HUMAN BEINGS BY ASENATH CARVER CGDLIDGE ®mml\ Hmwmtg ptog THE GIFT OF .0^^...%.affLukjeJL A..&4Q.3..5..? S/SZfia 6896-3 Cornell University Library PS 3505.0591 5H9 Human beings vs. things 3 1924 022 342 582 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022342582 Human Beings vs. Things &*&. SUSAN MARY COOLTDGE (THE AUTHOR'S IDEAL RILLV) Human Beings vs.Things By Asenath Carver Coolidge Author of "The Independence Day Horror at Killsbury,' "Prophet of Peace," "Between Two Rebellions," "Christmas vs. Fourth of July," and many other short stories and poems. Watertown, N.Y. $uii0trfoti>;&afl>roofc Company 1910 H Copyrighted, 1909 ByAsENATH Carver Coolidge HUNGEBFQRD-HOLBRQOK CO. WATERTOWN, N. Y. Preface yj^t AN'S inhumanity to man makes countless ^JL^ millions mourn." This has long been an accepted truth and one about which much has been said and sung. Latterly much has been said against "Man's inhumanity to children and dumb animals," but as yet almost nothing has been said of his inhumanity to himself. As a matter of course, every man is expected to treat himself decently, if not sumptuously. As a matter of fact, many men treat themselves very ill indeed. They treat themselves as they would not allow any one else to treat them. They do things, which they would feel grossly insulted, if any one else should ask them to do. We see men and women every day — especially women who are making slaves of themselves to things of no positive beauty or utility — household things, which have been handed down from gener- ation to generation and "must be taken care of" they say, "or become nests for moths and mi- crobes." This is the kind of care-taking in which women are the chief sinners or sufferers, because they are the custodians of the home and all the old relics with which it is so often burdened. Let them once become slaves to "household treasures," so-called and they will have no time to read or think, or V Preface "lay up treasures in Heaven." Very likely they will not have enough time left to enable them to do their duty by their families, their whole duty, which consists not only in making home hap- py and healthy but in seeing to the pitfalls outside of the home, among which are dangerous roads and rotten bridges. With so much useful work to be done around and in the home, the home-keepers should beware of doing useless work — of becoming so wedded to the care of useless things that they like it and will have no other. They should remember that to "get busy" with senseless work is to be doubly idle : that they are using up not only precious time but en- ergies which may be required of them in some fast- coming crisis of life. If so much can be said of the slavish and use- less work to which women are addicted, what should be said of the hurtful and vicious work in which men engage so largely such as the inventing, man- ufacturing, or selling of things to be used for the misery or destruction of human life? The awful work from which so many men of the present time think there is no possible escape, or that it is right enough to do in the way of business. As an illustration of the falsity of this idea we can do no better than take the case of a Phila- delphia manufacturer who absolutely refused to accept a large Government order for "army belts." He belonged to the Society of Friends. He ab- vi Preface horred war and would have nothing to do with it or the manufacture of its implements or belong- ings. This is the right kind of principle, but it is not the kind in vogue to-day. How often we hear, so-called, "good men and kind fathers" say to their sons, "You must find something to do, no matter what the business is so you get a soft job and big pay." As a result we see hosts of young men deserting the farms and other useful fields to seek Govern- ment employment or speculative business which requires no muscular labor. They propose to harden their muscles on the misused "gridiron," or in dangerous games. One step more in the hard- ening process and they go into the man-killing business without a twinge of conscience. Now the question is, what will be the end of these things ? We know what the beginnings were, and if we determine to profit by our knowledge the end of foolish, slavish and brutish labor will be speedily forthcoming. The fields of human indus- try will be pleasant fields and men and women, in- stead of becoming a mass of scarred, crippled, over developed and under developed victims of misapplied energy, will work side by side, expand and blossom into Divine symmetry, strength and beauty. Asenath Carver Coolidge. Watertown, N. Y., 1909. vii lEJebtcateb To My Mother Mary Carver Townsend Coolidge one of whose ancestors, Mary Carver, ivas born in a cave near Philadel- phia, the morning after the ar- rival of the Penn Colony. She zuas a life-long member of Friends' Society and Everybody 's Friend. Contents CHAPTER. PAGE. i. Rilly's Relics and Aunt Salome's Views 13 ii. Salome's Dream About Tramps .... 24 ni. On the Way to Hazel Dell 38 iv. Hands Before Wings 48 v. Silas and Rilly Discuss Bonapartists and Other Matters 57 vi. The Gentleman Tramp and Salome's Accident 71 vn. The Tramp's Pack 78 vin. The Tramp's Immaculate Suit 83 ix. Barbarism and Art 88 x. Rilly's Ideas of Old Relics, Bluffs and Jealousy 95 xi. The Tramp Calls on the Humanitarian 105 xn. Rilly's Way of Treating Tramps ... . 113 ix Contents xm. The Musical Tramp 119 xiv. The Suspicious Tramps 128 xv. The Tramps' Ideas of Mormons and Millionaires 138 xvi. Humanitarian Courting 148 xvn. Burt's Plan to Relieve Tramps' Social Hunger 162 xvui. A Fourth of July Party Without Fireworks 170 xix. The Historic Bear's Hole 178 xx. The Tramps Talk About Head-aches and Spider Webs 186 xxi. A Rare and Surprising Luncheon. . . 192 xxii. Soldiers on a Fourth of July Spree. . 198 xxni. The Parting 207 xxiv. O Be Vigilant My Soul! 218 Illustrations Susan Mary Coolidge Frontispiece. Softly, Softly, Aunty, When You Come to That Sweet Old Sugar Bowl. What About That Old Sugar Bowl, Billy? The Abhorrent Bonaparte Relic. William Penn's Smoky Old Relic. That Dog Rover. It Had a Picture of a Spider in the Bottom. An American Indian Relic. XI Human Beings vs. Things chapter i. billy's kelics and aunt salome's views. RILLY had been away from home two months and she was a model housekeep- er — a born foe to dirt and dust of all kinds, the animate as well as the inani- mate — simple, gray dust that lies quite still on the tops of things, as well as the aggressive kind like moths and carpet bugs, that go about seeking whatsoever they may devour in the shape of hu- man apparel and furnishings. Only last year she had waged a war of exter- mination on these corruptive pests, but now, alas ! they had come again — the Dirt Demon only knew from whence and had gotten into almost everything. This meant a great deal of hard work, for there were a great many things they could have gotten into or onto, even if they hadn't : Old relics and rugs and tapestries, in drawers, cabinets and corners ! Old curios of brass, bronze and earthenware on shelves, mantels and brack- ets! Old things of all sorts, brought from the old countries by the traveling members of three gen- erations of Rilly's family on the paternal side! IS Human Beings vs. Things Surely, no safer place could have been found for the laying up of such treasures, so far as hu- man thieves were concerned, than this rare family mansion which was built in the forest more than a century ago, and had never quite gotten out of it, although inviting towns had sprung up on the right and left, and the road which was at first little more than an Indian trail, had widened into a public highway. But the inhuman thieves that come to stay and eat up treasures instead of run- ning away with them ! It was not safe from their attacks. They came at an early date and cost the women of the family many a hard battle. Now it was Billy's turn. She had been hard at work since daylight, overhauling and inspecting. No wonder her voice sounded tragic as she cried out: "Every solitary thing in the whole house will have to be cleaned and shaken and pounded, if I die for it!" "O Billy, never say die for such a cause! Re- member that human beings are of more account than things." Aunt Salome's voice was half-humorous half- pathetic. She was half-hidden, too, by the quaint old draperies of the library, and was turning over the leaves of an art book which no one but herself was to see in its present nudity of covering and frontispiece — a work in manu- script — the parting gift of Burton Bellinger whom she was wont to call "my boy." 14 Human Beings vs. Things She had just finished his chapter on "Draperies both Venetian and Roman." It wound up with the pathetic story of Fra Bartolommeo, who paint- ed that most wonderful of all draperies, the wide and mighty mantle of the Madonna della Miser- icordia. The tortures, degradation and final mar- tyrdom of his adored Savonarola struck this poor painter's pencil from his hand and it was not until years after, (when he had come forth from this shock of human agony) that he painted his fam- ous Madonna — sitting among a crowd of sin-smit- ten worshipers, shielding them with her gracious mantle from Heaven's wrath ! Fra Bartolommeo, it is true, lived, suffered and painted almost four hundred years ago — almost on the border of the dark ages — ages of Egyp- tian darkness so far as the wrecking and taking of human life is concerned. The present age is supposed to be far less barbarous, if not entirely civilized. But even up to the date of the Cuban and Transvaal Wars, statistics had proved most conclusively that our boasted civilization was a thing of shreds and patches. In eighty years there had been seventy-five or more wars among the so-called civilized nations ; but America had not had a war in thirty years and reforms of all kinds were' thickening and spreading in every direction. The Friends (Quak- ers so-called) were jubilant, and good people ev- erywhere were saying that the worst of all bar- 15 Human Beings vs. Things barisms, war, had passed us by — that the day of material things was done and the era of man had begun. Still there was no denying that there were enough barbarisms left to tax to the utmost all the time and energies of every reformer in the land and make all the aunts, uncles, cousins, fathers and mothers cry out "remember" and "beware," every hour of the day! To Aunt Salome an ever present but lesser pa- thos lay in the danger of human creatures being made, or making themselves slaves of things or- iginally intended for their benefit. Now she had caught Rilly in this dangerous attitude, and she really must pile on the words of warning. "Don't make a slave of yourself to bric-a-brac Rilly ! Don't consent to be number two, to a three- hundred-year-old teapot! Better marry a dys- peptic and cure him, or cook for him than try to dig Time's freckles off from a plate of hammered brass ! Better spend your time brushing up a one- hundred-year-old grandmother than a five-hun- dred-year-old vase, even of the Nola or Etruscan pattern ; Better pay your devotions to me, even me." said Aunt Salome laughing, "than spend your time hugging that squatty old sugar bowl." "Softly! softly Aunty, when you come to this sweet old sugarbowl! You touch feeling — big lumps of it." Rilly smiled. She could smile yet, almost divine- 16 Human Beings vs. Things ly though there were great tired circles around her eyes — those beautiful eyes — such as Camillo Boccaccino would have joyed to paint; to say nothing of a modern artist which Salome had in mind. She looked from the eyes to the shapely hands with nails torn to the quick and skin as red as ducks' feet! Her pity deepened and anxiety too, as she asked herself the question, What if ostensibly in search of just such eyes as Rilly's, Burt should come to make his threatened visit — and find her in such a whirlpool of work? She would be too tired to breathe much less "sit for eyes," to that fastidious eye-hunter. "If I could only warn her," thought Salome; but no, that would be breaking the compact. If he came he must come unexpected and unsung and in whatever way he pleased. That was to be her penalty for praising her relative's eyes. Well, she would do what she could on humanitarian grounds and the sooner she began the better. "What about that old sugarbowl, Rilly? Bring it here. Sit down and rest yourself while you tell me its whole history. Whose sugarbowl was it, anyway ?" "It was grandmother's anyway and probably great-grandmother's and possibly great-great- grandmother's," said Rilly drawing a long, tired breath. "I saw it by chance the day before I came home. You can't imagine how it struck me — like a dear, sweet, very sweet, old child-friend — 17 Human Beings vs. Things a vision of quaint old home life with grandfather and grandmother at the family table and the su- garbowl sitting between them! Always this same sugarbowl with this very picture — the milking of the goat — the goat with its runaway look — the big boy at its head to keep it from running away — the girl at the rear milking — the child drinking the milk — white posies and blue grass in the foreground — shrubs and trees in the mid- dle ground- — a church and priory in the back- ground—all in three shades of blue on a bluish, white ground! Statistics few, but comical. Aunt Rhoda said 'it had nutmegs in it when she came to live in the old house and she had kept nutmegs in it ever since !' " "So you see it has been honestly elected to the high position of nutmeg-keeper in our family and may not safely be deposed. I have one in it now, to keep it in odor (so to speak) or preserve the tradition. Also a card with its probable history." "You might add a criticism," said Aunt Salome, inspecting it closely. "You might say the stream of milk is rather large for the goat — almost as large as the goat's leg ; but as milk is the ultimate object it can easily be excused. And the dresses!" They look as though they had been blown up by a bellows, instead of evening zephyrs ! Quite con- trary to the idea of the old Roman artists, who wet their draperies to make them cling gracefully. But that's another ridiculous extreme. Only think 18 Human Beings vs. Things of dipping your clothes in water to make them lie in lovely folds!" Rilly laughed. "You'd make a fine collector, Aunty. How I would like a good collection of mosaics ; but I don't know enough about art mat- ters." "You might get your education as you went along. Raphael did ; but don't do it Rilly — don't collect. Old relics are apt to become old nuisances, collectively speaking. It's well enough to save your grandmother's sugar bowl and keep it clean of dust; but draw the line there. You like old mosaics, but don't turn yourself into a mosaic fiend and give poor human beings the go-by." "A mosaic fiend!" exclaimed Rilly, laughing merrily enough this time. "No I wouldn't like to be called a mosaic fiend. It would give the town wag a chance to explain that I had been wickedly imitating the pattern of Joseph's coat." Rilly's eyes had got back their violet shade and starry look. She was resting almost sensuously. Salome saw it and felt a secret pride in the success of her efforts, which was enhanced by the fact that they had lain so squarely in the direction of her so-called humanitarian fad. Now she felt sure she could save Rilly, (eyes intact) for Burt Bell- inger's waiting canvas. What a triumph it would be to see him slain, at last ! She had introduced him to all the beautiful- eyed young ladies she knew without results. Now 19 Human Beings vs. Things here was a pair that would do execution and no mistake ; and all without going outside of her own family. To tell the truth she was a little surprised her- self, to find Rilly or rather her eyes, so much im- proved- — "deeply improved" she put it; for there was a depth in them which she had never seen there before. Indeed why should there not be? Five years had passed since she had seen her and the years between the age of fifteen and twen- ty mean volumes in the way of accentua- tion or expression, to expanding womanhood. Salome's verdict was that Rilly's eyes had lost none of their rare, violet coloring dux- ring that time and as vehicles of thought and spirit they were now absolutely above criti- cism. As to the rest of her physical make-up there was nothing to distinguish her from hundreds of other ordinarily well developed young ladies, ex- cept it might be a clearer whiteness of complexion and a peculiar fairness of the hair, which was of a silvery rather than a golden tint. It looked much thicker than it was, on account of an inclination "to fluff, instead of curl ;" and when assisted by the wind in place of the more restrictive curling iron, it was something of a wonder to behold. Silas had noticed it on rare occasions, — once during a sail on the lake when it was suggestive to him at least, of the nimbus which artists strive so hard to gather around the heads of their initial Madonnas. 20 Human Beings vs. Things Salome's hair was the same as Billy's, only it waved instead of fluffing. She called it "drab" from which the eager student of Typology might infer that said color was due to the reflex action of the drab costumes worn by their Quaker ances- tors ; and that the tendency would be to crop out more and more in the sect, until it combined with' other features, in the formation of a type as dis- tinct as that of the Jews, with their black hair and dark skins. In such a scheme Rilly would doubtless be regarded as an intimation of what the type might become if "The Society of Friends" could succeed in secluding themselves from the world or become unfriendly enough to exclude the world from the Society ; but that they never have taken that attitude is sufficient proof that they never will — that their strength is spiritual rather than physical — that they have not the brutal qualities to form a distinct or despotic race — that they incline to etherealize rather than materialize — to mingle with and modify other races or sects, rather than cling to their own — to reach out and gather in the poor, the oppressed, the unwashed and the unfed, as long as they have a crumb of bread or a cake of soap to spare. Typologists aside, it would take such a society a thousand years or more to perfect a type, even if it should try. And who will say that the world ought not to clap hands and be glad that it is so — that there is one class of people, in no danger 21 Human Beings vs. Things of becoming hide-bound, hard and murderous — that it is the beginning of the time when the young passion and vigor of a people shall no long- er be spent on the origination of a distinct, re- markable or astonishing type — when one and all can see the ridiculousness of human type making as applied to the human structure — see that op- posite types are of little use except to stand up in a row and shoot each other down; or sit on each side of a line fence and make faces at each other. Rilly had no mind to make faces at those with whom she did not agree. She was of a receptive nature and inclined to welcome invaders with pock- ets full of improvements rather than bar them out. As to the "things that perish with the us- ing" she objected only to those that were killing or injurious to the users ; and was willing if not eager to inspect and test the latest inventions in the science of true living and the art of true adorn- ment. As to the Quaker bonnet it was not her birthright (as her father did not belong to the sect) and she had no thought of ever donning it, although she had kept her mother's, done up in silk oilcloth with jealous care. The nearest she had ever come to admitting that she ever would wear it, was the day that her cousin Silas came and brought his father's broad-brim hat with him in a box and sat it up on a high shelf by the side of her mother's bonneK "Silas" she said witn a tear and a smile, "if we "WHAT ABOUT THAT OLD SUGAR-BOWL, R1LLY Human Beings vs. Things ever put on those precious old head covers and go out into the world it will be because we feel equal to any fate." As to the plain language so-called, she bleed to use it where it was plain, and could be used easily and grammatically without adding hissing ends to other words, as she could in the case of thee, thy and thine ; but as to matters of mighty import such as political and judicial murder, political or social serfdom for man or woman, she was as set against them as the firmest member of the sect, of which she was the rare suggestion, could pos- sibly be. 23 CHAPTER II. salome's dreams about tramps. SALOME lay awake a long time that night, thinking it all over — her talk with Rilly during the day and her private scheme for Burt's advancement and happiness. Burt was very nearly her own age; but she had been accustomed to regard him as very much younger, on account of his being left to her care by the death of her mother to whom he had been intrusted by his own mother on her death bed — his father having died before he was born. The two mothers had been close friends from girlhood, and had married men who had been equally attached from boyhood, although of tastes widely divergent- — Burt's father being an artist and Salome's a merchant; but their differences seemed to have created a bond which after mar- riage events in no wise slackened. Salome could not remember the time when she took no care of Burt. It seemed as if her care taking must have been prenatal and perhaps it was in a certain way; for at the time of Burt's Human Beings vs. Things father's death his mother was brought to her mother at once and they were with each other heart and hand through the fears and perils of ap- proaching motherhood. But Salome's father was living and Burt's was dead! It could hardly have been otherwise, than that the call for care and sympathy from the sorrowing one to the "more fortunate, should have been remarkably strong — strong enough perhaps to have reached the inner temple of child-life. Of one thing she had been assured — that in the midst of her mother's greatest anxiety for Burt's mother, she had been born and that a few days later, the little puny Burt came into the world and his own mother went out of it, leaving him to them as a sacred trust. . During Salome's early childhood it was hard to convince her that she did not remember all about the last sad scene. Once she described it with such startling accuracy of detail as to cause her mother to exclaim, "O ! I believe it was written in my child's blood!" More than once she had described to the wondering Burt his mother's face as it looked when she clasped him for the first time in her arms. "O! I know," she invariably added, "because I was there ;" and Burt accepted the portraiture and painted his first Madonna from it — it was so much more in tune with his feeling than the "Bride Picture" painted by his father. 25 Human Beings vs. Things Salome had never forgotten her mother's last solemn charge to her, "to look after Burt." There were two brothers and her grief-stricken father to be looked after ; but she looked after Burt also — unconsciously summoning all of the mother-quali- ties of her nature that he with the rest might not be neglected. Her early attitude toward him had very natur- ally become a fixed habit and one which he had never given her any occasion for changing. His letters when at college and abroad had appealed to the same qualities, and although she sometimes reminded herself of the fact that he was of an age to be able to take care of himself, still she had no idea of trying to eliminate from her heart the in- grained-care-taking sentiment for Burt, or that the time would ever come when the outflow would not in some way be needed or utilized by him. Back of all reason lay the consciousness that their two lives had been so folded together and at so tender an age, that certain intercreasings and colorings could never be quite outgrown. It seemed a little strange to her to-night for the first time, that her brothers, though younger than Burt, had already outgrown her care — that they were both married and her father too, — after long years of mourning, and that Burt only should be left! but she felt somehow that it was natural and right that it should be so; and she was glad — indefinably glad that Burt was Burt 2,6 Human Beings vs. Things and no other — Burt with his fine, sympathetic nature, who would never be quite so far away from her, but what she would be able to care for him and he would be able to help her in her little life work — the only work for which she had ever had any fitness — the mothering of those who needed it. That there were plenty who needed it she was finding out every day — plenty that needed to be saved from useless self-hurt and self-immolation — plenty that needed to be schooled in the new philanthropy of which the sages had begun to talk, and the saints to preach — the philanthropy which was to make the world a fit place for hu- man beings to live in. A place where the strong will help the weak and expect no credit for it; but will expect to be scorned and derided if they do not. Where the wise will help the foolish and take no thought of it, any more than the sun that helps the little flower grow out of the ground. Where none shall go cold or hungry o/ thirsty. Where all may have an all around development and enough of the things of this world to make them comfortable and happy ; but nothing to pile up, or fold away, or hide, or watch, or lock up, or guard from mould or rust or worms or bugs. Where every one shall have just enough work to do and no more. Where they can't get enough to do to tire them to death physically or spiritually ; for the spirits get tired of climbing, or flying 27 Human Beings vs. Things just as the wings of a bird would, if they had to hold up a poor tired, overweighted body ten or twelve hours a day — here Salome laughed gently to herself for she was growing drowsy and she heard the unique symphony from the frog pond near by, through the solemn stillness — as though a thousand strings from the lowest bass up to the highest tenor, were trying to get in tune to say nothing of the falsetto notes. Then she went on repeating still more drowsily. "Yes, the spirits get fagged out just as the wings of a bird would if they had to hold up a heavy body ten or twelve hours a day and then fly to the nest at night and hover a pair and a half of twins and keep them from crying for worms — to say nothing of a whole woods full of them, more or less hungry or colicky !" She was soon asleep and dreaming in a helter-skelter way of frogs, birds and "her boy Burt" and of Billy. "O Billy," she said the next morning, "I had such a strange dream! I dreamed you had turned tramp collector — not stamp but tramp." "I've got through Aunty. I collected one last summer and he collected too heavily of me. I gave him the work he prayed for, had him fed, washed and combed, then he ran off with my watch and a hundred dollars of Silas'." "Well I dreamed you had anyway, and just as you were going to show your specimens, the key of your room fell down with a thunderous thud. Human Beings vs. Things It seemed so real, that it woke me up, made me jump out of bed, run to the window and look out ; and what do you think I saw, Rilly ?" "A real tramp, perhaps. They've been on the road early and late, ever since the building of the North Wood's railroad. We are getting to be worse off than the Australians. They have the 'sundowners,' but we have the sundowners and sun- uppers, too." "But I didn't think of his being a tramp at all Rilly. He struck me as a poor, unfortunate, wretched human being who was bearing all his earthly treasures on his bent shoulders. Things he hadn't the heart to leave behind nor the strength to carry with him. The picture of his dead wife in her wedding garments, perhaps. The play- things of his angel baby tied up in its little hood and mittens — the dear old mother's Bible wrapped in her shoulder shawl — the father's gold watch and spectacles that told of better days — the grand- father's broadcloth cloak and silver knee buckles that proved his gentle birth — his own hard earn- ed suit and a hundred other things to which he was so wedded that he must carry them with him though they bowed him to the earth like a poor staggering slave." "Indeed he was so bent that I couldn't see his face at all and was wondering what kind of a face it was, when he suddenly straightened up to his full height, turned toward the house for a moment 29 Human Beings vs. Things and then rushed off as though spurred hy the last effort of an indomitable will." "Well Rilly! you don't know how it made me feel — that last act. It shook me from head to foot. Poor fellow, I hope he's not going to commit suicide or die from hunger, either physical or social, in a neighborhood full of food and sympa- thetic hearts." "We haven't much sympathy or bread and cheese left around here for traonps," said Rilly. "They are given over to the tender courtesy of dogs chiefly. Perhaps he scented a dog." "O dear, isn't that too cruel, Rilly? Too dread- fully cruel?" "Yes, Aunty, it does seem so. I suppose tramps are human beings, but it's hard to think them of any account or of as much account as the things they steal. I know I missed my watch more than I did my tramp; and I don't want any more of them; but you with your ideas, I wonder you didn't go out and speak to the one you saw this morning and give him a good lecture on making a slave of himself to a cartload of things." "I know I ought to have done so but I was so dazed! When I came to myself and looked after him he had disappeared utterly. Then I did feel like giving chase; but what would you have said had you seen me rushing down the road, bare-' footed and night-robed?" "Ridiculous! crazy from the common point of SO Human Beings vs. Things view, but from Humanity Point, mirabile visu! 'Tintoreto's Miracle of the Slave !' Only in your case the slave got up and flew away instead of waiting for the angel to fly to Mm — just as a self-made slave can, and should do. So you see, Aunty., it's better to make slaves of ourselves and to our own things, than to be made slaves of, by some one else as they were in old Tintoreto's time. We can break our own chains, if we will and burn our own things without calling down an angel." "Yes, if we will; but we are poor victims of habit, many of us. We get so accustomed to wear- ing chains that we fancy we couldn't do without them. You remember how the slaves of the South (some of them at least, who were well taken care of and petted by kind masters) objected to hav- ing their freedom ; but we needn't go so far away for proof. We have the spectacle of the white slaves, the women of our own State going to the Capitol and absolutely petitioning the law-mak- ers not to thrust political liberty upon them !" "O what geese ;" said Rilly ! "I never heard of anything so ridiculous. Just as if liberty could be thrust upon us. The liberty to do a thing or not to do it is the only kind of liberty I want — to 'speak in meeting or not to speak' as the Quak- ers say." Rilly did not have to reason about matters of this kind. The spirit of freedom was inborn and she had never had it flayed out of her. She was 31 Human Beings vs. Things not accustomed to bonds or stripes or coercion of any kind. She had simply been surrounded with right conditions and then let to grow and se- lect for herself. Her mother was a true Quaker and anything like undue pressure or proselyting was repugnant to her. No wonder RiUy expressed herself rather strongly, still she did not call the women that had asked for the continuance of po- litical chains fools, she simply called them geese! It was the Quaker form of denunciation but taken in connection with disfranchised citizens it was well calculated to conjure up the vision of the wise old financier Turgot, who said, "trying to make taxation productive was the art of plucking the goose without making it cry." "Turgot was right no doubt," laughed Hilly,, "but what a hard, ironical come-down from the high resolves and burning words of freedom and equality, enunciated by our sainted forefathers! Yes, and foremothers, too. Hanna C-orbin was a foremother who cried out against taxing the Han- nahs because they were not represented. History does not state that Hanna was a goose. Bridget Graffort was a foremother who gave a plot of ground for our first public school to which the Bridgets were denied entrance. History does not say that Bridget was two geese though she was denied two representations, one political, the other educational. Mercy Otis Warren was a foremother who originated our great corner stone phrase, 'in- 32 Human Beings vs. Things herent rights.' History does not say Mercy was a goose and the proposition that she was not, is 'self evident,' for our wise forefathers would not have permitted the quack of a goose to be imbedded in the very corner stone of our glorious Constitu- tion." Salome smiled. Something like this may have occurred to her but she only said, "Our drab an- cestors held aloof from politics, still I know they would not have liked a chain; nor drawn the line between political and social freedom. One calls for the other as religious freedom called for both long ago and in a loud voice. Equality of privi- lege is needed all around. Those who don't know how to use their privileges should be taught." "But how to teach them — there's the pinch, Aunty?" "O, by all the gentler methods, by preaching, arguing, talking, singing, scolding, reading and telling stories ; but above all by loving and pitying them perhaps, as Desdemona pitied Othello." "O that frightens me Aunty! Love and pity bring us so near the monsters — the monsters war has made — legalized murderers like that teruible but much to be pitied Moor! My mother often talked to me about trusting men foolishly and recklessly and I'm thankful she did. I never would, trust a military man, or a man educated to think war is right, even if I loved him." Human Beings vs. Things "Truly, Rilly?" asked Salome in a surprised tone. "Truly Aunty," replied Rilly, flushing, "even if he were my husband I wouldn't trust him as fool- ishly as Desdemona did Othello — Spain's wretched war-dog. An excess of wine, anger or jealousy is enough to set any of our war-dogs to doing a little murder on their own account. We have proof of it at the Barracks continually. Things are happening over there all the time, that wouldn't be tolerated outside of the army. They call it a dull week there, when there's been no rape, murder or quarrel between a jealous husband and drunken soldier. You remember the awful thing that happened there last year. It was in all the papers." "Yes, Rilly, and all from jealousy. What a monster jealousy is !" "Surely, Aunty, if there's a monster to begin with. A thing of lies, deception and treachery, like military tactics. God is a jealous God, but he is good and loving and to be trusted. So it is with good men. It doesn't hurt a thoroughly good man with a good moral training to be a little jealous." Salome demurred at the last proposition and there was a little discussion on the subject from which an observer might have gathered that the gentle agitators were drawing largely on personal experiences diametrically opposed. 34 Human Beings vs. Things "And yet," said Salome, returning to the sub- ject, "we have the spectacle of women asking to be denied a voice in Government affairs — Gov- ernment that institutes war — war that makes crimes against women of slight account and sends their sons to the shambles without mercy. We hear them talking about maternity as 'God im- posed;' as though a loving Creator had not been trying to teach us to be free through all the ages and even sent us his beloved Christ to teach us the important lesson. 'Compulsory maternity' indeed ! What a barbaric idea ! But to feel bound when we are in reality free is almost as bad. It shows all too plainly that we have been suffering so long from the chains 'imposed' upon us by Satan himself, that we have come to regard them as essential and 'God imposed.' It seems, we need a thorough shaking up among the dry bones." "Reform goes slow," said Billy, with a sigh. "No sooner is one fairly launched than the sim- pletons or fiends, I don't know which, but a mix- ture of both I reckon, oppose it — that is, the fiends lead, and the simpletons follow en masse and beat the Reform back a thousand years! O dear! dear! There is no use trying to tell how I feel." It is hardly to be wondered at that Rilly found it difficult to express exactly what she felt on the subject. Wiser heads than hers are asking every day if there ever has been or ever will be on this 35 Human Beings vs. Things side of the millennial age, a liberal principle evol- ved from the human mind and set in motion by human instrumentality, which has not been or will not be in hourly danger of being strangled or crippled by crude conditions or bungling aid? New truths skillfully applied require torain-fed hands. I gave them, says benignant Nature, be- hold them now ! Alas ! poor hands ! folded, jewell- ed, restless, thin, pale, crossed and clasped hands ! — crooked, crippled, swollen, chapped, clumsy, bleeding, tired, aching, chained hands ! Who has counted the millions of intelligent creatures who have been forced to do the clodhopper's work, or sit in idleness and bitter bonds while cloddish ones are meddling with things they know not of ? Salome voiced the human bondage by exclaim- ing, "In chains ! In chains again Rilly ! In need of Tintoretto's Angel ; but alas ! for the Tintoret- to mission! Where now is the artist so aflame with humanity's fire as to be able to paint a figure that seems to be really flying — flying with the swiftness of an aerial being to help the op- pressed?" "Perhaps there is no call for such artists now Aunty. Real service, instead of pictured service seems to be what we need. More practice instead of more precepts." "Yes, yes, Rilly! It's easy enough to say, hu- man beings are of more consequence than things and believe it fervently; but to treat them as if 36 Human Beings vs. Things they were, is harder than we think. Like many others I have no money to give ; but loving ser- vice is better than money; and I ought to treat human beings as if they were worthy of it, ever and always, early and late, without fear or tremb- ling, before God and man ; but you see how I failed this morning ; I felt my duty, but dared not do it." "No ! No ! Aunty, you failed this morning be- cause you haven't wings. Artists know what they are about when they bridge over the impos- sible with wings ! It would take a very strong, swift pair to help any great number of the poor and oppressed. Every one ought to have a pair of their own; but if the prophecy of a modern poet proves true, 'It will be centuries yet,' before the people of our little earth will wear wings." "True, Rilly — too true, I fear; but 'centuries' seems a long time and sadly indefinite. Let the poor inhabitants of Earth indulge the hope that just as soon as they have done all they can with their hands, God will give them wings." 37 CHAPTER HI. ON THE WAY TO HAZEL DEI/L. THE next day Salome's cousin came to take her for a visit to Hazel Dell, ten miles away through a stretch of pine woods, resonant with hird-songs and electric with ozonic odors. Salome's love of nature, without the human at- tachment, had weakened since she was there last, or she would have asked Geraldine to stop while she ransacked the woods for violets and maiden hair; still, she was enjoying it — peering into its deep shadows as they rode slowly along and util- izing it after her present bent ; for it occurred to her, it would make such a sheltered, healthful place for poor wanderers who had no roof for their heads, as seemed to be the case with the wretched looking man, who disappeared so trag- ically from Rilly's the morning before. Sudden- ly she heard, or thought she heard a sigh then a plaintive voice and the words "Help, help!" It startled her almost as badly as the man with the monstrous pack. She looked from the woods to 38 Human Beings vs. Things Geraldine and from Geraldine to the woods; but she saw nothing and Geraldine gave no sign. What can it mean she asked herself? Was sick- ness coming or insanity? Was there a strained nervous condition in which one could see not only "sermons in stones," but hear the wail of humani- ty from the depths of the forest? "Geraldine," she finally plucked up courage to ask, "Didn't you hear some one calling to us from the woods? — calling for help?" "I heard a whippoorwill ; but I thought he mud- dled it. It sounded as much like help as any- thing." Salome compared the words and saw how easy it was to make the mistake. It only needed a drift in the direction of the "humanity craze !" Yes, that was what Burt called it when he warned her to take care of herself, first of all. She thought it would be selfish in her then to heed his words ; but now she was beginning to see more clearly. Yes, the humanity craze meant thinking too much about human beings. Trying to do impos- sible things for them, instead of rendering them natural and essential service. Going on a sort of a still hunt after them, to shower them with super- fluous attentions, instead of giying them a hearty grasp of the hand whenever we chance to meet them. Watching them narrowly and studying up their sins and foibles instead of their virtues and 39 Human Beings vs. Things strength. Giving them advice they can not follow, instruction they can not use, and clothes they can not wear ! Yes, even Bridget showed she had the right idea of it when she said: "It's not yer auld clothes I'm in naid of Miss, but the money yer gaying tay buy yer new ones with." This was a practical fetch up to Salome's dreaming. She laughed and repeated it to Ger- aldine. "O I've got a better one than that on myself," said Geraldine. "I was one of a committee to in- vestigate the needs of the poor in our district two years ago. Among them was an Irish mother with eight children. One in arms, one at her heels, one at her apron strings, and so on all the way up to a boy of twelve. Well, I was the one elected to preach her a little sermon on the unwisdom of having so many children and to inform her that our only way of helping her would be to put some of them into the Orphan's Home. No sooner said than she burst out : 'An' indade mam! would ye have the harth to bay takin' away any of the lithle dayvairshuns we hav?' "The 'little dayvairshuns,' were not taken ; but I have sworn off on doing that kind of charity. If we cannot help people in the way they want to be helped — help them without breaking up family ties, we'd better let them alone. In fact, 'poor investigations' and 'poor visiting' seem to be some- 40 Human Beings vs. Things thing of an impertinence in most cases. It's like neglecting our own affairs to meddle with others. Neglecting our own homes to see that others are well kept. Neglecting our own persons to see that others are well washed and combed. Even neglect- ing our own sins to weed out others' sins. Won- dering what we can do for the poor, persistent sin- ner when the old, old battle with self is still unwon. Vexing ourselves over the problem of what to do next to alleviate the universal want and misery when the very best we can do, is to hold ourselves in readiness to do the duty that lies plain before us. But first of all, we must be clean, cheerful and sweet. Then everything we do will have a sweet savor, or what would be called now, the electric charm," added Geraldine, smiling; "but it's the same old fragrance of soul that the venerated Bede is said to have had and gave forth even in death." "You are right, Geraldine, at least so far as personal duty and effort are concerned; but what of the great reform organizations that are spring- ing up all oyer the country? What of the Inter- national Congress? The International Peace and Arbitration Society? They must mean something; and if they grow in height as fast as they have in extent, they must touch Heaven erelong and make their meaning manifest." "Yes, dear cousin; I suppose everything means something; even the 'Humanitarian craze,' the 41 Human Beings vs. Things 'Diamond Ball Charity,' 'Coxey's March,' the 'Sal- vation Army' and the 'Slumming Bands,' only we cannot see just what it is, through all the fuss, feather and furor." "Yes, it's hard to get at the truth of things," said Salome. "We are told that poverty is un- avoidable but it's impossible to believe it so long as Governments are doing all they can to make poverty. So long as England pays 4,000 pounds semi-annually to scrape the bottom of one of her warships — just to be ready to pitch into some other nation and impoverish it. Think of poor India ! Stripped, crushed, starved ! Made a ramp- ing ground, where ambitious Lords go to win laurels and spurs ! But all is done under the name of humanity and civilization!" "Yes !" said Geraldine, "blowing men from guns, is England's way of civilizing the heathen! Ridiculous as well as horrible! As though hea- thens had never seen any of that heavenly kind of savagery before and would be struck with awe at the superior power of Great Britain! Yes, 'Struck with awe,' to see human beings marched out before the guns and blown to fragments with- out even allowing them to take their little money from their pockets at the last moment to leave to their poor comrades! Yes, 'struck with awe!' So said Chamberlain to Lord Roberts ; but the awe was not apparent. The heathenish mutineers seemed rather to be struck with disgust and a 42 Human Beings vs. Things desire for further mutiny, while the more civilized must have been horrified or brutalized by such an inhuman spectacle." "If Chamberlain had only had heart enough, or common sense enough," said Salome, "to have recommended a spectacle of a different kind, — a spectacle of magnanimity, forgiveness, and kind- ness, only think of what the result might have been, but war is war the world over." "Yes and it's brutal and horrible! It's too dreadful even to read that book of Lord Robert's and what's more, I don't mean that my children ever shall. I'm going to burn it before they are old enough to read. You see I hate war as bad as though I were a whole Quaker," said Geraldine, with a look of mild determination, altogether in harmony with the sect. "One of the worst things about war-literature is the wholesale demoralization of the youth. If there's a war anywhere on the face of the earth the papers and magazines are full of it; and not only that, but all the old war horrors and brutal killings and executions are dragged forth from the limbo where they belong and garnished and served up to the young and gullible as the most delectable of morsels. Even if we can console our- selves with the idea that these things had to be ; we should try to spare the children, draw the curtain where we can, pile on the mould, keep swords and guns out of their young hands and 43 Human Beings vs. Things prepare them for love and peace instead of hate and bloodshed. War should never be mentioned to them except to teach them its sin and horror." "Then there's capital punishment," said Salome, "that's one of the most brutalizing things now, but there are whole broods of lesser devils, block- ing the line of progress. They have crept into almost everything and are still creeping, creeping. There's our Independence Day slaughter." "Yes ; but war's the worst — the original father of all and I can't think we'll ever have another one in this country." "O, I hope not," exclaimed Salome ; "war spoils every thing. We've but just recovered from our dreadful Civil War — that is so far as we ever can recover; and life is beginning to seem worth living again. We can have a thousand reforms be- fore the next century goes out if the horrid war- dogs can only be held in leash." "But you are not a Socialist, Salome — not a Socialist are you?" asked Geraldine, with a dazed look. Salome laughed. "I think it would hardly be prudent to answer that question until you have read Proudhon." It was at a time when Socialism was very com- monly confounded with Anarchism and even Fa- bian and Christian Socialists were having hair- breadth escapes. "Proudhon says: 'Every aspiration toward the 44 Human Beings vs. Things improvement of society is socialism.' I have a great many aspirations that way," added Salome. It might be added that every movement to increase the power of the Government as regards the indus- trial life of the people is socialistic. Also that an- archism is entirely opposed to the powers invested in Government and to the Government itself — that Communism has its example in the Shakers. One great good they do is to relieve society of an in- capable class — that paternalism has its example in Coxey's army that marched to Government head-quarters for help. The good that it should have done was to teach Government that there was a great unemployed class to be taken into kindly consideration. The Populist idea is that Government should control all the great monopol- ies. The difficulty would be in drawing the line. The Postal Service run by the Government though greater in efficiency that the Telegraph run by individuals, will not pay expenses until it owns the telegraph and the railroads also. The postal bank of England is another proof of Government efficiency. The poor depositor wants the best se- curity against loss and Government security is better than individual security. England's pro- position for an International agreement, not to increase the war expenditure during the remain- der of the Century, though made on purely eco- nomic grounds, was regarded as a sign both by Christian and optimist, of the good time coming 45 Human Beings vs. Things when every civilized nation will join hands against wasteful and blood-shedding wars. "But what of the barbarians outside, who would attack us if we do not keep our lines bristling and shining with new bayonets," asks the doubting Thomas ? "Nil desperandum," say the satisfied ones. "Just one cufF from our great consolidated paw would be enough to sweep every barbarian off from his little basic war budget and teach him a lesson in the economies if not the humanities of peace." But what of our other enemies, which reformers call by the names of "cold, hunger and thirst." They are our worst enemies. Shall we treat them better than barbarians ? Have we not been taught over and over again to "feed the hungry and clothe the naked," instead of killing them? Would it be right after all to use our great, international, civilized, consolidated paw, to cuff or kill the barbarians with? Would it not be right to invite them all in, when they come prowling around our borders? Meet them with a loving smile instead of vomiting shot and shell into their faces? — feed, clothe and put them into sunny houses instead of crippling them and throwing them into nasty, dark prisons ? Perhaps if we would do righteously by them they would join hands with us, yes, and hearts and steps, too, in the upward march past "Point Suspension" to "Point Arbitration," vand from 46 Human Beings vs. Things thence to "Point Salubrious," where no trouble- some budgets of any kind would be needed or dreamed of- — where a magnificent international, non-suspension, clothing, feeding and housing palace could be built with wide open doors for every creature made after the likeness of God! 47 CHAPTER IV. HANDS BEFORE WINGS. THE world is bristling with contradic- tions and surprises of all kinds. Even our so-called limitations may have rub- ber-like qualities for which they have not been accredited. When Salome said to Rilly, "Let the poor in- habitants of Earth indulge the hope that just as soon as they have done all they can with their hands, God will give them wings ;" she did not mean it as an encouragement to put the hands to all sorts of reckless uses, in order to get the wings more quickly; any more than the father when he promises to get his boy a new style hat as soon as the old one is worn out, expects him to use the old one for carrying gravel, turning the creek up stream or picking berries in. Neither did Rilly take it in such a sense. Her subsequent alacrity was due to entirely different motives. She naturally inclined to accept progressive ideas — at least those which she could put into good prac- tical shape. 48 THE ABHORRENT BONAPARTE RELIC Human Beings vs. Things Of course she knew, and had always known at the bottom of her heart that "human beings were of more account than things," and not only that but she felt they might be so regarded if they would insist upon it and help each other as they ought. If the "dead-tired" dressmaker would say to her employer who is goading her on to the elev- enth hour, "My life is worth more to me than your fifty dollar dress; and if it's worth more to me, it ought to be worth more to you;" she had no doubt as to the result. As to her own "precious duds," as she now called them without wincing, they were there and she was not as yet prepared to bury or burn them en toto, so the bug-hunting and cleansing must go on. But Aunt Salome's flash-light had revealed the higher way and she was quick to see how it could be done and well done, without hurt to herself or making slaves or martyrs of anybody else. She had her plans and if she could carry them out as she felt quite sure of doing, really the work would be a pleasure, rather than a pain, no mat- ter what anybody said about it. She would show them that miracles could be wrought in the realms of work as well as in realms spiritual; and of quite as much importance, since every kind of work is done or essayed to be done, for the benefit of mankind. The trouble was, people didn't go to work in the right way. Co-operation was the magic lever 49 Human Beings vs. Things righteously intended to lighten the burden of la- bor; but the workers must be righteously in- clined. Co-operator, must join hands with co- operator in loving helpfulness. It is safe to say that such a co-operator was to Rilly, no far-away vision. As soon as she was left to herself again, or rather with Silas and herself, she flew at the work of righting her things with new vigor. She had only to say that she wished to be done with them before Aunt Salome's return, and Silas was at her side with a glow of convincing willingness on his fine face that made word-offers of no account. Here was the co-worker of her mind's eye. A co-worker with strong and wonderfully supple hands — better than wings she thought, for they had the clinching quality which made assurance doubly sure that no treasure ever so delicate or dilapidated would be dashed or broken. Silas was Rilly's fourth cousin on the sugar- bowl side of the house; and the one elected above all others as being the best qualified to help .her in the management of her estate. That the qualifi- cations did not end with the estate, none could have doubted who had seen the two young people going hand in hand from pile to pile of old treas- ures, and bending their two heads over the prob- lem of what to save or what to destroy, what to use or what to discard. It would hardly have occurred even to Salome, that there was any danger in this case, of the human 50 Human Beings vs. Things beings, succumbing to the things; or that there was any slavery in it whatever; for Silas as well as Rilly had the rare faculty of working and talk- ing at the same time, observable in its perfection, only with those who have been brought up to work from their earliest days and now that the conditions were not only favorable but inspiring, the work and talk went on at a rapid rate. Jol- lity and laughter were not lacking, there were so many odd, old things for Silas to make odd remarks about. A book of Social Science was one of them. Silas thought that Social Science like all others, was eminently progressive, else even the seer would not be able to .divine why so many patient souls, who have worked, weeded out, healed and saved, have been called non-producers and other strange names ; and though it may lag a little in the best regulated families and societies, yet it gives in- timations of the good time coming when the faith- ful ones who "hold the candle," while the pro- ducers work, may safely lay claim to have done something to increase the wealth of the world. Long before Henry George made his frantic ef- forts "to free Political Economy from her chains," there was a society quietly engaged in freeing the victims of Political and other Economics, from their chains — the teachers and the home-makers, who had been so long held back from the cultiva- tion of their best powers. That this society was only moderately successful is not to be wondered 51 Human Beings vs. Things at, since the effort was necessarily confined to the willing members of the society; still it was enough to show that when all the victims every- where are perfectly freed and scientifically trained, we may rest assured that a great many of the social problems which are thickening around us will be equitably solved — that the home-makers' hour has struck — that it is the beginning of the end when we shall have no use for such a charac- ter as James has given us in "The Legions of the Master" — when no man like "St. George" can charge his mental ruin to the "idols of the market," especially that tempting pair which he calls "placing one's children" and "dressing one's wife" — when even St. George's wife will learn to dress herself beautifully on a hundred dollars a year and save the amount by running the kitchen and laundry, and so teaching the children the true science of living, that they will incline to sustain, instead of pulling down the noble father from the high position for which he has qualified. Both Rilly and Silas had received their youth- ful teaching in the gentle but advanced society referred to, and their habits and thoughts could hardly have been other than harmonious; but it was not a popular society and had come to be regarded as a breeding ground of strong mind- ed women, (which were considered superfluous) in- stead of military men for which the Prince of Darkness had a constantly increasing demand. 52 Human Beings vs. Things "Still there is hope," laughed Rilly. "Now that the Princess of the Asturias is reported to be strong-miiided and is dubbed 'Brother in Petti- coats' by the King of Spain, it is fairly supposa- ble that strong-minded women will ere long be- come the fashion." As it was it did not disturb the harmony of spirit that subsisted between Silas and Rilly. It was more than ever apparent when they went into a gray, old room called grandfather's room and stood looking at a yellow, wrinkled engraving of Napoleon Bonaparte which hung high above the mantel. "I should like to take that old mummified look- ing idol down and burn it up," said Silas. "O, I know what's the matter with you now," said Rilly. "It's the Quaker spirit cropping out. I have enough of it in me to understand it — enough to make that man seem a little less than a brute and a murderer of Nations; but that por- trait has hung there ever since I can remember. Perhaps you don't know about it. It was given to my grandfather (not yours) by Napoleon's brother while he was an exile in this country. Take it down and I'll read you what it says on the paper on the backside written by his daughter." Silas confessed dense ignorance of that branch of the family and proceeded to take down the portrait. The moth-eaten cord broke but by a deft movement, he caught it and saved the "old Human Beings vs. Things reprobate," as he called it, from falling on Rilly's head and adding another victim to the horrid Na- poleonic list. "I don't know as it would be safe to let you take it at all." said Silas, securing her outstretched hand. "No knowing what the old war fiend will do next, through his relic. Perhaps he'll send out an army of microbes to infest you if nothing more. I guess if the 'warrior's name' is ever going to 'be a name abhorred' it's time to begin by ab- horring this old relic I shall consider it my duty to put it where it will never have a chance to frighten you again anyhow." "What an odd fellow you are! You never seem to be afraid of anything in the world, except that somebody or something is going to hurt me," she was going to say but she did not have a chance to finish the sentence, until Silas was indemnified for his fright and they were sitting side by side in Grandfather's big arm chair. Then there was no need of it ; so she began with the old shrivelled letter, which he insisted on shaking and dusting with jealous care. It ran as follows: The first great event to us youngsters, was the building of our new house. We had lived in a little log house until we had outgrown it. There were five children besides hired help which had be- come a necessity. No wonder the large two-story house seemed like a palace to our young eyes! Father was the hero of course. 54s Human Beings vs. Things He had bought land of Bonaparte. He had traveled all the way from Indian River to the sea — four hundred miles per sleigh — to the place where Bonaparte lived. He took him a pair of splen- did horses, to pay him for the land ; and Bonaparte had treated him so politely and shown him all over his fine house ; and now he had built one ever so much like it. White as snow it was, with green window blinds and such cunning hand-made cornice, edged with a row of conical-shaped blocks, that looked almost like a fringe. In the family room was a recess and a big wood fire-place and over the mantle was this picture which Bonaparte had given him, saying "allow me to make you a present of the portrait of my bro- ther Napoleon." When father told the story and put on "the nub" as we called it, by giving the French accent to present and Napoleon, O how we laughed even down to the blue-eyed baby rolling on the blanket by the great blazing fire. As ready to cry were we when he told us of the hardships he suffered on that long winter's jour- ney, for our sakes — that we might be sure of a comfortable cover for our little heads. How real it seems even now, the old time picture ! A great glowing brand falls down on the wide brick hearth, lighting up the big flowered curtains, mother's clicking needles and the 55 Human Beings vs. Things grave face of the district schoolmaster sitting se- renely by. But I must beware! Fancy plays me strange tricks in these later days. Is she trying to de- ceive me now or did one of the little towheads real- ly say, "Mother, mother do you fink Bonaparte would have let father have the land if he'd 'a known the Cove was chuck full of Pond LiUies?" The Cove was chock full of Pond LiUies at any rate — bo full that they sailed one after another out into Indian River and established their bloom- ing families along its dusky borders. 56 WILLIAM PENN S SMOKY OLD RELIC. CHAPTER V. SILAS AND BILLY DISCUSS BONAPARTISTS AND OTHER MATTERS. »^VYES" said Silas, "that's worth fl JB keeping — the paper I mean, and the ^L W abhorrent old portrait on the pa- _ per's account; but it's the paper that deserves framing. There's no lauding of the Bonapartes in it. The word hero is put in the right place for once. If any class of people de- served to be heroized it's the old pioneers of this cold and stony country." "Yes indeed," said Rilly "but the fight with the snow and stones and beasts was not so bad as the fight with the human vultures. You remember the tyrant of Penet Square. He bought out the Bonaparte lands. I think Grandfather must have been afraid of falling into hands like his or he wouldn't have made such a desperate effort to get his title from Bonaparte. Only think Silas ! Four hundred miles or more per horse in the dead of win- ter in order to get his title from a man that never ought to have had it — to get a permit to live with- out fear and trembling!" 57 Human Beings vs. Things "And yet there are lots of idiots," said Silas, "that will fall down and worship the big specula- tor and the warrior every time they come'round. The warrior especially. He has only to say that he 'holds the honor of his country above the peace of the world,' and he's made an idol of straight- way." "How absurd!" said Billy, "as though there could be anything more important than the 'peace of the world.' All nations ought to be willing to make sacrifices to it. I'm glad I'm Quaker enough to believe in that. But you do not think there ever will be any more war in this country, do you Silas?" "Ah! there you corner me Billy. I reckon it's a case of Battles and jaw-bones. The jaw-bone is out of date as a civilized implement of war; and war, blood-spilling war ought to be out of date as a civilized means of settling national difficulties." "But there surely would be no need of it, Silas, if the International Arbitration Society got up by the New York Millionaries, would only go on as grandly as it began." "Yes, if it would, Billy ; but it begins to look as though they would have a war of tongues among themselves. They had a convention the other day and one millionaire offered to pay the running ex- penses and the others refused. Beckon they were afraid he'd want to run it — suspicious you see; and so it is everywhere. I believe in International 58 Human Beings vs. Things Arbitration, International Unity, Peace, Love, etc., but when I look out and see suspicion, re- venge, and fighting everywhere they seem afar off ; before nations stop fighting, individuals must stop fighting — before nations stop hating each other, individuals must stop hating each other. Before there is international unity there must be National Unity. Before there can be National Unity there must be Church Unity. Before there can be Church Unity, there must be family unity. This brings us home again and we see we must do our first and best work here. Yes, right here at home, Rilly,— eh?" "Why not have International Peace come first, Silas? I'm sure it ought and quickly too. It would be such a help to poor humanity. We would not have to row against the stream then." Billy's eyes flashed on Silas and opened widely. Silas could not help looking into them long and deeply. Neither could he help seeing something new there — a fountain of wisdom as well as a fountain of love; and they were so intermingled and commingled that he could not receive a bap- tism from one without the other. "Why not indeed, Rilly?" he exclaimed at last. " 'Pon my soul, I believe you are right, I think International Peace ought to come first and right soon. The lines are all laid. The ties of Univer- sal Brotherhood are all woven and ready to be tied together in a good strong knot. Mature 59 Human Beings vs. Things men are at the helm. Wise men, — supposedly so. At least they are not hot-headed youths, or idiots or children. They ought to be able to finish the business for the nations at once. They would not have to wait for every soul of us to come up and help them— ^-every little one that has to be taught peace principles and led into peace paths. They could set us all a grand example. Yes, yes, Rilly, you are right. International Peace should come first and quickly." "And we will be ready for the coming, Silas, even if we can't go out to meet the blessed throng. We will begin at home, just as you said we would. We will preach peace and practice it in every way, shape and manner. The spirit of war is in almost everything now. "We will try to cast it out of everything and everybody we come in contact with. We will not spend any more time and energy on old relics, will we?" laughed Rilly. "No, Rilly, and we won't spend our energies playing brutal, barbarous, and time-destroying games- — we men, I mean. I believe if this Govern- ment ever comes to grief it will be because young, inexperienced, irresponsible men are let to run it — rash fellows who have been brought up to sport- ing and gaming and will take hold of the Govern- ment very much as they would of a ball game or a game of polo. Yes, make it 'a rattling game, a game for blood,' as one of the politicians, who 60 Human Beings vs. Things was up for election, said, when he visited his native town and his friends proposed a game of foot ball in his honor." "A game for blood," exclaimed Rilly ! "What a preparation for Government work!" "But that's what men are going into more and more. I tell you what it is Rilly, I should like to see a good sprinkling of women at the head of this Government — women with good eyes in their heads and minds — eyes that are full of foresight and can see how things are going to turn out just as clearly as you can, eh, Rilly?" "O Silas! Silas! what an oddity you are!" "And I am going to be a still greater oddity. I am going to lay aside the notion that I must turn my muscles into iron in order to protect the weak. What the weak need is help to make them decently strong, so they can protect themselves instead of calling for the aid of bossy brutes." "Good! good!" exclaimed Rilly. "We can turn the wood-house chamber into a lovely workshop, where all the boys of the neighborhood, who are so full of energy that they don't know what to do with it, can come and make cunning things instead of playing dangerous and noisy games and mak- ing nuisances of themselves to everybody in the town, but we won't let them go up there with cig- aretts in their mouths or matches in their pockets, Silas. You know what happened there once." "Yes, I do, and it will never happen again as 61 Human Beings vs. Things long as I have my senses. I know now that it won't do to let boys have all the liberty they want. When liberty becomes a craze it's time to stop and have a new baptism, otherwise we will have to get out the old chains again. It won't do to give children and mad dogs their liberty. Mad dogs are the worst of course because their bite is rank poi- son, but there is nothing more disagreeable and nerve-racking than a lot of children 'let loose' and let to do as they choose. Besides it wouldn't be safe especially in these tramping times when so many houses are being stocked with guns and re- volvers and plenty of dynamite sticks are left around handy. Children will have to be watched pretty close or they will soon get to be more dan- gerous to the community than mad dogs, to say nothing of the awful noise they make with their rasping voices." "Yes," replied Rilly, "and if they need to have their voices cultivated and strengthened we will have a school of oratory down by the lily pond and see to it that their voices are properly cultivated — cultivated to sound like human beings rather than cats or dogs and mules or horses and hy- neas. We won't have any such misapplied ener- gy around here if we can help it. Positively, I have heard the boys out on the athletic field, when if I hadn't known they were boys I should have thought they were a lot of wild animals just let loose from a managerie. There is no part of a Human Beings vs. Things boy that needs cultivating more than his voice." "And the girls, too Rilly. We will see that the girls have an all around development. We will ring them in just as soon as we get the boys in decent order. We will not have any class of weak- lings set aside to be run down by the muscular brutes. Girls ought to be just as strong as boys, and when they are we won't hear of so many being stolen or found dead in ponds or woods here- abouts." "O Silas! You don't suppose that any creature had anything to do with the drown- ing of Belle Arundel, do you? Perhaps you do not remember it. She was mother's dear friend. She came to spend the night with her. In the morning her room was vacant. They thought she must have gone out for a sun-rise walk down by the lily pond and so they called and called and searched for her there and all over the neighbor- hood and then in the city where her lover lived. He was very active in the search and conducted himself in such a way and seemed so broken down that no one had the heart to accuse him of com- plicity in the matter. Besides, she was a mature, intelligent woman, instead of a young, silly girl. Although she was engaged when she was very young, which some people think is very silly and wrong," added Rilly, looking at Silas shyly. "Some people are idiots," replied Silas, testily. 63 Human Beings vs. Things "A girl that is young and silly is twice a weak- ling; but a wise girl knows how to keep out of the clutches of a brute, even if she is not as strong as he is." "But all girls are not wise, Silas." "Of course not, Rilly, and so I say they ought to have their muscles cultivated to match the boys. They ought to have the same physical exercises both in and out of doors — useful amusements that will fit them for enjoying life together. I say that girls should know how to swim as well as boys ; so if a man takes his wife and daughters out for a sail and the boat capsizes he won't have them all hanging onto him like so many dead weights. It isn't safe and I'm going to teach you how to swim, this summer — swim as well as I do"- — laughed Silas. "Thanks and thanks, Silas; but do you think knowing how to swim would have saved Belle Arundel, if she really walked off from the bank in her sleep, as mother thought she did?" "Very likely," replied Silas. "The plunge into the water would have been likely to have waked her up all over and brought her back to her sen- ses, even if she had wandered away from them. In that case she would have swum to the shore, nat- urally of course, and got there too, if her strength was sufficient." "She must have been strong, Silas — that is strong with the strength that oomes from useful 64 Human Beings vs. Things work and country life. Her lover was a scholar and city bred. O Silas ! how glad I am that you were bred in the country and don't believe in gam- ing and cultivating faculties and strength which are worse than useless." " If I know myself, Rilly, a little city polish wouldn't strike in deep enough to twist my feel- ings and make me jilt my sweetheart." "I don't believe it would Silas ; but that's what a great many thought he did, although he swore he did not and that they were going to be mar- ried before long. O what a mystery it was ! — an awful mystery! Do you know Silas, I never go to the pond, without dreaming at night, of seeing her dead face among the lilies and hearing the frantic cries of her lover when he and mother finally found her there!" "But he married soon after, if I remember right- ly," remarked Silas, dryly. "Well that settles his ghost for me and I think she could not have been of exactly the right fibre or she would not have drowned herself for such an unfaithful wretch ; so don't you dream of them too much or let the memory of them prevent you from enjoy- ing the beautiful pond and its sweet lilies. This is home — our lovely, life-long home. We don't want any spooks around any more than we do dusty old relics, and we won't have any, now that you have told me about them, eh Rilly?" "I trust not," sighed Rilly, "but to make our 65 Human Beings vs. Things home perfectly happy, we must make everybody in it and around about it happy. Yes and every- body that knocks at our door. O it seems so little we can do in this isolated spot; but the little is something, if we only do it as it ought to be done. There are the tramps Silas, I'm afraid we haven't done all we might have done for them. Perhaps we ought to study up the tramp question — that is our tramp question — for I feel it's different from others." "Perhaps," said Silas anxiously, "but don't let any of them in the house when I'm not within call. It wouldn't be safe." "O I know, I know! but isn't it sad to think so? sad to think so much stands in the way of good work? For good work to be good, must be hearty work — whole and hearty and straight. I can't abide crooked ways and compromises. I can't bear to hold my work at arms length or hide behind an entrenchment or some one's back while doing it, in regular war style." "And yet good work is sometimes done in round- about ways," said Silas who felt he had led Hilly into a state of feeling which prudence would com- pel him to lead her out of. "Human nature is vacillating and serpentine in some cases. More than once when some reform measure has been up for legislation, a little touch of self-interest or pride on the part of the voters has turned the scale in the right direction and the 66 Human Beings vs. Things reform has been docketed, and made ready to be put on trial if nothing more." "And if the world is not ready for the reform, it is the fault of the poor timid home workers," said Rilly pulling his sleeve. "Yes, there is so much in the way of reforms. Our risibles are in the way sometimes. We laugh when we ought to cry and we cry when we ought to laugh. We argue when we ought to scold and we scold when we ought to argue." They went out into the hall arm in arm. "Ah ! we're in congenial company again," said Silas. There was a bust of William Penn and a little smoky book "that looked as though it might have been present when he smoked the pipe of peace with the Indians," said Silas, "but it must be preserved above all things." "Yes for the record's sake if for no other," said Rilly, smiling. The record pasted on a fly leaf stated that one of their Quaker ancestors had been burned at the stake in Hampshire, England, an- other, or rather a pair of them, had come over with Penn in the good ship "Welcome," and that a babe was born soon after their arrival in a cave near Philadelphia — that they named it Mary and she became an eloquent preacher of Penn's re- ligion of Peace. "Only think of such heroism as that," said Rilly. "Heroism both physical and moral." "Yes, these are the right kind of heroes to have ; 67 Human Beings vs. Things and if we ever buy any more idols we'll finish out the set," said Silas. "Let's see— we'll buy George Fox first of all, then "Henry the Fourth," with his Great Design for the federation of the world and "Grotius, the father of international law for the prevention of war, and "Kant" with his great tractate on "Perpetual Peace." Then we'll get the late works such as Summer's "Addresses on War;" Channing's "Discourses;" John de Bloch's, "Future of War ;" Trueblood's "Federation ;" Car- negie's "League of Peace ;" and Tolstoi's writings. What a school such a collection would make for every youngster hereabouts." "Yes, all but "Henry the Fourth." I'm not sure about him," said Rilly. "If he had lived to carry out his plan he would have had a monstrous army and tried to win Peace by the monstrous use of the sword, would he not? But we'll have plenty of time to read up and settle that question. Here's this old storm picture now, I wonder if we can't hang it up in a better light?" Silas dubbed it "The Impertinent Weather Piece," and suggested hanging it where it could be best (not seen). Storms were bad enough, he said, outside the house, let alone having them inside. "Silas ! Silas ! Where's your bump of reverence gone to?" laughed Rilly. "Don't you know my great-grand Uncle, (your great-grandfather wasn't he) brought this all the way from Milan? 68 Human Beings vs. Things It was painted by an aspiring artist friend, after the style of old Fabriano, who could paint a storm so it would strike terror into the beholder !" "I don't hanker after manufactured terrors, Hilly. I can get more'n I want of those that come along naturally. If a man must paint, why in blazes doesn't he picture out something with a good moral lesson, or something that makes you feel happy to look at?" "I always thought it was rather a dreary pic- ture," said Billy; "but it doesn't come up to the terror point. I suppose the artist missed his aim." "Yes, and made a chilly, soppy mess of it. What would a poor fellow do if caught out in such 'an open,' as that? — not a house in sight — nothing but a shut up church with a tremendous roof that would send down a hogshead of water on him, if he tried for shelter under its eaves. Not a sign of a human being, not even a horse. Nothing but a few cows, with their backs hunched together, try- ing to make a cowhide roof for the rest of their bodies." "What an original kind of a roof!" laughed Rilly! "I never thought of that; but it some- times strikes me as looking like a tile roof — a humpy old, blotched, tile roof, such as you see on old squatty Spanish adobes." "Well, they amount to about the same thing so far as the poor fellow's concerned who'd be caught out in a storm with them. He'd get drenched to 69 Human Beings vs. Things the core and have a run of rheumatic fever. T'would be tough even on a tramp to have no roof but those cows' backs to save him from such a storm as the artist tried to brew in that picture." "You'd be sorry for him I know you would, Silas. I think you're almost as good a humani- tarian as aunty is. You know her favorite text?" Billy was sitting on an Indian rug Indian fashion and Silas was near by on both his knees. "Let's see," said Silas, — "Human beings are of more consequence than things." Then the two heads nodded in hearty assent and two pair of eyes looked at each other in blissful silence, until Rover dashed between them, whining and wriggl- ing in dogish distress. "Rovy! Rovy! What's the matter," cried Rilly? Poor dumb Rover had no need to wriggle out an answer ; for a real human being in the shape of a tall, gaunt man fell across the threshold gasping out, "Bread for God's sake !" 70 CHAPTER VI. THE GENTLEMAN TRAMP AND AUNT SALOME'S ACCIDENT. A S Rilly had intimated, the neighborhood /*k had become, for the first time in its Y ^^ history, very much afflicted with tramps. In fact the tramp seemed to be in the ascendant everywhere. Apparently he had been making the tour of the world. He had been very conspicuous in Australia and still more so in New Zealand, from which he had disappeared into the sea or some other submergent element at the rate of 20,000 a year. The enormity in the latter place was so great that it set the "Ballance Government" to a re-adjustment of the taxes, which gave them a chance at the soil and had settled the tramp exodus at once, and now the New Zealanders were boast- ing that "there was not a tramp or a millionaire in the whole colony!" Whether it was true or not, it was a catchy boast and one well calculated to go around the world. Also to leave the tramps where they very properly belonged, at the millionaire's door. And 71 Human Beings vs. Things that was where Billy had unconsciously left the tramps of her own neighborhood, when she remark- ed that the country had been infested with them ever since the building of the North Woods Road ; or rather at the multi-millionaire- railroad Com- pany's door and she had left them there without any twinges of conscience whatever. How long her conscience would have remained twingeless it is difficult to say, had it not been for her talk with Salome, nor has anybody asked us to state the ex- act time; so all that we feel called on to affirm is that she was aroused to a full consciousness at last that they were lying at those dumb doors all unemployed, unwashed and unfed and that she had decided to do the little she could for them and would do it thoroughly as far as she went. She had heard it intimated that the tramp para- dise in New Zealand was not the outcome of social progress and that it held no germs from which a true democracy could ever be born. That it was simply a make-shift, furthered by peculiar condi- tions and that it could not live more than a hun- dred years. In short that it was simply a return to primitive ways. She did not stop to argue about that, either, or read a 200 page book on both sides of the subject. She felt that "primitive ways," were very good, some of them at least and ought to be returned to — some of the good old Quaker ways especially, which she had not departed so far from, but what 72 "THAT DOG ROVER Human Beings vs. Things she could return to them in spirit and in truth, without anybody's permission and without wasting an inordinate amount of time in making investiga- tions. She reasoned that doing things in a natur- al way was far easier and pleasanter than doing them in an artificial way, and that the artificial barriers set up with so much trouble and expense all over the so-called civilized earth, were like arti- ficial flowers, altogether lacking in true beauty and aroma ; but she had no idea of tearing down the whole system on that account. She was going to select, as in the .case of the old relics, such as she thought best and applicable to the situation. Silas had his ideas of tramps too. Indeed, what young man has not ; he would have been puzzled to explain how any human being could become a tramp ; but he fully realized that a tramp was a human being. And as to conditions of course conditions altered everything. People generally do not do so much, what they can, as what they must. Had Rilly lived in a city and a tramp had fallen across her threshold, she could have sent for an ambulance and had him taken to the hospital and Silas would probably have insisted on it, al- though he had a big, soft heart and felt very tend- er toward him ; but as it was he must do his best. He felt that bringing back a strange man from starvation's verge was not always a safe task or an easy one therefore he insisted on taking the brunt of it on his own shoulders. He sent Hilly for Zeek 7S Human Beings vs. Things and Hannah but he would not permit her to come into any avoidable contact with one who might prove to be the worst kind of a tramp — the leprous tramp, or the verminous tramp. She proved how- ever, to be a valuable assistant in bringing basins of warm water, milk and broth and lastly some clean garments from Silas' wardrobe. Waiting outside between errands, she received the following reports and orders. "I think he's a gentleman tramp. He's got fine linen under his tramp suit." "Lord knows what put it into his noddle to tramp. Guess faint natural to him. Maybe he's an artist out of a job. I read there were lots of those fellows who couldn't sell their wares these hard times." "The output of his hair-brained tramping will be a fit o'sickness, I reckon." "That dog Rover sticks to him like a brother." Later on the announcement was, "Feverish — talks out of his head." Then came the final order, "Send for the Doc- tor!" "Starved, tired out, utterly exhausted, poor fel- low ; but a splendid specimen of humanity ! A ton- ic, good food and careful nursing ought to set him up in two weeks time," the Doctor was saying while Rilly's eyes were filled with pitying tears and Silas was administering a cordial in a cup of milk. Again Hover gave the signal of distress, some- 74 Human Beings vs. Things thing had happened outside. A woman's voice was heard. "Oh! oh! It sounds like Aunty's voice," cried Rilly in alarm. She and Silas ran out and saw a pair of horses rushing wildly by with harnesses flying in the air. "Oh! something dreadful has happened. I'm afraid they've had an accident at the Bluff! That wicked Bluff ! Oh Silas ! you know I've always been afraid some one would get killed there !" Billy was right as to the voice. Later on Sa- lome was brought in with a broken leg. Thus it happened that Rilly had two helpless human beings in her house to be waited on and cheered and petted by turns. "Small chance to make idols of bric-a-brac with such charming patients on hand," said Rilly to Silas while she was stuffing her rarest vases with flowers and the old bronze punch bowl with tempt- ing fruit ; "but it's pleasant to see them so appre- ciated." "Yes," said Silas, "I suppose it's better to use the old stuff to pet people with, than to use people to pet them with;" but he thought with a slight pang, that she was pressing them into the service rather enthusiastically, at least, so far as that ar- tistic tramp was concerned ; for he told himself that the "heft of the appreciation," came from that di- rection. He also remembered that when he was sick last year, she brought him flowers in her 75 Human Beings vs. Things hands; but a glance at the hands which were so much prettier than any vase could be, was molify- ing. He wasn't very fond of imitation things anyhow, Silas wasn't. Bugs of hammered brass and roses made of paint fell so far short of real ones. It goes on record that he pushed this dislike to an extremity once by refusing to go to hear an old chum, "sing like a bird." He preferred to hear him sing like himself. Catch him at the nonsense of hitching up a horse, driving into town and pay- ing his money, just to hear a human being imitate the birds ! Indeed he could hear the birds themsel- ves singing all summer long, without price or any kind of fussery whatever! Picture painters, in his estimation, were almost as bad. Always mimicking nature and so often getting the joke on themselves, as when they paint a waterfall to look exactly like a roller towel ! But this tramp artist! He felt sorry for him and anxious to have the mystery of the pack solved — that strange looking pack which he found at the Bluff and locked up in the granary. "The Doctor says tramp may have his pack this afternoon" said Rilly to Silas ten days after his first appearance. "But you musn't say it was found at the Bluff." "Of course not. Probably he carried it until he was ready to faint and didn't know where he drop- ped it. How unfortunate that it was left just at the 76 Human Beings vs. Things narrowest place for those horses to shy at — just where there isn't an inch to spare," said Silas ! "He's so sensitive I don't know as he ever would get well if he knew he was the cause of the acci- dent," said Rilly ; "but I'm the one that's to blame, after all. I ought to have had that horrid place fixed long ago, whether the corporation would help or not, and it shall be done. I'm not such a devoted humanitarian as Aunty, but I think human beings are of too much account to have their necks broken by such dangerous traps." 77 CHAPTER VII. THE TBAMp's PACK. PROMPTLY that afternoon Silas brought the pack to the sick man's room and Rilly followed with the air of one who scents an interesting denouement. "Thank God" he cried. "What a mercy it was not lost ! I could not have told where I dropped it, I had my eyes so set on the house and my mind so bent on getting here. O the terrible clutch of hunger ! Worse than a tiger clawing at the vitals ! O, I know what it means now ! — demoralization ! everything bad ! Alas ! for the great famines of the world! The great armies of the poorly fed! The starved creatures at the North pole and the living skeletons on wrecks at sea ! After my one experi- ence it seems to me if I had millions I would spend it all rather than see one human being go hungry !" "Cheer up man," said Silas brushing his eyes. "Perhaps the multi-millionaires will get things fix- ed after awhile, so there won't be so much danger of anybody going hungry. Instead of building so many costly libraries and churches, perhaps 78 Human Beings vs. Things they'll build free eating houses, a sort of net- work of them all over the world where any human being can go without question or disgrace. Just why it should be a greater shame for a man to satisfy his physical hunger at a free crib, than his mental or spiritual, is a mystery. Common sense would say it should be right the other way. Per- haps Uncle Sam will get it into his noddle, just what to do, sometime. He educates everybody now and lugs their letters and papers round the world for a song. Strange, isn't it, that it never occurs to him that a man doesn't want his mail 'till he's had his breakfast, let alone getting an education and practicing the commandments, with the devil of hunger staring him in the face. Come to think of it, it is curious that when he made up his mind to be generous, he didn't give us vituals the only thing we can not live without, more'n three or four days and be honest or decent, or more'n two or three weeks without going crazy and dying; but we won't talk any more about this at present. What I'm here for now is to unstrap that back-breaking pack for you. Wonder some- body didn't steal it. It looks rich." "No money value," he said weakly, "but things more precious than gold." "Trust us to undo it for you before we go," said Rilly with charming tact. "Then we'll trust you alone with your precious things until tea-time. Tea-time, mind you, and no longer, for fear they'll 79 Human Beings vs. Things tire you out. You must understand that human beings are to be considered of more account than things, in this house. Aunt Salome has said it and I stand converted and ready at the first provoca- tion to emblazon it in truly feminine style — that is embroider it in three shades of worsted and hang it over the offender's door. So you see I give you fair warning." "Oh how good! How bright and good and — what beautiful eyes" he added, in a surprised tone. Hitherto he had been indifferent if not entirely oblivious to objects of sight, while the touch of helpful hands and the sound of kind voices had affected him deeply. He had drawn the line too, between kindness and cooing and had divined the affinity of the two young people for each other's society. It was a natural process, the intensify- ing of the in-sight simply by shutting the out- sight, but whenever did it have such a magical seeming? He rubbed his eyes and asked himself whether he could afford to run the risk of making "an ap- ple of discord" of himself by keeping his own lit- tle secret from them. A glance at Silas' changed face settled the question. "Never fear Silas, my lad, I've not been waited on by a pair of ministering spirits for ten days without knowing how they stand affected toward each other. Besides I have a confession of my own to make before we go into the heart of that pack." 80 Human Beings vs. Things The confession was an interesting one especially to Rilly who had already gotten hold of some of the puzzling points. "And so you are Burton Bellinger," she exclaim- ed ,"and you always loved Aunt Salome even when you were children together; but because she was left to take care of a large family and develop motherly qualities and called you 'my boy' you thought she couldn't love you in any other way. Then you got desperate and rushed off to Eu- rope?" "Yes, I knew it," said Burt, "and I couldn't beai it. I had to go away." "But when you got back, did you have a good frank talk with her — about your profession — what you were going to do — how you felt — that is, I mean, how- — how desperately you loved her?" said Rilly flushing prettily. The two men looked at each other and laughed. "As to the profession Miss Billy, we had many a long talk. I confessed that I had no genius for art — that I didn't believe I could even make a de- cent living by it alone. I didn't tell her though that I was going to test its mon- ey-making powers in such a reckless way. I hardly knew it myself when I launched out. She knew I thought of going on a sketching tour and pulling up here in the end to make a study of — of objects which I failed to find — elsewhere." 81 Human Beings vs. Things It was Burt's time for embarrassment now but he pushed through. "I never told her how I — O no ! That was and ever must be an impossible piece of impudence. She would as soon think of marrying her — " Rilly shook her head doubtfully, but Silas had unstrapped the pack and they were going. "Stop a minute! Promise not to tell. It's bo wretchedly ridiculous," groaned Burt. "No! No! we'll not tell — that is, not if you'll promise to be sensible," added Rilly quickly ; "but I give you fair warning. I don't hold to your notions on a certain point and I'm not going to harbor any wicked repressibles in this house. I don't believe in human beings getting together to make each other mutually miserable. The Doc- tor says it's a matter of nerves now and you can be on your feet tomorrow if you will, and the very first thing I want you to do, is to call on Aunty and cheer her up. She seems to be in the dumps about her humanitarian mission, almost as much as you are about your art profession. She has to stay in bed twenty days yet, and then she will have to learn to walk like a child. What a shame if after all the care she has taken of you and so many others, she should be neglected now !" "Neglected! Heaven forbid," exclaimed Burt! "No, we'll not tell," repeated Rilly ; "but we'll call to-morrow afternoon at three o'clock and try to put you in shape to do your own telling." CHAPTER VIII. THE TEAMP'S IMMACULATE SUIT. IF we are to credit the statements of saints and evangels they often had visions of encourage- ment to cheer them on their way ; but of the visions of discouragement the chronicles are few. Perhaps they may be generally regarded as the sort of demons with which the good and wise should have nothing to do. But from the days of the staunch literary reformer Roger Ascham, down to the present, there have been discouragements enough for those who attempt to make their bread by their brains, to have created a great many ugly looking visions. The number of persons who are utterly dependent on their own wits for a sup- port, may not be as large as generally supposed and yet it is large enough to furnish the world with pitiful examples of what those thus circum- stanced are called upon to do and endure. Burt Bellinger was not entirely dependent on his own wits for his bread ; but he was of a highly sympathetic and imaginative turn and he some- times tried to put himself in the place of those who Human Beings vs. Things were, and fancy what he would do to get out of it. While in Rome he became greatly interested in the case of the beggars that infested that beau- tiful city— creeping like vermin at the feet of monster monuments of art and looking like worth- less midgets in the shadow of colossal marble figures ; but his imagination being altogether in- sufficient to help him to any satisfactory estimate of their inner experiences — he dressed himself in their garb and strolled the streets after their fashion. By which means he got a more truthful idea of the scorn and misery that fell to their lot, in one day's time, then he could have gotten by a life time of imaginings. He did not paint a picture of it or write it up or even tell his friends of his experience but it gave him new views of the relation of poverty to crime. From what he en- dured in the guise of the most harmless of crimin- als, he concluded that even the worst of criminals had their rights and wrongs, although less than a century ago, when a little band of Quakers, with Elizabeth Fry as a shining star, were working hard at Prison Reform, no treatment was consider- ed by those in power too bad for them. The brutal must be brutalized until no spark of the divine was left and the foul must be flung together in a car- rion heap. It would certainly be absurd to deny any human being his rights, in this day of Equity students, who are ready to recognize the rights of the whole 84 Human Beings vs. Things animal creation from the elephant to the tadpole; besides making incursions into the region of edi- ble plants, to consider the rights and wrongs of toadstools. Criminals should be taken care of— as soon as they beoome criminals, if not before; but taking care of them does not mean getting rid of them quickly and violently — that is killing them; and how bible believing parents, who go to church every Sunday or even once a year and listen to the Di- vine command, "Thou shalt not kill," can be made to believe that judicial murder even for the worst criminals is either right or expedient — is a mys- tery. The monstrosity of it is too suggestive of the hydra-head and they would be apt to say intuitive- ly and decidedly; if you cut off a criminal's head or strangle him or strike him dead with a thunder bolt — as sure as the Lord liveth a swarm of crimin- als will rise up in that murdered criminal's place, to torment you and make you afraid. Of such monsters none but their Maker can rightly judge. Our duty is to shut them out of the world they have wronged and leave them to the lash of con- science applied by an all-wise-power. Who will say that capital punishment even of the electrocutive kind is not at least brutalizing to the executioners — that they are not only in danger of being brutalized themselves but of leaving an in- heritance of brutality to their children and chil- dren's children to the third and fourth generation? 85 Human Beings vs. Things As to another class of criminals, the foul, leprous murderers of child-purity — would any purity lov- ing parent propose as did a writer in one of the popular magazines — that such horrible wretches should be simply stripped and whipped — made an object of retributive brutality — then let loose to commit the same crime over and over again, with the merest chance of being found out and brought again to the whipping post? Would not the purity loving parent say let us sendthose vile morality-murderers to a strongpris- on built on purpose for them and officered by medi- cal and evangelical experts. Let us at first put them in care of the wise physicians and have their physical leprosy healed as far as it can be healed. Then let us put them in the care of the wise minis- ters of God, that their moral leprosy may be healed as far as it can be healed. Then let us put them to life-long labor, for the benefit of those whose lives they have ruined. "Taking care of criminals," means or should mean, giving them every possible chance and en- couragement to repent and amend — safeguarding (instead of taking away) every hour of the life God spares to them for that purpose. Giving them a chance to make restitution to the world they have wronged. They that have taken human life should be put into a medical life school and given over to such experiments as would make for the saving of human life and the building up of 86 Human Beings vs. Things the human fabric they have so ruthlessly torn down. Such was the outline Burt had mapped out for criminal procedure but he was fully aware that it needed filling in with much information and ex- periment from and in a multitude of different de- partments, before it would be robust enough to be put upon trial. He meant to try all sorts of ex- periments first and appear before the world's tri- bunal in all sorts of guises ; but the guise of a tramp had been almost too hard for him, and he was coming out of it rather a sorry dog — longing yet dreading to see Salome — sometimes thinking he would get up in the night and run away in order to avoid an explanation which he felt sure she would listen to with a motherly pity which would remove him still farther away from her, but the talk with Rilly and Silas was a relief and when the pair of mirthful faces turned at the door and shone simultaneously upon him, his courage rose in spite of himself. He sprang out of the bed as soon as they were gone and went to over-hauling his things ; but it was not to get out his household gods, or his madonnas, to pore over. Piece after piece, he took out a full suit of immaculate cloth- ing; and then a necktie which Salome gave him the Christmas before he went abroad. It was old fashioned now, but he rubbed it against his chin caressingly and vowed he would wear it tomorrow. Tied up in its graceful knot was an exquisite mini- ature of Salome the best he had ever painted. 87 CHAPTER IX. BARBARISM AND AB.T. IT is not uncommon for Art History to record the story of some poor, persistent genius who carved a beautiful bit of work with a rusty nail. The reader is expected to overlook the little affair of time and acknowledge it to be a wonderful success. Still there may be a few who will insist that he could have done it far better and quicker with the tools and labor-saving appliances of the modern workingman. On the other hand there are those, who are so steeped in "high" and difficult art as to hold up their hands in holy horror at the awful inroads of labor-saving ma- chines. Even the. helpful sewing machine gets many a curl of the lip from the high born or many-mil- lioned dame, who fears her precious garments will be hustled through at a "devil-may-care" speed. What then will be her anguish, when she is edu- cated fully up to artistic standards and has come to the bitter knowledge that the dear little cupids, Hymens, and Graces, which decorate her bridal 88 Human Beings vs. Things gifts are not entirely innocent of the defiling ma- chine ? If the American nation is great in anything, it is great in machines. The rusty nail has been metamorphosed and almost soul-informed. The superior workman has made so much of the inferior agent and endowed it with such marvelous power that the danger now is, that, the agent will drive ahead while the individual sinks into the back- ground. It is hopeful that the time may come and come quickly when neither the blundering mor- tal, nor the conscienceless machine will take the lead. When the proper functions of each will be readily recognized. Then indeed we may have a revival of Art work, which will be in advance of other countries and ancient times. It is thought that the deplorable decadence in the realms of true art is due to the lack of ap- preciation of art workers and the injustice done them in many ways. This may be true to a cer- tain extent. Fine artistic work, from the Medi- cean age down to the present century, has been chiefly dependent on the munificence of royalty, or the patronage of Popes ; and as these classes are not always among the least whimsical in the world, it has happened that many a brilliant genius has either been entirely ignored or given scant reward both in gold and honor. Compar- atively few of even the most successful have been sufficiently appreciated or patronized during 89 Human Beings vs. Things their life-time to keep them from common want. Artists and artisans of the noblest genius have been taught (perhaps that we may forget it ut- terly) to feel that the slightest recognition from royalty should compel their undying gratitude. That to have the Pope for a patron was to live next door to the New Jerusalem. That to have a visit from a Queen was worth the rarest work of art in their studibs. A good illustration of the latter fact was fur- nished us at the time of our Centennial Exhibition by a large painting called "The Queen's visit to the workshop of Benvenuto Celleni," one of Italy's most renowned Artisans. The humble attitude of the noble artist as he kneels at the Queen's feet and begs her acceptance of a casket of silver and gold, richly wrought and exquisitely fashioned, and the calm aspect of the queen as if it were nothing to be thus besought, tells the story. "Yes, tells it," said a staunch disciple of William Penn, "right here in the City of Penn, with all the impudence of paint and gayety of colors!" It takes us back to the old barbarous but highly artistic ages, when European kings sent tables of highly wrought silver and brass, and vases and chalices of pure gold to Asiatic kings as an expression of their gracious regard. What cared they if it took years to accomplish the journey, through a wild waste of country, innocent of railways or even decent roads. They were too busy killing off the 90 Human Beings vs. Things Huns and Vandals or some of the poor tribes that were likely to come down upon them for necessary food and shelter, to pay any attention to the vul- gar processes of locomotion. What cared they if the artists who made the highly wrought presents, were languishing in poverty or prison, if the royal compliments reached their destination in safety? It carries us back to the times when all were re-< garded as barbarians, except the king and a few that he chose to single out; and only one voice in all the world, the voice of George Fox, the Quaker, rang out in mighty dissent — so mighty and clear- cut that the smothered intellect of the ages began to arouse itself and ask why it was that barbarians should insist on making such beautiful things — things that no civilized creature could imitate? and none but the rich could afford to use ? George Fox and his followers would have none of them. They would not prostrate themselves at the feet of kings or anybody else, nor prostitute the labor of their hands, and brains to kings or any of the earthly powers. They knew what it meant. The Medici's were extravagantly fondof Artistic work; but they had little regard for the artists. They did not scruple to imprison them in order to monopolize their valuable services. They were handed over from one king to another with less ceremony than the presentation of a vase or a lap dog. Pope Paul III. wishing to do homage to Charles 91 Human Beings vs. Things V. ordered a famous silversmith to make an ele- gant gold crucifix and a massive gold covered prayer-book with figures, foliage, enamels and 6,000 crowns worth of jewels. The work not being fully completed at the time of the King's entry, the generous Pope made him a present of the artist also ! Think of it ! Having an elegant artist to give away. No wonder George Fox dis- couraged Art work ! Worse still was the fate of an artist of Louis the XIV. 's court. He modelled a figure of the Grand Monarch sitting on his throne to receive the honor of all the monarchs of the world. The de- sign was to make the stubborn king William of England bow very low but the artist pulled the wrong cord and threw King Louis at the feet of King William; for which blunder he was impris- oned in the Bastile. Even in Bulwer's time, artists were so badly treated and cheated that he took note of it and made a fling at the injustice of such treatment by representing one of his heroines, who was a gener- ous patron of Art, as insisting on having the name of the designer instead of the seller put upon the vases and objects of art which she bought. George Elliot in our own times has given dignity to the skilled artisan by picturing Adam Bede as refusing with scorn the paltry sum offered by a wealthy lady for the original work of his hand and brain. 92 Human Beings vs. Things In America thus far the artist has been free to work out his own devices and inscribe his name on all the four corners of his canvas. He may caricature the President of the United States and present our august representatives in any kind of a pickle he chooses. The trouble is to find muni- ficent patrons. The people are the patrons in- stead of kings ; and although their patronage as a whole might be very large, yet it would not be of a kind to tempt any very large number of geniuses to spend a life time on a single object of art. It might be sufficient however to guarantee any reasonable outlay of time and talent. As to artistic needle work and things of that ilk, it is hardly supposable that any American born woman can ever be tempted, like the women of India to waste years of eye-destroying labor on a bit of shawl for royal shoulders or a bit of rug for royal feet. Still less if like Rilly she has any of the blood of the old Philadelphia Quakers in her veins. It may be mixed or become very much diluted with that of the world's people, but it is there, ready to be stirred up when occasion offers. Her family on her father's side were not Quakers at all and her mother's views and practices had apparently been much modified by that circumstance. The origin- al stock had died out but their spirit still lingered and the plain practices if not the plain language and dress were still in evidence. Rilly herself was 93 Human Beings vs. Things being brought back by Silas' Quakerisms which were of a more positive sort, inasmuch as his branch of the family had escaped by one or two degrees the diluting process which had overtaken hers. Even the old mansion which had so long stood as an exponent of the worldly side, gave evidence of being affected by the gentler leaven, in the thorough weeding out process which it was undergoing through their combined efforts. For there was a tacit understanding between them that the old things should be made use of so far as possible and where they could not be — they must go! 94 CHAPTER X. billy's ideas of old relics, bluffs and jealousy. FULLY imbued with the idea of putting things to use, Rilly carried Burt his tea the evening after the denouement, on an old tray of hammered brass. The teapot and cup and caddy were of the oddest Chinese pattern. There were two shrunken silver skeletons of spoons and a knife and fork with chunky old handles of buffalo bone. Burt declared he had seen "things less rare" cushioned and cradled in plush and velvet and carefully caged in city museums and that it was sacrilege to use them for such vile purpose as eat- ing and drinking." "You forget," said Rilly, "we are living under a brand new dispensation now — in a sort of flash- light belt, where eating and drinking are not to be considered villainous. Where it's not the fad to consider the cup of more consequence than the human being who made it, or who drinks out of." "Good! good," laughed Burt. 95 Human Beings vs. Things "O you needn't laugh," exclaimed Rilly, "I am bound to capture some of the ideas that are float- ing around handy and put them in working har- ness. I've heard so many damaging things said of old relics, that my conscience won't let me go on hoarding them up any longer. They are all mine by direct descent and I am going to Use or lose, Bruise or abuse Them just as I choose. "There's one old teacup I'm going to 'mash' on strictly humanitarian grounds. It has a picture of a spider in the bottom lying in wait to spoil delicate appetites." "Cover the spider with a coat of paint," sug- gested Burt. "No ! I should always see the spider 'under the coat,' " said Rilly. "Silas has some pretty good ideas. He doesn't believe in holding disagreeables in perpetuity or saving them up for fear the crop will give out — in a world running over full with them. No the ugly old trap must go ; we've set- tled that; but there's another kind of old trap, which we want your advice about and help too." "Lead on," said Burt, "I'll help, if it's in me." "It's that horrid old trap of a bluff! That nerve-wrecking, neck-breaking, bone-breaking trap. As old as the hills and as dangerous as it is old. It is a shame to any community that pre- tends to have a civilized creature in it, to let it 96 Human Beings vs. Things stand there like a humpy old dragon to frighten women and children. Many a time I've come near being killed there and many more times I've been killed in imagination. You can't see a team coming nor hardly hear one on account of the deep sand. Only think of it ! just room for a wag- on track and then the ugly ravine and the marsh at the bottom. But because no serious accident ever had happened the corporation seemed to think none ever would. Of course broken nerves are of no account corporatively considered. They must wait 'till somebody's neck is broken. Even Aunt Salome's accident will not be considered quite bad enough. But I am determined it shall be fixed even if I have to foot the whole bill." "Bravo !" cried Burt ; "But now do tell me just how the accident happened. Did they run into a team?" "No," replied Rilly, embarrassed by the sud- denness of the question — "they — that is, the horses shied at something." "What did they shy at," asked Burt noting the embarrassment and taking the alarm. "Something that frightened them, of course, poor foolish brutes," said Rilly, "and it was a dangerous place to shy in ;" but the ruse was not successful. Burt's suspicion flashed into a "Searchlight" and the truth must come. There was a moment of awkward silence. Burt leaned back on his pillow. 97 Human Beings vs. Things "Rilly, please tell me what that something was? I have a strong suspicion now and it will only make the matter worse, by trying to keep it from me. It will seem as if I were not worthy to know and were powerless to make amends. Do you un- derstand?" "0 yes ! too well ! What a blunderer I am" ex- claimed Rilly, with tears of vexation.. "What will the Doctor say? But it's all out now! What do you think it was ?" "That beastly pack! I begin to have a notion that I left it at some such place." "Yes, but there never should have been any such place. It was my fault or the pig-headed corporation's. That place ought to have been fixed long ago." "0 yes! I know all about that. There ought to be good safe roads all over the country; but there never will be so long as the cities and vil- ages rule and cheat the country ; and the Govern- ment rules and cheats the cities and villages. I know it would be easier to have Washington paved with gold and have a great stone highway from the Atlantic to the Pacific than it would be to have the roads of the country put into safe and decent shape. But it isn't your fault, Rilly. I ought to have known better than to have dropped my pack in such a place, as long as there was a breath ot life in me; and I hope I shall be permitted to atone, as far as I can. Does Salome know it?" 98 Human Beings vs. Things "No, indeed, and never shall from me." Rilly was on firm ground again; for this was another one of the cases, about which she felt sure it would be best for Burt to do his own telling. "As to Government and corporate cheating and raining favors all on one scheme, to make a big thing of it, you are right Burt; but I believe in speaking out. If the people of the country would only join hands and speak out and keep on speaking out, they might accomplish something in time ; but that bluff can not wait. I couldn't sleep nights after the accident we've had. It's no use saying whose fault it was. I might have to go back to the Constitution Framers, who made me a voiceless citizen, but the question is what's the best way of going to work to make that horrid old place safe? Silas and I have talked it all over and we thought you could help us about plans. You see we didn't mean to cheat you out of the chance of doing your proper share, or put you in the unenviable position of an unconscious bone-break- er. Fortunately your experience as a tramp quali- fies you for doing more than your share perhaps; for our plan is to hire the first tramp that comes along and set him at work to demolish that bluff — and so on 'till we have all the workers needed. You are to boss the flock, of course." "But would you be sure of getting enough? Not all of that gentry are able or willing to work," said Burt. 99 Human Beings vs. Things "Quite sure," replied Rilly, we have averaged one a day ever since the building of the Great North Railroad and a large proportion seem will- ing and anxious to work at least long enough to get money to take them to their homes. Here's another specimen of the indifference or impudence of rich corporations — turning off their poor workmen and flooding the country people with tramps to feed, to say nothing of the heartless- ness of it, but my mission now is to scold you a little. As I said before, I don't agree with you on a certain point and I believe in speaking out. Why don't you speak out frankly to Aunt Salome?" In reply Burt let out the secret compact be- tween himself and Salome. Rilly was greatly surprised to learn that she had been elected (or rather her eyes) for an artist's model. She was a little perplexed, too. "Now, you will admit," said Burt, "the useless- ness of speaking out after such proof. No woman would take so much pains to find a perfect model for the man she loved." "But Aunty is different- — not inclined to be selfish, or jealous" said Rilly trying to cipher it out. "Then, she didn't succeed in finding one that came anywhere near suiting did she?" "No, of course not. Flattery aside and beg- ging Silas' pardon you come the nearest. You really have beautiful eyes," said Burt probing them to the depths. 100 Human Beings vs. Things "I see ! I see !" she said flashing back. "I see exactly where your proof is defective. You didn't carry it out — out to the answering point, so to speak. I can manage better than that. I'll show you to-morrow. That is if you'll do as I tell you. You musn't give me the Proba look though. You understand. Good Night ! Good Sleep ! Good hope to you Burton Bellinger!" Promptly at the appointed time Silas and Rilly called at Burt's room to prepare him for the meet- ing with Salome. Rilly looked lovely in a cream- white, fluffy house dress with wide wing-like sleeves. Burt called her angelic but there was a gleam of mischief in her violet eyes as she fastened a big bunch of violets in her belt and the remainder in his button-hole. He was shaking with excitement but he was trying to practice his role — humming to a strange tune the lines of the melancholic old Burton ; "Why dost thou send me violets my dear ? To make me feel more violent I fear. With violets too violent thou art — To violate — "Brace up man ! Don't spend all your sentiment before you get to the right place for it," said Silas crossly. Now take my arm. Guess I can steady you. Rilly will lead the way, like — what do you call it? The double winged messenger Hermes ?" "Wait a bit," said Rilly. "If I remember right- 101 Human Beings vs. Things ly Hermes did quite a number of things besides delivering messages. He delivered poor souls from torment. I wonder if he really was guilty of making Juno jealous? — that good old goddess, who moved in Heaven's best society ! A mean thing to do, but I think he was equal to it. Of course, a goddess ought to be above such a barbarous passion as jealousy, but even Juno wasn't, though she was queen of Heaven." "As to the Humanitarian Queen, we shall see what we shall see. We know she doesn't approve of jealousy. She would have nothing done to arouse or feed it. She says it is not the founda- tion of love, but its sting and poison — that there are too many of those green-eyed serpents in the world already — that they should be starved out, instead of stirred up and should lie unmolested in the holes of the earth until they forget their cunning." "As to the every day, unhumanitarian Creature," laughed Rilly, "she knows the world is full of bar- barisms of all sorts. She doesn't exactly approve of them, but sometimes she takes a notion to farm some of them just to see how they'll turn out. She knows jealousy is a mean snake, but sometimes she stirs it up to bring love to his senses." "Now give me your arm Burt and be sure you look as if you had given me the rest of yourself when you enter Aunt Salome's room. Isn't it mean though?" 102 Human Beings vs. Things "Yes," said Burt twitching nervously, "but that was her plan. She was going to have me fall in love with you while painting your eyes. She ought to be pleased, and I am deuced afraid she will be." "Hello!" called out Silas, picking up a mini- ature Burt had dropped. "You may as well take this along. You're going to have the tip-top guest chamber after this" — he was laughing now. "Aunt's picture" cried Rilly ! "Natural as life and more too — a sort of heavenly extension! O you bad artist ! How could you make it so like her and then add just the very glow (over-soul I suppose you'd call it) which you'd like to see there. When she looks like that, you'll be in the seventh heaven, Burt Bellinger ; but now remember, you are to fancy yourself there. You must look as if you were on the ascending scale at least." "O this accursed weakness will spoil every- thing," groaned Burt, shaking hin>self up fiercely. "I remember Seneca was called weak although he was a power in Rome. You know we are going to Rome now," said Rilly encouragingly. It was like saying that good people are apt to be weak. The better they are the weaker in cer- tain ways. That the man who is very strong in love, may be very weak in the knees. Burt appreciated the conceit about going to Rome but the surety of having to return, if not to the "bowl of poison hemlock," at least to the 103 Human Beings vs. Things bowl of wormwood and gall was almost too vivid; and he would have turned and fled as weakly as he did on a former occasion ; but the resolute Rilly had hold of him now, both by word and by arm and he was led firmly along. "O dear!" said Burt trying to be jocose, "I can laugh at my own calamities but when my fear cometh, somebody else has to do the mocking." 104 CHAPTER XI. THE TRAMP CALLS ON THE HUMANITARIAN. 'K ^^ JAUNTY, dear old soul! I've brought my dearest tramp to call upon you," said Rilly— "and — " 'O my boy ! my poor boy, ' 'cried Salome throwing up her hands in an excess of pity and delight; but they fell like clods into Burt's warm palms. He showered them with kisses and murmured petite maman between showers ; but her eyes were riveted on Rilly who was peering lovingly over his shoulder with the miniature in hand. She saw the triumphant glow of the splen- did eyes, the disparted violets, the bride-like dress and the engagement ring. "O Rilly! Rilly! why didn't you tell me? It's so sudden and you know the Doctor says I have a weak — " The words choked her. She shut her eyes and withdrew her hands with a vigorous jerk for which Burt was not prepared ; but he was equal to the occasion now and he indemnified him- self by kissing her on both cheeks. "I must kiss you too," said Rilly, "O I'm so happy to-day ! Burt thought you'd be so pleased !" 105 Human Beings vs. Things It was the last stroke. Salome turned ab- solutely green under Rilly's profuse caresses. The miniature dangling from the shapely wrist, smote her in the face. She cried out : "There stop, now ! sit down ! both of you. Tell me all about this tramping business. What pos- sessed you Burt to risk your health and life so un- mercifully? The Doctor told me you could not have lived another hour had it not been for — Silas' promptness." Salome was trying to make a brave fight against the green-eyed monster but it proved to be rather a weak war. Tears came in spite of herself. She turned her face to the wall. Rilly was the one to break the silence. "We are tiring you out Aunty. We had better go, at least Silas and I. Here's Silas. You haven't seen Silas yet, you haven't spoken to him. You haven't congratulated him." "Congratulated him! What about?" Silas came and whispered in her ear; and then seizing Rilly's hand they went whirling and laugh- ing out of the room. "O Burt! Burt" Salome began; but there was a new hope in her voice. "What have you been doing to yourself? How thin you are ! How aged ! I see gray hairs in your head!" "I'll tell you everything dearie," said Burt; "but kiss me first for God's sake. I'm as hungry for love now, as I was for food." 106 Human Beings vs. Things A long confession followed, then Salome broke out again. "O I see now ! I have been blind ! Cruel ! I have been taking all the world to my heart or trying to, with you left out. You did have the first place to begin with; but we were young then and you had everything to hold you back and I had everything to push me forward and develop the care-taking qualities. Now — " "Yes, now," said Burt teasingly, "I look old enough to be your father, you want to say. Well how would you like to have me pay you off by playing the loving father to you all the rest of your days?" Burt was getting jolly, but Salome went on in her pitying voice. "Then it was you I saw here one morning with a monstrous pack on your back. It was your voice I beard calling for help, on my way to Hazel Dell ; and yet I helped you not. You of all others who needed it most ! So you had two days more of wretched wandering and hunger and cold and misery. How can you forgive me?" "Never mind, dearie, I deserved all I got." "No, No ! Burt don't slander yourself ! You did it for a good purpose. You wished to know by experience the life of the veritable tramp. You wished to be brought into true sympathy with the poorest and most despised of God's creatures. You conscientiously cut yourself off from all aid 107 Human Beings vs. Things and sympathy until you had nothing left but the hard world, your wits, and your tools of trade." "Not quite so far, dear dear heart. Put your hand in mine and I will tell you all. Closer, closer thanks thanks! now I can tell the damaging truth." "I meant to fall back on my bank account as soon as I found out I couldn't earn my way with my profession; but the time came sooner than I expected. I was handled pretty roughly from the first. Sketches from an artist tramp were looked upon with high scorn. It was hard to get a cup of milk for one that cost a day's careful work, to say nothing of a good clean meal. O, the dis- gusting messes offered me as a fair exchange ! If I did not accept the terms, I was treated as a cheat, a thief, a beggar, or a black-leg in disguise. Oftener I was given a crust of bread and told that they didn't want any of my finicky work , but they would like to give me a job I'd have to bone into. Once when I crossed a field of grain to sketch a pretty view, I was threatened with prison bars. Another time when I took refuge in a barn from a drenching storm I was spat upon and dogged." "You, Burt!" sobbed Salome — "you who were always so tender of every living creature! How could you bear it?" "I'll tell you if you promise not to despise me." After getting the desired promise in the desired way, Burt continued: 108 Human Beings vs. Things "Well dearie, I didn't bear it at all. It crushed me. I began to see myself as others saw me, judge myself as others judged me, look upon myself as the lowest of human beings, made of the same clay, not a whit better. The spirit of cheating, lying and cursing was creeping over me. The pres- sure of self-scorn and the misery of failure, dis- graceful and irrevocable was upon me. The fear of arrest and imprisonment led me to avoid the town — the terrible town with its gateway of temp- tations, its guarded street with the poor-house on one side and the prison-house on the other! I could not bear to think of it; but my mind was full of the idea of coming here. I had lost faith in myself and I must go where there was some one who had faith in me. I said it would be like heaven to have your kind ministrations even though you thought you were bestowing them on a genuine tramp. "Nice and unselfish wasn't it? but when I got here my assurance left me. Shame at my sorry plight and venture, ruled me. I turned and ran away ! but not to the town to telegraph for money. The craze was on and that seemed a coward's de- vice. Genuine tramps had no money to telegraph for — no friends to lean upon. No bit of God's earth to lie down upon. Nothing but the dirty road and the thistles by the wayside. I sat down by a bunch and ate the gritty blossoms; for hunger was gnawing me and as yet I would not beg. But 109 Human Beings vs. Things I did what conscience told me was next to it. I dragged myself into your niece's woods with only my two hands to keep me from hunger's j aws ! I knew some one might come and order me off, but I swore by the eternal God I would not go. Wild passions began to rage. Demoraliza- tion set in. I lost hold of myself. All sense of pride and honesty was gone. Only the beast of hunger was left. I clawed edible roots from the ground. I robbed a bird's nest. I stripped a cow of its milk without compunction. Had I been in town at that crisis I would have robbed . a provision store with just as little conscience. When I could find nothing more, I sat down by a young hemlock and gnawed its leaves. After that a sense of drowsiness came over me. I laid my head down on my pack, to sleep or die, I cared not which. "When I awoke, I heard the notes of a whip- poorwill. My fancy distorted it into 'help, help !' I cried back 'help, help !' I was a child again and you were the little mother — yes a lost child — lost through disobedience — help! help! How long it was before I fully realized my condition I knew not; but as soon as I did, I seized my pack and came here as fast as my feet would carry me. I was going to die and I could not die (for the sake of my friends) in the woods or by the roadside as I fully deserved to do. The pride that had held me back was gone now; but conscience flared up 110 Human Beings vs. Things and showed the falsity of it all. Through heart and brain ran the haunting thought, that if I had only been good enough, wise enough, loving enough, unselfish enough, I might have conquered prejudice, disarmed the brutal, won over the scorn- ful and fared plentifully every day. I saw at last that it was not so much that the world had failed me as that I had failed the world." "Don't cry dear heart, I deserved all I got. I had been masquerading before the world as a poor tramp. The world would not be deceived! God would not be mocked! When I would have fled from the 'dismal swamp' of failure I had made, He took hold of me and pushed me in. Thus it was not by my own will but by a will mightier than mine that I was goaded on to the bitter end and made to enter into the full and fiery bap- tism of tramp life!" "But you suffered yourself to be led — not push- ed — not goaded by a kind Creator, dear Burt; and this seems to be about all we can do in this crude-conditioned world," sobbed Salome. "It's more than I did. The world did fail you cruelly, shamefully, but I failed you worst of all; for I saw you in your greatest need. I heard you cal- ling for help in your greatest agony. Do not say I did not know it was really you. I knew it as well as I needed to know it, but I was not obedi- ent to the 'Heavenly call and vision.' I am of the poorest kind of clay — too poor and dull and cold 111 Human Beings vs. Things for the swift ministry that the suffering soul de- mands and so I have failed and failed!" "Let it pass, dear heart. We both failed — failed as we always should, had we lived apart. What a sweet belief. 'But the love that makes for eternity' failed us not," said Burt fervently. The next day he hired a tramp and set him to work on the old bluff. 112 CHAPTER XII. rilly's way or treating tramps. EXPERIENCE is said to be the best teach- er but like many another old adage it shows signs of being outgrown. How many of us are dimly conscious of having learned by long and bitter experience, that which we might have been taught in one short and pleas- ant lesson? Is it not a fact, that since all the de- partments of living are becoming more and more complex weneed more and more the teacher's aid — need to be scholars all our lives to keep up with the requirements of our social state. It is not simply the "three R's" now — a teacher for a few years and then freedom to do our best or worst, but teach- ers and wise ones every step of the way — teachers who can both give and receive — can benefit others by wise instruction and be benefited by wise ex- perience. All citizens should be well drilled in the duties of citizenship, so when they are called to put their shoulders to the wheel it will be a pleasure instead of tiresome work. They should also be taught the 113 Human Beings vs. Things science of holding fast that which is good, of pull- ing out the noxious weeds and letting the good wheat stand, and not only this but how to nurture it and garner it and convert it to the best uses. Why it is we let go so easily of the things so hard to attain — the jewels of great price — is one of the mysteries. Alas how many good things have been lost through reckless ignorance ! "Hold fast that which is good," should be written on every reform- er's heart and engraved on every child's text book — especially the useful and the good. We mourn the lost arts of Greece and Italy. We should mourn still more the lost science of Peru and Paraguay. The science of labor to which Henry George points in his "Progress and Poverty." He says, "Under Jesuitic rule in old Peru and Para- guay, want was unknown and the people went to their work singing songs, instead of making wry faces." If the old Paraguayans had only held fast to the science, brought to such perfection — if they had grasped the "hold fast that which is good," text and engraved it on every temple of flesh and brass, undoubtedly they would have helped us solve the labor problem for all time. If the old Peruvians had taught it to their children and children's chil- dren in letters of fire, no doubt but what their "songs of labor" would have been the uplifting chord in the universal hallelujahs of all the na- tions of to-day! Unfortunately, they did not, 114 Human Beings vs. Things and so the dreadful labor question with its added ramifications and complications has to be fought over and over again not only in Peru and Para- guay, but all over the world! It has to be talked over, puzzled over and solved after a fashion, every day in every manufacturing establishment, every railroad office, every shop and in every home. It was solved in rather an unique way at Billy's home. "There are pitfalls and pitfalls in the world as well as bluffs and bluffs," said Silas, "but I hope we shan't fall into one of them, while we are pulling down our bluff. It would make it the harder for us to reach to the top, and the strain would be harder than the work." The two couples were conferring together as to how the tramps should be treated and one had only to listen to the talk to see the drift of Silas' remark. Burt thought "they would have to sleep in the barn ;" but Billy said, "No ! no ! not so long as there's a bed left in the house or a place to put a cot. Human beings are not going to be herded like cattle on these premises. We'll try giving them the best we have, and see how they'll turn out. If human beings are better than things, they are better than cattle, are they not Aunty?" "Yes Billy, bless your heart; but we get into the society rut and do not think about it. I should have thought they must be barned, instead of 115 Human Beings vs. Things housed, as well as Burt, if you had not set me right." Burt owned to conversion and came very near preaching a sermon on the subject. "Yes Silas, my lad," he said, "the world is full of pitfalls, and it's harder for some to get out after they've fallen in, than it is for others. It would be easier for you than for me, and easier for Rilly than for any of us, God bless her; but it's easier for me than for a great many others. Some go to work to burrow and barricade and entrench themselves, as soon as they get into their pit. Others do not. They leave it all open to the winds of Heaven as well as the winds from the opposite direction. This might be called a sort of shiftless way ; but it's easier to get out of such a pit — easier to be touched by the wave of pro- gress and lifted out, than it is to get out of those that are deepened and dammed up against out- side forces. It's not only easier to get out of such a pit but it is easier to help others out — easier to get at them, to clasp hands with them, to do them loving service; and there's no kind of help but loving help, that's of any use to the habitu- al pit-dwellers. Offer them a cold hand, the clam- my hand of expediency, the condescending hand of charity or the stiff hand of duty, and they will slip, flounder and get deeper in every time. Offer them a warm hand, a loving hand and they'll hook onto it with electric tenacity. If 116 Human Beings vs. Things the love is strong enough, adhesive enough, full enough of grasping penetrative power, it will sometimes be able to get through the barricades and entrenchments of the worst kind of pit-dwell- ers — the low-down and devilish; but they are a hard lot in a hard spot. The most loving and strongest helpers might get their death strokes there, even as Christ did among the old pit-dwell- ers (routine workers) and churchmen of his day." "A capital preachment," said Silas, "now if we can only practice to match. I reckon tramps are not so deep in the pit business but what good food and bedding and decent treatment can fetch 'em out. If they should go to acting crooked, I guess you and I and Zeek and Rover, oould straighten out half a dozen of 'em." "Never fear," said Billy, "we will treat them so they won't have to be straightened out. It's time to begin to practice now. Tramp John must be brought in for his first supper. This is an impor- tant move. If we can get him rightly located and at his ease, it will be easier for the rest." "I doubt if you can get him to sit at table with us," said Burt. "He's so sweaty and dirty and sort o' fagged out, though I fancy he'd be a good looking man, if he were only dressed and washed up." "Hannah'll manage that," said Billy. "Clean- liness next to godliness, is her motto. I am go- ing to press her into the preparatory service. She 117 Human Beings vs. Things took him a pitcher of lemonade this afternoon. Now I'm going to have her get him in and fix him up for supper. You know they are to have an hour before meals to rest and brush up in. Prob- ably Tramp John has a decent suit in his bundle. If so, Hannah can be trusted to make him believe that he owes it to himself, to us and to the 'Lord who looketh down from above,' to put it on. His room has got everything needful Jin it, from soap to shaving tools. That old relic of a Prayer Rug is spread out before his wash-stand. I hope he will tramp on it enough to discourage the im- pudent carpet bugs." 118 CHAPTER XIII. THE MUSICAL TKAMP. BURT hired another tramp the next day, after the conversation recorded in the last chapter. "I think we shall be slow to admit he is made of the same clay that we are," he said to Sa- lome. "He is just an animated chunk of mud, and not very animated either. He doesn't look as if there were a bit of work in him." "Why did you hire him," asked Salome, smil- ing. She was in wait for one of Burt's oddities. "Firstly, because he was so anxious to be hired. The born tramp doesn't want to hire out, as a rule. Then he has such a sweet voice. Lastly, I felt sorry for him. He said he 'came up from old Kentuck' to work on old 'John Brown's Trac' railroad, but got orfly cheated an' froze out, for the trac' didn't belong to the good old John Brown they 'lowed it did, and the weather was a heap o' zero's below what they 'lowed it was ; and so he'd been marchin' on ever since." 119 Human Beings vs. Things "Isn't it pitiful, though," said Rilly, laughing with the rest. "No doubt some irresponsible ras- cal fooled him into believing that the owner of the so-called 'John Brown's Tract' and John Brown the martyr, were one and the same, and that it was a sort of a money making paradise up there. He doesn't look as if he could see through things very much. He has such a retreating forehead! but he has a musical voice. I heard him singing as he came over the bridge." "What a dreadful thing! The way that road was built," exclaimed Salome! "Only think of taking men from the sunny South, with their easy habits up to that terrible cold region, to work at such hard labor and in midwinter too! I never could see why it should be built in winter anyway ; but if it must be, why didn't they employ hardy northern men?" "I heard," said Silas, "that the railroad mag- nates made a wager that it would be done at a stated time, and it couldn't be, without pushing it straight through the winter. Probably they hired Southerners because they could get them cheaper than Northerners. Northern men know what it is worth to work in the awful North Woods, in awful winter weather, with no let up though the tools freeze fast to the hands. Guess those rail- road fellows are 'bout like the rest of the world. They get so used to doing things in rushing rail- road style, that they do not stop to think how 120 Human Beings vs. Things mahy human beings are going to be run over! How many lives are going to be crushed out or ruined !" "Surely not," said Salome! "but if they only could see! But it's a hard world and life is a hardening process to most of us. Some are ground down to the dead level of common endea- vor by stern hands. Others are held back by the gentler ones of love and friendship from the high- est good. Few are strong enough to stem the tide. Most of us do little more than drift, drift, even up to the eternal gate. About all we can do is to see what we might have done, if we had only possessed the heart and power." "Railroad kings have power enough," said Bil- ly ; "now if they could be made to see that human beings are of more consequence than railroads ! You ought to go on a mission to the railroad com- panies, Aunt Salome." "O I could not go on a mission! that is not of myself," said Salome, glancing at Burt, "I can't do anything but talk. I did have a little talk with one of the officer's wives once and we agreed that the time had come when the railroads didn't need improving as much as the human beings that ride on them. That it would be a good plan to stop building them and devote our time and money to building up a better social fabric. Still if all kinds of building up, could go on at the same time, go on harmoniously — without sacrificing one to 121 Human Befngs vs. Things the other, what a blessed world it would be ! Only think what a year in the wonderful North Woods might have been to those poor toilers if it had entered into the hearts of the great railway mag- nates to do all they might have done with their mil- lions and millions of money. If the decree had been that the road should not only be pushed in spite of arctic snows, but that all the men engaged in that perilous service, should have every possible protection and every needful pleasure that mon- ey and wisdom could supply. That they should have warm clothing, generous food, short hours, and no out-of-door work in those beastly blizzards. That they should take their families with them, and have social entertainments for the long dark hours, instead of the unutterable pangs of so- cial starvation! That they should have a grand jubilee in the end, which would make a pleasant life-time remembrance! A beautiful transforma- tion scene indeed ! The great white-sheeted death* like woods sparkling with thousands of lights and fires ! odorous with thousands of steaming kettles, — resonant with music and song and the cheering prattle of little children !" "O ! those beautiful might have beens," exclaim- ed Rilly! "Corporate bodies have no souls they say ; but they ought to have very large ones con- sidering they are aggregations of single souls; and I believe the time is coming, coming quickly, when the corporative soul will be a very large 122 Human Beings vs. Things soul — very God-like — when almost nothing will be impossible for it to do." "Guess they'll need some trouncing first," said Silas. "I believe every blest one of the big cor- porations ought to have a sort of 'Red Cross So- ciety' to tag 'em around and see that they treat their gangs like human beings, instead of dogs. I take it that no big corporation ought to be allowed to turn off gangs of laborers, without furnishing them with transportation facilities or tickets to take them home. It's an insult and a menace to the people ; to say nothing of the cost ; and any company that does it, ought to be sued for damages. The country all about here has been perfectly flooded with tramps ever since the building of the North Road and it must have cost the people thousands of dollars to feed them and help them along to say nothing of the wide- spread fear among isolated farmers." "No doubt they were a hard lot to manage," said Rilly; "but who can believe if they had been generously paid and made one half as comfort- able as their bosses or employers, they would have preferred to go tramping around half starved, ragged and dirty? If they could have been regal- ed even with the crumbs that fall from the million- aire stockholders' tables, they might have been greatly pacified — the multi-millionaires, who give such munificent sums to church missions and things of that kind! They ought to have organized a 123 Human Beings vs. Things mission school and sent it along. They must have known that lots of their men were sure to be knocked out or laid up through sickness, incom- petency or drunkenness." "Reform ought to begin with the rich organiza- tions, surely," said Burt. "They have the power and money and could do things while the masses have only appetites and wants and have to fight like tigers for a bare living in many cases and in many others for the luxuries and refinements due to their families as civilized creatures. If they only would treat their workers according to the golden instead of the business rule, how much trouble might be avoided — yes and crime." "I believe they would if popular .opinion de- manded it or cried out for it as strong as it should," said Billy enthusiastically. "I guess Mr. P. O. would have to arm himself with clubs and bowie knives to make much im- pression on such gold-rimmed fellows," said Silas. "O, I don't believe in that," exclaimed Salome! "I believe in urging, arguing and entreating — re- urging — re-arguing and re-entreating — not forc- ing and fighting." "You want everybody to stop on the right side of a knock down," said Burt laughing ; "and Rilly wants them to see the pitfalls they are coming to and insist on not being led into them. From either point of view good roads have a moral significance as well as an economic one. You will 124 Human Beings vs. Things know I'm not speaking Pharisaically but scriblit- ically when I say that good roads are needed all ov- er the country — yes, all over the world, particular- ly in farming districts, to make farm produce worth raising and the life of the producers worth living. I learned while tramping abroad that the famine which occurs periodically in some parts of Russia owes its worst effects to the beastly roads; and that the beastly roads are due to the Government, which is too intent on exploiting the people and hoarding up an immense war fund, to pay at- tention to so slight a matter as the death of thousands of its subjects through hardship and famine." "Isn't that dreadful," said Salome, "and all for cruel war! For the sake of saving money to kill neighbor nations with." "Yes, dear; but it's a wide-spread dreadfulness. Germany sets the pace with its giant war coffer and Russia is determined not to be beaten ; and it will not be, for it has the church to help in the iniquitous proceedings." "If the people could only see how they are being imposed upon and protest with all their might," said Rilly. "But they don't — that. is, the seeing isn't large enough to affect such a huge conspiracy very sensi- bly. Russians are brought up from their first breath to give to the church and constantly incited and tempted to give even to the point of stripping 125 Human Beings vs. Things themselves bare, especially on great Feast Days of which the Greek Church has a suspiciously large number. Days on which the people have extra indulgences — (in other words) are permitted to get drunk and give all they have to the church. I went to a Cathedral in Moscow on one of the Great Days and I shall never forget the sight, or rather, fright — the crowds of all classes, (a great proportion of which looked poor and wretch- ed in the extreme) that poured in and flung treas- ures and ornaments of all kinds, from gold coins and diamonds down to copper kopecs and paper money, on the great Holy Cloth, spread out tempt- ingly before the Holy Picture." "The same poor wretches who would be left to starve if famine should come, O Burt ! Burt !" cried Salome. "Yes dear, the peasants of the famine districts would; but they don't see it. They strip themsel- ves as recklessly as the others and put their trust in their Government and the Church; and when the famine comes swooping down upon them, the Government and the Church flurry around under pretense of helping them, but alas, when the worst pinch comes the roads are almost impassable and not a single kopec of the Holy Fund they have helped to pile up, must be touched or used for anything so insignificant as the saving of their poor lives." "I should think they'd learn after awhile," said 126 Human Beings vs. Things Rilly, "to put their money into a Holy Road Fund, or join hands and fix their own roads. But perhaps they wouldn't be permitted to do that. I suppose the Russian Church and State magnates, are almost as autocratic as our Railroad mag- nates. They say to the farmer, in effect, that if their engines should set fire to his property, it is not his business to put it out or summon his neigh- bors to help ; and no matter what his danger is. he will get nothing but ridicule from the company for so doing. The inference is that they are able to pay for his loss, but when it comes to paying, the farmer is apt to be left out in the cold as completely, as the poor Russian who trusts his all to Church and State ; or as he puts it — to his Country and his God !" "Dear ! Dear ! what a world ! I never heard that about the railroads before," said Salome. "The rich and strong are aiways crushing and tormenting the poor and weak." "You see how it is Auntie, we shall have to buckle on our armor, and when we see any Great Corporation cheating and brow-beating the peo- ple, or attempting feats in which 'human beings are to be sacrificed to tilings,' we must pitch into the very heart and consciences of them — not for- getting that they, too, are human, bless them. There's a way to win them to our side as well as the tramps, if we did but know it." 127 CHAPTER XIV. THE SUSPICIOUS TRAMPS. 1ATER on Rilly was ready to confess that the way to win even the tramp, was not J so easy as she thought. There were six at last and all except Tramp John and South Tramp were stolid to the last degree under the kind treatment of their amiable hostess. The required cleanliness seemed a bitter pill. They looked askance at the clean comfortable garments supplied by Burt. They quizzed Hannah as to the liability of having to pay for them in the end, although they had been assured they were given free of ' charge. They were suspicious of each other and hotly jealous of Tramp John and South Tramp. Especially South Tramp who with his musical voice had sung himself into favor. He not only sang at his work but he sang in the par- lor with a piano accompaniment by Salome or Rilly, who at first considered the music almost a God-send in the way of evening entertainment. But as soon as they saw that it made the poor fellow a mark for envy, they felt obliged to vary 128 Human Beings vs. Things it with others, of a more general, tho' less agree- able kind. This rather aggrieved South Tramp who was painfully conscious of being the slowest worker at 'The Bluff,' but was very properly elated with the idea that he made up for the de- fect with his singing. And so the petty wars and jealousies and rec- riminations went on ; but there were no serious troubles, no hand to hand fights, no brutal knock- downs ; and there was a better harmony toward the end, among themselves, and a stronger feel- ing of loyalty towards their employers, whose friendly acts were at first regarded as cunning traps which they must cunningly avoid stepping into. "O they can't fool me wi' their softies," was the daily boast of Tramp Ben to his pals; but when he tried to establish himself in the cunning role by telling Salome that he was "first cousin to the cunning yank that invented the water pipe prison bars," he struck a vein he did not expect. "Oh what a pity that yankee cunning could not be set at the improvement of human beings, so no kind of prison bars would be needed," cried Salome. "But cunning alone cannot do it. Wis- dom and love and mercy must be added. With- out them, cunning is worse than idiocy. What a great mistake the world has been making thus far, in calling so largely for the cunning qualities and setting them to work for our daily torment." 129 Human Beings vs. Things When Salome had done full justice to the sub- ject of cunning, Tramp Ben winked at the ceil- ing instead of his pals and said: "Wal Miss, guess yer partly right, but yer'nt built like most folks sartin." Tramp Brown had been to the Black Hills and according to his own account had a very rough time of it but he made it the base for a cut at Burt on bossism. "Yes sir," he said, "it was purty dum rough but we didn't hef tu dress fer dinner. Tha don't go in very heavy for bossism there." "I'm not for bossism to any villainous extent, if I know myself" said Burt, "but I believe in a little compulsory kindness where men incline to be cruel or injust to themselves. I think men should not be permitted to go to such awful regions as the Black Hills nor any wild unsettled territory without Government sanction. Whenever the num- ber of persons wishing to enter a new region is large enough to warrant it, then the Government should go ahead with its explorers, its iron rails and telegraphs and see that it is made a fit place for its citizens to live in." "Guess the country'd get along purty slow" said Tramp Ben "if Government hed tu du all the movin'." "But it's going too fast now. It's doing too much skipping. See the beautiful lands in the South lying uncultivated and neglected !" 130 Human Beings vs. Things "Guess nobody wants tu go down there, 'less he understands the lynching business," said Tramp Jim. "But there wouldn't be any lynching business if the lands were taken up and made into small farms — that is if the country were thickly set- tled, so the people could protect each other or em- ploy an efficient police force. It's the isolation of families on great tracts of land, that makes it so dangerous." "Yore 'bout right," said South Tramp, "nig- gers wouldn't try toh doh nothin' bad wi plenty o' white folks round." Rilly thought the co-operative colonies would be an excellent remedy as they brought people to- gether in a common interest and in numbers suffi- cient for mutual protection. While Salome asked Burt if it would not be feasible and right for the Government to establish an immense police force with a net-work of tele- graph lines all over the country. Burt thought it would be right and that some- thing of the kind should be done. Tramp Ben thought it would be "too much for Uncle Sam's pocketbook ;" but Burt said it would be nothing compared with the cost of war — that is the money cost — not counting the horrible waste of life. The cost of one battle-ship would go a great way toward safe-guarding desolate country places. 131 Human Beings vs. Things "Then if they'd only clear out their miserable old murder-pens, the naval stations, sell the old cannon and guns for old iron. Send the reckless young soldiers home to their mothers, turn the military stations into police head-quarters and em- ploy mature level headed police officers, what a blessed country this would be!" said Rilly. "We should have protection then instead of demorali- zation. A military station is worse than a pest house for any community." The tramps looked at Rilly in wondering ad- miration. Her eyes were more eloquent than words, but her words were to the point. They liked them because they could understand them. There was so much talking done that was above their heads. "Then there are our harbors," said Salome — "our great ocean-cities — in danger of being wrecked or swept out of existence by storms — if what scientific men say is true — or if what has al- ready happened may be taken as a sign. What can Government do for them? or what ought it to do, or what will it do to prevent the awful des- truction of life and property and relieve us of the fear and terror of it ? All the way from Galveston to New York the ocean cities are in deadly peril ! 'New York and Jersey City will be the grandest horror !' So said one of the learned men. Will not something be done to avert that horror?" "No, never," replied Burt, "so long as the army 182 Human Beings vs. Things and navy even in times of peace swallow up more than two^thii-ds of the Government appropriation. Almost everything could be done for that mon- strous sum. Our rickety harbors could be made strong against the brutal old ocean very speedily, if we would give up our absurd preparations for killing imaginary enemies. Human enemies are as nothing compared with the blind rage of oceans and whirlwinds, and yet, look at the mon- strous engines of destruction that we employ for tearing to pieces tender flesh, and they are grow- ing worse and worse all the time. When the manufacture of munitions of war and the employment of officers and soldiers have grown into a monstrous industry — out-topping all other industries, what then? There will be no such thing as controlling it. The few poor, puny, hungry barbarians there are left, will have to be ground to pieces over and over again in the hor- rible mill of the Devil." "There ain't no sho' fer enybody eny more in this country," said Tramp Jack. "Somebody owns every thing yu kin lay yer finger on." "Yes, siree," said Tramp Smith; "one of them multiplication table millionaires, bought up a hul town last year, river and houses and the hul ca- boodle ; and I guess t'wodent be safe fer eny feller tu go fishin in that river even on Sunday, ner hardly go thru the streets less he had a diamond bosom-pin on." 133 Human Beings vs. Things "What's yer price fer chaff?" asked Tramp Jack. "There aint much chaff bout it," said Smith. "I went a fishin in that river one day fore I knew it didn't belong to the Almighty er some decent feller, and just as I was landin' my first fish a snaky-lookin feller come and ordered me off. I sassed him some, I was jest hungry enough; but I got arrested all the same." "It was for show or example," said Tramp Jack. "Don't like them kind o' shows and didn't want tu die hungry ner hev my pocket picked o' change I was savin' up tu kerry me home," replied tramp Smith. "If them millionaire fellers keep hearty and well they'll buy up the hul country 'fore long," said Tramp Jack. "Then I suppose the Government 'ill want us fellers tu sail way off somewhere and fight some kinds of injuns er niggers tu git sum more land — jest >as England does when the gentry want some more land to make into huntin' parks. Guvment's alius hand in glove with millionaires. They run Guvment officers as fur as I can see." "I hope our next war will be away off on sum savage island if we are going tu hev one," said Tramp Ben. Our last one was tu clus to be 'gre- able. It's different heving a war tu home right under yer nose. Killin' looks better'n the dis- tance than't duz clus by. Ken imagine we're kil- 134 Human Beings vs. Things lin' off dirty heathens then; but when't comes tu killin' or woundin' good, clean next-door neigh- bors — fathers, brothers and cousins, etc., it's tick- lish business ; and that's what our last war was every time. Yu see't England don't hev nun of er killin' done tu hum any more. She sends her soldiers off tu spatter or burn up some other coun- try and she goes right on with 'er huntin' and fishin' as tho' nothin' of any consequence was hap- pening." "If this Government ever takes on any more Militarism it'll be the worst kind o' Govment yu ever see," said Tramp John. "Ther's too many kings here already. We have ten, to one in Eng- land and other Kingly Countries, and no head king to watch 'em. They are the worst kind 'o kings — the kind that don't pretend to be father- ly. When they take hold of their subjects, it's tu hold ther' noses close tu the grindstone, you bet." "I suppose you mean the railroad kings and oil kings and such kind of fellers," said Tramp Smith. "I heard the railroad kings were goin' tu hev blood-hounds tu help em along. They can buy them all trained from Dixie." "But bloodhounds aint fer strikes," said John, "A thousand strikes or so would be tu big a mouthful fer 'em — but once let the railroad kings and such like have all the military companies they want, and they'd make quick work of strikers — they'd make a monument of skulls directly." 135 Human Beings vs. Things "You're about right, John," said Burt. "There's great danger in that direction. Great military power is the curse of the world — but it would be especially dangerous in the thick of Kings — mercenary, grasping kings of commerce. We've got a great many such kings and we are getting more every day. The militia ought to be done away with before we get any more Kings, and Arbitration ought to be in full blast." "Mebby they won't need any soldiers, when they git thru takin lessons of the gentle and musical southerners. They had a regular slave-driver up in the woods, curse 'him," said Tramp Smith, wink- ing at his pals and throwing a fiendish glance at South Tramp. South Tramp dropped his knife and fork and said in an aggrieved tone: "Fore God I say they didn't go fo toh take no lessons o' non of my folks." Tramp John looked fiercely at Tramp Smith and his pals. Hannah's face flushed angrily, Tramp Brown and Jack glanced encouragingly at the would be combatants and Rover gave a sup- pressed growl. The fighting forces were being arranged in battle array. Had the place been a saloon with whisky at hand and pistols in back pockets, there is no doubt but it would have ended in a fight more or less disastrous ; but Rilly's pleas- ant dining-room was as far as heaven from being such a place. The benign portrait of her grand- 136 Human Beings vs. Things father in liis broad-brim looked down upon them from the mantel, the fragrant coffee came steam- ing in from the kitchen and tended to pacification, while Burt's dignified attitude, Salome's sad looks and Rilly's ready tact saved the situation. Es- pecially Rilly's tact. She saw that the fiend jeal- ousy was at work again and she went straight to the downing of it. She had felt more pity for poor jealous tramp Smith than the others had all along for the reason perhaps that she had more experience with jealous people. "Let me give you another cup of coffee," she said in a pleading tone; "and have a seed sake. Hannah had rare good luck with them to-day." Smith accepted the dainties with a pleased but rather sheepish look, while surprise took the place of belligerent feelings in the other tramps, and the meal was finished in peace. 187 CHAPTER XV. THE TRAMP'S IDEAS OF MORMONS, AND MIL- LIONAIRES. AFTER the tramps had gone to their /^L work the situation was discussed by / ^k their entertainers. "It looked rather stormy at one time," said Salome, "but you managed that fellow splendidly, Rilly. There is no use of ever saying again that even the worst are not to be ruled by kindness. The trouble is the kindness and loving- ness are not always on hand when the crisis comes. None of the rest of us could have managed him, I'm sure." "No, indeed," said Burt. "I've always failed with him. He's the worst of the lot; but there'll be no more trouble now. It's the turning point, Salome has got Ben in tow — and now you have Smith all curled up and there's going to be im- provement all along the line." "Brown won't twit you of bossism any more," said Rilly. "No, I think not, but we give you the credit of winning the prize tho'," laughed Burt. 138 Human Beings vs. Things "O it's because I felt sorrier for him than the rest of you, and am used to jealous people," said Rilly glancing slyly at Silas. "Then I had heard about a poor man being arrested for fishing in the millionaire's river. I thought it was shameful at the time, and I believe this was really the man!" "No doubt of it," said Silas, "you see he didn't, mean to say he was the man when he began about it and wouldn't if Jack hadn't chaffed him." "It's a queer state of things anyhow, I should think" said Rilly. "If the time has oome when millionaires can buy up whole towns and the riv- ers that run through them, pray how long will it be before the poor will have to steal everything they have? With the large beginning already made how long will it be before the natural re- sources which furnish food, drink and homes to a hungry world will be under the lock and key of the law and the hungry hordes outside, turned into a set of pick-pockets, pick-locks and fish-thieves in general?" "One step leads to another from Rilly's point of view" remarked Burt, "and it is easy to im- agine the time when all schools and colleges 'for the education of the masses' except those for the teaching of neat and scientific burglary, will be a total superfluity, when among the things most practical for them to know, will be the loveliest way of opening the drawbridges and portcullises with which the multimillionaries shut off the poor 139 Human Beings vs. Things creatures who can not afford to wait for their lit- tle share in the immense pile which they profess to hold in trust for them. Of course, the poor ought to be patient and let them deal out their millions in their own time and way ; still it must be rather exasperating to see the money they have been led to consider their own, parceled out and shut up in grand institutions, where the really poor would not be permitted to enter or where those who have to work twelve hours a day and Sundays too, would not have time to go." "From the same point of view," said Salome, "one might be tempted to ask how it would be possible for a man to buy a river or a link of one, with its changing tides and floods and schools of fish streaming through it from the Adirondacks to the sea? How can a bond be made to cover any- thing so changeable? — so indefinable? Even if a mighty multi-millionaire could enveigle 'his own or any other Government into selling him a river or a piece of one, what right would he have to go a fishing in it, any more than the poor man? The fish that have the divine right of way from the mountain head to the sea, would not belong to him more than another. The deed which would be valid one moment would be invalid the next. If he caught a fish which came sailing down from the town above him, would he not be as justly liable to arrest as the poor man who caught a fish from the link of the river he called his own ?" 140 Human Beings vs. Things "Indeed, how could he prove any particular fish was 'his own unless he had a ring around its neck with his full name and the time of his birth in- scribed thereon?" laughed Rilly. "Even though the lions of the law should blink at the shylock of the river and say go on with your fishing — the river that meanders through your town and all that therein is, is practically yours ; still it is not among the impossibilities that sooner or later some dove-like Portia may come sailing in, and with a voice of 'Sweet accord' say 'yes, yes, Shylock, the river is thine — the law allows it and the court awards it ; take thou thy river ; but beware lest thou take more than thy river; for if thou dost take more than thy river even by so much as one poor little minnow of a fish, which was not spawned when thy bond was made, thou too shalt be arrested and all thy towns, lands and rivers shall be confiscat- ed to the Government." "I did not think it possible for one man to arrest another for fishing in his river," said Sa- lome — "so you see it did not appeal to me. I thought the rivers were public highways." "I reckon it's easy enough," said Silas, "for a rich man to arrest a poor one ; and it's easier for the poor one to empty his pockets and pay the fine than 'tis to employ a lawyer." "No wonder the poor get so suspicious and jealous," said Burt. "We shall have to caution 141 Human Beings vs. Things John and South Tramp not to be too zealous in our defense." "Yes and Hannah too," said Rilly, "did you see how she flared up? It would be a sorry thing to see them get by the ears on our account or poor South Tramp's." "I reckon there's no danger now," said Silas, "They know by this time that we are able to take care of ourselves and South Tramp, too." And so it proved. When they came into sup- per they were all in the best humor. Tramp Jack had been telling his pals what he knew about the Mormons and had expressed his opinion that "a dum-fired humbly woman who was such a dum-fired fool that she didn't know how to earn her living any other way, might go fur- ther and fare worse than to hitch up with mor- mons;" but that part of the subject was drop- ped when they came into the presence of the ladies. "You see I thought I was goin' straight tu Zion when I set out, but it's a cussed queer sort o' Zion," said Jack. "What do they believe in anyhow — that is ex- cept polygamy," asked John? "Well it's a little hard to tell," said Jack, "their religion and business is so sort o'mixed, yu can't hardly say wher' one leaves off, or wher' the other begins. Drink valerian tea and put your trust in God is one of their stock phrases." 142 Human Beings vs. Things "That means that they go in for temperance — well that's good," said John. "Good, yes," laughed Jack, "but you ought to hav heard 'em put it to an old Dutchman one day. This was the answer; "Mien prother, I mont put up wi yees polickermy — but polickermy widout mien lager beer! neffer!" After the laughter had subsided Jack went on. "Another commandment is to skin every cat and dog that dies and make soles for shoes — don't depend on Gentiles even for soles to your feet. Another is never to trust a mule nor an In- jun ner a bachelder." After another outburst, Jack remarked that "he guessed that was about all ther was of it ex- cept getting baptised for dead folks. Some of them seemed to be goin' 'round huntin' up the job. A mormon who said he had been baptised two hundred and forty times for his dead friends, came philanderin' round him one day and wanted to get the job of being baptized for him, if he should die first." "But if the old Morman should die first, what then," said Brown. "O then he wanted me to let his son be baptized for me," said Jack. "I suppose the country is improving very fast there," remarked Burt. "Y-e-p" said Jack drawing out the word until it sounded like the yelp of a dog. "It's orful im- 143 Human Beings vs. Things provin'. Kent tell one day wher it '11 be improved tu, the next. Ther don't nuthin set still long 'nuf ter hev it's picter taken there, gol-durn it — even the towns get up and git." Jack said this in a tone that showed he had some especial grievance connected therewith. Burt thought he referred to the cyclones and made a few remarks about the misery and devastation they caused. "I never thort bout them," said Jack. "Warn't there long 'nuf tu scrape their 'quaintance. Spose they du whew round purty lively but them rail- roaders are the beat-'ems gol-durn-em if tha' ain't. Tha' cum one day and planted a town on Cater- waul Creek. A right smart rackety town, with fiddlin and keerds and lots tu eat and guzzle — the real stuff — no valerian tea about it. Yewst tu go ther once a week tu git m' insides lined up so't tha'd stan' it thout cavin' in; but gol durn it if I didn't go over there one day and ther warnt a house, ner hide ner hair of 'em left." "Y-e-p t'was a dum-fierd purty town," added Jack regretfully, "and it had a purty name. They called 'er Nyda. She went down tu Black Rock but they hed orful glum times there. Tha' wouldn't let 'em hev nothin' tu drink 'les t'was 'valerian tea' er sum sech sop — fer fear the redskins 'ud git a smack at it." "Y-e-p that's the way with the towns round 'bout Zion. Yu kent more'n git yer finger on 'em 144 Human Beings vs. Things fore the'r off — fifty or a hundred mile tu a rip. An' the rivers arn't much better. Mebby they'll bend right round under your nose one day and afore yu know it they've gone off on another bend- er the devil knows where." "It's irigation yer pitchin' into now," said Smith. "Yu ken call it wot ye've a mind tu," replied Jack ; "but sa, ef you should ever go thar 'twould be no use writin' home tu yer friends a descrip- tion of the kentry. If they sh'ud take a notion tu cum over the next train they'd call yu a dum-fud- dled bar." "Have you ever been to California," asked Sa- lome, presently? "No Miss", replied Jack, "They'r too much fer suicide and dying young thar, Utah fellers live tu a good old age, spite of ther howlin' winters." "But it's the opium-dens that's the greatest curse," said Tramp Brown — "It's strange how oneven like things turn out. T'wasn't America that made an opium-eater of John Chinaman, but we've got to hev the critter all the same. Eng- land's so full of big-bugs, that they ain't no room fer the poor fellows they've ruined." "Mebby you know wot yer chaffin' bout now, I don't" said Tramp Smith, "and I'm pretty much English." "Mebby I've heard about England going to war with China to force the opium business on her, 145 Human Beings vs. Things and mebby you hev'nt. Mebby I've heard about the heathen Chinee throwing English opium over- board jest as Yankees did the tea in Boston har- bor and mebby you havn't." Rilly came to the rescue by confessing her own ignorance on the subject and Burt by giving a succinct account of the infamous opium war and its dire results for China — the debauching of her people — the 6,000,000 indemnity, then the 20,- 000,00 indemnity and later on an indemnity of 8,000,000 taels — all going into the English pocket to satisfy the greed and emphasize the glory of war." "Poor China! she seems to have been doing nothing but paying indemnities to England ever since I can remember," said Salome. "One would think the indemnity should be on the other side; but it seems that England debauches China's peo- ple and makes her pay for the debauch. I won- der where it will end ?" "If England sets the pace I reckon all the rest will follow and the poor old Celestial won't have a continental left" said Silas. "In one of Eng- land's last raids she had France as an ally. She will try to ring in half a dozen others next time. With such a force poor China will be riddled in pieces. Already we hear talk of partitioning China!" "I wonder how that'll set on John Chinaman's stumerk," laughed Tramp Ben. "Not quite so light 146 Human Beings vs. Things as a bird's nest, I guess. I used tu read in my school History that they et bird's nests." "They tell lots o' queer things about John, Chinaman," said Brown. "They say when he's introduced to a stranger the first question he asks is, "What sublime religion do you belong to?" A laugh went around the table and the supper was ended. 147 CHAPTER XVI. HUMANITARIAN COURTING. THE sweetest time for the two pair of lovers was the hour after the evenings entertainment which closed at ten o'clock. Silas and Billy arm in arm, usually strolled through the ground while Salome who was not able to walk with impunity, was spirited away to a oozy little balcony opening out of the upper hall. It was a haven of rest after the duties of the day and evening but it seemed espec- ially so after the one just passed. Burt arranged the cushions and shawls with immoderate care. "Ah!" he said at last, "this is getting to be more and more like Heaven." "They are doing beautifully! beautifully are they not," said Salome? "They?" "O yes, dearie — and we are — so" — "So very thankful," said Salome "and glad." "Yes, glad," said Burt laughing — "That's it dearie — so — so very glad." "To think of poor Tramp Jack's turning out a humorist," said Salome. "I shall never forget his description of the Mormons." 148 Human Beings vs. Things "Yes, dear Loma, it was funny, but the evening was so long and the room got close with all the breaths. It must have tired you terribly — you must rest now. The stars never were so bright." He brought a jar of mignonette and set it on the balcony rail in the moonshine and made honeyed remarks about it; but Salome continued regard- less. "I think he proved himself a born humorist, don't you?" "Who? Jack? Yes, dearie, his fame is establish- ed — but I must wrap your shawl a little closer." "What do you think of the Mormons anyway, Burt? They are an American product. Can any good come of them?" "O ! for a pair of supernatural spectacles, dear- ie! — a genuine 'Urin and Thummin Crystal,' set in a silver bow, such as Mormons use, that I might see clear enough to answer the question. The good and bad get so confoundedly mixed. It seems to me that the Mormon's industrial policy seems very well suited to the very poor and in- capable class — a class that Government ignores or can get no hold of. It isn't paternal enough to help those that don't or can't help themselves." "But it ought to be, Burt. This world is a world of accidents. Things are happening all the time to wreck nerves, brains, and bodies and make people helpless and incapable. If the Mormons took all of that class off from the Government 149 Human Beings^ vs. Things it would owe them a big debt, especially since the Government is responsible for a large part of it." "Strange, isn't it dear Loma how we happened to fall into such a dangerous world — a world full of dangerous beasts and dangerous elements of all kinds. But it is a comfort to think it was a fall or accident and that the dear God never in- tended we should live in this world until it was whirled into better shape. Then to think that Adam and Eve were the ones to stumble and fall instead of ourselves dearie, and that all we have got to do, is to love and help each other up and console each other as best we can for the rough- ness and misery of the world. Will you begin by giving me a kiss? "Burt! Burt! you don't suppose the Mormons « "The Mormons what, dearie, I had forgotten all about them." "You don't suppose the Mormons would really fight against the Government, Burt." "Not if they had come to establish the king- dom of Heaven pure and peaceable — the kingdom of love — dearie; but that doesn't seem to be their style. Both Smith and Young called the Saints to arms to resist the Government. Then there was the terrible Mountain Meadow Massacre. You see it was self-defense, hate and the sword instead of love, help, and self-surrender. Isn't it strange that people can't learn that love is the one thing 150 Human Beings vs. Things worth having in this world — that Love's conquests are the only ones that can endure among nations as well as individuals? Do you see, dearie, call- ing the "Saints to Arms" is another ridiculous thing — as ridiculous as calling a horrible war, a "Holy War" or a Civil War, where brothers shoot down their brothers, and fathers their sons, a war for freedom and humanity. Dear! dear! as if saints could be called to any, but loving arms !" "But the Government proceeded against them and they claimed that the call to arms was in righteous self-defense, did they not?" "Righteous ! nonsense ! They should have known that to call Saints to arms was dangerous instead of righteous. That by the time they got their arms on they would be turned into devils. Then the Government went against them with arms and eight hundred oxen. There was an- other wrong. It should have gone armed with loving words and wise counsel and left the animals at home. Righteous Love needs no defense, at least nothing in the way of the sword. It's born with its own defense which is sweeter and more potent than all other." "But they want to be let alone Burt, — simply let alone they say." "Who wants to be let alone? O, those ridic- ulous Mormons dearie! Well that's very selfish, too. We can't be let alone. We must give and receive — nations as well as individuals. No one 151 Human Beings vs. Things shall set himself on a throne and say to anothei kneel at my feet forever or a day. He must let another sit by his side. He must divide up. Yes, kiss and divide up — eh dearie?" "But the Government wanted to rule and the Mormons wanted to rule," continued Burt. "They claimed to have laws superior to Government. The Government pointed out the perils of priestcraft. The truth is, it is better to be ruled by wise laws wisely administered than by priestcraft; but it is better to be governed by priestcraft than by brute violence — by such a prelate as Dunstan than by such a warrior as Penda. If Government con- tinues to misimprove until there's nothing left of it but armies and battleships, even Mormon rule might be preferable." "But Mormondom would be too much like Pope- dom, wouldn't it and the world has tried that." "It swings to the other extreme in some re- spects," laughed Burt. "The Mormon Prophet is too much married and the Pope is not married enough. I should object to being ruled by either." "What a strange phenomenon!" said Salome. "It sometimes seems to me that the Mormon Church is only struggling to get back the crown that Henry the Eighth lopped off." "Yes and squabbling among themselves as to which should wear it. There's the fight between Young and Strang. Strang was crowned King by his followers. Only think of it! A king in 152 Human Beings vs. Things this democratic country, and one who tried to reg- ulate the length of women's dresses by imperial decree. It seems hard for the lower classes to shake off the imperialistic habit — the idea that there must be king and subject, in some form or other. We have crowded out the king from the head of Government, but it seems to be cropping out at the head of almost everything else. I sup- pose Strang thought he might be tyrant in his own Court as well as Henry the Eighth. That if the English king could send Buckingham, Sur- ety, Anne Boleyn and Lady Salisbury to the scaffold without remonstrance from their people , he could certainly compel his women to wear bloomers without remonstrance from their husbands; but that little trick cost him his life." "Dear! Dear! Burt, there's a funny side to everything and you always find it." "But it's horrible fun sometimes dearie. It's certainly horrible to think, that no longer ago than Henry the Eighth's time, the English peo- ple would permit their king to send elegant men and women to the executioner's block; but when he demanded a tax amounting to one sixth of their goods they compelled him to retract." "Rilly would say, It shows that the English people had the power to stay that murderous hand if they had only been determined to use it." "And you would say that human life has always 153 Human Beings vs. Things been considered of too little value and human pos- sessions too much." "But Rilly is the practical, or the tactful one among us. I began to feel sorry for Smith when Brown was showing up his ignorance on the Opium War, but Rilly made it all right for him and you got a new hold on Brown by saying what you did. Don't you think so ?" "Yes, dearie. I wish I could attract others so easily. I'm not dying for his affection." "Burt! Burt! Only think of those poor fellows with no one to love them, and make them happy. How I wish they were happy — as happy as — as we are. I think they deserve it richly." "Yes, dear, and one of them is going to be, just precisely as happy as we are." "Who Burt? TeH me who, I can't wait." "Yes, dearie, — in just a moment — one blessed little moment — there — it's John. Yes John !" "John! Who's going to make John — " "Happy you mean, happy as ever he can be? Just wait another minute and I'll tell you dearie s» "Nonsense Burt, tell me at once." "Yes, dearie — not once — twice — It's Hannah. She's going to make him happy — as happy as I am. I think she is making him happy right now. I think I see them sitting together on that little seat down by the fish-pond. On that little seat 154. Human Beings vs. Things hardly big enough for one; but they don't mind the size of it." "Burt! Burt! what possesses you? Tell me do you think they are really engaged?" "I don't stop to think dearie. I know a hard headed man like John doesn't wade very deep among the lilies for a girl he doesn't care for; and when he's got the lily he doesn't sell it for a kiss unless he wants it badly, and when he gets his pay he doesn't look as if he had a draft on the bank of Heaven unless he's sure of it." "O, I'm so glad he's happy Burt, and Hannah, too! How I wish they all were. They've got heart enough and brain also unless it's South Tramp and he has a big heart and that wonder- ful musical gift. All they want is development, opportunity — some one to love and care for them and give them the right leading." "Yes, my darling old Loma, some one to play little mother to them, lead them by the hand and marry them in the end, just to keep them from going off and hating themselves to death." "That would be too ridiculous Burt ! But how I wish we could do something for them. Only think ! if we were multi-millionaires now, we could give every one of those poor men a comfortable start in life ; but we can do something for Han- nah (Rilly and I) when the time comes, I'm sure we can." "Yes dear Loma, when the time comes ; but our 155 Human Beings vs. Things own little time must come first. We must see to our own house first. You know I'm not quite as unselfish as you are — not quite so free of wants." "I think Burt it's well enough to have wants enough. To have a sort of a divine discontent with all that is soul-narrowing and nerve wearing but to let our wants grow beyond what we can happily get and lovingly hold is to harbor a set of brutes or hypnotic serpents, which may turn upon us and destroy us without a moment's no- tice." "Yes, dear Loma it is well enough to want plen- ty of things^enough to make our homes and children comfortable and happy — things of con- venience, things of worth, things of beauty and even curious things if we can afford it. In fact all we can properly use or enjoy and easily take care of. If we build a house let us build it as handsome as we can afford to have it; and when we get into it let us use it and open it and let in the air and sunshine and make it seem as much like heaven as possible — a cozy little heaven just big enough for us two at first — eh? We can add wings for any little angel that might come knock- ing unawares. Yes and dove-cots for the little doves that might come flocking at the windows. Yes, wings, and dove-cots, when required. Yes, and blossoming plants ; and graceful vines but we won't \ have them planted in the windows of our home, which were intended for our own benefit. 156 Human Beings vs. Things We will plant them in the garden where they can have the air and sun on their backs as well as in their faces and sit in the sunniest windows our- selves ! Selfish ! Some of your old relic-slaves would say ; but I don't believe it. I think if plants could talk, they would say they had rather live in their native soil than be crammed into stone jars or painted tubs, blossom weakly in our windows or cling feebly to our parlor curtains. I knew a woman once who made a slave of herself to "plants." She spent all her time trimming, weed- ing, watering, feeding and combing them ! and neglected to comb her children's hair." Burt was in one of his extravagant moods and so far gone that there was no use trying to check him. Salome was wise enough not to try and he went on, picturing the beautiful and sensible side of home life until he could think of nothing more to say on the subject. Then her turn came to present the economical side. "I think everybody ought to have a pleasant and healthful home Burt. I think this world ought to be a sort of a paradise and I feel as if it might be, if we would only do away with our horrible and wasteful war-preparations, but the time hasn't come and so long as more than half of our people have no homes at all and so many live in hovels — we ought to be careful about ex- travagance. If we are to do any good in the world we have to give our money as well as our 157 Human Beings vs. Things time and divide our crusts with the poor; hut a very plain home can be a happy one if our hearts are right. You know what the good book says about the dinner of herbs, Burt — " "Yes, dearie, but it's hard to think of dining on herbs even with love to season them as long as the Government is spending colossal sums for en- gines of death and hate — one monster battleship costs enough to give every poor wretch in the country a good dinner. It's hard to deny our- selves and see everything going on that way and the poor people we would help, hurrahing for it." "There it is Burt, they know not what they do. No doubt there has been enough spent build- ing soldiers' monuments since our Civil War, to have given all the crippled old soldiers and sol- dier's widows and children comfortable homes. There are piles of marble and stone that can do nobody any good and are very ugly for the most part, they occupy spaces in public parks needed for comfortable seats. I should think they must seem like ogres to children. So many of the pub- he breathing spots in cities have been turned over to soldiers' monuments and the children turned out — then the expense of keeping them, protect- ing them and fencing them in ; but I forget I'm talking to an artist" added Salome, laughing. "I shall be glad to listen to a defense; for I don't suppose I shall be permitted to pull them down." 158 Human Beings vs. Things "I can't defend them, dearie. Not even on the ground that they give work for the poor sculptor. It's precious little he gets out of it. They are gotten up by grave-yard associations usually and they ought to be confined to grave-yards where they properly belong, instead of being set up like spooks in public places to frighten horses and whack their legs against." "I don't; approve of soldiers' monuments or monuments of millionaires either, being put into public parks or squares to monopolize the space which children and tired people ought to have, to play or rest in — besides it's very difficult to keep them clean. It's hard enough to keep clean collars on men while they are living, but to have to keep clean collars on them after they are dead ad infinitum is altogether too much, isn't it dear- ie?" Salome laughed and Burt went on facetiously. "No, dearie, you can't get any defense out of me for monuments especially monuments in pub- He places. I object to having monuments of men or women forever standing around unless they are uncommonly handsome or humane looking. I object to raising monuments to men-killers and men with rascally reputations for wife desertion like Napoleon Bonaparte. I would hate to have any son of mine ask me what that monumental-man had done to win the gratitude of this nation? That man, whose great ambition was to have a 159 Human Beings vs. Things great many sons born into the world, so he might have plenty of human flesh 'for cannon food!' What a brute!" "Yes, dear Burt. He became a brute, and one that should be abhorred; but as a child he was to be pitied. The evil eye of the Governor of Corsi- ca fell upon him when he was only ten years of age and he was sent to a military school as the 'King's Pensioner.' Ten years old! Only think of it dear Burt! An age when the brutish ele- ments are raging and need to be harnessed and directed daily." "Yes, dear Loma; but we didn't spoil him and I object to having his images standing around to spoil our children. We have about a thousand of them in this country now, and what for? The truth is — I object to the indiscriminate use of monu- ments anyhow. If a monument is to be a work of art — an object of real beauty it certainly ought not be left out of doors for the elements and small boys to pelt. It should be kept under cov- er — in a museum or parlor or at least in the back shed." "Burt ! Burt !" laughed Salome. "That's the way I feel dearie, I've got an ar- rival of common sense as John says. I think after all the trouble and expense and beggary of get- ting up a fine monument, we certainly ought to be as careful of it as we would of our carriage or clothes wringer! 160 Human Beings vs. Things "Burt you are — incorrigible — !" Salome's shawl had fallen off and Burt had to rearrange it, but he continued presently. "Yes dearie, but as I have already intimated I have an arrival of common sense — " "I haven't seen the arrival, Burt — " "But it has arrived all the same, dearie and I don't believe in monuments at all. I have more or less faith in mortals, but none at all in mar- bles. I hope nobody will go around begging money to raise a monument for me when I am dead and I have the consolation of knowing my good friends will never think of doing such a stupid piece of business." "Burt! Burt dear love," sighed Salome, "it's time to go in, please give me my cane." "Yes dearie, Cain's my name — Here am I at vour service." 161 CHAPTER XVII. burt's plan to relieve tramps' social hunger. AFTER parting with Salome, Burt went directly to his room. He did not feel sleepy. The fever of energy was on, and he felt that he must do something to work it off, or perish. So he went to his pack and took out a manuscript which he had written be- fore his full conversion to Salome's theory of liv- ing. As he opened the paper the thought occur- red to him that it might not be an altogether use- less work to compare his present attitude of mind and conscience with his former attitude, and fore- cast the results. The paper ran as follows: Apparently it is healthy as well as pleasant to be able to regard one's self of some consequence in the world. Considering the needed discoveries in science and the long list of untried experiments which might be adapted to every grade of human intellect, it seems that no one need go without a due allowance, of pleasurable and useful occupa- tion. With regard to mental activities it is un- 162 Human Beings vs. Things fortunate that their outcome can not be calculat- ed with greater accuracy. The smallest begin- ning may widen into the largest result but not until the result is obtained, is the importance of the work acknowledged. The scientist who estimates the amount of "ni- trogen in fodder" or measures the quantity of sugar in a plum, may as the world judges be do- ing a larger work than he who discovers the similarity of the embryo of the white ant to that of the dragon fly" or the "shape of the salaman- der's tongue," but as yet the evidence is not all in, and the latter may have the benefit of a doubt. Even purely personal activities, which often ap- pear to bear about the same relation to the great world of social and ethical progress, that the in- cessant buzzing of a fly across a window pane, does to household industry, — may be excused in a country where "the pursuit of happiness" is adopted in the national code and is supposed to be one of the triple aims of life. The so-called self-concerned individual, who says I will be happy myself and harm no one else, may if he pursues his way with conscientious care, be of more use to the world than the impractical philanthropist who succeeds in distributing only a few pails of coal per head, among innumerable widows, or a few caldrons of soup among a mil- lion 'of paupers. The philanthropist who makes himself unhappy over his futile efforts, makes 163 Human Beings vs. Things others equally so; while the one who wins happi- ness for himself can hardly fail to touch other lives with the same cheerful quality. Indeed it is not quite fair to say that any of the activities, either mental or physical are en- tirely useless, as long as contentment is to be won or muscle cultivated. The preacher may preach a long and stupid sermon every seventh day of the week, mystify the young, put the old to sleep and bore the middle aged; but if he enjoys his own small array of thought, strengthens his lungs, sets the blood circulating through the great ar- teries of his heart, and finally sits down to din- ner with his wife and children a happier man in consequence, we can well afford to overlook a lit- tle mental discomfort, drop a dime into the con- tribution box, and pay our pew rent with a cheer- ful heart. We may look at the indiscriminate busy-ness of our neighbor and say, "he does more harm than good," but is not good after all a matter of rela- tive importance? And does not he who makes himself happy through his ceaseless mental and physical gyra- tions, decrease the misery of the world in the same proportion as if he had pauperized himself and made another happy in his place? All-seeking progress must have gathered some such thought albeit in dim form, else why should she insist more and more that the child must learn 164 Human Beings vs. Things to amuse and instruct itself? Why not say it must learn to amuse and instruct others? "For- sooth" saith the lad just out of frocks and pina- fores, "It's because he doesn't know enough ;" but the wiser head with a larger experience in five foot ignorance and full grown blunders, shakes it in dubious dissent. Doth not the child harnes- sed with self-glee carry joy whithersoever it goes, while the self-goaded goody man, proves to be a tiresome intermeddler with the happiness of others ? Possibly in the further development of humani- tarian science, it will be found that our degree of success in philanthropic work, will bear a strict ratio to the degree of perfectness to which we have attained, not only in mental and moral con- ditions but in physical also; and this new knowl- edge may in turn give rise to a new law, requiring that every person, before he attempts to do good to others on a broad scale, must be sound himself in sense, health, intellect and morals. The spectacle of the admission of a man to the ministry under an examination requiring such con- ditions, would doubtless be one worth witnessing, and might also be of such rare occurrence as to necessitate doing away with the ancient laws and customs which have a tendency to prevent one half of the human race from attempting such work at all. The latter remark is confessedly ir- relevant, but it is a natural output of the other 165 Human Beings vs. Things and like an unruly child comes skipping in while the parent is otherwise engaged. Burt continued to read until he was very drowsy and then he laughed to think he had furnished his own opiate. He was very, very happy also, which proved that it did not weigh on his conscience that he was to make everybody else so. Of course, it was his duty as well as delight to make Salome happy and he was on the watch for every op- portunity of doing so. Another sort of a man would have been on the look-out for diamonds, pearls, silks, and satin to adorn his beloved, but he knew her too well for that. She had not brought him up in vain and now a word or a look was suf- ficient. He had spent his diamond and pearl money first on comfortable suits for the men, then on comfortable conditions such as the sprinkling of the dusty road — the preventions for sun stroke — gloves to protect them from the flesh tearing stones and many other devices calculated to lift their labor to the ideal plane. All this he had done and Salome had approved and he had been growing happier and happier all the time ; but now the climax had come. Salome's last wish was : "O how I wish those poor fellows could only be as happy as — we are!" Burt repeated this to himself after he went to bed and laughed again as he had laughed then — it seemed so delightfully absurd. Of course she did not know that he 166 Human Beings vs. Things had made a secret oompact with himself to carry out every wish of hers, and so would not expect him to undertake the big job of making the tramps fall in love with the right girl, get mar- ried and settle down in the right track for life. Of course not; but he went on thinking about it until he got to the serious side of the question. He could not deny that social hunger was very hard to bear. He had a touch of it during his desolate tramp, and it occurred to him that these men, some of them at least, may have had the same kind of experience year after year, until their social natures were starved out or ruined almost past redemption. Then he thought of Rilly and of her kindness and tact, and then of the neighborhood and wondered if there were not five lonely women in it, that would like to help such fellows along — widows whose husbands had died of sunstroke and left them to bear the heat and burden of farm work, or maidens who had worked and pinched to help ambitious brothers through College until their own best chances had gone by. Rilly would know all about it and the engagement of Hannah and John might prove an entering wedge. Then the whole- plan dawned upon him. The Fourth of July was coming. They would get up a good old fashioned picnic with the horrible fire-works left out and the love, lemonade, music, and dancing all left in. They would try to get a suitable girl for each fellow — they would go in single buggies 167 Human Beings vs. Things over the hills and out into the sweet pine woods and they would wander around and talk and feast all day and come home by moonlight ! Then Burt fell •asleep but his dreams were not of the saints and angels. He dreamed of Dioclesan and his thirty- three daughters. The old emperor was marrying them off against their wishes and they were kilhng their husbands and returning on his hands with fearful regularity ; but when the climax came and he sent them all off to sea to marry husbands pro- vided by the devil and bring a race of horrid giants into the world to ravage and destroy it, Burt awoke with a shudder and began to re-con- sider the plan which had seemed so brilliant to him only a few hours before. He did not believe in forced marriages and he was not sure that he believed in strategic ones. He surely did not be- lieve in those dreadful old Government sales of wives which the historians of to-day say were right, so far as results are concerned. What if his plan should succeed and something in the shape of a Gog and Magog should some forth to ravage this beautiful country ? But once wide awake with the morning sun streaming in through his window his better sense told him that nothing of the kind could possibly happen, inasmuch as there would be no compulsion, in the case— no lustful king with thirty-three super- fluous daughters — no devil and nothing worse than a little group of poor unfortunate, incapable and 168 Human Beings vs. Things desolate men and women, met together for social pleasure. Probably nothing so serious as a mar- riage would come of it; but the social instinct would be gratified in a mild way and perhaps do a little good. Anyway the day would have to be celebrated in some sort and with Rilly and Silas to head the procession, Salome to inspire and him- self to watch, the results ought to be satisfying. The experiment must be tried at all events, for the feeling began to possess him that he would not be permitted to enjoy his own supremely, while the six burly men under his charge were outside in loneliness and discomfort. 169 CHAPTER XVIII. A FOURTH OF JULY PARTY WITHOUT FIREWORKS. WITH the Fourth of July party on his shoulders Burt was rather ab- sent minded at the morning meal and as soon as it was over he sought for an 'Opportunity to have a conversation with Rilly on the subject. Of course, Silas and Salome would be taken into the plan later on. He had his reasons for keeping them both out for the present. Silas would not be likely to know about the young women of the neighborhood and would not be a good judge as to the feasibility of his plan. Salome must not hear the little explanation he had to make with regard to its induction. It would put him in a childish light before her and he felt that he could not risk that species of illu- mination too often. It was not an easy matter to get a word with Rilly by herself for Silas was hovering around; but Burt managed to do so at last. "I suppose Silas will be jealous, but I must 170 Human Beings vs. Things speak to you alone," said Burt as soon as they were out of hearing. "Yes and Salome too, but never mind," laughed Rilly. "It never hurts the truly good ones — the angels you know, to be a little jealous. They'll be all the more loving and trusting after ; but what is it? Nothing serious I hope. Nothing in the shape of a revolution?" "No Rilly but it's the next thing to it — the Fourth of July — the remains of the revolution or the dregs it might be called. The question is what are we going to do to keep our men from mis- chief and make them happy — as happy as we are?" "We can make a party — a good old Quaker feast without fire-water or fire-works of any sort Burt, but to make them as happy as we are — there's something back of that. What is it? I have a fancy ! I know of some one who thinks so- cial hunger is a dreadful thing." "You have 'hit it, Rilly. Her last wish expres- sed by moonlight and mignonette was that our men 'might be as happy as we are.'" You know the situation. I have a large debt to pay. I'm in a mood to carry out her slightest wish." "But it's rather a big contract when you un- dertake to make all those men as happy as we are, is it not? Though Hannah and John are out of the way." "Yes, Hannah and John are matched. That's 171 Human Beings vs. Things a good beginning, Billy, and now if you or Han- nah only know of a bright bulging-browed un- musical country lass as a match for South Tramp there would be another social hunger case disposed of." "Burt! What a magician you are! I know myself of a girl that answers to that description precisely, and I shouldn't wonder if I could think of others in time, that would fill your require- ments, if you can map them out as ably as you have this one. But can you?" "I think so, Rilly — after a little studying up. You see there are only four left and I have a sort of a charcoal sketch of their defects already. The process is simple, according to my idea. You see my belief is that a fellow with a very grave de- fect of character or feature, either never wants to or never should want to marry a woman with the same defect. It would be as bad as having all hooks and no eyes to fasten up your dress with. It would be bad for them and bad for the race." "You are right Burt, but after we get them all singled out and harmoniously arranged or paired, how can we keep them from getting all jangled up?" "I'm afraid we shall have to be a little arbitrary as to keeping them properly and safely paired, — do a little mean underhanded management; but we know how, and we won't be guilty of asking our better angels to help. We must manage to 172 Human Beings vs. Things get the right girl by the side of the right fellow, in the top buggy every time, even if we have to invent a new trick for the occasion ; but Silas and Salome musn't know it" added Burt laughng. "I believe they'd cancel their engagements if they knew the tricks of which we are capable and leave us to each other as a pair of knaves well-mated, don't you sweet sister ?" "I'm not so sure about that," laughed Rilly, "but I'm sure of one thing — They are getting delightfully jealous about now. Do you know we've been talking for more than an hour very earnestly and they can see us though they can not hear us." "But after we get our party all planned, the girls all selected, the pig all roasted, and the green apple sauce all ready, what if those pesky fellows make a break and rush off to town and get drunk? As a rule men are brought up with the idea that they are expected to go mad on our National day and there's no telling what they'll do." "I think Hannah can manage that, Burt. She knows their tastes, every one of them, and can cook to suit them. There is nothing like getting hold of a man's appetite to keep him in place; but now we must hurry back or there will not be time to explain and make up before dinner." When Rilly and Burt returned to the garden Silas was hoeing like a lunatic and Salome was 173 Human Beings vs. Things sitting on the veranda where Burt left her. She seemed to be very busy reading and did not look up, but her attitude did not prevent Burt from picking her up and carrying her in. Then there was a clash of words and love's fight was on — a model fight, in which love conquers and is conquer- ed in turn. "Why didn't you tell me at first" asked Salome, after the explanation, "I never saw anybody so — so put about as Silas was, poor faithful Silas !" "Well, dearie, now I am cornered. It's a con- glomerate as they say out in the mines ; but with Silas left out I'll try to answer. In the first place I didn't know as Rilly and Hannah would be equal to the culinary part. If they were not, my fine plan would be doomed to failure and failure is op- pressive you know, especially to the lookers on, and you are not strong yet — eh?" "Nonsense, Burt. I could have borne that bet- ter — better- — " "Than this, you mean dear Loma — No you couldn't. This hasn't hurt you a bit. It has helped you. You were getting a little sad wern't you? and now that you know those poor fellows are going to have a good, jolly social time for once in their lives, you'll be happier than ever, eh dearie?" "I trust you won't have any horrid fireworks, Burt, you know I'm as afraid as death of them." "Not one dear — not even a firecracker — not a 174 Human Beings vs. Things thing to resurrect the old dead hates and revenges and gratify the war-devil." "Bless you, how good that will seem," sighed Salome, "It's getting to be worse and worse in the city on "the fourth." I got so I didn't dare to stir out, and every time a cannon went off it seemed to me a man was killed. Do you remember the time papa took us out to a little country town to spend the fourth, and a cannon burst and the man that fired it was killed and we saw them lay- ing him out in a yard, on our way home ?" "Yes, dearie, and you cried and I felt bad and mad at the horrid old Fourth and have never quite gotten over it ; but we are going to have it very quiet and cozy this time if nothing prevents. Here's the program — A girl for every fellow — Eight single top-buggies — a drive out to the pine woods and a lovely lunch in a large deep hollow as cool as a cellar. Then the girls and fellows will do a little exploring won't they? hunt for wintergreens and beach-nuts and wild cherries?" "That will be lovely, Burt !" "But we can not do any extra exploring dearie, we're lame you know; we can't go hunting and climbing but we can watch the others while they are making themselves happy, and you will enjoy that more than being happy yourself, — eh?" "But I want you to be happy Burt, you musn't think you have to wait on me all the time." "O that is a heavy task dearie ; but if you real- 175 Human Beings vs. Things ly and seriously want me to be happy, that set- tles it, I know I shall be happy." "What then Burt?" "O, there'll be music and dancing. There's nothing like it for arousing the social instinct, but we can't dance either — that is with our feet." "You can Burt, and I can look on and enjoy it with my heart." Burt laughed. It occurred to him that he might make her enjoy it almost as much as she had his conference with Billy that morning, then he added provokingly "Yes that would be safe enough, for then would come the ride home by moonlight, and you'd be in it, then, if you were still desirous of making me happy — why ! I should have to brace up and be happy." "Burt ! Burt ! You can't be too sure of that." Of course, I suppose you'd rather be sure the other fellows were happy, but if they don't use their opportunities please don't blame me. I don't know of any better chance for little confessions and confidences than a ride in a single top-buggy by moonlight. If a man has anything in him, any bit of interesting or pathetic history to re- late, moonlight will bring it out if he's got any tongue at all, and some one by his side to help him find his tongue." Salome looked puzzled, but the dinner bell rang and there was no time for questioning. Besides she would not have gained anything; for Burt 176 Human Beings vs. Things saw that he had said more than he intended to say already. He did not intend to say more than enough to lead her to believe that the purpose of the party was simply to hold the men over the Fourth and keep them in order. 177 CHAPTER XIX. THE HISTORIC BEARDS HOLE. THE spot finally decided on for the Fourth of July picnic, was called the Bear's Hole. It was famous for being the coolest place in the State, not ex- cepting Lake Ontario or the Islands of the St. Lawrence. Also for being situated on the grounds originally owned and occupied by one of the rather remarkable group of Frenchmen who came to the New World during the troublesome Na- poleonic rule and spent their time in huge land speculations, planning fine manor-houses or securing natural hunting grounds (on a right royal scale) which were bountifully stocked with deer, bears and many other desirable wild beasts. There were many drawbacks in the construc- tion of a fine dwelling in primitive times, but through the indefatigable efforts' of an enterpris- ing agent, a house and land office were really built, on the romantic spot. When the family came to live in the house they found it in an un- finished condition ; but taste and money were not 178 Human Beings vs. Things lacking and in the course of time it blossomed into a wilderness paradise, the old shell of a house was pulled down and quite a handsome one built in its place. Handsome enough at least to bear being called a manor-house, in a wild country where only log houses were greatly in evidence. Later on flowering shrubs and plants ornamented its walks and gardens. Blooded horses filled its stables. Rare flocks roamed through its woody pastures. It was here that the daughter of the house and her husband, who was "a live Marquis," spent their honeymoon. The manor was lighted up from base to attic in those days. The trees were hung with lamps and grand carriages went and came. Governor Clinton and Ben Franklin were among the distinguished guests. Here too came a French Cure, to save his neck from a French guillotine, and the generous owner of almost limit- less acres, gave him a land agency to assuage his bitter grief and want. But according to the his- torian a serious difficulty confronted him when he opened business with the American agent. He could not speak a word of English and the Ameri- can agent could not speak a word of French ; but as they were both highly educated in the classical but impractical way, then in vogue, it finally oc- curred to them to transact their business in Latin ! With agents of such a stamp it is hardly to be wondered at that thousands of acres of land were sold to distinguished Frenchmen or to a Bona- 179 Human Beings vs. Things partist king for diamonds from Naples and Spain ! What a fortunate thing that Napoleon's star waned before he had a chance to appoint these brilliant real estate speculators, who had al- ready gotten such a firm clutch upon our lands, "as dictators for the two Americas," or that real estate can not be boxed up like diamonds and taken over seas ! How fortunate that the great hunting parks are still with us by default of royal hunters and huntresses who were expected to mon- opolize them, and that we have still enough left to supply every would be toiler with a farm and every Fourth of July party, with a picturesque place for a picnic! Nothing could be better for a small party than the Bear's Hole. It is a large circular basin, about fifty feet in diameter to thirty feet deep. One of its sides is 'rocky and precipitous and a beauti- ful crystal stream supplied by the pure springs in which the region abounds, dashes over the jag- ged ledge into the bottom of the cavity, sweeps around to the opposite side and rushes into a great black hole as though anxious to begin its underground journey. The other side slopes more gradually and is lined with moss and shrubs which make its descent a matter of safety. At the bot- tom of the basin and bordering the sparkling rivu- let is a plot of ground large enough for a good sized party. The old monarchs of the forest, the maples, beeches and oaks heavily interspersed with 180 Human Beings vs. Things hemlock and pine, sentinel the rim of the basin and stretch their huge protecting arms across it. Even the sun at its zenith has small chance of penetrat- ing this Nature-made dome and the cunning Dame herself would have to try many a time before she could construct an ice house of a more idyllic stamp. The first thing to be done after deciding on the place for the party was to get the men sufficiently interested to make them promise to go. With Ril- ly and Salome to describe the beauty of the place its historic associations, and its ethereal coolness, the first point was soon gained. "You must promise me to go 'pon honor' every one of you," said Rilly in her tactful way.. "You see there'll be just an even number and if one gives out it will be a serious matter." "What if some of the young ladies have a head- ache," asked Brown. "I'll vouch for them," laughed Rilly. "There are only five from the outside and they're not of the head-achy kind, but I'm going to gather them in the night before so if one does happen to fall out, I can get another before morning." "Jack offered to take Rover in his vacant seat if one should fail, and Salome promised that he should be decorated with a red, white and blue neck tie in case of such an emergency, as her task was to furnish the decorations. "Don't forget the streamers for the horses' bon- 181 Human Beings vs. Things nets," chimed in Burt, (who had sent for a supply of Mr. Berg's latest invention) — nor lively knots for the gray dusters and broad brimmed straws." He was jotting down the linen coats and straw hats and wanted to know how many yards of rib- bon it would take to make them look as gay as speckled trout. Flowers had been tabooed on ac- count of the withering sun. "Besides, it's more economical," said Salome. "Each one can keep a knot of ribbon to serve on a future occasion, or as a rememberance of this. Then we are going where there are plenty of wild flowers and tame ones will not be wanted." The men grew more and more charmed with the prospect as the talk and preparations went on. They had no longer any suspicions of Burt, who had given them to understand that it was his party and he would insist on shouldering whatever ex- pense there might be. It is useless to say it was an odd and rather picturesque looking party when the time came and it was fully equipped. The bonneted well-groom- ed horses! the clean-shaven men in gray linen dusters ! the animated young women in pretty print dresses! the bright ribbons and banners streaming in the wind ! While Zeek and his family and Rover, with the great sleek ponderous draught horses followed in the rear bearing pro- visions fit to set before a king ! There were no intoxicating spirits aboard, but 182 Human Beings vs. Things the natural spirits rose higher and higher as the party moved on; and it was not long before the social element seemed to have risen out of its bonds and was having its own sweet and sensible way. After they had entered the silent pine woods, South Tramp began to sing in his beauti- ful tenor voice and the bulging-browed girl by his side listened in wondering delight. "What a beautiful day and how well they all seem to be enjoying it," said Salome. "Yes dearie, and let me tell you something. It's early in the morning yet, but) there's another couple beside Hanna and John that are going to be as happy as — as we are." "Who, Burt—?" "South Tramp and his girl, dearie." "How absurd, Burt, they are perfect strang- ers." "Not very perfect now, she knows he's got a beautiful penetrating voice, already, and I'll wag- er he knows she has got a head full of brains." "How could you see so far, Burt? I should never have thought of such a thing." "We don't have to think the same thoughts," laughed Burt. "But you must be very happy, dearie to see them so happy?" "O how beautiful the pond lilies are Burt, look at them ! But there's that horrid old powder manufactory down at the foot of the pond. What 183 Human Beings vs. Things fiend do you suppose possessed the old Frenchman to have a powder mill on this beautiful spot?" The fiend Desjardine was his name, dearie. If I remember rightly. He was taught in the Poly- technic school of Paris to make powder, and I suppose he wanted to make it after he'd learned how — just as they who are taught to kill men, want to kill them. But it turned out to be "lazy powder" — too lazy for killing men — good for nothing but blasting rock, so the mill was turned into a milder starch factory. Your Quaker an- cestors must have been glad of the change — eh?" "Undoubtedly, Burt. They found the new world dangerous enough without being scourged with powder mills. To think of the chosen land of Penn being marred and blackened by such awful things !" The procession soon came to a stand still and Silas called out that they would have to leave their horses there. The rest of the way was through a tangle of ferns and sweet briars intermixed with treacherous stones over which Salome had to be carefully helped, and mossy logs on which Burt insisted she should sit for needed rest; and so it turned out as Rilly remarked that "every step of the sweet wild way was enjoyed as it seldom is in these fast going railroad times." To Burt she said, as soon as she could speak to him, alone, "You see how well they stay paired. I think we haven't made any mistakes. Mr. South- 184 Human Beings vs. Things ey and Miss Bulginbrow are surely a dazzling success. It almost makes me giddy to hear them. Just now he was describing the beauties of Dixie land — its sweet magnolias and negro melodies, and she was teasing him to sing the "melodies." Burt laughed and returned to the mossy log on which Salome was sitting in silent surprise. 185 CHAPTER XX. THE TEAMPS TALK ABOUT HEADACHES AND SPIDEB" WEBS. I 4t~W~ TRUST you are now aware that your judgment was very poor with regard to being a draw-back to this party," said Burt as he curled himself up at Salome's feet. "You see how hugely they are en- joying it — every man with his mate sitting cozily on a mossy log. They seem to be almost 'as hap- py as we are' already. No knowing what will happen before evening." "Hush Burt ! They'll hear you," whispered Sa- lome. "No they won't, they have no ears for such as I am and no eyes either. They wouldn't see me if I should kiss the hand that happens to lie handy," replied Burt proceeding to prove his assertion by actual experiment. "But do listen to our humorist Jack!" Jack was saying to his mate, "what a happy thing it was for him that none of the girls had 186 Human Beings vs. Things taken a notion to have the head-ache, and you in particular." "Why so," asked the girl with sudden interest ? "Just one head-ache would have ruined my hap- piness for the day, if not for eternity; for I should have sat alone with dog Rover on the bug- gy-seat all the way over here and I should be sit- ting alone now with that confounded dog, on this soft log, and gone home by moonlight with only the dog by my side. You see there'd been too much dog in the day don't you?" "I don't see why so much dog should have fal- len to your share" laughed the girl. "O you see I promised when one of those old catechising caterwaulers was bothering Miss Bil- ly with his waul, that if one of the girls fell out with headache, I'd take Rover for my pard; but I didn't know I was foolin' away a big slice of heaven then." "You were too generous," said the girl with a pretty flush. "Yes, I was and you ought to punish me severe- ly; but I guess I can't help it. Mother says I was born with wide-stretched fingers that give away everything they have — or might have. That's an old sign you know and she believed it." When the party started on, Jack and his girl were just in front of Burt and Salome. The girl hurt her toe on a sharp stone and Burt called Salome's attention to the sad fact that Jack had 187 Human Beings vs. Things to help his mate along almost as much as he did his, and was almost as happy to be able to do so. The next time they stopped to rest Burt and Salome were in hearing distance of Tramp Ben and his girl. A huge spider swung down from an overhang- ing branch onto the girl's cheek. Ben showed great dexterity in getting it off and so much soli- citude with regard to the injury it might have done that he won her sweetest thanks and the flood-gates of sympathy were opened at once. "I hope you didn't kill the poor blunderer, said the girl — It's bad luck to kill a spider and I should be sorry to think of your having bad luck." "It was not one of the little money-spinners you know," laughed Ben, "or I should have had to leave it on your cheek or lose my money according to the old sign. It was big and black so there was no harm done to my fine prospects." "0 I'm so glad you didn't kill it, they weave such beautiful webs," said the girl and I am sort o'superstitious about killing things." "But the big black clumsy ones don't weave such fine webs as the money-spinners. Their webs are like gossamer. I had occasion to know some- thing about spiders once, and I guess I've had about all the hard luck in that direction I can have. Do you see that little scar on my hand and 188 Human Beings vs. Things that stiff finger joint," added Ben holding up his hand for her inspection. "You don't say they bit you and left that hor- rid scar ? Poor fellow !" "No, not the spiders but there's spider webs in the story. Ye see I lived close by a big 'stronomer once and he wanted a big telescope to look at the stars — wanted it so bad that he went all over crea- tion most, beggin' fer it. When he cum back he had the money in his vest pocket for the big tele- scope and every body was wild about it. You'd a thought 'twas going to be the last stepping stone from earth to heaven to hear the professor talk. He told us how it was made and after he'd told us everything else he told us of the spider webs they used in it, spider webs of the best qual- ity, he said, for .there was a great difference in spider webs. This was the beat of 'em all. Some b'lieved it and sum didn't, but we all got excited and went huntin' fer fine spider webs fer our tele- scope as the Professor called it. When the thing come and was ready to be hung a lot of us stout fellers were all ready to give a lift ; but you'd bet- ter bleeve we didn't nun of us know what we'd volunteered fer. 'Twus wus than stormin' a city by a long shot — this pintin' a big pair o'specks at the stars; and when we come to the last lift and had got a square hold o' the thing and all ready to swing her off, there stood the professor with a loaded gun threatening to shoot any feller that let 189 Human Beings vs. Things go afore he ort. All the while we were tugging and straining he stood there yellin' 'Hold on, hold on! No matter if it does hurt! No matter if it does take a finger* hold on ; I'll shoot the first man that lets go.' We held on, but such a set of bloody hands I' never'd seen afore or since and mine was the worst mash of aU. "0 how cruel! How dreadful cruel!" said the girl with a choking voice. "Yes, but what's wuss, it made me sort o's'pish- us o' them highly educated sort o' fellers," said Ben looking toward Burt; "more'n I ort to be I guess, fer I guess they are not all alike more'n the rest of us." "But he was kind to you I suppose and had your hand doctored," said the girl. "No he didn't pay no 'tenshun. Mother doctor- ed it and I was laid up most a year so't I couldn't do nothing but chores ; but when she spoke to the Professor 'bout it, she got the cold shoulder and we didn't nun of us get an invite to take a peek at the stars and settle the spider-web business ; but I guess the stars and spider-webs wouldn't a help- ed us along any tho' the Professor pretended 'twould be a great help to everybody. That part was all moonshine ; but mebby ther wouldn't hard- ly anything be done, if they didn't pretend 'twas goin' tu be a ten times bigger blessin' than it ever could be." 190 Human Beings vs. Things "Yes," said the girl, "everything is so disap- pointing." "But this party aint" said Ben in a low tone. "This is a great deal better than they said 'twould be, so far anyhow. Somehow I never felt hap- pier in my life. Never in such good spirits — havnt heen takin any spirits either — any bad spirits — you know what I mean." "Yes," said the girl and I am glad we haven't got any of it here. We shall have lots o' good things to eat when we come to the lunch though, and the best kind of lemonade and coffee to drink." 191 CHAPTER XXI. A RARE AND SURPRISING LUNCHEON. THE luncheon which was finally spread out on the bright green grass plot in the cool depths of the Bear's Hole was not only a luscious one but a merry and in some respects a surprising one. There was a rare dish of Frog-legs furnished by Brown, which no one but Hannah knew anything about. This was flanked with mushrooms by Southey, who knew the difference between mushrooms and toad-stools at a glance. The indefatigable fisher Smith who gloried in having free access to the trout stream of the vicinity, furnished a bountiful supply of the speckled beauties. Brown helped his girl to the froglette, as he was pleased to call it. "Froglette," she exclaimed eye- ing it suspiciously. "O, I see," laughed Brown, "you don't like the name. We'll call it spring chicken. It's the true kind. I caught and dressed them myself. Taste and you can't help being infatuated." 192 Human Beings vs. Things She laughed and tasted, warily at first, then more confidently, then pronounced them delic- ious and Brown grew hilarious and finally called on the company to define the difference between a Frog and a Toad. One of the girls said, "A frog is good to eat and a toad is not." Another said, "a frog had teeth and a toad didn't." The singer said, "a frog had a vocal instru- ment and the toad hadn't none to speak of." The humorist said, "a frog had a striped jacket and a toad had warts." Salome said, "the frog smelled of pond lilies and the toad of aconite." Burt said, "the frog had his under teeth set back on his palate and the toad didn't have a set anywhere." Rally said "the frog had a forked tongue and the toad ate flies and worms without forks." Silas said "the frog's children were dark com- plected, but the little toady's were still darker." Smith said "the English didn't call the frog fit to eat and they called their best toad a Natter Jack and he had a natty yellow stripe running down his spine instead of one running down his trouser's leg, as the natty soldiers did." Another said "a true frog didn't climb trees and a false one did." A widow said, "a good froggie wouldn't throw 193 Human Beings vs. Things poison into anybody's eyes if they happened to hit him, or tread on his toes, but an ugly toad would." A school mistress said, "a toady had jewels in his head and a pop-gun to keep off burglars, while a frog didn't have anything of value except legs." but the largest laugh didn't come in, until the hu- morous tramp asked her if the toad really had any- thing in his physical get up, compared to a pop- gun? After she had explained the matter with en- cyclopedian exactness he gave a surprised whistle and remarked that Toady must have in him the beginning of a military man! After that the delicious mushrooms, which everybody liked, were eaten and discussed. Miss Bulginbrow admitted that she was always a little afraid of them on ac- count of the poison ones. Southey assurred her that he picked every one of them himself and that he had been brought up with mushrooms, so to speak, and could tell the edible from the poison one, as far as he could see it or smell it." "0 how I wish I could," she exclaimed. "I often see them and want to pick them. I picked a whole basket full of beautiful looking ones once but I threw them all away before I got home I was so afraid they were poison." "I could teach you if we could find some speci- mens," said Southey "but the good ones very sel- dom grow in woods or on logs or stumps. They 194 Human Beings vs. Things grow out in the sweet pastures where they get the wind and sun — that is when they grow where they want to ; but the French grow them in un- derground caves." "But I'd like to know about the wild ones. I think it's a shame to be so ignorant of things that grow right around us — so ignorant we are afraid to touch them. Please tell me about them — that is, how to distinguish between the good and bad :" "It's as easy as it is to distinguish between a good and bad person," said Southey, but you can't learn much without the live specimens. We'll try to find some after dinner." "I remember I used to pick them when I was little and call them umbrellas although the little ribs underneath made me think of the rafters to a round house," said Bulginbrow. "Well there's a point," said Southey gleefully "and rafters is a cute name for 'em. When those rafters grow fast to the handles — it's no good to eat, any more than a real umbrella and you may throw it away. Neither is it a true mushroom if the handle is hollow — no more than a hollow heart- ed man is a true man." "You mean that the true mushroom has an open space all around the stem between it and the little things that look like rafters?" "Yes, that's a strong point. The poison mush- room has the rafters (gills they call them) grow- ing fast to the stem." 195 Human Beings vs. Things "And the stem must not be hollow?" queried Bulginbrow. "No, not generally speaking," replied Southey, but I think there is a kind that has a hollow stem that is good to eat; but it is very rare and has other peculiarities to make up for the hollowness no doubt. I've heard pore old mother tell about it and I'll ask her when I go home and may be she will write and tell you if you'd like." "O, I should like it of all things," said Miss Bulginbrow. "I mean to study up the mushroom question. We may have the same kind right here under our noses and think it's poison." "Some say" laughed Jack "that toadlets go un- der the toad-stools to get out of the rain. All right ! but I hope they understand that true mush- rooms have no rooms to let to Toadies." Smith averred that the mushroom which they had in England was the bossest kind. It was good whether moist or dried, and that the most o' folks thought the longer it was dried the better flavored it was. It wasn't perticuler wher it grew ither. It grew in a ring if it had its wild way ; but it wasn't pertickler whether it had its ring by the roadside or in the field or in the door-yard. The French liked it in soups, it had such a delicious flavor; but the Italians liked the more stunning kinds that had a bitter smell like pikry or an oniony smell like garlic. He wound up the mushroom subject by 196 Human Beings vs. Things stating that England had ahout a thousand varieties and could suit all kinds of tastes or noses. After lunch the company clambered out of the Bear's Hole to explore the wonderful woods, and only Salome and Burt were left in the cool weird hollow. 191 CHAPTER XXII. SOLDIERS ON A FOURTH OF JULY SPREE. IT'S sweet to be alone again dear Loma; but did you notice how those rascals are enjoying themselves? How each fellow stays by his girl as if riveted there? It's strange isn't it, how a day of leisure, a delicious luncheon, good clothes and a clean shave, can transform a surly animal into a delightful man? And it's stranger still that the world is so slow to see it or take advantage of the seeing?" "Yes Burt and what a slander it is to say that no real American would be content to spend the Fourth without cannons, guns, and sham battles to remind him of the Revolutionary War, or how we beat the English as the common saying is." A little later they heard the dull dead boom of the cannon from the far away fort and Salome exclaimed : "O how I wish those poor misguided soldiers at the Barracks could look in upon this peaceful scene and learn a lesson. They are probably hav- ing the wildest kind of a time there to-day. Prob- ably more than one poor fellow will be killed. 198 Human Beings vs. Things More than one father's dear daughter ruined, more than one mother's son debauched or disfigur- ed for life !" Burt was thinking he would not relish such an interruption when they were startled by a hissing sound, and one of the baleful fire-rockets so much used in Foux-th of July Celebrations, came stream- ing down upon them and buried its deadly point deep in the turf by Salome's side. Burt sprang to his feet and called out, "Who's there, in Heaven's name?" "Your country's defender, at your service," was the reply as a red faced soldier stepped for- ward on the edge of the basin, bowed and doffed his military cap in mock politeness, and three others appeared from behind a tree. "You narrowly escaped being something very different from a defender sir," said Burt. "Your rocket came within a hair's breadth of hitting the young lady under my charge. You know what would have resulted in that case." "Excuse me, my dear young lady," replied the soldier. "We have the freedom of the day. It's the Nation's day you know — the nation that we do the beastly work for, and we were not aware that this place was appropriated. In fact, we didn't know there was just such a place — such a cool, de- lightful, well-watered, shady, cozy place. A place so beautifully adapted for a private audience, a treaty of peace and love or that sort of thing." 199 Human Beings vs. Things He winked at his fellow-soldiers and cast his eye around the hollow until it lit on the Bear's Hole, then he added "Zounds, a place with a hole in it! — a hole big enough for a man to crawl into if hard pressed or if he had to beat a retreat either in love or war." "We excuse you," said Burt ignoring the last part of his speech, which was addressed to his companions, "but now that you do know, may we ask you not to use any more of your fire-works about here. There are quite a number of our party in the woods, besides our horses, and it would be a very dangerous proceeding. Allow me to add, there are some of us who do not believe in such display. Who think they are wasteful, harmful and wrong." "Ah! You are Quakers I take it. I've heard of them before — have seen one or two. Our offi- cer married one. They are rather numerous in these parts I reckon — pretty Quaker-girls are. I suppose there are not Quaker men enough to go 'round, so they have to branch off and marry horrid man-killers. But our officer's wife is a good one, she doesn't meddle with his war busi- ness. She eats the bread of it very placidly, and teaches her children that it's a sin to kill little birds, or annoy or frighten dumb ani- mals." "Dumb Animals!" laughed the soldier at his right ; "but dam'd soldiers are of no account." He 200 Human Beings vs. Things was turning out a drink of brandy, although he had drank too much already. "Here's to the feller and his best girl that er — er don't want to be disturbed — er — er — in what did you call it Cap — their little private arrange- ment." The other soldiers laughed and were preparing to drink. Burt was shaking with anger, and leaped forward as if he were going to settle the matter then and there. "Burt! Burt! give me your arm," said Salome in a voice which he no more thought of disobeying than he would had he been a boy of ten again and she the little mother. He complied, she rose to her feet, leaned firmly upon it, raised her clear eyes to the soldiers' blurred ones and stood there in speechless silence. No explanation could have been more complete. Angry words would only have made the matter worse. Swords and a duel could not have settled it. As the very best result of a re- sort to such brutal means, there would have been in this poor hating world, two more life-long malignant enemies. As if to make the victory more complete, Silas and Rilly appeared on the scene. They came arm in arm, munching wintergreens and radiant with delight. Silas would have given the soldiers a wide berth but the magnet on his arm swung him into their presence ere he was aware of it. Rilly's quick eye took in the situation at once. She did 201 Human Beings vs.^Things not know about the rocket, but she noted the at- titude of the two parties, the large quantities of fire-works the soldiers had with them, also the large number of brandy flasks, and last of all in pitiful conjunction the poor little rations of hard tack, and her ready sympathy and tact did the rest. "It's a free day with us," she said laughing, "and our way of celebrating is to invite every- body we meet to a free lunch. Please come to the cool dining room below. Our party have eaten their luncheon but we still have a bountiful supply. Come, it will be a mercy to take it off our hands." They looked at each other in a dazed way and then at the fireworks. "They won't do any harm will they if left alone," asked Rally? "Not if let alone dear young lady; but they have done harm already. We scared the little lady over there nearly to death with one of them, and we don't deserve your kindness, though I trust we are heartily ashamed of our stupidity." "O ! I knew it was a mistake ! Come I beg of you," said Salome "and give us a chance to show our true friendliness." They went and thus it happened that another loving wish was gratified on that beautiful Fourth of July day, which thus fa- had been marred only by one solitary sky rocket. Later on after the soldiers had left, the couples Human Beings vs. Things came drifting back, looking happier than ever, all except Hannah and John who came in haste with troubled faces. "What is it old fellow," asked Burt, half divin- ing the cause. "Have you seen a ghost ?" "Not exactly," said John, "but the pesky sol- diers, have they been here ?" "Yes," said Burt, "greatly to their improve- ment I trust. They treated us to a rocket and we treated them to (what was it dearie he whis- pered to Salome) an illumination — a silent bless- ing and a luncheon." Hannah's face cleared ; but John's fears were not so easily allayed. "There's no trusting those wretches with their fireworks and brandy bottles and their devilish training. We heard them talking. They did not see us— we were picking wintergreens ; but from what we heard there was or had been a plan to capture the horses and block the road in some devilish way with fireworks — to make "pursuit hot for us" as one expressed it. "To have a lively Fourth of July joke," said another. "A joke with horses and their sun-bonnets for sale in it." another said. Then there was some talk about a grand old luncheon, "girls that were bricks" and "hunting up more gamey game." In fact, it was terrible talk — too bad to mention mostly and we were afraid — " "But we're not afraid now John," said Han- Human Beings vs. Things nah, glowing with full confidence. "Now that we know they've been here and been lunched and beautifully treated as Miss Rilly and Salome know how to treat people." "But it's sort of scarey to think of what might have happened," said John, and Salome felt a great shiver run down the arm on which she was still leaning, but there was a tacit understanding between them that none of the others should be told at the present time of the great danger from which she had so miraculously escaped. Besides had she not made a promise no less binding to the soldiers when they shook hands with her one by one and expressed heartfelt regret at the fright they had caused her ? "But you know dear lady ;" added the chief of- fender, "We are poor devils, brought up to a devil's business and we are away from home and mother and sweetheart." Salome's eyes grew filmy as she replied. "We can not blame you entirely. We dare not. The Government is to blame, very greatly; but we are the Government, an infinitesimal part of it, or ought to be, and every soul of us even those that are denied a voice in Government, ought to go up and down the land crying out against not only the monstrous iniquity of war, but the bar- barous customs that come of it. Did you ever think of it? how many little children, innocent youths, and women are sacrificed every year to this 204. Human Beings vs. Things red-eyed Molock called Independence Day and yet we fancy we have no Idols !" Burt himself had no fears from the soldiers. He saw how completely routed they had been — routed by the loving words and kindness of the women ; but he did not wonder that John and Zeek who had not seen the transformation, should be- come restive — (especially Zeek who felt responsible for the horses) and should propose an early start for home. So it turned out that the dancing was omitted and the party went home, by sun-set instead of moon-light, headed by Zeek who drove at snail's pace and by John and Hanna who scanned every step of the way. They saw nothing more than a few specimens of hard tack and a large blackened spot by the roadside where the soldiers had evi- dently burned up their superfluous fire-works. As to their enjoyment it is yet to be proven that a ride by the red sunset that pushed its fiery eye here and there through the thick foliage of the evergreen woods, (reminding them of a still more fiery danger which had threatened them) was not as conducive to personal confidences as a ride by moonlight would have been. They certainly arrived home in a happy frame of mind which was augmented especially in Zeek's case, by finding everything "safe and sound" there in spite of the "pesky soldiers," — who had come across the white joy of the day like an "as- 205 Human Beings vs. Things sortment of fire-brands from the Luciferian regions," as Silas expressed it. "I believe every one of those rascals is engag- ed," said Burt the same evening to Salome — that is, engaged to come back sometime and finish up their courting — every one but that curmudgeon Brown and I heard the widow Safrone offer to hire him if he'd come 'round next summer 5 fore hayin' time, so -we can imagine how that'll turn out." "How did you find out Burt, I never saw a thing." "O, I have an eye for perspective, you know dearie, and then they're not as shy of me as of you. I'm such a spoony myself. Love-making is not disgraceful in my sight. It's hate-making that I abhor and those rude fellows know it." "And the soldiers Burt." "Yes and the soldiers," reiterated Burt laugh- ing heartily as he had not been able to do since they broke in so roughly on the courting scene in the beautiful woods. 206 CHAPTER XXIII. THE PARTING. A ND so and so, the stream of mutual love f^L and helpfulness flowed on, and when the 1^ ^^ last day came a little band of clean serious-faced men filed into the long hall to say good bye and listen to words of parting. Burt and Rilly had managed to have all the girls of the Fourth of July party there also. Burt made the opening speech. He began by thanking them for the good work they had done — a work destined he said as time went on to save many human lives to say nothing of broken bones and tortured nerves — work infinitely more satis- factory to every tender hearted man than the making or selling of intoxicating liquors, or worse still the implements of human butchery, like army rifles which are intended only for the destruction of human life. Then he spoke of the good times they had enjoyed — the music, songs, good cheer, good old-fashioned tea and coffee, and the gener- ous supply of soap and towels that make it a joy to be clean, at least on the outside and helps us 207 Human Beings vs. Things to be clean on the inside — without which cleanli- ness, we are as the beasts that perish in their infancy. Then he alluded to the unique Fourth of July excursion, and hoped none of them would ever recover from the delights of that occasion any more than he himself would; and that they might be sure not to recover, he suggested that every one should write or telegraph occasionally or semi-occasionally to the lady who was his com- panion on that eventful day, in order that they might know their where-abouts, what-abouts and when-abouts — especially about when they might be expected to make n visit to this vicinity ; which he sincerely hoped would be soon enough and of- ten enough to enable the young ladies to keep up a loving interest in their welfare.. He told them in his pithy way that without such interest men were little better than wandering arabs (he knew because he had been one himself shortly be- fore) and women shorn of such interest were likely to die of ennui or too much knitting work. "I say loving interest, because I don't believe in any other kind of interest," explained Burt "and lest these young men should feel rather mod- est about writing, etc., I will ask for them that every lady who would like to keep up a correspond- ence with her Fourth of July escort, would signify it by raising her hand." Every girl raised her hand, and the men clapped theirs in delight. 208 Human Beings vs. Things "O how I hate to have you go," exclaimed Ril- ly. "I almost wish we had more bluffs to fix and there are many more that need fixing all along the road. So many crooked places that ought to be made straight ! So many rough places that ought to be made smooth! Enough to keep you busy a whole life-time. Why could you not organize a band and take Road-Reform for your mission? That's one of the thousand reforms that ought to be inaugurated forthwith. If you would only do your work as well as you have here, and learn to work together in good faith and lovingness as I know you could, you would surely be able to melt the corporation's heart in time and the peoples too, and they would treat you well and pay you well. You'd be called Road Angels in- stead of — of tramps or poor fellows looking for a job." Rilly's outburst was against all reason and common sense, to be sure, but it was fully as ef- fective as though it had been flanked with both of these desirable agencies ; and more than one sun- burnt hand went up before misty eyes; but only one voice spoke out and that was the deep bass of Tramp John. "I fear we haven't got high enuf up for that yit, Mistress Rilly, nor the corporations neither, and you couldn't always be with us tu help us to behave; but t'will be something to look forward tu; so God bless ye all the same! No doubt we 209 Human Beings vs. Things shall all go our separate ways, and no doubt we shall all be better men for being here and be- ing treated like decent honest folks, instid of Ishmaels whose hands are against every man's and every man's hands are against his'en. God bless ye all and love ye all and help us all to meet ye all on the other side if never again here." Hannah sobbed with the rest ; but she held a lit- tle paper tight in her hand with a name and ad- dress, which gave her hope of better days, even on this side, for Tramp John (that was) for neither he nor any of the rest looked at all like tramps in the uniform dress and knapsacks pre- sented by Burt ; but more like a squad of soldiers detailed for special duty. This phase must have struck the sensitive side of poor South Tramp, who squared about as he reached the gate and cried out in his musical voice : "Nevah feah good friends. P'raps wah'll break out, ond then Uncle Sam'ol give us somethin' toh doh shore. Ef it's only toh gnaw hard tacks and sleep on marshy ground. Ond it's me that wod rother gnaw tacks harder'n iron all day and fight with me bedding all night than stand up and shoot down a fellah being. The sight of blood makes me feel weaker than a cat. Reckon t'wer cause I'wer borned intoh that awful Wilderness Battle. The first thing that pore Mammy saw after she come toh, wer heaps of bloody gray and blue dead soldiers. 0, 1 hate war and I'd never kill a human 210 Human Beings vs. Things being ner a Spanish one, if I had my own way ! — ner jerk em up, ner pour lightenin' intoh ther pore bodies. I remember wot yo' said one day Miss Salome. Yo' said yo' loved yor own country but yo' loved other countries toh, and I think that's bout right and if all did so, ther'd be no mo' wars and they could take the heaps o' money they cost and feed all the pore old mammies and childers in the world. O yes, I hate war and I'll never 'list 'thout I have toh t'yearn hoe-cake f er pore old mammy." "O, my dear fellow, it don't seem possible you will ever have to do that," sobbed Salome, "in this civilized age, and in this civilized country! And it doesn't seem possible we ever shall have another war. We are going to improve the country now — build up the waste places, turn the cruel 'swords into plowshares and pruning hooks' and there'll be enough for everybody to do." "But there's going toh be war first, Miss Sa- lome" said South Tramp raising his eyes solemn- ly upwards. " Can't tell zactly how I know; but pore ole mammy's a peace Quaker, and she's had visions ! Away down acrost thousand o'war-spoilt cotton fields — just over the Caribbean Sea, she saw a cloud no bigger'n a man's hand an' shaped like it an' all drippin' with human blood! O pray for me dear friends, that I may be called toh sing by pore soldiers' death beds, instead of toh shoot them toh ther deaths." 211 Human Beings vs. Things If the halting words of poor South Tramp, de- livered in a high key and peculiarly intoned, struck the company assembled there, as weird and strangely significant, what wonder that they thrill- ed, closer-linked souls like those of Salome and Burt as the ring of a veritable prophecy? — A prophecy well-nigh unbearable, except for the strong love outrushing, and the white arms out- stretching, to help suffering and almost crucified humanity ! Two weeks later there was a double wedding at the quiet old mansion. It was agreed there should be no wedding journey but little picnics and ex- cursions such as Salome's broken bones and Burt's broken nerves could endure without over-fatigue. Of course it was understood that Burt would do a little sketching here and there; but Silas had his plans and carried them out with a strong hand. "Human beings are of more account than things, by a long shot," he said to Rilly; "and I hope she'll drive that into his noddle so he'll not spend all his time painting trees and water- falls and sunsets — things we have always with us and can look at any day ; but it's well enough to have a picture of your sweetheart that you can carry in your vest pocket when you have to go off on a lonesome journey — a little miniature like the one he painted of your Aunt Salome, and you must sit for one right off Rilly !" 212 Human Beings vs. Things "Silas," laughed Rilly "you'd be jealouser'n a ring-streaked and spotted tiger, before he got through." "No, I will not Rilly, if it's all done before the honeymoon's over." Silas had his way. The miniature was painted in the first days of the double honeymoon. He was enraptured, especially with the eyes; but when Burt proposed later on to paint them into one of his madonna heads, he objected on rather unique but characteristic grounds — namely that "they would look like fury, stuck into another face, where they didn't naturally belong and were not naturally set, by the hand of the Lord Al- mighty !" Burt agreed with him quickly; for he was on the eve of his departure to his city home, with the one of all the world he loved best; and they had more humanitarian work planned than they could reasonably expect to accomplish even if they did nothing else all their lives and the times were as auspicious as the June Heavens. But alas for the swift-winged spirit of Reform ! The war cloud that hung over the Caribbean Sea grew bigger and blacker day by day! Would it lift or would it lower and spread its black pall over our lovely inland seas, was the question that the Peacemakers were asking of Humanitarians and Seers? They were anxious and far-seeing. They saw that the earth and air were full of signs, Human Beings vs. Things menacing and portentious. The Government was being run and ringed around by warriors and war-promoters. War-making and war-provoking threatened to become a monstrous money-making business. Preparations for universal war were go- ing on, under the vile pretense of preparations for Peace. Hideous navies were striving to sail the skies as well as the seas. Huge war-camps were springing up all over the country. The earth was quaking with the roar of cannon and explosions of dynamite. Inventions, made for the benefit of the human race were being used for its destruction. American "small boys" were furnish- ed with vastly enlarged and more dangerous im- plements with which to celebrate their National day. The social outlook was far from encouraging. Society in general offered little resistance to the military attitude which was its greatest menace; and society in particular (that is the society of the rich) appeared to be insanely preparing for still greater encroachments of military power, by its excessive patronage of all sorts of military func- tions, such as military balls, military luncheons, military euchre, military mass, military funerals and military weddings. Rich dames were giving their gold all unconsciously to the defilers of wo- men and the killers of men and were having mili- tary honors thrust upon them and their political chains riveted as their reward. Innocent brides 214 Human Beings vs. Things were coming forth from church chancels, under a canopy of gleaming swords, upheld, by profession- al men-slayers! This was a spectacle on which the young and ignorant were gazing with open mouthed admiration. They knew not, or could not understand its true significance, although the agony of death and the agony of birth were strongly typified in the grand pictures of the slain Christ and the Divine mother in the chancel window; while farther on were the ten command- ments and the one written in large red letters was, "Thou shalt not kill!" But what of Silas and Billy in their peaceful northern home on the borders of the great pine wilderness and in sight of the beautiful inland sea ? They were working hand in hand for home and humanity and waiting with joyful hearts for the coming of world-wide peace. Bumors of war came instead. Then a cry of horror and indignation swept through the land. An American battleship with three hundred soldiers had been sent to the bottom of the sea by the malicious war dogs of Spain ! Mothers mourned their dead and even the brave Billy was striken down by the terrible news. When she came to herself, Silas and Salome and Burt were crying over her. "Don't cry," she said, with a smile and a tear, "I have been dreaming of poor South Tramp and he assured me that no malicious Spanish hand nor any other truly malicious hand had anything to 215 Human Beings vs. Things do with that awful catastrophe. It was an ac- cident and he was going to tell me just how it occurred ; but I was so happy I woke up — so hap- py to think that no human beings could be bad enough to do such a dreadful thing. And now you are all of you going to help me to be happy are you not?" she added in her sweet tactful way. "Yes, we will help you to be happy," sobbed Sa- lome. "We will help you by believing as you do — believing in South Tramp's words. I have always felt that he was inspired when he described the war-cloud over the Carribbean sea and now I know it; but we can't help it Rilly. The fight is on and we must go right on with our humanitarian work." "If we could only prove," said Burt, "that this terrible thing was due to the carelessness of our own men it might shorten the war against Span- iards; but who would believe in the testimony of South Tramp, even if we could find him and get his testimony as it was in Billy's dream?" "Bulginbrow could probably tell us where to find him," laughed Silas ; "but it wouldn't do any good. Government's all ready to fight and it's bound to fight anyway. All we can do is go right on with our humane work as Aunt Salome says." And so they went on and on, "repairing human wrecks from everywhere," as Burt expressed it. The Cuban war ended but the humane war ended not. Burt and Salome were in the thick of it; 216 Human Beings vs. Things for boat loads of insane soldiers were coming home from the Phillipine Islands. Among one of them they found poor South Tramp. They took him home and nursed him back to health and sanity. Then they sent him to Rilly, trusting that she and Bulginbrow would do the rest. Bulginbrow not only married him but she in- sisted on taking him down south in order to establish his health, "which was a little frail she said although his voice was stronger and sweeter than ever." The evening before they went, Rilly told him about her dream. "Foh God mistress Rilly," he cried bursting in- to tears and leaning heavily on his wife's shoulder, "I tole you the solemn truth so for's I went but I reckon the good Lawd woke yoh up so't I could not tell yoh no moah. Fore God I say again, that no man went for to do that awful business on purpose. I know all about it, but fore God he won't let me tell you no moah now. Fore I go foh to die, I will go for to tell my dear little wife the whole living truth." Bulginbrow kissed away his tears, coaxed him to sing a parting song and led him gently home. "South Tramp may have had a delusion said Silas, "but it was a good delusion — a humane de- lusion, eh Rilly?" "Yes Silas, infinitely better than the delusion of war. But I had my dream and I have my doubts." 217 CHAPTER XXIV. "O BE VIGILANT MY SOUL." RILLY did not recover from her first war- shock at once. Indeed how could she? The Cuban war was over but the war- fiend was rampant and preparations for war were going on with redoubled fury. Big bat- tleship accidents were happening here and there and everywhere which could not be charged to Spanish animosity. A big gun on the Battleship Missouri exploded and scores of men were heaped together in the awful turrets! "O it might have been three hundred if it had happened at night," cried Rilly, leaning limply on Silas' arm. "Who would have been blamed then? There were no Spaniards anywhere around; but it was the same kind of accident and I can't help thinking that poor South Tramp is right. O how I wish that we could have known it and that you and I and Salome and Burt could have rushed straight to headquarters with our story and beg- ged the officers to make a thorough investigation. 218 Human Beings vs. Things What a relief it would have been and it might have saved thousands of human lives! "Yes Hilly, but the probability is that we would never have reached the head of the quarters," laughed Silas. "It's a military head you know. What could we do with a set military head? You might have turned it around a little with those electric eyes of yours; but it would have to be turned squarely around before it would pay much attention to Peace-makers' pleas. Military men despise Peace-makers." "The blessed Peace-makers Silas! The hope of the world! They are coming bravely to the front. They will come quickly now, Silas, since the Czar of all the Russias has spoken for Peace and the King of all the American financiers is go- ing to build a great Peace Temple. how glad I am that he is American bred, this man with the mighty heart and mighty millions !" "Yes, yes, Rilly, there is nothing to prevent Peace now unless it's the monstrous war-fiends that have got such a strong grip on every government under the sun. They are in it for business. They are spreading their tents everywhere and they are sly dogs and may trap us into having the biggest kind of war." "But you don't suppose they will Silas, you don't think they are really bad enough for that? You don't think they will camp anywhere near us do you?" 219 Human Beings vs. Things Rilly's question was answered the next day when they went out for a health-stroll in the fragrant pine woods on the border of the children's park, and met a squad of military men, "seeking suitable grounds," (so one of them said) "for a huge concentration camp, which would put all the military camps of the world to shame !" It was not until their informant doffed his cap and bowed low at Rilly's feet, that they recognized him as the "Fourth of July" fiend, who had broken up their party a few years before. "I trust you remember me dear lady," said the soldier "and will be glad to know that my presence here is due to my remembrance of your loving kind- • ness. I was coming to call on you and bring you a loving cup as your reward. I also trust that you will be pleased to learn that we will search no farther for an ideal camping ground and that you will be willing to have us pitch our tents right here. God bless the ladies. They are al- ways so loving and generous especially to military men ! I know a grand old lady who lives on an island worth a quarter of a million. She is going to give it to our military academy for military manoeuvres and the practice of the man-killing science, ad infinitum, as soon as she can secure Congressional aid or the aid of other rich ladies for her generous scheme. It will be the biggest boost that militarism has ever received from the women of this country. It will be useless to talk 220 Human Beings vs. Things of doing away with the war business after such a gift! Of course all the other rich women will follow her example." "God forbid!" cried Rilly looking above and beyond the tigerish gleam of the soldiers eyes. "Silas ! Silas ! Take me home ! home ! home !" Silas knew what her frantic cry meant. It meant that their happy home and humane work were in deadly peril. He gathered her up in his strong arms and carried her home in mortal haste. All night long he watched over her and whispered words of love and consolation. He did not try to make her believe that their home or the chil- dren's Park which they were building with such conscientious care would escape the scourge of war, or rather the army scourge, which is like unto it. He knew her clear vision had already seen the length and breadth of the danger that threatened them and he vowed he would make a home for her somewhere on God's footstool where war-fiends and war-camps would be no more." "O Silas ! how kind ! How loving and thought- ful," she cried as soon as she was able to speak! But we will not leave our home — our lovely home and the Children's Park to be desecrated by the war-fiends. We will live in our home and make it a Temple of Peace for their conversion ! We will double-guard the Children's Park and make it as safe and beautiful as Heaven! We will plant Peace principles and humane precepts in all our 221 Human Beings vs. Things paths ! We will carve songs of Peace and Human- ity on our door-stones and gate-posts. When the night oometh, the sky above us shall be hung with Peace lanterns, Peace moons and Peace mottoes in illuminated, star-spangled letters ! If we dream dreams or see gleams, we will follow them and find out what they mean. We will be vigilant with our souls as well as busy with our hands and feet and eyes." Rilly's eyes were aflame with a searching light such as Silas had never seen in them before, but it was not like the hideous search-light of the mon- ster battleships, which frightens women and chil- dren to death. It was the living light that guards and saves ! "O Rilly! Rilly!" he exclaimed in homely ecsta- cy, " 'Pon my soul, you are right again ! Your eyes are not only beautiful and bright, but they are beautiful and right. I believe you can see farther off and higher up than any other woman h) the wide, wide world. One righteous look of thine is enough to put a whole army of unright- eous and inhuman life-destroyers to flight!" [The End]