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CONTENTS FOR OCTOBER
COVER DESIGNED BY ALBERT STERNER
IN THE OFFICE OF J. PIERPONT MORGAN
Drawn by W. R. Leigh
Frontispiece
J. PIERPONT MORGAN
Illustrated from drawings by W. R. Leigh, George Varian, Otto Bacher, and A. Machefert, and with photographs
Ray Stannard Baker
507
THE OTHER MAN
Illustrated bv Howard Chandler Christy
Sara Cone Bryant
519
M. I. (Mounted Infantry)
A New Barrack-Room Ballad Illustrated by Gordon H. Grant
Rudyard Kipling
525
STAGING "MISS MULTON"
Illustrated from photographs by Sarony
Clara Morris
529
THE KING'S VISIT
Illustrated by Edmund J. Sullivan
Robert Barr
534
THE TAMMANY COMMANDMENT
Protection of Vice in New York City from the Standpoint of those Protected
Josiah Flynt
543
THE HONOR OF THE TRANSGRESSOR
A Tale of the Nebraska Pioneers Illustrated by Arthur Heming
William R. Lighton
550
" I SING OF HONOR AND THE FAITHFUL HEART "
Emmy Lou in the Third Reader Illustrated by Charles Louis Hinton
George Madden Martin
558
KIM—Chapter XV. (The End)......
Illustrated by J. Lockwood Kipling and Edwin Lord Weeks
Rudyard Kipling
566
THE WAY OF IT. A Poem
W. E. Henley
578
ELEPHANT HUNTING IN AFRICA
From the Journal of the Author—the African Explorer Head and Tailpiece by W. E. Spader
William Stamps Cherry
579
FRONTENAC: THE SAVIOR OF CANADA
Illustrated by Howard Giles
Cyrus Townsend Brady
585
THE ROADMASTER'S STORY—The Spider Water Illustrated by Jay Ilambidge
Frank H. Spearman
594
A LAMENT OF THE COUNTRY. A Poem
William Wallace Whitelock 600
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The Prize on Sylvia's Head is Five Hundred Dollars
Sylvia is the heroine of a new novel, entitled Sylvia; The Story of an American Countess. She lived abroad, and is described by one of her admirers as k* the most beautiful woman in Europe." Twelve artists, known for their types of beautiful women, were invited each to make a drawing expressing his idea of the charming heroine. Their pictures are all reproduced as illustrations in the book. By a natural suggestion, all persons who like a good story and admire beautiful women arc now to be asked to give their opinion of the types represented. Each reader is invited to choose from among the pictures the one which, in his judgment,
Svlvln, ns iiiiii-rlncil hj .A. It. Hi'u/i'll.
SYLVIA: The Story of an American Countess
By EVALYN EMERSON. With pictures of the heroine by Albert D. Blashfield, Carle J. Blenner, J. Wells Chaminey, Howard Chandler Christy, Louise Cox, John Elliott, W. Glackens, C. Allan Gilbert, Albert Herter, Henry Hutt, Alice Barber Stephens, A. B. Wenzell.
Njjviii, us imnginttd l»j HowiirdChandlerChrlsi
is the best conception of the heroine, and to indicate the order in which he thinks all the others should rank. The person whose list comes nearest to the choice of the majority will receive a prize of §500.00.
The book itself is a charming- and clever love story, readable and interesting from cover to cover. The voting is very simple. Each volume contains full particulars and a slip on which the reader is to register his choice. It is a matter on which everyone will naturally have an opinion; and the prize of $500.00 is worth guessing for. Order through the book stores, or send $1.50 direct to the publishers. The book will be published about October 1. It will be on sale everywhere. Watch for it.
Koth these pictures Copyright, 1901, by
„. Small, Maynard and Company, fierce Braiding, Boston
Pan=American Souvenir Coffee Spoon. WiS?
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[pgbrk] MCLURES MAGAZINE
FOR NOVEMBER.
Fiction
Nancy and I and the Girl
By n. v. McClelland
f
Reduce'! from an illustration by Henry Hutt tor *- Nancv and 1
and THE GlKL."
The Tipster
a" Wall Street Story By EDWIN LEFEVRE
Reduced from an illustration by W. R. Leigh for "The Tipster."
Among the "Probable Features tvill be the follotving articles :
Persona.1 Reminiscences of English Statesmen. By G. W.
SMALLEY, New York Correspondent of the London "Times." First Paper— BALFOUR, ROSEBERY, CURZON, ASQUITH, and GEORGE WYND-HAM.
Automobile Racing. By WALTER WELLMAN, Author of "Long Distance Balloon Racing." ILLUSTRATED WITH DRAWINGS OF THE RACE FROM PARIS TO BERLIN.
Delivering the Goods. By
JOSIAH FLYNT, Author of " the Tammany Commandment," "The World of Graft," " Powers that Prey," etc. HOW VOTES ARE BOUGHT IN NATIONAL, STATE, AND MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS—TAMMANY versus QUAY METHODS.
Marvels of Modern Production. By GEORGE B. WALDRON — MACHINERY, THE GREAT E-MANCIPATOR.
And other Articles, Stories and Poems, with beautiful illustrations.
Co-Oer designed by Albert Sterner
Fiction
Colonel Joslyn, U. S. A.
By M. QUAD
Reduced from an illustration by a. I. Keller for " colonel Joslyn, U. S. a."
Why the Hot Sulphur Mail Was Late
By
CHAUNCEY THOMAS
Reduced f oni an illustration by Charles S. Chapman for " Why the Hot Sulphur Mail was Late."
[pgbrk] McCLURE'S MAGAZINE.
A DISCOUNT OF40%
WILL AFFORD A FEW WHO ARE INTERESTED IN RELIGION, HISTORY OR ART A RARE OPPORTUNITY TO SECURE
The Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ
By J. JAMES TISSOT.
In Four Large ¦Sumptuous Volumes, Containing o-Oer 500 "Reproductions of the Famous Tissot "Paintings. 138 of tvhich are in Colors so Wonderfully Printed they cannot be told from the Originals.
NOTHING APPROACHING THIS WORK HAS EVER BEEN ATTEMPTED BEFORE. The famous
French artist devoted ten years in the Holy Land to the closest travel and study. In this series of 500 splendid pictures, 138 in colors, every recorded incident in the life of Christ is presented, every parable illustrated and described, the scenes of his youth, ministry, death and resurrection are depicted true in color, costume, landscape, and all details to the life, country and the time. Here is seen Judea of 1900 years ago, the busy streets of tbe cities, curious architecture, magnificent temples, all tbe pomp and ceremony and pageantry of the past. The men and women of the Gospel Story seem to live again before the eyes of the reader.
THE EXHIBITION OF THE PAINTINGS in the large cities of this country aroused intense enthusiasm. Over 500,000 people viewed them before they were purchased for the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and.. Sciences. As the reproduction of the pictures for book publication was personally supervised by M. Tissot and printed upon special art paper the-rare opportunity of securing fac-similes of the originals was quickly seized by those who had the means to invest at the regular prices:
M. TISSOT AND HIS GUIDE From photograph taken half way up the Mount of Olives.
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Enclosed herewith find one dollar. Please send me on approval, AT YOUR EXPENSE, a complete set of
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McClure, Vhillips SSL Co.
ANNOUNCEMENT OF
SEPTEMBER. AND OCTOBER- PUBLICATIONS
Seven pages of promise for Fall and Winter reading. Within the covers of these books will be found much of the best of all that recent years have brought us—in fiction, history, biography, science, and the art of printing.
ANTHONY HOPE'S NEW NOVEL
Tristram of Blent
Anthony Hope has deserted his ideal kingdom and has shown that he needs a setting no more picturesque than the heart of modern England to display his wonderful story-telling powers. In his new novel, the difference of twelve days between the English and Russian calendars, affecting in turn a marriage, a birth, and the ownership of lands, furnishes complications for a most unique plot. Not since "The Prisoner of Zenda " has the author written a story so strong, so orijinal. Never before has he portrayed character with such keen discrimination. umo, $1.50.
Irish PaLstoreJs
By SHAN F. BULLOCK
.. Mr.- Bullock is doing a great work both for literature and for the hard-working plodders of his own land in his sympathetic sketches of the Irish peasantry. His new stories, "Irish Pastorals," depict within a life more vigorous than we can well realize, abundant elements of keen native wit, irrepressible good nature, and shrewd practical wisdom. The book will give many American readers a new conception of Irish pastoral life. izmo, $1.50.
The House with tKe Green SH\itters
By GEORGE DOUGLAS
Petty provincial jealousies which arise in an interior Scottish village combined with rock-firm adherence to principle disclose the contrasting characteristics of a sturdy people, whose life this
story tells in a way delightful in its freshness and often amusing for the inconsistencies of the characters. Mr. Douglas is new to American readers, and in this, his latest book, he has struck a new vein in the inexhaustible mine of Scottish character and humor. 1 2mo, $ 1. 50.
Sons of the Sword
By Mrs. MARGARET L. WOODS
A tale of marked strength and originality of the Napoleonic period. Mrs. Woods is a writer almost unknown in America; but her assured, clear-cut style is what one would expect from trained and able service in literature. Her heroine is English, but the action takes place on-the Continent, giving the reader a vivid, close, convincing acquaintance with the great Napoleon. Mrs. Woods is a name to be taken account of henceforth in this country. 1 zmo, $1.50.
I
IJ
Sons
of the Sword
Maiyarat L, Wands
16
[pgbrk] McCLURE'S MAGAZINE.
A STIRRING TALE BY S. R_. CROCKETT
The Firebrand
A stirring story, moving in Spain at the time when the followers of Maria Christina, and those of Don Carlos, are contesting the right of succession to the throne. The hero, a lovable, hot-headed young Scotchman, appropriately named the "Firebrand," becomes involved with two friends in a Carlist plot to abduct the Queen Regent and little Isabella. The story is full of incident and excitement, and chronicles the love tale of the Scotch hero and his Spanish sweetheart. I zmo, $ 1. 50.
TWO NOVELS OF THE WEST BY WESTERN WRITERS
The Westerners
By STEWART EDWARD WHITE
A picturesque land in a period when visions of mining wealth were attracting an interesting variety of people gives the setting to this story of the Black Hills. A young girl whose New England conscience struggles against the downward influence of a rough mining camp is one of the central figures. The other is a half-breed, a capricious, resourceful rascal whose revengeful schemes constitute a plot, the working out of which is exciting and absorbing. " The Westerners " is a forceful piece of truly American fiction. I 2mo, $1.50.
Jack Racer
By HENRY SOMERVILLE
"Jack Racer" is a refreshing, imperturbable chap, likewise impulsive, happy-go-lucky, continually doing things which he ought not in the best way that such things can be done. Why he is popular it is easy to see; also why he has a reputation as a ne'er-do-well. The way in which Jack finally gains the respect and approval of critical Pekin forms a most pleasing story. Incidentally, the characteristic life in a typical Western village is depicted vividly and humorously, yet kindly. I 2mo, $1.50.
Colonial Fights and Fighters
By CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY
This is the second of an historical trilogy, a series of three volumes of stirring historical stories dealing with the great fights and fighters of American history of which "American Fights and Fighters" was the first number. This latest addition tells of Frontenac's exploits, of the capture of Louisbourg by the Colonists. It tells of Sir Henry Morgan and other famous pirates, of de Soto, of the fighting around Ticonderoga, and the battle of Quebec. Mr. Brady has the rare art of relating history so that it possesses all the charm of fiction, while preserving entire accuracy and reliability. With 16 full-page illustrations. $1.20 net. Postpaid, $1.34.
cyrus townsend brady
17
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OF THE STEEL WO'RKE'RS
By Bread Alone
By I. K. FRIEDMAN
Mr. Friedman has chosen a great theme for his new novel, one which affords a wealth of color and a wide field for bold delineation. It is a story of the steel workers which introduces the reader to various and little known aspects of those toiling lives. In the course of the work occurs a vivid description of a gTeat strike. The author, however, shows no tinge of prejudice, but depicts a bitter labor struggle with admirable impartiality. Along with the portrayal of some of man's worst passions is that of his best, his affection for woman, forming a love story which softens the stern picture. The book will appeal to students of industrial tendencies, as well as to every lover of good fiction. i2mo, $1.50.
WaJl Street Stories
By EDWIN LEFEVRE
It would be difficult to find a better setting for a good story than this hotbed of speculation. On the Exchange, every day is a day of excitement, replete with dangerous risks, narrow escapes, victories, defeats. There are rascals, "Napoleonic" rascals, and the "lambs" who are shorn; there is the old fight between right and wrong, and sometimes the right wins; and sometimes—as the world goes—the wrong. In the maddening whirl of this life, which he knows so well, Edwin Lefevre has laid the setting of his Wall Street stories. "The Woman and Her Bonds," "Pike's Peak or Bust," and a few others have already appeared in McClure's Magazine, and their well-merited success is the cause of publication in book form of this absorbing collection. 1 zmo, #1.25.
Held for Orders
Stories of*Railroad Life By FRANK H. SPEARMAN
While railroad life affords fewer elements of passion and emotion than the life of Wall Street, it offers however a far greater field for the depiction of the heroic. Deeds of bravery are probably more common among these hardy, cool, resourceful men—the railroad employees—than among any other members of society. " Held for Orders " describes thrilling incidents in the management of a mountain division in the Far West. The stories are all independent, but have characters in common, many of whom have been met with in McClure's Magazine. izmo, $1.50.
Seen, in Germany
By RAY STANNARD BAKER
During a recent visit to Germany, Mr. Baker was afforded unusual opportunities to study the workingman, both in the shop and in his home ; the soldier, on and off duty; the typical German scientist (Professor Haeckel), and the Emperor—in fact, all sides of German life. The results of this careful study are set forth in a concise and interesting manner. Whether he is recounting a visit to a German scientific institution or describing the inner workings of a great German shipyard, Mr. Baker is convincing and entertaining. The pictures of George Varian, made from studies on the ground, add greatly to the charm of the book. 1 21110, $2.00 net. Postpaid, #2.15.
16
STO'Ry
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John Forsyth's A\ii\ts
By ELIZA ORNE WHITE
Author of " The Coming of Theodora " and "A Little Girl of Long Ago."
John Forsyth's aunts—Deborah, Letitia, and Lucy—are three distinctly charming characters, delightful to know. This book is a collection of New England sketches, so related to each other that they form practically a continuous story. Mr. William Dean Howells says of the author: " Miss White has at once placed herself with the few who can see truly and record simply; that is, with the artists. As you read you feel that the head and heart of the author are right; she loves what is good and kind and high wherever she finds it." I 2mo, $1.25.
Songs of Nature
Edited by JOHN BURROUGHS
There is probably no one better qualified than John Burroughs to edit an anthology of English nature verse. The great beauty of sentiment and expression in the selections which he has made gives one an exalted opinion of the possibilities of the English language. This volume is notable among its kind in that no poem has been admitted which is not absolutely true to nature. 1 zmo, $1.50.
A New Volume of Verse by EDWIN MARKHAM
Lincoln and Other Poems
This is the first collection of Mr. Markham's verse since the appearance of his "The Man with the Hoe and Other Poems," and it will test the lasting power of his genius. Some of the poems have appeared in leading magazines and periodicals, and have to do with the problems, the hopes, and the disappointments of life. They are not provincial in their view, nor do they carp at wealth. There is a hopefulness, an optimism, and an idealization of the. worker and his work in them that are quite in contrast with the pessimism which some critics have read into " The Man with the Hoe." Conspicuous among them are "Abraham Lincoln," "The Sower," and "The Muse of Labor." I zmo, $1.00 net. Postpaid,
Acting Versions of Shakespeare
COR-IOLANUS
With portraits of Sir Henry Irving as " Caius Marcius," and Miss Ellen Terry as "Volumina." This is the version which Mr. Irving will use in his forthcoming engagement in this country beginning about November 1st. 8vo, 50c. net. Postpaid, 60c.
HENRY V
As presented by Mr. Richard Mansfield. It contains an introduction by the actor, notes on heraldry, and two photogravure illustrations. 8vo, 50c. net. Pospaid, 57c.
HAMLET
Mr. Edward H. Sothern's Prompt Book. Sixteen half-tones illustrate the volume, eight of which show Mr. Sothern and Miss Harned as "Hamlet" and "Ophelia." 8vo, 50c. net. Postpaid, 60c.
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-BIOCRAVHy AJSTV 'REMINISCENCES
The Life of the Master
By Rev. Dr. WATSON (Ian Maclaren)
Dr. John Watson, better known as Ian Maclaren, has produced in the "Life of the Master" a work deeply reverential in feeling, noble in sympathy, and pregnant in meaning. It has been prepared with the full knowledge of a scholar, but its scholarship is never obtrusive. Dr. Watson's method is to take the vital and human results of learning and to use them in enriching and illuminating the narrative. The "Life of the Master" is a work which will help men to realize, if they have never realized it before, that the best in their lives has its origin in the teachings of the gentle Galileean. Illustrated in colors. Large 8VO, $3. 50, net. Postpaid, $3.69.
A jVEW ET>ITIOJV OF
Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson
Printed by J. M. Dent and Co., of London. Edited by Arnold Glover, with an introduction by Austin Dobson. The volumes contain 100 drawings by Herbert Railton, which are a lasting record of the fast disappearing localities connected with Johnson and his times. The drawings are based on such localities as still exist and on old topographic engravings. To these are added a series of 10 photogravure portraits, done in colors, of Johnson and his contemporaries. 3 vols., cloth, crown octavo, per set, net, $9.00. Postpaid, $9.46. Large paper edition, limited to 350 copies for America, with a series of 30 portraits of Boswell, Johnson, and other contemporaries, reproduced in tinted photogravure. Per set, net, $18.00. Postpaid, $18.66.
Life on the Stage
By CLARA MORRIS
Probably no American has a wider or more intimate acquaintance with great actors than has Clara Morris. With a retentive memory, an infinite sense of humor and an unusual faculty for telling an incident, Miss Morris has drawn upon a busy and interesting life, and has filled her volume to the brim with happenings in which she herself bore a part, but which, in the most charming manner, show the humor and humanity of the great men and women whom the public vaguely knows only as unreal members of a mimic world. The work is a classic of the American stage. 1 2mo, $ 1.50, net. Postpaid, $1.64.
Reminiscences of George S. Boutwell
Ex-Governor of Massachusetts
Rich in anecdotes, in impressions, in bits of unpublished historv, and in clearly expressed opinions on great questions past and present, these reminiscences are a substantial addition to the published history of the last fifty years. 8vo, $3.00, net. Postpaid, $3.19.
Life of Pasteur
By R. VALLERY-RADOT
This is the authorized biography of this great scientist, written by his son-in-law, and hence authoritative. z vols., 8vo. Per set, $7.50. Postpaid, $7.80.
20
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dfnstows A°THER
DENSLWS G0QSE
Both the old and the young will be glad to renew their acquaintance with MOTHER GOOSE in her new dress, which W. W. Denslow has given this estimable old lady.
e-Oery Page Printed in 4- Colors
The book contains 96 pages of illustration and text. The author has chosen only those merry jingles which are best known and most worthy of preservation, carefully avoiding those senseless rhymes in ungrammatical English which other collections perpetuate to the injury of child readers. The text is boldly lettered and beautifully and humorously illustrated in the artist's inimitable style. Boards, 9x11^,^1.50.
The Princess of the Purple Palace
By WILLIAM MURRAY GR.AYDON
The Princess is the daughter of a powerful Chinese nobleman. She is abducted by the Boxers during the siege of Pekin and is rescued by two brave and clear-headed American boys. The book is full of exciting adventures of the kind that will appeal to boys and girls. 12mo, $1.10. Postpaid, $1.22.
p-revio x/SLy ijrsrx/e-D
Donegal Fairy Stories
By SEUMAS MAC MANUS
Tales of enchanted kings, queens, princes and peasants peopling the county of Donegal, Ireland, at the dawn of civilization. 1 2mo, $1.25.
Yankee Enchantments
By CHAS. BATTELL LOOMIS
With 4-0 Illustrations by Miss Cory
These stories are not only for the young, but their quaintness and drollery will delight older readers as well. 1 2mo, $1.25.
The
Jvimping Kangaroo
AND THE APPLE BUTTER. CAT
By JOHN W. HARRINGTON
With 4-8 Illustrations
Fanciful stories dealing with animals of the house and field. 8vo, $ 1.00.
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'BOOKS WHICH HAVE FILLED A PLACE
MONSIEUR BEAUCAIRE Booth Ta^rkington
JVobD in Its bOth Thousand
This novelette is still more than holding its own. It appeals to the best that is in us, combining the subtle charm of a day dream with the dash and fire of an historical romance. It is needless to quote press notices—Monsieur Beaucaire never received an unfavorable one. Cloth, $1.25. New edition, in full flexible leather, boxed, $2.00.
THE GOD OF HIS FATHERS Ja^ck London
Stories of the K^londiKe and the Great JVorthtvest
Both in subject and treatment, these tales of the far north are something new in literature. The author writes of things in the rough with all the vigor and power that the great theme demands. i2mo, $1.50.
THE DARLINGTONS Elmore Elliott Peake
A Close Approach to the Great American /Votfel
The Railroad once more figures in fiction, but in a new way. Here is an opinion from the Boston Herald: " Mr. Peake's first book is interesting from start to finish. It is full of incidents which would give enthusiasm to almost any story." izrao, $1.50.
EVERY ONE HIS OWN WAY Edith Wyatt
Old \/ncle E-sop Bested
Joel Chandler Harris says : " Old Uncle Esop is not in it with this collection of true fables. Their moral is not tagged on at the end, but is deftly worked in like the stitches in a quilt." These are stories of the common people of the American cities. " Such clever characterization I have not seen in years," says John Burroughs. I 2mo, $1.50.
FROM A SWEDISH HOMESTEAD Selma- La.gerl6f
" A Fresh Contribution to Human Delight"—Current Literature
These stories are translated from the Swedish. They are written in a spirit which is unfamiliar to American readers, and with a depth of sympathy which is rarely found in the short story. 1 2mo, $ 1.50.
AN AMERICAN ENGINEER IN CHINA
An Interesting Study of Chinese Questions Wm. Barclay Parsons
Mr. Parsons was Chief Engineer for the American Railroad Syndicate in China, a position which afforded excellent opportunities for studying Chinese conditions. " The book may be recommended as offering a clear insight into the factors of the Chinese problem."—Journal of tbe Royal Geographical Society, London. i2mo, $1.50.
CHILDREN OF THE NATIONS Poviltney Bigelow
A HooK. on Colonization and Its Problems
This is the work of an extensive and observing traveler. It is filled from cover to cover with interesting and valuable facts. 8vo, $2.00 net. Postpaid, $2.16.
McCLURE, PHILLIPS and CO., NEW YORK
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THE "ALTON'S" ENGINEER
IF YOU wisn TO HAVE A NICE HALFTONE ENGRAVING, 4}x3 INCHES, OF THE ABOVE PICTURE, SEND FOUH CENTS IN STAMPS TO
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Best Songs of the Day Only 17 Cents Each, or any six pieces for $1.00, Postpaid. SONCS I INSTRUMENTAL
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•Beyond the Gate* (Sacred Ballad) *In His Steps (Sacred Ballad) Good Bye, Dolly Gray MM Like to Hear Thnt Soug Again When the Harvest Bays arc Over,
Jessie Dear •Just Because I Love You So *The Way to \\ In a Woman's Heart Just Because She Made Deai
Goo Goo Eyes *My Girl from Dixie The Only Girl I Ever Loved For Old 'nines' Sake It's the Man Behind the Gun Who
Does the Work Hello Central) Give me Heaven •Tommy March Song Just to Remind -Me of You I Can't Tell Why I Love You,
But I Do •Since Thou Art Miue
March and Two Step *Fox Hunters •Handy Andy Coon—Coon—Coon *La Ronton ¦Smoky Mokes Col. Stewart Charlemagne Ben Hur Chariot Race Kentucky Jamboree Coonto mi JuhMee Mosquitoes on Parade Mtipule Dance
Waltzes • Matinee Idol •Alice of Old VIneennes Zenda
Light ufUi;,
Elliott Wild Flower Snnho
Dance of the Brownies
REMEMBER—Any regular 50 cent Popular Music Published we send you postpaid for 17 cents.
WORLD'S MUSICAL LIBRARY,
63 Dearborn Street, CHICAGO.
Remit In Stamps, .Money Order or Draft.
REFERENCE: National Bank of the Republic, Chicago. ¦
SPECIAL SALE on SOL BLOOM'S Folio of new copyright music, containing 31 complete compositions, both vocal and instrumental. Special price postpaid 50 cent?.
Send for our Mammoth Sheet Music Catalogue Fit EE.
* Pieces so marked new and sure to please.
'A United America."
THE
PAN-AMERICAN EXPOSITION.
At Buffalo, N. Y., arranged in the interests of the commercial and fraternal relations of "all the Americas," is described and illustrated in " Four-Track Series" No. 15, issued by the
NEW YORK CENTRAL.
This folder contains information valuable to travelers regarding Buffalo, the Exposition, and the train service of the New York Central ; also maps in colors of Buffalo and the Exposition grounds.
A copy of No. 15, the " l'an-American Exposition and Express" sent free, post-paid, to any address on receipt of a postage stamp by George h. Daniels. General Passenger Agent, New York Central Kail-road, Grand Central Station, New York.
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McCLURE'S MAGAZINE.
for Girls, house.
Subu
. District of Columbia, Washington.
National Park Seminary for Young Women
Seven separate buildings. Beautiful grounds. A bright, cheery, artistic home. No examinations. $425 to $525. Sight seeing every Monday. tk It is a liberal education to live in Washington." For illustrated catalogue address Box 107, Forest Glen, Md.
District of Columbia, Washington.
Chevy Chase French and English School
Washington. French the language of the Mile. I,. M. Boui.ignv, Principal,
Chevy Chase P. O., Md.
Massachusetts, Greenfield.
Prospect Hill School for Girls.
34th year. Graduate, elective, and college pre-g55*^ paratory courses. Illustrated circular.
Miss Ida F. Foster, Miss Caroline R. Clark, Prins.
New York, Cornwall-on-Hudson.
New York Military Academy
Near West Point. Prepares for all colleges. Now represented by graduates in the army, navy and twenty-six colleges and universities. For catalogue address the Superintendent.
f Hudson River SSZ \
Nyack=on=Hudson, N. Y. 25 miles from New York via Erie R.R. Superb location. Magnificent buildings. Lawn to river bank, dock, boating, bathing, athletics. Infantry, cavalry, artillery, English,Classical,Scientific,Commercial. Instructors all college men. Advisory Board composed of most distinguished war officers. Rates $400 to $500.
Capt. J. WILSON, U. S. V., A. M., Supt.
tWWVVV%t/VWVV^WVVVVVV\VVVVVVVV\V^^t.VtV^
New Jersey, Hackettstown. ~ ~ t1 . , T ... . Rcnpene.i Sept. 23. New build-
Centenary Collegiate Institute Ings. New furniture. Six
revised courses >f study. Ali experienced teachers. Send fur catalog and information to Rev. Charles W. MCCORMICK, Ph.D., D.D., President.
The Bennett School
45 minutes from New York. College Preparatory and Special Courses. Annex for young girls. Lor catalogue address
Miss May L. IJknnett, Irvington-on-Hudson, N. Y.
New York, Sing-Sing-on-Hudson.
Mt. Pleasant Military Academy
84th year. References : Hon Joseph H. Choate, Hamilton W, Mabie, L.H.D-, Charles B. Hubbell, formerly President Board Education, New York City. For beautifully illustrated year book address
The Principals.
Pennsylvania, Germantown, Philadelphia.
Walnut LanC School and VVellesley Preparatory. Prepares for all Colleges. Academic a*id special Courses.
Address Mrs. Theodora IJ. Richards, Principal.
Pennsylvania, Ogontz.
Cheltenham Military Academy 'Z
near Philadelphia. Pennsylvania's leading preparatory l>o*rdiri£ school, under the military system. Kates—Lower School, $500; Upper Sclioo), J600. Illustrated Catalogue. Rev. John d. SKILTON, A.M., Principal.
PENNSYLVANIA COLLEGE FOR WOMEN
east end, pittsburg, pa.
32nd year began Sept. 17th. College and College Preparatory Courses, Schools of Music and Art. Physical Culture, Golf, Tennis. Beauty and space of country with city advantages. Address
Rev. CHALMERS MARTIN, D.D., President.
North Carolina, Asheville.
Asheville College
For Young Women. Founded 1842. Thorough and elegant equipment. College, seminary and preparatory courses. Beautifully situated. Superb climate. Handsomely illustrated catalogue of information free. Archibald A. Jones, A.M., Pres.
NYACK MILITARY ACADEMY
NYACK=ON=HUDSON. N. Y.
Situated in one of the most beautiful sections of the country. Carefully arranged courses preparatory for College, the Gov-eijgment Schools or business. Able Faculty, proper discipline, home life, modern equipment. Finely situated in its own Park of ten acres, affording opportunity for all sports, including golf. Summer session. A cordial invitation is extended to any one interested to visit the Academy.
Address the St tekintendent.
Peekskill Military Academy
Peekikill-on-Hndso". Sew York. 6Sth" Year began Sept. 18th. Prepares ior Colleges and Government Schools. Thorough business course. U. S. Army Officer detailed by War Department. New and fully equipped Gymnasium. For Illustrated catalogue apply to
PRINCIPALS.
St. John's ScKool
Mcvrvlius. N. Y.
Fall term began September 19th, 1901.
Apply for information to
Col, WILLIAM YERBECK, President.
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American Academy of Dramatic Arts
Franklin H. SaroenT, President. A practical training school in conjunction witli Mr. Chas. Frohman's F.mpire Theatre and travelling companies. Apply to
E. P. STEPHENSON', Carnegie Hall, New York.
The Misses Ely's School for Girls.
Riverside Drive, 85th and 86th Streets, New York.
MRS. DORR'S
HOME AND DAY SCHOOL FOR GIRLS
80S West 106th Street
Adjoining Riverside Drive, N. Y.
MRS. DORR )„•¦, MIoS MILLER ( P"ncipals
New York, New York, 31 Fifth Avenue.
Stanhope=Wheatcroft Dramatic School
lied facilities. Practical sta^e instruction. Studen matinees. Six months' course begins October 14. Highes endorsement. Prospectus.
ADELINE STAN HOP E-WHEATCROI'T. Director.
LEARN
THE ART SCIENCE of PHOTOGRAPHY
Taught according to the andy
most approved methods, in the shortest possibles^ time and at smallest expense, for full par^fj+f^ tlculars and finely illustrated catalogue
•oi8?**J illinois college -"photograph
EFFINGHAM, ILLINOIS. \H
high grade photography taught. good positions secured for graduates*] '
PHXVi
fc Thoroi
Onv "U*
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¦STv. 9andJ^f .Editors of 5 popular
Our ^Oq> publications, students 'Oa contributions ™ £ are given preference r tlfA at liberal rates. Students _ successful and pleased. De- ®/V/ scriptive catalogue free. Address ' Sprague Correspondence School of Journalism No. 129 Majestic Building, Detroit. Mich.
5%
CTII T\ Vleading LAW SCHOOL
O I UU Tin correspondence
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Prepares for bar in any State. Combines theory and practice. Text books used are same as used in leading resident schools.Teaches law at your home, Three Courses—Regular College Course, Post Graduate and Business Law Courses. Approved by the bench and bar. Full particulars free. Chicago Correspondence School of Law, Reaper Block, Chicago.
B
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Fees cash or instalments. Write for Book. NAT. CORRESPONDENCE INSTITUTE (Inc.),
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PAGE-DAVIS SCHOOL
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Are baaed on our Ave years of. uccess. Merchants ill over (he world recognizethe value of this institution to them. They are employing; ra.e-Davis graduates at 825 to 175 per week. We teach you this Interesting and profitable modern business by mail. We SUnd right haclt ot you as long lis you need our pmtical, personal co-operation. Writs today for V. pages of information and proofs. Remember we are the original Ad. Instructors you hear so much ahout. PAGE-DAVIS CO., SUITE 13, 167 ADAMS STREET, CHICAGO
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Home The University of Chicago
- offers over 225 elementary and college courses r by correspondence in 2d of its Departments, lllUI V including Pedagogy, History, the Languages, ~ English, Mathematics. Physiography, Zoology, Physiology, Botany etc. Instruction is personal. University credit is granted for college courses successfully completed. Work may begin at any time. For circulars address
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO (Div. B), Chicago, 111.
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BUSINESS ARITHMETIC
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HENRY VON DEYLEN, 314 Clifton PI., Brooklyn, N. Y.
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9389 APPOINTMENTS
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Spragne Correspondence School of Law, l.J Hajpstio JiUk-., Detroit, Mich.
JOURNALISM
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LANGUAGES
"The Berlitz Method is the systematized form of learning a foreign language in a foreign country by its actual use."
THE BERLITZ SCHOOL OF LANGUAGES
Head Office : Madison Square, New York
Phila., Loder Bide.; Boston, 132 Boylston St.; Chicago, Auditorium; St. Louis, Odeon ; Sfin 1 rancisco, Licbcr IJIdg. 175 Branches in America and Europe. List of Schools and Catalogue of Books sent free.
DO NOT STAMMER YOU CAN BE CURED
44 50 Years a Stammerer"
Dr. y. B. Winston, Principal of Valley Seminary, Waynesboro, Va., writes: "1 was a severe stammerer from mv youth. I am now a free man. I have been cured six years, by Dr. E. S. Johnston, after stammering 60 years."
Refers by permission "to Bishops (_'. R Foss and C. H. Fowler, of M. E. Church, and Hon. John Wanamaker, Dr. Russell II. Con well and ex-Gbv.. Robert E. Pattison, of Philadelphia, who have sent us pupils. Write at once for new 67-page book to the
PHILADELPHIt INSTITUTE FOR STAMMERERS, 1033, 1043 Spring Garden St., and 517 N. 11th St., Philadelphia.
Edwin S. Johnston, Founder and President, who cured himself after stammering 40 years. _
DEAF
AND
HARD-OF-H EARING
persons, young or old, taught to understand conversation by watching the movements of the mouth. Easy, practical, rapid method. Results uniformly satisfactory. Fortieth year.
I>A.V1L> GREENE, 112S Broadway, New Yorb, IX. Y.
U
NITARIAN PUBLICATIONS
SENT FREE.
Address M. C, Arlington Street Church, Boston, Mass.
STAMMERING
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Our 200-page book. The Origi full particulars regarding treat address. Enclosed cents to pi
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THE LEWIS SCHOOL. 21 Adelaide Street, Detroit, Mich.
TELEGRAPHY
taupht thoroughly. Total Cobt.TulMon ftelepraphy and typewriting) board and room,6 months' course $82. Can he reduced one-half; great demand for opera-tort.; school organized 1874. Catalog free. Podge's Institute,Valparaiso.Ind.
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Instruct!' ent
truction of the highest grade by the best tab 4! ft in Chicago. Three months'course complete *,v
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CHICAGO COR. SCHOOL OF ADVERTISING,
Record-Jlerald Building, Chicago, III.
NEWSPAPER POSITIONS
Kern a Id's Newepaper Men's Exohnnjre (established May,
1808) recommends well equipped young men as reporters, editors and advertising solicitors. Registration free* fair commission from suc-c asful candidates. 13 Cedar Street, Springfield, Mass._
SHORTHAND
Practical, thorough instruction by mail. Best system. Sample lessons compared with others show why. You can secure this course FREE. Write for circular C—it tells how.
The American Shorthand College Schiller Building, Chicago, Illinois
A ROYAL ROAD TO LEARNING
The Otto KuMn Phonographic
Record System
Copyrighted iqoi. GERMAN, FRENCH, SPANISH and ITALIAN
We fully guarantee every student using our system diligently, to learn sufficient within three months' time, "to make himself thoroughly understood in either of the above named languages. Write Jor descriptive pamphlet. Phonographs and Records for sale.
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I WANT TO BE A NEWSPAPER ARTIST
IF YOU HAVE A LIKING - OR NATURAL TALENT FOR DRAWING-CUT THlbOUT-AND MAIL IT-WITH YOUR ADDRESS TO 85 WOR10 BUILDING-NEW YORK CUT
ILLUSTRATING
TiklitmHT Individual instruction in ¦ B .Newspaper. JUapazii e and
*»V lUttkMI Conp'ercialIUusirating. OB IwlftEL. . Other courses in i>„„k. „,„:,! T ,. Keeping, Advertisement
writing. Journalism and Stenography.
Successful Students Everywhere. TUITION PAYABLE 60 DAYS AFTER A POSITION IS SECURED.
FREE lV^malion.-- Write for proposition. , ' ¦* fc and Mention subject m which interested.
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[pgbrk] McCLURE'S MAGAZINE.
Every Boy
should subscribe for the great boy's paper,
The American Boy*
Tells you just what you want to know. Has departments for boy's sports, and boy's work. It represents the Order of The American Boy, a non-secret patriotic boy society. Whether you are at school or at work, you need THE AMERICAN BOY. Every number has over 100 illustrations, and you can't Imagine a thing a boy delights in or is interested in lhat does not appear in its paces. K*s a pleasing surprise to every one and is the talk of the country with its new and novel features and its great success.
Send 10 cents for a three months trial subscription.
$1 a year is the regular subscription.
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The FRANCES MARSHALL SYSTEM of
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u Give me fifteen minutes of your time daily, and i will teach you how to attain your highest NATURAL development of mind and body."
This system develops the lungs, perfects the circulation, gives strength to nerves and muscles, and increases mental power. It enables one to perform the maximum amount of mental and physical labor with the minimum expenditure of effort.
INSTRUCTION BY MAIL
Complete course of individual instruction by mail, illustrated by photographs. Write for prospectus, terms, etc. If ailing, state the nature of your complaint. The system is endorsed by prominent physicians and educators.
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HOME CORRESPONDENCE SCHOOL, Philadelphia
CHICAGO COLLEGE OF LAW
LAW DEPARTMENT Lake Forest University—Prepares for admission to the Bar in all the States. Extensive Course. Improved methods. Instruction in Preparatory Course by correspondence. For information address E. E. BARRETT, LL.B., Secretary, 18-26 Van Buren Street, Chicago.
BY THE MAGNIFICENT TWIN-SCREW EXPRESS STEAMSHIP
AUGUSTE VICTORIA
OF THE
Hamburg-American Line
Leaving New York, Jan. 22d, 1902, at 11 A. M.
Nomore delightful and instructive outing than this WINTER CRUISE TO THE ORIENT could possibly be arranged. The Old World, with its historic ruins and its mediaeval romance, with its brilliant skies and its balmy air, is reached by the traveller without toil or trouble, and with every facility provided to enjoy these wonderful scenes in comfort and luxury. The trip is equally enjoyable to the seasoned tourist, the invalid, and the one going abroad for the first time. The splendid steamship " Auguste Victoria " is one of the MODERN TWIN-SCREW ships of the Hamburg-American Line, and is magnificently fitted up and specially adapted for this service.
ITINERARY OF THE CRUISE-New York to Funchal (Madeira); Gibraltar; Maluku ; Algiers ; Genoa ; Ville-franche ; Malta ; Alexandria ; Beirut; Jaffa; Constantinople; Piraeus; Nanpiia; Syracuse; Catania; Messina; Palermo; Naples; Genoa; and return to New York. A total distanec of 13,891 miles, occupying ?g days. Specially attractive optional trips in Egypt, Syria, and Palestine. Rates from $400 upward.
HAMBURG-AMERICAN LINE. Dept. 4
35-37 Broadway
New York 159 Randolph St.
Chicago 106 N. Broadway St. Louis
1229 Walnut St.
Philadelphia 70 State St.
Boston 401 California St.
San Francisco
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[pgbrk] McCLURE'S MAGAZINE.
On Historic Ground
KNOX COLLEGE
is located at GALESBURG. ILLINOIS
HERE, 43 years ago this month, occurred one of the memorable debates between Lincoln and Douglas. Here, today, this same college is inspiring hundreds of young men and women with the high ideals which have made it a power for good citizenship and true scholarship in the past.
THE COLLEGE offers standard courses of instruction, arranged in seven groups, with a wide range of electives.
Catalogues and information furnished on application to the President.
DR. THOS. McCLELLAND, 'President, Galesburg, Illinois.
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[pgbrk] McCLURE'S MAGAZINE.
JD , Personally HT , , Z7 '
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[pgbrk] McCLURE'S MAGAZINE.
California
for your Winter Outing. The Way to go— The Santa Fe.
Our illustrated travel books tell of the delights of California—its matchless climate, outdoor sports, semi-tropic fruits and flowers, old missions, ocean beaches, towering peaks, and tourist resorts; also of the trip thither.
California is the place every one wishes to visit.
Scenes of interest on the way: Indian Pueblos and other unique features of adobe-land, Grand Canyon of Arizona — greatest wonder of the world, now reached by rail — and Yosemite, a vision of beauty.
You may go on personally conducted excursions, at lowest railroad and Pullman fare, living comfortably, seeing the most for the least money — a pleasant, economical outing, suited to small incomes.
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The California Limited, in service the year round, Chicago to Los Angeles and San Francisco.
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Address nearest Santa Fe Office for our new travel books, " Grand Canyon of Arizona " and " To California and Back." Sent for ten cents.
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[pgbrk] McGLURE'S MAGAZINE.
THE ONLY
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THE
Dentacura is a paste in a handy tube. You can get it at your druggist's for 25 cents. If not, send the 25 cents to us.
FREE—A targe sample ana booklet that really tells hoiv to take care of the teeth.
Dentacura Company
5 Ailing Street NEWARK, N. J.
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[pgbrk] ticCLVRVS MAGAZINE.
A LOCOMOBILE IN THE ISLAND OF TASMANIA (NEAR AUSTRALIA). Price List of New and Improved Locomobiles mailed free on application.
Adilress your inquiry to
THE cCoCOmobilc COMVAfty of ametuca
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32
[pgbrk] [pgbrk] Drawn from sketches made from life by W. R. Leigh.
IN THE OFFICE OF J. PIERPONT MORGAN.
[pgbrk] McClure's Magazine
Vol. XVII.
OCTOBER, 1901.
No. 6.
J. PIERPONT MORGAN.
By Ray Stannard Baker,
Author of Character Sketches of Theodore Roosevelt, Admiral Sampson, General Leonard Wood, etc.
A FEW months ago an American citizen without title or office landed in England, and so apprehensive was Threadneedle Street of his power in the financial world, and of the effect which his sudden death might have on the markets, that certain brokers, to protect themselves in their American investments, immediately took the extraordinary measure of applying to Lloyd's for insurance on his life, paying premiums at the rate of thirty pounds on the thousand for three months.
This citizen was J. Pierpont Morgan, who had just organized the most powerful industrial and financial institution the world has ever known. It matters not whether he was a large owner in the United States Steel Corporation; as its recognized and actual dictator, he controlled a yearly income and expenditure nearly as great as that of imperial Germany, paid taxes on a debt greater than that of many of the lesser nations of Europe, and by employing two hundred and fifty thousand men, supported a population of over one million souls, almost a nation in itself. Iron and steel making has long been known
Mr. Morgans doorman.
as the basic industry. England's greatness and Germany's recent progress were due largely to their ability to produce iron and steel cheaply and in large quantities. Mr. Morgan, as iron-master, controlling the world's greatest and cheapest sources of iron supply, threatened the trade and profits of England and Germany, both of which had already felt the sharp tooth of American competition. It is no wonder, therefore, that he was regarded at the moment as the American peril incarnate.
While in England Mr. Morgan bought— whether for himself or for American clients, it matters not—one of the greatest of English steamship companies, the Leyland line, operating thirty-eight vessels betweenEurope and America. This move, following so closely upon the organization of the Steel Trust, was interpreted at first as a blow to England's supremacy on the seas. It was nat-
Mr. Morgan. Pencil sketch by W. R. Leigh.
Copyright, 1901, by the S. S. McCLure Co. All rights reserved.
[pgbrk] 508
J. PIERPONT MORGAN.
Front and rear -views of the Old Morgan Homestead in Hartford, -where J. Pier-font Morgan lived as a boy. Dra-wn from photographs copyrighted by F. U. Adams.
ural and inevitable that Europe should anxiously inquire as to the further intentions of this man, to whom the purchase of a great steamship line seemed only the incident of a holiday.
About the same time still another episode brought into high relief Mr. Morgan's power. A panic occurred in the London Stock Exchange, resulting from the great financial struggle between Mr. Morgan and certain opposing interests for the control of the Northern Pacific Railway. A number of English traders must have faced ruin, with serious subsequent effects to the whole market, if Mr. Morgan had not stepped in and relieved the situation by accepting small payments from the distressed traders where he might have exacted his pound of flesh.
No one could follow the accounts of his doings in England, and of the deep concern which his presence caused, without realizing the meaning of power. Mr. Morgan, no doubt, controls and influences more money and money interests to-day than any other man in the world. Perhaps no one, not even Mr. Morgan himself, fully realizes the responsibility and gravity of that power. Certain it, is that the death to-day of Mr. Morgan would disturb more capital and shake more settled business institutions than the death of almost any sovereign in Europe.
If Mr. Morgan were merely rich, he would
not be worth thoughtful attention except as a social problem ; but his own riches constitute the least of his claims to distinction. Nowadays a rich man has little more opportunity to reach a commanding place in the world than a poor man, and often his very riches hamper his advancement. Native force and genius, sustained with hard work, govern progress among men of wealth as in any other class. Twenty-five years ago Mr. Morgan was practically unknown even in Wall Street, and he could hardly be called wealthy as wealth is now measured. By deep thinking and hard work he has reached, at the age of sixty-four years, the foremost place in American finance. He is the most advanced expression of a new world movement, that of " community of interest," of consolidation; he saw that great combinations were to constitute the next step in the development of industry and commerce, and he took early advantage of his sagacity.
Mr. Morgan, therefore, is to be considered not as a millionaire, but as a man of original force. Whether or not he has used his unquestioned genius to the highest purpose, whether or not he deserves all the credit or all the abuse that he has received, are questions the future alone will be able to answer.
Americans of great wealth may be divided into two classes: those who are self-made and those who inherit their riches. The self-made millionaire, although by no means unknown in old Europe, is peculiarly an American product, and there is no story which bites more keenly on our popular imagination than that of the poor farmer lad —never a plain" boy "—who hoed potatoes at twenty-five cents a day, and grew to be worth twenty-five millions. To this class belong such men as Huntington, Armour, the first Astor, the first Vanderbilt, Peter Cooper, Jay Gould, Hill, and Pullman. They have all been bold, active, fearless men,
[pgbrk] FAMILY AND EARLY LIFE.
509
sometimes rough and unpolished, sometimes unprincipled, always forceful and original. To their sons and successors these men left their money, but rarely their force and daring. Passiveness, polish, and conservatism naturally succeed creative activity, and the later Astors, Vanderbilts, and Goulds have been conservators rather than creators. J. Pierpont Morgan possesses the somewhat rare distinction, in America, of belonging to both of these classes. Born to considerable wealth, surrounded in his youth by evidences of culture, and carefully educated, he could have led a life of leisure if it had so pleased him. It was of his own motion that he chose a business career.
It is a significant fact that much of the great wealth of our country belongs to men who sprung from very old American families. The Morgan family dates back to 1636, when Miles Morgan, first of the name, landed on the soil of New England, and became one of the company which founded the town of Springfield, Massachusetts. Joseph Morgan, grandfather of J. Pierpont, was a farmer and tavern-keeper in Hartford, Connecticut, with a Revolutionary War record. Joseph left his son Junius Spencer, the present Morgan's father, a good property on what is now Asylum Hill, Hartford. Junius Spencer, full of energy and business acumen, was a bank clerk while hardly more than a boy, then a partner in the dry-goods business with Levi P. Morton (afterward Vice-President of the United States), and later an associate of the millionaire philanthropist George Peabody. He made money rapidly, established a successful banking house in London, with branches in America and Australia, and laid the foundation upon which his son rose to preeminence. At the age of twenty-three he married Juliet Pierpont, the daughter of the Rev. John Pierpont, poet and preacher, an original thinker, and a combative reformer, though not particularly endowed with practical wisdom. Pierpont was the author of the ringing old poem beginning:
Stand ! the ground's your own, my braves.
Mr. Morgan's city residence, corner of Madison Avenue and Thirty-sixth Street. From the water-color sketch by Otto Backer.
Mr. Morgan was born April 17, 1837, in Hartford, Connecticut, where he continued to live until he was fourteen years old, attending a neighboring country school for several years. In 1851 his father moved to Boston, and J. Pierpont became a student in the famous English High School, graduating at the age of eighteen. He is described as being a boy of sturdiness and independence, not talkative, taking small part in the social side of his school life, and not at all distinguished in his studies, except possibly in mathematics. At one time in his youth, an old friend of the family told me, young Morgan had a decided inclination toward poetry writing. For two years after he left Boston he was a student at the University of Gb'ttingen, Germany. At the age of twenty-one, he embarked on his career as a banker, receiving his first experience with the house of Duncan, Sherman and Co., of New York City.
One of the most complicated departments of banking is that of foreign exchange; it is also the department which has had the greatest growth in America in recent years. Through his father's world-wide connections, as well as in his own business relationships, Mr. Morgan attained a thorough knowledge
[pgbrk] 510
J. PIERPONT MORGAN.
of every intricacy of the foreign business. He acquired a mastery of the delicate relationships between the business transactions of nation and nation, and he saw the world's credit system in its broader aspects. Many an able banker is limited by the lack of such a breadth of view, the possession of which must have counted high in many of Mr. Morgan's achievements. It is significant of his idea of a banker's education that he appointed his son, J. Pierpont, Jr., to a position in the foreign exchange department of the bank at the very beginning of his career, and when he had mastered the American end of the business he was sent to London.
All who knew Mr. Morgan in early life agree that from the very beginning he exhibited the cardinal feature of his character, the capacity for pursuing his own way without advice, and that, independent of his father, he worked with him rather as man with man than as son with father. In 1860, at the age of twenty-three, he became the American agent for George Peabody and Co., of London, and with that firm his experience began in the handling of large funds, and he acquired familiarity with the risks and responsibilities of great business transactions. At the age of twenty-seven he helped organize the firm of Dabney, Morgan and Co., and seven years later, in 1871, he formed a combination with the wealthy Drexels of Philadelphia, the firm being known as Drexel, Morgan and Co. In 1895 Drexel, Morgan and Co. became J. P. Morgan and Co., and Mr. Morgan's father having died in 1890, the London house of J. S. Morgan and Co., and the Paris branch of Morgan, Harjes and Co., with all their connections the world over, fell under the sole dictatorship of J. P. Morgan, and to-day J. P. Morgan is the supreme director of all this great financial machine.
Significant of the changing centers of the world's money power is the fact that J. S. Morgan, the father, directed his banks from London, while J. Pierpont Morgan, the son, directs the larger system from New York. It was characteristic also that Morgan should have finally dominated every man and every firm with whom he came in contact; he must, by nature, be absolute dictator or nothing. It is for this reason, no doubt, that his house has remained a private bank—a private bank giving larger scope and freedom of action than a national bank, or any institution limited by fixed rules and subject to the divided mind of a board of directors. J. P. Morgan Sc Co. is not a corporation. It is a part-
nership. There are many partners—in all, eleven besides Mr. Morgan—and most of them men of the first rank, though wholly under the influence of the vital personality of the senior member.
Comparatively few people possess any very clear conception of what Mr. Morgan is or does in Wall Street. He is vaguely compared with Mr. Keene, who is a speculator; with Jay Gould, who was a wrecker; with Hill and Harriman, who are strictly railroad men; with the Astors, who are primarily real-estate owners ; with Carnegie, who was an iron-master. But Mr. Morgan's business is purely that of a banker—a worker with money. As such he acts as an agent for rich clients in the investment of money; he loans, borrows, transmits money abroad, issues letters of credit, and buys and sells securities which are the evidences of money. The extensive foreign connections of J. P. Morgan and Co. enable the firm to do a large business in foreign exchange. The interchange of merchandise commodities between the United States and the rest of the world now amounts to the vast sum of seventy-seven million dollars for every business day of the year. The banker who issues the drafts or the credits makes a profit on every dollar conveyed. J. P. Morgan and Co. transacts a large share of this business.
Mr. Morgan is not a practical railroad man, nor a steel manufacturer, nor a coal dealer, although he is interested in all of these things, because he is constantly buying and selling railroad and steel and coal stocks. Sometimes for some specific purpose he buys so much of a railroad company's stock that he and his clients practically own the railroad, and he takes a strong position in directing its policy. Not long ago I heard an apparently intelligent speaker who conveyed the impression that Morgan bought a railroad out of his surplus cash as a farmer buys a cow. Nothing could be further from the truth. While Mr. Morgan must make use of his own large means, it no doubt forms but a small part in his vast deals. The essence of successful banking is connections, otherwise friends. While coveting large earnings capital is proverbially shrinking and timid, fearing to strike out'boldly for itself, and yet ever ready to trust itself with confidence to the leader whose skill, foresight, and cautious daring have been steadily fruitful of success. Such a money-master is J. Pierpont Morgan. The millionaire Peabody trusted him first, then the Drexels with their vast fortunes, then the A^anderbilts, for whom he made a profitable sale of bonds early in his
[pgbrk] WHY HE SUCCEEDED.
511
career. All through these years he has thus built up an army of powerful connections, not only in America, but in England, France, and Germany, so that more and more millions of capital follow the dictates of his judgment. I asked a number of men in Wall Street
who knew Mr. Morgan and his methods intimately—and some were his friends and some his enemies—how he attained the leading position in the world of finance. The answers were: " He does exactly as he agrees to do." " He keeps his word." "He is an honest man." And one said: "He is a gentleman in his business dealings." It is plain that Mr. Morgan would not have the handling of such important interests unless men of money trusted him. But a leader must not only be honest; he must justify his leadership by success. The value of his judgment must be vindicated in good times and bad, else his
splendid following will surely fall apart. His followers must continue to regard him as strong and wise. It should not be forgotten that Mr. Morgan has been working doggedly at his profession for forty-four years, and that his prestige and preemi-
nence are of no sudden growth. With these facts in mind it is plain why Mr. Morgan's life is now so precious to the markets. When he drops out there is a possibility that some of the warring interests which he now holds together with an iron hand, as he holds the rival coal railroads of Pennsylvania, for example, may clash; the aggregation of capital which he now leads to swift successes may be unable to find at once another master in whose judgment it reposes such confidence, and it may begin to withdraw from the great activities to which Mr. Morgan has spurred it, and withdrawal
J. Pierpont Morgan at forty years of age.
[pgbrk] 512
J. PIERPONT MORGAN
of capital means stringency and falling prices.
Besides his own private banking house here and its branches abroad, Mr. Morgan largely controls a powerful national bank in New York City—the National Bank of Commerce, of which he is the vice-president. It is known in Wall Street as "Morgan's Bank." He is a dominating influence in other banks and financial institutions, and a director never without much influence in twenty-one railroad companies, great and small, including the New York Central and Lake Shore systems. He is a director in the Western Union Telegraph Company, the Pullman Palace Car Company, the iEtna Fire Insurance Company, the General Electric Company, the greatest electric company in the world, and in other less important corporations. And through his partners, who are directors in other railroad and steel corporations, his influence reaches far and wide. He is a potent, and in times of trouble the controlling, factor in several of what are known as the " coal roads '' of Pennsylvania—the Erie, the Lehigh Valley, the Central of New Jersey, and the Reading, together with their tributary coal-fields. He is the predominating influence in the Southern Railway and in three of its connections, the foremost railroad system of the Southern States, with over eight thousand miles of track, a system which he has created, and of which an associate and friend is president. He is also a power in many other railroads, as witness his recent appointment of the directors of the Northern Pacific Railroad, and his evident influence through J. J. Hill in the Burlington and Great Northern management. And, as I have already said, he is at present practically dictator of the vast steel interests of the country, through the United States Steel Corporation, and he controls at least one Atlantic steamship line.
It is impossible, of course, for any outsider to know Mr. Morgan's exact influence in any one of these vast business concerns. It may be set down for a fact that if Mr. Morgan's interests reach into any corporation even slightly, and Mr. Morgan chooses to dictate, his word is going a long way. " Why," exclaimed a somewhat enthusiastic admirer of Mr. Morgan's, "if he owned one share in a railroad company and wanted to boss, he'd boss." Indeed, he has something to do with so many widely diverse interests, that he occasionally finds one of his companies fighting another, as when, the other day, the General Electric Company began
suit against the Lorain Steel Company, one of the components of the Steel Trust. If anything dim and big in the way of business is impending in Wall Street, brokers tell with bated breath that Mr. Morgan, or, as it is usually expressed, " the old man," is behind it. He is the bogie of the street. Indeed, it is amusing to behold in what awe Mr. Morgan is everywhere held. Every one who speaks of him or about him must first be assured that the disclosures will go no further, as if he were committing a sort of treason.
And Mr. Morgan himself sits in his office and works prodigiously, apparently paying no attention to what is said about him, whether good or evil. Mr. Morgan's office occupies the first floor of a large, somewhat old-fashioned building, standing at the corner of Wall and Broad streets, New York City, the financial center of our country and of the world. On one side in Wall Street rises grimly the columned portals of the United States Sub-treasury Building, with George Washington standing in bronze dignity in front. On the other side, in Broad Street, facing Mr. Morgan's window, the new Stock Exchange is building. Within a radius of a quarter of a mile are gathered some of the richest banks in America, and the offices whence most of the great railroad and other corporations of the country are controlled. Uncounted millions of dollars' worth of business—American, European, Australian, Chinese, African business—is there transacted every hour. But in the crook of the steps of Mr. Morgan's office a man makes a good living selling lemonade and chewing-gum, and he looks contented too.
To Mr. Morgan's office come railroad presidents, bank presidents, and the heads of great corporations, to consult with him, and once the Secretary of the United States Treasury came to seek his aid in preserving the solvency of the United States Government. He rarely goes to them ; they all come to him. Until recently any man might walk up to his desk, which stands in plain view from the outer office, without the formality of presenting a card; but, while approachable, it would be an intrepid man indeed who would call upon him without definite business in hand.
Mr. Morgan impresses one as a large man, thick of chest, with a big head set close down on burly shoulders, features large, an extraordinarily prominent nose, keen gray eyes, deep set under heavy brows, a high, fine forehead, a square, bulldog chin. His hair is iron-gray and thin, and his mustache is
[pgbrk] THE FINANCIAL CENTER OF THE WORLD.
The office of J. P. Morgan and Co., at the corner of Wall and Broad Streets. Opposite the Wall Street side of this office stands the United States Sub-treasury Building ; opposite the Broad Street side, the new Stock Exchange is building.
From the original painting by George Varian.
[pgbrk] 514
J. PIERPONT MORGAN.
close cropped. For a man of his age and size he seems unusually active, moving about with almost nervous alertness. He is a man of few words, always sharply and shortly spoken. When a man comes to him Mr. Morgan looks at him keenly, waiting for him to speak first, and his decision follows quickly.
A young broker, who had never met Mr. Morgan before, went to him not long ago to borrow nearly a million dollars for a client. He told Mr. Morgan what he wanted in half a dozen words, and handed him the list of securities to be deposited as collateral. Mr. Morgan looked sharply at his visitor, " looked at me as if he saw clear through me," as the broker expressed it, then glanced swiftly down the list. "I'll take the loan,'' he said, and passed the borrower on to one of his partners. That was all. The whole transaction, involving a loan larger than the yearly business of many a small bank, had not taken a minute and a half, and Mr. Morgan's side of the conversation had consumed not more than a dozen words.
Mr. Morgan knows to the last degree the psychology of meeting and dealing with men. The man who sits in his office, a citadel of silence and reserve force, and makes his visitor uncover his batteries is impregnable.
That is Mr. Morgan's way—the way he dealt with a certain owner of coal lands in Pennsylvania who knew that Mr. Morgan must have his property, and so had come down prepared to exact a good price, to " thresh it out with Morgan." Mr. Morgan kept him waiting a long time, and then he came out, bulky, cold, impressive, looked the coalman in the eye, and only broke the silence to say,
"I'll give you $- for your property."
And there the bargain was closed. His way is to deal brusquely in ultimatums; he says: " I'll do this," or, "I'll do that," and that settles it.
All who know say that Mr. Morgan does not ask advice, not even of his partners, and that when he makes up his mind nothing short of a cataclysm will divert him. No doubt his confidence in himself inspires confidence in others. He may make, and must have made, mistakes, but he goes tramping forward as though nothing had happened, and even his partners may be more than half convinced that nothing has happened, or else that it is all a skilful feint in some unsuspected manoeuver.
Mr. Morgan has the surety of judgment and the broadness of mind which enable him to work with large numbers of men—a strong man with eyes on a clearly defined
Railroads controlled by Air. Morgan, Railroads partially controlled by Mr. Alorgan.
map showing the railroads in the united states in which mr. morgan is interested.
[pgbrk] WHAT HE HAS DONE.
515
though distant purpose, which he alone perceives, marching ruthlessly forward until his goal is reached. It was Bismarck's way. We may not like such men, and the cries of those who are trampled upon may ring ugly in our ears, but this is the method of the men who accomplish things.
Without what has been so well called the "leaping mind," Mr. Morgan never could have accomplished what he has. Mr. Morgan does not spend many hours at his office, and when he is there he rarely remains long at one desk. A man who was long associated with him told me how he '' leaped'' through his correspondence, how he was often complete master of a proposition before the explanations were half finished, and the lawyers who drew up the papers for the Steel Corporation could hardly keep pace with his swiftly enunciated plans. Indeed, Mr. Morgan is given credit in Wall Street not so much for his skill in organizing the Steel Trust as he is for the speed with which the enormous task was accomplished. On December 12, 1900, he attended a dinner given at the Univeisity Club by J. Edward Simmons, of the Fourth National Bank. Charles M. Schwab was there and gave an illuminative address on the steel and iron industry. Mr. Morgan, though already a dominant factor in three steel combinations, had never before met Mr. Schwab, but he was so impressed with his address, that he conceived the idea of a gigantic combination of the steel interests in America. Three months later the largest corporation in the world was organized, with Mr. Schwab as its president, and the stock was on sale.
As yet I have given no account, except incidentally, of what Mr. Morgan has actually done to make him a great figure in finance. There is not space here to mention even briefly half of the great money manoeuvers which he has planned and carried to success. First of all it is evident that Mr. Morgan has never been a wrecker, like Jay Gould; he has always been an up-builder, or a creator. Most of his achievements have had for their object the saving of money waste. Economy in production, economy in management, economy in interest charges are what he has always sought. That is why he never misses an opportunity to strike a blow at competition in whatever form it may appear. Rival companies compete and lose money; Mr. Morgan steps in and combines them, thus saving not only the losses due to the competition, but economizing also in administrative expenses. In times of great excitement
in Wall Street, when panic and loss threatened the entire country, Mr. Morgan has been the first to come to the rescue with his money and credit, knowing that panic and uncertainty are among the most fruitful sources of loss to capital. In the panic of December, 1899, for instance, when call money reached one hundred and eighty-six per cent., Mr. Morgan at once poured several million dollars into the market, and instantly quieted the panic. For many years he has acted as a sort of balance-wheel to the country's finance, wielding his immense power and credit so as to steady the market when panic threatened.
Mr. Morgan has been such a reor-ganizer and reconstructor of bankrupt corporations, especially railroad companies, that Wall Street has come to call the process re-Morganizing. He acts, sometimes, as a sort of expert financial doctor, called in to treat financial illness for a fee—and he knows as well how to charge as the best specialist in surgery. At other times he buys up a railroad, as a second-hand furniture dealer buys a dilapidated settee, refurbishes it with new upholstery, stiffens the legs, polishes up the varnish, and sells it for new at a big profit. One might also liken Mr. Morgan to a shrewd retail merchant, for he knows so well how to make his goods attractive that, when he places a fine new line of stocks and bonds in his window, they are recognized as the latest fashion, and find a ready market.
But this reorganizing is a tremendously difficult business. For instance, in 1893, Mr. Morgan's firm took hold of what was then the Richmond and West Point Terminal Railway and Warehouse System, a loose, confused combination of some thirty jealous companies, all involved in bankruptcy, with some two hundred and fifty million dollars in securities outstanding. It required months merely to learn the nature of the business, and then Mr. Morgan took up the almost hopeless task of getting the consent of all the warring interests to his plan of reorganization. He had to persuade, frighten, or force crowds of creditors to bow to his will, besides providing the vast sums of money necessary to buy up claims and to support the railroad while the work of reorganization was going forward. It is impossible to give more than a hint of the complications involved in such an achievement ; in this case there were no fewer than twenty-six foreclosures. And at the last, in this as in every reorganization, Mr. Mor-
[pgbrk] A class in bricklaying.
The New Tork Trade School, First Avenue, Sixty-seventh and Sixty-eighth Streets, which was established by Mr. Morgan at a cost of over $500,000. From the water-color sketch by Otto Bacher.
Students at work decorating a ceiling.
The New Parish House of St. George's Church, soy East Sixteenth Street, to which Mr. Morgan gave $30o,OOO. From the water-color sketch by Otto Bacher.
gan was confronted with the great task ot convincing the public that the new company could so operate the railroad, which had gone bankrupt before, that it would pay a profit, else the stocks and bonds would not sell. To-day the Southern Railway, which sprung from this feat of reorganization, is one of the best railroads in the country, doing a large part of the transportation business of the Southern States. In a similar manner Mr. Morgan's firm reorganized the West Shore Railroad in 1885, and sold it to the New York Central, thereby stopping the fierce competition which was injuring both roads; the Reading Railroad in 1886, the Chesapeake and Ohio in 1888, the Erie Railroad in 1895, the Lehigh Valley Railroad in 1897. As far back as 1880 Mr. Morgan's firm furnished the money, forty million dollars, which enabled the Northern Pacific Railroad to build to the Pacific Coast, and in 1887 it saved the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad from insolvency by forming a syndicate to provide that company with ten million dollars.
However, many of Mr. Morgan's reorganizations are criticised in Wall Street for being slow in paying profits, and he is accused in some quarters of overcapitalizing his corporations, basing the stock issue on the most favorable and promising aspects of the business, rather than on an average accomplishment. Many Wall Street men assert that the new Steel Corporation has thus been overcapitalized, and that it can never earn the expected dividends on so large a capital. This view, however, is as strenuously combated in other quarters.
[pgbrk] TO THE GOVERNMENT'S RESCUE.
517
The New Lying-in Hospital, Second Avenue, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Streets, to which Mr. Morgan gave $1,550,000. From the -luater-color sketch by Otto Bacher.
Mr. Morgan's most noteworthy achievements have been the part he played at least three times in relieving the United States Government from serious financial embarrassment. As early as 1876 Drexel, Morgan and Co. were the chief instruments in furnishing the cash for refunding the government debt, and placing the United States once more on a gold basis after the years of stress and paper money following the civil war. The part that J. P. Morgan and Co. played in 1895, when, after the panic of 1893, gold began to flow out of the country until it threatened the stability of the Treasury, is familiar history. At that time Morgan and Belmont, with other bankers whom they had interested, agreed to buy two hundred million dollars' worth of government bonds, to pay for them in gold, and to prevent gold,
as nearly as possible, from leaving the country. It was one of the greatest financial undertakings ever attempted. In effect it placed all the credit of the private money interest of the country behind the government, and it saved the day. For this service J. P. Morgan and Co. and its associates exacted very large pay, and when roundly abused for it by the public and in Congress, they answered that their profits were not large considering the magnitude and risk of the undertaking. In the threatened panic of the next year, 1896, Mr. Morgan offered again to provide gold for the government, but
The New Tork Tacht Club, West Forty-fourth Street. The land on which the house stands -was given by Mr. Morgan. From the water-color sketch by Otto Bacher.
[pgbrk] 518
J. PIERPONT MORGAN.
when the people demanded a popular loan, he immediately wrote to President Cleveland pledging him his support.
In 1899 J. P. Morgan and Co. took the lead in a significant departure in American finance. Until then London was the world money center, and the United States had, therefore, been a borrower, not a lender. But in 1899 Mr. Morgan's firm financed the first foreign loan ever negotiated here. With the assistance of its connections in Europe the entire foreign debt of Mexico, amounting to one hundred and ten million dollars, was converted. In 1900 the firm took the lead in helping to supply Great Britain with war money, placing twelve million dollars of bonds in this country, and since then it has taken part of several other foreign loans.
These are only a few of the achievements of Mr. Morgan and his firm. A history of J. P. Morgan and Co. for the last six years would constitute a fairly complete history of Wall Street, and, indeed, of finance in the United States.
Business by no means absorbs all of Mr. Morgan's energy. Perhaps his first interest outside of his work is his enthusiasm as a collector of works of art. He is the possessor of many famous paintings, and is interested in rare china, Limoges ware particularly. As evidences of his taste he has gathered and presented a collection of fabrics to Cooper Union, of rare gems to the American Museum of Natural History, of Greek ornaments to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Yachting is his diversion, and he superintended the building of his steam yacht " Corsair " in every detail. For a long time he was commodore of the New York Yacht Club, to which he recently presented the land for a new club-house. After a hard siege at business Mr. Morgan goes for a cruise, and it is related that he often takes with him a mass of papers, and that when his friends look for him he is to be found below deck buried deep in figures, utterly oblivious to his surroundings. Fond of a fine dinner, a connoisseur in wines, and a judge of cigars, he is temperate in all these. Caring little for society, he occasionally enjoys a quiet party, and may warm into talkativeness, though never on business subjects. Any one who has seen him at the dinners of the New England Society knows that he enjoys them. There he will sometimes join in the singing, but it is very rarely that he makes a speech. None of his few intimate friends are among his business
associates. The outward mark of esteem which Mr. Morgan bestows upon a man is to present him with a collie dog from the kennels of his country home. A member of many clubs, he is too busy to be much of a clubman, but he has always been a churchgoer, and what is more, a church-worker, being a vestryman of St. George's Church in Stuyvesant Square, and the unfailing friend and helper of its rector, the Rev. Dr. Rainsford. He has taken especial interest in the boys of the church, has helped devise means to keep them off the street and to teach them trades, and sometimes he attends the evening sessions of their club and talks to them. Two of his known philanthropies have been the establishment, at a cost of over five hundred thousand dollars, of the now well-known New York Trade School in the upper east side of New York, and the founding of a smaller trade school in connection with St. George's Church.
Mr. Morgan has also given to Harvard University for the Medical School one million dollars; for a great lying-in hospital near St. George's Church, one million, three hundred and fifty thousand dollars; for St. John's Cathedral, five hundred thousand dollars; for help toward paying the debts of the Young Men's Christian Association, one hundred thousand dollars; for the Loomis Hospital for Consumptives, some five hundred thousand dollars; for a library in Holyoke, Massachusetts (his father's birthplace), one hundred thousand dollars; for preserving the Palisades along the Hudson River, one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars; for a new parish house and rectory for St. George's Church, three hundred thousand dollars. He also contributed largely to the Queen Victoria memorial fund and to the Galveston relief fund; he presented St. Paul's Cathedral in London with a complete electric plant, and built a hospital at Aix-les-Bains, France.
And this is J. Pierpont Morgan, a powerful factor in one of the great departments of human activity, a man endowed with extraordinary energy and capacity, who has trampled forward in his own rough way, asking neither sympathy nor advice; who has been widely trusted and feared, little liked and much abused; who has attained great wealth, which he neither needed nor desired, except as a tool to carve a way to greater achievements; who has worked prodigiously —in short, a man who has lived his life and fought his fight to the limit of his power.
[pgbrk] THE OTHER MAN.
By Sara Cone Bryant.
Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy.
I WISH you would tell me about that other man,'' he said suddenly. '' You know all about the other woman."
" ' The other woman ' ? " Her eyes met his, as she let the white sand trickle through her fingers.
'' No, no; there never was another woman; I dreamed her! But—I told you even my dreams, Honora !"
" I had no dreams to tell."
" You mean it was so real ? But you have forgotten it now ? "
" That is, since a week ago to-day ? "
" I only know it was the one moment that counted in all our lives; time ceased then; say you have forgotten, since then."
" I have forgotten all the pain."
" No, not that; you have forgotten him."
"Have I?"
"Say it!"
" Do you care so much ? A little fort-
night ago you did not care at all. Two little weeks ago I was just Honora.''
" Two weeks or two years, what difference since the miracle is wrought ! Besides, I did care; I must have cared always, without realizing it." The girl shook her head. "Well, if you come to that, what did you care for me ? I was just an old friend, was I not ? The best of friends, perhaps, but only that. Friends! But what matter now ? Only—I want to hear you say that you have forgotten all that went before, as I have!''
'' Have you altogether forgotten ? It was only two years ago, Maurice. And her eyes were so black—! I can see such a pretty picture when I think of what you told me; the center of it is a wounded soldier, opening his dizzy eyes on a vision of black-eyed angels, with cups of water, and red roses in their hair—what have you done with the
[pgbrk] 520
THE OTHER MAN.
rose, Maurice ? And her tongue put a fascinating Spanish velvet edge on everything she said. Have you forgotten that ? Ah me, but there was romance and midsummer madness for the young Rough Rider in Cuba! "
" Yes, there were a few little things like that," drawled the man easily; " but there were others. There was trickery and pretense, for one thing; and cold calculation masquerading as coy hesitation, for another. And all the while "—his voice changed—" up in God's country was a woman true as steel and fine as gold, the stanchest friend a whining jackanapes who wanted what was bad for him ever had! "
" Poor little jackanapes," the girl said whimsically; " it was an honest whine while it lasted; don't let us try to change that."
" I don't deny it, Honora. You saw me all through the thing, from the time I came home, with my head full of black-eyed dev— angels, to the grand catastrophe. You know exactly how much of a fool I was, and I
am glad you do. I must have bored you unmercifully with my rhapsodies. I ought to have had more sense; but you were so sympathetic you encouraged me."
The girl smiled slightly, looking far out to sea.
" Do you remember how you used to think of ways to cheer me up during the great uncertainty ? You always said everything would come out all right."
'' I remember,'' said the girl simply.
" And then—afterward—well, you rather kept me from souring on the world, Nora.
Honora. The—other—man never did that " [pgbrk]
THE OTHER MAN.
521
There is something so essentially wholesome about you—and besides, you wouldn't have it! I say, dear, how did you know enough ? What makes you such a wise woman, anyway ? ''
A reflection of that past wisdom fell on the girl's face, as she answered slowly: " Oh, I knew—perhaps I read it somewhere —that pain is not a corrosive until it is mixed with gall; then it is. I didn't want little Maurice eaten up blood and bones, you know, so when I could I just tried to eliminate the gall from the potion."
'' So that was it ! I have often wondered since if you knew what you were doing. I did often feel as if the poison had been drawn off, when I had been with you. You even found extenuating circumstances for the lady."
" Yes, I believe I tried to be a gentleman," said the girl, nodding.
The man laughed at the unexpected phrase. He drew one of the straying hands within reach, and leaned his cheek on it caressingly. '' Dear, you are a gentleman and a scholar," he murmured, " and bon camarade into the bargain ; there is no one like you."
The girl looked at his bent head with a passion of tenderness in her eyes which did not reach her voice as she answered, " Good comrades all the way through, eh, Maurice ?''
" Comrades—and lovers," he added very low, his eyes dominating her.
'' Not always that,'' she objected, moving rather restlessly from the pause which followed. " For a long, long time just comrades."
"But lovers now.—What are you trying to say? Oh, no, I won't let you go; no, nobody will see, and if they do they may. Makes you too warm ? You were much too cool before. Well, then, say ' please ' prettily—no, this way—and I will-there! "
The girl tucked back a straggling lock and settled her collar deliberately. Her cheeks were very pink. She looked hard at a sailboat, a long way off; the man looked at her. Presently a dimple began to grow slowly near the corner of her mouth.
" The—other—man never did that," she murmured.
Maurice jumped. "D—hang the other man!" he exclaimed. "I should hope not. Look here, Nora, who was he ? Were you engaged to him ?''
"No."
" Is he—did he die, dear ? "
"No! Oh, no. What made you think of such a thing ? " She shivered.
The man looked at her. " Then I don't understand," he said slowly; " what was the trouble; did you quarrel ? "
" Curiosity is an evil trait I never thought you possessed."
" I am not curious. How can I help wanting to know ? That day, two years ago, you told me that you understood because you had —felt that way yourself; you remember ? I have never forgotten it. I cannot help wondering why—and who—if he treated you badly!"
'' No, he did not. I have—nothing against him."
"Then tell me about it; it wasn't anything more than a girl's fancy, was it ? "
" I can't say that quite;"
'' Well, perhaps not a fancy; but a sentiment, an affair of imagination—you did not really care, Honora ? "
" You would like to know just how much I cared? Really?"
" Yes."
"Then I will tell you. I have so often wanted—in this last week—to tell you!" There was something wistful yet humorous in her eyes. "I will tell you the whole story. It will be a relief to have you know. And yet, after all, there is nothing to tell."
The man sank down again in an easy posture and rested his head on his hand, watching her face as he listened.
'' He was some one I knew when we were scarcely more than boy and girl," she began thoughtfully; "we were great chums —about as good chums as you and I were in your Harvard days. I always liked him. You know there were always a good many of dad's students at the house"—the man nodded—" and they were all nice to me. I do not think I knew that I liked him any better than the others; certainly I saw quite as much of some of the rest."
" Of me for instance ? "
" Ye-es, you were there as much as he was in those days." A pause followed, during which the girl played with the sand. " One day," she said, after a while, " he came to see me and said he was going away. It came to that sooner or later with you all, of course, but this was not the regular thing. He was going to—on—on a kind of mission, connected with the government service; it was something very honorable, but—difficult ; he was to go almost immediately, and this was his good-by." She paused.
[pgbrk] 522
THE OTHER MAN.
"There were two of our fellows in the diplomatic service," the man said, half to himself. The girl gave no sign that she heard. She went on quietly:
" As I said, I had not known that I liked him better than the others. I found it out then. I can't tell you how I felt; it was pretty bad; I think the worst was that the man was so cheerful; he did not care at all about leaving me, except in a nice, general way."
'' Perhaps he was bluffing ? ''
" No, he wasn't. It was perfectly unaffected, honest indifference. So then he went away. And I missed him all the time. No matter where I was, or what I was doing, there was always the thought of him somewhere underneath or in the background. I began to be afraid of myself and—ashamed; and so I—well, I saw more of the other men I knew than I had before, and I—was nicer —to them; I tried to like them; thought if I could get interested in some one of them it would take my mind off the other. So I was very gay that sum—winter; there was something or somebody every minute—you know !''
The man nodded decidedly. " Oh, yes, I know," he said. " I can imagine what a fluttering of moths there was; I have seen your little candle throw its beams."
The girl blushed and opened her eyes.
" Well," she said defensively, " you never took any harm from it! "
"I did not flutter," coolly. "I had a feeling that you would make a holocaust of me if I did; I think I was always on the defensive."
The girl's eyes grew wider; a very thoughtful expression came over her face. " I never knew you thought—I—I—er—had a candle! " she said finally with a perplexed line between her brows.
The man laughed aloud. " Didn't you ? " he said. " Well, I did. But go on, dear."
She did not continue at once; she was silent so long that he prompted her gently: '' The man went away—good thing, too— and then-"
"'And then,'" she repeated dreamily, " and then, he—he met with a misfortune. He was far away from home, and among strangers, and something happened to him. I can't tell you what, and I don't want you to try to guess who he was from anything I say, because I am not telling you things exactly as they were; at any rate, it was something hard to bear-"
"As bad as a Mauser hole?" half jealously.
" I don't know as well as you do how bad that is, Maurice, but I should say this was as bad, even, as that. We'll call it a Mauser hole if you like—it will serve as well as another term. At any rate it was a misfortune. And I heard about it. I knew, then, that I cared. I gave up trying to fight it. Nothing seemed to be of any importance except the fact that he was suffering. And the worst part of it was that I had no right to help him. If I could have gone to him, if I could have nursed—served him, given my life for him! But I had no right even to grieve openly; I was only one of his friends."
The man stroked a fold of her skirt as it lay near him.
" Well—and then—after a long while, the trouble was over and the man was well and happy and doing splendidly—in his work. I used to hear about it all; he was one of the people who wrote to me."
'' How many of us wrote to you ?'' the man interrupted suddenly.
" Oh, I don't know," slowly, " except for notes and occasional things, not more than three or four, I guess." Her companion made an unintelligible sound in his throat. The girl continued: "All that time—I didn't realize it then, but I know now—I was looking forward to his coming home, and thinking—something—might happen, when he saw me again. I thought when he came back he would—I would make him—I mean,, I thought, if other people liked me, why shouldn't he ? It did not seem so very impossible-"
" I should say not," briefly.
"And at last he came." There was a long pause.
"Yes?"
" Even now,"v slowly, " I do not like to think of that day. He came, and he was awfully glad to see me, and we talked about everything he had seen and done; and I was interested; and by and by, he—he—ah well, I suppose he thought I was the kind of a girl you could tell things to—you know I was; and so he told me about a girl he met— abroad."
"Honora!"
"Yes, he did; did you think you were the only man who told me things like that ? "
"Why, yes," uncertainly, "I suppose I did think so."
"This man told me as much as you did, Maurice; and he had met the girl away, as you did; I suppose it is a thing that 'happens. He told me all about her—what she
[pgbrk] THE OTHER MAN.
523
looked like and all. And I listened. I think he thought I was very nice and sympathetic; I said all the right things. Only, all the while he was talking, I kept praying to myself. I thought if only I could get through it, there was plenty of time afterward in which to suffer; if I could only get through it I could think about it afterward. My brain felt as if it were so light that it might come through the top of my head, and I could see myself quite plainly, standing there and listening to him, as if there were three of us. Once, I remember, I got to saying to myself, ' Now isn't this an absurd situation ? Now isn't this perfectly absurd?— absurd, absurd!' till I almost said it out loud. It was like a nightmare."
" You poor little child. What an egoist he was."
'' There was quite a new kind of pain in it all; I did not find out what it was until long after he had gone, and I was alone. I was jealous I always thought jealousy was ridiculous, till then. Well—that's all about that part of it. I had plenty of time to get used to it in, because it was a long—er— engagement; you know, Maurice, I am calling things by different names."
" I understand," in a smothered tone.
" I saw him a great deal while he was— waiting; things did not go smoothly; there was a difficulty, and he was anxious, and depressed, and I suppose I am what you would call sympathetic."
The man groaned and laughed together. " Fatally," he said. " Were we all selfish beasts, Honora, or do your friend and I stand alone in our glory ? Did all the men you knew confide their sorrows to your keeping ? "
" Not all, to an equal extent," the girl answered with a slight twist at the corner of her mouth. " Perhaps I am sympathetic in different degrees with different people."
" According to the amount you like them ?"
" Probably."
" Then I can lay a little flattering unction to my soul; you must have liked me some to be so good to me."
" Oh, yes, I liked you."
" But you liked him better; I suppose it is simple enough; confound him. Tell me the rest quick; I want to hear how you got over it!"
" How I got over it?"
" Yes; when it came to an end, you know. Did you—stop—when the chap got married ?"
The girl bent her head so that he could not see her face. She was silent till he fretted for her answer. At last she said gently, " There is no end; never any end." The man started.—" Nothing real ever ends-"
"Do you mean to tell me," the words came with a harshness born of a sharp hurt, " that you—went on—caring for the fellow, while he was courting the other girl ? "
"Yes."
" Good God! You mean, then, perhaps " —speaking with difficulty—" that you never stopped caring for him; that you care for him—still ?"
The girl leaned down to him and put her hand on his cheek, with a touch that turned his face more fully to her.
"You do not understand?" she whispered, a questioning smile quivering on her mouth. "No?"
His face softened to all that was best in it. "I only understand that I love you," he breathed.
She took her hand from his face, softly, and enclosed one of his strong brown hands in both her own. " Listen, dear," she said impulsively. '' I have told you all this because I wanted to tell you the rest; it is a little secret of mine—but, somehow, I can't tell you quite all, not quite, even now; but I—I will tell you—oh, I wanted to tell you that I am not altogether unworthy to be so happy now. It is because of something I learned then, in those months when—the man I cared for—was in trouble. If I had not learned it, if I had spent all this time just craving something I could not have, I should be ashamed, ashamed to let you love me—now; and ashamed to have you know that I cared so much before; but I am not ashamed!" Her head went up proudly.
" It was like this. As the weeks went by, and I grew nearer—to him—by sharing his trouble, I stopped caring about anything for myself. I wanted him to be happy so much more than I wanted to be happy myself, that I came to think tenderly of the other woman, even, because he thought she could make him so happy; and at last I stopped thinking about myself and my hurt at all. I am not a bit unselfish naturally, but I can honestly say that that one thing in my life has been perfectly free from the taint. Do you understand what I mean 1 It is a kind of miracle, I suppose; the commonest heart is great and good and generous when that love comes. Do you see why I am telling you ? There is nothing to
[pgbrk] 524
THE OTHER MAN.
regret in having loved that way, even when one is not loved back again, for it brings no hurt to anybody; and it teaches one a great many things. Do you see, I feel as if I were a little more like the woman I want to be, for you—because I—could love so." Her voice fell away on the last words.
The man's head was on his arms. He was very still. After a heavy pause he said, in a choked tone:
" You loved him well."
"Yes," very softly, "well."
" He was a lucky fellow."
" I don't think he thought himself so," with a rather sad smile; " he did not appreciate his mercies—then." The last word was almost inaudible.
" Fool," the man said bitterly.
The girl turned her head away to hide a quick, irrepressible smile.
" I do not like to have you abuse him," she said.
" I suppose not. Would you mind telling me if I ever knew him ? "
" You—were—at the house when he was there."
"Often?"
" Quite often, Maurice."
The man frowned darkly at his hands. His face was full of pain and uncertainty. " What staggers me," he said finally, " is that all the men I used to meet there—were anything but indifferent to you, Nora. I cannot remember one who was not a worshiper at your shrine."
" I can."
The man moved restlessly. Suddenly he groaned aloud. "What is it?"
"Oh, confound the man! I shall never be rid of the thought of him. I wish I had not asked you."
"Do you?"
" I can't bear it, Honora! The thing is like a specter. Why did you show me what you are—only to take yourself away from me?"
" Away from you ? Oh, no! "
" It is the same thing; all that—belonged to him; how can it ever belong to me?"
" There is not one fiber of me which does not belong to you."
" If he came to you to-day, and asked you to marry him-"
" I should marry you."
" Ah, but I want all of you, your past— all!"
" My past was—is—yours." " How ? What do you mean ? "
"I mean—oh, dear boy—perhaps I mean that the past is all contained in the present; all the love I ever learned I love you with, to-day."
'' Dearest, you are too good for me; too good to me; I ought not to be jealous—but I am; I am! I cannot bear to think—oh, I hate him for teaching you to be an angel! "
The girl flushed, and her face quivered in all its lines. " I'm not an angel," she said, very low.
The man took her face between his hands wistfully. " But yes you are," he sighed.
" Oh, no, I'm not," she cried half weeping, " I don't want to be—to you."
His eyes questioned her, seeking hungrily for a sign, which was granted him. The warm color flooded her face from chin to brow, as he took her into his arms with a swift, strong motion, holding her where he could search her look. " Oh, dearest, dearest," he breathed, " love me, me, and no one else! Love me wmolly, or I shall die of want. I will make you forget the other when you are mine; only love me! I'm not worthy of it, but—you must, you must! "
Her eyes answered him. His face lost its strained appeal, as it sank against hers. "Ah," he murmured, "I can forgive him for teaching you to be an angel!" His voice dropped to a caressing triumph. " He never taught you this."
It was with the gayety of a great reaction that he said afterwards: "Is there any place in the Bible where it says, ' Blessed are the foolish,' Nora ? There ought to be. If that man had had a grain of sense you would—not be here; therefore, bless him!"
The girl laughed irresistibly against his coat. " You don't know how funny you are," she said. "But bless him all you like!"
'' You may laugh; I don't care now. Only never dare tell me the fool's name! I might go out and kill him some day when I forget how thankful I am to him." The girl laughed again bubblingly. " Yes, I shall," she whispered. "I shall tell you his name some time."
" When ?"
" Some time."
" When we are married, Honora ? " " Perhaps."
"On—our wedding day, sweetheart?— Yes?"
" Perhaps; yes, then. Oh, Maurice, dear, dear foolish Maurice, I'll tell you his name on our wedding day."
[pgbrk] M - I
By Rudyard Kipling
I WISH my mother could see me now, with a fence-post under my arm, And a knife and a spoon in my putties that I found on a Boer farm; Atop of a sore-backed Argentine with a thirst that you couldn't buy—¦ I used to be in the Hampshires once, (Glosters, Lincolns, and Rifles once), Sussex, Scottish, and Yorkshires once! (ad lib.) But now I am M. I.!
That is what we are known as—that is the
name you must call If you want officers' servants, pickets an'
'orse-guards an' all— Details for buryin'-parties, company-cooks or
supply-Turn out the chronic Ikonas! Roll up the
-¦ t M. I.
* Mounted Infantry,
t Number from First to Sixth, according to taste and service of audience.
Copyright, 1901, by Rudyard Kipling. All rights reserved.
[pgbrk] My 'ands are spotty with veldt-sores—my
shirt is a button an' frill— An' the things I've used my bay'nit for
would make a tinker ill! An' I don't know whose dam' column I'm
in, nor where we're trekkin' nor why; I've trekked to the Vaal from the Orange
once—
From the Vaal to the greasy Pongolo once—
(Or else it was called the Zambesi once)— For now I am M. I.! That is what we are known as—that is the
crowd you require For outposts all night under freezin', an'
rear-guard all day under fire. Anything 'ot or unwholesome ? Anything
dusty or dry ? Borrow a bunch of Ikonas! Trot out the
- M. I.
Our Sergeant-major's a subaltern ; our
Captain's a Fusilier; Our Adjutant's " late of Somebody's 'Orse,"
and a Melbourne auctioneer; But you couldn't spot us at 'arf a mile from the crackest caval-ry— They used to talk about Lancers once, Hussars, Dragoons, an' Lancers once, 'Elmets, pistols, an' carbines once, But now we are M. I.! That is what we are known as—we are the
orphans they blame For beggin' the loan of an 'ead-stall an'
fittin' a mount to the same: Can't even look at their 'orse-lines but someone starts bellerin' " Hi! Hook it, you burglin' Ikona! Footsack, you-M. I. !"
We're trekkin' our twenty mile a day, an'
bein' loved by the Dutch, But we don't hold on by the mane no more,
nor lose our stirrups—much. An' we scout with a senior man in charge, where the 'oly white flags fly— We used to think they were friendly once, Didn't take any precautions once (Once, my ducky, an' only once!), But now we are M. I.! That is what we are known as—we are the
beggars that got Three days "to learn equitation," an' six
months o' bloomin' well trot! Cow-guns, an' cattle, an' convoys—an'
Mister de Wet on the fly— We are the rollin' Ikonas, we are the -M. I.!
[pgbrk] The new fat regiments come from 'ome—
imaginin' vain V.C.'s (The same as our talky-fighty men which
are always Number Threes *); But our words o' command are " Scatter" an' "Close" an' "Let your wounded lie." We used to rescue 'em noble once— Givin' the range as we raised 'em once, Gettin' 'em killed as we saved 'em once, But now we are M. I.! That is what we are known as—we are the
lanterns you view After a fight round the kopjes, looking for
men that we knew. Whistlin' and callin' together—'altin' to
catch the reply— " 'Elp me! O 'elp me! Ikonas! This way the - M. I.!"
I wish my mother could see me now,
a-gatherin' news on my own, When I ride like a General up to the scrub
an' ride back like Tod Sloan— Remarkably small on my 'orse's neck to let the shots go by. We used to fancy it risky once (Called it a reconnaissance once), Under the charge of an orf'cer once, But now we are M. I.! That is what we are known as—that is the
word you must say When you want men to be Mausered for one
and a penny a day. We are no dollar Colonials—we are the
'ome-made supply; Write to the London Ikonas! Ask for the -M. I.
* Horse-holders when in action, and therefore generally out of range or under cover.
[pgbrk] I wish myself could talk to myself as I left
'im a year ago. I could tell 'im a lot that would save 'im a lot on the things that 'e ought to know! When I think o' that ignorant barrack-bird, it almost makes me cry. I used to belong in an Army once (Gawd! what a rum little Army once), Red little, dead little Army once! But now I am M. I.!
That is what we are known as—we
are the men that have been Over a year at the business—smelt it
an' felt it an' seen. We 'ave got 'old of the needful—you
will be told by and by; Wait till you've 'eard the Ikonas—¦ spoke to the old M. I.!
Mount—march, Ikonas ! Stand to your
'orses again! Mop off the frost on the saddles—mop up
the miles on the plain. Out go the stars in the dawnin'—up goes
our dust to the sky, Walk—trot, Ikonas! Trek jou* the old
M. I.!
* Get ahead.
[pgbrk] STAGING " MISS MULTON."
By Clara Morris.*
THE other day, when recalling to Mr. Palmer a long list of such successful productions of his as "Led Astray," "The Two Orphans," "Camille," "Miss Multon," "The Dani-cheffs," " The Celebrated Case," etc., he surprised me by declaring emphatically that the performance of " Miss Multon" came nearer to absolute perfection than any other play he had ever produced, and to convince me of that, he simply brought forward the cast of the play. As we went over the characters, one by one, I was compelled to admit that, from the leading role to the smallest part, I had never seen the cast quite equalled since. Mr. Palmer's pride in this production seemed the more odd at first because of the play's slight demands upon the scenic artist, the carpenter, and the upholsterer. It requires just two interior scenes—a busy doctor's study in London, and a morning room in a French country house. "But," he said enthusiastically, " think of that performance, recall those people ! "
The play had twice failed in Paris, which was, to say the least, discouraging. When it was read to me, I thought the tremendous passion of maternity ought to touch the public heart; others there were who said that sexual love alone could not interest the public. Mr. Palmer thought the French play needed a little brightening; then, too, he declared that the people wanted to see the actual end of the heroine (one of Mr. Daly's fixed beliefs, by the way); therefore he had Mr. Cazauran write two additional short acts—a first, to introduce some brightness in the children's Christmas-tree party and some amusement for the old-bachelor doctor and his old-maid sister, and a last, to provide for the death of Miss Multon.
After brief reflection, I concluded I would risk it, and then, just by way of encouragement, Mr. Cazauran, who had always been at pains to speak as kindly of my work as it would allow, when he was critic on
different newspapers, declared that all my acquired skill and natural power of expressing emotion would prove useless to me—that Miss Multon was to be my Waterloo; and to all anxious and surprised Whys ? sapiently made answer, "No children." His argument was that, not being a mother in reality, I could not be one in imagination.
Always lacking self-confidence, those words made my heart sink physically, it seemed to me, as well as figuratively, but the ever-ready jest came bravely to the fore to hide my hurt from the public eye, and at the next rehearsal I shook my head mournfully and remarked to the little man: " Bad—bad! Miss Cushman must be a very bad Lady Macbeth. I don't want to see her!"
"What?" he exclaimed. "Cushman not play Lady Macbeth! For heaven's sake, why not?"
"No murderess!" I declared, with an air of authority recognized by those about me as a fair copy of his own. " If Miss Cushman is not a murderess, pray how can she act Lady Macbeth, who is?" and the laugh that followed helped a little to scare away the bugaboo his words had raised in my mind.
Then, ridiculous as it may seem to an outsider, the question of dress proved to be a snag, and there was any amount of backing and filling before we could get safely around it.
" What are you going to wear, Miss Morris?" asked Mr. Cazauran one day after rehearsal. And soon we were at it, and the air was thick with black, brown, gray, purple, red, and blue; I starting out with a gray traveling dress, for a reason, and Mr. Cazauran, instantly and without reason, condemning it. He thought a rich purple would be about the thing. Mr. Palmer gave a contemptuous "Humph," and I cried out aghast: " Purple, the color of royalty, of pomp, of power? A governess in a rich purple? Your head would twist clear round with amazement if you saw a woman cross-
* Clara Morris's Recollections of the Stage and its People, which have appeared in McCltjre's Magazine during 1901, have just been published in book form, by McClure, PhillipB and Co., under the title, " Life on the Stage."
[pgbrk] 530
STAGING "MISS MULTON."
ing from Calais to Dover attired in a royal-purple traveling suit."
Mr. Palmer said : " Nonsense, Cazauran, purple is not appropriate," and then, "How would blue, dark blue, or brown do ?"
"For just a traveling dress, either one would answer perfectly," I answered ; "but think of the character I am trying to build
up. Why not let me have all the help my gown can give me ? My hair is to be gray-white at the temples; I have to wear a dress that requires no change in going at once to cars and boat. Now gray or drab is a perfect traveling gown, but think, too, what it can express: gray hair, white face, gray dress without relief of trimming—does it not suggest the utterly flat, hopeless monotony of the life of a governess in London ? Not hunger, not cold, but the very dust and ashes of life. Then when the woman arrives at the home of her rival, and tragedy is looming big on the horizon, I want to wear red."
"Good God!" exclaimed Cazauran—and really red was so utterly unworn at the time
that I was forced to buy furniture-covering reps in order to get the desired color, a few days later.
" Yes, red !" I persisted. " Not too bright, not impudent scarlet, but a dull, rich shade that will give out a gleam when the light strikes it, that will have the force of a threat—a menacing color, which white col-
lar, cuffs, and a black lace shoulder wrap will restrict to governess-like primness until, with mantle torn aside, she stands a pillar of fire and fury. And at last I want a nightdress and a loose robe over it of a hard light blue, which will throw up the ghastly pallor of the face. There, that's what I want to wear and why I want to wear it."
Mr. Palmer decided that purple was impossible and black too conventional, while the proposed color scheme of gray, red, and blue seemed reasonable and characteristic. And suddenly that little wretch, Cazauran, laughed as good-naturedly as possible, and said he thought so, too, but it did no harm to talk things over; and so we got around that snag, only to see a second one looming
CLARA MORRIS as Miss Multon.
[pgbrk] CLARA MORRIS.
531
up before us in the question of what was to kill Miss Multon.
I asked it. " Of what am I to die ?"
"Die ? How ? Why, just die—that's all," replied Cazauran.
" But of what?" I persisted. "What kills me ? Miss Multon at present dies simply that the author may get rid of her. I don't
want to be laughed at. To die of a broken heart is to be guyed, unless there is an aneurism. Now what can Miss Multon die of ? If I once know that, I'll find out the proper business for the scene."
"Perhaps you'd have some of the men carry knives," said Cazauran sarcastically, " and then she could be stabbed ? "
" Oh, no !" I answered. " Knives are not necessary for the stabbing of a woman ; a few sharp, envenomed words can do that nicely. But we are speaking of death, not wounds. Of what is Miss Multon to die ?"
Then Mr. Palmer made suggestions, and Miss Morris made suggestions, and Mr. Cazauran triumphantly wiped them out of
existence. But at last Cazauran himself grudingly remarked that consumption would do well enough, and Mr. Palmer and I, as with one vengeful voice, cried out, " Ca-mille!" and Cazauran said something like " Nom de Dieu!" or " Dieu de Dieu!" and I said : " Chassez a droite," but the little mar was vexed and would not laugh.
Some one proposed a fever, but I raised the contagion question. Poison was thought of, but that would prevent the summoning of the children from Paris by Dr. Osborne. We parted that day with the question unanswered.
At the next rehearsal I still wondered how I was to die—hard or easy, rigid or limp, slow or quick ? "Oh," I exclaimed, "I must know whether I am to die in a second or to begin in the first act." And in my own exaggerated, impatient words, I found my first hint. Why not begin to die in the first act ?
When we again took up the question, I asked eagerly, '' What are those two col-
Clara Morris: Mabel Leonard. Helene Heron.
THE GOVERNESS {Miss Multon) AND HER CHARGES {Sister Jane and Paul).
[pgbrk] 532
STAGING "MISS MULTON."
lapses caused by—the one at the mirror, the other at the school table with the children ? "
" Extreme emotion," I was answered.
" Then," I asked, " why not extreme emotion acting upon a weak heart ? "
Mr. Palmer was for the heart trouble from the first; he saw its possibilities, saw that it was new—comparatively speaking, at least; I suppose nothing is really new—and decided in its favor; but for some reason little man Cazauran was piqued, and the result was that he introduced just one single line which could faintly indicate that Miss Multon was a victim of heart disease—in the first act, where, after a violent exclamation from the lady, Dr. Osborne said: "Oh, I thought it was your heart again.'' On eight words of foundation I was expected to raise a superstructure of symptoms, true enough to nature to be readily recognized as indicating heart disease; and yet, oh, difficult task! that disease must not be allowed to obtrude itself into first place, nor must it be too poignantly expressed. In brief, we decided I was to show to the public a case of heart disease, ignored by its victim, and only recognized by the doctor among the characters about her.
And verily my work was cut out for me. Why, when I went to the Drs. Seguin to be coached, I could not even locate my heart correctly by half a foot. Both father and son did all they could to teach me the full horror of angina pectoris, which I should, of course, tone down for artistic reasons. And to this day, tears rise in my eyes when I recall the needless cruelty of the younger Seguin, in running a heart patient up a long flight of stairs, that I might see the gasping of the gray-white mouth for breath, the flare and strain of her waxy nostrils. Then in remorseful generosity—though heaven knows her coming was no act of mine—I made her a little gift, and as she was slipping the bill inside her well-mended glove, her eye caught the number on its corner, and—she must have been very poor—her tormented and tormenting heart gave a plunge, and sent a rush of blood into her face, that ma^e her very eyeballs pink—and the clutching fingers, the flaring nostrils, the gasping for air, the pleading look, the frightened eyes! Oh, it is unforgetable ! Poor soul ! poor soul!
Well, having my symptoms in mind, they still had to be sorted out, toned down, and adapted to this or that occasion. But the work was not thrown away, for on the first night, Dr. Fordyce Barker—a keen drama-
tic critic by the way—occupied, with a friend, a private box. He had rescued me from the hands of the specialists in Paris, and I had at times been his patient. He applauded heartily after the first two acts but looked rather worried. At the end of the third act a gentleman of his party turned and looked at him inquiringly. The doctor threw up his hands, while shaking his head disconsolately. The friend said: "Why, I'm surprised—I thought Miss Morris suffered from her spine ? ''
" So she does—so she does," nodded Dr. Barker.
'' But,'' went on the friend, '' this thing isn't spine—this looks like heart to me."
" I should say so," responded the doctor. " I knew she wasn't strong—just a thing of nerves and will—but I never saw a sign of heart trouble before. But it's there now, and it's bad. By Jove, she can't go through another attack like that and finish this play. Too bad—too bad!"
And his honest sympathy for my new affliction spoiled his evening right up to the point of discovery that it was all in the play. Then he enjoyed the laugh upon himself, almost as much as I enjoyed his recognition of my laboriously acquired symptoms.
And now for Mr. Palmer's beloved cast. With what a mixture of pleasure and grief I recall Sara Jewett, the loveliest woman, and the most perfect representative of a French lady of quality I have ever seen in the part of Mathilde.
Mr. James O'Neil's success in Maurice de la Tour was particularly agreeable to me, because I had earnestly called attention to him, some time before he was finally summoned to New York, his fine work in Chicago, where I first met him, having convinced me that he ought to be here—and that beautiful performance fully justified every claim I had made for him in the first place. The part is a difficult one. Some men rant in it, some are savagely cruel, some cold as stone. O'Neil's Maurice bore his wound with a patient dignity that made his one outbreak into hot passion tremendously effective, through force of contrast; while his sympathetic voice gave great value to the last tender words of pardon.
And that ancient couple—that never-to-be-forgotten pair, Mr. Stoddard and Mrs. Wilkins! The latter's husband, a member of the English bar, had been Sergeant Wilkins, a witty, popular man, who quite adored _ his pretty young wife, and lavished his entire income upon their ever-open
[pgbrk] CLARA MORRIS.
533
house, so that his sudden taking off left her barely able to pay for her crepe—with not a pound left over. But on her return to the stage, her knowledge of social amenities, the dignity and aplomb acquired by the experienced hostess, remained with her, in a certain manner, an air of suave and gentle authority, that was invaluable to her in the performance of gentlewomen, while the good-fellowship and the down-right jollity of her infectious laugh were the crown of her comedy work. Who can forget the Multon tea-table scene between Mrs. Wilkins and Mr. Stoddard? How the audience used to laugh and laugh when, after his accusing "snort," "More copperas! " he sat and glared at her pretty protesting face, framed in its soft, white curls. He was so ludicrously savage, I had to coin a name for him, and one night, when the house simply would not stop laughing, I remarked, " Oh, doesn't he look like a perfect old Sardonics ?''
"Yes-m!" quickly replied the property boy beside me—"yes-m, that's the very beast he reminds me of."
Certainly I never expect to find another Br. Osborne so capable of contradicting a savage growl with a tender caress.
Mr. Parselle as the gentle old Latin scholar, tutor, and acting god-father, was beyond praise. He admitted to me one night, coming out of a brown study, that he believed Belin was a character actually beyond criticism, and that next to creating it as author, he ranked the honor of acting it,—but there spoke the old-school actor who respected his profession.
And those children—were they not charming ? That Sister Jane, given so sweetly, so sincerely by the daughter of the famous Matilda Heron who, christened Helene, was known only by the pet name '' Bijou,'' in public as well as in private life. And the boy Paul, her little brother. I almost believe that Mabel Leonard was created expressly to play that part. Never did female wear male clothes so happily. All the impish perversity, all the wriggling restlessness of the small boy were to be found in the person of the handsome, erratic little Mabel.
Even the two maids were out of the common, one being played by a clever and versatile actress, who had been a friend in my old Cleveland days. She came to me out of
the laughing, merry past, but all pale and sad in trailing black, for death had been robbing her most cruelly. She wished for a New York engagement, and astonished me by declaring that she would play anything, no matter how small, if only the part gave her a foothold on the metropolitan stage.
I sought Mr. Palmer and talked hard and long for my friend, but he laughed and answered : " An actress as clever as that will be very apt to slight a part of only two scenes."
But I assured him of the contrary—that she would make the most of every line, and the part would be a stepping-stone to higher things. He granted my request, and Louise Sylvester, by her earnestness, her breathless excitement in rushing to and fro—bearing messages, answering bells—and by her excellent dancing raised Kitty to a character part. Louise, the smallest part of them all, was played with a brisk and bright assurance that made it hard to believe that Helen Vincent had come direct from her convent school to the stage door—as she had.
A great, great triumph for every one was that first night of Miss Multon, and one of the sweetest drops in my own cup was added by the hand of New York's honored and beloved poet, Edmund Clarence Stedman; for nestling in a basket of sweet violets was a sonnet from him to me, and though my unworthiness was evident enough, nevertheless I took the keenest joy in the beauty of every line. It was certainly a very sweet and gracious token from one who was secure to one who was still struggling.
And now, when years have passed, he has given me another beautiful memory to keep the first one company. I was taking my first steps in the new profession of letters, which seems somewhat uncertain, slow, and introspective when compared to the swift, decisive, if rather superficial, profession of acting; and Mr. Stedman, pausing from the giant labor on his great "Anthology," looked at—nay, actually considered—that shivering fledgling, my first book, and wrote a letter that spelled for me the word encouragement, and, being a past master in the art of subtle flattery, he quoted from my own book and lighted a little flame of hope in my heart that is not extinguished yet. So gently kind remain some people who are great.
[pgbrk] THE KING'S VISIT.
By Robert Bark.
No, no," said the king decisively. " Bi mg them in, bring them in. I'll have none cast into prison without at least a hearing. Has any of your men been killed?"
"No, your Majesty," replied Sir Donald ; " but some of them have wounds they will not forget in a hurry. The Highlandmen fought like tiger cats."
" How many are there of them ? " asked the king.
" Something more than a score, with one piper that's more noisy than the other twenty, led by a breechless ruffian, although I must say he knows what to do with a sword."
"All armed, you say ?"
" Every one of them but the piper. About half an hour ago they came marching up the main street of Stirling, each man with his sword drawn, and the pipes skirling death and defiance. They had the whole town at their heels, laughing and jeering at them and imitating the wild Highland music. At first they paid little attention to the mob that followed them ; but in the square their leader gave a word in Gaelic, and instantly the whole company swerved about and charged the crowd. There was instant panic among the townspeople, who fled in all directions, out-screaming the pibroch ;n their fright. No one was hurt, for the Highlandmen struck them with the flat of their swords ; but several were trampled under foot and are none the better for it."
"It serves them right," commented the king. " I hope it will teach them manners towards strangers at least. What followed? "
"A whistle from their leader collected his helots again, and they marched straight from the square to the gates of the castle. The two soldiers on guard crossed pikes before them, but the leader, without a word, struck down their weapons and attempted to march in, brave as you please ; who but they ! There was a scuffle at the gate, then the bugle sounded, and we surrounded them, trying to disarm them peaceably at first, but they fought like demons, and so there's some sore heads among them."
" You disarmed them, of course ? "
" Certainly, your Majesty."
" Very well ; bring them in, and let us hear what they have to say for themselves.''
The doors were flung open, a sharp command was given, and presently there entered the group of Highlanders, disarmed, and with their elbows tied behind their backs. A strong guard of the soldiery accompanied them on either side. The Highlanders were men of magnificent physique, a quality that was enhanced by the picturesque costume they wore, in spite of the fact that in some instances this costume was in tatters and the wearers cut and bleeding. But, stalwart as his followers were, the leader far out-measured them in height and girth ; a truly magnificent specimen of the human race, who strode up the long room with an imperial swagger, such as had never before been seen in Stirling, in spite of the fact that his arms were pinioned. He marched on until he came before the king, and there took his stand, without bowing his bonneted head or bending his sturdy bare knees. The moment the leader set his foot across the threshold the unabashed piper immediately protruded his chest and struck up the wild strain of "Failte mhic an Abba," or the " Salute to the Chief."
" Stop it, ye deevil !" cried the captain of the guard. " How dare you set up such a squawking in the presence of the king ?" And as the piper paid not the slightest attention to him, he struck the mouthpiece from the lips of the performer. This, however, did not cause a cessation of the music, for the bag under the piper's elbow was filled with wind, and the fingers of the musician bravely kept up the strain on the reed chanter with its nine holes, and thus he played until his chief came to a stand before the king. The king gazed with undisguised admiration upon the foremost Highlander, and said quietly to the captain of the guard :
"Unbind him."
On finding his arms released, the mountaineer stretched them out once or twice, then folded them across his breast, making no motion, however, to remove his plumed bonnet, although every one else in the room, except his men, were uncovered.
"You have come in from the country," began the king, a suspicion of a smile hovering about his lips, "to enjoy the metro-
[pgbrk] ROBERT BARR.
535
politan delights of Stirling. How are you satisfied with your reception ? "
The big Highlandman made no reply, but frowned heavily, and bestowed a savage glance on several of the courtiers, among whom a light ripple of laughter had run after the king put his question.
"These savages," suggested Sir Donald, "do not understand anything but the Gaelic. Is it your Majesty's pleasure that the interpreter be called ? "
" Yes, bring him in."
When the interpreter arrived, the king said :
" Ask this man if his action is the forefront of a Highland invasion of the Lowlands, or merely a little private attempt on his own part to take the castle by assault ? "
The interpreter put the question in Gaelic, and was answered with gruff brevity by the marauder. The interpreter, bowing low to the king, said smoothly:
" This man humbly begs to inform your Majesty-"
"Speak truth, Mac-Pherson !" cautioned the king. "Translate faithfully exactly what he says. Our friend here, by the look of him, does not do anything humbly or fawn or beg. What does he say ?"
The polite MacPherson was taken aback by this reproof, but answered :
" He says, your Majesty, he will hold no communication with me, because I am of an inferior clan, which is untrue. The Mac-Phersons were a civilized clan centuries ago, which the MacNabs are not to this day, so please your Majesty."
The MacNab's hand darted to his left side, but finding no sword to grasp, it fell away again.
"You are a liar!" cried the chief in very passable English, which was not to be misunderstood. " The MacPhersons are no clan, but an insignificant branch of the Chattan. 'Touch not the Cat' is your motto, and a good one; for a MacPherson can scratch, but he cannot handle the broadsword."
MacPherson drew himself up, his face red-
" The king . . . look the weapon in his own hand, tendering it to its owner.'
[pgbrk] 536
THE KING'S VISIT.
dening with anger. His hand also instinctively sought the hilt of his sword, but the presence in which he stood restrained him.
" It is quite safe," he said with something like the spit of a cat, "for a heathen to insult a Christian in the presence of his king, and the MacNabs have ever shown a taste for the cautious course."
"Tut, tut," cried the king with impatience ; " am I to find myself involved in a Highland feud in my own hall? MacPherson, it seems this man does not require your interpreting, so perhaps it will further the peace of our realm if you withdraw quietly."
MacPherson, with a low obeisance, did so. Then to MacNab the king spoke: "Sir, as it appears you are acquainted with our language, why did you not reply to the ques-tion I put to you?"
"Because I would have you know it was not the proper kind of question to ask the like of me. I am a descendant of kings."
"Well, as far as that goes, I am a descendant of kings myself, though sorry I should be to defend all their actions."
" Your family only began with Robert the Bruce; mine was old ere he came to the throne."
"That may well be; still you must admit that what Robert lacked in ancestry he furnished forth in ability."
"But the Clan MacNab defeated him at the battle of Del Rhi."
" True, with some assistance, which you ignore, from Alexander of Argyll. However, if ihis discussion is to become a competition in history for the benefit of our ignorant courtiers, I may be allowed to add that my good ancestor Robert did not for-
get the action of the MacNabs at Del Rhi, and later overran their country, dismantled their fortresses, leaving the clan in a more sane and chastened condition than that in which he found it. But what has all this to do with your storming into a peaceable town like Stirling?"
"In truth, your Majesty," whispered Sir David Lyndsay, "I think they must have come to replenish their wardrobe, and in that they are not a moment too soon." "I came," said the chief, who had not
heard this last remark, "because of the foray you have mentioned. I came because Robert the Bruce desolated our country."
"By my good sword !" cried James, " speaking as one king to another, your revenge is somewhat belated ; a lapse of two centuries should have outlawed the debt. Did you expect, then, to take Stirling with twenty men ?"
"I expected King James the Fifth to rectify the wrong done by King Robert the First."
" Your expectation does honor to my reputation as a just man, but I have already disclaimed responsibility for the deeds of ancestors less remote than good King Robert."
"You have made proclamation in the Highlands that the chieftains must bring to you proof of their right to occupy their lands."
" I have, and some have preferred to me their deeds of tenure, others prepared to fight; the cases have been settled in both instances. To which of these two classes do you belong, Chief of the Clan MacNab?"
"To neither. I cannot submit to you our parchments because Robert, your ancestor, destroyed them. I cannot fight the army of
11 MacNab, . . . holding aloft his brimming flagont called for cheers for the King of Scotland."
[pgbrk] ROBERT BARR.
537
the Lowlands because my clan is small; therefore I, Finlay MacNab, fifth of my name, as you are fifth of yours, come to you in peace, asking you to repair the wrong done by your ancestor."
"Indeed!" cried the king. "If your present advent typifies your idea of a peaceful visit, then God forfend that I should ever meet you in anger."
" I came in peace, and have been shamefully used."
"You must not hold that against us," said James. " Look you now, if I had come storming at your castle door, sword in hand, how would you have treated me, Finlay the Fifth?"
" If you came with only twenty men behind you I should treat you with all the hospitality of Glendochart, which far exceeds that of Stirling, or any other part of your money-making Lowlands, where gold coin is valued more than a steel blade."
"It has all been a mistake," said the king with great cordiality. "The parchment you seek shall be given you, and I trust to your generosity, Lord of Glendochart, to allow me to amend your opinion of Stirling hospitality. I shall take it kindly if you will all be my guests in the castle until my officers of law repair the harshness of my ancestor Robert." Then, turning to the guard, the king continued :
" Unbind these gentlemen and return to them their arms."
While the loosening of the men was being rapidly accomplished, the captain of the guard brought the chief his sword, and would have presented it to him, but the king himself rose and took the weapon in his own hand, tendering it to its owner. The chieftain took the sword and rested its point on the floor. Then with dignified native courtesy he doffed his broad-feathered bonnet.
"Sire," he said, with slow deliberation, " Scotland has a king that this good blade shall ever be proud to serve."
For three days the MacNabs were the guests of the king in the castle, while the legal documents were being prepared. King and chieftain walked the town together, and all that Stirling had to show MacNab beheld. The king was desirous of costuming, at his own expense, the portion of the clan visiting in his castle, whose disarray was largely due to his own soldiers, but he feared the proposal might offend the pride of Finlay the Fifth. James's tact, however, overcame the difficulty.
" When I visit you, MacNab, over by Loch Tay, there is one favor I must ask. I want your tailors to make for me and the men of my following suits of kilts in the MacNab tartan."
"Surely, surely," replied the chief ; "and a better weaving you will get nowhere in the Highlands."
"I like the color of it," continued the king. " There is a royal red in it that pleases me. Now there is a good deal of red in the Stuart tartan, and I should be greatly gratified if you would permit your men to wear my colors, as my men shall wear yours. My tailors here will be proud to boast that they have made costumes for the Clan MacNab. You know what tradesmen bodies are ; they're pleased when we take a little notice of them."
"Surely," again returned MacNab, more dubiously, " and I shall send them the money for it when I get home."
"Indeed," said the king, "if you think I am going to have a full purse when I'm in the MacNab country, you're mistaken."
" I never suggested such a thing," replied the chief indignantly. " You'll count nane o' yer ain bawbees when you are with me."
" Ah well," rejoined the king, " that's right, and so you'll just leave me to settle with my own tailors here."
Thus the re-costuming came about ; and, all in all, it was just as well that MacNab did not insist on his own tartan, for there was none of it in Stirling, while of the Stuart plaid there was a sufficiency to clothe a regiment.
On the last night there was given a banquet in honor of the Clan MacNab, which was the best that Stirling could bestow. The great hall was decorated with the colors of the clan, and at the further end had been painted the arms of the MacNab : the open boat, with its oars on the sea proper, the head of the savage, the two supporting figures, and the Latin motto underneath, " Timor omnis abesto." Five pipers of the king's court had learned " The Salute to the Chief," and now, headed by MacNab's own, they paced up and down the long room, making it ring with their warlike music. The king and the chieftain came in together, and as the latter took his place at his host's right hand, his impassive face betrayed no surprise at the splendid preparation which had been made for his reception. Indeed, the Highlanders all acted as if they had been accustomed to sit down to such a banquet every night. Many dainties were
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THE KING'S VISIT.
placed on the ample board, cunningly prepared by foreign cooks, the like of which the Highlanders had never before tasted ; but the mountaineers ate stolidly whatever was set before them, and if unusual flavors saluted their palates, the strangers made no sign of approval or the reverse. The red wine of Burgundy, grown old in the king's cellar, was new to most of them, and they drank it like water, emptying their tankards as fast as the attendant could refill them. Soon the ruddy fluid, whose potency had been underestimated, began to have its effect, and the dinner table became noisy as the meal progressed, songs bursting forth now and then, with strange shouts and crys more familiar to the hills of Loch Tay than to the rafters of Stirling. The chief himself lost the solemn dignity which had at first characterized him, and as he emptied flagon after flagon boasted loudly of the prowess of his clan, foretold what he would do in future fields now that he was allied with the King of Scotland. Often forgetting himself, he fell into the Gaelic, roaring forth a torrent of words that had no meaning for many of those present ; then, remembering the king did not understand the language, he expressed his pity for a man in such condition, saying the Gaelic was the oldest tongue in existence, and the first spoken by human lips upon this earth. It was much more expressive, he said, than the dialect of the Lowlands, and the only language that could fittingly describe war and battle, just as the pibroch was the only music suitable to strife— to all of which the smiling king nodded approval.
At last MacNab sprang to his feet, holding aloft his brimming flagon, which literally rained Burgundy down upon him, and called for cheers for the King of Scotland, a worthy prince, who knew well how to entertain a brother prince. Repeating this in Gaelic, all his men, who had also risen with their chief, now sprang upon the benches, where, standing unsteadily, they raised a series of yells so wild that a shudder of fear passed through many of the courtiers present. The chief, calling to his piper, commanded him instantly to compose a pibroch for the king; and that ready musician, swelling with pride, marched up and down and round and round the great hall, pouring forth a triumphal quickstep, with many wonderful flourishes and variations. Then, at a word from the chief, each man placed his flagon on the table, whipped out his sword, swung it overhead, to the amazement of the courtiers, it not being
etiquette to show cold steel to the eyes of the king. Down came the blades instantly and together, each man splitting in two the goblet he had drunk from.
" You must all come to Loch Tay," cried the chief, "and I will show you a banqueting hall in honor of James the Fifth such as you have never before seen." Then, to the horror of the courtiers, he suddenly smote the king on the back with his open palm and cried :
" Jimmie, my lad, you'll come to visit me at Loch Tay."
The smitten king laughed heartily and replied :
"Yes, Finlay, I will."
Next day the MacNabs marched from the castle and down through the town of Stirling with much pomp and circumstance. They were escorted by the king's own guard, and this time the populace made no sneering remarks, but thronged the windows and the roofs, cheering heartily, while the Highlanders kept proud step to the shrill music of the pipes. And thus the clansmen set face towards the north on their long tramp home.
"What proud 'deevils'they are!" said Sir David Lyndsay to the king after the northern company had departed. "I have been through the MacNab country from one end of it to the other, and there is not a decent hut on the hillside, let alone a castle fit to entertain a king; yet the chief gives an invitation in the heat of wine, and when he is sobered he is too proud to admit that he cannot make good the word he has uttered."
" That very thing is troubling me," replied the king; " but it's a long time till July, and between now and then we will make him some excuse for not returning his visit, and thus avoid putting the old man to shame."
As the time drew near for the excursion to Loch Tay, embassies came from various countries, and the king had to entertain the foreigners in a manner becoming their importance. This gave James the valid excuse he required, and so he sent a commission to the chief of the MacNabs. " His Majesty," said the head commissioner, " is entertaining ambassadors from Spain and from France, and likewise a legate from the pope. If he came north he must at least bring with him these great noblemen with their retinues, and while he would have been glad to visit you with some of his own men, he could not impose upon the hospitality so generously tendered."
" Tell His Majesty," replied MacNab with dignity, "that whether he bring with him
[pgbrk] " Mounting the horses the gay cavalcade was led up the valley."
the King of Spain, the Emperor of France, or even the pope himself, none of these princes is, in the estimation of MacNab, superior to James the Fifth of Scotland. The entertainment, therefore, which the king graciously condescended to accept, is certainly good enough for any foreigners that may accompany him, be their nobility ever so high."
When this reply was reported to the king, he first smiled and then sighed.
"I can do nothing further," he said. " Return to MacNab and tell him that the pope's legate desires to visit the priory on Loch Tay. Tell the chief that we shall take boat along the lake on the day arranged. Say that the foreigners are anxious to taste the venison of the hills, and that nothing could be better than to give us a dinner under the trees."
In the early morning the king and his followers, the ambassadors and their trains, embarked on boats that had been brought overland for their accommodation, and sailed from the island priory the length of the beautiful lake, the numerous craft being driven through the water by strong northern oarsmen, their wild chanting choruses echoing back from the picturesque mountains as they bent to their work. The evening before, horses for the party had been led through forests, over the hills, and along the strand to the meeting place at the other end of the lake. Here they were greeted by the MacNabs, pipers and all, and mounting the horses the gay cavalcade was led up the valley. The king had warned their foreign highnesses that they were not to expect in this wilderness the niceties of Rome, Paris, or Madrid, and each of the
[pgbrk] 540
THE KING'S VISIT.
ambassadors expressed his delight at the prospect of an outing certain to contain so much that was novel and unusual to them.
A summer haze hung over the valley, and when the king came in sight of the stronghold of the MacNabs, he rubbed his eyes in wonder, thinking the misty uncertainty of the atmosphere was playing wizard tricks with his vision. There, before him, stood the most bulky edifice, the most extraordinary pile he had ever beheld. Tremendous in extent, it seemed to have embodied every marked feature of a mediaeval castle. At one end a great square keep arose, its undoubted hugeness looming gigantic in the gauze-like magic of the mist. A high wall, machicolated at the top, connected this keep with a small octagonal tower, whose twin was placed some distance to the left, leaving an opening between for a wide entrance. The two octagonal towers formed a sort of frame for a roaring waterfall in the background. From the second octagonal tower another extended lofty wall connected it with a round peel as high as the keep. This castle, of a size so enormous that it made all others its beholders had seen shrink into comparative insignificance, was surrounded by a bailey wall; outside of that was a moat, which proved to be a foaming river, fed by the volume of water which came down the precipice behind the castle. The lashing current and the snow-white cascade formed a striking contrast to the deep green hue of the castle itself.
" We have many great strongholds in Italy," said the pope's legate, " but never have I seen anything to compare with this."
" Oh," said MacNab, slightingly, " we are but a small clan ; you should see the Highland castles further north, they are of stone ; indeed our own fortresses, which are further inland, are also of stone. This is merely our pleasure house, built of pine trees."
" A castle of logs !" exclaimed the pope's legate, "I never before heard of such a thing."
They crossed the bridge, passed between the two octagonal towers, and entered the extensive courtyard, surrounded by the castle itself ; a courtyard broad enough to afford manoeuvering ground for an army. The interior walls were as attractive as the outside was grim and forbidding. Balconies ran round three sides of the enclosure, tall, thin, straight pine poles, rising three stories high, supporting them, each pole fluttering a flag at the top. The balconies were all festooned with branches of living green. The air was tremulous with the thunder of
the cataract, and the courtyard was cut in two by a rushing torrent, spanned by rustic bridges. The walls were peopled by cheering clansmen, and nearly a score of pipers did little to lessen the din. Inside, the king and his men found ample accommodation; their rooms were carpeted with moss and with flowers, forming a variety of color and yielding a softness to the foot which the artificial piles of Eastern looms would have attempted to rival in vain. Here for three days the royal party was entertained. Hunting in the forest gave them prodigious appetites, and there was no criticism of the cooking. The supply of food and drink was lavish in the extreme—fish from the river and the loch, game from the moors, and venison from the hills.
It was evening of the third day when the cavalcade set out again for the priory. The chief, Finlay MacNab, accompanied his guests down the valley, and when some distance from the castle of logs, James smote him on the shoulder, copying thus his own astonishing action. " Sir Finlay," he cried, "a king's hand should be no less potent than a king's sword, and thus I create thee a knight of my realm, for never before has monarch been so royally entertained ; and now I pause here to look once more on your castle of pine."
So they all stayed progress and turned their eyes towards the wooden palace they had left.
" If it were built of stone," said the pope's legate, " it would be the strongest house in the world, as it is the largest."
" A bulwark of bones is better than a castle of stones," said Sir Finlay. " That is an old Highland saying with us, which means that a brave following is the best ward. I will show you my bulwark of bones "
And with that, bowing to the king, as if to ask permission, he raised his bugle to his lips and blew a blast. Instantly from the corner of the further bastion a torch flamed forth, and that torch lighted the one next it, and this its neighbor, so that speedily a line of fire ran along the outlines of the castle, marking out the square and the round towers, lining the curtain, the smaller towers, turrets, and parapets. Then at the top of the bailey wall a circle of Highlanders lit torch after torch, and thus was the whole castle illumined by a circle of fire. The huge edifice was etched in flame against the somber background of the high mountain.
[pgbrk] ROBERT BARR.
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" Confess, legate," cried the king, " that you never saw anything more beautiful even in fair Italy."
" I am willing to admit as much," he replied.
Another blast from the bugle and all the torches on the castle itself disappeared, although the fire on the bailey wall remained intact, and the reason for this soon became apparent. From machicolated tower, keep, peel, and curtain the nimble Highlanders, torchless, scrambled down, cheering as they went. It seemed incredible that they could have attained such speed, picking their precarious way by grasping protruding branch
or stump of limb, or by thrusting a hand between the interstices of the timber, without slipping, falling, and breaking their necks. For a moment the castle walls were alive with fluttering tartans, strongly illuminated by the torches from the outer bailey. Each man held his breath while this perilous acrobatic performance was being accomplished, and silence reigned over the royal party, until suddenly broken by the Italian.
" Highlander !" he cried, " your castle is on fire."
" Aye," said the Highlander calmly, raising his bugle again to his lips.
'Sir Finlay,' he cried, 'a king's hand should be no less potent than a king's sword.' "
"He raised his bugle to his lips and blew a blast"
[pgbrk] At the next blast those on the bailey wall thrust their torches, still burning, among the chinks of the logs, and swarmed to the ground as speedily and as safely as those on the main building had done. Now the lighted torches that had been thrown on the roof of the castle, disappearing a moment from sight, gave evidence of their existence. Here and there a long tongue of flame sprang up and died down.
"Can nothing be done to save the palace ?" shouted the excitable Frenchman. "The waterfall! the waterfall! Let us get back, or the castle will be destroyed."
"Stand where you are," said the chief, " and you will see a sight worth coming north for."
Then, almost with the suddenness of an
explosion, great sheets of flame rose towering into a mountain of fire, as if this roaring furnace would emulate in height the wooded hills behind it. The logs themselves seemed to redden as the light glowed through every crevice between them. The bastions, the bailey walls were great wheels of flame, encircling a palace that had all the vivid radiance of molten gold. The valley for miles up and down was lighter than the sun ever made it.
"Chieftain," said the legate in an awed whisper, " is this conflagration accident or design ? "
" It is our custom," replied MacNab. " A monarch's pathway must be lighted, and it is not fitting that a residence once honored by our king should ever again be occupied by any less noble."
[pgbrk] THE HONOR OF A TRANSGRESSOR.
A TALE OF THE NEBRASKA PIONEERS. By William R. Lighton,
Author of " The State Against Ellsworth," etc.
Illustrated by Arthur Heming.
UNCLE MAC'S vineyard lies upon a gently-sloping hillside, just out of sight of his house; and as a matter of course it suffers at the hands of every rapscallion and tatterdemalion in the town. Rivertown's boys are as the ten tribes of Israel, and every mother's son of them will steal grapes. As a rule, Uncle Mac makes no complaint, beyond a mouthful of mild profanity in the privacy of his own hearthstone. Only once have I known him to be much perturbed. He had planned to exhibit at the State Fair some baskets of Golden Pocklingtons that had lately come into bearing, and to that end he had tied certain selected bunches in bags of netting, as a protection against bees and birds; but the urchins from the " Bohemian settlement" in their daily thievings made choice of these protected clusters, knowing them to be of the best. Uncle Mac was first saddened, then irritated, then angry; and one day l saw him down-town, buying fence-posts and barbed wire. Never before had he fenced so much as a square yard of his land.
A week afterward I found him toiling in the autumn sunlight, reeling up the wire which a couple of men were pulling from the newly-made fence. He straightened his portly figure, wiping the dripping moisture from his big forehead; then he led the way to the shade of a near-by apple tree, where we sat down together upon the grass. " Doesn't it suit you ? " I asked. "What? The fence? Yep: 'twasabully fence." Then came a pause, while he mopped his face with needless insistence. " I reckon boys is different from pretty much every kind of animal there is," he said at last. " Don't the Bible say somethin' somewheres about sufferin' little kids in the kingdom o' heaven ? I just been findin' out why that is: the walls o' the New Jerusalem might be made hog-tight, an' four stories high, but 'twouldn't be no manner o' use to try to keep the kids out. Peter, nor Paul,
nor Pontius Pilate couldn't do it: nobody couldn't."
1 kept grave silence, knowing that in the fullness of time things would be revealed. The old man glanced at me now and again, furtively, shame-facedly; then he laughed, with a frank return to his dominant humor. " 'Twas the same way with me, once. There wa'n't no fence ever made could've kep' me out o' nowhere. I've spent solid weeks, I reckon, climbin' fences to get to places I wouldn't 've cared a lick about, if only I hadn't been shut out of 'em. Why, sure's I'm sittin' here, the day after I put this fence up there was more grapes stole than there ever was in a whole week before. I had to take it down, or they'd took 'em all. Trouble was," he added abruptly," 'twas easy enough for the youngsters gettin' through the wires comin' in, but 'twas dummed hard gettin' out, some reason. There was a feller tol' me yeste'dy how the women-folks hereabout ain't done much else all week but lam their kids for comin' home with their clothes tore pretty near plum off of 'em. That made me hot! I never did see the good o' lickin' a boy, nohow. Pore little fellers! "
Every line of his averted .ace ran brimming full of gentle kindness. By and by his broad chest swelled with a ragged sigh.
" I was just thinkin': If a little fairy was to come along an' gimme three wishes, like they used to tell about, time I remember, I'd tell him I didn't want but one; an' you know what I'd wish ? I'd want to be a little, mean, no-'count, speckle-faced kid, with a dirty nose—real downright sassy, an' thievin', an ornery—just the kind of a youngster that folks don't like to have 'round, nohow, an' that nobody never says nothin' good about till they're dead or growed up. That's the kind of a little rooster I used to be, an' I'd give half o' what I've got to be him ag'in, just long enough to take another good holt on rememberin' how it feels. I wouldn't even ask for the good part: I'd
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like to go back an' steal a big mess o' green apples, or a watermelon, an' have my mother doctorin' me for one o' them good ol'-fashioned pains in my insides. That'd be good enough for me! Land, land!" he brooded fondly; " it sounds plum foolish, don't it ? But there ain't no tellin' how lonesome I been, years an' years, for the feel of a boy-time belly-ache, an' pep'mint tea, an' Ja-maiky ginger. They say we get wise as we grow up, but I don't believe it: I say we just get scared an' cowardly. I been minded more'n once to make a try an' see what'd happen if I was to set down an' eat a big pocketful o' nasty little hard pea-green apples, that wa'n't more'n half done growin'; but I don't dast, an' that's just the long an' short of it. I'm a coward." Then after a moment's silence:
" Most boys is that kind; don't you know it ? 1 never had no use for the sneakin' little spindly chaps that's got no bad in 'em. Decent folks ain't made that way. Decent, healthy folks is some good an' some bad, mixed up together. I reckon the good Lord made 'em that way, an' He surely knowed what He was about when He was doin' it. Sometimes one end o' the teeter '11 be up, an' sometimes the other end. I like it that way: that's what makes the whole game worth playin'. It's ag'in nature to look for a man that won't warp the least mite when he's laid out in the sun, nor shrink up some when he gets a wettin'."
Then it was that I spoke the word which provoked the story. " Uncle Mac, tell me this: Did you ever come across a man who was altogether bad ? ''
The old fellow looked into my eyes, keenly, half doubtful of my sincerity. " No," he said bluntly; '' no, 1 ain't; nor nobody else.'' He sat erect, holding up a knotty forefinger. " Billy, you let the old man tell you this, an' don't you never forget it. There ain't one man in ten thousan' but Ml do the square, honor'ble thing when it comes down to a pinch. Now that's God's truth! Why, look here! " he cried, his manner expanding with the warmth of his enthusiasm; " look here: there's men—lots of 'em, that's just as honest as sunlight, but that tries to hide it an' not let folks know it, because they're afraid o' bein' took for fools. That's the trouble: a good many folks seems to make it a part o' their religion to say that plain, honest men an' fools can't be told apart. They know it ain't so; everybody knows it ain't so. Everybody knows that honest men is the wisest men we got, an' that the only
real fool is him that's a liar. Any man'd know that, without bein' told, that'd lived through early days in Nebrasky." His good face wrinkled into a smile as he asked, almost timidly: " Say, wa'n't there an' old feller, years ago—seems to me like I've heerd of him—that lived in some o' them foreign places—Hong Kong, or Sweden, or somewheres like that, that hid hisself in a pork-barrel an' pretended to be huntin' for an honest man ? He'd've been out of a job in a holy minute if he'd come to Nebrasky them days I been tellin' you about; that's what he would!" Then he struck directly into his tale.
" I ain't never told you about the time me an' Turk Wesley run up ag'in each other, have I ? That was along somewheres about 'sixty-five or 'six, after we'd got out the army, an' before Nebrasky came in as a State. Things was pretty much tore up out here west o' the river, o' course; but we was mighty tired o' soldierin', an' was will-in' to trust our luck for a spell, till we got used to feelin' how it seemed. 'Twas a mighty blessed feelin' to have the strain took off. But o' course 'twa'n't long till we begun to hear tell o' more-less fussin', an' thievin', an' such-like, different places, out where the settlers was far apart an' lonesome. 'Twould've come out all right, somehow, if it hadn't been for fellers like Turk Wesley, that didn't have a lick o' sense.
" Turk was one o' the kind that's always hankerin' to have folks think he's smart an' cunnin'. I never took much stock in that kind. Minute a feller begins to want to seem smarter'n the rest o' folks, he'll start off with tryin' to work some big lie that won't be found out; an' that's somethin' that can't be done. There never was no lie told yet that wa'n't found out, give it time. No matter how good a one 'tis when it's told, 'twon't stay told: it's bound to come loose an' get raveled out. That was the trouble with Turk Wesley. I'm bound to say for him, though, he could think up more ways to lie an' steal than anybody I ever knowed. He was mighty 'cute, an' foxy, an' quick; but 'twas just like I tell you: he didn't have a lick o' sense. He didn't know when he'd gone far enough with his devilment; an' that's the sure mark o' the man that's goin' to get met up with, some time.
"Turk, he had two or tlvree that was pardners with him, an' they was just skin-nin' 'round, one place an' another, workin' their slick games for a year or so, till from
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THE HONOR OF A TRANSGRESSOR.
bein' at the first just half sneak an' half dead beat, he come by an' by to be dead tough, not stoppin' at nothin', not even at holdin' up an emigrant-outfit on one o' the trails, an' plunderin' the poor critters of all they'd got. But the country was so big, an' settled so thin, an' not half governed, an' he done pretty much what he pleased, seemed like, without gettin' rounded up. He'd've pulled through some way, only the last thing he done was to take a couple of his pardners out to the Pawnee rese'vation an' run off a bunch o' the beef-steers that had been issued to 'em issue-day. They killed one feller, while they was doin' it, too.
" The story got down to the river pretty quick, 'count o' the Pawnees bein' in such a state over it, an' hard to hold; an' two-three days after, I run up against the United States marshal, that I knowed first-rate, up in Omaha, an' he says, ' Mac,' he says, ' you know Turk Wesley ?' ' Yes,' I says; ' I seen him once, down to Falls City.' ' Well, see here,' he says; ' this here business is makin' a ter'ble stink, an' there ain't nothin' for it but Turk's got to be took, an' I'm goin' to dep'tize you to take him,' he says. ' What's the matter with some o' your own folks ?' I says; an' he says, ' Busy. We only got a couple weeks to summon the jury panel, an' got- to ride all over Kingdom Come to find 'em,' he says, ' an' it's goin' to take every man in my office to get through. Can't you go?' 'Oh, I reckon,' I says: ' Yes, I'll go.' Matter o' fact, I was willin' enough to go. I was full o' hot blood, them days, an' I wa'n't married yet, an' didn't have nobody; an' anyhow, I'd got kind o' nervous, livin' quiet for a year or so, mind-in' my own business. Seemed good to me to think about goin' for a ja'nt on the prairies, an' I never took the trouble to think about gettin' back—like them kids with my fence. So I was 'p'inted a dep'ty, an' fixed out with my papers, an' I struck out, horseback, feelin' like a feller will when the weather's good an' he ain't got nothin' to worry him. I didn't take nobody with me, because 'twas a good spell out to where I reckoned I'd begin huntin' for Turk, an' I'd got power to press help if I needed it.
" On my word, I hadn't got the first idee in this world where Turk was, nor where I was goin' to find him, nor what was likely to happen when I did find him. Nebrasky was an almighty big place, them days, 'fore it'd been split up to make states out of. All I knowed was my papers was good any-
wheres in the ter'tory, an' I wa'n't bother-in'. I don't know: seemed like 'twas a way we got out here, not worryin'. We didn't use to fool much time with settin' down an' frettin' ourselves bald-headed about how we was goin' to get things done: we was too busy with doin' 'em. We always got out somehow. S'pcsin' we'd listened to them that said we was bound to starve to death out here in this desert! We didn't listen; we ain't never listened to no croakin' about trouble.
" Well, by an' by I got out to the agency, an' had a little talk with the agent 'bout the business. He told me Turk had been heerd of three-four places, good ways apart. Seemed like all I had to do was to keep goin'.
" Next day, little after sundown, I come to a dugout, off to one side the trail, where a settler lived, an' I stopped to ask questions. Men-folks. was gone somewheres, after flour an' stuff, but there was a mighty nice, clean little woman an' a couple o' half-growed girls gettin' their supper. Come to find out, the old man was Tom Winters, that'd been my first sergeant; an' when the little woman says to stop off an' get my supper, an' wait till the men come back, I was right willin'. I set my rifle up inside the door, an' unhitched my belt an' dropped it on the floor, with both my pistols in it, an' then took my pony out to the sod stable, hunderd yards or so from the house, other side the trail; an' the little woman she told me where I'd find things.
" I'd got done with feedin' an' waterin', an' was just forkin' in some straw for bed-din', when I heerd somebody holler,' Whoa!' to his horse outside, an' I went to the door. 'Twas just one feller, horseback. He'd turned in from the trail, comin' to the stable, an' when he'd got up closter I see 'twas Turk Wesley; an' my guns layin' over in the dugout! 'Twas just light enough so's I could see Turk had his belt on, like everybody wore 'em, them days, on the trails.
" Billy, a man's the funniest an' the fool-ishest critter that lives—'specially a young one. Why, 'twould 've been the easiest thing in the world to've hid back in a corner an' bided my time till we'd both got down to the house, after while, an' then took him reg'lar, an' accordin' to Hoyle. He didn't know, o' course, there was any warrant out for him. 'Twould've been dead easy. But do you know, it never come to me that way at all. There was Turk, an' there was me, an' the only thing I thought of was that I'd got to nab him right then.
[pgbrk] ' WE JOLTED 'LONG, SLOW, 'COUNT O' TURK NOT BEIN' ABLE TO DO MUCH WITH HIS PONY.
It's just them kind o' things that's made me get gray, thinkin' about 'em afterwards. Scared ? I didn't act'ly have sense enough to feel scared a mite. I just drawed back in the shadder o' the door-frame, an' upended my hay-fork, an' poked the butt-end o' the handle up t'wards Turk's head, an' I hollers, real sharp, ' Han's up, Turk! You're 'rested!' Makes me laugh! 0' course it come on him mighty sudden an' unexpected, an' he was a good deal of a loon anyway, I reckon; an' when he seen that fork-handle within a yard of his face, his han's went up, with him swearin' shameful.
" 'Twas mighty funny, wa'n't it ? I didn't know just what I was goin' to do; so I done the only thing I could think of. I says, ' Get down out o' your saddle, Turky; lively, now!' an' he shook his feet loose from the stirrups an' hopped down to the ground, keepin' his two han's up stiff, like the angels had hold of 'em; an' then I says, ' Down to the house, an' don't you budge from a straight walk!' an' then I set the fork-handle up against the small of his back, an' we went to the house like a funeral perces-sion. When Ave got to the door I hollered to the woman, an' when she come out I never give her a chance to Mat if she'd wanted to; but I says, harsh as I could, I says, ' Unhitch this feller's belt, an' take it off him, an' give it to me. Han's up, Turk!' She was mighty good about it. She never
said a word, but just went up to him an.* loosed the belt an' handed it over to me I'd been mighty partic'lar ";o keep where he couldn't see me, an' you bet it didn't take me long to get one o' the guns out o' the holster. My han's begun to shake then, when 'twas over, an' I dropped the fork. Turk he seen it, an' he turned 'round an' looked at me, with his pistol in my han', an' then he looks down at the fork, an' he says, ' You blasted fool! Did you 'rest me with that thing ? ' ' Yep; with the butt end of it,.' I says. ' You ain't been thinkin' 'twould take artil'ry, have you ?' I says; an' then he got his mouth part open to say somethin', but he shut it up ag'in, plum disgusted, an' he never tried to make a move whiles the little woman went an' got some clothes-line an' tied him up, legs an' arms, me walkin' 'round him with the gun; an' then I stuck my han' under his arm, an' helped him to hop into the house an' set down over by the fire, an' I went back to look after his pony.
" 'Twas a mighty good supper they was gettin', an' pretty soon when 'twas fixed, an' me an' the woman an' the girls had et, I fixed a plateful o' bacon an' baked 'taters an' a pint cup o' coffee, an' I went over an' set down on the bench 'longside o' Turk, an' started to feed him. He was cranky, some, at first, an' wouldn't open his mouth right, till he'd got the taste o' things; an' then he et two big plates full, an' drunk his
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THE HONOR OF A TRANSGRESSOR.
coffee, an' that chirked him up right smart, so's he begun to talk an' ask questions about what the trouble was, an' what I was goin' to do with him. Didn't seem to worry him any, when I'd told him. He said he'd always kind o' leaned on his luck; an' then, besides, he'd got some friends down to Omaha that stood in with the prosecutin' attorney, an' he'd work his pull an' get loose. Didn't plague him a speck. After a while, when Tom an' his boy got home an' had their supper an' we set by the fire, talk-in' an' tellin' stories, why, Turk he forgot all about havin' his han's an' feet tied, an' about the hay-fork, an' he tol' some o' the durnedst stories anybody ever heerd, about the tricks he'd worked, turnin' 'em with the funny side out, so nobody couldn't help laughin' at 'em; an' we set there, woman an' all, till 'twas past one o'clock. But by an' by we turned in, Turk an' me layin' down front o' the fire.
" We got started back t'wards the river early in the mornin', with Turk settin' on his pony, feet tied together under the pony's belly. 'Twas a fine day, an' Turk he'd got over bein' sore, an' we had a real nice time. He wa'n't such a bad chap, take him altogether. I don't know: first thing I knowed I was feelin' sorry for the poor devil. Struck me he'd got the makin' of a man in him, if he'd just got started right. Takin' his word for it, the things he'd done wa'n't all bad, not by a good sight. But there was some bad ones, an' he didn't try to hide 'em a mite.
" Well, we jolted 'long, slow, 'count o' Turk not bein' able to do much with his pony, an' me havin' to lead him. We had a snack 'long about noon; an' then we'd got in twenty mile from the agency, when Turk he says, ' Who's them over yonder ? ' ' Where ?' I says; an' Turk he jerked his head t'wards a hill, half mile to the left. ' Them,' he says. ' I'm a liar if them ain't Pawnees. What you reckon they're doin' off the rese'vation ?' he says; an' I took a look at 'em, settin' on their ponies, an' I knowed he was right. ' You reckon they got wind you was out after me ?' he says. ' Shouldn't wonder,' I says. ' Reckon we better set still here for a spell, till we see.' 'Twa'n't but a minute after we'd stopped our ponies in the trail till the two of 'em started down t'wards us, an' then there was two more of 'em showed theirselves on the hill, follerin' the others up. They come down in a hurry till they'd got in three hundred yards of us, an' then I yelled to 'em to halt. They drew in out of a run, but they
kep' on in a trot till I got my rifle up to my shoulder an' signed to 'em they wa'n't to come no closter, an' that brought 'em up. They signed to me they wanted to talk. ' Well, talk!' I hollered to 'em, in Pawnee; an' one of 'em he starts to edge out from the rest, till I motioned that he could speak his piece where he was. 0' course they seen the way Turk was, tied up that-a-way; an' the first thing the feller said was they wanted the thief that'd stole their ponies. ' You can't have him,' I yells; ' I got him.' But the feller he 'lowed—real sassy, he was —he 'lowed they was goin' to take him away from me. Made me hot, an' I put my han' up to my mouth an' done this "—a wonderfully graphic and impudent gesture with forked fingers and protruded tongue. "That's Sioux for ' You're a liar.' 'Twa'n't the thing I ought to done, only I was r'iled con-sider'ble. It r'iled them some, too; an' they was four to us two, an' one of us tied han' an' feet to his pony; so the one in front he gives a screech, an' then they struck for us, tight as they could jump.
'' I was down off my pony in a holy minute, an' had my knife out. ' It's honor bright, Turky,' I says. ' Yep; you bet,' he says; an' I slashed the rope off him an' give him his pistols, an' then we got behind our ponies an' begun shootin'. I reckon they'd misdoubted we'd fight. They wa'n't more'n two hunderd yards of us, an' all in a bunch, so's 'twas dead easy, though an Indian is mostly mighty handy with his rifle, shootin' from the saddle. I got one of 'em, second shot, an' he rolled head over heels, kickin' up a heap o' dust where he hit the ground; an' then they took their cue an' begun to spread out further apart, droppin' down over their ponies' ha'nches. Turk, his pistols was goin' spiteful, this one an' then that one, reg'lar as a clock tickin', an' I reckon 'twas him that got the next one. I ain't sure, because the smoke from my rifle was in my face, an' right then a bullet cut clean plum through my pony's backbone, back o' the saddle, an' went in my left shoulder, here, an' the pony went down, an' me with him. If there'd been more of 'em, 'twould 've been some awk'ard, likely, because I was jolted up consider'ble; but I had sense enough, layin' there, to whang away once more, an' I seen my feller tumble, an' then things got all blurred, an' I had a funny sweet feelin' in the pit o' my stomach, like I used to have when I was a kid an' whirled 'round till I'd get dizzy, an' then the little sense I had quit me, all of a sudden.
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" I come to, by an' by, an' seen Turk stoopin' over me. He'd cut my coat an' shirt off my shoulder, an' was pluggin' up the hole to stop the blood. When he seen I was lookin' at him, he grinned, an' he says, ' Lay still! I'll get her fixed in a
minute,' he says; an' so I lay still, because the blamed thing hurt like allget-out; but pretty soon I remembered, an' I says, ' How many did we get, Turk ? ' an' he holds up his han', all bloody, with four fingers stretched out, an' grinned like he was plum tickled to death. ' The last one was runnin' his pony
like sin, jumpin' sideways,' he says, 'so I couldn't cover him good with a pistol; but I grabbed your rifle, an' I got him,' he says. That made me feel pretty good, an' I lay where I was till Turk'd got the bleedin' stopped a good bit; an' then he got his
arms 'round me an' helped me to set up. My pony wa'n't dead yet, but his hind quarters was par'lyzed, back o' where the bullet had hit him. I was powerful sorry. I'd rode that pony last two years I was in the army, without so much as gettin' his hide scratched, an' seemed like me an' him knowed
"i GOT ONE OF 'EM. SECOND SHOT."
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THE HONOR OF A TRANSGRESSOR.
each other. 'Twas a dummed shame! But 'twa'n't no use; an' first thing I done when I set up was to put him out o' his mis'ry. Kind o' seemed like I ought to be the one to do it.
" Well, Turk he got me up on my feet pretty soon, an' helped me to get 'straddle o' his pony, pilin' my things on front o' the saddle, an' then he started to lead afoot. Didn't take more'n a couple rods to show me 'twa'n't no good. My shoulder hurt so it fair made me blind, an' I says, ' Hold on, Turky!' I says; ' I can't stand this jigglin'!' an' I keeled out o' the saddle, an' he ketched me an' put me down on the ground. ' What we goin' to do ?' he says pretty soon, anxious-like. 'We can't stay here,' he says, ' because mebbe there's more of 'em snoop-in' 'round in the hills;' an' I says, 'There ain't nothin' for it but you got to go an' get help,' I says. ' You best go back to the sod-house we passed, five-six mile,' I says, ' an' see if they ain't got a wagon, or some-thin', an' come after me,' I says. ' Only I'm mighty bad off for a drink o' water,' I says. ' Don't you reckon you could get me some somewheres ? If I ain't dead wrong, there's a little branch a mile or so ahead,' I says; an' Turk he took my canteen an' started to get on his pony, an' then he stops an' lays my pistols down beside me, an' he stands an' looks at me a minute. ' Am I goin' to take a gun ?' he says; an' I says, ' Why, sure! You may need 'em,' I says; an' Turk he grinned, an' he puts on his belt, an' I give him some ca'tridges, an' then he struck out. He was gone an hour; but he had the canteen full o' water when he got back. Muddy water, 'twas, with a lot o' things in it; but I'm dummed if it didn't taste better'n any I've drunk sence I drunk out o' the big spring back home. I drunk it all, wigglers an' everything; an' then Turk he helped me hitch off to one side the trail, where I could get in the shadder of some brush, out the sun, an' he fixed me easy as he could, an' then he went for help.
" Sun went down, by an' by, an' begun to get dark. My shoulder was swellin' powerful bad, 'count o' some o' the bones bein' mashed up pretty much. It hurt me so it made me get a little flighty, times, in my head; an' then, besides, I wanted to smoke, an' I didn't have no matches. I was feelin' pretty mean, layin' there an' listenin' to the coyotes yelpin', off on the prairie, closter an' closter; only I was thankful they was goin' to eat Pawnee meat, 'stead o' mine.
But whiles I was waitin', an' waitin', an' waitin', do you know it never come tome once to 'spicion Turk wouldn't be back ? It never did! I'm glad it didn't.
" 'Twas 'most ten o'clock when I heerd a wagon comin'. Axle grease must've been scarce out there then. I heerd the wheels goin' squeak, squeak, squeak, long before I heerd anythin' else, till I got to thinkin' 'twas some new kind of a Goliah of a cricket, or mebbe 'twas inside my head; an' then I heerd the gear rattlin', an' by an' by their voices, one an' then the other, talkin'. I'd never knowed how far you could hear things acrost the prairies, night-time. Seemed like 'twas a whole hour till they come up, an' Turk hollered to me. He'd found his man, all right, an' they'd started right off; but the rickety old wagon had broke down, time or two, an' a tire had come off, an' they'd had to build a fire an' fix it. They'd got a pile o' straw in the bottom o' the body, with a couple o' blankets over it, an' they lifted me in, makin' the bed as springy as they could.
"They'd made up their minds how 'twouldn't do to go ahead, nor yet back to the feller's place. 'Twa'n't likely but there'd be more o' the Pawnees come out on a huntin' trip, soon as them ponies got back to the rese'vation, with nobody on 'em. They'd got their heads set on leavin' the trail an' going acrost the prairie, south, to a little town eighteen-twenty mile, where there was a doctor. Jenks was that settler's name, an' there wa'n't a mean thread in him. There he was, just as good as leavin' his place to be plundered an' burnt, if the Pawnees did come; but he wouldn't listen to no talk about that, long's there was somebody that needed him. He was livin' just by hisself, anyway, he said, an' if it come to worst, one place was good's another. That was the way folks was in Nebrasky, them days, pretty much; an' there's lots of 'em that wTay yet. There never was no better place'n this, when a feller's in trouble. So we turned off on the prairie, with Turk ridin' his pony ahead, to pick our trail, an' Jenks drivin', with me back on that pile o' straw, gettin' the daylights jolted out o' me twice every minute, every time the wheels hit a bump. Land, land! I wouldn't take that ride now, stout an' well as I be, not for no money; an' then 'twas a hunderd times worse, 'count o' my shoulder. I just gritted my teeth till they was wore down smooth.
" Jenks was a pretty good han' to talk.
[pgbrk] A TALE OF THE NEBRASKA PIONEERS.
557
Must've been lonesome for him, livin' out there like he'd done. He was talkin' to me, just fcr sake o' comp'ny, but he didn't 'pear to care whether I talked back, an' that was mighty lucky. I wa'n't in no way o' talk-in'. But every time I come 'round, out o' them fits o' holdin' my breath an' 'most wishin' I was dead, I'd hear him goin' on, like the squeak of his wagon wheels. ' That Turk Wesley's a mighty nervy chap,' he says once. ' Thinks a heap o' you, don't he ?' ' Oh, I don' know as he does,' I says. ' There ain't no reason why he should, considerin',' I says. ' If he didn't, he wouldn't be doin' what he's doin' now,' he says, ' runnin' his head in a halter, much as his life's worth.' •' What's that ?' I says. ' What you mean ? ' ''Why,' he says, 'goin' down where we're goin'. He's knowed down there, an' folks has been waitin' for him for quite a good bit,' he says. ' That so ? ' I says ; an' that set me thinkin'. 'Twouldn't do; so I tells Jenks to call Turk back, an' when he rides up beside the wagon, I says, ' Turk,' I says, ' I ain't goin' to 'low this. You're my prisoner, an' I'm bound to see you through an' turn you over, reg'lar,' I says, ' an' you know I'm no shape to perfect you now.' Turk he just laughed. ' You ain't got no business laughin',' I says. ' What you been ;stealin' down here?' 'Horses,' he says, real short, like he didn't want to talk about it. That was bad, an' I told him so; but he .just kep' laughin', an' he said he reckoned he knowed what he was doin'. I 'lowed he didn't have no call to make a fool of hisself, just because he knowed how; an' I says, ' Turk, look here, you take my advice, an' keep away from this outfit of our'n. You ;go off by yourself somewheres,' I says, ' an' I'll come back some time an' 'rest you ag'in.'
'Not by a dummed sight you won't!' he says, right up on his ear. ' There's no livin' man'll never ketch me no more, with a hayfork nor nothin' else,' he says. ' You shut up!' he says. 'I know what I'm doin'. You're in this fix on account c' me, an' I'm goin' to stay by you,' he says. ' You acted white with me, an' I ain't goin' to get you in no trouble, runnin' off now.' He wouldn't listen to no more, but just went ahead, an' we kep' on t'wards town.
" 'Twas gettin' along in the gray o' the mornin' when we got to the edge o' town; an' then Turk he dropped back beside the wagon, an' he says, ' I ain't goin' in,' he says. ' I'm goin' to quit you here an' hide out somewheres, handy, till you get ready to move. I'll be watchin' out, an' I'll j'in you,' he says; an' with that he puts off in a corn-field beside the road.
'' Jenks, he took me to the little ramshackle buildin' they called their hotel, an' they put me to bed an' got the doctor. My shoulder was in bad shape by then, an' 'twas for most a fortni't I was out o' my head, with blood p'ison; an' even when I come 'round, 'twas a good spell before they dast tell me anything to worry me. But I found out by an' by. Turk'd done some mighty onhealthy things 'round about there, before that, an' they was layin' for him. 'Twould've been better if he'd kep' away, like I told him. Some way or other they'd got wind of it, an' they got a committee together an' started to hunt for him. They'd run up on him where he was hidin', one evenin', an' nabbed him whiles he was sleepin', an' his pull hadn't done him a mite o' good. I was powerful sorry, 'cause I'd like to seen him have a fair show. I kind o' liked his style, if he had been some ornery."
[pgbrk] "I SING OF HONOR AND THE FAITHFUL HEART
BY
George Madden Martin
" Hattie peeped out from behind the shed."
THE Real Teacher was sick. The Third Reader was to begin its duties with a Substitute. The Principal announced it to the class. He looked at them coldly and stated the matter curtly. It was as though he considered the Third Reader class to blame.
Somehow Emmy Lou felt apologetic about it and guilty. And she watched the door. A Substitute might mean anything. Hattie, Emmy Lou's desk mate, watched the door, too, but covertly. Hattie did not like to acknowledge she did not know.
The Substitute came in a little breathlessly. She was pretty. She was as pretty as Emmy Lou's Aunt Katie. The Substitute seemed a little uncertain as to what to do. Perhaps she felt conscious of forty pairs of eyes waiting to see what she would do.
The Substitute stepped hesitatingly up on
the platform. She gripped the edge of the desk. She opened her lips, but nothing came. She closed them and swallowed.
Then she said, " Children-"
" She's goin' to cry! " whispered Hattie in awed accents. Emmy Lou felt it would be terrible to see her cry. Evidently it was something unpleasant to be a Substitute. Emmy Lou's heart went out to the Substitute.
But the Substitute did not cry. She still gripped the desk, and after a moment she went on: " —you will find printed on the slips of paper upon each desk the needs of the Third Reader."
She did not cry, but everybody felt the tremor in her voice. The Substitute was young. She was new to her business.
Emmy Lou felt it was well the needs of the Third Reader were printed on slips of paper. The needs seemed complicated and lengthy.
There is a difference between a Real Teacher and a Substitute. The Real Teacher loves mystery and explains grudgingly. The Real Teacher stands aloof, with awe and distance between herself and the inhabitants of the rows of desks she holds dominion over.
But a Substitute tells the class all about her duty and its duty, and about what she is planning and what she expects of them.
[pgbrk] EMMY LOU IN THE THIRD READER.
559
A Substitute makes the occupants of the desks feel flattered and conscious and important.
The Substitute's name was Miss Jenny. The class speedily adored Miss Jenny. Soon Miss Jenny's desk might have been a shrine to Pomona. It was joy to forego one's apple to swell the fruitage of adoration piled on Miss Jenny's desk. The class could scarcely be driven to recess, since going tore them from Miss Jenny. They found their happiness in Miss Jenny's presence.
So, apparently, did Mr. Bryan. Mr. Bryan was the Principal. Mr. Bryan wore his black hair somewhat long and thrown off his forehead. Mr. Bryan would have called it brow.
Mr. Bryan came often to the Third Reader room. He said it was very necessary that the Third Reader should be well grounded in the rudiments of number. He said he was astonished, he was appalled, he was chagrined.
He paused at'' chagrined,'' and repeated it impressively, so that the guttural grim-ness of its second syllable sounded most unpleasant. Appalled and astonished must be bad, but to be chagrined, as Mr. Bryan said it, must be terrible.
He was chagrined, so it proved, that a class could show such deplorable ignorance concerning the very rudiments of number.
It was Emmy Lou who displayed it. Emmy Lou was called to the blackboard by Mr. Bryan. He called a different little girl each day, with discriminating impartiality. When doing so, Mr. Bryan would often express a hope that his teachers would have no favorites.
Emmy Lou went to the board.
" If a man born in eighteen hundred and
nine, lives—" began Mr. Bryan. Then he turned to speak to Miss Jenny.
Emmy Lou took the chalk and stood on her toes to reach the board.
" Set it down," said Mr. Bryan, turning— " the date."
Emmy Lou paused, uncertain. Had he said one thousand, eight hundred and nine, Emmy Lou would have known. That was the way one knew it in the Second Reader. But eighteen hundred was confusing.
Again Mr. Bryan looked around, to see the chubby little girl standing on her toes, chalk in hand, still uncertain. Mr. Bryan's voice expressed tried but laudable patience.
While the children drew, Mr. Bryan -would lean on Miss Jenny's desk, rearrange his -white necktie, and talk
Miss Jenny."
[pgbrk] 560
"7 SING OF HONOR AND THE FAITHFUL HEART."
" Put it down—the date," said Mr. Bryan, " eighteen hundred and nine."
Emmy Lou put it down. She put it down in this way:
18 100 9
Then it was he was astonished, appalled, chagrined. Then it was the Principal found it would be necessary to come even oftener to the Third Reader to ground it in the rudiments of number.
But he did not always go when the number lesson ended. Directly following its lesson in the " New Eclectic Practical and Mental Primary Arithmetic," the class was given over to mastering " Townsend's New System of Drawing."
While the children drew, Mr. Bryan would lean on Miss Jenny's desk, re-arrange his white necktie, and talk to Miss Jenny. Miss Jenny was pretty. The class gloried in her prettiness, but it felt it would have Miss Jenny more for its own, if Mr. Bryan would go when the number lesson ended.
Mr. Townsend may have made much of the system he claimed was embodied in " Book No. 1." The class never tried his system. There is a chance Miss Jenny had not tried it either. Drawing had never been in the public school before. And Miss Jenny was only a Substitute.
So the class drew with no supervision and with only such verbal direction as Miss Jenny could insert between Mr. Bryan's attentions. Miss Jenny seemed different when Mr. Bryan was there. She seemed helpless and nervous.
Emmy Lou felt reasonably safe when it came to drawing. She had often copied
pictures out of books. And she, like Mr. Townsend, had her system.
On the first page of " Book No. 1" were six lines up and down, six lines across, six slanting lines, and a circle. One was expected to copy these in the space below. To do this, Emmy Lou applied her system. She produced a piece of tissue paper folded away in her " Montague's New Elementary Geography." Emmy Lou was a saving and hoarding little soul. She laid the tissue paper over the lines and traced them with her
pencil.
It was harder to do the rest. Next she laid the traced paper carefully over the space below, and taking her slate-pencil, went laboriously over each line with an absorbing zeal that left its mark in the soft drawing paper. Lastly she went over each indented line with a lead-pencil, carefully and frequently wetted in her little mouth.
Miss Jenny exclaimed when she saw it. Mr. Bryan had gone. Miss Jenny said it was the best page in the room.
Emmy Lou could not take her book home. Copy books and drawing books must be kept clean. They were collected ?,nd kept under lock and key in Miss Jenny's cupboard. But Emmy Lou told Aunt Cordelia that her drawing had been the best in the room. Aunt Cordelia could hardly believe it. She said she had never heard of a talent for drawing in any branch of the family.
Now Hattie had taken note of Emmy Lou's system in drawing. The next day Hattie brought tissue paper. That day Miss Jenny praised Hattie's page. Emmy Lou's system immediately became popular. All the class got tissue paper.
And Mr. Bryan, finding the drawing hour one of undisturbed opportunity, stayed until the bell rang for Geography.
" And she, like M.r. Tuivnscnd, had her system"
[pgbrk] EMMY LOU IN THE THIRD READER.
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A little girl named Sadie wondered if tissue paper was fair.
Hattie said it was. She said Mr. Bryan saw her using it, and turned and went on talking to Miss Jenny. But a little girl named Mamie settled it definitely. Did not her mamma, Mamie wanted to know, draw the scallops that way on Baby Sister's flannel petticoat ? And didn't one's own mamma know ?
Sadie was reassured. Sadie was a conscientious little girl. Miss Jenny said so. Miss Jenny was conscientious, too. Right at the beginning Miss Jenny told them how she hated a story. A fib story she meant.
The class felt that they, too, abhorred stories. They loved Miss Jenny. And Miss Jenny disliked stories. Just then a little girl raised her hand. It was Sadie.
Sadie said she was afraid she had told Miss Jenny a story, a fib story, the day before. Miss Jenny had asked her if she felt the wind from the window opened above, and she had said no. Afterward she had realized she did feel the wind. A thrill, deep-awed, went around the room. In her secret soul every little girl wished she had told a story, that she might tell Miss Jenny.
Miss Jenny praised Sadie. She called Sadie a brave and conscientious little girl. Miss Jenny closed the book and came to the edge of the platform and talked to them about duty and honor and faithfulness.
Emmy Lou, her cheeks pink, longed for opportunity to prove her faithfulness, her honesty. She longed to prove herself a Sadie.
There was Roll Call in the Third Reader. The duties were much too complicated for mere Head and Foot. After each lesson came Roll Call.
As Emmy Lou understood them, the marks by which one graded one's performance and deserts in the Third Reader were interpreted :
6—The final state which few may hope to attain.
5—The gate beyond which lies the final and unattainable state. 4—The highest hope of the humble. 3—The common condition of mankind. 2—The just reward of the wretched. 1—The badge of shame. 0—Outer darkness.
When Roll Call first began, Miss Jenny said to her class: '' You must each think earnestly before answering to Roll Call. To give in a mark above what you feel yourself entitled, is to tell worse than a story. It is
" The Third Reader class gathered in knots."
to tell a falsehood. And a falsehood is a lie. I shall leave it to you. I believe in trusting my pupils. I shall take no note of your standing. Each will be answerable for herself." Miss Jenny was very young.
The class sat weighted with the awful-ness of the responsibility. It was a conscientious class. And Miss Jenny's high ideals had worked upon its sensibilities. No little girl dared to be "six." How could she know, for instance, in her reading lesson, if she had paused the exact length of a full stop every time she met with a period ? Who could decide ? Certainly not the little girl in her own favor, and perhaps be branded with a falsehood which was a lie. Or who, when Roll Call for deportment came, could ever dare call herself perfect ? Self-examination and inward analysis lead rather to a belief in natural sin. The Third Reader class grew conscientious to the splitting of a hair. It was better to be "four" than "five" and be saved, and "three" than " four," if there was room for doubt. Class standing fell rapidly.
Emmy Lou struggled to keep up with the downward tendency.
Hattie outstripped her promptly. Hattie could adapt herself comfortably to all exigencies. Emmy Lou even felt envy of Hattie creeping into her heart.
There came an awful day. It was Roll Call for Drawing. It had been a fish, a fish with elaborately serrated fins. Miss Jenny had said that Emmy Lou's fish was as good
[pgbrk] 562
' I SING OF HONOR AND THE FAITHFUL HEART"
as the copy. In her heart Miss Jenny wondered at the proficiency of her class in drawing. Miss Jenny could not draw a straight line. But since Mr. Bryan seemed satisfied and said every day, "Let them alone, they are getting along," Miss Jenny gave the credit to Mr. Townsend's system.
She was enthusiastic over Emmy Lou's fish. Emmy Lou brought it up as soon as Mr. Bryan departed.
" It is wonderful," said Miss Jenny. " It is perfect."
Emmy Lou went back to her desk much troubled. What was she to do ? She had not moved, she had not whispered, she had not lifted the lashes sweeping her chubby cheeks even to look at Hattie. Yet it was the general belief that no little girl could answer "six," and not tell a falsehood, which was a lie. Yet, on the other hand, being perfect, Emmy Lou could not say less. She was perfect. Miss Jenny said so. Emmy Lou shut her eyes to think. It was approaching her turn to answer.
" Six," said Emmy Lou, opening her eyes and standing, the impersonation of conscious guilt. She felt disgraced. She felt the silence. She felt she could not meet the eyes of the other little girls. And she felt sick. Her throat was sore. In the Third Reader one's face burned from the red-hot stove so near by, while one shivered from the draft when the window was lowered above one's head.
Emmy Lou did not come to school the next day. So Hattie went out to see Emmy Lou. It was Friday. The class had had singing. Every Friday the singing teacher came to the Third Reader for an hour.
" He changed my seat over to the left for singing," said Hattie. " I can sing alto."
Emmy Lou felt cross. She felt the strenu-ousness of striving to keep abreast of Hattie. And the taste of a nauseous dose from a black bottle was in her mouth. Another dose loomed an hour ahead. And now Hattie could sing alto.
" Sing it," said Emmy Lou.
It disconcerted Hattie. " It—isn't—er— you can't just up and sing it—it's alto," said Hattie, nonplussed.
" You said you could sing it," said Emmy Lou. This was the nearest Emmy Lou had come to fussing with Hattie.
The next Monday Emmy Lou was late in starting. That is, late for Emmy Lou. And she made a discovery. Miss Jenny passed Emmy Lou's house going to School. Emmy Lou did not have courage to join her. She
waited inside her gate until Miss Jenny had passed. But the next morning she was at her gate again as Miss Jenny came by.
Miss Jenny said, " Good-morning."
Emmy Lou went out. They walked along together. After that Emmy Lou waited every morning. One day it was icy on the pavements. Miss Jenny told Emmy Lou to take her hand. After that Emmy Lou's little mittened hand went into Miss Jenny's every morning.
Emmy Lou told Hattie. Hattie came out to Emmy Lou's the next morning. They both waited for Miss Jenny. They each held a hand. It was in this way they came to know the Drug-Store Man. Sometimes he waited for them at the corner. Sometimes he walked out to meet them. He and Miss Jenny seemed to be old friends. The Drug-Store Man asked them about rudiments of number. They wondered how he knew.
One day Hattie proposed a plan. It was daring. She persuaded Emmy Lou to agree to it. That night Emmy Lou packed her school-bag even to the apple for Miss Jenny. Next morning, early as Hattie arrived, Emmy Lou was waiting for her at the gate. But she was hot and cold with the daring of the expedition. They were going to walk out in the direction of the Great Unknown, from which, each day, Miss Jenny emerged. They were going to meet Miss Jenny!
They knew she turned into their street at the corner. So they turned. At the next corner they saw Miss Jenny coming. But along the intersecting street, one walking southward, one northward, toward the corner where Hattie, Emmy Lou, and Miss Jenny were about to meet, came two others—Mr. Bryan and the Drug-Store Man!
Something made Emmy Lou and Hattie feel queer and guilty. Something made them turn and run. They ran fast. They ran faster. Emmy Lou's heavy school-bag thumped against her little calves. Her apple flew out. Emmy Lou never stopped.
Hattie told her afterward that it was the Drug-Store Man who brought Miss Jenny to School. Hattie peeped out from behind the shed where the water buckets sat. She said he brought Miss Jenny to the gate and opened it for her. He had never come farther than the corner before. That day Mr. Bryan did not come to ground them in the rudiments of number. Nor did he come the next day; nor ever, any more. Yet the Third Reader class was undoubtedly poor in Arithmetic. Miss Jenny found that out. Mr. Bryan's instruction seemed not to have helped them at
[pgbrk] EMMY LOU IN THE THIRD READER.
563
ail. Miss Jenny said that as they were so well up in Drawing, they would lay their drawing-books aside, and give that time to Arithmetic. And Miss Jenny reminded them to be conscientious in all their work. They were, and the Roll Call bore witness to their rigorous self-depreciation.
Mr. Bryan never came for number again, but he came, one day, because of Roll Call. Once a week Roll Call was sent to the Office. It was called Class Average. The day of Class Average Mr. Bryan walked in. He rapped smartly on the red and blue lined paper in his hand. Miss Jenny's Class Average, so the class learned, was low. Miss Jenny must see to it that her class made a better showing. Miss Jenny was a Substitute. Mr. Bryan recognized that, and made allowance accordingly, "but"—then he went.
Miss Jenny looked frightened. The class feared she was going to cry. They determined to be better and more conscientious for her sake. They felt they would die for Miss Jenny. But the Class Average was low again. How could it be otherwise with forty over-strained little consciences determining their own deserts ?
One day Miss Jenny was sent for. When one was sent for, one went to the Office. Little boys went there to be whipped. Sadie went there once. Her grandma was dead, and they had sent for her.
Miss Jenny had been crying when she came back. Lessons went on miserably. Then Miss Jenny put the book down. It was evident Miss Jenny had not heard one word of the absent-minded and sympathetic little girl who said that a peninsula was a body of water almost surrounded by land.
Miss Jenny came to the edge of the platform. She looked way off a moment. Then she looked at the class. Then she spoke. Miss Jenny said she was going to take them into her confidence. Miss Jenny was very young. Miss Jenny told them the teacher of the Third Reader, the Real Teacher, was not coming back. Miss Jenny told them that she had hoped to take the Real Teacher's
place. But she said the Class Average was being counted against her.
Everybody noticed the tremor in Miss Jenny's voice. It broke on the fatal Class Average. Sadie began to cry.
Miss Jenny came to the very edge of the platform. She looked slight and young and appealing did Miss Jennie.
Next week, she went on to tell them, would be Quarterly Examination. If they did well in Examination, even with the Class Average against her, Miss Jenny might be allowed to remain. But
if they failed--
The Third Reader class gathered in knots and groups at recess. It depended on them whether Miss Jenny went or stayed. Emmy Lou stood in one of the groups. Her chubby face bore witness of her concern. '' What is a Quarterly Examination?" asked Emmy Lou. Nobody seemed very sure.
" Oh," said another little girl, '' they give you questions, and you write down answers. My brother is in the Grammar School, and he has Examinations." " Quarterly Examinations?" asked Emmy Lou, who was definite.
The little girl did not know. She only knew if you answered right, you passed; if wrong, you failed.
And Miss Jenny would go. There was an air of mystery about a Quarterly Examination. It made one uneasy before the actual thing came. And the uncertainty concerning it was trying to the nerves.
The day before Examination, Miss Jenny told every little girl to clear out her desk and carry all her belongings home. Then Miss Jenny went around and looked in each desk. Not a scrap of paper even must remain.
Miss Jenny told them that she trusted them. It was not that. It was because it was the rule.
"To cheat at Examination," said Miss Jenny, "is worse even than to lie. To cheat is to steal—steal knowledge that doesn't belong to you. To cheat at Examination is to be both a liar and a thief."
To use tissue paper would be cheating.
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I SING OF HONOR AND THE FAITHFUL HEART/
" Miss Jenny ivas throwing a kiss to the Third Reader class.''
The class scarcely breathed. This was terrible.
" About the first subject," said Miss Jenny, " I feel safe. The first thing in the morning you will be examined in Drawing."
Emmy Lou at that re-mem b ered she had no tissue paper. Neither had Hattie. Nei- ther had Mamie. Everybody must be reminded. Miss Jenny told them to come with slate, pencils, and legal-cap paper. After School Emmy Lou and Hattie and Sadie and Mamie made mention of tissue paper. The Drug-Store Man waited on Emmy Lou the next morning. Emmy Lou had a nickel. She wanted tissue paper. The Drug-Store Man was curious. It seemed as if every little girl who came in wanted tissue paper. Emmy Lou and the Drug-Store Man were great friends.
" What's it got to do with rudiments of number ? " asked the Drug-Store Man.
"It's for Drawing," said Emmy Lou. " It's Quarterly Examination."
The Drug-Store Man was interested. He did not quite understand the system. Emmy Lou explained. Her chin did not reach the counter, but she looked up and he leaned over. The Drug-Store Man grew serious. He was afraid this might get Miss Jenny into trouble. He explained to Emmy Lou that it would be cheating to use tissue paper in Examination. He told her she must draw right off the copy, according to the directions set down in the book. He suggested that she go and tell the others of the class. For that matter, if they came right over, he would take back the tissue paper and substitute licorice sticks.
Emmy Lou hurried over to tell them. Examinations, she explained, were different. To use tissue paper would be cheating. And what would Miss Jenny say ? Little girls
hurried across the street, and the jar of licorice was exhausted.
Miss Jenny saw them seated. She told them she could trust them. No one in her class would cheat. Then a strange Teacher from the class above came in to examine them. It was the rule. And Miss Jenny was sent away to examine a Primary School in another district.
But at the door Miss Jenny turned. Every eye was following her. They loved Miss Jenny. Miss Jenny's cheeks were glowing, and the draft, as Miss Jenny stood in the open doorway, blew her hair about her face. Miss Jenny smiled back at them. She turned to go. But again she turned—Miss Jenny —yes, Miss Jenny was throwing a kiss to the Third Header class.
The door closed. It was Examination. The page they were to draw had for copy a cup and saucer. No, worse, a cup in a saucer. And by it was a coffee-pot. And next to that was a pepper-box. And these were to be drawn for Quarterly Examination —without tissue paper.
When Emmy Lou had finished, she felt discouraged. In the result one might be pardoned for some uncertainty as to which was coffee-pot and which pepper-box. The cup and saucer seemed strangely like a circle in a hole. There was a yawning break in the paper from much erasure where the handle of the coffee-pot should have been. There were thumb marks and smears where nothing should have been. Emmy Lou looked at Hattie. Hattie looked worn out. She had her book upside down, putting the holes in the lid of the pepper-box. Sadie was crying. Tears were dropping right down on the page of her book.
The bell rang. Examination in Drawing was over. The books were collected. Just as the Teacher was dismissing them for recess she opened a book. She opened another. She turned to the front pages. She passed a finger over the reverse side of a page. She was a Teacher of long years of experience. She told the class to sit down. She asked a little girl named Mamie Sessum to please rise. It was Mamie's book she held. Mamie rose.
The Teacher's tones were polite. It made one tremble they were so polite. " May I ask," said the Teacher, " to have explained the system by which the supposedly freehand drawing in this book has been done ?"
" It wasn't any system," Mamie hastened to explain, anxious to disclaim a connection
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evidently so undesirable; "it was tissue paper."
" And this confessed openly to my face ? " said the Teacher. She was, even after many years at the business of exposing the natural depravity of the youthful mind, appalled at the brazenness of Mamie.
Mamie looked uncertain. Whatever she had done, it was well to have company. " We all used tissue paper," said Mamie.
It proved even so. The Teacher, that this thing might be fully exposed, called the Roll. Each little girl responded in alphabetical sequence. The Teacher's condition of shocked virtue rendered her coldly laconic.
"Tissue paper?" she asked each little girl in turn.
"Tissue paper," was the burden, if not the form, of every alarmed little girl's reply.
"Cipher," said the Teacher briefly as each made confession, and called the next.
0—Outer darkness !
The Teacher at the last closed her book with a snap. " Cipher and worse," she told them. " You are cheats, and to cheat is to lie. And further, the class has failed in Drawing.''
A bell rang. Recess was over.
The Teacher, regarding them coldly, picked up the chalk, and turned to write on the board, " If a man-"
Examination in " New Eclectic Practical and Mental Primary Arithmetic" had begun.
The Third Reader class, stunned, picked up its pencils. Miss Jenny had feared for them in Arithmetic. They had feared for themselves. They were cheats and liars, and they had failed. And the knowledge did not make them confident. They were cheats, and a suspicious and cold surveillance on the part of the Teacher kept them reminded that she looked upon them as cheats and watched them accordingly. Misery and despair were their portion. And further, failure. In their state of mind it was inevitable for them to get lost in the maze of conditions surrounding " If a man-"
They did better next day in Geography and Reading. They passed on Friday in Spelling and Penmanship.
But the terrible fact remained—the Teacher had declared them cheats and liars. If they could only see Miss Jenny. Miss Jenny would understand. Miss Jenny would make it all right after she returned.
When the Third Reader class assembled on Monday, a tall lady occupied the platform. She was a Real Teacher. But at the door stood a memory of Miss Jenny, the hair blown about her face, kissing her hand.
The Third Reader class never saw Miss Jenny again.
[pgbrk] '"not with you, o blessed among all hills, fell the arrow of our lord! and never shall i breathe your
air again ! ' "
[pgbrk] KIM.
By Rudyard Kipling.
CHAPTER XV.
I'd not give room for an Emperor—
I'd hold my road for a King. To the Triple Crown I'd not bow down—
But this is a different thing ! I'11 not fight with the Powers of Air—
Sentries pass him through ! Drawbridge let fall—He's the Lord of us all— The Dreamer whose dream came true.
The Siege of the Fairies.
TWO hundred miles north of Chini, on the blue shale of Ladakh, lies Yankling Sahib, the merry-minded man, spy-glassing wrathful ly across the ridges for some sign of his pet tracker—a man from Aochung. But that renegade, with a new Mannlicher rifle and two hundred cartridges, is elsewhere, shooting musk-deer for the market, and Yankling Sahib will learn next season how very ill he has been.
Up the valleys of Bushahr—the far-beholding eagles of the Himalayas swerve at his new blue-and-white gored umbrella—hurries a Bengali, once fat and well-looking, now lean and weather-worn. He has received the thanks of two foreigners of distinction, piloted not unskilfully to Mashobra tunnel which leads to the great and gay capital of India. It was not his fault that, blanketed by wet mists, he conveyed them past the telegraph-station and European colony of Kotgarh. It was not his fault, but that of the Gods, of whom he discoursed so engagingly, that he led them into the borders of Nahan, where the Rajah of that state mistook them for deserting British soldiery. Hurree Babu explained the greatness and glory, in their own country, of his companions, till the drowsy kinglet smiled. He explained it to every one who asked—many times—aloud—variously. He begged food, arranged accommodation, proved a skilful leech for an injury of the groin—such a blow as one may receive rolling down a rock-covered hillside in the dark—and in all things indispensable. The reason of his friendli-
ness did him credit. With millions of fellow-serfs, he had learned to look upon Russia as the great deliverer from the North. He was a fearful man. He had been afraid that he could not save his illustrious employers from the anger of an excited peasantry. He himself would just as lief hit a holy man as not, but ... He was deeply grateful and sincerely rejoiced that he had done his "little possible" towards bringing their venture to—barring the lost baggage—a successful issue. He had forgotten the blows; denied that any blows had been dealt that unseemly first night under the pines. He asked neither pension nor retaining fee, but if they deemed him worthy would they give him a testimonial ? It might be useful to him later, if others, their friends, came over the Passes. He begged them to remember him in their future greatnesses, for he opined subtly that he, even he, Mohendro Lai Dutt, M.A. of Calcutta, had " done the state some service."
They gave him a certificate praising his courtesy, helpfulness, and unerring skill as a guide. He put it in his waist-belt and sobbed with emotion; they had endured so many dangers together. He led them at high noon along crowded Simla mall to the Alliance Bank of Simla where they wished to establish their identity. Thence he vanished like a dawn-cloud on Jakko.
Behold him, too fine drawn to sweat, too pressed to vaunt the drugs in his little brass-bound box, ascending Shamlegh slope, a just man made perfect. Watch him, all Babu-dom laid aside, smoking at noon on a cot, while a woman with turquoise-studded headgear points southeasterly across the bare grass. Litters, she says, do not travel as fast as single men, but his birds should now be in the plains. The Holy Man would not stay though Lispeth pressed him. The Babu groans ponderously, girds up his huge loins, and is off again. He does not care to travel after dusk; but his days' marches—there is none to enter them in a book—would astonish folk who mock at his race. Kindly villagers, remembering the Dacca drug-vendor of two months ago, give him shelter against
Copyright, 1901, by Rudyard Kipling. All rights reserved.
[pgbrk] " HE CROSSED HIS HANDS ON HIS LAP AND SMILED, AS A MAN WHO HAS WON SALVATION FOR HIMSELF AND HIS BELOVED."
[pgbrk] RUDYARD KIPLING.
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evil spirits of the wood. He dreams of Bengali Gods, University text-books of his manhood, and the Royal Society, London, England. Next dawn the bobbing blue-and-white umbrella goes forward.
On the edge of the Doon, Mussoorie well behind them and the Plains spread out in golden dust before, rests a worn litter in which—all the Hills know it—lies a sick lama who seeks a River for his healing. Villages have almost come to blows over the honour of bearing it, for not only has the lama given them blessings, but his disciple good money —full one-third Sahib's prices. Twelve miles a day has the dooli travelled, as the greasy, rubbed pole-ends show, and by roads that few Sahibs use. Over the Nilang Pass in storm when the driven snow-dust filled every fold of the impassive lama's drapery; between the black horns of Raieng where they heard the whistle of the wild goats through the clouds; pitching and strained on the shale below; hard-held between shoulder and clenched jaw when they rounded the hideous curves of the Cut Road under Bhagirati, swinging and creaking to the steady jog-trot of the descent into the Valley of the Waters; pressed along the steamy levels of that locked valley; up, up and out again, to meet the roaring gusts off Kedarnath; set down of middays in the dun-gloom of kindly oak-forests; passed from village to village in dawn-chill, when even devotees may be forgiven for swearing at impatient holy men; or by torchlight, when the least fearful think of ghosts—the dooli has reached her last stage. The little hill-folk sweat in the modified heat of the lower Sewaliks, and gather round the priests for their blessing and their wage.
" Ye have acquired merit," says the lama. " Merit greater than your knowing. And ye will return to the Hills," he sighs.
" Surely. The high hills as soon as may be." The bearer rubs his shoulder, drinks water, spits it out again, and readjusts his grass sandal. Kim—his face is drawn and tired—pays very small silver from his belt, heaves out the food-bag, crams an oilskin packet—they are holy writings—into his bosom, and helps the lama to his feet. The peace has come again into the old man's eyes, and he does not look for the hills to fail down and crush him as he did that terrible night when they were delayed by the flooded river.
The men pick up the dooli and swing out of sight between the scrub clumps.
The lama raises a hand toward the rampart of the Himalayas. " Not with you, 0
blessed among all hills, fell the Arrow of Our Lord! And never shall I breathe your air again! "
" But thou art ten times the stronger man in this good air," says Kim, for to his wearied soul appeal the well-cropped, kindly plains. " Here, or hereabouts, fell the Arrow, yes. We will go very softly, perhaps a kos a day, for the Search is sure. But the bag weighs heavy."
" Ay, our Search is sure. I have come out of great temptation."
It was never more than a couple of miles a day now, and Kim's shoulders bore all the weight of it—the burden of an old man, the burden of the heavy food-bag with the locked books, the load of the writings on his heart, and the details of the daily routine. He begged in the dawn, set blankets for the lama's meditation, held the weary head on his lap through the noonday heats, fanning away the flies till his wrist ached, begged again in the evenings, and rubbed the lama's feet, who rewarded him with promise of Freedom—to-day, to-morrow, or, at furthest, the next day.
"Never was such a chela. I doubt at times whether Ananda more faithfully nursed Our Lord. And thou art a Sahib ? When I was a man—a long time ago—I forgot that. Now I look upon thee often, and every time I remember that thou art a Sahib. It is strange."
" Thou hast said there is neither black nor white. Why plague me with this talk, Holy One ? Let me rub the other foot. It vexes me. I am not a Sahib. I am thy chela, and my head is heavy on my shoulders."
"Patience a little! We reach Freedom together. Then thou and I, upon the far bank of the River, will look back upon our lives as in the Hills we saw our day's marches laid out behind us. Perhaps I was once a Sahib."
" Was never a Sahib like thee, I swear it."
" I am certain the Keeper of the Images in the Wonder House was in past life a very wise abbot. But even his spectacles do not make my eyes see. There fall shadows when I would look steadily. No matter—we know the tricks of the poor stupid carcass—shadow changing to another shadow. I am bound by the illusion of Time and Space. How far came we to-day upon our feet ? "
" Perhaps half a kos." Three-quarters of a mile, and it was a weary march.
[pgbrk] 570
KIM.
" Half a kos. Ha! I went ten thousand thousand in the spirit. How we are all lapped and swathed and swaddled in these senseless things." He looked at his thin blue-veined hand that found the beads so heavy. " Chela, hast thou never a wish to leave me?"
Kim thought of the oilskin packet and the books in the food-bag. If some one duly authorised would come and take delivery of them the Great Game might play itself for aught he then cared. He was tired and hot in his head, and a cough that came from the stomach worried him.
"No," he said almost sternly. "I am not a dog or a snake to bite when I have learned to love."
" Thou art too tender for me."
" Not that either. I have moved in one matter without consulting thee. I have sent a message to the Kulu woman by that woman who gave us the goat's milk this morn, saying that thou wast a little feeble and would need a litter. I beat myself in my mind that I did not do it when we entered the Doon. We stay in this place till the litter returns."
" I am content. She is a woman with a heart of gold, as thou sayest, but a talker— something of a talker."
" She will not weary thee. I have looked to that also. Holy One, my heart is very heavy for my many carelessnesses towards thee." An hysterical catch rose in his throat. "I have walked thee too far; I have not picked good food always for thee; I have not considered the heat; I have talked to people on the road and left thee alone. . . . I have—I have . . . Hai max! But I love thee . . . and it is all too late. ... I was a child. . . . Oh, why was I not a man! . . ." Overborne by strain, fatigue, and the weight beyond his years, Kim broke down and sobbed at the lama's feet.
'' What a to-do is here,'' said the old man gently. " Thou hast never stepped a hair's breadth from the Way of Obedience. Neglect me ? Child, I have lived on thy strength as an old tree lives on the lime of a new wall. Day by day, since Shamlegh down, I have stolen strength from thee. Therefore, not for any sin of thine, art thou weakened. It is the Body—the silly, stupid Body—that speaks now. Not the assured Soul. Be comforted ! Know at least the devils that thou tightest. They are earth-born—children of illusion. We will go to the woman from Kulu. She shall acquire merit in housing us, and specially in tending me. Thou shalt run free till strength returns. I had forgot-
ten the stupid Body. If there be any blame, 1 bear it. But we are too close to the gates of deliverance to weigh blame. I could praise thee, but what need ? In a little— in a very little—we shall sit beyond all needs."
And so he petted and comforted Kim with wise saws and grave texts on that little understood beast, our Body, who, being but a delusion, insists on posing as the Soul, to the darkening of the Way, and the immense multiplication of unnecessary devils.
"Hai! hai! Let us talk of the woman from Kulu. Think you she will ask another charm for her grandsons ? When I was a young man, a very long time ago, I was plagued with these vapours, and some others, and I went to an abbot—a very holy man and a seeker after truth, though then I knew it not. Sit up and listen, child of my soul! My tale was told. Said he to me, ' Chela know this. There are many lies in the world, and not a few liars, but there are no liars like our bodies, except it be the sensations of our bodies.' Considering this I was comforted, and of his great favour he suffered me to drink tea in his presence. Suffer me now to drink tea, for I am thirsty."
With a laugh above his tears, Kim kissed the lama's feet, and went about tea-making.
" Thou leanest on me in the body, Holy One, but I lean on thee for some other things. Dost know it ? "
" I have guessed maybe," and the lama's eyes twinkled. " We must change that."
So, when with scufflings and scrapings and a hot air of importance, paddled up nothing less than the Sahiba's pet palanquin sent twenty miles, with that same grizzled old Oorya servant in charge, and when they reached the disorderly order of the long^ white rambling house behind Saharunpore, the lama took his own measures.
Said the Sahiba cheerily from an upper window, after compliments: " Wrhat is the good of an old woman's advice to an old man ? I told thee—I told thee, Holy One, to keep an eye upon the chela. How didst thou do it ? Never answer me! I know. He has been running among the women. Look at his eyes—hollow and sunk—and the Betraying Line from the nose down! He has been sifted out! Fie! Fie! And a priest, too!"
Kim looked up over-weary to smile, shaking his head in denial.
"Do not jest," said the lama. "That time is over. We are here upon great mat- [pgbrk]
RUDYARD KIPLING.
571
ters. A sickness of soul took me in the Hills, and him a sickness of the body. Since then I have lived upon his strength—eating him."
" Children together—young and old," she sniffed, but forbore to make any new jokes. " May this present hospitality restore ye. Hold awhile and I will come to gossip of the high good hills."
At evening time—her son-in-law was returned, so she did not need to go on inspection round the farm—she won to the meat of the matter, explained low-voicedly by the lama. The two old heads nodded wisely together. Kim had reeled to a room with a cot in it, and was dozing soddenly. The lama had forbidden him to set blankets or get food.
"I know—I know. Who but I?" she cackled. " We who go down to the burning-ghats clutch at the hands of those coming up from the River of Life with full water-jars—yes, brimming water-jars. I did the boy wrong. He lent thee his strength ? It is true that the old eat the young daily. 'Stands now we must restore him."
"Thou hast many times acquired merit-"
"My merit. What is it? Old bag of bones making curries for men who do not ask ' Who cooked this ?' Now if it were stored up for my grandson--"
" He that had the belly-pain ? "
" To think the Holy One remembers that! I must tell his mother. It is most singular honour! ' He that had the belly-pain'— straightway the Holy One remembered. She will be proud."
" My chela is to me as is a son to the unenlightened."
" Say grandson, rather. Mothers have not the wisdom of our years. If a child cries they say the heavens are falling. Now a grandmother is far enough separated from the pain of bearing and the pleasure of giving the breast to consider whether a cry is wickedness pure or the wind. And since thou speakest once again of wind, when last the Holy One was here, maybe I offended in pressing for charms."
" Sister," said the lama, using that form of address a Buddhist monk may sometimes employ towards a nun, " if charms comfort thee-"
" They are better than ten thousand doctors."
" I say, if they comfort thee, I who was Abbot of Such-zen, will make as many as thou mayest desire. I have never seen thy face-"
" That even the monkeys who steal our loquats count for a gain. Hee! hee!"
" But as he who sleeps there said," he nodded at the shut door of the guest-chamber across the forecourt, " thou hast a heart of gold. . . . And he is in the spirit my very ' grandson ' to me."
"Good! I am the Holy One's cow." This was pure Hinduism, but the lama never heeded. "I am old. 1 have borne sons in the body. Oh once I could please men. Now I can cure them." He heard her armlets tinkle as though she bared arms for action. " I will take over the boy and dose him, and stuff him, and make him all whole. Hai! hai! We old people know something
yet."
Wherefore when Kim, aching in every bone, opened his eyes, and would go to the cook-house to get his master's food, he found strong coercion about him, and a veiled old figure at the door, flanked by the grizzled manservant, who told him precisely the very things that he was on no account to do.
" Thou must have—thou shalt have nothing. What ? A locked box in which to keep holy books ? Oh, that is another matter. Heavens forbid I should come between a priest and his prayers! It shall be brought, and thou shalt keep the key."
They pushed the coffer under his cot, and Kim shut away Mahbub's pistol, the oilskin packet of letters, and the locked books and diaries, with a groan of relief. For some absurd reason their weight on his shoulders was nothing to their weight on his poor mind. His neck ached under it of nights.
" Thine is a sickness uncommon in youth these days: since young- folk have given up tending their betters. The remedy is sleep, and certain drugs,'' said the Sahiba; and he was glad to give himself up to the blank-ness that half menaced and half soothed him.
She brewed them, in some mysterious Asiatic equivalent to the still-room—drinks that smelt pestilently and tasted worse. She stood over Kim till they went down, and inquired exhaustively after they had come up. She laid a taboo upon the forecourt, and enforced it by means of an armed man. It is true he was seventy odd, that his scabbarded sword ceased at the hilt, but he represented the authority of the Sahiba, and loaded wains, chattering servants, calves, dogs, hens, and the like, fetched a wide compass by those parts. Best of all, when the body was cleared, she cut out from the mass of poor relations that crowded the back of the buildings—household dogs we name them—
[pgbrk] 572
KIM.
a cousin's widow, skilled in what Europeans, who know nothing about it, call massage. And the two of them, laying him east and west, that the mysterious earth-currents which thrill the clay of our bodies might help and not hinder, took him to pieces all one long afternoon—bone by bone, muscle by muscle, ligament by ligament, and lastly, nerve by nerve. Kneaded to irresponsible pulp, half hypnotised by the perpetual flick and readjustment of the uneasy chudders that veiled their eyes, Kim slid ten thousand miles into slumber—thirty-six hours of it— sleep that soaked like rain after drought.
Then she fed him, and the house spun to her clamour. She caused fowls to be slain; she sent for vegetables, and the sober, slow-thinking gardener, nigh as old as she, sweated for it; she took spices, and milk, and onion, with little fish from the brooks—anon limes for sherbets, quails of the pit, then chicken-livers upon a skewer, with sliced ginger between.
'' I have seen something of this world,'' she said over the crowded trays, '' and there are but two sorts of women in it—those who take the strength out of a man and those who put it back. Once I was that one, and now I am this. Nay—do not play the priestling with me. Mine was but a jest. If it does not hold good now, it will when thou takest the road again. Cousin"—this to the poor relation, never wearied of extolling her patroness's charity—" he is getting a bloom on the skin of a new-curried horse. Our work is like polishing jewels to be thrown to a dance-girl—eh ?''
Kim sat up and smiled. The terrible weakness had dropped from him like an old shoe. His tongue itched for free speech again, and but a week back the lightest word clogged it like ashes. The pain in his neck (he must have caught it from the lama) had gone with the heavy dengue-aches and the evil taste in the mouth. The two old women, a little, but not much more careful about their veils now, clucked as merrily as the hens that had entered picking through the open door.
" Where is my Holy One ? " he demanded.
" Hear him! Thy Holy One is well," she snapped viciously. " Though that is none of his merit. Knew I a charm to make him wise, I'd sell my jewels and buy it. To refuse good food that I cooked myself—and go roving into the fields for two nights on an empty belly—and to tumble into a brook at the end of it—call you that holiness ? Then, when he has nearly broken what thou
hast left of my heart with anxiety he tells me that he has acquired merit. Oh how like are all men! No, that was not it—he tells me that he is freed from all sin. / could have told him that before he wetted himself all over. He is well now—this happened a week ago—but burn me such holiness! A babe of three would do better. Do not fret thyself for the Holy One. He keeps both eyes on thee when he is not wading our brooks."
" I do not remember to have seen him. I remember that the days and nights passed like bars of white and black, opening and shutting. I was not sick: I was only tired."
" A lethargy that comes by right some few score years later. But it is all done now."
" Maharanee," Kim began, but led by the look in her eye, changed it to the title of plain love—" Mother, I owe my life to thee. How shall I make thanks ? Ten thousand blessings upon thy house and-"
"The house be unblessed." (It is impossible to give exactly the old lady's word.) " Thank the Gods as a priest if thou wilt, but thank me if thou carest as a son. Heavens above! Have I shifted thee and lifted thee and slapped and twisted thy ten toes to find texts flung at my head ? Somewhere a mother must have borne thee to break her heart. What used thou to her— son?"
" I had no mother, my mother," said Kim. " She died, they tell me, after the bearing."
'' Hai mat! Then none can say I have robbed her of any right if—when thou takest the road again and this house is but one of a thousand used for shelter and forgotten, after an easy-flung blessing. No matter.
I need no blessings, but—but-" She
stamped her foot at the poor relation: " Take up the trays to the house. What is the good of stale food in the room, oh woman of ill-omen ? "
" I ha—have borne a son in my time too, but he died," whimpered the bowed sister-figure behind the chudder. " Thou knowest he died. I only waited for the order to take away the tray."
" It is I that am the woman of ill-omen," cried the old lady penitently. " We that go down to the chattris (the big umbrellas above the burning-ghats where the priests take their last dues) clutch hard at the bearers of the chattis (water-jars—young folk full_of the pride of life, she meant; but the pun is clumsy).- When one cannot dance in the festival one must e'en look out of the
[pgbrk] R UD YARD KIPLING.
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window, and grandmothering takes all a woman's time. Thy master gives me all the charms I now desire for my daughter's eldest, by reason—is it ?—that he is wholly free from sin. The hakim is brought very low these days. He goes about poisoning my servants for lack of their betters."
" What hakim, mother?"
'' That very Dacca man who gave me the pill which rent me in three pieces. He cast up like a strayed camel a week ago, vowing that he and thou had been blood-brothers together up Kulu-way, and feigning great anxiety for thy health. He was very thin and hungry, so I gave orders to have him stuffed too^him and his anxiety! "
" I would see him if he is here."
" He eats five times a day, and lances boils for my hinds to save himself from an apoplexy. He is so full of anxiety for thy health that he sticks to the cook-house door and stays himself with scraps. He will keep. We shall never get rid of him."
"Send him here, mother"—the twinkle returned to Kim's eye for a flash—"and I will try."
"I'll send him, but to chase him off is an ill turn. At least he had the sense to fish the Holy One out of the brook; thus, as the Holy One did not say, acquiring merit."
"He is a very wise hakim. Send him, mother.''
" Priest praising priest ? A miracle! If he is any friend of thine (ye squabbled at your last meeting) I'll hale him here with horse-ropes and—and give him a caste-dinner afterwards, my son. . . . Get up and see the world! This lying abed is the mother of seventy devils . . . my son! my son!"
She trotted forth to raise a typhoon off the cook-house, and almost on her shadow rolled in the Babu, robed as to the shoulders like a Roman emperor, jowled like Titus, bareheaded, with new patent-leather shoes, in highest condition of fat, exuding joy and salutations.
" By Jove, Mister O'Hara, but I am jolly glad to see you. I will kindly shut the door. It is a pity you are sick. Are you very sick?"
" The papers—the papers from the kilta. The maps and the murasla!" He held out the key impatiently; for the present need of his soul was to get rid of the loot.
" You are quite right. That is correct departmental view to take. You have got everything ?''
" All that was handwritten in the kilta I
took. The rest I threw down the hill." He could hear the key's grate in the lock, the sticky pull of the slow-rending oil-cloth, and a quick-shuffling of papers. He had been annoyed out of all reason by the knowledge that they lay below him through the sick idle days—a burden incommunicable. For that reason the blood tingled through his body, when Hurree, skipping elephan-tinely, shook hands again.
"This is fine! This is finest! Mister O'Hara! You have—ha! ha!—swiped the whole bag of tricks—locks, stocks, and barrels. They told me it was eight months' work gone up the spouts! By Jove, how they beat me! . . . Look, here is the letter from Hilas! " He intoned a line or two of Court Persian, which is the language of authorised and unauthorised diplomacy. '' Mister Raja Sahib has just about put his foot in the holes. He will have to explain offee-cially how the deuce-an'-all he is writing love-letters to the Czar. And they are very cunning maps . . . and there is three or four Prime Ministers of these parts implicated by the correspondence. By Gad, Sar! The British Government will change the succession in Hilas and Bunar, and nominate new heirs to the throne. ' Trea-son most base' . . . but you do not understand ? Eh ?"
" Are they in thy hands ? " said Kim. It was all he cared for.
" Just you jolly well bet yourself they are." He stowed the entire trove about his body, as only Orientals can. " They are going up to the office, too. The old lady thinks I am permanent fixture here, but I shall go away with these straight off—immediately. Mr. Lurgan will be proud man. You are offeecially subordinate to me, but I shall embody your name in my verbal report. It is a pity we are not allowed written reports. We Bengalis excel in thee exact science." He tossed back the key and showed the box empty.
" Good. That is good. I was very tired. My Holy One was sick, too. And did he fall into-"
" Oah yess. I am his good friend, I tell you. He was behaving very strange when I came down after you, and I thought perhaps he might have the papers. I followed him on his meditations, and to discuss ethnological points also. You see, I am verree small person here nowadays, in comparison with all his charms. By Jove, O'Hara, do you know, he is afflicted with infirmity of fits. Yess, I tell you. Cataleptic, too, if
[pgbrk] 574
KIM.
not also epileptic. I found him in such a state under a tree in articulo mortem, and he jumped up and walked into a brook and he was nearly drowned but for me. I pulled him out."
"Because I was not there!" said Kim. " He might have died."
" Yes, he might have died, but he is dry now, and asserts he has undergone transfiguration." The Babu tapped his forehead knowingly. " I took notes of his statements for Royal Society—in posse. You must make haste and be quite well and come back to Simla, and I will tell you all my tale at Lurgan's. It was splendid. The bottoms of their trousers were quite torn, and old Nahan Raja, he thought they were European soldiers deserting."
" Oh, the Russians ? How long were they with thee ?"
" One was a Frenchman. Oh, days and days and days! Now all the hill-people believe all Russians are all beggars. By Jove! they had not one dam-thing that I did not get them. And I told the common people— oah, such tales and anecdotes! I will tell you at old Lurgan's when you come up. We will have—ah—a night out! It is feather in both our caps! Yess, and they gave me a certificate. That is creaming joke. You should have seen them at the Alliance Bank identifying themselves! And thank Almighty God you got their papers so well! You do not laugh verree much, but you shall laugh when you are well. Now I will go straight to the railway and get out. You shall have all sorts of credits for your game. When do you come along ? We are very proud of you though you gave us great frights. And especially Mahbub."
" Ay, Mahbub. And where is he ? "
" Selling horses in this vicinity, of course."
"Here? Why? Speak slowly. There is a thickness in my head still."
The Babu looked shyly down his nose. " Well, you see, I am fearful man, and I do not like responsibility. You were sick, you see, and I did not know where deuce-an'-all the papers were, and if so, how many. So when I had come down here I slipped in private wire to Mahbub—he was at Meerut for races—and I tell him how case stands. He comes up with his men and he consorts with the lama, and then he calls me a fool, and is very rude-"
" But wherefore—wherefore ? "
" That is what / ask. I only suggest that if anyone steals the papers I should like some good strong, brave men to rob them
back again. You see they are vitally important, and Mahbub Ali he did not know where you were."
" Mahbub Ali to rob the Sahiba's house! Thou art mad, Babu," said Kim with indignation.
" I wanted the papers. Suppose she had stole them ? It was only practical suggestion, I think. You are not pleased, eh ?"
A native proverb—unquotable—shov/ed the blackness of Kim's disapproval.
" Well,"—Hurree shrugged his shoulders, —" there is no accounting for thee taste. Mahbub was angry too. He has sold horses all about here, and he says old lady is pukka (thorough) old lady and would not condescend to such ungentlemanly things. I do not care. I have got the papers, and I was very glad of moral support from Mahbub. I tell you I am fearful man, but, somehow or other, the more fearful I am the more dam-tight places I get into. So I was glad you came with me to Chini, and I am glad Mahbub was close by. The old lady she is sometimes very rude to me and my beautiful pills."
" Allah be merciful," said Kim on his elbow, rejoicing. " What a beast of wonder is a Babu! And that man walked alone—if he did walk—with robbed and angry for-eigners!''
" Oah, thatt was nothing after they had done beating me; but if I lost the papers it was pretty jolly serious. Mahbub he nearly beat me too, and he went and consorted with the lama no end. I shall stick to ethnological investigations henceforwards. Now good-bye, Mister O'Hara. I can catch 4.25 p.m. to Umballa if I am quick. It will be good times when we all tell thee tale up at Mister Lurgan's. I shall report you offee-cially better. Good-bye, my dear fellow, and when next you are under thee emotions please do not use the Mohammedan terms with the Tibet dress."
He shook hands twice—a Babu to his boot-heels—and opened the door. With the fall of the sunlight upon his still triumphant face he returned to the humble Dacca quack.
" He robbed them," thought Kim, forgetting his own share in the game. " He tricked them. He lied to them like a Bengali. They give him a chit (a testimonial). He makes them a mock at the risk of his life—/ never would have gone down to them after the pistol-shots—and then he says he is a fearful man. . . . And he is a fearful man, I must get into the world again."
At first his legs bent like bad pipe-stems,
[pgbrk] RUDYARD KIPLING.
575
and the flood and rush of the sunlit air dazzled him. He squatted by the white wall, the mind rummaging among the incidents of the long dooli journey, the lama's weaknesses, and, now that the stimulus of talk was removed, his own self-pity, of which, like the sick, he had great store. The unnerved brain edged away from all the outside, as a raw horse, once rowelled, sidles from the spur. It was enough, amply enough, that the spoil of the kilta was away—off his hands—out of his possession. He tried to think of the lama,—to wonder why he had tumbled into a brook,—but the bigness of the world, seen between the forecourt gates, swept linked thought aside. Then he looked upon the trees and the broad fields, with the thatched huts hidden among crops—looked with strange eyes unable to take up the size and proportion and uses of things—stared for a still half-hour. All that while he felt, though he could not put it into words, that his soul was out of gear with its surroundings—a cog-wheel unconnected with any machinery, just like the idle cog-wheel of a cheap Beheea sugar-crusher laid by in a corner. The breezes fanned over him, the parrots shrieked at him, the noises of the populated house behind—squabbles, orders, and reproofs—hit on dead ears.
" I am Kim. I am Kim. And what is Kim ?'' His soul repeated it again and again.
He did not want to cry,—had never felt less like crying in his life,—but of a sudden easy, stupid tears trickled down his nose, and with an almost audible click he felt the wheels of his being lock up anew on the world without. Things that rode meaningless on the eyeball an instant before slid into proper proportion. Roads were meant to be walked upon, houses to be lived in, cattle to be driven, ground to be tilled, and men and women to be talked to. They were all real and true—solidly planted upon the feet —perfectly comprehensible—clay of his clay, neither more nor less. He shook himself like a dog with a flea in his ear, and rambled out of the gate. Said the Sahiba, to whom watchful eyes reported this move: " Let him go. I have done my share. Mother Earth must do the rest. When the Holy One comes back from meditation, tell him."
There stood an empty bullock-cart on a little knoll half a mile away, with a young banian tree behind—a look-out, as it were, above some new-ploughed levels; and his eyelids, bathed in soft air, grew heavy as he neared it. The ground was good clean dust
—no new herbage that, living, is half-way to death already, but the hopeful dust that holds the seed of all life. He felt it between his toes, patted it with his palms, and joint by joint, sighing luxuriously, laid him down full length along in the shadow of the wooden-pinned cart. And Mother Earth was as faithful as the Sahiba. She breathed through him to restore the poise he had lost, lying so long on a cot cut off from her good currents. His head lay powerless upon her breast, and his opened hands surrendered to her strength. The many-rooted tree above him, and even the dead man-handled wood beside, knew what he sought, as he himself did not know. Hour upon hour he lay deeper than sleep.
Towards evening, when the dust of returning kine made all the horizons smoke, came the lama and Mahbub AH, both afoot, walking cautiously, for the house had told them where he had gone.
" Allah! What a fool's trick to play in open country," muttered the horse-dealer. " He could be shot a hundred times—but this is not the Border."
" And," said the lama, repeating a many-times-told tale, "never was such a chela. Temperate, kindly, wise, of ungrudging disposition, a merry heart upon the road, never forgetting, learned, truthful, courteous. Great is his reward! "
" I know the boy—as I have said."
" And he was all those things ? "
'' Some of them—but I have not yet found a Red Hat's charm for making him overly truthful. He has certainly been well nursed."
" The Sahiba is a heart of gold," said the lama earnestly. " She looks upon him as her son."
" Hmph! Half Hind seems that-way disposed. I only wished to see that the boy had come to no harm and was a free agent. As thou knowest, he and I were old friends in the first days of your pilgrimage together."
" That is a bond between us." The lama sat down. " We are at the end of the pilgrimage."
" No thanks to thee thine was not cut off for good and all a week back. I heard what the Sahiba said to thee when we bore thee up on the cot.'' Mahbub laughed, and tugged his new-dyed beard.
" I was meditating upon other matters that tide. It was the hakim from Dacca broke my meditations."
"Otherwise"—this was in Pashtu for
[pgbrk] 576
KIM.
decency's sake—" thou wouldst have ended thy meditations upon the sultry side of Hell —being an unbeliever and an idolator for all thy child's simplicity. But now, Red Hat, what is to be done ? "
"This very night,"—the words came slowly, vibrating with triumph,—" this very night he will be as free as I am from all taint of sin—assured as I am when he quits this body of Freedom from the Wheel of Things. I have a sign," he laid his hand above the torn chart in his bosom, " that my time is short; but I shall have safe-guarded him throughout the years. Remember, I have reached Knowledge, as I told thee only three nights back."
" It must be true, as the Tirah priest said when I stole his cousin's wife, that I am a sufi (a free-thinker); for here I sit," said Mahbub to himself, " drinking in blasphemy unthinkable. ... I remember the tale. On that, then, he goes to Jannatu VAdn (the Gardens of Eden). But how ? Wilt thou slay him or drown him in that wonderful river from which the Babu dragged thee ? "
'' I was dragged from no river,'' said the lama simply. "Thou hast forgotten what befell. I found it by Knowledge."
" Oh, aye. Time," stammered Mahbub, divided between high indignation and enormous mirth. "I had forgotten the exact run of what happened. Thou didst find it knowingly."
" And to say that I would take life is— not a sin, but a madness simple. My chela aided me to the River. It is his right to be cleansed from sin—with me."
" Ay, he needs cleansing. But afterwards, old man—afterwards ? "
'' What matter under all the heavens ? He is sure of Nibban—enlightened—as I am."
" Well said. I had a fear he might mount Mohammed's Horse and fly away."
" Nay—he must go forth as a teacher."
'' Aha! Now I see! That is the right gait for the colt. Certainly he must go forth as a teacher. He is somewhat urgently needed as a scribe by the State, for instance."
" To that end he was prepared. I acquired merit in that I gave alms for his sake. A good deed does not die. He aided me in my Search. I aided him in his. Just is the Wheel, 0 horse-seller from the North. Let him be a teacher; let him be a scribe—what matter ? He will have attained Freedom at the end. The rest is illusion."
" What matter ? When I must have him
with me beyond Balkh in six months! I come up with ten lame horses and three strong-backed men—thanks to that chicken of a Babu—to break a sick boy by force out of an old trot's house. It seems that I stand by while a young Sahib is hoisted into Allah knows what of an idolator's heaven by means of old Red Hat. And I am reckoned something of a player of the Game myself! But the madman is fond of the boy; and I must be very reasonably mad too."
" What is the prayer ? " said the lama, as the rough Pashtu rumbled into the red beard.
" No matter at all; but now I understand that the boy, sure of Paradise, can yet enter Government service, my mind is easier. I must get to my horses. It grows dark. Do not wake him. I have no wish to hear him call thee master."
" But he is my disciple. What else ? "
" He has told me." Mahbub choked down his touch of spleen and rose laughing. " I am not altogether of thy faith, Red Hat— if so small a matter concern thee."
" It is nothing," said the lama.
" I thought not. Therefore it will not move thee sinless, new-washed and three parts drowned to boot, when I call thee a good man—a very good man. We have talked together some four or five evenings now, and for all I am a horse-coper I can still, as the saying is, see holiness beyond the legs of a horse. Yea, can see, too, how our Friend of all the World put his hand in thine at the first. Use him well, and suffer him to return to the world as a teacher, when thou hast—b?thed his legs, if that be the proper medicine for the colt."
" Why not follow the Way thyself, and so accompany the boy ? "
Mahbub stared stupefied at the magnificent insolence of the demand, which across the Border he would have paid with more than a blow. Then the humour of it touched his worldly soul.
" Softly—softly—one foot at a time, as the lame gelding went over the Umballa jumps. I may come to Paradise later—I have workings that way—great motions— and I owe them to thy simplicity. Thou hast never lied ? "
" What need ?"
"0 Allah, hear him! 'What need' in this Thy world! Nor ever harmed a man ? "
" Once—with a pencase—before I was wise."
" So ? I think the better of thee. Thy teachings are good. Thou hast turned one
[pgbrk] 1WDYA11D KIPLING.
577
man that I know from the path of strife." He laughed immensely. " He came here open-minded to commit a dacoity (a house-robbery with violence). Yes, to cut, rob, kill, and carry off what he desired."
" A great foolishness! "
"Oh! black shame too. So he thought after he had seen thee—and a few others, male and female. So he abandoned it; and now he goes to beat a big fat Babu man."
" I do not understand."
" Allah forbid it! Some men are strong in knowledge, Red Hat. Thy strength is stronger still. Keep it—I think thou wilt. If the boy be not a good servant, pull his ears off."
With a hitch of his broad Bokhariot belt the Pathan swaggered off into the gloaming, and the lama came down from his clouds so far as to look at the broad back.
"That person lacks courtesy, and is deceived by the shadow of appearances. But he spoke well of my chela, who now enters upon his reward. Let me make the prayer! . . . Wake, 0 fortunate above all born of women. Wake! It is found! "
Kim came up from those deep wells, and the lama attended his yawning pleasure; duly snapping fingers to head off evil spirits.
" I have slept a hundred years. Where
-? Holy One, hast thou been here long ?
I went out to look for thee, but"—he laughed drowsily—'' I slept by the way. I am all well now. Hast thou eaten ? Let us go to the house. It is many days since I tended thee. And the Sahiba fed thee well ? Who shampooed thy legs ? What of the weaknesses —the belly, and the neck, and the beating in the ears ? ''
" Gone—all gone. Dost thou not know ? "
" I know nothing, but that I have not seen thee in a monkey's age. Know what ? "
" Strange the knowledge did not reach out to thee, when all my thoughts were theeward."
" I cannot see the face, but the voice is like a gong. Has the Sahiba made a young man of thee by her cookery ? ''
He peered at the cross-legged figure, outlined jet-black against the lemon-coloured drift of light. So does the stone Bodhisat sit who looks down upon the patent self-registering turnstiles of the Lahore Museum.
The lama held his peace. Except for the click of the rosary and a faint clop-clop of Mahbub's retreating feet, the soft, smoky silence of evening in India wrapped them close.
" Hear me! I bring news."
" But let us-"
Out shot the long yellow hand compelling silence. Kim tucked his feet under his robe-edge obediently.
"Hear me! I bring news! The Search is finished. Comes now the Reward. . . . Thus. When we were among the Hills, I lived on thy strength till the young branch bowed and nigh broke. When we came out of the Hills, I was troubled for thee and for other matters which I held in my heart. The boat of my soul lacked direction; I could not see into the Cause of Things. So I gave thee over to the virtuous woman altogether. I took no food. I drank no water. Still I saw not the Way. They pressed food upon me and cried at my shut door. So I removed myself to a hollow under a tree. I took no food. I took no water. I sat in meditation two days and two nights, abstracting my mind; inbreathing and out-breathing in the required manner. . . . Upon the second night—so great was my reward—the wise Soul loosed itself from the silly Body and went free. This I have never before attained, though I have stood on the threshold of it. Consider, for it is a marvel! "
" A marvel indeed. Two days and two nights without food! Where was the Sahiba ? " said Kim under his breath.
" Yea, my Soul went free, and, wheeling like an eagle, saw indeed that there was no Teshoo Lama nor any other soul. As a drop draws in water, so my soul drew near to the Great Soul which is beyond all things. At that point, exalted in contemplation, I saw all Hind, from Ceylon in the sea to the Hills, and my own Painted Rocks at Such-zen; I saw every camp and village, to the least, where we have ever rested. I saw them at one time and in one place; for they were within the Soul. By this I knew the Soul had passed beyond the illusion of Time and Space and of Things. By this I knew that I was free. I saw thee lying in thy cot, and I saw thee falling downhill under the idolater—at one time, in one place, in my Soul, which, as I say, had touched the Great Soul. Also I saw the stupid body of Teshoo Lama lying down, and the hakim from Dacca kneeled beside, shouting in its ear. Then my Soul was all alone, and I saw nothing, for I was all things, having reached the Great Soul. And I meditated a thousand thousand years, passionless, well aware of the Causes of all Things. Then a voice cried: ' What shall come to the boy if thou art dead ?' and I was shaken back and
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THE WAY OF IT.
forth in myself with pity for thee; and I said: 'I will return to my chela, lest he miss the Way.' Upon this my Soul, which is the soul of Teshoo Lama, withdrew itself from the Great Soul with strivings and yearnings and retchings and agonies not to be told. As the egg from the fish, as the fish from the water, as the water from the cloud, as the cloud from the thick air, so put forth, so leaped out, so drew away, so fumed up the soul of Teshoo Lama from the Great Soul. Then a voice cried: 'The River! Take heed to the River!' and I looked down upon all the world, which was as I had seen it before—one in time, one in place— and I saw plainly the River of the Arrow at my feet. At that hour my Soul was hampered by some evil or other whereof I was not wholly cleansed, and it lay upon my arms and coiled round my waist; but I put it aside, and I cast forth as an eagle in my flight for the very place of the River. I pushed aside world upon world for thy sake. I saw the River below me—the River of the Arrow—and, descending, the waters of it closed over me; and behold I was again in the body of Teshoo Lama, but free from
sin, and the hakim from Dacca bore up my head in the waters of the River. It is here! It is behind the mango-tope here — even here!"
" Allah Kerim! Oh, well that the Babu was by! Wast thou very wet ? "
" Why should I regard ? I remember the hakim was concerned for the body of Teshoo Lama. He haled it out of the holy water in his hands, and there came afterwards thy horse-seller from the North with a cot and men, and they put the body on the cot and bore it up to the Sahiba's house."
" What said the Sahiba?"
'' I was meditating in that body, and did not hear. So thus the Search is ended. For the merit that I have acquired, the River of the Arrow is here. It broke forth at our feet, as I have said. I have found it. Son of my Soul, I have wrenched my Soul back from the Threshold of Freedom to free thee from all sin—as I am free, and sinless. Just is the Wheel! Certain is our deliverance. Come!"
He crossed his hands on his lap and smiled, as a man may who has won Salvation for himself and his beloved.
The End.
THE WAY OF IT.
By W. E. Henley.
It came, the news, like a fire in the night,
That life and its best were done; And there was never so dazed a wretch *
In the beat of the living sun.
I read the news, and the terms of the news
Reeled random through my brain Like the senseless, tedious buzzle and boom
Of a bluefly in the pane.
So I went for the news to the house of the news, ,
But the words were left unsaid, For the face of the house was blank with blinds,
And I knew that she was dead.
[pgbrk] ELEPHANT HUNTING
IN AFRICA
BY WILLIAM STAMPS CHERRY
THE Congo basin, with its dense forests, its grassy
plains, its river bottoms,
swamps, and jungles, is a hunter's paradise. Game is abundant, and royal game it is. To the elephant must be given the place of honor. Elephant hunting is the most interesting, the most hazardous, and the most profitable occupation in this part of Africa. I say occupation, because that is what it was with me. For nearly two years I did little else, in spite of the fact that my first elephant hunt came near being my last. It was in the heart of Africa. We had anchored for the night near the shore of the broad Congo where the Kassai joins it. I was chief engineer of the little steamer which for some weeks had been churning and groaning its way up that mighty stream. It carried an expedition in support of Marchand, who was engaged in his bold effort to forestall the English in the valley of the Upper Nile. It was as a sportsman of fortune that I had shipped with the French. I cared nothing about the English, or Fashoda, or King Menelik, or African politics; what I wanted was to get into the country of big game and fine sport.
MY FIRST HUNT—ALMOST MY LAST.
AS I lay sleeping in my bunk on deck the men came and aroused me. A herd of buffaloes was grazing not far from the boat, they said. In a second my eyes were wide open, my mackintosh on, my trusty Lubbul in hand. We went ashore, and I followed the natives. The moon was shining full in a cloudless sky. Down the river we could hear the hippopotamuses grunting and spurting. After a walk of three-quarters of an hour a loud snort told of the presence of our e:ame.
Then I saw three big black shadows loom up in the moonlight. " Good gracious," said I to myself, "what big fellows these African buffaloes must be!"
Still we walked toward them. The black spots grew larger and larger. When we were probably forty yards away, and they seemed as big as houses, my man Sanna could restrain himself no longer; though I had ordered him to hold the fire of his common military rifle till after my Lubbul had spoken, he lost his head and shot. Some of the shadows moved, but the others stood stock still. "Well, I'll wake you up," I said. I fired, not knowing which end of the animal I was shooting at; it was all guess work. Then I saw something which astonished me.
That beast rose in the air as if he were a balloon suddenly filled with gas. He snorted; and then I knew he was no buffalo, but a monstrous elephant. Small-bore or no smallbore, my sporting blood was up. I went after him. Again and again I fired, now at thirty yards, now at twenty. But he walked off with as much unconcern and dignity as if he had finished his part of the performance in the tented ring, and wanted to get back to his hay and peanuts. My .22 bullets had not even annoyed him. I found he had been wallowing in a sort of hole scooped out of the soil, like our buffalo-licks in America. Evidently he had moved away because the other elephanta had gone, not because of any unpleasant sensation produced by my little bullets.
Wondering what we should do next, we heard the bush go crack! crack! More elephants, doubtless. Soon the crackling sounds were repeated. The big beasts were feeding in their favorite manner: rearing on their hind legs, reaching up with their trunks, pulling down the young trees
Editor's Note.—William Stamps Cherry is a Chicago engineer who has spent many years in the heart of Africa, navigating the Congo and its unexplored tributaries, living with little-known native tribes and hunting elephants in the jungle. Last winter he came out with a large collection of tusks and, what was even more valuable, a comprehensive journal telling of his experiences and his observations. From it he has permitted us to draw the following article, describing the greatest of jungle sports.
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ELEPHANT HUNTING IN AFRICA.
into the brush to rejoin his family. I managed somehow to wriggle out of the mud-hole, and then we went back to the boat. I determined then and there that I would never again hunt elephants by moonlight with a small-bore rifle. As for Sanna's ears, he saved them by making that noise at the critical moment.
THE RED ELEPHANT.
HILE we were waiting for orders at Banga, I made an excursion into the wild country of the Lagwaw bushmen. The natives soon discovered the trail of an elephant. The footprints were enormous, Jumbo-like. They led through a grassy plain, down to the river, then back into the forest again. For five hours we followed this trail, and were at last rewarded by the familiar sounds our quarry made as he pulled down the branches to eat the leaves and twigs. We were very near him. I made my men stand still while I went on alone. In a few moments I heard the noise of elephants in three or four places. It seemed that I was surrounded by elephants. The bushes were swaying only twenty yards ahead. Cocking both barrels I cautiously advanced, taking note of all the trees that I passed. I wanted a tree which the beast could not wrap his trunk around and pull over if I were forced to beat a hasty retreat. A few steps more and the waving branches almost brushed my cheeks; still I could not see the elephant. I stooped down, hoping to get a glimpse of his feet, and to be able to fire effectively by locating his body in this way; but I could see nothing distinctly. I could hear his teeth grinding as he went on munching leaves. Then I made up my mind to go still closer, let the consequences be what they might. Another step, and the teeth were no longer to be heard grinding; silence reigned. It was the stillness before the storm. In half a second the bushes were bending toward me; it was as if a tornado were coming my way. Through the waving thicket I saw a proboscis feeling for me; back of the proboscis were the dim outlines of a monstrous elephant. I fired.
Instantly there was a great commotion all about me. Peal after peal of thunder rent the air; the elephants were angry. I retreated toward the big tree which I had picked out. Kneeling, I put another cartridge in the gun that I might have two shots ready; but as it turned out I made a
and saplings, and munching the tender shoots and leaves. We decided to wait till the elephants should come down to the river to drink, as we could do nothing in the gloom of the forest. After waiting a long time, fighting mosquitoes, we started down the river. At that moment a big bull came ambling out into the moonlight on his way to slake his thirst. Telling Sanna I would cut his ears off if he fired before I did, we slipped back and got between the beast and the brush. He was just about to take his drink when he heard us; he turned slowly and looked straight at us. He was only twenty steps away. I could see his little eyes shining. If I had been quick enough I could have put a ball into one of them. Then he changed position, and my opportunity was lost. A1LI could see was his huge black bulk in the moonshine, looming monstrous above the rippling waters of the Congo. To fire meant only loss of ammunition, to say the least.
I was waiting for another bead on those little round eyes when Sanna's impetuosity again made trouble. He fired. Like a flash the great beast charged us. Apparently Sanna's ball had stung him, for he was all fury. With his trunk uplifted, snorting, bellowing, he rushed toward us. "To the river, Sanna! " cried I. But the Senegalese, losing his head, made for a tree instead. I started for the river, preferring the dangers of an unknown number of crocodiles to the known danger of a maddened bull elephant. But in ten paces I plunged knee-deep into a bog. My feet were held as in a steel trap. Though I struggled with all my strength, using legs and arms, and clutching at the grass and bracing with the stock of my rifle, I could not get out. I heard the big fellow coming toward me, bellowing with rage. It seemed to take him a long time, yet probably it was not five seconds till he was upon me. I heard his mighty feet plunge into the mud not far from my body. They were like pile-drivers. " He missed me that time, but the next drive I'm gone," was my cheerful thought. I had not the slightest notion of ever getting out of that hole alive. But what a queer thing luck is! At that instant my man Sanna made a noise. This distracted the great brute's attention. As soon as he could pull his pile-drivers out of the mud he made off after Sanna. That squirrel-like African had climbed a tall tree and was safe. After snorting at him a few times, and vainly trying to shake the tree down with his trunk, the bull slipped away
[pgbrk] ELEPHANT HUNTING IN AFRICA.
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mistake—supposed I had fired the right bar-re! when I had really fired the left; so I pulled out the loaded shell and threw it on the ground. In my excitement I did not know what I was doing; I only knew that an infuriated elephant was rushing at me, his trunk curved upward, his little eyes flashing. And he was red—red as a robin's breast! I was simply astounded. White elephants I had heard of, but a red one never.
He was down on his knees; I hit him sure that time. I was ready to fire again the moment his eyes turned toward me. He was up again; he was running away as fast as he was able; I could not get another good shot; he staggered like a drunken man; probably he would die somewhere in the bush; all the elephants were in flight, and I was alone again and safe. The natives came up tremblingly; my own nerves were none too steady, though I did not let the rascals see it. I asked if there was such a thing as a red elephant, and they laughed. Yes, there were red elephants—red from their great hides being coated with the vermilion clay in which they delight to wallow.
jumbo's big brother.
ONE morning at Rafai a black man came and told me of an enormous elephant which had been seen near one of the villages. For a long time the natives had been trying to kill this giant beast, but he was so tough and powerful that he always managed to get away, though his huge body was full of spears like a pin-cushion. He labored under one great disadvantage, though: his tusks were so large and heavy that he could not run very fast; and he could not carry them any great distance without stopping to rest, putting them down on the ground, and leaning his head upon them, as if they were a sort of two-legged portable stool. All this the native told me in an excited way; he made wild gesticulations; by pantomime he tried to convince me that the elephant was as tall as a tree, and that his tusks were strong enough to plow a couple of deep ditches in the ground. At first I thought the native was lying, and merely wanted to lure me to his village to kill some meat for him and his neighbors—the natives are not above little tricks to gain advantage from the white man's deadliness of aim. But his story was so interesting that I decided to look into it. So I loaded some heavy brass
shells with 23 grams of powder and 160 grams of lead. This was a heavier charge than I had ever used before, but if the native was telling the truth this was a most extraordinary elephant, and I could well afford to get kicked over by the butt of my gun if I could only do as much for the big fellow from the muzzle.
We set out in the early morning, and soon came upon the trail of the great elephant. I could put my two feet, heel to toe, in the spots left by his feet. We also found holes in the ground where he had planted his tusks for a rest, like a crippled man leaning on his crutches. We saw the wide swath he had cut where he had forced his way through the bushes. The chase was from this on an eager one. I felt that I was on the trail of perhaps the biggest elephant in Africa, and naturally I was determined to follow him to the bitter end. A little after noon my men pleaded fatigue and wanted to go home, saying, " Yangora mangey" (Too long a journey). But I forced them to take up the trail again after we had stopped for a bite to eat. We soon came to an open spot with a few big trees in it and the grass not more than knee-high. I was just thinking what a fine place that would be for an interview with our big friend, when the scouts came running back with the news that they had seen his lordship in an open grass plain a little farther on. In a few moments I saw him, too. He was surely great. His tusks were on the ground, and he appeared like some huge structure, something too enormous to be a living animal, as he stood with six columns supporting his massive body. He was calmly eating grass. His big ears were flapping off the flies. I got around back of him, advanced within fifty yards, and cut a quarter circle around to his side without his discovering me.
He was still eating grass and flapping flies when I kneeled, took careful aim, and pulled the trigger. The recoil threw me over, but in an instant I was up again. The great beast staggered; his hind legs gave way; he came down on his knees. Then he fell all in a heap. Immediately starting to reload, I had trouble in getting out the shell. It seemed an age before I had loaded up again. By this time the giant had struggled to his feet and had turned facing me. He was furiously angry, for his tusks had almost broken his neck when he collapsed. He started for me, slowly, cumbersomely; he looked like a big steamship in dry-dock. He had not gotten up headway when I aimed at his trunk
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and fired both barrels together. The double concussion was too much for me. I was so stunned that I scarcely knew what had happened or where I was. Presently some one picked me up, and I heard the natives moaning, " Bungue que! Bungue que!" (White man killed! White man killed!) But the white man was not killed. Gathering myself together, 1 went to have a look at my big elephant, for I had not the slightest doubt he was lying out in the grass. By this time my eyes were filled with blood and I could see nothing; the natives told me the elephant had run away, bellowing. Then I took an inventory. The stock of my gun was broken. The hammer had hit me in the forehead, going almost through the skull. Blood was running down my face in a stream. I was just able to walk, assisted by the natives. It was ten o'clock that night when I crawled into the hut which I had made my headquarters.
For several days I was unable to get about. But I had resolved to find that elephant, dead or alive, if it took me a month. Forty-eight hours later the natives reported that they had come upon his carcass out in the woods. I lost no time in going to see him, but he was in an advanced stage of decomposition, and I could not get satisfactory measurements of him. He was, however, the largest elephant I ever saw, considerably larger than Jumbo. His tusks I secured, and they are now in my collection in America—the largest tusks in this country.
It is a mistake to think elephant hunting a trade easy to learn. One cannot go out and shoot elephants as if they were rabbits or snipe. The successful hunter must pass through a course of training. If he manages to go through the whole course alive, he will reach a point where danger is reduced to a minimum and results are satisfactory. But at first it is uphill business. During my first year I lost about two-thirds of all the animals after they had been mortally wounded. The vitality of these great beasts is wonderful.
CAPTURING A YOUNGSTER.
NE of the pet projects which I carried to Africa was the domestication of the elephant. At first I hoped to catch full-grown
beasts and then try my hand at training them. I took out from England some chains and pulleys specially designed for this purpose, but they were too heavy to carry
around, and I had to give up that part of the plan.
It was in May, 1898, that I captured my first live elephant. For several hours I had been following a herd of seven or eight beasts, among them a number of mothers with calves by their sides. At noon I got a shot straight into the eyes of one of the females, and I hit the mark. The elephant fell on her knees, looking for all the world like the pictures we have seen of an Indian elephant kneeling for its master to mount. Her eyes were wide open. Her head was swinging to and fro with the regularity of a pendulum, her trunk lying on the ground. Rapidly I fired a half dozen more shots, every one hitting the mark; still the big head continued to swing from side to side. I could not understand how a brain could stand so much cold lead; was it made of steel ? Presently I discovered she had a calf on the other side of her, and was trying to protect her young. The youngster did not see me, but he began rubbing his dam's head with his little trunk, as much as to say: "Come, dear mother, what is the matter with you ? Why do you go on like that?" It was a touching sight; but I wanted a young elephant, and perhaps this one would do as well as any other. So I made a dive for him almost under his mother's proboscis and grabbed one of his forelegs. Frightened out of the few senses he had, the youngster bolted. He ran through the bush, squealing and kicking, dragging me after him. I held on like grim death. My greatest fear was that the whole herd would rush to the rescue, or that the mother might be able to get upon her feet and fly after her calf. But none of these things happened. We struggled for a long time, the little elephant and I, first one having the best of it and then the other. My cowardly natives ran away; and though I succeeded at last in bringing them back by dint of threats of severe punishment and promises of reward, none of them would take hold of my antagonist till I had succeeded in throwing the little beast upon his back. Then one caught him by the tail, standing afar of even at that perfectly safe end; others, emboldened, grabbed him by the legs. In a few moments a rope had been made from vines growing in the bush, and the young hopeful was securely bound. What to do with him now that we had him was the question. At first we thought of carrying him on a stretcher; but he proved too heavy for us. We then tied a rope around his neck and one about each of his legs, and found
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we could lead and push him along without much difficulty. It was remarkable how that little elephant adapted himself to his new surroundings. We had not gone two hundred yards before I was leading him without help, and I piloted him all the way to camp, five miles, without the least trouble.
This promise of easy domestication was not broken by his subsequent conduct. He proved to be a very well-mannered and tractable elephant. I offered him thin corn-meal mush mixed with honey, but at first he would not eat it. Hunger is a good sauce, however, and ere long he would drink two or three quart bottles of this pap at a meal. He behaved well enough, except that he had a bad temper, and permitted his angry passions to rise at the slightest provocation. He was a spoiled child. Occasionally I let him loose, but he made no attempt to run away. He was friendly, and liked to play and be petted. At length he became almost too familiar. He walked into my tent one night, while I was asleep, poked his proboscis through my mosquito bar, opened his mouth, and made signs that he wanted his bottle of pap, which he had by this time learned to drink without a nipple. He followed me about like a dog, and came to me when I whistled for him. But he did not thrive. It was obvious that he needed milk, and I had none for him. If I had been provided with condensed milk, or with a good infant food, I feel sure I could have raised him. It was pitiful to see the little fellow grow weaker every day. I tried all sorts of other foods, but nothing would do. At length he lay down and died, and there was mourning in camp, as we had all become quite fond of the curious little beast.
My next attempt to capture a young elephant was not so successful. I had just shot at one of a herd of five elephants as they were moving away from me in the long grass, when I heard a grumbling noise not far away. I approached cautiously, and there within a few steps of me was a young elephant. He was in a fury about something. I threw my gun down and charged on him. He backed off; but I got hold of him, and it was a game of catch-as-catch-can. At one time I swung to a leg; at another to his proboscis. At last I got him around the neck with the ends of my blouse over his eyes. He struggled furiously for a short time, and then suddenly stopped, seemingly as much bewildered as a man might be with his head covered with a towel. All the time he was howling fearfully. We tied
him around the neck with a brush rope which we fastened to a tree, hoping to get a breathing spell before completing his capture; but before we knew it there was the young beast's mamma. How that big animal got there without making more noise I do not know. When she saw me she stopped, and seemed to be undecided whether to come forward or to go back. Just then the irrepressible calf gave a squeal of recognition, and I retreated in confusion. If she had charged upon me when she first saw me she would have been on top of me before I could have turned around. She stood still for some time, as if studying the situation, while I tried to make myself as small as possible behind the nearest tree. Coming up to her calf, she first tried to pull over the tree to which he was fastened; but finding this impossible, she threw down the calf by giving it a push with her tusks, thus breaking the line. The mother marched her young hopeful before her, prodding and pushing him on into the bush, and I saw them no more.
AN ELEPHANT RANCH.
MY last captive was a very small calf, which I got while reconnoitering a herd of elephants in a grassy plain covered with ant hills from fifteen to twenty feet high. I was keeping a large ant hill between me and a huge tusker, when one of the females of the herd caught sight of something irregular in the grass. Her curiosity getting the better of her, she came too close to where I stood in ambush. When I killed her I found she had a very young calf, which I caught without any trouble, as he stayed by his dead mother and did not attempt to run away. I took him to camp, but had to shoot him a few days after, as I had nothing with which to feed him, and he would soon have starved to death.
It was a useless waste of life to experiment further; yet I had demonstrated to my own satisfaction that, with proper appliances, the domestication of the elephant is feasible. Elephant calves about eighteen months old, just large enough to be independent of their mothers, are the most suitable with which to work. I can catch as many of them as I wish. The calf does not know how to use his proboscis, which for some time has very little strength. He sucks with his mouth. The tusks are not developed till later, so that the little beast cannot hurt you unless he butts you, or tramples on you;
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but with care you can keep out of his way. Three or four men with a little courage can capture an elephant almost ready to wean. With a small capital I could establish an elephant ranch in Central Africa as easily as a cattle ranch is established in Texas; and I. am sure that it would be profitable. I would engage to catch twenty young elephants in six months. That would be an admirable way to protect the African elephant from extinction. Although elephants are now more numerous between the equator and twelve degrees north latitude, clear to the western coast, than buffaloes were in America fifty years ago, when the flood-tide of immigration sweeps in they will soon be exterminated. With horses on which to hunt him the elephant is doomed; and horses are already being brought in by the Arabs from Bagamoyo and Zanzibar.
KILLING A "MAX-EATER."
THE natives tell tales of man-eating elephants; but there is no such thing. When I was at the village of the Boorokas they told me of an elephant that it was impossible to kill. He had a charmed life. " They made him out to be a monster. He ran about in their plantations, charging every man he saw. He had been the terror of the village for years, and had killed several people. He would suddenly disappear, and as suddenly come back again. At the time
I was there he had just killed one of the guards of the plantation, and, strange to say, they could not find the man's body. His hut had been torn down, and the elephant tracks were all around, showing that he had done the work. The natives all declared that the elephant had eaten him; and no amount of argument would convince them that it was contrary to the nature of an elephant to eat flesh. My own opinion is that after the elephant had gored the man to death with his tusks, a leopard had carried away the body. They showed me the elephant's tracks, and declared his tusks were as big as a tree standing near, which measured eighteen inches in diameter. The foot-prints at least were large, and showed that he was no small beast. I organized a hunting party, and following his tracks all day long came upon him about five o'clock in the afternoon, as he was digging roots. I crept up behind a cocoanut palm tree so as to be on the broad side of him. I waited until he let his ears fall back on his body to give me the exact spot where to shoot—the ear marking the perpendicular line of the body-shot. Then I clipped the line with a No. 4 ball just two inches from its outer diameter, and behind the front leg. He doubled up, turned halfway round, and fell on the wounded side; the ball having passed through both lungs to the opposite side, where it could be felt through the skin with the finger. His tusks, although not as large as reported, were of good size. His body measurements were slightly larger than those of Jumbo.
[pgbrk] FRONTENAC
the SAVIOR of
CANADA.
by Cyrus Townsend Brady
illustrated by Howard Giles.
A
FEW miles above the city of Montreal the St. Lawrence pours its mighty flood of water in mad turmoil over those jutting points of rock, the passage of which is the most exciting experience in the descent of the great river. Upon the banks of the stream, just above the rapids, where the low-lying land permits it to widen into a vast expanse of water known as Lac St. Louis, one Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, by permission of the Sulpicians, whose influence was paramount in Montreal, had built himself a manor and established there a village, which, in the year 1689, contained some four hundred inhabitants. To this place, with fanciful anticipation that the great river, if pursued far enough, would afford a convenient passage to China, the long-sought-for and mysterious East, had been given the name of La Chine. The name is still preserved in the whirling rapids.
On the night of the fourth of August, 1689, in the midst of a furious storm of rain and wind, hundreds of birch-bark canoes were launched upon Lac St. Louis, and silently paddling across the river, some fifteen hundred ferocious Iroquois landed upon the shore and, without a sound, surrounded the village. A failure to finish Fort Frontenac had left these children of the Long-house, as the savage confederates of the Five Nations were called, free to attack this unprotected and unsuspicious point. At a given
signal the blood-curdling war-whoop was raised, the doors of the houses were burst open, and the startled inhabitants were killed or captured before they realized what had happened. Many of them, awakened from sleep by the touch of a rude hand, opened their eyes to see a hideous painted face bending over them, and before their lips could form a cry a tomahawk would be sunk into their brains—a happy fate which those who were spared for the moment would fain have enjoyed.
This appalling incident was the result of the incapacity of the governors of New France, the culmination of years of treachery, duplicity, and oppression, and was the beginning of a series of frightful episodes which did not terminate until the power of the Five Nations was broken, some eight years after. The people of the land cried out for a man to extricate them from their awful situation, and King Louis XIV. sent them one in the person of old Frontenac.
Louis de Buade, Comte de Palluau et de Frontenac, sprang from an ancient and honorable Basque family, cradled in the shadow of the Pyrenees. His grandfather had been advanced to high station by Henry IV. His father had been maintained in the same degree of eminence by a continuance of the favor of that merry monarch. The melancholy Louis XIII. had consented to stand godfather for the baby born in the year 1620, who was to be the future governor, and he vouchsafed to him the signal honor of bearing the royal name. By his ardent, fiery Gascon nature, Frontenac was marked out for the profession of a soldier, and in 1635, at the age of fifteen, he entered the French
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army as a gentleman volunteer under Maurice of Nassau, and rose by successive acts of hardihood and audacity to the rank of colonel of the Normandy regiment at twenty-three years of age. He took part in many of the sieges and battles in Flanders, and commanded his regiment with brilliant success in Italy, earning a reputation for desperate gallantry and headlong valor which made him the darling of the Court of Louis XIV.
He was wounded again and again, but nothing seems to have dampened his military ardor. Rapidly passing through the different grades, he was made a lieutenant-general in 1669 and sent by the great Turenne, the first soldier of his day in Europe, as his own choice to command the forces of Venice in a life-and-death struggle the Republic was then waging in Candia against the Turks. It was a most arduous and difficult position, but Frontenac accepted it gladly. From causes which he could not control, ultimate success did not attend his endeavors, but the price which he made the Turks pay before they conquered the island (their loss was reputed at one hundred and eighty thousand men), taken in conjunction with the insufficient means at his disposal, raised him to a very high place among the soldiers of the world.
Long before this campaign, in 1648, with his usual audacity, he had made a love match with one of the beauties of the Court, Anne de La Grange-Trianon, aged sixteen at the time, capturing that lady, as it were, by assault, and whisking her off to the church under the noses of her violently opposing guardians. The match was not a happy one, for if Frontenac was flint, Anne was steel, and they disagreed violently and quarreled from the beginning. They therefore lived apart, each, apparently, retaining the highest respect for the other.
It is more than surmised that the first appointment of the fiery, hot-tempered Frontenac to the governorship of Canada was largely the result of his wife's influence. Singular to state, she was not immoral, which is saying much for a woman so circumstanced in that court, and she appears to have remained faithful to her titular lord. She simply wished to be rid of him. Another cause, however, has been assigned for sending this brilliant soldier and courtier to New France, and perhaps with better reason. He is reputed to have promised to become a rival of the royal son in the affection of the famous Marquise de Montespan.
However that may be, for ten years, from 1672 to 1682, he had enjoyed a tempestuous and stormy career as governor of Canada. During this time he quarreled with everything and everybody, but in spite of his rancorous difficulties with the Jesuits and Bishop Laval and the Intendants Talon and Duches-neau, he showed such executive ability and general capacity as had been manifested by no previous governor since the days of Champlain. During his term of office he sent forth Joliet and Marquette to discover the Mississippi. It is interesting to note that when Joliet saw for the first time the mighty " Father of Waters " he called it the River de Buade, and although Marquette named it La Conception, de Buade it remained for some time. Frontenac was the patron and friend of that other heroic spirit, La Salle, who was assassinated in the swamps of Louisiana vainly endeavoring to found an empire.
The royal governor was so far in advance of his time as actually to constitute and summon in New France a sort of states-general, or parliament, for the government of the country—under himself, of course. This was much to the disgust of that most absolute of monarchs, Louis XIV., who hated parliaments and made himself the states-general of his kingdom, and the king severely rebuked Frontenac for his action and countermanded his parliament. It was a singular thing for the old noble to do, for he was by nature one of the most aristocratic of men.
The quarrels in Quebec became so fierce finally that Frontenac and the intendant were relieved and ordered home. The two succeeding administrations of La Barre and de Denonville culminated in the awful massacre at La Chine. Before the news reached France, Louis had decided to replace Frontenac on the great rock of Quebec, and after he heard the tidings he determined to maintain him there.
_ The French king was then in the zenith of his power. The peace of Nimwegen had left him the undisputed primacy in Europe. The years of extravagant excesses which followed, coupled with the tremendous strains involved by his previous campaigns, had, however, undermined his resources, and France was never so vulnerable as at this moment of her triumph. The desire of Louis to replace James II. upon the throne of England, and his inveterate hatred of William of Orange, caused war to break out again in 1688, and Frontenac was charged
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with carrying it on in the New World. To him was allotted the task of exterminating the English colonists on the seaboard and bringing the whole continent of North America into the power of New France. To accomplish this magnificent result he was provided with his brains and his hands by Providence, and reinforced by the goodwill and the orders of the king, who was so busily occupied in other directions as to be able to spare him but little in the way of troops and supplies.
On the twelfth of October, 1689, the governor reached Quebec and found New France at the last gasp. Instead of conquering the English it was necessary to struggle for life. In his magnificent planning Louis had given no thought to the Iroquois, and even the news from La Chine scarcely enlightened him. The Indians, undoubtedly inspired by the English, had given evidence of their intentions toward Canada in the massacre, and it was rumored that preparations were already under way on the part of the English to follow up vigorously the inroads of their savage allies. With characteristic energy Frontenac endeavored to relieve the situation and rehabilitate the country. Striving by diplomacy and cajolery to propitiate the Indians for the time being, in spite of the awful blot left upon the colony by the unpunished foray, he sent three expeditions to strike the English border settlements, to restore French prestige in the savage mind, and to make at least a beginning towards overwhelming that thin line of humanity on the seaboard.
It was winter before the three expeditions got away under the command of different members of the Canadian noblesse, who showed themselves men of distinguished capacity and courage in all the campaigns on this continent. One party, commanded by de Mantet and three of the sons of the celebrated Le Moyne, of whom dTberville
was chief, comprised something over two hundred and fifty men, half of them French, the others Christianized Hurons. Having marched twenty-two days in mid-winter, suffering incredible hardships, on the fourth of February, 1690, they arrived near the little Dutch village of Schenectady, the northernmost settlement in New York. Albany had been their destination, but Schenectady lay nearer to them, and exhausted human nature could do no more.
The people of Schenectady had laughed at the warnings of Governor Leisler. That night ten militiamen, who garrisoned the town, had mounted snow sentinels at the
THE MASSACRE AT LA CHINE.
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two gates of the stockade, which they left open, and under this secure wardship, had retired to their barracks. The unsuspicious inhabitants were all asleep. The French and Indians lay concealed until nightfall, and then in the midst of a furious snowstorm they softly entered the town, encircled the houses, made all preparations, and awakened the inhabitants with the usual war-cry. Some sixty were killed, including twenty-two women and children, and ninety persons were made prisoners. The killing was attended with frightful barbarities, perpetrated by the Indians, as usual. The town was looted and burned, and taking some thirty prisoners with them, having turned adrift the balance, the French, laden with plunder, retraced their steps to Canada with light hearts. A party of warriors from the Long-house overtook them, and in a fierce battle killed some eighteen of the expedition, but otherwise they got back safely with their prisoners and their plunder.
Another expedition, under de Rouville, numbering fifty-two persons, surprised the settlement at Salmon Falls on the Piscata-qua River, on the night of March 27th, and reenacted the butchery of Schenectady. As they were retracing their steps with fifty-four prisoners they fell in with the third French party, and early in June the combined force moved against the settlement on Casco Bay, called Fort Loyal, which is now Portland, Maine.
This place was garrisoned and was regularly besieged. After six days of gallant defence, the officer in command, Captain Sylvanus Davis, surrendered under promises of protection, which were basely forgotten, and the usual massacre ensued. All these predatory excursions had been most brutally and ruthlessly carried out to complete success by the infuriated French and their savage allies. The effect upon popular opinion, and especially on the Indians, was immediate and decided. There was some fight left in the French after all, it appeared.
Meanwhile, for the first time in many years, the savages from the northwest had been able to transport their furs and peltries to Montreal. Frontenac's vigorous policy had opened a way for them, and a constantly increasing stream of wealth and trade poured through the colonies. There was a great meeting of the chiefs and braves at Montreal in July, and it is gravely related that the spirited old governor-general actually seized a tomahawk and personally joined in the war-dance, by which an
alliance offensive and defensive was celebrated.
A curious picture is presented by this habitue of the court of the proudest, most punctilious, and best dressed of monarchs, abandoning himself to the wild Indian revels, whooping, yelling, brandishing his tomahawk with all the fervor of the most savage of his allies. But one of the secrets of his success lay in his intuitive knowledge of the Indian character and his ability to control the women. He was half Indian in spirit himself, this fierce old warrior, and his actions they could understand and appreciate. Even those who warred against him cherished for him an instinctive respect and went softly in his presence.
But the sturdy English colonists did not submit tamely to the inroads of Frontenac's partizans. The sluggish Dutch blood of New York was stirred by the dreadful news that came down the river, and a certain Captain John Schuyler raised a force to attack Montreal by land. Massachusetts came to his assistance. A party of several hundred colonists, under Winthrop and Schuyler, were assembled in the spring to march up to the attack by the familiar route along Lake Champlain, which was the inevitable war path of the different contending nationalities on this continent until the victory of MacDonough finally shut the gate.
Meanwhile, Massachusetts, bankrupt in treasury and exhausted in credit, boldly undertook an enterprise of even greater magnitude—no less than the capture of Quebec itself. Massachusetts bore the same relation to the provinces that South Carolina bore later on to the Southern States. She was always spoiling for a fight, and generally found people ready to accommodate her. Appealing to England for help, and, when her appeals were unnoticed, falling back upon her own limited and over-strained resources, she assembled some thirty-four vessels, only four of which were of respectable size, and the rest small and of trifling force. In these vessels were embarked two thousand, two hundred men under the command of Sir William Phips.
Phips was a plain, rough sailor, originally a ship-carpenter, grossly ignorant and obstinate, who had captured Port Royal in Nova Scotia without striking a blow. He was honest, according to his lights, and he was brave. Other qualifications for leadership he had none. Earlier in life he had located a sunken galleon in the West Indies and recovered from it the treasure it
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ANNOUNCING THE ARRIVAL OF THE ENGLISH
contained. He had put down a mutiny on the king's ship he commanded on that occasion by the force of his vigorous personality, and had been knighted for these exploits. He was chosen to the command of this expedition, and the soldiers, who were, of course, militiamen, were under the direction of John Walley, a Barnstable mechanic. He, too, was brave, but untrained, ignorant, and inexperienced.
The ships were scantily provisioned and inadequately provided with ammunition. A more capable commander would never have dreamed of attempting so stupendous a feat of arms with so feeble a force. Encouraged, however, by his easy success at Port Royal, Phips blithely set forth on his impossible expedition. His departure was much delayed, waiting for reinforcements from England
which never came, and it was not until October, near the closed season, that the fleet dropped anchor in the basin of Quebec.
The land expedition up Lake Champlain, badly conducted, having effected nothing whatever, decided to return. Before doing so, Schuyler pushed forward with an advance party and had a severe engagement with a larger force of French and Indians, in which the honors remained with the Dutch-Americans. But the mind of Frontenac was set at rest by the news of the prompt and final retreat of the party.
His calmness was speedily broken by the arrival of a courier at Montreal with the startling news that the English were coming up the river. Leaving Cal-lieres, governor of Montreal, to bring up the garrison to Quebec, Frontenac made his way down the river with all speed. By his orders fortifications had been commenced on the landward side of the town. He had caused a palisade with a ditch and earth wall to be built from the St. Charles River to the St. Lawrence. This work was not entirely completed when he arrived, but with his usual vigor he infused so much of his own spirit into the population that during the night they finished the palisade. Cannon were planted on the walls of the city and upon the plateau of Cape Diamond, to command the shipping in the basin, and two batteries were erected near the water's edge in front of the lower town. The country was scoured for the hardy Canadian militia, and the regular garrisons of the nearby posts on the river were concentrated in the town.
Early in the morning of October 16, 1690, Phips's fleet came slowly trailing past the Isle of Orleans and dropped anchor just out of gunshot of the city. Phips had not displayed his usual energy. He had lingered three weeks at Tadoussac, and had then proceeded leisurely up the river, touching at sev-
HOWARD GILES
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eral places, in most of which he met with a warm reception from Canadians and Indians, who, from the cover of the thick woods on the shore, inflicted great loss upon his men. The first sight of the city, and the natural strength of the position, apparent even to his dull mind, convinced him, possibly for the first time, that the task was not the easy one which his experience at Port Royal had led him confidently to expect.
Putting a bold face upon the matter, however, he sent an aide ashore under a flag of truce. The officer was blindfolded by the orders of Frontenac, and led by a roundabout road over barricade after barricade into the town. Then, still blindfolded, he was conducted to the great hall of the Chateau St. Louis, the residence of the governor, and the bandage was taken from his eyes. He found himself standing before a tall, thin old man of commanding presence, with a nose like an eagle's beak, who looked at him sternly out of a pair of fierce gray eyes, deep set under great tufted brows—a weather-beaten, age-lined face, which, better'than the upright figure and the easy grace of movement, bespoke years of campaigning on the field. It was Frontenac.
He was surrounded by a brilliant group of the young noblesse of the colonies, attired in all the bravery which the French have ever managed to assume, however hard their circumstances or however desperate their situation. To him the rude young provincial officer presented an impudent summons from Phips to surrender. The letter was read aloud, and was received with bursts of indignation by the officers and men present. Frontenac, however, restrained their passion and dismissed the officer, refusing to give him any letter for his commander, saying that he could get his reply from the mouths of the cannon. He remarked incidentally, that a man of his station and reputation should not be approached in the rude and brusque manner in which Phips had addressed him.
In spite of Phips's bold demand, his situation was well nigh hopeless. But there were two or three things which he might have done that would have presented a faint possibility of success. He was advised to attack the landward side of the town, and was informed that there was a practicable path farther up the river, affording access to the plateau. It was the same path by which Wolfe made his famous ascent of the cliff seventy years later. Phips rejected this offer, and decided to land his men on
the side of the Charles River opposite Quebec, cross the river at a ford, and capture the town by storm, while he himself engaged the different batteries with his ships. While these preparations were going on, the garrison of the town was reenforced by the arrival of Callieres and his men from Montreal ; that was the end of Phips's last hope, if he had known it, which, of course, he did not.
In pursuance of his foolhardy plan, after some delays, Walley and fifteen hundred men were debarked at Charlesbourg. They were met by a warm fire from parties of French on the Quebec side of the Charles River, who proceeded to annoy and harass them greatly, inflicting severe loss upon them. The New Englanders fought bravely, charging their concealed foes in the thickets again and again, but to no avail. Before Walley could properly make such disposition of his forces as his untutored mind suggested, Phips, with culpable impatience, moved over to attack the town with his ships. It was perfectly practicable for him to enter the Charles River and cover the passage of his troops by his ships; instead of which, he threw away the only remaining chance of success, and proceeded to bombard the upper and lower town and the rocky heights of Cape Diamond.
Frontenac was ready for him, and the ships and the town engaged in a hot fire for two days. No harm was done the city. The gunnery of the English was execrable. Their powder supply was finally exhausted, and they accomplished nothing beyond battering up the face of the rock. On the other hand, Frontenac dismasted the flagship, seriously damaged many other vessels, and finally drove the whole fleet out of action. Phips's flag, which floated over to the strand, was picked up by the French as a trophy.
Meanwhile smallpox broke out among the men on shore. When Phips heard this news, he practically gave up the fight. Although he blustered somewhat, the spirit was gone out of him. He had still to extricate Walley's troops from their now precarious situation. Manifesting at last some little evidence of military aptitude, he moved some of his vessels near the shore to protect Walley's wretched men, who had suffered greatly from rain, exposure, and sickness, and from parties of French skirmishers and Indian raiders, until the weather permitted him to reembark the party on the fleet.
Having done this successfully, on the 21st
of October, after wasting two aimless days, he turned tail and, followed by his disorganized and shattered ships, went helter-skelter down the river. Stopping below Isle Orleans to careen his scattered ships and repair damages, he finally reached Boston with but few of his vessels in company, and while many of them finally arrived at different ports, a number of the vessels were lost with all on board. As the result of this disastrous expedition, the credit of impoverished Massachusetts was lower and her treasury a little more empty than before. The prestige of Frontenac was greatly enhanced by this gallant defence, and his most Christian Majesty at Versailles even went so far as to strike a medal in honor of the event, which, like all the medals he struck, bore his own royal face.
During the remainder of Frontenac's term of office in Canada, neither party being able to muster an army formidable enough to undertake a conquest on a large scale, the French, English, and Indians confronted each other with an implacable hatred, which found no outlet save in predatory excursions and forays. A trail of blood and terror extended over all the frontier. The torch and scalping knife were busy in every direction. Success inclined sometimes to one side and sometimes to the other; but, on the whole, the balance of advantage was with the French.
In 1691, Peter Schuyler, ancestor of General Philip Schuyler of Revolutionary fame, had an encounter with Valrenne near Cham-bly, on the Richelieu River, which Frontenac
characterizes as the hottest fight which had yet taken place in Canada. The honors appear to have been equally distributed in the barren but desperate engagement. By Frontenac's orders, and inspired by the Jesuit priests, from 1691 to 1695 the Abenakis broke up the English settlements on the coast of Maine by repeated raids of the same terrible character. Indeed the Christianized Indians were quite as ferocious as their heathen brethren. In the end the French were entirely successful, and the English were pushed down to the seaboard settlements and compelled to stand on the defensive. But little could be done for the support of the English colonists in this war by the Home Government, which, at the time, had troubles of its own on its hands. The Iroquois, too, suffered severely, and after the defeats of the English they never took the field in force as they had done at La Chine.
In 1696, an expedition comprising three ships, under command of the famous d'Iberville, captured the fort at Pemaquid. After this adventure d'Iberville sailed for Newfoundland, captured St. John's, and ravaged the island. The next year, among other attacks which Frontenac planned was one upon the English trading posts on Hudson's Bay. To drive the English from this section, which he considered particularly his own, had been a favorite project of the king. Therefore, by Frontenac's orders, in 1697, d'Iberville turned the prows of L:s little squadron of five ships to the northward, and skirted along
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the coast of Labrador. Picking his way through the ice which came floating down from the frozen north, finally, in August, he entered that gloomy gray inland sea named after the unfortunate Henry Hudson.
At the entrance of the bay the supply ship was caught in the ice-pack and lost. A few days later a violent storm arose which separated d'Iberville from his three remaining ships. As he sailed down the bay in his frigate, the "Pelican," forty-four guns, one morning, the lookouts sighted three large vessels coming toward them. Supposing that they were his missing ships, he immediately headed for them; but to his great surprise he presently discovered that they were three large English vessels, the "Hampshire," a man-of-war of fifty-two guns, in bad condition, and two armed merchantmen, the " Daring," of thirty-six guns, and the " Hudson's Bay," of thirty-two. The three ships greatly outclassed his own single frigate, but with the usual dauntless gallantry of his race d'Iberville immediately engaged them.
It was about nine o'clock in the morning. The battle that ensued was an exceeding hot one. During the combat, by his brilliant seamanship, however, d'Iberville so manceu-vered his frigate that he succeeded in raking his opponents in succession. About one o'clock he managed to take such an advantageous position off the quarter of the dismasted " Hampshire " that she literally sank under his furious broadsides with all on board. He then closed with the " Hudson's Bay," which presently struck her flag in a sinking condition, upon which the'' Daring '' fled and was seen no more. The " Pelican " was too much cut up to pursue.
Flushed with victory, d'Iberville stood on down toward Fort Nelson, which it was necessary to capture. Another fierce gale blew up, and his ship ran ashore and was wrecked. She had been badly shattered in hull, masts, and rigging, and was in no condition to weather the storm. By-herculean efforts he succeeded in landing his men and prisoners and saving his arms and ammunition. The " Hudson's Bay" was also lost. Undaunted by this misfortune, he marched overland to the fort and invested it. Fortunately, however, his missing ships arrived at this time. The fort was vigorously bombarded, and after three days surrendered, the garrison receiving honorable terms. The French spent the winter there, and when the spring came they returned to Quebec, having utterly broken up the English trade.
It was a glorious exploit and well worthy the genius of the colonizer of Louisiana. '' He had triumphed over the storms, the icebergs, and the English." Yet the brilliant adventure is scarcely referred to in history.
New France was now exceedingly prosperous. The fur trade, upon which it depended, had recommenced, and there remained no enemy to be dealt with except the Iroquois. The spirit of this wonderful confederation of savage tribes was as high as ever, but their power had greatly diminished.
In the year 1696 the governor general determined finally to break their opposition. By great exertions he assembled at Fort Frontenac, on Lake Ontario, the largest army which had ever set forth upon a land expedition in Canada. In avast fleet of bateaux and canoes some twenty-two hundred men, under the leadership of the indomitable old count himself, then seventy-six years of age, crossed the lake and entered the Oswego River. Transporting their boats by portage around the falls and overland, they embarked on Lake Onondaga, and presently reached the land of the Long-house.
As the army debarked upon the shore they saw in the distance dense columns of smoke, and as they advanced in martial array through the forest, with drums beating and trumpets sounding, they found that the Onondagas had burned up their town and fled rather than risk a battle. Frontenac sent his men to complete the destruction of the crops in the fields and the villages nearby, which they did with merciless severity. They made captive several fugitives who had failed to make good their escape, and these they put to death with an exquisite refinement of torture which would not have shamed an Iroquois. Then having marched through the country in a high-handed manner, and demonstrated their power in such a way that even the unthinking Indian realized it, they returned to Fort Frontenac, and the Indians soon after sued for peace. Perhaps they were further moved to this design by the signing of the treaty of Ryswyck, September 20, 1697, which brought about peace between England and the French, and deprived the Iroquois of their strongest ally.
The news of the peace also nipped in the bud some brilliant schemes of the aged count, which he was preparing to put into operation, in spite of the fact that he was not only an old but a broken man. He had become, in fact, so worn out by his strenuous
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life, that in the last campaign against the Iroquois it had been necessary to carry him about in a chair. The eagle spirit with which he had fought through so many battles had at last worn away the bars of the cage and was about to take its flight. His end was peaceful. The Intendant Cham-pigny, with whom he had been continually at odds, forgot their differences, and did his best to cheer the declining hours of the lonely old governor. He kept up his haughty spirit to the last, hurling defiance at Lord Bellamont, the Royal Governor of New York, in a spirited correspondence, until the end of all his struggles came' quietly and peacefully on the afternoon of the 28th of November, 1698. It is interesting to note that he bequeathed his property to the wife of his youth, who still survived him. I wonder if she remembered the romance of her girlhood ?
Frontenac left the colony at the very height of its fortunes; not before, nor after, was it in the enjoyment of such prosperity. Though in the idea of absolutism in rule which it represented was enshrined the inevitable cause of its downfall, when opposed to the idea of independence exhibited by its English rival, yet Frontenac endued it with such vitality, that through him it lasted for sixty years longer, until it died with Montcalm.
Frontenac had all the vices of his age. He was high-tempered, passionate, haughty, and unyielding. Conciliation was an element entirely foreign to his character. He
quarreled always, everywhere, and with every one. He contended for his personal prerogatives with as much zeal as he fought for his king. He cannot be held guiltless of inaugurating the ruthless reprisals which devastated the border. It is not on record that he took any steps to prevent the calamities and mitigate the horrors attendant upon the raids which he planned, and which were carried out by his partizans, wood rangers, and Indians. He was a good hater and an unsparing combatant, but his faults were more than counterbalanced by his good qualities and his virtues.
He was loyal to his friends, generous in his appreciation of the merit and achievements of those beneath him. Petty jealousy of his officers had no place in his large mind. He was a man of splendid executive ability, unwearied persistence, and the highest courage, a trained and brilliant soldier of wide experience, and a devoted servant of his king and his country. Between Champlain and Montcalm he stands the most splendid representative of the power of France in America. He succeeded where others failed, and few men have impressed upon the keen judgment of the red men—who, with all their faults, were seldom deceived in their estimate of a man and a soldier—such evidence of power and capacity and courage as did this grim soldier from the battlefields of the Old World, this gay courtier from the parks of Versailles, who finished his course, like the eagle in his aery, on the gray old rock of Cape Diamond.
[pgbrk] THE ROADMASTER'S STORY.
THE SPIDER WATEE. By Frank H. Spearman,
Author of " Held for Orders—Stories of Railroad Life."
NOT officially : I don't pretend to say that. You might travel the West End from fresh water to salt without ever locating the Spider Water, by map or by name.
But if you should happen anywhere on the West End to sit among a gang of bridge carpenters, or get to confidence with a bridge foreman; or find the springy side of a road-master's heart—then you might hear all you want about the Spider Water; maybe more.
The Sioux named it; and, whatever their faults, no man with sense ever attempted to improve on their names for things—whether birds, or braves, or winds, or waters; they know.
Unfortunately our managers hadn't always sense, and one of them countenanced a shameful change in the name of Spider Water. Some polytechnical idiot dubbed it the Big Sandy; and the Big Sandy it is to this day on map and in folder. But not in the heart of the Sioux or the lingo of trackmen.
It was the only stream our bridge engineers could never manage. Bridge after bridge they threw across it—and into it. One auditor at Omaha, given to asthma and statistics, estimated, between spells, that the Spider Water had cost us more than all the other water courses together from the Missouri to the Sierras.
Then came to the West End a masterful man, a Scotchman, pawky and hard. Brodie was his name, an Edinburgh man, with no end of degrees and master of every one. A great engineer, Brodie, but the Spider Water took a fall even out of him. It swept out a Howe truss bridge for Brodie almost before he got his bag opened.
Then Brodie tried—not to make friends with the Spider, for nobody could do that— but to get acquainted with it. For this he went to its oldest neighbors, the Sioux. Brodie spent weeks and weeks, summers, up
the Spider Water, hunting. And with the Sioux he talked the Spider Water and drank fire-water. That was Brodie's shame, the fire-water.
But he was pawky, and he chinned unceasingly the braves and the Medicine-men about the uncommonly queer creek that took the bridges so fast. The river that month in and month out couldn't squeeze up water enough to baptize a pollywog, and then, of a sudden, and for a few days, would rage like the Missouri, restore to the desert its own and living image, and leave our bewildered rails hung up either side in the wind.
Brodie talked cloudbursts up country; for the floods came, times, under clear skies— and the Sioux sulked in silence. He suggested an unsuspected inlet from some mountain stream which, maybe, times, sent its stormwater over a low divide into the Spider—and the red men shrugged their faces. As a last resort, and in desperation, he hinted at the devil. And the skeptics took a quick brace, with as much as to say, " Now you are talking," and muttered, " Bad Medicine."
Then they gave him the Indian stuff about the Spider Water; took him away up where once a party of Pawnees had camped in the dust of the river bed to surprise the Sioux ; and told Brodie how the Spider—more sudden than buck, fleeter than pony—had come down in the night and ambushed the Pawnees with a flood. And so well that next morning there wasn't enough material in sight for a ghost dance.
They took Brodie himself out into the ratty bed, and when he said heap dry, and said no water, they laughed, Indianwise, and pointed to the sand. Scooping little wells with their hands, they showed him the rising and the filling; water where the instant before was no water; and a bigger fool than Brodie could see the water was all there, only underground.
" But when did it rise ? " asked Brodie. " When the chinook spoke," said the Sioux. " And why ? " persisted Brodie. " Because
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the Spider woke,'' answered the Sioux. And Brodie went out of the camp of the Sioux wondering.
And he planned a new bridge which should " stand the chinook and the Spider and the devil himself," said Brodie, " Medicine or no Medicine." And full seven year it lasted; and then the fire-water spoke for the wicked Scotchman, and he himself went out into the night.
And after he died, miserable wreck of a man, the Spider woke and took his pawky bridge and tied up the main line for two weeks and set us crazy, for it cost us our grip on the California fast freight business. But at that time Healey was superintendent of bridges on the West End.
His father was a section foreman. When Healey was a mere kid, he got into Brodie's office doing errands. But whenever he saw a draftsman at work he hung over the table till they kicked him down stairs. Then, by and by, Healey got himself an old table and part of a cake of India ink, and with some cursing from Brodie became a draftsman, and one day head draftsman in Brodie's office. Healey was no college man; Healey was a Brodie man. Single mind on single mind—concentration absolute. Mathematics, drawing, bridges, brains—that was Healey. All that Brodie knew, Healey had from him, and Brodie, who hated even himself, showed still a light in the wreck by molding Healey to his work. For one day, said Brodie in his heart, this boy shall be master of these bridges. When I am dust he will be here what I might have been—this Irish boy— and they will say he was Brodie's boy. And better than any of these doughheads they send me out he shall be, if he was made engineer by a drunkard. And Healey was better, far, far better than the doughheads, better than the graduates, better than Brodie —and to Healey came the time to wrestle with the Spider.
Stronger than any man he was, before or since, for the work. All Brodie knew, all the Indians knew, all that a life's experience, eating, living, watching, sleeping with the big river, had taught him, that Healey knew. And when Brodie's bridge went out, Healey was ready with his new bridge for the Spider Water, which should be better than Brodie's, just as he was better than Brodie. A bridge like Brodie's, with the fire-water, as it were, left out. And after the temporary structure was thrown over the stream, Healey's plans for a Howe truss, two-pier, two-abutment, three-span, pneumatic cais-
son bridge to span the Spider Water were submitted to headquarters.
But the cost! The directors jumped the table when they saw the figures. Our directors talked economy for the road and for themselves studied piracy. So Healey couldn't get the money for his new bridge, and was forced to build a cheap one which must, he knew, go some time. But the dream of his life, this we all knew—the Sioux would have said the Spider knew— was to build a final bridge over the Spider Water, a bridge to throttle it for all time.
It was the one subject on which you could get a rise out of Healey any time, day or night, the two-pier, two-abutment, three-span, pneumatic caisson Spider bridge. He would talk Spider bridge to a Chinaman. His bridge foreman, Ed Peeto, a staving big one-eyed French Canadian, had but two ideas in life. One was Healey, the other the Spider bridge. And after many moons our pirate directors were thrown out, and a great and public-spirited man took control of our system, and when Ed Peeto heard it he kicked his little water spaniel in a frenzy of delight. " Now, Sport, old boy," he exclaimed riotously, " we'll get the bridge! " And after much effort by Healey, seconded by Bucks, superintendent of the division, and by Callahan, assistant, the new president did consent to put up the money for the good bridge. The wire flashed the word to the West End. Everybody at the wickiup, as we called the old division headquarters, was glad; but Healey rejoiced, Ed Peeto burned red fire, and his little dog Sport ate rattlesnakes.
There was a good bridge needed at one other point, the Peace River, a treacherous water, and Healey had told the new management that if they would give him a pneumatic caisson bridge there, he would guarantee the worst stretch on the system against tie-up disasters for a generation; and they had said go ahead; and Ed Peeto went fairly savage with responsibility and strutted around the wickiup like a cyclops.
Early in the summer, Healey very quiet, and Peeto very profane, with all their traps and belongings, moved into construction headquarters at the Spider, and the first airlock ever sunk west of the Missouri closed over the heads of tall Healey and big Ed Peeto. Like a swarm of ants the bridge workers cast the refuse up out of the Spider bed. The blowpipes never slept, night and day the sand streamed from below, and Healey's caissons sank like armed [pgbrk]
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THE ROAD MASTER' S STORY.
cruisers foot by foot towards the bedrock. .When the masonry was crowding high-water mark, Healey and Peeto ran back to Medicine Bend to get acquainted with their families. Peeto was so deaf he couldn't hear himself swear, and Healey was as ragged and ratty as the old depot; but both were immensely happy.
Next morning, Sunday, they all sat up in Bucks's office reading letters and smoking.
" Hello," growled Bucks, chucking a nine-inch official manila under the table, " here's a general order—Number Fourteen."
The boys drew their briars like one. Bucks read a lot of stuff that didn't touch our end, then he reached this paragraph:
The Mountain and Inter-mountain divisions are hereby consolidated under the name of the Mountain Division, with J. F. Bucks superintendent, headquarters at Medicine Bend. C. T. Callahan is appointed assistant of the consolidated divisions.
" Good boy! " roared Ed Peeto, straining his ears.
" Well, well, well," murmured Healey, opening his eyes, " here's promotions right and left." Bucks read on:
H. P. Agnew is appointed superintendent of bridges of the new division, with headquarters at Omaha, vice P. C. Healey.
Bucks threw down the order. Ed Peeto broke out first: " Did you hear that ? " Healey nodded.
'' You're let out!" stormed Peeto. Healey no'dded. The bridge foreman dashed his pipe at the stove, jumped up, stamped across to the window, and was like to have sworn the glass out before Healey spoke.
" I'm glad we're up with the Spider job, Bucks," said he. "When they get the Peace River work in, the division will run itself for a year."
" Healey," said Bucks, " I don't need to tell you what I think of it, do I ? It's a cursed shame. But it's what I've said for a year—nobody will ever know what Omaha is going to do next." Healey rose to his feet. " Where you going ? "
" Back to the Spider on Number Two."
"Not going back this morning. Why don't you wait for Four to-night ?"
" Ed, will you get those staybolts and chuck them into the baggage car for me when Two pulls in ? I'm going over to the house for a minute."
They knew what that meant. He was going over to tell the folks he wouldn't be home for Sunday as he expected—as the
children expected. Going to tell the wife— the old man—that he was out. Out. of the railroad system he had given his life to help build up and to make what it was. Out of the position he had climbed to by studying like a hermit and working like a hoboe. Out —without criticism or reason or allegation. Simply, like a dog, out.
Bucks and Callahan looked down on the departing train soon afterward, and saw Healey climbing into the smoker. Every minute he had before the new order beheaded him he spent at the Spider. One thing he meant to make sure of—that they shouldn't beat him out of the finish of the Spider bridge as he had planned it. One monument Healey meant to have; one he has.
After he let go on the West End, Healey wanted to look up something East. But Bucks told him frankly it would be difficult to get a place without a regular engineer's degree. It seemed as if there was no place for Heaby but just the mountains, and after a time finding nothing, and Bucks losing a road-master, Healey—Callahan urging—agreed to take the little job and stay with his old superintendent. It was a big drop, but Healey took it.
Agnew meantime had stopped all construction work not too far along to discontinue. The bridge at the Spider was fortunately beyond his mandate; it was finished to a rivet as Healey had planned it. But the Peace River bridge was caught in the air, and Healey's great caissons gave way to piles, and pulled the cost down from a hundred to seventy-five thousand dollars. Incidentally it was breathed from headquarters that the day for extravagant appropriations on the West End was passed.
That year we had no winter till spring, and no spring till summer; and it was a spring of snow and a summer of water. The mountains were lost in snow even after Easter. When the snow let up, and it was no longer a matter of keeping the track clear, it was a matter of lashing it to the right-of-way to keep it from swimming clear. Healey caught it worse than anybody. He knew Bucks looked to him for the track, and he worked like two men, for that was his way in a pinch. He strained every nerve making ready for the time the mountain snows should go out.
There was nobody easy on the West End, Healey least of all, for that spring, ahead of the suns, ahead of the thaws, ahead of the waters, came a going out that unsettled the oldest calculator in the wickiup. Brodie's
[pgbrk] Healey
old friends began coming out of the up-country, out of the Spider Valley. Over the Eagle Pass and through the Peace Canon came the Sioux in parties and camps and tribes. And Bucks stayed them and talked with them. Talked of the Great White Father and the Bad Agent. But the Sioux did not talk, they grunted—and traveled. After Bucks Healey tried, for the braves knew him and would listen. But when he accused them of fixing for a fight, they denied and turned their faces to the mountains. They stretched their arms straight out under their blankets like stringers, and put their palms downward and muttered to Healey, " Plenty snow."
" I reckon they're lying," growled Bucks, listening. Healey made no comment; only looked at the buried mountains.
Now the Spider wakes regularly twice; at all other times irregularly. Once in April; that is the foothills water. Once in June; that is the mountain water. And the June
rise is like this .-. But the April rise is
like this /\.
Now came an April without any rise: nothing rose but the snow, and May opened bleaker than April; even the trackmen walked with set faces. The dirtiest half-breed on the line knew now what the mountains held. At least while we looked and wondered came a very late chinook. July in May. Then the water.
Section gangs were doubled, night walkers put on. By-passes were opened, bridge crews strengthened, everything buckled for grief. Gullies began to race, culverts to
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choke, creeks to tumble, rivers to madden. From the Muddy to the Summit the water courses swelled and boiled; all but the Spider; the big river slept. Through May and into June the Spider slept. But Healey was there at the wickiup, with one eye always running over all the line and one eye turned always to the Spider, where two men and two, night and day, watched the lazy surface water trickle over and through the vagabond bed between Healey's monumental piers. Never an hour did the operating department lose the track. East and west of us everywhere railroads clamored in despair. The flood swept from the Rockies to the Al-leghanies. Our trains never missed a trip ; our schedules were unbroken; our people laughed; we got the business, dead loads of it! Our treasury flowed over; and Healey watched, and the Spider slept. But when May turned soft and hot into June, with every ditch bellying and the mountains still buried, it put us all thinking hard.
On the 30th there was trouble beyond Wild Hat, and all our extra men, put out there under Healey, were fighting to hold the Rat Valley levels where they hug the river on the west slope. It wasn't really Healey's track. Bucks sent him over there just as the Emperor sent Ney, wherever he needed his right arm. Sunday, while Healey was at Wild Hat, rain began falling. Sunday it rained; Monday all through the mountains it rained; Tuesday it was raining from Omaha to Eagle Pass, with the thermometer climbing for breath and the barometer flat as an adder—and the Spider woke. Woke with the April water and the June water and the storm water all at once.
Trackwalkers Tuesday night flagged Number One, and reported the Spider wild, with heavy sheet ice running. A wire from Bucks brought Healey out of the west and into the east, and brought him to reckon for the last time with his ancient enemy.
He was against it Wednesday with dynamite. All the day, all the night, all the next day the sullen roar of the giant powder shook the forming jam above the bridge, and after two days Healey wired, " Ice out," and set back without a minute's sleep for home. Saturday night he slept and Sunday all day and Sunday night. Monday about noon Bucks sent up to ask, but Healey still slept. They asked back by the lad whether they should wake him. Bucks sent word, "No."
It was late Tuesday morning Avhen the tall roadmaster came down, and he was fresh as
sunshine. All day he sat with Bucks and the despatchers watching the line. The Spider raced mad, and the watchers sent in panic messages, but Healey put them in his pipe. '' That bridge will go when the mountains go," was all he said.
Nine o'clock that night every star was blinking when Healey looked in for the trackwalkers' reports and the railroad weather bulletins. Bucks, Callahan, and Peeto sat about Martin Duffy, the despatcher, who in his shirt sleeves threw the stuff off the sounder as it trickled in dot and dash, dot and dash over the wires.
The west wire was good; east everything below Peace River was down. We had to get the eastern reports around by Omaha and the south—a good thousand miles of a loop—but bad news travels even around a Robin Hood loop.
And first came Wild Hat from the west with a stationary river and the Loup Creek falling—clear—good-night. And Ed Peeto struck the table heavily and swore it was well in the west. Then from the east came Prairie Portage, all the way round, with a northwest rain, a rising river, and anchor ice running, pounding the piers bad—track in fair shape, and—and-
The wire went wrong. As Duffy knit his eyes and tugged and cussed a little, the wind outside took up the message and whirled a bucket of rain against the windows. But the wires wouldn't right, and stuff that no man could get tumbled in like a dictionary upside down. And Bucks and Callahan and Healey and Peeto smoked, silent, and heard the deepening drum of the rain on the roof.
Then Duffy wrestled mightily yet once more, and the long way round came word of trouble in the Omaha yards with the river at twenty-two feet and cutting.
" Hell to pay on the Missouri, of course,''' growled Peeto.
" Keep still," exclaimed Duffy, leaning heavily on the key. " Here's something— from the Spider."
He snatched a pen and ran it across a clip; Bucks leaning over read aloud from his shoulder:
Omaha.
J. F. Bucks :
Trainmen from No. 75 stalled west of Rapids City-track afloat in Simpson's cut—report Spider bridge out —send—
And the current broke.
Callahan's hand closed rigidly over the
[pgbrk] FRANK H. SPEARMAN.
599
hot bowl of his pipe; Peeto sat speechless; Bucks read again at the broken message, but Healey sprang like a man wounded and snatched the clip from his hand.
He stared at the running words till they burnt his eyes, and then, with an oath, frightful as the thunder that shook the mountains, he dashed the clip to the floor. His eyes snapped greenish, and he cursed Omaha, cursed its messages, and everything that came out of it. Slow at first, then fast and faster, until all the sting that poisoned his heart in his unjust discharge poured from his lips. It flooded the room like a spilling stream, and none put a word against it, for they knew he stood a wronged man. Out it came—all the rage, all the heartburning, all the bitterness—and he dropped into a chair and covered his face with his hands. Only the sounder clicking iron jargon and the thunder shaking the wickiup like a reed filled the ears of the men about him. They watched him slowly knot his fingers and loosen them, and saw his face rise dry and hard and old out of his hands.
" Get up an engine! "
" Not—you're not going down there tonight ?" stammered Bucks.
" Yes. Now. Right off. Peeto, get out your men!''
The foreman jumped for the door. Bucks hesitated barely an instant, then turning where he stood, cut a telephone plug into the round-house. Callahan saw it, and leaning forward spoke low to Duffy. The little despatcher snatching the train sheet began clearing track for a bridge special. In twenty minutes twenty men were running as many ways through the storm, and a live engine boomed under the wickiup window.
" I want you to be careful, Phil," Bucks spoke anxiously as he looked with Healey out into the storm. " It's a bad night." Healey made no answer.
The lightning shot the yards in a blaze and a crash split the gorge. " A wicked night," muttered Bucks,
Evans, conductor of the special, ran in.
" Here's your orders,'' said Duffy. " You've got forty miles an hour."
"Don't stretch it," warned Bucks. "Good-by, Phil," he added to Healey, " I'll see you in the morning."
'' In the morning,'' echoed Healey. " Good-by."
The switch engine had puffed up with a caboose; ahead of it Peeto had coupled in the pile driver. At the last minute Callahan concluded to go, and with the bridge gang
tumbling into the caboose, the assistant superintendent, Ed Peeto, and Healey climbed into the engine, and they pulled out, five in the cab, for the Spider Water.
Healey, moody at first, began joking and laughing the minute they got way. He sat behind Denis Mullenix, the engineer, and poked his ribs and taunted him with his heavy heels. At last he covered Denis's big hands on the throttle with his own bigger fingers, good-naturedly coaxed them loose, and pushing him away got the reins and the whip into his own keeping. He drew the bar out a notch and settled himself for the run across the flat country. They were leaving the foothills, and when the lightning opened the night, they could see behind, through the blasting rain, the great hulking pile-driver nod and reel out into the Painted Desert like a drunken man; for Healey's schedule was the wind and his limit the wide throttle.
As they sped from the shelter of the hills, the storm shook them with a freshening fury, and drove the flanges into the south rail with a grinding screech. The rain fell in a sheet, and the right-of-way ran a river. The wind, whipping the water off the ballast, dashed it like hail against the cab glass; the segment of desert caught in the yellow of the headlight rippled and danced and swam in the storm water, and Healey pulled again at the straining throttle and latched it wider.
Notch after notch he drew; heedless of lurch and jump; heedless of bed or curve; heedless of track or storm; and with every spur at her cylinders the engine shook like a frantic horse. Men and monster alike lost thought of caution and drunk a frenzy in the whirl that Healey opened across the swimming plain.
The Peace River hills loomed suddenly in front like moving pictures; before they could think it the desert was behind.
"For God's sake, Phil, let up!" yelled Callahan, getting his mouth to Healey's ear. The roadmaster nodded, checked a notch, threw a hatful of air on the shoes; but the fire was in his blood, and he slewed into the hills with a speed unslackened. The wind blew them, and the track pulled them, and a frenzied man sat at the throttle.
Just where the line crosses the Peace River the track bends sharply through the Needles to take the bridge. The curve is a ten degree. As they struck it, the headlight shot far out upon the river—and they in the cab knew they sat dead men. Instead of lighting the box of the truss, the lamp lit a black
[pgbrk] 600
A LAMENT OF THE COUNTRY.
and snaky flood with yellow foam sweeping over the abutment, for the Peace had licked up Agnew's thirty-foot piles—and his bridge was not.
There were two things to do; Healey knew them both, and both meant death to the cab, but the caboose sheltered twenty of Healey's faithful men. He instantly threw the air, and with a scream from the tires, the special, shaking in the brake-shoes, swung the curve. Again the roadmaster checked heavily, and the pile-driver, taking the elevation like a hurdle, bolted into the Needles, dragging the caboose after it. But engine and tender and five in the cab plunged head on into the Peace.
Not a man in the caboose was killed. They scrambled out of the splinters and on their feet, men and ready to do. One voice came through the storm from the river, and they answered its calling. It was Callahan, but
Durden, Mullenix, Peeto, Healey never called again.
At daybreak, wreckers of the West End, swarming from mountain and plain, were heading for the Peace, and the McCloud gang—up—crossed the Spider on Healey's bridge—on the bridge the coward trainmen had reported out, quaking as they did in the storm at the Spider foaming over its approaches. But Healey's bridge stood—stands to-day.
Yet three days the Spider raged, and knew then its master, while he, three whole days, sat at the bottom of the Peace, clutching the engine levers, in theruins of Agnew's mistake.
And when the divers got them up, Callahan and Bucks tore big Peeto's arms from his master's body and shut his staring eye and laid him at his master's side. And only the Spider, ravening at Healey's caissons, raged. But Healey slept.
A LAMENT OF THE COUNTRY.
By William Wallace Whitelock.
Give back, oh city, from thy clutch
My children to my breast, That, ravished, aches to feel their touch,
And lull their pain to rest; My dugs are full, while hark! they cry
For food, but cry in vain— Oh, vampire of the glittering lie,
Give back mine own again!
My fields are golden seas of grain
I bore for them to reap; My bounty swells some gambler's gain
Who heeds not while they weep. My children render to my arms,
Thou wanton draped in red, That lur'st the quick with deadly charms,
And send'st me but the dead.
Give back the children whom I nursed
And brought to man's estate, Until they heard thy voice accurst,
Thou cursed one of fate! Mine age is lonely, and my breast
Yearns for my faithless sons, That I may lull their pain to rest,
My poor deluded ones.