PRICE TEN CENTS
MCCLURE'S MAGAZINE
JULY, 1904
THE CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS NUMBER INCLUDE
GROVER CLEVELAND
RAY STANNARD BAKER
CLARA MORRIS
JOHN LA FARGE
HENRY WALLACE PHILLIPS
A. B. FROST
MYRA KELLY
PICTURES IN COLOR
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[pgbrk] McCLURE'S MAGAZINE
Contents for July, I 904
COVER DESIGN BY WILLIAM JORDAN
Grover Cleveland............Frontispiece
FROM HIS LATEST PORTRAIT, MAY, 1904
The Government in the Chicago Strike
of 1 894........... Grover Cleveland 227
ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS, AND SKETCHES BY GEORGE A. COFFIN
The Land of Heart's Desire......Myra Kelly 240
ILLUSTRATED IN COLOR BY ORSON LOWELL
Larkin...........Harvey J. O'Higgins 253
ILLUSTRATED BY MARTIN JUSTICE
The House of Fulfilment.....George Madden Martin 261
PART TWO-CHAPTER FOUR
A Knot and a Slash......Henry Wallace Phillips 271
ILLUSTRATED BY A. B. FROST
Organized Capital Challenges Organized
Labor...........Ray Stannard Baker 279
ILLUSTRATED WITH PORTRAITS
By Way of Loss.......Mary Josephine Mayer 292
ILLUSTRATED BY BLENDON CAMPBELL
One Hundred Masterpieces of Painting . . . John La Farge 298
CHILDREN—FOURTH PAPER WITH REPRODUCTIONS IN TINT
Hi Chee's Hlorsee.........Clara Byrnes 306
ILLUSTRATED BY W. D. STEVENS
The Ringing of the Bell......Richard F. Woods 315
ILLUSTRATED BY CHARLES RAYMOND MACAULEY
The Moxa............Clara Morris 325
ILLUSTRATED WITH PORTRAITS
The Far Country........Florence Wilkinson 331
POEM
On the Doorstep........Inez Haynes Gillmore 333
Editorial.................336
MISS TARBELL'S HISTORY OF THE STANDARD OIL COMPANY
Entered as Second-Class Matter at New York (N. Y.) Post-Office, June 9, 1893. Copyright, 1904, and published monthly by The S. S. McClure Company, 44-60 East Twenty-third Street, New York.
terms: $1.00 a year; 10 cents a number
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[pgbrk] [pgbrk] Copyright, 1904, by Path Bros.
From bis latest portrait, May, 1904
[pgbrk] McCLURE'S MAGAZINE
VOL. XXIII JULY, 1904 No. 3
THE GOVERNMENT IN THE CHICAGO STRIKE OF 1894
A CHRONICLE OF A SIXTEEN DAYS' WAR—150,000 ORGANIZED STRIKERS ATTACK THE INTERSTATE COMMERCE OF THE COUNTRY—THE INERTIA OF STATE AUTHORITIES—HOW THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT PUT DOWN THE UPRISING WITHOUT BLOODSHED
BY
GROVER CLEVELAND
EX-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAPHS AND SKETCHES
THE President inaugurated on the 4th day of March, 1893, and those associated with him as cabinet officials, encountered, during their term of executive duty, unusual and especially perplexing difficulties. The members of that administration who still survive, in recalling the events of this laborious service, cannot fail to fix upon the year 1894 as the most troublous and anxious of their incumbency. During that year unhappy currency complications compelled executive resort to heroic treatment for the preservation of our nation's financial integrity, and forced upon the administration a constant, unrelenting struggle for sound money ; a long and persistent executive effort to accomplish beneficent and satisfactory tariff reform so nearly miscarried as to bring depression and disappointment to the verge of discouragement; and it was at the close of
the year 1894 that executive insistence upon the Monroe Doctrine culminated in a situation that gave birth to solemn thoughts of war. Without attempting to complete the list of troubles and embarrassments that beset the administration during this luckless year, I have reserved for separate and more detailed treatment one of its incidents not yet mentioned, which immensely increased executive anxiety and foreboded the most calamitous and far-reaching consequences.
In the last days of June, 1894, a very determined and ugly labor disturbance broke out in the City of Chicago. Almost in a night it grew to full proportions of malevolence and danger. Rioting and violence were its early accompaniments ; and it spread so swiftly that within a few days it had reached nearly the entire Western and Southwestern sections of our country. Railroad transportation was especially involved in its attacks. The carriage of United States
Copyright, 1904, by The S. S. McClure Co. rights reserved.
[pgbrk] From a contemporary portrait
EUGENE V. DEBS
Organiser and president of the American Railway Union, who directed the great railway strike of 1S94. He served a term ill jail under sentence of the United States Court for contempt of court in refusing to obey injunctions to refrain from interfering with interstate commerce and blocking United States mails.
mails was interrupted, interstate commerce was obstructed, and railroad property was riotously destroyed.
This disturbance is often called "The Chicago Strike." It is true that its beginning was in that city; and the headquarters of those who inaugurated it and directed its operations were located there ; but the name thus given to it is an entire misnomer so far as it applies to the scope and reach of the trouble. Railroad operations were more or less affected in twenty-seven states and territories ; and in all these the interposition of the General Government was to a greater or less extent invoked.
Inception of the Trouble
This widespread trouble had its inception in a strike by the employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company, a corporation located and doing business at the town of Pullman, which is within the limits of the City of
Chicago. This company was a manufacturing corporation—or at least it was not a railroad corporation. Its main object was the operation and running of sleeping and parlor cars upon railroads under written contracts ; but its charter contemplated the manufacture of cars as well; and soon after its incorporation it began the manufacture of its own cars and, subsequently, the manufacture of cars for the general market.
The strike on the part of the employees of this company began on the i ith day of May, 1894, and was provoked by a reduction of wages.
The American Railway Union w,as organized in the summer of 1893. 't was professedly an association of all the different classes of railway employees. In its scope and purpose it was the most compact and effective organization of the kind ever attempted. Its purpose was a thorough unification of defensive and offensive effort among railway [pgbrk]
From a contemporary portrait
THE LATE JOHN P. ALTGELD
Governor of Illinois, 1892-96, who protested against the ordering of Federal troops to Chicago during the strike of I 894 as unnecessary and unlawful. His correspondence with President Cleveland in discussion of the question of Federal and State authority makes an interesting chapter in the history of the strike.
employees under one central direction, and the creation of a combination embracing all such employees which should make the grievances of any section of its membership a common cause. Those prominent in this project estimated that various other organizations of railroad employees then existing had a membership of 102,000 in the United States and neighboring countries ; and they claimed that these brotherhoods, because of divided councils and for other reasons, were ineffective, and that nearly a million railroad employees still remained unorganized.
The wonderful growth of this new combination is made apparent by the fact that between the month of August, 1893, and the time it became involved in the Pullman strike, in June, 1894, it had enrolled nearly 150,000 members.
The employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company could not on any reasonable and consistent theory be regarded as eligible to
membership in an organization devoted to the interests of railway employees ; and yet. during the months of March, April and May, 1894, it appears that nearly 4,000 of these employees were enrolled in the American Railway Union. This, to say the least of it, was an exceedingly unfortunate proceeding, since it created a situation which implicated in a comparatively insignificant quarrel between the managers of an industrial establishment and their workmen, the large army of the Railway Union. It was the membership of these workmen in the Railway Union and the Union's consequent assumption of their quarrel, that gave it the proportions of a tremendous disturbance, paralyzing the most important business interests, obstructing the functions of the Government, and disturbing social peace and order.
No injury to the property of the Pullman Palace Car Company was done or attempted while the strike was confined to its
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THE GOVERNMENT IN THE CHICAGO STRIKE
From a contemporary portrait
JUDGE P. S. GROSSCUP
Of the United States Circuit Court at Chicago, ivbo issued the injunctions forbidding interference with United States mails and interstate commerce.
employees ; and during that time very little disorder of any kind occurred.
It so happened, however, that in June, 1894, after the strike at Pullman had continued for about one month, a regular stated convention of the American Railway Union was held in the City of Chicago, which was attended by delegates from local branches of the organization in different states, as well as by representatives of its members among the employees of the Pullman Palace Car Company. At this convention the trouble at Pullman was considered, and after earnest efforts on the part of the Railway Union to bring about a settlement, a resolution was, on the 22A day of June, passed by the convention, declaring that unless the Pullman Palace Car Company should adjust the grievances of its employees before noon of the 26th day of June, the members of the American Railway Union should, after that date, refuse to handle Pullman cars and equipment.
General Strike is Declared
The 26th day of June arrived without any change in the attitude of the parties to the Pullman controversy ; and thereupon the order made by the American Railway Union
forbidding the handling of Pullman cars became operative throughout its entire membership. At this time the Pullman Palace Car Company was furnishing drawing-room and sleeping-car accommodations to the traveling public under contracts with numerous railway companies, and was covering by this service about 125,000 miles of railway, or approximately three-fourths of all the railroad mileage of the country. The same railroad companies which had contracted to use these Pullman cars upon their lines, had contracts with the United States Government for the carriage of mails, and were, of course, also largely engaged in interstate commerce. It need hardly be said that, of necessity, the trains on which the mails were carried and which served the purpose of interstate commerce, were, very generally, those to which the Pullman cars were also attached.
The president of the Railway Union was one Eugene V. Debs. In a sworn statement afterwards made he gave the following description of the results of the interference of the Union in the Pullman dispute :
"The employees, obedient to the order of the convention, at once, on the 26th, refused to haul Pullman cars. The switchmen, in the first place, refused to attach a Pullman car to a train and that is where the trouble began ; and then, when a switchman would be discharged for that, they would all simultaneously quit as they had agreed to do. One department after another was involved until the Illinois Central was practically paralyzed, and the Rock Island and other roads in their turn. Up to the 1st day of July, or after the strike had been in progress five days, the railway managers, as we believe, were completely defeated. Their immediate resources were exhausted, their properties were paralyzed, and they were unable to operate their trains. Our men were intact at every point, firm, quiet, and yet determined, and no sign of violence or disorder anywhere. That was the condition on the 30th day of June and the 1st day of July."
The officers of the Railway Union from their headquarters in the City, of Chicago gave directions for the maintenance and management of the strike, which were quickly transmitted to distant railroad points and were there promptly executed. As early as the 28th of June, two days after the beginning of the strike ordered by the Railway Union at Chicago, information was
[pgbrk] GROVER CLEVELAND
231
received at Washington from the Post-Office Department that on the Southern Pacific System, between Portland and San Francisco, Ogden and San Francisco, and Los Angeles and San Francisco, the mails were completely obstructed, and that the strikers refused to permit trains to which Pullman cars were attached to run over the lines mentioned. Thereupon Attorney-General Olney immediately sent the following telegraphic despatch to the United States district attorneys in the State of California :
"Washington, D. C, June 28, 1894. "See that the passage of regular trains, carrying United States mails in the usual and ordinary way, as contemplated by the Act of Congress and directed by the Postmaster-General, is not obstructed. Procure warrants or any other available process from United States courts against any and all persons engaged in such obstructions and direct the Marshal to execute the same by such number of deputies or such posse as may be necessary."
Complaints of Lawlessness
On the same day, and during a number of days immediately following, complaints of a similar character, sometimes accompanied by charges of forcible seizure of trains and other violent disorders, poured in upon the Attorney-General from all parts of the West and Southwest. These complaints came from post-office officials, from United States marshals and district attorneys, from railroad managers, and from other officials and private citizens. In all cases of substantial representation of interference with the carriage of mails, a despatch identical with that already quoted was sent by the Attorney-General to the United States district attorneys in the disturbed localities ; and this was supplemented, whenever necessary, by such other prompt action as the different emergencies required.
I shall not enter upon an enumeration of all the disorders and violence, the defiance of law and authority, and the obstructions of national functions and duties, which occurred in many localities as a consequence of this labor contention, thus tremendously reinforced and completely underway. It is my especial purpose to review the action taken by the Government for the maintenance of its own authority and the protection of the special interests intrusted to its
From a contemporary portrait
RICHARD OLNEY
Attorney-General of the United States in President Cleveland's Cabinet, who was the legal adviser for the Goveru-ment during the Chicago strike procedure.
keeping, so far as they were endangered by this disturbance ; and I do not intend to especially deal with the incidents of the strike except in so far as a reference to them may be necessary to show conditions which not only justified but actually obliged the Government to resort to stern and unusual measures in the assertion of its prerogatives.
Inasmuch, therefore, as the City of Chicago was the birthplace of the disturbance and the home of its activities ; and because it was the field of its most pronounced and malign manifestations, as well as the place of its final extinction, I shall meet the needs of my subject by supplementing what has been already said, by a recital of events occurring at this central point. In doing this, I shall liberally embody documents, orders, instructions, and reports which I hope will not prove tiresome, since they supply the facts I desire to present, at first hand and more impressively than they could be presented by any words of mine.
Owing to the enforced relationship of Chicago to the strike which started within its borders, and because of its importance as a center of railway traffic, Government officials at Washington were not surprised by the early
[pgbrk] The Lake Front, Chicago, July 4, 1894, with Federal troops encamped
and persistent complaints of mail and interstate commerce obstructions which reached them from that city. It was from the first anticipated that this would be the seat of the most serious complications, and the place where the strong arm of the law would be most needed. In these circumstances it would have been a criminal neglect of duty if those charged with the protection of Governmental agencies and the enforcement of orderly obedience and submission to Federal authority, had been remiss in preparations for any emergency in that quarter.
Federal Officers Act
On the 30th day of June the District Attorney of Chicago reported by telegraph that mail trains in the suburbs of Chicago were, on the previous night, stopped by strikers, that an engine had been cut off and disabled, and that conditions were growing more and more likely to culminate in the stoppage of all trains ; and he recommended that the Marshal be authorized to employ a force of special deputies who should be placed on trains to protect mails and detect the parties guilty of such interference. In reply to this despatch Attorney-General Olney on the same day authorized the Marshal to employ additional deputies as suggested, and designated Edwin Walker, an able and prominent attorney in Chicago, as special counsel for the Government, to assist the District Attorney in any legal proceedings that might be instituted. He also notified the District Attorney of this action, and enjoined upon him that "action ought to be prompt and vigorous," and directed him to confer with the special counsel who had been employed. In a letter of the same date addressed to this special counsel, the Attorney-General, in making suggestions concerning legal proceedings, wrote: "It has seemed to me that if the rights of the United States were vigorously asserted
in Chicago, the origin and center of the demonstration, the result would be to make it a failure everywhere else, and to prevent its spread over the entire country," and in that connection he indicated that it might be advisable, instead of relying entirely upon warrants issued under criminal statutes, against persons actually guilty of the offense of obstructing United States mails, that the courts should be asked to grant injunctions which would restrain and prevent any attempt to commit such offense. This suggestion contemplated the inauguration of legal proceedings in a regular and usual way to restrain those prominently concerned in the interference with the mails and the obstruction of interstate commerce, basing such proceedings on the proposition that, under the constitution and laws, these subjects were in the exclusive care of the Government of the United States, and that for their protection the Federal courts were competent under general principles of law to intervene by injunction ; and on the further ground that under an Act of Congress, passed July 2, 1890, conspiracies in restraint of trade or commerce among the several states were declared to be illegal, and the Circuit Courts of the United States were therein expressly given jurisdiction to prevent and restrain such conspiracies.
On the 1 st day of July the District Attorney reported to the Attorney-General that he was preparing a bill of complaint to be presented to the court the next day, on an application for an injunction. He further reported that very little mail and no freight was moving, that the Marshal was using all his force to prevent riots and the obstruction of tracks, and that this force was clearly inadequate. On the same day the Marshal reported that the situation was desperate, that he had sworn in over 400 deputies, that many more would be required to protect mail trains, and that he expected great
[pgbrk] by the Marshal and a resort to the restraining power of the courts would prove sufficient for the emergency. Notwithstanding, however, an anxious desire to avoid measures more radical, the fact had not been overlooked that a contingency might occur which would compel a resort to military force. The key to these despatches of the Attorney-General is found in the determination of the Federal authorities to overcome by any lawful and constitutional means all resistance to governmental functions as related to the transportation of mails, the operation of interstate commerce, and the preservation of the property of the United States.
The constitution requires that the United States shall protect each of the states against invasion, "and on application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence." There was plenty of domestic violence in the City of Chicago and in the State of Illinois during the early days of July, 1894 ; but no application was made to the Federal Government for assistance. It was probably a very fortunate circumstance that the presence of United States soldiers in Chicago at that time did not depend upon the request or desire of Governor Altgeld.
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trouble the next day. He further expressed the opinion that 100 riot guns were needed.
Upon the receipt of these reports, and anticipating an attempt to serve injunctions on the following day, the Attorney-General immediately sent a despatch to the District Attorney directing him to report at once if the process of the court should be resisted by such force as the Marshal could not overcome, and suggesting that the United States judge should join in such report. He at the same time sent a despatch to the special counsel requesting him to report his view of the situation as early as the forenoon of the next day.
In explanation of these two despatches it should here be said that the desperate character of this disturbance was not in the least underestimated by executive officials at Washington ; and it must b'e borne in mind that while menacing conditions were moving swiftly and accumulating at Chicago, like conditions, inspired and supported from that central point, existed in many other places within the area of the strike's contagion.
Of course it was hoped by those charged with the responsibility of dealing with the situation, that a direct assertion of authority
Burning six hundred freight cars, night of July 6, 1894 From a sketch made at the time by George A. Coffin
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THE GOVERNMENT IN THE CHICAGO STRIKE
Section 5,298 of the Revised Statutes of the United States provides that: "Whenever, by reason of unlawful obstructions, combinations or assemblages of persons, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, it shall become impracticable in the judgment of the President to enforce by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, the laws of the United States within any State or Territory, it shall be lawful for the President to call forth the militia of any or all of the States, and to employ such parts of the land or naval forces of the United States as he may deem necessary to enforce the faithful execution of the laws of the United States, or to suppress such rebellion, in whatever State or Territory thereof the laws of the United States may be forcibly opposed, or the execution thereof be forcibly obstructed;" and Section 5,299 provides that : "Whenever any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combinations or conspiracies in any State . . . opposes or obstructs the laws of the United States, or the due execution thereof, or impedes or obstructs the due course of justice under the same, it shall be lawful for the President and it shall be his duty, to take such measures by the employment of the militia, or the land and naval forces of the United States, or of either, or by other means as he may deem necessary, for the suppression of such insurrection, domestic violence or combinations."
Prepare for Emergencies
It was the intention of the Attorney-General to suggest in these despatches that immediate and authoritative information should be given to the Washington authorities if a time should arrive when, under the sanction of general executive authority, or the constitutional and statutory provisions above quoted, a military force would be necessary at the scene of disturbance.
On the 2d of July, the day after these despatches were sent, information was received from the District Attorney and special counsel that a sweeping injunction had been granted against Eugene V. Debs, president of the American Railway Union, and other officials of the organization, together with parties whose names were unknown, and that the writs would be served that afternoon. The special counsel also expressed the opinion that it would require Government troops to enforce the orders of the
court and protect the transportation of mails.
Major-General Schofield was then in command of the army ; and, after a consultation with him, in which the Attorney-General and the Secretary of War took part, I directed the issuance of the following order by telegraph to General Nelson A. Miles, in command of the Military Department of Missouri, with headquarters at Chicago :
Headquarters of the Army, Washington, July 2, 1894. To the Commanding General, Department of Missouri, Chicago, 111. You will please make all necessary arrangements confidentially for the transportation of the entire garrison at Fort Sheridan—infantry, cavalry and artillery—to the Lake Front in the City of Chicago. To avoid possible interruption of the movement by rail and by marching through a part of the city, it may be advisable to bring them by steamboat. Please consider this matter and have the arrangements perfected without delay. You may expect orders at any time for the movement. Acknowledge receipt and report in what manner movement is to be made.
J. M. Schofield, Major-General Commanding.
It should by no means be inferred from this despatch that it had been definitely determined that the use of a military force was inevitable. It was still hoped that the effect of the injunction would be such that such an alternative might be avoided. A painful emergency is created when public duty forces the necessity of placing trained soldiers face to face with riotous opposition to the General Government, and in opposition to an acute and determined resistance to law and order. This course, once entered upon, admits of no backward step ; and an appreciation of the consequences that may ensue cannot fail to oppress those responsible for its adoption with sadly disturbing reflections. Nevertheless, it was perfectly plain that, whatever the outcome might be, the situation positively demanded such precaution and preparation as would insure readiness and promptness, in case the presence of a military force should finally be found necessary.
On the morning of the next day, July 3d, the Attorney-General received a letter from Mr. Walker, the special counsel, in which, after referring to the issuance of the injunctions and setting forth that the Marshal was engaged in serving them, he wrote : " I do not believe that the Marshal and his
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deputies can protect the railroad companies in moving [their trains, either freight or passenger, including of course the trains carrying United States mails. Possibly, however, the service of the writ of injunction will have a restraining influence upon Debs and other officers of the association. If it does not, from present appearances, 1 think it is the opinion of all that the orders of the court cannot be enforced except by the aid of the Regular Army."
Thereupon the Attorney-General immediately sent this despatch to the District Attorney : " I trust use of United States troops will not be necessary. If it becomes necessary, they will be used promptly and decisively upon the justifying facts being certified to me. In such case, if practicable, let Walker and the Marshal and United States judge join in statement as to the exigency."
The Call for Help A few hours afterwards the following urgent and decisive despatch from the Marshal, endorsed by a judge of the United States court and the District Attorney, and special counsel, was received bv the Attorney-General.
Chicago, 111., July 3, 1894. Hon. Richard Olney, Attorney-General, Washington, D. C. When the injunction was granted yesterday, a mob of from two to three thousand held possession of a point in the city near the crossing of the Rock Island by other roads, where they had already ditched a mail train, and prevented the passing of any trains, whether mail or otherwise. I read the injunction writ to this mob and commanded them to disperse. The reading of the writ met with no response except jeers and hoots. Shortly after, the mob threw a number of baggage cars across the track, since when no mail train has been able to move. I am unable to disperse the mob, clear the tracks, or arrest the men who were engaged in the acts named, and believe that no force less than the regular troops of the United States can procure the passage of the mail trains, or enforce the orders of the courts. I believe people engaged in trades are quitting employment to-day, and in my opinion will be joining the mob to-night and especially to-morrow; and it is my judgment that the troops should be Iiere at the earliest moment. An emergency has arisen for their presence in this city. J. W. Arnold,
United States Marshal.
We have read the foregoing and from that information and other information that has come to us, believe that an emergency exists for the immediate presence of United States troops.
P. S. Grosscup, Judge.
Edwin Walker,
Thomas E. Milchist, Atiys.
In the afternoon of the same day the following order was telegraphed from Army Headquarters in the City of Washington :
War Department, Headquarters of the Army, Washington, D. C, July 3, 1894, 4 o'Clock p. m. To Martin, Adjutant-General,
Headquarters Department of Missouri, Chicago, 111. It having become impracticable in the judgment of the President to enforce by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings the laws of the United States, you will direct Colonel Crofton to move his entire command at once to the City of Chicago (leaving the necessary guard at Fort Sheridan), there to execute the orders and processes of the United States court, to prevent the obstruction of the United States mails, and generally to enforce the faithful execution of the laws of the United States. He will confer with the United States Marshal, the United States District Attorney, and Edwin Walker, special counsel. Acknowledge receipt and report action promptly. By order of the President.
J. M. Schofield, M'ajor-General.
Immediately after this order was issued, the following despatch was sent to the District Attorney by the Attorney-General :
"Colonel Crofton's command ordered to Chicago by the President. As to disposition and movement of troops, yourself, Walker, and Marshal should confer with Colonel Crofton and with Colonel Martin, Adjutant-General at Chicago. While action should be prompt and decisive, it should of course be kept within the limits provided by the constitution and laws. Rely upon yourself and Walker to see that this is done."
Colonel Martin, Adjutant-General at Chicago, reported the same night at half-past nine o'clock that the order for the movement of troops was, immediately on its receipt by him, transmitted to Fort Sheridan, and that Colonel Crofton's command started for Chicago at nine o'clock.
During the forenoon of the next day, July 4th, Colonel Martin advised the War Department that Colonel Crofton reported his command in the City of Chicago at 10:15 that morning. After referring to the manner in which the troops had been distributed, this officer added : " People seem to feel easier since arrival of troops."
General Miles, commanding the department, arrived in Chicago the same morning, and at once assumed direction of military movements. In the afternoon of that day he sent a report to the War Department at Washington, giving an account of the
[pgbrk] Rioters running a switch engine at full speed into freight cars that have been wrecked by strikers From an unfinished drawing made at the time by George A. Coffin
disposition of troops, recounting an unfavorable condition of affairs, and recommending an increase of the garrison at Fort Sheridan sufficient to meet any emergency.
In response to this despatch General Miles was immediately authorized to order six companies of infantry from Fort Leavenworth, in Kansas, and two companies from Fort Brady, in Michigan, to Fort Sheridan.
On the 5th day of July he reported that a mob of over two thousand had gathered that morning at the stock-yards, crowded among the troops, obstructed the movement of trains, knocked down a railroad official, and overturned about twenty freight cars, which obstructed all freight and passenger traffic in the vicinity of the stock-yards, and that the mob had also derailed a passenger train on the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne and Chicago Railroad and burned switches. To this recital of violent demonstrations he added the following statement : "The injunction of the United States court is openly defied, and unless the mobs are dispersed by the action of the police or they are fired upon by United States troops, more serious trouble may be expected, as the mob is increasing and becoming more defiant."
In view of the situation as reported by General Miles, he was at once directed by General Schofield to concentrate his troops in order that they might act more effectively in the execution of orders theretofore given,
and in the protection of United States property. This despatch concluded as follows :
"The mere preservation of peace and good order in the city is, of course, the province of the city and state authorities."
The situation on the 6th day of July was thus described in a despatch sent m the afternoon of that day by General Miles to the Secretary of War : " In answer to your telegram, I report the following : Mayor Hopkins last night issued a proclamation prohibiting riotous assemblies and directing the police to stop people from molesting railway communication. Governor Altgeld has ordered General Wheeler's brigade on duty in Chicago to support the Mayor's authority. So far, there have been no large mobs like the one of yesterday, which moved from 51st Street to 18th Street before it dispersed. The lawlessness has been along the line of the railways, destroying and burning more than one hundred cars and railway buildings, and obstructing transportation in various ways, even to the extent of cutting telegraph lines. United States troops have dispersed mobs at 51st Street, Kensington, and a company of infantry is moving along the Rock Island to support a body of United States marshals in making arrests for violating the injunction of the United States court. Of the twenty-three roads centering in Chicago, only six are unobstructed in freight, passenger, and mail
[pgbrk] transportation ; thirteen are at present entirely obstructed, and ten are running only mail and passenger trains. Large numbers of trains moving in and out of the city have been stoned and fired upon by mobs, and one engineer killed. There was a secret meeting to-day of Debs and the representatives of labor unions considering the advisability of a general strike of all labor unions. About one hundred men were present at that meeting. The result is not yet known. United States troops are at the stock-yards, Kensington, Blue Island, crossing of 51st Street, and have been moving along some of the lines : the balance, eight companies of infantry, battery of artillery, and one troop of cavalry, are camped on Lake Front Park, ready for any emergency and to protect Government buildings and property. It is learned from the Fire Department, City Hall, that a party of strikers has been going through the vicinity from 14th to 41st Streets and Stewart Avenue freight yards, throwing gasoline on freight cars all through that section. Captain Ford, of the Fire Department, was badly stoned this morning. Troops have just dispersed a mob of incendiaries on Fort Wayne tracks, near 51st Street, and fires that were started have been suppressed. Mob just captured mail train at 47th Street and troops sent to disperse them."
The Executive Proclamation
On the 8th day of July, in view of the apparently near approach of a crisis which the Government had attempted to avoid, the following Executive Proclamation was issued and at once extensively published in the City of Chicago :
Whereas, by reason of unlawful obstruction, combinations and assemblages of persons, it has become impracticable in the judgment of the President to enforce by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, the laws of the United States within the State of Illinois, and especially in the City of Chicago within said State ; and
Whereas, for the purpose of enforcing the faithful execution of the laws of the United States and protecting its property and removing obstructions to the United States mails in the state and city aforesaid, the President has employed a part of the military forces of the United States :—
Now, therefore, I, Grover Cleveland, President of the United States, do hereby admonish all good citizens, and all persons who may be or may come within the city and state aforesaid, against aiding, countenancing, encouraging, or taking any part in such unlawful obstructions, combinations and assemblages ; and I hereby warn all persons
engaged in or in any way connected with such unlawful obstructions, combinations and assemblages to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes on or before twelve o'clock, noon, of the 9th day of July instant.
Those who disregard this warning and persist in taking part with a riotous mob in forcibly resisting and obstructing the execution of the laws of the United States or interfering with the functions of the Government, or destroying or attempting to destroy the property belonging tothe United States or under its protection, cannot be regarded otherwise than as public enemies.
Troops employed against such a riotous mob will act with all the moderation and forbearance consistent with the accomplishment of the desired end ; but the stern necessities that confront them will not with certainty permit discrimination between guilty participants and those who are mingling with them from curiosity and without criminal intent. The only safe course, therefore, for those not actually participating, is to abide at their homes, or at least not to be found in the neighborhood of riotous assemblages.
While there will be no vacillation in the decisive treatment of the guilty, this warning is especially intended to protect and save the innocent.
On the 10th of July, Eugene V. Debs, the president of the American Railway Union, together with its vice-president, general secretary, and one other who was an active director, were arrested upon indictments found against .them for complicity in the obstruction of mails and interstate commerce. Three days afterwards our special counsel expressed the opinion that the strike was practically broken. This must not be taken to mean, however, that peace and quiet had been completely restored or that the transportation of mails and the activities of interstate commerce were entirely free from interruption. It meant only the expression of a well sustained and deliberate expectation that the combination of measures already inaugurated, and others contemplated in the near future, would speedily bring about a termination of the difficulty.
On the 17th day of July an information was filed in the United States Circuit Court at Chicago against Debs and the three other officials of the Railway Union who had been arrested on indictment a few days before, but were then at large on bail. This information alleged that these parties had been guilty of open, continued, and defiant disobedience of the injunction which was served on them July 3d, forbidding them to do certain specified acts tending to incite and aid the obstruction of the carriage of mails and the operation of interstate commerce. On the footing of this information these parties were brought before the court to show
GROVER CLEVELAND
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[pgbrk] 238
THE GOVERNMENT IN THE CHICAGO STRIKE
cause why they should not be punished for contempt in disobeying the injunction. Instead of giving bail for their freedom pending the investigation of this charge against them, as they were invited to do, they preferred to be commftted to custody—perhaps intending by such an act of martyrdom either to revive a waning cause or to create a plausible and justifying excuse for the collapse of their already foredoomed movement. Debs himself, in speaking of this event afterwards, said : "As soon as the employees found that we were arrested and taken from the scene of action they became demoralized, and that ended the strike."
The Strike Ends
That the strike was ended about the time of this second arrest is undoubtedly true ; for, during the few days immediately preceding and following the 17th day of July, reports came from nearly all the localities to which the strike had spread, indicating its defeat and the accomplishment of all the purposes of the Government's interference. Conclusive proof of the successful assertion of national authority was furnished when on the 20th day of July the last of the soldiers of the United States who had been ordered for duty at the very center of opposition and defiance, were withdrawn from Chicago and returned to the military posts to which they were attached.
I hope I have been thus far successful in my effort to satisfactorily exhibit the extensive reach and perilous tendency of the convulsion under consideration, the careful promptness which characterized the interference of the Government, the constant desire of the national administration to avoid extreme measures, the careful limitations of its interference to purposes which were clearly within its constitutional competency and duty, and the gratifying and important results of its conservative but stern activity.
I must not fail to mention here as part of the history of this perplexing affair, a contribution made by the Governor of Illinois to its annoyances. This official not only refused to regard the riotous disturbances within the borders of his state as a sufficient cause for an application to the Federal Government for its protection " against domestic violence " under the mandate of the constitution, but he actually protested against the presence of Federal troops sent
into the state upon the General Government's own initiative and for the purpose of defending itself in the exercise of its well defined legitimate functions.
Altgeld Protests Against Federal Intervention
On the 5th day of July, twenty-four hours after our soldiers had been brought to the City of Chicago, pursuant to the order of July 3d, I received a long despatch from Governor Altgeld, beginning as follows :
" I am advised that you have ordered Federal troops to go into service in the State of Illinois. Surely the facts have not been correctly presented to you in this case or you would not have taken the step; for it is entirely unnecessary and, as it seems to me, unjustifiable. Waiving all question of courtesy, 1 will say that the State of Illinois is not only able to take care of itself, but it stands ready to-day to furnish the Federal Government any assistance it may need elsewhere." This opening sentence was followed by a lengthy statement which so far missed actual conditions as to appear irrelevant and, in some parts, absolutely frivolous.
This remarkable despatch closed with the following words : "As Governor of the State of Illinois, I protest against this and ask the immediate withdrawal of Federal troops from active duty in this state. Should the situation at any time get so serious that we cannot control it with the state forces, we will promptly and freely ask for Federal assistance ; but until such time I protest with all due deference against this uncalled for reflection upon our people, and again ask for the immediate withdrawal of these troops."
Immediately upon the receipt of this communication, I sent to Governor Altgeld the following reply :
" Federal troops were sent to Chicago in strict accordance with the constitution and the laws of the United States, upon the demand of the Post-Office Department that obstructions of the mails should be removed, and upon the representation of the judicial officers of the United States that process of the Federal courts could not be executed through the ordinary means, and upon abundant proof that conspiracies existed against commerce betwen the states. To meet these conditions, which are clearly within the
[pgbrk] GROVER CLEVELAND
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province of Federal authority, the presence of Federal troops in the city of Chicago was deemed not only proper but necessary ; and there has been no intention of thereby interfering with the plain duty of the local authorities to preserve the peace of the city."
It became at once evident that the Governor was unwilling to allow the matter at issue between us to rest without a renewal of argument and protest. On the 7th day of July, the day after the date of my despatch, he addressed to me another long telegraphic communication, evidently intended to be more severely accusatory and insistent than its predecessor. Its general tenor may be inferred from the opening words :
" Your answer to my protest involves some startling conclusions, and ignores and evades the question at issue—that is, that the principle of local self-government is just as fundamental in our institutions as is that of Federal supremacy. You calmly assume that the executive has the legal right to order Federal troops into any community of the United States in the first instance, whenever there is the slightest disturbance, and that he can do this without any regard to the question as to whether the community is able to and ready to enforce the law itself."
After a rather dreary discussion of the importance of preserving the rights of the states and a presentation of the dangers to constitutional government that lurked in the course that had been pursued by the Government, this communication closed as follows :
"Inasmuch as the Federal troops can do nothing but what the state troops can do there, and believing that the state is amply able to take care of the situation and to enforce the law, and believing that the ordering out of the Federal troops was unwarranted, I again ask their withdrawal."
I confess that my patience was somewhat strained when I quickly sent the following despatch in reply to this communication :
Executive Mansion, Washington, D. C, July 6, 1894. While I am still persuaded that I have neither transcended my authority nor duty in the emergency that confronts us, it seems to me that in this hour of danger and public distress, discussion may well give way to active efforts on the part of all in authority to restore obedience to law and to protect life and property.
Grover Cleveland.
Hon. John P. Altgeld, Governor of Illinois.
This closed a discussion which in its net results demonstrated how far one's disposition and inclination will lead him astray in the field of argument.
I shall conclude the treatment of my subject by a brief reference to the legal proceedings which grew out of this disturbance, and finally led to an adjudication by the highest court in our land, establishing in an absolutely authoritative manner and for all time, the power of the National Government to protect itself in the exercise of its functions.
It will be recalled that in the course of our narrative we left Mr. Debs, the president of the Railway Union, and his three associates, in custody of the law, on the 17th day of July, awaiting an investigation of the charge of contempt of court made against them, based upon their disobedience of the writs of injunction forbidding them to do certain things in aid or encouragement of interference with mail transportation or interstate commerce.
Supreme Court Sustains the Government
This investigation was so long delayed that the decision of the Circuit Court, before which the proceedings were pending, was not rendered until the 14th day of December, 1894. On that date the court delivered an able and carefully considered decision finding Debs and his associates guilty of contempt of court, basing its decision upon the provisions of the law of Congress, passed in 1890, entitled : "An act to protect trade and commerce against unlawful restraint and monopolies;" sometimes called the Sherman Anti-Trust Law. Thereupon the parties were sentenced on said conviction to confinement in the county jail for terms varying from three to six months.
Afterwards and on the 14th day of January, 1895, the prisoners applied to the Supreme Court of the United States for a writ of habeas corpus to relieve them from imprisonment, on the ground that the facts found against them did not constitute disobedience to the writs of injunction and that their commitment in the manner and for the reasons alleged was without justification and not within the constitutional power and jurisdiction of the Circuit Court.
On this application the case was elaborately argued before the Supreme Court in March, 1895 ; and on the 27th day of May,
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1895, the court rendered its decision, upholding on the broadest grounds the proceedings of the Circuit Court and confirming its adjudication and the commitment to jail of the petitioners thereupon.
Justice Brewer, in delivering the unanimous opinion of the Supreme Court, stated the case as follows :
" The United States, finding that the interstate transportation of persons and property, as well as the carriage of mails, is forcibly obstructed and that a combination and conspiracy exists to subject the control of such transportation to the will of the conspirators, applied to one of their courts sitting as a court of equity, for an injunction to restrain such obstructions and prevent carrying into effect such conspiracy. Two questions of importance are presented : First, are the relations of the General Government to interstate commerce and the transportation of the mails, such as authorize a direct interference to prevent a forcible obstruction thereof ? Second, if authority exists—as authority in governmental affairs implies both power and duty —has a court of equity jurisdiction to issue an injunction in aid of the performance of such duty ?"
Both of these questions were answered by the court in the affirmative ; and in the opinion read by the learned justice, the inherent power of the Government to execute by means of physical force through its official agents, on every foot of American soil, the powers and functions belonging to it, was amply vindicated by a process of reasoning, simple, logical, unhampered by fanciful distinctions, and absolutely conclusive ; and the Government's resort to the court, the injunction issued in its aid, and all the proceedings thereon, including the imprisonment of Debs and his associates, were fully approved.
Thus the Supreme Court of the United States has written the concluding words of this history, tragical in many of its details, and in every line provoking sober reflection. As we gratefully turn its concluding page those most nearly related by executive responsibility to the troublous days whose story is told, may well congratulate themselves especially on their participation in marking out the way and clearing the path, now unchangeably established, which shall hereafter guide our nation safely and surely in the exercise of its functions, which represent the people's trust.
THE LAND OF HEART'S DESIRE
BY
MYRA KELLY
AUTHOR OF ''A LITTLE MATTER OF REAL ESTATE," ' ' H . R. H. THE PRINCE OF HESTER STREET." ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY ORSON LOWELL
SAAC BORRACHSOHN,that son of potentates and of Assemblymen, had been taken to Central Park by a proud uncle. For weeks thereafter he was the favorite bard of the First Reader Class and an exceeding great trouble to its sovereign, Miss Bailey, who found him now as garrulous as he had once been silent. There was no subject in the Course of Study
to which he could not correlate the wonders of his journey, and Teacher asked herself daily and in vain whether it were more peda-gogically correct to encourage "spontaneous self-expression" or to insist upon "logically essential sequence."
But the other members of the class suffered no such uncertainty. They voted solidly for spontaneity in a self which found expression thus :
[pgbrk] 'Who pays you the car-fare?'
" Und in the Central Park stands a water-lake, und in the water-lake stands birds—a big all of birds—und fishes. Und sooner you likes you should come over the water-lake you calls a bird, und you sets on the bird, und the bird makes go his legs, und you comes over the water-lake."
"They could to be awful polite birds," Eva Gonorowsky was beginning when Morris interrupted with :
" I had once a auntie und she had a bird, a awful polite bird ; on'y sooner somebody calls him he couldn't to come the while he sets in a cage."
"Did he have a rubber neck?" Isaac inquired, and Morris reluctantly admitted that he had not been so blessed.
"In the Central Park," Isaac went on, " all the birds is got rubber necks."
"What color from birds be they?" asked Eva.
"All colors. Blue und white und red und yellow."
" Und green," Patrick Brennan interjected determinedly. "The green ones is the best."
"Did you go once?" asked Isaac, slightly disconcerted.
"Naw, but I know. Me big brother told me."
"They could to be stylish birds, too," said Eva wistfully. "Stylish und polite. From red und green birds is awful stylish for hats."
" But these birds is big. Awful big ! Mans could to ride on 'em und ladies und boys."
"Und little girls, I key? Ain't they fer little girls ?" asked the only little girl in the group. And a very small girl she was, with a softly gentle voice and darkly gentle eyes fixed pleadingly now upon the bard.
"Yes," answered Isaac grudgingly; "sooner they sets by somebody's side little girls could to go. But sooner nobody holds them by the hand they could to have fraids over the rubber-neck-boat-birds und the water-lake, und the fishes."
"What kind from fishes?" demanded Morris Mogilewsky, monitor of Miss Bailey's gold fish bowl, with professional interest.
" From gold fishes und red fishes und black fishes"— Patrick stirred uneasily and Isaac
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remembered —"und green fishes ; the green ones is the biggest; und blue fishes und all kinds from fishes. They lives way down in the water the while they have fraids over the rubber-neck-boat-birds. Say—what you think ? Sooner a rubber-neck-boat-bird needs he should eat he longs down his neck und eats a from-gold fish."
"One penny was in her shoe"
"'Out fryin'?" asked Eva, with an incredulous shudder.
"Yes, 'out fryin'. Ain't I told you little girls could to have fraids over 'em ? Boys could to have fraids too," cried Isaac; and then spurred by the calm of his rival, he added: "The rubber-neck-boat-birds they hollers somethin' fierce."
"I wouldn't be afraid of them. Me pop's a cop," cried Patrick stoutly. "I'd just as lief set on'em. I'd like to."
"Ah, but you ain't seen 'em, und you ain't heard 'em holler," Isaac retorted.
"Well, I'm goin' to. An' I'mgoin' to see the lions an' the tigers an' the el'phants, an' I'm goin' to ride on the water-lake."
"Oh, how I likes I should go too! " Eva broke out. "O-o-oh, bow I likes I should look on them things ! On'y I don't know do I need a ride on somethings what hollers. I don't know be they fer me."
"Well, I'll take ye with me if your mother
leaves you go," said Patrick grandly. "An' ye can hold me hand if ye're scared."
"Me too?" implored Morris. "Oh, Patrick, c'n I go too ?"
" I guess so," answered the Leader of the Line graciously. But he turned a deaf ear to Isaac Borrachsohn's implorings to be allowed to join the party. Full well did
Patrick know of the grandeur of Isaac's holiday attire and the impressionable nature of Eva's soul, and gravely did he fear that his own Sunday finery, albeit fashioned from the blue cloth and brass buttons of his sire, might be outshone.
At Eva's earnest request, Sadie, her cousin, was invited, and Morris suggested that the Monitor of the Window Boxes should not be slighted by his colleagues of the gold fish and the line. So Nathan Spiderwitz was raised to Alpine heights of anticipation by visions of a window box "as big as blocks and streets," where every plant, in contrast to his lanky charges, bore innumerable blossoms. Ignatius Aloysius Diamantstein was unanimously nominated as a member of the expedition; by Patrick, because they were neighbors at St. Mary's Sunday-school; by Morris, because they were classmates under the same rabbi at the synagogue; by Nathan, because
[pgbrk] "thumped her right lustily on the hack"
Ignatius Aloysius was a member of the " Clinton Street gang"; by Sadie, because he had "long pants sailor suit " ; by Eva, because the others wanted him.
Eva reached home that afternoon tingling with anticipation and uncertainty. What if her mother, with one short word, should close forever the gates of joy and boat-birds? But Mrs. Gonorowsky met her small daughter's elaborate plea with the simple question :
"Who pays you the car-fare ?"
"Does it need car-fare to go?" faltered Eva.
"Sure does it," answered her mother. "I don't know how much, but some it needs. Who pays it ?"
" Patrick ain't said."
"Well, you should better ask him," Mrs. Gonorowsky advised, and, on the next morning, Eva did. She thereby buried the leader under the ruins of his fallen castle of clouds, but he struggled through them with the suggestion that each of his guests should be her, or his, own banker.
"But ain't you got no money 't all?" asked the guest of honor.
"Not a cent," responded the host. ''But I'll get it. How much have you?"
"A penny. How much do I need?"
" I don't know. Let's ask Miss Bailey."
School had not yet formally begun and Teacher was reading. She was hardly disturbed when the children drove sharp elbows into her shoulder and her lap, and she answered Eva's—"Missis Bailey—oh, Missis Bailey," with an abstracted—"Well, dear?"
"Missis Bailey, how much money takes car-fare to the Central Park ?"
Still with divided attention, Teacher replied—" Five cents, honey," and read on, while Patrick called a meeting of his forces and made embarrassing explanations with admirable tact.
There ensued weeks of struggle and economy for the exploring party, to which had been added a chaperon in the large and reassuring person of Becky Zalmonowsky, the class idiot. Sadie Gonorowsky's careful mother had considered Patrick too immature to bear the whole responsibility, and he, with a guile which promised well for his future, had complied with her desires and preserved his own authority unshaken. For Becky, poor child, though twelve years old and of an aspect eminently calculated to inspire trust in those who had never held speech with her, was a member of the First Reader Class only until such time as room could be found for her in some of the
[pgbrk] 'Words ensued which were not easily to he forgotten'
institutions where such unfortunates are bestowed.
Slowly and in diverse ways each of the children acquired the essential nickel. Some begged, some stole, some gambled, some bartered, some earned, but their greatest source of income, Miss Bailey, was denied to them. For Patrick knew that she would have insisted upon some really efficient guardian from a higher class, and he announced with much heat that he would not go at all under those circumstances.
At last the leader was called upon to set the day and appointed a Saturday in late May. He was disconcerted to find that only Ignatius Aloysius would travel on that day.
"It's holidays, all Saturdays," Morris explained; "und we dassent to ride on no cars."
"Why not ?" asked Patrick.
"It's law, the rabbi says," Nathan supplemented. " I don't know why is it; on'y rides on holidays ain't fer us."
" I guess," Eva sagely surmised ; " I guess rubber-neck-boat-birds rides even ain't fer us on holidays. But I don't know do I need rides on birds what hollers."
"You'll be all right," Patrick assured her. "I'm goin' to let ye hold me hand. If ye can't go on Saturday, I'll take ye on Sunday—next Sunday. Yous all must meet me here on the school steps. Bring yer money and bring yer lunch too. It's a long way and ye'll be hungry when ye get there. Ye get a terrible long ride for five cents."
" Does it take all that to get there ? " asked the practical Nathan. "Then how are we goin' to get back ?"
Poor little poet soul ! Celtic and improvident ! Patrick's visions had shown him only the triumphant arrival of his host and the beatific joy of Eva as she floated by his side on the most "fancy" of boat-birds. Of the return journey he had taken no thought. And so the saving and planning had to be done all over again. The struggle for the first nickel had been wearing and wearying, but the amassment of the second was beyond description difficult. The children were worn from long strife and many sacrifices, for the temptations to spend six or nine cents are so much more insistent and unusual than are yearnings to squander lesser sums. Almost daily some member of the band would confess a fall from grace and solvency, and almost daily Isaac Bor-rachsohn was called upon to descant anew upon the glories of the Central Park. Becky, the chaperon, was the most desultory collector of the party. Over and over she reached the proud heights of seven or even eight cents, only to lavish her hoard on the sticky joys of the candy cart of Isidore Belchatosky's papa or on the suddy charms of a strawberry soda.
Then tearfully would she repent of her folly, and bitterly would the others upbraid her, telling again of the joys and wonders she had squandered. Then loudly would she bewail her weakness and plead in
[pgbrk] MYRA KELLY
245
extenuation : " i seen the candy. Mouses from choc'late und Foxy Gran'pas from sugar —und I ain't never seen no Central Park."
"But don't you know how Isaac says?" Eva would urge. " Don't you know how all things what is nice fer us stands in the Central Park? Say, Isaac, you should better tell Becky, some more, how the Central Park stands."
And Isaac's tales grew daily more wild and independent of fact until the little girls quivered with yearning terror and the boys burnished up forgotten cap pistols. He told of lions, tigers, elephants, bears, and buffaloes, all of enormous size and strength of lung, so that before many days had passed he had debarred himself, by whole-hearted lying, from the very possibility of joining the expedition and seeing the disillusionment of his public. With true artistic spirit he omitted all mention of confining house or cage and bestowed the gift of speech upon all the characters, whether brute or human, in his epic. The merry-go-round he combined with the menagerie into a whole which was not to be resisted.
"Und all the am'blins," he informed his entranced listeners ; "they goes around, und around, und around, where music plays und flags is. Und I sets on a lion und he runs around, und runs around, und runs around. Say—what you think ? He had smiling looks und hair on the neck, und sooner he says like that 'I'm awful thirsty,' I gives him a peanut und I gets a golden ring."
"Where is it?" asked the jealous and incredulous Patrick.
"To my house." Isaac valiantly lied, for well he remembered the scene in which his scandalized but sympathetic uncle had discovered his attempt to purloin the brass ring which, with countless blackened duplicates, is plucked from a slot by the brandishing swords of the riders upon the merry-go-round. Truly, its possession had won him another ride—this time upon an elephant with upturned trunk and wide ears— but in his mind the return of that ring still rankled as the only grief in an otherwise perfect day.
Miss Bailey—ably assisted by AEsop, Rud-yard Kipling, and Thompson Seton—had prepared the First Reader Class to accept garrulous and benevolent lions, cows, panthers and elephants, and the exploring party's absolute credulity encouraged Isaac to higher and yet higher flights, until Becky was strengthened against temptation.
At last, on a Sunday in late June, the cavalcade in splendid raiment met on the wide steps, boarded a Grand Street car, and set out for Paradise. Some confusion occurred at the very beginning of things when Becky Zalmonowsky curtly refused to share her pennies with the conductor. When she was at last persuaded to yield, an embarrassing five minutes was consumed in searching for the required amount in the nooks and crannies of her costume where, for safekeeping, she had cached her fund. One
" 'High-stiffs und derbies is awful stylish'
[pgbrk] 246
THE LAND OF HEART'S DESIRE
penny was in her shoe, another in her stocking, two in the lining of her hat, and one in the large and dilapidated chatelaine bag which dangled at her knees.
Nathan Spiderwitz, who had preserved absolute silence, now contributed his fare, moist and warm, from his mouth, and Eva turned to him admonishingly.
"Ain't Teacher told you money in the mouth ain't healthy fer you ? " she sternly questioned, and Nathan, when he had removed other pennies, was able to answer :
"the vision which had lived in his hopes for now so many weeks"
" I washed 'em first—off." And they were indeed most brightly clean. "There's holes in me these here pockets," he explained, and promptly corked himself anew with currency.
"But they don't tastes nice, do they?" Morris remonstrated. Nathan shook a corroborative head. " Und," the Monitor of the Gold Fish further urged, "you could to swallow 'em und then you couldn't never to come by your house no more."
But Nathan was not to be dissuaded, even when the impressional and experimental Becky tried his storage system and suffered keen discomfort before her penny was restored to her by a resourceful fellow traveler who thumped her right lustily on the back
until her crowings ceased and the coin was once more in her hand.
At the meeting of Grand Street with the Bowery, wild confusion was made wilder by the addition of seven small persons armed with transfers and clamoring—all except Nathan—for Central Park. Two newsboys and a policeman bestowed them upon a Third Avenue car and all went well until Patrick missed his lunch and charged Ignatius Aloysius with its abstraction. Words ensued which were not easily to be forgotten
even when the refreshment was found—flat and horribly distorted—under the portly frame of the chaperon.
Jealousy may have played some part in the misunderstanding, for it was undeniable that there was a sprightliness, a joyant brightness, in the flowing red scarf on Ignatius Aloysius's nautical breast, which was nowhere paralleled in Patrick's more subdued array. And the tenth commandment seemed very arbitrary to Patrick, the star of St, Mary's Sunday-school, when he saw that the red silk was attracting nearly all the attention of his female contingent. If Eva admired flaunting ties it were well that she should say so now. There was yet time to spare himself the agony of riding on rubber-
[pgbrk] MYRA KELLY
247
neck-boat-birds with one whose interest wandered from brass buttons. Darkly Patrick scowled upon his unconscious rival, and guilefully he remarked to Eva :
"Red neckties is nice, don't you think?"
"Awful nice," Eva agreed; "but they ain't so stylish like high-stiffs. High-stiffs und derbies is awful stylish."
Gloom and darkness vanished from the heart and countenance of the Knight of Munster, for around his neck he wore, with suppressed agony, the highest and stiffest of "high-stiffs" and his brows—and the back of his neck—were encircled by his big brother's work-a-day derby. Again he saw and described to Eva the vision which had lived in his hopes for now so many weeks : against a background of teeming jungle, mysterious and alive with wild beasts, an amiable boat-bird floated on the water-lake: and upon the boat-bird, trembling but reassured, sat Eva Gonorowsky, hand in hand with her brass-buttoned protector.
As the car sped up the Bowery the children felt that they were indeed adventurers. The clattering Elevated trains overhead, the crowds of brightly decked Sunday strollers, the clanging trolley cars, and the glimpses they caught of shining green as they passed the streets leading to the smaller squares and parks, all contributed to the holiday upliftedness which swelled their unaccustomed hearts. At each vista of green they made ready to disembark and were restrained only by the conductor and by the sage council of Eva, who reminded her impulsive companions that the Central Park could be readily identified by "the hollers from all those things what hollers." And so, in happy watching and calm trust of the conductor, they were borne far beyond 59th Street, the first and most popular entrance to the park, before an interested passenger came to their rescue. They tumbled off the car and pressed towards the gre:n only to find themselves shut out by a high stone wall, against which they crouched and listened in vain for identifying hollers. The silence began to frighten them, when suddenly the quiet air was shattered by a shriek which would have done credit to the biggest of boat-birds or of lions, but which was—the children discovered after a moment's panic—only the prelude to an outburst of grief on the chaperon's part. When the inarticulate stage of her sorrow was passed, she demanded instant speech
"It was at last recovered"
with her mamma. She would seem to have expressed a sentiment common to the majority, for three heads in Spring finery leaned dejectedly against the stone barrier while Nathan removed his car-fare to contribute the remark that he was growing hungry. Patrick was forced to seek aid in the passing crowd on Fifth Avenue, and in response to his pleading eyes and the depression of his party, a lady of gentle aspect and "kind looks" stopped and spoke to them.
" Indeed, yes," she reassured them ; "this is Central Park."
"It has looks off the country," Eva commented.
" Because it is a piece of the country," the lady explained.
" Then we dassent to go, the while we ain't none of us got no sickness," cried Eva forlornly. "We're all, all healthy, und the country is for sick childrens."
" I am glad you are well," said the lady kindly ; "but you may certainly play in the park. It is meant for all little children. The gate is near, just walk on near this wall until you come to it."
It was only a few blocks, and they were soon in the land of their hearts' desire, where were waving trees and flowering shrubs and smoothly sloping lawns, and, framed in all these wonders, a beautiful little water-lake all dotted and brightened by fleets of tiny boats. The pilgrims from the East Side stood for a moment at gaze and then bore down upon the jewel, straight
[pgbrk] 248
THE LAND OF HEART'S DESIRE
over grass and border, which is a course not lightly to be followed within park precincts and in view of park policemen. The ensuing reprimand dashed their spirits not at all and they were soon assembled close to the margin of the lake, where they got entangled in guiding strings and drew to shore many a craft, to the disgust of many a small owner. Becky Zalmonowsky stood so closely over the lake that she shed the chatelaine bag into its shallow depths and did irreparable damage to her gala costume in her attempts to "dibble" for her property. It was at last recovered, no wetter than the toilette it was intended to adorn, and the cousins Gonorowsky had much difficulty in balking Becky's determination to remove her gown and dry it then and there.
Then Ignatius Aloysius, the exacting, remembered garrulously that he had as yet seen nothing of the rubber-neck-boat-birds and suggested that they were even now graciously "hollering like an'thing" in some remote fastness of the park. So Patrick gave commands and the march was resumed with bliss now beaming on all the faces so lately clouded. Every turn of the endless walks brought new wonders to these little ones who were gazing for the first time upon the great world of growing things of
which Miss Bailey had so often told them. The policeman's warning had been explicit and they followed decorously in the paths and picked none of the flowers which, as Eva had heard of old, were sticking right up out of the ground. But other flowers there were dangling high or low on tree or shrub, while here and there across the grass a bird came hopping or a squirrel ran. But the pilgrims never swerved. Full well they knew that these delights were not for such as they.
It was, therefore, with surprise and concern that they at last debouched upon a wide green space where a flag waved at the top of a towering pole; for, behold, the grass was covered thick with children, with here and there a beneficent policeman looking serenely on.
" Dast we walk on it?" cried Morris. "Oh, Patrick, dast we?"
"Ask the cop," Nathan suggested. It was his first speech for an hour, for Becky's misadventure with the chatelaine bag and the water-lake had made him more than ever sure that his own method of safe-keeping was the best.
"Ask him yerself," retorted Patrick. He had quite intended to accost a large policeman, who would of course recognize and
"Every turn of the endless walks brought new wonders "
[pgbrk] Becky . . . waved her still damp shoes exultantly'
revere the buttons of Mr. Brennan p'ere, but a commander cannot well accept the advice of his subordinates. But Nathan was once more beyond the power of speech, and it was Morris Mogilewsky who asked for and obtained permission to walk on God's green earth. With little spurts of running and tentative jumps to test its spring, they crossed Peacock Lawn to the grateful shade of the trees at its further edge and there disposed themselves upon the ground and ate their luncheon. Nathan Spiderwitz waited until Sadie had finished and then entrusted the five gleaming pennies to her care while he wildly bolted an appetizing combination of dark brown bread and uncooked eel.
Becky reposed flat upon the chatelaine bag and waved her still damp shoes exultantly. Eva lay, face downward beside her, and peered wonderingly deep into the roots of things.
"Don't it smells nice!" she gloated. "Don't it looks nice ! My, ain't we havin' the party-time !"
"Don't mention it," said Patrick, in careful imitation of his mother's hostess manner. "I'm pleased to see you, I'm sure."
"The Central Park is awful pretty," Sadie soliloquized as she lay on her back and watched the waving branches and blue sky far above. "Awful pretty ! I likes we should live here all the time."
"Well," began Ignatius Aloysius Diamant-stein, in slight disparagement of his rival's powers as a cicerone ; "well, I ain't seen no lions, nor no rubber-neck-boat-birds. Und we ain't had no rides on nothings. Und I ain't heard no hollers neither."
As if in answer to this criticism there arose, upon the road beyond the trees, a snorting, panting noise, growing momentarily louder and culminating, just as East Side nerves were strained to breaking point, in a long
[pgbrk] 250
THE LAND OF HEART'S DESIRE
hoarse and terrifying yell. There was a flash of red, a cloud of dust, three other toots of agony, and the thing was gone. Gone, too, were the explorers and gone their peaceful rest. To a distant end of the field they flew, led by the panic-stricken chaperon, and followed by Eva and Patrick, hand in hand, he making show of a bravery he was far from feeling, and she frankly terrified. In a secluded corner, near the restaurant, the chaperon was run to earth by her breathless charges.
"I seen the lion," she panted over and over. " I seen the fierce, big red lion, und I don't know where is my mamma."
Patrick saw that one of the attractions had failed to attract, so he tried another.
"Let's go an' see the cows," he proposed. "Don't you know the po'try piece Miss Bailey learned us about cows?"
Again the emotional chaperon interrup ted. "I'm loving much mit Miss Bailey,
too," she wailed. " Und I don't know where is she neither." But the pride of learning upheld the others and they chanted in singsong chorus, swaying rhythmically the while from leg to leg :
" The friendly cow all red and white,
I love with all my heart: She gives me cream with all her might,
To eat with apple-tart Robert Louis Stevenson."
Becky's tears ceased. " Be there cows in the Central Park ?" she demanded.
"Sure," said Patrick.
"Und what kind from cream will he give us ? Ice cream ?"
"Sure," said Patrick again.
" Let's go," cried the emotional chaperon. A passing stranger turned the band in the general direction of the menagerie and the
reality of the cow brought the whole "memory gem" into strange and undreamed reality.
Gaily they set out through new and always beautiful ways ; through tunnels where
[pgbrk] MYRA KELLY
251
feet and voices rang with ghostly boomings most pleasant to the ear; over bridges whence they saw—in partial proof of Isaac Borrachsohn's veracity—" mans und ladies
" the army charged towards bliss unutterable "
ridin'." Of a surety they rode nothing more exciting than horses, but that was, to East Side eyes, an unaccustomed sight, and Eva opined that it was owing, probably, to the shortness of their watch that they saw no lions and tigers similarly amiable. The cows, too, seemed far to,seek, but the trees and grass and flowers were everywhere. Through long stretches of "for sure country" they picked their way, until they came, hot but happy, to a green and shady summer-house on a hill. There they halted to rest, and there Ignatius Aloysius, with questionable delicacy, began to insist once more upon the full measure of his bond.
"We ain't seen the rubber-neck-boat-birds," he complained. "Und we ain't had no rides on nothings."
"You don't know what is polite," cried Eva, greatly shocked at this carping spirit in the presence of a hard-worked host. "You could to think shame over how you says somethings like that on a party."
"This ain't no party," Ignatius Aloysius retorted. "It's a 'scursion. To a party
somebody gives you what you should eat; to a 'scursion you brings it. Und, anyway, we ain't had no rides."
" But we heard a holler," the guest of
honor reminded him. ''We heard a fierce, big holler from a lion. I don't know do I need a ride on something what hollers. I could to have a fraid maybe."
"Ye wouldn't be afraid on the boats when I hold yer hand, would ye?" Patrick anxiously inquired, and Eva shyly admitted that, thus supported, she might be undismayed. To work off the pride and joy caused by this avowal, Patrick mounted the broad seat extending all around the summer-house and began to walk clatter-ingly upon it. The other pilgrims followed suit and the whole party stamped and danced with infinite enjoyment. Suddenly the leader halted with a loud cry of triumph and pointed grandly out through one of the wistaria-hung openings. Not De Soto on the banks of the Mississippi nor Balboa above the Pacific could have felt more victorious than Patrick did as he announced :
"There's the water-lake !" His followers closed in upon him so impetuously that he was borne down under their charge and fell ignominiously out on the grass. But he was hardly missed ; he had served his purpose. For there, beyond the rocks and lawns and red japonicas, lay the blue and shining water-lake in its confining banks of green. And upon its softly
[pgbrk] 252
THE LAND OF HEART'S DESIRE
quivering surface floated the rubber-neck-boat-birds, white and sweetly silent instead of red and screaming—and the superlative length and arched beauty of their necks surpassed the wildest of I key Borrachsohn's descriptions. And relying upon the strength and politeness of these wondrous birds there were indeed "mans und ladies und boys und little girls" embarking, disembarking, and placidly weaving in and out and round about through scenes of hidden but undoubted beauty.
Over rocks and grass the army charged towards bliss unutterable, strewing their path with overturned and howling babies of prosperity who, clumsy from many nurses and much pampering, failed to make way. Past all barriers, accidental or official, they pressed, nor halted to draw rein or breath until they were established, beatified, upon the waiting swan-boat.
Three minutes later they were standing outside the railings of the landing and regarding, through welling tears, the placid lake, the sunny slopes of grass and tree, the brilliant sky and the gleaming rubber-neck-boat-bird which, as Ikey described, "made go its legs," but only, as he had omitted to mention, for money. So there they stood,
seven sorrowful little figures engulfed in the rayless despair of childhood and the bitterness of poverty. For these were the children of the poor, and full well they knew that money was not to be diverted from its mission : that car-fare could not be squandered on bliss.
Becky's woe was so strong and loud that the bitter wailings of the others served merely as its background. But Patrick cared not at all for the general despair. His remorseful eyes never strayed from the bowed figure of Eva Gonorowsky, for whose pleasure and honor he had striven so long and vainly. Slowly she conquered her sobs, slowly she raised her daisy-decked head, deliberately she blew her small pink nose, softly she approached her conquered knight, gently and all untruthfully she faltered, with yearning eyes on the majestic swans :
" Don't you have no sad feelings, Patrick. I ain't got none. Ain't I told you from long, how I don't need no rubber-neck-boat-bird rides ? I don't need 'em ! I don't need 'em! I"—with a sob of passionate longing—"I'm got all times a awful scare over 'em. Let's go home, Patrick. Becky needs she should see her mamma, und I guess I needs my mamma too."
[pgbrk] " 'We thought p'raps yuh'd like some choc'lates
LARKIN
BY
HARVEY J. O'HIGGINS
ILLUSTRATED BY MARTIN JUSTICE
I
T was after nightfall in that part of New York which is, to the rest of the city, the top story of the house—where the servants sleep. And now, when the business district of the
lower town was as dark as a deserted basement, the lights were lit in all these shining windows; and behind the drawn blinds, clerks and bookkeepers, shop-girls and working-women laughed and chatted in their tiny
cells and cubicles. Their rooms were piled up, in layer on layer, to form continuous blocks of houses ; and these rose from the unbroken pavements with an appearance of standing ankle deep in a pool of frozen stone —as if an inundation of fluid rock had hardened evenly over the streets and buried every inequality of the green sod and brown soil of a suburb under a barren crust of asphalt and cement.
Up one of the bare gorges of brick and
[pgbrk] 'I'll bet no one'll come now I'm ready for them'
pavement, Larkin struggled against all the winds of December that fought and jostled him, beating down the flickering gas-lights until they gasped behind their rattling lamp-glasses, and puffing stiff blasts along the sidewalk to sweep the stones as clean as ice. Bending forward, with his chin in his collar and his shoulders hunched about his neck, he looked as if the violence of the wind had pounded his head into his body and crushed his stiff derby down on his ears. He had one hand thrust into the breast of his over-
coat at the aperture of a missing button and his elbows were pressed in against his sides ; so that he seemed to be hugging himself against the cold, shrunken in on himself in an unwilling and shivering discorrfort.
And yet, when he stopped in the light of a hall-lamp to look up at the number on the door, a package showed in the crook of his elbow to explain his posture, and about the wrappings of that package there shone the gilt twine of the bonbon counter. His lips were contracted with the cold as if to the
[pgbrk] HARVEY J. O'HIGGINS
255
pucker of a whistle, and his simple face, glowing with the nip of the wind, Was the sort from which an always cheerful melody might be expected continuously to pipe.
He came up the steps to pick out the name of "Connors" over an electric bell, and he pressed the button heavily with the flat of his thumb. The door-lock clicked. He wiped his feet on the mat for a moment of hesitation, and then blew apologetically into the thumb-crotch of a closed fist as he entered ; but these were the only signs of any inward agitation at the prospect of making a social call, uninvited, on a girl who did not know his name, and who might possibly not even remember his face.
A little old woman in a shawl was waiting for him in a doorway on the second landing. He asked cautiously, from the top step : " 'S Miss Connors live here?"
"She does." She peered out to see that he was a stranger. "I'll tell her." She disappeared.
He prepared to wait at the door, but she came back at once, in a flutter, to invite him into the parlor. She asked him, with an apologetic warmth, to be seated. He nodded but he did not speak.
He put his box of candies on the center-table and covered it with his hat. There was a pink plush photograph album under his hand, with a scroll of gilt lettering on the cover, and he stood tracing out the design on it, with a fascinated forefinger,, until he heard a swish of skirts and a patter of quick steps in the adjoining room. He looked up to see the girl stop short between the gaudy hangings of the doorway. Her lips—that had been ready in a little simper of welcome —parted in a gape of surprise ; her hands— that had been smoothing the shoulders of her pink-beribboned dressing jacket— caught at the curtains, and she remained held there, as if she did not intend to enter until he had explained himself.
She was a small girl, with a head of coquet-
" 'Don't mind Maggie now. It's the way with the girls'
[pgbrk] "he found the parlor door unlatched and the room filled with women"
tish black hair, and she wore one artful ringlet hanging down in the middle of her forehead with the air of a stage soubrette. He fastened his gaze on it while he spoke.
"We heard't yuh were sick—from one o' the girls," he said huskily. " I was—I was goin' past here, an' 1 thought I'd drop in an' see how yuh were comin' on."
"Oh !" she said, with an affectation of recognizing him for the first time; "you're Mister Rattray's frien'?"
He nodded. "Pipp was astin' about yuh
from the red-headed girl. We been goin' to your place at the lunch counter right along."
"Have yuh?" she laughed, dropping her hands.
He nodded. "We thought p'raps yuh'd like some choc'lates." He lifted his hat to uncover the candy box.
From the way he did it, it was plain how much he had counted on the effect. She laughed. "Oh—oh, thanks," she said, and came in to take the box from him. She
[pgbrk] HARVEY J. O'HIGGINS
257
had a kitchen pallor, but a spot of color began to blush out, like rouge, on either cheek-bone.
II
As soon as she had relieved him of the package, he backed away from her and took refuge in a chair, sitting down in his overcoat, with his hat in his hands. His nose was still red with cold but he looked warm and uncomfortable.
"Won't yuh take off yer things?" she asked, in the voice of social politeness, from a flat palate, somewhat through the nose.
He shook his head. " I jus' dropped in to see how yuh were." He looked around the room in a manner of being very much at his ease.
"Oh, I'm pretty well, I guess," she said, with a nervous laugh that was followed by a fit of coughing. She sat'down with the box in her lap and began to open it.
He frowned at the cough. "That's right," he said at last. "Yuh don't want to go back too soon after the grip."
" I guess mine was nemmonia, too," she replied, with an air of pride in it. "The doctor says my lungs ain't strong."
He nodded at a crayon portrait of Mrs. Connors on the far wall. " That's what they tol' us."
There was an awkward pause in the conversation until she said "They're fi-i-ne!" bending over the candies. "Won't yuh try one ?"
She held out the box to him and he reached across the intervening space to take a chocolate drop. He put it whole into his mouth, and rolled it over into the pouch of his cheek in a way which made it plain to her that he had not eaten candies since the days when he had sucked " penny lasters."
She nibbled a chocolate with a superlative daintiness and watched him.
He was staring solemnly at the wall. " I'm over in Bowler's," he said. "Pipp's in the Pennsylvania offices."
"Oh?"
" We ust to go to school together up home. I came down to N'York with him." "Did yuh?"
"Yeo." He nodded, sucking on the bufge in his cheek. "We sort o' ran away. I've known Pipp ever since he was about so high." He held his hat out on a level with
his shoulder and smiled askew, around the chocolate.
"Where'd yuh ust to live?" she asked politely.
He named the little town up state. He had driven his father's bakery wagon after school hours there, and " Pipp," who was the doctor's son, had ridden with him "for the fun of it."
There was a look in his eyes which she did not understand. It came with the memory ¦of those sleepy afternoons in the wagon—the smell of fresh bread always sweet on its worn shelves that were as clean and as warm as a baker's oven—the sun beating down on its heat-cracked top, and the yellowish-white nag, that knew its round of customers as well as he did, tacking from side to side of the road, unguided.
His whole manner puzzled her ; and it was not to be the last time he was to leave her at a loss. He had one of those minds which seem to make stolid night marches and to arrive unexpectedly at the strangest conclusions without at all sharing the surprise which they cause.
He groped in his overcoat pocket to draw out a yellowed photograph of his father's bake-shop, taken by some travelling photographer who made a specialty of "commercial business." In the doorway, Larkin was posed between his parents, in a pair of knickerbockers that came to the calves of his legs, and he had an air of acknowledging that though his father was the original owner of the trousers, his mother had made them over for him.
Miss Connors did not smile when he explained that his mother looked sleepy because she always sat up until the small hours of the morning to call the bakers to their work.
He had also a tintype of " Pipp " and himself, grinning self-consciously in the gummy smile of youth. " He's pretty smart—Pipp," he said admiringly. "We ust to be in the same class at school, but he got away ahead of me."
"He's a jollier, ain't he?" she said, in the same tone.
"Sure," he laughed. "He was jollyin' the red-headed girl to-day. He's more fun'n enough."
She straightened back from the photograph with a change of face.
" I don't see such a much of him now," he went on innocently; "'cept at twelve.
[pgbrk] 258
LARKIN
He's mighty pop'lar, I guess. He has to go out 'bout ev'ry night."
He turned the tintype over in his hand and sat looking at the blank back of it. She was studying him.
" D'yuh board together?" she asked suddenly.
He shook his head. " Pipp's moved downtown." He put the pictures back in his pocket and sat leaning forward with his forearms on his knees, looking down at his hat on the floor. "N'York's a big place," he said.
She smiled the smile of understanding. "It's pretty lonely, too, ain't it? Won't yuh take off yer coat ?"
He got up very red and confused. " I guess I better be goin'," he said. " I—I jus' dropped in—to see how yuh were." He evaded her eyes by looking into his hat, and while she was still stammering an attempt to put him at his ease again, he edged to the door and slipped out. She followed him. " I hope yuh'll come up again, Mr.-"
He did not give her his name. He stumbled down the stairs.
"Well, good-night," she said reproachfully.
"Good-night, good-night," he answered from the lower landing.
She went back into the room and took a candy from the box and smiled as she crunched it. When her mother came in she bent down hastily to pick up the paper and gilt twine from the floor.
"Who was it ?" Mrs. Connors asked.
"Oh, jus' a frien' of a fellah in the Pennsylvania offices," she said. " He sent me up some candy."
Ill
She spent the greater part of the following day sitting at the closed window, wrapped in a shawl, the curl on her forehead done up in a twist of paper.
" I'm awful busy," she said to her mother, as she hurried back to her post of observation after dinner. "I'm movin' in across the road."
She nibbled chocolates. She sat and frowned or sat and smiled. Once, her mother, who was working over the laundry tubs, heard her singing and peeped in, to see her dusting the room. And when night fell she dressed in her black lace gown that had no collar and put a huge butterfly bow of black velvet in her hair.
"I'll bet no one'll come, now I'm ready for them," she said humorously. "They'd sooner catch me when I'm lookin' a sight."
Larkin, however, came on the stroke of eight, and was so cordially received that his apologetic smile changed to one of flattered bashfulness at once. He was, in fact, so dazzled that he forgot, for the moment, to explain the parcel which he had brought under his arm.
He did not remember it until after he was sitting down. " 1 thought I'd better run up with it t'-night," he explained then. "She's got to have it back Saturday—a girl at the house. She said she liked it. My name's Larkin."
It proved to be a circulating library novel, "Wedded and Won," which he had borrowed from some one in his boarding-house.
"Oh !—oh, thanks!" she said. "I'm awful fond of readin', ain't you ?"
He laughed unexpectedly. "Well, I ain't such a much. I saw some books over on Third Avenoo't we ust to read in the barn, one day, an' got two o' them, but I didn't get through the first."
"Didn't yuh?" She smiled at his sudden volubility.
"No. We ust to have great times in the hay loft. They cost five cents each—about Jesse James an' the Indians. We ust to borr' an' lend them—until Buttony Clark joined the Y. M. C. A. He borr'd them all without tellin' us he was burnin' them. What sort d' you like ? "
"Oh, any sort," she said gaily, "as long's it's a love story. I guess you men don't read love stories much." He shook his head uncertainly and then he smiled a broad grin. She turned the pages of the book. " Except when yuh want to jolly us along," she added.
He hitched up his shoulder and looked troubled.
" I don't know but what yuh look up a few pointers then," she said, and glanced up archly at him.
He shifted uneasily. "Pipp," he began ; "he-'
"Oh, him," she stopped him. "I guess he don't do all the jollyin'. That's a game fer two." She leaned back and laughed rather harshly. " I guess you haven't been readin' any of them lately, anyways."
"No—o," he said, without understanding her.
She bent down over the book again so that [pgbrk]
HARVEY J. O'HIGGINS
259
he could not see her face. " P'raps if yuh'd ever been in love, yuh would."
He was not so stupid that he could not see she was laughing at him. He did not answer.
"Haven't yuh never been ?" He squirmed and blushed. " Because," she went on, without looking up, " I want to know if they do it right in the books."
He rose slowly. " She wants it back Saturday," he said. " I had better come fer it on-"
She dropped the book. "Yuh're not goin ?" she cried.
He started towards the door. She sprang up and got in front of him. "Now, you go away back there an' sit down," she ordered. " I ain't said anythin' to fly off the handle at like that. Go on, now. I won't let yuh go. Go on back an' sit down."
He did so shamefacedly.
"Great sakes," she said; "you're as touchy as anythin'."
He had been looking at her feet. He raised his eyes to hers now, humbly and apologetically, but with another expression too—as dumb as the look of a dog—that struck her pale. It was a glance that did not last a second. It was followed by a long silence, during which she sat, breathing quickly, the blood burning in her cheeks, her eyes fixed on him in a stare that slowly changed from an expression of surprise that was almost stupefaction to one of wonder and compassion that was not unmixed with shame.
"I guess it's kind o' cold out, ain't it?" she said at last. " I wish't'd hurry up an' get warm again."
He replied hoarsely that he did not mind the cold ; and the rest of the evening passed in a constrained conversation, chiefly about his work in the wholesale house and hers at the "lunch counter." When he rose to leave her she did not meet his eyes.
She hurried off to bed on the plea that she was tired. Her mother heard her coughing wakefully far into the night.
IV
It was almost nine o'clock before he arrived on the following evening, and he was received by Mrs. Connors with a suspicious manner that thawed as soon as she saw how he took to heart the news that "Maggie" had been worse all day and had gone to bed.
"Ain't she gettin' better?" he whispered.
Her under lip trembled ; her little sunken eyes filled. She shook her head.
He took a bag of peanuts from his pocket and laid them on the table dejectedly. " Ain't she any better ? "
"Not a bit," she said, under her voice. "Not a bit. An' I've had the doctor ev'ry blessed day, an' drugs, an' dainties that's eat up the little bit I'd put by for us—ev'ry cent of it. I'm at my wits' ends. I am that."
She began to pour out all the anxieties which she had been restraining for months. He listened, blinking at the bag of peanuts.
"Thank God, 1 got my own health, but I'm gettin' old. I'm not good fer much. Our frien's's all got troubles of their own, Heavens knows—poor souls. It's a bad way we'll be in if Maggie's never to get strong again. A bad way." She sat down and knotted her hard old hands together in her lap. "An' her such a bright girl—poor child."
She sighed and shook her head. He turned his hat over in his hands and studied it. There was a miserable silence.
"How d'yuh do, Mr. Larkin," a voice chirruped from the door. He started at the sight of her peeping around the hanging at him. She laughed. "Yuh're gettin' so fash'nable, I thought yuh weren't comin'."
" I was huntin' fer some peanuts," he confessed with his usual simplicity. " I couldn't find a peddler."
"Peanuts!" she cried. "Wait'll I get my wrapper on."
He turned to smile at Mrs. Connors.
"They'll do her no hurt anyways," she conceded. " I wish't was port wine, poor girl."
It was port wine, the next time he appeared ; it was also calves'-foot jelly. And though Miss Connors made merry over them, her mother was visibly won. She relieved him of his hat and made him take off his overcoat. And having intervened to save him from her daughter's teasings several times throughout the evening, she parted from him with reluctance at half-past ten and scolded the girl to bed.
"There's not many boys in Noo York like him," she said; "more's the pity. He's-"
"He's as slow as mud."
"What of it?" she cried. "It's the mud that sticks to yeh. He's no fly-away, anyways. He's a good boy. He is now.
[pgbrk] 260
LARKIN
Y'ought to take shame to yerself to be bait-in' him so. Yer own father was as like him as ever was, an' he made as steady a man as any girl'd want. Mind yeh that."
''All right, 'mither,'" she laughed. "Let me go to sleep. I'll marry him in the mor-nin'."
" You might do worse." " I might do better."
Thereafter, if Larkin made no great progress with Miss Connors, he received every encouragement from her mother. She sent him one night to get a prescription filled at the drug store, and even allowed him to pay for the medicine when he insisted that he should—without letting "Maggie" know. Once having obtained that privilege, he made it a permanent one ; and from this beginning he insinuated his aid into the payment of some of the other household expenses, brought Mrs. Conriors presents of tea and sugar, and finally slipped a part of his pay-day riches into her hand—when she was bidding him good-r.ight in the hall— "fer the doctor's bill."
"God bless yeh, boy," she whispered tearfully. "Don't mind Maggie now. It's the way with the girls. "She'll marry yeh when the time comes. Don't doubt it."
He fled down the stairs in such blind haste that he almost fell on the landing, but when he reached the sidewalk he stopped to turn up the collar of his overcoat and solemnly shook his head before he went on again.
V
Though he came every evening—and even accepted an invitation to supper Sunday afternoon—he had never much to say for himself. Mrs. Connors received him at the door, maternally, and made herself busy about him, and followed him down the hall to the kitchen. Her daughter, propped up among the pillows in an arm-chair by the stove, greeted him with a flippant "Hello, Mike !" although she knew his name was Tom. He would grin and reply, respectfully : " How're yuh feelin' ?"
"Oh, great !" she would say sarcastically. "Don't 1 look it?"
She was, in fact, pathetically thin and faded.
"That's right," he would insist. " I guess we'll have't warm pretty soon now."
He would sit down at the opposite side of the room and smile and listen and watch
her. She had given up teasing him about coming; she accepted him as one of the family and chatted with her mother about their neighbors and their household affairs without making any change of topic when he came in.
When she was too weak to leave her room she called out "Hello, Mike !" as he passed her door. And when she was at last steadily confined to her bed, she had the cot moved into the kitchen to be in the warmest room in the flat, and she received him there with a smile, even when her voice was too faint to raise her greeting above a whisper. She had apparently accepted their sturdy assurance that she would get well with the warmer weather, and their evenings were as pleasant together as if they all believed that the impossible could happen and were resolved not to worry meanwhile.
He had been given her keys to the flat, so that he might not disturb her by ringing the bell if she were sleeping when he came of an evening. One Saturday night when he arrived he found the parlor door unlatched and the room filled with women, talking in subdued tones. None of them knew him and they all stared when he looked in. Some one was sobbing in the next room. Through the hangings he saw a priest.
He shut the door again, tiptoed heavily down-stairs to the street, and stood on the front steps until a policeman, who was watching him, came up to speak to him. He wandered off aimlessly without answering.
He passed and repassed the door several times in the night. At daybreak he saw the black streamer on the door-jamb and turned home, and as he went slowly around the corner, in the silence of the Sunday morning, an undertaker's wagon came drumming hollowly over the paving-stones.
"Ah, don't lea' me, lad," Mrs. Connors pleaded. "Sure, if Maggie'd lived, yeh'd 'a' been my son, Tom. 'Tell'm I'd 'a' married him,' she said. 'Say good-by to Mike,'she said, callin' yeh Mike that way. 'An' tell'm I'd 'a' married him,' she said."
Larkin shook his head. He knew better.
However, he did not go back to his boarding-house. He sat in his old place in the kitchen until she made up a bed for him in the room that was now to spare. And when Mrs. Connors had gone plaintively to bed, he dampered the stove, tried the lock of the window that opened on the fire-escape, and
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took up the oil lamp which she used to save gas in the kitchen.
He stood a long time gazing at the light in his hand, swaying a little, his lips twitching. He went up the hall to the door of the
room and stood there, hanging his head. He blew out the light. In the darkness, he tapped on the panel and whispered— hoarsely, apologetically : " Maggie ?"
THE HOUSE OF FULFILMENT
BY
GEORGE MADDEN MARTIN
AUTHOR OF "EMMY LOU: HER BOOK AND HEART"
PART I I—CHAPTER IV
AUSTEN BLAIR and his niece lived on in the big house upon terms precise and formal.
Alexina wondered if her uncle were not different from other people, for it must be the abnormal human who would not ask one question about his sister; mere curiosity must have demanded that much, Alexina thought, having a lively curiosity herself. To be sure, Aunt Harriet, from Uncle Austen's standpoint, had outraged every convention to which they had been bred; she had married a man between whom and her family there had been bitterest enmity, between whom and her brother there had been personal encounter ; she had gone from her brother's roof to be married in a Catholic institution, by a Catholic priest.
It almost made Alexina laugh when she summed up the enormity of the offending. She gloried in it herself; she adored Aunt Harriet and loved her for it.
But the fact that her uncle could thus ignore the whole subject made it harder for Alexina to go to him about a matter which had arisen concerning herself.
A letter had come to her from her mother. Though it was eleven years since she had seen the handwriting, she knew it, as Katy, bringing the mail, handed it to her.
It seemed to Alexina that her pulses stopped and the tide of her blood flowed backward. Katy, closing the door as she went, brought her to herself, and she flung
the letter from her the width of the room. Her gaze followed it.
She sat like one stunned with horror. Then rage succeeded. "What right had this — this so-called mother to write to her ? "
But she need not read it, and Alexina sprang up and went about her household duties, as if in interviews with grocery man and butcher, with cook and laundress, she could forget that her mother had written her, that the letter lay up-stairs awaiting her.
She would not read it, she assured herself; but all the while she knew that she would, andwhenthe timecame she opened it quietly and read it through. Then she put it in its envelope and threw it from her again across the room, and sat immovable, the lines of her young face setting as though by some steeling process. Suddenly she caught sight of her face in the glass. On it was the look of Uncle Austen.
She sprang up and, dragging forth her cloak and hat and furs, fled from the house. She must turn to some one, she must get away from the horror that was upon her. She would go to Aunt Harriet.
It was a frosty day and a light .'all of snow was on the pavements. She met Dr. Ran-some and Emily Carringford strolling along as though it were summer. She had introduced him to Emily, and one would say she had done him a good turn. She smiled as they called to her from across the street. He admired Emily and it looked as if Emily —
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but then Emily sparkled and glowed for any man, even for Uncle Austen.
She saw Georgy wave his hat gayly from the platform of astreet-car andlookas though he meant to swing off and join her. She was seeing a good deal of him these days. She shook her head and pointed with her muff, and a momentlater turnedinat the Infirmary gate. She had walked rapidly and felt better somehow. The Major was daily growing stronger though the fear was that he might never walk again, but, rather than accept this verdict, he and Aunt Harriet were going East for advice or, if need be, to Paris.
Paris! The horror surged back upon her. She stopped short in her very turning to close the gate and stood engrossed with the misery of it, for it was from Paris her mother had written to say she was coming to her.
" I have reached the end of my money, ma chere," she wrote, "as you come into yours, which Austen, being a Blair, will have cared for. I will teach you to love life, now that you are grown. When you were a child you were impossible ; you disconcerted and judged me, but it is unfair to let you taste life according to Blair seasoning only. So write me, ma fille, mon enfant, of your whereabouts, in the care of your Uncle Randolph in Washington, for I follow this steamer across."
And then, as though her mood had changed : "In any case, I shall not trouble you long. It is my lungs, they tell me. It is a curious sensation, may you never know it, having your furniture seized. Le bon Dieu and Celeste have stood between me and much."
Celeste! Tall, gaunt, and taciturn — negro mammy to Alexina and to Molly before her. Celeste! It all stilled the girl. She hated Celeste. Celeste had chosen to go with the mother, and the child had been left by both.
And where was M. Gamier, the husband —" the promising young French poet "—as Uncle Randolph had termed himtosome one, in the child Alexina's hearing, those years ago. The letter made no mention of him.
Alexina closed the Infirmary gate and walked up the wide pavement to the entrance. The little Sister knew her well now and smiled a welcome as she let her in. Passing along the hall Alexina hesitated before the marble saint in his niche. Hers was no controversial soul; what she wanted was comfort. Perhaps the blend of Presbyterianism
and Catholicism may be tolerance. Then she went on through the spotless halls to the second floor.
As the door opened Harriet looked around. She had been writing by the Major's couch, and he had fallen asleep, his hand on hers, the portfolio lying open on her lap. She smiled at Alexina, then nodded at the hand detaining her.
Could it be the same Aunt Harriet, this yearning-eyed woman ? Her hair, always beautiful, had loosened, and drooped over her temple, and the thought swept upon Alexina, how human, how sweetly dear it made her look, this touch of carelessness because of greater concern. It moved the girl, bending to kiss her, to slip to her knees instead and throw adoring young arms about her.
And then a strange thing happened; the head of the woman drooped for support against the girl's shoulder and, with a sudden trembling all through her, Harriet began to cry. Only for a moment; then, lifting her head and putting the hand of the sleeper gently on the couch, she arose and drew the girl over to the window.
"You go to-morrow?" asked Alexina.
" Yes ; Dr. Ransome has arranged to go with us then. I don't know why I cry, for he's better. He's been dictating an editorial. I'm unnerved, I suppose, and it's beginning to tell."
" You are worn out with the strain. Aunt Harriet, and the worry and unhappi-
ness."
" Unhappiness ? " Harriet laughed a little wildly. " Unhappiness ? I thought you understood better than that. I'm happy, for the first time in all my easy, prosperous, level life. It's out of the depths we bring up happiness, Alexina. And come what may, I've known, am knowing it—nothing can take the knowledge from me now."
She was crying again, her head bent against the window pane. " I never knew how to get near to any one ; I've been alone all my life till now. Maybe you have been lonely all along. I didn't know. Living with Austen and me—oh, I'm sorry for you, Alexina. I'm going away now with Stephen ; but when we come back I mean to make it up to you and see that you have opportunities and friends. Oh, Alexina, we do all need it, the joy of having some one needing us. And you'll be nice to Louise for me, won't you, while we're gone ?"
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Louise was the sister of Stephen, and she and the babies were to remain in Louisville in the house the Major and Harriet had taken against their return, an unpretentious house on a cross street.
"Stephen has arranged it all," Harriet was saying; "he won't let me do a thing. He will not consider for a moment that he isn't going to be able to keep his position on the paper; they're filling it for him among themselves still. If he wasn't so — so fiercely proud ! It's Austen that rankles, you see."
There was a movement on the couch. Harriet went swiftly over to the waker. It is on Olympus they take time for deliberate and stately progression; Harriet had come down to the human world.
"It's a soporific thing," quoth the Major, "listening to one's own editorials. I never heard one through before. You there, Alexina? Where have you been these two days ? I hope you're not holding it against us that Georgy is sending all his flowers to me? It's his delicate way, you see ; reaching round through me via Harriet to you."
There was a tap and the little Sister entered. It was company. It was always company. The Major's life had been close to the heart and center of things. It was laughable to see the reserved Harriet's pride in his popularity. It was a certain judge this time, and with him an old comrade at arms, come up from the Pennyroyal to see him.
"But had you better?" Harriet expostulated.
The Major caught her hand and laughed at her. " But these are fond farewells, you see, dear lady," he explained.
Was he drawing her to him by the hand he held ? For suddenly Harriet bent over and kissed him ; nor did Alexina feel any consciousness or shame, and the little Sister went out softly with glistening eyes.
So it came about that Alexina did not open her heart to Harriet after all, and the aunt went away next day without knowing.
Yet Harriet influenced the girl in her decision.
Alexina, standing at her window, watched a sparrow tugging at some morsel that had fallen upon the snow and essaying to fly upward and away with it. She was lonesome ; the house was so big; it seemed so empty. She was thinking about Aunt Harriet, who was giving her strength out to
some one, who had opened her arms to Louise and the babies, whose days were full of thought and planning, and through whose eyes shone something never there before.
Alexina left the window and re-read the postscript of her letter. " In any case I shall not trouble you long. It is my lungs, they tell me. It is a curious sensation, may you never know it, having your furniture seized. Le bon Dieu and Celeste have stood between me and much."
It was to her uncle after all, that Alexina went with the matter that night. He was in the parlor reading and laid down his paper to give attention. The substance of the letter heard, the two perpendicular lines between his brow relaxed, for it was acase of his judgment being justified and a man likes to feel he has been right.
"It is what I expected," he said, "only it has been longer coming. She has her father's people in Washington, she has no claim on you." He lifted his paper.
"But—" said Alexina.
He lowered it and waited.
Her mouth grew set. He always made her stubborn. Fingering the upholstery of his chair, she looked at him, though it took courage to look at Austen Blair under some circumstances. She found herself suddenly disposed to defend her mother. " But if I feel a claim, Uncle Austen? I wanted to tell you I think I ought to write her to come."
"Come where?" asked Austen Blair.
To be sure—where could she write her to come? There fell a silence.
Then he spoke, and curtly. "In three months you will be of age, a fact no doubt which your mother has remembered. Until then I forbid it ; after that it is your affair. In the interim, it has been my intention, and I meant to say as much to you, to make you acquainted with your affairs. I had expected you to live on in my house. Under the conditions you propose you will, of course, make your own arrangements."
Alexina listening, looked at him. One would have said tears were welling. Had he raised his eyes to hers, put out a hand-
But he returned to his paper.
Her cheeks blazed, her head went up, and something ran like a vivifying flame over her face. It was a pity Austen did not see her then. He demanded beauty in a woman. He Should have seen his young niece angry.
Then she turned and went up to her room and wrote her mother to come. But, the
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letter written, she dropped her head on the desk and broke into wild and passionate crying.
CHAPTER V
Alexina for several years had been made partially acquainted with her affairs.
The evening her uncle chose to go over the whole with her, Alexina, in the midst of it, put a hand timidly on his. " I am grateful, Uncle Austen, you know that," she said.
The matter of the mother was fresh between them. " 1 have been paid, as any one else, for my services," he answered.
She drew her hand back.
The books were a clear record of what had been done year by year.
"Cowan Steam-boat Mortgage," read Alexina from a page of early entries. "What was that ?"
"A mortgage held for you on a boat built at the Cowan shipyards."
" What was the name of the boat ? " Alex-ina's voice sounded suddenly strained and odd.
"The ' King William,' "said Austen. "The boat never paid for itself, and the mortgage was foreclosed and the boat sold."
The girl's eyes narrowed with curious in-tentness. As she listened she pushed her hair back with the hand propping her head as if its weight oppressed her. "And then?" she asked. " Here are more entries."
"I bought the boat in at a figure a little over the mortgage; river affairs were down. Later, a couple of years—you'll find it there ¦—the boat sold for double the price."
She closed the book. "That's enough, I believe," she said, "for one evening." But it is doubtful if he was at all aware of anything strange in her tone.
She tripped on her skirts, so impetuous was her flight up the stairs, and, in her room, flung herself upon the bed. Her hands even beat fiercely as she cried, but there was no doll Sally Ann to be gathered in for comfort now.
They had loved her, they had been good to her, Mrs. Leroy had rocked her, the Captain had held her on his knee.
She sprang up and went to bathe her eyes. If she knew where they were, or how to find them, she would go-
She wondered if Emily or her mother had known about this.
She went to the Carringfords' the next afternoon. She liked to go over to the little
brown house and she liked Emily's strong-featured, outspoken mother, there was a certain homely charm even in the clearstarched, fresh calico dresses she wore.
Mrs. Carringford was drawing large loaves of golden-brown bread from the oven as Alexina came in by way of the kitchen door. The smell of it was good.
"Wait a moment, Alexina," she said, as she rose and turned the loaves out onto a clean crash towel spread upon the table. " I want a word with you before you goup-stairs. It's about Emily—you know, I suppose, that your uncle is coming over right often to see her ?—That big hat looks well on your yellow hair, Alexina—And I'm going to be plain: it's bad for Emily; she's discontented with things now—she always has been."
Alexina's eyes dilated. "Coming to see Emily? Does—does Emily want him to come ? "
"Alexina," called Emily down the stairs; "aren't you coming up?"
Alexina went up to the room which Emily shared with her two little sisters. It was hard upon her. There were various attempts to have it as a girl fancies her room. The airiness of Swiss muslins, however cheap, the. sheen of the color over which the airiness lies, the fluttering of ruffled edges, these seem to be expressions of girlhood. But Emily's little sisters shared the room with her. They were there when Alexina entered.
"Now go out," Emily told them; "we want to be alone."
The little girls looked up. Miss Alexina was tall and fair and friendly, she wore lovely dresses, she went to balls, and they adored her.
She felt the flattery and liked it too. "Oh," she interceded, "no, don't, Emily."
" Yes," said Emily ; "we want to talk. Go on, Nan—Nell ; don't you hear ? "
The little sisters gathered up books and slates with some show of resentment ; it was their room too. Emily shut the door behind them.
The breadths of a light-hued silk dress were lying about the room. Emily was ripping on the waist. " It's a dress Miss Harriet gave mother for a quilt while you were away, but I told her it would be no such thing if I could devise it otherwise."
She frowned, then threw the waist down. "Not that I don't hate it—the devising, the scheming."
" I wouldn't do it," said Alexina bluntly.
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"Which is easy for you to say," retorted Emily, her eyes sweeping Alexina from top to toe. Harriet Blair knew how to dress the girl.
"Yes," said Alexina; "I suppose that's true." It was part of her hold on Emily, her fairness. " But you're welcome to anything of mine; I've reason somehow to hate em all."
The color heightened on Emily's face and she looked eager. Passion expresses itself variously. The stern old grandfather abased and denied the physical and material needs. Emily exulted in the very sheen of rich fabric, in the feel of satin laid to cheek. Was the grandchild but fulfilling the law of reaction? The soul of Emily and the soul of the old preacher saw each other across a vast abyss.
"It's for the Orbisons' I need a dress," said Emily. "Of course, I know it's because I have a voice I'm asked."
Yet knowing that for herself she never would have been asked, there was exultation in Emily's tone.
Alexina got up suddenly. Somehow she didn't want to discuss the Leroys with Emily after all.
Down-stairs she stopped again in the spotless, shining kitchen, the clean odor where soft-soap is used always lingering. Alexina liked it; all her knowledge of the dear homely details of life she was familiar with she had gotten here.
" You remember the Leroys ? " she asked Mrs. Carringford.
"Why, yes; I sent them milk twice a day."
" Did you know why they went away ? "
"Wasn't it because they had put everything into that—er —" She stopped.
" Boat ? " suggested the girl.
" Boat"—Mrs. Carringford accepted the word—"and so had to after it was—er-"
"Sold," supplied Alexina. "Did you— did people know who it was held the mortgage ? "
The plain-spoken Mrs. Carringford looked embarrassed. "Well, Alexina, you know how it is in a neighborhood."
"Then you knew the boat was bought in for me ? "
"Why, yes ; I did."
" Did the Leroys know it ? "
"Why, naturally, I should suppose so."
That was all that Alexina wanted to know, yet not all, either. Her color rose a little.
It made her pretty. "Do you know anything of the Leroys since ? "
"Not a word," said Mrs. Carringford. "What do you hear from Miss Harriet and Major Rathbone ? "
"They are still East. Dr. Ransome came back yesterday."
"Yes; I know he did," said Mrs. Carringford. "He was here to see Emily last night. He's a nice boy." There was emphasis in her way of making the statement. Harriet Blair had once remarked that Mrs. Carringford was that anomaly—a sane woman. Yet she opposed the visits of Austen Blair and spoke heartily concerning the other one. "Garrard is a nice boy ; I like him."
CHAPTER VI
Alexina became twenty-one in May. She had found that in the settling of her affairs it would be necessary for her to remain in Louisville and so had written her mother to come to her there. She explained about the change in her life to the Carringfords, to find that they knew all about her mother; probably her little world, Georgy, Dr. Ransome, knew it too, while these years she had comforted herself with the thought that, at least, it was her secret shame.
Mrs. Carringford put an arm about her and kissed her. There was approval in the action.
Emily looked at her, then laughed nervously, while a vivid scarlet rose to the roots of her chestnut hair.
As Alexina passed through the front-room study going home, the old minister looked up from his writing and called her name. He pushed his spectacles back onto his leonine head, looking up as she came toward him. She was surprised, for he never had seemed conscious even of her comings and goings.
"There are two ties that are not of our making," he told her; "the spiritual tie between the Creator and the created, and the material tie between the parent and the child. They are ties not of duty but of nature, as indestructible as matter. God go with you."
She felt strange and choked, though she was not sure she knew what he meant.
A week after she became of age she was dismantling the bay-windowed room of such things as were hers. Little by little it grew as cold and cheerless as the one adjoining.
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now the personality of Aunt Harriet was gone out of it. What would become of Uncle Austen after both were gone ?
She had tried to force from him some expression of feeling, at first wistfully, then determinedly. There is a chance, had he responded, that she would have made other arrangements for her mother. Then she told herself she did not care and went hotly on with her preparations.
She had taken two bedrooms and a parlor at a hotel, and had written her mother to go directly there, but the night of her arrival the girl felt she could not go to meet her. It was too late an hour anyhow, she would wait until morning, but she shrank so from that first moment she could not sleep.
She and her uncle met at the breakfast table the next morning. She made one or two attempts at conversation. " I go today, Uncle Austen," she said at last, and, leaning forward, pushed a paper across the table to him. It was the final statement of the household expenditures under her management.
Her board from her first coming had been paid into the general house fund, and, accordingly, she had included against herself charge for these several days in the new month.
Noting it, Austen Blair nodded; it was the first approval accorded her for some time.
She laughed. "I go to-day," she repeated.
Her uncle, who had risen, put the paper, neatly folded, into his wallet, then crossed to her and put out his hand.
" I will not see you again then ? " he said, and shook hands.
A moment after she heard the front door close.
There were the servants to bid good-by and that being done there was no excuse to linger.
It was a warm May day; the magnolia in the yard, the pirus japonicas, the calycan-thus, the horse chestnuts, were in bloom. The lawn was green, the edges of the gravel paths newly cut and trim. Alexina, in her muslin dress and Leghorn hat, turned on the stone flagging and looked back at the home she was leaving. Home ?
The girl, pausing in the yard of the big house, glanced across the street to a shabby old brick cottage. Her affection was for it.
The hotel was in the business part of the city near the river. A street car would
have taken her directly there but she walked, as if seeking to put the moment off. The way took her past the housefurnished and waiting for Aunt Harriet and the Major. Louise was sitting on an up-stairs window-sill with little Stevie, and caught his small fist and waved it to her. A curtain was fluttering out an opened window and a comfortable looking colored woman was sweeping the pavement. The place had an air of relaxation, of comfort, already. Aunt Harriet was going to have a home.
The arrangements had been made at the hotel, and the child, for a very child she was, went in at the ladies'entrance where a sleepy bell-boy sat, always nodding, past the pillared corridor, on up-stairs, and along the crimson-carpeted hallways. She was trembling, her throat was dry.
In the suite she had taken, a bedroom either side opened into a connecting parlor. It was the knob of the parlor-door she turned after a tap. Then she went in.
"Why, you tall, charming, baby-faced—! Celeste, Celeste, here's your baby! Come here to me, Malise. Why the child's hands are cold !"
How foolish to have dreaded it so ! It was all gone—even the restraint. The twelve years were as nothing. She was again the baby child, Malise, so-called by her mother's people.
And her mother ? The linen pillows on the sofa beneath her head looked cool and pleasantly rumpled, and the sheer white wrapper was fine and softly laundered as a baby's. Her hair, hanging in two plaits over the pillows, had no suggestion of carelessness—it looked childish, it looked fascinating, it looked lovely.
The mother, holding her child's hands, was gazing up curiously, interestedly, her lips parted, as pleased interest will part any child's. There was contagious laughter in the eyes too, the laugh of expectancy about to be gratified, as with children while the curtain goes up on a new scene. " You are as pretty as you can be, Malise; the Blair features used to look so solemn on a baby! "
" Lil' missy-"
Alexina looked around. It was Celeste, tall, brown, regarding her with covert eyes as of old. Celeste had never loved her, the child had known that; her love belonged to the mother, her first charge, her Southern born, all her own. The father's blood in
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this second child was alien ; Celeste had resented it as she had resented that father and all his kind. She had been jealous for the mother against the father and child from the first.
Alexina, drawing a hand from her mother's, gave it to Celeste. The old woman took it loosely, then let it drop. Things were to be as of old, then, between them.
The girl turned back to her mother. "But, Molly"—the name came naturally; she had known her mother by no other — "your health, you know; tell me about that."
What did this dilation in Molly's eyes mean ? And she glanced sidewise. secretly, as if at fear of some dreaded thing, lurking.
"Did 1 write about that? Oh, well, perhaps I was, then, but not now ; not at all now."
The haste to disclaim was feverish, and the look directed by Celeste at Alexina was sullen, even while the old woman's strong, resistless brown hand was pushing her mistress back onto the pillows.
"Got to res' Ml' while, p'tite ; got to min' Celeste an' lay back an' res' now."
Then to her daughter, who suddenly felt herself a little compelled creature again, so was she carried into the past by the old woman's soft, Creole slurring: "'Tain', lil' missy; 'tain' like Madame Gamier she aire seeck actual, but jus' she taire, easy like."
Madame Gamier! That meant Molly! The illusions were all gone. The girl backed from the couch. Twelve years rolled between Molly and herself, years full of resentment. A slow red came up and over the girl's face.
But Molly, back upon the pillows, gave no sign. She flung her plaits out of the way and slipped her arms under her head. There is a slenderness that is not meagerness, but delicacy; thus slight, thus pretty, were Molly's wrists. The arms under her head tilted her face so the light fell on it. It was a narrow piquant face with no lines to mar its delicacy. The odd difference in the eyebrows', which had fascinated Alexina as a child, one arched, one straight, lent laughter to it even in repose. Yet the mouth drooped, like a child's, with pathos and appeal. Could one say no to that mouth, it was so wistful ? It was an alluring face, and moved you so to tenderness, to do battle, to give protection, that it hurt.
"Throw off your hat, Malise," suggested Molly. "Celeste, take her parasol off that chair. There is so much to hear about. I asked la femme de charge, when she was in this morning, if she'd ever heard of the Blairs. Everybody used to know everything about everybody when I was here before and the servants most of all, and, mon Dieu, she knew all about them. 'She's married—Miss Blair,' she told me. ' 1 know that,' said I. For you'd mentioned that much in your letter, Malise. 'She ran off to get married,' said she. 'Oh, hush,' I told her."
She had retained her very colloquialisms, this Molly, too unconscious and too indolent to know she had them, probably, or to care.
"So she told me all about it, how tall, cold, proper Harriet had run off from Blair proprieties and Austen, to marry a Southerner and a Catholic! It's as if the virgin in marble had stepped down and done it!"
Molly was amused. It narrowed her eyes till they laughed through the lashes.
" I never heard anything so funny in my life, Malise, as—as Harriet eloping. What is it Jean Gamier would quote from his adored Shakespeare about Diana and her icicles ? Make me stop! It hurts me—to laugh. Oh-o-h, mammy, Celeste—God, mammy!"
The appeal died in a little choke, and the morsel of handkerchief pressed to her mouth showed a spot of crimson, but Celeste was already there, putting Alexina aside. "You can ring fo' lil' ice—yonder," she told the girl jealously. "Then, efen I were lil' missy, I'd go in there—that one is yo' room—an' I'd shet my do'h. When it's over with, p'tite won't want fo' you to have been in heah."
But pushed into the adjoining room and with the door shut between, Malise still could hear. She did not want to hear: she tried not to hear. She was awed and frightened.
"Am 1 going to die this time, Celeste? I'm afraid, mammy; my hands are cold. Don't rub them with the rings on, you fool; you hurt. No, no ; don't go away, mammy! mammy! I couldn't sleep last night; that's why I'm—I'm tired. The night was so long and I was afraid. I see Jean when I try to sleep. I hear him cough. Give me something to make me sleep—oh, mammy, give it to me."
The girl in the next room stood gazing out the window over the roofs and chimney stacks at the yellow tideof the river sweeping
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down towards the pier bridge spanning it, but she was not seeing it. She was filled with pity and terror.
11 grew quieter in the next room, then still, then the door between opened and closed. It was Celeste, outwardly unmoved and taciturn.
" P'tite's gone to sleep. Shall I help lil' missy unpack her things?"
CHAPTER VI I
Summer in a half-grown Southern city is full of charm; pretty girls in muslin dresses stroll the shopping streets and stop on the sidewalks to chat with each other and with callow youths; picnic parties board the street cars, and in the evenings sounds of music and dancing float out from open doors and windows along the residence streets.
Alexina, chaperoned by Harriet Blair, would have found herself in these things, yet never quite of them.
"Malise," Molly said quite earnestly, a day or so after her coming; " don't you think it's—er—stuffy—here ? "
It was stuffy ; hotel rooms in summer are apt to be; Alexina felt as apologetic as if Molly were the one who had given up a spacious comfortable home to come and live in rooms for her. "I'm sorry," she said. She had explained the necessity for it before.
" I thought you'd gotten the bank to take charge of your affairs," Molly reminded her; " so why do we have to stay ? "
"I have, but it's a different thing, very, from having Uncle Austen, personally-"
She stopped ; it might seem to be reminding Molly that she had caused the break with Austen Blair.
But Molly never took disagreeable things personally. She threw her arms back of her head. "Can't you propose something to do?" she entreated.
"We might go round to the stores," suggested Alexina doubtfully. She hated stores herself.
Molly brightened. " I need some summer things."
Alexina agreed, yet she wondered. Seven trunks can disgorge a good many clothes; "mere debris from the wreckage of things," Molly explained, though they didn't look it. Yet in a way Alexina understood. It wasn't the actual things Molly wanted, it was the diversion, and at the suggestion she cheered
up. "You look pretty in summer clothes, Malise," she stated, with graciousness, as they started. On the way she went in and bought chocolates; not that she wanted them either—it was too hot for candy, she said—but one must be doing something.
Coming out the door they met Georgy, who promptly stopped. He was a beautiful youngster, with a buoyant and splendid heartiness. And now he was flushing ruddily with pleasure up to his yellow hair.
Alexina blushed too, she hardly knew why, except that he did, and told his name to Molly, who regarded him with smiling eyes and gave him her hand, whereupon he blushed still more and then suggested that he go along with them.
A group of young matrons and their daughters stood at the door of the shop to which they were bound, chatting, in easy warm weather fashion. Alexina knew them slightly but Georgy knew them well, and they were greeted with salutations and laughter.
Molly smiled too, an interested smile that brightened as she was introduced, and she remembered having known the mother of this one when she, Molly, had lived in Louisville before, and the husband of another one, and all the while she was letting her eyes smile from one to the other of the group, who meanwhile were telling Georgy in chorus that they were planning a dance.
Dance ? Molly's eyes grew inquiringly eager. Favors were they speaking of? She had a trunk full of Parisian knick-knacks, she told them. "Come around to the hotel," suggested Molly, "all of you; why not now ? "
And so it was that the stream of things gayest caught Molly and Molly's daughter into its swirl. The banks along the way were flowery, the sky was blue, and Alexina began to find the waters of dalliance sweet. Hitherto girlish groups had seemed to make themselves up and leave her out, and there had always been a disconcerting lack of things to talk about in dressing-rooms and strictly feminine assemblies. Now she found herself in the planning and the whirl, happy as any.
There was exhilaration, too, in this sudden realization of what an income meant, which she hadn't had much opportunity of learning before.
These days she laughed out of very exuberance and sudden joy in living.
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"It seems as if I didn't really know you, sometimes," said the literal Georgy, out calling with her one evening. "It makes you awful pretty, you know, to be jolly this way," which was meant to be more complimentary than it sounded.
They were stepping up on the porch of the house to which they were bound. Alexina laughed and caught a handful of rose petals from a blossoming vine clambering the post and cast them on Georgy.
There were other swains than Georgy these days, too, and not all of them were youths either, not that it mattered in the least, who they were ; in the beginning it is the homage, not the individual, that counts.
She hung over the offerings which came to her from them with a rapture which was more than any mere joy; it was relief. Suppose such things had been denied her? There are maidens, worthy maidens, who never know them, and so Alexina blushed divinely with relief. Roses to her!
And Molly, watching, would grow peevish —not over the flowers ; Molly was too sure of her own charm for that. Alexina really did not know what it was about, and she did not believe Molly quite knew herself.
There was a lazy-eyed personage the young people called Mr. Allie. Their mothers had called him Mr. Randall, but then he had been the contemporary of the mothers.
No daughter of these bygone belles was secure in her place to-day until the seal of Mr. Allie's half-serious, half-lazy approval was upon her, or so the mothers and the daughters felt. Mr. Allie was perennial, indolently handsome, an idler in the gay little world, yet somehow one believed he could have gone at life in earnest had there been need.
He, too, sent roses to Alexina, and flowers from him meant something subtly flattering, and he came strolling around at places and sat down by her, saying pretty things to make her blush, apparently to watch her doing it. Not that she minded as much as she worried, because she felt she ought to mind, and in her heart she knew she didn't really.
She had gone out with him half a dozen times perhaps, when,one evening at a dance, Mr. Allie, seeking, found her at the far end of a veranda where the side steps went down to the gravel. She and Georgy were sitting there together. Georgy was telling her of his aspirations and, in passing, dwelling on the lack of any civic spirit in the town, the
inference seeming to be that Georgy, modest as he was, some day himself meant to supply it.
Mr. Allie told Georgy that a waiting damsel was expecting him, then took Georgy's place. He did not speak for a while and Alexina never was talkative.
"Would you rather go in and dance?" at last he asked.
"Why," said Alexina; "no." Which was not quite true for she loved to dance these days. She used to be afraid she was not going to have a successive partner and it marred the full enjoyment of the one she had, but now-
Still, any one would be flattered to have Mr. Allie asking, so she said no.
"Then we'll stay," he said; which was not brilliant, to be sure, but it was the way Mr. Allie said things which made them seem pregnant of many meanings.
After that neither of them said a word, yet Alexina's pulses began to beat. The big side yard upon which the steps descended was flooded with moonlight, and a mockingbird was sending forth a trial note or two. And it was June.
" For you know, really, you're the very dearest of them all," said Mr. Allie, with soft decision, as if he had been arguing about it.
There wasn't a thing to say and she could not have said it if there had been.
"And I've known a good many," continued Mr. Allie, which probably was true, only Mr. Allie knew how true; "but I've never felt just this way about any of them before."
Then they sat very still, and the bird note rose and fell.
"Maybe you'd rather go in," said Mr. Allie as the music began again. Was it hurt in his tone?
"Oh," said Alexina; "no."
Mr. Allie picked up the end of the scarf which had fallen to the steps and put it about her shoulders again. It brought his face around where he could see hers. Was he laughing ? Or were his eyes full of reproach ? For what ? He did not look a bit like a contemporary of anybody's mother. Yet perhaps the mustache that drooped over the mouth did hide—lines, and the lazy eyes sometimes did look tired. Youth has its dreams, vague, secret, yet the Prince of the dreams should be no Mr. Allie with eyes that look weary and tired.
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" If I thought," said Mr. Allie softly, oh, so softly ; "if I thought that you could care ?"
"Oh," said Alexina; "no, I couldn't."
Then she sobbed. It seemed cruel to Mr. Allie.
Then they talked it over, he so gently, she with self-reproach and little chokes against tears. He even held her hand, she too tenderhearted to know how to take it away, and the remorse eating into her heart was forgotten somewhat in the glow, the wonder that this thing, this sad but beautiful thing should come to her. Presently he took her in. The rest of the evening sped hazily. Going home, she talked to Mr. Allie and Molly as in a dream.
Reaching the hotel, and in their own apartment, Alexina dropped down on the sofa, her wrap and fan falling unobserved, and sat, chin on palm, shyly remembering, shrinking a little, and blushing. Suddenly conscious, she turned and found Molly in her doorway between, undressing, and looking at her with knowledge and with laughter. She had forgotten Molly, who had been rummaging and had brought out some olives and crackers and wine. Molly lunched at all unheard-of hours.
Alexina sprang up. She turned white, then scarlet.
" ' Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,' Jean Gamier would say," Molly began, unloosing her waist and laughing again. "Mais non, mon enfant, you take these things too seriously; it is time you understood. He has said as much to every pretty girl there, one time and another, and to most of their mothers before them, only they all understood. It's very charming in you, of course, right now, and to a man like him, irresistible but, still—Malise-"
Alexina looked at Molly. Then up welled a red that rose to her hair and spread down her throat and over her bare young shoulders. She would never misunderstand again. It is a cruel thing, the hotness of shame. But Molly was staring. Malise was beautiful with her head so proudly up and her cheeks flaming.
There was more to understand. They were a gay crowd, the young people and their elders with whom Molly and Alexina and Georgy were going. Things came to Alexina slowly.
"It isn't just nice," she told Molly anxiously, an evening at the Willy Fields'; "Georgy says you've all been in the pantry
opening more champagne. I'm sure they re acting like there's been enough, and he thinks, too, we ought to go home."
"Good Lord," said Molly. She looked so slender, so childishly innocent standing there where the daughter had drawn her aside, one couldn't believe she had said it. " This is the way you used to go on when you were a child. One would think you'd had your fill of what people ought to do, living with the Blairs."
Alexina looked at her. That Molly should dare allude to that past this way! Then she went and found her mother's wrap and brought it.
"Put it on," she said.
Molly laughed rebelliously, then waver-ingly.
"We are going home," said the daughter.
Molly essayed to put it on but didn't seem able to find the hooks, and Alexina, hardening her heart, would not help her, but went to find Georgy. He was looking stern himself, and forlorn and young, and the fact that she knew why did not serve to make Alexina happier.
The cars had stopped running and they walked home, leaving hilarity behind them. Molly was acting stubbornly, her tones were injured, and her talk incessant. Alexina couldn't make her stop.
"Jean was just such another clog as Malise," she told Georgy. " He was forever harping about proprieties, and he wore me out trying to make me tie my money up; Malise isn't stingy, I'll say that though she might have been—she's a Blair. Jean shivered over spending money. And after there wasn't any left, he used to sit and cough and cry over his Shakespeare about it. He had thought he was going to be a great poet once, himself, Jean had."
In the light of the setting moon one could see Molly's childlike face; and her voice, with its upward cadence, was more plaintive than the face. The very look and the sound of her were sweet, seductively sweet.
" He liked to believe himself a Gascon too, Jean did, and he loved his Villon too. He wasn't well ever, he couldn't always breathe, Jean couldn't, but vraiment, he could swagger as well as any."
The night was still, the streets asleep. Nearing the hotel now, the way led past blocks of warehouses and wholesale establishments. Molly stumbled over a grating. Georgy steadied her. They went on, their
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footsteps echoing up from the flagging, as from a vault.
"I'm cold," complained Molly, "and," querulously, "you know, Malise, it will make me cough if I take cold. Jean coughed. After he coughed for a year and the money was gone, he raised more on our things. Then they came and seized them, except my trunks ; Jean had sent those away. I was sick too ; I took the cough from Jean, and I was afraid after I heard one could take it, so he made me come away. Celeste had some money. He made us come ; he said it would be easier to know I was over here, and it would be better for him at the hospital— 'les soeurs sont bonnes,' Jean said over and over."
Alexina was hearing it for the first time. People like Molly supply no background, the present is the only moment, and Alexina was not one to ask.
At the hotel entrance, in the ladies' deserted hallway, even the nodding bell-boy gone, Georgy paused. Molly went and sat down in a chair against the wall. She laughed unsteadily though there was nothing to laugh about. Her lids were batting
and fluttering like a sleepy child's. " 1 thought you said it was late, Malise," she remarked.
"Wait," entreated Georgy of Alexina and squared himself between her and her mother. He was a dear, handsome boy. He gazed pleadingly at the tall, fair-haired girl whose eyes were meeting his so apologetically.
"You said to me there, to-night, you couldn't care for me that way," he told her, "but couldn't you marry me anyhow, Alexina, and we'll take care of her together."
For he thought she knew what he did. Her eyes which had lowered, lifted again, doubtfully, wistfully? Was she wishing she could ? They met his. Perhaps his were too humble.
A shiver went through the girl. Then came a sobbing utterance. "1 can't, I can't ; but oh, if you only knew how I wish I could!"
She broke down in tears. " Don't be mad with me, Georgy."
"Oh," said Georgy, preparing to go ; "it's not that I'm mad. I reckon you don't understand these things yet, Alexina."
{To be continued)
A KNOT AND A SLASH
"RED SAUNDERS" PRESIDES AT A "LYNCHING BEE"
BY
HENRY WALLACE PHILLIPS
AUTHOR OF ''RED SAUNDERS: HIS ADVENTURES WEST AND EAST"
ILLUSTRATED BY A. B. FROST
ONE thing's certain, you can't run a sheep ranch, nor no
(other kind of ranch, without hired men. They're the most important thing, next to the sheep. I may have stated, absent-mindedly, that the Big Bend was organized on scientific principles : none of your gol-darned-heads-or-tails—who's-it—what-makes-the-ante-shy, about it. Napoleon Buonaparte in person, in his most
complex minute, couldn't have got at this end of it better than I did. It looked a little roundabout, but that's the way with your Morgan strain of idees. Here's how I secured the first man ; he didn't look like good material to the careless eye.
Burton and me had just turned the top of that queer hill, that overlooks the Southwest road into the bad-lands, when I see a parcel of riders coming out. Somehow, they jarred me.
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"Easy," says I, and grabs Burton's bridle.
"What the devil now ?" he groans. " Injuns ? Road-agents ? "
"Nope," says I, getting out my field glass. 1 had guessed it: there was the bunch, riding close and looking ugly, with the white-faced man in the middle. If you should ask me how I knew that for a lynching, when all I could make out with my eyes was that they weren't cattle, I give it up. Seems like something passed from them to me that wasn't sight. And also if you ask why, when through the glass I got a better view of the poor devil about to be strung, I felt kind towards him, you have me speechless again. I couldn't make out his face, but there was something-
"See here, Burton," says I. "There's your peaceful prairie hanging, in its early stage."
" What ! " says he, sick and hot at the same time. " How can you speak of the death of a human being so heartlessly ? Let me go !"
"Hold!" says- I. "You haven't heard me through. Perhaps you can be more use than to run away and hide your eyes. I ain't got a word to say against quick law. I've seen her work, and she works to a point. She beats having the lawyers sieving all the justice out of it. All the same, they've been too careless around here—that, and a small bad boy's desire to get their names up. I know one case where they hung a perfectly innocent man, for fun, and to brag about it."
He looked at me steady. I had suspected him of being no coward, when it comes to cases.
"Now," I says, "I don't know what that is down there. Perhaps it's all right; then you and me has got to stand by. If not— well, by the sacred photograph of Mary Ann, here's one roping that won't be an undiluted pleasure. Now listen. I'm something of a high private, when it comes to war, but no man is much more than one man, if the other side's blood is bad. Give 'em to me cold, and I can throw a crimp into 'em, for I don't care a hoot at any stage of the game and they do. But when they're warm —why, a hole between the eyes will stop me just as quick as though I wasn't Chantay Seeche Red. Are you with me ? You never took longer chances in your life."
He wet his lips, and didn't speak very loud nor steady, but he says : "You lead."
"Well, hooray, Boston !" says I. " Beans is good food. Now don't take it too serious till you have to. Perhaps there ain't more'n a laugh in it. But—it's like smooth ice. How deep she is, you know when she cracks, or don't. Be as easy as you can when we get up to 'em. Nothing gained by bulling the ring. We must be prepared to look pleasant and act very different. Turn your back and see that your toy pistol is working."
Well, poor Burton ! Wisht you seen him fumble his gun.
" I can't see the thing," says he, kind of sniffling. " I'd give something to be a man."
"You'll do for an imitation," I says. "Remember, I was born with red hair; comes trouble, this hair of mine sheds a red light over the landscape ; I get happy-crazy ; it's summer, and I can smell the flowers ; there's music a long ways off—why, 1 could sing this minute, but there's no use in making matters worse. Honest, trouble makes me just drunk enough to be limber and—talk too much. Come on."
We single-footed it down the hillside. The party stopped and drawed together, four men quietly making a rank in front. That crowd had walked barefoot.
We come to twenty yards of 'em in silence ; then a tall lad swung out towards us.
"How Kola!" says I, wavin' my hand pleasant.
"How do you do!" says he, as if it wouldn't break his heart, no matter what the answer was.
"Why, nicely, thank you to hell," says I. "What's doin'? Horserace?"
" Probably," says he ; then kind of yawning: "We're not expectin' company this morning."
"Well," I answered, "it's the unexpected always happens, except the exceptions. You talk like a man that's got something on his mind."
Don't think I'd lost my wits and was pick-in' a row to no advantage. I'll admit the gent riled me some, but the point I had in view was what old Judge Hinky used to call "shifting the issue." I wanted to make one stab at just one man—not the whole party— on grounds that the rest of the crowd, who was plainly all good two-handed punchers, would see was perfectly fair. And I intended to land that stab so's they'd see I was no trifler. It was my bad luck that not a soul in the crowd knew me—even by
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reputation, or my hair would have made it easy for me. So I put a little ginger in the tone of my voice.
" My friend," says the tall lad, " I wouldn't .advise you to get gay with us. I would advise you to move right on—or I'll move you."
He played to me, you see. If he'd said, "We'W move you," I'd had to chaw with him some more. Now I had him. Right under the harmless bundle of old clothes dangling from the saddle horn, was the gun
I'd borrowed from Ike—Mary Ann's twin sister, full of cartridges loaded by Ike himself—no miss-fire government issue. The next second that gun had its cold, hard eye upon Long Jim in front of me.
Whilst my hands seemed carelessly crossed on the horn, my right was really closed on the gun.
" I like to see a man back his advice," says I. "It's your move. Don't any other gentleman get restless with his hands, or I'll make our Christian brother into a
"through the glass I got a better view of the -poor devil about to be strung"
[pgbrk] " We called to him to halt, and he stopped, kind of grinned at us and says: ' Hello!'
collection of holes. Now, you ill-mannered brute," 1 says, " 1 don't care what your business is : it's my business to see that vou give me civil answers to civil questions."
He shrunk some. He was too durned important, anyhow, that feller.
"Quick!" says I. "Lord of the Mormon hosts ! Do you think I'm going to yappee
with you all day. Nice morning, ain't it?
Say 'yes.' " " Yes," says he.
" I thought so," says I. "It's a raw deal when a man that's sat a horse as long as me can't say howdy on the open, without havin' a pup like you bark at him."
"¦Why," says he, feelin' distressed, "I didn't mean to make no bad play at you."
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He jerked his thumb over his shoulder toward the prisoner, who sat like a white stone. "That's it. Misplaced horse. Got him wim the goods."
"Oh!" says I. "Well, 'twouldn't have done no harm to mention that first place. I wasn't noticing you particular, till you got too much alive for any man of my size to stand." I dropped my gun. "Excuse haste and a bad pen," says I ; "but why don't I draw cards ? Both parents were light complected and I've voted several times. How is it, boys?"
"Sure!" says they. "Take a stack, brick-top."
"Gentlemen," I says; "one word more and I am done. The question as to whether my hair is any particular color or not, is discussed in private, by familiar friends only—savvy the burro, how he kickee with hees hin' leg?"
They laughed. "All right, Colonel!" says they. "Come with us !"
I had that crowd. You see, they was all under twenty-five, and if there's anything a young man likes—a good, hearty boy— it's to see a brisk play pushed home. I'd called 'em down so their spinal columns shortened, and gagging about my hair, and the style I put on in general, caught their eye. And their own laughing and easiness wasn't so durned abandoned, as Charley Halleck used to say. There was a streak of not liking the job, and everything a little "put on," evident to the practised vision.
I'd gained two points. Made myself pretty solid with the boys, for one, and give 'em something besides hanging their fellow man to think of for another : distracted their attention, which you got to do with children.
"I speak for my friend," says I, pointing to Burton.
"We hear you talk, Colonel," says the joker. "He's with us." So we trotted on toward the cotton-woods.
The line of work was marked out for me. I put on a grim look and sized the prisoner up from time to time as though he was nothing but an obstruction to my sight, although the face of the poor devil bit my heart. He glanced neither way, mouth set, face green-white, the slow sweat glassy all over him. Not a bad man, by a mile, I knew. It don't take me a week to size a man up, and I've seen 'em in so many
conditions, red and pale, sick, dead, and well, that outside symptoms don't count for much.
I noticed another thing, that I expected. Out of the corner of my eye, I see them boys nudgin' each other and talkin' about me. And the more I rode along so quiet, the more scart of me they got.
I tell you how I'd test a brave man. I'd line the competitors up, and then spring a fright behind them. Last man to cross the mark is the bravest man—still, he might only be the poorest runner. With fellers like me, it ain't courage at all. It's lunacy. I ain't in my right mind when a sharp turn comes. Why, I've gone cold a year after, thinking of things I laughed my way through when they happened. But I'm not quarreling with fate—I thank the good Lord I'm built as I am, and don't feel scornful of a man that keeps his sense and acts scart and reasonable.
In one way, poor old Burton, lugging himself into the game by the scruff of his pants, showed more real man than I did. Yet, he couldn't accomplish anything; so there you are, if you know where that is.
I said nothing until we slid off beneath the first tree. Then I walked up to the three leaders and says, whilst the rest gathered around and listened :
" Has this critter been tried ?"
"Why, no !" says one man. "We caught him on the horse."
"Yes, yes, yes," says I, raising my voice. "That's all right. But lend me your ears till I bray a thought or two. I'm that kind of a man that wouldn't string the meanest mistake the devil ever made when the Lord wasn't looking, without givin' him a trial."
" You give me a lot of trial this morning," says Long Jim.
I wasn't bringing up any argument; I was pulling them along with a mother's kind, but firm hand, so I says to him : "Ah ! I wasn't talking about gentlemen; I'd shoot a gentleman if he did or didn't look crosseyed at me, just as I happened to feel. I'm talking about a man that's suspected of dirty work."
Now, when a man that's held you stiff at the end of a gun, calls you a gentleman, you don't get very mad—just please remember my audience, when I tell you what I talked. Boys is boys, at any age; otherwise there wouldn't be no Knights Templars with tin swords nor a good many other
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things. I spoke grand, but they had it chalked down in their little books I was ready and willing to act grander. Had I struck any one or all of 'em, on the range, thinking of nothing special, and Fourth-o'-July'd to 'em like that, they would have give me the hee-hee of ridicule. Howsomever, they was at present engaged in tryin' to hang a man ; a job one-half of which they didn't like, and would dispose of the balance cheap, for cash. And I'd run over their little attempt to be pompous like a 'Gul engine. Position is everything, you bet your neck.
So up speaks Mr.Long Jim, that I've called a gentleman, loud and clear.
" You're right," says he, and bangs his fist into his other hand. " You're dead right, old horse," says he; "and we'll try this son-of-a-gun now and here."
"Sure!" says everybody, which didn't surprise me so much. I told you I was used to handling sheep.
After a little talk with his friends, Long Jim comes up and says : "Will you preside," Colonel ?"
"I have a friend here who is a lawyer," I suggested, waving my hand toward Burton.
The speaker rubbed his chin.
" I guess this isn't a case for a lawyer," he says. "The gentleman might give us a point or two, but we'd prefer you took charge. You see," he says to Burton and me earnestly; "there's been a heap of skulduggery around here lately—horse-stealin', maimin' cattle, and the like—till we're dead sick of it. This bucco made the most barefaced try you ever heard of—'twas like stealin' the whiskers right off your face—and us fellers in my neighborhood, old man and all, have saw fit to copper the deal from the soda-card. We ain't for doin' this man; we're for breaking up the play—'taint a case of law; it's a case of livin'—so if you'll oblige, Colonel ?"
"All right, sir; I'll do the best I can. Who accuses this man ?"
" I," says a straightforward-looking young man of about twenty odd.
"Step up, please, and tell us."
"Why, it's like this," he says. "I'm ranchin' lone-hand down on Badger. There's the wife and two kiddies, and a job for a circus-man to make both ends meet—piecin' out a few cattle and a dozen of hogs with a garden patch. All I got between me and a show-down is my team. Well, this feller
comes along, played out, and asks for a drink of water. My wife's laid up—too darn much hard work for any woman—and I've got Jerry saddled by the fence, to ride for the doctor. Other horse is snake bit and weavin' in the stable with a leg like a barrel. I goes in to get the water, and when I comes out there's this sucker dustin' off with the horse. Then I run over to C-bar-nine and routs the boys out. We took out after him, corrallin' him in a draw near the Grindstones. That's about all."
"Make any fight ?" I asked.
"Naw!" says the man, disgusted. "I was wanting to put my hands on him, but he comes in like a sick cow—seemed foolish."
" How foolish ?"
"Oh, just stared at us. We called to him to halt, and he stopped, kind of grinned at us and says: 'Hello !' I'd a 'hello'd' him if the boys hadn't stopped me."
"Prisoner," 1 says; "this looks bad. I don't know where you come from, but you must have intelligence enough to see that this man's wife's life might have depended on that horse. You know we're straggled so out here that a horse means something more than so much a head. Why did you do this ? Your actions don't seem to hang together."
The poor cuss changed face for the first time. He swallered hard and turned to his accuser. "Hope your lady didn't come to no harm ? " says he.
"Why, no, thankee; she didn't," says the other lad. "'Bliged to you for in-quirin'."
There was a stir in the rest of the crowd. The prisoner had done good work for himself without knowing it. That question of his proved what I thought—he was no bad man. Something peculiar in the case. Swinging an eye on the crowd, I saw I could act. I went forward and laid my hand on his shoulder, speaking kind and easy.
" Here," says I, "you've done a fool trick, and riled the boys considerable. You'd been mad, too, if somebody'd made you ride all day. But now you tell us just what happened. If it was intended to be comical, we'll kick your pants into one long ache, and let it go at that; if it was anything else, spit it out."
He stood there, fumblin' with his hands, runnin' the back of one over his forehead once in a while, tryin' to talk, but unable. You could see it stick in his throat.
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"Take time," says I ; "there's lots of it both sides of us." Then he braced.
"Boys," says he, "I got a wife an' two little, roosters too. I feel sorry for the trouble 1 made that gentleman. I got split like this. Come to this town with seven hundred dollars, to make a start. Five hundred of that's my money, and two hundred m' wife saved up—and she was that proud and trustin' in me !" He stopped for a full minute, workin' his teeth together. "Well, 1 ain't much. 1 took to boozin' and tryin' to put the faro games out of business. Well, 1 went shy—quick. The five hundred was all right," he says, kind of defiant. "Man's got a right to do what he pleases with his own money; but . . . but . . . well, the girl worked hard for that little old two hundred. God Almighty ! 1 was drunk ! You don't s'pose I'd do such a thing sober?" turning to us, savage. " That ain't no excuse, howsomever," he goes on, droppin' his crop. "Comes to the point when there's nothin' left, and then I get a letter." He begun taking things out of his pockets, dropping 'em from his big tremblin' hands. "It's somewheres here—ain't that it ? My eyes is no good."
He hands me a letter, addressed to Martin Hazel, in a woman's writing. "Well, that druv me crazy. So help me God, sir, I ain't pleadin' for no mercy—I'll take my medicine—but I didn't know no more what I was doin' when I jumped your horse, than nothin'. I only wanted to get away from everybody. I was crazy. You read 'em that letter," says he, taking hold of me. "See if it wouldn't drive any man crazy."
Now, there's no good repeatin' the letter. It wasn't written for an audience, and the spellin' was accordin' to the lady's own views, but it was all about how happy they was going to be, when Martin had things fixed up, and how funny the little boy was, and just like his pa, and, oh, couldn't he fix it so's they'd be with him soon, for her heart was near broke with'waiting.
There was sand in my eyes before I'd read long, and that crowd of fierce lynchers was lookin' industriously upon the ground. One man chawed away on his baccy, like there'd be an earthquake if he stopped, and another lad, with a match in his mouth, scratched a cigarette on his leg, shieldin' it careful with his hands, and your Uncle Willy tried to fill a straight face on a four-card draw, and to
talk in a tone of voice I wasn't ashamed of hearing.
During the last part of the letter, the prisoner stood thoughtful, with the back of his hand to his mouth ; you'd never known he was settin' his teeth into it, if it wasn't for the blood dropping from his thumb.
"The prisoner will retire," says I, with the remnants of my self-respect, "while the court passes sentence. Go sit down under the tree yonder." He shambled off. Soon's he was out of hearin' the feller that lost the horse jumps up into the air with in oath like a streak of lightning. "Here's a fine play we come near makin' by bein' so sudden," says he. " I wouldn't have that man's death on my soul for the whole territory— think of that.poor woman ! Aiid he's paid the freight. Colonel, I want to thank you for drawin' things down." So he come up and shook me by the hand, and up files the rest and does the same thing.
"Now, friends," says I, "hold on. Court hasn't passed sentence yet. I pass that this crowd put up to the tune of what it can spare to buy"—consulting the letter—"to buy Peggy a ticket West, kids included, ex-ceptin' only the gentleman that lost the horse."
"Why, we ain't broke altogether on Badger !" says he. "You ain't goin' to bar me, boys ?"
"Not on your life, if that's the way you feel," says I. I don't know what amount that crowd could spare, but I'll bet high on one thing. If you'd strong-armed the gang, you wouldn't start a bank with the proceeds after the collection was taken. There wasn't a nickel in the outfit. "I'm glad I didn't bring any more with me," says Burton, strapping himself.
Of course, I was appointed to break the news to the prisoner. He busted then ; put his head on his arm and cried like a baby. But he braced quick and stepped up to the lads. "There ain't nothing I can say except thank you," says he. "I want to get each man's name so's I can pay him back. Now, if anybody here knows of a job of work I can get—well, you know what it would mean to me. Sporty life is done for me, friends; I'll work hard for any man that'll take me."
"I got you," I says. "Come along with me and I'll explain."
Then we said by-by to the boys. I played the grand with 'em still, and I'll just tell you
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why, me and you bein' such old friends. Although it may sound queer, coming from my mouth, yet it was because 1 thought I might give them boys the proper steer, sometime. You can't talk Sunday-school to young fellers like that ! They don't pay no attention to what a gent in black clothes and a choker tells 'em ; but suppose Chantay Seeche Red—rippin', roarin' Red Saunders, that fears the face of no man, nor the hoof of no jackass—lays his hand on a boy's shoulder, and says, "Son, I wouldn't twist it just like that." Is he goin' to get listened to? I reckon yes. So I played straight for their
young imaginations, and I had 'em cinched to the last hole. And after the last one had pulled my flipper, and hoped he'd meet me soon again, me and Burton and the new hired man took out after sheep. " But," says Burton, still sort of dazed, "God only knows what we'll meet before we find them. Even sheep aren't so peaceful in this country."
He was right, too. However, when I start for sheep, I get 'em. You can see by the deep-laid plan I set to catch help for the ranch, how there's nothing for fortune to do but lay down and holler when I make up my mind.
ORGANIZED CAPITAL CHALLENGES ORGANIZED LABOR
THE NEW EMPLOYERS' ASSOCIATION MOVEMENT
BY
RAY STANNARD BAKER
AUTHOR OF ' L T H E REIGN OF LAWLESSNESS," ''A CORNER IN LABOR," ETC.
ILLUSTRATED WITH PORTRAITS
SEVERAL elements have uni-ted in producing the present amazing storm of opposition land organization against labor unionism. One of the chief inciting causes was the anthracite coal strike of 1902, which gave the employers of the country a sudden perception of the immense and hitherto unsuspected power of unionism—the new business unionism. Here was a conflict conducted on the side of the working-men with such business acumen, with such a keen regard to the influence of public opinion, with such political intelligence, that it defeated one of the strongest combinations of capital in the country. It was a tremendous object lesson to employers everywhere; its moral was plain : organize or go to the wall.
At the same time there began what may be termed a period of inflation in trade-unionism. We had and still have the watered
union as truly as we have the watered trust; and the effect of the indigestible unionist is not less disastrous than the effect of the indigestible security. Both were caused by the same conditions : a time of great prosperity with a strong demand on the one hand for more labor and on the other for a greater opportunity for investment. It was a time of credulity, when flimsy organization, irresponsible and penal leadership, and untrustworthy methods could be glossed over. Industries hitherto almost wholly unorganized now sprung into full-fledged unionism, many of the men not having grasped the first principles of the movement, and easily the prey of designing manipulators and exploiters—the Charles M. Schwabs and the Whittaker Wrights of unionism. Sam Parks was such a man. The teamsters in various cities organized helter-skelter, and were often undisciplined, violent, and dangerous. Semi-unskilled or wholly unskilled
[pgbrk] JOHN D. HIBBARD
President of the Chicago Metal Trades Association.
PAUL BLATCHFORD
Secretary of the Chicago Metal Trades Association.
HERMAN JUSTI
Commissioner of the Illinois Coal Operators.
JAMES C . CRAIG
President of the Citizens' Alliance of Denver.
DAVID M. PARRY
President of the Citizens' Industrial Association of America.
FREDERICK W. JOB Secretary of the Employers' Association of Chicago.
men prominent in various employers' organizations
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workers, like building-laborers, grave-diggers, freight-handlers, building janitors, messenger boys, street-car employees, and the like, who, though they may ultimately make good union men, have so far, as a mass, barely grasped the first principles of unionism.
Well, these inflated unions went to all manner of excesses; and many suffered from a plague of strikes, boycotts, picketing, the slugging of "scabs," and other excesses and absurdities. The Housesmiths' Union in New York, which was used so disastrously by Sam Parks, was a raw, undisciplined organization, made up of men, many of whom had never had any experience in organization. A large part of the trouble during the past year is traceable directly to these inflated classes of unions ; or to older and more experienced organizations, which, for lack of energy on the part of their members, have fallen into the hands of self-seeking Labor Bosses. It is, indeed, the labor union as distinguished from the trade union which has been responsible for most of the trouble during the past two years.
All this brought disgrace on the entire union movement exactly as the exposures of the rank operations of the shipbuilding trust disgraced Wall Street. Scores of older financial corporations, though affected by evil ventures in stock inflation, were intrinsically as sound as ever, and just as safe for investment. And so we have unions like the Railroad Brotherhoods, the Typographical Union, many of the building trades unions, the Cigarmakers, the Longshoremen, the United Mine Workers, and scores of others going forward, quietly gaining strength and influence, and yet so well disciplined that little or nothing has been heard of their operations ; and such organizations constitute the real unionism.
Why Employers Are Organising
Two general causes, then, account for the present movement toward the organization of employers :
First : the sudden recognition and fear of the real power of the new unionism. When an organization like the United Mine Workers of America, with 350,000 members and $4,000,000 in its various treasuries, has reached the point of discipline and self-restraint where it deliberately votes not to strike and agrees to accept a reduction in wages—as this organization did last March
—employers may well be respectful of its power. That was one of the greatest victories unionism ever won in the United States—a victory over itself, an evidence of the far-sighted leadership and the excellent discipline which, surrendering the sentry-post of to-day, plans to capture the citadel of to-morrow.
Second : the excesses of a false power—an inflated unionism. Organizers of employers base their strongest arguments upon these features of the union movement, they tell stories of silly strikes, of petty exactions, of absurd boycotts, of the brutal slugging of " scabs," of maddening jurisdictional strikes —and unionism has borne an amazing crop of such absurdities during the past two years —all calculated to prick employers into the hasty formation of defensive associations, and to stir the blood of the liberty-loving and law-abiding public. Almost no employer of labor has escaped some annoyance of this sort, upon which he bases his judgment of the entire union movement.
Pitiable Position of the Small Employer
At Chicago I attended a meeting of certain retail butchers who had come together to form an Employers' Association. It was the first time that they had ever met with a common purpose in view, and nothing struck me more forcibly than the resemblance of the meeting to a first gathering of working-men to form a union. These small merchants were smarting under their wrongs —genuine wrongs they were, too—and, though they knew nothing about organization, they were eager to unite, and their first impulse was to relieve their feelings by fighting, just as the first impulse of the new union, overestimating the potentiality of organization, is to strike. One man, for instance, told with tremendous earnestness how his business had been tied up for eays through no fault of his own, because the teamsters could not agree with the butchers' union as to who should hang up the meat. Another told of the exactions of the retail clerks, another of his troubles in getting plumbing done. Squeezed on one side by the meat " trust," on the other by the unions, and open to the bitterest sort of competition and underselling among themselves, the position of many of these small merchants was unfortunate in the extreme—much worse, indeed, than that of many working-men. By years of agitation the trade-unionist has
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created much public sympathy for himself, whereas the difficulties of the small merchant, and even of the larger manufacturer, subjected to the fierce competitive conditions of our modern life, have been largely overlooked. In San Francisco, in one of the associations of master-builders, I found that over seventy per cent, of the membership had gone bankrupt or had compromised with their creditors in the past year : not wholly as a result of labor organization, of course, though this has been an important factor.
Fate of '' Watered '' Unionism
Inflated unionism will, however, like the shipbuilding trust, pass from view, or, like the steel trust, it will lose its water : and it will be better for the contraction. I asked Thomas I. Kidd, vice-president of the American Federation of Labor and one of the foremost leaders of labor in the country, how many unions in Chicago would be forced out of existence with the return of hard times. He surprised me by saying he thought the contraction would reach at least thirty per cent.
"These mushroom unions will disappear because they do not yet understand the principles or the necessary discipline of unionism," said Mr. Kidd, "but their membership will have learned some valuable lessons—an army has to be whipped once before it learns its own strength — and when they come to organize again they will act with more wisdom."
Conservative union leaders everywhere have seen the danger of undue power in the hands of poorly disciplined leaders. Henry White, general secretary of the United Garment Workers, says in an editorial in the Weekly Bulletin of the Clothing Trades :
Will the unions show a consciousness of the responsibility that goes with power, develop the ability to restrain themselves, and keep on in the path of least resistance, or will they plunge ahead, driven by the clamor of the unreflecting among the membership ?
I quote the following from the Shoe Workers' Journal:
Employers are organizing throughout the country against organized labor for no other reason than to combat the unwise policy resorted to whenever the fanatical element of trades-unions gain control. There are two roads for us. Shall we as trade-unionists use our power arbitrarily, or shall we let reason, intelligence, wisdom guide
us in our manner of meeting and carrying out the responsibilities thai: a great economic power is forcing upon us ?
Disagreement of Association Leaders
One who comes fresh to the study of the Employers' Association movement will find himself much confused by the wide diversity of opinion among its various leaders. Apparently no two leaders exactly agree on anything; there seems to be little uniformity of organization, and often no clearly defined program of operation. Mr. D. M. Parry, who is the foremost representative of the new Employers' Association movement, is leagues away from Mr. Justi, of the Illinois Coal Operators' Association ; Mr. Kirby, of the Dayton Employers' Association, does not agree in the least with Mr. Driscoll, of the American Newspaper Publishers' Association, and Mr. Job of Chicago has quite different views from Mr. Craig of Denver, or Mr. Eidlitz of New York, or Mr. DuBrul of Cincinnati, or Mr. Sayward of Boston. Each has his own scheme and is insistent in advocating his own beliefs. A few even defend the " closed shop," others fire up at the mention of it, demanding the "open shop" as the very basis of American freedom; some favor arbitration, others oppose it; some look on trade agreements as the universal panacea, others scout the idea of contracts of any sort; some demand the lockout as the cure for the strike, others decry the lockout as an inverted strike, and so on, and so on. No two agree, because the movement as a whole is yet new and its positions and principles have not crystallized. On the other hand, the labor movement has been so long under way that we discover a somewhat remarkable uniformity of purpose. We find little diversity of opinion among the more prominent labor leaders as to basic beliefs, and comparatively little as to methods, though there are a few mooted questions, like that of the endorsement of socialism or of political action. These principles have been settled by long experience, through frequent defeat; and it is this unity of purpose which constitutes the chief source of strength to the movement.
Two Classes of Employers' Associations
Employers' Associations as now constituted may be divided roughly into two classes :
First: those which propose to fight the
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unions. Their leaders emphasize the fact that industry is war.
Second: those which seek to deal with the unions. Their leaders emphasize the fact that industry is business.
Of course those of the first class may often deal with the unions, and those of the second may sometimes fight, but the associations fall naturally into these two categories. And they run the whole gamut from the peppery organization which, looking upon unionism as dangerous in itself, always fights, to that which, Utopian in its views, seeks to eliminate the strike entirely.
To the first class belong nearly all the newer organizations, and especially the Citizens' Alliances of the West, which have often sprung into existence with the explosive enthusiasm of a vigilance committee.
Nearly every city in the country making any pretense to industrial importance now boasts its full-fledged Employers' Association or Citizens' Alliance, sometimes both, and these organizations are already agglomerating into state and national federations of which the Citizens' Industrial Association of America—Mr. D. M. Parry, president—is an excellent type. Scores of local and state organizations and a considerable number of important trade organizations (like the National Metal Trades Association) are affiliated with this great central organization. Its membership, direct and indirect, numbers many thousands of manufacturers, merchants and other business men, a large proportion of whom, it is to be noted, were never organized before. The total capital represented must run far into the millions, and although not, of course, at the command of Mr. Parry and his associates, it gives the organization an appearance truly formidable.
Real Motto of the Fighting Association
The motto of D. M. Parry's organization, of Mr. Job's Employers' Association of Chicago, of Mr. Craig's Denver association, Mr. Kirby's Dayton association, and many others, all distinctly fighting bodies, may thus be summed up :
"Yes, we believe in unionism, but damn the unions?'
Printed declarations of principles are only incidentally significant. We must judge associations of men exactly as we do individual men, not by what they say but by what they do. Mr. Job, for instance, asserts
his belief in "good unionism," but the ideal condition as he sees it is well expressed in a little account written by him of conditions in the City of Beloit, Wisconsin, called "The Tale of Two Cities." Here the good condition is not so much one of good unionism as of no unionism. After an account of how the Employers' Association of that city had wiped unionism practically out of existence, the story closes : " It is again called beautiful Beloit."
Similarly, Mr. Parry, while asserting his belief in the right of workmen to organize, has prevented organization in his own factory.
I give these instances merely to show the real attitude of the leaders of many of the new Employers' Associations.
These fighting associations are roughly of two sorts : the Employers' Associations, proper, like Mr. Job's Chicago organization, made up wholly of subsidiary associations of employers and largely of employers not hitherto organized, and the Citizens' Alliances, like Mr. Craig's Denver organization, made up of citizens generally, including even non-union working-men. These organizations, while varying widely, generally announce the following principles : the "open shop," no sympathetic strikes, no violence to non-union men, no limitation of output or of apprentices, no boycott, and some go further and declare against arbitration, trade agreements, and picketing. Most of the organizations of this class are secret, both as to their membership and as to their business methods.
Associations that Deal with the Unions
To the second class of employers' organizations, those organized to deal with the unions, belong nearly all the older and more experienced associations ; like the Illinois Coal Operators, of which Mr. Herman Justi is the commissioner, the National Stove Founders, the American Newspaper Publishers' Association, the Typothetae, and the Master-Builders of various cities, and many other similar organizations. These associations, the leaders of which have long been studying the labor problem, look upon the labor union as an accomplished business fact and, while strong enough to fight, and fight hard, if necessary, their prime object is to deal with the unions on an amicable basis. None of these organizations has a secret membership, and their methods are as open
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as those of any business association. As Mr. Justi said to me :
"It is extremely curious that as business men we should be inclined to omit the element of labor from the ordinary rules of business. We contract for our raw materials after a friendly conference with the man who has raw materials for sale, and in turn we dispose of our products by friendly agreement with the buyer. Why should we not treat labor, so far as the wage question is concerned, as a commodity and agree to buy so much of it at such a price after a friendly conference with those who have labor for sale ?"
I asked Mr. Justi if he would wipe unionism out of existence if he could.
"No," he said; "we believe in it. We believe it has come to stay. It has been of great value to us, as it has also been to the laborer ; and I say this knowing that there are many abuses practised which must be stamped out before the miners' union is a thoroughgoing business organization, engaged in a legitimate business pursuit—that of selling the best labor of which its members are capable for the highest wages which trade conditions will permit. Since we have engaged in joint agreements with the United Mine Workers of America—now more than six years—we have never had a general strike in Illinois, nor any local strike of consequence. These agreements have saved us, as well as the mine workers, I am convinced, hundreds of thousands of dollars. Besides doing away with strikes these contracts enable us to figure accurately on the cost of the production of coal, thus placing us all on the same competitive basis as far as the wages of labor is concerned."
Associations and Unions Compared
Thus briefly, before going more deeply into details, I have tried to characterize the two classes of Employers' Associations. They are singularly like the two classes of unions. The new association, like the new union, springs into existence with great enthusiasm, vehemently airs its grievances, bitterly arraigns the other side, pays its dues reluctantly, usually wishes to fight immediately, and chafes because results are not more rapidly -forthcoming. But gradually the association as well as the union begins to understand the real principles of industrial organization—it begins to overlook the inevitable small annoyances ; it learns that
the strike and lockout instead of being the prime object of organization is really the reluctant weapon of last resort ; it discovers finally that the labor problem cannot be settled over night, nor by sulphurous speech-making, nor by violent methods ; that it requires long continuing patience, self-restraint, decency, on both sides.
And yet these new associations of employers and citizens—Mr. Parry's, Mr. Job's, Mr. Craig's, and others—have their inevitable and important functions. You will hear some union men assert that this movement is nothing more nor less than a giant conspiracy to crush labor organization. Nothing, surely, could be more absurd. One of the most surprising features of the movement is its spontaniety, the way in which dozens of cities began organizing about the same time, not because the employers were inspired by some outside influence, but because the soil in each place was favorable to the growth and because the organization of employers generally is a logical stage in the evolution of our complex industrial life. The unions themselves are no doubt responsible for the movement ; their domineering tactics, their excesses, the misuse of their power, have resulted in the inevitable revolt. The unions in many places had reached a point of unruly dominance where they had to be thoroughly thrashed. And in cities where the unions have been most unreasonable, as in Chicago, the Employers' Associations are most vigorous.
Unions and Associations Use the Same Methods
One cannot fail to be impressed with the similarity of human nature expressed in the Employers' Association to the human nature of the Labor Union. They are extraordinarily alike in their methods of reasoning, in their plans of campaign, in their limitations. Take, for instance, the chief weapon of the unions: the strike. The strike, under the name of "lockout," is equally the chief weapon of the Employers' Association, and it is as fair for the one as for the other. The recent strike of the laundry workers in Chicago is an excellent example.
Some 5,000 employees had organized a union and decided on a strike campaign to force recognition of the union and an advance in wages. Immediately Mr. Job got the laundry employers together, formed a
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strong organization, which affiliated itself with the Chicago Employers' Association, and when the new union made its demands it was boldly defied. The union called a strike in nine laundries, after the usual custom of whipping employers into line a few at a time. On the' same day every laundry owner in the association, and that meant practically every owner in Chicago, locked out his employees, thus throwing the entire union out of work. Some of the smaller laundry owners, running close to the financial wind, had to be assisted by Mr. Job's organization to keep them in line, while the union on its side soon consumed its treasury, and many of its members were reduced to the very edge of want. The strike, which was most bitterly contested, lasted nearly two months, until both sides were worn out and thoroughly beaten. The owners lost a large amount of business and the workmen a large amount of wages. Neither side won a clear victory ; the employers succeeded, indeed, in establishing the "open shop," but the workers maintained their union and got an increase in wages.
Similar battles of strike and lockout were waged with the candy makers, the cooks and waiters, the carriage-makers and others, and with similar results. And the Employers' Association played a part, also, in the streetcar and teamsters' strikes. It will be observed in passing that in nearly all of these cases the unions were of the new and inexperienced sort. It was the first time in Chicago that unionism had been met by a thoroughly organized opposition ; and it taught some wholesome lessons.
Employers Use Sympathetic Lockout All Employers' Associations and Citizens' Alliances are strong in their denunciation of the sympathetic strike, and yet we find the new associations—not all of them, but here and there a case—applying this very device against the unions, using the sympathetic lockout ruthlessly and effectively. In Idaho Springs, Colorado, for instance, there is a strong Citizens' Alliance, including in its membership not only mine owners and employers, but practically all citizens not members of the miners' union. It sprung into existence as a result of an attempt to blow up the Sun and Moon Mine, in which a union man lost his life. I have related in a former article how members of this alliance got together at night, went to the jail, took
twenty-six union leaders there confined on suspicion of complicity in the explosion and marched them out of town, expelling them violently from their homes with threats of lynching if they returned—a very good example, by the way, of how easy it is for the Citizens' Alliance to follow the union in the use of physical violence.
A Victim of Employers' Sympathetic Lockout
After that the alliance resolved to wipe the miners' union out of the district. I give here an account of the methods pursued, exactly those of the sympathetic strike inverted, in the case of a single man—A. D. Olcott, former secretary of the miners' union at Idaho Springs. Olcott had been a resident of that city for nine years, he had his family there, he had always borne a good reputation. He was one of the men arrested for complicity in the explosion, he was driven from the town by the Citizens' Alliance, but he returned to his family and was subsequently acquitted in the courts of having had anything to do with the explosion. But the alliance wished to drive out every "agitator," and when Olcott came back to Idaho Springs he found that he was a marked man, that there was no chance there for him to make a living. He found himself "unfair" not only to the mine operators but to all other employers in town, who, members of the Citizens' Alliance, had joined in the sympathetic lockout against him.
Olcott got a lease on a mine, hoping to work it himself; the alliance heard of it, pressure was brought to bear on the owner, and he was compelled to throw up the work. Then he took a contract to sink a shaft. He needed a rope one hundred feet long, and borrowed it from a harness-maker of his acquaintance—a man he had known long and well. A few days later the rope was demanded of him with the remark :
"You belong to an organization not entitled to any favors." The harness-maker had struck sympathetically with the mine owners. So Olcott had to abandon this job. Finally he got a chance to sink a shaft in the mountains, three miles from town—a far-off, unobtrusive job—on a property owned by a London insurance company. This job, surely, he could hold. But the alliance brought pressure upon the Denver agent of the company, and the agent at once hurried
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to Idaho Springs and Olcott was again forced into idleness. When I talked with him he had no work at all. He csuld get no job in Idaho Springs, and he could not move away because he was under bond to appear in court. And there he was !
I am not here arguing the ethics of the sympathetic strike and lockout, nor am I even asserting that these vigilance committee methods were not necessary to meet the conditions in Idaho Springs; I am merely comparing the respective sauces of goose and gander.
Boycott Used by Employers' Association
Take also the subject of boycott. No one thing the union does is held up to more bitter denunciation than the boycott, and very often justly so. The unions, for instance, have been guilty of boycotting newspapers which have not agreed with them, endeavoring to punish the editor who spoke his mind. They did it in the recent strike of the metalliferous miners of Colorado, of which I have given an account in McClure's Magazine for May. They boycotted the Telluride Journal, and not only the Journal itself, but every advertiser who patronized its columns, thereby forcing many of the merchants and others to withdraw. I am not here saying that the Journal was not unfair or over violent in its attack on the union; that is not the point: the point is, that the union attempted to stifle free speech. Well, the fairest friends the union has had in Colorado were the metropolitan dailies, the Rocky Mountain News and the Times, owned by Senator Patterson. The Citizens' Alliance of Denver thought these newspapers should be disciplined for their position on the strike question, and on October 13, 1903, the alliance passed this resolution :
Resolved, that we, as a body, urge upon the Denver Advertisers' Association the importance of cooperating with us in this effort, and request such Association to so place its advertising matter as to assist in upbuilding instead of tearing down business interests, to the end that a just and conservative policy may be adopted and advocated by the daily press.
The Advertisers' Association, including nearly all the large mercantile interests of Denver—all belonging to the Citizens' Alliance—took just this action. A committee was sent to the papers named. I suppose the "request" of the alliance was conveyed in the softest language, and yet that committee, with its power of withdrawing the
advertising mainstay of these newspapers, was as truly a threat to boycott as though it had gone to the editor with a club.
If one side limits free and fearless speech —even though it be too free—the other side sooner or later is going to do exactly the same thing.
"Scab" Employers
A great point made by the Employers' Associations is that the unions, directly or indirectly, force unwilling non-union men to join their organizations. No argument appeals more strongly to the public than that which advocates the right of the individual worker to belong or not to belong to the union. This is the tap root of the "open shop" argument used with such purpose during the past eighteen months. At every convention of the Employers' Association we find a great deal of patriotic speech-making upon the rights of this non-union worker.
Well, let us say we all agree with this talk, but we find the Employers' Association and Citizens' Alliance, in many instances, turning from their horror at the abuse of the nonunion man and employing exactly the same methods themselves. Why should they not ? In order to be effective against a very strong union, they are confronted by identically the same problem. Their association must include every employer in the trade, otherwise, while they are busily doing the fighting, this "scab employer" isgettingthe business, and, sooner or later, if he is allowed to continue, he, not the union, will defeat them, exactly as the "scab" defeats the strike. In New York, for instance, during the building trades strike of last year, the Fuller Construction Company was a "scab" ; it insisted on working while its fellow contractors were "striking." So, in the Cripple Creek miners' strike, James Burns, the owner of the Portland Mine, was a " scab " on the Mine Owners' Association.
There are, therefore, as truly " scabs," or non-union men, among employers as among workers, and one is not surprised to find that the associations are as bitter against their "scabs" as the unions are against theirs. I heard the Fuller Company abused in New York and Mr. Burns rated in Colorado with a violence not exceeded by the union abuse of the "scab," although in different terms. The methods of the associations, of course, are not so crude as those of the unions ; the
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rich manufacturers do not go out by night with clubs and waylay their brother manufacturer who does not agree with them, but they employ methods quite as effective. I do not wish to imply that all Employers' Associations go to this extreme, but they have done it, and will do it again, in cities like San Francisco, Denver and Chicago, where unionism is exceptionally strong. And it is being done now in many lesser associations in every part of the country. Necessity here is the only law: compulsion of the non-unionist, whether worker or employer, in one form or another, will exist just so long as it is necessary for either or both sides to employ that weapon in winning its battles.
Compulsion of Meat Dealers in San Francisco
During the strike in San Francisco in 1901, for instance, a tremendous struggle for supremacy between organized labor and organized capital, to which I referred in my article in McCLURE's Magazine for February, the Employers' Association forced merchants and others into their organization with perfect ruthlessness. Certain retail dealers in meat, for instance, wished to continue their agreement with the unions, and use the union label, but the wholesale meat dealers, led by the Western Meat Company, Miller and Lux, and others, shut off their supplies, refused to sell them any meat until they took the union labels out of their windows and joined in the fight. In some cases they went further than this—refusing to supply retailers who supplied restaurant keepers who insisted on dealing with the unions. The retailers were given no choice : they either had to join issue with the Employers' Association or shut up shop. They were not allowed to "scab."
The Carriage Makers' Association was willing to accede to the demands of the various unions employed by its members, but Secretary Michael, of the Employers' Association, told them bluntly that if they entered into any agreement with the union they would be refused supplies, especially steel, and that orders for carriages would be sent to the East; on the other hand, if they affiliated with the association, they were assured of its support in maintaining the fight.
If it were necessary, many other instances of a similar nature in this San Francisco
strike, in the Denver strike of 1903, and elsewhere, might be cited. In short, it is exactly the principle upon which the union operates when it knocks the non-union man on the head or exercises its right to refuse to work with him. I was never more impressed than by the arguments of a member of the San Francisco Employers' Association in defending this system of " discipline," as he called it. It was exactly the defense 1 have so often heard from union leaders whose strikes were marked by violence to "scabs."
We also find the associations declaring against picketing—and themselves using detectives and spies who are merely pickets of a slightly different sort. We find the associations sometimes adopting cards like
UNION" CARD No.
This Is to Certify that
Citizens' Alliance
the cards of the unions—as in Denver—and in other ways following the exact methods of unionism.
Unions Employ "Judge-Made Law"
And I cannot pass this subject without referring to the fact that the unions on their side have applied some of the very methods which they denounce most bitterly when used by employers. Nothing stirs the labor leader to greater anger than the use of the injunction—"judge-made law"—against the unions. And yet on May 15, 1903, we find the labor leaders of Denver obtaining an injunction from Judge Mullin against the officers and executive committee of the Citizens' Alliance. Similar injunctions have been obtained in Omaha and elsewhere.
The unions in the past have always defended the boycott, the sympathetic strike, picketing, and even the coercion of nonunion men as rights, moral, if not legal—as the evitable means to be used in accomplishing their ends. But the use of the same methods by the employers quite changes the conditions. Even admitting that these things are rights, we shall probably hear such weapons of unionism discussed in the future
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from the point of view of policy rather than of right. The torture of prisoners was a feature of old-time warfare, a right of battle, but when it became well established that one side could torture as effectually as the other, torturing disappeared. Letters of marque and reprisal disappeared for the same reason. The boycott is a sort of reprisal which must eventually go out of existence on both sides. These doubtful methods, indeed, should eventually disappear, and more and more we should see the union and the association base their claims. to recognition upon excellence and intelligence, and less and less upon force.
Valuable Service Performed by Employers' Associations
In another way these new Employers' Associations have performed a valuable service. No other single agency has accomplished so much in calling attention to the vital public importance of this whole labor question. They are making it, what it was destined sooner or later to become, a great national issue, and they have set the entire American people to thinking about it. Indeed, this object is declared to be one of the chief purposes of organization. I quote from a letter of Mr. D. M. Parry :
The prime object of these national organizations is an educational one. They aim to mold public opinion, to influence political action, to defeat socialistic legislation, to develop public thought.
The associations are also doing valuable work in prosecuting lawlessness wherever found, whether the beating of non-union men or the destruction of property. This active opposition has naturally embittered the unions, and yet in so far as it prevents the use of violence it is really of benefit to the union movement; for unionism must learn, what its best leaders already teach, that organization founded on intimidation and violence in the long run cannot succeed. And if the unions find members of Employers' Associations committing unlawful acts they will win, equally, the support of public opinion if they assist in prosecuting such law breakers.
In short, these new associations and alliances perform one of the functions of the new unions; they are agitating bodies; their leaders, men of energy, dramatic public speakers like Mr. Parry and Mr. Job, are truly agitators doing the pioneer work of
organization, stirring up the people. And many of their organizations, usually hasty and not homogeneous, are destined to go the way of the inflated union—when they have served their purpose. They are fighting or defensive organizations, therefore unstable and temporary ; they will give place gradually to the sort of associations which I have grouped under the second class—the associations which, looking upon the labor problem not as warfare but as business, are constructive and conciliatory, and therefore stable and permanent.
Associations That Deal with the Unions
I wish now to give some more detailed account of these organizations of the second class, and perhaps I can do no better than to tell the story of the Chicago Metal Trades Association. It is no more remarkable than that of the Bituminous Coal Operators, nor of the Stove Founders, nor of the Typothetae in various cities, nor of the Newspaper Publishers' Association, nor of many other trade organizations, but I choose it because it comprehends in small compass all the essentia! details of the system and shows how it works under favoring conditions.
The Chicago Metal Trades Association is an organization of more than 100 manufacturers, employing some 15,000 men. Its president is John D. Hibbard, of the John Davis Company, and its secretary is Paul Blatchford, an Amherst graduate, a type of a new profession—that of labor commissioner to Employers' Associations. Mr. Blatchford, indeed, is the walking delegate or business agent of several organizations besides the Chicago Metal Trades Association. He has commodious offices in one of the large downtown buildings, where he meets the walking delegates of the unions, and where joint conferences between the unions and the associations can be held. This new profession, like that of the walking delegate, is one of great importance and power, capable of being used for advancing the welfare of thousands of men or of being prostituted to selfish ends. Association leaders, like labor leaders, are destined to play a more and more important part in our industrial life.
Mr. Hibbard is the genius of the association, a man of enthusiasm and earnestness, a graduate of the University of Michigan, with a training in fair play on the college ball-field. But more than anything else, he [pgbrk]
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has the open mind, the mind that is constantly instructed by events. When he first went into business in Chicago he fought unionism consistently and energetically; he has gone through no fewer than seventeen strikes in as many years.
" I have had men brought into my office," he told me, "with heel marks in their faces. I have seen violence that made my blood boil."
And his conclusion finally was that there must be a better way than this perpetual and often bloody warfare with results not less disastrous to the manufacturers than to the workmen themselves. He concluded that it was worth while, at least, to try dealing with the unions. Two or three things, he told me, impressed themselves upon him as self-evident truths.
1. That the employer and the worker are naturally antagonistic, exactly as the seller and buyer are antagonistic—but not necessarily pugilistic.
2. That the right isn't all on one side.
3. That the old idea among employers of waiting until there was trouble and then getting together hastily to meet a well-trained labor organization, was no more sensible than sending a mob out to meet an army; and finally, that a good fighter doesn't despise his opponents—an important point.
"Well," he said, "1 believed that we were not qualified to judge on all the questions involved unless we had an accurate knowledge of the facts as they appeared to the other side. The question then presented itself: how are we going to get those facts ? The answer was evident : by getting together with the union men and finding out through personal relationship what sort of men they were and whether or not they were as arbitrary and unreasonable as we had supposed."
How Agreements Are Made
So the Metal Trades Association requested each of the unions having men employed in the shops of its members—some six in all— to appoint a committee of three men to meet similar committees of the association and talk things over. When they got together they were all suspicious of each other, each expecting some trick, enemies come to arrange a truce. Mr. Hibbard then stated the case to the conference :
"We are here, gentlemen, in good faith and in good temper. Neither of us wants
any more trouble ; we've had enough of it. We want to find out, frankly, what you men want, and we will tell you frankly what we want. We believe we can discuss everything, everything, mind you, and stay good- -natured, and that we can finally come to an agreement satisfactory to both sides."
Well, after much discussion, they formulated a preliminary agreement, submitting every question at issue to a committee of six members, three from the union concerned and three from the association, and stipulating that any questions upon which this committee failed to agree should be submitted to arbitration. But the chief clause of the preliminary agreement was :
"That pending such settlement there shall be no lockout or strike."
All the unions signed and the joint committees got down to work. They expected to have no end of trouble, but when the questions were talked over quietly and reasonably, they found that there was nothing really difficult of settlement. Of course, nearly all the unions in the metal trades have had long experience in organization and know the value of business methods and conservative leadership. It was not found necessary to submit a single question to arbitration ; everything was agreed to in a spirit of mutual friendliness, both sides giving and taking.
The '' Open Shop '' Agreement
"We insisted upon four cardinal principles, " said Mr. Hibbard. "First, no limitation of output; second, no sympathetic strike ; third, no cessation of work under any circumstances ; and fourth, freedom in the employment of labor. A great deal is said about the 'open shop,' but there is no real problem involved if both sides are willing to be fair. We say to the unions: 'We will not compel any man to belong to your union in order to work in our shops and you should not attempt to make us. A man coerced by us or intimidated by you is of no value to you. There's the non-union man; if you can persuade him fairly to belong to your union, all right; if not, you must not interfere with him or his work.' "
All these points as well as those pertaining to hours, wages and so on, were agreed to and a year's contract covering every issue was signed with each organization. The only trouble experienced was with the Blacksmiths' Helpers, who, violating the
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non-strike clause of the preliminary agreement, went out because they thought they could not secure the wages they desired from the conciliatory committee or by arbitration. Here was a clear case of broken agreement. The facts were laid before the other unions and given frankly to the newspapers.
"We believe," said Mr. Hibbard, "that in the end public opinion is the final arbiter in every strike. So we make it a practice to tell the labor reporters frankly and fully every fact regarding our negotiations. Publicity is the best remedy for unfairness."
They replaced the Blacksmiths' Helpers with non-union men. " If you don't live up to your agreement we cannot have anything to do with you," the committee of the Helpers was told. Then the Blacksmiths went out in sympathy with the Helpers, refusing to work with "scabs." Here, then, was to be the test of the whole plan: would the unions abide by their agreements, or not ?
How a Union Was Disciplined
Slocum, Cummins and Kerr, officers of the International Brotherhood of Blacksmiths —"three as honest and conservative men as I know," said Mr. Hibbard—came on and investigated the facts thoroughly, Mr. Hibbard and his associates dealing with them frankly. They decided that the Metal Trades Association was right, that the Helpers, having broken their agreement, were wrong, and they ordered the Blacksmiths of Local 14 to go back to work with the non-union helpers. Now, No. 14 was one of the strongest locals in the country, and it refused to let its men go back, defying the International officers. It required pluck of an unusual degree, but the International Brotherhood suspended Local 14, and then threatened to bring in men from the outside to take the places of the strikers. It was a fine bit of discipline, and Local 14 surrendered and went back to work, the Helpers following.
"We took no unfair advantage of the situation," said Mr. Hibbard; "the men came back and the agreement was signed."
What has been the result of the year's work ?
Where strikes were frequent before, neither workers nor employers this year lost a single hour. There were complaints on both sides, of course—about fifty in all. Of these about half were adjusted by the Secretary's
office, the other half required the calling together of the officers of both sides, but there was no case that required outside arbitration, although arbitration was provided for as a last resort. The cost of the association to its members has been only a few cents per month per operative. Seven hundred and fifty dollars expended during the Blacksmiths' Helpers' strike, to assist those affected, represents the entire expenditure on strikes for the year, where tens of thousands of dollars had been devoted to fighting strikes by individual employers in previous years.
What Follows a Successful Agreement
"The reason for our success," said Mr. Hibbard, "was that both sides started out with an honest intent—honest, mind you— to live up to the agreement in spirit as well as in letter. 1 believe firmly that good faith will always bring success in these arrangements."
It was understood that there was to be "no discrimination " against union men, that no employer should use the "open shop" agreement to force out union men. No discrimination meant no discrimination ; and when one employer let out a union man, evidently because he was a union man, the association compelled him to put that man back again On the other hand, no discrimination meant that the non-union man was not to be molested or interfered with.
"They can talk to my workmen outside of shop hours all they want to," said Mr. Hibbard; "and they are at liberty to get them into the union if they can, but they mustn't use my time to talk either unionism, religion, or other matters not pertaining to my business."
Lees Fisher who, with Jacob J. Keppler, represented the International Association of Machinists in these negotiations, told me that the conditions had been wholly satisfactory on the side of the unions ; Mr. Kerr, of the Blacksmiths', gave similar testimony. Indeed, so thorough has become the understanding that a few weeks ago, near the close of the first year of the contract, the officers of the unions invited the officers and commit tees of the association to a little dinner at the Sherman House, where some of the questions at issue were discussed. And both the association and the unions are now looking forward to a satisfactory renewal of the agreements for another year.
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To Mr. Hibbard himself is due much of the credit for these admirable conditions. He has devoted a large share of his time to the work, serving wholly without pay. Not long ago an employer in another trade, who had had a plague of strikes, asked Mr. Hibbard how the Chicago Metal Trades Association got along with so little trouble.
"How much does it cost you to 'fix' those walking delegates ?"
"Not one cent," replied Mr. Hibbard.
"Haven't they asked you?"
"They have never even suggested such a thing."
Some Explosive Questions Discussed
I attended a meeting between Mr. Hibbard and Mr. Blatchford on one side, and Mr. Kerr of the Blacksmiths' Union, Mr. Fisher of the Machinists', Mr. Morton of the Steam Power Council, and Mr. Crane of the Brass Workers, on the other. We discussed some of the explosive questions in the labor problem, and I here set down at random and verbatim some of the things said on both sides :
Mr. Fisher (union)—We agree to the "open shop," but we are getting the non-union men into our organization. I would rather work six months and get a man by good-will than to get him by force. The mere getting of a man into the union doesn't mean that he is organized.
Mr. Hibbard {employer)—The worst thing about a strike is the hard feeling it engenders between the employer and the employee. Men on strike often go to the devil with drink. Some fellows have hard work to keep straight. As soon as they get well braced up along comes a strike and they go to pieces again.
Mr. Kerr {union)—You can say the same of strikes as of war : Striking is hell.
Mr. Morton (union)—The union should keep the strike as a last trump up its sleeve. I've been a labor leader for eleven years and never yet called a strike, and never intend to if I can help it.
Mr. Hibbard (employer)—Good feeling in the shop between the men and the employers is one of the solutions for this question of limitation of output. Men who hate an employer are not going to give him their best work. We say to our men : " You give us good honest work and we can afford to keep up the wages." It's fair on both sides. The fundamental things are mutual respect resulting from intimate and cordial relations and an accurate knowledge of the conditions which both employer and employee have to meet.
Mr. Blatchford (employer)—Not only at the time of making the agreement but these close relations must be maintained all the year through.
Mr. Hibbard (employer)—We are getting in touch with every man, individually, in all of our shops. We have instituted card indices containing the names and the record of every workman.
Mr. Fisher (union)—We also have card indices giving us all the facts regarding every machine shop in Chicago, the number of men employed, how many are union, and so on.
Mr. Hibbard (employer)—The buying and selling of labor is coming to be more and more a strict business affair. Industry, after all, is business, not warfare.
So much for this method of dealing with the labor problem. It works, but it takes service, genuine honesty of purpose, and the real spirit of democracy to make it work. And few people appreciate the extent to which this system of "solving" the problem has been carried in this country. I wish there were room here to tell of the conferences of the Bituminous Coal Operators and the United Mine Workers, the days and weeks of patient discussion with concessions on both sides, with education of both sides, that goes on every year, and that keeps thousands of workers in their places practically without strikes of any sort, where hundreds of strikes took place in every year before the agreement was adopted.
Unions not Opposed to Organisation of Employers
The public has a mistaken idea that labor leaders and labor unions are opposed to the organization of employers. They are not. I never found one yet who did not look forward to the day when employers would be organized. They are too thoroughly convinced by long experience of the value of organization ; but naturally they like associations of the type of Mr. Parry's, or Mr. Job's, as little as employers generally like the raw, irresponsible, undisciplined unionism represented in many cities by the Teamsters.
Certainly these democratic relationships, this business adjustment of labor troubles, this even balance of organization, this mutual respect not unmingled with fear, is the best thing we now know for dealing with the labor problem. All unions and all associations are not ready for it yet—the unions have still to learn a great deal more of business methods and of the sacredness of contracts, employers must learn a great deal more about democracy—but the agreement system, when lived up to even poorly, is surely better for the industry involved than continual warfare.
What the effects of this wide organization of capital and labor and of these amicable arrangements between employers
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and employees are on the general public, and especially on that part of it which is without organization — a most important question—cannot here be discussed.
Conclusions
And finally, we may suggest certain general conclusions :
1. Both sides have an equal right to organize.
2. Employers' Associations cannot refuse to the unions the same rights and the same methods of fighting which they themselves exercise, and vice versa. If one side boycotts and "slugs" and uses injunctions, the other side will use the same weapons. If one side deals fair it will get fair dealing from the other side sooner or later.
3. Absolutely stable and continuing conditions are not possible in industry any
more than in any other department of life; both sides must be prepared for constant readjustment and for the attendant concessions.
4. The condition at present most favorable to industry would seem to be one of strong, well-disciplined, reasonable organization on both sides. A great disparity of strength always means the abuse of power by the more vigorous organization.
5. Organization always presumes a fighting force, as each nation has its standing army, but the prime object should be peace.
6. The same qualities of fair-dealing, honesty, and personal contact required in business generally are equally necessary in buying and selling labor—a transaction which is, after all, neither sentiment, nor warfare, nor speechifying, but business.
BY WAY OF LOSS
BY
MARY JOSEPHINE MAYER
ILLUSTRATED BY BLENDON CAMPBELL
BROCKTON pulled a letter out of his pocket, read it through slowly, threw himself back in his leather arm-chair, pulled hard at his pipe, gazed at the ceiling through the smoke, and then reperused the letter. As it was a short note, and he had read it before at least twenty times, he might have been supposed to know it by heart. But he read it for a third time before he folded it carefully and returned it to his waistcoat pocket, The note ran thus :
Beacon Street, Boston. Dear John :—Mother and 1 are going to New York, Wednesday, for a few days' shopping. We shall put up at the Holland House. Please come Wednesday evening and take me somewhere— hotel reception-rooms are such impossible places to receive one's friends in. Until Wednesday then . . . Eunice Garner.
This was Tuesday evening. Brockton drew out his pocket-book and told over its contents mechanically, as if he knew the
sum well enough. There were a two-dollar bill and three ones. He plunged into his trousers' pocket and drew out seventy-five cents in small change. Then he rummaged in his bureau drawer and found a little heap of pawn tickets and his dress-shirt studs. He looked at these last doubtfully and threw them back—he couldn't take her to the theater without his shirt studs. He felt automatically for his watch and remembered that he had pawned it the week before to pay his board bill. Five dollars and seventy-five cents—he should have to manage breakfast, lunch, and dinner on the seventy-five cents. That would leave four dollars for their theater tickets and one dollar for possible extras. Having settled these practical details, he gave himself up to tobacco smoke and musing.
Her note had not announced her engagement to some other man and he was to see her in less than twenty-four hours—so much to the good. On the other hand, in all the
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seven years of what she called their "friendship"—"Friendship ! " he muttered. "Good Lord !"—his own chances had never seemed quite so hopeless. If a man were ever going to succeed, he ought to have begun at thirty —and here he was at thirty with a collection of pawn tickets, five dollars and seventy-five cents, and no prospects. He thought of the Garners' house on Beacon Street, and their place on the North Shore, and of her habit of going abroad whenever the whim seized her—and he laughed to himself grimly.
What a backward donkey he had always been ! He was twenty-three when he graduated from Harvard—the same year he had met Eunice Garner, and after spending a month with his chum at Beverly, near the Garners' place, had made up his mind that he would marry her, or nobody. He wondered lazily why she had seemed to like him from the start, when he was burned a lobster red that made his light hair look like tow, and his blue eyes of a pale and sickly cast. He didn't consider his looks much to boast of at the best, but in summer he was a fright. It was part of his general luck, he supposed, scowling through the smoke, that summer was the time he saw most of her. His luck! He thought of his "flyers" in the market, of how often his margin had been wiped out, and of this last deal, made on what he considered a sure tip. Why hadn't he stuck to his plodding and his salary, even though the sum he had fixed as the least on which he could ask her to marry him was so long in coming? Oh, it made him sick to think of it all, and he rose from his chair and stretched himself with a yawn. As he did so the mirror opposite showed him his six feet of brawn and muscle and he surveyed it with gloomy contempt. "Much good it does me," he muttered. "It's brains that count nowadays, and precious little I've got of those, as the Lord who withheld them from me knows."
He went to the Holland House the next evening as early as he decently could and, after sending up his card, waited in tense expectancy. He wondered if Eunice had changed in the eight months since she had waved him a good-by from the deck of the "Kaiser Wilhelm." It would be like her to change, he reflected paradoxically. Her many-sidedness had never ceased to puzzle him. In which mood should he find her tonight ? Would she wear what he called
her "society manner"—the easy poise that made him feel far-off and lonely—or would she be the impulsive Eunice, given to hasty action and quick repentance ? She never seemed so wholly lovable to him as when she was sorry for something she had done. Or had this separation—the longest since they had known each other—developed in her some new phase ? Well, whatever she might be, his duty stood out clear—he had no right to let her know how he felt, and he was determined to keep a tight rein on himself.
When at last she came, the sight of her sunk him into a moment of dull depression —standing there in the doorway until she should see him, she looked so distinctly the woman of the world. Perhaps his own poverty made him exaggerate the richness of her furs and velvet gown and plumed hat—he did not stop to consider that the same clothes on another woman would fail to produce that effect of distinction. Then she caught sight of him, her eyes lighted, and she came forward impulsively with both hands outstretched; there was something childlike in her self-forgetfulness. "Well, Johnnie?" she said. "Well, Eunice?" he replied; and they stood with clasped hands. He couldn't speak. The longing to take her in his arms, to make her his by force, for the instant, overpowered him.
"You are the most beautiful creature on God's earth, and I love you, I love you," were the words that rushed to his lips. But he pulled himself together, withdrew his hands from the clasp of hers, and said in his very best drawing-room manner: "Awfully good of you to let me know you were in town."
The light died out of her eyes and her hands dropped to her sides. " I—I thought you would be glad to see me," she faltered.
"Glad? Of course, I'm glad," he stammered. If only she had not been in her most adorable mood, it might not have been quite so hard for him. " I'm very glad," he added, with an attempt at heartiness that should not overstep the bounds of friendship.
" Did you miss me last summer at Beverly?" she asked, with a little upward glance. Most men met Eunice Garner's eyes on a level and some thought her too tall.
"I didn't go" (" how could I when you were not there, my darling?" he had almost said). Instead, he explained elaborately—¦ "You see, Drayton was in Switzerland, and
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the Jocelyns' is such a deuced formal house to stay at that I refused their bid, and—well, I thought I'd go to Maine for a change." He was doing well, he told himself—he hadn't known how good an actor he could be. Eunice sank into the corner of a sofa; he drew a small gilt chair in front of her and sat up very straight, as if the physical brace would somehow stiffen his moral backbone. She threw him a searching glance. "Then my being away had nothing to do with your not going to Beverly ?"
"Oh, of course," he said, in the tone he might have used to a woman whom he had just been asked to take out to dinner. " I should have missed you awfully"—then, as a happy afterthought—"the tennis, and all that, you know." He wouldn't have made such a bad diplomat, after all. He remembered how his uncle, the one who paid his way through college, had wanted him to go into the service. There was a pause. Then—"How is Mrs. Garner?" he asked politely. But the old chill was creeping over him. Eunice was by this time very much the woman of the world ; her gray eyes met his in a level, careless glance.
"Mother is a bit uncomfortable—she thinks I'm not quite proper. She seems to forget that I'm a woman of twenty-six and like to dispense with a chaperon occasionally ; she prefers to keep up the fiction of my extreme youth. In short, I'm deviating from the straight and narrow way of Boston —I hope you duly appreciate my going out alone with you ?" She talked against time, as if he were a particularly difficult dinner escort.
"Oh, I appreciate it," he said miserably. "See here, Eunice"—he remembered himself in time.
"Well?" she interrogated.
" Nothing—1 was just going to say—to ask if that's a Paris hat ?"
"Yes; do you like it?" She turned her head carelessly, as if asking the approval of a milliner.
"You would be beautiful in anything," was his thought; but he said: "It's awfully swell. Those Paris people can make any woman look like a beauty—well, I don't mean that, exactly—" He stopped, confused ; he wasn't doing so well. She looked at him curiously.
" By the way, John, Mr. Drayton came home on the steamer with us—did he tell you ?"
A spasm of jealousy clutched him like a physical pain. Drayton, who had been his chum in college, was absurdly rich, disgustingly good-looking, and entirely unspoiled. "Charlie always was a secretive chap," he said, not quite truthfully.
"He sat next to me at table," went on Eunice musingly; "and when I couldn't eat, I found such comfort in gazing at his profile. It's absolutely Greek."
Involuntarily Brockton passed his hand over his own blunt nose. " I presume he proposed to you?" he said savagely. He had completely forgotten his part. She made no reply and a fierce anger rushed over him. He wanted to hurt some one. He rose and bowed to her ceremoniously. "Allow me to congratulate you, Mrs. Charles Appleton Drayton." He wished her to resent it—he hoped she would be very angry.
Instead she gave a low laugh and looked up at him with the happy light once more in her eyes. "Sit down, John, and don't be a goose. You look positively murderous. No; I'm not engaged to Charlie Drayton."
"Thank God!" he " ejaculated solemnly. Then, with anxiety: "Are you going to be?"
For a moment she looked at him teasingly, then, under his gaze, the warm color rose until it flooded her face, and she dropped her eyes and said quietly : "No." She was adorable. For the twentieth time that evening he cursed himself for not having won the right to tell her so.
"What's the matter ?" she asked, recovering herself. "Your jaw is set as if you wanted to fight some one ?"
"Oh, I was only thinking how glad I am to have you back."
She laughed. " If that look means pleasure, let's be miserable. Come, cheer up, and tell me where you are going to take me to-night?" Her spirits had risen to the point of hilarity. As he watched her draw on her gloves he thought what a strange girl she was, with her freezing indifference for his good behavior, her gay warmth for his rudeness. Well, he would bask in her mood while it lasted and forget the future. "I thought I'd let you choose," he said.
"Then suppose we walk down-town and see what turns up. I feel what Mother would call 'irresponsible' to-night."
As they came out into the clear January night the cold wind smote them in the face and forced them to take a brisk pace. It
[pgbrk] BY WAY OF LOSS
295
was the hour when people are hurrying to the theaters, when Madison Square.is the focus of a thousand electric lights, and all New York, clad in its best, seems bent on pleasure. In forlorn contrast to the general gaiety were a motley crowd of men, gathered on the strip of asphalt to the north of the Worth Monument triangle. They were singing a hymn, the hoarse and doleful strain of which floated intermittently above the clanging of the Broadway cars and the more subdued carriage traffic of Fifth Avenue.
"What is it ?" asked Eunice. "I want to see them."
"Oh, no, you don't," said he. "It's only the bummers waiting for a night's lodging." He had his reasons for not wishing to stop there with Eunice.
"But I do," she insisted. "These are just the sights of a big city that interest me."
Brockton reluctantly made a place for her among the group of spectators. Before them the outcasts—for the most part old or middle-aged men—huddled together in a solid square, while a thick-set man, with his dark head bared to the wind, harangued the lookers-on from a soap-box. He explained, in the vernacular of the people, that these men were the "misfortunates"—they hadn't got no money nor no friends, and they'd have to walk the streets all night if they didn't get the sum of a lodging. "Now, boys," he ended, turning to the men, "it's either cash or shanks' mare for to-night."
Some of the "boys" followed the speaker with strained attention ; others cast furtive glances at the spectators ; and a few gazed on the ground in the very listlessness of despair. They pressed together for warmth. In the group of perhaps fifty men there were scarcely a dozen overcoats. It was not a new sight to Brockton ; he had often stopped there of a cold night and, without reasoning about the evils of careless charity, had given money to the preacher, because the sight of the poor devils waiting for a bed never failed to move him. He knew how Eunice was feeling, even before he turned to her and saw tears in her eyes.
"Oh, let's get out of this," he said. She threw him a look of reproach for answer, adding : " Unfortunately, I left my pocket-book at home." He knew that she was silently condemning him for not giving. He didn't blame her, but, Good Heavens ! it was hard to be placed in that particularly false position before her, of all people.
"That's too bad—I mean, it's just as well," he replied confusedly.
"Now, boys," began the man on the soapbox, "sing ; and sing all together—it sounds better that way." Then a few hoarse voices rose from the shivering group and took up the strain—"Oh, where is my wandering boy to-night?" and the sight and sound of it were something beyond either laughter or tears. Eunice turned to Brockton. " Please lend me five dollars," she said authoritatively.
He looked at her in blank misery. "You don't want all that?"
" Is it such a large sum ?" she asked with sarcasm.
Doggedly he drew out the two-dollar bill and the three ones and held them toward her. There were just two nickels left in his pocket.
" Please give them to the preacher," she commanded ; and when he had done so she turned away, saying very coldly: "I think we will go to the theater now."
At last fate had cornered him. His sordid secret, it seemed, was even to be denied the decent covering of silence. Why hadn't he begged, borrowed, stolen—anything, he asked himself in sudden frenzy, to have kept Eunice from knowing ? She would pity him. He would stand before her in the same category with those wretched creatures to whom she had just given a night's lodging. Perhaps she would offer to lend him money. He cast about vainly for a subterfuge, and at last fell back upon the bare fact. "We can't go to the theater now."
"And why not?" she asked. "We shall only be a little late."
"Oh, well, if you really want to know, I'll tell you," he said with a short laugh. "It's rather a good joke, but somehow I had depended upon keeping it to myself. I didn't want to share it with you, you see. We can't go, because that five dollars was all I had in the world. I'm dead broke."
"All—you—had?" she faltered. "Ah—" and she drew a deep breath.
" Yes—funny, isn't it ? Oh, I told you it was a good joke."
"We will go back to the hotel then." Her voice was calm and even. He needn't have dreaded her impulsive pity—what she felt for him was probably contempt. As they walked silently up the avenue the singing followed them, fainter and fainter, and he shaped to the doleful air words of his
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own." " I've told her and she doesn't care— she despises me." For the first time the saying that women worship success came home to him. Then, of a sudden, he saw himself with her eyes—he felt how she would have scorned him if she had known that he, the penniless duffer, had cherished night and day, for seven years, the hope of marrying her. Well, she didn't know—he had at least kept that last shred of self-respect. He wondered what she was thinking of, there beside him, as she braced her back against the wind that drove them swiftly forward. She might have said something—she was usually ready enough to meet and conquer a difficult situation. Did she, after all, suspect? He felt that he could never face her again. Even in the hotel, after he had followed her to a small up-stairs parlor and seated himself beside her, on the sofa, he didn't look at her, lest her eyes should confirm his fear.
"John—I think—I begin to understand." Was it really Eunice's voice ? He turned toward her, and as he met her eyes a great wonder took possession of him. In the sudden revulsion of feeling he blurted out : "My God, Eunice! Don't look at me like that, or you'll make me say something I'll be sorry for."
"Say it," she murmured. "I've been waiting so long."
He drew away from her, frowning. "No ; I wont say it. Do you think I've held on to myself for seven years, to let myself go now, of all times ? Oh, but you make it hard for a fellow, though."
She leaned toward him, where he shrank back in the corner of the sofa. "Then I'll say it. John Brockton, will .you—marry me? There—now perhaps I've humiliated myself enough to satisfy your pride," and she gave a little laugh that was half a sob.
He rose and towered over her. " Look here, Eunice, do you think I'll marry a rich woman as long as I'm a beggar? I may be a duffer, but I'm not a cad."
"Then you don't love me, after all ?"
" Love you ?" he echoed. "Oh, no, I don't love you. I've only lived with one hope and wish ever since I knew you—I've only worked, and risked all I had, and failed miserably, because the one thing in life I wanted was you—but I don't love you-"
She rose too, and confronted him with angry eyes. "Shall I tell you what you love? You love yourself—your foolish
pride, your false idea of honor. Oh, what difference does it make about money— haven't I more than enough for us both? Because I'm rich, must I go without the only thing in life that is worth having ?"
"But, Eunice, you don't understand-r-no woman could understand how a man feels about such things." He himself hardly understood now ; beside the warmth of her confession his scruples were beginning to look such cold things.
"Feels !" she said contemptuously. "Do you call such cold-blooded calculation feeling? And it is for that you have let me suffer all this time !"
"Let you suffer?" he repeated blankly. " I thought the suffering had all been on my side."
"Oh, of course, being a man, you never thought of putting yourself in my place. You don't know—" Then suddenly her anger died away. She sank back on the sofa and her eyes filled with tears. "Oh, John, can't you understand—how I need you?"
As she looked up at him through her tears, convention dropped from him as a garment, and all the man in him rose to meet her weakness. For the moment they were primal as Siegfried and Brunhild on the fire-girt rock. He made a sudden movement toward her.
But the conventions were upon them once more, in the shape of an elderly man and a middle-aged woman who sauntered through the doorway and stood aimlessly chatting in the center of the room. Brockton stopped short and tried to look careless—while all the time her triumphant face was telling him : " I have won ; I have won ! " He threw the intruders a savage look -and growled something between his teeth. The obnoxious couple, evidently scenting the situation, began to beat an honorable retreat, lingering, for propriety's sake, in the doorway.
"Are you aware," questioned the girl, " that you swore just then—quite violently?"
"Swore !" he muttered. "Haven't I been mad all these years, to take you in my arms, and now—1 can't."
At that she began to laugh, and the laughter grew, hysterically, until her eyes were wet, and the contagion of it made him join in helplessly, yet with a certain wrathful reserve. Then the elderly man disappeared around the corner with the middle-aged woman.
[pgbrk] 'I THINK WE WILL GO TO THE THEATER NOW
[pgbrk] ONE HUNDRED MASTERPIECES OF PAINTING
BY
JOHN LA FARGE
AUTHOR OF "CHEAT MASTERS"
FOURTH PAPER
PORTRAITS OF CHILDREN
ROM the pleasure we take in the pictures, sometimes also in the portraits, of children, it might be supposed that we should find for our present purpose of choosing out of all art some of the fairest flowers, a greater supply than we should get from the number of older persons painted. All the more that we are naturally inclined to the subject of the artist. The subject escapes our dislike in the first place, as with the reality our knowledge of human nature does not extend far enough into the future to judge these beginning lives, and they, too, are probably at their best. They are usually painted when they are at their prettiest, and their astounding power of being all there at the moment in the transient attitude they prefer, puts them almost at their ease morally. Painted, we do not ask anything from them—any duty, obedience, or holding their tongues, making less noise. We both admire and pity them because they have to change and be like us. It is, after all, for them that most of us live, but in the painted image we have no anxiety for their future welfare. Usually they are painted before that change
in which anxiety is marked, and therefore nothing darkens the prospect. It has been natural to paint them as angels even if our Lord had not established their age as a type of what we should try to be. The antique representations of children come to us only through sculpture, and whether painted or sculptured they are rather types than portraits. There is no little Protus such as Browning described :
" Among the later bus's we count by scores, Half emperors and quarter emperors, ********
One loves a baby face with violets there,
Violets instead of laurel in the hair,
As those were all the little locks could bear."
There is, however, far away in chivalrous Japan, painted by a painter, himself a knight, touched by the grace of Buddhism in bloody days of feud and hate, the little portrait that I give herewith of the child saint who, seven hundred years ago, brought a fuller Buddhism into Japan.
He is Ko-bo-Dai-shi (the broad religious great teacher); his real name being swamped in this posthumous tribute to his memory, and the meaning of his teaching. For he
[pgbrk] KO-BO-DAI-SHI
FROM A PAINTING BY NOBUZANE
[pgbrk] Photograph by Braun, Clement and Co.
THE MAIDS OF HONOUR
FROM THE PAINTING BY VELASQUEZ
[pgbrk] JOHN LA FAROE
301
achieved the blending of the native beliefs of Japan with the foreign religion of Buddhism and helped to make "Patriotism and Piety one." Thus, he saw in the gods, in the heroes of old Japan, manifestations of eternal truths, which had taken the forms of man, and founded a theology suitable to the race, which secured the prevalence of the doctrine imported from India, where he himself was said to have studied. And, more than that, he is the inventor of the Japanese alphabet, and for the last thousand years the children have repeated the names of these names of sound which, run together, make a verse, telling the disenchanting doctrine of the transitory passage of the world.
" The charms and the perfumes of life in
reality disappear: In this world of ours, is there aught which
lasts forever ? In the deep mountain of existence the present
day is sinking And is not even, alas, the fragile image of a
dream."
The placing of the child on the lotus flower is the rendering of a continuous prophetic dream of his when he was five years old and which he kept secret to himself; the lotus is the usual emblem and figure of that doctrine of Buddha which the child was to live for. And in his tomb in the great garden of the monastery he founded—Koya San— a pious tradition keeps him still alive. The little picture represents the youthful saint placed on the lotus flower, which typifies the religion of Buddha, praying as might the infant Samuel, with a sweetness that, even in this extremely simple method of painting, is reflected long before the Christian painters gave us the expression of religious absorption. For it is with the pictures of saintly scenes of the infant Christ and little John and the angels in attendance that the portrait of the child begins to be seen in art. The painters began to draw from real life the motives of the imaginary characters. Therefore, the little child Christ puts His hand on the gray heads of the Kings or of the Magi who kneel before Him. He smiles at the donors who are painted modestly in the corners of holy pictures. He lies sleepy on His mother's shoulder and stretches out a lazy hand. He plays with the angels that surround Him or looks at them as another amusement. Nor are the little angels, the little Saint Johns, his cousins, pure inventions. They are the
children playing about the homes of the painters, whether those painters live in more prosaic Flanders or in romantic villages or towns of Italy. The divine meaning of all these subjects of painting freed nature to the eye of the painter.
Only very slowly are the portraits of little personages, children of princes or of kings, treated otherwise than through etiquette. In fact, they are rarely painted. It is only when they are old enough to be marked as successors to dignities that it is necessary to have a record of them, to propose their choice in other courts, for marriages that might happen. And then perhaps are they more gawky than they need be, because they are just then taken at a time of indecision and vacant promise. So we have drawings of children as young as seven years old, like little Margaret of Valois of France, made for the youthful Don Carlos of Spain, among the pictures by Clouet.
But the painters have begun to paint their own children and the splendor of the success begins to extend to official portraits. So that we see the story told just at the very moment by the perfectly natural representation, yet within the laws of etiquette, of the little princes and princesses painted by Velasquez around whom in a freer action move the older children of their court. Either the baby Don Balthazar, with his curious dwarf companion, or the little Infanta Margaret in the famous painting of "The Meninas " ("The Maids of Honour").
This, as we all know, is one of the famous paintings of the world and, like many great works of art or literature, has had its day of glory and day of oblivion, and now slowly within the last half century or so becomes a criterion for the modern painter. At the time it was painted it was judged of pretty nearly as it is to-day. One of the rival Italians who worked much in Spain, a fashionable and successful painter of the day, and certainly no mean artist, said of it to Philip the King, that it was the very theology of painting, meaning thereby, I suppose, that it was truth and dogma and orthodoxy—all that is opposite to theoretical pragmatism. Its workmanship and all that side of painting which copies nature for illusion have reached here the highest level known ; not attempting to deceive, by insisting on special points of accuracy, but so that each accuracy depends upon the others and that the whole has that impression of
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ONE HUNDRED MASTERPIECES OF PAINTING
nature which does not surprise us, which does not look clever or particularly wonderful or difficult to understand. Hence, the wonderful success of the photograph in rendering the picture, however much we may miss. There are parts that are not to be seen and they melt away as they do in nature. The little lady in the center of the picture is the Princess or Infanta Margaret, of whom there are many other portraits, later, by the same illustrious hand. Perhaps here she is less at her ease than in others, and one feels all the more what I .am speaking of, the slow growth of the natural portrait of a child of royal blood as compared with the children of more ordinary birth. As in the lines of Thackeray, the verses called "The Ballad of Policeman X," we are to remember the reproof given by the nurse to the Duke of Wellington, asking at the time of the birth of the present King — "Is it a boy or girl?" "Your Grace, it is a Prince." "And at the nurse's bold reply, he did both laugh and wince." Here the little Princess is five years old. She is the half-sister of the little Don Balthazar whom we have seen a moment ago -with the dwarf. The relentless etiquette "which surrounded her followed her into such details as this: that when she was thirsty one of her noble maids, a " menina," brought a glass to another, who knelt as also did the maid, and on the other side knelt also an attendant to give her a napkin, while a maid of honour stood as a witness. This is almost a description of this picture of a scene which occurred probably in some room of the court, where their Majesties had been •sitting for their portraits. Or else the King had come, as was his habit, to watch his favorite painter. For the King himself was somewhat of a painter, somewhat of a poet, very much of a sportsman, and also a majestic and hard-worked business-man, glad to escape from the terrors of official life. Thus the subject is supposed to have happened, and that the King wished the accidental scene preserved. We know he is there, because he is reflected with the Queen in the mirror on the wall. He sees what we see ; and this mirror contains the only portrait we have of the King and Queen together. The little Princess is on her best behavior before their majesties — her father and mother. We can reconstitute the scene as it occurred. Windows had been closed to make a special light for one of the royal
sitters; and the group of the Princess, her maidens, and the dwarfs kept to amuse her, stood in this narrow light. The Queen's quartermaster opens the door in the rear, apparently at some order from the King whom we do not see. But we recognize the peculiar movement of a man waiting for further instructions. In the gloom of the room is the Lady of Honour in her convent habit. She may have belonged to some order, or assumed it for some special purpose in such a religiously-minded court. Next to her stands an elderly gentleman, whose duty it was to attend the court lady. One of the noble girls whose name still remains, offers to the little Princess, upon a gold salver, some water from a cup made of a special, fine scented clay from the East Indies. The other maiden, dressed also in the court habit, with the great hoop skirts which were the rule, courtesies slightly upon the occasion, according to the etiquette I first described. We know her name too, and that she grew up to be a great beauty and died early. On the right is the ugly, stupid dwarf, Maria Barbola, and her companion, Nicholas Pertusato, who puts his foot on the big dog, half asleep, as if to wake him up and get a little fun out of the moment. Velasquez himself has just been painting. He stands by the great canvas which runs through the greater part of the picture; and we see the motion of the hand thai painted that picture. It is all as it were, a mere accident, but every part of it has been used to help the impression and make a beautiful pattern, and we shall never know how much it was a mere copy from nature, and how much the choice of art. There is a legend that the red cross on the painter's doublet was painted by Philip himself, as a manner of telling Velasquez that he had made him a Knight of Santiago, and as a joyful surprise. He was said even to have used the words that "it needed nothing but that." All legends are sure to be shaken, if not destroyed, and we are now assured that the cross was added by order of the King at Velasquez's death, as a manner of making him more fitting for the august company in which he was painted.
Princess Margaret's brother, Don Balthazar, has a gayer time in painting, as he had also in real life. Another triumph of Velasquez, another triumph of art in the simplicity of its intention and its rendering, is the portrait of the little Prince on his pony galloping towards us in the style of an officer
[pgbrk] Photograph by Braun, Clement and Co.
DON BALTHAZAR CARLOS ON HORSEBACK
FROM THE PAINTING BY VELASQUEZ
[pgbrk] Photograph by Braun, Clement and Co.
SAINT JOHN
FROM THE PAINTING BY MURILLO
[pgbrk] JOHN LA FARCE
305
or general with his marshal's baton extended. One can suppose the boy playing at being commander also, and riding the chestnut pony as he was taught by his father — the best horseman in Spain. The little pale face, just joyful enough, notwithstanding its play of dignity, or because of it, is framed in a heavy hat ; the green velvet jacket with white sleeves, on which is tied the delicate pink scarf whose ends flutter in the wind ; the blue of the saddle, the trappings of the horse, are each wonders of rendering. The chestnut pony, rounded like a ball, with long mane and sweeping tail, forms with the Prince, his rider, a mass of motion made stronger by the contrast of all the lines and tones of the quiet landscape; such a one as Velasquez saw from his studio window, in the palace, at springtime—a stretch of blue and white clouds, and beyond the blues and the grays and greens of the hills, the Mountains of Guadarrama, still bluer, and crowned with films of snow.
Meanwhile the children of the poor were being painted in the manner of portraits or rather in the manner of subjects sufficient of themselves and treated with some respect. The Dutch painters were painting the scenes of home life, where children came in as did everything else that belonged to the life represented. They are true enough, often disagreeably so, if they are not treated as portraits, as subjects of sufficient dignity, to be the entire motive, Murillo, the painter of Spanish devotion are of abandonment to the charm of religious possession, has painted his "Beggar Boys" with a certain grandeur, as if they were disinherited noblemen with acquired bad habits, with cheek extended by the bit of fruit, etc. They are alone of their kind. So vulgar and so dignified, they have no intention of satire or analysis. And in his devotional pictures the children under the guises of angels, and the cherubs, or the Christ child held by His mother or embracing St. Anthony of Padua,
are children whose dignity is the lovely sentiment of the artist. However personal it may seem to us it mingles insensibly with the other Spanish expressions. It comes from a habit of life, intimately saturated by religion, following the ordinary virtues, and, though capable of the mystic and the passionate, perfectly natural and in accordance with ordinary humanity. In that manner of using the child as a receptacle for the ideal of feeling the " Saint John " of Murillo makes a manner of portrait. In a more serious and more poetic form such a painting connects with the children painted in the next century by Sir Joshua and Gainsborough.
The one I have chosen of the several of Murillo's sacred children is the little Saint John, who looks up to a sky overhanging a landscape of hills and trees, such as the Spaniard saw. The boy's face grows older with the idea of the heaven above him, perhaps near him. The peasant's hand presses the half-bared breast; the hard peasant feet are bare; the child is an out-of-doors boy, no imagined ideal of elegance and inspiration. He is the cousin of the mischievous beggars in Murillo's pictures. He could play with them to-morrow. But a something of yearning, as if of orphanage, has touched the haggard features of the shepherd boy. It is true that he points to a scroll curled around a little cross, but that is merely the explanation of himself and that he announces the Lamb of God. And a real lamb presses also against him, waiting its turn of notice. Nor could the impression of dreamland go without the great shadows which make the picture, which bathe a proportion of its surface in a relation to the light, and allow the eye to center on this transfiguration of a peasant's face by the feeling of the artist. He recorded, perhaps, an expression once really seen in some boy's face ; for imagination is made up of many memories and its calls do not come by ordered necessity.
[pgbrk] HI CHEE'S HLORSEE
BY
CLARA BYRNES
ILLUSTRATED BY W. D. STEVENS
Costello the magnificent, tyrant and idol of the Sixt', - felt in his pockets for his laundry ticket. Hi Chee waited with a smile amiable and vague, and cloudy almond eyes half closed. He knew that Mr. Tom Costello was a great lord in his own province, possessing the yellow jacket and . peacock's feather of £ the Sixt', and that the great diamond in his shirt front was the symbol of a power exceeding that of a red-button mandarin. Because the great Costello took his collars and cuffs to Hi Chee, the small Melican devils of the Sixt' omitted to cast stones at Hi Chee's windows.
Costello's enemies in the Sixt' carped at these aristocratic tastes of his in the matter of linen, but Tom Costello was democratic withal, and carried his big bundle of laundry under his arm to Hi Chee. He now wrinkled his handsome brow humorously at the Chinaman.
"Lost my ticket," he said. "Don't suppose you could let me have my clean collars, Mister Hi ? " Hi Chee woke up suddenly.
" Lookee blookee," he observed with dignity. The red-button mandarin of the Sixt' was not bound to the rigid laws of tlickee that held for the common herd, whose collars only came to Hi Chee a few days before great lantern festivals, such as the Myrtle Club Social or the Annual Ball of the Thomas J. Costello Association.
"Allee light," Hi Chee decided at length, and pushed Mr. Costello's laundry across the counter.
"All right." rejoined Tom Costello,with his peculiarly sunny smile, and turned to leave. But to him at that moment entered Hughey McGirr, his lieutenant and master-at-arms.
" Say, Tom," McGirr began, unrolling a sheet of soiled foolscap, "they're pulling off a raffle at the Palisade Stables and they wan-ter put you down for a few chances. 'S all right, ain't it ? "
Costello grinned. "Hughey," said he, "raffles 's against the law. 1 told you so last month when you raffled off the cuckoo clock for that consumptive ! "
"Aw, come off, Tom! " ejaculated McGirr, somewhat ruffled. "What's the law gotter do with charity ? "
Tom Costello's grin widened. "Hughey," said he, "you ain't foxy. You ain't used to running with this reform gang. Don't come to me with your gamblin' schemes. I gotter be careful what I do."
"Aw, this ain't politics, Tom," McGirr said, rather shamefacedly. "You remember Finney, don't you ; that poor devil of a bookmaker who died last week ?"
"Chum Finney ? " said Tom Costello, who had a long memory for names. " Yep, 1 remember Chum. Leave anything ? "
" Yep," returned McGirr dryly. "Wife, four kids, and a horse. It's a bum horse and nobody wants him, so the Palisade crowd's goin' to raffle him off for Mrs. Finney's benefit."
Unmoved by this pathetic recital, Tom Costello squared his shoulders and expanded his great chest.
" No go, Hughey," he proclaimed, with the austerity of the true reformer. " 1 won't stand for no raffles in the Sixt'. But if you ain't particularly stuck on having my name on that thing-"
"Fix it your own way, Tom," said Hughey McGirr; "but gimme a tenner for Finney's wife."
[pgbrk] CLARA BYRNES
307
"There's your tenner," said Tom Costello. Taking the numbered list of chances, he laid it on Hi Chee's ironing board. " Here, sign your autograft ten times, Mister Hi. You ain't a reformer, so it won't hurt you to be in on this deal."
Hi Chee took his well-inked brush, but paused, with it poised in air.
"Allee light ? " he asked trustfully.
"All right," said Tom Costello. "Plenty fline horsee. Lide home China."
Hi Chee nodded and smiled. He did not understand the nature of the joke, but he knew that the Sixt' regarded Mr. Costello even as a joss who did not play false with his worshippers. So he set down his crabbed Chinese characters in ten empty spaces on
" ' Allee light ? ' he asked trustfully "
the list and, unapprehensive and calm, returned to his ironing.
The Palisade Stables held the raffle in due form and sent the proceeds to Mrs. Finney, together with a receipted bill for the keep of the horse. They do these things in the Sixt'.
Then word was sent to Hi Chee to remove his property, for that amiable Celestial had drawn the lucky number and was now the proud possessor of Pasquinade, old Pasquinade, by Tartarin-Andalusia, Muezzin-Archduchess II, and so forth and so on, as set forth in a six-page excerpt from a stud-book, among other important documents sent around to Hi Chee.
A hanger-on at the Palisade Stables carried the good news to the laundry. Hi Chee
received the announcement without betraying any enthusiasm.
"Allee light," he said. Presumably he regarded it all as part of Tom Costello's little joke. At all events, three days passed and Pasquinade still stood in the Palisade Stables, absorbing any amount of oats into his bony old frame.
The stable did not love Pasquinade, for, some months back,- Finney, the sanguine and unfortunate, had beguiled the whole Palisade force into backing the old horse at Morris Park. Poor old Pasquinade's sore feet had played him a mean trick, and the Palisade crowd came home very low in its mind and empty as to its pocket. Yunk, the foreman, never looked at Pasqui-
nade without remembering the eighty-five good dollars he had withdrawn from the Bowery Bank and abusing the old horse roundly.
"That's right," he apostrophized him, a few days after the raffle. "Go on eatin', you old skate. Gollop up all d' oats in d' place. It's about all you can do. Dat Chink'll have to fill you up on cuffs and collars."
"Good thing," snarled Shaughnessy, the saturnine proprietor. "Might put some starch into him. You go round and tell that Chinaman to come round and take his horse away. And you give him his bill too. Jim's made it out."
Yunk went around to Hi Chee's and presented the bill.
[pgbrk] " 'Go on eatin, you old skate
"Allee light," said Hi Chee.
"All right," said Yunk. "Gimme d' t'ree-fifty."
Hi Chee looked pained. " Flee-fliftee ? Me flee-fliftee ? Why flee-fliftee ? "
"Why?" snorted Yunk. "For keeping your old skate, o' course. S'pose de Palisade's a horse asylum ?"
Hi Chee spread out the bill on his ironing table and studied it minutely. The figures conveyed nothing to him, but the Palisade bill-head, with its wild-eyed courser prancing within wreathed American flags, caught his eye.
"Hlorsee!" he said amiably, recalling Tom Costello's little joke. " Plenty fline hlorsee. Lide home China."
" Lide home some other place," said Yunk grimly. "You gotter pay that bill."
Hi Chee dropped bland lids over his almond eyes.
"No payee flee-fliftee," was his ultimatum.
Yunk choked with rage at the Chinaman's effrontery. "All right," he said ; "we'll find out wedder any old heeden can do de Palisade. You got till twelve o'clock to get your old horse outer dere."
"Hlorsee?" said Hi Chee, reminiscent. " Hlorsee ?"
"Aw, come off!" roared Yunk. "You know what horse. S'pose any Chink can string me ! D' horse you got in d' raffle."
"Laffle?" queried Hi Chee, honestly seeking information. "Laffle?" He began
at last to realize from the violence of Yunk that something was wrong.
"Look here," said Yunk, with the calmness of despair; "y' oughter be smashed in the face, but yer too yellow. Getcher old skate away from d' Palisade, dat's all."
"Allee light," said Hi Chee patiently, and returned to his ironing. But at half-past twelve no emissary from the Chinaman had made his appearance and Pasquinade was quietly devouring his ration of oats.
"Take him along, Yunk," directed Shaughne.ssy the saturnine. " I won't have him here no longer ! "
"What'll I do wid him ?" asked Yunk. Shaughnessy burst forth into vitriolic invective, and the foreman hastily slipped the knot of Pasquinade's halter and led the old campaigner forth into the street. Pasquinade sniffed the April air and danced springily. Yunk glanced at him with involuntary admiration.
"Gee, I b'lieve d' old wreck could do his toin yet," he said. He let a boy hold the horse and entered the laundry for a last interview with the Chinaman.
" Yer horse is outside," he announced to Hi Chee.
"Allee light," said Hi Chee. He was ironing a gorgeous pink shirt-waist of Mr. Costello's.
" I gotter deliver him into your hands," said Yunk. "Come along out and get him." Hi Chee shook his head smilingly.
[pgbrk] CLARA BYRNES
309
"See here," said Yunk; "if you don't come out and take your horse, I'll bring him in. Dat's what I'll do."
"Allee light," smiled Hi Chee, for this was a very good joke indeed. Yunk left the laundry door standing wide open behind him and Hi Chee stepped forward, flat-iron in hand, to close it, for the air that eddied in was fresh and cold about his bare ankles. The thin wide smile still curved across his face but, as he looked forth into the sunshine, it faded suddenly, for the formidable Yunk was again before his door and old Pasquinade was just delicately lifting a forefoot over the curb.
Hi Chee narrowed his eyes and moistened his lips with his tongue.
" Plittee hlorsee ! " he said admiringly, but his knees beat together and his face was sage-green around the corners.
" He's a beaut!" said Yunk cheerfully, still coming onward with the horse.
Hi Chee kept his place bravely. He saw at last that this was some vast and far-reaching conspiracy. Doubtless this bulky and loud roaring foreign devil meant to lead the horse within the laundry and then, before the Melican magistrates, accuse him, the unfortunate Hi Chee, of stealing the same.
His English gave way under the strain and he broke into a patter of Chinese.
"Most honorable and high-minded Melican mister, pleased to be magnanimously convinced of the immediate necessity of politely removing your gloriously beautiful and greatly to be admired animal from the miserable premises of the unworthy Hi Chee, as it might bring that low-born one into disfavor with the magnanimous and illustrious Melican magistrate misters !"
Yunk paused, staring, and Pasquinade peered over his shoulder with a mild and intelligent eye. Then Yunk made a step forward, and Hi Chee, desperate, planted himself on the threshold, presenting his flat-iron to the enemy. The enemy fell back horse and foot. As a weapon of defense, a flat-iron is not to be despised.
Angry as he was Yunk burst into a roar of laughter. He leaned against old Pasquinade's shoulder and laughed until it hurt him. Then he straightened up.
"Nope," he said to the watchful Hi Chee; "I guess 1 won't take him in. But I'm goin' to tie him right here and leave him. It's up to you now."
He knotted Pasquinade's halter firmly to the iron railing outside and turned to leave.
Getcher old skate away from d' Palisade, dat's all'
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But he had been followed from the Palisade by a considerable tail of spectators and the crowd was increasing in numbers.
"What's the row, Petey ? " asked the grocer's clerk.
Then Yunk made the great speech of his life.
"Fellers," he said, "dat Chink done Lou Shaughnessy outer t'ree-fifty for de keep of his horse. And now he says it ain't his horse, and he tried t' swipe d' poor old skate wid a hot iron. Ain't dat gettin' pretty gay for a Chinaman ? "
There was a low murmur in the crowd and Hi Chee, hearing, trembled. He had heard that sound before.
"Well," said Yunk loftily, "he can have d' horse, an' he can have d' t'ree-fifty. We don't want no more to do wid him," and he shouldered his way off through the crowd. As he turned the corner he heard the sharp ping of a pebble against glass. Ahead he saw Officer Farrell approaching.
" Throuble ? " Farrell sung out as he came swinging up.
"Yep," said Yunk. "Case for the S. P. C. A.," and went on his way with a pleased smile.
Pasquinade, the cause of Hi Chee's sorrow, was also his preserver. The Sixt' musters a rough crowd on occasion, and some of this
element pressed forward menacingly on the Chinaman. Pasquinade, ordinarily a sweet-tempered animal, scented something objectionable in all this excitement and lashed out savagely on all sides. That kept them well at a distance and Hi Chee retreated within the laundry and barricaded the door. Just as Farrell reached the scene of action a big stone crashed through the laundry window. Hi Chee's sacred lilies were crushed beneath the falling glass.
Officer Farrell collared one youth, whose part in the affair, as he explained it, had been wholly praiseworthy. He had t'run a rock, of course, but only to save Pasquinade from being further maltreated by the brutal and ferocious Hi Chee. Farrell allowed him to escape. The crowd had scattered but continued to watch developments from a safe distance.
Pasquinade was plunging furiously, for his feelings were hurt and his velvet nose cut by the flying glass.
"Whisht ! " said Farrell, soothing him. "Whisht, but you're a beauty! " And after a little of this fine flattery Pasquinade calmed down and dropped his beautiful head over Farrell's shoulder. The officer tapped lightly on Hi Chee's door.
Hi Chee peered from behind the screen where he had taken refuge and, seeing the
'Hi Chee . . . planted himself on the threshold, presenting his flat-iron to the enemy'
[pgbrk] CLARA BYRNES
311
uniform, ventured out. He was convinced that his enemies had brought their plot to a successful culmination and that it was useless for him to resist further. Also the joss lilies, torn from their pan of pebbles, were lying crushed on the window-sill.
Though he accepted the situation with Oriental fatalism, Hi Chee's view of it led him to adopt an absolutely non-committal policy. In reply to Farrell's questions he shook his head or nodded quite indiscriminately.
" ' What are ye lyin' jor ? "
"What are ye lyin' for?" said Farrell sharply, piqued by the failure of his cross-examination. "Sure, th' aisiest way out of ut is to run yez in f'r y'r own safety. If I lave yez here it'll be wan succession of riots. The Society can look out f'r y'r horse. Be-twane yez the whole Sixt' is out widout its collar."
And so, while old Pasquinade, dancing and shaking his halter, was led off by the agent of the S. P. C. A., the straw slippers of Hi Chee meekly flipflapped into a police court. There were several clauses to Officer Farrell's complaint against his prisoner, but before he had finished the somewhat involved statement Mr. Costello strode into the court-room.
Hi Chee's Oriental calm deserted him and he made a bolt for the joss of the Sixt'.
"Aw, get up," said Tom Costello, turning a fine red, for Hi Chee was hugging his knees and spoiling the crease of his trousers. "Let go of me. Take him away, Farrell, can't you ?"
"Can you throw any light on this matter, Mr. Costello ?" asked the magistrate.
"Sure, your Honor," said Tom Costello. "The Chinaman's all right, only he couldn't make out how he come by the horse."
The magistrate leaned back in his chair.
"Well, Mr. Costello," he said patiently, " 1 am in the same predicament. Perhaps you can explain."
Mr. Costello did not think it necessary to mention the raffle.
"Why, your Honor," he said, " it was through me he got it."
"Ah," said Magistrate Revell; "a present from you, Mr. Costello ?".
"Well, if you want to put it that way, Judge," assented Mr. Costello diplomatically.
"But," said the justice, "what about the charge of precipitating a street riot ?"
" Riot, Farrell ? " said Tom Costello sharply, for the Sixt' sat next his heart.
Officer Farrell nodded respectfully. He appreciated the anxiety of the district leader, for, when the Sixt' went forth without its
[pgbrk] 312
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collar, Tom Costello was usually called up the next morning to bail out a half dozen of his constituents. Costello looked up gravely at Magistrate Revell.
"I guess I can answer for the boys, your Honor, if you feel like parolin' Mister Hi in my custody."
"Prisoner discharged," said the magistrate abruptly, and the complaint was dismissed.
Farrell followed Mr. Costello and his protege into the corridor.
" ' Aw, get up ' "
" If ye c'd get the byes to leave Mister Hi in pace now," the officer ventured to suggest.
"'S all right," said Tom Costello shortly. " I'm seein' him home. What become of the horse, Farrell ?"
Hi Chee's straw slippers appeared suddenly to cleave to the black-and-white tiles of the hall, and he stood motionless, save for the gentle negative motion of his head.
"Hlorsee?" he murmured. "Hlorsee? Stlay light here."
"Look here, Hi," said Tom Costello, losing patience, "that's your horse all right. Horsee b'long Hi Chee !"
But Hi Chee still shook his head and his face wore the gentle decision of a weather-
stained Buddha in a temple garden. Officer Farrell looked up at the ceiling and chewed on his big mustache, for it is not well to manifest irreverent amusement in the presence of great men and district leaders.
"All right," said Tom Costello at last. Remembering that his protege lived behind a screen in the laundry, slept on a hempen mat, and ate rice out of, a red-and-black lacquered bowl, he began to see the impracticability of adding a superannuated race-horse to Hi Chee's menage. "All right. I got you into this, and I guess it's up to me to get you out. Want me to take horsee ?"
Hi Chee's face appeared to fill out suddenly to its normal yellow curve and the light of intelligence returned to his misty eyes.
"Tlakee hlorsee, Mister Tlom. Plittee hlorsee, plenty plittee. Tlakee light long."
"All right," said Mr. Costello. "Come along." And the Sixt' later was pleased to relate how Tom saw Hi Chee safe inside the laundry, sent a man around to replace the broken glass, and passed the word around by Hughey McGirr that no one was to molest Tom Costello's Chinaman. Thereafter Hi Chee's windows were sacrosanct.
Hughey McGirr was also commissioned to remove Pasquinade from the fostering care of the S. P. C. A. and lodged him once more in the Palisade Stables. It had been easy enough, but when McGirr turned up at Tom Costello's rooms in the evening, he showed a discontented face.
"The Sixt' is laughin' at you, Tom," he said. "They're laughin' at you."
Tom Costello knocked off the ash of his fat cigar.
" Because I sent old Farquhar around to have a look at Pasquinade ? " he asked. Farquhar was an old-time trainer of racehorses. "Well, the Sixt' 'II laugh on the other side of its mouth before I get through. I'm going to run old Pasky down at Sheeps-head in June. Put your money on him, Hughey."
McGirr snorted contemptuously. "He'll come hobblin' home without his hoofs," said he. " He can't run a block on them legs."
"Can't he ? " said Tom Costello. "Wait and see."
"Wait and see nothin'," rejoined Hughey McGirr. " Look how poor Finney slipped ¦ up on him. It killed the poor devil."
"The poor devil couldn't afford to fix the horse up right," said Mr. Costello. "You
[pgbrk] 'Legs!' said McGirr scornfully. 'Tom better buy him a new set of feet
remember what Potomac done once ? Well, that's what old Pasquinade's going to do."
"Don't believe in mixing horses with politics," said Hughey McGirr sulkily. Yet, for the sake of his leader's reputation, he put his money on Pasquinade, when, later on, Far-quhargave out that the horse was entered in a handicap at Sheepshead Bay. Hughey invited Lou Shaughnessy to go down to the race with him.
"Sure," said Shaughnessy. "The whole push is going."
"What !" said Hughey McGirr. "They ain't puttin' their money on Pasquinade, are they ?"
"Sure," said Shaughnessy. "Tom says he's all right."
"McGirr made no reply, but the responsibilities of leadership came home to him. His sense of this deepened when he learned how many of Tom's constituents were betting on the old horse.
"Lord," he said, "if that old skate don't win, it'll queer Tom with the Sixt'."
Pasquinade had been sent out to Far-quhar's place and was reported as fit for anything. McGirr ran down there to have a look at him. Farquhar laughed at the sour face of Costello's lieutenant.
" Legs ! His legs are all right. We've made them over new, Mr. McGirr."
"Legs !" said McGirr scornfully. "Tom better buy him a new set of feet. I give him a furlong on that busted hoof."
"It'll carry him through the Consummation," said Farquhar pleasantly, "and that's all Mr. Costello expects. Going to run down there Saturday ?"
"Nope," said Hughey McGirr in disgust, and so strong was his disapproval of the whole proceeding that he actually did break his engagement with Lou Shaughnessy and wandered nervously about town all the long hot day.
The Sixt' had a superstitious faith in Tom Costello's luck, but Hughey felt that this time it was destined to be shattered.
"Horses," he reflected, "is as bad as women in politics. Most fellers are fools over women, but there's just one thing Tom Costello's a fool over, and that's a thoroughbred."
When Tom Costello returned home that night he found his henchman smoking beside the open window.
"Well ?" said McGirr interrogatively. Tom Costello flung his straw hat into a corner and seated himself on the window ledge.
"Hughey," he said, "you missed it!"
"What!" said Hughey McGirr incredulously; "he didn't win ?"
"Win ?" said Mr. Costello. "Of course he won. Didn't I tell you he'd win? You oughter been there, Hughey. He was right in it from the first. Farquhar had a bar plate on that bad foot of his and the old boy was as frisky as a kitten. There was big odds against him—thirty to one. I guess the whole Sixt' was there. 1 saw a lot of the boys hangin' over the rail and rootin' for Pasquinade. He only carried a light weight and the track was just made for him—mud to his fetlocks—just what he wanted for his sore feet. He got a flying start and he was three lengths ahead at the quarter.
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HI CHEE'S HLORSEE
He was five lengths ahead at the half and the Sixt' was yellin' its head off. At the far turn Light o' Day began to crawl up — guess he left the rest of the bunch stuck in the mud! Then the Grand Stand begun to take notice. Colonel Frayne was laughin' all to himself. He was on, but I guess he was the only one. The rest were all for Light o' Day and Paprika, and they hadn't a word to say until the favorite begun to come up. Pasquinade held out until the last sixteenth and then his foot gave out. Light o' Day was right behind and the Grand Stand thought old Pasky was done for. They got up and waved and yelled, but I guess they forgot Willie Frye was up. He was ridin' like mad and he managed to pull the old bpy together for the last sixteenth. Say, Light o' Day's a good one, but he couldn't make it. The heavy weight told on him, and they were so close at the finish that only the judges could separate 'em. You oughter heard the boys yell when Pasquinade's number went up. He got it by a nose."
"He was game all right," said McGirr grudgingly.
"Game !" Tom Costello drew a deep breath. " I didn't think there was anything as game as that horse! It must have nearly killed him to finish on that foot. When they led him off he went on three legs, like a puppy-dog when you've stepped on his paw. It's the last race he'll ever run."
"What you goin' to do with him?" asked the practical McGirr.
"Send him up to Colonel Frayne's," said Tom Costello. " He's going to keep him for me. Say, Hughey" — he leaned out of the window to feel the fresh river wind blow in his face.
"Well ? " said McGirr.
" Did you ever see Colonel Frayne's daughter ?"
"Her picture's in the Sunday paper," said Hughey McGirr. " She's going abroad next week to marry some big gun over there."
"Is she?" said Tom Costello. "Well, she's a beauty and as big a sport as the Colonel. He brought her down to see Pasquinade and he introduced her to me. She's heard about the Chinaman and all that, and she laughed a lot. She asked me what I was going to do with the horse. I told her he was going to have a good time the rest of his life. So she said to send him up to Scarboro'. She says the Colonel has half a dozen old cripples up there that do nothing but loaf around in the green fields and eat clover. Say, they're thoroughbreds, those Fraynes."
"The Colonel's all right," said McGirr, for Colonel Frayne was the only one of Tom's reformer friends of whom he approved.
Tom Costello moved restlessly on the window-sill.
"Say, Hughey," he said, "the purse don't amount to much and I won a lot outside. I guess we'll divide the purse between Mrs. Finney and the Chinaman. Seems to me I was a rank outsider and just'come in by luck. You fix it up for me to-morrow. Light the gas, will you ? I want to find the Sunday paper."
Hughey McGirr fixed it up quite satisfactorily. Little Mrs. Finney established herself and the kids in the stationery business on the avenue, and Hi Chee returned to the home of his greatly to be revered ancestors in Canton. As for Pasquinade, he crops the clover tops at Scarboro' in company with other gallant old cripples.
Whether Hi Chee ever understood his connection with Pasquinade remains obscure. Hughey McGirr, during a short session in the laundry, gathered that Hi Chee attributed the mysterious advent of "hlorsee" to the machinations of some powerful and secret iovg, whose evil designs " Mr. Tlom " had frustrated. Which explains why the Joss of the Sixt' receives, every year, a large jar of preserved figs and ginger from that estimable Canton tradesman, Mister Hi Chee.
[pgbrk] THE RINGING OF THE BELL
BY
RICHARD F. WOODS
ILLUSTRATED BY CHARLES RAYMOND MACAULEY
THEY were talking on the deck of the club, the roof garden. The city streets stretched out in glittering, glimmering lines below them, and their noises came up strangely clear. It was a close, dry evening, heavy with the smell of newly-watered streets and hot asphalt. The city seemed panting from a hard day's work, and its warm breath hung in a misty smoke above the chimneys and stretched far to the west, mingling with the sky-line, which paled frequently with flashes of heat lightning. They had dined on the roof of the club, these three, all through the hot weather.
"Jack," said one, finishing his coffee and pushing the cup away, to make room for his elbow; " I saw Archer to-day ; he's been every place in the world; he says the hottest place is hell, then comes Philadelphia, and then Singapore."
"Well, if this continues," said the one addressed, "we'll begin to have the heat cases at the hospital. I took Williams down to the heat tent last summer and he didn't seem to relish the experience. Do you remember, Williams?"
" Do I remember ? Will I ever forget it ?" he answered. " 1 had never seen death before that night, and there I saw three men die all at once, as dogs die of fits in the street, with foam and blood-streaked lips, and gray-blue faces. I'll never forget that night; it gives me the horrors to think of it now."
A man emerged from the darkness, bearing a tray on which could be heard the clinking of ice in glasses. "Oh ! by the way, Jack," said Williams, reaching for the check and signing it; " speaking of hospitals, you promised to tell me some time about Miss Knerr's death. This was when I was a reporter on the Review," he continued, in an
explanatory way to the other; "a nurse committed suicide and 1 was placed on the case. I interviewed Jack, but could get nothing from him save the bare facts. He intimated that there was something mysterious and promised to tell me the whole story some time in the future, but I have never heard anything about it since."
"Well," said Jack, taking a sip of the cool drink before him, "it is true I have kept silent about the matter. It was so mysterious and strange that I have not told it to any one. I have an inborn fear of being laughed at. I suppose this is the reason I have been so silent, but if you and Raines are sure you would like to have the story, and will promise to be as credulous as you can, and will interrupt me when you have had enough, 1 am willing to tell you my own experience at that time and what I know of the death of the nurse.
" It all happened when I was in the Pen-coyed Hospital," he began, biting off the end of his cigar and lighting it. " Let me see ; it was about twelve years ago. So many things have occurred since that time, it is rather hard to fix the date, but I think it was in '96 ; however, the date is of little moment, as you will find my unreliability of memory does not extend to the story. Every incident and action of what I am about to relate is very firmly fixed in my mind. 1 had almost completed my term at the hospital, and was senior resident, with about five months more to serve, and the importance of my position was, I think, more appreciated by myself than others. The head nurse in one of my wards was a Miss Knerr. She had been in my ward about a month. She was an excellent nurse in many respects, and had the ability and adaptability of a man, combined with the quick, nervous energy of a woman. There was one virtue she lacked.
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however, and that was sympathy. I never saw her exhibit those little touches of human kindness one expects from a nurse. She was never seen consoling the friends of a dying patient or looking with pity even on a suffering child. She performed every act mechanically, and dressed a wound with the same stolid indifference that she would dress her hair. Mind you, things were well done and quickly done, but sometimes painfully done; the patients noticed it, too; they realized that they were well nursed, but there was something they missed.
"'Oh, sir,' said an old man, with a bad crush of the leg, 'ef she'd only 'ave given me some 'opeful words instead of tha drug larst night, I could 'ave stood the night better ; she's fingers like moss but a chunk of wood for a 'art.'
"She was of valuable assistance to me sometimes as an interpreter and could speak French, German, and Italian fluently. We had a great many patients of all nationalities in the hospital, and their English, when they spoke it, being very poor, 1 found it almost impossible to get an authentic history without Miss Knerr's help. She could speak rapidly and correctly even the patois and seemed to be able to worm out of the patients just the things I wished to know. She was scrupulously neat, but there was nothing out of the ordinary in her personal appearance to attract attention. The only thing one would notice was her hair, which was superbly luxuriant in its growth and dark red in color ; otherwise she was quite plain and looked the typical neat nurse.
"One of my duties as senior resident was to take charge of the nurses when they were sick, and it was in the capacity of a patient that Miss Knerr came to consult me one morning. ' 1 have been counting my pulse,' she said, 'and I find that it is invariably intermittent, and has been for some time. I am very much worried about it; I suppose unnecessarily so—but the death of Number Twelve, who had a pulse similar to mine, has made me anxious. I wish you would examine it and tell me what you think.' I felt her pulse and found that it was as she had said. Her heart ran regularly enough for a time, and then would halt, and miss a beat, and continue as before. This condition occurs quite frequently, especially among smokers and in people who are run down and nervous. The mechanism of the heart gets out of order. It does not
necessarily mean that there is anything organically wrong, but, like a machine, it is apt to get awry sometimes.
" I explained this to Miss Knerr, after listening carefully to her heart and finding it healthy as I supposed. She was so anxious about her condition, however, that I questioned her closely as to the length of time she had noticed it, and so forth, and tried to get some knowledge of her previous history, but she was as silent as the grave on everything pertaining to her former life.
"A physician, after long association with all classes in a hospital, has his instincts sharpened, he suspects things without any definite grounds, and I felt that there was something peculiar about Miss Knerr's former life and about her present condition. 1 felt sure that there was something she was concealing, something I could not definitely determine. The following day I asked my chief, while he was making his rounds, if he would not examine Miss Knerr with me. Together we went to her room in the Nurses' Home, and together we made a thorough examination of her heart, and could find nothing save the irregularity. She was again questioned closely by both of us and my chief (I remember well) said as we were leaving the building: 'Mark my words, there is something peculiar about that young woman, which I can't fathom. I feel sure she is holding something back.' I was very busy that day, and was up until after twelve, dressing a bad burn case, which had been brought into the receiving ward by the patrol, and when I went to bed 1 was completely tired out. It seemed that I had hardly been asleep five minutes when I became dimly conscious of a sensation of light. It became associated with my dream in some manner, then I felt my shoulder gently shaken and my name called. I sat up in bed, blinking at a large candle which an orderly held by the side of my bed. 'What is it?' I asked, shading my eyes from the flickering light. 'The night nurse told me to tell you,' the orderly began, repeating the words slowly as if he had memorized them, 'that one of the nurses has had a fit in your ward, and they want you down there as soon as you can come.'
"'All right,' I answered, jumping out of bed; 'I'll come down as soon as possible.' I hurriedly dressed and descended the stairs (we roomed on the top floor of the main
[pgbrk] THE RINGING OF THE BELL
317
building at that time), crossed the main corridor, and entered the ward. The few gray streaks of early dawn, which came through the closed windows, were enough to let me see from the condition of the patients that something unusual had happened. I glanced down the long row of white beds and found that almost every occupant was erect, gazing with frightened face toward the other end of the ward. My glance followed theirs and I saw that one of the large white ward screens had been placed about something on the floor. I could not see under the screen sufficiently to make out what the object was, but a candle held behind the screen illuminated it like a transparency ; save at the bottom, where the figure of a nurse was silhouetted sharply. I walked the length of the ward and, pushing the wing of the screen aside, saw that Miss Knerr had fallen on the floor and was quite still. Her dress was open at the throat and waist, her face was damp from being bathed in cold water, while from both angles of her closely clenched mouth, something brown marked a line to her chin. I was on the floor at her side in an instant, with my finger on her pulse, and my ear to her heart. There was silence at my ear, and no pulsation betrayed itself at my finger tips. 'Miss Knerr is dead,' I said, arising and turning to the night nurse. 'Tell me how it happened ?'
"'I was at the other end of the hall outside of the ward,' the nurse explained, desisting from arranging the dead nurse's dress and arising, 'when I heard a short, sharp cry. I hurried to the ward and met the orderly who told me that Miss Knerr had fallen in a fit in the medicine room ; I entered the door and found her lying on the floor at the end of the ward—she had evidently crawled from the medicine room to the place we found her. I rushed to her side and sent for you. She had one or two convulsions and then was still. It all occurred so suddenly we had scarcely time to give her anything, although I tried to force some whisky down her throat. It is certainly an awful thing, doctor; what do you think she died of ?'
"'I don't know,' I answered; 'probably her heart.' She questioned me in regard to another patient who was worse, and then left my side to quiet an hysterical woman in the nearest bed, who was laughing wildly, while the orderly and I lifted the body on a stretcher and carried it from the ward."
"What was the matter with her?" asked Raines, leaning forward and interrupting the story.
" Hydrocyanic acid poisoning; I made the autopsy myself," the speaker continued, pulling at his lightless cigar, "and found distinct evidence of poisoning, which the chemical analysis afterward verified ; otherwise we found all the organs perfectly healthy, and not a suggestion of a lesion of the heart. There was the most peculiar life-like appearance after death. It reminded one of the old vampire stories about the undead. Even after the autopsy there was a rosy color in the cheeks and a healthy hue to the skin, with the eyes looking at the ceiling in a living sort of way. By George, she looked so natural that when we were covering her with a sheet, I came near feeling for a pulse at the wrist, even after the post-mortem. Perhaps it was the fading sun that gave the natural color to the skin, for we worked late in the afternoon, and I remember it was a crimson sunset.
"The body was placed in one of the private rooms in 'A' ward, and in order that you may understand thoroughly what follows, I will have to describe the position of the ward and the rooms accurately. Some few weeks before the death of the nurse, we had a slight epidemic of rotheln, or German measles, among the nurses, six or seven being taken sick at the same time. As the disease is contagious, and there was no proper place for caring for these cases in the Nurses' Home, they were placed in the rooms in this ward. After the recovery and removal of the nurses the ward could not be occupied for some time. It was, therefore, thought a proper place for the body of the nurse. 'A' ward projects as a square wing from the main building and contains, on the first floor, four private rooms, two on each side of a long hall. The only entrance into 'A' ward, from the main building, was through a door at the end of this hall. The bedrooms were numbered 1, 2. 3, and 4, and each room was provided with an electric bell, a long wire running from a connection in the wall and ending in a wooden bulb, with a button on the end. This bulb was placed on the bed and could be rung by the patient. The indicator, placed just outside the hall door, was a large black dial, marked with the numbers of the rooms and a silver arrow pointing to each.
[pgbrk] 318
THE RINGING OF THE BELL
"The night after the death of the nurse, I was awakened by a severe storm. The wind had risen to terrific violence, and the rain, which had started in earlier in the evening, was blown by fierce gusts wildly down the street, and smashed against my rattling windows like showers of steel. The thunder succeeding the sharp flashes of lightning was frightful, and if I dozed would suddenly startle me into wakefulness with its loud crashes. I remember sitting up in bed and listening to the wind howling round the eaves and chimneys and slamming the blinds against the side of the house. It must have been a thick night on the river, for I could hear the constant tooting of the river craft in a mournful way borne on each wave of wind. At length my restlessness attained to such a pitch that 1 rose from the bed and went to the window to look out at the storm, but could see nothing save the tops of wildly waving trees, a low-browed sky, and my own face looking in at me from the black void. I returned to bed, but not to sleep.
"As I was sinking into a doze, my door creaked, was pushed suddenly open, and an orderly came rapidly into the room. 'Doctor !' he cried. ' Doctor !'
"'All right,' I answered; 'I'm awake; what is it ?'
"'The bell's ringing down stairs, and they want you right away.'
"'What are you talking about?' I questioned. 'What bell?'
"' I don't know, but I think it has something to do with Miss Knerr.'
"He was evidently much frightened, and started violently as a loud crash of thunder shook the building.
"'1 don't know what you are talking about, but you can tell the nurse that I will come down,' I answered, getting out of bed and lighting my light. I supposed he had delivered the message wrong. The orderly declared he had not heard the bell ring, but suggested that I hurry as quickly as possible for they were all very much frightened. He was out the door and into the hall before I could ask him anything further.
"There was in those days an open bridge or passageway connecting the surgical building, which contained 'A' ward, and the main building, where our rooms were located. It was perhaps fifty feet long and entirely without cover. I received the storm in all its fury when 1 crossed the bridge. It was like the deck of an ocean steamer in a heavy gale.
At last I managed to reach the opposite side and entered the hall. They were waiting for me, all standing in a little group outside of 'A' ward—the ward nurse, the night nurse, and the orderly—and before I reached them the night nurse turned and advanced to meet me; she was chalk-white and talked nervously.
"'Oh, doctor! 1 am so glad you have come,' were her first words. ' I thought you could not understand the message; I should have written it, I know, but we wanted you so quickly.'
"' I certainly did not understand why you sent for me,' 1 remarked, walking by her side to the door, ' and still am in doubt.'
"' It is most peculiar,' the nurse explained, 'and I am frightened. 1 was making my rounds with the ward nurse, and we were both at the upper end of the surgical ward, when we heard clearly and sharply the sound of a bell. We hurried to the end of the ward and into the hall, when the bell was again rung, this time for a longer period, and we discovered that it was coming from the private rooms in "A" ward. We went to the door leading into the ward, thinking we must be mistaken, and were about to open it when the bell rattled again immediately above our heads. We looked at the indicator and there was the arrow pointing to room Number One. Doctor, we both knew that there was no living person in that ward and the only occupant of room Number One was a dead body. I called the orderly and sent for you.'
"While she was talking I was gazing at the dial of the indicator and found each arrow pointing downwards in its proper place.
"'We have pushed the under catch,' the nurse continued, noticing the direction of my glance.
"'Well, of course you know, Miss Farr,' I stated reassuringly, 'that there is nothing—' I stopped suddenly. With a burr, sharp and metallic, the bell went off, continued for some seconds, and then ceased. I looked at the dial; the silver arrow pointed to Number One. I must confess I was startled; the hour, the storm, everything stimulated my imagination ; as for the others, they were frightened almost to the stage of desertion. ' I am going into that room, something may have happened,' I said, trying to control my voice which in spite of my efforts trembled. ' Give me the candle, and you follow,' [pgbrk]
THE RINGING OF THE BELL
319
I commanded the orderly. I could hear the orderly panting over my shoulder as we advanced down the dark hall. At last we reached room Number One. I pushed open the door with some difficulty—it seemed to resist my efforts—and was greeted by such a burst of storm and wild wind that I started back; my candle was immediately extinguished and I was left in utter darkness. The orderly cried out, and actually ran down the hall when he found that we were in the dark. I called on him to return but my voice received no answer. I heard the hall door close on the sound of his footsteps, then there was silence, and I was alone. I searched my pockets for matches. At last I found one and advanced, feeling around the wall for the gas, when the door of the room slammed with sudden violence. I was in pitch darkness and the unlighted candle in my hand. I struck a match, the head flew, sputtered a moment on the floor, and then went out. I was standing with my back to the wall, vainly trying to peer through the darkness in order to locate the door; my only desire now was to get out of the room. There was a slight lull in the storm, and the wind, instead of roaring, had sunk into a whining outside of the window, when I distinctly heard something move in the bed, something move again, making the mattress wheeze and the bed creak, something slid off the bed to the polished floor, a soft pit-pat, sounding strangely like some one getting out of bed in bare feet, and then it came round the end of the bed and towards me, nearer and nearer, and I had the strange sensation that something was standing directly in front of me and looking at me; then, sounding miles away, came the jingle of the bell in the hall. It ceased, and for a moment there was not a sound, and then the frightful stillness and blackness were broken by a crash of thunder, the like of which had never been heard before, and which seemed to shatter the foundations of the hospital like an earthquake, and the room, the whole hospital, and the street outside were filled with a glare of vivid, blinding light.
"I was filled with fear, the kind that comes in the night, with things you can't see, or feel, or know ; the horrible terror I had heard about but never had, the kind that grasps you by the throat and makes your ears pulsate from holding in your breath and straining to catch sounds you
are afraid to hear. Then the orderly, bringing exquisite relief, appeared with another candle. He was evidently ashamed of his lack of courage and had summoned up nerve to return. I could not speak to him ; my mouth was dry, and my tongue seemed swollen. I motioned him to remain outside, however, keeping the door wide open, while I closed the windows. The rain had poured in at both windows during the night in a deluge. After closing the window I lit the gas, and turned towards .the bed. The sheet which had covered the body lay in a wet pile on the floor. The body was undisturbed, but still preserved the life-like appearance we had noticed at the autopsy. The head, from the relaxation of the muscles of the neck, had fallen over to one side, and was gazing at us with partially separated lips and healthy blood-charged cheeks. I picked up the sheet from the floor, and was about to replace it over the body, when an exclamation from the orderly startled me. 'My God, doctor ! look at that !' he cried, pointing towards the bed, gray-lipped, and with staring eyes. I looked to where his finger pointed, and there, clasped tight in the fingers of that wax-like hand, was the bulb of the electric bell. I know not how long we both stood breathlessly waiting and watching for the sound of the bell, but it seemed hours. I advanced to the bed at last, grasped the wire and gave it a fierce jerk; the force of it did not pull the bulb from the fingers as I expected, but pulled the bulb and hand still clasping it from the bed, and the arm dropped and swung like a pendulum from the shoulder. I grasped the hand and unwound the fingers from the bell. They were tight and stiff, and opened like bending lead pipe. The hand was cold and claw-like, and I thought held on to the bulb with all its force. I replaced the arm on the bed but it swung off with, I imagined, some movement, as if it wanted the bell again. I placed the bell well out of reach over the head of the bed and spread the wet sheet over the corpse; it stuck closely to the outlines of the body and covered up the face with its red hair. The orderly left the room before me and I turned out the light. As I passed the bed in the dark, walking towards the door, I could have sworn I heard a faint sigh and some one whisper, like a breath, something I could not understand. I rushed out into the hall and closed and locked the door securely.
[pgbrk] 320
THE RINGING OF THE BELL
" The coroner made an examination the next day and rendered a verdict of suicide. She was buried quietly, and there was no one outside of the hospital who seemed to have any interest in her. I offered the night nurse the explanation that 1 had tried to persuade myself to accept : that the insulation had worn from the wires and the ringing of the bell was the result. The orderly, I found, had left the hospital suddenly after our experience in the night, leaving no explanation of his departure ; otherwise things resumed their usual course again. I was far too busy during the day to bother much about what I had been through, but during the night I frequently would waken from a sound sleep and hear a bell ringing far off, as if the nurse was calling me from her grave. This wore on my nerves and, after a time, I caught myself listening for it during the day.
"Six months afterwards two new doctors were elected to the hospital and, the resident rooms being all occupied, two of us were moved out to make accommodations for the new men. I was one of the two who were obliged to move and, 'A' ward being unoccupied, we were placed in the private rooms on that floor. The room I occupied was directly opposite the one where the dead nurse had lain. 1 did not like my quarters, but I had not heard the bell for some months. I was sleeping well and regaining my nerves. Then came the dream. I had gone to sleep quietly enough, but I dreamt that suddenly I heard the bell in the hall ring. I seemed to be in my bed, as I was in fact. 1 sat up in bed and listened ; again the bell rang. I got out of bed and again listened ; perfect silence. I must have been dreaming, but I could in my dream hear the gentle pat of the shade blown by the wind against my window. 1 went to the door of the room where my companion was and I looked in ; he was sleeping soundly, for 1 could hear his slow, hard breathing. ' It's a shame to wake him,' I thought. I softly closed his door, walked to the end of the hall and, opening the door, looked at the indicator. The arrow pointed to room Number One. I became suddenly very angry. 'Why do you annoy my sleep in this manner,' I cried loudly, looking at the bell ; then, being ashamed of my anger and thinking some one would hear me, I whispered the words again : 'Why do you annoy me.' The bell, I imagined, answered with an irritating little ring of just
one beat; this so enraged me that I smashed my fist bravely into the glass over the indicator and splintered it all over the floor.
" 'Now you will be quiet,' I cried, entering the ward again. The hall seemed changed and much lengthened and very narrow, and was suffused with a peculiar blue light which flickered irregularly, like an arc light when the carbons burn badly. Instead of two rooms on each side there were twenty or thirty in all, and I had great trouble in picking out my room from the rest. The first one I opened was like a window and looked directly out on the street, but high above it, and extending to the horizon, as far as my vision carried, there were hundreds and hundreds of hospitals, arranged regularly in squares like a checker-board, each surrounded by four streets. On the corner of each street was a lamp post burning brightly, and directly beneath it, lying prone, was a body covered with a white sheet, altogether covered, except at one end where a bunch of red hair was exposed. I tried to count the bodies ; there seemed myriads of them, but the cold air blowing in strongly made me desist. 1 shut the door and, turning, found the ward had assumed its natural proportions. Then suddenly everything snapped dark like the shutter of a camera and I found that the muscular power had entirely disappeared from my lids and I could not open them. By raising them, however, with my fingers, I managed to see, although dimly. My room I found was now directly in front of me and, as the door was open, I entered. Now I will get some sleep, I thought; there will be no more ringing of that bell; the'n, just as I was getting into bed, I heard my name called, softly, like a whisper, at first close to my ear and then in a pleading way at some distance— 'Doctor, Doctor, Doctor'—three times and sounding like the soft murmur I had heard when 1 left the room of the dead six months before. I arose from the bed and went into the hall again and listened with straining ears. 1 was certain some one was in trouble and I wanted so much to help. ' Poor thing,' I called; 'poor thing.' Again the soft 'Doctor' came to me in a pleading way. This time I traced it to room Number One. I looked towards the room and heard a strange noise like a key being turned quietly, like the creaking of a bolt, and the door swung slowly open, and again some one called from
[pgbrk] " ' the room, the whole hospital, and the street outside were filled with a glare of vivid, blinding light"
[pgbrk] " ' I pulled harder, when it yielded suddenly, and behind it I saw Miss Knerr '
within the room. I hastened towards it and crossed the threshold ; the room was lighted by the same blue light I had noticed in the hall. The door of the room opened inwards and was drawn back, forming an angle with the wall, as if to conceal something. ' I am sure some one is behind that door,' I said to myself. I tried to close it and found it resisted. I pulled harder, when it yielded suddenly, and behind it I saw Miss Knerr, looking as she looked the day she died, wrapped in the damp white sheet, standing motionless against the wall— only her eyes had been removed, and she looked at me with cave-like sockets white as polished bone. I tried to push the door and crush her in the corner, but the fingers of an ice-cold hand closed on mine. The intense horror of nightmare came over me. 'Let me go !' I cried, trying to draw back my arm, but the hand clung to it, and a most melancholy voice sobbed: 'Oh, listen to me; oh, listen to me !'
'"Who are you?' I asked, struggling meanwhile to disengage myself.
'"Josephine Knerr; I have been murdered. Please listen to me and I will tell you all.'
"Terror made me quiet, and I listened to her story, with her skull-like eyes gazing into mine and her cold fingers grasping my arm like four ice bands.
"'1 have been murdered,' she continued; 'cruelly murdered, and I am unable to rest until my story is told. John Holl, the orderly, did it. He followed me about all the time, and the evening that I died, when I was alone in the ward, he came into the office and told me that he was in love with me and wished me to marry him. I nearly fainted from fright and called loudly for help; his appearance terrified me. He turned and left the ward quickly, but as he was leaving, he said, at any rate, no one else should have me. 'Oh, why did I take the coffee?' she asked, moaning in a sobbing way. ' I generally take coffee when I go on duty in the early morning. It was poisoned. John Holl always brought it up from the diet kitchen. I became sick as
[pgbrk] THE RINGING OF THE BELL 323
soon as I reached the ward, and hurriedly returned to the medicine room to get something to help me. I entered suddenly and found John Holl on his knees in front of the register in the wall; he had pulled out the whole frame and was pouring something from a bottle down the dark hole in the register pipe. When he saw me he started and dropped the bottle, and I heard it fall and break below. He rose and came towards me, and the room, the floor, and the building went round and round ; I had a terrific pain and fell and all was dark. I struggled and opened my eyes, only to find his repulsive face bending over mine. Then he kissed me and I died.'
'"You must come out and tell it to someone else,' I said, pulling at her arm. She did not move. I pulled again with all my force.. The arm came off from the shoulder and swung at my feet, with its fingers soft like putty in my hand. She started for me with a horrible, wild cry, and I stepped back off a great height, and fell, down, down, down, into darkness. I looked up and saw her falling too, distinctly above me, and I was wild with terror. She was falling faster than I, and was coming nearer and nearer. 1 found that I was not falling through the air, but under water, and I was choking. I started from my sleep, shivering like one with ague, and screamed aloud. It was bright daylight—thank God for that—but all the dream was so vividly impressed on my mind that I could at first hardly persuade myself that I was awake. I started to get out of bed ; my hand pained me and I found it covered with dried blood and cut in many places. I must have broken the glass after all. A look at the indicator in the hall showed that its glass was shattered into many pieces. There was blood on the floor and a track of drops led down the hall. I followed the blood stains; they led into my room and stopped at the door, but from this point, traveling across the hall, was another trail, leading directly to room Number One. I had walked across the hall in my dream. I went to the door of the room. It was locked. I can't tell you how glad I was to find the door securely locked. It had been so for many months, but somehow I expected to find it open. But I must see the interior of that room. You may think I was foolish or mad but, try as I would, I could not banish the impression that I had been in that room some time in the night.
" ' She was falling faster than I, and was coming nearer and nearer '
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THE RINGING OF THE BELL
"After binding up my hand and having breakfast I procured the key. The lock was rusty and the key worked with difficulty ; at last it opened, and, well, you may not believe it, and remember it was morning, with God's daylight shining in, banishing every superstitious fear and freak of the imagination, but when I entered the room the blood tracks crossed the threshold and ended behind the door. I had been in that room. How I entered through a locked door, how the blood drops happened there, I do not explain, but they were there and I saw them as plainly and as true, drop after drop, behind the door, as I see the lights from yonder building." The speaker paused, wiped the moisture from his face, and then continued. " 1 went to the medicine room, about which the dead nurse had spoken in her dream. I found the register and, pulling out the frame, thrust my hand in and groped about as far as I could reach. Finding nothing, I descended to the lower ward. I found in this ward that the register was directly below the one above;" I removed the frame and entered my hand as I had done on the upper floor. The tin pipe made a right angle turn before it descended and formed a small platform immediately back of the opening. Directly my hand encountered dust and some soft cobwebs. I felt carefully about, until I felt something hard and round, just"on the edge of the pipe ; blowing the dust from it I held it to the light. It was the broken neck of a medicine bottle with the cork intact. I smelt it to see if I could detect by the odor what had been the contents of the bottle, but there was nothing that I could discover. For a long time I was uncertain what course I should pursue. I was sure that if I told my story I should be disbelieved. Who would place any reliance in a dream and the neck of a broken bottle in a heater pipe ?
"The more I thought of it the more foolish it seemed, so I decided to keep the
mystery to myself. You may think I should have told some one, and had the occurrence probed to the bottom. Perhaps I was unwise ; but, at any rate, I was constant in my resolve. All my inquiries about the orderly, John Holl, were negative. The hospital authorities knew absolutely nothing about him since he had left the institution. I asked the superintendent if Miss Knerr had ever spoken to him about being annoyed by the actions of the orderly; he answered in the negative. He had come to the hospital, the superintendent told me, only a month before the nurse's death, and said he was a sailor from Finland. He had a letter from the captain of a Danish bark, on which he had been working, testifying to his good character. As sailors generally make good helpers about a hospital, being obedient and industrious, he was taken in without a question. While in the hospital he made an excellent record, being quiet and well-behaved, and every one was very much surprised at his sudden departure.
" Well, my story is nearly told. That is all I found out about John Holl while he was in the hospital, and I learned nothing of him after his departure until about three years ago; then I read a short item in the New York Herald about a sailor committing suicide in the bay, from one of the Cunard-ers. His name was John Holl. The reporter had done what he could to make an interesting story of the item, though his material was scanty ; he told, however, that the sailor was a Finlander, and that his acquaintances had long thought him wrong in his head, for the man was forever starting in terror of something no one else could see or hear; and as the years had passed his sufferings, which he tried in vain to conceal, had become keener and more continual. He tried to find peace, it seems, by jumping in the water; whether he did or not — who knows ? "
[pgbrk] IN THE CHARACTER OK "ALIXE"
THE MOXA
BY
CLARA MORRIS
AUTHOR OF ''LIFE ON THE STAGE "
ILLUSTRATED WITH PORTRAITS
AMONG my friends there was one who was particularly bitter against the press, because it had so little consideration for the privacy of the individual. She denounced the tittle-tattle, the continued gossiping about the doings of those men and women who in one way or another had come into the eye of the Public, and was quite specially severe upon those persons who heedlessly gave information to the "meddlesome matties," that
being her picturesque tribal name for all newspaper reporters, interviewers, etc. Yet it was owing solely to her own personal indiscretion that the following letter reached the newspapers, and through them my private affliction became public property. A letter so swiftly, so widely copied, that I actually met it face to face in a French paper before I had started for home.
Wounded, mortified, and hotly angry was I, over the breach of confidence, until upon my arrival here 1 met that wondrous wave
[pgbrk] 326
THE MOXA
of sympathy that, starting afar off from the great cities, tangled in the white fringe of the Pacific, had in its onward sweep reached out both North and South, ever gathering pity and sorrow, kindly thoughts and many prayers in its swell; a wave that broke about me heart high, washing away all anger and humiliation and leaving only profound gratitude and a great wonder that the Public should not only heed but sympathize with the pain of one of the least of its servants.
But oh ! what a crop of piteous letters was gathered into my letter-box directly after my return from Paris!—so many, many poor sufferers in varying degrees from spinal trouble wrote to me eagerly asking if the moxa cured? If it had cured me? And would I advise others to submit to the treatment ? And oh ! poor souls ! I had to confess I had apparently suffered in vain.
Physicians here at home declared the details of the operation were barbaric and outrageous ; that the needless strain of waiting, the sound of the furnace, the preparatory marking of the spine with a pencil, were cruel, unnecessary, and I almost believe, but for three disinterested witnesses, they would have added incredible.
Even the preliminary examinations seemed to me to be theatrical and designed to impress and awe me—each of the doctors with his paper and his pencil -solemnly making his little notes. Could I stand this way ? Could I bend that way ? Could I walk a straight line with my eyes open ?
"But, good sir," I remonstrated, " I am a teetotaller !"
They went on, they measured off so many feet on the floor, and marked each end of the distance with a chair. They bandaged my eyes tight and, quite unnecessarily, drew down the shades also before placing me at one chair and bidding me try to walk blindfolded to the other.
"Ah !" I remarked, "your blindman's-buff is a rather staid and melancholy game. I prefer the English version." As they gravely measured how far I was away from the chair I had aimed at, I hopefully suggested a change to "puss in the corner."
Dr. Belvin, an American by birth, strove desperately not to laugh, for Professor Ball, who was his superior, looked upon mirth as the sure sign of an empty mind. Then, with a weighty and momentous manner, the hawk-faced professor began sticking needles
into the calves of my unfortunate legs, while, quite in the style of the Inquisition, Dr. Belvin behind me took down this conversation :
" Do you feel these punctures ?" (Being alive, yes.) "Are they painful ? " (Naturally.) "How many needles am I using?" My eyes were bandaged still. (One.) "Now, how many?" (Two.) "Now, how many?" (I—I can't tell.) " Now, how many ? " (The whole paper, I think! Sharp's make; mixed sizes!) "Madame jests— make a note, monsieur. That is certainly of the unusual—since madame undoubtedly suffers. The other leg, now. Ah! that is, eh?" (Yes, professor, " that is," as you say. Most decidedly these prickings are harder to bear. Two—three — I think five—gracious! 1 wish you'd permit me to offer you a cushion for your needles.)
The bandage being removed—to my great relief—I was about to retire my indignant and smarting calves to the protecting shelter of the lacy white petticoat of the period, when the scientific hawk swooped down upon my foot—nay, my feet; and his plucking off of my shoes made me think of the hungry dismembering of prey. Exaggerated ? Very likely, but that was the fancy of the sorely tried and secretly frightened woman, whose black silk heels were planted upon his knees, with soles facing him like a pair of medium sized flat-irons; and I watched with grave curiosity while the professor, with long, bony fingers, strove to tickle—yes, tickle— those immovable, irresponsive black soles of mine. He gazed at me rrenacingly, with ever growing excitement, as his nails vainly scratched up and down, criss-cross, while I regarded his efforts with the half-amused, large patience of a mother who sees her child planting pennies in the flower-pot in the hope of raising little pocket-book plants from them. Suddenly he sprang up. " You—you laugh not ? You have not even to squirm ? You, who are one bundle of nerves—broken, sick nerves at that—yet you have the feet nerveless ! of the marble! You are extraordinaire, madame! You have made the note, iron confrere? the feet not to be tickle—eh ? you have him ? Bien ! A-a-ah !" he shook his ten fingers furiously at me. "A-a-ah ! you are an extraordinary woman—bien, oui !"
"Mais, non !" I objected. "It is you, monsieur, who are extraordinary. You do not consider that I am a stranger to your ways. You should give me time. In America, now, a gentleman never thinks of tickling the feet of a lady who calls upon him
[pgbrk] CLARA MORRIS
327
for advice. Would not even if the call were purely social. He entertains her with conversation, pays her compliments, that tickle her fancy or her pride, possibly—but he respects her soles. Dr. Belvin, you don't seem well ? But you can, I think, as an American, bear me out in my assertion, and perhaps you will also return my shoes ; I should greatly dislike going down to the carriage in my stocking feet."
And while the big Kentuckian, shaking with laughter, replaced my shoes, I shook with sick terror of the decision I was presently to listen to. My nonsense was not meant for flippancy—but laughter was my only shield, a jest my only weapon of defense, and the greater my pain and fright and need, the more recklessly 1 used them. Then 1 heard my fate : "The iron—or-"
"Well," I asked, "or what?" and they added :
"A year—perhaps a year and a half of time, and-"
So that night was a night of terror—because of an active and excited imagination. My husband and my mother were on the other side of that great ocean that widens so terribly between hearts at need, and troubles always loom gigantic at night, and the decision rested wholly with me. "Oh !" 1 whispered over and over, "if it were not my back ! If only I could see for myself what was to be done ! But how helpless 1 shall feel, knowing they are exchanging nods and signs behind me, and— No, I will not take ether nor chloroform !" I cried aloud. "If I die, I will at least die consciously !" And with a start 1 found that I had then resolved to endure the new and, to me, revolting treatment by burning—called the moxa. And being decided, I had but one conscious thought—to hurry, to get the thing done, lest my courage fail ! To get it done, that the strained anxiety in the eyes of my friends might give place to relief, perhaps to satisfaction. This letter, to the indiscreet one, will speak for their sympathy and distress :
11 rue de la Bienfaisance, Paris, August 12th, 1875.
My dear--: I hasten to write you, as I am
well able under the circumstances, of the terrible trial to which our dear little friend has been subjected. As Prof. Ball concurred in the opinion given by Dr. Belvin that the disease of the spine would if not arrested terminate fatally within two years, she determined to submit to the treatment that it makes me shudder to think of. She said : "Only let me have it over—don't let me think of
it !" And last Tuesday we drove to the doctor's rooms, No. 51 rue de la Luxembourg. She was very pale, probably though not more so than usual, but I could not but notice that the nostrils were dilated and the mouth more firmly set than usual. She conversed less than common and in fits and starts, and, strange to say, of the most trivial things we saw upon our way. Arriving at Dr. Belvin's we were annoyed at not finding Prof. Ball there, and had to wait for him nearly an hour ;
PROFESSOR BALL
all the while our poor friend sat, with her hands clasped between her knees, saying at intervals : "If they keep me waiting, I shall fail—I know 1 shall fail !"
At last the professor was announced and then fifteen more minutes were given to preparations in an adjoining room. Clara had stipulated that she should not see the furnace nor the irons, and it cost the two physicians some trouble and labor to comply with her wishes. We were at last summoned to enter and nothing was visible but the low chair in which the victim was to sit and the two operators. Dr. Belvin is a man over thirty-five, with a clear blue eye, blonde head, and a rather kind expression of face. Prof. Ball is about sixty, with a prominent hooked nose, small gray eyes, and of less than the medium height. It may have been the circumstances, but he looked to me the beau ideal of an Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition—well deserving the title given him
[pgbrk]
yours faithfully Fordyce Barker
in Paris among medical men of "The Butcher," on account of his terrible and frequent operations.
Poor Clara was required to sit in a low chair, with her back bared, and she went through the preparations quiet enough, but with her face pale and rigid as marble. The only evidence beyond this was the pitiful trembling of her poor little hands. She spoke calmly, however, requesting me to hold her head, not her hands, and as she sat looking up at me as if to read in my face what was going on behind her, 1 believe 1 suffered the more of the two.
Then Dr. Belvin lit his furnace, and the roaring of the flame that was to heat the irons to a white heat in a few seconds was dreadful to hear; and while this was going on Prof. Ball marked with a
pencil the line the iron was to follow on either side of the spine. Every touch of the pencil sent a thrill through the delicate frame of the poor victim ; but the professor had scarcely ended making the penciled marks when with a flash the iron was applied. The white point seemed to sink an inch into the quivering form, with that sickening sound of burning flesh—but beyond a writhing of the body, accompanied by deep, heavy breathing, there was no response, not a shriek, not a sigh nor groan. The doctor had nearly completed his dreadful task when Clara, suddenly starting up, cried out in a voice that even moved Prof. Ball: "My God! I cannot—1 cannot bear it!"
It was all over, however, and, do you know, she helped replace her clothes, after the wounds were dressed, and walked down to the carriage.
[pgbrk] CLARA MORRIS
329
The doctor said it was a wonderful exhibition of nerve. She is quite prostrated to-day and suffers from violent pains in her head. The doctor says it is all right and she will be up and well soon, but to us she seems alarmingly weak. I forgot to say that she was urged to have the operation performed while under chloroform, but positively refused.
Since writing the above we have learned that Dr. Fordyce Barker, of New York, is here in Paris, and we are going to call him in, in consultation with Prof. Ball and Dr. Belvin. 1 will write you further.
Ah ! well it was for me that Dr. Barker came upon the scene, for, in spite of my diminishing strength and ever lessening vitality, the Paris doctors insisted upon repeating the trying operation, and as I was no longer strong enough to go to them, they volunteered to come to me at the hotel. The hour was set and the day had arrived before Colonel Piatt, who was the acting guardian and guide of his wife, his sister and myself, had succeeded in his almost frantic search for Dr. Barker. By galloping the life nearly out of a poor cab horse, he managed to get him to the hotel a scant ten minutes ahead of the arrival of Messrs. Belvin and Ball. Only ten minutes, but long enough for him to swiftly examine the patient, his sorely broken countrywoman ; for surprise to become amazement and amazement indignation—long enough to reach a stern decision. He gently laid my thin waxy hand down upon my knee and said : "We'll have no operation to-day, my child. You are afraid there may be trouble ? Well, don't you worry, that's all. You have worried too much already. There's been an awful mistake here, but it's going no further, please God ! Trouble, eh ? Well, I'll take that trouble on my shoulders. Oh ! how do you do, gentlemen?" for the two doctors, carrying all the demnition paraphernalia of the modern Inquisition with them, entered and stood amazed at the presence of the big, handsome man, with the big, cordial manner and no voice to speak of. Then, as Dr. Barker was recognized professionally, both in London and Paris, as a very, very great gun of the heaviest caliber, and socially as the very fine flower of good fellowship, they greeted him with extravagant demonstrations of regard. When Colonel Piatt asked them to receive the doctor in consultation they exchanged glances and answered that as soon as the moxa had been applied they would gladly consult with him.
And right there the snag that was to prevent further smooth sailing revealed itself to all, when Dr. Barker demanded immediate consultation and imperiously removed me from the scene by the simple expedient of picking me up and carrying me into the next room. "Wait here," he said ; " I may want you for just a moment—but have no fear; there is to be no moxa to-day, nor tomorrow either !" and, smiling his kind smile, he went back—and then, oh, dear ! very soon the voices rose excitedly.
Suddenly the door opened. "Gentlemen!" cried Dr. Barker, entering; "come here one moment, please !" They followed him in, one sullen, the other red and snappy. My champion came to me, raised me to my feet, and, leading me to the wide open window, drew back the curtain and let the full blazing light in upon me. "Look," he said, and he held up my hand to the light, which showed through it, as lamplight shows through the hand—only, alas ! without the pinky hue. He touched my lips with his finger. "You see, gentlemen, they are as pale as her cheeks. But, see this I" he exclaimed angrily, and he lifted my lip to show the poor pale gums within. "There's not as much blood in her body as many a fish carries. Her pulse is a thread, her nerves are visibly a-quiver ; she is taking no food other than a little milk or less broth ; she has failed rapidly in strength since the first application of the iron. You have yourselves just told me of her immense exertion of will power, of nerve force, to endure that trial. Where do you expect her to find that power to-day ?—tell me that ! I believe in the moxa ; I believe in it even for her—when she is prepared to endure it. Rest her—feed her—give her some strength, some blood, before you venture another tremendous shock to her nerves !"
"But," insisted Professor Ball, "our judgment is for the continuation of the moxa at once. Our preparations are complete and we will proceed. You shall see our success when-"
"You shall not proceed, monsieur !" interrupted Dr. Barker. "Colonel Piatt, take the little woman to her room, or—oh, excuse me, we will retire !"
They withdrew but the door was left partly open, and oh ! St. Patrick's day in the mornin' 1 As the argument there developed into a really respectable row, Colonel Piatt said my cheeks flushed and
[pgbrk] 330
THE MOXA
light came back into my eyes, for you know one" man against two is an inspiriting sight, and my doctor, who was doggedly determined, never lost his dignity—scarcely his temper, until in an outburst of rage, broken English and pure French combined, Professor Ball furiously ordered Dr. Belvin to light the furnace and at the same time himself advanced toward the room where L sat.
"Stop !" commanded Dr. Barker. "Courtesy seems wasted here—etiquette ignored ! Don't you light that, doctor! I am an American—-but I know Paris well ! 1 know my rights perfectly ! Our consul, our—oh, curse it, man, light that furnace and I'll throw you both over the balcony !"
"St. Patrick was a gentleman !" I softly hummed, for, you see, L profited whatever happened. If they failed to light up—I wouldn't be ironed that day. If they did light up—there'd be broken bones down there on the pavement, for Fordyce Barker was big enough to back a threat with action, and I—really, one believes in heredity after all. For my forebears, on the purely American side of me, though they gave no orders but obeyed them instead, died in their tracks wearing the ragged uniform of their country—just common men, of course, who, having nothing else to offer, gave their lives and had for reward so fierce a fight against odds, that it must be some far faint tang of its joy that thrills my poor nerves to delight whenever a man has his back to the wall—whenever hands are put up in a fair fight.
So, though he declared the scene simply outrageous and was visibly vexed at his own loss of self-control, Dr. Barker won. The other doctors retired, their properties with them, and I saw them no more. Dr. Fordyce Barker continued upon the journey he had delayed in the name of his life-long friendship for Colonel Piatt—and I, having followed his advice piously, was able to return home in September, from the first, the last, the only journey that since my marriage I have made without my husband.
I returned to find the evil prophecies of some Cassandra-like friends disproved utterly, completely. They had declared pite-ously, angrily, warningly, according to their individual temperament, that it was quite mad to think of marriage ; that the Public would have no further interest in me or my work. My original, first of all manager, Mr. Ellsler, wrote me that I would never see an-
other full house of my drawing if I presented myself to the Public as a married woman. Had 1 chosen an actor-husband then as Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so, we might, like Mr. and Mrs. Florence or Mr. and Mrs. Conway, slowly and painfully have attained to a doubtful popularity—but at the very beginning of a brilliant career to marry a man in private life would amount to professional self-effacement ; he advised me to wait a few years. I recalled the fact that he had advised a ten years' wait before venturing into New York.
The remembrance of my engagements to appear that season at both of his theaters doubtless gave a certain edge to his very genuine fears, for no man looks forward pleasantly to possible bad business, and though 1 argued patiently and smilingly, with all my croaking friends, insisting that an audience cared nothing for the woman behind the artiste ; that I had never—to use the slang term—"traveled on my beauty " ; that, anyway, the young unmarried male creature was but one of the component parts of the great Public ; that there were not only women but hundreds of men who admired the actress for the illusion she created, who studied her methods and praised or blamed without one thought of the desirability of the woman—all repeated over and over with unshakable, though entirely superficial, amiability, for down in my heart there was hot anger, yes, and deep humiliation, too. This new and unpleasant view of the profession 1 honored with all my heart offended me deeply. And though it might be the true one, I stoutly told myself that the popularity that could be destroyed by an honest marriage was a dubious thing well rid of, while all the time the ache of tears was in my throat at the prospect of such a loss.
So when, going straight from the altar, as I might say, to the stage in Pittsburg, I faced a packed audience whose reception rose from applause to cheers, I could have gone upon my knees in humble apology for the bitter thoughts and fears I had entertained. Yet my friend, doubting Thomas, gravely asserted that that was merely the greeting to a bride, that the enthusiasm was probably only momentary. But I laughed happily in his gloomy face and left him at last with full coffers at both theaters. And thus all the engagements made for the unmarried actress, the married one had filled successfully, triumphantly. So that, in
[pgbrk] THE FAR COUNTRY
331
spite of broken health, managers considered me a very strong dramatic card—yet it required the moxa to teach me that the Public had a heart. One stranger wrote: "The iron that burned your flesh made thousands writhe. The pallor of your face was reflected on the faces of men as well as women, as they read." Another, from half-way across the contintent, wrote : "No man who ever saw you in ' Alixe' or ' Camille ' would hesitate at going under the iron for you. The sweat runs down my face when 1 think of you having to endure such pain. If we could suffer vicariously for you an army would dispute for the privilege." But, most touching of all, a little boy wrote : " I saw you once in a play. In it they said you was not a very good woman, but I know
you was, and I'm only a little boy, but I wish I could be burned lots of times to make you better."
And so, from press and private letter, from North and South, from East and West, came the sweet assurance that the great many-headed Public, with its alert ears and its jeweled eyes uncountable, its many hands, strong alike to build up or tear down, had a heart warm, tender, and opened to me in my sore suffering and distress. And it was this thrilling contact with the people's heart that gave back to me my queer nervous strength and my joy in work, with a too passionate desire to serve, unstintedly to serve, the Public that had not cast me forth into outer darkness because I had married.
THE FAR COUNTRY
BY
FLORENCE WILKINSON
THE tale of life is heavy Upon the city street, But dreaming I go ever To a far land and sweet.
By day, the bondman's harness, The townling's restless brain ;
By night, a breezy upland, A tansy-bordered lane.
The earth, new-born at sunrise, The meadow smoking mist,
The river bathed in purple, The distance amethyst.
Behind the druid pine-tree The great sun journeys up ;
He lifts the clouds and opens The briar rose's cup.
[pgbrk] 332
THE FAR COUNTRY
The fox grapes in the boskage,
Green-panoplied and cool, The eager cardinal flower's
Shy scarlet straight flammule.
Along the bounteous hillside, The round sun at their back,
The fronded flaming sumacs, The elder thickets black.
These are my dream companions;
Forgot and far behind Are play and tinsel novel.
The culture-maddened mind.
Or 'tis a white May morning, Bloom-drifted orchard floors ;
In his green oratory
A mystic thrush adores.
Sometimes the calm of sunset
Poured like a golden wine, And spacious streaming shadows
And solitude divine.
Or in the eldritch twilight
With tree shapes dimly spelt,
Faint odors float and vanish, Stray fireflies gleam and melt.
Day is a lamp-lit country
Glimpsed through the window square, Where vague unsteady houseless
Things hover in mid-air,
And I, a loitering shadow,
With other shadows dwell, Twirling like string-tied puppets
In aimless tinternel.
Night is the freeman's country
Wherein my soul, unshod, Her thatch-cloak loosed about her,
Lays bare her breast to God.
[pgbrk] ON THE DOORSTEP
BY
INEZ HAYNES GILLMORE
THE iceman called over his shoulder as he disappeared into the next yard, " You can ring that bell for an hour— they're away in there for the day."
"All right," the man he addressed answered huskily. He looked like a tramp. He stood on the doorstep, scowling, for a minute. Then he descended and slouched out of sight up the street. The young girl who was approaching, card-case in hand, evidently caught the drift of the iceman's words, for she paused and hesitated. She looked very tired, and there was a disconsolate droop to her figure. She gave a quick glance up and down the deserted Place. Then, suddenly, she seated herself on one of the lower steps, and gazed with a bored expression straight before her.
It was a quiet, broad enclosure, curving in horseshoe effect about a scrap of green park and passing, in the process, a half a dozen big old-fashioned houses, set in the midst of generous lawns. It was about four. There was not a person to be seen— not even at the windows. The very houses looked as if they were taking a nap. The day was a perfect early-spring day, as clear as a crystal and almost as prismatic. The trees glowed as if their vitality had burst out in green fire—a blaze that clung close to the bark and burned low as it ran to the branch-tips.
The girl was pretty and immaculate in her trim calling costume. She seemed to be satisfied with her seat. She continued to sit there, gazing after a while meditatively into the distance.
A young man came swinging into the Place. He was tall and jolly-looking, quite as irreproachable as she, and also in calling attire. The girl started as he appeared. Then she watched his approach curiously, the bored expression dying out of her eves.
He came forward swiftly, hitting unconsciously at sundry tall grasses with his stick. Finally, his eyes fell on the girl, elaborately unconscious by this time of his proximity. He looked puzzled for a moment, but when he got opposite her he stopped, hesitated, and finally ascended the steps. He rang and rang and rang, staring in discomfiture all the time at the big old-fashioned name-plate under the bell.
" I'm afraid the Coolidges are not at home—" he turned to her finally.
"No," the girl answered, after a little hesitancy; "I'm afraid not."
"I'm awfully sorry," he murmured; "I wanted so much to see— I wonder when they'll get back." He looked at her inquiringly.
"I haven't the remotest idea," she informed him.
" I am sorry," he muttered. " I wonder if you'll be annoyed if I wait here with you ?" he suggested suddenly; "it is so necessary for me to see one of them."
"Not a bit," she permitted; "I can't wait much longer myself, but I should like to see one'of them."
"Anyway, I think our acquaintance with them constitutes a kind of introduction ; don't you?" he ventured after a pause.
She smiled. " I'm perfectly willing to let it be so," she said simply.
"They're charming people—the Coolidges," he remarked.
"Oh, charming," she agreed hastily.
"So hospitable."
"I've never seen anything like it," she assured him, wriggling.
"And they entertain delightfully," he went on.
"Oh, delightfully; and you meet such attractive people at their house."
" I never thought that so strongly as now," he dared.
[pgbrk] 334
ON THE DOORSTEP
She smiled a little. "They're kind to young people, too ; especially so, it seems, to me."
"Oh, yes, that has often struck me—it's one of the most delightful things about them," he said with fervor. He paused for an instant. " I met them through a Milwaukee friend," he continued, as if at random.
"Oh, did you?" she exclaimed electrically ; "I know lots of people in Milwaukee —in fact, I come from Milwaukee myself."
"Do you, indeed? Do you know the Slades ?" he asked.
"Oh, yes indeed."
"And the Whartons ? "
"Oh, dear me, yes."
"And the Dodds?"
"All my life."
"Oh, do you, by chance, know Helen Inman ?" he burst out eagerly.
"Know her?" she repeated. "I should say 1 did." She smiled as at something the humor of which was apparent only to herself. " I know her quite as well as I know myself." She paused for a second and set her lips firmly, but a smile bubbled out in spite of herself. " Have you ever met her?" she asked casually.
"No; I wish I had," he said ruefully. " I've always been dying to know her. I've been to Milwaukee several times, and my friends there are always promising to introduce me to the wonderful Helen Inman, but she's always ill, or away, or engaged, or something. I know that I shall never meet her."
Another smile trembled on her curving lips. " I wouldn't despair," she consoled him ; "you'll probably meet her some day when you least expect it. That's what always happens in these cases—and then you'll be disappointed. I'll make the prophecy here and now that you meet her by accident, and you don't know her the first time you speak to her."
"Is she really so pretty?" he asked interestedly.
"I see her so much," she explained, "that I have got used to her. No ; I think there's nothing especially striking about her. I'll have to confess," she said, with a little embarrassed laugh, "that she's rather in my type. They say we look very much alike."
"Then she has gray eyes and brown hair" —her companion fixed his eyes in interested
scrutiny on her face—"red lips, a dimple in her chin, and a very impertinent nose."
"Go on," she commanded unblushingly.
But he did not go on. "Just imagine," he burst out; "once she actually came to St. Louis and I, thrice-accursed idiot that I am, took that opportunity to put myself out of the game with a sprained knee."
"Oh, do you live in St. Louis?" she interrupted ; " I know rafts of people there. Do you know the Simmondses?"
" Lord, yes !"
"And the Darrows and the Hunting-tons?"
"Yes! Yes!"
"And the Wheelers, the Comstocks, and the Burtons ?"
"Every one of them."
" Do you happen to know Kent Leonard, I wonder?"
"Kent Leonard!" he exclaimed; "1 know him as well as I know my own brother."
"Oh, I'm awfully interested in Kent Leonard," she said joyfully ; "tell me about him."
He smiled. Then he burst into a laugh that was a little embarrassed. "Well, there isn't much to tell," he said at length ; "he's a man like anybody else."
" Is he handsome ?" she asked eagerly.
"Not so's you'd notice it," he answered grimly.
"Dear me, how disappointing," she commented ; "but I'm sure that's only a man's point of view. I've always been told that he was a perfect Adonis."
" I hope you never meet him," he remarked dryly.
"The girls say that he has the most stunning shoulders in St. Louis, and the loveliest profile." She stared at her companion's face. He shifted his gaze and moved uneasily. "They say he regularly trips up over his eyelashes."
"Well, wouldn't that crimp you !" he commented disgustedly. "You certainly must never see him after that."
"Oh, I shall never meet him," she said decidedly ; "there's a fate against it. It's the strangest thing about Kent Leonard— almost as strange as your experiences in meeting Helen Inman. My friends in Milwaukee have a feeling that he and I would be especially congenial—and they're always trying to bring about a meeting. But something invariably happens to prevent
[pgbrk] ON THE DOORSTEP
335
it — you never heard anything like the curious things that come up. I'm really rather interested now to see what he's like; but I simply know we'll never meet."
"I bet you ten to five that you do," he offered promptly.
She shook her head mournfully. " I'm too much of a gentleman to bet on a certainty," she asserted. "It doesn't look as if the Coolidges were coming, does it?" she said, craning to stare up the Place.
"No," he agreed. "I'm so sorry," he went on disgustedly ; " I don't know what to do with myself. I had planned to spend the afternoon with them. There's nothing you can do in Boston in the summer time, is there ? "
"Nothing," she said with decision. " I never was so bored in my life as I've been to-day."
"Nor I, up to half an hour ago."
She paid no attention to this. "I think I'll give it up now," she meditated absently; "I have a feeling that I sha'n't see them to-day."
"Oh, wait a little longer," he advised ; "it's a pity to miss them. They're such pleasant people. Really, I've never met anybody like them."
"I'm very sure I never have," she said decidedly.
"There's never been anything about them
that's grated-"
"Or jarred."
"That you try to make yourself forget." "Or fail to prevent yourself from remembering."
"They're really fine," he concluded with conviction.
"Just dear people," she supplemented him emphatically.
"Oh, by Jove," he exclaimed suddenly; "wait a moment—I have an idea." He put his hat and stick on the steps, and leaped into the little front yard. He knelt before the cellar window, pushed it open, and in a second had disappeared through it. There was the sound of the bump his body made on the cellar floor, the scramble to his feet, and then of his retreating footsteps. The girl had watched his first movements with a look of perplexed interest. But this was blotted out by the expression of alarm that ran over her face. Then she burst into laughter. Presently, the front door opened.
"Don't you want to come in and wait ?" he suggested hospitably; "you can write a note if you'd like."
" I shouldn't think of doing such a thing," she said earnestly; "please come out and shut the door."
"Now, I thought that was a grand idea," he said disappointedly.
The girl smiled enigmatically. "It wasn't such a bad idea—only—well, I must go."
"See here," he said impulsively; "why can't we combine forces, and have a good time together as long as we're both shipwrecked in Boston. You don't know me, of course, and I don't know you, and I won't ask your name if you don't want me to. But our mutual acquaintanceship with the Coolidges constitutes an introduction— we've agreed to that. Also that they know only the nicest people, and they're such winners themselves."
"They're just fascinating," she interpolated.
"Now listen to me," he continued earnestly. "I'm fearfully hungry. Let's go into the Touraine and have dinner."
"I'd just love to," she admitted frankly, "but it seems-"
"Oh, come," he teased; "I'll guarantee that I'm respectable if you'll guarantee that you are."
" But-"
"Aren't you just yearning for a broiled live lobster?" he suggested.
"That settles it," she said promptly; "I'll g°"
"Let's go to the theater?" he proposed suddenly, when they had nearly finished eating.
"Oh," she faltered, "I don't—" She stopped and thought a second. " Yes, I will." She made up her mind quickly.
"Oh, say, you're just the most—the— the—the—oh, the deuce !" he concluded lamely.
" But I think before we go we ought to know who we really are ; don't you ?"
He laughed. "I'm ready," he said.
"In certain walks in society, I understand," she went on, producing her card-case, "in events like this, they always exchange cards. Now I propose that we exchange cards." Her eyes were dancing.
"Very well, have it your own way," he agreed cheerfully. He felt in an inner pocket and found a card-case. They sat
[pgbrk] 336
EDITORIAL
opposite each other, each pair of hands holding a thin bit of pasteboard.
"First, I'm going to guess your name," he said pausing.
"All right," she agreed; "and I'll guess yours. You guess first."
"No; you first," he said quickly.
"Together then," she conceded, bursting with impatience ; " when I say three. Ready ? One ! Two ! Three ! "
"Helen Inman," he said.
" Kent Leonard," she said.
"How in the world—" she managed and stopped.
" I knew you the moment my eyes fell on you. 1^ don't suppose you realize that Daisy has a small million of your pictures. 1 know them by heart. In fact, I've stolen three. But how'd you know me?"
" Royce Burton gave me a group picture. You're in it. What a shame ; I thought I was going to surprise you so."
Late that night, when he was leaving her, he said suddenly: " By Jove, I nearly forgot —it's lucky I remembered in time, but seeing you sitting there on the steps put the idea into my head. And I knew you were the kind of a girl who would understand when I explained. But it was a bluff, my walking up and ringing that bell. I had no intention of it until I saw you there. If anybody came to the door, I was going to ask if David Harum lived there. I was determined to find some excuse for conversation. But I don't know the Coolidges from Adam, never laid eyes on one of them ; I never heard of them before. It was pretty cheeky going through their house, I'll admit."
She stared at him dumbly. Then she burst into peals of laughter. She tried to speak, but it was several moments before she could articulate. Finally the words came. "I don't know them either," she confessed.
EDITORIAL
MISS TARBELL'S HISTORY OF THE STANDARD OIL COMPANY
TWO years ago the publication of Miss Tarbell's Standard Oil articles began in this magazine. It was our intention to have them run for a year, and then to bring them out in book form. But as the work progressed Miss Tarbell found she could not do justice to the subject in so limited a number of papers ; so it was decided to continue them through a second year. We wondered at the time if public interest in the subject warranted the continuation—it is assuming a good deal to expect that people will want to read of one thing for two years—but we find that the articles have been even more widely read and discussed the second year than the first. The History—which by general consent is the greatest contribution to periodical literature of recent years—is now drawing to a close. "The Price of Oil," which was announced for this number, will appear in the September number.
In October we shall publish the last chap-
ter of the History proper, in which Miss Tarbell will call attention to certain present conditions in the oil industry and will draw her conclusions on the work as a whole. Simultaneously with the publication of this article the entire work will appear in book form, revised and supplemented by a full appendix of authorities. It will be published in two volumes (illustrated) by McClure, Phillips and Company. So many inquities have come to us in regard to the publication of these articles in book form that we take this opportunity of making this announcement.
Next year Miss Tarbell will continue her work by occasional articles on the ramifications of the Standard and on subjects which bear directly on the Trust problem. These articles, among them a character sketch of John D. Rockefeller, will all be handled historically and will be based on documents as in the case of the History now drawing to a close.