* • 
 
 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 FROM 
 Cony Sturgis 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PS 1517.S58 
 
 Silhouettes of American life 
 
 3 1924 021 997 386 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis bool< is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021997386 
 
SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
SILHOUETTES OF 
 AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 BY 
 
 REBECCA HARDING DAVIS 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1892 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1892, 
 BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. 
 
TO 
 R. H. D. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 At the Station 1 
 
 Ttrak t Soult 21 
 
 "Walhaixa 46 
 
 The Doctor's Wife 67 
 
 Anne 74 
 
 An Ignoble Maetye 92 
 
 'Across the Gulf Ill 
 
 A Waxshje Episode 145 
 
 Mademoiselle Joan 172 
 
 The End of the Vendetta 193 
 
 A Eaded Leap oe History 218 
 
 The Tares op the Black Mountains 239 
 
 Marcia 269 
 
 Til 
 
AT THE STATION 
 
 "■^rOTHING could well be more commonplace or 
 -*-N ignoble than the corner of the world in which 
 Miss Dilly now spent her life. 
 
 A wayside inn, near a station on the railway which 
 runs from Salisbury, in Korth Carolina, up into the 
 great Appalachian range of mountains ; two or three 
 unpainted boxes of houses scattered along the track 
 by the inn; not a tree nor blade of grass in the 
 " clarin' " ; a few gaunt, long-legged pigs and chickens 
 grunting and cackling in the muddy clay yards ; be- 
 yond, swampy tobacco fields stretching to the encir- 
 cling pine woods. For Sevier Station lay on the 
 lowland; the mountains rose far to the west, like a 
 blue haze on the horizon. The railway ran like a 
 black line across the plain, and stopped at their foot 
 at a hamlet called Henry's; thence an occasional 
 enterprising traveller took " the team " up the precip- 
 itous mountain road to Asheville, then a sleepy vil- 
 lage unknown to tourists. 
 
 Nothing, too, could have been more commonplace 
 or ignoble than Miss DUly herself: a pudgy old 
 woman of sixty, her shapeless body covered with a 
 
 1 
 
i SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 scant, blue homespun gown, with a big "white apron 
 tied about where the waist should have been ; a face 
 like that of an exaggerated baby, and round, innocent 
 blue eyes, which, when they met yours, you were sure 
 were the friendliest in the world. Miss Dilly always 
 wore a coarse white handkerchief (snowy white, and 
 freshly ironed) pinned about her neck, and another 
 tied over her ears, for she had occasionally a mysteri- 
 ous pain, commonly known to us as neuralgia, but 
 which the Carolinian mountaineers declare is only 
 caused by being "overlooked" by some one who has an 
 evil eye. 
 
 "They tell me it must be so," Miss Dilly would 
 say. " But, of course, my dear, it was done by acci- 
 dent. ISTobody would hurt a person thataway, meanin' 
 it. An' it's a mighty tarrible thing to have that kind 
 of an eye ! I hope the good Lord don't let any poor 
 soul know that he has it." 
 
 Miss Dilly had had this pain only since she had 
 lived in the lowland. It had almost disabled her. 
 She was born in the mountains -^ up on the Old Black 
 — and she fancied that if she could go back to them 
 she would be cured. But her younger brother, James, 
 owned this farm and iun, and when their mother died, 
 twenty years ago, he had agreed with Preston Barr 
 that he should have both, rent free, if he would give 
 Dilly a home and the yield of one field of tobacco 
 yearly. James then set ofE to the West to make his 
 fortune. Letters at first came regularly. But it was 
 ten years now since she had heard from him. 
 
 Nobody ever heard a groan from Miss Dilly when 
 the attacks of pain came on. 
 
AT THE STATICiT 3 
 
 " When the good Lord gives you a load to cahry, I 
 reckon 't ar'nt the clean thing to lay it on other folks' 
 shoulders," she would say, laughing. She shut her- 
 self up, therefore, in her own chamber, and would let 
 nobody in, though everybody at the inn, from Squire 
 Barr himself to Sam (the black cook, ostler, and 
 chambermaid), besieged the door. 
 
 A gloom like that of a funeral overhung the whole 
 clarin' when Miss DiUy had one of her spells. After 
 the passing of the two trains a day it was the one 
 topic of interest. 
 
 "I've knowed wimmen as was younger," old Colonel 
 Eoyall would say, solemnly wagging his head and 
 winking his bleared eyes; "but Aunt Dilly is the 
 jokingest and most agreeable of her sex in this part 
 of Cahliny, to my thinkin'." 
 
 "Yes," Squire Barr would answer, nodding gravely. 
 " And how any human fiend could lay the devil's look 
 on her, passes me ! " 
 
 When the attack was over she would come down, 
 pale and pinched about the jaws, but smiling, kissing 
 and shaking hands all round as if she had come back 
 from a long journey. 
 
 The Squire invariably addressed her with ponder- 
 ous gravity, after this fashion : 
 
 "Ef it be so, Aunt Dilly, 's you think goin' back to 
 yer home on th' Old Black 'd give you ease, say the 
 wohd. I cahn't pay you rent in money, foh God- 
 amity knows, I've got none. But in traffic, tobacco, 
 cohn, an' millet — it'll be all sent up reg'lar. Though 
 what we'd do without you all, passes me ! " 
 
 At which Mrs. Missouri Barr would look at Miss 
 
4 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 Dilly with tears on her gaunt cheeks, and the girls 
 •would hang about her, patting her, and the Colonel 
 would declare with an oath that "the whole clarin' 
 had been powerful iaterrupted while you all was 
 gone." 
 
 These were the happiest moments of Miss Dilly's 
 happy life. She would explain carefully to them, for 
 the thousandth time, her feeling on the matter. " 'T 
 seems to me ef I was in the old place, facin' Old 
 Craggy, 'n the Swanannoa a-runnin' past the door, 'n 
 could go set by father 'n mother every mornin', whar 
 they're lyin' among the rowan trees, I'd get young 
 agin ^n lose this torment. But then, what 'd James 
 think ef he'd come back hyar ready to cahry me to 
 his home in Colorado or them furrin countries ? Me 
 gone, after my promise to wait ? 'N it would go hard, 
 too, to leave you, Preston, 'n Missoury, 'n the girls, 
 'n Sam, 'n all — very hard ! " 
 
 The girls always surprised Miss Dilly with a good 
 supper on these recoveries, and the Colonel and Squire 
 Preston felt it their duty to go to bed drunker than 
 usual, in sign of joy. 
 
 At other times, life at Sevier Station was stagnant 
 enough. Miss Dilly sewed or knit in her own room 
 sitting at the window where she could see the six 
 men of the village sitting in a row in the gallery of 
 the inn, smoking. She called them her boys, and 
 when one chanced to have the rheumatism or tooth- 
 ache or a snake-bite, clucked about him like an old 
 hen over an ailing chick. All the children in the 
 hamlet were free of her room : there was always one 
 at least with her, listening to her old Bible stories. 
 
AT THE STATIOir 5 
 
 Neither they nor Miss Dilly were at all sure how far 
 exactly Palestine was from Carolina ; indeed, Dilly had 
 a dim conviction that the mountains on which her Lord 
 walked and suffered and died were part of the moiin- 
 tains yonder, which were all the world that she knew. 
 
 There was no church near the station; there were 
 not even the monthly " pra'ars " which keep up the 
 religious and social life of the mountains. Miss 
 Dilly with her Bible and her incessant innocent talk 
 of "the good Lord" was all the pope or preacher 
 known to these people, the only messenger sent to 
 show them how to live or to die. 
 
 In the morning the train passed the station, going 
 up to Henry's; in the afternoon it came down; it 
 halted for five or ten miuutes each time. These brief 
 pauses were the end of life for the population of 
 Sevier Station ; the whole twenty-four hours merely 
 led up to them. When the train came in sight, the six 
 men, the women, children, pigs, and chickens dropped 
 the work they had in hand and waited, breathless. 
 It came up out of the great busy world and swept 
 down into it again — a perpetual miracle — leaving 
 them in silence and solitude. Miss Dilly was always 
 at her post by the window to see it go by. The con- 
 ductor and engineer had learned to watch for the 
 wondering old baby face, and often threw to her a 
 little package of candy or a newspaper. Her heart 
 thumped with terror and delight as the wonderful 
 thing rushed past her. If she could only ride on 
 the cars once, only for a mile! This was the one 
 secret ambition of her life. 
 
 Sometimes, but very rarely, the train was belated 
 
6 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 and stopped long enough for the passengers to take 
 supper. Then excitement rose to fever height. Mrs. 
 Barr, the girls, Preston, even the Colonel were busy 
 in the kitchen, cooking, and scolding Sam. Miss 
 Dilly, who could do nothing, hurried to the parlor, in 
 fresh apron and handkerchiefs. It was a stuffy little 
 room with plaited rugs on the floor, a chromo of the 
 death-bed of Washington in a mica frame on the wall, 
 and a red-hot stove in the middle. The passengers who 
 were waiting for supper, to Miss Dilly's mind, were 
 all dear good folk who had come up from the world 
 to talk to her awhile. She took the keenest interest 
 in them all ; nursed the babies, pulled out some candy 
 from her pocket for the children, ran for a drink for 
 the tired, dusty women, or sat listening eagerly to the 
 talk of the men, now and then asking a timid ques- 
 tion. "And you- really been at N"ew Yohk, sah? 
 Dear me ! I doan know what anybody thet has bin 
 at New Yohk wants to come to the mountings foh. 
 ISTo, I nevah travelled. Much, that is. I was once at 
 Asheville, foh two days. I reckon New Yohk is dif- 
 ferint. But Asheville is a vehy large town, sah. You 
 suhtinly ought to visit it." 
 
 It was singular to see how they all, women, chil- 
 dren, and men, seemed to understand Miss Dilly at 
 once, and treated her with a tender kind of respect. 
 She usually felt quite intimate with them all before 
 the evening was over, and when they entered the train 
 and were swept out of sight, would stand looking after 
 them, the tears in her eyes. 
 
 " The dear friends hardly come till they go again," 
 she would say to the girls. 
 
AT THE STATION' 7 
 
 One stormy niglit in winter the train was delayed 
 two hours beyond its time. A child of one of the pas- 
 sengers had been taken sick, near Henry's ; the train 
 was stopped, and a man who was said to have con- 
 siderable skill in physic was sent for, two miles dis- 
 tant. The passengers waited willingly. They were 
 in no hurry ; nobody in Carolina was ever in a hurry 
 in those days. Everybody was anxious to help the 
 baby, and proposed his own favorite remedy, brandy 
 being the most popular. 
 
 There were only two men in the car who did not 
 join the group about the sick child. They sat on a 
 back seat; one of them, a swarthy, middle-aged man, 
 with eyes like those of a stupid, affectionate dog, 
 stooping forward, listening eagerly to its moans and 
 the advice of the crowd. 
 
 "Poor little kid!" he said, earnestly. "I reckon 
 it's its head as is wrong. I had a boy once. He only 
 lived to be seven. It was the head as ailed him. The 
 brain, sah. Enormous ! Ef that little fellah had lived 
 he'd have made his mark in the world, alongside of 
 Alick Stephens." 
 
 " Died at seven ? " said his companion with an inar- 
 ticulate murmur of sympathy. "Well, sah. Him 
 thet's above. He knows. It's all foh the best." 
 
 " Kot foh me ; not foh me ! " with a fierce growl, 
 after which he was silent. Presently he said : " Cap- 
 tain, I used to quiet my boy a-strokin' of his temples. 
 Ef they'd try it on the baby — " 
 
 " I'm very sorry, Mr. Judson," said the other man, 
 with sudden gravity, "thet I cahn't let you try it 
 yohself. But duty, sah — " 
 
8 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 "I didn't think of doin' it myself ! " exclaimed Jud- 
 son, angrily. "You don't suspect me of a trick? 
 D'ye think I'm a sneak ? " 
 
 " God forbid ! No, no, Mr. Judson. I know a high- 
 toned gentleman when I see him. When Sheriff Eoyls- 
 ton give me this commission he says : ' Treat Mr. 
 Judson as a high-toned gentleman.' And as such I 
 reco'nized you. And as such I treated you." 
 
 Judson made no answer. He had dropped back into 
 his seat and pulled the wide-rimmed hat over his 
 brows. 
 
 The child by this time was asleep ; the passengers 
 crept softly back to their places, and the train was 
 again in motion. As, an hour later, it rushed along 
 through the gathering twilight, Judson glanced out of 
 the windows from side to side with a terrible appre- 
 hension on his face. 
 
 " Isn't this the old Sevier plantation ? " 
 
 "Yes, sah. Consid'able altered since the railway 
 was laid." 
 
 After a few minutes Judson again broke the silence. 
 " Thah was a house jest beyond the Branch hyah. 'T 
 used to belong to a family named — Holmes." 
 
 "Yes. Station's nigh thah now. Holmes house's 
 took as inn. Squire Barr's the proprietor, sah." 
 
 " Any of the Holmeses livin' thah ? " asked Judson 
 in a tone which made Captain Foulke turn and look 
 at him curiously. 
 
 "Miss Dilly. She resides with the Squire. Colonel 
 James Holmes, he's gone out West thataway. I hear 
 as he's made a fortin out thah. So I've heered. I 
 never knowed Colonel James myself. I belong down 
 
AT THE STATION 9 
 
 in the piny woods kentry. I've heered, though, as he 
 "was a powerful agreeable gentleman. Very free an' 
 friendly. The folks hyahbouts think a heap of the 
 Colonel yet, though he's bin gone a good many year." 
 
 "Do they?" said Judson, with a queer intonation. 
 
 "Friend of yours, may be?" asked the Captain, 
 curiously. Judson's back was turned toward him ; he 
 was staring out into the darkening fields. He did not 
 answer for a moment. 
 
 "No. He was no friend of mine," he said at last 
 in a tone which made Captain Foulke keep silent. He 
 was the last man in the world to annoy or suggest un- 
 pleasant subjects to Mr. Judson, or any other gentle- 
 man who was in difiS.culty. 
 
 The engine gave a shriek. The conductor, who had 
 been dozing near the stove, got up, yawning. 
 
 "Sevier Station, gentlemen," he suggested mildly. 
 "Train stops hyah for supper." 
 
 The train ran bumping along the track and stopped. 
 The passengers rose and made their way out leisurely. 
 In the noise, they did not hear an altercation that was 
 going on at the back of the car. Judson had stiffened 
 himself back in his seat. 
 
 "My God! I cahn't get out hyah! Thah — thah 
 are folks ia thet house thet know me." He panted 
 for breath with sheer terror ; his eye gleamed danger- 
 ously. Foulke and the conductor stood over him anx- 
 iously. For the first time the conductor saw that he 
 was handcuffed. 
 
 "Yes," explained Foulke rapidly, in a whisper. 
 " Bringin' him to Ealeigh from Tennessee, on riquisi- 
 tion from Governor, to stand his trial for manslaughter. 
 
10 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 Mr. Judson!" raising his voice, "let me make you 
 acquainted with Captain Amy. Mr. Judson," he pro- 
 ceeded in a hurried, deprecating tone, " hes come with 
 me clar from Nantahela range, whah I — whah I — 
 met him,, and has give me no trouble whatsoever. He 
 has conducted himself like the high-toned gentleman 
 which Sheriff Eoylston — " 
 
 " — I will make no trouble now," panted Judson. 
 " Only let me stay in the car. Toh God's sake, 
 Captain ! " 
 
 The deputy sheriff and conductor exchanged per- 
 plexed glances. 
 
 "Come, come, Mr. Judson," said Arny, authoritar 
 tively; "Captain Foulke must have his supper 'n 
 somethin' warmin'. So must you. See hyah now ! " 
 wrapping the gray shawl which was common in use 
 among men at that time about the prisoner so as to 
 conceal his arms, and pulling his hat well over his 
 brows. "Yoh own wife wouldn't know yoh, sah. 
 Come now. You can sit in the parlor if yoh doan 
 keer to take supper. On yoh parole, sah." 
 
 Judson hesitated, looking through the lighted win- 
 dows of the inn with a terrified yet longing eye. 
 Figures moved dimly within. 
 
 "I'll go," he said, starting forward. "I'll sit thah. 
 I'll not try to escape, so help me God." 
 
 ******** 
 
 What with the sick baby and the tired mother, 
 Miss DiUy had much to do that evening. She soon, 
 however, had both of them comfortably disposed in 
 her own room for the night, and then hurried down 
 to see if any one else needed her. 
 
AT THE STATION 11 
 
 "Why, Squire," slie said, bustling into the kitchen, 
 "thah's a gentleman alone in the parloh, eatin' 
 nothin'." 
 
 "He's ailin', Miss DiUy. Never mind him. He 
 doan want nothia'." 
 
 But Miss Dilly was not used to leave ailing people 
 alone. She made ready a steaming cup of tea. 
 
 "I'm so sorry yoh feelin' porely, sah," she said. 
 " Won't yoh take this, jest to warm yoh ? " 
 
 "No," said the man, gruffly. Miss Dilly, unused to 
 rebuff, stood hesitating. The lamplight shone full on 
 her gray hair and kind blue eyes. 
 
 " Don't go," said Judson. " Stay with me. It will 
 only be for a few minutes. I'U never see you again." 
 
 Something in the voice startled the old woman. 
 She looked at him, raised her head, listening, and 
 then, recollecting herself, sat down, laughing. 
 
 " Thet's jest what I alius say to myself," she said. 
 "The folks come up hyah, 'n stay jest long enough 
 foh me to find they're dear friends, 'n go, 'n I never 
 see them again." 
 
 " And yoh're satisfied with sech friends as the cars 
 bring yoh every day ? " he sneered, savagely. 
 
 Miss Dilly drew herself up with a certain dignity. 
 " They're all my friends, as I said. But I have my 
 own people, sah, blood of my blood and bone of my 
 bone. The dear Lord sent them an' me iato the world 
 together." 
 
 " Who are they ? " he said in a lower tone. 
 
 " Our family ? Thar's my brother, sah, Colonel 
 James Holmes. I'm waiting hyah for him now. I'm 
 expectin' him every day. An' my father 'n mother : 
 
12 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 they're up on the Old Black. An' thah's a child in 
 our family," she added, with a proud rising of the 
 voice. " He's my brother's son. He is such a hoy's 
 yoh never hear of now, sah. He was jest seven when 
 he — went away." 
 
 She turned her head, the tears creeping down her 
 withered cheeks. 
 
 The prisoner half rose, with a muttered exclama- 
 tion. 
 
 "What's that? Who — " cried Miss Dilly. "I beg 
 yoh pardon, sah, I thought I heard a name — " 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " Nothing — nothing. I thought yoh said a name 
 that I used to be called at home — mother an' Jem 
 an' all of them. I haven't heard it foh years. I 
 reckin it was talkin' of them made me fancy it. I'm 
 afeerd my mind's gettin' foolish studyin' about Jem, 
 an expectin' him." 
 
 "An' yoh think he'll come ? " 
 
 "I know it," said Miss Dilly, quietly. "Squire 
 Barr, sometimes he says : ' Maybe the Colonel's mer- 
 ried a rich wife, in some of them big Western towns, 
 and hes done forgot us all.' An' the girls, I know 
 they're afeerd he's dead. But he'll come. Every day 
 since he went away I've asked the Lord to send him 
 back : so he — hes to come." 
 
 Judson did not speak for some time. His jaws 
 sank deeper in the mufHers about his neck. He said 
 at last: 
 
 "An' when he comes, I reckon yoh'd be pleased to 
 hear of the rich wife and grand house ? " 
 
 Miss Dilly winced. "Ef Jem's home is like thet, 
 
AT THE STATION 13 
 
 it's all rigM. I'd go if he wants me. But what I've 
 thought I'd like — " She hesitated. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Ef we could go back, jest our two selves to oui 
 house on the Old Black, an' him an' me live thah 
 together a few year before we went away — " 
 
 The man's head dropped on his chest. He was so 
 still that she jumped to her feet, frightened. 
 
 "Yoh're very porely! I'll bring something — I've 
 gum camphor in a jar of whiskey — " She laid her 
 hand on his arm. 
 
 At that moment the passengers came in from sup- 
 per, Ainy and Captain Foulke, who had kept their 
 eyes on the prisoner through the open door, fore- 
 most. They thrust themselves between him and Miss 
 Dilly. 
 
 " Come, Mr. Judson, take somethin' warmin'." 
 
 They talked loudly, bustling about him, that she 
 might not see the handcuffs. The passengers crowded 
 out of the door, going to the train. 
 
 Judson with a fierce gesture motioned the men 
 aside. "I must speak a word to her." He crossed 
 the room to where Miss Dilly stood. 
 
 " Doan yoh git tired prayin' foh him ! For God's 
 sake doan git tired ! An' maybe he kin come back ! " 
 
 . . . The train was gone, and Miss Dilly went about 
 her work, stupefied. Why had she talked of Jem and 
 his boy to this man? She never spoke of them to 
 strangers. It seemed as if the good Lord had made 
 her do it to-night. 
 
 She prayed for her brother that night as she never 
 had prayed before. She did not know why she did it. 
 
14 SILHOUETTES OF AMEBIC AN LIFE 
 
 ISTotliing in this gruff stranger had reminded her of 
 saucy, affectionate Jem. 
 
 But when everybody in the inn was in bed and 
 asleep, she crept on to the porch and stood looking 
 out into the gray, fathomless night. Somewhere out 
 in that great unknown world — he was. He might be 
 in that grand house — he might be sick and starving 
 among beggars ; but wherever he was, he must come 
 back to her. Her childish, faithful soul went out in 
 an agony of supplication. 
 
 " Lord, bring him back to me. To me — me .' " 
 The fog was thick and cold, and Miss Dilly was used 
 to the warmest corner of the house. But it seemed 
 to her that she must go out into the open wide night to 
 come nearer to him. He was there alive, needing her. 
 " Lord, bring him back to me," she cried. » 
 
 The people at the station noticed a change in Miss 
 Dilly after that night. She had always been kind, 
 but now she was tender to every living thing she could 
 reach, with the tenderness which a mother shows to a 
 sick child. She had always been cheerful, but now 
 she was breathlessly anxious to make every one about 
 her happy and merry. 
 
 " I reckon," said Colonel Eoyall, shaking his head, 
 " she's a ripenin' fur the end. The doors is openin' 
 an' the glory's a shinin' down on her." 
 
 An uneasy dread seized the station when this opin- 
 ion was made known. Everybody whispered and kept 
 an anxious watch on Miss Billy's coughs and appetite. 
 Mrs. Barr, who was a dribbling woman as to mind, at 
 last told her what they feared. 
 
AT THE STATION 15 
 
 Miss Dilly laughed a sound, healthy laugh. 
 
 " It's not death at all that's comin', Missoury," she 
 said. " It's Jem ! The Lord isn't deaf. Nor hard 
 of heart. Neither hes he gone on a journey, as the 
 prophet says. He'll send my brother back to me. I'm 
 thinkin' of it continooally now. If one of you's sick, 
 I think — what if that was Jem ? An' I try to help 
 you. And if another one's downhearted, I think, what 
 if that was Jem ? An' I try to cheer him up. That's 
 the truth, Missoury. It isn't death, it's Jem." 
 
 " If the Lord shud go back on her after all ? " the 
 Squire muttered with bated breath when he heard this 
 report from his wife. 
 
 Summer came, and winter, and summer again, until 
 two years had gone by. 
 
 Judson had stood his trial and been conTicted_and 
 served out his brief term of imprisonment. On the 
 day that he received his discharge, the warden of the 
 prison, as usual, spoke a few kind words of warning 
 and counsel to the prisoner at parting. He was 
 startled when Judson, who was noted as a reticent, 
 gruff man, answered him formally : 
 
 "Sah, yoh're quite right. I'd been runnin' down, 
 steady, for ten year. Down. Sudden, one day, like 
 a flash of lightnin' across my path, I was made to 
 know of a woman — who shell be nameless hyah — who 
 hed loved me an' believed in me all my life. Thet 
 has made a different man of me. Sah, she's kep' a 
 holt on me ! She's tied me to God with her pra'ars ! 
 I cahn't get loose!" he cried with a nervous gulp in 
 his throat. 
 
 " Sah, I thank yoh foh yoh words. I'm goin' to her 
 
16 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 to try to be the man yoh say. I'm goin' to trust to 
 lier an' God to pull me througli ! " 
 
 Before he left, the warden gave him more advice. 
 "Take your own name, Judson," he said. "I suspect 
 you are now under an alias. Say nothing to this 
 woman of your past life. Begin afresh where it is 
 not known, and — may God bless you, sah." 
 
 This was in October. 
 
 Christmas, that year, brought, as usual, a stir of 
 delightful excitement to the inn. Sevier Station knew 
 nothing of the high significance which modern thought 
 attaches to the great festival of the Christian Year. 
 It was the day, however, on which Colonel Eoyall 
 sent, before breakfast, a bumper of foaming egg-nog 
 to every white man and woman in the clarin'. Every 
 negro who asked for it had " a warmin' " of whiskey at 
 the Colonel's expense. It was the day, too, on which 
 Squire Barr gave his annual tremendous dinner of 
 turkey and chicken pie, at which the six families of 
 the village all sate down together. Mrs. Missoury 
 Barr, also, made a practice of sending dishes of roast 
 pork and hominy, or 'possum stewed in rice and mo- 
 lasses, or some such delicacy, to every negro cabin. 
 There was a general interchange of gifts : brier-wood 
 pipes, or pinchbeck scarf-pins, or cakes of soap in the 
 shape of dog's heads, all of which elegant trifles had 
 been purchased from travelling peddlers, months be- 
 fore, and stored away for the great occasion. Miss 
 Dilly, you may be sure, was quite ready for Christmas. 
 Her locked drawer was full of socks and muf&ers 
 knitted by herself, all of bright red, as "bein' more 
 cheerin'." Nobody was forgotten in that drawer, 
 
AT THE STATION 17 
 
 from the Squire to the least pickaninny in the (juar- 
 ters. 
 
 There was a vague idea throughout the clarin' that 
 the day was one in which to be friendly and to give 
 old grudges the go-by : the Lord (with whom Aunt 
 DUly was better acquainted than the rest) was sup- 
 posed, for some reason, to be nearer at hand on that day 
 than usual, though not so near as to make anybody 
 uncomfortable. 
 
 Father Euggles, the jolly old Methodist itinerant, 
 was up in the mountains, and had sent word he was 
 coming down for his Christmas dinner. 
 
 " He'll ask a blessin' on the meal, thank Heaven ! " 
 said Mrs. Missoury, with a devout sigh. 
 
 The Squire hurried with the news to find the 
 Colonel. 
 
 "It'll be a big occasion," he said, triumphantly. 
 "Father Euggles '11 be equal to a turkey himself. I 
 depend on you foh makin' de cofEee, Colonel. Sam's 
 that eggsited now he doan know what he's about." 
 
 " Suhtenly, suhtenly ! But really, Mrs. Missoury 'd 
 better double de supply of mince-pie," he suggested, 
 anxiously. " Father Ruggles is taerible fond of mince." 
 
 Preparations went on with increasing force and vigor. 
 They reached full completion the day before Christ- 
 mas. Then the station paused to take breath before 
 the great event. 
 
 Father Euggles arrived at noon, and in five minutes 
 had shaken hands with everybody, black and white, 
 and put them all in good humor with him, them- 
 selves, and each other. 
 
 "A doan like Miss Dilly's looks," he said, lowering 
 
18 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 his voice, when he and the Colonel and Squire were 
 seated together in high conclave on the gallery. " She's 
 blue 'n peaked about the jaws. Old age, heh ? " 
 
 " Not a bit of it ! " rejoined Preston, quickly. " She's 
 a young woman, comparatively. It's Jem. Colonel 
 James. She's done tired out waitin' on that man. 
 These last two year she's took to expectin' him every 
 day. She watches the train night 'n mornin'. It 'ud 
 make yoh sick to see her old face when it goes by." 
 
 " ISTatuhlly," the Colonel struck in pompously, " we 
 want to make Miss Dilly happy to-morrow, long o' the 
 rest. She doan forget none of us in her knittin's an 
 buyin's, I'll warrant ! I says to the Squire hyah, 
 ' Suppose de clarin' com-bine, 'n buy somethin' wuth 
 while — a cheer or new calico or somethin'.' But he 
 says, ' Whah's de use ? ' he says, ' she wants nothin' 
 but her brother. Kin we give her her brother ? ' So 
 thah's how it is ! " filling his pipe with a gloomy nod. 
 
 The men glanced furtively at Miss Dilly, who, in 
 her blue gown and white apron, stood in the yard 
 below, feeding a noisy flock of chickens. 
 
 The sun going down through a frosty sky threw red 
 lights upon the vast white plains and the cluster of 
 little gray houses huddled closely together. Their 
 hoods of feathered, crusted snow made them almost 
 picturesque. 
 
 Across the road came a black, paunchy figure. It 
 was Nutt, the carpenter, who kept the post-office in a 
 box in his shop. 
 
 " What ails Jabez ? " wondered the Colonel. " Some- 
 thin's happened." 
 
 Nutt hurried up the steps. " Mail's in, gentlemen. 
 
AT THE STATION 19 
 
 Two circuelars an' this letter. Foh Miss Dilly. I 
 just run over with it ; I thought — " 
 
 " Quite right, quite right ! " exclaimed Father Bug- 
 gies. " It may be — " 
 
 The men all rose in their excitement. "Do you 
 give it to her, Squire," said the old minister. " You've 
 been her best friend." 
 
 Miss Dilly came up the steps. The Squire handed 
 her the letter without a word. His red, pudgy face 
 fell into queer grimaces as he watched her. 
 
 " Foh me ! A letter ! Foh — ? " 
 
 The blood stopped in her old body as she took it, 
 smiling but very pale. When she saw the writing on 
 the envelope she turned and went to her own room 
 and shut the door. 
 
 The news spread. In ten minutes the whole clariu' 
 was gathered on the gallery. 
 
 "It may not be from Colonel James at all," sug- 
 gested Jabez. " It may be on business." 
 
 " Business ! Doan be an ass, Jabez Nutt," said the 
 Colonel. 
 
 The station waited breathless. 
 
 She came out at last, her face shining with a great 
 inward peace. 
 
 " Jem," she said to them in a low, quiet voice, " has 
 gone back to our house on the Old Black, an' put it 
 an' the farm to rights, an' him an' me is to live thah 
 together. He's comin' to-night on the train." 
 
 Kobody spoke. The tremendous tidings took their 
 breath. 
 
 " An' — an' when is yoh a-goin', Miss Dilly ? " 
 gasped Sam, who was the first to recover. 
 
20 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN hlFE 
 
 "Not jest right away. He'll stay hyah a week, to 
 see his old friends," she said. " An' — thah's the 
 train ! " Then she broke down and began to tremble 
 and cry. The women gathered about her and cried 
 too, while they smoothed her hair and re-pinned her 
 handkerchiefs. 
 
 The men hurried down to meet the train. 
 
 " What an occasion to-morrow'U be ! " panted Squire 
 Barr. "It's nothin' short of providential that the 
 Colonel shud come on this Christmas. Father Eug- 
 gles hyah 'n all. The station kin give him a suitable 
 reception. Ef the turkeys only hold out ! I count on 
 you foh the coffee, Royall." 
 
 "You kin. But it isn't victuals I'm keerin' foh, 
 sah," said the Colonel, with a quaver of genuine feel- 
 ing in his voice. " It's thet pore soul yonder. God- 
 amighty hes sent her her Christmas gift, shore. Hyar's 
 the train, gentlemen !" 
 
 It rolled up the track — stopped. 
 
 A short, heavy man, with gray hair and a kind, 
 resolute face, came out on the platform. 
 
 "Thet's him ! Thet's Jem!" shouted the Colonel. 
 Then they all broke into a rousing cheer, pressing 
 round him, waving their hats, and shaking his hand? 
 after the hearty Southern fashion. 
 
 " She's up thah. Colonel," said the Squire. " Go 
 right away up, sah. She's been waitin' a long time." 
 
TIRAE Y SOULT 
 
 EOBEET KNIGHT, who was born, bred, and 
 trained in New England, suckled on her creeds 
 and weaned on her doubts, went directly from college 
 to a Louisiana plantation. The change, as he felt, 
 was extreme. 
 
 He happened to go in this way. He was a civil 
 engineer. A company was formed among the planters 
 in the Gulf parishes to draia their marshes in order 
 to establish large rice-farms. James B. Eads, who 
 knew Knight, gave his name to them as that of a 
 promising young fellow who was quite competent 
 to do the simple work that they required, and one, 
 too, who would probably give more zeal and time 
 to it than would a man whose reputation was assured. 
 
 After Mr. Knight had thoroughly examined the 
 scene of operations, he was invited by the president 
 of the company, M. de Fourgon, to go with him to his 
 plantation, the Lit de Eleurs, where he would meet 
 the directors of the company. 
 
 " The change is great and sudden," he wrote to his 
 confidential friend, Miss Cramer. "Erom Boston to 
 the Bed of Elowers, from the Concord School of 
 
 21 
 
22 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 Philosophy to the companionship of ex-slave-holders, 
 from Emerson to Gayarre ! I expected to lose my 
 breath mentally. I expected to find the plantation 
 a vast exhibit of fertility, disorder, and dirt ; the men, 
 illiterate fire-eaters; the women, houris such as our 
 fathers used to read of in Tom Moore. Instead, I 
 find the farm, huge, it is true, but orderly ; the corn- 
 fields are laid out -with the exact neatness of a Dutch 
 garden. The Sugar Works are run by skilled German 
 workmen. The directors are shrewd and wide-awake. 
 Madame de Fourgon is a fat, commonplace little 
 woman. There are other women — the house swarms 
 with guests — but not an houri among them. Till 
 to-morrow. E.. K." 
 
 The conclusion was abrupt, but Knight had reached 
 the bottom of the page of his writing-pad. He tore 
 it off, put it in a business-envelope, and mailed it. 
 He and Miss Cramer observed a certain manly dis- 
 regard to petty conventionalities. He wrote to her 
 on the backs of old envelopes, scraps of wrapping- 
 paper, anything that came first to hand. She liked 
 it. He was poor and she was poor, and they were 
 two good fellows roughing it together. They de- 
 lighted in expressing their contempt for elegant nick- 
 nackery of any sort, in dress, literature, or religion. 
 
 " Give me the honest — the solid ! " was Emma 
 Cramer's motto, and Knight thought the sentiment 
 very high and fine. Emma herself was a little per- 
 son, with an insignificant nose, and a skin, hair, and 
 eyes all of one yellowish tint. A certain fluffiness 
 and piquancy of dress would have made her positively 
 pretty. But she went about in a tightly fitting gray 
 
TIRAR T SOULT 23 
 
 gown, with a black silk handkercliief knotted about 
 her neck, and her hair in a small knob on top. 
 
 But, blunt as she was, she did not like the blunt 
 ending of this letter. 
 
 What were the women like who were not houris ? 
 He might haye known that she would have some curi- 
 osity about them. Had they any intellectual training 
 whatever ? She supposed they could dance and sing 
 and embroider like those poor things in harems — 
 
 Miss Cramer lived on a farm near the Massachu- 
 setts village of Throop. That evening, after she had 
 finished her work, she took the letter over to read to 
 Mrs. Knight. There were no secrets in any letter to 
 her from Robert which his mother could not share. 
 They were all intimate friends together, Mrs. Knight 
 being, perhaps, the youngest and giddiest of the three. 
 The Knights knew how her uncle overworked the girl, 
 for Emma was an orphan, and dependent on him. 
 They knew all the kinds of medicine she took for her 
 dyspepsia, and exactly how much she earned by writ- 
 ing book-reviews for a Boston paper. Emma, too, 
 could tell to a dollar what Eobert's yearly expenses 
 had been at college. They had all shared in the 
 terrible anxiety lest no position should offer for him, 
 and rejoiced together in this opening in Louisiana. 
 
 Mrs. Knight ran to meet her. " Oh, you have had 
 a letter, too ? Here is mine ! " 
 
 She read the letter with nervous nods and laughs 
 of exultation, the butterfly-bow of yellow ribbon in 
 her cap fluttering as if in triumph. Emma sat down 
 on the steps of the porch with an odd, chilled feeling 
 that she was somehow shut out from the victory. 
 
24 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 " The ' Bed of Mowers ' ? What a peculiar name 
 for a farm ! And how odd it was in this Mr. de Four- 
 gon to ask Eobert to stay at his house ! Do you sup- 
 pose he will charge him boarding, Emma ? " 
 
 "No, I think not." 
 
 " Well, Eobert will save nothing by that. He must 
 make it up somehow. I wouldn't have him under 
 obligation to the man for his keep. I've written to 
 him to put his salary in the Throop Savings Bank till 
 he wants to invest it. He will have splendid chances 
 for investment, travelling over the country — East, 
 West, South — everywhere ! House full of women ? 
 I hope he will not be falling in love in a hurry. 
 Eobert ought to marry well now.'' 
 
 Miss Cramer said nothing. The sun had set, and a 
 cold twilight had settled down oVer the rocky fields, 
 with their thin crops of hay. To the right was Mrs. 
 Knight's patch, divided into tiny beds of potatoes, 
 corn, and cabbage. As Emma's eyes fell on it she 
 remembered how many years she had helped the 
 widow rake and weed that field, and how they had 
 triumphed in every shilling which they made by the 
 garden-stuff. For Eobert — all for Eobert ! 
 
 Now he had laid his hand on the world's neck and 
 conquered it ! North and West and that great tropical 
 South, with its flowers and houris — all were open to 
 him ! She looked around the circle of barren fields. 
 He had gone out of doors, and she was shut in ! 
 
 Mrs. Knight was watching her with her vague gray 
 eyes. She felt a certain pity for the girl. " Take a 
 rose, Emma," she said, plucking one which was a 
 little worm-eaten. 
 
TIRAR Y SOULT 25 
 
 Emma thauked her, bade her good-night, and went 
 down the darkening road homeward. She looked at 
 the rose, laughed, and threw it away. What a fool 
 she was ! The fact that Robert had a good salary 
 could not change the whole order of the world in a 
 day. Her comradeship with Knight, their plans, their 
 sympathy — this was the order of the world which 
 seemed eternal and solid to poor Emma. 
 
 "I am his friend," she told herself now. "If he 
 had twenty wives, none of them could take my 
 place." 
 
 Now, Knight had not hinted at the possibility of 
 wiving in his letter. There had never been a word or 
 glance of love-making between him and Emma ; yet 
 she saw him, quite distinctly now, at the altar, and 
 beside him a black-eyed houri. 
 
 She entered the farm-house by the kitchen-way. 
 There was the cold squash pie ready to cut for break- 
 fast, and the clothes dampened for ironing. Up in 
 her own bare chamber were paper and ink and two 
 books for review — " Abstract of Greek Philosophy " 
 and " Sub-drainage." 
 
 These reviews were one way in which she had tried 
 to interest him. Interest him ! Greek philosophy ! 
 Drainage ! 
 
 She threw the books on the floor, and, running to 
 the glass, unloosened her hair and ran her fingers 
 through it, tore the handkerchief from her neck, 
 scanned with a breathless eagerness her pale eyes, her 
 freckled skin, and shapeless nose, and then, burying 
 her face in her hands, turned away into the dark. 
 
26 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 The night air that was so thin and chilly in Throop 
 blew over the Lit de Fleurs wet and heavy with the 
 scents, good and bad, of the Gulf marshes. Madame 
 de Fourgon's guests had left the supper-table, and were 
 seated on the low gallery which ran around the house, 
 or lounged in the hammocks that swung under the 
 huge magnolias on the lawn. There were one or two 
 women of undoubted beauty among them ; but Robert 
 Knight was not concerned, that night, with the good- 
 or ill-looks of any woman, either in Throop or Louisi- 
 ana. He was amused by a new companion, a Monsieur 
 Tirar, who had ridden over from a neighboring plan- 
 tation. Knight at first took him for an overgrown 
 boy ; but on coming close to him, he perceived streaks 
 of graj' in the close-cut hair and beard. 
 
 Tirar had recited and acted a comic story, after 
 dinner, at which the older men laughed as at the 
 capers of a monkey. While they were at cards he 
 played croquet with the children. The women sent 
 him on errands. " Jose, my thimble is in the library ! " 
 " Josd, do see where the nurse has taken baby ! " etc. 
 
 A chair had been brought out now for M. de Four- 
 gon's aunt, an old woman with snowy hair and deli- 
 cate, high features. Jose flew to bring her a shawl 
 and wrapped it about her. She patted him on his fat 
 cheek, telling Knight, as he capered away, how invalu- 
 able was the cher enfant. 
 
 " He made that Creole sauce to-day. Ah, the petit 
 gourmand has many secrets of crabs and soups. He 
 says the chefs in Paris confide in him, but they are 
 original, monsieur; they are born in Jose's leetle 
 urain " — tapping her own forehead. 
 
TISAB Y SOULT 27 
 
 " Ah, hear him now ! 'Tis the voice of a seraph ! " 
 She threw up her hands, to command silence in earth 
 and sky ; leaning back and closing her eyes, while the 
 little man, seated with his guitar at the feet of a 
 pretty girl, sang. Even Knight's sluggish nerves 
 were thrilled. He had never heard such a voice as 
 this. It wrung his heart with its dateless pain and 
 pathos. Ashamed of his emotion, he turned to go 
 away. But there was a breathless silence about him. 
 The Creoles all love music, and Jose's voice was 
 famous throughout the Gulf parishes. Even the 
 negro nurses stood staring and open-mouthed. 
 The song ended and Tirar lounged into the house. 
 " Queer dog ! " said M. de Fourgon. " He will not 
 touch a gfuitar again perhaps for months." 
 
 " He would sing if I ask it," said the old lady. " He 
 has reverence for the age." 
 
 M. de Fourgon, behind her, lifted his eyebrows. 
 " Jos6," he said, aside to Knight, "is a good fellow 
 enough up here among the women and babies ; but 
 he has had the jeunesse orageuse : with his own crew, 
 at the St. Charles, there is no more rakehelly scamp 
 in 'New Orleans." 
 
 " Is he a planter ? " asked the curious New Eng- 
 lander. 
 
 Madame Dessaix's keen ears caught the question. 
 " Ah, the poor lad ! he has no land, not an acre ! 
 His father was a Spaniard, Euy Tirar, who married 
 Bonaventura Soult. The Soult and Tirar plantations 
 were immense on the Bayou Sara. Jose's father 
 had his share. Biit crevasse — cards — the war— all 
 gone ! " — opening wide her hands. " When your gov- 
 
28 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 ernment declared peace, it left our poor Jos^, at 
 twenty, with the income of a beggar." 
 
 "But that was twenty years ago," said Knight. 
 " Could he not retrieve his fortune by his profession 
 — business ? What does he do ? " 
 
 " Do ? do ? " — she turned an amazed, perplexed 
 face from one to the other. "Does he think that 
 Jos6 shall work ? Jose ? Mon Dieu 1 " 
 
 " Tirar," said M. de Fourgon, laughing, " is not pre- 
 cisely a business man, Mr. Knight. He has countless 
 friends and kinsfolk. We are all cousins of the Tirars 
 or Soults. He is welcome everywhere." 
 
 " Oh ! " said Knight, with a significant nod. Even 
 in his brief stay in this neighborhood, he had found 
 other men than Jose living in absolute idleness in a 
 community which was no longer wealthy. They were 
 neither old, ill, nor incapable. It was simply not their 
 humor to work. They were supported, and as care- 
 fully guarded as pieces of priceless porcelain. It is a 
 lax, extravagant feature of life, as natural to Louisi- 
 ana as it is impossible to Connecticut. 
 
 It irritated Knight, yet attracted him, as any nov- 
 elty does a young man. He turned away from his 
 companions, and sauntered up and down in the twi- 
 light. To live without work on those rich, prodigal 
 prairies, never to think of to-morrow, to give without 
 stint, even to lazy parasites — there was something 
 royal about that. It touched his fancy. He had 
 known, remember, nothing but Throop and hard work 
 for twenty-two years. 
 
 The air had grown chilly. Inside, M. Tirar had 
 kindled a huge fire on the hearth. He was kneeling, 
 
TIRAR Y SOULT 29 
 
 fanning it with the bellows, while a young girl leaned 
 indolently against the mantel, watching the flames, 
 and now and then motioning to Jos6 to throw on 
 another log. The trifling action startled Knight 
 oddly. How they wasted that wood ! All through 
 his boyhood he had to gather and save every twig 
 and chip. How often he had longed to make one big, 
 wasteful fire, as they were doing now. 
 
 The young lady was a Miss Venn, who had been 
 civil to him. It occurred to him that she was the very 
 embodiment of the lavish life of this place. He did 
 not, then or afterward, consider whether she was beau- 
 tiful or not. But the soft, loose masses of reddish 
 hair, and the large, calm, blue eyes, must, he thought, 
 belong to a woman who was a generous spendthrift of 
 life. 
 
 Perhaps Knight was at heart a spendthrift. At all 
 events, he suddenly felt a strange eagerness to become 
 better acquainted with Miss Venn. He sought her 
 out, the next morning, among the groups under the 
 magnolias. There could be no question that she was 
 stupid. She had read nothing but her Bible and the 
 stories in the newspapers, and had no opinions about 
 either. But she confessed to ignorance of nothing, 
 lying with the most placid, innocent smile. 
 
 "'Hamlet?' Oh, yes; I read that when it first 
 came out. But those things slip through my mind 
 like water through a sieve." 
 
 To Eobert, whose mind had long been rasped by 
 Emma's prickly ideas, this dulness was as a downy bed 
 of ease. Emma was perpetually struggling after prog- 
 ress with every power of her brain. It never occurred 
 
30 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 to Lucretia Venn to plan wliat she would do to-morrow, 
 or at any future time. In Throop, too, there was much 
 hard prejudice between the neighbors. To be clever 
 was to have a sharp acerbity of wit ; Emma's sarcasms 
 cut like a thong. But these people were born kind ; 
 they were friendly to all the world, while in Lucretia 
 there was a soft af&uence of nature which made her 
 the centre of all this warm, pleasant life. The old 
 people called her by some pet name, the dogs followed 
 her, the children climbed into her lap. Knight with 
 her felt like a traveller who has been long lost on a 
 bare, cold marsh and has come into a fire-lighted, 
 hospitable room. 
 
 One afternoon he received the card of M. Jose Tirar 
 y Soult, who came to call upon him formally. The 
 little fop was dazzling in white linen, diamond soli- 
 taires blazing on his breast and wrists. 
 
 " You go to ride ? " he said, as the horses were 
 brought round. " Lucrezia, my child, you go to ride ? 
 It portends rain " — hopping to the edge of the gal- 
 lery. " You will take cold ! " 
 
 " There is not a cloud in the sky," said M. de Tour- 
 gon. " Come, Lucretia, mount ! Jos6 always fancies 
 you on the edge of some calamity." 
 
 " It goes to storm," persisted Tirar. " You must 
 wear a heavier habit, ma petite." 
 
 Miss Venn laughed, ran to her own room, and 
 changed her habit. 
 
 "What way shall you ride?" Jos^ anxiously in- 
 quired of Knight. 
 
 " To the marshes." 
 
 "It is very dangerous there, Monsieur. There are 
 
TIEAR Y SOULT 31 
 
 herds of wild cattle, and slippery ground " — fuming 
 up and down the gallery. " Chut ! Tirar himself will 
 go. I will not see the child's life in risk — me ! " 
 
 Knight was annoyed. "What relation does Mon- 
 sieur Tirar hold to Miss Venn ? " he asked his host, 
 apart. " He assumes the control of a father over her." 
 
 " He is her cousin. He used to nurse the child on 
 his knee, and he does not realize that she has grown 
 to be a woman. Oh, yes, the poor little man loves 
 her as if she were his own child ! When their grand- 
 father, Louis Soult, died, two years ago, he left all his 
 estate to Lucretia, and not a dollar to Jose. It was 
 brutal ! But Jose was delighted. * A woman must 
 have money, or she is cold in the world,' he said. 
 'But to shorn lambs, like me, every wind is tem- 
 pered.' " 
 
 Mr. Knight was thoughtful during the iirst part of 
 the ride. "I did not know," he said, presently, to 
 young McCann, from St. Louis, a stranger like him- 
 self, "that Miss Venn was a wealthy woman." 
 
 " Oh, yes, the largest land-holder in this parish, and 
 ten thousand a year, clear, besides." 
 
 Ten thousand a year ! And Emma drudging till 
 midnight for two or three dollars a column ! Poor 
 Emma! A gush of unwonted tenderness filled his 
 heart. The homely, faithful soul ! 
 
 Ten thousand a year? Knight would have been 
 humiliated to think that this money could change his 
 feeling to the young woman who owned it. But it did 
 change it. She was no longer only a dull, fascinating 
 appeal to his imagination. She was a power ; some- 
 thing to be regarded with respect, like a Building 
 
32 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 Association or a Pacific Eailway. But for some unex- 
 plained reason he carefully avoided her during the ride. 
 Miss Venn was annoyed at this desertion, and showed 
 it as a child would do. She beckoned him again and 
 again to look at a heron's nest, or at the water-snakes 
 darting through the edges of the bayou, or at a family 
 of chameleons who were keeping house on a prickly- 
 pear. Finding that he did not stay at her side, she 
 gave up her innocent wiles, at last, and rode on in 
 silence. M. Tirar then flung himself headlong into 
 the breach. He poured forth information about Louis- 
 iana for Knight's benefit, with his own flighty opinions 
 tagged thereto. He told stories and laughed at them 
 louder than anybody else, his brown eyes dancing with 
 fun; but through all he kept a furtive watch upon 
 Lucretia, to see the effect upon her. 
 
 They had now reached the marshes which lie along 
 the Gulf. They were covered with a thin grass, which 
 shone, bright emerald, in the hot noon. The tide soaked 
 the earth beneath, and drove back the narrow lagoons 
 that were creeping seaward. A herd of raw-boned cat- 
 tle wandered aimlessly over the spongy surface, doubt- 
 ful whether the land was water, or the water, land. 
 They staggered as they walked, from sheer weakness ; 
 one steer fell exhausted, and as Lucretia's horse passed, 
 it lifted its head feebly, looked at her with beseeching 
 eyes, and dropped it again. A flock of buzzards in the 
 distance scented their prey and began to swoop down 
 out of the clear sky, flashes of black across the vivid 
 green of the prairie, with low and lower dips until they 
 alighted, quivering, on the dying beast and began to 
 tear the flesh from its side. 
 
TUiAR T SOULT 33 
 
 Jos^ rode them down, yelling with rage. He came 
 back jabbering in Spanish and looking gloomily over 
 the vast, empty marsh. '■ I hate death anywhere, but 
 this is wholesale murder ! These wretched Cajans of 
 the marsh raise larger herds than they cmi feed ; they 
 starve by the hundreds. That poor beast is dead — 
 thanks be to God!" After a pause. "Well, well!" he 
 cried, with a shrug, "your syndicate will soon convert 
 this delta into solid ground, Mr. Knight; it is a noble 
 work ! Vast fortunes ' — with a magniloquent sweep 
 of his arm — " lie hidden under this mud." 
 
 '•Why don't you take a share in the noble work. 
 then?" asked McCaun. '-That is. if it would not 
 interfere with your other occupations ? " 
 
 " jMe ? I have no occupations ! What work should 
 I do ? " asked Jos^ with a fillip of his pudgy fingers. 
 Presently he galloped up to Miss Venn's side with an 
 anxious face. 
 
 " Lucrezia, my child, has it occurred to you that you 
 would like me better if I were doctor, or lawyer, or 
 something '? " 
 
 She looked at him, bewildered, but said nothing. 
 
 " It has not occurred to me," he went on, seriously. 
 '' I have three, four hundred dollars every year to buy 
 my clothes. I have the Tii-ar jewellery. What more 
 do I want ? Everything I need comes to me." 
 
 " Certainly, why not ? " she answered, absently, her 
 eyes wandering in search of something across the marsh. 
 
 " Then you do not mind ? " he persisted, anxiously. 
 "I wish my little girl to be pleased with old Jose. 
 As for the rest of /the world '" — he cracked his thumb 
 contemptuously. 
 
34 SILHOUETTES OF AMEBIC AN LIFE 
 
 Miss Venn smiled faintly. She had not even heard 
 him. She was watching Knight, who had left the 
 party and was riding homeward alone. Jose fancied 
 there were tears in her eyes. 
 
 " Lucrezia 1 " 
 
 No answer. 
 
 " Lucrezia, do not worry ! I am here." 
 
 " You ! Oh, Mon Dieu ! You are always here ! " 
 she broke forth, pettishly. 
 
 Jose gasped as if he had been struck, then he reined 
 in his horse, falling back, while Mr. McCann gladly 
 took his place. 
 
 M. Tirar, after that day, did not return to the plan- 
 tation. Once he met M. de Fourgon somewhere in 
 the parish, and with a sickly smile asked if Lucretia 
 were in good health. "Remember, Jean," he added, 
 earnestly, riding with him a little way, " I am that 
 little girl's guardian. If she ever marry, it is Jose 
 who must give her away. So ridiculous in her father 
 to make a foolish young fellow like me her guar- 
 dian ! " 
 
 "Not at all! No, indeed! Very proper, Tirar," 
 said M. de Fourgon, politely, at which Jose's face 
 grew still paler and more grave. 
 
 One day he appeared about noon on the gallery. 
 His shoes were muddy, his clothes the color of a 
 bedraggled moth. 
 
 " Ah, mon enfant ! " cried Madame Dessaix, kindly, 
 from her chair in a shady corner. " What is wrong ? 
 No white costume this day, no diamonds, no laugh ? 
 What is it, Jose ? " 
 
 "Nothing, madame," said the little man, drearily. 
 
TIRAR Y SOULT 35 
 
 " I grow old. I dress no more as a young man. I 
 accommodate myself to the age — the wrinkles." 
 
 " ' Wrinkles ' ? Bah ! Come and sit by me. ITor 
 whom is it that you look ? " 
 
 " But — I thought I heard Lucrezia laugh as I rode 
 up the levee ? " 
 
 Madame Dessaix nodded significantly and, putting 
 her fingers on her lips, with all the delight that a 
 Frenchwoman takes in lovers, led him, on tip-toe, to 
 the end of the gallery and, drawing aside the vines, 
 showed him Lucretia in a hammock under a gigantic 
 pecan-tree. A mist of hanging green moss closed 
 about her. She lay in it as a soft, white bird in 
 a huge nest. Knight stood leaning against the trunk 
 of the tree, looking down at her, his thin face intent 
 and heated. He had spoken to her, but she did not 
 answer. She smiled lazily, as she did when the chil- 
 dren patted her on the cheek. 
 
 " Voiltb ! " whispered Madame Dessaix, triumphantly. 
 Then she glanced at M. Tirar, finding that he looked 
 on in silence. He roused himself, with a queer noise 
 in his throat. 
 
 "Yes, yes! ifTow — what does she answer him?" 
 
 " M^re de Dieu! "What can she answer? He is 
 young. He is a man who has his own way. He will 
 have no answer but the one ! We consider the affair 
 finished ! " 
 
 Tirar made no comment. He turned and walked 
 quickly down to the barnyard, where the . children 
 ■were, and stood among them and the cows for awhile. 
 The stable-boys, used to jokes and picayunes from 
 him, turned hand-springs and sky-larked under his 
 
36 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 feet. Finding that he neither laughed nor swore at 
 them, they began to watch him more narrowly, and 
 noticed his shabby clothes with amazed contempt. 
 
 "Don Jose seek, ta^ta!" they whispered. "Don 
 Jos6, yo' no see mad on yo' clo'es ? " 
 
 But he stood leaning over the fence, deaf and blind 
 to them. 
 
 His tormentors tried another point of attack. " Don 
 Jose no seek, but his mare seek. Poor Chiquita ! 
 She old horse now.'' 
 
 " It's a damned lie ! " Tirar turned on the boy with 
 such fury that he jumped back. " She's uot old. 
 Bring her out ! " 
 
 The negroes tumbled over each other in tl leir fright. 
 The little white mare was led out. Jose )atted her 
 with trembling hands. Whatever great t /ouble had 
 shaken him turned for the moment into th' s petty out- 
 let. 
 
 " There is not such a horse in Attakapas ! " he mut- 
 tered to himself. " I am old, but she is yoving ! " The 
 mare whinnied with pleasure as he stroked her and 
 mounted. 
 
 As he rode from the enclosure a clumsy bay horse 
 was led out of the stable. Knight came down the 
 levee to meet it. Jos6 scanned it with fierce contempt. 
 " Ah, the low-born beast ! And its master is no other- 
 wise ! But who can tell what shall please the little 
 girl?" 
 
 But Tirar could not shut liis eyes to the fact that 
 the figure on the heavy horse was manly and fine. The 
 courage in his heart was at its lowest ebb. 
 
 " Jose is old and fat — fat. That is a young fellow — 
 
TISAB r SOULT 37 
 
 he is like a man ! " His chin quivered like a hysteric 
 woman's. The next minute he threw himself on the 
 mare's neck. 
 
 "I have only you now, Chiquita! lifobody but 
 you ! " 
 
 She threw hack her ears and skimmed across the 
 prairie with the hoof of a deer. When he passed 
 Knight, M. Tirar saluted him with profound courtesy. 
 
 "Funny little man," said Robert to McCann, who 
 had joined him. "You might call him a note of ex- 
 aggeration in the world. But that is a fine horse that 
 he rides." 
 
 " Yes ; a famous racer in her day, they tell me. 
 Tirar talks of her as if she were a blood-relation. I 
 wish we had horses of her build just now. That brute 
 of yours sinks in the mud with every step." 
 
 " It is deeper than usual to-day. I don't understand 
 it. We have had no rain." 
 
 They separated ia a few minutes, Knight taking his 
 way to the sea^marshes. 
 
 The marshes were always silent, but there was a 
 singular, deep stillness upon them to-day. The sun 
 was hidden by low-hanging mists, but it turned them 
 into tent-like veils of soft, silvery brilliance. The 
 colors and even the scents of the marshes were oddly 
 intensified beneath them; the air held the strong 
 smells of the grass and roses motionless ; the lagoons, 
 usually chocolate-colored, were inky black between 
 their fringes of yellow and purple flags ; the countless 
 circular pools of clear water seemed to have increased 
 in number, and leaped and bubbled as if alive. 
 
 If poor Emma could but turn her eyes from the 
 
38 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 barren fields of Throop to this strange, enchanted 
 plain ! 
 
 He checked himself. What right had he to wish 
 for Emma ? Lucretia — 
 
 But Lucretia -would see nothing in it but mud and 
 weeds ! 
 
 Lucretia was a dear soul ; but after all, he thought, 
 with a laugh, her best qualities were those of an 
 amiable cow. That very day he had brought himself 
 to make love to her with as much force as his brain 
 could put into words, and she had listened with the 
 amused, pleased, ox-like stare of one of these cattle 
 when its sides were tickled by the long grass. She 
 had given him no definite answer. 
 
 Knight ploughed his way through the spongy prai- 
 rie, therefore, in a surly ill-humor, which the unusual 
 depth of mud did not make more amiable. He was 
 forced to ride into the bayoux every few minutes to 
 wash the clammy lumps from the legs of his horse. 
 
 Where M. Tirar went that day, he himself, when 
 afternoon came, could not have told distinctly. He 
 had a vague remembrance that he had stopped at one 
 or two Acadian farm-houses for no purpose whatever. 
 He was not a drinking man, and had tasted nothing 
 but water all day, yet his brain was stunned and 
 bruised, as if he was rousing from a long debauch. 
 When he came to himself he was on the lower marshes. 
 Chiquita had suddenly stopped, planted her legs apart 
 like a mule, and refused to budge an inch farther. 
 What ailed this bayou ? It, too, had come to a halt, 
 and had swollen into a stagnant black pond. 
 
 Jose was altogether awake now. He understood 
 
TIRAR Y SOULT 39 
 
 ■what had happened. A heavy spring tide in the Gulf 
 had barred all outlet for the bayoux, which cut through 
 the marshes. The great river, for which they were 
 but mouths, was already forcing its way over their 
 banks and oozing through all the spongy soil. There 
 was no immediate danger of his drowning ; but unless 
 he made instant escape, there was a certainty that he 
 would be held and sucked into the vast and rapidly 
 spreading quicksands of mud until he did drown. 
 
 If Chiquita— ? 
 
 He wheeled her head to the land and called to her. 
 She began to move with extreme caution, testing each 
 step, now and then leaping to a hummock of solid 
 earth. Twice she stopped and changed her course. 
 Jose dismounted several times and tried to lead her. 
 But he soon was bogged knee-deep. He saw that the 
 instinct of the horse was safer than his judgment, and 
 at last sat quietly in the saddle. At ordinary times 
 he would have sworn and scolded, and, perhaps, being 
 alone, have shed tears, for Jos6 was at heart a coward 
 and dearly loved his life. 
 
 But to-day it was low tide in the little man's heart. 
 The bulk of life had gone from him with Lucretia. 
 His love for her had given him dignity in his own 
 eyes ; without her he was a poor buffoon, who car- 
 ried his jokes from house to house in payment for 
 alms. 
 
 He did what he could, however, to save his life, 
 rationally enough — threw off his heavy boots, and 
 the Spanish saddle, to lighten the load on the mare, 
 patted her, sang and laughed to cheer her. Once, when 
 the outlook was desperate, he jumped off. " She shall 
 
40 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 not die ! " he said, fiercely. He tried to drive Iter 
 away, but she stood still, gazing at him wistfully. 
 
 "Aha!" shouted Jose, delighted, nodding to some 
 invisible looker-on. " Do you see that ? She will not 
 forsake me ! So, my darling ! You and Tirar will 
 keep together to the last." He mounted again. 
 
 Chiquita, after that, made slow but steady progress. 
 She reached a higher plateau. Even there the pools 
 were rapidly widening ; the oozing jetty water began 
 to shine between the blades of grass. In less than 
 an hour this level also would be in the sea. 
 
 But in less than an hour Chiquita would have brought 
 him to dry ground. 
 
 Jose talked to her incessantly now, in Spanish, 
 arguing as to this course or that. 
 
 "Ha! What is that?" he cried, pulling her up. 
 " That black lump by the bayou? A man — no! A 
 horse and man ! They are sinking — held fast ! " 
 
 He was silent a moment, panting with excitement. 
 Then— "It is Knight!" he shouted. "Caught like 
 a rat in a trap ! He will die — thanks be to God ! " 
 
 If Knight were dead, Lucretia would be his own 
 little girl again. 
 
 The thought was the flash of a moment. Knight's 
 back was toward him. Jose, unseen, waited irresolute. 
 
 After the first murderous triumph he hoped Robert 
 could be saved. Tirar was a coward, but at bottom he 
 was a man — how much of a man remained to be 
 proved. The longer he looked at the engineer, the 
 more he hated him, with a blind, childish fury. 
 
 " But I am not murderer — I ! " he said to himself, 
 mechanically, again and again. 
 
TIRAR Y SOULT 41 
 
 Chiquita pawed, impatient to be off. The water 
 was rising about her hoofs. It sparkled now every- 
 where below the reeds. Death was waiting for both 
 the men — a still, silent, certain death — the more 
 horrible because there was no fury or darkness in it. 
 The silvery mist still shut the world in, like the walls 
 of a tent; the purple and yellow flags shone tran- 
 quilly in the quiet light ; overhead, the black, darting 
 buzzards swooped lower and lower. Tirar, seeing 
 them, gnashed his teeth. 
 
 Chiquita could save one man, and but one. 
 
 The Tirars and Soults had been men of courage 
 and honor for generations. Their blood was quicken- 
 ing in his fat little body. 
 
 A thought struck him like a stab from a knife. "If 
 Knight dies, it will break her heart. But me ! " Then 
 he cracked his thumb contemptuously. " What does 
 she care for poor old Jose ? " 
 
 We will not ask what passed in his heart during the 
 next ten minutes. 
 
 He and his God were alone together. 
 
 He came up to Knight and tapped him on the 
 shoulder. " Hello ! What's wrong ? " 
 
 " I'm bogged. This brute of a horse is sinking in 
 the infernal mud." 
 
 " Don't jerk at him ! I'll change the horses with 
 you, if you are in a hurry to reach the plantation. 
 Chiquita can take you more quickly than he." 
 
 " But you ? — I don't understand you. What will 
 you do ? " 
 
 " I am in no hurry." 
 
 "This horse will not carry you. It seems to me 
 that the mud is growing deeper." 
 
42 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN- LIFE 
 
 " I understand the horses and mud of our marshes 
 better than you. Come, take Chiquita. Go ! " 
 
 Knight alighted and mounted the mare, with a per- 
 plexed face. He had begun to think himself in actual 
 danger, and was mortified to find that Jose made so 
 light of the affair. 
 
 " Well, good day, Monsieur Tirar ! " he said. " It 
 is very kind in you to take that confounded beast 
 off my hands. I'll sell him to-morrow if I can." 
 He nodded to Jose, and jerked the bridle sharply. 
 " Come, get up ! " he said, touching Chiquita with a 
 whip. 
 
 Jose leaped at him like a cat. "Damnation! Don't 
 dare to touch her ! " — wrenching the whip from his 
 hand, and raising it to strike him. " Pardon, Mon- 
 sieur," stiffening himself, "my horse will not bear a 
 stroke. Do not speak to her and she will carry you 
 safely." His hand rested a moment on the mare's 
 neck. He muttered something to her in Spanish, and 
 then he turned his back that he might not see her go 
 away. 
 
 Mr. Knight reached the upper marshes in about two 
 hours. He caught sight of a boat going down the 
 bayou, and recognizing M. de ¥ourgon and some other 
 men from the plantation in it, rode down to meet 
 them. 
 
 " Thank God, you are safe. Knight ! " exclaimed M. 
 de Pourgon. "How's that ? Surely that is Chiquita 
 you are riding ! Where did you find her ? " 
 
 "That queer little Mexican insisted that I should 
 swap horses with him. My nag was bogged, and — " 
 
 The men looked at each other. 
 
TIEAR T SOULT 43 
 
 " Where did you leave him ? " 
 
 " In the sea-marsh, near the mouth of this bayou. 
 Why, what do you mean ? Is he in danger ? Stop ! " 
 he shouted, as they pulled away without a word. 
 " For God's sake, let me go with you ! " He left 
 Chiquita on the bank and leaped into the boat, taking 
 an oar. 
 
 "You do not mean that he has risked his life for 
 mine ? " he said. 
 
 "It looks like it," McCann replied. "And yet I 
 could have sworn that he disliked you, especially." 
 
 " The old Tirar blood has not perished from off the 
 earth," said M. de Fourgon, in a low voice. " Give 
 way ! Together now ! I fear we are too late." 
 
 The whole marsh was under water before they 
 reached it. They found Jose's body submerged, but 
 wedged in the crotch of a pecan-tree, into which he 
 had climbed. It fell like a stone into the boat. 
 
 M. de Fourgon laid his ear to his heart, pressed his 
 chest, and rose, replying by a shake of the head to 
 their looks. He took up his oar and rowed in silence 
 for a few minutes. 
 
 "Pull, gentlemen ! " he said, hoarsely. "The night 
 is almost upon us. We will take him to my house." 
 
 But Knight did not believe that Jose was dead. 
 He stripped him, and rubbed and chafed the sodden 
 body in the bottom of the boat. When they reached 
 the house, and, after hours of vain effort, even the 
 physician gave up. Knight would not listen to him. 
 
 " He shall not die, I tell you ! Why should his life 
 be given for mine ? I did not even thank him, brute 
 that I am ! " 
 
44 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 It was but a few minutes after that, that he looked 
 up from his rubbing, his face growing suddenly white. 
 The doctor put his hand on Tirar's breast. " It beats ! " 
 he cried, excitedly. " Stand back ! Air — brandy ! " 
 
 At last Jose opened his eyes, and his lips moved. 
 " What is it, my dear fellow ? " they all cried, crowd- 
 ing around him. But only Knight caught the whisper. 
 He stood up, an amazed comprehension in his eyes. 
 
 Drawing M. de Fourgon aside, he said : " I under- 
 stand now ! I see why he did it ! " and hurried away 
 abruptly, in search of Miss Venn. 
 
 The next morning M. Tirar was carried out in an 
 easy-chair to the gallery. 
 
 He was the hero of the day. The whole household, 
 from Madame Dessaix to the black picaninnies, buzzed 
 about him. Miss Venn came down the gallery, beam- 
 ing, flushed, her eyes soft with tears. She motioned 
 them all aside and sat down by him, stroking his cold 
 hand in her warm ones. 
 
 " It is me that you want, Jos^ ? Not these others ? 
 Only ms ? " 
 
 " If you can spare for me a little time, Lucrezia ? " 
 he said, humbly. 
 
 She did not reply for so long that he turned and 
 looked into her face. 
 
 "A little time? All of the time," she whispered. 
 
 Jos^ started forward. His chilled heart had scarcely 
 seemed to beat since he was taken from the water. 
 ISTow it sent the blood hot through his body. 
 
 "What do you mean, child?" he said, sternly. 
 "Think what you say. It is old Jos^. Do you 
 mean — ? " 
 
TIRAR Y SOULT 45 
 
 "Yes; and I always meant it," she said, quietly. 
 "Why, there are only us left — you and me. And 
 Chiquita," she added, laughing. 
 
 ******** 
 
 A week later Mrs. Knight received a letter from 
 Robert, with the story of his rescue. She cried over 
 it a good deal. 
 
 "Though I don't see why he thinks it such an 
 extraordinary thing in that little man to do ! " she 
 reflected. "Anybody would wish to save Kobert, 
 even a wild Mexican. And, why upon earth, because 
 his life was in danger, he should have written to offer 
 it to Emma Cramer, beats me ! She hasn't a dollar." 
 
 Through the window, presently, she saw the girl 
 crossing the fields, with quick, light steps. 
 
 " She's heard from him ! She's coming to tell me. 
 Well, I did think Eobert would have married a woman 
 of means, having his pick and choice — " 
 
 But the widow's heart had been deeply moved. 
 "Poor Emma! She's been as faithful as a dog to 
 Eobert. If she has no money, she will save his as au 
 heiress would not have done. Providence orders all 
 things right," she thought, relenting. "If that girl 
 has not put on her best white dress on a week-day ! 
 How glad she must be ! I'll go and meet her, I guess. 
 She has no mother now, to kiss her, or say God bless 
 her, poor child ! " And she hurried to the gate. 
 
WALHALLA 
 
 A FEW years ago a young English artist, named 
 Held, who was travelling through this country, 
 stopped for a day or two at Louisville, having found 
 an old friend there. 
 
 He urged this gentleman to go with him into the 
 mountainous region of Tennessee and North Carolina. 
 
 "The foliage," he said, " will be worth study in Sep- 
 tember; and besides, I have an errand there for my 
 brother. He is a house-decorator in New York, and 
 when he was in the Alps last summer, he was told that 
 a wood-carver, whose work he once saw in Berne, and 
 fancied, had emigrated to America two or three years 
 ago, turned fg^mer, and joined a small German colony 
 in these mountains. I am to find this colony if I can, 
 and if there is any workman of real skill ia it, to offer 
 him regular work and good wages in New York. My 
 brother is in immediate need of a panel-carver." 
 
 " He could have imported a dozen from Berne." 
 
 " Certainly," said Eeid, with a shrug ; " but Tom has 
 
 his whims. He fancied that he detected a delicacy, a 
 
 spirit in this man's work — an undiscovered genius, in 
 
 fact. His name, unfortunately, slipped Tom's mem- 
 
 46 
 
WALHALLA 47 
 
 ory. Where do you suppose the fellow is hidden, 
 Pomeroy ? Do you know of any such colony ? " 
 
 " No, and I hardly can believe that there are any 
 thrifty Germans among those impregnable mountains. 
 Why, access to many of the counties is only to be had 
 on mules, and at the risk of your neck. Your German 
 must have a market for his work ; he would find none 
 there." 
 
 They were talking in the breakfast room of the 
 hotel. A man at the same table looked up and nodded. 
 
 " Beg pardon, but couldn't help overhearing. Think 
 the place you want is in South Carolina. Name of 
 Walhalla. Village. Queei little corner. Oconee 
 county." 
 
 " Oh, thanks, much ! " said Eeid, eying him specu- 
 latively, as probably a new specimen of the American. 
 "Any Swiss there, do you know ? " 
 
 " That I can't tell you, sir," said the stranger, ex- 
 panding suddenly into the geniality of an old acquain- 
 tance. " They're Germans, I take it. Shut out of the 
 world by the mountains as completely as if the place 
 was a 'hall of the dead,' as they call it. There it is, 
 with German houses and German customs, dropped 
 down right into the midst of Carolina snufE-rubbers, 
 and Georgian clay-eaters. I found the village five 
 years ago, while I was buying up skins in the moun- 
 tains. I'm a fur dealer. Cincianati. One of my 
 cards, gentlemen ? " 
 
 To Walhalla, therefore, Mr. Eeid and his friend 
 went. They tried to strike a bee-line to it, through a 
 wilderness of mountain ranges, by trails known only 
 
48 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 to the trappers; taking them as their guides, and 
 sleeping in their huts at night. After two weeks of 
 climbing among the clouds, of solitary communion 
 with Nature, of unmitigated dirt, fried pork, and fleas, 
 they came in sight of Walhalla. 
 
 They had reached Macon county. North Carolina, 
 where the Appalachian range, which stretches like a 
 vast bulwark along the eastern coast of the continent, 
 closes abruptly in walls of rock, jutting like mighty 
 promontories into the plains of Georgia. 
 
 Eeid and Pomeroy stopped one morning on one of 
 these heights, to water their mules at a spring, from 
 which two streams bubbled through the grass and 
 separated, one to flow into the Atlantic, the other into 
 the Gulf of Mexico, so narrow and steep was the ridge 
 on which they stood. The wind blew thin and cold in 
 their faces; the sun shone brightly about them; but 
 below, great masses of cumulus clouds were driven, 
 ebbing like waves, out toward the horizon. Far down 
 in the valley a rain-storm was raging. It occupied but 
 small space, and looked like a motionless cataract of 
 gray fog, torn at times by yellow, jagged lightning. 
 
 Not far from the spring a brown mare was tethered, 
 and near it a stout yoving man in blue homespun was 
 lying, stretched lazily out on the dry, ash-colored moss, 
 his chin in his palms, watching the storm in the val- 
 ley. An empty sack had served as a saddle for the 
 mare ; slung about the man's waist was a whiskey flask 
 and a horn. He was evidently a farmer, who had 
 come up into the mountains to salt his wild cattle. 
 
 Eeid took note of the clean jacket, the steady blue 
 eyes, the red rose in his cap. 
 
WALHALLA 49 
 
 "Swiss," he said to Pomeroy. "Where is Walhalla, 
 my friend ? " 
 
 The man touched his cap, and pointed to a wisp of 
 smoke at the base of the mountain. As they rode on, 
 his dog snuffed curiously at their horses' heels, but 
 Hans did not raise his head to look after them. 
 
 "That is the first man I have seen in America," 
 said Keid, "who took time to look at the world he 
 lived in." 
 
 When they were gone, Hans lay watching the cloud 
 below soften from a metallic black mass into pearly 
 haze ; then it drifted up into films across the green 
 hills. On the nearer plain below, he could now see 
 the white-boiled cotton-fields, wet and shining after 
 the shower; threads of mist full of rainbow lights 
 traced out the water-courses ; damp, earthy scents 
 came up to the height from the soaked forests. After 
 a long while he rose leisurely, his eyes fiUed with sat- 
 isfaction, as one who has had a good visit in the home 
 of a friend. He mounted the mare and rode down the 
 trail; the sun shone ruddily on the peaks above him, 
 but there was a damp, shivering twilight in the gorges. 
 Both seemed holiday weather to the young fellow ; his 
 mare whinnied when he patted her neck ; the dog ran, 
 barking and jumping upon him ; it was a conversation 
 that had been going on for years among old friends. 
 
 Mr. Eeid reached Walhalla just before sundown. 
 As his mule went slowly down the wide street, ha 
 looked from side to side with pleased surprise. 
 
 "It is a street out of some German village," he 
 said. "I have not seen such thrift or homely com- 
 fort in this country." 
 
50 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 " It is only the sudden contrast to the grandeur aud 
 dirt behind us," said Pomeroy. "If you miss the 
 repose and exaltation of the lofty heights which you 
 talked of, you will find scrubbed floors and flea-less 
 beds a solid consolation." 
 
 The sleepy hamlet consisted of but one broad street, 
 lined by quaint wooden houses, their stoops covered 
 with grape-vines or roses. Back of these houses 
 stretched trim gardens, gay with dahlias and yellow 
 wall-flowers ; back of these, again, were the farms. 
 Along the middle of the street, at intervals, were 
 shaded wells, public scales, a platform for town meet- 
 ings. The people were gathered about one of the wells, 
 in their old German fashion, the men with their pipes, 
 the women with their knitting. 
 
 Eeid remained in Walhalla for two or three days. 
 He found that there were several Swiss families and 
 that many of the men had been wood-carvers at home. 
 He hit upon a plan to accomplish his purpose. He gave 
 a subject for a panel, — the Might into Egypt, — and 
 announced that any one who chose might undertake 
 the work; that he would return in a month (he 
 had fo'md there was access to Columbia by railway 
 through the valley), and would then buy the best 
 panel offered at a fair price, and, if the skill shown in 
 the work satisfied him, would send the carver to New 
 York free of expense, aud insure him high and steady 
 wages. 
 
 On the day that he left, all the village collected 
 about the well to talk the matter over. Here was a 
 strange gust from the outer world blowing into their 
 dead calm! Most of them had forgotten that there 
 
WALHALLA 51 
 
 ■was a world outside of Walhalla. They tilled their 
 farms and bartered with the mountaineers. Twice a 
 year Schopf went to Charlotte for goods to fill his 
 drowsy shop. New York ? Eiches ? Fame ? The 
 blast of a strange trumpet, truly. The blood began 
 to quicken. Such of them as had been wood-carvers 
 felt their fingers itch for the knife. 
 
 "No doubt it is George Heller who will win it," 
 everybody said. "That fellow has ambition to con- 
 quer the world. Did you see how he followed the 
 Englishmen about ? He could talk to them in their 
 own fashion. George is no ordinary man ! " 
 
 "If Hans had but his wit now!" said one, nodding 
 as Hans on his mare came down the street. "Hans is 
 a good fellow. But he will never make a stir in the 
 world. Now, George's fingers used to be as nimble as 
 his tongue." 
 
 Heller's tongue, meanwhile, was wagging nimbly 
 enough at the other side of the well. He was a little, 
 wiry, red-haired, spectacled fellow, with a perpetual 
 movement and sparkle about him, as if his thoughts 
 were flame. 
 
 " That's the right sort of talk. Fame — big profit ! 
 Why should we always drag behind the world here at 
 Walhalla? Plough and dig, plough and dig! The 
 richest man in New York left Germany a butcher's 
 son, with his wallet strapped on his back ; and what 
 is a butcher to an artist ? Just give me a foothold in 
 New York and I'll show you what a baker's son can 
 do, let Hans Becht laugh as he chooses ! " For Hans, 
 who had come down to the well, was listening with a 
 quizzical twinkle in his eye. He filled his pipe, 
 
52 8ILH0UETTMS OF AMEEIOAN LIFE 
 
 laughed, sat down and said nothing. Everybody knew 
 Hans to be the most silent man in Walhalla. 
 
 The pretty girls gathered shyly closer to Heller; 
 and the boys thrust their hands in their pockets and 
 stared admiringly up at him. Hans was their especial 
 friend, but what a stout, common-place creature he 
 was beside this brilliant fellow ! 
 
 "A man only needs a foothold in this ■world!" 
 George said, adjusting his spectacles and looking ner- 
 vously toward a bench where a young girl sat holding 
 her baby brother. The child was a solid lump of flesh, 
 but she looked down at him with the tenderest eyes 
 in the world. The sight of her drove the blood through 
 Heller's veins almost as hotly as the smell of a glass 
 of liquor would do. "Oh, if I win, I'll take a wife 
 from Walhalla ! " he cried, laughing excitedly, looking 
 at her and not caring that the whole village saw his 
 look. " I'll come back for the girl I Iotc ! " He fan- 
 cied that the shy eyes had caught the fire from his 
 own and answered with a sudden flash. 
 
 Hans thought so, too ; his pipe went out in his 
 mouth. When she rose to go home, he took the heavy 
 boy out of her arms, and walked beside her. Heller's 
 shrill voice sounded behind them like a vehement fife. 
 
 "Success . . . dollars . . . dollars!" 
 
 Hans looked anxiously down into her face. 
 
 "They are good things," she said; "very good 
 things." 
 
 Hans's tongue was tied as usual. He dropped Phil 
 in the cradle in the kitchen, and then came out and 
 led Christine down to the garden of his own house. 
 
 What was New York — money, to liome ? Surely 
 
WALBALLA 53 
 
 she must see that ! He led her slowly past the well- 
 built barn and piggeries, past the bee-hives hidden 
 behind the cherry-trees, and seated her on the porch. 
 He thought these things would speak for him. Hans 
 clung as closely to his home as Phil yonder to his 
 mother's breast. But Christine looked sullen. 
 
 Hans said nothing. 
 
 " A man should not be satisfied with a kitchen gar- 
 den," she said sharply. 
 
 They sat on the porch steps. The night air was 
 warm and pure, the moon hung low over the rice fields 
 to the left, throwing fantastic shadows that chased 
 each other like noiseless ghosts as the wind swayed 
 the grain. To the right, beyond the valley, the moun- 
 tains pierced the sky. They were all so friendly, but 
 dumb — dumb as himself. If they could only speak 
 and say of how little account money was, after all ! 
 It seemed to Hans as if they were always just going 
 to speak ! 
 
 But Christine -did not look at sky, or mountains, or 
 sleeping valley. She looked at the gravel at her feet, 
 and gave it a little kick. 
 
 " No doubt George Heller will succeed. I hope he 
 will, too ! " she said vehemently. " If a man has the 
 real stuff in him let him show it to the world ! I'll 
 go home now, Mr. Becht." 
 
 That evening Hans's violin was silent. He used to 
 play until late in the night ; but he was sharpening 
 his long unused knives, with a pale face. He, too, 
 was beginning a Flight into Egypt. 
 
 During the next two weeks a tremendous whittling 
 went on in Walhalla. Some old fellows, who had 
 
54 SILHOUETTES OF AMESICAN LIFE 
 
 never cut anything but paper-knives and match-boxes, 
 were fired with the universal frenzy. Why should 
 not Stein, the cobbler, or Fritz, the butcher, chip his 
 way to wealth, fame, and New York ? There is not 
 a butcher or cobbler of us all who does not secretly 
 believe himself a genius equal to the best — barred 
 down by circumstance. George Heller kept his work 
 secret, but he was mightily stirred by it in soul and 
 body. Twice, in a rage, he broke the panel into bits, 
 and came out pale and covered with perspiration ; he 
 walked about muttering to himself like one in a 
 dream ; he went to Godfrey Stein's inn and drank 
 wine and brandy, and then more brandy, and forgot 
 to pay. Genius is apt to leave the lesser virtues in 
 the lurch. He kicked the dogs out of the way, cursed 
 the children, and was insolent to his old father who 
 still fed and clothed him. 
 
 "He's no better than a wolf's whelp ! " said Stein. 
 "But he's got the true artist soul. He'll win!" 
 Now if anybody knew the world, it was Godfrey 
 Stein. 
 
 Nobody thought Hans Becht would win but his old 
 mother. She was sure of it. She sat beside him 
 with her knitting, talking all the time. Why did he 
 not give himself more time ? The rice-field must be 
 flooded ? Let the rice go this year. He spent three 
 hours in the cotton this morning. And what with fod- 
 dering the stock, and rubbing down even the pigs — . 
 What were cotton and pigs to this chance ? It would 
 come but once a life-time. 
 
 Meanwhile, Hans, when free from pigs and rice 
 and cotton, sat by the window and cut, cut, and 
 
WALHALLA 55 
 
 whistled softly. The door of the kitchen stood open, 
 and the chickens came picking their way on to the 
 white floor. A swift stream of water ran through 
 the millet field and across the garden, shining in the 
 sun. The red rhododendrons nodded over it, and 
 the rowan bushes, scarlet with berries. Beyond the 
 millet field, there was a rampart of rolling hills, bronzed 
 with the early frost; but here blazed the crimson 
 leaves of the shonieho, and there a cucumber tree 
 thrust its open golden fruit, studded with scarlet 
 seeds, through the dull back-ground. Beyond this 
 rising ground were the peaks, indistinct as gray 
 shadows, holding up the sky. 
 
 Sometimes Mother Becht caught Hans with his 
 knife idle, looking at these far off heights, or at the 
 minnows glancing through the brook near at hand. 
 There was a great pleasure in his eyes. 
 
 "You are a fool to throw away your time," she 
 cried. "Can you cut that red weed or the sky into 
 your wood ? You could not even paint them." 
 
 " God forbid that anybody should try ! " thought 
 Hans. 
 
 "Stick to your work! work counts. The things 
 that count in the world are those which push you iip 
 among your neighbors." 
 
 Hans began to cut a tip to Joseph's nose. 
 
 "The things which count in the world — " he 
 queried to himself. He did his thinking very slowly. 
 His blind father sat outside in the sun ; he came in 
 every hour or two to hear how the work was going on, 
 and then went to Schopf's shop to report. His wife told 
 him that there was no doubt that Hans would succeed. 
 
56 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 " Joseph is good, and Mary is very fine," she said. 
 "But the mule is incomparable. If you could only 
 see the mule ! When Hans goes to New York, do 
 you think he will take us at once, or send for us in 
 the spring ? I think it would be safer to make the 
 journey in the spring. But it will not matter to pas- 
 sengers in palace cars — no emigrant train for us, 
 then, father ! He will be taking three of us — " 
 
 " Eh ? How's that ? Three ? " 
 
 "Christine," she said, with a significant chuckle. 
 " Oh, she'll be glad enough to take our Hans, then ! 
 She's had to work her fingers to the bone. She knows 
 the weight of a full purse." 
 
 "Hans is welcome to bring her home whether he 
 wins or not," said Father Becht. " He earns the loaf, 
 and it's big enough for four. There's not a sweeter 
 voice in Walhalla than Christy Vogel's." 
 
 " She's well enough," said Mrs. Becht, cautiously. 
 "Vogel's tobacco brought half a cent in the pound 
 more than ours, and it was Christine's raising and 
 drying. Her beer's fair, too. I've tasted it." She 
 went in and talked to Hans. " Only win, and Chris- 
 tine will marry you. She'll follow the full purse." 
 
 " She'll follow the man she loves, and that is not 
 I," thought Hans, and he stopped whistling. His 
 mother's voice sounded on, click-click. 
 
 "When we are rich — when we are in the city — 
 when we drive in a carriage — " 
 
 " She, too ? " he considered, looking out thought- 
 fully about him at the fat farm-lands, the pleasant 
 house, the cheery fire, and then away to the scarlet 
 rowan burnuig in the brown undergrowth, and the 
 misty, heaven-reaching heights. 
 
WALHALLA 67 
 
 Even his mother counted these things as nothing 
 beside fame, New York, money. Was he then mad 
 or a fool ? 
 
 Nobody thought he would win. Yet, everybody 
 stopped to look in the window, with "good-luck, 
 Hans!" 
 
 " See what a favorite you are, my lad," said his 
 mother. " There's not a man or a woman in Walhalla 
 to whom you have not done a kindness. Do you think 
 the Lord does not know you deserve success ? If He 
 does not give you the prize instead of that drunken 
 Heller, there's no justice in heaven ! " 
 
 At last the Englishman returned. The decision was 
 to be made that night. Hans had finished his panel 
 that very day. He did not know whether it was bad 
 or good. He had cut away at it as faithfully as he had 
 rubbed down his pigs. He wrapped it up that even- 
 ing and went down to the inn, stopping at Vogel's on 
 the way. The old people were at the well; Chris- 
 tine had cooked the supper, milked the cows, and now 
 she was up in her chamber singing little Phil to sleep. 
 
 Her voice came down to Hans below full of passion 
 and sadness. 
 
 "Who is it she loves in that way?" he wondered. 
 He stood in the path of the little yard, listening. 
 Heller, coming across the street, eyed the square-jawed, 
 heavy figure. What an awkward figure it was, to be 
 sure. How the linen clothes bagged about it ! He 
 glanced down at his own natty little legs and shining 
 boots, and tossed his head jerkily. He carried his 
 panel wrapped in cloth, and came in, banging the gate 
 after him. 
 
68 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 "Is that yon, Becht? Been whittling, too?" lie 
 said, with an insolent chuckle. 
 
 Hans looked at him steadfastly, not hearing a word 
 that he said. Was it Heller that she loved ? If he 
 were sure of it, he would not speak a word for himself. 
 No matter what became of him, if she were content. 
 He was hurt to the core. 
 
 Christine came down. She wore some stuff of pale 
 blue, and had fastened a bunch of wild roses in her 
 bosom. She was so silent and cold with both the 
 young men that one could hardly believe that it was 
 the woman who had sung with such passionate longing 
 over the child. 
 
 "Now you shall see my panel! " cried Heller, ner- 
 vously adjusting his spectacles. He set it on the 
 bench and dragged off the cloth. 
 
 " Ah-h ! " cried Christine, clasping her hands ; then 
 she turned anxiously to Hans. 
 
 Hans was not ready with his words. His eyes filled 
 with tears. He laid his hand on Heller's shoulder 
 with hearty good-will. The work gave him keen 
 pleasure. In the face of the mother bending over the 
 child there was that inscrutable meaning which he 
 found in the quiet valleys, the far heights. But 
 Heller, oddly, did not seem to see it. 
 
 " Yes, very nice bits of chipping there ! " pulling at 
 liis red moustache. "I shall ask fifty dollars for 
 chat." 
 
 Christine turned her searching eyes on him. 
 
 "Yes, fifty," he repeated, feeling that he had im- 
 pressed her. 
 
 Hans, too, looked at him wondering. How could 
 
WALHALLA ' 59 
 
 this paltry sot compel the secret into his work, •which 
 to him. was but a holy dream ? Christine was watch- 
 ing him anxiously. 
 
 " Is that your panel ? " she said at last. 
 
 Hans nodded, hesitated a moment, and then broke 
 the thin bit of wood in two and flulig it into the road. 
 
 " It was nothing but a fairly cut mule," he said. 
 
 Heller laughed loud. 
 
 " Well, time to be off. Wish me good luck, Chris- 
 tine ! " 
 
 She smiled, and walked with him to the gate. Hans 
 followed, but she did not once look at Hans. As she 
 opened the gate. Heller laid his hand quickly on hers ; 
 a rose fell from her dress ; he caught it and pressed it 
 to his lips. His breath was rank with liquor. Hans 
 thrtist him back and strode between them. 
 
 "This must end. Christine, you must choose be- 
 tween this man and me." 
 
 " I can easily do that," she said, quickly. 
 
 Heller laughed. Hans gulped down a lump in his 
 throat. 
 
 " Not to-night," he said. 
 
 By to-morrow, no doubt. Heller would be known as 
 successful, the man whose purse would always be full. 
 Christine must know precisely what she was choosing. 
 It was like Hans to think of these things. If, in 
 spite of it all, she came to him — 
 
 "There is another rose on your breast. Send it 
 to-morrow to the man you love," he said. 
 
 "I will." She did not look at him. She was as 
 pale as himself. He went down the street, leaving 
 her with Heller. 
 
60 ■ SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 Two hours afterward lie went to the inn where Reid 
 was, and sat on a bench at the door. Half the village 
 was inside waiting to hear the decision. His heart 
 beat rebelliously against his breast. What if, after 
 all, there had been great hidden merit in his panel ? 
 It was only natural that Christine should be won 
 by clap-trap of success and money — she was only a 
 woman. "But no," he answered himself, "what I 
 am — I am. I want no varnish of praise or dollars." 
 
 Out came the crowd. 
 
 " I knew it ! " " The most worthless lout in Wal- 
 halla ! " "A drunkard for luck ! " " He goes to New 
 York next week." 
 
 " Then he must come back for hi% wife," said Stein. 
 " He told me to-night he was betrothed to Christy." 
 
 Hans stood up, and nodded good night to thein as 
 he pushed through the crowd. He did not go home. 
 A damp breeze blew up the valley. Down yonder 
 were the far-reaching meadows, the lapping streams, 
 the great friendly trees. He went to them as a child 
 goes to its mother in trouble. 
 
 About six miles from "Walhalla lies the trunk line 
 of the Atlanta and Eichmond railroad. At ten o'clock 
 that evening, the moon being at the full, the engineer 
 of the express train, going north, saw a man at a turn 
 of the road signalling him vehemently to stop. Now, a 
 way train in that leisurely region will pull up for any 
 signal. But this engineer looked out in calm contempt. 
 
 " Reckon he don't know the express ! " he said. 
 A little child in the cars saw the man gesticulating 
 wildly and laughed at him through the open window. 
 
WALHALLA 61 
 
 The man disappeared over the brow of the hill. 
 The road made a long circuit around its base. When 
 the engine came around this bend, the engineer, Hurst, 
 saw on the track in front a prison hand-car used to 
 transport the convict laborers from one division to 
 another. The convicts had been taken to the stockade 
 for the night, and the driver of the car was inside of 
 it, dead drunk. 
 
 Hurst had been twenty years in his business; he 
 understood the condition of affairs at a glance. He 
 knew it meant death to all those people in the crowded 
 cars behind him, to him first of all. He whistled 
 down brakes, but he knew that it was of no use. The 
 brakes were of the old kind, and before the train 
 could be slackened it would be upon the solid mass in 
 front. 
 
 " We're done for, Zack," he said to the fireman. He 
 did not think of jumping off his engine. It is notice- 
 able how few common-place men try to shirk death 
 when in the discharge of duty. 
 
 The brakes were of no use. The engine swept on, 
 hissing, shrieking. 
 
 Suddenly Hurst saw that the car was backing ! — 
 creeping like a snail ; but assuredly, backing. 
 
 "Y-ha!" yelled Zack. 
 
 Hurst saw the man who had warned him standing 
 on the platform of the car, working it. Now, it re- 
 quired at least four men to work that car. 
 
 In another minute the engine would be upon him. 
 
 "God! You'll be killed!" shouted Hurst. The 
 terrible hardihood of the man stunned him into for- 
 getting that anybody else was in danger. At that 
 
62 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 instant from tlie train came a frightful shriek — • 
 ■women's voices. The passengers for the first time 
 saw their danger. 
 
 It -was but a point of time, yet it seemed like an 
 hour. The train did not abate its speed. The man, 
 a short fellow of powerful build, threw the strength 
 of a giant into his straining muscles, his white face 
 with its distended eyes was close in front in the red 
 glare of the engine. 
 
 Hurst shut his eyes. He muttered something about 
 Joe — Joe was his little boy. 
 
 The train jarred with a long scrunching rasp, and 
 — stopped. They were saved. 
 
 "Great God!" prayed Hurst. "Tight squeak for 
 your life, Zack," he said aloud, wetting his lips with 
 his tongue. 
 
 The people poured out of the train. They went up 
 to the car, some laughing, some swearing. But every 
 man there felt as if Death had taken his soul into his 
 hold for a moment, and then let it go. 
 
 Three stout men tried to move the car. They could 
 not do it. 
 
 "Whois that fellow?" 
 
 " A workman on the road ? " 
 
 "1^0," said Hurst. 
 
 "Where is he ? " asked several. 
 
 For he had vanished as if the earth had swallowed 
 him up. 
 
 "He was a youngish, light-complexioned fellow," 
 said Zack. "Most likely a Deutcher from Wal- 
 halla." 
 
 "Whoever he may be, he saved our lives," said a 
 
WALSALLA 63 
 
 director of the road. "I never saw such desperate 
 courage. I vote for a testimonial." 
 
 The American soul exults in testimonials, and the 
 Southerner is free with his money. There happened, 
 too, to be a delegation of New York merchants on 
 board, who valued their lives at a pretty figure. 
 More than all, there was a widow from California, the 
 owner of millions and of the pretty boy who had 
 looked out of the window. " He saved my baby," she 
 said with a sob, as she took the paper. 
 
 The testimonial grew suddenly into a sum which 
 made Hurst wink with amazement when he heard of 
 it. " That fellow will be king in Walhalla," he said. 
 
 It was near morning when Hans came home. He 
 went to his room, said his prayers, and slept heavily. 
 The next morning the village was ou fire with excite- 
 ment. The inn was full of passengers from the train ; 
 the story was in everybody's mouth. The director of 
 the road had driven over from the station. When 
 Hans went down to the pasture that morning he saw 
 a placard stating the facts and the sum subscribed, 
 and requesting the claimant to present himself at the 
 station that evening for identification by Hurst. 
 
 Hans went on to the pasture. When he came back 
 and was at work in the garden, he could hear through 
 the paling the people talking as they went by. 
 
 " He will be the richest man in Walhalla." 
 
 "The director says the company will give him a 
 situation for life. So they ought ! " 
 
 Nothing else was talked of. The contests of yes- 
 terday and all the Flights into Egypt were forgotten. 
 
 " Ah, that fellow is lucky, whoever he is ! " he heard 
 
64 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 Lis motlier say on the sidewalk. " And there's Heller ! 
 Some people are born to luck ! " looking over the palings 
 with bitter disappointment at Hans, digging potatoes. 
 
 But blind Father Becht listened in silence. He 
 knew but one man in the world brave enough for such 
 a deed. "I give that lad my blessing!" he said, 
 striking his cane on the ground. He, too, turned 
 toward Hans, digging potatoes. 
 
 "Heller is packing to be off to New York," some- 
 body said. " They say Vogel's pretty daughter is to 
 follow in the spring." 
 
 Hans stuck his spade into the ground and went to 
 his mother. " I am going to salt the cattle on the 
 north mountain," he said. 
 
 " Very well. He does not even care to know who 
 this brave lad is," she said to his father. "He's a 
 good boy, but dull — dull. They tell me there is a 
 woman from California at the inn. She says she 
 must see the man who saved her boy's life. She is 
 rich and has her whims, no doubt." 
 
 Night came, but the man had not presented himself. 
 The next day the director, who was of a generous, 
 impatient temper, offered a reward to anybody who 
 could make him known. It was certain he had told 
 nobody what he had done, or they now would have 
 come forward for the reward. The excitement grew 
 with every hour. Hans returned late in the next day. 
 He went to his spade and began to dig the rest of 
 the potatoes. His mother followed. 
 
 " Well," she exclaimed, "he is not found ! The story 
 is gone by telegraph to all parts of the country. Here 
 are fame and riches waiting for him. Some people 
 
WALHALLA 65 
 
 certainly are born on lucky Sundays. There is Heller, 
 the drunken beast, gone off to New York. And you 
 must dig potatoes ! There's no justice in heaven ! " 
 
 She clicked away, knitting as she went. 
 
 Now I may as well say here that although this hap- 
 pened years ago, the missing man is not yet found. 
 He is the mystery and pride of all that region. The 
 director put the money out at compound interest, but 
 it is yet unclaimed. *^ 
 
 Concerning Hans, however, who digs his potatoes in 
 the same patch, we have something more to tell. 
 When he had finished digging that morning he went 
 into the house. The stout fellow had lost his ruddy 
 color, as though he had lately gone through some heavy 
 strain of body or soul. He sat on the kitchen steps 
 and played a soft air on his violin. The earth he had 
 been digging lay in moist, black heaps. He liked the 
 smell of it. How like a whispering voice was the gurgle 
 of the stream through the roots of the sumachs ! Yon- 
 der was a Peruvian tree, raising its trunk and branches 
 in blood-red leaves against the still air; far beyond 
 were the solemn heights. He had just come from 
 there. He knew how quiet it was yonder near the 
 sky — how friendly. All these things came, as he 
 played, into the music and spoke through it, and a 
 great stillness and peace shone in his eyes. 
 
 And at that moment — he never forgot it in all his 
 life — a woman's hand brushed his cheek, and a red 
 rose came before his eyes. 
 
 " You did not come for the rose, so I brought it to 
 you," said Christine. 
 
 Later in the morning they went to the well together • 
 
66 SILHOUETTES OF AMEUICAN LIFE 
 
 all their neighbors were there, and it was soon known 
 they were betrothed. Everybody took Hans by the 
 hand. He had never guessed he had so many friends. 
 " There is no better fellow in the world," they said to 
 one another. " He deserves luck.'' 
 
 "That is why I was impatient with you," whispered 
 Christine. "I could not bear to see that miserable 
 Heller carry away all the praise and the money.'' 
 
 " These are not the things in the world that count," 
 said Hans, q^uietly. 
 
 Presently an open carriage drove through the street. 
 
 " That is the lady who was in the train," the people 
 whispered. " That is her boy. She says she will not 
 go until she finds the man who saved them." 
 
 The lady, smiling, held her baby up that it might 
 see the women. She was greatly amused and interested 
 by the quaint German village. When the boy caught 
 sight of Hans he laughed and Iield out his hands. The 
 mother nodded kindly. " The brave man who saved 
 us also wore a workman's dress, I am told," she said. 
 "My boy saw him as he passed." 
 
 Hans took the child in his arms for a moment, and 
 kissed him. When he gave him back to his mother his 
 eyes were full of tears. Then the carriage drove on. 
 
 He stood at the door of the home that was so dear 
 to him. Christine held his hand, the sun shone cheer- 
 fully about him. 
 
 " To think," said his mother, " that we are not to 
 know who that brave fellow is ! " 
 
 His blind father took Hans's other hand softly in his. 
 
 " Qod knows," he said. 
 
 But no one heard him. 
 
THE DOCTOE'S WIFE 
 
 DE. NOYES married, I think, somewliere about 
 '68 or '9. There is very little to be said about 
 his wife. Mrs. Sarah Fanniag, indeed, gave a decisive 
 verdict upon her at first sight. " She is one of the 
 rank and file of Humanity," said she; "one of the 
 weightless molecules that go to make up the mass." 
 Mrs. Fanning was that brilliant little woman from 
 Andover, Massachusetts, who essayed to take the well- 
 known Mrs. Rush's place in Philadelphia that winter. 
 She used to give weekly reunions — without supper ; 
 she cannot understand, even now, why she coiild not 
 " form a literary nucleus " there. 
 
 Nobody contradicted her verdict ; she always claimed 
 Humanity as her own pre-empted property ; and be- 
 sides, there really was so little to say about the Doctor's 
 wife ! Mrs. Fanning remarked that " an American 
 woman, if no other, ought to have some salient points, 
 good or bad, to justify her right to live, and this 
 woman was an American of the Americans, descended 
 on one side from a colonial Maryland family, and on 
 the other, of Pennsylvania Quaker stock, a race of 
 reformers, who lived only for great ideas. But there 
 
 67 
 
68 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 ■was absolutely nothing in the creature — nothing ! It 
 was inexplicable, by all the rules of race ! " The little 
 lady's specialty, by the bye, was " race " and " strains 
 of blood.'' She could lay her finger on the very great- 
 grandfather from whom you inherited your long upper- 
 lip or gluttonous propensities, and reason for you, out 
 of these inheritances, such sequences of fatalism that 
 your Christianity tottered quite to its foundations. 
 
 ISTow there had been no salient points about the 
 Doctor's wife when she was a fat baby, or a girl at 
 school. Dode Mear was daily set down as a dunce in 
 every class in Madame Latouche's private school, from 
 spelling up to International Law, and daily took up 
 her book with a cheerful " It really is too bad in me," 
 and went- out in the evening with fresh zeal to skate 
 and run races with the boys, — her cousins. If she 
 had been one of the delicate "Lilys" and "Violets" 
 whom the other girls set apart to adore, her lack of 
 brains could have been overlooked ; but she was a 
 short, thickset little body, with a shock of red hair 
 tied back from a freckled face which was lighted by 
 laughing blue eyes, — eyes in which there was an un- 
 deniable cast. She never, however, gave a hint of her 
 opinion of herself, and always seemed to be in high 
 good humor with her lot in life, stupidity and squint 
 included. A certain indefinable something about the 
 girl would prevent any one from hinting a disagreeable 
 truth to her. The same impalpable reserve or old- 
 fashioned courtesy in her, too, made the boys who 
 skated and raced with her treat her with a respect 
 which they did not show to the Lilys and Violets. 
 Her condition on graduation-day would have been 
 
THE DOCTOR'S WIFE 69 
 
 pitiable if her placid good humor had not made it 
 exasperating. One of the class was going to sail as 
 Missionary to Africa: we all made a paragon and 
 martyr of her; we all looked forward with hysteric 
 enthusiasm to speedily becoming famous authors, lead- 
 ers ia society, or at least, wives and mothers. Clergy- 
 men and faculty spoke and prayed at us, the very air 
 kindled with hope and fervor; and there sat that 
 phimp little dunce at the foot of the bench, smelling 
 a bunch of the red Burgundy roses, of which she was 
 so fond, quite contented to be nobody now and in the 
 future ! 
 
 Here she was again, Dr. ISToyes's wife, shapeless and 
 freckled and bright-eyed as ever : but the ugly hair 
 was always delicately coiffured, and her simple dress 
 a marvel of exquisite art. She did not care in the 
 least that everybody believed that she had sold herself 
 for an establishment. Why else should a girl of her 
 age marry a cynical, soured widower of fifty, with a 
 half dozen hobble-de-hoys of sons ? 
 
 "Dr. Noyes," Mrs. Fanning said, " was an ambitious 
 man, thwarted in his aims, by the drudgery of support- 
 ing a family. He should have chosen an intellectual 
 woman as his second wife, who could have helped him 
 to regain his lost ground." 
 
 The Doctor's mistake was soon apparent in his wife's 
 course. The faded carpets and hair-cloth sofas were 
 swept out of the dreary old house. The money spent 
 in making it bright and pretty, as Mrs. Fanning said, 
 would have kept open a soup house all winter : Noyes's 
 old friends, instead of smoking their meerschaums in 
 his dusty office, came in now to cosey dinners, where 
 
70 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 each man found his favorite dish : his wife had a fine 
 taste in cookery, it appears : in that, as in everything 
 else she took life with zest and joyously: the Noyes 
 boys, who had begun to hang round Variety theatres 
 and engine-houses, gave a series of dancing parties and 
 private theatricals at home, to which girls of their 
 own class came. 
 
 Now all these things bring in bills : the Doctor's 
 long-hoarded money was spent like water. It was an 
 inscrutable mystery to our society leaders why he and 
 his boys, and in fact, all other men, clustered around 
 Mrs. Dode, as they called her, affectionately, like bees 
 about honey. She never said anything worth remem- 
 bering for five minutes : she made no professions of 
 love or friendship. Some of us, who remembered how 
 the whole school used to pause to hear her read her 
 Bible verse, thought the charm lay in her pleasant 
 voice, or could there be any magic in the clean, spicy 
 scent of Burgundy roses with which the house was 
 always filled ? The men, when questioned, really 
 seemed to have no definite idea of the woman: one 
 "liked her because she was quiet," another because 
 "her handshake was as firm as a man's," another for 
 her merry laugh. 
 
 In the meantime they all carried their secrets to her : 
 the very classmates of the Noyes boys wrote to her 
 about their college scrapes that she might " see father 
 and mother about it, and beg them off." She had a 
 queer "following" of women too, shabby widows and 
 fashionable belles and poor sempstresses — you were 
 just as likely to find one at her table as the other. She 
 had not the least perception of class distinctions, owing 
 
THE DOCTOR'S WIFE 71 
 
 perhaps to those Quaker grandfathers who measured 
 the world and all in it by ideas. She had, too, differ- 
 ent rates of value from ours with regard to other things. 
 Mrs. Fanning unconsciously ranked herself high in the 
 scale of being because of her priceless bric-a-brac, and 
 portfolio of proofs before letters. Mrs. Dode also sur- 
 rounded herself with old china and pictures, but was 
 indifferent about it : she did not carry her little lux- 
 uries with the uneasy vanity of a workman in his 
 Sunday shirt. Art and wealth had been ordinary 
 appliances of her mother's people in Maryland for 
 generations. She took no more notice as to whether a 
 man was rich or poor in such things than whether he 
 came to her gloved or ungloved. 
 
 Somebody was sure to bring every foreign traveller 
 to the Doctor's house ; whether it was prince, novel- 
 ist, or poet, Mrs. Dode welcomed them to her ordinary 
 table and habits, not concerning herself to inquire 
 if they were used to a palace or hovel : and they in 
 turn forgot to notice whether the courses were served 
 in Russian or French fashion, or how she dealt with 
 her a's. 
 
 "I wish you to judge of us by our representative 
 women," Mrs. Fanning said to one of these tourists 
 while they were dining at the Doctor's, "and not 
 by negative characters." 
 
 But he could look at nobody but the homely little 
 woman at the head of the table. "Ah, madam," he 
 cried, " there are so many representative women ! But 
 the old story tells us of how Prince Charming married 
 the good fairy, and by her had a family of but few 
 children, all of whom were born in the light of the 
 
72 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 moon ; and I meet one now and then in this country 
 or in that. When I find one of them, then I look no 
 farther." 
 
 It was quite natural that Mrs. Dode, having lived 
 in so negative a way, without making any mark or 
 bruit in the world, should die in the same fashion. 
 It appears that while she seemed in health some 
 secret symptoms led her to consult a physician. She 
 went to New York to do this, saying nothing to. her 
 husband, and there learned that she had but a short 
 time to live. Whatever grief she may have felt, she 
 showed none and told nobody her secret. When she 
 came back, the home life went on in its usual merry 
 fashion. Dick and Joe both brought their brides 
 home that winter. Dr. Noyes, who had grown younger 
 and more energetic every year since his marriage, was 
 busied with some experiments in electricity, which 
 added greatly to his reputation. Mrs. Dode did not 
 change her habits in the least. She never had been a 
 constant church-goer, nor a member of any charitable 
 society, and she did not become one now. It was 
 remembered afterwards that she remained out longer 
 in the mornings on her rounds among the poor, and 
 that she had a print which was in her chamber, re- 
 hung, so that she could see it when she first woke in 
 the morning. (It was the Head crowned with thorns.) 
 
 In June her husband was invited to Baltimore to 
 an anniversary celebration, in which he always took a 
 keen delight. She clung to him and cried when he 
 was going. 
 
 " If you need me, Dode, I will stay with you," he 
 said, tenderly. 
 
THE DOCTOR'S WIFE 73 
 
 She hesitated a little, and then raised herself, smil- 
 ing. "No, it will be pleasanter for you there," said 
 she, " only good-bye once more, dear." 
 
 She went to bed as usual that night. In the morn- 
 ing they found her dead, her cheek resting on h^r hand, 
 a half smile on the freckled face : her other hand, 
 tight closed, was lying on her heart, and they found 
 in it a bit of the hair of the little dead-born baby that 
 came to her years ago, whose head had never rested 
 on her bosom. 
 
 The morning sun shone brightly over her, and the 
 room was filled with the perfume of fresh roses. 
 
ANNE 
 
 IT was a strange thing, the like of which had never 
 before happened to Anne. In her matter-of-fact, 
 orderly life mysterious impressions were rare. She 
 tried to account for it afterward by remembering that 
 she had fallen asleep out-of-doors. And out-of-doors, 
 where there is the hot sun and the sea and the teem- 
 ing earth and tireless winds, there are perhaps great 
 forces at work, both good and evil, mighty creatures 
 of God going to and fro, who do not enter iuto the 
 little wooden or brick boxes in which we cage our- 
 selves. One of these, it may be, had made her its 
 sport for the time. 
 
 Anne, when she fell asleep, was sitting in a hammock 
 on a veranda of the house nearest to the water. The 
 wet bright searair blew about her. She had some red 
 roses in her hands, and she crushed them up under her 
 cheek to catch the perfume, thinking drowsily that 
 the colors of the roses and cheek were the same. Por 
 she had had great beauty ever since she was a baby, 
 and felt it, as she did her blood, from her feet to her 
 head, and triumphed and was happy in it. She had 
 a wonderful voice too. She was silent now^ being 
 74 
 
ANNE 75 
 
 nearly asleep. But the air -was so eoH and pure, and 
 the scent of the roses so strong in the sunshine, and 
 she was so alive and throbbing with youth and beauty, 
 that it seemed to her that she was singing so that all 
 the world could hear, and that her voice rose — rose 
 up and up into the very sky. 
 
 Was that George whom she saw through her half- 
 shut eyes coming across the lawn? And Theresa 
 with him ? She started, with a sharp wrench at her 
 heart. 
 
 But what was Theresa to George? Ugly, stupid, 
 and older than he, a woman who had nothing to win 
 him — but money. She had not cheeks like rose 
 leaves, nor youth, nor a voice that could sing at 
 heaven's gate. Anne curled herself, smiling, down to 
 sleep again. A soft warm touch fell on her lips. 
 
 "George!" 
 
 The blood stopped in her veins ; she trembled even 
 in her sleep. A hand was laid on her arm. 
 
 " Bless grashus, Mrs. Palmer ! hyah's dat coal man 
 wants he's money. I's been huntin' you low an' high, 
 an' you a-sleepin' out'n dohs ! " 
 
 Anne staggered to her feet. 
 
 " Mother," called a stout young man from the tan- 
 bark path below, "I must catch this train. Jenny 
 will bring baby over for tea. I wish you would 
 explain the dampers in that kitchen range to her." 
 
 The wet air still blew in straight from the hazy sea 
 horizon ; the crushed red roses lay on the floor. 
 
 But she — 
 
 There was a pier-glass in the room beside her. 
 Going up to it, she saw a stout woman of fifty with 
 
76 SILHOUETTES OF AMEBIC AN LIFE 
 
 grizzled hair and a big nose. Her cheeks were yel- 
 low. 
 
 She began to sing. Nothing came from her mouth 
 but a discordant yawp. She remembered that her 
 voice left her at eighteen, after she had that trouble 
 with her larynx. She put her trembling hand up to 
 her lips. 
 
 George had never kissed them. He had married 
 Theresa more than thirty years ago. George Forbes 
 was now a famous author. 
 
 Her fingers still lay upon her lips. "I thought 
 that he — " she whispered, with a shudder of shame 
 through all of her stout old body. 
 
 But below, underneath that, her soul flamed with 
 rapture. Something within her cried out, " / am here 
 — Anne! I am beautiful and young. If this old 
 throat were different, my voice would ring through 
 earth and heaven." 
 
 "Mrs. Palmer, de coal man — " 
 
 " Yes, I am coming, Jane." She took her account- 
 book from her orderly work-basket and went down to 
 the kitchen. 
 
 When she came back she found her daughter Susan 
 at work at the sewing-machine. Mrs. Palmer stopped 
 beside her, a wistful smile on her face. Susan was so 
 young : she would certainly take an interest in this 
 thing which had moved her so deeply. Surely some 
 force outside of nature had been thrust into her life 
 just now, and turned it back to its beginnings ! 
 
 " I fell asleep out on the porch awhile ago, Susy," 
 she said, "and I dreamed that I was sixteen again. 
 It was very vivid. I cannot even now shake off the 
 
ANNE 77 
 
 impression that I am young and beautiful and in 
 love." 
 
 " Ah, yes ! poor dear papa ! " Susy said, with a sigh, 
 snipping her thread. She wished to say something 
 more, something appropriate and sympathetic, about 
 this ancient love of her parents ; but it really seemed 
 a little ridiculous, and besides, she was in a hurry to 
 finish the rufBe. Jasper was coming up for tea. 
 
 Mrs. Palmer hesitated, and then went on into her 
 own room. She felt chilled aud defeated. She had 
 thought Susy would take ah interest, but — Of course 
 she could not explain to her that it was not of her 
 poor dear papa that she had dreamed. After all, was 
 it quite decent in a middle-aged respectable woman to 
 have such a dream ? Her sallow jaws reddened as she 
 shut herself in. She had been very foolish to tell 
 Susy about it at all. 
 
 Mrs. Nancy Palmer was always uncomfortably ia 
 awe of the hard common-sense of her children. They 
 were both Palmers. When James was a baby he had 
 looked up one day from her breast with his calm at- 
 tentive eyes, and she had quailed before them. "I 
 never shall be as old as he is already," she had thought. 
 But as they grew up they loved their mother dearly. 
 Pier passionate devotion to them would have touched 
 hearts of stone, and the Palmers were not at all stony- 
 hearted, but kindly, good-humored folk, like their 
 father. 
 
 The neighborhood respected Mrs. Palmer as a woman 
 of masculine intellect because, after her husband's 
 death, she had managed the plantation with remarkar 
 ble energy and success. She had followed his exact, 
 
78 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 methodical habits in peach-growing and in the man- 
 agement of house, had cleared the property of debt, 
 and then had invested in Western lands so shrewdly 
 as to make herself and the children rich. 
 
 But James and Susan were always secretly amused 
 at the deference paid to their mother by the good 
 Delaware planters. She was the dearest woman in 
 the world, but as to a business head — 
 
 All her peach crops, her Dakota speculations, and 
 the bank stock which was the solid fruit thereof went 
 for nothing as proofs to them of adult good sense. 
 They were only dear mamma's lucky hits. How could 
 a woman have a practical head who grew so bored 
 with the pleasant church sociables, and refused abso- 
 lutely to go to the delightful Literary Circle ? who 
 would listen to a hand-organ with tears in her eyes, 
 and who had once actually gone all the way up to 
 Philadelphia to hear an Italian stroller named Salvini ? 
 
 Neither of them could understand such childish 
 outbreaks. Give a Palmer a good peach farm, a com- 
 fortable house, and half a dozen servants to worry 
 him, and his lines of life were full. Why should their 
 mother be uneasy inside of these lines ? 
 
 That she was uneasy to-day, Susy soon perceived. 
 A letter came from Pierce and Wall, her consignees 
 in Philadelphia; but Mrs. Palmer threw it down 
 unopened, though she had shipped three hundred 
 crates of Morris Whites last Monday. 
 
 She was usually a most careful house-keeper, keep- 
 ing a sharp eye on the careless negroes, but she dis- 
 appeared for hours this afternoon, although Jasper 
 Tyrrell was coming for tea, and Jane was sure to 
 
ANNE 79 
 
 make a greasy mess of the terrapin if left to her- 
 self. 
 
 Jasper certainly had paid marked attention to Susy 
 lately, but she knew that he was a cool, prudent young 
 fellow, who would look at the matter on every side 
 before he committed himself. The Tyrrells were an 
 old, exclusive family, who would exact perfection from 
 a bride coming among them, from her theology to her 
 tea biscuit. 
 
 "A trifle of less importance than messy terrapin 
 has often disgusted a man," thought Susy, her blue 
 eyes dim with impatience. 
 
 Just before sunset Mrs. Palmer came up the road, 
 her hands full of brilliant maple leaves. Susy hurried 
 to meet and kiss her ; for the Palmers were a demon- 
 strative family, who expressed their affection by a 
 perpetual petting and buzzing about each other. The 
 entire household would shudder with anxiety if a 
 draught blew on mamma's neck, and fall into an agony 
 of apprehension if the baby had a cold in its head. 
 Mrs. Palmer, for some reason, found that this habit 
 of incessant watchfulness bored her just now. 
 
 "No, my shoes are not damp, Susy. No, I did not 
 need a shawl. I am not in my dotage, child, that I 
 cannot walk out without being wrapped up like an 
 Esquimau. One would think I was on the verge of 
 the grave." 
 
 "Oh, no, but you are not young, darling mamma. 
 You are just at the age when rheumatisms and lumba- 
 goes and such things set in if one is not careful. Where 
 have you been ? " 
 
 " I took a walk in the woods." 
 
80 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 "Woods! No wonder your shoulders are damp. 
 Come in directly, dear. Four grains of quinine and 
 a hot lemonade going to bed. Walking in the woods ! 
 Eeally, now, that is something I cannot understand," 
 — smiling at her mother as though she were a very 
 small child indeed. " Now I can walk any distance 
 to church, or to shop, or for any reasonable motive, 
 but to go wandering about in the swampy woods for 
 no earthly purpose — I'll press those leaves for you," 
 checking herself. 
 
 "No ; I do not like to see pressed leaves and grasses 
 about in vases. It is like making ornaments of hair 
 cut from a dead body. When summer is dead, let it 
 die." She threw down the leaves impatiently, and 
 the wind whirled them away. 
 
 " How queer mamma and the people of that genera- 
 tion are — so little self-control ! " thought Susy. " It 
 is nearly time for Mr. Tyrrell to be here," she said 
 aloud. " Can Jane season the terrapin ? " 
 
 " Oh, I suppose so," said Mrs. Palmer, indifferently, 
 taking up a book. 
 
 She was indifferent and abstracted all evening. 
 Peter clattered the dishes as he waited at the supper- 
 table, and the tea was lukewarm. Jasper was luke- 
 warm too, silent and critical. 
 
 James's wife, Jenny, had come over for supper, and 
 finding her mother-in-law so absent and inattentive, 
 poured forth her anecdotes of baby to Mr. Tyrrell. 
 Jenny, like most young mothers, gave forth inexhaust- 
 ibly theories concerning the sleep, diet, and digestion 
 of infants. Jasper, bored and uneasy, shuffled in his 
 chair. He had always thought Mrs. Palmer was 
 
ANNE 81 
 
 charming as a hostess, full of tact, in fine rapport with 
 every one. Couldn't she see how this woman was 
 bedevilling him with her croup and her flannels ? 
 She was apparently blind and deaf to it all. 
 
 Mrs. Palmer's vacant eyes were turned out of the 
 window. Susy glanced at her with indignation. Was 
 mamma deranged ? 
 
 How petty the pursuits of these children were ! 
 thought the older woman, regarding them as from a 
 height. How cautious and iinical Tyrrell was in his 
 love-making ! Susy too — six months ago she had 
 carefully inquired into Jasper's income. 
 
 Tea biscuit and flannels and condensed milk! At 
 seventeen her horizon had not been so cramped and 
 shut in. How wide and beautiful the world had been ! 
 Nature had known her and talked to her, and in all 
 music there had been a word for her, alone and apart. 
 How true she had been to her friends ! how she had 
 hated her enemies ! how, when love came to her — 
 Mrs. Palmer felt a sudden chill shiver through her 
 limbs. She sat silent until they rose from table. 
 Then she hurried to her own room. She did not 
 make a light. She told herself that she was absurdly 
 nervous, and bathed her face and wrists in cold water. 
 But she could not strike a light. This creature within 
 her, this Anne, vivid and beautiful and loving, was she 
 to face the glass and see the old yellow-skinned woman ? 
 
 She ought to think of that old long-ago self as dead. 
 
 But it was not dead. 
 
 " If I had married the man I loved," this something 
 within her cried, "I should have had my true life. 
 He would have understood me." 
 
82 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 How ridiculous and wicked it all was ! 
 
 " I was a loyal, loving wife to Job Palmer," she 
 told herself, resolutely lighting the lamp and facing 
 the stout figure in the glass with its puffy black silk 
 gown. " My life went down with his into the grave." 
 
 But there "was a flash in the gray pleading eyes 
 ■which met her in the glass that gave her the lie. 
 
 They were Anne's eyes, and Anne had never been 
 Job Palmer's wife. 
 
 Mrs. Palmer did not go down again that night. A 
 ■wood fire blazed on her hearth, and she put on her 
 wrapper and drew her easy-chair in front of it, with 
 the little table beside her on which lay her Bible and 
 prayer-book and a Kempis. This quiet hour was usu- 
 ally the happiest of the day. James and Jenny always 
 came in to kiss her good-bye, and Susy regularly crept 
 in when the house was quiet to read a chapter with 
 her mother and to tuck her snugly into bed. 
 
 But to-night she locked her door. She wanted to 
 be alone. She tried to read, but pushed the books 
 away, and turning out the light, threw herself upon 
 the bed. Not a Kempis nor any holy saint could 
 follow her into the solitudes into which her soul had 
 gone. Could God Himself understand how intolerable 
 this old clumsy body had grown to her ? 
 
 She remembered that when she had been ill with 
 nervous prostration two years ago she had in an hour 
 suddenly grown eighty years old. Now the blood of 
 sixteen was in her veins. Why should this soul 
 within her thus dash her poor brain from verge to 
 verge of its narrow range of life ? 
 
 The morbid fancies of the night brought her by 
 
ANNE 83 
 
 morning to an odd resolution. She would go away. 
 Why should she not go away ? She had done her full 
 duty to husband, children, and property. Why should 
 she not begin somewhere else, live out her own life ? 
 Why should she not have her chance for the few 
 years left ? Music and art and the companionship of 
 thinkers and scholars. Mrs. Palmer's face grew pale 
 as she named these things so long forbidden to her. 
 
 It was now dawn. She hastily put on a travelling 
 dress, and placed a few necessary articles and her 
 check-book in a satchel. 
 
 " Carry this to the station," she said to Peter, who, 
 half asleep, was making up the fires. 
 
 " Gwine to Philadelphy, Mis' Palmer ? Does Miss 
 Susy know ? " 
 
 " No. Tell her I have been suddenly called away." 
 
 As she walked to the station she smiled to think 
 how Susy would explain her sudden journey by the 
 letter from Pierce and Wall, and would look to find 
 whether she had taken her overshoes and chamois 
 jacket. "I hate overshoes, and I would like to tear 
 that jacket into bits ! " she thought as she took her 
 seat in the car. She was going to escape from it all. 
 She would no longer be happed and dosed and watched 
 like a decrepit old crone. She was an affectionate 
 mother, but it actually did not occur to her that she 
 was leaving Susy and James and the baby. She was 
 possessed with a frenzy of delight in escaping. The 
 train moved. She was free ! She could be herself 
 now at last ! 
 
 It could be easily arranged. She would withdraw 
 her certificates and government bonds from the vaults 
 
84 SliHOVETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 of the trust company in Philadelphia. The children 
 had their own property secure. 
 
 Where should she go ? To Eome ? Venice ? No. 
 There were so many Americans trotting about Europe. 
 She must be rid of them all. "Sow there was Egypt 
 and the Nile. Or if another expedition were going to 
 Iceland ? Up there in the awful North among the 
 glaciers and geysers, and sagas and Eunic relics, one 
 would be in another world, and forget Morris Whites 
 and church sociables and the wiggling Tillage gossip. 
 
 "There are people in this country who live in a 
 high pure atmosphere of thought, who never descend 
 to gossip or money-making," she thought, remember-- 
 ing the lofty strains of George Forbes'S last poem. 
 "If I had been his wife I too might have thought 
 great thoughts and lived a noble life." 
 
 She tried angrily to thrust away this idea. She did 
 not mean to be a traitor to her husband, whom she 
 had loved well and long. 
 
 But the passion of her youth maddened her. Job 
 had been a good commonplace man. But this other 
 was a Seer, a Dictator of thought to the world. 
 
 The train rolled into Broad Street station. Mrs. 
 Palmer went to the Trust company and withdrew her 
 bonds. She never before had come up to the city 
 alone ; Susy always accompanied her to " take care of 
 dear mamma." Susy, who had provincial ideas as to 
 " what people in our position should do," always took 
 her to the most fashionable hotel, and ordered a din- 
 ner the cost of which weighed upon her conscience 
 for months afterward. Mrs. Palmer now went to a 
 cheap little cafe in a back street, and ate a chop with 
 
ANNE 85 
 
 the keen delight of a runaway dog gnawing a stolen 
 bone. A cold rain began to fall, and she was damp 
 and chilled when she returned to the station. 
 
 Where should she go ? Italy — the Nile — Heav- 
 ens ! there were the Crotons from Dover getting out 
 of the train! She must go somewhere at once to 
 hide herself ; afterward she could decide on her course. 
 A queue of people were at the ticket window. She 
 placed herself in line. 
 
 " Boston ? " said the agent. 
 
 She nodded. In five minutes she was seated in 
 a parlor car, and thundering across the bridge above 
 the great abattoir. She looked down on the cattle in 
 their sheds. "I do wonder if Peter will give Eosy 
 her warm mash to-night ? " she thought, uneasily. 
 
 There were but three seats occupied in the car. 
 Two men and a lady entered together and sat near to 
 Mrs. Palmer, so that she could not but hear their talk, 
 which at first ran upon draughts. 
 
 "You might open your window, Corvill," said one 
 of the men, "if Mrs. Ames is not afraid of neuralgia." 
 
 Corvill ? Ames ? Mrs. Palmer half rose from her 
 seat. Why, Corvill was the name of the great figure- 
 painter ! She had an etching of his " Hagar." She 
 never looked into that woman's face without a wrench 
 at her heart. All human pain and longing spoke in it 
 as they did in George Forbes's poems. Mrs. Ames, 
 she had heard, was chairman of the Woman's National 
 Society for the Examination of Prisons. Mrs. Palmer 
 had read her expose of the abominations of the lessee 
 system — words burning with a fiery zeal for human- 
 ity. There had been a symposium in Philadelphia, 
 
86 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 she remembered, of noted authors and artists this 
 week. 
 
 No doubt these were two of those famous folk. 
 Mrs. Palmer drew nearer, feeling as if she were creep- 
 ing up to the base of Mount Olympus. This was 
 what happened when one cut loose from Morris 
 Whites and terrapin and that weary Jane and Peter ! 
 The Immortals were outside, and she had come into 
 their company. 
 
 " Oh, open the window ! " said Mrs. Ames, who had 
 a hoarse voice which came in bass gusts and snorts 
 out of a mouth mustached like a man's. " Let's have 
 some air ! The sight of those emigrants huddled in 
 the station nauseated me. Women and babies all 
 skin and bone and rags." 
 
 Now Mrs. Palmer had just emptied her purse and 
 almost cried over that wretched group. That sick 
 baby's cry would wring any woman's heart, she 
 thought. Could it be that this great philanthropist 
 had pity only for the misery of the masses ? But 
 the man who painted " Hagar " surely would be piti- 
 ful and tender ? 
 
 " Sorry they annoyed you," he was saying. " Some 
 very good subjects among them. I made two sketches," 
 pulling out a note-book. "That half-starved woman 
 near the door — see ? — eh ? Pine slope in the chin 
 and jaw. I wanted a dying baby for my 'Exiles,' 
 too. I caught the very effect I wanted. Sick child." 
 
 Mrs. Palmer turned her revolving chair away. It 
 was a trifling disappointment, but it hurt her. She 
 was in that strained, feverish mood when trifles hurt 
 sharply. These were mere hucksters of art and hu- 
 
AINNE 87 
 
 manity. They did not belong to the high pure level 
 on which stood great interpreters of the truth — such, 
 for instance, as George Forbes. The little quake 
 which always passed through her at this man's name 
 was increased by a shiver from the damp wind blow- 
 ing upon her. She sneezed twice. 
 
 Mrs. Ames stared at her insolently, and turned her 
 back, fearing that she might be asked to put down 
 the window. 
 
 Mr. Corvill was talking about the decoration of the 
 car. "Not bad at all," he said. "There is great 
 tenderness in the color of that ceiling, and just look 
 at the lines of the chairs ! They are full of feeling." 
 
 Mrs. Palmer listened, bewildered. But now they 
 were looking at the landscape. If he found feeling 
 in the legs of a chair, what new meanings would he 
 not discover in that vast stretch of lonely marsh with 
 the narrow black lagoons creeping across it ? 
 
 "Mce efEect," said Mr. Corvill — "the lichen on 
 that barn against the green. I find little worth using 
 in the fall this year, however. Too much umber in 
 the coloring." 
 
 Could it be, she thought, that these people had made 
 a trade of art and humanity until they had lost the 
 perception of their highest meanings ? 
 
 "I should think," continued Corvill, turning to 
 the other man, "you could find matiriel for some 
 verses in these flats. Ulalume, or The Land of Dolor. 
 Something in that line. Eh, Forbes ? " 
 
 Forbes! Her breath stopped. That fat hunched 
 man with the greasy black whiskers and gaudy chain I 
 Yes, that was his voice ; but had it always that tone 
 of vulgar swagger ? 
 
88 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 " I've stopped verse-writing," he said. " Poetry's a 
 drug in tlie market. My infernal publishers shut 
 down on it five years ago." 
 
 He turned, and she then saw his face — the thin 
 hard lips, the calculating eye. 
 
 Was this man " George " ? Or had that George 
 ever lived except in her fancy ? 
 
 "Mr. Forbes." She rose. The very life in her 
 seemed to stop ; her knees shook. But habit is 
 strong. She bowed as she named him, and stood 
 there, smiling, the courteous, thorough-bred old lady 
 whose charm young Tyrrell had recognized. Some 
 power in the pathetic gray eyes startled Forbes and 
 brought him to his feet. 
 
 "I think I knew you long ago," she said. "If it 
 is you — ? " 
 
 " Forbes is my name, ma'am. Lord bless me ! you 
 can't be — Something familiar in your eyes. You 
 remind me of Judge Sinclair's daughter Fanny." 
 
 " Anne was my name." 
 
 "Anne. To be sure. I knew it was Nanny or 
 Fanny. I ought to remember, for I was spoons on 
 you myself for a week or two. You know you were 
 reckoned the best catch in the county, eh? Sit 
 down, ma'am, sit down; people of our weight aren't 
 built for standing." 
 
 " Is — your wife with you ? " 
 
 "You refer to the first Mrs. Forbes — Theresa 
 Stone ? I have been married twice since her decease. 
 I am now a widower." He put his hand to his mouth 
 and coughed, glancing at the crape on his hat. His 
 breath crossed her face. It reeked of heavy feeding 
 
ANNE 89 
 
 and night- orgies ; for'Forbes, though avaricious, had 
 gross appetites. 
 
 Suddenly Job Palmer stood before her, with his fine 
 clear-cut face and reasonable eyes. He knew little 
 outside of his farm perhaps ; but how clean was his 
 soul ! How he had loved her ! 
 
 The car at that moment swayed violently from side 
 to side ; the lamps went out. " Hello ! " shouted 
 Forbes. " Something wrong ! We must get out of 
 this ! " rushing to the door. She braced herself 
 against her chair. 
 
 In the outside darkness the rushing of steam was 
 heard, and shrieks of women in mortal agony. A 
 huge weight fell on the car, crushing in the roof. 
 Mrs. Palmer was jammed between two' beams, but 
 unhurt. A heavy rain was falling. 
 
 " I shall not be burned to death, at any rate," she 
 thought, and then fortunately became insensible. 
 
 In half an hour she was cut out and laid on the 
 bank, wet and half frozen, but with whole bones. 
 She tried to rise, but could not ; every joint ached 
 with rheumatism ; her gown was in tatters, the mud 
 was deep under her, and the rain pelted down. She 
 saw the fire burning on her hearth at home, and the 
 easy-chair in front of it, and the Bible and a Kempis. 
 
 Some men with lanterns came up and bent over her. 
 
 " Great God, mother ! " one of them cried. It was 
 James, who had been on the same train, going to New 
 York. 
 
 The next day she was safely laid in her own bed. 
 The fire was burning brightly, and Susy was keeping 
 guard that she might sleep. Jenny had just brought 
 
90 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 a delicious bowl of soup and fed it to her, and baby 
 had climbed up on the bed to hug her, and fallen 
 asleep there. She held him in her arm. James came 
 in on tiptoe, and bent anxiously over her. She saw 
 them all through her half-shut eyes. 
 
 " My own — flesh of my flesh ! " she thought, and 
 thanked God from her soul for the love that held her 
 warm and safe. 
 
 As she dozed, Susy and James bent over her. 
 " Where could she have been going ? " said Susy. 
 
 "To New York; no doubt to make a better con- 
 tract than the one she has with Pierce and Wall — to 
 make a few more dollars for us. Or, an investment : 
 her bonds were all in her satchel. Poor dear unselfish 
 soul ! Don't worry her with questions, Susy — don't 
 speak of it." 
 
 "No, I will not, Jim," said Susy, wiping her eyes. 
 " But if she only had taken her chamois jacket ! " 
 
 James himself, when his mother was quite well, 
 remarked one day, " We had a famous fellow-traveller 
 in that train to New York — Forbes, the author." 
 
 "A most disagreeable, underbred person!" said 
 Mrs. Palmer, vehemently. " I would not have you 
 notice such people, James — a mere shopman of liter- 
 ature ! " 
 
 Susy married Jasper Tyrrell that winter. They 
 live in the homestead now, and Mrs. Palmer has 
 four or five grandchildren about her, whom she spoils 
 to her heart's content. She still dabbles a little in 
 mining speculations; but since her accident on the 
 
ANNE 91 
 
 cars she is troubled with rheumatism, and leaves the 
 management of the farm and house to Jasper and 
 Susy. She has a quiet, luxurious, happy life, being 
 petted like a baby by all of the Palmers. Yet some- 
 times in the midst of all this comfort and sunshine a 
 chance note of music or the sound of the restless 
 wind will bring an expression into her eyes which 
 her children do not understand, as if some creature 
 unknown to them looked out of them. 
 
 At such times Mrs. Palmer will say to herself, 
 " Poor Anne ! " as of somebody whom she once knew 
 that is dead. 
 
 Is she dead ? she feebly wonders ; and if she is 
 dead here, will she ever live again ? 
 
AN IGNOBLE MARTYE 
 
 OLD Aaron Pettit, who had tried to live for ten 
 years with half of his body dead from paraly sis, 
 had given up at last. He was altogether dead now, 
 and laid away out of sight in the three-cornered lot 
 where the Pettits had been buried since colonial days. 
 The graveyard was a triangle cut out of the wheat 
 field by a certain Osee Pettit in 1696. Many a time 
 had Aaron, while ploughing, stopped to lean over the 
 fence and calculate how many bushels of grain the 
 land thus given up to the dead men would have 
 yielded. 
 
 "They can keep it. I'll not plough it up," he 
 would mumble to himself with conscious virtue. " But 
 land was to be hed for the fencin' then, evidently, or 
 no Pettit would have wasted it on corpses that might 
 as well have lain in the churchyard." 
 
 Now, Aaron himself was in the wasted triangle, and 
 as his daughter Priscilla saw his coffin lowered into it 
 she felt a wrench of pity for him, because he never 
 again could see the wheat grow in the lot around him, 
 nor count how many dollars profit it would yield that 
 year to pay the interest on the mortgage. It was nat- 
 92 
 
AN IGNOBLE MARTYR 93 
 
 ural that she should feel that he was really dead in 
 just that way, for the wheat lot was the only property 
 owned by the Pettits, and that mortgage their only 
 active interest in life. 
 
 When the funeral was over, the neighbors, as is the 
 custom in ZSTorth Leedom, came back to the house, and 
 sat in silence for half an hour in the little parlor. 
 The undertaker had given the silver plate from the 
 cofB.n lid to Prue, as the oldest child, and she hung it 
 up now with a sad pride over the mantel-shelf. There 
 were six other coffin plates there, the only decorations 
 on the parlor wall. 
 
 Her younger brother, who had left "the mourners " 
 and was in the kitchen, called her out impatiently. 
 " Are you going to put that horrible thing up there, 
 Prissy?" he said. 
 
 " Horrible ! " said Prue, aghast. " It is very hand- 
 some, Bowles. It cost three dollars and sixty-three 
 cents. And why should I show disrespect to father? " 
 
 "Oh, if it is counted disrespect! — Prue, can't we 
 give these people a cup of tea? There are the Waces, 
 they have come ten miles, and they have to go back 
 without any dinner. And the Pords. Some tea and 
 doughnuts?" He looked anxiously into her face. 
 
 The heat rose into Prue's cheeks, and her eyes 
 shone; There was something delightful to her in 
 this bold proposal, for she had, unknown to herself, a 
 hospitable soul. She had never seen a stranger break 
 bread under their roof. But on such an occasion as 
 this — 
 
 "What would mother say?" she whispered. "Oh, 
 no, no, Bowles! I can't do it. There are ten of 
 
94 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 tliem " — peering into the parlor — " ten. It would 
 take a quarter of a pound of tea; and then the sugar. 
 Oh no, we couldn't afford it ! " and she went back and 
 sat down again with the mourners, comforting herself 
 that nobody would expect to be fed. In North Leedom 
 the folks did not eat in each others' houses. It would 
 have been thought a wicked waste to " treat to vict- 
 uals," as, it was reported, was the common custom in 
 larger towns. 
 
 This was no time, Prue felt, for her to appear 
 eccentric or extravagant; and it would have been 
 extravagant. Tea and cakes for ten would have made 
 a big break in -the money to be saved for the fall pay- 
 ment on the mortgage. 
 
 The Pettits during the next week took up the thread 
 of their daily life unbroken. The little four-roomed 
 house had, of course, a thorough cleaning. Under- 
 takers and neighbors had left dust behind them. Mrs. 
 Pettit had grace to help her bear the pains which 
 death had left; but dirt she would not put up with. 
 The furniture was all taken out into the yard to 
 be sunned; the stair carpet, with its hundred neat 
 patches, was washed, dried, and tacked down again. 
 The furniture in the house was of the cheapest kind, 
 but it had belonged to Mrs. Pettit's grandmother, and 
 had always been cared for with a tender reverence, 
 not because of its associations, but for its money value. 
 Indeed, so much of the lives of the Pettit women for 
 generations had gone into the care of these speckless 
 chairs and tables that one might suspect a likeness 
 between the condition of their souls and that of the 
 filthy Fijian who worships the string of bones which 
 he polishes incessantly. 
 
AN IGNOBLE MARTYR 93 
 
 Bowles despised the tables and chairs. But the 
 mortgage ! That was another thing — a thing so seri- 
 ous that it seemed to overshadow, to choke his whole 
 life. John Pettit, his grandfather, in some great 
 emergency, had put the house under a mortgage, had 
 worked for twenty years to clear it off, and died, leav- 
 ing the task to Aaron. Aaron had accepted it as a 
 sacred trust; every penny he could save had gone to 
 it. Now he was dead, and there was still a thousand 
 dollars due on it. 
 
 Mrs. Pettit was too nearly blind to work. Prue 
 sewed on men's seersucker coats for a factory in Bos- 
 ton. She was paid sixty cents a dozen for them. 
 This paid the taxes and bought their clothes. 
 
 Bowles knew that his mother and sister and all of 
 the village expected him to take up the payment of 
 this mortgage as the work of his life. 
 
 The minister, old Mr. Himms, had said as much to 
 him after the funeral. 
 
 "It is a noble ambition, my boy," he said, "for a 
 man to own the home of his fathers free of debt. In 
 our E"ew England towns there are thousands of men 
 and women struggling in dire poverty all their lives 
 with this aim before them." 
 
 This aim! What aim? 
 
 Bowles, sitting one evening under the old elm-tree 
 as the sun was going down, looked at the ugly, bare 
 little house and hated it. Had life nothing more for 
 him than — that ? 
 
 He looked about him. North Leedom' was made 
 up of just such ugly, clean, bare houses. There were 
 no trees on the sidewalks, no flowers in the yards. 
 
96 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 The people had been poor for generations, and they 
 had reduced the economy of their Puritan ancestors 
 to an art so hard and cruel that it dominated them 
 now in body and. soul. To save was no longer a dis- 
 agreeable necessity for them; it had become the high- 
 est of duties. 
 
 The Pettits had always crept along in the same rut 
 with their neighbors. They would not buy sufficient 
 food to satisfy their craving stomachs. With each 
 generation they grew leaner and weaker; the sallow 
 skin clung more tightly to their bones ; the men be- 
 came victims of dyspepsia, the women of nervous 
 prostration. 
 
 Each generation, too, carried the niggardly economy 
 a little farther. They "could not afford time" for 
 flowers nor for music; they could not afford to buy 
 books nor newspapers. They came at last in their 
 fierce zeal for saving to begrudge smiles and welcomes 
 to each other or kisses and hugs to their children. 
 
 They stripped their lives of all the little kindly 
 amenities, the generosities of feeling and word which 
 make life elsewhere cheerful and tender. If their 
 starved hearts, sometimes, like their bodies, gave signs 
 of hunger, they were only mortified at their own lack 
 of self-control. Their history was that of countless 
 families in New England villages. 
 
 Bowles Pettit, thinking over the lives of his neigh- 
 bors and family, tried to judge fairly of his own. But 
 he was ashamed to find that he could scarcely think 
 at all, he was so hungry. He was a big, raw-boned, 
 growing boy; the nervous strain of the last week had 
 been ssvere on him. He needed food, and he knew 
 
AN IGNOBLE MARTYR 97 
 
 he would not liave enough to-day. He could not 
 remember the day when he had had enough. He knew 
 how it would be. Presently the cracked tea bell 
 would ring, and he would go in to eat a small slice of 
 cold, soggy pie, washed down with a glass of cold 
 water. To-morrow morning for breakfast more cold pie 
 and a doughnut. For dinner, potatoes and cold milk 
 only. On Mondays, when Prue had to make a fire for 
 the washing, two pounds of cheap meat were boiled, 
 which furnished dinner for three days. 
 
 Bowles had no trade. He was what was called in 
 North Leedom "a helper." He could do a bit of car- 
 penter or mason work, or paint a door, or plough a 
 field when called upon, for which he received a few 
 pennies. There was no opening in the dead village 
 for any regular business. It was out of these occa- 
 sional few pennies that he must support the family 
 and save the thousand dollars for the mortgage. 
 
 There was a slight quiver on the boy's cleft chin as 
 he sat staring at the mortgaged house. He had the 
 eager brain and fine instincts of the New Englander. 
 Tt was not a dull beast of burden on whom this yoke 
 for life was to be laid, but a nervous, high-bred ani- 
 mal, fit for the race-course. 
 
 "Ali-ha, Bowles, my son!" a subdued voice whis- 
 pered over the fence. 
 
 He started up. It was Mr. Eameaux, an agent for 
 some orange planters in Mississippi, who had found 
 boarding for his little daughter in North Leedom that 
 summer, while he travelled about the country. He 
 was so short and stout that his fat smiling face barely 
 reached to the top of the fence. He thrust his chubby 
 
98 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 ringed fingers througli the rails and wrung the lad's 
 hands. 
 
 " My dear boy, I came down from Boston this after- 
 noon, and Lola met me with this terrible news. 
 What can I say? Your worthy father! 11 est chez le 
 ion Dieu ! But you — poor child ! It is thirty years 
 since my own father left me, and still — I — " He 
 choked, and real tears stood in the twinkling black 
 eyes. 
 
 Bowles pulled him through the gate. The boy said 
 nothing. He had not shed a tear when his father 
 died. He had never learned how to talk or to shed 
 tears. But this little man's volubility, his gestures, his 
 juicy rich voice, with its kindly and sweet inflections, 
 affected Bowles as the sudden sight of tropical plants 
 might a half-frozen Laplander. He had hung about 
 Eameaux all summer whenever he was in the village. 
 
 " I came to make my condolences to madame votre 
 m^re. And Lola — she also " — dragging after him a 
 child in a white gown and huge red sash, of the age 
 when girls are principally made up of eyes, legs, and 
 curiosity. 
 
 Together they entered the kitchen, where Mrs. Pettit 
 and Prue sat knitting, one on either side of the cold 
 black stove. The little man poured forth his " con- 
 dolences " to the widow. Aaron's virtues, her own 
 grief, the joys of heaven, the love of le hon Dieu, were 
 all jumbled en masse, and hurled at her with affection- 
 ate zeal. Prue dropped her knitting in her lap ; a red 
 heat rose in her thin cheeks as she listened. But Mrs. 
 Pettit's large gray eyes scanned the pursy little agent 
 with cold disapproval. What did the man mean? 
 
AN IGNOBLE MARTYR 99 
 
 None of Aaron's neighbors, not she herself, had wept 
 for him, nor talked much of his virtues, or his entrance 
 into heaven. Why should this play-acting fellow be 
 sorry for her? She resented his affectionate tone, his 
 fat body, his red necktie, the unnecessary width of 
 brim of his felt hat. It was all unnecessary, redun- 
 dant — a waste. 
 
 She waited until he stopped for breath, then nodded 
 without a word, and taking up her knitting, began to 
 count the stitches. Eanieaux, shocked and discom- 
 fited, stood pulling at his moustache and shuffling 
 uneasily from one foot to the other. Lola, in the 
 mean time, had crept to Prue's side, and put her arm 
 around her waist. 
 
 The Eameaux were not of good caste in Mississippi ; 
 they were by no means well-bred people. The agent's 
 oaths and jokes, when alone with men, were not always 
 of the cleanest. But they came from a community 
 where men carried the kindness and pity of their hearts 
 ready for constant use in their eyes and lips. Even 
 the ungainly chil& now was giving to Prue eager 
 caresses such as she had never in her whole life re- 
 ceived from father or mother. 
 
 "Your father is dead," Lola whispered. "My 
 mamma died two — two years — " and then she burst 
 into sobs, and dropped her head on the woman's lap. 
 Prue, with a scared glance at her mother, patted her 
 gently. 
 
 "Poor lonely little thing! " she thought. Then she 
 noticed that the child's gaudy sash was spotted with 
 grease, and that the holes in her black stockings were 
 drawn up with white thread. "Tut! tut! poor dear 
 
100 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 child! " she whispered, a motherly throb rising in her 
 own flat breast. 
 
 Mr. Eameaux, bewildered at his rebuff, was turning 
 to the door, but Bowles stopped him. 
 
 "You promised to speak to her," he whispered, 
 excitedly. 
 
 "ISTot now, my boy." 
 
 " Yes, now ! Now ! " 
 
 The little -man dropped into a chair, fanning him- 
 self with his ridiculous hat. He too was excited. 
 He spoke to Mrs. Pettit, but his eyes wandered to 
 Prue. " Madam, there is a subject — Your son, Mr. 
 Bowles here, and I have talked of it. If I may in- 
 trude upon your grief — But I must iirst tell you 
 something of -my home." 
 
 "Indeed? Your home, Mr. Eammy," said Mrs. 
 Pettit, in her dry, shrill tone, " is the least of my 
 concerns. " Then she turned her back on him. " Light 
 the candle, Priscilla." 
 
 Eameanx rose, red and angry. 
 
 "Mother," said Bowles, sharply, "I wish you to 
 listen to this man." 
 
 There was a meaning in his voice new to her. She 
 stared at him, and at the agent, who, after a moment's 
 hesitation, went on, growing fluent as an auctioneer 
 as he proceeded. 
 
 "There was a reason for speaking of Lamonte to 
 you, madam. It is a village near the gulf. That is 
 a rich country — the ground, fat, black; the trees, 
 giants ; the woods full of birds, and the waters of fish. 
 A man has but to set his traps and drop his lines and 
 lie down to sleep, and nature feeds him. And the 
 
AST IGNOBLE MARTYR 101 
 
 air — so "warm and sweet!" He took a step nearer 
 to Prue, who was listening. His eyes were on hers. 
 They were kind eyes, he thought — mother's eyes. 
 Miss Prue had a soft voice too. Her cheeks were 
 lean, but there was a pretty color coming and going 
 in them, and the lips were red and kissable. He and 
 Lola had a lonely life of it. " The air, " he repeated, 
 awkward and bewildered, "is sweet with ilowers. 
 You would like my house. Miss Prue, on the beach. 
 At night the wind in the magnolias and the waves 
 plashing on the shore make a very pleasant sound — 
 a — very pleasant sound." He quite broke down 
 here, but his little black eyes held hers, and it seemed 
 to her that he was still talking rapidly, passionately 
 sayiag something that she never had listened to be- 
 fore. 
 
 "You told me about the place before, Mr. Eammy," 
 she stammered. " You said that the flowers — " 
 
 " Hola ! chut ! I had forgotten ! " he exclaimed, tug- 
 ging at his pocket. "I sent for these. They came 
 to-day. You said you never had seen any." He 
 pulled out a small paper box. When she opened it, a 
 strange and wonderful fragrance startled the chill 
 New England air. 
 
 "Orange blossoms!" explained Eameaux, with a 
 significant chuckle. 
 
 Prue said nothing. She took her box to the win- 
 dow. The blood grew cold m all of her gaunt body. 
 What did it mean? 
 
 She had scarcely ever thought of love. She had 
 known but two women of her age in the village who 
 had been courted and married. The others had all 
 
102 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 grown into old maids like herself. She never had 
 thought that she — He had paid thirty cents postage 
 on that box ! And for her ! 
 
 That wonderful life down there — little work, and 
 plenty to eat! — the warm, sweet air! the plashing 
 waves! In the mean time, the strange, creamy 
 flowers, with their heavy fragrance, seemed actually 
 to talk to her of this life and this man. 
 
 What was that he was saying? Urging her mother 
 to sell the house and go to Lamonte, where there was 
 a fine chance for Bowles ! 
 
 "There is no opening for the boy here, madam," he 
 persisted. " I speak as a business man. Lamonte is 
 a live place. I go to start a cypress-wood mill, a 
 cotton-seed-oil factory. It is a boom. A young man 
 with Northern energy shall make money fast. Or, if 
 you will not sell the homestead, why not rent it? 
 Bowles, once settled in Lamonte, in two years — in 
 two months perhaps, if this boom lasted — could clear 
 off the mortgage." Rameaux spoke as he did when 
 driving a bargain — clearly, and to the point. "I 
 will give you this to consider," he said. " I will state 
 the matter now to Miss Prue from another point of 
 the view." He strode quickly across to her,' and led 
 her authoritatively out of the kitchen. 
 
 "Mother, do you understand?" said Bowles, in a 
 high, sharp tone. "I can make money there hand 
 over hand. I will clear off the mortgage dretful fast. 
 I won't have to drudge here like a nigger slave till 
 I'm as old as father." 
 
 The face which Mrs. Pettit turned on him was set 
 and strained as it had not been when she looked at 
 her husband dead. 
 
AlSr IGNOBLE MARTYR 103 
 
 " YoTi want to — go9 " she said. 
 
 "Yes, I "want to go. I must get out of here. I 
 want enough to do ; I want enough to eat ! " 
 
 She looked at the hunger-bitten face and starving 
 eyes of the boy, a tragic sight enough if she had under- 
 stood it. But she was simply bewildered. Most of 
 the people in IN'orth Leedom had that clayey color and 
 restless look which result from an ill-fed body and 
 a strong brain condemned for life to work upon trifles. 
 But they did not know what ailed them. Nor did 
 Mrs. Pettit. 
 
 "Want to leave North Leedom?" she repeated, 
 with a contemptuous laugh. "Sech fancies! You 
 always was ridickelous, Bowles, but I didn't think 
 you was quite sech a fool. Draw some water, child. 
 It's high time we was lockin' up an' makin' ready 
 for bed," looking at Lola, who was coiled up on a 
 chair, her big black eyes curiously turning from one 
 to the other. 
 
 The door into the yard opened, and Prue came 
 hurrying in. Her mother stared at her. She had 
 never seen her face burn nor her eyes shine in that 
 way, except when she had the typhoid fever twelve 
 years ago. 
 
 "Lola," she said, going up to the girl and catching 
 her by the shoulders — " Lola! " 
 
 "Yes," said Lola, standing up. 
 
 Miss Prue pulled the child toward her as if to kiss 
 her. Her thin face worked; she panted for breath. 
 She caught sight of her mother's amazed face, and 
 pushed Lola away. 
 
 "Your — your papa wants you, dear," she said, in 
 
104 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 a low whisper, every tone of whieli was a caress. 
 "I'll take you to him.'' 
 
 " You stop right here, Priscilla. Bowles can take 
 his daater to the play-actor," snapped Mrs. Pettit. 
 
 Priscilla dared not disobey. She was thirty, but 
 she was as submissiTe and timid as when she was six. 
 But she did follow Lola out on to the porch. The girl 
 stopped her there peremptorily, and stretching up on 
 her tiptoes, threw her arms around her neck. 
 
 "You're coming home with us? Papa said so. 
 Yes? Oh, goody! You'll come?" 
 
 "Hush-h!" 
 
 Priscilla dropped on her knees in the dark, and 
 strained the child tight to her breast. The blood 
 burned hotly through her whole body as she pressed 
 a light shamed kiss upon her lips, and then springing 
 up, ran back into the kitchen. 
 
 Bowles walked sulkily with Lola down to the road 
 where her 'father was waiting. She thrust her arm in 
 his and hung on it; she rolled her beautiful eyes 
 coquettishly ; she spoke to him with profoimd awe 
 and timidity. Lola, like many Southern girls of her 
 class, had given much of her short life to thought of 
 "the boys," and of how to manage them. She man- 
 aged Bowles now completely. Her homage thrilled 
 him with triumph and self-conceit, which her father's 
 eager talk increased. His mother treated him as a 
 child. These people appreciated him, recognized him 
 as the shrewd Northern man who would make money 
 hand over hand in the South. He laughed loudly 
 with Eameaux, even tried to joke a little. 
 
 His sister, through the kitchen window, saw them 
 
AN IGNOBLE MARTYR 105 
 
 standing by tlie gate. The moon had risen. Lola 
 leaned sleepily against the fence. Eameaux's sultry 
 black eyes, while he talked to Bowles, searched every 
 window in the house. 
 
 "For me f" 
 
 Priscilla's knees shook under her. She hurried 
 to her mother, who was beginning to grope her way 
 up the stairs, and took the candle from her, trembling 
 so that she could scarcely speak. It seemed as if she 
 must cry and laugh out loud. 
 
 " Mr. Eameaux tells me that his house is all on one 
 floor. Tou will have no stairs to climb if you go 
 there, mother," she said. 
 
 Mrs. Pettit stared at her. " I go? Bowles's brain 
 is addled enough, but he's not so mad as that." 
 
 She had reached her room by this time. Prue hur- 
 ried in after her. 
 
 "Mother, it's not Bowles; it's me. If there was a 
 chance for me to go down yonder and give you a com- 
 fortable providin', would you go?" 
 
 Mrs. Pettit paid no attention to her. She was 
 unbuttoning her shoes, and had found a thin place in 
 one of them. She rubbed it with alarm, held it close 
 to her purblrud eyes, set it down with a groan. " It 
 ought to hev lasted two year more," she muttered. 
 
 "Would you go?" said Prue, stooping over her with 
 a breathless gasp. " You should have as many shoes 
 as you chose, and the hot air even in winter, and 
 full and plenty to eat and wear." 
 
 Mrs. Pettit turned her dull calm face On her. " Why, 
 Priscilla Pettit! You've been listenin' to that Eam- 
 my's crazy talk too! For a fool, give me an old 
 
106 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 maid! " She took up the -worn shoe anxiously again. 
 " Think of me goin' outside of North Leedom ! " she 
 said, with a hoarse, rasping laugh. 
 
 Priscilla, as she looked at her, could not think of 
 it. It was an impossibility; as impossible as to make 
 the dead alive. 
 
 "Tut! tut! It's ■worn near through to the counter." 
 
 " Give it to me. I'll mend it," said Miss Prue. 
 
 "Your hands are like ice," said her mother, as she 
 took the shoe. "You'd better get to bed. There's 
 that lot of coats to begin on in the morning. You'll 
 have to be up by four." 
 
 "Yes," said Prue, She carried the shoe down 
 stairs. The coats lay in heaps in the corner, tied 
 together by twine. Their raw edges stuck out. Prue 
 thought they would not have been so hateful if it had 
 not been for those raw edges. 
 
 Bowles was waiting for her. His eyes shone; he 
 looked bigger and stouter than before ; the very down 
 on his lip seemed coarser and browner. 
 
 "You are going too," he said. "Eameaux told me. 
 Lord ! such luck to come to us ! " 
 
 "Mother will never go, Bowles." 
 
 " Then leave her. Other sons and daughters marry 
 and go away. Cousin Sarah can take care of her. 
 We'll pay the mortgage, and pay Sarah for tendin' 
 her. Mother's rugged. She may live twenty year 
 yet. 'Tisn't fair you should slave forever." 
 
 He said much more, but Prue scarcely heard him. 
 She sat in the kitchen without moving long after 
 he had gone to bed. Somehow the raw-edged seer- 
 sucker coats seemed to fill up her mind, and to bulk 
 
AN IGNOBLE MARTYR 107 
 
 down, down, through her whole life. Eameaux had 
 pointed to them angrily last night, and said, " Send 
 that trash back to-morrow." 
 
 He wanted her to marry him to-morrow; to pack 
 up their things, and start for Lamonte next Monday. 
 He would stop in ISTew York to buy her some gowns 
 to please his own taste. "A red silk gown and a 
 black-plumed hat." 
 
 " Think of me in red silk and plumes ! " thought 
 Priscilla, tears of sheer delight standing in her eyes. 
 
 Her mother coughed hard, and called to her several 
 times, while she sat there, to bring her medicine. 
 She always needed care in the night. Cousin Sarah 
 was a high-tempered woman and slept heavily. 
 
 When Bowles came down in the morning, he found 
 his slice of leaden pie and greasy doughnut, as usual, 
 on a plate on the bare table. Prue was at the ma- 
 chine, a heap of finished seersucker coats beside her. 
 
 "I guess you were at work all night?" he said. 
 
 "I couldn't sleep," she answered. 
 
 "Are you goin' to finish all them things?" 
 
 She nodded, turning her wheel faster. 
 
 He looked at her face for a minute or two, and then, 
 for some reason, walked behind her, where he could 
 not see it. "Prue," he said, "are you always goin' 
 on makin' coats?" 
 
 The wheel stopped, the thread broke. Bowles 
 waited, silent. 
 
 " Yes," she said, in a low voice. Then she threaded 
 her needle again. 
 
108 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 "What else should she do?" said Mrs. Pettit, com- 
 ing into the kitchen. 
 
 Neither of her children answered her ; but presently 
 Prue got up suddenly, and going to her, gave her a 
 fond hug and kiss. 
 
 Mrs. Pettit started, amazed. It was a new thing 
 in her life ; but, on the whole, she liked it. 
 
 Ten days later Bowles left North Leedom for Mis- 
 sissippi. His hopes were more than answered there. 
 Lamonte did have the promised boom, and he made 
 money fast. In a few years he married Lola. But 
 long before that time he paid off the mortgage. He 
 did it for Prue's sake. Had not his life been success- 
 ful, while hers was a miserable failure? His heart 
 ached with pity for her. 
 
 But we are not sure that her life was at all miser- 
 able. Prom that night in which she made her choice, 
 a singular change came over her. Por thirty years 
 she had done her dull duty faithfully, because, in 
 fact, there was nothing else to do. 
 
 Then, as it seemed to her, the gates were opened, 
 the kingdoms of the world were laid at her feet. 
 
 Of her own will she had given them up. 
 
 God only knew what the sacrifice cost her, but after 
 it she was a different and a live creature. She was 
 like a woman who has given birth to a child. She 
 had struck her note in life, and it was not a mean one. 
 She now looked out on the world with authoritative, 
 understanding eyes; even her step became firm and 
 decided. 
 
 When one climbs a height, the pure air expands the 
 lungs ever after. We always carry with us down in 
 
Air IGNOBLM MARTYR 109 
 
 the valley tlie wide outlook wliiclL we have seen but 
 once. 
 
 Prue had now a life quite outside of North Leedom 
 and the raw-edged coats. When the pain and sore- 
 ness had passed, her struggle began to exert pleasant 
 and tender influences on her. Stout, jolly Eameaux, 
 with his twinkling black eyes and black moustache, 
 began to take on the graces and charms of all the 
 heroes of romance. When she read in the magazines 
 a poem or love story, her eyes would fill with a tender 
 light, and she would whisper, " I, too ; I, too ! " 
 
 When she saw mothers caress their children, she 
 fancied she felt Lola's head again on her breast, and 
 her heart throbbed with happiness. 
 
 After her mother died, she tried to bring into her 
 life some of the things of which Bowles had told her 
 of his home in Lamonte. She planted roses in the 
 yard; she covered her table with a white cloth; and 
 sometimes a bit of savory meat found its way to it. 
 She visited her neighbors ; she read novels ; she joked 
 in a scared way. 
 
 On the occasion of her one visit to New Bedford 
 she went alone to a retail shop, and, blushing, asked 
 to be shown some crimson silk and black-plumed hats. 
 She fingered them wistfully. 
 
 "Are they for a young lady?" asked the shop- 
 man. 
 
 "Yes — for a young lady," said Prue, in a low 
 voice. She held them a moment longer, and then, 
 with a sigh, went out. 
 
 Soon after this, Bowles, who was a bad correspon- 
 dent, suddenly appeared one day, bringing one of his 
 
110 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 girls, Prissy, with him. "Yes, she looks peaked," he 
 said that night as they sat on the porch, after Prue 
 had lovingly put the child to sleep in her own bed. 
 " The doctor said she ought to have bracing air for a 
 year or two. I told him I'd bring her to you. We've 
 got four, and she's your namesake. She does not look 
 like the Pettits, though." 
 
 "Her eyes are like Lola's father's," said Prue, 
 hesitating. "Is Mr. Eameaux well? " 
 
 " God bless me ! Didn't I tell you the old gentle- 
 man was gone? Died in Cuba last spring." 
 
 " Died — last spring? " 
 
 Bowles, who was about to add that too much bad 
 whiskey had hastened his end, caught sight of her 
 face, and with a sudden remembrance stopped short, 
 and softly whistled to himself. 
 
 "Yes, in Cuba," he said, awkwardly. "Well, Prue, 
 I was all right in bringing Prissy to you? You'll 
 take care of the chick? " 
 
 "As if she were my own," she said. "I thank you, 
 Bowles." 
 
 Soon afterward she went to her own room, and 
 kneeling by the bed, kissed the child's face and hands 
 passionately. 
 
 "She is very like him," she thought, opening, as 
 she did every night, a little box in which were some 
 yellow flowers. She fancied there was still a faint 
 fragrance breathing from them. " We will know each 
 other in heaven," she said, with a sigh, as she closed 
 the box. 
 
 But it may be as well, perhaps, that in this too she 
 will be disappointed. 
 
ACROSS THE GULF. 
 
 THE Eeverend William Imlay found a seat for his 
 mother in the Desbrosses Street ferry-boat and 
 placed her neat satchel and umbrella beside her. " I 
 think," he said, "I will go forward into the fresh air 
 at the bow." 
 
 "Take care of the draughts, William." 
 He folded his big yellow silk neckerchief more 
 closely about his throat, lifted his hat, and left her. 
 The other women were bothering their escorts as to 
 the chances of catching the train for Philadelphia, 
 but Mrs. Imlay was calm. Neither she nor William 
 had ever been late for a train or a meal : a glance at 
 her would tell you that. Smooth gray hair, inquisi- 
 tive black eyes, close-fitting black travelling-dress, 
 white cuffs, jet brooch and buttons, — there she was, a 
 neat, compact package of fulfilled duties. She would 
 be smiling, efficient, and confident by a sick-bed, or 
 in her pantry, or leading a prayer-meeting; and you 
 could not but fancy that if Death tapped at the little 
 lady's door the call would not flurry her at all, as it 
 does disorderly people, but would fit nicely into her 
 methodic life, and she would trip on into heaven still 
 smiling, efficient, and confident. 
 
 Ill 
 
112 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 Mr. Imlay came back presently, a faint curiosity 
 kindling his handsome features : " Mother, the famous 
 actress is on board, — Mile. Clemence. That is she, 
 coming this way. I thought you would like to see 
 her." 
 
 "So I should, William," hastily putting on her 
 spectacles. "The tall woman in the seal-skin ulster? 
 Dear ! dear ! That ulster would cost as much as your 
 salary for two years! Satan's wages are high nowa- 
 days." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Poor thing! poor thing!" said his mother. This 
 was one of the women, she thought, of whom Solomon 
 wrote, who stand in wait to drag men down into hell. 
 Still, she could not forget that she was a woman and 
 when a child had perhaps been innocent. 
 
 "She is Yery handsome," said Mr. Imlay. His 
 mother moved uneasily. Of course, she saw the 
 creature's beauty; but she ought to have been nothing 
 to William but a lost soul. " Something in her fea- 
 tures reminds me of Miss Lowry," he said, deliber- 
 ately bridging his nose with his eye-glasses. 
 
 " Oh, William! Clara Lowry is one of the loveliest 
 of Christian characters! And yet — Eeally, there 
 is something about the chin — For pity's sake, never 
 tell Clara of it!" 
 
 "Of course not." 
 
 The boat thumped into the pier, and the crowd 
 poured through the station into the waiting train. 
 Mrs. Imlay, on her son's arm, peered curiously about 
 for the seal-skin ulster. The sight of this woman had 
 strangely fluttered her. It was a glimpse into that 
 
ACROSS THE GULF 113 
 
 brilliant wicked hell below the decorous world in 
 which she lived, to which pertained all of Satan's 
 doings, — cards, fashion, dancing, and, above all, 
 theatres. "Where did she go, William?" she asked, 
 as he seated her in a car. 
 
 " Into a parlor-car behind. There were two or three 
 gentlemen with her. Leading people. Congressmen." 
 
 "Oh, I suppose so," with a shudder. "Sit down, 
 dear. Well, I'm really glad to have seen her. One 
 ought to be reminded that there are such depths, here, 
 just about us. I do wonder what she was thinking of 
 then? " It was the very question she had asked about 
 the sea-lion in the Park yesterday. 
 
 "She made a very pretty picture, at any rate," said 
 Mr. Imlay. "Remarkably good nose." 
 
 " Tou think a great deal too much of her nose. I 
 mean — I beg your pardon, my dear. But one hardly 
 expects a clergyman to regard such creatures from the 
 stand-point of their noses." 
 
 Mr. Imlay lifted his brow with mild complacency. 
 " They are entirely outside of our world, " he explained. 
 "A person in my position must either try to convert 
 them or else simply regard them aesthetically as part 
 of the world's furniture. I could not convert Mile. 
 Clemence on the boat, so I regard her quite as I would 
 a tree or a bit of china. I approve their shape or 
 color, and I approve her nose. Do I make myself 
 clear?" 
 
 "Oh, quite, — quite so, William," hastily rejoined 
 Mrs. Imlay as soon as the gentle dogmatic ripple 
 stopped. She had not heard him: she was always 
 sure William would say the right thing. She was 
 
114 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 counting the cost of that dress, — ulster, gold-mounted 
 satchel — why, the boots, even, could not be bought 
 under twenty dollars ! What would Clara Lowry say 
 when told about it? " I always gain new ideas when I 
 leave home, William," she said. "Travel is so — so 
 broadening." 
 
 " I wish you would go of tener with me, mother, " he 
 replied, affectionately wrapping her shawl about her 
 and rising. "N'ow, if you will excuse me, I will go 
 and look for Mr. Fordyce; he is somewhere on the 
 train." 
 
 Mr. Imlay could not find his fellow-minister, but he 
 sat down in a rear car. He wished to think over his 
 sermon, for it would be late before he reached Balti- 
 more. He smiled to himself again at his mother's 
 idea of travel. A trip to New York! She was shut 
 in too much to her little round; church, the sewing- 
 circle, Ann the cook, — there was her world. 
 
 Mr. Imlay had gone twice to the great Church Con- 
 ventions ; he had been as far south as Louisville, and 
 as far west as Chicago : so that he could justly claim 
 to know something of the world and of life. He 
 wanted to know more. His own mild dogmatizing, 
 his mother's amiable gossip, the squabbles between 
 the choir and congregation, even the discussion about 
 the new organ, grew stale and cramping to him. If 
 he could get outside, into the creeds, the unbelief, 
 the passions, the action, out there, he fancied he 
 could understand Christ and His errand better. 
 Still, there was great peril in such ventures. As 
 now, for instance, when he buttoned up his coat to 
 hide his white cravat and began to talk to a gentle- 
 
ACROSS THE GULF 115 
 
 man in a mulberry velveteen waistcoat about beet- 
 sugar, he felt that he was boldly treading on danger- 
 ous ground. To hide the cravat, to give up the pre- 
 cedence of his holy calling, to talk as one ordinary 
 man with another, — was not this compounding with 
 Mammon? 
 
 But he soon became keenly interested in his beet- 
 sugar friend and his companions. He gathered that 
 they were a family or party of friends on their way 
 to celebrate somebody's birthday. All of them, even 
 to the grandmother, had the air of happy folk out on 
 a frolic. There were a couple of lads who swaggered 
 like old sportsmen, though neither blood nor powder 
 had ever soiled their guns or embroidered game-bags. 
 There were young girls with rosy faces under furry 
 caps, chattering and giggling, peeping at each other's 
 skates. There was a dumpling of a baby, which the 
 nurse carried about perpetually from one set of cousins 
 to another. There was a white-whiskered old gentle- 
 man on the next seat to him, who scolded because the 
 stove-door was shut, or because the ventilators were 
 open, or because the banana-boy dropped books on 
 his knee. Mr. Imlay could not at first understand the 
 patience of the whole party toward this disagreeable 
 old fellow : they were as gentle with him as with the 
 baby; but presently he saw that he was blind. 
 
 He finally turned his ill-humor on Mr. Imlay's com- 
 panion. "Beet-sugar now, Sperry?" he snapped. 
 "Last year it was tea-plants; and the year before, 
 silkworms. If it was only your own money that was 
 wasted, less matter. But you must always have 
 somebody to ride your hobbies. Here's Mrs. Finn, 
 
116 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 now ! To my knowledge, she gave up two acres once 
 to your tea-plants." 
 
 A little woman wearing black and a widow's cap 
 looked up and laughed: "And, to my knowledge. 
 Uncle Shannon, many a cup of tea you had from them. " 
 
 "Poor stuff, Emily, poor stuff! You're a shrewd 
 farmer; but you'll never make tea pay. Nor any of 
 John Sperry ' s whims . Mushrooms ! That was another 
 craze of his." 
 
 Mr. Sperry patted the old man on the back, and 
 winked apologetically to Mr. Imlay as for an ill-man- 
 nered child: "Yes, mushrooms. There's no better 
 paying crop. I set Frazier at them in San Diego, and 
 Cobb in Honolulu, and old Eiee in Australia. I may 
 say I have girdled the earth with mushrooms." Then, 
 in a deprecating whisper to the clergyman: "One of 
 the best-tempered men alive until — " touchiug his 
 own eyes significantly. Mr. Imlay nodded, smiled, 
 and rose to go with a regretful glance about the car. 
 How many good Christian people there were in the 
 world to whom one must give a touch and go-by ! 
 
 When he reached the door only the engine was in 
 front of him. The rest of the ears, and his mother in 
 them, had vanished. 
 
 "Just divided the train at Kewark," curtly ex- 
 plained the conductor. "Other section's twenty min- 
 utes ahead." 
 
 "But I have a lady in my charge." 
 
 "Can't help that, sir. You ought to have looked 
 out for the lady." 
 
 Mr. Imlay stared at the man, opened his mouth 
 irresolutely, and feebly pulled at his whiskers. 
 
ACBOSS THE GULF 111 
 
 "What is it? -what is it?" cried the blind man. 
 "Some new trick of that infernal corporation?" 
 
 Mr. Sperry came up, pulling down his waistcoat with 
 a business air, and suggested a telegram; the girls 
 looked sympathetic; Mrs. Finn timidly ventured an 
 anxious word or two. 
 
 "It's really of no consequence," said Mr. Imlay 
 with awkward dignity. " My mother has her ticket 
 and check." But secretly he was greatly pleased. 
 He had suddenly become of importance. By virtue 
 of his misfortune, he was adopted by this demon- 
 strative family as one of themselves. 
 
 While he talked to the conductor his seat had been 
 taken by a boy and a tall, distinguished-looking girl. 
 The blind man put his hand on her head: "Is this 
 you, Janey? Did you get on at Newark? Why don't 
 you make room for me?" 
 
 "I'll go in the smoking-car," the boy said, jumping 
 up. 
 
 "No, Bob. You'll stay just here." The young 
 lady drew her father into the seat, and took Bob on 
 her lap, looking laughingly into his eyes as with her 
 firm white fingers she poked a cigar out of his pocket. 
 
 Bob chuckled sheepishly, but soon recovered him- 
 self: "Father, I'm going to take Janey out rabbit- 
 hunting to-morrow. I'U lend her my boots for the 
 deep snow." 
 
 Mr. Shannon gave an impatient grunt : " Your sister 
 will have no time for such capers, sir. All my clothes 
 need mending." He settled himself with his head on 
 her shoulder and was soon asleep, while Bob sat, gig- 
 gling and scowling, on her knees. 
 
118 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 Sperry saw that Mr. Imlay was watching the group. 
 "Pitiful sight, sir," he whispered. "D'ye know that 
 since Mr. Shannon lost his sight that girl has sup- 
 ported both him and the boy? Carries them both 
 right along. They're helpless as two babies." 
 
 " How does she do it? She is very young." 
 
 "Earns barely ten dollars a week. She's with 
 Kneedles. His plan is, work your people to death 
 like cart-horses and fling the carcasses out. Oh, I 
 suppose everybody's heard of Dan Kneedles? We're 
 all going to Mrs. Finn's farm to celebrate her birth- 
 day, and I wrote to Dan to beg Janey for a day or two. 
 Well, sir, I had to pay him her full week's salary! 
 But she knows nothing of that." 
 
 Kneedles? Mr. Imlay had a feminine relish for 
 gossip. Was there not a Kneedles female college 
 near Newark? The young lady was dressed like an 
 ill-paid teacher. She coughed, too, now and then, 
 and had a hectic flush ; but there was something stead- 
 fast and durable about her, from the flrm wrist which 
 held Bob quiet, to the dark, slow-moving eyes. 
 
 While he was looking at her, there was a rasping 
 crash: girl, old man, seats, roof, tilted, disappeared. 
 Mr. Imlay clutched wildly at Sperry, missed him, and 
 was hurled forward. When he came to his senses he 
 was in absolute darkness, his right leg clinched 
 tightly; beside him he felt broken planks and some- 
 thing soft and movable like a human body. A wind 
 of heat blew over his leg. The train had fallen from 
 a trestle bridge, and he was fastened in a car that was 
 on fire. He had read of people fastened in just that 
 way. They had been roasted to death. " Great God! 
 
AOSOSS THE GULF 119 
 
 This thing is happening to me ! Mel " thought Mr. 
 Imlay. He had been so coddled and petted by his 
 mother from the days of his swaddling-clothes up into 
 his clerical coat and necktie, that blank amazement 
 was his principal emotion at finding himself in a ditch 
 of mud to the chin, with a fire close to his legs. At 
 a distance on the snowy field, he saw black figures 
 moving; he heard shouts and cries. He shouted, but 
 his Toice piped thin like a woman's. The body beside 
 him — whether man's or woman's he did not know — 
 struggled. 
 
 "Are they coming to us?" said a Toice sounding 
 oddly calm to his frenzy. He replied only by fresh 
 shrieks. "Oh, they'll come," cheerfully. "I saw 
 Bob help father out. They'll come back for me." 
 
 It was the teacher, then? He did not care who it 
 was. He shrieked on. " The fire is gaining, " he said 
 at last, exhausted, "and my leg is wedged in tight." 
 
 She began to tug wildly at the leg : it did not stir. 
 Then steps came near, and a dozen men crowded up, 
 peering in at the window. 
 
 The fire sent a sharp lash of flame across Mr. Imlay's 
 foot. " Help, help ! Take me out ! " he yelled. 
 
 "There's a woman in there," cried somebody out- 
 side. 
 
 " Janey ! Janey Shannon ! " shouted Sperry. \ 
 
 " I'm here ! All right ! I'm not hurt ! " 
 
 Her cheerful tone maddened Mr. Imlay. "For 
 God's sake, save me!" he cried; "I'm roasting to 
 death!" 
 
 " Here, Janey ! " Mr. Sperry smashed in the win- 
 dow. "'Sovf, men, out with the lady! " 
 
120 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 But she pushed Mr. Imlay forward: "His leg is 
 fast. He's burning! Get this beam off his leg!" 
 she cried, tugging at it herself. 
 
 Mr. Sperry had an axe ; the men grappled the beam ; 
 it shook and moved. Mr. Imlay dragged at his leg. 
 "Oh, it's broken!" bemoaned. 
 
 A flap of fierce flame struck between him and the 
 window, shutting him into this horrible death. He 
 hurled himself forward like a madman, thrusting back 
 the woman : " Save me ! " 
 
 He heard himself. It was a woman that he was 
 pushing back into the flre, — he, William Imlay. 
 " Take her out, " he said, in a voice that was almost 
 cool, helping to push her out himself. He was un- 
 conscious when they got him through the window. 
 
 When he opened his eyes it was with a nausea of 
 pain. He lay in a large, gayly-furnished chamber. 
 A red-haired little man was at work at his leg. Miss 
 Shannon stood beside him, holding bandages, while 
 Mr. Sperry, a kerosene lamp in one hand, with the 
 fat fingers of the other patted him consolingly : " Tut, 
 tut! Come to yourself, eh? Nearly through with 
 your leg. Bad sprain. No bones broken." 
 
 "Where am I?" 
 
 "At Emily Fian's. You ought to thank the good 
 God you're anywhere." He stopped for a second, then 
 went on cheerfully: "Two of us were killed, — the 
 baby and Tom: the little chap with the gun, you 
 know? Well, well! they were fitter to go than us old 
 sinners, I reckon. Bob had his head cut. So we 
 brought you and him here." 
 
 "It's very kind of Mrs. Finn," glancing about for 
 
ACROSS THE GULF 121 
 
 her in his "writhings of pain with dignified polite- 
 ness. 
 
 "Bah! What else would you have the woman do? 
 She's in the kitchen, making you a hot toddy. Noth- 
 ing like hot toddy after a shock." 
 
 "Steady with that light," snapped the Doctor. — 
 "Now," to Jane, "drop the lotion." 
 
 The lotion fell cool on the crackled skin. Jane 
 watched each drop anxiously. The bed was soft: a 
 delicious sense of repose, of being cared for, stole over 
 him. The one lesson of his life, so far, had been that 
 he ought to be cared for. 
 
 The Doctor, before he left, gave his directions to 
 Jane. Sperry began to blow up the wood-fire upon 
 the hearth. Mr. Imlay asked for a drink of water, 
 and Jane brought it to him. Her gown was still soaked 
 with the mud of the ditch, but her head and throat 
 seemed to him purer and finer from the dirty folds out 
 of which they rose. Instead of taking the drink, he 
 stared at her. " You tried to make them pull me out 
 first," he said. "I heard you." 
 
 "Did I?" smiling. "It's all a blur to me. No- 
 body knew what they did." 
 
 "You, at any rate, did the right thing." She had 
 forgotten his part in the affair, then? Should he keep 
 quiet and let it go at that? He took the water and 
 drank it. But he could not be quiet. Something 
 within him (not the immaculate William Imlay) was 
 crying out in an agony of shame and degradation. As 
 he gave her back the glass he looked her full in the 
 face: "I acted like a hound down there. I think I 
 must have been mad. I wish you could forget it." 
 
122 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 She fairly stammered in her hurry to stop him: 
 "Hush! hush! Don't blame yourself. The fire, and 
 you fastened in, — it was enough to craze anybody." 
 
 What a noble creature she was ! He would never 
 forget how she had tugged at that beam. If Jane 
 had been forty, and lean and scrawny, probably he 
 might have forgotten it. 
 
 Mr. Sperry caught an inkling of what they were 
 saying. After Jane was gone he came up: "Most 
 unselfish soul alive. She'd have done just the same 
 for you if you had been a tramp or a darky. What 
 would you like for supper?" 
 
 "I want no supper," said Mr. Imlay curtly, turning 
 over. 
 
 Would she have done the same for a tramp or a 
 darky? He did not believe it. 
 
 It was not the pain in his leg that kept him awake 
 that night, nor even the shame of having acted like a 
 brute before these good Christian people, though that 
 was sore too. It was the sudden sight of the brute 
 within him, which he saw for the first time in his life. 
 He tried to put it out of sight, to recall that Eeverend 
 William Imlay whom he had known so long, walking 
 into the chancel of St. Basil, irreproachable, from the 
 Greek features, set in neat English whiskers, to the 
 sermon that he preached. Well, what was this man 
 Imlay? He preached generosity, self-sacrifice, high 
 thinking and living, to others, and went home to be 
 pampered by his mother and Ann, to find the day 
 spoiled if his toast was too dry or his shirt-collar too 
 iimp. Was he nothing but a cheat and a hypocrite, 
 then? Had he never learned Christ? The poor gen- 
 
ACROSS THE GULF 123 
 
 tleman took himself by the throat that night, and was 
 as miserable as any of us would, be if we could push 
 aside our respectability and circumstance and face the 
 naked self inside with all of its possible meannesses 
 and antics. 
 
 Usually, when he woke in the morning, the con- 
 sciousness of himself, impregnable in respectability, 
 good taste, and piety, was an armor of proof to him : 
 other people touched him as through a brass plate ; but 
 to-day he was cowed and beaten, — a worm, and no 
 man. These strangers about him seemed to him to 
 have abnormal good qualities, — tenderness and gen- 
 erosity. He was full of gratitude and admiration. 
 He did not notice Mr. Sperry's red necktie and blaz- 
 ing diamond scarf-pin when he helped him to dress 
 and wheeled his lounge into the wide low-ceiled par- 
 lor. When, too, Mrs. Finn flew to heap his pillows 
 and to pat and purr over his ankle, it did not occur to 
 him that her soft crimson gown and airy manner would 
 not have been seen on any widow of fifty in St. 
 Basil's. 
 
 The lounge was drawn up to the wood-fire ; a great 
 tiger-skin lay in front of it ; -the breakfast-table, gay 
 with amber-tinted napery and red porcelain, stood in 
 the middle of the room; outside, the snow lay in lonely 
 unbroken stretches for miles. While Mrs. Finn buzzed 
 about him, Jane patiently waited on her father and 
 Bob, who were both cross and grumpish, teasing, jok- 
 ing with them, forcing them to laugh. Mr. Imlay 
 could not take his eyes from her when she was in the 
 room. This strange woman seemed more womanly to 
 him than any that he had ever seen. His interest in 
 
124 SILBOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 her, he told himself, was -wholly due to her having 
 tried to save his life. Still, he did observe the soft 
 curves of her figure as she stooped over the cofEee- 
 urn, and her dark questioning eyes. 
 
 Mr. Imlay presently sent a telegram to his mother. 
 " Tell her, " he said, " what has happened, and that I 
 am safe in the care of kind Christian friends." 
 
 Mr. Sperry wrote it, and then read it to Mrs. Einn 
 outside in the hall. "Add a message from me," she 
 said quickly. " Invite her to come to us at once : she 
 must be very anxious." 
 
 "No, Emily. It would not-do. I saw the old lady. 
 She would not get on with the profession at all. She 
 would think her boy was Samson in the hands of 
 Delilah and the Philistines." 
 
 Mrs. Finn tossed her chin and laughed, the color 
 rising in her cheeks. 
 
 " Of course she would, " persisted Sperry. . " Sup- 
 pose she had seen you rehearsing your old Juliet at 
 him over his toast just now? Lord, Em! d'ye mind 
 when you first went on as Juliet, twenty years ago, 
 in Richmond? " 
 
 " Yes, indeed ! Shives was Eomeo. He went into 
 Biggs's Minstrel Combination just after I married 
 John Einn. Do you know, this young man reminds 
 me of Shives?" 
 
 "You could make just such a fool of him, for all 
 your forty years, if you put your mind to it. How 
 that donkey used to go dangling round the country 
 after you ! And this young man — " 
 
 " That wilf do, Uncle George. I'm too old for that 
 sort of talk," gravely. 
 
ACROSS THE GULF 125 
 
 " Well, I was only going to say you had better let 
 Janey entertain him. She'll never damage any man's 
 heart. She stands and sings with her eyes on the 
 footlights, as solid as the gallery-posts." 
 
 Mrs. Finn accordingly sent Jane in to read to Mr. 
 Imlay, and called in the farmer, to talk over the early 
 crops with him. But the angry heat still burned in 
 her face. Delilah, indeed! George Sperry's jokes 
 were always coarse. Mrs. Finn (or, as she was known 
 in "the profession," Belle de Vere) might have had 
 certain too salient points in her history thirty years 
 ago, but in the meantime she had been a faithful, 
 hard-working wife to John Finn. She was now a 
 shrewd farmer and manager, anxiously scraping the 
 dollars together to give her big boys a start in life. 
 When she had opened her house, with her heart full 
 of pity, to take in this wounded minister of the gos- 
 pel, why could not his mother come into it without 
 fear of soiling her skirts? Delilah! Mrs. Finn's 
 heart was bitter within her against George Sperry as 
 she sat talking to Botts about celery-troughs. 
 
 Jane went in unwillingly to entertain Mr. Imlay. 
 She had her work to do. She carried in a big basket- 
 ful of Bob's clothes to patch, and, giving her patient 
 a magazine, soon forgot that he was there. The girl 
 had neither the culture nor the ready tongue of Emily 
 Finn. Beyond a child's schooling, she had been 
 taught only to sing, dance, and the business of the 
 stage. She knew nojaody but her father and a half 
 dozen other players, and them only in a business way. 
 The young girl's brain was not very nimble nor strong, 
 and the task of bringing clothes and food for three 
 
126 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 persons out of ten dollars a week had. thus far taxed 
 it to the extent of its powers. 
 
 Mr. Imlay watched her over his book. What 
 wretched old clothes she mended! How anxious she 
 was about them ! Her one good winter dress was wet 
 last night, and she wore a faded gown which she had 
 long outgrown. It better showed the white arms and 
 the shapely foot, but it touched Mr. Imlay's heart with 
 pity. He had a nice taste in clothes. What patience 
 and tenderness were in this poor teacher's lovely face ! 
 How it kindled at sight of her father and the boy! 
 Mr. Imlay wondered how long she would have to 
 carry that heavy burden. If he could secure her a 
 position somewhere, higher than in Kneedles's school? 
 
 Presently he began to talk to her, and naturally, of 
 the subject most interesting to him, — himself and his 
 sermons. "I had intended to preach on St. John's 
 life to-morrow," he said, "and I 'think I had a new 
 view of it." 
 
 Jane dropped her sewing; her eyes turned on him 
 with a timid surprise and excitement which flattered 
 him greatly. It was the first time she had ever met 
 a clergyman, and that he should actually talk to her 
 of his sermon amazed and delighted her. If she could 
 only get Bob in to hear ! She was so anxious to make 
 a good boy of Bob. Though Jane knew nothing of 
 clergymen or church doctrines, and had sometimes 
 heard a good deal of ugly talk in the wings, she was a 
 decent, pure girl, and had naturally a devout soul. She 
 knew that her mother had been an Episcopalian, and, 
 wherever the troupe might be on Sundays, she would 
 steal off to a chapel and there join in the prayers, and 
 
ACROSS THE GULF 127 
 
 in tte afternoon •wonld read to Bob out of an old 
 prayer-book and sIlow him their mother's name on the 
 fly-leaf. 
 
 "How are they getting along?" asked Mrs. ^'inn 
 presently of Mr. Sperry, who had paid a flying visit 
 to their patient. 
 
 "Oh, capitally! He is explaining apostolic succes- 
 sion, and Jane listens breathless as if it was to Kean 
 in'Shylock.'" 
 
 So it came about that for a week Mr. Imlay and Bob 
 were left to Jane's care. Mrs. Finn, who was to play 
 the Queen in "Hamlet" next week, was busy trim- 
 ming her robes with imitation ermine, and Mr. Sperry, 
 who was the heavy villain in a stock company in New 
 York, came and went every day. 
 
 During one of these visits Mr. Imlay began to talk 
 to him of Jane with his usual awkward dignity : " It 
 may seem intrusive in me, sir. But Miss Shannon 
 has been most kind and considerate. Some steps 
 should be taken to relieve her of this crushing weight 
 of responsibility. I regret to speak of details, Mr. 
 Sperry. But her salary in that school is absurdly 
 small, and I observe — I observe that — her self- 
 sacrifice amounts to actual suffering. Why, her gowns 
 really seem inadequate to protect her from the cold." 
 
 "Well, what can be done?" said Mr. Sperry, with a 
 puzzled, searching glance at him. " One could hardly 
 offer Janey clothes." 
 
 "Certainly not!" Mr. Imlay's face burned hotly. 
 "But if some permanent relief could be devised — 
 There is a Home for the Blind in Philadelphia, to 
 which, by a little influence, her father could be 
 
128 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAS LIFE 
 
 admitted. I think I could manage that. Eobert could 
 be placed at school. Then the child could breathe." 
 
 "Why, you're a regular brick!" Mr. Sperry gave 
 him a tremendous clap on the back. 
 
 " I beg your pardon ! " Mr. Imlay drew himself up 
 stiffly. 
 
 " I beg yours. But men of your cloth are not often 
 such hearty good fellows, and you really took me by 
 surprise. Well, suppose the old gentleman and Bob 
 out of the way, what do you want done with Janey? 
 Ten dollars a week is not much; but, you see, it's a 
 certainty with Kneedles." 
 
 Mr. Imlay was silent. The question raised a sud- 
 den unexpected storm of emotion within him which 
 frightened him. What did he want done with Janey? 
 What on earth was Janey to him? 
 
 Mr. Sperry, after pouring out a flood of opinions, 
 postponed the subject and hurried away to catch his 
 train. Miss Shannon was in the outer room, sewing. 
 "I say, little girl," he said, halting, "there's no need 
 of your telling your patient in there that you or we 
 belong to the profession. Heh? It might make him 
 uncomfortable." 
 
 " Very well. I don't want to make him uncomfort- 
 able, " said Jane indifferently, measuring her work. 
 
 " Kneedles will let you stay until Wednesday. On 
 full salary." 
 
 "Then I can finish these shirts," smiling and 
 pleased. " I have not had such a chance to sew for 
 years." 
 
 Mrs. Finn followed him out. "I'll buy her off 
 from Kneedles till Wednesday," he explained anx- 
 
ACSOSS THE GULF 129 
 
 iously. " She lias made an influential friend in there. 
 Perhaps — " nodding significantly. 
 
 "There is nothing in that," said Emily Finn deci- 
 siYely. " She does not care a straw for him. Her head 
 is full of her shirts." 
 
 Mr. Imlay was curt and dry with his nurse all day. 
 "What was this Jane Shannon to him? He read over 
 again a letter which had arrived from Miss Clara 
 Lowry. Mr. Imlay was not engaged to Miss Lowry, 
 but all St. Basil's Church expected him to marry her. 
 There really was no reason why he should not marry 
 her. She was handsome, refined, dignified; his mother 
 was fond of her; there was no better blood in the 
 State than that of the Lowrys ; she had a settled in- 
 come. She was already energetic in the church : she 
 managed all the fairs, taught the men's Bible-class. 
 He tried to think of her as his wife, sitting by his 
 study table, planning out his sermon, — which, indeed, 
 Clara was quite competent to do. What had Janey's 
 rosy, eager face to do in the picture? Why did he 
 seem to feel continually her firm, light touch on his 
 ankle? He was angry at her and himself . He dressed 
 his foot himself that afternoon, and then, the moment 
 she came in, he asked her to adjust the bandages. 
 Imagine the high-bred decorous Miss Lowry dressing 
 ,a man's bare foot. But this warm-hearted, tender 
 girl would do it, if need be, for a tramp or a darky, as 
 Sperry had said. 
 
 He turned his back on Jane and pretended to be 
 asleep, and then furtively watched her as she sat by 
 the window, in the fast-fading light, stooping over her 
 work. How thin her oval cheek was ! and her breath. 
 
130 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 too, came quick and short. He did not like that. 
 She had said once that her mother had died of con- 
 sumption. If she had an easy life, she might be 
 saved. If she could go a little farther south with 
 some one who would watch and care for her — 
 
 If — Mr. Tmlay flushed hotly from head to foot. 
 He started up on the sofa. It seemed to him as if all 
 the world must have heard his thought. 
 
 In the meantime, it had grown so dark that Jane 
 had dropped her work and was singing to herself some 
 pathetic ditty about a dead child. Mr. Imlay had not 
 heard her sing before : he listened with astonishment. 
 Presently he forgot to be astonished : his throat choked; 
 the tears crept down his cheeks. Deep, wordless 
 meanings were in the voice. Surely the girl's soul 
 spoke in it, and spoke to his. How rapt was the look 
 in her eyes as she sang! 
 
 Jane was amused when she saw his tears, but good- 
 naturedly sang on. She was used to see people cry 
 when she sang that ballad, — the fine ladies in the 
 boxes and the boys ia the gallery. For herself, she 
 did not like the song : she had such trouble with the 
 high C. As for the rapt expression, she was wonder- 
 ing just then whether Bob could possibly pull through 
 the winter with that overcoat. 
 
 As the poor young fellow on the sofa listened, pas- 
 sions and hopes such as he had never known surged up 
 within him. It was not the dead baby that wrenched 
 his heart and drew the hopeless longing tears to his 
 eyes. It was the girl yonder sitting in the yellow 
 light ; it was something in her which had been lost 
 out of his own life. He must have it! No matter 
 
ACSOSS THE GULF 131 
 
 ■what St. Basil's or his mother or Miss Lowry 
 thought, he must have it. 
 
 He called to her. She rose and came quickly up 
 to him. " Jane ! " he said. He was hoarse : he 
 coughed to control his voice. He was quite right in 
 what he was going to do. It would not do for him to 
 be swept away by any flood of passion, but Jane was 
 the only real thing to him in the world. Even if you 
 reasoned about it, there was a fibre, a genuineness, 
 about her : her hard work, her unselfishness, even her 
 fun and laughter, made Miss Lowry seem like a chilly 
 shadow. He took her hand. "Jane," he said again, 
 looking up into her face. 
 
 " What is it? Can I give you anything, Mr. Imlay? " 
 
 " You can give me — " he began passionately, then 
 he coughed — "a cup of tea. No, — water." 
 
 "He does not know his own mind half a minute," 
 thought Jane, amused. She brought both the tea and 
 water, laughing at him, making playful, girlish jokes 
 about his whims which would have shocked Miss 
 Lowry. 
 
 Mr. Imlay did not know his own mind on that day, 
 or on Monday or Tuesday. On Wednesday he was to 
 go home. One hour he felt himself possessed by a 
 demon, an honest, fierce creature who must have 
 Jane, who could not live without Jane; the next, he 
 was the calm and critical William Imlay, making con- 
 temptuous pictures of himself bringing home this 
 bride. She would be expected to take the leading 
 part in the religious and literary sociables and the 
 aesthetic teas of church society, — Jane, who had 
 but one shabby merino gown, who adored chromos, 
 
132 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 who asked the other day if the Europeans were gen- 
 erally pagans. He was a fool, — a mad fool. And 
 yet — yet — 
 
 Finally, he determined to do nothing until he had 
 consulted his mother. She was wise: she always 
 looked after his best interests. He would lay the 
 whole matter before her. 
 
 When he was ready to start on Wednesday morn- 
 ing, he found, to his surprise, the whole household 
 prepared to take the train with him. 
 
 "Mr. Sperry and I have business in Philadelphia," 
 explained Mrs. Finn, "and Janey joins Kneedles 
 there." 
 
 For an hour and a half longer, therefore, he would 
 have her in sight. He felt an absurd boyish rapture 
 of which he was ashamed. She was with her father 
 in the front of the car: the old man was unusually 
 kind and protecting in his manner to her, and she 
 seemed tired and depressed. Mr. Imlay sat watching 
 her. What rare distinction was in her face and fig- 
 ure! St. Basil's had never seen anything like that. 
 If he should bring her among them, it would be like 
 setting up the Venus of Milo beside fashion-plates ! 
 
 When the train stopped at Philadelphia he hobbled 
 up to her. She looked up. " Is it really time to say 
 ' Good-bye ' ? " she said, her chin quivering a little. 
 Jane was an affectionate creature, and very few peo- 
 ple had been kind to her. The quiver of the chin 
 meant just so much, — nothing more. But it touched 
 Mr. Imlay to the quick. 
 
 " No. I am not going on to Baltimore to-night. I 
 will stay here, — with you, " he said, speaking thick 
 
ACROSS THE GULF 133 
 
 and fast. As he handed her from the car his fingers 
 ■were icy cold. 
 
 Jane watched him, wondering, as he sat opposite to 
 her in the carriage, stiff and silent, a pillar of propri- 
 ety in his high hat and upright collar, beside Mr. 
 Sperry, fat, joking, and, as usual, many hued as to 
 clothes. Yet there was a new meaning in the quick 
 furtive glances of the younger man which made her 
 breath come quicker with a pleased terror. It was 
 not altogether an attraction of the blood which held 
 Mr. Imlay there bound to this woman. There was a 
 certain force and directness in her character and life 
 which was totally new to him. He knew nothing of 
 the world outside of books and the calm society of 
 wealthy people whose manners and religion alike were 
 pliable, inoffensive, and elegant. There were plenty 
 of gentle, prettily-dressed girls in his church, singing 
 hymns sweetly, working beautiful Bible mottoes. But 
 this shabby teacher, tottering through her youth with 
 this selfish old man and boy on her back, — the sight 
 stirred him like high distant music. 
 
 The carriage stopped at the door of a boarding-house 
 on a side-street. A lean, pimply man, smelling strongly 
 of brandy, was standing smoking on the steps. He 
 hurried out, tapped Janey familiarly on the back as 
 she alighted, and went with her into the house. 
 
 "Business!" said Mr. Sperry. "That's Kneedles. 
 He's sharp on the trigger, I tell you! " 
 
 "But that is not a gentleman! " said the clergyman, 
 his pale face flushed. " He is not a fit person to have 
 control of — of a school for young ladies. Miss Shan- 
 non must sever her connection with him at once. I 
 insist — " 
 
134 SILHOVETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 "Don't insist on anything just now," said Sperry 
 with a worried look. "Come in; come in. She'll be 
 out presently." 
 
 Mr. Imlay waited in the hall until Jane came out 
 of the parlor. Mr. Kneedles preceded her. He stared 
 at the clergyman's white neck-cloth, nodded to Sperry, 
 and turned to the door. " You'll come down at once? " 
 he said authoritatively to Jane. 
 
 " Oh, immediately ! " She was excited and pleased. 
 Her eyes sparkled; that peculiar fine smile was on 
 her lips which had become so dear to William Imlay. 
 
 As she went out on the steps he followed her : " I 
 will go with you, I have something to say to you." 
 
 "As you please." But she hardly noticed him as 
 she tripped lightly on, looking as if she could scarcely 
 keep from singing or laughing. The slanting evening 
 light struck through the quiet street. He observed 
 with keen pleasure that the passers-by invariably 
 glanced a second time at the radiant face under the 
 picturesque wide hat. If this delicate rare creature 
 were his own! 
 
 "Mr. Kneedles is going to double my salary! " she 
 broke out at last. "I shall have more work; but that's 
 nothing. Twenty dollars a week. And we stay here 
 all winter! There are schools that I can afford to 
 send Bob to now, where he will be with gentlemen's 
 sons. And there are lots of dear little houses for 
 thirty dollars a month, — bath-room, gas, marble fac- 
 ings, — simply perfect! I always wanted to keep 
 house. I'm a first-rate cook, Mr. Imlay. Gracious! 
 It's too good to be true ! " She swung her umbrella 
 and laughed out loudly from sheer gladness. Mr. 
 
ACROSS THE GULF 135 
 
 Imlay shuddered. But no matter! These trifling 
 gaucheries would soon be cured. 
 
 They were passing an open square filled with aisles 
 of leafless trees. The snow lay deep and untrodden 
 beneath. On the other side of the pavement was a 
 high brick wall covered with flaming placards. It 
 was a quiet place ; he would speak to her here : " You 
 speak as if this man Kneedles were to control your 
 future. I think that I — Come away! Why do you 
 look at those things?" he cried, interrupting himself; 
 for she had stopped in front of a great poster and was 
 examining it with beaming eyes. It represented a 
 frowzy female of gigantic proportions, with a liberal 
 display of neck and arms, being dragged by the hair 
 to a precipice by a stalwart villain. Below, enormous 
 red letters notified the public that this was Miss Violet 
 Dupont in her great and world-renowned rdle of the 
 Kose of the Prairie. 
 
 "You should not look at those vile things," he 
 repeated gently, laying his hand on her arm. 
 
 She drew back so that his hand dropped. "Vile? " 
 she said in a low tone. "Vile?" She grew exces- 
 sively pale as she stood looking at him steadily. 
 "You do not understand, Mr. Imlay. I am Violet 
 Dupont." 
 
 He did not understand even now, nor until she had 
 gone on speaking for some time. He was always 
 unready of apprehension. He stared alternately at 
 her and at the placard. 
 
 " Mr. Sperry said not to tell you that we were actors : 
 you had prejudices. But — 'vile' ? I did not think 
 anybody — " She put the back of her shut hand up 
 
136 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 to h.er mouth with, a choking sound, turned, and walked 
 quickly away. 
 
 Mr. Imlay followed at a distance for several squares ; 
 then he came up to her side. Whatever battle was 
 raging within him, the almost unconscious habit of 
 stiff politeness was still dominant. " I am sorry if I 
 appeared rude," he said. "That picture is really 
 gross, vulgar; and you — you seemed the purest thing 
 on God's earth to me. I cannot associate you with 
 it." His eyes, as he spoke, were fixed on her with 
 the same vacant, amazed survey as when she had first 
 dealt the blow. 
 
 "You may associate me with it, then," said Jane 
 tartly : " I am Violet Dupont. I suppose that picture 
 isn't very pretty, — I don't think, myself, it's a flat- 
 tering likeness of me, — but it's worth a good deal to 
 me in my business. I never had my name on the 
 posters before, and I did not expect , to have my pic- 
 ture billed for years to come." And the soft lovely 
 eyes glanced at it with triumph. 
 
 For there it was facing them again. On every 
 blank wall, in the windows of the barber-shops and 
 beer-saloons, Violet Dupont, with her bare neck and 
 brawny arms, stared out at him. He turned to the 
 woman whom half an hour ago he had meant to make 
 his wife. There could be no doubt of it : there was 
 an appalling likeness to her in it, and she was delighted 
 with that horrible notoriety. Yet how pure she 
 looked! He stopped, shuddering. She passed on, 
 and he almost ran to overtake her. 
 
 As for Jane, she neither saw him lag behind nor 
 run after hers She had forgotten that he was there. 
 
ACROSS THE GULF 137 
 
 Twenty dollars and her picture billed ! If this sort of 
 thing went on, Bob could go to college. And Mr. 
 Sperry had wanted to put him to a trade ! There was 
 a sweet little house with lace curtains at the windows : 
 something like that, now could be managed; and a 
 new suit for her father. Her own street-dress was 
 terribly shabby. She anxiously eyed the gown of 
 every pretty girl who passed her. There was not one 
 of them whose heart was filled with more innocent 
 desires than was poor Jane's; but how was Mr. Imlay 
 to know that? The vulgar publicity which would 
 have been loathsome to him undeniably thrilled her 
 with triumph. She stopped at the back entrance to 
 the theatre. 
 
 "Is this the place?" 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Imlay! I thought you had gone. Yes, 
 this is the place. I am to be a super to-night, but I 
 rehearse for the Eose to-morrow," laughing to herself 
 at the alarm and horror in his face. "You won't 
 come in? No. I know: you have prejudices. Good- 
 bye, then. I shall see you at dinner." 
 
 Prejudices? As she passed down the dark little 
 alley-way a gulf opened between them impassable as 
 death. Yet he would drag her back over it. This 
 good pure girl tottering on the edge of hell, — should 
 he not put out his hand to save her? 
 
 The terrible emergency almost forced William Imlay 
 to know his own mind. He wandered about the streets 
 until nightfall. Once a brother-minister met him, 
 and overwhelmed him with congratulations on his 
 escape in the train: "En route to Baltimore, eh? 
 No, no: come and take tea with us, and spend the 
 
138 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 night. It is our lecture-evening: perhaps you will 
 make a few remarks to my people? " 
 
 "I have business," pleaded the wretched man. 
 "There are friends whom I must see." 
 
 If Dr. McLeod knew that his friends were strolling 
 players, and his business to marry one of them ! 
 
 The good Doctor went home to his wife greatly 
 troubled. "I met William Imlay just now," he said, 
 " and he is completely shattered by that accident. I 
 don't like his looks at all: his mind seems unhiaged. 
 I wish I had made him come home with me." 
 
 "I wish you had: we have a very nice tea. It 
 would kill Mary Imlay if anything should happen to 
 that boy," said his wife. 
 
 About ten o'clock Mr. Sperry ran against the clergy- 
 man behind the scenes of the theatre : " How ! what ! 
 Mr. Imlay? How did you come here? " he exclaimed, 
 shocked at his wild, haggard face. " Come into this 
 room," for the young, people were staring and laugh- 
 ing at the clerical necktie, which he had taken no 
 pains to hide. 
 
 " No. I will stay here. I must see Jane. I must 
 make her give up this life." 
 
 " Yes, yes, of course," said Sperry soothingly. "But 
 if you would talk to her to-morrow — " 
 
 Mr. Imlay shook his head obstinately. "McLeod," 
 he muttered, "wanted me to preach to-night. But 
 my work is here. He that saves a soul alive — " 
 
 "Very well. Janey will be off presently." Mr. 
 Sperry was hurried, and proceeded to make up his 
 face at a glass, by means of cork and burnt umber and 
 a gray wig. It was an anxious, not unskilful bit of 
 work. 
 
ACROSS THE GULF 139 
 
 Mr. Imlay, left to himself, was startled by the fact 
 that this was all work that was going on about him. 
 A theatre, he had supposed, was a brilliant, bewilder- 
 ing fairy -land, the haunt of wild dissipation ; players 
 were lost souls who spent their time in idle jollity and 
 open sin. There was no enchantment and no vice 
 which it would have surprised him to see behind that 
 fatal curtain. What he did see was a dusty floor 
 and the plank backs of trees an inch thick, dirty can- 
 vas castles and stormy seas, a table set with tin gob- 
 lets and a dish of cotton ice-cream. Where were the 
 enchantment, the wicked sirens, the deluded lovers, 
 that everybody knows revel behind the scenes? Half 
 a dozen workmen with their sleeves rolled up pushed 
 the heavy board screens about; in an inner room some 
 men and women, mostly middle-aged, were ranged on 
 wicker settees, many of them with paper books in 
 their hands, which they studied assiduously until they 
 were called. They seldom spoke to each other, and 
 looked worn and fagged. The players who ran off 
 the stage with a laugh or song seated themselves 
 instantly, dull and silent. Mr. Imlay' s mind may 
 have been unhinged, but he had sense enough to see 
 that this was not hellish sport from which he had 
 come to take Jane, but work, — hard, steady drudgery. 
 The fun, the gayety, belonged to the audience : behind 
 the curtain there were few jokes or laughs. The only 
 idle person was Jane's blind father, who sat dozing in 
 the corner. 
 
 "He always brings Janey and takes her away," 
 explained Mr. Sperry. " I bet you that fellow Kneedles 
 will make her work now for her twenty dollars ! She 
 
140 SILHOUWTTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 has three super's parts to-night, — nothing to say, but 
 changes her dress ten times. Worst of it is, she goes 
 right out of a heavy witch's costume, — fur cloak, 
 and wraps over her head, — wet with perspiration, into 
 a ball-dress, bare neck and arms. You've no idea 
 of the draughts on that stage. I shiver even in my 
 cloth clothes. Here she is." 
 
 How superbly beautiful she was ! But nobody but 
 himself seemed to think of her beauty. 
 
 Mrs. Finn, in trailing cotton- velvet robes and gilt 
 crown, hurried after her : " Put this shawl round you. 
 You are shivering, and your head is like fire. — This 
 must be stopped, George Sperry, at once," she con- 
 tinued angrily. " If you don't speak to Kneedles, I 
 will, though I break my engagement by it. It is 
 sheer murder for a girl with delicate lungs." 
 
 Jane, who was coughing violently, checked herself 
 with a laugh : " Ifonsense, Emily ! Never was better 
 in my life ! I can't expect to be paid twenty dollars 
 for doing nothing. The truth is," she added vehe- 
 mently, " I never can play a speaking part : that's the 
 truth, and you know it. All that I can earn must he 
 by posing. Don't speak to Kneedles. Don't take 
 our bread and butter away." 
 
 Mr. Imlay stepped forward. But the life seemed to 
 be suddenly sapped out of his arguments. He had 
 meant to snatch this soul from the edge of hell. But 
 was she on the edge of hell? "I came," he said form- 
 ally enough, "to persuade you to leave this mode of 
 life. It does not seem to me — " 
 
 "I understand all that," said Jane impatiently, 
 standing very erect. "You have your prejudices 
 
ACROSS THE GULF 141 
 
 against our profession, Mr. Imlay, but it is my trade. 
 It is all I can do. I have myself and — and others to 
 support. I cannot teach, nor write, nor paint. What 
 other work is there that would bring me in twenty 
 dollars a week? " 
 
 Was it really a trade, a mere question of work and 
 wages? 
 
 " The temptation — " he faltered. 
 
 "I don't think," said Mrs. Finn sharply, "that 
 Janey is exposed to more temptation here than if she 
 were a shop-girl obliged to dress decently and feed 
 herself on three dollars a week. — There, George ! cur- 
 tain's up." 
 
 A shrill boy's voice squeaked out something at the 
 door, and in a moment the room was empty. Only 
 Jane was left. She looked at Mr. Imlay, hesitated, 
 and then went directly up to him and laid her hand 
 on his arm. There was little intellect in her dark 
 eyes, but there was an almost motherly affectionate- 
 ness, a common-sense which seemed to the irresolute 
 man before her strangely durable and strong. "You 
 are very kind to me, " she said. " But you had better 
 go away now. Clergymen don't come here. Don't 
 worry about me. It's hard "work, but the pay is good. 
 It's the right thing, — " she stopped, then repeated 
 with emphasis, — " it's the right thing for me to stay 
 with Kneedles." 
 
 She urged him gently toward the door. He had not 
 asked her to be his wife, — she did not know that he 
 loved her : " One moment, Jane ! " stopping on the 
 threshold. 
 
 "No. They are calling me. Good-bye." She smiled 
 
142 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 and kissed her hand. He fancied that the tears stood 
 in her eyes. " It is the right thing for me to do — 
 to stay just here." Then the door closed on her, and 
 he found his way out into the dark street. 
 
 One day a year later the Reverend William Imlay 
 ■with his wife passed the theatre in Baltimore. 
 
 '"Miss Gertie Swan in her original rdle of the Eose 
 of the Prairies. Kneedles's great Combination! ' " he 
 read. "I wonder where — " He stopped abruptly. 
 Young Mrs. Imlay turned, smiling, but when she 
 looked at him she stopped abruptly. She had fine 
 tact, and seldom asked questions. 
 
 A moment later they met, coming out of the theatre, 
 a stout man and a pretty little woman in a Gainsbor- 
 ough hat. Mr. Imlay stopped and held out both 
 hands. (He was a firmer, more decided, stronger 
 man now in every way than when they had known 
 him.) "Clara, here are some old friends of mine," 
 he said. — "Mrs. Finn, my wife. — Mrs. Imlay, Mr. 
 Sperry." 
 
 There was a good deal of hand-shaking and curious 
 glances on both sides. The handsome bride was very 
 courteous and affable, though her nerves were greatly 
 shaken. Actors! William's friends! Could she 
 touch pitch and not be defiled? Though, indeed, 
 these poor players really seemed to talk and look 
 quite like other human beings. 
 
 Just before they separated, her hiisband said, "Mr. 
 Kneedles, I see, has another Rose. Is — ? " 
 
 "You did not hear about Janey?" said Mr. Sperry 
 
ACROSS THE OULF 143 
 
 with a sudden sobering of his pompous manner. " No ! 
 — Tell him, Emily." 
 
 Mrs. Finn did not speak. There was an awkward 
 silence. 
 
 "No, I did not hear," said Mr. Imlay loudly. 
 Something in his tone made his wife look at him. She 
 put her hand quickly on his arm, biit he did not see 
 nor feel her. 
 
 " Janey is gone," said Mrs. Finn briefly. 
 
 "Yes," said Sperry. "It was that infernal Knee- 
 dies. He saw the child was ambitious to earn twenty 
 dollars a week for her father and Bob, and piled on 
 the work. She took cold the night you left. Me and 
 Emily warned her, but she wouldn't give up. Lung- 
 trouble. It only lasted a week. It was pitiful to 
 hear her worry about those two, — Bob's schooling 
 and the old man's overcoat, — everything. But the 
 profession took it up; raised enough to get the old 
 man in an asylum and to send Bob to college. Emily, 
 here, has taken him home with her boys. So the poor 
 child died content. Yes, sir," said Sperry, after he 
 had looked around and waited for somebody to speak, 
 lifting his hat with a little dramatic flourish. " Yes, 
 sir. Poor Janey has saluted the world ! " 
 
 "Come, George!" said Mrs. Finn abruptly. "We 
 have a train to make. You forget." 
 
 Mr. Sperry was very hearty in his adieux, shook 
 hands twice with the bride (to whom Mrs. Finn only 
 bowed with great stateliness), and drew Mr. Imlay 
 aside to say, "I'm sorry I told you about poor Janey. 
 I'd no idea it would knock you up so. But it's all 
 right with her now." 
 
144 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 "Yes," said Mr. Imlay with deliberation. "It is 
 all right with her now." 
 
 His wife did not speak to him until they had walked 
 a long time through the quiet streets. Then she said 
 gently, " That was a sad story. Very sad." 
 
 He made no answer. 
 
 "But what," she persisted, "can we do in such a 
 case ? There is such a wide gulf between us and them. " 
 
 "Is there?" said Mr. Imlay, looking at her va- 
 cantly. 
 
 She thought he had not understood her, and said 
 nothing more. 
 
A WAYSIDE EPISODE 
 
 AYEAE or two after tlie war, Mr. Edwin Woot- 
 ton, of New York, with his wife and a gay party 
 of young people, made an exploring journey through 
 the South. It was his own idea, — open spring wagon, 
 camping-equipments, guns, fishing-tackle, and all, — 
 or, rather, he thought and told everybody that it was 
 his own idea. Now and then his wife had a habit of 
 mentioning some plan as utterly impracticable, where- 
 upon he would instantly seize on it and work himself 
 into a fever to prove to her that nothing could be 
 easier. After they had carried it out successfully, he 
 would cackle over her in triumph for months as a 
 convert to his own original scheme. 
 
 "I never did expect," said Mrs. Penryn-Clay on her 
 return from France, " to find Emily Wootton so domi- 
 nated by that fussy little imbecile that she has mar- 
 ried. She is as silent, mild, and gentle as one of 
 those model, cow-like wives that one sees in a farce, 
 but nowhere else in America. I thought Emily rather 
 clever as a girl." 
 
 " She thought herself clever, " replied Mr. Erancis- 
 cus (Miss Eanny, the young people called him) who 
 
 145 
 
146 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 dropped in every day now to talk over all that had 
 happened in their set while she had been gone. " She 
 thought herself immensely clever, I assure you. Why, 
 Mrs. Clay, Emily Souders at seventeen set out to be 
 eccentric, — an Advanced Female ! Oh, she did ! " 
 
 He giggled, settled himself comfortably back in his 
 easy chair, and pushed his beard caressingly up through 
 his hand: "She left the convent where all the girls 
 were who were to be debutantes that winter, and went 
 to a Methodist Female College. It's a fact, — Metho- 
 dist! Plunged into Latin and the sciences. But the 
 Methodists soon proved to her that she was a dunce. 
 Then she fancied that she was an artist, and coaxed 
 old Souders to take her to Italy. It took her a year 
 to find out she was fit for nothing at that : so she came 
 home, when her mother took her in hand and mar- 
 ried her to little Neddy Wootton. The old lady had 
 planned that match when Emily was ten years old 
 and Neddy inherited his uncle's money." 
 
 " I am surprised to hear that of Emily. The Souders 
 always have been conventional to the last degree. 
 They never take a step out of line," said Mrs. Penryn- 
 Clay, whose chief glory it was that her position lifted 
 her above all rules. 
 
 Mr. Franciscus poised the tips of his long fingers - 
 together, looking at them thoughtfully, his face sober- 
 ing into a look of ferret-like sagacity. He had a 
 sleuth-hound acuteness for nosing into the personal 
 peculiarities of his friends. "Now, I don't think," 
 he said deliberately, " that that is true of Emily. She 
 is a radical. There's fermentation going on under 
 that demure face of hers. I suspect that it is she who 
 
A WATSIDE EPISODE 147 
 
 keeps Neddy imeasy and perpetually drives him into 
 such queer starts, while the little man is so horribly 
 afraid of violating propriety. He is running about 
 now trying to find out what everybody thinks of this 
 Southern trip. 'Of course,' he says, 'the proper thing 
 for us all to do this summer would be to build at 
 Newport. But the cads are creeping in even at New- 
 port. I'm going to trees and mountains. You are in 
 no danger from cads when trees and mountains are 
 your companions.' " 
 
 The old lady laughed: "'Cads'? Poor Edwin! 
 Of course your memory does not go back so far, but 
 I remember the grandfather Wootton distinctly, — a 
 retail grocer. I have heard that he went out himself 
 for orders, — white apron, cart, and all. But I never 
 saw that. His son, Neddy's uncle, did something in 
 sugar which brought in their millions." 
 
 "Ned knows all that, and knows that we know it. 
 Yet only yesterday he remarked to me — actually to 
 me — that blue and silver had always been the colors 
 of the Wootton liveries." 
 
 " I thought there was a compact among all Ameri- 
 cans to keep up these little illusions for each other," 
 said Mrs. Clay, smiling up into the eyes of the ancient 
 beau, with a most significant lack of significance in 
 her face. He tittered uneasily, knowing perfectly 
 well that she was thinking of his uncle Job Trancis- 
 cus, who is a tanner in New Jersey to this day. 
 
 As soon as Mr. Wootton found that his expedition 
 was approved by "Miss Fanny," who echoed the opin- 
 ions of society, he buzzed happily about his prepara- 
 tions . Underneath his snobbishness he was a generous, 
 thoughtful little man. 
 
148 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 "We will take my sister Jane," he said to his wife. 
 "Poor Jane! she abhors fashionable watering-places 
 ever since her deafness came on. And there's your 
 father: it will be just the thing for your father's 
 liver." 
 
 " People will mistake the wagon for an ambulance, 
 and you for an agent of the Sanitary Commission," 
 said his wife dryly. 
 
 "Tut, tut! Well, I suppose that is true," with a 
 forced laugh. He watched her uncomfortably for a 
 few minutes. " I thought, Emmy, you would like to 
 feel that you were helping somebody by my wild- 
 goose-chase. But it's too bad to bore you with a lot 
 of invalids." 
 
 She said nothing, and he turned to his paper dis- 
 contentedly. A year ago you could not have bored 
 her by invalids. She spent half of her time visiting 
 orphan asylums and blind old paupers and teaching 
 in industrial schools for beggars' children. But she 
 had shut her door on them all one day, and her heart, 
 too, apparently, on all pity or tenderness. 
 
 "Eeally, I thought you would have liked that plan," 
 he said presently, returning to the charge. 
 
 " Two or three boys and girls would be made per- 
 fectly happy by such a journey," she said indiifer- 
 ently, " but it would be impossible to take them. The 
 trouble would be endless." 
 
 "No trouble at all!" bouncing up. "The very 
 thing! Your cousin Zack, and Will and Louis Pet- 
 trow, and the Perry girls ! IsTone of them over four- 
 teen. It will be a four-weeks picnic! I tell you, 
 Em, that's the best idea I have had yet! " 
 
A WAYSIDE EPISODE 149 
 
 He carried it out. The children were nearer his 
 own grade of intellect than men and women would 
 have been; and as for Mrs. Wootton, she was very 
 happy with them. She was an indolent young woman 
 at home, but on this journey she was a middle-aged, 
 motherly matron, fussing about their wet feet, doctor- 
 ing the boys for coughs, putting her arms around the 
 girls' waists whenever they came near her. She had 
 never had a child of her own. 
 
 The ravages of the war, especially in Virginia, were 
 then fresh, and stared them in the face at every stage 
 of the journey. Mr. Wootton, who had been fiercely 
 loyal while the struggle was going on, was just as 
 intemperate now in his sympathy for the South. 
 
 "I swear, Emily, I feel personally responsible for 
 every burned barn or new-made grave," he said. He 
 was perpetually ofEering money on all sides and being 
 snubbed for his offers. Another trouble he had, quite 
 as heavy as the desolation of the South, — which was 
 the fear that the planters would mistake him and his 
 party for ordinary folk. He fraternized readily with 
 the mountaiaeers or guides, and kept his own impor- 
 tance carefully out of sight. But when they came 
 near a town or a handsome dwelling he brought Simon 
 the valet into full view. Simon wore the blue-and- 
 silver livery. 
 
 "And I am so thankful I had the "Wootton crest 
 put on all our trunks ! " he said. " It is unusual, 
 to be sure, but it impresses people at once. You are 
 not careful enough about these things, Emily." 
 
 The young people laughed at him among themselves, 
 but paid that exaggerated homage to his wife which 
 
150 SILBOUETTBS OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 boys and girls are apt to give to a -woman of beauty 
 who is a social leader in the world which they will 
 soon enter. 
 
 "She is too indifferent to be a leader anywhere," 
 said Dora Perry. " She is too indifferent even to lead 
 her husband or to feel contempt for him. He would 
 simply drive me mad." 
 
 They had stopped at a little inn at the opening of 
 a gap in the mountains in Southwestern Virginia, and 
 the girls were on a porch looking up the misty defile. 
 Mrs. Wootton joined them before Dora had finished 
 speaking. The others grew silent, uneasily, but Dora 
 said readily, " We were just talking of the qualities 
 necessary to make a leader in society. What do you 
 think they are, Mrs. Wootton? " 
 
 Emily looked down at the little girl's keen, intelli- 
 gent features, already under better control than her 
 own, and laughed. 
 
 " You will soon answer that question better than I, 
 Dora," she said, seating herself beside them. "As 
 for society, as you call it, when I think of it here it 
 reminds me of one of those glass boxes which you see 
 in an apothecary's window, in which a few gold-fishes 
 and minnows swim round and round, eying each other 
 year in and year out, and bumping their noses against 
 the sides." 
 
 " You speak as if it was a sort of jail ! " cried Dora 
 indignantly. 
 
 Mrs. Wootton answered only with that pretty set 
 smile which they thought so charming. 
 
 "It seems to me the most desirable place in the 
 world," persisted the girl; "I mean, of course," smil- 
 ing, "the glass case where only the gold-fish swim." 
 
A WAYSIDE EPISODE 151 
 
 " Yes. Tou, probably, will never bump against the 
 sides," said the lady carelessly. 
 
 Dora looked at her perplexed a minute, and then 
 said tartly, " How far is Mr. Wootton going to take us 
 into these dreary hills? We are leaving the large 
 plantations quite behind us; and I did want to see 
 something of the upper class in Virginia. N'elly 
 Hxmter spent a winter in Richmond before the war, 
 and she says they were so delightfully exclusive. 
 Money counted for nothing. She gave me letters of 
 introduction to half a dozen of the old families. She 
 said, even if I wasn't out, I might be making desir- 
 able social connections for the future." 
 
 "Very true," said Emily. "But, unfortunately, 
 Mr. Wootton intends to go up farther into the hills." 
 
 Dora went into the house. Mrs. Wootton sat look- 
 ing up the gorge, over which the sun threw slanting 
 yellow streaks, like flame, from behind the opposite 
 peak. The path was narrow, and the overhanging 
 hemlocks on either side nearly covered it. It led up 
 into the ranges of the mountains beyond, which 
 towered mysterious and inscrutable. Mrs. Wootton's 
 face was turned toward them, and Zack Souders sat 
 at her feet, watching her. Zack had that admiration 
 for her which a romantic boy of fifteen usually cher- 
 ishes for some woman old enough to be his mother. 
 She took the place of all the heroines of whom he had 
 ever read in poem and novel who were lonely and 
 unrecognized in the world. His dislike for her good- 
 natured, insignificant little husband was the more 
 bitter because he had no opportunity to show it. If 
 he could only have proof that he tyrannized over 
 
152 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 Emily ! If he had any chance for an outbreak to relieve 
 her from his cruelty! Instead of that, Neddy was 
 sure to come tiptoeing along presently, smiling and 
 offering them an open box of caramels. Zack was 
 always impatient, too, withEmily's neat, undramatic 
 dress. Its calm propriety never expressed any emo- 
 tion whatever. If her hair were ever dishevelled, or 
 if she would only stretch out her white arms wearily 
 occasionally, like all the unhappy married women in 
 modern novels. 
 
 "What is it you are looking for?" he said at last. 
 " Your eyes always seem to me to be searching, — 
 searching for something you have lost out of your 
 life." 
 
 Emily laughed. "Don't be melo-dramatic, Zack," 
 she said, looking down kindly at the boy. 
 
 "Is it anything that 7 can help you to gain?" he 
 persisted, his face lightening with excitement. " Tell 
 me what you were wishing for then." 
 
 "What was I wishing? That I was a squirrel, or 
 fox, or wolf, — some wild creature that could go up 
 that path into the woods and stay there. I should 
 like to know what the life of an animal has in it." 
 
 At that moment a man came out from under the 
 porch on which they stood, and cast a quick, curious 
 glance up at her, then passed up the street of the 
 drowsy little hamlet. He had a tall, sinewy figure, 
 and was clothed in a hunting-shirt made of deer-skin, 
 and short breeches of the same, covered with dust; on 
 his feet were leather soles strapped like sandals; his 
 knees and throat were bare and tanned the color of the 
 leather ; his long red hair and beard were untrimmed, 
 
A WAYSIDE EPISODE 153 
 
 and on his head was a cap made from the skin of a 
 coyote. He went with a steady, loping stride up the 
 gorge, not once looking back, — though the sight of a 
 beautiful, richly-dressed woman in that corner of the 
 earth must have been startling enough. 
 
 The hunting-shirt and wolf-skin cap summarily 
 knocked Zack headlong out of his sentiment. " Hello ! " 
 he shouted wildly. " Is that one of the bear-hunters 
 from Tennessee you told me about? " leaning over the 
 railing of the porch to call to the innkeeper below. 
 
 "No, it ain't. They hain't no such lookin' beasts 
 as that. He's no hunter. He's a rank stranger. 
 iNobody knows whar he belongs." 
 
 " Did you ever see him before ?" 
 
 " Yes ; onet he come along hyar, about a year ago. 
 He stays up in the mountings. Don't bring down 
 fish, nor skins, nor nothin'. Hain't no call up thar, 
 as I kin see." 
 
 " An escaped criminal, perhaps, " said Zack to Emily. 
 
 ISTight had fallen with a suddenness startling to 
 Emily, who had never lived among the mountains. 
 She strained her eyes to look into the gorge, when out 
 of it came a shout something between a yodel and the 
 bay of a hound nearing its prey. She fancied that it 
 broke out of the sheer ecstasy of the man at plunging 
 again into the woods, and had an odd feeling that it 
 was sent back to her. It ended in a high musical note 
 that cut through the night-air and left it more dead 
 than before. 
 
 " Hark to that fellow ! " said Zack. " There is your 
 wish fulfilled, Mrs. Wootton. How do you like it? 
 He is finding out what an animal's life is like, pretty 
 
154 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 fairly. But I can't imagine you, clothed in skins like 
 the cave-women, climbing mountains or swimming 
 rivers." 
 
 "No," said Emily, smiling. But what ailed her? 
 As she sat leaning over the railing, her chin in her 
 palm, her thoughts rushed out beyond her control. 
 Usually she held them in check, even without her own 
 knowledge. The man yonder, — there was no law, 
 no rule of propriety, to hamper him: he could lose 
 himself in the woods and shut the world out, — wholly 
 out. If a man could lie on the grass at night, with 
 nothing but the rustling trees and stars overhead, he 
 would know if they had anything to say to him ; that 
 is, if there was anything to say anywhere. 
 
 Down below her, Dora and Louis were talking 
 over their last letters from New York, — how the 
 Courtneys had married Anne at last to a rich Califor- 
 nian, and how Betty Matton had a new idea at her 
 reception in the way of floral pillars, and how the 
 Perots had gone to Paris for draperies for their draw- 
 ing-room. Had life anything to say to her but this, 
 — receptions and floral pillars and draperies? She 
 had heard of nothing else since her childhood. She 
 was walled into this little world of society, of gossip, 
 of insignificant competition and more insignificant 
 ideas, as into a jail-cell. For one day to be alone, to 
 climb the mountains, plunge into the rivers, to bo 
 man, beast, anything that was free to gratify its own 
 instincts and passions, good or bad! No river had 
 water enough to cool the heat in her blood. She had 
 heard in church something of the water of life. God 
 knows, there was in her a horrible thirst. She fancied 
 
A WATSIDl! EPISODE 155 
 
 if she could shake herself loose from every tie and go 
 back to nature it would be quenched. She sat quite 
 motionless, the pretty smile fixed on her mouth. It 
 did not even occur to her to fear what Neddy would 
 think if he should find out his real wife under the 
 charming leader of society whom he knew. He never 
 would find her ovA,. She always felt as if she were 
 wrapped in countless folds of deceit when she talked 
 to him. 
 
 Emily Wootton was not only a fashionable woman, 
 but by inheritance a strict sectarian. She had been 
 run, when a child, into a mould of doctrines, church- 
 going, and propriety. Her creed, like her grammar, 
 her gowns, and her touch on the piano, had been mod- 
 elled on the highest standard of the decorous and pious 
 suburban town where she was born. Her Scotch- 
 Irish father (whom she always remembered as seated 
 by the lamp, reading Barnes' Notes, in his tightly- 
 buttoned coat, his gold spectacles across his Eoman 
 nose), — was it any of his blood in her that prompted 
 her to run wild like a stag or a satyr? 
 
 Emily laughed. She had a keen sense of the ridic- 
 ulous, unlike most women, especially when it touched 
 herself. 
 
 "Did you read that story of the Maori chief the 
 other day? " she said suddenly, turning to Zack. 
 "He had been converted to houses and clothes and 
 civilization, when one day a paper collar tickled his 
 ear. He dragged it off and trampled it under foot. 
 'It's a little lie!' he shouted. 'And all your clothes 
 are lies ! And your compliments and houses and trade 
 and talk of religion! All little lies! ' And he rushed 
 back to the wilderness again." 
 
Ii56 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 Zack looked with a shrewd speculation into her 
 face. "After he turned savage was he satisfied? " he 
 said. "Did he find what he wanted? " 
 
 "There is the supper-bell," said Mrs. Wootton, ris- 
 ing and brushing the fallen leaves from her dress. 
 "Will you ask Simon to bring some of the older 
 sherry from the wagon, Zack? Mr. Wootton did not 
 like that which we had for dinner." 
 
 In a week, Mr. Wootton had pitched his camp up 
 among the mountains, far beyond the reach of civilized 
 intruders. He built a hut for Emily and the girls, 
 with the help of Simon, who, when his livery was laid 
 aside, turned out to be a very handy Connecticut 
 Yankee. Neddy and the boys kept up a watch-fire, 
 and slept over it in turn every night, supposing that 
 they were keeping guard against bears and panthers. 
 They lived in ecstatic expectation of a leap, a growl, 
 and a fight for life. 
 
 "Every man likes to go back and be a savage at 
 times," said Neddy, rubbing his ringed fingers as they 
 sat around 'the camp-fire one evening. " Now, you, 
 Emily, care nothing for nature : I can see that. You 
 are bored. You want to feel lace about your wrists, 
 and carpets under your feet, to be comfortable." 
 
 "Yes," said his wife. 
 
 It was true that she was disappointed. Nature had 
 no mysterious message for her. She was often left 
 alone here with the towering hills about her, and the 
 gray old trees whispering together, and the dome of 
 air above full of color and life and motion. She saw 
 that there was an infinite quiet and content in them all. 
 But she was not quieted nor contented by it. What- 
 
A WAYSIDE EPISODE 157 
 
 ever this awful secret was, she had no hold upon it. 
 It was with her precisely as when her heart swelled 
 with a song that ought to silence heaven itself to lis- 
 ten and she uttered a cracked piping falsetto, or as 
 when, years ago, she felt herself inspired with a poem, 
 and had written miserable rhymes — vapid and pre- 
 tentious. 
 
 "Yes; I am sure," she said to Neddy, "nature and 
 I have nothing in common." 
 
 " It is' because you do not go to work rationally, my 
 dear. If you would study geology, now! Or I could 
 give you a few facts about trees, for example, that 
 would make the woods seem like a new world to you. 
 There is that cedar, for instance. That is the wood 
 out of which the clothes-chests are made. Capital 
 preventive of moths. Or that yellow pine. It is 
 exported for flooring to — Halloo! What is that?" 
 
 A man plunging through the thicket crossed the 
 light of the fire. He carried on his back half of a 
 deer freshly killed. Mr. Wootton and the boys 
 hurried to meet him. "You've had good luck to- 
 day?" said Neddy, in the hearty, brotherly fashion 
 with which he met men who were hopelessly below 
 his class. 
 
 " Oh, fairish," slinging down the venison and wip- 
 ing his face. It was the man of the wolf -skin cap. 
 
 Edwin examined the meat: "Perhaps you have 
 more than you want of this venison? I wish you 
 would sell me some of it." 
 
 "Sell?" he laughed. "Up here money counts for 
 nothing. But," hesitating, "I'll willingly give you 
 the venison for half a dozen cigars such as that which 
 you are smoking." 
 
158 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 "Bring some cigar-boxes, Simon." 
 
 "The antlers are fine. Will you have them?" he 
 said, turning to Zack after he had chosen the cigars. 
 
 "Oh, thank you. But the price? I don't smoke." 
 
 "And I am not in trade. Pray take them." And, 
 with a smile and a nod, he disappeared in the thicket. 
 
 "He speaks English like an educated man," said 
 Zack. 
 
 "He is educated in cigars, at least," said Neddy. 
 "He chose the finest brand. He's in hiding from the 
 police, I suppose. Murder or burglary, no doubt. 
 What else could drive such a fellow to live like a 
 beast? But one can't send word to the authorities," 
 staring with his mouth a little open up to the tree- 
 tops for the telegraph-wires which were not there. 
 
 The next day Mrs. Wootton walked up the ravine 
 with her sketching-book. Simon was in sight in the 
 c«rap. The others had gone down the mountain to 
 fish. After she had been at work awhile, she heard a 
 step behind her, and, raising her head, saw the stran- 
 ger. 
 
 "I hope I did not startle you, madam," he said, 
 removing his cap. " I have something here which I 
 thought you might use. If you would allow me?" — 
 waiting for permission before he came near enough to 
 hand it to her. It was a feather from an eagle's 
 wing. "I'll tell you the truth," he added hvirriedly : 
 " I made this the excuse to see you again. It is three 
 years since I have spoken to a woman." 
 
 Emily's breeding did not fail her, even in the 
 presence of a possible murderer in this solitude. She 
 held out her hand for the feather as though she had 
 
A WAYSIDE EPISODE 159 
 
 not lieard his last words, her eyes brightening as she 
 took it. "I will haye it made into a pen," she said, 
 examining it deliberately. "It was good of you to 
 bring it to me. Will you sit down?" 
 
 He took his seat on the rocks before her. They 
 looked at each other a moment, not with the crude 
 curiosity of a savage and a fine lady brought face to 
 face, but as equals hesitate in a drawing-room, secretly 
 and swiftly gauging each other before they speak. 
 Emily fully appreciated the difference. The man, 
 despite his uncouth clothes, was clean, and his Skin 
 ruddy. He had a cool, controlled eye. 
 
 "Did you shoot the eagle in this range?" 
 
 " I did not shoot it. Whatever I may be, I have 
 not the blood of a bird on my soul, thank God. I 
 pulled the feather from its wing." 
 
 "You climbed to its nest to do it! " 
 
 "Oh, that is nothing," moving uneasily. "Any 
 boy in these mountains can do that." 
 
 She was silent a moment. There were no small 
 ideas common to herself and this man of the woods. 
 
 "You do not scruple to kill deer?" 
 
 "I only shoot one now and then to keep myself 
 alive. A bit of meat satisfies me for weeks. There 
 is plenty of food in the growth of the woods, if you 
 know how to find it. Then you have the satisfaction 
 of getting your living as animals do, direct from the 
 earth." He watched her as he spoke, as if trying the 
 elf ect of his words on her. She remembered now that 
 he had overheard her outburst to Zack. It had made 
 a kind of secret understanding between this man and 
 herself, which gave meaning to his words. It was 
 
160 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 this which had brought him hack. Evidently he -was 
 comparing his life and thoughts with what he guessed 
 of hers. "I," he added, "came to the woods because 
 there is nothing to be sold or bought here, nothing to 
 be made or lost. A man here owes no duty to any 
 other man; he can find himself out; he gets back to 
 his original conditions." 
 
 " I always supposed," said Emily, in her most indif- 
 ferent voice, working diligently at her sketch, though 
 she was burning with curiosity to drag out his secret, 
 " th&t only the fervor of religion or a great grief could 
 drive a man to live as you are doing." 
 
 " I had no grief. As for religion — " He stopped 
 short. Presently, with a significant laugh, he said, 
 " Why should not a man go to the woods instead of 
 to Europe to hide? I have no doubt the men of your 
 party believe that I am here to escape the penitentiary 
 or the gallows." 
 
 Mrs. Wootton looked up sharply, her pencil uplifted 
 in her fingers ready to make a stroke, and scanned his 
 face steadily for a full minute. 
 
 "7 do not believe it," she said quietly, and finished 
 shading her leaf. But her heart thumped hard under 
 her shawl. He was no criminal. As honest a soul 
 as her own looked back out of his eyes, but there was 
 an uncertain gleam in them now which frightened 
 her. He did not speak for some time, and she did not 
 look up again. Then he got up and leaned against a 
 tree, restlessly pulling down the branches and tearing 
 off the leaves. 
 
 "I am here because I was tired. I tried one 
 business after another. I was a bad artist, and an 
 
A WAYSIDE EPISODE 161 
 
 editor, and a teacher; tlien I "went to help Walker 
 out with his fight in Nicaragua. I was one of the 
 first to go to gold-digging in California. I threw up 
 the claim just as it began to pay. I got so tired I 
 couldn't stay to see it out. Then I fought in the war 
 with Sherman. When the army disbanded, my peo- 
 ple got me into business in Philadelphia. Oh, they 
 thought I was in luck ! It was such a fine opening 
 for a poor devil! But, great God! who could stand 
 tliat?" 
 
 Emily began to speak, but he hurried on without 
 heeding her : 
 
 "Drudge, drudge, day in and day out! Give up 
 your whole big life to earn the food to live with! 
 And the straight streets, and the rows of red houses, 
 and the crowds of people all drudging to keep them- 
 selves alive ! I was sick of the whole miserable busi- 
 ness in a month's time. The sight of the crowd going 
 by — the same man and the same woman, with differ- 
 ent noses and eyes, a million times repeated — came 
 to be a horrible nightmare to me." 
 
 "What did you do?" 
 
 "I broke away from th&m. I came here. You 
 don't stare at me or think me mad, as they did?" 
 
 "No," she said calmly, rubbing out a false stroke. 
 
 "Yet even in the woods," he said, after a minute's 
 silence, " one must strut and bear a part. I wear this 
 ridiculous stagey toggery because it keeps men away. 
 The good folks down in the villages look on me as a 
 Cain, and even the revenue officers fly if they catch 
 sight of me." He laughed, and looked for the moment 
 like a hearty good fellow who cracked many a joke 
 with himself alone under the sky. 
 
162 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 "You do not mean to stay here? You -will not 
 spend your life in the woods?" 
 
 " God knows. I cannot tell what I may do to-mor- 
 row, any more than any other animal." 
 
 Emily closed her book. Her fingers shook, and a 
 queer suffocation came into her throat. It was so 
 new a thing to her artificial life to come face to face 
 with any human being in this way. If she could 
 stretch out her hand to help him? What did it matter 
 to her whether guilt or madness had driven him out 
 of the world? 
 
 " You cannot waste your life here, " she said, invol- 
 untarily showing her excitement in her voice. "I 
 can see that you are a man of power and of education. 
 You have duties — " 
 
 " Duties? " he laughed ironically. " If I went back 
 to the world to-day I should find you all glad to be 
 rid of your duties, if you had my courage to throw 
 them off. Don't -I remember 'society'? Is it any 
 different now? Don't men, generation after genera- 
 tion, sink themselves and give up their talents and 
 ambition for their children, who turn out smaller and 
 meaner than they half the time? Don't clever women 
 tire of their stupid husbands and grope about for con- 
 genial souls?" 
 
 "You are right," said Emily, rising, with a ner- 
 vous laugh. "Undoubtedly you are right." She did 
 not know what she was saying. When she heard his 
 last words, she felt as if the man had come close to 
 her and put his hands upon her. Edwin was coming 
 up the hill, and hurried forward, smiling. She did not 
 hear what he said. She saw him talking to the stran- 
 
A WAYSIDE EPISODE 163 
 
 ger, and that they laughed. She herself spoke. But 
 it was all far off from her, as though she were asleep. 
 
 Clever women tiring of their husbands, and groping 
 about for — ? 
 
 She went down through the camp to a great rock by 
 the creek and hid behind it. Kow she was alone. 
 Nobody could drag out her naked soul in public here. 
 
 Was it that which ailed her? Was she tired of 
 her husband and groping about for a stronger man to 
 love? And it was apparent to even this half -mad 
 vagabond? 
 
 Emily Wootton was a worldly woman, but she 
 had been as pure and stern in her wifely creed as 
 Lucretia. The blood of generations of Scotch Presby- 
 terians flowed thin and tepid in her veins. She had 
 never flirted when she was a school-girl. There had 
 not been a spark of coquetry in her nature when 
 coquetry would have become her age. Kow, when she 
 was a middle-aged woman, she was groping for a con- 
 genial soul! It was but yesterday that she had read a 
 popular novel in which the American fashionable 
 married woman was depicted as a church-going Ninon, 
 enacting dramas of passion with every man she met 
 except her husband, and she had flamed into righteous 
 indignation at it as an indecent libel. Now this 
 ghastly portrait was set up before her as her own 
 likeness. Was it true? 
 
 Mrs. Wootton sat hidden by the thicket. She peeped 
 out at her husband as he fussed over the camp-fire, as 
 if she feared to look at him. He was fussy and con- 
 temptible in many ways. She had never told herself 
 so before. But she saw it now. She had never 
 
164 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 realized that she had married a man less than herself. 
 She knew it now. 
 
 Was it this that had -ailed her? This horrible 
 emptiness of life, — was it only the want of a real 
 support, of a live love? If it were so? — 
 
 The supper was ready long before Mrs. Wootton 
 came up into camp. 
 
 "You are fagged out, Emmy. Your clothes are 
 wet with the dew," buzzed Edwin. "Take some 
 coffee and go directly to bed. Zack and Perry went 
 down to the cross-roads and brought up the mail. I'll 
 come and read the letters to you." 
 
 "I don't care for letters. No, I want no coffee," 
 she snapped fretfully, and crept off into her tent. She 
 despised him, but she loathed herself. He was petty 
 and shallow, perhaps, but she — she was like the rest 
 of American Ninons, ready for her drama of love with 
 some other man. 
 
 After an hour or two the miserable woman began to 
 cry. " I did not know that I was so bad, " she told her- 
 self. " I'm sure there never was anybody else. But 
 it's all so empty, — empty ! " She lay awake through 
 the night, with her hands over her face, unconscious 
 of how the time passed, until she was suddenly aware 
 that the dawn was breaking and that Edwin had not 
 come into the tent. She started up, threw on her 
 wrapper, and looked out, her heart heavy with guilt. 
 The camp-fire was built some five yards distant. It 
 burned brightly, and her husband sat beside it on a 
 log, a note -book open on his knee. She went up to 
 him. "Why are you here, Edwin?" she said, her 
 voice hoarse. "You wish to avoid me? You think 
 
A WATSIDE EPISODE 165 
 
 we are unsuited to each other? You are happier 
 alone? " 
 
 "Bless my soul, my dear, wake up! You don't 
 know what you are talking about." He laughed, 
 quickly closing the note-book and putting it into his 
 pocket. "Come, go back to the tent, Emily. It is 
 chilly and wet here." He rose to lead her back, and 
 wrapped his coat about her. Something in his man- 
 ner struck her. It had never been so quiet or author- 
 itative. There was a sense of relief in it to the 
 hysterical woman. 
 
 "Let me sit with you here awhile." 
 
 "Very well." 
 
 He piled up the logs, wrapped a rug over her feet, 
 and sat down again : " Do you see that saffron tinge 
 on the fog below? Just there the sun comes up." 
 
 But his wife, with her back to the fog, was peering 
 into his face : " Something has happened, Edwin, that 
 you are keeping from me. What is it? " 
 
 He half rose, sat down again, put his hand into his 
 pocket for the note-book, and pushed it back : " You 
 have keen eyes, Emily. It is only a matter of busi- 
 ness. I will talk it over with you when we reach 
 home," he said, in the quieting tone which a man uses 
 to a fretful child. 
 
 " No, now, " she persisted. She saw by the kindling 
 fire how pinched his features looked. " If it is trouble, 
 let me share it. You have always kept trouble from 
 me before," with a sudden glow of gratitude when she 
 remembered how entirely he had done it. 
 
 "That is only what every man does, of course. 
 This, — this — " He began to speak once or twice, 
 
166 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 and stopped, keeping an eager, anxious watch on her 
 face. " It is Payes and Burtman, Emily. They have 
 failed. I was a silent partner." 
 
 " Oh ! Then you have lost — a great deal? " 
 
 "Everything." 
 
 "Had you no investments in Western lands? You 
 told me so once." 
 
 "In Nevada. Mining. But I sold out in May. 
 ISTo ; absolutely every dollar I own will be swept away. 
 The partners are each responsible for the obligations 
 of the hrm. I never should have gone into it. I 
 see that now. But it was done for the best." 
 
 "I am sure of that, Edwin," she said cordially. All 
 her strength and loyalty rose to support him. Through 
 the day that followed she was eager, energetic, and 
 gay, helping with the hurried preparations for return. 
 It did not once occur to her to question whether she 
 loved her husband or not, or to criticise him. She 
 had too much else to think of. They were going to 
 be wretchedly poor. There was all that blank future 
 to paint in her thoughts. Mrs. Wootton had no data 
 to help her in this work. Between the starved women 
 with baskets and shawls over their heads who came 
 to the back-area door at night, and the mechanic's 
 fat wife in her stingy purple silk and cotton gloves in 
 the back pews at church, there was a vague range 
 of life down there below like the circles in Dante's 
 hell. She was about to plunge down into it. So far, 
 she felt nothing but exhilaration, — a keen sense of 
 adventure, as if it were a journey to Labrador, or a de- 
 scent into a coal-pit. Of only one point she was cer- 
 tain: she must learn something of business. Being 
 
A WAYSIDE EPISODE 167 
 
 the stronger of the two, much of the direction of 
 their future course would naturally fall to her. Edwin 
 would be crushed by this fatal mistake and the con- 
 sciousness of his weakness and incompetency. She 
 thought with delight how generous she would be, how 
 self-sacrificing. No matter how hard their strait of 
 poverty, not a word of reproach should ever pass her 
 lips. 
 
 To-day Edwin certainly was not crushed. She 
 found herself, like the others, working under his 
 direction. How prompt and firm and cheerful he was ! 
 She found time to say to him, " As soon as we reach 
 New York, your better plan would be to place your 
 affairs wholly in my father's hands. He can bring 
 order out of them, if possible." Mr. Wootton glanced 
 at her. Her tone was slightly authoritative. "He 
 will keep you from making any more such slips," she 
 added, smiliag pleasantly. 
 
 "Very well, Emmy. We shall see." 
 
 Zack Senders was near them, on his knees, packing 
 a gun-case. Wben Edwin turned away, he blurted 
 out his thoughts, as usual : " You don't know, I see, 
 how Mr. Wootton became entangled with Payes and 
 Burtman, or you would not have said that. I heard 
 it from my father a year ago." < 
 
 "What do you mean?" said Emily. 
 
 "When you and he were up the Nile, he left his 
 affairs in your father's hands, with power of attorney, 
 and so on. Mr. Souders believed Payes and Burtman 
 were goiug to make millions in the China trade, so he 
 sold out the Nevada investments and put all your 
 husband's money into their concern." 
 
168 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 "Are you sure of that? " 
 
 "Quite sure. I heard my father say then it was a 
 terrible mistake, and one which Mr. Wootton himself 
 would never have made. He said, too, that there was 
 no man in New York with a clearer head for business 
 than Edwin Wootton. I tell you," said the boy, his 
 face flushing hotly, " because I know I have sometimes 
 myself hardly been fair to Mr. Wootton." 
 
 " He never told me that it was my father that had 
 ruined him. And he never would have told me," said 
 Emily quietly. But throughout the day the boy saw 
 that she was under the influence of stronger excite- 
 ment than could be accounted for by her father's act. 
 Her husband, who had always been grateful for the 
 most chilly signs of affection from her, was perplexed 
 by the silent, humble, deprecatory manner with which 
 she hung about him. It increased after they reached 
 New York and conferences between him and his part- 
 ners took place, at some of which she was present. 
 Could this keen, clear-headed, inexorably honest man 
 be finical, snobbish little Neddy Wootton? It is not 
 often that a wife sees her husband as men see him. 
 When she does, it has a lasting effect upon her for 
 good or ill. Emily had known that Mr. Wootton was 
 a kindly, generous fellow : she thought of it as part 
 of his weakness. She had not known of the broad, 
 wise charities which now first came to light when 
 funds to carry them on had failed, nor had she recog- 
 nized the prudence that managed them, nor the 
 simple, devout faith which had prompted them. 
 
 She waited for months before she told him that she 
 knew her father's share in the matter, simply to watch 
 
A WAYSIDE EPISODE 169 
 
 his expedients to conceal it from her and to save her 
 from pain or mortification. She felt a keen delight 
 at his tender care of her, understanding for the first 
 time that it had been always about her. 
 
 "Why did you hide that from me, Edwin?" she 
 said, when at last she spoke of it. 
 
 " I knew it would hurt you less to think me in fault 
 than your father," he replied simply; "and of course 
 I wish to save you all the hurt I can now, Emily." 
 
 If she really had been groping about her for a 
 stronger man to lean upon, she knew now that she 
 had found him. Fortunately, Neddy was just then 
 too busy to fuss about his sciatic nerve or to wonder 
 what people thought of him ; and as for the coat of 
 arms and liveries, he had forgotten them in whet- 
 stones. His old friend J. C. Tobias, of Connecticut, 
 had discovered an opening for his whetstones in 
 California, and proposed to Neddy to go out as agent, 
 promising him a partnership if he could make the 
 thing go. 
 
 Ten years later, some Eastern capitalists who were 
 visiting the Pacific slope drove with a party of San 
 Erancisco men one afternoon out to inspect the Woot- 
 ton seed-farm. 
 
 " Not Neddy Wootton that I used to know?" said 
 one of the visitors. " He was no end of a swell, — a 
 poor fal-fal creature, with not an idea beyond his 
 tandem and waxed moustache." 
 
 "Edwin Wootton this man's name is, and he is 
 from New York. But he is a long-headed fellow; — 
 
170 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 never has failed to see a good chance nor to use it. 
 California brings out the stuff in a man, if there is 
 any. He's not one of our rich men, but he's a solid 
 one." 
 
 There was the usual collation and speech-making, 
 and then the visitors scattered about the grounds. A 
 party of them met Mrs. Wootton in the garden, and 
 were presented to her. She showed them the poultry- 
 yards and colonies of bees that were now a sort of 
 corollary to the farm, but she did not say that they 
 had been begun by herself to help her husband when 
 every dollar counted in their weekly income. Her 
 little son trotted along beside her, holding her hand: 
 it was easy to see that they were comrades. She was 
 a tall, slow-moving woman, with a low, feminine 
 voice, and seemed for some reason to impress the 
 visitors more than anything they saw, as it was only 
 of her they spoke as they drove back. 
 
 " That is a solitary life for a woman of that kind," 
 said one. " She is wasted there.'' 
 
 "I doubt if she thinks so," replied a friend of her 
 husband. "There is always that singularly steady, 
 tranquil look shining in her eyes." 
 
 Somebody on the back seat answered more energeti- 
 cally than the occasion seemed to require: "Because 
 she has what she needed, — work and children. A 
 woman at a certain age wants a baby to nurse and 
 something to do. That is nature. It is usually 
 women that have neither who go groping about for 
 congenial souls or female suffrage, or some other 
 devilment to fill up the gap in their lives." 
 
 "You speak as if you had known Mrs. Wootton 
 before? " said the man beside him. 
 
A WAYSIDE EPISODE 171 
 
 "Yes," he said, with a certain sharp bitterness: the 
 tone did not encourage any farther questioning. 
 
 A singular tiling happened to Mrs. Wootton that 
 evening. The visitors had all been business-men, 
 dressed in the usual morning garb of gentlemen, and 
 strictly conventional in their behavior; yet, when she 
 thought of them, a steep mountain-pass, a grotesque 
 skin-clad figure, and a sad face under a coyote cap 
 would rise before her, and she felt the old rebellious 
 tug of pity and kinship at her heart. 
 
 " He could not have been among them, " she thought 
 uneasily, for she had deep down a secret sense that 
 this vagabond had read her with keener eyes than hus- 
 band or child would ever do. 
 
 She wondered if the poor creature had found what 
 he sought in the world. Then she hastily told her- 
 self that no doubt he had died of cold and hunger in 
 some of those gorges long ago. In any case, what did 
 it matter to her? 
 
 Yet she had for some time afterward a vague hope 
 and dread of meeting him in some unexpected place, 
 for she was sure that he was not in any ordinary 
 groove of life. She scanned the faces of the gangs 
 of miners when she passed them on the streets, and 
 took to studying the features of the noted murderers, 
 Arctic heroes, and brilliant authors which were repro- 
 duced in the illustrated journals. But, not finding 
 him, he soon died wholly out of her memory; for 
 Mrs. Wootton was too much absorbed in her children 
 to give much thought to anything else. 
 
MADEMOISELLE JOAN 
 
 SEVEEAL years ago, ( so ran the scTiool-inaster's 
 story,) my doctor ordered me to break up all old 
 associations, find my way into some quiet place, and 
 there rest for a year or two. Accordingly, I left 
 the United States, and hurry, and money-making be- 
 hind me, crossed the St. Lawrence, and, after long 
 and lazy loiterings thro^^gh Canada, settled down in 
 the obscure little hamlet of St. Eobideaux upon the 
 shore of the Saguenay. My chief business was to 
 think of nothing, and to sleep. I lived there, if you 
 choose to call it living, for a year. St. Eobideaux 
 was quiet and hushed as any moor-hen's nest in the 
 reeds. Nothing more active than dreams was ever 
 there hatched into life. 
 
 The village, a cluster of gray cottages with steep 
 red and yellow roofs, lay in a hollow of the hills, up 
 the sides of which wheat-fields and orchards stretched, 
 trying to warm themselves in the chilled sunlight. 
 The river, cool and dark, flowed lazily alongside of 
 the grassy road, which we called Eue Honore. There 
 is a mystery, as all the world knows, in this river. 
 It flows between solid walls of rock from its spring to 
 172 
 
MADEMOISELLE JOAN 173 
 
 its mouth. There are but few breaks in these "walls. 
 One was at St. Eobideaux, and there the sunshine 
 and smiling fields crept down to the edge of the 
 gloomy water. Sometimes a lumberman floated down 
 on his raft from the great pine forests above. You 
 could hear him shouting to the boys, or singing, 
 "Ay! ay! Douce soeur Dore!" until he was out of 
 sight. The little auberge, with Eepos des Voyageurs 
 thrust out upon a creaking sign from the sycamore 
 in front, stood close to the river. Vain hospitality ! 
 No voyageur except myself came to St. Eobideaux in 
 that year. Madame Baltarre, when she had finished 
 her work and mixed her pot-au-feu, sat, with her knit- 
 ting, on the gallery of the house, like the other women, 
 and watched the sun from day to day as it ripened 
 the peas in her garden below, or tinged and purpled 
 the pale green grapes on the wall. She had abun- 
 dance of leisure. She would look for hours at the 
 low, bellying clouds swooping down all day long over 
 the ramparts of the hills, to disappear in the gorge 
 below. 
 
 The old cur^ and M. Demy came up every afternoon 
 to bear me company on my end of the gallery. We 
 were all, I think, of good accord : hence we talked but 
 little. 
 
 I had brought several different kinds of tobacco 
 with me. It was a solemn event when we opened a 
 new package. We puffed our pipes in silence awhile, 
 and, if the flavor was good, we nodded to each other 
 and loved the world better than before. 
 
 "There were three live people in St. Eobideau:^ 
 before you came, monsieur," Pfere DrouSt would say. 
 
174 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 — "our friend Olave Demy, here, St. Labadie and 
 myself. No-w there are four. When we talk with 
 you on literature and affairs, I feel that my hand is 
 on the wheel of the great machine yonder." 
 
 The " literature " which we discussed was an occa- 
 sional two months old copy of the London " Times " 
 which the cure produced to enliven my exile. 
 
 " I have a friend in Quebec who occasionally sends 
 me this great sheet, " he would say. " You will have 
 heard, perhaps, that it is called the ' Thunderer ' in 
 England? Ah, fa, ja/ What a world we live ia! 
 The sweep of it quite takes away my breath ! " and he 
 would gaze with awe at the yellow page, fold it care- 
 fully, put it into his pocket, and light his pipe again. 
 
 The " affairs " which occupied us were the ripening 
 of the cure's corn or the condition of the hay in St. 
 Eobideaux parish. In the morning we usually sat 
 under the great cedar in the cure's garden, to discuss 
 the effect of that day's weather on these crops; and 
 in the afternoon, when the sun came around to the 
 gallery of the inn, we migrated to it and talked it all 
 over again. No one was offended if the others occa- 
 sionally dropped into a doze. 
 
 Sometimes, but not often, we spoke of the river, 
 but then we lowered our voices. It seemed, for some 
 strange reason, a live, malignant thing which it might 
 be as well not to offend. 
 
 "It does not seem to me," M. Demy said once, "to 
 belong to God's world." 
 
 The cure laughed. "Ah! that is the story you 
 heard when you were a child ! " he said. Then with 
 sudden gravity he remarked, " It is quite true, mon- 
 
MADEMOISELLE JOAN 175 
 
 sieur, ttat it is like no other water on earth. It is 
 fathomless in certain parts; absolutely bottomless. 
 Hence there has arisen a suspicion that it may lead 
 in these crevices to the under world. That we are 
 nearer the — the land of the unblessed here than any- 
 where else in the world." 
 
 The brief hot summer crept in these friendly confi- 
 dences slowly away, and the briefer high-colored 
 autumn began to be whitened with frost. M. Labadie 
 now came sometimes to smoke a pipe with us. His 
 summer's work was over; his harvest having gone 
 down the river in two great cases on the last raft. 
 All the village assembled to see it go, and most of 
 the lookers-on fervently threw the sign of the cross 
 after it for good luck. Everybody was a friend to 
 M. Labadie. 
 
 "There is no such honey in all America," said 
 Madame Baltarre. " It is the pure juice of the flow- 
 ers." 
 
 The little farm of the bee-grower lay a mile or 
 two north of the village: its only crops were white 
 clover and violets. The old gray house with its steep 
 red roof rose out of the gardens. The sun always 
 shone there, and the air was heavy with perfume; 
 there was no sound but the buzzing of the black, gold- 
 banded Italian bees, darting here and there through 
 the sweet clover. IS'ature in St. Eobideaux slept, 
 with long, full, quiet breaths ; but in the old bee-farm 
 she woke with a cheerful smile. 
 
 M. Labadie, according to P^re Drou6t, was the only 
 one of the inhabitants "of education." He was even 
 more silent than the other slow-speaking villagers} 
 
176 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 but in tlie matter of bees, at least, I found him learned, 
 full of facts and humorous, keen obserTations. His 
 bees were entirely human to him, always spoken of 
 as "Messieurs"; a shrewd, intelligent race, with 
 whom he had been allied by business relations and 
 friendship for forty years. 
 
 On Sundays I used to watch for the tall, stooping 
 figure of the bee-grower, clothed in a brown frogged 
 surtout made twenty years ago, as he came down the 
 road to church, leading his girls, Eose and Jose- 
 phine, by the hand. After mass was over the three 
 would stop to shake hands and chatter with their 
 neighbors, and then they would betake themselves to 
 a sunny corner of the churchyard, where a grave, 
 apart from all others,, was covered with white clover 
 and violets. The bees hummed over it all day long. 
 They would kneel there to say a prayer; and then seat 
 themselves on a low stone bench, near by, to eat their 
 little gdteaux for the noon meal. 
 
 I joined them one warm afternoon, and observed 
 that when anything of interest was said they glanced 
 eagerly to the grave, as if some unseen listener hid 
 there. Little Josephine, with whom I had an old 
 friendship, whispered to me, nodding downward, — 
 
 "C'est ma chere mere She expects us on the Sun- 
 day afternoon." 
 
 Then M. Labadie, his gnarled face a shade paler, 
 explained to me in laborious English that it would 
 have been their comfort to keep her at home : in the 
 garden, par exemple, which was her joy, or in the 
 orchard, where were her seat and work-table under 
 the great plum-tree for thirty years. But that was 
 
MABEMOISELLE JOAN 177 
 
 not ground consecrated. " So it is that she lies here, 
 monsieur, " waving both hands downward. " But it is 
 her own violets and clover that grow here ; and mes 
 amis," looking at the bees and lowering his voice, 
 "they do not forget; they are always with her." 
 
 A few weeks after this, one cold November day, M. 
 Labadie consented to remain with my other friends, 
 to share my supper of a fricassee of bacon, potatoes, 
 and chives, and brown bread. Madame Baltarre's 
 coffee was hot and delicious, and we sat about the 
 table, which she had drawn up to the great open fire 
 after supper, sipping it thoughtfully, while she re- 
 moved the dishes and set the apartment to rights. 
 There was another fireplace in the long, low room, and 
 when she had finished she pinned a fresh white apron 
 over her snuff -colored gown, and sat down beside it, 
 at her sewing. The red glow of the firelight twinkled 
 on the white floor, the old mahogany armoire, the 
 picture of the Child Jesus with a bleeding heart, and 
 the shelves full of red cups and plates. A heavy snow 
 had fallen that day, and the lonely white stretches 
 outside of the window and the flat graying sky made 
 the warmth and snugness within more cheerful. We 
 all felt it. The cure flung another log on the fire, 
 opening up red deeps of heat; we pulled our chairs 
 closer. Olave Demy was persuaded to tell about the 
 October bear-hunt again; the cure sang a plaintive 
 ballad in Canadian patois, with a voice like a fine 
 cracked flute; and I adroitly turned the talk so as to 
 bring in some of my own best stories. They had 
 immense success. The French habitant has a hungry 
 curiosity about everything belonging to "the States." 
 
178 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 It is to him what Europe is to the untravelled Ameri- 
 can. 
 
 "M. Labadie," said the cure, "is the only person 
 in St. Eobideaux who has been to the States. Before 
 you came, monsieur, he used everj' day to give us of 
 his experience in that great country." 
 
 M. Labadie adjusted his waistcoat and looked into 
 his cup with a vain attempt at unconsciousness. 
 
 " You travelled in the West, monsieur, — in the 
 South?" 
 
 "I did not penetrate so far as I had purposed," he 
 said gravely, for the subject was too weighty to be 
 approached carelessly. After sipping his coffee criti- 
 cally awhile, he continued : " It was not I, monsieur. 
 Madame Labadie, my little Jeannette, she had ambi- 
 tions for me. She said when we were first married, 
 'You must visit the States. You must see the world, 
 Georges.' But the children came fast, — one, four, 
 six, eleven. I had then but few colonies of Messieurs 
 my friends, to keep soup in the pot. Sometimes 
 there was no soup. But Jeannette still cries, 'You 
 must go to see the world. There are bee-farms in 
 Massachusetts, in Cincinnati, in California. You 
 must visit them all. ' 
 
 " Bien, the children, they grow, they leave us, they 
 sicken and come home, some of them, to die. We 
 have only Rose and Josephine left. But in all these 
 years Jeannette lays by money secretly, sou by sou. 
 Then she gives it to me. 'Go, mon ami,' she says, 
 — 'go to California, to Florida. See all the bee- 
 farms in that great country.' I could not balk her, 
 monsieur. She had worked for it for thirty years. I 
 went." 
 
MADEMOISELLE JOAN 179 
 
 "To California?" 
 
 "No; I did not even reach Le Niagarra, which I 
 had hoped much to see." He set down his cup ner- 
 vously. " Travelling in the States is more expensive 
 than we supposed. I was careful, most careful. But 
 when I reached Utica, on the second day, I found my 
 money would just take me back home again. But I 
 had already seen much in the States to please and 
 benefit my family." 
 
 "And your neighbors!" exclaimed the cur^ zeal- 
 ously. 
 
 " That you did, monsieur. How many winter nights 
 have we sat here, hearing of that journey ! " added 
 Olave. 
 
 M. Labadie stood up to go, still smiling and pleased 
 with these compliments. The night had fallen while 
 we talked. As he drew on his old shawl and tied it 
 about him, an odd thing happened. Since nightfall 
 the wind had risen, fitful and gusty. It blew now 
 suddenly through the gorge with a shrill cry. 
 
 M. Labadie, at the sound, stopped, listening. His 
 pleased face became strained and ghastly. The cure 
 and M. Demy, too, hearing this most commonplace 
 natural noise, had started forward to the old bee- 
 grower, as if to protect him. They stood breathless 
 a moment, watching the window, which was now but 
 a square patch of gray darkness, as though they 
 expected to see a face there. 
 
 While I looked on, astonished, the wind boister- 
 ously rattled the window-panes and the creaking sign 
 outside. The cure and M. Demy gave uneasy, foolish 
 laughs, and sat down, apparently relieved. But M. 
 
180 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN- LIFE 
 
 Labadie was greatly shaken. His lower jaw trembled 
 like that of a paralytic. 
 
 " It is only the wind, ha? It had — it had the effect 
 of a call. I thought I heard my name." 
 
 "Ah, bah, monsieur! You heard no call. It was 
 that villainous norther. I will walk home with you, 
 if you will allow me. Only to stretch my legs," said 
 Olave Demy. After they had said adieu, he tucked 
 the old man's arm under his own, and led him away. 
 
 "What does it all mean?" I asked, after the cur6 
 and I had puffed away at our pipes awhile in silence. 
 
 He answered reluctantly: "It is an old story, a 
 singular occurrence." 
 
 Madame Baltarre came up close beside us. Her 
 fat, placid face was pinched and blue, as with cold. 
 
 "You had better leave your stories and singular 
 occurrences until daylight," she muttered angrily; 
 "nobody knows who hears you now." She threw out 
 her fore-fingers, crossing them. 
 
 Pere Drouot shot one uncomfortable glance at the 
 window, and then asserted his position. 
 
 "II ne faut pas faire les cornes. Go to rest, my 
 daughter. Be tranquil. We will await M. Demy's 
 return." 
 
 Madame bade us good night, and, gathering up her 
 sewing, went quickly clattering uj) the stairs. 
 
 We smoked on without speaking, the cure reflec- 
 tively watching the smoke from his pipe as it drifted 
 into the chimney ; and it was not until M. Demy had 
 returned and taken his seat that he broke the silence, 
 speaking, as he always did when much moved, in 
 Canadian Prench. 
 
MADEMOISELLE JOAN 181 
 
 " It certainly "w^as a singular occurrence, monsieur; 
 possibly, easy to explain by some scientiiic law, but I 
 never have been able to explain it. I sbould like to 
 lay it before you for your opinion. It happened in 
 this way : — 
 
 " Six years ago, in April, a voyageur arrived, like 
 yourself, in St. Eobideaux, — a woman, a widow, of 
 about forty or fifty years; an unpleasantly white. 
 woman, with puffy fair skin which looked as if water 
 was below it, light gray eyes, faded yellow hair. La 
 Veuve Badleigh lodged here with Madame Baltarre. 
 She was soon known to all the village. In every 
 house I would find this fat person, in her unclean 
 yellow gown, with big paste diamonds in her ears, 
 pouring out flatteries to women and men with the ges- 
 tures of an excitable young girl, while her cold eyes 
 kept a keen watch from under their thick, half -shut 
 lids. All my people cried out, 'Oh how pious, how 
 friendly, she is, this Veuve Badleigh! ' But, mon- 
 sieur, when I see the finger-nails of a woman not clean, 
 and her shoe-laces untied, " — the good father shook 
 his head, — "something is wrong in her soul. Bien! 
 The one place where I found her most often was on 
 the gallery of M. Labadie's house. There she sat in 
 the sun. She was enraptured with the sun, with the 
 (dd house, with the fields of white clover and violets ; 
 she lapped up honey as a cat does cream ; she caressed 
 Eose and Josephine. I protest, monsieur, my flesh 
 crept when I saw her thick fingers paddling with the 
 little hands of the children. M. Labadie sat beside 
 her, telling her of Messieurs the bees, of the witty 
 sayings of Eose and Josephine, and of his wife, poor 
 
182 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 Jeannette, -witli tears streaming from his eyes. Well, 
 ■well, monsieur, you know what occurs when a man 
 talks to another woman of his wife, with the tears 
 streaming! In September they were married." Pere 
 Drouot shrugged his shoulders, spreading out both 
 hands. "Ah-a! No sooner was Veuve Badleigh 
 established in the easy-chair on the porch, in the sun, 
 mistress of the house, the bees, the little girls, and 
 poor M. Labadie, than presto ! all is changed ! 
 
 " I know not what went on there. Nobody has ever 
 known. M. Labadie was poor, as all we others. One 
 does not raise and clothe and feed and nurse and bury 
 so many little ones by the help only of a few bees, 
 and meantime live on meat and white bread, like. a 
 governor-general. My faith, no! The table and 
 clothes of our friend had always been scant and poor. 
 But he was never in debt, not a penny. Yet in six 
 months after his second marriage he had mortgaged 
 his farm to raise money for the new yellow gowns and 
 rich plats of madame ! Ah, monsieur, it was execra- 
 ble! St. Kobideaux was convulsed with rage and 
 pity. But we kept silent, such regard have we for 
 M. Labadie. 
 
 " Alas ! this was nothing to that which was to come. 
 A young man appeared in the village, a vulgar fellow, 
 lean, pimpled, loud-talking, dressed in the New York 
 fashion. His oaths and his jokes made the very air 
 of the street filthy. He was Paul Badleigh, son of 
 madame. She had not told M. Labadie of this son 
 until he appeared. He swaggers about the bee-farm, 
 he makes servants of Kose and Josephine, he swears 
 at their father. Was he her son? Ah, monsieur, 
 
MADEMOISELLE JOAN 183 
 
 how can I tell? Sometimes I think he is a thief, a 
 vaurien. I know him to be a drunkard and a gambler, 
 and she, perhaps, is an accomplice. But how can I 
 tell? 
 
 " So the autumn goes, and the winter comes. Paul 
 Badleigh had been drinking hard, and was not able to 
 leave the farm. The Veuve Badleigh (I never could 
 bring myself to call her Madame Labadie) came into 
 the village at times, more unclean, more watchful, 
 than ever. She did not take the trouble now to flatter 
 the poor villagers ; she had reaped her harvest. 
 
 "Kose and Josephine came in to mass, the thin, 
 scared little creatures. When they met their old 
 friends, they ran past like guilty things. The shame 
 of that woman and of her foul son was upon the chil- 
 dren." 
 
 "As to M. Labadie," interrupted Olave Demy, "he 
 never came into the village, not even for mass. The 
 humiliation was too heavy upon him." 
 
 "I met him once on the road, near the church," 
 said P^re Drou6t; "but he crept out of sight, as if he 
 were the thief and gambler. When he passed the 
 churchyard he turned his head, that he might not see 
 his poor Jeannette's grave." He sighed, sipped his 
 coffee, and continued : — 
 
 " It was about this time, monsieur, that my friend 
 Olave and myself were sitting here by the fire, just as 
 now, one cold evening. The wind was blowing a 
 hurricane. Suddenly it sounded, as to-night, with a 
 shriek down the gorge, and then came a sharp tap on 
 the window, another and another, as of a person in 
 great haste. Then the door was pushed open, and a 
 
184 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 •woman entered, throwing quick, keen glances before 
 her. She was a dark, lean little body — " 
 
 " Clean, " said M. Demy emphatically, between the 
 puffs of his pipe. 
 
 " Yes, noticeably clean and trig. She always looked 
 like an officer buckled up for action. She ordered 
 supper and a room, and then she stood by the fire 
 knocking off the snow, sharply scanning M. Demy and 
 myself. 
 
 "'You are a priest,' she said presently. 'You 
 know the people among these hills. Have you by 
 chance met a woman named Badleigh, in your jour- 
 neys ? ' 
 
 " Madame Baltarre carried the word from me. 'She 
 is here, ' said she, nodding with meaning. 
 
 "'Ah! here?' The woman looked from one to the 
 other. She waited as if she expected bad news, a 
 charge or accusation. 
 
 "'She is married,' said madame, 'to M. Labadie, 
 one of the oldest and foremost citizens of St^ Eobi- 
 deaux.' 
 
 "'God pity us!' cried the stranger. 'Married! 
 This is too much ! ' 
 
 "As she stood looking into the fire, I noted her 
 closely. She had the expression of an honest, right- 
 minded woman. But the obstinacy, the determina- 
 tion, in her insignificant features! Monsieur, she 
 could have driven a hundred men before her into 
 battle. 
 
 "She coughed violently now and then. I am some- 
 thing of medieiner, and I saw that her hold on life 
 was weak and would be short. 
 
MADEMOISELLE JOAN 185 
 
 " Olave went home presently, and Madame Baltarre 
 left the room. Then she turned on me. 
 
 " 'You are a man of God,' she said. 'You ought to 
 help me. What has she done here? There is no 
 time for mincing matters. I am her sister Joan. I 
 am responsible for her.' She rubbed her wrists 
 nervously as she talked, exposing her thin, bloodless 
 arms. 'I have not much time left in which to control 
 her.' 
 
 " I answered her gently that T knew nothing definite 
 of the Veuve Badleigh, but that I feared the marriage 
 had not been a happy one for M. Labadie and his 
 little girls. 
 
 " 'There are children? And little girls! ' she cried, 
 starting up. 'Come! I must go at once. You will 
 show me the way? ' 
 
 " It was a cold night, but the road was free from 
 snow. She hurried on in silence, but the quick motion 
 brought on a racking cough. 'You are not fit for this 
 work, mademoiselle,' I said, kindly. 
 
 " The poor creature was touched. She began to cry, 
 like any sick, tired woman. 'It is all I have to do 
 now. But I phall be done with it all and go soon, ' 
 she said. We did not speak again until we reached 
 the gate before M. Labadie's house. A man's voice 
 was howling out some drunken song within. She 
 stopped. 'Who is that? ' 
 
 "'It is her son, M. Paul Badleigh,' I said. 
 
 "She stood quite still a moment. 'I must go in 
 alone. It is worse than I thought, ' she said. 
 
 " I watched until the door shut behind her, and came 
 home, sure of but one thing, — that whatever she had 
 
186 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 to do must be done quickly. She was marked with 
 death. 
 
 " The next day Madame Baltarre sent up her port- 
 manteau, which came with her on the boat, and we 
 heard nothing more from the bee-farm for a month. 
 Then, one evening, little Rose came for me. Made- 
 moiselle Joan was dying. The child cried: the 
 woman had been kind to her, and she needed kind- 
 ness. 'She is not Catholic, but she will see you, 
 father,' the little one said, holding my hand as she 
 trotted along by my side. 
 
 "The Veuve Badleigh sat at one side of the bed, 
 and her son at the other, watching every breath of 
 the dying woman with ill-suppressed triumph. She 
 pulled her life together to speak to me. 'They think 
 they will be free now,' she whispered, pointing to 
 them. 'My sister has done great harm in the world, 
 but I — ' 
 
 " Veuve Badleigh thrust a cup to her mouth. 'Drink 
 this medicine,' she said. The flabby white creature 
 trembled with fear of exposure. 
 
 "I put her back, and lifted her sister, that she 
 might get her breath. 'God forgive them! ' she cried. 
 
 " This was an hour before she died. In that time I 
 gathered from her that for ten years she had held 
 these two in check; that after she was gone it was 
 their purpose to bring some nameless disaster on the 
 children, Eose and Josephine; that she had sent for 
 me to warn me of their danger. She lay still for some 
 moments ; she had almost ceased to breathe. A look 
 of satisfaction and relief, terrible to see, came into 
 both the faces bent over her. 
 
MADEMOISELLE JOAN 187 
 
 "Her eyes opened; she saw it. 
 
 " Monsieur, she was a small, insignificant woman, 
 but the soul going out of her body was inexorable. It 
 was that of a great fighter. She held them with her 
 eyes ; she raised herself slowly in the bed. 
 
 "'You shall not hurt those children. You shall 
 both — come with me.' 
 
 "Before the words passed she was pulseless. It 
 was as if the soul had spoken out of a dead body." 
 
 "Is that the end?" I asked; for the cure had 
 stopped, and was mechanically puflBng his pipe, which 
 had gone out. 
 
 "No," said M. Demy, "it is not all, monsieur. 
 But that which follows is so strange, so incredible, 
 that one fears to tell of it. All the village know it 
 to be true, yet it is never mentioned among us." 
 
 I waited in silence, and after a while the cure said : — 
 
 " I will tell you briefly the facts, monsieur, and you 
 must make from them your opinion. I interfered on 
 behalf of the children, but ^M. Labadie was obstinate. 
 No harm was coming to them, he averred. His wife 
 wanted their companionship. I had no proof against 
 her or her son; only the vague accusations of a dying 
 woman, which, after all, might be prejudice. Two 
 weeks passed when — M. Demy, you will correct me 
 if I mistake in the facts?" 
 
 M. Demy rose nervously, and stood in front of the 
 fire. "You are correct so far, father. It was just 
 two weeks, — a cold, still night." 
 
 "Not a breath of wind blowing," said the cure. 
 
188 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 "We were sitting about the fire here with two or 
 three other neighbors. Paul Badleigh lay on that 
 bench yonder. He had been drinking heavily, and 
 was asleep. Suddenly a high, keen wind swept down 
 the gorge, with a shrill sound like a cry. Badleigh 
 stopped snoring, and sat up, staring. Then, mon- 
 sieur, there was a stroke on the window; another, and 
 another, sharp, — decisive. We all heard it — " 
 
 "And words," amended M. Demy. 
 
 "And words. What they were none of us could 
 make out, but Badleigh understood them. He got 
 up, and went staggering to the door. 
 
 "'I am coming,' he said. 
 
 " We never saw him alive again. The next morn- 
 ing he was found at the foot of the Peak Jen^ miles 
 from the village, dead." 
 
 "It appears to me," I ventured, after a pause, "that 
 this could be explained without any reference to a 
 supernatural cause. The man was terrified by the 
 noise made by the wind, and, stupid from drink, lost 
 his way." 
 
 The cure bowed his head gravely. "I have not 
 finished, monsieur. Four days after Paul Badleigh's 
 death, M. Labadie came to the village, like a man 
 whose reason was shattered. His children were gone ! 
 His wife had enticed them out for a walk, and had 
 boarded a boat which was descending the river. She 
 had taken her jewels and all the money she could find. 
 They had been gone some hours. 
 
 " Monsieur, every man in the village went to work 
 as though his own child had been stolen. The three 
 boats in St. Eobideaux were manned by the strongest 
 
MADEMOISELLE JOAN 189 
 
 oarsmen. I -was in the first, witli Olave, here, and 
 M. Labadie. We overtook the fugitives at nightfall. 
 They had landed, and the woman and children were 
 in an auberge, in the village of Pont de Josef. She 
 was very quiet and cool, smiled and jested, saying she 
 had but meant to give the little demoiselles a glimpse 
 of the world, and would have returned to-morrow. M. 
 Labadie had not a word for her. He clung to his 
 children as if they had come back safe out of hell to 
 him; he would not lose his hold on them, — no, not 
 for a minute. 
 
 " It was impossible that we could return that night. 
 We must remain at the auberge, where the Veuve 
 Badleigh had ordered for herself the only chamber. 
 I went out to the gallery, and walked up and down. 
 I could see through the windows M. Labadie with his 
 little girls on his knees, Olave and the other men, 
 and quite apart, by herself, the fat white woman, 
 with her cheap jewelry shining in her ears, leering 
 stupidly about her. The sun had just gone down, and 
 the snow lay white on the ground. The moon hung 
 low in the red sky. It was still so clear that I could 
 have seen a moth in the air. But, monsieur, as I 
 stood for a moment, something passed me by that I 
 did not see. It had a rushing force like the wind, 
 but it was not the wind. It was nothing which I 
 had ever felt before. I cried out on God, and my 
 heart died in me. I looked to the lighted room 
 within. What had happened I knew not. But they 
 were standing, haggard, waiting, like men who had 
 heard the call of death." 
 
 "It was a sound that we heard," said M. Demy, 
 
190 SILHOUETTES OF AMERWAN LIFE 
 
 " like a cry, and then there were three sharp strokes 
 on the -window and a voice. But no one understood 
 the words but the Veuve Badleigh. She got up and 
 walked to the door, as one that is dragged, step by- 
 step." 
 
 "I saw her," continued the cur6, "as she passed 
 me, going across the gallery into her own chamber. 
 She had the face of one who had been fighting a bat- 
 tle all through her life, and was defeated at last. 
 Yet the miserable, leering smile was there still. She 
 went in and shut the door." He stopped abruptly. 
 
 "In the morning," said M. Demy, breaking the 
 silence, " she was found there dead. She had taken 
 an overdose of opium. She was buried at Pont de 
 Josef." He added, after a pause, "Only think, mon- 
 sieur, what a will that little woman had ! She could 
 thrust her hand out of the grave and drag those two 
 creatures after her. I am truly glad, " knocking the 
 ashes out of his pipe reflectively, "that I know no 
 one who is dead who has a will like that." 
 
 We smoked in silence a while longer. Then the 
 cure, glancing at the clock, which told midnight, rose 
 to go. 
 
 "That is the end of the history, monsieur," he said. 
 " M. Labadie came back to his happy, quiet life again, 
 gradually paid off his debts, and has almost forgotten 
 his sore trouble. He has but one fear. There are 
 times when he thinks that his call to go may come 
 in the same manner, and that he will find the Veuve 
 Badleigh, her son Paul, and Mademoiselle Joan wait- 
 ing for him beyond." 
 
MADEMOISELLE JOAN- 191 
 
 The next Sunday was one of those clear, balmy days 
 which come in November, even in Canada. 
 
 After mass I waited near the church, watching the 
 villagers as they leisurely climbed the rocky street and 
 disappeared in the vine-covered cottages. The bal- 
 sam scent from the neighboring forests was heavy on 
 the sunlit air; a soft strain from the organ still came 
 fitfully through the silence ; around the close horizon 
 the tender blue of the sky melted into the blue of the 
 mountains. It was surely but a thin veil which hid 
 heaven from earth to-day. 
 
 I saw M. Labadie, with his little Rose and Jose- 
 phine, seated on the stone bench beside the grave, as 
 usual; they had eaten their goMer, and were talking 
 and laughing together, as if their dead had really 
 come back to them, and made them the happier for 
 coming. 
 
 They made room for me beside them. 
 
 " It seems to me, monsieur, " said M. Labadie, pres- 
 ently, " as if to-day those who are gone come closer to 
 us than at other times. The soft air and the clear 
 light give to one that thought." 
 
 "It may be so, monsieur." 
 
 "My children," he said gently, after a silence, "are 
 scattered in their graves over all Canada. But I think 
 they have found each other there beyond. We always 
 know that the mother is with us here every Sunday, 
 but to-day it seems as if they all were with her, — all 
 of us here together." 
 
 He softly patted Josephine's hand on his knee, 
 looking beyond her to those whom she could not see. 
 
 A rising wind rustled the trees over our heads. He 
 half rose, looking about uneasily. 
 
192 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 " Run away, mes petites. See if tlie good father is 
 still in the church." When they -were out of hearing, 
 he leaned forward, and said to me, " There are some 
 others besides Jeannette and my children whom I 
 know yonder. Do you think I shall have to go to 
 them? Can they claim me?" 
 
 "It is a wide country, M. Labadie," I Tentured to 
 say, " and they are not of your kind. They have no 
 claim upon you." 
 
 He nodded gravely two or three times, the light 
 kindling again in his eyes as he looked over the 
 grave into the far, soft haze. "You are right," he 
 said at last. "But Jeannette and the children are of 
 my kind. Something tells me that those others will 
 never find me there. It is a wide country, monsieur, 
 — a wide country. But we go there — to our own." 
 
THE END OF THE VENDETTA 
 
 IT was the second day of Lucy Coyt's journey from 
 home. For years she had looked forward to the 
 time -when she should set out to earn her living in 
 that mysterious " South " which, before the war, was 
 like a foreign land to most Northern women. At that 
 time families of the class to which Lucy belonged 
 frequently trained their keen-witted daughters as 
 teachers to go to the cotton States, precisely as they 
 now fit their sons to go to Colorado or Dakota. In 
 any ease they could earn a better livelihood than 
 at home, and they might open up a gold mine in 
 the shape of a rich widower or susceptible young 
 planter. Two or three of Miss Coyt's classmates 
 had disappeared victoriously in this way. She 
 fancied them as reigning over a legion of slaves, and 
 adored by a swarthy, fiery Don Furioso; and natur- 
 ally the possibility of such a fate for herself glimmered 
 hazily in the distance. Though, of course, it was 
 wrong to hold slaves ; at least, she was feebly confi- 
 dent that was her belief ever since David Pettit had 
 talked to her about it the other evening. The Eever- 
 end David had brought some queer new notions back 
 with him from the theological school. 
 
 193 
 
194 SILBOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 " He'll wait a long time for a call in our Presbytery 
 if they suspect he's an abolitionist," thought Lucy as 
 the train whizzed swiftly on. "I wish I'd giren him 
 a hint; though he wouldn't have taken it. Dave was 
 a nice sort of a girl-boy when he used to help me 
 skim the cream. But he has grown real coarse and 
 conceited, with his white cravat and radical talk." 
 She drew a book from her bag which he had slipped 
 into her hand just as the stage was starting. " Imita- 
 tion of Christ ! " eying the cross on the back suspi- 
 ciously. " It reads like sound doctrine enough. But 
 Dave will have to be on his guard. If he brings any 
 papistical notions into our Presbytery, his chance 
 for a call is over." 
 
 She leaned back, uneasily feeling that if she could 
 have stayed and watched him, poor Miss Daisy (as the 
 Pairview boys used to call him) would have had a 
 better chance, when the train suddenly stopped. Miss 
 Coyt had been expecting adventures ever since they 
 started. ISTow they had begun. The train (she was 
 on a railway in Lower Virginia) was rushing across a 
 trestle bridge, when, with a shrill screech of steam, 
 it stopped. Half of the men in the car crowded to 
 the door, where a brakeman stood barring the way. 
 
 " Run over a cow? " 
 
 " No. Hush-h ! Don't skeer the ladies ! " 
 
 Miss Coyt laughed to herself. Jake Carr, the 
 brakeman on the Fairview road, would have thrust 
 his head in and yelled, " Keep your seats, gents ! " 
 These Southerners were ridiculously gentle and soft 
 whenever they came near a woman. This brakeman 
 was mild-mannered enough to have kept sheep in 
 
THE END OF THE VENDETTA 195 
 
 Arcadia. It was plain that Fairview was many hun- 
 dred miles away; this was a different world. Lucy's 
 quick eyes had noted all the differences, although she 
 was miserably abashed by the crowd — so abashed, 
 indeed, that she had been parched with thirst since 
 morning, and could not summon courage to go to the 
 water-cooler for a drink. 
 
 Looking out of the window, she saw on the bank 
 below the bridge a hunched heap of gray flannel and 
 yellow calico. The men from the train ran toward it. 
 "Something's wrong. I'd better take right hold at 
 once," thought Miss Coyt. She took her purse out of 
 her bag and put it in her pocket, lest there might be 
 a thief in the car, and then hurried out after the men. 
 She had a very low opinion of the intelligence of men 
 in any emergency. At home, she always had pulled 
 the whole household of father and brothers along. 
 She was the little steam -tug; they the heavy scows, 
 dragged unwillingly forward. 
 
 She reached the quivering heap on the bank. It 
 was a woman. Miss Coyt straightened her clothes, 
 kneeled down and lifted her head. The gray hair 
 was clotted with blood. "Why, she's old! Her 
 hair's white!" cried Lucy, excitedly, catching the 
 head up to her breast. " Oh dear ! oh dear ! " 
 
 " It's old Mis' Crocker ! " said a train man. " Yon's 
 her cabin down on the branch. I see her on the 
 bridge, 'n' she heerd the train comin', 'n' she jumped, 
 V — " 
 
 " Don't stand there chattering. Go for a doctor ! " 
 said Miss Coyt. 
 
 " I am a doctor," said one of the passengers, quietly. 
 
196 SILMOUETTES OF AMERICAS' LIFE 
 
 stooping to examine the -woman. " Slie is not dead. 
 E"ot mucli hurt. An arm broken." 
 
 The men carried Mrs. Crocker to her cabin. She 
 had caught Lucy's hand, and so led her along. The 
 other women craned their necks out of the car watch- 
 ing her. They were just as sorry as Lucy, but they, 
 being Southern, were in the habit of leaving great 
 emergencies in the hands of men. 
 
 " What can that bold gyurl do? " they said. " The 
 gentlemen will attend to it." 
 
 The men, having seen Mrs. Crocker open her eyes, 
 straggled back to the train. 
 
 "Time's up, doctor! " shouted the conductor. "Ex- 
 press is due in two minutes.'' 
 
 The doctor was leisurely cutting away Mrs. Crocker's 
 flannel sleeve. "I shall want bandages," he said, 
 without looking up. Lucy looked about the bare little 
 cabin, half drew out her handkerchief, and put it 
 back. It was one of her dozen newest and best. 
 Then she espied a pillow cover, and tore it into strips. 
 The doctor dressed the arm as composedly as if the 
 day was before him. Miss Coyt kept her eye on the 
 pufSng engine. All the clothes she had in the world 
 were in her trunk on that train. What intolerable 
 dawdlers these Virginians were ! There ! They were 
 going ! She covild not leave the woman — But her 
 clothes ! 
 
 There was a chorus of shouts from the train, a puS 
 of steam, and then the long line of cars shot through 
 the hills, leaving but a wisp of smoke clinging to the 
 closing forest. The doctor fastened his last bandage. 
 Miss Coyt, with a choking noise in her throat, rushed 
 
THE END OF THE VENDETTA 197 
 
 to the door. The doctor looked at his companion for 
 the first time. Then he quickly took off his hat, and 
 came up to her with that subtle air of homage which 
 sets the man in that region so thoroughly apart from 
 the woman. 
 
 " I beg of you not to be alarmed, " he said. 
 
 " But they are gone ! " 
 
 "You have your ticket? There will be another 
 train before night, and you will find your trunks 
 awaiting you at Abingdon." 
 
 " Oh, thank you ! " gasped Lucy, suddenly ashamed 
 of her tear-dabbled face. " It was very silly in me. 
 But I never travelled alone before." 
 
 The doctor had always supposed Northern women 
 to be as little affticted with timidity as life-assurance 
 agents. His calm eyes rested an instant on Miss Coyt 
 as he folded his pocket-book. " It was my fault that 
 you were detained, madam," he said. "If you will 
 permit me, I will look after your luggage when we 
 reach Abingdon. " 
 
 Lucy thanked him again, and turned to help Mrs. 
 Crocker, who was struggling to her feet. How lucky 
 she was to meet this good-natured, fatherly doctor in 
 this adventure! It might have been some conceited 
 young man. The doctor, too, was of a very different 
 human species from the ox-like Fairview farmers 
 whom she had left behind, or neat, thin-blooded Davy 
 Pettit. Miss Coyt had known no other men than 
 these. But in the intervals of pie -making and milk- 
 ing on the farm she had gone to the Fairview Female 
 Seminary, and had read Carlyle, and the Autocrat in 
 the "Atlantic," and "Beauties of German Authors"; 
 
198 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 and so felt herself an expert in human nature, and 
 quite fitted to criticise any new types which the 
 South might offer to her. 
 
 Mrs. Crocker went out to the doctor, who was sit. 
 ting on the log which served as a step. She looked 
 at the bridge. 
 
 "Mighty big fall thet wur," she said, compla- 
 cently. " Ther's not another woman in Wythe Couiity 
 as could hev done it athout breakin' her neck." 
 
 " Ah, you've twenty good years of life in you yet, 
 mother," he said, good-humoredly, glancing at her 
 muscular limbs, and skin tanned to a fine leather-color 
 by wind and sun. 
 
 " Oh, I'm tough enough. Brought up eleven chil- 
 dren right hyar on the branch. All gone — dead or 
 married. T helped build this hyar house with my own 
 hands twelve year ago. What d'ye think o' thet corn? 
 Ploughed and hoed every hill of it." 
 
 " It's outrageous ! " said Lucy, authoritatively. " At 
 your age a woman's children should support her. I 
 would advise you to give up the house at once, divide 
 the year among them, and rest." 
 
 "ISTo, missy; I never war one for jauntin' round. 
 Once, when I wur a gyurl, I wur at Marion. But I 
 wur born right hyar on the branch seventy year back, 
 'n' I reckon I'll make an end on't hyar." 
 
 " Seventy years ! — here ! " thought Lucy. Her eyes 
 wandered over the gorge lined with corn, the pig-pen, 
 the unchinked, dirty cabin. The doctor watched her 
 expressive face with an amused smile. Mrs. Crocker 
 went in to stir the fire. 
 
 "Better, you think, not to live at all?" he replied 
 to her looks. 
 
THE END OF THE VENDETTA 199 
 
 " I do not call it living, " she said, promptly. " I've 
 seen it often on farms. Dropping corn and eating it; 
 feeding pigs and children until both were big enough 
 to be sent away ; and that for seventy years ! It is no 
 better life than that fat worm's there beside you." 
 
 The doctor laughed, and lazily put down his hand 
 that the worm might crawl over it. " Poor old woman ! 
 Poor worm ! " he said. " There is nothing as merci- 
 less as a woman — like you," hesitating, but not look- 
 ing up. " She would leave nothing alive that was not 
 young and beautiful and supreme as herself. You 
 should consider. The world "was not made for the 
 royal family alone. You must leave room in it for 
 old women, and worms, and country doctors." 
 
 Lucy laughed, but did not reply. She did not 
 understand this old gentleman, who was bestowing 
 upon her very much the same quizzical, good-humored 
 interest which he gave to the worm. 
 
 "I don't know how you can touch the loathsome 
 thing, anyhow," she said, tartly. "It creeps up into 
 your hand as if it knew you were taking its part." 
 
 " It does know. If I wanted it for bait, it would 
 not come near me. I fancy all creatures know their 
 friends. Watch a moment." 
 
 He walked a few steps into the edge of the woods, 
 and threw himself down into the deep grass, his face ' 
 upward. Whether he made signs or whistled Lucy 
 could not tell, but presently a bird from a neighboring 
 bough came circling down and perched beside him; 
 another and another followed, until, when he rose, it 
 seemed to her that the whole flock hovered about him, 
 chirping excitedly. He stopped by the bee-hives as 
 
200 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 he came back, and the bees, disturbed, swarmed about 
 him, settling black on his head and shoulders. Lucy 
 ran to him, as he stood unhurt, gently brushing them 
 ofE, pleased and flushed with his little triumph. 
 
 " One would really think you knew what they said." 
 
 "I wish I did!" he said, looking thoughtfully at 
 the birds flying upward. There was a certain senti- 
 mentalism, a straining after scenic pose and effect, 
 which would have seemed ridiculous to her in Dave 
 Pettit ; but she found it peculiarly attractive now. 
 
 "You have no charm?" 
 
 " No. Only that I have been friends with them all 
 since I was a child, and they know it. I remember 
 when I was a baby sitting with the black pickaninnies 
 on the ground playing with frogs. Even then " (with 
 the same touch of grandiloquence in his tone) " I did 
 not find anything that was alive loathsome or un- 
 friendly. I beg your pardon," suddenly. "I did not 
 mean to bore you with the history of my infancy." 
 
 " Bore me ! Why, I never met with so singular a 
 trait in anybody before ! " 
 
 Miss Coyt was now satisfied that this was not only 
 a most extraordinary man in intellect, but in good- 
 ness. She could imagine what life and strength, liv- 
 ing so close to nature as he did, he would carry to a 
 sick or dying bed! It was like the healing power of 
 the old saints. 
 
 There was the advantage of travel! How long 
 would she have lived in Fairview without meeting 
 anybody with traits so abnormal and fine! She 
 began to have a sense of ownership in this her dis- 
 covery. Now thalt she examined the doctor, he was 
 
THE END OF THE VENDETTA 201 
 
 not even middle-aged: how could she have thought 
 him old? What womanish tenderness was in the cut 
 of his mouth! Indeed, this astute young woman 
 found the close-shaven jaws indicated a benevolence 
 amounting to weakness. The eyes were less satisfac- 
 tory : they were gray and bright, but they said abso- 
 lutely nothing to her, no more than if they belonged 
 to a species of animal which was unknown to her. 
 This only whetted her interest. Was he married? 
 Was he a church member? What would he probably 
 think of that favorite passage of hers in Jean Paul? 
 This young woman, we should have stated earlier, was 
 neither engaged nor in love. She intended to be in 
 love some day, however; and there were certain tests 
 which she applied as she went through life to each 
 man whom she met, just as she might idly try to set 
 different words to some melody known only to herself. 
 
 The man (who was not in want of a mate) had quite 
 forgotten the woman. He had gone into the kitchen, 
 and finding some bacon and fresh mountain trout, had 
 set about cooking dinner as if he were in camp. A 
 mess was already simmering on the fire. He fastened 
 a towel before him for an apron, lifted the lid from 
 the frying-pan and dropped something into it from a 
 case of vials which he took out of his pocket. 
 
 "Always carry my own sauces," he said as Lucy 
 came up. " Smell that! " snifBng up the savory steam 
 with an unctuous smile. " Ah-h ! " 
 
 Lucy ate the dinner when it was ready in a kind of 
 fervor. She had never met a gourmand before. Here 
 was a fine individual trait in this exceptional char- 
 acter. 
 
202 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 This fair-haired, stout doctor, with his birds and his 
 cookery and his jokes and his pale impenetrable eyes, 
 seemed to her for some reason a bigger and more 
 human man than any she had ever guessed were in the 
 world. If she were only a man and could make a 
 comrade of him ! She had never made a comrade of 
 her father or brothers; they were always taken up 
 with pigs, or politics, or county railroad business. 
 And the ideal companion she had picked out for her- 
 self from religious novels was unsatisfactory — as a 
 matter of fact. She looked speculatively at the broad- 
 backed linen duster in the doorway. She was as 
 unconscious of the speculation in her eyes as the polyp 
 fastened to a rock is of the movement of its tentacles 
 groping through the water for food. 
 
 The doctor had no curiosity about her. When Mrs. 
 Crocker questioned her as to her name and age, he 
 whistled to the farm dog, not listening to the answer. 
 
 "What you do in' hyar in Yuhginny, ennyhow?" 
 
 " I came from Pennsylvania to teach a school in a 
 place called Otoga, in Carolina," said Lucy. 
 
 "Hev some friends in these parts, I reckon?" 
 
 " No, none at all. Unless I may call you one, Mrs. 
 Crocker," with a nervous laugh. 
 
 "Reckon you'll not see much more o' me, ma'am. 
 Otoga, hey? My son Orlando lives thar. 'Pears to 
 me I'd keep clar o' thet town ef I wur a young woman 
 'thout pertection. Orlan's tole me a heap about it." 
 
 "Why, what is the matter with Otoga? " exclaimed 
 Lucy, risiag uncertainly. "I must go there. My 
 engagement — " 
 
 "Matter? Nothin', only it's ther the Van Cleves 
 hev gone to live. You've heerd o' them, o' course?" 
 
THE END OF THE VENDETTA 203 
 
 "No. VanCleTes?" 
 
 The doctor came up to the open door, watch in hand. 
 
 "The train will be due in twenty minutes." 
 
 "I am ready. Who are these people, Mrs. Crocker? 
 I must live among them." 
 
 " They won't hurt you, I reckon. Ther's no higher 
 toned people than the Van Cleves and the Suydams. 
 Only it's sort of unpleasant whar they are, sometimes. 
 You see," leisurely lighting her pipe with a brand, 
 " them two f amblies swore death agin each other nigh 
 a hundred year ago, an' since then ther's not a man of 
 them hes died in his bed. They lived in Tennessee. 
 Orlan he tole me the rights of it. Four brothers of the 
 Van Cleves barricaded some of the Suydams up in ther 
 house for five weeks, an' when they were fairly starved 
 an' erep out, they shot them dead. Thet wur the 
 grandfathers o' this present stock. But they hev kep 
 at it stiddy. Not a man o' them but died in his boots. 
 Ther's biit one Suydam left, 'n' thet's Cunnel Abram. 
 His father wur shot by the Van Cleves. So when 
 Abram wur a boy, he says, says he, 'Now I'm gwine 
 to put a final eend to this whole thing. ' So he went at 
 it practisin' with his pistol, 'n' when he thought he 
 were ready he challenges Jedge Van Cleve, 'n' shoots 
 him plumb through the head. Oh, Orlan says it wur 
 a fah dooel, no murder. Ther wur two Van Cleves 
 left, jess boys, nepheys of the jedge, ^n' they'd gone 
 to Californy. But Cunnel Abram he followed them, 
 'n' shot one on the deck of a ship bound for Chiny. 
 T'other he dodged him somehow 'n' come back, 'n' 
 is livin' in Otoga. But he'll be found. Cunnel 
 Abram'U track him down," wagging her Aead with 
 the zest of horror. 
 
204 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 "But is there no law at all here?" cried Lucy. 
 " I can't believe such a wretch would go unhung any- 
 where." 
 
 The doctor tapped on the window. " The train is 
 in sight. You must bid our friend good-by." 
 
 Lucy shook hands hurriedly with the old woman. 
 She had some money in her hand to give her, but, 
 after a moment's hesitation, dropped it back into her 
 pocket, and handed her a tract instead. "Religion 
 will do her more real good," she thought afterward, 
 quieting an uneasy inward twinge ; " at least it ought 
 to." 
 
 When they had boarded the train the doctor arranged 
 her seat with gentle, leisurely movements, and brought 
 her last week's Richmond paper. He did not, as she 
 expected, take the vacant seat beside her, but disap- 
 peared, only returning when the train reached Abing- 
 don. 
 
 "This carriage will take you to the inn, madam. 
 [ have written a note to the landlord, who will show 
 you every attention. ISTo, no thanks," shutting her 
 in, his fat, agreeable face showing an instant smiling 
 over the door. He did not offer his hand, as all the 
 men whom Lucy had known would have done. He 
 lifted his hat, hesitating a moment before he added, 
 half reluctantly: "It is probable that I may meet you 
 again. My business calls me to Carolina." 
 
 Miss Coyt bowed civilly, but as the carriage rattled 
 up the street she laughed aloud and blushed. She 
 herself did not know why. It was certainly very 
 lonely and dangerous for a woman adventuring among 
 murderers and assassins. 
 
THE END OF THE VENDETTA 205 
 
 Ttree days after she left Abingdon, Lucy, rumbling 
 along the mountain-side in an old "wagon, came in sight 
 of a dozen gray, weather-beaten houses huddled on the 
 edge of a creek in the gorge below. 
 
 "Yon's Otoga," said the driver, pointing with his ' 
 whip. 
 
 " Hi, Dumfort ! " shouted a man's voice. " Hold on 
 thar ! " and a big young fellow in butternut flannel 
 appeared in the underbush. " You cahn't go to Otoga. 
 Yellow Jack's thar afore you. Six men dead since 
 yes 'day mawnin'." 
 
 "The devil! " Dumfort pulled up his mules. 
 
 " So I say. Six. I an' my wife hev been on the 
 lookout for you since mawnin'." 
 
 " 'Bleeged, captain. Six? That about halves them 
 down thar. T! T! I dunno's ever I was more inter- 
 ruptid than this afore ! " snapping his whip medita- 
 tively. 
 
 Lucy, peeping through the oil-skin blind, could see 
 the bold, merry face of the young countryman. He 
 stood pulling his red beard and frowning with decent 
 regret for his neighbors. Of course he was sorry, but 
 he had so much life and fun in him that he could not 
 help being happy and comfortable if the whole State 
 of Carolina were dead with yellow fever. 
 
 "I've got the mail, too. An' a passenger," said 
 Dumfort, jerking his head back to the wagon. " What 
 in the mischief am I to do?" 
 
 "The mail'U keep. Drive right up to my house, 
 an' my wife'U give you an' the other man shake- 
 downs till the mawnin'." 
 
206 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 "'Tain't another man." 
 
 The young man stepped quickly forward, with an 
 instantaneous change of manner. He jerked off his 
 quilted wide-rimmed hat (" made out of his wife's old 
 dress," thought Lucy.) — "I did not know that ther' 
 Vas a lady inside," he said. "I was too rough with 
 my news. Come up to my house. My wife'U tell 
 you there's no danger." 
 
 "I shall be very glad to go," said Miss Coyt. 
 
 Dumfort drove up a rutted mountain road and 
 stopped before a log cabin. Of all houses in the 
 world, it was plainly the first venture in life of two 
 poor young people. Lucy read the whole story at a 
 glance. There was the little clearing on the mountain- 
 side; the patch of corn and potatoes (just enough for 
 two) ; the first cow ; the house itself, walls, ceiling, and 
 floor made of planed planks of the delicately veined 
 poplar; the tidy supper table, with its two plates; 
 the photographs of the bride's father and mother hung 
 over the mantel-shelf in frames which she had made 
 of bits of mica from the mine yonder. Here was a 
 chair made out of a barrel and trimmed with pink 
 muslin, there a decorated ginger jar, a chrome of the 
 Death of Andrew Jackson on the wall. Lucy was on 
 the same rung of the ladder of culture as her hostess. 
 
 " She has a very refined taste," she thought. " That 
 tidy stitch was just coming in at Fairview." Hurry- 
 ing in from the field, her baby in her arms, came a 
 plump, freckled, blue-eyed woman. 
 
 "Mistress Thomas," said Dumfort, ponderously, 
 " let me make you acquainted with Miss Coyt. She 
 war a-goin' to Otoga to teach school." 
 
THE END OF THE VENDETTA 207 
 
 The two women exchanged smiles and keen glances. 
 "Baby's asleep," whispered the mother. "I'll shake 
 hands when I lay him down." 
 
 Lucy ran to turn down the crib quilt. " He's tre- 
 mendously big," she whispered, helping to tuck him 
 in. 
 
 "liTow, Dorcas, let's have supper," called the farmer 
 from the door, where he sat smoking with Dumforfc. 
 "Our friends must be hungry as b'ars." 
 
 Dorcas smiled, and with intolerably lazy slowness 
 tucked up her sleeves from her white arms and began 
 the inevitable chicken frying. Lucy suddenly remem- 
 bered how unbusinesslike was the whole proceeding. 
 She went up to her hostess, who was stooping over 
 the big log fire. 
 
 "What do you charge for board?" she said. "I 
 should like to stay here until the sickness is over in 
 Otoga. That is, if your charges are reasonable, " eying 
 her keenly. Her rule always was to make her bargain 
 before buying, then she never was cheated. 
 
 Mrs. Dorcas's fair face burned red. "We don't 
 take folks in to board," she drawled in her sweet 
 voice, looking at Lucy curiously. "But we'll be 
 mighty glad if you'll stay's long's you can. It's pow- 
 erful lonesome hyah on the mountains. We'll take it 
 as very kyind in you to stay." 
 
 "It is you who are kind," said Lucy, feeling miser- 
 ably small and vulgar. But how could she have 
 known? They did not use strangers in this ridicu- 
 lously generous way in Fairview. 
 
 Mistress Dorcas shot an amused, speculative glance 
 after her, and went on with her frying. Miss Coyt, 
 
208 SILBOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 presently finding the iDaby awake, took him up and 
 went out to the steps where his father and Dumfort 
 still smoked and gossipped in the slanted yellow beams 
 of the lowering sun. The baby, who was freckled and 
 soft-eyed as his mother, replied to Lucy's cooing and 
 coddling by laughiag and thrusting his tiny fat fist 
 into her eyes. Lucy stooped and kissed him furtiyely. 
 She felt lonely and far from home just then. 
 
 "What do you call baby?" she asked. 
 
 Mrs. Dorcas came to the door. " His real name is 
 Humpty. But he was baptized Alexander — Alex- 
 ander Van Cleye." 
 
 Lucy sprang to her feet. " Van Cleve ! " staring at 
 the farmer. "I thought your name was Thomas?" 
 
 "Thomas Van Cleve," smiling. "Why, what's 
 wrong with that? " 
 
 Lucy felt as though a blow had been struck at her, 
 which made her knees totter. " They told me in Vir- 
 ginia that the Suydams were on your track." 
 
 There was a sudden silence, but Miss Coyt, being 
 greatly shaken, stumbled on. "I did not expect to 
 come in your way — I'm not used to such things — 
 and this poor baby," hugging it passionately. "It's 
 a Van Cleve too ! " 
 
 The young man took the boy. "Quiet yourself. 
 Humpty will not be hurt by — any one," he said, and 
 putting him up on his shoulder he walked down to the 
 chicken-yard. His wife went in without a word, and 
 shut the door. Lucy sat down. After a long time 
 she said to Dumfort : 
 
 "I have made a mistake." 
 
 " Yes. But you couldn't be expected to know. I 
 
THE END OF THE VENDETTA 209 
 
 never heerd a Suydam's name mentioned to a Van 
 Cleve afore. It was so surprisin' it didn't seem de- 
 cent, somehow." 
 
 "I don't understand wliy," groaned Lucy. 
 
 "No? Tier's things what ain't never talked of. 
 Now ther's the Peterses in the Smoky Mountings. 
 There used to be a disease in the Peters fambly which 
 attacked one leg. But it turned out to be true Asiatic 
 leprosy. Well, it isn't reckoned civil hyarabouts to 
 speak of legs afore a Peters. Now this fambly 's got a 
 — a discussion hangin' on with the Suydams for a 
 hundred year, as onfortinit 'a leprosy. An' — well, 
 probably you're the first person's ever mentioned it to 
 them." 
 
 They relapsed into silence until they were called in 
 to supper. Lucy felt as if a thin glaze of ice had 
 risen between her and the. Van Cleves. They were 
 afraid of her. As for her, her food choked her. 
 But after supper Mrs. Dorcas brought out a flannel 
 slip which she was making for baby, and Lucy insisted 
 on trying it on. She was fond of babies. She had a 
 sacque in her trunk which she had been braiding for 
 her brother Joe's child. 
 
 "I'll bring it down to give you the idea," she 
 said, and ran up for it. 
 
 Van Cleve looked at it over his wife's shoulder when 
 it came. "Try that thing on Humpty, Miss Coyt," 
 he said, and when it was on he held the boy up on his 
 outstretched arm. "Pretty's a picture, hey, Dum- 
 fort?" 
 
 "I'll finish it for him," exclaimed Lucy, with a 
 gush of generosity. "I can make Sam another." 
 
210 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 Mrs. Dorcas broke into a delighted flood of thanka. 
 She jumped up to fit and button it on the boy, while 
 her husband, quite as vain and pleased as she, held 
 him. It seemed incredible to Lucy that this ghastly 
 horror, -which never could be mentioned, stood like a 
 shadow behind the three ; that this commonplace, jolly 
 little family -went to bed, rose, sat down to eat, with 
 Death as their perpetual companion, dumb, waiting to 
 strike. 
 
 The next morning was that of an April day. The 
 whole world was swathed in fog and gray dampness, 
 and the next moment it flashed and sparkled in the 
 sunlight, every leaf quivering back in brilliance. 
 Young Van Cleve had set off by daylight, whistling 
 behind his steers. Before noon he came up the moun- 
 tain, his head sunk, silent and morose. Even the 
 ruddy color was gone; his thick-featured, jolly face 
 was nipped as with age. 
 
 Dorcas ran to meet him. " Are you sick, Tom? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Have you " — she glanced swiftly around — " have 
 you heard — anything? " 
 
 "Nothing. I thought it best to throw off work 
 to-day." 
 
 He drove the steers into the inclosure. As he 
 unyoked them he sent keen, furtive glances into the 
 darkening woods. Meanwhile the sky had lowered. 
 Clouds walled in the mountain plateau ; the day had 
 grown heavy and foreboding. 
 
 Dumfort came to Lucy, who was sitting on the steps 
 with the baby. 
 
 " Thomas has hed a warnin'," he said, in a low tone. 
 "Gunnel Abram's on his track." 
 
THE END OF THE VENDETTA 21] 
 
 " He has seen him ! " She started up, catching up 
 Humpty in her arms. "He is coming here?" 
 
 " So I think. But Thomas hain't seen him. He's 
 ben warned. I've heerd that them Van Cleves allays 
 kin tell when a Suydam is near them." 
 
 "Nonsense! " Lucy set the child down again. 
 
 "Jess as some men," pursued Dumfort, calmly, 
 "kin tell when there's a rattlesnake in the grass nigh: 
 an' others creep with cold ef a cat's in the room." 
 
 Miss Coyt, still contemptuous, watched Van Cleve 
 sharply as he passed into the house. "Dorcas," he 
 said, quietly, as he passed, " bring Humpty in. Keep 
 indoors to-day." He went up to the loft, closing the 
 trap-door behind him, and Lucy fancied that she heard 
 the click of fire-arms. 
 
 Dumfort's pipe went out in his mouth with his 
 smothered excitement. "He's loadin'! Suydam's 
 comin' ! " he whispered. " Thomas ain't the same 
 man he was this mawnin' ! He's layin' to, 'n' waitin'." 
 
 " To murder another man ! And he calls himself a 
 Christian ! He had family prayers this morning ! " 
 
 " What's that got to do with it?" demanded, Dum- 
 fort, fiercely. "Thomas's got his dooty laid out. 
 He's got the murderer of his brother to punish. The 
 law's left it to them two famblies to settle with each 
 other. God's left it to them. Them old Jews sent 
 the nearest of kin to avenge blood. The Suydam s hev 
 blood to avenge." He got up abruptly and walked 
 uneasily up and down the barnyard. Dorcas had left 
 her work, and with Humpty in her arms sat by the 
 window, her keen eyes fixed on the thicket of pines 
 that fenced in the house, black and motionless in the 
 breathless air. 
 
212 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 No rain had fallen as yet, but the forest, the peaks 
 of the mountains beyond, the familiar objects in the 
 barnyard, had drawn closer with that silent hush and 
 peculiar dark distinctness that precedes a storm. 
 They, too, listened and waited. Lucy heard a step in 
 the house. Van Cleve came heavily down from the 
 loft and seated himself, his face turned toward the 
 road by which a stranger must approach. 
 
 Lucy stood irresolute for a few minutes ; she felt as 
 if she could not draw her breath; the air was full of 
 death. Pulling the hood of her waterproof over her 
 head, she crossed the stile and walked down the road. 
 "I will be first to meet the "wolf," she said aloud, 
 laughing nervously. 
 
 The road wound through the unbroken forest down 
 to the creek. As she came nearer to the water she 
 heard the plash of a horse's feet crossing the ford. 
 She tried to cry out that he was coming, to warn 
 them, but her mouth would not make a sound; her 
 legs shook under her ; she caught by a tree, possessed 
 by childish, abject fear. When the horse and rider 
 came into sight she laughed hysterically. 
 
 It was the good-humored doctor. He turned quietly 
 at her cry, and smiled placidly. Nothing would 
 startle that phlegmatic mass of flesh. He alighted, 
 tied his horse, and came to her with the leisurely, 
 noiseless movements peculiar to him. 
 
 " You are frightened. What are you afraid of. Miss 
 Coyt? " 
 
 " Oh, of a monster ! " — laughing feebly — "a human 
 beast of prey that is in these mountains. Every time 
 a branch moved I expected to see his murderous face 
 coming toward his victim." 
 
TBE END OF THE VENDETTA 213 
 
 She ■wanted to pour out the whole story, but he 
 stood stolid and incurious, asking no questions. She 
 hesitated and stopped. 
 
 "I saw nobody," he said, composedly. 
 
 Whether he was interested or not, she must tell 
 him. He was so wise and kind; he was a man used 
 to control others. If he would interfere he could 
 doubtless put an end to it all. 
 
 "It is a vendetta," she began. "You heard of it 
 the time of the accident." 
 
 " You should not allow yourself to be excited by the 
 gossip of the mountains,'' he interrupted, gently; but 
 his eyes, smiling down at her, suddenly seemed to her 
 as hard and impenetrable as granite. "I fear I must 
 leave you. I must reach Otoga before noon." 
 
 " You must not go to Otoga, " catching him by the 
 arm. " The yellow fever is there. Half of the popu- 
 lation are dead." 
 
 "Worse than that, I am afraid," he said, gravely. 
 " We heard this morning that there was now neither 
 doctor, nurse, nor anybody to bury the dead." 
 
 "And you are going to help them?" drawing back 
 with a kind of awe. 
 
 " I am a doctor, " he said, indifferently, " and I can 
 nurse in a fashion, and if the worst comes to the worst, 
 I can dig a grave." 
 
 "I'm sure it is — very heroic," gasped Lucy. The 
 tears came to her eyes. 
 
 He frowned irritably. "Nothing of the kind. 
 Somebody must go, of course. The physicians in 
 Abingdon are married men. I am a stranger, and 
 have nobody. There is nothing to keep me in this 
 
214 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 ■world but a little business "which. I have to do, and 
 that lies in Otoga. I really must ride on. But I 
 "will take you safely home iirst. Where are you stay- 
 iag?" 
 
 " At the cabin yonder. Behind the pines. Thomas 
 Van Cleve's." 
 
 The doctor had stepped before her to bend aside the 
 bushes. He stopped short, and stood motionless a 
 moment, his back to her. When he turned there "was 
 an alteration in his face "which she could not define. 
 The actor was gone; the real man looked out for an 
 instant from behind the curtain. 
 
 "Young Van Cleve lives in that cabin?" 
 
 "Yes, "with his "wife and child." 
 
 "A child? Is it a boy?" 
 
 " Yes, the dearest little f ello"w. Why do you ask? " 
 
 A smile, or it might have been a nervous contortion, 
 flickered over the fat, amiable face. His tones became 
 exceedingly soft and lazy. 
 
 " It is "with Van Cleve I had business to settle. I 
 have been looking for him a long time." 
 
 " Then you "will come to the house "with me? " 
 
 She "would have passed on, but stopped, troubled 
 and frightened, she kne"w not why. The man had not 
 heard her; he stood slowly stroking his heavy chin, 
 deliberating. Certainly there was nothing dramatic 
 in the stout figure in its long linen coat, low hat, and 
 boots sunk in the mud — there was not a trace of emo- 
 tion on the flabby, apathetic features, yet Lucy cow- 
 ered as though she had been brought face to face with 
 a naked soul in the crisis of its life. 
 
 "I have been looking for him a long time," he 
 
THE END OF THE VENDETTA 215 
 
 repeated, consulting with himself. "But there is' 
 Otoga. They need me in Otoga." 
 
 There was not a sound. Not the fall of a leaf. 
 Even the incessant sough of the wind through the 
 gorges was still. The world seemed to keep silence. 
 
 He looked up at the cabin; it was but a step. He 
 had been following Van Cleve for years. 
 
 He drew his breath quickly, thrust the bushes 
 aside, and began to climb the rock. 
 
 The sun suddenly flashed out; a bird fluttered up 
 from the thicket, and perched on a bough close beside 
 him, sending out a clear trill of song. He stopped 
 short, a quick, pleased heat coming to his face. 
 
 "Pretty little thing, hey? It knows me, d'ye see? 
 It's watching me." 
 
 He waited a moment until the song ceased, and 
 then nervously adjusted his hat. 
 
 " I'll go to those poor devils in Otoga. I reckon 
 that's the right thing to do." And turning, he hastily 
 mounted his horse. 
 
 Lucy felt that he was going to his death, and he 
 seemed like an old friend. She ran across the road 
 and put her hands up on the horse's neck. 
 
 "Good-by," she said. 
 
 "Good-by, Miss Coy t." 
 
 " I will never see you again ! God bless you ! " 
 
 " Me ? " He looked at her, bewildered. " God? Oh 
 yes. Well, perhaps so." He rode down the road, 
 and the stout figure and flapping linen coat disappeared 
 in the fog. 
 
216 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 Four days passed. Dumfort, -who appeared to be a 
 man of leisure, lounged about the cabin, helping with 
 the work, and occasionally bringing news from Otoga, 
 gathered from some straggler who was flying from the 
 fever. He came in one morning and beckoned Van 
 Cleve out. 
 
 "There's one of them poor wretches fallen by the 
 wayside. He's got the plague. It's my belief there's 
 not an hour's life in him." 
 
 "I'll come." Van Cleve hastily gathered some 
 simple remedies ; he had not heroism enough to leave 
 his family and sacrifice his life for his neighbors, but 
 he was a kindly fellow, and could not turn back from 
 any dying creature creeping to his door. The two 
 men went down the mountain together. 
 
 "I wanted," said Dumfort, "to pull him under a 
 rock. But he said, 'ISTo, let me die out-of-doors.'" 
 
 "That was a queer- notion." 
 
 "Yes." Dumfort glanced askance at his compan- 
 ion. " He's ben down doctorin' them pore souls in 
 Otoga. Went there voluntarily. I hearn of him 
 two days ago." After an embarrassed pause, he 
 added, "He wants to see you, Thomas. You, per- 
 sonally." 
 
 " Me ? Who is he ? " halting. 
 
 Dumfort lowered his voice to a quick whisper. " It's 
 the man that's ben foUerin' you an' your'n, Thomas." 
 
 Van Cleve uttered an oath, but it choked on his 
 lips. " An' he's dying? What does he want of me? " 
 
 "God knows. I don't." The men stood silent. 
 " He's been doctorin' them pore souls in Otoga, " ven- 
 tured Dumfort, presently. 
 
TME END OF THE VENDETTA 217 
 
 Still Van Cleve did not move. Then, with a jerk, 
 he started down-hill. "I'll go to him. Bring them 
 other medicines, Dumfort." 
 
 But when he reached the dying man he saw that it 
 was too late for medicines. He kneeled heside him 
 and lifted his head, motioning Dumfort to stand back 
 out of hearing. 
 
 What passed between them no one but God ever 
 knew. 
 
 As the sun was setting that day Van Cleve came to 
 the cabin. He was pale and haggard, but he tried to 
 speak cheerfully. 
 
 " It was a poor fellow, Dorcas, down in the woods 
 as died of the fever. Dumfort an' I have buried him. 
 But I'd like you an' Miss Coyt to come to the grave. 
 It'd seem kinder, somehow." He carried the baby in 
 his arms, and when they reached the place — it was a 
 patch of sunny sward, where the birds sang overhead 
 — he said : " Humpty, I wish you'd kneel down on the 
 grave an' say your little prayer. I think he'd know, 
 an 'd feel better of it; an' — there's another reason." 
 
 The next week Miss Coyt received a letter which, 
 with very red cheeks, she told Dorcas would compel 
 her immediate return home. Mr. Pettit, of whom 
 she had told her, had received a call, and had asked 
 her to be his wife, and this would put an end to her 
 experiment of teaching in the South. In a day or 
 two Dumfort drove her back to Abingdon, and the 
 little family in the cabin returned to their usual 
 quiet routine of life. 
 
A FADED LEAF OF HISTOET 
 
 ONE quiet, -winter's afternoon I found in a dark 
 corner of an old library a curious pamphlet. 
 It fell into my hands like a bit of old age and 
 darkness itself. The pages were coffee-colored and 
 ■worn thin and ragged at the edges, like rotting 
 leaves in fall ; they had grown clammy to the touch, 
 too, from the grasp of so many dead years. There 
 ■was a peculiar smell of herbs about the book ■which it 
 had carried do^wn from the days when young William 
 Perm went up and down the clay paths of his village 
 of Philadelphia, stopping to watch the settlers fish- 
 ing in the clear ponds or to speak to the gangs of 
 yellow-painted Indians coming in with peltry from 
 the adjacent forest. 
 
 The leaves were scribbled over with the name of 
 John, — " John, " ia a cramped, childish hand. His 
 father's book, no doiibt, and the writing a bit of boy- 
 ish mischief. Outside now, in the street, the boys 
 were peltiag each other with snowballs, just as this 
 John had done in the clay paths. But for nearly two 
 hundred years his bones had been crumbled into lime 
 and his flesh gone back into grass and roots. Yet 
 218 
 
A FADED LEAF OF HISTORY 219 
 
 here he was, a boy; here was the old pamphlet and 
 the scrawl in yellowing ink, with the smell of herbs 
 about it still. 
 
 Printed by Rainier Janssen, 1698. I turned over 
 the leaves, expecting to find some "Eeport of the 
 Condition of the Principalities of New Netherland, 
 or New Sweden, for the Use of the Lords High 
 Proprietors thereof" (for of such precious dead 
 dust this library is full); but I found, instead, 
 wrapped in weighty sentences and backed by the 
 gravest and most ponderous testimony, the story of 
 a baby, "a Sucking Child six Months old." It was 
 like a live seed in the hand of a mummy. The story 
 of a baby and a boy and an aged man, in " the devour- 
 ing Waves of the Sea; and also among the cruel 
 devouring Jaws of inhuman Canibals." There were, 
 it is true, other divers persons in the company, by 
 one of whom the book is written. But the divers 
 persons seemed to be only part of that endless 
 caravan of ghosts that has been crossing the world 
 since the beginning; they never can be anything but 
 ghosts to us. If only to find a human interest in 
 them, one would rather they had been devoured by 
 inhuman cannibals than not. But a baby and a boy 
 and an aged man ! 
 
 All that afternoon, through the dingy windows 
 I could see the snow falling soft and steadily, 
 covering the countless roofs of the city, and, fancy- 
 ing the multitude of comfortable happy homes which 
 these white roofs hid and the sweet-tempered, 
 gracious women there, with their children close about 
 their knees, I thought I would like to bring this 
 
220 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 little live baby back to the others, with its strange, 
 pathetic story, out of the buried years where it has 
 been hidden with dead people so long, and give it a 
 place and home among us all again. 
 
 I have left the facts of the history unaltered, even 
 in the names; and I believe them to be, in every 
 particular, true. 
 
 On the 22d of August, 1696, this baby, a puny, 
 fretful boy, was carried down the street of Port Eoyal, 
 Jamaica, and on board the "barkentine" Reforma- 
 tion, bound for Pennsylvania; a Province which, as 
 you remember, Du Chastellus, a hundred years later, 
 described as a most savage country which he was 
 compelled to cross on his way to the burgh of Phila- 
 delphia, on its border. To this savage country our 
 baby was bound. He had by way of body-guard, his 
 mother, a gentle Quaker lady; his father, Jonathan 
 Dickenson, a wealthy planter, on his way to increase 
 his wealth in Penn's new settlement; three negro 
 men, four negro women, and an Indian named Venus, 
 all slaves of the said Dickenson ; the captain, his boy, 
 seven seamen, and two passengers. Besides this 
 defence, the baby's ship was escorted by thirteen sail 
 of merchantmen under convoy of an armed frigate. 
 Tor these were the days when, to the righteous man, 
 terror walked abroad. The green, quiet coasts were 
 but the lurking-places of savages, and the green, 
 restless seas more treacherous with pirates. Kidd 
 had not yet buried his treasure, but was prowling 
 up and down the eastern seas, gathering it from 
 every luckless vessel that fell in his way. The 
 captain, Kirle, debarred from fighting by cowardice, 
 
A FADED LEAF OF BISTORT 221 
 
 and the Quaker Dickenson, forbidden by principle, 
 appear to have set out upon their perilous journey, 
 resolved to defend themselves by suspicion, pure and 
 simple. They looked for treachery behind every bush 
 and billow; the only chance of safety lay, they main- 
 tained, in holding every white man to be an assassin 
 and every red man a cannibal until they were proved 
 otherwise. 
 
 The boy was hired by Captain Kirle to wait upon 
 him. His name was John Hilliard, and he was pre- 
 cisely what any of these good-humored, mischievous 
 fellows outside would have been, hired on a brigantine 
 two centuries ago ; disposed to shirk his work in order 
 to stand gaping at Black Ben fishing, or to rub up 
 secretly his old cutlass for the behoof of Kidd, or the 
 French when they should come, while the Indian 
 Venus stood by, looking on, with the baby in her 
 arms. 
 
 The aged man is invariably set down as chief of the 
 company, though the captain held all the power and 
 the Quaker all the money. But white hair and a 
 devout life gave an actual social rank in those days, 
 obsolete now, and Robert Barrow was known as a man 
 of God all along the coast-settlements from Massachu- 
 setts to Ashly River, among whites and Indians. 
 Years before, in Yorkshire, his inward testimony (he 
 being a Friend) had bidden him go preach in this 
 wilderness'. He asked of God, it is said, rather to 
 die; but was not disobedient to the Heavenly Call, and 
 came and labored faithfully. He was now returning 
 from the West Indies, whither he had carried his 
 message a year ago. 
 
222 SILHOUETTES OF AMEBIC AN LIFE 
 
 The wind set fair for the first day or two ; the sun 
 was warm. Even the grim Quaker Dickenson might 
 have thought the white-sailed fleet a pretty sight scud- 
 ding over the rolling green plain, if he could have 
 spared time to his jealous eyes from scanning the 
 horizon for pirates. Our baby saw little of sun 
 or sea; for having hardly vitality enough to live 
 from day to day, it was kept below, smothered in 
 the finest of linens and the softest of paduasoy. 
 
 One morning when the fog lifted, Dickenson's 
 watch for danger was rewarded. They had lost their 
 way in the night; the fleet was gone, the dead blue 
 slopes of water rolled up to the horizon on every side 
 and were met by the dead blue sky, without the break 
 of a single sail or the flicker of a flying bird. For 
 fifteen days they beat about without any apparent aim 
 other than to escape the enemies whom they hourly 
 expected to leap out from behind the sky line. On 
 the sixteenth day, friendly signs were made to them 
 from shore. " A fire made a great Smoak, and People 
 beckoned to us to putt on Shoar," but Kirle and 
 Dickenson, seized with fresh fright, put about and 
 made of£ as for their lives, until nine o'clock that 
 night, when seeing two signal-lights, doubtless from 
 some of their own convoy, they cried out, "The 
 French! the French!" and tacked back again as fast 
 as might be. The next day, Kirle being disabled by 
 a jibing boom, Dickenson brought his own terrors 
 into command, and for two or three days whisked the 
 unfortunate barkentine up and down the coast, afraid 
 of both sea and shore, until finally, one night, he run 
 her aground on a sand-bar on the Florida reefs. 
 
A FADED LEAF OF HISTORY 223 
 
 Wondering much, at this " judgment of God, " Dicken- 
 son went to -work. Indeed, to do him justice, he 
 seems to have been always ready enough to use his 
 burly strength and small wit, trusting to them to carry 
 him through the world wherein his soul was beleag- 
 uered by many merciless judgments of God and the 
 universal treachery of his brother-man. 
 
 The crew abandoned the ship in a heavy storm. A 
 fire was kindled in the bight of a sand-hill and protected 
 as well as might be with sails and palmetto branches ; , 
 and to this, Dickenson, with "Great trembling and 
 Pain of Hartt," carried his baby in his own arms and 
 laid it in its mother's breast. Its little body was 
 pitiful to see from leanness, and a great fever was 
 upon it. Eoberfc Barrow, the crippled captain, and a 
 sick passenger shared the child's shelter. "Where- 
 upon two Cannibals appeared, naked, but for a breech- 
 cloth of plaited straw, with Countenances bloody and 
 furious, and foaming at the Mouth"; but on being 
 given tobacco, retreated inland to alarm the tribe. 
 The ship's company gathered together and sat down 
 to wait their return, expecting cruelty, says Dicken- 
 son, and dreadful death. Christianity was now to be 
 brought face to face with heathenness, which fact our 
 author seems to have recognized under all his terror. 
 " We began by putting our trust in the Lord, hoping 
 for no Mercy from these bloody-minded Creatures; 
 having too few guns to use except to enrage them, a 
 Motion arose among us to deceive them by calling our- 
 selves Spaniards, that ISTation having some influence 
 over them " ; to which lie all consented, except Eobert 
 Barrow. It is instructive to observe how these early 
 
224 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 Christians met the Indians with, the same weapons of 
 distrust and frand which have proved so effective in 
 civilizing them since. 
 
 In two or three hours the savages appeared in great 
 numbers, bloody and furious, and in their chronic 
 state of foaming at the mouth. "They rushed in 
 upon us, shouting ' Niekalees? ' (Inglese f) To which 
 we replied 'Espania.' But they cried the more 
 fiercely, 'No Espania, Nickalees ! ' and being greatly 
 enraged thereat, seized upon all Trunks and Chests 
 and our cloathes upon our Backs, leaving us each 
 only a pair of old Breeches, except Eobert Barrow, 
 my wife, and child from whom they took nothing." 
 The king, or Cassekey, as Dickenson calls him, 
 distinguished by a horsetail fastened to his belt be- 
 hind, took possession of their money and buried it, 
 at which the good Quaker spares not his prayers for 
 punishment on all pagan robbers, quite blind to the 
 poetic justice of the burial, as the money had been 
 made on land stolen from the savages. The said 
 Cassekey also set up his abode in their tent; kept all 
 his tribe away from the woman and child and aged 
 man; kindled fires; caused, as a delicate attention, 
 the only hog remaining on the wreck to be killed and 
 brought to them for a midnight meal; and, in short, 
 comported himself so hospitably and with such kindly 
 consideration toward the broad-brimmed Quaker, that 
 we are inclined to account him the better gentleman 
 of the two, in spite of his scant costume of horsetail 
 and belt of straw. As for the robbery of the ship's 
 cargo, no doubt the Cassekey had progressed far 
 enough in civilization to know that to the victors 
 
A FADED LEAF OF BISTORT 225 
 
 belong the spoils. Morida, for two years, had been 
 stricken down from coast to coast by a deadly famine, 
 and in all probability these cannibals returned thanks 
 to whatever god they had for this windfall of food 
 and clothes devoutly as our forefathers were doing 
 at the other end of the country for the homes which 
 they had taken by force. There is a good deal of kin- 
 ship among us in circumstances after all, as well as in 
 blood. The chief undoubtedly recognized a brother 
 in Dickenson, every whit as tricky as himself, and 
 would faia, savage as he was, have proved him to be 
 something better; for, after having protected them for 
 several days, he came into their tent and gravely and 
 with authority set himself to asking the old question, 
 "Nickalees?" 
 
 " To which, when we denied, he directed his Speech 
 to the Aged Man, who would not conceal the Truth, 
 but answered in Simplicity, 'Yes.' Then he cried in 
 Wrath 'Totus Mckalees ! ' and went out from us. But 
 returned in great fury with his men and stripped all 
 Cloathes from us." 
 
 However, the clothes were returned, and the chief 
 persuaded them to hasten on to his own village. 
 Dickenson, suspecting foul play as usual, insisted on 
 goiug to Santa Lucia. There, the Indian told him, 
 they would meet fierce savages and undoubtedly have 
 their throats cut, which kindly warning was quite 
 enough to drive the Quaker to Santa Lucia headlong. 
 He was sure of the worst designs on the part of the 
 cannibal, from a strange glance which he fixed upon 
 the baby as he drove them before him to his village, 
 saying with a treacherous laugh, that after they had 
 
226 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 gone there for a purpose he had, they might go to 
 Santa Lucia as they would. 
 
 It was a bleak, chilly afternoon as they toiled mile 
 after mile along the beach, the Quaker woman far 
 behind the others with her baby in her arms, carry- 
 ing it, as she thought, to its death. Overhead, ilocks 
 of dark-winged grakles swooped across the lowering 
 sky, uttering from time to time their harsh forebod- 
 ing cry; shoreward, as far as the eye could see, the 
 sand stretched in interminable yellow ridges, black- 
 ened here and there by tufts of dead palmetto trees ; 
 while on the other side the sea had wrapped itself in 
 a threatening silence and darkness. A line of white 
 foam crept out of it from horizon to horizon, dumb 
 and treacherous, and licked the mother's feet as she 
 dragged herself heavily after the others. 
 
 From time to time the Indian stealthily peered over 
 her shoulder, looking at the child's thin face as it 
 slept upon her breast. As evening closed in, they 
 came to a broad arm of the sea thrust inland through 
 the beach, and halted at the edge. Beyond it, in the 
 darkness, they could distinguish the yet darker shapes 
 of the wigwams, and savages gathered about two or 
 three enormous fires that threw long red lines of glare 
 into the sea-fog. " As we stood there for many Hour's 
 Time, " says Jonathan Dickenson, " we were assured 
 these Dreadful Fires were prepared for us." 
 
 Of all the sad little company that stand out against 
 the far-off dimness of the past, in that long watch 
 upon the beach, the low- voiced, sweet-tempered Quaker 
 lady comes nearest to us. 
 
 The sailors had chosen a life of peril years ago ; her 
 
A FADED LEAF OF HISTOET 227 
 
 husband, with all his suspicious bigotry, had, when 
 pushed to extremes, an admirable tough couiage with 
 which to face the dangers of sea and night and death ; 
 and the white-headed old man, who stood apart and 
 calm, had received, as much as Elijah of old, a Divine 
 word to speak in the wilderness, and the life in it 
 would sustain him through death. But Mary Dicken- 
 son was only a gentle, commonplace woman, whose life 
 had been spent on a quiet farm, whose highest ambi- 
 tion was to take care of her snug little house, and all of 
 whose brighter thoughts of romance or passion began 
 and ended in this staid Quaker and the baby that was 
 a part of them both. It was only six months ago that 
 this first-born child had been laid in her arms ; and as 
 she lay on the white bed looking out on the spring 
 dawning day after day, her husband sat beside her 
 telling her again and again of the house he had made 
 ready for her iq Penn's new settlement. She never 
 tired of hearing of it. Some picture of this far-off 
 home must have come to the poor girl as she stood 
 now in the night, the sea-water creeping up to her 
 naked feet, looking at the fires built, as she believed, 
 for her child. 
 
 Toward midnight a canoe came from the opposite 
 side, into which the chief put Barrow, Dickenson, 
 the child, and its mother. Their worst fears being 
 thus confirmed, they crossed in silence, holding each 
 other by the hand, the poor baby moaning now and 
 then. It had indeed been born tired into the world, 
 and had gone moaning its weak life out ever since. 
 
 Landing on the farther beach, the crowd of waiting 
 Indians fled from them as if frightened, and halted in 
 
228 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 the darkness beyond the fires. But the Cassekey 
 dragged them on toward a -wig-warn, taking Mary and 
 the child before the others. " Herein," says her hus- 
 band, "was the Wife of the Canibal, and some old 
 Women sitting on a Cabbin made of Sticks about a 
 Foot high, and covered with a Matt. He made signs 
 for us to sitt down on the Ground, which we did. The 
 Cassekey' s Wife looking at my Child and having her 
 own Child in her lapp, putt it away to another 
 Woman, and rose upp and would not bee denied, but 
 would have my Child. She took it and suckled it at 
 her Breast, feeling it from Top to Toe, and viewing 
 it with a sad Countenance." 
 
 The starving baby, being thus -warmed and fed, 
 stretched its little arms and legs out on the savage 
 breast comfortably and fell into a happy sleep, -while 
 its mother sat apart and looked on. 
 
 " An Indian did kindly bring to her a Fish upon a 
 Palmetto Leaf and set it down before her; but the 
 Pain and Thoughts within her were so great that she 
 could not eat." 
 
 The rest of the cre-w having been brought over, the 
 chief set himself to work and speedily had a wigwam 
 built, in -which mats were spread, and the shipwrecked 
 people, instead of being killed and eaten, went to 
 sleep just as the moon rose, and the Indians began " A 
 Consert of hideous Noises," of welcome. 
 
 Dickenson and his band remained in this Indian 
 village for several days, endeavoring all the time to 
 escape, in spite of the kind treatment of the chief, 
 who appears to have shared all tha,t he had with them. 
 The Quaker kept a constant, fearful watch, lest there 
 
A FADED LEAF OF HISTORY 229 
 
 might be death in the pot. When the Cassekey found 
 they were resolved to go, he set out for the wreck, 
 bringing back a boat which was given to them, with 
 butter, sugar, a rundlet of wine, and chocolate; to 
 Mary and the child he also gave everything which he 
 thought would be useful to them. This friend in the 
 wilderness appeared sorry to part with them, but 
 Dickenson was blind both to friendship and sorrow, 
 and obstinately took the direction against which the 
 chief warned him, suspecting treachery, " though we 
 found afterward that his counsell was good." 
 
 Robert Barrow, Mary, and the child, with two sick 
 men, went in a canoe along the coast, keeping the 
 crew in sight, who, with the boy, travelled on foot, 
 sometimes singing as they marched. So they began 
 the long and terrible journey, the later horrors of 
 which I dare not give in the words here set down. 
 The first weeks were painful and disheartening, 
 although they still had. food. Their chief discomfort 
 arose from the extreme cold at night and the tortures 
 from the sand-flies and mosquitoes on their exposed 
 bodies, which they tried to remedy by covering them- 
 selves with sand, but found sleep impossible. 
 
 At last, however, they met the fiercer savages of 
 whom the chief had warned them, and practised upon 
 them the same device of calling themselves Spaniards. 
 By this time, one would suppose, even Dickenson's 
 dull eyes would have seen the fatal idiocy of the lie. 
 "Crying out 'Nickalees No Espanier, ' they rushed 
 upon us, rending the few Cloathes from us that we 
 had; they took all from my Wife, even tearing her 
 Hair out, to geb at the Lace, wherewith it was 
 
230 SILHOUETTES OIT AMEBIC AN LIFE 
 
 knotted." They were thea dragged furiously into 
 canoes and rowed to the village, being stoned and shot 
 at as they went. The child was stripped, while one 
 savage filled its mouth with sand. 
 
 But at that the chief's wife came quickly to Mary 
 and protected her from the sight of all, and took the 
 sand out of the child's mouth, entreating it very ten- 
 derly, whereon the mass of savages fell back, mutter- 
 ing and angry. 
 
 The same woman brought the poor naked lady to 
 her wigwam, quieted her, found some raw (Jeerskins, 
 and showed her how to cover herself and the baby 
 with them. 
 
 The tribe among which they now were had borne 
 the famine for two years ; their emaciated and hunger- 
 bitten faces gave fiercer light to their gloomy, treach- 
 erous eyes. Their sole food was fish and palmetto 
 berries, both of which were scant. Nothing could 
 have been more unwelcome than the advent of this 
 crowd of whites, bringing more hungry mouths to fill ; 
 and, indeed, there is little reason to doubt that the 
 first intention was to put them all to death. But, 
 after the second day, Dickenson relates that the chief 
 " looked pleasantly upon my Wife and Child " ; instead 
 of the fish entrails and filthy water in which the fish 
 had been cooked which had been given to the prison- 
 ers, he brought clams to Mary, and kneeling in the 
 sand showed her how to roast them. The Indian 
 women, too, carried Off the baby, knowing that its 
 mother had no milk for it, and handed it about from 
 one to the other, putting away their own children that 
 they might give it their food. At which the child, 
 
A FADED LEAF OF HISTORY 231 
 
 ■who, when it had been wrapped in fine flannel and 
 embroidery had been always nigh to death, began to 
 grow fat and rosy, to crow and laugh as it had never 
 done before, and kick its little legs sturdily about 
 under their bit of raw skin covering. Mother Nature 
 had taken the child home, and was breathing new 
 lusty life into it, out of the bare ground and open 
 sky, the sun and wind, and the breasts of these her 
 children; but its father saw in the change only 
 another inexplicable miracle of God. Nor does He 
 seem to have seen that it was the child who had 
 been a protection and shield to the whole crew and 
 saved them through this their most perilous strait. 
 
 We can imagine what the journey on foot along 
 the bleak coast in winter, through tribe after tribe 
 of hostile savages, must have been to delicately 
 nurtured men and women, naked but for a piece of 
 raw deerskin, and utterly without food save for the 
 few nauseous berries or offal rejected by the Indians. 
 In their ignorance of the coast they wandered farther 
 and farther oat of their way into those morasses which 
 an old writer calls " the refuge of all unclean birds 
 and the breeding-fields of all reptiles." Once a tidal 
 wave swept down into a vast marsh where they had 
 built their fire, and air and ground slowly darkened 
 with the swarming living creatures, whirring, creep- 
 ing about them through the night, and uttering gloomy, 
 dissonant cries. Many of these strange companions 
 and some savages found their way to the hill of oyster- 
 shells where the crew fled, and remained there for the 
 two d&ys and nights in which the flood lasted. 
 
 Our baby accepted all fellow-travellers cheerfully j 
 
232 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 made them welcome, indeed. Savage or slave or 
 beast were his friends alike, his laugh and outstretched 
 hands were ready for them all. The aged man, too, 
 Dickenson tells us, remained hopeful and calm, even 
 when the slow-coming touch of death had begun to 
 chill and stiffen him, and in the presence of the can- 
 nibals assuring his companions cheerfully of his faith 
 that they would yet reach home in safety. Even in 
 that strange, forced halt, when Mary Dickenson could 
 do nothing but «tand still and watch the sea closing 
 about them, creeping up and up like a visible death, 
 the old man's prayers and the baby's laugh must have 
 kept the thought of her far home near and warm to 
 her. 
 
 They escaped the sea to fall into worse dangers. 
 Disease was added to starvation. One by one strong 
 men dropped exhausted by the way, and were left 
 unburied, while the others crept feebly on; stout 
 Jonathan Dickenson taking as his charge the old man, 
 now almost a helpless burden. Mary, who, under- 
 neath her gentle, timid ways, seems to have had a 
 gallant heart in her little body, carried her baby to 
 the last, until the milk in her breast was quite dried 
 and her eyes grew blind, and she too fell one day 
 beside the poor negress who, with her unborn child, lay 
 frozen and dead, saying that she was tired, and that 
 the time had come for her too to go. Dickenson 
 lifted her and struggled on. 
 
 The child was taken by the negroes and sailors. 
 These coarse, famished men, often fighting like wild 
 animals with each other, staggering under weakness 
 and bodily pain, carried the heavy baby, never com- 
 
A FADED LEAF OF HISTORY 233 
 
 plaining of its weight, thinking, it may be, of some 
 child of their own whom they would never see or 
 touch again. 
 
 We can understand better the mystery of that Divine 
 Childhood that was once in the world, when we hear 
 how these poor slaves, unasked, gave of their dying 
 strength to this child; how, in tribes through which 
 no white man had ever travelled alive, it was passed 
 from one savage mother to the other, tenderly handled, 
 nujsed at their breasts ; how a gentler, kindlier spirit 
 seemed to come from the presence of the baby and its 
 mother to the crew; so that, while at first they had 
 cursed and fought their way along, they grew at the 
 last helpful and tender with each other, often going 
 back, when to go back was death, for the comrade 
 who dropped by the way, and bringing him on until 
 they too lay down, and were at rest together. 
 
 It was through the baby that deliverance came to 
 them at last. The story that a white woman and a 
 beautiful child had been wandering all winter through 
 the deadly swamps was carried from one tribe to 
 another until it reached the Spanish fort at St. Augus- 
 tine. One day, therefore, when near their last extrem- 
 ity, they " saw a Perre-augoe approaching by sea filled 
 with soldiers, bearing a letter signifying the governor 
 of St. Augustine's greatt Care for our Preservation, 
 of what Nation soever we were." The journey, how- 
 ever, had to be made on foot ; and it was more than 
 two weeks before Dickenson, the old man, Mary and 
 the child, and the last of the crew, reached St. 
 Augustine. 
 
 "We came thereto," he says, "about two hours 
 
234 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 before Night, and were directed to the governor's 
 house, -where we were led up a pair of stairs, at the 
 Head whereof stood the governor, who ordered my 
 Wife to be conducted to his Wife's Apartment." 
 
 There is something in the picture of poor Mary, 
 after her months of starvation and nakedness, coming 
 into a lady's chamber again, "where was a Fire and 
 Bath and Cloathes," which has a curious pathos in it 
 to a woman. 
 
 Eobert Barrow and Dickenson were given clothes, 
 and a plentiful supper set before them. 
 
 St. Augustine was then a collection of a few old 
 houses grouped about the fort; only a garrison, in 
 fact, half supported by the king of Spain and half by 
 the Church of Eome. Its three hundred male inhabi- 
 tants were either soldiers or priests, dependent for 
 supplies of money, clothing, or bread upon Havana; 
 and as the famine had lasted for two years, and it was 
 then three since a vessel had reached them from any 
 place whatever, their poverty was extreme. They 
 were all, too, the "false Catholicks and hireling 
 Priests" whom, beyond all others, Dickenson dis- 
 trusted and hated. Yet the grim Quaker's hand 
 seems to tremble as he writes down the record of their 
 exceeding kindness; of how they welcomed them, 
 looking, as they did, like naked furious beasts, and 
 cared for them as if they were their brothers. The 
 governor of the fort clothed the crew warmly, and out 
 of his own great penury fed them abundantly. He 
 was a reserved and silent man, with a grave courliesy 
 and odd gentle care for the woman and child that 
 make him quite real to us. Dickenson does not even 
 
A FADED LEAF OF HISTORY 235 
 
 give his name. Yet it is wortli much to us to know 
 that a brother of us all lived on that solitary Florida 
 coast two centuries ago, whether he was pagan, Prot- 
 estant, or priest. 
 
 When they had rested for some time, the governor 
 furnished canoes and an escort to take them to Caro- 
 lina, — a costly outfit in those days, — whereupon 
 Dickenson, stating that he was a man of substance, 
 insisted upon returning some of the charges to which 
 the governor and people had been put as soon as he 
 reached Carolina. But the Spaniard smiled and 
 refused the offer, saying whatever he did was done for 
 God's sake. When the day came that they must go, 
 "he walked down to see us embark, and taking our 
 Fare.wel, he embraced some of us, and wished us well 
 saying that We should forget Mm when we got amongst 
 our own nation; and I also added that If we forgot 
 Mm, God would not forget Mm, and thus we parted." 
 
 The mischievous boy, John Hilliard, was found to 
 have hidden in the woods until the crew were gone, 
 and remained ever after in the garrison with the grave 
 Spaniards, with whom he was a favorite. 
 
 The voyage to Carolina occupied the month of 
 December, being made in open canoes, which kept 
 close to the shore, the crew disembarking and en- 
 camping each night. Dickenson tells with open-eyed 
 wonder how the Spaniards kept their holiday of 
 Christmas in the open boat and through a driving 
 northeast storm ; praying, and then tinkling a piece of 
 iron for music, and singing, and also begging gifts 
 from the Indians, who begged from them in their 
 turn; and what one gave to the other, that they gave 
 
236 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 back again. Our baby at least, let us hope, had 
 Christmas feeling enough to understand the laughing 
 and hymn-singing in the face of the storm. 
 
 At the lonely little hamlet of Charleston (a few- 
 farms cut out of the edge of the wilderness) the 
 adventurers were received with eagerness; even the 
 Spanish escort were exalted into heroes, and enter- 
 tained and rewarded by the gentlemen of the town. 
 Here too Dickenson and Kirle sent back generous 
 gifts to the soldiers of St. Augustine, and a token of 
 remembrance to their friend, the governor. After two 
 months' halt, " on the eighteenth of the first month, 
 called March," they embarked for Pennsylvania, and 
 on a bright cold morning in April came in sight of 
 their new home of Philadelphia. The river was gay 
 with a dozen sail, and as many brightly painted 
 Indian pirogues darting here and there;" a ledge of 
 green banks rose from the water's edge dark with 
 gigantic hemlocks, and pierced with the caves in which 
 many of the settlers yet lived; while between the 
 bank and the forest were one or two streets of mud- 
 huts and of low hipped-roofed stone houses sparkling 
 with mica, among which gray-coated, silent Friends 
 went up and down. 
 
 The stern Quaker had come to his own people 
 again; the very sun had a familiar home look for 
 the first time in his journey. We can believe that 
 he rejoiced in his own protesting way ; gave thanks 
 that he had escaped the judgments of God, and closed 
 his righteous gates thereafter on aught that was alien 
 or savage. 
 
 The aged man rejoiced in a different way ; for being 
 
A FADED LEAF OF HISTORT 237 
 
 carried carefully to the shore by many friends, they 
 knowing that he was soon to leave them, he "put out 
 his hand, ready to embrace them in much love, and 
 in a tender frame of spirit, saying gladly that the 
 Lord had answered his desire, and brought him home 
 to lay his bones among them." From the windows of 
 this dusky library, I can see the spot now, where, after 
 his long journey, he rested for a happy day or two, 
 looking upon the dear familiar faces and waving trees 
 and the sunny April sky, and then gladly bade them 
 farewell and passed out of sight. 
 
 Mary had come at last to the pleasant home that 
 had been waiting so long for her, and there, no doubt, 
 she nursed her baby, and clothed him in soft fooleries 
 again, and, let us hope, out of the fulness of her soul, 
 not only prayed, but, Quaker as she was, sang idle, 
 joyous songs, when her husband was out of hearing. 
 
 But the baby, who knew nothing of the judgments 
 of God, and who could neither pray nor sing, only 
 had learned in these desperate straits to grow strong 
 in the touch of sun and wind, and to hold out its 
 arms to friend or foe, slave or savage, sure of a 
 welcome, and so came closer to God than any of 
 them all. 
 
 Jonathan Dickenson became a power in the new 
 principality ; there are vague traditions of his strict 
 rule as mayor, his stately equipages and vast estates. 
 No doubt, if I chose to search among the old musty 
 records, I could find the history of his son. But I do 
 not choose; I will not believe that he ever grew to 
 be a man, or died. 
 
 He will always be to us simply a baby; a live, 
 
238 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 laughing baby, sent by his Master to the desolate 
 places of the earth with the old message of love 
 and universal brotherhood to His children; and I 
 like to believe too, that as he lay in the arms of his 
 savage foster-mothers, taking life from their life, 
 Christ so took him into His own arms and blessed 
 him. 
 
THE YAEES OF THE BLACK MOUNTAINS 
 
 A TRUE STORY 
 
 «/^LD FORT!" 
 
 Vv The shaekly little train jolted into the middle 
 of an unploughed field and stopped. The railway was 
 at an end. A group of Northern summer-tourists, 
 with satchels and water-proofs in shawl-straps, came 
 out of the car and looked about them. It was but a 
 few years after the war, and the South was unexplored 
 ground to them. They had fallen together at Rich- 
 mond, and by the time they had reached this out-of- 
 the-way corner of North Carolina were the best of 
 boon companions, and wondered why they had never 
 found each other out in the world before. Yet, 
 according to American habit, it was a mere chance 
 whether the acquaintance strengthened into lifelong 
 friendship or ended with a nod in the next five 
 minutes. 
 
 It bade fair just now to take the latter turn. 
 
 Nesbitt, who had been in consultation with two men 
 who were ploughing at the side of the station, came 
 hurrying up: "Civilization stops here, it appears. 
 Thirty miles' staging to Asheville, and after that carts 
 and mules. The mails come, like the weather, at the 
 
 239 
 
240 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 will of Providence. I think I shall explore no farther. 
 When does your train go back, conductor? " 
 
 "The scenery disappoints me," said Miss Cook, 
 bridging her nose with her eye-glasses. " It lacks the 
 element of grandeur." 
 
 "You'll find it lacking in more than that beyond," 
 said a Detroit man who had come down to speculate 
 in lumber. "Nothing but mountains, and balsam 
 timber as spongy as punk. A snake couldn't get his 
 living out of ten acres of it." 
 
 Across the field was a two-roomed wooden house, 
 over which a huge board was mounted whereon was 
 scrawled with tar, "Dinner and Bae-eoom." They 
 all went, stumbling over the lumpy meadow, toward 
 it. Miss Cook, who was always good-humored except 
 on aesthetic questions, carried the baby's satchel with 
 her own. 
 
 "Shall you go on?" she asked the baby's mother. 
 "The conductor says the mountains are inaccessible 
 to women." 
 
 " Of course. Why, he has slept every night since 
 we came on to high land." 
 
 " I doubt very much whether the cloud-effects will 
 be as good as in the White Mountains. The sky is 
 too warm." This was said thoughtfully. 
 
 " He has one stomach-tooth almost through. The 
 balsam-air will be such a tonic ! We'll go up if it is 
 on foot, won't we, Charley?" And she buried her 
 face in the roll of blanket. 
 
 There was a fine odor of burnt beans and whiskey 
 in the hot little parlor of the house, with its ragged 
 horsehair chairs and a fly-blown print of the " Death 
 
THE TARES OF THE BLACK MOUNTAINS 241 
 
 of Eobert E. Lee " on the -wall. On the other side of 
 the hall was the bar-room, where a couple of red-faced 
 Majors in homespun trousers and shirts were treating 
 the conductor. It was a domestic-looking bar-room 
 after all, in spite of red noses and whiskey; there 
 were one or two geraniums in the window, and a big 
 gray cat lay asleep beside them on the sill. 
 
 One of the Majors came to Baby's mother in the 
 parlor. " There is a rocking-chair in the — the oppo- 
 site apartment," he said, "and the air will be better 
 there for the child. A very fine child, madam ! very 
 fine, indeed ! " 
 
 She said yes, it was, and followed him. He gave 
 Baby a sprig of geranium, bowed and went out, while 
 the other men began to discuss a Methodist camp- 
 meeting, and the barkeeper shoved a newspaper over 
 his bottles and worked anxiously at his daybook. 
 The other passengers all went to dinner, but Nesbitt 
 was back at her side in five minutes. 
 
 "I'm glad you stayed here," he said. "There is a 
 bare wooden table set in a shed out yonder, and a 
 stove alongside where the cooking goes on. You 
 would not have wanted to taste food for a month if 
 you had seen the fat pork and corn-bread which they 
 are shovelling down with iron forks. Now, if I 
 thought — if we were going to rough it in the moun- 
 tains — camp-fire, venison, trout cooked by ourselves, 
 and all that sort of thing, I'd be with you. But this 
 civilized beastliness I don't like — never did. I'll 
 take this train back, and strike the trunk-line at 
 Charlotte, and try Texas for my summer holiday. I 
 must be off at once." 
 
242 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 " Good-bye, thea, Mr. Nesbitt. I am sorry you are 
 not going: you've been so kind to Charley." 
 
 " Not at all. Good-bye, and God bless you, little 
 chap ! " stopping to put his iinger in the baby's thin 
 hand. He was quite sure the little woman in black 
 ■would never bring her child back from the mountains. 
 
 "I'm glad he's gone," said Miss Cook, coming in 
 from the shed. "It's absurd, the row American men 
 make about their eating away from home. They 
 want Delmonico's table set at every railway-station." 
 
 "You will go up into the mountains, then?" 
 
 "Yes. I've only three weeks' vacation, and I can 
 get farther from my usual rut, both as to scenery and 
 people, here than anywhere else. I've been writing 
 on political economy lately, and my brain needs com- 
 plete change of idea. You know how it is yourself." 
 
 " j^o, I — " She unlocked her satchel, and as she 
 took out Baby's powder looked furtively at Miss 
 Cook. This tight little person, buckled snugly into 
 a waterproof suit, her delicate face set off by a brown 
 hat and feather, talking political economy and slang 
 in a breath, was a new specimen of human nature to 
 her. 
 
 She gave the powder, and then the two women went 
 out and deposited themselves and their wraps in a red 
 stage which waited at the door. A fat, jolly-faced 
 woman, proprietor of the shed and cooking-stove, ran 
 out with a bottle of warm milk for the child, the 
 Carolinian majors and barkeeper took off their hats, 
 the Detroit man nodded with his on his head, and 
 with a crack of the whip the stage rolled away with 
 them. It lurched on its leather springs, and luffed 
 
THE TARES OF THE BLACK MOUNTAINS 243 
 
 and righted precisely like a ship in. a chopping sea, 
 and threw them forward against each other and back 
 into dusty depths of curled hair, until even the baby 
 laughed aloud. 
 
 Miss Cook took out her notebook and pencil, but 
 found it impossible to write. " There is nothing to 
 make note of, either," she said after an hour or two. 
 "It is the loneliest entrance to a mountain-region I 
 ever saw. These glassless huts we see now and then, 
 the ruins of cabins, make it all the more forlorn. I 
 saw a woman ploughing with an ox just now on the 
 hillside, where it was so steep I thought woman, 
 plough, and ox would roll down together. — Is there no 
 business, no stir of any sort, in this country?" she 
 called sharply to the driver, who looked in at the 
 window at that minute. 
 
 " I don't know, " he said leisurely. " Come to think 
 on't, it's powerful quiet ginerally." 
 
 " No mining — mills? " 
 
 "Thar war mica-mines. But ther given over. An' 
 thar war a railroad. But that's given over too. I 
 was a-goin' to ask you ladies ef you'd wish to git out 
 an' see whar the traveller was murdered last May, up 
 the stream a bit. I kin show you jest whar the blood 
 is yet; which, they do say, was discovered by the wild 
 dogs a-gnawin' at the ground." 
 
 The baby's mother held it closer, with her lips 
 unusually pale. "No, thank you," she said cheer- 
 fully. "Probably we can see it as we come back." 
 
 "Well, jest as you please," he replied, gathering 
 up the reins with a discontented air. " Thar's been 
 no murder in the mountings for five years, an' 'tisn't 
 likely there'll be another." 
 
244 SILHOUETTES OF AMEBIC AN LIFE 
 
 A few miles farther on lie stopped to water his 
 horses at a hill-spring. "Thar's a house yonder, ef 
 you ladies like to rest an hour," he said, nodding 
 benignantly. 
 
 "But the mail? — you carry the mail?" 
 
 "Oh, the mail won't trouble itself," taking out his 
 pipe and filling it. "That thar child needs rest, I 
 reckon." 
 
 The two women hurried up the stony field to the 
 large log hut, where the mistress and a dozen black- 
 haired children stood waiting for them. 
 
 " Something to eat? " cried Miss Cook. " Yes, in- 
 deed, my good soul; and the sooner the better. 
 Finely-cut face, that," sketching it rapidly while the 
 hostess hurried in and out. " Gallic. These moun- 
 taineers were all originally either French Huguenots 
 or Germans. She would be picturesque, under a Nor- 
 man peasant's coif and red umbrella, but in a dirty 
 calico wrapper — bah ! " 
 
 The house also was dirty and bare, but the table 
 was set with fried chicken, rice, honey, and delicious 
 butter. 
 
 "And how — how much are we to pay for all this?" 
 said Miss Cook before sitting down. 
 
 "If ten cents each would not be too much?" hesi- 
 tated the woman. 
 
 Miss Cook nodded : her very portemonnaie gave a 
 click of delight in her pocket. " I heard that these 
 people were miserably poor ! " she muttered raptur- 
 ously. " Don't look so shocked. If you earned your 
 bread by your brains, as I do, you'd want as much 
 bread for a petiny as possible." 
 
TEE TABES OF THE BLACK MOVNTAINS 245 
 
 The sky began to darken before they rose from the 
 table, and, looking out through the cut in the wall 
 "which served for a window, they saw that the rain 
 was already falling heavily. A girl of sixteen, who 
 had been spinning in the corner, drew her wheel in 
 front of the window : the square of light threw her 
 delicately lined face and heavy yellow hair into relief. 
 She watched the baby with friendly smiles as she 
 spun, giving it a bit of white wool to hold. 
 
 " What a queer tribe we have fallen among ! " said 
 Miss Cook in scarcely lowered tones. "I never saw a 
 spinning-wheel before, except Gretchen's in Faust, 
 and there is a great hand-loom. Why, it was only 
 Tuesday I crossed Desbrosses Perry, and I am already 
 two centuries back from ISTew York. Very incurious, 
 too, do you observe? The women don't even glance 
 at the shape of our hats, and nobody has asked us a 
 question as to our business here. People who live in 
 the mountains or by the sea generally lack the vulgar 
 curiosity of the ordinary country farmer." 
 
 "Do they? I did not know. These are the kindest 
 people I ever met," said the little woman in black 
 with unwonted emphasis. 
 
 "Oh, they expect to make something out of you. 
 Travellers are the rarest of game in this region, I 
 imagine," observed Miss Cook carelessly, and then 
 stopped abruptly with a qualm of conscience, remark- 
 ing for the first time the widow's cap which her com- 
 panion wore. These people had perhaps been quicker 
 than she in guessing the story of the little woman — 
 that the child, dying as it seemed, was all that was 
 left to her, and that this journey to the balsam moun- 
 tains was the last desperate hope for its life. 
 
246 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 She looked witli a fresh interest at the thin, anxious 
 face, the shabby black clothes, and then out of the 
 window to where the high peaks of the Black Range 
 were dimly visible like cones of sepia on the gray 
 horizon. She had read a paper in some magazine on 
 the inhospitable region yonder, walled by the clouds. 
 It was " almost unexplored, although so near the sea- 
 board cities"; the "haunt of beasts of prey"; the 
 natives were " but little raised above the condition of 
 Digger Indians." All this had whetted Miss Cook's 
 appetite. She was tired of New York and New 
 Yorkers, and of the daily grinding them up into news- 
 paper correspondence wherewith to earn her bread. 
 To become an explorer, to adventure into the lairs of 
 bears and wolves, at so cheap a cost as an excursion 
 ticket over the Air-line Railroad, was a rare chance 
 for her. As it rained now, she gathered her skirts 
 up from the dirty floor and confided some of these 
 thoughts to her companion, who only said absently, 
 "She did not know. Doctor Beasly — perhaps Miss 
 Cook had heard of Doctor Beasly? — had said Char- 
 ley must have mountain air, and that the balsams 
 were tonics in themselves. She did not suppose the 
 Diggers or animals would hurt her." 
 
 The truth was, the little woman had been fighting 
 Death long and vainly over a sick-bed. She knew 
 his terrors there well enough: she had learned to 
 follow his creeping, remorseless fingers on clammy 
 skin and wasted body, and to hear his coming foot- 
 steps in the flagging beats of a pulse. She had that 
 dry, sapless, submissive look which a woman gaias 
 in long nursing — a woman that nurses a patient 
 
THE TARES OF THE BLACK MOUNTAINS 247 
 
 ■who holds part of her own life and is carrying it with 
 him, step by step, into the grave. The grave had 
 closed over this woman's dead, and all that he had 
 taken with him from her : even to herself she did not 
 dare to speak of him as yet. The puny little boy in 
 her arms was the only real thing in life to her. There 
 was a chance in these mountains of keeping him — a 
 bare chance. As for wild beasts or wild people, she 
 had thought of them no more than the shadows on the 
 poad which passed with every wind. 
 
 The rain beat more heavily on the roof : the driver 
 presented himself at the door, dripping. "Ef we 
 don't go on, night'U catch us before we make Alex- 
 ander's," he said. "Give me that little feller under 
 my coat. I'll kerry him to the stage." 
 
 Miss Cook shivered in the chilly wind that rushed 
 through the open door. " Who would believe that the 
 streets in New York were broiling at 106° this min- 
 ute?" 
 
 " That baby's not wrapped warm enough for a night 
 like this," said the woman of the house, and forthwith 
 dragged out of a wooden box a red flannel petticoat, 
 ragged but clean, and pinned it snugly about him. 
 
 "She'll charge you a pretty price for it," whispered 
 Miss Cook; "and it's only a rag." 
 
 "No, no," laughed the woman, when the widow 
 drew out her portemonnaie. "Joe hin bring it back 
 some day. That's all right." 
 
 "You seem as touched by that as though it were 
 some great sacrifice," said Miss Cook tartly after they 
 were settled again in the stage. 
 
 "It was all she had." Adding after a pause, "I 
 
248 SILHOUETTES OF AMEBICAN LIFE 
 
 have been living in New York for five years. My 
 baby was born there, and — and I had trouble. But 
 we came strangers, and were always strangers. I 
 knew nobody but the doctor. I came to look upon 
 the milkman and baker who stopped at the door as 
 friends. People are in such a hurry there. They 
 have no time to be friendly." 
 
 The stage tossed and jolted, the rain pelted against 
 the windows. Miss Cook snored and wakened with 
 jumps, and the baby slept tranquilly. There was a 
 certain purity in the cold damp air that eased his 
 breathing, and the red petticoat was snug and warm. 
 The touch of it seemed to warm his mother too. The 
 kind little act of giving it was something new to her. 
 It seemed as if in the North she too had been in a 
 driving hurry of work since her birth, and had never 
 had time to be friendly. If life here was barbarous, 
 it was at ease, unmoving, kindly. She could take 
 time to breathe. 
 
 It was late in the night when the stage began to 
 rattle over the cobble-stoned streets of the little 
 hill-village of Asheville. It drew up in front of an 
 inn with wooden porches sheltered by great trees: 
 there were lights burning inside, and.glimpses of sup- 
 per waiting, and a steam of frying chicken and coffee 
 pervading the storm. One or two men hurried out 
 from the office with umbrellas, and a pretty white- 
 aproned young girl welcomed them at the door. 
 
 "Supper is ready," she said. "Yours shall be sent 
 to your room, madam. We have had a fire kindled 
 there on account of the baby." 
 
 "Why, how could you know Chajley was coming?" 
 cried the widow breathlessly. 
 
THE J ARES OF THE BLACK MOUNTAINS 249 
 
 • 
 
 " Oh, a week ago, madam. While you stopped at 
 Morganton. The conductor of the Salisbury train 
 sent on a note, and afterward the clergyman at Lin- 
 ville. We have been warned to take good care of 
 you," smiling brightly. 
 
 The baby's mother said nothing until she was seated 
 in her room before a wood-fire which crackled and 
 blazed cheerfully. The baby lay on her lap, its face 
 red with heat and comfort. 
 
 " Since I left Richmond one conductor has passed 
 me on to another," she said solemnly to Miss Cook. 
 "The baby was ill at Linville, and the train was 
 stopped for an hour, and the ladies of the village came 
 to help me. And now these people. It is just as 
 though I were coming among old friends." 
 
 "Pshaw! They think you have money. These 
 Southerners are impoverished by the war, and they 
 have an idea that every Northern traveller is over- 
 loaded with wealth, and is fair game." 
 
 "The war? I had forgotten that. One would for- 
 give them if they were churlish and bitter." 
 
 The woman was a weak creature evidently, and 
 inclined to drivel. Miss Cook went off to bed, first 
 jotting down in her notebook some of the young girl's 
 queer mistakes in accent, and a joke on her yellow 
 dress and red ribbons. They would be useful here- 
 after in summing up her estimate of the people. The 
 girl and the widow meantime had grown into good 
 friends in undressing the boy together. When his 
 mother lay down at last beside him the firelight threw 
 a bright glow over the bed, and the pretty young face 
 came again to the door to nod good-night. 
 
250 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 • 
 It was only an inn, and outside a strange country 
 and strange people surrounded her. But she could 
 not rid herself of the impression that she had come 
 home to her own friends. 
 
 The sun rose in a blue dappled sky, hut before he 
 was fairly above the bank of wet clouds Miss Cook 
 was out, notebook in hand. She had sketched the 
 outline of the mountains that walled in the table-land 
 on which the village stood ; had felt the tears rise to 
 her eyes as the purple shadow about Mount Pisgah 
 flamed into sudden splendor (for her tears and emo- 
 tions responded quickly to a beautiful sight or sound) ; 
 she had discovered the grassy public square in which 
 a cow grazed and a woman was leisurely driving a 
 steer that drew a cart ; she had visited four empori- 
 ums of trade — little low-ceiled rooms which fronted 
 on the square, walled with calicoes and barrels of 
 sugar, and hung overhead with brown crockery and 
 tin cups; she had helped two mountaineers trade 
 their bag of flour for shoes ; had talked to the negro 
 women milking in the sheds, to the gallant Confeder- 
 ate colonel hoeing his com in a field, to a hunter 
 bringing in a lot of peltry from the Smoky Eange. 
 As they talked she portioned out the facts as material 
 for a letter in the Herald. The quaint decaying 
 houses, the swarming blacks, the whole drowsy life of 
 the village set high in the chilled sunshine and bound 
 by its glittering belt of rivers and rampart of misty 
 mountain-heights, were sketched in a sharp, effective 
 bit of word-painting in her mind. 
 
 She trotted back to the Eagle Hotel to put it on 
 paper; then to breakfast; then off again to look up 
 schools, churches, and editors. 
 
THE TABES OF THE BLACK MOUNTAINS 251 
 
 Late in the afternoon, tramping along a steep hill- 
 path, she caught sight of two women in a skiff on a 
 lonely stream below. It was the baby's mother and 
 the pretty girl from the inn. No human being was in 
 sight; the low sunlight struck luminous bars of light 
 hetween the trunks of the hemlocks into the water 
 beneath the boat as it swung lazily in the current; 
 long tangled vines of sweetbrier and the red trumpet- 
 creeper hung from the trees into the water; the baby 
 lay sound asleep on a heap of shawls at his mother's 
 feet, while she dipped the oars gently now and then 
 to keep in the middle of the stream. 
 
 "How lazy you look!" called Miss Cook. "You 
 might have been made out of the earth of these sleepy 
 hills. Here, come ashore. D'ye see the work I've 
 done?" fluttering a sheaf of notes. " I've just been 
 at the jail. A den ! an outrage on the civilization of 
 the nineteenth century ! Men have been branded here 
 since the war. Criminals in this State are actually 
 secured in iron cages like wild beasts ! I shall use 
 that fact effectively in my book on the 'Causes of 
 the Decadence of the South': one chapter shall be 
 given to 'The Social and Moral Condition of North 
 Carolina.'" 
 
 "You will need so many facts ! " ejaculated the little 
 woman, awestruck, yet pityingly. "It will take all 
 your summer's holiday to gather them up." 
 
 Miss Cook laughed with cool superiority: "Why, 
 child, I have them all now — got them this morning. 
 Oh, I can evolve the whole state of society from half 
 a dozen items. I have the faculty of generalizing, 
 you see. No," folding up her papers decisively. 
 
252 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 "I've done the mountains and mountaineers. Be- 
 tween slavery and want of railroads, humanity has 
 reached its extremest conditions here. I should not 
 learn that fact any better if I stayed a week," 
 
 "You are not going back?" 
 
 "Back? Yes. I go to Georgia to-morrow morning. 
 This orange I have sucked dry." 
 
 Miss Cook posted to the inn and passed the night 
 in making sketches to illustrate her article from a 
 bundle of photographic views which she found in 
 possession of the landlady. 
 
 Looking out of the parlor-window next morning, 
 she saw half the inmates of the house gathered about 
 an ox-cart in which sat the widow and Charley. 
 A couple of sacks of flour lay at her feet, and a 
 middle-aged man, a giant as to height and build, 
 dressed in butternut homespun, cracked his long whip 
 at the flies. 
 
 "Where can she be going?" asked Miss Cook of a 
 young woman from Georgia whom she had been pump- 
 ing dry of facts all the morning. The Georgian wore 
 a yellow dress with a coarse frill about her swarthy 
 neck : she sat at the piano and played " Love's Chid- 
 ings." 
 
 The man, she said, was Jonathan Yare, a hunter 
 in the Black Mountains. Her brother had told her 
 his terrible history. Her brother had once penetrated 
 into the mountains as far as the hut where the Yares 
 lived, some thirty miles from here. Beyond that 
 there were no human beings: the mountains were 
 given up to wild beasts. As for these Yares, they 
 had lived in the wilderness for three generations, 
 and, by all accounts, like the beasts. 
 
THE TARES OF THE BLACK MOUNTAINS 253 
 
 Miss Cook rushed out : political economist though, 
 she might be, she had a gossip's keen enjoyment in 
 a piece of bad news. "Do you know these Yares?" 
 she whispered. " They have a terrible history : they 
 live like wild beasts." 
 
 The little woman's color left her. Her head filled 
 instantly with visions of the Ku-Klux. "I never 
 asked what they were, " she gasped. " I only wanted 
 to take Charley among the balsams." 
 
 The man looked back at this moment, and seeing 
 that the valise and box and baby's bottle of milk were 
 in the cart, cracked his long whip over the near ox, 
 and the next moment the widow and her baby were 
 jolting up the rocky hill-street. 
 
 She felt a sudden spasm of fear. When Death 
 laid his hand on her child she had taken him up 
 and fled to these mountains without a second thought, 
 as the women in the times of the apostles carried 
 their dead and dying to be cured by miraculous aid. 
 But she was a woman like the rest of us, used to jog 
 along the conventional paths to church, to market, 
 to the shops; her only quarrels with the departed 
 David had been about his unorthodox habits in 
 business and politics; and she never could be easy 
 until she was sure that her neighbors liked her new 
 bonnet. What would her neighbors — any neighbor 
 — David himself, have said at seeing her in league 
 with this desperate character, going into frightful 
 solitudes? 
 
 The man spoke to her once or twice, but she 
 answered with an inaudible little chirp, after which 
 he fell into silence, neither whistling nor speaking 
 to his oxen, as she noticed. 
 
254 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN' LIFE 
 
 She could not help observing how timisually clear 
 the light about her was from the thinness of the air, 
 although the sun was out of sight in a covered, fore- 
 boding sky, and black, ragged fragments of cloud from 
 some approaching thunderstorm were driven now and 
 then across the horizon. The road, if road you chose 
 to call it, crept along beside the little crystal-clear 
 Swannanoa Eiver, and persisted in staying beside it, 
 sliding over hills of boulders, fording rushing moun- 
 tain-streams and dank, snaky swamps, digging its way 
 along the side of sheer precipices, rather than desert 
 its companion. The baby's mother suddenly became 
 conscious that the river was a companion to whom 
 she had been talking and listening for an hour or two. 
 It was narrow, deep, and clear as the air above it: it 
 flowed with a low, soothing sound in which there came 
 to her somehow an assurance of security and good- 
 will. 
 
 Multitudes of trailing vines hedged in the river; they 
 covered the banks, and threw long, clutching branches 
 into the water ; they crept out on projecting trees on 
 either side and leaped across the stream, ridging it with 
 arches of wreaths and floating tendrils. There were 
 the dark, waving plumes of the American ivy, the red 
 cornucopias of the trumpet-creeper, morning-glories 
 with great white blossoms, the passion-flower trailing 
 its mysterious purple emblems through the mud be- 
 neath the oxen's feet, — all creeping or turning in 
 some way toward the river. 
 
 Surely there were airy affections, subtle friendli- 
 nesses, among these dumb living creatures! They 
 all seemed alive to her, though she was a prosaic 
 
THE TARES OF THE BLACK MOUNTAIN'S 255 
 
 woman, who had read little beyond her cookery-book 
 and Bible. It was as though she had come unbidden 
 into Nature's household and interrupted the inmates 
 talking together. The Carolina rose stretched in 
 masses for miles along the road — the very earth 
 seemed to blush with it : here and there a late rhodo- 
 dendron hung out its scarlet banner. The tupelo 
 thrust its white fingers out of the shadow like a 
 maiden's hand^ and threw out into the air the very 
 fragrance of the lilies-of-the-valley which used to 
 grow in the garden she made when she was a little 
 girl. The silence was absolute, except when a pheas- 
 ant rose with a whirr or a mocking-bird sounded its 
 melancholy defiant call in the depths of the forest. 
 Long habit of grief had left her heart tender and its 
 senses keen: these things, which were but game or 
 specimens for the naturalist, were God's creatures to 
 her, and came close to her. Charley woke, and look- 
 ing up saw her smiling down on him with warm cheeks. 
 She did not know the name of a plant or tree or bird, 
 but she felt the friendliness and welcome of the hills, 
 just as she used to be comforted and lifted nearer to 
 God by distant church music, although she could not 
 hear a word of the hymn. 
 
 Leaving the road, they entered deep silent gorges, 
 and followed the bed of mountain-streams through 
 canons walled in by gray frowning rocks, over which 
 the sky bent more darkly each moment. At last there 
 was a break in the gorge. About her was a world of 
 gigantic mountains. There was no sign of human 
 habitation — nothing but interminable forests that 
 climbed the heights, and, failing half-way, left them 
 bare to pierce the clouds. 
 
256 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 She had started on this journey with a vague notion 
 of reaching some higher land where balsam trees grew, 
 the air about which would be wholesome for Charley. 
 She had penetrated to the highest summits of the 
 Appalachian Range, the nursery or breeding-place 
 from which descend the Blue Ridge, the AUeghanies, 
 the Nantahela — all the great mountain-bulwarks that 
 wall the continent on its eastern coast. The mighty 
 peaks rose into the sky beyond her sight, while the 
 gathering storm-clouds clung to their sides, surging 
 and eddying with the wind. How petty and short- 
 liTed was wind or storm! She looked up at the 
 fixed, awful heights, forgetting even the child on her 
 knee. It was as if God had taken her into one of the 
 secret places where He dwelt apart. 
 
 She came to herself suddenly, finding that the cart 
 had stopped and the driver was standing beside her 
 examining the baby's milk. 
 
 "I reckon," he said, "it's sour, and the little chap's 
 hungry. I'll get some fresh, an' you kin look at the 
 mountings." 
 
 He went into the laurel, and with a peculiar whistle 
 brought some of the wild cattle to him, and proceeded 
 to milk one of the cows, returning with a cupful of 
 foaming warm milk. Now, one of the Ku-Klux 
 would hardly go to milking cows, she thought; and 
 there was something in the man's steady grave eyes 
 that looked as if he too understood the meaning of the 
 "mountings." They jogged on in silence. 
 
 Half an hour later the clouds closed about them and 
 the rain fell heavily. The cart was dragged through 
 the bed of a mountain-stream, and then stopped in 
 
THE TARES OF THE BLACK MOUNTAINS 257 
 
 front of a low log house built into a ledge of the moun- 
 tain. A room on either side opened into a passage, 
 through •which a wagon might be driven, and where 
 the rain and wind swept unchecked. An old woman 
 stood in it looking up the stream. Her gray hair 
 hung about her sallow face, her dress was a dirty 
 calico, her feet were bare. Behind her was the 
 kitchen, a large forlorn space scarcely enclosed by the 
 log and mud walls. A pig ran unnoticed past her 
 into it. Another woman, tall and gaunt, was fording 
 the stream : she was dripping wet, and carried a spade. 
 Surely, thought the baby's mother, human nature 
 could reach no lower depths of squalor and ignorance 
 than these. 
 
 "Mother," said Jonathan Yare. "here is a friend 
 that has come with her baby to stay with us a while." 
 
 The old woman turned and instantly held out her 
 arms for the child. "Come in — come to the fire," 
 she said cordially. " I am glad Jonathan brought you 
 to us." 
 
 If a princess had been so taken by surprise, her 
 courtly breeding could not have stood her in better 
 stead. 
 
 She took the baby and its mother into a snug 
 boarded room with half a dozen pictures from the illus- 
 trated papers on the walls, and a fire of great logs 
 smouldering on the hearth. When they were warmed 
 and dry they went into the kitchen. Supper was 
 ready, and two or three six-foot mountaineers stood 
 by the table. 
 
 "We are waiting for father," said the woman who 
 had carried the spade. Both men and women had 
 
258 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN- LIFE 
 
 peculiar low voices. One could never grow used to 
 hearing such gentle tones from these great sons of 
 Anak. At the same moment an old man of eighty, 
 ■whose gigantic build dwarfed all of his sons, came 
 into the doorway. His eyes were closed, and he 
 groped with his staff. The widow, as soon as she 
 saw his face, went directly up to him and took his 
 hand. 
 
 "My name is Denby," she said. "I brought my 
 baby here to be cured. He is all I have, sir." 
 
 "You did right to come." She guided his hand to 
 Charley's, and he felt his skin, muscles, and pulse, 
 asking questions with shrewder insight than any 
 physician had done. Then he led her to the table. 
 "Boys, Mistress Denby will like to sit beside me, I 
 think," he said. 
 
 She had an odd feeling that she had been adopted 
 by some ancient knight, although the old man beside 
 her wore patched trousers that left his hairy ankles 
 and feet bare. Before the meal was over another 
 strange impression deepened on her. She saw that 
 these people were clothed and fed as the very poorest 
 poor; she doubted whether one of them could read 
 or write; they talked little, and only of the corn, or 
 the ox that had gone lame ; but she could not rid her- 
 self of the conviction that she had now, as never in 
 her life, come into the best of good company. Nature 
 does not always ennoble her familiars. Country- 
 people usually are just as uneasy and vulgar in their 
 cheap and ignorant efforts at display or fashion as 
 townsmen. But these mountaineers were absolutely 
 unconscious that such things were. A man was a 
 
THE TARES OF THE BLACK MOUNTAINS 259 
 
 man to them — a -woman, a woman. They had never 
 perhaps heard either estimated by their money or 
 house or clothes. The Yares were, in fact, a family 
 born with exceptionally strong intellects and clean, 
 fine instincts : they had been left to develop both in 
 utter solitude; and the result was the grave self- 
 control of Indians and a truthful directness of 
 thought and speech which grew out of the great calm 
 Nature about them as did the trees and the flowing 
 water. 
 
 These were the first human beings whom the widow 
 had ever met between whom and herself there came 
 absolutely no bar of accident — no circumstance of 
 social position or clothes or education : they were the 
 first who could go straight to something in her beneath 
 all these things. She soon forgot (what they had 
 never known) how poor they were in all these acci- 
 dents. 
 
 Charley and his mother were at once adopted into 
 the family. At night, when the child was asleep, 
 the old hunter always sat with her and his wife beside 
 the fire, telling stories of bear-hunts, of fights with 
 panthers, of the mysterious Eattlesnake Valley, near 
 which no hunter ventures. He had been born in this 
 house, and passed the whole of his eighty years in the 
 mountains of the Black Eange. 6ne night, noticing 
 the scars which his encounters with bears had left on 
 him, she said, " It is no wonder that the townspeople 
 in Asheville talked to me of the 'terrible history of 
 the Yares.' " 
 
 The old man smiled quietly, but did not answer. 
 When he had gone to bed his wife said with great 
 
260 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 feeling, " It was not their fights with wolves and bears 
 that turned the people of Asheville agen the name of 
 my boys and their father. They were the ony men 
 anigh hyar that stood out fur the Union from first to 
 last. They couldn't turn agen the old flag, you see, 
 Mistress Denby." 
 
 " They should have gone into the Federal army and 
 helped to free the slaves," cried the widow with rising 
 color, for she had been a violent abolitionist in her 
 day. 
 
 "Waal, we never put much vally on the blacks, 
 that's the truth. We couldn't argy or jedge whether 
 slavery war wholesomest or not. It was out of our 
 sight. My lads, bein' known as extraordinar' strong 
 men an' powerful bear-fighters, hed two or three offers 
 to join Kirk's Loyal Rangers in Tennessee. But they 
 couldn't shed the blood of their old neighbors." 
 
 "Then they fought on neither side? Their old 
 neighbors most probably called them cowards." 
 
 " Nobody would say that of the Yares, " the woman 
 said simply. " But when they wouldn't go into the 
 Conf ederit army, they was driv out — four of them, 
 Jonathan first — from under this roof, an' for five 
 years they lay out on the mountings. It began this 
 a-way: Some of the Union troops, they came up to 
 the Unaka Range, and found the house whar the 
 Grangers lived — hunters like us. The soldiers fol- 
 lowed the two Granger lads who was in the rebel army, 
 an' had slipped home on furlough to see their mother. 
 Waal, they shot the lads, catchin' them out in the 
 barnyard, which was to be expected, p'raps ; an' when 
 their ole father came runnin' out they killed him too. 
 
THE TABES OF THE BLACK MOUNTAINS 261 
 
 His wife, seein' that, hid the baby (as they called him, 
 though he was nigh onto eight year old) under a loose 
 board of the floor. But he, gettin' scart, runs out and 
 calls, 'Gentlemen, I surrender,' jest like a man. He 
 fell with nine bullets in his breast. His mother sees 
 it all. There never was a woman so interrupted as 
 that pore woman that day. She comes up to us, 
 travellin' night an' day, talkin' continual under her 
 breath of the lads and her ole man's gray hair lyin' in 
 a pool of blood. She's never hed her right mind sence. 
 When Jonathan heard that from her, he said, 'Mother, 
 not even for the Union will I join in sech work as this 
 agen my friends.' He knowed ony the few folks on 
 the mountings, but he keered for them as if- they war 
 his brothers. Yet they turned agen him at the 
 warnin' of a day, and hunted him as if he was a wild 
 beast. He's forgot that now. But his sister, she's 
 never forgot it for him agen them. Jonathan's trouble 
 made a different woman of Nancy." 
 
 But Mrs. Denby felt but little interest in the 
 gaunt, silent Nancy. 
 
 " You say they hunted your sons through the moun- 
 tains?" 
 
 " Jest as if they war wolves. But the boys knowed 
 the mountings. Thars hundreds of caves and gullies 
 thar whar no man ever ventered but them. Three 
 times a week Nancy went — she war a young girl then : 
 she went up into Old Craggy and the Black miles and 
 miles to app'inted places to kerry pervisions. I've 
 seen her git out of her bed to go (fur she hed her 
 aches and pains like other wimmen), and take that 
 pack on her back, when the gorges war sheeted with 
 
262 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 snow and ice, an' ef she missed her footin' no man 
 
 on arth could know whar she died." 
 
 " But five years of idleness for your sons — " 
 
 The old woman's high features flushed. "You 
 
 don't understan', Mistress Denby," she said calmly. 
 
 "My sons' work in them years was to pertect an' 
 
 guide the rebel deserters home through the mountings 
 
 — people at the North don't know, likely, what 
 crowds of them thar war — an' to bring the Union 
 prisoners escaped from Salisbury and Andersonville 
 safe to the Federal lines in Tennessee. One of the 
 boys would be to Salisbury in disguise, an' the others 
 would take them from him and run them into the 
 mountings, an' keep 'em thar, bringin' them hyar 
 when they could at night fur a meal's good victuals. 
 About midnight they used to come. Nancy an' me, 
 we'd hear a stone flung into the river yonder — seemed 
 es ef I'd never stop listenin' fur that stone — an' 
 we'd find them pore starved critters standin' in the 
 dark outside with Jonathan. In ten minutes we'd 
 have supper ready — keepin' the fire iip every night 
 
 — an' they'd eat an' sleep, an' be off before dawn. 
 Hundreds of them hev slep' in this very room, sayin' 
 it was as ef they'd come back to their homes out of 
 hell. They looked as ef they'd been thar, raally." 
 
 "In this room?" Mrs. Denby sfood up trembling. 
 Her husband had been in Salisbury at the same time 
 as Albert Eichardson, and had escaped. He might 
 have slept in this very bed where his child lay. 
 These people might have saved him from death. But 
 Mrs. Yare did not notice her agitation. 
 
 " Thar was one winter when. Major Gee sent guards 
 
TBE TABES OF THE BLACK MOUNTAINS 263 
 
 from Salisbury to -watch the mounting-passes, 'spe- 
 cially about this house, knowin' my boys' work. 
 Then they couldn't come anigh: thar was nigh a year 
 I couldn't hear from them ef they were alive or dead. 
 I'd hear shots, an' the guards 'ud tell me it was 
 'another damned refugee gone' — p'raps one of my 
 boys. I'd set by that door all night, lookin' up to 
 the clouds coverin' the mounting, wonderin' ef my 
 lads was safe an' well up thar or lyin' dead an' 
 unburied. I'd think ef I could ony see one of my 
 lads for jest once — jest once ! " The firelight flashed 
 up over her tall, erect figure. She was standing, and 
 held her arm over her bony breast as if the old pain 
 was intolerable even now. 
 
 She said quietly after a while, "But I didn't 
 begrudge them to their work. One night — the 
 soldiers were jest yonder: you could see the camp- 
 fire in the fog — thar war the stone knockin' in 
 the stream. I says, 'Nancy, which is it? ' She 
 says, 'It's Charley's throw. Someut ails Jonathan.' 
 An' Charley hed come to say his brother war dyin' 
 in a cave two mile up: they'd kerried him thar. I 
 found my lad thar, worn to a shadder, an' with some 
 disease no yerbs could tech. Wall, fur a week we 
 came an' went to him, past the g^ard who war sent to 
 shoot him down when found like a dog; an' thar he ' 
 was lyin' within call, an' the snow an' sleet driftin' 
 about him. One day Nancy was dumb all day — not 
 a word. I said to father, 'Let her alone: she's 
 a-studyin' powerful. Let her alone. ' 'Mother,' she 
 says at night, 'I've been thinkin' about Jonathan. 
 He must hev a house to cover him, or he'll die.' 
 
264 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 ' Yes, Nancy, but what house? ' 'I'll show you,' says 
 she. 'You bide hyar quiet with father. The guard 
 is used to seein' me come an' go with the cattle. ' She 
 took an axe an' went out, an' didn't come home till 
 mornin'. In three days she hed cut down logs an' 
 built a hut, six feet by ten, among the laurels yonder, 
 haulin' an' liftin' them logs herself, an' floored it, an' 
 kivered it with brush, an' brought him to it; an' thar 
 she stayed an' nursed him. The snow fell heavy an' 
 hid it. Yes, it seems onpossible for a woman. But 
 not many's got my Nancy's build," proudly. "One 
 day, when Jonathan was growin' better. Colonel Bar- 
 ker rode up: he war a Confederit. ' Mrs. Yare,' says 
 he, 'thar's word come your boys her been seen hyar- 
 bouts, an' the home guard's on its way up.' An' 
 then he tuk to talkin' cattle an' the like with father, 
 an' turned his back on me. An' I went out an' give 
 the signal. An' in ten minutes Nancy came in with 
 the milk-pail as the guard rode up. I knowed the 
 boys war safe. Waal, they sarched the laurel for 
 hours, an' late in the afternoon they came in. 'Colo- 
 nel,' says they, 'look a-here! ' So we went out, an' 
 thar war the house. 'Who built this?' says he. 'I 
 did,' says Nancy, thinkin' the ownin' to it was death. 
 The tears stood in his eyes. 'God help us all! ' says 
 he. 'Men, don't touch a log of it.' But they tore it 
 to the ground when he was gone, an' took Nancy down 
 to Asheville, an' kep her in the jail thar for a month, 
 threatenin' to send her to Salisbury ef she'd not tell 
 whar the boys war. They might hev hung her: of 
 course she'd not hev told. But it wore her — it wore 
 her. She'd be a prettier girl now," thoughtfully, 
 
THE TARES OF THE BLACK MOUNTAINS 265 
 
 "ony for -what she's gone through for her brothers. 
 Then they arrested father an' took him to Eichmond, 
 to Libby Prison. As soon as Nancy heard that, she 
 sent for the commandant of the post. 
 
 '" Give me,' she says, 'a written agreement that my 
 father shall be released when his four sons come into 
 Richmond, and let me go.' So they did it." 
 
 "And the boys went? " 
 
 "Of course. They reported themselves at Ashe- 
 ville, hopin' that would release their father sooner. 
 But they hed to be forwarded to Salisbury, an' held 
 thar until he was brought on." 
 
 "They were in that prison, there?" 
 
 " Yes. But they was well treated, bein' wanted for 
 soldiers. It was in the last year, when the men war 
 desertin' and the drafts war of no use. On the fourth 
 day the lads war brought into the guard-house before 
 the officers. 
 
 "'Mr. Yare,' says the major very pleasantly, 'I 
 believe you an' yor brothers are reputed to be onusu- 
 ally daring men. ' 
 
 "'That I don't know,' says Jonathan. 
 
 "'You hev certainly mistaken the object of the war 
 and your duty. At any rate, you hev incurred ten 
 times more risk an' danger in fighting for refugees 
 than you would have done in the army. We have 
 determined to overlook all the offences of your family, 
 and to permit you to bear arms in our service. ' 
 
 "'I will never bear arms in the Confederit service,' 
 says Jonathan quietly. You know he's a quiet man, 
 an' slow. 
 
 "A little man, a young captain, standing by, says 
 
266 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 in a heat, 'Bah! Why do you waste words with such 
 fellows? The best use to make of the whole lot is to 
 order them out to be shot. ' 
 
 '"I agree with you, Mac,' says the colonel. 'It's 
 poor policy, at this stage of the game, to tax the com- 
 missariat and put arms into the hands of unwilling 
 soldiers. — But' — then he stopped for a minute — 
 'you have no right to answer for your brothers, Yare,' 
 he said. 'I give you half an hour,' taking out his 
 watch. 'You can consult together. Such of you as 
 are willing to go into the ranks can do so at once : the 
 others — shall be dealt with as Captain Mclntyre sug- 
 gests. ' 
 
 "They took the lads back into the inside room. 
 When the half hour was up, all but five minutes, they 
 saw a company drawn up in a hollow square outside. 
 They were led out thar, facin' them, an' thaj war the 
 officers. It was a sunshiny, clar day, an' Jonathan 
 said he couldn't help but think of the mountings an' 
 his father an' me. 
 
 "Charley, he spoke first. 'Jonathan is the oldest,' 
 he says. 'He will answer for us all.' 
 
 "'You will go into the service?' says the major. 
 
 "'No,' said Jonathan, 'we never will.' 
 
 " The major made a sign. My lads walked down 
 and the soldiers took aim, deliberate. The major 
 was lookin' curiously at Jonathan. 
 
 " ' This is not cowardice, * said he. • Why will you 
 not go into the ranks? I believe, in my soul, you 
 are a Union man ! ' 
 
 " Jonathan says he looked quick at the guns levelled 
 at him, and couldn't keep his breath from comin' 
 hard. 
 
THE TAKES OJP THE BLACK MOUNTAINS 267 
 
 "'Yes,' he says out loud. 'By God, I am a Union 
 man! ' 
 
 " Captain Mclntyre pushed his sword down with a 
 clatter and turned away. 'I never saw pluck like that 
 before, ' he said. 
 
 "'Corporal,' said the major, 'take these men back 
 to jail. ' 
 
 "Two weeks after that Lee surrendered, an' my 
 lads came home." 
 
 The women talked often in this way. Mrs. Denby 
 urged them again and again to come out of their soli- 
 tude to the North. "There are hundreds of men 
 there," she said, "of influence and distinction whose 
 lives your sons have saved at the peril of their own. 
 Here they will always pass their days in hard drudg- 
 ery and surrounded by danger." 
 
 The mother shook her head, but it was Nancy who 
 answered in her gentle, pathetic voice: "The Yares 
 hev lived on the Old Black for four generations, Mis- 
 tress Denby. It wouldn't do to kerry us down into 
 towns. It must be powerful lonesome in them flat 
 countries, with nothing but people about you. The 
 mountings is always company, you see." 
 
 The little townswoman tried to picture to herself 
 these mountaineers actually in the houses of the men 
 whom they had rescued from death — these slow- 
 speaking giants clad in cheap Bowery clothes, igno- 
 rant of art, music, books; bric-a-brac, politics. She 
 understood that they would be lonesome, and that 
 
268 BILHOUETTISS OF AMEEICAN LIFE 
 
 the mountains and they were company for each 
 other. 
 
 She lived in their hut all summer. Her baby grew 
 strong and rosy, and the mountains gave to her also 
 of their good-will and comfort. 
 
MARCIA 
 
 ONE winter morning a few years ago the mail 
 brought me a roll of MS. (with one stamp too 
 many, as if to bribe the post to care for so precious a 
 thing) and a letter. Every publisher, editor, or even 
 the obscurest of writers receives such packages so 
 often as to know them at a glance. Half a dozen 
 poems or a story — a blur of sunsets, duchesses, 
 violets, bad French, and worse English; not a solid 
 grain of common-sense, not a hint of reality or even 
 of possibility, in the whole of it. The letter — truth 
 in every word : formal, hard, practical, and the mean- 
 ing of it a woman's cry for bread for her hungry 
 children. 
 
 Each woman who writes such a letter fancies that 
 she is the first, that its pathos will move hard-hearted 
 editors, and that the extent of her need will supply 
 the lack of wit, wisdom, or even grammar in her 
 verses or story. Such appeals pour in literally by the 
 thousand every year to every publishing office. The 
 sickly daughter of a poor family; the wife of a 
 drunken husband; a widow; children that must be 
 fed and clothed. What is the critic's honest opinion 
 
 269 
 
270 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 of her work? lio-w mueli will it bring in dollars and 
 cents? etc., etc. 
 
 I did not open the letter that day. "When we reach 
 middle age we have learned, through rough experi- 
 ences, how many tragedies there are in our street or 
 under our own roof which will be none the better for 
 our handling, and are apt, selfishly, to try to escape 
 the hearing of them. 
 
 This letter, however, when I opened it next morn- 
 ing, proved to be not of a tragical sort. The writer 
 was "not dependent on her pen for support"; she 
 " had vowed herself to literature " ; she was " resolved 
 to assist in the Progress of humanity." Scarcely had 
 I laid down the letter when I was told that she waited 
 below to see me. The card she sent up was a bit of 
 the fly-leaf of a book, cut oblong with scissors, and 
 the name — MissBarr — written in imitation of engrav- 
 ing. Her back was toward me when I came down, 
 and I had time to read the same sham stylishness 
 written all over her thin little person. The sleazy 
 black silk was looped in the prevailing fashion, a 
 sweeping white plume drooped from the cheap hat, 
 and on her hands were washed cotton gloves. 
 
 Instead of the wizened features of the " dead beat " 
 which I expected, she turned on me a child's face : an 
 ugly face, I believe other women called it, but one 
 of the most innocent and honest in the world. Her 
 brown eyes met mine eagerly, full of a joyous good- 
 fellowship for everything and everybody alive. She 
 poured out her story, too, in a light-hearted way, and 
 in the lowest, friendliest of voices. To see the girl 
 was to be her ally. " People will do anything for me 
 — but publish my manuscripts," she said. 
 
MARCIA 271 
 
 She came from Mississippi ; had been the only white 
 child on a poor plantation on the banks of the Yazoo. 
 " I have only had such teaching as my mother could 
 give : she had but two years with a governess. We 
 had no books nor newspapers, except an occasional 
 copy of a magazine sent to us by friends in the North." 
 Her mother was the one central figure in the world to 
 her then. In our after-intercourse she talked of her 
 continually. "She is a little woman — less than I; 
 but she has one of the finest minds in the world, " she 
 would cry. " The sight of anything beautiful or the 
 sound of music sways her as the wind does a reed. 
 But she never was twenty miles from the plantation; 
 she has read nothing, knows nothing. My father 
 thinks women are like mares — only useful to bring 
 forth children. My mother's children all died in 
 babyhood but me. There she has lived all her life, 
 with the swamp on one side and the forest of live-oak 
 on the other : nothing to do, nothing to think of. Oh, 
 it was frightful! With a mind like hers, any woman 
 would go mad, with that eternal forest and swamp, 
 and the graves of her dead babies just in sight! She 
 rubbed snuff a good deal to quiet herself, but of late 
 years she has taken opium." 
 
 "And you?" 
 
 " I left her. I hoped to do something for us both. 
 My mind is not of as high order as hers, but it is very 
 different from that of most women. I shall succeed 
 some day," in the most matter-of-fact tones. "As 
 soon as I knew that I was a poet I determined to come 
 to Philadelphia and go straight to real publishers and 
 real editors. In my country nobody had ever seen a 
 
272 SILHOUETTES OF AMEEICAN LIFE 
 
 man who had written a book. Erer since I came here 
 I find how hard it is to find ont anything about the 
 business of authorship. Medicine, or law, or black- 
 smithing — everybody knows the workings of those 
 trades, but people with pens in their hands keep the 
 secret of their craft like Freemasons," laughing. 
 
 " You came alone? " 
 
 " Quite alone. I hired a little room over a baker's 
 shop in Pine Street. They are a very decent couple, 
 the baker and his wife. I board myself, and send out 
 my manuscripts. They always come back to me." 
 
 "Where do you send them?" 
 
 "Oh, everywhere. I can show you printed forms 
 of rejection from every magazine and literary news- 
 paper in the country," opening and shutting again a 
 black satchel on her lap. "I have written three 
 
 novels, and sent them to the s' and s'. They 
 
 sent them back as unavailable. But they never read 
 them. I trick them this a-way: I put a loose blue 
 thread between the third and fourth pages of the 
 manuscript, and it is always there when it comes 
 back." Her voice broke a little, but she winked her 
 brown eyes and laughed bravely. 
 
 "How long have you been here?" 
 
 "Three years." 
 
 "Impossible! You are but a child." 
 
 " I am twenty. I had an article published once in 
 a Sunday paper," producing a slip about two inches 
 long. 
 
 Three years, and only that little grain of success! 
 She had supported herself meanwhile, as I learned 
 afterward, by sewing men's socks for a firm in Ger- 
 mantown. 
 
MABCIA 273 
 
 " You are ready to give up now? " 
 
 "No; not if it were ten years instead of three." 
 
 Yet I can swear there was not a drop of New Eng- 
 land blood in her little body. One was certain, 
 against all reason, that she would succeed. When 
 even such puny ceatures as this take the world by 
 the throat in that fashion, they are sure to conquer it. 
 
 Her books and poems must, I thiak, have seemed 
 unique to any editor. The spelling was atrocious; 
 the errors of grammar in every line beyond remedy. 
 The lowest pupil in our public schools would have 
 detected her ignorance on the first page. There was, 
 too, in all that she said or wrote an occasional gross 
 indecency, such as a child might show : her life on the 
 plantation explained it. Like Juliet she spoKe the 
 language of her nurse. But even Shakspeare's nurse 
 and Juliet would not be allowed nowadays to chatter 
 at will in the pages of a family magazine. 
 
 But in all her ignorance, mistakes, and weaknesses 
 there was no trace of imitation. She plagiarized 
 nobody. There was none of the usual talk of count- 
 esses, heather, larks, or emotions of which she knew 
 nothing. She painted over and over again her own 
 home on the Yazoo : the hot still sunshine, the silence 
 of noon, the swamp, the slimy living things in the 
 stagnant ponds, the semi-tropical forest, the house 
 and negro quarters, with all their dirt and dreary 
 monotony. It was a picture which remained in the 
 mind strong and vivid as one of Gerome's deserts or 
 Hardy's moors. 
 
 There could be but one kind of advice to give her 
 — to put away pen and ink, and for three years at 
 
274 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 least devote herself to hard study. She would, of 
 course, have none of such counsel. The popular belief 
 in the wings of genius, which can carry it over hard 
 work and all such obstacles as ignorance of grammar 
 or even the spelling-book, found in her a marked 
 example. Work was for commonplace talent, not for 
 those whose veins were full of the divine ichor. 
 
 Meanwhile she went on sewing socks, and sending 
 ofE her great yellow envelopes, with stamps to bring 
 them back. 
 
 "Stamps and paper count up so fast!" she said, 
 with a laugh, into which had grown a pitiful quaver. 
 She would take not a penny of aid. "I shall not 
 starve. When the time has come for me to know that 
 I ha'^ failed, I can go back to my own country and 
 live like the other women there." 
 
 Meanwhile her case very nearly reached starvation. 
 I remember few things more pathetic than the damp, 
 forlorn little figure in a shabby water-proof, black 
 satchel in hand, which used to come to our door 
 through the snows and drenching rains that winter. 
 Her shoes were broken, and her hands shrivelled blue 
 with cold. But a plated gilt chain or a scarlet ribbon 
 used to flaunt somewhere over the meagre, scant pov- 
 erty. Sometimes she brought news with her. She 
 had work given her — to collect a column of jokes for 
 a Sunday paper, by which she made three dollars a 
 week. But she lost it from trying to insert her own 
 matter, which could not well be reckoned as funny 
 sayings. One day she came flushed with excitement. 
 Somebody had taken her through the Academy of 
 Design and a private gallery of engravings then on 
 
MARCIA 275 
 
 exhibition. She had a keen, just eye for form and 
 color, and the feeling of a true artist for both. 
 
 "That is what I could have done," she said, after 
 keeping silence a long while. "But what chance had 
 I? I never even saw a picture at home, except those 
 which were cut out of illustrated papers. There 
 seemed to be no waj' for me but to write." 
 
 It was suggested to her that she might find the 
 other way even now. Painting, designing, wood- 
 engraving, were expressions for a woman's mind, even 
 though, like her own, it was " one of the finest in the 
 world." 
 
 She did not smile. "It is too late," she said. 
 " I will go on as I have begun. But it is a pity my 
 mother and I had not known of such things." 
 
 After that her light-hearted courage seemed to give 
 way. She persevered, but it was with dogged, indom- 
 itable resolution, and little hope. 
 
 One day in the spring I was summoned to see a 
 visitor on business. I found a tall, lank young man 
 stalking up and down the room, the most noticeable 
 point about him the shock of red hair and whisker 
 falling over his neck and greasy coat collar. The face 
 was that of an ignorant, small-minded man. But it 
 was candid and not sensual. 
 
 He came straight toward me. "Is Marcia Barr 
 here? " 
 
 "ISTo; she has been gone for an hour." 
 
 He damned his luck in a white heat of rage, which 
 must, I thought, have required some time to kindle. 
 Indeed, I found he had been pacing up and down the 
 street half the morning, having seen her come in. 
 She had gone out by a side door. 
 
276 SILMOTJETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 " I caught a glimpse of her half a mile off. I have 
 come to Philadelphia three times this year to find her. 
 Good God! how rank poor she is! Where does she 
 live? " 
 
 I could not tell him, as Marcia had long ago left the 
 baker's, and changed her quarters every month. 
 
 "And I reckon I'll have to -wait until she comes 
 hyah again. Tell her it's Zack Biron, the overseer's 
 son, on — on business." 
 
 He was not long ia unveiling his business, which 
 any woman would soon have guessed. He had come 
 to bring Marcia home and marry her. He had always 
 "wanted her," and the old colonel, her father, had 
 promised he should marry her provided he could bring 
 her back from her mad flight. The colonel was dead, 
 and he was now "runnin' the plantation for ole 
 madam. She's no better than a walkin' corpse, with 
 that damned drug she chews. She can't keep still 
 now : walks, walks incessant about the place, with her 
 eyes set an' the skin clingin' to her bones. I couldn't 
 'a borne it, I ashuah you, but for the sake of findin' 
 Marcia." 
 
 Two months passed, in which he haunted the house. 
 But Marcia did not come. She had begun to frequent 
 newspaper offices, and occasionally was given a trifling 
 bit of work by the managers of the reporting corps — 
 a description of the dresses at a Mannerchor ball to 
 write, or a pufE of some coming play, etc. She came 
 at last to tell me of what she had done. 
 
 "It is miserable work. I would rather sew the 
 heels of stockings; but the stocking looms have 
 stopped, and I must live a little longer, at any rate. 
 
MAROIA 277 
 
 I think I have something to say, if people only -would 
 hear it." 
 
 I told her of Biron and his chase for her. 
 
 " I saw him outside the window the last time I was 
 here. That was the reason I went out by the side 
 street. I knew he was looking for me. You will 
 not tell him I have been here? " 
 
 " But, Marcia, the man seems honest and kindly — " 
 
 "If he found me," in the same quiet tone, "he 
 would marry me and take me back to the plantation." 
 
 "And you are not ready to give up? " 
 
 " No, I will not give up. I shall get into the right 
 groove at last," with the infectious little laugh which 
 nobody could resist. 
 
 The water-proof cloak was worn down quite into the 
 cotton by this time, and the straw hat had been 
 darned around the ragged edge. But there was a 
 cheap red rose in it. Her cheek-bones showed high, 
 and her eyes shone out of black hollows. 
 
 "N'o, I have no cough, and I don't need medicine," 
 she said, irritably, when questioned. "I have had 
 plenty of offers of help. But I'd rather steal than 
 take alms." She rose hastily and buttoned her cloak. 
 
 " This man Biron waits only a word to come to you. 
 He is faithful as a dog." 
 
 She nodded carelessly. Biron, or a return to her 
 old home, held no part in her world, it was plain to 
 see. 
 
 I was out of the city for several months. A few 
 weeks after my return I saw in the evening paper one 
 day, in the usual list of crimes and casualties, an 
 item headed " Pitiable Case. — A young woman named 
 
278 SILHOUETTES OF AMERICAN LIFE 
 
 Burr -was arrested yesterday on charge of theft, and 
 taken to the Central Station. About eleven o'clock 
 the other women in the cell where she was confined 
 perceiving that she lay on a bench breathing in a 
 stertorous manner, summoned Lieutenant Pardy, who 
 found life to be almost extinct. A physician was 
 called, who discovered that the woman had swallowed 
 some poisonous drug. With her first breath of return- 
 ing consciousness she protested her innocence of the 
 charge. She appears to have been in an extreme state 
 of want. But little hope is entertained of her recov- 
 ery. Miss Burr is favorably known, we believe, as 
 a writer of some ability for the daily press." 
 
 In spite of the difference of name, it must be Marcia. 
 
 When we reached the Central Station we were told 
 that her discharge was already procured. She had 
 friends who knew what wires to work. In the outer 
 room were half a dozen young men, reporters, a fore- 
 man of a printing-room, and one or two women, dra- 
 matic or musical critics. There is as eager an espi-it 
 de corps among that class of journalists as among actors. 
 They were all talking loudly, and zealous in defence 
 of "Little Marty," as they called her, whom they 
 declared to be " a dunce so far as head went, but pure 
 and guileless as a child." 
 
 "I knew she was devilishly hard up," said one, 
 " but never suspected she was starving. She would 
 not borrow a dollar, she had that pride in her. " 
 
 Marcia was still in the cell, lying on an iron 
 stretcher. The Mississippian, Biron, was with her, 
 kneeling on the floor in his shirt sleeves, chafing her 
 hand. He had taken off his coat to wrap about her. 
 
MARCIA 279 
 
 "I've a good Quaker nurse and a room ready for 
 her at the Continental the minute she can be moved," 
 he whispered. " Look a-here ! " turning down the 
 poor bit of lace and red ribbon at her throat, his big 
 hairy hand shaking. " Them bones is a'most through 
 the skin! The doctor says it's hunger — hunger! 
 And 7 was eatin' three solid meals a day — like a 
 beast!" 
 
 Hunger had almost done its work. There was but 
 a feeble flicker of life left in the emaciated little body ; 
 not enough to know or speak to us when at last she 
 opened her dull eyes. 
 
 "None o' them folks need consarn themselves any 
 furder about her," said Biron savagely.. " She'll come 
 home to her own now, thank God, and be done with 
 rubbishy book-makers. Mrs. Biron will live like a 
 lady." 
 
 Two or three weeks later, the most splendid of 
 hired phaetons stopped at my door, and Mr. and Mrs. 
 Biron sent up their cards. Mr. Biron' was glowing 
 with happiness. It asserted itself offensively some- 
 how in the very jingling of his watch chain and tie of 
 his cravat. 
 
 " We return immediately to the plantation," he said, 
 grandiloquently. " I reckon largely on the effect of 
 her native.air in restorin' Mrs. Biron to health." 
 
 Marcia was magnificent in silk and plumes, the 
 costliest that her owner's money could buy. Her 
 little face was pale, however, and she looked nobody 
 in the eye. 
 
 "We leave for the South to-morrow," she said, 
 calmly, "and I shall not return to Philadelphia. I 
 have no wish to return." 
 
280 SILHOUETTES OF AMEBIC AN LIFE 
 
 " Shall I send you books or papers, Marcia? " 
 
 "No, T thank you; nothing." 
 
 When they rose to go, her husband said, "Mrs. 
 Biron has some — rubbish she wishes to leave with 
 you. Hyah!" calling out of the window. "You 
 nigger, bring that thah bag ! " 
 
 It was the old black satchel. Marcia took it in her 
 white-gloved hands, half opened it, shut it quickly, 
 came up closer. 
 
 "These are my manuscripts," she said. "Will you 
 burn them for me? All; do not leave a line, a word 
 I could not do it." 
 
 I took the satchel, and they departed. Mr. Biron 
 was vehement in his protestations of friendship and 
 invitations to visit the plantation. 
 
 But Marcia did not say a word, even of farewell. 
 
 Typography by J. S. Gushing & Co., Boston, U.S.A. 
 Presswork by Berwick & Smith, Boston, U.S.A.