Three readers,: an omnibus of novels, stories

■•:•

UNIVERSITY
OF FLORIDA
LIBRARIES

COLLEGE LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE

Clifton Fadiman : Sinclair Lewis : Carl Van Dor en

THE THREE READERS

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2011 with funding from

LYRASIS Members and Sloan Foundation

http://www.archive.org/details/threereadersomniOOfadi

Clifton Fadiman : Sinclair Lewis : Carl Van Dor en

The Three Readers

AN OMNIBUS OF NOVELS, STORIES, ESSAYS & POEMS

SELECTED WITH COMMENTS BY THE EDITORIAL

COMMITTEE OF THE READERS CLUB

1943
THE PRESS OF THE READERS CLUB, NEW YORK

THIS BOOK IS COPYRIGHT, 1943, BY THE PRESS
OF THE READERS CLUB. THE MATERIAL INCLUDED
IN THE ANTHOLOGY IS HELD IN COPYRIGHT BY
VARIOUS AUTHORS AND PUBLISHERS, FROM
WHOM SPECIAL PERMISSIONS HAVE BEEN OB-
TAINED. A LIST OF THESE COPYRIGHTS WILL BE
FOUND ON PAGE IX.

k

V

DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF

Alexander Woollcott

The Contents

A PREFACE: THREE LETTERS TO GEORGE page xi

in which the editors of this volume respond to the request
that they comment upon the literary tastes shown in the
contents

SECTION I: Selected by CLIFTON FADIMAN

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS page 3

BACK FOR CHRISTMAS page 11

a story by john collier

BATS page 16

a naturalist's adventure by ivan t. Sanderson

A SIMPLE HEART page 41

a story by gustave flaubert

BENZOIN FOR THE TURBINATES page 69

an essay by st. clair mc kelway

SEPTEMBER 1, 1939 page 79

a poem by w. h. auden

OF THIS TIME, OF THAT PLACE page 82

a story by Lionel trilling

SEA RAIDER page 116

the text of a broadcast made by frank laskier

ZULEIKA IN CAMBRIDGE page 118

a fantasy by s. c. Roberts

THE STRUGGLE FOR NORTH AMERICA page 141

an historical essay by Arnold j. toynbee

MONOLOGUE D'OUTRE TOMBE page 150

by an Unknown Author

THE CELESTIAL OMNIBUS page 152

a short story by e. m. forster

THE SEA-COW page 166

an essay by john steinbeck and edward f. ricketts

RULES FOR JUDICIAL CONDUCT page 168

drawn up by sir matthew hale, kt.

vii

viii THE CONTENTS

SECTION II: Selected by SINCLAIR LEWIS

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS page 173

THE HILL page 179

a short novel by eleanor green

COUNTRY PEOPLE page 235

a short novel by ruth suckow

SECTION III: Selected by CARL VAN DOREN

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS page 321

THOMAS JEFFERSON TO MARIA COSWAY page 325

the love letter of a philosopher

THE FABLE OF THE FOOZLE 8c THE SUCCESSFUL

APPROACH page 335

a fable by george ade

THE DEATH OF ARROWSMITH page 336

an auto-obituary by Sinclair lewis

A PREFACE TO MY POEMS page 339

an essay by george santayana

HU SHIH'S MUSKETEER page 343

a "profile" by john bainbridge

THOREAU page 355

an essay by ralph waldo emerson

THE SWAMP FOX page 371

a poem by william gilmore simms

THE PELICAN'S SHADOW page 374

a story by marjorie kinnan rawlings

REVERIE OF SPACE AND TIME page 381

an essay by Herman melville

A WINTER DIARY page 384

a novel in verse by mark van doren

DAYBREAK page 415

a radio-play by norm an corwin

THE CONTENTS ix

ON A FOREST DRAMA page 429

a note by MR. van doren

A TREATY HELD WITH THE OHIO INDIANS,
AT CARLISLE, IN OCTOBER 1753 page 435

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgment for permission to reprint selections in this volume is gratefully
given to the following: George Ade, for The Fable of the Foozle & the Successful Ap-
proach. John Bainbridge and The New Yorker, for Hp, Shih's Musketeer by John Bain-
bridge; copyright, 1942, by The New Yorker. Brandt & Brandt, for The Pelican's
Shadow by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings; copyright, 1940, by The New Yorker. John
Collier and The New Yorker, for Back for Christmas by John Collier; copyright, 1939,
by The New Yorker. Doubleday, Doran and Company, for The Hill by Eleanor Green;
copyright, 1936, by Doubleday, Doran and Company. Esquire, Inc., for The Death of
Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis; copyright, 1941, by Esquire, Inc., 919 North Michigan
Avenue, Chicago (Coronet, July 1941). Farrar & Rinehart, Inc., publishers, for Country
People by Ruth Suckow; copyright, 1924, by Ruth Suckow. Harper & Brothers, for the
excerpt from Three Worlds by Carl Van Doren; copyright, 1936, by Carl Van Doren.
Henry Holt and Company, for Daybreak, reprinted from Thirteen by Corwin; copyright,
1942, by Norman Corwin. Henry Holt and Company, for A Winter Diary, reprinted from
Collected Poems by Mark Van Doren; copyright, 1939, by Mark Van Doren. B. R. John-
stone and The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, for material from the Indian Trea-
ties Printed by Benjamin Franklin. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., for The Celestial Omnibus, re-
printed from The Celestial Omnibus and Other Stories by E. M. Forster, by permission
of and special arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. The Macmillan Company, for
Zuleika in Cambridge by S. C. Roberts. Major St. Clair McKelway and The New
Yorker for Benzoin for the Turbinates by St. Clair McKelway; copyright, 1941, by The
New Yorker. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., for Sea Raider, reprinted from My Name
Is Frank by Frank Laskier, published by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 70 Fifth Avenue,
New York. Oxford University Press, for The Struggle for North America, reprinted
from A Study of History, Vol. II, by Arnold J. Toynbee. Random House, for Septem-
ber 1, 1939, reprinted from Another Time: Poems by W. H. Auden; copyright, 1940, by
W. H. Auden. Charles Scribner's Sons, for George Santayana's Preface to his Poems;
copyright, 1901, 1923, by Charles Scribner's Sons. Lionel Trilling and the Partisan
Review, for Of this Time, of that Place by Lionel Trilling; originally published in
the Partisan Review, January-February, 1943. The Viking Press, Inc., for Bats, re-
printed from Animal Treasure by Ivan T. Sanderson; copyright, 1937, by Ivan T.
Sanderson. The Viking Press, Inc., for the excerpt from Sea of Cortez by John Stein-
beck and E. F. Ricketts; copyright, 1941, by John Steinbeck and E. F. Ricketts.

A Preface: Three Letters to George

IN WHICH THE EDITORS OF THIS VOLUME RESPOND TO

THE REQUEST THAT THEY COMMENT UPON THE

LITERARY TASTES SHOWN IN THE CONTENTS

1. FROM MR. FADIMAN:

Dear george: I am grateful for the chance to explain to the patient
members of The Readers Club the handicaps under which I
labor in my pitiful attempt to work in harmony with two such lit-
erary Pooh-Bahs as Carl Van Doren and Sinclair Lewis.

In the first place, both Van Doren and Lewis have read at least
twenty times as many books as I have. This in itself would not be so
bad were it not that neither Van Doren nor Lewis has learned to
conceal his knowledge one-tenth as expertly as I have learned to con-
ceal my ignorance. When, in the course of one of our conferences in
the book-lined living room of the mellow Macy menage, Van Doren
and Lewis loftily bat back and forth the titles of volumes I have never
even heard of, what is a short-memoried junior like myself— born
only yesterday in 1904— to do? Obviously, one thing only: make up
my own book-titles, authors, plots, and what have you. The result
is that our conference is apt to consist of two-thirds erudition (Van
Doren, Lewis) and one-third sheer invention (Fadiman). The strain
on my creative faculty is slowly becoming unbearable. So far I have

XI

xii A PREFACE:

been saved from a breakdown only by the gullibility of Van Doren
and Lewis. But I cannot assume that this is inexhaustible.

Now, George, this is not the only handicap under which you make
me labor. There is that matter of photographs. Under the terms of
my contract— which, as you recollect, I signed after you had applied
an acetylene torch for an hour and a half to the soles of my feet— you
are entitled to use my picture in those coy advertisements of yours.
This not only shows inept business judgment on your part, but causes
me acute distress. The fact is that Van Doren looks exactly like the
sort of fellow he is— a wise, serene galoot of almost intolerable charm,
with a ruggedly handsome face irresistible to any woman over the
age of four. As for Lewis, while he is no Victor Mature, he also looks
like what he is— one of those irritating geniuses who can penetrate
your soul with half a glance, and sum up your entire character in a
confounded immortal phrase. Now, next to these unforgettable
visages is placed my own. Lewis once said of me (he didn't even have
the grace to say it behind my back) that I looked like an amiable
floorwalker— and, by God, the man, as usual, was right! Of what avail
are all my moral and mental virtues when my photograph reveals the
placid countenance of a slightly overfed, slightly bald young man
who looks as if he had never encountered an idea in his life? Me,
with all that wild poetry pent up beneath the vest which one of these
days I will yet constrain to meet the top of my trousers.

Now, George, one more thing. These two world-celebrated col-
leagues of mine are disturbing my sleep. It so happens that in his
salad days Lewis wrote a novel called Free Air which, I am reluc-
tantly compelled to admit, is a very fetching book. It did not, how-
ever, enjoy the sale that those other trifles— some oddments called
Main Street and Arrowsmith and Babbitt— achieved. By the same
token, Van Doren a few years ago wrote a study of Jonathan Swift
which by some accident happens to be the best book on Swift in
English. It, too, never became a best-seller.

Well, you'd think these two literary tycoons would be willing to
let sleeping books lie. Not on your life. Naturally, they haven't the
nerve, the cravens, to try to bring pressure on me directly. They've
worked out something much subtler. About once a week, Van Doren
floats into my dreams and apropos of nothing at all, seems to say,
"By the way, you know Lewis' early novel Free Air} Damn fine book.
Seems a shame we can't issue it as a Readers Club choice, just because
Lewis is a member of the Editorial Committee." Then the next night
the wraith of Lewis will uncoil itself, interrupt my sound sleep, and
give me the same selling talk about Van Doren's Swift.

THREE LETTERS TO GEORGE xiii

George, I warn you that if these two conniving politicians continue
to spoil my well-earned rest, if they succeed in working on my sub-
conscious so as to force me to join them in their nefarious schemes
to unload their early books on our innocent membership, I shall in
turn force you (on pain of letting your ration board know about
those three cans of asparagus in your cellar) to print some extraordi-
nary love poems I once wrote. It's true, I was only twelve at the time.
But did you ever hear of Chatterton? Clifton Fadiman

2. FROM MR. LEWIS:

Dear george: There is a foolish sort of notion that, to start off this
first anthology edited by the Three Readers with fireworks and
pleasant agony, we are each of us to write you a letter belittling and
bedeviling the other two. I am to be humorous and pretty derogatory
about Clifton Fadiman and Carl Van Doren, and to hint that per-
sonally I am a very dependable judge of books but I have had to put
up with their bad judgment and psychopathic unpunctuality.

But I can't do anything of the sort because, possibly leaving out
certain encounters with girls, I have never had more fun, along with
no inconsiderable reverence, than in working with Van Doren and
Fadiman.

They are large, bland, handsome gents, quiet, witty, and amazingly
punctual. For the dozens of meetings that the Editorial Committee
of The Readers Club has held over the past two years, the latest that
any one has ever been was three minutes— and that was Kip Fadiman,
and he was appalled at himself. (By the way, that is literal.) Business
men are supposed to be so much more efficient than scholars; yet I
have never known any business man so precise about appointments,
so quick to make up his mind and so dependable in carrying out his
promises, as these two.

Dragging for complaints about them, all I can bring up is this:
Van Doren is so much the historical scholar, and Fadiman is, under
the tinfoil of his radio glitter, so much the liberal humanitarian, that
I have never been able to convince them about any of the novels
that, just as stories with no soggy ethical import, delight me as a rival
fictioneer.

They are serious fellows, these two cultural pathologists who look
so much like infantry officers. To them, a book must "mean some-
thing." They would prefer a ponderous bad funeral march to a good
gay sonata. For two years I have been trying to persuade them that
The Readers Club ought to publish Night Over Fitch's Pond by
Cora Jarrett, Four Frightened People by Arnot Robertson, Vile

xiv A PREFACE:

Bodies and Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh, any of the crime mas-
terpieces of Joseph Shearing, particularly The Spider in the Cup
and The Golden Violet; and this year I have been trumpeting for
In the Forests of the Night by Kenneth Davis. But the best I could
ever get out of these major generals was a condescending "Ye-es, it's
a fairly good story, but "

To quote myself, George, "Fadiman prefers the brief epilogue that
Leo Tolstoy has added to Clifton Fadiman's Introduction to War
and Peace," while Van Doren, to quote myself again, would rather
possess a thousand-word treatise on the uniforms of the Seventh New
Hampshire Militia at the Battle of Saratoga than a newly-discovered
story by Saki illustrated by Leonardo da Vinci and published by the
Elzevirs or even by your Limited Editions Club (adv.).

But I hope to endure them both for the next twenty years.

Sinclair Lewis

5. FROM MR. VAN DOREN:

Dear george: It will be up to me, I suppose, to get some poetry and
history into The Three Readers. Fadiman and Lewis talk
about William Butler Yeats from time to time, but they seldom
mention a poet in our discussions. Lewis is a renegade from verse,
who began his writing life at nineteen with tender poems like A Song
of Prince Hal, Puck to Queen Mab, A May Time Carol, The Coward
Minstrel, but now only improvises rhymes when the fit hits him. Do
you remember the day we went to visit Woollcott on what Fadiman
would call the Lake Isle of Bomoseen; and Lewis on the way back
suddenly burst out with

Why should Alex

Live in a palex?
and then settled back into another year of prose? As to Fadiman,
who was born with a steel trap in his mouth, I suspect him of never
having had his fling— like wilder young men— at verse at all. He
lisped in bon-mots, for the bon-mots came. Still, he has gone on
liking Yeats through all his changes.

As to history, Fadiman prefers theories about it— provided they are
not by Spengler— to histories themselves. And Lewis, though he is a
principal historian of our times, gets his history through his skin.
Mention something that happened farther back than Lewis can re-
member, and he may look skeptical. Mention something that F. P. A.
or John Kieran might not remember, and Fadiman may regard it as
irrelevant. Fadiman and Lewis, active as grasshoppers, may jump in
any direction, but they are, like grasshoppers, not likely to jump

THREE LETTERS TO GEORGE xv

backwards. This is a fine way to keep from being dull in your
writing, but it is also a fine way to miss a good deal of substance and
flavor in your reading. I mean to slip into my section of The Three
Readers some things that have never been referred to in any Lewis
novel and will never come up as questions for Information Please.

And I mean, too, to allow more space to love— verse and prose— in
my section than we have in general allowed it in The Readers Club
selections. Lewis is disposed to straight-arm love when he meets it in
literature, and Fadiman to high-hat it. I look on it as a force of
nature and study it, observing or reading, with respect. After all,
without some such force in nature there would be no Lewis, no
Fadiman.

Perhaps in the prefatory letters you have asked for, the Three
Readers of your Committee have revealed some secrets about each
other's tastes that it might have been wiser to keep private. But in
fact nobody can reveal secrets about an editor like the editor himself.
His selections tell as much about his mind as a poet's sonnets tell
about his heart. My guess is that Lewis's part of this volume will be
full of stories. After fifty years of reading novels and thirty years of
writing them, he still has an appetite for fiction, like an ageless man
who has never lost the sweet-tooth of his greedy boyhood. Fadiman's
part will be boiling with ideas, explicit in argument or implicit in
forms of art; and there will probably be a pun in his preface.

Carl Van Doren

THE THREE READERS

VWM

\ /

:/.jy

Section I: Selected by Clifton Fadiman

Introductory Remarks

Mr. george macy, in that airy publisher's manner of his, suggested
that I heap together sixty or seventy thousand words of reading
that I would like to persuade other people to read. I dove at once
into my files (consisting of a bad memory that is not improving with
age) and emerged with the treasures, as I think, displayed in the
pages that follow.

I have been trying to figure out what principle of unity can pos-
sibly govern this baker's dozen of oddments: a shivery trick of a tale,
some popular natural science, a masterpiece of classic French litera-
ture, a New Yorker report on the sniffles, a grave poem by a young
Englishman, a long short story by an American newcomer, a British
mariner's true yarn, a diaphanous literary burlesque, an essay drawn
from the work of the greatest living theorist of history, a stray piece
of comic verse, an allegorical fantasy, a few pages of diversion from
the hand of a famous American novelist, and some seventeenth-
century rules for judicial conduct.

There is no principle of unity observable, except the trivial cir-
cumstance that all of these morsels of prose or verse have at one
time or another aroused my admiration to a pitch of fervency suf-
ficient to turn me into a literary evangelist. I do not know why pro-
fessional readers like myself are so lacking in self-control that we
must perforce try to convert others to our own enthusiasms. Perhaps we
read so much, so quickly, with such excessive catholicity, that we grow
unsure of our own taste, and timidly solicit the agreement of others.

In any case, I believe that each of these selections is sound writing
of its kind; that only two (those by Toynbee and Flaubert) have any
claim to permanence; that one (by Lionel Trilling) is a discovery;
and that I would give a good deal to have written any of them and
am sadly aware of my total incapacity to do so.

Like many good things, John Collier's "Back for Christmas" origi-
nally appeared in the pages of The New Yorker, in the issue of Octo-

3

4 CLIFTON FADIMAN

ber 7, 1939. It is a piece of pure, devilishly ingenious manipulation,
and I suppose sardonic is the word for its special atmosphere. Mr.
Collier has inherited the mantle of Saki, but he adds to that minor
master's cynical wit and infernal fancy an extraordinary faculty of
invention. I hope to be able to persuade my colleagues that The
Readers Club owes its membership an omnibus John Collier. If you
enjoy this murderous trifle, you might drop me a card, and tell me
so, and help along my Collier campaign.

Mr. Ivan T. Sanderson is also in my good books. He is a brilliant
young English zoologist and naturalist who above all things prefers
to poke about in nasty places observing unpleasant animals. Out of
this lunatic activity he somehow concocts fascinating volumes. From
one of them, Animal Treasure, published in 1937, I have drawn a
long account of some bats Mr. Sanderson made friends with in West
Africa. To my mind it is as good as anything William Beebe ever
wrote, almost as good as W. H. Hudson.

If you haven't read Animal Treasure, perhaps Mr. Sanderson's
bats may impel you to do so. In Nigeria he encountered not only
these odd and to me obsessively interesting creatures, but also rats
with yellow spots and spiral tails, belching baboons, a green-and-
orange frog that blows sky-blue bubbles, a lizard with a demountable
tail, squirrels that make booming noises, and skinks that bellow like
foghorns. He tells you about giant water-shrews and leering whip
scorpions and supercilious toads; gives you the low-down on how to
skin, cut up, and preserve a quarter-ton gorilla; how to find out
what's going on inside a hollow tree; how to amuse the natives with
swing music recorded by the Washboard Rhythm Kings. He is
admirable on hippos, terrifying on spiders, epic on rats. As for these
rats, I am pleased to pass along the information that the family in
general is called Rattus; that there is a species known as Rattus
rattus; and that, finally, there is a sub-species, Rattus rattus rattus.

Of Gustave Flaubert's "A Simple Heart" there is little to say. I
think it is the most beautiful thing he ever wrote, and it is generally
considered one of the greatest stories of the world. "A Simple Heart"
has been reprinted, but not often enough, and my hope is that even
among the extremely well-read members of this Club there may be
several to whom it will come as something new. It is very simple,
very quiet, apparently without any pretension; like the Psalms, like
the Sermon on the Mount. I think a comment by Edward J. O'Brien
expresses its quality perfectly. He said, "This story is the greatest act
of faith made by any story teller I know."

St. Clair McKelway's hilarious piece of research on the Common

r

(

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 5

Cold appeared in the March 22, 1941, issue of The New Yorker. Since
that date, I am assured by Mr.— now Major— McKelway, nothing
much has occurred to diminish the commonness of the Common
Cold. Like the weather (with which it is connected— or is it?) a cold
remains something everybody discusses and nobody does anything
about. In addition to being a brilliant job of writing in itself, "Ben-
zoin for the Turbinates" pulls the leg of the great god Science in a
manner to gladden the heart of anyone who has ever visited a doctor.

I am no judge of modern poetry, a defect which, some of my
friends tell me, saves me much painful reading. For example, though
I admire the English poet W. H. Auden, I do not always understand
him, and still less often enjoy him. By some strange chance, however,
I enjoy, understand, and admire the curiously haunting poem you
will find below. It is titled with a fatal date, but applies as justly in
1943 as it did in 1939.

Lionel Trilling, a young professor of literature who teaches at
Columbia, is of Mr. Auden's generation, but is making his mark
more slowly. He has written some of the most thoughtful literary
criticism of our time, work that deserves collection. "Of this Time,
of that Place" seems to me the work of a man now ready to write fine
fiction. (It appeared in the January-February 1943 issue of the Parti-
san Review) In Mr. Trilling's story I am not certain what he means
to convey by the girl with the camera, but the rest of the tale seems
to me beautifully balanced, poised, sensitive. Its material is of the
sort that in coarser hands would lend itself to easy satire; Mr. Tril-
ling apparently was not even aware of the temptation. "Of this Time,
of that Place" is subtle, but not obscure. It merits careful reading.

A great deal of literature, of course, is never written down— the
forecastle yarn, for instance. Sailors' are among the least inarticulate
of men, but very few of us ever get a chance to listen to them. In the
spring and summer of 1941 a British merchant mariner named Frank
Laskier was induced to tell some true stories of his wartime experi-
ences, ad libbing them into the microphone of the British Broadcast-
ing Corporation. He was a great success simply because he proved
a natural spinner of yarns. I've chosen one of his tales, "Sea Raider"
(this was the Von Scheer, by the way), because I consider it an ex-
traordinary piece of legitimate rhetoric. Also because I hope it will
help people to hate to the death— and beyond it— those self-declared
enemies of, and traitors to, the human race— the Germans.

As a contrast to Frank's tale I sought something dulcet and artifi-
cial, and in Zuleika in Cambridge I think I have found it. Readers
of that now slightly faded classic, Zuleika Dobson by Sir Max Beer-

6 CLIFTON FADIMAN

bohm, will recall that after the brash and bewitching Zuleika had
worked havoc among the students of Oxford, she decided to leave
the scene of carnage and attempt the hearts of the Cantabrigians. On
the note of this resolve the book ends.

And so it was that until recently the Zuleika's Cambridge adven-
tures ranked with the song the sirens sang and the name Achilles as-
sumed when he hid himself among women. But at last the great Dob-
son mystery has been unlocked by Mr. S. C. Roberts, of whom I
know nothing but suspect of being a don. The creator of Zuleika
himself has seen fit to approve Mr. Roberts' ingenious guesses. Says
Sir Max, "I had often wondered what happened when Zuleika went
to Cambridge. And now I know beyond any shadow of a doubt."

Everyone is aware that Oxford and Cambridge exist on separate
planets and have no common center. It is with their differences,
often of an extremely rarefied quality, that this toothsome piece of
preciosity deals. Its humor, I grant you, is of the mildest and most
donnish and most English and even most eighteen-ninetyish; but
true humor nonetheless. The inclusion in The Three Readers of
this pastiche of a pastiche is a miniature scoop, for there are but a
few hundred copies of the paper-covered English edition (1941) avail-
able in this country. I do not suppose many of our members can
have run across them.

From the diverting triviality of Mr. Roberts' jeu d 'esprit I invite
our members to turn their attention to a few characteristic pages
drawn from a work which I consider the most magnificent intellec-
tual structure of our time, six enormous volumes of whose projected
nine or ten have already been published. They are familiar to most
historical students and to a few laymen, such as myself, who have
been fortunate enough to come upon them.

A Study of History by Arnold J. Toynbee, Research Professor of
International History in the University of London, is the book which
during the last decade has made the deepest impression on my own
mind. It is a difficult and incredibly learned discussion of the birth,
growth, breakdowns and disintegrations of civilizations. I do not
claim the ability to follow all of Dr. Toynbee's sweeping arguments
and I am certainly completely disqualified to comment on his all-
time, all-space embracing scholarship. Yet I am certain that this book
(or rather series of books) reduces to relative unimportance the much-
touted theses of Spengler and Pareto.

Toynbee's style is dense, grave, measured, with occasional glints
of ceremonious humor. In his sanity, his objectivity (he is a univer-
sal, not a British historian), his unswerving appeal to experience, he

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 7

represents the finest tradition of English historical writing. Inspiring
as are the intellectual vistas his multifarious new theses open up, it
is the quality of his mind that even more powerfully arouses one's
admiration— so clean, pure, courageous, and truly religious is it.

His great work was composed during the troubled and uncertain
thirties; it is still being composed; it was being written as bombs
crashed on London. Like Flaubert's "A Simple Heart," but far more
dramatically, it is a superb act of faith and a gesture of courage. The
Western Civilization, which is ours, and which is one of the many
Toynbee discusses, may be passing into a new, perhaps a darker
phase; but Toynbee, like a great doctor charting the course of his
own disease, proceeds to analyze it with a calm and a power given
only to minds that live, like the observer in Lucretius' De Rerum
Natura, upon a mountain top. The quality of his mind is perhaps
indicated by the four wonderful lines from the old Anglo-Saxon
Lay of the Battle of Maldon, which appears on the title-page of
Volume I:

"Thought shall be the harder,

Heart the keener,

Mood shall be the more,

As our might lessens."

In his preface to Parts IV and V, Toynbee has a final paragraph
that I find masterful in its combination of modesty, stoic dignity,
and true authority. I quote it:

"Though the original sketch of Parts IV and V was worked out,
like that of all the parts that precede and follow, in the summers of
1927 and 1928, the actual writing of Part IV was not begun before
the summer of 1933, and the last proofs were sent to press, at a mo-
ment of public anxiety and private grief, in March 1939. It will be
seen from the dates that the contemporary atmosphere in which the
present three volumes were produced was painfully appropriate to
the themes of "breakdown" and "disintegration" which these vol-
umes have for their subjects. There were moments when it almost
seemed like tempting Fate and wasting effort to go on writing a book
that must be the work of many years, when a catastrophe might over-
take the writer's world within the next few weeks or days. At such
moments the writer has often fortified his will by calling to mind the
dates of writing of another book with which this book is comparable
only on the single point of length. Saint Augustine did not begin
writing De Civitate Dei before the sack of Rome by Alaric in a.d.

8 CLIFTON FADIMAN

410; yet he finished the work within the next twenty years, and, al-
though, at the moment of his death in a.d. 430 in his episcopal see
of Hippo, a Vandal war-band was beleaguering the city-walls, the
book survived to inform the minds and inspire the souls of Christians
from that day to this, in times and places that were far beyond the
fifth-century African Father's mundane horizon. Of course the au-
thor of this tale of two cities had a supramundane range of vision
in comparison with which no appreciable difference is made by a
few thousand terrestrial miles or years more or less; and a glimpse
of this vision is the boon for which the present writer is the most
deeply grateful to the writer of De Civitate Dei."

To choose among the thousands of pages that comprise what is so
far published of A Study of History is a task of almost insuperable
difficulty. I have selected from Volume II a short section, compre-
hensible, I hope, in itself, entitled "The Struggle for North Amer-
ica." This is one of the many examples Toynbee uses to make clear
what he calls "the stimulus of hard countries." One of his major
arguments revolves around his conception of "challenge-and-re-
sponse," the notion that certain high forms of civilization arise as a
direct result of a challenge, a difficulty, a set of obstacles. One of
these challenges is often that posed by a hard terrain, an unpromis-
ing physical environment. In "The Struggle for North America"
Toynbee works out this idea with extraordinary cogency, inventive-
ness, and even humor.

Now, to descend from the cosmic to the miniature: Many years
ago, in a faded Victorian compilation called Ballades and Rondeaus,
selected and edited by Gleeson White, I came across some verses
called "Monologue d'Outre Tombe." For twenty years I have con-
sidered them a wondrous merger of the laughable and the gruesome.
The odd form of the "Monologue" is such that when you have read
it three or four times it is hard to get its lines out of your head. It is
also an excellent versified illustration of the law of the transmutation
of energy.

The curious reiterative pattern in which it is composed is called
a pantoum. The pantoum, not a French verse form but of Malay
invention, is oddly suited to the securing of one of the rarest of
(conscious) literary effects— that of monotony. In this case the effect
of humor is secured at the same time.

I would be grateful to our members for any clue to the author of
this soliloquy of a corpse. I have never seen it included in any an-
thology of verse, except the little out-of-print Gleeson White collec-

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 9

tion. I hope it will amuse you as much as it has amused me. Funny-
bones, however, differ.

Following this piece of macabric-a-brac the reader will come upon
"The Celestial Omnibus." I suppose in a sense all the writings of
E. M. Forster, the still widely unrecognized dean of English novelists,
deal with a single theme: the collision, quiet and often fatal, between
the claims of the imagination and the claims of reality. It is of this
ancient war that "The Celestial Omnibus" is a fantastic record,
charming and chilling. It is a fairy-tale about poetry which, as the
terrible-faced driver of the Celestial Omnibus reminds his strangely
assorted passengers, "is a spirit; and they that would worship it must
worship in spirit and in truth." Like all Mr. Forster's tales, this is
a very moral one; and fragile; and beautiful. I fear it has been rather
widely reprinted. Should some of our members find it over-familiar,
I hope they will not nurse against me too obstinate a grudge.

Just two more, and we're through. In a brilliant essay, Edmund
Wilson has interpreted John Steinbeck as a biological novelist, one
whose vision of life flows from his sensitivity to its animal manifesta-
tions. This would explain why Steinbeck writes even better about
beasts than about men. It also explains why, despite the warmth of
his social sympathies, he seems so curiously detached.

Sea of Cortez, written a couple of years ago in collaboration with
E. F. Ricketts, one of Mr. Steinbeck's biologist friends, would seem
to drive home Wilson's thesis to the hilt. It was obviously composed
not merely to tell us— and interestingly, too— about how the marine
invertebrates of the Panamic faunal province are killed, preserved,
labeled, and classified. Nor was it written as a simple narrative of
the small adventures, many of them quite comical, that befell the
crew on the expedition. It was written primarily to explain Stein-
beck's view of life and mode of thinking.

Steinbeck is an intellectual anti-isolationist. He is interested in
interrelationships. His aim, whether as novelist in The Grapes of
Wrath or as amateur philosopher in Sea of Cortez, is to arrive at the
total pattern— he calls it the "design"— of any experience. Anyone
interested in total pattern is apt to be amoral in his judgments, for
all moral judgments proceed out of the isolation of experience, the
statement "This is more important or more valuable than that."
Thus, Steinbeck is anti-teleological in his thinking, as all good biolo-
gists should be; his eye is on the thing as it is, not on the thing as it
should be. This is-thinking, as Steinbeck calls it, means to him what
the killing of large animals does to Hemingway. It has religious,
even mystical overtones for him, overtones that may be inaudible to

io CLIFTON FADIMAN

other ears. It makes him aware not only of the ecological but of the
evolutionary relationship between man and the Lightfoot crab. His
mind is attuned to the survivals in us of previous existences. He be-
lieves in biological memory (more than a trace of Jung here), and
some of the finest passages in the book have to do with atavism in
man.

I transcribe herewith a few pages from this "leisurely journal of
travel and research." As a matter of fact, they are not particularly
characteristic of Sea of Cortez nor of Steinbeck generally. I commend
them to the attention of our members because I find them highly
amusing and, also, for the more solemn reason that they are a first-
rate example of how the lingo of science can be manipulated by a
subtle mind to yield rich humor.

For a tail-piece I have turned to a British Lord Justice, dead for
some centuries. I once visited the pleasant chambers of United States
District Court Judge John M. Woolsey, author of the famous Ulysses
decision which lifted the ban on that classic. On the wall I noticed
a broadside, beautifully printed by the Merrymount Press of Boston,
and was struck by its sharp wit and sound, nutty seventeenth-century
prose. I reproduce it here because Justice is a matter that concerns
not Justices alone, but all of us.

Back for Christmas

BY JOHN COLLIER

"T^voctor," said Major Sinclair, "we certainly must have you with
\J us for Christmas." It was afternoon and the Carpenters' living
room was filled with friends who had come to say last-minute fare-
wells to the Doctor and his wife.

"He shall be back," said Mrs. Carpenter. "I promise you."

"It's hardly certain," said Dr. Carpenter. "I'd like nothing better,
of course."

"After all," said Mr. Hewitt, "you've contracted to lecture only for
three months."

"Anything may happen," said Dr. Carpenter.

"Whatever happens," said Mrs. Carpenter, beaming at them, "he
shall be back in England for Christmas. You may all believe me."

They all believed her. The Doctor himself almost believed her.
For ten years she had been promising him for dinner parties, garden
parties, committees, heaven knows what, and the promises had always
been kept.

The farewells began. There was a fluting of compliments on dear
Hermione's marvellous arrangements. She and her husband would
drive to Southampton that evening. They would embark the follow-
ing day. No trains, no bustle, no last-minute worries. Certainly the
Doctor was marvellously looked after. He would be a great success in
America. Especially with Hermione to see to everything. She would
have a wonderful time, too. She would see the skyscrapers. Nothing
like that in Little Godwearing. But she must be very sure to bring
him back. "Yes, I will bring him back. You may rely upon it." He
mustn't be persuaded. No extensions. No wonderful post at some
super-American hospital. Our infirmary needs him. And he must be
back by Christmas. "Yes," Mrs. Carpenter called to the last departing
guest, "I shall see to it. He shall be back by Christmas."

The final arrangements for closing the house were very well man-
aged. The maids soon had the tea things washed up; they came in,

11

12 JOHN COLLIER

said goodbye, and were in time to catch the afternoon bus to Devizes.

Nothing remained but odds and ends, locking doors, seeing that
everything was tidy. "Go upstairs," said Hermione, "and change into
your brown tweeds. Empty the pockets of that suit before you put it
in your bag. I'll see to everything else. All you have to do is not to get
in the way."

The Doctor went upstairs and took off the suit he was wearing, but
instead of the brown tweeds, he put on an old, dirty bath gown,
which he took from the back of his wardrobe. Then, after making
one or two little arrangements, he leaned over the head of the stairs
and called to his wife, "Hermione! Have you a moment to spare?"

"Of course, dear. I'm just finished."

"Just come up here for a moment. There's something rather ex-
traordinary up here."

Hermione immediately came up. "Good heavens, my dear man!"
she said when she saw her husband. "What are you lounging about
in that filthy old thing for? I told you to have it burned long ago."

"Who in the world," said the Doctor, "has dropped a gold chain
down the bathtub drain?"

"Nobody has, of course," said Hermione. "Nobody wears such a
thing."

"Then what is it doing there?" said the Doctor. "Take this flash-
light. If you lean right over, you can see it shining, deep down."

"Some Woolworth's bangle off one of the maids," said Hermione.
"It can be nothing else." However, she took the flashlight and leaned
over, squinting into the drain. The Doctor, raising a short length of
lead pipe, struck two or three times with great force and precision,
and tilting the body by the knees, tumbled it into the tub.

He then slipped off the bathrobe and, standing completely naked,
unwrapped a towel full of implements and put them into the wash-
basin. He spread several sheets of newspaper on the floor and turned
once more to his victim.

She was dead, of course— horribly doubled up, like a somersaulter,
at one end of the tub. He stood looking at her for a very long time,
thinking of absolutely nothing at all. Then he saw how much blood
there was and his mind began to move again.

First he pushed and pulled until she lay straight in the bath, then
he removed her clothing. In a narrow bathtub this was an extremely
clumsy business, but he managed it at last and then turned on the
taps. The water rushed into the tub, then dwindled, then died away,
and the last of it gurgled down the drain.

"Good God!" he said. "She turned it off at the main."

BACK FOR CHRISTMAS 13

There was only one thing to do: the Doctor hastily wiped his
hands on a towel, opened the bathroom door with a clean corner of
the towel, threw it back onto the bath stool, and ran downstairs,
barefoot, light as a cat. The cellar door was in a corner of the en-
trance hall, under the stairs. He knew just where the cut-off was. He
had reason to: he had been pottering about down there for some
time past— trying to scrape out a bin for wine, he had told Hermi-
one. He pushed open the cellar door, went down the steep steps, and
just before the closing door plunged the cellar into pitch darkness,
he put his hand on the tap and turned it on. Then he felt his way
back along the grimy wall till he came to the steps. He was about to
ascend them when the bell rang.

The Doctor was scarcely aware of the ringing as a sound. It was
like a spike of iron pushed slowly up through his stomach. It went
on until it reached his brain. Then something broke. He threw him-
self down in the coal dust on the floor and said, "I'm through. I'm
through."

"They've got no right to come. Fools!" he said. Then he heard
himself panting. "None of this," he said to himself. "None of this."

He began to revive. He got to his feet, and when the bell rang
again the sound passed through him almost painlessly. "Let them go
away," he said. Then he heard the front door open. He said, "I don't
care." His shoulder came up, like that of a boxer, to shield his face.
"I give up," he said.

He heard people calling. "Herbert!" "Hermione!" It was the Wal-
lingfords. "Damn them! They come butting in. People anxious to
get off. All naked! And blood and coal dust! I'm done! I'm through!
I can't do it."

"Herbert!"

"Hermione!"

"Where the dickens can they be?"

"The car's there."

"Maybe they've popped round to Mrs. Liddell's."

"We must see them."

"Or to the shops, maybe. Something at the last minute."

"Not Hermione. I say, listen! Isn't that someone having a bath?
Shall I shout? What about whanging on the door?"

"Sh-h-h! Don't. It might not be tactful."

"No harm in a shout."

"Look, dear. Let's come in on our way back. Hermione said they
wouldn't be leaving before seven. They're dining on the way, in
Salisbury."

14 JOHN COLLIER

"Think so? All right. Only I want a last drink with old Herbert.
He'd be hurt."

''Let's hurry. We can be back by half past six."

The Doctor heard them walk out and the front door close quietly
behind them. He thought, "Half past six. I can do it."

He crossed the hall, sprang the latch of the front door, went up-
stairs, and taking his instruments from the washbasin, finished what
he had to do. He came down again, clad in his bath gown, carrying
parcel after parcel of towelling or newspaper neatly secured with
safety pins. These he packed carefully into the narrow, deep hole he
had made in the corner of the cellar, shovelled in the soil, spread
coal dust over all, satisfied himself that everything was in order, and
went upstairs again. He then thoroughly cleansed the bath, and him-
self, and the bath again, dressed, and took his wife's clothing and his
bath gown to the incinerator.

One or two more little touches and everything was in order. It was
only quarter past six. The Wallingfords were always late; he had
only to get into the car and drive off. It was a pity he couldn't wait
till after dusk, but he could make a detour to avoid passing through
the main street, and even if he was seen driving alone, people would
only think Hermione had gone on ahead for some reason and they
would forget about it.

Still, he was glad when he had finally got away, entirely unob-
served, on the open road, driving into the gathering dusk. He had
to drive very carefully; he found himself unable to judge distances,
his reactions were abnormally delayed, but that was a detail. When
it was quite dark he allowed himself to stop the car on the top of the
downs, in order to think.

The stars were superb. He could see the lights of one or two little
towns far away on the plain below him. He was exultant. Everything
that was to follow was perfectly simple. Marion was waiting in Chi-
cago. She already believed him to be a widower. The lecture people
could be put off with a word. He had nothing to do but establish
himself in some thriving out-of-the-way town in America and he was
safe forever. There were Hermione's clothes, of course, in the suit-
cases: they could be disposed of through the porthole. Thank heaven
she wrote her letters on the typewriter— a little thing like handwrit-
ing might have prevented everything. "But there you are," he said.
"She was up-to-date, efficient all along the line. Managed everything.
Managed herself to death, damn her!"

"There's no reason to get excited," he thought. "I'll write a few
letters for her, then fewer and fewer. Write myself— always expecting

BACK FOR CHRISTMAS 15

to get back, never quite able to. Keep the house one year, then an-
other, then another; they'll get used to it. Might even come back
alone in a year or two and clear it up properly. Nothing easier. But
not for Christmas!" He started up the engine and was off.

In New York he felt free at last, really free. He was safe. He could
look back with pleasure— at least, after a meal, lighting his cigarette,
he could look back with a sort of pleasure— to the minute he had
passed in the cellar listening to the bell, the door, and the voices. He
could look forward to Marion.

As he strolled through the lobby of his hotel, the clerk, smiling,
held up letters for him. It was the first batch from England. Well,
what did that matter? It would be fun dashing off the typewritten
sheets in Hermione's downright style, signing them with her squig-
gle, telling everyone what a success his first lecture had been, how
thrilled he was with America but how certainly she'd bring him
back for Christmas. Doubts could creep in later.

He glanced over the letters. Most were for Hermione. From the
Sinclairs, the Wallingfords, the vicar, and a business letter from Holt
& Sons, Builders and Decorators.

He stood in the lounge, people brushing by him. He opened the
letters with his thumb, reading here and there, smiling. They all
seemed very confident he would be back for Christmas. They relied
on Hermione. "That's where they make their big mistake," said the
Doctor, who had taken to American phrases. The builder's letter he
kept to the last. Some bill, probably. It was:

"Dear Madam,

We are in receipt of your kind acceptance of estimate as below,
and also of key.

We beg to repeat you may have every confidence in same being
ready in ample time for Christmas present as stated. We are setting
men to work this week.

We are, Madam,

Yours faithfully,

Paul Holt & Sons

To excavating, building up, suitably lining one sunken wine bin
in cellar as indicated, using best materials, making good, etc.

£18/0/0"

Bats

BY IVAN T. SANDERSON

Everybody is at least vaguely aware of the existence of bats. Even
the town dweller may, if he care to, notice their little phantom
forms flitting around the houses. Believe it or not, there are bats
sleeping in the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens every day
of the year. Still, probably less than one person in every five hundred
thousand could describe accurately what any bat really looks like.

In Africa, as in other tropical countries where bats are even more
numerous, it is much the same. These strange creatures are one of
the most diverse and numerically predominant groups of animals in
existence, yet they live around and among us like ghosts, unnoticed
and unknown.

What is the reason, or what are the reasons?

This was a question that we asked ourselves as soon as we got to
Africa. The answer was fairly simple— bats fly by night. But it is how
and where they fly that are the vital points; these lead us into a num-
ber of problems that have so far been confined to the realms of pure
science. Nevertheless, they proved to be so interesting to us, as we
investigated each problem in turn, that I feel our troubles may be
shared with you.

Scientists divide the bats into two classes— the Megacheiroptera
and the Microcheiroptera— which only mean the "large bats" and
the "small bats." The former are vegetarians, the latter mostly car-
nivorous, eating insects or sucking blood. We soon discovered, how-
ever, that from the point of view of the collector this division was
not quite satisfactory. The habits of the two groups overlap some-
what.

We noticed, in fact, that the bats fell into the following two
classes: those that fly in the open air away from trees and obstruc-
tions when they first appear every evening and, secondly, those that
do not. Nearly all the large frugivorous bats belong to the first class,
almost all the small insectivorous ones to the second; but, still from ■

16

BATS 17

the point of view of the collector, there is another vast difference
between them. The first can be shot, the second cannot, except in
unusual circumstances.

When the sun begins to set, the first group of bats leaves its hide-
outs and soars into the air. They ascend to a very great height, more-
over, primarily because the insects are still flying in the warm upper
atmosphere or, in the case of fruit bats, because they have to travel
some distance to their feeding grounds. Also, this first lot of bats
descends towards the earth only by degrees, and all the time it is
getting darker every second. By the time they are within gun-shot
range, it is far too dark to sight them; they are an almost impossible
target at the best of times.

The second type of bat— those that do not fly in the open— has
even more irritating habits. As dusk comes rapidly in this country
of forests, woods, and endless vegetation, deep shadows are cast across
the whole landscape, so that little patches of ever-extending night
mottle the whole countryside. The bats— all the small ones— emerge
as soon as these shadows are black enough, and content themselves
with flashing back and forth from the gloomy depths of one patch
of forest to another, always keeping in the darkest shadows in their
flight.

Both groups are therefore from the outset well out of range of
any designing human. These facts we quickly appreciated. Had we
realized that our troubles were really only just beginning, I believe
we should have given up the attempt to collect these animals right
away. In our ignorance, we believed that we would be able to shoot
them none the less, and also eventually discover them in their re-
treats during the daylight hours. In both these things we had made
serious miscalculations.

Nobody seems to appreciate just what a bat's flight consists of.
Practically all birds behave in the air in much the same manner as
an airplane, or at least as a helicopter, but a bat— words fail me en-
tirely! To support the body in the air during flight the wings, which
are formed, as everybody knows, by the elongated fingers with a thin
membrane stretched between them, are moved up and down and,
what is more important, backwards and forwards. The wing is, in
fact, used exactly like a hand clawing at the air to gain a grip. Since
this hand is a multitude of joints bent in a score of different direc-
tions, and because the whole animal is constructed to facilitate the
capture of minute, swift-flying insects, the so-called flight becomes a
jumble of the most fantastic motions imaginable. Flight consists of
a series of collapses, jerks, spurts, headlong drops, side-slips, and

18 IVAN T. SANDERSON

indiscriminate tumbles that defy description, all known laws of dy-
namics, and the swiftest aim with a gun.

The species that fly in the open air are not such bad offenders in
this respect as those that do not, but apart from the fruit bats, which
have a steadier flight, they are nevertheless best described as tortured
animated springs let loose in the clear air.

Now if you will just consider the following facts, you may be able
to appreciate the difficulties that we were up against. The body of
a bat may be taken as, on an average, about one-fifteenth of the area
of the whole animal when the wings are fully extended. The flight
of some species is so swift that when they are proceeding in a straight
line— which is rare— they cannot be photographed with an ordinary
film-camera. There is no given direction for a bat's flight— it depends
solely on the spatio-temporal relation of the next insect! Lastly, the
animal is either at the very limit of gun range or makes its appear-
ance only for a second in a deep shadow among dense vegetation.
I may add that a bat frequently closes its wings entirely in mid-
air during flight to increase the speed of its descent upon a crisp
mouthful.

Will you place yourself on a plot of rough ground covered with
fallen trees, ant-hills, and tangled ground creepers, and imagine
yourself gazing up into the rapidly darkening sky (a thing you have
already been doing for twenty minutes, to the discomfort of your
neck)? Suddenly a tiny flitting thing skids out of the invisible be-
yond and you imagine it is within the range of your gun, now that
the latter seems to weigh half a ton. You stumble backwards trying
to take aim at the dot above. First it is to your right side, now above
you, then to the front, now right behind. At last you are roughly
covering it with your sight— then suddenly something happens, in
a flash it has become only one-fifteenth its former size. You blaze
away— or perhaps you don't— only to see the wretched creature streak
off in the least expected direction just slowly enough for the eye to
follow. Disgusted with this encounter, you repair to the adjacent
forest and take up your position in a silent narrow glade.

An endless stream of small flashes is projected out of the trees from
one side to the other. You raise your gun, determined to fire at the
very next to appear. At first they are too quick for you. Since it is
almost dark, you determine to press the trigger as soon as one flies
by your aim. Not one comes out. The stream has ceased, but pres-
ently commences again in the opposite direction, the vanguard pass-
ing between your legs and between your nose and the end of the
gun. Exasperated, you wheel about, but as you do so the whole

BATS 19

ground bursts into eddies of practically invisible flitting forms. You
fire at random but there is nothing there.

It is now so dark that you light your torch, affix it to your fore-
head, and stand with your gun to your shoulder facing down the
beam of light which is cast into the glade. Bats rocket from every-
where. All at once a flopping, fluttering entity appears, coming
straight down the beam of the bright light. Overjoyed at this un-
expected chance, you try to take aim, but the bat is now here, now
there, and always advancing directly at you.

You fire. Bang! Out of the smoke appears the bat. With a side-
slip it skids past the muzzle of your gun and is gone over your left
shoulder.

I ask you— what are you to do with tangible ghosts?

Our base camp at Mamfe was housed in a structure known locally
as a rest house. These abodes are thoughtfully provided by the gov-
ernment at all the "stations" and in most of the more important
villages on the main forest pathways between them. They vary
greatly in size, shape, and development. The most primitive are little
better or even worse than the meanest local native houses; the best,
in big towns where many white officials and traders are domiciled,
are truly palatial dwellings with verandas, gardens, ice-boxes, and
electric light. The village rest houses are mere mud and wattle struc-
tures built on the native plan. The worst station rest houses are glori-
fied editions of these, but the better ones are stone-built structures
with "pan" (corrugated-iron) roofs.

Mamfe provided just such a one. It consisted of two square rooms,
each with two doors and two windows, built on a raised concrete
platform which formed a veranda all round. A conical tin roof cov-
ered the whole. The underside of the roof over the veranda was
neatly covered in with match-boarding brought at great expense
from Europe; the rooms were similarly roofed, though here the
boarding was horizontal, so that a small "un-get-at-able" attic was
sealed above to catch the dust, the dead rats, and the heat.

We slept and bathed in one room, worked in another, and fed on
the veranda on the leeward side. Simple though perfect domestic
arrangements that should content the most elite.

A few days after our arrival at Mamfe, George and I were con-
tentedly browsing on platefuls of rice and chicken with groundnuts,
and gazing out at the night between the cascade of miniature water-
falls streaming from the pan roof above. It wasn't raining; it was
pouring as it can do only in the tropics. It was, to be precise, the
seventy-third hour that the elements had been giving vent to their

20 IVAN T. SANDERSON

pent-up emotions in this unmistakable manner. We were so pleased
to have reached our destination and got unpacked without a single
loss, that not even all this water could dispel our satisfaction.

The rice stowed neatly away in its appointed place, we leant back
preparatory to a period of groaning. Then we noticed that several
bats were silently flitting round the veranda in the angle formed by
the match-board lining to the roof and the outside walls of the cen-
tral living rooms. A multitude of insects had congregated there, at-
tracted by the bright light.

We watched these bats flying round and round the house with
such regularity that we could time their exact appearance round the
corner. There were about half a dozen of them. This seemed to be
a direct challenge which we groaningly accepted despite the rice and
groundnuts.

Butterfly nets were lashed to long light poles and raised up to the
angle of the roof. The bats continued to circle round and round the
house. We waited half-way along a wall facing the corner around
which they appeared. As they flashed by above us, we endeavoured
to pop the net up at the psychological moment. Though some prac-
tice was required before we could judge their speed, soon we were
very near the mark.

It then became apparent that the bats could slip through between
the rim of the net (which was circular) and the roof-wall angle. We
therefore lowered the nets and constructed angles in their rims to
coincide with the corner of the roof. Assured of a capture, we again
raised the nets.

Now the bats flew straight at the net, partly entered the mouth,
then backslid out again; by a couple of deft stallings, like an airplane
in an air-pocket, they squirmed round the bottom edge of the net
and proceeded on their way round the house. It was obvious that
whatever we put in their path they would be able to avoid with com-
parative ease. Exasperated, I loaded a shotgun, seated myself by the
dinner table, and, to the great amazement of the kitchen staff and
the detriment of the government's valuable roofing, fired both bar-
rels at the further corner of the roof as soon as I saw a bat appear.
Perhaps it is unnecessary to mention that I did not hit the bat, but
blew an eight-inch hole clean through the match-boarding.

Two bats, however, were close enough to be thoroughly dazed
by my performance. These were scooped into the nets as they flut-
tered amazedly about above us. Our first two bats were brought to
earth, where they promptly fixed their needle-sharp teeth on my
and George's fingers respectively.

BATS 21

Since we were guests of the government, we could not continue
blowing the roof of the rest house away, a square foot at a time. It
therefore became imperative to devise some other method of cap-
turing our nightly visitors. This led to most interesting discoveries.

I had heard that bats had some marvellous mechanism by which
they find their way through the air, and more particularly those
parts that are cluttered up with obstructions. All the microcheirop-
tera have minute eyes, some even are totally blind, their eyes being
reduced to pin-point dimensions and covered by skin. The ones we
captured at our first attempt (Hipposideros caffer and Nycteris arge)
had the smallest black beads totally concealed in the thick fur. Bats
have been released in a confined space across and throughout which
up to four hundred piano wires were stretched at all angles. The
bats continued to fly indefinitely among them without ever so much
as touching a wire with their wing tips either in bright light or in
total darkness, even when what eyes they had were completely sealed
over. By what method is this performed?

If a bat is caught, look at its face. This will probably give you
quite a shock, but it is nevertheless worth an inspection. Bats' faces
vary enormously, probably more so than any other animals'; few of
them are straightforward visages and many are beyond the wildest
nightmares of a deranged liver or fancies of the grotesque. The nose
is often developed into a whole series of leaf-like structures one on
top of another, and there are wrinkles, folds, and feelers of naked
skin. One bat we found had a fleshy crucifix surrounded by a dozen
complicated leaves spreading from its nose all over its face.

No less remarkable than the endless variety of noses are the ex-
tremes to which the ears go. These are, in the first place, often im-
mense in proportion to the animal— I know one bat whose ears
are very much larger than the whole animal itself. Inside the main
ear there may be another pinna or false ear of almost any form.
Some are exact replicas of the big ear, and the whole thing may be
multiplied so that there appears to be a series of ears of diminishing
size, one within the other. The eyes, as I have mentioned, are neg-
ligible quantities.

Those peculiar people who take an interest in bats have debated
for many years as to whether these wonderful structures are the
means by which the bat directs itself through the maze of piano
wires or natural obstructions to its aerial passage. They seem to have
decided that not only are the nose-leaves and ears the centre of a
kind of super-tactile sensitivity but that the wing-membranes also
serve this purpose. This sixth sense must in some way be connected

22 IVAN T. SANDERSON

with a power of touch so acute that the animal can feel objects be-
fore it actually comes in contact with them. This is not nearly so
strange as it seems, if we do not judge all senses by our own, which
are feebly developed to say the least. It is possible that in the case of
the bats this sense is effected by minute increases in air pressure, or
responds to electro-magnetic waves propagated by matter.

George and I had debated these interesting facts from every angle
during the days that followed our first captures, having had such
clear proof of their potentialities. As I lay in bed at night, the prob-
lem assumed gigantic proportions, until one night when, just after
the light had been extinguished, I was galvanized into action by a
material example of my mental speculations.

From within my mosquito net I saw a phantom form flutter mo-
mentarily across the rectangle of moonlight cast by the window op-
posite my bed. There was definitely a bat in the room. We held a
rapid conference in the dark. The torch was unearthed and lighted,
and disclosed not one but half a dozen bats flying round the room.
As soon as the light came on, they streamed out of the window. This
gave us the idea.

The bright paraffin lamp was set blazing near the window. Long
pieces of string were attached to both doors. Members of the staff
were crowded into the room, the window was closed, and the light
extinguished. We then sat patiently in the dark; sure enough, bats
began to enter almost at once, presumably in search of the insects
that had been attracted by the light. We pulled the strings, which
closed the doors with a bang. We were now sealed up with the bats.
The lamp was relighted and our troubles began.

The room was approximately twenty feet square and fourteen
feet high. There were five of us, all supplied with nets, and four
bats. After twenty minutes, we had caught only one, although all
four followed each other round and round the room in a wide figure
eight, never deviating from their course except to avoid our nets,
which feat they accomplished with maddening regularity. The whole
business made one feel quite impotent. People have given me glow-
ing accounts of capturing bats in butterfly nets over ponds or around
a house in the open air; they must either be blatant liars or have
operated in some other part of the world, because the average West
African bat seems to be something of a flying ace.

These bats provided us with golden opportunities for observing
the way in which they can avoid almost any object while on the
wing. When we had at last captured them all, which was only ac-
complished by their becoming tired and hanging to the wall upside

BATS 23

down, we tried the experiment of sealing over their eyes with tiny
pieces of adhesive tape. This had not the least effect on their effi-
ciency, but when we folded one of the ears downwards and attached
its tip to the face, they all behaved in a most ludicrous and far from
competent manner. The right ear caused them to gyrate in an anti-
clockwise or left-handed direction with ever-increasing velocity, so
that they eventually went into a violent spin in mid-air and slowly
descended to earth like a whirling helicopter. The sealing of the
left ear had an exactly contrary effect. Moreover, when the ears were
released, the effects were still apparent for some time.

Other experiments affecting the nose-leaves and parts of the ears
had very strange results, all of which seemed to prove conclusively
that these organs are the centre of their balance- and direction-
finding mechanism and that they function quite involuntarily. If
the right ear be sealed, one would have supposed that the constant
pressure on it would have been construed by the bat's nervous sys-
tem as implying that an obstruction lay constantly to its right front.
The animal would therefore keep veering to the left, exactly what
we observed the little animals to do.

One evening lingers in my memory as being the first which I con-
sciously realized was dry as opposed to wet. We had been in Africa
for more than two months, during which time it had rained every
day and often during the whole day. There had been weeks to-
gether without sunshine, so that animals skinned and stuffed had
remained limp and damp as on the day when they were first pre-
pared. It had been a most trying time. We had waited patiently for
the rains to cease so that we could move out into the uncharted
forests under canvas. We had so far been contenting ourselves with
a detailed investigation of the commoner animals and those that
have survived or taken up their abode among the semi-cultivated
land and secondary forest around the settlements of man.

Sitting at work on the veranda facing the clearing of Mamfe sta-
tion, I had an uninterrupted view of a great expanse of sky to the
west. The sun began to set, flaming like a furnace behind a false sky-
line of dense, black clouds whose pillars and towers stood motion-
less, like a monstrous, shadowy mirage of New York's stately sky-
line. Above, the air was crystal-clear and depthless. Towards the
disappearing day it remained delicately blue between great hori-
zontal zones of pale, soft gold. As it towered above, the blue melted
to glowing heliotrope, lilac, violet, and thence, to the east, into the
indigos and the mysteries of the oncoming tropical night.

24 IVAN T. SANDERSON

Work under these conditions was impossible and sacrilegious. The
Africans, who had already discovered this, had melted away into the
twilight without permission and without a sound. I followed suit
and drifted out across the soft green grass, gazing up into the im-
mensity of the sky with that hopeless yearning that all mortals feel
when confronted with the immense calm of the evening heavens.
I found Ben perched on a termites' nest facing the setting sun, his
chocolate skin burnished with the reflection of the flaming glory.
He just sat and stared and I was happy.

Here was an example of that much scorned type— the white man's
African servant— who had, in addition, been subjected to the indig-
nity and stifling stupor of a mission school. And yet, although he
was born of a race that we are incessantly told can only be lazy or
sensuous when not asleep, here he was sitting quietly enraptured by
a sight that must after all have been as commonplace to him as a
blaze of electric signs is to us.

"T'ick-ehn, it's very fine" was all he said. Then very mysteriously
he spoke in his own language, enlarging upon the beauty of the
scene, as I later discovered. I could almost feel a European "used to
managing natives" at my elbow, whispering: "Damn it, boy, what
infernal insolence!"

Under the dome of the sky we sat together in silence, watching
and mentally recording the ever-changing flush of colours. The air
was still except for a very distant drum throbbing in unison with
the blood coursing through our veins, and an occasional croak issu-
ing from a near-by, frog-infested ditch.

Yet, was that all? Every now and then I felt rather than heard an
infinitesimally faint noise. Slowly these indescribable sounds became
more pronounced until I could ascertain that they came from the
sky above. Looking up, I could see nothing. Every so often, and ever
more plainly now, rang out a faint, high-pitched "tit-trrrr." Then,
all at once, Ben looked up and pointed out a black speck, fluttering
and tumbling hither and thither. Bats!

As the night came on, the air became filled with "tit-trrrrs." The
busy little animals circled slowly towards the earth. It was not until
several days later that we obtained our first specimens of these bats,
and then we received a great surprise.

They were large, powerfully built animals with relatively small
wings, simple, rather pig-like faces, and almost naked bodies. The
whole skin glistened with a pungent-smelling oil, while the flesh,
which was dense and excessively heavy, oozed a similar substance
for hours after death. Most strange of all were pocket-like pouches

BATS 25

under the chin and directed forwards. On the skin at the back of
these pouches (that is to say, on the throat) a nipple connected with
a gland was situated and, clinging to this, we found on several occa-
sions a peculiar parasitic fly which has no wings.

These bats (Saccolaimus peli) belonged to that aggravating class
that flies in the open air. They were the first we encountered.

After several weeks' intensive trapping around the camp, we ap-
peared to have more or less cleared up or frightened away all the
animals. Trap lines were thus being moved to another locality, be-
cause, with that particular method of collecting, a practice known
as "completing a circle" is employed. This means that one selects a
circle and works inwards from it to the camp, so that all animals, to
get away, must either pass through the ring of traps, or congregate
in the end around the camp. When the traps reach the borders of
the camp, a final swarm of animals appears. After they are collected
or have escaped, the whole area is played out.

With a view to selecting a new ground I left camp for a day's
outing by myself, in order to cover a wide area and quietly investi-
gate its possibilities to the best of my knowledge and ability. These
days alone were most profitable, as we had discovered, not because
we wanted in any way to be away from each other, but because the
absence of conversation and freedom to wander wherever the spirit
moved one brought to one's notice an extraordinary number of new
facts and phenomena.

On this particular occasion I set out towards a large "lake" of grass
that had been reported to me as existing to the south-east of the
camp. I chose this as a starting point, since I was rather keen not to
get lost in the forest again as I had done only a short time before.

Entering the dense forest beyond this open grass area, I was rather
surprised to find that the ground descended very abruptly. Before I
had gone far, I saw at a distance below me the glimmer of sun re-
flected from water. By some exigencies of local geological structure,
the Mainyu River that we knew so well elsewhere had got twisted
up into a knot and meandered off into the jungle, to appear here
flowing in an exactly contrary direction to its main course. This we
discovered later by following it downstream. I at once decided that
this was to be our future happy hunting ground and the site of our
next camp.

The whole structure of this gorge will one day prove of the great-
est interest to geologists. It is a natural model of the great Rift Valley
of East Africa. Following a subsidence or a great release of pressure,

26 IVAN T. SANDERSON

the land surface has simply collapsed along a central line now occu-
pied by the river. The "country" rock, as it is called, has fractured
all along into gargantuan cubes which, with the general subsidence,
have shifted about so that they may be likened to the lumps of sugar
in a bowl. Between them and under them are almost endless narrow
clefts and passages leading into the side of the gorge, along its face,
and out again into the open air.

The whole area was covered with dense forest. As I began explor-
ing the level, sandy floors of the street-like passageways between the
great chunks of rock, the light became fainter and fainter. There was
practically no bare rock at all, every inch of its surface where there
was any light being covered with smooth, soft, bright-green moss.
The place was like a buried city, silent, mysterious, and eerie.

Turning an abrupt corner, I came upon a wide sunken arena over-
hung by a tall cliff. In the very dim light under this natural arch I
saw an endless stream of bats passing to and fro from the mouth of
a cave at one end to a monstrous horizontal crack at the other. The
whole roof of this archway was a dense mass of sleeping bats, sus-
pended upside down in serried ranks. The ground below was cov-
ered to a depth of more than a foot with their excrement, which had
disintegrated under the influence of the weather and resulted in a
mass of broken remains of uncountable millions of insects.

In this stratum of bat guano, I found a number of peculiar insects
and a small bright-red millepede that I have never seen anywhere
else.

By a mere fluke I had a torch in my collecting bag; with its aid I
entered the cave. Though the mouth was just wide enough to per-
mit my squeezing through, it expanded somewhat within and rose
to a great height above. On both walls, as far as the light of the torch
penetrated, bats were hanging or crawling about. The air was liter-
ally filled with them. The floor here was covered with guano to such
a depth that I could not reach the earth below even by digging with
a trapper's friend!

I was so amazed at the whole place and its denizens that I forgot
all time and scrambled onwards into the depths, following the end-
less streams of bats that hurried along and round the corners just as
busy traffic does in the streets of a great city.

Turning a corner, I was confronted by a blank wall. The bats were
all passing upwards and disappearing over the top of a miniature
cliff. I clambered up with some difficulty, to find that I was on top
of one of the great blocks of rock. The next one above it was held
away by a third block's edge far to the right. This left a horizontal

BATS 27

gallery that stretched far ahead, beyond which I could see a large
chamber. Into this I eventually emerged complete with gun and all
other equipment, after a few uncomfortable minutes of wriggling
through, all the time obsessed with that ridiculous but persistent im-
pression that the roof would suddenly cave in and pin me in a not
quite dead condition where nobody would ever in any circumstances
find me.

The place I now found myself in was much larger than any that
I had previously passed through. It was nearly the size of one whole
block and almost exactly cubic in shape. The air was as dry as a
desert sandstorm; whether it was due to this or the pungent smell of
the bats I do not know, but my lips became hard and cracked in a
surprisingly short time and my eyes began to water. The roof was
altogether free from resting bats, but on the walls were what I at
first supposed to be a great number of them. Some being very low
down, I put down my collecting bag and gun, and advanced with the
torch and a net only, to try to effect a capture.

As I approached the side, however, these things that I had sup-
posed to be bats vanished as if by magic. One minute they were
there; the next they were gone. By the time that I was close enough
to the rock face to be able to see what they were, had they still been
there, there was not one in sight. This was most perplexing.

Deciding that the light must disturb them, if they were not mere
shadows, I put out the torch and crept forward to another wall.
When I judged that I was close enough, I suddenly flashed on the
torch again. A perfectly horrible vision met my eyes. The whole wall
was covered with enormous whip-scorpions, crouching and leering
at me. Only for a second did they remain, then, like a flash, they all
shot out and away in all directions, disappearing into paper-thick
crevices with a loathsome rustle.

Their behaviour and appearance are, as I have remarked before,
revolting in the extreme, but they were of such unusual size and
colour that for the sake of science I steeled myself to a systematic
hunt with all the low cunning of a cave man in search of food. Even-
tually I captured a few after many misses, once being subjected to
the nerve-shattering odiousness of having one of them scuttle over
my bare arm in escaping from the net.

After this experience I deemed science had sufficient material to
gloat over, and I devoted my attention to an examination of the
ground for other invertebrates. The bats were entering by the same
route as I had done. After crossing the gallery diagonally, they disap-
peared through one of three vertical fissures, though most of them

28 IVAN T. SANDERSON

streamed into and out of the left-hand one, which was the widest.
Across the floor below the line of their flight stretched a ridge of
their droppings, showing that they excrete while on the wing. Else-
where the floor was covered with silver sand and spotlessly clean.
Only in one corner of the room, remote from the bat highway, was
there a pile of small, pellet-like dung.

Examining this, I at once noticed that it was not composed of the
crushed remains of insects as was that of the other bats. It resembled
more the droppings of a rabbit, although there seemed to be a few
small bones projecting from it. This prompted me to search the ceil-
ing above to ascertain where this might be descending from. All I
could see, however, was a small cleft above; so, taking the shotgun,
I managed by degrees to lever myself up the sharp angle of the cor-
ner and eventually peered over the brink into the cleft.

As I switched on the torch, I went cold all over and felt as if my
skin were wrinkling up everywhere preparatory to splitting and fall-
ing off in one piece. The only alternative to looking into the crevice
a second time was falling down backwards. Therefore, after sum-
moning up courage, I switched on the torch again and took a second
look. The result was just as bad.

In the mouth of the hole not eighteen inches from my face, four
large greenish-yellow eyes stared unblinkingly at me. They were so
large that I thought involuntarily of some dead human thing, but
the face that projected in front of them soon dispelled this impres-
sion. That face is indescribable. In addition there were clammy grop-
ing ringers all muddled up with endless flaps of wrinkled naked skin.
I pushed in the net and made a random scoop; then I slipped and
crashed to the bottom of the cave.

The gun, luckily, fell in the soft sand, and I retained hold of the
net in which a huge hammer-headed bat (Hypsignathus monstrosus)
was struggling. My left leg was emitting piercing pains and both
wrists were quite numbed. There followed an awful period during
which I tried to kill the bat in the net and nursed my leg and arms,
making, I am afraid, a great deal of noise about it. At last I got the
animal under control and chloroformed in the "killer," and then set
about gathering together the wreckage. When I came to the gun, my
wrists were still numb, but being anxious to make sure that there
was no sand choking the barrel, I foolishly tried to open the breech.
I am not exactly certain what happened; anyway, both barrels went
off almost at once and the gun shot partly out of my hand.

At the same moment the light went out.

BATS 29

There was a period of tremendous echoing, then the whole of this
eerie subterranean world seemed to give way, starting with a gentle
"swussssh" and culminating in a rattling roar. Things fell down on
all sides; choking dust filled the air; while I groped for the torch,
hundreds of bats wheeled around my head screaming and twittering.

The torch would not light; for some maddening reason it was not
forming a proper contact. I had to sit down and take the batteries
out in the dark. I pulled out the metal strips on the ends and pro-
cured a flash of light by holding on the screw cap at the back of the
container. In my excitement I could not for the life of me get this
screw onto the thread. Finally I had to light a match, but before I
could see anything, the flame went greenish-blue and quickly died.
Other matches did the same.

I had just discovered that they burnt better at a higher level when,
with an awful crash, a shower of earth cascaded down from my right
side and covered my feet and most of my equipment, which was lying
on the floor. There was a wild scramble to retrieve all my possessions
and move to a bit of clearer ground, but every time I bent down, the
match went out. There was obviously some gas or lack of gas that
killed a flame near the floor. I therefore concentrated on fixing the
torch. At long last it lit up.

It was less use than a car headlight in a dense mist, because the air
was filled with clouds of billowing dust from which a very much
startled bat periodically emerged. Groping forward, festooned with
gun, collecting bag, net, and torch, I tried to locate the wall with the
cleft through which I had gained an entrance, but I soon lost my
sense of direction. Then I stumbled across the ridge of bats' dung.
This I followed up until it disappeared under a great scree of fine
dry earth which was still being added to from above. After further
fumbling I found the cleft; the dust was so dense that I could not see
more than a few feet into it. This was, however, quite sufficient really
to disturb me.

The cleft was choked with earth and rubble. Slowly it dawned on
me that the percussion of the shots had released all kinds of pent-up
things and perhaps even shifted the roof, as I had imagined might
happen through natural causes.

By this time the dust had begun to clear considerably and the
rumblings and droppings had ceased. I trekked back to the other side
of the cave and tried each of the three exits. The largest, upon which
I based my hopes, narrowed quickly, then plunged downward into
a low, uninviting crevice. One of the others was too narrow to per-

30 IVAN T. SANDERSON

mit the passage of my head, while the third, although very small,
seemed to continue endlessly. Its floor descended rapidly, however,
and I soon discovered that the air was very bad a few feet down-
matches hardly lit at all. I had therefore to return to the central cave
from which I felt almost certain there were no other exits. As the
dtist was by now less thick, I determined to go all round and make
certain.

There proved to be a hopeful-looking chimney in one corner, but
trv as I would, my left leg steadfastly refused to assist me to climb!
This was rendered even more exasperating by the fact that a piece
of burning paper thrown upwards to its mouth was instantly sucked
up out of sight never to return, which all went to show that the
passage had some connexion with the outer world. Burning bits of
note-book were then applied to the three exits. In one the flame
promptly went out, in another it just wilted, and only in the nar-
rowest one did it sail away into the distance, burning merrily. Such
a result might, of course, have been predicted!

It then struck me that the choked entrance might not be all
choked, so, scrambling along the ledge formed by the long hori-
zontal mouth of this, I peered among the piles of earth that now
clogged it, pushing small pieces of burning paper into any gaps or
hole that remained. About two-thirds of the way down to the right
the paper left my hand and blew straight into my face. I could feel
a small draught. The hole was very low and descended towards the
right, whereas the part of this gigantic crack through which I had
come further up had distinctly sloped upwards out of the square
chamber. There was fresh air coming in, so, provided it was not too
small, it seemed the only feasible exit. I accordingly packed every-
thing into the collecting bag, including the stock of the gun, wrapped
the gun-barrel in the muslin bag of the net to prevent its getting
scratched, crammed my felt hat onto my head for the same reason,
and, holding the torch in my right hand, committed myself to the
depths and the will of Allah.

Progress was slow and at one period extremely painful, for the
ceiling— being the flat underside of a giant tilted cube— gradually
descended until there was room for me to squeeze through only with
the greatest difficulty. This effort I had to make, because I could
reach for and feel the angular edge of the ceiling cube just beyond.
This edge was as sharp as the angle on a small pack of cigarettes,
though the block of rock above must have weighed thousands of
tons. Through this slit I must get, and it was a struggle in no way
made easier by having a now more or less useless left leg and also hav-

BATS 31

ing to get the collecting bag over my head in order to push it through
before me. How I envied those beastly Amblypygi!

Once through, I found myself in a long wide corridor again im-
maculately carpeted with silver sand. Having by now lost all sense
of direction, I set off to the left, where I was soon involved in a tum-
bled mass of immense angular boulders. To climb over them was a
little more than I felt prepared to attempt, so I dived in and tried
to find a way through. This led me into a tunnel that smelt strongly
and vaguely familiar. Before I had time to think what the cause of
it could be, a rasping grunt echoed out from its depths; realizing at
once that I had walked voluntarily into a leopard's private quarters,
I lost absolutely no time at all in passing back through those boul-
ders as if I were a sandworm brought up to perform such feats. The
only course now was to try the other way, as I had no desire to meet
a leopard, and even less to fire at one with a shotgun in the depths of
the earth, considering what had occurred after the last cannonade.

The other end was a perfectly smooth blank wall. I began to feel
rather desperate, a thing one should not do in well-regulated adven-
tures. The feeling was nevertheless sufficiently insistent to call for
a cigarette. How I thanked everything, not least myself, that I had
cigarettes!

While seated on the sand smoking, feeling sorry for myself, and
recounting a lot of things I should like to have done, I played my
torch hither and thither over the opposite wall. It was only after a
long time that it dawned on me that I was gazing at great patches of
green moss. Even after this it was a long time, during which I re-
packed my equipment, bandaged a knee, and smoked another ciga-
rette, before my idiot brain put two and two together and arrived
at the simple fact that green moss meant sunlight. Then all at once
this fact penetrated my silly head and I realized that I had never yet
looked at the roof. I flashed my torch upwards and saw a line of green
branches dangling down into the cleft. During my subterranean me-
anderings night had come— I was actually standing in the open air.

Putting the gun together and loading it against a chance encoun-
ter with the inhabitant of the boulders, I advanced on his domain.
After some exertion I managed to climb up over the boulders to
arrive among the roots of the trees near the bottom of the gorge.

Two hours later I was back in camp, sore, temporarily crippled,
and very thirsty.

I have mentioned so far our introduction to five West African
bats. We collected during our stay around Mamfe no less than

33 IVAN T. SANDERSON

twenty-five species, though most of these were represented by only
one or two specimens.

Whenever we smoked trees in the high forest, the first things to
come out were bats. They emerged around the summit, fluttering
about and trying to regain an entrance, until they decided it was too
warm and rocketed off into the surrounding forest. When we did
eventually reach some of these with the guns, they turned out to be
of three species, two of which were closely allied to the two species
we had caught in the rest house at Mamfe. The third (Hipposideros
cyclops) was something entirely new.

This was a stout animal of moderate dimensions covered with
thick, long, rather woolly hair of brindled silver-grey and dark
brownish-grey colour. The eyes, set in a most saturnine face, were
large for a bat, the nose-leaf was a flat, more or less simple circle, and
the lips were rather taut, so that the sharp teeth were visible. But the
ears gave the whole face a very startling appearance. Almost as long
as the body, they tapered to fine points, besides being corrugated
throughout their length.

We kept alive several of these that had fallen upon the wire net-
ting dazed by the smoke. During the day they hung upside down as
all good bats should; in the evening they began to stir and climbed
down the side of the cage. They then walked about the floor on their
wings, supported by the fingers, pointing backwards and upwards.
When they prepared to take to the air either from the ground or the
side of the cage, they thrust their heads forward and flapped their
great ears just as if they were an accessory pair of wings. The arms
then took up the motion in rhythm and the animal was on the
wing.

These bats, which slept in trees by day, came to us with greater
ease than any of the others, provided they were within the range of
the gun. As almost every tree housed a few, we gradually accumu-
lated quite a number.

One of the two species that we obtained in the Mamfe rest house
(Hipposideros caffer) was small and grey in colour, with small, rather
pointed ears. Another variety of this species made up the swarms
that inhabited the caves in the Mainyu Gorge, and another variety
came from hollow trees in the forest. When staying at Ikom further
down the river, we again converted the house into a bat trap and
obtained another variety of this common type. This was an excep-
tionally beautiful little animal having bluish-black wing- and tail-
membranes and ears. The fur covering the rest of the body was long,
silky, and of a rich reddish-orange colour. This is the only bat I have

BATS 33

ever handled that emitted a long-drawn-out whistle, a noise to which
I can find no reference in any literature upon the subject.

There was still another form of this bat that we met with in a
rather odd manner.

Mamfe Division, which has an area almost exactly equal to that
of the whole island of Jamaica, has only one road. This is about
twenty miles in length and extends from the station towards the
east, where it terminates at a fine steel bridge of three spans which
abuts at its farther end onto a solid wall of virgin jungle without
so much as a native path leading from it. This road and bridge were
constructed by the public works department as the commencement
of a projected trade route to carry motor traffic from the hinterland
of Bamenda down to the British ports of southern Nigeria. The
financial depression, yellow fever, which accounted for a dozen Euro-
peans, and the fact that a score of large rivers flowing from north to
south were overlooked when drawing up plans, killed the project,
which had, in any case, been started in the middle. Its main use,
therefore, is that two Ford trucks, and occasionally the remains of
an Austin-7 that have been brought up the river on a "launch" dur-
ing the rainy season, can be employed for the first day's trek to the
east of Mamfe. This was the one direction in which we never had
cause to go, so our acquaintance with it was confined to strolls in the
evening and an occasional joy ride in the Ford truck with the hos-
pitable district commissioner.

We had noticed that this man-made canyon through the forest was
a great place for bats. Towards dusk they appeared either flying high
in the air, as they must do all over the forest, although they cannot
be seen elsewhere, or darting back and forth from the shadow of the
trees on one side of the road to that of the trees on the other. Closer
investigation disclosed the fact that bats came out along this road in
the evening at a much earlier hour than elsewhere. The apparent
reason for this was the presence of a number of large drains or cul-
verts running under the road at intervals. The bats used these as a
dark passage between the gloom of the trees on both sides of the
road.

Having ascertained this fact, we laid plans for catching them. As
we had been away working very hard in the less accessible parts of
the forest for some time, and the birthday of one of our number was
approaching, we reckoned that there was ample excuse for a little
harmless frivolity. Into this scheme the only other two European in-
habitants of Mamfe (at that time) entered heartily. We organized a
fancy-dress bat shoot.

34 IVAN T. SANDERSON

After tea the Ford truck came to the door of the district officer's
house. The party foregathered in the most amazing assortment of
improvised fancy dress: "le sportsman tres gallique"; "the Yankee
in the tropics"; a valiant edition of General Goring clad to chase the
Polish boar; and a "not-very-sporting English squire." The African
truck-driver wore a sky-blue cap and a shirt, so that we were not
quite certain whether he was entering into the spirit of the thing,
being simply chic according to local custom, or behaving in a man-
ner that called for reprimand on the grounds of incivility. The only
truly normal members of the party were our five skinners, who came
in their ordinary uniforms of grey shirts and white shorts, bearing
guns and nets.

The party set out for the road some three miles into the forest and
there deployed, taking up positions over the various drains. Quite
soon the bats began to appear. A fusillade was let loose, but the tiny
animals are so swift that one saw only a vague flash as they shot across
the space separating the entrance to the culverts from the neighbour-
ing wall of the forest. Nobody secured a direct hit, but Mr. Gorges,
the district officer, who was an extremely good shot, on two occasions
aimed sufficiently close to upset the bats' sense of direction. As ani-
mals fluttered around in a circle, Bassi, who was stationed at one end
of his drain, dived in with a net and made a capture of the first. On
the second occasion, however, the bat managed to flutter into the
drain and Bassi went in after it. As he did so, a perfect flight of bats
came out of the other end, and I joined Mr. Gorges in an attempt to
pot them. This we continued to do quite merrily until all of a sud-
den Bassi's nut-brown head appeared amid the flying targets. By
some fluke we were not firing at that instant. He had crawled right
through the drain.

This gave us a new idea. We climbed down into the ditch and lay
in position to look down the drains. As soon as the number of bats
had entered from the other end, flown towards us, and sensed our
presence, we fired a shot. We never once hit a bat, but they were
so bewildered by the percussion of the shot that they came to rest
on the roof of the drain and we sent the Africans in to collect them
alive.

This resulted in the capture of a great number of bats which
turned out to be this other variety of Hipposideros caffer. They were
all some shade of brown and much smaller than the types we had
collected elsewhere.

This method of collecting was indeed child's play compared to
the highly technical skill and great patience which George devoted

BATS 35

to the shooting of another species. These were the smallest bats I
have ever seen; in actual bulk they must be the smallest of all mam-
mals, despite the claims of the pygmy squirrel (Nannosciurus) to that
distinction. The trunk of this animal when skinned was about the
size of a bumble bee and a good deal smaller than the last joint of a
small woman's little finger.

As I have already mentioned, George, when in the deep forest,
adopted the method of sitting in concealment and waiting for the
passing of the animals. When thus employed one evening, he noticed
far up in the sky above the trees some very small bats flying about in
a manner quite unknown among these animals, so that at first he
mistook them for swallows. Deciding that he must discover what they
were, with more than praiseworthy ambition he set himself the task
of shooting some, a problem which I should have judged quite hope-
less. However, he eventually found a place where the ground rose
sufficiently for him to gain a clear view over some trees. There he
patiently waited for several evenings until one of the bats happened
to fly low enough to be within gun-shot range. By this painstaking
method he obtained two specimens of this extremely rare species
(Glauconycteris beatrix).

These animals were dark steel-grey in colour with long slender
wings and simple noses like a dog's.

Another bat, Rhinolophus landeri, which we collected and which
also proves to be very rare, was represented by four specimens. When
living with the friendly peoples of the northern mountains we had
a kind of working contract with the hunter named Afa, as I have
already mentioned. One day I asked him for bats, indicating my
wishes by exhibiting a stuffed specimen.

"Ah," he said in his own language, "I know where one sleeps."

This was such an astonishing remark that I was not sure that my
rather sketchy knowledge of the language combined with the inter-
preter were not letting me down. However, Afa disappeared and did
not return until just before dusk. When he did so, he extracted a
live bat from his gun-powder wallet. It was this species, covered in
silky grey hair, with a tuft of red bristles in each armpit, and bearing
a small fleshy crucifix on its nose.

Apparently he had walked, or rather climbed, about nine miles to
a tiny cave which I afterwards visited, where he had seen this animal
hanging asleep some days previously when sheltering there from a
storm.

Two other rare species, one new to science, came to us quite by
chance. They could not be distinguished apart by colour and size

36 IVAN T. SANDERSON

alone, both being bluish-grey and small. Only their nose-leaves and
ears showed them to be quite different. One, a new species of Hippo-
sideros. was shot by the district officer in his house; the other, named
Rhinolophus alcyone, landed at my feet after I had shot at a squirrel
in a tree near a plantation. One pellet had passed right through the
head. I had never seen this bat before.

Just before returning home, we paid a visit to N'ko, a large village
lower down the Cross River. Here we met with extraordinary hos-
pitality at the hands of the local inhabitants. They had never seen
more than one white man at a time before, never heard a gramo-
phone, and, I believe, never imagined that such a thing as a bug-
hunter existed, especially attended by nearly forty retainers, to which
number our staff of skinners, trappers, collectors, and household
servants had by that time swelled.

When we announced that we required local animal life and would
pay for it, the whole populace disappeared into the neighbouring
bush and was soon returning in an endless stream bearing every
imaginable kind of animal.

Later that evening a tribal dance was organized for our entertain-
ment. In the headdresses of the various ju-ju figures I spotted the
dried remains of a species of bat that I did not know. I inquired of
the chief whether he could procure for me some live specimens of
this animal. He seemed morose. After some effort I discovered that
the animal was regarded with considerable veneration from the point
of view of a fertility ju-ju. A monetary contribution to the privy
purse, however, combined with the fact, soon observed by the
chief, that I had almost as virulent a dislike of Christians as he had,
prompted him to dispatch a number of small boys into the jungle.

They returned some time later with handfuls of fluttering little
bats (a species of the genus known as Eptesicus), among which was
an albino. I subsequently stumbled upon the "mine" from which
these bats had been obtained. It was a small ju-ju tabernacle not
more than two hundred yards behind the hut where we were living.
Under the eaves of the tabernacle countless bats were sleeping, cov-
ering the altar with their guano, which had been cleared away except
within an area that had an outline representing a gigantic bat with
outstretched wings.

The frugivorous bats or megacheiroptera are mostly larger ani-
mals, some in the Oriental region having a wing span exceeding four
feet. We obtained eight species of this group, four of which were,
however, of very small size. They do not have nose-leaves and their

BATS 37

ears are usually simple, like those of other animals. Their heads,
nevertheless, show an amazing variety of form; one was exactly like
a calf's, another like a mastiff's, and the hammer-headed bat's more
like a horse's than anything one could imagine.

In the mountains of Assumbo we pitched a camp on one occasion
in a little tongue of grass that descended into a patch of mountain
forest. This was Camp III, from which we carried out most of our
investigations upon the wild life of these weird grass-covered moun-
tains. It was a desolate place miles from anywhere in the clear still
air, raised far above the teeming life of the tropical forests, and com-
pletely cut off from the rest of the world. As far as the eye could see,
long grass waved in the sighing wind as shimmering flushes crossed
and recrossed it like surf on a wide beach. Our little encampment
nestled in a hollow backed by the peculiar tangled trees found at this
altitude, through which rippled and tinkled a broad, crystal-clear
brook.

There were only two ways of penetrating this mountain forest:
first, by following strange little paths made by large buck, or, sec-
ondly, by wading along the beds of rivers and streams. We passed
by both these ways, though usually along the main stream in the
evening.

This was a somewhat difficult feat as I will endeavour to explain.
The clear water swirled along a bed, now deep and narrow, now
wide and shallow, but everywhere strewn and piled with boulders
both great and small. Only occasionally were there deep, still pools
between perpendicular rock walls where the cold water lay oily and
brown. There were endless rapids where cascades gushed between
boulders the size of a house, and beyond them great, wide, boulder-
strewn fields where the water all but disappeared, being subdivided
into a hundred thousand tiny trickles. This made a passage down
the bed of the little river rather difficult. Nevertheless, it remained
the lesser evil, because the banks were both impenetrable masses of
vegetation. Even those who know the tropical forests and mangroves
of the great tropical deltas would be confounded by the true moun-
tain forest. It is a growth found nowhere else but on elevated areas
in the equatorial regions.

It seems that in these regions there is a constant battle between the
trees and the high altitude for mastery. The altitude usually wins,
and the trees are replaced by grass, giant heather, or some other
growth. Occasionally the reverse is the result, and then the trees
make up for lost ground. They grow in all directions— upward, out-
ward, and downward— into one solid, tangled, matted conglomera-

38 IVAN T. SANDERSON

don. A man might force his way through a gorse bush but never
through this African plexus. It was impossible to follow the river
along its banks.

During the first few days at this camp, I had been employed
throughout the twenty-four hours in and around the camp. The
ground was uneven; tornadoes blew up; houses for the staff took an
excessive time to construct in the absence of sufficient straight bush-
sticks; hunters kept calling; I nursed a bad foot; and all the time the
"office" work piled up. The Duke had been sent back to the base
camp, his legs covered with festering, two-inch sores, called "tropical
ulcers." A skinner and one of the household staff had had to go with
him to minister to his wants, not to mention half a dozen of the
Munchi carriers— backbone of our little empire.

We were short-staffed, overloaded with work, unable to obtain
food, and in the throes of pitching a new camp. I therefore had little
time to inspect the countryside.

Perhaps George was more efficient with his half of the work on
hand, or perhaps it was because his department was the frogs and
reptiles, expeditions to collect which we were naturally unable to
organize at this juncture; at any rate, he alone was able to get away
during the first few evenings and inspect the neighbourhood with a
gun.

He came back with ever more remarkable accounts of what he had
seen, including details about some fruit bats that sounded like fish
stories. As soon as our house was in order, I put myself in George's
hands and he conducted me to the bed of the river which I had not
previously seen.

It was a peculiar evening. The sky was neither overcast nor clear.
The sun shone somewhere to the west behind the mountains, but
the sky above did not reflect any of its glory, remaining a pallid,
colourless sheet above our heads. The light was bad even before true
dusk began to fall.

We entered the archway formed by the trees over the river where
it was narrow, and waded downstream for some minutes. The water
here was waist-deep, the boulders no larger than a man's head. Even-
tually we emerged into the open. The river widened and huge rocks
appeared out of its ruffled surface. Upon these George advised we
should take up our positions.

No sooner had we done so, than a number of large fruit bats com-
menced a series of reconnaissance flights from above the trees on
either side. One had the impression that they were flying there just
out of sight all the time and merely came to peep over and see what

BATS 39

we were up to. Near at hand were some singularly inedible-looking
trees that proved, however, to be a source of unaccountable attrac-
tion to the bats. Into these they slipped from the far side. The first
that we knew of their arrival was a loud lip-smacking and munching
noise which drifted down to us. As we remained quiet, others came
flying up the fairway over the river to join their kind.

We fired at them, spraying the shot in their paths. One landed on
a patch of dry stream bed. When retrieved, it turned out to be a very
large specimen of the hammer-headed bat, the species that I had pre-
viously encountered sleeping in the caves by the Mainyu River. A
second one was quite different. This animal would probably have
been termed a flying fox, though its fur was thin and like polished
brass, stiff and shining. A third fell in the water almost at my feet.

Leaving my gun on the rock, I stepped down to try to catch it be-
fore it drifted into the main current and was carried away. I stepped
on something hard and firm, but before I knew where I was, this
thing suddenly came to life and lunged forward. I was flung sideways
into the main stream. Here the water, though quiet, was deep and
very swift under the surface. Since there could not have been croco-
diles in this river, all I could think was that I had trodden on a tor-
toise. Swept forward by the current, I was soon involved in the rapids
among great boulders. The bat disappeared. I had to concentrate on
half swimming, half floundering back to my perch.

Suddenly George let out a shout: "Look out!" and I looked.

Then I let out a shout also and instantly bobbed down under the
water, because, coming straight at me only a few feet above the water
was a black thing the size of an eagle. I had only a glimpse of its face,
yet that was quite sufficient, for its lower jaw hung open and bore a
semicircle of pointed white teeth set about their own width apart
from each other.

When I emerged, it was gone. George was facing the other way
blazing off his second barrel. I arrived dripping on my rock and we
looked at each other.

"Will it come back?" we chorused.

And just before it became too dark to see, it came again, hurtling
back down the river, its teeth chattering, the air "shss-shssing" as it
was cleft by the great, black, dracula-like wings. We were both off
our guard, my gun was unloaded, and the brute made straight for
George. He ducked. The animal soared over him and was at once
swallowed up in the night.

We scrambled back into the river and waded home to camp, where
we found a number of local hunters waiting with their catches laid

4o IVAN T. SANDERSON

out for sale. They had walked miles from their hunting grounds to
do business.

"What kind of a bat is it," I asked, "that has" wings like this (open-
ing m\ arms) and is all black?"

"Olitiau!" somebody almost screamed, and there was a hurried
conference in the Assumbo tongue.

"Where you see this beef?" one old hunter inquired amid dead
silence.

"There," I told the interpreter, pointing to the river.

With one accord the hunters grabbed up their guns and ran out of
camp, straight across country towards the village, leaving their hard-
earned goods behind them.

Next day the old chief suddenly appeared in camp with the whole
village council. He had walked miles from the village capital. He
was concerned. Shyly he asked whether we needed to stay just there;
wouldn't the hills beyond interest us, he wanted to know.

No, nothing but here exactly would suit us, we explained.

The chief was sad; the elders were uneasy. They went back to the
village. We stayed at Camp III, but we never saw the bat again and
never received the spoils of any more hunters' trips.

A Simple Heart

BY GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

For fifty years the good ladies of Pont-L'£veque had longed for
Madame Aubin's servant Felicite\

She received four pounds a year. For this she did the cooking and
the general housework, the sewing, the washing, and the ironing.
She could bridle a horse, fatten poultry, and churn butter, and she
was ever faithful to her mistress, who was far from amiable.

Madame Aubin had married a light-hearted young bachelor with-
out any money who died at the beginning of 1809, leaving her with
two small children and a mass of debts. She then sold all her prop-
erty except the farms of Toucques and Geffosses which brought her
in five thousand francs a year at most, and she left her house in Saint-
Melaine for a less costly one, which had belonged to her ancestors
and was situated behind the market.

This house had a slate roof, and stood between an archway and a
narrow lane which went down to the river. There was an uneven-
ness in the level of the floors which made you stumble. A narrow
front hall divided the kitchen from the sitting room in which Ma-
dame Aubin sat all day long in a wicker armchair beside the window.
Eight mahogany chairs stood in a row against the white-painted
panels. On an old piano which stood under a barometer were heaped
wooden and cardboard boxes like a pyramid. A stuffed armchair was
placed on either side of the yellow marble Louis Quinze chimney-
piece, which had a clock in the middle in the shape of a Temple of
Vesta. The whole room was rather musty, because the floor was below
the garden level.

"Madame's" room was on the first floor. It was very large, with a
faded flowery wallpaper and a portrait of "Monsieur" dressed up as
a dandy of the period. It let into a smaller room, which had two cots
without mattresses. Next to it was the drawing room, which was
always shut up and filled with furniture covered with dustsheets. A
corridor led to a study. Books and odd papers filled the shelves of a

41

42 GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

large bookcase, and inside its three wings was a wide writing table of
dark wood. The two panels at the end of the room were covered
with pen and ink drawings, landscapes in water colours, and engrav-
ings by Audran, relics of better days and departed glory. On the
second floor a dormer window, which looked out over the fields, let
Light into Felicite's attic.

She rose at dawn so as not to be late for Mass, and worked until
evening without stopping. Then, when dinner was over, the plates
and dishes put away, and the door tightly fastened, she thrust a log
in the dying embers and went to sleep in front of the hearth with her
rosary in her hand. She was the most obstinate bargainer in the town,
and as for cleanliness, the shine on her pots and pans was the despair
of other servants. Thrifty in everything, she ate slowly, gathering up
from the table the crumbs of her loaf, a twelve-pound loaf specially
baked for her, which lasted three weeks. From year's end to year's
end she wore a print cotton handkerchief, fastened with a pin be-
hind, a bonnet that concealed her hair, grey stockings, a red skirt,
and a bibbed apron, such as hospital nurses wear, over her jacket.
Her voice was harsh and her face was thin. At twenty-five she looked
forty. After fifty she looked any age. Silent, straight, and wasting no
gestures, she was like a wooden woman who went by clockwork.

II

She had had her love story like others.

Her father, a mason, was killed by falling off a scaffold. Then
her mother died, her sisters went off here and there, and a farmer
took her in while she was a little girl, and gave her charge of the
cows in his fields. She was ragged and shivered; she laid flat on the
ground and lapped water up from the pools; was beaten for nothing;
and finally turned out of the house for stealing thirty sous which she
hadn't stolen. She went to another farm, and looked after the hens;
and because her employers liked her, the others were jealous.

One evening in August— she was then eighteen— they took her to
a feast at Colleville. She was dazed and bewildered by the stir of the
fiddlers, the lamps in the trees, the laces and gold crosses in the
dresses, and the crowd of folk all dancing together. She was standing
aside shyly when a comfortable looking young chap, who was leaning
on the shaft of a cart and smoking his pipe, came up to her and asked
her to dance. He treated her to cider, coffee, and cakes, and bought
her a silk handkerchief, and imagining that she understood what he
wanted, offered to see her home. When they came to a cornfield, he

A SIMPLE HEART 43

threw her down roughly. She was terrified and cried out for help.
And he got out of the way.

One evening after this, she was on the Beaumont road, and a great
haycart was moving along slowly in front of her. She wanted to pass
it, and as she brushed by the wheel she recognised Theodore. He
spoke to her quite coolly, telling her that she must forgive him, be-
cause it was all the fault of the drink. She could not think what to say
and longed to run away.

He began at once to talk about the crops and the important people
of the commune, saying that his father had left Colleville for his
farm at Les Ecots, so now they were neighbours. "Well, well!" she
said. He added that his people wanted him to settle down, but he
was in no hurry and would please himself in finding a wife. She
dropped her eyes. Then he asked her if she thought of getting mar-
ried. She answered with a smile that it wasn't fair to make fun of her.

"But I'm not, I swear it!" And he passed his left arm round her
waist. She walked on supported by his clasp, and their pace slackened.
The wind was soft, the stars twinkled, the huge haycart swung on in
front of them, and the four weary horses raised the dust with their
dragging feet. Then, without a word from Theodore they turned to
the right. He embraced her once more, and she disappeared in the
night.

Next week she consented to meet him sometimes.

They used to meet in farmyards, behind a wall, or under some
solitary tree. She was not innocent as young ladies are— the ways of
animals had taught her something— but her good sense and the in-
stinct of her honour saved her from falling. Her resistance inflamed
Theodore's passion so much that, to satisfy it, or, perhaps for more
innocent reasons, he proposed marriage to her. She hesitated to be-
lieve him, but he swore ardent oaths of faithfulness.

Presently he confessed that he had something awkward to tell her.
A year ago his parents had bought him a substitute for the army, but
he might be taken again any day now, and the idea of military service
terrified him. His cowardice seemed to Felicite a proof of his affec-
tion, and it redoubled hers. She stole off at night to meet him, and
when she came to him Theodore worried her with his fears and en-
treaties.

At last he told her that he would go himself to the Prefecture to
find out, and that he would let her know the result between eleven
and twelve on the following Sunday night.

She hurried to- meet him at the appointed hour. She found one of
his friends instead at the meeting place.

44 GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

He told her that she must not see Theodore any more. To save
himself from conscription, he had married Madame Lehoussais, a
wealthy old woman of Toucques.

There was a wild outburst of grief. She flung herself down on the
ground, screamed and appealed to Almighty God, and lay moaning
all alone in die field till daybreak. Then she returned to the farm
and told them she was leaving at the end of the month. She received
her wages, tied up all her little belongings in a handkerchief, and
went to Pont-L'fiveque.

In front of the inn there, she asked questions of a woman in a
widow 's cap, who, as luck would have it, was looking for a cook. The
girl had no experience, but she seemed so willing and modest in her
demands that Madame Aubin ended by saying: "Very well, I will
engage you."

A quarter of an hour later Felicite took up her quarters in this
woman's house.

At first she lived there in terror at "the style of the house" and
the memory of "Monsieur" hovering over it all. Paul and Virginie,
the former seven and the latter just four, seemed to her creatures of
a precious substance. She carried them pick-a-back, and it distressed
her that Madame Aubin ordered her not to kiss them every minute.
However, she was happy there. Her sorrow thawed in the pleasant-
ness of her surroundings.

Every Thursday some regular visitors came in for a game of
boston, and Feliciuf laid out the cards and foot-warmers beforehand.
They arrived sharply on the stroke of eight, and left before the clock
struck eleven.

Every Monday morning the old scrap dealer, who lived under the
archway, spread out his iron. Then the town buzzed with voices,
horses neighed, lambs bleated, pigs grunted, and carts rattled sharply
on the pavement.

About noon, when the market had got thoroughly busy, you would
see a tall, hook-nosed old farmer with his cap on the back of his head
come to the door. It was Robelin, the farmer of Geffosses. Soon after-
ward came Liebard, the farmer of Toucques, short, flushed and
podgy, in a grey jacket and spurred gaiters.

Both had chickens or cheeses to offer their landlady. Felicite was
always up to their tricks, and they would go away filled with respect
for her.

At uncertain intervals Madame Aubin would have a call from one
of her uncles, the Marquis de Gremanville, who had ruined himself
by hard living and now lived on the last scrap of his land at Falaise.

A SIMPLE HEART 45

He always came at lunchtime with a nasty poodle whose paws left
dirty marks all over the furniture. In spite of all his efforts to seem a
gentleman,— he even went so far as to lift his hat every time he said
"my late father,"— habit got the better of him. He would pour out
glass after glass and indulge in pothouse conversation. Felicite used
to coax him out of the house. "You've had enough, Monsieur de
Gremanville! That's enough till next time!" And she shut the door
on him.

She would open it with pleasure for Monsieur Bourais, a retired
lawyer. His bald head, white stock, frilled shirt front, and loose
brown coat, his way of curving his arm when he took snuff, his whole
personality, in fact, gave you that special feeling we have whenever
we see an extraordinary man.

As he looked after "Madame's" property, he would stay shut up
with her for hours in "Monsieur's" study, though all the time he
was afraid of being compromised. He had great respect for the law,
and claimed to know Latin.

To join instruction and pleasure, he gave the children a geography
full of pictures. They showed scenes in all parts of the world: canni-
bals with feathers in their hair, a monkey carrying off a young lady,
Bedouins in the desert, harpooning a whale, and so on. Paul would
explain these pictures to Felicite, and that was all the education she
ever had. The children's education was undertaken by Guyot, a hum-
ble creature employed in the town hall, who was well known for
his beautiful handwriting and used to sharpen his penknife on his
boots.

When the weather was fine, the household used to start off early
sometimes for a day at the Geffosses farm.

Its courtyard was on a slope, with the farmhouse in the middle,
and the sea looked like a far off grey streak on the horizon.

Felicite would take slices of cold meat out of her basket, and they
would have lunch in a room beside the dairy. It was the last relic
of a country house which was no more. The wallpaper was in tatters
and rattled in a draught. Madame Aubin would sit with bowed head,
overcome by her memories of the past. The children were afraid to
speak. "Why don't you go off and play?" she would say, and they
would hurry off.

Paul climbed up into the barn, caught birds, played ducks and
drakes on the pond, or hammered with his stick on the great casks
which echoed like drums. Virginie fed the rabbits or ran off to pick
cornflowers, her scampering legs showing her little embroidered
drawers.

46 GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

One autumn evening they went home by the fields. The moon
was in its first quarter and lit up part of the sky. A mist floated like
a scarf over the winding Toucques. Cattle, lying out in the meadow,
looked placidly at these four as they passed by. In the third meadow
some of them got up and made a half circle in front of them. "There's
nothing to be afraid of," said Felicite, stroking the back of the nearest
animal while she crooned softly. He wheeled round and the others
did the same. But as they crossed the next field, they heard a dreadful
bellow. It was a bull, which was hidden by the mist. Madame Aubin
started to run. "No! no! don't go so fast!" They hurried on, all the
same, hearing a loud breathing behind them which kept coming
nearer and nearer. His hoofs thudded on the turf like hammer-
strokes. Now he was galloping! Felicite turned round and tore up
some clods which she threw into his eyes with both hands. The bull
lowered his muzzle, shook his horns, and bellowed with fury terribly.
Madame Aubin, who had reached the end of the field with her two
children, was looking distractedly for a place to climb over the high
bank. Felicite kept retreating, always facing the bull, showering clods
at his face which blinded him, and crying out, "Be quick! be quick!"

Madame Aubin got down into the ditch, pushed Virginie first and
then Paul, fell several times trying to climb the steep bank, and
finally managed it with a courageous effort.

The bull had driven Felicite back against a fence, his slaver was
blowing in her face, and in an instant he would have gored her. She
had just time to slip between the rails, and the hulking brute stopped
short in amazement.

This adventure was discussed in Pont-L'£veque for many a year.
Felicite took no special pride in what she had done, and it never
occurred to her for an instant that she had been heroic.

Virginie was her sole object of care, for, as a result of her fright,
the child had become very nervous, and Monsieur Paupart, the doc-
tor, advised sea bathing at Trouville. The place had few visitors in
those days. Madame Aubin gathered information, consulted Bourais,
and prepared as if she were going on a long journey.

She sent off her luggage in Liebard's cart the day before. Next day
he brought round two horses, one of which had a lady's saddle with
a velvet back, while on the back of the other he had made a kind of
pillion out of a rolled-up coat. Madame Aubin rode on this horse
behind the farmer, while Felicite took care of Virginie, and Paul
rode on Monsieur Lechaptois' ass, which had been lent on condition
that great care was taken of it.

The road was so bad that it took them two hours to go five miles.

A SIMPLE HEART 47

The horses sank in the mud up to their pasterns, and their rumps
floundered about as they tried to get out. Sometimes they stumbled
in the ruts, or else had to jump. In some places Liebard's mare
stopped dead. He waited patiently until she went on again, talking
about the people who owned property along the road, and adding
moral reflections to their stories. And so, when they were in the mid-
dle of Toucques, as they passed by some windows smothered with
nasturtiums, he shrugged his shoulders and said: "Madame Lehous-
sais lives there. Instead of taking a young man, she . . ." Felicite did
not hear the rest. The horses trotted on and the donkey galloped.
They all turned down a side lane. A gate swung open, two boys ap-
peared, and they all dismounted in front of a manure heap just out-
side the farmhouse door.

When Madame Liebard saw her mistress, her generosity expressed
her joy. She served them a lunch with a sirloin of beef, tripe, black
pudding, a fricassee of chicken, sparkling cider, fruit pie and bran-
died plums, seasoning it with compliments to Madame, who seemed
in better health; to Mademoiselle, who was now "splendid"; and to
Monsieur Paul, who "was filling out wonderfully." Nor did she for-
get their departed grandparents, whom the Liebards had known well,
as they had been in the family's service for several generations. The
farm, like them, had the hallmark of antiquity. The beams on the
ceiling were worm-eaten, the walls black with smoke, the window
panes grey with dust. All sorts of useful objects were set out on an
oak dresser— jugs, plates, pewter bowls, wolf-traps, sheep-shears, and
a huge syringe which made the children laugh. Every tree in the
three courtyards had mushrooms growing at the foot of it and a sprig
of mistletoe in its branches. Several of them had been thrown down
by the wind, and had taken root again in the middle. All were bend-
ing under their wealth of apples. The thatched roofs, like brown
velvet and varying in thickness, withstood the heaviest gales, but the
cart shed was tumbling down. Madame Aubin said that she would
see about it, and ordered the animals to be saddled again.

After another half hour they reached Trouville. The little troop
dismounted to pass Ecores, an overhanging cliff with boats on the
sea beneath it, and three minutes later they reached the end of the
quay and entered the courtyard of the Golden Lamb, kept by worthy
Madame David.

From the first day of their stay, Virginie began to grow stronger,
thanks to the change of air and the sea baths. These she took in her
chemise for want of a bathing suit, and Felicite used to dress her
afterwards in a coastguard's cabin which was used by the bathers.

48 GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

In the afternoons they used to take the donkey and wander off
beyond die black rocks beyond Hennequeville. At first the path went
up hill and down dale through a green sward like a park. Then it
tame out on a plateau, where green fields and arable land were lying
side by side. Holly rose stiffly out of masses of briar at the side of the
road, and here and there the branches of a great withered tree zig-
zagged against the blue sky.

They nearly always rested in a meadow, with Deauville on their
left, Havre on their right, and the open sea in front of them. It
gleamed in the sunshine, smooth as a mirror, and it was so still that
its murmur could scarcely be heard. Hidden sparrows chirped and
the great sky arched over all. Madame Aubin would do needlework,
Viiginie plaited rushes beside her, Felicite gathered lavender, and
Paul was bored and wanted to go home.

On other days they crossed the Toucques in a boat and hunted
for shells. When the tide had gone out, sea-urchins, starfish, and jelly
fish were left stranded, and the children scurried after the flakes of
foam which scudded along the wind. The sleepy waves broke on the
sand and rolled all along the beach, which stretched far out of sight,
bounded on the land by the dunes between it and the Marsh, a broad
meadow shaped like an arena. As they came home that way, Trou-
ville, on the hill behind, grew larger at every step, and its varied
huddle of houses seemed to break into bright disorder.

When the weather was too hot, they did not leave their room. Bars
of light from the dazzling outside fell through the lattices. There was
no sound in the village, and not a soul on the pavement outside. This
silence made the quiet profound. In the distance, men were caulking,
and you could hear the tap of their hammers as they plugged the
hulls of their boats, and a heavy breeze wafted up the smell of tar.

The chief amusement was watching the return of the fishing boats.
They began to tack as soon as they had passed the buoys. The sails
were lowered on two of the three masts, and they glided along
through the ripple of the waves, with the foresails bellying out like
balloons, till they reached the middle of the harbour, when they sud-
denly dropped anchor. Then the boats were drawn up against the
quay, and the fishermen began to throw their quivering fish over
the side. A line of carts was waiting, and women in cotton bonnets
darted out to take the baskets and kiss their men.

One of these women came up to Felicite one day, and she went
home a little later in a state of happiness. She had found a sister.
Nastasie Barette, "Leroux's wife," showed up behind her, with a
baby at her breast and another child in her right hand, and on her

A SIMPLE HEART 49

left walked a little cabin boy with arms akimbo and his cap on one
ear.

After a quarter of an hour Madame Aubin sent them away, but
they were always to be seen around the kitchen, or met whenever
they went for a walk. The husband never appeared.

Felicite grew very fond of them. She bought them a blanket, some
shirts, and a stove. Evidently they were doing quite well out of her.
Madame Aubin was annoyed by this weakness, and she did not like
the nephew's familiarity when he said "thee" and "thou" to Paul.
And so, as Virginie was coughing and the weather had broken, they
returned to Pont-L'£veque.

Monsieur Bourais gave her advice about a boys' school. Caen was
supposed to be the best, and so Paul was sent there. He said goodbye
bravely, glad enough to go and live where he would have playmates.

Madame Aubin resigned herself to the boy's absence. It had to
be. Virginie soon forgot all about it. Felicite missed his noisiness
about the house. But she found an occupation to distract her. After
Christmas she took the little girl to catechism every day.

Ill

After making a genuflection at the door she walked up between
the double row of chairs in the lofty nave, opened Madame Aubin's
pew, sat down, and began to look around. The choir stalls were filled
with boys on the right and girls at the left, and the cure stood at the
lectern. From a stained glass window in the apse the Holy Ghost
looked down at the Blessed Virgin. In another window she was kneel-
ing before the Infant Jesus, and behind the shrine on the altar a
carved wooden group showed St. Michael overcoming the dragon.

The priest began with an outline of sacred history. The Garden
of Eden, the Flood, the Tower of Babel, cities in flames, dying na-
tions, idols overthrown, passed in a vision before her eyes, and the
bewildering dream left her clinging reverently to the Most High in
fear of His wrath. Then she wept at the story of the Passion. Why
had they crucified Him, He who loved children, fed the multitudes,
healed the blind, and had chosen, in His meekness, to be born among
the poor on the dungheap of a stable? The sowings, the harvests, the
wine-presses, all the familiar things of which the Gospels speak, were
an ordinary part of her life. God's passing had made them holy, and
she loved the lambs more tenderly for her love of the Lamb, and
the doves because of the Holy Ghost.

She could hardly imagine Him in person, for not only was He a

50 GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

bird, but He was a flame as well, and even a breath some times. Per-
haps it is His Light, she would think, which flits over the edge of the
marshes at night, His Breath which makes the clouds run across the
sky. His Voice which gives clear music to the bells; and she would
sit lost in adoration, enjoying the coolness and stillness of the church.

Of dogma she understood nothing, and made no effort to under-
stand it. The cure discoursed, the children said their lessons, and
finally she went to sleep, waking up startled by their wooden shoes
clattering on the flagstones as they went out of the church.

So Felicite, whose religious education had been neglected in her
youth, learned her catechism by being obliged to listen to it. From
that day she imitated Virginie in all her religious practices, fasting
when she fasted and going to confession when she did. On the feast
of Corpus Christi they made a repository together.

Virginie's first communion lay anxiously before her. Felicite wor-
ried over her shoes, her rosary, her book, and her gloves. And how
she trembled as she helped the little girl's mother to dress her up
for the occasion!

All through Mass she was feverish with anxiety. Monsieur Bourais
hid one side of the choir from her, but straight in front was the flock
of maidens, with their white crowns above their drooping veils, mak-
ing a field of snow; and she knew her dear little one at a distance by
her dainty neck and reverent air. The bell tinkled. All heads bowed,
and there was silence. The organ pealed, and choir and congregation
joined in the Agnus Dei. Then the procession of the boys began, and
the girls rose after them. Step by step, with their hands clasped in
prayer, they drew near the lighted altar, knelt on the first step, each
received the Blessed Sacrament in turn, and they came back to their
seats in the same order. When Virginie's turn came, Felicite leaned
forward to see her; and with the imagination of tender affection it
seemed to her as if she were that child. Virginie's face became hers.
She was wearing the child's crown, the little girl's heart beat in her
breast. When it was time to open her mouth, she closed her eyes and
nearly fainted. Next morning she went to the sacristy to receive
Communion from Monsieur the Cure. She received it with devotion,
but did not feel the same delight.

Madame Aubin was anxious to give her daughter the best educa-
tion possible, and as Guyot could not teach her music or English,
decided to put her in the Ursuline Convent at Honfleur as a boarder.
The child made no complaint. Felicite sighed and thought that Ma-
dame was hard-hearted. Then she considered that no doubt her mis-
tress was right. These affairs were beyond her.

A SIMPLE HEART 51

So one day an old cart drew up at their door, and a nun stepped
out of it who was come to fetch the young lady. Felicite set the lug-
gage on top of the cart, gave special orders to the driver, and placed
six pots of jam, a dozen pears, and a bunch of violets under the
child's seat.

At the last moment Virginie sobbed bitterly, and threw her arms
round the neck of her mother, who kissed her on the forehead and
kept saying: "Come now, be brave! be really brave!" The steps were
raised and the cart drove off.

Then Madame Aubin's strength broke down. In the evening all
her friends, the Lormeaus, Madame Lechaptois, the Rochefeuille
girls, Monsieur de Houppeville, and Bourais, came in to comfort her.

At first life was very painful to her without her daughter, but she
heard from her three times a week, wrote to her on the other days,
walked in her garden, and so passed the weary time away.v

Felicite went into Virginie's room in the morning as usual and
stared at the walls. It was dull for her not to have the child's hair to
comb, her boots to lace, and her body to tuck into bed, not to see
her dear face all the time and to hold her hand when they went out
together. To fill up her idleness she tried to make lace, but her fin-
gers were too clumsy and she kept breaking the threads. She could
not settle down to anything, lost sleep, and, as she said, was "ruined."

To amuse herself, she asked permission for her nephew Victor to
visit her.

He would come on Sundays after Mass with rosy cheeks and bare
chest, and country air all about him from his walk. She set the table
for him promptly and they lunched together face to face. She ate as
little as possible herself to save money, but she would stuff him till
he fell asleep. When the bell first sounded for Vespers, she would
wake him up, brush his trousers, fasten his tie, and set off for church
leaning on his arm with a mother's pride.

His parents always told Victor to get something out of her, a damp
packet of sugar, perhaps, or a cake of soap, some brandy, or even
money now and then. He brought her his clothes to mend, and she
gladly undertook this task, grateful for anything that would bring
him back to her.

In August his father took him away for a sea trip along the coast.
It was holiday time for the children, and their arrival consoled her.
But Paul was getting selfish and Virginie too old to say "thee" and
"thou" to her any longer. This made things stiff and created a barrier
between them.

Victor went to Morlaix, Dunkirk, and Brighton in succession, and

p GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

brought Felicite a present after each trip. First he brought her a box
made out of shells, then a coffee cup, and finally a big gingerbread
man. He was growing handsome with his fine figure, his hint of a
moustache, his honest clear eyes, and a little leather cap clinging to
the back of his head like a pilot's. He amused her with stories
adorned with nautical terms.

It was on a Monday, the 14th of July, 1819 (she never forgot that
date), that he told her how he had signed on for a long voyage, and
two nights later was to go on board the boat for Honfleur, where he
was to join his schooner which was weighing anchor shortly from
Havre. He might be gone two years.

The thought of this long absence plunged Felicite in distress. She
must say goodbye once more, and so, on Wednesday evening after
Madame had finished her dinner, she put on her wooden shoes and
soon covered the twelve miles between Pont-L'£veque and Honfleur.

When she came to the Calvary, she turned to the right instead of
the left, went astray in the timber yard, and had to retrace her steps.
Some people to whom she spoke told her to hurry. She went all
round the harbour, which was full of shipping, and kept tripping
over hawsers. Then the ground fell away, lights flashed across each
other, and she thought she was losing her wits, for she saw horses
way up in the sky. Others were neighing beside the quay afraid of
the sea. They were hoisted up with tackle and lowered in a boat, in
which passengers were bumping into each other amid cider casks,
hampers of cheese, and sacks of corn. Hens were cackling, the cap-
tain swore, and a cabin boy was leaning over the bow, indifferent to
it all. Felicite, who had not recognised him, cried "Victor!" He
raised his head. Just as she was rushing forward, the gangway was
pulled back.

The Honfleur packet, with women singing as they hauled, went
out of the harbour, its ribs creaking and heavy waves slapping against
the bows. The sails swung round, and no one could be seen now on
board. The boat was a black speck on the sea which shimmered with
silver in the moonlight. It faded away little by little, dipped, and
was gone.

As Felicite passed the Calvary, she had an impulse to commend
to God what she cherished most, and she stood praying for a long
time with her face bathed in tears and her eyes staring at the clouds.
The town was asleep, coastguards were walking to and fro, and water
poured incessantly through the holes in the sluice with the noise of
a torrent. The clocks struck two.

The convent parlour would not be open before dawn. If Felicite

A SIMPLE HEART 53

were late, Madame would be sure to be annoyed. In spite of her wish
to kiss the other child, she went home. The maids at the inn were
just waking up when she came home to Pont-L'£veque.

So the poor little chap was going to be tossed for months and
months at sea! His previous voyages had not alarmed her. You were
sure to come back safely from England or Brittany, but America, the
Colonies, the Islands were lost in a faint cloudy region on the other
side of the world.

From that day Felicite thought only of her nephew. On sunny days
she was troubled by thinking of his thirst; when it was stormy, she
was afraid of the lightning lest it should strike him. As she listened
to the wind moaning in the chimney or stripping off the slates, she
saw him bruised by that same tempest at the top of a shattered mast,
with his body thrown back under a sheet of foam; or (remembering
the illustrated geography) he was being devoured by savages, cap-
tured by monkeys in the forest, or dying on some desert shore. She
never spoke of her anxiety.

Madame Aubin had anxieties of her own about her daughter. The
good nuns considered her an affectionate but delicate child. The
least emotion unnerved her. She had to give up the piano.

Her mother insisted on hearing regularly from the Convent. One
morning, when the letter-carrier did not come, she lost patience, and
walked up and down the parlour from her chair to the window. It
was astonishing. No news for four days!

To console Madame Aubin by her own example, Felicite said: "It
is six months since I had a letter!"

"From whom?"

"Why, from my nephew," answered the servant gently.

"Oh! your nephew!" And Madame Aubin resumed her walk and
shrugged her shoulders, as much as to say: "I wasn't thinking about
him, and besides what does a mere scamp of a cabin boy matter?
Now my daughter . . . why, think of it!"

Felicite, though she had been brought up roughly enough, was
indignant with Madame, and then forgot all about it. It seemed
natural enough to her to lose your head over the little girl. For her,
the two children were equally important. They were united in her
heart by the same bond, and their destinies must be the same.

The chemist informed her that Victor's ship had reached Havana.
He had read the news in a paper.

Cigars made her picture Havana as a place where no one did any-
thing but smoke, and she could see Victor moving about among
negroes in a cloud of tobacco. Could a man, she wondered, "in case

54 GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

he had to," come home by land? How far was it from Pont-L'£veque?
She asked Monsieur Bourais questions to find out.

He took down his atlas and began to explain the longitudes.
Felicite's confusion aroused a broad pedantic smile. At last he
marked with his pencil a tiny black spot in an oval place on the map,
and said, "Here it is." She stooped over the map. The network of
coloured lines tired her eyes without conveying anything to her.
When Baurais asked her to tell him what was the matter, she begged
him to show her the house in which Victor lived. Bourais threw up
his hands, sneezed, and went into peals of laughter. Her simplicity
delighted him. And Felicite could not understand why! How could
she, when she expected, no doubt, actually to see a picture of her
nephew, her mind was so simple!

A fortnight later Liebard came into the kitchen at market time
as usual, and gave her a letter from her brother-in-law. As neither
could read she carried it to her mistress.

Madame Aubin, who was counting the stitches in her knitting, set
down her work and broke the seal of the letter. She started and mur-
mured with a meaning look: "It's bad news . • ♦ that they have to
tell you. . . . Your nephew . . ."

He was dead. The letter said no more.

Felicite fell on a chair with her head leaning against the wall. She
closed her eyelids, which suddenly went pink. Then, with bent fore-
head, hands hanging down, and rigid eyes, she kept saying at inter-
vals: "Poor little fellow! Poor little fellow!"

Liebard watched her and sighed. Madame Aubin trembled a little.
She suggested that Felicite ought to go and see her sister at Trouville.
Felicite replied with a gesture that it was no use.

There was a silence. The worthy Liebard thought it was time to
withdraw.

Then Felicite said:

"They don't care, they don't!"

Her head drooped again, and now and then she picked up me-
chanically the long needles on her work table.

Some women went through the yard with a barrow of dripping
linen.

As she saw them through the window, she^ remembered her wash-
ing. She had put it to soak yesterday. To-day she must wring it out.
She left the room.

Her plank and tub were at the edge of the Toucques. She threw
a heap of linen on the bank, rolled up her sleeves, and, taking her
wooden beater, she dealt such blows that they could be heard in the

A SIMPLE HEART 55

neighbouring gardens. The fields were empty. The river stirred
faintly in the wind. Below, long grasses waved like the hair of corpses
floating on the water. She mastered her grief and was very brave
until the evening, but once in her room she gave way to it entirely,
lying stretched out on the mattress with her face buried in the pillow
and her hands clenched against her temples.

Much later she heard the circumstances of Victor's end from the
captain himself. They had bled him too much for yellow fever at
the hospital. Four doctors were holding him at once. He had died
instantly and the chief had said: "Bah! that's another one gone!"

His parents had always been cruel to him. She preferred not to
see them again, and they made no advances, either because they
had forgotten all about her, or because they were hardened in their
desperate poverty.

Virginie began to grow weaker.

Constriction in the chest, coughing, chronic fever, and the marble
veins on her cheek bones betrayed some deep-seated ailment. Mon-
sieur Poupart advised a stay in Provence. Madame Aubin decided
on it and would have brought home her daughter at once had it
not been for the climate of Pont-L'£veque.

She contracted with a job-master who drove her to the Convent
every Tuesday. There is a terrace in the garden which overlooks the
Seine. Virginie walked there over the fallen vine leaves on her
mother's arm. A beam of sunlight through the clouds sometimes
made her blink, as she gazed at the sails in the distance and the wide
horizon from the Chateau de Tancarville to the lighthouses of
Havre. Afterwards they would rest in the harbour. Her mother had
procured a small cask of excellent Malaga; and Virginie, laughing at
the idea of getting tipsy, used to drink a thimbleful of it, but no
more.

You could see her strength coming back. The autumn glided by
softly. Felicite reassured Madame Aubin, but one evening, when she
had been out on an errand in the neighbourhood, she found Mon-
sieur Poupart's gig at the door. He was in the hall and Madame
Aubin was tying her bonnet.

"Give me my foot-warmer, and my purse and gloves! Hurry, be
quick about it!"

Virginie had inflammation of the lungs. It might be hopeless.

"Not yet!" said the doctor, and they both got into the carriage in
a whirl of snowflakes. Night was coming on, and it was very cold.

Felicite rushed into the church to light a candle. Then she ran
after the gig, caught up with it in an hour, jumped in lightly behind,

56 GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

and hung on to the fringes. Suddenly she thought: "The courtyard
has not been shut up! Suppose thieves break in!" And she jumped
down.

At dawn next day she was at the doctor's door. He had come in
and started off for the country again. Then she waited in the inn,
thinking that a letter would come by somebody or other. Finally,
when it was growing dark, she took the Lisieux coach.

The Convent was at the end of a steep lane. When she was half
way up, she heard strange sounds, a passing-bell was tolling. "It's for
someone else," thought Felicite, and she struck the knocker violently.

After some minutes, there was a sound of shuffling slippers, the
door opened partly, and a nun appeared.

The good sister, with an air of compunction, said that "she had
just passed away." At that moment the bell of St. Leonard's tolled
harder than ever.

Felicite went up to the second floor. From the doorway she saw
Virginie stretched out on her back with clasped hands, open mouth,
and her head thrown back under a black crucifix which leaned to-
wards her, between curtains hanging stiffly, less pale than her face.

Madame Aubin, at the foot of the bed which she was clasping with
her arms, was choking with agonised sobs. The Mother Superior was
standing on the right. Three candlesticks on the chest of drawers
made red spots, and a white fog came seeping in through the win-
dows. Some nuns came and led Madame Aubin away.

For two nights Felicite never left the dead child. She kept repeat-
ing the same prayers, sprinkled holy water on the sheets, came and
sat down again, and watched her. At the end of her first vigil, she
noticed that the face had become yellow, the lips had turned blue,
the nose was sharper, and the eyes had sunk in. She kissed them sev-
eral times and would not have been very much surprised if Virginie
had opened them again. To minds like hers the supernatural is per-
fectly simple. She made the girl's toilet, wrapped her in her shroud,
lifted her into the coffin, laid a wreath on her head, and spread out
her hair. It was fair and surprisingly long for her age. Felicite cut off
a big lock of it, and slipped half of it into her bosom, determined
never to part with it.

The body was brought back to Pont-L'£veque, in accordance with
the wish of Madame Aubin, who followed the hearse in a closed car-
riage.

It took another three-quarters of an hour after the Mass to reach
the cemetery. Paul walked in front, sobbing. Monsieur Bourais fol-
lowed, and then came the principal citizens of Pont-L'£veque, the

A SIMPLE HEART 57

women in black mantles, and Felicite. She thought of her nephew,
and since she had been unable to pay him these honours, her grief
was doubled, as if the one were being buried with the other.

Madame Aubin's despair was unbounded. At first she rebelled
against God, deeming it unjust for Him to have taken her daughter
from her, who had never done any harm and whose conscience was
clear! Ah! no! she ought to have taken Virginie to the South! Other
doctors would have saved her. Now she accused herself, longed to
join her child, and cried out in distress in the middle of her dreams.
One dream especially haunted her. Her husband, dressed as a sailor,
came back from a long voyage, and shed tears as he told her that he
was ordered to carry Virginie away. Then they consulted how to
hide her somewhere.

Once she came in from the garden quite upset. Just now— and she
pointed out the spot— father and daughter had appeared to her, stand-
ing side by side. They did nothing, but looked at her.

For several months after this she stayed passively in her room.
Felicite lectured her gently. She must live for her son, and for the
other, in remembrance of "her."

"Her?" answered Madame Aubin, as though just rousing from
slumber. "Ah, yes! . . . yes! . . . you do not forget her!" This was an
allusion to the cemetery, to which she was strictly forbidden to go.

Felicite went there every day.

On the stroke of four she would skirt the houses, climb the hill,
open the gate, and come to Virginie's grave. It was a little pillar of
pink marble with a stone underneath and a garden plot enclosed
by chains. The beds were hidden under a carpet of flowers. She
watered their leaves, freshened up the gravel, and knelt down to
soften the earth better. Whenever Madame Aubin was able to come
there, she felt relieved and somehow consoled.

The years slipped by, one much like another, marked only by the
great feast days as they recurred— Easter, the Assumption, All Saints'
Day. Household happenings marked dates which were mentioned
afterwards. In 1825, for example, two glaziers whitewashed the hall.
In 1827, a piece of the roof fell into the courtyard and nearly killed
a man. In the summer of 1828, it was Madame's turn to offer the
blessed bread. About this time, Bourais went away mysteriously. One
by one the old acquaintances died: Guyot, Liebard, Madame Lechap-
tois, Robelin, and Uncle de Gremanville, who had been paralysed
for a long time.

One night the driver of the mail coach announced in Pont-
L'fiveque the Revolution of July. A new sub-Prefect was appointed

58 GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

a few days later. It was Baron de Larsonniere, who had been a Consul
in America, and brought with him, besides his wife, his sister-in-law
and three grown-up young ladies. They were to be seen on the lawn
in loose drapery, and they had a negro and a parrot. They called on
Madame Aubin, and she did not fail to return the call. As soon as
they were seen in the distance, Felicite ran and told her mistress. But
only one thing could really move her— letters from her son.

He lived in taverns and could follow no career. She used to pay
his debts and he made new ones. Madame Aubin's sighs, as she sat
knitting by the window, reached Felicite spinning in the kitchen.

They used to walk together along the espaliered wall, always talk-
ing of Virginie and wondering if this or that would have pleased
her, or what she would have said on this or that occasion.

All her little belongings filled a cupboard in the two-bedded room.
Madame Aubin looked at them as seldom as possible. One summer
day she made up her mind to do so, and some moths flew out of the
cupboard.

Virginie's dresses were all in a row underneath a shelf on which
there were three dolls, some hoops, some little pots and pans, and the
basin which she had used. They took out her petticoats as well, and
her stockings and handkerchiefs, and spread them out on the two
beds before folding them up again. The sunlight shone on these
poor things, bringing out their stains and the creases made by the
little girl's movements. The sky was warm and blue, a blackbird
warbled, and life seemed bathed in a deep sweet peace. They came
across a little plush hat with thick, chestnut-coloured fur, but the
moths had eaten it. Felicite begged for it. They gazed at each other
and their eyes filled with tears. At last the mistress opened her arms,
the servant threw herself into them, and they clasped each other in
a hearty embrace, staunching their grief with a kiss which made them
equal.

It was the first time in their lives, for Madame Aubin was not ex-
pansive by nature.

Felicite was as grateful as though she had received a great favour,
and from that day cherished her mistress with an animal's devotion
and religious worship.

The kindness of her heart opened out.

When she heard the drums of a regiment marching in the street,
she would stand at the door with a pitcher of cider and offer it to
the soldiers to drink. She took care of cholera patients. She protected
the Polish refugees, and one of these proposed to marry her. They
quarrelled, nevertheless; for as she returned from the Angelus one

A SIMPLE HEART 59

morning, she found he had got into her kitchen and made with
vinegar a salad for himself which he was eating quietly.

After the Poles came Pere Colmiche, an ancient man who was
reputed to have committed atrocities in '93. He lived beside the
river in a ruined pig-sty. The little boys used to stare at him through
the cracks in his wall, and to throw pebbles at him which fell on the
mattress upon which he lay constantly shaken with catarrh. His hair
was very long, his eyes inflamed, and he had a tumor on his arm
which was bigger than his head. Felicite found him some linen and
tried to clean up his miserable den. She longed to establish him in
the bakehouse without letting him annoy Madame. When the tumor
burst, she used to dress it every day. Sometimes she would bring him
cake and put him out in the sunlight on a truss of straw. The poor
old man, slobbering and trembling, would thank her in a faint voice,
fearful of losing her, and would stretch out his hand as he saw her
going away. He died; and she had a Mass said for the repose of his
soul.

That very day a great happiness befell her. Just at dinner time
Madame de Larsonniere's negro appeared, carrying the parrot in its
cage, with perch, chain, and padlock. There was a note from the
Baroness informing Madame Aubin that her husband had been pro-
moted to a Prefecture, and they were going away that evening. She
begged her to accept the bird as a memento and a token of her
esteem.

For a long time the parrot had absorbed Felicite's attention, be-
cause he came from America. The name reminded her of Victor, so
much so that she had asked the negro about it. Once she had gone
so far as to say: "How happy Madame would be to have him!"

The negro had repeated this remark to his mistress. Since she
could not take the bird away with her, this was how she got rid of
him.

IV

His name was Loulou. His body was green, the tips of his wings
were rosy pink, his brow was blue, and his throat was golden.

But he had a tiresome habit of biting his perch, tearing out his
feathers, flinging his dirt about, and spattering the water from
his bath. He annoyed Madame Aubin, and she presented him to
Felicite.

She undertook to train him. Soon he could repeat: "Good boy!
Your servant, sir! How dy'ye do, Marie?" He was placed beside the

60 GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

door, and several people were surprised to find that he did not an-
swer to the name of Jacquot, for all parrots are called Jacquot. He
was compared to a turkey and a log, and this always stabbed Felicite
to the heart. And Loulou was strangely obstinate. If you looked at
him, he wouldn't speak!

All the same he was fond of society. On Sunday, when the Roche-
feuille girls, Monsieur de Houppeville, and some new acquaintances
— Onfroy the chemist, Monsieur Varin, and Captain Mathieu— were
playing cards, he used to beat the windows with his wings and fling
himself about so furiously that you couldn't hear yourself talk.

It would seem as if Bourais' face struck him as extremely funny.
The moment he saw it he began to laugh, and laughed with all his
might. His shrieks rang through the courtyard and the echo repeated
them. The neighbours would come to their windows and laugh too,
while Monsieur Bourais, to escape the parrot's eye, would slip along
under the wall, hiding his face in his hat, reach the river, and enter
by the garden gate. There was no tenderness in the scowls which he
darted at that bird.

Loulou had been buffeted by the butcher's boy for daring to stick
his head into his basket. Ever since he had been trying to nip him
through his shirt. Fabu threatened to wring his neck, although he
was by no means cruel in spite of his tattooed arm and great
whiskers. On the contrary, he secretly liked the parrot, and in his
merry humour even wanted to teach him to swear. Felicite, alarmed
by such doings, put the bird in the kitchen. His little chain was
removed and he wandered round the house.

When he wanted to come downstairs, he used to lean on each step
with his beak, raise his right foot, and then his left. Felicite was
afraid such gymnastics made him giddy. He fell ill and could neither
talk nor eat any longer. He had a growth under his tongue as birds
often have. She cured him by tearing the skin off with her finger
nails. One day Monsieur Paul thoughtlessly blew some cigar smoke
into his face, and another day when Madame Lormeau was teasing
him with the tip of her umbrella, he snapped at the ferrule. At last
he got lost.

Felicite had set him down on the grass to get some fresh air and
went away for a moment. When she came back, there was no parrot
to be seen. First she hunted for him in the shrubbery, on the river
bank, and over the roofs, paying no attention to her mistress's cries of
"Take care! You've lost your wits!" Then she explored all the gar-
dens in Pont-L'£veque, and stopped everyone who passed by.

"You don't happen to have seen my parrot by any chance, have

A SIMPLE HEART 61

you?" She described the parrot to those who did not know him. All
at once, she seemed to see something green fluttering behind the
mills at the foot of the hill. But there was nothing on the hilltop. A
pedlar assured her that he had just come across the parrot in Mere
Simon's shop at Saint-Melaine. She hurried there. They had no idea
what she meant. At last she same home exhausted, with her slippers
in tatters and despair in her soul. As she was sitting beside Madame
on the garden seat, telling her the whole story of her adventures,
something light dropped on to her shoulder. It was Loulou! What
on earth had he been doing? Taking a walk in the neighbourhood,
perhaps!

She had some trouble in getting over this, or rather she never did
get over it. After a chill she had quinsy, and soon afterwards an ear-
ache. Three years later she was deaf, and she spoke very loud, even
in church. Although Felicite's sins might have been shouted in every
corner of the diocese without dishonouring her or scandalising any-
body, the priest thought it advisable to hear her confession in the
sacristy.

Imaginary noises in her head completed her misfortune. Her mis-
tress would often say to her: "Good heavens! how stupid you are!"
And she would reply: "Yes, Madame," and look round for some-
thing.

Her little circle of ideas grew narrower and narrower. The peal
of church bells and the lowing of cattle no longer existed for her.
Human beings moved in ghostly silence. Only one sound reached
her ears now— the parrot's voice.

Loulou, as if to amuse her, copied the clatter of the turnspit, the
shrill cry of a man hawking fish, and the noise of the joiner's saw
in the opposite house. Whenever the doorbell rang, he used to mimic
Madame Aubin's "Felicite! the door! the door!"

They used to carry on conversations. He would repeat endlessly
the three phrases in his repertory, and she would answer in words
which were just as disconnected, but which expressed what lay in
her heart. In her isolation, Loulou was almost a son and a lover
to her. He would climb up her fingers, nibble at her lips, and cling to
her shawl. When she bent her forehead and shook her head gently,
as nurses do, the great wings of her bonnet and the wings of the bird
fluttered together.

When the clouds gathered and the thunder rumbled, Loulou
would shriek, possibly remembering the downpours in his native
forests. The streaming rain would drive him absolutely mad. He
would flap about wildly, dash up to the ceiling, upset everything,

62 GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

and go out through the window to splash about in the garden. But
he would soon come back to perch on one of the andirons, and
would hop about drying his feathers, showing his tail and his beak
in turn.

One morning in the terrible winter of 1837, she had put him in
front of the fire because of the cold. She found him dead, in the
middle of his cage, head down, with his claws in the bars. No doubt
he had died of congestion. But Felicite decided that he had been
poisoned with parsley, and though she had no proof of it, she was
inclined to suspect Fabu.

She wept so bitterly that her mistress said to her: "Well, then,
have the bird stuffed!"

She asked the chemist's advice, for he had always been kind to the
parrot. He wrote to Havre, and a man called Fellacher undertook
the job. But as parcels sometimes got lost in the mail coach, she
decided to take the parrot as far as Honfleur herself.

Along the roadside were leafless apple trees stretching endlessly.
The ditches were covered with ice. Dogs barked on the farms, and
Felicite, with her hands under her cloak, and her little black wooden
shoes and her basket, walked quickly in the middle of the road.

She crossed the forest, passed Le Haut-Chene, and came to
St. Gatien.

The mail coach rushed at full gallop like a hurricane behind her
in a cloud of dust with gathering momentum down the steep hill.
Seeing this woman, who did not get out of the way, the driver stood
up in front and the postilion shouted, while the four horses which
he could not control increased their speed, and the two leaders
grazed her just as he threw them to one side with a jerk of the reins.
He was wild with fury and, raising his arm as he raced by, he gave
her such a lash from her waist to her neck with his long whip that she
fell on her back.

The first thing she did, when she recovered consciousness, was to
open her basket. Fortunately, Loulou was none the worse. She felt
her right cheek bleeding, and when she put her hand on it, it was
red. The blood was flowing.

She sat down on a pile of stones and bandaged her face with her
handkerchief. Then she ate a crust which she had put in her basket
as a precaution, and consoled herself for her wound by gazing at
the bird.

When she reached the hilltop of Ecquemauville, she saw the
lights of Honfleur twinkling in the night like a host of stars. Far off,
the sea stretched dimly. Then she was seized with faintness and

A SIMPLE HEART 63

paused. Her miserable childhood, the wreck of her first love, her
nephew's departure, Virginie's death, all flooded in on her at once,
like the waves of a making tide, rose in her throat, and choked her.

Later she made a point of speaking to the captain of the boat, and
besought him to take care of the package, but did not tell him what
it contained.

Fellacher kept the parrot a long time. He kept promising to send
it back the following week. After six months he announced that a
case was on its way, and then she heard no more of it. It seemed as
if Loulou would never come back. "They have stolen him," was
her thought.

At last he arrived, and he looked magnificently. There he stood
erect on a branch screwed into a mahogany base, with one claw in
the air and his head cocked on one side, biting at a nut, which the
ornithologist, with a sense of drama, had gilded.

Felicite shut him up in her room. Very few people were admitted
to this place, which held so many religious objects and varied odds
and ends that it looked like a chapel turned into a bazaar.

A huge wardrobe interfered with the door as you came in. Oppo-
site the window which overlooked the garden, a little round window
offered a glimpse of the courtyard. There was a table beside the
folding bed with a jug, two combs, and a cube of blue soap on a
chipped plate. The walls were covered with rosaries, medals, several
gracious Virgins, and a holy water stoup made out of a cocoanut. On
the chest of drawers, which was covered with a cloth like an altar,
were the shell box which Victor had given her, a watering-pot, a
toy balloon, copybooks, the illustrated Geography, and a pair of
girl's boots. And, tied by its ribbons to the nail of the looking glass,
hung the little felt hat. Felicite carried her ritual so far as to keep
one of Monsieur's frock coats. All the old rubbish which Madame
Aubin had cast aside she carried off to her room. And so there were
artificial flowers along the edge of the chest of drawers and a portrait
of the Comte d'Artois in the tiny window recess.

Loulou was set on a bracket over the chimney piece which jutted
out into the room. Every morning when she woke she saw him there
in the dawn, and remembered old times and the least details of insig-
nificant acts in a painless and peaceful quietude.

She had intercourse with no one, and lived like one who walks
in her sleep. Only the Corpus Christi processions were able to rouse
her. Then she would go about begging mats and candlesticks from
the neighbours to ornament the altar which was put up in the street.

In church she was always gazing at the Holy Ghost in the window,

64 GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

and noticed that he looked rather like the parrot. The likeness was
more remarkable, she thought, on a crude chromo representing the
baptism of Our Lord. With his purple wings and emerald body, the
dove was the image of Loulou.

She bought the picture and hung it up in place of the Comte
d'Artois, so that she could see them both together at a single glance.
They were united in her thoughts, and the parrot was consecrated
by his connection with the Holy Ghost, which grew more and more
vivid and intelligible to her. The Father could not have chosen to
express Himself through a dove, for these birds cannot speak. He
must have chosen one of Loulou's ancestors. Though Felicite used
to look at the picture while she was saying her prayers, now and
then her glance turned toward the parrot.

She was anxious to join the Ladies of the Blessed Virgin, but
Madame Aubin dissuaded her.

Then a great event loomed up before their eyes— Paul's marriage.

He had been successively a solicitor's clerk, in business, in the
Customs, in the Internal Revenue, and had even made an effort to
get into the Bureau of Forestry, when, at the age of thirty-six, he
was inspired to discover his real vocation— the Registrar's Office.
There he had shown such marked talent that an inspector had
offered him his daughter's hand and promised him his patronage.
Paul, now grown serious, brought the girl to see his mother.

She criticised the ways of Pont-L'£veque sharply enough, gave
herself high and mighty airs, and hurt Felicite's feelings. Madame
Aubin was glad when she went away.

A week later news came of Monsieur Bourais' death at an inn in
Lower Brittany. The rumour of his suicide was confirmed, and
doubts arose about his honesty. Madame Aubin scrutinised his
accounts, and soon learned the whole story of his misdeeds— embez-
zled arrears, secret sales of lumber, forged receipts, and so on.
Besides all that, he had an illegitimate child, and "relations with a
person at Dozule."

These disgraceful facts greatly upset her. In March, 1853, sne was
seized with a pain in the chest. Her throat seemed to be coated with
film, and leeches did not help the difficulty she found in breathing.
She died on the ninth evening of her illness.

She was just seventy-two.

She passed as being younger, thanks to the bands of brown hair
which framed her pale, pock-marked face. She left few friends to
regret her passing, for she had a haughtiness of manner which kept
folk off.

A SIMPLE HEART 65

But Felicite* mourned for her as servants seldom mourn for their
mistresses. It upset her notions, and seemed to reverse the whole
order of things, that Madame should die before her. It was incon-
ceivable and monstrous.

Ten days later the heirs hastily arrived from Besancon. The
daughter-in-law ransacked the drawers, chose some pieces of furni-
ture, and sold the remainder. Then they went back to their Regis-
trar's business.

Madame's armchair, her little round table, her foot-warmer, her
eight chairs, were all gone. Yellow patches in the middle of the
panels showed where the engravings had hung. They had carried off
the two little beds and mattresses, and all the relics of Virginie had
disappeared from the cupboard. Felicite wandered from floor to floor
in a sorrowful daze.

Next day there was a notice on the door, and the chemist shouted
in her ear that the house was for sale.

She tottered, and had to sit down. What distressed her most of all
was giving up her room, which was so suitable for poor Loulou. She
wrapped him in a gaze of anguish as she implored the Holy Ghost,
and formed the idolatrous habit of kneeling in front of the parrot
whenever she said her prayers. Occasionally the sun shone through
the little window of her attic and caught his glass eye, and a great
luminous ray would shoot out from it and put her in an ecstasy.

Her mistress left her three hundred and eighty francs a year. The
garden kept her in vegetables, and as for clothes, she had enough to
last her until the end of her days. She saved candles by going to bed
at twilight.

She seldom went out, as she did not like to pass the dealer's shop
in which some of the old furniture was exposed for sale. Since her
fit of giddiness she dragged one leg and, as her strength was fading,
Mere Simon, whose grocery business had come to grief, came every
morning to split wood and pump water for her.

Her sight grew feeble. She no longer opened the shutters. Years
went by, and the house was neither let nor sold.

Felicite never asked for repairs because she was afraid of eviction.
The boards on the roof rotted. Her bolster was damp all one winter.
After Easter she spat blood. Then Mere Simon called in a doctor.
Felicite wanted to know what was the matter with her. But she was
too deaf to hear. The only word which reached her ears was "pneu-
monia." It was a familiar word to her, and she answered softly: "Ah!
like Madame!" thinking it only natural that she should follow her
mistress.

66 GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

The time for the Corpus Christi shrines drew nigh. The first
shrine was always at the bottom of the hill, the second in front of the
Post Office, and the third half-way up the street. There was some
rivalry about the last shrine, and finally the women of the parish
chose Madame Aubin's courtyard.

The difficult breathing and fever increased. Felicite was vexed
that she could do nothing for the shrine. If only she could put some-
thing on it! Then she thought of the parrot. The neighbours pro-
tested that it would not be decent, but the cure gave her permission,
which delighted her so much that she begged him to accept Loulou,
her only treasure, when she died.

From Tuesday till Saturday, the eve of the feast-day, she coughed
more often. By evening her face shrivelled up, her lips stuck to her
gums, and she had attacks of vomiting. At dawn next morning, feel-
ing very low, she sent for the priest.

Three kind women were beside her during the Extreme Unction.
Then she said that she must speak to Fabu. He came in his Sunday
best, quite ill at ease in the funereal atmosphere.

"Forgive me," she said, making an effort to stretch out her arms,
"I thought it was you who had killed him."

What did she mean by such nonsense? She had suspected him of
murder— a man like him. He was furious and started to make a row.

"Don't you see," said the women, "that she has lost her senses?"

From time to time Felicite talked with shadows around her bed.
The women went away, and Mere Simon had her breakfast. A little
later she took Loulou and laid him close to Felicite, saying:

"Come, now, say good-bye to him!"

Loulou was not a corpse, but the worms had devoured him. One
of his wings was broken, and the stuffing was coming out of his
stomach. But Felicite was blind now. She kissed him on the forehead
and held him close against her cheek. Mere Simon took him back
from her and placed him on the shrine.

V

The fragrance of summer rose from the meadows, flies were
buzzing, the sun made the river shine and heated the slates on the
roof. Mere Simon came back into the room and fell asleep softly.
She was roused by the sound of church bells. The people were
coming out from Vespers. Felicite's delirium subsided. She thought
of the procession, and saw it as if she were taking part in it herself.

All the school children, the choir, and the firemen walked on the

A SIMPLE HEART 67

pavement, while in the middle of the road the verger led the way
with his halberd, and the beadle with a large cross. Then came the
schoolmaster watching the little boys, and the Sister Superior anxious
about the little girls. Three of the most adorable little girls, with
curls like angels, were scattering rose petals in the air, the deacon
conducted the band with outstretched arms, and two thurifers turned
back at every step towards the Blessed Sacrament, which was carried
by Monsieur the Cure, wearing his beautiful chasuble, under a
canopy of rich red velvet held up by the four churchwardens. A
crowd of people surged behind between the white draperies covering
the walls of the houses, and they reached the bottom of the hill.

A cold sweat moistened Felicite's temples. Mere Simon sponged
them with a piece of linen, saying to herself that one day she would
have to go the same road.

The roar of the crowd increased, was very loud for a moment, and
then died away.

A fusillade shook the window. It was the postilions saluting the
monstrance. Felicite turned her eyes round and said as loud as she
could: "Does he look well?" The parrot was on her mind.

Her agony began.

The death rattle became faster and faster and made her sides
heave. Bubbles of foam came at the corners of her mouth, and her
whole body trembled.

Soon the booming of the ophicleides, the high voices of the chil-
dren, and the deep voices of the men could be distinguished. Now
and then all was silent, and the tread of feet, deadened by the flowers
on which they trampled, sounded like a flock drifting across grass.

The clergy appeared in the courtyard. Mere Simon climbed up
on a chair to reach the attic window, and so looked down on the
shrine. Green garlands hung over it, and it was adorned with a
flounce of English lace. In the middle of it was a small frame with
relics in it. There were two orange trees at the corners, and all along
stood silver candlesticks and china vases full of sunflowers, lilies,
peonies, foxgloves and tufts of hortensia. This blazing mass of colour
from the altar to the carpet spread over the pavement. Some rare
objects caught the eye. There was a silver-gilt sugar bowl with a
crown of violets, pendants of Alencon stone sparkled on moss, and
two Chinese screens unfolded their landscapes. Loulou was smoth-
ered in roses, and showed nothing but his blue forehead, like a bar
of lapis lazuli.

The churchwardens, the choir, and the children took their places
round the three sides of the courtyard. The priest went slowly up the

68 GUSTAVE FLAUBERT

steps, and placed his great, radiant golden sun upon the lace of the
shrine. They all knelt down. There was a great silence. The censers
swung slowly to and fro on the full length of their chains.

An azure vapour rose and entered Felicite's room. It came to her
nostrils. She inhaled it sensuously, mystically. She closed her eyes.
Her lips smiled. Her heart-beat dwindled one by one, more fleeting
and soft each moment, as a fountain sinks, an echo vanishes. When
she sighed her last breath, she thought she saw an opening in
Heaven, and a gigantic parrot fluttering over her head.

Benzoin for the Turbinates

BY ST. CLAIR McKELWAY

When, after the customary period of discomfort, I got over my
last cold of the winter of 1939-40, I made up my mind to start
the winter of 1940-41 by taking my first cold of the new season to an
up-to-date hospital and asking the medical profession to handle it.
I wanted to find out just what science could do for a cold. I talked
my plan over with a friend of mine, a nose-and-ear specialist, and he
said that, medically, the experience probably would not be worth
the money it would cost me, but I told him I would make provisions
for the extravagance during the summer. In that case, he said, all I
would have to do would be to telephone him when the first cold of
the winter came along and he would have me admitted to his favorite
hospital, a luxurious establishment on the East River. Then, he
said, he would call in a general practitioner he knew of who made a
hobby of keeping up with the latest news in the field of medicine
known as "respiratory infections."

"But I thought a cold would be right up the alley of a nose man,"
I said.

"Oh no," said my friend. "I fool with the mucous membrane in-
side the head— the back of the nose, the sinuses, and the little canals
that run into the ears. I confine myself to about a foot and a half of
mucous membrane, all told, and as it is, I am frequently baffled. I
don't even like much to go down as far as the throat if I can help it.
When something like a common cold, an acute infection or inflam-
mation of that kind, breaks out in my territory, I prefer to lay off
until things begin to clear up again and I can see what I'm doing.
If you came in my office with a bang-up common cold, I might give
you some stuff to take, swab you out, and tell you to stay in bed until
you got over it, but I wouldn't really work on your nose until the
cold had gone. A cold affects the whole body. When you begin to get
over this cold you expect to catch next winter, I'll have a look at you

after I admit you to the hospital, and later on, if you want to do it up

69

70 ST. CLAIR McKELWAY

brown, I'll see to the nasal mucous membrane and the sinuses. But
the general man will really do most of the work on you."

On the evening of February 25th, I sneezed a few times, and woke
up the next morning with a cold. I took my temperature, found that
it was almost two degrees above normal, and called my friend the
nose-and-ear man. An hour later I was in the hospital, and in bed.
The general practitioner turned up almost immediately. My friend
had told him of my peculiar case and he seemed interested. He said
he would not have to go to any great trouble to take care of me be-
cause he had a number of other patients in the same hospital and
made a point of calling there at least once a day. He was middle-aged,
with an intelligent face, apparently the kind of doctor who doesn't go
in much for hocus-pocus. I asked him to give me the works, and told
him I would probably put a good many questions to him and perhaps
ask him to bring me one of the latest medical reports on the progress
of the profession's fight against the common cold. "It's a fascinating
subject," he said. 'Til bring you some stuff to read later on if you
like." Then, pulling up my pajama shirt, he began to thump my
chest.

"I've always wondered just what that thumping is for," I said.

He laughed. "As a matter of fact," he said, "it's sort of a reflex ac-
tion with a doctor. Of course, if you had pneumonia, I could prob-
ably tell by this thumping that the lungs were badly congested, but,
between us, it doesn't really mean a great deal." He looked at my
throat, made me say ah, and felt my pulse. A floor nurse came in,
punctured my middle finger, and went off with some of my blood.

I looked at the doctor inquiringly.

"Doing all this and explaining as I go along makes the whole
thing seem pretty silly," he said. "It has some sense to it, but I hate
to admit how much. I look in your throat just to see if you have any-
thing remarkable in there, like diphtheria spots or something that
looks like a streptococcus infection. We'll take a blood count from
that blood, and if you have pneumonia, your blood count will be
high. It is caused by a specific germ that has. been identified. With a
common cold, the blood count will be normal.

"You know, a common cold would be extremely difficult to
diagnose in a strictly scientific manner," he went on reflectively.
"The symptoms of the common cold are the same, at the outset, as
measles and a number of other diseases. The doctor usually takes
the patient's diagnosis and, providing he finds no obvious complica-
tions, proceeds on the theory that what he is treating is a cold. You
say you have a cold. Well, you've had them before, and you ought to

BENZOIN FOR THE TURBINATES 71

know what a cold feels like. I take your word for it. But if you were
deaf and dumb and couldn't communicate with me in any way at all
and came to see me with these same symptoms, I don't mind saying I
might have one hell of a time figuring out what was the matter with
you. Running nose and a little fever, I would say to myself, but I
wouldn't be able to find out how you felt and I wouldn't know for
sure whether it was just a cold or God knows what. I'd have to wait
and see."

I was feeling fairly good, although I could tell by the way my nose
was and by the chills running up and down my back that, unless this
was measles or something else, it was what a layman would refer to
as "a cold that feels grippy" or "a hell of a bad cold" when he calls
his office to say he won't be in. It seemed to be the sort of cold I
would ordinarily have stayed home with two days, going out still
coughing and recovering entirely about a week after that. I asked the
doctor to tell me what the treatment was to be, so that I could under-
stand it as we went along.

"You'll be given lots of liquids, in the first place," he said. "Orange
juice, lemon juice, water, and so on. Then you'll have some special
capsules, some nose drops, an occasional gargle, and the room will be
kept warm. You won't feel much like smoking and it would probably
be better if you didn't, but we're not absolutely sure it makes any
difference, so you can smoke if vou want to. We'll have you out of
here in three or four days."

The nurse came in with a tall, three-legged table and a large glass
vessel with a long glass neck, like a chemist's retort. She set it up in a
corner and went out again, an intent expression on her face. It
looked to me as if this meant business, and I asked the doctor what it
was. "It's just an inhalator," he said. "It has plain water inside, with
a little benzoin. She'll put an electric burner under it now and it
will boil and the steam will add humidity to the room."

"What will the benzoin do?"

"As a matter of fact," he said, grinning, "the effect of the benzoin
is largely psychological. It smells medical. But there is a chance that
the fumes will help soothe your nose and throat."

"What's in the capsules, then?"

"They'll make you drowsy and help you to relax and give your
system a better chance to fight off the cold. There's codeine in them,
which is a narcotic that seems to have some specific quality in break-
ing up colds. Not always, mind you, but often enough to be fairly
impressive. Then there's phenacetin, a coal-tar preparation which
helps diminish whatever pain you may be having— aching, general

72 ST. CLAIR McKELWAY

discomfort, and so forth. It also helps to keep the temperature down.
And a little caffeine to counteract the heart-depressant effects of the
codeine and the phenacetin."

I asked him to write down these terms for me, and he did.

"Won't there be any other treatment besides what yoVve de-
scribed?" I asked.

"Nope," he said. "That's about the works. Of course, I could give
you a few other fancy things of extremely doubtful value, but for
combatting this cold— the ordinary, acute, grippy infection of the
upper respiratory tract— what you're going to get is the works."

My friend the nose-and-ear man came in, took one look at my nose,
and said he wouldn't touch it now with a ten-foot pole. 'Til leave
you some nose drops," he said. "The doctor here and myself both
use the same kind. About the day after tomorrow, I may be able to
get in there and see if there's anything for me to do."

I asked what the nose drops did.

"They shrink the mucous membrane so as to keep your nose as
far open as possible," he said.

The nurse, having started the inhalator, brought me two of the
capsules and a large glass of orange juice. I took the capsules and
drank the orange juice. My two doctors and I chatted for a while,
and I asked them if many people went into hospitals with common
colds like mine.

"More than you might think," the general man said. "A good
many old people, naturally, who are rightly afraid of developing
pneumonia. Quite a few mild hypochondriacs who aren't so much
afraid of disease, really, as they are crazy about hospitals. They come
in here, get very elated, call up all their friends, and make big plans
for the future. They find it a stimulating escape. There's a banker
who comes here every time he catches cold and has himself a hell of a
fine time. Then a good many ordinary men and women with money
to spare have reached the conclusion that it's a good idea to give
in to a cold and let us handle it, at the same time getting themselves
a nice rest."

I hinted that I had expected the handling of a cold by two doc-
tors in a first-class hospital to be a good deal more aggressive than it
appeared to be so far.

"Don't excite yourself now," the nose man said. "I told you it
wouldn't be worth the money."

The nurse brought another half-pint of orange juice and left it on
the bedside table.

"As I see it," I said to my doctors, "no sledge-hammer blows are

BENZOIN FOR THE TURBINATES 73

being struck by science in the battle against the common cold. I
could do all this at home, except for the benzoin."

"Sure," said the general man. "This is the luxurious way, that's all.
But, as a matter of fact, I'll bet you'll be more cured when you leave
here than you are ordinarily when you treat yourself at home. At
home, even with a wife or a maid to look after you, you probably
keep getting up and putting on a bathrobe and going out to the
living room to get a book or something, you worry about when
you're going to get back to work, and you forget to take all the cap-
sules and liquids and nose drops at the right time, or you say nuts to
them if you do remember, and consequently you don't get over your
cold as quickly or as completely as you'll get over it here."

"Whereas here," said the nose man, "there's no use in worrying
about when you'll get out, because you can't get out until I release
you."

"If you tried to get out before you were released, they'd just put
you in a straitjacket," said the general man.

"Go away, fellows," I said.

"I'll bring you that stuff to read," the general man said. "You'll
see how the common cold has got science up a tree."

We said goodbye. Snuffling and somewhat disappointed, I drank
the second half-pint of orange juice and the nurse came in and ad-
ministered the nose drops. The inhalator was snuffling now, too, in a
soothing way, giving off businesslike puffs of steamy benzoin. In a
few minutes I went to sleep.

That day and the next I felt much worse than I usually feel with a
bad cold. I slept a great part of the time and didn't feel like reading
or even talking. I drank all the liquids the nurse brought me, snuffed
in the nose drops three times a day, took the special capsules, and
breathed the benzoin fumes. On the third day, the capsules having
been discontinued, I felt better. My nose was no longer stuffed up,
and I could sense that the cold was in the interregnum stage that
often occurs after it has begun to get out of the nose and hasn't yet
quite got into the chest.

The nose man came in, looked at my sinuses by means of lights
and mirrors, and said there was nothing wrong with them. "Keep
taking the nose drops for a couple more days," he said. "I probably
won't come in again. I've got a wonderful case down at the clinic, a
guy with a sinus coming right out of his forehead. That's the sort of
thing I live for. So long."

When the general man came in that morning, I asked him if there
was any chance of keeping this cold from getting into my chest.

74 ST. CLAIR McKELWAY

"Only the gargle," he said. "You'll be given a gargle four or five
times today. The gargle isn't very interesting," he added hastily. "Just
hot salt water, with a little aspirin and sodium bicarbonate in it."

"What do the hot water, salt, soda, and aspirin do?"
'The hot water increases the amount of blood in the blood vessels
of the throat and thus builds up the resistance of the mucous mem-
brane. The salt is a germicide, or disinfectant, the aspirin relieves
the irritation and tends to keep you from coughing, and the soda
just helps the aspirin to dissolve more homogeneously. Now if you
ask me what a germicide does in the case of the common cold you'll
have me, because what a germicide does is kill germs and we aren't at
all sure that there are any germs connected with the common cold."

I asked him to crank up the bed a bit, so I could sit up straight.

"I knew in a vague way that the exact germ for the common cold
hadn't been found," I said, "but there's no doubt about the cold be-
ing caused by a germ, is there?"

"All kinds of doubt," he said. "I've brought you a pretty exhaus-
tive paper written recently by two medical men who are scientifically
from Missouri, and you can read it if you like and we can talk about
it tomorrow. The gist of it is that it is beginning to look as if the
common cold is more probably caused by sudden changes of tem-
perature than by a germ."

He took the medical paper out of his bag.

"This just about has everything in it anybody knows about the
common cold," he said. "It goes back to Hippocrates. You know, for
hundreds of years— at the apex of the age of reason, as a matter of
fact— the accepted theory was that colds and all kinds of catarrh,
which is Greek for 'flow down,' were caused by stuff flowing down
from the brain. They thought that was where all the mucus came
from and that when there was an oversupply of mucus in the brain,
it flowed down and gave you a cold. We've demolished that theory,
but we still don't know what causes a cold. This paper will tell you
what goes on inside the nose and how it is constructed, and if it
doesn't frighten you to death, you'll see why a cold may very well
have nothing to do with germs at all."

"How do you know it doesn't flow down from the brain?" I asked.
"It sounds to me as if they had something there. I think I can feel it
flowing down right now."

"There's no way for it to flow down," he said. "Honest to God, we
know that. We don't know much, but we know that."

The paper, which I read that afternoon and evening, shows, among
other things, that the nose is badly constructed, or at least is built

BENZOIN FOR THE TURBINATES 75

along visionary rather than practical lines. The idea behind the nose
was that it should, in addition to its function as the organ of smell,
act as a sort of air-conditioning apparatus for the lungs. For this pur-
pose, each nostril is lined with three little organs, known as the
superior, middle, and inferior turbinates. These turbinates are sup-
posed to stand erect when the air coming in is cold, warm it up, and
at the same time develop a lot of moisture as it passes through, so as
to add humidity to it. This is what the turbinates are supposed to
do, but even the superior turbinate, it seems, is notoriously slipshod.
A number of tests show, in fact, that generally speaking the tur-
binates have never been able to handle their responsibilities in a
workmanlike manner.

A common performance of the turbinates goes something like
this: You sit in your office, or your home, all morning on a cold day
and the turbinates have little or nothing to do. If the air is a bit
dry, they may work up some humidity by secreting moisture, which
causes you to blow your nose now and then, but otherwise they re-
main dormant, living in a fool's paradise. Then you put on your
hat and coat and go outdoors. You would think that the turbinates
would take this calmly, but not at all. They stand erect immediately
and far too fast and begin to secrete moisture on a scale much too
extensive. Your nose becomes clogged by the swelling of the tur-
binates and runs freely because of the overexuberant moisture-
secreting that is going on at the same time. This causes you to fight
for survival by breathing directly through the mouth. The mouth
has no proper equipment for warming the air or for adding hu-
midity to it, except incidentally, in a haphazard way. The lungs are
not prepared for cold, dry air, and presumably are harmed by it; if
they are not harmed by it, then the whole conception of the tur-
binates is as foolish as their execution. At any rate, the turbinates go
all to pieces for several minutes when you go suddenly out into the
cold, and the medical profession is beginning to think that the
mucous membrane inside the throat and at the back of the nose is
irritated by the unwarmed, dry air and that this irritation, and not a
germ, is what causes the common cold.

The turbinates are extremely sensitive, and thus untrustworthy
and likely to go off half-cocked. They appear to have a hookup with
the brain and with the sensory nerves, which adds to their in-
efficiency. For example, you may be sitting in a warm room with a
window open somewhere in the house, which causes a cool draft to
pass over your ankles. Your ankles don't mind this particularly and
are definitely not cold, but your turbinates, which have a busybody

76 ST. CLAIR McKELWAY

quality about them, interpret this sensation to mean that you have
gone out in the cold air and they begin to swell up and dribble. The
medical profession doesn't know what the exact effect of a mixup
like that is, but it supposes, reasonably enough, that all that warming
and watering at a time when the air is already warm and humid
throws the mucous membrane out of gear, just as it does when the
turbinates work so hard as to make breathing through the nose al-
most impossible, and that the inflammation known as the common
cold may be the result.

The turbinates are defective in still another way. Leading into
them are small blood vessels, which pass through bony structure on
the way. They are thus unable to expand and can carry only a cer-
tain amount of blood. But the blood vessels leading up to these
bony, constricted areas are larger than the blood vessels that go into
the turbinates. So when the turbinates, in order to swell up, call for
more blood, the blood accommodatingly tries to rush to them and is
hopelessly dammed up by the inadequate blood vessels that pass
through the bony area. This causes some kind of irritation, obvi-
ously. But worse than that, once the blood has managed to get to
the turbinates, making them swell, it has to pass through similarly
narrow and constricted veins in order to get out again when the tur-
binates decide that everything is all clear and it is time to go limp
again. Thus, for some little time after the turbinates have called
everything off, they remain erect because the blood has to stand
around in front of these narrow exits. The medical profession is in-
clined to think this sort of thing also probably irritates the mucous
membrane. Knowing this much about how the turbinates carry on
their work, it is easy enough to imagine what they do if your feet are
cold and wet; or if you get overheated, so that the turbinates think
everything is wonderful, and then sit down on a bench and cool off
quickly; or if you do any of the various things which traditionally are
supposed to give you a cold.

"The turbinates seem to be nuts," I remarked when the general
doctor came in the next morning. "And, incidentally, this cold seems
to be going down into my chest."

"Well," he said, "if it is, it is probably because the turbinates are
nuts."

"My God," I said, "I hadn't got around to wondering what the
turbinates do when you actually have a cold. What do they do?"

"They lose all sense of reality, to put it mildly," he said. "The
irritation to the mucous membrane, whatever causes it, excites the
turbinates practically to the point of insanity. They swell up and

BENZOIN FOR THE TURBINATES 77

stay swelled up, so you can hardly breathe at all through the nose,
and the usually thin and watery nasal discharge which they secrete
in order to humidify the air becomes thick and dry. In other words,
your nose gets stuffed up. This causes you to breathe almost entirely
through your mouth, and whether the air is humid and warm or
cold and dry, the lungs apparently don't care for air that comes to
them directly through the mouth. It seems, at least, to set up an
irritation, or infection, in the bronchial tubes, and that is why the
cold is now going into your chest, if it is going into your chest as
you say. The nose drops are supposed to quiet down the turbinates
and keep the nostrils open, but, of course, no nose drops work per-
fectly all the time."

"How do the turbinates seem to feel about benzoin?"

"Benzoin seems to soothe them somewhat, but not much more
than stroking soothes a scared rabbit."

"Well, I feel better than I ordinarily do on the fourth day," I
said, "and this cold doesn't seem to be going into the chest as much
as most of them do."

"Thanks," he said.

"What about these injections that are supposed to prevent colds?"
I asked. "I see by this medical paper that some chimpanzees that
have been given the injections have colds just the same and some
don't."

"They have not been entirely successful," the doctor said. "They
are designed to attack the causes of secondary and tertiary infections
which follow the initial infection or irritation known as the com-
mon cold. In many cases they seem to make the cold milder for this
reason. The idea is that, whatever causes the initial inflammation, it
weakens the general resistance of the mucous membrane, and the
pneumococcus, various kinds of streptococcus, and other known
germs or viruses rush right in. The injections work up a partial im-
munity to these secondary and tertiary invaders. But they don't al-
ways work. One theory is that these injections cause a purely chem-
ical reaction which for some reason tends to counteract the general
irritation, or infection. Like codeine. Codeine really seems to have
some specific effect on a cold, but it doesn't always have it, and when
it does have it, we don't know why it does. There's another prepara-
tion made from a cold vaccine which is taken internally, like a pill.
I think it was forty per cent of a group of people who reported great
improvement after taking this, but forty per cent of another group
who were given pills containing nothing at all also reported great
improvement. One reason we are beginning to think a cold isn't

;8 ST. CLAIR McKELWAY

caused by a germ is that a cold, unlike most infectious diseases, seems
to develop no immunity. You can have one cold right on top of an-
other, as you know. We're up a tree, as I said before."

This business of the common cold not being caused by a germ at all
sort of strikes at the foundation of American civilization, doesn't it?"

"Don't get me wrong," the doctor said. "The no-germ theory
hasn't been proved, any more than the germ theory. The thing is we
just don't know. There's a great deal to be said for the germ theory,
although it seems right now that there is more to be said for the no-
germ theory. And anyway, influenza is a contagious disease definitely
caused by a germ, so the precautions people usually take to keep
from giving other people their colds are just as well. The funny thing
about influenza is that the turbinates don't seem to be particularly
affected by it. You don't get the same acute snuffling or stuffed-up
feeling with influenza that you do with the common, grippy cold,
yet with influenza you are a whole lot sicker than you are with a
common cold."

"I guess I ought to get out of here tomorrow," I said.

"No reason why you shouldn't," he said. "You've had no fever for
two days and there doesn't seem to be any serious bronchial infec-
tion. You'll cough a little for a day or two, and then you ought to
be O.K."

The doctor sneezed suddenly.

"I hope I haven't given you my cold," I said.

"You may have," he said. "If there are any common cold germs,
I have doubtless picked some of them up from you. On the other
hand, it is probably just the turbinates seeing ghosts. Of course, a
piece of dust or something may have got up my nose just then and
made me sneeze, the sneeze being a reflex action designed by nature
to clear the nose of any irritating substance. But this reflex action
isn't absolutely dependable either, any more than the turbinates are.
I suspect that what happened just now was that the turbinates, for
some reason known only to themselves, got excited and worked up
an over-abundant amount of moisture; this moisture, trickling
through my nose, fooled my sensory nervous system into thinking
that there was some irritating substance in there and caused me to
sneeze. Sneezing, incidentally, isn't such a good method of ridding
the nose of an irritating substance because sneezing itself irritates
the nose."

"And perhaps causes or contributes to an inflammation of the
mucous membrane of the upper respiratory tract?"

"Exactly," he said.

September 1, 1939

BY W. H. AUDEN

I sit in one of the dives

On Fifty-Second Street

Uncertain and afraid

As the clever hopes expire

Of a low dishonest decade:

Waves of anger and fear

Circulate over the bright

And darkened lands of the earth,

Obsessing our private lives;

The unmentionable odour of death

Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can

Unearth the whole offence

From Luther until now

That has driven a culture mad,

Find what occurred at Linz,

What huge imago made

A psychopathic god:

I and the public know

What all schoolchildren learn,

Those to whom evil is done

Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,

79

80 W. H. AUDEN

The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air

Where blind skyscrapers use

Their full height to proclaim

The strength of Collective Man,

Each language pours its vain

Competitive excuse:

But who can live for long

In an euphoric dream;

Out of the mirror they stare,

Imperialism's face

And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar

Cling to their average day:

The lights must never go out,

The music must always play,

All the conventions conspire

To make this fort assume

The furniture of home;

Lest we should see where we are,

Lost in a haunted wood,

Children afraid of the night

Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

SEPTEMBER l, 1939 81

From the conservative dark

Into the ethical life

The dense commuters come,

Repeating their morning vow;

"I will be true to the wife,

I'll concentrate more on my work,"

And helpless governors wake

To resume their compulsory game:

Who can release them now,

Who can reach the deaf.

Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupour lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

Of this Time, of that Place

BY LIONEL TRILLING

It was a fine September day. By noon it would be summer again
but now it was true autumn with a touch of chill in the air. As
Joseph Howe stood on the porch of the house in which he lodged,
ready to leave for his first class of the year, he thought with pleasure
of the long indoor days that were coming. It was a moment when
he could feel glad of his profession.

On the lawn the peach tree was still in fruit and young Hilda
Aiken was taking a picture of it. She held the camera tight against
her chest. She wanted the sun behind her but she did not want her
own long morning shadow in the foreground. She raised the camera
but that did not help, and she lowered it but that made things worse.
She twisted her body to the left, then to the right. In the end she
had to step out of the direct line of the sun. At last she snapped the
shutter and wound the film with intense care.

Howe, watching her from the porch, waited for her to finish and
called good morning. She turned, startled, and almost sullenly low-
ered her glance. In the year Howe had lived at the Aikens', Hilda
had accepted him as one of her family, but since his absence of the
summer she had grown shy. Then suddenly she lifted her head and
smiled at him, and the humorous smile confirmed his pleasure in
the day. She picked up her bookbag and set off for school.

The handsome houses on the streets to the college were not yet
fully awake but they looked very friendly. Howe went by the Bradby
house where he would be a guest this evening at the first dinner-party
of the year. When he had gone the length of the picket fence, the
whitest in town, he turned back. Along the path there was a fine
row of asters and he went through the gate and picked one for his
buttonhole. The Bradbys would be pleased if they happened to see
him invading their lawn and the knowledge of this made him even
more comfortable.

He reached the campus as the hour was striking. The students

82

OF THIS TIME, OF THAT PLACE 83

were hurrying to their classes. He himself was in no hurry. He
stopped at his dim cubicle of an office and lit a cigarette. The pros-
pect of facing his class had suddenly presented itself to him and his
hands were cold, the lawful seizure of power he was about to make
seemed momentous. Waiting did not help. He put out his cigarette
picked up a pad and theme paper and went to his classroom.

As he entered, the rattle of voices ceased and the twenty-odd fresh-
men settled themselves and looked at him appraisingly. Their faces
seemed gross, his heart sank at their massed impassivity, but he
spoke briskly.

''My name is Howe," he said and turned and wrote it on the
blackboard. The carelessness of the scrawl confirmed his authority.
He went on, "My office is 412 Slemp Hall and my office-hours are
Monday, Wednesday and Friday from eleven-thirty to twelve-thirty."

He wrote, "M., W., F., 11:30-12:30." He said, "I'll be very glad
to see any of you at that time. Or if you can't come then, you can
arrange with me for some other time."

He turned again to the blackboard and spoke over his shoulder.
"The text for the course is Jarman's Modern Plays, revised edition.
The Co-op has it in stock." He wrote the name, underlined "revised
edition" and waited for it to be taken down in the new notebooks.

When the bent heads were raised again he began his speech of
prospectus. "It is hard to explain—" he said, and paused as they
composed themselves. "It is hard to explain what a course like this
is intended to do. We are going to try to learn something about
modern literature and something about prose composition."

As he spoke, his hands warmed and he was able to look directly
at the class. Last year on the first day the faces had seemed just as
cloddish, but as the term wore on they became gradually alive and
quite likable. It did not seem possible that the same thing could
happen again.

"I shall not lecture in this course," he continued. "Our work will
be carried on by discussion and we will try to learn by an exchange
of opinion. But you will soon recognize that my opinion is worth
more than anyone else's here."

He remained grave as he said it, but two boys understood and
laughed. The rest took permission from them and laughed too. All
Howe's private ironies protested the vulgarity of the joke but the
laughter made him feel benign and powerful.

When the little speech was finished, Howe picked up the pad of
paper he had brought. He announced that they would write an ex-
temporaneous theme. Its subject was traditional, "Who I am and

84 LIONEL TRILLING

why I came to D wight College." By now the class was more at ease
and it gave a ritualistic groan of protest. Then there was a stir as
fountain pens were brought out and the writing arms of the chairs
were cleared and the paper was passed about. At last all the heads
bent to work and the room became still.

Howe sat idly at his desk. The sun shone through the tall clumsy
windows. The cool of the morning was already passing. There was
a scent of autumn and of varnish, and the stillness of the room was
deep and oddly touching. Now and then a student's head was raised
and scratched in the old elaborate students' pantomime that calls
the teacher to witness honest intellectual effort.

Suddenly a tall boy stood within the frame of the open door. "Is
this," he said, and thrust a large nose into a college catalogue, "is
this the meeting place of English lA? The section instructed by Dr.
Joseph Howe?"

He stood on the very sill of the door, as if refusing to enter until
he was perfectly sure of all his rights. The class looked up from work,
found him absurd and gave a low mocking cheer.

The teacher and the new student, with equal pointedness, ignored
the disturbance. Howe nodded to the boy, who pushed his head for-
ward and then jerked it back in a wide elaborate arc to clear his
brow of a heavy lock of hair. He advanced into the room and halted
before Howe, almost at attention. In a loud clear voice he an-
nounced, "I am Tertan, Ferdinand R., reporting at the direction of
Head of Department Vincent."

The heraldic formality of this statement brought forth another
cheer. Howe looked at the class with a sternness he could not really
feel, for there was indeed something ridiculous about this boy.
Under his displeased regard the rows of heads dropped to work
again. Then he touched Tertan's elbow, led him up to the desk and
stood so as to shield their conversation from the class.

"We are writing an extemporaneous theme," he said. "The sub-
ject is, 'Who I am and why I came to Dwight College'."

He stripped a few sheets from the pad and offered them to the boy.
Tertan hesitated and then took the paper but he held it only
tentatively. As if with the effort of making something clear, he
gulped, and a slow smile fixed itself on his face. It was at once know-
ing and shy.

"Professor," he said, "to be perfectly fair to my classmates"— he
made a large gesture over the room— "and to you"— he inclined his
head to Howe— "this would not be for me an extemporaneous sub-
ject."

OF THIS TIME, OF THAT PLACE 85

Howe tried to understand. "You mean you've already thought
about it— you've heard we always give the same subject? That doesn't
matter."

Again the boy ducked his head and gulped. It was the gesture of
one who wishes to make a difficult explanation with perfect candor.
"Sir," he said, and made the distinction with great care, "the topic
I did not expect but I have given much ratiocination to the subject."

Howe smiled and said, "I don't think that's an unfair advantage.
Just go ahead and write."

Tertan narrowed his eyes and glanced sidewise at Howe. His
strange mouth smiled. Then in quizzical acceptance, he ducked his
head, threw back the heavy dank lock, dropped into a seat with a
great loose noise and began to write rapidly.

The room fell silent again and Howe resumed his idleness. When
the bell rang, the students who had groaned when the task had been
set now groaned again because they had not finished. Howe took up
the papers and held the class while he made the first assignment.
When he dismissed it, Tertan bore down on him, his slack mouth
held ready for speech.

"Some professors," he said, "are pedants. They are Dryasdusts.
However, some professors are free souls and creative spirits. Kant,
Hegel and Nietzsche were all professors." With this pronouncement
he paused. "It is my opinion," he continued, "that you occupy the
second category."

Howe looked at the boy in surprise and said with good-natured
irony, "With Kant, Hegel and Nietzsche?"

Not only Tertan's hand and head but his whole awkward body
waved away the stupidity. "It is the kind and not the quantity of the
kind," he said sternly.

Rebuked, Howe said as simply and seriously as he could, "It
would be nice to think so." He added, "Of course I am not a pro-
fessor."

This was clearly a disappointment but Tertan met it. "In the
French sense," he said with composure. "Generically, a teacher."

Suddenly he bowed. It was such a bow, Howe fancied, as a stage-
director might teach an actor playing a medieval student who takes
leave of Abelard— stiff, solemn, with elbows close to the body and
feet together. Then, quite as suddenly, he turned and left.

A queer fish, and as soon as Howe reached his office he sifted
through the batch of themes and drew out Tertan's. The boy had
filled many sheets with his unformed headlong scrawl. "Who am I?"
he had begun. "Here, in a mundane, not to say commercialized

86 LIONEL TRILLING

academe, is asked the question which from time long immemorably
out of mind has accreted doubts and thoughts in the psyche of man
to pester him as a nuisance. Whether in St. Augustine (or Austin as
sometimes called) or Miss Bashkirtsieff or Frederic Amiel or Em-
pedocles, or in less lights of the intellect than these, this posed ques-
tion has been ineluctable."

Howe took out his pencil. He circled "academe" and wrote
"vocab." in the margin. He underlined "time long immemorably
out of mind" and wrote "Diction!" But this seemed inadequate for
what was wrong. He put down his pencil and read ahead to discover
the principle of error in the theme. "Today as ever, in spite of
gloomy prophets of the dismal science (economics) the question is
uninvalidated. Out of the starry depths of heaven hurtles this spear
of query demanding to be caught on the shield of the mind ere it
pierces the skull and the limbs be unstrung."

Baffled but quite caught, Howe read on. "Materialism, by which
is meant the philosophic concept and not the moral idea, provides
no aegis against the question which lies beyond the tangible (meta-
physics). Existence without alloy is the question presented. Environ-
ment and heredity relegated aside, the rags and old clothes of prac-
tical life discarded, the name and the instrumentality of livelihood
do not, as the prophets of the dismal science insist on in this con-
nection, give solution to the interrogation which not from the pro-
fessor merely but veritably from the cosmos is given. I think, there-
fore I am (cogito etc.) but who am I? Tertan I am, but what is
Tertan? Of this time, of that place, of some parentage, what does it
matter?"

Existence without alloy: the phrase established itself. Howe put
aside Tertan's paper and at random picked up another. "I am
Arthur J. Casebeer, Jr.," he read. "My father is Arthur J. Casebeer
and my grandfather was Arthur J. Casebeer before him. My mother
is Nina Wimble Casebeer. Both of them are college graduates and
my father is in insurance. I was born in St. Louis eighteen years ago
and we still make our residence there."

Arthur J. Casebeer, who knew who he was, was less interesting
than Tertan, but more coherent. Howe picked up Tertan's paper
again. It was clear that none of the routine marginal comments, no
"sent, str." or "punct." or "vocab." could cope with this torrential
rhetoric. He read ahead, contenting himself with underscoring the
errors against the time when he should have the necessary "con-
ference" with Tertan.

It was a busy and official day of cards and sheets, arrangements and

OF THIS TIME, OF THAT PLACE 87

small decisions and it gave Howe pleasure. Even when it was time
to attend the first of the weekly Convocations he felt the charm of the
beginning of things when intention is still innocent and uncorrupted
by effort. He sat among the young instructors on the platform and
joined in their humorous complaints at having to assist at the cere-
mony but actually he got a clear satisfaction from the ritual of
prayer and prosy speech and even from wearing his academic gown.
And when the Convocation was over the pleasure continued as he
crossed the campus, exchanging greetings with men he had not seen
since the spring. They were people who did not yet, and perhaps
never would, mean much to him, but in a year they had grown
amiably to be part of his life. They were his fellow-townsmen.

The day had cooled again at sunset and there was a bright chill
in the September twilight. Howe carried his voluminous gown over
his arm, he swung his doctoral hood by its purple neckpiece and on
his head he wore his mortarboard with its heavy gold tassel bobbing
just over his eye. These were the weighty and absurd symbols of his
new profession and they pleased him. At twenty-six Joseph Howe
had discovered that he was neither so well off nor so bohemian as
he had once thought. A small income, adequate when supplemented
by a sizable cash legacy, was genteel poverty when the cash was all
spent. And the literary life— the room at the Lafayette or the small
apartment without a lease, the long summers on the Cape, the long
afternoons and the social evenings— began to weary him. His writing
filled his mornings and should perhaps have filled his life, yet it did
not. To the amusement of his friends and with a certain sense that
he was betraying his own freedom, he had used the last of his legacy
for a year at Harvard. The small but respectable reputation of his
two volumes of verse had proved useful— he continued at Harvard
on a fellowship and when he emerged as Dr. Howe he received an
excellent appointment, with prospects, at Dwight.

He had his moments of fear when all that had ever been said of
the dangers of the academic life had occurred to him. But after a
year in which he had tested every possibility of corruption and
seduction he was ready to rest easy. His third volume of verse, most
of it written in his first year of teaching, was not only ampler but, he
thought, better than its predecessors.

There was a clear hour before the Bradby dinner-party and Howe
looked forward to it. But he was not to enjoy it, for lying with his
mail on the hall table was a copy of this quarter's issue of Life and
Letters^ to which his landlord subscribed. Its severe cover announced
that its editor, Frederic Woolley, had this month contributed an

88 LIONEL TRILLING

essay called "Two Poets," and Howe, picking it up, curious to see
who the two poets might be, felt his own name start out at him with
cabalistic power— Joseph Howe. As he continued to turn the pages
his hand trembled.

Standing in the dark hall, holding the neat little magazine, Howe
knew that his literary contempt for Frederic Woolley meant noth-
ing, for he suddenly understood how he respected Woolley in the
way of the world. He knew this by the trembling of his hand. And of
the little world as well as the great, for although the literary groups
of New York might dismiss Woolley, his name carried high authority
in the academic world. At D wight it was even a revered name, for it
had been here at the college that Frederic Woolley had made the dis-
tinguished scholarly career from which he had gone on to literary
journalism. In middle life he had been induced to take the editorship
of Life and Letters, a literary monthly not widely read but heavily
endowed and in its pages he had carried on the defense of what he
sometimes called the older values. He was not without wit, he had
great knowledge and considerable taste and even in the full move-
ment of the "new" literature he had won a certain respect for his
refusal to accept it. In France, even in England, he would have been
connected with a more robust tradition of conservatism, but Amer-
ica gave him an audience not much better than genteel. It was
known in the college that to the subsidy of Life and Letters the Brad-
bys contributed a great part.

As Howe read, he saw that he was involved in nothing less than
an event. When the Fifth Series of Studies in Order and Value came
to be collected, this latest of Frederic Woolley's essays would not be
merely another step in the old direction. Clearly and unmistakably,
it was a turning point. All his literary life Woolley had been con-
cerned with the relation of literature to mortality, religion and the
private and delicate pieties and he had been unalterably opposed to
all that he had called "inhuman humanitarianism." But here, sud-
denly, dramatically late, he had made an about-face, turning to the
public life and to the humanitarian politics he had so long despised.
This was the kind of incident the histories of literature make much
of. Frederic Woolley was opening for himself a new career and
winning a kind of new youth. He contrasted the two poets, Thomas
Wormser who was admirable, Joseph Howe who was almost danger-
ous. He spoke of the "precious subjectivism" of Howe's verse. "In
times like ours," he wrote, "with millions facing penury and want,
one feels that the qualities of the tour d'ivoire are well-nigh in-
human, nearly insulting. The tour d'ivoire becomes the tour d'ivresse

OF THIS TIME, OF THAT PLACE 89

and it is not self-intoxicated poets that our people need." The essay
said more: "The problem is one of meaning. I am not ignorant that
the creed of the esoteric poets declares that a poem does not and
should not mean anything, that it 15 something. But poetry is what
the poet makes it, and if he is a true poet he makes what his society
needs. And what is needed now is the tradition in which Mr.
Wormser writes, the true tradition of poetry. The Howes do no
harm, but they do no good when positive good is demanded of all
responsible men. Or do the Howes indeed do no harm? Perhaps
Plato would have said they do, that in some ways theirs is the
Phrygian music that turns men's minds from the struggle. Certainly
it is true that Thomas Wormser writes in the lucid Dorian mode
which sends men into battle with evil."

It was easy to understand why Woolley had chosen to praise
Thomas Wormser. The long, lilting lines of Corn Under Willows
hymned, as Woolley put it, the struggle for wheat in the Iowa fields
and expressed the real lives of real people. But why out of the dozen
more notable examples he had chosen Howe's little volume as the
example of "precious subjectivism" was hard to guess. In a way it
was funny, this multiplication of himself into "the Howes." And yet
this becoming the multiform political symbol by whose creation
Frederic Woolley gave the sign of a sudden new life, this use of him
as a sacrifice whose blood was necessary for the rites of rejuvenation,
made him feel oddly unclean.

Nor could Howe get rid of a certain practical resentment. As a
poet he had a special and respectable place in the college life. But it
might be another thing to be marked as the poet of a wilful and
selfish obscurity.

As he walked to the Bradbys' Howe was a little tense and defen-
sive. It seemed to him that all the world knew of the "attack" and
agreed with it. And indeed the Bradbys had read the essay but
Professor Bradby, a kind and pretentious man, said, "I see my old
friend knocked you about a bit, my boy," and his wife Eugenia
looked at Howe with her childlike blue eyes and said, "I shall scold
Frederic for the untrue things he wrote about you. You aren't the
least obscure." They beamed at him. In their genial snobbery they
seemed to feel that he had distinguished himself. He was the leader
of Howeism. He enjoyed the dinner-party as much as he had thought
he would.

And in the following days, as he was more preoccupied with his
duties, the incident was forgotten. His classes had ceased to be mere
groups. Student after student detached himself from the mass and

90 LIONEL TRILLING

required or claimed a place in Howe's awareness. Of them all it was
Tertan who first and most violently signalled his separate existence.
A week after classes had begun Howe saw his silhouette on the
frosted glass of his office door. It was motionless for a long time,
perhaps stopped by the problem of whether or not to knock before
entering. Howe called, "Come in!" and Tertan entered with his
shambling stride.

He stood beside the desk, silent and at attention. When Howe
asked him to sit down, he responded with a gesture of head and
hand as if to say that such amenities were beside the point. Never-
theless he did take the chair. He put his ragged crammed briefcase
between his legs. His face, which Howe now observed fully for the
first time, was confusing, for it was made up of florid curves, the
nose arched in the bone and voluted in the nostril, the mouth loose
and soft and rather moist. Yet the face was so thin and narrow as to
seem the very type of asceticism. Lashes of unusual length veiled the
eyes and, indeed, it seemed as if there were a veil over the whole
countenance. Before the words actually came, the face screwed itself
into an attitude of preparation for them.

"You can confer with me now?" Tertan said.

"Yes, I'd be glad to. There are several things in your two themes
I want to talk to you about." Howe reached for the packet of themes
on his desk and sought for Tertan's. But the boy was waving them
away.

"These are done perforce," he said. "Under the. pressure of your
requirement. They are not significant, mere duties." Again his great
hand flapped vaguely to dismiss his themes. He leaned forward and
gazed at his teacher.

"You are," he said, "a man of letters? You are a poet?" It was
more declaration than question.

"I should like to think so," Howe said.

At first Tertan accepted the answer with a show of appreciation,
as though the understatement made a secret between himself and
Howe. Then he chose to misunderstand. With his shrewd and dis-
concerting control of expression, he presented to Howe a puzzled
grimace. "What does that mean?" he said.

Howe retracted the irony. "Yes. I am a poet." It sounded strange
to say.

"That," Tertan said, "is a wonder." He corrected himself with
his ducking head. "I mean that is wonderful."

Suddenly he dived at the miserable briefcase between his legs, put
it on his knees and began to fumble with the catch, all intent on

OF THIS TIME, OF THAT PLACE 91

the difficulty it presented. Howe noted that his suit was worn thin,
his shirt almost unclean. He became aware, even, of a vague and
musty odor of garments worn too long in unaired rooms. Tertan
conquered the lock and began to concentrate upon a search into the
interior. At last he held in his hand what he was after, a torn and
crumpled copy of Life and Letters.

"I learned it from here," he said, holding it out.

Howe looked at him sharply, his hackles a little up. But the boy's
face was not only perfectly innocent, it even shone with a conscious
admiration. Apparently nothing of the import of the essay had
touched him except the wonderful fact that his teacher was a "man
of letters." Yet this seemed too stupid and Howe, to test it, said, "The
man who wrote that doesn't think it's wonderful."

Tertan made a moist hissing sound as he cleared his mouth of
saliva. His head, oddly loose on his neck, wove a pattern of con-
tempt in the air. "A critic," he said, "who admits prima facie that
he does not understand." Then he said grandly, "It is the inevitable
fate."

It was absurd, yet Howe was not only aware of the absurdity but
of a tension suddenly and wonderfully relaxed. Now that the
"attack" was on the table between himself and this strange boy and
subject to the boy's funny and absolutely certain contempt, the
hidden force of his feeling was revealed to him in the very moment
that it vanished. All unsuspected, there had been a film over the
world, a transparent but discoloring haze of danger. But he had no
time to stop over the brightened aspect of things. Tertan was going
on. "I also am a man of letters. Putative."

"You have written a good deal?" Howe meant to be no more than
polite and he was surprised at the tenderness he heard in his wrords.

Solemnly the boy nodded, threw back the dank lock and sucked
in a deep anticipatory breath. "First, a work of homiletics, which is
a defense of the principles of religious optimism against the pes-
simism of Schopenhauer and the humanism of Nietzsche."

"Humanism? Why do you call it humanism?"

"It is my nomenclature for making a deity of man," Tertan
replied negligently. "Then three fictional works, novels. And numer-
ous essays in science, combating materialism. Is it your duty to read
these if I bring them to you?"

Howe answered simply, "No, it isn't exactly my duty but I shall
be happy to read them."

Tertan stood up and remained silent. He rested his bag on the
chair. With a certain compunction— for it did not seem entirely

92 LIONEL TRILLING

proper that, of two men of letters, one should have the right to blue-
pencil the other, to grade* him or to question the quality of his
"sentence structure"— Howe reached for Tertan's papers. But before
he could take them up, the boy suddenly made his bow-to-Abelard,
the stiff inclination of the body with the hands seeming to emerge
from the scholar's gown. Then he was gone.

But after his departure something was still left of him. The timbre
of his curious sentences, the downright finality of so quaint a phrase
as "It is the inevitable fate" still rang in the air. Howe gave the
warmth of his feeling to the new visitor who stood at the door an-
nouncing himself with a genteel clearing of the throat.

"Dr. Howe, I believe?" the student said. A large hand advanced
into the room and grasped Howe's hand. "Blackburn, sir, Theodore
Blackburn, vice-president of the Student Council. A great pleasure,
sir."

Out of a pair of ruddy cheeks a pair of small eyes twinkled good-
naturedly. The large face, the large body were not so much fat as
beefy and suggested something "typical," monk, politician, or inn-
keeper.

Blackburn took the seat beside Howe's desk. "I may have seemed
to introduce myself in my public capacity, sir," he said. "But it is
really as an individual that I came to see you. That is to say, as one
of your students to be."

He spoke with an "English" intonation and he went on, "I was
once an English major, sir."

For a moment Howe was startled, for the roast-beef look of the
boy and the manner of his speech gave a second's credibility to one
sense of his statement. Then the collegiate meaning of the phrase
asserted itself, but some perversity made Howe say what was not
really in good taste even with so forward a student, "Indeed? What
regiment?"

Blackburn stared and then gave a little pouf-pouf of laughter. He
waved the misapprehension away. "Very good, sir. It certainly is an
ambiguous term." He chuckled in appreciation of Howe's joke, then
cleared his throat to put it aside. "I look forward to taking your
course in the romantic poets, sir," he said earnestly. "To me the
romantic poets are the very crown of English literature."

Howe made a dry sound, and the boy, catching some meaning in
it, said, "Little as I know them, of course. But even Shakespeare who
is so dear to us of the Anglo-Saxon tradition is in a sense but the
preparation for Shelley, Keats and Byron. And Wadsworth."

Almost sorry for him, Howe dropped his eyes. With some embar-

OF THIS TIME, OF THAT PLACE 93

rassment, for the boy was not actually his student, he said softly,
"Wordsworth."

"Sir?"

"Wordsworth, not Wadsworth. You said Wadsworth."

"Did I, sir?" Gravely he shook his head to rebuke himself for the
error. "Wordsworth, of course— slip of the tongue." Then, quite in
command again, he went on. "I have a favor to ask of you, Dr. Howe.
You see, I began my college course as an English major,"— he smiled
—"as I said."

"Yes?"

"But after my first year I shifted. I shifted to the social sciences.
Sociology and government— I find them stimulating and very real."
He paused, out of respect for reality. "But now I find that perhaps I
have neglected the other side."

"The other side?" Howe said.

"Imagination, fancy, culture. A well rounded man." He trailed
off as if there were perfect understanding between them. "And so,
sir, I have decided to end my senior year with your course in the
romantic poets."

His voice was filled with an indulgence which Howe ignored as
he said flatly and gravely, "But that course isn't given until the spring
term."

"Yes, sir, and that is where the favor comes in. Would you let me
take your romantic prose course? I can't take it for credit, sir, my
program is full, but just for background it seems to me that I ought
to take it. I do hope," he concluded in a manly way, "that you will
consent."

"Well, it's no great favor, Mr. Blackburn. You can come if you
wish, though there's not much point in it if you don't do the
reading."

The bell rang for the hour and Howe got up.

"May I begin with this class, sir?" Blackburn's smile was candid
and boyish.

Howe nodded carelessly and together, silently, they walked to the
classroom down the hall. When they reached the door Howe stood
back to let his student enter, but Blackburn moved adroitly behind
him and grasped him by the arm to urge him over the threshold.
They entered together with Blackburn's hand firmly on Howe's
biceps, the student inducting the teacher into his own room. Howe
felt a surge of temper rise in him and almost violently he disengaged
his arm and walked to the desk, while Blackburn found a seat in the
front row and smiled at him.

94 LIONEL TRILLING

II

The question was, At whose door must the tragedy be laid?

All night the snow had fallen heavily and only now was abating
in sparse little flurries. The windows were valanced high with white.
It was very quiet, something of the quiet of the world had reached
the class and Howe found that everyone was glad to talk or listen. In
the room there was a comfortable sense of pleasure in being human.

Casebeer believed that the blame for the tragedy rested with
heredity. Picking up the book he read, "The sins of the fathers are
visited on their children." This opinion was received with general
favor. Nevertheless Johnson ventured to say that the fault was all
Pastor Manders' because the Pastor had made Mrs. Alving go back
to her husband and was always hiding the truth. To this Hibbard
objected with logic enough, "Well then, it was really all her hus-
band's fault. He did all the bad things." De Witt, his face bright
with an impatient idea, said that the fault was all society's. "By
society I don't mean upper-crust society," he said. He looked around
a little defiantly, taking in any members of the class who might be
members of upper-crust society. "Not in that sense. I mean the
social unit."

Howe nodded and said, "Yes, of course."

"If the society of the time had progressed far enough in science,"
De Witt went on, "then there would be no problem for Mr. Ibsen
to write about. Captain Alving plays around a little, gives way to
perfectly natural biological urges, and he gets a social disease, a
venereal disease. If the disease is cured, no problem. Invent salvarsan
and the disease is cured. The problem of heredity disappears and li'l
Oswald just doesn't get paresis. No paresis, no problem— no problem,
no play."

This was carrying the ark into battle and the class looked at
De Witt with respectful curiosity. It was his usual way and on the
whole they were sympathetic with his struggle to prove to Howe that
science was better than literature. Still, there was something in his
reckless manner that alienated them a little.

"Or take birth-control, for instance," De Witt went on. "If Mrs.
Alving had some knowledge of contraception, she wouldn't have had
to have li'l Oswald at all. No li'l Oswald, no play."

The class was suddenly quieter. In the back row Stettenhover
swung his great football shoulders in a righteous sulking gesture,
first to the right, then to the left. He puckered his mouth ostenta-
tiously. Intellect was always ending up by talking dirty.

OF THIS TIME, OF THAT PLACE 95

Tertan's hand went up and Howe said, "Mr. Tertan." The boy
shambled to his feet and began his long characteristic gulp. Howe
made a motion with his fingers, as small as possible, and Tertan
ducked his head and smiled in apology. He sat down. The class
laughed. With more than half the term gone, Tertan had not been
able to remember that one did not rise to speak. He seemed unable
to carry on the life of the intellect without this mark of respect for
it. To Howe the boy's habit of rising seemed to accord with the
formal shabbiness of his dress. He never wore the casual sweaters
and jackets of his classmates. Into the free and comfortable air of the
college classroom he brought the stuffy sordid strictness of some
crowded metropolitan high school.

"Speaking from one sense," Tertan began slowly, "there is no
blame ascribable. From the sense of determinism, who can say where
the blame lies? The preordained is the preordained and it cannot be
said without rebellion against the universe, a palpable absurdity."

In the back row Stettenhover slumped suddenly in his seat, his
heels held out before him, making a loud dry disgusted sound. His
body sank until his neck rested on the back of his chair. He folded
his hands across his belly and looked significantly out of the window,
exasperated not only with Tertan but with Howe, with the class,
with the whole system designed to encourage this kind of thing.
There was a certain insolence in the movement and Howe flushed.
As Tertan continued to speak, Howe stalked casually toward the
window and placed himself in the line of Stettenhover's vision. He
stared at the great fellow, who pretended not to see him. There was
so much power in the big body, so much contempt in the Greek-
athlete face under the crisp Greek-athlete curls, that Howe felt
almost physical fear. But at last Stettenhover admitted him to focus
and under his disapproving gaze sat up with slow indifference. His
eyebrows raised high in resignation, he began to examine his hands.
Howe relaxed and turned his attention back to Tertan.

"Flux of existence," Tertan was saying, "produces all things, so
that judgment wavers. Beyond the phenomena, what? But phenom-
ena are adumbrated and to them we are limited."

Howe saw it for a moment as perhaps it existed in the boy's mind
—the world of shadows which are cast by a great light upon a hidden
reality as in the old myth of the Cave. But the little brush with
Stettenhover had tired him and he said irritably, "But come to the
point, Mr. Tertan."

He said it so sharply that some of the class looked at him curiously.
For three months he had gently carried Tertan through his ver-

96 LIONEL TRILLING

bosities, to the vaguely respectful surprise of the other students, who
seemed to conceive that there existed between this strange classmate
and their teacher some special understanding from which they were
content to be excluded. Tertan looked at him mildly and at once
came brilliantly to the point. "This is the summation of the play,"
he said and took up his book and read, ' 'Your poor father never
found any outlet for the overmastering joy of life that was in him.
And I brought no holiday into his home, either. Everything seemed
to turn upon duty and I am afraid I made your poor father's home
unbearable to him, Oswald.' Spoken by Mrs. Alving."

Yes, that was surely the "summation" of the play and Tertan had
hit it, as he hit, deviously and eventually, the literary point of almost
everything. But now, as always, he was wrapping it away from sight.
"For most mortals," he said, "there are only joys of biological
urgings, gross and crass, such as the sensuous Captain Alving. For
certain few there are the transmutations beyond these to a contem-
plation of the utter whole."

Oh, the boy was mad. And suddenly the word, used in hyperbole,
intended almost for the expression of exasperated admiration, be-
came literal. Now that the word was used, it became simply apparent
to Howe that Tertan was mad.

It was a monstrous word and stood like a bestial thing in the room.
Yet it so completely comprehended everything that had puzzled
Howe, it so arranged and explained what for three months had been
perplexing him that almost at once its horror became domesticated.
With this word Howe was able to understand why he had never been
able to communicate to Tertan the value of a single criticism or
correction of his wild, verbose themes. Their conferences had been
frequent and long but had done nothing to reduce to order the
splendid confusion of the boy's ideas. Yet, impossible though its
expression was, Tertan's incandescent mind could always strike for
a moment into some dark corner of thought.

And now it was suddenly apparent that it was not a faulty rhetoric
that Howe had to contend with. With his new knowledge he looked
at Tertan's face and wondered how he could have so long deceived
himself. Tertan was still talking and the class had lapsed into a kind
of patient unconsciousness, a coma of respect for words which, for all
that most of them knew, might be profound. Almost with a suffusion
of shame, Howe believed that in some dim way the class had long ago
had some intimation of Tertan's madness. He reached out as deci-
sively as he could to seize the thread of Tertan's discourse before it
should be entangled further.

OF THIS TIME, OF THAT PLACE 97

"Mr. Tertan says that the blame must be put upon whoever kills
the joy of living in another. We have been assuming that Captain
Alving was a wholly bad man, but what if we assume that he became
bad only because Mrs. Alving, when they were first married, acted
toward him in the prudish way she says she did?"

It was a ticklish idea to advance to freshmen and perhaps not
profitable. Not all of them were following.

"That would put the blame on Mrs. Alving herself, whom most
of you admire. And she herself seems to think so." He glanced at
his watch. The hour was nearly over. "What do you think, Mr.
De Witt?"

De Witt rose to the idea, he wanted to know if society couldn't
be blamed for educating Mrs. Alving's temperament in the wrong
way. Casebeer was puzzled, Stettenhover continued to look at his
hands until the bell rang.

Tertan, his brows louring in thought, was making as always for
a private word. Howe gathered his books and papers to leave quickly.
At this moment of his discovery and with the knowledge still raw, he
could not engage himself with Tertan. Tertan sucked in his breath
to prepare for speech and Howe made ready for the pain and con-
fusion. But at that moment Casebeer detached himself from the
group with which he had been conferring and which he seemed to
represent. His constituency remained at a tactful distance. The mis-
sion involved the time of an assigned essay. Casebeer's presentation
of the plea— it was based on the freshmen's heavy duties at the fra-
ternities during Carnival Week— cut across Tertan's preparations for
speech. "And so some of us fellows thought," Casebeer concluded
with heavy solemnity, "that we could do a better job, give our minds
to it more, if we had more time."

Tertan regarded Casebeer with mingled curiosity and revulsion.
Howe not only said that he would postpone the assignment but went
on to talk about the Carnival and even drew the waiting constituency
into the conversation. He was conscious of Tertan's stern and aston-
ished stare, then of his sudden departure.

Now that the fact was clear, Howe knew that he must act on it. His
course was simple enough. He must lay the case before the Dean.
Yet he hesitated. His feeling for Tertan must now, certainly, be in
some way invalidated. Yet could he, because of a word, hurry to
assign to official and reasonable solicitude what had been, until this
moment, so various and warm? He could at least delay and, by mov-
ing slowly, lend a poor grace to the necessary, ugly act of making
his report.

98 LIONEL TRILLING

It was with some notion of keeping the matter in his own hands
that he went to the Dean's office to look up Tertan's records. In the
outer office the Dean's secretary greeted him brightly and at his re-
quest brought him the manila folder with the small identifying
photograph pasted in the corner. She laughed. "He was looking for
the birdie in the wrong place," she said.

Howe leaned over her shoulder to look at the picture. It was as bad
as all the Dean's-office photographs were, but it differed from all that
Howe had ever seen. Tertan, instead of looking into the camera, as
no doubt he had been bidden, had, at the moment of exposure,
turned his eyes upward. His mouth, as though conscious of the trick
played on the photographer, had the sly superior look that Howe
knew.

The secretary was fascinated by the picture. "What a funny boy,"
she said. "He looks like Tartuffe!"

And so he did, with the absurd piety of the eyes and the conscious
slyness of the mouth and the whole face bloated by the bad lens.

"Is he like that?" the secretary said.

"Like Tartuffe? No."

From the photograph there was little enough comfort to be had.
The records themselves gave no clue to madness, though they sug-
gested sadness enough. Howe read of a father, Stanislaus Tertan,
born in Budapest and trained in engineering in Berlin, once em-
ployed by the Hercules Chemical Corporation— this was one of
the factories that dominated the sound end of the town— but now
without employment. He read of a mother Erminie (Youngfellow)
Tertan, born in Manchester, educated at a Normal School at Leeds,
now housewife by profession. The family lived on Greenbriar Street
which Howe knew as a row of once elegant homes near what was
now the factory district. The old mansions had long ago been divided
into small and primitive apartments. Of Ferdinand himself there was
little to learn. He lived with his parents, had attended a Detroit high
school and had transferred to the local school in his last year. His
rating for intelligence, as expressed in numbers, was high, his scholas-
tic record was remarkable, he held a college scholarship for his
tuition.

Howe laid the folder on the secretary's desk. "Did you find what
you wanted to know?" she asked.

The phrases from Tertan's momentous first theme came back to
him. "Tertan I am, but what is Tertan? Of this time, of that place,
of some parentage, what does it matter?"

"No, I didn't find it," he said.

OF THIS TIME, OF THAT PLACE 99

Now that he had consulted the sad half-meaningless record he
knew all the more firmly that he must not give the matter out of his
own hands. He must not release Tertan to authority. Not that he
anticipated from the Dean anything but the greatest kindness for
Tertan. The Dean would have the experience and skill which he
himself could not have. One way or another the Dean could answer
the question, "What is Tertan?" Yet this was precisely what he
feared. He alone could keep alive— not forever but for a somehow
important time— the question, "What is Tertan?" He alone could
keep it still a question. Some sure instinct told him that he must not
surrender the question to a clean official desk in a clear official light
to be dealt with, settled and closed.

He heard himself saying, "Is the Dean busy at the moment? I'd
like to see him."

His request came thus unbidden, even forbidden, and it was one
of the surprising and startling incidents of his life. Later, when he
reviewed the events, so disconnected in themselves or so merely odd,
of the story that unfolded for him that year, it was over this moment,
on its face the least notable, that he paused longest. It was fre-
quently to be with fear and never without a certainty of its meaning
in his own knowledge of himself that he would recall this simple,
routine request and the feeling of shame and freedom it gave him as
he sent everything down the official chute. In the end, of course, no
matter what he did to "protect" Tertan, he would have had to make
the same request and lay the matter on the Dean's clean desk. But
it would always be a landmark of his life that, at the very moment
when he was rejecting the official way, he had been, without will or
intention, so gladly drawn to it.

After the storm's last delicate flurry, the sun had come out. Re-
flected by the new snow, it filled the office with a golden light which
was almost musical in the way it made all the commonplace objects
of efficiency shine with a sudden sad and noble significance. And the
light, now that he noticed it, made the utterance of his perverse and
unwanted request even more momentous.

The secretary consulted the engagement pad. "He'll be free any
minute. Don't you want to wait in the parlor?"

She threw open the door of the large and pleasant room in which
the Dean held his Committee meetings and in which his visitors
waited. It was designed with a homely elegance on the masculine
side of the eighteenth century manner. There was a small coal-fire
in the grate and the handsome mahogany table was strewn with
books and magazines. The large windows gave on the snowy lawn

ioo LIONEL TRILLING

and there was such a fine width of window that the white casements
and walls seemed at this moment but a continuation of the snow, the
snow but an extension of casement and walls. The outdoors seemed
taken in and made safe, the indoors seemed luxuriously freshened
and expanded.

Howe sat down by the fire and lighted a cigarette. The room had
its intended effect upon him. He felt comfortable and relaxed, yet
nicely organized, some young diplomatic agent of the eighteenth cen-
tury, the newly fledged Swift carrying out Sir William Temple's
business. The rawness of Tertan's case quite vanished. He crossed
his legs and reached for a magazine.

It was that famous issue of Life and Letters that his idle hand had
found and his blood raced as he sifted through it and the shape of
his own name, Joseph Howe, sprang out at him, still cabalistic in its
power. He tossed the magazine back on the table as the door of the
Dean's office opened and the Dean ushered out Theodore Blackburn.

"Ah, Joseph!" the Dean said.

Blackburn said, "Good morning, Doctor." Howe winced at the
title and caught the flicker of amusement over the Dean's face. The
Dean stood with his hand high on the door-jamb and Blackburn,
still in the doorway, remained standing almost under his long arm.

Howe nodded briefly to Blackburn, snubbing his eager deference.
"Can you give me a few minutes?" he said to the Dean.

"All the time you want. Come in." Before the two men could
enter the office, Blackburn claimed their attention with a long full
"Er." As they turned to him, Blackburn said, "Can you give me a
few minutes, Dr. Howe?" His eyes sparkled at the little audacity he
had committed, the slightly impudent play with hierarchy. Of the
three of them Blackburn kept himself the lowest, but he reminded
Howe of his subaltern relation to the Dean.

"I mean, of course," Blackburn went on easily, "when you've
finished with the Dean."

"I'll be in my office shortly," Howe said, turned his back on the
ready "Thank you, sir," and followed the Dean into the inner room.

"Energetic boy," said the Dean. "A bit beyond himself but very
energetic. Sit down."

The Dean lighted a cigarette, leaned back in his chair, sat easy
and silent for a moment, giving Howe no signal to go ahead with
business. He was a young Dean, not much beyond forty, a tall hand-
some man with sad, ambitious eyes. He had been a Rhodes scholar.
His friends looked for great things from him and it was generally said

OF THIS TIME, OF THAT PLACE 101

that he had notions of education which he was not yet ready to try to
put into practice.

His relaxed silence was meant as a compliment to Howe. He
smiled and said, "What's the business, Joseph?"

"Do you know Tertan— Ferdinand Tertan, a freshman?"

The Dean's cigarette was in his mouth and his hands were clasped
behind his head. He did not seem to search his memory for the name.
He said, "What about him?"

Clearly the Dean knew something and he was waiting for Howe
to tell him more. Howe moved only tentatively. Now that he was
doing what he had resolved not to do, he felt more guilty at having
been so long deceived by Tertan and more need to be loyal to his
error.

"He's a strange fellow," he ventured. He said stubbornly, "In a
strange way he's very brilliant." He concluded, "But very strange."

The springs of the Dean's swivel chair creaked as he came out of
his sprawl and leaned forward to Howe. "Do you mean he's so
strange that it's something you could give a name to?"

Howe looked at him stupidly. "What do you mean?" he said.

"What's his trouble?" the Dean said more neutrally.

"He's very brilliant, in a way. I looked him up and he has a top
intelligence rating. But somehow, and it's hard to explain just how,
what he says is always on the edge of sense and doesn't quite
make it."

The Dean looked at him and Howe flushed up. The Dean had
surely read Woolley on the subject of "the Howes" and the tour
d'ivresse. Was that quick glance ironical?

The Dean picked up some papers from his desk and Howe could
see that they were in Tertan's impatient scrawl. Perhaps the little
gleam in the Dean's glance had come only from putting facts to-
gether.

"He sent me this yesterday," the Dean said. "After an interview I
had with him. I haven't been able to do more than glance at it.
When you said what you did, I realized there was something wrong."

Twisting his mouth, the Dean looked over the letter. "You seem
to be involved," he said without looking up. "By the way, what did
you give him at mid-term?"

Flushing, setting his shoulders, Howe said firmly, "I gave him
A-minus."

The Dean chuckled. "Might be a good idea if some of our nicer
boys went crazy— just a little." He said, "Well," to conclude the

102 LIONEL TRILLING

matter and handed the papers to Howe. "See if this is the same thing
you've been finding. Then we can go into the matter again."

Before the fire in the parlor, in the chair that Howe had been
occupying, sat Blackburn. He sprang to his feet as Howe entered.

"I said my office, Mr. Blackburn." Howe's voice was sharp. Then
he was almost sorry for the rebuke, so clearly and naively did Black-
burn seem to relish his stay in the parlor, close to authority.

"I'm in a bit of a hurry, sir," he said, "and I did want to be sure to
speak to you, sir."

He was really absurd, yet fifteen years from now he would have
grown up to himself, to the assurance and mature beefiness. In banks,
in consular offices, in brokerage firms, on the bench, more seriously
affable, a little sterner, he would make use of his ability to be admin-
istered by his job. It was almost reassuring. Now he was exercising
his too-great skill on Howe. "I owe you an apology, sir," he said.

Howe knew that he did but he showed surprise.

"I mean, Doctor, after your having been so kind about letting me
attend your class, I stopped coming." He smiled in deprecation.
"Extra-curricular activities take up so much of my time. I'm afraid
I undertook more than I could perform."

Howe had noticed the absence and had been a little irritated by
it after Blackburn's elaborate plea. It was an absence that might be
interpreted as a comment on the teacher. But there was only one
way for him to answer. "You've no need to apologize," he said. "It's
wholly your affair."

Blackburn beamed. "I'm so glad you feel that way about it, sir.
I was worried you might think I had stayed away because I was
influenced by " He stopped and lowered his eyes.

Astonished, Howe said, "Influenced by what?"

"Well, by " Blackburn hesitated and for answer pointed to the

table on which lay the copy of Life and Letters. Without looking at
it, he knew where to direct his hand. "By the unfavorable publicity,
sir." He hurried on. "And that brings me to another point, sir. I am
vice-president of Quill and Scroll, sir, the student literary society,
and I wonder if you would address us. You could read your own
poetry, sir, and defend your own point of view. It would be very
interesting."

It was truly amazing. Howe looked long and cruelly into Black-
burn's face, trying to catch the secret of the mind that could have
conceived this way of manipulating him, this way so daring and inept
—but not entirely inept— with its malice so without malignity. The
face did not yield its secret. Howe smiled broadly and said, "Of

OF THIS TIME, OF THAT PLACE 103

course I don't think you were influenced by the unfavorable pub-
licity."

"I'm still going to take— regularly, for credit— your romantic poets
course next term," Blackburn said.

"Don't worry, my dear fellow, don't worry about it."
Howe started to leave and Blackburn stopped him with, "But
about Quill, sir?"

"Suppose we wait until next term? I'll be less busy then."
And Blackburn said, "Very good, sir, and thank you."
In his office the little encounter seemed less funny to Howe, was
even in some indeterminate way disturbing. He made an effort to
put it from his mind by turning to what was sure to disturb him
more, the Tertan letter read in the new interpretation. He found
what he had always found, the same florid leaps beyond fact and
meaning, the same headlong certainty. But as his eye passed over the
familiar scrawl it caught his own name and for the second time that
hour he felt the race of his blood.

"The Paraclete," Tertan had written to the Dean, "from a Greek
word meaning to stand in place of, but going beyond the primitive
idea to mean traditionally the helper, the one who comforts and
assists, cannot without fundamental loss be jettisoned. Even if taken
no longer in the supernatural sense, the concept remains deeply in
the human consciousness inevitably. Humanitarianism is no reply,
for not every man stands in the place of every other man for this
other's comrade comfort. But certain are chosen out of the human
race to be the consoler of some other. Of these, for example, is
Joseph Barker Howe, Ph.D. Of intellects not the first yet of true
intellect and lambent instructions, given to that which is intuitive
and irrational, not to what is logical in the strict word, what is judged
by him is of the heart and not the head. Here is one chosen, in that
he chooses himself to stand in the place of another for comfort and
consolation. To him more than another I give my gratitude, with all
respect to our Dean who reads this, a noble man, but merely dedi-
cated, not consecrated. But not in the aspect of the Paraclete only
is Dr. Joseph Barker Howe established, for he must be the Paraclete
to another aspect of himself, that which is driven and persecuted by
the lack of understanding in the world at large, so that he in himself
embodies the full history of man's tribulations and, overflowing
upon others, notably the present writer, is the ultimate end."

This was love. There was no escape from it. Try as Howe might
to remember that Tertan was mad and all his emotions invalidated,
he could not destroy the effect upon him of his student's stern,

104 LIONEL TRILLING

affectionate regard. He had betrayed not only a power of mind but
a power of love. And however firmly he held before his attention the
fact of Tertan's madness, he could do nothing to banish the physical
sensation of gratitude he felt. He had never thought of himself as
"driven and persecuted" and he did not now. But still he could not
make meaningless his sensation of gratitude. The pitiable Tertan
sternly pitied him, and comfort came from Tertan's never-to-be-
comforted mind.

Ill

In an academic community, even an efficient one, official matters
move slowly. The term drew to a close with no action in the case of
Tertan, and Joseph Howe had to confront a curious problem. How
should he grade his strange student, Tertan?

Tertan's final examination had been no different from all his other
writing, and what did one "give" such a student? De Witt must have
his A, that was clear. Johnson would get a B. With Casebeer it was a
question of a B-minus or a C-plus, and Stettenhover, who had been
crammed by the team tutor to fill half a blue-book with his thin
feminine scrawl, would have his C-minus which he would accept with
mingled indifference and resentment. But with Tertan it was not
so easy.

The boy was still in the college process and his name could not be
omitted from the grade sheet. Yet what should a mind under sus-
picion of madness be graded? Until the medical verdict was given, it
was for Howe to continue as Tertan's teacher and to keep his judg-
ment pedagogical. Impossible to give him an F: he had not failed.
B was for Johnson's stolid mediocrity. He could not be put on the
edge of passing with Stettenhover, for he exactly did not pass. In
energy and richness of intellect he was perhaps even De Witt's
superior, and Howe toyed grimly with the notion of giving him an
A, but that would lower the value of the A De Witt had won with
his beautiful and clear, if still arrogant, mind. There was a notation
which the Registrar recognized— Inc. for Incomplete and in the hor-
rible comedy of the situation, Howe considered that. But really only
a mark of M for Mad would serve.

In his perplexity, Howe sought the Dean, but the Dean was out
of town. In the end, he decided to maintain the A-minus he had
given Tertan at midterm. After all, there had been no falling away
from that quality. He entered it on the grade sheet with something
like bravado.

OF THIS TIME, OF THAT PLACE 105

Academic time moves quickly. A college year is not really a year,
lacking as it does three months. And it is endlessly divided into units
which, at their beginning, appear larger than they are— terms, half-
terms, months, weeks. And the ultimate unit, the hour, is not really
an hour, lacking as it does ten minutes. And so the new term ad-
vanced rapidly and one day the fields about the town were all brown,
cleared of even the few thin patches of snow which had lingered so
long.

Howe, as he lectured on the romantic poets, became conscious of
Blackburn emanating wrath. Blackburn did it well, did it with enor-
mous dignity. He did not stir in his seat, he kept his eyes fixed on
Howe in perfect attention, but he abstained from using his note-
book, there was no mistaking what he proposed to himself as an atti-
tude. His elbow on the writing-wing of the chair, his chin on the
curled fingers of his hand, he was the embodiment of intellectual in-
dignation. He was thinking his own thoughts, would give no public
offence, yet would claim his due, was not to be intimidated. Howe
knew that he would present himself at the end of the hour.

Blackburn entered the office without invitation. He did not smile,
there was no cajolery about him. Without invitation he sat down be-
side Howe's desk. He did not speak until he had taken the blue-book
from his pocket. He said, "What does this mean, sir?"

It was a sound and conservative student tactic. Said in the usual
way it meant, "How could you have so misunderstood me?" or
"What does this mean for my future in the course?" But there were
none of the humbler tones in Blackburn's way of saying it.

Howe made the established reply, "I think that's for you to tell
me.

Blackburn continued icy. "I'm sure I can't, sir."

There was a silence between them. Both dropped their eyes to the
blue-book on the desk. On its cover Howe had pencilled: "F. This is
very poor work."

Howe picked up the blue-book. There was always the possibility
of injustice. The teacher may be bored by the mass of papers and not
wholly attentive. A phrase, even the student's handwriting, may irri-
tate him unreasonably. "Well," said Howe, "let's go through it."

He opened the first page. "Now here: you write, 'In "The Ancient
Mariner," Coleridge lives in and transports us to a honey-sweet
world where all is rich and strange, a world of charm to which we can
escape from the humdrum existence of our daily lives, the world of
romance. Here, in this warm and honey-sweet land of charming
dreams we can relax and enjoy ourselves.' "

106 LIONEL TRILLING

Howe lowered the paper and waited with a neutral look for Black-
burn to speak. Blackburn returned the look boldly, did not speak, sat
stolid and lofty. At last Howe said, speaking gently, "Did you mean
that, or were you just at a loss for something to say?"

"You imply that I was just 'bluffing'?" The quotation marks hung
palpable in the air about the word.

"I'd like to know. I'd prefer believing that you were bluffing to
believing that you really thought this."

Blackburn's eyebrows went up. From the height of a great and
firm-based idea he looked at his teacher. He clasped the crags for a
moment and then pounced, craftily, suavely. "Do you mean, Dr.
Howe, that there aren't two opinions possible?"

It was superbly done in its air of putting all of Howe's intellectual
life into the balance. Howe remained patient and simple. "Yes, many
opinions are possible, but not this one. Whatever anyone believes of
'The Ancient Mariner,' no one can in reason believe that it repre-
sents a— a honey-sweet world in which we can relax."

"But that is what I feel, sir."

This was well done too. Howe said, "Look, Mr. Blackburn. Do
you really relax with hunger and thirst, the heat and the sea-serpents,
the dead men with staring eyes, Life in Death and the skeletons?
Come now, Mr. Blackburn."

Blackburn made no answer and Howe pressed forward. "Now you
say of Wordsworth, 'Of peasant stock himself, he turned from the
effete life of the salons and found in the peasant the hope of a flam-
ing revolution which would sweep away all the old ideas. This is the
subject of his best poems.' "

Beaming at his teacher with youthful eagerness, Blackburn said,
"Yes, sir, a rebel, a bringer of light to suffering mankind. I see him
as a kind of Prothemeus."

"A kind of what?"

"Prothemeus, sir."

"Think, Mr. Blackburn. We were talking about him only today
and I mentioned his name a dozen times. You don't mean Prothe-
meus. You mean—" Howe waited but there was no response.

"You mean Prometheus."

Blackburn gave no assent and Howe took the reins. "You've done
a bad job here, Mr. Blackburn, about as bad as could be done." He
saw Blackburn stiffen and his genial face harden again. "It shows
either a lack of preparation or a complete lack of understanding."
He saw Blackburn's face begin to go to pieces and he stopped.

"Oh, sir," Blackburn burst out, "I've never had a mark like this

OF THIS TIME, OF THAT PLACE 107

before, never anything below a B, never. A thing like this has never
happened to me before."

It must be true, it was a statement too easily verified. Could it
be that other instructors accepted such flaunting nonsense? Howe
wanted to end the interview. "I'll set it down to lack of preparation,"
he said. "I know you're busy. That's not an excuse but it's an expla-
nation. Now suppose you really prepare and then take another quiz
in two weeks. We'll forget this one and count the other."

Blackburn squirmed with pleasure and gratitude. "Thank you, sir.
You're really very kind, very kind."

Howe rose to conclude the visit. "All right then— in two weeks."

It was that day that the Dean imparted to Howe the conclusion of
the case of Tertan. It was simple and a little anticlimactic. A physi-
cian had been called in, and had said the word, given the name.

"A classic case, he called it," the Dean said. "Not a doubt in the
world," he said. His eyes were full of miserable pity and he clutched
at a word. "A classic case, a classic case." To his aid and to Howe's
there came the Parthenon and the form of the Greek drama, the
Aristotelian logic, Racine and the Well-Tempered Clavichord, the
blueness of the Aegean and its clear sky. Classic— that is to say, with-
out a doubt, perfect in its way, a veritable model, and, as the Dean
had been told, sure to take a perfectly predictable and inevitable
course to a foreknown conclusion.

It was not only pity that stood in the Dean's eyes. For a moment
there was fear too. "Terrible," he said, "it is simply terrible."

Then he went on briskly. "Naturally we've told the boy nothing.
And naturally we won't. His tuition's paid by his scholarship and
we'll continue him on the rolls until the end of the year. That will
be kindest. After that the matter will be out of our control. We'll see,
of course, that he gets into the proper hands. I'm told there will be
no change, he'll go on like this, be as good as this, for four to six
months. And so we'll just go along as usual."

So Tertan continued to sit in Section 5 of English 1A, to his class-
mates still a figure of curiously dignified fun, symbol to most of them
of the respectable but absurd intellectual life. But to his teacher he
was now very different. He had not changed— he was still the grey-
hound casting for the scent of ideas and Howe could see that he was
still the same Tertan, but he could not feel it. What he felt as he
looked at the boy sitting in his accustomed place was the hard blank
of a fact. The fact itself was formidable and depressing. But what
Howe was chiefly aware of was that he had permitted the metamor-
phosis of Tertan from person to fact.

io8 LIONEL TRILLING

As much as possible he avoided seeing Ter tan's upraised hand and
eager eye. But the fact did not know of its mere factuality, it contin-
ued its existence as if it were Tertan, hand up and eye questioning,
and one day it appeared in Howe's office with a document.

"Even the spirit who lives egregiously, above the herd, must have
its relations with the fellowman," Tertan declared. He laid the docu-
ment on Howe's desk. It was headed "Quill and Scroll Society of
Dwight College. Application for Membership."

"In most ways these are crass minds," Tertan said, touching the
paper. "Yet as a whole, bound together in their common love of let-
ters, they transcend their intellectual lacks since it is not a paradox
that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts."

"When are the elections?" Howe asked.

"They take place tomorrow."

"I certainly hope you will be successful."

"Thank you. Would you wish to implement that hope?" A rather
dirty finger pointed to the bottom of the sheet. "A faculty recom-
mender is necessary," Tertan said stiffly, and waited.

"And you wish me to recommend you?"

"It would be an honor."

"You may use my name."

Tertan's finger pointed again. "It must be a written sponsorship,
signed by the sponsor." There was a large blank space on the form
under the heading, "Opinion of Faculty Sponsor."

This was almost another thing and Howe hesitated. Yet there was
nothing else to do and he took out his fountain pen. He wrote, "Mr.
Ferdinand Tertan is marked by his intense devotion to letters and by
his exceptional love of all things of the mind." To this he signed his
name which looked bold and assertive on the white page. It disturbed
him, the strange affirming power of a name. With a business-like air,
Tertan whipped up the paper, folded it with decision and put it
into his pocket. He bowed and took his departure, leaving Howe
with the sense of having done something oddly momentous.

And so much now seemed odd and momentous to Howe that
should not have seemed so. It was odd and momentous, he felt, when
he sat with Blackburn's second quiz before him and wrote in an ex-
cessively firm hand the grade of C-minus. The paper was a clear, an
indisputable failure. He was carefully and consciously committing a
cowardice. Blackburn had told the truth when he had pleaded his
past record. Howe had consulted it in the Dean's office. It showed no
grade lower than a B-minus. A canvass of some of Blackburn's previ-
ous instructors had brought vague attestations to the adequate pow-

OF THIS TIME, OF THAT PLACE 109

ers of a student imperfectly remembered and sometimes surprise that
his abilities could be questioned at all.

As he wrote the grade, Howe told himself that his cowardice
sprang from an unwillingness to have more dealings with a student
he disliked. He knew it was simpler than that. He knew he feared
Blackburn: that was the absurd truth. And cowardice did not solve
the matter after all. Blackburn, flushed with a first success, attacked
at once. The minimal passing grade had not assuaged his feelings
and he sat at Howe's desk and again the blue-book lay between them.
Blackburn said nothing. With an enormous impudence, he was wait-
ing for Howe to speak and explain himself.

At last Howe said sharply and rudely, "Well?" His throat was tense
and the blood was hammering in his head. His mouth was tight with
anger at himself for his disturbance.

Blackburn's glance was almost baleful. "This is impossible, sir."

"But there it is," Howe answered.

"Sir?" Blackburn had not caught the meaning but his tone was
still haughty.

Impatiently Howe said, "There it is, plain as day. Are you here to
complain again?"

"Indeed I am, sir." There was surprise in Blackburn's voice that
Howe should ask the question.

"I shouldn't complain if I were you. You did a thoroughly bad job
on your first quiz. This one is a little, only a very little, better." This
was not true. If anything, it was worse.

"That might be a matter of opinion, sir."

"It is a matter of opinion. Of my opinion."

"Another opinion might be different, sir."

"You really believe that?" Howe said.

"Yes." The omission of the "sir" was monumental.

"Whose, for example?"

"The Dean's, for example." Then the fleshy jaw came forward a
little. "Or a certain literary critic's, for example."

It was colossal and almost too much for Blackburn himself to han-
dle. The solidity of his face almost crumpled under it. But he with-
stood his own audacity and went on. "And the Dean's opinion might
be guided by the knowledge that the person who gave me this mark
is the man whom a famous critic, the most eminent judge of litera-
ture in this country, called a drunken man. The Dean might think
twice about whether such a man is fit to teach Dwight students."

Howe said in quiet admonition, "Blackburn, you're mad," mean-
ing no more than to check the boy's extravagance.

no LIONEL TRILLING

But Blackburn paid no heed. He had another shot in the locker.
"And the Dean might be guided by the information, of which I have
evidence, documentary evidence,"— he slapped his breastpocket twice
—"that this same person personally recommended to the college
literary society, the oldest in the country, that he personally
recommended a student who is crazy, who threw the meeting
into an uproar, a psychiatric case. The Dean might take that into
account."

Howe was never to learn the details of that "uproar." He had al-
ways to content himself with the dim but passionate picture which at
that moment sprang into his mind, of Tertan standing on some ab-
stract height and madly denouncing the multitude of Quill and
Scroll who howled him down.

He sat quiet a moment and looked at Blackburn. The ferocity had
entirely gone from the student's face. He sat regarding his teacher
almost benevolently. He had played a good card and now, scarcely at
all unfriendly, he was waiting to see the effect. Howe took up the
blue-book and negligently sifted through it. He read a page, closed
the book, struck out the C-minus and wrote an F.

"Now you may take the paper to the Dean," he said. "You may tell
him that after reconsidering it, I lowered the grade."

The gasp was audible. "Oh sir!" Blackburn cried. "Please!" His
face was agonized. "It means my graduation, my livelihood, my
future. Don't do this to me."

"It's done already."

Blackburn stood up. "I spoke rashly, sir, hastily. I had no inten-
tion, no real intention, of seeing the Dean. It rests with you— en-
tirely, entirely. I hope you will restore the first mark."

"Take the matter to the Dean or not, just as you choose. The
grade is what you deserve and it stands."

Blackburn's head dropped. "And will I be failed at midterm, sir?"

"Of course."

From deep out of Blackburn's great chest rose a cry of anguish.
"Oh sir, if you want me to go down on my knees to you, I will, I
will."

Howe looked at him in amazement.

"I will, I will. On my knees, sir. This mustn't, mustn't happen."

He spoke so literally, meaning so very truly that his knees and
exactly his knees were involved and seeming to think that he was
offering something of tangible value to his teacher, that Howe, whose
head had become icy clear in the nonsensical drama, thought, "The
boy is mad," and began to speculate fantastically whether something

OF THIS TIME, OF THAT PLACE in

in himself attracted or developed aberration. He could see himself
standing absurdly before the Dean and saying, "I've found another.
This time it's the Vice-president of the Council, the manager of the
debating team and secretary of Quill and Scroll."

One more such discovery, he thought, and he himself would be
discovered! And there, suddenly, Blackburn was on his knees with a
thump, his huge thighs straining his trousers, his hand outstretched
in a great gesture of supplication.

With a cry, Howe shoved back his swivel chair and it rolled away
on its casters half across the little room. Blackburn knelt for a mo-
ment to nothing at all, then got to his feet.

Howe rose abruptly. He said, "Blackburn, you will stop acting like
an idiot. Dust your knees off, take your paper and get out. You've
behaved like a fool and a malicious person. You have half a term to
do a decent job. Keep your silly mouth shut and try to do it. Now
get out."

Blackburn's head was low. He raised it and there was a pious light
in his eyes. "Will you shake hands, sir?" he said. He thrust out his
hand.

"I will not," Howe said.

Head and hand sank together. Blackburn picked up his blue-book
and walked to the door. He turned and said, "Thank you, sir." His
back, as he departed, was heavy with tragedy and stateliness.

IV

After years of bad luck with the weather, the College had a perfect
day for Commencement. It was wonderfully bright, the air so trans-
parent, the wind so brisk that no one could resist talking about it.

As Howe set out for the campus he heard Hilda calling from the
back yard. She called, "Professor, professor," and came running to
him.

Howe said, "What's this 'professor' business?"

"Mother told me," Hilda said. "You've been promoted. And I
want to take your picture."

"Next year," said Howe. "I won't be a professor until next year.
And you know better than to call anybody 'professor'."

"It was just in fun," Hilda said. She seemed disappointed.

"But you can take my picture if you want. I won't look much dif-
ferent next year." Still, it was frightening. It might mean that he was
to stay in this town all his life.

112 LIONEL TRILLING

Hilda brightened. "Can I take it in this?" she said, and touched
the gown he carried over his arm.

Howe laughed. "Yes, you can take it in this."

"I'll get my things and meet you in front of Otis," Hilda said. "I
have the background all picked out."

On the campus the Commencement crowd was already large. It
stood about in eager, nervous little family groups. As he crossed,
Howe was greeted by a student, capped and gowned, glad of the
chance to make an event for his parents by introducing one of his
teachers. It was while Howe stood there chatting that he saw Tertan.

He had never seen anyone quite so alone, as though a circle had
been woven about him to separate him from the gay crowd on the
campus. Not that Tertan was not gay, he was the gayest of all. Three
weeks had passed since Howe had last seen him, the weeks of exami-
nation, the lazy week before Commencement, and this was now a dif-
ferent Tertan. On his head he wore a panama hat, broadbrimmed
and fine, of the shape associated with South American planters. He
wore a suit of raw silk, luxurious but yellowed with age and much
too tight, and he sported a whangee cane. He walked sedately, the
hat tilted at a devastating angle, the stick coming up and down in
time to his measured tread. He had, Howe guessed, outfitted himself
to greet the day in the clothes of that ruined father whose existence
was on record in the Dean's office. Gravely and arrogantly he sur-
veyed the scene— in it, his whole bearing seemed to say, but not of it.
With his haughty step, with his flashing eye, Tertan was coming
nearer. Howe did not wish to be seen. He shifted his position slightly.
When he looked again, Tertan was not in sight.

The chapel clock struck the quarter hour. Howe detached himself
from his chat and hurried to Otis Hall at the far end of the campus.
Hilda had not yet come. He went up into the high portico and, using
the glass of the door for a mirror, put on his gown, adjusted the hood
on his shoulders and set the mortarboard on his head. When he
came down the steps Hilda had arrived.

Nothing could have told him more forcibly that a year had passed
than the development of Hilda's photographic possessions from the
box camera of the previous fall. By a strap about her neck was hung a
leather case, so thick and strong, so carefully stitched and so molded
to its contents that it could only hold a costly camera. The appear-
ance was deceptive, Howe knew, for he had been present at the
Aikens' pre-Christmas conference about its purchase. It was only a
fairly good domestic camera. Still, it looked very impressive. Hilda
carried another leather case from which she drew a collapsible tri-

OF THIS TIME, OF THAT PLACE 113

pod. Decisively she extended each of its gleaming legs and set it up
on the path. She removed the camera from its case and fixed it to the
tripod. In its compact efficiency the camera almost had a life of its
own, but Hilda treated it with easy familiarity, looked into its eye,
glanced casually at its gauges. Then from a pocket she took still an-
other leather case and drew from it a small instrument through
which she looked first at Howe, who began to feel inanimate and lost,
and then at the sky. She made some adjustment on the instrument,
then some adjustment on the camera. She swept the scene with her
eye, found a spot and pointed the camera in its direction. She walked
to the spot, stood on it and beckoned to Howe. With each new
leather case, with each new instrument and with each new adjust-
ment she had grown in ease and now she said, "Joe, will you stand
here?"

Obediently Howe stood where he was bidden. She had yet another
instrument. She took out a tape-measure on a mechanical spool.
Kneeling down before Howe, she put the little metal ring of the tape
under the tip of his shoe. At her request, Howe pressed it with his
toe. When she had measured her distance, she nodded to Howe who
released the tape. At a touch, it sprang back into the spool. "You
have to be careful if you're going to get what you want," Hilda said.
"I don't believe in all this snap-snap-snapping," she remarked loftily.
Howe nodded in agreement, although he was beginning to think
Hilda's care excessive.

Now at last the moment had come. Hilda squinted into the cam-
era, moved the tripod slightly. She stood to the side, holding the
plunger of the shutter-cable. "Ready," she said. "Will you relax,
Joseph, please?" Howe realized that he was standing frozen. Hilda
stood poised and precise as a setter, one hand holding the little cable,
the other extended with curled dainty fingers like a dancer's, as if
expressing to her subject the precarious delicacy of the moment. She
pressed the plunger and there was the click. At once she stirred to
action, got behind the camera, turned a new exposure. "Thank you,"
she said. "Would you stand under that tree and let me do a character
study with light and shade?"

The childish absurdity of the remark restored Howe's ease. He
went to the little tree. The pattern the leaves made on his gown was
what Hilda was after. He had just taken a satisfactory position when
he heard in the unmistakable voice, "Ah, Doctor! Having your pic-
ture taken?"

Howe gave up the pose and turned to Blackburn who stood on the
walk, his hands behind his back, a little too large for his bachelor's

ii4 LIONEL TRILLING

gown. Annoyed that Blackburn should see him posing for a character
study in light and shade, Howe said irritably, "Yes, having my pic-
ture taken."

Blackburn beamed at Hilda. "And the little photographer," he
said. Hilda fixed her eyes on the ground and stood closer to her bril-
liant and aggressive camera. Blackburn, teetering on his heels, his
hands behind his back, wholly prelatical and benignly patient, was
not abashed at the silence. At last Howe said, "If you'll excuse us,
Mr. Blackburn, we'll go on with the picture."

"Go right ahead, sir. I'm running along." But he only came closer.
"Dr. Howe," he said fervently, "I want to tell you how glad I am that
I was able to satisfy your standards at last."

Howe was surprised at the hard insulting brightness of his own
voice and even Hilda looked up curiously as he said, "Nothing you
have ever done has satisfied me and nothing you could ever do would
satisfy me, Blackburn."

With a glance at Hilda, Blackburn made a gesture as if to hush
Howe— as though all his former bold malice had taken for granted a
kind of understanding between himself and his teacher, a secret
which must not be betrayed to a third person. "I only meant, sir," he
said, "that I was able to pass your course after all."

Howe said, "You didn't pass my course. I passed you out of my
course. I passed you without even reading your paper. I wanted to be
sure the college would be rid of you. And when all the grades were
in and I did read your paper, I saw I was right not to have read it
first."

Blackburn presented a stricken face. "It was very bad, sir?"

But Howe had turned away. The paper had been fantastic. The
paper had been, if he wished to see it so, mad. It was at this moment
that the Dean came up behind Howe and caught his arm. "Hello,
Joseph," he said. "We'd better be getting along, it's almost late."

He was not a familiar man, but when he saw Blackburn, who ap-
proached to greet him, he took Blackburn's arm too. "Hello, Theo-
dore," he said. Leaning forward on Howe's arm and on Blackburn's,
he said, "Hello, Hilda dear." Hilda replied quietly, "Hello, Uncle
George."

Still clinging to their arms, still linking Howe and Blackburn, the
Dean said, "Another year gone, Joe, and we've turned out another
crop. After you've been here a few years, you'll find it reasonably up-
setting—you wonder how there can be so many graduating classes
while you stay the same. But of course you don't stay the same."
Then he said, "Well," sharply, to dismiss the thought. He pulled

OF THIS TIME, OF THAT PLACE 115

Blackburn's arm and swung him around to Howe. "Have you heard
about Teddy Blackburn?" he asked. "He has a job already, before
graduation, the first man of his class to be placed." Expectant of con-
gratulations, Blackburn beamed at Howe. Howe remained silent.

"Isn't that good?" the Dean said. Still Howe did not answer and
the Dean, puzzled and put out, turned to Hilda. "That's a very fine-
looking camera, Hilda." She touched it with affectionate pride.

"Instruments of precision," said a voice. "Instruments of preci-
sion." Of the three with joined arms, Howe was the nearest to Ter-
tan, whose gaze took in all the scene except the smile and the nod
which Howe gave him. The boy leaned on his cane. The broad-
brimmed hat, canting jauntily over his eye, confused the image of
his face that Howe had established, suppressed the rigid lines of the
ascetic and brought out the baroque curves. It made an effect of per-
verse majesty.

"Instruments of precision," said Tertan for the last time, address-
ing no one, making a casual comment to the universe. And it oc-
curred to Howe that Tertan might not be referring to Hilda's equip-
ment. The sense of the thrice-woven circle of the boy's loneliness
smote him fiercely. Tertan stood in majestic jauntiness, superior to
all the scene, but his isolation made Howe ache with a pity of which
Tertan was more the cause than the object, so general and indis-
criminate was it.

Whether in his sorrow he made some unintended movement to-
ward Tertan which the Dean checked or whether the suddenly tight-
ened grip on his arm was the Dean's own sorrow and fear, he did not
know. Tertan watched them in the incurious way people watch a
photograph being taken and suddenly the thought that, to the boy, it
must seem that the three were posing for a picture together made
Howe detach himself almost rudely from the Dean's grasp.

"I promised Hilda another picture," he announced— needlessly,
for Tertan was no longer there, he had vanished in the last sudden
flux of visitors who, now that the band had struck up, were rushing
nervously to find seats.

"You'd better hurry," the Dean said. "I'll go along, it's getting
late for me." He departed and Blackburn walked stately by his side.

Howe again took his position under the little tree which cast its
shadow over his face and gown. "Just hurry, Hilda, won't you?" he
said. Hilda held the cable at arm's length, her other arm crooked and
her fingers crisped. She rose on her toes and said "Ready," and
pressed the release. "Thank you," she said gravely and began to dis-
mantle her camera as he hurried off to join the procession.

Sea Raider

BY FRANK LASKIER

To add to this series, I've told you exactly what happened to me on
board the ship. Perhaps without intending to, because at one
time, the memory was so fresh in my mind, that I did not feel in-
clined to talk about it, or think about it, but now you know, I am
the sailor called Frank. One of thousands.

I could tell you my name, but it doesn't matter. It is of no im-
portance. My name might be "Smith" or "Jones" or "Brown" or
"Robinson" or anything. I am merely a sailor.

And I have been through things, and I have seen them.

I could give all sorts of messages to you, if I were merely sitting
here asking you for money, it would be so dreadfully easy. I know
that you would give me anything that I wanted.

But, there is another thing. This is in a world-wide broadcast, and
there is one man listening to me to-night, and I have a word for him.

I wonder if you remember me, Mister. I wonder.

You're the Captain of a German raider, and on the 29th January
you attacked a merchant ship. Don't you remember? Just when it
was dark, you saw me then. You met me. At one time you weren't
more than 100 yards from jne. You followed us up. You chased us.
You kept hidden. You were afraid even of our 4-inch gun, against
your 11 -inch guns.

You attacked us in the dark, at point-blank range. Don't you re-
member? Don't you remember shelling us for twenty minutes and
then ceasing fire, and coming round to examine the damage.

I was on the starboard bunker hatch, you shone your searchlight
on me. You'd shot my foot off. Don't you remember the Fourth Mate
making a signal out to you that we were abandoning ship? And
you answered the signal. Don't you remember opening fire on us
again?

I remember it. We got on to the raft, didn't we? You saw us, you

watched our ship sink. And you machine-gunned us. But you didn't

116

SEA RAIDER 117

do the job properly. Because out of that ship's company ten men are
alive, and those ten men know what you did.

Three of us were wounded. Seven of us were not. Those seven are
back at sea.

You'd be surprised if you knew the job that the Captain has.
You'd be surprised, and I don't think you'd be very happy about it,
either.

You murdered my shipmates. You stood by and watched us drown.
You machine-gunned us.

But go ahead, Mister. Go right ahead.

Using your yellow, filthy, murderous methods, you may get an-
other couple more ships. You work the same stunt on them. You'll
leave them to the sharks, won't you?

But, your time is up.

Sooner or later, and it will be sooner, you will be met by the Navy.

Aircraft from the Fleet Air Arm will come over you, and they'll
bomb you and blast you and your bridge will fly to pieces, as ours
did, and your decks will burst open as ours did.

And then a battleship will come alongside, and I hope it's the
Warspite. And with her 15-inch guns she'll fire you, and you will see
your crew dead and dying. You will see your ship blowing up, and
you yourself will be on a raft.

But we won't machine-gun you. We weren't brought up that way.
No, we'll give you a little taste of what it's like in the salt water. Air-
craft from the Fleet Air Arm will catch up with you, they'll dive-
bomb you, wave after wave after wave, and your guns will be as use-
less as ours was. And a battleship will come up, and I hope it's the
Warspite, and you'll be shattered. You'll see your bridge go up in
flames, as ours did. You'll see your mates hanging round on the
decks, the same as I did. You'll see your ship sink, as I did. And
you'll be there in the water, struggling as we were, and your life-
jacket won't hold you up, and you'll go down and down and down,
and the water will come in your eyes and your ears, and down your
mouth, and you'll see death in front of you. And you'll come up
to the surface, and the British seamen will get hold of you, and
will drag you on board the boat. Because we don't leave men to
drown.

But, remember, Mr. Raider, that when we have finished with you
—and we won't use blackjacks or castor-oil— you'll wish, and you'll
hope, and you'll pray that you had been left to drown, as you left us.
But we didn't drown.

Your day is coming. Look out for it.

Zuleika in Cambridge

BY S. C. ROBERTS

"See if it is possible to go direct from here to Cam-
bridge," said Zuleika. . . . "Stop!" she said suddenly. "I
have a much better idea. Go down very early to the sta-
tion. See the station-master. Order me a special train . . ."
Max Beerbohm, Zuleika Dobson (p. 350)

I

The special train which Zuleika had instructed Melisande to order
for ten o'clock on the morning following the annihilating tragedy
of Eights Week did not start punctually. The station-master was not
prepared to accept the order as a matter of the day's routine. Of
course he had arranged special trains before; there had been a year
when he had facilitated the departure of a Royal Personage return-
ing from the glories of the Encaenia and a pair of cuff-links engraved
with the august monogram remained, unworn, in its case on his
drawing-room table. But a peremptory order from a young woman
given at 8.30 in the morning in a suspiciously foreign accent was
unprecedented.

"Who's the train for?" asked the station-master with ungrammati-
cal directness.

"For Miss Dobson."

"Never heard of her."

"You never hear of Miss Dobson, Miss Zuleika Dobson! But she is
the grand-daughter of the Warden of Judas College, yes."

At this the station-master showed some interest. He took the pre-
caution, however, of consulting the Proctor by telephone. The Proc-
tor replied, feverishly, that the sooner Miss Dobson left Oxford, the
better. When he heard that her destination was Cambridge, his en-
thusiasm rose still higher.

So Zuleika's train was prepared and perhaps the Roman Emperors

118

ZULEIKA IN CAMBRIDGE 119

sighed wistfully. Lately they had seen so much— it had been like old
times.

Slowly the special train passed through the cavalier country and
approached the puritan plains of East Anglia.

Zuleika's spirits drooped. She knew little of English history, but
by some premonition she was aware that the country in which a
Knight of the Garter would die for an idea was receding from her.
. . . Could it be, she wondered, that she was being guilty of an im-
possible disloyalty?

At Bletchley there was some delay. Special or no special, it was too
much to expect that the train should pass every signal-box unchal-
lenged. Zuleika fumed and Melisande still showed a tendency to sulk.

At length the train drew up at the Cambridge platform. Already,
it appeared, several other trains— ordinary trains— were halted at it;
but as the platform stretched far, far beyond the limits of human
vision, it seemed to matter little— except to Zuleika. Why had not
Melisande arranged things better?

"But, mademoiselle, I order a special train where we begin. I could
order not a special voie where we finish."

"We are not finishing," said Zuleika, "we are beginning again."

Alas, there was no Warden to meet Zuleika at the station. In Cam-
bridge, of course, they do not have Wardens, but Zuleika could not
know that. But at least there were porters and Melisande quickly se-
cured, and fully employed, three of them. The cab-rank was, to Zu-
leika, uninviting, but a hansom for herself, another for Melisande
and the light luggage, and two others for the heavy luggage proved
to be an adequate, if not very convenient, means of transport.

"Where to, Miss?" enquired the leading cabman.

To this Zuleika was unable to give a ready answer. She had, so far
as she knew, no relatives or friends in Cambridge. But Cambridge,
she assumed, had, like Oxford, a number of colleges. Did the grand-
daughter of the head of an Oxford college acquire any status, by
affiliation or otherwise, in Cambridge? It was long before the days of
"friendly alliances" between Oxford and Cambridge colleges and
Zuleika was puzzled.

"Which is the best college?" she asked the cabman.

"That's not for me to say, Miss. Of course, some's better class than
others, but nowadays there's all sorts in most of 'em. Now if you just
tell me which one your brother or friend is in, I'll take you there."

But Zuleika, alas, could not.

"Are there hotels?" she asked.

120 S. C. ROBERTS

"Yes, plenty, Miss."

"Take me to the best."

"Very good, Miss."

So the cavalcade set off.

The first part of the journey did not impress, or amuse, Zuleika.
The Station Road was like all Station Roads in the world— perhaps
more so, since when the railway had first come to Cambridge, it had
been the particular care of the University authorities to remove its
distracting influence as far as possible from the centre of academic
calm. A one-horse tram, which occasionally interfered with the
orderly sequence of the four hansoms, seemed to be the only dis-
tinguishing feature of Cambridge transport. Even when the cabs
swung round into another street, Zuleika could see no evidence of
collegiate grandeur. No Roman Emperors looked down upon her,
though shortly an imposing spire came into view. Zuleika surmised
that it might be the cathedral. How could she know that it was but
a modern church, alien alike from Anglican and Cantabrigian tra-
dition? The hansoms swung to the left and passed a row of villas
which might well have reminded Zuleika of Oxford had her knowl-
edge of that city extended to its northern area and not been con-
fined to Judas College and the meadows.

But the last swerve of the cab brought her to something better—
a street of gentle but repeated curves with solid terraced houses, a
running stream in each gutter and, later, a jumble of shops and
colleges.

Just as Zuleika was contemplating this medley, the hansoms
drew up alongside the hotel. Melisande dealt with the four cabmen
while Zuleika issued an order for the best suite available. The bath-
room arrangements seemed to her inadequate, but she supposed that
they must suffice— at least until she should be able to establish her-
self under a more dignified and appropriate roof. Meanwhile she was
hungry. It was after two o'clock and as she approached the dining-
room, she saw that it was empty, save for a young man who was
lingering over his coffee. Zuleika inferred that he was an under-
graduate, though probably not a duke. Nevertheless, a slight thrill
shot through her tired frame. It was a meeting not comparable with
her initial encounter with the Duke of Dorset, but here was Zuleika
face to face for the first time with a Cambridge undergraduate; and
undergraduates, she assumed (as Dr Johnson assumed of the waters
of the sea), were much the same everywhere. She hoped that the
young man would not fall in love with her too violently before she
had had her lunch.

ZULEIKA IN CAMBRIDGE 121

As she entered the room, the victim, as it seemed, leapt violently
to his doom.

"Ah, at last you've come."

Zuleika recognised the tone. It was a lover's welcome. So, she
mused, it was inevitable. The greeting was freer, gayer, less digni-
fied, perhaps; but the magic was still working. Quickly Zuleika began
to speculate on the probable course of events. Had they a river at
Cambridge? Yes, she thought she had heard of Cambridge boating
and boat-races, but what was the capacity of the Cambridge river?
What of the reeds and mud to which she had heard vaguely scornful
reference made in Oxford? If young men must die for her, she
liked them to die cleanly. . . . Her reverie was harshly interrupted.

"Oh, I beg your pardon," said the young man, "I'm frightfully
sorry. ... I thought you were "

"You thought I was ?" murmured Zuleika.

"I thought you were my— er— friend. You see, I was just waiting
for her and— well, here she is. I'm awfully sorry."

The friend had round blue eyes and fluffy fair hair. Zuleika sat
down to her lunch.

II

Sipping her cafe noir, Zuleika reviewed the situation. The en-
counter with the young man was puzzling. Yet it might well be that
he was not an undergraduate; possibly he was just a visitor passing
through the town. The hotel seemed now to be empty except for
two elderly ladies dozing over illustrated papers in the lounge.
Zuleika was wondering how to approach the problem of Cambridge.
With no grandfather and, so far, no duke to guide or shelter her, she
found it difficult. But at least the sun was shining and she stepped
out into the street.

The pinnacles of King's were silhouetted against the cerulean blue
of the summer sky and Zuleika contemplated them with quizzical
awe. So far as she could remember, she had seen nothing quite like
them in Oxford. But she had not come to Cambridge to contem-
plate pinnacles. How, she reflected, was she to make acquaintance
with a Cambridge college from within? At that moment the hotel-
porter approached her.

"You're wanted, please, Miss," he said.

"By whom?"

"It's the manager, Miss. I think he's got a message for you."

Zuleika turned back into the hotel. The manager seemed to be
slightly perturbed.

122 S. C. ROBERTS

"I'm sorry to trouble you, Miss Dobson," he said politely, "but the
Senior Proctor wishes to see you at once."

"What is a Proctor?" asked Zuleika. "Is it the same as a Warden?"

The question confused the manager a little. The only kind of
warden with which he was familiar was a church-warden. He knew,
of course, that the Proctors attended divine service, compulsorily, on
certain occasions; but he rightly associated them with disciplinary,
rather than with spiritual, responsibility.

"The Proctors," he said, "keep an eye on the undergraduates."

Zuleika brightened at this.

"I see," she said, "and what is the message?"

The manager read from a piece of paper:

"The Senior Proctor presents his compliments to Miss Dobson and
would be obliged if she would call upon him in his rooms at her
earliest convenience."

"Why doesn't he call upon me?" asked Zuleika.

"I expect it's easier to talk privately in his rooms," said the
manager tactfully.

Zuleika was mollified. The message was not rapturous, but it was
polite and would at least give her contact with a university per-
sonage.

"Where does the Proctor live?" she asked.

"In St Benedict's."

"Then order a cab."

"But, excuse me, Miss Dobson. St Benedict's is only just across
the road."

"Oh very well, but it is tiring to walk across roads in the strong
sunshine. . . . Where is Melisande?"

On the subject of proctors Melisande was not helpful. If they
bore any resemblance to a procurateur , she recommended avoidance.

Zuleika crossed the road and found herself at the main gate of the
college of St Benedict. A dignified porter, wearing a silk hat, looked
at her with the half-suspicious, half-tolerant expression with which
he greeted all May Term visitors.

"The Proctor wishes to see me," said Zuleika simply.

"You mean Mr Mackenzie, Miss. K Old Court."

Zuleika was not enlightened. The description reminded her
vaguely of a move at chess.

"Through the screens, Miss," said the porter helpfully. But still
Zuleika was at a loss. The porter realised that he had to deal with the
really hopeless May Term type. He walked far enough with Zuleika
to show her the precise approach to Mr Mackenzie's staircase.

ZULEIKA IN CAMBRIDGE 123

Brian Mackenzie, formerly of the University of Aberdeen, and
now Fellow and Mathematical Lecturer of St Benedict's and Senior
Proctor in the University, was a man of tidy mind and tidy habits.
He had no love of the office of Proctor, but he had recognised the
obligation to serve and he had come through the greater part of his
year of office without any major scandal or disturbance. He had a
reputation for courtesy, dignity and efficiency.

What he had heard from Oxford in the preceding twenty-four
hours had filled him with incredulous astonishment. He had been
convinced that the daily press, following its invariable practice of
putting Oxford in the headlines and Cambridge in the University
Intelligence, had grossly exaggerated the devastation produced by
the visit of Zuleika to Judas College. Nevertheless, when the news
of her migration to Cambridge reached him, he felt that he must act
and act promptly. He had called upon the Vice-Chancellor and sug-
gested that he should summon a special meeting of the Proctorial
Syndicate. The Vice-Chancellor was disturbed. As Full Term drew
to an end, he liked to resume his collation of certain Syriac frag-
ments which seemed to embody a dialect hitherto unknown to
scholars and he hoped shortly to complete an article on the subject
for The Journal of Oriental Studies. He, too, had heard something
about strange happenings at the other university, but when he had
caught sight of a headline "Oxford Sensation" he had shuddered
slightly and put the newspaper down. The description of an event
as a "sensation" always produced in him a feeling of incipient nausea.
However, he trusted Mackenzie's judgment and a meeting of the
Proctorial Syndicate had been convened for five o'clock.

Mackenzie's aim was clear. He wanted to remove Zuleika from
Cambridge as quickly and as quietly as possible. Sceptical as he was
about the measure of disaster which she had brought upon Oxford,
he desired above all things to see her safely in a Liverpool Street
train. It was a policy he had pursued with some success, during his
year of office, in relation to female immigrants of a different type.
"Let us have a minimum of fuss," he used to say at proctorial con-
ferences. As a mathematician, Mackenzie had a reputation for neat-
ness rather than for elegance.

He rose to greet Zuleika.

"Ah, Miss Dobson, this is very kind of you. Won't you sit down?"

Zuleika sat down slowly and looked round the room, at its book-
shelves heavy with treatises on Octonions and Invariants and Peri-
odic Functions and Sets of Points and Twisted Cubics, all in massive
dark blue bindings; at the mantelpiece with its neat array of pipes

124 S. C. ROBERTS

and fixture-cards; at the pile of Proceedings of the London Mathe-
matical Society on a side table; at the faded Persian hearth-rug and
the deep padded chairs on each side of it.

"So you are the Proctor," said Zuleika.
I am.

"You sent for me. Why do you want me?"

"I wished to have a talk with you."

"And you could not brook delay?"

"Miss Dobson, it was important that I should have an opportunity
of speaking to you and, in particular, that I should take the oppor-
tunity before five o'clock this afternoon."

"So soon? Do you wish to die for me at five o'clock?"

Mackenzie was irritated. Either the girl was a lunatic or she was
trying to make a fool of him. In either case she was wasting time.

"I have no wish," he began, "to enter into unnecessary detail. But
as an official of the University responsible for the discipline and good
behaviour of undergraduates "

"Oxford undergraduates behave divinely."

"Outside Cambridge I have no jurisdiction," said Mackenzie a
little sharply.

"Has the college ghost walked?" asked Zuleika.

Mackenzie was for a moment thrown out of his official stride. In
any other college the question might have been disregarded as a piece
of frivolous irrelevance. But the St Benedict's ghost was famous. It
was the only one which had crept into the guide-books.

"An ancient college like this accumulates much curious tradi-
tion," said Mackenzie, temporising.

"Will it walk at five o'clock?" asked Zuleika, disregarding the
generalisation.

"I have never seen it," said Mackenzie curtly.

"And did the black owls perch on the battlements last night, hoot-
ing until the dawn?"

Again, Mackenzie was unfortunate. The owls which favoured the
elm-trees within the precincts of the college on the opposite side of
the street were becoming an intolerable nuisance to light sleepers
in St Benedict's. At a recent college meeting Mackenzie had urged
that a strong letter of protest should be addressed to the governing
body of the offending college.

"May we not return to the subject of our discussion?" he said
politely.

"But what is the subject?" asked Zuleika.

"In a word— yourself," said Mackenzie with great suavity.

ZULEIKA IN CAMBRIDGE 125

"At Oxford they did not summon me to discussions. They just
died for me. Do you wish to die for me— at five o'clock?"

'Tor that hour, my dear Miss Dobson, I already have a more vital
engagement. The Vice-Chancellor has agreed to preside over a spe-
cial meeting of the Proctorial Syndicate."

"What is the meeting for?"

Mackenzie took up a piece of paper from his writing-table.

"The draft of the terms of reference which I have ventured to pro-
pose to the Vice-Chancellor is here. I will read it to you: 'To con-
sider the steps to be taken to meet the situation arising out of the
arrival in Cambridge of a stranger alleged to have caused grave dis-
turbance in another university.' That, of course, is a draft and sub-
ject to amendment. But it may serve to show that the University is
likely to take a serious view."

"But aren't Universities always serious?" asked Zuleika humbly.

"The University has a variety of functions to perform," replied
Mackenzie.

"And what does a Syndicate perform?"

"I have no wish to weary you, Miss Dobson, with the detail of
academic procedure. But if I can inform the Vice-Chancellor and
the Syndicate at five o'clock that you agree with the course I am
about to propose "

"You are about to propose?" repeated Zuleika with wide-open
eyes.

"I am about to propose that you should leave Cambridge by the
6.25 train."

"But I have only just arrived."

"My dear Miss Dobson, I will refrain from the obvious retort,
which no doubt would have been made in Oxford, of the greater
benefit of travelling hopefully. I have no wish to indulge in exag-
gerated censure, but in my position I am bound to safeguard the
University against risk."

"Risk of what?"

"Risk of— er— disturbance of the undergraduate population."

Zuleika was growing weary. The conversation had taken on a
staccato quality.

"Are you going to offer me tea?" she enquired.

Momentarily taken aback, Mackenzie made a quick recovery. He
had no wide experience of negotiations with females, for, in Edvar-
dian times, ladies did not sit upon Faculty Boards. But he knew that,
just as valuable concessions in academic negotiation could be most
successfully secured after the port had travelled twice round the

126 S. C. ROBERTS

table, so, with women, it was necessary to conduct really important
business over the tea-cups.

Normally he did not take afternoon tea himself. His gyp did not
report to him until 6 o'clock. It would be necessary for him to visit
the buttery himself. "But, of course," he said amiably, "excuse me
for a moment."

When he reached the buttery, he found the main door locked. He
tried the side door to the butler's private room, but the room was
empty. Shortly a buttery-boy, only recently engaged, appeared. Mac-
kenzie stated his wants. The boy stated in reply that the buttery
staff would "come on" in about ten minutes' time.

"I want tea for two and cakes— in my rooms at once," said Mac-
kenzie.

"What sort of cakes?" asked the boy.

"Oh— the best sort," said Mackenzie.

"I'll tell them," said the boy. It was all he could do. Meanwhile
Zuleika sat in Mackenzie's rooms. She was bored. She could not
follow very clearly all the talk about Vice-Chancellors and Syndi-
cates and she certainly did not intend to leave by the 6.25. She
wanted to learn what Cambridge men were like and poor Mackenzie
seemed to her to be not so much a man as a piece of official mecha-
nism. A phrase came into her head. It had been spoken to her in her
early days of struggle by an unsympathetic employer: "No good pur-
pose will be served by prolonging this interview." Zuleika felt that
it was apt. She went out.

"Find Mr Mackenzie all right, Miss?" said the porter cheerfully.

"Yes, thank you— and lost him."

Ill

Zuleika stood at the gate of St Benedict's and turned her steps to-
wards the hotel. Then she changed her mind and turned in the
opposite direction. The hotel held no attraction for her. Instead,
she gazed wonderingly at a Gothic pile which faced her on the op-
posite side of the street. She was unable to determine whether it was
a college or a church. There was no one to tell her that it was just
a printing-house.

So she went on and came to a gateway which must surely betoken
another college. Was it full of more Mackenzies, she wondered. At
that moment a young man came out of the college. He caught sight
of Zuleika and stopped. A light of thrilled recognition came into his
eye.

ZULEIKA IN CAMBRIDGE 127

"Excuse me," he said, "but aren't you Miss Dobson, Miss Zuleika
Dobson?"

Zuleika looked at the young man through her long lashes. Who
could he be? Someone who had escaped from Oxford and followed
her across? Or had he merely seen her picture in the illustrated
papers? If so, his effrontery must be crushed.

"That is my name," she said, "but I do not think I have the
pleasure "

"Oh, of course, you wouldn't remember me. But you might con-
ceivably remember giving a sort of semi-private show at the Jacobean
Club at Yale last year. I was living at Yale at the same time and
shook hands with you after the show. But of course you don't re-
member. Why should you?"

"Why should you remember me?"

"Because . . . well, you're Zuleika Dobson and I'm just Desmond
Hawkins of Valence Hall."

"Are you a Proctor?"

Hawkins burst into laughter.

"Heavens, no! I've just come back for a fifth year, trying to write
a thesis for a fellowship, you know."

But Zuleika didn't know anything about fellowship theses.

"Five years seems a long time," she said, "I haven't been in Cam-
bridge for five hours yet."

"Where are you staying?"

"I'm not sure that I am staying. They want to send me away by
the 6.25 train."

"Who wants to?"

"The Syndicate."

"What Syndicate?"

"I don't know," said Zuleika wearily. "I don't know anything
about Cambridge. It seems so different from "

"Yes, I know what you're going to say. It is different, I know. But,
Miss Dobson, do tell me. There's an absurd rumour going round
about everyone at Oxford dying for you. I suppose it's just another
Oxford legend written up by some clever journalist. Do tell me
about it."

Zuleika looked in some astonishment at the amused, enquiring,
and ingenuous countenance of Desmond Hawkins. He was recover-
ing from his initial shyness and was now nearly at his ease. It was
evident that he admired her, but it was equally evident that he did
not believe in the Oxford stories. He was polite and charming, but
he was not prostrate before her.

128 S. C. ROBERTS

"Oxford indeed has died for me," she said in the voice of a
tragedy-queen, "in Cambridge I am dying for a cup of tea."

Hawkins was startled. Had the fierce afternoon sunshine been too
much for Zuleika? Or was she merely thirsty?

"Miss Dobson," he said eagerly, "if you'd really do me the honour
of having tea in my rooms, I should be proud, of course, and
delighted."

"Lead me to them," said Zuleika.

They went over the cobbles, which Zuleika disliked very much,
and turned into a tiny cloister. Hawkins led the way up a narrow
staircase and Zuleika followed him. She found herself in an untidy,
but cosy room. There were several comfortable chairs. One of them
was burdened with a pile of books, another with a tennis racket,
another with a pair of flannel trousers, which Hawkins flung hastily
into his bedroom.

Zuleika sank into the chair thus disencumbered.

"This is grand," said Hawkins.

Whatever other qualities the scene might hold, Zuleika felt that
the element of grandeur was lacking.

"What is grand?" she murmured.

"Why, being able to persuade you to come and have tea with me
like this."

"Like what?"

"Well, informally and . . . (Hawkins blushed slightly) alone."

"Then you are not afraid?"

"Afraid? Oh, you're harking back to that Oxford rumour? No, I'm
sorry, Miss Dobson, but candidly I don't feel a bit like dying. I'd
much rather go on living and "

"And ?" Zuleika's lips were parted.

"And get you some tea."

Zuleika sank back into the chair.

"That," she said, "would be a very admirable thing to do."

Hawkins began operations upon his Primus stove. It was, fortu-
nately, in good order.

"If you don't mind waiting half a minute, I'll just pop across to
the buttery and get something to eat."

For the second time in half an hour Zuleika was left alone in col-
lege rooms. This time she had no desire to escape. Her host offered
little of excitement or romance, but at least he did not talk gibberish
about syndicates and terms of reference.

Hawkins re-appeared in a few minutes. He had given some quite
precise orders about the food to be sent to his rooms. In particular

ZULEIKA IN CAMBRIDGE 129

he had made certain that the toast should be what was known in the
college as "fellows' toast," neat little crustless triangles with just the
right amount of butter evenly spread, not the solid slabs moistened
in the middle which were commonly served to undergraduates. Also
he made a point of ordering a few slices of lemon.

"Ah, the kettle is nearly boiling," he said cheerfully. "As it hap-
pens, I have some China tea. You'd prefer that, wouldn't you?"

"Yes, I think I should."

"And you also prefer a slice of lemon to milk?"

"Yes. Don't you?"

"No, I can't stand it, but I felt sure you would."

"Why?"

"Well, you're that sort."

"What sort?"

"Well, shall we say, a little . . . exotic?"

"And what precisely does the word 'exotic' signify?"

"Oh, I say, you mustn't press me too hard. Anyhow, it's the oppo-
site of 'dowdy.' "

"I am relieved," said Zuleika, "to find that I am not dowdy."

The kettle boiled, Hawkins made the tea, and a buttery-boy en-
tered with a number of dishes.

"What will you have to eat? Toast?" asked Hawkins.

"A tiny piece," said Zuleika. But in fact she ate four.

"How about a sandwich now?" said Hawkins.

"A sandwich?" cried Zuleika, visualising the crude layers of ham
dear to masculine appetite.

"Oh, come," said Hawkins, "these are really rather tasty." He held
before her a plate of diminutive confections at the heart of which
was Gentleman's Relish or, alternatively, pate de foie gras.

"Or there are these little things if you prefer them," Hawkins went
on, indicating coffee eclairs of small size but agreeable texture.

Zuleika made a triple surrender.

"To take tea with you, Mr. Hawkins," she said, "is an agreeable
experience, but to repeat it would be to ruin my figure."

"I don't believe it, Miss Dobson— , I mean about your figure. But
it's been wonderful to be able to entertain you for a few minutes
like this."

Zuleika rose.

"Can I escort you anywhere, Miss Dobson? I expect you may want
to rest a bit. No doubt you have a lot of engagements here."

"I know no one in Cambridge," said Zuleika.

"No one? Then why "

130 S. C. ROBERTS

"Why indeed did I come to Cambridge? Yes, you are entitled to
ask that. They did wonderful things for me in Oxford, but in retro-
spect I cannot help feeling that they overdid them. The art of dying
for me ceased, I fear, to be an art. It degenerated into a stampede.
Nothing, as they say in Oxford, impedes like excess."

"D'you really mean, Miss Dobson, that you're free of engagements
for this evening, for instance?"

"I am free of everything except my memories," said Zuleika. "Up
to now I have looked forward always, but now there is nothing left
but retrospect."

"Then, if it isn't too bold on my part to suggest it, would you care
to dine with me?"

"Here?" asked Zuleika.

"Well, no. You see, my rooms are not really large enough for a
party, but to-night, as it happens, Duxberry (one of the younger
dons here) and his wife and a few others are dining with me in the
Guest Room and after dinner we're going to move across to another
man's rooms. Quite a friendly and informal affair. No fuss. It would
be wonderful if you could join us."

Zuleika looked across at Hawkins. His enthusiasm was obvious,
but it was the enthusiasm of youth in anticipation of a good lark.
She reflected quietly which frock in her wardrobe would most
suitably accord with the atmosphere of "no fuss." The dove-grey,
perhaps? Or should she heighten the effect by wearing the flame-
coloured dress with . . . ? But suddenly she realised that she was
choosing her dress before she had decided whether to accept the
invitation.

"But your party, surely, is made up?" she temporised.

"It was. But it will be eternally incomplete unless "

"I will come," said Zuleika.

IV

When Mackenzie returned to his rooms and found them empty,
he was annoyed. He could not really believe that Zuleika was prowl-
ing round his bedroom, but he looked in to make sure and came to
the conclusion, quite correctly, that Zuleika had quietly given him
the slip. He hurried down to the porter's lodge.

"Has a lady just left the college, Barnicott?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Which way did she go?"

"'Went along to the right, Sir."

ZULEIKA IN CAMBRIDGE 131

For a moment Mackenzie thought of dashing off in pursuit, since
it seemed clear that Zuleika had returned to her hotel. But he noted
a rather curious look on the porter's face and refrained.

"Anything I can do, Sir?"

"Not at present, thank you, Barnicott. I may want to send a mes-
sage later."

"Very good, Sir."

On his way back to his rooms Mackenzie remembered to cancel his
order at the buttery.

It would, he reflected, be undignified to pursue Zuleika at the mo-
ment. Her disappearance suggested either that she was frightened or
that she was up to some mischief. He confessed to himself that he
thought the latter alternative more probable. However, he had at
any rate succeeded in interviewing her and in giving her warning;
he would be in a reasonably strong position at the meeting of the
Proctorial Syndicate.

The Vice-Chancellor took the chair punctually, but with an air
of mild grievance, at five o'clock.

He must apologise, he said, for summoning a meeting of the Syn-
dicate at such an unusual time and at such short notice. But circum-
stances of a peculiar nature had arisen which had given rise to grave
apprehension in the mind of the Senior Proctor. Such apprehensions
were due to reports, not at present wholly substantiated, of events of
a somewhat alarming character which had occurred, or were alleged
to have occurred, within the precincts of the sister university. In thus
adumbrating the general situation the last thing he would wish to do
would be to prejudge, in any particular, the issues which lay before
the Syndicate. He would therefore call upon the Senior Proctor.

The Senior Proctor bowed slightly to the Vice-Chancellor and
cleared his throat. He had no wish to take up the time of the Syndi-
cate and would be as brief as possible. Information had reached him
in the course of the morning concerning the recent visit of a Miss
Zuleika Dobson to the University of Oxford— a lady rumoured,
though he could with difficulty credit the rumour, to be closely re-
lated to one of the best known and most widely esteemed Heads of
Houses in that university. Detailed reports, as the Vice-Chancellor
had observed, were not at present forthcoming, but on the evidence
available it appeared that the lady's influence among the junior
members of the university had been of the most extraordinary and
devastating character. After every allowance had been made for jour-
nalistic exaggeration it appeared tolerably certain that not a few un-
dergraduate members of Oxford colleges, following the lead of a

132 S. C. ROBERTS

somewhat eccentric nobleman, had deliberately drowned themselves
on account of this young woman.

"Don't believe a word of it!" interrupted Simpkins, a young clas-
sical don from Jesus, who was coaching one of his college boats and
resented being dragged to the meeting at a most inconvenient hour.

Mackenzie, continuing, recognised that such an attitude of hasty
incredulity could well be understood, but suggested that Mr Simp-
kins might suitably suspend judgment for the moment. The Syndi-
cate, indeed, might feel at this point that however deeply they might
commiserate with the sister university in her misfortune, the matter
was officially no concern of theirs (Hear, hear). Unfortunately, it
was impossible for the University to take up such a position of
detachment.

Mackenzie paused. The Syndicate was listening to him now.

"I regret to have to inform the Syndicate," he concluded, "that the
young lady in question is now in our midst."

"How do you know?" blurted Simpkins.

Mackenzie played his trump card.

"Because I interviewed her in my rooms two hours ago."

"Then why " Simpkins began.

The Vice-Chancellor interposed.

"I am sure the Syndicate and indeed the University will be most
grateful to the Senior Proctor for the great care and promptitude
which he has shown in approaching this difficult problem. As to any
further course of action to be followed, I am of course in the hands
of the Syndicate."

"Could we be informed, Mr Vice-Chancellor, of our precise terms
of reference?" asked the Vice-Master of Emmanuel.

The Vice-Chancellor looked a little perplexed, but Mackenzie
promptly handed him a slip of paper.

"It is suggested," said the Vice-Chancellor, "that our business
might be summarised in the following terms: 'To consider the steps
to be taken to meet the situation arising out of the arrival in Cam-
bridge of a stranger alleged to have caused grave disturbance in an-
other university.' "

"Could the Senior Proctor tell us where the stranger is now?"
asked Simpkins.

Mackenzie looked a little uncomfortable.

"She is staying at a hotel not far from my own college," he replied.

"Is she there now?"

"I believe so."

"Mr Vice-Chancellor," said Simpkins, "may we have this point

ZULEIKA IN CAMBRIDGE 133

cleared up a little? We know that two hours ago the lady was in the
Senior Proctor's rooms. But where is she now? For all we know,
while we are talking, she may be submerging freshmen right and
left!"

"Mr Simpkins, please," said the Vice-Chancel lor reproachfully.

"I have already made it clear," said Mackenzie, "that the lady is
in all probability in her hotel."

"Probabilities," said the Junior Proctor, a logician from Sidney
Sussex, "seem to be an unsatisfactory basis for a policy of action.
But, assuming for the moment that the Proctors are successful in
getting hold of the lady, may I enquire what we are to do with her?"

"Put her into the train for Liverpool Street," said Mackenzie.

"Under what Ordinance?" asked the Registrary, who had attended
the meeting at the Vice-Chancellor's request.

"Surely the Proctors have summary powers in dealing with certain
kinds of women?" said Mackenzie.

"This seems to be an uncertain kind," replied the Registrary tone-
lessly.

"Aren't we beating about the bush?" interposed Simpkins. "What
I want to know is this: is the woman a bad lot or not?"

The Vice-Chancellor coughed.

"Perhaps," he said wanly, "the Senior Proctor would . . ." His
voice faded.

"I really cannot undertake to give a categorical answer to Mr
Simpkins' question," said Mackenzie.

"But you have talked to her in your own rooms, alone, haven't
you?" retorted Simpkins.

Doctor Blenkinsop, Maitland Professor of Civil Law, spoke for the
first time:

"With respect, Mr Vice-Chancellor, I venture to think the discus-
sion has strayed a little from the main issue. While I would not sug-
gest that the character of the lady is wholly irrelevant to the argu-
ment, it appears to me that there are two main questions to be
determined: first, whether it is desirable that action should be taken
to remove the lady from the precincts; and secondly, if the desira-
bility of such action should be established, under what authority it
should be taken. It is clearly not a case, in my submission, for the
Sex Viri or for the Court of Discipline and, as at present advised, I
should hesitate to subscribe to the view that the Proctors have any
right of summary jurisdiction in such a case."

The Vice-Master of Emmanuel said that everything Professor
Blenkinsop had said ought to be very carefully weighed. For his own

134 S. C. ROBERTS

part he was beginning to doubt whether the question before them
could be satisfactorily examined by a body like the present Syndi-
cate and, notwithstanding the very natural desire of the responsible
officials to proceed without undue delay, he could not help wonder-
ing whether the most satisfactory course might not be the appoint-
ment of a small committee.

"A committee of this Syndicate or a body appointed ad hoc?"
asked the Registrary.

"Ad hoc and de novo, I suggest," replied the Vice-Master, though
he was at pains to add that he had not fully thought out the most
appropriate constitution for the suggested committee.

"Mr Vice-Chancellor," said Greville of Trinity, who was sitting
next to Simpkins and had had much whispered conversation with
him, "may I with great respect enquire whether we are really getting
anywhere?"

"I had understood," replied the Vice-Chancellor, "though of course
I am open to correction by the Syndicate, I had understood that the
Vice-Master of Emmanuel desired to formulate a motion. If such a
motion should be seconded, perhaps Professor Blenkinsop might find
it convenient to express his views in the form of an amendment."

But the Professor was understood to reply that, on reconsidera-
tion, he felt that, as major questions of academic policy might now
be involved, it would be better to refer the whole question to the
Council of the Senate.

"Mr Vice-Chancellor," Simpkins broke in, "if this matter is really
urgent, can't we do. something instead of just talking about com-
mittees?"

"Do I now understand," asked the Vice-Chancellor plaintively,
"that the Vice-Master of Emmanuel's motion is not seconded?"

"In view of the turn the discussion has taken," replied the Vice-
Master, "I am hardly prepared to make a formal motion."

"In that case," said Simpkins, "I beg to move that as the Senior
Proctor has apparently caught the lady once and then let her slip
through his fingers, he had better try again, with the aid of his bull-
dogs if necessary, and then tell us more about it."

"I second that," said Greville quickly.

"Mr Simpkins moves, and Mr Greville seconds, that Perhaps

the Registrary will give us the exact wording."

The Registrary read from his notes:

"That the Senior Proctor be requested to take immediate steps to
gain further information, at first-hand, of a certain visitor; and to
report to the Syndicate thereon."

ZULEIKA IN CAMBRIDGE 135

"May I ask for a show of hands?" said the Vice-Chancellor.

Three hands went up.

"Those against?"

No hands were raised.

"Hardly a majority of the Syndicate, I am afraid," said the Vice-
Chancellor sadly, "but nevertheless nernine contradicente. No doubt
the Senior Proctor is now fully seized of the sense of the meeting, and
I feel sure that he will very kindly undertake to report to us in due
course. The Syndicate will adjourn."

V

Zuleika's hansom drew up at the front gate of Valence Hall. Meli-
sande was with her, carrying a pair of goloshes (or, more accurately,
overshoes) that had been a gift from a Rubber King after her final
performance in Milwaukee. They were lined with swan's down and
bore Zuleika's initials studded in diamonds. Melisande slipped them
over her mistress's shoes and accompanied her over the cobblestones
to the foot of the staircase which led to the Guest Room.

After much reflection Zuleika had decided to wear a dress of deep
wine-colour. It clung closely to her lithe figure and was wholly lack-
ing in trimming or ornament. Amongst the May Term muslins its
rich and sombre plainness produced a startling effect. Zuleika wore
no jewelry save a snake-bracelet with deep ruby eyes. (It had been a
parting tribute from the Maharajah of Kurrigalore.)

Hawkins greeted Zuleika with an air of subdued excitement, and
introduced his other guests— Duxberry and his wife, Davidson (an
undergraduate) and his sister, and a Newnham history don.

"I'll be frank with you, Miss Dobson," he said. "I had to get a man
in a great hurry to make the party even. He's a bit late, I'm afraid,
but he's coming all right."

Zuleika was not pleased. She had deliberately ordered her cab
ten minutes late; she took no pleasure in making a penultimate
entrance.

"Mr Simpkins, Sir," announced the gyp at the doorway.

"Ah, Simmy," said Hawkins, "that's splendid."

"Sorry I'm so late," said Simpkins, "but I've had to waste hours at
a ridiculous meeting about some woman who's supposed to have "

"May I introduce Miss Dobson," said Hawkins, quickly.

Simpkins gasped.

"Miss Zuleika Dobson?" he asked.

"Is it so strange a name?" said Zuleika.

136 S. C. ROBERTS

"No, no. Not strange exactly. Just a little— what shall I say— coin-
cidental."

They sat down. Zuleika was, of course, on the right of her host;
on the other side of her was Simpkins. Inevitably Zuleika compared
the scene in her mind's eye with her initial entertainment by the
Warden of Judas. How different was the familiar gaiety of this party
round the oval table from the superb and icy neglect with which the
Duke had treated her at that first meeting. This was a party sans
ccrcmonie, but, as the dinner progressed, Zuleika noted with satis-
faction that there was no nonsense about "pot luck": the vol-au-vent
financier e was exquisite and the creme brulee was something new in
Zuleika's culinary experience.

Hawkins did not say much to Zuleika. In the first place he was
conscious of his obligation to Mrs Duxberry whose chaperonage had
facilitated the making of the party; also, the cares of the host were
upon him and on this evening he felt that he had incurred no ordi-
nary responsibilities. Further, he had a slight feeling of guilt, since,
but for Zuleika's irruption, he would have had next to him David-
son's pretty sister. Zuleika, no doubt, would have been quick to ob-
serve something of this, had she not been continuously engaged in
conversation by Simpkins. ■

Simpkins knew little more of Zuleika than what he had heard at
the meeting of the Proctorial Syndicate; but this party was going to
be the best joke of the term for him.

"D'you know Cambridge well, Miss Dobson?" he asked innocently.

"Can one know a place well in a few hours?"

"Hardly, perhaps. But people are more interesting than places,
don't you think?"

"I am weary of both," said Zuleika, mournfully.

"Oh, come, Miss Dobson, don't judge us too hastily. People take
their colour from places to some extent, I admit. In Oxford, for
instance, a party like this might look very much the same at first
glance, but in fact the people would be fundamentally different."

"I agree," said Zuleika, coldly.

"Oh, you know Oxford?" said Simpkins.

Hawkins had caught a little of this and broke in:

"You're barking up the wrong tree, Simmy. You can't teach Miss
Dobson anything about Oxford."

The other little conversations round the table broke off. Simpkins
was about to retort, but Duxberry slipped in a word from the end of
the table.

ZULEIKA IN CAMBRIDGE 137

"I hope," he said gallantly, "that we shan't try to teach Miss Dob-
son anything."

"The Warden of Judas is your grandfather, is he not, Miss Dob-
son?" said the Newnham don.

"He is," said Zuleika.

"A charming old gentleman, I believe," said Mrs Duxberry. "My
brother-in-law stayed with him last term when he was preaching the
University Sermon."

Simpkins was enjoying his second glass of Ruppertsberger.

"I daresay my conversational gambits are clumsy enough," he said,
"but of course we all know that having devastated Oxford, Miss Dob-
son is now rapidly making us her slaves in Cambridge."

"Do you know the Senior Proctor?" asked Zuleika.

Simpkins laughed.

"Poor old Mac," he said. "Yes, you've captivated him."

"But he didn't seem to like me at all," said Zuleika. "He wanted
to send me to Liverpool Street."

"He might at least have chosen King's Cross," said the Newnham
don.

"Miss Dobson," said Hawkins, "I think what Mr Simpkins is try-
ing to say is that we're all delighted to have you with us in Cam-
bridge."

"I can say it much better than that," said Simpkins. "I'll give you
a toast. The divine Zuleika and may we all live for ever to do her
honour!"

The toast was drunk and they moved across to Davidson's rooms.
To sit down in re-arranged pairs seemed something of an anti-
climax.

"What do we do now?" said Simpkins, irrepressibly. "Sing? Dance?
Play Consequences? Have you any parlour-tricks, Miss Dobson?"

For a moment Zuleika suspected a further attempt at leg-pulling.
Furious, she gazed at Simpkins. Simpkins felt that he had never seen
anyone half so beautiful. He even blushed, but Zuleika perceived
that it was not a blush of shame. He was, in fact, unaware of Zu-
leika's professional activities and Zuleika, as she noted his rubicund
adoration, knew that she had nothing to forgive. Why, after all,
should she worry overmuch about young men dying for her if there
were others with whom she could enjoy herself? Surprised, she heard
herself saying:

"Let's play charades."

"Splendid," said Hawkins, much relieved.

138 S. C. ROBERTS

"We're not a very large party," said Mrs Duxberry. "All you young
people must act and Frank and I will be the audience."

The Newnham don brightened a little at this and they trooped
into Davidson's bedroom.

The usual Babel of murmurs about the choice of word arose.
Simpkins cut the discussion short.

"Of course, there's only one possible word— Zu-leika!"

"Two syllables or three?" asked Hawkins.

"Oh, don't bother about details now. Let's find some costumes."

Davidson's wardrobe was ransacked.

"Now, for the first syllable " Simpkins began.

Heavy footsteps were heard and then a knock at the door.

"You can't come in here. We're dressing up," shouted Simpkins.

"Is Mr Hawkins there?" said a voice.

Hawkins opened the door and found himself facing the college
porter.

"I'm sorry to disturb your party, Sir, but the Proctor's down be-
low. He wants to know if there's a Miss Dobson with you."

Hawkins looked embarrassed.

"Tell him to come up," said Simpkins, "tell him he's just in time
for the fun, tell him he can choose what part he likes, tell him "

"Very good, Sir," said the porter.

Mackenzie arrived.

"Hello, Mac," cried Simpkins, "you're just in time for a little
green room gossip. Come and help me to dress as the King of Beasts."

Mackenzie blinked.

"I wish to see a Mr Hawkins," he said.

"No, you don't, Mac," said Simpkins. "What you've come for is
to renew your acquaintance with Miss Dobson. Here she is, Mac,
divinely beautiful and divinely ready to forgive you."

"Really," began Mackenzie, "I have no wish to intrude upon a
private gathering, but in accordance with the Vice-Chancellor's in-
structions I am obliged to "

"Don't worry, Mac. You've nothing to do. I've made all the fur-
ther enquiries myself. Now you go into the next room and help to
swell the audience."

Mackenzie stared helplessly at the group of half-dressed figures.
Hawkins came forward.

"Yes, do go in, Sir. You'll find Mr and Mrs Duxberry there."

So Mackenzie found himself talking politely to Mrs Duxberry
about his plans for the Long Vacation and the vacant professorship
of Hebrew and the forthcoming concert of the Fugue Society and

ZULEIKA IN CAMBRIDGE 139

other seasonable topics. In a few minutes they were watching the
First Scene of the charade in which an August Personage, attended
by her suite, was conducted round the Zoo to see a newly-arrived lion
of great ferocity; the Second Scene in which the same Personage from
a stand at Ditton Corner witnessed the sinking of a clinker four fit
sank because it was a "leaker"); and the Final Scene in which the
Personage, seated on an improvised throne and wearing an impro-
vised crown, received the homage of her faithful subjects. Duxberry
and his wife applauded in rapture, and Mackenzie clapped uncom-
fortably.

"I think perhaps," he said, "that I had better be going now. It is
clearly not an appropriate time for the discussion of official busi-
ness."

"Of course it isn't," said Simpkins. "Dulce est desipere, Mac, and
we're certainly in loco to-night."

"I'm glad we didn't have to play the charade in Latin," said Zu-
leika to Mrs Duxberry.

"Ah, these classical dons," said Mrs Duxberry indulgently, "it's
second nature to them, I suppose."

"Well, second nature's better than original sin," retorted Simp-
kins. "Don't you think so, Miss Dobson?"

"I prefer Art to both," said Zuleika.

"I'm bound to say that I agree with Miss Dobson," said Mackenzie
unexpectedly.

"Of course you do, Mac," said Simpkins. "Miss Dobson," he went
on, turning to Zuleika, "we have an institution in Cambridge known
as May Week. As many commentators have explained, it isn't exactly
a week and it isn't in May, but it can be quite pleasant. Concerts, you
know, and balls and boat-races and "

"I know," said Zuleika quietly.

"Well, a sister-in-law of mine is bringing a few friends this year to
be my guests. Couldn't I induce you to join us?"

Zuleika pondered. She had to confess to herself that the evening
had been enjoyable, though she did not quite know why. To be ad-
mired and adored by men was nothing new to her; but Cambridge
men gave no sign of wanting to lie down and die for love of her.
Instead, they stood about and made harmless jokes. Zuleika still knew
what she liked; and she was growing a little tired of innocent fun.

"Who'll have some Moselle cup?" said Hawkins, from the other
end of the room.

"All of us," shouted Simpkins, "except Mackenzie. He'd prefer a
whiskey and soda."

140 S. C. ROBERTS

"Simpkins," said Mackenzie, embarrassed, "you might at least let
me state my own preferences."

"Certainly, Mac. Just tell Miss Dobson how much you'd prefer it
if she came up for May Week."

"Of course," said Mackenzie, still more confused, "but it's hardly
for me to . . ."

Zuleika came to his rescue.

"Thank you," she said slowly. "It has certainly been interesting to
learn something of Cambridge. But Mr Mackenzie need have no
fear; I should not dream of bringing fresh embarrassment upon his
Syndicate."

The Struggle for North America

BY ARNOLD J. TOYNBEE

The classic illustration of our present theme in our Western
history is the outcome of the competition between half a dozen
different groups of Western colonists for the mastery of North
America. The victors in this contest were the New Englanders; and
at an earlier point in this chapter, * apropos of the reversion of Town
Hill, Connecticut, to its pristine state of Nature, we have taken note
of the unusual difficulty of the local American environment which
first fell to the lot of the ultimate masters of the whole continent.
Let us now compare this New England environment, of which the
site of Town Hill is a specimen, with the earliest American environ-
ments of the New Englanders' unsuccessful competitors: the Dutch,
the French, the Spaniards, and the New Englanders' own kinsmen
and neighbours from England who established themselves along
the southern section of the Atlantic seaboard.

In the middle of the seventeenth century of the Christian Era,
when all these settlers had already found their first footing on the
fringes of the North American mainland, it would have been quite
easy to predict the coming conflict between them for the possession
of the interior; but the most acute and far-sighted observer then
alive would hardly have been likely to hit the mark if he had been
asked, at the time, to designate the ultimate victor. He might con-
ceivably have had the acumen to rule out the Spaniards in spite of
their two obvious assets: their ownership, in Mexico, of the only re-
gion in or adjoining North America which had been broken-in and
developed economically, before the European colonists' arrival, by
an indigenous civilization; and the primacy of Spain, in our hypo-
thetical observer's own day, among the Great Powers of the Western
World. Our observer might have discounted the high development
of Mexico in view of its outlying position— cut off, as it was, from

* Reference is to earlier pages of A Study of History [editor's note].

141

H2 ARNOLD J. TOYNBEE

the main body of North America by a broad belt of inhospitable
plateau and desert; and have discounted the political strength of
Spain by reading the political signs of the times as they were written
between the lines of the Treaty of Westphalia.

'The Spanish Empire', he might have pronounced, 'is already a
carcass round which the vultures are gathering. France will succeed
to the military hegemony of Spain in Europe, Holland and England
will succeed to her naval and commercial supremacy on the seas. The
competition for North America lies now between these three coun-
tries. Let us estimate their respective chances in the double light of
their general positions in the World and of their local holdings in
America. On a short view, Holland's chances might appear to be the
most promising. She is mistress of the seas (England being no match
for her on this element, and France not seriously competing); and
in America she holds a splendid water-gate opening into the interior:
the valley of the Hudson. On a longer view, however, France seems
more likely to be the winner; for the French St. Lawrence offers still
better means of access to the interior of North America than the
Dutch Hudson, while it is in the power of the French to immobilize
and exhaust the Dutch by bringing to bear against them the over-
whelming military superiority of France on the Continent of Europe.
All the same, as between French and Dutch prospects, I hesitate' (we
hear him saying) 'to decide. The one prophecy that I make with
confidence is that the English are not in the running. Possibly the
more southerly of the English colonies, with their relatively genial
soil and climate, will manage to survive— though at best they will
find themselves hemmed in between the Dutch along the Hudson
in the north and the Spaniards in Florida on the south and the
Dutch or the French, whichever it may be that cuts off their hinter-
land on the west by securing the control of the Mississippi. One
thing, however, is certain. The little group of settlements in the
bleak and barren country which the colonists have christened "New
England" is bound to disappear. They are cut off from the other
English settlements by the Dutch in the Hudson Valley, while the
French in the St. Lawrence Valley press them close on the opposite
flank. The destinies of these New Englanders, at any rate, are not
in doubt!'

Let us now suppose that our hypothetical observer lives to see the
turn of the century. By the year 1701 he will be congratulating him-
self on his discernment, fifty years earlier, in rating French prospects
higher than Dutch; for in the course of these last fifty years the St.
Lawrence has vanquished the Hudson. The French explorers have

THE STRUGGLE FOR NORTH AMERICA 143

pushed up the St. Lawrence on to the Great Lakes, and over the
portage into the Basin of the Mississippi, and down these Western
Waters to the delta of the great river, where they have established
the new French colony of Louisiana to match the older French col-
ony of Canada at the other end of the trans-continental waterway.
As for the Dutch, our observer must admit that he had rated their
prospects much too high. They might have made themselves masters
of the Great Lakes before the French arrived there. Indeed, for the
ocean-going vessels of the century, the head of navigation was rather
less distant up the Hudson than it was up the St. Lawrence from the
shores of Lake Ontario. Yet, far from that, the Dutch have tamely
allowed the Hudson Valley itself to be taken from them by their
weaker maritime rivals the English. Well, the Dutch are out of the
running now in North America, and the French and the English
are left there tete a tete; but the English can hardly be regarded as
serious competitors. The events of the last half-century assuredly do
not call for any revision of forecasts on this head— notwithstanding
the unlooked-for success which the English have gained in the Hud-
son Valley. Certainly the New Englanders are making the most of
this windfall. Already they are colonizing the back-country of the
Dutch province and are linking New England up with the rest of
the English settlements on the Atlantic coast. Possibly the New Eng-
landers have been saved from extinction— but this only to share the
modest prospects of their southern kinsfolk. For the English feat
of conquering the Hudson Valley from the facile Dutch has been
utterly surpassed by the simultaneous French feat of conquering
from the formidable virgin wilderness the whole extent of the mag-
nificent inland waterway between Quebec and New Orleans. While
the English colonies have been consolidated, the French colonies
have effectively hemmed them in. The future of the Continent is
decided! The victors are the French!

Shall we endow our observer with superhuman length of life, in
order that he may review the situation once more in the year 1803?
If we do preserve him alive till then, he will be forced to confess
that his wits have not been worthy of his longevity. By the end of
1803, the French flag has actually disappeared off the political map
of North America altogether. For forty years past, Canada has been
a possession of the British Crown, while Louisiana, after being ceded
by France to Spain and retroceded again, has just been sold on the
20th December, 1803, by Napoleon to the United States— the new
Great Power which has emerged out of the thirteen English colonies
by a most extraordinary metamorphosis.

144 ARNOLD J. TOYNBEE

'The United States of America!' Who would have prophesied it?
Yet the ambitious title is justified by the accomplished facts. In this
year 1803, the United States have the continent in their pockets, and
the scope for prophecy is reduced. It only remains to forecast which
section of these United States is going to pocket the larger share of
this vast estate— the breadth of a continent— that has come into their
joint possession. And surely this time there can be no mistake? The
Southern States are the manifest masters of the Union and residuary
legatees in North America of Great Britain and France. Look how
the Southerners are leading in this final round of the competition—
in this inter-American race for the Winning of the West. It is the
backwoodsmen of Virginia who have founded Kentucky— the first
new state to be established west of those mountains which have so
long conspired with the French to keep the English-speaking settlers
on the Atlantic coast from penetrating into the interior. And take
note of the key-position which Kentucky occupies, extending right
down the left bank of the Ohio to the confluence of the Mississippi's
principal tributary with the Mississippi himself. The West is in the
Southerners' grasp, and mark how all things work together for their
good. The statesmanship of an English Chatham and a Pennsyl-
vanian Franklin and a Corsican Buonaparte has endowed them with
an immeasurable supply of land; and, as fast as they can put this new
land under the hoe, the new-fangled mills of distant Lancashire are
offering them an ever-expanding market for the cotton-crop which
the soil and climate of the South enable them to raise. The Negro
provides the labour and the Mississippi the means of transporting
the produce to the quays of New Orleans, where the ships from
Liverpool are waiting to bear it away. Even the New Englander is a
useful auxiliary, as the Southerner superciliously points out.

'Our Yankee cousin,' the Southerner observes in 1807, 'has just
invented a "steam-boat" which will navigate our Mississippi up-
stream; and he has made a practical success of a machine for carding
and cleaning our cotton-bolls. Those unlovable, unfortunate fellow-
citizens of ours in that out-of-the-way corner, down east! Their
"Yankee notions" are more profitable to us than they are to the in-
genious inventors! For what are New England's prospects? Her
prospects are no better in this year 1807 than they were a century
since. To-day, when the wide West has been thrown open to South-
ern enterprise at last, it still remains closed to the New Englander.
New England is still barred in on the landward side by the barrier
of Canada, which has not ceased to be a foreign country in passing
from the French to the British Crown. So there our poor relation

THE STRUGGLE FOR NORTH AMERICA 145

still sits in his out-of-the-way corner, cooped up on the "bad lands"
of Town Hill; and there, presumably, he will go on sitting till
Doomsday! "Sedet, aeternumque sedebit!" ' *

If our unlucky prophet takes Southern prospects on the morrow
of the Louisiana Purchase at the Southerner's own valuation, he
must indeed be in his dotage; for in the last round of the two-
centuries-long contest for the mastery of the North American Con-
tinent, the Southerner is destined to meet a swifter and more crush-
ing defeat than those that have been met heretofore by the Spaniard
and the Dutchman and the Frenchman. To witness his discomfiture,
we shall not have to wait as long as a century. We shall see the rela-
tive positions of South and North reversed in less than a lifetime.

In the year 1865, the situation is already transformed, out of all
recognition, from what it was in 1807. In the Winning of the West,
the Southern pioneer had been outstripped and outflanked by his
Northern rival. After almost winning his way to the Great Lakes
through Indiana and after getting the best of the bargain in Mis-
souri, the Southerner has been decisively defeated in Kansas, and he
has never reached the Pacific. The descendants of the men who
mastered the difficulties of Town Hill, Connecticut, have now be-
come masters of the Pacific coast along the whole front from Seattle
to Los Angeles. Nor has the Southerner's command of the Mississippi
much availed him. He had counted on the network of the Western
Waters to draw the whole of the West into a Southern system of
economic and political relations; and when the Yankee presented
him with steam-boats to ply on the Western Waters, he imagined
that the Yankee had delivered the West into his hands. But 'Yankee
notions' have not ceased. The inventor of the steamer has gone on to
invent the locomotive; and the locomotive has taken away more
from the Southerner than the steamer ever gave him; for the po-
tential function of the Hudson Valley in the human geography of
North America as the main gateway from the Atlantic to the West—
a potentiality which the Dutch had failed to turn to account in com-
petition with the French— has been actualized at last in the railway
age. The railway-traffic which now passes up the valley of the Hudson
and the valley of the Mohawk and then along the lake-side to link
New York with Chicago has superseded the river-traffic on the Mis-
sissippi between New Orleans and St. Louis. Therewith, the internal
lines of communication of the North American Continent have
been turned at right angles from south and north to east and west;

Virgil: Aeneid, Book VI, 1. 617.

146 ARNOLD J. TOYNBEE

and the North-West has been detached from the South, to be welded
on to the North-East in interest and in sentiment. Indeed, the East-
erner, who once made the South- West a present of the river-steamer,
has now won the heart of the North-West with a double gift: he
has come to the North-Western farmer with the locomotive in one
hand and with the reaper-and-binder in the other, and so has pro-
vided him with solutions for both the problems with which the
West is confronted. In order to develop its potential economic ca-
pacities, the whole West has need of two things: transport and la-
bour; but the South-Western planter— believing that his labour-
problem has been solved for ever by the institution of Negro slavery
—has sought a solution for his transport-problem, and for this only,
from the Yankee's mechanical ingenuity. The North-Western farmer
is in a different case. He disposes of no servile man-power, and his
free-labour force is recruited by the casual process of immigration
from Europe all too slowly to till his fast-expanding fields. So he
finds the agricultural machinery which is turned out by the Eastern
factories as great a godsend as the Eastern railways. By these two
'Yankee notions', together, the allegiance of the North-West has
been decided; and thus the Civil War has been lost by the South
before it has been fought. In taking up arms in the hope of redress-
ing her economic reverses by a military counterstroke, the South has
merely precipitated and consummated a debacle that was already in-
evitable.

This ultimate victory of the New Englanders, in a competition for
the mastery of North America in which their Spanish, Dutch, French,
and Southern competitors were successively discomfited, is illuminat-
ing for the study of the question with which we are concerned at the
moment: the question of the relative stimulating effects of different
degrees of difficulty in the physical environment of human life. For,
unusually difficult though the New Englanders' environment was,
it is manifest that the rival colonists' environments were none of
them easy. To begin with, all alike had undergone the initial ordeal
of plucking up their social roots in Europe and crossing the Atlantic
and striking fresh roots in the soil of a New World; and, when they
had succeeded in re-establishing themselves, it was not only the
New Englanders who found permanent difficulties to contend with
in their new American home. The French settlers in Canada had to
contend with an almost arctic cold; and the French settlers in
Louisiana had to break in a great river. The Mississippi was as way-
ward in changing his course, and as devastating in his inundations,
as the Yellow River or the Nile or the Tigris; and the levees with

THE STRUGGLE FOR NORTH AMERICA 147

which the Creoles protected their hard-won fields and villages cost
no less human effort to build and maintain than the earthen bul-
warks of the Egyptiac and the Sumeric and the Sinic Civilization. In
fact, the difficulties presented by the physical environment in Canada
and in Louisiana were only less formidable than those which the
New Englanders encountered on Town Hill itself. Thus this North
American illustration, as far as it goes, tells in favour of the proposi-
tion that the difficulty and the stimulus of an environment are apt to
increase pari passu. It will tell the same tale if we push it even far-
ther.

Can we push it farther? Can we venture, in 1933, to prophesy
in whose hands the mastery of North America will lie a century
hence? Can we hope to come any nearer to the mark ourselves than
our imaginary prophet in 1650 and 1701 and 1803? Can we do more
than ring down the curtain on the present scene, in which the off-
spring of the New Englanders dominates the stage? Difficult though
divination may be, there are already certain signs that the drama is
not yet played out and the final victory in the struggle not yet de-
cided. One small sign once came to the notice of the author of this
Study.

A few days after the occasion, mentioned above,* when I passed
by the deserted site of Town Hill, Connecticut, I found myself with
an hour to spend between trains in one of the small back-country
manufacturing towns of New England, on the Massachusetts side
of the Connecticut-Massachusetts state-line. Since the General War
of 1914-18, the industrial districts of New England have fared as
badly as those of the mother country. They have fallen on evil days,
and they show it in their aspect. In this town, however, on this day,
the atmosphere was not at all forlorn or lifeless. The town was in
fete, and the whole population was abroad in the streets. Threading
my way through the crowds I noticed that one person out of every
two was wearing a special badge, and I inquired what the colours
signified. I was told that they were the colours of the local French
Canadian club; and I ascertained that my rough impression of their
frequency in the streets was borne out by statistics. In that year
1925, in that New England manufacturing town, the French Ca-
nadians were by far the strongest contingent in the local labour-
force. The indigenous New Englanders had left these factories, as
they had left the fields of Town Hill, to find their fortunes in the
West; but the town, unlike the village, had not been deserted. As

Reference is to earlier pages of A Study of History [editor's note].

148 ARNOLD J. TOYNBEE

fast as the indigenous population had ebbed out, a tide of French
Canadian immigrants had flooded in. Conditions of work and life
which had ceased to be attractive to the descendants of the Pilgrim
Fathers seemed luxurious to these Norman peasants' children from
the sub-arctic hinterland of Quebec. Moreover, I was told, the French
Canadian immigrants were spreading from the towns of New Eng-
land on to the land, where, as peasants, they found themselves truly
at home. On their frugal standard of living, American rates of in-
dustrial wages left them with a surplus which quickly mounted up
to the purchase-price of a derelict New England farm. The immi-
grants were actually re-populating the deserted countryside. Perhaps,
on my next visit, I should find Town Hill itself no longer desolate.
Yet if, on that forbidding spot, the works of Man overcame the
wilderness for the second time, it could be foreseen that history
would repeat itself with a difference. The fields and orchards and
even the houses might wear again in 1950 the aspect which they had
worn two centuries before; but this time the blood in the veins of
the farmers would be French and not English, and divine worship
in the antique wooden church would be conducted no longer by a
Presbyterian minister but by a Catholic priest!

Thus it seems possible that the contest between the French Ca-
nadian and the New Englander for the mastery of North America
may not, after all, have been concluded and disposed of finally by
the outcome of the Seven Years' War. For, when the French flag was
hauled down, the French peasant did not disappear with the emblem
of the French Government's sovereignty. Under the tutelage of the
Roman Catholic Church, this peasantry continued, undisturbed, to
be fruitful and multiply and replenish the Earth; and now in the
fullness of time the French Canadian is making a counter-offensive
into the heart of his old rival's homeland. He is conquering New
England in the peasant's way— by slower but surer methods than
those which Governments have at their command. He is conducting
his operations with the ploughshare and not with the sword, and he
is asserting his ownership by the positive act of colonizing the coun-
tryside and not by the cartographical conceit of painting colours and
drawing lines on a scrap of paper. Meanwhile, law and religion and
environment are combining to assist him. The environment of a
harsh countryside keeps him exposed to a stimulus which no longer
invigorates his rival in the softer atmosphere of the distant Western
cities. His religion forbids him to restrict the size of his family by
contraceptive methods of birth-control. And United States legisla-
tion, which has restricted immigration from countries overseas but

THE STRUGGLE FOR NORTH AMERICA 149

not from countries on the American Continent, has left the French
Canadian immigrant in a privileged position which is shared with
him by none but the Mexican. # Perhaps the present act in the drama
of North American history may end, after a century of peaceful
penetration, in a triumphal meeting between the two resurgent
Latin peasantries in the neighbourhood of the Federal Capital of the
United States! Is this the denouement that our great-grandchildren
are destined to witness in a.d. 2033? There have been reversals of
fortune every bit as strange as this in North American history before.

* This restriction of immigration into the United States has been effected by the
Immigration (Restriction) Acts of 1921 and 1924. It should be noted that the wide door
left open for immigration into the United States across the land-frontiers is only open
for native-born inhabitants of the adjoining American countries. A European or Asiatic
who attempts to enter the United States through Canada or Mexico, without having
secured a place in the annual quota of immigrants assigned to his own country of ori-
gin, finds himself excluded. In this matter, the United States Bureau of Immigration has
adopted the British Admiralty's doctrine of 'continuous voyage',

Monologue D'Outre Tombe

(Pantoum)

ANONYMOUS

Morn and noon and night,
Here I lie in the ground;

No faintest glimmer of light,
No lightest whisper of sound.

Here I lie in the ground;

The worms glide out and in;
No lightest whisper of sound,

After a life-long din.

The worms glide out and in;

They are fruitful and multiply;
After a life-long din,

I watch them quietly.

They are fruitful and multiply,
My body dwindles the while;

I watch them quietly;
I can scarce forbear a smile.

My body dwindles the while,
I shall soon be a skeleton;

I can scarce forbear a smile

They have had such glorious fun.

I shall soon be a skeleton,

The worms are wriggling away;

They have had such glorious fun,
They will fertilise my clay.

The worms are wriggling away,

They are what I have been,
150

MONOLOGUE D'OUTRE TOMBE 151

They will fertilise my clay.

The grass will grow more green.

They are what I have been.

I shall change, but what of that?
The grass will grow more green,

The parsons sheep grow fat.

I shall change, but what of that?

All flesh is grass, one says,
The parsons sheep grow fat,

The parson grows in grace.

All flesh is grass, one says,

Grass becomes flesh, one knows,
The parson grows in grace;

I am the grace he grows.

Grass becomes flesh, one knows,

He grows like a bull of Bashan.
I am the grace he grows;

I startle his congregation.

He grows like a hull of Bashan,

One day hell be Bishop or Dean,
I startle his congregation:

One day I shall preach to the Q—n.

One day he'll be Bishop or Dean,

One of those science-haters;
One day I shall preach to the Q—n,

To think of my going in gaiters!

One of those science-haters,

Blind as a mole or bat;
To think of my going in gaiters,

And wearing a shovel hat!

Blind as a mole or bat,

No faintest glimmer of light,
And wearing a shovel hat,

Morning and noon and night.

The Celestial Omnibus

BY E. M. FORSTER

The boy who resided at Agathox Lodge, 28, Buckingham Park
Road, Surbiton, had often been puzzled by the old sign-post that
stood almost opposite. He asked his mother about it, and she replied
that it was a joke, and not a very nice one, which had been made
many years back by some naughty young men, and that the police
ought to remove it. For there were two strange things about this
sign-post: firstly, it pointed up a blank alley, and, secondly, it had
painted on it, in faded characters, the words, "To Heaven."

"What kind of young men were they?" he asked.

"I think your father told me that one of them wrote verses, and
was expelled from the University and came to grief in other ways.
Still, it was a long time ago. You must ask your father about it. He
will say the same as I do, that it was put up as a joke."

"So it doesn't mean anything at all?"

She sent him up-stairs to put on his best things, for the Bonses
were coming to tea, and he was to hand the cake-stand.

It struck him, as he wrenched on his tightening trousers, that he
might do worse than ask Mr. Bons about the sign-post. His father,
though very kind, always laughed at him— shrieked with laughter
whenever he or any other child asked a question or spoke. But Mr.
Bons was serious as well as kind. He had a beautiful house and lent
one books, he was a churchwarden, and a candidate for the County
Council; he had donated to the Free Library enormously, he pre-
sided over the Literary Society, and had Members of Parliament to
stop with him— in short, he was probably the wisest person alive.

Yet even Mr. Bons could only say that the sign-post was a joke—
the joke of a person named Shelley.

"Of course!" cried the mother; "I told you so, dear. That was the
name."

152

THE CELESTIAL OMNIBUS 153

"Had you never heard of Shelley?" asked Mr. Boris.

"No," said the boy, and hung his head.

"But is there no Shelley in the house?"

"Why, yes!" exclaimed the lady, in much agitation. "Dear Mr.
Bons, we aren't such Philistines as that. Two at the least. One a
wedding present, and the other, smaller print, in one of the spare
rooms."

"I believe we have seven Shelleys," said Mr. Bons, with a slow
smile. Then he brushed the cake crumbs off his stomach, and, to-
gether with his daughter, rose to go.

The boy, obeying a wink from his mother, saw them all the way
to the garden gate, and when they had gone he did not at once return
to the house, but gazed for a little up and down Buckingham Park
Road.

His parents lived at the right end of it. After No. 39 the quality of
the houses dropped very suddenly, and 64 had not even a separate
servants' entrance. But at the present moment the whole road looked
rather pretty, for the sun had just set in splendour, and the inequali-
ties of rent were drowned in a saffron afterglow. Small birds twit-
tered, and the breadwinners' train shrieked musically down through
the cutting— that wonderful cutting which has drawn to itself the
whole beauty out of Surbiton, and clad itself, like any Alpine valley,
with the glory of the fir and the silver birch and the primrose. It was
this cutting that had first stirred desires within the boy— desires for
something just a little different, he knew not what, desires that would
return whenever things were sunlit, as they were this evening, run-
ning up and down inside him, up and down, up and down, till he
would feel quite unusual all over, and as likely as not would want
to cry. This evening he was even sillier, for he slipped across the road
towards the sign-post and began to run up the blank alley.

The alley runs between high walls— the walls of the gardens of
"Ivanhoe" and "Belle Vista" respectively. It smells a little all the
way, and is scarcely twenty yards long, including the turn at the end.
So not unnaturally the boy soon came to a standstill. "I'd like to kick
that Shelley," he exclaimed, and glanced idly at a piece of paper
which was pasted on the wall. Rather an odd piece of paper, and he
read it carefully before he turned back. This is what he read:

S. AND C. R. C. C.

Alteration in Service.

Owing to lack of patronage the Company are regretfully com-
pelled to suspend the hourly service, and to retain only the

154 E- M- FORSTER

Sunrise and Sunset Omnibuses,

which will run as usual. It is to be hoped that the public will pa-
tronize an arrangement which is intended for their convenience. As
an extra inducement, the Company will, for the first time, now issue

Return Tickets!

(available one day only), which may be obtained of the driver. Pas-
sengers are again reminded that no tickets are issued at the other
end, and that no complaints in this connection will receive consid-
eration from the Company. Nor will the Company be responsible for
any negligence or stupidity on the part of Passengers, nor for Hail-
storms, Lightning, Loss of Tickets, nor for any Act of God.

-JH- For the Direction.

Now he had never seen this notice before, nor could he imagine
where the omnibus went to. S. of course was for Surbiton, and R.C.C.*1
meant Road Car Company. But what was the meaning of the other
C? Coombe and Maiden, perhaps, or possibly "City." Yet it could
not hope to compete with the Sou th-Wes tern. The whole thing, the
boy reflected, was run on hopelessly unbusiness-like lines. Why no
tickets from the other end? And what an hour to start! Then he
realized that unless the notice was a hoax, an omnibus must have
been starting just as he was wishing the Bonses good-bye. He peered
at the ground through the gathering dusk, and there he saw what
might or might not be the marks of wheels. Yet nothing had come
out of the alley. And he had never seen an omnibus at any time in
the Buckingham Park Road. No: it must be a hoax, like the sign-
posts, like the fairy tales, like the dreams upon which he would wake
suddenly in the night. And with a sigh he stepped from the alley-
right into the arms of his father.

Oh, how his father laughed! "Poor, poor Popsey!" he cried. "Did-
dums! Diddums! Diddums think he'd walky-palky up to Evvink!"
And his mother, also convulsed with laughter, appeared on the steps
of Agathox Lodge. "Don't, Bob!" she gasped. "Don't be so naughty!
Oh, you'll kill me! Oh, leave the boy alone!"

But all that evening the joke was kept up. The father implored to
be taken too. Was it a very tiring walk? Need one wipe one's shoes
on the door-mat? And the boy went to bed feeling faint and sore, and
thankful for only one thing— that he had not said a word about the
omnibus. It was a hoax, yet through his dreams it grew more and

THE CELESTIAL OMNIBUS 155

more real, and the streets of Surbiton, through which he saw it driv-
ing, seemed instead to become hoaxes and shadows. And very early
in the morning he woke with a cry, for he had had a glimpse of its
destination.

He struck a match, and its light fell not only on his watch but also
on his calendar, so that he knew it to be half-an-hour to sunrise. It
was pitch dark, for the fog had come down from London in the
night, and all Surbiton was wrapped in its embraces. Yet he sprang
out and dressed himself, for he was determined to settle once for all
which was real: the omnibus or the streets. "I shall be a fool one way
or the other," he thought, "until I know." Soon he was shivering in
the road under the gas lamp that guarded the entrance to the alley.

To enter the alley itself required some courage. Not only was it
horribly dark, but he now realized that it was an impossible terminus
for an omnibus. If it had not been for a policeman, whom he heard
approaching through the fog, he would never have made the at-
tempt. The next moment he had made the attempt and failed. Noth-
ing. Nothing but a blank alley and a very silly boy gaping at its dirty
floor. It was a hoax. 'Til tell papa and mamma," he decided. "I de-
serve it. I deserve that they should know. I am too silly to be alive."
And he went back to the gate of Agathox Lodge.

There he remembered that his watch was fast. The sun was not
risen; it would not rise for two minutes. "Give the bus every chance,"
he thought cynically, and returned into the alley.

But the omnibus was there.

II

It had two horses, whose sides were still smoking from their jour-
ney, and its two great lamps shone through the fog against the alley's
walls, changing their cobwebs and moss into tissues of fairyland. The
driver was huddled up in a cape. He faced the blank wall, and how
he had managed to drive in so neatly and so silently was one of the
many things that the boy never discovered. Nor could he imagine
how ever he would drive out.

"Please," his voice quavered through the foul brown air, "Please,
is that an omnibus?"

"Omnibus est," said the driver, without turning round. There
was a moment's silence. The policeman passed, coughing, by the en-
trance of the alley. The boy crouched in the shadow, for he did not
want to be found out. He was pretty sure, too, that it was a Pirate;

156 E. M. FORSTER

nothing else, he reasoned, would go from such odd places and at such
odd hours.

"About when do you start?" He tried to sound nonchalant.

"At sunrise."

"How far do you go?"

"The whole way."

"And can I have a return ticket which will bring me all the way
back?"

"You can."

"Do you know, I half think I'll come." The driver made no an-
swer. The sun must have risen, for he unhitched the brake. And
scarcely had the boy jumped in before the omnibus was off.

How? Did it turn? There was no room. Did it go forward? There
was a blank wall. Yet it was moving— moving at a stately pace through
the fog, which had turned from brown to yellow. The thought of
warm bed and warmer breakfast made the boy feel faint. He wished
he had not come. His parents would not have approved. He would
have gone back to them if the weather had not made it impossible.
The solitude was terrible; he was the only passenger. And the omni-
bus, though well-built, was cold and somewhat musty. He drew his
coat round him, and in so doing chanced to feel his pocket. It was
empty. He had forgotten his purse.

"Stop!" he shouted. "Stop!" And then, being of a polite disposi-
tion, he glanced up at the painted notice-board so that he might call
the driver by name. "Mr. Browne! stop; O, do please stop!"

Mr. Browne did not stop, but he opened a little window and
looked in at the boy. His face was a surprise, so kind it was and
modest.

"Mr. Browne, I've left my purse behind. I've not got a penny. I
can't pay for the ticket. Will you take my watch, please? I am in the
most awful hole."

"Tickets on this line," said the driver, "whether single or return,
can be purchased by coinage from no terrene mint. And a chronom-
eter, though it had solaced the vigils of Charlemagne, or measured
the slumbers of Laura, can acquire by no mutation the double-cake
that charms the fangless Cerberus of Heaven!" So saying, he handed
in the necessary ticket, and, while the boy said "Thank you," contin-
ued: "Titular pretensions, I know it well, are vanity. Yet they merit
no censure when uttered on a laughing lip, and in an homonymous
world are in some sort useful, since they do serve to distinguish one
Jack from his fellow. Remember me, therefore, as Sir Thomas
Browne."

THE CELESTIAL OMNIBUS 157

"Are you a Sir? Oh, sorry!" He had heard of these gentlemen
drivers. "It is good of you about the tieket. But if you go on at this
rate, however does your bus pay?"

"It does not pay. It was not intended to pay. Many are the faults
of my equipage; it is compounded too curiously of foreign woods;
its cushions tickle erudition rather than promote repose; and my
horses are nourished not on the evergreen pastures of the moment,
but on the dried bents and clovers of Latinity. But that it pays!— that
error at all events was never intended and never attained."

"Sorry again," said the boy rather hopelessly. Sir Thomas looked
sad, fearing that, even for a moment, he had been the cause of sad-
ness. He invited the boy to come up and sit beside him on the box,
and together they journeyed on through the fog, which was now
changing from yellow to white. There were no houses by the road;
so it must be either Putney Heath or Wimbledon Common.

"Have you been a driver always?"

"I was a physician once."

"But why did you stop? Weren't you good?"

"As a healer of bodies I had scant success, and several score of my
patients preceded me. But as a healer of the spirit I have succeeded
beyond my hopes and my deserts. For though my draughts were not
better nor subtler than those of other men, yet, by reason of the cun-
ning goblets wherein I offered them, the queasy soul was ofttimes
tempted to sip and be refreshed."

"The queasy soul," he murmured; "if the sun sets with trees in
front of it, and you suddenly come strange all over, is that a queasy
soul?"

"Have you felt that?"

"Why yes."

After a pause he told the boy a little, a very little, about the jour-
ney's end. But they did not chatter much, for the boy, when he liked
a person, would as soon sit silent in his company as speak, and this,
he discovered, was also the mind of Sir Thomas Browne and of many
others with whom he was to be acquainted. He heard, however,
about the young man Shelley, who was now quite a famous person,
with a carriage of his own, and about some of the other drivers who
are in the service of the Company. Meanwhile the light grew
stronger, though the fog did not disperse. It was now more like mist
than fog, and at times would travel quickly across them, as if it was
part of a cloud. They had been ascending, too, in a most puzzling
way; for over two hours the horses had been pulling against the col-
lar, and even if it were Richmond Hill they ought to have been at

158 E. M. FORSTER

the top long ago. Perhaps it was Epsom, or even the North Downs;
yet the air seemed keener than that which blows on either. And as
to the name of their destination, Sir Thomas Browne was silent.

Crash!

"Thunder, by Jove!" said the boy, "and not so far off either. Lis-
ten to the echoes! It's more like mountains."

He thought, not very vividly, of his father and mother. He saw
them sitting down to sausages and listening to the storm. He saw his
own empty place. Then there would be questions, alarms, theories,
jokes, consolations. They would expect him back at lunch. To lunch
he would not come, nor to tea, but he would be in for dinner, and
so his day's truancy would be over. If he had had his purse he would
have bought them presents— not that he should have known what to
get them.

Crash!

The peal and the lightning came together. The cloud quivered as
if it were alive, and torn streamers of mist rushed past. "Are you
afraid?" asked Sir Thomas Browne.

"What is there to be afraid of? Is it much farther?"

The horses of the omnibus stopped just as a ball of fire burst up
and exploded with a ringing noise that was deafening but clear, like
the noise of a blacksmith's forge. All the cloud was shattered.

"Oh, listen, Sir Thomas Browne! No, I mean look; we shall get
a view at last. No, I mean listen; that sounds like a rainbow!"

The noise had died into the faintest murmur, beneath which an-
other murmur grew, spreading stealthily, steadily, in a curve that
widened but did not vary. And in widening curves a rainbow was
spreading from the horses' feet into the dissolving mists.

"But how beautiful! What colours! Where will it stop? It is more
like the rainbows you can tread on. More like dreams."

The colour and the sound grew together. The rainbow spanned
an enormous gulf. Clouds rushed under it and were pierced by it,
and still it grew, reaching forward, conquering the darkness, until
it touched something that seemed more solid than a cloud.

The boy stood up. "What is that out there?" he called. "What
does it rest on, out at that other end?"

In the morning sunshine a precipice shone forth beyond the gulf.
A precipice— or was it a castle? The horses moved. They set their
feet upon the rainbow.

"Oh, look!" the boy shouted. "Oh, listen! Those caves— or are they
gateways? Oh, look between those cliffs at those ledges. I see people!
I see trees!"

THE CELESTIAL OMNIBUS 159

"Look also below," whispered Sir Thomas. "Neglect not the di-
viner Acheron."

The boy looked below, past the flames of the rainbow that licked
against their wheels. The gulf also had cleared, and in its depths
there flowed an everlasting river. One sunbeam entered and struck
a green pool, and as they passed over he saw three maidens rise to the
surface of the pool, singing, and playing with something that glis-
tened like a ring.

"You down in the water " he called.

They answered, "You up on the bridge " There was a burst of

music. "You up on the bridge, good luck to you. Truth in the depth,
truth on the height."

"You down in the water, what are you doing?"

Sir Thomas Browne replied: "They sport in the mancipiary pos-
session of their gold"; and the omnibus arrived.

Ill

The boy was in disgrace. He sat locked up in the nursery of Aga-
thox Lodge, learning poetry for a punishment. His father had said,
"My boy! I can pardon anything but untruthfulness," and had caned
him, saying at each stroke, "There is no omnibus, no driver, no
bridge, no mountain; you are a truant, a gutter snipe, a liar." His
father could be very stern at times. His mother had begged him to
say he was sorry. But he could not say that. It was the greatest day of
his life, in spite of the caning and the poetry at the end of it.

He had returned punctually at sunset— driven not by Sir Thomas
Browne, but by a maiden lady who was full of quiet fun. They had
talked of omnibuses and also of barouche landaus. How far away
her gentle voice seemed now! Yet it was scarcely three hours since
he had left her up the alley.

His mother called through the door. "Dear, you are to come down
and to bring your poetry with you."

He came down, and found that Mr. Bons was in the smoking-
room with his father. It had been a dinner party.

"Here is the great traveller!" said his father grimly. "Here is the
young gentleman who drives in an omnibus over rainbows, while
young ladies sing to him." Pleased with his wit, he laughed.

"After all," said Mr. Bons, smiling, "there is something a little
like it in Wagner. It is odd how, in quite illiterate minds, you will
find glimmers of Artistic Truth. The case interests me. Let me plead
for the culprit. We have all romanced in our time, haven't we?"

160 E. M. FORSTER

"Hear how kind Mr. Bons is," said his mother, while his father
said. "Very well. Let him say his Poem, and that will do. He is going
away to my sister on Tuesday, and she will cure him of this alley-
slopering." (Laughter.) "Say your Poem."

The boy began. " 'Standing aloof in giant ignorance.' "

His father laughed again— roared. "One for you, my son! 'Standing
aloof in giant ignorance!' I never knew these poets talked sense. Just
describes you. Here, Bons, you go in for poetry. Put him through it,
will you, while I fetch up the whisky?"

"Yes, give me the Keats," said Mr. Bons. "Let him say his Keats
to me."

So for a few moments the wise man and the ignorant boy were
left alone in the smoking-room.

' 'Standing aloof in giant ignorance, of thee I dream and of the
Cyclades, as one who sits ashore and longs perchance to visit

"Quite right. To visit what?"
'To visit dolphin coral in deep seas,' " said the boy, and burst
into tears.

"Come, come! why do you cry?"

"Because— because all these words that only rhymed before, now
that I've come back they're me."

Mr. Bons laid the Keats down. The case was more interesting than
he had expected. "You?" he exclaimed. "This sonnet, you?"

"Yes— and look further on: 'Aye, on the shores of darkness there
is light, and precipices show untrodden green.' It is so, sir. All these
things are true."

"I never doubted it," said Mr. Bons, with closed eyes.

"You— then you believe me? You believe in the omnibus and
the driver and the storm and that return ticket I got for nothing
and "

"Tut, tut! No more of your yarns, my boy. I meant that I never
doubted the essential truth of Poetry. Some day, when you have read
more, you will understand what I mean."

"But Mr. Bons, it is so. There is light upon the shores of darkness.
I have seen it coming. Light and a wind."

"Nonsense," said Mr. Bons.

"If I had stopped! They tempted me. They told me to give up my
ticket— for you cannot come back if you lose your ticket. They called
from the river for it, and indeed I was tempted, for I have never
been so happy as among those precipices. But I thought of my mother
and father, and that I must fetch them. Yet they will not come,
though the road starts opposite our house. It has all happened as the

THE CELESTIAL OMNIBUS 161

people up there warned me, and Mr. Bons has disbelieved me like
every one else. I have been caned. I shall never see that mountain
again."

"What's that about me?" said Mr. Bons, sitting up in his chair
very suddenly.

"I told them about you, and how clever you were, and how many
books you had, and they said, 'Mr. Bons will certainly disbelieve
you.

"Stuff and nonsense, my young friend. You grow impertinent. I—
well— I will settle the matter. Not a word to your father. I will cure
you. To-morrow evening I will myself call here to take you for a
walk, and at sunset we will go up this alley opposite and hunt for
your omnibus, you silly little boy."

His face grew serious, for the boy was not disconcerted, but leapt
about the room singing, "Joy! joy! I told them you would believe
me. We will drive together over the rainbow. I told them that you
would come." After all, could there be anything in the story? Wag-
ner? Keats? Shelley? Sir Thomas Browne? Certainly the case was
interesting.

And on the morrow evening, though it was pouring with rain, Mr.
Bons did not omit to call at Agathox Lodge.

The boy was ready, bubbling with excitement, and skipping about
in a way that rather vexed the President of the Literary Society. They
took a turn down Buckingham Park Road, and then— having seen
that no one was watching them— slipped up the alley. Naturally
enough (for the sun was setting) they ran straight against the
omnibus.

"Good heavens!" exclaimed Mr. Bons. "Good gracious heavens!"

It was not the omnibus in which the boy had driven first, nor yet
that in which he had returned. There were three horses— black, gray,
and white, the gray being the finest. The driver, who turned round
at the mention of goodness and of heaven, was a sallow man with
terrifying jaws and sunken eyes. Mr. Bons, on seeing him, gave a cry
as if of recognition, and began to tremble violently.

The boy jumped in.

"Is it possible?" cried Mr. Bons. "Is the impossible possible?"

"Sir; come in, sir. It is such a fine omnibus. Oh, here is his name
—Dan some one."

Mr. Bons sprang in too. A blast of wind immediately slammed the
omnibus door, and the shock jerked down all the omnibus blinds,
which were very weak on their springs.

"Dan . . . Show me. Good gracious heavens! we're moving."

162 E. M. FORSTER

"Hooray!" said the boy.

Mr. Boris became flustered. He had not intended to be kidnapped.
He could not find the door-handle, nor push up the blinds. The om-
nibus was quite dark, and by the time he had struck a match, night
had come on outside also. They were moving rapidly.

"A strange, a memorable adventure," he said, surveying the in-
terior of the omnibus, which was large, roomy, and constructed with
extreme regularity, every part exactly answering to every other part.
Over the door (the handle of which was outside) was written, "Lasci-
ate ogni baldanza voi che entrate"— at least, that was what was writ-
ten, but Mr. Bons said that it was Lashy arty something, and that
baldanza was a mistake for speranza. His voice sounded as if he was
in church. Meanwhile, the boy called to the cadaverous driver for
two return tickets. They were handed in without a word. Mr. Bons
covered his face with his hand and again trembled. "Do you know
who that is!" he whispered, when the little window had shut upon
them. "It is the impossible."

"Well, I don't like him as much as Sir Thomas Browne, though
I shouldn't be surprised if he had even more in him."

"More in him?" He stamped irritably. "By accident you have made
the greatest discovery of the century, and all you can say is that there
is more in this man. Do you remember those vellum books in my
library, stamped with red lilies? This— sit still, I bring you stupen-
dous news!— this is the man who wrote them."

The boy sat quite still. "I wonder if we shall see Mrs. Gamp?" he
asked, after a civil pause.

"Mrs. ?"

"Mrs. Gamp and Mrs. Harris. I like Mrs. Harris. I came upon
them quite suddenly. Mrs. Gamp's bandboxes have moved over the
rainbow so badly. All the bottoms have fallen out, and two of the
pippins off her bedstead tumbled into the stream."

"Out there sits the man who wrote my vellum books!" thundered
Mr. Bons, "and you talk to me of Dickens and of Mrs. Gamp?"

"I know Mrs. Gamp so well," he apologized. "I could not help
being glad to see her. I recognized her voice. She was telling Mrs.
Harris about Mrs. Prig."

"Did you spend the whole day in her elevating company?"

"Oh, no. I raced. I met a man who took me out beyond to a race-
course. You run, and there are dolphins out at sea."

"Indeed. Do you remember the man's name?"

"Achilles. No; he was later. Tom Jones."

THE CELESTIAL OMNIBUS 163

Mr. Bons sighed heavily. "Well, my lad, you have made a miser-
able mess of it. Think of a cultured person with your opportunities!
A cultured person would have known all these characters and known
what to have said to each. He would not have wasted his time with a
Mrs. Gamp or a Tom Jones. The creations of Homer, of Shake-
speare, and of Him who drives us now, would alone have contented
him. He would not have raced. He would have asked intelligent
questions."

"But, Mr. Bons," said the boy humbly, "you will be a cultured
person. I told them so."

"True, true, and I beg you not to disgrace me when we arrive. No
gossiping. No running. Keep close to my side, and never speak to
these Immortals unless they speak to you. Yes, and give me the re-
turn tickets. You will be losing them."

The boy surrendered the tickets, but felt a little sore. After all, he
had found the way to this place. It was hard first to be disbelieved
and then to be lectured. Meanwhile, the rain had stopped, and
moonlight crept into the omnibus through the cracks in the blinds.

"But how is there to be a rainbow?" cried the boy.

"You distract me," snapped Mr. Bons. "I wish to meditate on
beauty. I wish to goodness I was with a reverent and sympathetic
person."

The lad bit his lip. He made a hundred good resolutions. He
would imitate Mr. Bons all the visit. He would not laugh, or run, or
sing, or do any of the vulgar things that must have disgusted his new
friends last time. He would be very careful to pronounce their names
properly, and to remember who knew whom. Achilles did not know
Tom Jones— at least, so Mr. Bons said. The Duchess of Main was
older than Mrs. Gamp— at least, so Mr. Bons said. He would be self-
conscious, reticent, and prim. He would never say he liked any one.
Yet, when the blind flew up at a chance touch of his head, all these
good resolutions went to the winds, for the omnibus had reached the
summit of a moonlit hill, and there was the chasm, and there, across
it, stood the old precipices, dreaming, with their feet in the everlasting
river. He exclaimed, "The mountain! Listen to the new tune in the
water! Look at the camp fires in the ravines," and Mr. Bons, after a
hasty glance, retorted, "Water? Camp fires? Ridiculous rubbish.
Hold your tongue. There is nothing at all."

Yet, under his eyes, a rainbow formed, compounded not of sun-
light and storm, but of moonlight and the spray of the river. The
three horses put their feet upon it. He thought it the finest rainbow

164 E. M. FORSTER

he had seen, but did not dare to say so, since Mr. Bons said that noth-
ing was there. He leant out— the window had opened— and sang the
tune that rose from the sleeping waters.

"The prelude to Rhinegold?" said Mr. Bons suddenly. "Who
taught you these leitmotifs?" He, too, looked out of the window.
Then he behaved very oddly. He gave a choking cry, and fell back
on to the omnibus floor. He writhed and kicked. His face was green.

"Does the bridge make you dizzy?" the boy asked.

"Dizzy!" gasped Mr. Bons. "I want to go back. Tell the driver."

But the driver shook his head.

"We are nearly there," said the boy. "They are asleep. Shall I call?
They will be so pleased to see you, for I have prepared them."

Mr. Bons moaned. They moved over the lunar rainbow, which
ever and ever broke away behind their wheels. How still the night
was! Who would be sentry at the Gate?

"I am coming," he shouted, again forgetting the hundred resolu-
tions. "I am returning— I, the boy."

"The boy is returning," cried a voice to other voices, who re-
peated, "The boy is returning."

"I am bringing Mr. Bons with me."

Silence.

"I should have said Mr. Bons is bringing me with him."

Profound silence.

"Who stands sentry?"

"Achilles."

And on the rocky causeway, close to the springing of the rainbow
bridge, he saw a young man who carried a wonderful shield.

"Mr. Bons, it is Achilles, armed."

"I want to go back," said Mr. Bons.

The last fragment of the rainbow melted, the wheels sang upon
the living rock, the door of the omnibus burst open. Out leapt the
boy— he could not resist— and sprang to meet the warrior, who,
stooping suddenly, caught him on his shield.

"Achilles!" he cried, "let me get down, for I am ignorant and
vulgar, and I must wait for that Mr. Bons of whom I told you yes-
terday."

But Achilles raised him aloft. He crouched on the wonderful
shield, on heroes and burning cities, on vineyards graven in gold, on
every dear passion, every joy, on the entire image of the Mountain
that he had discovered, encircled, like it, with an everlasting stream.
"No, no," he protested, "I am not worthy. It is Mr. Bons who must
be up here."

THE CELESTIAL OMNIBUS 165

But Mr. Bons was whimpering, and Achilles trumpeted and cried,
"Stand upright upon my shield!"

"Sir, I did not mean to stand! something made me stand. Sir, why
do you delay? Here is only the great Achilles, whom you knew."

Mr. Bons screamed, "I see no one. I see nothing. I want to go
back." Then he cried to the driver, "Save me! Let me stop in your
chariot. I have honoured you. I have quoted you. I have bound you
in vellum. Take me back to my world."

The driver replied, "I am the means and not the end. I am the
food and not the life. Stand by yourself, as that boy has stood. I can-
not save you. For poetry is a spirit; and they that would worship it
must worship in spirit and in truth."

Mr. Bons— he could not resist— crawled out of the beautiful omni-
bus. His face appeared, gaping horribly. His hands followed, one
gripping the step, the other beating the air. Now his shoulders
emerged, his chest, his stomach. With a shriek of "I see London," he
fell— fell against the hard, moonlit rock, fell into it as if it were
water, fell through it, vanished, and was seen by the boy no more.

"Where have you fallen to, Mr. Bons? Here is a procession arriv-
ing to honour you with music and torches. Here come the men and
women whose names you know. The mountain is awake, the river
is awake, over the race-course the sea is awaking those dolphins, and
it is all for you. They want you "

There was the touch of fresh leaves on his forehead. Some one
had crowned him.

TEA02

From the Kingston Gazette, Surbiton Times,
and Raynes Park Observer.
The body of Mr. Septimus Bons has been found in a shockingly
mutilated condition in the vicinity of the Bermondsey gas-works.
The deceased's pockets contained a sovereign-purse, a silver cigar-
case, a bijou pronouncing dictionary, and a couple of omnibus
tickets. The unfortunate gentleman had apparently been hurled
from a considerable height. Foul play is suspected, and a thorough
investigation is pending by the authorities.

The Sea- Cow

BY JOHN STEINBECK AND
EDWARD F. RICKETTS

WE come now to a piece of equipment which still brings anger to
our hearts and, we hope, some venom to our pen. Perhaps in
self-defense against suit, we should say, "The outboard motor men-
tioned in this book is purely fictitious and any resemblance to out-
board motors living or dead is coincidental." We shall call this
contraption, for the sake of secrecy, a Hansen Sea-Cow— a dazzling
little piece of machinery, all aluminum paint and touched here and
there with spots of red. The Sea-Cow was built to sell, to dazzle the
eyes, to splutter its way into the unwary heart. We took it along for
the skiff. It was intended that it should push us ashore and back,
should drive our boat into estuaries and along the borders of little
coves. But we had not reckoned with one thing. Recently, industrial
civilization has reached its peak of reality and has lunged forward
into something that approaches mysticism. In the Sea-Cow factory
where steel fingers tighten screws, bend and mold, measure and
divide, some curious mathematick has occurred. And that secret so
long sought has accidentally been found. Life has been created. The
machine is at last stirred. A soul and a malignant mind have been
born. Our Hansen Sea-Cow was not only a living thing but a mean,
irritable, contemptible, vengeful, mischievous, hateful living thing.
In the six weeks of our association we observed it, at first mechan-
ically and then, as its living reactions became more and more appar-
ent, psychologically. And we determined one thing to our satisfac-
tion. When and if these ghoulish little motors learn to reproduce
themselves the human species is doomed. For their hatred of us is so
great that they will wait and plan and organize and one night, in a
roar of little exhausts, they will wipe us out. We do not think that
Mr. Hansen, inventor of the Sea-Cow, father of the outboard motor,
knew what he was doing. We think the monster he created was as

166

THE SEA-COW 167

accidental and arbitrary as the beginning of any other life. Only one
thing differentiates the Sea-Cow from the life that we know. Whereas
the forms that are familiar to us are the results of billions of years
of mutation and complication, life and intelligence emerged simul-
taneously in the Sea-Cow. It is more than a species. It is a whole new
redefinition of life. We observed the following traits in it and we
were able to check them again and again:

1. Incredibly lazy, the Sea-Cow loved to ride on the back of a
boat, trailing its propeller daintily in the water while we rowed.

2. It required the same amount of gasoline whether it ran or not,
apparently being able to absorb this fluid through its body walls
without recourse to explosion. It had always to be filled at the
beginning of every trip.

3. It had apparently some clairvoyant powers, and was able to
read our minds, particularly when they were inflamed with emotion.
Thus, on every occasion when we were driven to the point of de-
stroying it, it started and ran with a great noise and excitement. This
served the double purpose of saving its life and of resurrecting in
our minds a false confidence in it.

4. It had many cleavage points, and when attacked with a screw-
driver, fell apart in simulated death, a trait it had in common with
opossums, armadillos, and several members of the sloth family, which
also fell apart in simulated death when attacked with a screwdriver.

5. It hated Tex, sensing perhaps that his knowledge of mechanics
was capable of diagnosing its shortcomings.

6. It completely refused to run: (a) when the waves were high, (b)
when the wind blew, (c) at night, early morning, and evening, (d) in
rain, dew, or fog, (e) when the distance to be covered was more than
two hundred yards. But on warm, sunny days when the weather was
calm and the white beach close by— in a word, on days when it would
have been a pleasure to row— the Sea-Cow started at a touch and
would not stop.

7. It loved no one, trusted no one. It had no friends.

Perhaps toward the end, our observations were a little warped by
emotion. Time and again as it sat on the stern with its pretty little
propeller lying idly in the water, it was very close to death. And in
the end, even we were infected with its malignancy and its dishon-
esty. We should have destroyed it, but we did not. Arriving home,
we gave it a new coat of aluminum paint, spotted it at points with
new red enamel, and sold it. And we might have rid the world of
this mechanical cancer!

Rules for Judicial Conduct

Things Necessary to be
Continually had in Remembrance

BY SIR MATTHEW HALE, KT.

Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, 1660—1671
Lord Chief Justice of England, 1671—1676

I. That in the Administration of Justice, I am entrusted for God,
the King and Country; and therefore,

II. That it be done, 1. Uprightly, 2. Deliberately, 3. Resolutely.

III. That I rest not upon my own Understanding or Strength, but
Implore and rest upon the Direction and Strength of God.

IV. That in the Execution of Justice I carefully lay aside my own
Passions, and not give way to them, however provoked.

V. That I be wholly intent upon the Business I am about, remit-
ting all other Cares and Thoughts, as unseasonable and Interrup-
tions.

VI. That I suffer not myself to be prepossessed with any Judg-
ment at all, till the whole Business and both Parties be heard.

VII. That I never engage myself in the beginning of any Cause,
but reserve myself unprejudiced till the whole be heard.

VIII. That in Business Capital, though my Nature prompt me to
Pity; yet to consider, that there is also a Pity due to the Country.

IX. That I be not too Rigid in matters Conscientious, where all
the harm is Diversity of Judgment.

X. That I be not biassed with Compassion to the Poor, or favour
to the Rich, in point of Justice.

XI. That Popular, or Court Applause, or Distaste, have no In-
fluence into anything I do in point of Distribution of Justice.

XII. Not to be sollicitous what Men will say or think, so long as
I keep myself exactly according to the Rule of Justice.

168

RULES FOR JUDICIAL CONDUCT 169

XIII. If in Criminals it be a measuring Cast, to incline to Mercy
and Acquittal.

XIV. In Criminals that consist merely in words, where no more-
harm ensues, Moderation is no Injustice.

XV. In Criminals of Blood, if the Fact be Evident, Severity is
Justice.

XVI. To abhor all private Solicitations, of what kind soever, and
by whom soever, in Matters depending.

XVII. To charge my Servants, 1. Not to interpose in any Busi-
ness whatsoever, 2. Not to take more than their known Fees, 3. Not
to give any undue precedence to Causes, 4. Not to recommend
Councill.

XVIII. To be short and sparing at Meals, that I may be the fitter
for Business.

THE THREE READERS

PL n i r ' -

A:' /f' / \ /

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^ ----- r, ; V •"". -

Section II: Selected by Sinclair Lewis

Introductory Remarks

Of that bright, hardy country which stands at the head of the
Great Valley— Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, the Dakotas, with
slivers of Illinois and Michigan— one would be able to trace the
whole history in a narrow shelf of fiction: Rolvaag's Giants in the
Earth, Rose Wilder Lane's Let the Hurricane Roar, Hamlin Gar-
land's Main-Travelled Roads, the books of Zona Gale and August
Derleth, the city novels of Grace Flandrau and William McNally and
Margaret Culkin Banning, and, as a spiritual accounting of the
whole business, the two short novels reprinted in this book: Ruth
Suckow's Country People and Eleanor Green's The Hill.

Since they all possess reality, these stories fit together, no matter
how varied the moods. Harrit and Vinnie, the highly literate Ameri-
can girls of The Hill, might be the granddaughters of Miss Suckow's
German August Kaetterhenry, or Rolvaag's Norwegian Per Hansa,
or Rose Lane's Yankee Charles, or of Garland's Civil War soldier
limping up a Wisconsin coolly.

The first three of these crossed the Mississippi into a shining deso-
late prairie at about the same time, between 1870 and 1880— only
seventy years ago. These novels tell better than maps and figures
how that hostile sun-land became human.

They indicate, too, how varied the prairie civilization became in
less than three generations. Regarding any new society it is highly
common and even more highly irritating for outsiders to speak of it
as uncomplex and insular. In this goodly year of 1943, when the Rus-
sians say to the British— and the British say to the New Yorkers— and
the New Yorkers say to all Middlewesterners, ''When are you fellows
going to wake up and hear about this war that's going on?" then the
amount of heat kindled is about equal in all three cases.

The Midwestern mentality is at least as contradictory as that of
New England. One or both of the grandfathers of Vinnie, in The
Hill, may well have been a Dakota homesteader. He lived in a dark

173

174 SINCLAIR LEWIS

dugout, he was beset by blizzards, wolves, armies of grasshoppers; he
sowed by hand and plowed with oxen; and his laborious and risky
life was only a hand-turn different from that of the original Ameri-
can pioneers of 1620. It was, indeed, no fatter or more secure than a
Saxon peasant's existence in the year 1000. From the pioneer's
arrival on the plains to Vinnie contemplative on a hill is in chronicle
time only fifty or sixty years, but in aspects of civilization it is a
millennium.

Vinnie's friends are still of the farm, still of the country of La
Follette, yet they would be just as much at ease if they were studying
singing in Milan or physics in Upsala or frivolity in Cannes. They
are international. They and their families have in sixty years cov-
ered three centuries of cultural history, from Wesleyanism to Freud-
ianism, from witchcraft to hysteria. Possibly they have ripened too
quickly, and grown soft, ready for the pessimistic eye of a Spengler.

In their preoccupation with the delicate flight of bird and cloud
and fragile country sound, in their self-defeating demand for no less
than perfection in love, their quivering consciousness that old peo-
ple are frustrated and tragic because none of them has known an
undiminishing passion, in all their sympathetic yet neurotic sen-
sitivity, Eleanor Green's young people are, like the cultural refugees
of the Left Bank, circa 1925, or like T. S. Eliot or Ezra Pound or
Isadora, iridescent flies caught in the black web of an ancient and
amoral European culture. They have in imagination returned to
the Europe from which their grandfathers fled, but they have re-
turned to the coffee houses, not to the hills.

They know and shiver to a beauty that their pioneer ancestors
never conceived; if their prairie is more narrow in acres, it is ten
times more crowded with exhausting wonder, and if they have shut
out the blizzard, they have also shut it in.

To the grandparents, if they are still alive— and they easily may
be, aged somewhere over eighty— these modern children must seem
selfish, idle, weak, and terrified of ghosts; armored in luxuries of
which the old folks never heard, yet whimpering because some
finicky sweetheart does not like the length of their noses. And to
the grandchildren, the pioneers seem as hard and narrow as the steel
rails that, on a prairie track, stretch bleakly out till they meet.

And how wrong both generations are! If the characteristic Ameri-
can jump from potatoes straight to Proust is a little dismaying, it
also indicates a lively and incalculable mind.

The young generation has, in the airplane cockpits of 1943, re-

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 175

vealed that under its glib and glittering sloth, it has as much iron as
anything on the frontier. On the other hand, the older generation
once had, in the first sight of the young wheat, in sleep after toil, in
visits to neighbors, in reading aloud from the Old Testament's
poetry and tricky ethics, in annual pilgrimages to some vasty city of
five hundred population, a course of pleasures that were not essen-
tially different from the ecstasies of these young people over a dive
bomber or over the Shostakovich Seventh conducted by Mitropoulos.
In the years outlined by Miss Suckow and Miss Green together,
we have a flight through time dizzier than any fantasy of H. G. Wells.

II

The fiction of Eleanor Green is as shy and secluded as a marsh at
sunset, with the coloring rich beyond the soft browns of the fore-
ground, but it has none of the Celtic Twilight of earlier lady nov-
elists because, though she loves mistiness, she also has a passion of
tenderness and pity for ordinary human beings. As:

"She realized with exquisite clarity what living had meant to her
father. These many years they had lived together, he and her mother,
and these many years he had hungered for her love. Being a shy
man, he thought that he annoyed her, and so had sought in every
way to make himself as inconspicuous as possible. If it is my hands,
Vinnie imagined him thinking, I will keep my hands from her
sight. If it is my hair or the way my whiskers grow, I shall keep my
hair cut and my face shaven. If it is my mouth, or the way I eat my
food, I shall say little and chew carefully."

Miss Green has brought off a difficult technique in allowing for
the whole time-extent of her story only four or five hours. The out-
ward events are as simple as they are brief: a Wisconsin village family
goes picknicking, and afterward, Vinnie meets her lover. But we
know the whole family and their hidden hearts, and the little Wis-
consin valley where "the shadows lay in a blanket over the sheep
and the grass, the deer and the thrush, and the whole place was be-
witched."

Eleanor Green is still very young, and as yet she has published
only three brief novels: The Hill and Pastoral and Ariadne Spin-
ning. She has seen enough of New York and of an Eastern college,
but she has had the good sense to live mostly in the Wisconsin where
she was born. That is very fortunate for Wisconsin, whether or no
that lovely state is aware of the fact.

i?6 SINCLAIR LEWIS

III

Where Miss Green skims through the trees, a bird at twilight,
Miss Suckow tramps the road at hot noon. I don't know which will
get the farther, nor whether loops and lineal rods can be compared.

Ruth Suckow, born in 1892 in Grant Wood's Iowa, where there
is nothing to be seen but corn stalks and college towers and secre-
taries of agriculture, has stayed there except for aberrations into
heathen California and Greenwich Village, and that is very fortunate
for Iowa, which she has re-created in such genuinely native novels as
The Folks and The Bonney Family and the recently published New
Hope, with its beautiful memory of the magic that is in the mind of
a growing boy.

No doubt it has been suggested to Miss Suckow as not being a
virtue that she seems more pedestrian than such thunderous pietists
as Rolvaag, whose Norske God rides every blizzard, or the more
fanciful school of Zona Gale and Eleanor Green. This suggestion
Miss Suckow has answered with spirit, in her own comments on her
Country People:

"The book is not an attempt to sum up all of rural life. It is not
'a saga of the pioneers' nor yet 'an epic of the soil.' In certain re-
spects, as a rural novel, it is not typical, but perhaps unique. There
is no writer or artist concealed among its characters who is destined
to come back ... to write a book about, or paint a picture of, the
farm of August Kaetterhenry. August himself never offers a soliloquy
upon The Soil; he never seduces a hired girl; and he dies in bed,
not overlooking his broad acres, nor clutching a handful of his own
good earth. The author suggests that, if on no other grounds, she
deserves credit for such abstentions. . . . The style has no particular
beauty of its own. Yet it does fit the subject matter: in its careful
country minutiae, its touch of dry country humor, even its hardness
and tightness. It has a certain monotonous music, like the tuneless
air of the windmill in the stillness of the country air."

If Miss Suckow and Miss Green are opposite in almost every
mood— so much the better for the Great Valley which produced
them and which in turn they are now producing.

IV

Aside from their regional kinship, Country People and The Hill
have a tie in being excellent samples of a swift-winged and not too
common form of fiction: the short novel, which conveys an impres-

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 177

sion of life without either the incompleteness of the short story or
the often tiresome insistence of the long novel. It has been rather
neglected, perhaps because magazine editors consider a tale of thirty
or forty thousand words too long, and the book-publishers wail that
it is too short.

Of this genre there have been only a few American masters, such
as Willa Cather, Joseph Hergesheimer, Edith Wharton, Henry
James, Hamlin Garland, Sarah Orne Jewett. To them may be added
now Eleanor Green and, though most of her stories run longer, Ruth
Suckow. They indicate that if a man has written twenty thousand
excellent words, it is not always desirable to add to the pot some
eighty thousand words of tediousness in order to call the resultant
stew a Novel.

SINCLAIR LEWIS

The Hill

BY ELEANOR GREEN

I: THE MIDDLE OF A MOSS

They moved slowly, a human caravan laden with memories that
weighed more heavily upon them than the baskets of food which
they carried. It must have been so, for the young went ahead, eager
to find a place to stop, while the old dragged behind, knowing how
grotesque anticipation may be. A girl with vivid hair led them. The
wind made sails of her hair and she was sent forward like a ship. Walk-
ing behind her it was hard to know when her feet touched the earth,
and the bottoms of her feet, revealing themselves as she walked, were
like the backwash of a boat,— constant, recurring. The motions of her
body were not careful and quiet, as the others' were; she walked along
the road, the road that lay between forest and cornfield, lightly, and
so swiftly that the sand could not catch the imprint of her foot, nor
move quickly enough to encircle it. She might well have been a
figurehead upon a ship, but the vessel moved reluctantly behind her.
She preceded it like a thought. The girl's name was Harrit.

It was Vinnie's thought that Harrit moved like a ship. But if
Harrit were figurehead, she, Vinnie, was the stern of the ship, for she
came last. After her there followed a wave of footprints, a foam of
dust. Between the two sisters, between the prow and the stern of the
boat, rode the rest of the family, spending a week cruising about
together in the past, sailing into forgotten inlets, down sheltered
streams. They had come together, making the home of Vinnie's
parents their port. From it, from time to time, they would make
short excursions, returning to their port at night, returning to the
family in the midst of which to rest. They were making one of those
excursions now. They were steering their craft toward a hill, and
Harrit, her hair bellied out like a sail, cut the wind with her body,
and her feet floated over the water.

Vinnie stopped suddenly at sight of Harrit standing on a project-

179

180 ELEANOR GREEN

ing rock. Her body, sheathed in orange, alert and sharp, shone like
a dagger held into the light of a fire. She was motionless, her eyes
looking out over the marshes to the far hills, to the world that lay
beyond the hills. The rest of the family,— cousins and aunts, parents
and uncles,— moved on, drawing themselves nearer to Harrit as a
tired man shins a rope,— slowly, laboriously. Harrit looked out past
the limits of man's sight. She was not bounded by sky and earth, by
hill and marsh, as the others were. She stood on the shore of woman-
hood sounding the depths of the water, knowing the beauties and
the horrors of the deep sea, feeling herself to be ephemeral, and yet,
by some inscrutable grace, important. To the family, moving labori-
ously on, she was a red-headed girl in an orange dress who stood
waiting upon a rock. To Vinnie, who had the generosity to attribute
to all men more good than she knew to exist, more grace than any
saw, Harrit was figurehead and ship and the spray that follows the
ship. She was motion in her most quiet moment, she suggested air
and wind and flying things, she suggested gayety and joy, and to
Vinnie, who was three years her elder, she was the essence of beauty.

Harrit turned, and Vinnie saw her draw her attention to one and
then another of her relatives, until finally her eyes met Vinnie's.
Between them, one standing on a rock looking down, the other
standing in a road looking up, there hung a delicate web of thought.
In the sunlight it sparkled and turned, like a spider's web; it changed
color and then changed back again. Vinnie, standing tiptoe to the
moment, felt this thing between them to be tangible. I wonder, she
said to herself, how it is that such a thing exists?

The late afternoon was being lulled to sleep by crickets; dark
shadows lay in strips across the meadows; the air was sweet and
warm, like scented eiderdown. Above the high rocks dark birds
dropped into the sunlight, and dove, calling, deep into the air. Cows,
half-bored, half-philosophic, gave meaning to the meadows. Fences
overgrown with wild grapes marked one man's acres or another's.
Butterflies the color of blue china tantalized the flowers. As it had
been for decades, so it was now. Nature fulfilled herself, gave beauty
to her agents, mystery to her intent. The still afternoon tucked the
hills in; a narrow stream of water glided like a snake among the
marsh grass and the willows, and between Vinnie and Harrit, who
were also Nature's agents, hung the rare web of understanding. It
was pliable; the wind did not break it. So sure was Vinnie of the
tangibility of it that she reached up to touch it. Harrit thought she
was waving, and waved back, turned and jumped swiftly from rock
to rock and disappeared into a clump of trees. Vinnie moved on.

THE HILL 181

When she caught up with the others they were already settling
themselves. Juliette sat on a camp chair with a black umbrella over
her head. Uncle John was watching an ant through a microscope.
Her mother was spreading a cloth on the grass, setting pickles and
olives, jelly and butter at the four corners to keep the wind from
crowding under. Stewart was making a daisy chain. He sat in the
midst of a field of high grasses and reached out with his thin arms
to pick the yellow daisies. Only his head and shoulders could be
seen. The grass closed in upon him like light, or water. Harrit lay
in the shadow of a great pine tree, her hair falling against the dried
needles like bright creepers from a plant. From the hill came the
sound of children's voices. The small cousins, Jane, Mary, Sibyl,
David and Joie, were racing to the top. Susan and Marie stood over
the fire. Vinnie, like a shepherd counting his sheep, numbered them
to herself. One, two, three, four, five children, five grownups, three
in-betweens. No, that was wrong; fourteen of them had started.

Mr. Morison, his arms laden with dry wood, came through the
trees.

Of course, said Vinnie. There's Father.

Working quietly with her mother, unwrapping silver, opening
bottles, Vinnie considered the isolation of personality. Each one of
them, she reflected, remains himself. Seeing them separately occu-
pied, reviewing the picture of them as she straightened up, Vinnie
felt that she had seen it all before. It was inevitable that each should
do just as he was doing. Even Juliette under her black umbrella,
with her hands folded in her lap. Even Stewart in the midst of the
daisy field. And myself? she asked. Yes, and myself.

She was not doing what she wanted to do, but it was her nature
to do what others expected of her. She was quick to sacrifice herself
for the petty and limitless desires of those about her.

The children are like all children, she thought. Their voices
floated like a cloud above her.

Suddenly Harrit burst into laughter. Like a waterfall her voice
started high and in broken tones fell into a pool of glee. "Stewart!"
she shrieked. "Stewart!" Again her voice tumbled from the precipice,
again it lost itself in its own sound, was drowned in itself.

Vinnie, who was unable to turn quickly because of an ingenious
feat of balancing which she was performing in transferring a cake
from its box to a plate, heard Harrit's laughter, and before she had
seen Stewart her voice joined Harrit's in the pool of sound. At last
she was free to enjoy the spectacle. And such it was, for in the center
of the daisy field stood Stewart, stripped of his clothes, with a crown

182 ELEANOR GREEN

of daisies upon his head, a chain of them around his neck, and a
loincloth dexterously woven and fitted about his middle. In his
hands he held a brown-eyed Susan, and very patiently waited to be
admired. His long body, growing daisy-bedecked out of the field,
frightened the birds, and they flew about scolding. From all the
treetops they came, beating the air with horrified wings like a flock
of winged Christians. Vinnie held her sides with her hands, lest
laughter wrench her apart. Harrit, rolling under the pine tree, threw
the needles over her head; she was showered with a sharp, sweet-
smelling rain. Uncle John, his microscope forgotten, laughed silently,
his mirth shaking him; he was unable to maintain his equilibrium
under the strain of it. Marie and Susan, twins in position, stood, legs
apart, arms akimbo, with roasting forks in their hands. Mrs. Morison,
whose levity was seasonal and whose season at present was winter,
busied herself with the cloth. Mr. Morison, picking up dry sticks
in the woods, watched, fascinated, through a break in the foliage.
He was laughing quietly, the tears rolling down his face, the leaves
about him quivering. Juliette held her umbrella before her face.
She sat frightened and eager before this strange thing that was a
naked man. Hidden behind her shelter she was at liberty to look
long and minutely at him. It never occurred to her that Stewart,
standing naked in the daisy field, knew that she could see him as
clearly through the umbrella as though it were not there. The um-
brella allowed her a very careful study of the male anatomy.

While they still laughed, Stewart, being fundamentally theatrical,
sank down into the grass as miraculously as he had risen. The fright-
ened birds settled back into the sky, carrying their distress with them.
Susan and Marie returned to the fire, Mr. Morison closed the open-
ing in the foliage and scurried about like a squirrel. As he emerged
some minutes later laden with firewood, Mrs. Morison was relieved
to know that her husband had missed this latest folly. Juliette re-
mained behind her umbrella, from time to time feeling of her fore-
head, which was very hot. Harrit and Vinnie floated upon the eddy
of their amusement.

The voices of the children came nearer. Now they were bright
and clear, and again the wind would carry the sound away. Marie
drew a policeman's whistle from her bosom. She blew on it three
times. The hills tossed the shrill sound from one to another. It
scratched at the sky like the voices of women who sit long at their
supper gossiping. Once again she blew thrice upon it, and the sound
of the whistle lay over the marsh. The leaves on the willow trees
trembled, and the grasses along the creek bent down into the water.

THE HILL 183

Standing in the midst of her family, Vinnie was isolated by a sud-
den awareness of eternity. Reality hung like a ragged garment about
her. Once she may have been clothed by the sense of time and the
sequence of things, but the metallic note of the whistle tiad cut like
small blades through the cloth of her mind, and it hung in shreds
about her. She shivered, chilled by her new perception. Across miles
of feeling came her mother's voice. "No, I am not cold," she an-
swered, and slowly drew her mind back to these people. The echo
of the whistle rolled over the hills. The strange calm lay even now
upon every bush. Juliette was hidden behind her umbrella; she had
not come out from behind it to see this miracle. Susan and Marie
bent witchlike over the fire. Uncle John had returned to his minute
study. Mrs. Morison was strengthening the tethers of the tablecloth.
Mr. Morison stood wary beside her. Harrit alone had heard it. She
sat motionless; she too was breathless before it. Vinnie, who was
filigree, could not know that Harrit, who was fire, was thinking of
her lover.

The children came down from the hill. Sibyl had found two
pheasant feathers. They waved above her helmet of hair. Mary and
Jane carried pine cones and wild flowers, David, an armful of dry
sticks, and Joie, occupied with a bulge in his blouse, came last, step-
ping carefully. Vinnie alone welcomed their return.

"What is it, Joie?" she asked.

Joie whispered his answer. "It's a rabbit. A little rabbit."

"A rabbit, Joie? Where did you find it?" Vinnie also was whis-
pering.

"It came to me. I was sitting in the middle of a moss, and all of
a sudden he was there, just like that."

Joie winked at Vinnie to show how the rabbit was there, just like
that. There was pride, in bright splotches, among his freckles; his
brown eyes were serious. Vinnie knew that if the rabbit were taken
from him tears would wash away the dark, intent look, and his eyes
would be hurt and frightened, as though life centered in the soft
warm body. As indeed it did. For Vinnie, possibly because of her
quite recent perception of eternity, possibly because she remembered
her own childhood, realized that children alone live in the present.
Live now, this moment, with no thought of the future, of tomorrow
and the day after, and next week and a million years hence. She felt
that the cycle of human experience finds its axis in children, that
the moment at hand is for a child fragile and everlasting.

"Just like that," Joie said again, and turning away from his
mother, he opened his blouse so that Vinnie might peek. Against

184 ELEANOR GREEN

his stomach lay the young rabbit, his eyes closed, his nose pressed
into Joie's navel. "Isn't he a nice one?" Joie's face grew hot with
pleasure. "Did you ever see anything so cute? Did you? Did you,
Vinnie? Did you ever?"
"Never," said Vinnie.

"But what'll I do with it? I mean so's Mother won't see? She won't
let me keep it, you know she won't. I gotta hide it someplace. What'll
I do, Vinnie?" He laid his free hand on Vinnie's arm, fright robbing
his eyes of their pleasure. "You help me, Vinnie, will you?"

Vinnie pressed her finger to her lips. "Sh," she said. "Don't let
them hear."

But it was too late. Marie, straightening up from the fire, saw
them whispering and guessed a conspiracy. "Joie!" she called in a
round, deep-echoing voice. She had resumed her watchful position,
with legs apart, arms akimbo. The heat of the fire lent no kindness
to her face, and the roasting fork was a menacing weapon.

"Vinnie," cried Joie. He closed his blouse front and folded his
arms across the lump the rabbit made. Vinnie smiled at him, pledg-
ing her loyalty.

"What have you got in your blouse, Joie?"
Joie made no answer.
"Tell Mother. What is it?"
Still he said nothing.
Joie!

"A little rabbit." He spoke as though he were betraying the little
animal. Tears hovered in a cloud over the sunlit meadow of his
eyes. Pride had fled from his face, and in its place fear, pale and
inarticulate, made startling contrast with his freckles. "It's just a
little one," he pleaded.

"I don't care how little it is, or how big. If it's little, it'll be big
some day, and if it's big it'll be having little ones all over the place.
Take it right back where you found it. And hurry. Supper's all but
ready."

Joie made no move. The battle had just begun.
"Joie, do you hear me?"
"It's my rabbit."

"Joie, how can you say that? You take a little rabbit out of its
nest and then say it's yours."

"I didn't take it out of its nest. I was sitting in the middle of a
moss, and all of a sudden he was there right next to me. Just like
that." He winked to show, once more, how it was there, but his
eyelids pressed the tears from his eyes, and they rolled down his

THE HILL 185

cheeks. "I was sitting in the middle of a moss," he repeated, "and
all of a sudden "

"I don't care where you were sitting, Joie Carter, I won't have
a rabbit cluttering up my house. You might as well make up your
mind to it now. Sooner or later you will have to take the thing back
up the hill, and you might as well do it now, and have done with it.
And hurry, before your supper gets cold."

Stewart, walking up from the daisy field, fully clad but carrying
the daisy chain in his hand, called out to Marie to let him keep the
rabbit. "It might be a male," he suggested. Mrs. Morison gave her
attention to cutting the bread. Susan stood at the fire, encouraging
Marie. Juliette took refuge behind her umbrella.

"After all," said Stewart, "if women will have children they should
remember that children will have rabbits."

His words fell limp. Only Harrit heard. Stirling her laughter, she
rolled in the pine needles.

"Joie, go this minute. Don't let Mother have to speak again."

Joie turned to Vinnie. The warm thing was moving against him.
Its cold nose poked at his navel, and its whiskers tickled the delicate
surface of his stomach. "It's moving against me," he said, the tears
streaming down his cheeks. "I can't let him go, Vinnie. He's moving
against me.

"He came to me," he added. "I was sitting in the middle of a moss
and all of a sudden he was there, just like that."

Vinnie knelt down beside him, covering him over with the mantle
of her affection. Between Joie and her lay the young rabbit moving
slightly and making a frightened sound. She held Joie carefully lest
she hurt the animal between them, but she could feel the motion and
the design of its body. Together they protected it. Vinnie thought
that the thing moving against her might have been a baby.

"Let him keep it, Marie." She hardly knew that she spoke. "He
loves it so. It will make only a little bother, and it must be worth
it to see him so pleased with a thing. I'm sure Joie will clean up
after it. Won't you, Joie?"

Hearing Vinnie's comforting voice, Joie took heart, and running
to his mother he opened his blouse. "See, Mum, he's such a nice
one. He's so soft. He feels good against me. And he likes me; he's
got his nose right in my button."

Vinnie marveled that any woman could stand up under such en-
treaty. For a long moment in which mother and son gazed at each
other, the parent punishing the child with a cold smile, the child
pleading through his tears, Vinnie pressed her hands against her

186 ELEANOR GREEN

cheek. Don't say no, she said to herself. Don't do it. He'll remember
it, and when you're old he'll tell you and you will cry at night. When
your son is grown and when he has gone away, the memory of today
will be stark company. Don't do it, Marie. Don't do it.

Upon whatever gods there might be, though Vinnie found it im-
possible to believe in any, she called. Upon the saints of men and the
saints of animals; upon the gods of love and the gods of mercy; upon
nature; upon the Virgin Mary. Such things, thought Vinnie, such
little things as this, make children hate, make rebels out of men.
Of such little things comes sorrow. Of such trivial substance, joy.
These little things, she thought, make life or mar it. Don't mar Joie,
Marie. You wouldn't crush his head, you wouldn't deform his body.
Keep your hands away from him, keep your hands from his heart.
Let him have his rabbit.

"Go now, young man."

Joie ran to Vinnie. Once again she took him in her arms.

"Joie, darling, don't cry," she said. He trembled against her. It is
worse than death, thought Vinnie, to see a child like this. "Don't cry,
Joie, don't cry."

"My dear Vinnie," said Marie. "If you don't mind!"

"But I do mind, Marie. I mind very much."

"Come," said Mrs. Morison. "Supper is all ready."

"You may take the rabbit back after supper, Joie. Come now and
eat, and stop your crying."

"I'll take the rabbit, Marie. I couldn't eat under the same tree
with you. And don't wait for me to come back. I'll walk home alone."

Joie gave the rabbit to Vinnie without hesitating. They had more
in common than their love for the little thing. After she had taken
it in her arms Joie ran toward the thicket in which Mr. Morison had
taken refuge, but just as he reached it, he stopped and ran back. He
laid his head close to the rabbit, smelled of its fur, touched noses
with it. Then he kissed it, his tears falling like warm rain into its
ears, and ran back to the thicket where Mr. Morison waited with
his arms outstretched.

Vinnie turned from them. She walked carefully, bending the
branches gently lest she break them. To Stewart, who watched her,
spellbound, she was like a saint, like a madonna with the rabbit in
her arms. Her dark hair, braided about her head, reaching out with
fine feelers to catch at the sunlight, was like a halo, and the blue of
her dress was lost in the shadows of the bushes; she became a part
of the woods. She walked away from them up the hill, picking her
way carefully, her head bent, her body lending protection to the

THE HILL 187

frail animal. She looks as though she were saying a prayer, thought
Stewart.

And he was right.

II: THE BELLOWS OF AN ACCORDION

It was very still, the delicate songs of birds and crickets lost in the
folds of the afternoon. On the hill no leaf stirred, but in the valley
a soft wind rustled the leaves of the willow trees, and glimmer-
ing silver in the sunlight, they were like silent bells. It was one of
those fragile and immeasurably beautiful afternoons when living,
alone, is important; one of those days when the volume of the soul
seems infinite, when every sound that falls upon the ear, every sight
which the eye beholds, is a thing imperishable and secure. The sun,
shorn of its heat, and lying naked behind a cloud, sent out long
shafts of light, tight and even, like the warp threads of a loom, and
far below, in the valley, farmers, riding thoughtless behind their
teams, were covered with a thin layer of gold, like gilded human toys.

Vinnie looked down into the valley. Below her sat the family. She
could see that they were talking, though no sound of their voices
could be heard. Seeing them from above, they were squat little peo-
ple, grotesque and pitiable. She felt, as she lay upon the rock, the
rabbit cradled in her back, as though she were a gargoyle hewn for
some medieval cathedral. My family, and they know so little of liv-
ing. She felt saddened and hurried. Time passed too rapidly. Life
would very soon be finished, and she would have learned so little.
My family, she said again. They know so little of living. The stream
of her pity fell heavily upon them, like rain emptied swiftly from a
spout.

She looked down upon them and with the blade of her imagina-
tion made deep incisions into their lives. "It was strange," she said
aloud, "how little I wanted them to come. But now that they're
here, I love them all." Her mental fingers moved swiftly through
their task.

They sat below her in the valley, unaware of the operation being
performed upon them. Paralyzed by the mechanical motions of life,
they were unable to react to the delicate instruments of sympathetic
thought. They ignored beauty in one another and shut themselves
in so that no faintest perfume of delicacy could escape. Like butter-
flies, once beautiful, who wind themselves into a second cocoon,
thought Vinnie. Her blade cut carefully.

How did it happen that Uncle John told me about Grace? How

i88 ELEANOR GREEN

do I come to know my own mother so much better than before? How
can it be that people stay hidden for years, and then suddenly stand
naked before you?

Filled with the tragedy of each of them, feeling herself to be not
only Vinnie but the shell for these others as well, like a pregnant
woman who loses her identity and becomes something more than
she knows herself to be, Vinnie's mind was weighed down with too
many sorrows. She felt that her body was deformed by the size of the
pity within her, as the woman Dorothea must have felt before being
delivered of nine children at one birth. And as Dorothea might have
regretted her conception, so Vinnie rebelled against the tragedy
grown great within her. Don't they know that there is no time for
weeping? Don't they know that they have given half of themselves
to me, that now I also am responsible? But no abortive measures
were successful. She was impregnated with the fierce fluid of individ-
ual failure. To Vinnie it was not tragic that each should have had
a very unhappy experience; tragedy lay in the fact that no one of
them had grown beyond it. And now here am I, deformed by their
deformity.

The fine needle of memory drew the poison from Vinnie's mind,
as a doctor, to relieve pain, draws fluid from the spinal cord. She
heard again Harrit's voice: "Don't let it come. I don't want it to
come. Don't let it, Vinnie, please." She will grow beyond it, thought
Vinnie. She will not be deformed, nor paralyzed. She surely will
grow beyond her tragedy. But how can it be that she didn't tell me
sooner? How could she have waited so long to reveal it?

The days folded back upon themselves like plaits in the bellows
of an accordion. It was no longer today, no longer Friday. It was
Wednesday, day before yesterday, at daybreak.

"Don't let it come. I don't want it to come. Don't let it, Vinnie,
please!"

Vinnie, to whom each day offered a miracle, wakened suddenly,
and discovered her sister kneeling before the window. She watched
Harrit kneeling there, her bare feet arched against the floor, her
elbows on the window sill; she noticed the straight back and the
delicate curves of her thighs. Seeing her there, kneeling like a child
at his mother's knee, Vinnie thought how like a mother to Harrit
the earth, the day, the sunrise were. A cricket, making plaintive
song in the wide daybreak, as though the world were too beautiful,
even for crickets, caused Harrit to throw back her head in delight,
and Vinnie marveled at this first morning miracle. Such beauty was

THE HILL 189

seldom felt, such beauty as the cricket's song and Harrit's body that
veritably leaned against the day and added beauty to it. To watch
Harrit move was beauty, and to watch her when her body was still
was prayer. Grace, strength, spirit. How can one person have so
much? thought Vinnie. She loved her own life for allowing her a
part in Harrit's.

"Don't let it come, Vinnie," whispered Harrit again.

"Don't let what come, Harrit?" Vinnie turned over in the bed
that she might give her whole attention. With this serene generosity
Vinnie gave herself to everyone, bestowing not only a sort of com-
pliment thereby, but an understanding that made speaking simple.
So now she gave herself completely to Harrit's delicate world.

"The fall! Don't let it come." Harrit turned from the window,
and Vinnie thought how shamed the beauty of the daylight lay be-
fore Harrit's beauty.

"Why not, Harrit?"

"It's too lovely. It comes all of a sudden and then it's all over, and
there's not time enough to enjoy it as much as I want. Only yester-
day it was spring and the robins came, and now today I heard a
cricket and the air smells of forest fires, and before I know it winter'll
be here, and everything will be thin and cold, like an old woman
sleeping alone. I like the fall best of any season of the year, anyway."

"You say that about every season, Goosie. You said it about spring
and summer, and you're saying it about fall, and when winter comes
you'll say it about winter."

"Oh, I know, but I do love the fall. Don't you, Vinnie?"

"Love it," said Vinnie, which allowed Harrit to return to her own
world of listening and beholding. Vinnie bade Harrit get back into
bed or put something warm around her, for though the morning was
bright, the air was cold and penetrating.

"In a minute I will, Vinnie. In a minute," she said. Vinnie, know-
ing she would, recalled herself from Harrit's world, and again turn-
ing in the bed, lay separate, no threads of thought binding Harrit
and herself together.

Far out in the valley below her a lean spire pricked through the
threads of sunlight, but Vinnie, being transported to day before yes-
terday, did not see it.

Vinnie followed the pattern of her imaginings through the rooms
of the house. She thought of Juliette whose bedroom was downstairs.
She imagined her in bed.

190 ELEANOR GREEN

Juliette wore a gown that buttoned high at her neck, and a night-
cap that was starched and ruffled. She would lie straight in her bed,
the sheet turned carefully back over the blankets and her arms close
to her sides. She made only the faintest mound under the bedclothes,
except where her feet stood up straight like two sentinels on guard.
The most unbending feet, they were, thought Vinnie, and wondered
if they ached from holding them so stiff. She was so immaculate, so
precise; her motions were measured, her step never varied; she al-
ways walked with her left hand laid carefully over her chest. You
always said chest of Juliette. Remembering Harrit's body, at once
alert and peaceful, pure and suggestive, Vinnie pitied Juliette. She
understood her queer little steps and her immaculate hands that
traced the edges of the pleats in her skirt, or lay palm down upon
her lap, like two nuns absolving themselves before some stern and
superperfect god. How it must feel to look at yourself at night when
your clothes were off and see a body so barren, so sterile! Loving life
and her own body because it was a symbol of life, an instrument with
which she could measure all living, Vinnie understood Juliette's life,
though only momentarily. How could anyone love life without first
loving himself? she asked. How could you love all men if for yourself
you had no love? If you were not beauty, how could you know
beauty; if you were not song, how could you sing? But everyone was
beautiful, everyone was song, all history lay within you; there was
knowledge and love, conquest and hate all pulsing under your skin.
But Juliette didn't pulse; her blood trickled through her veins. And
thinking this, Vinnie loved her aunt for the things she had missed,
and pitied her for the thing she was.

How strange, how good to see her in this way, she thought, and
wondered why she had never seen her so before. She was afraid to
think lest she lose this new ecstasy. She felt that she stood on a high
place, with all the world lying below her. The sun shone, and the
earth was exquisitely divided into seas and lakes, forests and fields.
She was about to comprehend all things; she lay breathless beside
her sister, trying to preserve this new thing for the future. Her head
was cleared of all doubt and fear, and she felt herself to be everlast-
ing and infinite. Remembering Juliette who was garden without
flowers, body without beauty, the sensation of discovery disappeared:
a miracle had just escaped fulfillment.

Juliette with wings on her head, Dad who was sorry, she knew not
for what, Mother who comforted her body with her hands, shifting
her gown as she walked and breathing a fierceness into the air. Vin-

THE HILL 191

nie who was filigree, Harrit who was fire and lay like a prayer be-
side her.

So Vinnie considered them, drawing them closely together, pull-
ing the threads of her mind tight, as one draws the shirring string
in a bag or a chemise.

What do they mean, these people? asked Vinnie of herself. Juliette
who is barren, Mother and Dad who lie apart at night, Harrit and
Vinnie who are filled with anticipation of the future? What does it
mean that I should lie this way beside my sister? she asked. What
does it mean that so beautiful a person should be my sister, that
we should be born of the same parents? Seeing herself blessed be-
yond all other men, in having a sister who was life and prayer
and child of the earth, Vinnie turned to Harrit, whose hands had
used Vinnie's back for a muff, and whispered, "What does it mean
that we should be different from Juliette? What is it that makes us
beautiful?"

Ill: FIRE AND FILIGREE

A flock of pigeons, flying high, looked like scraps of paper as their
wings caught the light and lost it, and as they dropped slowly to
the earth it was as though the sun had burned them, for without the
sunlight white upon their wings they became dark spots and settled
down carelessly among the trees like charred paper. The rabbit,
lying asleep in the curve of Vinnie's back, waked suddenly and for-
sook his shallow cradle for her arm, but she gave no ounce of her
attention to him, although she stroked his ears and laid her nose
into his fur. She was oblivious of herself; she had forgotten the
rabbit and Marie and Joie and his child's grief. A late-singing mourn-
ing dove linked her even more closely with the day before yesterday.
The eerie sound was like a ghost making music upon a reed.

They had lain, she and Harrit, for some time, silent, unmoving.
Remembering now, it seemed strange that she should have had no
premonition. She had been thinking of Juliette and the way her
hands lay upon her lap, and while she thought of how her family
slept in their beds, and how her parents slept apart at night, Harrit
had been waiting to talk to her.

"Don't let it come. I don't want it to come. Don't let it, Vinnie,
please."

A hurricane of emotion beat in upon Vinnie as she began to
comprehend her sister's meaning. She was unable to evade its force

192 ELEANOR GREEN

and lay weak beside Harrit, waiting for her to continue. Neither of
them betrayed the feeling within her. They lay motionless, as self-
contained as Spartan women, as fair as Helen.

"It will be born in February."

Yinnie, standing on the brink of tragedy, lost her foothold and
fell leaden, the breath beaten out of her by Harrit's words, her
winged protection of reason proving worthless. She was sucked deep
into sorrow. Pregnant, pregnant; my sister; pregnant. The words
filled her mouth and her ears, and her eyes smarted with them and
she breathed them down into her lungs. Pregnant. My Harrit. Har-
rit! O God, no. Not Harrit. Me, rather. Make it me.

"Are you sure?"

"I have been to the doctor."

"But is there nothing you can do?"

"I waited too long."

"What did George say?"

"He doesn't know."

"But Harrit, you must tell him. You must tell him at once and
get married."

"Marry him? But I don't love him!"

"You don't love him? But how could you Oh, Harrit!"

"Vinnie, you don't know anything about that sort of thing. You
don't know what it is to be persuaded by a man's body. You may
have wanted Peter; I am sure you have, but not because he was a
man. You wanted him because he was Peter."

It is easy for me to be good, Vinnie said to herself, because I am
never tempted.

"Do you think I am awful, Vinnie?"

Awful? Harrit awful? How can I tell her what I think? How can
I tell her how admirable she is?

Harrit turned suddenly, and Vinnie, holding her in her arms,
comforted her. They clung together, Vinnie's lips covering Harrit's
hair with kisses, and Harrit's tears hot against Vinnie's skin.

The body lost its identity; it was not Vinnie and Harrit who clung
together, washing each other with their tears, their bodies inter-
twined like the roots of trees, their hair lying in a careless, two-
colored pattern. It was not Harrit who was fire and Vinnie who was
filigree. It was a pregnant woman, frightened and sorry, and another
woman who was kind.

A seagull, far inland, cut into the light. Its pointed wings, opening
and closing with miraculous precision, were like the blades of a

THE HILL L93

knife. Vinnie watched, hypnotized by its beauty, but her mind's at-
tention was in memory.

"Tell me about it," she said to Harrit after a little, and Harrit,
her face in the pillow, whispered with Vinnie.

She told how he praised her, her body, the touch of her hand.
How he smoked in the firelight, his eyes half-closed, his toe tapping
the floor. How he stood behind her, whistling, and laid his hands on
her throat, slipped his hand into her dress. She remembered the little
fires in her belly, the sweat on her hands. She remembered her back.
She whispered it all to Vinnie, shaking. And laughing a little. She
had laughed that night.

Harrit had laughed and leaned back against the wall. When she
moved her head the rough surface of the stone caught at her hair.
It was late in May, but they welcomed the fire on the hearth, for
the stone hut was still damp and the earth about it cold from the
winter. In the woods owls called out, and occasional birds, wakened
by a twig's falling or by the electric shock of a shooting star, sang
out in ecstasy or fear. A single candle set on a shelf of stone that
jutted out from the wall burned slowly, the wax enlarging upon
itself and joining the candle and the wall. Other than that there was
no light except that of the fire that blazed, fell back and blazed again,
like lust. In their laps they held wooden plates, carved thin and
polished to a rare finish. About the rims words were carven: "Forgive
us our trespasses." The words encircled Harrit's plate in a cylindrical
prayer.

Vinnie knew the hut to which they had gone. She and Harrit,
walking in the autumn, had come upon it, and had met George.
Knowing the place, and understanding her sister, it was not difficult
for Vinnie to reconstruct the evening. Harrit spoke little. Between
her sporadic words breathless pauses allowed Vinnie to imagine
what had happened between that moment and the next of which
Harrit would speak. It was evident that Harrit was recalling it all,
step by step. Vinnie chose to accompany her; and if in her imagina-
tion she occasionally side-stepped, if she walked through mire where
Harrit trod upon dry ground, or if she mistook a weed for a flower,
a cloud for an ominous shadow, it must be forgiven. The paths of
the imagination are more varied and more illusive than the cryptic
paths of dreams, and filigree and fire are not molded in twin cru-
cibles. Whatever the design of their travel, they arrived together,
having seen the same landmarks, having smelled the same fragrance,
now sweet and again pungent. Had a psychologist been able to look

194 ELEANOR GREEN

simultaneously into their minds, had he been able to cut into their
lives, as Vinnie had done, lying face down upon a rock, the rabbit
asleep in the crook of her arm, he would have been astonished at
the likeness of their thoughts. But being a psychologist he might not
have known what sweetness and understanding do sometimes exist
between sisters. It was not sagacity on Vinnie's part. It was nothing
more nor less than devotion which allowed her to move and feel
oblivious of herself. So, as they lay childlike in the bed, Vinnie re-
built all that had taken place, and with occasional hints from Harrit
learned how it had happened.

The night pressed down around the hut like snow falling, quiet
and heavy, and the wind fretting about like a nervous woman sent
the smoke down the chimney. The air in the room was laden with
the smell of it, and their eyes, smarting with it, were bright and
red, like the eyes of lovers.

"His eyes were so bright," Harrit said. "And I didn't want that."
And George, beholding in her the likeness to that strange forerunner
of passion, thought: My God, she wants it too.

So quick are lovers to misunderstand, thought Vinnie.

He threw more wood onto the fire, and the flames, jumping out
from the logs, made a crown of fire about his head as he knelt at the
hearth. His mind matched the fiery crown. It licked out at things,
and quickly satisfied, retreated, leaving only ashes to show where it
had been. Like fire it never retraced itself, but waited until a new
growth had sprung up to offer a more hearty meal. The fire, burn-
ing bright and swift, lighted Harrit's face and cast it in shadow, so
that without changing the expression of her features she appeared
now to smile and again to fall into a sort of elegiac reverie. Her eyes
were shut not only to the smoke but to this man who vexed her mind
and excited her body. When he moved across the room to bolt the
door it was as though some anodyne had relieved a great pain, for
his presence near her was a weight, and she found it difficult to
breathe.

He stood watching her, filling his pipe slowly and carefully. She
leaned back with her eyes shut, her hair following the cracks be-
tween the stones. She seemed not to breathe. Wave upon wave of
beauty broke about her; it was as though she were a rock in the
sea, upon which the little birds would stop to rest, and over which
the water would glide, reverent and still. About her feet bright fishes
would tangle the threads of their color, their soft tails waving like
chiffon scarfs, their sharp noses encircled with wreaths of minute
bubbles. Seaweed would grow about her ankles in green lace panta-

THE HILL 195

loons, and upon her breast the sea would weep. Hearing the sound
at night, sailors would wonder. When the wind, in a fury of jealousy,
beat at the sea, she would stand adamant, betraying in no smallest
way her inner torture.

If, indeed, such there were. George was unable to decide.

He moved back across the room to Harrit. She might have been
a deaf-mute, and blind besides, for she showed no sign of knowing
he had come. He was unaware that his moving towards her held her
as in a vise.

Once I loved a man, she said to herself. Once I loved a man, but
it wasn't like this. I didn't wait for him to have done with his words.
Whatever he said I listened to, and he spoke of curious things. Of
mathematics and women. And he spoke of music. If he had talked
of microbes and hunting I might have liked it better, because then
I could have talked with him. As it was, I only listened. But I never
sat with my eyes shut, no matter how much they burned. What is
it this man is talking about? Heredity? Environment? But I'm not
going to marry him; I don't want children. Once I loved a man, but
it wasn't like this.

A wide desert lay between them. They walked forever towards
each other and never met. Once, possibly, in their whole existence,
the sun and the moon would be at such a point in the heavens as to
cast two shadows from one to the other. And so in their own shadows
they would meet, and shadow being like shadow in substance, they
would mistake the shadow for the reality and exchange some inti-
mate folly. But when the sun sank deeper into the night and the
moon rose higher into the sky, the shadows would retreat, like tidal
waters from the shore, and by the time the zenith had been reached
they would again be two creatures separated by a wide desert, an
illusory oasis marking the spot where they had met.

"He told me of something that happened in New York," said
Harrit. "He was standing in the window, and he saw two men and a
woman supported between them. He thought she was ill. She was
very handsome and well dressed. The janitor of the building across
the street was sweeping the sidewalk; his shirt hung out over his
trousers, and he had long hair. He wore a large black hat; he was
colored. George said he was pretty terrible-looking. The men turned
in at the house. The woman regained consciousness just in time to
see this ominous-looking negro. George could only see her back, but
he said that never in his life had he seen the terror that the woman
betrayed. One of the men got behind her and shoved her in, like a
cow into the slaughter pen."

i96 ELEANOR GREEN

This is what the hundred generations of humanity have won for
us. thought Vinnie. To such heights have we ascended. Christ and
the Virgin Mary have lost their meaning. They are no longer sym-
bols of the spirit and of the flesh. They have no denominator in
common with the human mind.

"What did he do?" asked Vinnie.

When Harrit answered, her voice sounded as though she had spent
the night in a grave. "Nothing," she whispered.

George, watching Harrit as he talked, had seen her eyes open wide
and tears gather in them. The tears rolled slowly down her cheeks,
and reflecting the light of the fire they were like drops of blood.
What kind of woman is this? he said. I talk to her all evening of
marriage, of our life together, and all evening she sits with her eyes
closed, still as death. She sits without saying a word, like a deaf-mute,
or someone stricken with sudden and utter sorrow. And when I
speak half in jest of something I saw, she opens her eyes and weeps.
What kind of woman is this that sits by my fire and refuses to answer
me? What does she think? What does she feel? What is it like to
weep? And he fell to speculating about the mysteries of her body,
wagering with himself that she was thus, or so. He could not know
that she wept for him.

Harrit cried into her hands. How can he sit there and tell me
about it? Doesn't he know how I hate him? He tells me he did
nothing, and expects me to love him. Why don't I go? Why don't I
tell him I hate him and go? Oh, because he's going away. For two
years he'll be gone and I won't have to see him at all. I won't have
to think of him. I'm here tonight because tomorrow he's going
away. Anything can happen in two years. God, how I hate him!
What if I had been that woman? What if he had stood there watch-
ing me be shoved into the doorway, and done nothing about it?
God, God how I hate him!

"Tell me, Harrit, were you ever in love?" George's voice rapped
like a fine hammer upon her hate.

Once I loved a man, but it wasn't like this. The words crowded
into her mind. No, that's not what you say when someone who loves
you is going away. Once I loved a man. But it isn't true. I still love
him. You don't stop loving people when they die. It's as though
they were spending a month in the country, a long month, where
there is no mail service, and no telephone. Once I loved a man, but
God, it wasn't like this!

THE HILL 197

She raised her head and turned her face to the fire.

She was unutterably weary. No exercise tires the body with a
rapidity comparable to the speed of hate. Like a leech it sucks
vitality from the mind, and although in a spurt of anger the body
may acquire incredible strength, the fury ended, the body is weak
and as feeble as that of an old man. She had no respect whatever,
and certainly no love, for this man who saw a woman forced into
slavery, and did nothing about it. What good would a man like
George be in time of crisis? What support in childbirth, what com-
fort in death? A man, however wise, needs great compassion.

What would it be like to live with him? Every day and every day
he would be patient and kind, and every day he would continue,
argumentatively, his pursuit of peace of mind. He would allow me
no tears, no change of mood. He would even smile sparingly to save
his energy for more important things. He would walk around my
mind as though it were a curio under glass. No, I could never live
with him, thought Harrit.

A young owl screeched. It sounded like a baby, and Harrit caught
her breath. George watched her. Her eyes were suddenly alive, her
whole body listening. She was no deaf-mute now. Every sense of her
being was awakened and waiting. Fear makes any body strangely
articulate, but with natural beauty like Harrit's, it can transform a
person into a symbol, and Harrit became a cornered animal, sure
prey to the pursuer. She was a bird poised for flight, but four stone
walls and a roof surrounded her. She was a fish encircled with speed,
but a mesh of net ensnared her. To George she was a woman of sur-
passing beauty with a body as fine as silk and as stern as steel. What
would it be like to love her? What if she wept? My God, how I
want her!

His passion was fanned to a great flame by the breeze of his imagi-
nation. He was eager to know her body with his hands in the way
that a hungry man longs to possess the food behind the glass. One
can break the glass. One can risk it. Better to wait.

The owl screeched again, and Harrit, the shadows hanging from
her in tatters, ran to the door. George was quick to follow.

"It's a child," she said, her eyes in the half-light gleaming like the
eyes of a coyote. George stood laughing at her, his back against the
door.

"Silly girl. Don't you know that's an owl?"

She moved from him, her body aching with his nearness. She sat
once again by the fire.

198 ELEANOR GREEN

"Open the window," she said.

"Never. You might fly out. You might really, you know. For all I
know you may be a vampire."

"Please open it," she said. It seemed to her that she would die if
no breath stirred in the room. The room grew small around her.
Storm clouds came up from every corner of the sky, a round range
of mountains grew and grew together. When they met above her
there would be complete darkness; no air would stir. The room
came closer and closer about her.

"Please open it," she said again. She was suffocating with fear. "I
can't breathe," she said. The pulse of her blood was like hammers
in her ears, her whole body moved as her heart beat. George stood
in the dark watching her. Prey and pursuer, bird and four walls and
a roof. The owl screeched close by the hut. "George," she said, cover-
ing her ears with her hands, "I can't stand that noise!" Let me out
of here, she said to herself. Let me out. I can't breathe. Oh, please
let me out! Let me out!

To hold off the inquisitional walls she thrust out her arms.

She wants me, thought George, and he moved slowly towards her.
As he touched her she withered in his arms, like a frail flower. He
mistook her despair for consent.

So quick are lovers to misunderstand, said Vinnie to herself again.
She withdrew her memory and her imagination. The moment at
which the sun and the moon would cast two shadows, one to the
other, had come, and shadow being like shadow in substance, each
mistook the shadow of the other for reality, and exchanged folly.

A single cloud sailed lazily over. From the valley a man's voice,
calling the cows home for the night, rose like a spire. The wind
ruffled the water of the creek, and the path of sunlight shining upon
it was broken up into bright pennies of light. The rabbit lay asleep
in Vinnie's arm, and the late-afternoon air was pure and transparent,
like the skin of little children.

IV: THE BURROWS OF GRIEF

And then there is Mother, thought Vinnie. The man in the valley
who was calling the cows home for the night began to whistle. It
was a mournful tune, a sort of doleful pleasure, like charity. There
is Mother, she said, and examined her own knowledge of her so that

THE HILL 199

she might behold its structure. There is something malignant in each
man's life, thought Vinnie. But she herself seemed immune.

As she recalled that she had discovered her mother's tragedy on
the same day that she had wept with Harrit, it appeared to her that
there was a special omen attending that day; this whole reunion. So
far it had been a series of discoveries. Every morning she wakened
half-frightened by what the day might reveal, half-thrilled by the
anticipation of it. She was like an artist whose work is about to be
brought before the public; an artist who, beset with dread and
ecstasy, wishes he might sleep for a year, but would not, if some kind
fairy were to offer it, accept a potion that would make him drowsy
for an hour. Waking, Vinnie would close her eyes quickly to coax
herself back into oblivion, but with her eyes shut her senses would
be filed to a keen edge, like the teeth of a saw. One day she had dis-
covered Harrit and her mother. Another had offered only the sunlight
shining in a cup of tea. Another day their being bound by blood
seemed incredible. So it had gone, but it had started with Harrit
and her mother.

Harrit, her hair spread out on the pillow like a copper fern, fell
asleep, but Vinnie was wide awake, unable to sleep. They were two
earthen jugs, one full, the other empty. The contents of the full jug
had been poured into the empty one. It was no longer Harrit's
tragedy; it seemed to have lent itself to Vinnie, to her body, as
though the fetus had been transferred from the one woman to the
other. There is nothing to be done, Vinnie said to herself. Nothing
to be done. She got noiselessly out of bed and dressed hurriedly. Her
mind ached with its new knowledge,— a grab bag from which count-
less ribbons emerge. Each ribbon of thought was pulled tight; only
the slightest increase in tension and the bag would break.

Vinnie went out into the hall, climbed the stairs to the attic, and
in the corner, behind boxes and barrels, and cushioned in thought,
she settled herself.

While Vinnie, burrowing in her grief, hid herself in the attic, her
mother lay in bed waiting for the clock to strike. She awoke at ten
minutes to five and lay there, waiting for the curtain of the day to
be lifted with the five strokes of the clock. When they had struck
she would get up, obeying some inner summons. She would turn
down the covers and move cautiously, sliding her body slowly to the
edge of the bed so that she would not waken Henry, who slept apolo-
getically beside her. If she wakened him he would ask what she was

200 ELEANOR GREEN

doing at that hour of the day. Not that she would have told him in
so many words. She couldn't very well tell her husband, at five in
the morning, that she was getting ready to die. Besides, she was a
woman who refrained from airing her intimacies, and dying, to Mrs.
Morison, was a most intimate affair. More so than being born, than
riving birth herself.

The clock struck five, and Mrs. Morison fell into the routine of
living. The movements of her body were like consonants in speech,
and like the consonants had some natural grace, some sense of beauty.
Mr. Morison turned over on his side of the bed just as Mrs. Morison
got out on her side. He turned over with a magnificent gesture,
taking possession of the bed finally, triumphantly. It was altogether
admirable, and Mrs. Morison admired fully as she stood looking
down at him. Standing this way she was more like a child with a toy
than a woman near fifty who was up at five getting ready to die.

The years of her life hung heavily upon her. They were like
delicate veils, one hung upon the other, making a tapestry of infinite
layers and varying shades of color. Standing beside the bed, looking
down at her husband, Mrs. Morison began lifting the veils of her
life, one by one. Last year and the year before, and the year before
that, and before that and before that. She wondered, as she stood
there in the bedroom, what made a life go on, what started a life in
the first place. She wondered how she had come to marry Henry.
She lifted the veil of the year of their marriage. The brightness of
it hurt her eyes, the beauty of life, recalled momentarily, sucked at
her heart like a leech. Drained of her strength, she let fall the veils
of her thought, and she set her mind to dressing, and combing her
hair.

Up in the attic, hidden behind boxes, Vinnie could not know what
her mother was doing. She was not concerned with thought of her;
she thought only of Harrit, of her firm body; of her integrity. But
as she sat thinking of her sister, and her mother, downstairs, let fall
the veils of her mind, they were joined inevitably, like two points of
land by the water that lies between them, by Vinnie's wondering
what her mother would say to Harrit when she learned that she was
pregnant. She must be very kind to her, Vinnie said aloud, and sud-
denly started to weep, fearing the cruelty that women may reveal
when confronted with the delicacy of their children's love. Mother
and daughter joined by fear. No union at all, thought Vinnie, and
propped up behind the boxes, she fell asleep.

Downstairs her mother walked quietly through the room, through
the hall, down the stairs. Tiptoed through the living room to stand

THE HILL 201

in the door open into Juliette's room. Juliette slept religiously, a
sort of piety invading the place and an air of circumspection hang
ing like dew from the objects about her. As on other mornings Mrs.
Morison wondered what it was that drew her to this sight of her
husband's sister, what it was that made the room so definitely vir-
ginal. Perhaps it was the underclothes folded neatly on the chair. Or
the shoes placed exactly, side by side. Or the umbrella hanging on
the foot of the bed. Or was it the shades drawn down? Or the sheet
folded back over the blanket?

Mrs. Morison asked these things of herself every morning. It was
not from habit that she questioned, but from a deep and very real
wonder that the sight aroused in her. Every morning she stood there,
asking herself what it was, what it felt like to be Juliette. She went
noiselessly up the stairs again, past Mr. Morison sleeping trium-
phantly on the bed, past the closed door behind which Harrit lay
sleeping. Poor Juliette, she said to herself, and opened the door that
led to the attic.

As the smell of old things greeted her, Mrs. Morison ceased won-
dering, ceased caring. This other thing, this strange and greater
thing, filled her. She was thrilled and excited, like a runner at the
start of a race. She closed the door after her, and very quietly, not
to avoid disturbing the others, but to keep them out from that
world of excitement which she found each morning upon opening
the attic door. As she climbed the stairs, breathless, her excitement
increased. Coming to the top she whispered, with a gayety that would
shame the whispers of lovers, I'm getting ready to die. She surveyed
her world.

Shelves built from the floor to the ceiling lined the north end of
the attic. Cupboards took up the west wall. Against the east one
were trunks and boxes, weirdly shaped bundles, countless maga-
zines. In the center of the room stood a long table with scrapbooks,
pencils, labels and paper clips. Mrs. Morison summoned the attic
together as she sat down at the table. It was no longer a gabled room
with shelves and cupboards, boxes and barrels. It was something
important, something ordained; it was the paradise of a woman
lonely in the midst of things.

Letters. Today it would be letters. Monday, with one week of
letters before me. I must work hard and rapidly, to get on to
recipes and poems, colored silks and old lace, hats and white cottons.
Letters. She began sorting them out.

The rhythm of laying them down, of picking them up and laying
them down, of reaching and placing, placing and reaching, swayed

202 ELEANOR GREEN

her body. One, two; one, two; and one and two and one and two and.
The letters rose in a wall around her. Mother, Father, Ida, Jane. A
few from Harrit, many from Vinnie. She sorted them out, put them
in order, labeled them. There were letters which her own mother
had received, letters that had grown yellow and brittle with age,
and crumbled like dry leaves when her fingers touched them. The
handwriting on them was so fine as to be unbelievable; it was like
the lines of etchings. Mrs. Morison wrapped the letters in paper and
labeled them, printing the words on the label with care, loving each
line that she made.

Reaching and placing, placing and reaching, her body swayed
with the rhythm. Her body swayed, and the years of her life, hanging
in layers about her, took the same tempo, and the memories of a
woman with a body fulfilled and living complete grew taut within
her mind, and she was like an instrument well tuned and surely
strung. Touching now this letter and now that was like playing first
upon one string and then another. One, two, one, two; and one and
two and one and two and. The years of her life followed the beat of
the metronome, the memories marched by impersonally, like an
army or a herd of sheep. One, two, one, two; and one and two
and one and

"God," said Mrs. Morison.

Vinnie waked suddenly. The room pressed down about her. The
windows offered no breath of air, the shelves and cupboards no
surety. The table became a maze, the stacks of letters, with their old
tales told, a labyrinth. What is she doing here? she thought. What is
my mother doing here?

"God," said Mrs. Morison again, and laid her head down on the
table.

Vinnie waited.

After some time her mother looked at the letter in her hand,
looked past it, out over the trees, out to the hills. She was afraid to
go on, knowing that she would be sorry, but one does not discover,
twenty-odd years after it has been written, a letter whose seal has
never been broken, and leave it unread. She sat in the attic of the
house in which she had borne four children and lost two, and looked
out of the window, holding in her hands the letter she had long
awaited when she was twenty. And here it was in her hands, her life
lived, her body fulfilled. Here in her hands she held her life, as she
had dreamed it. She sat in the attic, her memories piled carelessly
about her, her husband lending distinction to the bed by the way in
which he lay full upon it, his arms outstretched, his legs straight.

THE HILL 203

She, Mary Morison, waiting for her courage to return, sat in the
attic above him, while Vinnie, her daughter, waited for the room to
enlarge, for the walls to fall back, the ceiling to lift, the air to move
about. These things happened, one by one, and Mrs. Morison read
on. She read slowly, as one reads a foreign language, for it was a
tongue strange and wonderful to her.

Vinnie, like a mole in the darkness of his burrow, scuttled about
through the network of her mind. Her mother sat before her reading
a letter, and as she read the tears rolled down her cheeks. Her grief
was inexhaustible. This woman who sat before her, this woman who
sat in the midst of the attic, and by the movements of her body
summoned the room together, making something important of it,
something ordained and beautiful,— this woman was her mother.
Why should she sit here in the attic weeping? What is there that
could make my mother weep? Vinnie was besieged with a great curi-
osity, and then at once was smitten with a sense of shame, for, for
the first time in her life, she thought of her mother as a woman like
herself,— a woman who has choices to make, children to bear, sorrows
to endure. She was ashamed that she had never thought to question
her mother's happiness, had never considered her as anything other
than a woman whose most distinguishing experience had been in
bearing her children, in bearing Vinnie and Harrit. Up one burrow
of thought and down another she ran, digging at the soil about her
with the claws of her anguish. My mother who sits in the attic and
weeps. My mother who has the same feelings as I. It was as though
she had always looked upon the likeness of her mother, upon her
statue, or a painting of her, and only now, for the first time, beheld
the living, breathing woman. And emerging into the light of her
mother's experience, Vinnie was blinded by the brilliance of it, and
hidden behind the boxes and barrels, she wept silently, and through
her tears beheld a strange beauty descend upon her mother.

That beauty mingled with her hair, like so many jewels, losing
itself and becoming a part of her. Her mother sat like a statue, and
Vinnie's comprehension of her as a person, instead of one mainly, if
not solely, her mother, shed its light upon her until she was covered
with glory. It was shed over her whole body, even to her hands. They
were no longer old hands. They had bathed babies, they had nursed
men in their illness, women in childbirth. They had assisted in death.
And as people sometimes defend themselves, or others, knowing
they are in the wrong, so now Vinnie sought to persuade herself that
her mother's life had been full, that it had been complete, that no
more could be asked of any life than she had had in hers. But as she

204 ELEANOR GREEN

assured herself of these things, the voice within her cried out. You
are lying, it said. You are lying.

Yes, said Vinnie, I'm lying. She understood what it was that
sent her mother bareheaded into the rain, what it was that made her
comfort her body with her hands, promising it respite, and shifting
her gown as she walked with a fierce gesture.

She has had a home and a husband and children, she has had
enough to eat, enough to keep her warm. What more could any
woman want? What more is there? But Vinnie knew that there was
something more that a woman could have, something more her
mother had wanted. She did not give it a name, she did not label it
as her mother did the letters about her, the bits of silk, the scraps
of lace. She did not call it happiness, nor joy, nor peace. But it was all
of these, and something more. It was that other thing that gave
meaning to life; that other thing was illusive, nameless, but it gave
joy and beauty to the smallest moment. It is a sort of enchantment,
Vinnie said to herself.

Perhaps she loved another, thought Vinnie, and if so, what has it
been for her to live with my father? What can it be like to sleep
with a man in whose body you find no delight? What must it be to
eat breakfast every day for twenty years with a man who holds no
pleasure for you, whose hands confer no blessing? What, indeed,
can life mean with no magic whatever in its bosom?

And now she pitied not only her mother, but her father as well,
for his devotion to her was evident in the gifts he brought her— a
blue jay's feather that he found in the path, or a single flower with
a single leaf. What is it that life does to people? asked Vinnie.

Thought of those years of her mother's conceiving and bearing,
nursing and burying her children, sheared Vinnie of her compre-
hension of existence. She saw her mother as a quiet woman in whose
heart no ecstasy could flicker, in whose mind no joy could ever be.
It is a rare world, the world of enchantment, and those who dwell
there are particularly blessed, no day too dreary for delight, and no
delight too frail for great enjoyment. But the land of the enchanted
is not a world ruled by Bacchus in which the inhabitants make
merry from day's end to day's end. It is a land, rather, whose in-
habitants walk now over roses and now over thorns. Their pleasure
is minute, and their grief, exquisite. As their joy may be in gentle
things, so also may their sorrow. So it happened that Vinnie con-
tributed to her mother more sorrow than actually existed. She was
not tragic; she was only very lonely.

While Vinnie thought of her mother, her mother allowed her

THE HILL 205

mind to take whatever course it chose, loosing the reins with which
she had held it, with which she had guided herself to this forty-sixth
year of her life. What she had read meant little now. It was like-
reading a book, like hearing a story. She did not identify herself
with the woman to whom the letter was written; she did not even
remember the shape of the hands that had written it. But she realized
that if she had read this letter twenty years ago, she might now
possess that more-than-something; she might, though less well fed
and colder at night, have held her life to be something precious,
instead of sitting in her attic preparing for death as a bride prepares
for her marriage.

But where has it been, this letter? she asked. Between two letters
that had belonged to her mother she found it. That meant

Mary folded the letter and laid it inside her dress. Leave the weak
unharmed, leave the dead buried. When a hero is defamed, leave the
laurel wreath upon his grave, leave the song sung. But I loved him,
she said to herself. I loved him. And this my life, fulfilled, complete.
Her hands moved in a tired gesture, and the attic lost its dignity and
became a gabled room cluttered with boxes and barrels, magazines
and bundles.

As Vinnie watched, the veils of her mother's life separated and fell
apart, leaving her naked, leaving her shorn of experience, of living,
of identity with any man, or any child, or any dwelling. The jewels
fell away from her, and she was left stripped and shivering.

She is very lonely, thought Vinnie, and wept behind the barrels.
Her despair for her mother was like a flurry of snow. It lashed her
cheeks and blinded her eyes and everything that she beheld became
a part of the storm. When it had passed, when the wind of despair
no longer blew against her, when her eyes were no longer blinded,
her mother had gone. Only a wide stillness lay over everything, as
after snow; even the peaks of her ecstasy were snowcapped, and
wisdom bore down upon her in a glacier.

V: NO ANODYNE

"You are ridiculously lovely, Vinnie."

Vinnie, who considered herself ridiculously plain, turned to her
cousin, but seeing his eyes upon her, turned from him again, pre-
ferring to ignore his adoration. While she had sat on the hilltop,
looking down into the minds of her family, Stewart sat below, think-
ing of her, his thoughts rising with extreme delicacy to encircle her.

"Tell me," she said, "why you came up here."

206 ELEANOR GREEN

"To talk to you. To ask you about Uncle John. About the micro-
scope, really; he's never without it. It's a positive mania with him."

Vinnie forgave the interruption of Stewart's appearance. Only the
catastrophe of John's life filled her mind. She wondered what she
could tell Stewart. It would not be easy to satisfy his curiosity. One
thing she knew for certain, however. She would not tell him all that
she knew. She would not lay Uncle John open to his scrutiny, nor
betray his trust in her. Stewart lay back in the grass, watching the
rare, elfin beauty of Vinnie's face as she sorted over the details of
John's story, choosing carefully the words she would use. This I will
tell and that I will not. This is betrayal, but that is not. So Vinnie
combed the threads that had spun a firm cord for her uncle's heart.
She recalled each point minutely, from the beginning of his revela-
tion to the end of it. It had begun quite simply.

"Tell me, my dear," he said to her. "Can it be that at your age and
with such gentle hands, you are not in love?"

They sat together in the garden, hidden from sight by a hedge of
little trees. The other members of the family were resting: Mrs.
Morison in her room with the windows wide and her clothes off, a
tall pitcher of grape juice next to her bed; Stewart in his room with
a book of Spanish painters propped up before him; Marie sleeping
heavily, and Susan soaking her feet; the children in the back yard,
each with a book and a pillow, and Juliette in her room with the
curtains drawn and a black stocking laid over her eyes. Vinnie forgot
to take account of her father, but he was in the workshop, whittling
beads of finest wood for Mrs. Morison's birthday, and Harrit, driven
to despair, exercised madly in her room, the tears streaking her lovely
cheeks. Vinnie, going out into the afternoon to escape the sight of
Harrit's face, came unexpectedly upon her uncle hidden behind the
little trees. It was a sanctuary to which she retreated unnumbered
times, and coming now to it and finding it occupied by another, she
was like a priest without a sacristy, a hermit without a cell. She
stopped to talk to him, thinking he must find ants through a micro-
scope intolerably dull.

While Mrs. Morison rested with her eyes open and a glass of grape
juice in her hand; while Mr. Morison puttered about in the shop,
devout and awkward; while Harrit, fearful of bearing a child whose
father she did not love, strove to dislodge the root of its being with
heat and cold, stretching and compressing; while Stewart fled from
himself to the gaunt figures of El Greco,— Vinnie and her uncle,
thoughtless of the others, discoursed behind the hedge of little trees.

THE HILL 207

The flowers, like fragile fruit, grew close about them, and one hum-
mingbird, illusive and secure, treaded air around a bush of ageratum.
It was an afternoon sinister in its silence. The quiet lay like a poul-
tice, drawing the sliver of tragedy to a fevered head. Vinnie, as she
sat looking into the center of a morning-glory, wondered what anti-
septic of the mind she could apply. When the sliver is out, how shall
I disinfect the wound? Seeing thunderheads unroll along the margin
of the sky, she prayed for a storm.

"Tell me, my dear. Can it be that at your age you are not in
love?"

"But who said I wasn't in love, Uncle?"

"Nobody said you were. That is the thing. If you were to be mar-
ried, we would all be talking about it."

"Can't one be in love without expecting to be married?"

"Oh. Forgive me."

How strange, thought Vinnie, to be drawn into this partial con-
fession. She had never before revealed to anyone but Harrit her love
for Peter, and finding him now a common thought between her
uncle and herself, she was frightened to have spoken so easily of him,
and delighted with her uncle's quick perception. "He is like you,
Uncle John. He, also, is a doctor."

"Poor devil." If he had been comforting a child he could not have
spoken more gently.

"Don't you like being a doctor?"

"I don't like being responsible for so many lives."

"No, I shouldn't like that, either."

The body and its infinite detail, with its immutable miracle of
creation, was to Vinnie cause for everlasting wonder. The study of
human anatomy delighted her— the application of science to the shell
of the spirit. She thought first of the beauty of the body, with its
unlimited variations and its intrinsic poise. A group of people sit-
ting together about a fire, or walking heedless of one another down
a street, were to her like a Bach chorale, while boys playing ball,
catching and throwing, throwing and catching, were like men an-
tiphonally singing. Dancers with their reedlike grace; athletes with
their certain feet and sinuous thighs; these alone, resolved prismati-
cally by beauty into a spectrum of human light and shade, endeared
the body to Vinnie. But it was not only symmetry of form, certainty
of rhythm, clarity of meaning that she thought of. The spiritual
thing that evolved physical perfection; the incomputable variances
of spirit, the misshapen bodies and the deformed minds of imbeciles,
the dearth of grace in the lives of miners and all impoverished

2o8 ELEANOR GREEN

laborers; these, also, she thought of. Sitting in the garden it was to
ugliness and disaster that she turned her mind. It was as though she
knew what manner of revelation her uncle would make, and thought
prelusorily in the vein of catastrophe.

"I would like to talk to you, Vinnie, if you have time." He begged
for her attention. He told her in few words of the operation which
had been fatal to his wife. Vinnie supplied the details, remembering
operations she had witnessed. Like an actor who identifies his part
with his own life, Vinnie imagined one patient she had seen to be
her aunt, and one surgeon, her uncle. She recalled the hospital with
its aloof air and its impersonal furniture; the rooms with their deadly
stillness, and the sound of feet muted by rubber heels and constant
tiptoeing; the currents of deftness and silent motion; the breathless
suspense of a port that harbors transient, human cargo; the relentless
bearing and dying of humanity.

Grace, with her hair tied back and her eyes hard in fright, being
rolled down the hall noiselessly. The elevator door, with its rubber
buttons, closing certainly upon her; the nurses smiling with eyes
that had wept themselves dry. The elevator stopping, the noiseless
wheels rolling in minute and eternal circles, the tension of the mind
when faced with the possibility of death. The torrent of emotion
that breaks through the dam of reason; the utter futility of all living,
untimely death in the balance.

In one room Grace, a woman who loved life, who was devoted to
her husband, waiting for the moment to come which would solve
the mystery of her illness. In another room John, her husband, his
heart torn between hope and fear, standing before an open window,
breathing deeply to calm his nerves. In one room a woman praying
that she might not die; in the other room her husband, with no
prayers. In one room Grace, remembering their early and exquisite
love; in the other room John, remembering another woman. Grace
who was faithful, John who was not. Man and woman. Life and
death. The moment was at hand.

Careful hands assisted her, lifting her gently onto the table. Great
lights, their glare diffused, filled the room with an unearthly bright-
ness. Instruments of infinitesimal variation lay spread upon a table.
Eyes smiled above masks, heads bent in concentration. The room
filled with silent people moving meaningfully about. Then John and
the two surgeons who would perform the operation coming into the
room, their presence charging the air with the imminent task, their
voices strong and vibrant, nerves balanced, their hands unbelievably

THE HILL 209

beautiful in their rubber gloves. Grace smiling up at John, saying
simply: "I love you, John." The room coming suddenly to life.
Grace willing her body, in a last flicker of consciousness, to the
powers of love. Then the rapid breathing and the hot forehead; the
incision clean as lightning; skilled hands working deftly. Layer of
flesh, layer of muscle; veins, arteries, peritoneum, and finally the
malignant secret of the woman's ill. Sponges, needles. The woman
wrapped in blankets, tucked around with hot-water bags, wheeled
away down silent corridors, visitors in the hall standing silent as she
passed, wondering what it felt like. The woman laid into bed, the
room darkened with shades, the dull tread of feet going on unceas-
ingly in the hall. John in the shower, not believing. Downstairs a
woman who wouldn't live long; upstairs a man who detested his life.
Then to her room swiftly, regret for the past putting quicksilver in
his shoes. In the room with him two nurses rubbed the woman's
hands, consulted their watches. The eyelids pulled back. The eye-
balls revealed.

John walked to the window.

From the deep wells of remorse he sought to pull his attention
from the wide future. He was striving to bring himself up with the
present. Beyond the window lay the hills and the river. Beyond
them, hills and more hills, rivers and more rivers, he said to himself.
And they last and are infinite, but we are finite and perishable. We
are fragile and delicate, but the hills are everlasting. But what has
our life together been? It is a joke, because I loved Leila. It is a lie,
because I don't love Grace. And realizing suddenly that soon this
woman whom he once had cherished, whose body had yielded him
pleasure, whose mind had done him no harm, would die, he discov-
ered that he had not ceased to love her.

"John," she said. "John."

Hills and more hills. Rivers and more rivers. They last and are
infinite. And the soil within the hill, the current within the river,
they are everlasting. But what shall become of our life together? The
fulfillment of our bodies, where has it gone? And the sense of reality
and the sense of time, wherever again shall I find them? In the hills
and more hills. In the rivers and more rivers. But she has spoken
to me and I have not answered. She will die before I can speak. Let
me speak, let me go to her. But he had not the strength to turn.

The door opened and closed, and dull steps went softly down the
hall. "Yes, darling," he said, and exerting every atom of energy,
turned slowly from the window. But the cycle of her existence was

210 ELEANOR GREEN

complete. He was not John, surgeon and husband, beholding his
dead wife. She was not Grace, whose husband gazed upon her. They
were merged in death.

"When I turned she was dead."

The word swelled and enlarged, taking added meaning as it grew.
The hummingbird ceased treading air and sank out of sight into
the bushes. It seemed that the whole earth would be covered with
the sound of it, that it would lie upon the earth like snow. Vinnie
held the morning-glory in her teeth. The stem was soft and sweet.
She was aware of the roundness of it.

"People do frightful things, don't they, Vinnie?"

"Hideous."

Her uncle turned from her and, removing his microscope from its
case, sought the stamen of a heavy flower. Vinnie watched carefully
as he bent over it. He was a moderate man in height, in build, in
humor. She knew vividly what Grace's life with him had been. Com-
fort, boredom. A man who shaved slowly, who read the paper at
breakfast, returned late in the afternoon to dress slowly for dinner,
eat, and settle himself for a careful perusal of his medical papers;
or spend the evening making his calls. At eleven, if he was not out
on a case, he suggested they go to bed, and with formality they did
so, he lying in his bed comfortably, glad that passion no longer cut
short the hours of sleep; Grace lying in hers, lonely in that way
peculiar to women who love their lords unreciprocally. John drop-
ping swiftly off to sleep, Grace, hearing his heavy breathing, steal-
ing downstairs to sit before the fire which they had left dying on the
hearth. She would recall their first passion and wonder what leech
of fate sucked the vitality from people's lives. She had been honest,
she had been kind, she knew not why she had failed. Superbly loyal
herself, she never thought to question John's loyalty. What she must
have felt, thought Vinnie, as she lay on the operating table saying
simply, I love you, John. How she must have rebelled against the
hypnotic powers of gas, and sought to retain consciousness long
enough to hear her husband say: "I love you, Grace." But John was
silent, and the anesthetist swift. There was no accounting for what
people might do.

"But that is not all," said John.

"No," said Vinnie. And she then grew suddenly indignant at the
endless adolescence of her family. Their lack of wisdom, their lack
of humor, their ignorance of integrity. Their lack of maturity, with-
out which relationships become a farce.

"No, that is not all."

THE HILL 2ii

"Tell me the rest."

"Afterwards I married Leila. I didn't love her. She died. It's
strange, Vinnie, the things people do. I thought I loved Leila.
Grace died. I married Leila, but not because I loved her. You can
never wholly love a person for whom you have committed some grave
transgression. It is a strange thing that integrity is more important
than love. People do frightful things, don't they, Vinnie?"

"Everyone does." Her words were unmeaning, remote for him.

In the house Mrs. Morison lay staring up at the ceiling. Stewart
nodded over his El Greco, and Marie and Susan clipped their toe-
nails. Juliette stood before her mirror resenting her sparse image,
while above her, sleeping on the bed, lay Harrit, exhausted by her
very fertility.

"He blames himself for failing Grace." She gave her attention now
to the valley, to Stewart who watched her with devotion, to the sky
and its infinite quiet. She looked down upon the heads of her family.
They were oblivious of her.

VI: AN ENCHANTED PLACE

"There is an island," said Stewart, "off the coast. A very beautiful
island, but a secret place. I never tell anyone about it because I
want to keep it to myself. It's like a girl— it is like that with any man
—I do not want another to possess her, nor even to see her beauty.
I cannot talk about her body, nor praise her hands. To love her
takes all my strength. I cannot even tell her very well how I feel.
She must know it by my eyes or my voice. Even my back may betray
me. And this island, you know, is very beautiful; I would like you
to love it. I should like to share it with you. It is a very beautiful
island."

Vinnie listened. The stillness of the evening had descended upon
her. "Tell me about it," she said.

"There are about a hundred miles of shore. The island itself is
long and narrow. It is connected to the mainland by a slender bridge
that looks like the skeleton of some prehistoric animal. Nobody lives
there, except at one end there's a little town built up of driftwood
and pieces of tin. The inhabitants make their living by fishing. It is a
very strange little town. There are lots of dogs, but they are all very
small, and they do a great deal of barking. They stay among the
shanties and never go into the island. And there are lots of children,
and they're nice children. They're shy when you come upon them.

212 ELEANOR GREEN

The water is warm at the shore, and the children dig holes in the
sand and build castles of sea shells. They're very dirty; the grown
people seem to be a race of their own. They have dark skin and pale
eyes and black hair. The wind dries their skin and blows sand into
their faces and they are old before they are thirty."

Stewart spoke slowly. He looked out across the marsh and the
meadows, loving each thought, caressing each memory. He was silent
for a little, and Vinnie shut her eyes to keep the vision of the island.

"They are silent people. The women smoke pipes and watch the
sea gulls for hours without moving. Once I sat among them in the
evening, and they were so still I thought I was dreaming and that
they were statues. They go barefoot, and their toes are long, and they
pick up clams with their feet. When a storm comes, and they come
quite often, they all flee into the island with the children and the
dogs, and after the storm is past they go back to the place where the
town stood, pick up the driftwood and start building new shanties."

"And the rest of the island?" said Vinnie.

"The rest of the island is what I would share with you. It is noth-
ing but sand dunes. Great hills of sand that is as white as snow. One
dune dissolves itself in another, and that one in yet another. It is like
the waves of the sea."

It is like people, thought Vinnie. They are all combinations of
other people. People are dissolved in one another as the dunes are
dissolved. One seldom meets a person complete within himself. One
dune lends beauty to another, one person adds beauty to the next.
And still one does not love a mass. One loves individually. One loves
Stewart, for instance, but not necessarily the people who have made
Stewart what he is. Or one loves Peter. Certainly one loves Peter.

And there is not long to wTait. A couple of hours and I shall see
him. And she began to wonder what it was about Peter that she
loved. If she had not happened to love him she would have taken
little notice of him.

"Nothing grows but one creeping vine," Stewart was saying to her.
"It has blue flowers, like a morning-glory. You stand at the top of a
dune, and all you see is rolling white sand and blue creeping flowers
growing on a dark stem, and sea gulls that dip down almost to the
earth and shoot up again. It is very still. Only the birds circling
about and calling, and little dogs barking in the distance. You can
go naked in the sunlight, and it is warm and comforting, and you
discover that you are quite as beautiful as the island. At night you
roll down the sandy hills, and the sand gets into the crevices of your

THE HILL 213

body, and you feel very clean. And then you bathe in the cool water
and run along the beach to get dry. And you talk quietly. The island
is the most exciting place I know."

"But doesn't anyone else know about it?"

"Apparently not. Few people ever go there."

"How long do you stay when you go?"

Stewart's smile was like a window thrown open. "As long as I like.
There's no one to tell me to go, and the people in the village don't
mind. They sell me fish for a few pennies and seem to have no
curiosity at all. The island takes care of you. You sleep in the cradle
of a dune. You eat fish that swarm the place. You wash in the sea.
There is fresh water in green pools. If the night grows cool, you
cover yourself with sand, and in the morning shake yourself free of
your bed. There are no covers to straighten, no floors to sweep. I
took my paints with me once when I went to stay for a month, but
everything was so beautiful that I couldn't take my eyes away long
enough to paint what I saw."

Tears hung in Vinnie's eyes. Stewart watched her, enchanted. He
knew why she was weeping. For that alone I could love her, he
thought.

Below them the family bubbled about, like vegetables in a kettle.
Seated on their rock, Stewart and Vinnie courted silence. It is good
to get away from people, Vinnie was thinking, while Stewart said to
himself, How do I come to have so charming a cousin? They smiled
at each other.

"What are you going to do with the rabbit, Vinnie?"

"I'm taking it home to Joie."

"Marie will despise you."

"I despise Marie. Of course I don't, really. But I'd like to. But
you know, she has such big feet, and she walks like a peasant, so I
can't despise her, because I like peasants."

"Vinnie, you're a fool."

The notes of their laughter, like links in a chain, were welded
together. Their laughter hung in festoons from the hill; the air
sparkled with the sound of it, and the leaves shook. The hill became
a chandelier of sound. The whole valley was covered with a canopy
of joy. Even the family, who had seemed so insensitive, looked up at
their rock. Mr. Morison shaded his eyes with his hand. John deserted
his microscope. Marie and Susan saluted them with the roasting
forks, and Juliette waved her umbrella. The children scampered
away into the bushes.

214 ELEANOR GREEN

"Those vixens are coming up here," said Stewart. "Can't we hide?"

"It we hurry." And while the children raced up one side of the
hill, Stewart and Vinnie fled along the ridge.

They came suddenly upon a deep ravine. Sheep grazed there, lift-
ing their small heads quickly as they heard the intruders, and then
turning their attention again to the grass that grew luxuriously on
either side. Shadows possessed the place. There was a small log house
whose doors and windows were boarded up. The roof was thatched,
and a rain barrel, long empty, stood beneath a broken waterspout.
Dead apple trees surrounded the house, and their exquisite bare
branches twined and intertwined like the words of lovers. Save for
the tinkling of the sheep's bell there was no sound. Shadows and
silence were the owners. The serenity held them spellbound.

They sat down under one of the trees and leaned back against a
tombstone that was covered with moss and creeping vines. "Is the
island lovelier than this?" asked Vinnie.

"This is an enchanted place," said Stewart.

The sheep moved slowly over the grass. At the bottom of the
ravine a little stream meandered towards the valley. In the cool
bright water stood a crane, one leg tucked up out of sight. Flies, like
teasing children, dashed at the water and retreated, their wings mak-
ing emerald music. It seemed as though no human creature had ever
before been there. Thrushes, copper birds with fluted throats, sang
in the bushes, darting out occasionally to prove their reality. It was
a cloister, with pine trees for pillars and bird songs for bells. A doe
came skillfully out through the trees, her pointed ears quivering like
the petals of a flower. She bent down to the stream, and her little
legs with their pale fur were like slim poplars growing at the water's
edge. A buck followed her, and together they drank at the stream.
A song sparrow fluttered down between them and drank of the cool
water, tilting his head as though he would burst into song. The
sheep's bell called all furred and feathered things to worship, but
the sheep himself ignored the summons and nibbled at the grass.
The shadows lay in a blanket over the sheep and the grass, the deer
and the thrush, and the whole place was bewitched.

"The island is beautiful in a different way," said Stewart. "And I
was there with someone I loved. That makes a very great difference."

For a long time Vinnie waited, and waiting, wondered what it
would be like to love Stewart, to be loved by him. His lean body, his
long fingers, his cadaverous face, with the high cheekbones and the
great dark eyes. He would either be very exciting to love, or he

THE HILL 215

would fill you with disgust. Either he would love you with unbear-
able passion, or weakly, in a frightened way.

"She was a strange person. I never could tell what she would do.
Once she disappeared for a whole day. I thought she had drowned.
But she was in the village playing with the children. When I found
her she was angry. Once she threw sand in my eyes and I groped
about like a blind man for hours. When I got the sand out she was
laughing at me."

"Are there really people like that?" said Vinnie.

"Quite like that. She was very beautiful."

"Where is she now?"

"I don't know, and somehow it doesn't seem to matter. I loved her
a great deal, but she never loved me. I think she hated me sometimes.
I used to say to myself that she must love me a little, or she wouldn't
have gone to the island with me. But now I know she didn't love
me at all. She was fond of me. She liked my mind and the way I
paint, but my body irritated her. I would walk towards her across
the sand, and she would shriek out and laugh at my legs. She pre-
tended it was in fun, but I know she never would have made a game
of it if it hadn't bothered her. Sometimes she said I looked like a
skeleton. But there were times when she would let me love her, and
then she was most extraordinarily kind. But suddenly she would
leave me, as though she had just remembered how unlovely my
body was. Once when I tried to caress her she hissed at me, and ran
to the village and hid."

People are dissolved in one another. People are not wholly them-
selves.

"Tell me, Vinnie, am I serpentine?"

"Look!" she said. Twin lambs suckled their mother.

They sat close, she and Stewart, leaning against one headstone,
covering the graven name with their bodies, covering the memory of
the grave with their thinking. The quiet was now and again height-
ened by the long call of an owl; the stillness, by the passing of a bird.
There was a sense of intimacy with death; only a thin frosting of
grass separated them from layer upon layer of soil and silence.
Where the grass began and her body ended, Vinnie could not tell.
She was all one with the grass, and the grass with the grave, and in
a rare abandon of reason she found herself to be a part of the
earth; she could not tell where the wind touched her body. She tried
to feel herself as a thing in space, a moving substance with form that
was defined, but she could find no outline of herself in the air about

216 ELEANOR GREEN

her, and looking at herself in the shadows, she could not distinguish
between her dress and the glass. And then there was this person be-
side her for whom she could feel nothing. The marble slab had
frozen her heart.

She knew that Stewart was turning and turning a thought about
in his mind. She grew dispassionate. She was glad that her heart was
frozen, that it had been taken from her, like the core of an apple.
Stewart spoke.

"I do adore you, Vinnie."

Slowly the name rewrote itself on the headstone, the little mound
of earth beneath her meant something, but from the unreality out
of which she had come, she ran headlong into this new emptiness.
The effort of hearing what he said wearied her. They were sur-
rounded by pines whose branches made music. Below them the sheep
grazed lazily and the shadows of hawks circling above them fretted
the little valley. He cannot mean what he says, she thought.

"But I am your cousin, Stewart."

"That doesn't make you any less a woman. You know, Vinnie, you
are very lovely. Your hair and your somber eyes. And the way you
move. And all the things you say, but more particularly the things
you don't say. Like Uncle John, for instance. It isn't true, what you
told me about him, but you won't tell, and I love you for it. And for
Joie and the rabbit."

"The rabbit! Where did I leave it?" Her eyes filled with fear, and
she was like a child.

"You left him on the rock when we ran to hide."

Already she had disappeared among the trees.

Stewart followed her. Occasionally he caught sight of her be-
tween the pines, and now and again he saw her bend to pass beneath
a branch. They went separately, Vinnie moving easily, like one who
is used to the woods, Stewart following her, the motions of his body
making him grotesque. Vinnie thought only of the rabbit. She
thought of the frightened rabbit and Joie's eyes puckered with grief;
of Marie and her big feet and her adamantine discipline. Of the joy
Joie would have had at finding the rabbit asleep on his bed. I must
find it, she said over and over to herself. I must find it. She ran into
branches that caught at her hair and scratched her face. I must find
it, she said again. Stewart lost sight of her.

When he finally came to the rock, he found her lying on her back
with the rabbit asleep on her chest. For a long while they were quiet,
Stewart sticking pine needles into the braid of her hair. She lay with
her eyes shut, the lashes lying like fine embroidery against her cheeks.

THE HILL 217

Stewart thought that she was asleep, but she was thinking of him. He
is serpentine, she said to herself, and thought again of his love-mak-
ing. His hands would seek hers in a frightened manner; he would
not know well how to love a woman. Poor Stewart with sand in his
eyes, she said, but she understood how the girl with the pale hair
had done it. Stewart with a body like a snake. Does he really love
me? She shuddered at thought of his caressing her.

"Are you cold?"

Vinnie did not answer.

"Tell me," she said after a bit, "what you are painting."

"Nothing. I stopped painting for a year. I was afraid of becoming
a trickster, because I was working on a theory that design and color
are disassociated. It is very hard to explain, and there are lots of
difficulties. I don't mean to be a trickster; I would rather not paint at
all than be dishonest about it. I can't put it very well in words."

"I know what you mean by tricks. It's like an actor who plays
stock. He makes a grand show, but it's not the real thing."

"Yes, it's something like that."

"And yet not like it."

"Not exactly like it."

The wind edged in about them. Below them houses turned to
homes as women lighted lamps, and cows gathered magic as they
trod slowly through cool pastures, silent dogs bouncing gayly beside
them. Owls, like beggars, flew from tree to tree and disappeared in
shadows; night hawks piqued the stillness that held the valley.

"Couldn't you love me, Vinnie?"

"Not that way, Stewart. Not as you want me to love you; but if I
were someone other than your cousin I might love you very much.
But I am not someone else. I am Vinnie Morison, and I am sitting
on a hill hiding from my family."

As she spoke there was the sound of someone moving in the
bushes. They turned to see Juliette's umbrella appear in the midst of
the foliage.

"My God," said Stewart, "I can't stand that woman. She's a fright."
He disappeared over the edge of the rock. Vinnie saw him bumping
down the steep hillside. As he stopped, finally, in the midst of
a prickly bush, he waved merrily at her and vanished among the
trees.

She turned her attention to Juliette, who stood at the summit of
the hill looking out over the valley. The umbrella was forgotten and
lay open at her feet; it yawned at her. Her body gained beauty from
the sunset. She was no longer haggard, but rather a woman taut and

218 ELEANOR GREEN

fine. In her hands she held a paper bag, but she had forgotten it.
She was spellbound by the beauty before her.

At last Juliette turned to her. Tears seamed her cheeks. This is not
Juliette, thought Vinnie. This is some virgin saint.

Juliette came towards her, holding the paper bag as though it were
a bouquet. "I thought you might be hungry," she said.

Far down in the valley a solitary loon called out. Only its echo
answered.

VII: BEAUTY ON STILTS

They sat for a long while together, the peace of isolated places hang-
ing over them. Vinnie held the rabbit in her lap and ate slowly of
the sandwiches Juliette had brought her. She beheld the design of
the valley, the colors of the twilight. She listened to the familiar
sound of crickets drumming with their tiny wings; all that she beheld
and heard filled her with delight. The world enchanted Vinnie.

But while she reveled in the beauty about her, Juliette was filled
with grief, and her face was like that of one who suffers extreme
pain. I had forgotten the world was so fair, she said to herself. She
did not, like Vinnie, behold the design of the valley, nor the colors
of the twilight, but she saw that many people lived regardless of one
another in little houses where lilacs grew in clusters at the doors. She
saw that one might walk for miles across the marsh and never meet
a soul. She saw that the world was wide beyond her comprehension,
that there could be generosity in all living, and the beauty that she
saw frightened her.

And so they sat, two women upon a hill, one who was young, the
other wishing herself younger. For time had taken a deep draught
of Juliette's life. There was little but the dregs left, and realizing this
suddenly, Juliette was like a drunkard who, waking, finds his glass
empty. Like a drunkard she staggered against reality, fell back and
struck at it. Her senses reeled as she looked out over the valley
and considered the immensity of existence, of the earth and stars and
the stars beyond sight. The world seemed very gay with its meadows
and pastures crisscrossed with bright streams and dark woods. She
had no extraordinarily clear vision of herself. Her thoughts reeled
to the future, to death and the disintegration of the body, but she
was drunk with the desire for life. Strong liquor warmed her throat
and quickened her mind. To Vinnie, who was watching her, she was
no longer Juliette; she was beauty on stilts, giddy with life.

Juliette lay back in the grass and ran the pine needles through her

THE HILL 2Uj

fingers as though she were combing wool. Vinnie watched her in-
articulate hands.

"See!" cried Juliette. "That lovely bird!"

"He looks as though he were ice skating."

Having lived like a turtle beneath her umbrella Juliette had not
often seen birds flying miraculously high. The birds she remembered
were robins and sparrows that fluttered close to the ground. She
had not lain in the grass, nor climbed to high places. A turtle moves
slowly and with effort, the very shape of his shell keeping him from
expanding, from turning over on his back to gaze at the heavens.
Life to a turtle must be a most laborious affair. Such it was, at least,
and certainly, to Juliette. Or so it had been.

"I feel like a different person up here." The words sauntered out
of her mouth.

And then shortly they started to talk about Joie and the rabbit,
Marie and Susan, Stewart and Mrs. Morison.

"I sometimes think they are all dead inside," said Juliette. "But I
suppose they're not, really."

"No," answered Vinnie, "they're not, really." She lay flat upon
the rock and looked down onto the family.

"You know," said Juliette, "I feel so funny. I feel as though I had
never known anything before. I feel as though I were just being
born. You know, maybe I came full-grown, like Minerva from the
head of Jupiter. Only I'm being born out of the head of the valley."
She was delighted with the idiocy with which she teased herself.

"Only it's my pain. The child is not supposed to suffer at birth,
but I do." She looked about to see if the hill was in labor. "You
see," she said, "there isn't a quiver in the valley."

That she suffered, Vinnie was sure. Her eyes were bright, as they
are when one has a fever, and her cheeks were crimson. Her voice had
a sharpness to it that sounded like blades in her throat. A sudden
twist of wind showered her with leaves and fragrance. "I'm dizzy,"
she said. "There's so much wind and so much space. It's like being
God." She caught the rabbit up in her hands and pressed him to her
cheek. "Isn't he soft?" she said. Her laughter was small and crisp.

"If I were to open my arms, I could fly," she said.

"Don't do it," said Vinnie. "I want you to stay."

Vinnie saw that life had suddenly become a living thing to Juliette.
It was all glitter and bright sound. It was like a woman with little
feet who clips across a hard floor in high-heeled slippers. It sparkled
like a dress of sequins (and the dress fitted her well), like bright fish
in water, like silver in the hands of the needy. It was as though

220 ELEANOR GREEN

Juliette had been a beggar all her life and had come suddenly into
great wealth. Her mind was like a Christmas tree hung with tinsel
and silver baubles. The mere passing of a bird caused the baubles
to quiver, the glowing candles to bend down their flames, the little
white angels to flutter from their sweet-scented branches. Little birds
of cotton nested in the tree, and bells of thinnest metal made hare-
bell music. Her hands that had always been so immaculate, her
hands that were like two nuns absolving themselves, had learned a
new beauty. They held the little rabbit as though it were an offering.

"My dear Vinnie, I am so happy."

Vinnie wondered if Juliette were not also just a little holy, hap-
piness being a miracle for the layman. She imagined Juliette sancti-
fied, a statue made in her likeness and placed in a niche in a long
cathedral. Saint Juliette Morison: because she was happy.

"Saint Juliette," said Vinnie. They laughed together, vying with
each other in the clarity of their tones. Juliette's joy was evenly dis-
tributed, like sunlight shining through a lattice. This I shall never
forget, thought Vinnie. I must remember everything. She laughed at
her own greed. What do I know of sorrow, she thought, since I am
never lonely? What do I know of life at all? What thing do I know
in the world, save that the earth is beautiful, and that I love Peter?

The children were singing. They sat around the fire, and Harrit
and Stewart lay in the grass, smoking. Marie and Susan stood guard
at the fire. Mrs. Morison and John, both expert putterers, fitted the
picnic things into the baskets, while Mr. Morison sat in the shadows.
Sibyl's pheasant feathers drooped over her face, Mary and Jane
threw pine cones onto the fire. Joie sat cross-legged, his chin cupped
in his hands. He was not singing with the others.

"Poor Joie," said Juliette. "He'll never forgive his mother, not
even when you bring him the rabbit."

Vinnie turned to her, and Juliette mistook her wonder for in-
terrogation.

"He won't, you know. Children never forget. And it's funny, the
things you remember. At least I remember funny things."

"What do you remember?" asked Vinnie.

"I remember that my mother gave away my first patent-leather
slippers, and I begged her to let me keep them. I thought they were
very grand. I used to take them to bed with me, and I tried to share
my candy with them. They were human to me. When I wore them
I stepped lightly to keep from hurting them, and I forgot about my
underwear in lumps at my ankles and my teeth set too far apart.
Joie will remember about the rabbit. But the things you remem-

THE HILL 221

ber when you're older. They're strange, too. Just words, for instance.
And people's hands. Their hands and their mouths."

''Their hands and their mouths?" It was a long time since Juliette
had talked intimately with anyone. That she wanted to say more,
Vinnie was certain, and so she provided steppingstones in her ques-
tions, and Juliette, placing her feet carefully at first, walked swiftly
through memory to the past.

Candles burned steadily on the table. The faces of the family were
immobile, the shadows as certain as paint. In the kitchen Cook tip-
toed from sink to stove, from stove to sink; tiptoed into the room,
moving from one to the other silently. The smell of flowers gave a
strange flavor to the food. Stale smoke squeezed into the folds of the
curtains. The candles burned with a demoniac precision; the eyelids
of the flames never drooped. Cook labored into the room. Her body
was stagnant: through it no beauty had run. Her breasts lay heavily
in her dress, and her hands, like twisted cord, encircled the bowl of
rice. Her large body frustrated Juliette.

Juliette looked from one to the other. Frances, with her glasses
pinched onto the bridge of her nose, who stirred her tea with vigor,
scraping at the bottom of the cup. Henry leaning back, blowing
smoke rings into the air. They did not quickly dissolve, but hung
about his head in clusters. Blue curls, thought Juliette. Mamie, who
ran her fingers over her endless chain, and ate of her rice one kernel
at a time. Dode, whose soft hair and red cheeks enhanced the grief
of her eyes. Myself, thought Juliette, and tried to see herself as
though she were a stranger. Juliette. Very plain. Very thin.

We are like birds, she thought. Juliette, Frances, Henry, Mamie,
Dode. Juliette is a sparrow, careless of her food, picking at the dung
of horses. Sleek body, unpleasant voice. Void of beauty. Frances
scrapes at her cup like a dark grackle, and holds her head as though
she saw with the end of her nose. Her hair grows grim about her
face; there is no intimacy between hair and cheek. Henry is a mock-
ing bird. No stability to him. Mamie. My God, why doesn't she leave
her chain alone? Your fingers are not beautiful, Mamie. Neither is
your neck. Stop playing with your beads. Mamie is a jay. She mis-
takes sound for tone.

Cook trundled into the room. Cook is a pelican. Her neck is too
big.

"I suppose," said Mamie, "you won't mind if I pack up the things
right away? The old bureau I'd like. And the piano. And the book-
case that stands in the hall."

222 ELEANOR GREEN

Henry drew hard upon his cigarette. Like butterflies ring upon
ring of smoke fluttered out from his mouth. They encircled his head
in a helmet of smoke. He was indiscernible within it. His voice
pierced the helmet like a fine steel blade. "It seems a little prema-
ture, somehow. Let's wait till tomorrow."

The room grew breathless. The air was absorbed by the walls, and
the walls became a sort of spongy matter. The design on the wall-
paper grew heavy, like damp moss about the room. The door
squeaked shut behind Cook, and the slight breeze made by the
closing door shook the tatters of Juliette's mind. If I sit very still,
thought Juliette, the pieces will fit themselves together. She dared
not breathe. She looked from one to another, shifting her eyes but
not moving her head.

Under the table their feet pressed into the carpet like lifeless
things. They seemed not to be a part of the body. Juliette's feet en-
twined the legs of her chair. They were crude and ugly. These feet,
they never knew passion. Dull legs sheathed in silk. Without beauty,
without purpose. These ugly bodies. My sisters and my brother. My-
self. God, we're an ugly lot. The deceitfulness of our legs under the
table. Our smiling eyes.

"Mamie, let me see your beads."

She reached across the table for them. A woman reaching across
the table for her sister's beads. Relentless candles. A man with a hel-
met of smoke. I must sit quiet, thought Juliette, and drew her hand
back slowly. The beads lay in her lap in a glittering pool.

There is no sense to it all. I am not even alive. I must sit quite
still.

We are all birds. Juliette is a sparrow, Frances is a grackle. Juli-
ette's thoughts swung back and forth like a pendulum. Henry is a
mocking bird and Mamie is a jay.

Juliette is a sparrow,
Frances is a grackle,
Henry is a mocking bird
And Mamie is a jay.

The moment was endless; towards it all living pointed. Nothing
existed beyond the walls of the room, save Cook whose shoes squeaked
in the kitchen. Maybe she's sitting on the table and her shoes are
walking around empty from stove to cupboard and cupboard to
stove. Juliette rang the bell. The sound of it was like a trumpet call.
Cook rumbled down from her heaven.

"Your feet, please," said Juliette.

THE HILL 223

Cook protested.

"You must get some new shoes." No one seemed to have heard.
Juliette was not sure it had happened.

"Have a peppermint, Frances."

It seemed now that Frances listened with the end of her nose.
Next she will drink with it, thought Juliette. Frances's poor husband.

"Poor Walter."

They all looked at her.

"Because of Frances's nose," she explained. The beads slipped
from her lap like a thin child. They made a brittle sound as they
came together under the table, and Dode, frightened, spilled her
water. She sat, watching the wet spot increase. The tablecloth ab-
sorbed it. It spread like the sound of laughter.

"Ring for Cook," said Mamie. The room absorbed the sound of
her voice as the tablecloth absorbed the water. Juliette sat motionless.
A swaying snake would have fascinated her less. The walls of the
room edged in to see; the moss hung close about them. It breathed
upon their necks like an animal. The candles stared at the wet spot.
The spongy matter of the walls sighed audibly. Dode's hair hid her
face from Juliette; it was pale and soft. Sin is a gaudy thing, she
thought.

A sharp noise in the kitchen, and they turned their heads to the
door; the walls breathed upon their necks. Cook pushed open the
door with her head. Pelican, thought Juliette. Her neck's too big.

"They buried her with her head downhill!"

The eyelids of the candles drooped. The walls were sucked back
into place.

"Juliette, you look like a rat when you chew." Mamie's voice ate
the stillness.

"I always remembered that," said Juliette.

"She must have been very tired," said Vinnie.

"No, but it's true. I chewed before a mirror, and I did look like
a rat. I thought how everyone must hate to sit at the table with me,
how they had hated it ever since I was born. I got to wondering if my
mother thought I looked like a rat when she nursed me. Every time
I sat down to eat I thought of it. And I thought of it between meals.
Finally I was thinking about it all the time. I'd waken in the night
and remember it. I'd think of it while I was readme:. One nis:ht I
dreamed that I fell and hurt myself so that I couldn't get up. As I
lay there, rats gnawed at me until I was devoured, and each rat looked
like me.

224 ELEANOR GREEN

"And now?" said Vinnie.

"Now I eat behind my umbrella."

"I used to have a game of finding what animals people looked like.
And I found something for everyone. Even for myself."

"For yourself?"

"Yes. I look like a sheep."

They smiled at each other, Vinnie offering a limp sandwich from
the bag, Juliette accepting it.

Squirrels played about in the trees. An acorn, piercing the leaves
as it fell, dropped with a soft muffled sound. A thrush sang, hidden
deep in the woods, while foxes moved slowly in the shadows, their
fine noses quivering with the sense of adventure.

They were no longer one who was young, the other wishing she
were younger. One was not beautiful and the other plain, one was
not eager and the other grieving. They were two women whose
minds were tingling with anticipation, two women for either one of
whom the future might hold as much adventure as the foxes courted
in the shadows. The mind of one was like a Christmas tree hung
with fluttering angels and fragile, doll-like bells. The mind of the
other was like a glockenspiel. Any note was clear and vibrant, and
anyone might play upon it with the hammers of his integrity.

"Juliette!" Marie called from the valley. Her voice was like a
sieve; the fine things had gone through it. Juliette waved.

"Will you go with me, Vinnie?" She was shy in asking.

"I can't, Juliette. I'm going to meet Peter."

"Who's Peter?"

"Peter? Oh, Peter is a friend of mine." But her eyes and her voice
betrayed her. Juliette heard only the sound of her voice. The words
fell about her, leaving her bright and cool. In the valley the foxes
quivered.

"Tell me," she said. "Tell me about it. What is it, Vinnie? What
is it like, a man's love?"

I cannot tell her how it is, thought Vinnie. I cannot tell her how
a man loves with his hands, with his voice, with his eyes. I cannot tell
her about these things, for she will never know any of them. "It is
quite like being up here," she said.

"I shall come often." Juliette started down the path.

"Don't tell Joie that I have the rabbit, Juliette."

"Of course not. You want to surprise him." She picked her um-
brella from the bush. "In case it rains," she said. The umbrella van-
ished; Juliette descended with her parachute.

THE HILL 225

VIII: HELOISE TO ABELARD

Harrit, Juliette, Stewart, Mother, John. Vinnie fitted the edges of
their personalities together, made of them that which they had
been before: a family, a unified design. I shall not break the puzzle
again, she said. She felt that if she were to look into the mirror she
would find that her very eyes had lost their own color and had ac-
quired an ambiguous shade, a combination of her sister's, her moth-
er's, her aunt's and her uncle's. She would discover a composite face
instead of her own. Her heart and her mind had lost their identity.
She had been raped of her personality; she was no longer Vinnie
Morison, daughter of Mary and Henry, but a sort of mental harlot
who had been seduced by pity.

The sun, floating like a scarlet bobber on the calm surface of the
horizon, disappeared suddenly. The valley grew miraculously still.
In the cool waters of the creek herons, like etched birds, stood silent,
and their long bills tilted to the sky were like high notes in music.
Quail, those shy and proper birds with wind under their wings,
stopped mincing through the leaves and allowed the evening to come
into the valley with dignity. Late larks, flying high, rested their flight
upon the wind, and as they turned their bodies to the earth their
songs trailed after them like smoke, or the tails of kites. Deer in shel-
tered places raised their antlers from the ground, and turning their
faces to the sky, closed their eyes. The beauty of the evening was akin
to pain. No creature stirred. Even the little fishes kept in the shadow
of the overhanging marsh grass, and turtles hung like lockets from
the surface of the water.

The family was quiet. Joie lay face down in the leaves, at some dis-
tance from the others. Marie and Susan stood side by side at the fire,
waiting to throw water on it. Harrit sat under the pine tree, her
knees drawn up, her face hidden in them. John looked at his watch;
Mrs. Morison, after folding the tablecloth, sat with it in her lap, her
fingernails making sharp ridges of the folds. The children made
castles of acorns, and Juliette watched a hawk bank and glide. Mr.
Morison, a handkerchief to his face, kept his eye on Joie.

It isn't real, thought Vinnie, and wondered how the moment
would ever cease to be, how it would be the next moment, and the
family would move carelessly down the road through the valley, how
the night would encompass the evening; how the night would dis-
solve into morning, and day into night. She wondered how death
consumed the body. Did it work from the outside in, or from the
core of the body out? How did fish know when to spawn; trees, to

226 ELEANOR GREEN

bud? What would become of Joie's heart? Is love one with the flesh,
or one with the spirit? Is it infinite and everlasting, or temporal and
transient?

The voices of the children brought the moment to a close. Eternity
was once again fluid, the frost that held it immobile tempered by a
child's warm voice. The valley grew suddenly restless. The blue
herons flew up from the creek, the turtles snapped at flies. If the chil-
dren had not laughed, thought Vinnie, the moment would never
have ended.

She watched the family as they moved about. She felt as though
she were a puppeteer, and they, her dolls. She knew so well the
threads of their minds that she felt confident of her control of them.
Harrit will go first, she said, and Harrit, as though in response to her
thought, got up from the ground, and catching up the heaviest bas-
ket ran down the road. Poor frightened child, said Vinnie aloud. Let
my love protect her. Let my love help her in childbirth, my devotion
insure her well-being. She felt comforted, as though she had laid the
robe of God upon Harrit's shoulders. She has a fine body; she will do
well in childbirth. Vinnie spoke aloud to persuade herself.

Harrit went first, moving from them in haste. Once again Vinnie
thought of the figurehead upon the ship. Erect, her body bent into
the light, she moved forward more like the thought of motion than
the motion itself. The ease of her body and the grace with which she
moved were a surety of life. She moved swiftly, a bright spot that dis-
appeared and came into view, and again disappeared. Moving far-
ther down into the valley she was lost from sight. The trees had
devoured her.

After Harrit went Joie kicking a stone down the path and throw-
ing twigs up into the trees. His mother, calling to him to come back
to carry a basket, went unheeded, and when she called a second time,
he dove into the thicket. Vinnie, holding the rabbit close to her,
whispered into its long ears that that was the little boy they were go-
ing to surprise. After Joie went the other children, and Marie and
Susan, well-laden with baskets, trudged after them. Vinnie, in spite
of herself, was moved to pity for them. Because they are so content,
she said. And so unlovely. Then Stewart, balancing Juliette's um-
brella on his chin, pranced down the road on his toes, while Juliette,
who was giddy with life, staggered after him, Stewart's wreath of
daisies tilted over one eye like a bacchanal. Mrs. Morison and John,
their secrets hidden from each other, walked solemnly into the
valley. After they had disappeared, Mr. Morison came out from the
thicket. He walked down into the meadow and picked a daisy, pull-

THE HILL 227

ing the petals from it one by one. She loves me, she loves me not.
She loves me, she loves me not. The last petal said that she loved
him. He looked at the center of the shorn flower for some time, and
then, shaking his head, let it drop from his hand, and turned to the
road. Joie in hiding in the bushes had been waiting for him, and
surprising him with a growl, dashed out, laughing. They talked to-
gether for a little, Mr. Morison taking from his pocket something
for the little boy. Though Vinnie could not see what it was, she
was sure that it was a carved rabbit. They vanished among the
trees, walking hand in hand, the child's bright laughter mingling
with the man's mild voice.

That is my father. A man of fifty pulling petals from a daisy. But
how well he knows. How well he knows that my mother doesn't love
him. She realized with exquisite clarity what living had meant to
her father. These many years they had lived together, he and her
mother, and these many years he had hungered for her love. Being a
shy man he thought that he annoyed her, and so had sought in every
way to make himself as inconspicuous as possible. If it is my hands,
Vinnie imagined him thinking, I will keep my hands from her
sight. If it is my hair, or the way my whiskers grow, I shall keep my
hair cut and my face shaven. If it is my mouth, or the way I eat my
food, I shall say little and chew carefully. And so he had grown to
be apologetic, and Vinnie, remembering how he slept in the bed,
understood his body, his manner of coming into a room, his way of
looking up from under his grey eyelashes. And being, though shy,
a man eager for love, and for the comfort of a woman's nearness, his
life, as she now understood it, seemed to Vinnie to have been un-
utterably bleak and desolate, as, indeed, it had been. She knew noth-
ing of her father, except that he wras a little man with grey eyes wTho
was kind and quiet, who held his hands behind his back and came
into a room as softly as a shadow. That was all she had known of
him until that moment when he stood in the daisy field pulling
petals from a flower. Like a bee, she opened the bud of his life, and per-
ceiving the sweetness therein, drank deep of his goodness and sorrow.

As they had disappeared into the trees, lost in the intricacies of
nature's abundance, she allowed thought of them to drop from her.
She was like a swimmer emerging from the water glittering and im-
maculate. Bathed in the chilling perception of their lives, she stood
now cool with tolerance, brilliant with understanding. How delicate
a thing living is, she said to herself. Harrit with her baby, Juliette
and fear, John and his conscience; these people who walked down
into the valley, exiles from their native happiness, were no longer

228 ELEANOR GREEN

sister and parents, uncle and aunt to Vinnie. They were humanity.
They were a part of her life, a part of her body. They moved farther
and farther from her, moved through the trees towards her home
where they would go to bed and sleep, and wake again in the morn-
ing to rise and eat, and complete another day. Their voices became
fainter, and Vinnie was no longer sure that she heard them at all.
They moved from her, league upon league of wooded land lying
between them, but the essence of each of them stayed with her.

After the sun had set, the air grew cool. The end of summer was
at hand, and soon the leaves would turn and the earth would grow
hard and the wind, crisp. There would be a brittleness to living. In
the morning the hoar frost would weave the marsh to the hills and
the hills to the sky in a subtle pattern, and the trees would emerge
like skeletons. The bittersweet berries would crack open, and grow-
ing against the grey wall of the house they would look like drops
of blood. Ducks would fly desperately over the marshes, the labored
beating of their wings betraying their fear, their rigid throats pressed
against space, while deer, loving life, would desert the deep woods,
and proud of their antlers, play target for men, their soft-eared does
trembling, grieving, in the forest. All these things would happen,
and the late summer would bleed itself away in brilliant splashes. A
meadow and a hill, dull at sunset, would be crimson in the morning.
Squirrels, in the midst of the infected land, would dash about
through the trees with madness in their little minds, and lean birds
would fly south in terror. All this will happen, and more, thought
Vinnie. Like the fall which consumes the summer, and the summer
the spring, my youth will be surrendered to life, my life, to living,
and my living, like all living, to the generations to come. The things
that I love and the things that I know will be forgotten, like this
day, this splendid summer day that is even now darkened with
twilight.

But there is Peter, she remembered, and the moment which had
been barren bloomed like a flower with the thought of him. Peter
to Vinnie was like the North Star to the sailor or to the man lost in
the maze of a forest. Like the needle in the compass infallibly turn-
ing north, Vinnie's mind sped to Peter, were she in the depths of
the wood or on the pavements of the town. Waking suddenly in the
night at the sound of an acorn's falling, she thought of him; or when
she talked to her family she would be ever conscious of his person,
were he near at hand or a hundred miles away. She regretted this, for
she longed to keep the thought of him secret, hidden. But she

THE HILL 229

carried him in her mind as a woman carries a handkerchief— casually,
tucked down into her bossom, or stuffed up into her sleeve. But
jewel-like the thought of him sparkled in her mind, and no hour
of any day was dull, nor any day quite long enough for thought of him.

Yes, there is Peter, she said, and laughed aloud, and the sound, in
the still twilight, was like a silver thread woven through dark cloth.
There is Peter, she said, and bent down, like a reed in the wind, to
pick up the rabbit. There is Peter, and we are going to meet him.

She looked out across the valley: dark hills that encircled the
neck of the valley like a fur; thin threads of smoke rising from
doll-like farmhouses; cows standing thoughtful at the fence; these
things and the sound of a woman's clear voice rising like a slow mist
from the valley, and the fragrance of hay and pine needles and sweet
marsh grass, she sought to remember. And when she had beheld
them, one by one, and loved them over again, she turned from the
valley into the woods. We must get down before it is dark, she said,
and parted the branches of the trees and bushes to make a path for
herself. She put the rabbit inside her dress, and it was warm and
soft against her, and she was free to use both hands. She was con-
scious of the outline of her body; the cool air encircled her, and
moving among the leaves one would have thought she was a Druid
as she made her way along the ridge of the hill.

Vinnie, harlot of compassion, descended into the valley, leaving
only a broken twig, or leaves falling. She passed among the bushes
easily, a woman of beauty and grace. A Druid she might have been,
or an Indian woman. But she was Heloi'se walking through the woods
to Abelard. The evening was heavy with anticipation, and like a
woman who, eager for her lover, sits motionless at his approach, the
dusk halted. It drew no nearer to night, and even the birds in the
sky seemed to fold up their flight and lie still like leaves upon a mo-
tionless pool. But though Vinnie was quiet and beheld the silence
and the dusk that lingered like a spoiled child, although she herself
was still in the midst of the woods, her eagerness to see Peter pre-
ceded her. Her mind was already with him; the hours before their
meeting seemed endless, and as she made her way towards the
marshes, descending to them like a stream that finds its source in the
hills but its comfort in the valley, she wondered what common magic
certain things possess, that they should fill the heart with an eternal
beauty, and how the mind manages to seek out the things that it will
cherish: a child's first patent-leather slippers; flowers growing by a
deserted house; church bells rung at twilight in a little town; birds

230 ELEANOR GREEN

who build their nests in furrows and fly out stricken at man's ap-
proach; a dog sitting by a closed door, and a hungry man who looks
at flowers.

She came, finally, into the valley, and the moon like a child's bent
toy toppled over the hill, while the earth, scarcely dark from the sun-
light, was bright again, for the earth can be a most inconstant lover.
She was like a piece of metal attracted by a magnet. She tried to
harden her desire for Peter, to keep it firm in her mind, but it ran
through her body as the veins from her heart, and no part of her was
free from it. Her fingers, extraordinary miracles of gesture, grew
strange to her, and looking down at her body she could not identify
it as her own. To hear his voice, to see him walk towards her with his
peculiar, halting steps; for this she waited. And waiting, it was as
though quicksilver ran through her body, as though a thousand little
bells rang in her veins. As she walked in the valley, stepping care-
fully and bending the sharp bushes aside, she was not aware of mov-
ing. She had walked out to the middle of the stream before she real-
ized that she was near the water. Standing there, her face and throat
as white as alabaster in the moonlight, her wet dress clinging to her
thighs and legs as though wind beat against her, she herself was like
a blue heron. The stars reflected in the water were like bright shells
floating with the current which swept about her legs, and the sandy
bottom sent up necklaces of bubbles.

IX: OLD MAN DYING

"If i were never to see you again, I wonder what thing about you I
would best remember. Would it be your lips and. the shape of your
kiss, or would it be your voice? Would it be the way you run, or
would I remember your hair?"

Vinnie felt that she would stop breathing if Peter said more
words. She tried to keep him from going on. She needed time to re-
member these words. For the future she must have them, when
there would be no words, no Peter, no night with a moon and the
smell of the soil, and a sick Indian giving an excuse for the two of
them to be together. He lay there dying, the old man, not two hun-
dred yards away. There in that hut with the windows shut tight and
three squaws sitting around, their heavy thighs pressing into the dirt
floor, their breasts resting against their bodies like tired children, lay
an old man dying. He was very old. Some said he was over a hundred.
The room was hot and the air foul, like the breath of very old
people, and in the corner, on a fruit box, stood a lamp that burned

THE HILL 2V

in a ragged flame. The light threw shadows on the walls and along
the ceiling, and the heat and the swaying bodies of the women closed
in upon the old man.

"And the old man lies there dying, and here we are, loving each
other," she said.

"What of that?" said Peter, and laid his hand over hers.

"It doesn't seem right to me."

"But it is right; it's life, and we can't deny life."

"No, but what does dying have to do with loving?" asked Vinnie.

"Everything," Peter answered.

The word fell heavily into Vinnie's mind, sending out ripples of
fear, as a stone does, or a pebble, dropped into a pool. The word
moved as in an eddy, touching now with this current of thought and
now with that one. She could feel the dark places beneath the water,
she could feel the undertow. Everything. Everything. But it doesn't.
It has nothing to do with love. That old man with his grey curls and
his brown body broken with age has nothing to do with Vinnie and
Peter, sitting here in the night. It has nothing to do with us, this
old man's dying.

"No, Peter, not everything," she said. But Peter, instead of an-
swering, put his head in her lap and blew smoke into her face.

"Tell me a fairy story," she said.

"Once there was a little girl and her name was Vinnie and she
loved a little boy and his name was Peter, and when they grew up
they were married, and lived happily ever after."

Vinnie laid her hand upon Peter's face. Gently, as one who has
reverence for the human body, she passed her hand along his fore-
head. She stroked the lids of his eyes and followed the line of his
brows with her fingertips. In her two hands she held his face, look-
ing down into his eyes as though they were something she had never
seen. He was not Peter, whom she loved, but a symbol of life. She
sat looking down into his face, searching for some miracle of knowl-
edge. How strange a thing a face is, that in the nighttime lies like a
dead thing upon a pillow and in the daytime becomes alert and
beautiful. She loved the feel of his skin, the mass of bone beneath his
hair, the long thin nose. She loved the feel of the pulse in his veins.
It was maddening; it beat like tom-toms against her hands. That
moment, as she sat there in the night, waiting for the old man to
die, each beat of Peter's heart was an arrow in her flesh. She was
afraid of tomorrow and the next day and next year and the year
after and the long years in the grave. She wanted to preserve his life,
to stop the progress of living, to arrest his aging day by day. She

232 ELEANOR GREEN

wanted to keep it forever tonight, forever this moment, with Peter's
head in her lap and the earth cool beneath her. She wanted to keep
the old man from dying; with his death life would speed up to an-
other death, and she and Peter would be waiting for someone else
to die, or perhaps she would be waiting alone, with no head in her
lap, no deep, eternal mystery throbbing between her hands.

"I know what I would remember. It would be your hands. They
make me feel very young; I want to cry when vou touch me. I would
surely remember your hands."

A girl awakened suddenly to womanhood is a terrifying and beau-
tiful thing, and Vinnie loved herself and this moment, sought to
remember so that later, when she was a woman without beauty,
without love, without Peter, she might love him and herself over
again, as she did now. She felt that she had reached the summit of
the spirit, and feeling so, she bent her head to kiss him.

The door of the hut opened, and a faint blur of light framed a
man who stood dumbly in the doorway. This was the moment for
them to go, for them to move apart and return to the bedside of a
dying man. The moment having come, they did as was demanded
of them, separated their thoughts and passed into the hut where the
three squaws swayed back and forth. Three men had come in after
them, crowding the doorway. The old man lay on his pile of rags
and moaned. "Girl," he whispered. "Girl." Very slowly he moved his
hand from under the blanket. Quickly Vinnie knelt down beside
him and took his hand in hers. It was the name he always called her.
"Girl," he said again. Vinnie thought he smiled. Such a brown skin,
she thought. Such a tired, thin hand. It was like the shadow of a
hand. Too fragile, too beautiful for life. But it isn't for life, she said
to herself. It's for death.

Peter asked her for water, and she poured it over his hands. He
took from his bag, which in this light and with these people became
a witch's kit instead of a medical bag, his needle and serum. He pre-
pared everything deliberately, slowly, and Vinnie, watching him
bending over the old man, felt that it was something she had seen
before, something infinitely good, infinitely just. The beads of
perspiration stood out like embroidery on the faces of the women,
and they pressed their thighs into the ground. When the old man
opened his eyes suddenly, Peter said quietly to him, "See. You feel
better after this. This will make you feel good. See." He thrust the
needle into the delicate skin. "That didn't hurt, did it?" he said, as
though he were talking to a child, and the old man smiled up at him;
the women ceased swaying.

THE HILL 233

''It's easy, isn't it?" asked Peter, as they walked away from the hut,
down through the woods.

"Too easy," Vinnie answered, and Peter, hearing tears in her
voice, set his bag down in the grass and held her to him. His body
pressed to hers restored her courage, and laughing softly she turned
her face to his.

They walked on, stepping carefully through the underbrush, and
speaking softly, as though they were afraid of disturbing the small
animals that must indeed be very tired by nighttime. They stopped
for a moment; about them no leaf stirred, but Joie's rabbit listened
to the quiet as though it were filled with shouting.

Coming out of the wooded place they walked down the road with-
out speaking, having found in each other's presence a certainty that
needed no words. Vinnie felt the earth now hard, now soft about
her feet. The rain had packed the sand tight and fitted the loose
grains together, so that their feet coming down upon the ground
made a sharp sound, like laughter. Occasionally when she found the
imprint of a horse's hoof the sand would hurry to encircle her foot.
Owls called in the woods, and birds cried out. But feeling the earth
now hard, now soft under her tread, and hearing the owls and the
birds, she still thought of other things, and gave no more of her atten-
tion to the earth and the sounds in the air than was necessary for
recording them. She could not recall herself from the hut and the
squaws, the foul smell and the meager light, from the pile of ragged
blankets that made the deathbed for the old man. She thought of
Peter bending over, the embroidered faces of the women. She
thought of herself kneeling on the dirt floor, of the old man's hand
lying in hers. He would soon be dead, he whose hand had lain in
hers a little while ago. Where would the feel of her hand be then?
Where would be the image of her that lay long enough in his mind
to make him smile? What would become of his knowledge?

"Do you know," said Peter, "how much I love you?"

"How much?" she answered, knowing well what he would say.
And he was saying what she expected him to. More than anything in
the world, more than life itself, he was saying. But he went beyond
her expectation; told her that he never had loved anyone as he did
her. Even your wife? she asked, and he answered that people marry
for strange reasons. They walked together down the road with their
love for each other between them, like a child, or a plate-glass win-
dow, seeing each other through it, each understanding the other
because of it. As parents feel occasionally, exquisitely and with
agony, that their child will grow beyond them; that somehow their

234 ELEANOR GREEN

fulfillment in each other will be taken from them and lost; that the
grown body of the child will steal the germ of creation which once
was theirs, so now they felt as their hands came together in the night,
as their fingers touched for a fine second, like thin streaks of light-
ning or separate songs simultaneously sung. And for the second time
that night Vinnie sought to engrave upon her senses the touch of
Peter's hand, the sound of feet, of birds frightened by two lovers
passing, the sight of the marsh laden with moonlight, the heart
within her.

They came finally to the fork in the road. He held her hard to
him, pressing her body against his so that his hipbones bruised her
flesh. She listened to him tell how he would devour her, like a beast
his prey, so that he might carry her inside of him. and possess her
completely and forever. She laughed, her breath bitten off by the
pressure of his body. God, she thought, I can't hold any more love.
Then he left her and walked a little way down the road that turned
to the right. She saw him get into his car that stood in the shadows;
she watched him drive away in darkness.

For a long time she stood there, the rabbit secure and warm
against her. There is no time for weeping, she whispered, and know-
ing, as women do at birth, that identity lies within oneself alone, and
that all lives run separately, she turned towards home.

The night, like a weighted shawl, hung down about her.

Country People

BY RUTH SUCKOW

PART ONE

I: AUGUST KAETTERHENRY'S PLACE

Some of the best land in the country, people said, was right here
in Richland Township. The soil in Wapsipinicon County was a
little inclined to be sandy, didn't bring quite the price of the very
best Iowa farming-land; but this stretch in here between Richland
and "Wapsie" didn't give the farmers much chance for complaint.

This was the road that was later made a highway. It had a slight
jog about a mile out of Richland. Tall cottonwoods grew on one
side, on the other a tangle of bushes. There was always a kind of
mud-hole here, sifted over with leaves and little fluffs from the cot-
tonwoods; a bad place in the road, closed in and shaded.

Beyond this it was all straight going to "Wapsie." The land spread
out rich and rolling, in smooth, tilted vistas of square fields, green,
yellow, and earth-brown, trees growing in full-leaved clusters down
about the banks of the little caved-in creeks in the pastures or stand-
ing lone, and slanting, on the crests of the low, rounded hills. In
the distance the groves of farms were softened, blurred together;
the far-off rising land was swathed in blue, a faint milky tint in
which dim figures of trees were swimming.

A pink frame school-house stood on one side of the road. The
long grass was trampled this way and that by the children's feet.
Over beyond Ed Angell's place lay the Grove, where Sunday-school
picnics and Fourth of July celebrations were held— a rich, thick
cluster of trees, oaks and hickories, spreading over the hill and down
the depressions of the slope, dark green upon the paler green of the
short-cropped grass on the hill-side. The road went high and straight
until it dipped down into "Wapsie," which lay deep in trees, the
red stone tower of the court-house rising out of thick tufts of elms.

235

236 RUTH SUCKOW

The farms were good along this road. A good class of people had
settled here, German and English most of them. Men who kept an
eve out for land deals noted shrewdly how well the buildings and
barbed-wire fences were kept up, the red barns and silos, the prim
white houses, square or with an ell, some of them with front yards
enclosed in fences, and rose or snowball bushes growing. Most of
these farmers— except the LaRues, who lived in a dingy, unpainted
house with a bare farm-yard and a hog-pen of trampled, sloughy
mud— drove into town in neat "two-seated rigs" with good teams.
The cattle feeding in the pastures that sloped down, emerald-green,
turfy, almost mossy, to the edges of the creeks were sleek and brown.

Over on the cross-roads there were more woods, and it was hillier.
The farm-buildings were poorer, the fences slacker. These were the
farms where people from "Wapsie" drove out to buy cheap a
chicken, a goose, or a few crates of berries.

The place on the north of the road, beyond LaRue's, was August
Kaetterhenry's.

It was a neat, plain farm, two hundred and fifty acres, virtually
all under cultivation. The house was set back at what was termed
"a nice distance" from the road— a white house with pink trimmings
and a narrow porch. The front yard was not fenced in, but August
made the boys keep the grass mowed, and it presented a neat ap-
pearance. Tall summer lilies, orange with dark spots, grew near the
front porch in a spreading patch. On the west of the house stood the
wind-break— two rows of elms that were lofty now, rather thin, and
close together. The lawn ended at their trunks in a ridge of high
grass and feathery weeds that the boys could not keep cut. A barbed-
wire fence, caught together in one place by a wooden staple, sepa-
rated them from the cornfield. The lofty upper branches rustled and
moved slightly against the blue sky. In the evening their outlines
were blurred and there was a sadness in their dark leafiness, high
and motionless.

The wide yard sloped east to the barns and sheds across "the
drive." It was worn bare of grass about the buildings and scattered
with chicken fluff and droppings. The geese ran squawking across
it when teams drove in. The great barn stood at the end of the
slope, raised on a high foundation, with an inclined platform of
heavy planks that thundered and shook under the horses' hoofs.
Everyone about here remembered when August Kaetterhenry had
put up this barn. It was painted white, as was the silo, and on the
peak of the roof were two cupolas with slatted sides, and lightning-
rods that glittered intermittently upon the blueness of the sky. On

COUNTRY PEOPLE 237

the side toward the road was oainted in large black letters slowly
getting weather-dimmed:

AUGUST KAETTERHENRY
ICJO7

It was one of the best barns in the country there when it was put
up. All of Kaetterhenry's buildings were good. The old barn had
been made over by his brother-in-law, Hans Stille, into a granary
and milk-house, painted white, too, the ground always slippery and
muddy about the milk-house, a dribble of yellow ears leaking out
from the corn-crib, kernels scattered in front of it, where the chickens
were pecking. On the slope nearer the house the windmill stood,
with the tank beside it, a bare steel skeleton giving off sudden flashes,
the grey-painted wheel turning now fast, now slow, up there in the
sky.

"Yes," people said when they drove past, "Kaetterhenry's done
pretty good here. Well, he's a worker all right."

They admired the neat, square fields of oats and corn, the high,
rolling pasture dotted with white clover, a few wild plum-trees set
slanting, delicate and lonely, here and there.

'Yes, sir, he's got a nice farm."

II: THE KAETTERHENRYS

August Kaetterhenry had not always had a farm like this. He had
had to work for what he had got, like most of the people in that
country. He hadn't got prosperous by wishing. There were plenty
of people who could remember when he first came into the Rich-
land neighbourhood. Along about the early eighties or late seventies
it must have been, because he had worked for Henry Baumgartner,
and it was in 1884 or "somewheres around" that the Baumgartners
had moved into town. He came from Turkey Creek, where there
were still "a whole raft of those Kaetterhenrys." August was one of
old Casper Kaetterhenry's boys.

Turkey Creek was a little backwoods town about fifteen miles
north of Richland, up in the timber. It still had no railroad and was
"years behind the times," but some of the farmers around there had
money, if they only cared to spend it. It was a good trading-centre.
There was a large German settlement around Turkey Creek, more
Germans than in the country near Richland, which had a good many
settlers from Somerset, in England. Turkey Creek had had Scotch
and Yankee settlers in the first place, trappers and woodsmen; but

238 RUTH SUCKOW

the Germans coming in to farm had crowded these people out. They
were a slow, hard-headed set, those Turkey Creek Germans, but
they were better than the timbermen, who had had, as old men who
knew that country liked to tell, "some pretty rough characters among
them." The Germans were hard-working, money-savers, and they
had come to make homes for themselves.

It was Henry Baumgartner who had brought them there in the
first place— old Henry Baumgartner. He was gone now, but he had
been "quite a character" in his day. He was a Prussian who had
come to this country when he was only a boy. He was said to have
worked at one of the forges in Pennsylvania. There was a story of
how, when he had been working there, he had been converted to
German Methodism. He had come out to Iowa in a very early day
and had bought up large tracts of timber-land when it was selling
for almost nothing. Later, in the interests of both riches and religion,
which the old man had always shrewdly worked together, he had
sent back to Prussia and got a dozen families to come and settle on
his land, promising them help in getting started on the condition
that they should all become German Methodists. He had been afraid
that the German Catholics, who had a settlement over in the hills
at Holy Cross, would "get a hold" in the Turkey timber. That was
the way that large German Methodist community had first started.
Other Germans had begun coming in until the region was full of
them. Most of them had been Lutherans in the old country, but
Henry Baumgartner had been careful to see that there was no
Lutheran church started here.

It was a hilly region, timber- and bottom-land. The people had
lived primitively there; many of them did still. There were still a
few of the old log cabins to be seen in isolated places, down on the
Turkey Bottom. In those early days they had all lived in log cabins.
The old-timers could remember well when the first frame-house in
the country had gone up on old Herman Klaus's farm. Turkey Creek
had been a wild little timber town with a few wooden stores and
houses, after the first old log buildings had gone down, and the
town hall, of the native yellow limestone, that was standing yet at
the end of the business street, and where now the community held
the harvest-home supper and the young people had dances.

The Kaetterhenrys had lived in one of those log houses on the
same land where one of them, a half-brother of August's, was living
now— the farm about three miles straight north of Turkey Creek,
the one with the small white house and the patch of timber. It had
all been timber in those days.

COUNTRY PEOPLE 239

The Kaetterhenrys had not been among those whom Henry Baum-
gartner had brought to this region— they came a few years later—
but their history was not very different from that of many families
in the community. They came to this country from Germany in
about 1849 or 1850, Casper and his wife and two children, and his
brother Adolph and his wife. Casper's wife's brother, Johann Rausch,
had preceded them. He was one of those who had drifted over into
Iowa from Ohio or New York, coming because others were coming,
because everyone was talking about the West. He had written back
to his relatives in the old country, full of enthusiasm, praising the
country and telling how fine the land was, until he had got Casper
and Adolph persuaded to come.

They landed at New Orleans after a voyage of eight weeks and
three days in a sailing-vessel, and from there took boat up the
Mississippi to St. Louis. They spent the winter there, waiting for
spring. The older child, Joseph, died of cholera while they were
there. Early the next March, as soon as the river was open, they
again took boat, and went up as far as north-eastern Iowa. They
bought oxen and farm implements at Guttenberg, the little river
town where they landed, and from there went straight over to Tur-
key Creek to join Johann. He soon after pulled out again and went
on West, but Casper and Adolph took up land near each other.
Casper started right in clearing his land and putting up the log
cabin in which the family lived until the children were good-sized.

The cabin had one room at first; later, two more were added.
They did their cooking, eating, sleeping all in there. There the chil-
dren were born, one after another— Mina, Kurt, Mary, August,
Sophie, Heinie, Ferdinand. They had had only Lena when they
came there, since little Joseph had died on the way. They lived all
crowded into that little cabin, four children sleeping packed into
a dusty feather-bed over which the covers were hastily drawn in the
day-time. Feather-beds and pillows and a little black tea-pot with
raised blue flowers were all that the Kaetterhenrys had brought with
them from the old country. They had had none of the "comforts
of life" to begin with. They had saved up just money enough to pay
for the journey and their first crude farming-necessities. They went
through all the hardships of pioneer life, the clearing of the land,
storms that killed their cattle and flooded their fields, the terrible
blizzards of those days. Another child— Mary— died, and was buried
in a little grave that Casper himself dug in a corner of their land.
They had to work, all of them, father, mother, girls, and boys, just as
soon as they could get into the field.

24o RUTH SUCKOW

But they were a sturdy tribe: they could stand things. Casper
Kaetterhenry had been a farm-labourer in the old country. He had
always worked hard, and so had his wife. But now that he was work-
ing for himself instead of for some wealthy Pomeranian landowner
who would get all the profits, he was willing to work. Now he was
going to make a landowner of himself.

He brought up his children to know very little but work. The
mother had little time for them. In the intervals of bearing them
she had to work in the field. So did Lena, the oldest girl. Mina gave
them all the care that was given. They always cared more for this
sister, in a way, than for any other human being— Mina, a thick-
faced, heavy, "Dutchy"-looking girl, slow and melancholy and con-
scientious and kind. She afterwards married Rudy Nisson, and had
a hard time of it.

The older children had no chance for any schooling, but a school-
house was built on the outskirts of Turkey Creek to which the
younger ones went off and on, as they could be spared, in the winter.
That Turkey Creek school! It had wooden benches and a great stove
on which one of the teachers— ''Old Man Bartlett" they called him—
kept hickory switches drying. Teachers were as irregular as pupils.
Old Man Bartlett stayed only one week. He had already "licked" all
the boys once or twice over, and he celebrated his last day by whip-
ping every one of the girls. The next Monday he did not appear.
He had "skipped the country." He had come to Turkey Creek from
no one knew where, with only the clothes on his back, and no one
ever learned what had become of him. There were a few attempts
made to hold a German school, but they did not come to much. But
it seemed to Casper Kaetterhenry that his children were in clover.
He himself could do little more than write his own name. Even
some of the other farmers about there said that Casper wasn't easy
on his children. He expected them to work and that he should get all
the benefit of their work. As soon as they were old enough to do any-
thing, they had to help on the farm. That was the way to save up
money. Casper kept them at it every minute.

As soon as August was eleven he began "hiring out" to some of
the neighbouring farmers. He was a good worker. All of the Kaetter-
henrys were. "Ach, those Kaetterhenrys!" people would sometimes
say, meaning that they were stubborn and silent and dumm. And
of Kurt or August or Heinie, "Ja, he's a Kaetterhenry all right."
They were Pomeranians. "Pummers" people called them, making
fun of some of their ways and the queer Low Dutch expressions that

COUNTRY PEOPLE 241

old Casper used. But August was good help. He could do nearly
everything about a farm that a man could.

He worked for all kinds of people. For Schumacher once, and
for Grobaty, a fat, black-bearded old German who beat his wife and
his horses and was converted regularly at every camp-meeting. Gro-
baty's father lived with him. He had an immense white beard that
reached below his waist. Usually he kept it buttoned inside his coat,
but sometimes August would see him lift it out and fondly stroke
and caress it. August tried blacksmithing for a while, too, but he
liked farming better. He would go back to school in the winter-
time, but when he was fourteen he quit for good.

By the time that he was fifteen he was virtually on his own re-
sources. He did not get on well with his father. August had a temper
and he didn't stand the old man's tyranny. August was the pick of
the family, most people thought. He was not so slow as the rest of
them, although he had all of the Kaetterhenry stubbornness. There
was more of the mother in him. There was a different strain in the
Rausches. They were more restless, more ambitious. People said
that Mrs. Kaetterhenry might have liked to have things a little dif-
ferent from what they were at home if it hadn't been for "him." She
was not a "Pummer." August was more like her. He looked like her,
too, with a fresh-coloured skin and blue eyes showing temper in the
way that they were set. Sophie, too, was "a Rausch."

It was mostly work in those days, but there were other things.
Weddings were made much of in that community. Sometimes the
celebration lasted three days, like Hans Nisson's wedding, at the end
of which most of the men were laid out on the straw in the barn,
dead drunk. There was still more intoxication at the camp-meet-
ings which were held in the timber by travelling evangelists. Peo-
ple drove to them from miles around, camping out in the woods
and attending the meetings. They were times of religious debauch.
The shouting and singing and weeping, the general wallow of emo-
tionalism, gave an outlet after all the hard, grinding work. August
"went forward" at one of these meetings, along with the other young
men, stirred and yet shamefaced at the same time. He believed that
he was "converted."

Most of the life of the community centred about the German
Methodist church out in the country, which Henry Baumgartner
helped them to build. It was a plain white frame-building, bleak
and small, a long hitching-board in front of it, and behind it the
sheds for the teams and the two tiny outhouses all standing stark on

242 RUTH SUCKOW

a great clearing. Church was held in the afternoon. The farmers
drove there in lumber-wagons, tying their horses to the long hitch-
ing-board, or in bad weather putting them in the sheds. They stood
about on the church-steps, talking, the men together and the women
in another group, until the preacher drove up. Then they all
marched solemnly into the church. The congregation sat, the men
and boys on one side, the women and girls on the other, facing the
pulpit— a silent, stolid congregation, moving slowly and heavily in
dark garments, creaking awkwardly as they turned to kneel on the
hard wooden floor, some of the men poised precariously on their
haunches, muttering the Lord's Prayer together in a guttural Ger-
man that was loud in the silent country church, the women's voices
a husky murmur above the deep, shamed rumble of the men's.

They had no regular pastor. Sometimes Wilhelm Stille, a farmer
from over near Richland who "did some preaching," came. He was
a thin, fervent man, with a greyish beard and long hair, who leaned
over the pulpit and spoke in a high, thin voice, his deep-set brown
eyes burning with a kind of mystic ardour. Sometimes they had one
of the travelling preachers, old exhorters, who wept and paced the
platform as they prayed for sinners, and pounded the Bible.

After the service the people went outside and talked a little be-
fore they drove home. It was for this that the young men came.
They stood about in abashed Sunday-constrained groups, pretending
to talk to one another, but aware of the girls, whose eyes were aware
of them; in their thick, dark best clothes that made their skin look
leather-brown, their brown and black felt hats, their feet clumping
awkwardly in stiff Sunday shoes. This group of boys and young men
was the last to disperse. The older people talked in German, about
the weather and the crops. Then the men went out to get the teams
hitched up to drive home.

August stayed around Turkey Creek until his mother died. She
had been ailing for years, had bought "herb" medicine and liver
pills and tonics from the medicine-man who drove around to the
different farms with a horse and wagon selling remedies. No one
had known what it was except stomach trouble, or had thought
much about it. She had kept on working all the time. But finally,
when she was almost confined to her bed, could digest virtually noth-
ing, and could hardly drag herself into the kitchen to see how Mina,
whom they had called in, was doing the work, Casper thought it
might be time to drive into town and have the doctor come out with
him. Of course it was too late then. Otherwise it would have been
foolish for the doctor to be called. He too muttered something about

COUNTRY PEOPLE 243

stomach trouble, but the neighbour women who came in whispered
"cancer" to each other. The children were sent for, and stood in
awkward panic about the old walnut bed where their mother lay
"wasted to a shadow," as the neighbour women said. The children
had not actually realized that there was anything the matter with
her until now. She died, and was buried in the little Turkey Creek
cemetery near the German church.

"Ach, that old Kaetterhenry!" the women said. "He worked her
to death, and then what did she have!" She had not lived to enjoy
anything from all her toil. They had been for a few years in the new
frame-house, but she had had to do things as she had always done
them before.

It was expected that Mina would stay on at home and keep house
for the old man, at least until Heinie, who worked on the home
place, brought home a wife; Rudy Nisson was drinking and could
not be counted upon to support Mina. But this was not at all what
old Casper had in mind. A few weeks after his wife had died, he
offered ten dollars to anyone who could find him a new wife; and
astonishingly, gross and hard-fisted and stingy as he was, a fat old
man with a rough beard who went around in his bare feet, a tolera-
bly fair-looking young woman was found for him. He had never
spent anything and he owned a good farm now. Poor Mina knew
nothing of all this until he brought the new wife home; then she
had to leave. Rudy was off in the next town, supposed to be working,
and she had nowhere to go and no money to keep her. She had to
stay at Sophie's until Sophie's husband could get Rudy to come
back and find some sort of home for her. The new mistress proved to
be very different from the old one: she made the old man Kaetter-
henry stand around— build an addition to the house, get her some
decent furniture. You never caught her working in the fields!

The children were furious. They talked about the insult to their
mother and the injustice to Mina, but greed was at the bottom of it.
This woman was a schemer; they could see that. Sophie declared
that she looked like the kind of woman who would go about having
children right away and beat the rest of them out of what was theirs
by rights. What she had wanted was to get the farm left to her. It
made them all angry to see how much she got from the old man
while they, who had had to work like dogs for him from the time
they were babies, got nothing. What had he ever done for them?
It broke up the family and started a feud that still lasted after the
old man Kaetterhenry had died and one of his sons by the second
wife had the farm. But she did not get everything. Schemer that she

244 RUTH SUCKOW

was, she could never get old Casper to make a will, and the children
came in for some of his property.

Most of the Kaetterhenry children married young and settled
down to farming right where they were. August was the only one who
did not. Sophie had married a Klaus, and her brother-in-law, young
Herman Klaus, had gone up to Richland to work. August liked
what he heard of the Richland neighbourhood. He wanted to get
into a better community; he thought he could earn more up there.
He went there and got a job with a wood-choppers' gang in the
winter, and the next spring he hired out to Henry Baumgartner.

This old Henry Baumgartner was harder to work for than any
man in that part of the country. August found that out soon enough.
It was not for nothing that he was as rich as he was. He was worth
at this time about a hundred thousand dollars in land and money,
considered rich for a farmer in those days, but no one would ever
have guessed it from the way that the family lived. The old lady
Baumgartner hoarded the bread until it was mouldy. It was said
that she was still wearing the same clothes in which she had come
over from Germany. It was not until they moved into town and the
children got hold of some of the money that it began to show. Old
Baumgartner was inconceivably mean in petty things. August re-
membered about Mrs. Hooper, a widow in Richland who supported
her family by doing washing. She wanted a little straw to pack about
her house in the wintertime, and Henry Baumgartner promised that
he would bring her some when he next came into town. Then he
charged her not only more than the price of the straw, but for his
time and for the hauling, although he had been bringing in other
things at the same time. Plenty of farmers, as he knew very well,
would have been glad to give the poor woman that little bit of straw
for nothing.

Yet he had his big, effusive side. August had seen him at the
camp-meetings groaning and praying and exhorting, tears running
down the side of his fat nose and soaking into his beard. He was
about sixty at this time, short, bulky, with a thick, square-cut beard,
a broad smooth German under lip that showed his emotionalism,
and mean little eyes. Afterwards, when he moved into Richland and
joined the Methodist church there, he ran the church. The preach-
ers looked upon him with fear as he sat short, heavy, belligerent in
the front pew— he was getting deaf— giving little grunts of disap-
proval or breaking out into sonorous "Amens!" following the emo-
tional parts of the sermon with a running comment of groans, head-
shakings, tears. A terrible figure, with his big head and square-cut,

COUNTRY PEOPLE 245

buchy beard showing that wet, shining lower lip, the ominous glare
of his small eyes. He was sincere, more than sincere, in all this. It
was life to him. Plenty of people hated him, but they spoke of him
as the most religious man around there.

If August managed to stick at the Baumgartners', he would be
the first hired man who had ever done so. But August was a sticker.
People soon found that out. He had no intention of leaving until
he was ready to go. He went stolidly about his work from four
o'clock in the morning until nine at night. He knew what he was
after. All the time he was saving part of his wages, putting some
away. He did not intend to let old Henry Baumgartner's meanness
drive him out until he had saved enough to start in farming for
himself. It was that for which he was working.

Ill: EMMA STILLE

August liked the new community. He saw that in some respects it
was ahead of Turkey Creek. For one thing, there was a railroad, a
main line of the Illinois Central that connected Richland directly
with Chicago. It would be easier to market crops here. There would
not be so much hauling to do. It was only eleven miles from "Wap-
sie," the county seat, and that was an advantage. And, then, he liked
the looks of the country. There was not so much timber, more
prairieland; and after all the clearing that he had had to do about
Turkey Creek, August was not fond of timber. He said little, but
he made up his mind before very long that he wanted to get hold
of some land about here and settle down. Someone would be want-
ing to sell and move out. He had been saving ever since he started
working for other people and was putting away some all the time.
When he saw a good piece of land he was going to try to get it, pay-
ing for it gradually as he could. And he had his eyes open for some
girl who looked as if she would make him a good wife.

There were not so many Germans here as around Turkey Creek,
and there were some Lutherans among them, so that they had no
German Methodist church. Those who were close enough drove
over to the Turkey Creek church when the weather was good. Most
of them began "going in town." They drove to the Richland church,
four of them together, two girls and two boys, in a two-seated buggy.
The old people did not care to go there because the services were
in English. They thought that it meant, too, that the young people
were getting away from them.

There were more good times not connected with the church than

246 RUTH SUCKOW

there had been at Turkey Creek. Socials at the country schools, bob-
ridesj and big country parties where they played the old country
games and kissing-games until the whole thing ended in a general
"spooning," with the lights out. August was bashful. Herman Klaus
urged him to get a girl and come on. But he did not go to these
parties very much until he began keeping company with Emma Stille.

That was in the first summer after he came to Richland. Henry
Baumgartner let him go over to help the Stilles at threshing-time.
The Stille boys had come over to help the Baumgartners. The Stille
farm wTas about two miles from where August was working.

Old Wilhelm Stille was the one who used to preach in the Turkey
Creek church. He was a gentle, dreamy kind of man. His threshing
was always left until near the last. But old lady Stille saw to it that
he did not get too far behind. People spoke of her as "someone to
watch out for." She was short, squat, heavy. She had a round, wrin-
kled, crafty face with narrow, suspicious eyes. She looked as if she
might just have come from the old country. She parted her hair
smoothly in the middle and wore round ear-rings. When they drove
into town, she never wore a hat, but a dark scarf tied over her head.
Her dark, thick, shapeless clothes, her shawls, her scarf, her soft felt
slippers, all added to the feeling of craft, of slyness, that she gave.
People were afraid of her. She was stingy, too, as stingy as the Baum-
gartners; but the girls saw to it that the threshers were well fed.

There were two of the Stille girls at home, Emma and Mollie.
Herman Klaus liked Mollie Stille pretty well. Everyone liked the
Stille girls. They said that they were just nice girls, not so queer as
their father and without their mother's meanness. They waited on
the table when the threshers came. The men all knew them and
joked with them. August had nothing to say, but he knew every
move that Emma Stille made as she hurried around the long table
bringing in more stewed chicken and coffee. She was not very large,
but she looked like a good worker. Her black hair curled a little
from the heat, and her face was flushed. Her lips, full German lips,
curved, dark red, were slightly parted. The men teased her. "Hurry
up there, Emma! Emma, you're too slow!" August sat eating indus-
triously, without looking up; but when Emma came near him and
put out her hand to take his coffee-cup, he caught the faint scent of
heat that came from her, saw the little beads of perspiration about
the roots of her shiny black hair.

He liked her. He wondered if she was pretty strong. She seemed
to be able to get through with a lot of work. She did not look in the
least like her mother. She was a giggler; she and Mollie both could

COUNTRY PEOPLE 247

seem to giggle by the hour, but just the same she was pretty sensible.
She taught country school in the Benning Township school-house,
but she knew how to wait on threshers.

The old man Stille was not badly off despite his preaching. He
had come out in an early day and had managed— he and the boys
together— to get hold of a good deal of land. He had helped the boys,
and he ought to be able to help the girls a little, too. The Stille
girls would have had more beaus if the young men had not been
afraid to get mixed up with that old lady. She was down on all her
daughters-in-law. That would not stop August. He'd like to see any
old woman that could bother him very much.

The threshers were at the Stilles' two days. It was in early Septem-
ber, dry, burning weather, when the bright new evergreens in the
grove at the north of the house stood motionless and pointed against
the blue sky. The men worked with their old horse-power thresher
out in the fields, where the stubble was bright and harsh under their
feet and the sun blazed on the yellow-gold straw-stacks that piled up
behind the machine. Emma and Mollie came out once to see them
work. Some of the men stopped for a moment and "joshed" with
them, offered to let them run the machine, told them they ought to
be out here helping thresh instead of sitting around the house doing
nothing.

"Ja, doing nothing!" the girls scoffed. "I guess we'd see what
would happen if you didn't get any supper to-night."

"Oh, do you get supper?" Herman Klaus said. "I thought your
ma did that, and you girls set around looking nice." They struck out
at him until he backed off from them, holding up his hands and
shouting, "Hey! Hey! I gotta work! Owgust, come here once and
help!" '

August was too bashful yet to join in. He pretended not to notice,
but he saw the girls, standing there leaning against each other, half
closing their eyes against the sun, which was bright on their black
hair and flushed cheeks, the blue dresses against the blazing gold of
the straw-stacks and the stubble out under the blue prairie-sky. The
chaff filled the air, and the men turned to grin with a flash of white
teeth in their blackened faces. That night August "cleaned up" very
carefully, although usually he didn't think it was much use until
threshing was over.

After that, Herman began to tease him about Emma Stille. August
sat next to her at a bob-ride one night. Either she managed it, or he
did, or Herman and Mollie, he didn't know just who. She had come
with Herman and Mollie and didn't have any fellow of her own

248 RUTH SUCKOW

that night. The moon was not up yet. It was dark except for the dim,
ghostly white glare of the snow. The fur of the buffalo robes was
cold to the touch, but underneath them it was all warm, dark, secret,
and intimate. He could feel Emma beside him, her arm against his,
her feet close to his down in the warm straw in the bottom of the
bob, her frosty breath. When the bob-runners struck a rut, Emma
fell over against August. He steadied her and said, "Whoa, there!"
Then he kept his arm around her the rest of the way until they
stopped at the Stille farm, and she struggled out of the warm nest
of straw under the robes. "Hey, August, ain't you cold? Lost your
girl?" the rest all shouted.

He had never gone to the box socials, always grunting shame-
facedly, "Ach, I don't want to go there; I ain't got no girl to take,"
when Herman urged him to go. But he went to one that winter, out
in the Benning Township school-house where Emma taught. Mollie
told Herman which was Emma's box, and Herman told August— a
big shoe-box covered with ruffled red crepe-paper and a huge green
bow. When it was put up for auction, August turned as red as the
box. Martin Graettinger, a young fellow from Benning Township,
was bidding for it. Now that he had started, August was doggedly
determined to let no one get ahead of him, and although he had no
idea of paying so much, and it made him squirm, he got the box for
three dollars and sixty cents. He and Emma and Mollie and Herman
ate together in a corner of the room, which they barricaded with
chairs, the girls giggling and Herman teasing them, August sitting
red and silent, but happy. People thought that he and Emma would
"go together" now.

But August was slow to get started. He did not take Emma any-
where until the next summer. He was cautious, and, besides, he had to
save his money. Then he and Herman decided to ask the two Stille
girls to go to the Fourth of July celebration at Richland Grove.

They started early and called at the Stille place for the girls. They
had hired a team. They wore their best dark, thick suits, which made
their hands and necks look browner. The girls wore striped summer
dresses with tight basques, and Mollie had fastened a row of "spit-
curls" across her forehead. August did the driving. Emma sat on the
front seat beside him, and Herman and Mollie were "cutting up"
in the back seat, Herman shouting, "Now, Emma, you make that
Owgust act decent up there in front, where I can't look after him."

"You better act decent yourself," Emma retorted. August blushed
furiously.

The big wooden gate of the grove was propped open. "This way,

COUNTRY PEOPLE 249

boys!" a man shouted jovially. They drove in slowly over the fresh
wheel-marks that had smoothed down the long green grass and
looked around for a place to tie. The buggy-wheels scraped over a
stump half hidden in the grass, lifting up the buggy on one side and
making the girls squeal. They stopped. No one seemed to know just
what to do.

"Well, might as well get out," Herman said. "What you girls sit-
ting in here for?" The girls stood aside while the boys staked out
the horses. Then they all wandered off together, not knowing just
what to do now that they were here. There were bunches of girls
going around together, children darting off and being hauled back,
women shrieking, "Come here, Mister! You don't get away yet. Come
back here and fix this swing."

The grove had been well cleared of underbrush, and there were
open spaces through which the sun shone golden-green. There were
bur-oaks in clumps, larger oaks standing apart, full-leaved, casting a
gracious shade. The ground lay in smooth, rounded slopes with long
fine green grass that was full of little whirring things. It was sprin-
kled with wild gooseberry bushes, bitter-smelling white yarrow,
clumps of catnip filled with black-bodied wild bees. The creek was
dry, a narrow stream bed filled with hot white sand. Some children
were running along it with bare feet.

There were swings put up, games going on. Rigs were standing all
about: wagons, buggies of all descriptions, a carryall. Horses, big
farm horses, were staked out with ropes. They would begin to eat
the bark off the trees, and then the men would have to run up and tie
them somewhere else. There were family groups, old ladies sitting
on cushions or in buggies, unattached boys going about hoping to
find girls, men pitching horseshoes. The four young people were
glad when it was time for the program.

The speaker's stand was built of fresh new planks, with a resiny
scent, bound around with red-white-and-blue bunting. There was an
amphitheatre of planks laid across low saw-horses. August and Her-
man and the two girls stood at the edge of the crowd. There was a
smell of perspiring people, cloth, starched dresses, planks. Babies
cried. The chorus sang patriotic songs. A strong, fierce-looking girl
went pounding to the front of the platform and declaimed "Barbara
Frietchie" in a loud, coarse voice. When she came to "Dame Barbara
snatched the silken scarf," she caught up the flag and waved it wildly.
Some people clapped, others looked half gratified and half foolish.
The chorus sang again, "We're tenting to-night on the old camp
ground." Despite harsh untrained voices, there was something touch-

250 RUTH SUCKOW

ing about the sad cadences, sung there in the open, breezy grove.
State Representative Calkins, from "Wapsie," spoke. There was a
scraping and moving-about when he first came forward, and then a
long silence before he began. He spoke loudly, but it was hard to
hear him. The breeze seemed to carry his voice away from all except
the people directly in front of him. The children were still playing
in the swings. Young people who did not care about speeches, the oak
leaves rustling, the horses, the whispering on the outskirts of the
audience, drowned the speech. Herman and Mollie got tired of it
and slipped away. August and Emma felt foolish when they saw that
the others had gone. Emma's brother, Willie Stille, was in the chorus,
and he sat up there grinning at them.

They sat near the buggy to eat their lunch. Emma and Mollie had
brought a huge lunch in a big red pasteboard box. The table-cloth
was hunched up in places by little spears and bunches of grass. But
eating seemed to dispel their awkwardness.

After dinner the boys went away for a while and pitched horse-
shoes. The girls went to sleep, and awoke with hot, shiny faces. They
took down their hair, and were just putting it up again when the
boys came back. They squealed. The boys teased Mollie about her
spit-curls until she got angry and threw them away. Herman put
them on and pranced around, and then he had to go after Mollie
and make peace. August and Emma sat down on the buggy-robe on
the grass. August took off his heavy felt hat. There was a white band
of flesh that shaded into red-brown below the golden roots of his
hair. The oak leaves rustled dreamily.

August and Emma wandered off together. They crossed the hot
white stream bed and climbed the hill, sat down in the shade be-
tween some trees and gooseberry bushes. Emma picked some of the
gooseberries to take home, and August helped her pull off the woody
little hulls. He put his hand over hers in the grass. The hand quiv-
ered, and he held it closer, his hard brown fingers grasping a little
higher on the wrist. There was an exciting incongruity between their
halting self-conscious talk and the warm, thrilling animal intimacy
of their hot, moist palms in the long fine grass. The shouting from
the races down on the level ground came to them long-drawn-out and
dreamily distant. They were aware of the little green things that
jumped about in the grass and of the heat of their two hands on the
cool earth near the grass roots.

When they went back, Mollie and Herman were sitting in the
buggy "spooning."

August made Herman drive home. He and Emma sat in the back

COUNTRY PEOPLE 251

seat. Herman kept saying, "Why are you two so quiet back there?"

"Ach, you shut up, and tend to your driving." August put his arm
around Emma. She took off her hat and put her head against his
shoulder. The weeds along the roadside were damp, and wet night
odours and mists came up from the fields. There was nothing but rid-
ing, jolting on through the dusk, the horses' hoofs pounding on the
hard road, the buggy-wheels scraping.

After that August and Emma "kept company right along." The old
lady Stille made little trouble, for she wanted her girls to be mar-
ried. Wilhelm Stille promised to let them go on one of his farms,
the one between Richland and "Wapsie," with the privilege of pay-
ing for it gradually. Emma did not teach country school the next
year, but stayed at home getting ready to be married. The wedding
would be as soon as August had enough saved to start them out on
the farm.

The first day that August could get away they drove into "Wapsie."
The four of them again, in the Stilles' two-seated buggy, August and
Emma and Herman and Mollie. It was late February, just before the
last thaw. The road to "Wapsie" was a winter study in dull black
and white. The snow, which had an opaque, thick look under the
colourless winter sky, drifted down the black earth of the slopes; the
plum-trees in interlaced masses along the creek, low, spreading, done
in smoky black, purple tinging the massed farther trees and the
bushes; the creek half under thin greyish ice cracked and broken
down in places; the road dead black, sifted over with fine snow. The
buggy looked small on that great expanse of land, the hoofs of the
horses on the hard wintry road made a lonesome sound.

The town had a closed-up winter look. The girls did not speak as
they drove along the wintry street. They sat small and subdued in
their heavy country wraps and dark knitted hoods. They drove to
the court-house. The two boys tramped solemnly into the old brick
building, with its dusty wooden floors and brown spittoons and
glimpses of littered rooms, with shelves stuck full of records. August
got the licence of the county clerk, a little crippled man with one
shoulder higher than the other.

Then they drove to the minister's house.

The girls got out of the buggy and stood stiffly on the board side-
walk while the boys tied the team to a wooden hitching-post. All
four went solemnly up the walk to the house. They did not know
whether to knock or to open the storm-door. No one heard them at
first, and they went into the chilly, bare little entry, where overshoes
and a fibre mat were piled, until August finally rang the bell.

252 RUTH SUCKOW

"Ring again once," Emma whispered.

The minister's wife came, tall, gaunt, with spectacles. She said in
a businesslike way:

"Did you wish to see Mr. Taylor? Step inside."

They filed silently into the parlour. They sat waiting, the girls
clasping their hands nervously, staring at the hard-coal burner, the
lounge, the pink sea-shell on the stand.

The minister came in with hastily brushed hair. They sat in
frozen embarrassment.

"Is there anything I can do for you?"

August cleared his throat resolutely. He and Herman had been
turning their caps on their knees, with hands red from the cold.

"We came to get married. If you "

"Oh, certainly, certainly," Mr. Taylor assured them hastily.

Mrs. Taylor had thought "wedding" when they first came in, and
had come back into the room. Now she asked the girls if they would
not like to take off their wraps. She offered to let them go into the
bedroom "if they wanted to fix up any," but they shyly refused. Au-
gust asked her where the kitchen was, and after he had washed his
hands at the granite basin, he came back and murmured, "Do you
want to wash up, Emma?"

After many backings and exchanging of places, with a nervous de-
termination on Mr. Taylor's part to mistake Mollie for the bride,
which made Herman blush, the wedding party was arranged. August
and Emma stood between the two windows, with Herman and
Mollie in frozen attitudes on each side of them, and Mr. Taylor
facing them.

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered together in the presence of God
and these witnesses to join this man and this woman in the holy
bonds of matrimony."

The voice sounded sonorous in the small, bleak room. Emma stood
in trembling quietness. August had to clear his throat, and then his
voice came out gruffly. Herman breathed hard and eased his weight.
Some coal dropped in the stove.

They felt shy and happy under the congratulations of Mr. and
Mrs. Taylor. They signed the certificate, and August fished in his
pocket and brought out two dollars for the minister. Emma said that
they would bring his wife a chicken in the summer.

They drove back to the farm down the dim, chilly road, the bare
bushes thin and small, the fields spreading out black and sprinkled
with snow. There was a wintry red in the Western sky.

They had supper at the Stilles', where the old lady had got up a

COUNTRY PEOPLE 253

big meal for them, inviting in all the married children. Emma was
to stay there until August "got things fixed" at the farm and could
come after her. But he had to go straight over to the farm in the morn-
ing. One of the Stille boys was staying there now, looking after
things, but the next day August was to take possession.

PART TWO

I: THE FARM AND THE CHILDREN

The farm, when August and Emma first went there, didn't look
much as it did later. It was one that Wilhelm Stille had got hold
of almost by accident through a mortgage. It had had a poor owner,
and then renters on it, so that it was in bad shape. Willie Stille had
been "batching it" there during the winter months, but of course
he knew that he wasn't going to stay, and had done no more than
keep things going. But it was a piece of land that would pay the man
who really took hold of it.

Few of the present improvements were there. The buildings were
flimsily built affairs, some of them unpainted. There was a little one-
story house with old-fashioned small-paned windows, dismal and dark
and ugly. No yard, no bushes or flowers, and over on the west a
tangled, half-grown wilderness of all kinds of trees and bushes planted
together. August cut all those down later, except the double row of
elms that he left for a wind-break. One thing there was, a good well.
Otherwise it was like building a place up from the beginning.

The old lady Stille would have liked to keep the farm in her own
hands, to have had August and Emma stay there merely as renters.
She liked to keep a hold on the children. But August would not go
there under any such conditions. He meant to work without stopping
until he had paid for the farm. He had a genuine Kaetterhenry ob-
stinacy and a desire to do things for himself. He would not stand
interference; his mother-in-law soon found that out.

The Kaetterhenrys started in with almost nothing, as most young
couples did in those days. August had something saved from all his
years of work; Emma did not know exactly how much. He spent this
very thriftily. At first they would have to get along with as little as
they could, "until they got the farm paid for." He paid for part of
his stock and implements and went in debt for the rest. To have a
farm free from encumbrances; to own "clear" the stock, the machin-
ery, and the land, was what he was working for. All that he had or
could make went into the farm.

The house— ach, that didn't matter so much. It was a gloomy, bare

254 RUTH SUCKOW

little house. Emma brought along what she could from home: com-
forters that she and her sisters had been making through the winter;
some goosefeather pillows; rag rugs that she had sewed; some heavy
white dishes, with a brown rim, and a clover leaf in the centre, that
she and Mollie had picked out in the store in Richland. August and
Emma drove into town one day and got what furniture they would
need: a black walnut bed and commode; a kitchen table and stove;
chairs; a parlour stand. There were wedding presents. Emma's father
gave them a clock, and her mother a feather-bed. Hans Stille, who
was known as "quite a carpenter," made them a tall narrow desk and
bookcase of home-grown black walnut. August's sister Mina sent them
a "splasher" for the commode on which she had worked in red outline
stitch some ducks and waves. The Stille boys gave them an album with
orange plush covers, and Mollie and Herman Klaus, who were going
to be married soon, bought them a set of vases, with cat-tails en-
crusted in gold on the sides. Their living was done in the kitchen and
bedroom. The front room, which had the rag carpet, the stand, the
vases, and the album, and a large German Bible, they kept shut off.

They could not afford help. August did most of the work himself.
He got up at daylight, or earlier, and it was dark before he finished
his chores in the evening. He was "one of the best workers around,"
people said. He was going to have a good place here some day. One
or another of the Stille boys came over and helped when the work
was heaviest. Emma had to help him in the field. August saw noth-
ing unusual in that, although most of the farmers' wives here were
not seen in the fields. All "the womenfolks" had had to help over in
the Turkey timber. He had always seen his mother and his sister
Lena out working with the men. He expected it of his "woman."

There was not much but work for them these days. They had no
buggy at first, only a wagon. But they drove into church when they
could on Sunday mornings. Church— that was somehow part of do-
ing well, of living the way they should and getting prosperous. They
couldn't go off the place often, since they had no one to leave with
the stock. And when they did go, they must always be back in time
for chores. August got away more than Emma did; he had trips to
make into town. Emma soon found out that he was not the kind who
would take her with him. His mother had never gone to town. He
did all of the buying. He had a shrewd, hard feeling that he must
keep things in his own hands if he was going to get ahead. He had
that thrifty, bull-headed Kaetterhenry streak in him that showed in
his attitude toward the woman. Emma hated to ask him for things.
She went out to the wagon timidly, said, "August, do you think you

COUNTRY PEOPLE 255

could get me a little of that calico, maybe?" He grunted. He would
get it if he thought she needed it, but he decided that.

Emma settled down quickly into a young farm wife. She "lost her
giggles," as the family said, and got an air of timidity that was an
accentuation of her old shyness. She was thin, with skin burned dark,
and tired, hollow eyes. She seldom got out of her wrappers. August
was close; he did not tell her things. He expected a good deal of her.
But, still, as her sisters told her and as she knew, she had got a good
man. He would have a fine farm some day, and then she would be
glad that they had worked while they were young.

Then the children were born, Frankie, Mary, Elva, Carl. That
kept Emma busy enough. While she had only the first two, she still
helped in the field. Frankie and Mary were easy to manage. But
when Elva was born, Emma had a hard time. It had to be right in
haying-time, the men there, and no one to feed them, no one to look
after the other children. They got August's sister Mina, a fat, kind,
melancholy woman now, who worked at anything that she could find
to do; but the old lady Stille couldn't stand it to have any of August's
folks there. She came over, "nosing in," as August said, and she drove
out even Mina, who was used to all kinds of treatment. Emma had to
get up before she was ready and go to work again. There was no time
for rest these days, she said, even if a person was sick. But she was
never quite so well from that time.

After the first two, she had to stop helping August outside. She still
helped with the milking, took care of the chickens and geese and the
milk and cream, and made butter. She had all that she could do in
the house. Wherever she went, the children were following her— in
dingy, much-washed blue dresses, made too large, so that they could
be handed along and fit the next one— little, frowzy-headed country
children, toddling after her, pulling at her skirt, under her feet wher-
ever she stepped. The older ones could play outdoors by themselves,
but there was always a baby in the red high-chair beside the stove
while she cooked or ironed; and she would have to stop to change dia-
pers, cry, "No, no, you can't have that!" snatch the child hurriedly up,
murmuring, remorsefully but a little fretfully, "Come on now. No,
mamma ain't forgot all about you. Did you think she had? Can't you
let mamma get back to her work now?" Sometimes she was fretful
and anxious. But Emma never seemed to get really cross. She never
sprang up and "took a whack at them," like Mollie, and then got
ashamed of herself.

Emma did not look so strong, but she could keep going.

The two oldest children, Frankie and Mary, had always been "real

256 RUTH SUCKOW

good." Emma had never had any trouble with them when they were
babies. They were both quiet, slim, dark-haired children, like some
of the Stilles. They would always play together and amuse them-
selves, Mary especially. Mary was always a great one for school. When
she was a tiny thing she used to play school out near the corn-crib,
with the ears of corn, with their long silken hair, for "scholars," all
arranged in a row before her, their hair braided, wearing little hats
of leaves trimmed with clover blossoms, which she carefully removed
when school began. She tried to read before she knew one letter from
another; anything, the texts on the coloured Sunday-school cards,
seed catalogues that came to the house, the labels on baking-powder
cans. "She must be going to be a school-teacher when she grows up,"
people said.

Elva was the odd one. She didn't seem to belong to the rest of the
family. Perhaps it was because she had been sickly when she was a
baby and had had some "spoiling." She had been twice as much
trouble as the other two put together. When she was a baby she used
to have spells of holding her breath, and even her father had a hard
time to manage her. She had fine, red-gold hair and a very white skin,
although she was never exactly pretty. She liked to get out of things
and to leave Mary to do them.

She still took more care than Carl, when he was born three years
later. Carl was the one who took after his father most. He had the
light hair, ruddy skin, blue eyes, and was stocky and sturdy. He kept
things to himself, too. Carl was August's favourite. August was never
much of a hand to be around the children, but he paid more atten-
tion to Carl.

August wanted his children to have what other children had, but
he thought they ought to help. Frankie had to help his father out in
the field as soon as he was big enough to go out there. August wasn't
going to pay for help when he had boys of his own. "My, how those
Kaetterhenrys all work!" people would exclaim. They would see this
little fellow out in the field, in the burning sun, working just like
a man. Looking like a man, too, in his blue overalls and big straw
hat. It didn't seem to August that his children had it hard. He re-
membered his own childhood and how his father had made all of
them slave. He didn't work Frankie like that. August wouldn't have
thought of having Frankie go and hire out off the place, as he had
had to do. Frankie didn't know what it was to have to get along as
his father had done at some of those places where he had worked,
Grobaty's, for instance, where he used to sleep in the straw. August
could not see that he was hard on the boy. But other people said that

COUNTRY PEOPLE 2j7

Frankie was a man before his time. A short, dark, sober boy with
brown skin, always looking a little stunted, especially in that best
suit of dark, thick cloth, the blue tie, and the brown felt hat, that
he wore to Sunday school,

August never required Mary to help on the place, as his oldest
sister had done. That hadn't hurt Lena any. Look at her now, a big
stout woman, mother of seven children, stronger than it seemed Mary
would ever be. Mary was obedient and good, and she was a great help
with the housework and the little ones. The trouble with her was
that she didn't have her mind on what she was doing. She always had
to have her nose in a book, anything that she could get hold of, the
big German Bible, a "History of the Civil War" that August was
once inveigled into buying from an agent, the mail-house catalogues.
Those catalogues opened up worlds to Mary. She could hardly wait
for her father to go into town to the post office when it was time for
a new one to come. She couldn't bear to go past anything that had
printing on it. When they were driving along the road and saw a
piece of newspaper, she would beg to get out and capture it. August
thought this was silly. He could see no sense in a girl's wanting to
read and study so much.

"Ach, what do you always have to be reading for?" the others said.

But the oldest girl in a family like theirs didn't get much chance
to read.

The country school was two miles from the Kaetterhenry farm.
August always "aimed" to let the children go. They walked the two
miles back and forth, taking their lunch in tin pails. They went
"pretty regular," except when they were needed at home, Frankie for
the farm work and Mary to help with the babies. Elva didn't care
much for school, but Mary made a terrible fuss, they said, when she
had to miss.

That school seemed pretty fine to August when he thought of what
he had had. That old Turkey Creek school with teachers coming and
going! This was a nice frame building, painted pink, with desks and
seats like those in the town school. And then they had a teacher for
the whole term. A high-school girl from Richland usually (the high
school there gave a two-year course) who was teaching a few terms
of country school before getting married. Mary was always talking
about town school, but August couldn't see but that they got about
as good as what they'd get in town. All they needed, anyway.

August and Emma wanted to do the best for their children that
they could. It worried Emma that they couldn't always get in to
Sunday school; that was more important than the other school. That

258 RUTH SUCKOW

was bringing the children up right. August bought a buggy so that
he could take them. They drove in on Sunday mornings— August and
Frankie on the front seat, in the back the two girls, and Emma hold-
ing little Carl on her lap. Often they got there too late for church,
but they were in time for Sunday school. Mary and Elva in funny
little dresses too long for them, stiff best hats with elastic under their
chins, hair in tight black and blond braids tied with little pieces of
narrow blue ribbon. Frankie clumping in heavy shoes that smelled
of blacking, looking too old for his age in his heavy dark suit with
"long pants" and a brown felt hat like his father's.

They prized the coloured cards that they got, with pictures and
the golden text on them, showing Christ, with brown curly hair, in
white robes, the disciples in blue and red (blue for John, who was
pictured as almost as pretty as Jesus). Their Sunday-school papers
were treasured during the week— The Boy's Friend, The Girl's
Friend, Dew Drops. Mary read the stories avidly. Even Emma got
into the habit of looking at the serials in The Girl's Friend, although
she never actually finished one.

The children were shy, and wouldn't say much in Sunday school,
Mary and Elva because of the town girls, who wore better dresses
than they did. But they all looked forward to Sunday school, loved
the cards, the papers, the drive to town, the hymns, jingly Methodist
"Sabbath-school" hymns, "There Is Power in the Blood," "Jesus Paid
It All," "The Old-time Religion." Mary wished that they had an
organ so that she could learn to play these songs at home, and Emma
admitted wistfully that it "would be nice." When they went to Henry
Stille's, where there was an organ in the closed, chilly front room,
Mary went in and learned to "pick out the tune," or something like
the tune.

"Until they got all this paid for once"— that was the answer to
everything, new house, new furniture, organ.

The old Stilles did not like it very well that their grandchildren
were going to "English church." August and Emma did not speak
German in the home, as the old people had done.

"Ach, das ist nicht recht!" the old man Stille would say sadly. He
wondered what would become of them all.

II: GRANDMA AND GRANDPA

The house simply wouldn't hold them all. Three years after Carl
there was Johnnie. And then the old Stilles wanted to give up their
home and come to live with August and Emma. August hated to do

COUNTRY PEOPLE 259

anything with the house until he had a better barn, but there was
no way out of it. The old Stilles would help a little.

Hans Stille was working over near "Wapsie." He was the only one
who never married, a little, shy, dark-haired man with shining, dark-
brown eyes and timid, gentle ways. Mary was like him in some ways,
the Kaetterhenrys said when they were provoked at Mary. He never
seemed to settle down and get anywhere, but there was not much in
the line of handy things that he couldn't do. He stayed with August
and Emma all that summer and the next. They moved back the old
house, used the two old front rooms for kitchen and bedroom, and
built on three new rooms in front and an upstairs with two rooms.
It looked like a nice modern house when they got through with it,
although the upstairs was never fully finished— white, with pink trim-
mings, a narrow porch, a triangle of wooden lace under the peak in
front. The next summer Hans made over the two old back rooms
into a corn-crib and tool-house.

Then there had to be new things for the house, of course. They
ordered some new furniture from the catalogue, a combination desk
and bookcase for the front room (they used the old one that Hans
had made for a cupboard), a new stationary rocker upholstered in
green-flowered velvet. They got a new bedroom set for themselves,
dresser, commode, and bed of golden oak, the bed with a high head-
board. They put the old walnut things in the boys' room, the big
end room, left half finished, used as a store-room, too.

When the old Stilles came they brought some of their things with
them,— their long extension table and some chairs for the dining-
room; grandpa's old German books, queer ancient things with faded
black and brownish bindings, religious books; some old home-made
walnut beds and feather-beds; ancient quilts of dark woollen pieces.
The little old downstairs bedroom in the back now became ''grand-
ma's and grandpa's room," a small, dark, stuffy room with an uneven
floor, one dingy, small-paned window. They set up an ancient walnut
dresser with a little dark-framed mirror hung above it, an old rope
bed piled high with billowy feather-mattresses, with dark-looking
musty-smelling quilts over them; and on nails in one corner, grand-
ma's and grandpa's clothes— an old brown waistcoat, the coat in which
grandpa had done his preaching, some big gaping country shoes, and
grandma's dark dresses and stealthy-looking grey shawls and old black
petticoats. The two big wooden rockers stood there, and beside one
of them an ancient brown spittoon.

One thing that the old people brought was an organ. One of the
old carpeted pedals would not work. It was put into the sepulchral

260 RUTH SUCKOW

front room, and August declared that he could pay for no lessons.
But somehow Mary managed to pick out a few hymn tunes on it.
Maybe some day some of them could "take."

The old people had had misfortunes. After getting together a
good-sized pile of money from his land, grandpa had made poor in-
vestments. Some he had lost in Colorado gold-mines; and a German
Methodist insurance company advertised in the flaming German
monthly which he took, Die Flammende Fackel, had swindled him
out of more. His son Willie took the home farm, but some of the
rent would have to go to make up losses. Old Wilhelm Stille had
long been on the verge of joining a communistic colony in Wisconsin
of some wild Methodist sect, but the old lady had kept him from it;
and now that he had so little money to put into the common fund,
the colony seemed much less eager to get him. So he went instead to
his daughter Emma's. The old lady shrewdly suspected that her son-
in-law August was likely to have the best home for them in the long
run.

They moved over soon after the new house was finished. August
was close, but he would do what he must. He realized that he owed
some of his start to his wife's people, but he determined that the old
lady should know her place.

The old folks were now "Grandma" and "Grandpa" Stille to every-
one. They had aged greatly in the last few years. It seemed as if
grandpa had changed, now that he no longer had farm affairs to
attend to, and that his "religious side" had come uppermost. He was
thin, with a lean face, a large nose, scant, straight silvery-white hair
that grew long, a white beard, and deep-set, mystical, dark eyes. His
thin voice was gentler, had a far-away sound. He was feeble, and
when he first came, they feared that he wouldn't last long. He couldn't
do much but sit in the wooden rocker with the calico cushion, smok-
ing a black pipe and reading his old German religious books and
papers.

The old lady was squatter, craftier-looking than ever, with that
round, wrinkled face, the smooth hair showing the broad, worn white
parting, the round ear-rings, her eyes now two slits in narrowed, lash-
less rims. She went softly about in slippers, in a shapeless dark-grey
calico dress and dingy, black apron, a scarf tied over her head. At
first she tried to run things. She tried to tell the children what they
should do and she protested against every cent that the family spent,
wanted them to live in every way just as she and grandpa had lived.

Emma was going to submit to grandma's interfering at first. The
old lady had always had all of the children— and grandpa, too— under

COUNTRY PEOPLE 261

her thumb, ruling them through their fear of her meanness. But
August had no intention of letting grandma get the upper hand. He-
had stood things from grandma before, when she had come snooping
over to see how they were running the farm and to exclaim at the
waste. But things were changed now. He had finished paying for the
farm a good while ago, although he had not actually admitted it to
Emma, thinking the less the womenfolks knew about that sort of
thing the better. This was his own house now. No woman was going
to come around and tell him how to run it.

Grandma soon found that there was one person whom she couldn't
rule. All her schemes, her craft, her sullenness, and her tantrums,
which had always got her what she wanted as a last resort, were pow-
erless against August's stubbornness. She was a little afraid of August
from the start. She tried to get in her work without August's know-
ing it, when he was out of the house; but when he came in and found
out what she was up to, then there were battles. The children sat in
terrified, wide-eyed awe, and Emma wept a little, silently and trem-
blingly, while grandpa pleaded, moaning sadly, "Ma— Mutter— ach,
no! no! no!" The children had never seen anyone like grandma at
these times. The old woman could be a fury. But August was stronger
than she. She found that she could not conquer him as she had the
others. She was reduced to impotence, to angry mutterings, while she
eyed August with a bitter, vengeful, helpless glare.

She had always had sullen times when no one could do anything
with her. She had them now— times when she would not eat or move
or speak, when, after grandpa and Emma had vainly tried to call her
to meals, the children were sent to the door of her room. They found
her sitting there in her old wooden rocker in the gloomy, low-ceiled
room, among her old household things and her shawls and dresses, a
tragic, baffled, ominous old figure, shapeless and huddled together in
her dark, dingy old clothes, with her feet in their spreading, black
felt slippers, rocking, and muttering, in guttural German, things that
they could not understand.

This was the only revenge against August that she had. He let her
be when she was like this. But she knew that even in this she dared
not go too far. August was the only one who had ever been able to
manage her. Far down underneath her anger and bitterness there
was a kind of admiration of him. He was hard and thrifty and strong
and a good farmer. She secretly despised her other son-in-law, Her-
man Klaus, beside him— Herman, a little, dried-up, undersized man
who let Mollie have the say-so. August was not a "blower." He was
close-mouthed, and the old woman admired that. And she secretly

262 RUTH SUCKOW

approved of his looks. You could tell from them that not many peo-
ple were going to get ahead of him. Sturdy, square-set, heavy, but
not fat, in his old blue shirt and overalls, with his ruddy face and
blue eyes and the harsh outcropping of golden beard upon his sun-
burned skin, and the golden hairs on his thick brown arms. His hair
was not so heavy now; there was a bald spot on top, but the old lady
thought contemptuously that he looked younger than Emma did. She
secretly thought that he was too good a man for Emma, whom she
considered weak and lappisch.

Having the old folks there made more work for Emma. Her father
she didn't mind. He made no more trouble than he could help. He
tried to come out of his dreams to do what he could for her. He
gathered the eggs, helped to hitch up the horses, kept the little ones
out of the way sometimes when she was busy. Marguerite, the young-
est, who was born after grandma and grandpa came, was his favourite.
A pretty, wilful little baby, knowing very well that she was the
youngest and had privileges, with a fuzz of golden curls and bright
blue eyes. She was the only child born in the new house, and she
seemed to come into a different order of things. Even her father was
less severe with her than with the others. Grandpa put aside his old
papers, trotted her on his knee, sang old German hymns to her in a
faint high-pitched voice that seemed to come from a different world,
took her out obediently to see the "calfies," made Johnnie give up
his playthings to her. Emma had plenty to do besides, and was glad
to have grandpa look after Marguerite.

Grandma had always worked hard at home, but she wanted to say
how things should be done. Here she complained that she was useless;
no one paid any attention to her. She would have helped with the
cooking. But, ' Ach, I don't know," Emma told Mollie. "Ma has her
old ways of doing things, and the children they don't seem to like
what she makes." She clung more than ever to her old ways now,
spoke almost nothing but German, would not leave the place or ride
in the new buggy, would use none of the "new-fangled" things except
the telephone. That was grandma's one solace. She could sit "listen-
ing in" for an hour at a time, a look of stealthy gratification on her
face, hearing everything: her daughter Mollie call a neighbour, Her-
man call in from town to Mollie and say what he was going to buy
for Sunday, long conversations between two country women, deals
between men. But they could never get her to speak into the tele-
phone herself.

Grandpa had been the one who was ailing when the old people
came. But, although he stayed somewhat feeble and tremulous, when

COUNTRY PEOPLE 263

his troubles and farm worries were off his shoulders at last, he seemed
to get better and sink into a kind of irresponsible sweet content,
dreaming, reading his old books, playing with Marguerite. It was
grandma who was ailing now. They didn't know what was the matter
with her. She took more and more looking after. One morning when
she got out of bed she fell, and couldn't get up. They had to have
August come in and lift her. Afterwards they thought that it must
have been "kind of a stroke." She seemed to get all right again, and
yet they thought that it was hard for her to lift her feet, and that she
mumbled a little sometimes when she tried to talk. Always in Emma's
mind was the fear of the time when her mother might be helpless,
like the old lady Schuldt, and have to be taken care of.

It all came on Emma. Grandpa helped a little, but there was more
washing, more cooking and more cleaning. It seemed as if she lived
more than ever in the kitchen. Neighbours consoled her. "Well, now
you can go more. You can leave the children with grandma and
grandpa and get away." Maybe they did go a little more than before.
They had a nice, big, leather-topped, two-seated buggy now. There
were the boys to help August with the chores, so that he didn't have
it all to do.

They went into church often on Sundays, leaving the two smallest
ones with grandpa. August and Emma joined the Bible class, which
was taught by the Hon. H. G. Bossingham, who had served a term
as State representative and got the "Honourable" before his name.
August never talked in the class, but he enjoyed it more than any-
thing since he used to attend the old German country church near
Turkey Creek. Emma liked it, but she didn't always feel like com-
ing. Either she or Mary had to stay at home and see about the din-
ner, and it had better be she, since, if she came, she felt uneasy about
grandma.

They had their outings, like the other country people. They drove
in to the Fourth of July celebration at "Wapsie" on a blistering hot
day, leaving their team and buggy at the park and tramping the burn-
ing streets, where red-white-and-blue bunting was hung between the
telephone poles. A silent country party, ill at ease, the girls in home-
made lawn dresses of blue, with cheap lace, the boys sunburned and
short, like little old men in their heavy clothes and felt hats. The hot
cement burned through their stiff Sunday shoes. They listened to the
band concert and the speech in the park. They brought their dinner
in a big pasteboard box, and they and Herman's family ate together
on the grass, fried chicken, thick bread and butter, pickles, coco-nut
cake. The children teased for ice-cream, which the Baptist Ladies'

264 RUTH SUCKOW

Aid were serving, but August said there were too many of them and
that they had enough without. The children liked to come, but there
was all that work beforehand getting up the big lunch and getting
all the children ready, then looking after them while they were there
and getting them all together to go home again. Emma and Mollie
said tiiat they'd almost as soon stay at home.

They went to the county fair, held every September in the fair
grounds at "Wapsie." They drove, and Herman and Mollie drove,
and they took big boxes of lunch again and ate together. The men
enjoyed the races, but the women liked to go into the big, flimsy
wooden building, where the fancy work and cooking-exhibits were
held, walking about and looking and murmuring to each other,
"There's Mrs. Lempcke's quilt. It didn't get a prize. Look at that big
pincushion with the blue tag on it. Do you think that's so pretty as
all that?" Mollie brought some things once or twice, but Emma said,
"Ach, I ain't got time for all such things."

The children always teased for more money than August would
give them— wanted lemonade and wanted to go into all the shows.
The older children now began to go by themselves. Mary and Elva
went with two "fellows" in a buggy, and Frank teased for grandpa's
old one-seated buggy so that he could take his girl. The parents would
meet the young people about the fair grounds, four or six going
around together, Elva always giggling and "carrying on" until Emma
was ashamed of her. They saw them at the lemonade and the ice-cream
stands, and saw them carrying toy balloons. But they never met Frank
and his girl. They didn't know where those two kept themselves.

August and Emma never went anywhere without the children ex-
cept once to "open-air conference" down in the Turkey timber.
While they were gone, Elva and the two little ones came down with
scarlet fever. Emma said she'd never try that again. It was worse than
staying at home.

Then grandma had the "stroke" that they had all been looking
for. She was completely paralysed, and never got out of bed again.
She didn't seem to realize much, but she never let anyone but Emma
do things for her, except that she wanted August to turn and lift her.
She was in bed for five years.

Emma lived between bedroom and kitchen, the kitchen a narrow,
low-ceiled room, calcimined in green, the little window with gera-
niums in tin cans looking out across the back yard to the small
orchard.

Emma always said that these were the hardest years of all.

COUNTRY PEOPLE 265

III: LOOSENING UP

Things were a little easier after grandma's death. At first Emma
could scarcely realize that she could really leave the place, that when
she worked she needn't always have the feeling that she ought to go
in and look at grandma. In a way she missed the fact that grandma
no longer needed her. But grandma had scarcely been a person to
anyone for the last five years— only a responsibility, a gnawing sense
of worry under everything. Nearly all the feeling connected with
grandma had been fear, defence, rebellion, care, worry. Emma could
not help feeling the relief that slowly seeped through everything.

Grandpa they didn't mind, he made so little trouble. He stayed
about the same, as Emma told people, except that he seemed in a
way to have withdrawn himself to a greater distance, that he seemed
to be living in some region of his own. Only when some old friend
or neighbour came out occasionally, and they got to talking of
religion, he would come out of his dreams. They could hear him
praying aloud in his room sometimes, the children coming in wide-
eyed and whispering, "Mamma, listen to grandpa in there!" "Unser
Vater . . . in dem Himmel/' the German words sounding rich, feel-
ing, even in his thin, high-pitched voice, with long pauses between.
He sat nearly always in his own room. Marguerite was bigger now,
she didn't need him. He looked just about as when he had first come
to the farm— tall, thin, bent, with his narrow, lined face and white
beard, thin, silvery hair, his deep-burning, dark eyes.

August was getting a few things now. He was putting improve-
ments on the place. He had put up the big new barn, and Hans
Stille, who was keeping some bees now and doing a little farming
over on the other side of Richland, had come for the summer again
and made over the old buildings. August had all the farm buildings
painted white, but the house would have to wait awhile for its new
coat. They had a good milk-separator now, and Hans had fixed up a
milk-house for them. August kept everything in fine repair. He kept
all his machinery under cover, had no old ploughs and shredders
standing about in the grove, like Herman Klaus and some other
farmers. But he did not do much to the house. He had put in a sink
in the kitchen, with a wooden cupboard underneath, and a soft-
water pump. That was about all.

August and Emma had been too busy really to know that they
were getting older. They had to look at the children to realize that.
Emma looked older. Her hair was getting grey. She had always been
slender, but she began to take on flesh now. People joked her about

266 RUTH SUCKOW

it. said, "You're getting fleshy, ain't you? You must be makin' the
girls do the work for you." She said, without rancour, that she
guessed she'd always been on her feet too much to get any flesh be-
fore. She'd run it all off. It made her look older instead of younger,
dumpy and shapeless and middle-aged. She had to put on glasses,
too. She should have done so long ago. She ordered a pair from a
man who came around with a little card testing eyes, and who fitted
people out with glasses cheap. But when farmers who had known
August Kaetterhenry around Turkey Creek happened to meet him
in town, they said, "Well, you ain't got so much older a'ready, Au-
gust." He looked a little heavier, his neck creased and red, but in
general about the same.

It was the children who were changing. Frank was a man now,
they had to realize, although he was a short little fellow and didn't
look any older than Carl when you saw them out in the field to-
gether. He had once wanted to be a mechanic, but he had given
up that notion and was going to get married and settle down to
farming. He had been going with the same girl for five or six years
now— Lottie Schenck, a heavy, coarse, hard-working girl. People were
all asking when the wedding was to be.

August would miss Frank when he left the place, but Carl and
Johnnie would help. Johnnie might take hold better if Frank wasn't
there to do things. He was the restless one. Neither of the other boys
could be relied upon quite so much as Frank. They hadn't been
brought up to work so hard. But August always believed that Carl
would make a better farmer than Frank when he settled down to it.
It was hard to tell about Johnnie.

Frank was looking around for a place to farm. August was doing
most of the looking, however. He had always wanted to get hold of
the next piece of land, where those LaRues had lived, and now,
finally, the last of them was pulling out and going to Colorado. He
took the farm for Frank. Frank was to pay him back eventually in
the form of rent. August wanted to see the boy get a good start. He
might be realizing a little, although he didn't admit it, that he had
been harder on Frank than on the other boys. And he didn't mind
having that other two hundred acres. It was a good investment, and
made him the owner of four hundred acres of the best land, all there
together. It gave him an excuse, too, to say to the family, who were
getting to want too many things, "Needn't ask for that until I've got
back some of what I paid for Frank's farm."

Mary was the one who was giving them trouble. More than Elva
now, who had been inclined to be wild and to run around with fel-

COUNTRY PEOPLE 267

lows whom her parents couldn't approve. Mary had always been
such a good child except for that weakness for reading. The only
time they had had any trouble with her had been when she'd been
determined to study to be a teacher and to go to the little Methodist
academy at Wesley. August had said that she could teach country
school without going there. He had too many children to send them
away to school. She'd settle down and marry like the rest of them,
and there'd be his money wasted. She had seemed to give that up
and not to say anything more about it. She had taken to dress-
making a little, had gone about to the neighbouring farms as people
called for her. Of course she hadn't made much at it, because she
was just Mary Kaetterhenry, someone whom they all knew; but it
had given her something to do and got that crazy notion out of her
head.

But now she began to have some queer spells. No one knew what
to call them. The neighbour women were all interested, wondered
if they could be fits, wanted to know all the symptoms. She would
get pale and seem to stiffen out. The neighbours all advised different
things, brought over remedies that had helped them. August and
Emma bought her large bottles of "nerve tonic" at the drug-store,
but that didn't seem to help. They were frightened, even to the ex-
tent of hitching up and taking her in to old Dr. Bowen's office in
Richland. He gave them a prescription, but he didn't seem to know
much more than they did what was the cause of the thing. They
"kind of lost confidence in Bowen," they said. A neighbour told
them about this new "rubber doctor" in "Wapsie," and how he had
cured her brother's wife. Mary wanted to try him. They took her
into "Wapsie." He told them that some bone was out of place and
was pressing on a nerve; and although they didn't see how that had
caused the spells, they thought they'd try him. He wanted Mary to
come in twice a week for treatment. $1.50 a treatment, a lot of
money to pay for that little rubbing, but they were worried now.
For a time it seemed that the treatments were helping her. Then all
at once she got worse than ever. They heard of a place over across
the river in Wisconsin where they gave mud baths that were supposed
to cure anything. Despite the expense, they sent her there. When
she came back she was better— she had never been away from home
before— but she was told to take it easy, not do much of the work.

It had shaken them up a good deal to have Mary go back on them.
It made them more careful with the other children. Elva was going
with Roy Robbins, but it didn't seem as if Mary was going to get
married. They let her go over to visit her Aunt Sophie Klaus at

268 RUTH SUCKOW

Turkey Creek. Then August let her go in to Rapids City and take a
sewing-course. That was the most like going away to school of any-
thing she had ever had. She improved after that, but she was not
strong. She was like Grandpa Stille, tall, slender, black-haired, with
bright, shy, dark, intelligent eyes.

Elva married when she was just a girl. She had stopped the country
school long ago. Her parents wondered how she would like it when
she had everything to do herself. They thought that she and Roy
would make a queer set of farmers. They were both so flighty. But
they started in immediately to raise a family, and that steadied them
down.

Elva was the one who complained most that the younger ones
"had it pretty easy." It was true; August was not so hard upon Carl
and Johnnie as he had been upon Frank. Things were easier on the
farm. Carl and Johnnie didn't have to stay out of school and help
with the farm work, as Frank had done.

Frank felt himself at a disadvantage with the younger boys. They
grew up into big, blond, good-looking boys. They didn't mingle
much with the older ones. They kept to themselves and seemed to
enjoy things together. Frank was a little shy with them because they
had gone to school so much more than he had. Frank had had to
quit the country school at what would have been about the seventh
grade in town.

The roads were better now. It was easier to get about. There were
more horses on the farm, and there was grandpa's old one-seated
buggy. August let the boys take that and Nell, one of the old horses,
and drive in to Richland to school. More and more country children
were doing that now that the high school gave a full course. The
boys took Marguerite as far as the country school. She was too little
to go into town yet, and by the time that she was ready, probably
they would have this new consolidated school against which August
was voting because of the taxes.

August didn't know how it would be in the winter. The first winter
the boys tried to drive back and forth the five miles. The next year
they stayed in town until spring, at the Henry Stilles', where they
kept the fires going and looked after the chickens and the cow and
chopped the wood. They could go to the high-school parties, and
play basket-ball, go around with the town "kids." Johnnie had a
town girl, and so did Carl part of the time. But he still went to see
Clara Josten, in the country, when he and Johnnie went home on
Friday night, and he took her to box socials in the country schools.
August grumbled about the boys— ach, they thought they had to have

COUNTRY PEOPLE 269

everything; didn't know anything but basket-ball any more. But he
was proud of them.

It was entirely different with Marguerite than with the older girls.
She had everything, it seemed, that Mary and Elva hadn't had. Elva
grudged it to her, said, "I'd like to see what pa would have done to
us if we'd asked for just half the things she does!" But she was so
much the youngest, the baby and the pet, that it seemed natural that
they should give her things. Mary made all her clothes for her, fitting
her out regularly every spring and fall, and watching the dresses of
the little girls at Sunday school to get ideas for her. They liked to
"dress baby up." The whole family were proud of her hair, a thick,
blond fuzz that couldn't be braided, and at which everyone looked,
saying, "Hey, there, curly-head!" They all knew that "baby" could
get things out of August. He grumbled, but when he knew that the
cloth that Mary wanted to buy was to make "baby" a dress, she was
sure to get it. He even let Marguerite take lessons on the organ from
Miss Grace Bracebridge, who drove about through the country with
a pony and buggy teaching music.

August listened to the younger boys as he had never done to Frank,
although he was still close and kept things in his own hands. The
boys saw how other people did things. They tried to get their father
to "loosen up a little," to get things that other farmers were getting.
When they talked with their mother about it, she said, looking fright-
ened, "Ach, how can we afford all that?" The boys hadn't grown up
with any such awe of money matters. Emma had no idea of what the
family resources were; she would never have dared to ask. But the
boys seemed to know, somehow or other, what their father could do,
how much he had. They scoffed, to Emma's scared delight, and said,
"Aw, pa could have lots of things if he'd just loosen up and get them.
We don't need to do things this way. Pa's so afraid he's going to take
a cent out of the bank. He's got more than most farmers have. He
could put up a silo if Uncle Willie did. Why couldn't he?" "Ach!"
Emma said, frightened; but it pleased her.

They were beginning to get things. August began to try out new
machinery. He put up a silo. One thing meant another. The boys
kept talking gasolene-engines. It was crazy to pump all their water
and turn the separator by hand. They couldn't get August to say any-
thing. They needn't think that he would do whatever they wanted.
But he had been talking to Art Miller in Richland, who was han-
dling the Porter lights, and one summer he had his own electric plant
installed on the farm. He didn't have the house wired at once, but
they had lights in the barn and ran all their machinery by electricity.

2jo RUTH SUCKOW

August wanted his farm to have what other farms had, but he hated
to dig into that pile in the bank. He knew how much work it had
taken to put it there. No one worked harder for their money than
die farmers did. He must think of his old age. They wanted to take
it easy some day. He didn't want to find himself with as little as
Grandpa Stille had.

He kept on digging. He worked as hard as he had ever done, except
that he had the boys to help.

The greatest change came when he bought the Ford. August had
been one of those who kept his old horses as long as he could, but he
had to come to the automobile, like the rest of the farmers. He went
into "Wapsie" one Saturday and looked at cars. He had the agent
take him out and teach him how to drive that afternoon, and he
drove the car home at night. The family came out into the yard. The
children shouted, "Mamma, see what pa's got!" August drove proudly,
scowling, not sure whether he could miss all the buildings and stop
where he wished. The boys ran up to ask excitedly, "Can you stop
her, pa? Hey, look out for that wagon! Where' d you get her? How
much was she?" After August went into the house they stayed out
there, looking the little five-passenger car all over, testing the wheels,
examining the engine.

"]a, I s'pose they'll think it's theirs now," August grumbled.

Emma declared at first that she would never go in the car. Her
timidity delighted all of them. The boys could take the auto; she
would drive with the horses and the old buggy. "Ach/' she said, "I
don't trust those things. You read about accidents all the time."
"Well, mamma, horses can run away, too. Old Dick ran away with

Frank." "]a9 but then " But the children teased her so much that

she finally consented to get into the car. "Now, ain't this better than
the old buggy?" the boys demanded. "Ja, well it ain't so bad, I guess,"
was all that they could get her to say. She never really liked the car.
She was always nervous and looking out for accidents. For some rea-
son she didn't believe that August could learn to be a good driver.
"Achy it's so late for him to learn!" She had never been afraid when
he had a hand on the reins when they had gone out with the horses.
After the boys learned to drive, she liked it better. She said it seemed
more natural for young folks to learn things like that. She had faith
in Carl and Johnnie. But when she went with August, she always
kept one hand on the seat ready to open the door and jump out. And
although he got to handle the car in any kind of weather and on any
kind of roads, as all farmers did, August never did drive as well as
the boys. They could seem to get the thing cranked when he couldn't.

COUNTRY PEOPLE 271

It was a knack they had. Emma noticed that he was ready to let them
do the driving when he could.

The car meant that they could get away from the farm. They went
into town oftener. They drove to Elva's and Frank's and Mol lie's.
The relationship nearly always had Sunday dinner together now.
They went into church more regularly, and to other things in town-
basket-ball games to see the boys play, the lecture course.

They even took a little trip, the first time they'd really been away
from the farm. Once after harvest they left the boys to look after the
farm, and August and Emma and Marguerite drove down to Turkey
Creek and visited all of August's folks. The old man Kaetterhenry
was dead, of course, but most of August's brothers and sisters were
still living about there. It was a beautiful time of the year. The au-
tumn was lovely there in the timber, among the hills. They all drove
out for picnics together. They made plans with Sophie and her hus-
band to drive to the "Picture Rocks" on the Mississippi some year,
stopping at the little old town of Guttenberg, where their folks had
stopped when they came up the Mississippi and had bought their first
farm implements.

Then the road past the farm, between Richland and "Wapsie," was
made a highway. That dreadful hill by Ed Hunter's farm was graded
down so that no one need be afraid of it any more. The old country
road was widened and ditched and gravelled; the tall black-eyed
Susans and the sweet clover were ruthlessly slashed down into dusty
stubble. Although August fought the highway and joined other farm-
ers in grumbling at the taxes, still "it made it handier." They went
into "Wapsie" often, although they still did most of their trading in
Richland, believing it must be cheaper there, since the stores had
fewer goods and they were set out with less style.

That used to be a country road along which occasional wagons and
buggies jolted. Now it was a gravelled highway, "Primary Road 5."
Cars flashed down it all day, and on Sundays in the summer there
was a constant stream of travel. Head-lights and wind-shields gave off
sharp white flashes as cars whirred past on the light-coloured, glitter-
ing gravel. It was a wonder to Emma to sit on the porch on Sunday
afternoons and count how many vehicles went by. But Grandpa
wouldn't even try to count. "Ach, no! no! no!" was all that he would
say. This was all so wicked on Sunday!

August had kept his hands on other things, but he couldn't keep
the boys from using the car. When they took their girls, it wTasn't
an all-day occasion, as when Frank had got grandpa's old buggy to
drive Lottie to the fair. They went out on Sunday afternoons when

272 RUTH SUCKOW

they felt like it. August would go out and find the car gone again.
It was no use trying to stop them. Emma thought it dreadful for the
boys to "pleasure-drive on Sunday," against which the Richland
Methodist church was making a last futile stand, as against cards and
dancing; but both she and August got used to it. All the young people
seemed to do it. But one thing August said: if he ever heard of his
boys driving to a Sunday base-ball game, they could never have the
car again.

Grandpa never grew accustomed to all this. He was now too mild,
too feeble and withdrawn, to protest much against it; but he would
say sadly, when he saw that the boys were gone, "Ach, no! no! das
ist nicht gut." And sometimes, sitting alone in the big rocker in his
gloomy little room, he would mutter, "Nein, nein, das ist nicht gut/'

IV: THE WAR

The first years of the war didn't affect the Richland farmers very
much. It seemed far away from them. " Ach, over there in those old

countries " August said with a kind of contemptuous blankness.

The men talked about it down at the implement store and at the
produce house. They said that this country would never be involved.
They were opposed to that, the farmers, as they were opposed to any-
thing that seemed unsettling. They were a conservative bunch about
Richland.

August had at first only a slight German feeling. Many of the farm-
ers around Richland were English, and there had always been a little
line of cleavage between the English and the German farmers. Some-
times, when August heard old Roland Yarborough "blowing off"
about how wicked the Germans were, and that they ought all to be
exterminated, it made him hot for a moment, made him feel that
he was a German. All the feeling that he had was naturally and in-
stinctively on the side of Germany. But most of the farmers were
agreed. "Well, they've got to fight it out among themselves. It's their
business; 'tain't ours." That was the way that August felt. He went
about his own business.

Grandpa was the one who got excited. The old man, so withdrawn,
his inner life known now to no one but himself, buried in strange
dreams and prayers and fervours, now suddenly came back to the
world. It was as if all at once childhood things, which had long been
buried, came surging to the surface and overwhelmed him with mem-
ories. He went back to his boyhood in that little village in Mecklen-
burg whose name the boys had never heard before. Now he was

COUNTRY PEOPLE 273

always talking about it— Gultberg. "Ja, in Gultberg den " "Gult-

berg? What's that? What's he talking about?" the boys asked, half
amused. This was all far away to them. It tiekled them, they said, to
see "grandpa get himself all worked up" over something he had
painstakingly read in the paper; come tottering out from his room,
in his old felt slippers and patched brown trousers, his dark, sunken
eyes burning, shaking one long, bony ringer and pouring out a lot of
broken English and German that they could only half understand.
"Are de Germans so bad, den? Mein oldt Vater, mein Uncle Carl, I
remember in de old country, were dey den all such bad men? No,
no." They would listen, grinning a little, until he was exhausted and
would go back to his room, shaking his head and mourning sadly,
"Ach, no, nein/' to sit in the old rocker, sadly, his hands in his lap,
muttering as he used to do about the Sunday travel.

Emma tried to calm him; she was afraid that the excitement would
hurt him. She couldn't see why he was so affected by this, by things
so far away; but of course he was thinking about his old home.

But when this country went in, all this was changed. Then feelings
that had never been known before were all about. Then the taunts,
the talk about Huns and Boche, made farmers like August for the
first time actually realize their German ancestry. August had always
taken it for granted that he belonged in this country. They awoke a
deep racial resentment that could not come flaring out into the open
but had to remain smouldering, and that joined with the fear of
change, the resentment at interference, into a combination of angry
feelings.

This centred chiefly in a deep opposition to the draft. To have
someone tell his boys to do this and that! To take away his help on
the farm just when he needed it most! To have somebody just step in
and tell them where they had to go! Was that what happened in this
country? Why had his people left the old country, then, if things
were going to be just the same?

Carl was twenty-three now, Johnnie twenty. Carl's was among the
first three names drawn in Richland, where he had to register. It was
on the list in the post office— Carl Kaetterhenry, along with Ray Pow-
ers and Jay Bennett, the preacher's son. August stormed, wanted to
know what right the Government had. But Carl took it quietly.
There was no use kicking, he said. His name happened to be one
drawn, and that was all there was to it.

What roused August to the greatest anger was that Harlan Boggs,
the banker's son in "Wapsie," should get exempt, while his boy had
to go. Harlan Boggs had appealed to the board and got exemption

274 RUTH SUCKOW

on the grounds that he couldn't be spared from the bank because of
Liberty-bond work. But it didn't matter to the board, August said,
that he couldn't get help and that they should take his boy right in
the midst of the harvest season. Johnnie was working for Frank that
year, and Carl was the only one he had on the farm. They said, "Pro-
duce, produce," but how was he going to do it when he got no help?
There was all this talk about the women working on the farms, but
August didn't see many of those high-school girls from Richland com-
ing out and offering to do his threshing for him. Where were all
these women working, then?

Grandpa quieted down after he learned that this country was in
the war; regarded with a hurt, sorrowing, bewildered wonder that it
should be fighting Germany. That was all that mattered to him, all
that he could see of it. Carl went in to say good-bye to him, em-
barrassed and a little afraid of what grandpa might do. The old man
rose from his chair, holding it by one arm, and quietly shook Carl's
hand. Then he returned to his solitary brooding. It was strange and
remote, the touch of that dry, aged, bony hand, although grandpa
had been there in the house ever since Carl could remember.

The train left in the early morning. August drove his family in,
Emma and Carl and Marguerite. Johnnie and Frank and Frank's wife
came in Frank's car; Mary and Elva and Roy in Roy's. There was a
little group at the small wooden station: the other two boys and their
families, a few people from town, one or two detached travelling men.
The family stayed awkwardly in the depot, didn't know what to do
or to say to one another. Johnnie and August went out to see if the
train was in sight.

Just before the train came— the morning Clipper, the Chicago
train, by which clocks were set and rising timed— old Jerry McGuire
the postmaster, an old Catholic who had come into office when "the
Democrats came in," lined the three boys up on the station platform
and read the President's Proclamation to them. It was a strange, sol-
emn, unreal scene. Even the people who saw it didn't believe in it.
The three boys standing there, their figures against the dim red of
the harvest sunrise, with solemn blank faces, frowning a little to keep
down any signs of emotion. One of the mothers sobbed. Emma wept
only a little, effacing herself even now. Carl looked big and fresh be-
tween the other two boys, Jay Bennett, a thin boy, dissipated in a
small-town way; Ray, gawky and sunburned, with a wild head of
hair. Carl was such a big, sturdy boy! He had his father's fresh-
coloured skin, only finer-grained, rough light hair, full boyish lips,
and clear blue eyes.

COUNTRY PEOPLE 275

The little town was silent. Away from the station stretched pas-
tures, the dew lying wet and heavy on red clover and tall weeds. The
train came bearing down upon them, pulling out blackish smoke into
the pale morning sky. It went black and big into the red prairie-
sunrise. The fields were left silent again. The scattered group of
people on the platform got into their battered cars and drove back
home to the morning chores.

When Johnnie had to go, they were more used to it.

It was a queer time at home. It was so strange to be without the
boys! August was a big, vigorous man, but now he realized for the
first time, now that he had everything to do alone, that he was getting
older. He had never stopped working hard; but now he saw that, strong
and dogged as he was, he couldn't quite do the work he had done in
those days when they first went on the farm. He didn't even think of
getting Emma out into the field now. "Mamma" belonged in the house.

The feeling of the neighbourhood against the German farmers had
grown to a degree that would have seemed incredible at the begin-
ning of the war. August "got off easy" compared with some of them.
He had two boys in the service, he could keep his mouth shut, he
bought Liberty bonds, although he didn't like to be told to do so.
If it had not been for Carl and Johnnie in the army, he might have
refused, like old Rudolph Haas, out of pure Kaetterhenry stubborn-
ness. It was the thought of Carl and Johnnie that kept him from flar-
ing up too fiercely when the boys yelled at him, when he drove into
Richland, "Hey, Dutchy! Old Dutchman! Old Dutchy Kaetter-
henry!" Once or twice he threatened, and started after them; but usu-
ally he only glared at them, smothering his impulse to fight. Some of
the other German farmers came up before the board because of
things they had said, or were reported to have said. Old Haas's corn-
crib was burned. But nothing worse happened to August than being
yelled at on the street and finding painted in crude red letters on his
barn: "Old Dutchy Kaetterhenry. Hun. Bosh. Look Out."

They were having terrible times down around Turkey Creek, which
was solidly German, and where there had been more resistance to the
draft. One of August's brothers had been threatened. A mob of boys
and men from "Wapsie" had gone down there one night and tarred
and feathered the preacher at the old Turkey Creek German church.

August kept himself in hand because of the boys and because of
the way Emma worried. And underneath all his anger was a strange,
hurt, puzzled incredulity. Hadn't he lived here all his life, been born
twenty miles from here? Didn't everybody know August Kaetter-
henry? Hadn't he been a good farmer and citizen and church-member

276 RUTH SUCKOW

all his life? There was at the same time something fiercely real and
yet utterly incredible about the whole thing.

Emma worried about the boys. She never heard the telephone ring
that she didn't think it might be a message for them, as their neigh-
bour, Mrs. Griffin, had got. She knew now that of all the children
Johnnie was her boy, just as Carl was August's. Carl was steadier and
more level-headed. She had a feeling that Carl would take care of
himself, that nothing would happen to him. But Johnnie— he would
go rushing into everything.

It was long since she had done the milking and all such work. De-
spite having less cooking and washing to do, it was hard on her. She
was ailing more or less, although she kept up. That old trouble that
she had sometimes had before came back on her. "Spells with her
stomach," she called it. The family had long supposed that these
spells were just something that mamma had, but now she told Mollie
that August wanted to get the doctor out for her. She always said,
"Ach, no. Wait awhile. I guess it won't last long." Then she would
feel better again.

Things were strange all about these days. One of the queerest
things that happened was Mary's marriage. Years ago Mary had gone
with Joe Fields. He used to take her to the county fair when Roy
took Elva. But then Mary had wanted to go to school, and Joe had
married Ada Griffin. He was a widower now, with four little chil-
dren. Mary was "sewing around." People hadn't even known that
Joe was "looking in that direction" again. But all at once he and
Mary turned up at the Kaetterhenry farm married! Well, the family
were glad that she was settled, although they didn't see how she was
going to be strong enough to do all that work and look after those
four children. But she and Joe, it seemed, had always liked each
other, although once Mary had wanted a different kind of man from
Joe. The family thought it was a good thing to have her settled down
at last. This was something to write the boys, if it didn't take them
so long to get their mail that it would be old before they heard
of it.

Carl had gone into the army first, but Johnnie got across before
he did. Carl had his father's knack with horses. They kept him down
at one of the Southern camps training new recruits to handle the
horses. Johnnie was in the machine-gun division. He was right in
the thick of it, as they thought Johnnie would be sure to be. He was
wounded once, but his family didn't hear of it until he was back
in the righting again. Carl just got across when the armistice was
signed.

COUNTRY PEOPLE 277

Carl came back, ready to settle down for good, saying that this old
Iowa farm looked better to him than any place he had ever seen or
hoped to see. That went far to soothe August's anger. Carl hadn't
been at home three weeks when he married his old girl in the coun-
try, Clara Josten, and brought her out to the farm until he and she
could find a place of their own.

But Johnnie was different. He was restless. He was reported cured
of his wound, but they could see that he was nervous, jumpy, not the
boy that he used to be. He couldn't seem to be still a minute. He was
always running off with the car and going to town. The car was the
only thing in which he was interested. August, who was a cautious
driver, grumbled about the way that Johnnie drove, with all the gas
on, muffler open, fenders rattling, making that old car go at top
speed every moment. Johnnie went over to help Frank again. They
thought that maybe that might help to give him a change and quiet
him down. But at the height of the season he suddenly walked out
and went into Richland, where he got a job at the garage with the
Beal Brothers.

August shared in the high prices and the land boom that raged in
Iowa after the war. He had an offer of five hundred dollars an acre
for the farm. It dazzled him, but still August was too cautious to sell.
And if he did, then what would he do? It was a better piece of land
than he could pick up again. Roy Robbins and Elva did sell their
farm, but then the slump in prices came, and the man couldn't make
payments, and they had it back on their hands again. There was a
piece of land down near Turkey Creek, however, that old Casper
Kaetterhenry had left to the children; the second wife had got the
home farm. August and his brother Heinie bought that piece from
the others and sold it when prices were at the peak.

War-time feelings died out, but a little of the old resentment
stayed. August never felt quite the sense of home and security in
Richland Township that he had felt before.

PART THREE

I: OPERATION

Carl's wife was a great help in the house. She was much like Carl
himself, fresh-faced, light-haired, rather quiet, but good-tempered
and sturdy and vigorous. At first Emma tried to treat her like com-
pany, but Clara said that she was used to doing things and really
tried to take some of the hardest work off Emma's hands. Emma had
always had the feeling that she must be responsible for all that wTas

278 RUTH SUCKOW

done in the house. But now she let Clara do things for her. She told
the relatives she "liked Carl's wife real well. She was nice to have
around."

The family thought that Emma might get to feeling better now
that the boys were at home again and she didn't have all that worry.
But she was still miserable. People noticed that she didn't look well;
said, "Ain't you thinner than you been the last few years? What they
been doing to you?" August was slow to believe anything really wrong
with any of his family. But he did see that Emma didn't look right.

Then she was "right down sick." August didn't know when Emma
had ever really given out before, and it frightened him. He asked her
if she didn't want to try that place where Mary had gone. The neigh-
bours and relatives all came in to help and advise. They all said
wisely that it was something that had better be looked after. They
told about Mrs. Ed Kohler. None of these doctors could help her,
and old Bowen had said she was dying, until she had gone up to
the clinic at Rochester. Others had gone there, as formerly they had
tried patent medicine and mud-baths. People talked Rochester,
Rochester, until August asked Emma, "Well, do you think you'd like
to go up there, then?" She said, as she always did, "Ach, I don't
know." But he could see that she rather wanted to go. All the chil-
dren urged it. They wanted August to take her there. Carl and Clara
could look after the farm. Finally August said he guessed he'd take
her up there.

It was the greatest journey that they had ever taken together. Au-
gust had gone to Chicago once with stock during the war, and when
she was a little child Emma had come out to Iowa from New York
with her parents; but they had never gone farther on the train to-
gether than to Dubuque, about thirty miles away.

Everyone knew that he was taking her to Rochester. People who
had been there, or had had members of their family there, came over
to tell Emma details of operations. When they saw that she was get-
ting frightened they said, "Well, now, maybe you'll find it's just some
little thing that don't need an operation, like Myrtie Rohrer."

It seemed to Emma and August that they were taking a terrible
and final journey. Carl drove them to the station. They were taking
Marguerite with them. Clara stood in the kitchen doorway, her arms
hugged in her apron, because the March wind was cold. As Carl
cranked the car and hurried around to the side to get in, she waved
her arm and called, "Don't worry about your chickens." Emma asked
fearfully, "What's that she said?" "Said not to worry about your
chickens, mamma." They drove out through the deep, black, sticky

COUNTRY PEOPLE 279

mud of their own drive, out to the highway, with its brown gravel
gritty and wet in the sharp, windy March air.

At the station they felt a faint importance and pride when August
told the people who inquired, "Ja, I'm takin' her up to Rochester;
see if those fellows can't help her some a'ready."

The children, too, felt pride in the clipping from the Richland
Banner that they sent on to the folks up at Rochester.

"Mr. and Mrs. August Kaetterhenry left Tuesday for Roches-
ter, Minn., to consult the Drs. Mayo in regard to her health.
Mrs. Kaetterhenry has been in poor health for some time, and it
is hoped by her many friends that she will find speedy relief at
this famous establishment."

The trip up to Minnesota, bleak and sharp as the weather was, had
interest for them. It was almost the first time that they had been in
any other State than Iowa. August was in the smoking-car. He came
back and said to Emma and Marguerite, "Do you know you're in
Minnesota a'ready?" "Oh, are we?" Emma looked out of the window.
She thought with a thrill, "We're in another State!" August kept
watching to see how the country looked, and whether things were as
far along up here as he had left them back there. He saw some nice
farms, he said. But the land was flatter than around home, and a fel-
low to whom he had been talking told him that they had more wind
up here. August said he didn't think he'd like to live where they were
all Swedes and Norwegians. He hadn't seen any farm yet that looked
better than his own in Richland Township.

They took the journey in the day coach and thriftily ate the lunch
that Clara and Lottie had put up for them, taking the fried chicken
out of the pasteboard box and telling Marguerite to brush the crumbs
off the dusty, red plush seat. They looked like country people, August
heavy and silent, his farmer's red neck showing rough and creased
above his collar in the back, in his heavy coat and overshoes and cap;
Emma subdued and uncertain over the journey, looking with a kind
of fearful curiosity at the other people in the train; a sickly woman
with greyish hair and old-fashioned glasses, in a stiff, black velvet
hat and an old black coat of some imitation fur with old-fashioned
sleeves gathered slightly at the top, a black skirt that came down to
her rubbers, black golf mittens. Even Marguerite looked a little
coarse and sullen, with her blue knitted tarn pulled down upon her
bright fuzz of hair.

They went to a boarding-house where some of their neighbours

280 RUTH SUCKOW

had gone, one that was said to be clean and that didn't charge as
much as some. It was just as good as anybody 'd want, Mrs. Griffin had
told them. It was snowing when they got there, as they wrote back to
the children, and they trudged up through the dismal streets, with
their left-over dingy snow, August carrying the two suit-cases that
Carl and Johnnie had let them have. The boarding-house was an old-
fashioned, brown frame-house close to the medical buildings. Mar-
guerite shared a room with an excitable, talkative woman who took
pride in being in Rochester for the fourth time. She told Marguerite
all about her different doctors, saying happily, "I said when I come
in, 'Well, doctor, you've got me back again, you see.' Dr. Barnard
knew me right away. Well, he'd ought to; this is the fourth time I
been in Rochester. He's had to examine me twice before his-self. He
says, 'Well, Miss Parmenter, I see I have. What do you mean by
this?' He's awful good-natured; not like some. Always a-jokin' you
when you come in there."

The Kaetterhenrys had nothing to say to the other boarders at first.
They ate in silence, asking one another in hushed voices for butter
or bread. But they had to wait several days until they could have
their turn at the clinic. One of the women who sat in the shabby
boarding-house parlour, with its ancient furnishings, began to talk to
Emma. "You here on your own account?" she said. "I thought you
was the one. What's your trouble?" They talked over symptoms to-
gether. The woman told Emma what she must expect in going
through the clinic, and terrified her with descriptions of all the tests
that she herself had had to have, leaving out no detail. She thought
that Emma must have just what her cousin's wife had had, and she
had spent four months in the hospital and now was going to have
to come again. At night Emma and August talked over the boarders
together in their room, in hoarse whispers, Emma telling what she
had gleaned of where this one lived, what that one's husband did,
what was the matter with another one.

They started in at the clinic at last, when Emma was afraid that
"mister would get restless and want to go home if they didn't get in
pretty soon." When the girl at the desk asked them for what they had
come, they said— looking at each other as if the other one might know
—they didn't know, that was what they wanted to find out. She sent
them patiently to the abdominal section, which was a good guess for
most farmer people. Emma took the tests, while August stolidly waited
in the lobby of the clinic building, with his overcoat thrown open
and his cap on his knee. Emma wanted him around. He did not take
an interest in watching the people, as she would have done, but he

COUNTRY PEOPLE 281

liked to see how the building was put up, to calculate how much
space and how many rooms they must have and how many people
there must have been going through it to-day.

He was just where Emma had left him. He said, "Well, what'd he
tell you?" "Ach, I got to see another one to-morrow."

Gradually they felt themselves drawn into the life of the place.
It was an experience to them, more than the mud-baths had been to
Mary. Although they were bashful and ill at ease away from home, it
was not so hard getting acquainted as they had thought. People talked
to them— the boarders, people who happened to sit near them in the
clinic— and wore away their country shyness. Emma felt a kind of
enjoyment in talking over the tests she had taken, and the doctors she
had seen, with three or four other people who sat in the boarding-
house parlour with the landlady and talked. Her ailments had never
had any importance before. They always asked, when she and August
came in, "Well, still taking tests?" "Ja, I guess that's what she'll al-
ways be doing," August answered. Emma smiled shyly. The boarders
thought that that Mrs. Kaetterhenry was a real sweet little person.
Even August fell into conversation with a fat man who sat next him
in the clinic and who was also waiting for his wife. They talked about
their wives' illnesses, and the man told how the crops had been in
Wisconsin. August had some conversation with a fellow from Texas
that gave him a travelled feeling. Marguerite went to the movies and
into the shops with Miss Parmenter, who flew about town buying
squares to make drawn-thread handkerchiefs in the intervals of ex-
aminations.

The strange and unaccustomed thing was the importance of Emma.
August and Marguerite counted for nothing beside her here, were
merely here to be with her. It was a new idea to both of them, and
to Emma, too. August went in with her to the doctor who had ex-
amined her to hear the verdict. He did not make a murmur about
the expense, although it was all so much more than he had figured
on. Emma's value was strangely enhanced in his eyes when the doctor,
a large, well-groomed, imposing man with a courteous manner that
made Emma admire him, spoke respectfully of "Mrs. Kaetterhenry,"
outlined her condition, and said that she must go at once to the
hospital.

The boarders all said, "Gall-bladder operation! Well, that's just
what I thought from what she told me," although the woman who
had thought that Emma had her cousin's wife's ailment was dis-
appointed and unconvinced. This was a respectable and well-known
operation, and it, too, seemed to raise Emma's value in some strange

282 RUTH SUCKOW

way. The boarders were interested, helped Marguerite to pack her
mother's suit-case for the hospital, reassured, and condoled.

Emma seemed still more removed from their common ways of life
when she entered the hospital. August went into her room for a
while, a small double room, Emma's bed across from another bed
where a woman with a long, meager braid lay and talked in sepul-
chral whispers with a visitor in a hat with green plumes. Emma
looked changed, in the narrow, white iron bed, so immaculate, dif-
ferent from their puffy feather-bed at home, without her spectacles,
her thin grey hair neatly parted and braided by the nurse. Both she
and August felt a mysterious fear of "the sisters" who glided about
the halls in their robes and rosaries. They had always felt a fascinated
horror of the wickedness of the Catholics.

"It kind o' makes me creepy to have them around here," Emma
protested.

"Ach, I guess they're all right. He wouldn't 'a' sent you here if
they wasn't," August said.

All this whiteness and immaculateness seemed great splendour to
them.

Emma had her operation the next day. August was really fright-
ened then. The boarders all reassured him, all told of the wonders of
the surgeon. August had seen him for a moment in the hospital— a
short, plump, very clean man, exhaling a kind of unshakable vigour.
August felt a tremendous awe of him. They both trusted him in the
blind way that they trusted their Methodist God, because they must.
It helped August, fed his pride, that his wife was to have a famous
surgeon. But, although he said little, he was shaken. Emma had made
him promise to be right there. It seemed now that August mattered
more to her than Marguerite.

He waited in the sun parlour. He had never gone through such
an endless morning. He tried to think about the farm, about what
crops he would put in this summer; but under everything was a sink-
ing, sickening dread in which he would suddenly be submerged. He
was silent, turning his cap upon his knee. Marguerite sat restlessly
beside him. She could not keep her hands still, fingered her dress and
her beads and her handkerchief. People were wheeled past from the
operating-room— mounds of white, some silent, some moaning. Au-
gust looked at his watch. He went through terror. It shouldn't have
taken as long as this. Something must have gone wrong. He tiptoed
down the hall to Emma's room. Her bed was still empty.

The nurse came for them at last. They went, solemn, shaken, on
tiptoe, into Emma's room. They felt awed, taken aback, at the sight

COUNTRY PEOPLE 283

of her strange, pinched, colourless face at which they stood awk-
wardly gazing.

"You can speak to her," the nurse said encouragingly. August was
terribly in awe of Emma. He did not know what to say.

"Well, it's over," he said finally.

"J a, I guess so," Emma whispered.

Marguerite stood looking sullen and angry in her fright. She
hardly dared go near her mother, kissed her quickly, barely touching
her cheek, when the nurse said that she might. They stared awhile
longer, tiptoed out.

The excitement of the day died down. The boarders all said,
"Well, she got through it all right, I see. Sure. I knew she would.
Well, now you must telegraph the folks at home. I expect there'll be
some pretty anxious folks."

It was the first telegram that August had ever sent. "Operation
over mamma doing fine." That, too, gave him importance.

After that August and Marguerite went twice a day to the hospital
in the motor-bus that ploughed clumsily through the spring mud.
August always felt big and awkward and out of place in that silent
building, but he got to know the faint odour of drugs. He recognized
some of the people who always went up in the elevator with him and
felt a kind of kinship with them. He even felt less awe of the gliding
sisters. He wasn't dreadfully abashed now at the woman in the other
bed, who talked to him and Emma, called him Mr. Kaetterhenry.

Emma now seemed to belong to the place. She said that they were
nice to her. She took with shy gratitude the first attention and pet-
ting that she had had since she was a girl, with a kind of feeling that
she, a married woman and mother, shouldn't have it, but a feminine
pleasure in it. The nurses liked her. They were good to her, petted
and cared for her in a way that made Marguerite look at them wide-
eyed, remembering that this was mamma. It was so strange to see
mamma waited on and of first importance! The other woman in the
room was fretful and exacting. Emma was such a contrast to her that
the nurses appreciated her all the more. They told her she mustn't
be afraid to ask for what she wanted, and they liked her shyness and
fear of giving them trouble.

For the first time Emma had a life in which family were outsiders.
She had a kind of intimacy with the nurses, and with the very spruce,
black-haired young intern who came in and jested with her in a kind
of fond teasing way that greatly flattered her. He never did learn how
to pronounce her name, and called her blithely "Mrs. Katterhenry,"
at which she was too shy to protest.

284 RUTH SUCKOW

As Emma grew better and his fright died down, poor August
hardly knew what to do with himself. He never had been without
work before in his life. He had never had a real vacation from the
farm except that drive down into the Turkey timber, and then he
had had the car to look after and had still talked crops with his
brothers. When he could not be at the hospital, he hung about the
boarding-house, yawned, sat drearily while the others were gossiping.
He had never been a talker. He couldn't find the interest in the dis-
cussion of ailments that the others did, since he had never had any
of his own. Now that he knew what it was, that Emma was getting
better, he was no longer interested. There was no one just now to
talk crops with him. That was the longest three weeks he had ever
spent. He would rather have been threshing. The boarders said,
"Well, I expect you're getting anxious to get back to your work now,
Mr. Kaetterhenry." He said, ja, he was. He worried about how Carl
was managing the farm. He would have gone back if Emma hadn't
begged him to stay.

The boarders said encouragingly, when they saw his restlessness,
"Oh, the vacation'll do you good." "J a, but I've had about enough
of it, though," he said.

Emma, too, said that she was anxious to get back home, but in a
way she was having the best time that she had had for years. She was
taking her leisure with a clear conscience. She had never been treated
with such consideration. She really hated to leave the nurses and the
young intern.

When she got back to the boarding-house most of the boarders who
had been there before her operation were gone. Miss Parmenter had
left much disappointed because they had told her that she didn't need
an operation; a little medicine was enough. Dr. Barnard had gone
down in her estimation. Emma missed the care and attention which
had embarrassed her so at first. She missed the visits of the young
intern, with his flattering jests. The boarding-house seemed dreary.

The specialist at the clinic had a talk with August before they left
for home. August listened, subdued and respectful. The doctor said
that he "anticipated no trouble," but that Mrs. Kaetterhenry must
do no heavy work this summer and must take things very easily.
August heard him uneasily, agreed, "Ja, I guess we can manage that."
Something in it appealed to his sturdiness and reliability, his feeling
of protection. Down underneath was a little feeling of bewildered
guilt. This thing had opened August's eyes a little.

They went back to Richland feeling journeyed and full of Roches-
ter. August was glad to get back to the farm and plunged at once into

COUNTRY PEOPLE 285

the late spring work. Emma was fearful of her strength at first. She
remembered the admonitions. Clara said, "Now, mamma, we mustn't
let you overdo." But when Emma got home, into the familiar routine,
she threw off invalid ways. She had always worked here. They couldn't
keep her from doing things. No one knew the people of whom she
talked in Rochester. The surgeon, the doctors, meant nothing to
Clara and Carl. The event of her home-coming was soon over. She
settled down into the old ways again. She didn't go around telling
everyone of her operation, as Mrs. Griffin had done, but the experi-
ence stayed, sharp and momentous, in her mind.

August, too, was a little different. He seemed to accept with relief
her settling back into the role of mamma. But he was more thought-
ful of her. He asked her if she couldn't let Clara do this or that. He
saw, they all saw, that she wasn't equal to the things that she used
to do.

August had worried about the farm. But when he came back to it
he couldn't find anything very wrong with Carl's management.
Things seemed to look as usual. That summer Carl kept on with
some of the things that he had been doing that August had never
entrusted to any of the boys before.

Those years of the war, when he had had everything to do, had
tired August. He had always intended to retire, take it easy, when
he could afford it; but all these things brought him to it now. He
announced to Emma one day that they might move into town and
leave the farm to Carl.

II: TOWN

The chief question was what they should do with grandpa if they
left the farm. He had lived in that little room so long! He was over
eighty now. It would be hard for him to make any change. He
wouldn't want to go to town with them; he was used to the country.
Clara and Carl said, "Let him stay here," but Emma hated to do
that. He was getting so old now and might need a good deal of care
before long; and they were young people, and didn't want to be tied
to the place. Grandpa ought to have some of his own children to
look after him. August thought that Herman and Mollie ought to
take care of him now. They had let Emma have the whole care of
both grandma and grandpa always. Now it wouldn't hurt Mollie to
do something for her father. The old man would be no expense to
them. He had a tiny income from bits of his land that had been left
to him, enough to buy tobacco for him and Die Flammende Fackel,
and the few clothes and things that he needed. Now August and

286 RUTH SUCKOW

Emma were going into town to take it easy. Emma wasn't going to
be saddled with the care of grandpa, August said, as she had been
with grandma.

They took grandpa's belongings over to Mollie's one day in the
motor-truck that Johnnie had assembled from an old engine and
various miscellaneous parts: the ancient rope-bed with the feather-
mattresses, the two wooden rocking-chairs, the commode and little
old mirror, the air-tight stove, the ancient, faded books. Mollie and
Herman made little trouble about taking him. They would probably
not move off the farm for years yet. They couldn't afford it. Herman
hadn't done as well as August had. The Klauses had taken things
more easily all along, were more happy-go-lucky and not such work-
ers as the Kaetterhenrys. They were easy-going people, Herman a
little, lean man with kindly, childlike eyes and a kind of innocence
of speech, Mollie short and fat and shapeless, waddling, good-hearted.
Their farm had a dingy old-fashioned house set close to a scraggly,
tangled willow grove where the ground seldom got a chance to dry
and the blackbirds were noisy. They used a gasolene engine for some
of their work, but they had no silo, no lights, and only the old red-
painted barn. Farm implements stood about the worn, grassless farm-
yard. August had always despised Herman a little for being so easy-
going and not getting anywhere. They put grandpa's things into
their own downstairs bedroom, moving up themselves into the room
that Ernie, their son, had had, and saying, "Ach, we don't care. We
can get along anywhere."

Emma felt a dreadful sense of guilt and desertion in leaving her
father there. Not that Herman and Mollie wouldn't be good to him.
But she knew how things went at Mollie's. It didn't seem right to
have him anywhere but in that room where he had lived so long. But
August said it would have to be that way.

The Kaetterhenrys moved to town in the late fall. There was no
house that they could get to rent. They had to take rooms in old Mrs.
Freeman's house until they could get a place of their own. Houses
were scarce in Richland, where little business was done. This was a
small house in the south part of town, the old and hilly part beyond
the railroad tracks. It was half-frame, half-brick, painted a cream-
yellow. They lived in the brick half. There were three rooms. They
did their cooking and eating in one, August and Emma slept in an-
other, and Marguerite had a cot and dresser in the third, which was
their sitting-room. The rooms had the old square, small-paned win-
dows, close to which some oak-trees rustled dry leaves. They had to

COUNTRY PEOPLE 287

get all their water from the pump next door. They had a stove only
in the room where Marguerite slept, except the little oil-burner in
the kitchen.

Emma didn't know just what August intended to do, whether he
meant to buy or to build a house of his own. He still kept all such
things to himself. He managed all the money. Once Johnnie said to
her when he came over, "Heard pa was trying to buy one of those
lots over by Cunningham's." "Ach, is he?" she said. "Ja, he don't tell
me nothing." She did not think of making a fuss, as some would have
done, but no one suspected the resentment that lay deep under her
silence.

The children all said cheerfully. "Well, mamma, you can take it
easy this winter. You ain't got much to do here." She said a little
complainingly, "No, I should say I ain't. I wish I had a little more."
These three small rooms were nothing after she had looked after a
farm-house. Of course there were the meals to get, and they were
hard to cook on this little three-burner oil-stove, when she was used
to her big range. Johnnie ate with them, although they didn't have
room for him to stay there.

But she had all afternoon to herself and she hardly knew what to
do. It was a long, snowy winter. There were not many side-walks in
this part of town, and it was hard to get out anywhere. She didn't
see the children as often as she had in the country. She didn't get out
to Mary's once all winter. She knew a few people in town— her two
sisters-in-law, Mrs. Henry and Mrs. Willie Stille— but this was too far
for them to come and see her much. She had a cold, and didn't even
get to church most of the winter.

Once she said to August:

'Johnnie says you're buying one of them lots over north."
Ja, I guess maybe," he admitted.

"Well, are we going to build?"

"I guess we better build. They ain't no good houses for sale. Why,
don't you want to build?" he demanded.

"Ach, I'd like it, I guess. I just wondered what you was doing."

He grunted. But she had to find out from the children that he had
actually bought a lot and that he was ordering lumber from the Great
Western Lumber-yard. Elva demanded angrily, "Why don't pa ask
you something about it? You ought to have some say-so about your
own house, I should think. I'd like to see Roy do that." She said,
"Ach, that's the way he always does." He did mean to let her have
something to say about the way the house should be built, but buy-

288 RUTH SUCKOW

ing the lot and things like that— he couldn't see how they concerned
her. The house did, of course. She often wondered how much he
had to pay for the lot, but she never asked him.

August's interest was all in the new house now. It was something
to build up, as he had built up the farm. There were some pictures
of houses in the window of the bank, a large card showing four of
them, all planned by the same company, all more or less on the bun-
galow type. August went in several times to look at them. The banker
always said, "Sure! Any of those appeal to you, Mr. Kaetterhenry?"
August replied cautiously, "Ach, I don't know. I ain't quite ready to
build yet a'ready." "No, no. Well, they're pretty nice little houses."
"Ja, they're pretty nice all right."

When he had got his mind pretty well made up, he asked for one
of the sheets with the pictures and took it home to show to Emma.

"How'd you like to live in one of those?" he asked. He had always
had a kind of idea that when he came to town he would put up a big
house, one like Mr. Nixon's, the banker's, that had a porch all the
way around. But it seemed that they weren't putting up many of
those houses now. Mr. Nixon sent the contractor, Herb Carter, to
see them. "Heard you folks were thinking some of building." Herb
tried to get them to put up a pebble-dashed bungalow, like the one
he had put up for Dan Myers the summer before. But they wouldn't
agree to that. Emma wanted an upstairs. August wasn't sure that he
liked this pebble-dash. It was a pretty new thing, and he wasn't sure
how it would "hold." They compromised on a kind of semi-cottage
with no attic and three small upstairs rooms.

That was a good part of town where their lot was. It was where
the building would be going on now. The banker's son, Clarence
Nixon, owned the lot next to theirs, they had heard. He would prob-
ably build as soon as he got married. There was no house so far on
their side of the street except Tom Cunningham's, on the corner,
and that faced the other street. There were no trees either— just a
short, vacant block, beyond which were pastures.

They began work on the house as soon as they could in the spring.
Herb Carter had a lot of houses to build. He always promised more
than he could do. But they got along because August did so much of
the work himself. He got a wagon and team from the boys and hauled
his own sand and earth for the yard. He was a pretty good carpenter,
handy, as many Germans are, and he helped with the lathing and
siding. It kept the men on the job, too, to have him there. There
wasn't much fooling with August Kaetterhenry, as people who had

COUNTRY PEOPLE 289

had to deal with him knew. He meant to have the house ready, so
that they could move into it before winter.

The boys said laughingly, "Thought pa was going to town to take
it easy. He's working as hard as he did on the farm. I'd want to be
paid good and plenty before I'd take to hauling all that dirt."

But August liked it. The house rilled up the blank left by the
farm. It fed his pride to be putting up a good house, showing people
that he could afford it. There was the thought that he had worked
hard for this, that he owed most of it to himself. People said, "You
always see Mr. Kaetterhenry going back and forth from his new
house. It must be going up pretty fast. They say it's going to be
nice."

It was up now, although the finishing wasn't done inside. The
Banner had an item about it:

"Mr. August Kaetterhenry has put up his fine new house in
the north part of town and is about ready for the finishing. Mr.
Kaetterhenry says that the first of October will see them estab-
lished in the new house."

He went over to see it in the early summer evening, to take some
more boards over, so that the men would have them there in the
morning, but really to see how the place looked when he wasn't
working on it.

The house stood, new, bare, bright, on the raw earth that was lit-
tered over with boards, shavings, pails of dirtyish mortar. It had had
its first coat of paint, the upper story yellow, and the lower white.
The shingles looked brown and fresh and had a woody smell. The
porch roof sloped, and there was one of those dormer-windows in
the centre that looked as if it had slipped down half-way. Narrow
planks that bent a little led up over the porch steps and to the shin-
ing front door. The door was locked now. The house was past the
stage when little girls could go in and find shaving-curls to hang over
their hair, and when women could go there looking around and
speculating on which room was which.

Inside, the house was new, echoing, still. The unstained floors and
woodwork made August feel that he shouldn't be stepping about in
his heavy shoes. The walls were rough, white, untinted. The bath-
room was finished, although chunks of plaster lay around. He was
proud of the shining pipes, the white porcelain of the fixtures still
unwashed, with labels sticking to it. Another thing that he admired

290 RUTH SUCKOW

was the colonnade between the dining-room and the living-room. It
seemed queer to both of them not to have a parlour, but that was
the way that houses were being made now. Although he had worked
on this house, August could hardly believe in it, somehow, and that
he was ever going to live here.

There were some small boards laid over the stairs to keep them
clean. He thought he'd go up and see how it looked up there. But
he did not stay long. It was dim up there, more silent, and his shoes
made a fearful noise as he creaked from room to room. He had a
stealthy feeling, as if someone would catch him there. These rooms
kept the heat of the day. He was proud of the shining bronze-and-
black registers in the walls.

Well, he guessed there was nothing he could do in here. He'd seen
it all often enough.

He went outside. In the early summer evening there was a kind
of sadness and bareness in the new house, standing stark against the
pale evening sky, the new boards around, the raw dirt, the tools
thrown down wherever the men had happened to drop them, the
vacant lots beyond, and then the pastures stretching away, damp and
fresh with dew, and the slow-moving forms of cattle.

They had wanted to move in in September, but it was the middle
of October before they could. Then the woodwork was all stained
and varnished— light, shining golden-oak. They had had the walls in
the front room "tiffanied." In the other rooms the walls were tinted
light green or blue, with stencilled borders. They had bought new
rugs for the two front rooms, with bright mottled patterns, and had
had the old rag rugs made up into strips for the bedrooms. They were
"doing everything right."

They hadn't brought in all of their furniture. August said some
of it wasn't worth carting. The combination desk and bookcase, their
bedroom furniture, the standard rocker, and three or four others-
all these they had. The old rockers and the little old stand they put
upstairs. Grandpa's old German Bible and the album and other old
things went into the small store-room at the head of the stairs.
Downstairs, as people said admiringly, half the things were new. The
dining-room furniture was all new— a round table and four chairs
with leather seats. They had kept some of the old chairs to help out
when they had company. They had a new set of dishes, too, although
they themselves used the old ones. The new ones were white, with
scalloped edges and a thin gold line. The dining-room table re-
mained immaculate, on it a round, embroidered crash doily and a
plant. They would do their eating in the kitchen. In the living-room

COUNTRY PEOPLE 291

was the piece of furniture that the children admired— a large brown
davenport upholstered in stiff half-leather.

People went in to see the Kaetterhenrys. They said they were
"fixed real nice."

At first it seemed queer to the children to see ma and pa in this
brand-new modern house, with the shining floors and white plumb-
ing and new furniture. But they got used to it quickly. Now, when
they came into town, it was a settled thing that they should go to the
folks' for dinner, and leave the babies there while they did their
buying. They came in on Sundays to church, and all ate in the new
dining-room, the daughters holding babies on their laps.

There was one thing that disappointed them, Emma especially.
They had fixed up such a nice room for Johnnie and had thought
that they could have him with them again. He had been rooming
over in an old house near the garage. But just before they moved into
the new house, he had driven over to "Wapsie" one day with his
landlady's daughter, and had come back and announced himself
married. Emma felt dreadfully, both because of the girl he had mar-
ried and because he hadn't told her and his father about it.

They hated to think of his marrying "such a little flip," as people
in town called her. The other two boys had married good workers,
good sensible girls, although in some ways they didn't care much
for Frank's wife. This Bernice was only a junior in high school, a
silly, rather pretty girl, with a large, soft, powdered face and great
buns of dark hair showing the rats, melting, foolish brown eyes. She
wore sleazy over-blouses moulded by her large, soft breasts, and knee-
skirts showing her fat white legs in cheap, thin silk stockings that
had a brownish cast. She didn't know how to do anything. She and
Johnnie were to stay with mamma.

If Frank had married a girl like that, August might not have for-
given him for years. He did storm and say that he wouldn't do any-
thing more for Johnnie. But, although the marriage was known as
a great disappointment to the Kaetterhenrys, August's anger didn't
last. In a way this crazy action of Johnnie's, while it hurt August,
partly satisfied his old grudge about the way he had been treated in
war-time, the peremptoriness of the Government in taking his boys
off the farm, being called "Old Dutchy Kaetterhenry." If Johnnie
had not gone to war, he would never have done such a thing. He
had not been the same boy since, as anyone could see.

Johnnie quarrelled with Bernice's mother, an old Tartar, and he
and Bernice went to live in some rooms up over the hardware store.
Their baby was born soon after that. Women whispered how long

2Q2 RUTH SUCKOW

it should have been before the baby ought to have come. But Junior
was the prettiest, sturdiest, fattest baby in the relationship. It gave
Emma something to do to go over to Johnnie's rooms and clean up
and help Bernice with the baby.

Johnnie seemed to be settling down now. Being older than Bernice
made him seem older and more staid to himself. August said that if
he had really made up his mind now to stay in the garage business,
and not just tinker, they'd see what they could do for him.

PART FOUR

I: RETIRED FARMERS

People asked the children now:
"Well, how do the folks like it in town?"

"Oh, pretty good, I guess," the children answered. "Mamma likes
it a lot better since they're in their new house. I guess pa kind o'
misses the farm, though."

"I guess Marguerite's glad they've moved in."

"Oh, sure, she's glad. It suits her just fine."

The Kaetterhenrys were settled in town now, retired farmers.

Marguerite was the one who had profited by the change. She was
a town girl now. Her sisters said that she acted as if she had never
lived in the country. She was in high school now, where she played
basket-ball and went around with the girls. Marguerite Kaetterhenry
was a good-looking girl. She was tall, large-boned, but still thin, with
a fresh skin that was apt to break out a little. Her fuzz of bright
light hair she wore in huge side-puffs. She was very particular about
how her clothes should be made. She wouldn't buy shoes at one of
the general stores in Richland, but made her father take her into
"Wapsie," or went to Dubuque with one of the boys when they were
going. She was popular in high school, had good marks in her
studies, and went to all the parties, although the Kaetterhenrys
wouldn't let her go to the town dances in the opera-house. But she
was a kind of stranger at home.

She did not look as if she belonged to the same tribe as her sisters,
when they came to town. Mary lived away out in the country, near
the old mill. She looked aged and hollow-eyed, with dark skin and
those glowing, shy, intelligent dark eyes. Her clothes were shabbier
than her mother's. Elva took more pains with hers. She still had her
white skin, but somehow her things had a country look. She was
getting fat and matronly and sloppy, with all those fat white babies
of hers. Clara, of course, was young and fresh-looking, and she

COUNTRY PEOPLE 290

looked well in the clean ready-made bungalow aprons that she wore
out on the farm. But when she came to town, she seemed different,
coarser, and she wore shabby, high black shoes with her thin summer
dresses. Lottie, Frank's wife, was a heavy, coarse, homely woman,
with straight red hair and a thick-freckled face. Marguerite would
never be satisfied with what her sisters had had.

In some ways the Kaetterhenrys lived much as they had done on
the farm. They did most of their living in the kitchen. August al-
ways washed his hands and face there, at the sink, in the granite
basin, instead of in the bath-room; and he kept an old pinkish comb
and his shaving-things on the shelf above the sink. They used their
old dishes and ate from the oilcloth.

They had arranged to get their cream and eggs from the farm,
but they found that it was very different from having those things
right at hand in abundance. Emma said that she had to learn to cook
all over again. They were sparing of milk and butter when they had
to pay for these things in cash. They got several quarters of meat
when Carl butchered, and Emma put it up in jars, as she had always
done. But somehow, when they were so near town, they found them-
selves getting more fresh meat. Emma canned quarts and quarts of
vegetables, too. The cellar was full. They couldn't use half the
things. They couldn't have chickens because they might dig up the
lawn, which was freshly seeded.

August had let Carl keep the old car and had bought a new sedan.
They drove a little more now, oftener to "Wapsie" and to Dubuque,
where they got into the habit of doing their important shopping,
like most Richland people. But August used the car chiefly for going
back and forth to the farm. He wouldn't let Marguerite drive it,
and of course Emma never thought of doing so. They still did little
pleasure-driving. They took out the minister and his wife for a drive,
went two or three times to Turkey Creek. In the hot summer eve-
nings the car was locked in the garage, although they might have
been out getting the freshness from the open country, where ghostly
vapour rose from the cornfields and the trees looked misty and
drenched in the loneliness of evening.

They got considerable consolation from the church. Now they
were among the chief and faithful members. If the Kaetterhenrys
were not in their pew, the minister knew that something was wrong
with them, and took pains to call the next week. They were among
the eight or nine who attended the prayer-meetings. Emma had a
kind of fondness and loyalty for the church because of her father,
and August remembered it as the best thing in his young days.

294 RUTH SUCKOW

Going to church, and being steady and a good worker, and not
drinking, and paying his bills, and saving money, were all part of
the same thing. August and Emma still attended the Hon. Mr. Boss-
ingham's Bible class, where August sat dumb and Emma occasionally
made a timid answer. They never said much at church-meetings, but
they could always be counted upon to be there. After the evangelist
had been to Richland— a modern evangelist who had a singer who
shouted, "Now put a little pep into these hymns, people!" not like
the old travelling evangelists who used to go around to the camp-
meetings— they offered the use of their house for one of the cottage
prayer-meetings that were held for as long as a month before they
petered out.

But although the church was still a social and business centre in
a little country town like Richland, one doctor attending the Metho-
dist church, the other the Congregational, it didn't seem to have the
importance that it had had when they were young people in the
country here. The children didn't make the effort to come in to
services that they had made, easy as it was for them now, compared
with those old days of buggies and dirt roads. There were too many
other places where people could go now. August and Emma made
Marguerite go to church and Sunday school, but after the League
she went walking, on pleasant nights, with her current admirer.

And, really, it was only as a kind of deep-rooted custom, a bulwark
against worrying changes, an idea, that August cared for the church.
He often went to sleep during the services. He did not get the senti-
mental and emotional satisfaction out of the prayers and sermons
and hymns that Emma did. It did not fill the same place in his life.
He had never questioned anything, but it was doubtful what these
things really meant to him.

Emma was getting used to town. As the children said, she liked it
better now that they were in their own house. She was still very
quiet, but she was beginning to go about a little more than formerly.
Her sister-in-law, Mrs. Henry Stille, "got her into" the Social Circle
Club, a collection of elderly ladies who met every Tuesday to eat
and talk. They had no program, like the Tourist Club, took up no
"line of study." The club was only and frankly for social purposes.
The Banner said of it:

"The Social Circle Club held its weekly meeting on Tuesday
last at the pleasant new residence of Mrs. August Kaetterhenry.
The ladies brought fancy work and, after a pleasant hour spent
in social intercourse, were served with a delicious luncheon by

COUNTRY PEOPLE 295

the hostess, after which the club adjourned, thanking the hostess
one and all for a delightful afternoon's entertainment."

Then there was the Aid Society. This, too, was composed largely
of the older women of the church, who were still willing to get up
big suppers, work at cleaning the church, make sheets and pillow-
cases for the missions that they supported, and raise money for the
parsonage fund by making quilts which women from "Wapsie" came
down to buy. Emma enjoyed these quilting-afternoons in the quiet,
chilly church basement, to which she went with Mrs. Willie Stille,
with all the women sitting about in old-fashioned comfort, talking
over neighbourhood affairs, telling what their husbands and children
had done, as they worked together at the big quilting-frame. It was
like her girlhood days, when she was getting ready to be married,
and they had held quilting-bees in the country. There was the crisp
smell of coffee, which some of the ladies were getting ready on the
oil-stove, coming in and saying, "Well, don't you ladies think you
better quit working so hard and have a little coffee for a change?"
She helped at the church suppers, was one of those who could be
counted upon to work in the kitchen. But it was noticed that the
Kaetterhenrys were always careful not to donate too much.

Emma still had the feeling that August mustn't be kept waiting
a minute for his meals and that she "must be getting back."

She took more pains with the house than she had ever taken with
the one in the country. It was all so bright and shining, and she
wanted to keep it that way. Marguerite, of course, didn't get things
out of order as the boys had done. Emma raised plants, geraniums,
and coloured foliage, and a sword-fern for the front window that she
hoped would grow huge, like Mrs. Henry Stille's. She did more sew-
ing than she had done before. She used to count on Mary for that,
but Mary had less time than she did now. Emma made Marguerite's
clothes, under minute and fretful and exacting directions. "No,
mamma, I told you I had to have the belt down lower. This makes
me look like Lottie." She got patterns from other women and cro-
cheted wide elaborate yokes for Marguerite's corset-covers and
camisoles.

She took care of the grandchildren when the young people wanted
to go somewhere. She went out into the country to help out when
there was sickness at the homes of any of the children. She missed
the farm sometimes— missed the quiet, her work with the poultry,
the feeling of the old rooms, the country air and sounds. But she kept
busy enough.

296 RUTH SUCKOW

August was the one who felt that he had nothing to do. The house
was finished now. Life moved along, and what else was there to do?
He was taking it easy now. He made a kind of religion of the garden
and the lawn. He looked forward to the meetings of the stockholders
of the Farmers' Bank, in which he had an interest. He made a rite
of going downtown for the mail and the meat. But all this meant
nothing.

There was no club for him. For some obscure reason he "didn't
believe in lodges." He paid his subscription to the church, and that
was the end of it. He read the Richland Banner and a Dubuque
paper and a farm journal. He cared for nothing else. There was no
library in Richland, no place where magazines were sold, but he
would not have patronized such places if he had had them, although
Emma might have done so.

He didn't come right home when he went down for the mail. He
got into the habit of hanging around with the other retired farmers,
in at Dawson's store or at the post office. Not at the barber-shop. The
"tougher element" hung out there, and at the restaurant, which had
a pool hall in connection. The men talked a little about politics,
but mostly about farms changing hands, and crops and roads, with
minute observations on the weather.

"Well, that was just about a frost we had last night."

"Yeh. Little too windy for a frost."

"My wife thought some of her plants had been frosted."

"No. Wasn't quite a frost. Our plants didn't show any sign of it."

Most of them had a kind of seedy look. They walked heavily, with-
out spring. They didn't know what to do with themselves.

People said, "Have you noticed how old Mr. Kaetterhenry's get-
ting to look? He don't seem like the same man he did when they
first moved into town. I wonder if he can be well." He wasn't very
well. He had headaches, trouble with his stomach, once a dizzy spell.
He was eating the same heavy meals that he had eaten when he was
working hard on the farm, coffee and meat three times a day. August
thought he had to have his meat.

It was true that all at once he was beginning to show his age.
Emma looked no older now than he did. She had gained flesh again
since her operation, and some of the lines had gone from her face.
August, when he decided to retire, had been a hearty, vigorous man
seemingly in the prime of life. But now all at once his old colour
was gone, his shoulders were slack, his vigorously bright curling hair
was sparse and faded, and he walked like a man ten years older. He
actually looked older than Herman Klaus, who had always been a

COUNTRY PEOPLE 297

little dried-up fellow. August had never had anything the matter
with him except when he had lost two fingers from his left hand in
the corn-shredder. But now he began buying a patent tonic at the
drug-store, and he and Emma both took it.

Emma said that she believed half the trouble was that August had
nothing to keep him busy any more. He did a little hauling. There
was a job vacant in the lumber-yard. He would have liked to take
it, at seventy dollars a month, but his old stubbornness kept him
from it. He had said that he wanted to quit work. Actually he would
have been glad at times to work on the roads or the section. But no
work was vital any more. No work looked forward to anything. He
didn't want someone else for his boss. Everything that he had done
had been for the farm. The farm had always come first. He had al-
ways talked about retiring some day, quit this slaving; but he had
never really looked forward to it. He had used every energy to build
up the farm. He had done it, from almost nothing, by his own
efforts, and now that he had made a fine place of it, Carl was living
on it and he had moved to town. Well, that was what everybody did.
He would not have wanted to be like Herman, not able to do it.

The boys had speculated upon whether pa would be able to stay
away from the farm. They weren't surprised to see him going out
there. He made excuses at first. When he got the new sedan, he
drove out just to see what Carl was doing. Then he said, "Want me
to help you some with that ploughing?" Then he began to go regu-
larly, except when the weather was too bad and he was forced to
hang about the house, looking at the farm journal and trying to
take a nap.

He and Emma had always thought of taking a trip, but it seemed
now that neither of them really wanted to go.

The farm looked different now, more so as time went on. When
August and Emma sometimes drove out there for Sunday dinner, it
gave them a kind of shock when they turned into the drive. The
place was theirs, and yet it wasn't. The house was different. Carl and
Clara were getting new furniture. They used grandpa's old room for
a store-room. They didn't like the upstairs, which was not well fin-
ished. They had a brass bed and a shiny mail-order dresser in the
downstairs bedroom, which was full of the baby's things, thrown
around everywhere. They had a new bright-coloured rug in the
parlour, where there was none of the old furniture except the
organ, which Marguerite had refused to have moved into town.
Clara said she didn't know why they kept it there, since neither of
them could play a note. She wanted a Victrola if crops were good

298 RUTH SUCKOW

this year. Carl had made a little cage for the baby, like one that they
had seen in a store window in Dubuque. They let him play there
on the new parlour rug, with all his celluloid animals and the little
doll like one of the characters in the funny papers. None of Emma's
children had ever been permitted to be in the parlour.

It was still different out on the place. August thought that Carl
was doing a good deal of experimenting with new things. August
had never believed in sweet clover for pasturage. He called sweet
clover a weed. Now Carl had got a lot of new seed from the state
agricultural college. August couldn't get used to the feeling that he
couldn't tell Carl just what to do. Carl was the boss now. He was
good-tempered, didn't say much. But August noticed that he kept
on with exactly what he had planned to do. He was a Kaetterhenry.
August worked on the farm, but then what did that mean when he
was no longer doing it for anything? The life had gone out of his
work. Sometimes he hated to go out there, although he couldn't stay
away.

Carl didn't like to have him come, either, as he told Frank. Pa
was too used to thinking he could do anything he pleased there. They
had quarrels once or twice.

Emma, all of them, thought that August was working too hard.
They said, "You don't need to go out to that farm and kill yourself."
He kept on stubbornly. One day he was overcome with the heat out
there. Carl had to bring him home in the sedan. But even after that
he wouldn't stop. Carl had to be careful, and scheme so that his
father would get the easier part of the work.

"Mr. Kaetterhenry looks real bad," people said. He would not
admit it. Emma wanted him to try this and that that other people
recommended. The children said, "Pa'll have a stroke some day if
he isn't careful."

He was never so vigorous again after that heat prostration. He
knew that he was sick, but he tried obstinately not to give in, to
hang on. Then one day, coming home from town, he had a kind of
dizzy spell. He got home all right, and no one knew it. But it
frightened him. It broke his resistance. He told Emma that he be-
lieved there was something the matter with him. The next day
Emma telephoned the children that she and pa were going to
Rochester again.

II: OBITUARY

It was in the dead of winter that August and Emma took their sec-
ond trip to Rochester. They did not take Marguerite with them this

COUNTRY PEOPLE 299

time. She was going to stay with her uncle Henry Stille, so that she
needn't miss school. Altogether the trip seemed less eventful than the
first one that they had made, when everything was new.

August was not interested in the farms this time, or the country.
It lay under a heavy crust of snow, the willow-trees pencilled bleak
and small upon a grey sky. Although they had both had such awe
of the operation before, this time there was a different fear in their
hearts, down under everything, gnawing in silence.

They went to their same old boarding-house. The landlady did
not recognize them until they told their names and reminded her
of when they had been here before. Then she exclaimed:

"Oh, my! Well, I should say! Well, what are you folks back here
for? Are you the sick one this time, Mr. Kaetterhenry? Missus looks
fine, though."

They did not like the place so well as before. They were used to
the shining immaculateness and comforts of their new house now.
The bedroom, the dining-room, with the brown linoleum and the
little step up from the ancient parlour, seemed darker and shabbier
to them. They did not know any of these boarders. Somehow, it
seemed to them that they must meet some of those who had been
here before, that they must belong to the boarding-house.

The landlady tried to cheer them. She said:

"Oh, they'll fix you up over there. They're great folks. Not much
them doctors can't do."

Emma said:

"Ja, if he'll do what they say."

"Oh, he will. That's what he's come here for." She rallied him:
"I never thought I'd see you folks here on your account, Mr. Kaet-
terhenry. Ain't you ashamed of yourself? My, I remember that Mrs.
Boohey that was here with her husband, had the operation on the
jaw, used to say, if her husband looked half as strong as Mr. Kaetter-
henry! Well, they'll have you looking that way again."

But she was doubtful. She told the other boarders about how
vigorous August had been and how he had aged. She said:

"I'll bet he's waited too long before he came, just like all those
old farmers. He looks to me as if he might have had some kind of
a stroke. Did you notice how kind of slow he moves? Well, sir, it's
that big strong kind of men that sometimes goes all of a sudden."

She frightened Emma, who had never actually noticed before how
changed August was. It was hard to say what the change was, ex-
actly. He was not thin. His face was still high-coloured. But the skin
looked different; there were wrinkles; his figure was sunken, and

300 RUTH SUCKOW

his movements were no longer vigorous; his eye was vacant and
seemed to turn slowly. The whole impression of the man was dif-
ferent.

Emma and the children had wondered if August would ever sub-
mit to all those tests and examinations. He had always scorned all
such things. It had taken him a long while to give up, but now he
had done so completely. He was suddenly not the same person. He
was meek. He let Emma do things for him, turned to her. He
seemed to depend upon her. When they went to the clinic, he let
her make all the arrangements. And he called her in and let her
answer many of the questions that the doctor asked. All the time,
from the doctor's careful, non-committal manner— a new doctor,
large and calm— from something that they felt, but could not name,
they were afraid.

August had fought all these months against having anything done
for him, against "seeing anyone." But now that it might be too late,
he was suddenly ready to do anything. He went through all the tests
without a murmur, and he even seemed to find a relief in having his
ailments admitted to the doctor. August! He seemed to want Em-
ma's help and sympathy. Before, he wouldn't even so much as admit
that his stomach was out of order, was angry with anyone who dared
to suggest it.

They had both been hoping that the doctor would say that there
must be an operation. Since Emma had been helped by an operation,
it seemed to them that an operation would do anything. But the
doctor merely said that this condition could hardly be helped by
that. He wouldn't say much about it all, only murmuring something
about "blood pressure pretty high." He was going to give August a
diet, and he was to do no physical work, not to drive the car, to be
quiet and avoid excitement. August and Emma did not say to each
other what was meant, but they knew. "High blood pressure" was
a term of terror to people in Richland, although old Dr. Bowen
laughed at the whole business and said there was no such thing.
Everyone said that that was what had caused Mrs. Vesey's stroke.
The doctor's coolness, his temperate statements, only soothed them
for the time being. "Stroke" was what they were both fearing. It
was the fear of all the elderly people in Richland. Time was counted
from the day when Mrs. Vesey or Grandpa Granger or Fred Wil-
liams had had a stroke.

Emma was all the more fearful because the doctor kept her and
questioned her closely about the time last summer when August had
been overcome with the heat. She answered timidly, half consciously

COUNTRY PEOPLE 301

trying to make it sound less serious than it had been, for fear of that
word. But she had to ask the doctor what he thought it had been.
He would admit no more than that it might have been slightly on
the order of a stroke. But he let her know that August's condition
was serious.

August had a reaction from his meekness before the doctors. The
night before they left Rochester he was discouraged. He let himself
sink into bitter depths of hopelessness. He blamed the doctors. He
said that if he'd known they weren't going to do any more for him
than that, he wouldn't have come up here and wasted all his money.
Just tell him to be careful! Any old fool, even old Doc Bowen, could
have done that. He didn't need to come clear up to Minnesota to
learn a thing like that. Emma tried to soothe him. She defended the
doctors.

"Well, maybe there ain't anything else they could do. They said
there wasn't anything to operate for. I suppose there's times when
they can't. They gave you a diet."

"]a, diet!" he said bitterly. ' 'Think if I can't do anything else,
then I might as well starve too, a'ready."

They admitted to the landlady that they didn't think August had
got much help. It seemed to both of them that the doctors should
have done more. August declared that he believed that stuff he'd
taken last summer had given him more help. They both thought
that if Emma's old doctor could have looked at him, he might have
done something. "If he helped you, why couldn't he have helped
me?" Their notion of medicine was still as of some universal pan-
acea. August had looked to "operation" and "Rochester" as the last
resort, the final magic independent of what he himself did. Now it
seemed that there was no panacea.

They went home silent and discouraged, fearful, hating to admit
to the children and the neighbours what had been said. They had
not sent word that they were coming. There was no one to meet
them at the little station, standing bleak in the midst of frozen win-
ter pastures. They went up the lonely, icy street. They had had a
discussion about the suit-case. Emma had been afraid to have Au-
gust carry it all the way home. She had wanted to leave it in the
depot. One of the boys would be in town soon and could get it. He
had angrily refused. Then she had said:

"Well, let me take it, then. I don't want you to carry it. You'll
hurt yourself." He picked it up and went angrily on with it, she
trotting over the ice at his side and urging him to let her have it.

Then they met one of their neighbours, Lew Parsons, in his car.

302 RUTH SUCKOW

He stopped at the corner, called, "Hello! didn't know you folks was
back! Don't you want to ride home?" They climbed in thankfully.

"Ja, I thought mister oughtn't to carry that suit-case, but he
wouldn't give it up," Emma said.

Lew Parsons said, "Well, what did they do to you up there?"
August said gloomily, "Ach, not much of anything." "Not much of
anything, hey? Well, I could have told you before you went how it
would be. Them places makes a big noise, but there's some stuff
right down here at the drug-store that me and the missus always
takes when we got anything the matter with us, and it does the
business."

They went into their house. The furnace was out. The place was
ice-cold. Emma worried over anything that August did, but he was
determined not to let her help him start the fire. It was a bleak
home-coming.

The children came in when they found that "the folks" were at
home. There wasn't much to tell them. Emma said the doctors
hadn't had much to say.

But people in town gradually knew. They said that Mr. Kaetter-
henry had "high blood pressure," and that they'd told him he was
liable to have a stroke. One might take him off any time, and they
marvelled again over what a big strong man he had always seemed
to be. They said that was often the way. They had time in Richland
to watch and study people, to go minutely over and over physical
symptoms, to see what kind of people seemed to last and what didn't.

All that winter August sat around the house, went down occa-
sionally for the mail. Emma was fearful. She watched him. If she
didn't know where he was and what he was doing, she sent Mar-
guerite to see. People said, "He's failed just since they come back
from Rochester." They saw how slowly he walked. His feet dragged
as he went past their houses to the post office. He never went out to
the farm any more. He said he didn't want to go there.

They were not content with merely diet and care. They tried
other things. Another brand of medicine, and then a treatment for
"high blood pressure," regardless of cause, that a doctor in "Wap-
sie" gave. They thought at first that it might be helping. Then they
couldn't tell whether it did or not. Mrs. Cooley, who, people whis-
pered, was "kind of a Christian Scientist or some such thing," told
Emma about a man over at Wellington who claimed to give people
mental healing. She wanted Emma to take August over there and
have him try that. Emma was quite worked up over all the wonders
of which Mrs. Cooley had told her, but August refused to go. Al-

COUNTRY PEOPLE 303

though, in medical matters, he was quite ready to believe in magic,
it must be connected with something that he could see, a bottle or
a knife. He said that this was "nothing but some more Christian
Science," and that he had always considered almost equal in wicked-
ness to Catholicism.

In the summer he seemed to be a little better. Perhaps it was be-
cause he could get out more. He mowed the lawn, although Emma
didn't like to have him do it. He went downtown and stood about
with the other men. The anxiety that had been hanging over them
lightened a little. But there was always the fear of that day he might
do a little too much.

The day came. There was a sale of stock out in the country, and
August secretly took the car and drove out there. All of a sudden
he had got tired of hanging around, and had broken loose. It hap-
pened to be one of the very hottest days of the whole summer.
Emma did not know that August had gone, but she knew what it
meant when she saw Carl driving up the street in their sedan. He
and Dr. Brady were bringing August home.

That evening everyone in town knew of it.

"Have you heard about Mr. Kaetterhenry's stroke? J a, he had a
stroke this afternoon out at Gorensen's sale; ain't expected to live.
Well, I guess they been kind of expecting it a long time."

The children were summoned. They drove in from the country.
It had been a severe stroke. Their father might not live through the
night. In all their hearts was the hope that he would not "live to be
like grandma."

Several times they thought that he was dying. They went into the
bedroom where he lay unconscious. But he was a vigorous man, and
it took the thing a long time to kill him. He lived for three days.
The children had to go back to their farms, and only Roy and Elva
were there when he had another stroke and died.

"August Kaetterhenry's dead! He died at three o'clock." That was
what everyone in Richland was saying now. He had never regained
consciousness. They all said again how strange it seemed. What a
strong man he had seemed to be when he first moved to town— had
looked as if he would live for years! They remembered how he
had helped to build his new house. They said what a pity that he had
lived so few years to enjoy it. Now everyone was wondering where
and when the funeral would be. The Kaetterhenrys were such Meth-
odists, probably it would be in the church.

Funerals were still public events in Richland. This one was ex-
pected to be large. A great many people came in from the country.

304 RUTH SUCKOW

Townspeople turned out, although they hadn't known August very
well, to see what kind of service it would be and who was there.
All the pews were filled as Tom Peters, who was studying with the
local undertaker, led one family after another to their places in a
creaking silence. They wanted to hear what the Methodist quartet,
Dr. Brady, Herb Carter, Willie Stille, and Mr. Rush, would sing.
Most of all, they wanted to see "who had come from away." They
whispered, "My, he must have had a lot of relations!" "Well, some
of these are hers."

The five front rows at the side were reserved for the mourners.
There were all the children and the children-in-law and the grand-
children. Grandpa Stille, of course, couldn't get in, although he had
wanted to come, had sighed and mourned over "the young folks
going." Herman and Mollie Klaus were there. There were five
families of Stilles. Those whom people really wanted to see were
"his folks," who had come from Turkey Creek. Sophie Klaus and
her husband, Heinie and Ferdinand Kaetterhenry and their wives.
Mina had come. She was a fat, toothless old widow now. She had
always cared the most for August, although he had not done much
for her. She wore a little scrap of cheap black veiling on her ancient
summer hat. The two brothers were heavier men than August, more
like the old man Kaetterhenry.

There was a long procession of cars that went out to the cemetery.
Most of them were from the country. All the children and all the
relatives from Turkey Creek, and a good many of the other country
people from the Richland neighbourhood. It pleased the Turkey
Creek relatives to see how many. August had been the most success-
ful brother, and Richland was more metropolitan than Turkey
Creek.

They drove down the hard, brown, dusty road, slowly, stopping
so that the cars wouldn't bump into one another. They went through
the big iron gate of the cemetery, which was open to-day. The rela-
tives looked around and whispered, "Oh, that's where his lot is.
It's in a nice spot." August had bought the lot when he moved to
town. It was over in the newer part of the cemetery, near a large
evergreen.

The summer wind stirred in the unaccustomed black veils of the
women as they stood about the grave. "Must be a country funeral,"
people driving past said when they saw all the waiting cars and the
solemn, stolid group of people there.

The children had to drive home to do the chores. But August's
sister Sophie and the Ferdinand Kaetterhenrys were going to spend

COUNTRY PEOPLE 305

the night with Emma, so that she and Marguerite wouldn't be alone.
The Henry and the Willie Stilles came over in the evening.

They talked about August, in voices slightly hushed, but more
natural now that it was all over. They said how nice the funeral had
been, how many had driven in from the country. They talked about
the sermon. "This good brother who has gone before us," the min-
ister had said. That was right. They said what a good church-mem-
ber, how faithful, August had always been! Ferdinand said he re-
membered when he and August had "gone forward" at one of the
old Turkey Creek camp-meetings. August had been faithful to his
pledge. The minister had said what a good citizen and good farmer
August had been. They said that that was true. Sophie and Ferdinand
were proud of how much August had been able to accumulate when
they remembered the old days in the cabin down on Turkey Creek.
They said he had worked hard for all he had got. He had deserved it.
The only pity was that he hadn't lived to get more enjoyment out
of it.

Then they talked over the details of his illness. They said how
quickly he had seemed to fail when he once started. It didn't seem
any time since he was over at Turkey Creek the last time and had
helped Heinie with the haying.

Emma cried a little. It seemed to her that August had had to work
so hard, and then after he moved to town he hadn't got much out of
all his work. They gave her vague consolations: "Well, we don't
understand why he should have been taken this way, but, then,
there's some reason." But they thought as she did. It didn't seem
right that Herman Klaus, for instance, was still living, as well and
happy as ever, and August was gone. They had thought of that
when they had looked at Herman at the funeral.

There was consolation and pride in the column of close print in
the Richland Banner on Thursday. Emma ordered extra copies.

"ESTEEMED RESIDENT PASSES"

And below, in smaller type:

"Retired Farmer Answers Summons."

August's life seemed different to her, more important, as she read
it there, as if she had been reading about a stranger.

"On Sunday last the grim Reaper called from our midst an
esteemed citizen, Mr. August Kaetterhenry. August Ernst Kaet-
terhenry was born on a farm near Turkey Creek, Iowa, on Sep-

306 RUTH SUCKOW

tember 10, 1859. He was the fifth son of Casper and Luisa Kaet-
terhenry, who were natives of Pommern, Germany."

She read, as if she had never known it before, how August had
had "such education as the schools of that day afforded," how he had
"left his native township and come to Richland Township to seek
his fortune, working for a time on the farm of the late Henry Baum-
gartner, well-known Richland Township farmer." Then how "he
was united in marriage with Emma Stille, daughter of Wilhelm,
now known as Grandpa Stille, and to them six children were born,
all of whom survive." How he had acquired the farm, how he had
made it into one of the best improved farms in Richland Township,
"where the deceased's son, Carl Kaetterhenry, is now operating the
farm on the principles taught him by his father. . . . Mr. Kaetter-
henry was known to all his neighbours as a conscientious farmer and
an honest, upright man. He united with the Methodist denomina-
tion when a young man, and was all his life one of its most faithful
members and one whose loss will be felt by the church and com-
munity. . . . Mr. Kaetterhenry is survived by his sorrowing widow,
Mrs. Emma Kaetterhenry, and by his children Frank, Mrs. Joe
Fields, Mrs. Roy Robbins, Carl, John, and Marguerite and by
numerous grandchildren. Also by his sisters Mrs. Ed Klaus and Mrs.
Mina Nisson and brothers Henry and Ferdinand Kaetterhenry, all
of Turkey Creek."

She had never seen all their names in print before. "Esteemed
resident," "retired farmer"— it sounded like someone else than
August.

Emma cut these columns out from several papers and folded the
strips in the old "doctor-book" that lay on the doily on the bottom
shelf of the bookcase behind the glass door.

Ill: THE ESTATE

Then there was all the settling-up of the estate to be done.

August had never let Emma know anything of business affairs. Of
late years he had permitted her to do a small amount of the buying,
but he had never thought of letting her handle anything that was
not directly connected with the household. He had bought the meat,
subscribed for the papers, planned the garden, managed everything.
Now, suddenly, she had to see to all these things.

It worried her at first. Even a little thing like sending the "card
of thanks" that must be inserted in the next issue of the Banner:

COUNTRY PEOPLE 307

"We, the undersigned, wish to thank our friends and neigh-
bours for their kindness to us during the illness and death of
our husband and father and for the beautiful flowers.

"(Signed) Mrs. Emma Kaetterhenry.
"The Children."

There was one of these cards in every issue of the Banner, and
Emma always read them conscientiously, but still she did not know
how to go about it to have her own put there. She made Johnnie
write it for her and take it down to the Banner office.

She hadn't been used to getting the mail. She didn't know whether
to keep on subscribing for the farm journal or not. She "hated to
let it go," since August had taken it so long. She could not conceive
of subscribing instead for a household magazine for herself. That
seemed too audacious. She had scarcely been inside the bank. She
had no idea how to make out a cheque, and was afraid of her cheque-
book. She employed devices for getting out of going to the bank,
such as making out a cheque to Johnnie under his directions and
having him cash it, and keeping the money that came in to her from
this and that. Although Johnnie explained the cheque-book to her,
she said that she would never know from that how much money she
had, not unless her money was somewhere where she could see it
and "keep track of it." She was afraid to draw a cent. She liked to
keep silver and odd change in an old tea-pot in the cupboard, as she
had kept the egg money. There was the worry over what to do with
the car. She would never use it. She hated to have it "sitting in the
garage." Some of these auto thieves might steal it.

There were all the little worries, too, that immediately followed
August's death. For a time she was "pestered" by catalogues and
visits from monument men from Dubuque and Rapids City. One
of the salesmen, a slick young fellow with bright grey eyes set too
close together, upset her dreadfully by wanting her to order a large
monument and two markers with "Father" and "Mother," promising
her a reduction if she would get all three. Emma said, "It would
make me think I was dead a'ready." The children said that she
needn't order the things, but Emma told them that she didn't see
how else she was ever going to get rid of that fellow. She even got a
sample copy of the old-fashioned black memorial cards with a verse
and the name in gold, "Mr. August Kaetterhenry." She wondered
how those people had known that August was dead, and how they
had got his name. She remembered that they had had cards like that
when her oldest sister Bertha had died, but they were so "gloomy-

3o8 RUTH SUCKOW

looking" that she was glad the children didn't want her to get them
now.

People were interested to hear whether August had left a will.
There would be a muddle if he hadn't. Emma said, "Ach, I don't
think pa ever made a will." But he had made one, it seemed, when
he had moved into town, although he hadn't told them anything
about it. The lawyer, E. P. Bland, read it to all of them. Emma had
never known before "what they had." She did not understand very
well now. She had thought that Frank owned the farm where he
lived, but it seemed that August had still been the owner of it. Now
both the farms were hers. She was to have some rent from both of
them. There was the stock in the bank, which was divided among
the family, and a little piece of land in Montana that no one had
known that August had, and that went to the children. Emma had the
house and lot in town. She was "pretty well fixed." August had ac-
cumulated more than Emma had thought; not so much as certain
people in town had predicted, who always said of other people,
"Aw, he's got more tucked away than anybody knows about." Of
course Emma would have the taxes and insurance and repairs, things
she had never thought of before.

The children wanted to sell that Montana land at once and get
what they could out of it. They had always been a little afraid of
their father. Even after he had left the farm and moved to town,
the thought of him had checked them. Now they began to blossom
out a little, to get things, to think of themselves as really adult.

Frank wouldn't do much differently than he had been doing. He
was a settled young-old farmer, short and small and very quiet, a
good steady worker, but one who was not likely to get ahead very
far. He and Lottie had a horde of children, and they were one of
those families who are always having accidents, sickness, and doc-
tor's bills. Frank was caught in the gasolene engine and just missed
being killed or mangled. Lottie, big sturdy woman that she was,
had had several operations performed by her brother-in-law, a doc-
tor in Bishop. There was one thing after another the matter with
the children. Their farm was an untidy place, much like their uncle
Herman's.

Carl would do better. He was going to make as good a farmer as
his father. Better, some people thought. While he might not be able
to keep at it quite so doggedly, might not be quite so saving, he was
more ready to try things, less stubborn and set in his ways. He was
just as particular about the buildings and machinery as August had
been. His wife, Clara, was a hustler. She had nearly a thousand

COUNTRY PEOPLE 309

chickens, and was making money with them. Her canned goods took
prizes at the Farmers' Institute in the armoury building in "Wapsie."
Carl and Clara worked hard, but they "went," too. They were going
to have some fun as they went along. They had no fear of poverty
in their old age.

The farm looked very different now. Carl had had the house
"pebble-dashed." August's name was gone from the barn now, which
was painted a new shining white.

Mary, in a way, scarcely belonged to the family any more; she and
Joe lived so far away, or it seemed far away. They were part of the
Adams Grove neighbourhood now, and did their trading in Bishop.
Joe's farm was in the timber country there. There were some lime-
stone cliffs and a little glen on the edge of their own land. The
whole country was different from that around Richland. Not just
like the Turkey Creek country, but hilly and backwoodsy and queer.

Mary and Joe seemed to be happy together. Mary had never had
much but hard work out of life, except for those few years when she
had been a mysterious invalid. She had two children of her own be-
sides the other four. There was no more time for books now than
she had ever had, but she found an outlet in the neighbourhood
church, where she taught a large Sunday-school class and worked
with the young people. She went with them to Epworth League con-
ventions, and she was famed for having the best papers in the mis-
sionary society. Sunday school was the only glimpse of anything
besides "practical work" that Mary had ever known.

Elva and Roy were talking now of moving to Oklahoma. Roy
had a cousin who had an interest in some oil-wells out there, and
Roy was wild to go, "quit this farming."

Johnnie was turning out better now. He bought out the Beal
brothers in the garage, and he took the little house near his mother's
where Nannie Frost had lived. The garage was on a highway and did
a good business. But it worried Emma that it kept Johnnie so busy
all the time. He was up until all hours of the night. He was a good
mechanic. The fact that he was dealing with things that would go,
his sight of passing travel, eased his restlessness. He was less nervous
now. But he had never been the same boy since the war. It seemed
to have affected Johnnie and Carl in opposite ways.

Johnnie was tremendously fond of Junior, but otherwise he was
not very happy at home. He had no illusions about Bernice. He
knew that she was a fool. She was shiftless, and there were frequent
ructions with his mother-in-law. He seemed to enjoy being near his
mother, although he seldom went in and talked to her. He brought

310 RUTH SUCKOW

home the mail for her and cashed cheques and saw about the insur-
ance. She was better satisfied when she thought of him now; but it
worried her that Johnnie seemed to care nothing for the church.
She tried, timidly and anxiously, to get him to go. He usually said
that he couldn't get away from the garage, but once he told her,
"No, mamma, I'm all through with that. It don't meant anything to
me." She thought that perhaps it came from having a business that
ran on Sunday, and that grandpa had been right: this Sunday travel
was going to ruin the country. That wild streak in Johnnie that had
troubled them for a while seemed to be wearing off, but there was
a kind of bitterness that she couldn't understand. She thought
Johnnie looked older than Carl. He was so thin! And his sunburned
skin, his fair hair, his oil-stained khaki overalls seemed all of a
colour— the colour of the dust on the highway that followed the
wheels of the cars going endlessly past the garage.

Marguerite had finished the high school now. Emma would have
liked to have her stay at home for company, but Marguerite wanted
to go and take a business course in Rapids City. Half the youth of
Richland were going to business college now, either in Rapids City
or Dubuque, and Marguerite had to go, too. She wanted to earn
money of her own, so that she could buy the kind of clothes she
liked. She wanted to be in a larger town.

All of the children lived better than their parents had done, unless
it was Mary. They came into town often, and they thought nothing
of driving to Dubuque for a day. They had all given elaborate names
to their children, which sounded absurd with the old German sur-
names: Maxine, Velda, Delight, Gwendolyn, Eugene, Dwayne.

Not long after August's death, Emma went out to Mollie's to see
her father. Carl took her out and was to call for her. She hadn't been
there for months. Grandpa Stille was over ninety now. Who could
tell how much longer he might be there?

It was a sunny September day. The willows along the edge of
Herman's farm sprinkled narrow, shiny, yellow leaves over the drive
where they turned in, which had a patch of smooth, leathery, brown-
ish-black mud, with cracks across it. The dingy house and the scraggly
grove had a kind of beauty to-day in the sunshine and the burning
blue sky.

She found grandpa in his room on the west of the house, the win-
dow looking out on the willow grove. Mollie took her in to him,
went up, and shouted:

"Pa, si eh wer hier ist!"

He peered forward.

COUNTRY PEOPLE 311

"Ach, ja, ja, ja—Emma ist's? Ja, so!" He put out a hand that
trembled slightly.

He was thinner, bonier than ever, his hair only a few long silver
wisps under an old skull-cap, his mouth sunken in under his beard.
His deep-set brown eyes still had life in them. Despite the age and
the dinginess, those dark quilts that she knew so well on the billow-
ing feather-bed, the bare floor painted a dark red, there was a beauty
that she felt in the old room to-day, with the September sunlight
slanting in through the window and a rustling sound from the
willow grove.

Mollie and Herman had told her that the old man seldom talked
to them now. He seemed to be somewhere in a place of his own. Yet
his mind, when he did talk, was as clear as ever. Now that the dread-
ful war was over, he had gone back to his dreams. He came back
with an effort, repeated her name, sighed over the death of August
so jung, but declared that there was no great sorrow in dying; roused
to ask her why die kleine Marguerite never came out to see her old
grandpa. They talked in German. He answered her when she told
him where Marguerite was now and what the boys were doing, of
August's death. He was kind, and held her hand as she talked, looked
at her with affection in his thin old face, told her that she was a good
girl. He mourned that she should have lost her husband. But when
she left him he seemed to go back at once into that reverie in which
he lived now, broken only by occasional mutterings, as in the old
days. But they were peaceful mutterings now.

She stayed awhile with Mollie. They talked about their father.
Emma said:

"Grandpa seems to be real content."

"Ach, ja," Mollie said easily, "he's always happy."

"Ja, but what does he do in there alone all day? I should think
he'd get awful' lonesome."

"No, he don't get lonesome. Ach, I don't know what he does. He
always seems to have plenty to think about. He used to read, but
that he can't do any more."

"I hate to see him sit alone like that/*

"Ach, he's all right."

What was he doing, thinking? Mollie said that sometimes they
heard him singing old German hymns, so old that she didn't know
them. He wanted nothing but his tobacco, his meals, wood for his
stove in winter.

Mollie had gone to the kitchen for some eggs that she was going
to give Emma to take home. Emma heard the old man, in his room,

3i2 RUTH SUCKOW

praying. She had forgotten how he used to do that, so that it startled
her for a moment. The German words, guttural, rich, with long
pauses between, had a sound that was unearthly and yet fitting in the
still, sunlit country air. She looked into his room. He sat in the old
wooden rocker. His deep eyes had a withdrawn, mystic look. He did
not notice her. Mollie said:

"Ja, we often hear him doing that/*

Emma thought about it as Carl was driving her home between
the September fields of dusty gold in the late afternoon. She could
still hear those faint, far-apart, devout German words. August had
always said that if her father had been more of a farmer and less of
a preacher, he'd be better off to-day. August had despised him in a
dispassionate way. But the old man had had something, she hardly
knew what, that had lasted him when his work was over.

"He's got something to think about/' she thought.

It was that something, she could not name it, which she had missed
all her married life.

She remembered the pathos of August, coming in from the farm
and saying bitterly that everything had to go Carl's way now; of him
sitting about the house, trying to look at the farm journal, not know-
ing what to do with himself. Her father, what a frail man he had
been when he had first come to live with them years ago! And here
he was living still, contented with the little that he had, and well,
and August was the one who was gone.

IV: MRS. EMMA KAETTERHENRY

Retired farmers, widows, spinsters— these made up most of the little
town of Richland. Emma was one of the widows now— widows living
alone on small independent incomes, on the rents from farms, or
helped by their children.

Marguerite was in Rapids City now. Women in Richland said dis-
approvingly that she ought to have stayed with her mother, but they
were appeased by hearing that Marguerite was making twenty-two
dollars a week as a stenographer. And they heard that she was en-
gaged to that young fellow who sometimes came home with her,
although she didn't seem to be marrying him.

She came home over Sunday sometimes. She brought her "friend,"
a slim, glossy-haired young man who was employed in an office in
Rapids City, and who had bought a second-hand car in which they
drove to Richland. They drove down on Sunday morning, and after
dinner they either sat talking in low, meaning voices while Emma

COUNTRY PEOPLE 313

dozed— "You didn't? Oh, you did, too. How do / know? Sure I know!"
—or drove out to Carl's. Emma told Marguerite that she ought to
stop and see grandpa; but when they came back, and she asked them
about it, Marguerite said, "Oh, we didn't get over there this time."
Emma did not know whether these two were engaged or not.

Marguerite had converted herself into a very urban young lady.
Her chief business in staying in Rapids City was to watch the proper
length of skirts and waists and to have everything right. She was tall,
still thin, and wore her clothes well. The only thing about her looks
that really worried her was that her hair was too fuzzy to take a wave
well. She and another girl were doing their own cooking in light-
housekeeping rooms, and what she saved on food she spent on clothes.
Emma thought it was dreadful when she saw what Marguerite was
wearing out to Carl's, "just out in the country"— those sheer dresses
and light, high-heeled slippers and silk stockings. But she did noth-
ing more than murmur:

"Is that what you're going to wear out there? Won't you spoil it?"

Marguerite was a real Kaetterhenry, however. At home she had
done none of the work, but now that she had a job, although the
interest of her life was in clothes, she did her work well and dis-
dained the slipshod ways of other stenographers. She was cool, hard,
scrupulous, level-headed, a good worker. She seemed to be a nice,
capable girl, people in Richland had decided, although she wasn't
much comfort to her mother.

Even if she was alone, there were still claims upon Emma. There
was the Aid Society, of which she was now one of the chief supports.
She still worked in the kitchen at church suppers. She was sent for
when there was sickness in the country. She was often called upon to
keep the grandchildren while Carl and Clara, or Elva and Roy, drove
to Dubuque. Some of the little ones stayed with her while the others
were sick with measles or whooping-cough or scarlet fever. She often
had Junior with her. Bernice was "always on the go," or fancied that
she had something the matter with her. "Ma"— "grandma" they were
beginning to call her— was still the stand-by of all the children, and
"grandma's house" was the place where they all expected to go when
they went to town.

But in a way she was knowing leisure for the first time in her life.
She did not feel the responsibility that she had felt when things were
dependent upon her alone. She always had plenty of time to herself.
She was doing what she pleased in ways that she had never done
before. She had friends outside her home, elderly ladies like herself,
with whom she spent pleasant, gossipy afternoons, as she hadn't done

314 RUTH SUCKOW

while August was living. Her personality, smothered and silent foi
many years, was blossoming out, very faintly and timidly, but a little,
enough to shed a kind of light of content and freedom over this quiet
end of life. She might be lonely later on, but she was not now. She
was a Stille, not a Kaetterhenry. That showed now. She could be
happy pottering about on her own devices. The children said ma
got along better alone than they'd been afraid she would.

She had gradually got used to the fact that money was her own,
that there was no one but herself to say what she should spend and
what she shouldn't. She did not say much about it, but not even her
children realized what a wonder and pleasure it was to her to have
a little money in her own hands. She still felt timid and out of place
when she went into the bank. She made the boys do it for her. She
was still very cautious about what she spent, could not overcome the
lifelong habit of hoarding and thinking about the future. It seemed
wicked to her to spend more than a very little on herself, she had
had the self-effacement of mother and wife so ground into her. But
when she admired a piece of goods in the store window, she could
think, "Well, I can have it if I want it." She needn't ask anybody.

She could enjoy buying small presents for the grandchildren, get-
ting cloth to make up for them, sending dollar bills in letters to
Marguerite so that she could get herself something she wanted. She
gave generously when she was solicited for the church, and people
said, "I guess it was him that was the close one more than she. She
gives real freely." She no longer had to turn away agents who came
to the house selling things that she didn't want, something that had
always given her tender and sentimental heart a guilty feeling. She
said "they might need it; you could never be sure." She'd rather take
the chance and not send anyone away. She had never subscribed for
the household magazine that she wanted, thinking three dollars a
year almost too sinful a waste for reading-matter; but she had a little
magazine at which she never looked, having given her subscription
to a young Armenian— "a young foreigner," she called him— who had
asked her to "vote for him" by giving him a subscription. The youth
who got the most of these "votes" would be elected by the magazine
company for a year at college. She never heard whether her young
foreigner had been elected.

Emma even talked of taking a trip some time out to Nebraska to
see her brother Ed. But just as soon as the children began to press
her to go, she would begin to make excuses. She did not quite have
the courage to make a trip, or decide on one, by herself. If they had
gone while pa was still alive, then that would have been different.

COUNTRY PEOPLE 315

The children could hardly believe their Aunt Mollie when she
told them that as a girl their mother had "liked to go." Now it was
hard for them to get ma even to drive to Dubuque with them. She
only told them mildly, ach, she had forgotten how, she'd stayed at
home so much. It was something that she had looked forward to
when they were working so hard on the farm, that when they "once
had something" and "got to town," she could go again as much as
she pleased. She did not tell the children now how timid she felt
about starting out anywhere, how she "seemed better off at home."

They could not believe, either, that she had been a giggler, as
Mollie said. There was a picture of Emma and Mollie in the album,
taken in the same dresses and hats that they had worn to the Rich-
land Grove Fourth of July celebration, the first place where Emma
had gone with August. The children laughed over Aunt Mollie's
spit-curls, and said that she needn't talk; and their mother's hat with
a ridiculous feather, the attitude of the two girls sitting there dis-
playing their finery. The children said, "Don't you talk to us!" But
they couldn't really believe that their quiet, shy mother had been
as she looked in that photograph.

But she did go a little, more than she had been doing. She never
missed church, of course. She went to the "aids" and the missionary-
meetings. She got Mrs. Henry Stille to stop for her and went to the
Social Circle Club. She didn't mind going to places so much if she
had someone to go with her. She enjoyed entertaining the club more
now than when she had felt that it was bothering August. He had
grumbled about "What do all those women want to sit around and
talk for? Better go home and look after their houses." She felt more
free to serve what refreshments she pleased.

She looked better than she had for years, a plump, shapeless eld-
erly woman, with grey hair a little curling; spectacles— good ones
now, with light, narrow shell rims; she had got them "up at Roches-
ter"—and mild, soft, faded brown eyes. She was dowdy and countri-
fied, but wore clothes of lasting materials, always having one good
silk dress, and letting Marguerite persuade her to buy a new spring
hat instead of wearing her old one again.

She still got up early every morning. Not so early as when August
was living, however. Then they were awake at four, as they had been
in the country. Now she lay abed sometimes until after six o'clock.
That gave her a scared, delicious, audacious feeling. She liked to
work in the garden in the early morning. She enjoyed having time
for flowers. She had always had a few on the farm, but couldn't take
care of them. They were food for her sense of beauty. Now she chose

316 RUTH SUCKOW

the seeds herself. She planted moss roses near the house and had
Johnnie put up a trellis, shocked that he did it on Sunday. She liked
to be out there planting in the spring. She put on an ancient black
calico wrapper, a sunbonnet, a black, padded, sleeveless jacket, and
some old shoes of August's, and went out in the yard. It was silent
and sunny, no sound but an occasional car on the road, a rooster
crowing, sometimes the noise of Junior's little kiddy-car on the
cement walk. She liked the feel of the cool spring earth, sun-warmed
on the surface, black and moist and chill underneath, as she patted
it over the tiny dry seeds. She talked to Junior, said, "Dig over there
in the corner, Junie, if you have to dig too, then"; but her mind
was far away from him, in some wordless place of mysterious content.

She ate most of her meals alone at the little table in the kitchen.
That was what she minded most of living alone— the meals. Carl and
Clara had made her promise that she would cook herself real meals
and not just take to lunching, as many women did when they had no
men to cook for. She obeyed them pretty well, although sometimes
she said, "Ach, just for myself!" She took great pains with her house-
work, although she worked slowly since there was no reason to hurry.
There was a kind of mystery and contentment, too, in moving about
the quiet, bright house as she worked. She wanted to keep the floors
as shining as when the house was new. It worried her, although she
did not say so, to have the grandchildren "get things around." After
they had gone, she went about picking things up after them. She had
never had time for that on the farm.

In the afternoon she often had to take care of Junior for Bernice.
He was her favourite, although she would not say so, of all the grand-
children, just as Johnnie had secretly been her favourite of the chil-
dren. Junior didn't seem to have suffered from the shortcomings of
his mother. He was one of the sturdiest babies in town, one of whom
women said lovingly, "That dear little Junior Kaetterhenry!" and
men, "Ain't he a buster, though!" His fat, white cheeks and his
brown eyes and his engaging smile, the fact that he had won second
place in the baby-show in "Wapsie," consoled his grandmother for
the fact that Johnnie had made a poor marriage, and that he didn't
go to church or "believe." It seemed that the Lord must not be angry
with Johnnie, since he had given him Junior. She baked cookies so
that she would have some for Junior— "gran'ma's cookies," he called
them— and had bought some little celluloid animals at the ten-cent
store in Dubuque. He followed her about the house and asked ques-
tions, and shrieked "Daddy!" when any man went past in an auto-
mobile. And yet she felt it a kind of strain to have him there. She

COUNTRY PEOPLE 317

loved him, but she felt a kind of relief when Bernice eame flouncing
in to get him and take him home.

She did more fancy work now. She liked to make little clothes for
the grandchildren, and tried to be very impartial with them. Mar-
guerite picked out "cute patterns" for her in Rapids City. These little
youngest Kaetterhenrys dressed very differently than her children had
done. She made little bright-coloured chambray frocks, with apples
and morning-glories in applique.

She had to care for the lot in the cemetery. She got Johnnie to
drive her out there. She said that she didn't mind walking back, and
usually there was someone coming along in a car who would take
her as far as town. The monument was up now, a large, square, pol-
ished grey stone, with "KAETTERHENRY" carved upon it; below
that:

"August Ernst
1859-1922"

and below that a space. But she had not bought her own marker.
Johnnie had got rid of the monument man for her. She had had a
photograph taken of the lot when the stone was put up, and she cher-
ished that.

She kept a vase on August's grave, which she filled with flowers in
the summer, although the bunches of sweet-peas and cosmos fre-
quently withered before she could get out with a fresh bouquet. She
had had a small bridal-wreath bush set out in a corner of the lot.
This summer she was going to have a border of that little pink love-
in-a-mist around the grave. She wanted her lot to look as well as any
in the cemetery.

The Richland cemetery was in a high, sunny spot. She was not
unhappy as she went about there, filling the vase, moving slowly
down the narrow path through the thick grass to the small iron gate.

She told the children that she did not lack for company. Another
elderly widow who had been a farmer's wife, Mrs. Wall, lived on the
next street in a large, square house painted pale blue. Emma called
for Mrs. Wall, and they went to the prayer-meeting and the evening
church-service together, and to the missionary-meeting and the "aid."
It "made it nice for both of them," people said.

Mrs. Wall came over sometimes in the evening. They sat together,
sometimes in the front room, or "just out in the kitchen." Mrs. Wall
knew more of what was going on than Emma did, although she said
that she didn't hear so much now that she didn't have a man coming
home from town. They talked over illnesses and approaching wed-

318 RUTH SUCKOW

dings and of those whom they had seen going past their houses that
day. Emma told Mrs. Wall about her operation, and Mrs. Wall told
her about those of sisters and sisters-in-law and brothers. They talked
about the birth of children and grandchildren. Each one found a
consolation in detailing to the other the last illness and death of her
husband— all the symptoms from week to week, the death, the laying-
out, the funeral, in hushed, confiding voices, shaking their heads and
murmuring, "Yes, oh, it must have been terrible. I know what that
is." They sat in the twilight together, sympathizing and condoling
and narrating. Emma said it helped her to have someone to tell these
things to. She would not have told them to the children.

The two women talked of religion together, of what they thought
heaven was going to be like, of the way that they thought God looked
at things. Emma had no such mystic fervour as her old father, but
the hymns, the prayers, the familiar words, were an emotional satis-
faction. They comforted her.

They talked of their troubles, said of them that such things were
hard to bear; they didn't always see why they must be— Johnnie's
getting such a poor wife and turning away from the church, Grandma
Stille's helplessness, Mr. Wall's sufferings from cancer. These women
had both worked hard. Now they were getting old, and many tlrngs
had not turned out as they had thought they would.

Mrs. Wall sometimes said:

"Well, we've all had our troubles. All had things to go through.
Well, I say we ought to be thankful that we've got good homes, and
children to look after us if we need it; that we don't have to be sent
to the poorhouse like that poor old woman in Bishop the other day.
Did you hear about that?"

Emma said:

"]a, that's true, too."

THE THREE READERS

'X

Section III: Selected by Carl Fan Dor en

Introductory Remarks

It is chiefly by accident that all these selections are from American
writers. That was not, at first, my conscious aim. But when the
work was nearly done I noticed that the Americans were much in the
majority and decided to let them have the field to themselves. Be-
yond this there is no general comment I can make on the pieces here
included except that I delighted in every one of them at first read-
ing, still enjoy them, and would like to share my pleasure with other
readers.

The Jefferson letter to Maria Cosway I had not read till a few
weeks ago, when I was sent to it by a remark of Gerald Johnson in a
book review. Then I did not read more than a paragraph before I
was set on putting it in this Reader, and half afraid to go on for fear
it might turn out disappointing. It did not. The many-sided mind
that had so much more to say about almost everything else than
about love, here wrote about love like a philosopher, like a man.
When Jefferson wrote it, he was forty-three years old, four years a
widower, and United States minister to France. Among his close
friends in Paris were Richard and Maria Cecilia Louisa Cosway,
both of them English painters. When in October 1786 they returned
to England, Jefferson felt the desolation, tempered by philosophy,
which appears in the letter he sent after the lady. I do not know
whether he had ever told her any of the things he wrote or whether
she had been aware of his feelings. She sent back a note of four lines
from Antwerp which seemed to make it plain that she had only a
friendly interest in him. Their friendship survived the episode, and
they could still exchange letters of affectionate regard thirty-four
years later.

My familiarity with George Ade's "Fables in Slang" goes back
more than forty years, when the earliest appeared, but I do not re-
member reading the one I here include till 1923 when I read them
all for a critical essay I was writing. This Fable belongs with half a

321

322 CARL VAN DOREN

dozen that have stuck in my memory like burs ever since. There
were three I found it hard to decide among. But one I had already
chosen for an anthology, and another is a favorite of Sinclair Lewis,
who has a kind of rediscoverer's claim to it. What was left to me is
one of the shortest of the Fables, and one of the sharpest.

In midsummer 1941 I gave a lecture at a town on the Susque-
hanna. Afterwards somebody from the audience told me he had
been sorry to learn that my friend Sinclair Lewis was dead. Then it
turned out that Mr. Lewis, whom I had seen a few days before, had
reported his imaginary funeral, with me present among the mourners,
in a magazine which somebody else hurried out and bought for me.
I thought and still think that Mr. Lewis has never packed more
meat and more fun into so few words as there are in "The Death of
Arrowsmith." Hoax and skit, it is also a treasure, like Franklin's
imaginary epitaph on himself.

In 1922 I read, at almost the same time, George Santayana's
"Preface" to his selected Poems of that year and the terse note by
A. E. Housman in his Last Poems, also published in 1922, on the
"continuous excitement" in which he wrote A Shropshire Lad dur-
ing the early months of 1895, not far from the months when George
Santayana was writing his Sonnets. Most of the Shropshire lyrics
and many of the Sonnets I knew by heart, and it excited me to
think of them as so nearly contemporary though there was an Atlantic
between the poets when they wrote. Reading the Santayana "Preface"
last night, I found myself stirred as much as when I read it twenty
years ago by his acute and beautiful description of his poems and of
their place in the making of his philosophy.

When I encountered John Bainbridge's Profile of Hu Shih's
Musketeer in The New Yorker, I had not heard of Daniel Arnstein
and did not know he had gone to organize traffic on the Burma
Road. Now, though the Road has been temporarily lost to the
enemy, I shall not forget either the name of the man or his achieve-
ment, and I should like as many people as possible to remember how
this American served China, where he will live in history as a hero
to the nation.

Two days after Thoreau died, Emerson, at the funeral in the First
Church in Concord, delivered a eulogy which he later wrote out at
greater length for the Atlantic. The two men had been close friends
for years, Thoreau at first something of a disciple, later a living ex-
ample of a kind of thinker and doer that Emerson greatly admired.
There may have been younger persons who had spent more hours
with Thoreau than Emerson had, but nobody understands Thoreau

INTRODUCTORY RP2MARKS 323

better, and nobody could explain him so well. With the warmth of a
friend, Emerson united the strength of a sage. In all that has since
then been written about Thoreau this first account of him has
never been surpassed— or, I think, equalled— in penetration or
felicity. It sums up a man as few writers in any literature have known
how to do.

If stories of guerrilla warfare were not so much in the news, I
might not have thought of William Gilmore Simms's fine ballad
"The Swamp Fox," celebrating the partisan warfare between the
pro-British Tories and the pro-American Whigs in South Carolina
during the Revolution, which in that state was a fierce civil war. The
Swamp Fox was the name given to Francis Marion, leader of the
Whig or patriot forces when the state was over-run with the enemy.

After Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings's "The Pelican's Shadow," pub-
lished in The New Yorker, was reprinted in a volume of short stories,
I happened to speak of it to two or three friends, and found that
each of us had intended to write to her when it originally appeared
and again when it was republished, to tell her of our delight in her
sketch in caustic of a complete pedant. None of us had done it, but
I then did, and got from her a conditional promise to write other
stories some day in the same manner. She should be held to her
promise.

Reading Herman Melville's Mardi during the First World War,
and feeling lost in that wilderness of allegorical adventures, I came
upon— and still remember coming upon— two chapters, one called
"Dedicated to the College of Physicians and Surgeons" and the other
called "Dreams," which seemed to me like happy islands in a be-
wildering ocean. If the book as a whole is a gigantic cipher,
"Dreams" is Melville's signature candidly exposed in the narrative.

Because my brother Mark Van Doren and I have severely avoided
writing about each other for the public, I make no general com-
ment on A Winter Diary, and say only that it is for me personally
the most satisfying of all country poems. It is the poetic record
of an actual winter he spent with his wife and two young sons on
their farm in Connecticut.

Though plays written for radio production are only slowly com-
ing to be thought of as a form of art, I include Norman Corwin's
"Daybreak," which I heard on the air and which I find thrilling
when read. Even without the music and the sound effects which are
so important a part of a radio production, the mere words of the
narrative and dialogue come nearer to presenting the whole story
than the dialogue of a stage play does. The reader of a stage play

324 CARL VAN DOREN

misses the visible action. A radio play has no visible action to miss.
The story is in the words. I have chosen "Daybreak," not only because
it seems to me Mr. Corwin's best radio play, but also because its vast
panorama displays the whole earth in what would now be called a
global vision.

From this latest kind of American drama I turn, again for con-
trast, to the earliest. Writing my life of Benjamin Franklin, in 1937
I had to study the treaty between the Province of Pennsylvania and
the Ohio Indians, at Carlisle in 1753, to which Franklin went as one
of the Pennsylvania commissioners on the first diplomatic mission of
his career. At that time I had never read the text of any Indian
treaty, and as I read this I could not believe my eyes. For it was an
amazing historical drama which was both truth and literature. All
over the United States, I reflected, students of American literature
and history annually read pages of eighteenth-century writing, but
persistently overlook the great Indian treaties which are, outside of
Franklin and some theological and more political discourses, the
American century's masterpieces— and more than that. For they are
world masterpieces in the long record of relations between civilized
and savage races.

My innocent discovery was independent, but I soon learned that a
few collectors already knew and valued the written minutes of these
treaties and that Lawrence Wroth had been influentially talking and
writing about them for ten years or so. For that matter, Franklin as
printer for Pennsylvania had printed thirteen of the Pennsylvania
treaties in stately pamphlets now rare and worth many times their
weight in gold or any metal. I could never hope to own one, even
if I could find one for sale. But there are ways and ways of getting
what you want. I hinted to Julian Boyd, of the Historical Society of
Pennsylvania, that the Society could do a good turn to history and
literature by reproducing some of the treaties in facsimile. Within
a few months he had got a patron in E. E. Brownell, collateral de-
scendant of Franklin's only known teacher, and had reproduced all
the Franklin Indian treaties in a folio about the splendor of which
President Roosevelt and H. L. Mencken were— for once— in agree-
ment.

So far, the Indian treaties have been read, since their own day,
chiefly by the studious and the curious. I now offer one of them to
the largest public it has ever had a chance to have, in the confidence
that it will at last take the place it deserves among the permanent
treasures of the American past.

CARL VAN DOREN

Thomas Jefferson to Maria Cosway

LOVE LETTER OF A PHILOSOPHER

Paris, October 12, 1786

My Dear Madam,— Having performed the last sad office of hand-
ing you into your carriage, at the pavilion de St. Denis, and seen the
wheels get actually into motion, I turned on my heel and walked,
more dead than alive, to the opposite door, where my own was
awaiting me. Mr. Danquerville was missing. He was sought for,
found, and dragged down stairs. We were crammed into the car-
riage, like recruits for the Bastile, and not having soul enough to
give orders to the coachman, he presumed Paris our destination, and
drove off. After a considerable interval, silence was broke, with a
"Je suis vraiment afflige du depart de ces bons gens." This was a sig-
nal for a mutual confession of distress. We began immediately to
talk of Mr. and Mrs. Cosway, of their goodness, their talents, their
amiability; and, though we spoke of nothing else, we seemed hardly
to have entered into the matter, when the coachman announced the
rue St. Denis, and that we were opposite Mr. Danquerville's. He in-
sisted on descending there, and traversing a short passage to his
lodgings. I was carried home. Seated by my fireside, solitary and sad,
the following dialogue took place between my Head and my Heart.

Head. Well, friend, you seem to be in a pretty trim.

Heart. I am indeed the most wretched of all earthly beings. Over-
whelmed with grief, every fibre of my frame distended beyond its
natural powers to bear, I would willingly meet whatever catastrophe
should leave me no more to feel, or to fear.

Head. These are the eternal consequences of your warmth and
precipitation. This is one of the scrapes into which you are ever
leading us. You confess your follies, indeed; but still you hug and
cherish them; and no reformation can be hoped where there is no
repentance.

Heart. Oh, my friend! this is no moment to upbraid my foibles.
I am rent into fragments by the force of my grief! If you have any

325

326 THOMAS JEFFERSON

balm, pour it into my wounds; if none, do not harrow them by new
torments. Spare me in this awful moment! At any other, I will at-
tend with patience to your admonitions.

Head. On the contrary, I never found that the moment of tri-
umph, with you, was the moment of attention to my admonitions.
While suffering under your follies, you may perhaps be made sen-
sible of them, but the paroxysm over, you fancy it can never return.
Harsh, therefore, as the medicine may be, it is my office to admin-
ister it. You will be pleased to remember, that when our friend
Trumbull used to be telling us of the merits and talents of these
good people, I never ceased whispering to you that we had no occa-
sion for new acquaintances; that the greater their merits and talents,
the more dangerous their friendship to our tranquillity, because the
regret at parting would be greater.

Heart. Accordingly, Sir, this acquaintance was not the consequence
of my doings. It was one of your projects, which threw us in the way
of it. It was you, remember, and not I, who desired the meeting at
Legrand and Motinos. I never trouble myself with domes nor arches.
The Halle aux Bleds might have rotted down, before I should have
gone to see it. But you, forsooth, who are eternally getting us to sleep
with your diagrams and crotchets, must go and examine this won-
derful piece of architecture; and when you had seen it, oh! it was the
most superb thing on earth! What you had seen there was worth all
you had yet seen in Paris! I thought so, too. But I meant it of the
lady and gentleman to whom we had been presented; and not of a
parcel of sticks and chips put together in pens. You, then, Sir, and
not I, have been the cause of the present distress.

Head. It would have been happy for you if my diagrams and
crotchets had gotten you to sleep on that day, as you are pleased to
say they eternally do. My visit to Legrand and Motinos had public
utility for its object. A market is to be built in Richmond. What a
commodious plan is that of Legrand and Motinos; especially, if we
put on it the noble dome of the Halle aux Bleds. If such a bridge as
they showed us can be thrown across the Schuylkill, at Philadelphia,
the floating bridges taken up, and the navigation of that river
opened, what a copious resource will be added, of wood and provi-
sions, to warm and feed the poor of that city? While I was occupied
with these objects, you were dilating with your new acquaintances,
and contriving how to prevent a separation from them. Every soul
of you had an engagement for the day. Yet all these were to be sacri-
ficed, that you might dine together. Lying messengers were to be
despatched into every quarter of the city, with apologies for your

LOVE LETTER OF A PHILOSOPHER 327

breach of engagement. You, particularly, had the effrontery to send
word to the Duchess Danville, that on the moment we were setting
out to dine with her, despatches came to hand, which required im-
mediate attention. You wanted me to invent a more ingenious ex-
cuse; but I knew you were getting into a scrape, and I would have
nothing to do with it. Well; after dinner to St. Cloud, from St. Cloud
to Ruggieri's, from Ruggieri's to Krumfoltz; and if the day had been
as long as a Lapland summer day, you would still have contrived
means among you to have filled it.

Heart. Oh! my dear friend, how you have revived me by recalling
to my mind the transactions of that day! How well I remember them
all, and that, when I came home at night, and looked back to the
morning, it seemed to have been a month agone. Go on, then, like
a kind comforter, and paint to me the day we went to St. Germains.
How beautiful was every object! the Port de Reuilly, the hills along
the Seine, the rainbows of the machine of Marly, the terrace of St.
Germains, the chateaux, the gardens, the statues of Marly, the pa-
vilion of Lucienne. Recollect, too, Madrid, Bagatelle, the King's
garden, the Dessert. How grand the idea excited by the remains of
such a column. The spiral staircase, too, was beautiful. Every mo-
ment was filled with something agreeable. The wheels of time moved
on with a rapidity, of which those of our carriage gave but a faint
idea. And yet, in the evening, when one took a retrospect of the day,
what a mass of happiness had we travelled over! Retrace all those
scenes to me, my good companion, and I will forgive the unkindness
with which you were chiding me. The day we went to St. Germains
was a little too warm, I think; was it not?

Head. Thou art the most incorrigible of all the beings that ever
sinned! I reminded you of the follies of the first day, intending to
deduce from thence some useful lessons for you; but instead of lis-
tening to them, you kindle at the recollection, you retrace the whole
series with a fondness, which shows you want nothing, but the op-
portunity, to act it over again. I often told you, during its course,
that you were imprudently engaging your affections, under circum-
stances that must have cost you a great deal of pain; that the persons,
indeed, were of the greatest merit, possessing good sense, good hu-
mor, honest hearts, honest manners, and eminence in a lovely art;
that the lady had, moreover, qualities and accomplishments belong-
ing to her sex, which might form a chapter apart for her; such as
music, modesty, beauty, and that softness of disposition, which is the
ornament of her sex and charm of ours; but that all these considera-
tions would increase the pang of separation; that their stay here was

328 THOMAS JEFFERSON

to be short; that you rack our whole system when you are parted
from those you love, complaining that such a separation is worse
than death, inasmuch as this ends our sufferings, whereas that only
begins them; and that the separation would, in this instance, be the
more severe, as you would probably never see them again.

Heart. But they told me they would come back again, the next
year.

Head. But, in the meantime, see what you suffer; and their return,
too, depends on so many circumstances, that if you had a grain of
prudence, you would not count upon it. Upon the whole, it is im-
probable, and therefore you should abandon the idea of ever seeing
them again.

Heart. May heaven abandon me if I do!

Head. Very well. Suppose, then, they come back. They are to stay
two months, and, when these are expired, what is to follow? Perhaps
you flatter yourself they may come to America?

Heart. God only knows what is to happen. I see nothing impos-
sible in that supposition; and I see things wonderfully contrived
sometimes, to make us happy. Where could they find such objects as
in America, for the exercise of their enchanting art? especially the
lady, who paints landscapes so inimitably. She wants only subjects
worthy of immortality, to render her pencil immortal. The Falling
Spring, the Cascade of Niagara, the passage of the Potomac through
the Blue Mountains, the Natural Bridge; it is worth a voyage across
the Atlantic to see these objects; much more to paint, and make
them, and thereby ourselves, known to all ages. And our own dear
Monticello; where has nature spread so rich a mantle under the eye?
mountains, forests, rocks, rivers. With what majesty do we there ride
above the storms! How sublime to look down into the workhouse of
nature, to see her clouds, hail, snow, rain, thunder, all fabricated at
our feet! and the glorious sun, when rising as if out of a distant
water, just gilding the tops of the mountains, and giving life to all
nature! I hope in God, no circumstance may ever make either seek
an asylum from grief! With what sincere sympathy I would open
every cell of my composition, to receive the effusion of their woes!
I would pour my tears into their wounds; and if a drop of balm
could be found on the top of the Cordilleras, or at the remotest
sources of the Missouri, I would go thither myself to seek and to
bring it. Deeply practised in the school of affliction, the human heart
knows no joy which I have not lost, no sorrow of which I have not
drunk! Fortune can present no grief of unknown form to me! Who,
then, can so softly bind up the wound of another, as he who has felt

LOVE LETTER OF A PHILOSOPHER 329

the same wound himself? But heaven forbid they should ever know
a sorrowl Let us turn over another leaf, for this has distracted me.

Head. Well. Let us put this possibility to trial then, on another
point. When you consider the character which is given of our coun-
try, by the lying newspapers of London, and their credulous copiers
in other countries; when you reflect that all Europe is made to be-
lieve we are a lawless banditti, in a state of absolute anarchy, cutting
one another's throats, and plundering without distinction, how could
you expect that any reasonable creature would venture among us?

Heart. But you and I know that all this is false: that there is not a
country on earth, where there is greater tranquillity; where the laws
are milder, or better obeyed; where every one is more attentive to
his own business, or meddles less with that of others; where strangers
are better received, more hospitably treated, and with a more sacred
respect.

Head. True, you and I know this, but your friends do not know it.

Heart. But they are sensible people, who think for themselves.
They will ask of impartial foreigners, who have been among us,
whether they saw or heard on the spot, any instance of anarchy. They
will judge, too, that a people, occupied as we are, in opening rivers,
digging navigable canals, making roads, building public schools, es-
tablishing academies, erecting busts and statues to our great men,
protecting religious freedom, abolishing sanguinary punishments, re-
forming and improving our laws in general; they will judge, I say,
for themselves, whether these are not the occupations of a people at
their ease; whether this is not better evidence of our true state, than
a London newspaper, hired to lie, and from which no truth can ever
be extracted but by reversing everything it says.

Head. I did not begin this lecture, my friend, with a view to learn
from you what America is doing. Let us return, then, to our point.
I wish to make you sensible how imprudent it is to place your affec-
tions, without reserve, on objects you must so soon lose, and whose
loss, when it comes, must cost you such severe pangs. Remember the
last night. You knew your friends were to leave Paris to-day. This
was enough to throw you into agonies. All night you tossed us from
one side of the bed to the other; no sleep, no rest. The poor crippled
wrist, too, never left one moment in the same position; now up, now
down, now here, now there; was it to be wondered at, if its pains re-
turned? The surgeon then was to be called, and to be rated as an
ignoramus, because he could not divine the cause of this extraordi-
nary change. In fine, my friend, you must mend your manners. This
is not a world to live at random in, as you do. To avoid those eternal

330 THOMAS JEFFERSON

distresses, to which you are forever exposing us, you must learn to
look forward, before you take a step which may interest our peace.
Everything in this world is matter of calculation. Advance then with
caution, the balance in your hand. Put into one scale the pleasures
which any object may offer; but put fairly into the other, the pains
which are to follow, and see which preponderates. The making an
acquaintance, is not a matter of indifference. When a new one is pro-
posed to you, view it all round. Consider what advantages it presents,
and to what inconveniences it may expose you. Do not bite at the
bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it. The art of
life is the art of avoiding pain; and he is the best pilot, who steers
clearest of the rocks and shoals with which it is beset. Pleasure is
always before us; but misfortune is at our side: while running after
that, this arrests us. The most effectual means of being secure against
pain, is to retire within ourselves, and to suffice for our own happi-
ness. Those which depend on ourselves, are the only pleasures a wise
man will count on: for nothing is ours, which another may deprive
us of. Hence the inestimable value of intellectual pleasures. Ever in
our power, always leading us to something new, never cloying, we
ride serene and sublime above the concerns of this mortal world, con-
templating truth and nature, matter and motion, the laws which
bind up their existence, and that Eternal Being who made and
bound them up by those laws. Let this be our employ. Leave the
bustle and tumult of society to those who have not talents to occupy
themselves without them. Friendship is but another name for an alli-
ance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of
miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of an-
other? Is there so little gall poured into our cup, that we must need
help to drink that of our neighbor? A friend dies, or leaves us: we
feel as if a limb was cut off. He is sick: we must watch over him, and
participate of his pains. His fortune is shipwrecked: ours must be
laid under contribution. He loses a child, a parent, or a partner: we
must mourn the loss as if it were our own.

Heart. And what more sublime delight than to mingle tears with
one whom the hand of heaven hath smitten! to watch over the bed of
sickness, and to beguile its tedious and its painful moments! to share
our bread with one to whom misfortune has left none! This world
abounds indeed with misery; to lighten its burthen, we must divide
it with one another. But let us now try the virtue of your mathemati-
cal balance, and as you have put into one scale the burthens of friend-
ship, let me put its comforts into the other. When languishing then
under disease, how grateful is the solace of our friends! how are we

LOVE LETTER OF A PHILOSOPHER 331

penetrated with their assiduities and attentions! how much are we
supported by their encouragements and kind offices! When heaven
has taken from us some object of our love, how sweet is it to have a
bosom whereon to recline our heads, and into which we may pour
the torrent of our tears! Grief, with such a comfort, is almost a lux-
ury! In a life, where we are perpetually exposed to want and acci-
dent, yours is a wonderful proposition, to insulate ourselves, to retire
from all aid, and to wrap ourselves in the mantle of self-sufficiency!
For, assuredly, nobody will care for him who cares for nobody. But
friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of
life; and thanks to a benevolent arrangement of things, the greater
part of life is sunshine. I will recur for proof to the days we have
lately passed. On these, indeed, the sun shone brightly. How gay did
the face of nature appear! Hills, valleys, chateaux, gardens, rivers,
every object wore its liveliest hue! Whence did they borrow it? From
the presence of our charming companion. They were pleasing, be-
cause she seemed pleased. Alone, the scene would have been dull and
insipid: the participation of it with her gave it relish. Let the gloomy
monk, sequestered from the world, seek unsocial pleasures in the
bottom of his cell! Let the sublimated philosopher grasp visionary
happiness, while pursuing phantoms dressed in the garb of truth!
Their supreme wisdom is supreme folly; and they mistake for happi-
ness the mere absence of pain. Had they ever felt the solid pleasure
of one generous spasm of the heart, they would exchange for it all the
frigid speculations of their lives, which you have been vaunting in
such elevated terms. Believe me, then, my friend, that that is a miser-
able arithmetic which could estimate friendship at nothing, or at less
than nothing. Respect for you has induced me to enter into this dis-
cussion, and to hear principles uttered which I detest and abjure.
Respect for myself now obliges me to recall you into the proper lim-
its of your office. When nature assigned us the same habitation, she
gave us over it a divided empire. To you, she allotted the field of sci-
ence; to me, that of morals. When the circle is to be squared, or the
orbit of a comet to be traced; when the arch of greatest strength, or
the solid of least resistance, is to be investigated, take up the prob-
lem; it is yours; nature has given me no cognizance of it. In like
manner, in denying to you the feelings of sympathy, of benevolence,
of gratitude, of justice, of love, of friendship, she has excluded you
from their control. To these, she has adapted the mechanism of the
heart. Morals were too essential to the happiness of man, to be risked
on the uncertain combinations of the head. She laid their founda-
tion, therefore, in sentiment, not in science. That she gave to all, as

332 THOMAS JEFFERSON

necessary to all; this to a few only, as sufficing with a few. I know,
indeed, that you pretend authority to the sovereign control of our
conduct, in all its parts; and a respect for your grave saws and max-
ims, a desire to do what is right, has sometimes induced me to con-
form to your counsels. A few facts, however, which I can readily
recall to your memory, will suffice to prove to you, that nature has
not organized you for our moral direction. When the poor, wearied
soldier whom we overtook at Chickahominy, with his pack on his
back, begged us to let him get up behind our chariot, you began to
calculate that the road was full of soldiers, and that if all should be
taken up, our horses would fail in their journey. We drove on there-
fore. But, soon becoming sensible you had made me do wrong, that,
though we cannot relieve all the distressed, we should relieve as many
as we can, I turned about to take up the soldier; but he had entered
a bye-path, and was no more to be found; and from that moment to
this, I could never find him out, to ask his forgiveness. Again, when
the poor woman came to ask a charity in Philadelphia, you whis-
pered that she looked like a drunkard, and that half a dollar was
enough to give her for the ale-house. Those who want the disposi-
tions to give, easily find reasons why they ought not to give. When
I sought her out afterwards, and did what I should have done at first,
you know that she employed the money immediately towards plac-
ing her child at school. If our country, when pressed with wrongs at
the point of the bayonet, had been governed by its heads instead of
its hearts, where should we have been now? Hanging on a gallows as
high as Haman's. You began to calculate, and to compare wealth and
numbers: we threw up a few pulsations of our blood; we supplied
enthusiasm against wealth and numbers; we put our existence to the
hazard, when the hazard seemed against us, and we saved our coun-
try: justifying, at the same time, the ways of Providence, whose pre-
cept is, to do always what is right, and leave the issue to Him. In
short, my friend, as far as my recollection serves me, I do not know
that I ever did a good thing on your suggestion, or a dirty one with-
out it. I do forever, then, disclaim your interference in my province.
Fill paper as you please with triangles and squares: try how many
ways you can hang and combine them together. I shall never envy
nor control your sublime delights. But leave me to decide, when and
where friendships are to be contracted. You say, I contract them at
random. So you said the woman at Philadelphia was a drunkard. I
receive none into my esteem, till I know they are worthy of it.
Wealth, title, office, are no recommendations to my friendship. On

LOVE LETTER OF A PHILOSOPHER 333

the contrary, great good qualities are requisite to make amends for
their having wealth, title, and office. You confess, that, in the present
case, I could not have made a worthier choice. You only object, that
I was so soon to lose them. We are not immortal ourselves, my
friend; how can we expect our enjoyments to be so? We have no
rose without its thorn; no pleasure without alloy. It is the law of our
existence; and we must acquiesce. It is the condition annexed to all
our pleasures, not by us who receive, but by him who gives them.
True, this condition is pressing cruelly on me at this moment. I feel
more fit for death than life. But, when I look back on the pleasures
of which it is the consequence, I am conscious they were worth the
price I am paying. Notwithstanding your endeavors, too, to damp
my hopes, I comfort myself with expectations of their promised re-
turn. Hope is sweeter than despair; and they were too good to mean
to deceive me. "In the summer," said the gentleman; but "in the
spring," said the lady; and I should love her forever, were it only for
that! Know, then, my friend, that I have taken these good people
into my bosom; that I have lodged them in the warmest cell I could
find; that I love them, and will continue to love them through life;
that if fortune should dispose them on one side the globe, and me
on the other, my affections shall pervade its whole mass to reach
them. Knowing then my determination, attempt not to disturb it.
If you can, at any time, furnish matter for their amusement, it will
be the office of a good neighbor to do it. I will, in like manner, seize
any occasion which may offer, to do the like good turn for you with
Condorcet, Rittenhouse, Madison, La Cretelle, or any other of those
worthy sons of science, whom you so justly prize.

I thought this a favorable proposition whereon to rest the issue
of the dialogue. So I put an end to it by calling for my nightcap.
Methinks, I hear you wish to heaven I had called a little sooner, and
so spared you the ennui of such a sermon. I did not interrupt them
sooner, because I was in a mood for hearing sermons. You too were
the subject; and on such a thesis, I never think the theme long; not
even if I am to write it, and that slowly and awkwardly, as now, with
the left hand. But, that you may not be discouraged from a corre-
spondence which begins so formidably, I will promise you, on my
honor, that my future letters shall be of a reasonable length. I will
even agree to express but half my esteem for you, for fear of cloying
you with too full a dose. But, on your part, no curtailing. If your let-
ters are as long as the Bible, they will appear short to me. Only let
them be brimful of affection. I shall read them with the dispositions

334 THOMAS JEFFERSON

with which Arlequin, in Les deux billets, spelt the words "je t'aime,"
and wished that the whole alphabet had entered into their compo-
sition.

We have had incessant rains since your departure. These make me
fear for your health, as well as that you had an uncomfortable jour-
ney. The same cause has prevented me from being able to give you
any account of your friends here. This voyage to Fontainebleau will
probably send the Count de Moutier and the Marquis de Brehan, to
America. Danquerville promised to visit me, but has not done it as
yet. De la Tude comes sometimes to take family soup with me, and
entertains me with anecdotes of his five and thirty years' imprison-
ment. How fertile is the mind of man, which can make the Bastile
and dungeon of Vincennes yield interesting anecdotes! You know
this was for making four verses on Madame de Pompadour. But I
think you told me you did not know the verses. They were these:
"Sans esprit, sans sentiment, Sans etre belle, ni neuve, En France on
pent avoir le premier amant: Pompadour en est Vepreuve." I have
read the memoir of his three escapes. As to myself, my health is good,
except my wrist which mends slowly, and my mind which mends not
at all, but broods constantly over your departure. The lateness of the
season obliges me to decline my journey into the south of France.
Present me in the most friendly terms to Mr. Cosway, and receive
me into your own recollection with a partiality and warmth, propor-
tioned not to my own poor merit, but to the sentiments of sincere
affection and esteem, with which I have the honor to be, my dear
Madam, your most obedient humble servant.

The Fable of the Foozle & The
Successful Approach

BY GEORGE ADE

Every year a lot of Americans went over to London to rub up
against the Aristocracy, if possible. One year two Men went
over. They intended to hang around and look Wistful until the No-
bility and Landed Gentry would take some Notice of them.

Each had a Scheme for securing Recognition.

The first chased himself to Regent Street and bought an entire
Outfit of British Clothes. He began to use the sound of A as in Fa-
ther and say Mean Things about the Boers. He held his Hat in his
Hand whenever he approached a Title. He went out of his Way to
run down the vulgar Americans. Consequently he was walked upon
and despised as a Toady.

The other Man allowed his Hair to grow down over his Collar.
He wore a Buck Taylor Hat with a Leather Strap around it and kept
it at an Angle of 45 degrees. He refused the B. and S. and demanded
Cocktails. When he met an Englishman he called him Pard and held
out his Flipper and said he'd be catawampously Jiggered if he wasn't
all-fired Proud to meet him. He plucked the Tail Feathers from the
gullorious Bird of Freedom and waved them defiantly at the Lion
and the Unicorn. He said that the British Isles were merely a Break-
water for the Continent and wouldn't make a Patch on the Land of
Liberty.

He was invited to all the Drawing-Rooms because it was a Pleasure
to meet such a breezy and Typical American.

moral: When you are in Rome do as the Romans expect you to do.

335

The Death of Arrowsmith

An auto-obituary
BY SINCLAIR LEWIS

Sinclair Lewis, who died peacefully in his sleep yesterday after-
noon, at his small country-place in northwestern Connecticut,
has, at the age of eighty-six, been rather generally forgotten. For the
past ten or fifteen years he has indulged in so secluded a life, devot-
ing himself, apparently, only to his cats, his gardens, and brief essays
on such little-read novelists as Mark Twain, that to many persons it
may have been a surprise to find that he was still living. Yet at one
time he was a figure of considerable notoriety, because of his jeering
yet essentially kindly shafts at the pomposity and inefficiency of con-
temporary politicians and industrialists.

Although now they are almost unread, a few of his novels, par-
ticularly Main Street, Arrowsmith, Babbitt, Elmer Gantry, and the
ponderous four-volume chronicle of an American family, The Tin-
tayres, which Mr. Lewis began in 1944 and completed in 1950, are
familiar to all sociologists and literary historians for their picture of
the priggish and naive first half of this century. That this picture was
well rounded or unprejudiced, no one will maintain.

Mr. Lewis seems essentially to have been a cheerful pathologist,
exposing the cliches and sentimentalities of his day— the hearty false-
ness of senators and what were once known as "business boosters,"
the smirking attitudes toward women in his times, the personal am-
bitiousness of the clergy, the artists, and the professional men, and
the brazen mawkishness of patriotism.

To the discerning reader of later years, it is evident that Mr. Lewis
smote— or tried to smite— sentimentality because he knew himself to
be, at heart, a sentimentalist to whom green hills and barricade-
jumping soldiers and smiling girls and winter storms were as child-
ishly exciting as they were to any popular female novelist. It also was
evident that he mocked the cruder manifestations of Yankee impe-

336

THE DEATH OF ARROWSMITH 337

rialism because he was, at heart, a fanatic American, who never really
liked the condescensions of the English people among whom he
often lived— including two solid years in Derbyshire in 1951-52.

The "style" of Mr. Lewis' rather long-winded pictures of Ameri-
cana seems, on recent study, to indicate a descent from extraordi-
narily discrepant literary ancestors. From a perusal of his books,
together with his own admissions, one may find him astonishingly
deriving from both Dickens and Swinburne, H. G. Wells and A. E.
Housman, Thomas Hardy and H. L. Mencken and Hamlin Gar-
land. On the other hand, he seems to have left no literary descend-
ants. Unlike his celebrated contemporaries, Theodore Dreiser (1871-
1952) and Colonel Ernest Hemingway, who was so dramatically
killed while leading his mixed Filipino and Chinese troops in the
storming of Tokio in 1949, Mr. Lewis seems to have affected but lit-
tle the work of younger writers of fiction. Whether this is a basic
criticism of his pretensions to power and originality, or whether, like
another contemporary, Miss Willa Gather, he was an inevitably lone
and insulated figure, we have not as yet the perspective to see.

For a good many years, Mr. Lewis was an extensive and, it would
almost seem, a foolishly experimental wanderer. He began his work
with years on newspapers and in magazine and publishing offices;
he traveled through every state in the union; he knew most of Eu-
rope and, after the end of World War II, in 1944, most of Asia. He
even— possibly in unconscious imitation of his idol, Dickens— dab-
bled with acting, over three or four years, appearing in various pro-
fessional companies, with no especial credit or discredit either.

But on his return from England in 1952, he settled immovably in
the rural Connecticut to which he had many ties. Though Mr. Lewis
himself was born (in 1885) in a Minnesota prairie hamlet, where his
father was a typical country physician, that father and his ancestors
for eight or nine generations were born in Connecticut, along the
Housatonic River, near which Mr. Lewis himself has lived these past
twenty years. He attended Yale, and did his first newspaper work on
the New Haven Journal and Courier. It was natural then that he
should have settled in Connecticut, being weary of travel and of
what he himself once called (in his brief travel book, Tea for One-
and-one-half, Random House, 1945), "the chronic wanderer's discov-
ery that he is everywhere such an Outsider that no one will listen to
him even when he kicks about the taxes and the beer."

Lewis was tall, lean, awkward, with a rough complexion and, in
his later years, a skull completely bald, save for a fringe of still rusty

338 SINCLAIR LEWIS

hair. Had he sported a tousled wig and a chin whisker, he would
almost comically have been taken for an impersonation of Uncle
Sam, and a large share of the yearly dwindling number of inter-
viewers and librarians who made a pilgrimage to his home (a pil-
grimage invariably ruined by the old man's derisive frivolity about
all artistic poses) have noted that with advancing years he became
more and more the Last Surviving Connecticut Yankee. Even his
voice assumed a Yankee twang now forgotten save in bad plays.

His neighbors tell, as their liveliest recollection of him, that when
Dr. Sir Wilfred Willoughby Westfrisket, Eisenbein Professor of
American Literature at Oxford, waited for him at his home one
entire afternoon, Mr. Lewis was at a local garage, playing pinochle
with the village constable-undertaker.

Although Lewis seems to have had no "school" of imitators what-
ever, it is to be surmised that his influence on our literature has been
healthful in his derision of dullness and formalism. His use of Amer-
ican lingo and humorous exaggeration intermingled with the more
nearly scholastic manner that was an inheritance from his college
days, is at least the equal in dignity and romantic charm of any
prince, any labor-leader with 10,000,000 followers— or any novelist!

His only surviving near relatives are his elder son, Wells, who
was, it will be remembered, a captain in the A. E. F. of 1942, and
who is probably a more distinguished, certainly a far more subtle
and fastidious novelist than his father; his younger son, Michael,
president of the Afro-China Airways; and his nephew, Freeman
Lewis, the publisher.

The funeral, which was at the Millerton Cremation Sanctuary,
was, by Mr. Lewis' dying request, attended only by the three servants
(or, as he eccentrically called them, the "helpers") on his estate,
together with the venerable Dr. Carl Van Doren, president emeritus
of Columbia University and formerly ambassador to France. The
only music was the playing of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, in
records, and the only oratory, Dr. Van Doren's sole observation,
"This was a good workman and a good friend, who could still laugh
in days when the world had almost worried itself out of the power
of laughter,"

A Preface to My Poems

BY GEORGE SANTAYANA

New editions of books are a venture for publishers rather than
authors. The author has committed his rash act once for all at
the beginning and he can hardly retract or repeat it. Nevertheless if
I had not connived and collaborated at this selection of verses writ-
ten (almost all of them) in my younger days, they probably would
not have reappeared. I therefore owe an apology to my best critics
and friends, who have always warned me that I am no poet; all the
more since, in the sense in which they mean the word, I heartily
agree with them. Of impassioned tenderness or Dionysiac frenzy I
have nothing, nor even of that magic and pregnancy of phrase— really
the creation of a fresh idiom— which marks the high lights of poetry.
Even if my temperament had been naturally warmer, the fact that
the English language (and I can write no other with assurance) was
not my mother-tongue would of itself preclude any inspired use of
it on my part; its roots do not quite reach to my centre. I never
drank in in childhood the homely cadences and ditties which in pure
spontaneous poetry set the essential key. I know no words redolent
of the wonder-world, the fairy-tale, or the cradle. Moreover, I am
city-bred, and that companionship with nature, those rural notes,
which for English poets are almost inseparable from poetic feeling,
fail me altogether. Landscape to me is only a background for fable
or a symbol for fate, as it was to the ancients; and the human scene
itself is but a theme for reflection. Nor have I been tempted into the
by-ways even of towns, or fascinated by the aspect and humours of
all sorts and conditions of men. My approach to language is literary,
my images are only metaphors, and sometimes it seems to me that
I resemble my countryman Don Quixote, when in his airy flights he
was merely perched on a high horse and a wooden Pegasus; and I ask
myself if I ever had anything to say in verse that might not have been
said better in prose.

And yet, in reality, there was no such alternative. What I felt when

339

34o GEORGE SANTAYANA

I composed those verses could not have been rendered in any other
form. Their sincerity is absolute, not only in respect to the thought
which might be abstracted from them and expressed in prose, but
also in respect to the aura of literary and religious associations which
envelops them. If their prosody is worn and traditional, like a lit-
urgy, it is because they represent the initiation of a mind into a
world older and larger than itself; not the chance experiences of a
stray individual, but his submission to what is not his chance experi-
ence; to the truth of nature and the moral heritage of mankind.
Here is the uncertain hand of an apprentice, but of an apprentice
in a great school. Verse is one of the traditions of literature. Like the
orders of Greek architecture, the sonnet or the couplet or the quat-
rain are better than anything else that has been devised to serve the
same function; and the innate freedom of poets to hazard new forms
does not abolish the freedom of all men to adopt the old ones. It is
almost inevitable that a man of letters, if his mind is cultivated and
capable of moral concentration, should versify occasionally, or should
have versified. He need not on that account pose as a poetic genius,
and yet his verses (like those of Michael Angelo, for instance) may
form a part, even if a subordinate part, of the expression of his mind.
Poetry was made for man, not man for poetry, and there are really
as many kinds of it as there are poets, or even verses. Is Hamlet's
Soliloquy poetry? Would it have conveyed its meaning better if not
reined in by the metre, and made to prance and turn to the cadences
of blank verse? Whether better or worse, it would certainly not be
itself without that movement. Versification is like a pulsing accom-
paniment, somehow sustaining and exalting the clear logic of the
words. The accompaniment may be orchestral, but it is not neces-
sarily worse for being thrummed on a mandolin or a guitar. So the
couplets of Pope or Dryden need not be called poetry, but they could
not have been prose. They frame in a picture, balanced like the
dance. There is an elevation, too, in poetic diction, just because it is
consecrated and archaic; a pomp as of a religious procession, without
which certain intuitions would lose all their grace and dignity. Bor-
rowed plumes would not even seem an ornament if they were not in
themselves beautiful. To say that what was good once is good no
longer is to give too much importance to chronology. Aesthetic fash-
ions may change, losing as much beauty at one end as they gain at
the other, but innate taste continues to recognise its affinities, how-
ever remote, and need never change. Mask and buskin are often
requisite in order to transport what is great in human experience
out of its embosoming littleness. They are inseparable from finality,

A PREFACE TO MY POEMS 341

from perception of the ultimate. Perhaps it is just this tragic finality
that English poets do not have and do not relish: they feel it to be
rhetorical. But verse after all is a form of rhetoric, as is all speech
and even thought; a means of pouring experience into a mould
which fluid experience cannot supply, and of transmuting emotion
into ideas, by making it articulate.

In one sense I think that my verses, mental and thin as their tex-
ture may be, represent a true inspiration, a true docility. A Muse-
not exactly an English Muse— actually visited me in my isolation;
the same, or a ghost of the same, that visited Boethius or Alfred de
Musset or Leopardi. It was literally impossible for me then not to
re-echo her eloquence. When that compulsion ceased, I ceased to
write verses. My emotion— for there was genuine emotion— faded
into a sense that my lesson was learned and my troth plighted; there
was no longer any occasion for this sort of breathlessness and unc-
tion. I think the discerning reader will probably prefer the later
prose versions of my philosophy; I prefer them myself, as being more
broadly based, saner, more humorous. Yet if he is curious in the
matter he may find the same thing here nearer to its fountain-head,
in its accidental early setting, and with its most authentic personal
note.

For as to the subject of these poems, it is simply my philosophy in
the making. I should not give the title of philosopher to every logi-
cian or psychologist who, in his official and studious moments, may
weigh argument against argument or may devise expedients for solv-
ing theoretical puzzles. I see no reason why a philosopher should be
puzzled. What he sees he sees; of the rest he is ignorant; and his sense
of this vast ignorance (which is his natural and inevitable condition)
is a chief part of his knowledge and of his emotion. Philosophy is not
an optional theme that may occupy him on occasion. It is his only
possible life, his daily response to everything. He lives by thinking,
and his one perpetual emotion is that this world, with himself in it,
should be the strange world which it is. Everything he thinks or ut-
ters will accordingly be an integral part of his philosophy, whether
it be called poetry or science or criticism. The verses of a philosopher
will be essentially epigrams, like those which the Greek sages com-
posed; they will moralise the spectacle, whether it be some personal
passion or some larger aspect of nature.

My own moral philosophy, especially as expressed in this more
sentimental form, may not seem very robust or joyous. Its fortitude
and happiness are those of but one type of soul. The owl hooting
from his wintry bough cannot be chanticleer crowing in the barn-

342 GEORGE SANTAYANA

yard, yet he is sacred to Minerva; and the universal poet, who can
sing the humours of winter no less lustily than those of spring, may
even speak of his "merry note," worthy to mingle with the other
pleasant accidents of the somberer season,

When icicles hang by the wall,

And coughing drowns the parson's saw.

But whether the note seem merry or sad, musical or uncouth, it is
itself a note of nature; and it may at least be commended, seeing it
conveys a philosophy, for not conveying it by argument, but frankly
making confession of an actual spiritual experience, addressed only
to those whose ear it may strike sympathetically and who, crossing
the same dark wood on their own errands, may pause for a moment
to listen gladly.

Hu Shih's Musketeer

BY JOHN BAINBRIDGE

One day early last spring [1941], Harry Hopkins called up Daniel
Arnstein, the New York trucking man and president of the Ter-
minal taxicab company, and asked him if he'd mind taking a little
trip to China. The Chinese, Hopkins said, were in a traffic jam. The
Burma Road was all clogged up and only a trickle of war supplies
was going over it to the front. The United States was preparing to
ship about a billion dollars' worth of lend-lease material to China,
but before it was sent the administration wanted somebody who
knew the trucking business to go over there, find out what was the
matter, and get things moving. ''Deal me in, Harry," said Arnstein,
who had met Hopkins a few years before and discovered they shared
an interest in poker, whiskey, and horses. Three months later, Arn-
stein, whose only contact with the Far East up to then consisted of
a few evenings spent at Ruby Foo's, was on his way across the Pacific
as a dollar-a-year man. In Chicago, where he started his professional
career driving a taxi, in San Francisco, in Honolulu, and in Manila,
he assured newspaper reporters and anybody else who would listen
that the Burma Road could be made to work like U.S. No. 1. "It's as
simple as A B C," he told a reporter in San Francisco three weeks
before he landed in China. The farther west he got, the more ex-
plicit he grew. "The idea is to go over and install American methods
of moving freight," he announced in Honolulu. "Those American
methods are the best in the world. They work here and they'll work
in Burma."

Arnstein's spirit was willing but his geography was weak. Although
the Burma Road begins about a hundred miles inside the Burmese
border, most of it lies in China. To reach the road, supplies headed
for China are landed at Rangoon, the Indian Ocean port on the
southern coast of Burma. From Rangoon they are shipped north by
railroad to the Burmese town of Lashio. There the railway ends and
the Burma Road begins. Stretching northeast from Lashio over some

345

344 JOHN BAINBRIDGE

of the most formidable mountain country in the world, the road
winds up at Kunming, a distance of seven hundred and twenty-six
miles. At Kunming it joins another highway, which leads to Chung-
king, capital of Free China and final destination of supplies. With
the exception of food and the domestically manufactured rifles and
bullets, every ounce of war material that China needs must find its
tortuous way over the Burma Road. It is an incredible journey. At
one point the highway dives from a height of seventy-two hundred
feet to twenty-five hundred feet and climbs again to seventy-five hun-
dred feet within the space of forty miles, less than the distance from
New York to Norwalk. In spots the road is as wide as Fifth Avenue,
but for over half the way its width is only nine feet. Nowhere over
its twisting course can a driver see more than an eighth of a mile
straight ahead. The top speed for safe driving (or what passes for
safety on the Burma Road) is fifteen miles an hour. The road is un-
paved and is without a single fence or guardrail. During the five
months of the rainy season, from May through September, the road-
bed dissolves into a mass of mud. The rest of the time it is an endless
cloud of dust and thick with mosquitoes; there are also landslides
and air raids, and cholera, typhoid, and malaria flourish along the
route. In the early stages of its construction four out of five workers
on the road died of malaria.

Like the Great Wall of China, the Chinese portion of the Burma
Road was built by hand. With a government appropriation of less
than $2,000,000, construction began, after the outbreak of war in
eastern China, in August, 1937, at which time the British also went
to work on the Burmese side. Chinese men, women, and children
were recruited from villages along the route of the new road. Sup-
plying their own food, shelter, and tools, they set to work, for three
or four cents a day, chipping at the mountainsides with adzes. A few
compressed-air drills for drilling holes in which to plant dynamite
charges were their only modern equipment. Stone rollers were used
to smooth the road. They were chiselled out of the rock by hand and
drawn along by bullocks. To make fills, earth was dug out of the
cliffsides and carried in baskets wherever it was needed. In December
of 1938 the Burma Road was opened to traffic. During the sixteen
months which had elapsed a quarter of a million Chinese had hacked
out a road over seven hundred miles long and built some two thou-
sand culverts and almost three hundred bridges, including two im-
portant suspension bridges where the highway crosses the Mekong
and Salween Rivers. Japanese aviators have been trying for months
to bomb out these two bridges. They have scored several hits, none

HU SHIH'S MUSKETEER 345

of them critical. But even if one of the bridges were destroyed, traffic
would not be halted for long; the Chinese have devised temporary
expedients of one sort and another to keep trucks moving across the
rivers. The Chinese are philosophical about bombs and air raids. "It
cost Japanese a thousand dollars for bomb to make hole," one inter-
preter explained brightly to Arnstein, "and it cost Chinese eight
cents to fill it up."

For several months after the completion of the Burma Road it was
not an important route for goods entering China. Throughout 1939
and the first part of 1940, the bulk of China's supplies still entered
at Shanghai, Hangchow, Canton, and other coastal ports, which were
later occupied by the Japanese. In addition, close to forty thousand
tons a month were being shipped by railway and road through
French Indo-China. When France fell, the Japanese inveigled Indo-
China into refusing to allow goods headed for China to cross her
territory. The Burma Road was now the only route of consequence
from the outside world into Free China. Then Britain, also acceding
to Japanese pressure, closed the Burma border to all traffic and for
three gloomy months China was completely blockaded. In October,
1940, the border was reopened and trucks began moving over the
road again. The results were disappointing. Although more than a
hundred thousand tons of vital materials were piled up in Burma
awaiting delivery, an average of only about four thousand tons a
month was reaching Kunming. This was scarcely enough for an army
of three million men. During 1940, two commissions, one British
and one American, were dispatched to China to unclog the lifeline.
Both got bogged down in Chinese politics and nothing happened.
In February of last year [1941], Lauchlin Currie, lend-lease admin-
istrator for China, returned from Chungking with this and other dis-
heartening information. He made his report to the White House.
Late the following month, Harry Hopkins got in touch with Arn-
stein, who was on a fishing trip off Key Largo, in Florida. He left for
Washington the next day to talk with Hopkins, Currie, and T. V.
Soong, the Chinese Foreign Minister. The more Arnstein heard
about the job to be done the more certain he became that he was the
only man in the country who could handle it. "I began to get the
American angle in all that Far Eastern stuff," he says, "so I decided
to go over and do the goddam job myself."

To help him on the mission, Arnstein picked a couple of his
friends, Harold C. Davis, vice-president of Consolidated Motor
Lines, the largest trucking company in New England, and Marco
Hellman, a transportation expert associated with Lehman Brothers.

346 JOHN BAINBRIDGE

Davis, a burly, hardheaded, good-natured ex-truck driver who, like
Arnstein, came up the hard way, took along a movie camera and two
other cameras and conscientiously kept a day-by-day diary of the
trip. Hellman, who is small, quiet, and a Harvard man, had the title
of financial adviser and doubled as diplomatic expert. Whenever
Arnstein would profanely bawl out a Chinese official, Hellman
would smilingly explain that all American businessmen talked like
that. Arnstein's function is explained by an entry Davis made in his
diary shortly before the mission's departure. ''Dan seems to have the
whole expedition departmentalized," he noted. "Whenever any prob-
lem arises, he says, 'Harold, that's your department' or 'Mickey [Hell-
man's nickname], that's your department.' When we asked what he
was going to do, Dan said, 'Hell, I can't be tied down to a depart-
ment. I'm going to do all the thinking on this trip.' " Before Arn-
stein and his colleagues left, they had inoculations for smallpox,
cholera, and typhoid. Arnstein, who likes to get things done fast,
took his cholera and typhoid shots together. Afterward he felt a trifle
chilly, so he downed a few double Scotches. The combination left
him physically dishevelled and he set out for China with a curious
typhoid-cholera-whiskey hangover.

At eight o'clock on the morning of July 12th, the American mis-
sion arrived in Chungking, and at five o'clock that afternoon they
were received by Generalissimo and Mme. Chiang Kai-shek. Arn-
stein was surprised by the simplicity of the Generalissimo's living
quarters, a small frame structure with fewer rooms than his own
house on Beekman Place. Through an interpreter, the Generalissimo
made a nice little speech thanking the Americans for the personal
and financial sacrifices they were making in coming to help China.
Arnstein, a man of many words, made a long speech in reply. In the
midst of his declamation he put his foot on a low table, apparently
under the impression that it was a running board, and knocked a
vase of flowers into Hellman's lap, leaving him very moist. "Dan
paid no attention," Davis wrote in his diary. "He just speeded up the
conversation." At a fast clip, Arnstein informed Chiang Kai-shek
that he had served in the first World War and that he figured he
ought to be doing something for his country again, even though he
was, at fifty, too old to carry a gun. When all this had been relayed
to the Generalissimo, he smiled and replied, "The service you will
render here will be much greater than any single soldier with a gun."
He added that he was going to send a message to his troops telling
them how Mr. Arnstein had left his business to come and work for
China at a salary of a dollar a year.

HU SHIFTS MUSKETEER 347

After paying his compliments to Generalissimo and Mme. Chiang,
Arnstein was eager to get started on his inspection trip over the
Burma Road, but the Chinese seemed to be in no great hurry. For
ten days he and his party lingered in Chungking, where they were
unceasingly entertained by Chinese officials. One of the biggest func-
tions was a dinner party for eighteen at the home of General Ho
Ying-Chin, the Minister of War. The affair, as Davis observed in his
diary, was a brilliant social triumph for Arnstein, who sat at the
General's right. ''After our glasses had been filled with rice wine,"
the entry reads, "Danny started right off the bat calling for a toast
to General Ho's health. This seemed to startle our hosts a bit, as they
generally ease into it, but it broke the ice, which up to then had
made the party rather stiff. We had some more rice wine, and Gen-
eral Ho called for a toast to Danny's health. After dinner we killed
a bottle of Russian brandy and polished off with some Five-Star
Hennessy." The General's enthusiasm died sometime before dawn,
but Arnstein was still in high gear.

Finally setting out, Arnstein and his colleagues flew to Kunming,
where a convoy of four new Dodge sedans and a truck to carry bag-
gage was waiting for them. Besides the Americans, the expedition
included five Chinese chauffeurs, two interpreters, T. C. Chen, a
government official who had something to do with supervising traffic
on the road, a pair of soldiers, and a cook. The cook, as it turned
out, just went along for the ride, since the supply of G. Washington
coffee, baked beans, and other canned goods which Arnstein had
brought all the way from San Francisco was inadvertently left be-
hind in Chungking. They stayed overnight in whatever accommo-
dations they could find and picked up their meals at the homes of
minor provincial officials along the route. Most of the time they
slept, when not kept awake by rats, on straw mats. One night they
put up at a temple. "It was the best place in town," Arnstein says,
"but it was full of those goddam idols." He and his colleagues made
the trip from Kunming to Lashio in five days, driving until late at
night and stopping during the day to inspect trucks, look over the
meagre service facilities, talk to truck drivers they encountered on
the way, and make exhaustive notes on their observations.

To truckers who had managed some of the biggest motor freight
lines in the United States, the situation on the Burma Road was fan-
tastic. Sixteen separate governmental agencies had a hand in running
it. None of them kept any records of the amount or kind of cargo
moved or how long it took trucks to make their runs. Each agency
was running an independent business with its own fleet of trucks and

348 JOHN BAINBRIDGE

repair stations. One employed thirty mechanics to take care of fifty
trucks while another had fifteen men to service a fleet of a hundred
and fifty. In the village of Hsiakwan, Arnstein found a dozen trucks
belonging to one government agency laid up for lack of spare parts.
Across the road in a garage owned by another agency were all the
spare parts needed. Apparently nobody had figured out how to get
them to the other side of the road.

Arnstein also discovered that more than half the traffic on the
Burma Road was made up of private trucks hauling commercial
cargo instead of war materials. Between Lashio and Kunming, these
trucks had to check in and out of eleven customs houses and provin-
cial toll stations. When private trucks were held up at these stations,
government trucks were also often delayed, sometimes for days, since
the road at many points is too narrow to permit passing. As a result,
government trucks were taking from ten to thirty days to make the
726-mile run. Arnstein learned of one instance in which twenty gov-
ernment trucks carrying paper currency for the Central Bank of
China were held up en route for a total of eleven days. Some of the
toll stations were collecting legitimate taxes. In one case, however,
Arnstein found an enterprising provincial official who had set up a
little toll booth on his own and was halting trucks to collect what he
vaguely referred to as school taxes. At Wanting, a town on the Bur-
mese border, drivers had to struggle past eight desks before getting
on their way. Arnstein's own convoy was held up at Wanting for six
hours because two hundred and fifty trucks, lined up three abreast,
blocked the road. To add to the delays, officials at the toll stations
were operating on a business-as-usual basis; they opened at eight and
closed at six, regardless of the number of trucks waiting to clear. At
one station, Arnstein noticed an official sitting in his office in the
middle of the day reading a magazine while trucks outside were
lined up for a quarter of a mile. "The son of a bitch was sitting there
with a smile on his puss reading True Confessions," Arnstein says,
still furious.

Of the scores of trucks which Arnstein inspected on his trip over
the Burma Road, not one showed any sign of having been greased.
The Chinese drivers, it turned out, had never heard about greasing,
and consequently their trucks stood up for only about a dozen round
trips. Out of 2,887 government trucks, 1,480 were in working order;
the rest were laid up, mainly because of lack of lubrication. When-
ever machines broke down, the Chinese abandoned them at the road-
side. In a field near Kunming, Arnstein counted a hundred and sixty
trucks which had been left to rust, and at Lecfong a hundred and

HU SHIH'S MUSKETEER 349

eighty more, many of them with good tires. "To think," said Dan,
who kept lecturing his Chinese companions en route, "that the
U. S. A. sent over fifty thousand tires, and then I come along and
find a situation like this. What's the idea?" On the journey, Arnstein
carried on an endless monologue about lubrication. Stopping a truck
on the road and finding the shackles, springs, and steering knuckles
dry and caked with mud, Arnstein would haul the driver out of his
cab and give him a lacing in English. Not understanding what all the
racket was for, the driver would scramble around under the truck
with Arnstein, nodding and smiling politely, and then get back in
his truck and wave a cheery good-bye. Arnstein felt frustrated.

Changing a tire on the Burma Road, Arnstein found, was a major
operation taking about half a day. Having no jacks or tire irons and
no tools except a pair of pliers, a screwdriver, and a hammer, a
driver, when he got a flat, had to round up four or five coolies and
a barrel. Using a stout pole as a lever, all hands hoisted the axle and
rolled the barrel underneath. If no barrel was handy, the coolies
hauled over a boulder. Since even the simplest tools were scarce,
Arnstein was surprised to discover an elaborate and expensive mech-
anism known as a power tester in a ramshackle repair shed deep in
the interior. Nobody could explain how a power tester, which is a
sort of stethoscope to test motors and is usually found only in the
best-equipped garages in this country, had wound up on the Burma
Road. The Chinese regarded it with wonderment and admiration.
"The more we go into the problems here," Davis observed midway
in the trip, "the nuttier they seem. We have to take time out occa-
sionally and play a couple of games of cards to relax our brains."

Their brains grew tense when they discovered that several of the
trucking agencies had a rule requiring drivers to wash their own
trucks several times a month. They saw many drivers, with their
trucks loaded for the road, working on them with a bucket of water
as late as ten in the morning. In the repair shops they found me-
chanics spending all their time trying to fix up the government's
oldest trucks while new ones were being allowed to run as long as
they would without attention. Government trucks on the road were
moving in convoys of between fifteen and twenty vehicles, a practice
which provided an unduly attractive target for Japanese bombers
and also limited the progress of the entire procession to the speed of
the slowest truck. If one of the trucks broke down, the rest of the
convoy would hang around until the repairs had been made, even
if it took six or eight hours. Inspecting and adjusting carburetors to
conserve gasoline was as unfamiliar a practice as greasing; Arnstein

350 JOHN BAINBRIDGE

estimated that the Chinese were wasting from twenty-five to forty
per cent of their gas. Loading was haphazard. The Chinese stacked
the heaviest freight in the front of the trucks, and front springs were
snapping constantly. In addition, one-and-a-half-ton trucks were be-
ing loaded as heavily as a four-ton truck should be. This was not en-
tirely the fault of the Chinese. Arnstein found that some of the
American companies selling trucks to China had been painting "4
ton" on every one-and-a-half-ton vehicle before it left the assembly
plants in Rangoon. Since the Chinese were paying for large trucks,
they figured they were getting them and loaded them up accordingly.
Each truck had to carry, in addition to its regular cargo, enough gas
—five large drums— to make the round trip. Often something went
wrong, and trucks got stranded for lack of fuel. In Chungking, Arn-
stein saw seventy trucks in good condition which had been laid up
for three weeks because they had no gas for the return trip. To com-
plicate the overloading problem, government drivers were in the
habit of illegally carrying commercial freight, which they called
"pidgin cargo," and passengers, known as "yellow fish." Arnstein
stopped one small truck to inspect its cargo and see how it was
loaded. He lifted the tarpaulin at the back and "yellow fish" started
tumbling out. Altogether, eleven passengers, along with a sizable le-
gitimate cargo, were packed into the truck.

By American standards of professional ethics, Chinese drivers were
no great shakes. They were being paid two hundred and fifty Chi-
nese dollars a month (about $10 U.S.), but some were picking up
from $1,000 to $1,500 (Chinese) a month in graft, which is more than
a Chinese government minister's salary. Meeting a private truck in
trouble, government drivers would stop and agreeably remove from
their own trucks whatever parts were needed, sell them at a good
price, and enjoy themselves for a few days with mah-jongg, wine, and
the local girls. Although theoretically under strict military disci-
pline, drivers were apt to mix business with pleasure on a grand
scale. After a night of carousing they would get out on the road about
noon with a rice-wine hangover. To save gas, which they could sell
at forty Chinese dollars a gallon along the way, they had a dangerous
habit of coasting down the twisting, spiralling grades, the ignition
off, one foot on the clutch, the other on the brake. Since the road
opened, thirteen hundred trucks have disappeared over the side.

Arnstein and his assistants reached the end of the road on July
26th. Three days later they flew to Rangoon, where they put up at
the Strand Hotel, and, after spending their first evening at the Silver
Grill, the only night club in town, they began work on their report

HU SHIH\S MUSKETEER 351

to Chiang Kai-shek. Dictating in relays to a pair of Burmese girl
stenographers, they turned out a hundred and forty double-spaced
typewritten pages of irate observations, sizzling complaints, and
sweeping but simple recommendations. By August 5th, these had
been condensed under Hellman's direction into a final draft of
thirty-five pages and Arnstein had returned to Chung-king and deliv-
ered a copy to Chiang Kai-shek. The report was written in Arn-
stein's own kind of diplomatic language. The fanciest and most tact-
ful word in it is "intolerable;" it is also the most frequent. "The
main reason that practically no tonnage is moving the full length of
the Burma Road," the report begins, "is due to an entire lack of
knowledge of the fundamentals of motor transportation by the men
now in charge. The present governmental agencies that are trying
to operate trucks on the road are overloaded with executives and
office personnel. No one gets right down into the actual operating
end of the business." The report goes on to prescribe a remedy for
every ailment.

Eighteen hours after receiving the report and having it translated,
Chiang Kai-shek acted on one of its strongest recommendations, or-
dering the customs houses and toll stations on the road to stay open
twenty-four hours a day. He also gave orders that instead of eleven
toll and customs houses scattered along the route, one central office
to transact all this business be opened at a place where ample park-
ing space was available. He directed that any delay of a government
truck of more than half an hour be reported directly to him. An-
other recommendation was to disband the sixteen government agen-
cies and to appoint an experienced trucking man, preferably an
American, to have authority over all operations on the road. The
Generalissimo agreed, and this post has been filled by Lieutenant
Colonel James Wilson, a West Point graduate who has had seven
years' experience in the trucking business. Following Arnstein's
blueprint and reporting to Chiang Kai-shek, Wilson is now install-
ing a truck-dispatching system modelled on American lines. Six ter-
minals are being set up along the road at intervals of a day's run.
Besides mechanics and equipment for greasing and repairing trucks,
each terminal will include comfortable overnight accommodations
for drivers. When the terminals are completed, drivers will be re-
quired to check out of one in the morning and into the next that
night. The convoy system has been abandoned, so each driver will
be on his own. Before taking to the road, trucks will be rigidly in-
spected, to make sure they will not break down in transit. To man
the terminals, six managers, a maintenance supervisor, and eighteen

352 JOHN BAINBRIDGE

dispatchers and mechanics, all Americans hand-picked by Arnstein
and Davis, arrived in China about six weeks ago. Within the last few
days, Arnstein has received word that a second group, consisting of
forty-six American managers and mechanics, who were stranded at
Manila when war was declared, are now on their way to Rangoon
and will presently be at work in China. Acting as teachers, the tech-
nicians from the United States will train the Chinese in American
methods of greasing, repairing, and loading trucks.

Taking another of Arnstein's recommendations, Chiang Kai-shek
ordered that all private trucks arriving in Rangoon from America be
required to carry government freight and gasoline on three out of
every four trips over the road. This proposal alone has been respon-
sible for getting at least a thousand additional tons of freight to
Chungking every month. Construction of a gasoline pipeline into
the interior is under way, and filling stations are being set up along
the road from Lashio about halfway to Kunming. Forty-five hundred
new heavy-duty American trucks are now rolling over the road, and
more are on the way. A start has been made on a project to pave cer-
tain sections of the highway with American asphalt, ten thousand
tons of which have already arrived. Schools have been opened to
teach Chinese drivers the fundamentals of handling their machines;
the instructors are Americans employed by the truck manufacturers.
Government trucks are now permitted to carry two paying passen-
gers apiece; half the money collected goes to the driver, the other
half to the government. To enforce this rule and to keep drivers
from hauling contraband freight, coasting down grades, and selling
parts of their trucks, prowl cars have been ordered to carry on a con-
stant patrol of the highway. The road police, Arnstein says, will have
their hands full, since they will have to protect the drivers not only
from themselves but also from the outside interference of highway
robbers, who flourish in considerable force along the Burma Road.
You can't change a nation overnight, he points out, and in frontier
country you have to expect a certain amount of Wild West stuff.
What is more important, in his view, is that the road is being kept
open and that so long as supplies keep moving over it in increas-
ing quantity China can continue to defend herself and ultimately
take the offensive. Arnstein is confident that this vital freight will
keep moving. Practically all lend-lease material for China has been
shipped by way of South Africa, so even if Singapore should fall, he
thinks, supply ships could still reach Rangoon. At least a hundred
American flyers, all of whom resigned from the United States Army
or Navy to aid China, are now assigned to defending the Burma

HU SHIH'S MUSKETEER 353

Road from air attack. They have so far been notably successful.
"There's been some squawking in the papers lately about conditions
on the road," Arnstein says. "God knows it's no Boston Post Road,
but at least the stuff is moving now." Specifically, the amount of
freight moved over the Burma Road since Arnstein went to work has
increased between four and five hundred per cent.

Chiang Kai-shek, pleased as he was with Arnstein's work on the
Burma Road, was even more delighted with his diplomatic coup in
getting Great Britain to remove the Burmese transit tax on lend-
lease supplies. Before Arnstein arrived, China had been required to
pay the government of Burma a tax of one per cent of the value of
these supplies. The levy did not apply to British goods headed for
China. Frequently the Chinese did not have the cash to pay the tax,
and badly needed lend-lease material was piling up on the border.
When Arnstein heard about this, he began calling on Burmese offi-
cials, starting with the Defense Minister and winding up with U
Saw, the Premier of Burma, and Sir Reginald Dorman-Smith, the
Governor General. He told them all caustically and a bit profanely
he thought it was not only unjust but shortsighted to make it dim-
cult for China to get supplies to fight an aggressor that might some-
day be attacking Burma itself. Sir Reginald and the other officials
gave him tea and a polite brushoff. When Arnstein got back to
Chungking, he called in newspaper correspondents and raged about
the tax. "I'm no politician," Arnstein exclaimed, "I'm just a truck-
man. But I say this tax has got to go and, believe you me, it's going.
Wait till this story busts wide open in the United States." Three
weeks later the British Embassy in Chungking announced that the
transit duty had been abolished, thus saving China several million
dollars a year.

The night before they left Chungking to return to the United
States, Arnstein, Davis, and Hellman were invited to dinner by
Generalissimo and Mme. Chiang Kai-shek. Chiang Kai-shek made a
speech effusively praising the report and proposing that the three
men take control not only of the Burma Road but of all the roads in
China. They could name their own salary, he said. When they turned
down the proposition, the Generalissimo suggested that at least one
of them remain. Finally, he proposed that Arnstein and his col-
leagues form a commercial company, backed by Chinese government
funds, to take over the Burma Road and operate it as a private con-
cession. Arnstein declined in a speech that nevertheless pleased the
Generalissimo. "I don't see why we should make money out of the
war when the Chinese themselves can do the job," he said. "This sys-

354 JOHN BAINBRIDGE

tern will work. If it doesn't, I'll be back in three months to fix it. If
it does, I'll be back in six months to get a pat on the back." Chiang
Kai-shek seemed cheered, and replied in English, "Good, good,
good." As they were leaving, he presented each of the Americans
with an autographed picture of himself. Three weeks later they were
back in New York. Arnstein was met at the airport by his wife and
daughter and escorted home by a fleet of fifteen Terminal cabs, the
windows of which were plastered with stickers reading, "Welcome
Home, Dan."

Since his return, Arnstein has found it difficult to settle down to
routine business. He worries a lot about the Burma Road and flies
down to Washington frequently to talk with Harry Hopkins and
Lauchlin Currie, the lend-lease administrator, and get reports on
how things are going over there. "Danny's heart," one of his friends
said recently, "belongs to China." A few weeks ago about sixty of
Arnstein's friends gave him a belated home-coming party. Among
the guests were Dr. Hu Shih, the Chinese Ambassador, and Dr. C. L.
Shia, the president of the Chinese News Service. After Davis had
shown the pictures he took in China and Arnstein had made a long
talk, the Chinese guests spoke about the guest of honor. "I proph-
esy," said Dr. Shia, winding up his address, "that Mr. Arnstein's
name will be recorded not alone in the history of China but as well
in the history of the world." After comparing Arnstein with Porthos,
the strong man of the Three Musketeers, Dr. Hu Shih, too, put him
down as a likely candidate for the history books. He was more spe-
cific. "As for the others," said Dr. Hu, "I cannot say. But when I
write my history of China, Mr. Arnstein's name will be there." Since
Dr. Hu Shih is considered by some people to be the greatest Chinese
scholar since Confucius, the tribute was impressive. When the party
was over, Arnstein walked down the street with a few friends to the
Copacabana. He danced a couple of sambas, and then, in a warm
glow of Scotch-and-water, he fell to musing on his position as a his-
torical character. "Imagine," he said, "a goddam hoodlum like me
going down in history,"

Thoreau

BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON

enry David Thoreau was the last male descendant of a French
ancestor who came to this country from the Isle of Guernsey.
His character exhibited occasional traits drawn from this blood in
singular combination with a very strong Saxon genius.

He was born in Concord, Massachusetts, on the 12th of July, 1817.
He was graduated at Harvard College in 1837, Dut without any liter-
ary distinction. An iconoclast in literature, he seldom thanked col-
leges for their service to him, holding them in small esteem, whilst
yet his debt to them was important. After leaving the University, he
joined his brother in teaching a private school, which he soon re-
nounced. His father was a manufacturer of lead-pencils, and Henry
applied himself for a time to this craft, believing he could make a
better pencil than was then in use. After completing his experiments,
he exhibited his work to chemists and artists in Boston, and having
obtained their certificates to its excellence and to its equality with
the best London manufacture, he returned home contented. His
friends congratulated him that he had now opened his way to for-
tune. But he replied, that he should never make another pencil.
"Why should I? I would not do again what I have done once." He
resumed his endless walks and miscellaneous studies, making every
day some new acquaintance with Nature, though as yet never speak-
ing of zoology or botany, since, though very studious of natural facts,
he was incurious of technical and textual science.

At this time, a strong, healthy youth, fresh from college, whilst all
his companions were choosing their profession, or eager to begin
some lucrative employment, it was inevitable that his thoughts
should be exercised on the same question, and it required rare deci-
sion to refuse all the accustomed paths, and keep his solitary freedom
at the cost of disappointing the natural expectations of his family
and friends: all the more difficult that he had a perfect probity, was
exact in securing his own independence, and in holding every man to

355

356 RALPH WALDO EMERSON

the like duty. But Thoreau never faltered. He was a born protestant.
He declined to give up his large ambition of knowledge and action
for any narrow craft or profession, aiming at a much more compre-
hensive calling, the art of living well. If he slighted and defied the
opinions of others, it was only that he was more intent to reconcile
his practice with his own belief. Never idle or self-indulgent, he pre-
ferred, when he wanted money, earning it by some piece of manual
labor agreeable to him, as building a boat or a fence, planting, draft-
ing, surveying, or other short work, to any long engagements. With
his hardy habits and few wants, his skill in wood-craft, and his pow-
erful arithmetic, he was very competent to live in any part of the
world. It would cost him less time to supply his wants than another.
He was therefore secure of his leisure.

A natural skill for mensuration, growing out of his mathematical
knowledge, and his habit of ascertaining the measures and distances
of objects which interested him, the size of trees, the depth and ex-
tent of ponds and rivers, the height of mountains, and the air-line
distance of his favorite summits,— this, and his intimate knowledge of
the territory about Concord, made him drift into the profession of
land-surveyor. It had the advantage for him that it led him continu-
ally into new and secluded grounds, and helped his studies of Na-
ture. His accuracy and skill in this work were readily appreciated,
and he found all the employment he wanted.

He could easily solve the problems of the surveyor, but he was
daily beset with graver questions, which he manfully confronted. He
interrogated every custom, and wished to settle all his practice on an
ideal foundation. He was a protestant a outrance, and few lives con-
tain so many renunciations. He was bred to no profession; he never
married; he lived alone; he never went to church; he never voted;
he refused to pay a tax to the State; he ate no flesh, he drank no wine,
he never knew the use of tobacco; and, though a naturalist, he used
neither trap nor gun. He chose, wisely, no doubt, for himself, to be
the bachelor of thought and Nature. He had no talent for wealth,
and knew how to be poor without the least hint of squalor or inele-
gance. Perhaps he fell into his way of living without forecasting it
much, but approved it with later wisdom. "I am often reminded," he
wrote in his journal, "that, if I had bestowed on me the wealth of
Crcesus, my aims must be still the same, and my means essentially the
same." He had no temptations to fight against,— no appetites, no pas-
sions, no taste for elegant trifles. A fine house, dress, the manners and
talk of highly cultivated people were all thrown away on him. He
much preferred a good Indian, and considered these refinements as

THOREAU 357

impediments to conversation, wishing to meet his companion on the
simplest terms. He declined invitations to dinner-parties, because
there each was in every one's way, and he could not meet the indi-
viduals to any purpose. "They make their pride," he said, "in mak-
ing their dinner cost much; I make my pride in making my dinner
cost little." When asked at table what dish he preferred, he answered,
"The nearest." He did not like the taste of wine, and never had a
vice in his life. He said,— "I have a faint recollection of pleasure de-
rived from smoking dried lily-stems, before I was a man. I had com-
monly a supply of these. I have never smoked anything more noxious."

He chose to be rich by making his wants few, and supplying them
himself. In his travels, he used the railroad only to get over so much
country as was unimportant to the present purpose, walking hun-
dreds of miles, avoiding taverns, buying a lodging in farmers' and
fishermen's houses, as cheaper, and more agreeable to him, and be-
cause there he could better find the men and the information he
wanted.

There was somewhat military in his nature not to be subdued,
always manly and able, but rarely tender, as if he did not feel him-
self except in opposition. He wanted a fallacy to expose, a blunder
to pillory, I may say required a little sense of victory, a roll of the
drum, to call his powers into full exercise. It cost him nothing to say
No; indeed, he found it much easier than to say Yes. It seemed as if
his first instinct on hearing a proposition was to controvert it, so im-
patient was he of the limitations of our daily thought. This habit, of
course, is a little chilling to the social affections; and though the
companion would in the end acquit him of any malice or untruth,
yet it mars conversation. Hence, no equal companion stood in affec-
tionate relations with one so pure and guileless. "I love Henry," said
one of his friends, "but I cannot like him; and as for taking his arm,
I should as soon think of taking the arm of an elm-tree."

Yet, hermit and stoic as he was, he was really fond of sympathy,
and threw himself heartily and childlike into the company of young
people whom he loved, and whom he delighted to entertain, as he
only could, with the varied and endless anecdotes of his experiences
by field and river. And he was always ready to lead a huckleberry
party or a search for chestnuts or grapes. Talking, one day, of a pub-
lic discourse, Henry remarked, that whatever succeeded with the
audience was bad. I said, "Who would not like to write something
which all can read, like 'Robinson Crusoe'? and who does not see with
regret that his page is not solid with a right materialistic treatment,
which delights everybody?" Henry objected, of course, and vaunted

358 RALPH WALDO EMERSON

the better lectures which reached only a few persons. But, at supper,
a young girl, understanding that he was to lecture at the Lyceum,
sharply asked him, "whether his lecture would be a nice, interesting
story, such as she wished to hear, or whether it was one of those old
philosophical things that she did not care about." Henry turned to
her, and bethought himself, and, I saw, was trying to believe that he
had matter that might fit her and her brother, who were to sit up
and go to the lecture, if it was a good one for them.

He was a speaker and actor of the truth,— born such,— and was ever
running into dramatic situations from this cause. In any circum-
stance, it interested all bystanders to know what part Henry would
take, and what he would say; and he did not disappoint expectation,
but used an original judgment on each emergency. In 1845 ne built
himself a small framed house on the shores of Walden Pond, and
lived there two years alone, a life of labor and study. This action was
quite native and fit for him. No one who knew him would tax him
with affectation. He was more unlike his neighbors in his thought
than in his action. As soon as he had exhausted the advantages of
that solitude, he abandoned it. In 1847, not approving some uses to
which the public expenditure was applied, he refused to pay his town
tax, and was put in jail. A friend paid the tax for him, and he was re-
leased. The like annoyance was threatened the next year. But, as his
friends paid the tax, notwithstanding his protest, I believe he ceased
to resist. No opposition or ridicule had any weight with him. He
coldly and fully stated his opinion without affecting to believe that
it was the opinion of the company. It was of no consequence, if every
one present held the opposite opinion. On one occasion he went to
the University Library to procure some books. The librarian re-
fused to lend them. Mr. Thoreau repaired to the President, who
stated to him the rules and usages, which permitted the loan of
books to resident graduates, to clergymen who were alumni, and to
some others resident within a circle of ten miles' radius from the Col-
lege. Mr. Thoreau explained to the President that the railroad had
destroyed the old scale of distances,— that the library was useless, yes,
and President and College, useless, on the terms of his rules,— that
the one benefit he owed to the College was its library,— that, at this
moment, not only his want of books was imperative, but he wanted a
large number of books, and assured him that he, Thoreau, and not
the librarian, was the proper custodian of these. In short, the Presi-
dent found the petitioner so formidable, and the rules getting to
look so ridiculous, that he ended by giving him a privilege which in
his hands proved unlimited thereafter.

THOREAU 359

No truer American existed than Thoreau. His preference of his
country and condition was genuine, and his aversation from English
and European manners and tastes almost reached contempt. He lis-
tened impatiently to news or bon mots gleaned from London circles;
and though he tried to be civil, these anecdotes fatigued him. The
men were all imitating each other, and on a small mould. Why can
they not live as far apart as possible, and each be a man by himself?
What he sought was the most energetic nature; and he wished to go
to Oregon, not to London. ''In every part of Great Britain," he
wrote in his diary, "are discovered traces of the Romans, their fune-
real urns, their camps, their roads, their dwellings. But New Eng-
land, at least, is not based on any Roman ruins. We have not to lay
the foundations of our houses on the ashes of a former civilization."

But, idealist as he was, standing for abolition of slavery, abolition
of tariffs, almost for abolition of government, it is needless to say he
found himself not only unrepresented in actual politics, but almost
equally opposed to every class of reformers. Yet he paid the tribute
of his uniform respect to the Anti-Slavery Party. One man, whose
personal acquaintance he had formed, he honored with exceptional
regard. Before the first friendly word had been spoken for Captain
John Brown, after the arrest, he sent notices to most houses in Con-
cord, that he would speak in a public hall on the condition and char-
acter of John Brown, on Sunday evening, and invited all people to
come. The Republican Committee, the Abolitionist Committee, sent
him word that it was premature and not advisable. He replied,— "I
did not send to you for advice, but to announce that I am to speak."
The hall was filled at an early hour by people of all parties, and his
earnest eulogy of the hero was heard by all respectfully, by many
with a sympathy that surprised themselves.

It was said of Plotinus that he was ashamed of his body, and 'tis
very likely he had good reason for it,— that his body was a bad serv-
ant, and he had not skill in dealing with the material world, as
happens often to men of abstract intellect. But Mr. Thoreau was
equipped with a most adapted and serviceable body. He was of short
stature, firmly built, of light complexion, with strong, serious blue
eyes, and a grave aspect,— his face covered in the late years with a
becoming beard. His senses were acute, his frame well-knit and
hardy, his hands strong and skilful in the use of tools. And there wTas
a wonderful fitness of body and mind. He could pace sixteen rods
more accurately than another man could measure them with rod and
chain. He could find his path in the woods at night, he said, better
by his feet than his eyes. He could estimate the measure of a tree

360 RALPH WALDO EMERSON

very well by his eyes; he could estimate the weight of a calf or a pig,
like a dealer. From a box containing a bushel or more of loose pen-
cils, he could take up with his hands fast enough just a dozen pencils
at every grasp. He was a good swimmer, runner, skater, boatman, and
would probably outwalk most countrymen in a day's journey. And
the relation of body to mind was still finer than we have indicated.
He said he wanted every stride his legs made. The length of his walk
uniformly made the length of his writing. If shut up in the house, he
did not write at all.

He had a strong common sense, like that which Rose Flammock,
the weaver's daughter, in Scott's romance, commends in her father,
as resembling a yardstick, which, whilst it measures dowlas and dia-
per, can equally well measure tapestry and cloth of gold. He had
always a new resource. When I was planting forest-trees, and had
procured half a peck of acorns, he said that only a small portion of
them would be sound, and proceeded to examine them, and select
the sound ones. But finding this took time, he said, "I think, if you
put them all into water, the good ones will sink"; which experiment
we tried with success. He could plan a garden, or a house, or a barn;
would have been competent to lead a "Pacific Exploring Expedi-
tion"; could give judicious counsel in the gravest private or public
affairs.

He lived for the day, not cumbered and mortified by his memory.
If he brought you yesterday a new proposition, he would bring you
to-day another not less revolutionary. A very industrious man, and
setting, like all highly organized men, a high value on his time, he
seemed the only man of leisure in town, always ready for any excur-
sion that promised well, or for conversation prolonged into late
hours. His trenchant sense was never stopped by his rules of daily
prudence, but was always up to the new occasion. He liked and used
the simplest food, yet, when some one urged a vegetable diet, Tho-
reau thought all diets a very small matter, saying that "the man who
shoots the buffalo lives better than the man who boards at the Gra-
ham House." He said,— "You can sleep near the railroad, and never
be disturbed: Nature knows very well what sounds are worth attend-
ing to, and has made up her mind not to hear the railroad-whistle.
But things respect the devout mind, and a mental ecstasy was never
interrupted." He noted, what repeatedly befell him, that, after re-
ceiving from a distance a rare plant, he would presently find the
same in his own haunts. And those pieces of luck which happen only
to good players happened to him. One day, walking with a stranger,
who inquired where Indian arrow-heads could be found, he replied,

THOREAU 361

"Everywhere," and, stooping forward, picked one on the instant from
the ground. At Mount Washington, in Tuckerman's Ravine, Tho-
reau had a bad fall, and sprained his foot. As he was in the act of
getting up from his fall, he saw for the first time the leaves of the
Arnica mollis.

His robust common sense, armed with stout hands, keen percep-
tions, and strong will, cannot yet account for the superiority which
shone in his simple and hidden life. I must add the cardinal fact,
that there was an excellent wisdom in him, proper to a rare class of
men, which showed him the material world as a means and symbol.
This discovery, which sometimes yields to poets a certain casual and
interrupted light, serving for the ornament of their writing, was in
him an unsleeping insight; and whatever faults or obstructions of
temperament might cloud it, he was not disobedient to the heav-
enly vision. In his youth, he said, one day, "The other world is all
my art: my pencils will draw no other; my jack-knife will cut noth-
ing else; I do not use it as a means." This was the muse and genius
that ruled his opinions, conversation, studies, work, and course of
life. This made him a searching judge of men. At first glance he
measured his companion, and, though insensible to some fine traits
of culture, could very well report his weight and calibre. And this
made the impression of genius which his conversation often gave.

He understood the matter in hand at a glance, and saw the limita-
tions and poverty of those he talked with, so that nothing seemed
concealed from such terrible eyes. I have repeatedly known young
men of sensibility converted in a moment to the belief that this was
the man they were in search of, the man of men, who could tell them
all they should do. His own dealing with them was never affection-
ate, but superior, didactic,— scorning their petty ways,— very slowly
conceding, or not conceding at all, the promise of his society at their
houses, or even at his own. "Would he not walk with them?" "He
did not know. There was nothing so important to him as his walk;
he had no walks to throw away on company." Visits were offered him
from respectful parties, but he declined them. Admiring friends of-
fered to carry him at their own cost to the Yellow-Stone River,— to
the West Indies,— to South America. But though nothing could be
more grave or considered than his refusals, they remind one in quite
new relations of that fop Brummel's reply to the gentleman who
offered him his carriage in a shower, "But where will you ride,
then?"— and what accusing silences, and what searching and irre-
sistible speeches, battering down all defences, his companions can
remember!

362 RALPH WALDO EMERSON

Mr. Thoreau dedicated his genius with such entire love to the
fields, hills, and waters of his native town, that he made them known
and interesting to all reading Americans, and to people over the sea.
The river on whose banks he was born and died he knew from its
springs to its confluence with the Merrimack. He had made summer
and winter observations on it for many years, and at every hour of
the day and the night. The result of the recent survey of the Water
Commissioners appointed by the State of Massachusetts he had
reached by his private experiments, several years earlier. Every fact
which occurs in the bed, on the banks, or in the air over it; the fishes,
and their spawning and nests, their manners, their food; the shad-
flies which fill the air on a certain evening once a year, and which
are snapped at by the fishes so ravenously that many of these die of
repletion; the conical heaps of small stones on the river-shallows, one
of which heaps will sometimes overfill a cart,— these heaps the huge
nests of small fishes; the birds which frequent the stream, heron,
duck, sheldrake, loon, osprey; the snake, musk-rat, otter, woodchuck,
and fox, on the banks; the turtle, frog, hyla, and cricket, which make
the banks vocal,— were all known to him, and, as it were, townsmen
and fellow-creatures; so that he felt an absurdity or violence in any
narrative of one of these by itself apart, and still more of its dimen-
sions on an inch-rule, or in the exhibition of its skeleton, or the
specimen of a squirrel or a bird in brandy. He liked to speak of the
manners of the river, as itself a lawful creature, yet with exactness,
and always to an observed fact. As he knew the river, so the ponds in
this region.

One of the weapons he used, more important than microscope or
alcohol-receiver to other investigators, was a whim which grew on
him by indulgence, yet appeared in gravest statement, namely, of ex-
tolling his own town and neighborhood as the most favored centre
for natural observation. He remarked that the Flora of Massachu-
setts embraced almost all the important plants of America,— most of
the oaks, most of the willows, the best pines, the ash, the maple, the
beech, the nuts. He returned Kane's "Arctic Voyage" to a friend of
whom he had borrowed it, with the remark, that "most of the phe-
nomena noted might be observed in Concord." He seemed a little
envious of the Pole, for the coincident sunrise and sunset, of five
minutes' day after six months: a splendid fact, which Annursnuc had
never afforded him. He found red snow in one of his walks, and told
me that he expected to find yet the Victoria regia in Concord. He
was the attorney of the indigenous plants, and owned to a preference
of the weeds to the imported plants, as of the Indian to the civilized

THOREAU 363

man,— and noticed, with pleasure, that the willow bean-poles of his
neighbor had grown more than his beans. "See these weeds," he said,
"which have been hoed at by a million farmers all spring and
summer, and yet have prevailed, and just now come out triumphant
over all lanes, pastures, fields, and gardens, such is their vigor. We
have insulted them with low names, too,— as Pigweed, Wormwood,
Chickweed, Shad-Blossom." He says, "They have brave names, too,—
Ambrosia, Stellaria, Amelanchia, Amaranth, etc."

I think his fancy for referring everything to the meridian of Con-
cord did not grow out of any ignorance or depreciation of other
longitudes or latitudes, but was rather a playful expression of his
conviction of the indifferency of all places, and that the best place for
each is where he stands. He expressed it once in this wise:— "I think
nothing is to be hoped from you, if this bit of mould under your feet
is not sweeter to you to eat than any other in this world, or in any
world."

The other weapon with which he conquered all obstacles in sci-
ence was patience. He knew how to sit immovable, a part of the rock
he rested on, until the bird, the reptile, the fish, which had retired
from him, should come back, and resume its habits, nay, moved by
curiosity, should come to him and watch him.

It was a pleasure and a privilege to walk with him. He knew the
country like a fox or a bird, and passed through it as freely by paths
of his own. He knew every track in the snow or on the ground, and
what creature had taken this path before him. One must submit ab-
jectly to such a guide, and the reward was great. Under his arm he
carried an old music-book to press plants; in his pocket, his diary
and pencil, a spy-glass for birds, microscope, jack-knife, and twine.
He wore straw hat, stout shoes, strong gray trousers, to brave shrub-
oaks and smilax, and to climb a tree for a hawk's or a squirrel's nest.
He waded into the pool for the water-plants, and his strong legs were
no insignificant part of his armor. On the day I speak of he looked
for the Menyanthes, detected it across the wide pool, and, on exami-
nation of the florets, decided that it had been in flower five days. He
drew out of his breast-pocket his diary, and read the names of all the
plants that should bloom on this day, whereof he kept account as a
banker when his notes fall due. The Cypripedium not due till to-
morrow. He thought, that, if waked up from a trance, in this swamp,
he could tell by the plants what time of the year it was within two
days. The redstart was flying about, and presently the fine grosbeaks,
whose brilliant scarlet makes the rash gazer wipe his eye, and whose
fine clear note Thoreau compared to that of a tanager which has got

364 RALPH WALDO EMERSON

rid of its hoarseness. Presently he heard a note which he called that
of the night-warbler, a bird he had never identified, had been in
search of twelve years, which always, when he saw it, was in the act of
diving down into a tree or bush, and which it was vain to seek; the
only bird that sings indifferently by night and by day. I told him he
must beware of finding and booking it, lest life should have nothing
more to show him. He said, "What you seek in vain for, half your
life, one day you come full upon all the family at dinner. You seek it
like a dream, and as soon as you 'find it you become its prey."

His interest in the flower or the bird lay very deep in his mind,
was connected with Nature,— and the meaning of Nature was never
attempted to be defined by him. He would not offer a memoir of his
observations to the Natural History Society. "Why should I? To de-
tach the description from its connections in my mind would make it
no longer true or valuable to me: and they do not wish what belongs
to it." His power of observation seemed to indicate additional senses.
He saw as with microscope, heard as with ear-trumpet, and his mem-
ory was a photographic register of all he saw and heard. And yet none
knew better than he that it is not the fact that imports, but the im-
pression or effect of the fact on your mind. Every fact lay in glory in
his mind, a type of the order and beauty of the whole.

His determination on Natural History was organic. He confessed
that he sometimes felt like a hound or a panther, and, if born among
Indians, would have been a fell hunter. But, restrained by his Massa-
chusetts culture, he played out the game in this mild form of botany
and ichthyology. His intimacy with animals suggested what Thomas
Fuller records of Butler the apiologist, that "either he had told the
bees things or the bees had told him." Snakes coiled round his leg;
the fishes swam into his hand, and he took them out of the water; he
pulled the woodchuck out of its hole by the tail, and took the foxes
under his protection from the hunters. Our naturalist had perfect
magnanimity; he had no secrets: he would carry you to the heron's
haunt, or even to his most prized botanical swamp,— possibly know-
ing that you could never find it again, yet willing to take his risks.

No college ever offered him a diploma, or a professor's chair; no
academy made him its corresponding secretary, its discoverer, or
even its member. Perhaps these learned bodies feared the satire of his
presence. Yet so much knowledge of Nature's secret and genius few
others possessed, none in a more large and religious synthesis. For not
a particle of respect had he to the opinions of any man or body of
men, but homage solely to the truth itself; and as he discovered
everywhere among doctors some leaning of courtesy, it discredited

THOREAU 365

them. He grew to be revered and admired by his townsmen, who had
at first known him only as an oddity. The farmers who employed him
as a surveyor soon discovered his rare accuracy and skill, his knowl-
edge of their lands, of trees, of birds, of Indian remains, and the like,
which enabled him to tell every farmer more than he knew before of
his own farm; so that he began to feel as if Mr. Thoreau had better
rights in his land than he. They felt, too, the superiority of character
which addressed all men with a native authority.

Indian relics abound in Concord,— arrow-heads, stone chisels,
pestles, and fragments of pottery; and on the river-bank, large heaps
of clam-shells and ashes mark spots which the savages frequented.
These, and every circumstance touching the Indian, were important
in his eyes. His visits to Maine were chiefly for love of the Indian. He
had the satisfaction of seeing the manufacture of the bark-canoe, as
well as of trying his hand in its management on the rapids. He was
inquisitive about the making of the stone arrow-head, and in his
last days charged a youth setting out for the Rocky Mountains to
find an Indian who could tell him that: "It was well worth a visit
to California to learn it." Occasionally, a small party of Penobscot
Indians would visit Concord, and pitch their tents for a few weeks
in summer on the river-bank. He failed not to make acquaintance
with the best of them; though he well knew that asking questions of
Indians is like catechizing beavers and rabbits. In his last visit to
Maine he had great satisfaction from Joseph Polis, an intelligent
Indian of Oldtown, who was his guide for some weeks.

He was equally interested in every natural fact. The depth of his
perception found likeness of law throughout Nature, and I know
not any genius who so swiftly inferred universal law from the single
fact. He was no pedant of a department. His eye was open to beauty,
and his ear to music. He found these, not in rare conditions, but
wheresoever he went. He thought the best of music was in single
strains; and he found poetic suggestion in the humming of the
telegraph-wire.

His poetry might be bad or good; he no doubt wanted a lyric
facility and technical skill; but he had the source of poetry in his
spiritual perception. He was a good reader and critic, and his judg-
ment on poetry was to the ground of it. He could not be deceived as
to the presence or absence of the poetic element in any composition,
and his thirst for this made him negligent and perhaps scornful of
superficial graces. He would pass by many delicate rhythms, but he
would have detected every live stanza or line in a volume, and
knew very well where to find an equal poetic charm in prose. He

366 RALPH WALDO EMERSON

was so enamored of the spiritual beauty that he held all actual
written poems in very light esteem in the comparison. He admired
iEschylus and Pindar; but, when some one was commending them,
he said that "iEschylus and the Greeks, in describing Apollo and
Orpheus, had given no song, or no good one. They ought not to
have moved trees, but to have chanted to the gods such a hymn as
would have sung all their old ideas out of their heads, and new
ones in." His own verses are often rude and defective. The gold does
not yet run pure, is drossy and crude. The thyme and marjoram are
not yet honey. But if he want lyric fineness and technical merits, if
he have not the poetic temperament, he never lacks the causal
thought, showing that his genius was better than his talent. He
knew the worth of the Imagination for the uplifting and consola-
tion of human life, and liked to throw every thought into a symbol.
The fact that you tell is of no value, but only the impression. For
this reason his presence was poetic, always piqued the curiosity to
know more deeply the secrets of his mind. He had many reserves, an
unwillingness to exhibit to profane eyes what was still sacred in his
own, and knew well how to throw a poetic veil over his experience.
All readers of "Walden" will remember his mythical record of his
disappointments: —

"I long ago lost a hound, a bay horse, and a turtle-dove, and am
still on their trail. Many are the travellers I have spoken to concern-
ing them, describing their tracks, and what calls they answer to. I
have met one or two who had heard the hound, and the tramp of the
horse, and even seen the dove disappear behind a cloud; and they
seemed as anxious to recover them as if they had lost them them-
selves."

His riddles were worth the reading, and I confide, that, if at any
time I do not understand the expression, it is yet just. Such was the
wealth of his truth that it was not worth his while to use words in
vain. His poem entitled "Sympathy" reveals the tenderness under
that triple steel of stoicism, and the intellectual subtilty it could
animate. His classic poem on "Smoke" suggests Simonides, but is
better than any poem of Simonides. His biography is in his verses.
His habitual thought makes all his poetry a hymn to the Cause of
causes, the Spirit which vivifies and controls his own.

"I hearing get, who had but ears,
And sight, who had but eyes before;
I moments live, who lived but years,
And truth discern, who knew but learning's lore."

THOREAU 367

And still more in these religious lines: —

"Now chiefly is my natal hour,
And only now my prime of life;
I will not doubt the love untold,
Which not my worth or want hath bought,
Which wooed me young, and wooes me old,
And to this evening hath me brought."

Whilst he used in his writings a certain petulance of remark in
reference to churches or churchmen, he was a person of a rare,
tender, and absolute religion, a person incapable of any profanation,
by act or by thought. Of course, the same isolation which belonged
to his original thinking and living detached him from the social re-
ligious forms. This is neither to be censured nor regretted. Aristotle
long ago explained it, when he said, "One who surpasses his fellow-
citizens in virtue is no longer a part of the city. Their law is not for
him, since he is a law to himself."

Thoreau was sincerity itself, and might fortify the convictions of
prophets in the ethical laws by his holy living. It was an affirmative
experience which refused to be set aside. A truth-speaker he, capa-
ble of the most deep and strict conversation; a physician to the
wounds of any soul; a friend, knowing not only the secret of friend-
ship, but almost worshipped by those few persons who resorted to
him as their confessor and prophet, and knew the deep value of his
mind and great heart. He thought that without religion or devo-
tion of some kind nothing great was ever accomplished: and he
thought that the bigoted sectarian had better bear this in mind.

His virtues, of course, sometimes ran into extremes. It was easy to
trace to the inexorable demand on all for exact truth that austerity
which made this willing hermit more solitary even than he wished.
Himself of a perfect probity, he required not less of others. He had
a disgust at crime, and no worldly success could cover it. He de-
tected paltering as readily in dignified and prosperous persons as
in beggars, and with equal scorn. Such dangerous frankness was in
his dealing that his admirers called him "that terrible Thoreau," as
if he spoke when silent, and was still present when he had departed.
I think the severity of his ideal interfered to deprive him of a healthy
sufficiency of human society.

The habit of a realist to find things the reverse of their appear-
ance inclined him to put every statement in a paradox. A certain
habit of antagonism defaced his earlier writings,— a trick of rhetoric

368 RALPH WALDO EMERSON

not quite outgrown in his later, of substituting for the obvious word
and thought its diametrical opposite. He praised wild mountains
and winter forests for their domestic air, in snow and ice he would
find sultriness, and commended the wilderness for resembling Rome
and Paris. "It was so dry, that you might call it wet."

The tendency to magnify the moment, to read all the laws of
Nature in the one object or one combination under your eye, is of
course comic to those who do not share the philosopher's perception
of identity. To him there was no such thing as size. The pond was a
small ocean; the Atlantic, a large Walden Pond. He referred every
minute fact to cosmical laws. Though he meant to be just, he seemed
haunted by a certain chronic assumption that the science of the day
pretended completeness, and he had just found out that the savans
had neglected to discriminate a particular botanical variety, had
failed to describe the seeds or count the sepals. "That is to say/' we
replied, "the blockheads were not born in Concord; but who said
they were? It was their unspeakable misfortune to be born in Lon-
don, or Paris, or Rome; but, poor fellows, they did what they could,
considering that they never saw Bateman's Pond, or Nine-Acre Cor-
ner, or Becky-Stow's Swamp. Besides, what were you sent into the
world for, but to add this observation?"

Had his genius been only contemplative, he had been fitted to his
life, but with his energy and practical ability he seemed born for
great enterprise and for command; and I so much regret the loss of
his rare powers of action, that I cannot help counting it a fault in him
that he had no ambition. Wanting this, instead of engineering for all
America, he was the captain of a huckleberry party. Pounding beans
is good to the end of pounding empires one of these days; but if at
the end of years, it is still only beans!

But these foibles, real or apparent, were fast vanishing in the in-
cessant growth of a spirit so robust and wise, and which effaced its
defeats with new triumphs. His study of Nature was a perpetual
ornament to him, and inspired his friends with curiosity to see the
world through his eyes, and to hear his adventures. They possessed
every kind of interest.

He had many elegances of his own, whilst he scoffed at conven-
tional elegance. Thus, he could not bear to hear the sound of his
own steps, the grit of gravel; and therefore never willingly walked
in the road, but in the grass, on mountains and in woods. His senses
were acute, and he remarked that by night every dwelling-house
gives out bad air, like a slaughter-house. He liked the pure fragrance
of melilot. He honored certain plants with special regard, and, over

THOREAU 369

all, the pond-lily,— then, the gentian, and the Mikania scandens, and
"life-everlasting," and a bass-tree which he visited every year when it
bloomed, in the middle of July. He thought the scent a more orac-
ular inquisition than the sight,— more oracular and trustworthy.
The scent, of course, reveals what is concealed from the other senses.
By it he detected earthiness. He delighted in echoes, and said they
were almost the only kind of kindred voices that he heard. He loved
Nature so well, was so happy in her solitude, that he became very
jealous of cities, and the sad work which their refinements and
artifices made with man and his dwelling. The axe was always de-
stroying his forest. "Thank God," he said, "they cannot cut down
the clouds!" "All kinds of figures are drawn on the blue ground
with this fibrous white paint."

I subjoin a few sentences taken from his unpublished manuscripts,
not only as records of his thought and feeling, but for their power of
description and literary excellence.

"Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a
trout in the milk."

"The chub is a soft fish, and tastes like boiled brown paper salted."

"The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the
moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and at length
the middle-aged man concludes to build a wood-shed with them."

"The locust z-ing."

"Devil's-needles zigzagging along the Nut-Meadow brook."

"Sugar is not so sweet to the palate as sound to the healthy ear."

"I put on some hemlock-boughs, and the rich salt crackling of
their leaves was like mustard to the ear, the crackling of uncount-
able regiments. Dead trees love the fire."

"The bluebird carries the sky on his back."

"The tanager flies through the green foliage as if it wrould ignite
the leaves."

"If I wish for a horse-hair for my compass-sight, I must go to the
stable; but the hair-bird, with her sharp eyes, goes to the road."

"Immortal water, alive even to the superficies."

"Fire is the most tolerable third party."

"Nature made ferns for pure leaves, to show what she could do
in that line."

"No tree has so fair a bole and so handsome an instep as the
beech."

"How did these beautiful rainbow-tints get into the shell of the
fresh-water clam, buried in the mud at the bottom of our dark
river?"

370 RALPH WALDO EMERSON

"Hard are the times when the infant's shoes are second-foot."

"We are strictly confined to our men to whom we give liberty."

"Nothing is so much to be feared as fear. Atheism may compara-
tively be popular with God himself."

"Of what significance the things you can forget? A little thought
is sexton to all the world."

"How can we expect a harvest of thought who have not had a
seed-time of character?"

"Only he can be trusted with gifts who can present a face of
bronze to expectations."

"I ask to be melted. You can only ask of the metals that they be
tender to the fire that melts them. To nought else can they be
tender."

There is a flower known to botanists, one of the same genus with
our summer plant called "Life-Everlasting," a Gnaphalium like that
which grows on the most inaccessible cliffs of the Tyrolese moun-
tains, where the chamois dare hardly venture, and which the hunter,
tempted by its beauty, and by his love (for it is immensely valued by
the Swiss maidens), climbs the cliffs to gather, and is sometimes
found dead at the foot, with the flower in his hand. It is called by
botanists the Gnaphalium leontopodium, but by the Swiss Edel-
weisse, which signifies Noble Purity. Thoreau seemed to me living in
the hope to gather this plant, which belonged to him of right. The
scale on which his studies proceeded was so large as to require
longevity, and we were the less prepared for his sudden disappear-
ance. The country knows not yet, or in the least part, how great a
son it has lost. It seems an injury that he should leave in the midst
his broken task, which none else can finish,— a kind of indignity to
so noble a soul, that it should depart out of Nature before yet he has
been really shown to his peers for what he is. But he, at least, is con-
tent. His soul was made for the noblest society; he had in a short
life exhausted the capabilities of this world; wherever there is knowl-
edge, wherever there is virtue, wherever there is beauty, he will
find a home.

The Swamp Fox

BY WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS

We follow where the Swamp Fox guides,

His friends and merry men are we;
And when the troop of Tarleton rides,

We burrow in the cypress-tree.
The turfy hummock is our bed,

Our home is in the red deer's den,
Our roof, the tree-top overhead,

For we are wild and hunted men.

We fly by day and shun its light,

But, prompt to strike the sudden blow,
We mount and start with early night,

And through the forest track our foe.
And soon he hears our chargers leap,

The flashing sabre blinds his eyes,
And ere he drives away his sleep,

And rushes from his camp, he dies.

Free bridle-bit, good gallant steed,

That will but ask a kind caress
To swim the Santee at our need,

When on his heels the foemen press,—
The true heart and the ready hand,

The spirit stubborn to be free,
The twisted bore, the smiting brand,—

And we are Marions men, you see.

Now light the fire and cook the meal,
The last perhaps that we shall taste;

I hear the Swamp Fox round us steal.
And that's a sign we move in haste.

371

372 WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS

He whistles to the scouts, and hark!

You hear his order calm and low.
Come, wave your torch across the dark,

And let us see the hoys that go.

We may not see their forms again,

God help 'em, should they find the strife!
For they are strong and fearless men,

And make no coward terms for life.
They'll fight as long as Marion bids,

And when he speaks the word to shy,
Then, not till then, they turn their steeds,

Through thickening shade and swamp to fly.

Now stir the fire and lie at ease —

The scouts are gone, and on the brush
I see the Colonel bend his knee,

To take his slumbers too. But hush!
He's praying, comrades; 'tis not strange;

The man that's fighting day by day
May well, when night comes, take a change,

And down upon his knees to pray.

Break up that hoe-cake, boys, and hand

The sly and silent jug that's there;
I love not it should idly stand

When Marion's men have need of cheer.
'Tis seldom that our luck affords

A stuff like this we just have quaffed,
And dry potatoes on our boards

May always call for such a draft.

Now pile the brush and roll the log;

Hard pillow, but a soldier's head
That's half the time in brake and bog

Must never think of softer bed.
The owl is hooting to the night,

The cooter crawling o'er the bank,
And in that pond the flashing light

Tells where the alligator sank.

What! 'tis the signal! start so soon,
And through the Santee swamp so deep,

THE SWAMP FOX 373

Without the aid of friendly moon,

And we, Heaven help us! half asleep!
But courage, comrades, Marion leads.

The Swamp Fox takes us out tonight;
So clear your swords and spur your steeds,

There's goodly chance, I think, of fight.

We follow where the Swamp Fox guides,

We leave the swamp and cypress-tree,
Our spurs are in our coursers' sides,

And ready for the strife are we.
The Tory camp is now in sight,

And there he cowers within his den.
He hears our shouts, he dreads the fight,

He fears, and flies from Marions men.

The Pelican's Shadow

BY MARJORIE KINNAN RAWLINGS

The lemon-colored awning over the terrace swelled in the south-
easterly breeze from the ocean. Dr. Tifton had chosen lemon so
that when the hungry Florida sun had fed on the canvas the color
would still be approximately the same.

"Being practical on one's honeymoon/' he had said to Elsa,
"stabilizes one's future."

At the moment she had thought it would have been nicer to say
"our" honeymoon and "our" future, but she had dismissed it as
another indication of her gift for critical analysis, which her husband
considered unfortunate.

"I am the scientist of the family, my mouse," he said often. "Let
me do the analyzing. I want you to develop all your latent femininity."

Being called "my mouse" was probably part of the development.
It had seemed quite sweet at the beginning, but repetition had made
the mouse feel somehow as though the fur were being worn off in
patches.

Elsa leaned back in the long beach chair and let the magazine con-
taining her husband's new article drop to the rough coquina paving
of the terrace. Howard did express himself with an exquisite pre-
cision. The article was a gem, just scientific enough, just humorous,
just human enough to give the impression of a choice mind back of
it. It was his semi-scientific writings that had brought them together.

Fresh from college, she had tumbled, butter side up, into a job as
assistant to the feature editor of Home Life. Because of her enthu-
siasm for the Tifton series of articles, she had been allowed to handle
the magazine's correspondence with him. He had written her, on her
letter of acceptance of "Algae and Their Human Brothers":

My dear Miss Whittington:

Fancy a woman's editor being appealed to by my algae! Will you
have tea with me, so that my eyes, accustomed to the microscope,

374

THE PELICAN'S SHADOW 375

may feast themselves on a femme du monde who recognizes not only
that science is important but that in the proper hands it may be
made important even to those little fire-lit circles of domesticity for
which your publication is the raison d'etre!

She had had tea with him, and he had proved as distinguished as
his articles. He was not handsome. He was, in fact, definitely tubby.
His hair was steel-gray and he wore gray tweed suits, so that, for all
his squattiness, the effect was smoothly sharp. His age, forty-odd, was
a part of his distinction. He had marriage, it appeared, in the back
of his mind. He informed her with engaging frankness that his wife
must be young and therefore malleable. His charm, his prestige, were
irresistible. The "union," as he called it, had followed quickly, and
of course she had dropped her meaningless career to give a feminine
backing to his endeavors, scientific and literary.

"It is not enough," he said, "to be a scientist. One must also be
articulate."

He was immensely articulate. No problem, from the simple ones
of a fresh matrimony to the involved matters of his studies and his
writings, found him without an expression.

"Howard intellectualizes about everything," she wrote her former
editor, May Morrow, from her honeymoon. She felt a vague disloy-
alty as she wrote it, for it did not convey his terrific humanity.

"A man is a man first," he said, "and then a scientist."

His science took care of itself, in his capable hands. It was his man-
hood that occupied her energies. Not his male potency— which again
took care of itself, with no particular concern for her own needs— but
all the elaborate mechanism that, to him, made up the substance of
a man's life. Hollandaise sauce, for instance. He had a passion for
hollandaise, and like his microscopic studies, like his essays, it must
be perfect. She looked at her wristwatch. It was his wedding gift. She
would have liked something delicate and diamond-studded and
feminine, something suitable for "the mouse," but he had chosen a
large, plain-faced gold Hamilton of railroad accuracy. It was six
o'clock. It was not time for the hollandaise, but it was time to check
up on Jones, the manservant and cook. Jones had a trick of boiling
the vegetables too early, so that they lay limply under the hollan-
daise instead of standing up firm and decisive. She stirred in the
beach chair and picked up the magazine. It would seem as though
she were careless, indifferent to his achievements, if he found it
sprawled on the coquina instead of arranged on top of the copies of
Fortune on the red velvet fire seat.

376 MARJORIE KINNAN RAWLINGS

She gave a start. A shadow passed between the terrace and the
ocean. It flapped along on the sand with a reality greater than what-
ever cast the shadow. She looked out from under the awning. One
of those obnoxious pelicans was flapping slowly down the coast. She
felt an unreasonable irritation at sight of the thick, hunched shoul-
ders, the out-of-proportion wings, the peculiar contour of the head,
lifting at the back to something of a peak. She could not understand
why she so disliked the birds. They were hungry, they searched out
their food, they moved and mated like every living thing. They
were basically drab, like most human beings, but all that was no
reason for giving a slight shudder when one passed over the lemon-
colored awning and winged its self-satisfied way down the Florida
coastline.

She rose from the beach chair, controlling her annoyance. Howard
was not sensitive to her moods, for which she was grateful, but she
had found that the inexplicable crossness which sometimes seized her
made her unduly sensitive to his. As she feared, Jones had started
the cauliflower ahead of time. It was only just in the boiling water, so
she snatched it out and plunged it in ice water.

'Tut the cauliflower in the boiling water at exactly six-thirty," she
said to Jones.

As Howard so wisely pointed out, most of the trouble with serv-
ants lay in not giving exact orders.

"If servants knew as much as you do," he said, "they would not
be working for you. Their minds are vague. That is why they are
servants."

Whenever she caught herself being vague, she had a moment's un-
happy feeling that she should probably have been a lady's maid. It
would at least have been a preparation for matrimony. Turning now
from the cauliflower, she wondered if marriage always laid these
necessities for exactness on a woman. Perhaps all men were not con-
cerned with domestic precision. She shook off the thought, with the
sense of disloyalty that always stabbed her when she was critical. As
Howard said, a household either ran smoothly, with the mechanism
hidden, or it clanked and jangled. No one wanted clanking and
jangling.

She went to her room to comb her hair and powder her face and
freshen her lipstick. Howard liked her careful grooming. He was
himself immaculate. His gray hair smoothed back over his scientist's
head that lifted to a little peak in the back, his gray suits, even his
gray pajamas were incredibly neat, as smooth and trim as feathers.

She heard the car on the shell drive and went to meet him. He had

THE PELICAN'S SHADOW 377

brought the mail from the adjacent city, where he had the use of a
laboratory.

"A ghost from the past," he said sententiously, and handed her a
letter from Home Life.

He kissed her with a longer clinging than usual, so that she
checked the date in her mind. Two weeks ago— yes, this was his eve-
ning to make love to her. Their months of marriage were marked off
into two-week periods as definitely as though the / line on the type-
writer cut through them. He drew off from her with disapproval if
she showed fondness between a / and a /. She went to the living
room to read her letter from May Morrow.

Dear Elsa:

Your beach house sounds altogether too idyllic. What previous
incarnated suffering has licenced you to drop into an idyll? And so
young in life. Well, maybe I'll get mine next time.

As you can imagine, there have been a hundred people after your
job. The Collins girl that I rushed into it temporarily didn't work
out at all, and I was beginning to despair when Jane Maxe, from
Woman's Outlook, gave me a ring and said she was fed up with their
politics and would come to us if the job was permanent. I assured
her that it was hers until she had to be carried out on her shield.
You see, I know your young type. You've burned your bridges and
set out to be A Good Wife, and hell will freeze before you quit any-
thing you tackle.

Glad the Distinguished Spouse proves as clever in daily conversa-
tion as in print. Have you had time to notice that trick writers have
of saying something neat, recognizing it at once as a precious nut to
be stored, then bringing it out later in the long hard winter of lit-
erary composition? You will. Drop me a line. I wonder about things
sometimes.

May

She wanted to sit down at the portable at once, but Dr. Tifton
came into the room.

'Til have my shower later," he said, and rolled his round gray eyes
with meaning.

His mouth, she noticed, made a long, thin line that gave the im-
pression of a perpetual half-smile. She mixed the Martinis and he
sipped his with appreciation. He had a smug expectancy that she
recognized from her brief dealings with established authors. He wras
waiting for her favorable comment on his article.

378 MARJORIE KINNAN RAWLINGS

"Your article was grand," she said. "If I were still an editor, I'd
have grabbed it."

He lifted his eyebrows. "Of course," he said, "editors were grab-
bing my articles before I knew you." He added complacently, "And
after."

"I mean," she said uncomfortably, "that an editor can only judge
things by her own acceptance."

"An editor?" He looked sideways at her. His eye seemed to have
the ability to focus backward. "And what does a wife think of my
article?"

She laughed. "Oh, a wife thinks that anything you do is perfect."
She added, "Isn't that what wives are for?"

She regretted the comment immediately, but he was bland.

"I really think I gave the effect I wanted," he said. "Science is of
no use to the layman unless it's humanized."

They sipped the Martinis.

"I'd like to have you read it aloud," he said, studying his glass
casually. "One learns things from another's reading."

She picked up the magazine gratefully. The reading would fill
nicely the time between cocktails and dinner.

"It really gives the effect, doesn't it?" he said when she had fin-
ished. "I think anyone would get the connection, of which I am al-
ways conscious, between the lower forms of life and the human."

"It's a swell job," she said.

Dinner began successfully. The donac broth was strong enough.
She had gone out in her bathing suit to gather the tiny clams just
before high tide. The broiled pompano was delicately brown and
flaky. The cauliflower was all right, after all. The hollandaise, un-
fortunately, was thin. She had so frightened Jones about the heinous-
ness of cooking it too long that he had taken it off the fire before it
had quite thickened.

"My dear," Dr. Tifton said, laying down his fork, "surely it is
not too much to ask of an intelligent woman to teach a servant to
make a simple sauce."

She felt a little hysterical. "Maybe I'm not intelligent," she said.

"Of course you are," he said soothingly. "Don't misunderstand me.
I am not questioning your intelligence. You just do not realize the
importance of being exact with an inferior."

He took a large mouthful of the cauliflower and hollandaise. The
flavor was beyond reproach, and he weakened.

"I know," he said, swallowing and scooping generously again, "I
know that I am a perfectionist. It's a bit of a bother sometimes, but

THE PELICAN'S SHADOW 379

of course it is the quality that makes me a scientist. A literary— shall
I say literate?— no, articulate scientist."

He helped himself to a large pat of curled butter for his roll. The
salad, the pineapple mousse, the after-dinner coffee and liqueur went
off acceptably. He smacked his lips ever so faintly.

"Excuse me a moment, my mouse," he said. His digestion was
rapid and perfect.

Now that he was in the bathroom, it had evidently occurred to
him to take his shower and get into his dressing gown. She heard
the water running and the satisfied humming he emitted when all
was well. She would have time, for he was meticulous with his fort-
nightly special toilet, to begin a letter to May Morrow. She took the
portable typewriter out to a glass-covered table on the terrace. The
setting sun reached benignly under the awning. She drew a deep
breath. It was a little difficult to begin. May had almost sounded as
though she did not put full credence in the idyll. She wanted to
write enthusiastically but judiciously, so May would understand that
she, Elsa, was indeed a fortunate young woman, wed irrevocably, by
her own deliberate, intelligent choice, to a brilliant man— a real man,
second only in scientific and literary rating to Dr. Beebe.

Dear May:

It was grand to hear from you. I'm thrilled about Jane Maxe.
What a scoop! I could almost be jealous of both of you if my lines
hadn't fallen into such gloriously pleasant places.
I am, of course, supremely happy-
She leaned back. She was writing gushily. Married women had the
damnedest way, she had always noticed, of gushing. Perhaps the
true feminine nature was sloppy, after all. She deleted "gloriously,"
crossed out "supremely," and inserted "tremendously." She would
have to copy the letter.

A shadow passed between the terrace and the ocean. She looked
up. One of those beastly pelicans was flapping down the coast over
the sand dunes. He had already fed, or he would be flapping, in that
same sure way of finding what he wanted, over the surf. It was
ridiculous to be disturbed by him. Yet somewhere she suspected there
must be an association of thoughts that had its base in an unrecog-
nized antipathy. Something about the pelican's shadow, darkening
her heart and mind with that absurd desperation, must be connected
with some profound and secret dread, but she could not seem to put
her finger on it,

380 MARJORIE KINNAN RAWLINGS

She looked out from under the lemon-colored awning. The pelican
had turned and was flapping back again. She had a good look at him.
He was neatly gray, objectionably neat for a creature with such
greedy habits. His round head, lifted to a peak, was sunk against his
heavy shoulders. His round gray eye looked down below him, a
little behind him, with a cold, pleased, superior expression. His long,
thin mouth was unbearably smug, with the expression of a partial
smile.

"Oh, go on about your business!" she shouted at him.

Reverie of Space and Time

BY HERMAN MELVILLE

Dreams! dreams! golden dreams: endless, and golden, as the flow-
ery prairies, that stretch away from the Rio Sacramento, in
whose waters Danae's shower was woven;— prairies like rounded eter-
nities: jonquil leaves beaten out; and my dreams herd like buffaloes,
browsing on to the horizon, and browsing on round the world; and
among them, I dash with my lance, to spear one, ere they all flee.

Dreams! dreams! passing and repassing, like Oriental empires in
history; and scepters wave thick, as Bruce's pikes at Bannockburn;
and crowns are plenty as marigolds in June. And far in the back-
ground, hazy and blue, their steeps let down from the sky, loom
Andes on Andes, rooted on Alps; and all round me, long rushing
oceans, roll Amazons and Oronocos; waves, mounted Parthians; and,
to and fro, toss the wide woodlands: all the world an elk, and the
forests its antlers.

But far to the South, past my Sicily suns and my vineyards,
stretches the Antarctic barrier of ice: a China wall, built up from
the sea, and nodding its frosted towers in the dun, clouded sky. Do
Tartary and Siberia lie beyond? Deathful, desolate dominions those;
bleak and wild the ocean, beating at that barrier's base, hovering
'twixt freezing and foaming; and freighted with navies of ice-bergs,—
warring worlds crossing orbits; their long icicles, projecting like
spears to the charge. Wide away stream the floes of drift ice, frozen
cemeteries of skeletons and bones. White bears howl as they drift
from their cubs; and the grinding islands crush the skulls of the
peering seals.

But beneath me, at the Equator, the earth pulses and beats like
a warrior's heart; till I know not, whether it be not myself. And my
soul sinks down to the depths, and soars to the skies; and comet-like
reels on through such boundless expanses, that methinks all the worlds
are my kin, and I invoke them to stay in their course. Yet, like a
mighty three-decker, towing argosies by scores, I tremble, gasp, and

381

382 HERMAN MELVILLE

strain in my flight, and fain would cast off the cables that hamper.

And like a frigate, I am full with a thousand souls; and as on, on,
on, I scud before the wind, many mariners rush up from the orlop
below, like miners from caves; running shouting across my decks;
opposite braces are pulled; and this way and that, the great yards
swing round on their axes; and boisterous speaking-trumpets are
heard; and contending orders, to save the good ship from the shoals.
Shoals, like nebulous vapors, shoring the white reef of the Milky
Way, against which the wrecked worlds are dashed; strowing all the
strand, with their Himmaleh keels and ribs.

Ay: many, many souls are in me. In my tropical calms, when my
ship lies tranced on Eternity's main, speaking one at a time, then all
with one voice: an orchestra of many French bugles and horns, ris-
ing, and falling, and swaying, in golden calls and responses.

Sometimes, when these Atlantics and Pacifies thus undulate round
me, I lie stretched out in their midst: a land-locked Mediterranean,
knowing no ebb, nor flow. Then again, I am dashed in the spray of
these sounds: an eagle at the world's end, tossed skyward, on the
horns of the tempest.

Yet, again, I descend, and list to the concert.

Like a grand, ground swell, Homer's old organ rolls its vast vol-
umes under the light frothy wave-crests of Anacreon and Hafiz; and
high over my ocean, sweet Shakespeare soars, like all the larks of
the spring. Throned on my sea-side, like Canute, bearded Ossian
smites his hoar harp, wreathed with wild-flowers, in which warble
my Wallers; blind Milton sings bass to my Petrarchs and Priors, and
laureates crown me with bays.

In me, many worthies recline, and converse. I list to St. Paul
who argues the doubts of Montaigne; Julian the Apostate cross-
questions Augustine; and Thomas-a-Kempis unrolls his old black
letters for all to decipher. Zeno murmurs maxims beneath the hoarse
shout of Democritus; and though Democritus laugh loud and long,
and the sneer of Pyrrho be seen; yet, divine Plato, and Proclus, and
Verulam are of my counsel; and Zoroaster whispered me before I
was born. I walk a world that is mine; and enter many nations, as
Mungo Park rested in African cots; I am served like Bajazet: Bac-
chus my butler, Virgil my minstrel, Philip Sidney my page. My mem-
ory is a life beyond birth; my memory, my library of the Vatican,
its alcoves all endless perspectives, eve-tinted by cross-lights from
Middle-Age oriels.

And as the great Mississippi musters his watery nations: Ohio,
with all his leagued streams; Missouri, bringing down in torrents

REVERIE OF SPACE AND TIME 383

the clans from the highlands; Arkansas, his Tartar rivers from the
plain;— so, with all the past and present pouring in me, I roll down
my billow from afar.

Yet not I, but another: God is my Lord; and though many satel-
lites revolve around me, I and all mine revolve round the great
central Truth, sun-like, fixed and luminous forever in the founda-
tionless firmament.

Fire flames on my tongue; and though of old the Bactrian prophets
were stoned, yet the stoners in oblivion sleep. But whoso stones me,
shall be as Erostratus, who put torch to the temple; though Genghis
Khan with Cambyses combine to obliterate him, his name shall be
extant in the mouth of the last man that lives. And if so be, down
unto death, whence I came, will I go, like Xenophon retreating on
Greece, all Persia brandishing her spears in his rear.

My cheek blanches white while I write; I start at the scratch of
my pen; my own mad brood of eagles devours me; fain would I
unsay this audacity; but an iron-mailed hand clenches mine in a vice,
and prints down every letter in my spite. Fain would I hurl off this
Dionysius that rides me; my thoughts crush me down till I groan; in
far fields I hear the song of the reaper, while I slave and faint in this
cell. The fever runs through me like lava; my hot brain burns like
a coal; and like many a monarch, I am less to be envied, than the
veriest hind in the land.

A Winter Diary

BY MARK VAN DOREN

This was not written then, when measuring time
Ran smoothly to unalterable rhyme;
When even song—but still it is unsounded-
Kept the pure tally that has been confounded.
This was not written then, when sudden spring
Not yet had threatened winter, and no thing
Stood colder than the skin of apple trees.
Now every top is bursting into bees;
Now all of them, solidified to light,
Reflect a cloudy fire, as high, as white
As any sky in summer; and at last
Sharp edges of a shadow have been cast.
Thus sudden spring, with sudden summer near,
Has made a certain winter disappear:
The winter of all winters I would keep
Had I the power to put this warmth asleep
And make the world remember what I saw.
But who has power against a seasons law?
Who lives a winter over, who is proof
Against the rain of months upon his roof?
A certain winter fades that I had thought
Forever in live colors to have caught.
A certain moveless winter more than moves:
Runs backward, and oblivions great grooves
Lie deeper in the distance, and tomorrow
Nothing will be there save mist and sorrow.
Therefore must I fix it while I may:
Feign records, and upon this single day
Tie months of time together, in pretended
Sequence till they once again are ended.

384

A WINTER DIARY 38

. . . So it is autumn, when the city reaches,
Pulling us home from mountains and from beaches;
Down the curved roads and from the crescent sands
To oblong streets among divided lands.
Yet not us four. It is the year we stay
And watch the town-returners pour away.
Now the last stragglers of the stream have gone;
Here now we stand upon a thinning lawn—
The shade wind-shattered, and the cut grass sleeping-
Here then we stand and to the country s keeping
Tender four faces. Not a leaf that falls
But flutters through a memory of walls;
Flutters, with more to follow, till they weave
This solitude we shall at last believe.

. . . October sunshine, and a summer s day!

Yet not the heaviness long wont to lay

Slow skies upon our heads and bind us round

With the full growth of a too fruitful ground.

The morning sun was southerly, and noon

Came swiftly, and the day was over soon:

An airy thing time tossed us for our pleasure,

Blue, and wide-blown, and rich with gold leaf -treasure.

The solid green is gone, the trees are fire:

Cool fire, and top-contained, without desire;

Not caring if it lives, for lo, all day

Wind bullied it and bore the sparks away.

October sunshine and red-ember drifts;

So the long burden of a summer lifts.

. . . November rain all night, the last of three

Dark nights and mornings. We have been to see

The brook that piles grey water down the meadows.

Grey water, and there is no sun for shadows;

No wind for bare tree-talk, no thing but spreading

Rain; no thing but rain, wherein the treading

Crow-feet leave thin tracks, and grass is drowned

With a contented and a final sound.

Safely indoors now, with a fire to dry us,

We hear a whole long year go slipping by us—

386 MARK VAN DOREN

Backward to die, with nothing left ahead

Save solitude and silence, and a thread

Of days that will conduct us through the cold.

The window-panes are waterfalls that fold

Small misty visions of our valley's end.

The rain is sewing curtains that will rend

And rise another day; but shut us now

In such a world as mice have up the mow.

Thus do we know ourselves at last alone;

And laugh at both the kittens, who have grown

Till here they lie, prim figures by the fire,

Paws folded, aping age and undesire.

The boys would have them up again to play.

But they are sudden-old; it is the day

For dreaming of enclosure, and of being

All of the world time missed as he was fleeing.

They think, the furry fools, to live forever.

So then do we, the curtains lifted never.

. . . It is December, and the setting sun
Drops altogether leftward of the one
Long mountain-back we used to measure by.
The maple limbs swing upward, grey and dry,
And print the lawn, now naked for the snow,
With lines that might be nothing. But we know.
We see them there across the bitten ground,
Dark lace upon the iron, and catch the sound
Of half a world contracting under cold.
Slowly it shrinks, for it is wise and old,
And waits; and in its wisdom will be spared.
So is the frosted garden-plot prepared.
The withered tops, arustle row by row,
Fear nothing still to come; for all must go.
That is their wisdom, as it is the horse's,
Whose coat the wind already reinforces,
There in the blowing paddock past the gate.
The four of us a long day, working late,
Confined her where she grazes, building the fence
She leans on; yet she would not wander hence.

A WINTER DIARY 387

She drops her head and nibbles the brown grass,
Unmindful of a season that will pass;
Long-coated, with a rump the wind can ruffle;
Shoeless, and free; but soon the snow will muffle
All of her four black feet, that study a line
Down to the ponies' corner under the pine.
So have the field-mice, folding their startled ears,
Burrowed away from owls and flying fears.
So have the hunters ceased upon the hills;
The last shot echoes and the woodland stills;
And here, along the house, the final flower
Lets fall its rusty petals hour by hour.

. . . So, in December, we ourselves stand ready.
The season we have dared is strong and heady,
But there is many a weapon we can trust.
Five cellar shelves that were but layered dust
Are wiped to kitchen neatness, and confine
Clear jellies that will soothe us when we dine:
Crab-apple, quince, and hardly -ripened grape,
With jam from every berry, and the shape
Of cherries showing pressed against the jar;
Whole pears; and where the tall half-gallons are,
Tomatoes with their golden seeds; and blunt
Cucumbers that the early ground-worms hunt.
The highest shelf, beneath the spidery floor,
Holds pumpkins in a row, with squash before:
Dark, horny Hubbards that will slice in half
And come with pools of butter as we laugh,
Remembering the frost that laid the vines
Like blackened string: Septembers valentines.
Firm corn, and tapering carrots, and the blood
Of beets complete the tally of saved food;
Yet over in a corner, white and square,
Is the big bin with our potato-share.
Then seven barrels of apples standing by.
We brought them down the ladder when a high
Stiff wind was there to whip us, hand and cheek;
And wheeled them to the barn, where many a week

388 MARK VAN DOREN

They filled the tightest chamber; but they found
More certain safety here below the ground:
The Baldwins to be eaten, and the Spies;
But Greenings are for betty and for pies.
A dusty cellar window, old as stone,
Lets in grey light, a slowly spreading cone
Sharp-ended here, and shining, at the shelves.
All of the other spaces wrapped themselves
In darkness long ago; and there the wood
Remembers a great sky wherein they stood:
The twenty trees I walked with Louis, marking,
Once in a mist of rain; then axes barking
Through the wet, chilly weeks, with ring of wedges
Under the blows of iron alternate sledges,
Louis's and Lauriers, of equal skill.
These were the two woodchoppers whom the still
Small faces of the boys watched day by day.
They sat among brown leaves, so far away
We barely could hear their shouting as the saw
Paused, and the great trunk trembled, and a raw
Circle of odorous wood gaped suddenly there.
Now maple and oak and cherry, and a rare
Hard chestnut piece, with hickory and birch,
Piled here in shortened lengths, await my search:
Coming with lantern and with leather gjloves
To choose what provender the furnace loves.
From wall to wall a dozen resting rows:
We shall be warm, whatever winter blows.
So for the range upstairs a mound uprises,
By the back fence, of birch in sapling sizes.
Old Bailey cut them through a lonely fall-
He and his axe together, that was all:
They in a thicket, and the white poles ^teaming;
Now a high frozen pile the sun is steaming.
We shall be warm, whatever north wind catches
Any of us outside the rattling latches;
Down the sloped road, or where the yard descends
To the barns angle with its gusty ends,
Or higher, beyond the garden and the orchard—
We shall not be snow-worried or wind-tortured.

A WINTER DIARY 389

The armor we have sent for has arrived.
The great book spread its pages, and we dived
Like cormorants for prey among the rocks;
And chose, and duly ordered; and the box
Came yesterday. A winters woolen wraps:
Thick-wristed mittens and two stocking caps;
Three fleece-lined jackets that will turn all weather,
And one cut neat for ladies out of leather;
Red sweaters, nut-brown shirts, and rubber-soled
Great workman's shoes for wading in the cold.
We shall be warm; or we can stamp indoors,
Wool failing, till the supper and the chores.

. . . So quietly it came that we could doubt it.

There was no wind from anywhere to shout it.

Simply it came, the inescapable cold,

Sliding along some world already old

And stretched already there had we perceived it.

Now by this hour the least one has believed it.

Snippy, the lesser kitten, lies entangled

Deep in the fur of Snappy, where a dangled

Feed-sack drapes a box inside the shed.

I found them with the lantern, playing dead:

Those very creatures, Snippy and her brother,

Who in the orange sunset tumbled each other,

Lithe by the stepping-stone. Through such a night

How often have they put the frost to flight;

How often, when the blackness made them bolder,

Have they confounded time, that grew no colder.

Yet not this night; they recognize the god,

As in the barn the black mare, left to nod,

Stands in her blanket, dozing. I have come

From tending her, and heard the ominous hum

Of branches that no wind moved overhead;

Only a tightness and a stealth instead.

The stiffened world turns hard upon its axis,

Laboring; but these yellow lamps relax us,

Here in the living-room at either end.

She by the south one, I by the north pretend

390 MARK VAN DOREN

Forgetfulness of pavements; or remark

How very dead the sky is, and how dark—

In passing, with the air of two that pore

On things familiar, having been before.

It is our way of knowing what is near.

This is the time, this is the holy year

We planned for, casting every cable off.

That was a board-creak; that was the horse's cough;

That was no wind, we say; and looking down,

Smile at the wolf-dog, Sam, who dreams of brown

Clipped fields that he will lope in when he wakes.

He dreams, and draws his ankles up, and slakes

Imaginary thirsts at frozen pools.

He is the wolf-dog, he is the one that fools

New comers up the yard; for gentler beast

Prowled never to the pantry for a feast.

He is the boys' companion, who at dusk

Ran rings with them tonight, and worried the husk

Of daylight in his teeth, and stood his hair

Wind-upright. Now he sleeps unthinking there,

Companion of the boys, who long ago

Climbed the dark stairs to bed. So we below

Should come there too, we say; and say it again,

And laugh to hear the clock tick out the ten.

We are not sleepy; this is the holy year

Let it tick on to midnight, and for cheer

Start coffee in the kitchen, while I spread

Bright jam upon the goodness of cut bread.

. . . We were awakened by a double shout:
"Get up, you lazy people, and look out!"
There was a weiglit of stillness on my eyes;
But in my ears innumerable sighs
Of snowffakes settling groundward past the glass.
I stood and stared, saying for jest "Alas!
My sight fails, I can see the merest dim
Milk-whiteness!" "We must bring it up to him!"
Cried one; and both were going, when I told them:
"Dress!" So now, as breakfast waits, behold them
Marching through a mist of falling specks,

A WINTER DIARY 391

They stop and raise their faces, and it flecks

Their foreheads till they laugh; then treading on,

Leave tracks across the swiftly thickening lawn.

I let them go this morning for the milk—

The car wheels turning softly in a silk

New coverlet as wide as eyes could see.

The chimney smoke was rising, round and free,

From every ridge of shingles: even there

Where Grandmother waved and pointed at the air.

The wolf -dog running with us need not pause,

Tasting the untamed whiteness; for his jaws

Dipped as he loped along, and fiercely entered

Now the far past wherein his mind was centered.

Back at the barn the Shetland ponies wheeled,

Biting each others manes, their little field

Grown boundless by some fantasy, and fenceless.

They romped like shaggy dogs, and were as senseless,

Fluttering at the gate, as moths, and small.

They waited for the big one in the stall.

She whinnied as we came, and only stopped

When I rose up the ladder and hay dropped.

She will have finished breakfast in an hour.

So we, and through a sudden whirling shower

Shall bring her to the ponies. Then our talk

Will come once more to sleds, and up the walk

I shall again make promises; and keep them,

Thinking of flakes and how a wind can heap them.

This wind is gentle, and the grey sheet sways.

I am no prophet if it falls and stays.

. . . All yesterday it melted, and at night
Was nothing, and the prophecy was right.
But in a play-house corner stand the sleds,
Almost as high as the excited heads
Of two that will be on them when the slopes
Glisten once more. And so the boys have hopes
While I have present pleasure; for the ground
Grows musical wherever I am bound.
The mud was gone as quickly as the snow:
An afternoon of thaw, but then a low

392 MARK VAN DOREN

Crisp sunset sound of shrinking, and the crack

Of coldness like a panther coming hack.

Tonight the snowless evening and the moon

Kept my late feet contented with a tune

More ancient than the meadows, where the stones

Rise ever up: unburiable bones.

The bareness of the world was like a bell

My feet, accustomed, struck; and striking well,

Let the rung sound be minuted with the dry

Primeval winter moonlight flowing by.

Alone outdoors and late, the resonant lawn

Moved with me as I lagged, and moving on

Bore all my senses fieldward to those bones

Of permanence, the unalterable stones.

There is no such intensity of lasting

Anywhere out of meadows, where the fasting

Grasses worship something in December

Older than any moist root can remember;

Older than age, drier than any drouth;

Something not to be praised by word of mouth.

I did not praise them then, nor shall henceforth;

But shall remind me, so, what change is worth:

Timothy round a rock, and daisies hiding

Something that will be there again— abiding

Longer than hope and stronger than old despair;

Something not to be dated under the air.

I looked at stones; and faces looked at me:

Sidewise, always sidewise, past a tree

Or slanting down some corner, or obliquely

Squinting where the moon fell, and as weakly.

I saw them not but knew them: the tired faces

Of those who may not leave their acred places:

Those of a time long gone that never dies.

You know it by the darkness of their eyes,

And by the way they work to comprehend

Who lives here now beyond a century s end.

Who lives and does not labor, and makes light

Of the grim gods that once were day, were night;

That carved a cheek, bent breasts, and knotted hands.

Not one of them withdraws or understands.

A WINTER DIARY 393

Not one of them but looked at me; and I,

Intruder here, seemed helpless to reply.

Not by their older choosing are we here,

Not by their doom made free of gods and fear.

Was then the better time? I said; and thought

How excellently winter moonshine taught

The shapes of winter trees. That maple there,

How shadeless, how upflowing, and how fair!

Even without their leaves the elm-limbs drooped;

The alders leaned; and birches interlooped

Their lacy, blackened fingers past the pines.

The great dead chestnut where the loud crow dines

Writhed on, its mighty arms unskilled to fall.

The evergreens were solid over all,

And hickories and tulips, few of limb,

Held what they had straight out for time to trim.

Was then the better world, I wondered— daring

Suddenly now an answer from the staring

People of old days, the accusing faces.

But none of us, tree-watching on these places,

Ever will hear a sentence from the source.

Gone is their blood, and spent their bitter force;

They only live to chafe us down the wind

And leave us ever afterward thin-skinned:

Wondering on them, the only-good,

On whom these lighter feet too long intrude.

. . . We have had company of Friday nights.

We have looked out of windows till the lights

Of cars too long in coming dipped and streamed;

Then ended by the door as time had dreamed.

Two late ones from the city, blinking here

In the warm lamplight, with the kittens near—

These have been shown their room, the spare northeast one;

Have laughed and begged a bite: even the least one,

Even a crust to pay them for the ride.

Already coffee bubbled, fit to glide,

As quickly as cups were ready, from the spout.

Already there were cookies placed about;

394 MARK VAN DOREN

And soon the supper entered that would keep us

Longer aioake tlxan wise, with talk to steep us

In every winter s moment we had missed.

So we unrolled our pleasures, till the list

Grew endless, and the meaning of it fled.

So, as the boys before us, up to bed.

For all of us a lazy breakfast waited,

With coffee and tobacco, brownly mated,

Warming the day to come. We tilted chairs,

Lit pipes, and fingered forks; till unawares

Time bore us half to noon; and looking out,

We argued what the weather was about.

Some said it would be overcast till night,

Settling themselves forever; but the right

Was mostly with the walkers and the curious.

First then the barn, where the black mare was furious,

Tossing as I excused our long delay.

No answer, but the eyes among the hay

Dived languorously and said I was forgiven.

The cutter by the car could not be driven.

I found it years ago and dragged it here

To a dry floor and braced it; but the clear

Curved figure will be never swift again.

Snow or no snow, it is for living men

Another last reminder of the old

Dim people who are dead. A crimson fold

Of lining flaps and braves the window frost.

But all the rest is poor and language-lost:

No bells to shake, no orders to be going

Down a long hill where only time is snowing—

Flake by flake forgotten, till the white

Far past of it is shadowy with night.

We took the road and turned, and crossed the bridge;

Then, needing not to beg the privilege,

Crossed neighbor Allyns meadow to his row

Of sandknolls; then, as all the cattle go,

Between the roundest couple home to tea.

So Saturday, and night, when we agree

What games shall silence evening, and what talk

Shall bring the ghost whose breast is brittle chalk.

A WINTER DIARY 395

So Sunday, with a visit to the great
Grandfather pine that guards the burial gate.
Negjlected there, the towns first graveyard lies
Where once the Hurlburt roadway took the rise,
Bringing a country mourner up to pray.
But year by year the woodchucks have their way,
And higher mounds are there than used to reckon
The small well-buried length of smith or deacon.
So all the week-end over, and the pair
Departed; and a blizzard in the air.

, . . That second snow fulfilled us while it lasted.

But now for two brown weeks the fields have fasted

Under a windless, under a lukewarm sun.

Christmas Eve and New Years Day are done,

And here we stand expectant, straining dumbly

Toward a long stretch that will not lie so comely:

Three dark, inclement months before the spring.

Or such the hope; we want no softer thing,

No disappointment deepened day by day.

That second snow, dissolving, drained away

Too much of sudden glory, and too much

Of the towered god whose mantle we must touch.

There was no blizzard in it after all.

Only a thickening sky, so slow to fall

That Monday passed, and Tuesday. Then a hush;

Then a faint flick, as if a fox's brush

Had gained the woods in safety, and the hole;

Then steadily, steadily down the winter stole.

All afternoon it hissed among some clump

Of shrubbery, and deepened round the pump;

All afternoon, till time put out the light.

Then the black rustling through the soundless night:

Dark flake on flake colliding where no gaze

Of beast or person followed. Dim the ways

Of snow in great high darkness; strange the souna

Of whiteness come invisible to ground.

And yet the lamps awhile allowed the glance

Of a stray whirl of moth wings blown to dance,

Confused, beyond the four and twenty panes.

396 MARK VAN DOREN

Here once we sat and watched the autumn rains

Stitching a wall of water. Now the snow—

A frailer fall, and gentler— came to sew

New raiment for the sun-accustomed sashes.

The upstairs window that a north wind lashes,

Beating the maple on it gust by gust,

Hung silent, like a picture; but it thrust

Pure light on brilliant branches, layered well

With silver that as slowly rose and fell,

No visible lawn beneath it, and no thing,

Round or above, save blackness in a ring:

A prone, suspended skeleton creeping hither,

All knuckle joints and bare bones twigged together.

Next morning then, with Christmas five days off,

What wonder if we called this well enough?

What wonder if the two boys prematurely

Counted upon continuance, and surely

Bragged of a snowy hill for him, the guest:

The expected boy, of all their friends the best,

Due now from deep Virginia on a night;

Their own, to play a week with out of sight?

So off they hurried, pulling the sleds behind them,

To cross the nearest meadow-stretch and find them

Somewhere a perfect slope that they could pack:

The runners for the hundredth time and back

Deep-sinking through the softness, with dragged feet

To finish a rough design and leave it neat.

I watched them for a little from the road,

Then called, and she came with me to the snowed

White forest edge, and over the wall inspected

The prints of birds; or how a deer directed

Leap after leap to gain his inland thicket.

A pine branch sagged to the earth, but I could flick it,

Filling my neck with flakes as up it reared,

Snow-loosened of its many-pointed beard.

Meanwhile the cry of coasters over the hill,

With moment interruptions, clear and still,

That said the feet were staggering up again.

We came, and Sam the wolf-dog joined them then

In a loud, urgent welcome, bark and word.

A WINTER DIARY 397

For he had crossed the field to make a third,

And close-pursued them, snapping at their feet

Now up the slope, now down; then off to meet

Plump Snappy, most companionable cat,

Who, plowing the snow alone, arrived and sat

Like something stone of Egypt, not for play.

He watched us, two by two, slide swift away,

Then turned his head, encouraging the weak one,

Snippy, the little sister, the grey meek one,

Who half from home had squatted in a track;

And wailed until we saved her, walking back.

That was the day, with four days still to come,

We prophesied long whiteness; hearing the hum

Of trees contracted slowly in no wind;

Or watching the clouds a clear sun dipped and thinned.

That was the night the low moon, all but waned,

Came to me once— upstarting at the strained

Hurt sound of something strangled in the woods—

Came to me at the window, over floods

Of waveless shining silence, and I said:

There is a month of coldness dead ahead.

But Thursday of a sudden thawed it all.

And Friday, like a silly thing of fall,

An innocent late-summer thing, declared

Calm days, with every melting meadow bared.

So when they blew their horn and gained the gate—

Those weary three Virginians— only a late

Cool breath of proper evening blew to greet them.

Sam leapt out ahead of us to meet them.

Then the old rejoicing, four and three;

With talk of the north till bedtime, and the tree

We all must bring tomorrow: a picked pine

To anchor in a room with block and twine.

We found it, best of several by a swamp,

And sawed and bore it hither amid the romp

Of boys and tumbling cats, that on warm haunches

Settled to watch us trim the bristling branches;

Looping the ends with silver-studded cord

And lo, with more than patience could afford

398 MARK VAN DOREN

Of cranberries and popcorn needled through:
Now red, noto white, now one and one, and two.
From every room, when darkness well was down,
Came packages of mystery, in brown
Creased paper if a boy or man were giver;
But if a lady, candle-light would quiver
On multicolored tissue, gold and green.
Then silence, with a glow behind the screen
To point our way to bed, the lamps unlighted.
Then dawn, and stairs acreak, and something sighted
Even beyond the door that we had closed;
Then breakfast, and the mysteries deposed.
No more the ache of waiting; shed the power
Preeminent of any future hour.
That was the height; the rest was going down,
With random walks, or driving into town,
Or sitting after sunfall over tea.
We tidied rooms and set the spangjied tree
Midway the snowless lawn, and spiked it there-
Popcorn and berries on it, and a square
Of suet tied with string to tempt the flying
Birds. But there were kittens always spying,
Ready to pounce and punish; and at last
A brief wind laid it over like a mast.
The rest was milder pleasure, suiting well
Our seven tongues that had so much to tell.
We talked. And then the final day was come.
Farewell, you three! And if the end was dumb,
Remember this: there was no charm to say
As down the hill your fenders sloped away.
So Christmas Eve and New Years Day are done;
And still the lukewarm, still the windless sun
Possesses what it watches: hidden here,
A barn and painted house, from which appear
Four little figures scanning a clear sky.
It doubtless will be clouded by and by,
And doubtless yield each one his small desire.
Now only tracks, minute upon the mire.

A WINTER DIARY 399

. . . O welcome night-wind, crazily arriving,
You had not warned us till we heard you striving,
Here and at every corner of the house—
Now a great beast and now a nibbling mouse-
Striving in every stature to undo us;
There was no rumor of your marching to us,
No swift annunciation; or eight hands
Loud, loud had hailed you, giving you our lands,
Ourselves, and all this valley to unsettle.
We only lay and heard you; heard the rattle
Of shutters, and caught the groan as you went on
Of nails from weather-boarding all but drawn.
We only lay, pulling the covers higher,
Until at dayrise, grouping about the fire,
We greeted a hundred frost-hills on the panes;
Looked through, and saw the still wind-worried lanes
Thrash heavily; and walking out a little,
Said the snapped, hanging branches were wind-spittle.
Nor was the blowing over; still at twelve
High limbs were double-curving, like a helve,
And through the day, beneath white clouds and round ones,
All was a sea, with us the happy drowned ones-
Drifting among the layers of thin cold,
Self-separated. Some, the slow and old,
Slid lazily, floating beyond a world;
But some were childish-violent, and curled
And slapped our willing foreheads as they raced.
Layer upon clear layer built a waste
Of space for minds to work in, high and low.
Then the loud night that bade the softness go,
With iron for morning ground, and every print
Of dog or man foot stamped as in a mint:
All metal, all eternal, if this cold,
High, many-shelving universe could hold.
It held; and laid a film across the pond;
Laid more, and laying others, brought the fond
Brown wolf-dog there to slide beside the boys-
Bewildered, but enchanted by the noise
Of brittle alder-sticks and clapping hands.
So now the ice in hourly thickened bands

400 MARK VAN DOREN

Is pressing tight around us, pond and lawn.
One moment, and the mighty gale was gone,
Far-whistling. Then a silence, and the fall
To nothing. Then the crisp iron over all.

. . . Slap, slap, the sound of car chains going by,

With elsewhere only stillness, under dry

Fantastic heaps of white the wind renews.

It reached us evenly, as snowfalls use;

But there were days of fury when the air,

Whirled white as flour, was powdery everywhere;

Till now the finest grains, like desert sand,

Wait upon eddies they will not withstand.

The snow-plows on the highway come and go:

Not vainly, but a devil takes the snow

Some windy times, and then the car lanes fill

Along the leeward side of fence or hill.

The boys are in the snow house we had made

Before this blowing weather overlaid

The first wet fall with something crisp as salt.

Four walls we packed without a single fault

Between a pair of solid shutter forms.

A roof, an eastern door away from storms,

Two windows at the ends— a bread knife cut them,

Neatly, but there was then no way to shut them—

A piece of crate for cushion, and a bag:

This is their windy fortress that a flag

Flies every day in front of, and that Sam

Lies guarding, less the dragon than the lamb.

There was a man with anthracite for eyes,

And pennies for his buttons; but he lies,

Forgotten, uncreated, where he fell.

There was a castle wall beyond the well

With store of snowballs piled against a siege,

And apples for the starving, lord or liege;

But now it too is levelled, and delight

Dwells only in this hovel at the right.

Below the sheds and halfway to the wall

Stands a lean ice house, windowless and tall,

A WINTER DIARY 401

Whose ancient door hung open day by day
Till the last shining cake was stowed away.
When ice was fourteen inches teams were hitched;
Saws buzzed; and like a waterland bewitched
The silver floor divided, line and angle.
Then loaded trucks, with pairs of tongs to dangle,
Teasing the helpful boys until they tried-
Slipped, fell, and were convinced. And so inside
Sleep twice a hundred pieces of the pond,
Preserved against the dog days and beyond.

. . . These are the undistinguishable days.
This is the calm dead center of the maze
Whereinto we have wandered, and in time
Shall wander forth again, and slowly climb
A wall the other side of which is change.
Now everything is like, with nothing strange
To keep our hands aware of what they do.
This is the winters heart, that must renew
Its steady, steady beating when an embered
Joy is all we have, and thoughts remembered.
Therefore do I listen while I may,
Monotony, to what your whispers say
Of systole, diastole, and the ribbed
Sweet rituals wherein our wills are cribbed.
Therefore shall I count the doings here
Of one full day, and represent the year.
We rise at eight, but I an hour before
Have put the pipeless furnace in a roar;
Descending slow in slippers, robe, and socks
To where, as in some Southern ship that rocks,
Dry cargo-wood inhabits all the hold.
Our destination only the days unfold:
Tier on tier down-sloping to warm weather.
But many a hundred chunks lie yet together,
Snug in their odorous rows. So I inspire
Last evenings spent and barely-breathing fire;
Full off my gloves; ascend the under-stair;
And smoke a chilly moment in a chair.

402 MARK VAN DOREN

Then up again. But they are coming down,

Each head of hair in tangles at the crown;

And suddenly we smell a breakfast waiting:

Bacon and yellow eggs; or, alternating,

Buckwheat cakes with butter for anointing;

Or third-day porridge, grey and disappointing.

Prepared with steaming water and the comb,

We gather about the range— the morning home

Of kittens, too, and Sam the wolf -dog, stretched

Full length behind it while our plates are fetched.

The Irish hands that laid our dining table

Were up in early darkness, whence a fable

Of ghost or saint, night-walking, has its rise.

We listen, masked amusement in our eyes,

And finishing our fare, proceed to measure

Whether this day is planned for work or pleasure.

There is a woodshed faucet where I fill

Two water pails, and through the winter-still

Bound morning beat the music that she loves:

The restless mare whose foretop, smoothed with gloves,

Will hang with hay-stalk in it while she drinks.

She knows my coming footfall, and she thinks

To speed her slave's arrival with a neigh.

I am too proud to hurry; yet the hay

Seems due her, and the water, none the less.

So up to where last summers grasses press

Their rustling weight on weight; and casting down

High pitchforkfuls, I stuff the slats with brown,

Stiff breakfast which the clever ponies hear.

I listen to their trotting, small and clear,

Round the curved path to where the western door

Stands open night or day, whatever roar

Of winds or pelt of snow drives ruthless in.

They are from northern islands where the din

Of winter never daunts them. Unconfined,

They wander about the paddock till the mined

Mute hay fall wakes their wisdom. Then they race,

Two blown and hairy creatures, into place.

I leave them there, slow-nibbling, eyes astare,

And go to prod the motor in his lair:

A WINTER DIARY 403

Four thousand pounds inert, and chilled so well
Some mornings I can barely solve the spell.
I have been baffled when a weakened spark
Has failed to fire the monster, and the dark
Webbed shadows of the room have missed his roar,
I have discovered drifts against the door,
And shovelled; I have watched a winters rains
Turn ice, and been in misery with chains:
Now on, now off, now broken and now mended;
I have as often wished a year were ended.
But now the long thing moves, and backing out
Brings Sam, who disobeys my daily shout
And lopes to where the open meadows tempt him,
I could be angry, but his ears exempt him,
Waiting erect and friendly when I come.
My way was longer round; but now the strum
Of pistons will be answered by his feet,
That guide me to the milkhouse, dark, unneat,
Where the day's pail awaits me. Then the mile
Retravelled, past the cemetery stile
That leads among the six-foot frozen mounds.
There have been mornings when I heard the sounds
Of pick and frozen shovel at a grave;
But mostly snow and timeless silence— save
That cries of farmer children ring in the wood,
Where the white Hollow school long years has stood.
Some of them wave and call my distant name;
Then bells, and marching in to serious game;
While I at my own corner mount the hill
Past Bailey's house, and hers, where now a still
White shaft of smoke that bends above the brook
Declares Grandmother up. A pause; a look;
Good morning to her, cheerful at the door;
Then on to where the barn receives the roar
Of cylinders again until they cease.
Now to the restless mare, whom I release-
High stepping, in perpetual surprise-
To where the ponies shake their shaggy eyes.
All day will they be three beyond a gate,
Ground-musical, and free of their estate;

404 MARK VAN DOREN

While we that own them, in and out of doors

Must labor at our self-appointed chores.

Now the grey tool house where the chisels hang,

And hammers lie, and saws with sharpened fang

Rest nightly on their nails, invites my skill.

I am no maker, but a floor can fill

With shavings from the least instructed plane.

Or there is wood to split, come snow or rain,

When the black stove grows hungry, and the dry

Deep kitchen box demands a fresh supply.

Ten times the barrow, loaded, piles its pieces

High at the woodshed end, till all the creases

Fold a fair week of darkness, and the dented

Chopping block is with cold wounds contented.

There is one root the garden still can give.

Under the snow, under the stubble, live

Our golden parsnips, planted and forgotten.

Nothing of them is altered or frost-rotten.

The blunt pick thuds in the ground, and up they heave:

A miracle for winter to believe.

I bring them in for dinner on this day;

And while the kettle, boiling their ice away,

Fills half a room with steam I take the road

Once more, to curiosity's abode:

That box where now the mail man will have been.

Arriving slow, I thrust my fingers in;

Draw letters forth, a bundle, or a card;

And out of time abstracted pace the hard

White ground again to where three wait for me.

No ancient courier with a kings decree

Rode ever up a hill and brought so much

As these chilled messages the mind can touch,

Restoring warmth, reviving every word

That yesterday with its own motion stirred.

Meanwhile the boys have had their little school:

Two pupils and a mother, mild of rule,

Who after beds were made and dinner planned,

Called them to where the home-built easels stand

And where the primer waits that one can read.

The younger mind admits a younger need:

A WINTER DIARY 405

Long blocks that tilt together till a boat
Sits sailing; or a castle with a moat;
Or dungeon towers to keep a kitten in—
The almond-eyed four-footed Saracen.
To painting then: tongues out and foreheads glowing.
With bannerets of bright vermilion flowing
Over and up and down; or blues, or blacks,
Full to the very corners past the tacks.
One thing remains: a paragraph to trace
On paper from the blackboard's printed face.
The boy leans long upon the table leaf,
Procrastinating; for the task was brief,
And both of them had still an hour to play.
But there he leans, unwilling, till the day
Brings twelve; and half-past twelve; and brings the white
Sealed letters that are now the noons delight.
So dinner, and a nap for everyone
Where neither snow may enter nor the sun.
So then the afternoon, that still is short-
Midwinter lags behind the sky's report:
Each day a little longer, but the dark
Comes down before a coaster may remark.
While there is light we seek the genial store,
Off by the covered bridge; or wanting more,
Ride over two east ranges to the town
Of brass that bore the body of John Brown.
Here pavements like a puzzle run and spread;
And here a shop front, gold by gaudy red,
Demands immediate entrance; for a dime
Buys anything, land-born or maritime:
A ball, a wooden car, a masted boat,
An outboard motor that will never float;
A magnet's curve, completed by a bar;
A leaden blue policeman with his star.
So home across the ranges, past the edge
Of evening, till the last high-drifted hedge
Declares the clear necessity of chains.
So out to frosty spokes and windy lanes
Where the snow, blowing, whips the wrist and scatters;
Then upward, while a broken chain-link clatters;

406 MARK VAN DOREN

Upward into the barn, the engine dying

Soundless; but the ponies are replying,

Huddled before the big one at the gate.

Scarcely we listen, for we estimate

Two hours this side of supper. Time for tea.

We light the lamps and sip the mystery,

Cup after shadowy cup, with toasted cheese.

There are no country moments like to these;

When afternoon is night, and night belongs

Like a dark heirloom of descended songs

To four that sit in solitude and hear them

Through the fond nothingness that nestles near them.

From the warm circle of the shaded lamp

At last I walk to where the ponies stamp

And the tall guardian mare is loud with thirst.

A boy with lighted lantern sheds the first

Long pair of scantling shadows on the snow;

While I, the water-bearer, dimly go

Through the great backward crescent drawn behind us.

There have been evenings when she would not mind us—

The lurking mare, complacent down the meadow.

But now a clear low whistle cleaves her shadow,

Precipitately arriving. So we lead her,

Plunging, past the corner post; and heed her

Sighing as she nuzzles in the pail.

The lantern from a high and rusty nail

Swings gently, casting circles on the hay.

The kittens somewhere, noiselessly at play,

Keep watch of us, and scan the waiting door.

They love a barn, but love the kitchen more;

And lessons still may linger in each mind

Of the long milkless night they sat confined.

We leave the ponies munching in their room

And blow our lantern black, resolved to come

By starlight home— Orion and the Bears

Low-shining; but aloft upon the stairs,

Bright Castor holding Pollux by the hand.

Now endless evening, like a painted band,

Starts moving, moving past us, and we seize,

Soft-reaching, all that momently can please.

A WINTER DIARY 407

There is an hour for singing, when the book

Lies open, and a rolling eye may look

For prompting at the words of Nelly Gray,

Darby and Joan, The Miller, Old Dog Tray;

Malbrouck that went to war, and Hoosen Johnny;

Or over the ocean, over the sea my bonnie.

The dominoes that once amused us well

Lie in their box and envy bagatelle,

Whose twenty balls, thrust up the tilted board,

Pause and return— click, click— a thousand scored!

With game or song the clock goes round to eight:

Past time for two to sleep, whose laggard gait

We must not hope to hurry up the landing.

Each elder then knows where a book is standing,

Tall on the crowded table; and begins

What may go on until the darkness thins:

Page after page upturned against the light.

For so it was, on such a nipping night,

That Holmes, or Doctor Thorndyke, heard the bell

And raced with lawless death to Camberwell;

Or Watson, in an alley with his master,

Felt the steel fingers as a crutch came faster:

Tapping, tapping, tapping, till the court

Blazed with a sudden pistol's blind report.

This is the hour, and this the placeless room

For smooth concocted tales of lust and doom;

This the remote, the sanctuary year

When the safe soul must fabricate a fear.

Many a milder evening passes, too,

With Royal Casino, Rummy, and a few

Swift-changing hands of High-Low-Jack-and-the-Game.

But then three weeks ago the chess men came;

Since when, no night so busy that it misses

The march of angry Queens, whose scalloped tresses,

Stiffly erected, fly to guard a King.

We are two novices, and rashly fling

Pawns, bishops, knights, and rooks into the fray;

Yet time and blood have taught us wiser play.

There was a gift at Christmas time of Tarot—

Untaught, but we can shuffle them and harrow

4o8 MARK VAN DOREN

A lareless mind with him, the Hanging Man;
So all those numbered mysteries that plan
What future folds the player, and what past
Is carved upon the great Tower overcast,
So every wand and pentacle and sword
Lies curious, unfathomed, on the hoard.
We have been known, as never back in town,
To idle till the clock weights settled down,
And till the sound of ticking ceased unheard.
We have rejoiced some evenings at the word
Of neighbors driving over; when the names,
Smith, Prentice, Landeck, interrupted games
With something else of equal clear delight.
For there was talking now into the night,
With news of health, and trips away from home,
And how the kitchen beer went all to foam.
Gossip of Hautboy, Dibble, and Great Hill,
Gossip and jest and argument, until:
Goodbye, Smith, Landeck, Prentice; come again;
Goodnight. And so a day is ended then.
Each four and twenty hours, until we rise,
Go thus. And thus the holy winter flies.

. . . February flies, with little summers
Hidden in its beard: unlicensed mummers
Performing April antics for a day.
The sun from the horizon swings away;
The sky melts upward, and a windless hand
Scatters the seeds of warmth along the land.
They will not grow, for ice is underneath,
And every creature tastes it. But a wreath
Lies thrown by playful chance upon the smiling
Meadows that a season is beguiling.
Today was so, but we were not deceived;
Though what the wolf-dog and the cats believed
There is no art of knowing. They pursued
Our every venturing step and found it good:
Down the crisp meadows to the aspen grove;
Over the highway, where a salesman drove

A WINTER DIARY 409

Dry wheels on dry macadam; then the neck
Of Harrisons pasture to the Hollenbeck.
We stood, the seven walkers, on a stone
And watched the river, waveless and alone,
Go slipping, slipping under, gravelly clear.
Snippy, a mile from nowhere, crouched to peer
At nothing in the sand; then bolder sat.
Three weeks, we said, and she would be a cat
With fearsome crying kittens of her own.
Ten months with us, no more, and nearly grown!
So Snappy, arriving plump and solemn there,
Good-natured sat, the guardian of the pair.
There was a barn foundation to explore,
Ancient of fields beyond. The rotting floor
Forewarned us, and we did not enter in;
But strolled, and where tall timothy had been
Lay half an hour on stubble under the sun;
While Sam, excited by a scent, must run
Low-whining up the fences; till a voice
Recalled him, and we made the hapless choice
Of eastward marshy meadows for return.
The hummocks mired us, but a cat could learn
The causeway's secret truth; and what we lost
Came back to us at home with tea and toast.

. . . Since yesterday a hundred years have gone.
The fore-and-after season, living on,
Rouses itself and finds its bitter breath.
This wind holds on to winter as to death.
There is no end, we say, and sauntering out,
Northwestward lean till we are whirled about,
Mute neck and shoulders stinging with the snow;
Or on this Sunday morning think to go,
Foot-heavy, where the giant maples spread
Their smooth enormous branches, long since dead.
Still in this waste of wind they do not fall;
But stiffen, like old serpents sent to crawl
On dense, on layered air; until the charm
Is lifted, and descending out of harm,

410 MARK VAN DOREN

They lie leaf-covered, rigid in decay
Until the lust small worm has turned away.
Here in the woodland clearings they patrol,
'The wind drives steadily upon its goal.
But yonder where the hemlocks lace together
There is a sudden calm, a death of weather.
The shade is black, as once in late July
When here we walked escaping yellow sky.
The shade is black and even, and the snow
Comes filtered to the open cones below:
Slowly, slowly, slowly; strange the hush,
Here in this darkened desert of the thrush.
No hermits now; yet bands of chickadees
Tread fearless of us, chirping in the trees.
The ferns of June are withered on the rocks
Midway the icy stream that bends and locks
This needled promontory where we stand.
Oh, happy time! when nothing makes demand;
When all the earth, surrendering its strength,
Regains a taller potency at length;
Sleeps on in purest might of nothing done
Till summer heaves on high the exacting sun.

. . . Ice everywhere, a comic inch of it.
Four veteran walkers of a sudden sit
Wide-sprawling; but the cat that went so sure
Waits in the shed, distrustful and demure.
On this one day the dark mare, left inside,
Stands munching while the startled ponies slide—
Their path a river, and the river frozen—
Until a barns captivity is chosen.
Ice everywhere; but over Goshen way
Ice on the mountains: murderous display.
Down the wild road to where the lanes were dry
We crept on crunching chains; then letting fly,
Passed houses till we gained the known plateau.
Yet now no more familiar, for the glow
Of crystals, like an ocean, blinded eyes
Untutored in the way a forest dies:

A WINTER DIARY 411

Slim birch and maple, sycamore and larch

Bent low before the mysteries of March;

Bent glassy-low, or splintered to a heap

Of glittering fragments that the sunrays sweep—

The sun, ironic, heartless, come to glance

At death and beauty shivering in a dance.

. . . I have been absent through the ending days
Of March beyond the mountains, where the ways
Of all the world drive onward as before.
I have been absent from the windy door;
Have gazed on travel-mornings out of flying
Windows at a distant winter dying.
But not our own, I said; and still believe
There will be news at home of its reprieve.
Nothing of that can change. And yet the doubt
Creeps into me as I look homesick out
On farms that are reminding me of one
Not distant now, beneath the selfsame sun.
A further valley, and a further range,
And I shall see if anything be strange.
Another dozen stations, and the three
I have been absent from will run to me,
And tell me if they know. At which the tears
Come premature, and stillness stops my ears.

. . . That very Wednesday, going to Great Hill,
The ruts all melted and the road was swill;
The hub caps foundered, and a number plate
Rose out of mire to recognize the spate.
All underground was overflowing for us,
Helpless until a wakened workhorse bore us,
Backward, absurd, to dry macadam land.
So April, with a wild unwelcome hand,
Showers proof upon us here of winter gone.
Our visitors on Friday night are wan:
Town-tired, and do not know it till we tell them.
The stripling cats, until we thought to bell them,
Havocked among the juncos, dropped to feed
On what the lawn still held of husk or seed.

412 MARK VAN DOREN

A hundred misty bellies and blue backs
Move unmolested northward, leaving tracks
On certain darker mornings when a flurry
Satins the ground— not deep enough to worry
Those busy bills that, helped by hopping feet,
Find out the fruit of barberries and eat.
The apple barrels, picked over, have revealed
How many Baldwins never will be peeled;
The fungus spreads, and spots of deathly white
Show where the teeth of time have been to bite.
The wolf-dog has abandoned us by day;
He is in love across the scented way.
Nothing can keep him when the wind arrives;
He chews his chain, or alternately strives
Till the round collar slips and he goes running.
The ponies' noses have as old a cunning.
There is no forage yet, but they can smell
Green tropics creeping hither, and will fell
Each night a length of fence for dumb escape;
Then stumble back at breakfast time and gape,
Wit-withered, at the breach they cannot solve.
So, as the weeks implacably revolve
Of early, windy April, come the sprays
Of wood viburnum in the pathless ways
Where rocks and bent witch-hazel bougjks declare
Once more their truce, awakening to air.
So, as the world turned sunward, Snippy died.
In the dim middle of a night she cried,
Desperate upon the steps; and lived a day.
But we have laid her slenderly away.
Her young within her she was not to bear;
So Snappy sits disconsolately there,
Under the branching crabtree; faced about,
Fixed on the clods, as if to stare her out.

. . . Spring is not yet; though how can this be long:
This crush of silence, this untimely-wrong,
Wide, cruel weight of whiteness, wing-descended
Even as we declared the winter ended?

A WINTER DIARY 413

Last night it happened. Everything, unwarned,
Suffered the soundless swoop of him the Horned,
The Universal Owl, whose ruthless plumes
Settled like death, distributing our dooms;
No feather heavy, but the sum of all
Seemed ultimate: earth's sepulchre and pall.
Not a flake settled on the flimsiest twig
But stayed; until this morning all were big
With monstrous moveless worms, that in the sun
Drip swiftly; but the evil has been done.
How fair it was last evening, when our lamp
Shone out on fleecy lilacs; yet the damp,
The clammy hand of this last dying snow-
How terrible to touch, and inly know:
This is the breaking end. So now at noon,
Divided, we behold the orchard strewn
With murdered buds and down-demolished branches.
So, by the graveyard, death upon its haunches
Sits in the form of great-grandfather-pine's
Chief est of giant limbs, whose blackened lines
Trace there a new design of death across
Bare stones for whom no novelty of loss,
No morning news of woe can tell them more
Than that another winter shuts the door.
Divided thus— admiring, yet appalled—
We watch the season, poor, unfuneralled,
Pass with no mourners on; and recognize
What most we loved here impotent to rise.
If any sight could soften us to spring,
It is this melted, this emaciate thing.

. . .So April's plumefall was the last one; leaving
Nothing behind save midmonth warmth, and heaving
Roots, rain-drenched on many a sodden day.
Now even the rain is gone, that kept us grey;
Even the rain, preserving darkness too.
After the flood dry weather, hot and blue,
Washed every stain of winter off, and brightly
Gave us this world, so changeable and sightly:

414 MARK VAN DOREN

Grass upon the mountains; smokeless-green

May fire that will not languish till the lean,

Brown, bitten earth, monotonous with stone,

Hides under hotness, leafy and alone;

Shade everywhere— as here beneath the crab,

Where Snippy lies, and rumors of Queen Mab

Bring bees to set the blossoms in a roar

While marvelling children pace the petalled floor;

Shade then for her, the borrowed Tabby, lying

With three new kittens, curious and crying:

The summers offspring, not to be confused

With those somehow more brave that March misused.

Now the sleek mare is shod again, and trots

Each day beneath her mistress, over lots

Green-rising, or along a sandy road:

Each of them glad, the bearer and the load;

But I that walk to meet them down the lawn

Remember lazy mornings lost and gone:

Remember the cold, remember the lantern, hanging

There by her nose at night, and blizzards banging

Somewhere a shabby door; and my decision

Goes to the old, the February vision.

How old it is now, only a rake and spade;

Only a wolf-dog, panting in the shade;

Only a coatless, an oblivious pair

Of boys for whom all days to come are fair;

Only her warm hand, patting down the seed

Where sunlight lingers and the frost is freed;

Only the hay-land, live again with snakes;

Only these things can say what memory aches—

Oh, vainly— to recapture; only such

Can tell of the holy time our blood will touch—

Oh, never again, and never; only June,

Thai sings of something over deathly soon.

Already the mind's forgetfulness has blended

Music with music; and the months are ended.

Daybreak

A Radio-Play
BY NORMAN CORWIN

Music: Prelude, continuing under:

pilot. A day grows older only when you stand and watch it coming
at you. Otherwise it is continuous. If you could keep a half de-
gree ahead of sunup on the world's horizons, you'd see new light
always breaking on some slope of ocean or some patch of
land. A morning can be paced by trailing night. This we shall
do: where we begin we shall return to, circling the earth mean-
while.

Music: Up full, then into Variation Number i, continuing
under:

pilot. We are at latitude 400 north and longitude 250 west. We will
come back here at the circle's end. But now beneath us there is
water, nothing else: the long Atlantic, flowing to the north: cir-
rus clouds resembling herringbone, high up. Along the curving
fringe, ten thousand miles from top to bottom of the globe, are
only islands, very far apart; some atolls in the South Atlantic,
icebergs off the Sandwich archipelago. The rim of light is touch-
ing now one continent alone, of all the mainlands it will over-
take today: the eastern shores of Greenland. Southwest of the
Cape Verde Islands there's a thunderstorm— not much: a little
rain: some grumbling from a cumulus.

Fade in thunder after the words, "Cape Verde Islands"

pilot. Through it, unruffled, plows a tramp from Capetown, headed
for the Caribbean. There is a hint of day to starboard, and a

415

416 NORMAN CORWIN

smudge of night to port; thunder above. The striking of the
hour is expected momentarily inside the wheelroom.

Meanwhile the course is west nor'west.

See for yourself.

Music: Out.

Fade in light wind, water, thunder M.F., and low, muffled mo-
tor of tramp steamer.

Ship's bell striking eight. Wheelhouse door open and shut— neat
click of lock, and closing.

mate. Okay, Johnnie, I'll take over now.

johnnie. Hi ya.

mate. You look as though you could use some shut-eye.

johnnie. Hasn't been a bad stretch. Storm's not much.

mate. Gimme some tobacco before you go, will you?

johnnie. Sure, take the rest of this can. Have some more in the
locker.

mate. Thanks. What's the course?

johnnie. Eleven point six by thirty-one point four. Course west nor'-
west, two degrees. Steady as she goes.

mate. Right. (Yawning.) Well— I hope the old man's in a better hu-
mor than he was on my last watch. Thought he was goin' to eat
the glass right outa the binnacle lamp.

johnnie (chuckles). Yeah, he's been on the prod for the last three
days. Well, see ya later.

Door open and shut. Fade entire background effect down and
out as:

Music: In; up; and behind:

pilot. The tramp's a hundred miles behind us now— as quick as that;
the thunder also. Now the sun's antennae reach another five de-
grees yet west of Greenwich. Nothing now but water south of
Greenland, clear down past the humid zones of the equator,
down the easy ground swells to the barriers of ice in the
Antarctic.

Music: Segue to Variation Number 2 and quicken under:

DAYBREAK 417

pilot. That dark shape coming toward us is the bulge of South
America, the coastline of Brazil. Now you can smell the spices
in the offshore breeze. That's Pernambuco over there; the green
light 'way below us is the airport at Natal.

Now in succession come the mountain ranges, like slow-turn-
ing gears. That string of lights is Rio. The coast spreads wider,
north and south, and for the first time you begin to sense this
is a continent, rotating hugely toward the sun. The endless for-
ests in the Matto Grosso, they are tipped with light; the jungle
life's astir, the birds a-twitter; to the north, the great mouth of
the Amazon yawns wide, the islands in it looming suddenly.

Music: Fading under:

pilot. Yet at this very moment day is touching on the continent of
North America— the shores of Newfoundland. Fog's drifting in
from the Grand Banks; we cannot see the chimneys of St. John's.

Faint foghorn.

pilot. The whole Atlantic seaboard, Eastport to Key West, is still in
darkness. Further down the hemisphere, light picks its way
among the Lesser Antilles, spreads out down Venezuela, down
the Gran Chaco, the Pampas of the Argentine— stirs sleepers
in their sleep in Buenos Aires. In the Sertao of Bahia, beyond
the reach of tourists and authorities, the forbidden dance of the
mecumba pauses while a priestess invokes the spirit of the
dawn.

mecumba singer. The "Xango."

Silence for a moment after song.

pilot. Back further in the jungle, where the Negro River cuts a
swath, the tropic black is still unbroken. (Pause.)

Music: Variation Number 3.

pilot. But north again, north-north, beyond the rain, the moun-
tains, over the rooftops of Caracas, over the Indies, dawn is com-
ing now to Hancock County, Maine. There in Penobscot Bay,
a lobster fisherman rides home with light of day behind him,

418 NORMAN CORWIN

and a lighthouse just ahead. On his way in he meets a neighbor
pulling up lobster pots.

One-cylinder putt-putt of a small fishing boat.

lem. How they runnin', Manny?

manny. Only eight so far in two strings. Crabs mostly. They eat the

danged bait till they ain't nothin' left for the lobsta.
lem. Same with me. Guess the bottom's dryin' up, dang it.
manny. My old lady said she'd throw me outa the house if I di'n

bring one home.
lem. Well . . . (Motor picking up.) good luck, Manny. Hope you fill

'er to the scuppers.
manny. So long, Lem.

Music: Variation Number 4,

pilot. Even as we lingered, day has trickled down the coast, past
Portland, past the rocking spars of fishing boats in Gloucester,
over the dam at Lawrence, and the gas tank in Lynn; and on
Shore Drive at Winthrop jogs a milk-cart, going about its busi-
ness on rubber tires.

Horse hooves in. Cart stops. Footsteps on stone; footsteps up-
stairs; bottle clinks. Downstairs; steps on stone. Cart resumes.
So does:

pilot. And this young light which makes milk bottles pink in Win-
throp, and begins to lift the land-fog from Cape Cod, also at
this very moment reddens the high peak of Aconcagua in the
Andes of the Argentine— the highest peak in all the ranging
hemisphere.

Music: Variation Number 5 begins under the words, "land-fog
from Cape Cod."

pilot. It washes over narrow Chile, too, and skips across the triple
mountain ranges of Peru, to gleam at last from breakers on the
long Pacific shore.

Cape Horn and Sandy Hook are tinctured now; Magellan's
windy straits, Columbus' San Salvador, and Henry Hudson's
river all are lighted by the same oncoming dawn. The highest

DAYBREAK 419

mountain and the highest building meet the morning in the
same hushed moment. Thirty-fourth Street in Manhattan is
awash with prophecy of day. A little north by east of where the
Empire State is, underground at Madison and Fifty-third, a
stranger in Manhattan tries to find his way.

Slight echo in for hollow sound of empty subway at night. Foot-
steps descending metal-stripped stairs; train up and out of sta-
tion well in background. Click of coin.

man (heavy Southern accent). Change, please.

Several coins slid along counter.

man. Can y'all tell me whut train Ah take for the George Washing-
ton Bridge?

attendant. Lessee. . . , Go down to the first level. Take any train.
If it's an F train, get off at the next stop, Fiftieth and Sixth
Avenoo . . .

man. Look, Mister, I want to go uptown!

attendant. Yeah, Mac, but these trains all happen to go downtown,
so you hafta change. So get off at Fiftieth and Sixth Avenoo an'
then cross over to the uptown side. Then take a train marked
D an' get off at Columbus Soicle— Fifty-ninth Street. Then wait
fer an A train on the same track, an' that'll take ya right to the
bridge at 179th Street.

man (rehearsing). Change at Fiftieth and Sixth Avenue— take a train
marked D to Columbus Circle— an' then what?

attendant. Then the A train to 179th.

man. Oh yes, A to 179th Street. Thank yuh, Mister.

attendant. Wait a minute. That's only for one of the trains. If the
first one through here's an E train, take 'er down to Eighth
Avenoo and Forty-second Street . . .

man. Yuh mean Ah hafta go downtown before Ah can go uptown?

attendant. Well, you hafta get hungry before you can eat, doncha?

man. Yeah, but . . .

attendant. Well, all right then; so go to Forty-second Street, cross
over, an' catch the A train same as before. Only difference is,
here you hafta go down farther to do it. Okay? . . .

pilot. The morning is beyond the bridges of the Hudson now and
slanting through the passes of the Appalachians. The seaboard's

420 NORMAN CORWIN

brightening; a wind is playing with the tide off Hatteras; Miami
looks alert; street lamps are turned off in Ottawa. There's driz-
zle over part of Lake Ontario, but Buffalo is clear; and down-
stream a few honeymooners are awake to see day rising on Niag-
ara Falls. It rises also now on two canals: the Erie in New York
State, and the Panama. It's the same slip of morning to both
ditches, though they lie two thousand miles apart.

Detroit lights up now, and the Smoky Mountains, and Key
West. Three of the five Great Lakes have caught the fire; but just
as dawn arrives in Dayton, it departs beyond the western shores of
South America into the waiting sea. In northern Indiana flames
are spitting from the forges of the mills at Gary. Under the stacks
and sooted roofs, the night shift labors on the final stretch.

Literal machine sounds (crane, ore cars, etc.) and suggestion of
power and machinery in music, but with sound standing out in
relief.

pilot. The Mississippi's winding out of darkness now from top to
bottom of the land; the saints are all awake— St. Paul, St. Louis,
St. Joe, St. Francisville. And down the very same meridian,
cross-cut by the equator, sharp in the inclination of the fragile
light, is the dry archipelago of the Galapagos.

Music: Segues into Variation Number 7.

pilot. It's snowing now on mystic Boothia, the northernmost penin-
sula of North America; but morning overrides the storm. Here's
the magnetic pole, which keeps all of the world's compasses
aquiver. While Boothia is freezing, there's a light dew brewing
west of Omaha, warm winds at Dallas, and gray-green reflections
in the water at the docks of Vera Cruz.

Long-brooding Popocatepetl rears his head above a zone of
nimbus clouds and looks around to see if all is punctual. Now
one vast sweep of plain, a sea of flatlands tilted upward toward
the still dark Rockies, quietly and calmly takes on day. Hun-
dreds of rectangle counties, county after county, come into the
fold of morning. In the town of Guthrie— Logan County, Okla-
homa—on the porch of a house near the Cottonwood, a boy ob-
serves the heavens getting pale.

Music: Out,

DAYBREAK 421

Birds in.

boy. Betty— ya 'sleep?

girl (sleepily). No, I'm awake.

boy. It's getting light.

girl (stirring lazily to go). Yeah, gosh. I better get in before Mom

wakes up, or I'll catch it.
boy. Aw, gee, don't go.
girl. I gotta.

boy. Your mother won't be up for two hours.
girl. (Makes a sound of comfortable pleasure— a sort of chuckling

noise. She is snuggling up to the Boy.)
boy. Know something, Betty? I never been up all night in my life

before.
girl. Me neither.

boy. When a feller likes a girl, he likes to sit up with her.
girl. Well, if a girl likes a feller, it's about the same thing, ain't it?

I mean, in the same way, sort of?
boy. Yeah. Gosh, it's all one and the same thing, no matter how you

look at it, I guess.
girl. I agree with you. (Pause.)
boy. Ain't the sky pretty, though?
girl. It's breath takingly beautiful.

boy. Wouldn't it be nice if we could do this every night?
girl. It would be divine.
boy (touched). You really mean that, Betty?
girl. Absolutely.
boy. Gosh. (Gulps.) Thanks. I didn't expect you to say it would be

divine. That's saying a lot.
girl. Well— I— I don't take back a word of it.
boy. Well, gee, Betty, thanks a lot.

Music: Variation Number 8, proceeding under:

pilot. While love awakens on a porch in Guthrie, the somber Rocky
Mountains watch the stars burn out above the great plateaus.
Ranges rise to block the passage of the day, but not for long.

Dawn vaults them all, these mountains with Spanish names-
spreads out on the square states, rolls over into Arizona.

Idling airplane motors in.

422 NORMAN CORWIN

pilot. At Tucson's airport last night's New York plane has taken on
some breakfast boxes for still sleeping passengers who will awake
above the desert and drink orange juice at seven thousand feet.
The charts have all been checked, the weather verified, the pilot
gone up front; the stewardess has closed the door. Next stop,
Los Angeles.

Twin motors start; takeoff. Cross to interior motor sounds
under:

pilot. The plane is fast, but not as fast as we, for even now we're
over the Grand Canyon, riotous with reds and purples— chilling
with its silence and its majesty a group of tourists watching
sunup from the southern rim.

mrs. protheridge. It certainly is all it's cracked up to be, isn't it,
Mrs. Stuben?

mrs. stuben. It's gorgeous. I seen it once before, but it seems to be
more gorgeous every time I see it. Look at that!

perry (life of the party). Nothing like this in Brooklyn— hey, Eddie?
(Laughs hard.)

eddie. You got something there, Perry. . . . You know, if somebody
painted this you wouldn't believe it.

mrs. stuben. That's absolutely right.

mrs. protheridge. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't like to
fall down off one of them cliffs.

eddie. Me neither. (Pause.) Ain't the silence wonderful?

perry. Did you know that this place can be deafening with noise
sometimes?

eddie. Is that right?

mrs. stuben. It can?

perry. Sure— when it makes a noise like a canyon! (Roars with laugh-
ter, which holds until cross-fade to music.)

Music: Variation Number 9, continuing under:

pilot. Death Valley comes to life. Mount Whitney yawns and
stretches. Ancient redwood trees look up with boredom at an-
other day. An owl screams in the woodlands of Yosemite. The
sea fog's sitting on Los Angeles, but Palos Verdes and the top
of Catalina float above the mists. Rain in Seattle, heavy in Sno-
homish County; routine fog in San Francisco, lifting. In a caf£
on the Embarcadero the dregs of night still linger.

DAYBREAK 423

Music: Sloppy piano in after the word " ' Embarcadero ."

nick. Sorry, Mr. Stewart, but you willa hafta go home. We closa

uppa now.
Stewart. G'wan away, li'l man, I'm greatest composer since-a days

o' Yasha Masha Pasha.

Music: Piano stops.

nick (exasperated). Looka— looka! Gotta close 'em up, da cops taka

my license if I don'. Now be good guys, g'wan, be good guys.

It's-a gettin' light already, look see.
Stewart. Jesh one more piece. Stacatto and fewgwee by Johann

Sebastian Strauss . . .
nick. "One-a more, one-a more"— at's-a what you said before!
stewart. Well, thish time, I'm man o' my word, Nicky, ol' boy. I'm

the man behind the man behind the man o' my word, see? Jesh

one more.

Music: Playing begins anew.

nick (hopefully). Wella— all right. Justa thisa one.
stewart (over music). Jesh thish one, jesh thish. Now take it easy,
Nick, ol' boy, you sit an' lissen . . .

Music: Piano cross-fades to Variation Number 10 , under:

pilot. The snow fields of the Yukon and the Klondike mountains
lie face up, interpreting the soundless and mysterious code of
the aurora borealis. The streamers, green and orange, shimmer-
ing in the black Arctic night, yield occultly to new light from
behind the frozen ranges to the east.

The dawn is piqued and pinched here in Alaska; it is fuller
on the endless swells of the Pacific to the south— the Pacific, flow-
ing now in space so prodigal that only stellar seas could under-
stand. The hemisphere is falling back. McKinley passes in the
great processional; Alaska's Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes turns
steaming to the sun from which its planetary fire was drawn
down. The roar of Katmai, angriest volcano of them all, abates
none, scorning the eruption of such placid stuffs as mornings.

Sound of volcano faded in after "angriest volcano of them all"

424 NORMAN CORWIN

Roar up full, diminishing under:

pilot. South as the crow flies— flying just about two thousand miles
—is another such volcano, set about by sea— Mauna Loa, mon-
arch of the glistening Hawaiian Islands. It stands frowning
down on fields of its own lava.

These islands are romantic at night, to all romanticists, but
now at dawn in Honolulu, where the trade wind stirs the cocoa
palms, a practical procedure's taking place inside a hospital.
Beneath the white glare of the operating lamps a surgeon meets
with an emergency.

Fade in quick, efficient bustle of several people moving around.
Intermittent click of surgical instruments.

anesthetist. Doctor, the pressure's falling rapidly, and the pulse is

becoming thready.
surgeon. Get that transfusion set ready. Doctor Jones, you scrub for

transfusion.
jones. Right, sir.

surgeon. Is the donor outside, and has he been cross-matched?
nurse. Yes, sir.
surgeon. All right, start the transfusion and give him a hypo of

adrenalin. (Pause.) Get the large kidney clamps and the heavy

ligature ready. (Pause.) Suction.

Sound of suction in. (This is steady hiss of air with fairly steady
gurgle of liquid being sucked up a tube.) Pause.

Sound of clamp being applied. (Clamp has ratchet-catches like
a handcuff but makes a smaller, cleaner sound.)

surgeon. Sponge. (Pause.)

jones. The pulse is becoming imperceptible . . . heart sounds very

feeble.
surgeon. Inject some coramin into the veins.
jones. Yes, sir. (Pause.) Doctor, the heart sounds are not audible.
surgeon. Massage his heart. (Pause.) Sponge.
anesthetist. Pupils are widely dilated, Doctor.
jones. There's no response from the heart at all.
anesthetist. Doctor, the patient has ceased breathing.
surgeon. Well ... we did all we could.

DAYBREAK 425

pilot. Northward at the moment of this dawn death, the night's
pushed back entire from the face of North America. It's west of
Bering Strait now, in Soviet Siberia, pursued across the stepping-
stones of the Aleutian Islands. Daybreak has reached the 180th
meridian, where man, in spite of all his quarreling, agrees by
international accord that here his calendar divides today from
yesterday. A liner headed for San Pedro crosses this imaginary
line. On B deck a woman is awake to greet the moment.

Sound of water in; steady, calm sea.

woman. You mean we're crossing at this very moment, officer?

officer. Yes, ma'am.

woman. Oh, it's so thrilling! Just think, a minute ago it was Sunday
—now it's Saturday! (Laughs.)

officer. Yes, ma'am. International date line.

woman. Does that mean we are a day ahead of the rest of the world?

officer (startled). Oh, no! Where'd you get that idea?

woman. Well, that's true, isn't it?

officer. No, no, it merely means that . . .

woman. Well, five hours ago it was midnight Saturday, and so it be-
came Sunday. And now it's Saturday again. Is that fair?

officer. Well, you see, madam, it works like this . . .

woman. I don't understand it very well.

officer. I think I can explain it. Now, a ten-day voyage from San
Francisco to Yokohama will show eleven calendar days. But on
the return trip, when we cross the international date line east-
bound, like we just did, we go back one day on the calendar,
into the old day, so that means a ten-day trip eastbound will
show nine calendar days, whereas the westbound voyage shows
eleven calendar days.

woman (plaintively). But doesn't the ten-day trip ever take just ten
days?

officer (patiently). No, ma'am. (Fading.) Now let me begin again.
I think I can explain it all right. . . . You see, ordinarily the day
changes with the passing of midnight. But there are always two cal-
endar days on the earth's surface at all times. This means that . . .

Music: Comes up, crossing with the Officer. It backs the fol-
lowing:

pilot. New Zealand, now, at the antipodes, diagonally across the
world from Greenwich. The east coast of Australia catches day

426 NORMAN CORWIN

as did die east coast of Brazil twelve hours back. The sun now
gilds the gold fields; the sands of the interior are tinted too, the
Great Victoria Desert curving into the dry day.

Three thousand miles up the meridian, a pilgrimage ascends
the slopes of Fuji. Those winding lights below us are the lan-
terns of the faithful, lanterns named for those who carry them,
the Japanese. And to the north, there's Vladivostok looming up
with lights across the sea; and now the coast of China.

Night trails its kites across the Philippines, the Dutch East
Indies, Borneo. Deeper into China, up the Yangtze, past Han-
kow it spreads. But wait: those flicks of flame you see far, far
below are not the Chinese glowworm— those are men at war, the
first such spectacle since morning joined us at the twenty-fifth
meridian.

Rifle fire in; hold very briefly. Cross-fade to:

Music: Variation Number n, under:

pilot. All quiet on the Gobi desert to the north. Southward the night
is gone from Java and Australia too. The guns of Singapore are
vigilant, and scrutinize the straits. Mandalay lies under heavy
rain clouds; otherwise you'd make it out. Now Everest sees the
coming day before all Asia to the west. In fact, it is a tight
squeeze for the morning, getting by the peak which roofs the
planet.

Five hundred million people sleep in India, Afghanistan, the
Union of the Soviets. Dawn comes to each of them, to each one's
window, arches over each one's head. It's in the tundra in the
north of Russia, also in the streets of Takhta-Bazar, and the mar-
ket at Termez. At Troitsk, the workers soundly sleep.

Music: A sudden change of color to underscore:

pilot. Now in a sweeping arc the dawn cuts through three conti-
nents: still Asia, in the Urals; Europe, where the Soviets draw a
line; and Africa, at easternmost Somaliland. The same light
spans the Caspian, the Persian Gulf, the wildest desert of Arabia.

Artillery up through music fragmentarily for following phase:

pilot. Below us in the Syrian morn there's movement: men and guns
afoot. (Guns out.) There's stealthy shipping in the foggy Bos-

DAYBREAK 427

porus. (Medium ship whistle.) The power plant at Dneprostroy
is working through the dawn.

Dynamos in after "Dneprostroy" ; out after "dawn"

pilot. The rim moves on to Finland now, at the same time it crowns
the pyramid of Cheops. In the scarlet break of day the tombs
of the Egyptian kings are tipped with red lights, warning air-
planes.

Warring Europe starts up from a fitful sleep. The Congo in
the heart of Africa awakens tranquilly. The morning, being a
celestial thing, cannot begin to comprehend. This is the bleak
meridian of trouble: Norway, Poland, Germany, Russia, the
Balkans, Libya.

Muted bugle call— reveille— in background.

pilot. Great camps and barracks in each land anticipate the day. But
to the fields and lakes and rivers and the partly stormy sky, it's
all the same— it always is the same.

Slip down the middle length of Africa: far at the southern
tip, two albatrosses circle lazily above the sparkling waters off
Good Hope. Capetown looks at night across the South Atlantic
—night— the very night now solid in Brazil.

Two farmers meet in Switzerland, where their adjoining pas-
tures slope down toward the valley. They say the same thing
they've been saying now for twenty-seven years of mountain
mornings.

hans. Morning, Peter.

peter. Morning, Hans.

hans. Nice day.

peter. Yes, very nice.

hans. All well?

peter. I can't complain. And you?

hans. Fine, fine.

peter. Good. See you later.

hans. See you later, Peter.

Music: Variation Number 12.

pilot. The North Sea and the Mediterranean are both lit now, and
London comes up out of cover. Greenwich gives the day a care-

428 NORMAN CORWIN

less nod and signals it the go-ahead to climb the west meridians.
In vasty hushes the fresh morning cleans the traces of the dark
out of the mid-Sahara. Off the Gold Coast of deep-brooding
Africa, in the wide Guinea Gulf, there is a fight between two
sharks, just at the mighty intersection where longitude and lati-
tude each reach zero. Here the equator meets the mean meridian.
The green Atlantic does not know it, though. The fighting
sharks don't care.

The Irish Sea, Gibraltar, and St. Helena swim up out of the
Afro-European night. Lisbon and Morocco and Liberia come
next; Dakar and the Canaries; and now all of both continents
are in full day. It's all in the Atlantic now, this far-flung fringe
of daybreak. We're moving west of Greenwich once again.

Now we are back at latitude 400 north, and longitude 250
west. And this is where we started from. Beneath us there is
water, nothing else: the long Atlantic flowing to the north.

Music: Finale treatment.

Note on a Forest Drama

When Benjamin Franklin in 1753 was chosen one of three com-
missioners to negotiate a treaty between the Province of Penn-
sylvania and the Ohio Indians at Carlisle, it not only marked the
beginning of his career in diplomacy but it also required him to take
part in one of those native ceremonies which were memorable drama
before America knew it had anything like dramatic performances or
dramatic literature.*

"The Indians were not, as tradition has come to regard them, per-
petual enemies in endless wars against the white settlers. For three
or four decades before 1763 the Six Nations— Mohawk, Oneida,
Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and the newly-admitted Tuscarora— of
the Iroquois Confederation labored skillfully and wisely to keep the
peace. Not more than perhaps fifteen thousand persons all together,
living in perhaps fifty villages in central New York, the Confedera-
tion ruled a kind of empire from the St. Lawrence to the James,
from the Hudson nearly to the Mississippi. Conquered tribes paid
tribute to the Iroquois, who alone claimed the right to say who
should go to war, and why and when. South of the Six Nations lay
the hunting grounds of the Susquehanna valley to which the Iro-
quois had assigned the Delawares and the Shawnee, with smaller
tribes. The Oneida chief Shikellamy took up his official residence in
1728 at Shomokin (now Sunbury), at the forks of the Susquehanna,
and there for twenty years acted as the Confederation's vice-regent
for the district. In 1729 Conrad Weiser, a Palatine who had lived
from boyhood in close friendship with the Mohawk, left New York
to establish himself on a farm at Tulpehocken."

The far-sighted Indian policy of Pennsylvania owed much to the

* The quoted portions of this Note are, with the permission of the Historical Society
of Pennsylvania, taken from my Introduction to the Society's Indian Treaties Printed
by Benjamin Franklin 1J36-1762 (1938), edited by Julian P. Boyd.

429

430 CARL VAN DOREN

astute and secret Shikellamy. "Through him, with Weiser as inter-
preter, Pennsylvania made terms with the Six Nations. Together
they disposed of the Delawares and the Shawnee, rebellious tribu-
taries of the Six Nations, uncomfortable neighbors of the Pennsyl-
vanians. This cost the Province a Delaware-Shawnee war, but it pre-
vented what would have been a worse war with the Iroquois. The
Six Nations, after their treaty with Pennsylvania, Maryland, and
Virginia at Lancaster in 1 744, looked on Pennsylvania as spokesman
for the English generally. Canasatego, chief of the Onandaga, at
Lancaster advised the English to follow the Iroquois example. 'Our
wise Forefathers established Union and Amity between the Five
Nations: this has made us formidable; this has given us great Weight
and Authority with our neighbouring Nations. We are a powerful
Confederacy; and, by your observing the same Methods our wise
Forefathers have taken, you will acquire such Strength and Power;
therefore whatever befals you, never fall out with one another.'
Though the colonies were slow in learning union from the Indians,
Pennsylvania's steady alliance with the Six Nations had a large effect
in preserving the friendship of the Iroquois for the English. If the
Iroquois with their whole empire had gone over to the French they
might have won the continent.

"The Pennsylvania treaties which maintained the alliance were
diplomatic dramas in a form prescribed by Iroquois ritual and for
years directed by Conrad Weiser, the Pennsylvania interpreter. 'By
the Interpreter's Advice,' says the earliest treaty printed by Frank-
lin, the chiefs of the Six Nations who had arrived at Stenton in 1736
'were first spoke to in their own Way, with three small Strings of
Wampum in Hand, one of which was delivered on each of the fol-
lowing Articles,' presumably by Weiser himself. Four days later, in
'the Great Meeting-House at Philadelphia* filled to the top of the
galleries with curious citizens, in the presence of Thomas Penn,
James Logan, and the Council, the Seneca speaker for the chiefs, also
in their own way, 'spoke as follows by Conrad Wyser.' They had
come, he said, to warm themselves at the hospitable fire which Penn-
sylvania had promised to keep 'in this great City,' and they desired
it would 'ever continue bright and burning to the End of the World/
They desired that the road between Philadelphia and the Six Na-
tions might 'be kept clear and open, free from all Stops or Incum-
brances.' And they desired that the chain of friendship should be
preserved 'free from all Rust and Spots . . . not only between this
Government and us* but between all the English Governments and

NOTE ON A FOREST DRAMA 431

all the Indians.' Business had to wait on ceremony, and the whole
occasion was ceremonial.

"The forest metaphors of the Fire, the Road, the Chain run
through the treaties down to that at Carlisle in 1753, when a new
ceremony was added, at the request if not the demand of Scarouady,
chief and orator of the Oneida. He was there in company with chiefs
or deputies of tributary Delawares, Shawnee, Miami (Twigh twees),
and Wyandots from the Ohio, where the French were threatening.
If the English wanted to keep the Ohio Indians friendly, so did the
Six Nations, firmly hostile to the French. The English supplied
the necessary gifts at the Carlisle treaty; the Six Nations prescribed the
ritual of giving. It was an applied form of the ceremony of Condo-
lences, used among the Iroquois when chiefs or warriors had died
and delegates from other nations came to mourn the loss.

"All these Ohio tribes had lately suffered the death of notable
men. Scarouady, speaking for Pennsylvania as well as for the Six
Nations, told the mourners: 'As we know that your Seats at Home
are bloody, we wipe away the Blood, and set your Seats in Order at
your Council Fire, that you may sit and consult again in Peace and
Comfort as formerly.' When a string of wampum had been given he
went on: 'We suppose that the Blood is now washed off. We jointly,
with our Brother Onus [Pennsylvania], dig a Grave for your War-
riors, killed in your Country; and we bury their Bones decently;
wrapping them up in these Blankets; and with these we cover their
Graves.' Then the gifts, already laid out before the Indians, were
given to them. Scarouady ended: 'We wipe your Tears from your
Eyes, that you may see the Sun, and that every Thing may become
clear and pleasant to your Sight; and we desire you would mourn
no more.'

"The ceremony of Condolences became as customary in treaties as
the metaphorical Fire, Road, Chain. The forms grew familiar to the
English, and they expert in the practice of them, but the forms were
Iroquois. The governor or the commissioners of Pennsylvania would
open a treaty council with a speech of several articles, presenting
with each of them a string of wampum which was for the Indians an
essential part of the record. Usually the Indians would put off their
answer to the next day, to have time to confer among themselves.
Then one of them, speaker for them all, would take up each article,
repeating it from a memory as accurate as written minutes, and re-
plying to it again with formal wampum. Though there might be hun-
dreds of Indians and white men present at a treaty gathering, and

432 CARL VAN DOREN

all sorts of caucuses offstage, the actual councils were grave and punc-
tilious, as orderly as a trial before a high court of law, as straight-
forward in action as a good play. . . .

The Iroquois statesmen were perfectly aware that only by re-
maining neutral could they hold the balance of power, and that only
so long as they held the balance of power could they hope to survive
at all in the face of immensely superior numbers and wealth. So, at
treaty after treaty, they schemed for English support of the Confed-
eration, made concessions only when they had to, looked out for the
interests of the Indian trade, and exacted or coaxed whatever they
could in the way of goods and munitions given as peace-making pres-
ents by the English. While their advantage lasted, a league of ragged
villages held off two great empires, inflexibly and proudly forcing
the empires to treat with them in the village language. . . .

"The Indian treaty was a form of literature which had no single
author. Shikellamy and Scarouady may have suggested the metaphors
and rites to be used, but they had to be adapted by Weiser as im-
presario, and then be accepted by the government of Pennsylvania.
The secretaries who kept the minutes never dreamed they were mak-
ing literature, nor need Franklin have guessed that he was printing
it in his folios. These were simply the records of public events. The
events, being based on ritual, had their own form, and they fixed the
form of the record. Accuracy in such cases was art. Now and then the
secretaries left out speeches or parts of speeches uttered by the hard
tongues of the Indians, but there was not too much expurgation, and
there was no literary self-consciousness. Here for once life seems to
have made itself almost unaided into literature.

"Nothing quite like the Indian treaties exists anywhere else in the
literature of the world. Vercingetorix is only a character in Caesar's
narrative, presented as Caesar liked. But Canasatego and Scarouady
. . . with many minor chieftains live on in the actual words they
spoke face to face with their conquerors, in a breathing-spell before
the conquest. For a time savage ritual had power over civilized men,
who were obliged to listen. Years later white story-tellers were to
lend romantic color to the vanished race. Their invented stories
could not equal the treaties, even as romance. The plain facts, as the
treaties set them forth, are alive with poetry no less than truth, with
humor and drama, and with the fresh wisdom of simple experience."

The text here given follows the rare original folio printed by
Franklin and Hall at Philadelphia in 1753, with no changes except

NOTE ON A FOREST DRAMA 433

that the modern s is substituted for the long s (f) then used. Such
spellings as Mohock for Mohawk or Oneido for Oneida will mislead
nobody, and the following are not very difficult: Canawa (Kanawha),
Cheepaways (Chippewa), Mohongely , Mohongialo (Monongahela),
Outawas (Ottawa), Owendaets (Wyandot), Scarrooyady (Scarouadyj,
Shawonese (Shawnee), Weningo (Venango).

TREATY

HELD WITH THE

OHIO INDIANS,

A T

C A R L I

L E9

In October, 1753.

P H I LA D E L P H I A:

Printed and Sold by B. F R A N K L I N, and D.HALL, at the
New-Prmting-OJice, near the Market. MDCCLIII.

TREATY, &f.

To the Honourable JAMES HAMILTON, Esq; Lieutenant-
Governor, and Commander in Chief, of the Province of
Pennsylvania, and Counties of New-Castle, Kent and Sussex,
upon Delaware,

The REPORT of Richard Peters, Isaac Norris, and Benja-
min Franklin, Esquires, Commissioners appointed to treat
with some Chiefs of the Ohio Indians, at Carlisle, in the
County of Cumberland, by a Commission, bearing Date the
lid Day of September, 1753.

May it please the Governor,

NOT knowing but the Indians might be waiting at Carlisle, we
made all the Dispatch possible, as soon as we had received our
Commission, and arrived there on the Twenty-sixth, but were
agreeably surprized to find that they came there only that Day.

Immediately on our Arrival we conferred with Andrew Montour,
and George Croghan, in order to know from them what had occasioned
the present coming of the Indians, that we might, by their Intelligence,
regulate our first Intercourse with them; and were informed, that tho'
their principal Design, when they left Ohio, was to hold a Treaty with
the Government of Virginia, at Winchester, where they had accordingly
been; yet they intended a Visit to this Province, to which they had been
frequently encouraged by Andrew Montour, who told them, he had the
Governor's repeated Orders to invite them to come and see him, and
assured them of an hearty Welcome; and that they had moreover some
important Matters to propose and transact with this Government.

436

HELD WITH THE OHIO INDIANS 437

The Commissioners finding this to be the Case, and that these Indians
were some of the most considerable Persons of the Six Nations, Data-
wares > Shawonese, with Deputies from the 'Twightwees, and Owendaets,
met them in Council, in which the Commissioners declared the Contents
of their Commission, acknowledged the Governor's Invitation, and bid
them heartily welcome among their Brethren of Pennsylvania, to whom
their Visit was extremely agreeable. — Conrad Weiser and Andrew Mon-
tour interpreting between the Commissioners and Indians, and several
Magistrates, and others, of the principal Inhabitants of the County,
favouring them with their Presence.

The Twightwees and Delawares having had several of their great
Men cut off by the French and their Indians, and all the Chiefs of the
Owendaets being lately dead, it became necessary to condole their Loss 5
and no Business could be begun, agreeable to the Indian Customs, till
the Condolances were passed ; and as these could not be made, with the
usual Ceremonies, for want of the Goods, which were not arrived, and
it was uncertain when they would, the Commissioners were put to some
Difficulties, and ordered the Interpreters to apply to Scarrooyady, an
Oneido Chief, who had the Conduct of the Treaty in Virginia, and was
a Person of great Weight in their Councils, and to ask his Opinion,
whether the Condolances would be accepted by Belts and Strings, and
Lists of the particular Goods intended to be given, with Assurances of
their Delivery as soon as they should come. Scarrooyady was pleased
with the Application j but frankly declared, that the Indians could not
proceed to Business while the Blood remained on their Garments, and
that the Condolances could not be accepted unless the Goods, intended
to cover the Graves, were actually spread on the Ground before them.
A Messenger was therefore forthwith sent to meet and hasten the
Waggoners, since every Thing must stop till the Goods came.

It was then agreed to confer with Scarrooyady, and some other of the
Chiefs of the Shawonese and Delawares, on the State of Affairs at Ohio,
and from them the Commissioners learned, in sundry Conferences, the
following Particulars, viz.

"That when the Governor of Pennsylvania's Express arrived at
Ohio, with the Account of the March of a large French Army to the
Heads of Ohio, with Intent to take Possession of that Country, it
alarmed the Indians so much, that the Delawares, at Weningo, an
Indian Town, situate high up on Ohio River, went, agreeable to a
Custom established among the Indians, and forbad, by a formal Notice,

438 A TREATY

the Commander of that Armament, then advanced to the Straits, be-
tween Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, to continue his March, at least not
to presume to come farther than Niagara. This had not however any
Effect, but, notwithstanding this Notice, the French continued their
March ; which, being afterwards taken into Consideration by the
Council, at Logs-Town, they ordered some of their principal Indians to
give the French a second Notice to leave their Country, and return
Home ; who meeting them on a River running into Lake Erie, a little
above Weningo, addressed the Commander in these Words:

The second Notice delivered to the Commander of the French
Army, then near Weningo.

Father Onontio,
Your Children on Ohio are alarmed to hear of your coming so far
this Way. We at first heard you came to destroy us; our Women left
off planting, and our Warriors prepared for War. We have since heard
you came to visit us as Friends, without Design to hurt us ; but then we
wondered you came with so strong a Body. If you have had any Cause
of Complaint, you might have spoke to Onas, or Corlaer (meaning the
Governors of Pennsylvania, and New-York) and not come to disturb
us here. We have a Fire at Logs-Town, where are the Delawares, and
Shawonese, and Brother Onas; you might have sent Deputies there,
and said openly what you came about, if you had thought amiss of the
English being there; and we invite you to do it now; before you pro-
ceed any further.

The French Officer's Answer.

Children,
I find you come to give me an Invitation to your Council Fire, with
a Design, as I suppose, to call me to Account for coming here. I must
let you know that my Heart is good to you; I mean no Hurt to you;
I am come by the great King's Command, to do you, my Children,
Good. You seem to think I carry my Hatchet under my Coat; I always
carry it openly, not to strike you, but those that shall oppose me. I
cannot come to your Council Fire, nor can I return, or stay here; I am
so heavy a Body that the Stream will carry me down, and down I shall
go, unless you pull off my Arm: But this I will tell you, I am com-
manded to build four strong Houses, viz. at Weningo, Mohongialo
Forks, Logs-Town, and Beaver Creek, and this I will do. As to what
concerns Onas, and Assaragoa (meaning the Governors of Pennsylvania
and Virginia) I have spoke to them, and let them know they must go
off the Land, and I shall speak to them again; if they will not hear me,

HELD WITH THE OHIO INDIANS 439

it is their Fault, I will take them by the Arm, and throw them over the
Hills. All the Land and Waters on this Side Allegheny Hills are mine,
on the other Side theirs ; this is agreed on between the two Crowns over
the great Waters. I do not like your selling your Lands to the English;
they shall draw you into no more foolish Bargains. I will take Care of
your Lands for you, and of you. The English give you no Goods but
for Land, we give you our Goods for nothing."

We were further told by Scarrooyady, that when the Answer to this
Message was brought to Logs-Town, another Council was held, con-
sisting of the Six Nations, Delawares, and Shawonese, who unanimously
agreed to divide themselves into two Parties, one to go to Virginia, and
Pennsylvania, with Scarrooyady, and the other to go with the Half King
to the French Commander, who had it in Charge to make the following
Declaration, as their third and last Notice.

The third Notice, delivered by the Half King to the Commander
of the French Forces.

Father,
You say you cannot come to our Council Fire at hogs-Town, we there-
fore now come to you, to know what is in your Heart. You remember
when you were tired with the War (meaning Queen Anne's War) you
of your own Accord sent for us, desiring to make Peace with us; when
we came, you said to us, Children, we make a Council Fire for you; we
want to talk with you, but we must first eat all with one Spoon out of
this Silver Bowl, and all drink out of this Silver Cup; let us exchange
Hatchets; let us bury our Hatchets in this bottomless Hole; and now
we will make a plain Road to all your Countries, so clear, that Onontio
may sit here and see you all eat and drink out of the Bowl and Cup,
which he has provided for you. Upon this Application of yours we con-
sented to make Peace ; and when the Peace was concluded on both Sides,
you made a solemn Declaration, saying, Whoever shall hereafter trans-
gress this Peace, let the Transgressor be chastised with a Rod, even tho'
it be I, your Father.

Now, Father, notwithstanding this solemn Declaration of yours, you
have whipped several of your Children; you know best why. Of late you
have chastised the Twightwees very severely, without telling us the
Reason; and now you are come with a strong Band on our Land, and
have, contrary to your Engagement, taken up the Hatchet without any
previous Parley. These Things are a Breach of the Peace; they are
contrary to your own Declarations: Therefore, now I come to forbid

440 A TREATY

you. I will strike over all this Land with my Rod, let it hurt who it will.
I tell you, in plain Words, you must go off this Land. You say you
have a strong Body, a strong Neck, and a strong Voice, that when you
speak all the Indians must hear you. It is true, you are a strong Body,
and ours is but weak, yet we are not afraid of you. We forbid you to
come any further j turn back to the Place from whence you came.

Scarrooyady, who was the Speaker in these Conferences, when he
had finished this Relation, gave his Reason for setting forth these three
Messages to the French in so distinct a Manner j because, said he, the
Great Being who lives above, has ordered us to send three Messages of
Peace before we make War: — And as the Half King has, before this
Time, delivered the third and last Message, we have nothing now to do
but to strike the French.

The Commissioners were likewise informed, by Mr. Croghan, that
the Ohio Indians had received from the Virginia Government a large
Number of Arms in the Spring, and that at their pressing Instances a
suitable Quantity of Ammunition was ordered in the Treaty at Win-
chester to be lodged for them, in a Place of Security, on this Side the
Ohio, which was committed to the Care of three Persons, viz.
Guest, William Trent, and Andrew Montour , who were impowered to
distribute them to the Indians as their Occasions and Behaviour should
require. That all the Tribes settled at or near Allegheny would take
their Measures from the Encouragement which these Indians should
find in the Province of Virginia-, and that the kind Intentions of this
Government in the Appropriation of a large Sum of Money for the
Use of these Indians, in case they should be distressed by their Ene-
mies, and their Hunting and Planting prevented, were well known
to them by the repeated Informations of Andrew Montour and the
Traders.

CONRAD WEISER, to whom it was earnestly recommended by
the Commissioners, to procure all the Information possible from the
Indians of his Acquaintance, touching their Condition and Disposition,
and the real Designs of the French, did likewise acquaint us, that all
Persons at Ohio would have their Eyes on the Reception of those
Indians, now at Carlisle, and judge of the Affection of this Province by
their Treatment of them; and that as the intended Present was no
Secret to those Indians, it was his Opinion, that the Whole should, at
this Time, be distributed; for if any Thing can, such a generous Dona-
tion must needs attach the Indians entirely to the English.

HELD WITH THE OHIO INDIANS 441

These several Matters being taken into Consideration, by the Com-
missioners, and the Governor having given them express Directions to
accommodate themselves to the Circumstances of the Indians y as they
should appear in examining them at the Place of Treaty, we were
unanimously of Opinion, that an Addition should be made to the Goods
bought at Philadelphia, in which a Regard should be had to such
Articles as were omitted or supplied in less Quantities than was suitable
to the present Wants of the Indians. On this resolution the Lists of
Goods were examined, and an additional Quantity bought of John
Carson, at the Philadelphia Price, and usual Rate of Carriage.

During these Consultations, it was rumoured that the Half King was
returned to Logs-Town, and had received an unsatisfactory Answer,
which was confirmed, but not in such Manner as could be positively re-
lied on, by a Brother of Andrew Montour, and another Person who
came directly from Allegheny. This alarmed the Commissioners, and
made them willing to postpone Business till they should know the Cer-
tainty thereof, judging, that if the Half King was returned, he would
certainly send a Messenger Express to Carlisle, with an Account of what
was done by him 5 and from this the Commissioners might take their
Measures in the Distribution of the Present.

A Letter, wrote by Taaf, and Callender, two Indian Traders, dated
the Twenty-eighth Day of September, from a Place situate a little on
this Side Allegheny River, directed to William Buchanan, was given
him the Morning of the first Day of October, and he immediately laid
it before the Commissioners for their Perusal. In this Letter an Account
is given, that the Half King was returned, and had been received in a
very contemptuous Manner by the French Commander, who was then
preparing with his Forces to come down the River , and that the Half
King, on his Return, shed Tears, and had actually warned the English
Traders not to pass the Ohio, nor to venture either their Persons or
their Goods, for the French would certainly hurt them. On this News
the Conferences with Scarrooyady, and the Chiefs of the Six Nations,
Delawares, and Shawonesey were renewed, and the Letter read to them,
at which they appeared greatly alarmed; but, after a short Pause, Scar-
rooyady, addressing himself to the Delawares and Shawonese, spoke in
these Words:

Brethren and Cousins,
I look on this Letter as if it had been a Message from the Half King
himself: We may expect no other Account of the Result of his Journey.

442 A TREATY

However, I advise you to be still, and neither say nor do any Thing till
we get Home, and I see my Friend and Brother the Half King, and
then we shall know what is to be done.

The Forms of the Condolances, which depend entirely on Indian
Customs, were settled in Conferences with Scarrooyady, and Cayan-
guileguoa, a sensible Indian, of the Mohock Nation, and a Person inti-
mate with and much consulted by Scarrooyady, in which it was agreed
to take the Six Nations along with us in these Condolances; and accord-
ingly the proper Belts and Strings were made ready, and Scarrooyady
prepared himself to express the Sentiments of both in the Indian Man-
ner. And as the Goods arrived this Morning before Break of Day, the
several Sorts used on these Occasions were laid out; and the Indians
were told that the Commissioners would speak to them at Eleven a
Clock.

At a Meeting of the Commissioners , and Indians, at Carlisle, the first

Day of October, 1753.

PRESENT,

Richard Peters,

Isaac Norris, > Esquires, Commissioners.

Benjamin Franklin, J

The Deputies of the Six Nations, Delawares, Shawonese, Twightwees,

and Owendaets.

Conrad Weiser, "jlnter- James Wright, "1 Esquires, Mem-

Andrew Montour, J preters. John Armstrong,/ bers of Assembly.

The Magistrates, and several other Gentlemen and Freeholders of the

County of Cumberland.

'The Speech of the Commissioners.

Brethren, Six Nations, Delawares, Shawonese, Twightwees, and
Owendaets,

THOUGH the City of Philadelphia be the Place where all Indians
should go, who have Business to transact with this Government, yet
at your Request, signified to Colonel Fairfax, at Winchester, and by him
communicated to our Governor, by an Express to Philadelphia, he has
been pleased on this particular Occasion to dispense with your coming
there, and has done us the Honour to depute us to receive and treat with
you at this Town, in his Place and Stead j this is set forth in his Commis-

HELD WITH THE OHIO INDIANS 443

sion, which we now produce to you, under the Great Seal of this Prov-
ince, the authentick Sign and Testimony of all Acts of Government.

Brethren,
By this String we acquaint you, that the Six Nations do, at our Re-
quest, join with us in condoling the Losses you have of late sustained by
the Deaths of several of your Chiefs and principal Men; and that
Scarrooyady is to deliver for both what has been agreed to be said on this
melancholy Occasion.

Here the Commissioners gave a String of W amfum.

Then Scarrooyady spoke as follows:

Brethren, the Twightwees and Shawonese,
It has pleased Him who is above, that we shall meet here To-day,
and see one another; I and my Brother Onas join together to speak to
you. As we know that your Seats at Home are bloody, we wipe away the
Blood, and set your Seats in Order at your Council Fire, that you may
sit and consult again in Peace and Comfort as formerly; that you may
hold the antient Union, and strengthen it, and continue your old friendly
Correspondence.

Here a String was given.

Brethren, Twightwees, and Shawonese,
We suppose that the Blood is now washed off. We jointly, with our
Brother Onas, dig a Grave for your Warriors, killed in your Country;
and we bury their Bones decently ; wrapping them up in these Blankets ;
and with these we cover their Graves.

Here the Goods were given to the Twightwees, and Shawonese.

Brethren, Twightwees, and Shawonese,
I, and my Brother Onas, jointly condole with the Chiefs of your
Towns, your Women and Children, for the Loss you have sustained.
We partake of your Grief, and mix our Tears with yours. We wipe your
Tears from your Eyes, that you may see the Sun, and that every Thing
may become clear and pleasant to your Sight; and we desire you would
mourn no more.

Here a Belt was given.

The same was said to the Delawares, mutatis mutandis.

And then he spoke to the Owendaets, in these Words:

Our Children, and Brethren, the Owendaets,
You have heard what I and my Brother Onas have jointly said to the

444 A TREATY

Twightwees, Shawonese, and Delawares: We now come to speak to you.
We are informed that your good old wise Men are all dead, and you
have no more left.

We must let you know, that there was a Friendship established by
our and your Grandfathers \ and a mutual Council Fire was kindled. In
this Friendship all those then under the Ground, who had not yet ob-
tained Eyes or Faces (that is, those unborn) were included \ and it was
then mutually promised to tell the same to their Children, and Chil-
drens Children : But so many great Men of your Nation have died in so
short a Time, that none but Youths are left; and this makes us afraid,
lest that Treaty, so solemnly established by your Ancestors, should be
forgotten by you: We therefore now come to remind you of it, and
renew it ; we re-kindle the old Fire, and put on fresh Fuel.

Here a String was given.

The other Speeches, of burying the Dead, &c. were the same as those

to the Twightwees, &c

After each had been spoken to, Scarrooyady proceeded thus:

Brethren, Delawares, Shawonese, Twightwees, and Owendaets,
We, the English, and Six Nations, do now exhort every one of you
to do your utmost to preserve this Union and Friendship, which has so
long and happily continued among us: Let us keep the Chain from rust-
ing, and prevent every Thing that may hurt or break it, from what
Quarter soever it may come.

Then the Goods allotted for each Nation, as a Present of Condolance,
were taken away by each, and the Council adjourn'd to the next Day.

At a Meeting of the Commissioners, and Indians, at Carlisle, the id of

October, 1753.

PRESENT,

The Commissioners, The same Indians as Yesterday,

The Magistrates, and several Gentlemen of the County.

The Speech of the Commissioners.

Brethren, Six Nations, Delawares, Shawonese, Twightwees, and

Owendaets,

"VJOW that your Hearts are eased of their Grief, and we behold one

■*■ ^ another with chearful Countenances, we let you know that the

Governor, and good People of Pennsylvania, did not send us to receive

HELD WITH THE OHIO INDIANS 445

you empty-handed j but put something into our Pockets, to be given to
such as should favour us with this friendly Visit: These Goods we there-
fore request you would accept of, and divide amongst all that are of
your Company, in such Proportions as shall be agreeable to you. You
know how to do this better than we. What we principally desire, is, that
you will consider this Present as a Token of our cordial Esteem for you;
and use it with a Frugality becoming your Circumstances, which call at
this Time for more than ordinary Care.

Brethren,

With Pleasure we behold here the Deputies of five different Nations,
viz. the United Six Nations y the Delawares, the Shawonese, the 7 'wight-
wees, and the Owendaets. Be pleased to cast your Eyes towards this Belt,
whereon six Figures are delineated, holding one another by the Hands.
This is a just Resemblance of our present Union: The fivt first Figures
representing the five Nations, to which you belong, as the sixth does the
Government of Pennsylvania; with whom you are linked in a close and
firm Union. In whatever Part the Belt is broke, all the Wampum runs
off, and renders the Whole of no Strength or Consistency. In like Man-
ner, should you break Faith with one another, or with this Government,
the Union is dissolved. We would therefore hereby place before you the
Necessity of preserving your Faith entire to one another, as well as to
this Government. Do not separate: Do not part on any Score. Let no
Differences nor Jealousies subsist a Moment between Nation and Na-
tion 5 but join all together as one Man, sincerely and heartily. We on our
Part shall always perform our Engagements to every one of you. In
Testimony whereof, we present you with this Belt.

Here the Belt was given.
Brethren,

We have only this one Thing further to say at this Time: Whatever
Answers you may have to give, or Business to transact with us, we desire
you would use Dispatch j as it may be dangerous to you, and incom-
modious to us, to be kept long from our Homes, at this Season of the
Year.

At a Meeting of the Commissioners, and Indians, the ^d of

October, 1753.

PRESENT,

The Commissioners, The same Indians as before.

Several Gentlemen of the County.

w

446 A TREATY

Scarrooyady, Speaker.

Brother Onas,
HAT we have now to say, I am going to speak, in Behalf of the

Twightwees, Shawonese, Delawares, and Owendaets.

You have, like a true and affectionate Brother, comforted us in our
Affliction. You have wiped away the Blood from our Seats, and set them
again in order. You have wrapped up the Bones of our Warriors, and
covered the Graves of our wise Men; and wiped the Tears from our
Eyes, and the Eyes of our Women and Children: So that we now see
the Sun, and all Things are become pleasant to our Sight. We shall not
fail to acquaint our several Nations with your Kindness. We shall take
Care that it be always remembered by us ; and believe it will be attended
with suitable Returns of Love and Affection.

Then one of the Twightwees stood ufy and sfoke as follows:
(Scarrooyady Interpreter.)

Brother Onas,
The OutawaSy Cheefaways, and the Frenchy have struck us. — The
Stroke was heavy, and hard to be borne, for thereby we lost our King,
and several of our Warriors; but the Loss our Brethren, the English,
suffered, we grieve for most. The Love we have had for the English,
from our first Knowledge of them, still continues in our Breasts; and we
shall ever retain the same ardent Affection for them. — We cover the
Graves of the English with this Beaver Blanket. We mourn for them
more than for our own People.

Here he sfread on the Floor some Beaver Skins, sewed together
in the Form of a Large Blanket.

Then Scarrooyady sfoke as follows:

Brother Onas,
I speak now on Behalf of all the Indians present, in Answer to what
you said when you gave us the Goods and Belt. What you have said to
us Yesterday is very kind, and pleases us exceedingly. The Speech which
accompanied the Belt, is particularly of great Moment. We will take the
Belt home to Ohio, where there is a greater and wiser Council than us,
and consider it, and return you a full Answer. We return you Thanks
for the Present.

Gave a String.
Brother Onas,
Last Spring, when you heard of the March of the French Army, you
were so good as to send us Word, that we might be on our Guard: We
thank you for this friendly Notice.

HELD WITH THE OHIO INDIANS 447

Brother Onas,
Your People not only trade with us in our Towns, but disperse them-
selves over a large and wide extended Country, in which reside many
Nations: At one End live the Twlghtwees, and at the other End the
Caghnawagas, and Adlrondacks ; these you must comprehend in your
Chain of Friendship, they are, and will be, your Brethren, let Onontlo
say what he will.

Gave a String.

Brother Onas,
I desire you would hear and take Notice of what I am about to say
now. The Governor of Virginia desired Leave to build a strong House
on Ohio, which came to the Ears of the Governor of Canada; and we
suppose this caused him to invade our Country. We do not know his In-
tent ; because he speaks with two Tongues. So soon as we know his
Heart, we shall be able to know what to do ; and shall speak accordingly
to him. We desire that Pennsylvania and Virginia would at present for-
bear settling on our Lands, over the Allegheny Hills. We advise you
rather to call your People back on this Side the Hills, lest Damage
should be done, and you think ill of us. But to keep up our Correspond-
ence with our Brother Onas, we will appoint some Place on the Hills, or
near them; and we do appoint George Croghan, on our Part, and de-
sire you to appoint another on your Part, by a formal Writing, under the
Governor's Hand. Let none of your People settle beyond where they
are now; nor on the Juniata Lands, till the Affair is settled between us
and the French. At present, George Croghanh House, at Juniata, may
be the Place where any Thing may be sent to us. We desire a Commis-
sion may be given to the Person intrusted by the Government of Penn-
sylvania; and that he may be directed to warn People from settling the
Indian Lands, and impowered to remove them.

Gave a Belt and String.

Brother Onas,
All we who are here desire you will hear what we are going to say,
and regard it as a Matter of Moment: The French look on the great
Number of your Traders at Ohio with Envy; they fear they shall lose
their Trade. You have more Traders than are necessary; and they spread
themselves over our wide Country, at such great Distances, that we can-
not see them, or protect them. We desire you will call back the great
Number of your Traders, and let only three Setts of Traders remain;
and order these to stay in three Places, which we have appointed for
their Residence, viz. Logs-Town, the Mouth of Canawa, and the Mouth
of Mohongely ; the Indians will then come to them, and buy their Goods
in these Places, and no where else. We shall likewise look on them under

448 A TREATY

our Care, and shall be accountable for them. We have settled this Point
with Virginia in the same Manner.

Gave a String,
Brother Onas,
The English Goods are sold at too dear a Rate to us. If only honest
and sober Men were to deal with us, we think they might afford the
Goods cheaper: We desire therefore, that you will take effectual Care
hereafter, that none but such be suffered to come out to trade with us.

Gave a String,
Brother Onas,
Your Traders now bring scarce any Thing but Rum and Flour: They
bring little Powder and Lead, or other valuable Goods. The Rum ruins
us. We beg you would prevent its coming in such Quantities, by regu-
lating the Traders. We never understood the Trade was to be for Whis-
key and Flour. We desire it may be forbidden, and none sold in the
Indian Country; but that if the Indians will have any, they may go
among the Inhabitants, and deal with them for it. When these Whiskey
Traders come, they bring thirty or forty Cags, and put them down be-
fore us, and make us drink; and get all the Skins that should go to pay
the Debts we have contracted for Goods bought of the Fair Traders;
and by this Means, we not only ruin ourselves, but them too. These
wicked Whiskey Sellers, when they have once got the Indians in Liquor,
make them sell their very Clothes from their Backs. — In short, if this
Practice be continued, we must be inevitably ruined: We most earnestly
therefore beseech you to remedy it.

A treble String.
Brother Onas,
I have now done with generals; but have something to say for par-
ticular Nations.

The Shawonese heard some News since they came here, which trou-
bled their Minds; on which they addressed themselves to their Grand-
fathers, the Delawares; and said, Grandfathers, we will live and die
with you, and the Six Nations: We, our Wives and Children; and Chil-
dren yet unborn.

N. B. This was occasioned by Conrad WeiserV having told them
in private Conversation, that while he was in the Mohock
Country, he was informed, that the French intended to drive
away the Shawonese {as well as the English) from Ohio.

Scarrooyady then proceeded, and said, I have something farther to
say on Behalf of the Shawonese,

HELD WITH THE OHIO INDIANS 449

Brother Onas,
At the Beginning of the Summer, when the News was brought to us,
of the Approach of the French, the Shawonese made this Speech to their
Uncles, the Delawares, saying, "Uncles, you have often told us, that we
were a sensible and discreet People ; but we lost all our Sense and Wits,
when we slipp'd out of your Arms; however, we are now in one an-
other's Arms again, and hope we shall slip out no more. We remember,
and are returned to our former Friendship, and hope it will always con-
tinue. In Testimony, whereof, we give you, our Uncles, a String of ten
Rows."

The Shawonese likewise, at the same time, sent a Speech to the Six
Nations, saying, "Our Brethren, the English, have treated us as People
that had Wit: The French deceived us: But we now turn our Heads
about, and are looking perpetually to the Country of the Six Nations,
and our Brethren, the English, and desire you to make an Apology for
us j and they gave eight Strings of Wampum." The Delawares and Six
Nations do therefore give up these Strings to Onas, and recommend the
Shawonese to him as a People who have seen their Error, and are their
and our very good Friends.

Gave eight Strings.
Brother Onas,

Before I finish, I must tell you, we all earnestly request you will
please to lay all our present Transactions before the Council of Onon-
dago, that they may know we do nothing in the Dark. They may per-
haps think of us, as if we did not know what we were doing; or wanted
to conceal from them what we do with our Brethren ; but it is otherwise;
and therefore make them acquainted with all our Proceedings: This is
what we have likewise desired of the Virginians when we treated with
them at Winchester.

Brother Onas,
I forgot something which I must now say to you ; it is to desire you
would assist us with some Horses to carry our Goods; because you have
given us more than we can carry ourselves. Our Women and young
People present you with this Bundle of Skins, desiring some Spirits to
make them chearful in their own Country; not to drink here.

Presented a Bundle of Skins.
Then he added:

The Twightwees intended to say something to you; but they have
mislaid some Strings, which has put their Speeches into Disorder; these
they will rectify, and speak to you in the Afternoon.

Then the Indians withdrew,

45© A TREATY

At a Meeting of the Commissioners and Indians the ^d of

October, 1753. P. M.

PRESENT,

The Commissioners, The same Indians as before.

The Magistrates, and several Gentlemen of the County.

'The Twightwees sfeak by Andrew Montour.

Brother Onas,

EARKEN what I have to say to the Six Nations, Delawares,
Shawonese, and English.

H

The French have struck usj but tho' we have been hurt, it is but on
one Side j the other Side is safe. Our Arm on that Side is entire \ and
with it we laid hold on our Pipe, and have brought it along with us, to
shew you it is as good as ever: And we shall leave it with you, that it
may be always ready for us and our Brethren to smoak in when we meet
together.

Here he delivered over the Calumet ', decorated with fine Feathers.

Brother Onas,
We have a single Heart. We have but one Heart. Our Heart is green,
and good, and sound ; This Shell, painted green on its hollow Side, is a
Resemblance of it.

The Country beyond us, towards the Setting of the Sun, where the

French live, is all in Darkness 3 we can see no Light there: But towards

Sun-rising, where the English live, we see Light ; and that is the Way

we turn our Faces. Consider us as your fast Friends, and good Brethren.

Here he delivered a large Shell, painted green on the

Concave-side, with a String of Wamfum tied to it.

Brother Onas,
This Belt of Wampum was formerly given to the King of the
Piankashas, one of our Tribes, by the Six Nations; that if at any Time
any of our People should be killed, or any Attack made on them by their
Enemies, this Belt should be sent with the News, and the Six Nations
would believe it.

The Twightwees, when they brought this Belt to the Lower Shawo-
nese Town, addressed themselves to the Shawonese, Six Nations, Dela-
wares, and then to the English, and said j

HELD WITH THE OHIO INDIANS 451

Brethren,
We are an unhappy People: We have had some of our Brethren, the
English, killed and taken Prisoners in our Towns. Perhaps our Breth-
ren, the English, may think, or be told, that we were the Cause of their
Death : We therefore apply to you the Shawonese, &c. to assure the Eng-
lish we were not. The Attack was so sudden, that it was not in our
Power to save them. And we hope, when you deliver this Speech to the
English, they will not be prejudiced against us, but look on us as their
Brethren: Our Hearts are good towards them.

A large Belt of fourteen Rows.
Brethren,
One of our Kings, on his Death bed, delivered to his Son, the young
Boy who sits next to me, these eight Strings of Wampum, and told him,
Child, "I am in Friendship with the Shawonese, Delawares, Six Nations,
and English; and I desire you, if by any Misfortune I should happen to
die, or be killed by my Enemies, you would send this String to them,
and they will receive you in Friendship in my Stead.

Delivers the Strings.

The following is a Speech of the Wife of the Piankasha King, after
her Husband's Death, addressed to the Shawonese, Six Nations, Dela-
wares, and English: "Remember, Brethren, that my Husband took a
fast Hold of the Chain of Friendship subsisting between your Nations:
Therefore I now deliver up his Child into your Care and Protection,
and desire you would take Care of him; and remember the Alliance his
Father was in with you, and not forget his Friendship, but continue kind
to his Child."

Gave four Strings black and white.

Brethren, Shawonese, Delawares, Six Nations, and English,
We acquaint all our Brethren, that we have prepared this Beaver
Blanket as a Seat for all our Brethren to sit on in Council. In the Mid-
dle of it we have painted a green Circle, which is the Colour and Resem-
blance of our Hearts; which we desire our Brethren may believe are
sincere towards our Alliance with them.

Delivered a Beaver Blanket.

Then Scarrooyady stood up and said:
Brother Onas,
The Shawonese and Delawares delivered this Speech to the Six Na-
tions, and desired they would deliver it to the English; and now I
deliver it on their Behalf.

452 A TREATY

Brethren,
We acquaint you, that as the Wife of the Piankasha King delivered
his Child to all the Nations, to be taken Care of, they desire that those
Nations may be interceeded with, to take Care that the said Child may
be placed in his Father's Seat, when he comes to be a Man, to rule their
People. And the Six Nations now, in Behalf of the Whole, request, that
this Petition may not be forgot by the English, but that they would see
the Request fulfilled.

Gave four Strings.

Then Scarrooyady desired the Six Nations Council might be made
acquainted with all these Speeches: And added, that they had no more
to say; but what they have said is from their Hearts.

At a Meeting of the Commissioners , and Indians, the \th of

October, 1753.

PRESENT,

The Commissioners, The same Indians as before.

The Gentlemen of the County.

The Commissioners y unwilling to lose any Time, fre fared their An-
swers early this Morning, and sent for the Indians; who having seated
themselves y the following Sfeech was made to them:

Brethren, Six Nations, Delawares, Shawonese, Twightwees, and
Owendaets,

THE several Matters delivered by you Yesterday have been well
considered j and we are now going to return you our Answers.

The Concern expressed by the Twightwees for the Death and Im-
prisonment of the English, with their Professions of Love and Esteem,
denotes a sincere and friendly Disposition, which entitles them to our
Thanks, and the Continuance of our Friendship; this they may cer-
tainly depend on.

Brethren,
You have recommended to us the several Nations, who, you say, live
in that great Extent of Country, over which our Traders travel to dis-
pose of their Goods, and especially the Twightwees, Adirondacks, and
Caghnawagas, who you say live at different Extremities, and have good
Inclinations towards the English. — We believe you would not give them

HELD WITH THE OHIO INDIANS 453

this Character unless they deserved it. Your Recommendations always
will have a Weight with us, and will dispose us in Favour of them,
agreeable to your Request.

Brethren,
The several Articles which contain your Observations on the Indian
Traders, and the loose straggling Manner in which that Trade is carried
on, thro' Countries lying at great Distances from your Towns — Your
Proposals to remedy this, by having named three Places for the Traders
to reside in, under your Care and Protection, with a Request, that the
Province would appoint the particular Persons to be concerned in this
Trade, for wrhom they will be answerable — What you say about the vast
Quantities of Rum, and its ill Effects, and that no more may be brought
amongst you 5 all these have made a very strong Impression upon our
Minds -j and was it now in our Power to rectify these Disorders, and to
put Matters on the Footing you propose, we would do it with great
Pleasure: But these are Affairs which more immediately concern the
Government j in these therefore, we shall imitate your Example, by lay-
ing them before the Governor, assuring you, that our heartiest Repre-
sentations of the Necessity of these Regulations shall not be wanting,
being convinced, that unless something effectual be speedily done in
these Matters, the good People of this Province can no longer expect
Safety or Profit in their Commerce, nor the Continuance of your
Affection.

Brethren,
We will send an Account to Onondago of all that has been transacted
between us.

We will assist you with Horses for the Carriage of the Goods given
you.

We grant your Women and young Men their Request for Rum, on
Condition it be not delivered to them until you shall have passed the
Mountains.

Scarrooyady some Days ago desired us to give Orders for the Mend-
ing of your Guns, &c. and we did so; being obliged to send for a Gun-
smith out of the Country, as no One of that Trade lived in the Town;
who promised to come: But having broke his Word, it has not been in
our Power to comply with this Request.

Here the String given with the Request was returned.

Having delivered our general Answer, we shall now proceed to give

454 A TREATY

one to what was said by particular Nations, as well by the Shawonese in
the Forenoon, as by the Twightwees in the Afternoon.

Brethren, Delawares, and Shawonese,
We are glad to see you in such good Dispositions to each other. We
entreat you to do every Thing you can to preserve the Continuance of
this agreeable Harmony. The Shawonese may be assured we retain no
Manner of Remembrance of their former Miscarriages: We are per-
fectly reconciled, and our Esteem for their Nation is the same as ever.

Gave a large String.
Brethren, Twightwees,
We shall take your several Presents, Shells, Strings, Beaver Blanket,
and Calumet Pipe, with us, and deliver them to the Governor; that
these, and the several Things said at the Delivery of them, may remain
in the Council Chamber, at Philadelphia, for our mutual Use and Re-
membrance, whenever it shall please the Great Being, who sits above,
to bring us together in Council again.

Gave a long String.
Brethren,
We desire you will send these two Strouds to the young King, as an
Acknowledgment of our affectionate Remembrance of his Father's Love
to us, and of our Good-will to him.

Be pleased to present to the Widow of the Piankasha King, our late
hearty Friend, these Handkerchiefs, to wipe the Tears from her Eyes;
and likewise give her Son these two Strouds to clothe him.

Here two Handkerchiefs and two Strouds were given.

Brethren, Twightwees,
We assure you we entertain no hard Thoughts of you; nor in any
wise impute to you the Misfortune that bef el the English in your Town ;
it was the Chance of War: We were struck together; we fell together;
and we lament your Loss equally with our own.

Brethren, Six Nations, Delawares, Shawonese, Twightwees, and

Owendaets,

We have now finished our Answers ; and we hope they will be agree-
able to you: Whatever we have said, has been with a hearty Good- will
towards you; our Hearts have accompanied our Professions, and you
will always find our Actions agreeable to them. Then the Commission-
ers were silent; and, after a Space of Time, renewed their Speeches to
them.

HELD WITH THE OHIO INDIANS 455

Brethren, Six Nations, Delawares, Shawonese, Twightwees, and
Owendaets,
We have something to say to you, to which we entreat you will give
your closest Attention, since it concerns both us and you very much.

Brethren,
We have held a Council on the present Situation of your Affairs. We
have Reason to think, from the Advices of Taaf and Callender, that it
would be too great a Risque, considering the present Disorder Things
are in at Ohio, to encrease the Quantity of Goods already given you: We
therefore acquaint you, that, though the Governor has furnished us with
a larger Present of Goods, to put into your publick Store-house, as a
general Stock, for your Support and Service, and we did intend to have
sent them along with you; we have, on this late disagreeable Piece of
News, altered our Minds, and determined, that the Goods shall not be
delivered till the Governor be made acquainted with your present Cir-
cumstances, and shall give his own Orders for the Disposal of them.
And that they may lie ready for your Use, to be applied for, whenever
the Delivery may be safe, seasonable, and likely to do you the most
Service 5 we have committed them to the Care of your good Friend
George Croghan, who is to transmit to the Governor, by Express, a true
and faithful Account how your Matters are likely to turn out; and on
the Governor's Order, and not otherwise, to put you into the Possession
of them.

This we hope you will think a prudent Caution, and a Testimony of
our Care for your real Good and Welfare.

Brethren,
We have a Favour of a particular Nature to request from your
Speaker, Scarrooyady, in which we expect your Concurrence, and joint
Interest; and therefore make it to him in your Presence. Here the Com-
missioners applying to Scarrooyady, spoke as follows:

Respected Chief and Brother Scarrooyady,
We have been informed by Andrew Montour, and George Croghan,
that you did at Winchester, in publick Council, undertake to go to Caro-
lina, to sollicit the Release of some Warriors of the Shawonese Nation,
who are said to be detained in the publick Prison of Charles-Town, on
Account of some Mischief committed by them, or their Companions, in
the inhabited Part of that Province; and these two Persons, who are
your very good Friends, have given it as their Opinion, if, after you

456 A TREATY

know what has passed at Ohio, you shall now leave this Company of
Indians, and not return with them to their Families, and assist in the
Consultations with the Half King, and their other Chiefs, what Meas-
ures to take in this unhappy Situation of your Affairs, all may be irre-
coverably lost at Allegheny y and the Loss with Justice be laid at your
Door. You may, perhaps, be afraid to disoblige the Shawonese, as it was
at their Instance you undertook this Journey ; but we intend to speak to
them, and have no Doubt of obtaining their Consent ; convinc'd as we
are, that the Release of these Prisoners will be sooner and more effectu-
ally procured by the joint Interposition of the Governors of Pennsyl-
vania and Virginia, than by your personal Solicitation; in as much as
our Governor, to whom we shall very heartily recommend this Affair,
can send, with greater Dispatch, his Letters to Carolina, than you can
perform the Journey ; for at this Season, Opportunities present every
Day of sending by Sea to Charles-Town; and an Express by Land may
be dispatched to Governor Dunwiddie, as soon as we return to Phila-
delphia.

Gave a String.

The Shawonese Chiefs expressing Dissatisfaction at this Endeavour
of the Commissioners to stop Scarrooyady, it gave us some Trouble to
satisfy them, and obtain their Consent ; but at last it was effected; and
when this was signified to Scarrooyady, he made this Answer.

Brother Onas,
I will take your Advice, and not go to Virginia at this Time, — but go
Home, and do every Thing in my Power for the common Good. And
since we are here now together, with a great deal of Pleasure I must
acquaint you, that we have set a Horn on Andrew Montour's Head, and
that you may believe what he says to be true, between the Six Nations
and you, they have made him one of their Counsellors, and a great Man
among them, and love him dearly.

Scarrooyady gave a large Belt to Andrew Montour,
and the Commissioners agreed to it.

After this Difficulty was got over, nothing else remained to be done;
and as the Absence of these Indians was dangerous, the Commissioners
put an End to the Treaty, and took their Leave of them, making pri-
vate Presents at parting, to such of the Chiefs, and others, as were rec-
ommended by the Interpreters to their particular Notice.

Thus, may it please the Governor, we have given a full and just Ac-
count of all our Proceedings, and we hope our Conduct will meet with

HELD WITH THE OHIO INDIANS 457

his Approbation. But, in Justice to these Indians, and the Promises we
made them, we cannot close our Report, without taking Notice, That
the Quantities of strong Liquors sold to these Indians in the Places of
their Residence, and during their Hunting Seasons, from all Parts of
the Counties over Sasquehannahy have encr eased of late to an inconceiv-
able Degree, so as to keep these poor Indians continually under the
Force of Liquor, that they are hereby become dissolute, enfeebled and
indolent when sober, and untractable and mischievous in their Liquor,
always quarrelling, and often murdering one another: That the Trad-
ers are under no Bonds, nor give any Security for their Observance of
the Laws, and their good Behaviour j and by their own Intemperance,
unfair Dealings, and Irregularities, will, it is to be feared, entirely
estrange the Affections of the Indians from the English; deprive them
of their natural Strength and Activity, and oblige them either to aban-
don their Country, or submit to any Terms, be they ever so unreason-
able, from the French, These Truths, may it please the Governor, are
of so interesting a Nature, that we shall stand excused in recommending
in the most earnest Manner, the deplorable State of these Indians , and the
heavy Discouragements under which our Commerce with them at pres-
ent labours, to the Governor's most serious Consideration, that some
good and speedy Remedies may be provided, before it be too late.

RICHARD PETERS,
November 1,1753. ISAAC N ORRIS,

BEN J. FRANKLIN.

COLLEGE LIBRARY

Date

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