Do You Think or Do You Merely Cheer?

THERE is a movement to encourage the purchase of goods "Made in the U. S. A."

I favor it.

"Oh, that's made in Germany," sneered the English, when German goods first began to compete with them in the markets of the world.

The phrase "Made in Germany" was a term of reproach. The Germans made it a hall-mark of quality.

And more than that:

It became symbolic of one of the most amazing phenomena in history the devotion of a whole nation to a single ideal.

For forty years German historians, preachers, statesmen, writers, and editors labored to instil in the German mind the almost religious conviction that "Germany is to be the restorer and regenerator of the world."

To this ideal the nation must work as a unit: every man who, in his humble place, contributed to this end had his life expanded and ennobled by the glory of the Cause.

Why shouldn't we be the restorers of the world? they cried. See what we have done.

And, indeed, it is worth seeing.

In forty years they transformed themselves from a race of dreamers into a nation of doers.

They abolished poverty.

The State not only governed its citizens: it ran their railroads, telegraphs, banks, insurance companies, pawnshops, theaters, asylums, soup houses.

It regulated the length of skirt a woman might wear in the street; and the way in which a man might swing his cane.

It provided for every boy a course in a vocational school to fit him into his definite niche in the great scheme.

In Saxony there are 300 such schools—even a school to train boys to be boatmen on the Elbe.

No chance—no hit or miss: every citizen's life ordered for him; every man trained for efficiency in his tiny niche.

That is what Germany achieved by her devotion to her ideal. Absolute efficiency.

And this is the price she paid: It is getting so that the German workmen—and all other Germans, for that matter—are gradually losing their independence," says a former Cabinet Minister quoted by Samuel P. Orth. "They want a sure thing. They want to become pensioners or government servants, anything that will relieve them from the necessity of constant effort and alertness."

We need an ideal that shall mean to its what Germany's national ideal has meant to Germany.

The movement for "Goods Made in the U. S. A." is a step in that direction.

But only a step.

We need a national consciousness of what America means; of the work which is hers to do in the world.

We too have our call to be "restorers and regenerators."

It is our mission to prove to the world that there can be national efficiency combined with individual liberty; that a Man's freedom to do as he will with his own life does not destroy his power of devotion to a national ideal.

Buy goods made in the U. S. A.

Stand up when the band plays "The Star-Spangled Banner"; cheer when the flag is unfurled.

But when you cheer, stop and think.

Remember that America will not have fulfilled her mission until we have proved that free men can be efficient men—in their industrial life; in their social relationships; in their national government.

Religious freedom; universal education; personal liberty—combined with national efficiency—

These are the products that must bear the stamp, "Made in the U. S. A."

Bruce Barton. Editor.

Are We Hated?

By a VETERAN DIPLOMAT

ARE Americans popular abroad?

That is a question frequently addressed to foreigners in the United States, and one that embarrasses them greatly. For it is difficult to reply truthfully to the inquiry when it is made either by a kindly host or, as is very often the case, by some charming American woman. How is it possible to be so utterly graceless as to inform the latter that her native land is quite the reverse of popular beyond its borders?

But, in the last two or three months, her own countrymen have undertaken to furnish a reply to this question with a far greater amount of brutal frankness and freedom than would be seemly on the part of those enjoying the hospitality of the United States. George Harvey, editor of the North American Review, when he returned the other day to New York after a sojourn of several weeks abroad, lost no time in proclaiming far and wide, with much vigor of expression, that the United States is not regarded with favor by any foreign nation. Richard Harding Davis, the well known playwright and author, has sent a number of letters from Paris, in which he writes feelingly about the unpopularity of Americans in France; while the viciousness of the attacks upon this country by the press of Germany and of Austria, and the revelations contained in the communications printed in American newspapers from their correspondents at Berlin and Vienna, leave no doubt as to the positive aversion with which everybody and everything relating to the United States is regarded by the lieges of the two kaisers.

In fact, it is no exaggeration to assert that public opinion is violently inflamed against this country in Austria and especially in Germany, where it is held that the Monroe Doctrine is one of the chief causes of the present war, which could have been avoided had she been permitted to carry out her project of creating a colonial empire in South America.

Why We Were Unpopular Before the War

BEFORE undertaking to resent this condition of affairs, or to denounce the lack of appreciation of all that has been done for the relief of the victims of the present war by Americans, the latter would do well to pause for a moment, and to consider the causes that have brought about this prejudice everywhere abroad against the United States—a prejudice which is most intense in Germany and least apparent in Great Britain. It is a prejudice born of ignorance, and due also to other reasons that existed before the war.

Dealing in the first place with the unpopularity that existed prior to the war, some of its causes are to the credit rather than to the disadvantage of the American character. Among them are the freshness and vigor of the American mind, the restless activity of the American intellect, and above all the independence that Americans enjoy from that thraldom of tradition and convention which subjects people of the Old World to a tyranny in many respects extremely despotic.

Not that Europeans object to this tyranny. On the contrary, they like it. Born and bred under its sway, it has become part and parcel of their very existence; and European society, being essentially conservative, resents any attempt to remove its fetters. Society on the yonder side of the ocean is based upon the system of aristocracy, and is constituted, in the main, of classes enjoying privileges not accorded to the masses.

Jealousy of the American Girl

WHAT wonder, then, that its members should regard with a not altogether friendly eye a people who have done in the past, and are still doing, all that is possible to deprive them of their cherished privileges? It was the importation of American ideas by Franklin, Lafayette, and others, that brought about the great Revolution in France, and that struck the first big blow at the rights and prerogatives of the aristocracy—a blow from the effect of which it has never recovered. And, since then, every succeeding year has witnessed the arrival from the New World of a fresh consignment of American doctrines calculated to render the masses more dissatisfied with their lot, and more anxious to deprive the classes of their special privileges.

If, however, the American, in the hope of ingratiating himself with the people of Europe, abandons those typical American characteristics which Europeans are forced to respect and admire, though they do not love, he generally succeeds in earning for himself a contempt akin to that which all men are accustomed to feel for renegades. To put the matter briefly, before the war Americans were not liked, but they were respected and admired abroad. Europeans, however, not only disliked, but also despised, those Americans who, with social aims in view, affected to regret their own nationality and appeared ashamed of their American birthright.

Still another cause, and an important one too, for the unpopularity of Americans in Europe, is the jealousy with which the women of the Old World regard their American sisters. There is a freshness, a sparkle, and above all a breadth, in the conversation of an American girl which that of the English maiden does not possess, and which the Continental young woman does not venture to display, at any rate prior to her marriage. This leads European men to find the conversation of their young unmarried country-women somewhat slow and colorless, when compared with the piquant and, to the untraveled European, original remarks of the transatlantic belle.

The consequence is that European matrons regard the American girl as a serious danger to the matrimonial market. For, even when she does not swoop down and collar the most eligible prizes, her brilliancy has the effect of rendering European men more difficult and more exacting, and less contented with the domestic article in the matrimonial line. Now, the European matron is, if anything, a more important and influential personage in her family than the American mother, in whose circle a far greater individual independence prevails. The consequence is that the ill will entertained by the former for the American girls has constituted a powerful factor against the popularity of Americans.

What Europeans Don't Know About Is

ANOTHER great cause of the unpopularity of Americans abroad is the gross and almost incredible ignorance prevailing therewith regard to almost everything connected with the New World. It was not long ago that I received a letter from a man who had just taken high honors at Oxford, which bore the address "Philadelphia, Massachusetts." Imagine the ridicule that an American letter addressed to "Manchester, County of Sussex," would excite in England!

A few years ago one of the most famous English historians, who had come over to deliver a course of lectures at Boston and other New England cities, was extremely surprised and disappointed to discover on his arrival that he would be unable to execute his project of running down from Boston to West Virginia every Saturday afternoon, for the sake of spending Sunday with one of his married daughters who lived there! Until he arrived in this country he fondly imagined that West Virginia was about two hours' ride by rail from Boston.

Question Asked at an English Dinner-Party

NOW shall I ever forget the cold shiver that passed down my back when, at a dinner given in London shortly after President Garfield's assassination, one of the most popular and best known leaders of London society inquired in all innocence, of an American General who was present, whether poor Mrs. Garfield, of whom a portrait had just appeared in the English illustrated papers, was not a negress? The question was put during one of those sudden and peculiar pauses of conversation that are not altogether infrequent at dinner-parties, and that are popularly said to result from one of the persons present having inadvertently crossed his or her feet under the table. Then I heard the gallant General, who retained his equanimity in a marvelous manner, explain with gentle and winning courtesy to Lady C. that, notwithstanding the crinkly hair, high cheek-bones, and thick lips with which the London illustrated papers had endowed the features of Mrs. Garfield, the murdered President's widow was not a negress, and that up to that time no "person of color" had ever yet held sway as first lady of the land.

These are but three trifling yet instructive illustrations of the dense ignorance that prevailed not so long ago, even among the most highly educated Europeans concerning America—and ignorance is invariably allied to prejudice. To such an extent does the latter exist abroad, that people, not content with knowing little or nothing about the United States, have always seemed disinclined to learn.

Up to the beginning of the war, most of the metropolitan daily papers of Europe either refrained from printing any news from the United States, save that contained in the brief despatches of the news agencies, or else contented

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themselves with what may be described as "freak news"; that is to say, cables and letters portraying exaggerations of conduct, of manner, of speech, lynchings, sensational crimes, etc., all calculated to create an entirely wrong impression of the people, life, and conditions in the United States.

The American Tourist

IT has always been to me a source of regret that it is impossible to transport some typical provincial town of America to the center of Europe, for the purpose of enabling the people there to become acquainted with, and in natural consequence to appreciate, the finest and most sterling side of American life and character. As it is now, most of the knowledge that Europeans possess of America and Americans is limited to the result of their observation of the American tourist and of the expatriated American. Both the one and the other are the most unfortunate types of this great nation that it is possible to conceive.

With a few exceptions, they constitute a class unlike anything that I have ever seen in the United States, and their frequently objectionable characteristics, which Europeans are accustomed to ascribe to the entire nation, are responsible for much of the prejudice that has existed abroad against Americans. Their main fault is a deplorable lack of tact. They err either on the side of too aggressive patriotism—ramming the superiority of everything in America, from its political institutions to its cookery, down the throats of each European whom they encounter—or else they are guilty of the still more reprehensible fault of sneering at everything American, of deprecating their American nationality, and of seeking to imitate the manners, the foibles, and even the vices of the Old World, in order to assimilate themselves therewith.

With but few exceptions, they fail to hit upon that happy medium, half way between too aggressive Americanism and too obsequious lack of Americanism—a happy medium which, when discovered, renders a citizen of the United States the most delightful and genial companion that it is possible to conceive to a traveled and well bred Englishman.

Of course, it is unfair for Europeans to judge Americans, as a people, by the vulgar rich, who, alas, constitute the most obtrusive class of American tourists and foreign residents. But it is only natural. The well bred American men and women pass by unobserved. Gentilhommes and femmes du monde—there are no English words that convey the exact meaning of these two expressions—are the same all the world over, no matter whether American or European, and their main characteristics are so similar that there is little to distinguish them from one another. It is, therefore, not the well bred but the ill bred Americans who become conspicuous, and who attract both attention and comment of a disagreeable nature.

Colossal fortunes exist in Europe as well as in the United States. But whereas the American enjoying an annual income of, say, a million to three million dollars has the entire amount free to spend as he wishes, an Englishman, a German, an Austrian, a Hungarian, or a Russian, possessed of revenues of a similar amount, has at his disposal only a very small fraction thereof, perhaps not more than ten or even five per cent. All the remainder is absorbed by yearly charges which are in the nature of moral rather than legal obligations.

How Royalty Treats Rich Americans

EUROPEAN royalty has also contributed its share to the creation of prejudice against Americans, by conceding to them all sorts of favors and privileges withheld from their own countrymen. Emperor William, for instance, in times prior to the war, was in the habit of according to Americans, such as the Vanderbilts,

the Goelets, the Armours, etc., a degree of freedom in their intercourse with him that he would never have dreamed of tolerating on the part of the oldest and most intimate of his German or Austrian friends and cronies. This was bitterly resented by the Teuton bourgeoisie, who are virtually barred from court, and who could not understand why Americans of their own class should enjoy imperial and royal favors denied to them, while even the great nobles complained that the value of their hereditary privileges was impaired by the courtesies lavished by the Kaiser upon his visitors from the New World.

Despite the severity of the censorship of the press in Germany at present, the newspapers there never lose an opportunity of calling public attention to the "sorry return" made since the beginning of the war by the Americans for all the favors with which they had been overwhelmed by Emperor William.

International Marriages

NOR can the numerous matrimonial alliances that have taken place in the last thirty or forty years between American women and foreigners of birth and rank be said to have accomplished anything toward increasing the popularity of this country on yonder side of the Atlantic. Quite the contrary is the case. For, with very rare exceptions, nearly all of these so-called international marriages have turned out unhappily, alike for the husband and for the wife, and in many cases have wound up in sensational divorce suits and in scandal. Both are to blame. The first object that the foreign husband seems to have in view, as soon as ever the marriage has been celebrated, is to alienate his American bride, as far as possible, not only from her relatives but also from her compatriots; and it is no exaggeration to assert that the place which she acquires in the confidence—aye, and even in the affection—of her husband is often proportionate to the extent with which she severs her connection with her kith and kin.

Some who have at heart domestic happiness, and who look forward to acquiring popularity and regard in the country of their adoption, yield to their husbands' wish in this particular, to an extent that only those of their former American friends who have visited Europe can form any idea of. There are many European houses where, in spite of the fact that the mistress of the establishment is an American, no American has ever been permitted to cross the threshold.

European Attitude in Our War with Spain

IF Americans entertained any illusions with regard to the favor in which they are held in Europe, these must assuredly have been dispelled in 1898, at the time of the war of this country with Spain, when the sympathies of all the continental powers of Europe were undisguisedly with Spain, and when the efforts on the part of Germany and Austria to organize in her behalf an armed coalition of the foreign powers against the United States were only frustrated by the sturdy friendship of Great Britain. The Cologne Gazette, the Berlin Post, and the conservative Kreuz-Zeitung, the Norddeutsche-Allgemeine-Zeitung, and the Hamburg News lost no opportunity of comparing "the brutality of Yankee diplomacy" and the American "sordid greed for dollars" with the "chivalry," the "high-flown courtesy," and the "patriotism" of Spain.

The Austrian press was still more uncomplimentary, and there are few of my readers who will not recall how the offensive and hostile attitude of the Teuton Admiral Diederich and his squadron in the Bay of Manila toward Admiral Dewey, shortly after the latter's great naval victory there, brought Germany and the United States to the very brink of war. As for the French newspapers in 1898, there was some excuse for them to champion the cause of Spain rather than that of the United States. For almost the whole of the foreign national debt of Spain is held by French investors, who were naturally anxious for the victory of the horse that carried their money.

Prejudices Increased Since Beginning of Present War

WHATEVER prejudices existed in Europe before the beginning of the present war have vastly increased since, everywhere save in England. That they should have grown to such a startling degree in Germany, and in the countries allied to her, is not altogether surprising, since, despite the neutrality of President Wilson's administration, the bulk of popular sentiment here has been strongly in favor of Germany's foes. Still, it may be questioned whether the people of the United States were altogether prepared for such an intense degree of bitterness as has been shown in the past year by the Germans for everybody and everything American.

G. Roeder, one of the veteran members of the staff of the New York World, an American of German parentage, all of whose articles have been characterized by a very natural preference for the people of the land of his origin in the present conflict, declares in print, as the result of extensive tours of observation in Germany in the last few months, that the hatred of Americans entertained by the Germans is quite as intense as that manifested for the English, while, in comparison thereto, Teuton sentiment toward the Russians, the French, the Belgians, and the Japanese is quite friendly.

In an article printed in the New York World for January 16, 1916, Mr. Roeder writes that everywhere in Germany he heard the same remark: "Wir hassen die Amerikaner und idles was aus Amerika kommt." (We hate the Americans and everything that comes from America). He states that the people there not only refuse to permit English to be spoken, but are still more insistent that one should not speak "American." He also cites such expressions of popular opinion as "All Americans are murderers: they ought to be hanged." And he places on record the manner in which the American Ambassador Gerard, while occupying a box in a Berlin theater, was subjected to insult and to hostile demonstration.

Why the Germans Detest Us

OF course, much of this detestation by the Germans for everything American is due to their knowledge that Great Britain and her allies have purchased immense quantities of ammunition and other war supplies in the United States, and to the conviction, quite universal in Germany, that without these American-made munitions the Allies would long ere this have been compelled to throw up the sponge. In the most unreasoning manner the Germans complain that the United States has supplied war materials exclusively to the Powers of the Entente, blind to the fact that, if there had been any means of getting through the British blockade of the North Sea, manufacturers here would have been just as ready to ship munitions to Germany.

But what has perhaps hit the Germans even still harder has been the horror manifested here for the "frightfulness" of the methods of Teuton warfare in Belgium, in the eastern provinces of France, in the western provinces of Russia, in Galicia, and in Serbia; the wanton destruction of civilian life and private property; and the vandalistic wrecking of some of the grandest cathedrals, celebrated edifices, and historic monuments, spared by all the previous wars of the past thousand years, and dear to every American art lover and traveler. The Germans, for some reason or other, seem to have labored under the impression that in the present war they were assured of the good will and sympathy of the American people; and their disappointment and surprise has been so bitter that it has taken the form of fierce hatred.

With regard to Belgium, while her people are deeply

touched by the generous efforts made by private American enterprise to relieve their sufferings, they feel that these sufferings might have been averted had the United States government raised its voice in timely protest against Germany's violation of the neutrality of their kingdom.

In France, the gratitude that would otherwise be felt for all that private American enterprise is so generously accomplishing there for the relief of the wounded, and of the other victims of the war, is tempered by the resentment caused by the extravagant, not to say extortionate, profits exacted by the American vendors of war supplies. As admitted in print by the latest issue of "Greater New York," the bulletin of the New York Merchants' Association, there have been numerous instances of American firms contracting to furnish France with goods at a certain price, and then either abandoning the contract in favor of newer and better orders, or declining to fulfil it except at an increase of twenty or thirty per cent. in the cost. These cases, which have been thoroughly ventilated in the French press, have created a very wide-spread impression to the effect that Americans, in the sale of war supplies and even of other goods, are exploiting the sufferings and perils of their old-time ally for selfish monetary gain.

Then, too, France has always felt that she has a strong claim on the support of the United States government, in view of the fact that she financed the American War of Independence with money which has never been repaid. That President Wilson and his administration should have remained silent in the face of Germany's violation of Belgian neutrality, a violation that enabled the Kaiser to invade French territory at a relatively unprotected point, has been a great disappointment in France.

Russia, in the American war of the rebellion, gave a striking and very important manifestation of her friendship for the United States by sending her fleet to New York at a critical moment. American popularity in Russia, however, underwent a very severe strain when President Taft broke off treaty relations with the Czar's government, as the climax of the controversy over Muscovite passport regulations. Moreover, the scanty confidence manifested here by financiers, merchants, and manufacturers in Russia's financial credit and general economic and political stability, has been very humiliating to her.

Americans' Popularity Increasing in Great Britain

THE only nation with which Americans are more popular to-day than at the beginning of the war is Great Britain. Perhaps because Britons are somewhat less ignorant of life and conditions over here than are the other nations of Europe, they can make allowances for the difficulties by which President Wilson and his administration are confronted in the great conflagration now in progress. While they would have liked him to act with a greater degree of vigor at the time of the German violation of the neutrality of Belgium, they would not wish him actively to espouse their cause in the struggle by joining the Powers of the Entente, realizing that the United States is of far greater use, both politically and economically, to the British cause as a friendly neutral.

The English are not disposed to haggle over prices for war supplies. And they are keenly alive to the sympathy that has fallen to their share on the part of the great mass of the American people ever since the beginning of the struggle. This sympathy has served to cement a friendship based on ties of blood and tradition as well as on a community of language, literature, and law, a friendship that may prove of even still greater value than in the past to the United States, when, on the restoration of peace, the Great Republic finds itself confronted by increased prejudice on the part of all other nations now engaged in war.

The Little Fiddler of Amen Island

By NORMAN DUNCAN

Illustrations by George Harding

IT was the boast of the Little Fiddler of Amen Island that he had lamed many a man and maid. "An', ecod!" said he, his blue eyes alight, his clean little teeth showing in a mischievous grin, his round cheeks flushed with delight in the gift of power. "There's no leg between ol' Cape John an' the Norman Light so sodden it can balk me when I've the wind in my favor!"—meaning to imply, with more truth than modesty, that the devilishly alluring invitation of his music was altogether irresistible when he was in the mood to provoke a response. "Had I the will," said he, "I could draw tears from the figurehead o' the Roustabout. An' one o' these days, when I've the mind t' show my power," said he darkly, "maybe I'll do it, too!"

He was young—he was twelve. Terry Lute was his name. To be known as the Little Fiddler of Amen Island from Twillingate Long Point as far north as the Newfoundland world of that coast sailed was the measure of celebrity he coveted.

It was aboard a trading schooner—a fly-by-night visitor at Amen Island—that the Little Fiddler of Amen Island had first clapped eyes on a fiddle and heard the strains of it. That was long ago—oh, long, long ago! Terry Lute was a mere child then—seven or thereabouts. An' 'twas the month o' June—sweet weather, ecod! (said he) an' after dark an' the full o' the moon. And Terry had harkened to the strain—some plaintive imaginings of the melancholy clerk in the cabin, perhaps; and he had not been able to hear more—not another wail or sob of it (said he)—but had run full tilt to his mother's knee to tell her first of all the full wonder of the adventure. 'Twas called a fiddle said he)—'twas played with what they called a bow; an' oh, woman (said he), what music could be made by means of it! And Terry could play it—he had seen the clerk sawin' ant sawin' away; an' he had learned how 'twas done jus' by lookin'—in a mere peep. 'Twas nothin' at all t' do (said he)—not a whit o' bother for a clever lad. Jus' give un a fiddle an' a bow—he'd show un how 'twas done!

"I got t' have one, mama!" he declared. "Oo-sh! I jus' got t'!"

His mother laughed at this fine fervor.

"Mark me!" he stormed. "I'll have one o' they fiddles afore very long. An' I'll have folk fair shakin' their legs off t' the music I makes!"

AT Candlestick Cove, Doctor Rolfe was to feed his dogs and put up for the night. It was treacherous March weather; and the night threatened foul—a Hurry of snow falling and the sky over-east with a thickening drab scud. Day was done when Doctor Rolfe crawled out of the timber and scurried down Jump Hill. In the early dusk the lights were already twinkling yellow and warm in the cottages below. There were still sixty miles left of Doctor Rolfe's northern round—the second winter round from Afternoon Arm to the lonely huts of Laughter Bight, thirty miles north of Cape Blind. Doctor Rolfe visioned those wintry miles and reflected upon the propriety of omitting a call at Amen Island. He drew up at Mild Jim Cull's.

"Skipper James," said he, in the kitchen, across the lamp-lit, devastated supper-table, an hour later, "what's the health of Amen Island?"

"They're all well, sir—so far as I knows."

"All well? Just my luck! Then I won't—"

"Amanda," Skipper James admonished his wife in a grieved whisper, "the Doctor is wantin' another cup o' tea."

The good woman was astonished. "He've had—" she began.

Then she blushed, and grasped the pot in a fluster, and "Thank you—no more," the Doctor protested.

"Ah, now, sir—"

"No more. Really, you know! I've quite finished. I—well—I—if you please, Mrs. Cull. Half a cup—no more. Thank you."

"ALL fit an' well, sir, as I says," Skipper James repeated, relieved—"so far as I knows."

"Anybody come across Ships' Run lately?"

"Well, no, sir—nobody but ol' Jack Hulk. Another slice o' pork, Doctor?"

The youngest little Cull tittered, astounded: "He've had—"

Amanda covered the youngest little Cull's lips just in time with a soft hand.

"Thank you—no," the Doctor protested again. "I've quite finished. Nothing more—really! Well," he yielded, "if you will—"

"No; nobody but ol' Jack Hulk."

"Jack Hulk, you say? Hm-m. When was that?"

"I don't rightly remember, sir. 'Twas less than a fortnight ago; I'll lay t' that much."

"And all well over there?"

"No report o' sickness, sir."

"Quite sure about that?"

"Well, sir," Skipper James replied, his gray eyes twinkling, "I asked ol' Jack Hulk, an' he said, 'All well on Amen Island. The Lord's been wonderful easy on us this winter. I'd almost go so far as t' say,' says he. 'that he've been lax. We've had no visitation o' the Lord,' says he, 'since the fall o' the year. We don't deserve this mercy. I'm free t' say that. We isn't been livin' as we should. There's been more frivolity on Amen Island this winter than ever afore in my time. It haven't been noticed so far,' says he. 'That's plain enough. An' so, as yet,' says he, 'we're all well on Amen Island.'"

The Doctor grinned.

"What's the ice on Ships' Run?" said he.

"'Tis tumbled, sir. A man would have t' foot it across. You bound over, sir?"

Doctor Rolfe deliberated.

"I think not," said he, then. "No." This was positive. "If they're all as well as that on Amen Island, I'll get away for Afternoon Arm at noon to-morrow. No; no more—really. I—well—I'm almost wolfish, I declare. Thank you—if you please—just a sma-a-all—"

WHEN old Bob Likely, the mailman, traveling afoot; rounded Come-Along Point of Amen Island and searched the shadows ahead for his entertainment, his lodgings for the night were determined and disclosed. It was late—a flurry of snow falling and the moon overcast with a thickening drab scud; and old Bob Likely's disheartened expectation on the tumbled ice of Ships' Run, between Point o' Bay of the Harborless Shore and Amen Island, had consequently discovered the cottages of his destination dark—the windows black, the fires dead, the kitchens frosty, and the folk of Amen Island long ago turned in. Of the thirty cottages of Amen, however, snuggled under thick blankets of snow, all asleep in the gray night, one was wide awake—lighted up as if for some festivity; and for the hospitality of its lamps and smoking chimney old Bob Likely shaped his astonished course.

"'Tis a dance!" he reflected, heartening his step. "I'll shake a foot if I lame myself!"

Approaching Tom Lute's cottage from the harbor ice, old Bob Likely cocked his ear for the thump and shuffle of feet and the lively music of the Little Fiddler of Amen Island. It was the Little Fiddler's way to boast: "They'll sweat the night! Mark me! I'm feelin' fine. They'll shed their jackets! I'll have their boots off!" And old Bob Likely expected surely to discover the Little Fiddler perched on the back of a chair, the chair aloft on the kitchen table, mischievously delighting in the abandoned antics of the dancers. But there was no music—no thump or shuffle of feet or lively strain. The house was still—except for a whizz and metallic squeaking in the kitchen shed, to which old Bob Likely made his way.

Tom Lute was whirling a grindstone by candlelight in the shed. When Bob Likely lifted the latch he was startled.

"Who's that?" he demanded.

"'Tis his Majesty's mail, Tom."

"That you, Bob?" Tom's drawn face lightened with heartiness. "Well, well! Come in. You're welcome. We've need of a lusty man in this house the night. If the thing haves t' be done, Bob, you'll come handy for holdin'. You come across from Candlestick?"

Bob threw off his pack.

"No," said he; "I come over from Point o' Bay."

"Any word o' the Doctor down north?"

"Ay; he's down north somewheres."

"Whereabouts, Bob?"

"I heard of un at Trap Harbor."

"Trap Harbor! Was he workin' north?"

"There was sickness at Huddle Cove."

"At Huddle Cove? My, my! 'Tis below Cape Blind. He'll not be this way in a fortnight. Oh, dear me!"

By this time Bob was stamping his feet and browning the snow from his seal-hide boots. In answer to his violence the kitchen door fell ajar. Bob Likely cocked his ear. Queer sounds—singular scraps of declaration and pleading—issued to the wood-shed. There was the tap-tap of a wooden leg. Bob Likely identified the presence and agitated pacing of the maternal grandfather of the Little Fiddler. And there was a whimper and a sob. It was the Little Fiddler. A woman crooned: "Hush, dear—ah, hush, now!" A high-pitched, querulous voice: "That's what we done when I sailed along o' Small Sam Small aboard the Royal Bloodhound. That's what we done t' Cap'n Small Sam Small." A young roar, then: "I'll never have it done t' me!" And the woman again: "Ah, hush, dear!! Never mind! Ah—hush, now!" To which there responded a defiant bawl: "I tell you, I won't have it done t' me!"

BY all this, to be sure, old Bob Likely was deeply mystified.

"Look you, Tom!" said he suspiciously.

"What you doin' out here in the frost?"

"Who? Me?" Tom was evasive.

"Ay. "

"Nothin' much."

"'Tis a cold place for that, Tom. An' 'tis a poor lie you're tellin'. 'Tis easy t' see, Tom, that you're busy."

"Ah, well, I got a little job on hand."

"What is your job?"

"This here little job I'm doin' now?"

Tom was reluctant. "I'm puttin' an edge on my ax," he replied.

"What for, Tom?"

Tom hesitated. "Well—" he drawled. And then, abruptly: "Nothin' much." He was both grieved and agitated.

"But what for?"

"I wants it good an' sharp."

---

"What you want it good an' sharp for?"

"An ax serves best," Tom evaded, "when 'tis sharp."

"Look you, Tom!" said Bob. "You're behavin' in a very queer way, an' I gives you warnin' o' the fac'. What happens? Here I comes quite unexpected on you by candlelight in the shed. Who is I? I'm his Majesty's mail. Mark that, Tom! An' what does I find you doin'? Puttin' an edge on an ax. I asks you why you're puttin' an edge on your ax, an' you won't tell. If I didn't know you for a mild man, Tom, I'd fancy you was tired o' your wife."

"Tired o' my wife!" Tom exploded indignantly. "I isn't goin' t' kill my wife!"

"Who's goin' t' kill?"

"I isn't goin' t' kill nobody."

"Well, what you goin' t' kill?"

"I isn't goin' t' kill nothin'."

"Well, then," Bob burst out, "what in thunder is you puttin' an edge on your ax for at this time o' night?"

"Who? Me?"

"Ay—you!"

"I got some doctorin' t' do."

Bob lifted his brows. "Hum!" he coughed. "You usually do your doctorin' with an ax?" he inquired.

"No," said Tom uneasily; "not with an ax."

"What you usually use, Tom?"

"What I usually uses, Bob," Tom replied, "is a decoction an' a spoon."

"Somebody recommend an ax for this complaint?"

"'Tisn't that, Bob. 'Tis this way. When I haves a job t' do, Bob, I always uses what serves best an' lies handy. That's jus' plain common sense an' cleverness. Well, then, jus' now an ax suits me to a t. An' so I'm puttin' a good edge on the only ax I got."

"An ax," Bob observed, "will do quick work."

"That's jus' what I thought!" cried Tom, delighted. "Quick an' painless."

"There's jus' one trouble about an ax," Bob went on dryly, "when used in the practice o' medicine. What's done with an ax," he concluded, "is hard t' repair."

THE doctor, having finished his professional round of the Candlestick cottages in good time, harnessed his dogs, soon after noon next day. Evidently the folk of Amen Island were well. They had been frivolous, no doubt—but had not been caught at it. Amen Island was to be omitted. Doctor Rolfe was ready for the trail to Poor Luck Harbor on the way south. He shouted a last good-by to the folk of Candlestick Cove, who had gathered to wish him God-speed, and laughed in delighted satisfaction with their affection, and waved his hand, and called to his clogs and cracked his whip; and he would have been gone south from Candlestick Cove on the way to Poor Luck Harbor and Afternoon Arm in another instant had he not caught sight of Bob Likely coming up the harbor ice.

As old Bob was doubtless from Amen Island, and as he carried the gossip of the coast on the tip of his tongue, Doctor Rolfe halted his team and waited for him.

"From Amen, Bob?"

"I is, sir. I'm jus' come across the floe."

"Are they all well?"

"Well, no, sir; they isn't. The Little Fiddler is in mortal trouble. I fears, sir, he's bound aloft."

"Hut!" the Doctor scoffed. "What's the matter with the Little Fiddler?"

"He've a sore finger, sir."

The Doctor pondered this. He frowned, perplexed. "What sort of a sore finger?"

"They thinks 'tis mortification, sir."

"Gangrene! What do you think, Bob?"

"It looks like it, sir. I seed a case, sir, when I were off sealin' on the—"

"Was the finger bruised?"

"No, sir; 'twasn't bruised."

"Was it frost-bitten?"

"No, sir; 'twasn't the frost that done it. I made sure o' that. It come from a small cut, sir."

"A simple infection, probably. Did you see a line of demarcation?"

"Sir?"

"It was discolored?"

"Oh, ay, sir! 'Twas some queer sort o' color."

"What color?"

"Well, sir," said Bob cautiously, "I wouldn't say as t' that. I'd say jus' 't was some mortal queer sort o' color."

"Was there a definite line between the discoloration and the sound flesh?" Bob Likely scratched his head.

"I don't quite mind," said he, "whether there was or not."

"Then there was not," the Doctor declared, relieved. "You would not have failed to note that line. 'Tis not gangrene. The lad's all right. That's good. Everybody else well on Amen Island?"

Bob was troubled.

"They're t' cut that finger off," said he, "jus' as soon as little Terry will yield. Las' night, sir, we wasn't able t' overcome his objection. 'Tis what he calls one of his fiddle fingers, sir, an' he's holdin' out—"

"Cut it off? Absurd! They'll not do that."

"Ay; but they will, sir. 'Tis t' he done the night, sir, with the help o' Sandy Lands an' Black Walt Anderson. They're t' cotch un an' hold un, sir. They'll wait no longer. They're afeared o' losin' little Terry altogether."

"But surely—"

"If 'twere mortification, sir, wouldn't you cut that finger off?"

"At once."

"With an ax?

"If I had nothing better."

"An' if the lad was obstinate—"

"If an immediate operation seemed to he advisable, I would have the lad held."

"Well, sir," said Bob, "they thinks 'tis mortification, sir; an', not knowin' no better—"

"Thank you," said the Doctor. He turned to Mild Jim Cull. "Skipper James," said he, "have Timmie take care of the dogs. I'll cross Ships' Run and lance that finger."

DUSK fell on Amen Island. No doctor had crossed the Run. No saving help—no help of any sort, except the help of Sandy Lands and Black Walt Anderson to hold the rebellious subject—had come. Doctor Rolfe had been delayed at Candles stick Cove.

The great news of his fortunate passing had spread inland overnight to the tilts of Battle River. Before the Doctor could get under way for Amen Island, an old dame of Serpent Bend, who had come helter-skelter through the timber, whipping her team, frantic to be in time to command relief before the Doctor's departure, drove up alone, with four frowsy dogs, and desired the extraction of a tooth; and this delayed the Doctor an hour or more. Then a woman of Silver Fox was driven in—a matter that occupied Doctor Rolfe until the day was near spent and the crossing of Ships' Run was a hazard.

"You'll put it off, sir?" Skipper James advised.

The Doctor surveyed the ice and the sky beyond Amen Island.

"I wish I might," said he frankly. "I would, sir."

"I—I can't, very well."

"The floe's started down the Run, sir." "Yes-s," the Doctor admitted uneasily; "but you see, Skipper James, I—I—"

IT was falling dusk and blowing up when Doctor Rolfe and Skipper James, gaffs in hand,—a gaff is a lithe, iron-shod pole, eight or ten feet long,—left the heads of Candlestick Cove for the ice of Ships' Run; and a spit of frosty snow—driving in straight lines—was in the gale. Amen Island, lying nearly in the wind's eye, was hardly distinguishable, through the misty interval, from the blue-black sky beyond. Somewhere to leeward of Candlestick Cove the jam had yielded to the rising pressure of the wind. The floe was outward bound from the Run. It was already moving in the channel, and the ice was thinning out with accelerating speed as the compression was relieved. All the while, thus, as Doctor Rolfe and Skipper James made across, the path was diminishing and vanishing.

In the slant of the wind the ice in the channel of Ships' Run was blown lightly against the Candlestick coast. About the urgent business of its escape to the wide water of Great Yellow Bay, the floe rubbed the Candlestick rocks in passing and crashed around the corner of Dead Man's Point. Near Amen Island, where the wind fell with less force, there was a perilous line of separation. In the lee of the Amen hills, a lane of water was opening between the inert shore ice and the wind-blown main floe.

When Doctor Rolfe and Skipper James came to this widening breach, they were delayed; and when they had drawn near the coast of Amen they were halted altogether.

"We're stopped, sir," Skipper James declared. "We'd best turn back, sir, while there's time."

"One moment—"

"No chance, sir."

"I'm an agile man, Skipper James. One moment. I—"

"A man can't cross that slush, sir."

Past Deep Water Head the last of the floe was driving. There is a wide little cove there—it is called Deep Water Cove; and there is deep water—a drop of ten fathoms, they say—under Deep Water Cliff. There was open water in both directions beyond the points of the cove. Heavy arctic ice—fragments of glacial bergs—had caught the lesser, more brittle

drift-pans of the floe against the broken base and submerged face of Deep Water Cliff, and ground them slowly to slush in the swells. There were six feet of this slush, perhaps—a depth of six feet and a width of thirty. Should a man's leg go deep enough he would not be able to withdraw it; and once fairly caught—both feet gripped—he would inevitably drop through. It would be slow and horrible, like sinking in a quicksand.

IT was near dark. The falling snow fast narrowed the circle of vision.

"I might get across," said Doctor Rolfe.

"You'll not try, sir," Skipper James declared positively.

There was something in Skipper James's tone to make Doctor Rolfe lift his brows.

"What's that?" said he, smiling grimly.

"I says you'll not try."

Doctor Rolfe laughed uneasily.

"No?"

"No, sir."

Skipper James was a big man. Doctor Rolfe measured his length and breadth and power with new interest. Decidedly, Skipper James was a big fellow! And his intentions were plain.

"But, Skipper James, you see, my dear fellow—"

"No, sir." Skipper James moved within reach.

"I'm quite sure—"

"No."

Doctor Rolfe stared at the breach of slush. He faced away. Then, abruptly, "Wel-ll," he admitted, with a shrug, "no doubt you're right, Skipper James. I—'

IN Tom Lute's cottage beyond Come-Along Point of Amen Island they were ready for the operation. There was a thick round billet of birch up-ended in the middle of the kitchen floor, to serve as a block for the amputation; and the ax was sharp at last,—at hand, too, but concealed, for the moment, behind the pantry door,—and a pot of tar was warming on the kitchen stove. Sandy Lands had reported for duty, whom nothing but a sense of duty had drawn to a hand in the surgical assistance—a bit perturbed as he contemplated the task of restraining the struggles of a violent little subject whose temper he knew, but sturdy and resolved, his resolution substantiated by a sort of religious austerity. And Black Walt Anderson—a gigantic, phlegmatic fellow who would have subdivided into half a dozen little Terry Lutes—also awaited the signal to pounce upon the Little Fiddler of Amen Island, imprison his arms, confine his legs, subdue all his little struggles, in short, bear him to the block and flatten his hand and spread his fingers for the severing blow. It was to be a simple operation—a swift descent of the ax and a quick application of hot tar and bandages to stifle the wound.

And that was to be the end of the finger and the trouble.

There had been a good deal of trouble. Terry Lute's sore finger was a source of brutal agony. There had been many days of this pain—a throbbing torture in the finger and hand and arm. And Terry had practised deception to a heroic degree. No pain (said he); but—ah, well, a twinge now an' again—but nothin' at all t' make a man complain. An' sure (said he), 'twas better all the while—improvin' every blessed minute, sir. A day more would see the boil yield t' mother's poultice, an' a fortnight would see un healed up an' the finger able for labor again.

It was in the night that Terry could conceal the agony no longer—deep in time night, when his mother sat beside the cot; and then he would crawl out of bed, stow his slender little body away in his mother's arms, put his head down, and cry and moan without shame until he had exhausted himself and fallen into a fitful sleep. No, it was no trifling agony for Terry Lute to withstand. And he knew all the while, moreover, that the cut of an ax—no more, it might be, than a flash—would eventually relieve him. Terry Lute was not afraid of the pain of the thing they wanted to do: that was not the inspiration of his infuriated rebellion.

This affair of Terry Lute's finger was of gravest moment; had the finger gangrened, it must come off in haste—and the sooner the better; and an ax and a pot of tar were the serviceable instruments, according to the teaching of all experience. Doubtless doctors were better provided and more able; but, as there was no doctor to be had, and as Terry Lute was loved and greatly desired in the flesh, and as he was apparently in peril of a sudden

---

departure, and as he was in desperate pain, and as—

But Terry Lute would not have his finger off. From the corner, where he stood at bay, roaring in a way to silence the very gale that had now begun to shake the cottage, he ran to his mother's knee. And there he sobbed his complaint.

"Ah, Terry, lad," his father pleaded, "'tis only a finger!"

"'Tis on my left hand!"

"You're not left-handed, son," Tom Lute argued patiently. "You've no real need o' four fingers there. Why, sonny boy. once I knowed a man—"

"'Tis one o' my fiddle fingers."

Tom Lute sighed.

"Fiddle fingers, son!" said he. "Ah, now, boy! You've said that so often, an' so foolishly, that I—"

"I'll not have it off!"

"But—"

"Isn't no use in havin' it off," Terry complained, "an' I can't spare it. This here boil—"

"'Tisn't a boil, son; 'tis mortification."

"'Tis not mortification."

Again Tom sighed.

"Is you afeared. Terry?" said he. "Surely you isn't a pulin' little coward, is you? A finger! 'Tis such a simple little thing t' suffer—"

"I'm not afeared. neither!"

"Well, then—"

"You may cut any finger you likes off my right hand," Terry boasted, "an' I'll not whimper a peep."

"I don't want, a finger off your right hand, Terry."

"I won't have it!"

"'Tis no pleasure t' me t'—"

"I won't have a finger off my left hand!"

"I tells you, Terry, you isn't left-handed. I've told you that a thousand times. What in the name o'—".

"I tells you, I won't have it!"

BLACK Walt Anderson looked to Tom Lute for a signal. Sandy Lands rose.

"Now?" he seemed to inquire.

Tom Lute shook his head.

"That's the way we done aboard the Royal Bloodhound," the Little Fiddler's grandfather put in.

He began to pace the floor. The tap-tap of his wooden leg was furious and his voice was as gusty as the gale outside.

"Now, you mark me!" he ran on. "We chopped Cap'n Sam Small's foot off with a ax an' plugged it with b'ilin' tar. 'Twas mortification. I knows mortification when I sees it. An' Sam Small got well."

He was bawling, by this time, like a skipper in a gale—being deaf, the old man was accustomed to raise his voice, in a gradual crescendo, until he had come as near hearing himself as possible.

"Yes, sir—you mark me! That's what we done aboard the Royal Bloodhound the year I shipped for the seals along o' Small Sam Small. We chopped it clean off with a meat ax an' plugged it with b'ilin' tar. If Small Sam Small had clung t' that member for another day he would have died. Mark me! Small Sam Small would have been dropped over the side o' the Royal Bloodhound an' left t' shift for hisself in a sack an' a Union Jack!"

HE paused before Terry Lute and shook a lean finger under the boy's nose.

"Now," he roared, "you mark me!"

"I isn't aboard the Royal Bloodhound!" Terry sobbed.

"Ah, Terry!" This was Terry's mother. She was crying bitterly. "You'll die an you don't have that finger off!"

"I'll die an I got to!"

"Oh, Terry, Terry!"

"I isn't afeared t' die."

"Ah, Terry dear, whatever would I do—

"I'll die afore I gives up one o' my fiddle fingers."

"But you isn't got—"

"Never you mind about that!"

"If you had—"

"You jus' wait till I grows up!"

Again Sandy Lands inquired for the signal. Tom Lute lifted a hand to forbid.

"Terry, son," said he gravely, "once an' for all, now, will you—"

"No!" Terry roared.

"Oh, oh, Terry, dear!" the mother wailed, observing the preparations behind Terry's back. "If you'd only—"

Terry screamed in a furious passion: "Have done, woman! I tells you, I won't have none o' my fiddle fingers cut off!"

It was the end. Tom Lute gave the signal. Sandy Lands and Black Walt Anderson pounced upon little Terry Lute and carried him, bawling and struggling, from his mother's knee toward the block. Tom Lute stood waiting there with the ax. As for Terry Lute's mother, she flew to the stove, tears streaming from her eyes, her mouth grim, and fetched the pot of tar. And then all at once the Little Fiddler of Amen Island wriggled out of the clutches of his captors—they were too tender with him—and dived under the kitchen table.

CONFRONTING the slush of Deep Water Cove, with the finger of the Little Fiddler of Amen Island awaiting his ministration beyond, Doctor Rolfe had misled Skipper James Cull into the assumption of his acquiescence. It was not in his mind to return to Candlestick Cove that night: it was in his mind to gain the shore and proceed upon his professional call. And there was reason in this. For when the group of arctic ice—still rhythmically swinging in and out with the great seas from the open—drove down upon the broken base of Deep Water Cliff, it compressed the ice between. At the moment of greatest compression the slush was reasonably solid ground. When the arctic ice subsided with the wave, the slush expanded in the wider space it was then permitted to occupy. A man could cross—a light, agile man, daring the depth of the slush, might me able to cross—when the slush was compressed. No man could run all the way across. It must be in two advances. Midway he would be caught by the subsidence if the wave. From this he must preserve himself. And from this—from dropping through the field of slush and having it lose over his head—he might preserve himself by means of his gaff.

"We-ell," Doctor Rolfe had admitted, apparently resigned, "no doubt you're right, Skipper James. I—"

Now the arctic ice was poised.

"Ay, sir. An' you're more reasonable than ever I knowed you t'—"

A sea was rolling in.

"We-ell," the Doctor drawled, "as I grow older—"

Then came the moment of advantage. Doctor Rolfe ran out on the slush before Skipper James could reach out a hand to restrain him. It was indiscreet. Doctor Rolfe had been too eager to escape—he had started too soon. The sea was not down—the slush was not squeezed tight. A foot sank to the ankle. Doctor Rolfe jerked it out. The other foot went down to the calf of the leg. Doctor Rolfe jerked—tugged it. It was fast. The slush, in increasing compression, had caught it. He must wait for the wave to subside. His flesh crept with the horror of the thing. He was trapped—caught fast! A moment later the sea was in retreat from the cliff and the slush began to thin.

DOCTOR ROLFE employed the stratagem that is familiar to the coast for dealing with such ice as the slush in which he was entrapped. He waited—alert. There would come a moment when the consistency of the ice would be so thin that he would drop through. Precisely before that moment—when his feet were first free—he dropped flat on his gaff. Having this way distributed his weight,—avoided its concentration on a small area,—he was borne up; and he withdrew his feet and waited for the sea to fall in again and compress the ice.

When the next wave fell in, Skipper Jamens started across the ice like a bob-cat.

Doctor Rolfe lay inert through two waves. When the third fell, he jumped up and ran toward the base of Deep Water Cliff. Again the sea caught him unaware. His flesh was creeping again. Horror of the stuff underfoot—the treacherous insecurity of it—drove him. The shore was close. He was too eager for the shore—he ran too far; and his foot went down again—foot and leg to the thigh. As instinctively he tried violently to extract the leg by stepping up on the other foot—that leg went down to the knee. A fall to the arm-pits impended—a drop clean through and overhead. The drop would inevitably be the result of a flash of hesitation. Doctor Rolfe cried out. And as he cried he plunged forward—a swift, conscious effort to fall prone on his gaff.

There was a blank. Nothing seemed to happen. He was amazed to discover that the gaff upheld him. It occurred to him, then, that his feet were trapped—that he could not withdraw his legs from the sucking slush. Nor could he. They were caught. And he perceived that they were sinking deeper—that he was slowly slipping through the slush.

He was conscious of the night—the dark and snow and wind; and he fancied that he heard a voice of warning: "Cotch hold—"

It was a voice.

"Cotch hold o' the gaff!"

Doctor Rolfe seized the end of Skipper James's gaff and drew himself out of the grip of the slush. When the sea came in again he jumped up and joined Skipper James on the broken base of Deep Water Cliff. He was breathing hard. He did not look back. Skipper James said that they had better make haste—that somebody would "cotch a death o' cold" if they did not make haste. And they made haste.

AN hour or more later, Doctor Rolfe, with Skipper James in his wake, thrust into Tom Lute's agitated kitchen and interrupted the amputation of the fiddle finger of the Little Fiddler of Amen Island with a "Well, well, well! What in the name of—" and stood staring—all dusted with snow and shivering and fairly gone purple with cold.

They had got Terry Lute cornered then—his back against the wall, his face horrified, his mouth wide open in a bellow of rage; and Sandy Lands and Black Walt Anderson were almost upon him; and Tom Lute was grimly ready with the ax: and Terry Lute's mother was standing beside the round birch block with the pot of tar in her hands and her apron over her head.

Doctor Rolfe stood staring at all this—his mouth as wide open, because of a temporary paralysis due to his amazement, as Terry Lute's mouth was fallen in anger and terror. And it was not long after that—the Doctor being warm and dry then, and the kitchen quiet and expectant, and Tom Lute and Terry Lute's mother exhibiting relief and the keenest sort of interest—that the Doctor took Terry Lute's fiddle finger in his hand and began to prepare it for the healing thrust of a lance.

"I'm going to cure it, Terry," said he. "That's good, sir. I'm wonderful glad t' save that finger."

"You cherish that finger, Terry?"

"I does that, sir! I've need of it, sir."

The Doctor was not attending. His attention was on the lance and its object.

"Mm-m," he ran on absently, to make distracting conversation. "You've need of it, eh?"

"'Tis one o' my fiddle fingers, sir."

"Mm-m? Ah! The Little Fiddler of Amen Island! Well, Terry. lad, you'll be able to play your fiddle again in a fort-night."

Terry grinned.

"No, sir," said he; "I won't be playin' my fiddle by that time."

The Doctor looked up in astonishment.

"Yes, you will," he flashed sharply.

"No, sir."

"But I tell you—"

"I isn't got no fiddle."

"What!"

"All I got now," said the Little Fiddler of Amen Island, "is a jew's-harp. But jus' you wait till I grows up!"

Do You Use Your Government?

By FRED C. KELLY

LET us assume that there is something you wish to know. You wish to raise a baby, a goat, radishes, hay, or chickens. Maybe you want to learn how to trim a rosebush, what to do for your health, or what good is a hop-toad.

Whatever line of information has excited your interest, the chances are that you might go farther and do worse than to seek your knowledge at the hands of the celebrated United States government.

When you learn a thing from the government, you not only get it easily and inexpensively, but you get an authoritative statement. In the agricultural department, for example, there are more experts than can be found in any college in the land. You can have the benefit of their definite knowledge for the asking, or for the price of a cigar.

Members of Congress often mail out to their constituents lists of so-called farmers' bulletins, and there is scarcely a man or a woman in either city or country who would not find something of interest in this list. But congressmen also send out copies of their speeches, and many people who don't care for the speeches fall into the habit of throwing both classes of matter into the waste-basket.

Find a Little Bulletin to Read

IN so doing people overlook a lot of good stuff. There are more than 700 of these little farmers' bulletins, and they are not confined merely to the matter of growing things in the ground. Here are just a few, noticed at random on the list:

One can obtain a list of these bulletins by writing to his congressman, or by writing direct to the Division of Publications of the Department of Agriculture. The bulletins are free while they last, and after the free supply is gone they can be bought from the Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, Washington, for five cents each.

I know a man who made it a practice to carry one or two of these pamphlets in his pocket all the time. He lived in the suburbs of his city, and read them while going back and forth on the street-car. To-day he is looked upon in his neighborhood as an authority on the care of the vegetable and flower garden.

It is an interesting fact that, of all the more than 700 bulletins, the ones in greatest demand deal with chickens. And most of those who want chicken reading matter are city folk! It seems that there breathes scarcely a city dweller with soul so dead that he doesn't look forward to the time when he will retire to a pretty little well manicured acre or two, and make a comfortable living from poultry.

These bulletins, however, are only one little item of the information one may obtain free from the government. If you are a farmer and have a problem of any kind whatsoever, write to W. J. Spillman, chief of the Bureau of Farm-Management; he will come back with a personal letter telling you just what to do. There is now, in many county-seats throughout the country, a government farm expert who may be consulted by near-by farmers.

Last year one of these experts, stationed in an Indiana county, got the farmers to take care of their apples, which had been allowed to rot on the ground because there seemed to he no demand for them. He showed them how they could make a profitable deal with commission merchants in Indianapolis.

A friend of mine had a farm in Ohio, part of which was covered with a scrubby growth of oak, which was not of much use for timber, but which spoiled the ground for pasture. He made inquiries of his neighbors as to a way of disposing of the timber for enough to pay for clearing the ground. Nobody knew of any use for such small timber. He wrote to the Bureau of Forestry at Washington, which was in touch with a man, living within a few miles of the Ohio farm, who wanted just such a lot of cheap oak timber to burn in a brick kiln. Moreover, it knew another man in the same locality who was a forestry expert and could tell which timber to cut and which to leave.

Learn How to Raise Babies

PERHAPS information pertaining to things that grow in the soil is out of your line. Your hobby, maybe, is bringing up a cute little assortment of babies. Very well. If you will write to the Children's Bureau of the Department of Labor, or the Bureau of Education of the Department of the Interior, at Washington, you will obtain a long list of free government publications crammed full of high-grade information that you can apply to baby or child culture.

Almost anybody could glance over a list of all the new books published in a given year and see titles that would catch his interest—books that he might never learn of in the book stores or by reading the reviews in the magazines. For a small sum of money you can get a fully indexed list of all the publications that are copyrighted at Washington. This list is known as the "Catalogue of Copyright Entries." It comes in four parts, and is obtainable from the Superintendent of Documents, Government Printing Office, for $3 a year. Or you can buy any single part as follows:

Part. 1. Books (including pamphlets, leaflets, and contributions to periodicals), Lectures, Dramatic Compositions, Maps and Charts, $1 a year.

Part 2. Periodicals (that is, newspapers and magazines), 50 cents a year.

Part 3. Musical Compositions, $1 a year.

Part 4. Works of Art (paintings, drawings, and sculpture), with photographs, prints, and other pictorial illustrations, etc., 50 cents a year.

Government Movie Shows

THE government even provides free moving picture shows—shows that are commendable because they do not contain the Nick Carter brand of plot so prevalent to-day. Twenty-three films were made for the Agricultural Department last year, to be shown at country school-houses, churches, and county fairs by department representatives. They covered the following subjects:

Write your congressman and get your list of the government's free bulletins to-day. It will surprise you.

Just by Way of Illustration

Photographs from E. M. Colman

The Hardest Ways of Making' Money

What the War Means to Them

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Actors Are Always Being Surprised

The Man In the Stone House

By FREEMAN TILDEN

Illustration by George E. Wolfe

"IF Mr. Starr says it's all right, it's all right," Clint Weatherbee said resignedly, when it was proposed to fit out Mr. Tinker, the returned Boxtonian, with some of the Weatherbee garments. "But I don't see the sense in having the critter round at all.

Mrs. Weatherbee was more trustful. So long, she thought, as it was necessary to endow Mr. Tinker with a new suit of clothes, the job had better be a good one. And, with that reckless generosity with which a woman disposes of her husband's clothes, she dug up a perfectly good pair of trousers and a coat to match, and plied her needle with skill. The trousers having been "taken up" at the legs and the coat at the sleeves, and the wardrobe of every good-sized booster having been levied upon for the remainder of the necessaries, Mr. Joe Tinker was able to step forth from the Commercial Hotel a new man—so far as tailors may recreate a man.

Starr had given him fifty cents. It was caution rather than thrift that fixed the size of the donation. With fifty cents, Starr argued, Mr. Tinker would be able to get into very little trouble. On the other hand, it seemed a shame to turn a favorite son of Boxton loose during the festivities without anything for spending money.

It did not take long for Mr. Tinker to spend the fifty cents in the following manner:

      

Throwing rings at canes (without success)	$0.20
Pop-corn and lemonade	.10
Six balls at the African dodger (no luck)	.10
Cigarette tobacco and papers	.05
To a child found crying	.05
Total	.50

By half past eleven the returned son of Boxton was as free from financial responsibilities as he had been when he crawled out of the freight caboose.

As he was reluctantly leaving the Coppins lot, Joe Tinker was halted by seeing a crowd gathered round a man who was engaged in a new and curious operation. This man had set up a small movable stand, and his stock in trade seemed to consist merely of a bundle of envelops, each envelop containing a card. The crowd was invited to select an envelop from the bunch. For a skilful choice this philanthropist offered to pay at the rate of ten to one. That is, one dollar might win ten; ten might win a hundred; a hundred might win a thousand.

THE only man that had as yet won anything was a total stranger. He was wonderfully lucky. He never drew an envelop without taking money from the operator. Then he would step back, saying, "Let these fellows try it. I don't want to hog all the luck." But whenever "these fellows" drew an envelop they drew a blank. At the moment Mr. Tinker stepped up there was a lull in the proceedings.

"Here comes a sport!" cried the operator, when he saw Mr. Tinker. "Here's a fellow that ain't afraid to take a chance!

He beckoned to the crowd to break away, and held the envelops out toward the newcomer.

Joe Tinker was gratified at being recognized as a sport, but he shook his head knowingly.

"Come on! Just once, to try your luck!" insisted the man behind the table. "Something tells me you've got a horse-shoe with you to-day."

Mr. Tinker felt, indeed, that he had a horseshoe. Certain recent events strengthened that belief. But for the moment he had not the necessary dollar to prove it. He shook his head sadly.

"Just for fun, draw one," said the operator. "Win or lose, no money changes hands. Just for the fun of it! I want to see."

MR. TINKER took an envelop, and was horrified to find that he was the winner of an imaginary ten dollars. If he only had a real dollar it might now have been ten real dollars. In despair he thrust his hands down into the pockets of the late Weatherbee trousers. He struck bottom dully.

There was a little watch-pocket on the front, at the right-hand side. Mr. Tinker wormed his fingers down into that. He struck something. He pulled. It came. He turned away from the crowd and looked down. He saw something—something yellow—something orange-yellow. He plucked the thing forth. Then he walked rapidly away from the crowd, clutching a wad in his palm. When he gained the shelter of a big tree, he permitted himself another glance.

"Wow!" cried Mr. Tinker. "Talk about horseshoes!"

He retreated still farther from the crowd, to another tree. Then he began to count: "Twenty, forty, sixty, two, three. Sixty-three. Sixty-three! Sixty-three!"

Mr. Tinker sat down and breathed hard. Then he counted again, feeling the edges of the bills carefully to make sure that no two were stuck together. "Twenty, forty, sixty, two, three. Sixty-three."

"Wow!" repeated Mr. Tinker. "Talk about horseshoes! This is better than a license to steal!"

The crowd around the table of the envelop philanthropist had somewhat dwindled when Joe Tinker returned. He strode up to the stand with a confident gleam in his eye.

"I'll take one," he said.

"I don't know whether you will or not,' smiled the operator. "I'm afraid this is your day. But go ahead! You might as well have my money as anybody."

Mr. Tinker airily drew an envelop. He took the card from it, and announced the number. There was a little bulletin on the side of the stand that announced the winning number's.

"You win!" said the man, after giving Mr. Tinker a shrewd scrutiny. "Here's your ten dollars. I don't want to play any more with you."

"I guess you got to play with me," cried Joe indignantly. "You can't quit now."

"All right," replied the man, with a touch of sadness in his voice. "Draw again."

DINNER was being laid on the tables at the Commercial Hotel. Mr. Tinker was not there. He was no longer hungry. He was too busy.

At two o'clock Mr. Tinker was drawing

---

the last remaining dollar of his heritage from his pocket and passing it to the controller of the envelops.

"It's funny," he was saying, scratching his bald head, "and I started in so lucky. Well, here goes my last!"

His fingers trembled as he opened the envelop. Then he threw it on the table with a sigh. It was a blank.

"Hard luck!" commented the operator briskly. "Any other gent want to try his luck?"

Mr. Tinker fumbled in all the pockets of the Weatherbee trousers. He tried to discover new pockets. He patted the clothes all over, to ascertain whether by chance there might be money sewed into the linings. It was useless.

Many a Boxtonian would have been utterly cast down; but Joe Tinker brightened up considerably after a few moments. Suddenly he felt hungry. He thought of the Commercial Hotel, and he set out for it as fast as he could travel.

ALMOST at the same moment that Mr. Tinker was chancing his last dollar on the envelops, Clint Weatherbee appeared in the kitchen of the hotel, roaring: "Which pants did you give that critter? Which pants has that son-of-who-cut-his-hair got on?"

"Don't make such a noise! The light ones with the dark stripe," replied Mrs. Weatherbee.

Mr. Weatherbee rested his huge bulk against the wall and groaned. Then he asked, "Which way has he gone?"

"Why, what's the matter?" asked his wife, in return.

"Which way has he gone?" repeated Clint hollowly. "He hasn't been home to dinner!"

"How do I know? I haven't been keeping track of him. I guess I got my hands full without that," responded Mrs. Weatherbee.

The hotel proprietor slammed out of the room, and, with an agonized yell, left the hotel in search of the "critter" that had fallen heir to his extemporized savings hank.

Mrs. Weatherbee considered that her husband was making a good deal of fuss "over a pair of pants." She did not know that Clint had been surreptitiously hoarding in those trousers. Clint had not meant that she should know: it was in the nature of a little private cache, which he was reserving for a celebration in the autumn.

Since Mr. Tinker had chosen the main street in his return to the Commercial Hotel, and since Mr. Weatherbee had chosen the main street in his impetuous flight, it was natural that they should soon meet. As a matter of fact, Mr. Tinker was in front of the Banner office, and Mr. Weatherbee was just passing Edmonds' store, next door, when they recognized each other.

There was something about the bearing of the huge oncoming figure that informed Mr. Tinker that Mr. Weatherbee was in search of somebody; and he instantly concluded that the somebody might easily be himself. He stopped short, hesitated a moment, and then started across the street.

"Hi, there!" cried Mr. Weatherbee. "You, I mean!"

Mr. Tinker now felt perfectly sure that he was the object of the hotel man's haste, and he quickened his steps. Mr. Weatherbee likewise quickened his, and struck out obliquely toward the returned Boxtonian.

"You wait!" shouted Clint. "I want to see you!"

That was enough for Mr. Tinker. He gathered up his corpulent person and ran. Nobody would have suspected that he was capable of such a burst of speed. His short legs moved so rapidly that, before Clint was able to attain his own top speed, the fugitive had disappeared down an alleyway at the side of the Tibb Grocery; and when the hotel man reached the head of the alley there was nobody in sight.

But Clint Weatherbee was perfectly informed about the environs. He knew that he had his man in a pocket. There were but two outlets to the pocket. One was the rear entrance to Joel Tibb's store, and the outer was the main street. On the other two sides were a high fence and the river. He figured, and correctly, that his man would try to hide himself in one of the two sheds at the end of the alley.

In one of these sheds were the Tibb wagons. The other shed was usually vacant beneath, the upper part being used as a storehouse. But at the present moment there was being stored in this farther shed a great "float" that was to be used in the parade.

The Woman's Auxiliary had been hard at work on this float and several others. This one was the masterpiece. Upon a wagon body had been built a wide floor, upon which had been rigged certain stage properties that were to suggest the natural surroundings of the scene wherein Pocahontas pleaded for the life of Captain John Smith. There was a wigwam (or, at least, the Boxton conception of an Indian wigwam), and a camp-fire with an iron pot overhanging it by two forked sticks, and all around the edges birches and hemlocks had been affixed to represent the primeval forest. Upon this impromptu stage Pocahontas (Miss Helen Bisbee) was going to plead with Powhatan (Lew Sanders) for the life of Captain John Smith (Arthur Wilbur). There were to be other gentlemen and lady Indians, and a few whites with bellshaped muskets.

IT was to this shed that Joe Tinker fled. That the presence of such a strange-looking wagon startled him was evidenced by the fact that when Clint Weatherbee came panting up, the fugitive was still staring at the float, open-mouthed.

"Well. I got you!" bawled Mr. Weatherbee, in savage triumph.

"What you want to go chasing me for?" inquired Joe innocently. "I ain't done nothing."

"What you want to run for, then?" was the searching question.

"Well, I didn't know but the heat might have affected you," Joe offered simply.

Weatherbee bellowed at this. Then he said: "I want them pants!"

"What pants?" replied Joe Tinker, looking around ingenuously in search of a possible third pair referred to.

"Oh, you know what I mean," went on the hotel man. "Them pants of mine you got on."

His manner was so appalling that Mr. Tinker shrank back against the side of the shed.

"You gave 'em to me!" he cried. "Mr. Starr he said—"

"I don't care what anybody said," insisted the wrathful Weatherbee. "Off with 'em. or I'll break every bone in your body! If what I'm looking for is still in the pants. I'll let you have 'em back. If it ain't there, by thunder, you'll never get 'em back!"

"There might be ladies around," sparred Joe.

"Don't you worry. Come, off with 'em!"

Joe Tinker's eyes sought a possible escape, a possible weapon, a possible something with which to combat this monster. There was no escape and no weapon. He began shedding the ex-Weatherbee coat, very slowly.

"Quick!" yelled Clint.

The coat slid off in a hurry. A moment afterward Clint seized the trousers from Joe, and with trembling fingers went straight to the little watch-pocket where his private savings had been concealed. He wormed his fingers inside, and pulled the lining out. There was nothing there. He went through the other pockets with no better luck.

"What you done with that money?" he asked hoarsely. "What you done with it, I say?"

"Money? I ain't seen no money," replied Joe Tinker. "Was there money in the pants?"

"There was a hundred and sixty-three dollars in that little watch-pocket," hissed the hotel man. "You stole it!"

"A hundred and sixty-three dollars!" repeated Joe Tinker, with a strange sinking at the heart that made him oblivious to this present situation of danger. ("How did I miss that other hundred?" he was thinking to himself.)

As a matter of truth there was no other hundred. It had been a foxy ruse on the part of the hotel man to surprise the culprit into confessiom. But it failed, because Joe Tinker was seldom surprised at anything. Yet it gained another object—it made Mr. Tinker alnost unhappy, in the belief that somehow he had lost the other hundred.

"A hundred and sixty-three dollars!" again repeated Tinker. "In them pants? You're joking."

"I'll show you, mister, whether I'm joking or not before I get through with you," replied Clint, in a calmer voice that boiled no good for the other man. "I'll teach you to—"

He stopped suddenly. A junble of feminine voices had reached his ears. He stepped to the edge of the shed and peered out.

"A passel of wimmen!" he muttered. "And they're coming down here!"

It was a group from the Woman's Auxiliary, coming for the float. There was a lad with a pair of horses following behind them.

In his excitement, Mr. Weatherbee held on to the trousers till it was too late to do the reasonable thing with them.

"Git somewhere!" he whispered to Mr. Tinker. "Git anywhere! Hide! Wimmen!"

"My pants!" blubbered Joe, seeking for a place to "git."

There were stairs on hinges for the purpose of reaching the loft, but these had been hooked to the ceiling of the shed to economize space. and could be unhooked only by using a ladder.

There was just one place for Mr. Tinker to go, and he got there in a hurry. And just as he got inside the wigwam on the float, Mr. Weatherbee, with the trousers concealed under his coat, stepped forth from the shed and said feverishly, "How d'ye do, ladies! I been down here looking at your float."

"But we don't want everybody looking at it," replied one of the women indignantly.

"D-didn't you?" replied Clint, who was always abashed in the presence of females other than his wife. "I 'pologize. I didn't know."

"Well, do run along now," he was told. And the woman who spoke last said to the lad with the horses: "Hurry up, Freddie. Hitch on to the float. We've got to be in front of the Congregational parsonage at three o'clock sharp."

The members of the Auxilary, having given their orders, preceded the float out of the alley. Mr. Weatherbee watched the big wagon go, not knowing exactly what to do. Half way up the alley he saw the wigwam tremble, and then he perceived that the rear end of it, at the bottom, was being raised. An arm emerged" and then a head; then another arm. Then he saw Mr. Tinker wildly beckoning to him and, by means of sign language, imploring him to hand over the missing garment.

The float rattled onward. Mr. Tinker gesticulated dumbly. But suddenly the thought of his ravaged treasure turned Mr. Weatherbee's rising pity to gall. He shook his head bitterly and retreated to the riverside.

"Darn his wuthless hide!" murmured Clint. "I'll teach him to go a-robbing folks!"

He rolled the trousers up in a ball and hurled them into the swiftly flowing river.

"HURRY up, Lou!" Miss Katherine Burbridge was saying, about half past two. "We don't want to miss a single bit of that parade. I know it's going to be just the funniest thing we ever saw. Helen Bisbee is going to be Pocahontas. She's going to plead for the life of John Smith. If Mr. Smith had ever seen her he'd have told the Indians to go ahead and put him out of his misery."

They might have taken a short cut from Dr. Crumb's over to the Congregational parsonage, where the floats were to start; but Miss Burbridge had another idea. She led Louise Searles down the main street to the Banner office. The office was closed,—as, by agreement, were all the business places in the village for the afternoon,—but the sign announcing the standing of the contestants in a voting contest for a loving-cup was still outside:

STANDING OF THE CONTEST
(To midnight, July 12)

     

Walter Eadbrook	3606
J. Bradtee Starr	3101
Dr. Melville	271
Joet Tibb	133
Ezra Mudge	1

Mr. Treadway had been maintaining that one vote for Ezra Mudge ever since he had begun to post the returns. Care-fully, each time, he put Ezra at the foot of the list, with one vote; and he giggled to himself as he painted the name. Whether amybody in town had actually cast a vote for Ezra, or whether Mr. Treadway himself had donated the vote as a choice bit of office humor, nobody kmew. At any rate, Boxtonians never failed to stand before the bulletin-board and give voice to their amusement. It became the stock local witticism to point out Ezra's name and declare: "The old skinflint voted for himself!"

WALTER EADBROOK was leading by a healthy margin. The only other serious contestant was J. Bradlee Starr. There was a feeling that a man so eminently lovable, who had done and was doing so much for Boxton, should be honored by receiving the loving-cup. On the other hand, there was a strong sentiment in favor of Walter Eadbrook, especially since he was known to be cherishing an inner woe.

"Walter's ahead, " Katherine whispered.

"Yes," replied Louise Searles rather faintly. Her face was pallid, and her breath, in spite of obvious efforts of self-control, came in little gusts.

"And if he should win, I think I know who's going to be his queen," went on Katherine, squeezing her companion's arm.

"Oh, no—I couldn't—if you mean me even if he should want—" stammered Louise.

"Don't be a goose!" was the retort. "You know perfectly well he's head over heels in love with you. What difference does a little misunderstanding make?" Listen, Lou; I've got a secret for you. Walter's going to win. I have reason to know. I can't tell you how I know, but I know. So you'd better be getting ready. I'm just as excited about it, honey, as if it was going to be myself. This Starr person is a dear, Lou. Think of his coming right out and saying that he'd rather his friends would vote for Walter! I could just hug him—you know what I mean. He's so different from the rest of us, and calm and resourceful and broad-minded and everything""

They made an interesting contrast, these two young women, as they stood in front of the little bulletin board. Katherine, magnificent in her tall, ripe beauty, clasped her companion's waist, and spoke in a low, sympathetic voice. Louise, nestling close to the other woman, seemed to shelter her lithe, girlish figure under this protecting wing. And her eyes, when they looked up into Katherine's, were melting with a trustfulness and wistfulness that told of long days and months without a confidant to whom she could come running with her full heart.

"Katherine!" said Louise. "I never heard you talk like that before."

"I do wish I could have a talk with him, Lou. I'd like to tell him something about our people. He doesn't understand New England folk at all. Bless his heart, he judges them by himself. He thinks they want to be progressive. Poor Mr. Starr! He's got a shock coming to him. And it's a shame, when he's working so hard""

"Do you think he'll succeed?" asked Louise.

"Lou," replied the other young woman, "did you ever see anyone get blood out of a

Continued on page 17

April In the Skylight

By GERTRUDE BROOKE HAMILTON

Illustrations by C. D. Williams

MISS PICKENS had opened the door of her New York boarding house one morning and found April sitting on the top step.

April was eight years old then, and pinned to the fuzzy sleeve of her coat was a note in a bold hand intrusting her to the care of gaunt Miss Pickens, who kept theatrical boarding-house on West Fortieth Street.

April was eighteen now, a slim, dark eyed girl, as fresh as if she had lived her life in some fragrant meadow instead of in the murky atmosphere of the Thespian boarding-house.

As the foster-child of Miss Pickens, April ran errands for the boarders, made up the beds and couches, carpet-swept the rugs, answered the telephone and door-bell, ate what the boarders left, wore what the boarders gave her, and slept at the tiptop of the faded brownstone boarding-house, in a small round room with no windows, and with a skylight in the center of the ceiling. Her cot-bed was directly under the skylight. On fair nights she could see stars shining; on stormy nights she could study a patch of jetty black; when the moon shone it fell upon her face; and when, on rainy nights, the skylight leaked, April slumbered serenely under a broken umbrella.

Perhaps it was because April's room had no windows and only a glimpse of heaven, because she could not look out over the city, that she knew nothing about the city's iniquities.

At four o'clock every day, April passed through the house with a batch of face-towels over her left shoulder and a batch of bath-towels over her right shoulder, to knock on the doors of the rooms and call: "Towels!"

ON an afternoon when Manhattan was quickening under her concretes and through her parks to the touch of spring, April broke her call of "towels" with a shower of song. She did not know much about singing, but her voice was so full of spring-time sap that Joan Class, the dancer in the second-floor front, spun the slim towel-bearer a bonbon; and Hyams and Meek, eccentric comedians in the second-floor back, paused in their melancholy slap-stick rehearsing; and Cleo de Milo, the stock actress in the second-floor hall room, wearily confided to April how homesick spring made her; and on the third floor, Monica Trillith, "the California nightingale," and Edwin Mellish, the old character actor, and Beulah and Ben Bagoe, the motion-picture players, propped their doors open.

Chubby Dyke, scenario and hack writer in the fourth-floor back, did not stop his zip-zapping typewriter as she hung his towels on his door-knob.

But Cliff Rollingsford, the big, thread-bare young playwright in the fourth-floor hall room, called out: "April" if I could catch the spirit of your song in my play, I'd have New York weeping."

"Why?" asked April, hanging his towels over the rack on his washstand. "I'm not singing anything sad."

"They weep at youth, April," answered Cliff.

He looked from his flimsy writing-table out of the window at the view—scarred houses, ash-cans, a window clothes-line, a portion of a huge theatrical poster, and a smutty, skulking cat. "Look how old it all is, April," he said seriously.

"But we're not old," said April.

"That's true," said Cliff. He leaned back in his rickety chair, and in his gray-blue eyes a smile deepened to laughter.

April's eyes laughed too, and shimmered to velvet-brown. The threadbare young playwright had lived in the fourth-floor hall room for five years, and for five years April had brought up his towels.

"Yet sometimes I feel old," said Cliff, sobering. "Sometimes, when the spring comes around, I see myself waking up at fifty-odd with my pockets full of money, that won't do me much good at that age."

"You're not going to make another copy of your play, are you?" asked April.

"Only one," he said. "And that will be the last."

"So you won't be anywhere near fifty when your play is done," she said brightly.

"That's true." His face lightened. "Neither will you be, April. What would you think of me with my pockets full of money?" he asked, with mock solemnity.

"I don't know," she answered.

"It's hard to imagine, isn't it?" His face shadowed again.

"Don't give out," she said, alarmed. "Your play is worth working for."

His face flared to self-enthusiasm.

"I'm trying to do a big thing," he admitted tensely. He looked at the pile of manuscript on his table. "I've been writing my play for the last four years, and throwing away copy after copy because I didn't quite catch the thing I'm trying to get."

He stood up and leaned against the window-sash, eyes on the view. "I want to catch the essence of the city, drop by drop, bottle it, and give it in strong doses to the public!" he dreamed. "I want to dramatize the shrieking red fire-engines, the human freaks that halt along in out-of-the-way places, the winds at Twenty-third Street, the dead that are found in the rivers, the babies that are found on church steps, the window's whose secrets are shuttered by broken blinds, the soap-cleaned windows, behind which love exists as normally as in a village—"

"You're doing it," said April confidently.

He nodded, and stepping to his writing table picked up several pages. "I did good work last night, on that scene in the final act. I talked it over with Chub Dyke, and he made some suggestions. Want to hear it. April?"

"Yes," she said—she knew his play by heart.

He read the scene rapidly, buoyed up by the beauty and sweep of his idea."

"I've caught the thing I'm after!" he cried. "The end is in sight." He laid the pages back on the table, and came impetuously across the dingy strip of carpet.

"April," he said, catching her hand, "if my play is a go, will you marry me?"

She lifted her face with eyes and lips in a sunshine of astonishment.

"You're the girl for me." he said, in his deep, visionary voice, and put his arms about her.

"I don't see why—but I'm glad," whispered April.

"We'll have a honeymoon in Bermuda," he predicted, with his eyes on his play. "My youth has been a lean one, April. Nothing but poverty and obscurity. Success will bring me out on a high height." His arms tightened about her. "I don't know of any girl with whom I'd rather stand on my height than you."

"I'm—glad," she repeated, and slipped from him.

APRIL ran downstairs to the back parlor and straight to Miss Pickens. She told the only mother she had known what Cliff Rollingsford had said to her, and how glad she was.

Miss Pickens bored her foster-child with a pair of very small, very sharp eyes, and drew herself up to her height that just escaped six feet. Miss Pickens had a face that was too long for even her long neck, and a chin that sometimes wabbled with tears she never let fall.

"Romance," said Miss Pickens, "is easy to swallow and hard to digest."

April looked at herself in the mirror in the folding-bed. "What does he see in me?" she questioned.

"It's your eyes," said Miss Pickens. "You get them from your father."

"My father?" repeated April, her face brightening. April had picked out a particular star that shone down on her through the skylight, and had said to herself, "That's father." She told the star all her troubles, and it had a habit of twinkling back at her.

Miss Pickens walked over to the folding-bed, let it down, felt under the bolster, and drew forth a cardboard box.

"If you're old enough to be romantic, you're old enough to have it knocked out of you," she said gloomily. "I'm going to tell you about your father and about your mother and about myself. Sit down and listen to me. When you've heard me out, don't talk about being 'glad.' Go down on your narrow-bones and thank the Lord that you have me to take care of you, and that you don't have to look to any man for food and happiness."

She untied the faded cord and from the top of the box took a photograph of a man with a beard.

"Your father," said Miss Pickens, with her chin wabbling, "was Professor Ben Bolt, a hypnotist,"

April took the photograph and kissed it. "I remember him," she said.

"His eyes are the sort you can't forget," couceded Miss Pickens briefly. She took from the box some newspaper clippings.

"These are his press notices. They date from many years ago to the time he left the platform and became a professor of New Thought and Soul Control. He was a good hypnotist—he could make people think anything—and he has become popular as a mental healer. This is his advertisement in the papers." She indicated a small clipping.

HER lean hand went into the box again and drew out a veil with orange blossoms.

"I bought this veil to be married in," she went on, not looking at it. "Needless to say, I never wore it" Your father was my one romance, and I hope I never have another." She laid the veil aside, and spoke tersely: "When your father came to board here, years ago, he was out at the elbows. He made love to me with his eyes, and I let his board bill stand. I said I would marry him, knowing he was simply after my prosperous boarding-house business.

"Then a girl named Maizie Light came from up-State to go on the stage. She boarded here, in my skylight room. Maizie was a doll with no wits. Your father married Maizie. They were married on All Fools' day in the Little Church Around the Corner. They went on the road, and Maizie was his leading lady in his hypnotic act.

"The next thing I heard, you were born and Maizie was dead. The next thing I knew, you were sitting on my door-step. Your father has never paid any board for you or come to see you, though he is now a popular professor with plenty of money. I have taken care of you, and I will go on taking care of you—provided you cut out romance."

Miss Pickens put the photograph, clippings, and wedding veil back into the box.

Out in the hall, the telephone rang. April went to answer it. Somebody wanted Chubby Dyke on the wire.

April went up to the fourth-floor back to get him. Chubby Dyke was not there, so she went along the hall to Cliff Rollingsford's room—Dyke spent a good deal of his time smoking and talking over the writing game with the young playwright.

Chubby Dyke had come to the boarding-house two months before. He was a small man, with a furry head, large ears,

and capable, stunted hands. He listened more than he talked" And he seemed fond of listening to dynamic Cliff Rollingsford.

Chubby Dyke ran downstairs. April lingered on the threshold of the fourth-floor hall room, and told Cliff about her mother and father, who had been married on All Fools' day.

"We'll make it All Saints' day!" laughed Cliff.

When April went down the hall flights, Chubby Dyke was still at the telephone. He was saying, in his furtive, hurried voice: "Then it's O. K., Mr. Belwyn? You're going to produce it?"

CLIFF ROLLINGSFORD hardly took time to eat or sleep during the last writing of his play. The morning it was finished, he found a small breakfast tray outside his door, with a bunch of arbutus, the sort that street venders sell in the spring. He kissed the flowers, put a sprig in his buttonhole, and left the boarding-house while the morning was still fresh, armed with his script, done up in clean red and black type and gray-blue covers.

He walked for two hours in and about the theatrical section of Broadway.

At twenty minutes after ten he sent in his card to Oscar Belwyn, the young manager whose motto was: "New blood and new ideas." Cliff had had Belwyn in mind from the first throb of his play.

He entered the private office of Oscar Belwym with the glow of emotion at high tide on his face. His tongue plunged into words, and before he knew it he was talking like a blue streak. He talked ardently, brilliantly, never stopping, never giving the man he was assailing time to stem the onrush. When the atmosphere of the office was charged with his electric idea, he laid his play before the man he had picked out to bestow the gift upon.

Oscar Belwyn was tapping the desk with his pencil. His face was immobile. He gave the clear-cut manuscript a glance.

"It sometimes happens," he said in a non-committal voice, "that a new idea runs a mental circle—it is merely a

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matter of luck as to who matures it first. I can see, Mr. Rollingsford, that you are dead in earnest, and that you may have a remarkable play. You must not take it too hardly—such things are happening every day: about a month ago I accepted from a man who had never written a play before in his life a drama along identically the same lines as yours—the same plot, the same set of characters, the same idea behind it. The play is now in rehearsal, and is to be produced the first of the month."

Cliff stared at Belwyn. "Why—Why— My God!" he stuttered. "That's impossible."

"I will read your manuscript, if you wish," said Belwyn courteously; "but I fear that it is along the same lines as the one we have in rehearsal. As I said before, Mr. Rollingsford, the mental circle is a curious phenomenon—it is merely a matter of chance which writer gets in first. You must not be discouraged. You have gold in three things—your youth, your enthusiasm, and your fresh ideas. I shall be very glad to see anything else you do."

"But—" Cliff sputtered and struck out sparks. "You say—the same plot? Characters? Idea?— Why—impossible, Mr. Belwyn!"

"Have you peddled your play around?" asked Belwyn. "Or talked about it?—discussed it in any of the clubs or offices?

"No; I've been shut up with it for four years, and it's just out of the typewriter. You say—along identically the same lines?"

"Identically."

"Who wrote it?"

"Why, I put the man who first submitted it into instant touch with a well known playwright, who whipped it into shape—it was copyrighted under the big name, of course. I wouldn't harrow myself up over it, Mr. Rollingsford, if I were you—it's all in the game." Belwyn put Cliff's play into a wire basket swung on his desk. "I'll read your script," he promised again. "There's probably no resemblance in dialogue. But, undeniably, the play we have in rehearsal heads off any production of yours. It's too bad, Mr. Rollingsford, but try again. And next time beat other minds to it on the development of your idea. Slap-dash it together; bring it to me in any old form."

THE threadbare young playwright stooped and picked up his manuscript from the wire basket.

"I'll take this along with me," he said in a rasping voice. He put the bulk of paper under his arm and walked out of the office.

By the time he reached the boarding-house he was affected as some men are by liquor. April was waiting for him in the lower hall. He looked at her and heard himself groan. He ascended the hall flights with his hand on the banister.

April came up to his room a few minutes later with a cup of hot coffee.

"Thanks," he said dully. "Put it down, April."

He was standing by his window, looking at the view of scarred houses, clothes-lines, and a portion of a theatrical poster. His play lay on the floor.

April picked it up and put it on his writing-table.

He gave her a dead smile. "Thanks," he repeated. "Run along, April."

She came over to him and touched his sleeve. Even through the cloth, the quick-silver from her fingers ran into his veins. He took April in his arms and held her close to him. The drunkenness left his brain.

"Don't lose hope," said April.

He put her hands to each side of his head.

"It's gone," he muttered.

"It will come back," she whispered.

"It can't come back."

"Everything can come back."

"Not that thing—that freshness—not that 'first, fine, careless rapture.'"

"Give it time—it will come back. Tell me about it—Cliff."

"A month ago Belwyn accepted a play along the same lines as mine."

"Take yours to another manager."

"No use. Belwyn's is on the eve of production."

"How could that hurt yours?"

"It's the same—plot, characters, idea—oh—my play!."

"The same?" Her eyes dilated. "How could that be?"

"I don't know—Belwyn calls it the phenomenon of the mental circle. Some other fellow has written the same play, and beat me to it. Belwyn wanted to read my manuscript—what was the use? He told me he'd be glad to see anything else I did. Oh, I'll be fifty-odd, April, and you'll be somewhere near it, when we come into our own!"

"But, Cliff, the play is yours."

"And Belwyn produces it the first of the month, under another man's name!"

"But you've been working on it four years."

"Four years gone to smash! Throw the mess into the garbage can, April!"

"I—don't understand it, Cliff."

"Neither do I—don't let's try to. There's only one thing to do buck up, go back to the odd jobs, and begin a new play."

"I'll bring you up some lunch," said April.

"Thanks." He laid his cheek for a moment against her hair. "It's all in the game. April; but waiting is—hard."

Her hand went up to his face and touched it with a gesture that betrayed her own disappointment.

APRIL went downstairs with a slowed step. For a second or two she stood in the murky basement hall. Then she went out to the area. In the area stood a trash-can. April put her hand into the can and pulled up a fistful of torn paper. She examined the paper, threw it away, and put her hand into the can again. She rummaged through the can until she had found what she wanted.

On the gray stone ledge of the haltered area she put several jagged pieces of paper together like a picture puzzle, and attentively pored over them.

She called Miss Pickens to come into the area.

"Look," she said, pointing to the paper she had pieced together. "I saw these scraps in the waste basket from the fourth-floor back when I emptied the basket this morning. I wondered how they got there."

Miss Pickens squinted at the bits fitted together on the area ledge. "It's a scene from a play," she said.

April nodded.

"You found it in the basket from the fourth-floor back?" inquired Miss Pickens. "It reads like Cliff Rollingsford's play."

"When Cliff took his play to a manager this morning he was told that another man had written the same play and got in ahead of him," said April.

"I never did like that little rat Dyke!" snapped Miss Pickens.

April looked without sophistry at Miss Pickens. "Could a man pretend to be his friend and steal from him?" she asked.

"Men can do anything," replied Miss Pickens.

April picked up the pieces of paper from the ledge of the area. "What can Cliff do about it?" she said with difficulty.

"With no money, there's nothing to do," responded Miss Pickens.

April put the pieces of the play into the pocket of her blouse. Slowly she went into the house and up to the fourth-floor back, where Chubby Dyke's zip-zapping typewriter had been working overtime for the last two months.

CHUBBY DYKE answered her knock with a brisk. "Come in."

He was seated at his typewriter stand, working rapidly with a ruler and pencil.

She looked at him intently. Chubby turned in his chair, and met her gaze.

The eyes she had inherited from her father deepened to a fixed regard of him. Chubby's glance shifted. He ruled in a line on the paper under his capable, stunted hand.

April spoke slowly: "Cliff took his play to Belwyn this morning, Mr. Dyke."

"He did?'" answered Chubby affably, ruling in another line.

"Belwyn told Cliff that another man had got in ahead of him." April's voice was low.

"Is that so?" Chubby's upward glance was sympathetic.

"Do you know anything about it?" asked April. holding him with her eyes.

"I can't say that I do," smiled back Chubby.

April took the scraps of torn paper from the pocket of her blouse and laid them on the typewriter stand. "These were in your waste-paper basket," she said. "They are parts from Cliff's play. If you do know anything about it, Mr. Dyke, won't you please say so?"

"If I did know, I surely would say so," answered Chubby, glancing at the scraps of paper.

"You and I and Miss Pickens are the only ones who heard his play," said April. "It isn't an ordinary play, that anybody might have thought of."

"There's nothing new under the sun," said Chubby in his easy-going voice.

"Plays are being written, my dear, by everybody."

"You haven't watched Cliff work four years," said April, with a slight shake in her voice.

"No, I haven't," replied Chubby blandly. "Have you?"

The covert sneer in his volatile voice fell aslant its mark. His glance went down again before her eyes—he picked up a penknife and began to sharpen his pencil.

"Cliff did not write it easily—and he can't write another like it easily," pursued April. "Sometimes he worked a week over a scene and then threw it away, and worked another week to get it."

"Life's too short to work that way," commented Chubby, bringing his pencil lead to a point. "That fellow has the stuff in him, all right, but he needs a jolt to hustle him. This is the age when the hare wins over the tortoise."

April's face went white. "Could a man pretend to he another man's friend and really steal from him?" she asked, with shortened breath.

"I'm not a propounder of life," answered Chubby. He drew a final line on the stage diagram he was making, and cocked his furry head on one side for a rapid survey.

"I don't understand it," said April slowly. Her eyes filled with tears.

Chubby picked up a pair of shears from his typewriter stand and cut another square of paper.

"Yet I believe it's—true," said April.

Chubby grinned. "If it were true, what could he done, my dear? The fellow has no money to make a fuss with."

April turned and left the room. She went downstairs and fixed Cliff a tray of lunch. When she took it up to him, she found him at his writing table with his blond head on his arms. She did not weight his bitterness with more lead by telling him about Chubby Dyke.

THAT night she stared through the open skylight with troubled eyes at the star she called her father.

Suddenly it gave a twinkle and disappeared behind a cloud in such a merrily hypnotic fashion that, somehow, April was able to go to sleep in her cot bed under the skylight.

It was hard the next day to watch Cliff begin a new play, to listen to Miss Pickens' caustic remarks on romance, and to take Chubby Dyke a telephone message from the office of Oscar Belwyn.

On the evening of the next day, a legal-looking communication came for Miss Pickens in the six o'clock mail. April took it from the postman with the usual hodge-podge of tinted letter and theatrical matter for the boarders.

Miss Pickens and several of the boarders were in the dining-room, beginning dinner, when April distributed the mail.

Joan Class, the dancer, read her post-card and spun it aside; Cleo de Milo, the stock actress, wept over a letter from her mother; Hyams, of Hyams and Meek, concealed an offer to do a single act on big time from Meek; Edwin Mellish, the old character actor, read with enjoyment a letter from his grandchild.

Miss Pickens perused the legal-looking communication, gave a slight sigh, and fainted.

The boarders, always on the qui vive for dramatic possibilities, jumped up from their chairs and crowded about the long, prostrate form of the theatrical landlady. Meek fanned Miss Pickens with an evening paper, Joan Class held smelling salts under her nose. Edwin Mellish sopped her temples with ice water. April knelt and kissed the small, sharp eyes back to consciousness.

Chin wabbling, Miss Pickens told April to read the legal-looking communication.

April learned that Professor Ben Bolt had died two days before, leaving a fortune of a hundred thousand dollars to be equally divided between Camille Pickens, his friend, and April Bolt, his daughter.

With her eyes like stars, April flew up to the fourth-floor hall room. Her knock on Cliff's door summoned him to arise and fight.

The Man in the Stone House

Continued from page 14

turnip? Haven't you lived here long enough—"

"There's the band playing," exclaimed Louise, with a sigh of relief.

"We'll have to hurry!" replied Miss Banbridge; and they scampered away, hand in hand, like two school-girls.

Part of the parade was already on the move when Miss Helen Bisbee, correctly garbed in the costume of a lady aborigine, came out of the parsonage and was assisted to her place on the float by the youth who had been stationed outside to keep the younger fry from clambering all over the primeval scenery.

For thirty-five mortal minutes Mr. Joe Tinker had been writhing in agony inside the wigwam. It was a hot day, and the hottest possible place on a hot day is inside a conical khaki tent that has no opening to the air except a sky-hole at the top. Every few moments Mr. Tinker had cautiously raised the bottom a half inch and peered out. But there had never been any opportunity of escape. Near voices told him, each time, that the vicinity was well stocked with spectators. And now, when he heard the voice of Miss Bisbee at his elbow, even perceived the rustle of her tribal garments against the khaki, he felt that the crucial moment of his life had come.

He made up his mind that it was unsafe to wait for more company. He got down on his hands and knees, raised the bottom of the tepee slightly on the side toward Miss Bisbee, and politely coughed. He could just see the tops of the lady's moccasins. The cough attracted Pocahontas's attention, and she looked around. Just as she was examining the vicinage, she saw a group of four fingers, accompanied by a thumb, slide out from beneath the tepee, and she heard a strange voice say: "Excuse me, lady; it ain't my fault; my pants has been stole!"

The body of Miss Bisbee became suddenly rigid, and with a shrill cry she collapsed. As she fell to the floor of the float Mr. Tinker uttered a stifled groan, hooked his fingers into an Indian blanket that had been carried by Miss Bisbee, and exultingly coiled it about his person.

With astonishment that rendered them helpless, the other actors, bunched on the sidewalk, saw the tepee suddenly rise into the air and topple into the street. At the same time they saw the figure of a corpulent man slip from the end of the wagon and scud away. He was clinging with one hand to the Indian blanket; in the other he had his hat.

Two more lady Indians collapsed on the sidewalk. A great shout went up from the younger fry. They saw the fleeing figure trip on the hanging end of the blanket and go sprawling in the dusty road; they saw him pick himself up and press forward.

RAIN.

Rain dripping from the eaves; rain pattering on the roofs; rain beating against the windows; rain forcing its way into every cranny; rivulets coursing down the gutters; and over all a hopeless leaden sky, portent of more rain.

The fakirs over in the Coppins lot were huddled in their scant shelters, grumbling, wishing themselves hence, cursing Boxton and Boxton weather, and their luck. The ground was sodden, and breathed a yeasty odor, and sucked spongily at the feet.

Over in the Banner office, Henry Treadway, as soon as the first green shafts of rainy dawn came in the window, turned off the lights and stretched himself. He went to the window and pressed his nose thoughtfully against the pane. He had been all night in the office, without a wink of sleep.

All night long, while other people (except the constable) had been decently in their beds, Mr. Treadway had been sitting with aching back at the long table in his office, counting and tabulating the votes that were to elect the most popular man in Boxton. Many a time, during the night, he consigned, as far as a deacon in the church could sinlessly consign, the votes and the voters and the voteds—to the bow-wows. He had had no idea that there was so much work and worry involved in a contest like this. And he had had no idea that there would be such an avalanche of votes thrown into the polls on the last night.

At half past seven Mrs. Treadway appeared with a fine warm breakfast, and also with some maddening sympathy, unrelished by the tired Mr. Treadway.

"Who won, Henry?" asked Mrs. Treadway, as she rose to depart.

"I can't tell you. There's a few votes more to count."

"But you must know by this time."

"Run along, now," replied Mr. Treadway. "I wouldn't tell anybody, even if I knew. Go on, now, and leave me alone."

"Bite off my head!" said Mrs. Treadway indignantly. "That's what I get for fixing a nice breakfast and coming down here in the rain with it."

Mr. Treadway shrugged his shoulders and sank his teeth vindictively into a slice of buttered toast.

AT half past eight the door of the Banner office opened again, and Starr and Joel Tibb came in. In reply to their greetings Mr. Treadway grunted sourly.

"Don't you feel chipper this morning?" asked Joel.

"No, I don't. Do you?" was the reply.

"Why, I feel well enough," said Joel—more for the sake, however, of convincing himself than of convincing Henry. Then he added, looking at Starr out of the corner of his eye: "Well, I suppose somebody's the most popular man in Boxton. Don't be seared, Henry; we didn't come over here to pump you about that; we just sort of thought we'd drop over to see you. It looks like it's going to be a rotten day. I told you, Mr. Starr, that we had rotten weather in Boxton sometimes."

"I'm an optimist, Joel," replied Starr. "We've had pretty fine weather up to yesterday. Of course, 'twould have been better to have the whole week fine; but there are compensations."

"Well, what are they?" growled Mr. Tread way.

Starr laughed. "I don't know," he admitted. "That's for us mortals to find out."

Starr walked around the office awhile, with his hands in his pockets, whistling. Then he asked: "Say, Henry, what do you think of our old-homer, Mr. Tinker?"

"If I had my way I'd take that hobo to the town line and boot him across," responded Mr. Treadway. "Thank heaven, I had no part in planting him in the hotel at the town's expense! You remember, I said at the time—"

"Come on, Joel," interrupted Starr. "The editor is in a bad humor this morning. We've no business in his sanctum, anyway."

As they were leaving, he called back: "I suppose you'll be pretty busy to-day, Henry. Well, there won't be anything doing till the meeting at Town Hall to-night. There'll be a big crowd there, rain or no rain. The town's pretty well worked up over your voting contest. See you later."

After the men had gone, Mr. Treadway looked out the window and groaned.

"Pretty well worked up, are they?" he said to himself.

And then he uttered the first deliberately profane word of his deaconhood. He drew in a long breath, and said it with malice aforethought. He knew it was wrong to say it, but he had reached that frame of mind where he gloried in the wrongness of it. He almost shouted: "Damn the whole damn business!"

And the profanity so relaxed his nervous tension that he actually burst into tears.

STARR was correct. The town was considerably worked up over the Banner voting contest.

Immediately after supper the doors of the Town Hall were thrown open, and the janitor started light wood fires in the two big stoves, one on each side, to take off the dampness of the musty-smelling building. Soon afterward people began to stroll in, in quest of the best seats.

On the platform, in a corner, was a table on which reposed, surrounded by bouquets of wild flowers, the big silver loving-cup, symbol of the love and esteem in which was held by the people of Boxton a certain Boxtonian as yet unknown to anybody save the editor of the Banner.

Upon the right side of the platform was a large blackboard with live names inscribed upon it, as follows:

     

Walter Eadbrook

J. Bradlee Starr

DeWitt Melville

Joel Tibb

Ezra Mudge

At eight o'clock the Town Hall was so crowded that it was considered expedient to station the constable at the main door, with instructions to admit only official personages or influential citizens who might be able to cause more trouble by being kept out than by being jammed in.

A band—even the worst possible of all bands—knows by long experience just what music it is supposed to play on such occasions. It serves as an indicator of public estimation. For instance, when J. Bradlee Starr came down the main aisle and climbed upon the platform, the hand burst forth with "He's a Jolly Good Fellow." The audience replied vociferously that he was a jolly good fellow.

And, for another instance, when Walter Eadbrook came down the aisle (looking considerably down in the mouth, it was remarked), the band struck up "See, the Conquering Hero Comes!"—and this was well reciprocated by the audience.

"He's got it cinched!" whispered many men to their neighbors. "Eadbrook's elected, as sure as you live. I voted for him."

EZRA MUDGE'S name at the foot of the column was the object of merriment. It was understood perfectly that at the crucial moment Henry Treadway was going to chalk down after Ezra's name a large figure 1. Louise Searles, sitting beside her friend Katherine Burbridge, well back in the rear of the hall, was divided between two opposite sensations. With a firmness about the mouth, she had whispered: "I think its outrageous for Henry Treadway to put my father's name on that board. It's just the only way he knows of to insult him. I'll never speak to him again, never!"

But at the very next moment she was torn from that reflection by hearing Eadbrook's name shouted thunderingly; and she could not resist clapping her hands with the others when she heard: "He's all right! Who's all right? Eadbrook!"

"Oh!" murmured Louise, snuggling against her companion. "Hear them, Katherine! They—like—him—don't they?"

"He's got it nailed down, Louise," whispered Miss Burbridge. "There's nothing to it. Hurrah for Walter!"

The advent of Henry Treadway was the signal for another outburst. The audience began to sing cheerfully: "He's the greatest man you ever knew—"

But if Henry Treadway was the greatest man they had ever known, he did not, at the moment, look it. He looked like a man destined soon to pass from the sight of mortal eyes. His sleepless night, and the obvious agitation that had hold of him, and his natural timidity in the presence of a crowd, and whatever else was weighing upon his mind, contrived to make him a haggard and uninspiring figure. In one hand he carried a reporter's note-book, and in the other a signed statement, sworn to before a notary live minutes before, that "the counting of votes had resulted," etc. Henry meant to be on the safe side.

Mr. Treadway wildly stared at the faces before him for a moment; then he laid the documents on the table with the loving-cup, and ran his right hand through his hair.

There was a moment of agonizing silence. The mouths of the spectators were framed in sympathetic attitudes, waiting. A dropped penny would have rung through the hall like a gong. And then, before the words came, there was a hubbub at the door.

Somebody began shouting, "Keep 'em out!" Somebody was bawling, "No, let 'em in!" But a thin, acid voice dominated all the rest. It punctured the atmosphere like a Mauser bullet and brought half the crowd off their chairs. And then the news ran like fire through the packed audience: "Ezra Mudge!"

It seemed that, for an instant, the constable had barred the entrance of Ezra and his companion, the faithful Dr. Crumb. But it was only for an instant. The old man had wilted the doorkeeper with one of his old-time domineering glances. He came in.

And Ezra not only came in—he said sternly to those in front of him: "Make way, there!" And they made way. The moment the two old men passed through the standing crowd into the aisle between the seats, two men rose quickly and offered their chairs. One of them was John Wilbur, former selectman, and unwavering in his fidelity to Ezra. The whole transaction was over so quickly that it seemed prearranged.

MOST eyes were fixed upon the grim, self-satisfied visage of Ezra. He appeared abundantly well. He sat upright in his chair, gripping his cane in his two hands and looking up expectantly at Henry Treadway. He seemed to be utterly unconscious of the fact that his sudden appearance was anything out of the ordinary.

But Henry Treadway, on the platform, went as white as paper. He turned to Starr and gave him an appealing glance.

Starr, understanding the meaning of that glance, was at the editor's side in an instant, whispering, "What's wrong, Henry?"

"I can't go on, Mr. Starr," replied Treadway hollowly. "I'm a sick man. I feel like I was going to faint. It's all written down here."

He took the paper from the table and thrust it into Starr's hand.

Without a moment's hesitation, Starr stepped to the edge of the platform and held up his hand. There was a hush. Then he said: "My friends, I wish to ask your indulgence in behalf of Mr. Treadway. He is overworked, and unable to proceed. I have here in my hand the result of the voting contest. I will ask Mr. Bisbee to read it to you, and Mr. Edmonds to chalk down the figures as they are read."

Mr. Bisbee stepped forward with alacrity and read in a powerful voice: "This is to certify that I, Henry Tread-way, have counted the votes in the Banner contest, and find the result to be as follows: "Walter Eadbrook, 11,991."

He paused to let the announcement sink in. There were deafening shouts, that died out quickly as the announcer was seen to continue: "J. Bradlee Starr, 9,666."

A smile came upon Starr's face. He reached over and grasped Eadbrook by the hand, and the crowd was in an uproar again. "Joel Tibb, 1,006. "Dr. Melville, 391."

Complimentary cheers were freely awarded Messrs. Tibb and Melville, neither of whom seemed to be disappointed with their humble tokens of popularity.

Few persons observed that Mr. Bisbee suddenly brought the paper from which he was reading up toward his eyes with a jerk, and that he underwent something like a galvanic shock. He turned from the paper to the men behind him, and his eye sought Henry Treadway. Failing to see him, he paused for a moment, then shrugged his shoulders, held up his hand, and fairly shouted: "Ezra Mudge, 15,001! Ezra Mudge is therefore elected. "Sworn to and witnessed before me this

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day and the ballots deposited in my hands for inspection. "ELISHA WRIGHT, Notary Public."

Mr. Edmonds, chalk in hand, had mechanically started to write the figures 15,001 on the blackboard, when he turned and shouted: "What was that, Will?"

"That's what this paper says," replied Will Bisbee doggedly, as if he felt the necessity of dodging the blame. "I'm reading what it says right here: 'Ezra Mudge, 15,001. Therefore elected.'"

Starr had risen from his seat. He reached mechanically for the paper, and Will Bisbee, just as mechanically, passed it over to him. The crowd was shouting: "Fake! Fake!"

"Let Starr read it! You're all balled up. Will!" somebody shouted.

One glance at the paper was enough to convince Starr that something extraordinary had taken place. He saw why it was that Henry Treadway had been taken ill. He looked down upon the frenzied crowd below, and, as he let his gaze go around the quarter circle, it met the eyes of Ezra Mudge, sitting like a stone image, his hands on the top of his cane. He saw in that steady regard of Ezra all the covert triumph that lay in the gray eyes.

It was a challenge to Starr, and he knew it. There suddenly came back into his mind the evening at Ezra's house, and the challenge he himself had thrown down to the old man upon parting. Well, the old man had taken it up!

STARR threw back his shoulders and drew a long breath.

"Order!" he cried at the top of his voice.

"I find," he announced, in his most ringing tones, "that our fellow townsman. Mr. Ezra Mudge, has been given 15,001 votes—by his fellow citizens—and is therefore elected the most popular man in Boxton."

"No! Fake!" bawled a score of demurring voices.

"It is not a fake!" shot back Starr. "Permit me to say that that word is out of order. There is no reason to doubt these figures. They are properly sworn to. If Ezra Mudge is in the audience, will he kindly step forward?"

Of course, Starr knew very well that Mr. Ezra Mudge was in the audience; but he was dealing with him as one stranger with another.

There was a low gasp as Ezra Mudge rose and strode down the aisle. He never had seemed so magnificently erect and dignified as at this moment. As he neared the base of the platform—the very spot, indeed, where he had suffered humiliation at the hands of Clint Weatherbee not long before—Starr bowed politely and beckoned him up the little flight of steps.

There was absolute silence in the hall. If it was a farce that was being enacted, nobody seemed to realize it.

Ezra Mudge was on the platform at last. He stood facing Starr. They were close enough to "wrassle," as somebody remarked afterward. Without a sign of emotion, Starr took from the table the silver cup, held it lovingly a moment, and then spoke: "Mr. Mudge, I have the honor to present you (acting for Mr. Treadway) this beautiful loving-cup, which is yours by virtue of being elected, in a voting contest, the most popular man in Boxton. You will find inscribed upon it certain words that indicate that it is a token of the love and respect in which you are held by your fellow citizens. I felicitate you on the victory. I wish you much joy with your prize."

Starr knew that the underlying irony of his speech would not he lost on the old man. And it was not. But if Starr had hoped for any visible effect, he was disillusioned.

Mr. Mudge cleared his throat and replied, in a voice that etched itself upon the memory of his hearers: "My friends, I thank you for this honor. It was entirely unexpected. Though I was away from my native place in the body, evidently I was with you in the spirit. That is a beautiful thing. I am no hand at speaking. But you understand, all right."

A dull smile came into the corners of Starr's mouth. He turned swiftly to Joel Tibb, who was staring at the proceedings like a paralytic, and whispered, "Doggone if he ain't a corker!"

And when Ezra finished, and had turned to leave the platform, Starr detained him, saying: "Mr. Mudge, there is another honor awaiting you. I believe. According to the terms of the contest, the winner is declared King of the Carnival, and is supposed to choose his Queen from among the ladies of Boxton. The King and Queen are then to ride through the town, accompanied by the loyal subjects. Weather permitting, this pretty ceremony will be held to-morrow. Perhaps you would like time to make your choice?"

"No," replied Ezra, like a flash; "I don't need any time. My Queen is the woman that's stood by me these fifty-odd years—my wife Lyddy. If you want me to choose a Queen—that's who I choose."

There was a moment of tense silence, and then the old New England spirit that, with all its faults, still acknowledges the dues of the victor, and pays tribute to the superior man even when it hurts—the old spirit asserted itself. The name of Aunt Lyddy Mudge, who had not an enemy in the world, clinched the business.

With one accord the crowd let loose its pent-up feelings. It cheered itself hoarse, invoking indiscriminately the names of Ezra and Starr and Eadbrook and Joel Tibb. It cheered and stamped for everybody, and then cheered and stamped and whistled for itself.

Starr announced: "There seems to be no further business—"

He might have saved himself the trouble. The crowd knew perfectly well that the business was done. They were moving toward the door.

FOR a moment—just for a fleeting moment—Starr's eyes met those of Ezra Mudge before they parted. Not a word was said. But in that brief space each man was surprised to find that there was something in his feelings toward the other that was not uncordial—that was even generously appreciative.

"What do you think now?" said Ezra's eyes.

"My turn next," answered Starr's.

And then they went their ways.

To be continued next week

Curing Sickness with Eye-Glasses

By EDWIN F. BOWERS, M.D.
Author of "Side-Stepping Ill Health," etc.

UP to within a few weeks ago, had any one told me that with eye-glasses they not only could but did cure cases of goiter—some of which had even been operated upon without relief—and any number of diabetic, kidney, and high blood-pressure conditions, I should have sent him a hand-tooled, highly illumined copy of Münchhausen.

I might have admitted that, by relieving eye-strain and defects of vision, it is possible to relieve migraine and other forms of headache, neuralgia, dizziness, and fainting spells, stammering, hysteria, and epilepsy, nervous exhaustion, despondency, asthma, heart irregularities, insomnia, spinal curvature from head-tilting, nausea and dyspepsia, rheumatism and pelvic pains, backwardness in school children, and perhaps even sub-normality or insanity, as Dr. George M. Gould and other eminent observers have been telling us for many years.

But when one claims not only to correct all these disorders but also to cure goiter with glasses, to clear up the sugar, relieve the nervousness and thirst, and reduce to normal the quantity of fluid eliminated in diabetes; bring blood pressures of 220 or 230 millimeters down to 150 or 160 in two days of spectacle-wearing, and after a few weeks of "glassing" apparently to cure kidney degeneration—this passes belief.

Yet I have seen some of the subjects of these miracles, and have interviewed and heard from many others who have been miraculously restored to health. I have studied the records of scores of cases, and talked with physicians and pathologists who first diagnosed the conditions.

To see Doctor Z. L. Baldwin perform these feats of physical legerdemain, one must journey to Kalamazoo, Michigan, where Doctor Baldwin has a sanatorium, chiefly devoted to a new and marvelously successful method of treating tuberculosis and other germ and degenerative diseases.

Doctor Baldwin's astonishing successes in treating systemic disorders by adjusting the eye muscles seems to be founded upon excellent reason. He claims that, inasmuch as the natural position of the eye is in "distant" or parallel vision, and as civilization requires most of us to converge our line of vision to a focal point from fourteen to twenty inches from the eye, and to hold it there more or less tenaciously during the working day, the external eye muscles are brought to a condition of spasm.

This results in the muscle fibers be coming thinned and weakened, and the muscle finally being shortened. Also, the ciliary muscle, which flattens and elongates the eyeball (thereby altering the focal point of its lens), and the ciliary nerve become strained from over-fatigue.

Astonishing Effects of Eye-Strain

THIS constant and abnormal exercise of the nerves and delicate muscles results in the wastage of a tremendous amount of nervous and physical energy, which is re-fleeted along the lines of least resistance, producing painful or dangerous disorders, sometimes in organs remote and apparently unconnected with the original source of trouble. It may even cause a disordered function in some of the glands.

Further, as the energy of more than one third of the brain is used by the visual centers, any extra strain upon the nerves and muscles of the eyes naturally causes a weakening or even an impoverishment of the brain itself. Now, we provide a crutch for a lame leg, a sling for an injured arm, a truss or a bandage for a weakened abdominal muscle, and rest for a damaged heart. Doctor Baldwin contends that it is equally sensible to provide mechanical help which

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will relieve strain and bring rest to weakened eyes.

This the Doctor accomplishes by what he calls the "repression method," which consists in dimming the vision and relaxing the spasm of the ciliary muscles by placing convex lenses before the eyes. This cuts the vision down from one quarter to one half, and rests the entire visual apparatus. It conserves nerve and muscle activity, prevents dissipation or loss of energy, and naturally strengthens the nerve centers, relieving the reflex symptoms, and ultimately restoring normal vision.

If the short eye muscle does not stretch back to normal under the relaxing treatment, it is carefully divided. This little operation definitely prevents any recurrence of the trouble from that group of muscles.

A patient who complained of progressive exhaustion, and whose condition was diagnosed as incipient tuberculosis, on examination at the sanatorium was found to have diabetes. He had nearly three per cent. of sugar, and his blood pressure was 220—about 70 millimeters too high.

On being "fogged down" by prisms, he was entirely relieved of the eye-strain, symptoms of diabetes disappeared, and, what is more wonderful, his blood pressure fell to 150, and remained there.

A Case of Goiter Cured

IN goiter the results have been even more miraculous. An attorney of Detroit, for instance, had muscular rheumatism, particularly affecting the muscles of the legs and back. In February, 1913, he was attacked by exophthalmic goiter. An unsuccessful operation left him reduced in weight, in a weakened condition, troubled with insomnia, and delirious at night. His eyes bulged, and there was great trembling of the hands. He could read only a few minutes at a time. He was "as nearly a wreck as a man could be and be alive."

In this condition he went to Doctor Baldwin, arriving at the sanatorium on Saturday. The Doctor and his nurses accused him of rambling all over the place that night, although he had no recollection of it. The next day the Doctor gave him a treatment. On Wednesday prisms were put on, and he was able to go to town on the street-car. On Thursday he went for a drive about town. On Sunday, after a week of treatment, he bought a voluminous Sunday paper and read it through. He continued to improve until he regained his full weight and strength, and his pulse and blood pressure became normal. All evidence of goiter disappeared.

Of course, these phenomenal results follow only when eye-strain causes the trouble. There are many other causes for these conditions that lenses will not help. These conditions, however, are readily determined by examination. But, in Doctor Baldwin's experience, fully 30 per cent. of all stomach disorders are cured by preventing the energy loss from eye-strain. It is interesting and gratifying to note that cases of insanity, melancholia, epilepsy, functional paralysis, and other eye-strain reflexes and disorders, successfully treated ten years ago, still remain cured.

The Idea that Got Me My Raise

I WANT you to write me in the fewest possible words how and why you got your last raise in salary. If it came to you simply because you had "been a year in the place" or because "your work was satisfactory," never mind writing. You will not win a prize.

But if you were able to put up to your employer a new idea that helped him to make more money,—if the idea is one that other young women and men can use to their advantage,—then write.

Or if by special work you made yourself more efficient, and if other people can follow your lead, write that.

For the best letter received from a woman, $50; for the best letter received from a man, $50.

For each other letter published, regular rates.

Your name will he withheld if you prefer it. Letters must reach me by June 15. Help some one else to make more money: that is part of the business of this magazine.

THE EDITOR, 95 Madison Avenue, New York.