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Every Week3¢Copyright, 1916, By The Crowell Publishing Company© December 11, 1916A New Serial—The Sport of KingsBy Arthur Somers Roche, who wrote "Loot" |
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OF course, no man wants the same book for every mood, any more than he wants the same food for every meal or the same medicine for every disease.
But the book to which I come back again and again was written several hundred years ago.
It is called Ecclesiastes: you will find it about the middle of the Bible. Frederick the Great called it the "Book of Kings," and said every monarch should re-read it constantly.
He should have said every man; for every man is the monarch of his own life. And this is the book of life, written by a king who had everything that life can give. It is the answer to the eternal question: "What's the use?"
In other words, life is not just one thing after another. It is the same thing again and again. Get up, worry and work; eat, lie down, sleep. What's the use of it all?
The man who is never tempted to ask that question has no imagination.
Solomon, the writer, determined to find out what is worth while in life.
Is wisdom the thing greatly to be desired? He made himself the wisest man in the world, and discovered—what?
From wisdom he turned to mirth, only to find, as an end of living, that "this also is vanity."
He sought to give his heart unto wine, and "to lay hold on folly": and in this also there was no satisfaction.
Perhaps, then, he said to himself, perhaps work is the one thing worth while. To achieve something great—to leave a monument for posterity to wonder at.
I made me great works; I builded me houses; I planted me vineyards: . . .
Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labor that I had labored to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no profit under the sun.
Wisdom, mirth, wine, women, work, fame—
The man who has not at some time sought each one as a solution of the puzzle of life has in him no spirit of adventure.
But none of them satisfied Solomon.
What, then, is the answer to the riddle? What will satisfy the soul of man? What will make his life seem to have been worth while when he comes to give it up?
The answer is in the great last chapter, which begins:
To live straight and simply; to do a little kindness as one moves along; to love useful work; to raise a worthy family, and to leave the world a little better than you found it—to do one's daily duty in simple reverence—this is the final answer.
And the man who, having passed through his periods of questioning, and made his false excursions into the varied by paths, does not come finally to this true road, has missed real greatness.
Bruce Barton, Editor.[illustration]
By ARTHUR SOMERS ROCHE
This is a horse-racing story that requires no knowledge of horse-racing to understand; and a love story that you don't have to be in love to appreciate. Something startling happens on every page of every instalment, right straight through to the end. The author wrote a novel called "Loot," which created something of a sensation when it was published earlier in the year, and is now numbered with the best sellers. Start this story. It's a good one.
THE EDITOR.I WAS on the carpet—before the stewards of the Jockey Club.
Around a huge mahogany table they sat, frowning heavily at me. No one had offered me a chair; so I stood there, feeling like a school-boy summoned, for various misdemeanors, before the faculty of the school. In fact, the present situation reminded me of one of those all too numerous occasions back in military school in Covington, Kentucky, and I grinned.
Soren, at the head of the table, scowled.
"This is very far from a laughing matter, Mr. Kernan," he said.
The others nodded, coughed, cleared their throats, grunted what I took to be assent. I quit grinning; it was not a laughing matter. Soren tapped the edge of the table with the newspaper that he held.
"Mr. Kernan," he said, "it is now three days since you made the charge—to a newspaper—that Starter O'Toole is too friendly toward the Classon entries. Day before yesterday you were requested—in writing—to prove your charges, or to retract them as publicly as you made them. I have seen no withdrawal in the papers, and you have forwarded no proof of your allegations to the stewards. Am I right in presuming that you have brought proof with you?"
THE battle was on.
"The facts speak for themselves, sir," I replied. "In every race during this present meeting at Beaumont in which there has been an entry front the Classon stable, Starter O'Toole has given the Classon horse far and away the best of it. He has allowed the Classon jocks to crowd, push, and hinder the other starters. There has been neither warning nor penalty inflicted on the Classon entries. Starter O'Toole's conduct in showing such open favoritism to the Classon stable is the talk of the meeting, sir."
"Yet there has been no complaint made to us, sir," said Soren.
"Mr. Francis Classon is one of the stewards, sir," I retorted. And I looked squarely at Classon, sitting next to Soren. He pretended not to see my glance, and looked idly out the window.
"What do you mean, Mr. Kernan?" asked Soren.
"I mean that most owners and most trainers are careful not to make charges that involve one of the stewards. But, under the rose—there's been talk enough."
"Can you bring before us any other trainer or owner who speaks as you do?"
"I don't care to get other people into trouble," said I. "I can fight my own battles.
"That is evasion, Mr. Kernan," said Soren sternly. "Have you any evidence to substantiate your charges?"
"I have the evidence of my own eyes, sir," I said hotly. "All through the past two weeks I've thought that O'Toole has been acting queerly. I've noticed that Mr. Classon's horses got all the best of it in every race. But I thought it racing luck. A pretty long streak of luck, but—well, I put it down to that. But three days ago I saw Starter O'Toole enter the house of Mr. Classon's trainer, Marshall Connors, in Flatbush. I stopped my car and waited at the corner for an hour. At the end of that time O'Toole came out of the house. After O'Toole had disappeared I rang the bell of the house, and Connors came to the door. I asked him what O'Toole had been doing there. He denied that O'Toole had been there.
"Gentlemen, my eyes do not deceive me; I don't suffer from delusions. That visit might be innocent; but, if so, why did Connors deny the visit? There's only one answer, sir. Connors is the trainer of the Classon stable; the Beaumont starter has been favoring the Classon horses. He pays a secret visit to Connors. Why? Isn't the answer easy?"
"Why didn't you make a report to the stewards?" demanded Soren.
"I admit, sir, that that is what I should have done, " I answered. "But I was hot under the collar. My own horses had been done out of two races by Classon entries solely because the winners got the best of the start. And I—well, at dinner in my hotel that night, a reporter from the Bugle asked me for track news, and—well, I made the statement that the Classon stable was getting all the best of it from O'Toole."
"You didn't tell the reporter what you have told us, though," said Soren.
"As soon as I began talking to Williams of the Bugle I realized that I was letting my temper get away with me," said I. "So I stopped after I'd merely stated my belief in the favoritism shown."
For the first time, Classon spoke.
"'Merely,'" he said, glancing around at his fellow stewards.
Then he resumed his gazing out the window. But his word had its effect.
"Did you ask Williams not to print what you had said in anger?" asked Soren.
I flushed. "No, sir," I answered.
"Why not?"
"It is not my habit to retract anything that is true," I told him.
"But you had nothing on which to base a belief that your charges were true!" exclaimed Soren. "Connors had denied O'Toole's visit; you had made a mistake. As to the other,—the success of the Classon entries,—than is the fortune of racing, Mr. Kernan. I thought you were too good a sportsman to play the cry-baby because another horse got away better than your own."
"If the other horse got away first on its own merits, or the merits of its jock, I'd not whine," I snapped. "But when there's collusion between starter and trainer—"
Soren cut me short angrily:
"Mr. Kernan, we stewards are amply able to look out for the honesty of this track. We need no jealous trainers to show us our duty. You have scandalized Beaumont by your unfounded charges; it is your duty either to prove them or to apologize for having made them."
"I've tried to prove them," I said. "I've told you about O'Toole visiting Connors, and the latter's denial of it."
CLASSON looked at Soren.
"Kernan's a bit hipped because his horses haven't been in the money," he said sneeringly; "but, just the same, let's not make a star chamber out of this. Naturally, I was as much surprised as any one else to learn that my stable was being shown favors. I'd rather thought I had the better horses and possibly the better jockeys and trainer. But I brought Connors over here with me to-day; I didn't suppose he'd be needed, but—O'Toole's here too, isn't he?"
Soren nodded.
"Bring them in," said Classon.
Soren pressed a bell. A moment later Starter O'Toole and Trainer Connors were in the room.
"Mr. O'Toole," asked Soren, "did you ever pay a visit to Mr. Connors' house?"
O'Toole's eyes opened wonderingly. He shook his head.
"Why, sir, I barely know Connors."
"Connors, did O'Toole ever call at your house?" asked Soren.
"No, sir," said Connors innocently.
"Of course, you've both read Mr. Kernan's charges in the Bugle? Well, to-day he's gone further than that. He claims that you two have met in your house, Connors."
"He's crazy," said the trainer.
O'Toole smiled contemptuously.
"That will be all," said Soren. They withdrew, and Soren turned to me.
"It's hard to believe that a Kentucky gentleman would let jealousy overcome sportsmanship," he said slowly. "It's hard to believe that a Kentucky gentleman would forget his honor and—"
"DON'T say it, sir," I interrupted quietly. "If you don't care to believe me, well and good. But don't say I lie, please."
Soren looked at Classon.
"Mr. Classon," he said, "this is a matter before us stewards. Personalities must be dropped, forgotten. All should act as one body. Yet—inasmuch as you have a personal interest, aside from your interest as a steward in seeing that Beaumont is kept clear from scandal—will you kindly tell us what action you think we should take?"
Classon pursed his lips.
"Of course," he said. "my inclination would be to bar Mr. Kernan from the turf. But—having, as you say, a personal interest in the matter—I should hate to seem vindictive. Let me suggest that Mr. Kernan make a personal apology to me for having dragged my name—my stable's name—into a nasty scandal, and that he further comply with our request to make a public retraction of his charges."
"Very fair," exclaimed old Soren. "That all right, gentlemen?"
The other stewards nodded assent. The old financier looked at me.
"Mr. Kernan," he began, "this is a very sad occasion. I knew your father, sir. No more honorable gentleman or fairer sportsman ever came out of Kentucky. It has been my great pleasure to defeat him and to be defeated by him. He was a
I BIT my lip; I felt my nails digging into my palms. For I had not been mistaken: I had seen O'Toole go into Connors' house and seen him come out of there. I stared at Classon, who sat, slightly smiling, awaiting my humiliation. I had been a fool. I should not have said anything unless I had irrefutable proof. And yet, I was not ashamed of my foolishness.
As I stared at Classon's smiling countenance I noticed that his lips were thick and sensual, that his eyes were set a bit too close together. I wondered if the stories that his brokerage house was but little better than a tremendous bucket-shop could be true. And an idea came to rue. If O'Toole were bribed, surely Connors, Classon's trainer, didn't have money enough to do it. Of course, the two might connive to beat the betting ring, but still—bets can often be traced. And it is racing death to a starter to be even suspected of betting. No; O'Toole must be getting money from Connors. But who gave Connors the money?
"Mr. Classon," I said, "may I ask you a question?"
"You may," he said.
"You keep books of your stable, of course? Account-books?
"Certainly."
"And a separate checking account for all stable expenses?"
"Of course," he said coldly.
"And another account for your business?"
"Several of them," he answered.
"And a personal account—for your own expenses?"
"Ye-es; but why—"
"Then, Mr. Classon, will you submit all your check-books to your fellow stewards?"
He glared at me, and his face grew crimson.
"What the devil do you mean? What are you driving at?"
"I'd like to examine those check-books," I said. "It would be interesting to note if Mr. Connors has received any large checks recently which are plainly in excess of his salary or stable expenses. Sufficient, I might say, to make a starter forget his duty to the racing association."
It was a long shot—and it didn't win. Classon jumped to his feet.
"By heaven, sir, do you dare insinuate—
"I'm not insinuating anything, sir," I said. "My future, my honor, are on trial here. I ask you to produce those check-books!"
"Yes, you are on trial, Kernan," he cried, "not I—and—gentlemen, of course it is absurd that I should furnish what he asks! There are business secrets that—"
"Of course, Classon," said Soren; "we understand. This man Kernan is insane with jealous anger. We have given him his chance, and I now propose that, in view of this further insinuation against the integrity of one of our fellow stewards, Mr. Kernan be barred from the turf!"
The others murmured angrily; I felt their outraged glances upon me.
"In a court of law," I said, "my demands would be listened to."
"And this is a court of gentlemen," cried old Soren. "Gentlemen, shall we put it to a vote?"
But Classon interfered. He smiled patiently, as one who has been foully wronged, yet does not desire vengeance.
"Gentlemen, gentlemen," he said. "Don't let any insult to me govern you. Let us forget that; let us do as I suggested. Let Mr. Kernan apologize—"
But the hot blood of the Kernans mastered me now.
"I shall not apologize," I said; "and if you had a regard for your honor you'd produce those books!"
He made no answer save to smile that patient, pitying smile.
Soren turned to the others.
"Gentlemen, two people have denied Mr. Kernan's story. The weight of evidence is against him. His motives for blackening the name of Beaumont are the motives of jealousy. It is absurd to ask Mr. Classon to produce his check-books and expose his business affairs to please the vicious jealousy of a man who has disgraced the name of sportsman. Gentlemen, I move that Mr. Kernan be barred from the turf until such time as he apologizes to Mr. Classon personally, to us as a body, and makes public retraction of his scandalous charges. All in favor—"
"Aye!" they cried.
The court from which there was no appeal, the stewards of the Jockey Club, had barred from the turf a Kernan of Kernan's Farm!
GOSSIP in the racing world travels about as quickly as anywhere else. I had been ruled off the turf at half past ten. At half past twelve the telephone in my room at a hotel rang, and the clerk told me that Mr. Benton was calling.
"Send him up," I said. And then I braced myself against a storm of reproaches. But I needn't have bothered, for old Sam Benton was the whitest man that ever breathed, and the last to reproach a man for doing what his conscience commanded.
He sat down in a chair whose measure was all too small for his overflowing bulk, puffing from excitement as well as his swift entrance.
"Well, Sale, I hear you went and gone and did it!"
"Who told you?" I asked.
"Jerry Kenney called me up from the stable fifteen minutes ago. I was just getting out of bed,—poker last night,—and I left the house with Mrs. Benton telling me I'd die of dyspepsia if I went without my breakfast. But I hollered back to her that I was taking a cure—wasn't eating breakfast any more. I came down here as fast as the car would take me. Now give it to me straight."
He paused, all out of breath. As briefly as possible I told him the occurrences at the meeting of the stewards and their outcome. Old Sam heard me through in silence. Indeed, after I had finished he made no comment until he had carefully selected a cigar from his case, and smoked half an inch of its length. Then:
"Of course you know the old rule, Sale: never start anything you can't finish. Why didn't you back down?"
"You don't mean that, Mr. Benton," I said shortly.
"No, darned if I do! You did just right, Sale. Only—why in blazes did you ever talk to Williams in the first place?"
"If I hadn't I'd have gone before the stewards anyway," I said, "and the outcome would have been the same."
"No, you wouldn't," he said. "I'd have reasoned that out of you! However—ruled off, eh? Sale, what you going to do? I don't suppose you've thought of that—any more than you did of my string when you started all this."
"Look here, Mr. Benton," I said hotly, "how could you expect me to think of your string? My duty as your trainer only consists in looking after your horses, not in keeping my eyes closed to crookedness."
"Don't go off at half cock, Sale," he said. "You know I don't blame you, only—ain't it just like every Kernan that ever came out of Kentuck to forget his future, his hopes, his plans—everything—for the sake of what he considers his duty!"
"What is his duty," I corrected him. "And I hope that what you say is true. I'm mighty sorry, Mr. Benton. Training your stable has been almost as much pleasure as if it were my own. But—there are limits to everything. I'd do it all over again."
BENTON puffed at his cigar. I bent over a suit-case I'd been packing when he was announced, and began tossing things into it. Benton pointed at it.
"Where bound, Sale?"
"Juarez," I answered shortly. "The stewards' power doesn't run that far; at least, the enforcement of their rules is mighty lax there. I may not be able to train under my own name, but, under the rose, I'll find plenty to do there."
"Not at the ten thousand a year I've been paying you," he said.
I made no reply, and he went on:
"But a man's self-respect is worth thousands, Sale. Yes, you'll land, but—what good will it do to land at Juarez? A Mexican track without much standing. Of course, there's your living; but—I have plenty, Sale."
"I know that, but I don't want to borrow," I told him.
"But, even if you do go to Juarez—no hurry; it isn't quite October yet, and they won't open there for a couple of months."
"But I can be drawing salary before the racing starts," I reminded him.
"Yes; but—You say you won't apologize. So, if you want to be reinstated—You do, of course?"
"Naturally."
"Then you'll have to prove your charges. How you going to do that in Juarez?"
I shrugged my shoulders.
"I haven't crossed that bridge yet," I answered. "The only thing I've decided on is that I want to get away from this place as quick as possible—out of New York; away from the neighborhood of the tracks they've barred me from. Good heavens, Mr. Benton, can't you understand how I feel? Barred from the tracks, from the game my folks helped make great? Barred from—I want to get away now!"
I slammed the suit-case shut savagely and locked it.
"About, that other—making my charges stick. Murder will out! I know that Classon, Connors, and O'Toole have been rigging things up. That's four people altogether that know it. And one of the other three will make a break some day—"
"And you won't be here to take advantage of it," he said.
"Some one else will," I said. "And meanwhile—I've got to live, Mr. Benton. I've had a good salary, but—well, when a Kernan-trained horse loses a race I'm apt to be light in pocket."
"I've said that I—" he began.
"And I've said that I won't borrow—when I see no way to pay back," I interrupted. "Thank you again, but—there's a liner for New Orleans sails at four. I'll be aboard her."
The old man sighed. He was my good friend—had been a friend of my father before me.
"I know there's no way of stopping you when your mind's made up, Sale," he said. "But—if you won't accept a loan, still you can't help me spending my money, can you?"
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"The Kernan judgment has always been good on everything except the stock-market," he said. "On horses and men—almost infallible. If you say that Classon is a crook, in spite of his being a steward and all that sort of thing, why—Sale, I'm inclined to believe you. So much inclined that when I leave here I'm going to a private detective agency. I'll risk a few thousand of my own to help a boy I like and"—here his mouth hardened—"to drive a crook from the track. Write to me, Sale, and—if you should change your mind about—a loan, you know a wire'll always get an answer from me. Good-by, my boy."
I went aboard the boat two hours before sailing time, and locked myself in my cabin. Not until the Christina's engines had been throbbing twenty minutes and she was well below Liberty did I leave my cabin and go up on deck. And there, as I stood by the rail taking my last look at New York, I felt a hand touch my arm. I turned, to stare amazedly into the apologetic eyes of Jerry Kenney, my chief subordinate in the Benton stable.
"Well, what the devil are you doing here?" I gasped.
"On me way to Juarez, via New Orleans," said Jerry, with a grin.
"Now look here, Jerry," said I angrily. "I'm glad to see you and all that, but—why in blazes have you left New York? Sam Benton might have put you in charge of the stable and—"
"And since whin did the Kenneys thry to stop into the shoes of the Kernans?" demanded Jerry. "Shame on ye for sayin' it, Misther Sale. Sure, ye'er father'd niver have talked that way to me. Didn't he, whin ye was a bit of a lad, make me promise that I'd kape ye out of mischief? Is it lettin' ye go to Mexico, with rev'lootionists all around and ye wid ye'er hot blood likin' to join thim, I'd be afther doin'?"
"Jerry," I said shamefacedly, "of course I appreciate your feelings and your kindness and all that, but—you'd have had a good thing with old Sam Benton. You shouldn't have given it up."
"I worked for the Kernans before iver I worked for the Bentons," said Jerry. "And what's a job whin Major Jack's son is— Bad scran to thim, Misther Sale, but we'll come back yet wid bells on, and give the crooks the proof's they're afther wantin'. Me nevvy Mike is back there, and he'll kape his eyes open and he'll watch Connors and the rist of thim. Niver fret, Misther Sale; thim that laves can come back."
I tried to smile.
"I hope so," I said. "Anyway, you can go back. I'm not going to mix you up in my misfortunes. You'll get off this boat at Charleston, and—"
"And Charleston is two days off," murmured Jerry. "We'll talk some more before we get there. Meanwhile, I'm not so young as I was, but I'm Irish, Misther Sale. Be afther tellin' me: is it true what they say about thim Mexican girls bein' so grand to look at? And will we see manny of thim in Juarez? Are anny of thim as good-lookin', say, as the young lady beyant, there?"
I FOLLOWED the direction of his eyes, and saw the girl he meant. She had just stepped from an outside cabin and stood looking back toward the sky-line of Manhattan. The wind whipped her skirts closely about her, and revealed a form that might have posed for the young Diana. Brown curls were tossed by the wind against a cheek of damask on which strawberries had been crushed. Oh, she was a thoroughbred, from her dainty, arched feet to her small, proud head. I looked quickly away, hard though it was to do so, lest she catch me rudely staring.
"No," I said slowly; "I don't think you'll find any like her in Mexico—or anywhere else."
But Jerry said nothing—to me. A few yards away I heard him say:
"Be careful, Miss Leland, now! Sure, it's getting choppy out here and ye must mind ye'er step."
"Thank you, Mr. Kenney; I'll be careful."
"Mind ye do, ma'am," said Jerry.
I turned and looked at them. I saw her teeth flash in a smile that dazzled my faithful Jerry. He bowed almost to the deck as she passed by. He rejoined me.
"Do you know her?" I gasped.
"Wud I addhress a lady I didn't know?" he retorted.
"You old rascal, you'd do anything," I grinned. "But—who is she?"
"A lady," said Jerry, "be the name of Miss Leland. She has a winter place in Florida. Likewise she has a horse. She's takin' her down to Grantham; she's goin' to race her at the winter meetin' there. I saw thim loadin' the mare aboord and I gave the rough side of me tongue to the ignoraymus in charge beca'se of his mishandlin' the animal. The lady heard
"I like your impudence, you ancient mariner," I said. "A plater, I suppose?"
"She don't look it, did ye think, Misther Kerman?" he chuckled.
"I don't mean the lady, you old rascal," I said, "and you knew it. The mare."
"'There might be some that'd call Vivandière a plater, sor, but not the likes of me."
"Vivandière?" I gasped. "Vivandière!"
"That same," said Jerry. "Wud ye like to go down below and have a look at the darling?"
"If only to condole with her, I would," I answered. "If only to meet a sister in misfortune. Lead the way, Jerry."
BETWEEN-DECKS the mare was stabled. She was fretting at the motion of the Christina; and, between fear and the natural devilish temper that had ruined her as a piece of racing flesh, she was in a wicked mood. At a respectful distance from her hind feet was a burly deck-hand, evidently, from the bucket of oats he carried, told off to look after the mare's wants during the voyage. Jerry grinned at me as we stood there, watching the man's timid approach to the makeshift stall, and his fearful backing away when the mare, over her shoulder, glimpsed him with wicked eyes, and showed her powerful teeth.
The deck-hand turned and saw us, flushing angrily at Jerry's grin. He turned back toward the stall and lifted the bucket of oats. In his anger he raised the heavy iron-bound bucket above his head.
"Take it this way, you she-devil!" he snarled. And he hurled it, oats and all,
[illustration]
"'I felt a sudden embarrassment before her—a sudden rush of feeling that the proximity of no other woman had ever caused to whelm me.'"
"Steady, Jerry," I warned him. "He hasn't hurt her yet, and this isn't dry land. We can report him to the ship's officers—"
But I didn't finish the sentence. The deck-hand, turning, read the contempt on our faces; he did not read the wrath, or I doubt if his next action would have happened. For he picked up a heavy board, that should have been used to bar the rear of the mare's stall, and swung it against her quarters.
"That'll teach you," he cried, "ye black—
He leaped back, away from her striking hoofs, and danced in again. Old Jerry, grizzled and bent with the weight of sixty years, rushed in at him. But I was quicker and elbowed Jerry aside. I caught the man from behind. My right arm went around him and my forearm tightened against his throat, while my knee found the small of his back. The wooden bar fell to the deck as we twisted.
AT the foot of the companionway that led to the between-decks stood Miss Leland. Her face was white and her eyes blazed; her small hands were knotted painfully, and I saw her knuckles shine whitely through a coat of tan. She was a picture of honest rage, and in my surprise at her presence I loosened my grip of the deck-hand. He broke from me, wheeled and faced me, fists raised and doubled.
But the presence of the girl cooled my blood. I had no mind to figure in a rough-and-tumble brawl before her.
"Better go," I said quietly to the deck-hand, "or I'll report you to your officers. Close that mouth of yours and go."
He saw the girl now, and profanity ceased to issue from him. With a muttered snarl that my being a passenger was all that saved me, he slouched aft.
I saw the girl put her hand to her throat and saw the color come back to her cheeks. She put out a hand and steadied herself against the railing of the gangway.
I FELT a sudden embarrassment before her—a sudden rush of feeling that the proximity of no other woman had ever caused to whelm me. For in that moment when the deck-hand had been in my grip it seemed that she had bared her very soul to me—a soul that flamed to wrath at brutality and cowardice; a soul that was as frankly honest as the eyes through which it looked. I felt that I would like to get away, to meet her again when she had entirely recovered herself. But the only way I knew to get to the upper deck was the companionway at which she stood.
The mare whinnied, and I looked at her. Noble beast that she was, the viciousness had left her great brown eyes, as if she understood and was grateful for her rescue. And I, to postpone the meeting with the girl, walked into Vivandière's stall.
"Misther Sale, careful," Jerry cried.
"Come out, come out—" Then the girl's cry died away in a gasp of amazement. For Vivandière whinnied softly as my hand stroked her velvet neck; the great teeth that had been bared beyond the gums as she squealed her hatred of the deck-hand were hidden beneath soft lips now; soft lips that nuzzled first my hand and then my face. I stroked her nose; I held her face to my cheek.
"Ruled off, both of us, eh, girl?" I whispered to her.
She rubbed my collar with her soft nose. I heard Miss Leland's voice behind me:
"How did you dare? How did—why, no one has ever entered her stall that way before."
She had regained command of herself now, and her lips were parted with pleased surprise as she stared at us, mare and man.
"And if some one had," I answered, "no need for her to be barred from the track as an outlaw. I know her family; and there was never a wicked strain in any of her ancestors—or her brothers or sisters. She was mishandled when a colt in the Cranston stable; she was given a bad ride her first appearance. High-spirited horse that she is, she could not stand the whip. Her trainer should have known it; her jock should have known it. It was the whip that made her almost kill three riders; that made her attack other horses in races and caused her to be barred. I know a horse when I see one; and—and it's a peculiar fact that no horse has ever bitten or kicked a Kernan of Kernan's Farm."
The girl's eyes grew moist.
"Poor Vivandière! poor darling," she said. "To think that—could I go in there with you?"
"As safely as you could enter a church," I said. "All this mare's ever needed was the right sort of kindness—unafraid kindness. Give her that and she'll make the best of them take her dust."
By BRUCE BARTON
SO sang Lord Byron, and proceeded to make good on his song by enlisting in the Greek Revolution.
So also might have sung Alfred Jenkins of Peoria, Illinois, had he been gifted with a poet's voice as well as a poet's soul. But, being fashioned of humbler stuff, the keeper of a garage instead of a poet, and accustomed to blunt speech, Jenkins expressed his reasons for fighting in another man's war as follows:
"I suppose I'm a darn fool to be mixing into a fight that ain't really none of my business," he said to the recruiting officer at Toronto. "I had a nice little trade back home, and everything going good, and no reason to be dissatisfied at all. And when this here war started I didn't pay much attention at first. Then later I got to reading in the papers about them Germans tearin' up Belgium and smashin' churches and beatin' up women and raisin' the devil generally, and darned if it didn't get me sore. I says to myself, I says, 'Every feller in the world like me, that's free and got nobody dependent on him, just orter join together and give them guys a good sound thrashin'. And, by gosh, I'm here to help do it."
Alfred Jenkins—I withhold his real name for "military reasons"—Alfred Jenkins has not the poet's gift of expression, as has already been admitted. But there must be a spark of poetic fire in his soul, and the soul of any other man who voluntarily casts aside a comfortable security to journey into another land and enlist in a war that is, strictly speaking, none of his affair. And something like 15,000 Americans have done just that thing. More than 9000 of them were with the first Canadian contingent, which has already given up so many of its lives in the trenches about Ypres. The remainder of them, partly in England, mostly in Canada still, make up the various battalions of the American Legion.
We have heard almost nothing of the American Legion on this side of the Canadian border. We probably shall not hear very much about it until after the last battle has been fought and the real story of the war is told. When that story is written, and the writers take their little flings at "America's commercialism," as they are so fond of doing, they will have to make one grudging admission. They will not be allowed to forget that 15,000 Americans, at least, cared enough about the issues of the world war to enlist for action three thousand miles away, to die, if need be, for a country they had never seen, and whose language they could not even understand. Painful as it may be for Europe to admit that courage in America is not altogether a thing of the past, it will have to be done. No chronicler of the great war can tell the story of American munition profits without telling also the story of the American Legion.
ENGLAND declared war on Germany August 4, 1914. On August 4, Sir Sam Hughes of Canada, a regular fellow if ever there was one, got in touch with every newspaper in Canada over the telephone and dictated the stirring call for troops which he had prepared. On August 5 the newspapers announced the declaration of war on their front pages, and on the same page printed in big type the call of the Minister of Militia for recruits.
If Sir Sam Hughes' diary is ever published, a special copy should be sent to Mr. Arnold Bennett. It will give him a new idea of what it means to Live on Twenty-four Hours a Day. Having issued his call for men, Sir Sam called on the telephone William McBain, of the Canadian Northern Railway.
"Good evening, Colonel McBain," he said.
"Colonel nothing," responded the chief engineer. "Quit your kidding"—or words to that effect.
"This is Sir Sam Hughes," continued Sir Sam, unperturbed, "and you're Colonel McBain, whether you know it or not. I have just appointed you this minute.
[photograph]
"What part of Canada do you come from?" a war correspondent asked a "Canadian" soldier on the streets of London. And the other whispered: "Don't say a word; I'm from Polo, Illinois." He was one of the 15,000 Americans who had hurried across the border to fight in another man's war.
"I know just the place," the Colonel replied. "Valcartier, down near where I was born. I'll fix up a special train and we'll start down there at once."
In a train consisting of an engine and one car, General Sir Sam and Colonel McBain set out. They were in too much of a hurry: the train ran off the track. Somewhere they found and commandeered a motor-car, and so, driving over ditches and through rail fences, they reached Valcartier, laid out streets, and arranged for a water system and everything else needed for a well equipped camp. Then, with 20,000 men on the way and Colonel McBain ready for them, Sir Sam hurried back, to find his colleagues in the Dominion Government debating whether Canada should send any troops to the war.
THE call had been published on August 5. By October 1 the first Canadian contingent had received enough preliminary training to be ready to embark. Guns they had, and bayonets; but no uniforms. These were handed out to them in packages as they boarded the train. There were only 20,000 uniforms: Canada had promised only 20,000 men as a first contingent: only men in uniform were to be taken on the ships.
When the trains finished their journey to the sea-coast, and the first Canadian contingent was drawn up to be embarked, it was counted. And the 20,000 men were found to be 33,000. They were all in uniform, as ordered. At least, each one was in part of a uniform. One had on the trousers of a uniform, another the coat, another the shoes, another the belt. Each man, when questioned, swore solemnly that he had been entitled to a uniform, had been one of the chosen 20,000; but in the hurry of entraining he had lost all of his uniform except the part he wore. He was sorry, very sorry. But he was one of the 20,000 all right. Oh, yes, indeed; he was entitled to embark.
So these men who a few weeks before had been peaceful lawyers and real estate agents and dry goods merchants stood in line and deliberately lied themselves into the army. And because no man of them would admit that he had slipped on to the train against orders, and because the ships were waiting and there was no time to separate the sheep from the goats, the officers embarked the whole crowd for England, leaving the tangle to be straightened out on the other side. Which is the real reason, gentle reader, why Canada sent the queer total of 33,000 troops to England as a first contingent.
THEY took the histories of the whole 33,000 on the other side. "Who is your next of kin?" is one of the questions on the blank. And when the English War Office came to examine the answers, that question betrayed the fact that of the 33,000 more than 9000 were not Canadians at all, but American citizens. It was an unpleasant predicament for the War Office. England needed men, but Downing Street was just at that moment having some correspondence with Washington on the very subject of American enlistments. Here was a complication that could not be accepted. Word went out that no Americans could enlist: they must all go home. Like lightning the news spread through the camp. Time next day the contingent was to be paraded, and all Americans must be mustered out.
The day dawned, and the parade took place. And, behold, a miracle had happened overnight. The preceding day there had been more than 9000 Americans among these 33,000. To-day, when the show-down came, there was not a single one. Every single American had become a Canadian overnight.
Oh, they could lie like gentlemen, those first 9000 Americans! And they could die like gentlemen, too. They proved that a few months later at Ypres.
In his book, "Canada in Flanders," Sir Max Aitken has given as good a description of what happened at Ypres as can be given until after the war. In untechnical language, and briefly, the story is this: The French and Canadians together held what is known as a "salient" before Ypres, meaning that the line at that place curved out toward the Germans in a great half circle. It was a badly exposed position, as every one knew, but it had to be held nevertheless. The French were holding the line on the Canadians' left.
Nothing had happened all day Thursday: but about five o'clock Thursday afternoon the Germans launched a great wave of gas directly at the French trenches. It was early in the war. The soldiers had heard of the terrors of the gas, but no protection against it had been provided. Borne by a favorable wind, it swept straight on to the French trenches. There was no fighting against it. The men farthest forward felt its awful touch, gasped, and fell in terrible agony. The others, helpless, broke, as even the bravest men will before a terror that can not be struggled against. And for almost a mile the Allied trenches were emptied. The line was really broken.
It was a frightful moment. Here were the Canadians—raw troops. Their Colonel was a ranchman from out Calgary way. Almost their first taste of battle, and confronted with the most terrifying experience that troops can know. What would they do—these lawyers and doctors and ranchmen and clerks?
Almost without orders they answered the question. They lacked the machine-like discipline of their foes; but they had that divine heritage which, when he is once trained, makes the American and the Canadian the finest soldier in the world. They had self-reliance, the habit of thinking and acting vigorously for themselves. And, before the Germans could seize the advantage that their gas had won for them, the Canadians had stretched their line to almost twice its length, occupying the trenches that the French had lost. Four divisions were opposed to them, and artillery that in the next two days simply tore their trenches to pieces. They were holding 9000 yards of trenches with the men who had been thought only barely sufficient for 5000 yards. Yet they held.
All night they held, and all the next day, and all the next night. Beating off attacks and counter-attacking, losing the woods on their left and gaining them again, being forced back out of the little town of St. Julien, rallying and driving the Germans before them from house to house and street to street, without artillery or infantry support, for two nights and a day they held on, and saved the Allied line at Ypres.
Many stories are told about those awful hours at Ypres which have not found their way into the official accounts. Here is one of them: Back of the town of St. Julien, far enough back to be well protected, the Canadians had a hospital filled with convalescents. They lay there on that fatal Thursday afternoon, bandaged and nursed, but in good spirits and well along toward recovery, when suddenly the news flew about that a gas attack had been made. The French had been forced to give ground.
With feverish haste the nurses and doctors made preparations to move their patients back to safety. When they came to get their men, every bed except three was empty. And in those three beds were three men swearing terribly, men who couldn't get up and walk because they had lost one or both feet. The others were gone—not back, but forward, hot foot to the trenches. Most of then died, but they sold their lives dearly. They had their share in holding the line those terrible two nights and a day.
THEY tell another story, also about that battle. When the Canadians reached out to occupy the French trenches, the left of their line was forced back until it rested on a wood. Later they lost that wood, and still later took it again. I have forgotten the French name of that wood, if it had a name, but no one can forget the name that the Canadians gave it. They call it Crucifixion Wood: and they say that when they retook it the second time, they found three of their companions crucified on its trees, bayonets thrust through their hands and feet.
There had been a good many articles in German newspapers of the general character of the following extract from the Rheimsche Westfalische Zeitung:
"Germany not being at war with the United States, citizens of that country taken with arms in their hands should be considered marauders, and executed."
There can be no mistaking the meaning of that warning. The war is none of the business of the people on this side of the Atlantic, it says. Let them stay out; and if they don't stay out they will be sorry for it.
The Canadians interpreted what they found in Crucifixion Wood as the same warning in other form. "Stay out of this war, Canadians and Americans," it was meant to say. "This is what you'll get if you don't."
The official despatches contain no record of "Crucifixion Wood," so far as I can
FOR the Canadians, and the Americans with them, have won a name for their action in bayonet charges. They are known as the "White Ghurkas." When they charge they win through, and woe to the men who seek to hold the trenches against them.
The first battalion of the American Legion, officially the 97th, is already in England: by the time this is published it will be on the firing line. Four more battalions are forming—one in Vancouver and Calgary, one in Winnipeg, one in Toronto, and one in Halifax: all Americans, all officered by Americans, every officer lifted up out of the ranks. They are a pretty fine, clean crowd: you could not see them without having something jump into your throat, without having a bit of a film across your eyes.
Not all of them, to be sure, have gone to Canada with the same motive as Private Alfred Jenkins. There is, for instance, the type of chap who is represented by Black, an officer with a long service record. Black is a newspaper man and soldier of fortune. "Where liberty is, there is my country," said Franklin. "Where liberty is not," replied Thomas Paine, "there is mine." Wherever there is a good, healthy row going on, there is the native land of Black. There is his home, sweet home.
He was down in Venezuela in the time of Castro, and for mixing up with the revolutionists in some unfortunate fashion he was sentenced to be shot. Castro had a morbid fondness for executions: he used always to be on hand. They couldn't take place too early in the morning for him. So at sunrise, when Black was to disappear, Castro walked on to the scene.
"Just a moment," said Black to his guard. "Give me a moment or two to interview President Castro. I've been following him, trying to get an interview for months."
And Castro, who liked brave men as well as executions, took a fancy to Black, and Black became his secretary.
THERE are some men in the American Legion, like Black, who went for the fun. There are some who went because they owed money, or had run afoul of the law, or preferred death in Flanders to living at home with their wives. There is a proportion of such in every volunteer army; but the proportion in the American Legion is small.
Knights errant, they are. Clean and fine and red-blooded, endowed with most of the virtues of strong men except the good virtue of patience. Of patience they have none. Twelve hundred of them were supposed to embark in the first battalion. When their colonel reached the dock with his men, he counted them and found eighteen hundred. Six hundred of the second battalion had slipped on the train and stowed themselves away.
"I have kidnapped six hundred of your men," he wired to the colonel of the second battalion. "What shall I do with them?"
"Take them along," was the answer. "When men are as anxious to fight as all that, they deserve to have the chance."
There will be only a few thousand of them at the most, and it will be next spring before the four remaining battalions get to the front. Not a very big drop in the bucket of millions: hardly a decisive factor in the war. But they're a factor that England and France and Russia will not forget, and that we Americans will be glad to remember. They care enough for liberty—even another man's liberty—to die for it. They are a pleasing proof to us that courage and strength and red blood have not departed from us, that we are still worthy of the heritage of our sires. We may not altogether agree with their judgment: we may not all see the war through their eyes. But we can't help being proud of them nevertheless. They remind us, somehow, of the sort of thing we read about in our school histories. They bring the flavor and fragrance of the Minute Men into our too commonplace modern life.
God bless them and keep them and bring them safe home to us—the boys who go to fight in another man's war: the American Legion. May there be some one in its ranks, when the war is over, who can tell its story as it deserves to have its story told.
By JOHN TAINTOR FOOTE
Illustrations by William Hottinger
THE girl in the gray motor-coat eyed the tip of her walking boot and frowned.
"Why must we go over it all again, Tommy?" she asked. "I've had a beautiful day so far—please don't spoil it! Look at the wonderful coloring of the woods—isn't it glorious?"
Tommy sagged against a fallen shell-bark, his face wiped clean of its eager look. He opened his lips, closed them again, and scowled at the hag of hickory nuts lying in the leaves before him.
"Oh, curse it!" he said. "I wish I were dead."
"I think we'd better start for the car, Tommy," said the girl in the gray motor-coat. "If you're going to have one of those times, I'd rather go back to town."
Tommy cast a glum look in the direction of two other nut-gatherers, who were also resting from their toil. As he watched them his gloom increased.
"Look at 'em!" he said at last. "That chap probably works like a horse from morning till night, and yet he's happy. He's brought his best girl nutting, and they've had a day like a fairy story. That little girl in the red sweater isn't troubled with 'doubts.' She doesn't have to 'feel perfectly sure.' She just puts her head on his shoulder and lets it go at that."
BUT Tommy's surmise was wide of the mark. The trusting attitude of the girl in the red sweater was deceptive.
"Ferget it, Spider," she was saying. "Can the married stuff. I'm for you strong as a pal, but that lets me out. I've got a real job now, an' I'm just beginnin' to hang a few rags on myself an' act like I'm alive. Forget it, Spider."
"What's the matter with us havin' a swell time together, kid?" Spider pleaded. "You don't have to cut out the fluff just because yer married. I'll chase you around the limit."
"What on, Spider?" asked the girl in the red sweater. "If I chuck the job, how much have we got left after you come across with eats and the rent?"
"Yer there like a addin'-machine," said Spider. "See that swell gink over there?" he burst out suddenly. "I wish I was him! I'll bet that dame of his in the pale-lookin' coat ain't askin' him to count his change every time he makes a crack about weddin' bells."
"Look at her!" Tommy was saying. "She doesn't let her father tell her what kind of a chap she wants. That little girl in the red sweater does her own choosing, and the rest of the world can go to the dev—can go hang!"
The girl in the gray motor-coat stared miserably down a red and yellow vista washed in purple shadows. Suddenly it grew misty, as through a veil of moveless rain.
"That's not fair, Tommy," she said. "If I could honestly believe that we could make each other happy—for always—nothing daddy could say would make any difference, and you know it. I've come out here with you and run the risk of being horribly criticized; and you don't appreciate it, and talk about that girl all the time, and I wish I hadn't come—and, anyway, how do you know she's like that? She's probably just spooning."
"Spooning!" said Tommy, with scorn. "I should say not! Not that little girl in the red sweater! She's as true as steel."
Two tiny flames in the eyes of the girl in the gray motor-coat dried up the mist through which she had been gazing.
"How perfectly absurd!" she said. "You don't know a thing about it. I think she's spooning."
Tommy rose with sudden determination. He stepped behind a tree, and reappeared with a motor robe and a hamper. He spread the robe on the leaves and placed the hamper beside it.
"I'm going to prove it to you," he said. "I'm going over and ask them to luncheon. "
"Tommy! Have you gone crazy? They may be dreadful people!"
"I think not," said Tommy coolly. "And, anyway, they won't bite."
The girl watched with a horrified
[illustration]
"'She just puts her head on his shoulder and lets it go at that,' said Tommy."
"You gimme a pain, Spider," she was saying. "I bet she's one of them frosty dames that's tickled sick every time she turns a guy down."
"Not that dame," Spider returned doggedly. "She wouldn't be settin' out here—"
"I BEG your pardon," Tommy's voice interrupted. The couple looked up, startled, and regarded him curiously. "My friend and myself," he began, "are about to have lu—something to eat; and, as we four seem to be alone in the woods, we thought it would be good fun to ask you to share it with us. May we have the pleasure of your company—under the spreading hickory tree?" he finished, with a smile and a bow.
There was an awkward pause. The girl in the red sweater looked at her companion uneasily.
"We got our lunch with us," she said finally. "I don't think we better butt in."
"Oh, don't call it that," Tommy hastened to say. "We should like to have you bring your lunch and add it to ours. Then we could have it together. Won't you come?"
There was another pause; and then the instinct that holds male loyally to male stirred in the breast of Spider. He must rescue this brother from a predicament.
"Sure, sport," he accepted. "We'll be tickled to death to come— I'm Spider Kelly, an' this is my lady friend."
"That's fine!" said Tommy, holding out his hand. "I'm Tommy Dundee, and my
The luncheon passed off very well. To be sure, there were moments that had to be met with the business of being earnestly occupied, but they were rare.
The first of these had to do with the shoe-box and its contents. Tommy handled this matter admirably. In the midst of swiftly despoiling the hamper, he lifted out a silver cylinder and passed it to Spider.
"Ever see one of these, Mr. Kelly?" he inquired. "It's a new thing for picnics."
Spider turned the cylinder carefully in his immense palm. Had it been explosive he could not have held it more gingerly.
"Press the button on the side," Tommy directed.
Spider did so, and the head of the cylinder popped off; a concealed spring accomplished this, and pushed eight drinking glasses into view.
"Well, wouldn't that jar you?" Spider exclaimed admiringly; and, while the general interest settled for a moment on the cylinder, Tommy ripped open the shoe-box, placed its four bananas in the center of the spread table-cloth and distributed its four buns one at each place.
The contents of the hamper revealed creamy white slices of cold capon surrounded by a trembling amber jelly; a lobster salad with a wonderful dressing; a fruit punch held rigidly just above the freezing point in a vacuum bottle; and coffee, black as night, which came smoking from another vacuum bottle, and grew richly tawny as thick cream was added.
There were russet salted almonds, and caviar sandwiches so dainty that they were the cause of another of those moments that must be met with tact.
When Tommy signified that all was ready by seizing firmly the bun at his place and attacking it with evident relish, Spider met this compliment by lifting one of the caviar sandwiches to his mouth. It hung suspended a fatal instant—and was engulfed.
"Spider!" came horrifically from the girl in the red sweater. "You must be hungry!"
Spider gulped, and embarrassment turned his face to the color of a new brick.
Then Tommy came to the rescue.
"Well, if he isn't, I am!" he said; and, with what was left of the bun, he followed Spider's summary methods in disposing of it.
A little later the girl in the gray motor-coat addressed Spider.
"How do you take your coffee, Mr. Kelly?" she inquired.
Spider considered the question with some care.
"I ain't particular," he informed her at last. "Any way you say. I'm strong for a saucer when I can get it, but I've knowed it to taste good right out of a pail."
"Yes?" said the girl in the gray motor-coat with polite interest. "And will you have cream and sugar?"
"Yes, ma'am," said Spider.
"Why, you don't never take cream in your coffee, Spider!" the girl in the red sweater exclaimed.
"No, ma'am," said Spider vaguely, and wiped the back of his neck with a handkerchief whose red field was broken somewhat by a scattering of white horseshoes.
IT is unfair to dwell on such incidents. They were bridged successfully and were forgotten. The colorful peace of the autumn woods drove self-consciousness quietly away.
Conversation was carried on largely by the males of the party. The quick comradeship so easy for the sons of Adam is denied the daughters of Eve. Also, between the girl in the gray motor-coat and the girl in the red sweater there existed a faint reproach. Each told herself that the other bore a fine equipment for the feminine business of life, and each had been disparaged by a man who had used the other for his example in so doing.
Therefore, as Tommy and Spider discussed the matters that make up the sporting page, the maidens listened in silence. They seemed to drink in the deeds of Ty Cobb, Christy Mathewson, et al., with rapt attention. Their glances
[illustration]
"'Don't worry, dearie!' said the girl in the red sweater. 'Our men'll clean up them bums in jig-time."
"Don't you never play ball yerself, Mr. Dundee?" asked Spider, helping himself from Tommy's offered cigarette-case.
"Not any more, Mr. Kelly," Tommy answered, accepting a bilious-looking cigar from his questioner. "I used to play at school, but that's five years ago now."
The first fraternal puffs of smoke climbed lazily into the still air. A jay lit on a limb above, cocked its head on one side, and observed the remnants of the feast beadily. A red squirrel scurried past, and presently peeped around a tree-trunk, its tail jerking with anger, as it commented upon intruders in general and the ones under its favorite hickory tree in particular.
AND now could be heard a cracking rustle—the murmured protest of the woodland invaded by the clumsy foot of man. The sound grew nearer, until the members of the luncheon party observed two hulking figures that came on, stopped, and looked at them with swinish eyes. It was a look that brought a shudder to the girl in the gray motor-coat. She put out a slender hand and touched Tommy's sleeve with the tips of her fingers.
"Well, pals," said one of the creatures, with the countenance of a swine and the body of a man, "you've copped out a couple of swell dolls all right, all right!"
He received no response.
"What the hell's the matter with you?" he inquired with truculence. "Can't you guys make a head rumble when a gent slips you the good word?"
The peremptory voice of Mr. Kelly was now heard in the grove.
"Be on your way!" it said.
For reply there came an easy roll of oaths, ending in: "Let's see you make us!"
Then rose up without haste Mr. Dundee, late of a certain university. He cast a searching look at Mr. Kelly—one-time sparring partner of Knock-out Sweeny's—who was also on his feet.
What he saw seemed to satisfy him, for he smiled.
"You take the one on the right," he said briefly.
Mr. Kelly signified his grasp of the situation with equal brevity.
"I got-cha, Steve," he said joyfully.
He made three steps forward, and started a straight left for the mouth.
Mr. Kelly, however, was a shade heavy with food. He had "telegraphed" his blow. His adversary ducked, and countered heavily just over the heart.
Mr. Kelly grinned his approval. He disliked cold-blooded butchery.
"Why, yer there, bo!" he told his enemy.
He slid his left foot forward, made a lightning shift, and shot a smashing right hook for the point of the jaw. He did this with a flash of regret. He felt certain that the end of that swing was the end of the affair. And so it would have been had his foot not slipped on a mossy stone hidden by the leaves. As it was, his fist landed on the bony structure of the head just above the ear; two of his knuckles splintered under the shock, and with them went the use of his good right hand. His adversary staggered dizzily back; but Mr. Kelly, owing to the stone, was off his balance for an instant, and in that instant the brain that had grown cloudy from the impact of the blow, cleared and was again alert.
Mr. Dundee was also in action. While he lacked the nice science that distinguished Mr. Kelly, he had been known at school as a "fast big man." Also he felt a loathing for the thing before him, who had looked with the eyes of a beast at the only girl in the world, and his breast was hot and his eyes were cool as he opened the attack.
He met a tough customer, who loved war and knew how to conduct himself at the game. Mr. Dundee took many a blow, but his anger covered his sense of feeling like armor. He never knew when he was struck. He simply threw the weight of his heavy rowing shoulders into every blow and pumped them into that hateful face and body.
While the battle raged, the girl in the gray motor-coat and the girl in the red sweater became, for a time, sisters in distress. They were standing behind the big hickory tree, holding each other by the hand. It was the girl in the gray motor-coat who had first sought what comfort was to be derived from the clasp of the warm little fingers hanging so close to her own. The situation bore hard upon her sensibilities. Her fiber had not been toughened by the coarser environment in which the girl in the red sweater had played her little part. The latter seemed to feel this, for she squeezed the fingers that shook within her own.
"Don't worry, dearie!" she said. "Our men'll clean up them bums in jig-time."
As it became evident to the girl in the gray motor-coat that this prophecy was to be fulfilled, her spirits rose. She became possessed of a feeling of exultation like nothing she had ever experienced before. This feeling must have come down to her from some maiden of the past who had watched a good knight place his body between herself and harm, and splendidly do his devoir. Her eyes were wide and riveted on "her man," as the girl in the red sweater had called him. Yes, he was her man! She grew rosy at the thought.
By the time two badly punished toughs had been allowed to stagger dizzily away, she was stripped of all evasiveness.
THE girl in the gray motor-coat and the girl in the red sweater unclasped their hands with a final pressure, and advanced to meet the conquerors.
The girl in the gray motor-coat felt a weakness in her knees. Of course, he would see at once. She feared that others would also see how abjectly and completely and for all time she was his. It must be written in her face as on a printed page. She wondered why they had not already noticed the loud thumping of her heart. She looked up into her hero's battered countenance.
"Oh, Tommy!" she faltered.
And then the girl in the gray motor-
"All over!" said Mr. Dundee, his vision still obscured by the red haze of battle. He turned swiftly to Mr. Kelly, comrade in the fight.
"Spider," he said, and threw his arm across the other's shoulder, "you're a peach!"
"Tommy," said Spider, "yer some bear-cat yerself!"
The girl in the gray motor-coat thanked fortune for this respite. He had not seen—and now she could choose her own time for surrender. She told herself it would not be to-day nor in the presence of any one else. It would be led up to with delicious reluctance, with tantalizing half confessions, with forethought and delicate art.
THEY spent a glorious afternoon together, chattering like the squirrels whose provender they garnered. In a ridiculously short time the sun shot its reddened beams out of the level west and the woods were carpeted with flame. Then a slender sickle of pale gold hung in an open glade.
It was the new moon. They looked at one another, startled.
"What do you know about that?" Spider asked aggrievedly. "Why, it ain't four o'clock yet!" It was nearly five, however, by his big silver watch.
Tommy told Spider that his car was only a roadster with two seats.
"I'm awfully sorry," he said regretfully. "I should like to run you in."
"Cut it—you make me nervous!" said Spider, with a grin. "But I guess if there's a pinch you belong. A little more," he added admiringly, "and it 'u'd been man-slaughter fer yours."
"But how will you get back?" Tommy insisted.
"Don't worry none about us," said Spider. "We'll beat it over to the car line an' hit town with bells on."
There seemed nothing further to say; but it had been a wonderful day, and they drifted to the hickory tree and stood beneath it in silence.
SUDDENLY it came to Tommy that he had not made his original point concerning the girl in the red sweater.
"Spider," he asked, "you two aren't married, are you?"
A shade passed over Spider's brow. He opened his mouth to reply, but the girl in the red sweater spoke first. A pair of gray eyes which matched their owner's coat had seemed to challenge her at the question. The girl in the red sweater knew dimly that such eyes never looked up from a man's shoulder until a promise had been given. She remembered that she must have been observed prior to the breaking of bread together. Her champion had proved himself, mettle for mettle, with the other, and was she to admit inferiority? She looked into the gray eyes, her chin slightly tilted.
"Not yet," she said. "But I wouldn't be foolin' Spider, an' comin' out here with him, if we wasn't goin' to marry."
Tommy gave a meaning look at the girl in the gray motor-coat. He failed to see that Spider's jaw had dropped slightly.
"Congratulations!" he said heartily, holding out his hand. "When is it going to be, Spider?"
Spider met the clasp with agility.
"To-morrow!" he exploded like a bomb. "To-morrow—or I'm a goat! An' say, Tommy, how about you and yer lady friend there?"
"I'll let her speak for herself," said Tommy.
And now the tables were turned. Of the three pairs of eyes that she must face, the girl in the gray motor-coat felt only the ones above the red sweater. She met them steadily, however.
"I think you're right—about not fooling a man," she said. "Tommy and I are not married, but"—she hesitated slightly, the color leaping to her face—"I hope we shall be—soon."
By FREDERICK ORIN BARTLETT
Illustration by George E. Wolfe
MONTE slipped on his sweater with the black "H" and took a place against the wall at Marjory's feet.
"All comfy?" he asked.
"Yes, Monte," she answered. "Only I feel awfully selfish. What are you going to sleep upon?"
"A blanket."
If it had been possible to do so, she would have given him the mattress and slept upon the ground herself. To know that he was comfortable, actually she would have rested better than to be comfortable herself.
"It's no more than I have done in the woods when I couldn't make camp in time," he explained. "I had hoped to take you some day to my cabin near the lake."
She could think of nothing better than:
"It must be beautiful there."
He looked up.
"It always has been, but now—without you—"
"You mustn't let me make any difference," she put in quickly.
"Why not?"
"Because you mustn't. You must go on just as if you had never met me."
He was as direct as a boy.
"Because that's best. Oh, I know, Monte. You must trust me to know what is good for you," she cried.
"I don't believe you know even what is good for yourself," he answered.
"I—I know what is right," she faltered. He saw that he was disturbing her, and he did not want to do that.
"Perhaps in time we'll see," he said. "I have a notion that some day you and I will get straightened out."
"It doesn't make so much difference about me; but you—you must get back to your schedule again as soon as ever you can."
"Perhaps to a new one; but that must include you."
She could not help the color in her cheeks. It was beyond her control.
"I must make my own little schedule," she insisted.
"You are going back to the farm?"
She nodded.
"To-morrow we shall be in Italy. Then a train to Genoa and the next boat," she said.
"After that?"
"In a week or so I shall be back where I started."
"Then?"
She laughed nervously.
"I can't think much ahead of that. Perhaps I shall raise chickens."
"Year after year?"
"Maybe. "
"If you lived to be seventy you'd have a lot of them by then, wouldn't you?"
"I—I don't know."
It did sound ridiculous, the way he put it.
"Then—would you will them to some one?" he asked.
He was laughing at her. She was glad to have him do that rather than remain serious.
"Please don't make me look ahead to seventy," she shuddered.
"SURE you're comfortable?" Monte asked a little later.
"It's impossible to feel altogether comfortable when you're selfish," Marjory declared.
He took a thoughtful puff of his cigarette.
"I think you're right about that," he answered. "Only in this case there's no reason in the world for you to feel like that, because I'm comfortable too."
"Honestly?"
"Cross my heart. I'd rather be here than in the finest bed in Paris."
"You're so good," she murmured.
With all her muscles relaxed and with him there, she felt as if she were floating in the clouds.
"It's strange you've always had that notion, because I'm not," he replied. "Do you want to go to sleep, or may I talk a while longer?"
"Please to talk."
"Of course," he ran on meditatively, "something depends upon what you mean by being good. I used to think it was merely being decent. I've been that. It happened to be easy. Being good, as I see it now, is being good when it isn't easy—and then something more."
She was listening with bated breath, because he was voicing her own thoughts.
"It's being good to some one besides yourself," he continued. "Forgetting yourself for them—when that isn't easy."
"Yes, it's that," she said.
"I don't want to boast," he said; "but, in a way, I come nearer being good at this moment than ever before in my life."
"You mean because it's tiresome for you to sit there?"
"Because it's hard for me to sit here when I'd like to be kneeling, by your side, kissing your hand, your forehead, your lips," he answered passionately.
She started to her elbow.
"I sha'n't move," he assured her. "But it isn't easy to sit here like a bump on a log with everything you're starving for within arm's reach."
"Monte!" she gasped. "Perhaps you'd better not talk."
"If it were only as easy to stop thinking!"
"Why don't one's thoughts mind?" she cried. "When they are told what's right, why don't they come right?"
"God knows," he answered. "I sit here and tell myself that if you don't love me I should let it go at that, and think the way I did before the solemn little pastor in Paris got so serious over what wasn't meant to be serious. I've tried, little woman. I tried hard when I left you with Peter. I couldn't do it then, and I can't do it now. I hear over and over again the words the little minister spoke, and they grow more wonderful and fine every day. I think he must have known then that I loved you without knowing it, or he would not have uttered them."
The leaves in the olive trees rustled beneath the stars.
"Dear wife of mine," he cried, "when are you coming to me?"
He did not move. She saw his broad shoulders against the wall. She saw his arms folded over his chest as if to keep them tight. She saw his clenched lips.
"God help me to keep silent," she prayed.
So she did not answer. Because she did not answer he did not speak again.
The stars darted shafts of white light at them both as if to rouse them, but without result.
Hours and hours she lay awake, watching him. Then she fell asleep; and when she awoke again, he was still sitting there with his eyes wide open, his arms folded.
THEY crossed the border at three that afternoon, because all day she had walked as fast as she could, refusing to stop even for lunch. There was need of haste. Every hour longer that she was with him now would cost her a year of heartache. Something still worse might happen. Every moment she allowed herself to think at all, she found herself weakening. That cry was ever in her ears: "Dear wife of mine, when are you coming to me?"
Supposing that, after all, his love really were as genuine, as deep, as everlasting as he now thought it was? Supposing that, in spite of everything, her poor worthless self had actually roused in him the sort of love that had been roused in her? That she was undeserving of it was true enough: but what if, notwithstanding that, it had come? She had struggled her best to keep in him that love unsullied for some one of better worth. It was none of her doing that she had traveled upon the open road with him. Chance had made it very hard for her. Had she been left to carry out her own plans, she would by now have been miles and miles away from him. He would have had no opportunity to see her or tell her of his love. This would have made it easier for them both.
She had only to be careless once with her eyes, to allow a single unguarded word to slip her lips, and she would stand revealed before him.
They crossed the frontier at three, when if he had had his way they would have taken another day. She crossed the frontier exhausted physically and mentally, craving only a place to hide her head and to cry a little. They boarded a train and went at once to Genoa, arriving there late at night. All the way he was as considerate of her as of a child. But he had grown silent, and all his buoyant joy seemed to have gone from him. On the train he sat with his arms folded and stared moodily from the window, except when she spoke to him.
THEY found some difficulty in securing accommodations in Genoa; but they had come again into the land of taxis, and with the aid of one he finally secured a room for her.
"You have found a place for yourself?" she asked.
"I'll find one," he answered indifferently. "It's almost morning anyway, and I'll have to be up early to see about a boat and securing more funds. You'd better sleep late."
He looked pale. Impulsively she extended her hand.
"You'll take good care of yourself?" she pleaded.
But she was the one who should have taken care of him, and she knew it. In the eyes of the world he was her husband. Instead, she was forced to watch him go out into the night because to have allowed him to remain would have told him too much. The love she should have been proud to reveal she must hide.
She closed the door upon him, and flung herself on the bed in a stupor.
She was roused by a sharp rapping. She found it daylight. She had slept in her clothes. She heard Monte's voice:
"Marjory."
She drew her tousled self to the door and opened it a crack.
"You must be on the ship in an hour," he said.
From that point on she moved in a daze. She managed to do over her hair and straighten herself while he waited outside for her. Then she remembered getting into a cab with him, and hearing something about how he had met a friend who introduced him to his bank. So his credit had been restored and he had been able to secure for her a state-room—at what price he never told. He handed her five hundred dollars in gold, and she took it. She merely obeyed his commands.
On the ride to the wharf, after he had completed these details, he was silent. He went aboard with her and found her state-room on the overcrowded ship. They forced their way through groups of hysterical men and women who had paid fabulous sums for places in the steerage. She saw them in a blur. Then, for a moment, he stood before her.
[illustration]
"It was late that day when he awoke. His head was still in her lap. 'Have we died yet?' he muttered."
"I'm doing this because I know it's what you want, Marjory," he said.
"Yes, Monte."
"In a little while you'll be rested; and then—"
He checked himself and held out his hand.
"S'long," he said.
She felt her hand in his. Then she saw him smile.
"You'd better go to bed right away."
Then he went. For a moment she could not believe it. He had gone and left her alone here. She staggered to her bunk and sat down. He had gone, and she did not know where. She had not even asked him. She could not even write to him now. There was no way of getting word to him, no matter how badly she needed him.
She stumbled from her cabin in a panic. She made her way through the crowd that filled the cabins and stairs. On deck were other crowds. She pushed on to the gang-plank, and looked down into the faces of those upon the pier. His was not among them.
He had gone!
ONE of the many early events of the great war, the news of which was suppressed for diplomatic reasons, was the blowing up of the Italian liner Santa L—, either by a floating mine or by a bomb from within, ten hours out from port.
When the shock came, Monte, in his red sweater, was sitting with his back to the door of Marjory's state-room, half asleep. He was permitted to be there because he had engaged the accommodations in the name of Mr. and Mrs. Covington, and then had tipped every one in sight for the privilege of sleeping outside instead of inside. The explosion and the lurch of the ship threw him some five feet, but he picked himself up and made a running jump at her door, striking it with his shoulder. The lock gave.
"Marjory!" he shouted.
"Here, Monte."
She opened her door. Already she had flung on some clothes.
Snatching two life-preservers from below the bunk, he called to her to stand in front of him. There in the dark he adjusted one about her warm, trembling form. The other he slipped over his own head as he seized her hand and dragged her after him. It was a free-for-all fight to reach the deck; but, holding her hand in a grip of iron, he pushed his way through. Then, upon his hands and knees, still holding her, he crawled up to the rail to where a frantic squad of men were lowering a boat. Stooping, he lifted her and threw her in. He heard her wild cry above the cries of a hundred others. The sailors, crazed with excitement, were accomplishing nothing. Then the ship lurched again, this time toward the boat, and the crazed squad leaped for the water, now only a few feet below them. The motion loosened the tackles, and the boat swung free. Monte jumped for the water. As he came up he called her name.
"Here, Monte," she answered, within a few feet of him.
A COUPLE of strokes toward her voice brought him to the boat. He pulled himself over the side. He fumbled about in the bottom for oars, found them, and adjusted them in the oar-locks. In the shrieking confusion about him, his only thought was to pull away far enough from the sinking ship to keep out of the suction. He could not see a foot before his face, but a dozen times he rowed toward some appealing voice, only to have it vanish. It was useless to try to save any one in that inky hell. So he put his back into the oars, and rowed and rowed and rowed out into the silence. Soon it was as if they were in a pit. There was no light above them; none below them; none about them. No sound came to them.
"Are you there, Marjory?" he called.
"Here, Monte," she answered:
"Are you cold?" he demanded.
"No." But her teeth chattered. He peeled off his sweater.
"Put this on," he ordered.
"No—no. You need it."
"Put it on," he ordered peremptorily. "I'll keep warm rowing.
He began to row again.
During the night the clouds cleared and the moon came out. He could see her, a dishevelled heap in the stern. His heart leaped for joy.
At last the sun came above the horizon and began to warm her. He thanked God for that. But nowhere was there either land or ship in sight. He turned his bow toward the sun—toward the east. If there was fresh water aboard he had a chance. He told her to search the stern, and drew in his oars and searched the bow. He found a keg holding a gallon. Also a box of sea biscuit. His chances for saving her were more than doubled. He carried the keg to her side and, making a dipper of his hands, poured out a little and ordered her to drink. She was glad enough for the sip. Then he pretended to pour more for himself, but his hands went to his parched lips dry. He had none to waste upon himself.
Then he went back to his oars and rowed.
ON the third day, at about noon, she was sitting with her chin in her hands, watching his strong arms swing back and forth. His eyes were heavy and there was little power in his stroke. For the hundredth time she begged to be allowed to relieve him. He shook his wabbly head.
"Land—before night," he murmured.
Then he flopped over into the bottom of the boat and lay sprawled out his full length. The crash had come sooner than he expected. His system was burned out for lack of water.
She fell to her knees beside him.
"Monte!" she shrieked.
He made no answer. With a supreme effort she turned him upon his back. His lips looked shriveled. She picked up the keg, and found it half full. Then she guessed. He had been saving it for her! He had made the supreme sacrifice that a man can make for the woman he loves. He had challenged death for her.
But to what end if he died and left her alone? Good God in heaven, to what end if he left her alive?
Frantically she moistened her handkerchief, and put it to his lips. In response, nature opened his clenched lips while he lay unconscious. She lifted the keg and gently poured the water into his mouth. Automatically he swallowed. She gave him more. He should have all. What mattered it whether she lived or not, if she could give him a few more hours of life? She bathed his forehead and face with the precious liquid, his head in her lap.
At length he opened his eyes. He found her own above them. They came nearer—nearer—until her lips brushed his own.
"Husband of mine," she breathed.
Again she moistened her handkerchief and squeezed the water upon his lips.
"What—what are you doing?" he cried hoarsely. "You must save that—for—"
He struggled to get to his feet. Again she stooped and kissed his lips.
"My man!" she whispered. "My own big, brave man!"
"Wife," he breathed.
Then he closed his eyes and slept.
It was late that day when he awoke. His head was still in her lap. She too had slept, but as he stirred her lips bent over his again. He was light-headed.
"Have—have we died yet?" he muttered.
"We've just begun to live, dear one," she answered. "Even if we die, if only we go together we shall have just begun to live."
"Together," he agreed—"it doesn't much matter whether we live or die."
He sat up weakly. His eyes swept the horizon. Behind her, not five hundred yards away, he saw a ship. A boat had already put out toward them.
"God—see!" he shouted. "We're going to live, after all—you and I."
She did not even turn her head.
"Forever and forever," she nodded dizzily.
The End
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HEREAFTER the time-tables will read as follows: "* will not run on Sundays, holidays, or on days when the conductress has to wash her hair," or "§ will not stop at Whately until the brake-woman makes up with the station agentess." The railroads are being taken over by the women. Back into the mines, boys—our last dark retreat. Here is Miss Carrie Benton, of the C., H. & D., first dining-car stewardess in America. Business has increased 400 per cent. since she took over the run.
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HERE'S little Helen Holmes, engineeress. Helen works in the movies, and her husband is her director. "Good morning, dear," he says; "kindly climb into that engine." Helen does so, and husband immediately starts another engine crashing into her from the opposite direction. "Dive off this cliff, darling," he continues. "Very good: now crawl under this burning bridge, and grapple with the crocodile you will find on the other side." And yet, if we go away without kissing her in the morning, our wife suspects that our love is dead.
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THE three people in the left of the above picture, anxiously seeking to leave Davenport, Iowa, are consulting Miss Daisy Oden, the only woman traveling passenger agent in the United States. Miss Oden's job on the Burlington is to know what time the four o'clock train leaves, and why it doesn't stop at Ogden, Utah, and do you think if my aunt left home at six this morning she is in Gary, Indiana, by now, and all the rest.
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IF you ever happen to be in a wreck on the N. Y., N. H. & H. R. R. (we've traveled it for years hoping for something to happen, so we could sue and retire; but nothing ever has)—however, if you ever do happen to be so fortunate, be sure your hair is combed before crawling out of the wreckage. For Miss Katherine Russel Bleeker is employed by that railroad for no other purpose than to take motion pictures of wrecks and anything else that might start a lawsuit. Don't dance around happily at the wreck, and then come limping into the court-room: the pictures will show you up as sure as shootin'.
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WE expect travel on the Erie Railroad to pick up considerably with this announcement—viz.: By buying a ticket in New York over the Erie, and riding out to Nutley, New Jersey, one may have the pleasure of buying a return ticket to New York from Miss Marie Riley, the station agent there. Miss Riley is said to be the youngest station agent in the country.
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WHEN Mrs. Phoebe Clark, of Nashville, wants to hold a stockholders' meeting of the Nashville & Kentucky Northern Railway, she sits down at her desk and collects her thoughts. The N. & K. N. is Mrs. Clark's own,—lock, stock, and barrel,—and she is as proud of it as if it ran across the continent, instead of between Algood and Livingston, Tennessee, thirty miles. When her husband left the road to her, it was only two months out of the hands of a receiver: to-day nobody in the world holds a voucher against it. And Mrs. Clark isn't worrying about the eight-hour day: her crews could walk the whole length of the line in eight hours.
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THE present war is "an old man's war": old kings and old diplomats started it, old cabinet ministers and old generals keep it up. The young men don't do much about it except die in it at the rate of 10,000 a day. Young Mr. Laurence Salmon here, though aged four, having some extra time on his hands,—they haven't made him start school, yet,—is recruiting Canadian soldiers for His Majesty by singing patriotic songs. Here he is at Lake Louise (the scenery in the back is Victoria Glacier), saluting the Governor-General of Canada, to whom his services are indispensable.
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WHEN school closed last June, Billy Paulhamus, of Sumner, Washington, borrowed $100 from himself (it was all he had in the bank) and put up this neat little ten-by-six store, half a mile from town, where hundreds of pickers camp in the raspberry and blackberry season. Realizing the value of snappy advertising, Billy hand-decorated signs reading, "Yes, We Have Fine Bacon and Eggs" and "If We Haven't Got What You Want We'll Get It." On the last day of July, Bill's mother presided over the muffin tin cash register while he banked his original $100 and $26.58 clear profit.
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ON his tenth birthday, Loren Schleh's father put him in entire charge of the dining-room in his hotel, "The Tavern," which hundreds of motorists visit when passing through Saline, Michigan. Loren takes all the orders and sees that they're properly filled, and has never once been known to serve a warm salad or a cold stew. Breakfast, dinner, and supper see Loren bowing his patrons to their seats and gratifying their every whim; but from nine to twelve and from one-thirty to four he is a hard-working seventh-grader.
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NO, not Mary and her lamb: Alexandra Smith of Devonshire, England, and her sheep. Its wool was white as snow underneath, but quite Pittsburghy on top. They held a competition for women farmers over there early in the summer, and Alexandra—who is only fifteen—won the championship over many grown-up rivals. Her speed and dexterity in helping her pet off with his winter coat was the deciding event that got this young English farmerette the prize.
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YOU remember Baby Bunting, whose father apparently had no office hours? Well, this is his twin brother. Hope Harris of Parker, South Dakota, the only son of Mr. A. Harris, the druggist. Hope is only eight, and the youngest person to hold a hunter's license in his State. From one of his recent Saturday expeditions Hope brought home five jack rabbits; and it is a rare thing indeed when he fails to bring down any duck on the wing that has happened to catch his young brown eye.
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SOME people, although they won't admit it, have played post-office; but Maida Lynch works at hers. She is one of the youngest postmistresses in the government service. It all began because Maida was good at math at the Cambridge High School (one often wonders how those people who were good at math turned out). Maida can pick up a sheet of stamps, run her eye carelessly down one side and up the other, and know to a postal card just how many letters Mary Brown has written Johnny Jones this week.
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HARRY C. HONG SLING'S father runs a very popular chop-suey restaurant in Chicago, but Harry is not interested in bird's-nest soup or almond-blossom omelet. What he wants to know is which will produce the best results, a friction drive or a selective gear transmission. Harry is ten now, and has already outdone mechanicians of four times his age in assembling a car that really goes. Being a good China boy, Harry reverences his parents; but sometimes he does wonder at their lack of taste in having once taken him out in a perambulator without a self-starter.
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ALL big railroad presidents from little train-boys grow. The lad who goes through the train to-day and so sociably advises you what magazine to buy will be playing golf on his private course to-morrow when you call around, hat in hand, to ask for a job for your brother-in-law. Lyman Campbell at twenty-four is the youngest train-master in the country. At the time we go to press he is in charge of the Chicago division of the Baltimore & Ohio system. We can't guarantee what heights he may have reached by the time you read this.
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OUR young friend Jack Herrlich is all right now, and we urge him to enjoy the honors and perquisites that go with being the youngest cornet soloist in the United States while they bloom. The time will come when he will no longer be "very cute and only six." The day will dawn when he will no longer live securely with his family in Flint, Michigan, amid kind-hearted neighbors who have always known his folks. Far be it from us to be unsympathetic with any artist, but we have lived in the next flat to a cornet soloist, and we say to Jack in all seriousness to take up a safe pursuit, like aviating, on the side.
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"OH, dear, yes," says Miss Gladys Parkin, of San Rafael, California. "I have been keen on wireless for five years or more (she is now fifteen). "Brother John, you see, put up an amateur station at home, and of course I just stuck around all the time. Then, when John took his government exam for his license, I thought I might as well have a try at it too, just for fun. I got a mark of 80. John got a better 'experience' mark, but I beat him on code interpretation." "What a lovely license!" say Gladys's young friends. "What more can you want now?" "A job," says Miss Parkin.
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NOTICE to motorists! There is a particularly good mile of road near the town of Academy, South Dakota, and travelers through that part of the State have an especially delightful minute or so of going as they speed over it. For which thanks are due to Mr. Leonard Pasek, aged seven, who drags the stretch in question. Leonard's good work is not altogether inspired by a passion for community improvement. He receives $1 a week for his labors.
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CAN you play a jew's-harp adeptly, swim on your back better than the average, or eat soup more tunefully than your neighbors? Then why be modest? Label yourself "Professor." Others have done it—including Professor Mike Donovan, for many years boxing instructor in the New York Athletic Club. In Mike's younger days he was a champion middle-weight. Now, at sixty-eight, Mike draws a pension from the club and enjoys his title.
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AND on the right, ladies and gentlemen, we have Professor Rose Reeves, professor of "expression and impression." Many people bungle though life using the same expression for everything. One has only to think a moment to see how absurd this is—the same expression for your wife and your tailor, for instance. In the picture the Professor is registering the proper expression to assume when hearing one of our editorials read aloud.
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PROFESSOR GUSTAVE MEYER, the "Nation's Counselor," predicted the assassination of President McKinley, the defeat of Alton B. Parker, and now predicts that the war will end in July, 1917, with a German victory. The fact that the Professor's name is Gustave and not Pierre or Tommy has nothing to do with the prediction: the stars are responsible. The stars have all kinds of messages for all kinds of people; but here's a curious thing—they seem never to have heard of anybody who can't raise at least five dollars.
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PROFESSOR WATKIN DAVIS of Philadelphia used to appear on the stage just between the trained dogs and the strained voices of a "musical family," and his weekly honorarium was $70. Then Billy Sunday or somebody caught the Professor on an off night, and the next thing the Professor knew, he was holding evangelistic meetings and trusting to the audience to drop in whatever the spirit moved them to give. Sometimes the movement brings $20 a week: but not always. Meanwhile the Professor has the satisfaction of knowing that he is doing good.
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YEARS ago Professor John Tilton took a brief course of study in chiropody: hence the title Professor. The later years of his life have been devoted to invention and to mining, with incidental attention to interesting investors in his inventions and mines. All legal documents he signs, with a flourish, "Professor John Tilton, Inventor and Mine Owner." We have never met the Professor, but we can not help remarking to ourselves how much money we might have saved on neckties, had we only let Nature have her kindly sway upon our close-shorn chins.
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AND, finally, we have positive proof that, though Nature may humble a man at the feet of the mighty, she can not keep him from becoming a Professor. Nature made Joe, of Bulfinch Street, Boston, a bootblack: but Joe bought a piano, and while he plays sweet music to lure the customers in, he hires assistants to get their fingers in the blacking. What a beautiful lesson is here, my children. Though your hands be black, your heart may still be pure: and though you have never gone to college, still no one can ever stop you from being a Professor.
THE ideal battle-ship would be one that could crawl up under the noses of a fortification's guns, deliver a smashing broadside, and crawl back to sea again—and all of the time be perfectly invisible.
Those men of the sea whose business is to destroy—meaning the naval architects who design dreadnoughts, destroyers, and other fighting craft, together with the crews of those ships—have long cherished the vision of a fighting vessel that could not be seen by the enemy.
We took a trip to the Brooklyn navy-yard one day last summer, and one of the sights that interested us most was a submarine whose conning-tower and periscope tube were painted to resemble a barber-pole. The colors were not barber-pole colors, however; they were a dull drab of grays and yellows and sea blues, which dissolved and disappeared into each other.
"You see," said the lieutenant in charge, "when that barber-pole effect is a few hundred yards off it blends perfectly with the grays and greens of the deep sea. They use the same principle, on a cruder scale, with the battle-ships.
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A smoke-gray ship is an excellent target, declares Abbott Thayer. Yet these British battle-ships seem to be blending in with the sky and sea quite satisfactorily.
We clapped our hands, so to speak, in delight, that the men who are paid to guard our shores should have such ingenuity; but after we read what Abbott Thayer had to say on the subject of war-ship invisibility at sea, we began to register doubt.
Mr. Thayer is one of the world's most famous artists. In an article published in the New York Tribune, Mr. Thayer complains that the men who are paid to navigate the ships and shoot the guns are versed in the science of battle; but what they don't know about coloring ships to make them invisible would fill a very large volume.
Barber-pole periscopes and smoke-gray dreadnoughts are wrong. White is the truly invisible color at sea. It is invisible because it partakes of its immediate surroundings, after the manner of a chameleon. In a gray sea it is equally gray; in a blue sea it becomes blue; against a gray sky it is of identical tone.
A smoke-gray ship against a gray sky is darker than the sky; against a clear sky it looms so darkly that it seems larger than it actually is. But substitute a glossy, gleaming white ship—and there is no ship at all on the horizon.
Mr. Thayer answers the obvious criticism lucidly: Supposing the sun is shining, won't the white ship reflect the rays? Awnings must be used to cover up the glistening parts—white awnings.
A white battle-ship, for invisibility, must be pure white—whiter than the driven snow.
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Different colored lights flash as the automobile changes speed. This innovation is accomplished by harnessing the speedometer and the electric lighting system together.
ANY one who makes a close study of the Patent Office Gazette is struck by the fact that a large body of inventors entertain a single absorbing thought—to make money out of the automobile business. If he can invent some indispensable device for automobiles, he can make a fortune. If a man could have patented the side mirror for motor-cars he would be able to sign a check now in seven figures. Most of the patented devices are not indispensable, although their inventors would like them to be.
Some of the devices are ingenious and clever and desirable—but not indispensable. A Seattle man has taken out a patent on a license plate lighted by colored lamps. The lights are different colors, and flash when the car is traveling at certain speeds.
There are two orange lights, two green, and two red. When the car is running at a speed of eight miles an hour or less, one orange bulb is lit; when traveling from twelve to twenty miles an hour, two orange lights show; when a speed of twenty to twenty-four miles is attained, the orange lights go out and one green light is illuminated; from twenty-four to thirty-five miles an hour, two green lights shine; thirty-five to forty-two miles an hour causes the green lights to go out and one red light to appear; any speed above forty-two miles lights two red bulbs.
If this arrangement were locked and sealed, so the driver could not tamper with it, the speed laws would be respected. On the other hand, such an installation would be complicated and expensive. In a word, it is desirable, but it is not indispensable.
IN one of the tower rooms of the American Museum of Natural History is a strange sort of botanical garden, says a writer in the American Museum Journal. This is a collection of living microbes, and there are about 700 different strains, occupying test-tubes filled with jelly, on which the microbes look like smears of whitish paste or wrinkled masses of moist brown paper.
Here are practically all known types of bacteria, except that of bubonic plague, which was excluded because of accidents in other laboratories with this peculiarly deadly germ.
There are the germs of typhoid, diphtheria, whooping cough, cholera, meningitis, leprosy, influenza, pneumonia, tuberculosis, typhus, and those that cause plant diseases and decompose foods.
These minutest of plants need careful tending. Most of them grow on a jelly made of meat, peptone, and the extract from a Japanese seaweed called agar. Some, however, need milk, others blood, egg, or salt. Some need air; others must be cultivated in tubes from which the oxygen has been removed. Some live for weeks without attention; others must be transferred to a new tube of jelly every three days. When they are transferred, a bacteriologist touches the old group with the tip of a platinum needle, which carries an invisible but potent speck of bacteria to the new tube.
This collection serves as a standard with the specimens of which the discoverer of a new bacterium can compare his own, and thousands of cultures are sent out to colleges and universities for study and teaching purposes.
SIMPLY because he mixed together a few chemicals that produced a new result, Fame marched up to the front door of Arthur Arent's drug store and, without knocking, walked in and made herself at home.
"Arthur," said Fame in low, even tones, "you have accomplished something that will protect and save the lives of men, women, and children. I hereby pronounce you an honorary member of my very exclusive club."
This is what Arthur Arent, of Badger, Iowa, has done:
He has worked out a formula for a certain peculiar liquid which, when poured on cloth or wood or other inflammable materials, makes them, as the French say, ininflammable.
Some of the tests Mr. Arent showed them were startling. Delicate fabrics that had been saturated with the stuff
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A rag of canvas soaked in Mr. Arent's fireproofing solution resisted the heat of a gasolene blow-torch.
WE are always grateful to the occasional man who has nothing to do but work out calculations from vital statistics for no other purpose than to entertain us. According to the Scrap Book, one man took pad and pencil in hand the other afternoon, and, just as the figures were beginning to one-step and fox-trot before his eyes, he had a solution to the world-perplexing question: how many miles does a man shave in his lifetime? The distance, he found, varies with the individual. The brunette has a handicap of one year over the blond; but by the time each of them is seventy they are almost neck-and-neck in the race. The blond man shaves 20 miles and 651 yards, while the dark man has shaved 20 miles and 1340 yards.
Getting back to the original question of whether or not calculation of this variety is worth while, calls to mind the stock joke of the hydro-electric engineers at Niagara.
"We can tell you," they boast, "exactly how much water goes over the Falls every minute—to the quart."
"How many?" you gasp excitedly.
"Two pints!"
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No, mother has not borrowed father's galluses. This affair is a specially made harness for carrying babies weighing thirty-five pounds or less.
THE Indian squaw went about gathering corn, making fires, and preparing her befeathered husband's supper with her papoose strapped to her back. Some one with an Indian turn of mind has brought out a contrivance that the squaw would probably appreciate. It is a harness, somewhat after the fashion of the papoose harness, except that there is no Navajo blanket, and the baby is hung from the mother's side by a strap that encircles its waist.
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"Why do you always play that note with the fourth finger?" called the great teacher from the next room. "I can hear you do it."
WHEN Paderewski throws his arms about, or indulges in dramatic movements of the body at the piano, he is not trying to be affected or eccentric. Every movement was thought out and practised before the artist appeared, and each has a distinct significance in his wonderful art. He seldom finds time to give instruction on his instrument; but, when he has had pupils, he has taught them to use their whole bodies in their musical interpretations.
"He believes in the elimination of every unnecessary movement," Sigismond Stojowski, a Polish pianist who studied with him says in Harriette Bower's new book, Piano Mastery (Frederick A. Stokes Company). "Yet he wishes the body free and supple. Motions should be as carefully studied as other technical points. It is true he often makes large movements of the arm; but they are all thought out, and have a dramatic significance. He may lift the finger off a vehement staccato note by a quick up-arm motion; but the next instant his hand is in quiet position for the following phrase.
"Paderewski instructs, as he does everything else, with magnificent generosity. He takes no account of time. I would come to him for a stipulated half-hour, but the lesson would continue indefinitely.
"He is most sensitive to the choice of fingering, and believes that each finger can produce a different tone quality. Once, when I was playing a nocturne, he called to me from the other end of the room:
'Why do you always play that note with the fourth finger? I can hear you do it; the effect is bad."
Mme. Antoinette Szumowska was at one time termed Paderewski's only pupil.
"My lessons with Paderewski were somewhat irregular," she says. "We worked together whenever he came to Paris. Sometimes I did not see him for several months, and then he would be in Paris for a number of weeks; at such seasons we worked together very often. Frequently these lessons, which were given at my cousin's home, began very late in the evening—around ten o'clock—and lasted till midnight, or even until one o'clock in the morning.
"Paderewski the teacher is as remarkable as Paderewski the pianist. He take infinite trouble to work out each detail and bring it to perfection. He is very patient and sweet-tempered, though he can occasionally be a little sarcastic. He often grows very enthusiastic over his teaching, and quite forgets the lapse of time. In general, however, he does not care to teach, and naturally has little time for it."
IN conversation, do you eagerly match the other person's story with your own? Do you give unsolicited advice? Do you voluntarily recommend doctors, osteopaths, coffee substitutes, tobacco cures? If so, you belong to one of the thirteen classes of Terrible Talkers, according to Grenville Kleiser's book, Talks on Talking (Funk & Wagnalls).
The art of conversation should not be lost to the world, is his plea. "It is a better mental exercise than reading good books, for the contact of mind with mind stimulates and develops thought that otherwise would remain dormant."
The ability to make a good speech is valuable to every man, be he a salesman, a clergyman, or a county fair barker. But, even should you be running for alderman, "Don't rant," says the author; "don't hem and haw; don't be personal; don't be nasal; don't point with pride; don't look back on your childhood; don't exceed your time limit."
If you want to be a really great conversationalist and speaker, be like Matthew Arnold. He was polite, vivacious, sympathetic, genial, simple, sincere. He chose the right words, his sense of humor never failed, and his favorite topic was "what my companion is most interested in."
A LANDLADIES' Club has been formed in Philadelphia. Attendance is cumpulsory. The object of the club is less the profit of the landladies than the benefit of the boarders. The constitution morals and by-laws are in spirit something like this:
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Members of the new Landladies' Club may not serve hash except under other and more attractive names.
1. Landladies must not sweep the dust under the beds, but must take it up accurately in a dust-pan.
2. Landladies must not serve hash. The Sunday roast may be reincarnated in a Monday Mulligan, Tuesday Spanish, Wednesday ragout, Thursday meat pie, Friday mock fish-balls, and Saturday dumplings. But no hash.
3. The lady boarder should be allowed to wash her lingerie with frankness and honor, instead of choking the wash basin with its lint in the darkness of the night and drying it on the radiator, whence it arises in the morning in a damp and gilded state.
4. The lady boarder and her young man need not occupy the doorway nor the corner lamppost, but may sit in state in the best parlor.
This revolutionary step was not voluntary on the part of landladies, according to the Boston Transcript, but was induced by social servitors with an eye to loftier morals in poorly paid girls through better pie in the boarding-house. Says the Transcript:
"Philadelphia, the 'city of homes,' has more boarding- and lodging-houses in proportion to its population than New York, where, in the opinion of Philadelphia, nobody has a home."
Therefore the Bureau of Boarding-Houses for Girls and other organizations decided to look into home conditions for girls on small salaries. Far from trying to abolish the old-fashioned boarding-house, they prefer it to the "lodgings only," which they find altogether undesirable when accommodations are cheap enough for girls on small salaries. But they insist that the proprietors of old-fashioned boarding-houses join the Landladies' Club, to meet once a month under the auspices of the bureau. If a landlady refuses, she is placed on the blacklist. If she consents she agrees to an inspection of her place with a view to cleanliness, adequate bathing facilities, good food, and a parlor where girls can entertain their men friends. She is, in return, given a course in dietetics, so that she may have the benefit of the most modern ideas on how to get around the high cost of living.
RUDYARD KIPLING finds the dictionary just as interesting as any best-seller. He reads it from page to page, as most folk read the Sunday supplement; and this doubtless accounts for his wonderful knowledge of words, says London Answers.
If, for instance, Mr. Kipling happens to begin at Chapter T, he makes the acquaintance right away of a transsubstantiationalist, and is soon prepared to discuss transmigrationism or the theory of metempsychosis with any highbrow who comes along. When he brings in a nosegay for his wife he presents it with, "My dear, here is a little tuzzimuzzy I plucked for you this morning." He tells the children that Mary had a little twagger, and that Captain Kidd was a twiscar. "Marie, empty the trashtrie," simply means, "Carry out the garbage."
A slang dictionary and a dialect edition are also on the poet's list of books worth while. Another great writer has a special fondness for the Encyclopedia Britannica. He will often spend an afternoon in his Old-World garden, reading at random in one of these volumes.
A certain noble lord is devoted to Bradshaw, and by constant study of its pages he has become a travel expert. He can tell you how to take a train to any spot on the globe, and just how poor you will be when you get back.
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At this place, two years ago, was fought the most critical engagement of the Battle of the Marne, which Hilaire Belloc calls "the twentieth decisive battle of the world." The German army, outnumbering the French 8 to 5, lay facing the French army on a front of 120 miles, at a distance of only 40 miles from Paris. The German plan was to heavily engage the eastern end of the French line (where they believed the mass of the French forces were concentrated) while Kluck's army curled around the western end of the line and enveloped (and annihilated) the French army. The French, however, had saved a strong reserve for this very contingency. This reserve, attacking Kluck as he turned, almost outflanked him. To save himself Kluck drew (continued on opposite page)
heavily on the forces at his left, and so thinned the center of the German line that a gap appeared. Foch, the great military genius of France, instantly perceived this gap and took advantage of it. He pushed his forces through, breaking the German line and driving the whole German army before him in headlong retreat. His action changed what had seemed imminent defeat into an almost miraculous triumph. He saved the French army—saved France, and turned what might have been a six weeks' victory for Germany into a long war, with the advantages increasingly on the side of the Allies. This photograph, published exclusively in EVERY WEEK, shows how the crops have been replanted and the town rebuilt at the spot where the tide of battle turned.
EVERY time Europe clinks another gold coin into our bulging banks, wheat and sugar and meat and butter step up a round on the scale of high prices. In nine months the United States has received from abroad more than $400,000,000.
We are the gold vault of the world. And yet, living is more and more difficult.
Does this enormous accumulation of gold make us poorer and poorer?
"It doesn't exactly make us poorer," says Current Opinion, "but it makes the cost of living soar and soar and soar; so that, unless your wages go up in proportion, you are poorer for that great plenty of gold."
This is how gold boosts the cost of living. Gold is of no more value than brick or lead, except as it represents a universal basis of barter in trade. If there were just one barrel of flour and but one five-dollar gold piece, the chances are that the flour dealer would sell but a half or a quarter of his flour for five dollars. If the gold increased, but the supply of flour still remained low, the amount of flour sold for a given sum would constantly be less.
Several causes contribute to the high cost of living: the greatest of these is much gold, and next follows the growing and undeniable shrinkage of food products. This is a year of crop shortage everywhere.
"At present," says the author, "we are still deceiving ourselves in the belief that we shall receive twice as high a price for wheat as usual, and therefore shall be farther ahead. This argument is childish chair-study theorist piffle. If the price is twice as high as usual, we shall pay twice as high a price for the cost of living. In the second place, wheat is not only short, but of such inferior quality that it will not bring top prices. You may put it down that we are in for two years of wheat shortage. The same is true of fruit and potatoes, and the shortage is still more marked in beef."
To the gold plenty and the food scarcity must be added the actual waste of war, scarcity of labor, and, most important of all, the universal trust in all food products. Poor father might as well be Midas, for all the good gold will do him.
THAT gray-haired old veteran of the Great War? He is in reality a stalwart young soldier. Tommy's hair does not "turn white in a single night, but it does turn gray in two weeks," says a Canadian army surgeon in the New York Tribune.
No, Tommy is not afraid. He is just subconsciously worried—about his sweetheart or mother or baby or business. The nerve-shattering shocks of shell fire do their work unknown to Tommy, who thinks he is very cheerful. He may be in safety, miles back from the firing line, yet his comrades speak daily of his whitening hair.
Officers whiten more quickly than their men, and even nurses are not immune.
Gray hair is not confined to young British soldiers, but is common to all the warring nationalities. It is, however, far more pronounced along the Eastern front, where territories are so vast that wounded men lie for days before they are taken to the hospital. By the time they arrive there, men who would have been classed as forty give their age as twenty-one.
Scientists are now wondering what will be the effect on future generations of this premature aging of millions of men.
AND now they put the blame for disease epidemics on animals. They should be put out of big cities, writes Dr. David John Davis in the Chicago Examiner. For animals cause a great percentage of deaths, especially among children.
The harmful, unnecessary kitty, which
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When the city fathers of Constantinople suddenly woke up to the fact that it was old-fashioned and unhygienic to have a million or so homeless dogs wandering about the streets, they met the difficulty with truly Turkish directness. They simply transported the dogs to a desert island and left them there to face the question, "Shall dog eat dog?"
In England not long ago there was an epidemic of anthrax—in our own words, a dangerous sickness with a terrible phase of boils and carbuncles. The epidemic was traced to shaving brushes made from the hairs of diseased swine.
Oysters secrete typhoid, and mosquitos inject yellow fever and malaria into human veins. Swat the fly and you swat "sandfly fever, infant paralysis, typhoid fever, and other infections carried mechanically."
As for antelopes, avoid them, says Dr. Davis. They give the sleeping-sickness.
THERE comes a day when you feel abused. The world in general doesn't appreciate you, and your boss in particular holds you back. He pushes ahead the man at the next desk faster than he does you. And yet, you never lose a chance to push yourself. You want to get success, fame, money, happiness.
Then forget them. That is the advice of John Burroughs, who, in a recent talk with Rowland Thomas of the New York World, said:
"I have never tried to drive sharp bargains with life. I have been contented with fair returns. I have never cheated at the game. Defeat is better than success from an unfair advantage. My own has come to me mainly, I think, because I should never have known the difference and could have got along contentedly had it not come. By following my own ideal,
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John Burroughs is so rich that he has everything he wants—bed, board, and freedom.
John Burroughs is eighty years old, but he doesn't have to worry about the high cost of living. His advice on investments, therefore, is worth while:
"Invest yourself in the people and things about you; deal honestly with your neighbor; think not of rewards; think how well you can do your work, how much you can get in the way of satisfaction out of each day. The essential things are home, friends, health, books, nature, a little leisure, a little money, and, above all, congenial work."
GRANDMOTHER, it appears, was deceived with a false sense of security when she plumped all the children on to the feather-bed at the first clap of thunder. There isn't any safe spot in an electric storm, except a steel frame building or a cyclone cellar. And if neither of these is available, you had better buy a lightning-rod, says the New York American.
At all events, you should hurry to cover at the first sign of a big storm, and the more substantial the cover the better your chance of escaping a bolt from heaven. A big building is better than an unprotected outbuilding, and anything is preferable to a lone tree or a barren hillside. If you can not reach any building, try to get as near to the earth as possible, and seek a low or thickly wooded section in preference to high and open spaces.
When an unprotected house sheltering the average number of persons is struck by lightning, the minimum chances for escape are forty-five in one hundred.
By KENNETH MACGOWAN
FRANKLIN BARRETT of Philadelphia is probably the largest and most successful goldfisher in the United States. He started raising goldfish in a bowl in his bay-window, as a side line to spinning silk cord in a factory. Now he has a huge glass extension going up at the rear of his stone aquarium house, and his annual output is worth $25,000.
Goldfish raising, Mr. Barrett maintains, is an ideal fad for the amateur. It calls for care, but it has big rewards, both in money and in pleasure. In the spring breeding season the fish must be watched most carefully and match-making among the proper varieties attended to. For instance, you start with the ordinary carp (or, at least, some Chinaman did). You catch all the albinos and inbreed them till you get the particular shade of red scale that we insist on calling gold. Then you notice whether any of them have queer tails, and stomachs like a theatrical manager, or no back fins and a head like a pug dog, or just pop eyes. If they have, then you've got the beginnings of a Ryukin or Fantail, a Ranchu or Lion-Head, a Demekin or Telescope, instead of a plain ornery goldfish called a Wakin.
When the eggs hatch, after attaching themselves to certain water plants with which the aquariums must be provided, the first thing is to see that the father and
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When the water in one pond dries up the little walking-fish does not complain. He just hoists his back fringe and does the fish walk to the next pond.
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This languid beastie with the ingenue eyes is entitled a ribbontail calico telescope Demekin, obtainable in white, black, blue, or red.
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This is a hooded fingertail variety of oranda—naturally, since its mama was a Ryukin and its papa a Ranchu.
From June till November Mr. Barrett has thousands of little goldfish, with all possible varieties of tails, scales, colors, and heads, in his dozen outdoor tanks.
IN one particular pool he is busy breeding the rarest of colors into his goldfish—blue. The process, roughly, is to mate the scaleless fish that he has produced with a scaled variety that has spotted or calico markings. The sun does the rest. This year is to see his greatest triumph as a breeder, the production of something far more wonderful than his Human-Headed Ranchu,—the goldfish that is worth a thousand dollars.
"Here it is," says Mr. Barrett, as he brings up a gray blob of a wiggler from the bottom of the pool. "This fish will turn blue in six months. At the end of the third year it will grow a hood like its daddy. And then I'll have the first Scale-Less Blue Lion-Head."
That it will be "some goldfish" you may judge from a glimpse of King Bul-bul as he wabbles through the water of his hot-house pool more or less head downward. Swimming near here are a few a little like him, some with the lion head or hood, some with the pudgy body, some with a silver or copper sheen as wonderful as his gold. For there is none with just his luster, his corpulence, and his perfectly marvelous head. When you hold him in your hand you feel "cheeks" that are just like the smoothest flesh; and when you look into his blinking little eyes you are face to face with the forehead, chin, and cheeks of a ridiculous little cherub. King Bul-bul is five years old now. He has only half a dozen peers in the United States, and he's worth a thousand dollars.
THE walking-fish is one of the many odd varieties outside the goldfish family which Franklin Barrett has acquired. He calls this one Billie Bounce. Billie's front fins are so strong that he can support himself in an upright or normal position when tossed upon the ground. His gills stay open instead of collapsing when dry, as with all other fish, and he is thus enabled to breathe well enough to maintain life until he can flop himself into another pool of water. Before Mr. Barrett knew of all of Billie Bounce's habits, he left him in an uncovered tank, and came into the aquarium building one morning to find Billie's pool vacant and the fish itself down cellar. In his native Indian clime, Billy conveys himself to a fresh pool when his previous habitat dries up. Billie is already a movie star.
Who buys these things? Well, Mr. Barrett is a wholesaler mostly. He sells to dealers, who sell, in turn, to private collectors and to ladies who want a real touch of color against their futurist wall-paper. Men like Barrett, and some of the smaller dealers, do a thriving business with the commoner brands in stocking large estates. In the day-time millionaires like to think about ponds full of living gold, and at night they rest tranquil in the faith that there is nothing like a Carassius auratus for devouring mosquitos.
The consequence, of course, is the high cost of goldfish. Eggs, which may or may not hatch and which may or may not conceal a Lion-Head, bring from ten to fifteen dollars a thousand. The ordinary red goldfish, ranging from the size that Willie keeps in his bowl to ten inches in length, brings a paltry $2 at its best. But most of those new gray jellies out in the tanks are worth from $35 to $50 right now. And if one of them displays even so much as a speck of blue on his tail, up goes his price to a hundred dollars. Give them a chance to get their growth, and the sky is the limit.
Of course, Mr. Barrett is very
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Mr. Barrett made it; therefore let it pass for a fish. You can have a little human-headed Ranchu in your bowl for $1000, cash down.
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Executive ability, tact, determination, and a little capital go far toward putting your own name on your office door.
THE demand for the trained business woman is far in excess of the supply, and no profession offers a better and more pleasant opening for the woman who has the ambition, courage, and self-reliance to start a business than the public stenographic. But the successful business woman who would compete in this popular vocation must bring to the undertaking all her executive ability, tact, and determination to succeed, backed by some capital, to obtain financial returns.
After many years' experience as a stenographer, during which I had climbed to positions of trust, drawing good salaries, I realized that there was wanting the further promotion and independence to which I aspired—attainable only in a business of my own. When ambition enters into one's calculation, failure is weakened. I was ambitious enough to want to branch out on my own account.
To the average would-be public stenographer, an important consideration is the amount of capital necessary to equip an office. This does not require a large outlay, for a better and more complete office outfit can be added after the business has begun to grow and its success is apparent.
With a small sum I had accumulated, I looked around for a suitable location, and leased an office in one of the largest skyscrapers in Birmingham, Alabama, paying one month's rent, $12.50, in advance. I bought a six-by-nine rug for $8. For $22.50 I secured, second-hand, a $50 oak desk which had been used very little. I then purchased a brand-new typewriter for $105, on terms, and several boxes of stationery, envelops, etc., which averaged about $3. For two straight-back oak chairs, a small book-case, desk-chair, and an oak hat-rack—which I was fortunate enough to get from a man going out of business—I paid $16. The installation of electric lights and a telephone cost $8.50. On the door I had my name done in good style, costing $1.50. This reminded me that I would need business cards, so I had some made showing only my name, business, and address; but the printing and the texture of the card were good.
To put my business before the public was the first and hardest step. To do this I not only had to solicit friends, but to go among strangers. Any business is hard to begin, but work is a powerful lever in the face of obstacles and disappointments, and perseverance will triumph. Starting in the building in which I was located, I left one of my cards in each office.
At the end of the first year I had worked up a pretty good stenographic business. It has grown yearly, and, while I have had to work hard to attain my success,—and although many annoyances and discouragements are interwoven in the warp and woof of the every-day business life,—I have never regretted opening my public stenographic office.
M.T.H., Birmingham, A'a.[photograph]
From $500 a summer to $25,000 a summer—that was Magee's stunt.
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Through college on her preserve labels—that was Miss Smith's.
BEFORE he was famous, Lee Magee was quite a different human being. In the first place, he was known to the world as Leopold Hoernschmeyer. In those days he was a Cincinnati printer, drawing $25 a week, a thing he wasn't at all ashamed of. But that $25 per was long, long ago. Then Leopold Hoernschmeyer disappeared and Lee Magee sprang into the public eye. Probably Leopold and Lee are not so different to those who know—same teeth, same eyes, eat the same cereals. But Lee Magee can't very well forget one dissemblance. In 1915 the St. Louis Cardinals ofered him $6500 for two hours' work each day for six months; but he turned it down in favor of $9200 a season proffered by the Brooklyn Federals—so far off was the $25 a week. His contract was ironclad, not expiring until the end of the 1917 season. When the Feds expired, there was lively bidding, and finally the Yanks got him for $25,000.
Girls may not be quite so expert as pill-grabbers, but they get there just the same.
Miss Laura Smith has earned her way through college selling labels for preserve jars. Miss Smith lives in Tewksbury, Massachusetts, but when the impulse came to her to earn the money for her education she didn't follow any of the obvious paths of endeavor for an ambitious young girl—the moving pictures or Wall Street or bridge. She simply went into the kitchen and counted her mother's preserve jars, enumerating their various uses. Then she put on her best gown, and called on all her neighbors to announce that she would supply them with every conceivable genus of label.
Labels for the fifty-nine varieties of pickles, labels for jams, large labels and minute labels—and all for a cent apiece!
The label field still broadens before her. She can hope for no vacations, for every holiday she must devote to her art, planning new labels. Every time a new pickle begins its hectic career, Miss Smith must supply its badge of honor.
"THE efforts of American manufacturers to get business in Russia at the present time are bound to fail. For, outside of war material, practically nothing is being imported into Russia from America to-day. Russia needs all kinds of manufactured goods—there is no doubt about that. But as the ruble, which used to be worth 51 cents, is now worth only 31 cents, it requires more money to buy American goods to-day than it did before the war. And, in addition, the freight rates make commercial relations almost impossible."
M. Sergey Friede, the Russian-American importer and exporter who makes this statement, is not trying to discourage American enterprise in Russia. On the contrary, he is doing everything he can to promote closer commercial relations between this country and the Czar's dominions. In the last four years he has exported more than $35,000,000 worth of American automobiles and trucks to Russia, and he has done more than any man to make American goods popular throughout the Russian Empire.
However, until peace is declared, or at least in sight, Mr. Friede believes that all attempts to sell American goods in Russia—except for military purposes—will be futile. For, as he points out, the only commercial port for Russia is Vladivostok, some 18,000 miles away, and more than 7000 miles from the Czar's capital. Consequently it is a matter of many months before freight consigned to Russian merchants reaches them. The uncertainty of delivery, coupled with the freight rates of $75 a ton, must make it evident that it is useless for American manufacturers to accept orders from agents in Russia.
At the present time there is a movement on foot to advertise American products in the leading Russian newspapers, with a view to selling these products throughout the Empire. Mr. Friede does not hesitate to say that this advertising campaign would be a waste of money at the present time. For, as he points out, what is the use of advertising goods if you can't deliver them?
"American manufacturers know so very little about Russia," said Mr. Friede, in his offices in the Equitable Building, to the writer, "that scores of them have given agencies to all kinds of enterprising representatives who have no trade whatsoever in that country at the present moment because nothing can be shipped there. Most of these agencies are given on the strength of promises that can not be carried out.
"I am not speaking of war material, for munitions in vast quantities are being shipped to Russia. But that will end with the war, and is not a basis for future commercial relations.
"Russia never was a manufacturing country, and she can exist for many years without developing factories of large dimensions or establishing mills in competition with the United States or the much increased development of its kind in France and Germany. She can well afford to develop her soil and receive a high price for her agricultural products, and increase her customs duties to enable her to have a larger revenue to pay the interest on the enormous war loans, and still have American and European goods cheaper than they could manufacture themselves.
"In the first place, it is impossible to dispose of goods in Russia without salesmen who are acquainted with the Russian language and the Russian system of doing business. There are not fifty men in the entire United States to-day—and I am willing to be corrected if I am wrong—who are sufficiently capable and trustworthy to represent American manufacturers in Russia.
"There are concerns that have done considerable business with Russia since the war started—concerns recommended as the best of American exporters and indorsed by important New York bankers. But their business has been confined entirely to munitions. They have not exported anything else, for the reasons that I have already stated.
"America can hope for enormous business in Russia if the war doesn't last longer than the most pessimistic now anticipate. But before this desired condition can be brought about, the impression that Americans are bluffs and humbugs must be removed. The United States has proved that she is great in supplying unheard-of quantities of war material. But when we speak about commerce we do not mean war orders.
"Russian merchants have learned their A B C's from the Germans, and American manufacturers must understand them before they can deal with them. All Russian merchants want credit, and they are used to getting it. No goods are ever sold for cash in Russia—no matter how rich the merchant. The discounts of commercial paper furnish the chief income of all the Russian banks, including the Imperial Bank. How can American manufacturers expect to increase their business in Russia and sell their goods on credit without first getting acquainted with the country?
"There is no official commercial treaty between the United States and Russia. In fact, there has been no treaty for several years. But the fact that Russia and the United States have continued to do business is proof that they want to be friends."
NEBUCHADNEZZAR has been a hard worker in his day. He has packed 200-pound tourists up steep mountain peaks for hours at a stretch, without once stopping to admire the view. Afternoons on end he has withstood the cudgelings of energetic children who were trying to make him develop a more dashing, reckless gait.
But, now that he has entered the labor movement, his labors are at an end. Life is one long, sweet dream, broken into delightful forty-minute naps. No donkey could ask any happier fate than his present schedule, combined with three good meals a day.
San Francisco stopped to look when Neb appeared on the downtown streets as a picket during the Culinary Workers' strike. He was the only picturesque feature of the strike, and unionist and non-unionist alike stopped to pet him.
Even the law took notice of him, and ruled that he was a vehicle, and amenable to the vehicle ordinance, which rules that a vehicle shall not stand on the downtown streets for more than forty minutes at one time. So the donkey had to move on every forty minutes.
The new picket quickly adapted himself to the new system. He slept, or thought, or did whatever a donkey does while he stands immovable, for forty minutes; then shook his ears, flipped his tail, and moved on at a dignified gait with his care-taker to the next resting-place.
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"One doesn't mind making a guy of oneself in a good cause," said this picket when interviewed, "and moreover, the emolument is not inconsiderable."
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If Stefano Monfre had waited until nightfall before driving his wagon out of his barn that day, instead of hurrying out in broad daylight, he probably never would have been suspected of the kidnapping of Walter Lamana in New Orleans in 1907, and the case might still be an unsolved mystery. But that incautious trip on the part of Stefano led Detective James P. Glynn, here shown, to wonder where Stefano was driving so fast on the day Walter disappeared. And that wonder kept right on growing until it led to the discovery of Walter Lamana's body, and the arrest of Stefano's associates in the crime, and their conviction. Another case where every detail was carefully planned in advance—except one little detail that slipped.
HOW many persons recall the murder of Baroness de Laid in Paris some years ago? The lady was found dead in the garden of her estate, and there was no evidence of any character to point to the identity of the murderer. He had covered his tracks with seeming completeness. There were no footprints in the ground; there were no finger-marks; no one at the railroad station could recall the departure of any one at the hour the crime was committed. The authorities were on the point of abandoning the case for lack of a clue, when Pierre Fortune Jaume, the famous Parisian detective, was called into consultation.
HE declined to hear what had already been done in the case, and insisted upon starting at the beginning, as if the case were entirely new. In less than an hour he had found a clue.
That clue was a trousers button. The local police laughed at him at first; but French trousers buttons have their distinctive mark, and when Jaume had connected the trousers button with a pair of trousers, and had put the trousers on a well known criminal, and demonstrated his connection with the murder, the skeptics subsided.
Consider the case of Leon Olbert, a French antique dealer. He was murdered by two desperate characters. They strangled the inoffensive man, and then robbed him of a number of valuable securities. In order to cover up their tracks, they sat him in a big armchair in front of his fire-place. There were no marks of violence on M. Olbert. He appeared to have fallen asleep. Then, to make the thing perfectly natural, they put a newspaper between his rigid fingers. That last touch seemed like an inspiration.
But—alas for the vanity of human nature, it proved to be the one thing that spoiled the complete concealment of the crime.
In the beginning all was as well as well could be. The doctor who was called in said the old dealer had died from heart disease. That decision was accepted by all concerned. Later it was found that some rare antiques were missing; but, somehow, the theft was not associated with the death of the dealer.
It was at this stage of the affair that M. Robert, the celebrated French detective, was asked to investigate. He mingled with the friends of the dead man and listened to the usual chatter concerning his faults and his virtues. One of them remarked, with a shrug of the shoulders: "Think of the fortune that was made by Leon Olbert—a man that could neither read nor write."
The detective almost shot out of his chair. Olbert not able to read, and yet found with a newspaper clutched between his cold fingers!
The murderers' painstaking attention to details cost them their necks.
Some bonds had been stolen. These were traced through the numbers, and in the course of time M. Robert caught the villains, who were subsequently beheaded.
One foggy December morning, a London bobby named John Cole was murdered on his beat. People in the vicinity heard pistol shots, but the impenetrable mist furnished a curtain behind which the culprit escaped. A small chisel was found near the scene of the crime; but that, in itself, meant little. There were thousands of such chisels in London at that very moment. But an inquisitive Scotland Yard man noticed some scratches on the implement. He got a magnifying glass, and found that the scrawl spelled the word "rock."
The detective obtained a list of all the tool manufacturers and tool dealers in London. He visited each one of them with the little chisel. None were able to give him any information regarding the identity of the owner of the article. Was he discouraged? He was not. He was only beginning to fight.
He was determined to avenge the death of his fellow officer, if it took all summer. The murderer had covered his tracks with amazing cleverness, but the Scotland Yard man felt sure that the tiny scrawl on the chisel would eventually prove to be the entering wedge that would pry open the mystery.
And he was right.
He next made a tour of the tool-sharpening houses. One of the shops was kept by a woman named Preston, who had succeeded her husband in the business. She looked at the chisel intently.
"This resembles a tool that was sharpened here some time ago," she said finally.
"What makes you think so?"
"Because my husband was in the habit of scratching the names of the owners on the tools that were left here to be repaired."
An examination of the books proved that the chisel belonged to a young carpenter named Orrick. A further search located him in prison, where he was serving a term for robbery. A pistol had been taken from him when he was admitted to the institution, and the bullet found in the head of the murdered policeman fitted precisely into the weapon.
LESS than two years ago a bandit held up a train near El Monte, California, and robbed a car-load of passengers of their valuables. Only one man had the courage to fight him, and that man—Horace E. Montague, a passenger agent of the Southern Pacific Railroad—was shot and killed by the thief. The murderer wore a black mask, and the excited passengers were unable to give a description of him.
Now, it happened that Mr. and Mrs. John Hogan, two of the passengers, were on their wedding trip, and one of the articles taken was the wedding ring of the young woman. With the quickness of her sex, she noticed that the forefinger of the bandit was stained yellow from nicotine. Three days later, while in San Francisco, she saw a man hail a passing car by raising his hand.
The forefinger of the man's right hand was stained yellow from cigarette-smoking!
She gave the alarm. The fellow was arrested, and an investigation proved that he was the train robber. The evidence was so conclusive that a Los Angeles jury convicted him without leaving the box, and in three short months he paid the penalty of the law.
The girl entered the stall. The mare's eyes widened a bit; I patted her and they ceased to dilate. The girl stroked her nose and the mare nuzzled her.
"I—I think it's wonderful," said she. "When I bought her every one was angry. They said I was crazy. But—when they paraded her in the ring at the sale of the Cranston stable, why—I couldn't help it. And—and—now I know! I'll see that she has kindness and— You know her family, you say?"
"I know the Waters, root and branch," I answered. "I had Waterman in the last Brooklyn, and Mermaid in the Suburban. Know them?"
"You had them? Aren't they of the Benton string?"
"I trained for Benton," I answered.
"His trainer? Then you are—why, you're Sale Kernan—of Kernan's Farm!"
Evidently she hadn't quite heard my vainglorious statement to the same effect. She looked at me with frank interest.
"I've often heard of you," she said. "My father knew yours."
I smiled; I was always meeting people who had known, or had friends who had known, my father.
"Tom Leland? That your father?" I asked.
"Was," she said gently.
Then I remembered hearing of her father's death a year or so before. For a moment, as she stroked the mare, a pretty picture, her eyes were downcast. Then they lifted.
"But aren't you with the Benton string now? Aren't there a few important races yet?"
"I'm not with the Benton stable any more," I answered. "I'm on my way to Juarez."
"Juarez? Surely you're not going to train there?"
"I hope to," I said curtly.
SHE was frankly amazed. I looked her fairly in the eyes.
"I was ruled off the turf this morning, Miss Leland," I said quietly. "I'm on the way to look for work."
She was a horsewoman, and the daughter of a horseman. To her what I said meant almost as much as if to some other girl I'd stated that I'd just received a jail sentence. Yet, beyond a slight raising of her eyebrows, she gave no sign of being shocked. She was a lady and a good sportswoman.
"And I'm certain that you'll find it, Mr. Kernan," she said. Then she held out her hand. "I want to thank you for saving Vivandière from that brute."
"Not at all," I said. "It was only what I was glad to do."
Her eyes darkened. "I hate to think of trusting the mare to any other of those incompetents."
"Sure an' I'm here, wid nawthin' to do but watch the waves," piped up Jerry. I think we'd both forgotten him, for I know I started and she crimsoned slightly. "Sure it'd been kapin' me hand in to look afther the darlint," said Jerry.
"Would—would you?" asked the girl.
"I'm me own boss, barrin' Misther Sale here, what's ordered me to lave the ship at Charleston. But, thank God, there's a drop of Irish in him, and the Irish have been known to change their minds. So, if ye'll let me—"
"Oh, it would be too much trouble."
"A pleasure," said Jerry. "May I, ma'am?"
She looked questioningly at me.
"I think Jerry'd enjoy it," I said.
She beamed upon him.
"0h, I'll be so grateful, Mr. Kenney!"
And I noticed, with pleasure, that she said nothing about paying him.
"A pleasure," he said again, with it little bob of his head. Then he looked at us quizzically; I think he was a little offended at being left out of our conversation so long.
"May I inthrodooce me friend Misther Kernan, ma'am?'.
We both laughed at his little dig. A steward passed over the deck above us, and we heard the rattle of his supper drum. Miss Leland's hands flew to her hair.
"Already?" she cried. "Why—I must fix my hair. I—"
A smile at us both and she was gone. Jerry looked at me. He frowned.
"And ye hadda go an' be a hero just whin I'd made me mind up to shine up to the lady! And I suppose, afther I've bribed a steward to place us nixt to her at table, that ye'll go and grab the nearest seat! Well, well! 'Tis a hard world for the Irish! But it ain't so long to Juarez, where thim Mexican senyoras—"
"Jerry, you old reprobate, go on up to your cabin and wash for supper."
And, with a last pat of Vivandière, I ran him up the steps ahead of me.
For a man but that day barred from the turf, and on his way to seek a doubtful fortune in a foreign land, I was most unduly elated. But elation vanished at the supper table. For, while the steward had earned Jerry's bribe, Miss Leland was not alone. With her was a Mrs. Clarke, who was evidently the girl's chaperon, and at the girl's introduction of me, "Mr. Kernan, the famous trainer," the lady's eye-brows elevated.
"Er—a horse trainer?"
"Yes," said the girl.
Mrs. Clarke's manner stiffened.
"Ah, indeed! How extremely interesting."
Whereupon she gave me her shoulder for the rest of the meal.
THE choppy sea against which Jerry had warned Miss Leland grew worse in the night. Next day was gloomy. Most of the deck was roped off, and neither Miss Leland nor her chaperon appeared on deck or in the saloon, although I learned, by tipping the steward, that it was the elderly lady who was sick.
The sight of Charleston next day at noon helped a little. I forgot my troubles for a while at the picture shows to which Jerry dragged me—four in number. I
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It was supper-time when we returned to the Christina, and, as Mrs. Clarke had had six hours of motionless rest to aid her recovery, I rather expected to see Miss Leland, at least, at table. But I was disappointed, and so, as we steamed out of Charleston, on the run to Tampa, into weather that seemed sterner than the previous lap of our journey, I gave up hope of seeing her again—a surrender that somehow seemed to be the final added straw to my misery.
Only the sight of Vivandière, that noble albeit misunderstood piece of horse-flesh, brightened my despondency.
Jerry saw Miss Leland the next morning. The storm had not abated, but she sent word to him by a steward that she wished to see him. She wished to talk about Vivandière, and Jerry conversed with her through the partly opened door of Mrs. Clarke's cabin. And he told me that, barring a slight pallor, Miss Leland was quite well.
"It's that blamed old cat of a chaperon," said Jerry. "All the time the young lady was talkin' to me, Mrs. Clarke was wailin' and moanin' and prayin' hiven, and abusin' the young lady, sayin' she had no hear-rt at all, at all, to be afther thinkin' of an animal whin she lay there dyin'. Dyin', is it? A cat has nine lives, Misther Sale, and Mrs. Clarke do be afther ownin' the luck of a cat as well as its nature!"
Jerry had noticed the woman's disdain of me and resented it. Little escaped the sharp eyes of Jerry Kenney.
But when he had reassured Miss Leland as to Vivandière, he had said no more than truth. How the mare would have acted had it not been for Jerry and myself I do not know. Certainly the deck-hands feared to go near her, for she had not forgotten the blow across her quarters, and when one of them came near she squealed and lashed out with her feet and acted like the equine devil she knew how to be. But with Jerry or me—she didn't even show fear of the storm when we were near.
And the next day not even Jerry and I got out on deck. We divided our time between the smoke-room and Vivandière. That night the captain did not appear in the saloon for his supper. He had not been there at dinner, either. Jerry and I were the only passengers whom the storm had not driven to bunks. I asked the purser where the captain was.
"Bridge," he answered. "He's been there since breakfast, and I think he'll be there to-morrow morning when you get up.
I whistled softly. "Anything wrong, purser?"
Of course he wouldn't answer such a question. But I noticed that the day's run had not been posted in the "social hall" that noon. It made me think.
JERRY went to Miss Leland's cabin to make his evening report about Vivandière after supper, and he was beaming when he joined me in the smoke-room.
"She's a trump, " he announced. "Ca'am as this Gulf of Mexico isn't! But that old harridan wid her— God forbid I should ever marry and have a wife like her! All the time I was there she was screechin' and wishin' she was dead and fearin' she would be, till I asked her, over Miss Leland's shoulder, if she was such a great sinner that she feared death so? Do ye blame me? Whin ye think of that brave colleen stayin' wid her and hearin' nawthin' but her cries all day—do ye blame me?"
"A gentleman," said I gravely, "never rejoices in a lady's suffering, or in any rudeness shown her. However, in this particular case—name your drink, Jerry."
And we drank together—the last drink we were to have aboard the Christina. For next morning, about five, there came a pounding on my cabin door. I leaped out of bed and unlocked the door. A steward, white, with twitching lips, stood there. And he spoke to me the word that, once heard, are never forgotten: "Captain's orders, sir. Passengers will go to the saloon deck and stand by to leave the ship."
Jerry, his wizened old face alive with excitement, was in my room before I had clothed myself. Never a trace o fear showed in his eyes. In fact, I shall always believe that to Jerry the wreck of the Christina was somewhat in the nature of a lark.
"Miss Leland's room is this way, sorr," he told me.
That was like Jerry. It was the natural and only thing, for him, to think of a lady at a time like this. I hope that it was equally natural for him to assume that I felt as he did. Anyway, we made our way to the girl's cabin. She and her chaperon were all dressed, and were just ready to make their way to the deck. The imminent danger had silenced the wailings of Mrs. Clarke. Jerry took her arm; I offered mine to Miss Leland. Afterward I thought of how she had seemed to expect my coming.
We started down the corridor. The mewing of an imprisoned cat halted the girl. She made me stop and open the cabin door whence came the sound. Miss Leland entered and picked up a kitten, and we continued our way to the deck. And, even as we lurched along the corridor, thrown from side to side as great waves crashed against the ship, I noticed that the kitten, held to Miss Leland's bosom, ceased its cries of fear.
We were the last to emerge from the companionway to the saloon deck. Stewards, counting noses, cried out at our arrival that all were accounted for.
"Aft, starboard," said one to me.
I led Miss Leland aft. Already boats were being launched. There was none of the panic that stories of wrecks had led me to expect. Silent, unprotesting, although pale and shrinking, men and women were being counted off into the boats. For the first time, I noticed the sea.
DAWN was just breaking. From the starboard side one could see, a mile away, the Florida coast, low-lying, girt to the very edge of the sandy beach with palmetto and scrub-pine. On that beach huge rollers smashed with viciousness that made their high-cast spray at times almost hide the trees. And between us and that desolate-seeming shore lay a mile of satanic sea, heaving, tossing, reaching.
A boat was lowered. Miss Leland's body pressed against mine. I heard her breathe sibilantly; her body grew rigid, then was limp. The boat was clear.
Ours was the last boat. I was the last passenger to get into it, although Jerry lingered by my side until a boatswain cursed him. The boatswain followed me. I saw the captain, pale, his lips bleeding where he had bitten them, cast one anguished look about his doomed vessel. I felt for him; for, as I was barred from the track, so now was he barred from the sea. Skippers who lose vessels are not employed again. He got in and snapped an order: "Let fall!"
I was seated by Miss Leland. I heard a shriek from somewhere inside the ship. I heard the girl sigh. I looked at her. Her lips were moving, and I knew that she was—well, praying, perhaps. She had heard the shriek, the almost human cry, of a horse. And the horse was Vivandière!
And the next thing that I knew, I was standing on the deck of the Christina, peering down at the life-boat. As she was lowered away I had sprung to the rail. I saw Miss Leland's face, white as if conscience-stricken, as if she realized that her sigh, her whispered prayer, had sent me back aboard the Christina. Then the boat fell away; it dipped in the trough of a wave. If its occupants looked for me they did not see me again; for I was racing down a perilously slanted companionway toward the 'tween-decks where Vivandière was penned!
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I am a governess, and one of my pupils, a clever girl of eleven, had a great hankering after my EVERY WEEK numbers, so I let her read them. One day her mother caught a glimpse of the title, "Her Jailbird," and she vigorously forbade me to let her children read such common, rough stuff. Well, when Gracie came around casually asking for her EVERY WEEK I said, "Ma petite amie, your mother forbids me to lend you the little magazine." The child looked thoughtfully at me for a moment, and then said, "Of course, Mademoiselle; you couldn't help it if some one came into your room and—er—looked around a bit when you were out, could you?"
B. H., New York.I have noticed with regret a certain frivolous note creeping into your publication with more and more frequency. You seem to think that everything has a funny side to it, no matter how serious it may intrinsically be. I do enjoy reading you, as do all of the members of my family; but it goes against me that you give so much space to reveling in levity.
Mrs. L. V. G., Saginaw, Mich.Let me thank you for your editorial, "Speaking of Theaters." I too am tired of stage scenes of domestic infidelity, drinking, gambling, and other forms of crime. I think we have had enough plays of the "Common Clay" sort. What we want is a little of the uncommon variety. Ten thousand clubwomen of Chicago believe in the stage and its mission. Couldn't we have a page devoted to the stage? I know many actresses personally, and know they will welcome better conditions and higher ideals of their art.
P. B. B., Chicago.As a youngster I was a failure at anything I undertook to do. At home I was never popular with my parents or brothers. I have been 'way up and 'way down in my ten years of business life, and am now employed as a crossing watchman at a dollar sixty-five a day. On this I support a family of six. Lately I have been reading your magazine, and have more than once been struck by the fact that other men not any better qualified than I, and with just as many handicaps, have won out in the end. The fact that you print so many articles about men of modest beginnings and severe struggles seems to prove that you believe almost any one capable of rising to a good position in life. I am honest and upright, polite in manners, have respect for old age, very stern in character, fond of pictures, read plenty, quiet in disposition, do not look for gain, am not afraid to face people. With these traits surely I may get somewhere yet. I have decided to not say die for a while yet. The next time I drop you a line I promise to be pulling down twenty-five dollars a week.
H. F., Brooklyn, N. Y.I note the letter a nice old lady wrote you October 30th, protesting against so many pictures of actors and actresses in EVERY WEEK.
Now, I am an "old lady" of fifty-five years who does like this feature of your magazine. I see these people in the photoplays, of which I am very fond, and like to see them in the magazines and read about them. Please don't have fewer pictures of actors and actresses because of the protest of one old lady.
Mrs. C.J.J., St. Louis, Mo.In an early issue of your magazine there appeared a brief story on how to utilize old newspapers to a good advantage—by making them into paper balls for fuel purposes. I accepted this as a good idea, and assigned my youngsters
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I am attaching a small print of a bushel peach crate full of furnace fodder, which otherwise would have been given to the trash collector. We all thank you for the good suggestion.
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By ALBERT W. ATWOOD
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THE war has proved profitable in many ways to Americans. One of the most curious results has been the establishment of a bargain counter for American bonds and stocks in Germany. It is almost impossible to get them through the British blockade to this country, and consequently any one who is willing to leave bonds or stocks in Germany until after the war can buy them now at great reductions in price as compared with precisely the same article in this country.
A large business of this character has sprung up. It has been possible to buy American stocks and bonds in Germany all the way from two or three to fifteen points below the prevailing prices in New York. Germany needs funds to carry on the war, and its citizens are constantly being urged to subscribe for war loans. So they are anxious to sell foreign investments, and if the seas were open great quantities would be shipped here. Not only do the British war-ships make this course impossible, but abnormally high shipping and insurance rates would prove quite an item of expense.
In the early days of the war many securities were secretly gotten through, but now this has become very difficult. Later it was quite common to ship them to Switzerland, Holland, or the Scandinavian countries and sell to Americans there. But it has now been found more practical to leave the securities on deposit with well known banks in Berlin until after the close of the war, when they will be delivered to owners on this side.
Any one who wishes to take advantage of this method of buying gilt-edged bonds and stocks at bargain prices should inquire of any of the four or five well known banking and brokerage firms in New York that have extensive German connections. The practical course is to inquire exactly what expense attaches to such a method of buying, just what securities are available, and where they will be deposited during the war.
One large firm that specializes in this business states that it has made arrangements with the Deutsche Bank, the largest in Germany, to deposit securities there for American customers without charge for any length of time. If the American buyer is over-cautious he can arrange to have shipment, made to bankers in Holland, Switzerland, or Scandinavia; but probably some charge would be attached.
Large quantities of the best American bonds have been bought in this way. It is said that one man invested $100,000 in blockaded bonds. At various times such absolutely gilt-edged railroad bonds as Atchison general 4s, Northern Pacific prior lien 4s, Baltimore & Ohio first 4s, Southern Pacific refunding 4s, and Central Pacific first 4s have been obtainable four or five points below the New York prices.
Of course the buyer does not get any interest during the war, but he will be able to cash the coupons after he gets them. He receives a written contract from the broker on this side guaranteeing that he will receive the security with its uncashed coupons as soon as war conditions make delivery possible, at which time they will be brought over without expense to the buyer.
There seems little reason to doubt the safety of this bargain sale. As regards Canadian Pacific stock, otherwise an excellent investment, it will be noted that German prices are fifteen points below those in New York. This is because the railroad is not allowed to pay dividends to Germans during the war, and 22 1/2 per cent. are back due. Just what will be done with these dividends after the war—whether they will be paid promptly or not—the writer can not state. A recent list of securities that a New York firm was prepared to buy in Germany for its American customers follows:
Chicago & Rock Island refunding 4 per cent., Denver & Rio Grande refunding 5 per cent., about 7 points under New York prices.
Baltimore & Ohio Railroad common stock, Pennsylvania Railroad stock, about 4-5 points under New York prices.
Canadian Pacific Railroad stock, with 22 1/2 per cent. dividends accrued since the war, 15 points under New York prices.
Japanese Government 4 1/2 per cent. bonds, Second Series, about 7 points under New York prices.
Chinese Government 5 per cent. and 4 1/2 per cent. bonds, Argentine Government 5 per cent. bonds, about 20 per cent. under normal.
Arrangements have been made by which any reader mentioning this magazine may have any or all of the following booklets on request.
Write Slattery & Co., 40 Exchange Place, New York, for current issue of their fortnightly publication, Investment Opportunities, which describes many sound and attractive investments. Ask for 31-E, including booklet explaining the Twenty-Payment Plan.
The popularity of a partial-payment plan by which you can "buy as few shares as you wish" of stocks or bonds, and "pay when you are able," is steadily growing. Write Sheldon-Morgan & Co., members of the New York Stock Exchange, 42 Broadway, New York, for Booklet L-2, entitled the "Partial-Payment Plan."
The Citizens Savings & Trust Co., of Cleveland, Ohio, will furnish to our readers, upon request, Booklet P, which contains some very interesting information on banking by mail.
The Odd Lot Review, a weekly financial paper for small and large investors, sums in terse, readable form, financial developments from week to week. It can be read in fifteen minutes, and is edited with a view to keeping the business man in touch with investment opportunities. Sample copies will be sent on request to 61 Broadway, New York City.
The Bache Review has become most valuable to bankers and business men on the financial situation, because it condenses in a graphic manner the most comprehensive, reliable, and able views of current events as they affect business, finance, and investments. It is issued weekly by J. S. Bache & Company, 42 Broadway, New York. Sent on application.
Any one interested in the security market should send to L. R. Latrobe & Co., No. 111 Broadway, New York, for their statistical books on Copper Stocks, Motor Stocks, Standard Oil Stocks, Investor's Guide (270 pages), or Weekly Market Letter. This firm will mail you any one of these books free on request. Partial Payment Plan.
Attractive investment opportunities are now to be had through the purchase of Foreign Government Bonds. Write Baruch Brothers, 60 Broadway, New York, members of the New York Stock Exchange, for booklet giving full description.
Williams, Troth & Coleman, Investment Securities, 60 Wall Street, New York, offer public utility preferred stocks, yielding 5 to 8 per cent., and common stocks with enhancement possibilities. This offering is outlined in special current letter B, a copy of which will be supplied by the above-named firm on written request.
"$100 Bonds," Booklet C 33, is issued by John Muir & Co., 61 Broadway, New York City. This firm has specialized for years in 8100 bonds, and the booklet is a summary of the opportunities that this form of investment offers to the average man, with a comprehensive list of issues available in $100 form.
Investors desiring to acquire $100 bonds of the best known issues, and of a class that are legal for investment by Trustees and Savings Banks, should send for the special list E that has been prepared by Merrill, Lynch & Co., members of the New York Stock Exchange, 7 Wall Street, New York City.
The Booklet, "Odd Lot Buying," issued by Hartshorne & Picabia, members of the New York Stock Exchange, 7 Wall Street, New York City, differs to a great extent from those issued by most firms doing business in odd lots of stock. The firm offers special inducements in the way of advice to small investors. Copies of this Booklet O-2 on request.
Have you read Mr. Atwood's financial booklet, "Making Your Money Work for You"? It is written especially for our readers, and if you will write him, inclosing four cents in stamps, at 95 Madison Avenue, New York, he will send you a copy.
MANY mothers or friends of the baby's mother have long kid gloves that are worn out in the hand but perfectly good in the arm. These seem to be of no use at all. However, they are. A pair of shoes can be made for the baby from old kid gloves.
[illustration]
The shoe is in four pieces. No. 1 is the sole. No. 2 is the vamp. No. 3 is the top. No. 4 is the flap for buttonhole.
The different pieces should be buttonholed together. The sole and the vamp should be put together first. Then the design on the toe should be embroidered.
The top (No. 3) should be cut double, the material being doubled at the centerback. This should then be button-holed on to the vamp and sole. The scallops at the top are to be buttonholed. Then the flap (No. 4) for the button-hole is buttonholed on to the top.
Notches are shown, and if these are followed closely the shoe can easily be made. The petals of the flowers are to be made solid, and the centers and dots are of French knots.
The shoes are pretty made of white kid and buttonholed and embroidered in light colors. The shoes cost practically nothing and are very attractive.
After a number of pairs of shoes are made from this pattern, the mother may vary the style, cutting the shoes to suit her own—or the baby's—taste. They will be soft, comfortable, and neat, and cost nothing. What more could one ask?
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