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THE LIBRARY
OF

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

UNDER THE CRUST

At his words, " Relief engine ! " pandemonium broke loose.

(p.

UNDER THE CRUST

BY
THOMAS NELSON PAGE

ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

1907

Published, November, 1907

PS
2514

CONTENTS

Miss Godwin's Inheritance 1

The New Agent 39

A Brother to Diogenes 99

A Goth 139

Leander's Light 173

My Friend the Doctor 209

The Hostage 253

1293890

ILLUSTRATIONS

At his words, "Relief engine!" pandemonium

broke loose Frontispiece

Facing
Page

"Here I am, the richest man in all America,

if not in the world 132

A good deal of his haugMy assumption seemed

to Jiave fallen under our table 162

"7 don't play with children," he said scornfully 170
Old Simmy 194

The last patient was a fashionably dressed and

very handsome ivoman 218

In a few minutes he had the little girl up in

his arms 224

A young man . . . catches sight of the pistol

on the table, seizes it 278

MISS GODWIN'S INHERITANCE

MISS GODWIN'S INHER
ITANCE

TT HEN my cousin Hortensia asked me one even
ing in the middle of winter to go with her the fol
lowing week to look at a "summer place" for her on
the Maine coast, it crossed my mind for a moment
that she was slightly mad; but the glance that I
gave her as she sat in her rocking-chair, just out of
the tempered light of the reading-lamp, with her
dainty gray skirts spread about her and the firelight
flickering on her calm features and white hands as
she plied her needlework, showed nothing to warrant
my suspicion. Only the time was midwinter, the
hour was nine o'clock in the evening, and even the
tight windows and the heavy silken curtains drawn
close could not shut out the sound of the driving
sleet that had been falling all the evening.

I knew my cousin well; knew that notwithstand
ing her Quaker blood and quiet ways she was, as an

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old neighbor had long since aptly said of her, "a
woman of her own head," and that she had during
her married life enjoyed the full confidence of her
husband, her senior by some years, and one of the
strong members of the bar, and had always borne
with notable success her full share of the exactions
of a large establishment and a distinguished posi
tion. I knew further, that since her husband's death
she had ably carried on his charitable work and
maintained her position as one of the leaders, not
of society, but of everything else that was good and
lofty and dignified. So I put aside the thought
that first sprang into my mind and declared my
readiness to go with her anywhere and at any time
that she might wish.

"But why on earth do you select that particular
spot and this particular time to look at a country
place?" I demanded.

The question evidently appeared apt to her, and
she gave one of her little chuckles of pleasure which
had just enough of the silvery sound to hall-mark it
a laugh. Folding her hands for a moment in a way
which she had either inherited from the portrait of

MISS GODWIN'S INHERITANCE

her Quakeress grandmother, on her dining-room
wall, or which she had learned by practice to make
so perfect that it was the exact representation of
that somewhat supercilious but elegant old dame's
easy attitude, she said:

"For the best reason in the world, my dear John!
Simply — because."

This ended it for the moment, but a little later,
having, as I suppose, enjoyed my mystification
sufficiently, she began to give her reasons. In the
first place, she was "completely worn out" with the
exactions of the social life which she had found
gathering about her more and more closely.

"I feel so tired all the time — so dissatisfied,"
she said, with a certain lassitude quite unusual with
her. "I cannot stand the drain of this life any
longer. My heart —

"Your heart! Well, your heart is all right — that
I will swear," I interjected.

"Don't be frivolous. My heart is my trouble at
present." She gave a nod of mock severity. "I
consulted a doctor and he told me to go to some
European watering place ending in 'heim'; but I

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know better than that. It is 'heim' that I want,
but it is an American 'heim,' and I am going to
find it on this side the water. Like that Shunam-
itish woman, 'I dwell among mine own people.'"

"SKe was ever one of my favorites," I ventured;
" but what is the matter with this ' heim ' ? " I gazed
about the luxurious apartment where Taste had
been handmaid to Wealth in every appointment.

She shook her head wearily.

"I am so tired of this strenuous life that I feel
that if I do not get out of it and go back to some
thing that is calm and natural I shall die. It is all
so hollow and unreal. Why, we are all trying to
do the same thing and all trying to think the same
thing, or, at least, say the same thing. We do not
think at all. Scores of women come pouring into
my house on my " days " and pour out again, content
only to say they have left cards on my table, and
then if I do not leave cards on their tables they all
think I am rude and put on airs because I live in
a big house. Forty women called here to-day, and
thirty-nine of them said precisely the same thing.
I must get out of it."

MISS GODWIN'S INHERITANCE

"What was it?"

"Nothing." Her face lit up with the smile which
always made her look so charming, and of which some
one had once said: "Mrs. Davison is not precisely
a pretty woman, but her smile is an enchantment."

"And what did you say to them?"

"I gave them the exact equivalent — nothing. I
must get out. My husband once said that the
most dreadful thing on earth was a worldly old
woman."

"You are neither worldly nor old," I protested.

She gazed at me calmly.

"I am getting to be both. I am past forty, and
\ when a woman is past forty she is dependent on
I two things — her goodness and her intellect. I have
lost the one and am in danger of losing the other.
I want to go where I can preserve the few remnants
I have left. And now," she added, with a sudden
return of her vivacity, which was always like a
flash of April sunlight even when the clouds were
lowest, "I have sent for you this evening to show
you the highest proof of my confidence. I wish to
ask your advice, and I want you to give the best

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you have. But I do not want you to think I am
going to take it, for I am not."

"Well, that is frank at any rate," I said. "We
shall, at least, start fair and not be by the way of
being deceived."

"Yes, I want it; it will help me to clarify my
ideas — to arrive at my own conclusions. I shall
know better what I do not want."

She gazed at me serenely from under her long
eyelashes.

"Flattering, at least! How many houses do you
suppose I build on those terms ? And now one
question before I agree. Why do you want to take
a place which is, so to speak, nowhere — that is, as
you tell me, several miles from anywhere?"

"Just for that reason — I want to get back to first
principles, and I understand that the place I have
in mind was one of the most beautiful old homes
in all New England. It has trees on it that were
celebrated a century ago, and a garden that is his
torical. Family-trees can be made easy enough;
but only Omnipotence can make a real tree, and
the first work of the Creator was to plant a garden."

MISS GODWIN'S INHERITANCE

"Oh! well, then, I give in. If there is a garden."
For my cousin's love for flowers was a passion.
Her name, Hortensia, was an inspiration or a
prophecy. She could have made Aaron's rod bud.

"There is one other reason that I have not told
you," she added, after a pause.

"There always is," I observed, half cynically; for
I was not so pleased as I pretended with her flatly
notifying me that my advice went for nothing.

She nodded.

"My grandfather and the owner of the old place
used to be great friends, and my grandfather always
said it was one of the loveliest spots on earth: 'A
pleasant seat,' he called it. I think he had a little
love affair there once with the daughter of the house.
My grandmother was always rather scornful about it."

A WEEK later we landed about mid-day at the
little station just outside of the village where my
cousin, with her usual prevision, had arranged to
have a two-horse sleigh meet us. Unfortunately,
the day before, a snow of two feet had added to the

UNDER THE CRUST

two feet which already lay on the ground and the
track outside of town had not been broken. The
day, however, was one of those perfect winter days
which come from time to time in northern lati
tudes when the atmosphere has been cleared; the
winds, having done their work have been laid, and
Nature, having arrayed herself in immaculate garb,
seems well content to rest and survey her work.
The sunshine was like a jewel. The white earth
sparkled with a myriad myriads of diamonds.

The man to whom my cousin had written, Mr.
Silas Freeman, was on the platform to meet us. A
tall, lank person with a quiet face, a keen nose, and
an indifferent manner. Bundled in a buffalo-robe
coat he stood on the platform and gazed at us in a
reposeful manner as we descended from the train.
We passed him twice without his speaking to us,
though his eyes were on us with mild and somewhat
humorous curiosity. When, in response to my in
quiries, the station agent had pointed him out, I
walked up and asked if he were Mr. Freeman, he
answered briefly: "I be. That's my name."

I introduced Mrs. Davison, and he extended his
10

MISS GODWIN'S INHERITANCE

hand in its large fur glove indifferently, while a
glance suddenly shot from his quiet eyes, keen,
curious, and inspective. She instantly took up the
running, and did so with such knowledge of the
conditions, such clearness and resolution, and withal
with such tact, that Mr. Freeman's calm face
changed from granite to something rather softer,
and his eyes began to light up with an expression
quite like interest.

"No, he hadn't brought the sleigh, 's he didn't
know 's she'd come, seein' 's the weather w'z so
unlikely."

"But didn't I write you I was coming?" de
manded Mrs. Davison.

"Waal, yes. But you city folks sometimes writes
more t'n you come."

Mrs. Davison cast her eye in my direction.

"You see there ! — he knows them." She turned
back to Freeman. "But I am not one of the 'city
folks.' I was brought up in the country."

Mr. Freeman blinked with something between
incredulity and mild interest.

"Well, you'll know better next time," continued
11

UNDER THE CRUST

my cousin. "Now remember, the next time I write,
I am coming — if I do not, you look in the papers
and see what I died of."

Whether it was the words or the laugh that went
with them and changed them from a complaint to
a jest, Mr. Freeman's solemnity relaxed, and he
drawled, "All ri-ight."

"And now, can't we get the sleigh right away?"
demanded Mrs. Davison.

"Guess so. But th' road beyond th' village ain't
broken."

"Well, can't we break it?"

"Guess so."

"Well, let's try. I'm game for it."

"All ri-ight," with a little snap in his eye.

If, however, Mr. Silas Freeman did not show any
curiosity as to our movements he was one of the
few persons we saw who did not. The object of
our coming was evidently known to the population
at large, or to such portion of it as we saw. They
peered at us from the porches of the white houses
under the big elms, or from the stoops of the stores,
where they stood bundled up in rough furs and

MISS GODWIN'S INHERITANCE

comforters, and, turning as we passed, discussed us
as if we were freaks of Nature.

As we drove along, plunging and creeping through
the snow-drifts, Mr. Freeman began to unbend.
"This road ain't broke, but somebody's been along
here. Guess it's Miss Hewitt."

"Who is Miss Hewitt?"

"She's one o' Doct' Hewitt's girls — she's one of
the good women — looks after them 's ain't got any
body else to look after 'em."

"I hope I shall know her some day," observed
my cousin.

" She's a good one to know," remarked Mr. Silas
Freeman.

We crept around the hill toward the river.

"Ah! 'twas Miss Hewitt," observed the driver to
himself. "She's been to dig out F'lissy." He was
gazing down across the white field at a small " shack-
elty" old cabin which lay half buried in snow, with
a few scraggy apple trees about it.

When at length, after a somewhat strenuous
struggle through snow-drifts up to our horses' backs,
we stood on the portico of the old mansion, though

UNDER THE CRUST

the snow was four feet deep I could not but admit
that the original owner knew a "pleasant seat"
when he saw it. Colonel Hamilton, when he estab
lished himself on that point overlooking the winding
river and facing the south, plainly knew his busi
ness.

The remains of a terraced lawn sloped in gra
cious curves around the hill in front, where still
stood some of the grand elms which, even a century
before, had awakened the enthusiasm of the owner's
Southern visitor. Beyond, on one side, came down
to the river's margin a forest of pines which some
good fortune, in shape of a life-long litigation, had
spared from the lumberman's axe, and which stood
like an army guarding the old mansion and its
demesnes, and screening them from the encroach
ments of modern, pushing life.

On the other side, the hill ran down again to the
water's edge, the slope covered with apple trees
which now stood waist deep in snow.

Behind, huddled close to the house, were a number
of out-buildings in a state of advanced dilapida
tion, and yet behind these the hill rose nobly a

MISS GODWIN'S INHERITANCE

straight slant of nearly half a mile, its crest, where
once the avenue had wound, crowned with a fine
row of elms and maples, a buttress and defence
against the double storm of the north wind and
the casual tourist.

Moreover, the original architect had known his
business, or, at least, had known enough to give the
owner excellent ideas, for the house was a perfect
example of the Colonial architecture which seems
to have blown across the country a century and a
half ago like the breath of a classical spring, leaving
in its path the traces of a classical genius which had
its inspiration on the historic shores of the JEgean
and the Mediterranean. From foundation to peaked
roof with its balustrade, in form and proportion,
through every detail of pillar and moulding and
cornice, it was altogether charming and perfect.

I became suddenly aware that my cousin's eyes
had been on my face for some time. She had been
enjoying my surprise and delight.

"Well, what do you think of it?"

"It is charming — altogether charming."

"I thought you would like it."
15

UNDER THE CRUST

"Like it! Why, it is a work of genius. That
architect, whoever he was —

"Helped to clarify the ideas of the owner."

"Helped to clarify! This is the work of a man
of genius, I say."

"His name was Hamilton. He built it and
owned it."

As we came out of the house and plunged around
to the long-closed front door to take another look
at the beautiful fa9ade, wj cousin gare an ex
clamation.

"Why, here is a rose, all wrapped up and pro
tected." She was bending over it as if it had been
a baby in its cradle, a new tone in her roice. "It
is the only sign of care about the whole place. I
wonder what kind it is?"

"I guess that's F'lissy God'in's rose-bush," said
Mr. Freeman, who had followed us in our tour of
inspection, now with an inscrutable look of reserve,
now with one of humorous indulgence.

"Who is F'lissy Godwin?" asked Mrs. Davison,
still bending over the twist of straw.

"She's one of 'em — she's the one as lires down
16

MISS GODWIN'S INHERITANCE

the road a piece in that little old house under the
hill you saw."

"Does anyone live in that house!"

"Waal, if you call it livin'. She stays there any
way. She wouldn't go to the New Home — preferred
to stay right here, and comes up and potters around
— I al'ays heard she had a rose-bush."

"Oh! She has a new home? Why on earth
doesn't she go there?" questioned Mrs. Davison.

The driver's eyes blinked. "Guess she didn't
like the comp'ny. That's what th' call the poor-
house." His eyes blinked again, this time with
satisfaction at my cousin's ignorance. "They
might's well ha' let her stay on up here. She
wa'nt flighty enough to do any harm, and she'd
ha* taken as good care of the house as anyone.
But they wouldn't." His tone expressed such
entire acquiescence that Mrs. Davison asked,

"Who would not?"

"Oh, them others. They had the right, and they
wouldn't; so she's lived down there ever since I
knew her. All the others 're dead now — she's sort
o' 'the last leaf on the tree.'"

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The quotation seemed suddenly to lift him up to
a new level.

My cousin's face had grown softer and softer
while he was speaking.

"Poor old thing! Could I help her?"

"Waal, I guess you could if you wanted to."

" I do. Couldn't you give her something for me ? "

"I guess I could, but you'd better get somebody
else to do it. She'd want to know where it come
from, and I d'n' know 's she'd take it if she knew
it come from you as is buyin' the place."

"Oh! I see. But you need not tell her it came
from me. You might give it to her as from your
self?"

It was the one mistake she made. His face
hardened.

"Waal, no, I couldn't do that."

My cousin saw her error and apologized. He
said nothing, but he softened.

"Miss Hewitt might do it. She's the one as
hunts 'em up and helps 'em."

"Well, then I will get her to do it for me. She
will know how."

MISS GODWIN'S INHERITANCE
"She knows how to do a good many things,"
observed Mr. Freeman quietly.

Ill

AFTER this I knew that nothing would keep my
cousin from buying the place if she could get it,
and so in truth it turned out. After some nego
tiating, in which every edge was made to cut by
the sellers, the deal was closed and the Hamilton
place with all its "improvements, easements, ap
purtenances and hereditaments," became hers and
her heirs' forever.

No child with a new toy was ever more delighted.

I received one evening an imperative message:
"Pray come immediately," and on my arrival I
knew at once that my cousin had gotten the place.
Her eyes were dancing and all of her old spirit
appeared to have come back. The flush of youth
was on her cheeks. I found the big library table
covered with photographs of the place and the house,
inside and out, and if there was a spot on the table
not covered by a photograph it held a book on
gardening.

UNDER THE CRUST

"Well, I have it."

"Or them," I observed quietly.

"Them"? with a puzzled look. "Never mind!
I know it's an insult, though I do not know just
how. Well, I have sent for you. I want "

"My advice?"
—You to carry out my ideas."

"How do you know I will?"

" Come, do not talk nonsense. Of course you will."
She did not even take the trouble to smile. She began
to sketch her views rapidly and clearly in a way that
showed a complete comprehension of the case.

"The house is to be done just this way. And
the grounds are to be restored as they were. All
these old buildings are to be removed." She was
speaking with a photograph in her hand showing
the decrepit stables — "these — which are recent ex
crescences, pulled down; this moved back to its old
site under the hill down there — and here is to be the
garden just where it was — and as it was. See,
here is the description."

She took from the table a small volume bound in
red leather, and opened it.

MISS GODWIN'S INHERITANCE

"Here is an old letter written by my grandfather
a hundred years ago, giving his impressions of the
place when he visited it."

"'Here I am in the Province of Maine, where I
arrived a few days ago, expecting to find myself in
a foreign land. Imagine my surprise when I dis
covered that the place and the people are more like
those among whom I was brought up in my youth
than in any other part of New England which I
have visited. Of course, I am speaking of its ap
pearance in the summer, for this is July, and it
might be early June. . . .'

"You don't want all this — he gives simply a
description of the distinction in classes which he
was surprised to find here — 'many of the fam
ilies having their coats of arms and other relics
of the gentry-class.' Ah! here it is. Here is the
description :

"I was invited to Colonel H.'s and he sent down
for me his barge manned by a half dozen sturdy
fellows, just as might have been sent from Shirley
or Rosewell or Brandon ; and on my arrival I found
the Colonel awaiting me on the great rock which

UNDER THE CRUST

dispenses with any need for a pier, except a float
and a few wooden steps.

"'He has one of the pleasantest seats which I
have found in all my travels — a house which, though
not large, would have done justice to any place in
Maryland or Virginia, and which possesses every
mark of good taste and refinement. It fronts to the
south and is bathed in sunlight the whole day long.

''The garden immediately caught my attention,
and I think I might say I never saw more beautiful
flowers, which surprised me, for I had an idea that
this region produced little besides rocks and Puritan
ical narrowness: of which more anon. The garden
lies at the back of the house, beginning on a level,
with formal borders and grass-walks where the turf
is kept as beautiful as any that I ever saw in Eng
land, and where there is every variety of flower
which Adam and Eve could have known in their
garden. In the first place, roses — roses — roses!
Then all the rest: Rush-leaved daffodils, the jon-
quilles — "narcissi," the Colonel's sister calls them;
phlox of every hue; hollyhocks, peonies, gillies —
almost all that you have. Then the shrubbery! —

MISS GODWIN'S INHERITANCE

lilacs, syringas, meadowsweet, spiraea, and I do not
know how many more. I could not get over the
feeling that they had all been brought from home
Indeed, I saw a fat robin sitting in a lilac bush that
I am sure I saw at home two months ago, and when
I bowed to him he nodded to me, so I know he is
the same. On the land-side the garden slopes away
suddenly into an untilled stretch of field where the
wild flowers grow in unrivalled profusion. This the
Colonel's sister calls her "wild garden." A field of
daisies looked as if it were covered with snow. An
old fellow with a face wrinkled and very like a
winter apple, told me that one "Sir William Pep-
peril brought them over, and that is the reason you
don't find 'em anywhere else but here." I did not
tell him of my friend the robin.

'"By the way, the Colonel's sister is a very charm
ing young lady — dark hair, gray eyes with black
lashes, a mouth which I think her best feature, and
a demure air. She is so fond of her garden that I
call her Hortensia.'"

"What's that?"

My cousin broke into a silvery laugh. "You
23

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know now where I got my name. But I don't think
my grandmother ever quite forgave her.'*

She closed the book.

" Now, you see what I want — to restore it exactly as
it was, and only to add what will carry out this idea."

"Are you going to have a gardener?"

"Of course "

"A landscape gardener?"

"Yes, of course! And a man to furnish the house
by contract — and another to select my pictures for
me!" Her nose was turned up, and she was chop
ping out her words at me.

"Well, you need not be so insulted."

"I told you I wanted to restore it."

"I only wanted to know how much in earnest you
are."

"Well, you put one new thing in that house, not
in keeping with the idea I have, and you will know."

WITH the first opening of Spring my cousin was
at work on her "restoration." She had the good
sense to select as her head workman — for she would

MISS GODWIN'S INHERITANCE

have no contractor either in or out of the house —
a local carpenter — an excellent man. But even with
this foresight it must be said that her effort at res
toration was not received with entire approbation
by her new neighbors. The gossip that was brought
to her — and there was no little of it — informed her
that they considered her incoming as an intrusion,
and regarded her with some suspicion and a little
disdain. Some of them set out evidently to make
it very clear to her that they did not propose to let
her interfere in any way with their habits and cus
toms. They were "as good as she was," and they
meant her to know it.

In time, however, as she pushed on with her work,
always good-natured and always determined, she
began to make her way with them. Silas Freeman
stood her in good stead, for he became her fast
friend.

"She is rather citified," he agreed, "but she can't
help that, and she aint a bit airified."

I was present on an occasion when one of the
first evidences of her gradual breaking into the
charmed circle came. The work on the house was

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progressing rapidly. Rotted pediments, broken win
dow frames, unsound cornices, lost spindles, being
replaced by their exact counterparts; each bit that
needed renewal or repair being restored with abso
lute fidelity under her keen eyes. And all the time
she was rummaging around through the country
picking up old furniture and articles that dated back
and belonged to the time when her grandfather had
visited the place. No child ever enjoyed fitting up
a baby-house more keenly than she enjoyed fitting
up this old mansion.

It was really beginning to show the effect of her
tact and zeal. She had actually gotten two or three
rooms finished and furnished, and had moved in,
"the better to see, my dear,'" she said to me.
"Besides, I know very well that the only way to
get workmen out of a house is to live them out.
I mean to spend this summer here."

Outside, too, the work was progressing favorably,
though the frost was scarcely out of the ground.
The rickety buildings were all removed from her
cherished ground "where once the garden smiled"
and she was only awaiting a favorable season to lay

MISS GODWIN'S INHERITANCE

out her garden and put in her seeds and slips, which
were already being gotten ready.

It was one of those Sunday afternoons in April
when Spring announces that she has come to pay
you a visit, and leaves her visiting card in bluebirds
and dandelions. The bluebirds had been glancing
about the lawn all day, making dashes of vivid color
against the spruces, and even a few robins had been
flitting around, surveying the land and spying out
choice places. Dandelions were beginning to gleam
in favored spots, and a few green tufts were peeping
up where jonquils had, through all discourage
ments, lived to shake their golden trumpets in
sheltered places.

My cousin had enjoyed it all unspeakably. She
had moved all day like one in a trance, with softened
eyes and gentle voice. Before going to church she
had, with her own hands, unwrapped the rose-bush
she had observed on her first visit, and I heard her
bemoaning its poor, starved condition. "Poor thing
—you are the only real old occupant," I heard her
murmur. "You shall have new soil and I hope you
will live."

UNDER THE CRUST
V

THE afternoon had been perfect and the sun had
just stolen over toward the top of the western hill
and was sending his light across the yard, tinging
the twigs of the apple trees with a faint flush of
pink, and we were watching the lengthening shad
ows when I became aware that there was someone
standing in the old disused road just outside the
yard. She was an old woman, and there was some
thing so calm about her that she seemed herself
almost like one of the shadows. She was dressed in
the plainest way: an old black dress, now faded to
a dim brown, a coat of antique design and appear
ance, in which a faint green under the arms alone
showed that it, too, had once been black, a little
old bonnet over her thin gray hair, which was
smoothed down over her ears in a style of forty
years before.

"There is someone," I said in a low tone. "Isn't
she quaint?"

My cousin, seeing that she was a poor woman,
moved down the slope toward her.

"Good afternoon," she said gently.

MISS GODWIN'S INHERITANCE

"Afternoon" — with a little shift of her position
which reminded me of a courtesy. "Air you Miss
Davison?"

"Yes, I am Mrs. Davison."

"The one 't bought the place?"

"Yes, I am that one. Can I do anything for
you?" The tone of her voice was so kind that the
old woman seemed to gain a little courage.

"Well, I thought I'd come up and see you a
moment this Sabbath afternoon."

"Won't you come up and see the sunset?"

"Well, thank you — perhaps I will, if it will not
discompose you."

My cousin smiled at her quaint speech. As the
visitor came up the slope I saw her small, sunken
eyes sweep the grounds before her and then rest on
the rose-bush which my cousin had unwrapped that
day.

"It is so beautiful from this terrace," pursued my
cousin.

"Yes, it is," said the visitor. She stood and
gazed at the sky a moment, then glanced half fur
tively at the house and about the grounds, and

UNDER THE CRUST

again her eyes rested on the rose-bush. Her faded
weather-beaten face had grown soft.

"I have seen it very often from this spot. I used
to live here."

"You did! Well, won't you walk into the house
and take a cup of tea ? I have just ordered tea for
my cousin and myself."

The visitor gave me a somewhat searching look.

"Well, perhaps, I will, thank you." As she fol
lowed my cousin in, she crossed over to the side of
the walk where the rose-bush was, and her wrinkled
and knotted old hand casually touched it as she
passed.

My cousin went off to see about the tea, and I
was left with our visitor. She was pitifully shabby
and worn-looking as she sat there, with shrunken
shoulders and wrinkled face beaten by every storm
of adversity, and yet there was something still in
the gray eyes and thin, close-shut lips of the un
conquerable courage with which she had faced de
feat. She was too dazed to say much, but her eyes
wandered in a vague way from one point to another,
taking in every detail of the repair and restoration.

MISS GODWIN'S INHERITANCE

The only thing she said was, "My! — MyP5 under
her breath.

When my cousin returned and took her seat at
the little tea-table with its silver service, the old lady
simply sat passive and dazed, and to the polite
questions of the former she answered rather at
random.

Yes, she was a girl when she lived there. Her
grandfather had left her the right to use one of the
upstairs rooms, but "they" would not let her have
it. "They did not like her to come on the place,
so she didn't come much."

My! wasn't the tea good — "so sweet and warm-
in'?" .

Every now and then she became distraite and
vague. She appeared to have something on her
mind or to be embarrassed by my presence, so I
rose and strolled across to a window, and from there
over toward the door. As I passed I heard her
state timidly the object of her visit.

"I heard as you were a-goin' to dig up every
thing and set out fresh ones, so I came to ask you,
if you had no particular use for it and were goin'

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to dig it up anyway, if you wouldn t let me have
that old rose-bush by the walk. I'd like to take
it up and carry it up to the graveyard —

"Of course, you may have it."

"You see, that's the only thing I ever owned!"
pursued the visitor.

I saw my cousin give a deep and- sudden catch
ing of her breath, and turn her head away, and after
a grab at her skirt her hand went up to her face.
The old woman continued quietly:

"I thought I'd write to you, and ask you about
it; but then I didn't. It wasn't — just convenient."

"Of course, you — m — My cousin could not

get out the words. There was a second of silence
and then with shameless and futile mendacity she
began to mutter something about having "such a
bad cold." She rose and dashed out of the room,
saying to me with a wave of her hand as she passed :

"Tell her, Yes."

When she returned to the room she had a fresh
handkerchief in her hand and her eyes were still
moist.

Before the old woman left, it was all arranged.
32

MISS GODWIN'S INHERITANCE

The rose-bush was to be moved whenever Miss
Godwin wished it; but meantime, as the best season
for moving it had not come, my cousin was to take
care of it for Miss Godwin, and Miss Godwin her
self was to come up and look after it whenever she
wished, and was certainly to come once a week,

"Well, I am sure I am very much obliged to
you," said the old woman, who suddenly appeared
much inspirited. "I never would have ventured to
do it if I hadn't heard you were going to dig up
everything anyhow, and I wouldn't have asked them,
in any case, not if they had lived till Judgment Day."

When Miss Godwin rose to go, my cousin sug
gested that we should walk down to her home with
her, and as we started out she handed me several
parcels and I saw that she herself had as many more.

At the door of her dark little habitation Miss God
win showed some signs of nervousness. I think she
was slightly alarmed lest we might insist on com
ing in. My cousin, however, relieved her.

"Here are a few little things — -tea and coffee and
sugar and — just a few little things. I thought they
might taste a little better coming out of the old

UNDER THE CRUST

house, you know." She was speaking at the rate of
two hundred words a minute.

"Well "

When we were out of earshot I waited for her to
begin, but she walked on in silence with her hand
kerchief doubled in her hand.

"Your cold seems pretty bad!" I said.

"Oh, don't!" she cried with a wail. "That poor
little half- starved rose-bush!" she sobbed. "The
only thing she ever owned! And she didn't even
have a stamp to write and ask me not to throw it
away! I wish I could give her the house."

"What would she do with it?"

"Make 'them' feel badly!" she cried with sudden
vehemence. ,

ALL that spring and summer my duties in the way
of helping my cousin to "clarify her ideas" took me
from time to time to Hamilton Place, and every week
Miss Godwin used to come to look after her "es
tate," as the rose-bush was now dubbed Under
the careful treatment of my cousin's gardener, and
watched over by my cousin's hawk eyes, the rose-

MISS GODWIN'S INHERITANCE

bush appeared to have gotten a new lease of life,
as under the belated sunshine of my cousin's friend
liness and sympathy the faded mistress also quite
blossomed out.

Every week she came in to tea, and my cousin,
with her tact, drew her on to sit at the tea-table and
pour tea.

The crowning event of her life was the house-
warming that my cousin gave to the neighbors.
They were all there, and possibly among them were
some whom, as my cousin had said, she would have
liked to make feel badly. Whatever the motive, my
cousin invited Miss Godwin to pour tea, and to her
mind, not Solomon in all his glory was arrayed like
her, in her new black dress with "a real breast-pin."

For some time she had been coming every day to
help about things, but much of her time was spent
in pothering about the rose-bush, watching two buds
that were really beginning to give promise of be
coming roses.

"They all knew now" that the rose-bush was hers,
and she wanted "them to see that it had roses on
it." They had said "it weren't of no account."

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The day of the event she came early. The sum
mer night had been kind. The buds were real roses.
She spent much of the day looking at them. No
matter what she was doing she went out every few
minutes to gaze at them, and each time my cousin
watched her secretly with delight.

. Suddenly, toward afternoon, just when the guests
were expected, I heard my cousin give a cry of
anguish: "She is crazy! She is cutting them!"
She rushed to the door to stop her. On the threshold
she met Miss Godwin. She was pale, but firm and
a trifle triumphant.

"Oh! What have you done?" cried my cousin.

Miss Godwin became a little shy.

"They are the only things I have, and I would
have liked you to wear them if you had not been
in black; so I thought I would put them in a vase
for you."

"I will wear one and you shall wear the other,"
said my cousin, "and then I will press mine and
keep it."

I shall never forget the expression on Miss God
win's face.

MISS GODWIN'S INHERITANCE

"Me? — My! — with a deep intaking of her
breath. "Why I haven't worn a rose in fif — forty
years!"

I have reason to think she understated it.

My cousin took one of the roses — the prettier of
the two — and without a word pinned it on her.

When the guests arrived it was interesting to
watch Miss Godwin. At first she was all a-flutter.
Her face was pale even through the weather-beaten
tint of her faded cheek, and her eyes followed Mrs.
Davison with mute appeal. But in a little space she
recovered her self-possession; her head rose; her
pallor gave way to something that was almost color,
and she helped my cousin with what was quite an air.

My cousin could not have done a cleverer thing
than place her at the tea-table.

Silas Freeman expressed the general judgment.
When he was bidding her good-by he said, with a
kindly light in his eyes, "Weall, I guess you was
about right in that thing you said that time."

"What was that?"

"That you wa'n't altogether city folks."
37

THE NEW AGENT

tfOE'S first recollection of Elizabeth was as far
back as the time when his mother took him, the
year after his father died, to see Mrs. Fostyn, who
had been her schoolmate. Joe never forgot the
wonders of that visit. The fine old house with its
carved mantels and wainscoting, amid the maples
and elms on Fostyn Hill, outside of Lebanon, always
remained in his mind as the grandest he had ever
seen. The silver on the sideboard was enough, it
seemed to him, to have served all Lebanon, and
there were horses in the stable which were only
ridden and did no work. It must, he thought, be
a great thing to be a member of Congress. He
always remembered the shock of hearing old man
Grantham, who kept the store two or three miles
below, say of Mr. Fostyn that "a fool and his money

UNDER THE CRUST

were soon parted." It was the first time he was
conscious of disliking a man because he had small
eyes set close together and wore a beard under his
chin. Elizabeth, a tangle-headed tot with saucy
eyes and a face where dimples played hide-and-
seek, seized on him as her slave and made him do
her utmost bidding.

When next he saw Elizabeth she was a half-
opened rosebud. The brown hair that used to blow
about her face was plaited and tucked up on the
nape of a shapely little neck. Her eyes were saucier
than ever. She was then a school-girl, on a visit to
Mr. Sewall, the superintendent of the railway, who
had been a friend of Joe's father. Joe, meeting her,
assumed the position of an old friend, and got
soundly snubbed.

"Miss Elizabeth, if you please," with a courtesy
and an uptilt of the bewitching little nose.

Joe laughed, though he was discomfited. But
being bold, six feet tall, and good-looking, and having
just left school and gone to work for himself, he
tried to carry it off and play the man. In a mo
ment of daring, there being no one by but a fat

THE NEW AGENT

robin in a lilac-bush, he caught and tried to kiss her.
He nearly got his head slapped from his shoulders.
She was like lightning, and her rage was that of
a tigress. Her eyes actually darted fire. His apol
ogy only appeared to make her more furious. She
listened to him till he was through, and then, when
he held out his hand in friendship, she stepped for
ward, as he thought, to take it, and, with her white
teeth set deep in her lower lip, boxed him again
with all her might. Then Joe was angry! He
caught and kissed her twice and set her down
crumpled and half scared. It had been fire against
fire. But when Joe cooled down he was in love with
the little spitfire. After that he saw her in every
apple-blossom, every rose, every violet, and that she
was as cruel to him as a young ogress did not save
him. It was, therefore, with alacrity that, a few
months after Mr. Fostyn's death, Joe accepted of the
superintendent the offer of the agency at Lebanon.
"Miss Elizabeth, if you please," had just ac
cepted the position of teacher of the little Se walls —
and Joe felt somehow as though his being on the
railway were a link between them.

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"I guess you'll do well enough if you just stick,"
said the superintendent, glancing appreciatively at
Joe's steady eyes, high cheek-bones and strong chin.

"I'll stick." Joe thought of Elizabeth Fostyn.

"Well, that's what I want you to do, and that's
what I think you will do, too, or I would not bother
to send you there. It ain't any easy load to carry.
There is a might of work to do. The other man I
sent there said he would stick, too, but old Grantham
worked him out — skeered him — done some thin' to
him — run him out, anyway."

"I'll stick," said Joe again, firmly, his gray eyes
set steadily on the superintendent's granite face.

"All right," said the superintendent, with the air
of a man who had had an unpleasant duty to
perform and was glad he had gotten through with
it. He fell to a more congenial theme, and then
began to curse Grantham again.

WHEN the Deacon turned the widow Fostyn and
her daughter out of their old home on the southern
slope of Fostyn Hill and put the key in his pocket

THE NEW AGENT

he thought he had done a very smart thing. He
prided himself on doing smart things. He had
gotten possession for half its value of a piece of
property which he had long coveted, and finally, by
his smartness, had choused her out of three hundred
dollars, or, to be more accurate, three hundred and
six dollars and twenty- three cents. This last, per
haps, gave him more satisfaction than any of the
other things, for although the Deacon was not in
sensible to the seduction of power or the honeyed
sweetness of revenge, the sweetest thing in this
world to him was Money — the possession of money.
He loved it. He had always loved it since, as a
little boy, he used to warm his chapped hands on
the pennies in his pocket, and though position and
authority were not without their allurement, and he
never let anything pass him that he could hold on to,
they had their drawback in that they cost some
money. Not a great deal in the Deacon's case;
but still some. "But Money," as he used to say,
"don't cost anything; it breeds money." It was
not because of his being hard-hearted that he was
hard on the widow, but because of his avarice. He

UNDER THE CRUST

could weep, or make a fairly watery counterfeit of
it, if the case came home to him, and — it did not
cost him anything. But if it promised to cost even
a cent his face became rock. It grieved him — that
is, it almost grieved him — to turn the widow and her
daughter — such a pretty girl, too — from the home
where the Fostyns had lived so long; but when John
Fostyn made the last payment on the mortgage that
he had put on the place he had gotten no receipt
for it from the Deacon, and when he died suddenly
the Deacon could not bring himself to mention the
fact that it had been paid. He considered that
Providence was in some sort responsible for it. It
worried him a good deal when the widow, after being
turned out, instead of going away, as he had sup
posed she would — to somewhere in Delaware, where
she came from — had taken a small house right on
the road he had to travel when he went to the sta
tion, where she took in "fine sewing"; as if, thought
the Deacon, anybody was fool enough to pay more
for "fine sewing" than for any other kind. He
felt aggrieved that she should have done so unkind a
thing. It looked almost malicious in her to sit down

THE NEW AGENT

where every time he passed along he was reminded
of the three hundred and six dollars and twenty-
three cents. And he had once thought so well of
her, too!

It grieved him yet more when Elizabeth Fostyn,
who was, altogether, the prettiest girl in the town,
or, for that matter, in the county, cut his son, Jim,
dead on the road. Jim was the one thing near to
that stony organ which the Deacon called his heart.

In time, however, the Deacon quite forgot his
worry over the three hundred and six dollars and
twenty-three cents, and he wondered at his dis
quietude over the announcement of the appointment
of a new railway agent at Lebanon by the name of
Shannon. Was it that in some way he had heard
his name connected with that of the Fostyns ? What
was it ? It was very vague. Some one — oh, yes, it
was Jim who had said that, " if it were not for that
d — ned Joe Shannon " he might stand some chance.

So, one day, the Deacon drove up to Lebanon and
stopped at Squire London's store. The Squire was
the only man in Lebanon he envied and hated. He

UNDER THE CRUST

envied him for his wealth and hated him for his
liberality and popularity. His store, under the big
elms, was the general rendezvous of the town, and
here all the news could be learned. What the
Deacon heard that morning was not reassuring. He
discovered that in the four or five days the new agent
had been at Lebanon he had already made friends.
Several of the loungers spoke of him as if he were
quite out of the ordinary; and Squire London
plainly liked him.

"Waal, so long — I just come by to see how you
folks were." And the Deacon strode on up to the
station to "look him over," and, maybe, to "take a
fall out of" the new agent.

Ill

IN those few days Joe had found his new place
much pleasanter than he had expected. The hours
were long: from five A.M., when the first train passed,
to nine P.M., when No. 13, the last one he had to
report, came by. He had to act as station agent,
telegraph operator and depot hand; handling all the
baggage and loading and unloading the freight —

THE NEW AGENT

which was growing rapidly; but he was young and
strong and he was making his own living. Besides,
though the girl with saucy eyes, the memory of whom
had brought him there, was away from home, teach
ing school, she would, he knew, be back at Thanks
giving, and now and then a letter came to him,
which, though cool as a dewy leaf, lasted him for
two good weeks.

Lebanon, too, was a pleasant place, with its white
houses lying under its great elms, with the hills
sloping away in the sunshine; and the people, if
reserved, were kind and, when once reached, re
sponsive. Old Solon London, the principal man in
town, a deacon in the white church, trustee of the
new library, director in the brick bank and general
adviser of all Lebanon, had been kind to him; had
given him much sound advice: not to put too much
trust in what certain people said — he named them
frankly; to attend to his own business; not to smoke
cigars — which "cost more money than a young man
should pay"; not to play cards for money with men
he did not know, and not to marry a fool. Among
the men he named was Deacon Grantham.

UNDER THE CRUST

"When he gits confidential, watch him."

Joe, sitting at his desk next day, was just thinking
of the Squire's advice when the Deacon walked in.
He had a noiseless step.

He did not greet Joe; he plunged straight into
business. This was always his way, he said.

"Where's the agent?" he demanded.

"Right here," Joe spoke shortly, for the Deacon's
tone was raspy. He looked up quickly enough to
catch a pair of shrewd eyes fastened on him with so
piercing a glance from under the gray brows that he
was instantly alert. The next second the glance was
withdrawn, and Joe encountered a face of stone,
with a pair of small, deep eyes set back under bushy
eyebrows which half hid them; a nose like a sickle;
where his lips should have been, a line; a heavy,
grizzled beard under the chin, cut as sharply as
wheat is cut by a cradle, and a big Adam's-apple
which worked up and down in his long neck.

Joe knew instantly that this was Deacon Grantham.
He knew further that he had come for war — he felt
it by an instinct, and his blood ran warm: he girded
himself for the fray.

THE NEW AGENT

"Where's Millard?"

"Somewhere in Minnesota."

"Gone away?"

This gave Joe the advantage. The Deacon
knew that he had gone, and Joe knew that he
did so. He therefore simply nodded and got him
self together.

"Who are you?"

"The agent." Joe looked at his silver watch —
partly to see the time and partly to appear uncon
cerned.

"Is there anything here for Deacon Grantham?"

"I don't know; I'll see." Joe took his freight-
book and began to scan its pages. He took his
time doing it.

"You don't appear to know too much about your
business, young man," observed the Deacon.

"No, not too much. No, I don't see anything
billed to Deacon Grantham. Is that his name?"

"His name? Don't you know what a 'deacon'
is ? Where did you come from, young man ? Who
ever heard of 'Deacon' bein' a name?"

He spoke with rising scorn, and Joe waited.
51

UNDER THE CRUST

"I have. I know a whole family of 'Deacons,'"
he said dryly.

When the Deacon drove away from the station he
knew that he had a long fight on his hands. Joe
knew it, too. The Deacon's last words as he gath
ered up the reins over his thin horse were: "Waal,
young man, I hope next time you'll know Deacon
Grantham."

"I'll not forget you," said Joe briefly.

THE hours were long at Lebanon, and, as the
superintendent had said, the work was hard, but
Joe did not mind that. He was as strong as an ox
and could sleep like a log. What he did mind was
the talk that now and then reached him that Deacon
Grantham's son was still "settin' up" to Elizabeth
Fostyn, and, as some said, was "kind o' winnin* her
over." "All those farms were bound to count for
something," said the village gossips. "And then
there was the old Fostyn place. It was natural
she'd like to get back there."

This disturbed Joe a good deal; but whenever he
52

THE NEW AGENT

got a little note, worded as carefully as a copy-book,
he used to feel that it was impossible. She would
not have given him so much good advice if she had
not been interested in him. " And she simply could
not marry that Jim Grantham."

In six months Joe knew all the people in Leb
anon. The station became quite a rendezvous for
the young people, especially for the young girls.
It was remarkable how often they walked
down to meet friends who did not come on the
trains.

The boys used to gather at his room sometimes
for a quiet little game of cards, and in time he found
it was being talked about. Squire London gave
him a hint about it. "The Deacon says you're
ruinin' the morals of the young and innercent, Joe,
and you'd better stop. Don't let him git a line on
you." So, Joe determined to stop. But one night
Jim Grantham was in town and he insisted on hav
ing a game in Joe's room, and Joe yielded. He
would not let Jim Grantham bluff him.

It was not his duty, but it was his custom, to go
down to look at the switch at night before going to

UNDER THE CRUST
bed, for a freight train came by late at night and
did not stop, except on signal.

This night the game was so close, with Jim
Grantham losing, that Joe failed to go until he heard
the train pass. The next moment came a bumping
and a crash, which he knew meant that the train
had run into the switch. In a twinkling he was on
the spot. No one was hurt and no serious damage
was done, for the train had been going slowly.
Only one box-car had been jammed and broken,
and in an hour or two the train, with the injured
car cut out, was on its way again; but Joe felt that
his days at Lebanon were numbered.

Curiously, the first thing he thought of was old
Deacon Grantham — how he would gloat! The next
person was Elizabeth Fostyn.

Jim Grantham was unusually sympathetic. "I
swan! that's too bad. What're you goin' to
report?"

"The truth."

"I want to know!" said Jim, blinking incredu
lously. "Why don't you tell 'em you had just been
down ? I ain't goin' to give you away."

THE NEW AGENT
"Because I had not. I am not going to lie
about it."

The next morning he sat down and wrote to Mr.
Sewall, the superintendent, telling him the facts.
He also wrote to Miss Elizabeth Fostyn. He told
her he would undoubtedly be removed, and he
thought he would go to the far West. He hoped
that the superintendent would write and scold him,
and that Miss Elizabeth would write and beg him
not to go. Neither did what he hoped for. Miss
Elizabeth wrote and scolded him, but said not a
word about his not going West. In fact, she rather
encouraged the idea. "The West was such a fine
field for a young man, if he did not play cards
too much." She mentioned, casually, that she
had already heard of the accident from "Mr.
Grantham."

The very next day after the accident Deacon
Grantham drove up. Joe's jaw squared and his lips
tightened as he heard his voice.

"Waal, young man, I hear you've had an acci
dent. Guess you'll be joining Millard out in Min-

UNDER THE CRUST
nesoty?" said the Deacon, warming his hands at
the stove.

"Well, if I do it won't be because anybody here
sent me there," flashed Joe over his shoulder.

"Nor — guess it'll be the railroad company '11 do
thet. Blessin' warn't nobody hurt."

Joe was so exasperated that he forgot himself.

"There's nothing here for Deacon Grantham,"
he said pointedly. The next second he regretted it
for the Deacon's eyes blinked with a gratified light
in them.

"So you remember me?"

"Yes, I remember you." Joe was growing cool
again.

"Waal, young man, let me give you a piece of
advice."

"Don't waste it."

The Deacon shot a wicked glance at him.

"Next time you set up all night gamblin' see thet
your switch is locked."

"How did you know it was unlocked ?" demanded
Joe, facing the Deacon suddenly with so level a
glance that the latter almost jumped.

THE NEW AGENT

"I don't know nothin' about it, but thet's what
I heard," he said, blinking uneasily. "But you
needn't be gettin' so hot about it, young man."

"I'll make it hot for the scoundrel who undid
that lock if I ever find him."

"Who says the lock was tampered with?"

"I do."

"Any suspicions who done it?" The Deacon's
voice had grown confidential.

"No. If I had I'd send him to the penitentiary."

The Deacon's face took on a look of relief.

"Young man, it's an awful thing to bring a charge
like that against a community," he began severely.
"This is a law-abidin' community, and it ain't wise
for a young man like you to lay sich an accusation
against it."

"I am not bringing any accusation against the
community. I am bringing it against the scoun-
drel-

The Deacon turned his eyes up slightly.

The superintendent was sitting in his office the
evening after he received Joe's letter when there

UNDER THE CRUST

was a faint tap on the door, and Elizabeth Fostyn
walked in. She looked somewhat nervous — indeed,
even agitated, a thing so rare with her that the
superintendent observed it.

"She has had trouble," he thought to himself;
"I wonder if it is one of the children, or if she wants
money?"

So he was somewhat guarded when he spoke.

"Well?" he began doubtfully.

She walked up and stood opposite him on the
other side of the table, on which she rested the
knuckles of her hands.

"I hear you have had an accident up at Leba
non?"

"Oh — yes. We have had an accident there.
That young man left the switch open."

"Did he leave it open ? You are sure it was he ?"

"Well, it was left open. Same thing. He didn't
see that it was shut. Cost us money. And might
have killed the men."

There was a pause. Then she said: "Are you
going to discharge him?'

"Why — ah — " began the superintendent slowly.
58

THE NEW AGENT

As he glanced up his eyes fell on her face and her
color suddenly deepened.

"Because I do not think it will happen again."
She had evidently supposed he was asking her a
question.

"Is he anything to you?" demanded the superin
tendent, wondering if Joe were her cousin. He was
surprised to see the rich color flush her face and
brow, and even warm her round throat.

"He is an old friend of — of ours." Her eyes
were steady, and the superintendent, grizzled and
battered by work, was suddenly aware of their
depth and beauty. He looked down and shuffled
his papers.

"I do not believe he left the switch open, and I
believe if you are lenient with him he will justify it,"
pursued Elizabeth; and the superintendent, whose
eyes were on her hands, suddenly observed that the
knuckles resting against the table were white with
the pressure.

"I do not expect to discharge him, but I will
make him pay for the damage," he said briefly.

Elizabeth had moved around the table and was
59

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standing close to him as he ended. She suddenly
bent over and, throwing her arms about his neck,
kissed him warmly. The next second she turned
and dashed from the room.

The superintendent sat for some moments in a
reverie of pleased surprise.

"That girl has heart, after all," he said; "I
thought she had only intellect."

It did not occur to him until later to wonder if
she had a deeper interest in Joe than the somewhat
reserved allowance of formal friendship with which
she treated all young men. And when he sug
gested the idea to Mrs. Sewall, that clear-sighted
woman rejected it with what was very near to scorn.

A FEW days later, as the train came in, the
superintendent swung himself down from it. Joe's
eyes fell on him before he had touched the platform.
He knew his time had come. He determined to
meet his fate like a man. So he attended to his
duties, and when the train had gone on and he had
dispatched his report, he went out and met the

THE NEW AGENT

superintendent. His face was grim enough and he
was suspiciously polite.

"Well, you had a bad accident here the other
night?"

"Yes, sir. I'm glad it was no worse."

"How did it happen?"

"Just as I wrote you — I neglected to look
at the switch before going to bed, and it was
unlocked."

"M-hm! Think some one tampered with it?"

"I don't know about that — looks so; but I don't
lay it to that. If I had gone there, as I always had
before, it wouldn't have happened."

"M-hm! Well, let's go down and look at it."

They walked down the track in silence, and
when they reached the spot Joe explained how
every thing occurred. As they strode back in
silence, Joe said:

"I suppose you have come to turn me off — so I
have got everything straight — my books are all ready
— and — everything. But I want to say that if you
are afraid I'll ever do that again you need not turn
me off. If you leave me here I may make mistakes,

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but I'll never make that mistake again as long as I
live."

He did not see the gleam of amusement in the
superintendent's eyes, or the fleeting twitch of
his lip.

"Well, I suppose you are ready to pay the repair
bill on that car and cowcatcher?" said the other
dryly.

"I am; I think that's just."

The superintendent shot a side glance at him out
of the tail of his eye and walked on in silence. He
was a big, broad-shouldered man, with grizzled hair,
a wholesome face and keen eyes. When they got
to the station he said:

"I will send you the bill. If I make you pay it
you may be of some account some day. I'm going
to give you another trial. But if you can't play
cards and lock your switch, too, give up cards."

"I will. Thank you, sir. I will justify your
kindness." He thought of Deacon Grantham and
then of Elizabeth.

What the superintendent was thinking was, "I
wonder if that girl wrote him to say that. Those

THE NEW AGENT

were the very words she used when she came to ask
me not to turn him off."

Joe found his life in Lebanon not so pleasant as it
had been at first. The Deacon had spread around
a story that he not only was leading the young men
astray, but that he had charged the community with
a crime, and his popularity somewhat waned. Squire
London and some others still stood by him, but many
looked at him askance. Another aggravation was
that Miss Elizabeth Fostyn was not coming home
for her holiday. She was going to Portsmouth, and
Joe had learned that Jim Grantham was going to
Portsmouth, too. "By George! they'd better lock
their switches," said Joe to one of his friends. But
this ebullition gave him little comfort. In fact, the
world held little comfort for him that autumn and,
if it had not been that to leave the field would have
been taken as an admission of defeat by the Gran-
thams, Joe would have pulled out and have gone
West, whither the cords of adventure were drawing
him. Joe heard that the Deacon had said that he
was going to run him out of town. And this made
him stick.

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THAT year the cold weather set in suddenly and
with unknown severity. After a beautiful autumn
there came a long raw spell, with the skies as dull as
lead. Every one said " Snow." But it did not snow.
For days the snow simply piled up in the skies. Then
one morning it began to fall, at first in small, feath
ery flakes, softly, slowly; then rapidly; and then about
midday the wind whipped around to the north
east, and it changed to fine, swift-falling particles
that filled the air. When evening came it turned
to a dense, driving storm. The temperature ran
down like a clock and the wind blew in every direc
tion. Minute particles, driven by the wind, stung
like shot and drove through every chink and cranny.

The term "blizzard" was not yet known, but the
storm was. It was born that night.

About dark Joe telegraphed down the line and
learned that the passenger train which had started
would not come through, but would be stopped at
a little town some ten or more miles below Lebanon.
So, as the office grew cold and the storm was raging

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outside, driving the fine snow in at every crack
Joe filled his stove and went supperless to bed
in his little room next to the office. Without, the
snow was climbing steadily up the wall, and even
within, it lay in little down-like rifts along the floor.
Joe had hardly gotten to sleep when he began to
dream that he was being called, but as he knew it
was a dream he did not stir; he only snuggled closer
under his blankets and was glad he knew a dream
when it came. Then the call began to worry him:
"Leb. — Leb. — Leb." He waked, and it was not a
dream at all. There was a switch at the foot of his
bed, and the instrument was click-clicking "Leb. —
Leb. — Leb." as hard as it could rattle. Half asleep
still, he scrambled out of bed and catching the key
asked who it was that wanted him and what in the
thunder he wanted. The reply waked him wide
enough. An engine and a plough were wanted at
once from Upton, six miles beyond Lebanon, and
Upton could not be awakened: the wires were prob
ably down. The evening train was stuck fast in a
snowdrift near Pike River Bridge, eight miles below
Lebanon and three miles from the nearest station;

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the fires were out, and unless succor could be gotten
to them some of the passengers might perish. The
train was full of women and children. Word must
be got to Upton at once.

"I'll get word there as soon as possible," said Joe.

In six minutes Joe was in his clothes and heavy
boots, and in two more he had prepared himself as
well as he could for what he knew would be a bitter
ride. Tying his overcoat collar around his neck
over his muffler with a handkerchief, and his cap
down over his ears with another; knotting his
sleeves tightly at the wrists, as he did when he went
sliding, he pulled on his gloves.

He knew it was to be a hard ride; but when he
opened the door and stepped out into the night he
knew it was to be a fight for life. The storm seemed
to have increased tenfold since he went to bed, and
the air was filled with fury. The snow stung his
face as if it had been shot. He plunged through
the drifts for a couple of hundred yards to the livery
stable and began hammering on the door. It was
some minutes before he could make any one hear;

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but, presently, a man half dressed and half asleep
opened the door a little way and with an oath let
him in. When he saw Joe and learned his errand
the oath changed to sheer and undisguised blas
phemy. He would be eternally destroyed before
any horse of his should leave his stable that night.
"No man nor beast can make that ride to-night,"
he declared.

"One man is going to make it," said Joe, "and
if I can't get a horse I will make it on foot; but I
want a horse. There are women and children in
that train, man, and the fire is out."

After much hesitation and some bargaining, to
gether with considerable advice and repeated assur
ances that if his horse were hurt he would look both
to the railroad company and to Joe for two hundred
dollars, the man saddled and brought out what Joe
knew to be the stoutest horse in his stable. He was
a short-coupled, broad-backed sorrel, with a strong,
sinewy neck, flat bones, a deep chest and muscles of
steel. His chestnut coat, his broad brow and his
wide, clear eyes bespoke the Morgan strain that had
made the horses of the region famous; and Joe, who

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had been reared among horses, and had a farmer's
eye for a good one, felt himself kindle as he recog
nized the horse. He had driven him once when he
went to see Elizabeth Fostyn, and the horse was
always associated in his mind with a perfect summer
day, amid beeches and maples, with the grass dap
pled beneath them by the sifted sun-light. He remem
bered that she kissed the horse, and how he envied
him. He felt it was a good augury to have this
horse walk out of the stable for him, and he drew
near and patted him as Bragdall tightened the girths
and adjusted the stirrups.

"He's a good horse; I know him."

"Guess everybody knows him" said Bragdall;
"he used to belong to John Fostyn, and you know
he had the best — wouldn't have no other kind; he'll
take you there if any horse will, but I wouldn't try
it to-night for every horse in this stable."

"No more would I," said Joe, "but I'll go all the
same."

"If he gets in a drift let him have his head;
he'll plunge out; and if he should stick just get
off him and give him a loose rein. He can

THE NEW AGENT

break a track better than most men. Got a mite
more sense."

"I'll do it— I know about it."

"Don't you want a good dram ? I've got a bottle
— you'd better take it along —

Joe shook his head.

"No, I want my wits to-night."

"That's so. Well, I've got a pot of coffee — by
the stove — I take it of a morning."

"I'll take that, thank you."

Joe lifted the pot, and, on the owner's invitation
to take as much as he wanted, drained it.

"That ought to keep you awake till Judgment
Day," said Bragdall as Joe mounted. "Here,
take this and wrap it around you under your knees
—so."

He threw a heavy horse-blanket across the horse
in front of the saddle and tucked it under Joe's
knees.

"If I lose that horse the railroad's got to pay me
for him."

Joe was settling himself into the saddle.

"You ain't going to lose him; but if you
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do, it won't make much difference to me what
you get."

"Guess that's so. Now for it! Let him take his
time." He opened the door. The blast nearly
swept Joe from his saddle, but the next moment,
with body bent and head ducked low, he was out in
its full sweep.

VII

THE snow was nearly, up to the girths on the
level, and in drifts was up to the saddle-skirts, and
the road lying to the northeastward made the ride,
for the most part, in the teeth of the storm. The
horse, as if knowing what was before him, after
the first balk when the storm struck him, buckled
down to his work, and with ears laid back, and head
firmly set a little sidewise, struck straight for the
upper end of town. After the first chill the work
seemed to warm up both horse and rider, and
wherever the snow had blown from the road Joe
pushed to a trot. By the time he got into the open
country he found the snow deeper, and he was glad
to be able to keep steadily ahead, even at a walk.

THE NEW AGENT

Soon all trace of the track was lost in the swirl, and
he guided his horse by the tops of the trees, which
he could dimly see on each side of the road, through
the blinding sheet that enveloped him and the splin
ters of ice that drove across his face and beat down
his eyelids.

As the time passed the warmth died out in his
body and he began to grow deadly cold. Some
times the snow would lie in drifts as high as his
horse's back; but, as the stableman had said, he
knew how to plunge out of it. Twice he stuck and
stood helplessly still, and Joe got off him and
helped him to free himself, but the last time he dis
mounted he was so stiff and found so much difficulty
in remounting that he determined not to get off
again. He could scarcely pull the blanket over him.
How far off the treetops were ! Then a new trouble
beset him: he began to get sleepy. He knew that
he must keep awake at every cost, so he began to
think of the poor, freezing people in the train. He
pictured Elizabeth as being among them. From
this he drifted to the days he had spent with her —
few and precious as gold, among the summer woods.

UNDER THE CRUST

How happy he was then! How warm! He almost
fancied himself back among the trees, with the sun
shine sifting through, dappling the ground and fall
ing on her hair and face. This, too, made him
drowsy, and he awoke wTith a start to find his horse
standing still, with his tail to the storm. For a
second he thought the storm had lulled; then a
horror seized him and shook him wide awake. Had
his horse turned around ? If so he was lost, and
with him all the women and children in the car.
Slipping from the saddle, in an agony of fear, he
stopped to see if there were any sign of the track
he had made. Yes, thank God! at last, there was
the track, beyond doubt — there was the blanket he
had dropped, already nearly covered by the snow.
He seized it and, throwing it over the horse, man
aged to scramble up again, and turning, headed
once more in the face of the storm. Fear now kept
him awake, for his horse appeared to be giving out.
He began to pray, and, like most men in such a case,
to make resolutions and pledges.

Once more, however, the drowsiness began to
steal over him in spite of all he could do, and it took

THE NEW AGENT

all his resolutions and prayers to keep awake. He
felt sure that he would never reach his destination,
and it seemed useless to try. But the thought of how
it would please Deacon Grantham stimulated him.
Just then the trees by which he was guiding seemed
to grow denser on one side and to be all of one
height, and the next moment something like a dim
light appeared among them. At first he thought he
was dreaming, and then it came to him that this was
a house. He was in Upton. With a rush came
consciounesss and a clear apprehension that he must
hold out a little longer. A few moments later he
had reached the office, and tumbling from his horse
he began to feel for the door. He tried to call, but
the sound died at his lips. Twice he thought he had
it, but each time he was at fault — then he felt a
plank and began to thump it with his numb hands
and to push against it in a dazed way. It suddenly
gave way before him, and he fell full length on the
floor.

"Joe Shannon! How did you get here?"
" My horse — train stuck — engine — plough — 't
once," and with this Joe rolled over.

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"He's dead," said the agent.

Dead he might have been if the man had not
known what to do; but after a vigorous rubbing
with snow to restore the circulation he poured a
stimulant down his throat, and presently dragged
him to the stove and began to rub and chafe him
all over, and so brought him to.

When the relief engine and plough were ready to
start, Joe, rolled in blankets, was being lifted into
the agent's bed. He unexpectedly rose up.

"Where am I?"

"You're all right," said his friend. He was put
ting on his overcoat.

Joe sat up.

"It's true. I was afraid it was a dream — where's
my horse?"

"All right — in the stable. You go to sleep and rest."

"The train? Where are you going?"

"We are just starting —

"I'm going, too." Joe sprang from the bed,
dragging all the blankets with him.

His friend thought he was a little daft, or, pos
sibly, tight with what he had taken.

THE NEW AGENT

"Well, what are you going to do with my blank
ets?" he asked indulgently.

"Take 'em with me. I'll never stir another step
as long as I live without taking all the blankets in
sight. I'd be in Kingdom-come but for that bracer
and blankets. And that car is full of women freez
ing to death. Get all the wraps you can."

"I guess you can come," said his friend.

It was a slow run, if that can be called a run
which is never more than a creep, and often con
sisted only of repeated buttings and bumpings into
the white drifts piled high in the cuts. At last there
was a cry. Faintly glimmering through the sheet
that wrapped everything in its icy folds was a light.
They were almost against the engine before they
were seen. The engineer and fireman were down
in the cab sheltering themselves from the sweep of
the storm. By the time they halted, Joe, seizing his
blankets, sprang down, and, plunging forward, made
his way to the passenger-car. As he pushed open
the door the scene within staggered him.

Half the people in the car were huddled together,
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three or four in a seat, while the others were rushing
up and down the aisle, apparently playing a game
under the direction of a young woman who was
standing on a seat and ever shouting to them,
"Faster! Faster!" while she slapped her hands and
encouraged them.

Joe's first idea was that they had all gone crazy.
His next was that he was crazy himself, to think
that the girl standing on the seat, with her back to
him, drilling the crowd with her waving arms, could
be Elizabeth Fostyn. At his words, " Relief engine ! "
pandemonium broke loose. A sudden life was
thrown into every vein. Men and women crowded
around him, asking a hundred questions at once,
and telling him how they had been kept alive by a
girl. Joe tried to get a glimpse of her, but she had
disappeared. As Joe pushed his way through the
throng, Elizabeth Fostyn arose from a seat.

"Oh, Joe!"

A little child was in her arms, wrapped in her cape.

Joe jerked off his overcoat, and against her pro
test folded her in it.

"I thought, perhaps, you would come," she said.
76

THE NEW AGENT

It was not much, but it sent the blood singing
through Joe's veins. He said truly that he was
"warm enough."

VIII

AFTER this Joe was popular enough in Lebanon
not to mind the Deacon's flings and fleers. But his
real reward was Elizabeth's smiles. Life appeared
to Joe to have opened up again, and though Eliza
beth, after the first glimpse into her soul, which had
flooded him with light and given him a glimpse into
the inner Heaven, shut to the doors again and left
him in semi-darkness, it was no longer the outer
darkness in which he had groped, but only a sort
of twilight, and on the far horizon was the glimmer
of a new hope. She might be capricious, even per
verse; but he knew now that she was not going to
marry that hatchet-faced Grantham. He almost
forgot to hate old Grantham, though not quite. He
would never forget that so long as the Deacon held
on to Elizabeth's home. Besides, the Deacon did
what he could to keep himself in mind. Joe heard
of many evil things he said of him. He knew now

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that it was through the Deacon that the superintend
ent had first heard of the accident at the switch, as
Elizabeth had learned it from Jim Grantham.
How had he known it so early? This was what
Joe was working on.

When Deacon Grantham saw Joe next after his
rescue of the train, his greeting was characteristic.

"Guess you felt you owed the railroad company
for that little accident last year?"

Joe shook his head. "You'll have to guess
again."

"Bragdall says that horse was about the best
horse he ever had in his stable 'n that ride clean
ruined h'm. Guess the railroad company'll make
it up to Bragdall?"

"I know nothing about it."

"You don't 'pear to know much about anything,
young man."

"I know enough to attend to my own business,"
snapped Joe.

The Deacon turned away with a snarl. His eyes
had an evil glint in them; and Joe soon heard of
new threats that he had made against him.

THE NEW AGENT

"You and the Deacon don't appear to be hitching
horses together much these days?" said the Squire
to him. "He says this place is too small for the
two of ye, and I 'low he ain't thinkin' of emigratin*
himself and leavin' all them farms he's got. You
got to watch him."

"I am watching him," said Joe.

Joe worked harder than ever that spring. He
wanted to "get off" for a day or two and go to see
Elizabeth, and the only way to get a holiday was to
earn it.

One Saturday he had the hardest day of his life.
Two consignments of flour had come and he had
to unload them alone. He nearly gave out, but not
quite. He unloaded the last ten barrels by sheer
nerve. His back had long since given out. There
were one hundred barrels for Squire London and
ten for Deacon Grantham. It was the latter that
Joe unloaded last and found so heavy. With every
barrel he cursed Deacon Grantham. He sent no
tice of the freight's arrival to the Deacon that very
day, with the grim hope that the latter would come

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for his flour while he was away and would have to
load it himself.

That Sunday was a pleasant one for Joe. In the
words of an old hymn he had been taught as a boy,
it was "like a little Heaven below." Elizabeth
Fostyn made it. She was, as has been stated, teach
ing the superintendent's children, and the superin
tendent was very cordial to Joe. He even hinted at
an advancement. But Elizabeth gave Joe the ad
vancement he enjoyed most. She really let him wait
on her. He envied the little smug-faced Sunday-
school scholars in the stiff pews, who had her care.
He sat and adored her all through church, and
walked home with her, feeling more religious than
he had ever done in his life, and quite as if
he had an angel under his charge: an angel
with beautiful feathers on a big hat instead of on
her wings.

When Joe returned to his office on the following
morning he was not quite sure whether he were still
on earth. The words of the superintendent had
partly opened the door of the future; but it was
Elizabeth Fostyn who had flung it wide= He was,

THE NEW AGENT

however, soon brought down to earth. He was
following down the delivery-line of his freight-
book.

"I see old Grantham's got his flour," he said to
his substitute, who was about to take the morning
train. "Hope he had to load it himself?"

"He did," said the other, "and he made a big
row about it, too. He came just at train-time, and
when I got through he had it all loaded. He says
he's going to make it hot for you for getting off and
leaving the office."

Joe chuckled. The day before he had decided to
give up swearing.

For some unaccountable reason Joe rose from his
seat and went into the freight-house, where he
counted all the barrels that remained. Then he
counted them again, and with a puzzled look counted
them the third time, more carefully than he had
done before. Then he went back and examined his
books.

"I see Squire London's got two of his barrels.
You didn't set it down."

His friend shook his head.
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UNDER THE CRUST

"No, that's all. Ain't been anybody here to get
flour, but just your friend."

"Then he has two barrels that don't belong to
him."

Joe's hope still was that Squire London might
have sent and gotten two barrels; but at dinner-time
this hope disappeared. Squire London had not
gotten any part of his flour. It was plain, then,
that Deacon Grantham had taken twelve barrels
instead of ten. Joe sat down and wrote him a let
ter, asking if this were not the fact. Then, on
further consideration, he determined to go personally
and see him about it. So, that afternoon, having
gotten a friend to take his place for a few hours,
he walked down to Deacon Grantham's. If he
should have to pay for two barrels of flour he could
not afford to drive, and, after all, eight miles was no
such great matter for a long-legged boy of twenty-
two.

It was nearly sunset when he reached the Deacon's,
and as he came to the Deacon's farm he thought he
had rarely witnessed a more pastoral scene. The

THE NEW AGENT

Deacon's store was at the corner, fifty yards be
low his house; but the dwelling stood back a
little from the road, with a well-kept yard in
front, and with outbuildings strung off to one side,
ending in a big, yellow barn. In the farmyard
the Deacon was feeding his sheep, and as the
pink light of the setting sun fell upon his long
white beard, Joe was seized with a sudden shrink
ing; he felt that it would be almost sacrilege
even to suggest that the Deacon could have made
a mistake. His voice was somewhat quavering
when he spoke.

The surprise of seeing him appeared, for a second,
to startle the Deacon; but as Joe modestly stated
his errand the Deacon's blank face hardened.

"Young man," he said, "I have not made
any mistake. I don't make mistakes. I only
got the flour that I was entitled to. If you had
stayed at home and attended to your busi
ness you wouldn't have lost this flour, if, as
you say, it's disappeared. Knowing that you
weren't attending to your business I went myself
to bring my flour, and, what is more, I had to

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load it myself; and you haven't heard the last of
it, either."

Joe returned home in deep gloom. He had evi
dently made a mistake, and what was more, he
would have to pay for the missing flour, and if old
Grantham could bring it about he would lose his
place. The road was twice as long to him going
back as it had been when he went down.

All that week Joe spent investigating; but there
was no trace of the flour.

Friday morning, however, an acquaintance dropped
in. He had a grievance against Deacon Grantham,
and he found a sympathetic listener in Joe. Every
time he cursed the Deacon, Joe felt as if he had
done him a favor.

"They say since he robbed the widow Fostyn of
her place he's afraid to meet her in the road, and
every time she comes to town he thinks she's come
to see Lawyer Stuart to bring suit against him and
get it back. Ain't no love lost between Lawyer
Stuart and the Deacon. I heard Lawyer Stuart say
last week that the Deacon ought to be indicted for

THE NEW AGENT

overloadin' his horses. Says he seen him with a
load of flour on Saturday week couldn't no two
horses in the county pull up Fostyn's Hill, and he
was beatin* 'em unmerciful and talkin' mighty un-
becomin' a Deacon, too."

" Did you hear him say how many barrels he had
on his wagon ?" Joe asked casually.

"No; didn't hear him say how many he had; jist
heard him say he had an ungodly load for two
horses to pull up that hill."

When his visitor left, Joe sat for some time ponder
ing. That afternoon he struck out down the road
which Deacon Grantham always took. He stopped
at a store on the roadside and asked for a drink of
water. Casually, he inquired, also, if they wanted any
flour, and if any one had been hauling flour by there
within the last two weeks. No one had but Deacon
Grantham. No one had observed how many bar
rels he had. Joe decided to push on. At the first
house beyond Fostyn's Hill he stopped again to ask
for water, and he made the same inquiry.

"I guess you can't sell much flour this way," said
the kindly woman who came to the door. " Deacon

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Grantham sold some below here last week, I know,
'cause the Deacon, I heard, sold it to lighten his
load. I heard as how he had a balky horse and he
couldn't get up the hill with all he had, so he parted
with a lot of it down to Jesse Roache's."

"Do you know how much he had?" Joe asked.

"Well, I didn't count it," said the old woman;
"but my granddaughter did. Mary, come here!
How many barrels of flour did you say Deacon
Grantham had on his wagon t'other day when he
went by here with such a load?"

"Twelve," said Mary, with the color coming to
her face, being much more interested in the young
man, with his broad shoulders and keen eyes, than
in any question relating to flour.

"Yes, that's it," said the grandmother; "I re
member now, I counted with Mary, 'Two, four,
six, eight, ten, twelve,' and said as how it was a
pretty big load to come up that hill with them
horses."

"Yes," said Mary, "he just could make it, and
Tom Putnam and I had a talk as to whether a round
dozen barrels of flour weren't too much for one load.

THE NEW AGENT

Tom said as how if the Deacon weren't too stingy
to feed his horses they could pull a dozen barrels
easy enough; but ten barrels was too much for any
two horses that the Deacon feeds."

Joe, with his heart beating, thanked his friends
and kept on to Roache's store. Here he inquired
guilefully if he wanted to buy any flour; but Mr.
Roache replied that he had all he wanted at present.

"What is flour worth?" he asked.

Joe gave him a price — a high one.

The storekeeper's face brightened at the thought
that he had made a bargain.

"You ask too high for it, young man. Deacon
Grantham didn't ask that much for it, and you know
the Deacon knows how to charge."

"Well, maybe, his flour was not as good as mine,"
said Joe.

"Yes, it is good flour, too; I have got a couple of
barrels here now."

"Will you let me see it?"

"Walk in."

The storekeeper led Joe back to his store
room, and there were the two barrels of flour,

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with the "Haxall and Crenshaw" brand — the
very barrels which had disappeared from Joe's
freight- room.

"I hear he had a mighty heavy load on that day,"
said Joe.

"Yes, he had," replied the storekeeper; "that's
the only reason he let me have it at that price."

Joe found the road back to Lebanon short enough
that evening.

The next afternoon Joe hired a buggy, and, in
viting Squire London to go with him, drove down
to the Deacon's. When he drove up, the Deacon,
as before, was feeding his cattle, and, as before, the
rays of the evening sun gave him a peculiarly be
nignant appearance.

Joe, leaving Squire London in his buggy in the
road, passed through the gate and into the barn
yard, as he had done the week before, and in the
same voice, and almost in the same words, he ex
plained the object of his visit.

"I think you must have made a mistake, Deacon,"
he said, almost tremblingly. "Anyway, my ship-

THE NEW AGENT

ment is out two barrels, and I'll have to pay for
them unless you have made a mistake."

The Deacon turned on him with unexpected sever
ity.

"Young man, I have told you twice that I have
made no mistake; that I only got the flour that be
longed to me; and it would serve you right if you
did have to pay for them. And, young man, you
would get off very easy by only havin' to pay for
them. You don't attend to your business, even if
you know it. And now I want you to get off my
place, and don't you ever put your foot here again."

Joe put his hands in his pockets. An unexpected
sparkle shot into his eyes.

"No," he said, "I ain't going to get off your place
until I am ready. But I am going pretty soon." His
voice was perfectly calm, and his eyes were level
with the Deacon's eyes. "I thought, maybe, you
might have taken the flour by mistake; but I am
satisfied now that you stole it, and stole it to injure
me, and I have come here to tell you that I have
got full proof that you did. I know where you
sold it, what you got for it, and know where it is

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at this minute. Now, you come up and see me. I
make my report Monday."

He wheeled and walked quietly out of the barn
yard, and, getting in his buggy, turned and drove
home.

"He looks real benevolent, don't he?" said
the Squire. "Looks like he was ready to git
milk for new-born babes. But you got to watch
him."

"I have," said Joe.

That night Joe paid a visit to Lawyer Stuart.

THE following Monday morning Joe was at his
desk, humming a tune, and every now and then
chuckling to himself, when there was a step behind
him. Turning, he faced Deacon Grantham. The
Deacon was dressed in his Sunday clothes.

"Well," said Joe, "you have come. Sit down."
The Deacon drew up a chair. His face was pale,
and his eyes showed that he was much disturbed.
When he spoke he had the confidential tone which
Squire London had mentioned to Joe.

THE NEW AGENT

"Yes, I have come to see you to explain things. I
did make a mistake."

"Yes?" said Joe. "Well?"

"You haven't made your report yet?"

"I haven't sent in my report yet," said Joe; "it
goes to-night."

"Well, that is all right," said the Deacon; "I
want to pay you for the flour."

He glanced around over his shoulder to see that
no one was within ear-shot; then slowly put his hand
into his pocket.

"I got six dollars a barrel for it, and, of
course, if I pay for it you won't say anything
about it to anybody, and I will make it up to
you ? Suppose we call it fourteen dollars for the
two?"

Joe waited until he had gotten his money out, and
then shook his head slowly.

"Well, say fifteen ?" said the Deacon, and putting
his hand into another pocket he drew out another
dollar, which, evidently, had been placed there to
meet this contingency.

"No," said Joe, "I think not."
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UNDER THE CRUST

He turned around to his desk and, taking up a
pen, began to write.

The Deacon was a spectacle. For a moment he
appeared to be lost in doubt and indecision. Then
he drew nearer.

"Well, what will you settle it for ?" he asked.

Joe reflected a moment, and then, rising slowly,
turned and faced him.

"I don't know that I ought to settle it at all, but
I will settle it for one thing."

"What is that?"

"For a full deed of conveyance to Mrs. Fostyn of
the place you robbed her of, upon the payment to
you of the exact amount you paid for it, without one
cent of interest; the interest being offset by what
ever you may have gotten from it, whether it be
much or little; that deed to be executed and deliv
ered to me to-day." He had the words by heart.

The Deacon flung up his hands and burst out
laughing. He was sincerely amused.

"Well, that is a good one! You think I am ! "

But Joe had turned and reseated himself, and
begun to write quietly.

THE NEW AGENT

"A deed for the best place within ten miles of
Lebanon for two barrels of flour! Well, I like your
brass! What do you take me for?" The Deacon's
laugh had an unwonted merriment.

Joe wrote on.

"You think yourself pretty smart, young man,
don't you?"

Joe's pen went on quietly.

"I have brought you the amount I got for those
barrels I took by mistake, just as you said yourself,
and that is all you will get, young man."

Joe began to fold a suspicious, formal-looking
paper, and the Deacon's eyes fell on it.

"What is that you've got there ? " he asked quickly.

"My report," said Joe quietly, "charging you with
stealing two barrels of flour." He was addressing
the envelope.

"What are you going to do with it?"

"Mail it."

The Deacon's countenance fell, and he drew a
step nearer.

"Wait a minute. Now, you be reasonable," he
said. "You know everybody is liable to make mis-

UNDER THE CRUST

takes. I am sorry I did it, and I came here to make
a liberal settlement with you."

For answer Joe began to put the paper in the
envelope.

"We'll call it five dollars for you, and you not to
say anything more about it?" added the Deacon.
He took out a fat pocket-book.

Joe lighted a candle, and taking a piece of sealing-
wax began to heat it in the flame.

"Young man, you don't want to injure me ?" The
Deacon's voice had a new tone in it.

Joe sealed the letter with slow deliberation, and,
rising, reached for his hat.

"Where are you going?" demanded the Deacon
falteringly.

"To get this letter off," said Joe.

His eyes met the Deacon's, and the latter saw in
them that which froze his blood and turned the
marrow in his bones to water.

"Wait," he said.

"Not a minute; I am done."

"What is it you want? Make it ten dollars?"

Joe moved toward the door. The Deacon seized him.
94

THE NEW AGENT

"Call it twenty-five dollars; I have got it here in
my pocket." He opened his pocketbook with sur
prising swiftness.

"Go," said Joe sternly, motioning him toward the
door; "I want to lock up this office."

"Wait a minute — give me that report."

Joe still pointed toward the door.

"Go on!" Relentlessness spoke in his eyes.

The Deacon burst into tears.

"Young man, you are robbing me and my chil
dren. You don't want to rob my poor wife and son."

Joe turned and faced him.

" You know who is the robber." Something with
held Joe from saying more, but the scorn in his face
said it all.

At the end of five minutes of expostulation and
entreaties the Deacon brokenly asked:

"Who will pay for the deed?"

"It is written and paid for," said Joe. "Come
along."

"I will sign it," sobbed the Deacon.*

A half-hour later Deacon Grantham signed the
95

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deed to the old Fostyn place, and the lawyer, with
appreciation in every line of his face, handed it to
Joe, who drew from his pocket and paid over to the
Deacon the full amount that was due him on a close
calculation.

As the Deacon left the office he turned to Joe:

"You swear you'll never say a word about that
flour?"

Once more Joe's glance withered him. He flung
the deed on the table between them.

"If I ever hear of your saying a word against the
widow Fostyn, or any one named Fostyn, I tell."

"I ain't goin' to say a word against her as long as
I live," said the Deacon.

Joe slowly took up the deed again.

The man that drove home that afternoon in the
Deacon's wagon was ten years older than the man
that had driven up to town in the morning.

That night Joe wrote a letter to Elizabeth. The
deed went with it.

"And now! am going to the West," he said in
closing.

The following afternoon he was sitting at his desk
96

THE NEW AGENT

when he heard the door open softly and then softly
close behind him. Turning, he faced Elizabeth.
And the heavens opened.

"Oh, Joe!" She buried her face in her hands.

Joe never knew how it happened.

In a second he was at her side and his arms were
around her. The windows were wide open, but
Joe forgot it.

An hour later they were standing together under
the trees in the old Fostyn yard, when a wagon
passed along the highway below them. As Deacon
Grantham looked that way the setting sun, slanting
across the grass, bathed them in its soft light. The
Deacon almost reeled on his seat. Thirty years
rolled back and for a moment he thought it was
John Fostyn and his young wife as he had seen
them there. As he drove on his face was as white
as the flour that had lost him the place. But Joe
and Elizabeth saw only each other's eyes.

A BROTHER TO DIOGENES

/\FTER a hard autumn's work, in which the
strife had been more severe than I ever remembered
it before, I found myself, as my doctor expressed it,
"Not sick, but somewhat out of health." It had
come to a pass when the ups and downs of the
market meant a great deal to me. I wanted to be
rich, and riches always meant more and more.
Following the advice of my friends and clients, I
had begun to take little "flyers," acting, of course,
always on "sure things." I read three papers at
the breakfast table, studied the financial pages of
another, and bolted in to look at the ticker in the
office of the first hotel on my way downtown. I
had been quite successful, and the more money I
made, the poorer I appeared to myself. I was not
quite envious, but I could not bear to have others
richer than I, and others were so rich.

It was just then that I began to push cabs and
cars along and to feel a little sensation in my fore-

101

UNDER THE CRUST

head which, after an unexpected flurry in the street
that ran my holdings up and down for the space of
a week or two and left them decidedly down, be
came a sort of band-like feeling. When things had
settled, several of my clients had gone to the wall
and one of my friends, whom I saw every day at
lunch, had gone to bed and forgot to turn off the
gas. For a month or more I tried to bully myself
into the idea that nothing was the matter; but after
many nights in which I seemed hardly to lose con
sciousness, I consulted my friend, Dr. John. He
looked at me in the quizzical \vay he had.

"You say you are rich?"

"No, not rich; but moderately well off."

"Well off!" he repeated with his half-cynical
smile. "I call you pretty badly off. You won't
live long — unless," he added, after a pause which
seemed interminable, "you knock off right now and
go away."

"How long do you give me?"

"How much did you say you slept last night?"

"I didn't sleep at all."

"You slept the night before?"
102

A BROTHER TO DIOGENES

"Yes, some."

"All right; you will leave here the day after to
morrow and go either to the Riviera or to the South
west. I give you your choice. And you will give
me your word that you will not leave your address
with anybody but me, or write a business letter and
will not come back without my consent."

"And if I don't?"

"Then you will go to pieces." He tapped his
forehead.

Two days after that I took the train for the South
west, and on the morning of the fifth day, after a
dusty climb over the Divide and a run through the
Mohave Desert, with its scrub and sand, we sud
denly came out into the land of flowers and green
trees, lemon groves and crystal air.

That afternoon I spent knocking about in the
quaint old town on Santa Barbara Bay, which still
held some of its Spanish quaintness and charm,
though the modern tourist and the modern caterer
to the tourist were rapidly sweeping it away. It was
the first time in several years that I had ever been
conscious of any other pleasure in the outside world

103

UNDER THE CRUST

than that of mere physical comfort. But the quie
tude began to act like a balm.

I had discovered, however, that I was really "out
of health," and the talk of "stocks and bonds" and
"money" and "markets," which I could not escape
even at my meals began to be an exasperation. I
wanted to get well. To escape these inflictions I
began to ride about the country.

It was upon one of these rides that I came upon
the "Brother to Diogenes."

I was walking my horse slowly along a trail across
one of the foot-hills of the Santa Ynez range, which
towers like a rampart of light between the sea and
the desert, when turning an abrupt corner I came
upon the "Brother to Diogenes."

An old man, sun-tanned, travel-stained, and
weather-beaten, with a shaggy beard, who at first
glance looked almost like a tramp, was seated on
a grassy bank, his back propped up against a
boulder, basking in the sun which streamed down
on him, while a few yards below him, contentedly
grazing on the fresh green sward, was a small
and evidently very old, sunburned "pinto" horse.
104

A BROTHER TO DIOGENES

His pack was undone and lying, half opened up,
on the ground.

I possibly might have passed on with a casual
salutation had I not observed that in the old
man's lap rested a small worn leather-bound
volume, which he had evidently laid down when
he filled the pipe which he was now contentedly
smoking.

"Good-afternoon," I said.

"Good-evening, sir," he said in reply.

The pleasant voice and the old-fashioned use of
the word "evening" made me look at him more
closely, and I noted that his features were unusually
good, his eyes clear and keen, his face expressive of
benignity, and that, while his outer clothes were
shabby and worn, his linen, though plain and coarse,
curiously enough, was unusually clean.

"You have selected a good point," I said.

"Yes, sir; it is one of my coign es of vantage of
which I am particularly fond. I often come with
an old friend to enjoy it." Here he laid his hand on
his book as one touches a friend's arm. "I think it
must have been from just such a point that 'stout

105

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Cortez' gazed on the Pacific, 'silent upon a peak in
Darien

With his pipe in his hand he made a gesture
toward the south, where the green hills lay in fold
above fold, as though Spring had cast her robe
about her and left it to lie along the ocean's marge
in countless undulations.

'"May I enjoy it with you a few moments?'' I
found myself recognizing his claim to it.

"Certainly, sir. Take a seat and make yourself
at home. "The world is wide enough for thee and
me.'"

By this time I had dismounted.

"From town, son?" he demanded indifferently,
with a slow turn of his eyes from my direction to
where, far below us, the brown houses and reddish
roofs of Santa Barbara lay speckled among the green
palms and pepper-trees of the quiet valley, with the
old mission at the head of the valley, a mere dab
looking over the town to the blue bay with the bluer
islands ranged along on the other side. I nodded.

"Like it?" He was a man of few words until
interested.

106

A BROTHER TO DIOGENES

I replied at some length, "I liked it very much."
It was so "different from the East," where I had
come from: "so much quieter: the life so much
more natural," etc. He appeared to lose interest as
I went on, so presently I paused.

"Why did you come so far?" This was after
quite a wait.

"Well, I was a little out of health: worked too
hard." I thought he referred to my coming West,
but he did not. He gave a grunt.

"I know. I mean why'd you come so far from
town? Fond of countrv-"

•

"Wel-1, I don't know — Ye-es, I suppose so."

"Humph!" He sucked quietly at his pipe. And
after a listless minute he picked up his book and
bepm slowly to read. It was plain that I had fallen
in his good graces.

I meant to recover my lost place, if possible.

"I expect I am fonder than I know." I began.
"I have lived in town so much that I had almost
ten what the country was like." He laid his
lxx»k down very slowly, and presently, without con
descending to look at me. said:

10?

UNDER THE CRUST

"Why'd you do that?"

"I was working."

"Humph! Got a family!" This was not a
question.

"No. Nobody but myself. But I wanted to
succeed."

"Why?" This was after a perceptible pause.

"Oh, I don't know. Because I was a fool, I
suppose."

"You were." This was his first positive asser
tion. "Well, did you?" he vouchsafed to inquire
after a pause.

"Why, yes; measurably. I made a good deal of
money."

"You call that success?" His eyes were resting
on my face.

"Yes. Don't you?" He did not vouchsafe to
reply to this. He only pulled at his pipe.

"What'd you do with it?" He was getting inter
ested.

"Oh! Invested it — put it in bank and in stocks
— gilt-edged securities."

"What for?"

108

A BROTHER TO DIOGENES

"To keep." I was not used to this Socratic
method.

His weather-beaten face relaxed and his blue eyes
twinkled.

"That's right funny," he drawled. "A man
works himself to death to get money to lock up and
keep in a bank."

"Not at all," I fired up. "I want power; the
respect of — of people." I had started to say "of
friends," but I was glad I did not, for he said quietly:

"Must be poor kind of people respect you for
your money. What'd you think if I were to tell you
I had more money than any man in the country?"

I knew well what I would think, but I did not
wish to appear rude. I had become interested in
the old fellow lounging there in his rags, so I simply
said:

"Have you? Tell me about it. Where is it? I
suppose it is a mine ? I see you are a prospector."

He nodded without removing his pipe from his
mouth. Then, after a few puffs, he took it out.

"Yes, it's one of the richest, I think the richest I
ever saw."

109

UNDER THE CRUST

"Well, where is it ?" I determined to humor him.

He looked at me with a shrewd glint in his deep-
blue eyes.

"It is where you are not likely to find it unless —
Do you know the shores of Bohemia?"

"No, I do not. It's been some time since I
studied geography."

"I thought so. Well, I'll only tell you that I've
got it." He chuckled in a half-childish way which
satisfied me that my first conjecture was right, and
that he was a little mad.

"Well, tell me about it," I said. "How did you
come to get it?"

"Oh, I don't mind doing that, son. I just stum
bled on it — just stumbled on it, you may say, after
hunting my heart out like many another fool." He
was talking to himself rather than to me.

To break the reverie into which he had drifted I
asked :

"May I inquire where you came from?"

He turned his eyes on me with a little twinkle in
them.

"Well, I've seen the time and place when a ques-
110

A BROTHER TO DIOGENES

tion like that wasn't considered altogether polite.
Th' wasn't but one man given to asking that par
ticular question: the marshal, and he had to have
his gun handy."

"I did not mean any offence."

" Oh, no. It happens that I know no reason why
I should not tell you. I am from the East. You
know the wise men came from the East."

"A long time ago. And your na ? " I checked

myself just in time.

"That question, too, I've seen make a man carrion.
But I don't mind telling you. I am a brother to
Diogenes."

"And jou have been rich?" I began to see how
it was.

"I am rich," he replied gravely. "Richer than
Croesus, richer than Solomon ever was, and he
'made silver to be in Jerusalem as stones.'

"When the war closed I found myself flat down
on the ground, for everything was gone except the
ground; even the fences had disappeared, and I've
often wondered since I came West what would have
happened to us poor fellows if we had found wire

111

UNDER THE CRUST

fences when we camped at night, instead of those
good dry rails that we used to burn against orders.
I had just enough to get away and take my younger
brother with me. We went to New York, where I
knew some people, and he secured a position in a
railway office, while I found a place in an office — a
mining bureau they called it. We were ambitious
to succeed — at least, he was. I had rather got mine
knocked out of me. A year at Point Lookout and
those five years down there trying to keep the old
place from going into Jim Crew's pocket had a
little dulled my energy, and I was fond of books.
But Ken was ambitious. He meant to succeed.
And work! You never saw a boy work so. Why,
it was day and night with him. He worked himself
to the bone. He was thinner than I was when I
came out of Point Lookout, and I was thin!
Week-days and Sundays he was at it — late at
night I'd sit up and wait for him sometimes,
and sometimes I'd just turn the lamp down and
go to sleep, it was so late. And sometimes when
he came in he was so tired he couldn't sleep. I
tried to get him to let up; but he said he
112

A BROTHER TO DIOGENES

couldn't. The work was there, and he had to do
it or fall out.

"One morning — it was Sunday, a bright spring
morning — I was going into the country to see the
peach blossoms and wanted him to come along, but
he said he couldn't; he was due back at the office.
As he was dressing I saw him stagger. He sort of
sank down on the bed, and I saw his lips were red.
I had seen men bleed from the mouth when a bullet
went through 'em.

' ' Let 'em know at the office I couldn't come,' he
said, 'and I'll be down to-morrow.'

"The doctor I got just took up his hand and then
laid it down again and looked at me. He had been
an old soldier too. I had told him what he had
been doing.

"He knew what I asked him, though I didn't say
a word, and he just shook his head.

" 'What brought it on ?'" I asked.

'"Worked to death— that's what they do. I've
seen many of them.'

"Ken rallied, and I thought he was going to pull
through; but that night it came on again, and before

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UNDER THE CRUST

I could get the doctor he was gone. I did not grieve
for him at first much, I was so glad he could rest.

" ' Who's the head-man down there ? ' I asked the
doctor, ' and where does he live ? '

"Well, I don't know who is the superintendent;
but the real head-man, of course, is the president.
He owns the road. He is one of the richest men in
New York. He lives in that big house up on the
Avenue. I saw him this morning going to church.'

"I suddenly felt myself go cold and then hot.

"Does he go to his office every day?'

"Guess he does, except when he's off on his
yacht, or in Europe, or at Long Branch.'

"'Thank you, doctor. That's all,' I said. 'You
did all you could or anybody could.'

"Next day a letter came for Ken from the office,
mailed the evening before. It was a formal notice
to call and get ten dollars due to him. He was dis
charged for not coming down the day before. I
took the letter, and locking the door with Ken lying
there, went down to the railroad office. It was one
of those big buildings, full of floors, and all the floors
full of pens where men sweat over long tables, with
114

A BROTHER TO DIOGENES

the head men in corner rooms, wainscoted with
mahogany, and with big desks and great arm-chairs.

"I went right in and up to the president's door
through the whole line of offices and pens and desks
where the men were shut in like prisoners. Two or
three of them tried to stop me, but I passed right by
them, and when they saw me keep straight they
thought I had an appointment. I walked right in.
The president was seated at his desk, with his
stenographer at his desk. He was a big stout man
with keen eyes, flabby cheeks, and a hard mouth.
He had built himself a palace on the Avenue with
out a tree or a flower or even a spear of grass about
it — just stone. The stenographer was a thin young
fellow with a sallow face and thin, bloodless lips and
restless eyes like a grub-staker used to watching for
signs. They both looked surprised and the presi
dent was really astonished. He was too much as
tonished even to ask what I wanted; but it didn't
take long to tell him.

"'You are the president of this railroad com
pany ? '

"'I am.'

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"'I have a letter here.' I opened the letter to
Ken and laid it on the desk before him. He glanced
at it.

"'Well?'

"'I am his brother.'

"'Well?'

"'He's dead!'

"Well, I'm very sorry; but I don't see what I
have to do with it.'

"I suddenly grew hot and cold again.

- you! Don't you say that to me. You
killed him, and if you say that to me I'll kill you
right where you sit.'

"He sank back in his chair, and his face was
whiter than the stenographer's.

' ' Don't get excited,' he said, and reached his hand
out to touch a bell, but I cut him short.

"Don't touch that bell. If I am excited, my
brother is quiet enough. I left him on the bed
where he died and you write to him that he is turned
off because he didn't come Sunday when he was
dying. You went to church that day, I reckon, and
when the preacher said, "Remember the Sabbath
116

A BROTHER TO DIOGENES

day to keep it holy, " prayed God to write it in your
heart.'

"'My dear sir,' he began, but I stopped him.

"'Don't you "dear sir" me either. You are
nearer to death this minute than you ever were in
your life. Here is your acquittance in full.' I laid
his receipt on his desk. I had written it in full and
made it out, 'For murdering Ken.'

"Well, I kept on working for a while; but I
didn't have much heart left for it. I found that it
was grind or rob. Half of them were robbing, or
trying to rob the other half, and those who suc
ceeded were called the successful ones and the rest
just ground themselves away like an old pick.

"Even those who were called successful did not
get any real good out of it. They got no enjoyment
out of it except that which the miser has of hoarding
up gold. The more they had, the more they wanted.
Joy, health, peace of mind, happiness, all went
through the sluice. And if they got more money
they didn't know how to spend it. They built big
houses and stored their barns or their bank boxes
full and called on their souls to enjoy it, and about

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then God required their so-called souls of them.
About the time it came they had to go hunting for
health. That railroad president dropped dead in
his office one day, quarrelling with another railroad
president over an extra million or so.

"I had studied geology and metallurgy, and had
gradually become the one the firm relied on to ex
amine and pass upon the mines that were offered
them. So they got in the way of sending me out
West to look at the mines. I was glad to go, for I
had a holiday from the office and liked the free
West. I used to find men there — rough, tough men,
often full of lice and all uncleanness, but still men.
But though I toiled for 'em and made 'em money,
they did not offer to raise my salary.

"I told them one day that I wanted a holiday.

"Well,' said the senior member, 'we can't spare
you just now. We've got the biggest thing on we've
ever had and we need you to go and inspect it.' He
always talked as if he were saying, 'Let there be
light,' and there had to be light.

"That's a pity,' I said, 'for I'm going to take a
holiday.'

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"I guess you can't take a holiday without I say
so,' he said, frowning at me.

"I guess I can, and to show you, I'll start right
now.' I put on my hat. 'Good-day.'

"I'll discharge you,' he said, very red. I turned
and laughed at him.

'"Oh! You can't do that.'

'"Why?'

"Because I've already discharged you. I'll
never work another minute for you as long as you
live/

"When he saw I was going he tried to make up.
He called me back — asked me to wait, and began to
smear me with a lot of soft soap. He would double
my salary, and all that. But I knew him and knew
what it was worth, and told him, 'No.' That he
knew I was worth more before, and was worth more
than double my salary, and that if he had not in
creased it before, I did not want it now.

"Well, he almost begged me to stay, but I would
not.

"So I came West.

"At first I thought I could set up as an expert
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and assayer; but I fell into the way of going out and
prospecting and liked it; so I held on to it. It took
me out into the country — the desert or the moun
tains, and it brought back the times when I used to
follow old Jack and sleep out under the stars. I
had 'most forgotten what they looked like. You
know you never see them in New York, or the moon
either."

He suddenly lifted a warning finger.

"Sh-h-h!"

I saw he was listening to something with pleasure,
for a pleasant light had come over his tanned face.
I strained my ears in vain to catch the sound of a
horse's feet or the far-off noise of a train, the smoke
of which I could see between the hills two or three
miles away. Suddenly I saw him peering eagerly
into a chaparral thicket just below us, and became
aware that a mocking-bird was singing lustily in his
dusky retreat.

" Did you ever hear anything to beat that ? That's

what I've been waiting for. There are only a few

of them up here, and they, like myself, prefer the

quiet places to the noisy lowland down there. They

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cany me back — He drifted off into a sort of
a reverie.

"Have you ever been to Italy?" he inquired
presently.

"Yes, once." I had galloped through once, giv
ing one day to Venice, one to Florence, two to Rome,
and one to Naples and Pompeii. I was in rather a
hurry.

"Did you hear the nightingale? I have always
thought that I would go down to Mexico some time
to see if I could not find one of those Maximilian
brought there."

"No, I never did. I was there only a short time."

"I'd like to hear the self -same song 'that found
a path through the sad heart of Ruth when, sick for
home, she stood in tears amid the alien corn.'"

I brought him back with a question as to how he
had got on in the West.

"Better than in the East," he said. "I kept on
until I had tried pretty much every gold and silver
field that opened up in the West. But somehow the
more I saw of that sort of thing the less I liked it,
the more I saw it was akin to what I had left in the

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East and hoped I had shaken forever. Men tramp
ling each other down, cutting each other's throats,
for a bit of mountain-side or desert that would not
yield as much as would plug a good-sized hole in a
tooth. They were so busy scuffling to get gold that
they did not have time to nurse the sick or bury the
dead. I was in with 'em, too, broiling in the sun
and freezing in the cold. All day in the gulch, and
all night in the gambling-hell. Till one day it came
to me just like a flash of lightning what fools they
were and what a blind fool I was to bunk with such
a lousy bunch of locoed jackasses. I had got to
gether quite a good stake and was about to come out
with it when a couple of scoundrels stole it from me.
They said they came from Kansas, but I think they
came from New York. Well, they sickened me, and
I cut the business — sold out to the first man that
made me an offer and struck out for myself. It
was then that I got old Pinto, there. He was young
then and tolerably mean, and the man's had him
said he was locoed, but he guessed he wasn't locoed
any worse than I. Well, I thought I knew who was
locoed. So I got him, and together we cinched my
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kit on him, and I tra-laed 'em and lit out. Look
at him now! He's got more sense than the whole
camp I left that morning. Knows just what he
wants and when he's had enough, and don't
go on trying to pile it up to keep." He nodded
his head with pride over to where the horse
stood dozing and lazily whipping off a fly from
time to time with his sun-burned tail, a picture of
content.

"Even then, do you know, I wasn't satisfied? I
had the disease. For some time I kept on grub
staking; just travelling up and down till I got sort
of bent double, looking at the ground for gold, like
Mammon. I know the hot plains where the only
vegetation is sage-brush, and the only breaks are the
flat-topped buttes and the crooked mesas that frizzle
in the blistering sun, and the only inhabitants are
the lizards and the ants, and I know the big moun
tain-tops where a man can hear God writing his
eternal laws as Moses did. So I went over most of
the Rockies and Sierras, but, little by little, as I
wandered up and down, I began to feel how good it
was to be up there, even if I didn't strike gold, but

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just found the air clear and clean as dew, and the
earth quiet and undisturbed and carpeted with flow
ers, with the creatures God made — just as He made
'em, neither better nor worse. And at last I got to
striking deeper and deeper in, so as to get away
from folks and to have it all to myself and the other
wild animals."

His eyes began to wander over the landscape,
spread out at our feet like a map of Eden, and his
face grew so ruminative that I saw he had lost in
terest in his story and I began to fear that I should
not hear the rest of it. At length I made so bold as
to ask him a question.

"How did you happen to find it at last?"

He came out of his reverie as out of a cloud.

"Find what?"

"The gold. Your mine."

"Oh! I was telling you about it, wasn't I ? Well,
it was fool luck — just fool luck. You know it
doesn't take sense to get gold. Some of the biggest
fools I ever saw made the most money.

"One day I had got up pretty high on the range
and had turned my horse out, to enjoy one of the most
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A BROTHER TO DIOGENES

beautiful views in the world, when I struck it — just
fool luck.

"I had about given up all idea of ever hitting
anything richer than the dirt to bury me in when I
stumbled on it. That's a curious thing about life.
We work ourselves out trying to make a strike, and
when we are about dead we stump our toe and
there it is at our feet.

"I felt sure it was where no man had ever been
before and where I came mighty near not going;
for nature or God, after putting it there, fortified it
with a more impenetrable abatis than any engineer
could ever have designed if he spent his life trying.
He hid it among inaccessible mountains and spread
before it a desert where the sun dries the marrow in
men's bones and an atmosphere which is like a blast
from hell. I had a dim idea that there was a region
over that way that no man's eyes had ever seen,
and so I took an old friend or two along and struck
for it, to see what it was like. Not that men had
never tried it before, but no one had ever set his
face that way and come back; and those who fol
lowed them found only borax beds and their sun-

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dried bodies tanned by a sun that fried all the fat
out of a man's body in a day.

"I tried a different way — in fact, I was a little
crazy then, I think. They say God protects chil
dren and idiots. Anyhow, I went in over the peaks,
my old Pinto and I. I didn't have much idea that
I'd ever get in, and I had less that if I got in I'd
ever get out again. But I loaded old Pinto down
with enough to last me a good four months, and in
I went. It was steep climbing most of the way and
heavy work all the way. But I liked it because I
felt as if I were Adam and owned the earth.

"Did you ever go where you could feel like
Adam ?" he asked suddenly. I could truthfully say,
"No."

"Then you don't know how a man can feel.

"That is a curious thought — after you get used
to it. At first it is too big. It makes the head swim.
I go up sometimes into the mountains and see the
rim of the earth turn up or down as it slips from
over the sun or steals over it. Or I go out into the
desert to feel the vastness of it and see the shadow
of the globe on the sky and know that in all that
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A BROTHER TO DIOGENES

circle there is not a soul but myself — just my
self and the wild creatures who follow the law of
nature.

"I had been in there some months when it came
to me that I'd better be taking my bearings so as to
get some more grub and tobacco before winter.
But when I started on the back trail I found there
were places I had come up which I couldn't go
down — not without losing Pinto, and I would not
do that. So I just struck on to cross the whole
range. This, too, was more than I had laid off, and
for the first time in my life, since I left New York,
I found I was lost. This didn't trouble me much,
however, for it is appointed for man once to die,
and it might as well be like Moses on a mountain-
top as like a pig in a pen. I might have turned
back, but every now and then I found nuggets that
hadn't grown there and that I knew had been
washed down from somewhere up ahead, or I got
views that beat anything I ever dreamed of. So
I kept on with old Pinto, climbing and climbing,
until one morning we came to what I took to
be the top of the range. But when I got there

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it was but a step up like the rest; and there they
were, range after range, stretching beyond me
in blue waves of mountains, billow on billow, up to
snow-capped peaks that held up the sky. And
what I had taken to be a table-land was really only
the level edge of the crater of an old volcano. But
my soul! it was a vision! It reminded me of that
saying, 'And the Lord God planted a garden east
ward in Eden.' There was a river that ran down
from the snow above and divided into four streams,
one of which ran into a lake and all about it were
trees and flowers. Pinto, however, did not seem to
be as interested as I was, and he began at once to
snuff his way down to the water, with me at his
heels, under a bower of lilacs of every hue. I had
been so busy looking around at the flowers and
thinking how like the Garden of Eden it was, and
how peaceful it was, that I had not looked at the
rocks, but when I sat down it was on a great bulge
in the ledge that the volcano had once thrown up,
and after a while I began to examine it. As soon
as I saw it I knew what it was. It was gold. A
great vein of gold, richer than any I ever saw, that
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A BROTHER TO DIOGENES

that volcano had pushed up there, and there it lay,
a great stratum with one end bulging out and the
other resting — in hell, I reckon.

"Well, for a while I couldn't think. Then my
first thought was — if Ken had only lived — and then
the others. Next I thought how I'd do when I got
out. I'd go to New York and make those swine
root at my feet for the gold I'd throw in their mire.
I thought how I'd insult that railroad murderer, and
I followed my fancy till I got sort of crazy to get
there. Then it came to me that I might as well
follow the lead and see how far it ran, so as to get
an idea of how rich I was, for I allowed it would
run $200,000 to the ton. I got on my feet and began
to climb over it, and I must have gone a mile before
it began to dip. I was right at the top of the rim
and there was a little clump of pines and Joshuas
there, and as I looked under the shade of one I saw
two piles that looked like ant-hills, except that they
were rather too regular. I pushed up to them — and
if they weren't gold! Two piles of gold as high as
my shoulder that had been dug and piled there. My
teeth began to chatter and before I knew it I had

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jerked out my gun to kill anyone who would dis
pute my claim.

"The next minute, though, my breath stopped.
On the other side of the clump lay two skeletons,
and through the breast of one and through the ribs
of the other were knives that told the story. A little
farther off, where I found them later, were the skele
tons of their horses and their kits and things. These
two men had been chums for years — you might say
like brothers — and together had come all that way,
faced all the dangers and endured all the hardships
that I had known, and then, in the hour of their
triumph, when they were standing in sight of enough
gold to buy a kingdom, they had killed each other
over some petty difference arising out of their divi
sion. And the buzzards had picked their bones.

"I knew it all then, but it was not until that night
that it came home to me in its full significance. I
knew what it meant if I should return to the East
with my new wealth, and all that night I rolled and
tossed as I had not done since I left the city. And
the next morning the pillilooeets came and gibed
and shrilled their 'Pee-ahs' at me with their noses,
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and the buzzards circled and watched and cocked
their eyes down at me as they had done at thousands
who have died for gold.

"I fought it out all that day, but that night when
the darkness fell again, rolling down from the gray
mountain-tops above me, and the stars came out and
blinked down at me like the eyes of angels, waiting
to know my decision, I reached it. I made up my
mind to cut it and all that went along with it. I
was free. Why should I go into slavery again ? At
the thought my soul revolted. The reek and the
stench of the cities came back to me and turned my
stomach. It all became clear to me that night under
the silent stars. It seemed sort of to get in my blood.
And presently I began to think of all that I had lost
— of the comrades I used to have when I was tramp
ing up and down in Virginia with no more than one
frying-pan for a mess and a ragged blanket for two
of us, fighting for something else than gold. I
thought of those who had died for it. And then of
little Ken, as he withered there in New York in that
cursed Death- Valley atmosphere. And presently I
began to feel that I had gotten along pretty well as

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it was, and I began to count up what I would lose if
I went back to that hell where I used to see men
frying in their own fat. All the camps I loved up
in the keen air on the mountain-tops came back to
me, the desert with its wide warm places and silence
and the deep gloom of the redwood forests where the
light is tempered to the cool green like the depths of
the sea; and at last I decided I'd just keep that
gold there until I wanted it, and in the meantime
I'd live as God meant me to live, and see the country
God had made.

"To prove my gratitude to my two friends who
had helped me to my decision I took their bones and
buried them each in a pile of the gold that had
caused their death; and as I did not know which
was which, I drew lots to see which should have
which. And there they lie now, each under a pile
of gold that would have made Midas mad. I picked
up enough gold to last me until I went back. It
was a long and tedious trip, but after weeks of work
I found my way out — and here I am, the richest man
in all America if not in the world."

I glanced at him to see if he were not joking, but
132

" Here I am, the richest man in all America, if not in the world.

A BROTHER TO DIOGENES

his face was profoundly serious, and I became quite
satisfied that he was mad.

"What do you call your mine?"

"I call it the Cain and Abel," he said, "after the
two brothers who first found it. You see I con
sider them my sleeping partners and they have all
the gold they want now."

He mused for a little while, but he soon began
again.

"Yes, now I reckon I'm about the richest man in
the world. I've ranches so big that it takes me
months to get over them. My wheat fields stretch
from the mountains all the way to the coast and my
gardens bloom from one year's end to another. I
have my art galleries, too, with such pictures as no
artist but one ever painted, and they are all taken
care of for me. The colors are from Him who
made the heavens blue and stained these hills green,
who paints the sunrise and sunset and spangled the
sky with stars."

To get him off this subject I asked him how he
managed in cold weather.

"Oh, I never get cold," he said, "I'm a nomad
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like my ancestors. When I wish it I travel with the
summer, but sometimes I love the keen, frosty air
of the mountain ledges; it hardens me. I am like
the water-ouzel; I love the storms and the water
falls. And up there I make friends with God's
creatures — from the big, lazy, amiable bears to the
little scolding pillilooeets, who live on pine nuts
and fresco the trees with their little claws."

"Do you ever kill them?" I asked.

"Me? No! Am I God to kill and to make
alive?"

"I see you carry a pistol."

"Only for men. They are the only animals that
prey on their own kind even when they are not
hungry. Other animals kill in self-defence or for
meat."

"But have you never thought that you might get
ill?"

"Oh, yes. But I do not worry about it. It is
appointed to man once to die. I shall not antici
pate it. Whenever Death finds me I shall try to
meet him pleasantly."

"No, but I mean if you fall ill?"
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A BROTHER TO DIOGENES

" Oh, most illness is the fruit of the life fools live.
Over there in the old mission I have a cupboard if
I ever want to shut myself up, and up the canyon I
have a friend or two who understand me and let me
roam about without attempting to hobble me or
weary me with futilities. And in various places I
have ranches where they would be glad to give me
a corner, for the sake of the little, dirty, sunburned
children who know me. But when I die I want to
die under the open sky. No peering fools to treat me
with contempt; rather let the buzzards have me.
I'm going down now to see my orchards in the
Santa Clara Valley: miles of white bloom. Have
you ever seen them?"

I told him, "No," but that I had heard of them,
and then to test him and partly to humor him, I
asked, "Are all those yours?"

"Yes," he answered. "I let others work them
and I just enjoy them. That's reasonable, ain't
it?"

It seemed to me so at the moment. But when I
had said good-by, and was coming back to town,
after asking him to let me take him some tobacco

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the next day, I began to be a little befogged about
him.

When I returned next day, to my disappointment
he was not there; but in a cleft in the rock against
which he had leaned was a small package with a
note addressed to me on the card I had given him;
and in the package were a handful of specimens of
almost pure gold, which he said he had left because
I seemed "rather poor." I took the specimens and
showed them to a scientific man whom I had met
in the town and who did some assaying there.

"Where did you get them?" he asked in wonder.

"An old fellow gave them to me."

"So you have seen him?"

"Yes. Who is he?"

"No one knows. He calls himself 'a brother to
Diogenes.' Some think him mad, and, perhaps, he
is. I don't know."

"What is that?"

"Gold."

"How pure?"

"Almost pure. It has a little sulphur mixed with
it. He evidently knows where there is a gold mine.
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A BROTHER TO DIOGENES

Probably he gets it and puts it through a crude
smelting process. See, this has been in the fire."

"He says it came from a volcano."

"I don't know. No one does. Attempts have
been made to follow him, but he is too keen for
that; he has had great offers, which he laughs at.
Some think he is in league with the devil."

"He seemed to be a harmless old lunatic."

"Yes. But he talks reasonably enough. You
were in great luck to get any of his nuggets. He
usually gives only to the poor. He must be mad."

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A GOTH

J. HAD known him when he first came to town
from the backwoods, a strapping, big, raw, long
haired, shaggy country boy, so green that it is a
wonder the cows had not eaten him, and without a
cent in his pocket. And now he was in the papers
of two continents, spoken of by some with that re
spect which the possession of mysterious millions
usually exacts, as "a power in the financial world";
assailed by others with bitterness as a "pirate" or
"highwayman" who lived but to upset values, de
stroy markets, and batten on the fortunes of the in
vestors he had wrecked. Whichever he was, he had
become in the twenty years that had passed since I
had last seen him one of the most interesting, if
disreputable, figures in commercial life, and had
thus verified a brazen prediction which he had made
when he first appeared in our little boarding-house
company with his red head, worn clothes, and
patched shoes. Long-limbed, big-jointed, and bony,

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with his clothes too tight and too short where he had
outgrown them, he became at first a sort of butt in
the boarding-house. His cheek-bones were high, his
mouth and nose big; his eyes, deep blue, had an ex
pression of singular candor in them like that of a
boy's, and when his bull-dog chin was set you might
as well have tried to move the bow of Ulysses. These
were his weapons of offence and defence. He
quickly put an end to any tendency to ridicule on
the part of his fellow boarders ; for he was as choleric
as a poodle and as nervy as a game-cock and within
a week he had "called down" the two best men in
the company. He was never cast down, never con
founded, and he was, in a sort, liked by most of
us, for he was polite when he was treated civilly,
and he was universally respectful to women.

He had one besetting sin. He was a born gam
bler, and when he came to grief I helped him out,
and it was my loan — offered, not asked for — that
pulled him out of a trouble more serious than I had
dreamed of. He told me afterward that he would
have killed himself if he had not been afraid of hell,
and if he had not been unwilling to leave the girl he
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A GOTH

was in love with — two curiously different motives.
And he showed me her picture, a photograph of an
apple-cheeked country girl without a trace of dis
tinction. He declared her to be the most beautiful
creature in the world, and vowed that some day he
would dress her in "black silk and diamonds."

It was this episode, perhaps, which made Dorman
remember me now when, after twenty years, our eyes
met in the Cafe La Belle, that gay rendezvous of
the gay life of Nice. A movement in the brilliant
parterre of hats before me opened a vista, and there,
at the end of it, seated at table with several ladies,
who, though for the most part, fashionably coifed
and gorgeously dressed, appeared rather out of place,
was my old friend and former protege. I knew him
at once. After two seconds of puzzled reminiscence,
due, he told me frankly, to his astonishment at see
ing me in Nice, he knew me too, and without a word
he pushed back his chair and came striding toward
me with open mouth and outstretched hands, shout
ing his welcome. There was no doubt of his sin
cerity, and people turned and looked at him writh his
great bulk surmounted by his fine head with its

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tawny mane. He was evidently not unknown, at
least to the men; for a number of them spoke to
their companions, who thereupon put up their
lorgnons and gazed at him with renewed curiosity.

I was unfeignedly glad to see him. He was the
first compatriot I had seen since my arrival the
evening before on the Sud Express, except, indeed,
one whom I could scarcely reckon as such, so com
pletely was he disguised in foreign manners, imita
tions, and affectations. This young man was the
son of a man of great wealth, known in the world
for his money, who, on his part, was the son of a
man of great ability, who had made the wealth.
The grandfather had founded huge enterprises and
amassed thereby a large fortune; the father carried
on the enterprises and increased the fortune largely;
and now the son, who had been pampered and
spoiled from his golden cradle up, was spending the
money by every method which occurred to the idle
brain of a youth of some little intellect, extraordinary
knowledge of gay life for a man of his years, and as
much folly as could well be packed into one frame
somewhat burdened by rather unusual good looks.
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A GOTH

I had known of the grandfather, old Sam Newman,
when he was at the zenith of his power. It was he
who had recognized the capabilities of my friend
when he had left our little circle for the wider field
of the commercial metropolis, and had utilized his
forces there, giving him his start. I had known the
father when he wras considered the exponent of
wealth and its capabilities, and I had casually met
the young man, Sellaby Newman, when he was be
ginning to be known as a candidate for the honor of
being esteemed the wildest example of a wild and
dissipated set. Since then he had more than ful
filled his early promise, and had achieved what his
own set of young fools were said to envy him: an
almost international reputation for reckless debauch
ery. I might not have known him now had not his
name been prominently before the public of late as
the quasi-hero of a somewhat unsavory scandal
connected with the name of a danseuse qf much
vaunted beauty and unusual recklessness. I had
seen her a week before in Paris, carrying an audi
ence by storm; and now when she came sailing
into the cafe with all the gorgeousness of a bird of

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rarest plumage and with the beauty which was undeni
ably hers she attracted the attention of the entire com
pany. At her side, handing her along with a certain
insolence of air and a trick of the eyes and shoulders
which he had caught in his wanderings, was the
young spendthrift, Sellaby Newman, and I think I
should have known him even had not his name been
muttered from half a dozen tables near me. The
tone was far from friendly and the term "Americain"
was used a number of times as an epithet.

After he had taken his seat he glanced my way
with an air of studied unconcern and his eyes, or
rather, the one which was not obscured by a monocle,
fell into mine; but evidently my face recalled no
recollection — at least, none which he was willing to
harbor. He half turned to his companion and mut
tered some observation at which her carmined lips
barely parted.

It was at that minute that I first saw my old
friend, Dorman, across the room, and he came
striding between the tables toward me. I was, I
confess, a trifle embarrassed at such a public declara
tion of my virtues as he gave; but he was as ob-
146

A GOTH

livious of everything else as though he had been in
a desert.

Nothing would satisfy him but I must come to
his table and dine with him. My declaration that
I had ordered my dinner had no effect. I must
dine again. "Come along. I will show you a real
dinner. You don't know what a dinner is. This
isn't the old boarding-house. Mme. M. has the
best chef in Nice and he knows me well. Don't
he, Joseph?" This to the sleek head-waiter who
had followed him across the room and who now
stood smiling obsequiously at his elbow.

So, I was taken across and introduced to his wife,
a plain but pleasant looking little woman with gentle
eyes and as destitute of waist as the Continent of
Africa; overloaded with diamonds worth a king's
ransom, even when kings were rated high.

"Mary," he said, as he called my name, "this is
my old friend, Tom, of whom you have heard me
talk so often." Mary's kind eyes betrayed an ex
pression of vague anxiety. She was "very pleased
to meet" me; as were the others to whom I was
presented in turn.

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"Are you a broker?" she inquired, evidently try
ing to place me.

"A broker! No," burst in her husband; "this is
the man who, when I was broke that time — the first
time — down in the country — gave me the money to
square up and gave me that good advice about
gambling that I've never forgotten." This to me,
looking me full in the face, who had read, within
two months, of one of the greatest gambling deals
that Wall Street had known in years, put through
by the sheer nerve of the man before me.

Mary, however, took it as he meant her to take it.
Her eyes softened. "Oh, yes," she knew now, and
was "mightily obliged" to me, she was sure. But
for me William might never have gotten up. He had
profited by my advice. He had often told her so.
He laid all his good fortune to having followed it.

William's blue eyes were on me blandly.

"No, not all, Mary," he said with sincerity. "I
must give you credit for some." And again his eyes
met mine with that candor which was like a boy's
and which had cost so many men so much.

The other ladies at the table were his sister-in-law
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and his "Cousin Jane," the last very like him, but
with a certain refinement which the rest lacked, and
with a twitch of humor about her wide, strong
mouth which showed that William Dorman had not
deceived her.

The dinner was all that he had promised, and be
fore we were through, Mme. M. came in in her quaint
costume, tightly laced over her buxom figure,
touched off with jewels, and beamed on us out of
her handsome eyes which had once, so report said,
ensnared one of the most celebrated men of France;
and Dorman drank her health in "the best bottle of
wine in Europe," as he declared.

As we dined he told me something of his history —
of the struggle he had made, the difficulties he had
encountered, and the reverses he had suffered; in all
of which, he said, Mary had stood by him, like the
trump she was. And as he talked and ate and drank
— enormously — he recounted his experiences with the
same zest with which he drained his champagne.

He certainly was not modest. His boasting, how
ever, was relieved by his grim humor. In the
midst of his relation of some coup which had cost

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him or someone else a million or more, he would
burst out into real laughter over the recollection of
the ridiculous figure he used to cut in the boarding-
house in his short breeches and his patched coat.

"By Jove! they were worth a good pile to me,
too!" he declared. "I played them in New York
against some of those slick fellows till they were more
threadbare than they ever were in the old boarding-
house. I used to look dull and talk like a country
man until they tumbled to it and began to shy off
when I put on my country-boy air."

He had been office boy, telegraph operator, book
keeper, confidential clerk, general factotum: "pretty
much everything, in fact," he said, "from head-man
to little dog under the wagon.

"I didn't keep a place long," he laughed; "I was
just learnin'. I learnt telegraphin' so 's I could
send my own ciphers and take theirs; bookkeepin'
so 's I could tell where I stood and how they stood;
but I could carry a whole set of books in my head
then. I took a private-secretaryship so as to get a
good gauge of a man I wanted to gauge — and I
got it."

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A GOTH

He chuckled at a reminiscence and then broke
out: "I'll tell you about it. I had got in with the
old man." He named the grandfather of the young
spendthrift at the table across the room with the
danseuse. "He liked me because I was smart and
could look dull, and because I could do twice as
much work as most men. He knew I was smart
and he thought he could use me and fool me too — •
that was his way. Oh, he was a keen one! There
was where I got my real start." He threw back his
head and laughed. "You see I had learnt all his
ciphers and I could read 'em almost at sight, and he
didn't know that I could even telegraph. So that
gave me considerable advantage. Then, when I
threw up the secretaryship he wanted to know what
I was going to do. Told him I'd let him know soon.
I'd already done it. I staked every dollar on the
ace — and won."

His wife turned and laid her hand on his arm.
"Now, William, you are talking about those cards
again."

"Oh, no! I'm not. I'm only talking about those
I used to play." This seemed to satisfy her, for

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she turned to me with a pleasant smile. "You know
he used to play cards right smart; but "

"But now I've seen the error of my ways," he said
quickly with a candid look at me, and then added,
"The man that would deceive as good a wroman as

that ought to be damned — I'll be d d if he

oughtn't!"

Without giving me time to reflect on this bit of
casuistry he swept on, giving me a glimpse of his
career and methods which was certainly startling
and at times astounding. He had often been hard
pushed, sometimes to the very wall, at times much
worse than insolvent. "But I always knew I'd win
out," he declared vehemently. "You see, I always
paid in the end, with interest; so that, at last, I could
always get staked. I was often destroyed, but never
cast down, and they never knew it. And that little
woman there — He looked at his wife, with a nod
and smile of real affection, and she blushed like a
delighted girl — "she stood by me like a brick.
When I was up, she wore my diamonds, and when
I was down, she gave me hers"

"And why not?" she said simply.
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A GOTH

Her husband smiled and went on: "Till at last
we began to be really somebody. By the time they
had me stretched out and nailed to the floor with
a stake through my body some five or six dozen
times, they began to find I was really alive, and
then they began to come around. Oh, I know 'em,
the snivelling hounds! they fawn on you when you
are up and fall on you and try to tear you to pieces
when you are down. But no one ever heard me
whine when I was hit or knew me to hector when I
was up. It is when I am down that I bluster. You
know that," he said, with a glint of a smile in his
blue eyes; "and I have bluffed many a one.

"But my biggest bluff was my Wheat Deal. I'll
tell you about it. I was young then, but it made me
old. And it came mighty near settling my hash."
He cast his eye just half-way toward his wife, and I
asked him how it was. "You mean you went
broke?"

"Oh, no!" he laughed; "I was broke, but that
wa'n't anything. I was generally broke those days.
But by pawning everything we had and brazening it
out, and knowing where every bushel of wheat was

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on the earth — every bushel, mind you — and just how
long it would take to get it to market, I pulled it off.
But, by Heaven! it made me old. Any fool can
make a corner, but it takes a strong head to get out
of it yourself."

"Well, you had good luck. Very few men have
tried that and come out safe."

"She saved me." He nodded over towards his
wife. "And it cost me a cool million dollars, too."

"How was that?"

"Why, the gang who had been trying for weeks
to skin me waked up one day to find that judgment-
day had come. I had closed out every bushel and
had gone home to go to sleep, which I needed
mightily, when they began to roll in. She, there,
had known something big was up by the way I acted :
figgerin' and cussin' and fumin' and drinkin' coffee
and not sleepin' a wink sometimes all night, and she
hadn't liked it any too much while it was goin' on.
But when I came home and told her it was all right
and I had got out safe, she said: 'Thank God!
Well now, William, I don't want you to do that sort
of thing any more, no, not for three millions.' — I
154

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had told her I had made three millions. — But she
thought three millions was a good, comfortable sum,
too. Her father had made three hundred and fifty
dollars once on his wheat crop, and whenever I made
anything on wheat, which I had done several times,
a few hundred thousand or so, she had always
brought up those three hundred and fifty, and I
never could make her feel that mine was so much
more till I put on a few hundreds and sixty or
seventy odd besides. She understood it all right, but
she could'nt feel it. In fact, she hasn't much con
fidence in any arithmetic that she can't do on her
fingers; but, by Jove! she can do the addition with
those fingers — they just fly.

"Well, as I say, I hadn't more than got home
when they began to come in, pleadin' the baby-act,
with white faces and shakin' chins, to tell me they

was busted — the whole d d gang — cleaned up, as

though I did'nt know it. They had looked into the
pit of hell expecting to see me sizzling there and
found out 'twas themselves. I knew 'em, and knew
what every one of 'em was worth, an' what they
were, too, down in the bottom of their souls. Some

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of 'em were good fellows, too; but they didn't know
how to play the game. Others knew how to play it,
but got caught and come to tell me so, like men —
not to whine. Well, I never had it in me to be hard
on a man when he was down I never hit a man
real hard but once — I mean since I was a boy,
when I had to fight pretty hard now and then — that
was when a fellow, one day, knocked another one
down and then began to kick him. Well, I reached
over, and got a grab of his neck, and when I let him
go, he kind of flopped down by the other in a lump
— he didn't know whether he had a rib left stickin'
to his backbone or not. So now, when they came
rollin' in that away" (he always said "that away"),
"I began to size 'em up and ask 'em how much they
were worth. Well, so much. And how much 'd it
take 'em to begin on again; would so much do it?
'Yes, indeed.' 'Well, I'll leave you that and I'll
take the rest,' I'd say; and you ought to have seen
'em pearten up. It really was a big thing for 'em;
for it saved 'em from liquidatin'. I got so in the way
of doing it that when two or three of 'em come in
who I knew had been layin' for me, I took the
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A GOTH

high horse and let 'em off easy in the same way.
One of 'em broke down and blubbered — said I was
a white man after all, and he'd never say another
word against me 's long as he lived. I came near
tellin' him what a white-livered hound I knew he
was, but I was feelin' kind o' good, and it was only
when they'd all gone that I began to think, maybe,
I'd been a blazed-faced fool to let 'em off that away.
However, I was feelin' pretty virtuous and was
thinkin' what a good, kind sort of fellow I was, when
the door opened and in walked Mary. As soon as
she come in, I knew there was something up, by the
way she began. She just plumped herself right in
front of me and opened up:

"'Why, Will-iam!' When she calls me 'Will
iam!' I have to look out. She generally calls me
'Popper' or 'Popsy' or 'Deary' or 'Billy.' But
'William' means business, and '\Vill-iam!' means
hell to pay. This time she says, 'Why, Will-iam,
I am surprised! Is it possible!' Well, I was so
stuck on myself that for a minute when she said
she'd been listening and was surprised, I thought
she must be put out at my bein' so generous.

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But 'twarn't but a minute; for in a second, she was
just goin' it: head up, cheeks flamin', eyes blazin',
body straight and stiff as a poplar and words
acomin* about five hundred to the minute. 'Why,
William,' she says, 'you've been gamblin' — gam-
blin ' ! and you told me, and I was foolish enough to
believe you, 't you'd been " buyin' wheat." Well, for
a while I thought I'd brazen it out, but no good.
' What if they were " try in' to do you ? " What if they
were " in a clique to rob you ? " Is that any reason
why you should rob them ? I know you are smarter
than they. I knew you were smarter than anybody
else when I married you, but I also thought you
were honester, too ! Because a thief is lay in' for you
to rob you, is that any reason why you should lay
for him and rob him, ? You know what that makes
you ? I am ashamed to hear you use such a — a —
dishonest argument/

"Well, sir, I tried to recoup by pretending to be
mad, but it didn't work, — no sir, she had the call
on that, and she played it well, I tell you. 'I am
an honest woman,' she says, 'and my father was an
honest man and — ' Oh, yes ! ' I says, ' I know, and
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A GOTH

he made three hundred and fifty dollars on his
wheat-crop one year!' I says, 'and here I've made
three millions on wheat and you are abusing me
like a pickpocket.' 'Yes,' she says, cutting in and
getting sort of high and mighty, 'and that's what
you are — by your own confession — a pickpocket —
justified to yourself because you've picked the pock
ets of other pickpockets. No use of your sneerin' at
my father!' she says, 'He was an honest man and he
wouldn't have made a dollar dishonestly, not for
three millions, and I thought when I married you
that I was marrying an honest man.'

'"Well, so I am,' I says.

"'I thought so till to-night,' she says. 'But
now — I waited for her to finish; but she just
steadied herself and looked at me straight and clear;
' I am an honest woman ; I have tried to live so and
I mean to die so, and as God is in Heaven, I will
take my children and go back home and live down
there with them.'

"'Now, look ahere, Mary; be reasonable,' I says;
for I saw she meant it. When she gets that way
she always says 'my children,' she don't allow me a

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hair of 'em. 'I will,' she says, 'as God is my
Maker. I don't mean them to be brought up by
a gambler.'

" 'Mary,' I says —

'"And I will take them away and try to bring
them up honest, at least — however poor they may
be, unless you'll pay every one of those men who
came here to-night what you've won from 'em and
give me your word of honor that you won't ever
again as long as you live gamble in wheat.'
"How long will you give me?' I says.

'"Just till I can get this ring off my hand,' she

says. And by ! you know, she began to tug at

my wedding-ring.

"I promise,' I says, and I said it d d quick,

too; for I saw my finish right there.

"'Your word of honor as a gentleman ?' she sayo,
looking right through me.

"Yes, my word of honor as a gentleman, I'll
never gamble in wheat again.' And I've kept it, too,
for I never gave my word of honor to anyone and
broke it. I was glad to get off so easy, too; for the
cold sweat was breakin' out on me when I saw her
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A GOTH

tuggin' at that ring. I was glad she was fat that
night."

The dinner was about over, and I must say it had
been one of the best I ever ate. He showed a sur
prising knowledge not only of the cookery, but of
the cooks themselves. At one time, he had every
high official in the cafe at the back of his chair, and
was telling them just how he wanted a certain dish
cooked.

He suddenly branched off.

"Have you ever seen Nice?"

I said I had seen something of it when I spent a
winter there.

"Oh! I don't mean that," he said, with a touch
of his old arrogance. "You saw only the streets
and the cafes where boys go —

"Well, not altogether," I interrupted; but he
swept on.

"I mean the real Nice, the Nice of men and — of
fools," he added. "You come with me, and I'll
show you."

"My dear," he said, turning to his wife, "my old
friend wants me to show him a little of Nice, so I

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am going out with him for a little while. Don't be
disturbed about me if I should be out late."

" Well, I'll try not; but don't be out too late, dear,"
she said, with a look of idolatry at him and of some
misgiving at me.

It was just then that young Newman, in pearl
shirt-studs, monocle and frizzled mustache, passed
us with his beautiful companion, all glittering in
pearls and diamonds. As I stood face to face with
him, I bowed and he barely lowered his eyelids;
but he bowed to my friend, and I thought half-
paused to bow to his wife. But if he had this idea,
he thought better of it; for Dorman looked him
straight in the eye, with a sudden contraction of
his own that made him look dangerous. His return
to Newman's "Bon soir, m'sieur," was a grunt that
sounded as though it might burst into a roar. The
other passed on and a good deal of his haughty as
sumption seemed to have fallen under our table.

"Who is that?" asked Mrs. Dorman.

"Oh! just a damned little fool who ought to be in
an idiot asylum," said her husband easily

A half hour later, having dropped his wife and
162

A good deal of his haughty assumption seemed to have fallen
under our table.

A GOTH

cousin at their hotel, his carriage stopped at a fine
establishment in the Place de Messina, and a minute
later we climbed the great marble stairway, and,
having left our coats in the hands of an attendant
whom my friend called, "Emil," he ushered me into
the great apartments of the club, a miracle of gild
ing and marble and frescoes, resembling an old
Venetian palace.

His entrance created what might without exag
geration be called a sensation. Perhaps, two hun
dred or more men and nearly as many women were
present, seated or standing about the tables where
the regular game was going on. At the mention of
my friend's name, however, there was a stir all
through the room, and nearly every eye was turned
on him, while a good many of the habitues greeted
him, and gathered around him. He was evidently a
man of consequence among them, and to my surprise
he spoke French, if not well, at least with great
fluency, never hesitating a moment or staggering at
any rule of grammar. Even the stony faces of the
croupiers changed and took on something of a hu
man expression as he greeted them in hearty, if

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execrable French : "Eh! bien — braves ga^ons ; com
ment va *9a c'longtemps? Tres bien? Ah! bien."

Then in English to me, over his shoulder, "I'll
show these Frenchmen a thing or two in a few
minutes. You watch. I'll rattle 'em, till they look
like old Step. Hopkins 's signature to the Declara
tion of Independence." And without further ado,
he made his way to the big baccarat table, and after
a few minutes, took the banker's seat. He pulled
out a wad of thousand-franc notes, which showed
that his promise to Mary had been given a liberal
construction and that he had come prepared for a
big game. The stolid face of the croupier opposite
actually looked interested.

From the start, the luck was against him, but the
loser only grew the cheerier, and began to jolly his
opponents to raise the bets. They soon became so
large and his losses were so constant, that many who
had at first held back, began to edge into the game,
betting on one side or the other, and soon the other
tables were deserted.

I confess, that as he sat there with his solid bulk,
his ruddy face and his cheerful air, his hat on the
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A GOTH

back of his round head, a big black cigar in his
mouth, I could not but feel that he was at least a
full-blooded man; and as the thousands passed
from his hands, I was aghast. His credit, however,
seemed better than his luck; for, as often as he
nodded to the money-changer in his cage for more
cash, the checks were furnished — so far as I could
see without the least reckoning, though, of course, a
strict account was kept. He seemed to be making
everyone rich, when luck, with its usual inconsis
tency, shifted. A few of the most noted high-
players in France had come into the game., Bets
that would have staggered Mary's confidence were
being made on the turn of a card, and soon my
friend was recouping himself from the most re
doubted gamesters in Nice. As he had borne him
self gallantly in his reverses, so now he began ac
tually to be modest. He became more polite than
I had ever seen him, his serene blue eyes softened
and his manner grew almost polished. One of
his opponents, a well-known plunger, Baron - — ,
after a persistent run of bad luck, pushed back his
chair and bowed to him grandly; my friend scrib-

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bled something on a card, and, with a bow which I
would not have given him credit for, handed it to the
banker at his back. Five minutes later, the Baron,
with a nod and smile to him, resumed his seat and the
deal began again, to end in the same way. Dorman had
scribbled him a friendly note, asking permission to
act as his banker for two hundred thousand francs.
It was just then that young Newman entered the
apartment, and with a word to his gay companion,
came up to the table. I saw my friend's face change,
and. following his glance, knew the cause. The
young man made his way to the table, with a slow,
affected saunter, and insinuated his approach through
the crowd, his monocle in his eye, a set simper on
his face, exchanging bows with his acquaintances,
who stared at him with half-amusement. As he
approached the table, he made some observation
over his shoulder to his companion, which caused
a titter among those nearest him. I did not hear,
or at least, I did not understand, but William's face
hardened just a trifle, and when Newman spoke to
him, he barely nodded. It seemed that he had
said to the girl that if she would wait he would
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keep his word and show her that the great banker
was not so terrible after all, and all that was needed
was a man to stand up to him to back him down.

•In a moment he took a seat at the table, yielded
him by an unlucky player, and asked for checks.
My friend glanced at him.

"I don't play with boys."

The other flushed.

"I am not a boy — I will show you as I have shown
some others," he added in French.

"Oh, well, of course," said my friend, and in a
few moments they were really the only two playing
in the room; the rest were mere spectators. It was
a duel indeed. Newman was a high player, but
fortune, like his companion, smiled on him only to
betray him. At first the luck was with him, and
there were many titters at Dorman's expense, as
the pile of checks grew larger and larger before the
younger man. But suddenly the wind of fortune
veered. My friend's perfect coolness exasperated
the other, and he soon began to plunge. Dorman,
with inscrutable eyes, dealt the cards like clockwork,
and the broad, sword-like paddles lifted the winnings

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and deftly distributed them about the table, sweep
ing the major part into the pile in the middle, till
the banker's net winnings were up in the hundreds
of thousands. Suddenly the younger man threw
his head back and said "Banco." A gasp ran
around the table and every other player drew his
money back across the line. It meant that Newman
would play for the entire stake on the table. Dor-
man glanced at him with a curious light in his eyes,
and then as Newman met his gaze he dealt the cards.
Newman hesitated, and Dorman's lips opened.
"Withdraw." Newman's reply was to examine his
cards, and just as Dorman offered him a third card
lay a trey and a five on the table. Dorman, of
course, had to keep the card himself. He exposed
his hand and had a nine. The last card was an
ace. Newman almost reeled in his seat. His hand
shook as he took the glass of fine champagne which
he had asked for. Stimulated by the cognac, he
called for another bank. After a moment of reflec
tion, my friend took him up and again won — the
biggest stake ever played in the club. By this time
everyone was crowded around, some on chairs, peer-
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A GOTH

ing over the shoulders of those in front, the danseuse
paling, even through her delicate rouge, and stand
ing frigidly at Newman's back. Newman, by this
time perfectly wild, insisted upon again doubling the
bet. My friend looked at him with a warning light
in his blue eyes, and I wondered what he would do.
Then he shook his head, put a fresh cigar in his
mouth, and rose slowly from his chair. The younger
man turned as white as death, and began to bluster.
My friend watched him with amusement, while the
croupier, at a nod, filled his silk hat with the checks.
Then deliberately taking a handful of long checks
from the piled-up hat and with a nod of thanks
chucking them over to the croupier opposite him,
Dorman picked up his hat carefully and pushed
back his arm-chair, suddenly turned, and leaning
over the end of the table, threw the whole hatful
into the younger man's face.

"I don't play with children," he said scornfully,
"or if I do, I do not take their father's money."

He turned off unconcernedly and slowly made his
way through the crowd. As I followed through the
throng of excited, gesticulating, chattering, shouting

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Latins, in the wake of the broad-shouldered, slow-
moving, full-blooded, masterful man who had so
astonished them, and who now passed through them
as serene and unconcerned as though he were alone
in one of the forests of his native hills, all sorts of
expressions came to my ears. He was "extraordi-
nair," "prodigieux," "epouvan table," etc. One of
these struck me and stuck to me afterward. A
smallish, dark man, with sharp black eyes and
peaked nose, a curled and tightly waxed mustache
over thin, bloodless lips, piped in a shrill, fife-like
voice, "Mais, il est un Goth!" And he was right.
On the instant stood revealed, as though he had
blown down the ages, a pure Goth, unchanged in
any essential since his fathers had left their forests
and through all obstacles, even through ranks of
Roman legionaries, sword in hand had hewn their
way straight to the goal of their desires. He was a
Goth in all his appetites and habits, a Goth un
changed, unfettered. True to his instincts, true to
his traditions, fearing nothing, loving only his own,
loving and hating with all his heart — a Goth.

As he tramped heavily down the broad marble
170

" I don't play with children," he said scornfully.

A GOTH

steps with the attendants bowing before him, I said,
"Well?"

He took it as a question.

"D d slow after the Stock Exchange! Then,

after a moment's reflection: "That fool! no, not
fool — he doesn't rise to the dignity of a fool — the

d d jackass ! He is a disgrace to his family and

his country. He an American! He ain't even a
foreigner. He's a counterfeit — an empty-headed
sham, dam', expatriated jackass! If he had dared
to speak to my wife with that — that woman on his
arm I'd have broke his neck, and he knew it. It's
that sort of Americans that make me sick!"

He spat out his disgust.

Next morning Newman sent a friend to see him.
I happened to call at the same time, and heard the
challenge given. Dorman's reply was: "I neither
play with children nor fight them. Tell him for me
that it will be time enough for me to think about
killing him when he pays me what he owes me."

As the second left the room, he repeated the phrase
I had caught the night before: "Mais, il est un Goth!"

Page 172 blank

LEANDER'S LIGHT

LEANDER'S LIGHT
I

T» HEN I first knew Rock Ledge Harbor, it was
merely a little fishing village of gray, weather-beaten
houses, occupied by weather-beaten people, appar
ently almost as much stranded as the old barnacle-
plated wreck which lay in the small, circular harbor
against the foundation of a long-since rotted pier.
There were two ways of reaching it, one by the
black, broad-beamed coaster which put in at odd
times for cord-wood or lumber, and sometimes car
ried a few gallons of a liquid proscribed by the
State laws, but much enjoyed by certain of the citi
zens; and the other by the ancient and rickety two-
horse stage, a much decayed, dust-colored survivor
of the old coaches which once ran on down-East
through Portland, and bore the weekly news of the
outside world. I chose the latter conveyance, and
thus found myself one summer evening, after a

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stately drive across the hills, deposited, bag and
baggage, at the front steps of the one hotel, in
appearance much like an ancient fort, crowning
the rocky point which guarded the narrow mouth
of the glassy river, and overlooking the placid har
bor sleeping in a deep nook under the fading rose
of a sunset sky.

I soon discovered that, far from the madding
crowd, with a climate which in summer was un
equalled, "The Harbor" was one of Nature's health-
resorts. The air had the pungency of the pines, the
freshness of the sea, and the balminess of the mead
ows. I reached there too late for the apple-blos
soms; but the lilacs about the little white, gray, and
yellow cottages were still in bloom, and the grass
was all the greener for the lateness of the snow
which had blanketed it until "the frost was out the
ground," far on in April.

The "natives," as they called themselves, were a
self-contained race. They had been settled there
since Sir Ferdinando Gorges planted the colony,
within a generation of the time that the "President
of Virginia and Admiral of New England," Captain
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LEANDER'S LIGHT

John Smith, coasting the shores of North Virginia,
gave his name to the rocky islands a few miles out.
They felt that they owned the place, and they loved
it; and they regarded the outer world with indiffer
ence, and new-comers like myself with proper
scorn.

The "stage road" ran only to the Harbor from
the "Village," a mile inland. Beyond the Harbor
the only road was the grassy lane to the "North
Farm," half a mile away. On this lane, in a little
cove between the rocks, was a single house, a little
"piggin" house, the homestead of old "Simmy"
Goodman. It had been the home of the Goodmans
for at least seven generations, as the inscriptions on
the tombstones in the little square graveyard testi
fied. Once the narrow peninsula, together with
some of the cleared, cultivated fields lying beyond,
had all belonged to one family; but when the divi
sion came, two generations back, other children
had drawn the meadows and the "cleared" fields — •
cleared of rocks — and Simmy and his sister, who
had taken their shares together, had drawn only the
"rock pasture" overlooking the sea, and the little

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homestead nestled in the small strip of cleared land
above the cove.

"Always 'peared like pretty hard luck," said my
informant, "Cap'n Spile," a stout old weather-
beaten seaman who in his youth had been a whaler
and sailed the Arctic seas, leaning lazily against
the rail of the pier, with his blue eyes on the lines
of a sail-boat slowly making her way up the quiet
harbor. "Th' others got all the good land, and
Simmy and Abby got nothin' but rocks and view;
for the old house ain't much for these days. Not
that anybody ever beared 'em say much about it.
Abby al'ays liked view, and Simmy set a heap o'
store by the house. But 't did look hard when the
others had all the hay-land, and they marryin' and
changin' their names, and Simmy and Abby, the
only ones with the name, to have only the rocks."

It did look hard even to a new-comer.

According to Captain Spile, however, there were
some people of late who actually wanted to come
and buy some of Simmy's rocks, and his land was
getting to be almost as valuable as a good field.
"But Simmy ain't much of a hand for sellin'
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LEANDER'S LIGHT

land," the Captain added. And this I found later
to be quite true.

All this was twenty years and more ago, and in
this time the little village, with its dower of sunshine
and sea air, had been discovered by others, and had
changed from a straggling strip of small houses
huddled under the elms about the harbor to a water
ing-place of some renown and expensiveness. Old
Simmy himself, however, changed not a hair. Griz
zled, taciturn, and stolid, he used to be always some
where about his premises, "consortin' with" his big
oxen, which he rather resembled in his slow, rumi
nant habits; sitting with the immobility of a sphinx
in the door of his old barn ; or standing by his stone
wall, looking out over the sea in the afternoon — as
the phrase went, "watching for Leander."

Leander, so I learned, was a brother who hud
sailed away sixty years before, and had never been
heard of again. "But he ain't quite give him up
yet," said Captain Spile. "I beared him say my
self, comin' now forty-six year this June, that he
looked for him every day, and aluz kept a light

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burnin' for him. You go by the cliff- way any night,
you'll find a light up-stairs in the window o' the sou'-
east room ; 'tis what we call 'Leander's Light.'
You can set a course by it comin' around Western
Point, just as sure as you can by Boon-Light or the
Nubble. I've seen it burnin' there many a night
when he and Abby'd put out their own light soon 's
the supper things were washed up. Abby's a right
smart trial to him sometimes, I guess. She don't
hold with it at all. Says Leander's been dead and
in — wherever he's goin' to stay everlastingly — for
many a year. But though Simmy gives in to her
in most things, he never would in that; an' so, I
s'pose, God preventin', that light '11 burn as long as
his own does."

I had made the acquaintance of Miss Abby, a
little, bent, sharp-featured, crippled woman, who sat
most of the time in a roughly made wheel-chair of
her brother's manufacture. Her tongue was as
keen as her eyes, and they were like tacks. Accord
ing to report, she was often as sharp to Simmy as
to others; but, by Captain Spile's account, he never
appeared to mind it any more than a large New-
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LEANDER'S LIGHT

foundland dog minds the barking of a fife-voiced fice.
'Twould drive most folks crazy," said the Captain;
"but Simmy he don't even hear it. 'T is a right
singular thing how a man can get used to a woman's
tongue. Now, Job's wife would 'a' worn most men
out — but Job and Simmy."

I myself had sometimes wondered if Simmy's
stolidity were not assumed as a mask to guard him
against his sister's penetrating shafts. At bottom
she idolized him, as I found when Mr. Slagg, the
new millionaire, tried to get hold of the Goodman
place.

IT is the belief of some that the true serpent en
tered into Eden when Eve began to dress up; and
certain it is, that the idea of conforming to fashion
has destroyed many a pleasant place since that time,
and would go far toward destroying Paradise itself.
This to early summer visitants to Rock Ledge like
myself was the curse of the Harbor. Through the
changes that took place among the summerites,
after the railroad came, the natives pursued their

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even course unchanged. They grew fat, many of
them, on the pickings of the new summer visitors,
and their houses put on new paint and what Miss
Abby called "fancified verandas." But the people
themselves remained unchanged, unvarnished, and
natural. They looked on the summer visitors as
"useful nuisances" and rather amusing barbarians.
What services they rendered these visitors they
charged well for; what pay they received they ren
dered good service for, and there it ended. When
Captain Spile's sister, Mrs. Rowe, who laundered
the clothes of a summer visitor, was approached
with a complaint about too much "bluing," she told
her: "I'll wash you and iron you, but I ain't goin'
to take your sass; so you'd better get some one else
to do it." When Miss Bowles, who answered to
the name of "Frances," waited on the "mealers" at
her cousin Mrs. Steep's boarding-house, and one of
them called her "Fanny," she observed quietly, as
she handed her the potatoes, "I don't care to be
called pet names by the boarders."

In fact, they belonged to the soil, and were Amer
ican to the backbone; a sterling people, like the
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LEANDER'S LIGHT

lichens on their rocks, without much color till one
looked close, but then full of it.

Ensnared by the charm of the region, which capt
ures most of those who set foot there during the
witching season of summer, I had myself, soon
after my discovery of the place, bought a modest
piece of old Simmy's rock pasture, though it was
only after a long negotiation and at a high figure
that I secured it, not to mention certain conditions
which I was fain to accept or give up hope of getting
the land. His father, it appeared, had sometimes
driven his cart down for kelp to a little shingle-
covered cove on the piece I wished, and Simmy in
sisted that I must allow him to keep a right-of-way.
I explained that while the road had been of service
when he used the land for farming purposes, his
land was now building-lots, and he no longer needed
it. It was to no purpose. I had to yield to get the
land at all, and, counselled by Captain Spile, I
yielded.

After weeks of negotiation, all the conditions
were agreed upon; I suggested that we should
draw up a contract to stand until the deed could

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be prepared and executed. This set the old man to
ruminating.

"Why, we understand it, don't we?" he asked.
" You ain't goin' to back out, be ye?"

When the deed was finally prepared, I asked him
how he wanted his money. He pondered fully five
minutes before he spoke.

"Well, money's good enough, I guess."

"All right; I can pay you in cash. I will get it
at the bank. What denominations of notes do you
want?"

"What what?"

"What denom — what sized notes?" •*

Again he pondered.

"Well, ones and twos will do."

So, I had to hand over more than $2000 in one-
and two-dollar bills, and count them out for him on
his table. It required over an hour. He handled
and examined carefully through his old silver-rimmed
spectacles each note as I counted it out, and then
recounted and examined them all again.

This was before "the new Philistines" came, as
Captain Spile called them.
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LEANDER'S LIGHT

The chief of these, whom the Captain later termed
"Goliar," was a summer visitor by the name of
Slagg, who bought of the Long estate the fine hill
which rose behind old Simmy's homestead and over
looked his modest house, as it faced the sea. We
"cottagers" had heard in the city that spring that
something remarkable was going on at the Harbor,
but when the old visitors returned in the summer,
they found that a mansion, portentous in size and
bearing, crowned the lofty knoll back from the sea,
and that the Slagg place was stretching its massive
stone walls like Briarean arms in every direction.
According to some reports, it was the intention of
the new-comer to change the Harbor once for all,
and bring it fully abreast of the most fashionable
watering-place on the coast.

It was even said that Mr. Slagg, the new cottager,
had offered Simmy a fabulous price for his home
stead, which lay between him and the sea, using the
magic name of syndicate, and that the offer had
been refused. I inquired of Simmy as to this, and
he corroborated it in his quiet way.

"Well, somebody did say sump'n' about it,
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but I told them that I didn't keer to sell any
more."

I had heard from Captain Spile at the pier that
Simmy had said he didn't care about syndicates:
they were "too much like a cuttle-fish"; also that
Slagg had said he'd get the place yet.

However this was, the preparations of the new
magnate went on amazingly. It was rumored that
he was going to spend a great sum on his new place,
and the outward and visible signs betokened that at
least his expenditures would be lavish. Extensive
purchases of land were made. The solid rock was
blasted out for gardens and courts, and everything
proposed was on a scale of magnificence hitherto
undreamed of in that quiet region. There was even
talk of his building a great sea-wall, so as to have a
harbor for his yacht and for boats that usually seek
the companionship of such craft. His stables were
on an equally elaborate scale. He was credibly re
ported to have forty horses. Large trees were trans
planted and put in spots that cut off the view, and
the curious thing was that the stable was located in
quite as prominent a position as the mansion. A
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LEANDER'S LIGHT

protest from neighbors, that the stable was offen
sively near their houses and interfered with their
view, met with the undeniable statement that it was
no more prominent from their houses than from his,
and that he did not object to it.

To no one was the change more disturbing
than to the occupants of the little piggin house
just under the front wall of the grounds of the
new cottage. The heavy hauling upon the roads
had destroyed the pathway; the teams stood in
the road and broke old Simmy's fence. But the
real worry lay deeper than this. The new build
ings overlooking them not only destroyed their
privacy, but cut off their view of the rising hills
to the westward with the flaming sunset-skies above
them.

I observed on my return that summer that old
Simmy had shifted his seat from the big chopping-
block in the afternoon sun, where he had always
been used to sit, and sat around the corner of his
house; and that Miss Abby now had him roll her
chair out on the front veranda, instead of basking
in the sunny angle to the westward, where she used

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to mend old Simmy's clothes. I never heard them
explain the change, but once having heard from
Captain Spile that "Abby was takin' on mightily
about cuttin' off her view," I stopped on my way up
the lane and asked her what she thought of the new
mansion.

"'Pears to me," she said, "like they were
takin' one of God's landscapes and makin' a
painted picture of it. But it's none of my busi
ness. I suppose he's tryin' to forge something up
there." She went on sewing with a surer stick of
the needle.

Mr. Slagg, report said, had begun at an anvil,
and by keeping on hammering had amassed a
large fortune. His hammering, however, had of
late years consisted of hammering the market,
and his latest deal, by which he had "realized"
— so the phrase went — millions of dollars, was
regarded by many well-informed men as some
thing rather close to robbery. In fact, a rumor
had somehow gotten abroad that bogus reports
had been issued. So, Miss Abby's innuendo had
a double edge.

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LEANDER'S LIGHT

III

WHATEVER the fact was as to this, Slagg was one
of the newly rich city-men who had sprung up like
weeds from the ruin they had helped to make, and as
he had only one aim — money, — so now he thought
that money would accomplish anything. He looked
like one of his iron pigs, a stout, roundish, oblong,
heavy body on short legs; a rough, rather uncouth
face in which glinted small, keen eyes; a big nose;
and a coarse mouth above a strong chin. He was
not lacking in humor or in good temper, but he
lacked most things that they usually accompany.
He boldly announced that he purposed to have every
thing that money could buy, and his conviction that
"money would buy anything and everything."

The first shock to this view came from old Simmy.
When Slagg first bought and laid out his place, he
tried to buy old Simmy's little homestead, which any
one who had been to Rock Ledge a summer well knew
old Simmy would not sell, and in his first interview
with the old man he sealed his fate, even if he might
otherwise have had a chance. After the agent he

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had sent to sound the old fellow had failed, he him
self went to him, and when the high price he offered
failed to move him, he tried to scare him with a
threat of having his taxes raised. It was a threat
that he had often worked successfully in his career,
but this time he did not know his man. The old
fellow shut up like one of the brown sea-urchins on
the rocks below his house. Still, feeling sure of his
method, Slagg went on building, confident that he
would in time be able, as he said, "to squeeze the old
man out," and he took no pains to conceal his plan.

Since the first moment he stood on his imposing
front porch, he knew he must get rid of his unwished-
for neighbor, or lose much of that for which he had
striven. His front view commanded, instead of the
blue sea with the surf breaking on the rocks and
curving on the beach below, only old Simmy's little
piggin house and bare chicken -yard. He once more
made an offer, which he felt sure would be accepted,
to Captain Spile, who expressed his doubts whether
the old man would consider it. Slagg swore.

"Why, he'll jump at it like a dog — all that money,
and he a Yankee."

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LEANDER'S LIGHT

"He don't want money," said the captain, leaning
over the rail of the pier.

"Don't he! Everybody wants money,,"

"Well, most folks do; but old Simmy's got more
now than he knows what to do with. He don't want
any more."

"There ain't a man in the world 't don't want
more," asserted Slagg, with conviction. "I know
'em. Ain't a man in New York won't sell his soul
for money. I know 'em. I wish you'd go and see
him for me."

"Wa-al, I'm pretty busy," drawled the Captain.

"Busy! I don't see that you do anything."

"I'm busy watchin' the river. Takes up all my
time, pretty much, watchin' it fill and empty. It
just fills up to empty again, like some folks; but
some folks don't even know when they're full."

Slagg did not quite take in the old seaman's
apothegm, but he went off growling about "getting
his way yet." He had not got far when he turned
back and asked me to dine with him, an invitation
which I declined. As he walked away the old Cap
tain followed him with his deep, clear eyes.

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"What does he want to pay that money for? He
owns the world now, don't he?"

And as I followed his glance, I could but
acknowledge the fact.

"You city folks 've got a comical way of swapping
victuals," he observed.

I nodded my acquiescence.

"Now, if I don't like a man, I don't like him; and
if I don't like him, I ain't goin' to ask him to eat
with me, and I surely ain't goin' to eat with him."

I agreed with him that there were a good many
points of difference between him and the people he
mentioned, and when he casually observed that his
wife had a "fresh bakin' of doughnuts" that day, I
was duly appreciative of the compliment, and ac
cepted his invitation.

Slagg did not know old Simmy. And when his
offers of more and more for the little place were met
with the same stolid reply: "Don't keer to sell," he
felt satisfied from his knowledge of men that this
was only a clever ruse to "rob him," as he expressed
it. He therefore sought an interview with old Simmy
at which I happened to be present. Slagg was
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LEANDER'S LIGHT

shrewd, plausible, and persistent. Old Simmy was
dull, calm, and sphinx-like. He met every proposi
tion with silence or the simple statement: "Don't
believe I keer to sell."

"Well, I guess you'll sell if you get a big enough
offer?" said Slagg. "I'd sell anything I've got if a
man —

"Mebbe you would," said Simmy slowly.

"Yes, and so would you." And then Slagg, either
to try him, or in earnest, offered him an exchange
which was obviously to Simmy's pecuniary advan
tage.

"Don't believe I keer to change."

"Well, I will build you a new house, and make
it look like something instead of that old rattle
trap."

The old fellow turned and gazed silently at his
bare, little house, and Slagg brightened.

"Why, it's a blot on the place."

Old Simmy, with his eyes half-vacantly on the
house, wiped his horny hand across his rough face
and kept silence.

"You won't do that!" exclaimed Slagg.
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Simmy gave no further sign, and Slagg's patience
suddenly gave out. "Well, I'm done with you; I've
come here and doubled the value of your property,
and offered you five times what it's worth, and you
won't do anything. I tell you now, I'll never make
you another offer."

"That's go-od," said Simmy, quietly.

"You think it's 'good,' do you? Well, you
haven't done with me yet. Why, you block the way
of progress in this whole town — you block Civiliza
tion ! "

"Be you Civilization?" asked the old man so
quietly that for a moment Slagg was nonplussed.
Then he went off growling and threatening; but
that evening old Simmy's reply was known about
the pier.

IT was the next spring, after Slagg's new house
was finished, that old Simmy's sister, Abby, died. I
did not learn of it until I got back in the summer and
fell in with Captain Spile at the pier. It was like
picking up a newspaper-file after a long absence.
194

Old Simmy.

LEANDER'S LIGHT
"Mr. Slagg he's back, too," he said, "in his
Chromo Castle."

"Still wants Simmy's place, I suppose?"
"Oh, yes, he wants it — bad — and he'll keep on
wantin' it."

"But now old Miss Abby's dead—?"
"He'll never git it now. I told him long ago he'd
never git it, anyhow; but he thought he knew bet
ter. Abby sort o' mistrusted Simmy might git lone
some and git out; but — !" The Captain's eyes
blinked with deep satisfaction.

"What was the matter with her?"
"Worry, Simmy says — havin' her view cut off—
an' her chickens, an' all. You see, she'd always
been feeble, and I think she didn't like the idea.
But she went kind o' unlooked-for when she did go —
't wa'n't even the time of tide for her to go. She
had lasted all winter, and had kept the house, and
when spring come, Simmy thought 't would do her
good to git her out-doors; so he wrapped her up and
set her in the sun, and I think she took cold. But
he says 't was Slagg's house, and worry for fear he'd
sell her out: an' she told him she was cold, that

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Slagg would soon own everything and force 'em out
like he said; and, mebbe, after she was gone and
buried, he would be like Naboth — an' wouldn't be
able to hold out against him. And next mornin' she
was dead."

"Well— Simmy ?— I'll go an' see him. What did
he say?"

The Captain was slowly whittling the pier rail
beside him; so he replied with deliberation.

"Well, Simmy, you know, is a right religious man
now, — he's tolerable old,-^over eighty; though he
wa'n't as much older than Abby as she said by ten
years, — but when he was young he used to be a
pretty hard blasphemer, an' fighter, too, I remember;
an' I judge he'll hold out; that Slagg won't git that
house, not in Simmy's time. Naboth 's a pretty good
hand at standin' Ahab off when he wants to.

"Money's a curious thing, ain't it?" he pro
ceeded.

"Looks like some folks ain't strong enough to

stand the strain — they git warped like green timber

in a boat when you lay her up, now don't they?

Now, our friend Slagg, 'thout his money, he wouldn't

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LEANDER'S LIGHT

be much more account than a chip in the porrich,
an' he ain't so very much account with it."

Next time I talked with Simmy, the old man gave
me a sudden insight into his heart.

"He wa-ants me to sell my haouse," he drawled
in his deep bass; "says he'd sell anything he has.
Wa-al, mebbe, he would. Tha-at haouse was built
so long ago they ain't hardly a plank of the old
haouse left — nothin' but the framin' and chimney,
an' not too much o' that. My gran'mother — I mean
my father's gran'mother — was in that haouse by
herself the las' time the Injuns come down here.
'Twas at night, an' 't wa'n't a soul with her 'cept
her baby and the dog. Her husband hed gone away
to get the men together to drive 'em back, because
they had heard they was comin'; an' they come that
night before they was lookin' for 'em, an' my gran'
mother she heard 'em, an' she banked her fire, and
tied her garter raound the dog's maouth to keep him
from barkin', and set there in the dark, and suckled
her baby to keep him quiet while the Injuns praowled
all raound the haouse and pressed their noses to the
winders, lookin' in to see if anybody was there; an'

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then when they had gone, she slipped aout an' run
down 'long that wall to L'ander DuimeH's block-
haouse an' give the alarm, with her baby in her
arms. I've beared my gran'father tell abaout it
because he was the baby, an' he said if 't hedn't
been for her the Injuns would 'a' massacreed 'em
all."

He pondered for a little space, and then turned to
me.

"I don't think they'd ought to try to drive me
aout, do you? I ain't troublin' them, be I?"

My reply was, I fear, not wholly printable, but it
appeared to reassure him.

"An' I ain't a-goin' to sell out," he added calmly.
"That haouse was here before he come, an' I guess
't will be here after he goes."

It was after this that a new course was adopted —
I will not say by Slagg, but by some of his people,
and I think he could have stopped it had he been so
minded.

Old Simmy found that the enmity of his neighbor
was reflected in sundry annoying ways. Slagg, as
he had threatened, first set to work to have his taxes
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LEANDER'S LIGHT

raised, and the appraisement was raised, as was really
proper, from almost nothing — the old valuation as
agricultural land to a valuation still far below its
actual value. Next Slagg tried to get the high-road
changed so as to make it run through old Simmy's
yard, where a road had, no doubt, been in old
times. In this he failed, though he offered to grade
it at his own expense, and build a schoolhouse for
the village — an attractive proposal in this age. What,
however, worried old Simmy more than anything else
was that when his chickens strayed across the road
to Slagg's property they were killed by the latter's
dogs and, Simmy said, by his men.

The old man spoke of it with a deeper light burn
ing under his shaggy brows than I had ever seen
there before.

"Them was Abby's chickens, and I don't think
he had ought to kill 'em that way. He knowed that
I would 'a' paid him dollar for dollar for every grain
or spire o' grass or — weed they'd destroyed, because
I tolt him so; leastways, sent him word I would."

"What did he say?"

"Said, 'Let him keep his d — d chickens aout of
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my graounds'; 't he'd treated me lik a gentleman,
an' I wouldn't be treated so. I s'pose that's what
he calls 'treatin' like a gentleman.'"

He lapsed back into his habitual apathy; but
after a moment added: "Looks like God must think
mighty poorly o' riches by the folks he gives 'em to —
don't you think so?"

I told him that Dean Swift had thought so.

"He's a stranger o' mine," he said.

OLD Simmy's opportunity came sooner than he
had expected.

The nearest way to the beach from Slagg's place
was across Simmy's grounds. There was no regular
path there, but neighbors frequently cut across the
grass by his chicken-yard to reach the "fisherman's
walk" on the shore. Slagg's men began to make a
regular path across there, and when Simmy put up
a notice for strangers to "keep off," it was pulled
down — as Simmy believed, by Slagg's people.

It happened that one afternoon as I was crossing
Simmy's grounds, Slagg himself came along with a
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LEANDER'S LIGHT

dog, and either supposing that Simmy, who was
standing by his wall, gazing out over the sea, "look-
in* for Leander," would not observe him, or, if he
should, would be indifferent to his presence, he
walked across Simmy's yard. Unfortunately, when
he was about half-way across, the dog caught sight
of Simmy's chickens, and there was immediate
trouble.

In an instant the old man was upon him; but he
was too late to save the chicken. He then turned
upon the dog's owner and denounced him for setting
his dog upon his fowls. This Slagg stoutly denied,
and said that he had called the dog off. He offered
to pay fifty cents for the chicken, which he said was
twice as much as it was worth. Simmy, however,
refused it with scorn, and ordered him to turn and
go back off his place by the way he had come.

This angered Slagg, and in a rage he began to
curse the old man, declaring that he was glad of the
chance to tell him what he thought of him as "an
offensive old fool, who stood in everybody's way."

"I am goin' to stand in your way this time, an'
keep you from crossin' my yard an' killin' Abby's

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chickens, said Sammy. Now go back where you
come from." He reached out his long arm and
pointed down the hill.

"I will go off your place, but I will not go back,"
said Slagg. "Now get out of my way."

"Yes, you will, too," drawled Simmy. "You will
go back." And he squared himself before the
younger man.

In a sudden rage, Slagg caught him by his coat
and jerked him out of the way. The next second he
was sprawling flat on his back on the grass.

I had no idea that the old man could be so quick
or could strike such a blow. He appeared suddenly
transformed. Taking a step forward, he stood
over his prostrate antagonist and looked down on.
him.

"Are you hurt?" he asked.

"Yes, of course, I am hurt," growled the other.
"What did you hit me for that way?"

"Becuz you killed Abby's chickens an' tore my
coat. Now git up an' go back the way you come,
like I told you."

Slagg rose slowly to his feet, scowling at the old
202

LEANDER'S LIGHT

man standing stolidly before him and, turning, went
back down the path, growling his threats of ven
geance.

At the trial afterward, the testimony was conflict
ing. Old Simmy still believed and testified that
Slagg set the dog on the chicken that he killed.
Slagg still stoutly denied this, and swore that he had
called the dog off, and offered to pay for the fowl
more than it was worth. The suit, however, was
not for the chicken, but for something more. Old
Simmy, tall, heavy, and dull-eyed, was the accused,
and Slagg, with a black eye and bruised nose, was
the prosecutor.

Old Simmy partly admitted the charge of assault,
but pleaded provocation. The Court wisely let him
tell his story in his own way, and all the facts came
out, including the trouble about his property. He
admitted that he had accused Slagg of killing his
chickens, and he still accused him; also that he had
told him that he should not pass through his place,
and stated that Slagg had cursed him.

"And what did you do then?" he was asked.

"I didn't do nothin' right then," the old man
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drawled. "I just stood in his way an' told him he
mus' go back."

"And then?"

"Then? Then he took hold of me and tore my
old coat." He looked down at it.

"Was that the same coat you have on now?"
asked Slagg's lawyer.

"Yes."

The lawyer approached him and examined the
coat closely.

"Wasn't it a very old coat?"

"Yes, a mite old."

"How old?"

"Wa-all, I don't know rightly just haow old.
If Abby was livin', she could tell you. She made
it."

The lawyer edged off the dangerous ground.

"Well, how did you feel when he put his
hands on you — as you say? Didn't you feel very
angry?"

Old Simmy pondered.

"No, I couldn't say as I did. I just felt sort o'
warm."

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LEANDER'S LIGHT

"What! You knock a man down and don't feel
angry?"

"No; just sort of tingly all over, as I hadn't felt
in over fifty years." His deep eyes gave a sudden
glint of enjoyment, and he straightened perceptibly,
as the crowd laughed.

"But you knocked him down?"

"I hit him."

"And what did he do then ?"

"Fell down— flat."

"And what did you do?"

"I told him to get up an' go back where he had
come from, like I told him to do."

"And that was all that occurred?"

"No; he got up and went."

The manifest enjoyment of the crowd that packed
the little court-room, was a proof of the popular
feeling, and the law was clearly on old Simmy's side.
Thus, the judgment was a just one.

Slagg, with his bulldog chin and his belief in the
power of money, held on for some time.

"He can't live always," he said, "and I'll have- it
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yet. His heirs will have more sense than that old
fool."

He was right about the old man. He did not hold
on long. When we returned the following summer,
one of the first things Captain Spile said to me down
on the pier was, "Well, Leander's Light's out."

"Yes, I heard old Simmy was dead."

"Yes, he died trying to light it. The way we knew
he was gone, Jesse Moulton's son was comin' in
roun' Western Point one night an' noticed the light
was out and give the alarm, and we found him settin'
in his big chair, speechless, with the lamp-chimney
broke on the floor by him. He must have dropped
it when he had the stroke."

"I suppose 'Ahab' will get the place now?" I
hazarded.

The captain's face wore a pleased look as he shook
his head.

"No; Simmy's left it to the town — to keep."

When Slagg heard that old Simmy had died, he
moved at once. But, as Captain Spile stated, the
old fellow had left his homestead and property to
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LEANDER'S LIGHT

the town for a hospital or a school, and provided that
it should belong to the town so long as his old house,
or one as near like it as possible, should be kept
standing.

Thus, as Simmy prophesied, while Slagg has
moved on to other pastures, the old house still stands.
And thus, "Leander's Light" burns on.

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MY FRIEND THE DOCTOR

J.Y.1Y first visit to Rock Ledge, dozing under its
big elms by the gray Atlantic, and my acquaintance
with "Mrs. Dow's Jane" were due to John Graeme:
"The Doctor," as we used to call him at college. I
had received a telegram one day saying, " Come with
me for a loaf on the Maine Coast," and I had "shut
up shop" and joined him.

The Doctor was in some respects the queerest
man of our time at college. He was, perhaps, not
exactly the first man there, but he was easily the first
man of our set. Other "Meds" were called Doctor;
but whenever " The Doctor" was mentioned it was
always understood that it was John Graeme. He
was not especially brilliant, but he had a divine en
thusiasm, absolute courage, and eyes never to be
forgotten. An old doctor who knew him said of him
once, "That young man will either be a quack or a
leading physician." "The two are often the same,"
said John Graeme.

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So, it was no surprise to us to find him now, ten
years later, already one of the big doctors, and still
with a fiery scorn for the fashionable element. He had
the marks of independence : a broad brow, a wide,
well-formed mouth, a big nose and a firm jaw. Added
to these was a voice always clear, and, when tender,
as sweet as a harp, and a manner which was simple,
frank, and, without the least formality, with some
thing of distinction in it. But more than these, I
think the chief ground of John Graeme's position at
college was that he thought for himself, which few
of us did then, or, perhaps, do now and, so thinking,
he presented everything just as he saw it. More
over, he felt with every living creature.

Whilst the rest of us studied as a task; crammed
for examination and learned like parrots, "The Doc
tor" studied as he liked, read for his own interest the
text books which his fellow students tried to cram,
and before he left college, whether he was discussing
a dog-fight, a love affair, or the processes of a bone,
we sat and listened to him because he threw light on
it. In his last year he moved out of college and lived
in "Dingy Bottom," one of the worst sections of the
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MY FRIEND THE DOCTOR

town, in the worst street of that section, in a room
over a dog-fancier's. It was set down merely to his
idiosyncrasy, and his paper on "The Digestion of
Young Puppies," was held by the faculty to be
frivolous. He said he wrote of that because he had
been raising puppies all his life and knew more about
them than about babies. One of the faculty said
he'd better become a "Vet," as his taste evidently
lay that way, but the Doctor replied that he was
going to practise on children, not on professors.

Dr. John has said since that this year among the
puppies and babies of " Dingy Bottom " was, with one
other experience, worth all the rest of his college
course.

The other experience was this: "The Doctor"
disappeared from public view for several days; he
was not to be found at his room, and when he re
appeared, his head was shaved as close as a prize
fighter's. Some said he had been on a spree; some
said he had shaved his head as Demosthenes shaved
his. "The Doctor" flushed a little, grinned and
showed his big, white teeth. It turned out after
wards that diphtheria of a malignant type had broken

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out in his suburb, and he had been nursing a family
of poor children. When the Professor declared in
class a few days later that a member of the class had
been discovered to have been exposing himself to a
virulent disease in a very reckless and foolhardy
manner, there was a rustle all down the benches,
and all eyes were turned on "The Doctor." John
Graeme rose all his long length.

"Am I the person referred to ?" he asked, his face
at first white, then red, his voice trembling a little.

" Small-pox ! " it was whispered, and we edged away.

"You are," declared the stout Professor coldly.
"You had no right to go into a contagious case, and
come back among the other students. You might
have broken up the college."

"You have been misinformed."

The Professor frowned. "What do you say ?"

"You have been misinformed; I have not ex
posed myself recklessly. I have attended a few
diphtheria cases, but I have taken every precaution
against exposing anyone else. I refer you to Dr.

— , whom I consulted." He mentioned the name
of the biggest doctor in the city, and sat down.
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MY FRIEND THE DOCTOR

It was known that evening that John Graeme had
not only attended the cases, but had performed an
operation in the middle of the night, which, the
Doctor stated, alone saved the child's life.

From that time Dr. John was the leading man in
the Med. Class.

When we left college, the rest of us settled in small
places, or in the cities in which we lived. Such of us
as were ambitious began to crawl up with fear and
trembling; those who were not, dropped out of the
race. Dr. John went straight to the biggest city to
which his money would take him, and settled in one
of the purlieus where he lived on bread and cheese,
when — as he said — he could get cheese.

In a little while he got an appointment in a Chil
dren's Hospital, and the next thing we heard, it was
rumored that he was performing difficult operations,
and was writing papers for the medical journals
which were attracting attention. It was in one of
these papers, the one on "Bland Doctors," I be
lieve, that he charged that while the investigation of
Medical Science had advanced it pathologically, it
had scarcely advanced it therapeutically at all, and

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that many of the practitioners were worthy disciples
of Dr. San Grado ; that they were as much slaves of
fashion as women were. This paper naturally at
tracted attention — indeed, so much attention that he
lost his place in the Children's Hospital.

But when, a little later, an epidemic of typhus
fever broke out in one of the most crowded tenement-
house districts of the East Side, he volunteered first
man to do the hospital work, a newspaper took up
his cause, and he got back his position. Soon
afterwards he wrote his work on "The Treatment of
Children," and laid the foundation of his fame and
fortune. Practice shortly began to pour in on him.

Of Fortune he was as scornful as of Fashion; for
just as he was achieving both he suddenly turned
over his office and his practice to a friend and left
for Europe, where he spent several years in the
Continental hospitals. Some said he was mad;
others that he had followed across seas a young
widow whose fortune was as well known as her
beauty; one of the belles in the ultra-fashionable set
of the city.

When he returned he was already famous. For
216,

MY FRIEND THE DOCTOR

he had written another work that had become a
standard authority.

All this by way of preface and to show what sort
of man it was that dragged me away from my accus
tomed summer haunts to the little sun-steeped fishing
village on the Maine coast, and plumped me down
in Mrs. Dow's little gray cottage under the apple-
trees where "Jane" lived, with "Miss Hazel."

I had not seen the Doctor since we left college
until I drifted into his waiting-room one morning in
the spring, and not then until I had waited for at
least a dozen others to see him. Most of these had
children with them, and I observed that all appeared
somewhat cheered up when they left his office.

The last patient was a fashionably dressed and
very handsome woman who had driven up to the
door just before me in a brougham with a fine pair
of horses and with two men in showy livery on the
box. I had seen her as she swept across the side
walk, and in the waiting-rooms I had a good chance
to observe her. She had undeniable beauty, and her
appointments were flawless; almost too much so, if

217

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possible. A tall, statuesque creature, well fed, richly
dressed and manifestly fully conscious of her attrac
tions. About her breathed "the unconscious inso
lence of conscious wealth . " At this moment she wore
a dark cloth morning-suit with sables, which always
give an air of sumptuousness to a handsome woman.

Her presence caused some excitement on the part
of one or two of the ladies who were present. She
was evidently known to them, and indeed she must
have been known to thousands, for she was one in a
thousand. As she waited her self -consciousness
increased.

After a time her turn came and she was ushered
into the office. I heard her greeting, half rallying:
"Well, as you would not come to me I have had to
pocket my pride and come to you."

If the Doctor made any reply I did not hear it,
and I think he made none, for his face, which I saw
plainly, was serious, almost to sadness, and I was
struck by his gravity.

Ten minutes later the door opened again and he
showed the lady out of his office as gravely as he had
admitted her. Her air of self complacency had van-
218

last patient svas a fashionably circled and very handsome woman.

MY FRIEND THE DOCTOR

ished; her confident tone had changed. I caught
the last words of his reply to her parting speech,
as she lingered at the door which he held for her.

"I have told you the only thing that will help her
— and the alternative. You must take her where I
directed and you must go with her." He spoke as
if he knew that his command carried weight.

She paused for a moment, evidently considering,
while he waited impassive. Then she said with an
accent, part disappointment, part resignation, "Well,
I suppose if I must, I must; but it is most incon
venient. You will come and see her before we go ? "

He bowed and closed the door, and then came
over to me. "Come in. So glad to see you." He
led the way into his office.

As he closed the door he broke out: "These fash
ionable women! They are not fit to have children.
'Inconvenient' when her child's whole life is at
stake!"

"Who was she?" I asked.

"Her name is Mrs. Durer. These women who
have not time to look after their children!" He
turned off with a growl.

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I know that I must have shown surprise, for she
was one of the reigning belles of the day, and her
beauty was a part of the property of the whole
country. Moreover, I had heard her name con
nected with his, when he had gone abroad some
years before.

"She is one of the handsomest women I ever saw,"
I observed, tentatively.

"Yes, she has looks enough," said the Doctor,
dryly, and changed the subject.

It was not long after this visit to the Doctor that I
received one morning the telegram I have men
tioned, inviting me to join him in a holiday on the
Maine coast, an invitation which I promptly ac
cepted; for the old ties that bound us held firmly.

The place which he had selected was a little village
of white or gray cottages, clustered under great elms,
on a rocky slope facing south, above a pretty little
land-locked harbor, just big enough to hold the
white-sailed sloops which, after bobbing up and
down outside, came in to sleep like white-winged
water-fowl on its placid surface; but happily, too
small for the big yachts that slipped by outside the
220

MY FRIEND THE DOCTOR

Ledge which gave its name to the place. Thus, the
life had been kept in a simpler key than at the very
fashionable resorts further along the coast. "The
natives," as they called themselves, were self-con
tained and content with their superior knowledge,
and the summer visitors were as yet simple in their
tastes, as they had need to be in that primal com
munity, where, at that day, though now a change
has come, the ocean was regarded by hotel keepers
as supplanting lesser bath-tubs.

The place where we landed from the dusty and
somewhat rickety stage, in the shank of a placid Sum
mer afternoon, was not the fort-like one hotel, frown
ing on the Point, but Mrs. Dow's gray cottage, amid
a cluster of big apple-trees, where for his own reasons,
Doctor John had chosen to ensconce himself. He
said it was because he liked the portrait of Cap
tain Dow, a wonderful crayon which might have
been made into a graven image without sin, which
hung in the little parlor. Here Mrs. Dow, a de
termined woman of past middle age, aquiline nose
and temper, ample figure and firm voice, dispensed
a well-ordered and measured hospitality. For Mrs.

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Dow measured everything. Through her gold spec
tacles set firmly on her high nose, a pair of keen
eyes measured the world with infallible accuracy.

Though my friend declared that he selected this
place to get away from silly women and finish his
book, I quickly found out why he had really chosen
this quiet corner of Rock Ledge, and avoided the
hotel with its commanding position and long piazzas
where, through the warm mornings, the summer
boarders travelled back and forth in their yellow
rockers and "cultivated their minds" or their ac
quaintances; and where it was said, ladies of literary
tendency hung placards on their chairs, reading:
"Please do not speak to me."

The only other boarder in Mrs. Dow's cottage was
a little high-shouldered girl with a pinched face,
glorified by a pair of wide and startlingly blue eyes
that gazed at everything with singular intensity.
She was a patient of the Doctor's and had come there
by his orders. No one was with her except her
governess, a spare and angular woman of middle
age, with kind eyes and a minor note in her voice,
who was conscientious to a degree and appeared to
222

MY FRIEND THE DOCTOR

have the "fear of Madame" always before her eyes.
She had not been with her little charge long, having,
as appeared, been engaged by Madame just before
the child was sent to the country for her health by
the direction of "a big doctor in town." This I
learned from Mrs. Dow in the first conversation I
had with that well-informed person.

The governess was almost as lonely as the little
girl. This I learned from herself in the first con
versation I had with her. We had come on her, the
Doctor and I, the morning after our arrival, as we
strolled, at hrs suggestion, down by the curving bit
of beach, where the tide was licking the yellow sand
with the placid motion of a tigress licking her flanks.

It was, however, as I quickly saw, not the Sea that
my friend came to watch, but the children. A score
or more of them were working like beavers in the
sand, digging trenches; building forts, or running
up and down, toiling almost as much at their amuse
ments as if they had been grown people, while their
nurses and governesses gossiped or screamed after
them like so many gulls.

But apart from the ruddy children sat a little sickly-
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looking girl, in all the panoply of stiff white muslin
and lace, with her nurse by her side. As we came on
her we saw her nurse turn and shake her up as a
child shakes a limp doll to make her sit up straight.
And for a few seconds the doll sat up. But the little
weak back would bend, and the child sank down
again with a look of utter weariness and despair
which struck even me. Doctor John gave a deep
growl like a huge mastiff, out of which I got some
thing about "the fools who were allowed to live."
And the next moment he was in front of the nurse,
bending over the child and talking to her soothingly,
asking her about her mamma, and her dolls, the
puppy he had given her, and many other things be
sides. The governess appeared to be a trifle sus
picious at first of this new old friend, but the Doctor
quickly disposed of her. He announced that he was
the child's doctor and had come down to see her.
This was the fact. Having learned that Mrs. Durer
had taken the child down to the seaside as he had
ordered, but had not remained with her, he had run
down to see her himself. In a few minutes he had
the little girl up in his arms showing her a ship just
224

In ;i few minutes In- had the little j;irl up in his anus.

MY FRIEND THE DOCTOR

coming in, and when he put her down it was to take
her off with him on a hunt for shells.

Meantime he had felt the little twisted back and
knew just how she stood.

"Why don't you let her play in the sand ?" he de
manded of the nurse when he brought her back.

"She don't care to play much these days, and she
gets her dress so soiled."

The Doctor growled.

"I thought so."

When he came home it was to hold a conference
with Mrs. Dow in a speckless kitchen, and that even
ing I heard that stern and unbending guardian of
her own rights singing his praises to one of her
serious-faced neighbors in terms of eulogy which
would have surprised the departed Captain, whose
name in the household was "Lishy Dow," and who,
by report of Captain Spile, the local historian of
Rock Ledge, had not always received unstinted
praise from his spouse during his lifetime, though,
as the Captain remarked, he "guessed he got all he
deserved, for Lishy was one of 'em."

"He's dead, is he?" I inquired.
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"Well, I didn't see him laid out," drawled the
Captain; "but I know he's buried all right, for I
helped to bury him."

But whatever he had been during his life,
"Lishy Dow" always received the due meed of
respect from Mrs. Dow, now that he was dead.
Morning after morning she would tear the brown
paper from the chops or leg of mutton which Josiah
Martin, the young man from Gill Carver's, the meat
man, brought, and shove the meat back into his hands
with the same phrase: "You take that back to Gill
Carver, and tell him I say he needn't think he can
sell such meat as that to Lishy Dow's widow just
because Lishy Dow's dead and gone." And morn
ing after morning, as Josiah started off with the meat,
she would call him back and say, "Well, just wait a
minute — I guess you might's well leave it to-day, as
I'm obliged to have something for my folks to eat,
but you tell Gill Carver he ought to be ashamed of
himself to try to sell such meat as that to Lishy Dow's
widow just because Lishy Dow's dead and gone."

A circumstance which I did not know of till later
had contributed to the Doctor's popularity. As the
226

MY FRIEND THE DOCTOR

Doctor was in the back-yard talking to Mrs. Dow
about his patient, he had seen a little half-crippled
girl in a chair under an apple-tree playing with some
scraps of stuff out of which she was making clothes
for an old doll. Mrs. Dow caught the expression on
his face and answered his inarticulate question.

"That's Jane."

"Is she yours?"

"Yes — my Milly's. She stays here mostly. Likes
to stay with me, because I spoil her, I guess. Least,
that's what Milly says. But she's so hapless, I
don't see as no harm'll come of a little spoilin'.
She can't play like other children, an' all she wants
is to set still and sew. You'd ought to see how she
can sew. Speak to the gentleman, Jane." For the
Doctor was now at Jane's side on his knees exam
ining her handiwork and incidentally the little bent
figure among the old cushions.

"She can copy anything," pursued the grand
mother with subdued pride, "and since she seen the
fine fixins that little thing in the front room has,
nothin' will appease her but she must copy 'em for
her doll."

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When Mrs. Dow, having allowed me a measure of
reflected friendship, told me about it, she described
how, all of a sudden she had seen that the Doctor
had lost all interest in her; and from the time he
caught sight of Jane had not heard a word she said
to him.

"But I was really ashamed to let him see her
so untidy. However, as I say, you can't raise
children and chickens without dirt, and you know
he said 'that's so.' And now, would you believe it,
in five minutes there was Jane up in his lap, talkin'
to him the same as if she had known him all her
life, and she never one to say a word to nobody —
not to my knowin'. I was that ashamed of his seein'
that old broken doll, b 'cause she's got a better one,
but Milly won't let her play with it, and 't appears
she likes that broken one best anyways. She calls
her 'Miss Hazel,' because she says, she looks like
'Miss Hazel.' An' when I explained it to him, he
said he liked it best, too, that he and Jane to-
gether'd mend it. Oh! I say! that man beats me!
And he says he wants me to give him Jane for a
little while, and he says he can make her like other
228

MY FRIEND THE DOCTOR

children, most. But I mustn't say a word about it
to a souvl. So I won't — not even to Milly. But won't
that be grand ? Do you think he can do it ? Jane ?
Why, she ain't got anythin' to build on. But I'll
say this: if anybody can, he can. I wish Lishy Dow
had seen him — just handlin' her like a mother does
her first baby, as if he was afraid she'd break in
two, and yet just as easy! If anybody can, I believe
he can."

I agreed to this.

After this there was quite a change in the estab
lishment. The Doctor appeared to be so much
taken up with the two children that he left me to
my devices while he went off with them to play at
keeping-house with "Miss Hazel," in a sunny nook
between the rocks, where he had with his own hands
helped them to fashion and fit up a little house out
of old boards and other odds and ends. His first
piece of surgery was the repair of the broken doll
which he first put in stays and afterwards, to the
great delight of the two children, in a little plaster
jacket. I soon learned of this; Jane showed her to
me, while little Carolyn looked on, and no trained

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nurses ever got more pleasure out of exhibiting an
improving patient. But I did not know until after
wards that the Doctor was treating Jane in the same
way, and that whenever he paid a professional visit
to the doll he also paid one to the little mistress,
having secured her consent through his services to
the doll.

The treatment of the little visitor he had found
more difficulty in, as the governess stood in terror of
Madame; and Madame had left strict injunctions
that she was to play with no child whom she herself
did not know. "Madame was very particular."

" Well, I have a playmate for her," said the Doctor,
and he mentioned Jane.

"Oh! Sir, I couldn't let her play with her," pro
tested the nurse. "It would be as much as my
position is worth if I should let her play with vulgar
children. Madame gave me positive orders —

"Vulgar children, indeed!" snapped the Doctor.
"There are no vulgar children. Vulgarity is a mark
of a more advanced age. Madame is a fool, I know,
but she is not such a fool as to object to what I pre
scribe. Between you, you are killing that child, and
230

MY FRIEND THE DOCTOR

you will not keep your place a week after you have
killed her."

Whatever the means were, the woman's scruples
appeared to have been overcome; for in a few days
the two little girls were, as I have related, inseparable
companions, and even I could see the improvement
in the little visitor's appearance.

After this I was privileged as a friend of the
Doctor's to attend one or two of the "parties" given
in "Miss Hazel's house," as the little place which
the Doctor had fitted up for them between the rocks
was called; and I got an idea of the Doctor's skill
in the handling of children. There was a great deal
of formality where " Miss Hazel " was concerned, and
that ancient and battered lady had to answer a good
many questions about her health and that of her
friends — as to whether the plaster jacket hurt her,
and how long she could remain strapped on her board
without too much pain, etc.

"Miss Hazel" had in some way been promoted
through the medium of a husband lost at sea and
known among the trio as "The Late Lamented," and
was, under the Doctor's skilful necromancy, a de-

231

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voted invalid aunt, whose only joy in life were her
two nieces, two young ladies who had unhappily
inherited the Hazel back. This was the Doctor's
invention as it was his care to attend the entire
Hazel family. And it was amusing to see this long-
limbed, broad-shouldered man, sitting day after day,
carrying on conversations with the span-long doll
about her two nieces and their future, while the wan-
faced little creatures listened with their eager eyes
dancing at the pictures he conjured up of their
future gaieties and triumphs.

When they came home in the afternoon, grimy
and happy, with faint traces of color in their wan
cheeks, Mrs. Dow unbent and gave us her best pre
serves in sheer happiness. Even the nurse admitted
that her charge ate more, slept more soundly and was
better than she had ever seen her.

They not only played in the present; but planned
for great entertainments when Mrs. Durer should
come down — a date to which her little girl was
always looking forward and leading Jane to look for
ward to also. And sometimes they played that "the
beautiful lady," as they called her, had come, and
232

MY FRIEND THE DOCTOR

Carolyn would pretend that she herself was her
Mamma and act her part as a lady bountiful.

I never saw the Doctor in such spirits. He en
tered into the game with as much zest as the
children, and grew ruddy in the sea air.

" Pies are the real things ! " he used to say. " These
Yankees know their business. And of all pies —
mud-pies are the best. Mrs. Dow is right; chickens
and children must have dirt — clean, honest dirt — to
play in to be healthy. If that woman will keep
away long enough, I'll give that child a chance for
her life."

"You do not appear to hold the lady in quite the
esteem the world gives you credit for?" I hazarded.

He gave a grunt, and a grim expression settled
about his mouth. After a moment of reflection, he
added: "Oh! she's well enough in a way — as good
as most of those about her, I fancy. But it's the
system — the life. It's all wrong — all wrong! Why,
the womanliness — the motherhood is all squeezed out
of them. I don't suppose she ever put that child
to sleep in her arms in her life. I have seen women
weep and wail and almost die of heart-hunger be-

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cause they have no children, and there are she and
her like, trifling away their life in what they call
their d — d society, while their babies perish or grow
up to be like them. Why, I would not give that
angular, hard-featured old Mrs. Dow, with her
sharp tongue and true heart, for the whole race of
them. She is real."

"She is rather crusty," I hazarded.

"Yes, but deep down under the crust she has a
heart, and a woman without a heart is a monster."

"She must have a heart. She could not look as
she does," I protested. I was still thinking of Mrs.
Durer.

"She has no more heart than one of my instru
ments."

"She is so beautiful. I cannot quite accept your
diagnosis. And the child appears to adore her."

"Yes she does," he said grimly. "And that is
the worst thing I know about her: that she does not
feel it. I'll vow! the Chinese way of destroying
them at birth is preferable. It is at least swifter
and more painless than casting them out as some
women do."

234

MY FRIEND THE DOCTOR

"I think where children are concerned you may
be prejudiced," I urged. The speech sent him
off into a reverie, from which he came with a long-
drawn breath.

"I trust so. I had a little sister once," he said
slowly, "who one day when I was playing with her
fell and hurt herself. My mother gave her life trying
to save her. If we had had a doctor who knew more
than a child she would have got well. Even if she
had been let alone she might have done so. She
went through tortures inflicted on her by a pedantic
ignoramus, and died. Boy as I was, I thought it
then and told him so. I know it now. I made up
my mind then, that no other child who came within
my reach should ever suffer as she had done; and
that I would fight an unending battle against pe
dantry and pretence. And when I see a mother
sacrificing her child to her pleasures I know just
where to place her."

This ended the conversation. His face forbade
further discussion. And when I saw him next time
with his little patients, carefully examining first Miss
Hazel and then Jane and the little boarder with a

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touch as deft as a mother's, I knew the secret of
his success, and I slipped quietly away.

My summer holiday ended before the Doctor felt
inclined to leave his patients, and I left him there
"keeping house" with Miss Hazel and the two young
ladies, and waiting, as both the little Durer girl
and Jane informed me, "to see how Miss Hazel's
spine was coming on."

I learned afterwards from one of my friends, who
was summering at Rock Ledge, that Mrs. Durer,
towards September, about the end of the season at
the fashionable summer resort, where she had her
cottage, had run down to see her child and been
wonderfully surprised and delighted at her im
provement. "It's my opinion," said the lady who
told me this, "that she was much more interested in
that very good-looking and serious-minded doctor-
friend of yours than she was in her little girl. She
was always after him and he didn't care a button
about her. In fact, he left as soon as she came
down."

I learned also that an unfortunate misunderstand-
236

MY FRIEND THE DOCTOR

ing had arisen with Mrs. Dow, and Mrs. Durer had
taken the little girl back to town.

It seems that Mrs. Durer, however much pleased
with the improvement in her child's appearance, had
very fixed views as to her social position and as to
the children she should be permitted to play with.
When she discovered that her child had been playing
with Mrs. Dow's Jane, she threatened the governess
with instant dismissal if it should ever occur again.

The result was natural. Both children wept bit
terly and "Elishy Dow's widow" entered the lists.
Mrs. Dow was calm to outward appearance; but
the fire within burned deep. The grief of the chil
dren went to that member which she carefully
guarded from public scrutiny; but which could be
easily touched if one but knew the way to penetrate
beneath the crust. And she nursed her smouldering
wrath till Mrs. Durer crossed her path.

That lady drove up to the door the afternoon be
fore she had arranged to return to her home, to
explain that she would take her child away next day,
and to raise some question about Mrs. Dow's ac
count. She was dressed impressively, but it did not

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impress Mrs. Dow. Mrs. Durer always declared
afterwards that the woman insulted her because she
would not permit her to rob her. She as little knew
how exact that careful and scrupulous housewife
was, as she knew the real cause of her sudden on
slaught on her. A lioness whose den had been invaded
and young injured would have been less ferocious.

Mrs. Durer began about the account that had
been sent her; but the score Mrs. Dow had to settle
was unwritten. She was simply distant and coldly
hostile until Mrs. Durer, from her carriage, referred
to her as "My good woman." A flash from behind
Mrs. Dow's glasses might have warned her; but
when she failed to heed it and asked after her
"daughter — the unfortunate one — Joan, isn't that
her name?" the lioness that had been crouching,
sprang.

"I have no daughter of that name," said Mrs.
Dow with a lift of her head, "and if I had, I don't
know as it would matter to you whether she was
unfortunate or not, seein' as you have one that ap
pears a mite unfortunate herself, as you don't look
after any too carefully."

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MY FRIEND THE DOCTOR
Mrs. Durer was indiscreet enough to show temper
and to reply in kind, and before the engagement was
ended, Elishy Dow's widow and Jane's grandmother
had told her some home-truths about herself which
the lady had never dreamed anyone would have been
bold enough to hint at. She knew from that authori
tative source -that she was a cold-blooded, unnatural
woman who left her sickly babe to a foreign woman
to care for, and that a strange doctor had had to
come and look after the child, and that when she
herself had come, it was not to see the child, but the
doctor. And all this was told with a directness
that had the piercing quality of cold steel.

How Mrs. Dow had come by this knowledge Mrs.
Durer had no idea. She denied every part of it
vehemently and furiously; but she knew, neverthe
less, that it was true and that her enemy had the
advantage of knowing it was the truth, and further,
of knowing how to use that deadly weapon. So
what could she do but take it out on the governess
and even on the little girl ?

Mrs. Dow's comment on the matter was that,
"Folks as ride in carriages don't hear the truth

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about themselves any too often, but if they come
around Elishy Dow's widow puttin' on their airs,
they'll get it unslacked."

When next day the little Durer girl, with tearful
eyes, turned up dressed for the journey, with "Miss
Hazel" clasped to her breast as the pledge of Jane's
undying affection, Mrs. Durer, notwithstanding
the child's tears, insisted on the doll being imme
diately sent back, asserting angrily that it was
"nothing but a horrid, old, broken doll anyhow,"
and she would have nothing about her that reminded
her of that outrageous creature.

"But, oh! it's Miss Hazel," wept the little girl,
"and her spine hasn't gotten straight yet and I
wanted to take her to the Doctor."

"Carolyn, don't be so silly. I will not have any
more nonsense."

So, the governess was sent back into the house to
return Miss Hazel, while Mrs. Durer by turns
scolded the child and promised her a fine, new doll.

And this was the end of the little girl's dream.

It was the following winter. One snowy night,
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MY FRIEND THE DOCTOR

the Doctor was coming down his steps to take his
carriage, when he ran into a woman hurrying up
the steps. "Oh! Doctor," she panted, "come at
once — she is so bad."

"Who is? Whom are you talking about?"
"Your little girl — my poor little angel."
"What is the matter with her? How long has
she been sick? Who has been attending her?
Where is her mother?" were all asked at once, for
the Doctor now recognized Mrs. Durer's governess.
"I don't know, sir, what's the matter. She was
taken just after Madame went out to-night. She
hasn't been quite well for some time. A doctor
came once, but there hasn't been any doctor called
in since, because Madame didn't think there was
much the matter. You see she hasn't seen much of
her lately — she's been so busy going out — but she al
ways runs up every evening before she goes out to
ask if she wants anything." (The Doctor grunted.)
"But this evening she was going out to dinner and
afterwards to the Opera and then she was going on
to a ball somewhere. And she got in so late she
just had time to dress and didn't have time to come

241

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up to the nursery. And the little girl, who was ailing
a bit, was so disappointed she didn't go to sleep very
quickly. But presently she went to sleep pretending
that she had 'Miss Hazel' in her arms — that's the
old doll you mended for 'em last summer — the other
little girl gave it to her when Madame took her away
and she always loved it best of all, and played that
she still had her. Then after she had been asleep a
little while she waked and asked for her mamma, and
when I went to her she had a burning fever, and was
out of her head. And I thought of you at once,
because you know her so well. But William — he's
the butler, he said as it wasn't etiquette to send for
you, and Madame would be home before long."

"Etiquette be !" growled the Doctor, and

opening his carriage he handed the nurse in and
sprang in after her.

"I was sure you'd come," panted the nurse, "so
I thought I'd come and see you anyway; so I just
put on my bonnet and came right away."

A few minutes later the Doctor was at the child's
bedside, bending over her, examining her with a
grave face, while a hah* dozen sympathetic servants,
242

MY FRIEND THE DOCTOR

awestruck at the sudden illness, stood just within or
just without the doors.

"Where's Mrs. Durer?" he asked, as he raised up.

"She must be at the ball by this time," said the
butler. "She was going to a ball from the opera."

"Send for her at once," he said quietly, and imme
diately turned all his attention again to the little girl
who was muttering in her delirium.

An hour later there was a rush up the stairs, a
murmur without, and Mrs. Durer hastily entered the
room. She blazed with jewels.

" Oh ! my angel ! My poor little darling. What is
it? Are you ill!"

She paused as she approached the bed, and then
stood still, while a look of horror came into her face
and remained stamped there, as though she had
turned to stone.

"Oh! Doctor! What is it? Is she dying?"

"She is very sick," said the Doctor, without taking
his eyes from the child's face. The woman threw
herself on her knees beside the bed.

"My darling — don't you know me? Don't you
know Mamma?" she asked.

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The deep sunken eyes rested on her a second, but
there was no recognition. They turned away, and
the child went on muttering:

"Where is Jane! Tell Jane when my beautiful
Mamma comes she will play with us."

The Doctor's face hardened at the words. He
had heard them often during the past summer, and
he knew the sad ending of that dream. The woman
at the bedside crouched lower.

"Don't you know Mamma, darling?"

"No. Where is Miss Hazel? When she gets
well and strong we will all play together."

Mechanically the woman at the bedside began to
strip off her jewels and they rolled down on the floor,
without anyone heeding them. "I will get her for
you," she said humbly.

A fleeting look of recognition dawned in the
little face. "Is she well? May I play with her
when I get well ?"

"Yes— soon."

"And Jane? — My Mamma won't let me play any
more."

Mrs. Durer winced.

244

MY FRIEND THE DOCTOR

"Doctor, what is the matter with her?"

"Starved," said the Doctor.

She sprang to her feet and turned on the nurse
like a tigress.

"You! You wretch! How dare you!"

" It was not she." The Doctor's voice was low, but
vibrant, and his deep eyes burned.

"What?— Who then? I told her to give her the
best — to spare nothing."

"She obeyed you, but she could not give her the
best."

"What? How could she be starved?"

"It was her heart. It starved."

"You mean — ?" Her voice died in her throat as
the Doctor suddenly bent low over the child and put
his hand on her softly, as after a sigh the tossing
ceased and her head sank on the pillow. Mrs.
Durer bent forward with horror in her eyes.

" Doctor ! What— is— it ? "

The Doctor made no reply, He folded the little
hands and smoothed the soft hair on the little face
which had suddenly grown placid. Then he bent
over and kissed the white, calm brow. And when

245

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he raised up, his eyes, as he glanced at Mrs. Durer,
had softened.

I learned of the death of the little girl through a
letter from the Doctor which showed real grief and
some bitterness. I knew therefore that the story
which came to me of his attention to Mrs. Durer was
as unfounded as ever. And when, some years later,
I again visited Rock Ledge, now grown to a watering
place of the degree which the press calls "some
importance," I was interested to learn something of
the lady's later history.

It seems that for years she returned no more to
Rock Ledge; but went abroad annually, returning
just in time each season to display at one of the
most fashionable summer resorts on the Coast the
creations of the first dressmakers of the Rue de la
Paix, reinforced gradually more and more by the
efforts of other artists. All of which was duly chron
icled by those sheets which cater to the millinery
tastes of the public which are particularly interested
in such important matters. Then after a period in
which younger rivals came to supplant her in the
246

MY FRIEND THE DOCTOR

eye of that public, she reappeared at Rock Ledge.
She was still handsome — some said, handsomer
than ever; but my friend who spoke to me of her,
said she was the most discontented woman she ever
saw. " She wanted nothing that she had and wanted
everything else. The fact is," she said, "she always
wanted the moon — she wanted to marry that big
good-looking doctor who attended her child; and
who performed such a wonderful cure in the case
of old Mrs. Dow's crippled granddaughter — you
know about that?"

I replied that I had heard of it. But she went on
to tell me all the details quite as if I had not said it.

"You know she did not have any spine at all."

"No, I did not know that," I interjected.

" — Not a particle of one — oh! not the least bit,
and your friend took her and just made one for her,

and now "

•

"How on earth did he perform that miracle?"

"I don't know — you go and see old Mrs. Dow, in

the old cottage down under the big apple-trees, with

the lilac bushes by the side door, and the peonies and

hollyhocks — and she'll tell you. He actually made

247

UNDER THE CRUST

her one — strapped her to a board for years — and put
her in a plaster jacket for I don't know how long,
and now — what do you think!" She paused for
breath and in the interval I said, "I did not know
what to think."

— She is a trained nurse — a strapping, strong
woman — a trained nurse!"

This was news, indeed, and my memory of old
times and of my first visit to Rock Ledge having
been revived by the conversation, I strolled down
that afternoon to see Elishy Dow's widow and the
old cottage under the big apple-trees.

I found her, like her apple-trees, a good deal aged
since I had been one of her early boarders that sum
mer; but with her keen eyes still glinting shrewdly
through her spectacles, on which gold rims had re
placed the old silver rims — "given her by Jane," as
she mentioned with grandmotherly pride.

She still cherished the memory of Elishy Dow,
and apparently cherished some other memories as
well. She referred again and again to that summer
that I had spent beneath her roof, and showed me
a photograph of the Doctor, hung in her front room
248

MY FRIEND THE DOCTOR

in a place quite as conspicuous as the memorable
portrait of Elishy Dow. It also was the gift of Jane,
as she explained.

"Oh! I say, you don't know how much Jane
thinks of that man — she don't allow there's anybody
in the whole world just exactly like him. Why, she
thinks as much of him as if she was his widder.
You know she's in his hospital now ? "

"Ah! I am sorry to hear that."

"Oh! bless you! not that away — why, Jane's as
well and strong and peart now as anybody. I say,
you just 'd ought to see her. Why! the Doctor! —
Well, you just 'd ought to see her! You'd hardly
believe it."

And then the details came out quite as my friend
had said they would.

Also there came another part of the story.

One summer, not long before — "just about dusk
— well, good dusk," as Mrs. Dow explained, with
the precision natural to her, a knock had come on
the door — the side door that the neighbors used —
and when she had put down the basket she had in
her hand with the hood in it which she was "knitting

249

UNDER THE CRUST

for Jane," she went to the door — and there was —
"Who do you suppose?"

I started to hazard " Jane ? " but it was plainly not
she, nor could it be Elishy Dow, for according to
Captain Spile he was well buried. So I gave it up
as someone I could not imagine. Mrs. Dow looked
triumphant.

"That woman!" Her face became reflective.
"Well, I — !" she began, and then her expression
softened. "I don't know as I ever felt so sorry for
any woman in my life. I never expected to feel
sorry for her; but I did. And do you know I took
and showed her this hull house and everything that
poor little thing had used. And she cried like her
heart would break. And she asked me to take her
down to where the Doctor made the play-house for
'em that summer, and asked me if I thought she
could buy that place. "I never expected to be sorry
for that woman; but I was. She was so lonesome.
She said she didn't have a soul in the worl* as cared
for her — just cared for the money she had.

"And as I was showin' her the room that little
thing had had, and the bureau, and pulled open a
250

MY FRIEND THE DOCTOR

drawer, there was the old doll the Doctor mended
for Jane that first summer he came here, when he
wanted Jane to let him mend her. Jane had given
it to that little girl the day that worn — the day she
went away and her mother wouldn't let her keep it,
though she cried so — and there it lay just where
Jane put it, with the little plaster jacket on it the
Doctor 'd made and all, and when that worn — when
she saw it she grabbed it up and first thing I knew
she fell down flat on the floor with it in her arms
kissin' it like 'twas her own child.

"Well, I will say my floor is clean. One thing
Elishy Dow al'ays would have was a clean floor.

"And when she got up, she asked me if I would

sell her the doll. I told her 'No,' I couldn't sell her

— 't she was Jane's. Then she asked if I thought

Jane would sell her; 't she'd give anything for her,

'anything in reason.'"

As she paused I ventured to ask her what her
reply was.

"I told her, 'No— I didn't think Jane would;
but I thought Jane would want me to give it to her.'
She was so lonesome."

251

THE HOSTAGE

OR, ALONG THE POTOMAC
A ONE-ACT PLAY

253

THE HOSTAGE

OR, ALONG THE POTOMAC
A ONE-ACT PLAT

DRAMATIS PERSONAE
LlEUT.-CoL. WlNTHROP BARTLETT, U.S.A., about

25, wounded and convalescing at Kent Manor, an
old Colonial Mansion on the north bank of the
Potomac.

MAJ. LINDSAY GRAHAM, C.S.A. An old class
mate of Colonel B.'s ; a prisoner of war in Kent
prison under sentence of death as a hostage.

LIEUT. JOSEPH CREW, Superintendent of Kent
prison.

Miss ROSAMOND BARTLETT. Sister of Colonel Bart-
lett ; about 20; slim, piquant and pretty.

MAMMY CAROLINE. Major Graham's old colored
mammy ; who, having come on to nurse tier young
master and not being allowed to see him, has been
engaged temporarily as a servant by Miss Bartlett.

255

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ZEKE. Mammy Caroline's son; pompous, self-im
portant and lazy, in service of Colonel Bartlett.

GUARDS AND COURIERS.

PLACE

Kent Manor, an old Colonial mansion, in a fine
park on north bank of Potomac, from which the family
have refugeed, occupied temporarily as headquartero
by Colonel Bartlett during his convalescence.

TIME
The very close of the Civil War.

SCENE

Open court at rear of Kent Manor, partly paved;
with Colonial arcade on either side, and offices right
and left. In Court, flowers and shrubs. Two doors
and an alcove L. Over an alcove hangs a large U. S.
flag as a portiere. At back a brick wall, ivy-covered,
about six feet high, broken in one place, with shrub
bery (evergreens) beyond. A high batten-door R. end.
In background: a rolling park with trees in dis
tance, through which runs a road; with a glimpse of
Potomac River winding beyond.

Trunks and boxes are standing under arcade, sev
eral of them, open. There are lounging-chairs under
an awning and a bench against the rear wall. Para
phernalia of an officer's headquarters is lying about.

256

THE HOSTAGE

CURTAIN RISES

MAMMY CAROLINE. [Discovered packing trunk.
She sighs and stops.] Oh! Master! ef dis war wuz
jest over! To think of my young master — my chile
— shet up in dat prison yonder and dat nigger-trader
up dyah won't let a soul see him ! He always hated
my chile. I wonder ef dat Zeke ain't never comin'
back. [She steps up on bench and peeps over wall.
A voice is heard outside singing.]

"Ole master run, ha-ha!
De darkies stay, ho-ho!
It mus' be now dat de kingdom am comin'
In de year of Jubelo!"

MAMMY. Dat's dat worthless Zeke of mine now!
[She jumps down and turns to door R.] I'll mek him
sing de wrong side of his mouf ef he didn't find out
what I send him to find out. [Enter, at batten-door,
Zeke dressed in an old uniform. Addresses Zeke
eagerly.] Did you see him ?

ZEKE [looking around]. Don't hurry me! Don't
jump at me dat way.

MAMMY [shaking him impatiently]. I'll jump at
257

UNDER THE CRUST

you wuss dan dat ef you don't tell me. Did you
see him ?

ZEKE [coolly admiring himself]. See who ?

MAMMY [slapping him]. Your young master yon
der in dat prison.

ZEKE. I ain't got no young master. I'se free.
De 'mancipation proclamation is done set us all free,
Colonel Crew say, an' I'se jist as good as he is.

MAMMY [slapping him in earnest]. Don't fool wid
me, boy! Ef you does I'll show you whether you
free or not. You know who I mean. Did you git
in to see him ?

ZEKE. Yes, I seen him last night — [becomes seri
ous] for de last time.

MAMMY [sharply]. What's dat? Is he sick ?

ZEKE [sadly]. No. Wuss den dat.

MAMMY. What's wuss than dat? — He ain't
dea — ?

ZEKE. Not yit, but dey's gwine to shoot him.

MAMMY [dazed. Falling back]. Dey's gwine to
what ?

ZEKE. Shoot him for a Jwsstage.

MAMMY [dazed]. Shoot him for what?
258

THE HOSTAGE

ZEKE. For a hosstage —

MAMMY. What's a hossitage ?

ZEKE. Hit's somet'n to do wid stealin' bosses.
Dey's gwine to shoot him for de hoss of a Yankee
Colonel what de Rebs is done steal t'other side of de
river — down dyah whar you call yo' home.

MAMMY. What's he got to do wid it ?

ZEKE. Nuttin'. But dey's gwine to shoot him
all de same. Joe Crew's got he clamps on him and
you know when he gits his clamps on any body he's
gone. Dey drawed lots for 'em two days ago to see
which one was to be shot. [He takes a letter from the
lining of his pocket and holds it up pompously.]
Look at dis paper.

MAMMY. What's dat?

ZEKE. Hit's a letter Colonel Crew, de superin
tendent, gin me to gi' our overseer, Jake Slow. He's
a big man now. He gin me dis uniform to carry it.
[Straightens up and salutes pompously.] He's gwine
to meek me a Cap'n.

MAMMY [eying letter suspiciously]. Dat nigger-
trader gin it to you ? Gwine to meek you a fool — ef
you wa'n't dat already. What's in it ?

259

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ZEKE [pompously]. Ne'm mind. Dat's for me to
know and you to find out.

MAMMY [snatching the letter from him]. Boy, don't
you fool wid me. [She tears the letter open and gazes
at it] I wonder what he done put in it?

ZEKE [trying to take it from her]. Gin it to me
and I'll tell you.

MAMMY. How you gwine tell me? You can't
read.

ZEKE. Yes, I can. Le' me show you.

MAMMY [scornfully]. Well, le' me heah you. [She
holds one end of the paper while he holds the other
and looks at it.]

ZEKE [hesitatingly]. "Dear Jake:" [To Mam
my] Dat's his name, you know? Jake Slow?
[Pauses.]

MAMMY. I know he name, boy. Well, go on.

ZEKE. "I takes my pen in hand to write you
dese few lines — Dat's dat line. [Pauses and
points to letter]

MAMMY [watching closely]. Well, go on.

ZEKE [scratching his head]. "I takes my pen in
hand to write —

260

THE HOSTAGE

MAMMY. You done said dat once. He ain't put
his pen down yet.

ZEKE [pretending to read]. Don't hurry me. Oh,
yes! "I sends dis by a good man, Cap'n Ezekiel
Jackson — one o' my bes' frien's — a very fine gent'-
man. Pay him well. You can trust him intirely."

MAMMY [snatching the letter from him]. Go on
'bout your business, boy. I know he ain't said dat.
He knows you too well. I'm gwine to find out what's
in dis letter. [She turns to door L. U. E. as a voice is
heard outside singing : " Tramp, tramp, tramp, the
boys are marching."] Miss Rose.

[Enter Miss Bartlett L. U. E. dressed in morning
costume.] Oh, Miss Rose!

ROSE. Why, Mammy, what is the matter ? Why
are you so agitated ?

MAMMY [handing her letter]. Oh, Miss Rose!
Dey's gwine to shoot my young master; my chile
what I rocked in dese arms. Will you please read
dis?

ROSE. Shoot your young master! Impossible!
WThat for ? Where is he ? [Opening letter and read
ing.] "Dear Jake:"

261

UNDER THE CRUST

ZEKE [from behind]. See dyah! Dat's what I
said. Who say I can't read ?

MAMMY [looking around and scowling at him],
Shet up, boy! Please go on, Miss Rose.

ROSE [reading slowly]. "At last I have my re
venge. Your young Major Graham who used to be
so scornful of me and you as a nigger-trader and an
overseer is just where I want him — in my power
under sentence of death as a hostage and will be
shot to-morrow. Revenge is sweet. I wish you
could be here to see it."

MAMMY [ivringing her Jiands]. Oh, Lord! Oh,
Lord!

ROSE [pausing]. Major Graham! Why that must
be my brother's old classmate and friend that he is
so much interested in! [To Mammy.] What is his
name ?

MAMMY. Lindsay, ma'am — Lindsay Graham, de
son of my ol' master and mistis — what I hilt in dese
arms when he wa'n't an hour ole — what I'se rocked
to sleep on my breas' so often! My little Marse
Lindsay — my chile!

ROSE. Yes, that was his name. My brother said
262

THE HOSTAGE

he was in some grave danger and he has gone to tele
graph to Washington about him to try to save him.

MAMMY. Yes, m' — yes, m' — I pray he may help
him.

ROSE. Oh! he will — he will, I know. [Reading.]
"He drew a blank at first, but like a fool gave it to
another man who had a family, and then drew in his
place the death number." [To Mammy.] Oh, think
of that! What a noble, unselfish thing!

MAMMY. Oh, Lord! Dat was just like him.
What did he do dat for ?

ROSE [reading]. "I shall to-morrow square all
our accounts and we will see how he appears when
he looks down the barrels of my firing squad." [To
Mammy] The wretch!

MAMMY [fiercely]. The nigger-trader ! He always
hated my chile becus he abused him once for sellin'
niggers down Souf. Oh, my po' young master!

ZEKE. He's gone! Didn't I tell you so?

ROSE [reading]. "I have one more enemy here to
deal with: a Colonel on our side. Carries his head
too high, but I'm working, and hope he'll lose it be
fore long .

263

UNDER THE CRUST

ROSE. Who can that be ? [Reading], " He has a
sister I want, and mean to get."

MAMMY. Dat's you.

ROSE [reading]. "I have told the bearer that you
would reward him."

ZEKE. See dyah ! What did I tell you ?

ROSE [reading]. "Return him to his master as a
runaway nigger and get a reward for him."

ZEKE. What's dat!

MAMMY. Lord ! I knowed it. An' dat fool boy
meckin' out he ken read! [To Z eke.] I tolt you so.
I hope now you satisfied, Cap'n Ezekiel Jackson!
Go, boy, and find de Cun'l, maybe he can save him.
Hurry for your life, you heah ! Hurry ! [She drives
Zeke out R.U.E.] Oh, ef de Cun'l was just here he'd
try to save him, 'cause he's a good man ef he is a
Yankee.

ROSE. "If he is a Yankee," indeed! Well, let me
tell you that he has gone to telegraph to Washington
to try to save Major Graham, if he is a Rebel.

MAMMY [excitedly]. Oh! Thank de Lord for
dat! When will he be back? [She climb* up on
bench and looks over wall.]
264

THE HOSTAGE

ROSE [mounting bench and looking over wall]. He
ought to be back now. He was in a great hurry.
Perhaps, he got the reprieve and took it straight to
the prison. [They both look.]

MAMMY. Pray de good Lord he did. Ain't dat
him? Nor dat's a bush. You jist well git down,
Miss Rose — "A watched pot never biles." [Con
tinues to gaze eagerly.}

ROSE [shading her eyes]. There is a man coming;
but — he is not my brother.

MAMMY [peering]. Where? Where? Oh! Dat's
de man up yonder at the prison. I know dat man.
I's seen him many a time, drivin' a drove o' black
folks like dey was cattle — whole wagon-loads of 'em —
to sell 'em down Souf . He used to be a nigger-trader
down home befo' de war and runned away when de
war come an' jined de Yankees. [A voice outside
R. U. E. calling Zeke ! Zeke /]

ROSE [eagerly]. There is my brother now!
[She jumps down.] He must have come the other
way. I will see if he got the reprieve. He must
have it.

MAMMY. Oh! Thank de Lord! [They turn to
265

UNDER THE CRUST

R. U. E. Enter Colonel Bartlett R. U. E. Rose runs
forward to meet him, followed by Mammy.]

ROSE. Brother, were you successful?

COLONEL BARTLETT [wearily shaking his head].
No. Failed. [Sinks into chair.]

ROSE [horrified]. What! Your telegram has not
been answered?

COLONEL BARTLETT [despondently; taking off his
sword]. Yes. But — adversely. The influence was
too strong. There is no hope.

MAMMY. Oh, Lord! My young master! My
chile! My chile! I got to go pray now. I ain' got
no hope but in Gord! [She throws apron over her
head and rocks from side to side. Exit Mammy
slowly, L. U. E.]

ROSE. It is terrible! To think of them shooting
an innocent man. It is monstrous!

COLONEL BARTLETT [gravely]. It is one of the
laws of war. One of our men was shot, or is reported
to have been. He is a hostage and suffers for
another.

ROSE. Did you know that he had drawn a blank
and given it to a brother officer who had a family ?
266

THE HOSTAGE

COLONEL BARTLETT. Oh, yes ! I told them that.
I even put in my telegram that he had once saved
my life. Of course, I could not tell how when I
had shot at him he fired in the air, but I stated the
fact and I asked his life as a personal favor.

ROSE. And the reply was adverse? What did
it say ?

COLONEL BARTLETT [taking out a dispatch.] "Im
possible." [Hands dispatch to her.] That fellow
Crew has blocked me. He is an incredible ruffian,
skulking around a prison instead of being in the
army!

ROSE [reading]. "Impossible. Superintendent of
prison reports your story untrue. Major Graham
was properly selected for execution.'* Signed, "Sec
retary of War." [In horror.] That creature Crew!
To take his word! He is a murderer!

COLONEL BARTLETT [soothingly]. Oh ! The laws
of war —

ROSE. Were made for justice, not cruelty, and
should not be made the excuse for murder.

COLONEL BARTLETT [speaking moodily]. To think
of old Lindsay Graham, the life of our class, being

267

UNDER THE CRUST

shot to death against a prison-wall by a turncoat
dog like that Crew! Heigh-ho! It's bitter!

ROSE. Why did you not try the President ? He
has a great, kind heart, "with malice toward none
and charity for all."

COLONEL BARTLETT [wearily]. I could go no
further than the Secretary of War. He is my
superior.

ROSE. But the President is the superior of every
one. Does the poor man know that your efforts
have been in vain ?

COLONEL BARTLETT. No. I tried to get a permit
to see him, but in vain. That fellow, Crew, was in
a rage over an escape that took place last night and
had left word to let no one see him.

ROSE. An escape of prisoners ! Oh! Brother, I
am afraid. They must be desperate men. I am
afraid they might come here.

COLONEL BARTLETT. Oh! They will not come
where an officer has his headquarters.

ROSE. Oh! If that poor fellow had only gotten
away!

COLONEL BARTLETT [shaking his head}. It would
268

THE HOSTAGE

have done him no good. They are certain to be
recaptured. Crew is scouring the country, and they
cannot get across the river. Every boat is locked.
Well, I must go and give orders to have a sharp
lookout kept. And then I must complete my arrange
ments to leave this afternoon to join my regiment.
[Rises and tries to walk. Staggers and catches at
table] Oh!

ROSE [springing to his side and supporting him
solicitously.] Oh! Brother, how pale you are! You
are still far too ill to go back to the front. [Helps
him to a chair.]

COLONEL BARTLETT [recovering]. No! I am all
right. I must go ! The war is almost over. Rich
mond has fallen. Lee has abandoned Petersburg
and, with his veterans worn to a mere remnant, is
trying to reach Johnston; and when the last battle
is fought I must be with my men. [He takes up his
sword and tries to put it on.]

HOSE [helping him buckle on sword]. Oh! I feel
as though I had just gotten you back from the dead.
You have been father, mother, everything to me.
And to have you, after all the fatigue and danger,

269

UNDER THE CRUST

go again seems so dreadful. Suppose after all you
have escaped you should fall at the last in the very
moment of victory. Oh! I could not bear it!
[Brushes away a tear.]

COLONEL BARTLETT [fondly patting her]. To die
in the moment of victory is a soldier's glory. Why,
is this the little girl who four years ago helped me
buckle on my sword and bade me go and help save
the Union ? Don't you know that the only danger
for a soldier is being left behind ?

ROSE [wipes her eyes]. Yes — yes, I know — of
course, you must go. But oh! If they were only
conquered and the war were over!

COLONEL BARTLETT. What we want is not con
quest, but peace and the Union.

ROSE [warmly]. No. I want peace, but I want
them conquered too; conquered!

COLONEL BARTLETT [laughing and patting her].
We are not fighting for conquest. As soon as they
lay down their arms they will be our brothers again.

ROSE [vehemently]. Not mine! Never mine! I
wish their fate were in my hands. Oh! What
wouldn't I give i

270

THE HOSTAGE

COLONEL BARTLETT [laughing]. My! What a
fire-eater! You are almost as bad as "Colonel"
Crew, who wants to hang them all.

ROSE [smiling]. Not as bad as that.

COLONEL BARTLETT [walks over and reaches up
to take down the flag]. But this flag is broad enough
to protect them. Even against their will it will pro
tect them. Here, you will have to take this down.
I cannot. [Supports himself against watt or table.]

ROSE [moving over and mounting chair to take
dou-n flag]. "If any man pulls down the flag shoot
him on the spot!" [Enter Zeke R. U. E. announcing
a visitor]

ZEKE. Mister Crew. [Enter Crew in gaudy uni
form.]

CREW [to Zeke pompously]. Colonel Crew, Sir.
[Salutes Colonel Bartlett.] Good morning, Colonel
Bartlett. A fine day to get rid of rebels, eh ? [Bow
ing low to Rose.] Good morning, Miss Rose. You
are looking unusually — ah — I hope you are very well.
[Colonel Bartlett returns salute stiffly. Rose bows
coldly. Passes over to her brother. Speaks to him
in undertone]

271

UNDER THE CRUST

ROSE. I don't wonder the prisoners try to es
cape from him. I shall escape. [Starts to retire
L. U. E.]

CREW [eagerly]. Don't go away, I beg you, Miss
Rose. You will be interested in what I have to say.

ROSE [coldly], I hardly think so. [Walks over to
trunk and busies herself with packing while listening.}

CREW [addresses Colonel Bartlett], You have heard
of the escape last night? I understand you have
been up to my place ?

COLONEL BARTLETT. Yes. I heard, and I rode
up to what you call your place to see the prisoner in
whose fate I informed you I was interested: Major
Graham.

CREW [somewhat anxiously]. Did you see him ?
What did you learn there ?

COLONEL BARTLETT. I learned that I could not
see him because — [Pauses].

CREW [very anxiously]. Because — ?

COLONEL BARTLETT [coldly]. You had left orders
that no one was to have access to him.

CREW [recovering himself]. Yes, yes. A prisoner
under sentence of death — a just sentence, too. Those
272

THE HOSTAGE

are the orders from headquarters. You are very
much interested in him ?

COLONEL BARTLETT. Yes, I am interested in
every gallant young man whose unfortunate fate it
is to come under the unhappy law of reprisals, and
particularly in one who was my classmate and to
whom I once owed my life.

ROSE [sighing]. Only a brute would not be in
terested. [She glances toward the park]. What was
that ? I thought I heard some one.

CREW [looking at Rose significantly]. You were
unsuccessful in your efforts to secure his pardon ?

COLONEL BARTLETT. How do you know that ?

CREW [pompously]. I know many things, Colonel
Bartlett — and I have come to demand your aid in
apprehending the prisoner who escaped last night.

COLONEL BARTLETT [coldly]. Demand ? It is my
duty to do whatever an officer and a gentleman
should properly do, and I shall do it irrespective of
any demand by you.

CREW. Ah! And in particular to demand — I
mean — ah — to request that a close watch be kept
about this house here.

273

UNDER THE CRUST

COLONEL BARTLETT. That shall be done, too,
but it is not likely that escaped prisoners will come
where a Union Officer has his headquarters.

CREW. Humph! I don't know. I do not be
lieve in allowing such a hotbed of treason as this
place to remain as It is. It ought to be burnt to the
ground.

COLONEL BARTLETT [turning on him]. Lieutenant
Crew, the orders are that this place is not to be in
terfered with in any way beyond what is requisite
for the proper use and benefit of our troops, and I
mean to see that these orders are carried out.

CREW [aside]. You are damned squeamish about
the property of rebels! [To Colonel Bartlett.] There
is no use in becoming excited. I suppose you are
not aware that at least two of the servants in your
employ are spies for the rebels and have been trying
to get into communication with prisoners under my
very nose ?

COLONEL BARTLETT. I am aware that an old

negro woman who is employed here, temporarily,

was the nurse of Major Graham, and came here

hoping to see him — which you prevented; but what-

274

THE HOSTAGE

ever she may have wanted she has had no opportu
nity to injure any one.

CREW. No opportunity ! Suppose I should state
to you that she and her son — I mean she had aided
— I mean had aided prisoners to escape ?

COLONEL BARTLETT [coldly]. I should question
that statement.

CREW. And that — ah — the prisoner who escaped
has been traced to this house — in this direction ?

COLONEL BARTLETT. If you said to this house, I
should say that it was false; if in this direction, I
should say that he would be caught.

ROSE [coming forward and looking at her brotJier
anxiously]. Coming in this direction ? The es
caped prisoner!

COLONEL BARTLETT. Naturally he would make
for the river and try to get across to the other side.
But if he comes this way he will be recaptured. My
people are on the lookout for him.

CREW. Oh! He cannot escape unless someone
helps him, for he is wounded. I have offered a
reward for him dead or alive. We shall have him
before dark.

275

UNDER THE CRUST

ROSE [solicitously]. Oh! Is he badly wounded ?

CREW. Not as badly as I would like or as he will
be if I can get a chance at him. [Handles his pistol.]

ROSE. Oh! I hope they will capture him alive.

CREW. You need waste no sympathy on him.
I am not sure I would not rather have him dead.
He is a desperate fellow.

ROSE [clasping her Jtands and looking at her
brother]. Oh! Is he desperate?

COLONEL BARTLETT. Poor devils! desperate
enough, I fancy! [Showing Crew the door.] Lieu
tenant Crew, I will join you outside.

CREW. Lieutenant Colonel Crew, if you please.

COLONEL BARTLETT. Well, Lieutenant Colonel
Crew, be so good as to wait for me outside. [Exit
Crew R. U. E., reluctantly; looking over his shoulder
at Rose. Colonel Bartlett takes up pistol and turns
to door.] What a blackguard that fellow is! I
could stand being shot, but not being his prisoner.
He adds another terror to war. Rose, I will never
be taken prisoner.

ROSE. Would it not be terrible ? Do you think
he will catch the prisoner ?
276

THE HOSTAGE

COLONEL BARTLETT [thoughtfully]. Oh, yes.
There is no fear of his not catching him. He must
have a nose like a hound. He has had too much
experience chasing runaway slaves. [Lays pistol
down on table and turns to door.]

ROSE. Oh! please take your pistol. Suppose he
should shoot you! He must be a desperate man.
Wait for me. [She takes up pistol timidly.]

COLONEL BARTLETT [smiling]. What are you
going to do with that ? Protect me ?

ROSE. Yes. I am going with you. You are
wounded, and if he should meet you he might —
[handles pistol] shoot you.

COLONEL BARTLETT [dodging]. Look out! I am
more afraid of you than of him. A woman is a
dangerous creature anyhow, but with a pistol !

ROSE. Pshaw! Men are such cowards. [SJie
lays pistol down on table, with relief.] Wait for me.
I am afraid for you.

COLONEL BARTLETT [laughing]. You stay here
and catch him if he comes here. I will be back
after a little. [Exit Colonel Bartlett R. U. E.]

ROSE [talking to herself with her eye on the door].
277

UNDER THE CRUST
I trust they will catch him. He might be the very
one to shoot my brother. Oh! I know it's un
christian, but I wish he had not escaped. [She turns
to pack trunk. Suddenly over the rear wall where top
of bushes show, springs a young man much disheveled
and with arm in a sling, loses his balance and falls,
rises quickly, catcJies sight of the pistol on the table,
seizes it, turns, and faces Rose, wJw is much startled.]
Oh! [Advancing upon Young Man.] Who are you?
What are you ? What do you want here ?

YOUNG MAN. Who are you ? Who is here ?
They are after me out there!

ROSE [imperiously]. WTho ? Tell me who ycu
are. What do you want? WThat are you doing
here ?

YOUNG MAN [rapidly]. I am a Confederate
Officer who escaped from prison last night, trying
to make my way across the river to get back into
our lines. And they are hot on my tracks.

ROSE [starting back]. Oh! You are the — ! An
escaped prisoner!

YOUNG MAN. Yes. I heard we had friends here
who would help us. Who lives here?
278

A young man . . . catches si^lit of the pistol on tin- table, seizes it.

THE HOSTAGE

ROSE. Colonel Bartlett has his headquarters
here.

YOUNG MAN [starting]. What Colonel Bartlett?
[Catches sight of flag over alcove.] You mean a
Yankee Colonel ? Where is he ? [Inspects pistol.]

ROSE [advancing]. Give me that pistol.

YOUNG MAN [smiling]. No. I have no other
arms. I will not hurt you. You need not be afraid.
No matter who is here, you must conceal me.

ROSE. Give me the pistol. The place is sur
rounded by guards.

YOUNG MAN. I know it. They are all about
here. I have lain in the bushes outside that wall
since daybreak watching them. If you can conceal
me until dusk I can get across the river.

ROSE [reflecting]. No, you cannot. How can you
escape ? Do you not know that the river is watched
and that every boat is ticketed and locked ?

YOUNG MAN. I will get there somehow; but I
cannot get to the river unless you help me. If my
arm were not so bad I could swim it. But I got it
broke last night in escaping and it is so help
less.

279

UNDER THE CRUST

ROSE [advancing]. Does it pain you very much ?
How can I help you ? What do you want ?

YOUNG MAN. Well, first, I want some soap and
water and a decent suit of clothes.

[Crew heard outside R. U. E. calling,] You men
keep a close watch all around the grounds. He can't
be far off. If you see him shoot him down.

ROSE [exclaiming]. Oh! They are coming back.
[She locks door R. U. E,, seizes and wraps in a bun
dle a clean shirt, a uniform coat and a pair of uniform
trousers. Young Man listens and cocks pistol. Rose
turns to him.] Promise me you will not use that
pistol.

YOUNG MAN. Not unless it is necessary. But I
will not go back to that prison. I will not be taken
alive. I would rather be shot down than go back
to that prison to die like a dog.

ROSE. Why should you die in prison ?

YOUNG MAN. I was to have been shot to-day
as a hostage.

ROSE [astonished and agitated]. Oh! You are
Major Graham! I understand now. If you will
promise not to use that pistol I will conceal you.
280

THE HOSTAGE

MAJOR GRAHAM. I promise. [Lays pistol on
table near her.] There! A woman's wit is bet
ter than a pistol. But both should be handy.
So, I shall count on your presence. Where shall
I go?

ROSE [steps past and lifts flag]. Here! Take
these! Under this!

MAJOR GRAHAM. That uniform! Under that
flag! Never! [Lays down coat. Folds arms and
looks at her. Knocking heard at door R. U. E.]

ROSE [vehemently]. Take these, I say. Get
under that instantly. Even against your will, it
will protect you. [Site seizes him and pushes him
under flag forcibly, then turns back toward R. U. E.]
Who is there? [She unlocks door. Enter Crew
R. U. E.]

CREW. Ah! Miss Rose, you still here ? and alone !
Fortune is kind to me. I have been seeking this op
portunity.

ROSE. I am still here — as you see. [She ap
pears very busy packing.] Have you caught the
prisoner ?

CREW. We have not got the scoundrel yet, but
281

UNDER THE CRUST

I will have him in ten minutes. He cannot escape
me now. We know his hiding-place.

ROSE [starting and glancing at flag]. You know
his hiding-place? Ah! Where is it?

CREW. In this house.

ROSE. What? In this house? Who says so?
[Looks behind her.]

CREW [advancing]. He was seen to spring over
the wall here.

ROSE [laughing in a forced way]. Nonsense! I
have been here ever since you left. He could not
have done it without my seeing him. [She moves
up between Crew and flag.]

CREW. Ah! well. He cannot escape. He is run
to earth. And meantime I have another important
matter. [Turns back to door and calls to men outside.]
Guards, stand outside as I told you. Watch down
the road. Beat the shrubbery, and shoot him on
sight. [Closes door and, turning, crosses over to
wards Rose.] Miss Rose, you are going away to
night ?

ROSE. Yes. [Busies herself packing.] Imme
diately. As soon as my brother returns. Like a
282

THE HOSTAGE

brave man he wishes to be at the front, and not spend
his life skulking at the rear.

CREW. I once wrote a letter telling you how
much I admired you. You did not receive it.

ROSE [coldly]. Yes. I received it and — returned it.

CREW. It was an insult to me.

ROSE. I had no desire to insult you; but I have
still less to associate with you.

CREW. Because I am unknown, you and your
brother think I am not your equal, but I will be rich
and powerful some day, and then —

ROSE [coldly]. Whether you are known or un
known does not concern me. I returned your letter
because I did not wish to hold any communication
with you. Did you see my brother outside ? [Starts
toward R. U. E., then hastily turns back to former
position before alcove.]

CREW . He has gone off — to send another message to
save a rebel who deserves to be hanged and who would
shoot him on sight. But it is you I want to talk of.
[Advances to her.] You are in love with some one else ?

ROSE [haughtily]. Whether I am or not is no
concern of yours, Lieutenant Crew. I will bid you

283

UNDER THE CRUST

good afternoon. [Turns toward L. U. E. Glances
at flag, which is moving, and turns back again, facing
Crew. Oh! [Addressing Crew.] You say the pris
oner was seen to come into this house ?

CREW. Yes, but as you have been here all the time
it must have been some other part of the wall — the
garden-wall, perhaps?

ROSE [hastily]. Yes. There is a garden- wall —
there is an unused wing with some empty rooms in
it. You might search that. Let me show you the
way. Come this way. [She leads him out R. E. 2.
Enter Major Graham from under flag as door closes.
His beard is trimmed and he is dressed in clean linen
and wears a pair of uniform trousers.]

MAJOR GRAHAM. That scoundrel ! To dare even
to speak to that angel, much less pay his addresses
to her! If ever I get hold of him I'll — [A step is
heard outside R. E. 2. Major Graham springs to
table and picks up pistol. Turns to flag. Hesitates
to lift it. Addresses flag] Well, I never expected to
be under your protection again, but — [Knob of
door R. E. 2 turns] — here goes. [Steps behind flag.
Enter Rose R. E. 2. Crosses over rapidly.]
284

THE HOSTAGE

ROSE [calling in undertone]. Quick! Major
Graham, you must go. Major Graham!

MAJOR GRAHAM [lifts flag and steps out]. Did you
call?

ROSE. Yes. Quick! [Shows surprise at his
cJtunged appearance. Aside.] How improved he is !
[To Major Graham.] You must get away from
here instantly. He will be back directly.

MAJOR GRAHAM [coolly]. Where is he?

ROSE. I left him searching the vacant wing.
[Points over her shoulder] I think I heard the lock
spring as I came out, but he will be released as soon
as he can make any one hear him, and you must go.

MAJOR GRAHAM. At least, let me thank you for
my life and tell me to whom I owe it.

[Knocking heard in distance and Crew's voice call
ing] Open this door. Open it, I say.

ROSE [listening]. There he is now.

MAJOR GRAHAM. Let him stay there. Who is
the officer whom he asked you about ?

ROSE. He is my — Never mind who he is. You
must go.

MAJOR GRA.HAM. Is he the handsome fellow I
285

UNDER THE CRUST

have seen at a distance ? Tall, with good shoulders
and his arm in a sling ?

ROSE. Yes. Now you must go. It will not do
for him to see you. He will be back here im
mediately.

MAJOR GRAHAM. I hope I shall not meet him.
Do you like him? He said you did.

ROSE. Yes. I love him better than — [She
seizes pistol in Major Graham's hand and takes it
from him."\ You promised me not to use this.
[Picks up uniform coat.] Here is a coat. It has a
Major's straps on it. It will just fit you.

MAJOR GRAHAM [holds coat at arm's length and
looks at it smiling]. Do you call that a decent suit ?

ROSE [firing up]. Yes I do. Put it on at once.

MAJOR GRAHAM. I am afraid if I saw myself in
it I might shoot myself. [Sounds of door breaking
outside.]

ROSE. Quick! I hear him coming. [She helps
him into coat.] Go in there and lock the door as you
go in. I will entertain him.

MAJOR GRAHAM [smiling]. Let me lock him in
and you entertain me.

286

THE HOSTAGE

ROSE. Goon! Hurry! Here! [Takes key from
pocket and hands it to him.] This is the key to the
lock of our boat. You must slip out of the door
beyond the dressing-room. Go down the box walk.
Let yourself through the gate at the corner of the
garden, and from there to where the boat lies chained
to the root of a great sycamore tree is only twenty
steps. You can lie concealed among the willows till
night and then cross the river.

MAJOR GRAHAM. I owe you my life, but before
I go I beg you —

ROSE. Go. I beseech you. They are coming.

MAJOR GRAHAM. I will go, but not until you tell
me your name. To whom do I owe my life ?

ROSE. Why do you wish to know ?

MAJOR GRAHAM. That I may remember it in my
orisons.

ROSE. My name is Rosamond. But you will
forget it.

MAJOR GRAHAM. The Rose of the World. For
get it ! I will never forget it or you as long as I live.
You are an angel, and some day, if I live, I will find
you and prove it to you. [He kisses her hand.]

287

UNDER THE CRUST

ROSE [turning away and then turning back.] Where
are you going ?

MAJOR GRAHAM. Back home. To the South. I
have you to thank that instead of being shot like a
dog I shall have a chance to strike one more blow for
the South. If I die then I shall die happy.

ROSE [in alarm]. Oh! You are going back to
fight?

MAJOR GRAHAM. Yes. There must be one more
fight. And once more I shall ride at the head of
my men. I have this to thank you for.

ROSE [drawing back]. Oh! Just what my brother
said. Suppose you should meet him! Promise me
if you meet him you will not shoot him.

MAJOR GRAHAM. Of course I promise that.

[Colonel Bartlett's voice heard without, calling.}
Zeke, come and take my horse.

ROSE. Go. I must stop him. Good-bye.

MAJOR GRAHAM. No. Not good-bye. Some day
again, when the flag of freedom flies, I will see you.

ROSE [lifting the flag and drawing it partially
about her.] Go. This is my flag of freedom. I am
what you call a Yankee. I am a Northerner.
288

THE HOSTAGE

MAJOR GRAHAM [stooping and lifting her Jiand to
his lips]. What ! You are an angel, and angels have
no latitude. Good-bye. [He kisses her Jiand. Exit
under flag. Enter R. U. E. Colonel Bartlett.]

COLONEL BARTLETT. Well, little Sis, how are you
getting on packing ? We must be off in an hour, or
I shall miss the boat.

ROSE [stammering]. Did you catch him ?

COLONEL BARTLETT [taking off his sword]. The
President? Don't know yet. I sent a message as
you suggested.

ROSE. No. I mean the escaped prisoner.

COLONEL BARTLETT [laying his sword down on
chair]. No. Did you ?

ROSE. Yes. I mean — I don't know. I mean —
No.

COLONEL BARTLETT [turning as if to enter alcove].
What are you talking about ?

ROSE [steps in front of him and laughs nervously].
Nothing. I don't know what I was saying. Where
are you going ?

COLONEL BARTLETT. Into my dressing room if
you will let me by. I must see about my old uniform.

289

UNDER THE CRUST

With the Major's straps taken off it will be the very
thing to wear in the field. [He tries to put her aside.]

ROSE [catching him by coat]. No, you must not
go in there. You look so tired. You must sit right
down here and rest. [She draws him over and makes
him sit in chair on top of sword and other articles.]
There, now be comfortable.

COLONEL BARTLETT. I am not comfortable. [He
rises impatiently and faces her.] Rose, what is going
on here? There is something mysterious I cannot
make out.

ROSE. Nothing. There is nothing mysterious.
Men are so suspicious.

COLONEL BARTLETT. Why cannot I go into my
own dressing-room?

ROSE. Because I have a surprise for you.

COLONEL BARTLETT. What? What has hap
pened ? You look quite pale.

ROSE. Nothing. Oh! Such a surprise! [She
pinches her cheeks.] Pale! Nothing of the kind. I
am just as rosy. Besides, I was afraid —

COLONEL BARTLETT. I know. Afraid I would
get hurt.

290

THE HOSTAGE

ROSE [nodding]. M-hm-hm. And that poor, poor
fellow in that prison yonder. Isn't it dreadful !

COLONEL BAKTLETT. Well, you need have no
apprehension. Let's take down the flag now. We
must be off at once. I am expecting a dispatch every
minute.

ROSE. Oh! No! Leave it until the last thing.
[She strikes an attitude and laughs a forced laugh.]
"If any man touches the flag shoot him on the spot."
Brother, cannot you get rid of that creature, Crew ?
I cannot bear him in my sight.

COLONEL BARTLETT. He is not in your sight now.

ROSE. But I mean in the house. The very
thought of him makes my flesh creep. [She looks
toward dressing-room door and shudders.]

COLONEL BARTLETT. Is he in there? It would
be just like his cursed impudence. Searching my
house! [He steps towards door. Rose catches him
quickly.]

ROSE. Oh! No! He is in the other end of the
house.

COLONEL BARTLETT [turning]. Well, I will get
rid of him in short order. I will order him out. As

291

UNDER THE CRUST

if a rebel could be harbored in this house under the
very flag! It is ridiculous!

ROSE [stammering]. Yes, think of it! Under the
very flag! Ha! Ha! Ha! [Exit Colonel Bartlett
hastily R. E. 2. Enter Major Graham smiling.}

MAJOR GRAHAM. Well done. I did not think
you were such an actress.

ROSE [agitated]. Oh! I cannot do it! Oh! I ought
not to have deceived him! He trusts me. How
wicked in me. I must undeceive him. [She starts
to go after Colonel Bartlett. Stops and faces Major
Graham.]

MAJOR GRAHAM [seating himself and half smiling].
All right, I am your prisoner.

ROSE. Oh! I don't know what to do. Why did
you come here ?

MAJOR GRAHAM. Because God had put an angel
here to help me.

ROSE. Do you not know that as a Yankee I hate
you?

MAJOR GRAHAM. But as my captor you must
pity me.

ROSE [listening L. E.]. Some one is coming. Go.
292

THE HOSTAGE

[She lifts flag and glances in; drops flag over door.]
Oh! It is Crew. You are too late. Here. [She
hastily takes off her apron and wraps it around him.
Takes up uniform coat and throws it over his arm.]

[Enter Crew L. E.].

CREW. Damn him! Where is he? [To Rose.]
You have made a fool of me.

ROSE. Oh, no, I have not. [To Major Graham in
tone of authority.] Go take this coat and do as I
told you.

MAJOR GRAHAM. Yes, Madam. [Glances at pis
tol and hesitates.] Shall I take this ?

ROSE [hesitatingly]. Ye-s — . I wonder if my
brother — ? No, leave it there.

MAJOR GRAHAM [bowing]. Yes, Madam. [Exit
L. U. E.]

CREW [to Rose], Who is that? Where have I
seen that man before ? I know that voice.

ROSE [warmly]. On my word. Sir! I think your
inquisition has gone far enough. Where is my
brother ?

CREW [sarcastically]. He has gone to get another
dispatch, I suppose. Trying to save the enemy of his

293

UNDER THE CRUST

Country. I wish to finish what I have to say to
you.

ROSE [haughtily]. Well, Sir. What is it ?

CREW. You refuse me because of some one else ?

ROSE. I do not. I refuse you because of your
self, and I refuse to discuss anything further with you.
Now go. [Paints to R. U. E.]

CREW [insolently]. I will not go. Your brother is
ordered off and I am in command here now, as I pro
pose to show you and him, and if I catch that
scoundrel he shall hang this evening.

ROSE. You'd better try to catch him. Listen!
[Points outside L. U. E. Sound of shots and shouts
heard.]

CREW [backing away alarmed]. My God! What's
that?

ROSE. Gracious Heavens! [She run* to door.
Opens it and cries out.] Do not shoot him. He is
unarmed. [Exit L. U. E.]

CREW [follouring her and looking in at door cau
tiously]. Shoot him! Damn you! Shoot him, I
say. [Jerks out pistol.] Let me shoot him.

ROSE [springing out at door, catching his pistol and
294

THE HOSTAGE

struggling with him]. You shall not shoot him.
Don't you see he is unarmed and already wounded.

CREW [unable to get pistol free. Shouting]. Hand
cuff him. Tie him. Tie him tight. That's right.
[To Rose.] It makes no difference. He will be shot
this afternoon, or better still, hanged for being in that
uniform.

ROSE. Oh! Hanged? That uniform! What
have I done!

CREW [triumphantly]. Yes, hanged! Ha! ha!
You thought you had outwitted me. See what has
come of it. Ah ! This is fine ! To catch him in our
uniform and hang him as a spy! That is a good
one!

ROSE [half dazed]. Hanged! Oh! Impossible.
You could not be so wicked. You know that he is
not a spy, that he has just put it on to escape in.

CREW. Do I ? I know the laws of war — I know
the sweetness of revenge.

ROSE. Then revenge yourself on me. I gave it
to him because — because —

CREW. I know. I know well the reason you gave
it. I will revenge myself on you in good time — and

295

UNDER THE CRUST

on your brother, too. Oh! this is better than I ever
hoped for. I will make you cringe.

ROSE. I beg of you

CREW. Ah! that is sweet! You beg — You —
beg of me !

ROSE. Yes — I beg — it was my fault. My broth
er is wholly innocent. He did not know he was here.
What do you say ?

CREW. Wait and see. You think he is better
than me. Well, wait and see him on the gallows and
your brother arrested for helping a rebel prisoner to
escape.

ROSE. Yes, even on the gallows he would be your
superior — as superior as righteousness is to wicked
ness; courage to cowardice; nobility to meanness.
And as to my brother I fear nothing. He is above
your power to injure.

CREW [furiously]. Oh! He shall hang as high as
Haman and at once. [Enter L. U. E. Major Graham,
bound with rope and brought in by two guards; a
bandage on his head and his arm tied up. To Major
Graham.] Ah, my young man, I have you.

MAJOR GRAHAM [bows silently to Rose and then
296

THE HOSTAGE

turns to Crew]. Yes. It is not much to catch an
unarmed man and a wounded one at that. If I
had had a pistol — [Staggers and leans against table.]

ROSE. Oh! What have I done! [She brings
him a chair.] Sit down and rest. [In an undertone.]
Forgive me.

MAJOR GRAHAM. There is nothing to forgive.
It was not your fault. You did all in your power.
It was my misfortune.

CREW [sneeringly]. You were cleverly trapped.
You thought you were safe under the protection of
this patriotic young lady, but I knew where you
were all along. She gave you up.

ROSE. Oh! What a falsehood! [To Major Gra
ham.] You do not believe that?

MAJOR GRAHAM. Not a word of it. I know him
of old. A liar and a coward.

CREW. You will know me better in an hour or
two when you are mounting the gallows.

ROSE [shuddering]. Oh! [To Crew, fiercely] You
shall not insult him.

MAJOR GRAHAM [quietly]. He cannot insult me.

CREW. But I can hang you.
297

UNDER THE CRUST

MAJOR GRAHAM. And I can hang and still defy
you. Do you think that when death is what every
soldier faces every day as an incident of his duty
that I should fear it? [To Rose.] Do not disturb
yourself. It is the fate of war.

ROSE [to Crew]. If my brother were here you
would not dare do this.

CREW [scornfully]. Your brother is not here and
I am in command now and I order you to leave
instantly or I will arrest you. [To guard.] Take
this young woman to her room and if she attempts to
return arrest her. Lock her up.

MAJOR GRAHAM [rising]. You hound!

ROSE [to Guard]. Do not touch me. I will go.
[To Major Graham.] My brother will soon return.
Do not despair.

CREW. Your brother and you will have enough
to do answering charges of treason for harboring
rebels — the enemies of your country.

ROSE. We the enemies of our country ! It is you
and your like who are the enemies of our country
and its disgrace.

MAJOR GRAHAM [to Rose]. Bravo! Well said! I
298

THE HOSTAGE

will never despair while I have your compassion.
[Exit Rose under guard L. U. E. To Crew.] You
blackguard! If I were only free for one mo
ment!

CREW. Ha, ha, ha! The wheel has turned and
the negro-trader whom you used to despise is

MAJOR GRAHAM. A negro-trader and a black
guard still, just as you always were, whom I still
despise; a disgrace to the uniform which thousands
of gallant gentlemen have worn with honor.

CREW ijerJcs out pistol furiously]. Damn you! I
will kill you.

MAJOR GRAHAM [facing him calmly], I dare you !
Shoot.

CREW [pausing and putting up pistol]. No; that
would please you too much. I will wait and hang
you. [Enter L. U. E. Mammy Caroline dressed in
shawl and bonnet. She sees Major Graham, rushes
over and embraces him, crying.]

MAMMY. Oh! my Chile! my Chile! What is
dey doin' to you while I been 'way!

MAJOR GRAHAM. Why, Mammy! Dear old
Mammy! I'm all right.

299

UNDER THE CRUST

CREW [catching hold of Mammy Caroline]. Get
away from him.

MAMMY [wheeling on him]. Don't you tetch me !
Don't you lay yo' hand 'pon me. If you does I'll
tyah you limb from limb. [She brandishes a large
pair of scissors.]

CREW [backing away]. You black harridan! I'll
have you shot. [Loud knocking outside R. U. E.]
Who is that? [Enter Guard hastily. To Guard.]
Arrest this woman. Lock her up.

MAMMY. Yes, you can 'rest me, but don't you
tetch me or I'll meek you think every nigger you
ever sold is on yo' back.

GUARD [handing Crew a dispatch]. A courier just
brought this for Colonel Bartlett. Says it is urgent.

CREW. Colonel Bartlett is away. I will take it.
[Opens it.] Hell! [Glances at Guard and changes
tone] Oh! That's all right! Where is the mes
senger? Tell him to wait.

GUARD. All right! But I think he has gone.
[To Mammy.] Come on, old woman.

MAMMY. All right. I'mgwine. [To Crew.] You
wait till de Cun'l comes. He'll settle you. [She
300

THE HOSTAGE

lays scissors on table. Exit Guard with Mammy
R. U. E.]

CREW [calling]. Guard! Guard! Hell! I must
see him. I will have him shot instantly. [Stuffs
dispatch in pocket and looks at Major Graham.] You
are safe enough, I guess, till I get my squad. Guard !
[Exit Crew hastily R. U. E.]

MAJOR GRAHAM [soliloquizing]. Well, it is all
over. If it had only been in battle at the head
of my men! It is hard to go this way, but after
it is all over it is quite the same, I suppose.
This rope cuts cruelly. [Enter Rose softly L. U.
E. Gazes around and passes over to Major Gra
ham.]

ROSE. Can you forgive me? If I had dreamed
of this! I thought you might meet my brother and
I feared you might shoot him.

MAJOR GRAHAM [startled]. Oh, it is you! There
is nothing to forgive. You did all you could and I
.shall thank you all my life — all the little span left to
me. [He groans.]

ROSE. Oh! do not say that. I must save you.
You are in pain.

301

UNDER THE CRUST

MAJOR GRAHAM. It is nothing — only the rope
cuts into my wounded arm.

ROSE. I can cut it. Wait! Where is a knife?
Oh! these will do. [She gets the scissors, locks door
and then cuts rope.] There, you are free. Take this
and make a dash for liberty [Hands him a pistol] —
and — forget me.

MAJOR GRAHAM. I will never forget you. You
have saved my life twice. Good-bye. But before
I go, will you give me that rose? [Indicates rose
which she wears.]

ROSE [lifting hand to rose]. Why ?

MAJOR GRAHAM. That I may remember you.

ROSE [quickly]. That you may remember me?
You just said that you would never forget.

MAJOR GRAHAM [stammering]. No! You know I
will never forget you. But give it to me as a token
of the divine compassion of — of an enemy.

ROSE [unpinning a small flag from her dress and
Iwlding it out to him with the rose}. Here, I will give
you this to remind you of the flag I love.

MAJOR GRAHAM [taking a step back]. No, not
that! [Stepping forward as she continues to hold it
302

THE HOSTAGE

out.] Yes, I will! Even though I fight for the same
principles under another flag. I will take it for
what it has been in the past, when it was the flag of
my fathers.

ROSE [handing it to him]. For what it has been,
for what it is and for what it shall be in the future
— the flag of the Union — the flag of Freedom.

MAJOR GRAHAM [putting tfie flag in his breast
pocket]. Good-bye!

ROSE. Good-bye! [Gives Major Graham her
liand which he kisses.] Good-bye. Go ! [She moves
over to L. U. E. and exits slowly. Major GraJiam
moves to R. U. E. looking over shoulder at Rose.
Enter Colonel Bartlett R. U. E. They run into each
other.]

MAJOR GRAHAM [raising pistol presents it to
Colonel Bartlett' s breast]. Halt! Out of the way,
or you are a dead man.

COLONEL BARTLETT [coolly]. What is all this?
Lindsay Graham!

MAJOR GRAHAM [lowering pistol slowly]. My
God! Winthrop Bartlett! That was a close call.
I thought you were Crew. I came near — [Lays pistol

303

UNDER THE CRUST

on table.] I am a prisoner, under sentence as a
hostage, and having escaped last night came here by
mistake, thinking I had friends here. [Re-enter Rose
who pauses inside L. U. E.]

COLONEL BARTLETT. So you have, old fellow.
You are not a prisoner at all. I have good news —
[Takes out a dispatch. Enter Crew R. U. E. He
pulls out a pistol.]

CREW. What is this ? Don't stir or I will shoot.
[Calls.] Guards, guards.

COLONEL BARTLETT [stepping in front of him and
putting him aside angrily]. Put that up. [Enter
guards.]

CREW. Arrest all these people — every one. I
have won out. Colonel Bartlett, I have a dispatch
from the Provost Marshal of this District authorizing
me to make such arrests as I deem proper. Con
sider yourself under arrest.

COLONEL BARTLETT. I have an order from the
Secretary of War placing me in command of this
District.

CREW [astounded]. You have — what ?

COLONEL BARTLETT [to Major Graham], My first
304

THE HOSTAGE

duty is to announce to you that you are free. A
courier has come with a dispatch from the President
saying that the officer for whom you were held has
been sent through the lines. [Enter Mammy.] You
have been exchanged and are free.

MAMMY. Oh! Thank de Lord! for all his
mussies. [To Crew.] I's free too — Does you see
me?

COLONEL BARTLETT [to Crew]. My next duty is to
arrest you. Guards, arrest that man. [Guards ad
vance and arrest Crew.] I will trouble you for my
dispatch which you suppressed.

CREW. What dispatch? This is an outrage.
I have no dispatch. I give you my word of
honor.

MAMMY. He's got it right in he pocket. I seed
him put it dyah.

CREW [handing dispatch to Colonel Bartleit]. Damn
him! Why didn't I shoot him before? [He falls
back towards door and exits scowling]

ROSE. Exchanged! Free! Oh, brother! [Site
throws herself in Colonel Bartlett's arms.]

COLONEL BARTLETT. There, there, little Sis.
305

UNDER THE CRUST

Don't cry! [To Major Graham.] This is my sister.
She has been much interested in your fate.

ROSE {wiping her eyes]. I am so glad you are
free. I felt like a murderess.

MAJOR GRAHAM [taking her hand]. My fate is
still in your hands.

COLONEL BARTLETT [smiling]. She is a terrible
fire-eater. Worse almost than

ROSE [putting her hand over his mouth]. Hush.

COLONEL BARTLETT. She is for conquest.

ROSE. Brother — please hush.

COLONEL BARTLETT. I have other news. Lee
has surrendered.

ROSE [deligJited]. Lee surrendered ? Oh, thank
God ! The war is over.

MAJOR GRAHAM [agitated]. Lee surrendered ? Im
possible! [Cheering up] Oh, you mean one of the
younger Lees. I know Marse Robert has not sur
rendered.

MAMMY. Nor; dat he ain't

COLONEL BARTLETT. Yes, he has. [Takes dis
patch from pocket]. General Lee surrendered his
army to General Grant at Appomattox this morning.
306

THE HOSTAGE

MAJOR GRAHAM [turning and sinking into a cfiair
beside table]. My God, it is over! The cause is lost.
We have no flag now.

ROSE [lifting flag and throwing it partly over him].
Yes, we all have one flag now and thank God for it !
— The flag of your fathers and of ours.

MAJOR GRAHAM [kisses her hand and buries his
head in his arms on the table.]

[Curtain.]

307

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