A Tradition of the Revolution

Not very far from the Highlands of the Hudson, but at a
considerable distance from the river, there stood, one hundred
years ago, a farmhouse that evidently had been built as much for
strength and defence as for comfort. The dwelling was one story
and a half in height, and was constructed of hewn logs, fitted
closely together, and made impervious to the weather by old-
fashioned mortar, which seems to defy the action of time. Two
entrances facing each other led to the main or living room, and
they were so large that a horse could pass through them, dragging
in immense back-logs. These, having been detached from a chain
when in the proper position, were rolled into the huge fireplace
that yawned like a sooty cavern at the farther end of the
apartment. A modern housekeeper, who finds wood too dear an
article for even the air-tight stove, would be appalled by this
fireplace. Stalwart Mr. Reynolds, the master of the house, could
easily walk under its stony arch without removing his broad-
brimmed Quaker hat. From the left side, and at a convenient height
from the hearth, a massive crane swung in and out; while high
above the centre of the fire was an iron hook, or trammel, from
which by chains were suspended the capacious iron pots used in
those days for culinary or for stock-feeding purposes. This
trammel, which hitherto had suggested only good cheer, was
destined to have in coming years a terrible significance to the
household.

When the blaze was moderate, or the bed of live coals not too
ample, the children could sit on either side of the fireplace and
watch the stars through its wide flue; and this was a favorite
amusement of Phebe Reynolds, the eldest daughter of the house.

A door opened from the living-room into the other apartments,
furnished in the old massive style that outlasts many generations.
All the windows were protected by stout oaken shutters which, when
closed, almost transformed the dwelling into a fortress, giving
security against any ordinary attack. There were no loopholes in
the walls through which the muzzle of the deadly rifle could be
thrust and fired from within. This feature, so common in the
primitive abodes of the country, was not in accordance with John
Reynolds’s Quaker principles. While indisposed to fight, it was
evident that the good man intended to interpose between himself
and his enemies all the passive resistance that his stout little
domicile could offer.

And he knew that he had enemies of the bitterest and most
unscrupulous character. He was a stanch Whig, loyal to the
American cause, and, above all, resolute and active in the
maintenance of law and order in those lawless times. He thus had
made himself obnoxious to his Tory neighbors, and an object of
hate and fear to a gang of marauders, who, under the pretence of
acting with the British forces, plundered the country far and
near. Claudius Smith, the Robin Hood of the Highlands and the
terror of the pastoral low country, had formerly been their
leader; and the sympathy shown by Mr. Reynolds with all the
efforts to bring him to justice which finally resulted in his
capture and execution, and awakened among his former associates an
intense desire for revenge. This fact, well known to the farmer,
kept him constantly on his guard, and filled his wife and daughter
Phebe with deep apprehension.

At the time of our story, Phebe was only twelve years of age, but
was mature beyond her years. There were several younger children,
and she had become almost womanly in aiding her mother in their
care. Her stout, plump little body had been developed rather than
enfeebled by early toil, and a pair of resolute and often mirthful
blue eyes bespoke a spirit not easily daunted. She was a native
growth of the period, vitalized by pure air and out-of-door
pursuits, and she abounded in the shrewd intelligence and demure
refinement of her sect to a degree that led some of their
neighbors to speak of her as “a little old woman.” When alone with
the children, however, or in the woods and fields, she would doff
her Quaker primness, and romp, climb trees, and frolic with the
wildest.

But of late, the troublous times and her father’s peril had
brought unwonted thoughtfulness into her blue eyes, and more than
Quaker gravity to the fresh young face, which, in spite of
exposure to sun and wind, maintained much of its inherited
fairness of complexion. Of her own accord she was becoming a
vigilant sentinel, for a rumor had reached Mr. Reynolds that
sooner or later he would have a visit from the dreaded mountain
gang of hard riders. Two roads leading to the hills converged on
the main highway not far from his dwelling; and from an adjacent
knoll Phebe often watched this place, while her father, with a lad
in his employ, completed their work about the barn. When the
shadows deepened, all was made as secure as possible without and
within, and the sturdy farmer, after committing himself and his
household to the Divine protection, slept as only brave men sleep
who are clear in conscience and accustomed to danger.

His faith was undoubtedly rewarded; but Providence in the
execution of its will loves to use vigilant human eyes and ready,
loving hands. The guardian angel destined to protect the good man
was his blooming daughter Phebe, who had never thought of herself
as an angel, and indeed rarely thought of herself at all, as is
usually the case with those who do most to sweeten and brighten
the world. She was a natural, wholesome, human child, with all a
child’s unconsciousness of self. She knew she could not protect
her father like a great stalwart son, but she could watch and warn
him of danger, and as the sequel proved, she could do far more.

The farmer’s habits were well known, and the ruffians of the
mountains were aware that after he had shut himself in he was much
like Noah in his ark. If they attempted to burn him out, the
flames would bring down upon them a score of neighbors not
hampered by Quaker principles. Therefore they resolved upon a
sudden onslaught before he had finished the evening labors of the
farm. This was what the farmer feared; and Phebe, like a vigilant
outpost, was now never absent from her place of observation until
called in.

One spring evening she saw two mounted men descending one of the
roads which led from the mountains. Instead of jogging quietly out
on the highway, as ordinary travellers would have done, they
disappeared among the trees. Soon afterward she caught a glimpse
of two other horsemen on the second mountain road. One of these
soon came into full view, and looked up and down as if to see that
all was clear. Apparently satisfied, he gave a low whistle, when
three men joined him. Phebe waited to see no more, but sped toward
the house, her flaxen curls flying from her flushed and excited
face.

“They are coming, father! Thee must be quick!” she cried.

But a moment or two elapsed before all were within the dwelling,
the doors banged and barred, the heavy shutters closed, and the
home-fortress made secure. Phebe’s warning had come none too soon,
for they had scarcely time to take breath before the tramp of
galloping horses and the oaths of their baffled foes were heard
without. The marauders did not dare make much noise, for fear that
some passing neighbor might give the alarm. Tying their horses
behind the house, where they would be hidden from the road, they
tried various expedients to gain an entrance, but the logs and
heavy planks baffled them. At last one of the number suggested
that they should ascend the roof and climb down the wide flue of
the chimney. This plan was easy of execution, and for a few
moments the stout farmer thought that his hour had come. With a
heroism far beyond that of the man who strikes down his assailant,
he prepared to suffer all things rather than take life with his
own hands.

But his wife proved equal to this emergency. She had been making
over a bed, and a large basket of feathers was within reach. There
were live coals on the hearth, but they did not give out enough
heat to prevent the ruffians from descending. Two of them were
already in the chimney, and were threatening horrible vengeance if
the least resistance was offered. Upon the coals on the hearth the
housewife instantly emptied her basket of feathers; and a great
volume of pungent, stifling smoke poured up the chimney. The
threats of the men, who by means of ropes were cautiously
descending, were transformed into choking, half-suffocated sounds,
and it was soon evident that the intruders were scrambling out as
fast as possible. A hurried consultation on the roof ensued, and
then, as if something had alarmed them, they galloped off. With
the exception of the cries of the peepers, or hylas, in an
adjacent swamp, the night soon grew quiet around the closed and
darkened dwelling. Farmer Reynolds bowed in thanksgiving over
their escape, and then after watching a few hours, slept as did
thousands of others in those times of anxiety.

But Phebe did not sleep. She grew old by moments that night as do
other girls by months and years; as never before she understood
that her father’s life was in peril. How much that life meant to
her and the little brood of which she was the eldest! How much it
meant to her dear mother, who was soon again to give birth to a
little one that would need a father’s protection and support! As
the young girl lay in her little attic room, with dilated eyes and
ears intent on the slightest sound, she was ready for any heroic
self-sacrifice, without once dreaming that she was heroic.

The news of the night-attack spread fast, and there was a period
of increased vigilance which compelled the outlaws to lie close in
their mountain fastnesses. But Phebe knew that her father’s
enemies were still at large with their hate only stimulated
because baffled for a time. Therefore she did not in the least
relax her watchfulness; and she besought their nearest neighbors
to come to their assistance should any alarm be given.

When the spring and early summer passed without further trouble,
they all began to breathe more freely, but one July night John
Reynolds was betrayed by his patriotic impulses. He was awakened
by a loud knocking at his door. Full of misgiving, he rose and
hastily dressed himself: Phebe, who had slipped on her clothes at
the first alarm, joined him and said earnestly:

“Don’t thee open the door, father, to anybody, at this time of
night;” and his wife, now lying ill and helpless on a bed in the
adjoining room, added her entreaty to that of her daughter. In
answer, however, to Mr. Reynolds’s inquiries a voice from without,
speaking quietly and seemingly with authority, asserted that they
were a squad from Washington’s forces in search of deserters, and
that no harm would ensue unless he denied their lawful request.
Conscious of innocence, and aware that detachments were often
abroad on such authorized quests, Mr. Reynolds unbarred his door.
The moment he opened it he saw his terrible error; not soldiers,
but the members of the mountain gang, were crouched like wild
beasts ready to spring upon him.

“Fly, father!” cried Phebe. “They won’t hurt us;” but before the
bewildered man could think what to do, the door flew open from the
pressure of half a dozen wild-looking desperadoes, and he was
powerless in their grasp. They evidently designed murder, but not
a quick and merciful “taking off”; they first heaped upon their
victim the vilest epithets, seeking in their thirst for revenge to
inflict all the terrors of death in anticipation. The good man,
however, now face to face with his fate, grew calm and resigned.
Exasperated by his courage, they began to cut and torture him with
their swords and knives. Phebe rushed forward to interpose her
little form between her father and the ruffians, and was dashed,
half stunned, into a corner of the room. Even for the sake of his
sick wife, the brave farmer could not refrain from uttering groans
of anguish which brought the poor woman with faltering steps into
his presence. After one glance at the awful scene she sank, half
fainting, on a settee near the door.

When the desire for plunder got the better of their fiendish
cruelty, one of the gang threw a noosed rope over Mr. Reynolds’s
head, and then they hanged him to the trammel or iron hook in the
great chimney.

“You can’t smoke us out this time,” they shouted. “You’ve now got
to settle with the avengers of Claudius Smith; and you and some
others will find us ugly customers to settle with.”

They then rushed off to rob the house, for the farmer was reputed
to have not a little money in his strong box. The moment they were
gone Phebe seized a knife and cut her father down. Terror and
excitement gave her almost supernatural strength, and with the aid
of the boy in her father’s service she got the poor man on a bed
which he had occupied during his wife’s illness. Her reviving
mother was beginning to direct her movements when the ruffians
again entered; and furious with rage, they again seized and hanged
her father, while one, more brutal than the others, whipped the
poor child with a heavy rope until he thought she was disabled.
The girl at first cowered and shivered under the blows, and then
sank as if lifeless on the floor. But the moment she was left to
herself she darted forward and once more cut her father down. The
robbers then flew upon the prostrate man and cut and stabbed him
until they supposed he was dead. Toward his family they meditated
a more terrible and devilish cruelty. After sacking the house and
taking all the plunder they could carry, they relieved the horror-
stricken wife and crying, shrieking children of their presence.
Their further action, however, soon inspired Phebe with a new and
more awful fear, for she found that they had fastened the doors on
the outside and were building a fire against one of them.

For a moment an overpowering despair at the prospect of their fate
almost paralyzed her. She believed her father was dead. The boy
who had aided her at first was now dazed and helpless from terror.
If aught could be done in this supreme moment of peril she saw
that it must be done by her hands. The smoke from the kindling
fire without was already curling in through the crevices around
the door. There was not a moment, not a second to be lost. The
ruffians’ voices were growing fainter and she heard the sounds of
their horses’ feet. Would they go away in time for her to
extinguish the fire? She ran to her attic room and cautiously
opened the shutter. Yes, they were mounting; and in the faint
light of the late-rising moon she saw that they were taking her
father’s horses. A moment later, as if fearing that the blaze
might cause immediate pursuit, they dashed off toward the
mountains.

The clatter of their horses’ hoofs had not died away before the
intrepid girl had opened the shutter of a window nearest the
ground, and springing lightly out with a pail in her hand she
rushed to the trough near the barn, which she knew was full of
water. Back and forth she flew between the fire and the convenient
reservoir with all the water that her bruised arms and back
permitted her to carry. Fortunately the night was a little damp,
and the stout thick door had kindled slowly. To her intense joy
she soon gained the mastery of the flames, and at last
extinguished them.

She did not dare to open the door for fear that the robbers might
return, but clambering in at the window, made all secure as had
been customary, for now it was her impulse to do just as her
father would have done.

She found her mother on her knees beside her father, who would
indeed have been a ghastly and awful object to all but the eyes of
love.

“Oh, Phebe, I hope–I almost believe thy father lives!” cried the
woman. “Is it my throbbing palm, or does his heart still beat?”

“I’m sure it beats, mother!” cried the girl, putting her little
hand on the gashed and mangled body.

“Oh, then there’s hope! Here, Abner,” to the boy, “isn’t there any
man in thee? Help Phebe get him on the bed, and then we must stop
this awful bleeding. Oh, that I were well and strong! Phebe, thee
must now take my place. Thee may save thy father’s life. I can
tell thee what to do if thee has the courage.”

Phebe had the courage and with deft hands did her mother’s
bidding. She stanched the many gaping wounds; she gave spirits at
first drop by drop, until at last the man breathed and was
conscious. Even before the dawn began to brighten over the dreaded
Highlands which their ruthless enemies were already climbing,
Phebe was flying, bare-headed, across the fields to their nearest
neighbor. The good people heard of the outrage with horror and
indignation. A half-grown lad sprang on the bare back of a young
horse and galloped across the country for a surgeon. A few moments
later the farmer, equipped for chase and battle, dashed away at
headlong pace to alarm the neighborhood. The news sped from house
to house and hamlet to hamlet like fire in prairie grass. The sun
had scarcely risen before a dozen bronzed and stern-browed men
were riding into John Reynolds’s farm-yard under the lead of young
Hal June–the best shot that the wars had left in the region. The
surgeon had already arrived, and before he ceased from his labors
he had dressed thirty wounds.

The story told by Phebe had been as brief as it was terrible–for
she was eager to return to her father and sick mother. She had not
dreamed of herself as the heroine of the affair, and had not given
any such impression, although more than one had remarked that she
was “a plucky little chick to give the alarm before it was light.”
But when the proud mother faintly and tearfully related the
particulars of the tragedy, and told how Phebe had saved her
father’s life and probably her mother’s–for, “I was too sick to
climb out of a window,” she said; when she told how the child
after a merciless whipping had again cut her father down from the
trammel-hook, had extinguished the fire, and had been nursing her
father back to life, while all the time in almost agony herself
from the cruel blows that had been rained upon her–Phebe was
dazed and bewildered at the storm of applause that greeted her.
And when the surgeon, in order to intensify the general desire for
vengeance, showed the great welts and scars on her arms and neck,
gray-bearded fathers who had known her from infancy took her into
their arms and blessed and kissed her. For once in his life young
Hal June wished he was a gray-beard, but his course was much more
to the mind of Phebe than any number of caresses would have been.
Springing on his great black horse, and with his dark eyes burning
with a fire that only blood could quench, he shouted:

“Come, neighbors, it’s time for deeds. That brave little woman
ought to make a man of every mother’s son of us;” and he dashed
away so furiously that Phebe thought with a strange little tremor
at her heart that he might in his speed face the robbers all
alone. The stout yeomen clattered after him; the sound of their
pursuit soon died away; and Phebe returned to woman’s work of
nursing, watching, and praying.

The bandits of the hills, not expecting such prompt retaliation,
were overtaken, and then followed a headlong race over the rough
mountain roads–guilty wretches flying for life, and stern men
almost reckless in the burning desire to avenge a terrible wrong.
Although the horses of the marauders were tired, their riders were
so well acquainted with the fastnesses of the wilderness that they
led the pursuers through exceedingly difficult and dangerous
paths. At last, June ever in the van, caught sight of a man’s
form, and almost instantly his rifle awoke a hundred echoes among
the hills. When they reached the place, stains of blood marked the
ground, proving that at least a wound had been given. Just beyond,
the gang evidently had dispersed, each one for himself, leaving
behind everything that impeded their progress. The region was
almost impenetrable in its wildness except by those who knew all
its rugged paths. The body of the man whom June had wounded,
however, was found, clothed in a suit of Quaker drab stolen from
Mr. Reynolds. The rest of the band with few exceptions met with
fates that accorded with their deeds.

Phebe had the happiness of nursing her father back to health, and
although maimed and disfigured, he lived to a ripe old age. If the
bud is the promise of the flower, Phebe must have developed a
womanhood that was regal in its worth; at the same time I believe
that she always remained a modest, demure little Quakeress, and
never thought of her virtues except when reminded of them in plain
English.

NOTE–In the preceding narrative I have followed almost literally
a family tradition of events which actually occurred.

The August morning was bright and fair, but Herbert Scofield’s
brow was clouded. He had wandered off to a remote part of the
grounds of a summer hotel on the Hudson, and seated in the shade
of a tree, had lapsed into such deep thought that his cigar had
gone out and the birds were becoming bold in the vicinity of his
motionless figure.

It was his vacation time and he had come to the country ostensibly
for rest. As the result, he found himself in the worst state of
unrest that he had ever known. Minnie Madison, a young lady he had
long admired, was the magnet that had drawn him hither. Her
arrival had preceded his by several weeks; and she had smiled a
little consciously when in looking at the hotel register late one
afternoon his bold chirography met her eye.

“There are so many other places to which he might have gone,” she
murmured.

Her smile, however, was a doubtful one, not expressive of gladness
and entire satisfaction. In mirthful, saucy fashion her thoughts
ran on: “The time has come when he might have a respite from
business. Does he still mean business by coming here? I’m not sure
that I do, although the popular idea seems to be that a girl
should have no vacation in the daily effort to find a husband. I
continually disappoint the good people by insisting that the
husband must find me. I have a presentiment that Mr. Scofield is
looking for me; but there are some kinds of property which cannot
be picked up and carried off, nolens volens, when found.”

Scofield had been animated by no such clearly defined purpose as
he was credited with when he sought the summer resort graced by
Miss Madison. His action seemed to him tentative, his motive ill-
defined even in his own consciousness, yet it had been strong
enough to prevent any hesitancy. He knew he was weary from a long
year’s work. He purposed to rest and take life very leisurely, and
he had mentally congratulated himself that he was doing a wise
thing in securing proximity to Miss Madison. She had evoked his
admiration in New York, excited more than a passing interest, but
he felt that he did not know her very well. In the unconventional
life now in prospect he could see her daily and permit his
interest to be dissipated or deepened, as the case might be, while
he remained, in the strictest sense of the world, uncommitted. It
was a very prudent scheme and not a bad one. He reasoned justly:
“This selecting a wife is no bagatelle. A man wishes to know
something more about a woman than he can learn in a drawing-room
or at a theatre party.”

But now he was in trouble. He had been unable to maintain this
judicial aspect. He had been made to understand at the outset that
Miss Madison did not regard herself as a proper subject for
deliberate investigation, and that she was not inclined to aid in
his researches. So far from meeting him with engaging frankness
and revealing her innermost soul for his inspection, he found her
as elusive as only a woman of tact can be when so minded, even at
a place where people meet daily. It was plain to him from the
first that he was not the only man who favored her with admiring
glances; and he soon discovered that young Merriweather and his
friend Hackley had passed beyond the neutral ground of non-
committal. He set himself the task of learning how far these
suitors had progressed in her good graces; he would not be guilty
of the folly of giving chase to a prize already virtually
captured. This too had proved a failure. Clearly, would he know
what Mr. Merriweather and Mr. Hackley were to Miss Madison he must
acquire the power of mind reading. Each certainly appeared to be a
very good friend of hers–a much better friend than he could claim
to be, for in his case she maintained a certain unapproachableness
which perplexed and nettled him.

After a week of rest, observation, and rather futile effort to
secure a reasonable share of Miss Madison’s society and attention,
he became assured that he was making no progress whatever so far
as she was concerned, but very decided progress in a condition of
mind and heart anything but agreeable should the affair continue
so one-sided. He had hoped to see her daily, and was not
disappointed. He had intended to permit his mind to receive such
impressions as he should choose; and now his mind asked no
permission whatever, but without volition occupied itself with her
image perpetually. He was not sure whether she satisfied his
preconceived ideals of what a wife should be or not, for she
maintained such a firm reticence in regard to herself that he
could put his finger on no affinities. She left no doubt as to her
intelligence, but beyond that she would not reveal herself to him.
He was almost satisfied that she discouraged him utterly and that
it would be wiser to depart before his feelings became more deeply
involved. At any rate he had better do this or else make love in
dead earnest. Which course should he adopt?

There came a day which brought him to a decision.

A party had been made up for an excursion into the Highlands, Miss
Madison being one of the number. She was a good pedestrian and
rarely missed a chance for a ramble among the hills. Scofield’s
two rivals occasionally got astray with her in the perplexing
wood-roads, but he never succeeded in securing such good-fortune.
On this occasion, as they approached a woodchopper’s cottage (or
rather, hovel), there were sounds of acute distress within–the
piercing cries of a child evidently in great pain. There was a
moment of hesitancy in the party, and then Miss Madison’s graceful
indifference vanished utterly. As she ran hastily to the cabin,
Scofield felt that now probably was a chance for more than mere
observation, and he kept beside her. An ugly cur sought to bar
entrance; but his vigorous kick sent it howling away. She gave him
a quick pleased look as they entered. A slatternly woman was
trying to soothe a little boy, who at all her attempts only
writhed and shrieked the more. “I dunno what ails the young one,”
she said. “I found him a moment ago yellin’ at the foot of a tree.
Suthin’s the matter with his leg.”

“Yes,” cried Miss Madison, delicately feeling of the member–an
operation which, even under her gentle touch, caused increased
outcry, “it is evidently broken. Let me take him on my lap;” and
Scofield saw that her face had softened into the tenderest pity.

“I will bring a surgeon at the earliest possible moment,”
exclaimed Scofield, turning to go.

Again she gave him an approving glance which warmed his heart.
“The ice is broken between us now,” he thought, as he broke
through the group gathering at the open door.

Never before had he made such time down a mountain, for he had a
certain kind of consciousness that he was not only going after the
doctor, but also after the girl. Securing a stout horse and wagon
at the hotel, he drove furiously for the surgeon, explained the
urgency, and then, with the rural healer at his side, almost
killed the horse in returning.

He found his two rivals at the cabin door, the rest of the party
having gone on. Miss Madison came out quickly. An evanescent smile
flitted across her face as she saw his kindled eyes and the
reeking horse, which stood trembling and with bowed head. His
ardor was a little dampened when she went directly to the poor
beast and said, “This horse is a rather severe indictment against
you, Mr. Scofield. There was need of haste, but–” and she paused
significantly.

“Yes,” added the doctor, springing out, “I never saw such driving!
It’s lucky our necks are not broken”

“You are all right, Doctor, and ready for your work,” Scofield
remarked brusquely. “As for the horse, I’ll soon bring him
around;” and he rapidly began to unhitch the over-driven animal.

“What are you going to do?” Miss Madison asked curiously.

“Rub him into as good shape as when he started.”

She turned away to hide a smile as she thought, “He has waked up
at last.”

The boy was rendered unconscious, and his leg speedily put in the
way of restoration. “He will do very well now if my directions are
carried out strictly,” the physician was saying when Scofield
entered.

Mr. Merriweather and Mr. Hackley stood rather helplessly in the
background and were evidently giving more thought to the fair
nurse than to the patient. The mother was alternating between
lamentations and invocations of good on the “young leddy’s” head.
Finding that he would come in for a share of the latter, Scofield
retreated again. Miss Madison walked quietly out, and looking
critically at the horse, remarked, “You have kept your word very
well, Mr. Scofield. The poor creature does look much improved.”
She evidently intended to continue her walk with the two men in
waiting, for she said demurely with an air of dismissal, “You will
have the happy consciousness of having done a good deed this
morning.”

“Yes,” replied Scofield, in significant undertone; “you, of all
others, Miss Madison, know how inordinately happy I shall be in
riding back to the village with the doctor.”

She raised her eyebrows in a little well-feigned surprise at his
words, then turned away.

During the remainder of the day he was unable to see her alone for
a moment, or to obtain any further reason to believe that the ice
was in reality broken between them. But his course was no longer
noncommittal, even to the most careless observer. The other guests
of the house smiled; and Mr. Merriweather and Mr. Hackley looked
askance at one who threw their assiduous attentions quite into the
shade. Miss Madison maintained her composure, was oblivious as far
as possible, and sometimes when she could not appear blind, looked
a little surprised and even offended.

He had determined to cast prudence and circumlocution to the
winds. On the morning following the episode in the mountains he
was waiting to meet her when she came down to breakfast. “I’ve
seen that boy, Miss Madison, and he’s doing well.”

“What! so early? You are a very kind-hearted man, Mr. Scofield.”

“About as they average. That you are kind-hearted I know–at least
to every one except me–for I saw your expression as you examined
the little fellow’s injury yesterday. You thought only of the
child–”

“I hope you did also, Mr. Scofield,” she replied with an
exasperating look of surprise.

“You know well I did not,” he answered bluntly. “I thought it
would be well worth while to have my leg broken if you would look
at me in the same way.”

“Truly, Mr. Scofield, I fear you are not as kind-hearted as I
supposed you to be;” and then she turned to greet Mr.
Merriweather.

“Won’t you let me drive you up to see the boy?” interposed
Scofield, boldly.

“I’m sorry, but I promised to go up with the doctor this morning.”

And so affairs went on. He thought at times her color quickened a
little when he approached suddenly; he fancied that he
occasionally surprised a half-wistful, half-mirthful glance, but
was not sure. He knew that she was as well aware of his intentions
and wishes as if he had proclaimed them through a speaking-
trumpet. His only assured ground of comfort was that neither Mr.
Merriweather nor Mr. Hackley had yet won the coveted prize, though
they evidently were receiving far greater opportunities to push
their suit than he had been favored with.

At last his vacation was virtually at an end. But two more days
would elapse before he must be at his desk again in the city. And
now we will go back to the time when we found him that early
morning brooding over his prospects, remote from observation. What
should he do–propose by letter? “No,” he said after much
cogitation. “I can see that little affected look of surprise with
which she would read my plain declaration of what she knows so
well. Shall I force a private interview with her? The very word
‘force,’ which I have unconsciously used, teaches me the folly of
this course. She doesn’t care a rap for me, and I should have
recognized the truth long ago. I’ll go back to the hotel and act
toward her precisely as she has acted toward me. I can then at
least take back to town a little shred of dignity.”

He appeared not to see her when she came down to breakfast. After
the meal was over he sat on the piazza engrossed in the morning
paper. An excursion party for the mountains was forming. He merely
bowed politely as she passed him to join it, but he ground his
teeth as he saw Merriweather and Hackley escorting her away. When
they were out of sight he tossed the paper aside and went down to
the river, purposing to row the fever out of his blood. He was
already satisfied how difficult his tactics would be should he
continue to see her, and he determined to be absent all day, to so
tire himself out that exhaustion would bring early sleep on his
return.

Weary and leaden-spirited enough he was, as late in the afternoon
he made his way back, but firm in sudden resolve to depart on an
early train in the morning and never voluntarily to see the
obdurate lady of his affections again.

Just as the sun was about sinking he approached a small wooded
island about half a mile from the boat-house, and was surprised to
notice a rowboat high and dry upon the beach. “Some one has
forgotten that the tide is going out,” he thought, as he passed;
but it was no affair of his.

A voice called faintly, “Mr. Scofield!”

He started at the familiar tones, and looked again. Surely that
was Miss Madison standing by the prow of the stranded skiff! He
knew well indeed it was she; and he put his boat about with an
energy not in keeping with his former languid strokes. Then,
recollecting himself, he became pale with the self-control he
purposed to maintain, “She is in a scrape,” he thought; “and calls
upon me as she would upon any one else to get her out of it.”

Weariness and discouragement inclined him to be somewhat reckless
and brusque in his words and manner. Under the compulsion of
circumstances she who would never graciously accord him
opportunities must now be alone with him; but as a gentleman, he
could not take advantage of her helplessness, to plead his cause,
and he felt a sort of rage that he should be mocked with an
apparent chance which was in fact no chance at all.

His boat stranded several yards from the shore. Throwing down his
oars, he rose and faced her. Was it the last rays of the setting
sun which made her face so rosy, or was it embarrassment?

“I’m in a dilemma, Mr. Scofield,” Miss Madison began hesitatingly.

“And you would rather be in your boat,” he added.

“That would not help me any, seeing where my boat is. I have done
such a stupid thing! I stole away here to finish a book, and–
well–I didn’t notice that the tide was running out. I’m sure I
don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Scofield put his shoulder to an oar and tried to push his craft to
what deserved the name of shore, but could make little headway. He
was glad to learn by the effort, however, that the black mud was
not unfathomable in depth. Hastily reversing his action, he began
pushing his boat back in the water.

“Surely, Mr. Scofield, you do not intend to leave me,” began Miss
Madison.

“Surely not,” he replied; “but then, since you are so averse to my
company, I must make sure that my boat does not become as fast as
yours on this ebb-tide, otherwise we should both have to wait till
the flood.”

“Oh, beg pardon! I now understand. But how can you reach me?”

“Wade,” he replied coolly, proceeding to take off his shoes and
stockings.

“What! through that horrid black mud?”

“I couldn’t leap that distance, Miss Madison.”

“It’s too bad! I’m so provoked with myself! The mud may be very
deep, or there may be a quicksand or something.”

“In which case I should merely disappear a little earlier;” and he
sprang overboard up to his knees, dragged the boat till it was
sufficiently fast in the ooze to be stationary, then he waded
ashore.

“Well,” she said with a little deprecatory laugh, “it’s a comfort
not to be alone on a desert island.”

“Indeed! Can I be welcome under any circumstances?”

“Truly, Mr. Scofield, you know that you were never more welcome.
It’s very kind of you.”

“Any man would be glad to come to your aid. It is merely your
misfortune that I happen to be the one.”

“I’m not sure that I regard it as a very great misfortune. You
proved in the case of that little boy that you can act very
energetically.”

“And get lectured for my intemperate zeal. Well, Miss Madison, I
cannot make a very pleasing spectacle with blackamoor legs, and
it’s time I put my superfluous energy to some use. Suppose you get
in your boat, and I’ll try to push it off”

She complied with a troubled look in her face. He pushed till the
veins knotted on his forehead. At this she sprang out, exclaiming,
“You’ll burst a blood-vessel.”

“That’s only a phase of a ruptured heart, and you are used to such
phenomena.”

“It’s too bad for you to talk in that way,” she cried.

“It certainly is. I will now attend strictly to business.”

“I don’t see what you can do.”

“Carry you out to my boat–that is all I can do.”

“Oh, Mr. Scofield!”

“Can you suggest anything else?”

She looked dubiously at the intervening black mud, and was silent.

“I could go up to the hotel and bring Mr. Merriweather and Mr.
Hackley.”

She turned away to hide her tears.

“Or I could go after a brawny boatman; but delay is serious, for
the tide is running out fast and the stretch of mud growing wider.
Can you not imagine me Mike or Tim, or some fellow of that sort.”

“No, I can’t.”

“Then perhaps you wish me to go for Mike or Tim?”

“But the tide is running out so fast, you said.”

“Yes, and it will soon be dark.”

“Oh, dear!” and there was distress in her tones.

He now said kindly, “Miss Madison, I wish that like Sir Walter
Raleigh I had a mantle large enough for you to walk over. You can
at least imagine that I am a gentleman, that you may soon be at
the hotel, and no one ever be any the wiser that you had to choose
between me and the deep–ah, well–mud.”

“There is no reason for such an allusion, Mr. Scofield.”

“Well, then, that you had no other choice.”

“That’s better. But how in the world can you manage it?”

“You will have to put your arm around my neck.”

“Oh!”

“You would put your arm around a post, wouldn’t you?” he asked
with more than his old brusqueness.

“Yes-s; but–”

“But the tide is going out. My own boat will soon be fast. Dinner
will grow cold at the hotel, and you are only the longer in
dispensing with me. You must consider the other dire
alternatives.”

“Ob, I forgot that you were in danger of losing a warm dinner.”

“You know I have lost too much to think of that or much else. But
there is no need of satire, Miss Madison. I will do whatever you
wish. That truly is carte blanche enough even for this occasion.”

“I didn’t mean to be satirical. I–I–Well, have your own way.”

“Not if you prefer some other way.”

“You have shown that practically there isn’t any other way. I’m
sorry that my misfortune, or fault rather, should also be your
misfortune. You don’t know how heavy–”

“I soon will, and you must endure it all with such grace as you
can. Put your arm round my neck, so–oh, that will never do! Well,
you’ll hold tight enough when I’m floundering in the mud.”

Without further ado he picked her up, and started rapidly for his
boat. Stepping on a smooth stone he nearly fell, and her arm did
tighten decidedly.

“If you try to go so fast,” she said, “you will fall.”

“I was only seeking to shorten your ordeal, but for obvious
reasons must go slowly;” and he began feeling his way.

“Mr. Scofield, am I not very heavy?” she asked softly.

“Not as heavy as my heart, and you know it.”

“I’m sure I–”

“No, you are not to blame. Moths have scorched their wings before
now, and will always continue to do so.”

Her head rested slightly against his shoulder; her breath fanned
his cheek; her eyes, soft and lustrous, sought his. But he looked
away gloomy and defiant, and she felt his grasp tighten vise-like
around her. “I shall not affect any concealment of the feelings
which she has recognized so often, nor shall I ask any favors,” he
thought. “There,” he said, as he placed her in his boat, “you are
safe enough now. Now go aft while I push off.”

When she was seated he exerted himself almost as greatly as
before, and the boat gradually slid into the water. He sprang in
and took the oars.

“Aren’t you going to put on your shoes and stockings?”

“Certainly, when I put you ashore.”

“Won’t that be a pretty certain way of revealing the plight in
which you found me?”

“Pardon my stupidity; I was preoccupied with the thought of
relieving you from the society which you have hitherto avoided so
successfully;” and bending over his shoes he tied them almost
savagely.

There was a wonderful degree of mirth and tenderness in her eyes
as she watched him. They had floated by a little point; and as he
raised his head he saw a form which he recognized as Mr.
Merriweather rowing toward them. “There comes one of your
shadows,” he said mockingly. “Be careful how you exchange boats
when he comes along-side. I will give you no help in such a case.”

She looked hastily over her shoulder at the approaching oarsman.
“I think it will be safer to remain in your boat,” she said.

“Oh, it will be entirely safe,” he replied bitterly.

“Mr. Merriweather must have seen you carrying me.”

“That’s another thing which I can’t help.”

“Mr. Scofield,” she began softly.

He arrested his oars, and turned wondering eyes to hers. They were
sparkling with mirth as she continued, “Are you satisfied that a
certain young woman whom you once watched very narrowly is
entirely to your mind?”

He caught her mirthful glance and misunderstood her. With dignity
he answered, “I’m not the first man who blundered to his cost,
though probably it would have made no difference. You must do me
the justice, however, to admit that I did not maintain the role of
observer very long–that I wooed you so openly that every one was
aware of my suit. Is it not a trifle cruel to taunt me after I had
made such ample amends?”

“I was thinking of Mr. Merriweather–”

“Undoubtedly”

“Since he has seen me with my arm around your neck–you know I
couldn’t help it–perhaps he might row the other way if–if–well,
if he saw you–what shall I say–sitting over here–by me–or–
Somehow I don’t feel very hungry, and I wouldn’t mind spending
another hour–”

Scofield nearly upset the boat in his precipitous effort to gain a
seat beside her–and Mr. Merriweather did row another way.

It was the beginning of a battle. The skirmish line of the Union
advance was sweeping rapidly over a rough mountainous region in
the South, and in his place on the extreme left of this line was
Private Anson Marlow. Tall trees rising from underbrush, rocks,
bowlders, gulches worn by spring torrents, were the
characteristics of the field, which was in wild contrast with the
parade-grounds on which the combatants had first learned the
tactics of war. The majority, however, of those now in the ranks
had since been drilled too often under like circumstances, and
with lead and iron shotted guns, not to know their duty, and the
lines of battle were as regular as the broken country allowed. So
far as many obstacles permitted, Marlow kept his proper distance
from the others on the line and fired coolly when he caught
glimpses of the retreating Confederate skirmishers. They were
retiring with ominous readiness toward a wooded height which the
enemy occupied with a force of unknown strength. That strength was
soon manifested in temporary disaster to the Union forces, which
were driven back with heavy loss.

Neither the battle nor its fortunes are the objects of our present
concern, but rather the fate of Private Marlow. The tide of battle
drifted away and left the soldier desperately wounded in a narrow
ravine, through which babbled a small stream. Excepting the voices
of his wife and children no music had ever sounded so sweetly in
his ears. With great difficulty he crawled to a little bubbling
pool formed by a tiny cascade and encircling stones, and partially
slaked his intolerable thirst.

He believed he was dying–bleeding to death. The very thought
blunted his faculties for a time; and he was conscious of little
beyond a dull wonder. Could it be possible that the tragedy of his
death was enacting in that peaceful, secluded nook? Could Nature
be so indifferent or so unconscious if it were true that he was
soon to lie there dead? He saw the speckled trout lying motionless
at the bottom of the pool, the gray squirrels sporting in the
boughs over his head. The sunlight shimmered and glinted through
the leaves, flecking with light his prostrate form. He dipped his
hand in the blood that had welled from his side, and it fell in
rubies from his fingers. Could that be his blood–his life-blood;
and would it soon all ooze away? Could it be that death was coming
through all the brightness of that summer afternoon?

From a shadowed tree further up the glen, a wood-thrush suddenly
began its almost unrivalled song. The familiar melody, heard so
often from his cottage-porch in the June twilight, awoke him to
the bitter truth. His wife had then sat beside him, while his
little ones played here and there among the trees and shrubbery.
They would hear the same song to-day; he would never hear it
again. That counted for little; but the thought of their sitting
behind the vines and listening to their favorite bird, spring
after spring and summer after summer, and he ever absent,
overwhelmed him.

“Oh, Gertrude, my wife, my wife! Oh, my children!” he groaned.

His breast heaved with a great sigh; the blood welled afresh from
his wound; what seemed a mortal weakness crept over him; and he
thought he died.

       *       *       *       *       *       *       *

“Say, Eb, is he done gone?”

“‘Clar to grashus if I know. ‘Pears mighty like it.” These words
were spoken by two stout negroes, who had stolen to the
battlefield as the sounds of conflict died away.

“I’m doggoned if I tink dat he’s dead. He’s only swoonded,”
asserted the man addressed as Eb. “‘Twon’t do to lebe ‘im here to
die, Zack.”

“Sartin not; we’d hab bad luck all our days.”

“I reckon ole man Pearson will keep him; and his wife’s a po’ful
nuss.”

“Pearson orter; he’s a Unioner.”

“S’pose we try him; ’tain’t so bery fur off.”

       *       *       *       *       *       *       *

On the morning of the 24th of December, Mrs. Anson Marlow sat in
the living-room of her cottage, that stood well out in the suburbs
of a Northern town. Her eyes were hollow and full of trouble that
seemed almost beyond tears, and the bare room, that had been
stripped of nearly every appliance and suggestion of comfort, but
too plainly indicated one of the causes. Want was stamped on her
thin face, that once had been so full and pretty; poverty in its
bitter extremity was unmistakably shown by the uncarpeted floor,
the meagre fire, and scanty furniture. It was a period of
depression; work had been scarce, and much of the time she had
been too ill and feeble to do more than care for her children.
Away back in August her resources had been running low; but she
had daily expected the long arrears of pay which her husband would
receive as soon as the exigencies of the campaign permitted.
Instead of these funds, so greatly needed, came the tidings of a
Union defeat, with her husband’s name down among the missing.
Beyond that brief mention, so horrible in its vagueness, she had
never heard a word from the one who not only sustained her home,
but also her heart. Was he languishing in a Southern prison, or,
mortally wounded, had he lingered out some terrible hours on that
wild battlefield, a brief description of which had been so dwelt
upon by her morbid fancy that it had become like one of the scenes
in Dante’s “Inferno”? For a long time she could not and would not
believe that such an overwhelming disaster had befallen her and
her children, although she knew that similar losses had come to
thousands of others. Events that the world regards as not only
possible but probable are often so terrible in their personal
consequences that we shrink from even the bare thought of their
occurrence.

If Mrs. Marlow had been told from the first that her husband was
dead, the shock resulting would not have been so injurious as the
suspense that robbed her of rest for days, weeks, and months. She
haunted the post-office, and if a stranger was seen coming up the
street toward her cottage she watched feverishly for his turning
in at her gate with the tidings of her husband’s safety. Night
after night she Jay awake, hoping, praying that she might hear his
step returning on a furlough to which wounds or sickness had
entitled him. The natural and inevitable result was illness and
nervous prostration.

Practical neighbors had told her that her course was all wrong;
that she should be resigned and even cheerful for her children’s
sake; that she needed to sleep well and live well, in order that
she might have strength to provide for them. She would make
pathetic attempts to follow this sound and thrifty advice, but
suddenly when at her work or in her troubled sleep, that awful
word “missing” would pierce her heart like an arrow, and she would
moan, and at times in the depths of her anguish cry out, “Oh,
where is he? Shall I ever see him again?”

But the unrelenting demands of life are made as surely upon the
breaking as upon the happy heart. She and her children must have
food, clothing, and shelter. Her illness and feebleness at last
taught her that she must not yield to her grief, except so far as
she was unable to suppress it; that for the sake of those now
seemingly dependent upon her, she must rally every shattered nerve
and every relaxed muscle. With a heroism far beyond that of her
husband and his comrades in the field, she sought to fight the
wolf from the door, or at least to keep him at bay. Although the
struggle seemed a hopeless one, she patiently did her best from
day to day, eking out her scanty earnings by the sale or pawning
of such of her household goods as she could best spare. She felt
that she would do anything rather than reveal her poverty or
accept charity. Some help was more or less kindly offered, but
beyond such aid as one neighbor may receive of another, she had
said gently but firmly, “Not yet.”

The Marlows were comparative strangers in the city where they had
resided. Her husband had been a teacher in one of its public
schools, and his salary small. Patriotism had been his motive for
entering the army, and while it had cost him a mighty struggle to
leave his family, he felt that he had no more reason to hold back
than thousands of others. He believed that he could still provide
for those dependent upon him, and if he fell, those for whom he
died would not permit his widow and children to suffer. But the
first popular enthusiasm for the war had largely died out; the
city was full of widows and orphans; there was depression of
spirit, stagnation in business, and a very general disposition on
the part of those who had means, to take care of themselves, and
provide for darker days that might be in the immediate future.
Sensitive, retiring Mrs. Marlow was not the one to push her claims
or reveal her need. Moreover, she could never give up the hope
that tidings from her husband might at any time bring relief and
safety.

But the crisis had come at last; and on this dreary December day
she was face to face with absolute want. The wolf, with his gaunt
eyes, was crouched beside her cold hearth. A pittance owed to her
for work had not been paid. The little food left in the house had
furnished the children an unsatisfying breakfast; she had eaten
nothing. On the table beside her lay a note from the agent of the
estate of which her home was a part, bidding her call that
morning. She knew why–the rent was two months in arrears. It
seemed like death to leave the house in which her husband had
placed her, and wherein she had spent her happiest days. It stood
well away from the crowded town. The little yard and garden, with
their trees, vines, and shrubbery, some of which her husband had
planted, were all dear from association. In the rear there was a
grove and open fields, which, though not belonging to the cottage,
were not forbidden to the children; and they formed a wonderland
of delight in spring, summer, and fall. Must she take her active,
restless boy Jamie, the image of his father, into a crowded
tenement? Must golden-haired Susie, with her dower of beauty, be
imprisoned in one close room, or else be exposed to the evil of
corrupt association just beyond the threshold?

Moreover, her retired home had become a refuge. Here she could
hide her sorrow and poverty. Here she could touch what he had
touched, and sit during the long winter evenings in his favorite
corner by the fire. Around her, within and without, were the
little appliances for her comfort which his hands had made, flow
could she leave all this and live? Deep in her heart also the hope
would linger that he would come again and seek her where he had
left her.

“O God!” she cried suddenly. “Thou wouldst not, couldst not permit
him to die without one farewell word,” and she buried her face in
her hands and rocked back and forth, while hard, dry sobs shook
her slight, famine-pinched form.

The children stopped their play and came and leaned upon her lap.

“Don’t cry, mother,” said Jamie, a little boy of ten. “I’ll soon
be big enough to work for you; and I’ll get rich, and you shall
have the biggest house in town. I’ll take care of you if papa
don’t come back.”

Little Sue knew not what to say, but the impulse of her love was
her best guide. She threw her arms around her mother’s neck with
such an impetuous and childlike outburst of affection that the
poor woman’s bitter and despairing thoughts were banished for a
time. The deepest chord of her nature, mother love, was touched;
and for her children’s sake she rose up once more and faced the
hard problems of her life. Putting on her bonnet and thin shawl
(she had parted with much that she now so sorely needed), she went
out into the cold December wind. The sky was clouded like her
hopes, and the light, even in the morning hours, was dim and
leaden-hued.

She first called on Mr. Jackson, the agent from whom she rented
her home, and besought him to give her a little more time.

“I will beg for work from door to door,” she said. “Surely in this
Christian city there must be those who will give me work; and that
is all I ask.”

The sleek, comfortable man, in his well-appointed office, was
touched slightly, and said in a voice that was not so gruff as he
at first had intended it should be:

“Well, I will wait a week or two longer. If then you cannot pay
something on what is already due, my duty to my employers will
compel me to take the usual course. You have told me all along
that your husband would surely return, and I have hated to say a
word to discourage you; but I fear you will have to bring yourself
to face the truth and act accordingly, as so many others have
done. I know it’s very hard for you, but I am held responsible by
my employer, and at my intercession he has been lenient, as you
must admit. You could get a room or two in town for half what you
must pay where you are. Good-morning.”

She went out again into the street, which the shrouded sky made
sombre in spite of preparations seen on every side for the chief
festival of the year. The fear was growing strong that like Him in
whose memory the day was honored, she and her little ones might
soon not know where to lay their heads. She succeeded in getting
the small sum owed to her and payment also for some sewing just
finished. More work she could not readily obtain, for every one
was busy and preoccupied by the coming day of gladness.

“Call again,” some said kindly or carelessly, according to their
nature. “After the holidays are over we will try to have or make
some work for you.”

“But I need–I must have work now,” she ventured to say whenever
she had the chance.

In response to this appeal there were a few offers of charity,
small indeed, but from which she drew back with an instinct so
strong that it could not be overcome. On every side she heard the
same story. The times were very hard; requests for work and aid
had been so frequent that purses and patience were exhausted.
Moreover, people had spent their Christmas money on their
households and friends, and were already beginning to feel poor.

At last she obtained a little work, and having made a few
purchases of that which was absolutely essential, she was about to
drag her weary feet homeward when the thought occurred to her that
the children would want to hang up their stockings at night; and
she murmured: “It may be the last chance I shall ever have to put
a Christmas gift in them. Oh, that I were stronger! Oh, that I
could take my sorrow more as others seem to take theirs! But I
cannot, I cannot! My burden is greater than I can bear. The cold
of this awful day is chilling my very heart, and my grief, as hope
dies, is crushing my soul. Oh, he must be dead, he must be dead!
That is what they all think. God help my little ones! Oh, what
will become of them if I sink, as I fear I shall! If it were not
for them I feel as if I would fall and die here in the street.
Well, be our fate what it may, they shall owe to me one more gleam
of happiness;” and she went into a confectioner’s shop and bought
a few ornamented cakes. These were the only gifts she could
afford, and they must be in the form of food.

Before she reached home the snow was whirling in the frosty air,
and the shadows of the brief winter day deepening fast. With a
smile far more pathetic than tears she greeted the children, who
were cold, hungry, and frightened at her long absence; and they,
children-like, saw only the smile, and not the grief it masked.
They saw also the basket which she had placed on the table, and
were quick to note that it seemed a little fuller than of late.

“Jamie,” she said, “run to the store down the street for some coal
and kindlings that I bought, and then we will have a good fire and
a nice supper;” and the boy, at such a prospect, eagerly obeyed.

She was glad to have him gone, that she might hide her weakness.
She sank into a chair, so white and faint that even little Susie
left off peering into the basket, and came to her with a troubled
face.

“It’s nothing, dearie,” the poor creature said. “Mamma’s only a
little tired. See,” she added, tottering to the table, “I have
brought you a great piece of gingerbread.”

The hungry child grasped it, and was oblivious and happy.

By the time Jamie returned with his first basket of kindling and
coal, the mother had so far rallied from her exhaustion as to meet
him smilingly again and help him replenish the dying fire.

“Now you shall rest and have your gingerbread before going for
your second load,” she said cheerily; and the boy took what was
ambrosia to him, and danced around the room in joyous reaction
from the depression of the long weary day, during which, lonely
and hungry, he had wondered why his mother did not return.

“So little could make them happy, and yet I cannot seem to obtain
even that little,” she sighed. “I fear–indeed, I fear–I cannot
be with them another Christmas; therefore they shall remember that
I tried to make them happy once more, and the recollection may
survive the long sad days before them, and become a part of my
memory.”

The room was now growing dark, and she lighted the lamp. Then she
cowered shiveringly over the reviving fire, feeling as if she
could never be warm again.

The street-lamps were lighted early on that clouded, stormy
evening, and they were a signal to Mr. Jackson, the agent, to
leave his office. He remembered that he had ordered a holiday
dinner, and now found himself in a mood to enjoy it. He had
scarcely left his door before a man, coming up the street with
great strides and head bent down to the snow-laden blast, brushed
roughly against him. The stranger’s cap was drawn over his eyes,
and the raised collar of his blue army overcoat nearly concealed
his face. The man hurriedly begged pardon, and was hastening on
when Mr. Jackson’s exclamation of surprise caused him to stop and
look at the person he had jostled.

“Why, Mr. Marlow,” the agent began, “I’m glad to see you. It’s a
pleasure I feared I should never have again.”

“My wife,” the man almost gasped, “she’s still in the house I
rented of you?”

“Oh, certainly,” was the hasty reply. “It’ll be all right’ now.”

“What do you mean? Has it not been all right?”

“Well, you see,” said Mr. Jackson, apologetically, “we have been
very lenient to your wife, but the rent has not been paid for over
two months, and–”

“And you were about to turn her and her children out-of-doors in
midwinter,” broke in the soldier, wrathfully. “That is the way you
sleek, comfortable stay-at-home people care for those fighting
your battles. After you concluded that I was dead, and that the
rent might not be forthcoming, you decided to put my wife into the
street. Open your office, sir, and you shall have your rent.”

“Now, Mr. Marlow, there’s no cause for pitching into me in this
way. You know that I am but an agent, and–”

“Tell your rich employer, then, what I have said, and ask him what
he would be worth to-day were there not men like myself, who are
willing to risk everything and suffer everything for the Union.
But I’ve no time to bandy words. Have you seen my wife lately?”

“Yes,” was the hesitating reply; “she was here to-day, and I–”

“How is she? What did you say to her?”

“Well, she doesn’t look very strong. I felt sorry for her, and
gave her more time, taking the responsibility myself–”

“How much time?”

“I said two weeks, but no doubt I could have had the time
extended.”

“I have my doubts. Will you and your employer please accept my
humble gratitude that you had the grace not to turn her out-of-
doors during the holiday season? It might have caused remark; but
that consideration and some others that I might name are not to be
weighed against a few dollars and cents. I shall now remove the
strain upon your patriotism at once, and will not only pay
arrears, but also for two months in advance.”

“Oh, there’s no need of that to-day.”

“Yes, there is. My wife shall feel to-night that she has a home.
She evidently has not received the letter I wrote as soon as I
reached our lines, or you would not have been talking to her about
two weeks more of shelter.”

The agent reopened his office and saw a roll of bills extracted
from Marlow’s pocket that left no doubt of the soldier’s ability
to provide for his family. He gave his receipt in silence, feeling
that words would not mend matters, and then trudged off to his
dinner with a nagging appetite.

As Marlow strode away he came to a sudden resolution–he would
look upon his wife and children before they saw him; he would
feast his eyes while they were unconscious of the love that was
beaming upon them. The darkness and storm favored his project, and
in brief time he saw the light in his window. Unlatching the gate
softly, and with his steps muffled by the snow that already
carpeted the frozen ground, he reached the window, the blinds of
which were but partially closed. His children frolicking about the
room were the first objects that caught his eye, and he almost
laughed aloud in his joy. Then, by turning another blind slightly,
he saw his wife shivering over the fire.

“Great God!” he muttered, “how she has suffered!” and be was about
to rush in and take her into his arms. On the threshold he
restrained himself, paused, and said, “No, not jet; I’ll break the
news of my return in my own way. The shock of my sudden appearance
might be too great for her;” and he went back to the window. The
wife’s eyes were following her children with such a wistful
tenderness that the boy, catching her gaze, stopped his sport,
came to her side, and began to speak. They were but a few feet
away, and Marlow caught every word.

“Mamma,” the child said, “you didn’t eat any breakfast, and I
don’t believe you have eaten anything to-day. You are always
giving everything to us. Now I declare I won’t eat another bit
unless you take half of my cake;” and he broke off a piece and
laid it in her lap.

“Oh, Jamie,” cried the poor woman, “you looked so like your father
when you spoke that I could almost see him;” and she caught him in
her arms and covered him with kisses.

“I’ll soon be big enough to take care of you. I’m going to grow up
just like papa and do everything for you,” the boy said proudly as
she released him.

Little Susie also came and placed what was left of her cake in her
mother’s lap, saying:

“I’ll work for you, too, mamma; and to-morrow I’ll sell the doll
Santa Claus gave me last Christmas, and then we’ll all have plenty
to eat.”

Anson Marlow was sobbing outside the window as only a man weeps;
and his tears in the bitter cold became drops of ice before they
reached the ground.

“My darlings!” the mother cried. “Oh, God spare me to you and
provide some way for us! Your love should make me rich though I
lack all else. There, I won’t cry any more, and you shall have as
happy a Christmas as I can give you. Perhaps He who knew what it
was to be homeless and shelterless will provide for our need; so
we’ll try to trust Him and keep His birthday. And now, Jamie, go
and bring the rest of the coal, and then we will make the dear
home that papa gave us cheery and warm once more. If he were only
with us we wouldn’t mind hunger or cold, would we? Oh, my
husband!” she broke out afresh, “if you could only come back, even
though crippled and helpless, I feel that I could live and grow
strong from simple gladness.”

“Don’t you think, mamma,” Jamie asked, “that God will let papa
come down from heaven and spend Christmas with us? He might be
here like the angels, and we not see him.”

“I’m afraid not,” the sad woman replied, shaking her head and
speaking more to herself than to the child. “I don’t see how he
could go back to heaven and be happy if he knew all. No, we must
be patient and try to do our best, so that we can go to him. Go
now, Jamie, before it gets too late. I’ll get supper, and then
we’ll sing a Christmas hymn; and you and Susie shall hang up your
stockings, just as you did last Christmas, when dear papa was with
us. We’ll try to do everything he would wish, and then by and by
we shall see him again.”

As the boy started on his errand his father stepped back out of
the light of the window, then followed the child with a great
yearning in his heart. He would make sure the boy was safe at home
again before he carried out his plan. From a distance he saw the
little fellow receive the coal and start slowly homeward with the
burden, and he followed to a point where the light of the street-
lamps ceased, then joined the child, and said in a gruff voice,
“Here, little man, I’m going your way. Let me carry your basket;”
and he took it and strode on so fast that the boy had to run to
keep pace with him. Jamie shuffled along through the snow as well
as he could, but his little legs were so short in comparison with
those of the kindly stranger that he found himself gradually
falling behind. So he put on an extra burst of speed and managed
to lay hold of the long blue skirt of the army overcoat.

“Please, sir, don’t go quite so fast,” he panted.

The stranger slackened his pace, and in a constrained tone of
voice, asked:

“How far are you going, little man?”

“Only to our house–mamma’s. She’s Mrs. Marlow, you know.”

“Yes, I know–that is, I reckon I do. How much further is it?”

“Oh, not much; we’re most half-way now. I say, you’re a soldier,
aren’t you?”

“Yes, my boy,” said Marlow, with a lump in his throat. “Why?”

“Well, you see, my papa is a soldier, too, and I thought you might
know him. We haven’t heard from him for a good while, and–”
choking a bit–”mamma’s afraid he is hurt, or taken prisoner or
something.” He could not bring himself to say “killed.”

Jamie let go the overcoat to draw his sleeve across his eyes, and
the big man once more strode on faster than ever, and Jamie began
to fear lest the dusky form might disappear in the snow and
darkness with both basket and coal; but the apparent stranger so
far forgot his part that he put down the basket at Mrs. Marlow’s
gate, and then passed on so quickly that the panting boy had not
time to thank him. Indeed, Anson Marlow knew that if he lingered
but a moment he would have the child in his arms.

“Why, Jamie,” exclaimed his mother, “how could you get back so
soon with that heavy basket? It was too heavy for you, but you
will have to be mamma’s little man mow.”

“A big man caught up with me and carried it. I don’t care if he
did have a gruff voice, I’m sure he was a good kind man. He knew
where we lived too, for he put the basket down at our gate before
I could say a word, I was so out of breath, and then he was out of
sight in a minute.” Some instinct kept him from saying anything
about the army overcoat.

“It’s some neighbor that lives further up the street, I suppose,
and saw you getting the coal at the store,” Mrs. Marlow said,
“Yes, Jamie, it was a good, kind act to help a little boy, and I
think he’ll have a happier Christmas for doing it.”

“Do you really think he’ll have a happier Christmas, mamma?”

“Yes, I truly think so. We are so made that we cannot do a kind
act without feeling the better for it.”

“Well, I think he was a queer sort of a man if he was kind. I
never knew any one to walk so fast. I spoke to him once, but he
did not answer. Perhaps the wind roared so he couldn’t hear me.”

“No doubt he was hurrying home to his wife and children,” she said
with a deep sigh.

When his boy disappeared within the door of the cottage, Marlow
turned and walked rapidly toward the city, first going to the
grocery at which he had been in the habit of purchasing his
supplies. The merchant stared for a moment, then stepped forward
and greeted his customer warmly.

“Well,” he said, after his first exclamations of surprise were
over, “the snow has made you almost as white as a ghost; but I’m
glad you’re not one. We scarce ever thought to see you again.”

“Has my wife an open account here now?” was the brief response.

“Yes, and it might have been much larger. I’ve told her so too.
She stopped taking credit some time ago, and when she’s had a
dollar or two to spare she’s paid it on the old score. She bought
so little that I said to her once that she need not go elsewhere
to buy; that I’ d sell to her as cheap as any one: that I believed
you’d come back all right, and if you didn’t she could pay me when
she could. What do you think she did? Why, she burst out crying,
and said, ‘God bless you, sir, for saying my husband will come
back! So many have discouraged me.’ I declare to you her feeling
was so right down genuine that I had to mop my own eyes. But she
wouldn’t take any more credit, and she bought so little that I’ve
been troubled. I’d have sent her something, but your wife somehow
ain’t one of them kind that you can give things to, and–”

Marlow interrupted the good-hearted, garrulous shopman by saying
significantly, “Come with me to your back-office”; for the soldier
feared that some one might enter who would recognize him and carry
the tidings to his home prematurely.

“Mr. Wilkins,” he said rapidly, “I wanted to find out if you too
had thriftily shut down on a soldier’s wife. You shall not regret
your kindness.”

“Hang it all!” broke in Wilkins, with compunction, “I haven’t been
very kind. I ought to have gone and seen your wife and found out
how things were; and I meant to, but I’ve been so confoundedly
busy–”

“No matter now; I’ve not a moment to spare. You must help me to
break the news of my return in my own way. I mean they shall have
such a Christmas in the little cottage as was never known in this
town. You could send a load right over there, couldn’t you?”

“Certainly, certainly,” said Wilkins, under the impulse of both
business thrift and goodwill; and a list of tea, coffee, sugar,
flour, bread, cakes, apples, etc., was dashed off rapidly; and
Marlow had the satisfaction of seeing the errand-boy, the two
clerks, and the proprietor himself busily working to fill the
order in the shortest possible space of time.

He next went to a restaurant, a little further down the street,
where he had taken his meals for a short time before he brought
his family to town, and was greeted with almost equal surprise and
warmth. Marlow cut short all words by his almost feverish haste. A
huge turkey had just been roasted for the needs of the coming
holiday, and this with a cold ham and a pot of coffee was ordered
to be sent in a covered tray within a quarter of an hour. Then a
toy-shop was visited, and such a doll purchased! for tears came
into Marlow’s eyes whenever he thought of his child’s offer to
sell her dolly for her mother’s sake.

After selecting a sled for Jamie, and directing that they should
be sent at once, he could restrain his impatience no longer, and
almost tore back to his station at the cottage window. His wife
was placing the meagre little supper on the table, and how poor
and scanty it was!

“Is that the best the dear soul can do on Christmas Eve?” he
groaned. “Why, there’s scarcely enough for little Sue. Thank God,
my darling, I will sit down with you to a rather different supper
before long!”

He bowed his head reverently with his wife as she asked God’s
blessing, and wondered at her faith. Then he looked and listened
again with a heart-hunger which had been growing for months.

“Do you really think Santa Claus will fill our stockings to-
night?” Sue asked.

“I think he’ll have something for you,” she replied. “There are so
many poor little boys and girls in the city that he may not be
able to bring very much to you.”

“Who is Santa Claus, anyway?” questioned Jamie.

Tears came into the wife’s eyes as she thought of the one who had
always remembered them so kindly as far as his modest means
permitted.

She hesitated in her reply; and before she could decide upon an
answer there was a knock at the door. Jamie ran to open it, and
started back as a man entered with cap, eyebrows, beard, and
shaggy coat all white with the falling snow. He placed two great
baskets of provisions on the floor, and said they were for Mrs.
Anson Marlow.

“There is some mistake,” Mrs. Marlow began; but the children,
after staring a moment, shouted, “Santa Claus! Santa Claus!”

The grocer’s man took the unexpected cue instantly, and said, “No
mistake, ma’am. They are from Santa Claus;” and before another
word could be spoken he was gone. The face of the grocer’s man was
not very familiar to Mrs. Marlow, and the snow had disguised him
completely. The children had no misgivings and pounced upon the
baskets and with, exclamations of delight drew out such articles
as they could lift.

“I can’t understand it,” said the mother, bewildered and almost
frightened.

“Why, mamma, it’s as plain as day,” cried Jamie. “Didn’t he look
just like the pictures of Santa Claus–white beard and white
eyebrows? Oh, mamma, mamma, here is a great paper of red-cheeked
apples!” and he and Susie tugged at it until they dragged it over
the side of the basket, when the bottom of the bag came out, and
the fruit flecked the floor with red and gold. Oh, the bliss of
picking up those apples; of comparing one with another; of running
to the mother and asking which was the biggest and which the
reddest and most beautifully streaked!

“There must have been some mistake,” the poor woman kept murmuring
as she examined the baskets and found how liberal and varied was
the supply, “for who could or would have been so kind?”

“Why, mommie,” said little Sue, reproachfully, “Santa Claus
brought ‘em. Haven’t you always told us that Santa Claus liked to
make us happy?”

The long-exiled father felt that he could restrain himself but a
few moments longer, and he was glad to see that the rest of his
purchases were at the door. With a look so intent, and yearning
concentration of thought so intense that it was strange that they
could not feel his presence, he bent his eyes once more upon a
scene that would imprint itself upon his memory forever.

But while he stood there, another scene came before his mental
vision. Oddly enough his thought went back to that far-off
Southern brookside, where he had lain with his hands in the cool
water. He leaned against the window-casing, with the Northern snow
whirling about his head; but he breathed the balmy breath of a
Southern forest, the wood-thrush sang in the trees overhead, and
he could–so it seemed to him–actually feel the water-worn
pebbles under his palms as he watched the life-blood ebbing from
his side. Then there was a dim consciousness of rough but kindly
arms bearing him through the underbrush, and more distinctly the
memory of weary weeks of convalescence in a mountaineer’s cabin.
All these scenes of peril, before he finally reached the Union
lines, passed before him as he stood in a species of trance beside
the window of his home.

The half-grown boys sent from the restaurant and toy-shop could
not be mistaken for Santa Claus even by the credulous fancy of the
children, and Mrs. Marlow stepped forward eagerly and said:

“I am sure there is some mistake. You are certainly leaving these
articles at the wrong house.” The faces of the children began to
grow anxious and troubled also, for even their faith could not
accept such marvellous good-fortune. Jamie looked at the sled with
a kind of awe, and saw at a glance that it was handsomer than any
in the street “Mr. Lansing, a wealthy man, lives a little further
on,” Mrs. Marlow began to urge; “and these things must be meant–”

“Isn’t your name Mrs. Anson Marlow?” asked the boy from the
restaurant.

“Yes.”

“Then I must do as I’ve been told;” and he opened his tray and
placed the turkey, the ham, and the coffee on the table.

“If he’s right, I’m right too,” said he of the toy-shop. “Them was
my directions;” and they were both about to depart when the woman
sprang forward and gasped: “Stay!”

She clasped her hands and trembled violently.

“Who sent these things?” she faltered.

“Our bosses, mum,” replied the boy from the restaurant,
hesitatingly.

She sprang toward him, seized his arm, and looked imploringly into
his face. “Who ordered them sent?” she asked in a low, passionate
voice.

The young fellow began to smile, and stammered awkwardly, “I don’t
think I’m to tell.”

She released his arm and glanced around with a look of intense
expectation.

“Oh, oh!” she gasped with quick short sobs, “can it be–” Then she
sprang to the door, opened it, and looked out into the black,
stormy night. What seemed a shadow rushed toward her; she felt
herself falling, but strong arms caught and bore her, half
fainting, to a lounge within the room.

Many have died from sorrow, but few from joy. With her husband’s
arms around her Mrs. Marlow’s weakness soon passed. In response to
his deep, earnest tones of soothing and entreaty, she speedily
opened her eyes and gave him a smile so full of content and
unutterable joy that all anxiety in her behalf began to pass from
his mind.

“Yes,” she said softly, “I can live now. It seems as if a new and
stronger life were coming back with every breath.”

The young fellows who had been the bearers of the gifts were so
touched that they drew their rough sleeves across their eyes as
they hastened away, closing the door on the happiest family in the
city.

The Christmas holidays had come, and with them a welcome vacation
for Hedley Marstern. Although as yet a briefless young lawyer, he
had a case in hand which absorbed many of his thoughts–the
conflicting claims of two young women in his native village on the
Hudson. It must not be imagined that the young women were pressing
their claims except as they did so unconsciously, by virtue of
their sex and various charms. Nevertheless, Marstern was not the
first lawyer who had clients over whom midnight oil was burned,
they remaining unaware of the fact.

If not yet a constitutional attorney, he was at least
constitutionally one. Falling helplessly in love with one girl
simplifies matters. There are no distracting pros and cons–
nothing required but a concentration of faculties to win the
enslaver, and so achieve mastery. Marstern did not appear amenable
to the subtle influences which blind the eyes and dethrone reason,
inspiring in its place an overwhelming impulse to capture a
fortuitous girl because (to a heated imagination) she surpasses
all her sex. Indeed, he was level-headed enough to believe that he
would never capture any such girl; but he hoped to secure one who
promised to make as good a wife as he would try to be a husband,
and with a fair amount of self-esteem, he was conscious of
imperfections. Therefore, instead of fancying that any of his fair
acquaintances were angels, he had deliberately and, as some may
think, in a very cold-blooded fashion, endeavored to discover what
they actually were. He had observed that a good deal of prose
followed the poetry of wooing and the lunacy of the honeymoon; and
he thought it might be well to criticise a little before marriage
as well as after it.

There were a number of charming girls in the social circle of his
native town; and he had, during later years, made himself quite
impartially agreeable to them. Indeed, without much effort on his
part he had become what is known as a general favorite. He had
been too diligent a student to become a society man, but was ready
enough in vacation periods to make the most of every country
frolic, and even on great occasions to rush up from the city and
return at some unearthly hour in the morning when his partners in
the dance were not half through their dreams. While on these
occasions he had shared in the prevailing hilarity, he
nevertheless had the presentiment that some one of the laughing,
light-footed girls would one day pour his coffee and send him to
his office in either a good or a bad mood to grapple with the
problems awaiting him there. He had in a measure decided that when
he married it should be to a girl whom he had played with in
childhood and whom he knew a good deal about, and not to a chance
acquaintance of the world at large. So, beneath all his
diversified gallantries he had maintained a quiet little policy of
observation, until his thoughts had gradually gathered around two
of his young associates who, unconsciously to themselves, as we
have said, put in stronger and stronger claims every time he saw
them. They asserted these claims in the only way in which he would
have recognized them–by being more charming, agreeable, and, as
he fancied, by being better than the others. He had not made them
aware, even by manner, of the distinction accorded to them; and as
yet he was merely a friend.

But the time had come, he believed, for definite action. While he
weighed and considered, some prompter fellows might take the case
out of his hands entirely; therefore he welcomed this vacation and
the opportunities it afforded.

The festivities began with what is termed in the country a “large
party”; and Carrie Mitchell and Lottie Waldo were both there,
resplendent in new gowns made for the occasion. Marstern thought
them both charming. They danced equally well and talked nonsense
with much the same ease and vivacity. He could not decide which
was the prettier, nor did the eyes and attentions of others afford
him any aid. They were general favorites, as well as himself,
although it was evident that to some they might become more,
should they give encouragement. But they were apparently in the
heyday of their girlhood, and thus far had preferred miscellaneous
admiration to individual devotion. By the time the evening was
over Marstern felt that if life consisted of large parties he
might as well settle the question by the toss of a copper.

It must not be supposed that he was such a conceited prig as to
imagine that such a fortuitous proceeding, or his best efforts
afterward, could settle the question as it related to the girls.
It would only decide his own procedure. He was like an old
marauding baron, in honest doubt from which town he can carry off
the richest booty–that is, in case he can capture any one of
them. His overtures for capitulation might be met with the “slings
and arrows of outrageous fortune” and he be sent limping off the
field. Nevertheless, no man regrets that he must take the
initiative, and he would be less than a man who would fear to do
so. When it came to this point in the affair, Marstern shrugged
his shoulders and thought, “I must take my chances like the rest.”
But he wished to be sure that he had attained this point, and not
lay siege to one girl only to wish afterward it had been the
other.

His course that evening proved that he not only had a legal cast
of mind but also a judicial one. He invited both Miss Mitchell and
Miss Waldo to take a sleigh-ride with him the following evening,
fancying that when sandwiched between them in the cutter he could
impartially note his impressions. His unsuspecting clients
laughingly accepted, utterly unaware of the momentous character of
the trial scene before them.

As Marstern smoked a cigar before retiring that night, he admitted
to himself that it was rather a remarkable court that was about to
be held. He was the only advocate for the claims of each, and
finally he proposed to take a seat on the bench and judge between
them. Indeed, before he slept he decided to take that august
position at once, and maintain a judicial impartiality while
noting his impressions.

Christmas Eve happened to be a cold, clear, star-lit night; and
when Marstern drove to Miss Waldo’s door, he asked himself, “Could
a fellow ask for anything daintier and finer” than the red-lipped,
dark-eyed girl revealed by the hall-lamp as she tripped lightly
out, her anxious mamma following her with words of unheeded
caution about not taking cold, and coming home early. He had not
traversed the mile which intervened between the residences of the
two girls before he almost wished he could continue the drive
under the present auspices, and that, as in the old times, he
could take toll at every bridge, and encircle his companion with
his arm as they bounced over the “thank-’ee mams.” The frosty air
appeared to give keenness and piquancy to Miss Lottie’s wit, and
the chime of the bells was not merrier or more musical than her
voice. But when a little later he saw blue-eyed Carrie Mitchell in
her furs and hood silhouetted in the window, his old dilemma
became as perplexing as ever. Nevertheless, it was the most
delightful uncertainty that he had ever experienced; and he had a
presentiment that he had better make the most of it, since it
could not last much longer. Meanwhile, he was hedged about with
blessings clearly not in disguise, and he gave utterance to this
truth as they drove away.

“Surely there never was so lucky a fellow. Here I am kept warm and
happy by the two finest girls in town.”

“Yes,” said Lottie; “and it’s a shame you can’t sit on both sides
of us.”

“I assure you I wish it were possible. It would double my
pleasure.”

“I’m very well content,” remarked Carrie, quietly, “as long as I
can keep on the right side of people–”

“Well, you are not on the right side to-night,” interrupted
Lottie.

“Good gracious!” thought Marstern, “she’s next to my heart. I
wonder if that will give her unfair advantage;” but Carrie
explained:

“Of course I was speaking metaphorically.”

“In that aspect of the case it would be a shame to me if any side
I have is not right toward those who have so honored me,” he
hastened to say.

“Oh, Carrie has all the advantage–she is next to your heart.”

“Would you like to exchange places?” was the query flashed back by
Carrie.

“Oh, no, I’m quite as content as you are.”

“Why, then, since I am more than content–exultant, indeed–it
appears that we all start from excellent premises to reach a happy
conclusion of our Christmas Eve,” cried Marstern.

“Now you are talking shop, Mr. Lawyer–Premises and Conclusions,
indeed!” said Lottie; “since you are such a happy sandwich, you
must be a tongue sandwich, and be very entertaining.”

He did his best, the two girls seconding his efforts so genially
that he found himself, after driving five miles, psychologically
just where he was physically–between them, as near to one in his
thoughts and preferences as to the other.

“Let us take the river road home,” suggested Lottie.

“As long as you agree,” he answered, “you both are sovereign
potentates. If you should express conflicting wishes, I should
have to stop here in the road till one abdicated in favor of the
other, or we all froze.”

“But you, sitting so snugly between us, would not freeze,” said
Lottie. “If we were obstinate we should have to assume our
pleasantest expressions, and then you could eventually take us
home as bits of sculpture. In fact, I’m getting cold already.”

“Are you also, Miss Carrie?”

“Oh, I’ll thaw out before summer. Don’t mind me.”

“Well, then, mind me,” resumed Lottie. “See how white and smooth
the river looks. Why can’t we drive home on the ice? It will save
miles–I mean it looks so inviting.”

“Oh, dear!” cried Carrie, “I feel like protesting now. The longest
way round may be both the shortest and safest way home.”

“You ladies shall decide. This morning I drove over the route we
would take to-night, and I should not fear to take a ton of coal
over it.”

“A comparison suggesting warmth and a grate-fire. I vote for the
river,” said Lottie, promptly.

“Oh, well, Mr. Marstern, if you’ve been over the ice so recently–
I only wish to feel reasonably safe.”

“I declare!” thought Marstern, “Lottie is the braver and more
brilliant girl; and the fact that she is not inclined to forego
the comfort of the home-fire for the pleasure of my company,
reveals the difficulty of, and therefore incentive to, the suit I
may decide to enter upon before New Year’s.”

Meanwhile, his heart on Carrie’s side began to grow warm and
alert, as if recognizing an affinity to some object not far off.
Granting that she had not been so brilliant as Lottie, she had
been eminently companionable in a more quiet way. If there had not
been such bursts of enthusiasm at the beginning of the drive, her
enjoyment appeared to have more staying powers. He liked her none
the less that her eyes were often turned toward the stars or the
dark silhouettes of the leafless trees against the snow. She did
not keep saying, “Ah, how lovely! What a fine bit that is!” but he
had only to follow her eyes to see something worth looking at.

“A proof that Miss Carrie also is not so preoccupied with the
pleasure of my company that she has no thoughts for other things,”
cogitated Marstern. “It’s rather in her favor that she prefers
Nature to a grate fire. They’re about even yet.”

Meanwhile the horse was speeding along on the white, hard expanse
of the river, skirting the west shore. They now had only about a
mile to drive before striking land again; and the scene was so
beautiful with the great dim outlines of the mountains before them
that both the girls suggested that they should go leisurely for a
time.

“We shouldn’t hastily and carelessly pass such a picture as that,
any more than one would if a fine copy of it were hung in a
gallery,” said Carrie. “The stars are so brilliant along the brow
of that highland yonder that they form a dia–oh, oh! what is the
matter?” and she clung to Marstern’s arm.

The horse was breaking through the ice.

“Whoa!” said Marstern, firmly. Even as he spoke, Lottie was out of
the sleigh and running back on the ice, crying and wringing her
hands.

“We shall be drowned,” she almost screamed hysterically.

“Mr. Marstern, what shall we do? Can’t we turn around and go back
the way we came?”

“Miss Carrie, will you do what I ask? Will you believe me when I
say that I do not think you are in any danger?”

“Yes, I’ll do my best,” she replied, catching her breath. She grew
calm rapidly as he tried to reassure Lottie, telling her that
water from the rising of the tide had overflowed the main ice and
that thin ice had formed over it, also that the river at the most
was only two or three feet deep at that point. But all was of no
avail; Lottie stood out upon the ice in a panic, declaring that he
never should have brought them into such danger, and that he must
turn around at once and go back as they came.

“But, Miss Waldo, the tide is rising, and we may find wet places
returning. Besides, it would bring us home very late. Now, Miss
Carrie and I will drive slowly across this place and then return
for you. After we have been across it twice you surely won’t
fear.”

“I won’t be left alone; suppose you two should break through and
disappear, what would become of me?”

“You would be better off than we,” he replied, laughing.

“I think it’s horrid of you to laugh. Oh, I’m so cold and
frightened! I feel as if the ice were giving way under my feet.”

“Why, Miss Lottie, we just drove over that spot where you stand.
Here, Miss Carrie shall stay with you while I drive back and forth
alone.”

“Then if you were drowned we’d both be left alone to freeze to
death.”

“I pledge you my word you shall be by that grate-fire within less
than an hour if you will trust me five minutes.”

“Oh, well, if you will risk your life and ours too; but Carrie
must stay with me.”

“Will you trust me, Miss Carrie, and help me out of this scrape?”

Carrie was recovering from her panic, and replied, “I have given
you my promise.”

He was out of the sleigh instantly, and the thin ice broke with
him also. “I must carry you a short distance,” he said. “I cannot
allow you to get your feet wet. Put one arm around my neck, so;
now please obey as you promised.”

She did so without a word, and he bore her beyond the water,
inwardly exulting and blessing that thin ice. His decision was
coming with the passing seconds; indeed, it had come. Returning to
the sleigh he drove slowly forward, his horse making a terrible
crunching and splashing, Lottie meanwhile keeping up a staccato
accompaniment of little shrieks.

“Ah, my charming creature,” he thought, “with you it was only,
‘What will become of me?’ I might not have found out until it was
too late the relative importance of ‘me’ in the universe had we
not struck this bad crossing; and one comes to plenty of bad
places to cross in a lifetime.”

The area of thin ice was not very narrow, and he was becoming but
a dim and shadowy outline to the girls. Lottie was now screaming
for his return. Having crossed the overflowed space and absolutely
assured himself that there was no danger, he returned more rapidly
and found Carrie trying to calm her companion.

“Oh,” sobbed Lottie, “my feet are wet and almost frozen. The ice
underneath may have borne you, but it won’t bear all three of us.
Oh, dear, I wish I hadn’t–I wish I was home; and I feel as if I’d
never get there.”

“Miss Lottie, I assure you that the ice will hold a ton, but I’ll
tell you what I’ll do. I shall put you in the sleigh, and Miss
Carrie will drive you over. You two together do not weigh much
more than I do. I’ll walk just behind you with my hands on the
back of the sleigh, and if I see the slightest danger I’ll lift
you out of the sleigh first and carry you to safety.”

This proposition promised so well that she hesitated, and he
lifted her in instantly before she could change her mind, then
helped Carrie in with a quiet pressure of the hand, as much as to
say, “I shall depend on you.”

“But, Mr. Marstern, you’ll get your feet wet,” protested Carrie.

“That doesn’t matter,” he replied good-naturedly. “I shall be no
worse off than Miss Lottie, and I’m determined to convince her of
safety. Now go straight ahead as I direct.”

Once the horse stumbled, and Lottie thought he was going down head
first. “Oh, lift me out, quick, quick!” she cried.

“Yes, indeed I will, Miss Lottie, as soon as we are opposite that
grate fire of yours.”

They were soon safely over, and within a half-hour reached
Lottie’s home. It was evident she was a little ashamed of her
behavior, and she made some effort to retrieve herself. Bat she
was cold and miserable, vexed with herself and still more vexed
with Marstern. That a latent sense of justice forbade the latter
feeling only irritated her the more. Individuals as well as
communities must have scapegoats; and it is not an unusual impulse
on the part of some to blame and dislike those before whom they
have humiliated themselves.

She gave her companions a rather formal invitation to come in and
get warm before proceeding further; but Marstern said very
politely that he thought it was too late, unless Miss Carrie was
cold. Carrie protested that she was not so cold but that she could
easily wait till she reached her own fireside.

“Well, good-night, then,” and the door was shut a trifle
emphatically.

“Mr. Marstern,” said Carrie, sympathetically, “your feet must be
very cold and wet after splashing through all that ice-water.”

“They are,” he replied; “but I don’t mind it. Well, if I had tried
for years I could not have found such a test of character as we
had to-night.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, well, you two girls did not behave exactly alike. I liked the
way you behaved. You helped me out of a confounded scrape.”

“Would you have tried for years to find a test?” she asked,
concealing the keenness of her query under a laugh.

“I should have been well rewarded if I had, by such a fine
contrast,” he replied.

Carrie’s faculties had not so congealed but that his words set her
thinking. She had entertained at times the impression that she and
Lottie were his favorites. Had he taken them out that night
together in the hope of contrasts, of finding tests that would
help his halting decision? He had ventured where the intuitions of
a girl like Carrie Mitchell were almost equal to second-sight; and
she was alert for what would come next.

He accepted her invitation to come in and warm his feet at the
glowing fire in the grate, which Carrie’s father had made before
retiring. Mrs. Mitchell, feeling that her daughter was with an old
friend and playmate, did not think the presence of a chaperon
essential, and left the young people alone. Carrie bustled about,
brought cake, and made hot lemonade, while Marstern stretched his
feet to the grate with a luxurious sense of comfort and
complacency, thinking how homelike it all was and how paradisiacal
life would become if such a charming little Hebe presided over his
home. His lemonade became nectar offered by such hands.

She saw the different expression in his eyes. It was now homage,
decided preference for one and not mere gallantry to two.
Outwardly she was demurely oblivious and maintained simply her
wonted friendliness. Marstern, however, was thawing in more senses
than one, and he was possessed by a strong impulse to begin an
open siege at once.

“I haven’t had a single suit of any kind yet, Carrie,” he said,
dropping the prefix of “Miss,” which had gradually been adopted as
they had grown up.

“Oh, well, that was the position of all the great lawyers once,”
she replied, laughing. Marstern’s father was wealthy, and all knew
that he could afford to be briefless for a time.

“I may never be great; but I shall work as hard as any of them,”
he continued. “To tell you the honest truth, however, this would
be the happiest Christmas Eve of my life if I had a downright suit
on my hands. Why can’t I be frank with you and say I’d like to
begin the chief suit of my life now and here–a suit for this
little hand? I’d plead for it as no lawyer ever pleaded before. I
settled that much down on the ice.”

“And if I hadn’t happened to behave on the ice in a manner
agreeable to your lordship, you would have pleaded with the other
girl?” she remarked, withdrawing her hand and looking him directly
in the eyes.

“What makes you think so?” he asked somewhat confusedly.

“You do.”

He sprang up and paced the room a few moments, then confronted her
with the words, “You shall have the whole truth. Any woman that I
would ask to be my wife is entitled to that,” and he told her just
what the attitude of his mind had been from the first.

She laughed outright, then gave him her hand as she said, “Your
honesty insures that we can be very good friends; but I don’t wish
to hear anything more about suits which are close of kin to
lawsuits.”

He looked very dejected, feeling that he had blundered fatally in
his precipitation.

“Come now, Hedley, be sensible,” she resumed, half laughing, half
serious. “As you say, we can be frank with each other. Why, only
the other day we were boy and girl together coasting downhill on
the same sled. You are applying your legal jargon to a deep
experience, to something sacred–the result, to my mind, of a
divine instinct. Neither you nor I have ever felt for each other
this instinctive preference, this subtle gravitation of the heart.
Don’t you see? Your head has been concerned about me, and only
your head. By a kindred process you would select one bale of
merchandise in preference to another. Good gracious! I’ve faults
enough. You’ll meet some other girl that will stand some other
test far better than I. I want a little of what you call silly
romance in my courtship. See; I can talk about this suit as coolly
and fluently as you can. We’d make a nice pair of lovers, about as
frigid as the ice-water you waded through so good-naturedly;” and
the girl’s laugh rang out merrily, awakening echoes in the old
house. Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell might rest securely when their
daughter could laugh like that. It was the mirth of a genuine
American girl whose self-protection was better than the care of a
thousand duennas.

He looked at her with honest admiration in his eyes, then rose
quietly and said, “That’s fine, Carrie. Your head’s worth two of
mine, and you’d make the better lawyer. You see through a case
from top to bottom. You were right–I wasn’t in love with you; I
don’t know whether I’m in love with you now, and you haven’t an
infinitesimal spark for me. Nevertheless, I begin my suit here and
now, and I shall never withdraw it till you are engaged to another
fellow. So there!”

Carrie looked rather blank at this result of her reductio ad
absurdum process; and he did not help her by adding, “A fellow
isn’t always in love. There must be a beginning; and when I arrive
at this beginning under the guidance of reason, judgment, and
observation, I don’t see as I’m any more absurd than the fellow
who tumbles helplessly in love, he doesn’t know why. What becomes
of all these people who have divine gravitations? You and I both
know of some who had satanic repulsions afterward. They used their
eyes and critical faculties after marriage instead of before. The
romance exhaled like a morning mist; and the facts came out
distinctly. They learned what kind of man and woman they actually
were, and two idealized creatures were sent to limbo. Because I
don’t blunder upon the woman I wish to marry, but pick her out,
that’s no reason I can’t and won’t love her. Your analysis and
judgment were correct only up to date. You have now to meet a suit
honestly, openly announced. This may be bad policy on my part; yet
I have so much faith in you and respect for you that I don’t
believe you will let my precipitation create a prejudice. Give me
a fair hearing; that’s all I ask.”

“Well, well, I’ll promise not to frown, even though some finer
paragon should throw me completely in the shade.”

“You don’t believe in my yet,” he resumed, after a moment of
thought. “I felt that I had blundered awfully a while ago; but I
doubt it. A girl of your perceptions would soon have seen it all.
I’ve not lost anything by being frank from the start. Be just to
me, however. It wasn’t policy that led me to speak, but this
homelike scene, and you appearing like the good genius of a home.”

He pulled out his watch, and gave a low whistle as he held it
toward her. Then his manner suddenly became grave and gentle.
“Carrie,” he said, “I wish you, not a merry Christmas, but a happy
one, and many of them. It seems to me it would be a great
privilege for a man to make a woman like you happy.”

“Is this the beginning of the suit?” she asked with a laugh that
was a little forced.

“I don’t know. Perhaps it is; but I spoke just as I felt. Good-
night.”

She would not admit of a trace of sentiment on her part. “Good-
night,” she said. “Merry Christmas! Go home and hang up your
stocking.”

“Bless me!” she thought, as she went slowly up the stairs, “I
thought I was going to be through with him for good and all,
except as a friend; but if he goes on this way–”

The next morning a basket of superb roses was left at her home.
There was no card, and mamma queried and surmised; but the girl
knew. They were not displeasing to her, and somehow, before the
day was over, they found their way to her room; but she shook her
head decidedly as she said, “He must be careful not to send me
other gifts, for I will return them instantly. Flowers, in
moderation, never commit a girl.”

But then came another gift–a book with pencillings here and
there, not against sentimental passages, but words that made her
think. It was his manner in society, however, that at once
annoyed, perplexed, and pleased her. On the first occasion they
met in company with others, he made it clear to every one that he
was her suitor; yet he was not a burr which she could not shake
off. He rather seconded all her efforts to have a good time with
any and every one she chose. Nor did he, wallflower fashion, mope
in the meanwhile and look unutterable things. He added to the
pleasure of a score of others, and even conciliated Lottie, yet at
the same time surrounded the girl of his choice with an atmosphere
of unobtrusive devotion. She was congratulated on her conquest–
rather maliciously so by Lottie. Her air of courteous indifference
was well maintained; yet she was a woman, and could not help being
flattered. Certain generous traits in her nature were touched also
by a homage which yielded everything and exacted nothing.

The holidays soon passed, and he returned to his work. She learned
incidentally that he toiled faithfully, instead of mooning around.
At every coigne of vantage she found him, or some token of his
ceaseless effort. She was compelled to think of him, and to think
well of him. Though mamma and papa judiciously said little, it was
evident that they liked the style of lover into which he was
developing.

Once during the summer she said: “I don’t think it’s right to let
you go on in this way any longer.”

“Are my attentions so very annoying?”

“No, indeed. A girl never had a more agreeable or useful friend.”

“Are you engaged to some other fellow?”

“Of course not. You know better.”

“There is no ‘of course not’ about it. I couldn’t and wouldn’t lay
a straw in the way. You are not bound, but I.”

“You bound?”

“Certainly. You remember what I said.”

“Then I must accept the first man that asks me–”

“I ask you.”

“No; some one else, so as to unloose your conscience and give you
a happy deliverance,”

“You would leave me still bound and hopeless in that case. I love
you now, Carrie Mitchell.”

“Oh, dear! you are incorrigible. It’s just a lawyer’s persistence
in winning a suit.”

“You can still swear on the dictionary that you don’t love me at
all?”

“I might–on the dictionary. There, I won’t talk about such things
any more,” and she resolutely changed the subject.

But she couldn’t swear, even on the dictionary. She didn’t know
where she stood or how it would all end; but with increasing
frequency the words, “I love you now,” haunted her waking and
dreaming hours.

The holidays were near again, and then came a letter from
Marstern, asking her to take another sleigh-ride with him on
Christmas Eve. His concluding words were: “There is no other woman
in the world that I want on the other side of me.” She kissed
these words, then looked around in a startled, shamefaced manner,
blushing even in the solitude of her room.

Christmas Eve came, but with it a wild storm of wind and sleet.
She was surprised at the depth of her disappointment. Would he
even come to call through such a tempest?

He did come, and come early; and she said demurely: “I did not
expect you on such a night as this.”

He looked at her for a moment, half humorously, half seriously,
and her eyes drooped before his. “You will know better what to
expect next time,” was his comment.

“When is next time?”

“Any and every time which gives me a chance to ses you. Who should
know that better than you?”

“Are you never going to give up?” she asked with averted face.

“Not till you become engaged.”

“Hush! They are all in the parlor.”

“Well, they ought to know as much, by this time, also.”

She thought it was astonishing how he made himself at home in the
family circle. In half an hour there was scarcely any restraint
left because a visitor was present. Yet, as if impelled by some
mysterious influence, one after another slipped out; and Carrie
saw with strange little thrills of dismay that she would soon be
alone with that indomitable lawyer. She signalled to her mother,
but the old lady’s eyes were glued to her knitting.

At last they were alone, and she expected a prompt and powerful
appeal from the plaintiff; but Marstern drew his chair to the
opposite side of the hearth and chatted so easily, naturally, and
kindly that her trepidation passed utterly. It began to grow late,
and a heavier gust than usual shook the house. It appeared to
waken him to the dire necessity of breasting the gale, and he rose
and said:

“I feel as if I could sit here forever, Carrie. It’s just the
impression I had a year ago to-night. You, sitting there by the
fire, gave then, and give now to this place the irresistible charm
of home. I think I had then the decided beginning of the divine
gravitation–wasn’t that what you called it?–which has been
growing so strong ever since. You thought then that the ice-water
I waded was in my veins. Do you think so now? If you do I shall
have to take another year to prove the contrary. Neither am I
convinced of the absurdity of my course, as you put it then. I
studied you coolly and deliberately before I began to love you,
and reason and judgment have had no chance to jeer at my love.”

“But, Hedley,” she began with a slight tremor in her tones, “you
are idealizing me as certainly as the blindest. I’ve plenty of
faults.”

“I haven’t denied that; so have I plenty of faults. What right
have I to demand a perfection I can’t offer? I have known people
to marry who imagined each other perfect, and then come to court
for a separation on the ground of incompatibility of temperament.
They learned the meaning of that long word too late, and were
scarcely longer about it than the word itself. Now, I’m satisfied
that I could cordially agree with you on some points and lovingly
disagree with you on others. Chief of all it’s your instinct to
make a home. You appear better at your own fireside than when in
full dress at a reception. You–”

“See here, Hedley, you’ve got to give up this suit at last. I’m
engaged,” and she looked away as if she could not meet his eyes.

“Engaged?” he said slowly, looking at her with startled eyes.

“Well, about the same as engaged. My heart has certainly gone from
me beyond recall.” He drew a long breath. “I was foolish enough to
begin to hope,” he faltered.

“You must dismiss hope to-night, then,” she said, her face still
averted.

He was silent and she slowly turned toward him. He had sunk into a
chair and buried his face in his hands, the picture of dejected
defeat.

There was a sudden flash of mirth through tear-gemmed eyes, a
glance at the clock, then noiseless steps, and she was on her
knees beside him, her arm about his neck, her blushing face near
his wondering eyes as she breathed:

“Happy Christmas, Hedley! How do you like your first gift; and
what room is there now for hope?”

Chapter I. Its Discovery

Jeff, the hero of my tale, was as truly a part of the Southern
Confederacy as the greater Jeff at Richmond. Indeed, were it not
for the humbler Jeff and the class he represented, the other Jeff
would never have attained his eminence.

Jeff’s prospects were as dark as himself. He owned nothing, not
even himself, yet his dream of riches is the motive of my tale.
Begarded as a chattel, for whom a bill of sale would have been
made as readily as for a bullock, he proved himself a man and
brother by a prompt exhibition of traits too common to human
nature when chance and some heroism on his part gave into his
hands the semblance of a fortune.

Jeff was a native Virginian and belonged to an F.F.V. in a certain
practical, legal sense which thus far had not greatly disturbed
his equanimity. His solid physique and full shining face showed
that slavery had brought no horrors into his experience. He had
indulged, it is true, in vague yearnings for freedom, but these
had been checked by hearing that liberty meant “working for
Yankees”–appalling news to an indolent soul. He was house-servant
and man-of-all-work in a family whose means had always been
limited, and whose men were in the Confederate army. His “missus”
evinced a sort of weary content when he had been scolded or
threatened into the completion of his tasks by nightfall. He then
gave her and her daughters some compensation for their trials with
him by producing his fiddle and making the warm summer evening
resonant with a kind of music which the negro only can evoke. Jeff
was an artist, and had a complacent consciousness of the fact. He
was a living instance of the truth that artists are born, not
made. No knowledge of this gifted class had ever suggested
kinship; he did not even know what the word meant, but when his
cheek rested lovingly against his violin he felt that he was made
of different clay from other “niggahs.” During the day he indulged
in moods by the divine right and impulse of genius, imitating his
gifted brothers unconsciously. In waiting on the table, washing
dishes, and hoeing the garden, he was as great a laggard as
Pegasus would have been if compelled to the labors of a cart-
horse; but when night came, and uncongenial toil was over, his
soul expanded. His corrugated brow unwrinkled itself; his great
black fingers flew back and forth over the strings as if driven by
electricity; and electric in effect were the sounds produced by
his swiftly-glancing bow.

While the spirit of music so filled his heart that he could play
to the moon and silent stars, an audience inspired him with
tenfold power, especially if the floor was cleared or a smooth
sward selected for a dance. Rarely did he play long before all who
could trip a measure were on their feet, while even the
superannuated nodded and kept time, sighing that they were old.
His services naturally came into great demand, and he was catholic
in granting them–his mistress in good-natured tolerance acceding
to requests which promised many forgetful hours at a time when the
land was shadowed by war. So it happened that Jeff was often at
the more pretending residences of the neighborhood, sometimes
fiddling in the detached kitchen of a Southern mansion to the
shuffle of heavy feet, again in the lighted parlor, especially
when Confederate troops were quartered near. It was then that his
strains took on their most inspiring and elevated character. He
gave wings to the dark-eyed Southern girls; their feet scarcely
touched the floor as they whirled with their cavaliers in gray, or
threaded the mazes of the cotillon then and there in vogue.

Nor did he disdain an invitation to a crossroads tavern,
frequented by poor whites and enlisted men, or when the nights
were warm, to a moonlit sward, on which he would invite his
audience to a reel which left all breathless. While there was a
rollicking element in the strains of his fiddle which a deacon
could not resist, he, with the intuition of genius, adapted
himself to the class before him. In the parlor, he called off the
figures of a quadrille with a “by-yer-leave-sah” air, selecting,
as a rule, the highest class of music that had blessed his ears,
for he was ear-taught only. He would hold a half-washed dish
suspended minutes at a time while listening to one “ob de young
missys at de pianny. Dat’s de way I’se pick up my most scrumptious
pieces. Dey cyant play nuffin in de daytime dat I cyant ‘prove on
in de ebenin’;” and his vanity did not lead him much astray. But
when with those of his own color, or with the humbler classes, he
gave them the musical vernacular of the region–rude traditional
quicksteps and songs, strung together with such variations of his
own as made him the envy and despair of all other fiddlers in the
vicinity. Indeed, he could rarely get away from a great house
without a sample of his powers in this direction, and then
blending with the rhythmical cadence of feet, the rustle of
garments, would be evoked ripples of mirth and bursts of laughter
that were echoed back from the dim pine-groves without. Finally,
when with his great foot beating time on the floor and every
muscle of his body in motion, he ended with an original
arrangement of “Dixie,” the eyes of the gentlest maiden would
flash as she joined the chorus of the men in gray, who were
scarcely less excited for the moment than they would have been in
a headlong cavalry charge.

These were moments of glory for Jeff. In fact, on all similar
occasions he had a consciousness of his power; he made the slave
forget his bondage, the poor whites their poverty, maidens the
absence of their fathers, brothers, and lovers, and the soldier
the chances against his return.

At last there came a summer day when other music than that of
Jeff’s fiddle resounded through that region. Two armies met and
grappled through the long sultry hours. Every moment death wounds
were given and received, for thick as insects in woods, grove, and
thicket, bullets whizzed on their fatal mission; while from every
eminence the demoniacal shells shrieked in exultation over the
havoc they wrought.

Jeff’s home was on the edge of the battlefield, and as he trembled
in the darkest corner of the cellar, he thought, “Dis yer beats
all de thunder-gusts I eber heered crack, run togedder in one big
hurricane.”

With the night came silence, except as it was broken by the groans
and cries of wounded men; and later the contending forces
departed, having accorded to the fallen such poor burial as was
given them when life was cheap and death the chief harvester in
Virginia.

For a day or two Jeff’s conscience was active, and the memory of
the resolutions inspired by the din of war gave to his thin visage
a preternatural seriousness. Dishes were washed in such brief time
and so thoroughly, and such havoc made in the garden-weeds that
the world might make a note of Jeff’s idea of reform (to its
advantage). In the evening his fiddle wailed out psalm-tunes to
the entire exclusion of its former carnal strains.

It must be admitted, however, that Jeff’s grace was like the early
dew. On the third evening, “Ole Dan Tucker” slipped in among the
hymns, and these were played in a time scarcely befitting their
character. Then came a bit of news that awakened a wholly
different train of thought and desire. A colored boy, more
venturous than himself, was said to have picked up some “Linkum”
money on the battlefield. This information shed on the wild wooded
tract where the war trumpet had raged the most fiercely a light
more golden than that of the moon then at its full; and Jeff
resolved that with the coming night he also would explore a region
which, nevertheless, had nameless terrors for him.

“Ef dere’s spooks anywhere dey’s dereaway,” he muttered over his
hoe; “but den, ki! dey woan ‘fere wid dis yer niggah. What hab
I’se got ter do wid de wah and de fighten an de jabbin’? De spooks
cyant lay nufnn ter me eben ef ole marse an’ de res’ am a-fighten
ter keep dere slabes, as folks say.”

Having thus satisfied himself that the manes of the dead thousands
could have no controversy with him, Jeff mustered sufficient
resolution to visit the field that night. He took no one into his
confidence, fearing if he discovered treasures of any kind he
could not be left in undisturbed possession. During the day the
rudiments of imagination which made him a musician had been
conjuring up the possible results of his expedition.

“De ting fer dis cullud pusson ter do is ter p’ramberlate ter de
Linkum lines. Ki! I doan wan’ what drap outen our sogers’ pockets.
I kin git Virginny leaf widouten runnin’ ‘mong de spooks arter it.
De place fer a big fine is whar de brush is tick and de Linkum men
crawl away so dey woan be tromp on. Who knows but I kin fine a
place whar a ginral hide hisself? Ob cose if he hab a lot of gole
he’d stick it in de bush or kiver it right smart, so dat oders
moutn’t get it foh he could helf hisself.”

Jeff thought he had reasoned himself into such a valorous state
that he could walk across the deserted battlefield with
nonchalance; but as he entered on a deeply shadowed dirt-road long
since disused to any extent, he found strange creeping sensations
running up and down his back. The moonlight filtered through the
leaves with fantastic effects. A young silver poplar looked
ghastly in the distance; and now and then a tree out off by a shot
looked almost human in its mutilation.

He had not gone very far before he saw what appeared to be the
body of a man lying across the road. With a sudden chill of blood
he stopped and stared at the object. Gradually it resolved itself
into a low mound in the dim light. Approaching cautiously, he
discovered with a dull sense of horror that a soldier had been
buried where he had fallen, but covered so slightly that the
tumulus scarcely more than outlined his form.

“Ob cose I knowed I d hab ter see dese tings foh I started. What I
such a fool fer? De Feds nor de Yanks am’ a-gwine ter bodder me if
I am’ steppin’ on ‘em or ober ‘em.” And he went scrupulously on
the other side of the road.

By and by, however, he came to a part of the wood-lane where men
had fallen by the score, and bodies had been covered in twos,
threes, and dozens. His head felt as if his very wool were
straightening itself out, as he wound here and there and zigzagged
in all directions lest he should step on or over a grave. A breeze
stirred the forest as if all the thousands buried in its shades
had heaved a long deep sigh. With chattering teeth Jeff stopped to
listen, then, reassured, continued to pick his tortuous way.
Suddenly there was an ominous rustling in a thicket just behind.
He broke into a headlong flight across and over everything, when
the startled grunt of a hog revealed the prosaic nature of this
spook. Scarcely any other sound could have been more reassuring.
The animal suggested bacon and hominy and hoe-cake, everything
except the ghostly. He berated himself angrily:

“Ki! you niggah! dat ar hog got mo’ co’age dan you. He know he hab
nuffin mo’ ter do wid de spooks dan you hab. De run ain’ far, and
when I gits ober dat de spooks on de side dis way cyant cross
arter me;” and he hastened toward the spot where he supposed the
Federals had been massed the most heavily, crossing an open field
and splashing through a shallow place in the river, that their
ghost-ships might be reminded of running water.

On the further slope were the same sad evidences of poor
mortality, graves here and there and often all too shallow, broken
muskets, bullet perforated canteens and torn knapsacks–the debris
of a pitched battle. Many trees and shrubs were so lacerated that
their foliage hung limp and wilting, while boughs with shrivelled
leaves strewed the ground. Nature’s wounds indicated that men had
fought here and been mutilated as ruthlessly.

For a time nothing of value rewarded Jeff’s search, and he began
to succumb to the grewsome associations of the place. At last he
resolved to examine one more thicket that bordered an old rail-
fence, and then make a long detour rather than go back by the
graveyard road over which he had come. Pushing the bushes aside,
he peered among their shadows for some moments, and then uttered
an exclamation of surprise and terror as he bounded backward.
There was no mistake this time; he had seen the figure of a man
with a ray of moonlight filtering through the leaves on a ghastly
bullet-hole in his temple. He sat with his back against the fence,
and had not moved after receiving the shock. At his feet, dropped
evidently from his nerveless hand, lay a metal box. All had
flashed almost instantaneously on Jeff’s vision.

For some moments he was in doubt whether to take to his heels
homeward or reconnoitre again. The soldier sat in such a lifelike
attitude that while Jeff knew the man must be dead, taking the box
seemed like robbing the living. Yes, worse than that, for, to the
superstitious negro, the dead soldier appeared to be watching his
treasure.

Jeff’s cupidity slowly mastered his fears. Cautiously approaching
the figure, he again pushed aside the screening boughs, and with
chattering teeth and trembling limbs, looked upon the silent
guardian of the treasure, half expecting the dead man to raise his
head, and warn him off with a threatening gesture. Since the
figure remained motionless, Jeff made a headlong plunge, clutched
the box, then ran half a mile without thinking to look back.

Not for his life would he cross the battlefield again; so it was
late when by wide circuit he approached the dwelling of his
mistress. His panic had gradually subsided, and as he noted
familiar objects, he felt that he was beyond the proper range of
the unjust spirits of the dead.

The soldier he had left sitting against the fence troubled him, it
is true; and he was not quite sure that he was through with one so
palpably robbed. That he had not been followed appeared certain;
that the question of future ownership of the treasure could be
settled was a matter of superstitious belief. There was only one
way–he must hide the box in a secret nook, and if it remained
undisturbed for a reasonable length of time, he might hope for its
undisturbed enjoyment. Accordingly he stole into a dense copse and
buried his booty at the foot of a persimmon-tree, then gained his
humble quarter and slept so late and soundly that he had to be
dragged almost without the door the next morning before he shook
off his lethargy.

Chapter II. Its Influence

With the exception of aptitude which enabled Jeff to catch and fix
a tune in his mind with a fair degree of correctness, his mental
processes were slow. Moreover, whether he should ever have any
trouble with “spooks” or not, one thing was true of him, as of
many others in all stations of life, he was haunted by the ghost
of a conscience. This uneasy spirit suggested to him with annoying
iteration that his proceedings the night before had been of very
unusual and doubtful character. When at last fully awake, he
sought to appease the accusing voice by unwonted diligence in all
his tasks, until the fat cook, a devout Baptist, took more than
one occasion to say, “You’se in a promisin’ frame, Jeff. Ef I’se
ony shoah dat yer hole out long anuff ter get ‘mersed, I’d hab
hopes on yer, but, law! yer’ll be a-fiddlin’ de debil’s tunes ‘fo’
de week is out. I’se afeared dat dere must be an awful prov’dence,
like a battle or harricane, onst a week, ter keep yer ser’ous;”
and the old woman sniffed down at him with ill-concealed disdain
from her superior spiritual height.

Jeff was as serious as could have been wished all that day, for
there was much on his mind. Perplexing questions tinged with
supernatural terrors tormented him. Passing over those having a
moral point, the most urgent one was, “S’pose dat ar soger miss
him box an come arter it ternight. Ki! If I go ter see, I mont run
right on ter de spook. I’se a-gwine ter gib ‘im his chance, an’
den take mine.” So that evening Jeff fortified himself and
increased the cook’s hope by a succession of psalm-tunes in which
there was no lapse toward the “debil’s” music.

Next morning, after a long sleep, Jeff’s nerves were stronger, and
he began to take a high hand with conscience.

“Dat ar soger has hab his chance,” he reasoned. “Ef he want de box
he mus’ ‘a’ com arter it las’ night. I’se done bin fa’r wid him,
an’ now ter-night, ef dat ar box ain’ ’sturbed, I’se a-gwine ter
see de ’scription an’ heft on it. Toder night I was so ‘fuscated
dat I couldn’t know nuffin straight.”

When all were sleeping, he stole to the persimmon-tree and was
elated to find his treasure where he had slightly buried it. The
little box seemed heavy, and was wholly unlike anything he ever
seen before.

“Ob cose it’s got money in it,” Jeff reasoned. “Nuffin else ‘ud be
done up to tight and strong. I’se woan open it jes’ yet, feared de
missus or de colored boys ’spec’ someting. Ki! I isn’t a-gwine ter
be tied up, an’ hab dat box whip out in me. I’ll tink how I kin
hide an’ spen’ de money kine of slowcution like.” With this he
restored the prize to its shallow excavation and covered it with
leaves that no trace of fresh earth might be visible.

Jeff’s deportment now began to evince a new evolution in mental
and moral process. The influence of riches was quite as marked
upon him as upon so many of his white brothers and sisters,
proving their essential kinship. To-day he began to sniff
disdainfully at his menial tasks; and in the evening “Ole Dan
Tucker” resounded from his fiddle with a rollicking abandon over
which the cook groaned in despair, “Dat ar niggah’s ‘ligion drop
off ob ‘im like a yaller pig from de bush. ‘Ligion dat’s skeert
inter us hain’t no ‘count anyhow.”

During the next few days it was evident that Jeff was falling from
grace rapidly. Never had he been so slow and careless in his
tasks. More than once the thought crossed his mind that he had
better take his box and “cut stick” for Washington, where he
believed that wealth and his fiddle would give him prominence over
his race. For prudential and other reasons he was in no haste to
open the box, preferring rather to gloat over it and to think how
he could spend the money to the greatest advantage. He had been
paying his court to a girl as black as himself on a neighboring
plantation; but he now regarded that affair as preposterous.

“She ain’ good nuff fer me no mo’,” he reasoned. “I’se a-gwine ter
shine up ter dat yeller Suky dat’s been a-holdin’ her head so high
ober ter Marse Perkins’s. I’se invited ter play ober dar ter-
night, an’ I’ll make dat gal open her eye. Ki! she tinks no culled
gemmen in dese parts fit ter hole a cannle when she braid her long
straight ha’r, but when she see de ribbin I kin git her ter tie
dat ha’r up wid, an’ de earrings I kin put in her ears, she larf
on toder side ob her face. ‘Fo’ I go I’se a-gwine ter buy dat ar
gole ring ob Sam Milkins down at de tavern. S’pose it does take
all I’se been sabin’ up, I’se needn’t sabe any mo’. Dat ar box got
nuff in it ter keep me like a lawd de rest ob my life. I’d open it
ter-night if I wasn’t goin’ ter Marse Perkins’s.”

Jeff carried out his high-handed measures and appeared that
evening at “Marse Perkins’s” with a ring of portentous size
squeezed on the little finger of his left hand. It had something
of the color of gold, and that is the best that can be said of it;
but it had left its purchaser penniless. This fact sat lightly on
Jeff’s mind, however, as he remembered the box at the foot of the
persimmon-tree; and he stalked into the detached kitchen, where a
dusky assemblage were to indulge in a shuffle, with the air of one
who intends that his superiority shall be recognized at once.

“Law sakes, Jeff!” said Mandy, his hitherto ebon flame, “yer comes
in like a turkey gobbler. Doesn’t yer know me?”

“Sartin I know yer, Mandy. You’se a good gal in you’se way, but,
law! you’se had yer spell. A culled gemmen kin change his min’
when he sees dat de ‘finity’s done gone.”

“Look here, Jeff Wobbles, does yer mean ter give me de sack?”

“I mean ter gib yer good-ebenin’, Miss Mandy Munson. Yer kyant
’spec’ a gemmen to be degaged in de music an’ a gal at de same
time,” replied Jeff, with oppressive gravity.

“Mister Johnsing, I’se tank yer fo’ yer arm,” said Mandy to a man
near, with responsive dignity. “Yer wait on me here, an’ yer kin
wait on me home. I’se ’shamed on mysef dat I took up wid a lout
dat kin do nuffin but fiddle; but I was kine ob sorry fer him, he
sich a fool.”

“Go ‘long,” remarked Jeff, smiling mysteriously. ‘Ef yer knowed,
yer ‘ud be wringin’ yer han’s wuss dan yer did at de las’ ‘tracted
meetin’. Ah, Miss Suky, dat you?” and Jeff for the first time
doffed his hat.

“Wat’s in de win’, Jeff, dat yer so scrumptious an’ bumptious like
dis ebenin’?” Suky asked a trifle scornfully.

“Wen de ‘freshments parse ‘roun’, I’se ’steem it a oblergation ter
me ef yer’ll let me bring yer de cake an’ cider. I’se sumpin fer
yer. Gemmen an’ ladies, took yer places,” he added in a stentorian
voice; “I ax yer’ sideration fer bein’ late, cose I had ‘portant
business; now,

“Bow dar, scrape dar; Doan hang about de doah. Shine up ter de
pretty gals. An,’ lead ‘em on de floah”–

his fiddle seconding his exhortation with such inciting strains
that soon there was not a foot but was keeping time.

Suky observed that the musician had eyes for her only, and that
toward all others he maintained his depressing superiority. In
vain did Mandy lavish tokens of favor on “Mister Johnsing.” Jeff
did not lose his sudden and unexpected indifference; while the
great ring glistening on his finger added to the mystery. There
were many whispered surmises; but gradually the conjecture that he
had “foun’ a heap ob Linkum money” was regarded as the best
explanation of the marked change in his bearing.

Curiosity soon became more potent than Jeff’s fiddle, and the
“‘freshments” were hurried up. So far from resenting this, Jeff
put his violin under his arm and stalked across the improvised
ball-room to Miss Suky, oblivious of the fact that she had a
suitor on either side.

“Gemmen,” he remarked with condescension, “dis lady am degaged ter
me durin’ de ‘freshments period,’” and he held out his arm in such
a way that the massive ring glittered almost under Suky’s nose.
The magnet drew. His arm was taken in spite of the protests of the
enamored swains.

“Permit me de suggestation,” continued Jeff, “dat ter a lady ob
yer ‘finement, dis place am not fit ter breve in. Wha’s mo’, I
doan ‘cline ter hab dese yer common niggahs a-whisperin’ an’ a-
pintin’ an’ a-’jecturin’ about us. Lemme yet yer a seat under de
lite ob de risin’ moon. De dusk’ll obscuate yer loveleness so I’se
dar’ tell all de news.”

Suky, mystified and expectant, but complacent over another
conquest, made no objections to these whispered “suggestations,”
and was led to a seat under the shadow of a tree. A chorus of not
very flattering remarks broke out, ceasing as suddenly when Jeff
returned for a portion of the cake and cider.

“Mister Wobbles, yer’s prettin’ on high de airs ter-night,” Suky
remarked, with an interrogation point in her voice.

“Here’s ter de health ob Mrs. Wobbles,” he answered, lifting the
cider to his lips.

“I’se no ‘jections ter dat. Who is she ter be?” replied Suky, very
innocently.

“It’s not my ‘tention ter go furder and far’ wuss. Dis am a case
wha de presen’ company am not ‘cepted.”

“No, not axcepted jes’ yet, Mr. Wobbles, if yer’se ‘dressin’ yer
remarks ter me. Yer is goin’ on jes’ a little too far.”

“P’raps a little far; but yer’ll soon catch up wid me. Yer’se a
lady dat got a min’ ob her own, I hope?”

“It’s mine yet, anyhow.”

“An’ yer kin keep as mum as a possum w’en de cawn is in de milk?”

“Dat ‘pends.”

“Obcose it does. But I’ll trus’ yer; yer ain’ de one ter bite yer
own nose off. Does yer see dat ar ring, Suky? Law! how pretty dat
look on yer degaged finger!”

“‘Tain’ dar yet.”

“Lemme put it dar. Ki! wouldn’t dey look an’ gape an’ pint in dar
yonder w’en yer come a-sailin’ in wid dat ring on?”

“Yes; dey tink me a big fool ter be captivated by a ring–brass,
too, like anuff.”

“No, Suky, it’s gole–yallow gole, di ‘plexion ob yer own fair
han’. But, law! dis ain’ nuffin ter what I’se ‘ll git yer. Yer’se
shall hab rings an’ dresses an’ jules till yer ’stinguish de oder
gals like de sun put out de stars.”

“What yer foun’, Jeff Wobbles?”

“I’se foun’ what’ll make yer a lady if yer hab sense. I’se gib yer
de compliment ob s’lecting yer ter shar’ my fine if yer’ll lemme
put dis ring on yer degaged finger.”

“Yer doan say nuffin ’bout lub in dis yer ‘rangement,” Suky
simpered, sidling up to him.

“Oh, dat kind ob sent’ment ‘ll do fer common niggahs,” Jeff
explained with dignity. “I’se hurd my missus talk ’bout ‘liances
‘twixt people of quality. Ki! Suky, I’se in a’sition now ter make
a ‘liance wid yer. Yer ain’ like dat low gal, Mandy. What Mister
Johnsing ebber hab ter gib her but a lickin’ some day? I’se done
wid dat common class; I may fiddle fur ‘em now an’ den, jes’ ter
see dem sport deysefs, while I’se lookin’ on kin’ ob s’periur
like, yer know. But den, dey ain’ our kin’ ob folks. Yer’se got
qulities dat’ll shine like de risin’ moon dar.” Then in a whisper
he added, “De Linkum sogers is off dar ter the east’erd. One
night’s trabel an’ dey’d sen’ us on ter Washin’on. Onst yer git
dar, an’ hab all de jules an’ dresses dat I gib yer, dar’s not a
culled gemmen dereaway but ‘ud bow down ter yer.”

Here was a dazzling vista that Suky could not resist. Her ideas of
freedom, like those of Jeff, were not very exalted. At that
period, slave property in the vicinity of the Union lines was fast
melting away; and scarcely a night elapsed but some one was
missing, the more adventurous and intelligent escaping first, and
others following as opportunity and motive pointed the way. The
region under consideration had not yet been occupied by the
Federals, and there was still no slight risk involved in flight.
Suky did not realize the magnitude of the project. She was not the
first of her sex to be persuaded by a cavalier and promised gold
to take a leap into the dark.

As a result of Jeff’s representations the “‘liance” was made there
and then, secrecy promised, and an escape to Washington agreed
upon as soon as circumstances permitted–Suky’s mind, I regret to
say, dwelling more on “gemmen bowing down” to her than on the
devotion of the allied suitor.

No lady of rank in Timbuctoo could have sailed into the kitchen
ball-room with greater state than Suky now after the compact had
been made, Jeff supporting her on his arm with the conscious air
of one who has taken the prize from all competitors. With the
assurance of a potentate he ensconced himself in the orchestra
corner and called the dancers to their feet.

But the spirit of mutiny was present. Eager eyes noted that the
ring on his bow-hand was gone. Then it was seen glistening on
Suky’s hand as she ostentatiously fanned herself. The clamor broke
out, “Mister Johnsing,” incited by Mandy and the two swains
between whom Suky had been sandwiched, leading the revolt against
Jeff’s arrogance and success.

There were many, however, who had no personal wrongs to right, and
who did not relish being made a cat’s-paw by the disaffected.
These were bent on the natural progression and conclusion of the
dance. In consequence of the wordy uproar the master of the
premises appeared and cleared them all out, sending his own
servants to their quarters.

Jeff nearly came to grief that night, for a party of the
malcontents followed him on his homeward walk. Suspecting their
purpose, he dodged behind some shrubbery, heard their threats to
break his head and smash his fiddle, and then went back to a tryst
with Suky.

That sagacious damsel had been meditating on the proposed
alliance. Even in her rather sophisticated mind she had regarded a
semblance of love as essential; but since Jeff had put everything
on such superior grounds, she felt that she should prove herself
fit for new and exalted conditions of life by seeing to it that he
made good all his remarkable promises. She remembered that he had
not yet opened the box of money, and became a little sceptical as
to its contents. Somebody might have watched Jeff, and have
carried it off.

True, she had the ring, but that was not the price of her hand.
Nothing less than had been promised would answer now; and when she
stole out to meet Jeff she told him so. Under the witching
moonlight he began to manifest tendencies to sentiment and
tenderness. Her response was prompt: “Go ‘long! what dese common
niggah ways got ter do wid a ‘liance? Yer show me de gole in dat
box–dat’s de bargain. Den de ‘liance hole me fas’, an’ I’ll help
yer spen’ de money in Washin’on. We’ll hab a weddin’ scrumptious
as white folks. But, law sakes! Jeff Wobbles, ‘t ain’ no kin’ ob
‘liance till I see dat gole an’ hab some ob it too!”

Jeff had to succumb like many a higher-born suitor before him,
with the added chagrin of remembering that he had first suggested
the purely businesslike aspect of his motive.

“Berry well; meet me here ter-morrer night when I whistle like a
whip-o’-will. But yer ain’ so smart as yer tink yer are, Suky.
Yer’se made it cl’ar ter me dat I’se got ter keep de han’lin’ ob
dat gole or you’ll be a-carryin’ dis ‘liance business too far! If
I gib yer gole, I expec’ yer ter shine up an be ‘greeable-like ter
me ebbery way yer know how. Dat’s only fa’r, doggoned ef it ain’!”
and Jeff spoke in a very aggrieved tone.

Wily Suky chucked him under the chin, saying: “Show me de color ob
de gole an’ de ‘liance come out all right.” Then she retired,
believing that negotiations had proceeded far enough for the
present.

Jeff went home feeling that he had been forewarned and forearmed.
Since her heart responded to a golden key only, he would keep that
key and use it judiciously.

During the early hours of the following night Jeff was very wary
and soon discovered that he was watched. He coolly slipped the
collar from a savage dog, and soon there was a stampede from a
neighboring grove. An hour after, when all had become quiet again,
he took the dog and, armed with an axe, started out, fully
resolved on breaking the treasure-box which he had been hoarding.

The late moon had risen, giving to Jeff a gnome-like aspect as he
dug at the root of the persimmon-tree. The mysterious box soon
gleamed with a pale light in his hand, like the leaden casket that
contained Portia’s radiant face. Surely, when he struck the “open
sesame” blow, that beauty which captivates young and old alike
would dazzle his eyes. With heart now devoid of all compunction,
and exultant in anticipation, he struck the box, shaving off the
end he held furthest from him. An “ancient fish-like smell” filled
the air; Jeff sank on the ground and stared at sardines and rancid
oil dropping instead of golden dollars from his treasure-box. They
scarcely touched the ground before the dog snapped them all up.

The bewildered negro knew not what to think. Had fish been the
original contents of the box, or had the soldier’s spook
transformed the gold into this horrid mess? One thing, however,
was clear–he had lost, not only Suky, but prestige. The yellow
girl would scorn him, and tell of his preposterous promises. Mandy
had been offended beyond hope, and he would become the laughing-
stock and byword of all the colored boys for miles around.

“Dar’s nuffin lef fer me but ter put out fer freedom,” he
soliloquized; “ki! I’se a-gwine ter git eben wid dat yallar gal
yet. I’ll cut stick ter-morrer night and she’ll tink I ’sconded
alone, totin’ de box wid me, and dat she was too sharp in dat
‘liance business.”

So it turned out; Jeff and his fiddle vanished, leaving nothing to
sustain Suky under the gibes of her associates except the ring,
which she eventually learned was as brazen as her own ambition.

Jefi wandered into the service of a Union officer whose patience
he tried even more than that of his tolerant Southern mistress;
but when by the camp-fire he brought out his violin, all his
shortcomings were condoned.

An Autobiography

Two or three years ago the editor of “Lippincott’s Magazine” asked
me, with many others, to take part in the very interesting
“experience meeting” begun in the pages of that enterprising
periodical. I gave my consent without much thought of the effort
involved, but as time passed, felt slight inclination to comply
with the request. There seemed little to say of interest to the
general public, and I was distinctly conscious of a certain sense
of awkwardness in writing about myself at all. The question, Why
should I? always confronted me.

When this request was again repeated early in the current year, I
resolved at least to keep my promise. This is done with less
reluctance now, for the reason that floating through the press I
meet with paragraphs concerning myself that are incorrect, and
often absurdly untrue. These literary and personal notes, together
with many questioning letters, indicate a certain amount of public
interest, and I have concluded that it may be well to give the
facts to those who care to know them.

It has been made more clear to me that there are many who honestly
do care. One of the most prized rewards of my literary work is the
ever-present consciousness that my writings have drawn around me a
circle of unknown yet stanch friends, who have stood by me
unfalteringly for a number of years. I should indeed be lacking if
my heart did not go out to them in responsive friendliness and
goodwill. If I looked upon them merely as an aggregation of
customers, they would find me out speedily. A popular mood is a
very different thing from an abiding popular interest. If one
could address this circle of friends only, the embarrassment
attendant on a certain amount of egotism would be banished by the
assurance of sympathetic regard. Since, from the nature of
circumstances, this is impossible, it seems to me in better taste
to consider the “author called Roe” in an objective, rather than
in a friendly and subjective sense. In other words, I shall try to
look at him from the public point of view, and free myself from
some predisposition in his favor shared by his friends. I suppose
I shall not succeed in giving a colorless statement of fact, but I
may avoid much special pleading in his behalf.

Like so many other people, I came from a very old family, one from
which there is good proof of an unbroken line through the Dark
Ages, and all ages, to the first man. I have never given any time
to tracing ancestry, but have a sort of quiet satisfaction that
mine is certainly American as far as it well can be. My
forefathers (not “rude,” to my knowledge) were among the first
settlers on the Atlantic seaboard. My paternal and maternal
grandfathers were stanch Whigs during the Revolution, and had the
courage of their convictions. My grandmother escaped with her
children from the village of Kingston almost as the British
entered it, and her home was soon in ashes. Her husband, James
Roe, was away in the army. My mother died some years before I
attained my majority, and I cannot remember when she was not an
invalid. Such literary tendencies as I have are derived from her,
but I do not possess a tithe of her intellectual power. Her story-
books in her youth were the classics; and when she was but twelve
years of age she knew “Paradise Lost” by heart. In my
recollections of her, the Bible and all works tending to elucidate
its prophecies were her favorite themes of study. The
retentiveness of her memory was very remarkable. If any one
repeated a verse of the New Testament, she could go on and finish
the chapter. Indeed, she could quote the greater part of the Bible
with the ease and accuracy of one reading from the printed page.
The works of Hugh Miller and the Arctic Explorations of Dr. Kane
afforded her much pleasure. Confined usually to her room, she took
unfailing delight in wandering about the world with the great
travellers of that day, her strong fancy reproducing the scenes
they described. A stirring bit of history moved her deeply. Well
do I remember, when a boy, of reading to her a chapter from
Motley’s “Dutch Republic,” and of witnessing in her flushed cheeks
and sparkling black eyes proof of an excitement all too great for
one in her frail health. She had the unusual gift of relating in
an easy, simple way what she read; and many a book far too
abstruse and dull for my boyish taste became an absorbing story
from her lips. One of her chief characteristics was the love of
flowers. I can scarcely recall her when a flower of some kind,
usually a rose, was not within her reach; and only periods of
great feebleness kept her from their daily care, winter and
summer. Many descendants of her floral pets are now blooming in my
garden.

My father, on the other hand, was a sturdy man of action. His love
for the country was so strong that he retired from business in New
York as soon as he had won a modest competence. For forty-odd
years he never wearied in the cultivation of his little valley
farm, and the square, flower-bordered garden, at one side of which
ran an unfailing brook. In this garden and under his tuition I
acquired my love of horticulture–acquired it with many a
backache–heartache too, on days good for fishing or hunting; but,
taking the bitter with the sweet, the sweet predominated. I find
now that I think only of the old-fashioned roses in the borders,
and not of my hands bleeding from the thorns. If I groaned over
the culture of many vegetables, it was much compensation to a boy
that the dinner-table groaned also under the succulent dishes thus
provided. I observed that my father’s interest in his garden and
farm never flagged, thus proving that in them is to be found a
pleasure which does not pall with age. During the last summer of
his life, when in his eighty-seventh year, he had the delight of a
child in driving over to my home in the early morning, long before
I was up, and in leaving a basket of sweet corn or some other
vegetable which he knew would prove his garden to be ahead of
mine.

My father was very simple and positive in his beliefs, always
openly foremost in the reform movements of his day and in his
neighborhood, yet never, to my knowledge, seeking or taking any
office. His house often became a station of the “underground
railroad” in slavery times, and on one night in the depth of
winter he took a hotly-pursued fugitive in his sleigh and drove
him five miles on the ice, diagonally across the Hudson, to
Fishkill, thence putting the brave aspirant for freedom on the way
to other friends. He incurred several risks in this act. It is
rarely safe to drive on the river off the beaten tracks at night,
for there are usually air-holes, and the strong tides are
continually making changes in the ice. When told that he might be
sent to jail for his defiance of the Fugitive Slave Law, he
quietly answered, “I can go to jail.” The thing he could not do
was to deny the man’s appeal to him for help. Before the war he
was known as an Abolitionist–after it, as a Conservative, his
sympathy with and for the South being very strong. During the
draft riots in 1863 the spirit of lawlessness was on the point of
breaking out in the river towns. I happened to be home from
Virginia, and learned that my father’s house was among those
marked for burning on a certain night. During this night the horde
gathered; but one of their leaders had received such empathetic
warning of what would happen the following day should outrages be
perpetrated, that he persuaded his associates to desist. I sat up
that night at my father’s door with a double-barrelled gun, more
impressed with a sense of danger than at any other time in my
experience; he, on the contrary, slept as quietly as a child.

He often practiced close economy in order to give his sons a good
education. The one act of my life which I remember with unalloyed
pride and pleasure occured while I was at boarding-school in
Vermont, preparing for college. I learned through my mother that
my father had denied himself his daily newspaper; and I knew well
how much he would miss it. We burned wood in the large stone
seminary building. Every autumn great ranks of hard maple were
piled up, and students who wished to earn a little money were paid
a dollar a cord for sawing it into three lengths. I applied for
nine cords, and went at the unaccustomed task after study hours.
My back aches yet as I recall the experiences of subsequent weeks,
for the wood was heavy, thick, and hard as bone. I eventually had
the pleasure of sending to my father the subscription price of his
paper for a year. If a boy reads these lines, let me assure him
that he will never know a sweeter moment in his life than when he
receives the thanks of his parents for some such effort in their
behalf. No investment can ever pay him better.

In one of my books, “Nature’s Serial Story,” my father and mother
appear, slightly idealized.

Toward the close of my first year in Williams College a misfortune
occurred which threatened to be very serious. Studying by
defective light injured my eyes. They quickly became so sensitive
that I could scarcely endure lamplight or the heat of a stove,
only the cold out-door air relieving the pain; so I spent much
time in wandering about in the boisterous weather of early spring
in Williamstown. At last I became so discouraged that I went to
President Hopkins and told him that I feared I must give up the
purpose of acquiring an education. Never can I forget how that
grand old man met the disheartened boy. Speaking in the wise,
friendly way which subdued the heart and strengthened the will, he
made the half-hour spent with him the turning-point of my life. In
conclusion, he advised me to enter the Senior class the following
fall, thus taking a partial course of study. How many men are
living to-day who owe much of the best in their lives to that
divinely inspired guide and teacher of youth!

I next went to another man great in his sphere of life–Dr. Agnew,
the oculist. He gave my eyes a thorough examination, told me that
he could do nothing for them; that rest and the vigor acquired
from out-door life would restore them. He was as kind and
sympathetic in his way as the college president, and charged but a
trifle, to relieve me from the sense of taking charity. Dr.
Agnew’s words proved correct; and the following autumn I entered
the class of ‘61, and spent a happy year. Some of my classmates
were very kind in reading aloud to me, while Dr. Hopkins’s
instruction was invaluable. By the time I entered Auburn
Theological Seminary, my eyes were quite restored, and I was able
to go through the first year’s course of study without difficulty.
In the summer of 1862 I could no longer resist the call for men in
the army. Learning that the Second New York (Harris’s Light)
Cavalry was without a chaplain, I obtained the appointment to that
position. General Kilpatrick was then lieutenant-colonel, and in
command of the regiment. In December, 1862, I witnessed the bloody
and disastrous battle of Fredericksburg, and can never forget the
experiences of that useless tragedy. I was conscious of a
sensation which struck me as too profound to be merely awe. Early
in the morning we crossed the Rappahannock on a pontoon bridge and
marched up the hill to an open plain. The roar of the battle was
simply terrific, shading off from the sharp continuous thunder
immediately about us to dull, heavy mutterings far to the right
and left. A few hundred yards before us, where the ground began to
slope up to the fatal heights crowned with Confederate works and
ordnance, were long lines of Union batteries. From their iron
mouths puffs of smoke issued incessantly, followed by tremendous
reverberations. Back of these batteries the ground was covered
with men lying on their arms, that they might present a less
obvious target. Then a little further to the rear, on the level
ground above the bluff, stood our cavalry. Heavy guns on both
sides of the river were sending their great shrieking shells back
and forth over our heads, and we often “ducked” instinctively when
the missile was at least forty feet above us. Even our horses
shuddered at the sound.

I resolved to learn if the men were sharing in my emotions–in
brief, what effect the situation had upon them–and rode slowly
down our regimental line. So vivid was the impression of that long
array of awed, pallid faces that at this moment I can recall them
distinctly. There were strange little touches of mingled pathos
and humor. Meadow-larks were hemmed in on every side, too
frightened to fly far beyond the rude alarms. They would flutter
up into the sulphurous air with plaintive cries, then drop again
into the open spaces between the troops. At one time, while we
were standing at our horses’ heads, a startled rabbit ran to us
for cover. The poor little creature meant a dinner to the
fortunate captor on a day when a dinner was extremely
problematical. We engaged in a sharp scramble, the prize being won
by the regimental surgeon, who kindly shared his game with me.

General Bayard, commanding our brigade, was mortally wounded, and
died like a hero. He was carried to a fine mansion near which he
had received his injury. Many other desperately wounded men were
brought to the spacious rooms of this abode of Southern luxury,
and the surgeons were kept busy all throught the day and night. It
was here I gained my first experience in hospital work. This
extemporized hospital on the field was so exposed as to be
speedily abandoned. In the morning I recrossed the Rappahannock
with my regiment, which had been ordered down the river on picket
duty. Soon after we went into winter quarters in a muddy
cornfield. In February I resigned, with the purpose of completing
my studies, and spent the remainder of the term at the Union
Theological Seminary of New York. My regiment would not get
another chaplain, so I again returned to it. In November I
received a month’s leave of absence, and was married to Miss Anna
P. Sands, of New York City. Our winter quarters in 1864 were at
Stevensburg, between the town of Culpeper and the Rapidan River.
During the pleasant days of late February several of the officers
were enjoying the society of their wives. Mrs. Roe having
expressed a willingness to rough it with me for a week, I sent for
her, and one Saturday afternoon went to the nearest railroad
station to meet her. The train came, but not my wife; and, much
disappointed, I found the return ride of five miles a dreary one
in the winter twilight. I stopped at our colonel’s tent to say to
him and his wife that Mrs. Roe had not come, then learned for the
first time very startling tidings.

“Chaplain,” said the colonel, “we are going to Richmond to-morrow.
We are going to wade right through and past everything in a neck-
or-nothing ride, and who will come out is a question.”

His wife was weeping in her private tent, and I saw that for the
first time in my acquaintance with him he was downcast. He was one
of the bravest of men, yet now a foreboding of evil oppressed him.
The result justified it, for he was captured during the raid, and
never fully rallied after the war from the physical depression
caused by his captivity. He told me that on the morrow General
Kilpatrick would lead four thousand picked cavalry men in a raid
on Richmond, having as its special object the release of our
prisoners. I rode to the headquarters of the general, who
confirmed the tidings, adding, “You need not go. Non-combatants
are not expected to go.”

It was most fortunate that my wife had not come. I had recently
been appointed chaplain of Hampton Hospital, Virginia, by
President Lincoln, and was daily expecting my confirmation by the
Senate. I had fully expected to give my wife a glimpse of army
life in the field, and then to enter on my new duties. To go or
not to go was a question with me that night. The raid certainly
offered a sharp contrast with the anticipated week’s outing with
my bride. I did not possess by nature that kind of courage which
is indifferent to danger; and life had never offered more
attractions than at that time. I have since enjoyed Southern
hospitality abundantly, and hope to again, but then its prospect
was not alluring. Before morning, however, I reached the decision
that I would go, and during the Sunday forenoon held my last
service in the regiment. I had disposed of my horse, and so had to
take a sorry beast at the last moment, the only one I could
obtain.

In the dusk of Sunday evening four thousand men were masked in the
woods on the banks of the Rapidan. Our scouts opened the way by
wading the stream and pouncing upon the unsuspecting picket of
twenty Confederates opposite. Then away we went across a cold,
rapid river, marching all that night through the dim woods and
openings in a country that was emphatically the enemy’s. Lee’s
entire army was on our right, the main Confederate cavalry force
on our left. The strength of our column and its objective point
could not remain long unknown.

In some unimportant ways I acted as aid for Kilpatrick. A few
hundred yards in advance of the main body rode a vanguard of two
hundred men, thrown forward to warn us should we strike any
considerable number of the enemy’s cavalry. As is ever the case,
the horses of a small force will walk away from a much larger
body, and it was necessary from time to time to send word to the
vanguard, ordering it to “slow up.” This order was occasionally
intrusted to me. I was to gallop over the interval between the two
columns, then draw up by the roadside and sit motionless on my
horse till the general with his staff came up. The slightest
irregularity of action would bring a shot from our own men, while
the prospect of an interview with the Johnnies while thus isolated
was always good. I saw one of our officers shot that night. He had
ridden carelessly into the woods, and rode out again just before
the head of the column, without instantly accounting for himself.
As it was of vital importance to keep the movement secret as long
as possible, the poor fellow was silenced in sad error as to his
identity.

On we rode, night and day, with the briefest possible halts. At
one point we nearly captured a railroad train, and might easily
have succeeded had not the station and warehouses been in flames.
As it was, the train approached us closely, then backed, the
shrieking engine itself giving the impression of being startled to
the last degree.

On a dreary, drizzling, foggy day we passed a milestone on which
was lettered, “Four miles to Richmond.” It was still “on to
Richmond” with us what seemed a long way further, and then came a
considerable period of hesitancy, in which the command was drawn
up for the final dash. The enemy shelled a field near us
vigorously, but fortunately, or unfortunately, the fog was so
dense that neither party could make accurate observations or do
much execution.

For reasons that have passed into history, the attack was not
made. We withdrew six miles from the city and went into camp.

I had scarcely begun to enjoy much-needed rest before the
Confederates came up in the darkness and shelled us out of such
quarters as we had found. We had to leave our boiling coffee
behind us–one of the greatest hardships I have ever known. Then
followed a long night-ride down the Peninsula, in driving sleet
and rain.

The next morning the sun broke out gloriously, warming and drying
our chilled, wet forms. Nearly all that day we maintained a line
of battle confronting the pursuing enemy. One brigade would take a
defensive position, while the other would march about five miles
to a commanding point, where it in turn would form a line. The
first brigade would then give way, pass through the second, and
take position well to the rear. Thus, although retreating, we were
always ready to fight. At one point the enemy pressed us closely,
and I saw a magnificent cavalry charge down a gentle descent in
the road. Every sabre seemed tipped with fire in the brilliant
sunshine.

In the afternoon it became evident that there was a body of troops
before us. Who or what they were was at first unknown, and for a
time the impression prevailed that we should have to cut our way
through by a headlong charge. We soon learned, however, that the
force was a brigade of colored infantry, sent up to cover our
retreat. It was the first time we had seen negro troops, but as
the long line of glistening bayonets and light-blue uniforms came
into view, prejudices, if any there were, vanished at once, and a
cheer from the begrimed troopers rang down our line, waking the
echoes. It was a pleasant thing to march past that array of faces,
friendly though black, and know we were safe. They represented the
F.F.V.’s of Old Virginia, we then wished to see. On the last day
of the march my horse gave out, compelling me to walk and lead
him.

On the day after our arrival at Yorktown, Kilpatrick gave me
despatches for the authorities at Washington. President Lincoln,
learning that I had just returned from the raid, sent for me, and
I had a memorable interview with him alone in his private room. He
expressed profound solicitude for Colonel Dahlgren and his party.
They had been detached from the main force, and I could give no
information concerning them. We eventually learned of the death of
that heroic young officer, Colonel Dahlgren. Although partially
helpless from the loss of a leg, he led a daring expedition at the
cost of his life.

I expressed regret to the President that the object of the raid
had not been accomplished. “Pick the flint, and try it again,”
said Mr. Lincoln, heartily. I went out from his presence awed by
the courage and sublime simplicity of the man. While he gave the
impression that he was bearing the nation on his heart, one was
made to feel that it was also large enough for sympathy with all
striving with him in the humblest way.

My wife joined me in Washington, and few days later accompanied me
to the scene of my new labors at Hampton Hospital, near Fortress
Monroe. There were not many patients at that time (March, 1864) in
the large barrack wards; but as soon as the Army of the Potomac
broke through the Wilderness and approached our vicinity,
transports in increasing numbers, laden with desperately wounded
men, came to our wharf. During the early summer the wooden
barracks were speedily filled, and many tent wards were added.
Duty became constant and severe, while the scenes witnessed were
often painful in the last degree. More truly than on the field,
the real horrors of war are learned from the long agonies in the
hospital. While in the cavalry service, I gained in vigor daily;
in two months of hospital work I lost thirty pounds. On one day I
buried as many as twenty-nine men. Every evening, till the duty
became like a nightmare, I followed the dead-cart, filled up with
coffins, once, twice, and often thrice, to the cemetery.
Eventually an associate chaplain was appointed, who relieved me of
this task.

Fortunately, my tastes led me to employ an antidote to my daily
work as useful to me as to the patients. Surrounding the hospital
was much waste land. This, with the approval of the surgeon in
charge, Dr. Ely McMillan, and the aid of the convalescents, I
transformed into a garden, and for two successive seasons sent to
the general kitchen fresh vegetables by the wagon-load. If reward
were needed, the wistful delight with which a patient from the
front would regard a raw onion was ample; while for me the care of
the homely, growing vegetables and fruit brought a diversion of
mind which made life more endurable.

One of the great needs of the patients who had to fight the
winning or losing battle of life was good reading, and I speedily
sought to obtain a supply. Hearts and purses at the North
responded promptly and liberally; publishers threw off fifty per
cent from their prices; and I was eventually able to collect, by
gift and purchase, about three thousand volumes. In gathering this
library, I provided what may be distinctly termed religious
reading in abundance; but I also recognized the need of diversion.
Long wards were filled with men who had lost a leg or an arm, and
who must lie in one position for weeks. To help them get through
the time was to help them to live. I therefore made the library
rich in popular fiction and genial books of travel and biography.
Full sets of Irving, Cooper, Dickens, Thackeray, Scott, Marryat,
and other standard works were bought; and many a time I have seen
a poor fellow absorbed in their pages while holding his stump lest
the jar of a footstep should send a dart of agony to the point of
mutilation. My wife gave much assistance in my hospital duties,
often reaching and influencing those beyond me. I recall one poor
fellow who was actually six months in dying from a very painful
wound. Profanity appeared to be his vernacular, and in bitter
protest at his fate, he would curse nearly every one and
everything. Mrs. Roe’s sympathy and attentions changed him very
much, and he would listen quietly as long as she would read to
him. Some of the hospital attendants, men and women, had good
voices, and we organized a choir. Every Sunday afternoon we went
from ward to ward singing familiar hymns. It was touching to see
rough fellows drawing their blankets over their heads to hide the
emotion caused by words and melodies associated, in many
instances, with home and mother.

Northern generosity, and, in the main, convalescent labor enabled
me to build a large commodious chapel and to make great
improvements in the hospital farm. The site of the hospital and
garden is now occupied by General Armstrong’s Normal and
Agricultural Institute for Freedmen, and the chapel was occupied
as a place of worship until very recently. Thus a noble and most
useful work is being accomplished on the ground consecrated by the
life-and-death struggles of so many Union soldiers.

In 1865 the blessed era of peace began, bringing its many changes.
In October the hospital became practically empty, and I resigned.
The books were sent to Fortress Monroe for the use of the
garrison, and I found many of them there long years after, almost
worn out from use.

After a little rest and some candidating for a church, I took a
small parish at Highland Falls, about a mile from West Point, New
York, entering on my labors in January, 1866. In this village my
wife and I spent nine very happy years. They were full of trial
and many cares, but free from those events which bring the deep
shadows into one’s life. We soon became engaged in building a new
stone church, whose granite walls are so thick, and hard-wood
finish so substantial that passing centuries should add only the
mellowness of age. The effort to raise funds for this enterprise
led me into the lecture-field and here I found my cavalry-raid and
army life in general exceedingly useful. I looked around for a
patch of garden-ground as instinctively as a duck seeks water. The
small plot adjoining the parsonage speedily grew into about three
acres, from which eventually came a book entitled “Play and Profit
in my Garden.”

Up to the year 1871 I had written little for publication beyond
occasional contributions to the New York “Evangelist,” nor had I
seriously contemplated a literary life. I had always been
extremely fond of fiction, and from boyhood had formed a habit of
beguiling the solitary hours in weaving crude fancies around
people who for any reason interested me. I usually had a mental
serial running, to which I returned when it was my mood; but I had
never written even a short story. In October, 1871, I was asked to
preach for a far uptown congregation in New York, with the
possibility of a settlement in view. On Monday following the
services of the Sabbath, the officers of the church were kind
enough to ask me to spend a week with them and visit among the
people. Meantime, the morning papers laid before us the startling
fact that the city of Chicago was burning and that its population
were becoming homeless. The tidings impressed me powerfully,
waking the deepest sympathy. I said to myself, “Here is a phase of
life as remarkable as any witnessed during the war.” I obeyed the
impulse to be on the scene as soon as possible, stated my purpose
to my friends, and was soon among the smoking ruins, finding an
abiding-place with throngs of others in a partially finished
hotel. For days and nights I wandered where a city had been, and
among the extemporized places of refuge harboring all classes of
people. Late one night I sat for a long time on the steps of
Robert Collyer’s church and watched the full moon through the
roofless walls and shattered steeple. There was not an evidence of
life where had been populous streets. It was there and then, as
nearly as I can remember, that the vague outlines of my first
story, “Barriers Burned Away,” began to take form in my mind. I
soon returned home, and began to dream and write, giving during
the following year such hours as could be withdrawn from many
other duties to the construction of the story. I wrote when and
where I could–on steamboats, in railway cars, and at all odd
hours of leisure, often with long breaks in the work of
composition, caused by the pressure of other affairs, again
getting up a sort of white heat from incessantly dwelling upon
scenes and incidents that had become real to me. In brief, the
story took possession of my mind, and grew as naturally as a plant
or a weed in my garden.

It will thus be obvious that at nearly middle age, and in
obedience to an impulse, I was launched as an author; that I had
very slight literary training; and that my appearance as a
novelist was quite as great a surprise to myself as to any of my
friends. The writing of sermons certainly does not prepare one for
the construction of a novel; and to this day certain critics
contemptuously dismiss my books as “preaching.” During nearly four
years of army life, at a period when most young men are forming
style and making the acquaintance of literature, I scarcely had a
chance to read at all. The subsequent years of the pastorate were
too active, except for an occasional dip into a favorite author.

While writing my first story, I rarely thought of the public, the
characters and their experiences absorbing me wholly. When my
narrative was actually in print, there was wakened a very deep
interest as to its reception. I had none of the confidence
resulting from the gradual testing of one’s power or from
association with literary people, and I also was aware that, when
published, a book was far away from the still waters of which
one’s friends are the protecting headlands. That I knew my work to
be exceedingly faulty goes without saying; that it was utterly
bad, I was scarcely ready to believe. Dr. Field, noted for his
pure English diction and taste, would not publish an irredeemable
story, and the constituency of the New York “Evangelist” is well
known to be one of the most intelligent in the country. Friendly
opinions from serial readers were reassuring as far as they went,
but of course the great majority of those who followed the story
were silent. A writer cannot, like a speaker, look into the eyes
of his audience and observe its mental attitude toward his
thought. If my memory serves me, Mr. R. R. Bowker was the earliest
critic to write some friendly words in the “Evening Mail;” but at
first my venture was very generally ignored. Then some unknown
friend marked an influential journal published in the interior of
the State and mailed it so timely that it reached me on Christmas
eve. I doubt if a book was ever more unsparingly condemned than
mine in that review, whose final words were, “The story is
absolutely nauseating.” In this instance and in my salad days I
took pains to find out who the writer was, for if his view was
correct I certainly should not engage in further efforts to make
the public ill. I discovered the reviewer to be a gentleman for
whom I have ever had the highest respect as an editor, legislator,
and honest thinker. My story made upon him just the impression he
expressed, and it would be very stupid on my part to blink the
fact. Meantime, the book was rapidly making for itself friends and
passing into frequent new editions. Even the editor who condemned
the work would not assert that those who bought it were an
aggregation of asses. People cannot be found by thousands who will
pay a dollar and seventy-five cents for a dime novel or a
religious tract. I wished to learn the actual truth more sincerely
than any critic to write it, and at last I ventured to take a copy
to Mr. George Ripley, of the New York “Tribune.” “Here is a man,”
I thought, “whose fame and position as a critic are recognized by
all. If he deigns to notice the book, he will not only say what he
thinks, but I shall have much reason to think as he does.” Mr.
Ripley met the diffident author kindly, asked a few questions, and
took the volume. A few weeks later, to my great surprise, he gave
over a column to a review of the story. Although not blind to its
many faults, he wrote words far more friendly and inspiring than I
ever hoped to see; it would seem that the public had sanctioned
his verdict. From that day to this these two instances have been
types of my experience with many critics, one condemning, another
commending. There is ever a third class who prove their
superiority by sneering at or ignoring what is closely related to
the people. Much thought over my experience led to a conclusion
which the passing years confirm: the only thing for a writer is to
be himself and take the consequences. Even those who regard me as
a literary offender of the blackest dye have never named imitation
among my sins.

As successive books appeared, I began to recognize more and more
clearly another phase of an author’s experience. A writer
gradually forms a constituency, certain qualities in his book
appealing to certain classes of minds. In my own case, I do not
mean classes of people looked at from the social point of view. A
writer who takes any hold on popular attention inevitably learns
the character of his constituency. He appeals, and minds and
temperaments in sympathy respond. Those he cannot touch go on
their way indifferently; those he offends may often strike back.
This is the natural result of any strong assertion of
individuality. Certainly, if I had my choice, I would rather write
a book interesting to the young and to the common people, whom
Lincoln said “God must love, since He made so many of them.” The
former are open to influence; the latter can be quickened and
prepared for something better. As a matter of fact, I find that
there are those in all classes whom my books attract, others who
are repelled, as I have said. It is perhaps one of the pleasantest
experiences of an author’s life to learn from letters and in other
ways that he is forming a circle of friends, none the less
friendly because personally unknown. Their loyalty is both a
safeguard and an inspiration. On one hand, the writer shrinks from
abusing such regard by careless work; on the other, he is
stimulated and encouraged by the feeling that there is a group in
waiting who will appreciate his best endeavor. While I clearly
recognize my limitations, and have no wish to emulate the frog in
the fable, I can truthfully say that I take increasing pains with
each story, aiming to verify every point by experience–my own or
that of others. Not long since, a critic asserted that changes in
one of my characters, resulting from total loss of memory, were
preposterously impossible. If the critic had consulted Ribot’s
“Diseases of Memory,” or some experienced physician, he might have
written more justly. I do not feel myself competent to form a
valuable opinion as to good art in writing, and I cannot help
observing that the art doctors disagree wofully among themselves.
Truth to nature and the realities, and not the following of any
school or fashion, has ever seemed the safest guide. I sometimes
venture to think I know a little about human nature. My active
life brought me in close contact with all kinds of people; there
was no man in my regiment who hesitated to come to my tent or to
talk confidentially by the campfire, while scores of dying men
laid bare to me their hearts. I at least know the nature that
exists in the human breast. It may be inartistic, or my use of it
all wrong. That is a question which time will decide, and I shall
accept the verdict. Over twelve years ago, certain oracles, with
the voice of fate, predicted my speedy eclipse and disappearance.
Are they right in their adverse judgment? I can truthfully say
that now, as at the first, I wish to know the facts in the case.
The moment an author is conceited about his work, he becomes
absurd and is passing into a hopeless condition. If worthy to
write at all, he knows that he falls far short of his ideals; if
honest, he wishes to be estimated at his true worth, and to cast
behind him the mean little Satan of vanity. If he walks under a
conscious sense of greatness, he is a ridiculous figure, for
beholders remember the literary giants of other days and of his
own time, and smile at the airs of the comparatively little man.
On the other hand, no self-respecting writer should ape the false
deprecating “‘umbleness” of Uriah Heep. In short, he wishes to
pass, like a coin, for just what he is worth. Mr. Matthew Arnold
was ludicrously unjust to the West when he wrote, “The Western
States are at this moment being nourished and formed, we hear, on
the novels of a native author called Roe.” Why could not Mr.
Arnold have taken a few moments to look into the bookstores of the
great cities of the West, in order to observe for himself how the
demand of one of the largest and most intelligent reading publics
in the world is supplied? He would have found that the works of
Scott and Dickens were more liberally purchased and generally read
than in his own land of “distinction.” He should have discovered
when in this country that American statesmen (?) are so solicitous
about the intelligence of their constituents that they give
publishers so disposed every opportunity to steal novels
describing the nobility and English persons of distinction; that
tons of such novels have been sold annually in the West, a
thousand to one of the “author called Roe.” The simple truth in
the case is that in spite of this immense and cheap competition,
my novels have made their way and are being read among multitudes
of others. No one buys or reads a book under compulsion; and if
any one thinks that the poorer the book the better the chance of
its being read by the American people, let him try the experiment.
When a critic condemns my books, I accept that as his judgment;
when another critic and scores of men and women, the peers of the
first in cultivation and intelligence, commend the books, I do not
charge them with gratuitous lying. My one aim has become to do my
work conscientiously and leave the final verdict to time and the
public. I wish no other estimate than a correct one; and when the
public indicate that they have had enough of Roe, I shall neither
whine nor write.

As a rule, I certainly stumble on my stories, as well as stumble
through them perhaps. Some incident or unexpected impulse is the
beginning of their existence. One October day I was walking on a
country road, and a chestnut burr lay in my path. I said to
myself, “There is a book in that burr, if I could get it out.”
With little volition on my part, the story “Opening a Chestnut
Burr” took form and was written.

One summer evening, when in New York, I went up to Thomas’s
Garden, near Central Park, to hear the delicious music he was
educating us to appreciate. At a certain point in the programme I
noticed that the next piece would be Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony,
and I glanced around with a sort of congratulatory impulse, as
much as to say, “Now we shall have a treat.” My attention was
immediately arrested and fixed by a young girl who, with the
gentleman escorting her, was sitting near by. My first impression
of her face was one of marvellous beauty, followed by a sense of
dissatisfaction. Such was my distance that I could not annoy her
by furtive observation; and I soon discovered that she would
regard a stare as a tribute. Why was it that her face was so
beautiful, yet so displeasing? Each feature analyzed seemed
perfection, yet the general effect was a mocking, ill-kept
promise. The truth was soon apparent. The expression was not evil,
but frivolous, silly, unredeemed by any genuine womanly grace. She
giggled and flirted through the sublime symphony, till in
exasperation I went out into the promenade under the open sky. In
less than an hour I had my story “A Face Illumined.” I imagined an
artist seeing what I had seen and feeling a stronger vexation in
the wounding of his beauty loving nature; that he learned during
the evening that the girl was a relative of a close friend, and
that a sojourn at a summer hotel on the Hudson was in prospect. On
his return home he conceives the idea of painting the girl’s
features and giving them a harmonious expression. Then the fancy
takes him that the girl is a modern Undine and has not yet
received her woman’s soul. The story relates his effort to
beautify, illumine the face itself by evoking a mind. I never
learned who was the actual girl with the features of an angel and
the face of a fool.

In the case of “He Fell in Love with His Wife,” I merely saw a
paragraph in a paper to the effect that a middle-age widower,
having found it next to impossible to carry on his farm with hired
help, had gone to the county poorhouse and said “If there’s a
decent woman here, I’ll marry her.” For years the homely item
remained an ungerminating seed in my mind, then started to grow,
and the story was written in two months.

My war experience has naturally made the picturesque phase of the
Great Conflict attractive material. In the future I hope to avail
myself still further of interesting periods in American history.

I find that my love of horticulture and outdoor life has grown
with the years. I do not pretend to scientific accuracy or
knowledge. On the contrary, I have regarded plants and birds
rather as neighbors, and have associated with them. When giving to
my parish, I bought a place in the near vicinity of the house
which I had spent my childhood. The front windows of our house
command a noble view of the Hudson, while on the east and south
the Highlands are within rifle-shot. For several years I hesitated
to trust solely to literary work for support. As I have said, not
a few critics insisted that my books should not be read, and would
soon cease to be read. But whether the prediction should prove
true or not, I knew in any case that the critics themselves would
eat my strawberries; so I made the culture of small fruits the
second string to my bow. This business speedily took the form of
growing plants for sale, and was developing rapidly, when
financial misfortune led to my failure and the devotion of my
entire time to writing. Perhaps it was just as well in the end,
for my health was being undermined by too great and conflicting
demands on my energy. In 1878, at Dr. Holland’s request, I wrote a
series of papers on small fruits for “Scribner’s Magazine”–papers
that were expanded into a book entitled “Success with Small
Fruits.” I now aim merely at an abundant home supply of fruits and
vegetables, but in securing this, find pleasure and profit in
testing the many varieties catalogued and offered by nurserymen
and seedsmen. About three years ago the editor of “Harper’s
Magazine” asked me to write one or two papers entitled “One Acre,”
telling its possessor how to make the most and best of it. When
entering on the task, I found there was more in it than I had at
first supposed. Changing the title to “The Home Acre,” I decided
to write a book or manual which might be useful in many rural
homes. There are those who have neither time nor inclination to
read the volumes and journals devoted to horticulture, who yet
have gardens and trees in which they are interested. They wish to
learn in the shortest, clearest way just what to do in order to
secure success, without going into theories, whys, and wherefores,
or concerning themselves with the higher mysteries of garden-lore.
This work is now in course of preparation. In brief, my aim is to
have the book grow out of actual experience, and not merely my
own, either. As far as possible, well-known experts and
authorities are consulted on every point. As a natural
consequence, the book is growing, like the plants to which it
relates. It cannot be written “offhand” or finished “on time” to
suit any one except Dame Nature, who, being feminine, is often
inscrutable and apparently capricious. The experience of one
season is often reversed in the next, and the guide in gardening
of whom I am most afraid is the man who is always sure he is
right. It was my privilege to have the late Mr. Charles Downing as
one of my teachers, and well do I remember how that honest,
sagacious, yet docile student of nature would “put on the brakes”
when I was passing too rapidly to conclusions. It has always been
one of my most cherished purposes to interest people in the
cultivation of the soil and rural life. My effort is to “boil
down” information to the simplest and most practical form. Last
spring, hundreds of varieties of vegetables and small fruits were
planted. A carefully written record is being kept from the time of
planting until the crop is gathered.

My methods of work are briefly these: I go into my study
immediately after breakfast–usually about nine o’clock–and write
or study until three or four in the afternoon, stopping only for a
light lunch. In the early morning and late afternoon I go around
my place, giving directions to the men, and observing the
condition of vegetables, flowers, and trees, and the general
aspect of nature at the time. After dinner, the evening is devoted
to the family, friends, newspapers, and light reading. In former
years I wrote at night, but after a severe attack of insomnia this
practice was almost wholly abandoned. As a rule, the greater part
of a year is absorbed in the production of a novel, and I am often
gathering material for several years in advance of writing.

For manuscript purposes I use bound blankbooks of cheap paper. My
sheets are thus kept securely together and in place–important
considerations in view of the gales often blowing through my study
and the habits of a careless man. This method offers peculiar
advantages for interpolation, as there is always a blank page
opposite the one on which I am writing. After correcting the
manuscript, it is put in typewriting and again revised. There are
also two revisions of the proof. While I do not shirk the tasks
which approach closely to drudgery, especially since my eyesight
is not so good as it was, I also obtain expert assistance. I find
that when a page has become very familiar and I am rather tired of
it, my mind wanders from the close, fixed attention essential to
the best use of words. Perhaps few are endowed with both the
inventive and the critical faculty. A certain inner sense enables
one to know, according to his lights, whether the story itself is
true or false; but elegance of style is due chiefly to training,
to a cultivation like that of the ear for music. Possibly we are
entering on an age in which the people care less for form, for
phraseology, than for what seems to them true, real–for what, as
they would express it, “takes hold of them.” This is no plea or
excuse for careless work, but rather a suggestion that the day of
prolix, fine, flowery writing is passing. The immense number of
well-written books in circulation has made success with careless,
slovenly manuscripts impossible. Publishers and editors will not
even read, much less publish them. Simplicity, lucidity, strength,
a plunge in medias res, are now the qualities and conditions
chiefly desired, rather than finely turned sentences in which it
is apparent more labor has been expended on the vehicle than on
what it contains. The questions of this eager age are, What has he
to say? Does it interest us? As an author, I have felt that my
only chance of gaining and keeping the attention of men and women
was to know, to understand them, to feel with and for them in what
constituted their life. Failing to do this, why should a line of
my books be read? Who reads a modern novel from sense of duty?
There are classics which all must read and pretend to enjoy
whether capable of doing so or not. No critic has ever been so
daft as to call any of my books a classic. Better books are unread
because the writer is not en rapport with the reader. The time has
passed when either the theologian, the politician, or the critic
can take the American citizen metaphorically by the shoulder and
send him along the path in which they think he should go. He has
become the most independent being in the world, good-humoredly
tolerant of the beliefs and fancies of others, while reserving, as
a matter of course, the right to think for himself.

In appealing to the intelligent American public, choosing for
itself among the multitude of books now offered, it is my creed
that an author should maintain completely and thoroughly his own
individuality, and take the consequences. He cannot conjure
strongly by imitating any one, or by representing any school or
fashion. He must do his work conscientiously, for his readers know
by instinct whether or not they are treated seriously and with
respect. Above all, he must understand men and women sufficiently
to interest them; for all the “powers that be” cannot compel them
to read a book they do not like.

My early experience in respect to my books in the British
Dominions has been similar to that of many others. My first
stories were taken by one or more publishers without saying “by
your leave,” and no returns made of any kind. As time passed,
Messrs. Ward, Locke & Co., more than any other house, showed a
disposition to treat me fairly. Increasing sums were given for
successive books. Recently Mr. George Locke visited me, and
offered liberal compensation for each new novel. He also agreed to
give me five per cent copyright on all my old books published by
him, no matter how obtained, in some instances revoking agreements
which precluded the making of any such request on my part. In the
case of many of these books he has no protection, for they are
published by others; but he takes the simple ground that he will
not sell any of my books without giving me a share in the profit.
Such honorable action should tend to make piracy more odious than
ever, on both sides of the sea. Other English firms have offered
me the usual royalty, and I now believe that in spite of our House
of Mis-Representatives at Washington, the majority of the British
publishers are disposed to deal justly and honorably by American
writers. In my opinion, the lower House in Congress has libelled
and slandered the American people by acting as if their
constituents, with thievish instincts, chuckled over pennies saved
when buying pirated books. This great, rich, prosperous nation has
been made a “fence,” a receiver of stolen goods, and shamelessly
committed to the crime for which poor wretches are sent to jail.
Truly, when history is written, and it is learned that the whole
power and statesmanship of the government were enlisted in behalf
of the pork interest, while the literature of the country and the
literary class were contemptuously ignored, it may be that the
present period will become known as the Pork Era of the Republic.
It is a strange fact that English publishers are recognizing our
rights in advance of our own lawmakers.

In relating his experience in the pages of this magazine, Mr.
Julian Hawthorne said in effect that one of the best rewards of
the literary life was the friends it enabled the writer to make.
When giving me his friendship, he proved how true this is. In my
experience the literary class make good, genial, honest friends,
while their keen, alert minds and knowledge of life in many of its
most interesting aspects give an unfailing charm to their society.
One can maintain the most cordial and intimate relations with
editors of magazines and journals if he will recognize that such
relations should have no influence whatever in the acceptance or
declination of manuscripts. I am constantly receiving letters from
literary aspirants who appear to think that if I will use a little
influence their stories or papers would be taken and paid for. I
have no such influence, nor do I wish any, in regard to my own
work. The conscientious editor’s first duty is to his periodical
and its constituents, and he would and should be more scrupulous
in accepting a manuscript from a friend than from a stranger. To
show resentment because a manuscript is returned is absurd,
however great may be our disappointment.

Perhaps one of the most perplexing and often painful experiences
of an author comes from the appeals of those who hope through him
to obtain immediate recognition as writers. One is asked to read
manuscripts and commend them to publishers, or at least to give an
opinion in regard to them, often to revise or even to rewrite
certain portions. I remember that during one month I was asked to
do work on the manuscripts of strangers that would require about a
year of my time. The maker of such request does not realize that
he or she is but one among many, and that the poor author would
have to abandon all hope of supporting his family if he tried to
comply. The majority who thus appeal to one know next to nothing
of the literary life or the conditions of success. They write to
the author in perfect good faith, often relating circumstances
which touch his sympathies; yet if you tell them the truth about
their manuscript, or say you have not time to read it, adding that
you have no influence with editors or publishers beyond securing a
careful examination of what is written, you feel that you are
often set down as a churl, and your inability to comply with their
wishes is regarded as the selfishness and arrogance of success.
The worried author has also his own compunctions, for while he has
tried so often and vainly to secure the recognition requested,
till he is in despair of such effort, he still is haunted by the
fear that he may overlook some genius whom it would be a delight
to guide through what seems a thorny jungle to the inexperienced.

In recalling the past, one remembers when he stood in such sore
need of friends that he dislikes even the appearance of passing by
on the other side. There are no riches in the world like stanch
friends who prove themselves to be such in your need, your
adversity, or your weakness. I have some treasured letters
received after it had been telegraphed throughout the land that I
was a bankrupt and had found myself many thousands of dollars
worse off than nothing. The kindly words and looks, the cordial
grasp of the hand, and the temporary loan occasionally, of those
who stood by me when scarcely sane from overwork, trouble, and,
worse than all, from insomnia, can never be forgotten while a
trace of memory is left. Soon after my insolvency there came a
date when all my interests in my books then published must be sold
to the highest bidder. It seemed in a sense like putting my
children up at auction; and yet I was powerless, since my
interests under contracts were a part of my assets. These rights
had been well advertised in the New York and county papers, as the
statute required, and the popularity of the books was well known.
Any one in the land could have purchased these books from me
forever. A friend made the highest bid and secured the property.
My rights in my first nine novels became his, legally and
absolutely. There was even no verbal agreement between us–nothing
but his kind, honest eyes to reassure me. He not only paid the sum
he had bidden, but then and there wrote a check for a sum which,
with my other assets, immediately liquidated my personal debts,
principal and interest. The children of my fancy are again my
children, for they speedily earned enough to repay my friend and
to enable him to compromise with the holders of indorsed notes in
a way satisfactory to them. It so happened that most of these
creditors resided in my immediate neighborhood. I determined to
fight out the battle in their midst and under their daily
observation, and to treat all alike, without regard to their legal
claims. Only one creditor tried to make life a burden; but he did
his level best. The others permitted me to meet my obligations in
my own time and way, and I am grateful for their consideration.
When all had received the sum mutually agreed upon, and I had
shaken hands with them, I went to the quaint and quiet little city
of Santa Barbara, on the Pacific coast, for a change and partial
rest. While there, however, I wrote my Charleston story, “The
Earth Trembled.” In September, 1887, I returned to my home at
Cornwall-on-the-Hudson, and resumed my work in a region made dear
by the memories of a lifetime. Just now I am completing a Southern
story entitled “Miss Lou.”

It so happens in my experience that I have discovered one who
appears willing to stick closer to me than a brother, and even to
pass as my “double,” or else he is so helplessly in the hands of
his publishers as to be an object of pity. A certain “Edward R.
Roe” is also an author, and is suffering cruelly in reputation
because his publishers so manage that he is identified with me. By
strange coincidence, they hit upon a cover for his book which is
almost a facsimile of the cover of my pamphlet novel, “An Original
Belle,” previously issued. The R in the name of this unfortunate
man has been furnished with such a diminutive tail that it passes
for a P, and even my friends supposed that the book, offered
everywhere for sale, was mine. In many instances I have asked at
news stands, “Whose book is that?” The prompt and invariable
answer has been, “E. P. Roe’s.” I have seen book notices in which
the volume was ascribed to me in anything but flattering terms. A
distinguished judge, in a carefully written opinion, is so
uncharitable as to characterize the coincidence in cover as a
“fraud,” and to say, “No one can look at the covers of the two
publications and fail to see evidence of a design to deceive the
public and to infringe upon the rights of the publisher and
author”–that is, the rights of Messrs. Dodd, Mead would be well,
as a rule, for other writers to begin with reputable, honorable
publishers and to remain with them. A publisher can do more and
better with a line of books than with isolated volumes. When an
author’s books are scattered, there is not sufficient inducement
for any one to push them strongly, nor, as in the case above
related, to protect a writer against a “double,” should one
appear. Authors often know little about business, and should deal
with a publisher who will look after their interests as truly as
his own. Unbusinesslike habits and methods are certainly not
traits to be cultivated, for we often suffer grievously from their
existence; yet as far as possible the author should be free from
distracting cares. The novelist does his best work when abstracted
from the actual world and living in its ideal counterpart which
for the time he is imagining. When his creative work is completed,
he should live very close to the real world, or else he will be
imagining a state of things which neither God nor man had any hand
in bringing about.

“Mother,” remarked Farmer Banning, discontentedly, “Susie is
making a long visit.”

“She is coming home next week,” said his cheery wife. She had
drawn her low chair close to the air-tight stove, for a late March
snowstorm was raging without.

“It seems to me that I miss her more and more.”

“Well, I’m not jealous.”

“Oh, come, wife, you needn’t be. The idea! But I’d be jealous if
our little girl was sorter weaned away from us by this visit in
town.”

“Now, see here, father, you beat all the men I ever heard of in
scolding about farmers borrowing, and here you are borrowing
trouble.”

“Well, I hope I won’t have to pay soon. But I’ve been thinking
that the old farmhouse may look small and appear lonely after her
gay winter. When she is away, it’s too big for me, and a suspicion
lonely for us both. I’ve seen that you’ve missed her more than I
have.”

“I guess you’re right. Well, she’s coming home, as I said, and we
must make home seem home to her. The child’s growing up. Why,
she’ll be eighteen week after next. You must give her something
nice on her birthday.”

“I will,” said the farmer, his rugged, weather-beaten face
softening with memories. “Is our little girl as old as that? Why,
only the other day I was carrying her on my shoulder to the barn
and tossing her into the haymow. Sure enough, the 10th of April
will be her birthday. Well, she shall choose her own present.”

On the afternoon of the 5th of April he went down the long bill to
the station, and was almost like a lover in his eagerness to see
his child. He had come long before the train’s schedule time, but
was rewarded at last. When Susie appeared, she gave him a kiss
before every one, and a glad greeting which might have satisfied
the most exacting of lovers. He watched her furtively as they rode
at a smart trot up the hill. Farmer Banning kept no old nags for
his driving, but strong, well-fed, spirited horses that sometimes
drew a light vehicle almost by the reins. “Yes,” he thought, “she
has grown a little citified. She’s paler, and has a certain air or
style that don’t seem just natural to the hill. Well, thank the
Lord! she doesn’t seem sorry to go up the hill once more.”

“There’s the old place, Susie, waiting for you,” he said. “It
doesn’t look so very bleak, does it, after all the fine city
houses you’ve seen?”

“Yes, father, it does. It never appeared so bleak before.”

He looked at his home, and in the late gray afternoon, saw it in a
measure with her eyes–the long brown, bare slopes, a few gaunt
old trees about the house, and the top boughs of the apple-orchard
behind a sheltering hill in the rear of the dwelling.

“Father,” resumed the girl, “we ought to call our place the Bleak
House. I never so realized before how bare and desolate it looks,
standing there right in the teeth of the north wind.”

His countenance fell, but he had no time for comment. A moment
later Susie was in her mother’s arms. The farmer lifted the trunk
to the horse-block and drove to the barn. “I guess it will be the
old story,” he muttered. “Home has become ‘Bleak House.’ I suppose
it did look bleak to her eyes, especially at this season. Well,
well, some day Susie will go to the city to stay, and then it will
be Bleak House sure enough.”

“Oh, father,” cried his daughter when, after doing his evening
work, he entered with the shadow of his thoughts still upon his
face–”oh, father, mother says I can choose my birthday present!”

“Yes, Sue; I’ve passed my word.”

“And so I have your bond. My present will make you open your
eyes.”

“And pocket-book too, I suppose. I’ll trust you, however, not to
break me. What is it to be?”

“I’ll tell you the day before, and not till then.”

After supper they drew around the stove. Mrs. Banning got out her
knitting, as usual, and prepared for city gossip. The farmer
rubbed his hands over the general aspect of comfort, and
especially over the regained presence of his child’s bright face.
“Well, Sue,” he remarked, “you’ll own that this room in the house
doesn’t look very bleak?”

“No, father, I’ll own nothing of the kind. Your face and mother’s
are not bleak, but the room is.”

“Well,” said the farmer, rather disconsolately, “I fear the old
place has been spoiled for you. I was saying to mother before you
came home–”

“There now, father, no matter about what you were saying. Let
Susie tell us why the room is bleak.”

The girl laughed softly, got up, and taking a billet of wood from
the box, put it into the air-tight. “The stove has swallowed it
just as old Trip did his supper. Shame! you greedy dog,” she
added, caressing a great Newfoundland that would not leave her a
moment. “Why can’t you learn to eat your meals like a gentleman?”
Then to her father, “Suppose we could sit here and see the flames
curling all over and around that stick. Even a camp in the woods
is jolly when lighted up by a flickering blaze.”

“Oh–h!” said the farmer; “you think an open fire would take away
the bleakness?”

“Certainly. The room would be changed instantly, and mother’s face
would look young and rosy again. The blue-black of this sheet-iron
stove makes the room look blue-black.”

“Open fires don’t give near as much heat,” said her father,
meditatively. “They take an awful lot of wood; and wood is getting
scarce in these parts.”

“I should say so! Why don’t you farmers get together, appoint a
committee to cut down every tree remaining, then make it a State-
prison offence ever to set out another? Why, father, you cut
nearly all the trees from your lot a few years ago and sold the
wood. Now that the trees are growing again, you are talking of
clearing up the land for pasture. Just think of the comfort we
could get out of that wood-lot! What crop would pay better? All
the upholsterers in the world cannot furnish a room as an open
hardwood fire does; and all the produce of the farm could not buy
anything else half so nice.”

“Say, mother,” said her father, after a moment, “I guess I’ll get
down that old Franklin from the garret to-morrow and see if it
can’t furnish this room.”

The next morning he called rather testily to the hired man, who
was starting up the lane with an axe, “Hiram, I’ve got other work
for you. Don’t cut a stick in that wood-lot unless I tell you.”

The evening of the 9th of April was cool but clear, and the farmer
said, genially, “Well, Sue, prospects good for fine weather on
your birthday. Glad of it; for I suppose you will want me to go to
town with you for your present, whatever it is to be.”

“You’ll own up a girl can keep a secret now, won’t you?”

“He’ll have to own more’n that,” added his wife; “he must own that
an ole woman hasn’t lost any sleep from curiosity.”

“How much will be left me to own to-morrow night?” said the
farmer, dubiously. “I suppose Sue wants a watch studded with
diamonds, or a new house, or something else that she darsn’t speak
of till the last minute, even to her mother.”

“Nothing of the kind. I want only all your time tomorrow, and all
Hiram’s time, after you have fed the stock.”

“All our time!

“Yes, the entire day, in which you both are to do just what I
wish. You are not going gallivanting to the city, but will have to
work hard.”

“Well, I’m beat! I don’t know what you want any more than I did at
first.”

“Yes, you do–your time and Hiram’s.”

“Give it up. It’s hardly the season for a picnic. “We might go
fishing–”

“We must go to bed, so as to be up early, all hands.”

“Oh, hold on, Sue; I do like this wood-fire. If it wouldn’t make
you vain, I’d tell you how–”

“Pretty, father. Say it out.”

“Oh, you know it, do you? Well, how pretty you look in the
firelight. Even mother, there, looks ten years younger. Keep your
low seat, child, and let me look at you. So you’re eighteen? My!
my! how the years roll around! It will be Bleak House for mother
and me, in spite of the wood-fire, when you leave us.”

“It won’t be Bleak House much longer,” she replied with a
significant little nod.

The next morning at an early hour the farmer said, “All ready,
Sue. Our time is yours till night; so queen it over us.” And black
Hiram grinned acquiescence, thinking he was to have an easy time.

“Queen it, did you say?” cried Sue, in great spirits. “Well, then,
I shall be queen of spades. Get ‘em, and come with me. Bring a
pickaxe, too.” She led the way to a point not far from the
dwelling, and resumed: “A hole here, father, a hole there, Hiram,
big enough for a small hemlock, and holes all along the northeast
side of the house. Then lots more holes, all over the lawn, for
oaks, maples, dogwood, and all sorts to pretty trees, especially
evergreens.’

“Oh, ho!” cried the farmer; “now I see the hole where the
woodchuck went in.”

“But you don’t see the hole where he’s coming out. When that is
dug, even the road will be lined with trees. Foolish old father!
you thought I’d be carried away with city gewgaws, fine furniture,
dresses, and all that sort of thing. You thought I’d be pining for
what you couldn’t afford, what wouldn’t do you a particle of good,
nor me either, in the long run. I’m going to make you set out
trees enough to double the value of your place and take all the
bleakness and bareness from this hillside. To-day is only the
beginning. I did get some new notions in the city which made me
discontented with my home, but they were not the notions you were
worrying about. In the suburbs I saw that the most costly houses
were made doubly attractive by trees and shrubbery, and I knew
that trees would grow for us as well as for millionaires–My
conscience! if there isn’t–” and the girl frowned and bit her
lips.

“Is that one of the city beaux you were telling us about?” asked
her father, sotto voce.

“Yes; but I don’t want any beaux around to-day. I didn’t think
he’d be so persistent.” Then, conscious that she was not dressed
for company, but for work upon which she had set her heart, she
advanced and gave Mr. Minturn a rather cool greeting.

But the persistent beau was equal to the occasion. He had endured
Sue’s absence as long as he could, then had resolved on a long
day’s siege, with a grand storming-onset late in the afternoon.

“Please, Miss Banning,” he began, “don’t look askance at me for
coming at this unearthly hour. I claim the sacred rites of
hospitality. I’m an invalid. The doctor said I needed country air,
or would have prescribed it if given a chance. You said I might
come to see you some day, and by playing Paul Pry I found out, you
remember, that this was your birthday, and–”

“And this is my father, Mr. Minturn.”

Mr. Minturn shook the farmer’s hand with a cordiality calculated
to awaken suspicions of his designs in a pump, had its handle been
thus grasped. “Mr. Banning will forgive me for appearing with the
lark,” he continued volubly, determining to break the ice. “One
can’t get the full benefit of a day in the country if he starts in
the afternoon.”

The farmer was polite, but nothing more. If there was one thing
beyond all others with which he could dispense, it was a beau for
Sue.

Sue gave her father a significant, disappointed glance, which
meant, “I won’t get my present to day”; but he turned and said to
Hiram, “Dig the hole right there, two feet across, eighteen inches
deep.” Then he started for the house. While not ready for suitors,
his impulse to bestow hospitality was prompt.

The alert Mr. Minturn had observed the girl’s glance, and knew
that the farmer had gone to prepare his wife for a guest. He
determined not to remain unless assured of a welcome. “Come, Miss
Banning,” he said, “we are at least friends, and should be frank.
How much misunderstanding and trouble would often be saved if
people would just speak their thought! This is your birthday–your
day. It should not be marred by any one. It would distress me
keenly if I were the one to spoil it. Why not believe me literally
and have your way absolutely about this day? I could come another
time. Now show that a country girl, at least, can speak her mind.”

With an embarrassed little laugh she answered, “I’m half inclined
to take you at your word; but it would look so inhospitable.”

“Bah for looks! The truth, please. By the way, though, you never
looked better than in that trim blue walking-suit.”

“Old outgrown working-suit, you mean. How sincere you are!”

“Indeed I am. Well, I’m de trop; that much is plain. You will let
me come another day, won’t you?”

“Yes, and I’ll be frank too and tell you about this day. Father’s
a busy man, and his spring work is beginning, but as my birthday-
present he has given me all his time and all Hiram’s yonder. Well,
I learned in the city how trees improved a home; and I had planned
to spend this long day in setting out trees–planned it ever since
my return. So you see–”

“Of course I see and approve,” cried Minturn. “I know now why I
had such a wild impulse to come out here to-day. Why, certainly.
Just fancy me a city tramp looking for work, and not praying I
won’t find it, either. I’ll work for my board. I know how to set
out trees. I can prove it, for I planted those thrifty fellows
growing about our house in town. Think how much more you’ll
accomplish, with another man to help–one that you can order
around to your heart’s content.”

“The idea of my putting you to work!”

“A capital idea! and if a man doesn’t work when a woman puts him
at it he isn’t worth the powder–I won’t waste time even in
original remarks. I’ll promise you there will be double the number
of trees out by night. Let me take your father’s spade and show
you how I can dig. Is this the place? If I don’t catch up with
Hiram, you may send the tramp back to the city.” And before she
could remonstrate, his coat was off and he at work.

Laughing, yet half in doubt, she watched him. The way he made the
earth fly was surprising. “Oh, come,” she said after a few
moments, “you have shown your goodwill. A steam-engine could not
keep it up at that rate.”

“Perhaps not; but I can. Before you engage me, I wish you to know
that I am equal to old Adam, and can dig.”

“Engage you!” she thought with a little flutter of dismay. “I
could manage him with the help of town conventionalities; but how
will it be here? I suppose I can keep father and Hiram within
earshot, and if he is so bent on–well, call it a lark, since he
has referred to that previous bird, perhaps I might as well have a
lark too, seeing it’s my birthday.” Then she spoke. “Mr. Minturn!”

“I’m busy.”

“But really–”

“And truly tell me, am I catching up with Hiram?”

“You’ll get down so deep that you’ll drop through if you’re not
careful.”

“There’s nothing like having a man who is steady working for you.
Now, most fellows would stop and giggle at such little amusing
remarks.”

“You are soiling your trousers.”

“Yes, you’re right. They are mine. There; isn’t that a regulation
hole? ‘Two feet across and eighteen deep.’”

“Yah! yah!” cackled Hiram; “eighteen foot deep! Dat ud be a well.”

“Of course it would, and truth would lie at its bottom. Can I
stay, Miss Banning?”

“Did you ever see the like?” cried the farmer, who had appeared,
unnoticed.

“Look here, father,” said the now merry girl, “perhaps I was
mistaken. This–”

“Tramp–” interjected Minturn.

“Says he’s looking for work and knows how to set out trees.”

“And will work all day for a dinner,” the tramp promptly added.

“If he can dig holes at that rate, Sue,” said her father, catching
their spirit, “he’s worth a dinner. But you’re boss to-day; I’m
only one of the hands.”

“I’m only another,” said Minturn, touching his hat.

“Boss, am I? I’ll soon find out. Mr. Minturn, come with me and don
a pair of overalls. You shan’t put me to shame, wearing that
spick-and-span suit, neither shall you spoil it. Oh, you’re in for
it now! You might have escaped, and come another day, when I could
have received you in state and driven you out behind father’s
frisky bays, When you return to town with blistered hands and
aching bones, you will at least know better another time.”

“I don’t know any better this time, and just yearn for those
overalls.”

“To the house, then, and see mother before you become a wreck.”

Farmer Banning looked after him and shook his head. Hiram spoke
his employer’s thought, “Dar ar gem’lin act like he gwine ter set
hisself out on dis farm.”

Sue had often said, “I can never be remarkable for anything; but I
won’t be commonplace.” So she did not leave her guest in the
parlor while she rushed off for a whispered conference with her
mother. The well-bred simplicity of her manner, which often
stopped just short of brusqueness, was never more apparent than
now. “Mother!” she called from the parlor door.

The old lady gave a few final directions to her maid-of-all-work,
and then appeared.

“Mother, this is Mr. Minturn, one of my city friends, of whom I
have spoken to you. He is bent on helping me set out trees.”

“Yes, Mrs. Banning, so bent that your daughter found that she
would have to employ her dog to get me off the place.”

Now, it had so happened that in discussing with her mother the
young men whom she had met, Sue had said little about Mr. Minturn;
but that little was significant to the experienced matron. Words
had slipped out now and then which suggested that the girl did
more thinking than talking concerning him; and she always referred
to him in some light which she chose to regard as ridiculous, but
which had not seemed in the least absurd to the attentive
listener. When her husband, therefore, said that Mr. Minturn had
appeared on the scene, she felt that an era of portentous events
had begun. The trees to be set out would change the old place
greatly, but a primeval forest shading the door would be as
nothing compared with the vicissitude which a favored “beau” might
produce. But mothers are more unselfish than fathers, and are
their daughters’ natural allies unless the suitor is
objectionable. Mrs. Banning was inclined to be hospitable on
general principles, meantime eager on her own account to see
something of this man, about whom she had presentiments. So she
said affably, “My daughter can keep her eye on the work which she
is so interested in, and yet give you most of her time.–Susan, I
will entertain Mr. Minturn while you change your dress.”

She glanced at her guest dubiously, receiving for the moment the
impression that the course indicated by her mother was the correct
one. The resolute admirer knew well what a fiasco the day would be
should the conventionalities prevail, and so said promptly: “Mrs.
Banning, I appreciate your kind intentions, and I hope some day
you may have the chance to carry them out. To-day, as your husband
understands, I am a tramp from the city looking for work. I have
found it, and have been engaged.–Miss Banning, I shall hold you
inflexibly to our agreement–a pair of overalls and dinner.”

Sue said a few words of explanation. Her mother laughed, but
urged, “Do go and change your dress.”

“I protest!” cried Mr. Minturn. “The walking-suit and overalls go
together.”

“Walking-suit, indeed!” repeated Sue, disdainfully. “But I shall
not change it. I will not soften one feature of the scrape you
have persisted in getting yourself into.”

“Please don’t.”

“Mr. Minturn,” said the matron, with smiling positiveness, “Susie
is boss only out of doors; I am, in the house. There is a fresh-
made cup of coffee and some eggs on toast in the dining-room.
Having taken such an early start, you ought to have a lunch before
being put to work.”

“Yes,” added Sue, “and the out-door boss says you can’t go to work
until at least the coffee is sipped.”

“She’s shrewd, isn’t she, Mrs. Banning? She knows she will get
twice as much work out of me on the strength of that coffee.
Please get the overalls. I will not sip, but swallow the coffee,
unless it’s scalding, so that no time may be lost. Miss Banning
must see all she had set her heart upon accomplished to-day, and a
great deal more.”

The matron departed on her quest, and as she pulled out the
overalls, nodded her head significantly. “Things will be serious
sure enough if he accomplishes all he has set his heart on,” she
muttered. “Well, he doesn’t seem afraid to give us a chance to see
him. He certainly will look ridiculous in these overalls, but not
much more so than Sue in that old dress. I do wish she would
change it.”

The girl had considered this point, but with characteristic
decision had thought: “No; he shall see us all on the plainest
side of our life. He always seemed a good deal of an exquisite in
town, and he lives in a handsome house. If to-day’s experience at
the old farm disgusts him, so be it. My dress is clean and tidy,
if it is outgrown and darned; and mother is always neat, no matter
what she wears. I’m going through the day just as I planned; and
if he’s too fine for us, now is the time to find it out. He may
have come just for a lark, and will laugh with his folks to-night
over the guy of a girl I appear; but I won’t yield even to the
putting of a ribbon in my hair.”

Mrs. Banning never permitted the serving of cold slops for coffee,
and Mr. Minturn had to sip the generous and fragrant beverage
slowly. Meanwhile, his thoughts were busy. “Bah! for the old
saying, ‘Take the goods the gods send,’” he mused. “Go after your
goods and take your pick. I knew my head was level in coming out.
All is just as genuine as I supposed it would be–simple, honest,
homely. The girl isn’t homely, though, but she’s just as genuine
as all the rest, in that old dress which fits her like a glove. No
shams and disguises on this field-day of my life. And her mother!
A glance at her comfortable amplitude banished my one fear.
There’s not a sharp angle about her. I was satisfied about Miss
Sue, but the term ‘mother-in-law’ suggests vague terrors to any
man until reassured.–Ah, Miss Banning,” he said, “this coffee
would warm the heart of an anchorite. No wonder you are inspired
to fine things after drinking such nectar.”

“Yes, mother is famous for her coffee. I know that’s fine, and you
can praise it; but I’ll not permit any ironical remarks concerning
myself.”

“I wouldn’t, if I were you, especially when you are mistress of
the situation. Still, I can’t help having my opinion of you. Why
in the world didn’t you choose as your present something stylish
from the city?”

“Something, I suppose you mean, in harmony with my very stylish
surroundings and present appearance.”

“I didn’t mean anything of the kind, and fancy you know it. Ah!
here are the overalls. Now deeds, not words. I’ll leave my coat,
watch, cuffs, and all impedimenta with you, Mrs. Banning. Am I not
a spectacle to men and gods?” he added, drawing up the garment,
which ceased to be nether in that it reached almost to his
shoulders.

“Indeed you are,” cried Sue, holding her side from laughing. Mrs.
Banning also vainly tried to repress her hilarity over the absurd
guy into which the nattily-dressed city man had transformed
himself.

“Come,” he cried, “no frivolity! You shall at least say I kept my
word about the trees to-day.” And they started at once for the
scene of action, Minturn obtaining on the way a shovel from the
tool-room.

“To think she’s eighteen years old and got a beau!” muttered the
farmer, as he and Hiram started two new holes. They were dug and
others begun, yet the young people had not returned. “That’s the
way with young men nowadays–’big cry, little wool.’ I thought I
was going to have Sue around with me all day. Might as well get
used to it, I suppose. Eighteen! Her mother’s wasn’t much older
when–yes, hang it, there’s always a when with these likely girls.
I’d just like to start in again on that day when I tossed her into
the haymow.”

“What are you talking to yourself about, father?”

“Oh! I thought I had seen the last of you to-day.”

“Perhaps you will wish you had before night.”

“Well, now, Sue! the idea of letting Mr. Minturn rig himself out
like that! There’s no use of scaring the crows so long before
corn-planting.” And the farmer’s guffaw was quickly joined by
Hiram’s broad “Yah! yah!”

She frowned a little as she said, “He doesn’t look any worse than
I do.”

“Come, Mr. Banning, Solomon in all his glory could not so take
your daughter’s eye to-day as a goodly number of trees standing
where she wants them. I suggest that you loosen the soil with the
pickaxe, then I can throw it out rapidly. Try it.”

The farmer did so, not only for Minturn, but for Hiram also. The
lightest part of the work thus fell to him. “We’ll change about,”
he said, “when you get tired.”

But Minturn did not get weary apparently, and under this new
division of the toil the number of holes grew apace.

“Sakes alive, Mr. Minturn!” ejaculated Mr. Banning, “one would
think you had been brought up on a farm.”

“Or at ditch-digging,” added the young man. “No; my profession is
to get people into hot water and then make them pay roundly to get
out. I’m a lawyer. Times have changed in cities. It’s there you’ll
find young men with muscle, if anywhere. Put your hand here, sir,
and you’ll know whether Miss Banning made a bad bargain in hiring
me for the day.”

“Why!” exclaimed the astonished farmer, “you have the muscle of a
blacksmith.”

“Yes, sir; I could learn that trade in about a month.”

“You don’t grow muscle like that in a law-office?”

“No, indeed; nothing but bills grow there. A good fashion, if not
abused, has come in vogue, and young men develop their bodies as
well as brains. I belong to an athletic club in town, and could
take to pugilism should everything else fail.”

“Is there any prospect of your coming to that?” Sue asked
mischievously.

“If we were out walking, and two or three rough fellows gave you
impudence–” He nodded significantly.

“What could you do against two or three? They’d close on you.”

“A fellow taught to use his hands doesn’t let men close on him.”

“Yah, yah! reckon not,” chuckled Hiram. One of the farm household
had evidently been won.

“It seems to me,” remarked smiling Sue, “that I saw several young
men in town who appeared scarcely equal to carrying their canes.”

“Dudes?”

“That’s what they are called, I believe.”

“They are not men. They are neither fish, flesh, nor fowl, but the
beginning of the great downward curve of evolution. Men came up
from monkeys, it’s said, you know, but science is in despair over
the final down-comes of dudes. They may evolute into
grasshoppers.”

The farmer was shaken with mirth, and Sue could not help seeing
that he was having a good time. She, however, felt that no
tranquilly exciting day was before her, as she had anticipated.
What wouldn’t that muscular fellow attempt before night? He
possessed a sort of vim and cheerful audacity which made her
tremble, “He is too confident,” she thought, “and needs a lesson.
All this digging is like that of soldiers who soon mean to drop
their shovels. I don’t propose to be carried by storm just when he
gets ready. He can have his lark, and that’s all to-day. I want a
good deal of time to think before I surrender to him or any one
else.”

During the remainder of the forenoon these musings prevented the
slightest trace of sentimentality from appearing in her face or
words. She had to admit mentally that Minturn gave her no occasion
for defensive tactics. He attended as strictly to business as did
Hiram, and she was allowed to come and go at will. At first she
merely ventured to the house, to “help mother,” as she said. Then,
with growing confidence, she went here and there to select sites
for trees; but Minturn dug on no longer “like a steam-engine,” yet
in an easy, steady, effective way that was a continual surprise to
the farmer.

“Well, Sue,” said her father at last, “you and mother ought to
have an extra dinner; for Mr. Minturn certainly has earned one.”

“I promised him only a dinner,” she replied; “nothing was said
about its being extra.”

“Quantity is all I’m thinking of,” said Minturn. “I have the sauce
which will make it a feast.”

“Beckon it’s gwine on twelve,” said Hiram, cocking his eye at the
sun. “Hadn’t I better feed de critters?”

“Ah, old man! own up, now; you’ve got a backache,” said Minturn.

“Dere is kin’ ob a crik comin’–”

“Drop work, all hands,” cried Sue. “Mr. Minturn has a ‘crik’ also,
but he’s too proud to own it. How you’ll groan for this to-morrow,
sir!”

“If you take that view of the case, I may be under the necessity
of giving proof positive to the contrary by coming out to-morrow.”

“You’re not half through yet. The hardest part is to come.”

“Oh, I know that,” he replied; and he gave her such a humorously
appealing glance that she turned quickly toward the house to hide
a conscious flush.

The farmer showed him to the spare-room, in which he found his
belongings. Left to make his toilet, he muttered, “Ah, better and
better! This is not the regulation refrigerator into which guests
are put at farmhouses. All needed for solid comfort is here, even
to a slight fire in the air-tight. Now, isn’t that rosy old lady a
jewel of a mother-in-law? She knows that a warm man shouldn’t get
chilled just as well as if she had studied athletics. Miss Sue,
however, is a little chilly. She’s on the fence yet. Jupiter! I am
tired. Oh, well, I don’t believe I’ll have seven years of this
kind of thing. You were right, though, old man, if your Rachel was
like mine. What’s that rustle in the other room? She’s dressing
for dinner. So must I; and I’m ready for it. If she has romantic
ideas about love and lost appetites, I’m a goner.”

When he descended to the parlor, his old stylish self again, Sue
was there, robed in a gown which he had admired before, revealing
the fact to her by approving glances. But now he said, “You don’t
look half so well as you did before.”

“I can’t say that of you,” she replied.

“A man’s looks are of no consequence.”

“Few men think so.”

“Oh, they try to please such critical eyes as I now am meeting.”

“And throw dust in them too sometimes.”

“Yes; gold dust, often. I haven’t much of that.”

“It would be a pity to throw it away if you had.”

“No matter how much was thrown, I don’t think it would blind you,
Miss Banning.”

The dining-room door across the hall opened, and the host and
hostess appeared. “Why, father and mother, how fine you look!”

“It would be strange indeed if we did not honor this day,” said
Mrs. Banning. “I hope you have not so tired yourself, sir, that
you cannot enjoy your dinner. I could scarcely believe my eyes as
I watched you from the window.”

“I am afraid I shall astonish you still more at the table. I am
simply ravenous.”

“This is your chance,” cried Sue. “You are now to be paid in the
coin you asked for.”

Sue did remark to herself by the time they reached dessert and
coffee, “I need have no scruples in refusing a man with such an
appetite; he won’t pine. He is a lawyer, sure enough. He is just
winning father and mother hand over hand.”

Indeed, the bosom of good Mrs. Banning must have been environed
with steel not to have had throbs of goodwill toward one who
showed such hearty appreciation of her capital dinner. But Sue
became only the more resolved that she was not going to yield so
readily to this muscular suitor who was digging and eating his way
straight into the hearts of her ancestors, and she proposed to be
unusually elusive and alert during the afternoon. She was a little
surprised when he resumed his old tactics.

After drinking a second cup of coffee, he rose, and said, “As an
honest man, I have still a great deal to do after such a dinner.”

“Well, it has just done me good to see you,” said Mrs. Banning,
smiling genially over her old-fashioned coffee-pot. “I feel highly
complimented.”

“I doubt whether I shall be equal to another such compliment
before the next birthday. I hope, Miss Susie, you have observed my
efforts to do honor to the occasion?”

“Oh,” cried the girl, “I naturally supposed you were trying to get
even in your bargain.”

“I hope to be about sundown. I’ll get into those overalls at once,
and I trust you will put on your walking-suit.”

“Yes, it will be a walking-suit for a short time. We must walk to
the wood-lot for the trees, unless you prefer to ride.–Father,
please tell Hiram to get the two-horse wagon ready.”

When the old people were left alone, the farmer said, “Well,
mother, Sue has got a suitor, and if he don’t suit her–” And then
his wit gave out.

“There, father, I never thought you’d come to that. It’s well she
has, for you will soon have to be taken care of.”

“He’s got the muscle to do it. He shall have my law-business,
anyway.”

“Thank the Lord, it isn’t much; but that’s not saying he shall
have Sue.”

“Why, what have you against him?”

“Nothing so far. I was only finding out if you had anything
against him.”

“Lawyers, indeed! What would become of the men if women turned
lawyers. Do you think Sue–”

“Hush!”

They all laughed till the tears came when Minturn again appeared
dressed for work; but he nonchalantly lighted a cigar and was
entirely at his ease.

Sue was armed with thick gloves and a pair of pruning-nippers.
Minturn threw a spade and pickaxe on his shoulder, and Mr.
Banning, whom Sue had warned threateningly “never to be far away,”
tramped at their side as they went up the lane. Apparently there
was no need of such precaution, for the young man seemed wholly
bent on getting up the trees, most of which she had selected and
marked during recent rambles. She helped now vigorously, pulling
on the young saplings as they loosened the roots, then trimming
them into shape. More than once, however, she detected glances,
and his thoughts were more flattering than she imagined. “What
vigor she has in that supple, rounded form! Her very touch ought
to put life into these trees; I know it would into me. How young
she looks in that comical old dress which barely reaches her
ankles! Yes, Hal Minturn; and remember, that trim little ankle can
put a firm foot down for or against you–so no blundering.”

He began to be doubtful whether he would make his grand attack
that day, and finally decided against it, unless a very favorable
opportunity occurred, until her plan of birthday-work had been
carried out and he had fulfilled the obligation into which he had
entered in the morning. He labored on manfully, seconding all her
wishes, and taking much pains to get the young trees up with an
abundance of fibrous roots. At last his assiduity induced her to
relent a little, and she smiled sympathetically as she remarked,
“I hope you are enjoying yourself. Well, never mind; some other
day you will fare better.”

“Why should I not enjoy myself?” he asked in well-feigned
surprise. “What condition of a good time is absent? Even an April
day has forgotten to be moody, and we are having unclouded, genial
sunshine. The air is delicious with springtime fragrance. Were
ever hemlocks so aromatic as these young fellows? They come out of
the ground so readily that one would think them aware of their
proud destiny. Of course I’m enjoying myself. Even the robins and
sparrows know it, and are singing as if possessed.”

“Hadn’t you better give up your law-office and turn farmer?”

“This isn’t farming. This is embroidery-work.”

“Well, if all these trees grow they will embroider the old place,
won’t they?”

“They’ll grow, every mother’s son of ‘em.”

“What makes you so confident?”

“I’m not confident. That’s where you are mistaken.” And he gave
her such a direct, keen look that she suddenly found something to
do elsewhere.

“I declare!” she exclaimed mentally, “he seems to read my very
thoughts.”

At last the wagon was loaded with trees enough to occupy the holes
which had been dug, and they started for the vicinity of the
farmhouse again. Mr. Banning had no match-making proclivities
where Sue was concerned, as may be well understood, and had never
been far off. Minturn, however, had appeared so single-minded in
his work, so innocent of all designs upon his daughter, that the
old man began to think that this day’s performance was only a
tentative and preliminary skirmish, and that if there were danger
it lurked in the unknown future. He was therefore inclined to be
less vigilant, reasoning philosophically, “I suppose it’s got to
come some time or other. It looks as if Sue might go a good deal
further than this young man and fare worse. But then she’s only
eighteen, and he knows it. I guess he’s got sense enough not to
plant his corn till the sun’s higher. He can see with half an eye
that my little girl isn’t ready to drop, like an over-ripe apple.”
Thus mixing metaphors and many thoughts, he hurried ahead to open
the gate for Hiram.

“I’m in for it now,” thought Sue, and she instinctively assumed an
indifferent expression and talked volubly of trees.

“Yes, Miss Banning,” he said formally, “by the time your hair is
tinged with gray the results of this day’s labor will be seen far
and wide. No passenger in the cars, no traveller in the valley,
but will turn his eyes admiringly in this direction.”

“I wasn’t thinking of travellers,” she answered, “but of making an
attractive home in which I can grow old contentedly. Some day when
you have become a gray-haired and very dignified judge you may
come out and dine with us again. You can then smoke your cigar
under a tree which you helped to plant.”

“Certainly, Miss Banning. With such a prospect, how could you
doubt that I was enjoying myself? What suggested the judge? My
present appearance?”

The incongruity of the idea with his absurd aspect and a certain
degree of nervousness set her off again, and she startled the
robins by a laugh as loud and clear as their wild notes.

“I don’t care,” she cried. “I’ve had a jolly birthday, and am
accomplishing all on which I had set my heart.”

“Yes, and a great deal more, Miss Banning,” he replied with a
formal bow. “In all your scheming you hadn’t set your heart on my
coming out and–does modesty permit me to say it?–helping a
little.”

“Now, you have helped wonderfully, and you must not think I don’t
appreciate it.”

“Ah, how richly I am rewarded!”

She looked at him with a laughing and perplexed little frown, but
only said, “No irony, sir.”

By this time they had joined her father and begun to set out the
row of hemlocks. To her surprise, Sue had found herself a little
disappointed that he had not availed himself of his one
opportunity to be at least “a bit friendly” as she phrased it. It
was mortifying to a girl to be expecting “something awkward to
meet” and nothing of the kind take place. “After all,” she
thought, “perhaps he came out just for a lark, or, worse still, is
amusing himself at my expense; or he may have come on an exploring
expedition and plain old father and mother, and the plain little
farmhouse, have satisfied him. Well, the dinner wasn’t very plain,
but he may have been laughing in his sleeve at our lack of style
in serving it. Then this old dress! I probably appear to him a
perfect guy.” And she began to hate it, and devoted it to the rag-
bag the moment she could get it off.

This line of thought, once begun, seemed so rational that she
wondered it had not occurred to her before. “The idea of my being
so ridiculously on the defensive!” she thought. “No, it wasn’t
ridiculous either, as far as my action went, for he can never say
I acted as if I wanted him to speak. My conceit in expecting him
to speak the moment he got a chance was absurd. He has begun to be
very polite and formal. That’s always the way with men when they
want to back out of anything. He came out to look us over, and me
in particular; he made himself into a scarecrow just because I
looked like one, and now will go home and laugh it all over with
his city friends. Oh, why did he come and spoil my day? Even he
said it was my day, and he has done a mean thing in spoiling it.
Well, he may not carry as much self-complacency back to town as he
thinks he will. Such a cold-blooded spirit, too!–to come upon us
unawares in order to spy out everything, for fear he might get
taken in! You were very attentive and flattering in the city, sir,
but now you are disenchanted. Well, so am I.”

Under the influence of this train of thought she grew more and
more silent. The sun was sinking westward in undimmed splendor,
but her face was clouded. The air was sweet, balmy, well adapted
to sentiment and the setting out of trees, but she was growing
frosty.

“Hiram,” she said shortly, “you’ve got that oak crooked; let me
hold it.” And thereafter she held the trees for the old colored
man as he filled in the earth around them.

Minturn appeared as oblivious as he was keenly observant. At first
the change in Sue puzzled and discouraged him; then, as his acute
mind sought her motives, a rosy light began to dawn upon him. “I
may be wrong,” he thought, “but I’ll take my chances in acting as
if I were right before I go home.”

At last Hiram said: “Reckon I’ll have to feed de critters again;”
and he slouched off.

Sue nipped at the young trees further and further away from the
young man who must “play spy before being lover.” The spy helped
Mr. Banning set out the last tree. Meantime, the complacent farmer
had mused: “The little girl’s safe for another while, anyhow.
Never saw her more offish; but things looked squally about dinner-
time. Then, she’s only eighteen; time enough years hence.” At last
he said affably, “I’ll go in and hasten supper, for you’ve earned
it if ever a man did, Mr. Minturn. Then I’ll drive you down to the
evening train.” And he hurried away.

Sue’s back was toward them, and she did not hear Minturn’s step
until he was close beside her. “All through,” he said; “every tree
out. I congratulate you; for rarely in this vale of tears are
plans and hopes crowned with better success.”

“Oh, yes,” she hastened to reply; “I am more than satisfied. I
hope that you are too.”

“I have no reason to complain,” he said. “You have stood by your
morning’s bargain, as I have tried to.”

“It was your own fault, Mr. Minturn, that it was so one-sided. But
I’ve no doubt you enjoy spicing your city life with a little lark
in the country.”

“It was a one-sided bargain, and I have had the best of it.”

“Perhaps you have,” she admitted. “I think supper will be ready by
the time we are ready for it.” And she turned toward the house.
Then she added, “You must be weary and anxious to get away.”

“You were right; my bones do ache. And look at my hands. I know
you’ll say they need washing; but count the blisters.”

“I also said, Mr. Minturn, that you would know better next time.
So you see I was right then and am right now.”

“Are you perfectly sure?”

“I see no reason to think otherwise.” In turning, she had faced a
young sugar-maple which he had aided her in planting early in the
afternoon. Now she snipped at it nervously with her pruning-
shears, for he would not budge, and she felt it scarcely polite to
leave him.

“Well,” he resumed, after an instant, “it has a good look, hasn’t
it, for a man to fulfil an obligation literally?”

“Certainly, Mr. Minturn,” and there was a tremor in her tone; “but
you have done a hundred-fold more than I expected, and never were
under any obligations.”

“Then I am free to begin again?”

“You are as free now as you have been all day to do what you
please.” And her shears were closing on the main stem of the
maple. He caught and stayed her hand. “I don’t care!” she cried
almost passionately. “Come, let us go in and end this foolish
talk.”

“But I do care,” he replied, taking the shears from her, yet
retaining her hand in his strong grasp. “I helped you plant this
tree, and whenever you see it, whenever you care for it, when, in
time, you sit under its shade or wonder at its autumn hues, I wish
you to remember that I told you of my love beside it. Dear little
girl, do you think I am such a blind fool that I could spend this
long day with you at your home and not feel sorry that I must ever
go away? If I could, my very touch should turn the sap of this
maple into vinegar. To-day I’ve only tried to show how I can work
for you. I am eager to begin again, and for life.”

At first Sue had tried to withdraw her hand, but its tenseness
relaxed. As he spoke, she turned her averted face slowly toward
him, and the rays of the setting sun flashed a deeper crimson into
her cheeks. Her honest eyes looked into his and were satisfied.
Then she suddenly gathered the young tree against her heart and
kissed the stem she had so nearly severed. “This maple is witness
to what you’ve said,” she faltered. “Ah! but it will be a sugar-
maple in truth; and if petting will make it live–there, now!
behave! The idea! right out on this bare lawn! You must wait till
the screening evergreens grow before–Oh, you audacious–I haven’t
promised anything.”

“I promise everything. I’m engaged, and only taking my retaining-
fees.”

“Mother,” cried Farmer Banning at the dining-room window, “just
look yonder!”

“And do you mean to say, John Banning, that you didn’t expect it?”

“Why, Sue was growing more and more offish.”

“Of course! Don’t you remember?”

“Oh, this unlucky birthday! As if trees could take Sue’s place!”

“Yah!” chuckled Hiram from the barn door, “I knowed dat ar gem’lin
was a-diggin’ a hole fer hisself on dis farm.”

“Mr. Minturn–” Sue began as they came toward the house arm in
arm.

“Hal–” he interrupted.

“Well, then, Mr. Hal, you must promise me one thing in dead
earnest. I’m the only chick father and mother have. You must be
very considerate of them, and let me give them as much of my time
as I can. This is all that I stipulate; but this I do.”

“Sue,” he said in mock solemnity, “the prospects are that you’ll
be a widow.”

“Why do you make such an absurd remark?”

“Because you have struck amidships the commandment with the
promise, and your days will be long in the land. You’ll outlive
everybody.”

“This will be no joke for father and mother.”

So it would appear. They sat in the parlor as if waiting for the
world to come to an end–as indeed it had, one phase of it, to
them. Their little girl, in a sense, was theirs no longer.

“Father, mother,” said Sue, demurely, “I must break some news to
you.”

“It’s broken already,” began Mrs. Banning, putting her
handkerchief to her eyes.

Sue’s glance renewed her reproaches for the scene on the lawn; but
Minturn went promptly forward, and throwing his arm around the
matron’s plump shoulders, gave his first filial kiss.

“Come, mother,” he said, “Sue has thought of you both; and I’ve
given her a big promise that I won’t take any more of her away
than I can help. And you, sir,” wringing the farmer’s hand, “will
often see a city tramp here who will be glad to work for his
dinner. These overalls are my witness.”

Then they became conscious of his absurd figure, and the scene
ended in laughter that was near akin to tears.

The maple lived, you may rest assured; and Sue’s children said
there never was such sugar as the sap of that tree yielded.

All the hemlocks, oaks, and dogwood thrived as if conscious that
theirs had been no ordinary transplanting; while Minturn’s half-
jesting prophecy concerning the travellers in the valley was amply
fulfilled.

Picnicking in December would be a dreary experience even if one
could command all the appliances of comfort which outdoor life
permitted. This would be especially true in the latitude of Boston
and on the bleak hills overlooking that city and its environing
waters. Dreary business indeed Ezekiel Watkins regarded it as he
shivered over the smoky camp-fire which he maintained with
difficulty. The sun was sinking into the southwest so early in the
day that he remarked irritably: “Durned if it was worth while for
it to rise at all.”

Ezekiel Watkins, or Zeke, as he was generally known among his
comrades, had ceased to be a resident on that rocky hillside from
pleasure. His heart was in a Connecticut valley in more senses
than one; and there was not a more homesick soldier in the army.
It will be readily guessed that the events of our story occurred
more than a century ago. The shots fired at Bunker Hill had echoed
in every nook and corner of the New England colonies, and the
heart of Zeke Watkins, among thousands of others, had been fired
with military ardor. With companions in like frame of mind he had
trudged to Boston, breathing slaughter and extermination against
the red-coated instruments of English tyranny. To Zeke the
expedition had many of the elements of an extended bear-hunt, much
exalted. There was a spice of danger and a rich promise of novelty
and excitement. The march to the lines about Boston had been a
continuous ovation; grandsires came out from the wayside dwellings
and blessed the rustic soldiers; they were dined profusely by the
housewives, and if not wined, there had been slight stint in New
England rum and cider; the apple-cheeked daughters of the land
gave them the meed of heroes in advance, and abated somewhat of
their ruddy hues at the thought of the dangers to be incurred.
Zeke was visibly dilated by all this attention, incense, and
military glory; and he stepped forth from each village and hamlet
as if the world were scarcely large enough for the prowess of
himself and companions. Even on parade he was as stiff as his
long-barrelled flintlock, looking as if England could hope for no
quarter at his hands; yet he permitted no admiring glances from
bright eyes to escape him. He had not traversed half the distance
between his native hamlet and Boston before he was abundantly
satisfied that pretty Susie Rolliffe had made no mistake in
honoring him among the recruits by marks of especial favor. He
wore in his squirrel-skin cap the bit of blue ribbon she had given
him, and with the mien of a Homeric hero had intimated darkly that
it might be crimson before she saw it again. She had clasped her
hands, stifled a little sob, and looked at him admiringly. He
needed no stronger assurance than her eyes conveyed at that
moment. She had been shy and rather unapproachable before, sought
by others than himself, yet very chary of her smiles and favors to
all. Her ancestors had fought the Indians, and had bequeathed to
the demure little maiden much of their own indomitable spirit. She
had never worn her heart on her sleeve, and was shy of her rustic
admirers chiefly because none of them had realized her ideals of
manhood created by fireside stories of the past.

Zeke’s chief competitor for Susie’s favor had been Zebulon Jarvis;
and while he had received little encouragement, he laid his
unostentatious devotion at her feet unstintedly, and she knew it.
Indeed, she was much inclined to laugh at him, for he was
singularly bashful, and a frown from her overwhelmed him.
Unsophisticated Susie reasoned that any one who could be so afraid
of her could not be much of a man. She had never heard of his
doing anything bold and spirited. It might be said, indeed, that
the attempt to wring a livelihood for his widowed mother and for
his younger brothers and sisters from the stumpy, rocky farm
required courage of the highest order; but it was not of a kind
that appealed to the fancy of a romantic young girl. Nothing finer
or grander had Zebulon attempted before the recruiting officer
came to Opinquake, and when he came, poor Zeb appeared to hang
back so timorously that he lost what little place he had in
Susie’s thoughts. She was ignorant of the struggle taking place in
his loyal heart. More intense even than his love for her was the
patriotic fire which smouldered in his breast; yet when other
young men were giving in their names and drilling on the village
green, he was absent. To the war appeals of those who sought him,
he replied briefly. “Can’t leave till fall.”

“But the fighting will be over long before that,” it was urged.

“So much the better for others, then, if not for me.”

Zeke Watkins made it his business that Susie should hear this
reply in the abbreviated form of, “So much the better, then.”

She had smiled scornfully, and it must be added, a little
bitterly. In his devotion Zeb had been so helpless, so diffidently
unable to take his own part and make advances that she, from odd
little spasms of sympathy, had taken his part for him, and
laughingly repeated to herself in solitude all the fine speeches
which she perceived he would be glad to make. But, as has been
intimated, it seemed to her droll indeed that such a great
stalwart fellow should appear panic-stricken in her diminutive
presence. In brief, he had been timidity embodied under her
demurely mischievous blue eyes; and now that the recruiting
officer had come and marched away with his squad without him, she
felt incensed that such a chicken-hearted fellow had dared to lift
his eyes to her.

“It would go hard with the Widow Jarvis and all those children if
Zeb ‘listed,” Susie’s mother had ventured in half-hearted defence,
for did she not look upon him as a promising suitor.

“The people of Opinquake wouldn’t let the widow or the children
starve,” replied Susie, indignantly. “If I was a big fellow like
him, my country would not call me twice. Think how grandfather
left grandma and all the children!”

“Well, I guess Zeb thinks he has his hands full wrastling with
that stony farm.”

“He needn’t come to see me any more, or steal glances at me ‘tween
meetings on Sunday,” said the girl, decisively. “He cuts a sorry
figure beside Zeke Watkins, who was the first to give in his name,
and who began to march like a soldier even before he left us.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Rolliffe; “Zeke was very forward. If he holds out
as he began–Well, well, Zeke allus was a little forward, and able
to speak for himself. You are young yet, Susan, and may learn
before you reach my years that the race isn’t allus to the swift.
Don’t be in haste to promise yourself to any of the young men.”

“Little danger of my promising myself to a man who is afraid even
of me! I want a husband like grandfather. He wasn’t afraid to face
anything, and he honored his wife by acting as if she wasn’t
afraid either.”

Zeb gave Susie no chance to bestow the rebuffs she had
premeditated. He had been down to witness the departure of the
Opinquake quota, and had seen Susie’s farewell to Zeke Watkins.
How much it had meant he was not sure–enough to leave no hope or
chance for him, he had believed; but he had already fought his
first battle, and it had been a harder one than Zeke Watkins or
any of his comrades would ever engage in. He had returned and
worked on the stony farm until dark. From dawn until dark he
continued to work every secular day till September.

His bronzed face grew as stern as it was thin; and since he would
no longer look at her, Susie Rolliffe began to steal an occasional
and wondering glance at him “‘tween meetings.”

No one understood the young man or knew his plans except his
patient, sad-eyed mother, and she learned more by her intuitions
than from his spoken words. She idolized him, and he loved and
revered her: but the terrible Puritan restraint paralyzed
manifestations of affection. She was not taken by surprise when
one evening he said quietly, “Mother, I guess I’ll start in a day
or two.”

She could not repress a sort of gasping sob however, but after a
few moments was able to say steadily, “I supposed you were
preparing to leave us.”

“Yes, mother, I’ve been a-preparing. I’ve done my best to gather
in everything that would help keep you and the children and the
stock through the winter. The corn is all shocked, and the older
children can help you husk it, and gather in the pumpkins, the
beans, and the rest. As soon as I finish digging the potatoes I
think I’ll feel better to be in the lines around Boston. I’d have
liked to have gone at first, but in order to fight as I ought I’d
want to remember there was plenty to keep you and the children.”

“I’m afraid, Zebulon, you’ve been fighting as well as working so
hard all summer long. For my sake and the children’s, you’ve been
letting Susan Rolliffe think meanly of you.”

“I can’t help what she thinks, mother; I’ve tried not to act
meanly.”

“Perhaps the God of the widow and the fatherless will shield and
bless you, my son. Be that as it may,” she added with a heavy
sigh, “conscience and His will must guide in everything. If He
says go forth to battle, what am I that I should stay you?”
Although she did not dream of the truth, the Widow Jarvis was a
disciplined soldier herself. To her, faith meant unquestioning
submission and obedience; she had been taught to revere a jealous
and an exacting God rather than a loving one. The heroism with
which she pursued her toilsome, narrow, shadowed pathway was as
sublime as it was unrecognized on her part. After she had retired
she wept sorely, not only because her eldest child was going to
danger, and perhaps death, but also for the reason that her heart
clung to him so weakly and selfishly, as she believed. With a
tenderness of which she was half-ashamed she filled his wallet
with provisions which would add to his comfort, then, both to his
surprise and her own, kissed him good-by. He left her and the
younger brood with an aching heart of which there was little
outward sign, and with no loftier ambition than to do his duty;
she followed him with deep, wistful eyes till he, and next the
long barrel of his rifle, disappeared in an angle of the road, and
then her interrupted work was resumed.

Susie Rolliffe was returning from an errand to a neighbor’s when
she heard the sound of long rapid steps.

A hasty glance revealed Zeb in something like pursuit. Her heart
fluttered slightly, for he had looked so stern and sad of late
that she had felt a little sorry for him in spite of herself. But
since he could “wrastle” with nothing more formidable than a stony
farm, she did not wish to have anything to say to him, or meet the
embarrassment of explaining a tacit estrangement. She was glad,
therefore, that her gate was so near, and passed in as if she had
not recognized him. She heard his steps become slower and pause at
the gate, and then almost in shame in being guilty of too marked
discourtesy, she turned to speak, but hesitated in surprise, for
now she recognized his equipment as a soldier.

“Why, Mr. Jarvis, where are you going?” she exclaimed.

A dull red flamed through the bronze of his thin cheeks as he
replied awkwardly, “I thought I’d take a turn in the lines around
Boston.”

“Oh, yes,” she replied, mischievously, “take a turn in the lines.
Then we may expect you back by corn-husking?”

He was deeply wounded, and in his embarrassment could think of no
other reply than the familiar words, “‘Let not him that girdeth on
his harness boast himself as he that putteth it off.’”

“I can’t help hoping, Mr. Jarvis, that neither you nor others will
put it off too soon–not, at least, while King George claims to be
our master. When we’re free I can stand any amount of boasting.”

“You’ll never hear boasting from me, Miss Susie;” and then an
awkward silence fell between them.

Shyly and swiftly she raised her eyes. He looked so humble,
deprecatory, and unsoldier-like that she could not repress a
laugh. “I’m not a British cannon,” she began, “that you should be
so fearful.”

His manhood was now too deeply wounded for further endurance even
from her, for he suddenly straightened himself, and throwing his
rifle over his shoulder, said sternly, “I’m not a coward. I never
hung back from fear, but to keep mother from charity, so I could
fight or die as God wills. You may laugh at the man who never gave
you anything but love, if you will, but you shall never laugh at
my deeds. Call that boasting or not as you please,” and he turned
on his heel to depart.

His words and manner almost took away the girl’s breath, so
unexpected were they, and unlike her idea of the man. In that
brief moment a fearless soldier had flashed himself upon her
consciousness, revealing a spirit that would flinch at nothing–
that had not even quailed at the necessity of forfeiting her
esteem, that his mother might not want. Humiliated and conscience-
stricken that she had done him so much injustice, she rushed
forward, crying, “Stop, Zebulon; please do not go away angry with
me! I do not forget that we have been old friends and playmates.
I’m willing to own that I’ve been wrong about you, and that’s a
good deal for a girl to do. I only wish I were a man, and I’d go
with you.”

Her kindness restored him to his awkward self again, and he
stammered, “I wish you were–no, I don’t–I merely stopped,
thinking you might have a message; but I’d rather not take any to
Zeke Watkins–will, though, if you wish. It cut me all up to have
you think I was afraid,” and then he became speechless.

“But you acted as if you were afraid of me, and that seemed so
ridiculous.”

He looked at her a moment so earnestly with his dark, deep-set
eyes that hers dropped. “Miss Susie,” he said slowly, and speaking
with difficulty, “I am afraid of you, next to God. I don’t suppose
I’ve any right to talk to you so, and I will say good-by. I was
reckless when I spoke before. Perhaps–you’ll go and see mother.
My going is hard on her.”

His eyes lingered on her a moment longer, as if he were taking his
last look, then he turned slowly away.

“Good-by, Zeb,” she called softly. “I didn’t–I don’t understand.
Yes, I will go to see your mother.”

Susie also watched him as he strode away. He thought he could
continue on steadfastly without looking back, but when the road
turned he also turned, fairly tugged right about by his loyal
heart. She stood where he had left her, and promptly waved her
hand. He doffed his cap, and remained a moment in an attitude that
appeared to her reverential, then passed out of view.

The moments lapsed, and still she stood in the gateway, looking
down the vacant road as if dazed. Was it in truth awkward, bashful
Zeb Jarvis who had just left her? He seemed a new and distinct
being in contrast to the youth whom she had smiled at and in a
measure scoffed at. The little Puritan maiden was not a reasoner,
but a creature of impressions and swift intuitions. Zeb had not
set his teeth, faced his hard duty, and toiled that long summer in
vain. He had developed a manhood and a force which in one brief
moment had enabled him to compel her recognition.

“He will face anything,” she murmured. “He’s afraid of only God
and me; what a strange thing to say–afraid of me next to God!
Sounds kind of wicked. What can he mean? Zeke Watkins wasn’t a bit
afraid of me. As mother said, he was a little forward, and I was
fool enough to take him at his own valuation. Afraid of me! How he
stood with his cap off. Do men ever love so? Is there a kind of
reverence in some men’s love? How absurd that a great strong,
brave man, ready to face cannons, can bow down to such a little–”
Her fragmentary exclamations ended in a peal of laughter, but
tears dimmed her blue eyes.

Susie did visit Mrs. Jarvis, and although the reticent woman said
little about her son, what she did say meant volumes to the girl
who now had the right clew in interpreting his action and
character. She too was reticent. New England girls rarely gushed
in those days, so no one knew she was beginning to understand. Her
eyes, experienced in country work, were quick, and her mind
active. “It looks as if a giant had been wrestling with this stony
farm,” she muttered.

Zeb received no ovations on his lonely tramp to the lines, and the
vision of Susie Rolliffe waving her hand from the gateway would
have blinded him to all the bright and admiring eyes in the world.
He was hospitably entertained, however, when there was occasion;
but the advent of men bound for the army had become an old story.
Having at last inquired his way to the position occupied by the
Connecticut troops, he was assigned to duty in the same company
with Zeke Watkins, who gave him but a cool reception, and sought
to overawe him by veteran-like airs. At first poor Zeb was awkward
enough in his unaccustomed duties, and no laugh was so scornful as
that of his rival. Young Jarvis, however, had not been many days
in camp before he guessed that Zeke’s star was not in the
ascendant. There was but little fighting required, but much
digging of intrenchments, drill, and monotonous picket duty. Zeke
did not take kindly to such tasks, and shirked them when possible.
He was becoming known as the champion grumbler in the mess, and no
one escaped his criticism, not even “Old Put”–as General Putnam,
who commanded the Connecticut quota, was called. Jarvis, on the
other hand, performed his military duties as he had worked the
farm, and rapidly acquired the bearing of a soldier. Indomitable
Putnam gave his men little rest, and was ever seeking to draw his
lines nearer to Boston and the enemy’s ships. He virtually fought
with pick and shovel, and his working parties were often exposed
to fire while engaged in fortifying the positions successively
occupied. The Opinquake boys regarded themselves as well seasoned
to such rude compliments, and were not a little curious to see how
Zeb would handle a shovel with cannon-balls whizzing uncomfortably
near. The opportunity soon came. Old Put himself could not have
been more coolly oblivious than the raw recruit. At last a ball
smashed his shovel to smithereens; he quietly procured another and
went on with his work. Then his former neighbors gave him a cheer,
while his captain clapped him on the shoulder and said, “Promote
you to be a veteran on the spot!”

The days had grown shorter, colder, and drearier, and the
discomforts of camp-life harder to endure. There were few tents
even for the officers, and the men were compelled to improvise
such shelter as circumstances permitted. Huts of stone, wood, and
brush, and barricades against the wind, lined the hillside, and
the region already was denuded of almost everything that would
burn. Therefore, when December came, Zeke Watkins found that even
a fire was a luxury not to be had without trouble. He had become
thoroughly disgusted with a soldier’s life, and the military glory
which had at first so dazzled him now wore the aspect of the
wintry sky. He had recently sought and attained the only promotion
for which his captain now deemed him fitted–that of cook for
about a dozen of his comrades; and the close of the December day
found him preparing the meagre supper which the limited rations
permitted. By virtue of his office, Zeke was one of the best-fed
men in the army, for if there were any choice morsels he could
usually manage to secure them; still, he was not happy. King
George and Congress were both pursuing policies inconsistent with
his comfort, and he sighed more and more frequently for the wide
kitchen-hearth of his home, which was within easy visiting
distance of the Rolliffe farmhouse. His term of enlistment expired
soon, and he was already counting the days. He was not alone in
his discontent, for there was much homesickness and disaffection
among the Connecticut troops. Many had already departed, unwilling
to stay an hour after the expiration of their terms; and not a few
had anticipated the periods which legally released them from duty.
The organization of the army was so loose that neither appeals nor
threats had much influence, and Washington, in deep solicitude,
saw his troops melting away.

It was dark by the time the heavy tramp of the working party was
heard returning from the fortifications. The great mess-pot,
partly filled with pork and beans, was bubbling over the fire;
Zeke, shifting his position from time to time to avoid the smoke
which the wind, as if it had a spite against him, blew in his
face, was sourly contemplating his charge and his lot, bent on
grumbling to the others with even greater gusto than he had
complained to himself. His comrades carefully put away their
intrenching tools, for they were held responsible for them, and
then gathered about the fire, clamoring for supper.

“Zeke, you lazy loon,” cried Nat Atkinson, “how many pipes have
you smoked to-day? If you’d smoke less and forage and dun the
commissary more, we’d have a little fresh meat once in a hundred
years.”

“Yes, just about once in a hundred years!” snarled Zeke.

“You find something to keep fat on, anyhow. We’ll broil you some
cold night. Trot out your beans if there’s nothing else.”

“Growl away,” retorted Zeke. “‘Twon’t be long before I’ll be
eating chickens and pumpkin-pie in Opinquake, instead of cooking
beans and rusty pork for a lot of hungry wolves.”

“You’d be the hungriest wolf of the lot if you’d ‘a’ been picking
and shovelling frozen ground all day.”

“I didn’t ‘list to be a ditch-digger!” said Zeke. “I thought I was
going to be a soldier.”

“And you turned out a cook!” quietly remarked Zeb Jarvis.

“Well, my hero of the smashed shovel, what do you expect to be–
Old Put’s successor? You know, fellows, it’s settled that you’re
to dig your way into Boston, tunnel under the water when you come
to it. Of course Put will die of old age before you get half
there. Zeb’ll be the chap of all others to command a division of
shovellers. I see you with a pickaxe strapped on your side instead
of a sword.”

“Lucky I’m not in command now,” replied Zeb, “or you’d shovel dirt
under fire to the last hour of your enlistment. I’d give grumblers
like you something to grumble about. See here, fellows, I’m sick
of this seditious talk in our mess. The Connecticut men are
getting to be the talk of the army. You heard a squad of New
Hampshire boys jeer at us to-day, and ask, ‘When are ye going home
to mother?’ You ask, Zeke Watkins, what I expect to be. I expect
to be a soldier, and obey orders as long as Old Put and General
Washington want a man. All I ask is to be home summers long enough
to keep mother and the children off the town. Now what do you
expect to be after you give up your cook’s ladle?”

“None o’ your business.”

“He’s going home to court Susie Rolliffe,” cried Nat Atkinson.
“They’ll be married in the spring, and go into the chicken
business. That’d just suit Zeke.”

“It would not suit Susie Rolliffe,” said Zeb, hotly. “A braver,
better girl doesn’t breathe in the colonies, and the man that says
a slurring word against her’s got to fight me.”

“What! Has she given Zeke the mitten for your sake, Zeb?” piped
little Hiram Woodbridge.

“She hasn’t given me anything, and I’ve got no claim; but she is
the kind of girl that every fellow from Opinquake should stand up
for. We all know that there is nothing chicken-hearted about her.”

“Eight, by George–George W., I mean, and not the king,” responded
Hiram Woodbridge. “Here’s to her health, Zeb, and your success! I
believe she’d rather marry a soldier than a cook.”

“Thank you,” said Zeb. “You stand as good a chance as I do; but
don’t let’s bandy her name about in camp any more’n we would our
mother’s. The thing for us to do now is to show that the men from
Connecticut have as much backbone as any other fellows in the
army, North or South. Zeke may laugh at Old Put’s digging, but
you’ll soon find that he’ll pick his way to a point where he can
give the Britishers a dig under the fifth rib. We’ve got the best
general in the army. Washington, with all his Southern style,
believes in him and relies on him. Whether their time’s up or not,
it’s a burning shame that so many of his troops are sneaking off
home.”

“It’s all very well for you to talk, Zeb Jarvis,” growled Zeke.
“You haven’t been here very long yet; and you stayed at home when
others started out to fight. Now that you’ve found that digging
and not fighting is the order of the day, you’re just suited. It’s
the line of soldiering you are cut out for. When fighting men and
not ditch-diggers are wanted, you’ll find me—”

“All right, Watkins,” said the voice of Captain Dean from without
the circle of light. “According to your own story you are just the
kind of man needed to-night–no ditch-digging on hand, but
dangerous service. I detail you, for you’ve had rest compared with
the other men. I ask for volunteers from those who’ve been at work
all day.”

Zeb Jarvis was on his feet instantly, and old Ezra Stokes also
began to rise with difficulty. “No, Stokes,” resumed the officer,
“you can’t go. I know you’ve suffered with the rheumatism all day,
and have worked well in spite of it. For to-night’s work I want
young fellows with good legs and your spirit. How is it you’re
here anyhow Stokes? Your time’s up.”

“We ain’t into Boston yet,” was the quiet reply.

“So you want to stay?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then you shall cook for the men till you’re better. I won’t keep
so good a soldier, though, at such work any longer than I can
help. Your good example and that of the gallant Watkins has
brought out the whole squad. I think I’ll put Jarvis in command,
though; Zeke might be rash, and attempt the capture of Boston
before morning;” and the facetious captain, who had once been a
neighbor, concluded, “Jarvis, see that every man’s piece is primed
and ready for use. Be at my hut in fifteen minutes.” Then he
passed on to the other camp-fires.

In a few minutes Ezra Stokes was alone by the fire, almost
roasting his lame leg, and grumbling from pain and the necessity
of enforced inaction. He was a taciturn, middle-age man, and had
been the only bachelor of mature years in Opinquake. Although he
rarely said much, he had been a great listener, and no one had
been better versed in neighborhood affairs. In brief, he had been
the village cobbler, and had not only taken the measure of Susie
Rolliffe’s little foot, but also of her spirit. Like herself he
had been misled at first by the forwardness of Zeke Watkins and
the apparent backwardness of Jarvis. Actual service had changed
his views very decidedly. When Zeb appeared he had watched the
course of this bashful suitor with interest which had rapidly
ripened into warm but undemonstrative goodwill. The young fellow
had taken pains to relieve the older man, had carried his tools
for him, and more than once with his strong hands had almost
rubbed the rheumatism out of the indomitable cobbler’s leg. He had
received but slight thanks, and had acted as if he didn’t care for
any. Stokes was not a man to return favors in words; be brooded
over his gratitude as if it were a grudge. “I’ll get even with
that young Jarvis yet,” he muttered, as he nursed his leg over the
fire. “I know he worships the ground that little Rolliffe girl
treads on, though she don’t tread on much at a time. She never
trod on me nuther, though I’ve had her foot in my hand more’n
once. She looked at the man that made her shoes as if she would
like to make him happier. When a little tot, she used to say I
could come and live with her when I got too old to take care of
myself. Lame as I be, I’d walk to Opinquake to give her a hint in
her choosin’. Guess Hi Woodbridge is right, and she wouldn’t be
long in making up her mind betwixt a soger and a cook–a mighty
poor one at that. Somehow or nuther I must let her know before
Zeke Watkins sneaks home and parades around as a soldier ‘bove
ditch-digging. I’ve taken his measure.

“He’ll be putting on veteran airs, telling big stories of what
he’s going to do when soldiers are wanted, and drilling such fools
as believe in him. Young gals are often taken by such strutters,
and think that men like Jarvis, who darsn’t speak for themselves,
are of no account. But I’ll put a spoke in Zeke’s wheel, if I have
to get the captain to write.”

It thus may be gathered that the cobbler had much to say to
himself when alone, though so taciturn to others.

The clouds along the eastern horizon were stained with red before
the reconnoitring party returned. Stokes had managed, by hobbling
about, to keep up the fire and to fill the mess-kettle with the
inevitable pork and beans. The hungry, weary men therefore gave
their new cook a cheer when they saw the good fire and provision
awaiting them. A moment later, however, Jarvis observed how lame
Stokes had become; he took the cobbler by the shoulder and sat him
down in the warmest nook, saying, “I’ll be assistant cook until
you are better. As Zeke says, I’m a wolf sure enough; but as
soon’s the beast’s hunger is satisfied, I’ll rub that leg of yours
till you’ll want to dance a jig;” and with the ladle wrung from
Stokes’s reluctant hand, he began stirring the seething contents
of the kettle.

Then little Hi Woodbridge piped in his shrill voice, “Another
cheer for our assistant cook and ditch-digger! I say, Zeke,
wouldn’t you like to tell Erza that Zeb has showed himself fit for
something more than digging? You expressed your opinion very plain
last night, and may have a different one now.”

Zeke growld something inaudible, and stalked to his hut in order
to put away his equipments.

“I’m cook-in-chief yet,” Stokes declared; “and not a bean will any
one of you get till you report all that happened.”

“Well,” piped Hi, “you may stick a feather in your old cap, Ezra,
for our Opinquake lad captured a British officer last night, and
Old Put is pumping him this blessed minute.”

“Well, well, that is news. It must have been Zeke who did that
neat job,” exclaimed Stokes, ironically; “he’s been a-pining for
the soldier business.”

“No, no; Zeke’s above such night scrimmages. He wants to swim the
bay and walk right into Boston in broad daylight, so everybody can
see him. Come, Zeb, tell how it happened. It was so confounded
dark, no one can tell but you.”

“There isn’t much to tell that you fellows don’t know,” was Zeb’s
laconic answer. “We had sneaked down on the neck so close to the
enemy’s lines—”

“Yes, yes, Zeb Jarvis,” interrupted Stokes, “that’s the kind of
sneaking you’re up to–close to the enemy’s lines. Go on.”

“Well, I crawled up so close that I saw a Britisher going the
round of the sentinels, and I pounced on him and brought him out
on the run, that’s all.”

“Oho! you both ran away, then? That wasn’t good soldiering either,
was it, Zeke?” commented Stokes, in his dry way.

“It’s pretty good soldiering to stand fire within an inch of your
nose,” resumed Hi, who had become a loyal friend and adherent of
his tall comrade. “Zeb was so close on the Britisher when he fired
his pistol that we saw the faces of both in the flash; and a lot
of bullets sung after us, I can sell you, as we dusted out of
those diggin’s.”

“Compliments of General Putnam to Sergeant Zebulon Jarvis,’ said
an orderly, riding out of the dim twilight of the morning. “The
general requests your presence at headquarters.”

“Sergeant! promoted! Another cheer for Zeb!” and the Opinquake
boys gave it with hearty goodwill.

“Jerusalem, fellows! I’d like to have a chance at those beans
before I go!” but Zeb promptly tramped off with the orderly.

When he returned he was subjected to a fire of questions by the
two or three men still awake, but all they could get out of him
was that he had been given a good breakfast. From Captain Dean,
who was with the general at the time of the examination, it leaked
out that Zeb was in the line of promotion to a rank higher than
that of sergeant.

The next few days passed uneventfully; and Zeke was compelled to
resume the pick and shovel again. Stokes did his best to fulfil
his duties, but it had become evident to all that the exposure of
camp would soon disable him utterly. Jarvis and Captain Dean
persuaded him to go home for the winter, and the little squad
raised a sum which enabled him to make the journey in a stage.
Zeke, sullen toward his jeering comrades, but immensely elated in
secret, had shaken the dust–snow and slush rather–of camp-life
from his feet the day before. He had the grace to wait till the
time of his enlistment expired, and that was more than could be
said of many.

It spoke well for the little Opinquake quota that only two others
besides Zeke availed themselves of their liberty. Poor Stokes was
almost forced away, consoled by the hope of returning in the
spring. Zeb was sore-hearted on the day of Zeke’s departure. His
heart was in the Connecticut Valley also. No message had come to
him from Susie Rolliffe. Those were not the days of swift and
frequent communication. Even Mrs. Jarvis had written but seldom,
and her missives were brief. Mother-love glowed through the few
quaint and scriptural phrases like heat in anthracite coals. All
that poor Zeb could learn from them was that Susie Rolliffe had
kept her word and had been to the farm more than once; but the
girl had been as reticent as the mother. Zeke was now on his way
home to prosecute his suit in person, and Zeb well knew how
forward and plausible he could be. There was no deed of daring
that he would not promise to perform after spring opened, and Zeb
reasoned gloomily that a present lover, impassioned and
importunate, would stand a better chance than an absent one who
had never been able to speak for himself.

When it was settled that Stokes should return to Opinquake, Zeb
determined that he would not give up the prize to Zeke without one
decisive effort; and as he was rubbing the cobbler’s leg, he
stammered, “I say Ezra, will you do me a turn? ‘Twon’t be so much,
what I ask, except that I’ll like you to keep mum about it, and
you’re a good hand at keeping mum.”

“I know what yer driving at, Zeb. Write yer letter and I’ll
deliver it with my own hands.”

“Well, now, I’m satisfied, I can stay on and fight it out with a
clear mind. When Zeke marched away last summer, I thought it was
all up with me; and I can tell you that any fighting that’s to do
about Boston will be fun compared with the fighting I did while
hoeing corn and mowing grass. But I don’t believe that Susie
Rolliffe is promised to Zeke Watkins, or any one else yet, and I’m
going to give her a chance to refuse me plump.”

“That’s the way to do it, Zeb,” said the bachelor cobbler, with an
emphasis that would indicate much successful experience. “Asking a
girl plump is like standing up in a fair fight. It gives the girl
a chance to bowl you over, if that’s her mind, so there can’t be
any mistake about it; and it seems to me the women-folks ought to
have all the chances that in any way belong to them. They have got
few enough anyhow.”

“And you think it’ll end in my being bowled over?”

“How should I know, or you either, unless you make a square trial?
You’re such a strapping, fighting feller that nothing but a
cannon-ball or a woman ever will knock you off your pins.”

“See here, Ezra Stokes, the girl of my heart may refuse me just as
plump as I offer myself; and if that’s her mind she has a right to
do it. But I don’t want either you or her to think I won’t stand
on my feet. I won’t even fight any more recklessly than my duty
requires. I have a mother to take care of, even if I never have a
wife.”

“I’ll put in a few pegs right along to keep in mind what you say;
and I’ll give you a fair show by seeing to it that the girl gets
your letter before Zeke can steal a march on you.”

“That’s all I ask,” said Zeb, with compressed lips. “She shall
choose between us. It’s hard enough to write, but it will be a
sight easier than facing her. Not a word of this to another soul,
Ezra; but I’m not going to use you like a mail-carrier, but a
friend. After all, there are few in Opinquake, I suppose, but know
I’d give my eyes for her, so there isn’t much use of my putting on
secret airs.”

“I’m not a talker, and you might have sent your letter by a worse
messenger’n me,” was the laconic reply.

Zeb had never written a love-letter, and was at a loss how to
begin or end it. But time pressed, and he had to say what was
uppermost in his mind. It ran as follows:

“I don’t know how to write so as to give my words weight. I cannot
come home; I will not come as long as mother and the children can
get on without me. And men are needed here; men are needed. The
general fairly pleads with the soldiers to stay. Stokes would stay
if he could. We’re almost driving him home. I know you will be
kind to him, and remember he has few to care for him. I cannot
speak for myself in person very soon, if ever. Perhaps I could not
if I stood before you. You laugh at me; but if you knew how I love
you and remember you, how I honor and almost worship you in my
heart, you might understand me better. Why is it strange I should
be afraid of you? Only God has more power over me than you. Will
you be my wife? I will do anything to win you that you can ask.
Others will plead with you in person. Will you let this letter
plead for the absent?”

Zeb went to the captain’s quarters and got some wax with which to
seal this appeal, then saw Stokes depart with the feeling that his
destiny was now at stake.

Meanwhile Zeke Watkins, with a squad of homeward-bound soldiers,
was trudging toward Opinquake. They soon began to look into one
another’s faces in something like dismay. But little provision was
in their wallets when they had started, for there was little to
draw upon, and that furnished grudgingly, as may well be supposed.
Zeke had not cared. He remembered the continuous feasting that had
attended his journey to camp, and supposed that he would only have
to present himself to the roadside farmhouses in order to enjoy
the fat of the land. This hospitality he proposed to repay
abundantly by camp reminiscences in which it would not be
difficult to insinuate that the hero of the scene was present.

In contrast to these rose-hued expectations, doors were slammed in
their faces, and they were treated little better than tramps. “I
suppose the people near Boston have been called on too often and
imposed on, too,” Zeke reasoned rather ruefully. “When we once get
over the Connecticut border we’ll begin to find ourselves at
home;” and spurred by hunger and cold, as well as hope, they
pushed on desperately, subsisting on such coarse provisions as
they could obtain, sleeping in barns when it stormed, and not
infrequently by a fire in the woods. At last they passed the
Connecticut border, and led by Zeke they urged their way to a
large farmhouse, at which, but a few months before, the table had
groaned under rustic dainties, and feather-beds had luxuriously
received the weary recruits bound to the front. They approached
the opulent farm in the dreary dark of the evening, and pursued by
a biting east wind laden with snow. Not only the weather, but the
very dogs seemed to have a spite against them; and the family had
to rush out to call them off.

“Weary soldiers ask for shelter,” began Zeke.

“Of course you’re bound for the lines,” said the matronly
housewife. “Come in.”

Zeke thought they would better enter at once before explaining;
and truly the large kitchen, with a great fire blazing on the
hearth, seemed like heaven. The door leading into the family
sitting-room was open, and there was another fire, with the red-
cheeked girls and the white-haired grandsire before it, their eyes
turned expectantly toward the new-comers. Instead of hearty
welcome, there was a questioning look on every face, even on that
of the kitchen-maid. Zeke’s four companions had a sort of hang-dog
look–for they had been cowed by the treatment received along the
road; but he tried to bear himself confidently, and began with an
insinuating smile, “Perhaps I should hardly expect you to remember
me. I passed this way last summer—”

“Passed this way last summer?” repeated the matron, her face
growing stern. “We who cannot fight are ready and glad to share
all we have with those who fight for us. Since you carry arms we
might very justly think you are hastening forward to use them.”

“These are our own arms; we furnished them ourselves,” Zeke
hastened to say.

“Oh, indeed,” replied the matron, coldly; “I supposed that not
only the weapons, but the ones who carry them, belonged to the
country. I hope you are not deserting from the army.”

“I assure you we are not. Our terms of enlistment have expired.”

“And your country’s need was over at the same moment? Are you
hastening home at this season to plow and sow and reap?”

“Well, madam, after being away so long we felt like having a
little comfort and seeing the folks. We stayed a long as we
agreed. When spring opens, or before, if need be—”

“Pardon me, sir; the need is now. The country is not to be saved
by men who make bargains like day-laborers, and who quit when the
hour is up, but by soldiers who give themselves to their country
as they would to their wives and sweethearts. My husband and sons
are in the army you have deserted. General Washington has written
to our governor asking whether an example should not be made of
the men who have deserted the cause of their country at this
critical time when the enemy are receiving re-enforcements. We are
told that Connecticut men have brought disgrace on our colony and
have imperilled the whole army. You feel like taking comfort and
seeing the folks. The folks do not feel like seeing you. My
husband and the brave men in the lines are in all the more danger
because of your desertion, for a soldier’s time never expires when
the enemy is growing stronger and threatening every home in the
land. If all followed your example, the British would soon be upon
your heels, taking from us our honor and our all. We are not
ignorant of the critical condition of our army; and I can tell
you, sir, that if many more of our men come home, the women will
take their places.”

Zeke’s companions succumbed to the stern arraignment, and after a
brief whispered consultation one spoke for the rest. “Madam,” he
said, “you put it in a way that we hadn’t realized before. We’ll
right-about-face and march back in the morning, for we feel that
we’d rather face all the British in Boston than any more
Connecticut women.”

“Then, sirs, you shall have supper and shelter and welcome,” was
the prompt reply.

Zeke assumed an air of importance as he said: “There are reasons
why I must be at home for a time, but I not only expect to return,
but also to take many back with me.”

“I trust your deeds may prove as large as your words,” was the
chilly reply; and then he was made to feel that he was barely
tolerated. Some hints from his old associates added to the
disfavor which the family took but little pains to conceal. There
was a large vein of selfish calculation in Zeke’s nature, and he
was not to be swept away by any impulses. He believed he could
have a prolonged visit home, yet manage so admirably that when he
returned he would be followed by a squad of recruits, and chief of
all he would be the triumphant suitor of Susie Rolliffe. Her
manner in parting had satisfied him that he had made go deep an
impression that it would be folly not to follow it up. He trudged
the remainder of the journey alone, and secured tolerable
treatment by assuring the people that he was returning for
recruits for the army. He reached home in the afternoon of
Christmas; and although the day was almost completely ignored in
the Puritan household, yet Mrs. Watkins forgot country, Popery,
and all, in her mother love, and Zeke supped on the finest turkey
of the flock. Old Mr. Watkins, it is true, looked rather grim, but
the reception had been reassuring in the main; and Zeke had
resolved on a line of tactics which would make him, as he
believed, the military hero of the town. After he had satisfied an
appetite which had been growing ever since he left camp, he
started to call on Susie in all the bravery of his best attire,
filled with sanguine expectations inspired by memories of the past
and recent potations of cider.

Meanwhile Susie had received a guest earlier in the day. The stage
had stopped at the gate where she had stood in the September
sunshine and waved her bewildered farewell to Zeb. There was no
bewilderment or surprise now at her strange and unwonted
sensations. She had learned why she had stood looking after him
dazed and spellbound. Under the magic of her own light irony she
had seen her drooping rustic lover transformed into the ideal man
who could face anything except her unkindness. She had guessed the
deep secret of his timidity. It was a kind of fear of which she
had not dreamed, and which touched her innermost soul.

When the stage stopped at the gate, and she saw the driver helping
out Ezra Stokes, a swift presentiment made her sure that she would
hear from one soldier who was more to her than all the generals.
She was soon down the walk, the wind sporting in her light-gold
hair, supporting the cobbler on the other side.

“Ah, Miss Susie!” he said, “I am about worn out, sole and upper.
It breaks my heart, when men are so sorely needed, to be thrown
aside like an old shoe.”

The girl soothed and comforted him, ensconced him by the fireside,
banishing the chill from his heart, while Mrs. Rolliffe warmed his
blood by a strong, hot drink. Then the mother hastened away to get
dinner, while Susie sat down near, nervously twisting and
untwisting her fingers, with questions on her lips which she dared
not utter, but which brought blushes to her cheeks. Stokes looked
at her and sighed over his lost youth, yet smiled as he thought:
“Guess I’ll get even with that Zeb Jarvis to-day.” Then he asked,
“Isn’t there any one you would like to hear about in camp?”

She blushed deeper still, and named every one who had gone from
Opinquake except Zeb. At last she said a little ironically: “I
suppose Ezekiel Watkins is almost thinking about being a general
about this time?”

“Hasn’t he been here telling you what he is thinking about?”

“Been here! Do you mean to say he has come home?”

“He surely started for home. All the generals and a yoke of oxen
couldn’t ‘a’ kept him in camp, he was so homesick–lovesick too, I
guess. Powerful compliment to you, Miss Susie,” added the politic
cobbler, feeling his way, “that you could draw a man straight from
his duty like one of these ‘ere stump-extractors.”

“No compliment to me at all!” cried the girl, indignantly. “He
little understands me who seeks my favor by coming home at a time
like this. The Connecticut women are up in arms at the way our men
are coming home. No offence to you, Mr. Stokes. You’re sick, and
should come; but I’d like to go myself to show some of the strong
young fellows what we think of them.”

“Coming home was worse than rheumatism to me, and I’m going back
soon’s I kin walk without a cane. Wouldn’t ‘a’ come as ’tis, if
that Zeb Jarvis hadn’t jes’ packed me off. By Jocks! I thought you
and he was acquainted, but you don’t seem to ask arter him.”

“I felt sure he would try–I heard he was doing his duty,” she
replied with averted face.

“Zeke Watkins says he’s no soldier at all–nothing but a dirt-
digger.”

For a moment, as the cobbler had hoped, Susie forgot her blushes
and secret in her indignation. “Zeke Watkins indeed!” she
exclaimed. “He’d better not tell me any such story. I don’t
believe there’s a braver, truer man in the–Well,” she added in
sudden confusion, “he hasn’t run away and left others to dig their
way into Boston, if that’s the best way of getting there.”

“Ah, I’m going to get even with him yet,” chuckled Stokes to
himself. “Digging is only the first step, Miss Susie. When Old Put
gets good and ready, you’ll hear the thunder of the guns a’most in
Opinquake.”

“Well, Mr. Stokes,” stammered Susie, resolving desperately on a
short cut to the knowledge she craved, “you’ve seen Mr. Jarvis a-
soldiering. What do you think about it?”

“Well, now, that Zeb Jarvis is the sneakin’ist fellow—”

“What?” cried the girl, her face aflame.

“Wait till I get in a few more pegs,” continued Stokes, coolly.
“The other night he sneaked right into the enemy’s lines and
carried off a British officer as a hawk takes a chicken. The
Britisher fired his pistol right under Zeb’s nose; but, law! he
didn’t mind that any more’n a ’sketer-bite. I call that
soldiering, don’t you? Anyhow, Old Put thought it was, and sent
for him ‘fore daylight, and made a sergeant of him. If I had as
good a chance of gettin’ rid of the rheumatiz as he has of bein’
captain in six months, I’d thank the Lord.”

Susie sat up very straight, and tried to look severely judicial;
but her lip was quivering and her whole plump little form
trembling with excitement and emotion. Suddenly she dropped her
face in her hands and cried in a gust of tears and laughter: “He’s
just like grandfather; he’d face anything!”

“Anything in the ‘tarnal uinverse, I guess, ‘cept you, Miss Susie.
I seed a cannon-ball smash a shovel in his hands, and he got
another, and went on with his work cool as a cucumber. Then I seed
him writin’ a letter to you, and his hand trembled—”

“A letter to me!” cried the girl, springing up.

“Yes; ‘ere it is. I was kind of pegging around till I got to that;
and you know—”

But Susie was reading, her hands trembling so she could scarcely
hold the paper. “It’s about you,” she faltered, making one more
desperate effort at self-preservation. “He says you’d stay if you
could; that they almost drove you home. And he asks that I be kind
to you, because there are not many to care for you–and–and—”

“Oh, Lord! never can get even with that Zeb Jarvis,” groaned Ezra.
“But you needn’t tell me that’s all the letter’s about.”

Her eyes were full of tears, yet not so full but that she eaw the
plain, closing words in all their significance. Swiftly the letter
went to her lips, then was thrust into her bosom, and she seized
the cobbler’s hand, exclaiming: “Yes, I will! I will! You shall
stay with us, and be one of us!” and in her excitement she put her
left hand caressingly on his shoulder.

“Susan!” exclaimed Mr. Rolliffe, who entered at that moment, and
looked aghast at the scene.

“Yes, I will!” exclaimed Susie, too wrought up now for restraint.

“Will what?” gasped the mother.

“Be Zebulon Jarvis’s wife. He’s asked me plump and square like a
soldier; and I’ll answer as grandma did, and like grandma I’ll
face anything for his sake.”

“Well, this is suddent!” exclaimed Mrs. Rolliffe, dropping into a
chair. “Susan, do you think it is becoming and seemly for a young
woman—”

“Oh, mother dear, there’s no use of your trying to make a prim
Puritan maiden of me. Zeb doesn’t fight like a deacon, and I can’t
love like one. Ha! ha! ha! to think that great soldier is afraid
of little me, and nothing else! It’s too funny and heavenly—”

“Susan, I am dumfounded at your behavior!”

At this moment Mr. Rolliffe came in from the wood-lot, and he was
dazed by the wonderful news also. In his eagerness to get even
with Zeb, the cobbler enlarged and expatiated till he was hoarse.
When he saw that the parents were almost as proud as the daughter
over their prospective son-in-law, he relapsed into his old
taciturnity, declaring he had talked enough for a month.

Susie, the only child, who apparently had inherited all the fire
and spirit of her fighting ancestors, darted out, and soon
returned with her rosebud of a face enveloped in a great calyx of
a woollen hood.

“Where are you going?” exclaimed her parents.

“You’ve had the news. I guess Mother Jarvis has the next right.”
And she was off over the hills with almost the lightness and
swiftness of a snowbird.

In due time Zeke appeared, and smiled encouragingly on Mrs.
Rolliffe, who sat knitting by the kitchen fire. The matron did not
rise, and gave him but a cool salutation. He discussed the
coldness of the weather awkwardly for a few moments, and then
ventured: “Is Miss Susan at home?”

“No, sir,” replied Mrs. Rolliffe; “she’s gone to make a visit to
her mother-in-law that is to be, the Widow Jarvis. Ezra Stokes is
sittin’ in the next room, sent home sick. Perhaps you’d like to
talk over camp-life with him.”

Not even the cider now sustained Zeke. He looked as if a cannon-
ball had wrecked all his hopes and plans instead of a shovel.
“Good-evening, Mrs. Rolliffe,” he stammered; “I guess I’ll–I’ll–
go home.”

Poor Mrs. Jarvis had a spiritual conflict that day which she never
forgot. Susie’s face had flashed at the window near which she had
sat spinning, and sighing perhaps that Nature had not provided
feathers or fur for a brood like hers; then the girl’s arms were
about her neck, the news was stammered out–for the letter could
never be shown to any one–in a way that tore primness to tatters.
The widow tried to act as if it were a dispensation of Providence
which should be received in solemn gratitude; but before she knew
it she was laughing and crying, kissing her sweet-faced daughter,
or telling how good and brave Zeb had been when his heart was
almost breaking.

Compunction had already seized upon the widow. “Susan,” she began,
“I fear we are not mortifyin’ the flesh as we ought—”

“No mortifying just yet, if you please,” cried Susie. “The most
important thing of all is yet to be done. Zeb hasn’t heard the
news; just think of it! You must write and tell him that I’ll help
you spin the children’s clothes and work the farm; that we’ll face
everything in Opinquake as long as Old Put needs men. Where is the
ink-horn? I’ll sharpen a pen for you and one for me, and such news
as he’ll get! Wish I could tell him, though, and see the great
fellow tremble once more. Afraid of me! Ha! ha! ha! that’s the
funniest thing–Why, Mother Jarvis, this is Christmas Day!”

“So it is,” said the widow, in an awed tone. “Susie, my heart
misgives me that all this should have happened on a day of which
Popery has made so much.”

“No, no,” cried the girl. “Thank God it is Christmas! and
hereafter I shall keep Christmas as long as love is love and God
is good.”

It was the day before Thanksgiving. The brief cloudy November
afternoon was fast merging into early twilight. The trees, now
gaunt and bare, creaked and groaned in the passing gale, clashing
their icy branches together with sounds sadly unlike the
slumberous rustle of their foliage in June. And that same foliage
was now flying before the wind, swept hither and thither, like
exiles driven by disaster from the moorings of home, at times
finding a brief abiding-place, and then carried forward to parts
unknown by circumstances beyond control. The street leading into
the village was almost deserted; and the few who came and went
hastened on with fluttering garments, head bent down, and a
shivering sense of discomfort. The fields were bare and brown; and
the landscape on the uplands rising in the distance would have
been utterly sombre had not green fields of grain, like childlike
faith in wintry age, relieved the gloomy outlook and prophesied of
the sunshine and golden harvest of a new year and life.

But bleak November found no admittance in Mrs. Alford’s cosey
parlor. Though, as usual, it was kept as the room for state
occasions, it was not a stately room. It was furnished with
elegance and good taste; but what was better, the genial home
atmosphere from the rest of the house had invaded it, and one did
not feel, on entering it from the free-and-easy sitting-room, as
if passing from a sunny climate to the icebergs of the Pole.
Therefore I am sure my reader will follow me gladly out of the
biting, bolsterous wind into the homelike apartment, and as we
stand in fancy before the glowing grate, we will make the
acquaintance of the May-day creature who is its sole occupant.

Elsie Alford, just turning seventeen, appeared younger than her
years warranted. Some girls carry the child far into their teens,
and Head the mirthful innocence of infancy with the richer, fuller
life of budding womanhood. This was true of Elsie. Hers was not
the forced exotic bloom of fashionable life; but rather one of the
native blossoms of her New England home, having all the delicacy
and at the same time hardiness of the windflower. She was also as
shy and easily agitated, and yet, like the flower she resembled,
well rooted among the rocks of principle and truth. She was the
youngest and the pet of the household, and yet the “petting” was
not of that kind that develops selfishness and wilfulness, but
rather a genial sunlight of love falling upon her as a focus from
the entire family. They always spoke of her as “little Sis,” or
the “child.” And a child it seemed she would ever be, with her
kittenish ways, quick impulses, and swiftly alternating moods. As
she developed into womanly proportions, her grave, businesslike
father began to have misgivings. After one of her wild sallies at
the table, where she kept every one on the qui vive by her
unrestrained chatter, Mr. Alford said:

“Elsie, will you ever learn to be a woman?”

Looking mischievously at him through her curls, she replied, “Yes;
I might if I became as old as Mrs. Methuselah.”

They finally concluded to leave Elsie’s cure to care and trouble–
two certain elements of earthly life; and yet her experience of
either would be slight indeed, could their love shield her.

But it would not be exactly care or trouble that would sober Elsie
into a thoughtful woman, as our story will show.

Some of the November wind seemed in her curling hair upon this
fateful day; but her fresh young April face was a pleasant
contrast to the scene presented from the window, to which she kept
flitting with increasing frequency. It certainly was not the
dismal and darkening landscape that so intensely interested her.
The light of a great and coming pleasure was in her face, and her
manner was one of restless, eager expectancy. Little wonder. Her
pet brother, the one next older than herself, a promising young
theologue, was coming home to spend Thanksgiving. It was time he
appeared. The shriek of the locomotive had announced the arrival
of the train; and her ardent little spirit could scarcely endure
the moments intervening before she would almost concentrate
herself into a rapturous kiss and embrace of welcome, for the
favorite brother had been absent several long months.

Her mother called her away for a few moments, for the good old
lady was busy indeed, knowing well that merely full hearts would
not answer for a New England Thanksgiving. But the moment Elsie
was free she darted back to the window, just in time to catch a
glimpse, as she supposed, of her brother’s well-remembered dark-
gray overcoat, as he was ascending the front steps.

A tall, grave-looking young man, an utter stranger to the place
and family, had his hand upon the doorbell; but before he could
ring it, the door flew open, and a lovely young creature
precipitated herself on his neck, like a missile fired from
heavenly battlements, and a kiss was pressed upon his lips that he
afterward admitted to have felt even to the “toes of his boots.”

But his startled manner caused her to lift her face from under his
side-whiskers; and though the dusk was deepening, she could see
that her arms were around an utter stranger. She recoiled from him
with a bound, and trembling like a windflower indeed, her large
blue eyes dilating at the intruder with a dismay beyond words. How
the awkward scene would have ended it were hard to tell had not
the hearty voice of one coming up the path called out:

“Hi, there, you witch! who is that you are kissing, and then
standing off to see the effect?”

There was no mistake this time; so, impelled by love, shame, and
fear of “that horrid man,” she fled, half sobbing, to his arms.

“No, he isn’t a ‘horrid man,’ either,” whispered her brother,
laughing. “He is a classmate of mine. Why, Stanhope, how are you?
I did not know that you and my sister were so well acquainted,” he
added, half banteringly and half curiously, for as yet he did not
fully understand the scene.

The hall-lamp, shining through the open door, had revealed the
features of the young man (whom we must now call Mr. Stanhope), so
that his classmate had recognized him. His first impulse had been
to slip away in the darkness, and so escape from his awkward
predicament; but George Alford’s prompt address prevented this and
brought him to bay. He was painfully embarrassed, but managed to
stammer: “I was taken for you, I think. I never had the pleasure–
honor of meeting your sister.”

“Oh, ho! I see now. My wild little sister kissed before she
looked. Well, that was your good-fortune. I could keep two
Thanksgiving days on the strength of such a kiss as that,” cried
the light-hearted student, shaking the diffident, shrinking Mr.
Stanhope warmly by the hand. “You will hardly need a formal
introduction now. But, bless me, where is she? Has the November
wind blown her away?”

“I think your sist–the lady passed around to the side entrance. I
fear I have annoyed her sadly.”

“Nonsense! A good joke–something to tease the little witch about.
But come in. I’m forgetting the sacred rites.”

And before the bewildered Mr. Stanhope could help himself, he was
half dragged into the lighted hall, and the door shut between him
and escape.

In the meantime, Elsie, like a whirlwind, had burst into the
kitchen, where Mrs. Alford was superintending some savory dishes.

“Oh, mother, George has come and has a horrid man with him, who
nearly devoured me.”

And, with this rather feminine mode of stating the case, she
darted into the dusky, fire-lighted parlor, from whence, unseen,
she could reconnoitre the hall. Mr. Stanhope was just saying:

“Please let me go. I have stood between you and your welcome long
enough. I shall only be an intruder; and besides, as an utter
stranger, I have no right to stay.” To all of which Elsie devoutly
whispered to herself, “Amen.”

But Mrs. Alford now appeared, and after a warm, motherly greeting
to her son, turned in genial courtesy to welcome his friend, as
she supposed.

George was so happy that he wished every one else to be the same.
The comical episode attending Mr. Stanhope’s unexpected appearance
just hit his frolicsome mood, and promised to be a source of
endless merriment if he could only keep his classmate over the
coming holiday. Moreover, he long had wished to become better
acquainted with this young man, whose manner at the seminary had
deeply interested him. So he said:

“Mother, this is Mr. Stanhope, a classmate of mine. I wish you
would help me persuade him to stay.”

“Why, certainly, I supposed you expected to stay with us, of
course,” said Mrs. Alford, heartily.

Mr. Stanhope looked ready to sink through the floor, his face
crimson with vexation.

“I do assure you, madam,” he urged, “it is all a mistake. I am not
an invited guest. I was merely calling on a little matter of
business, when–” and there he stopped. George exploded into a
hearty, uncontrollable laugh; while Elsie, in the darkness, shook
her little fist at the stranger, who hastened to add, “Please let
me bid you good-evening, I have not the slightest claim on your
hospitality.”

“Where are you staying?” asked Mrs. Alford, a little mystified.
“We would like you to spend at least part of the time with us.”

“I do not expect to be here very long. I have a room at the
hotel.”

“Now, look here, Stanhope,” cried George, barring all egress by
planting his back against the door, “do you take me, a half-
fledged theologue, for a heathen? Do you suppose that I could be
such a churl as to let a classmate stay at our dingy, forlorn
little tavern and eat hash on Thanksgiving Day? I could never look
you in the face at recitation again. Have some consideration for
my peace of mind, and I am sure you will find our home quite as
endurable as anything Mr. Starks can provide.”

“Oh! as to that, from even the slight glimpse that I have had,
this seems more like a home than anything I have known for many
years; but I cannot feel it right that I, an unexpected stranger–
“

“Come, come! No more of that! You know what is written about
‘entertaining strangers;’ so that is your strongest claim.
Moreover, that text works both ways sometimes, and the stranger
angel finds himself among angels. My old mother here, if she does
weigh well on toward two hundred, is more like one than anything I
have yet seen, and Elsie, if not an angel, is at least part witch
and part fairy. But you need not fear ghostly entertainment from
mother’s larder. As you are a Christian, and not a Pagan, no more
of this reluctance. Indeed, nolens volens, I shall not permit you
to go out into this November storm to-night;” and Elsie, to her
dismay, saw the new-comer led up to the “spare room” with a sort
of hospitable violence.

With flaming cheeks and eyes half full of indignant tears, she now
made onslaught on her mother, who had returned to the kitchen,
where she was making preparations for a supper that might almost
answer for the dinner the next day.

“Mother, mother,” she exclaimed, “how could you keep that
disagreeable stranger! He will spoil our Thanksgiving.”

“Why, child, what is the matter?” said Mrs. Alford, raising her
eyes in surprise to her daughter’s face, that looked like a red
moon through the mist of savory vapors rising from the ample
cooking-stove. “I don’t understand you. Why should not your
brother’s classmate add to the pleasure of our Thanksgiving?”

“Well, perhaps if we had expected him, if he had come in some
other way, and we knew more about him–”

“Bless you, child, what a formalist you have become. You stand on
a fine point of etiquette, as if it were the broad foundation of
hospitality; while only last week you wanted a ragged tramp, who
had every appearance of being a thief, to stay all night. Your
brother thinks it a special providence that his friend should have
turned up so unexpectedly.”

“Oh, dear!” sighed Elsie. “If that is what the doctrine of special
providence means, I shall need a new confession of faith.” Then, a
sudden thought occurring to her, she vanished, while her mother
smiled, saying:

“What a queer child she is, to be sure!”

A moment later Elsie gave a sharp knock at the spare room door,
and in a second was in the further end of the dark hall. George
put his head out.

“Come here,” she whispered. “Are you sure it’s you?” she added,
holding him off at arm’s-length.

His response was such a tempest of kisses and embraces that in her
nervous state she was quite panic-stricken.

“George,” she gasped, “have mercy on me!”

“I only wished to show you how he felt, so you would have some
sympathy for him.”

“If you don’t stop,” said the almost desperate girl, “I will shut
myself up and not appear till he is gone. I will any way, if you
don’t make me a solemn promise.”

“Leave out the ’solemn.’”

“No, I won’t. Upon your word and honor, promise never to tell what
has happened–my mistake, I mean.”

“Oh, Elsie, it’s too good to keep,” laughed George.

“Now, George, if you tell,” sobbed Elsie, “you’ll spoil my
holiday, your visit, and everything.”

“If you feel that way, you foolish child, of course I won’t tell.
Indeed, I suppose I should not, for Stanhope seems half frightened
out of his wits also.”

“Serves him right, though I doubt whether he has many to lose,”
said Elsie, spitefully.

“Well, I will do my best to keep in,” said George, soothingly, and
stroking her curls. “But you will let it all out; you see. The
idea of your keeping anything with your April face!”

Elsie acted upon the hint, and went to her room in order to remove
all traces of agitation before the supper-bell should summon her
to meet the dreaded stranger.

In the meantime, Mr. Alford and James, the second son, had come up
from the village, where they had a thriving business. They greeted
George’s friend so cordially that it went some way toward putting
the diffident youth at his ease; but he dreaded meeting Elsie
again quite as much as she dreaded meeting him.

“Who is this Mr. Stanhope?” his parents asked, as they drew George
aside for a little private talk after his long absence.

“Well, he is a classmate with whom I have long wished to get
better acquainted; but he is so shy and retiring that I have made
little progress. He came from another seminary, and entered our
class in this the middle year. No one seems to know much about
him; and indeed he has shunned all intimacies and devotes himself
wholly to his books. The recitation-room is the one place where he
appears well–for there he speaks out, as if forgetting himself,
or rather, losing himself in some truth under contemplation.
Sometimes he will ask a question that wakes up both class and
professor; but at other times it seems difficult to pierce the
shell of his reserve or diffidence. And yet, from little things I
have seen, I know that he has a good warm heart; and the working
of his mind in the recitation-room fascinates me. Further than
this I know little about him, but have just learned, from his
explanation as to his unexpected appearance at our door, that he
is very poor, and purposed to spend his holiday vacation as agent
for a new magazine that is offering liberal premiums. I think his
poverty is one of the reasons why he has so shrunk from
companionship with the other students. He thinks he ought to go
out and continue his efforts tonight.”

“This stormy night!” ejaculated kind Mrs. Alford. “It would be
barbarous.”

“Certainly it would, mother. We must not let him. But you must all
be considerate, for he seems excessively diffident and sensitive;
and besides–but no matter.”

“No fear but that we will soon make him at home. And it’s a
pleasure to entertain people who are not surfeited with attention.
I don’t understand Elsie, however, for she seems to have formed a
violent prejudice against him. From the nature of her announcement
of his presence I gathered that he was a rather forward young
man.”

There was a twinkle in George’s eye; but he merely said:

“Elsie is full of moods and tenses; but her kind little heart is
always the same, and that will bring her around all right.”

They were soon after marshalled to the supper-room. Elsie slipped
in among the others, but was so stately and demure, and with her
curls brushed down so straight that you would scarcely have known
her. Her father caught his pet around the waist, and was about to
introduce her, when George hastened to say with the solemnity of
an undertaker that Elsie and Mr. Stanhope had met before.

Elsie repented the promise she had wrung from her brother, for any
amount of badinage would be better than this depressing formality.
She took her seat, not daring to look at the obnoxious guest; and
the family noticed with surprise that they had never seen the
little maiden so quenched and abashed before. But George good-
naturedly tried to make the conversation general, so as to give
them time to recover themselves.

Elsie soon ventured to steal shy looks at Mr. Stanhope, and with
her usual quickness discovered that he was more in terror of her
than she of him, and she exulted in the fact.

“I’ll punish him well, if I get a chance,” she thought with a
certain phase of the feminine sense of justice. But the sadness of
his face quite disarmed her when her mother, in well-meant
kindness, asked:

“Where is your home located, Mr. Stanhope?”

“In the seminary,” he answered in rather a low tone.

“You don’t mean to say that you have no better one than a forlorn
cell in Dogma Hall?” exclaimed George, earnestly.

Mr. Stanhope crimsoned, and then grew pale, but tried to say
lightly, “An orphan of my size and years is not a very moving
object of sympathy; but one might well find it difficult not to
break the Tenth Commandment while seeing how you are surrounded.”

Elsie was vexed at her disposition to relent toward him; she so
hardened her face, however, that James rallied her:

“Why, Puss, what is the matter? Yours is the most unpromising
Thanksgiving phiz I have seen today. ‘Count your marcies.’”

Elsie blushed so violently, and Mr. Stanhope looked so distressed
that James finished his supper in puzzled silence, thinking,
however, “What has come over the little witch? For a wonder, she
seems to have met a man that she is afraid of: but the joke is, he
seems even more afraid of her.”

In the social parlor some of the stiffness wore off; but Elsie and
Mr. Stanhope kept on opposite sides of the room and had very
little to say to each other. Motherly Mrs. Alford drew the young
man out sufficiently, however, to become deeply interested in him.

By the next morning time for thought had led him to feel that he
must trespass on their hospitality no longer. Moreover, he plainly
recognized that his presence was an oppression and restraint upon
Elsie; and he was very sorry that he had stayed at all. But when
he made known his purpose the family would not listen to it.

“I should feel dreadfully hurt if you left us now,” said Mrs.
Alford, so decidedly that he was in a dilemma, and stole a timid
look toward Elsie, who at once guessed his motive in going away.
Her kind heart got the better of her; and her face relented in a
sudden reassuring smile. Then she turned hastily away. Only George
saw and understood the little side scene and the reason Mr.
Stanhope was induced to remain. Then Elsie, in her quickly varying
moods, was vexed at herself, and became more cold and distant than
ever. “He will regard me as only a pert, forward miss, but I will
teach him better,” she thought; and she astonished the family more
and more by a stateliness utterly unlike herself. Mr. Stanhope
sincerely regretted that he had not broken away, in spite of the
others; but in order not to seem vacillating he resolved to stay
till the following morning, even though he departed burdened with
the thought that he had spoiled the day for one of the family.
Things had now gone so far that leaving might only lead to
explanations and more general annoyances, for George had intimated
that the little mistake of the previous evening should remain a
secret.

And yet he sincerely wished she would relent toward him, for she
could not make her sweet little face repellent. The kiss she had
given him still seemed to tingle in his very soul, while her last
smile was like a ray of warmest sunshine. But her face, never
designed to be severe, was averted.

After having heard the affairs of the nation discussed in a sound,
scriptural manner, they all sat down to a dinner such as had never
blessed poor Mr. Stanhope’s vision before. A married son and
daughter returned after church, and half a dozen grandchildren
enlivened the gathering. There was need of them, for Elsie,
usually in a state of wild effervescence upon such occasions, was
now demure and comparatively silent. The children, with whom she
was accustomed to romp like one of them, were perplexed indeed;
and only the intense excitement of a Thanksgiving dinner diverted
their minds from Aunt Elsie, so sadly changed. She was conscious
that all were noting her absent manner, and this embarrassed and
vexed her more; and yet she seemed under a miserable paralysis
that she could neither explain nor escape.

“If we had only laughed it off at first,” she groaned to herself;
“but now the whole thing grows more absurd and disagreeable every
moment.”

“Why, Elsie,” said her father, banteringly, “you doubted the other
day whether Mrs. Methuselah’s age would ever sober you; and yet I
think that good old lady would have looked more genial on
Thanksgiving Day. What is the matter?”

“I was thinking of the sermon,” she said.

Amid the comic elevation of eyebrows, George said slyly:

“Tell us the text.”

Overwhelmed with confusion, she darted a reproachful glance at him
and muttered:

“I did not say anything about the text.”

“Well, tell us about the sermon then,” laughed James.

“No,” said Elsie, sharply. “I’ll quote you a text: ‘Eat, drink,
and be merry,’ and let me alone.”

They saw that for some reason she could not bear teasing, and that
such badinage troubled Mr. Stanhope also. George came gallantly to
the rescue, and the dinner-party grew so merry that Elsie thawed
perceptibly and Stanhope was beguiled into several witty speeches.
At each one Elsie opened her eyes in wider and growing
appreciation. At last, when they rose from their coffee, she come
to the surprising conclusion–

“Why, he is not stupid and bad-looking after all.”

George was bent on breaking the ice between them, and so proposed
that the younger members of the family party should go up a
swollen stream and see the fall. But Elsie flanked herself with a
sister-in-law on one side and a niece on the other, while Stanhope
was so diffident that nothing but downright encouragement would
bring him to her side. So George was almost in despair. Elsie’s
eyes had been conveying favorable impressions to her reluctant
mind throughout the walk. She sincerely regretted that such an
absurd barrier had grown up between her and Stanhope, but could
not for the life of her, especially before others, do anything to
break the awkward spell.

At last they were on their return, and were all grouped together
on a little bluff, watching the water pour foamingly through a
narrow gorge.

“Oh, see,” cried Elsie, suddenly pointing to the opposite bank,
“what beautiful moss that is over there! It is just the kind I
have been wanting. Oh, dear! there isn’t a bridge within half a
mile.”

Stanhope glanced around a moment, and then said gallantly, “I will
get you the moss, Miss Alford.” They saw that in some
inconceivable way he intended crossing where they stood. The gorge
was much too wide for the most vigorous leap, so Elsie exclaimed
eagerly:

“Oh, please don’t take any risk! What is a little moss?”

“I say, Stanhope,” remonstrated George, seriously, “it would be no
laughing matter if you should fall in there.”

But Stanhope only smiled, threw off his overcoat, and buttoned his
undercoat closely around him. George groaned to himself, “This
will be worse than the kissing scrape,” and was about to lay a
restraining grasp upon his friend. But he slipped away, and
lightly went up hand-over-hand a tall, slender sapling on the edge
of the bank, the whole party gathering round in breathless
expectation. Having reached its slender, swaying top, he threw
himself out on the land side. The tree bent at once to the ground
with his weight, but without snapping, showing that it was tough
and fibrous. Holding firmly to the top, he gave a strong spring,
which, with the spring of the bent sapling, sent him well over the
gorge on the firm ground beyond.

There was a round of applause from the little group he had just
left, in which Elsie joined heartily. Her eyes were glowing with
admiration, for when was not power and daring captivating to a
woman? Then, in sudden alarm and forgetfulness of her former
coolness, she exclaimed:

“But how will you get back?”

“This is my bridge,” he replied, smiling brightly across to her,
and holding on to the slender young tree. “You perceive that I was
brought up in the country.”

So saying, he tied the sapling down to a root with a handkerchief,
and then proceeded to fill another with moss.

As George saw Elsie’s face while she watched Stanhope gather the
coveted trifle, he chuckled to himself–

“The ice is broken between them now.”

But Stanhope had insecurely fastened the sapling down. The strain
upon the knot was too severe, and suddenly the young tree flew up
and stood erect but quivering, with his handkerchief fluttering in
its top as a symbol of defeat. There was an exclamation of dismay
and Elsie again asked with real anxiety in her tone:

“How will you get back now?”

Stanhope shrugged his shoulders.

“I confess I am defeated, for there is no like sapling on this
side; but I have the moss, and can join you at the bridge below,
if nothing better offers.”

“George,” said Elsie, indignantly, “don’t go away and leave Mr.
Stanhope’s handkerchief in that tree.”

“Bless you, child,” cried George, mischievously, and leading the
way down the path, “I can’t climb anymore than a pumpkin. You will
have to go back with him after it, or let it wave as a memento of
his gallantry on your behalf.”

“If I can only manage to throw them together without any
embarrassing third parties present, the ridiculous restraint they
are under will soon vanish,” he thought; and so he hastened his
steps. The rest trooped after him, while Stanhope made his way
with difficulty on the opposite bank, where there was no path. His
progress therefore was slow; and Elsie saw that if she did not
linger he would be left behind. Common politeness forbade this,
and so she soon found herself alone, carrying his overcoat on one
bank, and he keeping pace with her on the other. She comforted
herself at first with the thought that with the brawling,
deafening stream between them, there would be no chance for
embarrassing conversation. But soon her sympathies became aroused,
as she saw him toilsomely making his way over the rocks and
through the tangled thickets: and as she could not speak to him,
she smiled her encouragement so often that she felt it would be
impossible to go back to her old reserve.

Stanhope now came to a little opening in the brush. The cleared
ground sloped evenly down to the stream, and its curent was
divided by a large rock. He hailed the opportunity here offered
with delight, for he was very anxious to speak to her before they
should join the others. So he startled Elsie by walking out into
the clearing, away from the stream.

“Well, I declare; that’s cool, to go and leave me alone without a
word,” she thought.

But she was almost terror-stricken to see him turn and dart to the
torrent like an arrow. With a long flying leap, he landed on the
rock in the midst of the stream, and then, without a second’s
hesitation, with the impetus already acquired, sprang for the
solid ground where she stood, struck it, wavered, and would have
fallen backward into the water had not she, quick as thought,
stepped forward and given him her hand.

“You have saved me from a ducking, if not worse,” he said, giving
the little rescuing hand a warm pressure.

“Oh!” exclaimed she, panting, “please don’t do any more dreadful
things. I shall be careful how I make any wishes in your hearing
again.”

“I am sorry to hear you say that,” he replied. And then there was
an awkward silence.

Elsie could think of nothing better than to refer to the
handkerchief they had left behind.

“Will you wait for me till I run and get it?” he asked.

“I will go back with you, if you will permit me,” she said
timidly.

“Indeed, I could not ask so much of you as that.”

“And yet you could about the same as risk your neck to gratify a
whim of mine,” she said more gratefully than she intended.

“Please do not think,” he replied earnestly, “that I have been
practicing cheap heroics. As I said, I was a country boy, and in
my early home thought nothing of doing such things.” But even the
brief reference to that vanished home caused him to sigh deeply,
and Elsie gave him a wistful look of sympathy.

For a few moments they walked on in silence. Then Mr. Stanhope
turned, and with some hesitation said:

“Miss Alford, I did very wrong to stay after–after last evening.
But my better judgment was borne down by invitations so cordial
that I hardly knew how to resist them. At the same time I now
realize that I should have done so. Indeed, I would go away at
once, would not such a course only make matters worse. And yet,
after receiving so much kindness from your family, more than has
blessed me for many long years–for since my dear mother died I
have been quite alone in the world–I feel I cannot go away
without some assurance or proof that you will forgive me for being
such a kill-joy in your holiday.”

Elsie’s vexation with herself now knew no bounds. She stopped in
the path, determining that she would clear up matters, cost what
it might.

“Mr. Stanhope,” she said, “will you grant a request that will
contain such assurance, or rather, will show you that I am
heartily ashamed of my foolish course? Will you not spend next
Thanksgiving with us, and give me a chance to retrieve myself from
first to last?”

His face brightened wonderfully as he replied, “I will only be too
glad to do so, if you truly wish it.”

“I do wish it,” she said earnestly. “What must you think of me?”
(His eyes then expressed much admiration; but hers were fixed on
the ground and half filled with tears of vexation.) Then, with a
pretty humility that was exquisite in its simplicity and
artlessness, she added:

“You have noticed at home that they call me ‘child’–and indeed, I
am little more than one–and now see that I have behaved like a
very silly and naughty one toward you. I have trampled on every
principle of hospitality, kindness, and good-breeding. I have no
patience with myself, and I wish another chance to show that I can
do better. I–”

“Oh, Miss Alford, please do not judge yourself so harshly and
unjustly,” interrupted Stanhope.

“Oh, dear!” sighed Elsie, “I’m so sorry for what happened last
night. We all might have had such a good time.”

“Well, then,” said Stanhope, demurely, “I suppose I ought to be
also.”

“And do you mean to say that you are not?” she asked, turning
suddenly upon him.

“Oh, well, certainly, for your sake,” he said with rising color.

“But not for your own?” she asked with almost the naivete of a
child.

He turned away with a perplexed laugh and replied: “Really, Miss
Alford, you are worse than the Catechism.”

She looked at him with a half-amused, half-surprised expression,
the thought occurring to her for the first time that it might not
have been so disagreeable to him after all; and somehow this
thought was quite a relief to her. But she said: “I thought you
would regard me as a hoyden of the worst species.”

“Because you kissed your brother? I have never for a moment
forgotten that it was only your misfortune that I was not he.”

“I should have remembered that it was not your fault. But here is
your handkerchief, flying like a flag of truce; so let bygones be
bygones. My terms are that you come again another year, and give
me a chance to entertain my brother’s friend as a sister ought.”

“I am only too glad to submit to them,” he eagerly replied, and
then added, so ardently as to deepen the roses already in her
cheeks, “If such are your punishments, Miss Alford, how delicious
must be your favors!”

By common consent the subject was dropped; and with tongues
released from awkward restraint, they chatted freely together,
till in the early twilight they reached her home. The moment they
entered George exultingly saw that the skies were serene.

But Elsie would never be the frolicsome child of the past again.
As she surprised the family at dinner, so now at supper they could
scarcely believe that the elegant, graceful young lady was the
witch of yesterday. She had resolved with all her soul to try to
win some place in Mr. Stanhope’s respect before he departed, and
never did a little maiden succeed better.

In the evening they had music; and Mr. Stanhope pleased them all
with his fine tenor, while Elsie delighted him by her clear,
birdlike voice. So the hours fled away.

“You think better of the ‘horrid man,’ little Sis,” said George,
as he kissed her good-night.

“I was the horrid one,” said Elsie, penitently. “I can never
forgive myself my absurd conduct. But he has promised to come
again next Thanksgiving, and give me a chance to do better; so
don’t you fail to bring him.”

George gave a long, low whistle, and then said: “Oh! ah! Seems to
me you are coming on, for an innocent. Are we to get mixed up
again in the twilight?”

“Nonsense!” said Elsie, with a peony face, and she slammed her
door upon him.

The next morning the young man took his leave, and Elsie’s last
words were:

“Mr. Stanhope, remember your promise.”

And he did remember more than that, for this brief visit had
enshrined a sweet, girlish face within his heart of hearts, and he
no longer felt lonely and orphaned. He and George became the
closest friends, and messages from the New England home came to
him with increasing frequency, which he returned with prodigal
interest. It also transpired that he occasionally wrote for the
papers, and Elsie insisted that these should be sent to her; while
he of course wrote much better with the certainty that she would
be his critic. Thus, though separated, they daily became better
acquainted, and during the year George found it not very difficult
to induce his friend to make several visits.

But it was with joy that seemed almost too rich for earthly
experience that he found himself walking up the village street
with George the ensuing Thanksgiving Eve. Elsie was at the door;
and he pretended to be disconsolate that his reception was not the
same as on the previous year. Indeed she had to endure not a
little chaffing, for her mistake was a family joke now.

It was a peerless Thanksgiving eve and day–one of the sun-lighted
heights of human happiness.

After dinner they all again took a walk up the brawling stream,
and Stanhope and Elsie became separated from the rest, though not
so innocently as on the former occasion.

“See!” cried Elsie, pointing to the well-remembered sapling, which
she had often visited. “There fluttered our flag of truce last
year.”

Stanhope seized her hand and said eagerly: “And here I again break
the truce, and renew the theme we dropped at this place. Oh,
Elsie, I have felt that kiss in the depths of my heart every hour
since; and in that it led to my knowing and loving you, it has
made every day from that time one of thanksgiving. If you could
return my love, as I have dared to hope, it would be a happiness
beyond words. If I could venture to take one more kiss, as a token
that it is returned, I could keep Thanksgiving forever.”

Her hand trembled in his, but was not withdrawn. Her blushing face
was turned away toward the brawling stream; but she saw not its
foam, she heard not its hoarse murmurs. A sweeter music was in her
ears. She seemed under a delicious spell, but soon became
conscious that a pair of dark eyes were looking down eagerly,
anxiously for her answer. Shyly raising hers, that now were like
dewy violets, she said, with a little of her old witchery:

“I suppose you will have to kiss me this Thanksgiving, to make
things even.”

Stanhope needed no broader hint.

“I owe you a heavy grudge,” said Mr. Alford, in the evening. “A
year ago you robbed me of my child, for little, kittenish Elsie
became a thoughtful woman from the day you were here; and now you
are going to take away the daughter of my old age.”

“Yes, indeed, husband. Now you know how my father felt,” said Mrs.
Alford, at the same time wiping something from the corner of her
eye.

“Bless me, are you here?” said the old gentleman, wheeling round
to his wife. “Mr. Stanhope, I have nothing more to say.”

“I declare,” exulted George, “that ‘horrid man’ will devour Elsie
yet.”

“Haw! haw! haw!” laughed big-voiced, big-hearted James. “The idea
of our little witch of an Elsie being a minister’s wife!”

      *       *       *       *       *       *       *

It is again Thanksgiving Eve. The trees are gaunt, the fields bare
and brown, with dead leaves whirling across them; but a sweeter
than June sunshine seems filling the cosey parlor where Elsie, a
radiant bride, is receiving her husband’s first kiss almost on the
moment that she with her lips so unexpectedly kindled the sacred
fire, three years before.