I Would If He Were My Boy

A MOTHER asked me recently to be recommended a list of books for her boy to read.

I answered:

Start him with a Life of Lincoln; then a Life of Washington; then a Life of Cromwell: and when he has read these, write me again and I will recommend some more.

Don't buy these books for him. Take him to a bookstore and let him buy them for himself. Let his library be his own library. The love of books is an intoxicating habit, like the love of liquor. If more boys were taught to haunt book-stores, fewer of them would haunt saloons.

Then I went on to say:

And don't forget that the best and biggest and wisest book lies all around him and costs nothing. Don't let your boy grow up without some knowledge of the miracle of creation as it is exhibited in the growth of a garden of flowers.

These book that I recommended are the biographies of three mighty men. Nature is the autobiography of Almighty God.

No matter where you live or how busy you are, help your boy this spring to make a garden. Perhaps you are penned up in an apartment. Never mind. Let him plant something, if it be only a packet of seeds in a window-box.

If you would expand his soul, fill it full of reverence.

"The love of dirt," says Charles Dudley Warner, "is among the earliest of passions, as it is the latest. Mud pies gratify one of our first and best instincts. So long as we are dirty, we are pure. Fondness for the ground comes back to a man after he has run the round of pleasure, eaten dirt, and sowed wild oats, drifted around the world, and taken the wind of all its moods.

"The man who has planted a garden feels that he has done something for the good of the world.

"It is not simply beets and potatoes and string-beans that one raises in his well kept garden. There is life in the ground. It goes into the seeds; and it also, when stirred up, goes into the man who stirs it."

Tell you boy the story of Antœus.

Antœus was a giant, and it was one of Hercules' tasks to kill him. But Hercules discovered that every time he threw Antœus to the ground, the giant came up stronger than ever. Her had only to touch the soil to have his strength and courage renewed.

Men are like that—and boys.

There is, first of all, health for the boy who digs in the ground. It is not by chance that so large a percentage of our successful men grew up bare-footed on the farm.

There is discipline and respect for honest toil. No boy who has weeded a garden on his hands and knees, under the hot sun, is likely to grow up to be a spendthrift or a snob.

And there is—most of all—reverence.

"I often think, when working over my plants," said John Fiske, "of what Lannœus once said of the unfolding of a blossom: 'I saw God in His glory passing near me, and bowed my head in worship.'"

By all means, teach your boy the love of good books. But do not let him hold his books so close to his eyes that he fails to read the greatest mystery serial story in the world—the serial story of which God writes a new and more wonderful instalment every spring.

Bruce Barton, Editor.

The Man in the Stone House

By FREEMAN TILDEN

Illustrations by George E. Wolfe

"WHAT you need, Mrs. Tibb," said Dr. Melville, looking with professional severity at the wife of the Popular Cash Grocer of Boxton, Vermont, "is to get out of this place. Go down South. Go out West. Go to Porto Rico. Travel around. Go where you can stay outdoors. Stop worrying. That's all you need."

Jennie Tibb sat up indignantly.

"I s'pose you'll be telling me I'm playing sick next," she replied, distributing the asperity equally between the young doctor and Joel Tibb, her husband.

"Do you know, Jen," said Mr. Tibb assuagingly, "I believe the doe is right. Perhaps a trip would be the very thing." The idea of travel rather appealed to Joel.

"And who," asked Mrs. Tibb, "will take care of my hens?" Mrs. Tibb "fancied" white Leghorns.

"And who," repeated Dr. Melville, with a faintly apparent smile playing about his mouth, "will take care of your hens if you stay here and don't get any better?"

That argument was a clincher. Jennie Tibb puckered up her forehead searching for the answer, but she was fairly caught.

The Tibbs left Boxton on the sixteenth of January.

MR. and Mrs. Joel Tibb had been in Empire City about three quarters of an hour, and in the Metropolitan Hotel about half an hour, when a knock came to the door of their room, and it was announced that a young man waited below for an opportunity to speak to Mr. Tibb upon an important matter.

Joel Tibb was considerably surprised. The most important business he had done, in the past week, was to disburse money. He had had no idea that traveling was so expensive. Every time the Tibb trunk was moved, it involved Mr. Tibb in a swamp of complications, out of which he had to force his way with his pocket-book in his hand. In Boxton, Joel's home town, one could move one's entire household effects for about a dollar. But on this memorable journey Mr. Tibb discovered that it costs about as much for a trunk to travel as it does for a man. When he left home, the Popular Cash Grocer of Boxton had taken with him what he considered to be "about enough" money. He had already written home for more funds.

Mr. Tibb put on a clean collar and went downstairs. A young man with a wide-brimmed hat and an eager eye met him with outstretched hand.

"Mr. Tibb of Boxton?" he inquired. "Happy to meet you. My name is Calkins. What do you think of Empire City? The population is increasing at the rate of 400 per cent. a year, Mr. Tibb. I can show you the figures. What do you think of the climate? We call it the garden spot of California. This is really the poorest time of year to see it. In the month of May it's a Paradise. There were only seven days last year when the sun didn't shine; and last year was the worst year we ever had. If you stay here two weeks you'll never go back to New England. Have you noticed the quality of the air?"

THE young man with the eager eye finally released Mr. Tibb's hand, and the Popular Cash Grocer put it in his pocket for protection. He stammered: "Why, we've just arrived. I can't say—"

"Of course not. But you'll find that I'm telling the truth about our beautiful city. In fact, Mr. Tibb, my policy is to understate the facts rather than to overstate them. A good many people make a big mistake on that point. You see, Mr. Tibb, I run the local newspaper here. I like to get the opinions of newcomers about Empire City. We had a man from Bardolph, Vermont,—or maybe it was Michigan; I know it was Bardolph, come here last week. He spent just three hours riding around, and then sent home for his furniture. Have you noticed the peculiar dryness of the air?"

"I haven't noticed anything yet," said Mr. Tibb. "We just arrived not more than an hour ago, and—"

"House lots that used to sell for a few dollars an acre are practically worth their weight in gold now," continued the young man. "And yet, even at the present price, I wish you could tell me of a better investment, Mr. Tibb. But I won't bother you any more just now. I realize you're tired from traveling. Here's my card; I do a little in the real estate line, on the side. Come and see me this afternoon, and I'll drive you about the city in my auto. And I'm much obliged for the interview you've given me. We always like to get the opinions of strangers."

Mr. Tibb, who was not aware of having uttered any opinions whatever, grinned cordially and watched the young man with the wide-brimmed hat speeding out the front door.

"Who was it, Joel?" asked Mrs. Tibb, when her husband returned to the room.

"A pleasant young fellow called to tell me that the population of this place is increasing at the rate of—I've forgotten just the per cent., but it's enormous. He's an editor, and he's going to write us up in his paper, Jennie. We'll send a copy home to the Banner."

"But what was the important business, Joel?"

"Well, I don't know, unless that was it. He did say something about the place being called the 'garden spot,' or something like that, and called my attention to the dryness of the air. Maybe he got so interested he forgot what he really wanted to say. He was as quick as a cat. You ought to have seen him shoot out the door. I was just going to tell him—"

ANOTHER knock at the door. A card announced the presence of another gentleman downstairs who wished to speak briefly with Mr. Tibb of Boxton.

The second visitor was a big, ruddy-

---

faced man, also with a broad-brimmed hat. He spoke in a drawling tone, and emphasized his statements by tapping a little bundle of illustrated booklets against Mr. Tibb's shoulder.

"Welcome to our city!" he exclaimed, as they shook hands.

Mr. Tibb uttered embarrassed thanks. For a moment he wondered if this was a city official who had come to pay a formal visit to a citizen from a far-off State.

"It is a pleasure to meet one of the foremost citizens of Boxton," added the ruddy-faced man.

"Oh, no, really," remonstrated Mr. Tibb, blushing. It was the first time he had ever been referred to so magnificently, whatever his feelings might have been upon the subject.

"If you ever go back East," said the big man, "I'll be much mistaken. There's something about this country, Mr. Tibb—you can't describe it, but it's marvelous the way it gets a hold on people. You just mentioned the climate. Mr. Tibb, there's no two ways about it. It is perfection." (Tap with the package of booklets.) "You spoke of the air. I thought you'd notice it before you'd been in the city ten minutes." (Tap with the booklets.) "And you remarked on the general look of prosperity. Everybody remarks on it—especially keen, level-headed business men like you." (Several taps.)

Mr. Tibb began to wonder whether he had remarked on those notable assets of Empire City. He couldn't remember doing so; but the big man was so positive about it that Mr. Tibb considered the possibility of his memory being at fault.

"You're tired from traveling," went on the visitor. "I didn't mean to keep you but a minute. I want you to read this literature on the subject of Empire City, its present and future. Then, if you'll just call up my office on the telephone, I'll have a fine touring car at the door of the hotel in five minutes. Without expense to you, of course. You understand that? And would you mind stepping outside the door just a minute?"

The Boxton man went outside. The visitor pointed up toward the sky. Mr. Tibb's eyes followed the outstretched finger. A passer-by also stopped and looked up.

"The sky!" announced the pointer in a subdued, almost sacrificial voice. "Cloudless and azure."

Mr. Tibb was silent. He looked steadily up, expecting to see something unusual; a peculiar bird, or a balloon, maybe. Several other men came up, and also threw back their heads.

"Cloudless and azure," repeated the demonstrator, letting his arm fall.

The ceremony being over, the passersby moved along with admiring comments. Mr. Voorhis, the big man, continued:

"You'll find those very words in one of the booklets, Mr. Tibb. Read them over. They're pretty fine, I think. And they ought to be. They were composed by a genius. You'll meet him later. His name is Starr."

"WHAT did he want?" asked Jennie Tibb when her husband returned once more.

"Jennie, they're queer people," replied the grocer. "They're the most enthusiastic folks I ever met. You can't help liking them, either. Now, this man, Mr. Voorhis, took me out on the sidewalk and pointed up at the sky, and said, 'Cloudless and azure,' and you could see that his whole heart was in it. I wish we had a little of that spirit in Boxton. I couldn't see but what this sky was just like any old sky. But I tell you, Jennie, after all, things are what you see in them. And darned if that fellow didn't have me seeing something specially fine up above there, the dramatic way he acted and spoke."

"But what have we got to do with the sky? I don't see why a man should call you downstairs to look at the sky," objected Jennie Tibb.

"Why, they've all got something to sell, Jennie. I dare say it's mostly land. They're going to take us around in their automobiles to look at the city, free of charge. If they want to, there's no reason why we shouldn't let 'em. And you'll like 'em. They're so—I don't know just what it is—there's something big and free-spoken about them. I tell you, they've got the spirit of progress. I can see that."

Mr. Tibb's declaration was amply justified by the automobile trip they made that afternoon, in and about the flourishing metropolis. Whatever else might be said about Empire City, the progressive spirit was apparent.

The actual city was rather disappointing to Mr. Tibb. His shrewd Vermont eye, immune from the effervescent enthusiasm of the natives, could see in the collection of two-story brick and concrete business buildings and in the hastily constructed cellarless dwellings only a half-baked village, a city yet to be. Mr. Tibb had not been a grocer for nothing. He saw that Empire City was a hope rather than an achievement. He computed the chances, as he leaned back luxuriously in the upholstery of the car, of a grocery in Empire City; and his unspoken conclusion was that he would rather conduct a store in Boxton, where the sky might possibly not be cloudless and azure, but where the patronage would be greater and more certain.

THEY rode out to the city boundaries—so far as Empire City had any boundaries. The engineering plans were perfect. The streets were all laid out; the land had all been plotted and subdivided, and there were miles of asphalt sidewalks. Nothing was lacking to make it a populous municipality except houses and people. Here and there, peeping up on the landscape as if rashly emerging from the expanse of ground, was a dwelling.

"What did you say the population is?" asked Mr. Tibb, leaning over the driver's shoulder.

"Population has increased four hundred per cent. in the last year," was the reply.

"But, I mean, what is it now?" persisted the merciless grocer.

The face of Mr. Voorhis was slightly saddened at this unreasonable insistence upon exactitude; but he replied manfully: "We call it seven hundred."

"Seven hundred," repeated Mr. Tibb to his wife. "And they've got it laid out for seven million! I tell you, Jennie, if Boxton had the git-up-and-git that these folks have, it would amount to something."

The Tibbs had stopped off in Empire City quite by accident. Mrs. Tibb had declared herself worn out by traveling. She had announced that she could not possibly spend another night in a Pullman sleeper.

"If I'd had any idea that we'd have to go to bed in public," she said, "you'd never have caught me leaving Boxton, Joel."

But Mr. Tibb considered that it was no less than some mysterious guiding power that had sent them to Empire City. A tremendous scheme was taking shape in his brain. Of this scheme he said nothing to his wife. But in the next three days every waking moment was crammed with activity for the Boxton grocer. He went everywhere; saw everything; talked with everybody; and everywhere he heard the same question: "Have you met Starr?"

Obviously Starr was Empire City, and Empire City was Starr. People spoke of this extraordinary man with a certain accent of finality that left no doubt, in the grocer's mind, of Starr's importance. Even the flamboyant Mr. Voorhis, who evidently had no mean estimation of himself, invariably shook his head at the deeper questions of municipal policy and replied:

"Starr could tell you all about that."

Altogether the conviction grew upon Joel Tibb that until he had met and conversed with Starr his life would be incomplete and unsatisfactory.

ON the afternoon of the fourth day Mr. Starr returned from San Francisco. Everybody knew that he was to arrive on a certain train. In the morning the hotel proprietor had smiled cheerfully upon Mr. Tibb and presented him with a cigar, saying, "Mr. Starr will be here this afternoon." At noon the young and eager Mr. Calkins came over to announce that Starr was by this time probably within a hundred miles of Empire City. At exactly two-fifteen a boy was sent up to Mr. Tibb to say that the train was in.

Mr. Tibb began to grow uneasy, without knowing precisely why. Why should the simplest acts of any man assume such proportions in the life of his fellow creatures? Mr. Tibb began to wonder how he should conduct himself in the presence of such an overwhelming personality.

"You seem nervous, Joel," said Mrs. Tibb.

"Do I?" replied the grocer, looking at his watch for the fortieth time. "I feel a little bit nervous, Jennie."

IT was four o'clock when East and West met.

Mr. Tibb had wandered about the hotel office restlessly for some time, stopping now and then to stand at the

front windows and gaze down the main street. Suddenly, through the open door, young Mr. Calkins projected himself, and seized upon the grocer excitedly.

"He's over at my office now, Mr. Tibb, Come along and let me introduce you."

As Mr. Tibb entered the newspaper office, Mr.J. Bradlee Starr was sitting at the editor's desk, tilted back in a swivel- chair, with his feet up on one of the top drawers. He was reading a copy of the Empire City Megaphone.

"Mr. Tibb!" exclaimed Mr. Starr, springing to his feet.

"Glad to meet you, Mr. Starr," said Joel Tibb, extending his hand.

"I was just reading a little piece in the Megaphone about you when you came in," added Mr. Starr. "There—right there!"

Mr. Tibb took the paper and glanced at the head-lines. His mouth went open with amazement as he read:

HE BOOSTS FOR EMP. CITY

WEALTHY NEW ENGLANDER CROSSES THE CONTINENT AND MAY LOCATE HERE

"No, I don't go back on my home town," said Mr. Joel Tibb, the wealthiest and most influential citizen of Boxton, Vermont, who, with his wife arrived at the Metropolitan Hotel last Monday, "but I must say that you have here the foundations of a great center of population. Everything is in your favor. Not only do you have a superb climate, but you have practically everything else that makes life worth while."

The Megaphone reporter is not at liberty to state exactly what Mr. Tibb's intentions are, but, although he has been here but a few days, he is one of the most ardent boosters for Empire City. As an acute and prosperous business man he sees the tremendous possibilities of this part of the country, and it would not be surprising if he decided to locate. Mrs. Tibb expresses herself as being completely under the spell of our wonderful air and sunlight.

"Well," said Joel Tibb, when he had finished reading the news article. And then, having nothing else to say, he repeated, in a helpless sort of amazement, "Well."

"Calkins is a rattling good newspaper-man," commented Mr. Starr. "He can get more out of a man in the way of an interview than anybody I ever met up with."

"I guess he can, all right," responded the grocer, with a dry grin, at the same time looking meaningly at the editor.

Mr. Starr caught the expression, and understood its import.

"We might go for a little walk," he suggested. My legs are cramped from riding all day. Here's my card, Mr. Tibb. I'll be with you in just a minute."

While the leading spirit of Empire City was engaged with the newspaper man, Mr. Tibb divided his attention between him and the card, which read:

MY MOTTO:

IF IT can THRIVE-MAKE IT!

IF IT can't THRIVE-KILL IT!

J. BRADLEE STARR

TOWN BOOSTER

Oxygen Treatment for Moribund Municipalities

"H'm!" said Mr. Tibb to himself. "Now, that's what I call up-to-date. That card's got some git-up-and-git to it."

He was not at all certain what a "moribund municipality" might be, but it impressed him quite as greatly as if he knew.

Then his glance went toward Starr.

THE town booster was reflected in his card. He was like no man that Joel Tibb had ever seen in Boxton. In physique he was not nearly so imposing as the grocer's' imagination had foreseen, though he was well built, and clothed rather more formally than the average citizen of Empire City, yet in the Western manner. A big diamond flickered now and then as it was brought into the light when his hand reinforced the conversation with swift, forcible gestures. He had black, curly hair that began far enough back on his forehead to leave an expansive brow. A pair of active, penetrating dark eyes, a slightly aquiline nose, a large mouth with fine teeth in it, a thoroughly masculine but well kept black mustache, and a squarish, firm jaw completed a strong but not otherwise notable physiognomy.

But there was something else about the man—and that something else was what Joel Tibb could feel and yet could

---

not explain. It was a certain exhalation of nervous force—something dynamic and original, something daring, revolutionary, unconventional. He had something that Joel had always himself felt the lack of.

AND yet, there was also something about Starr that put Joel Tibb quite at ease. The town booster had a self-confidence that somehow radiated itself—so much so that when they were outside and the town booster had asked, "Frankly, now, what do you think of Empire City?" Joel surprised himself by replying boldly:

"I'll tell you what I think, Mr. Starr. I think there's a lot of energy going to waste here."

"I don't know as I get you," shot back the town booster quickly.

"I mean," explained the Boxton grocer, "there doesn't seem to be any real reason for this place. It looks to me as if it had been made artificially, just to show what could be done out of nothing."

"I get you," was the quick response. Mr. Starr stopped and laid his hand on the grocer's shoulder. "Mr. Tibb," he said, "I don't boast. I boost. I do

things. I made this place. They got me here to do it, and I did it. You're a keen man; I can see that. I wouldn't try to bluff you. They wanted this place boosted, and I boosted it. If you'd been here two years ago you'd have seen a sandbank. Now there's something here. Well, I put it here. That's my business. It proves I can make something out of nothing. But give me something to start with, and I'll make it hum. I've got the method."

"I want to tell you right now," said Joel Tibb soberly, "that I'm not the wealthiest man in Boxton, nor anything like it. And I never told that young fellow Calkins I was going to locate here. I don't remember saying—"

J. Bradley Starr laughed softly.

"I get you," he said. "Calkins is a booster. Every stranger is a millionaire till he proves himself not guilty. Calkins considers every visitor as a possible citizen until he proves otherwise by going away. Maybe Calkins pointed out the peculiar blueness of the sky—"

"No; Mr. Voorhis did that."

"Good! That's a little idea of mine. Now, own up, Mr. Tibb, didn't it look bluer to you than any sky ever did before, while Voorhis was talking?"

"Well, he had me interested," admitted Joel Tibb cautiously.

"The first law of life is advertising," continued the town booster. "I suppose, as a grocer, you use your local paper. What do you tell your folks? That you've just got in a fresh supply of canned peas, and then wait for 'em to buy the stuff? All wrong. All wrong. You've got to tell 'em where those peas came from, and why such peas can't be grown anywhere else in the world. The sun smiled on those peas, Mr. Tibb, as the sun may never smile again; and they've got a flavor to them that nature gave just once, for the purpose of sampling her product among the people of Boxton. Can't you taste them? Every pea soft, sweet, juicy, just as fresh as it came from the pod on the dewy vine. Why, Mr. Tibb, I could sell a thousand gross of those canned peas. I can see the people swarming after 'em now!"

"I guess you could, all right," assented Mr. Tibb.

"You're not going to settle in Empire City," continued Mr. Starr decidedly. "If there was a chance of it, I wouldn't be talking to you like this. I sized you up before I saw you. Calkins wrote me a letter the day you struck town. I figured that if you hadn't invested in real estate before I got back you wouldn't at all. In a place like this, it's quick action or no action.

"You see, I'm on the level with you, Mr. Tibb. You put your finger right on the weak spot here. You've called my hand, and I'm going to let you see my cards. But it's no fault of mine that Empire City hasn't got a hundred thousand people in it this minute. I've served up all the stuff I've got. I've given 'em everything—curves, moist-balls, fast straight ones, and all. I've burned the midnight oil over this proposition, believe me. But you've said it, Tibb—the town can't deliver the goods. Oh, Tibb, give me a chance with a real, bona-fide, established town, and I'd fire the shot heard round the world!"

THERE was a dim note of regret in Mr. Starr's voice as he admitted the shortcomings of Empire City. There was nothing of discouragement in it, however. Discouragement was something Starr had, seemingly, never known. It was the inner cry of a man that sighs for bigger worlds to conquer.

"If we only had a man like you in Boxton," murmured Mr. Tibb, with a fast beating heart.

He was thinking rapidly. The vague scheme that he had been carrying for the past three days was developing into something tangible, something possible.

"Boxton?" replied Mr. Starr. "Oh, yes; your home town. What's the population, Tibb?"

"About two thousand," replied Tibb.

"And how many people?"

"Why, about two thousand," repeated Mr. Tibb wonderingly.

"You mean two thousand real people, that walk around and buy food to eat and clothes to wear?"

The Boxton grocer nodded.

"Then the population must be at least three thousand," was the comment of the town booster. "Why, Tibb, you haven't learned the first principles. Don't you know that the word 'population' has a special meaning? A town has so many people. That's a fact for you to remember. But the population—that's something for other people to remember. How's the climate?"

"Rotten," replied the grocer, almost automatically. He felt like biting off his tongue for the truthful indiscretion the next moment. But Mr. Starr did not seem disturbed in the least.

"Great advertising point, that is," said the town booster. "I'd make it almost a slogan: 'You can't live on climate. Come to the Home of Prosperity, where business is so good you don't have time to think of the weather.' Fact is, Tibb," he went on, "there's a lot of truth in that. I've been boosting climate so long, it makes me tired. I'd really enjoy some of your rotten weather, I believe."

Joel Tibb was further emboldened. He felt strong enough to put the definite question.

"Mr. Starr," he said, "had you ever thought of coming East?"

"That is to say, would I come to Boxton?" replied the other man, with a smile.

"That's what was in my mind, I suppose," admitted Mr. Tibb, with his native caution.

"I bar no locality," was the brisk rejoinder, "race, color, religion, nor previous condition of desuetude. Show me the dividends, Tibb, and I'll make a summer resort out of the North Pole."

"But I was thinking about the matter of money," said the grocer, reddening. "You might be a little steep for us: of course, I don't know what you've been used to getting for your work—"

"Money?" was the reply. "I like it, Tibb. The more there is, the better I like it. But there's something I like better. I like to make human beings jump. Have you got a Board of Trade in Boxton? No? Got a Commercial Club? No? Go back and start one, Tibb. Get the merchants together, pull some of the cobwebs out of your garrets, and dig up some of your money! Figure out the outside amount you can spend without going absolutely broke. Then send for me."

"And you'd come?" asked Mr. Tibb, with an eager, tremulous voice.

"On the next train East."

IT was nine o'clock in the morning of the twentieth of February. Walter Eadbrook was standing at the door of the Boxton Shoe Store, staring gloomily through the glass at a lightly falling snow outside. Directly opposite the Boxton Shoe Store was the two-story brick block known as Pythian Hall, of which the twin stores on the lower floor were occupied by J. E. Edmonds, jeweler, and Will Bisbee, harness-maker. A horse attached to a light sleigh was hitched at the post opposite the harness-maker's door. Not another living thing, just then, was in sight.

A moment afterward a traverse sled, drawn by two swaying oxen, moved slowly into the range of vision of Mr. Eadbrook. As he saw them, a cynical smile came over his features. He called, "Henry!" to a youth who was feeding long sticks of wood into a box-stove at the rear of the store. Henry, a red-tousle-headed boy with gorgeous freckles, came forward.

"Henry," said Mr. Eadbrook, in a patronizing tone that conveyed the suggestion that if there had been any one else to confide in the lad would have been left to his task, "Henry, look out there. That's Boxton. That's our speed. Notice those oxen? Get on to their gait? That's Boxton's gait. That's the pace that kills. Kills a town."

"Those oxen would weigh about thirty hundred," commented Henry, who had been reared on a farm and had more real interest in oxen than in shoes.

Mr. Eadbrook paid no attention to the irrelevancy. He continued in the same ironical vein:

"And if the mossbacks that are running this town had their way, we'd be burning tallow candles and going to bed with warming-pans. It's enough to take the heart out of a man. Go along, now, and heat it up here. My feet are as cold as ice."

MR. EADBROOK again turned his attention to the vacant, wind-swept street. He was a serious-looking young man of twenty-five or six years. Clean cut of face and figure, his manner and clothing were equally irreproachable. His hair was brushed straight back upon his head in the European manner that had gained access to Boxton through the example of certain traveling salesmen from New York. An excellent young man, people said, with no bad habits and a fine capacity for "tending to business."

A merry jangle of bells interrupted the shoe dealer's doleful reflections. A pair of fine horses shot into view, and a double- seated sleigh stopped in front of the door. One of the two fur-clad occupants jumped lightly out and ran toward the door, crying in a musical voice, "About half an hour, dad!"

"You'd better say an hour and come nearer the truth!" replied a dry, penetrating voice from the sleigh; and then the horses tankled away.

The bundle of fur that came toward him must have represented something more than a mere customer to the shoe dealer, for a transient gleam of pleasure took the place of the bitterness that had been on his countenance.

"'Morning, Louise," he said, and clasped the mittened hand that was extended to him. He helped the young woman off with her heavy coat, she chattering gaily all the while.

"It's a perfectly wonderful morning, Walter! The air just sends a tingle through every one of your veins. It makes you feel—I don't know what! If I had my way, there wouldn't be anybody allowed to stay indoors to-day."

SHE wore on her head an old-fashioned coon-fur toque, from out of which strands of blond hair had tumbled recklessly forth and been whipped about over her red cheeks. The face under the toque was full of charm. It radiated the wonderful bloom of perfect health, and defied any such description as that contained in the weak and inadequate word "pretty." Hazel eyes, full of good humor and tenderness and vivacity; a little nose that turned slightly upward and seemed always in quest of joy; two rows of small white teeth that were forever practising an innocent joke on the surrounding world; and a round chin that, when conditions were favorable, showed a tiny dimple. That was what could be seen.

But there was something else. It was a something else not easy to pin down to words. It was a something borrowed from the prudent recklessness of the northwest wind, tempered by the quiet warmth of the autumn sun. It was something you might understand more as you lived out of doors. And you probably wouldn't understand it at all unless you had been twenty years old for a number of years in succession.

"You ought to leave Henry in charge of the store and get out on the road awhile behind a good horse," she went on. "It would do you good—"

A hopeless expression in the young man's face stopped her in the middle of her advice.

"Why, what in the world is the matter

---

with you, Walter?" she exclaimed. "You look as if you had lost your last friend!"

Indeed, the look of pleasure that had momentarily lighted Eadbrook's face when the girl came into sight was quite gone. He replied soberly: "Oh, I've been thinking."

The brisk air had made her too buoyant and happy to permit her to lend herself instantly to solemnity. She laughed, dropped into a chair, and said: "If thinking interferes with your happiness, give up your thinking, Walter."

"It's no joke, Louise," was the bitter reply. "This is an awful place. Boxton is bad enough to live in; but to do business in—ugh!"

"What's the matter with Boxton?" she asked, surprised.

"Boxton is just about dead, that's all. And if it's alive it don't know it. I was just calling Henry's attention to old Marshall's ox-team plodding along the street, looking as if they might lie down and go to sleep any minute. That's Boxton. Only, to do the oxen justice, they never do lie down, and Boxton never does get up. You can't imagine how the deadly dullness gets on my nerves. And Henry is simply awful. This morning a woman came in while I was over at the post-office—she'd driven in from Austin Mountain—to get a pair of shoes. She wanted sixes, and the nearest thing we had in that style was a wide five. And Henry let her go over to Crawford's."

"But if you didn't have what she wanted I don't see—"

"He should have put those fives on her if it took a pulley and tackle to do it!" said Eadbrook. "Anyway, he should have sold her another style. But that's the way they do business here. Sometimes I'm almost ready to burst."

"THE place never got on your father's nerves, Walter," the girl said gently.

"My father was all right," the young man replied. "He was a fine old man. But he began to do business before the days of hustle. When he ran this store he didn't have the problems I have to face. He lived in an easy-going world. But nowadays the big mail-order houses are coming in and taking the business right under our noses, and we dally along on the same old plan—simply because we can't get together and pull together."

"But why can't you?" asked the girl.

"Why can't we? You ought to know why we can't, Lou. Look at poor Joel Tibb. Joel came back from California full of new ideas, and mighty good ideas, too. He was just choking with enthusiasm when he struck town. I guess I was the first one he talked with. He'd been studying the way they do business out there, and the way they coöperate and enthuse and all pull together, and he came back here to start a movement to boost Boxton.

"The first thing he wanted to do was to form a sort of merchants' association, or Board of Trade, and plan a regular campaign to put the town on its feet. That was just what I'd been thinking about myself, and I told him he could count on me to the last notch. We put our heads together, and finally—it was like pulling teeth to get them started—we got all the business men together over at the hotel and tried to start something. Start something! Huh!"

"And couldn't you do it?"

"Lou," said the young man, "you might as well try to get blood out of turnips. That crowd sat there, and hitched around on their chairs, and shook their heads, and acted as if somebody was trying to rob them of their watches. Poor Joel talked till he got blue in the face. Then I got up. I'm no speaker, Lou, but when I have something to say I can say it. I seconded Joel. Then Treadway, the editor of the Banner, got up and spoke in favor of it. After he got through you could have cut the air with a knife. That crowd had icicles on them.

"Finally Joe Edmonds spoke up and says: Did you see any orange groves out there, Joel?' And Thayer, the baker, who'd been looking a little more interested than anybody else—all he had to say was: 'It must have been a pretty expensive trip, Joel.'

"And then they all began to talk about the Odd Fellows' minstrel show."

"And so nothing came of it?"

"Not likely. Poor Joel! I feel worse for him than I do for myself. It seems he'd been making some sort of tentative arrangements with a certain Mr. Starr out West there. Starr makes a business of boosting cities and towns, bringing in people and business, and that sort of thing. Well, Joel had to sit down and write him a sheepish letter saying that it was no use—the merchants wouldn't do anything for themselves and they wouldn't let anybody do anything for them. Joel's been going round with his head down ever since. It took the starch right out of him completely."

A TALL farmer in a sheepskin coat came into the store at that moment to buy a pair of shoe-laces. When he got them, he took out an old leather wallet; but Eadbrook said shortly: "That'll be all right; no charge." The farmer looked astonished, and put the wallet in his pocket. But he stood still, deep in thought.

"Anything else I can do for you, Mr. Simonds?"

"Well, Walter, I was thinking we might use another pair of those laces."

Eadbrook forced a laugh and handed over another pair. After the farmer had gone out, he turned to the young woman and said: "That's Boxton, Lou."

"Poor old Boxton!" said the girl. "I had no idea it was half such a bad place, Walter."

Continued on page 19

The Last Bulliten

By KATHARINE HOLLAND BROWN

Illustrations by Robert Amick

OUTSIDE, a raw north wind beat up from the harbor and swept the gray streets with icy rain. Inside the wide, sumptuous offices, with their mocking sailing lists and their gay, sardonic posters setting forth the glories of their palace-ships, the crowd grew denser every hour. It was a singularly quiet crowd. It drifted through the entrances, it eddied about the bulletin-boards, an endless, dreary ebb and flow. Under the blazing electrics its faces showed rigid and without light, like faces painted for some monstrous pantomime. Only one thought glimmered in those blank, waiting eyes. Only the one word came from those parched mouths. Always staring, always muttering, the same dull question:

"What did that last wireless bring?"

And the same dull, heart-sick reply: "Nothing new."

"They haven't found that one missing life-boat?"

"No."

"See, it's forty-eight hours since the Empress struck that mine. D'you suppose a fishing-boat, maybe—or some other liner—"

"Can't say."

OF all that stricken company, two women alone sat silent. Twice during the day, the elder woman pushed back her furs and turned her beautiful, still face to the bulletin-board. They were always putting up a new bulletin that told nothing. But the younger woman never stirred. She hardly seemed to breathe. She was a soft-cheeked, lovely child-thing, lissome and sweet-lipped, with dark curved brows, and dark blue eyes, shadowed beneath black Celtic lashes. Against the other woman's austere magnificence, her gaudy little silk suit, the dangling seed-pearls in her ears, the soaked velvet boots on her slim feet, made her unutterably forlorn. Yet not all the cheap finery piled on her little body could cheapen her as she sat, ashen, dumb, in the majesty of terror and grief.

The dusk thickened; the lights flared high. Outside, newsboys screamed their extras. The crowd shouldered closer. Weary as the storm-driven flight of weary souls in Inferno, those endless faces streamed by. On their ears beat that relentless echo:

"Two mortal days. Surely they've picked up that life-boat by now."

"Yes."

"Even then, it can't carry more than thirty, out of two hundred."

"No."

"Doesn't look very—cheerful."

"No."

BEHIND the elder woman, strained and watchful, stood three men: her husband's partner; his secretary; and the old valet who had served him for many years, and who loved him as an old, humble father loves a young, imperious son. She did not know that they stood there. She was as alone as if she stood on another planet —as alone as the girl that sat beside her.

After a while the old valet slipped away, and came back bringing a tray of bouillon. Roused by his tremulous pleading, his mistress put back her veil and drank. Then she looked at the girl.

"Drink some of this bouillon. Give it to her, Patrick."

The old valet bent toward the girl. She did not seem to understand. Very gently he began to coax:

"Just one sip, child. Mrs. Curtice wishes it. You need it. You have sat here the livelong day."

"I ain't hungry." She pushed away the cup weakly.

"But how long since you've had bite or sup?"

"Yesterday noon, I guess. I was here all last night."

"Yesterday noon!"

"Maybe yesterday morning. I—I'm—" Her blue eyes dimmed, but her lovely head lifted proudly. "I'm Mrs. James D. McGuire. My husband, he's second engineer on the Empress Irene. His third promotion in six months. I come here because I thought sure the steamship folks would give it to me straight. But they won't tell me one word about Jimsey. Not one word!" Her head drooped now. The lashes fell wet on her cheek.

"There, there, poor lamb!" the old man soothed her tenderly. "Look ye at the power of women here a-waitin' an' a-worryin', when ten to one their men will all turn up safe an' sound. Look at Mrs. Curtice, now. Not one word have we had from the master since—since—"

He looked at his mistress's unmoved face and his whisper dropped.

"Yes, there's a-plenty other women." The girl's sweet mouth gave a bitter twist. "An' I'll bet they're all sayin' to themselves just what I'm sayin' now: 'If I only had one more chance—if I just had one more show—'"

Her flare of anger fell away. She shrank back in her chair.

Helen Curtice sat moveless. Past her blank eyes the drifting crowd passed on and on. Now and then a word reached her ears.

"Aren't they ever goin' to post any new names?"—a man's voice, worn, middle-aged, querulous. "My only sister was aboard. I keep hoping—"

"Oh, you keep hoping, do you?" The young man at his elbow wheeled with a vicious snarl. His fine, keen face was wrenched and distorted. "Well, so do I. My wife and baby were on the Empress. I've been stationed at Ho-Ho—came on from the coast yesterday. I haven't seen my wife for a year. I've never seen my little son. Oh, I'm hoping, all right!"

His furious young voice fell. He shook his head, with a queer, dazed gesture. He stumbled away.

AFTER a while the older woman was aware of another voice close by—hardly a voice: rather, a slow, half-sobbing chant, rising, falling, like the pulse of the tired young heart beneath.

"Oh, I wisht I hadn't made him buy that parlor set! I don't like it so much, anyway. Maybe I can jolly the store into taking it back. And I sha'n't make him get me a piano-player, neither. I'll let him buy shares in the Building and Loan instead. I'll let him do a lot of things, if just I get one more chance!"

"So you want one more chance." Helen looked at her, almost smiling.

The girl leaned forward. Her hot eyes softened.

"It's your husband, too? Then—you know." She drew a quivering breath. "Ain't men the funniest things ever? Take it from me, they're nothing but kids, no matter how old they are. And you've got to remember that. Always."

Helen did not speak.

"An' I—I didn't remember. I was just bossy an' mean about everything. The very day we got married, he told me he was wild for a house all his own. 'A shanty that's mine, every brick an stick; an' a green grass-plot big enough to set me two feet on at once,' he says. ' So let's begin savin' for it now, sweetness.' An' I wouldn't listen. I told him I'd aimed to marry me a man, not a truck-patch. But now—if just he's in that last life-boat!" Her low voice never left its monotone. "If just I get one more chance!"

Helen Curtice did not flinch, but her white face hardened to ice.

THE hours crept on. At length Helen stirred. Her set mouth contracted, as if the long strain could break even her stern control.

"It's the same with all of you, isn't it?" She stared at the peering faces that drifted always by. "You're all begging for one more chance. You'd make such golden use of it! Ah, would you!"

As clearly as if he stood before her, she saw her husband: his big, bulky, handsome figure; his handsome, kindly face; his large, well molded features, a little dulled nowadays—a coarsened line to the jaw, a tracery of self-indulgence round the heavy-lidded eyes. A man well liked by men and by women; an all-around good fellow. The man she had helped to make. For, shadowing past that burly, easy image, she saw the boy he had been. A big, shy, silent boy, with a big, clean, powerful body, his grave, reverent young eyes bent always to her, his naïve, solemn young ideals laid confidently in her hands to cherish. Those funny antiquated Puritan resolves of his: his home; his sober, established place in life; his duties to his town; his children—

For the first time she trembled. Her lips shut in a gray line.

"It is nearly midnight, Mrs. Curtice." Her husband's partner bent to her.

"There may be another bulletin."

"No more news to-night, they say."

"Very well." She stood up, and let him fasten her cloak. Absently, she saw that the girl was also leaving the offices. She

---

was creeping away, swaying. Her dryad body moved as feebly as tottering age.

Again the eternity of night. Again, in the morning, the crowded offices, the gaunt, dim faces. Again that cowering childish figure, that desolate moan:

"Oh, I wisht I'd done things different. I wisht I hadn't plagued Jimsey so. He was that pig-headed for havin' a home, but I was bound I'd show him who was boss. So I said we'd stay in New York. An' I got my way. An' I wisht I hadn't—oh!"

Helen shivered. She was not listening —she need not listen.

"What if I do get one more chance? What will I do with it? How can we ever

build again? Rod won't want to. And it's all my doing. Whenever he got one of his self-immolating streaks, I used to chaff him and tell him he must learn to compromise with life. Well, he has learned to compromise. He has gone farther. He has surrendered. And now, if he comes back alive, and I beg him to start out again with me, to help me find the old road—he'll laugh and reach for his check-book. And that will be all."

It would not have been all twenty years before. For Roderick Curtice had swung into the march of life with all the vital, fundamental instincts strong within him. He was born a builder. He was born to fulfil, nobly, the granite essential tasks of husband, father, laborer, and citizen. But, from the first, she had rebelled against his stodgy loyalties. She would not be tied to one monotonous place. She could not be burdened with a home. Quietly she had ridiculed, teased, thwarted: And Rod had given way.

Well, she need not wail. She had had twenty years of married freedom. And now—how free she would be now!

IF I only had the nerve, I'd go home an' sweep an' dust an' fix up the flat. He's crazy over that flat." The girl talked on softly. "An' I'd bake up a grist of spice cookies. His aunt taught me how. They're elegant. An' I'd buy me a red geranium from the dago on the corner. Jimsey he's crazy over red. I had me a red marquisette blouse for my wedding traveling suit, an' a hat with cherries, an' Jimsey he said—oh!"

She broke off with a gasp, huddling in the seat. She did not speak again.

"If it was just spice cookies and potted geraniums!" thought the other woman.

A HATEFUL envy swelled in her heart. If she could do these homely services for Rod! If she could work out the tangle of their lives with her own hands! "But Rod would be so amused. He'd think it was all a pose. Very likely it would be a pose. And how could we make our spoilt life over, and make it real?"

No; the stones to build their hearth were broken. The precious fire was dead. Yet the boy she had married had come to her ablaze with that divine flame. Had her own hands but shielded that flame!

And yet—Rod was still fond of her, in a way. If she had one more chance! If she had just one more precious year!

IT was long past noon. Again the great offices overflowed. But the crowd dragged no longer, mute, patient. Its hushed misery had roused to dreadful wakening. It railed, it protested, it wept. Through that spindrift of voices rang a man's voice, enraged and shrill:

"This ain't just waiting, I tell you. This is hell. Where's the main guy of this show, anyway? Let me get him by the collar once. I'll bet I can shake out something!"

Then an old, old voice, the aching soul of tears:

"Oh, sir, look again. Sure, 'tis not possible at all. His name must be there. The only son left to me, an' the kindest! You'll be readin' the list again, sir, please!"

But with the dusk the old dull shadow fell: the deepening silence of that eternal waiting.

Helen sat erect and still. Her beautiful, arrogant face seemed to turn to marble. But the girl lay beside her, ashen. When the old valet bent to her again, she could not take the cup. He lifted her head to his thin old shoulder, and made her swallow, drop by drop. She did not resist. She had no strength to resist. Only her eyes lived, to stare always at the bulletin-board that never told any news.

Then through the crowd came an official, shouldering his way toward the bulletin-board. His face was expressionless; but the hands that tacked up that last bulletin shook like the hands of a man in a palsy.

The crowd stood and gaped at the broad scrawled page:

S.S. Northumbria, Wireless, 7 P.M.

Last life-boat just picked up. Passengers twenty-six women, names as follows... Boat manned by two members crew—B. Evans, stoker; James McGuire, assistant engineer.

"'James McGuire'! Don't you hear that? Can't you see? Can't you understand?"

Helen stooped and shook the lax body fiercely. Her voice rang sharp and high. She stared down into the wan child-face. Intolerable anger leaped in her breast, misted red before her eyes—the blind rage of the mate.

"You've got your chance. D'you hear?"

She bent closer, panting. Had that chance lain in the girl's hand, she could have leaped on her and torn it from her.

"Go home, now. Fix up your flat, and bake your cookies, and buy your red geranium. You've got your man back. You've got your one more chance."

"Jimsey!"

Then, at last, the girl leaped up. Her face blazed alive, a white terror of rapture. From her pale lips there burst a cry—a cry so wild, so exquisite, it was a thing to break one's heart, that any human thing could dare to be so glad.

"Jimsey! Oh, Jimsey! Let me go. Quick!" She thrust past Helen. Then, with a lovely instinct, she turned back, and put out both pleading young hands.

"Oh!" she breathed, with a sob. "Oh, I forgot. For you—you—"

"Never mind me. Go on, I say."

SHE pushed the girl away. She tore herself from those clinging, eager hands. Haggard, stumbling, she blundered toward the door.

Half way there, she stopped short, caught in a sudden eddy of the crowd. Her blurred eyes stared at the group ahead: a group that swayed and thrust uncertainly, a group that had turned, with a strange, blind prescience, away from the bulletin-board, to stare at a second official who was making his way down the long room.

Suddenly Helen gasped out. A wild impulse leaped in her frozen breast.

The officer was crowding his way straight toward the bulletin-board. He was a big, stolid-featured man: but his broad face was flushed scarlet, the tears were streaming down his cheeks like rain.

DUMBLY the crowd parted before him, then shouldered close behind.

He reached the bulletin-board. He put out his hand as if to affix the sheet he carried. Then his hand dropped. He swung about, facing the crowd.

"I can't wait for you people to read this!" he cried in a loud, hoarse, trembling voice. "A minute ago we posted the last life-boat and its crew. But this moment comes a wireless from Provincetown. This—this is not the final list of survivors, my friends. A fishing-boat, the Anna Dean, has just put into Provincetown Harbor. She had no wireless, so she could not send her news ahead. She reached the spot just as the Empress went down. She picked up every person heretofore reported missing. Every single one! Do you hear me, my friends? The list is complete. The Empress did not lose a single soul!"

The crowd stared back at him. There was no outcry, no lifted voice of thanksgiving. Only, here and there, the awed whisper of deep, unbelieving joy:

"My sister! My sister!"

"My boy! My Jerry! He's saved!"

Helen Curtice's lips moved, but no sound came. Then she put up her hands to her heart. It was a gesture of reverence, of deep and humble wonder.

"So I have my chance, too. I'm given my one more chance! Oh, Rod, Rod! We'll try it once more, dear. We'll build our house of life again. This time we shall not fail!"

She did not look at the group around her. She did not look at the old valet, his face a quivering mask of gratitude.

"I'm going now—to buy my own red geranium!" she laughed out, half sobbing. Her eyes aglow, her face illumined, she went hurrying down the dusky street beneath the tender sky.

The Man with the Iron Watch

THE remarkable thing about Charles Proteus Steinmetz is that he earns his income—a hundred thousand a year: The other remarkable things about him are that, having this income, he still has only one suit of clothes, no hat, and carries an iron watch. Also it is rumored that he does not wear silk shirts., In spite of these eccentricities, he is the inventor of about every electric appliance we use.

Dr. Steinmetz is officially the chief consulting engineer of the General Electric Company in Schenectady. He is the inventor of the induction motor, the polyphase motor —indeed, he is the foremost living protagonist of modern inventing as a branch of manufacturing. Another great interest of his is the National Corporation of Schools, of which he is the president. Dr. Steinmetz "says that "this nation is third in point of production because its workers are third in point of efficiency." The association will give industrial training to grade-school boys, so that, they will be able to go beyond a ten-dollar maximum wage. In a way, it is a substitute for the old apprentice system.

Bismarck Objected to Him

IN spite of the pressure of so many interests, Dr. Steinmetz manages to have a class in electrical engineering at Union College, which gave him a Ph.D. in 1903.

Although he is a big enough man to be able to live alone, —he once spent a solitary year in a German hovel, perfecting an electric principle,—he is also big enough not to want to; he has adopted a son, and has now three grandchildren. He seldom comes to his office except for some special appointment.

Dr. Steinmetz was born in Breslau, Germany, in 1865. Probably he would have remained, there, and become a student of astronomy—which was his hobby at the time— if Bismarck had not objected to his presence. He had become associated with some of the most radical socialists, and was jailed with a number of them. As nothing could be proved against him, he was released.

Just to prove then what a thoroughly harmless person he was, he proceeded to invent an invisible ink out of a tooth wash and some blotting paper, with which he communicated with his friends, and was thus able to devise their escape. Realizing that this would not increase his popularity with Bismarck, Dr. Steinmetz withdrew to Switzerland, and finally came to the United States.

He reached New York in the steerage of a French liner in the spring of 1889, and walked the streets with a few dollars in his pockets, but carrying letters of recommendation from his professors at Breslau and the Polytechnische, Zurich. The letters gained him a position as draughtsman with a firm in Yonkers. Rather a poor task it seemed for the young man who had studied mathematics, astronomy,

physics, chemistry, and medicine. But he went up rap, idly; and when his firm joined twenty others and became the General Electric Company, he was made head of the consulting department of the famous corporation. This was just five years after he came to America. "I attribute all my success to my knowledge of mathematics," he says.

He's Still a Radical Socialist

DR. STEINMETZ has lost none of his early radical socialist principles, though he works for a great corporation.

"Ultimately," he says, "I look for one great trust, with the interests of all American citizens carefully protected. The great trust can produce more economically than the small enterprise, and trusts under strict government should be encouraged and not destroyed. I work for a large corporation because it offers me greater scope: the bigger the corporation, the better.

"Modern machinery has multiplied man's productive powers about two hundred times; and if he had one great world corporation, producing without waste, so much could be made that every human being could have everything he wanted. And if every one had everything he wanted, our notions of, value would change at once. The distinction now attaching to having something that other people can not have would disappear. People want to wear gold watches and chains because they feel that their possession gives them a higher ranking in society. Playing golf gives persons a certain distinction. If all persons had the leisure and could play golf, that distinction would disappear. Then the man who wanted exercise, instead of playing golf, might dig streets, and feel pleased in seeing his activity producing something useful.

"Some day, with better organization of production, every citizen will have what he wants, and will have plenty of leisure time to do what he wants. That is the great ideal to which I look forward. I do not live to make money. If I did I could make many times what I do."

Dr. Steinmetz, of course, is not opposed to pleasure for mere pleasure's sake. Often he will while away a casual hour with a volume of Homer in the original.

When you visit Schenectady don't look in the directory for Dr. Steinmetz's address: just ask the first citizen you see.

"Right down there about a mile," says your native. "It's about dark now, and by the time yqu get there those queer blue lights in his laboratory will be showing. Ever see him? No? Gosh, but he is a little fellow,—no more than waist-high,—and draws a bigger salary than President Wilson. Always wears a soft shirt and smokes a long thin cigar. Saw him swimming this summer—still smoking; the cigar stuck out of his mouth like a bowsprit. No, he never remembers you and never speaks; but he always smiles as he hurries along."

And Yet They Say Poetry Is Dead

Ode to a Bath-Tub

Canto 1

SOME find enjoyment in travel, others in kodaking views;
Some take to automobiling in order themselves to amuse.
But for me there is only one pleasure,
although you may call me a "dub"— There's nothing to my mind can equal
a plunge in the porcelain tub.

Canto 2

Some go to ball games for pleasure, others go bobbing for eels;
Some find delight making money, especially in real estate deals.
I care not for ball games or fishing, or money unless to buy grub;
But I'd walk forty miles before break-fast to roll in the porcelain tub.

Canto 3

Some take a trolley to Hammond, others the boat to St. Joe;
Some find sport on the golf links, with mashies that foozle, I trow.
The trolley and boat and golf-links are not one, two, nine with a rub;
Oh, what in the world is finer than a dip in the porcelain tub?

Canto 4

Some run a dairy for pleasure, others a violet farm;
Some turn their heads to bookbinding, and say it is life's dearest charm.
But for dairies or sweet-scented posies or old books I care not a nub;
I pass them all up, thank you kindly, for the little old porcelain tub.

The Hod-Carrier

TIS not a ladder of fame he climbs,
This rugged man of bricks and mortar.
The mason gets six for laying the bricks.
While the carrier gets but two and a quarter.

Cheese Day

IT'S in Green County, Wisconsin.
And the southern part of the State,
That a Cheese Day will be held,
So please remember the date.
This event is in October,
And the twelfth will be the day,
When the people of Monroe
Will give some bread and cheese away.
Monroe is the county-seat-
Built on a high level plain,
Which can easily be reached,
Either by auto or by train.
There are several kinds of cheese
Which Green County people make;
But if you want a cheese with odor,
Limburger is what takes the cake.
There'll be music and rejoicing,
And free-lunch counters on the Square,
And entertainment of all kinds
For everybody who is there.
Comical stunts will be pulled off,
And political speakers will be there;
And if you stay until evening,
You'll see fine fireworks in the air.
Then come prepared to do justice
To the coffee, bread, and cheese;
And make this the greatest Cheese Day
Since the wind blew through the trees.

Ode to Myself

AND I have always been a farmer,
Until a few years ago,
When I was elected county clerk,
And then I moved into Monroe.
And I have lived here ever since,
Right up to the present time;
But during the past few years
I have been branching out in rhyme.

Scenes that Have Made Plays

People Who Wait

---

What Becomes of All the Queens?

Missing— Roberta Hoyt!

By ADELE LUEHRMANN

Illustrations by R. M. Crosby

TUESDAY the interview with Rosser appeared in the Record, and Robert Hoyt's will became the subject of lively discussion by the press, the sealed letter, of course, playing the star part. As Tuesday and Wednesday went by without developments of any kind, public interest seemed to increase, and it reached its height on the afternoon of Thursday, November 7, when the Evening News appeared with the offer of a money reward for information that should lead to the discovery of Miss Hoyt's whereabouts, or, failing that, to the discovery and identification of the girl who had pawned the jewelry.

That was the beginning of the end. Within an hour I was arrested and led, handcuffed, to the office of the News. With Characteristic enterprise the tearoom waitress had betrayed me. And I take pleasure in announcing at once that she did not get the reward; for her information led to nothing: except thy personal discomfort. The finding of the locket on me was taken as evidence of the truth of her story, but that was as far as they got.

I declined either to deny or affirm her statements. My chances of going to jail were about the same, whether I talked or did not. And what was a night in jail? The next day was the 8th, the day I was living for. And I had another reason for silence. I knew that in the hands of the average newspaper writer the incident of the meeting and the tea-party afterward would become nothing better than a common pick-up, and I was not going to risk that, not if they gave me the third degree.

EXASPERATED by the deadlock occasioned by my refusal to speak, and desperately determined to force my hand, my accuser finally had Mr. Rosser summoned, and his arrival revealed the fact that it was the waitress who had started him on my trail—and that within twenty-four hours of accepting my money.

However, the discovery did not worry me; I knew just how little he knew. The trailing of me had not begun until after my return from Riverton with Rice and Farnham, and, thanks to Rogers and Mulrooney, my shadow did not follow me to the Hillside Inn. And William Rosser or any one else was welcome to any other information they could get about me.

FOR more than an hour I was plied with questions, and in the end I might have got the third degree. Then, quite unexpectedly to everybody concerned, little Mrs. Slocum put her reluctant finger in the pie.

I did not know how to size her up when they brought her in to look me over. She was middle-aged and shabby, with a sweet, tired face, soft eyes, and a brave mouth. She gave me one fluttering glance and shook her head.

"No, he's not the one; I never saw this young man before," she said, with a sigh that sounded relieved.

"Sure?" snapped Baker, the detective who had conducted my inquisition.

"Oh, yes; the other young man was quite different in appearance. I saw him only for a few minutes under the street lamp, but—"

"You said you saw him after he came into the house!" Baker interrupted.

"No, no—he didn't come in," she corrected hastily. "You must have misunderstood me." He had not misunderstood, as I knew; he was trying to trip her. "This is what I said," she explained earnestly. "It was a little past ten, and I had just turned down the hall light and gone into the parlor to close the windows, which were all open—one of the young ladies had had a caller who smoked—"

"Never mind that," cut in Baker again.

"Well, as I stepped into the room the automobile stopped—not a taxi, but a large, handsome limousine—and they got out. I just saw his face a moment as he turned toward the light in helping her out. They came up the steps, and I heard the door unlocked; then, after a few words which I did not catch, she said: I'm so frightened and nervous. I don't believe I can ever go through with it.' Then he answered something, and she—"

"You're *sure you didn't hear what he said?" bullied Baker.

"Oh, yes—a man's voice never carries like a woman's, you know. Then she said: Twelve o'clock is bound to come.' Then they both said good night, she came in, and he went off in the car."

"And he was tall and dark, you say?"

"Yes; but he did not look at all like this young man." Here she gave me another fleeting glance. "He was an older man, too."

I HAD been listening intently to this dialogue, waiting for a clue to the identity of the "she" to whom they referred. Evidently they knew no more of the man than I did. But at the description—tall and dark and older—the thought of Winter flashed into my mind. It fitted him, at least.

"'Twelve o'clock's bound to come,' eh?" Baker repeated the enigmatic words with a puzzled frown.

"Oh, I do hope she has done nothing wrong," Mrs. Slocum exclaimed, distress in every tone. "I should never have had the heart to come here, only I—I need the money so—with the hard summer I had and now the coal to get in—"

"It was your duty to tell without a reward," Baker reminded her sharply. "You've very likely been harboring a criminal. What kind of a house do you keep, anyway, taking in women at nine o'clock at night without baggage or references? In the habit of doing that?"

The little woman's pale face reddened and she winced at the slur; but she answered with perfect self-control:

"She was so young— I couldn't send her into the street again at such an hour. She explained about her trunk; and as for references, I've been renting rooms for four years, and the only references I've ever found worth anything are those a woman carries in her face."

"And on her back, eh? Looking for work in velvet and furs-a likely story!"

"THAT'LL do, Baker," came from the doorway in the authoritative drawl of Hillman, the News man in charge of the case. He had left the room with Rosser just before Mrs. Slocum's arrival, and now returned alone.

"We are much obliged to Mrs. Slocum for telling us what she has," he continued. "Smith has just 'phoned that the girl has left the house and that Brady is trailing her. I think we had better go up there at once and look at those things."

He regarded me uncertainly.

"Better take him along, Mr. Hillman," Baker advised, with a scowl at me. "Maybe he'll talk when he sees we've really got her."

Hillman assented with a short nod, and left the room with Mrs. Slocum, leaving Baker to escort me. When the four of us reached the rooming-house in Thirty-eighth Street for which we were bound, we found Smith, the detective to whom Hillman had referred, waiting for us outside. Mrs. Slocum admitted us, and, arranging that Smith was to stand guard below, the rest of us started upstairs—for what purpose, of course, I had no idea. But we had proceeded only a few steps when the telephone bell rang, and, thinking it might be for him, Hillman ordered us down again, while Mrs. Slocum went to a room at the end of the hall to answer it.

Her voice was just audible to us by listening closely, and I suppose it was because we were all straining our ears in that direction that we missed the sounds of footsteps on the stairs. I, at any rate, was not aware of them until the girl suddenly came in sight. Even then, the hall was so dimly lighted that I did not see her

Continued on page 15

How I Made My Garden Pay

Sweet Peas Paid Off Her Mortgage

WHEN she was ordered to the country to try outdoor life, Mrs. A.A. Frost of Marblehead, Massachusetts, tried raising flowers for a living. Taking a farm that was for sale, she put the rent money into small payments on the farm-house, mortgaging it for the rest of the sum.

Mrs. Frost loved sweet peas; so, as soon as the frost left the ground, the garden, which had been well fertilized in the fall, was dug in trenches two feet wide and two feet deep. A layer of fertilizer was laid along the bottom and thoroughly sprayed. The trenches were then filled with soil, equal parts of loam, wood earth, and old manure.

The seeds were planted an inch apart, and a wire netting was made and put up for them to climb upon. Twice a week the ground was thoroughly watered. Each row was a separate color.

From the first the venture was a success, and the different kinds were used for different purposes—pink for weddings, purple and white for funerals, pink and salmon for card and evening parties.

When orders came from a distance, the flowers were packed in wet cotton wool, after being loosely bunched and tied with green moss, so that they kept fresh until they reached their destination.

Her sweet peas paid off Mrs. Frost's mortgage, and are enabling her steadily to save for a rainy day.

Mary Harrod Northend, Salem, Mass.

A Women Florist's Story

IT was in the fall of 1913 that I decided to enter into the florist business. Not having very much money to spend for flowers, I bought rose cuttings from a friend and rooted about three hundred, under a window in the open garden. In the early spring I transplanted my roses into rows three feet apart. By the first of June they began to bloom.

By advertising in our town paper I found a ready market for every rose I could cut, for socials, for the sick, and for funerals.

To my rose garden I added chrysanthemums, planting two hundred and fifty. These I sold at twenty-five and fifty cents a dozen.

In the fall of 1914 I had a greenhouse built, that cost about $150. And with the money that I had taken in on roses during the summer I paid $50 down, and the rest in monthly payments.

I then bought three hundred carnations, a few dollars' worth of bulbs, and some ferns. Then I was ready in a few weeks

to sell cut flowers from my greenhouse.

I made arrangements with the sexton at our city cemetery to save all the wire frames, the wreaths, crosses, etc., for me. They had formerly been carried away as trash. For these he did not charge anything.

I am now getting all the orders for cut flowers and wreaths for funerals that I can possibly fill. These wreaths bring me from $2.50 up to $10.

I make my greatest profits from my summer flowers. I had roses blooming right along through the hottest part of the summer, when everybody else's were resting. I attribute this to the fact that I kept the top of the ground stirred regularly, thus keeping the moisture around the roots.

I did not have the city water put in until last summer.

I have paid for my greenhouse, helped pay the taxes on my home, and contributed to the support of the family.

Besides all these, I have gained perfect health. I believe any woman can do what I have done.

Mrs. O. P. Watkins, Weatherford, Texas.

Grow Young by the Onion Bed

JASPER SHAVER had watched one avenue after another close to him because of poor health. At last, broken in body, he went to bed. Then one day he read that out in the sunshine, even in the rain, lay the health that eluded him; and he got up. Without experience, without capital, at sixty he began to grow a garden. At seventy-seven he is a well man, commanding the respect of his associates, and supporting himself and sister from a half acre of an old creek-bed where the sole output had previously consisted of tin cans and defunct shoes.

Last year, on less than three square rods of ground, he raised and marketed $40 worth of onions, and cleared the space in time to set out tomato plants, from which he netted $30 before frost—a profit of $70 from this one plot. He believes in rotation, so in the spring he put cabbage into this space. He plants radishes between rows of cabbage and of asparagus. Lettuce he grows up to Christmas. He raises beets, peas, rhubarb, and egg-plant with profit. He no longer attempts corn, melon vines, and such things as require a great deal of space.A large profit comes from two beds of

ever-bearing strawberries. After a heavy crop in the spring, these beds bear again in the fall great red berries, which he sells for twenty cents a box. It all came up to $500 last year.

At first—and those were the days when his profits scarcely rose above $30 a year —he irrigated his garden with a hand- pump. Then he put up a windmill; but even this did not furnish enough water. Finally lie put in city water, and, doing much of the work himself, installed at a cost of $100 a system of overhead irrigation.

Jasper Shaver is not all commercialism. Bordering his strawberry beds are well tended violet plants, and blooming flowers flank the tiny cottage where he and his sister live. Catha Wells, Chillicothe, Mo.

She Keeps the Hotel Vases Full

HAVING a 40 x 60-foot lot in the rear of my home, I decided in 1914 to get a revenue from it with flowers. The rich soil is exposed to the sun all day.

I had at my disposal one hundred dahlia bulbs of ten varieties and ten dozen gladiolus bulbs of two colors, which had been increasing for three years. I planted the dahlias on the outside of the lot, as these plants to bloom must have the sun. I made the hills three feet apart, and cut off the sprouts as they came up, leaving two or three of the strongest and best Shoots, for the sake of larger flowers.

I found the best dressing to be a mixture of cow and horse manure; with a Small amount of garden fertilizer placed in part of the hills to force them along for early flowers.

I planted a part in the last week of March, the balance two weeks later, and received the first blooms the 26th of June. They were the very first blooms in this vicinity, and I cut the last blooms on November 25.

I have seven large rose bushes of four

colors that bloom freely and help out very much in furnishing necessary flowers to sell.

The gladiolus bulbs were planted in rows four feet from the dahlias. This left the center of the lot for rows of sweet peas, asters, zinnias, and ferns.

Living near a large beach resort with hotels, restaurants, and drug stores, I made contracts with the proprietors for the tables in their dining-rooms for one hundred dozen a week, to be de:. livered Wednesdays and Saturdays. At an average of fifteen cents a dozen blooms, for ten weeks' sales I received $150. I also sold ten orders of dahlia bulbs at $1 each. The net income for time season was $160.

I found that dahlia bulbs can be drowned out by too much rain and bad drainage. The gladiolus grows and flow ers best in a sandy soil.

I have three hot-beds in which to start some of the flowers earlier next season, and intend to increase the sales and revenue from the land.

Mary L. Brown, Revere, Mass.

What He Does While He's Resting

E.M. PERENCHIEF is a carpenter. He works his good eight hours every day, and it takes him from one to two hours to get back and forth from his work, for his jobs are usually from ten to forty miles from his home. He has worked for one contractor every working day for seven straight years. Most carpenters would think that this entitled them to their slippers and fireside the minute they struck their front door. But this picture shows what Perenchief does while he's resting. Three years ago the Perenchiefs bought a lot. At night and on Sundays Mr. Perenchief busied himself building a wee bit of a house on the highest point of the lot. Then— "Somehow I got started gardening at odd times," says Mr. Perenchief, "and it got such hold on me I couldn't quit."

There is no front or back yard to the Perenchiefs' house. Down near the street gate is the patch, about twenty feet square, from which Mr. Perenchief took last season four barrels of potatoes. Giant cauliflowers, beets, turnips, and carrots grow just across the path. Petunias climb over the low fence, and geraniums, salvia, and alyssum make borders for the vegetable patches. All about the house are flowers.

A vine-covered arbor leads to the one small outhouse hidden by shrubbery. And beyond, in the farthest corner, behind a flower-hung lattice, are a dozen or so pet chickens, which have allowed the Perenchiefs to buy but two dozen eggs in the past year.

Just before you discover this secluded little hen-yard you come to a simple small incinerator, where the refuse from the garden is burned and returned to fertilize the soil.

The place, all told, has cost less than a thousand dollars, and many a millionaire might envy it.

Bertha H. Smith, Los Angeles, Cal.

---

Pansies for Thoughts—and Profit

I MAKE money in flowers by specializing. I have a limited space in the back yard of our lot. I go to no expense in the matter of raising flowers, except to buy a few special kinds of seeds, and I have made as much as eleven dollars in one month. That was last March, our best month for transplanting. Other spring and summer months I have averaged about half of that. But what I get is clear, and I use it for things I want to buy for the house or for things I want to wear. I have just painted my kitchen throughout, ceiling, floor, and walls, a light drab —that is, my flower money has done it.

I have always loved to care for flowers, and a few years ago I decided to work it up to a paying basis, and advertise, and make money from my flowers. For three years I have been doing this.

I limit myself to a few old-fashioned varieties—the kinds florists do not have. My specialties in perennials are columbine, cineraria, fox-glove, calliopsis, and pansies; in annuals, asters, scabiosas, coreopsis, and helianthus. Around the sides of my lot, but not to sell, I have such tall flowers as poppies, which grow five or six feet tall here, sweet peas, and roses.

I sow the seeds of my perennials in

boxes in the fall and keep them in a sheltered place; in the shed and fernery. Annuals I sow during the fall and winter in boxes. Some that can not well be transplanted. I sow in February and March in the beds. As soon as the heavy rains stop in February I begin my gardening. Before that my husband fertilizes my garden at every opportunity with stable manure. He can often obtain it by the wheelbarrow load from our alley. And he speaks for the piles of leaves and refuse cleaned from the gutters. I have never bought any commercial fertilizer. In the spring I get woods dirt.

At the annual fall florist shows I have won the blue ribbon for a window, bouquets, and potted plants. A florist sometimes comes to me for columbine or cineraria.

The climate is an advantage, and my work is simplified by the fact that most perennials live outdoors the year round here. But flowers will always respond to right care; and one who loves them and loves to work with, them can find them a profitable investment of time and attention anywhere. They pay not only in money, but are a wonderful health investment as well.

Mrs. Mansell, Los Gatos, Cal.

He Lets His Flowers Die

THIS man isn't wading knee-deep in snow, for he lives in southern California. It's John Bodger in the middle of his fifty-acre patch of asters, where he raises seed for the world's market. This is only part of an 800-acre flower- seed farm owned by the Bodgers, father and sons.

The only regular thing about nature is its irregularity, and it is as uncertain in California as elsewhere. But there is less risk in growing asters than in rais-

ing most other flowers, as they grow during the summer season, when the grower knows there will be no rain, and therefore figures definitely on irrigation.

This fifty-acre patch of asters must be kept as free of weeds as the primmest of little home gardens. Through the summer months a two-horse plow goes through it at regular intervals, cultivating, and a group of Mexicans with short-handled hoes chop out the weeds where they grow too close for the plow. By September the field is as white as snow, each stalk bearing from eighty to a hundred blossoms.

Then all day Bodger senior, a master hand at roguing, goes through this field, uprooting hundreds of plants, cutting thousands of blossoms, many of them perfect but not true to type, in order to preserve and improve the type. The rest are left to die on their stems and be harvested for the seed.

Bertha H. Smith, Los Angeles, Cal.

Her Uphill Garden

I SUPPOSE I am favored in one way: I have more land than most house-holders. But it is in spots rather than in lots, for my gardens are made among rocks and under the shadows of great boulders. Here and there, wherever a little' level space offers itself, or on the sloping sides of the hill where my house is, I plant flowers. It is only a few years that I. have sold them. I used to have the idea that I must give them away, and I do a good deal of that yet. But my seeds and plan ts cost money. There seems no reason why a little, at least, should not trickle back into my pocket-book.

I believe that there is no better place for the business of flower sales than the suburban district of a large city. I do not advertise, because, being a busy housewife, I have as much trade as I can attend to without reaching out for more. My only method of advertising is the placing of a card on my big elm tree which stands on the sidewalk along which pass some hundreds of people daily. I try to make these announcements cordial and original. I paste bright-colored pictures of flowers clipped from old catalogues on the ends of the card, and print in large letters some such message as this:

The garden on the hill is very beautiful. Don't you want to come and see it? Its flowers are ready for sale. Drop in.

It is wonderful how many accept the invitation.

My first flowers are peonies and violets. These are ready by Decoration Day. I have about a dozen big lilac bushes, purple and white, and, unless they are gone by that date, I give a bunch as largess to any customer who wants them. Some want more and offer to pay for them. I am called the "nasturtium woman" by my neighbors. I have the most, the earliest, and the greatest of any one in town. There is no secret about it, either. I get every catalogue I can, and buy from all of them, and in this way I get about every possible marking there is. I wish I knew how many thousands of these flowers I have raised. They sell readily. I allow the customers themselves to pick them, if they want to.

Old-fashioned flowers find a ready sale. People seem to feel a good deal of sentiment for such flowers as hollyhocks, peonies, daisies, and bleeding-heart. Children come with nickels and dimes to get "some flowers for teacher." I am generous with them. They may become flower-raisers themselves some day, so I take them around my "third acre," and tell them how easily they may become producers if they wish.

I do not make a fortune. I do make enough to pay for the gardens and leave a surplus. When, in addition, one measures up the joy and delight a garden gives one, and the health and good time one finds in its borders, it makes the venture not only profitable but the superlative of pleasant.

Last summer, when my hollyhocks, climbing roses, nasturtiums, and peonies were all in blossom at one time, even the most prosaic person who chanced to turn the corner suddenly and come upon them drew a breath of ungrudging admiration. No one could help it. No one could feel morbid or miserable in the face of such beauty.

My advice to every one who has even a few feet of arable soil is to cultivate it.

Mary E. Gardner, Upham's Corner, Mass.

Continued from page 13

face distinctly until she passed under the chandelier. Then, strong as was the hold I was keeping on myself, I gave a start. Luckily neither Hillman nor Baker noticed it. They too had turned and looked toward the stairs, but absently, their attention still on Mrs. Slocum's voice.

I held my breath. Mary Leighton came on deliberately, without the slightest quickening of her pace. She wore a dark cloth suit, a small dark hat, beneath which the smooth bands of her fair hair showed, and she carried a suit-case. As she swept by us with her stately air, she met our glances squarely. I fancied that her eyes lingered a moment on my face, but if she recognized me she gave no sign.

THE next moment the front door closed after her, and now I listened for a sound from the parlor, where Smith watched at the windows. Would he stop her? I could hear her steps descending the front stoop; then they were lost in the noise of the street. Smith had let her go.

Mrs. Slocum rejoined us, saying that the call had been a personal one for her.

"I thought I heard the front door?" she added inquiringly.

"Lady went out—one of your roomers, I guess," said Baker.

She nodded, satisfied, and led us upstairs to the top floor of the house. There she opened the door of a room at the back, entered, and lighted the gas. It was after seven now, and dark.

I can't describe how the memory of that room makes me feel. To this day I can not recall it without squirming. It was the sort of hole in which Tal changed his clothes and slept; but he was a man. There was not more than fifty square feet of floor-space, which the few sticks of shabby furniture just about covered; but, in spite of the crowding, the effect was one of bareness and desolation.

Hillman and Baker looked around in silence first, then: "Is this the room she has occupied right along?" Hillman asked Mrs. Slocum.

"Yes. It will be two weeks Friday—that's to-morrow. She asked for the cheapest room I had."

"And she has had no visitors, no mail, no 'phone calls, you say?"

"Nothing whatever—oh, yes, I was forgetting. There was a telegram this morning."

"A telegram! That ought to mean something. Maybe it's about here somewhere."

Baker jerked open a dresser drawer.

"Oh, please don't do that!" objected the landlady. "I didn't know you would have to search the room. I thought you only wanted to see the velvet suit and the furs. They're over here."

SHE opened the closet door as she spoke, but almost instantly turned back to us.

"They're gone!" she exclaimed. "She must have worn them."

Hillman shook his head emphatically. "No; Smith said she wore a blue cloth suit—I asked particularly, thinking she might have worn the other. And he said she carried no bag or package, so she didn't take them with her."

"That's true—her bag's here." Mrs. Slocum held up a small traveling bag that she had found in the closet.

"Brand-new, and empty," said Baker. "And she never had a trunk?"

"No; she said it had gone astray and the railroad company was trying to trace it. I thought perhaps the telegram this morning was to say it had been found, she seemed so pleased and excited when she read it. It must have been the excitement that made her go out afterwards and leave her money and the pawn-ticket lying on her dresser."

The mention of the pawn-ticket came so unexpectedly that I failed to conceal my surprise, and Baker, who was watching me, gave a triumphant snort.

"Huh! Didn't believe we had the goods, did you?" he jeered. "Well, maybe now you'll favor us with a few remarks."

But I looked right through him and said nothing.

"She didn't seem at all disturbed by my finding the ticket," Mrs. Slocum replied to a question from Hillman. "In fact, she was so calm that I thought I might be mistaken. But the pawn-shop was the same one at which Miss Hoyt's things were found, and the ticket was for two rings, a pin, and a watch. It didn't seem that it could all be coincidence—the date and the clothes and—"

"It's not a coincidence, don't worry— you'll get the reward!" snapped Baker. "That is, if you haven't double-crossed us." And he leveled his suspicious eyes on the little woman. "I know what became of those clothes, and so does this guy, don't you?" This to me. "Get me, Mr. Hillman? You don't? Why, Brady's trailing the wrong skirt, that's what. The one we're after walked right by us down in the hall when we first came in."

Exclamations of surprise and dismay

---

broke from Hillman and Mrs. Slocum, followed by a rapid fire of questions and answers between them. There was no other girl in the house who was young and blonde, Mrs. Slocum said; it was possible that the girl we had seen going out had been calling on some one. She would ask. And off she hurried.

WHILE she was away, both the men kept their eyes on me, and I kept mine on space, trying to look blank. If they had known how blank I felt, their annoyance with me might have lessened considerably.

Then Baker searched the room, which did not take long.

"She's skipped, that's sure," he growled. "Left that bag and a few duds and toilet articles for a bluff. But you got to hand it to her. Notice the steady eye she gave us when she passed? Not a flicker. Huh, I could use a little of her nerve myself."

The landlady came panting upstairs again. No one in the house had had a caller, she reported. "And there can't have been any mistake," she added. "My maid notified your men when the girl came downstairs, and they left the house right behind her."

This statement was corroborated by Smith when we rejoined him below.

"The girl Brady's trailing is a blonde in a blue serge suit and big black hat and no furs, and carrying nothing but a wrist- bag," he insisted; "and the one that went out afterwards wasn't wearing brown velvet and furs, either."

"No, you dub, because she was carrying them in that suit-case," stormed Baker. "The people here have keys to the front door, don't they? Then anybody could come and go without being seen, couldn't they? I tell you, that was the girl we want, and she's skipped, carrying all the evidence with her. Pleasant for us, ain't it?"

Here the telephone rang. Mrs. Slocum went to answer, and presently summoned Hillman, who in turn called Baker. I Is a few minutes the men were back, looking less crestfallen, I thought; and, with Smith detailed to guard me, the four of us returned to the News office. And there, for nearly four hours, I sat at the detective's side, with no more idea what was going to happen next than the chair I occupied.

AT eleven o'clock Baker came in and curtly ordered us to bestir ourselves. Following him, we made our way to the street and into a waiting taxi, which after a short ride deposited us at the stage-door of a Broadway theater. A bill-board at one side of the entrance announced "John Lorrimore in 'The Blunderbuss.'"

With Baker ahead and Smith behind, we entered the theater, and, passing along a narrow hallway, came out upon the back of the stage. The play was still on, and, though the scene was shut off from view, we could hear the voices of the actors engaged. The drama had reached a climax, apparently. A woman screamed; a shot was fired; glass crashed; there was a shout of triumph; and then, amid tumultuous applause, the curtain fell.

"Sounds like a detective melodrama," Smith observed to Baker. "And, without knowing a thing about it, I'll bet a year's salary that a detective's the goat."

"You win," said Baker. He looked at me. "Your friend made a hit to-night. Too bad you didn't see her, as it's likely the last performance she'll give this season."

I could only return his glance in blank wonder, for I was utterly at sea, and my expression seemed to exasperate him.

"Aw, quit your bluffing! Haven't you got brains enough to know the game's up? Well, I'll tell you, then. She's been identified by Mrs. Slocum, the pawnbroker, and that woman from the tea-room."

"Here comes Hillman," Smith said at that point; and both Baker and I looked round.

With Hillman came Rosser, and as they approached us a third man joined them—Lorrimore's manager, Baker told Smith.

"You can understand how fatal to the success of our opening your immediate action would have been," the manager was saying when they got within ear-shot of us. "We could not have replaced her so late, and I trust shall not have to do so at all. She had a great success to-night, and really to me it is incredible—"

Then Hillman caught sight of us. The manager broke off, and turning stared at me curiously.

The curtain had risen for several curtain calls, but was finally down to stay, and the actors could be seen dispersing to their dressing-rooms.

"Come on," said the manager, and Hillman signaled Baker to follow with me.

Crossing the stage, we stopped before a closed door, and I noticed that they all fell back, leaving me facing the door, with Baker beside me. He listened a moment, then knocked sharply.

Mary Leighton opened the door.

"Where's Miss Warren?" snapped Baker.

"Here I am!" a gay voice called out, and on the instant its owner stepped into view.

BUT for the voice, I do not think I should have known her, so greatly changed did she seem by the pale gold hair that framed her face and by the evening gown she wore. But she knew me at once, and gave a little cry and slight recoil. There was neither fright nor dismay in the cry, only surprise; but, the recognition was all Baker wanted, and like a flash he had snapped handcuffs on her wrists.

"Take those off!" I ordered, beside myself at the outrage.

"Don't be a fool, Baker," drawled Hillman. "Take them off."

But the girl broke into a peal of laughter, and thrust out her shackled hands toward me.

"I don't care! I don't care!" she exulted. "I've made a hit—a hit on Broadway!"

"Where's Miss Hoyt?" demanded Baker, removing the handcuffs.

"I—I don't know."

"Where did you get that jewelry you pawned?"

"She gave it to me."

"Oh—and she gave him the locket, I suppose."

"No; he got it through me. He never saw her at all."

"Oh, he didn't! Then you admit that it was you at that tea-room and on Fifth Avenue?"

"Of course!"

"Winifred, what are you saying?" Mary Leighton cried, obviously as much amazed as any of us.

"Wait—I'll show you." And, with an excited laugh, Miss Warren darted to a suit-case standing in a corner, threw it open, and took out a red wig which she slipped over her own hair, mounting upon it next a large black hat. Then from the suit-case she took a brown velvet coat, and, with that on and a fur boa quickly thrown about her neck, she wheeled upon us like a lightning-change performer, smiling triumphantly.

"Good heavens!" William Rosser gasped at my shoulder. "What an amazing likeness!"

"No—hair's too light," a new voice suddenly remarked from behind us. And, before we had had time to turn, Roberta Hoyt had slipped by us into the dressing- room and placed herself beside her counterfeit.

THE likeness was amazing, and for a minute no one spoke. Then Rosser, elbowing me aside, stepped into the room, and caught his ward in his arms.

"Bobbie, Bobbie, how could you?" The old man's voice broke on the gentle reproach, and I felt like apologizing to him on the spot for all the things I had thought about him.

"Why—you haven't worried, surely!" Miss Hoyt cried, studying his face, dismay dawning in her own. "But that's what this was for—just to keep you from worrying—all of you!"

"This," she indicated by a sweep of her arm toward Winifred's masquerade.

"But there's no time to explain now," she hurried on. "The first thing I have to do is to get safely married, and there'd only twenty minutes to do it in!" She laughed excitedly. "Herbert's on his way here with the license and a clergyman, and Aunt Ruth's coming. You see, I called you first," she told Rosser, "and they told me you were here, so I knew enough to guess that something was up, and, time being so short, this seemed to be the best place for all of us to meet."

I DON'T remember in what order things happened after that. Mrs. Otison and the minister arrived, both scandalized at the idea of a wedding in a theater. For a while everybody seemed to be talking at once. Then Farnham came, and suddenly the talking stopped and we all drew up into a semicircle, expecting the ceremony: to start at once. But it did not.

"I appreciate the honor you do me,'! said Farnham, Isis clean-cut English enunciation reaching every ear, though it was to Miss Hoyt that he spoke and at her that he looked with his straight, cleat; gaze. "But I must decline to marry you —under the present conditions."

Everybody gasped, including the bride. Then she recovered herself.

"The theater, you mean—or because I haven't explained—where I've been?"

"No; it's not the theater, nor because I want an explanation—I trust you,' Farnham answered. "But you misjudged me once. There's been a doubt in your mind about me, and it is going to be settled to-night forever. You thought it was your money I cared for—oh, yes, you did! If there had been no doubt in your Mind about that, you would have trusted me about the other thing."

There was a pause, during which their eyes clung together.

"You don't care for me any more," she said at last, quite simply and as if nothing more remained to say.

"I care for nothing else in this world!"

I think they had both forgotten we were there; but now Mrs. Otison could no longer contain her anxiety and patience.

"You've no right to make the child lose everything," she declared to Farnham.

But the only notice the speech received was that the two concerned moved out of hearing.

AND, while they stood talking low and earnestly together, we waited in tense, expectant silence as the precious minutes flew. I saw Rosser take out his -watch; then Hillman and Baker looked at theirs. I raised my hand toward mine,—the manacles had been removed by that time, —but a quick touch on my arm arrested the movement. It was Miss Warren.

"Listen," she whispered; and the next instant a bell outside somewhere began to strike the hour.

At the sound everybody jumped. Farnham and the girl at his side moved also; then remained quite rigid, facing each other dumbly until the bell was done. Midnight had come and gone. Roberta Hoyt was twenty-one.

Then, raising his voice so that it reached us again, Farnham spoke:

"Will you marry me now? You know what it means—a ranch in the West, living as I was when we met. Will you do it?"

Afterward the papers called the wedding theatrical, sensational, what not. But, for all the incongruity of the setting and the groups of curious spectators hovering about, it was the most Solemn marriage I ever witnessed.

And when it was all over the girls told their story.

"On that Friday morning before I dis- appeared," began Roberta, "I had made up my mind to marry a man I did not care for, so as to inherit my grandfather's money—not for my own sake, but for that of others whose fortunes were bound up with mine. And whets I left my car at Fiftieth Street, it was, as I told my chauffeur, my intention to walk home. But, finding myself at the Cathedral, an impulse seized me to go in. I am not a Catholic, and it was simply the thought of the big, quiet place that drew me: I

---

wanted to be alone for a while where no one would notice me and where I could look as unhappy as I felt.

"I don't know how long I sat there in the shadow of one of the big columns, watching the altar lights, and the people coming in, kneeling, and going out again; but when I reached the street it was dark, and I walked to the corner to wait for an empty cab to come along. As I reached the curb, a girl who was standing there watching for a chance to cross, turned; and we recognized each other. She was an English girl whom I had met two years before on a Channel boat. Through somebody's mistaking me for her, we had happened to discover that we were amazingly alike both in face and figure. The difference in our hair was so great, however, that, with it in evidence, the resemblance between us was largely annulled; but with it hidden, as it then was, by hats and veils, the likeness was strong enough to confuse even people who knew us.

"MEETING her so unexpectedly in New York, I naturally asked how she came to be there, and she told me she had come over from England with a theatrical company which had failed, most of the members returning home. On a promise of an engagement with an American company, she had stayed on until, her funds exhausted, she had been forced to accept a small place in a stock company at Port Edgar, Ontario, and was to leave for that town within the hour. As I listened, a startling idea came to me. Why should not I go to Canada in her place? She wanted to stay in New York and wait for a better opportunity; I wanted just such a chance as this. You see, since the breaking of my engagement, I had thought seriously of trying the stage as a way to support myself and my aunt. I thought I had some talent, but was not sure; and, while the newspaper publicity I had had might secure me an engagement in New York, what I really wanted was a chance to stand on my own merits, to test my ability.

"There was no time to hesitate, and I at once suggested the plan to Miss Warren. I told her frankly my position, omitting only the reason for the breaking of my engagement. The idea staggered her at first, but it attracted her, too; for the chance to stay in New York meant so much. And everything seemed to favor the scheme. No one in the company at Port Edgar had ever seen her. The manager had engaged her through an agent after seeing her photographs. She was not even sure he knew the color of her hair. Anyway, she consented, and we hurried on to her boarding-house in Fiftieth Street, where she was then going to get her bag before starting for the train.

"We quickly exchanged clothes; and, with her bag, trunk checks, and tickets, I went to Canada. As there was no time to go home and get money for her, I gave her all my jewelry to pawn to get funds to carry her through to November 8, when it was agreed all secrecy was to end. It would then be too late for any one to interfere with me, you see. Well, as soon as I was gone she went to a pawnshop."

BUT here she turned the narrative over to Miss Warren, who continued:

"The next thing was to find a room, and after some searching I took the one at Mrs. Slocum's. I had found that I should have to live very cheaply, for the pawn-, broker had not given me as much for the things as we had counted on, and, of course, I had to buy some clothes to replace Miss Hoyt's, which I was afraid to wear for fear of their being recognized. Since I had gone into the thing, I did not mean to fail to carry it out. That was why I went to a lodging-house where I should not come in contact with any one, and why I had no mail or visitors or 'phone calls. My letters were all forwarded to the home of a friend. Nothing happened for several days; then on Tuesday I received a letter from Miss Hoyt begging me to undertake the masquerade which I—"

"The purpose of that," Roberta interrupted, "was to prevent anybody from worrying about me. I was perfectly all right, and I couldn't bear the thought of making any one unhappy by what I had done so impulsively. I guessed why my aunt had not reported my absence to the police, but I was sure my guardian would do so as soon as he returned from Europe. The purpose of the masquerade was to give the impression that I was in New York, and well. And it would also have the effect—though that was secondary— of misleading any one who might be trying to find me. Do you see?"

As the circle of listeners assented, Miss Hoyt nodded to Miss Warren to go on.

"I got a wig at a costumer's, and, dressed in Miss Hoyt's clothes, I slipped out of the house unseen and walked over to Fifth Avenue. Inwardly I was quaking, for my problem was difficult. 1 did not dare show myself for long, as there was always danger of being accosted by some of Miss Hoyt's acquaintances; at the same time, I had to give some one who could be trusted to report it the impression that I was Miss Hoyt. The simplest plan, I decided, would be to address some man, mentioning very distinctly the name, Roberta Hoyt, and, when he should tell me I had mistaken him for some one else, to apologize and hurry home. Then, when the fact of Miss Hoyt's disappearance was published, he would be sure to tell of meeting her. My reason for selecting a man was simply that a girl always knows fewer men than women, and the danger of selecting an acquaintance of hers would therefore he less."

MISS WARREN halted a moment and gave me a fleeting glance.

"When I reached the corner of Fifth Avenue and Thirty-eighth Street, I hesitated, watching the passing crowd for some one suited to my purpose," she con-

"Presently I saw a young man coining along who looked to me like a stranger in town, and therefore quite safe. I stepped toward him; but at that moment he swerved and started across the street, which left me standing on the curb, rather at a loss. But it chanced that the traffic policeman's whistle blew just then, and the young man was forced to return to the sidewalk so abruptly that in doing so he brushed against me. That gave me my opportunity. When he turned to apologize, I spoke to him. But, to my dismay, he seemed to know me, and I was wondering how to got out of my predicament without being unmasked when something in his manner betrayed the fact that he was only pretending to know me."

"My pretense was in good faith," I protested. "The name was so familiar I thought I must have met you some-where."

She laughed.

"I know. That was why I accepted your invitation to tea. I wanted to force you to admit you didn't know me. And I did!"

"But why did you take a taxi at the tea-room and leave it again at Fiftieth Street?" Hillman inquired.

"I took the cab because it seemed a good way to show myself without running the risk of being spoken to by friends of Miss Hoyt. And it just happened that at Fiftieth Street I discovered the loss of the locket. I might have gone back to the tea-room in the cab, but—well, I've said I was hard up, and taxis are expensive. So I walked through to Madison Avenue and went back to Thirty-eighth Street in a car, and from the tea-room I went straight on to Mrs. Slocum's. The next day, Wednesday, I returned the wig; and the following afternoon, while 'making the rounds of the theatrical offices, I happened into one just at the moment

---

when they were looking for a girl of my type to replace an actress who had been taken ill.

The part was in Mr. Lorrimore's new play, and I was sent down at once to his home at Hillside, Long Island, to read the part to him and Mrs. Lorrimore. They kept me to dinner, and to rehearse some of the scenes, and when I went back to the station I missed my train.

"There was no other due until eleven o'clock, and it had begun to storm, so it seemed wiser to stay overnight at the Inn, which was close by, and go back to town next morning. Being, very much excited about my new part, I could not resist studying it aloud, though I am afraid I woke up a man who was asleep in the next room."

Again she paused slightly, and a faint smile flickered across her face, though she did not look my way. And that was all she said about our encounter at Hillside. She was talking then for publication, and it was understood between her and Miss Hoyt that Mary Leighton and the reason for the broken engagement should not be mentioned.

BUT I may as well say right here that it was my hint of Miss Leighton's connection with the case, given that night at Hillside, which resulted in Miss Hoyt's return to New York at the eleventh hour. Puzzled by my words, she had finally gone to the Kensington to see Miss Leighton, and had learned the whole truth from her.

For, of course, Winifred Warren was the Winifred who was in Miss Leighton's confidence at the time of the marriage in Melbourne, though after Miss Leighton's return to England the two girls had lost track of each other—until I unknowingly brought them together again.

Realizing something of the real state of affairs, and convinced, by Mary Leighton's regret at the unhappiness which her own misfortunes had brought on others, that she would be only too glad to have the truth reach Miss Hoyt, Winifred had felt justified in writing it to her. The answer to the letter was the telegram received by Winifred of which Mrs. Slocum had spoken. In it Roberta Hoyt had announced her immediate departure for New York.

"I suppose Miss Leighton was admitted to Mrs. Slocum's house by you, was she not?" Baker asked Miss Warren, when the above situation had been explained. "That is why she was seen by no one?"

"Of course," answered Winifred. "We went into the house together. She had been helping me with my stage clothes. I had everything sent to her at the Kensington. You see, I was terribly afraid that in some way that pawnbroker might identify me and that my appearance in the new play might be stopped. The reason I left Mrs. Slocum's house before her to come to the theater to-night was that I was afraid I was a little late—one needs so much time for a first performance of a new part.

"She stayed behind to do some sewing for me and to pack Miss Hoyt's things in her suit-case, which she brought over here afterward. Of course, she didn't know they were Miss Hoyt's. I had kept my promise and told no one anything. But in her telegram Miss Hoyt had asked me to bring everything to the theater, including the wig, so that we could explain how we had managed our plan."

"There's one point I'd like cleared up, Miss Warren," said Hillman. "What did you mean last night when you told a man at Mrs. Slocum's door that twelve o'clock was bound to come?"

"Oh, was somebody listening?" Miss Warren asked, surprised. "Why, that is a saying among actors on the first night of a new play. When they are so nervous they feel that they can never live through the ordeal, they soothe themselves by saying that in any case it will be over by midnight.

"You see, I had been dining with Miss Leighton and her friend Miss Winning- ton, and Miss Winnington sent me home in her car. A gentleman who happened to be calling on them volunteered to see that I arrived safely—that's all of that."

AND I think that's all for me, too—oh, no, I was forgetting the sealed letter!

Of course, nobody found out what was in that for a year. Farnham and his wife Went West, and were ecstatically happy, according to all reports. Contrary to expectations and predictions, she turned out as enthusiastically domestic as her grandfather could have wished, and society, the stage, and suffrage worried along without her.

The contents of the sealed letter came to my knowledge through a communication received by "the late Miss Warren," as she was calling herself about that time—which was just after her marriage (to me).

We were back from our wedding trip and getting settled in our Atlanta home —the stage had some more worrying along to do, you see—when the news from Bobbie arrived:

Grandfather's letter sounded so exactly like him that it made me homesick for him and I wanted to cry. But Herbert, Jr., on my lap, was yelling as hard as he could, and the Farnham contingent seemed noisy enough as it was. Well, grandfather said he hoped that the year had brought me experience and wisdom, and that, knowing now how hard money is to get and to do without, I was ready to be sensible and settle down. If, by any chance, I had married, I was to receive at once one half of the estate; if not, an allowance was arranged for— But the provisions for that contingency don't matter. The other half of the property is to be doled out to us as the increase in the family warrants it—so much per chick. And, according to Mr. Rosser's calculation, to get it all the number of our offspring will have to reach thirteen and five eighths—which, I think you will agree, would be a large and interesting family.

The End

The Gold Stampede to Oatman

OATMAN, Arizona, the latest gold camp, is the scene of a stampede of prospectors that recalls the days of Klondike and Goldfield. Prospectors who have sought adventure in every part of the world—Australia, South Africa, and Alaska—are to be found in this little town that rose overnight in the barren wastes of the Southwest.

A Mining Camp of To-day

FABULOUS strikes have been made. The gold fever is in the air, and the call of treasure is drawing "desert rats" and city clerks alike. But in one or two respects the new camp is different from any previous bonanza town. Arizona is a "dry" State and has stringent laws against gambling; so the wild hilarity of the successful miner is not stimulated by alcohol or faro. Also, the motor-car has replaced the primitive burro pack of Goldfield and the dog train of the Yukon. Of course, some burros—"Arizona canaries"—are in evidence. It will be a long time before the desert scenery is complete without the long-eared friend of the prospector; but more automobiles are used than Jacks and Jinnies.

The cars comprise every make known —and some hybrids. Most of the machines are out for business, many of them being stripped like a desert road racer, with an outfit consisting of picks and shovels, drills and dynamite, plenty of water, spare tires, and big gas-tanks. Bedding and provisions are included as a matter of course, for the visitor to Oat- man who wants to sleep in the hotel is likely to compromise on something quite different: the soft side of a boulder, for instance, or a hollow in a sand wash.

With the automobile, the prospector of to-day can cover the ground in twenty-four hours that the old-timer with his burro would have difficulty in exploring in a week.

All the Gold Not in Mines

ONE man who has found a real gold mine in this stampede did not find it in the ground: He is the ferryman who has operated a barge for twenty-five years, making a bare living front occasional passengers. Now he is kept busy from morning till night transporting cars across at five dollars each, and it is a poor day that he does not clear a hundred and fifty or two hundred dollars.

Real estate speculators are making small fortunes overnight, and are too prosperous to locate claims. Staking out corner lots and sites for business blocks is a more profitable occupation.

In the days of Bret Harte and Mark Twain. when gold was struck the prospectors used to go for it in this poetic but wearisome fashion.

But those days are gone. NOW the hardy prospector jumps into his car,—which may be of the vintage of 1898,—throws on the power, and is off for his fortune.

The Man in the Stone House

Continued from page 6

Eadbrook hesitated a moment before replying.

"I guess you think I'm an awful grouch," he said. "And I'm a fool, anyway, to talk this way to you."

The color came into the young man's face as he emphasized the word "you."

"It's queer how a man can say things so easily—things that don't matter so much—and the things he'd really like to say—that mean a lot to him—"

As he blundered along, the young woman opposite him became perceptibly uneasy. Then a subtle flush of understanding made her jump up from the chair and exclaim:

"Here I am forgetting what I really came for! I want to get a new pair of shoes—black ones, like those I had last time. Which shoe do I take off? I never can remember."

"It makes a difference with people," was the rather relieved reply. "It's your left one."

"And don't you use any pulley and tackle to get a smaller size on my foot!" she reminded him, showing her teeth.

HE climbed up a sliding ladder and took down a box from one of the upper shelves. Then he knelt before her, with a shoe poised over the little black-stockinged foot.

His hands trembled noticeably. Suddenly the shoe fell from his hands, and he looked up at the young woman with a determined, frightened expression.

"I can say it—and I will say it," he stammered out. "I love you, Louise. I've not been thinking of myself when I wanted to see Boxton go ahead and amount to something. I want to see a future for-that is, in case you—"

There was a little movement of panic on the seat in front of him. Then the gay, laughing spirit of the girl came to the rescue.

"You've got the wrong shoe, Walter. That's not the left one."

"Isn't it?" he asked rather stupidly. "I don't care which one it is, Louise. Please don't laugh. I love you—I want you to marry me. What makes you laugh?"

"Forgive me, Walter," she replied. "I'm not laughing at you. But it's so terribly absurd—that is, I don't mean that what you said was absurd—I mean, my position here, with one shoe off, and I can't escape. A young woman ought at least to he able to retreat modestly in such a case— and I can't stir. You've got my other shoe hid!"

Poor young Mr. Eadbrook had not hidden her shoe. The idea was farthest from his thoughts. The shoe had accidentally slipped out of sight under her chair.

Quite unbalanced by her demeanor, the young man flutteringly seized the new shoe and tried to slip it on her foot.

"Wait!" she cried. "That's the wrong one; it won't go on."

He looked up at her distractedly.

"I'm treating you shamefully," she said quickly. "I don't mean to, honestly. I'm nervous, I guess. That's why I laughed. Do you—really—feel that way —toward me?"

He nodded helplessly.

"I'm so glad," she murmured. "Please get the left shoe and try it on, Walter."

How it was effected neither of them knew. Somehow, the shoe-fitting job did manage to get itself done. The wind-painted red of her cheeks had given place to another rosy color. She breathed very quickly.

He helped her on with her fur coat, at her request, and neither of them spoke until she was at the door.

"I won't wait for dad," she said. "He'll be over at Dud Gillette's store."

Then she offered him her hand and drew close to him and whispered: "I'm so glad you said it, Walter. I'm very, very fond of you. I—perhaps I'm more than that. Yes, I am more than that. If you want to speak to dad—"

She looked into his eyes frankly. Their lips met swiftly; then he was alone.

WHEN she was gone, Walter Eadbrook stood once more at the door and looked out.

The snow was still falling in fine, whirling, gusty flakes. The street was still deserted. But, somehow, it looked very different to Mr. Eadbrook.

"Whew!" he exclaimed aloud. "That was a job! But it's over with, and I've got the sweetest little girl in the world. This is certainly my lucky day."

"You bet it's a lucky day," said a voice behind Eadbrook.

The shoe dealer turned quickly, with considerable embarrassment. It was Joel Tibb, who had entered the store through the rear door and approached unheard.

If young Mr. Eadbrook was laboring under considerable excitement of mind, it was apparent that Mr. Tibb was also.

The grocer's kiln-dried little countenance was beaming with exultation. His long, sandy mustaches were so agitated that they vibrated visibly. In his hand he clutched a slip of yellow paper.

"You bet it's a lucky day," he repeated. "Read that, Walter."

Eadbrook took the paper. It was a telegram, and it was dated in Empire City, California. It read:

TIBB, Boxton, Vermont.

Letter received. Never mind. Am a sport. Will come anyway. Boxton will be boosted. Letter follows. STARR.

"He's coming!" explained Mr. Tibb rather superfluously.

"It looks like it," replied Eadbrook.

"He'll show 'em," went on the grocer. "Walter, you haven't met him and don't know what a wonder he is. There's something about him—something you and I haven't got. Just let him stand up for ten minutes and talk to this crowd, and he'll make 'em all see it."

"JOEL," said the young man, interrupting the grocer, "you heard me saying that this was my lucky day. But you didn't hear all I said, I guess."

"No; I just heard those words."

"Congratulate me," commanded the younger man, putting out his hand. "This is strictly confidential, Joel. I just proposed to Louise Searles, and she said yes."

Joel Tibb opened his eyes very wide, and his drooping mustaches vibrated rapidly again.

He shook the proffered hand warmly and showed unquestionable interest and sympathy, but there was evidently something in his mind that he was holding back.

"Well?" asked Eadbrook, who observed this fact.

"Why, I'm sure I do congratulate you," said the grocer. "But I was just thinking—I was just wondering—"

Eadbrook waited with gnawing impatience.

"Well, what I had in mind was this," explained the grocer finally. "Have you seen the old man?"

"Not yet, of course. Louise just left the store. You don't think—?"

"I don't think anything. I was just wondering, Walter. She's a fine girl, and you're lucky, all right. Now, if you can convince that measly old skinflint Ezra Mudge, that she calls her dad—"

"You don't think he'll object, do you, Joel?" asked the young man, with a distinct sinking sensation.

"Walter," was the reply, "you've proposed and she's accepted you. That's the first part. When you go up to see Ezra—that'll be the second part. Good luck to you."

But the young man followed the grocer out of the door, detaining him with the same anxious inquiry, "Do you think he'll object, Joel?"

"Walter," said Mr. Tibb fervently, "if that old skunk was in heaven, he'd object to the music."

To be continued next week