly agitated mind was laboring with some oppressive secret, to divulge which he struggled for the necessary courage. At times, again, I was obliged to resolve all into the mere inexplicable vagaries of madness; for I beheld him gazing upon vacancy for long hours, in an attitude of the profoundest attention, as if listening to some imaginary sound. It was no wonder that his condition terrified – that it infected me. I felt creeping upon me, by slow yet certain degrees, the wild influence of his own fantastic yet impressive superstitions.

It was, especially, upon retiring to bed late in the night of the seventh or eighth day after the placing of the lady Madeline within the donjon, that I experienced the full power of such feelings. Sleep came not near my couch, while the hours waned and waned away. I struggled to reason off the nervousness which had dominion over me. I endeavored to believe that much, if not all of what I felt, was due to the bewildering influence of the gloomy furniture of the room – of the dark and tattered draperies, which, tortured into motion by the breath of a rising tempest, swayed fitfully to and fro upon the walls, and rustled uneasily about the decorations of the bed. But my efforts were fruitless. An irrepressible tremor gradually pervaded my frame; and, at length, there sat upon my very heart an incubus of utterly causeless alarm. Shaking this off with a gasp and a struggle, I uplifted myself upon the pillows, and peering earnestly within the intense darkness of the chamber, hearkened – I know not why, except that an instinctive spirit prompted me – to certain low and indefinite sounds which came, through the pauses of the storm, at long intervals, I knew not whence. Overpowered by an intense sentiment of horror, unaccountable yet unendurable, I threw on my clothes with haste (for I felt that I should sleep no more during the night), and endeavored to arouse myself from the pitiable condition into which I had fallen, by pacing rapidly to and fro through the apartment.

I had taken but few turns in this manner, when a light step on an adjoining staircase arrested my attention. I presently recognized it as that of Usher. In an instant afterward he rapped, with a gentle touch, at my door, and entered, bearing a lamp. His countenance was, as usual, cadaverously wan – but, moreover, there was a species of mad hilarity in his eyes – and evidently restrained hysteria in his whole demeanor. His air appalled me – but anything was preferable to the solitude which I had so long endured, and I even welcomed his presence as a relief.

‘And you have not seen it?’ he said abruptly, after having stared about him for some moments in silence – ‘You have not then seen it? – but stay! you shall.’ Thus speaking, and having carefully shaded his lamp, he hurried to one of the casements, and threw it freely open to the storm.

The impetuous fury of the entering gust nearly lifted us from our feet. It was, indeed, a tempestuous yet sternly beautiful night, and one wildly singular in its terror and its beauty. A whirlwind had apparently collected its force in our vicinity; for there were frequent and violent alterations in the direction of the wind; and the exceeding density of the clouds (which hung so low as to press upon the turrets of the house) did not prevent our perceiving the lifelike velocity with which they flew careering from all points against each other, without passing away into the distance. I say that even their exceeding density did not prevent our perceiving this – yet we had no glimpse of the moon or stars – nor was there any flashing forth of the lightning. But the under surfaces of the huge masses of agitated vapor, as well as all terrestrial objects immediately around us, were glowing in the unnatural light of a faintly luminous and distinctly visible gaseous exhalation which hung about and enshrouded the mansion.

‘You must not – you shall not behold this!’ said I, shudderingly, to Usher, as I led him, with a gentle violence, from the window to a seat. ‘These appearances, which bewilder you, are merely electrical phenomena not uncommon – or it may be that they have their ghastly origin in the rank miasma of the tarn. Let us close this casement – the air is chilling and dangerous to your frame. Here is one of your favorite romances. I will read and you shall listen; – and so we will pass away this terrible night together.’

The antique volume which I had taken up was the ‘Mad Trist’ of Sir Launcelot Canning; but I had called it a favorite of Usher’s more in sad jest than in earnest; for, in truth, there is little in its uncouth and unimaginative prolixity which could have had interest for the lofty and spiritual ideality of my friend. It was, however, the only book immediately at hand; and I indulged a vague hope that the excitement which now agitated the hypochondriac, might find relief (for the history of mental disorder is full of similar anomalies) even in the extremeness of the folly which I should read. Could I have judged, indeed, by the wild, overstrained air of vivacity with which he hearkened, or apparently harkened, to the words of the tale, I might well have congratulated myself upon the success of my design.

I had arrived at that well-known portion of the story where Ethelred, the hero of the Trist, having sought in vain for peaceable admission into the dwelling of the hermit, proceeds to make good an entrance by force. Here, it will be remembered, the words of the narrative run thus:

‘And Ethelred, who was by nature of a doughty heart, and who was now mighty withal, on account of the powerfulness of the wine which he had drunken, waited no longer to hold parley with the hermit, who, in sooth, was of an obstinate and maliceful turn; but, feeling the rain upon his shoulders, and fearing the rising of the tempest, uplifted his mace outright, and, with blows, made quickly room in the plankings of the door for his gauntleted hand; and now pulling therewith sturdily, he so cracked, and ripped, and tore all asunder, that the noise of the dry and hollow-sounding wood alarummed and reverberated throughout the forest.’

At the termination of this sentence I started, and for a moment paused; for it appeared to me (although I at once concluded that my excited fancy had deceived me) – it appeared to me that, from some very remote portion of the mansion, there came, indistinctly, to my ears what might have been, in its exact similarity of character, the echo (but a stifled and dull one certainly) of the very cracking and ripping sound which Sir Launcelot had so particularly described. It was, beyond doubt, the coincidence alone which had arrested my attention; for, amid the rattling of the sashes of the casements, and the ordinary commingled noises of the still increasing storm, the sound, in itself, had nothing, surely, which should have interested or disturbed me. I continued the story:

‘But the good champion Ethelred, now entering within the door, was sore enraged and amazed to perceive no signal of the maliceful hermit; but, in the stead thereof, a dragon of a scaly and prodigious demeanor, and of a fiery tongue, which sate in guard before a palace of gold, with a floor of silver; and upon the wall there hung a shield of shining brass with this legend enwritten —

‘Who entereth herein, a conqueror hath bin;

Who slayeth the dragon, the shield he shall win;

‘And Ethelred uplifted his mace, and struck upon the head of the dragon, which fell before him, and gave up his pesty breath, with a shriek so horrid and harsh, and withal so piercing, that Ethelred had fain to close his ears with his hands against the dreadful noise of it, the like whereof was never before heard.’

Here again I paused abruptly, and now with a feeling of wild amazement – for there could be no doubt whatever that, in this instance, I did actually hear (although from what direction it proceeded I found it impossible to say) a low and apparently distant, but harsh, protracted, and most unusual screaming or grating sound – the exact counterpart of what my fancy had already conjured up for the dragon’s unnatural shriek as described by the romancer.

Oppressed, as I certainly was, upon the occurrence of this second and most extraordinary coincidence, by a thousand conflicting sensations, in which wonder and extreme terror were predominant, I still retained sufficient presence of mind to avoid exciting, by any observation, the sensitive nervousness of my companion. I was by no means certain that he had noticed the sounds in question; although, assuredly, a strange alteration had, during the last few minutes, taken place in his demeanor. From a position fronting my own, he had gradually brought round his chair, so as to sit with his face to the door of the chamber; and thus I could but partially perceive his features, although I saw that his lips trembled as if he were murmuring inaudibly. His head had dropped upon his breast – yet I knew that he was not asleep, from the wide and rigid opening of the eye as I caught a glance of it in profile. The motion of his body, too, was at variance with this idea – for he rocked from side to side with a gentle yet constant and uniform sway. Having rapidly taken notice of all this, I resumed the narrative of Sir Launcelot, which thus proceeded:

‘And now the champion, having escaped from the terrible fury of the dragon, bethinking himself of the brazen shield, and of the breaking up of the enchantment which was upon it, removed the carcass from out of the way before him, and approached valorously over the silver pavement of the castle to where the shield was upon the wall; which in sooth tarried not for his full coming, but fell down at his feet upon the silver floor, with a mighty great and terrible ringing sound.’

No sooner had these syllables passed my lips, than – as if a shield of brass had indeed, at the moment, fallen heavily upon a floor of silver – I became aware of a distinct, hollow, metallic and clangorous, yet apparently muffled reverberation. Completely unnerved, I leaped to my feet; but the measured rocking movement of Usher was undisturbed. I rushed to the chair in which he sat. His eyes were bent fixedly before him, and throughout his whole countenance there reigned a stony rigidity. But, as I placed my hand upon his shoulder, there came a strong shudder over his whole person; a sickly smile quivered about his lips; and I saw that he spoke in a low, hurried, and gibbering murmur, as if unconscious of my presence. Bending closely over him, I at length drank in the hideous import of his words.

‘Not hear it? – yes, I hear it, and have heard it. Long – long – long – many minutes, many hours, many days, have I heard it – yet I dared not – oh, pity me, miserable wretch that I am! – I dared not – I dared not speak! We have put her living in the tomb! Said I not that my senses were acute? I now tell you that I heard her first feeble movements in the hollow coffin. I heard them – many, many days ago – yet I dared not – I dared not speak! And now – to-night – Ethelred – ha! ha! – the breaking of the hermit’s door, and the death-cry of the dragon, and the clangor of the shield! – say, rather, the rending of her coffin, and the grating of the iron hinges of her prison, and her struggles within the coppered archway of the vault! Oh, whither shall I fly? Will she not be here anon? Is she not hurrying to upbraid me for my haste? Have I not heard her footstep on the stair? Do I not distinguish that heavy and horrible beating of her heart? Madman!’ – here he sprang furiously to his feet, and shrieked out his syllables, as if in the effort he were giving up his soul – ‘Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the door!’

As if in the superhuman energy of his utterance there had been found the potency of a spell – the huge antique pannels to which the speaker pointed threw slowly back, upon the instant, their ponderous and ebony jaws. It was the work of the rushing gust – but then without those doors there did stand the lofty and enshrouded figure of the lady Madeline of Usher. There was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame. For a moment she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold – then, with a low, moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and in her violent and now final death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he had anticipated.

From that chamber, and from that mansion, I fled aghast. The storm was still abroad in all its wrath as I found myself crossing the old causeway. Suddenly there shot along the path a wild light, and I turned to see whence a gleam so unusual could have issued; for the vast house and its shadows were alone behind me. The radiance was that of the full, setting, and blood-red moon, which now shone vividly through that once barely discernible fissure, of which I have before spoken as extending from the roof of the building, in a zigzag direction, to the base. While I gazed, this fissure rapidly widened – there came a fierce breath of the whirlwind – the entire orb of the satellite burst at once upon my sight – my brain reeled as I saw the mighty walls rushing asunder – there was a long tumultuous shouting sound like the voice of a thousand waters – and the deep and dank tarn at my feet closed sullenly and silently over the fragments of the ‘House of Usher.’

The Masque of the Red Death

The ‘Red Death’ had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar[231] and its seal – the redness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure, progress and termination of the disease, were the incidents of half an hour.

But the Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his castellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince’s own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts. They resolved to leave means neither of ingress or egress to the sudden impulses of despair or of frenzy from within. The abbey was amply provisioned. With such precautions the courtiers might bid defiance to contagion. The external world could take care of itself. In the meantime it was folly to grieve, or to think. The prince had provided all the appliances of pleasure. There were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine. All these and security were within. Without was the ‘Red Death.’

It was toward the close of the fifth or sixth month of his seclusion, and while the pestilence raged most furiously abroad, that the Prince Prospero entertained his thousand friends at a masked ball of the most unusual magnificence.

It was a voluptuous scene that masquerade. But first let me tell of the rooms in which it was held. There were seven – an imperial suite. In many palaces, however, such suites form a long and straight vista, while the folding doors slide back nearly to the walls on either hand, so that the view of the whole extent is scarcely impeded. Here the case was very different; as might have been expected from the duke’s love of the bizarre. The apartments were so irregularly disposed that the vision embraced but little more than one at a time. There was a sharp turn at every twenty or thirty yards, and at each turn a novel effect. To the right and left, in the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out upon a closed corridor which pursued the windings of the suite. These windows were of stained glass whose color varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which it opened. That at the eastern extremity was hung, for example in blue – and vividly blue were its windows. The second chamber was purple in its ornaments and tapestries, and here the panes were purple. The third was green throughout, and so were the casements. The fourth was furnished and lighted with orange – the fifth with white – the sixth with violet. The seventh apartment was closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue. But in this chamber only, the color of the windows failed to correspond with the decorations. The panes here were scarlet – a deep blood color. Now in no one of the seven apartments was there any lamp or candelabrum, amid the profusion of golden ornaments that lay scattered to and fro or depended from the roof. There was no light of any kind emanating from lamp or candle within the suite of chambers. But in the corridors that followed the suite, there stood, opposite to each window, a heavy tripod, bearing a brazier of fire that projected its rays through the tinted glass and so glaringly illumined the room. And thus were produced a multitude of gaudy and fantastic appearances. But in the western or black chamber the effect of the fire-light that streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood-tinted panes, was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of those who entered, that there were few of the company bold enough to set foot within its precincts at all.

It was in this apartment, also, that there stood against the western wall, a gigantic clock of ebony. Its pendulum swung to and fro with a dull, heavy, monotonous clang; and when the minute-hand made the circuit of the face, and the hour was to be stricken, there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to hearken to the sound; and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale, and the more aged and sedate passed their hands over their brows as if in confused reverie or meditation. But when the echoes had fully ceased, a light laughter at once pervaded the assembly; the musicians looked at each other and smiled as if at their own nervousness and folly, and made whispering vows, each to the other, that the next chiming of the clock should produce in them no similar emotion; and then, after the lapse of sixty minutes, (which embrace three thousand and six hundred seconds of the Time that flies,) there came yet another chiming of the clock, and then were the same disconcert and tremulousness and meditation as before.

But, in spite of these things, it was a gay and magnificent revel. The tastes of the duke were peculiar. He had a fine eye for colors and effects. He disregarded the decora of mere fashion. His plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions glowed with barbaric lustre. There are some who would have thought him mad. His followers felt that he was not. It was necessary to hear and see and touch him to be sure that he was not.

He had directed, in great part, the moveable embellishments of the seven chambers, upon occasion of this great fete; and it was his own guiding taste which had given character to the masqueraders. Be sure they were grotesque. There were much glare and glitter and piquancy and phantasm[232] – much of what has been since seen in ‘Hernani[233].’ There were arabesque figures with unsuited limbs and appointments. There were delirious fancies such as the madman fashions. There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust. To and fro in the seven chambers there stalked, in fact, a multitude of dreams. And these – the dreams – writhed in and about, taking hue from the rooms, and causing the wild music of the orchestra to seem as the echo of their steps. And, anon, there strikes the ebony clock which stands in the hall of the velvet. And then, for a moment, all is still, and all is silent save the voice of the clock. The dreams are stiff-frozen as they stand. But the echoes of the chime die away – they have endured but an instant – and a light, half-subdued laughter floats after them as they depart. And now again the music swells, and the dreams live, and writhe to and fro more merrily than ever, taking hue from the many tinted windows through which stream the rays from the tripods. But to the chamber which lies most westwardly of the seven, there are now none of the maskers who venture; for the night is waning away; and there flows a ruddier light through the blood-colored panes; and the blackness of the sable drapery appalls; and to him whose foot falls upon the sable carpet, there comes from the near clock of ebony a muffled peal more solemnly emphatic than any which reaches their ears who indulge in the more remote gaieties of the other apartments.

But these other apartments were densely crowded, and in them beat feverishly the heart of life. And the revel went whirlingly on, until at length there commenced the sounding of midnight upon the clock. And then the music ceased, as I have told; and the evolutions of the waltzers were quieted; and there was an uneasy cessation of all things as before. But now there were twelve strokes to be sounded by the bell of the clock; and thus it happened, perhaps that more of thought crept, with more of time, into the meditations of the thoughtful among those who revelled. And thus too, it happened, perhaps, that before the last echoes of the last chime had utterly sunk into silence, there were many individuals in the crowd who had found leisure to become aware of the presence of a masked figure which had arrested the attention of no single individual before. And the rumor of this new presence having spread itself whisperingly around, there arose at length from the whole company a buzz, or murmur, expressive of disapprobation and surprise – then, finally, of terror, of horror, and of disgust.

In an assembly of phantasms such as I have painted, it may well be supposed that no ordinary appearance could have excited such sensation. In truth the masquerade license of the night was nearly unlimited; but the figure in question had out-Heroded Herod[234], and gone beyond the bounds of even the prince’s indefinite decorum. There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made. The whole company, indeed, seemed now deeply to feel that in the costume and bearing of the stranger neither wit nor propriety existed. The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave. The mask which concealed the visage was made so nearly to resemble the countenance of a stiffened corpse that the closest scrutiny must have had difficulty in detecting the cheat. And yet all this might have been endured, if not approved, by the mad revellers around. But the mummer had gone so far as to assume the type of the Red Death. His vesture was dabbled in blood – and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror.

When the eyes of Prince Prospero fell upon this spectral image (which with a slow and solemn movement, as if more fully to sustain its role, stalked to and fro among the waltzers) he was seen to be convulsed, in the first moment with a strong shudder either of terror or distaste; but, in the next, his brow reddened with rage.

‘Who dares?’ he demanded hoarsely of the courtiers who stood near him – ‘who dares insult us with this blasphemous mockery? Seize him and unmask him – that we may know whom we have to hang at sunrise, from the battlements!’

It was in the eastern or blue chamber in which stood the Prince Prospero as he uttered these words. They rang throughout the seven rooms loudly and clearly – for the prince was a bold and robust man, and the music had become hushed at the waving of his hand.

It was in the blue room where stood the prince, with a group of pale courtiers by his side. At first, as he spoke, there was a slight rushing movement of this group in the direction of the intruder, who, at the moment was also near at hand, and now, with deliberate and stately step, made closer approach to the speaker. But from a certain nameless awe with which the mad assumptions of the mummer had inspired the whole party, there were found none who put forth hand to seize him; so that, unimpeded, he passed within a yard of the prince’s person; and, while the vast assembly, as if with one impulse, shrank from the centres of the rooms to the walls, he made his way uninterruptedly, but with the same solemn and measured step which had distinguished him from the first, through the blue chamber to the purple – through the purple to the green – through the green to the orange – through this again to the white – and even thence to the violet, ere a decided movement had been made to arrest him. It was then, however, that the Prince Prospero, maddening with rage and the shame of his own momentary cowardice, rushed hurriedly through the six chambers, while none followed him on account of a deadly terror that had seized upon all. He bore aloft a drawn dagger, and had approached, in rapid impetuosity, to within three or four feet of the retreating figure, when the latter, having attained the extremity of the velvet apartment, turned suddenly and confronted his pursuer. There was a sharp cry – and the dagger dropped gleaming upon the sable carpet, upon which, instantly afterwards, fell prostrate in death the Prince Prospero. Then, summoning the wild courage of despair, a throng of the revellers at once threw themselves into the black apartment, and, seizing the mummer, whose tall figure stood erect and motionless within the shadow of the ebony clock, gasped in unutterable horror at finding the grave cerements and corpse-like mask which they handled with so violent a rudeness, untenanted by any tangible form.

And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.

Mark Twain

How I Edited an Agricultural Paper

I did not take temporary editorship of an agricultural paper without misgivings. Neither would a landsman take command of a ship without misgivings. But I was in circumstances that made the salary an object. The regular editor of the paper was going off for a holiday, and I accepted the terms he offered, and took his place.

The sensation of being at work again was luxurious, and I wrought all the week with unflagging pleasure. We went to press, and I waited a day with some solicitude to see whether my effort was going to attract any notice. As I left the office, toward sundown, a group of men and boys at the foot of the stairs dispersed with one impulse, and gave me passageway, and I heard one or two of them say: ‘That’s him!’ I was naturally pleased by this incident. The next morning I found a similar group at the foot of the stairs, and scattering couples and individuals standing here and there in the street and over the way, watching me with interest. The group separated and fell back as I approached, and I heard a man say, ‘Look at his eye!’ I pretended not to observe the notice I was attracting, but secretly I was pleased with it, and was purposing to write an account of it to my aunt. I went up the short flight of stairs, and heard cheery voices and a ringing laugh as I drew near the door, which I opened, and caught a glimpse of two young rural-looking men, whose faces blanched and lengthened when they saw me, and then they both plunged through the window with a great crash. I was surprised.

In about half an hour an old gentleman, with a flowing beard and a fine but rather austere face, entered, and sat down at my invitation. He seemed to have something on his mind. He took off his hat and set it on the floor, and got out of it a red silk handkerchief and a copy of our paper.

He put the paper on his lap, and while he polished his spectacles with his handkerchief he said, ‘Are you the new editor?’

I said I was.

‘Have you ever edited an agricultural paper before?’

‘No,’ I said; ‘this is my first attempt.’

‘Very likely. Have you had any experience in agriculture practically?’

‘No; I believe I have not.’

‘Some instinct told me so,’ said the old gentleman, putting on his spectacles, and looking over them at me with asperity, while he folded his paper into a convenient shape. ‘I wish to read you what must have made me have that instinct. It was this editorial. Listen, and see if it was you that wrote it:

‘“Turnips should never be pulled, it injures them. It is much better to send a boy up and let him shake the tree.”

‘Now, what do you think of that? For I really suppose you wrote it?’

‘Think of it? Why, I think it is good. I think it is sense. I have no doubt that every year millions and millions of bushels of turnips are spoiled in this township alone by being pulled in a half-ripe condition, when, if they had sent a boy up to shake the tree – ’

‘Shake your grandmother! Turnips don’t grow on trees!’

‘Oh, they don’t, don’t they? Well, who said they did? The language was intended to be figurative, wholly figurative. Anybody that knows anything will know that I meant that the boy should shake the vine.’

Then this old person got up and tore his paper all into small shreds, and stamped on them, and broke several things with his cane, and said I did not know as much as a cow; and then went out and banged the door after him, and, in short, acted in such a way that I fancied he was displeased about something. But not knowing what the trouble was, I could not be any help to him.

Pretty soon after this a long, cadaverous creature, with lanky locks hanging down to his shoulders, and a week’s stubble bristling from the hills and valleys of his face, darted within the door, and halted, motionless, with finger on lip, and head and body bent in listening attitude. No sound was heard.

Still he listened. No sound. Then he turned the key in the door, and came elaborately tiptoeing toward me till he was within long reaching distance of me, when he stopped and, after scanning my face with intense interest for a while, drew a folded copy of our paper from his bosom, and said:

‘There, you wrote that. Read it to me – quick! Relieve me. I suffer.’

I read as follows; and as the sentences fell from my lips I could see the relief come, I could see the drawn muscles relax, and the anxiety go out of the face, and rest and peace steal over the features like the merciful moonlight over a desolate landscape:

“The guano is a fine bird, but great care is necessary in rearing it. It should not be imported earlier than June or later than September. In the winter it should be kept in a warm place, where it can hatch out its young.

It is evident that we are to have a backward season for grain. Therefore it will be well for the farmer to begin setting out his corn-stalks and planting his buckwheat cakes in July instead of August.

Concerning the pumpkin. This berry is a favorite with the natives of the interior of New England, who prefer it to the gooseberry for the making of fruit-cake, and who likewise give it the preference over the raspberry for feeding cows, as being more filling and fully as satisfying. The pumpkin is the only esculent of the orange family that will thrive in the North, except the gourd and one or two varieties of the squash. But the custom of planting it in the front yard with the shrubbery is fast going out of vogue, for it is now generally conceded that, the pumpkin as a shade tree is a failure.

Now, as the warm weather approaches, and the ganders begin to spawn – ”

The excited listener sprang toward me to shake hands, and said:

‘There, there – that will do. I know I am all right now, because you have read it just as I did, word for word. But, stranger, when I first read it this morning, I said to myself, I never, never believed it before, notwithstanding my friends kept me under watch so strict, but now I believe I am crazy; and with that I fetched a howl that you might have heard two miles, and started out to kill somebody – because, you know, I knew it would come to that sooner or later, and so I might as well begin. I read one of them paragraphs over again, so as to be certain, and then I burned my house down and started. I have crippled several people, and have got one fellow up a tree, where I can get him if I want him. But I thought I would call in here as I passed along and make the thing perfectly certain; and now it is certain, and I tell you it is lucky for the chap that is in the tree. I should have killed him sure, as I went back. Good-bye, sir, good-bye; you have taken a great load off my mind. My reason has stood the strain of one of your agricultural articles, and I know that nothing can ever unseat it now. Good-bye, sir.’

I felt a little uncomfortable about the cripplings and arsons this person had been entertaining himself with, for I could not help feeling remotely accessory to them. But these thoughts were quickly banished, for the regular editor walked in! [I thought to myself, ‘Now if you had gone to Egypt as I recommended you to, I might have had a chance to get my hand in; but you wouldn’t do it, and here you are. I sort of expected you.’]

The editor was looking sad and perplexed and dejected.

He surveyed the wreck which that old rioter and those two young farmers had made, and then said, ‘This is a sad business – a very sad business. There is the mucilage-bottle broken, and six panes of glass, and a spittoon, and two candlesticks. But that is not the worst. The reputation of the paper is injured – and permanently, I fear. True, there never was such a call for the paper before, and it never sold such a large edition or soared to such celebrity; but does one want to be famous for lunacy, and prosper upon the infirmities of his mind? My friend, as I am an honest man, the street out here is full of people, and others are roosting on the fences, waiting to get a glimpse of you, because they think you are crazy. And well they might after reading your editorials. They are a disgrace to journalism. Why, what put it into your head that you could edit a paper of this nature? You do not seem to know the first rudiments of agriculture. You speak of a furrow and a harrow as being the same thing; you talk of the moulting season for cows; and you recommend the domestication of the pole-cat on account of its playfulness and its excellence as a ratter! Your remark that clams will lie quiet if music be played to them was superfluous – entirely superfluous. Nothing disturbs clams. Clams always lie quiet. Clams care nothing whatever about music. Ah, heavens and earth, friend! If you had made the acquiring of ignorance the study of your life, you could not have graduated with higher honor than you could to-day. I never saw anything like it. Your observation that the horse-chestnut as an article of commerce is steadily gaining in favor is simply calculated to destroy this journal. I want you to throw up your situation and go. I want no more holiday – I could not enjoy it if I had it. Certainly not with you in my chair. I would always stand in dread of what you might be going to recommend next. It makes me lose all patience every time I think of your discussing oyster-beds under the head of ‘Landscape Gardening.’ I want you to go. Nothing on earth could persuade me to take another holiday. Oh! why didn’t you tell me you didn’t know anything about agriculture?’

‘Tell you, you corn-stalk, you cabbage, you son of a cauliflower? It’s the first time I ever heard such an unfeeling remark. I tell you I have been in the editorial business going on fourteen years, and it is the first time I ever heard of a man’s having to know anything in order to edit a newspaper. You turnip! Who write the dramatic critiques for the second-rate papers? Why, a parcel of promoted shoemakers and apprentice apothecaries, who know just as much about good acting as I do about good farming and no more. Who review the books? People who never wrote one. Who do up the heavy leaders on finance? Parties who have had the largest opportunities for knowing nothing about it. Who criticize the Indian campaigns? Gentlemen who do not know a war-whoop from a wigwam[235], and who never have had to run a foot-race with a tomahawk, or pluck arrows out of the several members of their families to build the evening camp-fire with. Who write the temperance appeals, and clamor about the flowing bowl? Folks who will never draw another sober breath till they do it in the grave. Who edit the agricultural papers, you, yam? Men, as a general thing, who fail in the poetry line, yellow-colored novel line, sensation, drama line, city-editor line, and finally fall back on agriculture as a temporary reprieve from the poorhouse. You try to tell me anything about the newspaper business! Sir, I have been through it from Alpha[236] to Omaha[237], and I tell you that the less a man knows the bigger the noise he makes and the higher the salary he commands. Heaven knows if I had but been ignorant instead of cultivated, and impudent instead of diffident, I could have made a name for myself in this cold, selfish world. I take my leave, sir. Since I have been treated as you have treated me, I am perfectly willing to go. But I have done my duty. I have fulfilled my contract as far as I was permitted to do it. I said I could make your paper of interest to all classes – and I have. I said I could run your circulation up to twenty thousand copies, and if I had had two more weeks I’d have done it. And I’d have given you the best class of readers that ever an agricultural paper had – not a farmer in it, nor a solitary individual who could tell a watermelon-tree from a peach-vine to save his life. You are the loser by this rupture, not me, Pie-plant. Adiós[238].’

I then left.

Experience of the McWilliamses with Membranous Croup

[As related to the author of this book by Mr. McWilliams, a pleasant New York gentleman whom the said author met by chance on a journey.]

Well, to go back to where I was before I digressed to explain to you how that frightful and incurable disease, membranous croup, was ravaging the town and driving all mothers mad with terror, I called Mrs. McWilliams’s attention to little Penelope, and said:

‘Darling, I wouldn’t let that child be chewing that pine stick if I were you.’

‘Precious, where is the harm in it?’ said she, but at the same time preparing to take away the stick for women cannot receive even the most palpably judicious suggestion without arguing it, that is married women.

I replied:

‘Love, it is notorious that pine is the least nutritious wood that a child can eat.’

My wife’s hand paused, in the act of taking the stick, and returned itself to her lap. She bridled perceptibly, and said:

‘Hubby, you know better than that. You know you do. Doctors all say that the turpentine in pine wood is good for weak back and the kidneys.’

‘Ah – I was under a misapprehension. I did not know that the child’s kidneys and spine were affected, and that the family physician had recommended – ’

‘Who said the child’s spine and kidneys were affected?’

‘My love, you intimated it.’

‘The idea! I never intimated anything of the kind.’

‘Why, my dear, it hasn’t been two minutes since you said – ’

‘Bother what I said! I don’t care what I did say. There isn’t any harm in the child’s chewing a bit of pine stick if she wants to, and you know it perfectly well. And she shall chew it, too. So there, now!’

‘Say no more, my dear. I now see the force of your reasoning, and I will go and order two or three cords of the best pine wood to-day. No child of mine shall want while I – ’

‘Oh, please go along to your office and let me have some peace. A body can never make the simplest remark but you must take it up and go to arguing and arguing and arguing till you don’t know what you are talking about, and you never do.’

‘Very well, it shall be as you say. But there is a want of logic in your last remark which – ’

However, she was gone with a flourish before I could finish, and had taken the child with her. That night at dinner she confronted me with a face a white as a sheet:

‘Oh, Mortimer, there’s another! Little GeorgI Gordon is taken.’

‘Membranous croup?’

‘Membranous croup.’

‘Is there any hope for him?’

‘None in the wide world. Oh, what is to become of us!’

By and by a nurse brought in our Penelope to say good night and offer the customary prayer at the mother’s knee. In the midst of ‘Now I lay me down to sleep,’ she gave a slight cough! My wife fell back like one stricken with death. But the next moment she was up and brimming with the activities which terror inspires.

She commanded that the child’s crib be removed from the nursery to our bedroom; and she went along to see the order executed. She took me with her, of course. We got matters arranged with speed. A cot-bed was put up in my wife’s dressing room for the nurse. But now Mrs. McWilliams said we were too far away from the other baby, and what if he were to have the symptoms in the night – and she blanched again, poor thing.

We then restored the crib and the nurse to the nursery and put up a bed for ourselves in a room adjoining.

Presently, however, Mrs. McWilliams said suppose the baby should catch it from Penelope? This thought struck a new panic to her heart, and the tribe of us could not get the crib out of the nursery again fast enough to satisfy my wife, though she assisted in her own person and well-nigh pulled the crib to pieces in her frantic hurry.

We moved down-stairs; but there was no place there to stow the nurse, and Mrs. McWilliams said the nurse’s experience would be an inestimable help. So we returned, bag and baggage, to our own bedroom once more, and felt a great gladness, like storm-buffeted birds that have found their nest again.

Mrs. McWilliams sped to the nursery to see how things were going on there. She was back in a moment with a new dread. She said:

‘What can make Baby sleep so?’

I said:

‘Why, my darling, Baby always sleeps like a graven image.’

‘I know. I know; but there’s something peculiar about his sleep now. He seems to – to – he seems to breathe so regularly. Oh, this is dreadful.’

‘But, my dear, he always breathes regularly.’

‘Oh, I know it, but there’s something frightful about it now. His nurse is too young and inexperienced. Maria shall stay there with her, and be on hand if anything happens.’

‘That is a good idea, but who will help you?’

‘You can help me all I want. I wouldn’t allow anybody to do anything but myself, anyhow, at such a time as this.’

I said I would feel mean to lie abed and sleep, and leave her to watch and toil over our little patient all the weary night. But she reconciled me to it. So old Maria departed and took up her ancient quarters in the nursery.

Penelope coughed twice in her sleep.

‘Oh, why don’t that doctor come! Mortimer, this room is too warm. This room is certainly too warm. Turn off the register – quick!’

I shut it off, glancing at the thermometer at the same time, and wondering to myself if 70 was too warm for a sick child.

The coachman arrived from down-town now with the news that our physician was ill and confined to his bed. Mrs. McWilliams turned a dead eye upon me, and said in a dead voice:

‘There is a Providence in it. It is foreordained. He never was sick before. Never. We have not been living as we ought to live, Mortimer. Time and time again I have told you so. Now you see the result. Our child will never get well. Be thankful if you can forgive yourself; I never can forgive myself.’

I said, without intent to hurt, but with heedless choice of words, that I could not see that we had been living such an abandoned life.

‘Mortimer! Do you want to bring the judgment upon Baby, too!’

Then she began to cry, but suddenly exclaimed:

‘The doctor must have sent medicines!’

I said:

‘Certainly. They are here. I was only waiting for you to give me a chance.’

‘Well do give them to me! Don’t you know that every moment is precious now? But what was the use in sending medicines, when he knows that the disease is incurable?’

I said that while there was life there was hope.

‘Hope! Mortimer, you know no more what you are talking about than the child unborn. If you would – as I live, the directions say give one teaspoonful once an hour! Once an hour! – as if we had a whole year before us to save the child in! Mortimer, please hurry. Give the poor perishing thing a tablespoonful, and try to be quick!’

‘Why, my dear, a tablespoonful might – ’

‘Don’t drive me frantic!.. There, there, there, my precious, my own; it’s nasty bitter stuff, but it’s good for Nelly – good for mother’s precious darling; and it will make her well. There, there, there, put the little head on mamma’s breast and go to sleep, and pretty soon – oh, I know she can’t live till morning! Mortimer, a tablespoonful every half-hour will – Oh, the child needs belladonna, too; I know she does – and aconite. Get them, Mortimer. Now do let me have my way. You know nothing about these things.’

We now went to bed, placing the crib close to my wife’s pillow. All this turmoil had worn upon me, and within two minutes I was something more than half asleep. Mrs. McWilliams roused me:

‘Darling, is that register turned on?’

‘No.’

‘I thought as much. Please turn it on at once. This room is cold.’

I turned it on, and presently fell asleep again. I was aroused once more:

‘Dearie, would you mind moving the crib to your side of the bed? It is nearer the register.’

I moved it, but had a collision with the rug and woke up the child. I dozed off once more, while my wife quieted the sufferer. But in a little while these words came murmuring remotely through the fog of my drowsiness:

‘Mortimer, if we only had some goose grease – will you ring?’

I climbed dreamily out, and stepped on a cat, which responded with a protest and would have got a convincing kick for it if a chair had not got it instead.

‘Now, Mortimer, why do you want to turn up the gas and wake up the child again?’

‘Because I want to see how much I am hurt, Caroline.’

‘Well, look at the chair, too – I have no doubt it is ruined. Poor cat, suppose you had – ’

‘Now I am not going to suppose anything about the cat. It never would have occurred if Maria had been allowed to remain here and attend to these duties, which are in her line and are not in mine.’

‘Now, Mortimer, I should think you would be ashamed to make a remark like that. It is a pity if you cannot do the few little things I ask of you at such an awful time as this when our child – ’

‘There, there, I will do anything you want. But I can’t raise anybody with this bell. They’re all gone to bed. Where is the goose grease?’

‘On the mantelpiece in the nursery. If you’ll step there and speak to Maria – ’

I fetched the goose grease and went to sleep again. Once more I was called:

‘Mortimer, I so hate to disturb you, but the room is still too cold for me to try to apply this stuff. Would you mind lighting the fire? It is all ready to touch a match to.’

I dragged myself out and lit the fire, and then sat down disconsolate.

‘Mortimer, don’t sit there and catch your death of cold. Come to bed.’

As I was stepping in she said:

‘But wait a moment. Please give the child some more of the medicine.’

Which I did. It was a medicine which made a child more or less lively; so my wife made use of its waking interval to strip it and grease it all over with the goose oil. I was soon asleep once more, but once more I had to get up.

‘Mortimer, I feel a draft. I feel it distinctly. There is nothing so bad for this disease as a draft. Please move the crib in front of the fire.’

I did it; and collided with the rug again, which I threw in the fire. Mrs. McWilliams sprang out of bed and rescued it and we had some words. I had another trifling interval of sleep, and then got up, by request, and constructed a flax-seed poultice. This was placed upon the child’s breast and left there to do its healing work.

A wood-fire is not a permanent thing. I got up every twenty minutes and renewed ours, and this gave Mrs. McWilliams the opportunity to shorten the times of giving the medicines by ten minutes, which was a great satisfaction to her. Now and then, between times, I reorganized the flax-seed poultices, and applied sinapisms and other sorts of blisters where unoccupied places could be found upon the child. Well, toward morning the wood gave out and my wife wanted me to go down cellar and get some more. I said:

‘My dear, it is a laborious job, and the child must be nearly warm enough, with her extra clothing. Now mightn’t we put on another layer of poultices and – ’

I did not finish, because I was interrupted. I lugged wood up from below for some little time, and then turned in and fell to snoring as only a man can whose strength is all gone and whose soul is worn out. Just at broad daylight I felt a grip on my shoulder that brought me to my senses suddenly. My wife was glaring down upon me and gasping. As soon as she could command her tongue she said:

‘It is all over! All over! The child’s perspiring! What shall we do?’

‘Mercy, how you terrify me! I don’t know what we ought to do. Maybe if we scraped her and put her in the draft again – ’

‘Oh, idiot! There is not a moment to lose! Go for the doctor. Go yourself. Tell him he must come, dead or alive.’

I dragged that poor sick man from his bed and brought him. He looked at the child and said she was not dying. This was joy unspeakable to me, but it made my wife as mad as if he had offered her a personal affront. Then he said the child’s cough was only caused by some trifling irritation or other in the throat. At this I thought my wife had a mind to show him the door. Now the doctor said he would make the child cough harder and dislodge the trouble. So he gave her something that sent her into a spasm of coughing, and presently up came a little wood splinter or so.

‘This child has no membranous croup,’ said he. ‘She has been chewing a bit of pine shingle or something of the kind, and got some little slivers in her throat. They won’t do her any hurt.’

‘No,’ said I, ‘I can well believe that. Indeed, the turpentine that is in them is very good for certain sorts of diseases that are peculiar to children. My wife will tell you so.’

But she did not. She turned away in disdain and left the room; and since that time there is one episode in our life which we never refer to. Hence the tide of our days flows by in deep and untroubled serenity.

[Very few married men have such an experience as McWilliams’s, and so the author of this book thought that maybe the novelty of it would give it a passing interest to the reader.]

Edith Wharton

The Choice

I

Stilling, that night after dinner, had surpassed himself. He always did, Wrayford reflected, when the small fry from Highfield came to dine. He, Cobham Stilling, who had to find his bearings and keep to his level in the big heedless ironic world of New York, dilated and grew vast in the congenial medium of Highfield. The Red House was the biggest house of the Highfield summer colony, and Cobham Stilling was its biggest man. No one else within a radius of a hundred miles (on a conservative estimate) had as many horses, as many greenhouses, as many servants, and assuredly no one else had three motors and a motor-boat for the lake.

The motor-boat was Stilling’s latest hobby, and he rode – or steered – it in and out of the conversation all the evening, to the obvious edification of every one present save his wife and his visitor, Austin Wrayford. The interest of the latter two who, from opposite ends of the drawing-room, exchanged a fleeting glance when Stilling again launched his craft on the thin current of the talk – the interest of Mrs. Stilling and Wrayford had already lost its edge by protracted contact with the subject.

But the dinner-guests – the Rector, Mr. Swordsley, his wife Mrs. Swordsley, Lucy and Agnes Granger, their brother Addison, and young Jack Emmerton from Harvard – were all, for divers reasons, stirred to the proper pitch of feeling. Mr. Swordsley, no doubt, was saying to himself: ‘If my good parishioner here can afford to buy a motor-boat, in addition to all the other expenditures which an establishment like this must entail, I certainly need not scruple to appeal to him again for a contribution for our Galahad Club.’ The Granger girls, meanwhile, were evoking visions of lakeside picnics, not unadorned with the presence of young Mr. Emmerton; while that youth himself speculated as to whether his affable host would let him, when he came back on his next vacation, ‘learn to run the thing himself’; and Mr. Addison Granger, the elderly bachelor brother of the volatile Lucy and Agnes, mentally formulated the precise phrase in which, in his next letter to his cousin Professor Spildyke of the University of East Latmos, he should allude to ‘our last delightful trip in my old friend Cobham Stilling’s ten-thousand-dollar motor-launch’ – for East Latmos was still in that primitive stage of culture on which five figures impinge.

Isabel Stilling, sitting beside Mrs. Swordsley, her bead slightly bent above the needlework with which on these occasions it was her old-fashioned habit to employ herself – Isabel also had doubtless her reflections to make. As Wrayford leaned back in his corner and looked at her across the wide flower-filled drawing-room he noted, first of all – for the how many hundredth time? – the play of her hands above the embroidery-frame, the shadow of the thick dark hair on her forehead, the lids over her somewhat full grey eyes. He noted all this with a conscious deliberateness of enjoyment, taking in unconsciously, at the same time, the particular quality in her attitude, in the fall of her dress and the turn of her head, which had set her for him, from the first day, in a separate world; then he said to himself: ‘She is certainly thinking: “Where on earth will Cobham get the money to pay for it?”’

Stilling, cigar in mouth and thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, was impressively perorating from his usual dominant position on the hearth-rug.

‘I said: “If I have the thing at all, I want the best that can be got.” That’s my way, you know, Swordsley; I suppose I’m what you’d call fastidious. Always was, about everything, from cigars to wom – ’ his eye met the apprehensive glance of Mrs. Swordsley, who looked like her husband with his clerical coat cut slightly lower – ‘so I said: “If I have the thing at all, I want the best that can be got.” Nothing makeshift for me, no second-best. I never cared for the cheap and showy. I always say frankly to a man: “If you can’t give me a first-rate cigar, for the Lord’s sake let me smoke my own.”’ He paused to do so. ‘Well, if you have my standards, you can’t buy a thing in a minute. You must look round, compare, select. I found there were lots of motor-boats on the market, just as there’s lots of stuff called champagne. But I said to myself: “Ten to one there’s only one fit to buy, just as there’s only one champagne fit for a gentleman to drink.” Argued like a lawyer, eh, Austin?’ He tossed this to Wrayford. ‘Take me for one of your own trade, wouldn’t you? Well, I’m not such a fool as I look. I suppose you fellows who are tied to the treadmill – excuse me, Swordsley, but work’s work, isn’t it? – I suppose you think a man like me has nothing to do but take it easy: loll through life like a woman. By George, sir, I’d like either of you to see the time it takes – I won’t say the brain – but just the time it takes to pick out a good motor-boat. Why, I went – ’

Mrs. Stilling set her embroidery-frame noiselessly on the table at her side, and turned her head toward Wrayford. ‘Would you mind ringing for the tray?’

The interruption helped Mrs. Swordsley to waver to her feet. ‘I’m afraid we ought really to be going; my husband has an early service to-morrow.’

Her host intervened with a genial protest. ‘Going already? Nothing of the sort! Why, the night’s still young, as the poet says. Long way from here to the rectory? Nonsense! In our little twenty-horse car we do it in five minutes – don’t we, Belle? Ah, you’re walking, to be sure – ’ Stilling’s indulgent gesture seemed to concede that, in such a case, allowances must be made, and that he was the last man not to make them. ‘Well, then, Swordsley – ’ He held out a thick red hand that seemed to exude beneficence, and the clergyman, pressing it, ventured to murmur a suggestion.

‘What, that Galahad Club again? Why, I thought my wife – Isabel, didn’t we – No? Well, it must have been my mother, then. Of course, you know, anything my good mother gives is – well – virtually – You haven’t asked her? Sure? I could have sworn; I get so many of these appeals. And in these times, you know, we have to go cautiously. I’m sure you recognize that yourself, Swordsley. With my obligations – here now, to show you don’t bear malice, have a brandy and soda before you go. Nonsense, man! This brandy isn’t liquor; it’s liqueur. I picked it up last year in London – last of a famous lot from Lord St. Oswyn’s cellar. Laid down here, it stood me at – Eh?’ he broke off as his wife moved toward him. ‘Ah, yes, of course. Miss Lucy, Miss Agnes – a drop of soda-water? Look here, Addison, you won’t refuse my tipple, I know. Well, take a cigar, at any rate, Swordsley. And, by the way, I’m afraid you’ll have to go round the long way by the avenue to-night. Sorry, Mrs. Swordsley, but I forgot to tell them to leave the gate into the lane unlocked. Well, it’s a jolly night, and I daresay you won’t mind the extra turn along the lake. And, by Jove! if the moon’s out, you’ll have a glimpse of the motorboat. She’s moored just out beyond our boat-house; and it’s a privilege to look at her, I can tell you!’

The dispersal of his guests carried Stilling out into the hall, where his pleasantries reverberated under the oak rafters while the Granger girls were being muffled for the drive and the carriages summoned from the stables.

By a common impulse Mrs. Stilling and Wrayford had moved together toward the fire-place, which was hidden by a tall screen from the door into the hall. Wrayford leaned his elbow against the mantel-piece, and Mrs. Stilling stood beside him, her clasped hands hanging down before her.

‘Have you anything more to talk over with him?’ she asked.

‘No. We wound it all up before dinner. He doesn’t want to talk about it anymore than he can help.’

‘It’s so bad?’

‘No; but this time he’s got to pull up.’

She stood silent, with lowered lids. He listened a moment, catching Stilling’s farewell shout; then he moved a little nearer, and laid his hand on her arm.

‘In an hour?’

She made an imperceptible motion of assent.

‘I’ll tell you about it then. The key’s as usual?’

She signed another ‘Yes’ and walked away with her long drifting step as her husband came in from the hall.

He went up to the tray and poured himself out a tall glass of brandy and soda.

‘The weather is turning queer – black as pitch. I hope the Swordsleys won’t walk into the lake – involuntary immersion, eh? He’d come out a Baptist[239], I suppose. What’d the Bishop do in such a case? There’s a problem for a lawyer, my boy!’

He clapped his hand on Wrayford’s thin shoulder and then walked over to his wife, who was gathering up her embroidery silks and dropping them into her work-bag. Stilling took her by the arms and swung her playfully about so that she faced the lamplight.

‘What’s the matter with you tonight?’

‘The matter?’ she echoed, colouring a little, and standing very straight in her desire not to appear to shrink from his touch.

‘You never opened your lips. Left me the whole job of entertaining those blessed people. Didn’t she, Austin?’

Wrayford laughed and lit a cigarette.

‘There! You see even Austin noticed it. What’s the matter, I say? Aren’t they good enough for you? I don’t say they’re particularly exciting; but, hang it! I like to ask them here – I like to give people pleasure.’

‘I didn’t mean to be dull,’ said Isabel.

‘Well, you must learn to make an effort. Don’t treat people as if they weren’t in the room just because they don’t happen to amuse you. Do you know what they’ll think? They’ll think it’s because you’ve got a bigger house and more money than they have. Shall I tell you something? My mother said she’d noticed the same thing in you lately. She said she sometimes felt you looked down on her for living in a small house. Oh, she was half joking, of course; but you see you do give people that impression. I can’t understand treating any one in that way. The more I have myself, the more I want to make other people happy.’

Isabel gently freed herself and laid the work-bag on her embroidery-frame. ‘I have a headache; perhaps that made me stupid. I’m going to bed.’ She turned toward Wrayford and held out her hand. ‘Good night.’

‘Good night,’ he answered, opening the door for her.

When he turned back into the room, his host was pouring himself a third glass of brandy and soda.

‘Here, have a nip, Austin? Gad, I need it badly, after the shaking up you gave me this afternoon.’ Stilling laughed and carried his glass to the hearth, where he took up his usual commanding position. ‘Why the deuce don’t you drink something? You look as glum as Isabel. One would think you were the chap that had been hit by this business.’

Wrayford threw himself into the chair from which Mrs. Stilling had lately risen. It was the one she usually sat in, and to his fancy a faint scent of her clung to it. He leaned back and looked up at Stilling.

‘Want a cigar?’ the latter continued. ‘Shall we go into the den and smoke?’

Wrayford hesitated. ‘If there’s anything more you want to ask me about – ’

‘Gad, no! I had full measure and running over this afternoon. The deuce of it is, I don’t see where the money’s all gone to. Luckily I’ve got plenty of nerve; I’m not the kind of man to sit down and snivel because I’ve been touched in Wall Street[240].’

Wrayford got to his feet again. ‘Then, if you don’t want me, I think I’ll go up to my room and put some finishing touches to a brief before I turn in. I must get back to town to-morrow afternoon.’

‘All right, then.’ Stilling set down his empty glass, and held out his hand with a tinge of alacrity. ‘Good night, old man.’

They shook hands, and Wrayford moved toward the door.

‘I say, Austin – stop a minute!’ his host called after him. Wrayford turned, and the two men faced each other across the hearth-rug. Stilling’s eyes shifted uneasily.

‘There’s one thing more you can do for me before you leave. Tell Isabel about that loan; explain to her that she’s got to sign a note for it.’

Wrayford, in his turn, flushed slightly. ‘You want me to tell her?’

‘Hang it! I’m soft-hearted – that’s the worst of me.’

Stilling moved toward the tray, and lifted the brandy decanter. ‘And she’ll take it better from you; she’ll have to take it from you. She’s proud. You can take her out for a row to-morrow morning – look here, take her out in the motor-launch if you like. I meant to have a spin in it myself; but if you’ll tell her – ’

Wrayford hesitated. ‘All right, I’ll tell her.’

‘Thanks a lot, my dear fellow. And you’ll make her see it wasn’t my fault, eh? Women are awfully vague about money, and she’ll think it’s all right if you back me up.’

Wrayford nodded. ‘As you please.’

‘And, Austin – there’s just one more thing. You needn’t say anything to Isabel about the other business – I mean about my mother’s securities.’

‘Ah?’ said Wrayford, pausing.

Stilling shifted from one foot to the other. ‘I’d rather put that to the old lady myself. I can make it clear to her. She idolizes me, you know – and, hang it! I’ve got a good record. Up to now, I mean. My mother’s been in clover since I married; I may say she’s been my first thought. And I don’t want her to hear of this beastly business from Isabel. Isabel’s a little harsh at times – and of course this isn’t going to make her any easier to live with.’

‘Very well,’ said Wrayford.

Stilling, with a look of relief, walked toward the window which opened on the terrace. ‘Gad! what a queer night! Hot as the kitchen-range. Shouldn’t wonder if we had a squall before morning. I wonder if that infernal skipper took in the launch’s awnings before he went home.’

Wrayford stopped with his hand on the door. ‘Yes, I saw him do it. She’s shipshape for the night.’

‘Good! That saves me a run down to the shore.’

‘Good night, then,’ said Wrayford.

‘Good night, old man. You’ll tell her?’

‘I’ll tell her.’

‘And mum about my mother!’ his host called after him.

II

The darkness had thinned a little when Wrayford scrambled down the steep path to the shore. Though the air was heavy the threat of a storm seemed to have vanished, and now and then the moon’s edge showed above a torn slope of cloud.

But in the thick shrubbery about the boat-house the darkness was still dense, and Wrayford had to strike a match before he could find the lock and insert his key. He left the door unlatched, and groped his way in. How often he had crept into this warm pine-scented obscurity, guiding himself by the edge of the bench along the wall, and hearing the soft lap of water through the gaps in the flooring! He knew just where one had to duck one’s head to avoid the two canoes swung from the rafters, and just where to put his hand on the latch of the farther door that led to the broad balcony above the lake.

The boat-house represented one of Stilling’s abandoned whims. He had built it some seven years before, and for a time it had been the scene of incessant nautical exploits. Stilling had rowed, sailed, paddled indefatigably, and all Highfield had been impressed to bear him company, and to admire his versatility. Then motors had come in, and he had forsaken aquatic sports for the flying chariot. The canoes of birch-bark and canvas had been hoisted to the roof, the sail-boat had rotted at her moorings, and the movable floor of the boat-house, ingeniously contrived to slide back on noiseless runners, had lain undisturbed through several seasons. Even the key of the boat-house had been mislaid – by Isabel’s fault, her husband said – and the locksmith had to be called in to make a new one when the purchase of the motor-boat made the lake once more the centre of Stilling’s activity.

As Wrayford entered he noticed that a strange oily odor overpowered the usual scent of dry pine-wood; and at the next step his foot struck an object that rolled noisily across the boards. He lighted another match, and found he had overturned a can of grease which the boatman had no doubt been using to oil the runners of the sliding floor.

Wrayford felt his way down the length of the boathouse, and softly opening the balcony door looked out on the lake. A few yards away, he saw the launch lying at anchor in the veiled moonlight; and just below him, on the black water, was the dim outline of the skiff which the boatman kept to paddle out to her. The silence was so intense that Wrayford fancied he heard a faint rustling in the shrubbery on the high bank behind the boat-house, and the crackle of gravel on the path descending to it.

He closed the door again and turned back into the darkness; and as he did so the other door, on the land-side, swung inward, and he saw a figure in the dim opening. Just enough light entered through the round holes above the respective doors to reveal Mrs. Stilling’s cloaked outline, and to guide her to him as he advanced. But before they met she stumbled and gave a little cry.

‘What is it?’ he exclaimed.

‘My foot caught; the floor seemed to give way under me. Ah, of course – ’ she bent down in the darkness – ‘I saw the men oiling it this morning.’

Wrayford caught her by the arm. ‘Do take care! It might be dangerous if it slid too easily. The water’s deep under here.’

‘Yes; the water’s very deep. I sometimes wish – ’ She leaned against him without finishing her sentence, and he put both arms about her.

‘Hush!’ he said, his lips on hers.

Suddenly she threw her head back and seemed to listen.

‘What’s the matter? What do you hear?’

‘I don’t know.’ He felt her trembling. ‘I’m not sure this place is as safe as it used to be – ’

Wrayford held her to him reassuringly. ‘But the boatman sleeps down at the village; and who else should come here at this hour?’

‘Cobham might. He thinks of nothing but the launch.’

‘He won’t to-night. I told him I’d seen the skipper put her shipshape, and that satisfied him.’

‘Ah – he did think of coming, then?’

‘Only for a minute, when the sky looked so black half an hour ago, and he was afraid of a squall. It’s clearing now, and there’s no danger.’

He drew her down on the bench, and they sat a moment or two in silence, her hands in his. Then she said: ‘You’d better tell me.’

Wrayford gave a faint laugh. ‘Yes, I suppose I had. In fact, he asked me to.’

‘He asked you to?’

‘Yes.’

She uttered an exclamation of contempt. ‘He’s afraid!’

Wrayford made no reply, and she went on: ‘I’m not. Tell me everything, please.’

‘Well, he’s chucked away a pretty big sum again – ’

‘How?’

‘He says he doesn’t know. He’s been speculating, I suppose. The madness of making him your trustee!’

She drew her hands away. ‘You know why I did it. When we married I didn’t want to put him in the false position of the man who contributes nothing and accepts everything; I wanted people to think the money was partly his.’

‘I don’t know what you’ve made people think; but you’ve been eminently successful in one respect. He thinks it’s all his – and he loses it as if it were.’

‘There are worse things. What was it that he wished you to tell me?’

‘That you’ve got to sign another promissory note – for fifty thousand this time.’

‘Is that all?’

Wrayford hesitated; then he said: ‘Yes – for the present.’

She sat motionless, her head bent, her hand resting passively in his.

He leaned nearer. ‘What did you’ mean just now, by worse things?’

She hesitated. ‘Haven’t you noticed that he’s been drinking a great deal lately?’

‘Yes; I’ve noticed.’

They were both silent; then Wrayford broke out, with sudden vehemence: ‘And yet you won’t – ’

‘Won’t?’

‘Put an end to it. Good God! Save what’s left of your life.’

She made no answer, and in the stillness the throb of the water underneath them sounded like the beat of a tormented heart.

‘Isabel – ’ Wrayford murmured. He bent over to kiss her. ‘Isabel! I can’t stand it! listen – ’

‘No; no. I’ve thought of everything. There’s the boy – the boy’s fond of him. He’s not a bad father.’

‘Except in the trifling matter of ruining his son.’

‘And there’s his poor old mother. He’s a good son, at any rate; he’d never hurt her. And I know her. If I left him, she’d never take a penny of my money. What she has of her own is not enough to live on; and how could he provide for her? If I put him out of doors, I should be putting his mother out too.’

‘You could arrange that – there are always ways.’

‘Not for her! She’s proud. And then she believes in him. Lots of people believe in him, you know. It would kill her if she ever found out.’

Wrayford made an impatient movement. ‘It will kill you if you stay with him to prevent her finding out.’

She laid her other hand on his. ‘Not while I have you.’

‘Have me? In this way?’

‘In any way.’

‘My poor girl – poor child!’

‘Unless you grow tired – unless your patience gives out.’

He was silent, and she went on insistently: ‘Don’t you suppose I’ve thought of that too – foreseen it?’

‘Well – and then?’ he exclaimed.

‘I’ve accepted that too.’

He dropped her hands with a despairing gesture. ‘Then, indeed, I waste my breath!’

She made no answer, and for a time they sat silent again, a little between them. At length he asked: ‘You’re not crying?’

‘No.’

‘I can’t see your face, it’s grown so dark.’

‘Yes. The storm must be coming.’ She made a motion as if to rise.

He drew close and put his arm about her. ‘Don’t leave me yet. You know I must go to-morrow.’ He broke off with a laugh. ‘I’m to break the news to you to-morrow morning, by the way; I’m to take you out in the motor-launch and break it to you.’ He dropped her hands and stood up. ‘Good God! How can I go and leave you here with him?’

‘You’ve done it often.’

‘Yes; but each time it’s more damnable. And then I’ve always had a hope – ’

She rose also. ‘Give it up! Give it up!’

‘You’ve none, then, yourself?’

She was silent, drawing the folds of her cloak about her.

‘None – none?’ he insisted.

He had to bend his head to hear her answer. ‘Only one!’

‘What, my dearest? What?’

‘Don’t touch me! That he may die!’

They drew apart again, hearing each other’s quick breathing through the darkness.

‘You wish that too?’ he said.

‘I wish it always – every day, every hour, every moment!’ She paused, and then let the words break from her. ‘You’d better know it; you’d better know the worst of me. I’m not the saint you suppose; the duty I do is poisoned by the thoughts I think. Day by day, hour by hour, I wish him dead. When he goes out I pray for something to happen; when he comes back I say to myself: “Are you here again?” When I hear of people being killed in accidents, I think: “Why wasn’t he there?” When I read the death-notices in the paper I say: “So-and-so was just his age.” When I see him taking such care of his health and his diet – as he does, you know, except when he gets reckless and begins to drink too much – when I see him exercising and resting, and eating only certain things, and weighing himself, and feeling his muscles, and boasting that he hasn’t gained a pound, I think of the men who die from overwork, or who throw their lives away for some great object, and I say to myself: “What can kill a man who thinks only of himself?” And night after night I keep myself from going to sleep for fear I may dream that he’s dead. When I dream that, and wake and find him there it’s worse than ever – ’

She broke off with a sob, and the loud lapping of the water under the floor was like the beat of a rebellious heart.

‘There, you know the truth!’ she said.

He answered after a pause: ‘People do die.’

‘Do they?’ She laughed. ‘Yes – in happy marriages!’

They were silent again, and Isabel turned, feeling her way toward the door. As she did so, the profound stillness was broken by the sound of a man’s voice trolling out unsteadily the refrain of a music-hall song.

The two in the boat-house darted toward each other with a simultaneous movement, clutching hands as they met.

‘He’s coming!’ Isabel said.

Wrayford disengaged his hands.

‘He may only be out for a turn before he goes to bed. Wait a minute. I’ll see.’ He felt his way to the bench, scrambled up on it, and stretching his body forward managed to bring his eyes in line with the opening above the door.

‘It’s as black as pitch. I can’t see anything.’

The refrain rang out nearer.

‘Wait! I saw something twinkle. There it is again. It’s his cigar. It’s coming this way – down the path.’

There was a long rattle of thunder through the stillness.

‘It’s the storm!’ Isabel whispered. ‘He’s coming to see about the launch.’

Wrayford dropped noiselessly from the bench and she caught him by the arm.

‘Isn’t there time to get up the path and slip under the shrubbery?’

‘No, he’s in the path now. He’ll be here in two minutes. He’ll find us.’

He felt her hand tighten on his arm.

‘You must go in the skiff, then. It’s the only way.’

‘And let him find you? And hear my oars? Listen – there’s something I must say.’

She flung her arms about him and pressed her face to his.

‘Isabel, just now I didn’t tell you everything. He’s ruined his mother – taken everything of hers too. And he’s got to tell her; it can’t be kept from her.’

She uttered an incredulous exclamation and drew back.

‘Is this the truth? Why didn’t you tell me before?’

‘He forbade me. You were not to know.’

Close above them, in the shrubbery, Stilling warbled:

‘Nita, Juanita,

Ask thy soul if we must part!’

Wrayford held her by both arms. ‘Understand this – if he comes in, he’ll find us. And if there’s a row you’ll lose your boy.’

She seemed not to hear him. ‘You – you – you – he’ll kill you!’ she exclaimed.

Wrayford laughed impatiently and released her, and she stood shrinking against the wall, her hands pressed to her breast. Wrayford straightened himself and she felt that he was listening intently. Then he dropped to his knees and laid his hands against the boards of the sliding floor. It yielded at once, as if with a kind of evil alacrity; and at their feet they saw, under the motionless solid night, another darker night that moved and shimmered. Wrayford threw himself back against the opposite wall, behind the door.

A key rattled in the lock, and after a moment’s fumbling the door swung open. Wrayford and Isabel saw a man’s black bulk against the obscurity. It moved a step, lurched forward, and vanished out of sight. From the depths beneath them there came a splash and a long cry.

‘Go! go!’ Wrayford cried out, feeling blindly for Isabel in the blackness.

‘Oh – ’ she cried, wrenching herself away from him.

He stood still a moment, as if dazed; then she saw him suddenly plunge from her side, and heard another splash far down, and a tumult in the beaten water.

In the darkness she cowered close to the opening, pressing her face over the edge, and crying out the name of each of the two men in turn. Suddenly she began to see: the obscurity was less opaque, as if a faint moon-pallor diluted it. Isabel vaguely discerned the two shapes struggling in the black pit below her; once she saw the gleam of a face. She glanced up desperately for some means of rescue, and caught sight of the oars ranged on brackets against the wall. She snatched down the nearest, bent over the opening, and pushed the oar down into the blackness, crying out her husband’s name.

The clouds had swallowed the moon again, and she could see nothing below her; but she still heard the tumult in the beaten water.

‘Cobham! Cobham!’ she screamed.

As if in answer, she felt a mighty clutch on the oar, a clutch that strained her arms to the breaking-point as she tried to brace her knees against the runners of the sliding floor.

‘Hold on! Hold on! Hold on!’ a voice gasped out from below; and she held on, with racked muscles, with bleeding palms, with eyes straining from their sockets, and a heart that tugged at her as the weight was tugging at the oar.

Suddenly the weight relaxed, and the oar slipped up through her lacerated hands. She felt a wet body scrambling over the edge of the opening, and Stilling’s voice, raucous and strange, groaned out, close to her: ‘God! I thought I was done for.’

He staggered to his knees, coughing and sputtering, and the water dripped on her from his streaming clothes.

She flung herself down, again, straining over the pit. Not a sound came up from it.

‘Austin! Austin! Quick! Another oar!’ she shrieked.

Stilling gave a cry. ‘My God! Was it Austin? What in hell – Another oar? No, no; untie the skiff, I tell you. But it’s no use. Nothing’s any use. I felt him lose hold as I came up.’

After that she was conscious of nothing till, hours later, as it appeared to her, she became dimly aware of her husband’s voice, high, hysterical and important, haranguing a group of scared lantern-struck faces that had sprung up mysteriously about them in the night.

‘Poor Austin! Poor Wrayford… terrible loss to me… mysterious dispensation. Yes, I do feel gratitude – miraculous escape – but I wish old Austin could have known that I was saved!’

Примечания

1

Ohio – the US state in the Midwest (106 125 sq. km), joined the USA after the American Revolutionary War in 1783.

2

Indiana – the US state in the Midwest (93 491 sq. km), joined the USA after the American Revolutionary War.

3

Sandusky – a city on Lake Erie in northern Ohio, founded by the British in 1745.

4

Lake Erie – one of the five Great Lakes on the USA-Canadian border.

5

sine qua non – necessary conditions. (Latin)

6

St. George and his Dragon – a Christian martyr of the 3d century and the patron saint of England; St. George saved a Libyan king’s daughter from the dragon and killed the monster in return for the promise that the people of Libya would be baptized.

7

Alabama – the US state in the south (131 334 sq. km); the first Europeans who came there were the Spanish, the first settlement was founded by the French in 1701; after the war of 1763, the territory was ceded to England.

8

the Federal army – the army of the federal government in the American Civil War of 1861–1865 with 11 Southern states.

9

the Southern cause – the southern states seceded from the Union in 1860–1861; the Northern and the Southern states had different economies, different attitude to slavery, trade and the very idea of states’ rights.

10

Corinth – a city in northeastern Mississippi; the bloody battle took place to the north of the city during the American Civil War.

11

the Yanks – Yankees, a nickname of the citizens of New England states; the word was used by Southerners for Northerners and Federal soldiers during the American Civil War.

12

Niagara – Niagara Falls on the Niagara River in northeastern North America, on the USA-Canadian border.

13

Aeolian harps – Aeolian harp is a musical instrument in which sound is produced by the movement of the wind over the strings; in Greek mythology, Aeolus is the god of the winds.

14

delirium – mental state marked by confused thinking, hallucinations, etc. as a result of the intoxication of the brain caused by fever or some other physical disorder.

15

Kentuckian – a resident of Kentucky, the US state in the south (102 694 sq. km).

16

a Sandwich Islander – a resident of the Sandwich Islands, the second name of the Hawaiian Islands, a group of the volcanic islands in the Pacific Ocean; the first European who visited the islands in 1778 was Captain James Cook (1728–1779).

17

Pompadour – marquise de Pompadour (1721–1764), the mistress of Louis XV, king of France; she was a well-educated woman and a patron of art and literature.

18

Olympus – a mount in Greece (2,917 m); in Greek mythology, the place where gods lived.

19

the Lost Atlantis – a legendary island in the Atlantic Ocean, described by antique authors as a highly developed and powerful civilization.

20

Florence – a city in central Italy, founded in the 1st century BC and notable for its works of art.

21

the Commandments – in the Bible, the list of religious principles revealed to Moses, a Hebrew prophet of the 14th – 13th centuries BC, on Mount Sinai.

22

the Mosaic Law – the religious principles of Judaism revealed to Moses, a Hebrew prophet of the 14th – 13th centuries BC.

23

the Legion of Hono(u)r – the National Order of the Legion of Honour, a military and civil order of the French Republic, created by Napoleon in 1802.

24

damask – a silk, fine, patterned fabric, originally produced in Damascus, Syria.

25

catechism – a religious instruction in the form of questions and answers.

26

portière – heavy curtains hung in a doorway.

27

Marseilles – a city and port in southern France on the Mediterranean Sea, founded 2,500 years ago.

28

Desdemona – a fictional character in Shakespeare’s tragedy ‘Othello’ (1603).

29

the Pantheon – the 18th century building in Paris, an example of Neoclassical architecture with columns and a high dome.

30

La Petite – baby. (French)

31

Seigneur – Lord, God. (French)

32

Tan’tante – from tante = aunt. (French)

33

palmetto – a sort of small palm trees.

34

Il ne faut pas faire mal à Pauline. – Don’t do harm to Pauline. (French)

35

la guerre = war. (French)

36

Sumter – a county in South Caroline, US.

37

Louisiana – the US state (123,366 sq. km) admitted to the union in 1812 as the 18th member; it borders Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas.

38

Adieu! – Goodbye!

39

Venus – the second planet from the Sun; when it is visible, it is the brightest in the sky.

40

pied à terre – a place of refuge where a person lives from time to time. (French)

41

pullman – a sleeping car used on railroads, invented by George Pullman (1831–1897), an American industrialist and inventor.

42

San Antonio – a city in south-central Texas, founded in 1718 by Spanish explorers and named for St. Anthony of Padua.

43

cashmere – a fine woolen fabric first made in Kashmir, India.

44

the Rio Grande – a river in Texas, US, and Mexico, one of the longest rivers in North America; it flows to the Gulf of Mexico.

45

mesquite – a deep rooted shrub or small tree in South America and in the southwest of the USA.

46

maroon-colored – brownish-red.

47

Apache – North American Indians who used to live in what is now southeastern Arizona and Colorado, southwestern New Mexico and western Texas.

48

scalp-music – war music.

49

Atchison, Topeka and Santana Fé Railroad – one of the largest railway companies in the United States, founded in 1859.

50

Prometheus – in Greek religion, the god of fire and one of the Titans; the legend said that Zeus nailed him to the rock and sent an eagle to eat his liver as punishment for stealing fire and giving it to people.

51

Tantalus – in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus; he was punished for his crimes against gods – in the underworld he stood in water but couldn’t drink, fruits hung above his head but he couldn’t eat them.

52

Ixion – in Greek mythology, Zeus, to punish Ixion for murdering his father-in-law, bound him on a wheel which rolled without stopping.

53

Hermes – in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus, and the god of cattle and sheep; he was also a dream god and the messenger of the gods.

54

babel – a noisy and confused company.

55

lorgnette – a pair of eye-glasses on a long handle.

56

Harvard – the USA oldest higher educational institution, founded in 1636.

57

Princeton – the fourth oldest university in the USA, founded in New Jersey in 1746.

58

Yale – a private university in New Heaven, the third oldest in the US, founded in 1701.

59

Williams – Roger Williams University in Nashville, Tennessee, US.

60

Cornell – a university in Ithaca, a city in south-central New York state, founded in 1862.

61

New Haven – a city in south-central Connecticut, founded in 1638.

62

the League of Nations – the organization for international cooperation, the predecessor of the United Nations Organization, created in 1919 and disbanded in 1946.

63

Marie Antoinette (1755–1793) – the queen of France, wife of Louis XVI, executed during the French Revolution.

64

guillotine – a beheading instrument invented in 1792 during the French Revolution.

65

Greenwich Villager – resident of Green Village, an exclusive residential area in Lower Manhattan in New York City; in the first half of the 20th century it became the place where intellectuals, writers, artists and bohemians used to meet.

66

anachronism – 1) smth. or smb. out of date; 2) mistake in chronological relation.

67

Baltimore – a city in north-central Maryland, US, founded in 1729.

68

the Confederacy – 11 Southern states that seceded from the Union in 1860–1861 and formed the Confederate States of America; the secession caused the American Civil War of 1861–1865.

69

septuagenarian – a person from 70 to 79 years of age.

70

Methuselah – the Old Testament patriarch; he was 969 years old, and was considered the longest-lived man.

71

Havana – a famous cigar.

72

the Wandering Jew – a legendary character doomed to live until the end of the world in punishment for taunting Jesus Christ on his way to the Crucification.

73

mantilla – a large veil or scarf worn to cover the hair and shoulders.

74

San Juan Hill – the highest point of San Juan Ridge where one of the battles of the American-Spanish War took place in 1898.

75

persona grata – a person who is acceptable.

76

Y. W. C. A. – Young Women’s Christian Association.

77

sans = without. (French)

78

gingham – a strong, plain-woven cotton fabric.

79

the Fourth of July – Independence Day, an annual national holiday in the United States; it commemorates the Declaration of Independence adopted on July 4, 1776.

80

delirium tremens – a mental disturbance with disorientation and hallucinations in cases of alcoholism.

81

Sabbath – a holy day of rest (Sunday for the Christians and Saturday for the Jews).

82

Parthian volley – a number of curses and oaths directed at smb. one by one.

83

anathema – a curse and the forced expulsion of smb. from some communion (originally Christian).

84

the Sierras – Sierra Nevada, a major mountain range in the west of North America.

85

Peleus – in Greek mythology, the king of the Myrmidons and the father of Achilles.

86

Achilles – in Greek mythology, the son of the mortal man Peleus and a sea nymph, the bravest hero of the Trojan War.

87

Homer (9th–8th century BC) – a great poet of ancient Greece, the author of the ‘Iliad’ and ‘Odyssey’.

88

dyspnoea – acute shortness of breath.

89

Lazarus – a biblical figure; when Lazaurus was dead for four days, he was raised by Jesus Christ from the dead.

90

Hogarthian – painted by William Hogarth (1697–1764), an English artist, best known for his engravings and paintings.

91

Doxology – praise to God sung during masses in Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran and Protestant churches.

92

tarred and feathered – punished (originally by putting tar on smb. and then covering with feathers).

93

Hippocrates (460 BC–375 BC) – an ancient Greek physician who is regarded as the father of medicine.

94

the Floridian peninsula – a peninsula in the southeast of the United States in the state of Florida; Juan Ponce de LeÓn (1460–1521), a Spanish explorer, discovered Florida in 1513 while searching for the mythical fountain of youth.

95

grandam = obsolete an old woman.

96

Pygmalion – in Greek mythology, a sculptor who made an ivory statue of a woman and then fell in love with it; Venus, the goddess of love, brought life into the statue in answer for Pygmalion’s prayer.

97

Albertus Magnus (1200–1280) – a bishop, philosopher and teacher of German origin; he is considered patron saint of those who cultivate natural sciences.

98

Cornelius Agrippa (1486–1535) – a physician, theologian, philosopher and expert in occultism.

99

Paracelsus (1413–1541) – a German-Swiss physician and alchemist; he was the first to establish the role of chemistry in medicine.

100

Kidd – William Kidd (1645–1701), a British pirate, one of the most colourful outlaws of all time.

101

tomahawk – a war hatchet of the North American Indians.

102

quakers – Society of Friends, a religious Christian group that first appeared in the 17th century England with the idea of direct apprehension of God.

103

Anabaptists – a radical movement of the Protestant Reformation, the spiritual ancestor of Baptists and Quakers.

104

the Salem witches – in 1692, nineteen women were accused of witchcraft and hanged in the town of Salem in Massachusetts.

105

Eldorado – a mythical country of gold and other riches.

106

Zionward – in the Old Testament, Zion is a hill in ancient Jerusalem where God dwells; in Christian literature and hymns it is a heavenly city or the earthly city of true Christian faith.

107

the Solomons – a group of islands in southwestern Pacific Ocean, discovered by the Spanish explorers in 1568.

108

Sydney – a city and port on the southeastern coast of Australia.

109

Winchester rifle – a famous rifle developed by Oliver Winchester (1810–1880), an American manufacturer of guns.

110

Santa Cruz – a group of volcanic islands in the Solomon Islands

111

Samoans – residents of Samoa, an island in the Pacific northwest of New Zealand.

112

Tongans – residents of Tonga, an island in the South Pacific Ocean.

113

Fiji – an island group of Melanesia in the Pacific Ocean, west of Samoa and Tonga.

114

Queensland – a state in northeastern Australia.

115

New Britain, New Ireland – islands of the Bismarck Archipelago in the southwestern Pacific Ocean.

116

New Guinea – an island of the Malay Archipelago in the Pacific Ocean north of Australia.

117

the Admiralties – the island group of 40 islands in Papua New Guinea in the southwestern Pacific Ocean.

118

Guadalcanal – the largest island of the Solomon Islands in the southeastern Pacific Ocean.

119

the Yukon – a river in North America; it flows through northwestern Canada and the central regions of Alaska, US.

120

the Chilcoot Pass – a pass in the Rocky Mountains used as a way to the lands rich in gold.

121

Dyea – a river and town in the Rocky Mountains in Canada.

122

Dawson – a city in Canada on the border with Alaska, at the confluence of the Klondike and the Yukon Rivers, named for geologist George Dawson.

123

Nulato – a settlement on the Yukon River in Alaska.

124

St. Michael – an island on the Yukon River.

125

Bering Sea – a part of the Pacific Ocean in the north; it separates Asia from Alaska in North America.

126

Sixty Mile – a fort on the Yukon River.

127

Mercury – the closest to the Sun planet of the solar system.

128

anaesthetic – medicine that relieves pain or produces general loss of sensation.

129

Dagon – in the Middle East, the Semitic god of fertility, the legendary inventor of the plow.

130

the Great War – World War I of 1914–1918.

131

the Hun(s) – primitive nomadic people who invaded Europe in the 4th century and built an enormous empire.

132

Paradise Lost – a famous poem by John Milton.

133

Stygian – 1) related to Styx, in Greek mythology, the river of the underworld, the symbol of death; 2) dark, gloomy.

134

Cyclopean – in Greek mythology, Cyclops are one-eyed giants and cannibals living a rude primitive life in a distant land.

135

hieroglyphics – a system of writing in the form of pictures which are used as symbols for words or syllables.

136

Doré – Gustave Doré (1832–1883), a famous French printmaker and book illustrator.

137

Piltdown (man) – an extinct man whose remains were discovered in 1810 by Charles Dawson, an English lawyer and geologist.

138

Neanderthal man – an archaic man who appeared 300 000 years ago and was replaced by modern humans 25 000–30 000 years ago.

139

Polyphemus – in Greek mythology, the most famous of the Cyclops.

140

ethnologist – a scientist who studies ethnology, a division of anthropology that deals with culture of different peoples of the world.

141

Philistine(s) – a people who lived in Palestine in the 12th century BC.

142

Cassius – 1) an active participant of the conspiracy against Julius Caesar in 44 BC; 2) a fictional character in ‘Julius Caesar” by William Shakespeare.

143

Drury Lane – a London theatre famous for its musicals, founded in 1663 and officially known as the Theatre Royal.

144

jigembob = jig and bob; jig – a solo folk dance popular in Scotland, northern England and Ireland in the 16th–18th centuries; bob – an old Scottish dance.

145

Yankee Doodle – a popular song of the time of the American Revolution, written by Richard Shuckburgh.

146

Orpheus – in Greek mythology, a legendary hero with outstanding musical gift.

147

Cicero (106 BC–43 BC) – the greatest Roman orator, statesman, lawyer and writer.

148

La Place – Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749–1827), a French mathematician and astronomer, best known for his study of the solar system.

149

Sturm – Charles-François Sturm (1803–1855), a French mathematician who made important contribution to the theory of equations.

150

Newton – Isaac Newton (1643–1727), a great English physicist and mathematician, the major figure in the scientific revolution of the 17th century.

151

Giotto (1266–1337) – the greatest Italian painter of the 14th century.

152

Deus ex machina = God from the machine (Latin); unexpected help.

153

Alsatian – born in Alsace, a region of France on the German border.

154

Gallic – here: French.

155

Teuton – here: German.

156

Tahoe – Lake Tahoe in northern Sierra Nevada, on California-Nevada border in the USA.

157

aqua fortis = strong water. (Latin)

158

orrery – a model of the solar system.

159

Aristotle (384 BC–322 BC) – an ancient Greek philosopher and scientist, one of the greatest philosophers of all time.

160

Archimedes (290 BC–212 BC) – a famous ancient Greek mathematician and inventor.

161

Comte – Auguste Comte (1798–1857), a French philosopher, the founder of sociology as a science and the philosophy of positivism.

162

Martin Farquhar Tupper (1810–1889) – an English writer and poet.

163

Schlafen Sie wohl. = Have a good sleep. (German)

164

Sylvester II (945–1003) – the head of the Roman Catholic church of France who later became Pope.

165

Roger Bacon (1220–1292) – a great English philosopher and scientist of the 13th century.

166

Thomas Aquinas (1224–1274) – an Italian theologian and philosopher, canonized in July, 1323.

167

Huyghens – Christian Huyghens (1629–1695), a Dutch mathematician, astronomer and physicist.

168

Kerguellen’s Land – Kerguelen Islands in the southern Indian Ocean, discovered by de Kerguéllen-Trémarec and later explored by Captain James Cook.

169

Liebchen = sweetheart. (German)

170

Vorwärts! = Forward! (German)

171

Nicht wahr? = Isn’t it? (German)

172

Um Gottes Willen = for God’s sake. (German)

173

Madison Square – a square in central New York.

174

aquamarine (colour) – blue or green-blue.

175

Carrara – a city in Tuscany region in north-central Italy, famous for the world’s best marble of the same name.

176

Maupassant – Guy de Maupassant (1850–1893), a French writer and novelist who is considered the best French short-story writer.

177

Marion Crawford – Francis Marion Crawford (1854–1909), an American novelist, poet and journalist.

178

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) – an American poet and journalist.

179

Sic transit gloria urbis. – So passes the glory of the town. (Latin)

180

Caliphs – here: rulers; caliph is a ruler in a Moslem community.

181

Oratama – a Spanish town invented by the author.

182

alcalde – the head (both administrative and judicial) of a town or village in Spain.

183

the Cordilleras – also called the Andes, a mountain system of South America.

184

Roosevelt – Theodor Roosevelt (1858–1919), president of the United States in 1901–1909; he got the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1906.

185

Grover Cleveland (1837–1908) – an honest and principled politician, president of the USA in 1885–1889 and 1893–1897.

186

Adam – a biblical figure, the first man on Earth created by God ‘in His own image’ on the sixth day of Creation.

187

Talleyrand (1754–1858) – Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, a French statesman and diplomat during the French Revolution, under Napoleon, and later at the Restoration of the Bourbon monarchy.

188

Mrs. De Pompadour – Marquise de Pompadour (1721–1764), an influential figure at the court of Louis XV of France and since 1745 his mistress.

189

Loeb – Jacques Loeb (1859–1924), a famous American biologist.

190

Long Island Sound – the arm of the North Atlantic Ocean between the New York shore and Long Island.

191

Oyster Bay – a town in the state of New York on central Long Island, founded in 1653–1660.

192

Nebuchadnezzars – here: barbarians, savages; Nebuchadnezzar II (630 BC–561 BC) was the great king of Babylonia, famous for his military expeditions to the Middle East where he, at different time, conquered Syria and Palestine, and crushed the Egyptian army.

193

seguramente = of course, certainly. (Spanish)

194

Aztec – an ancient civilization that formed an enormous empire in the 15th–16th centuries in what is now Mexico.

195

Yucatan – Yucatan Peninsula between the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea.

196

carruaje = carriage. (Spanish)

197

baile = ball, dance. (Spanish)

198

botica = drugstore. (Spanish)

199

Belize – a river in Central America, and a town and seaport on the Caribbean coast.

200

The Guilty Party – An East Side Tragedy

201

New Jersey – the US state (19 479 sq. km) on the Atlantic coast.

202

the South Sea Islands – the Marquesas Islands, Gilbert Islands, Tahiti, Samoa, etс.

203

Maypole – a painted pole decorated with flowers around which people dance on May Day.

204

Buffalo Bill’s show – Buffalo Bill’s circus.

205

By Geronimo! – an exclamation of annoyance; Geronimo (1829–1903) was an Apache leader who led the defense of his native people against the US military might.

206

dassent – here: have no right to…

207

David and Goliath – biblical characters of the 11th–10th centuries BC; David, king of Israel, killed the Philistine giant, Goliath.

208

King Herod (73 BC–4 BC) – the king of Judaea, appointed by the Romans; in the New Testament, a tyrant who ordered to kill all male new-born babies after Jesus had been born.

209

wiskerando – here: drunkard.

210

no, sirree! – no such matter!

211

Bedlam – here: confusion, madhouse, chaos; Bedlam means Bethlem Royal Hospital for mentally ill patients in England, founded in 1247.

212

Son cœur est un luth suspendu; Sitôt qu’on le touche il résonne. – His heart is a hanging lute; As soon as one touches it, it sounds out. (French)

213

De Beranger – Pierre-Jean de Beranger (1780–1857), a French poet, the author of many popular, lyrical and tender songs.

214

ennuyé = bored, disappointed. (French)

215

arabesque – here: of elaborate design.

216

morale = moral state.

217

cataleptical – suffering from periods of unconsciousness and rigidity of muscles; unstable.

218

Fuseli – Henry Fuseli (1741–1825), a Swiss painter known for his dramatic and original works.

219

impromptus = improvisations. (Latin)

220

Gresset – Jean-Baptiste-Louis Gresset (1709–1777), a French poet and dramatist.

221

Machiavelli – NiccolÒ Machiavelli (1469–1521), a political philosopher and statesman of the Italian Renaissance.

222

Swedenborg – Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772), a scientist, philosopher, theologian and Christian mystic of Swedish origin.

223

Holberg – Ludwig Holberg (1684–1754), a prominent Scandinavian writer and philosopher of the Enlightment period.

224

Robert Flud(d) (1574–1637) – an English philosopher, physician, occultist and author.

225

Tieck – Ludwig Tieck (1773–1853), a German writer and critic of the early Romantic period.

226

Campanella – Tommaso Campanella (1568–1639), an Italian philosopher and writer, the author of the famous ‘The City of the Sun’.

227

Eymeric de Cironne – Nicholas Eymerich (1320–1399), a Roman Catholic theologian, the great inquisitor of Aragon.

228

Pomponius Mela – a Roman author and geographer of the 5th century.

229

Satyr – in ancient mythology, a mythical being, part man part goat.

230

Œgipan – in mythology, a mythical creature in a bestial rather than human form.

231

Avatar – incarnation (usually of a deity in a human or animal form).

232

phantasm = phantom.

233

‘Hernani’ – a tragedy in five acts by Victor Hugo (1802–1885), a famous French novelist, dramatist and poet of the Romantic period.

234

out-Heroded Herod – idiom to be worse than the worst person imaginable.

235

wigwam – a traditional dome-shaped dwelling of North American Indians consisting of a framework covered with large woven mats.

236

Alpha and Omaha – Alpha is the first letter of the Greek alphabet; Omaha is a city in eastern Nebraska, US; in the popular phrase ‘Alpha and Omega’, where Omega is the last letter of the Greek alphabet, the author substitutes Omega for Omaha.

237

Adiós = Goodbye. (Spanish)

238

Membranous Croup – an infectious respiratory children disease with harsh cough and difficult breathing.

239

Baptist – a follower of those Protestant Christians who insist that only believers should be baptized.

240

Wall Street – a street in New York City, in the borough of Manhattan, the financial centre of the United States.

Content

30 лучших рассказов американских писателей / 30 Best American Stories

Sherwood Anderson An Awakening

John Kendrick Bangs The Water Ghost of Harrowby Hall

Ambrose Bierce An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Eliza Calvert Hall Aunt Jane’s Album

Kate Chopin Ma’ame Pelagie

I

II

III

IV

Stephen Crane The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky

I

II

III

IV

Francis Marion Crawford The Upper Berth

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Francis Scott Fitzgerald

Bernice Bobs Her Hair

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

Charlotte Perkins Gilman The Yellow Wall Paper

Bret Harte

The Outcasts of Poker Flat

The Convalescence of Jack Hamlin

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment

The Birthmark

Washington Irving The Devil and Tom Walker

Sarah Orne Jewett The White Heron

I

II

Jack London

The Terrible Solomons

To Build a Fire

Howard Phillips Lovecraft Dagon

Herman Melville The Fiddler

Edward Page Mitchell The Tachypomp A Mathematical Demonstration

O. Henry Proof of the Pudding

‘Next to Reading Matter’

The Guilty Party An East Side Tragedy

The Ransom of Red Chief

Edgar Allan Poe

The Fall of the House of Usher

I.

II.

III.

IV.

V.

VI.

The Masque of the Red Death

Mark Twain

How I Edited an Agricultural Paper

Experience of the McWilliamses with Membranous Croup

Edith Wharton The Choice

I

II

Примечания