 |
Every Week3¢$100 a YearCopyright, 1917, By the Crowell Publishing Co.© June 4, 1917C Ward Traver |
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
RIDING on the train the other day, I got to watching a man whose condition was really pathetic.
He had forgotten to bring a book or a magazine; there was no one in the car with whom he could talk. For one of the few times in his life, he was utterly alone in the world: and he was utterly miserable.
Cast on his own resources, he discovered that there were inside him no reservoirs of thought or interest on which his soul could feed.
He was thrown unexpectedly into his own company, and he bored himself terribly.
His was not an exceptional case: on the contrary, he was rather typical of the ordinary modern man.
In olden days, when towns were more scattered, distances greater, and life less complex, men were accustomed to be alone for hours and even days, and could stand it.
The modern man must be talking, or he must be reading, or he must be playing: anything lest by accident he be left alone for a little time and compelled to think.
"The world," as Wordsworth said, "is too much with us."
I would not have any man unsocial. He who—like Thoreau—withdraws himself from his fellow men, lessens his service and impoverishes his life, no matter what work of art may come out of his solitude.
But it would do the world good if every man in it would compel himself occasionally to be absolutely alone.
Away from people, who blunt the edges of his personality; away from books and magazines, which give him his thinking pre-digested; away on a long walk, where he could face the world with a naked mind and compel himself to think some things through by himself.
Most of the world's progress has come out of periods of such loneliness.
Moses was a social being, a political leader, whose success was in his power to handle an unruly crowd.
But Moses' great contribution to the world—the Ten Commandments—came down from the mountain-top where he had climbed alone.
It was out of the silence that Samuel's call came to him; and Mohammed's; and Joan of Arc's.
To Lincoln, poor struggling lawyer, there once came an offer from a great railroad to become its general counsel at $10,000 a year.
He did not seek advice, though friends offered it freely. One day he appeared at his office an hour later than usual, and announced that he had made his decision. He had risen early and gone out to the little grove on the edge of Springfield where most of his decisions were made, and there had wrestled the thing out alone.
John C. Calhoun once told a friend that he "had early subjected his mind to such a rigid course of discipline, and had persisted without faltering until he had acquired a perfect control over it; that he could now confine it to any subject as long as he pleased without wandering even for a moment; that it was his habit, when he set out alone for a walk or a ride, to select a subject for reflection, and that he never suffered his attention to wander from it until he was satisfied with its examination."
"How do you wish to be shaved, sir ?" Daniel Webster's barber once asked him.
To which the great man replied: "In silence, sir."
There is no great success without concentration: and no concentration in minds that have not been disciplined to long-continued, self-reliant thought.
Store your mind with thoughts worth while: be independent of the world of chatter—yes, even of the world of books. For in this lies the secret of a virile personality—and the key to contentment.
Wise men stock their heaven with good things, and carry it always with them
Bruce Barton, Editor.[illustration]
By ALICE MacGOWAN
Illustrations by Harvey Dunn
SMOKE—that was smoke—chimney smoke! Lefty Scott knew it couldn't be. But it was. No chimney except his own within twenty miles in this snow-buried land, and he'd left the house empty at two o'clock. He began to run up the steep way.
The trail whipped between towering spruces and dodged around snow-padded boulders, giving him only tantalizing glimpses ahead, till he came within a stone's throw of the big, weather-beaten plank house, wearing its icicle-fringed snow cap, the white humps that covered car and ore dump at the mine opening beyond—and saw the windows aglow.
He was not cheered as he should have been by the sung and storied "light in the window." To those who hole up for the winter at a mine in the Sierra Blanco region, kerosene is a precious commodity. That wastrel lamp affronting the dying daylight won from him only a yelp of rage and an extra burst of speed. He kicked open the door, made three jumps across the room, blew out the flame, and still had breath enough to roar till the rafters shook:
"Who lit that lamp?"
Dead silence indoors; outside, dull, distant, the booming of the forest, as some overburdened pine bough a hundred feet in air loosed its white avalanche under the warm touch of the chinook and let it go thundering down. The change from that world of snow to the dun walls, the blowing out of the lamp, made the room very dim to him. He stood and peered about at its emptiness. The fire from which the smoke ascended was in the kitchen. Something moved in there. He sniffed the air—supper was being got. He grinned half sheepishly, growling:
"Come out, you durned fool! You had your nerve with you to light my lamp."
NO answer for a long while. Then, as he started toward the kitchen door, there suddenly appeared in it a scared girl, her thick, shining dark hair bobbed, a pair of great black eyes set wide in her little three-cornered face, a propitiating mouth twisted into a tremulous smile, her hands clutching up the cooking apron that was fastened about her waist.
"Hello!" He dropped away, staring before the incredible apparition.
"Hel—hello!" she echoed waveringly, and stared back at him.
A powerful figure, not over-tall, but beautifully muscled, Scott stood lightly on his feet. His face was rather broad, with rich brows that had a lift at their outer corners, giving to the countenance a look at once merry and half fierce. As he pulled off his cap he showed an upstanding shock of bright brown hair.
"Well—say!" He strode across to her, hand out. She met his grasp.
"I'm awful sorry about the lamp." It was a child's voice. "You see, I didn't know—"
"Oh, that's all right," he interrupted warmly. "I just couldn't figure out how anybody—" The words trailed into silence as he stared, overwhelmed again at the miracle, then began on a lower note. "Where in the world—"
She stopped him nervously.
"The door wasn't fastened, so I—I just came in to—you know—to get warm—"
"You're sure welcome." His voice thrilled, and his strong, warm hands continued to grip her little cold ones.
Yet the girl stood, twisting about, looking anywhere but straight at him. She was like an urchin caught in mischief. He noted that there was a long scratch on her cheek near one ear. Her dress on that shoulder had been torn and pinned together. The big black eyes, from a desperate study of his feet, flashed up all at once and stared into his pleadingly.
"I—I thought this was your home. And my suit-case was so heavy—"
SLOWLY Lefty relinquished her hands; his glance followed hers to where a straw suit-case stood against the wall, neighbored by a pair of absurdly small arctics, a woman's Mackinaw coat and knitted cap on a chair, the cap topped by a scarlet pompon.
"That's the red thing I saw on the bridge three hours ago!" he blurted.
"Did you?"
"Sure I did. Were you down there then—hiding behind the abutment?"
"Yes," she nodded, and gulped.
Lefty had a queer feeling that if he questioned her she might vanish; yet he went on:
"It was trying to make out what that was that got me my fall. You saw me—going to Ballyhick down the gulch. Took me all afternoon to dig myself out. Seems to me you might have waited a minute to find out whether I was dead."
"I—did wait. Then I heard you swearing—some; and I knew you were all right. So I—I came on. I was scared."
"Scared?"—with a quick change of countenance, a sudden drop in his tone.
"Yes"—in a mere breath; and after it, lower still: "I don't know what to do!"
Scott instantly put more space between himself and his visitor.
"Well, see here." He spoke when the silence had become oppressive. "It ain't me in particular you're afraid of, is it?"
"No. I—of course not," with a forced little smile. "I'm just afraid of questions. If you could let me stay here to-night and not try to find out—anything—"
The hands she twisted together were small and white.
"Stay!" he echoed, bewildered. "You can't do anything else."
"And you—"
"Sure—I'll not ask you any questions—or say anything—if you don't want me to. That's a pretty big order; but I guess I can fill it."
He spoke gently, yet she must have thought she had offended, for as she turned toward the kitchen, she called back naïvely:
"Don't be mad at me. I've got a good supper ready. If you'll just let me stay and—and not ask any questions—and not be mad—"
"You bet I ain't mad!"
Scott followed, and stood in the kitchen door to pull off his mackinaw and stare smilingly at her where she kneeled before the oven and peered at a pan of biscuits.
"I didn't set the table," she said. "I didn't know how many there would be to eat."
"But you washed all my dirty dishes"—glancing about the kitchen. "I'll set it for you now—there's just you and me."
Scott hung up his coat, returned to make sure she hadn't disappeared, propped the kitchen door open, and, poking in every time he passed it, began his preparations.
The girl in the kitchen called for a dish to hold the beans, a platter for her stew.
"I—I cooked both rabbits," she apologized. "I'm afraid it'll be lots too much, but—you see—it's just like the lamp. I didn't know."
"Plenty more rabbits—out in the snow," he laughed at her. "I'll bet there won't be much of this left"—raising the steaming platter gingerly and starting toward the table with it. "M-m-m, that smells good! 'F you'd been living all winter on your own cooking, or worse—you'd know just how good— That lamp—pshaw, I'm going to light it right now. If we burn up all the kerosene, I guess we can sit in the dark." As she followed with the beans, he was setting the lamp in the middle of the table.
"I'll bring the biscuits and coffee now." She dodged away from the first full view he got of her in the light.
"Yes, you won't!" He got around the table with terrifying swiftness, and put his hands on the chair-back there. "You'll sit right down in this chair and let me wait on you— What am I going to call you?"
"Lydie," tremulously; "just Lydie Bent. The biscuits are in the oven, Mr.—Man."
"Scott—Leonard Scott," he supplied joyously. It was one of the sore things about his winter-long imprisonment at the mine here with Hitchcock that there wasn't a laugh in the man—never any of the little foolish jokes that mean nothing, but keep life sweet. "They mostly call me Lefty."
"I—noticed." She smiled at the skilful left hand that placed the coffee-pot beside the two cups near her plate.
HE got into his place opposite her The long table was of boards, the end at which they ate covered with oilcloth. There were benches for seats. The big, bare room was heated by an airtight stove that roared now, and showed a red eye. Naked plank bunks, without any bedding, were dimly visible in the shadows at the farther end, and there were two doors besides the front one and that into the kitchen.
"This is a mine, isn't it?" the girl asked, putting stew on his plate.
"Ye-ah. The Golden Hope. Works eight men in the summer " He was serving the beans.
"Is it yours?"
Lefty laughed a little.
"Wish Hitchcock could hear you say that!"
"Hitchcock!" She echoed uneasily.
"My partner—senior partner—the whole show, to hear him tell it."
"Oh—a—a partner. Where is he?"
"In Twisp. Lit out for there as soon as the chinook blew enough to open the trails. He'll be back here in three days—he says."
She was silent.
"Three days—in Twisp," she said finally. "And he'll be drunk when he gets back."
"Say," Scott laid down knife and fork to laugh out, "do you know Hitchcock?"
"No; but that's the way they all do—the men in this country."
"I guess you're about right, at that," Scott agreed soberly. "I know I was mad enough to bite when Hitchcock took first goes. Well—let's talk about
"No!" she cried. "You promised—" Then, breaking off with her funny little disarming grin: "Oh, I don't mind us talking about you, but—but—"
"You didn't get me. I'm not that sort. I promised not to ask you any questions; I'm not going to. I just want to talk about what we like, and what we don't, and what we'd do if we had a million dollars."
"Oh, yes—let's!"
"Well," opened Lefty, "I'd sure get out of this in a hurry."
"And leave your gold mine?"
"Ye-ah. Hitchcock's. I'm only a working partner. Hitch took me in at the last minute, because I'm husky and not afraid of work—and he couldn't hire me. You bet I wouldn't have stayed last fall if I'd known what was ahead of me—holed up all winter with that big stiff. Say, this isn't talking about ourselves. What's your favorite color?"
"Blue," promptly. "Joffre blue; and old rose. Old rose messaline is the loveliest thing. Mustard yellow—with touches of black and white. Green—right dark green—oh, I love 'em all!"
He was listening with eager attention.
She jumped up, plate in hand.
"What you want?"
"Biscuits. More hot biscuits. You've eaten them all."
"Gimme that plate. Sit down. I'm going to wait on you—Lydie."
"All right, Len."
He carried that into the kitchen with him, and came back aglow. Supper went happily forward. He was like a man on a desert island, with arrearages of loneliness piled high. When she caught him watching her—
"You mustn't mind," he apologized. "The minute you stop talking, I just can't believe you're here."
They lingered out the meal, fed as much by a sense of harmonious companionship as by the food. When finally it was done and the chairs pushed back a little, Lefty leaned across and laid his fingers softly over hers on the table.
"You've got such pretty little hands—Lydie," glancing at her quickly to see how she took it. "They've never been spoiled with housework. You go sit down by the fire now. I'll clean up; all you've got to do is to talk to me while I work."
"Huh—I think I see myself!"
Lydie was up, scraping the plates, clattering the dishes together.
THE cleaning up, with its running about, its little flurries of arguments, went even more gaily than supper. It was not till the finish of it was in sight that Lefty began to sense a creeping change in her manner. He spoke abruptly:
"I'm giving you Hitchcock's room. Come hold the lamp for me, and I'll put your suit-case in right now."
He caught up the poker; she followed, lamp in hand, to a padlocked door at the farther end of the living-room, and stood lighting him while he pried at the staples.
"What in the world are you doing?" she questioned uneasily.
"'S only good room in the house"—tugging away. "Got a real bed, and some furniture."
Clang! The lock went to the floor. "Oh, you've broken it!" Lydie cried. Scott turned, looked at her quickly, and set down his poker.
"See here," he said. "I'm going to behave myself. Don't you think I'm not." He picked up the suit-case, and they crossed the threshold. "This is what I wanted to show you—the bar—see? It falls right in across the door, like that."
"Oh—why, that'd keep anything out."
Lydie fingered the scantling uncertainly. Scott laughed as he raised and lowered it on its pins to show her the workings.
"I know as well as I want to that Hitch put that on there to keep me out. My little old room's over yonder at the other end"—he pointed to the farther side of the living-room—"too far to hear you if you got nervous in the night—with wildcats coming around, or anything like that. But—shucks!—it's me you'd be scared of. I'm the only thing you need to be afraid of this side of Twisp, I reckon."
"And I—I'm surely not afraid of you." She smiled waveringly.
"I guess not," with sudden gravity. "Well, you needn't go to bed right now, just because I've showed you the room. Like to sit a while by the heater and talk? No? Good night, then."
Scott left the lamp with her.
"I won't burn it but a minute," she said appealingly, as she shut the door.
He listened while the bar was dropped in place, then crossed the room slowly and sat down alone. That was the right thing to do; yet, now that he had done it, he was not somehow entirely pleased with himself. He might have got the other lamp from his room; instead he opened the slide of the heater. After that he sat on and on, and thought about the girl in the room there.
Where she had come from, how she had got to the Golden Hope, what lay behind her refusal to tell more than her name, staggered conjecture.
She was running away from something. She was trying to hide from some one. He wondered if he had made a fool of himself. He was suddenly conscious of the strength of his muscles from head to foot, the power of life in him. What was it for—to let a girl tell him she wasn't afraid of him?
He got lithely to his feet and stood balanced a minute, staring down, then groped his noiseless way over to her door. Once there, he didn't touch the planks, but stood, crouched a little in the dark, his hands unconsciously clenched, waiting, listening. The fire in the stove fell in. Its mere whisper of sound brought his heart into his throat. To eyes long used to the dark the sudden added glow showed him the room, made him all at once conscious of himself and his actions.
"Shucks!" he muttered. "I better get along to bed too."
SCOTT lay long sleepless, and waked late next morning to the startled knowledge that somebody was moving around from kitchen to living-room, to a sound of clinking dishes and the smell of coffee. Then over him, soft and vivid, came memory: it was the girl—getting breakfast. He was instantly out of bed, hurried on some clothing, and watched an opportunity to leap from his window into the snow and slip around to the wash-basin before she could see him.
Somehow, he was more thrillingly alive to the situation than he had been the night before. Unseen he stood long, peeping in at her. Yes, there she was, more amazing, more mysterious than ever in the commonplace day: her thick crop of dark hair, that took a sheen in the slanting light, tied down by a twisted handkerchief, the cooking apron on over a serge skirt and shirtwaist, looking as much at ease as any girl in any kitchen.
The problem of hot water for shaving troubled him; but he found his chance to steal it while she was setting the table, and got back to his own room by the same route he had left it. In an amazingly short space of time he had opened his door, shaved, shining-eyed, in the best wear he had, and cried:
"Morning—Lydie. Why didn't you wake me?"
"I was going to call you when breakfast was ready," Lydie smiled. "It's done now. You take in the coffee and I'll bring the biscuits."
"I know a better play than that. Let's stay right here in the kitchen and eat out of the stove. Don't you love to?"
It was when they were seated before the opened oven that she said suddenly:
"I'm going to clean house to-day. The place needs a little—"
"Huh!" laughed Scott. "It needs a whole lot. But you bet you're not going to touch it. Where'd I be while you were doing the rough work?"
"Touch it if I want to," she defied him. "I just love to clean house. You can bring in wood—we'll need lots of hot water—and get me some old cloths—rags. Have you got plenty?"
"Yep," Lefty grinned. "Haven't got much else." He pushed up a sweater sleeve to show the frayed gap in the elbow of his clean cotton shirt. "That's the best one I could find this morning."
"Oh, I can mend it. I'll mend them all for you."
"Sure. That's the way we'll fix it. I'll get the whole bundle,—what's been washed, anyhow,—and you sit over there by the window and sew, while I clean house."
It was a crafty proposition. It resulted in establishing her—the breakfast dishes done—in the one rocking-chair near the window, a pile of his mending beside her, his vigorous, rhythmic step going to and fro in the kitchen, while his vivid, laughing face looked constantly in, with some variation of the appeal:
Come and show me, Lydie. I'm one of them strong and willing kind that don't know much. You'll have to show me."
"I'll never get these shirts mended if you call me out here every minute this way," Lydie came at last protesting. "You know well enough how to scrub a kitchen floor—anybody does. Oh—not that way—just a little water at first, and your soap and sand. I showed you that. I've explained it three times."
LEFTY observed continually that her speech and manner showed a better social grade than his.
"I expect you've got a fine education," he said to her at dinner.
"No—not very. I never studied like I ought, and I wasn't through high school when—"
She broke off in such confusion that he supplied:
"Well, there's time enough yet for you. You can't be more than—?"
He waited for her, and she finished the sentence:
"Seventeen."
"And I'm twenty-six. Well, Lydie, I'm sure short on education. I wish you'd call me down when you hear me making breaks. A friend ought to. We are friends—ain't we, Lydie?"
She nodded. Friends—the past a blank behind their knowing of each other, the future (beyond the three days which the girl set as the end of it) also a blank; what there was might be allowed to stand for a life-time and bespeak the privileges of life-long friendship.
"Oh, yes, we're friends," she agreed.
It was a heavenly day after the long, bitter winter, with a gurgle of subterranean waters from the melting snows, a drip at the eaves, a lisp and whisper of spring everywhere. The doors stood open; the scrubbed floor dried and smelled sweet; while Lydie sat and cut out pictures from illustrated papers for the wall. She let Scott help her tack them up. By the time the evening meal was under way, fires going, the lamp lighted, a pleasant odor of cooking in the air, the sense of home had intensified.
"Say, you watch the stove," she said, and ran into her room—Hitchcock's room—to return in an incredibly short time wearing a pink blouse instead of her plain shirt-waist, a broad pink ribbon round the dark cropped head, its great rosy bow riding over one ear.
"You cute kid!" Scott welcomed her. "You went and dressed up for me!"
AT table he openly courted her. He offered himself to her with his eyes—those ardent, yellow-rayed eyes under their slightly tilted brows. He signed himself her lover with every movement of his head, his hands, the very slant of his big body as he leaned forward to pass a dish or serve her. When it came to speech she was the more adroit, and shut him up without the slightest trouble.
He kept his word: he asked no questions. Yet, though she had dressed up, though she tossed her pink bow daringly, when his hand touched hers as it lay on the table she looked up at him almost as if she were going to cry, and after that was never quite within his reach.
The kerosene was so nearly out that afterward they sat in the half light by the open stove door and talked. Scott looked at her, curled down to the warmth, and could scarcely believe in his own blessedness.
"Gee!" he murmured, shaking his head. "This is different from sitting here with Hitchcock—neither of us saying a word, and the other one would have knocked his head off if he had said it!"
"Is that the way you are—when you get used to folks?" She peered at him.
"Sure—you know I'd be," he laughed back. "Hitch and I were friendly as pups at first. Played casino evenings; but I had so much luck that he accused me of cheating. We pretty near went to the mat over it. I always did have luck—at cards."
"Are you a gambler—do you mean?"
She put it seriously, quite as if she were inquiring whether he were a butcher or a baker. It made him laugh again.
"What do you think?" he asked.
"I think you're not," she decided after a survey. "You don't look like one."
"Listen to the expert!" he chuckled. "What does little Lydie know about how a gambler looks?"
She made no answer—only sat staring down at the interlocked hands in her lap, setting her lips hard. The firelight shone on tears under her dark lashes.
"Don't cry!" he broke out, dismayed. "What did I say? I didn't mean that for a question. What did I say, anyhow?"
"Nothing." She winked the tears out of her eyes, trying to smile. "You didn't say anything wrong. It's me. I'm just so—so— I wish we had a good book. I'd light the lamp and read to you."
"Oh, we don't need that—yet." Lefty's voice made an indescribable, caressing circumflex. "I'd love to hear you read,—and it's what I need, of course,—but for a while I'd rather just—just talk. Looks like I never in the world would get tired of that!"
"Haven't you got any books at all?" She was nervous beneath the ardor of his eyes.
"Bible lying around here somewhere. Not that I know much about the Bible. It was given to me—" He pulled up and flushed darkly. "I expect you know it by heart," he added the hasty suggestion.
"I guess"—she shook her head slowly, gazing straight in at the heart of the coals—"I guess pretty near the only verse I know by heart is the one we used to try our fortunes with: 'And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God."
HE leaned toward her for a breathless moment. Outside, a blank white zero of a world; within, a red heart of home, thrilling to the passionate words of that deathless Hebrew love tale.
"Say it over again," he whispered. "'Entreat me not to leave thee—' And that was right there in my old Bible all the time! The whole thing—better'n I could say it if I tried a hundred years. Wherever you go I—"
She crouched away a little with scared eyes, then scrambled up, trembling. He was on his feet in an instant.
"Oh—don't." She backed away from him toward the door of her room. "You mustn't! You don't know—"
He kept abreast of her, a quick-breathing shadow that made no movement to touch her. But finally, when she had halted and her hand went out toward the knob of her door, his own closed over it, while he caught her round the waist. Instead of the resistance he had expected, she dropped like a shot thing, and lay limp in his grasp. The face she turned up toward his own showed chalk-white, its eyes black pools of terror, the mouth drooping at the corners and working pitifully. A shock went through him. He put her away almost roughly.
"Don't look at me like that," he whispered. "What's the matter? Are you—my God! are you—married? Is it that? Do you belong to somebody else?"
He drew off slowly.
"You promised not to ask me—you promised not—" she cried.
[illustration]
"She dropped like a shot thing, and lay limp in his grasp. Her face showed chalk-white, its eyes black pools of terror, the mouth working pitifully."
"Oh, Lydie, don't. I didn't mean that, either. I—I won't ask any questions."
"N-never mind—" she quavered.
He saw that she was shaking from head to foot, so that she could scarcely get out the words.
"I—you—see here!"
His dismay was scarcely less than hers. His left hand went to his hip, and brought out the small automatic he always carried.
"Can you use a gun? Well, then—you pack this one. Put it on you now, and don't you take it off while you're outside the door of your own room. I don't want to have you look at me like that again. Good night."
It was Lydie who slept late next morning. Scott had been up and about with the dawn, splitting a great quantity of wood. He took food from the cupboard, wrapped it in newspaper, thrust it in the pocket of his coat, then stood a while in the middle of the floor debating, and finally went and hammered on Lydie's door. Her frightened answer came instantly:
"What is it? Wait a minute."
"Needn't get up yet," he made haste to stop her. "I just wanted to tell you that I'm going—something I've got to 'tend to. You're not scared to stay here without me, are you?"
"No, no—wait a minute."
HE could hear her tumble out of bed.
Almost instantly the door opened, to show her with a blanket huddled around her shoulders, pushing the hair from her eyes, gazing at him bewildered.
"What's the matter?" She put out a small hand toward his sleeve, and then seemed afraid to touch him "Are you mad at me? I didn't mean to make you mad last night. I—"
He pulled away brusquely.
"It's all right if you ain't scared to be here alone. You needn't be. You're a fat lot safer without me than with me."
"But," she faltered, "you mustn't go. I'd better leave than to have you go."
Scott faced her and spoke sharply:
"Where's your gun? You had no business to open the door to a man without your gun on. You pack it all day—and keep it on, after I come back to-night—see?"
Sudden color came flooding up over the girl's pinched little face.
"Oh," she cried, like a child let off from punishment, "you are coming back—tonight! I'll have such a good supper for you." She seemed suddenly aware of her appearance. "I—I didn't mean to—to not look nice—or—be careful." She gathered the gray folds of the blanket closer about her. "But it was only you—"
"Not afraid of me, eh? Well, then, I'll have to be afraid for you."
SCOTT came back when sunset was painting the snow-peaks with unbelievable glories. His day alone with himself in the open had left him silent, grave looking. Lydie had her supper ready to go on the table when he got in.
All through the meal his constraint held, a sort of formality that even the associations of clearing up could not get past. Afterward she would have gone silently to her room, but he said suddenly:
"Would you sit a while with me here? It'll have to be in the dark. The kerosene's about gone. Hitchcock might not come to-morrow."
"Oh, yes, he'll come." Lydie was drearily certain; then, with an eager change of voice: "Not that I mind sitting in the dark—I like it."
Scott took the chair opposite hers. There was no leaning toward her to-night and asking her to repeat Bible verses. He sat straight and began at once on what he had to say. It unfolded itself, very simply and barely, as the account of a man he used to know—a boy he used to know.
"I never could see where he was so awful much worse than other folks," Lefty put it. "I—well, I thought I'd tell you about him and see what you say. He had a high temper, and he was strong built. Sometimes he didn't know how hard he was hitting. But—listen; I want to know what you say."
After that there was scarcely a break or halt as he gave her, with queer naiveté and vividness, the story of a boy in the hill country of Kentucky who went wrong, killed a man, and served a term in the penitentiary for it—a short term on account of his youth, and because there had been provocation.
"He was sixteen when he done that," came the summing up. "He was sentenced for fifteen years, and got time off—quite a lot of time off—for good behavior. At twenty-four he was free again. The only one of his folks that he cared anything about—his mother—was dead when he came out of the pen. I guess it was his being sent there that killed her. So he went a considerable ways off and tried for a new start."
Lydie moved in the dark, and, when he was still so long, spoke.
"A new start," she echoed faintly.
"Ye-ah; he made a new start. But there's another thing. He—he—it seems to him that folks act scared of him. He never could be sure whether it was because of their knowing what he'd done— or just something—something there was about him, you know—that scared 'em. What would you think? Would you be afraid of a man you knew that about?"
"What makes you ask me that?" Her voice sounded muffled, choked.
"Light the lamp—and I'll tell you."
She made no move. Scott heaved himself up with a sigh, got the matches, lighted the lamp, yet seemed reluctant to look at her. Finally he raised his eyes, and met hers across the table.
"It's no use," he breathed. "You're scared of me. Yes,—you can say what you please,—you're scared of me."
He went back to his chair, settled heavily into it, and sat with clasped hands between his knees, staring at the stove.
"Good night," he said without looking around.
She lingered at the table; he thought from her breathing that she had begun to cry.
"I wish—"
She spoke brokenly, checked herself, came toward him a step, then whirled and ran to her door. She stopped there with the knob in her hand, and faced around to say more composedly:
"You don't understand. But—but you will before I go."
Next morning they seemed both to have got up in a plain common-sense, daylight mood. Scott kept a grip on himself, moving with a kind of haste, talking more than usual, like a man afraid to let himself think. He was going up the canon to get a big spruce down for firewood. It would keep him busy the greater part of the day.
For hours the ring of his ax sounded at intervals. Before twelve a long, rending crash proclaimed the tree's fall. When he went in for the noon meal, he thought she certainly had been crying. He didn't mention it; all through the meal there was hardly a word said between them.
Yet, when he would have put on a sweater and cap and gone back to his chopping, he found himself unable to leave her. He lingered helplessly, tramping up and down, glancing at her from the corners of his eyes, then went and sat by the stove in the front room, while she, the door open, worked about in the kitchen.
THE afternoon wore away. The little nickeled clock on the shelf ticked with a sound of hurry. Lefty got to watching it, and then going uneasily to the door. A silence he found it hard to break had fallen between him and the girl. For a long hour she was shut in her room, where he heard her moving about.
When she came out she carried her suit-case to the kitchen with her. She had started supper—he wondered if it was for three.
He got up, went into the kitchen, and just stood there, the suit-case in plain view. One look from those big, terrified eyes in the small, pale face, and he took himself awkwardly out of the room.
As the sun went down, the drip from the eaves ceased; the boom of the forest was stilled. Scott, sitting by the stove, found the house strangely quiet. Then he suddenly became aware that he had been hearing for some minutes the sound of hoofs away down the trail. He went to the door. Something moved across an opening in the evergreens on one of the turns down there—Hitchcock on old Nell. He turned his head toward the kitchen. Neither sound nor movement there.
DON'T be embittered by the high cost of clothing. It's the fault of neither the manufacturer nor the dry-goods man, says a writer in the Saturday Night Review.
For many reasons your suit will cost at least five dollars more this year. England has placed an embargo on the wool from Australia and New Zealand, whence our wool once came. Silk linings from Japan and China have gone up thirty and forty per cent. on account of the high shipping rates and the cost of dyes.
A plush coat, once so cheap and serviceable and rich-looking withal, costs at least six dollars more this year. England has discovered that tussah, the Chinese silk from which plush is made, makes the best bags for gunpowder and cartridges, so she allows only a few small shipments to the United States.
Every scrap of steel, wire, and bone is in demand at the munitions factories, and its price has gone up a thousandfold. Consequently the humblest corset costs a dollar more. And because millions of pairs of shoes have been worn out in long marches and have rotted in trench mud, the shortage in leather is alarming.
[photograph]
An English ship, laden with petrol, struck a mine and burst into towering flames. The men had to jump overboard. But Mr. Joe Conolly, third engineer, kept the engines going until one life-boat could be lowered to save them. He was terribly burned, but he wears an Albert Medal now, the gift of King George.
THE British army is surrounding Jerusalem, and by the time this magazine goes to press it may have become once more a Christian domain for the first time since the Crusades.
Once before the British besieged Jerusalem. That was seven hundred years ago, when Richard the Lion-Hearted circled about the Holy City for two years, and finally abandoned it to the victorious Saladin and his Moslems.
All its life the little ancient town has
[photograph]
Herod the Great, who ruled it for the Romans, was the famous builder. He restored the temple that Solomon had been seven years in building. He erected a great palace with towers and pillared porticos and brazen statues. He put up a theater, amphitheater, and hippodrome. Outwardly the city was brilliantly prosperous; inwardly it was torn with dissensions between the Romans and Jews. Such was Jerusalem at the time of the crucifixion of Christ.
After Christ's death the sieges went on.
Vespasian beseiged it for 134 days. Before it collapsed, the suffering was terrific. Six hundred thousand bodies were thrown outside the gates. Jews were carried off and sold as slaves in Roman markets. Temples were burned, walls destroyed, even foundations were dug up.
The Roman Emperor Constantine built the first Christian churches, which in turn gave way to mosques during the Moslem invasion.
Once more during the Crusades the Christians won back Jerusalem. It became for them a Holy City, as it had been for the Jews. From most of the known world came pilgrims to pray in the churches.
Then Saladin with his Moslem troops won the city after a two years' siege, and kept Richard and the Crusaders out of it. The Ottoman Turks captured it in 1517. It is still theirs.
The city lies peacefully on two hills. It has nearly 50,000 inhabitants—29,000 Jews, 8500 Moslems, the rest Christians. Each faith is represented in the town council, presided over by the mayor, who represents the Sultan. There is so much friction among the different faiths, and among branches of the same faith, that soldiers are usually quartered there to keep peace.
"IN my ignorance I thought it would be a soft job milking and feeding cattle," said a pretty little milliner girl who left London to serve her country by going on the farm. Her experiences are told in Successful Farming. "I wasn't advised to put the milking pail in my right hand and my stool in the left when approaching Mrs. Cow. I wasn't told to go to the right side of the cow. I wasn't advised to say, 'Whoa there, pretty cow,' and thereby gain the cow's confidence. I wasn't put to milking the easiest cows, with long teats and a good flow of milk."
She taught tricks to the ducks that were placed under her care. One day a stranger came, and her master called her, saying, "Come here, girl; show this man the antics of them drakes." After the performance, which both men enjoyed uproariously, the stranger seized her darlings by the necks, whirled them around until their necks were broken, and threw them into a bag.
"I flew at him, but master pushed me back. I heard him tell the man that town girls were too soft-souled for farm work."
But, in spite of the hard work, and the gruffness of the farmer, the little milliner "declared that she would stay by the farm work until the war was over, and her help was no longer needed."
[photograph]
When the girls from the English towns went to do farm work, they didn't know that a cow likes to be approached on the right side and to be called by its first name, and that a cow kicks in almost any direction.
THE bulletin of the Children's Bureau in the United States Department of Labor gives the following menu for a two-year-old:
Seven A. M., milk, zwiebach, toast, or dried bread; 9 A. M., orange juice; 10 A. M., cereal, cup of milk; 2 P. M., broth, meat, vegetable, stale bread, baked apple; 6 P. M., cereal, milk, toast or bread; 10 A. M., milk (may be omitted).
"At this time the baby should be taking about one quart of milk in twenty-four hours," says the bulletin. Part of this may be poured over the cereal. Oatmeal should be cooked three hours, with a little salt in the water. It should be served without sugar or with a very little only.
Bread should be thoroughly baked and quite dry. Hot breads are not suitable for young children.
The child may have a small portion of baked apple or prunes, cooked very tender, in addition to his orange juice. He may have about a tablespoonful of scraped meat or a soft boiled or coddled egg once a day. A small portion of some properly cooked green vegetable, like spinach or tender string-beans, may be given.
[photograph]
Every boy was born to be a champion in something. If you can't be the fightingest boy in town, why don't you try to be the best-natured boy, or the funniest boy, or cheerfulest boy?
THERE are more $5000 jobs for the American boy to-day than there were $2000 jobs for his father. But, as he can make more money than his father, so he will have to make more of an effort. The training his father had won't do for him. Edward Earle Purinton in the Independent gives twelve rules for a boy's leadership in life:
Be a leader now. Find the study or the sport in which you were born to excel. Take the lead, and hold it.
Select a hero and study him. Compare his hardships with your own. Remember that a handicap in youth is the best help a man ever had.
Learn what you are good for. Don't begin a life-work by chance.
Master a trade before you are twenty.
Plan to be at college two years or more. Of the men in "Who's Who," sixty-nine per cent. had college training.
Know just how strong and healthy you are. Do you sit straight? Do you drink enough pure water? Do you sleep in a ventilated room?
Take a sensible view of athletics. The reason for admiring a boxer is that he destroyed a collection of bad habits in getting fit to be a champion.
Join a well equipped boys' club. If there isn't one near you, with a shower-bath and a library, help get one.
Eat for strength of nerve, brain, and muscle. The majority of men are weak or dull because of wrong eating habits in early youth.
Earn your own spending money. A manly, healthy boy won't ask for money after he is ten years old.
Start now to become a good citizen. Can you help prevent fires, plant trees, clean sidewalks, destroy insects, fight a forest fire?
Skill, service, and responsibility are the first three things to make a boy successful.
[photograph]
WATER and wood and drainage—this is the important Rule of Three in making a camp.
Running water does not purify itself, says Horace Kephart in Camping and Woodcraft (Outing Publishing Company). The clear mountain stream may carry germs of typhoid from some mountain cabin on its bank; the well in rocky or clayey earth may have germs buried far underneath; and the well on an abandoned farm may have an antique cat in its depths. But a well in sandy soil is more or less filtered by nature; a spring in a living rock, even if it is nothing but a trickle, is sure to be pure.
Wood comes next to water in importance. Make your camp, says the author, where there is plenty of sound dead wood; or if you are traveling with a team, where fuel is scarce, get the habit of tossing into the wagon any good chunks you see along the road.
Drainage is the third essential to a comfortable camp. Keep away from low ground, warns the author. Get an open spot, level enough for a tent, but with enough of a slope to shed the rain.
Although these three points are the main ones to consider for a "one-night" stand, there are others almost as important for a fixed camp. Pitch your tent where you can get grass for horses and bedding for men; straight poles for the tent, or trees convenient for attaching the ridge-rope; security against fires; exposure to direct sunlight during part of the day; in summer, exposure to breezes and in winter protection from them; and, lastly, privacy.
THE irritable man knows that he is irritable, and, on account of nervousness or ill health, he can't help it. But if you don't scold back at him, if you are persistently friendly and polite, his gratitude is pathetic. He feels that you have ignored and risen above a failing that he can't overcome.
In every firm there should be a person constitutionally good-natured to write to irritable customers, says Sherwin Cody in How to Deal with Human Nature in Business (Funk & Wagnalls Company).
Here are two ways of answering a nagging letter. A customer writes:
I return you your bill for $165 for a page of advertisement in your magazine, and also a copy of it in which I have marked half a dozen errors which I corrected in the proof, but to which you paid no attention. You make me say, like an idiot, "common' when I wrote "uncommon." I do not choose to pay $165 to be made a fool of, and I decline to pay. Please write it off your books.The usual reply to a letter like this runs:
We have read your letter with a good deal of surprise. Don't you think that is rather a large price to charge us for a couple of minor errors? If we are obliged to take this matter into court, don't you imagine that the impression that you are a fool would be intensified rather than lessened? etc.After this the irate gentleman would rather die than pay up.
A better reply would say:
We know how annoying business errors are, even if they do not destroy the business value of the advertisement. Suppose we give you an extra quarter page in our next issue? While we feel sure that you will get just as many answers to this advertisement as if it had been all right, still we heartily appreciate the annoyance the matter has caused you. We inclose credit for an extra quarter page next month, and trust you will find it advantageous to continue your full page. With deep regret, Yours very truly.[photograph]
Even if there are no 6 per cent. bonds in your deposit vault, you can get married, provided the girl is willing to concentrate on housework for only two hours a day.
EGGS at sixty cents a dozen; butter fifty cents a pound; potatoes and cabbages in the Natural History Museum! How can young people without a bank account marry, in these days?
"I think I have found a solution of this problem," writes Lilian Bayliss Green in The Effective Small Home (Robert M. McBride & Company), "but it applies only to those who care more for each other than they care for unenlightened public opinion. A girl must be willing to do a certain amount of housework daily." Here is the valuable housekeeping experience of the author in the first few years after her marriage:
"We took an apartment of two rooms and bath. Two single beds, three comfortable chairs, a table, and a double student lamp were the essential furniture.
"A few shelves and a two-burner gas stove with an adjustable oven made up our kitchen equipment.
"I started without an ice-chest, but ended by getting one about a yard long with a flat top. This served as a table under the plate-rack. I painted the ice-chest a blue-green, and thus transformed a commercial-looking object of grained brown paint into an ornamental piece of furniture that fitted into the general scheme of the room.
"Above the sink white canisters contained sugar, flour for sauces, tea, coffee, and salt. Seasonings stood on a tiny shelf near the stove. Covered canisters on the shelves contained cereals and flour. So it was possible for me to prepare a meal without moving from one spot.
"My own part of the work took about two hours each day. While we were eating breakfast the beds were airing. After the dishes were washed I made the beds and arranged the room so that it became a living-room once more, with no suggestion of a sleeping-room. I then filled the lamp, did the dusting, made out menus for the day, did any ordering that was necessary—and my housework was done, except for our two simple meals, which took but very little time. The rest of the day I had a perfectly free mind for occupations that had no connection whatever with housework."
EVERYBODY has his own opinion about the war, a protective tariff, and Billy Sunday. Ten years ago, when Billy was unknown in the East, the editor of this magazine, then just out of college, set out to expose him. He followed Billy through three Illinois towns where Billy had preached three years, two years, and one year earlier. There were to be three articles, and the expectation was that they would show that Billy, having visited these towns and taken a large amount of money from each one, had left them with no permanent influence for good behind.
The first town visited was Freeport —a conservative little city with a large German population and one or two breweries. To the editor's surprise, though three years had passed since Billy's visit, every single pastor in Freeport stated that his church still showed the effects of Billy's work in its membership, finances, and general life.
At least a dozen prominent business men were pointed out who had never been church members before Billy's coming, but who had joined under his influence and stood by firmly ever since.
Decatur voted "dry" immediately after Billy's leaving, and one of the saloon-keepers hung out a sign:
CLOSED BY ORDER OF
BILLY SUNDAY
Billy got more than $11,000 as Decatur's "offering." The Mayor of the city, though not himself a church member, said:
"If the proposition to bring Billy to Decatur were to come up again, and we knew as much about him as we now do, I would go out among the business men outside the churches and raise $11,000 to bring him for the good he did the town. Men paid up their old debts after Billy left, and the town was morally cleaner and a better place to live and do business in."
THE three great types of nervous fear are fear of other people's opinions; fear of insanity, sickness, and death; and fear of poverty, says Dr. I. H. Hirschfeld in The Heart and Blood-Vessels (Funk & Wagnalls Company).
"Exaggerated consideration for other people's opinions makes nervous people into living lies," says the writer.
"Every one must find out for himself what he is and what he can do, and steer directly to the place where he belongs. By always paying attention to others he may succeed in crippling, but never in improving himself.
"Nervous people who are constitutionally displeased with their own persons should, when judging themselves, imagine themselves in the place of God, deciding about entrance to heaven, where great leaders in society and business may be rated lower than a faithful servant; and where a simple, honest effort to do right will count for much with the wisest and kindest Judge."
No one need fear sickness, insanity, or death, if he stops to reason about it. Acute disease ends either in recovery, invalidism, or death. A chronic invalid can enjoy life when he is free from pain. Many great works are produced by sick men, and there is no reason why morphine should not be given to relieve intense suffering. The person who fears to become insane seldom does so.
"It is natural that after living many years on this earth we are as loath to leave it as to go from an old homestead," says the doctor. "However, most of our best men welcome death as the great liberator. Death is either a long, quiet sleep or the passing to a better world. God can not punish wickedness worse than the guilty generally punish themselves here; and He forgives as He best knows our limitations.
"The loss of a beloved one is immensely painful. Without him everything may seem to have lost its meaning. But the nervous system can not remain in such a state of painful high tension for any length of time. After fifteen months the longest grief has lost its power to interfere with the normal action of a brain, provided acute grief is not wilfully stimulated by intentional thinking of the past."
You don't have to worry about poverty. You can be happy though poor, just as others are unhappy though rich. "Moreover, every one can save enough during the time he enjoys work to keep him care-free till the end of life," says the doctor.
"YOU have made the longest aeroplane flight a woman ever made!"
"I've made the longest flight an American ever made," answered Ruth Law, when the reporters flocked around her on Governor's Island.
A few days before, Victor Carlstrom in a new 200-horse-power biplane had accomplished his much-heralded flight from Chicago to New York. He had stopped only a few times on the way. When he arrived, Major-General Wood received him and conferred with him on aviation.
They had hardly talked it all out when Ruth Law appeared 5000 feet above New York. In an antiquated machine she had flown 590 miles without stopping. Her machine, next to Carlstrom's, looked like a cotillion favor. It was less than half as wide and half as high. It carried 58 gallons of gasolene instead of 200.
Ruth Law returned from the French front the other day.
"I want to drive one of those big biplanes that carry an extra man with a machine-gun and bombs. If we have a Congress woman, why can't we have a fighting aviator girl?" she says.
[photograph]
© International Film Service
By BURTON J. HENDRICK
[illustration]
Liberty, Justice, Democracy
PERHAPS Mr. Wilson's most important acts, in his preparations for war against Germany, are the two appointments he has made for the two departments that will supply the most needed of all war munitions—bread and boats. He has made Mr. Herbert C. Hoover food controller and grand victualer to the nation, and General George Goethals the great American boat-builder in chief. The feeder of peoples and the builder of boats have not hitherto figured as the greatest factors in warfare; at this present moment, however, that is precisely the position they occupy.
At some time in the future we may send millions of fighting-men to Europe; possibly our great dreadnought fleet will be ranged alongside of England's in a sea battle the magnitude of which the most extravagant imagination can hardly comprehend. At the present time, however, and for a year to come, the one appalling aspect on the landscape is the wide-opening gullet of the allied nations waiting to be fed.
IF we can satisfy that huge appetite for a year, the battle for civilization will be won. This feeding contract, the greatest in history, is the responsibility of Mr. Hoover and Mr. Goethals—Hoover to garner in the food from a thousand places, and Goethals to ship it to the millions of hungry mouths.
"The road to victory, the guaranty of victory," said Lloyd-George, in his recent speech welcoming American participation in the war, "the absolute assurance of victory, has to be found in one word, 'ships,' and a second word, 'ships,' and a third word, 'ships."
This war, from the American standpoint, is to be a bread-and-boat war—at least, for the first year.
Americans should clearly understand this fact, and precisely why it is so. Whenever one discusses the European war, he always reaches one fundamental fact, from whatever point of view he begins. This fact is the great English dreadnought fleet.
"Nelson's storm-tossed ships," wrote Captain Mahan, describing a similar situation that prevailed about a hundred years ago, "stood between Napoleon and the domination of mankind." The great Corsican could win wonderful military victories—Austerlitz, Wagram, Jena, far greater than anything the present German staff has accomplished: but England's domination over the seas made them nothing more permanently significant than grandiose sporting events. So long as these ships held the French Empire in a strangle-hold, shattered all French commerce ports, and gradually reduced the French population to starvation and other privations, this titanic struggle could have only a single end.
MORE than any other man, the great American historian, Mahan, has developed the idea that sea power always decides the fate of great international conflicts. So closely is his name associated with this conception that, in Europe, the idea is usually known as "Mahanism."
At the beginning of the war the Kaiser declared that he would demonstrate that Mahanism, or sea power as the determining factor in war, was a fallacy. The fate of mankind, he said, would be decided, not on the sea, but on the battlefields of France. But even Germany now acknowledges that Captain Mahan was eternally right: that Germany can win the war in only one way, and that is by making her sea power superior to that of the Allies. The Kaiser has resorted to the old device that he had dismissed as not all-sufficient—that of blockade. If he can do to England what England has already done to him—isolate the island from all association with the rest of the world—he can undoubtedly win the present conflict. Such a calamity would injure England much more than it has injured Germany; for in a few months her food supply would disappear and surrender become inevitable.
AND what would England's surrender mean to the future of the world? The prospect is one of the most appalling imaginable. Germany would not rest content with an ordinary surrender. The Kaiser would "bleed England white," precisely as Bismarck promised to do to France. Above everything else, he would demand that military engine which is now the great support of the Allies—the British fleet. On all England's thousands of vessels—including the fifty or sixty dreadnoughts that now, her men hardly firing a shot, dominate the world situation—the English flag would go down and the German flag go up. This enormous armada would then be joined to the German fleet now anchored in the Kid Canal and the Baltic; that is, the world's two greatest navies would become a single force. Probably Germany would also annex the greater part of the English mercantile fleet—also the largest in the world.
What would such a transaction mean to the world? It would instantaneously demoralize the English and French forces in France; for the prowess of the English navy is the chief agency in supplying these armies with food and munitions. Russia would disappear overnight as a military factor. All supplies of war to Archangel would be cut off. Germany could easily send war-ships to the East, isolate Japan, and at the same time keep all supplies from reaching Russia from Vladivostok. The Salonica expedition would be starved to surrender in a few weeks, and the whole of Asia Minor and India would become provinces of the German Empire. There would be only one power in the world that could conceivably offer any resistance to the Germans; that is the United States; and any resistance from us would be rather short-lived. The German navy, especially if reinforced by the English ships, would have little difficulty in capturing and destroying the American fleet.
Our shores would thus be laid open to invasion. If Germany succeeds in subduing England by blockade, she will accomplish this stupendous task before the first of September. By that time we could have organized no military force competent to handle Germany's seasoned veterans. Then, for us, would come submission; a huge indemnity would be exacted; and the Monroe Doctrine would be no more. Germany would thus stride over the world; the doctrine of might against 'right would have accomplished its supreme justification; democracy would be at an end; and the world would be reorganized on the Prussian model.
What are the chances that Germany, in case we keep hands off, may destroy British and neutral shipping to an extent that England may be subdued? Let us cherish no illusions on this point. The greatest men in England are cherishing no such illusions; in fact, they are cautioning the English people not to live in a fools' paradise. You can not fight submarines with your mouth; and merely pooh-poohing the possibility that the German campaign may be a success does not remove the danger.
GERMANY'S indifference to our recent declaration of war is explained by the fact that she genuinely believes that her ruthless submarine campaign will be a success. When the Germans began, they figured that the destruction of 1,000,000 tons a month would soon bring England to her knees. They have not sunk this 1,000,000 tons, but they have sunk half that amount —500,000 tons a month. In the approaching summer months the submarines should increase this average, not only because the weather will be more favorable, but because these destructive vessels are being launched in constantly increasing numbers. That Germany, before fall, may reach the 1,000,000 monthly tonnage is not impossible. Just how much shipping England and the neutrals have is not known, since a large proportion of the tonnage is being used, not to transport food-stuffs, but in purely military service to France, to Salonica, to the Persian Gulf, and to Canada. It is freely acknowledged, however, that ships are being sunk much more rapidly than they are being launched.
Clearly, therefore, America's military duty is plain. It is not to build dreadnoughts and battle cruisers that will be ready for service three years from now; it is not even to send an "expeditionary force" for its "moral effect." A force, even so small as 100,000 men, would demand a large tonnage, not only for transportation, but for continuous supply, and would thus consume shipping that might be used for the real, pressing military objective of the hour—the feeding of the Allies. Our supreme military duty is to exert all our national energies to making Germany's submarine blockade a failure.
This may not be so spectacular and heroic an enterprise as taking Vimy Heights or assaulting St. Quentin, but it would accomplish infinitely more in bringing the war to a sudden end. That is what Lloyd-George means when he insists on "ships and ships and ships" as the great need of the hour. It is greatly to the credit of the Washington administration that it sees this point just as clearly, and is promptly acting upon this basis.
AMERICA'S duty is thus to grow food and ship it to England and France. Hence the nation-wide movement for the cultivation of all our arable lands. Large wheat fields in America will be quite as potent in the war against Germany as munitions factories; and potatoes will prove just as deadly to the German trenches as hand-grenades and bombs.
Judging from the newspapers and magazines, from the activities of agricultural departments, State and national, of agricultural colleges, garden clubs, granges, and other organizations, the nation has been aroused to this fact. We shall probably see this summer an awakening of interest in American farming that is without parallel in our history. If we fail to do our duty in raising this food supply, we shall be damned forever in the sight of all men.
We have millions of acres that are now going to waste. To let these lie unused, when our allies in Europe are suffering for the food that spells the victory of civilization and democracy—certainly Americans could not be so base as that. Probably the mountains of splendid nutritious food that will be raised by next fall in the United States will astound mankind.
In doing this we shall not only be fighting the battle of mankind, but we shall be developing infinite resources for our future wealth. Some economists figure that Germany, should she stop fighting to-morrow, will be hungry for five years to come. The food situation all over the world, when the war ends, will be acute for a long time. This condition will probably solve the "abandoned farm" problem of the United States, for these large stretches of now waste land, if turned up by the plow to meet the present crisis, will
But this food will not relieve the situation unless we have the ships to transport it. How are we to get these? Our ship-yards are now going night and day, building steel vessels for the whole world. The other day a Cunarder was launched from a Portland ship-yard, and eight Cunard ships have recently been contracted for in Seattle.
Great as is America's production of steel, the unusual demand has heavily drained our resources, and there is now a decided shortage. The production of a fleet of steel steamships in time to meet the submarine menace is out of the question. But the curious result of this war, modern in its large aspects as it is, has been to bring back weapons that military science had long since discarded—the hand-grenade, the bayonet, the steel helmet, for example. And now, to supply the ships that shall save mankind, America finds itself resorting to the engines used in the olden time. About a hundred years ago, when involved in war with England, the United States was greatly inconvenienced by the fact that the British fleet controlled Lake Erie, while we had no naval forces in these waters.
Commodore Perry went to Presque Isle, and spent all the summer constructing, at breakneck speed, an American flotilla. In a period of a few months this improvised fleet was ready, and Perry sailed over and destroyed the enemy. We are attempting to do something like this, though on a gigantic scale, this year.
From Maine to Florida on the Atlantic coast are scores of abandoned ship-yards, once the headquarters of a great wooden shipbuilding industry. On the Pacific are many other yards, and many more places that can be transformed into yards overnight. Equally important, we still have large supplies of lumber, while our engine-builders stand ready to furnish standard engines on any scale demanded.
These places have already begun to resound with the shipbuilding noises that have been stilled for many years. The national government is figuring upon the 150,000 workmen that are needed to make an effectual beginning—if necessary, it will conscript them. Plans are already under way for 1000 ships of from 3000 to 4000 tons—in all, a tonnage of from 3,000,000 to 4,000,000.
WE shall begin to launch these vessels in September, and shall then be ready to float about 200,000 tons a month—an amount that can be greatly increased as necessities require. The motive power of these ships will be steam; they will be armed against submarines, will have wireless, and will maintain a good speed.
They will cost about $300,000 each, and will carry crews of about thirty-five men.
About the time Mr. Hoover has his large food supply ready, these ships will start from a dozen American ports on their adventurous voyages. American war-craft will police lanes from American ports against German submarines, while the British and French navies will take all possible precautions for their safe arrival on the other side—and their own guns will not be idle. Some, perhaps a great many, will be lost; but if a hundred and more yards in the United States are turning them out daily, these wooden ships will take the sea much more rapidly than German submarines can destroy them.
Billions in loans to the Allies and thousands of food-boats—here we have America's first blows against Germany. If, after these facilities are ready, Europe needs our armies, she will get them—and not by the hundreds of thousands, but by the millions. According to present plans, we shall have these huge armies ready when, by the aid of our food and boats, we shall have destroyed the submarine menace. Whether we shall ever have to use them, in large numbers, is another question.
By ELIZABETH YORK MILLER
Illustration by Arthur I. Keller
(Continued)
THE taxi bowled Dora along speedily over the route that her mother had taken earlier in the day by a slower and less expensive vehicle. The same servant who had admitted Edith Trelawny now ushered in Dora.
Harland was in the little study. He seemed excited, stirred out of his usual cool facetiousness.
"Well, and did the strong man scold you last night?" he asked.
She laughed into his eyes.
"He did worse than that. We've had an awful time. He—Ted—drank too much. He was so bad we couldn't go on to-day. Turco was furious."
"Oh! Why did he do that?"
"Because he wanted to, I suppose," she answered, a hoarse little note of anger in her voice.
"And so you thought you'd change your mind?"
"Well, twenty-five quid a week is a lot of money."
"So it is! I wish I could earn that much."
She looked at him, surprised.
"You were only joking, then—about my earning it?"
"Not in the least. My parents didn't raise me to be a ballet dancer, unfortunately. Spending money is more in my line than earning it, and if the time comes when there's no more to spend, I shall be inclined to envy people like you."
"Are you going broke?" Dora asked with innocent wonder.
"Often," Harland replied enigmatically. "Oh, excuse me a moment, will you? There's the telephone."
The telephone was just outside, and Dora could hear every word he said, for in his hurry he did not quite close the door.
"Hello! Is that you?"
Precisely what he had said to her! Dora's nose went up disgustedly.
"Yes, I got your wire. Well? You don't know what he's going to do? . . . Let him try it—two can play at that game. . . . Yes, Trelawny was here this morning. She's a pretty fool, if you like! . . . Oh, I dare say it wasn't wholly her fault. She can't ask Mrs. Darrell for a reference and—what's that? . . . Don't worry. I'm getting her fixed up with something, and she'll hold her tongue right enough. I say, when am I to see you? But you must. I can't—oh, hang it all, if you're going to talk like that! . . . Very well; have it your own way."
Harland came back into the room, to find Dora staring toward the door, white-faced and open-mouthed. He was too excited to note the state she was in.
"Well, well, well!" he exclaimed. "Hang the whole world! Excuse me, beautiful Dora, I must seem a bit wild, but—"
Trelawny—Mrs. Darrell? What did it mean? The connection was fairly clear in Dora's mind. Evidently her mother knew Lord Anthony Harland—had been to see him. What on earth did it mean?
She smiled feebly. "You've got something on your mind," she ventured.
"Yes—and it's heavier than my hair," he replied. "But it's nothing to do with you—so why should you worry?"
Nothing to do with her? Then he did not know that Mrs. Darrell's Trelawny was her mother.
"Would you care to tell me about it?" she asked cautiously. "I mean, could I help you in any way?"
He stared at her for a second—then: "Why not? I've taken a great fancy to you, Dora. I could—almost love you."
"Don't try, if it hurts you," she said, with her widest, fiercest smile.
He pulled up a chair close to hers.
"I won't kiss you, if you don't want me to."
"I bet you won't!" she flared back. Until she said that he had not really wished to kiss her. Now he did. "Wait. You're not going?"
"I have to get back," said Dora.
"But we've discussed nothing. Will you go to see Symonds? Tell him I sent you. Go at once; there isn't any time to waste, you know. I'll arrange it. I've put about the last of my cash into that blessed show of his, and I can have some say about it."
"You're very kind, but I must be going now."
As he made no move, she ventured to pass him. He caught one of her wrists.
"I'm mad to-night—mad!" he whispered, towering above her.
His arm encircled her shoulders and she felt his breath warm on her cheek. The little mustache grazed her lips. The kiss was no more than a tantalizing touch.
She broke away with a sharp cry, and got out of the house before he could stop her. Revenge? It had proved a boomerang in her unskilful hands.
DORA did not go to see Symonds about the engagement. There were several reasons. For one thing, Dumpling was ill. Turco begged Dora to help him look after the poor child, and she had not the heart to refuse.
Dumpling's illness helped her to keep up a pose of aloofness from her husband.
That weary week they played Chiswick. Turco went to and from London between the afternoon and evening performances, to see how Dumpling was getting on. Dora remained in her dressing-room at the theater and took a nap each day, so that she could relieve Mrs. Smith and Turco of some of the night nursing.
Dora had convinced herself that she was in love with Lord Anthony Harland. She received a letter from him asking when he was to see her; and she meant to make some sort of a rendezvous with him as soon as she had a moment to herself. But before that time came something happened.
It was Saturday night—the end of Chiswick, thank goodness! The following Monday they opened at the Viaduct Empire.
Poor little grizzled Turco was on the verge of collapse. He fell asleep in the train, with his head dropped forward and his toes pointing in like a child's.
"I suppose you'll be going along to Turco's to-night as usual?" Ted asked.
"Yes," said Dora.
"May I come along and sit up part of the night for you?" Ted asked.
Perhaps she was in a gentler mood. After all, he was her husband.
"Come if you like," she said.
SO they both went back to Turco's that night. It was close upon midnight when they arrived.
Turco went in to look at Dumpling. When he joined them at their scratchy supper of bread, cheese, and beer, his monkey's face had an unpleasantly ashen hue.
"Is she worse?" asked Dora.
He shook his head.
"She's sleeping quite peacefully."
"Then do eat something, Turco, that's a good fellow. You look worn out."
But Turco could not or would not eat.
"Thank God for Sunday," he said reverently.
After supper Dora tiptoed down to Dumpling's room, and put on the bright flowered kimono she kept there.
A screen sheltered the night-light from the bed, but the curtains were drawn back, and the moon—at the full—filled it with a pale, shimmering radiance.
Dora approached the bed softly.
Dumpling's hair had fallen over the bulging, unnatural brow. She looked almost pretty. The flat little bosom rose and fell automatically. It reminded the watcher of a figure she had once seen at Madame Tussaud's—a wax figure made to breathe by winding up a wire spring.
She felt suddenly afraid. Then Dumpling opened her eyes and smiled.
"Oh, Dora! I was dreaming of you. I dreamed it was the night of my party and you were dancing in your Columbine dress. And I dreamed of Lord Anthony Harland too. He was kissing you, Dora, and Ted was mad with grief. And Turco killed him—Lord Anthony. I was glad Turco killed him, for he shouldn't have kissed you, Dora. He isn't your husband."
Dora winced and backed away.
"What a silly dream, Dumpling! Is there anything you want, dear? Shall I give you your milk?"
"No, thank you; I'm not thirsty. I'm feeling ever so much better. But there is something want. I wish you would dance for me, Dora, like you did the night of the party. If you'd put another pillow under my head I could see quite nicely."
Dora arranged the extra pillow. Her hands were cold and shaking. Why should Dumpling dream that Harland had kissed her?
"Now, Dora, dance, please. Move the screen so I can see better."
Dora moved the screen. Then she took off her kimono and slipped on the pair of ballet slippers that Dumpling had kept as a memento of the great evening.
With her hair sticking out like a black aureole, her neck and arms bare, her short silk petticoat swishing softly, Dora danced in the strangely radiated light.
"Oh, Dora, how lovely you are!" sighed Dumpling. "If I could only have been like you! If I could only have danced—if I could have walked, even! Do it on one toe, Dora, with the other pointed up."
Dora obediently pointed ten minutes to twelve, then let herself down gracefully.
"I am so happy!" Dumpling exclaimed ecstatically. "I feel that I am dancing too."
She tried to raise herself, and held out her arms, but fell back.
Dora ran and bent over her. She was very still. The little flat bosom did not move any more, and the waxen eyelids had drooped. But the lips were held curved in that smile of rapturous pleasure.
Dora dashed madly into the corridor.
"Turco!" she called in a penetrating whisper.
Turco heard and came immediately, pattering along in his old dressing-gown and carpet slippers.
"Oh, Turco!"
He slipped past her into the room. She saw him kneeling by Dumpling's little bed, his face against the mattress.
Dora rushed up to the great dim practice room. Her husband was asleep on the boxing-pad.
"Wake up, wake up!" she called in his ear, as she shook him roughly. "Dumpling's dead."
AFTER that Dora had to be very gentle indeed, on Turco's account. She had to be gentle to Ted too, because if she wasn't that seemed to hurt Turco.
He was like a wounded animal in his suffering. Yet he said so little. Dora was sad on her own account, and wept for poor little Dumpling; and, curiously, that seemed almost to please Turco.
Monday afternoon the four of them,—
Nothing would induce Turco to go back to Percy Street, he said. As a matter of fact, no one tried, except Mrs. Smith. She went off to her own lair, wherever it was, when Turco would not be coaxed; and Turco went to Mrs. Petrosini's with the Tysons.
They had a sad pretense of a meal together, and then set forth for the theater.
"Good evening, Mr. La Turcque," said the doorkeeper. "I'm sorry to hear there's been a death in your family."
"Thank you, Mr. Watson," said Turco. "I hope we're not late."
"Nothing to speak of, sir."
Tyson was always dressed first, since he had no elaborate make-up.
When Dora came down, her husband was standing in the wings, chatting with a tall blonde girl in white buckskin tights and a blue military cap and cape. The tall girl had a drum hung by a strap over her shoulder and was twirling the sticks in her bejeweled fingers.
Quite casually, Dora stopped and glanced over a copy of the week's bill that hung in a wooden frame on the door leading to the corridor. Her eye ran down it, and stopped at Number Four:
MISS MOLLY BRIAN,
The Drum and Clog Queen,
in
Songs and Dances from her Repertoire, including "Major Billy," "Guess You'll Have to Do It," "The Daft Drummer," etc.
It would be difficult to find two more dissimilar types than Miss Molly Brian and Miss Dora Trelawny. Miss Brian was everything that Miss Trelawny was not—and she was much more of everything, including flesh, height, hair, and complexion. Dora hated her on sight.
She stood aside, watching Ted and Miss Brian, until Turco appeared. She would know when she saw Turco whether or not her suspicions were correct.
Turco cast his eye about, and became aware of the chatting couple. It was difficult to read any expression in his face; but from his attitude Dora knew that he not only recognized Miss Brian, but had a small opinion of her. Tyson looked none too comfortable when he saw his partner, while the Drum and Clog Queen gave Turco one withering glance and turned her back on him.
This, then, was Molly, the unknown bête noir who had driven Dora to a frenzy, first of jealousy, and then of a determination to be wicked.
Miss Brian had finished her turn, yet she lingered and seemed determined to chat with Ted. She ambled after him from one corner of the wings to another.
IT was the acrobats' turn finally. Turco, with the memory of Dumpling a cruel heartache, braced himself for his silly grin and cyclonic entrance. He came on to interrupt the graceful dance and gymnastic postures of the other two.
Dora also had to smile. She and Ted swung on, hand in hand.
Her face was a mask, but a mobile one. She gave him a smile like forked lightning, and said with a hiss between her set teeth:
"So that's Molly—eh?"
"Oh, shut up!" he answered sotto voce, giving the audience the smirk that was expected of him.
"I admire your taste!" said Dora, as she stood on one toe and surprised him with the usual feather kiss on the ear.
It was a lucky thing for Tyson that he dodged just the least bit; for when she kissed—at him, on this occasion—her jaws snapped viciously.
"Look out what you're doing!" he growled, swinging her to his shoulder.
She hung poised like a fluffy, curving feather, blowing kisses at the audience.
"It's you who'd better look out," she advised, as she jumped down and they advanced, hand in hand, to take the call.
Until now she had been too concerned with her own affairs to pay much attention to the audience; but now she had to, a little. Her smiling gaze was drawn mechanically to the boxes first, and then she saw Lord Anthony Harland.
He had come to the Viaduct Empire to see her, of course; and he was alone. She let him know that she knew he was there, and then threw herself heart, soul, and body into all the coquetry the turn allowed her.
Then it was Turco's entrance, the signal for a loud burst of applause. He came on with his furious chain somersaults as if shot out of a gun, and arose, calm and leering, hands in pockets, cigarette in his grossly painted mouth.
Poor Turco!
As he hurried away toward the dressing-room afterward, Dora close behind him, tears were rolling down his whitened cheeks.
"Oh, poor Turco!" Dora cried, gripping his arm hard. "Oh, Turco, it was plain hell, wasn't it?"
THE Viaduct Empire was not a big theater, and she shared a dressing-room with Ted.
He followed her up immediately, slammed the door, and stood ready to give her battle.
Such being the case, Dora refused to quarrel, and adopted an air of cold unconcern. She began in a businesslike way to prepare herself for the street.
"Well?" demanded Ted impatiently.
"Well—what?"
"What did you mean by playing the fool? You nearly bit my ear."
"Coward!" she taunted. "Was it afraid, then, it might get nipped?"
"You're a jealous little cat!"
"Jealous? Oh, I like that," said Dora. "What have I to be jealous of?"
He went over to her and gripped her wrists, bending down so that his face almost touched hers.
"I saw that fellow in the box—I saw you look at him. After what happened—last week—if you dare—!"
"Dare what?" Dora asked in a curiously flat voice.
"To play about—flirt—and hurt me—"
"What will you do? Go back to your Molly?"
"You silly fool! As though I ever cared, or could care, for anybody in this world but you! And you've treated me like a pickpocket lately—just because I cared so much."
"She drove you to drink, too—that big fat blonde," Dora stated coldly.
"And you might drive me to murder," he said in a husky whisper.
Dora closed her eyes. Garishly bright as the little room was, with its twenty unshaded electric bulbs, it grew black.
Ted sank on his knees, terrified by her sudden pallor.
"Darling—I didn't mean to frighten you. What have I done, that we can't be friends?"
He knelt before her and buried his face in her fluffy tulle skirts.
The poor clown!
For it was the handsome boy, so strong and stalwart, so lovably quick to repent of his hot speech, who was the true clown where life was concerned—not Turco.
"You haven't done anything—really," she gasped. "Only, the night Dumpling died—it seems years ago, somehow—she told me about a dream she had. She dreamed that Turco killed him—Lord Anthony."
All might have been well—or better—if they hadn't been obliged to play the
F. HOPKINSON SMITH used to say that he did not know how his leading character ought to look until Keller showed him. Arthur I. Keller began his studies in the New York Academy of Design, continuing them in Munich: for a quarter of a century he has been delighting the eyes of magazine readers. For this magazine he has illustrated three serials—"The Mystery at Woodford's," "The Sport of Kings," and now "The Blue Aura." We like his work so much that we decided this week's illustration deserved a full page, and in gravure at that.
[photograph]
Having softened toward her husband, Dora grew hard again when the big blonde appeared; and Miss Brian was always appearing. She seemed to live in the wings, clad perpetually in white buckskin tights and pseudo-military accouterments.
Turco and she avoided each other like the plague; but she smiled at Dora, and was smiled back at in such alarming fashion that she dared not introduce herself.
Dora believed the worst of her husband and Miss Brian. The day he got his haircut, she accused him of a secret rendezvous with the blonde charmer. When she caught him making out a laundry list, she accused him of writing to Miss Brian. He flourished the evidence of his innocence before her eyes, but she shut them and refused to look.
She was, in fact, cooking up a first-class drama for herself, playing the role of deceived wife. She saw herself deserted, and turning in bitter desolation to the only man who understood her. It would have been very sad indeed—if it were true.
Toward the end of the week, Harland again appeared in the box, and remained only for the Tyro-Turco act. This was the signal for another domestic row.
Ted took his trouble to Turco. He was jealous of Dora, and Dora was jealous of him: what were they to do about it?
"Kiss and make up," said Turco, who was sick of their fighting.
"But Dora won't—she hates me," said the unhappy husband.
"Then why is she jealous?"
"Because she's a devil. I'd do anything in the world for her."
Turco looked at his partner, the monkey's eyes blinking pathetically.
"I knew we'd have trouble," he said slowly. "I knew it that first night when you brought her to Chapin's. I wish I could think of something."
"I wish you could," Ted cried fervently. "Isn't it rotten luck Molly should turn up here this week?"
"I must talk to Dora and find out what's the matter with her," said Turco.
HE did talk to Dora.
Dora's imaginative drama had carried itself to an Ibsenish climax. The deserted wife by this time was learning to love "the only man who understood her" and preparing to fly with him to lands and fate unknown.
Turco did not know how Ted had wounded her, she said. She could forgive anything but deception (which was rather rich, coming from her). She felt she had lost Ted's love.
"And perhaps you will lose it if you're not careful," said Turco, meaning well, but working even greater mischief. "Anyway, I know what's the matter with you. You're getting notes from his lordship and meeting him on the sly. Don't talk to me about your being deceived."
Dora's eyes opened wide. How had Turco guessed? A part, at least, of his accusation was true, and the rest of it was coming true that afternoon.
"Awfully clever, aren't you?" she said.
"Dora, what's the matter with you?"
If Dora had said she was suffering from enlargement of the imagination it would have been the truth and he might have understood; but Dora did not know the nature of her disease.
"I guess I'm dead sick of everything and everybody," she proclaimed unkindly
After Turco left, Dora went to her tryst. She had not seen Harland to speak to since the night she ran away from him; but they had written to each other. His letters came to the theater, but Ted took no notice, because there were always plenty of letters for Dora.
LORD ANTHONY was expecting her.
The eyes of the sedate man-servant who let her in were veiled in discretion. Dora would have liked to ask him what he was thinking about and how he dared to have such thoughts. In the mourning put on for Dumpling, which served for a deserted wife's costume, she followed him haughtily into the study.
"Mrs. Tyson, my lord."
Harland took both of her hands warmly.
"I thought I was never, never going to have this pleasure again!" he exclaimed. "Sit down—make yourself comfy. Let me take your coat. How thin and sad you look in that black dress!"
Dora raised eyes full of melancholy. "I am very unhappy," she said in her carefully rehearsed role.
"So am I," Harland replied, sobering. He, at least, was not play-acting, and Dora did not know that she was.
"I don't think you'd better write to me any more. Turco suspects—he must have seen one of your letters."
"Are you afraid of the professor?"
"Not exactly—only there might be trouble. My husband is jealous. He saw you both times—and we've had an awful week. There—there's another girl that he used to be fond of. She's in he bill this week.
"Not really!"
"Yes. Perhaps you saw her—a big fat yellow-haired thing named Molly Brian."
Harland laughed. "So the strong man is making up to his old love, eh?"
"I don't quite know—but we don't feel the same toward each other."
Harland sat down on the couch beside her and took her hand.
"Tell me all about it. How do you feel yourself?" He was most sympathetic. His arm crept about her shoulders.
"Tell me. You love me, don't you?"
"I—I'm not sure," she whispered.
"But you're unhappy."
"Oh, yes—dreadfully unhappy!"
"Couldn't I change all that? I want to take you away from the whole world. Have you ever been to Spain, beautiful Dora?"
It was a great pity that the unprincipled villain should play the part of Dora's hero with such perfection. The word "Spain" had done it. Spain provoked mad visions of sun and bull-fights, neither of which was to be had in London at the moment.
"No," she said; "I have never been to Spain."
"I am going. I start this day week. I shall spend a week in Paris first, and then go on straight to Madrid. Afterward—anywhere. It doesn't matter."
Dora sighed. It flashed across her mind that she was worse than a fool to listen to all this. To her credit she had that thought, but to her discredit she banished it instantly.
"Would you care to think it over?" he suggested. "This day week, at eleven o'clock, Charing Cross. Don't worry about clothes. You can buy anything you like in Paris."
"Yes, I'll think it over," said Dora, with an effort. But, having committed herself thus far, she was loath to go any further. She let him kiss her, but her response was feeble, and she left almost immediately, without having any tea.
A GREAT depression was upon her.
What was she about to do? The question of right and wrong did not enter into it at all, as far as she was concerned. That night after the performance she went to Chapin's for supper with Ted and Turco, and saw the man whom she had every reason to believe was her father entertaining a Bohemian party.
"He's a wicked old man," she said to herself, "and I'm his daughter."
[illustration]
"'I am so happy!' Dumpling exclaimed ecstatically. 'I feel that I am dancing too.' She tried to raise herself and held out her arms, but fell back."
Photograph from Brown Brothers
[photograph]
WHEN it comes to printing pictures, we newspaper and magazine fellows get into awful ruts. We give you Teddy in forty-nine different poses, and Mary Pickford as Mary Pickford in "Poor Little Mary Pickford." But what magazine has ever published the picture of Harry Balfe? Yet he is the head of a grocery business larger than any other: he shipped a million dollars' worth of groceries in one day last year, and, when he wanted to hire a new man for his company, bought the man's business for $700,000 to get him. Shouldn't that entitle him to have his picture printed?
[photograph]
YOU'VE heard of Henry often enough, but it's dollars to doughnuts you never heard of Harry Ford. Two or three years ago Harry, who used to be a newspaper man, got a crowd of fellows together around the kitchen stove, and said: "Boys, let's build a flivver." To-day the Saxon Company is one of the eight largest automobile plants in the world. We are going to take up with Harry our plan of ending the war: which is to buy one million of his flivvers, load them with dynamite, throw them into high speed, and start them off across the trenches for Berlin.
[photograph]
ONCE upon a time—which is the way all good fairy stories should start—Oscar Hedstrom put a little motor on a bicycle, so he could pace some of his friends who were bicycle racers. And now all the motorcycles whirling merrily along the road whirl a little dust into the pockets of Oscar. This is his photograph; but whether he also invented the little bath-tub which is attached to the side of the motorcycle to carry mother and the children, he does not say.
[photograph]
YOU have heard of one Wright brothers, Wilbur and Orville: also the Wrong brothers, Willie Hohenzollern and Charlie Hapsburg. But probably you have already forgotten Professor Langley, whose experiments in aviation resulted in a monoplane that flew for a few seconds and dropped, breaking the old man's heart; and more than likely you never heard of Dr. William Christmas at all. Yet he was an associate of Professor Langley, and has just taken out a patent on an aeroplane built on an entirely different principle.
[photograph]
UP at Quebec they have been trying to bridge the St. Lawrence, and two disasters have occurred. But when it came to putting a steel-arch bridge across Hell Gate, at the entrance to New York harbor, an engineer named Gustave Lindenthal did it on the first try. The biggest steel arch in the world—yet, of the millions of rich and intelligent and influential people who read this magazine (advertisers please note), we doubt if there are six who ever heard Mr. Lindenthal's name or know the words of "The Star-Spangled Banner."
[photograph]
HERE is the inside information about Frank Gilbreth, who had to go to London and wait eight years to get his ideas recognized. In 1892 he patented a stand which increased several times the number of bricks the average brick-layer can put up in one day. Since then by "time studies," he has taught girls how to turn out much more work with less effort; and has simplified many other industrial processes. Thank goodness, we have one of the few jobs in the world into which efficiency can not be introduced.
[photograph]
SOME men do their work in the public eye, like the pancake bakers in the windows of Childs' restaurants; and some men, laboring faithfully in the basement, pass through the world unsung. Franklin Remington, stroke of the Harvard crew of '87, does his work many feet below the basement. He put in the foundations for the Woolworth Tower and other buildings. His motto is, "What goes up must go down."
[photograph]
THE next time you are telephoning from New York to San Francisco, and Central says, "Drop another fourteen dollars and sixty-nine cents, please," think how much more it would cost you if you had to make the trip out instead of telephoning—and be grateful to J. J. Carty, the great engineer who has made the great achievements of the telephone possible. There is only one improvement in the telephone yet to come—a device that will sound the busy signal in the ears of the people we don't want to talk to, the minute they ask for our number.
[photograph]
WHEN we were talking to Frank Gilbreth, pictured elsewhere on this page, he told us that every time he opened a patent-office volume he ran into the name Charles Scribner. He is the chap who has been quietly patenting everything Edison forgot to invent. He has more inventions to his credit than any other living man, including the device that did away with the crank on the telephone box. Never heard of Charles Scribner? Gracious! there is so much we have to teach you, we sometimes almost despair.
[photograph]
ONE of the greatest lawyers in the country never goes to court, and never lets his name get into the papers if there is any possible way to prevent it. Yet when J. P. Morgan wants legal advice, he sends for Paul Cravath. If Mr. Cravath can't settle the troubles of his financier clients in his own offices, he turns their cases over to others and lets them fight it out. His idea of no place for a lawyer to be seen is hanging around the courthouse yard, waiting for the sheriff to bring over the prisoners.
[photograph]
WE in America didn't hold much with kings and such until we got acquainted with Albert of the Belgians. All kings were about fifty-fifty or perhaps sixty-forty with us until that August day in 1914 when Albert got off his horse, back of the walls of Liége, and told the Germans what was what. We gave him 75 per cent. then and there without reluctance; and when, with futile courage, he led his little army into the teeth of the investing hordes—a doomed yet sublime resistance—we chalked him down 100 per cent. king. There are different opinions about everybody and everything, but it is a safe bet that no one will dissent in classifying Albert as a regular hundred per center.
[photograph]
WHILE Audrey Munson was disporting herself in the waves of Coronado Beach, California, one day, a stranger with an accent and a beard breasted a breaker to seize her by the hand and declare, "Your figure is a gift from heaven, and you are going to pose for me." Something in the stranger's aspect arrested Miss Munson's first natural, girlish, Beatrice Fairfax impulse—which was to slosh him in the eye with a handful of water. This reticence was good, for soon she learned that it was Prince Troubetskoi, sculptor, who addressed her. Face and figure experts have marked Miss Munson 100 per cent.
[photograph]
ABOUT sixteen years ago there was a young man with long legs somewhat insecurely attached to his body, a droll laugh, and a funny voice appearing on the vaudeville stage with his papa, mama, and sister, under the caption, "Four Cohans." One day he wrote a play, "Little Johnny Jones," and it was a success. That was in 1902. Since then he has written a great number of plays, alone and with this person and that person. But there has never been a failure to which the name of George M. Cohan has been attached. Which makes Cohan's 100 per cent. record a thing without precedent.
[photograph]
"'WHAT is nobler than the dog?" sings Poetess Ella Wheeler W. Yes, ma'am. Here's Gyp, for instance, who belongs to E. P. Roberts, owner of the famous Mohegan quarries at Peekskill, New York, from which the granite used in the construction of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, New York, is being taken. "Peculiar stone your dog is playing with," said a geologist friend one day. "So?" said Roberts. "Real rose granite, by Jove!" exclaimed the friend. Bereft of the stone. Gyp went to get another. His master followed him. Mr. Roberts is now realizing a cool little $200,000 annually from the quarry Gyp discovered.
[photograph]
JOHN RYAN was awarded 100 in the State-wide better baby contest in New York last April. Then the judges put all the winners in various classes together, and he beat all the winners. First he won a jeweled medal and a silver cup, and Mrs. Vincent Astor put $100 in gold in the cup. Then he was carried up Fifth Avenue in triumph.
[photograph]
HOW would you like to realize a million per cent on an hour's ingenuity and a few pieces of waste wood? This is what Clarence White has done as the result of his invention of what is known as the "kiddie car." Mr. White had a small son who used to cry to go riding in an automobile. Now, Mr. White hadn't even a flivver; but he had a father's heart, and the tears of Clarence Jr. hurt him. So he went out to the woodshed and built the "kiddie car." Soon all the small boys on the block were clamoring for similar vehicles. Mr. White felt that he had a good thing, so he got out a patent and started a factory. Last year his profits were exactly a million dollars. His factory now turns out 3500 kiddie cars a day. Clarence Jr. no longer longs to motor. He prefers to kiddie car.
[illustration]
May I say just a few words in appreciation of EVERY WEEK? With its snappy, clean stories, its interesting condensed information, and its strong, beautiful editorials, it has become a valuable adjunct to our family. My little daughter relies on your book review and science pages for help in school
MRS. I. J. M.Permit me to say that I am watching the growth of your magazine in my home city. So popular is the book that I have to place my order several days in advance so that I may secure a copy. The original photographs, together with the helpful and inspiring articles, make EVERY WEEK an important asset in any home.
S. H., Oakland, Cal.Your magazine could not be improved if you charged $10 a copy.
E. R. S., Rochester, N. Y.Don't think me a "garrulous old cuss," but I want to say that your magazine ranks high and I enjoy reading it very much. From a practical banker's point of view, your financial articles for investors please me very much and if adhered to would, in my opinion, prevent many losses to persons untrained in such matters.
C. W. B., Dorchester, Mass.Please put an ad in your paper that I am destitute for a best friend. My old chum still holds that place, but, you see, she is away at boarding-school. This unknown girl should be fifteen years old, five feet four, with bobbed curly hair and brown eyes.
C. H., Rochester, N. Y.I wish to be set right. While I am considerably past the flapper stage, I am not old—nineteen, in fact. Neither am I a beauty or hard to gaze upon. My friends refer to me as happy-go-lucky and a girl without a care. People say that I never seem worried or annoyed. They are right, and they are wrong. I have feelings the same as they have, but I am blessed with ability to act. There are worries, heartaches, disappointments, but my pride prevents me from letting the other fellow know. Of late I have been pondering the question of whether I am justified in deceiving people or not as to my real feelings. What do you think?
L. B., Chicago.Thank you for the timeliness, scope of vision, and simplicity of utterance characteristic of all the material in your magazine. Please send me your garden booklet. Also let me express my appreciation of the way you make your authors personal attractions and my enthusiasm for the development of the "Lincoln Ideal."
B. E. S., Washington, D. C.Your article on "How it Feels to be a Father" struck a responsive chord in me, as I know it must have in many others. I am impulsively sending you a copy of the note I wrote ten years ago several hours before our little daughter was born. Until now no other eye has seen these words:
My Dear Child:It may appear strange to you when you read this, if you ever do, that I should address my thought to you in this manner while you are as yet unborn. But I desire in future years to impress you with the sense of responsibility your parents feel in bringing you into being. We pledge ourselves, as many million before us have done, to devote the future to helping you to upright, intellient manhood or womanhood. We must be kind and loving to each other, we three: for therein lies all our future happiness.
YOUR FATHER. P. C., Rochester, N. Y.From the way you describe the pictures on the photogravure pages, I think you would make an excellent school teacher, for you are able to make the most interesting and solemn subjects vital and humorous. I found a good example of this in "The Most Hated Men in History." Read these over again yourself, and see if any school professor ever put them up to his scholars in such an agreeable and rememberable fashion. Then, after reading "Kind Words to Competitors," one feels that one wants to buy a copy of every one mentioned. It is a good ad for the other magazines, but a better one for you, because it's easy for your readers to see that you don't have any hard feelings for the other people in your field. To sum up, one can't help liking you, darn it all.
J. McD., Baltimore, Md.Usually it is no great loss if one misses an instalment of a serial; but it's a good safe bet that I'm at the news-stand Wednesday noon to make sure of my EVERY WEEK and its continued stories. As to your editorials, put me down as one who wants them in book form.
E. F., New York City.The recent article in EVERY WEEK, "How I Lost and Won My Boys," made a very strong appeal to me. I have three boys, with a difference of five years between them. My boys always had a confidante in me, a fact which I secretly marveled at and frequently had a good cry over. It always made them feel better when they had got their troubles "off their chests" to me, they said. I always took them into my confidence about domestic difficulties, though not in a fretful or pessimistic way, and in response they always did their bit to help mother out. Our home has always had a feeling of friendliness about it, somehow. Of course I attribute this to the face that we have always tried to bring God into it in our everyday life.
MRS. C.T., Philadelphia.[advertisement]
[illustration]
"Was he being impertinent, or was he making talk? She wished she knew."
By ELIZABETH JORDAN
Illustrations by Hanson Booth
"THE thing that worries me," mused Neith Boyden, dropping the letter she had been reading aloud, "is that he will feel so frightfully out of his element."
Her friend and tent-mate in the Boyden camp ceased her efforts to recognize her own features in the blurred mirror on the tent wall, and turned to her.
"Why will he?" she demanded with interest.
"Oh, for a dozen reasons. In the first place, he's a lot older than any of us. He's Jim's age—thirty-five. He won't feel like playing with infants of twenty and twenty-two. In the second place, I don't believe he knows anything about camp life. Jim hasn't told me much about him—said he was keeping him as a surprise!" Jim's sister raised her eyebrows in disdain. "But I've an idea that he's the highbrow type—the sort that will bring a trunkful of books up here to read."
"Books? In camp!" Mary Wentworth's face expressed shock. Then it brightened. "Perhaps your mother will take him off our hands," she suggested.
Miss Boyden frowned.
"Heavens, he isn't old enough for that!" she reminded her friend. "I said thirty-five, not fifty. But I call it shabby of Jim to invite a guest here and then not even show up to meet him. And the guest will hate it as much as we do."
"What did you say his name was?"
Miss Wentworth, who had an optimistic spirit, still spoke cheerfully, but her eyes had clouded.
"Lambert, I think. That's what it looks like in Jim's atrocious handwriting." Neith's voice edged. "Think of it! We're not even sure of the creature's name! All we know is that he's an Englishman, and that Jim met him lately and liked him. He'll be such a wet blanket—just when we were all so comfy and had paired off so well. I suppose it means," she ended with a sigh, "that mother and I will have him on our hands eighteen hours a day for four days, until Jim gets back from Chicago."
"I—well, really I don't see why you're so gloomy about it, Neith. He may be awfully nice."
"Nice!" Miss Boyden's voice dripped scorn. Then, "I've seen his photograph," she added darkly.
"You have? What's he like?"
"It was in a group snap-shot that Jim showed me, but it gave me an idea, of course. He's little."
"Oh!"
"And very thin."
"Oh!"
"All the other men in the group were in khaki, but he wore a serge suit and a sailor hat—"
"Oh-h!"
"And tan shoes with bull-dog toes!"
"Oh-ow!"
Cheered by the effect of the picture she had drawn, Miss Boyden shot her last bolt:
"He's duo to-night!"
"How will he get here?"
"He's to row to Jetter's Point with a guide, and walk from there."
"Hm-m. That proves he can walk, anyway," mused Miss Wentworth.
"Six miles! What's six miles?"
"Better than six steps. Some way, after what you said," giggled Mary Wentworth, "I imagined him riding into camp on a rocking-horse."
Neith laughed in restored good humor.
"'Cheer up,'" she quoted, "'the worst is yet to come.' He'll be here for dinner, and we may have to spend the evening bathing his brow after his exertions. Now let's go and prepare the others."
Mr. Lambert arrived at the Boyden camp at eight o'clock that night, and the welcome of his fellow guests was tempered by the fact that he had kept them waiting an hour for their dinner. He was apologetic about this, but not so apologetic as they thought he ought to be; and, as he greeted his hostess and her daughter, the camp party studied him with the critical regard of hungry eyes.
Compared with Neith's twenty-two-year-old brother Bob and three chums of his—big, strapping football-players —Lambert looked, as Miss Wentworth put it later, "like an apologetic English curate." What the boys objected to was that he was "dapper," and was wearing the wrong clothes. Even after his all-day journey, his blue serge suit looked as immaculate as it must have looked when he started out in it. He also wore a carefully laundered white linen shirt, and a stiff white collar with a blue silk four-in-hand tie.
HE seemed slightly surprised by their greeting, and Neith remembered later that he had not answered readily to his name; but he accepted it without correction. In deference to the late hour, he sat down to dinner in the serge suit, after a hurried "wash-up" and a careful brushing of his close-clipped brown hair, which was parted in the middle. His voice was an English voice—a very charming English voice. He spoke with a slow drawl, and his manner was gentle.
His features were good—indeed, rather handsome in a delicate, high-bred way; and he had remarkable gray eyes that changed to black. All in all, he seemed a highly fastidious young man of the extreme drawing-room type, as much out of place in the primeval wilderness around the camp as Miss Boyden's fancy had painted him.
The talk, at first, was about Jim—that faithless heir of the Boydens who had thrust his friend upon them and then found a business trip more important than his social obligations. The others set the conversational pace, and Mr. Lambert politely followed it. He appreciated the urgency of the business call that had swept Jim westward. Be himself, he explained, greatly hoped to see Chicago. This was his second visit to America, but he had not seen much of the country.
He spoke of New York—its thronged streets, its sky-scrapers, its hotels and the exorbitant prices these latter demanded from travelers. No thought he expressed was original; none showed any consciousness that he was in the heart of a wilderness whose night sounds came through the open windows of the big living-room.
WEARYING soon of his drawling replies to their questions, the boys talked of their day; and, listening to them, Neith felt as if she had been taken from a hothouse into the open air. Ralph Bailey had been lost in the woods for a few moments, and the others threatened to hang a cow-bell around his neck before letting him loose the next morning. There was much discussion of woodcraft and camp life, of hunting and fishing, of trails and traps, to which the latest guest listened with perfect courtesy but rather absently.
Later, around the fire, the company separated into pairs, and Mr Lambert fell to Neith and her mother, as the girl had foreseen. He had drunk no wine at dinner. Now he did not smoke. He talked a little, listened a little, and—yes, there was no doubt about it: when Neith's attention was momentarily distracted, he dozed a little. The day in the open air, the excellent food, and the open fire had produced their effect.
Mr. Lambert's fellow guests naturally expected to see him blossom forth the next morning in camp attire; but he did nothing of the sort. Instead, he appeared in the garb of the night before, even to a fresh linen shirt and high collar. The four-in-hand tie and the sailor hat remained unchanged.
Observing him, Neith groaned inwardly, and Ralph Bailey felt moved to utter a friendly protest.
"See here, Lambert, you don't want to wear those clothes here, do you?" he demanded, drawing his fellow guest aside after breakfast. "They'll be torn to pieces in an hour in the woods. Bob and I are going to hunt all day, and we're hoping you'll go with us."
Mr. Lambert shook his head.
"I never wear anything but serge," he explained in his soft drawl, "summer or winter, wherever I am. And, thanks very much, old man, but I'm not going with you."
"Not going! Don't you shoot?"
Young Bailey was dazed.
"Not here."
Lambert gave him a smile so unexpectedly human and friendly that the boy found himself returning it in kind; but he returned to his friends with mingled sentiments in his heart.
"There's something about that chap Lambert I like," he said, with a puzzled frown. "But he must be an awful mollycoddle. Why, he doesn't even shoot!"
Others in the party were going fishing; but this attraction, too, the guest gently declined. When they had all departed, with their opinion of him uncloaked by their cordial good-bys, Neith looked at him despairingly. She was sure that he intended to loaf by the fire, and she was prepared to supply him with books and writing paper and leave him to his own devices; but in courtesy she must, of course, give him a wider choice of diversions.
"Would you like to lie around camp to-day and rest?" she asked kindly. "You had a rather strenuous experience yesterday, I know."
He smiled—the same unexpectedly brilliant smile that had dazzled young Bailey; but there was a glint in his eyes that puzzled Neith.
"Oh, I don't feel as done up as you seem to think," he murmured.
DIDN'T he, indeed? A sudden imp took possession of her. For some reason, in that moment it had become necessary to take this person down.
"Then would you care to take a little tramp of ten or twelve miles?" she suggested.
The odd flicker was in his eyes again as he glanced at her; she looked for it, and there it was.
"Are you planning to walk?"
"Yes, if you care to."
"Then I shall be very glad to go," he said sedately.
A few moments later her mother took her aside.
"That young man can't walk, dear," she warned her daughter, "and you know it perfectly well. So don't show off and wear him out. It won't be kind."
Neith flushed. "I shall not kill him, if that's what you mean," she answered. "I'm only going to take him to the Avalon Rocks. Even a 'mollycoddle' ought to be able to manage that much."
"A 'mollycoddle'?"
"That's what the boys call him—after one look!"
"He seems to be a very nice young man," mused Mrs. Boyden.
"Then he ought to stay in his own nice setting, wherever it is," flashed her daughter.
Neith was in for the walk, but she reminded herself that she need not make it an all-day expedition. Half a day would finish him; and she had no wish for an eight-hour tête-à-tête.
"We'll start about noon," she told the Mollycoddle. "I'll have Yoshi put up some luncheon for us, and we'll eat it on the way, getting back about five o'clock. Probably that's all you'd care to attempt the first time," she could not help adding.
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
"Your program is charming," he agreed.
She left him to amuse himself during the morning, and to listen to Mrs. Boyden's gentle patter, while she herself wrote letters in her tent. At noon she appeared in the living-room in walking costume, carrying a compactly filled basket, which he at once took from her. She observed with grim interest that his preparation for the "hike" consisted in putting on his sailor hat. His heavy black walking shoes were serviceable enough, but she reflected with satisfaction that by evening they would certainly have lost some of their high lights.
WHEN Neith and her guest left camp she struck into the nearest trail; but where it forked off toward the Avalon Rocks she exercised her feminine privilege of changing her mind. Ignoring the silent invitation of the by-path, she strode forward, and the Mollycoddle followed her contentedly, walking close behind her and listening with seeming appreciation to her discourse upon the trees and other vegetation around them. She was not quite sure of all she told him, but he accepted her statements without question, and seemed grateful for her instructions as to how to distinguish the pine from the cedar and the spruce.
Eventually it became plain that, whether or not he was weary of the trail, he was certainly weary of wood talk. He led her to talk of herself and of the American girl in general—her education, her interests, her theories, her efficiency, her self-reliance. He seemed so interested in all she could tell him, and his questions were so far-reaching, that at one point she stopped short in the trail and turned to face him.
"I believe you're a writer," she declared accusingly.
He shook his head.
"Not primarily," he defended himself. "I write a bit now and then, of course; every one does, you know."
He talked very little; yet in the next hour she found that her opinion of him had changed. Once or twice he put into a few words a thought that subsequently and oddly occupied her thoughts.
"It would be very easy to judge human nature," was one of his remarks, "if we let our instincts guide us. At first they invariably do it. Children, even babies, recognize at once those they can trust and those they can not trust. But when we get older most of us ignore and smother the instinct, instead of cultivating it as one of the most precious things we have."
At four o'clock they ate their luncheon. Lacking expert assistance,—a condition she allowed him to realize,—she built no fire, but produced everything from the hospitable basket, even to coffee kept hot in air-tight bottles. He seemed fascinated by her preparation. Once she caught him smiling over the oiled paper on the sandwiches, the napkins, and the special long-handled silver fork with which she drew elusive little pickles out of their bottle.
"And you people call this roughing it?" he remarked.
Something in his tone filled Miss Boyden with resentment. He was actually criticizing her—he, this mollycoddle who didn't know a forest trail from a by-path in Hyde Park.
"Oh, we rough it all right at times," she declared, "when—when we have guests who like rough life and are accustomed to it."
"But you soften the bitter hardships for me? I see."
Was he jeering at her?
"Tell me," he went on, "how much have you learned here? How well do you know your way about these woods?"
"I know all the trails," she boasted, "within thirty miles of our camp."
"Ever been lost?"
"Why, yes, several times, the first years we came. Not lately—not for several seasons."
"I dare say you've learned how to meet any emergency that comes up—you're an expert at first aid and all that?"
Was he being impertinent, or was he making talk? She wished she knew. Meantime she blushed.
"I know a little, but I've never really been tested," she admitted. "You see, there are so many of us, and my brothers or our friends are always around when anything happens."
"What does happen?"
Was he getting nervous?
"Oh, little things. Canoes upset sometimes, but we all swim like fish. Occasionally some one's lost, or there's a snake-bite."
He raised his eyebrows.
"Snake-bites sound serious. In an emergency, I suppose, you apply your lips to the wound and draw out the poison?"
He was laughing at her! There was no doubt of it now, and she was furious; but she controlled her temper.
"It has been done, " she told him quietly.
They were on the ground, gathering up the remains of their luncheon in the small clearing where they had eaten it, when there was a crash in the underbrush behind them. The next instant a doe leaped into view, shot past them like a whitish gray flash, and disappeared. Neith hardly turned her head—she had seen the same thing many times before. But Lambert sprang to his feet and ran toward the spot where the doe had vanished.
"Good!" he cried. "I'm glad the pretty thing got away!"
His words were broken by the sound of a sharp explosion. It brought Neith up to her knees.
"The fool!" she exclaimed. "The unspeakable idiot!"
Then, seeing Lambert turn slowly toward her, she imperatively motioned him to the ground.
"Drop," she exclaimed. "Quick!"
As he obeyed she explained:
"It's some amateur idiot of a hunter. They seem to think everything that moves in the forest is a deer. This one is quite capable of shooting us if he sees us stir."
She raised her voice in a warning hail, and repeated it several times, without response. Lambert was silent; and now, looking at him, she was struck by his face. It was ashen. She stared at him. The man was frightened!
Her lips curled, then set. He was her guest, and strange to the woods. She must make allowance for him. There was a moment of silence. He seemed to be doing something, she did not know what.
"It's all right now," she said at last. "Whoever it was has gone on."
Lambert interrupted her by lifting his voice in a call. It was an unusual call, high and surprisingly far-reaching, but it added the final accent to Miss Boyden's irritation.
"There's no use calling now," she said brusquely. "If the hunter had seen or heard us, he'd have come at once. As it is, he's gone off in another direction."
Without heeding her he called again, not stirring from where he lay.
"Good heavens, don't do that!" she cried. "We don't want him! We don't know who the creature may be."
"Oh, but we do want him." The young man's voice had changed: his words were clipped off incisively. "We want him very much. You see," he added, "he got me!"
The last sentence struck Neith's eardrums, but at first it meant nothing. Then, without rising, she turned and stared at her guest, and what she saw brought her slowly to her feet. His pallor had deepened, his lips were blue, and on the spot where he lay a large stain showed and grew.
"You're shot!" she cried. "Where?"
"Only my leg. He hasn't killed me."
He was smiling at her, but she shrank away and closed her eyes.
"But I'm losing a lot of blood," he added, "and I'll need some help. So, if the hunters are near enough to hear—"
SHE was calling again before he had finished, calling frenziedly now; and as she called she rushed in the direction from which the sound of the shot had come. But there was no sign of a human being anywhere around, save a newly emptied whisky bottle that lay near the trail barely a hundred yards away. When she returned, he read her report from her face
[advertisement]
"He is very near and probably drunk," he said. "When he heard us call he thought he had blundered, so he ran away. Well, we've got to muddle through alone. Know how to make a tourniquet?"
Not only his speech, but his manner, had undergone a remarkable change. It expressed a quiet but absolute authority.
"No," she had to admit. "I'm sorry."
"Never mind. I can manage if you will help me to that tree and prop me against it."
He dragged himself over the few feet of ground, and she assisted as well as she could, which was very little. When she had propped him against the tree, he shut his eyes for a moment, and she thought he had fainted; but he opened them again at once, and after an instant's fumbling in his pocket produced a small knife.
"Now I can manage," he told her. "If you don't like the sight of blood, you'd better take a little walk among the trees."
"Can't—can't I help?"
Was it only half an hour ago that she had been describing to him the resourcefulness of American girls?
"Not yet. I'm going to cut off some of this trouser leg—"
He was already at work.
"Will the napkins do for bandages? And here are two safety-pins."
"Just the things. Thank you. Now run away, please. This wound won't look pretty."
NEITH obeyed, but kept within sight of him. While she was waiting she remembered that there was some coffee left in the larger bottle, and when his task was finished she poured it out and gave it to him. His dimming eyes brightened.
"That's good," he said, and drank it at a gulp. Then he leaned back against his tree and looked at her.
"Where is the bullet?" she asked timidly. "About four inches above the knee; and the bone is splintered."
"Oh!"
He nodded.
"Nasty job, and mighty awkward for you. I'm sorry. We're about six miles from camp, I take it."
"Just about—and it's growing dark!"
"Would you dare to go back to camp alone and send me help?"
She hesitated.
"I'm not afraid, but"—how she hated to admit it!—"I'm not sure I could keep to the trail at night. You see, it will soon be dark."
"We mustn't risk your getting lost. Is there any other camp nearer than yours?"
It was not the Mollycoddle who was speaking now. It was a cool, quiet, infinitely resourceful young man, who was equal to this or any other situation. Neith's eyes brightened, then faded again.
"The Nicholson camp is near here."
"Ah!"
"But the family's not there this year, so it's locked and barred."
"Ah-h— And how far away is it?"
"Probably not much more than half a mile."
He pondered a moment.
"We'll make it," he said then. "We've got to."
"How? "
"Some way—by easy stages." He surveyed his bandaged leg reflectively. "Hand me some of those fallen branches over there, and I'll make a pair of crutches. Then well start at once— 'while the going is good,' as you Americans say."
"I don't believe you can do it," she objected.
"Oh, yes, I can. But the journey will not be pleasant, and it will not be swift."
Half an hour later, with a little help from her and a great deal from the crutches, he was balancing on one foot.
"How—how—does it feel?"
He set his teeth. "Lead on, please."
For several weeks afterward Neith Boyden's dreams took the form of a recurrent nightmare, in which she led a wounded man through a dark and endless forest. Often she awoke from these dreams gasping. But none, she always told herself, ever exceeded in horror the incredible, unforgettable actual experience of that September night.
How long it took the two to reach the Nicholson camp she never knew. There was little speech between them on the way. Always in the darkness she heard his heavy breathing behind her—the heavy breathing of a spent animal; and the last time he lay down to rest she was sure that he could not rise again. But he did rise, and after what seemed an eternity of pain and effort they stood together before the low mass in the darkness which represented the Nicholson bungalow. The man dropped down on the veranda, and with numb fingers searched his pockets.
"There are two timings I'm never without," he said, handing her a box: "a knife and matches. See if there's any place where we can creep in."
There was, but Miss Boyden spent thirty minutes in patient search before she found a locked but unbarred window, which she opened by the simple process of breaking it with a heavy stone. Having crawled through and opened the door for her guest, she helped the wounded man across the threshold, and then staggered back under the force of his sudden fall against her.
She dragged him into the living-room in the dark, and left him lying before the empty fireplace while she found and lit some candles. Then, with merely a glance at the unconscious figure, she busied herself making a fire. There were logs and kindling in the big fire-box.
When the flames were leaping up the chimney, she turned to her patient and met the straight look of his gray eyes. He smiled at her.
"You've done it," he applauded. "I say, you're a trump, you know."
Something in her thrilled at his words, but she shook her head.
"I'm not much good," she said.
"I don't know any woman who could have done better. You've kept your nerve wonderfully."
She glowed under his praise.
"I want to help," was all she said. "Now I'm going to push that couch in front of the fire and get you up on it."
When she had him there, she stepped back and looked him over with the first feeling of self-respect she had experienced since his accident. Now, she told herself, her foot was on her native heath. He was helpless, but she had given him warmth and shelter. She could take care of him till morning, and at sunrise she would start for help.
[illustration]
"'Take that basket and get out. Take your friend with you. If you come back, or make any disturbance, I'll blow your heads off'"
"I'm going to feed you now," she said. "There's food left in the basket."
He shook his head; but she found a small table, which she drew up beside his couch, and in twenty minutes the repast was ready. She ate it alone; he drank only a glass of hot milk.
"Won't your friends be hunting the woods all night?" he asked.
"Of course. But the trouble is, they think we've gone in the opposite direction. I told mother we were going to the Avalon Rocks—but when we started I changed my mind."
"I see."
After this disappointment he grew restless, and she saw that he had a rising fever.
"Are you in pain?" she asked.
"A little."
"Wouldn't it help if I got hot water and towels, and washed out the wound?"
"Very much, if you could manage it."
The water in the closed camp was turned off, but she remembered where the spring was, and found it, with some difficulty, in the dark. Then she cleansed the wound, under his instructions, rebandaged it, and covered him with a rug.
SHE was putting more logs on the fire when the sound of voices and footsteps was heard on the veranda. The wounded man rose to his elbow. As he did so the door opened and two men lurched into the room.
One of the men appeared to be in a walking stupor. With the recognition of the presence of others in the room, he stumbled across the threshold and sank into a chair before the fire, dropping his rifle on the floor beside him. The second man had himself more in hand. He stood his rifle in the corner of the entrance hall and, with a foolish grin, swaggered toward Neith.
"H'lo," he remarked thickly. "Saw the light. Thought we'd c'm in."
Then he discovered Lambert.
"Got lost," he added half apologetically.
"Sit down by the fire and get warm," invited the Mollycoddle. "But take off your cap, please. You see, there's a lady here."
The intruder stared hard at the lady, grinned again, and removed his cap. He showed his further appreciation of the etiquette of the occasion by crossing the room and knocking off his friend's cap.
"Anything t' please the ladies," he leered.
"We can't put you up for the night, I'm sorry to say," the Mollycoddle went on easily, "because we haven't room. But we'll be glad to give you what's left of our supper, and direct you to the next camp."
"Oh, you will, will you?"
The intruder's grin gave place to an ugly snarl. He strode over to the couch, pulled away the rug, and threw it on the floor. Then for a long moment he stood looking down on the wounded man.
WHILE this grim tableau held, Neith saw her chance. The gun of the man by the fire lay almost at her feet. Bending noiselessly, she picked it up. The Mollycoddle had seen her out of a corner of his eye; she was sure of it.
Looking down at the bandaged leg, the man was nodding.
"Thought ye'd fool us, didn't you?" he exulted. "Thought you'd play the game with a high hand, didn't you? This place ain't yours, no more than it's ours. The only part of your spiel that listens good to us is the grub talk. And the sooner the dame trots it out, the better for all hands."
Seeing the rifle in Neith's hands, he took a step toward her.
"Here, you, drop that!" he yelled.
The next instant he was on the floor against the opposite wall. The wounded man had struck so swiftly that Neith, who was watching him, hardly saw his closed hand go up; but she herself was no less quick. Before the hand fell she had reached him and put the rifle into it.
"Good team-work," he commented as his fingers closed on it. "Now, my man!"
It was a new voice. Under it the intruder slowly staggered to his feet.
"I've met vermin like you before," said the cutting voice from the couch, "and I know exactly how to handle you. Take that basket and get out. Take your friend with you. If you come back, or make any disturbance around this place, I'll blow your heads off."
The intruder was backing away, his eyes on the leveled barrel.
"Say," he whined, "what's eating you? Let's talk things over."
"Not one word. I'll give you till I count ten to get out. One—"
"Then give us our guns," snarled the visitor.
"Hardly! We'll keep those as a souvenir of this charming visit. That's right, Miss Boyden, cover the other chap."
For Neith had got the second rifle.
"Two— If either of you takes one
The visitor hesitated, irresolute. His friend, who had finally found his feet, now started for the door, making a solitary contribution to the conversation:
"Aw, hell. C'm on!"
"He's drunker than you, but he's got more brains," commented the Mollycoddle. "Four—"
The second man had reached the door. Leaning against it, he began to laugh.
"Say, Bill—those—guns—ain't—loaded!" he hiccoughed. "We emptied—'em —after—we—hit—the man!"
Even as he spoke his friend leaped, but the Mollycoddle was ready for him.
He whirled the rifle in his hand, and as his assailant reached him he brought down the stock on the other's head. The man dropped and lay still.
His friend held up his hands.
"'Nough," he said, and, creeping toward the man on the floor, he bent over him
"You've—you've—killed him," he stammered.
"If I have, it's up to you. If you had kept your mouth shut and let me work my bluff, you would both have been well away from here by now. As it was, your friend tried to take advantage of a woman and a man he thought was helpless, and he got exactly what was coming to him."
"My God!" muttered the other.
"The only question now," continued the smooth tones from the couch, "is whether I'm going to have any trouble with you."
The man glanced up—hesitated.
"For if I do," continued the voice, "believe me, my friend, I'll find some way to kill you before we get through."
The other backed away.
"I ain't starting nothing," he muttered.
"Better not. 'Now I'll tell you what to do. Your friend is not dead yet, but he may be if he lies here till morning. You're going to the Boyden camp for help. You can get there inside of two hours, and be back by midnight with a rescue band of several husky college boys and two Japanese men-servants. They're searching for us in the woods; perhaps you will meet them on the way. Miss Boyden will write a note telling them what to bring."
"There's a doctor a mile from our camp," commented Miss Boyden.
It was the first remark she had made.
"Good. Get him, too. Write the letter, please. Here's a pencil. While she's writing it, you'd better put your head into that pail of water," he advised.
Neith tore the fly-leaf out of a book and wrote her message.
"Now tell him how to keep to the trail," directed the Mollycoddle. "There must be a lantern around this camp."
In ten minutes the messenger was gone, and the big door was locked and barred.
IT was two o'clock in the morning before the rescue band arrived, its members almost exhausted by their long search in the woods. Doctor Hartwell came with them. He had been at the Boyden camp, ministering to Mrs. Boyden in the nervous attack brought on by her daughter's absence. When he had attended to his patients and established them in two of the Nicholson bedrooms, each in charge of a Japanese, he returned to Neith.
"Get off to bed," he ordered. Then he added casually: "It's been a hard experience for you; but think of having Larimer with you!"
"I couldn't have had any one better!" Miss Boyden spoke indignantly, scenting criticism of the Mollycoddle. "He was simply wonderful! We haven't understood him at all. But his name is Lambert, not Larimer."
The doctor stared at her.
"Is it possible you don't know who the man is?" he asked. "My dear young lady, you seem to have been entertaining an angel unawares. Our patient is Edward Larimer."
"Larimer?" she faltered.
"Yes, Larimer; the explorer and author; the big-game hunter of Africa."
"He—he was very brave," stammered Neith. The room was whirling around her.
"Well, naturally. He has risked his life in every part of the world. I suppose," added the doctor reflectively, "Larimer has had as many hair-raising experiences as any man alive to-day."
"Good night," murmured Neith faintly, and entered her room. Memory entered with her, and stood at her elbow, grinning maliciously. Edward Larimer! No wonder he had not been impressed by their life in camp! Her face burned.
Then, soothingly, healingly, came the memory of his hand-clasp when they had said good night an hour ago. The look in his gray eyes—the long, long look he had given her—had not meant contempt. She was still smiling when she fell asleep.
It seemed somehow to excuse her own wickedness.
AFTER Dora had gone, Lord Anthony sighed deeply and went to his crowded little desk. Out of a drawer he took a number of papers, and made a half-hearted pretense of looking them over.
Among the business papers was a solicitor's letter ordering him to take himself elsewhere immediately unless he wished to compromise the name of a woman whom he had already sufficiently injured in her husband's sight. Unless he did so, "our client, Mr. Robert Darrell of The Manor, Hillborough, Sussex, will be obliged to take proceedings."
Mrs. Robert Darrell had written to him that her heart "was breaking," but she did not suggest any way by which it could be mended. She loved him, Harland believed, but she was done with him.
Dora was his mean revenge. He meant to let Mrs. Robert Darrell know about Dora, and he was not in the least afraid of scandal where the foolish little ballet dancer was concerned.
He wrote to his brother asking for money; to the solicitor staring that he was leaving for the Continent Friday of next week; to his own solicitor inquiring about more money. Lastly, he wrote to Miss Edith Trelawny, inclosing a five-pound note, and instructing her about his address, in case she received any communication from Mrs. Darrell in his absence.
The last arrangement Harland made was to put his little house on the books of the local estate agent. He offered it furnished for six months. In six months any threatened scandal would have blown over.
He did not look ahead as to what was to become of Dora. That was her affair. At the moment he was occupied with his own unhappiness and how best to allay it. His love for the woman whose reputation he had jeopardized was very real. She had kept him dangling at arm's length for three years. Now, when she could have been free at the expense of a little scandal, she turned her back on him. He was not the dearest thing in the world to her.
It was a bitter moment. He thought of her, tearful and contrite in the midst of her family, explaining that it was all a silly flirtation and had meant nothing. Perhaps it had meant nothing. Her skirts were clear of technical wrong-doing—that he knew.
He had accepted her verdict. She was of his own class, and he could not injure her without her consent. Dora was different; Dora did not matter.
Such a man as Lord Anthony Harland deserves no sympathy; but perhaps his mother would have pitied him, had she known. Certainly no one else could. There was even a cold, fishy look in the eye of his man-servant when he announced a part of their plans.
In his gloomy frame of mind he sought companionship. He dined at his club with an acquaintance, and afterward they went to a theater.
It was his bad luck to see in a box Mrs. Robert Darrell, flanked right and left by her husband and mother-in-law. They did not see him. He made an excuse and left after the first act.
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
He knew what had happened. The Darrells had come up to town, and were displaying themselves en famine to show the world that no discordance existed.
It was too much. Harland felt that he almost hated the woman. Either she was happy, or else she was a marvelous actress. He had seen her laughing into her husband's eyes as if no other man in the world existed for her.
The next day, through the social gossip column in a newspaper, he learned that the Darrells were back in the country again, entertaining a big house-party.
He knew those parties. Once he had
[photograph]
THE only person in the world legally authorized to sign the name of the President to weighty legal documents is a woman—Mrs. Mabel P. Le Roy, of Washington. Every patent that issues from the Land Office transferring a parcel of land from the government's ownership to an individual requires the President's signature. But, as some six thousand of these are issued each month, and as the President just at this time has several other matters to attend to, Mrs. Le Roy signs his name for him about two hundred times a day. If it were not for Mrs. Le Roy, Mr. Wilson just never would get in any golf at all.
It was all over for him; yet it made him furious to know that it would go on just as well without him, perhaps better.
BY the time Dora got back to New Compton Street she was laughing heartily at herself, and tears were close behind the laughter.
Leave Ted for that monocled idiot? Rather not! In love with his lordship? Not if she knew herself.
Spain? Dirty, horrible country, she'd heard, with the food something awful; and as for bull-fights, she had known all along she could never bring herself to go to one.
She thought of the consumptive-looking girl in the theater, and how all the other girls had despised her for her fine clothes.
"Well, I would have been just like that," said Dora.
This change of mind or heart—whichever it was—came by a simple process. On the way home Dora had overtaken a former ballet friend. Eileen had left the stage to be married, and Dora had not seen her for two years. This afternoon she was pushing a very nice perambulator in which reposed an adorable infant.
Dora walked on with her, as their ways lay together for some distance, and heard all about how happy she was, and what a dear little flat she had, and how good her husband was to her.
"I'm so grateful to him," Eileen said, "I can never repay him for being so good to me. And I'm glad you're married, too, Dora, even though you haven't left the stage yet. Perhaps you'll have to—one of these days."
She smiled and patted the hood of the perambulator.
"I wonder!" Dora exclaimed.
"And is your husband good to you?" her friend asked.
The "deserted wife" was obliged to reconstruct her views hastily. It suddenly flashed on her that Ted was good—one of the best.
"Rather! I can have anything I want. I'm not obliged to work. He wants us to take a flat or something. We were speaking about it only the other day."
"I expect you like being with him," said Eileen. "But when you have a baby it's a business to go on tour. But I always go with my husband, and baby too. You wouldn't believe how fond Jack is of the kid—and he used to he so wild. But, depend on it, we're always glad when he gets an engagement in town and we can be home."
"Doesn't it make the baby delicate to racket him about?" Dora asked.
"Does he look delicate?"
There was no denying that he looked the picture of health.
"He's just one of us," said Eileen.
"He'd miss his daddy; and as for Jack—well, you know, Dora, you don't have any life unless you all keep together. It's the separations that do the harm in our profession."
"I should think you'd find it expensive—you not working, and the baby needing things all the time, I suppose."
Eileen smiled. She had a sweet face, with eyes that were shining clear.
"You can manage anything—when there's plenty of love. It doesn't seem hard. There are so many things we used to have that we don't need—restaurant meals and expensive clothes; and now that the baby's here, Jack's given up booze. You'd be surprised how much that saves."
The two young women parted near Leicester Square, Dora promising to go to see Eileen, and kissing the adorable baby, who caught at her hat and tried to pull it off.
She went on her way flushed, her eyes shining, a delicious thrill of envious delight coursing through every vein.
IT was a disappointment not to find Ted in when she arrived home. She wanted to tell him about Eileen and the baby, and to take up the suggestion of a flat, which he had broached a little while ago.
Turco was there, however, so she had some one to talk to; and she was so excited that she scarcely stopped to wonder what had become of her husband.
Turco sat cross-legged on the floor, listening to her, the "queer" look in his eyes.
"How lovely you are, Dora—all a rosy pink mist. That's love."
"You mean my aura?" she asked.
"Yes, of course."
"Oh,—Turco, I'm so glad! I'm going to be awfully good, Turco. No more tempers, no more sulks. I've been rather horrid lately, haven't I?"
"Something unspeakable," Turco agreed. "What was the matter?"
When it suited her, Dora could be as frank as a child.
"I was going to run away with him—with Lord Anthony. Charing Cross next Friday—going to Spain. What d'you think of that, Turco?"
She wanted to surprise and shock him ; but Turco merely blinked.
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
"I think it's a pity you should have such ideas," he said.
"Don't you think I'm wicked?"
She was rather disappointed at his taking it so quietly.
"I suppose you must be. What made you want to run off with Harland? 'Cause he asked you to?"
Dora flushed uncomfortably.
"And what made you change your mind?" Turco persisted. "Because you met a woman with a baby who told you how happy she was? Haven't you anything in you yourself, Dora? Are you a chameleon?"
"Don't you call me names!" Dora said fiercely. "Cham—chameleon yourself!" Turco laughed.
"Well, we can't sit here jawing all the evening. Time to be getting along to the hall."
"But I haven't had my tea."
"That isn't my fault. You'll have to wait."
"But Ted hasn't come in yet. Where can he be?"
Turco shrugged his shoulders and reached for his hat.
"Ted'll come along. You haven't treated him any too well lately, you know—"
"Oh, but I shall be so nice to him tonight!" Dora exclaimed. "And, Turco—when we get that flat you'll come to live with us."
"If you're sure you want me," said Turco, trying not to seem too pleased.
IT was their last night at the Viaduct Empire. Next week they had no date, and Dora meant to snatch the opportunity for flat-hunting and furnishing.
Ted showed up in the dressing-room a little late. He said he'd been out to the Zoo with a chap of his acquaintance. For once in her life, Dora was unsuspicious, although he stated it rather clumsily.
"Well, you are a one!" she cried. "Make haste, now. You've only got ten minutes."
She wafted out of the dressing-room to give him more space, and in the corridor ran into Miss Mollie Brian wearing street clothes and getting a sound scolding from the stage manager. Obviously she had just come in.
"You go on at eight, and we've had to put Number Twelve in your place. You know very well, Miss Brian—"
"Oh, chuck it! I can go on in twelve's place, can't I? You're always shifting us about, when it suits you. You can do it to suit me, for once in a way."
"Well, what's your excuse, then?"
"I've been spending my time in the monkey-house, if you must know; but as there's plenty of 'em knocking about here—"
Turco was passing her as she spoke, and possibly she combined impertinence to the manager with insult to Turco.
Dora, following Turco, felt herself grow cold all over. She grasped his arm.
"Turco—she and Ted—that woman! They've been to the Zoo together. Ted said that was why he was late—and you just heard what she said."
"Pouff! It's nearly nine o'clock. The Zoo closes at five."
"Then where have they been since?"
"I don't believe it. It's only your silly imagination. And where were you this afternoon, if I may ask?"
"That's got nothing to do with it. I was going to be so happy, Turco—so good!"
"Why can't you keep on going to be so happy and so good?" he jeered.
"Because he's killed me!"
"Then you do care something for him?"
"I did."
"That's what I mean. You change for anything. You're like a postage stamp with the gum off—you won't stick."
Dora moved away, deeply offended; but what he said impressed her. She'd show Turco that she could stick—for a little while, anyway.
With a superhuman effort of will, she determined that she'd die rather than row with Ted over his visit to the Zoo with Mollie Brian and their subsequent doings. She'd even be pleasant to him.
But it galled her horribly. In the humiliation of pride it suffered, her soul grew a little. She had taken the first painful grip on self-control.
"Hitchcock's coming," he called.
There was no answer. The next moment a falsetto whoop from the trail below duplicated his warning. Still no sign from the kitchen.
Scott stepped quickly to the door of Hitchcock's room. Lydie was not there. He ran to the kitchen. It, too, was empty; but the kettles were bubbling on the stove. As he stood uncertain, he heard Hitchcock shouting again, this time from the front door. He hurried across to meet him. The man from Twisp—long-legged, sandy, unshaven—was rolling out of his saddle, dragging bundles down from old Nell. Without a word, Scott began to help him.
Well, Sco—Scoddy—how's every little thing ad 'a' Golden Hope? Been lonesome without me?"
"Not on your life!"
Hitchcock stared.
"What's up?" he inquired owlishly.
"Huh—I'm not the one to have news." Lefty was non-committal. "What's new in Twisp?"
He was careful not to get between the newcomer and that door from which the padlock had been wrenched. Rather to his surprise, Hitchcock never glanced at it, but dropped down beside the heater in the living-room and began to roll himself a cigarette.
"Lots of things new in Twisp," he chuckled richly. "Church folks got so moral they started in to clean up the town. Tried to shut up the saloons. Run off the gamblers. Chased out all the dance-hall girls—before I got there." His tone sank to a sort of dejection, but he took up the theme again, as Scott stood rigid, half way to the kitchen, stiffened in his tracks, listening.
"The girls from Bertrand's place went down to Paradiso. Three more over t'other side of the divide at Clark's. One poor little devil just walked away on her two feet—scared wild. Old crazy Shannigan gave her a lift for 'bout fifteen miles up this way. But whatever the old skeezicks done with her— He come back without her, and he swore she just fell off his load into the gulch—so that's the last of her."
"Yes—that's the last of her," echoed Scott.
"Whad you say?" bawled Hitchcock after him as he moved to the kitchen.
"I didn't say anything," Scott shouted back, then wheeled and came toward him. Hitchcock stumbled up, biting his cigarette in two, but managing finally to put the table between them.
"Now, don't you get mad—you fool boy!" he spluttered. "I'm yer friend. What's the matter with you, anyhow?"
Lefty stood stock-still for a moment. He rammed clenched hands deep into his pockets, and looked the bigger man up and down.
"Nothing—that's any of your business," he said at last, whirled, and went into the kitchen.
OUT there, he drew up in the middle of the room, all the devil there was in him—and it was not a little—boiling to the surface. She had said that he would understand before she left. He sickened at the memory of last night, when she had said it—of his faltering, humiliated confession to her, a dance-hall girl that the decent people of Twisp had turned out in the snow. This was what he, Lefty Scott, had set up to worship, had been so tender of, so ashamed before. This was what he had given Hitchcock's room to with its barred door. This was what he had armed with a gun, that she might defend herself from him—from him! She
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
There, crouched in the angle, she stood and looked at him, a bit of human wreckage, mute for the moment with terror. Yet there came a power out of that poor little figure that stilled him, stopped him like a cold hand. It was so her eyes had looked when he would have kissed her that night she wore the pink blouse and the pink ribbon in her hair.
"Well?" he demanded in a sort of groan.
"I—I heard," she breathed. "It's true. You wouldn't believe me if I told you how I came to be there in Twisp that way. After he—ran away—I tried to kill myself; but when they turned me out to die along with those other poor things— Oh, then I couldn't! And when I came here—and you mistook me for a decent girl—oh, I couldn't—I couldn't bear to tell you different!"
Without a word, Scott swung open the door behind him, his gesture ordering her in. She went submissively. Through the kitchen they tramped side by side, and stopped in the door of the living-room. Hitchcock looked up, blinked in bewilderment, then crowed:
"Well—look who's here!"
"Yes—she's here."
Scott spoke heavily. Lydie stood a moment in burning embarrassment, her gaze on the floor.
"May I"—she looked up fleetingly—"may I set the table now?" Then, in a stronger tone: "The supper's all ready. I've got fresh bread."
TAKING Scott's silence for consent, she hurried back to the kitchen, and shut the door. Hitchcock stared after her, and a slow grin grew on his face.
"Well, you durned old clam!" he leered at his partner. "My news was no news to you. You knew more about what I was telling you than I did. The pick of the bunch, too! This ain't no dance-hall chicken. That's the girl I was telling you about. Spanish Sam brought her in from south of here. She didn't know she wasn't Mrs. Sam till he ditched her when he had to skip for knifing a man over a card game. But them pious folks in Twisp knew it, you bet. They chased her out with the rest. Say—she's some peach, all right. Just the sort of mama's girl that slick devil would pick up in a country town."
He got to his feet, started across, and saw where the lock had been wrenched off his room door. Lydie came in and began to set the table for them. Scott fetched her suit-case. Hitchcock stood fumbling at the marred jamb, a little slow at opening the question.
"I done that." Lefty didn't wait for him. "Busted it off to give the girl your room."
"Why—?" Hitchcock was beginning; but Scott shut him up with:
"Because it's the only place in the house fit to give a girl—a lady."
"A lady!" Hitchcock's voice veered and broke on a sort of squeak. "Is that what you call your little friend?"
Scott was setting down the suit-case beside the bed. He came out, confronting the other man.
"Yes, I do. That's what I call her. And right here's where she's going to stay to-night—in a room with a perfectly good fastening to the door."
"Huh! Whose house is this, anyhow?"
"Yours. And if you behave yourself you can stay in it and eat some of the supper this girl's cooked."
"Well, I'll be—"
Lefty checked him again:
"Does that go? She packs a gun—that I gave her. She's to use it on any man that doesn't act to suit her—see?"
"Don't shoot—my hands are up!"
Hitchcock laughed boisterously and dropped into his place.
Scott sat at the end of the table, the girl on one hand, his partner on the other. He served the food. Lydie poured the coffee and handed it, but otherwise her eyes never left her plate. Hitchcock was sobered, by fits and starts. Had his drunk been a recent affair, he would by now have boon himself; but he would glance at Lefty sitting there, eating sparingly, getting blacker and blacker, then snicker inanely, or try to get Lydie's eye in order to wink and jerk a thumb at Lefty.
"Beans is prime," he finally announced to the world at large.
No answer of any sort.
"Whoever cooked 'em can sure cook for me," he tried again.
"Cut it out," snapped Lefty.
"'Ll, whose money bought them beans I'm not allowed to mention?" complained Hitchcock. "Say, little gun lady, do you like that grouch over there, now't you've got him? I ain't as young,—nor
[photograph]
HE lives in the United States, yet out of it. His name is Charles Loud, and one of his ancestors founded Loudville. The State of Maine claims that Loudville is a part of the United States, and has been trying for years to get possession of it: the residents of Loudville claim that they are citizens of Loudville and of nothing else.
Loudville is on Loud's Island. To get there you go to Newcastle, Maine, then to Damariscotta: there you hire any vehicle you can get that will drive you ten miles to Round Pond, where you search around for Joe Thompson, who sometimes runs a motor-boat to Loud's, and get him to ferry you over. You won't find any landing on Loud's Island—it might be of use to the United States, think the inhabitants, so they prefer to clamber over the sea-weed and rocks, taking a chance of getting wet.
Loudville has about 150 inhabitants. There are no streets; no lights; no landings; no sewers; no telephone; no telegraph; no anything.
Nobody in Loudville pays any taxes; nobody votes.
There is only one tie with the outside world: three times weekly the mails come to Loudville. They didn't ask for the mails—they condescend to accept them from the government. As for paying for the mails—not a cent!
It all happened like this: Loudville is, geographically, a part of the town of Bristol. When Lincoln ran for his first term in 1860, Loudville voted. It went Democratic, all except a single vote. The town of Bristol went Republican. Under some pretext, Bristol contested Loudville's vote, and the vote was thrown out. Loudville got mad, and it has stuck mad ever since. Never since that day has a soul in Loudville cast a vote. Never since that day has any one paid a cent of taxes, either to Bristol or to Maine or to the United States. Loudville did just what the South tried to do later—it seceded from the Union; and, by heck, it's never come back!
It never became a town of itself. It has refused to. It has resisted all pressure to become either a town, a village, a plantation, or anything else. It refused telephone and wire connection—Loudville is mad at the whole world.
When a United States officer landed in Loudville, during the Civil War, to enforce the draft, the housewives met him with a bombardment of hot potatoes, and he retreated in confusion. Loudville is just as little interested in the present war, and claims that, since it is not a part of the United States, it will remain neutral, giving help to neither side.
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
"That's enough of that blab!"
Lefty's eyes blazed under slant brows, between which his forehead showed a curious little white triangle, point down. Hitchcock became speechless.
After the meal the two men went from the table straight over to the stove, sat down, and began to argue, their voices rising angrily. Lydie, going out and in to clear the table, moving with a hushed step, a downcast, furtive eye, discovered that they were wrangling about the mine. Scott, she made out, was leaving.
"Goin' to quit me—cold—like that? What have I done? You've stayed by it all winter; what makes you lay down on it now? What you goin' for?"
"Because I want to. I'll take old Nell—in the morning. I'll tell Buckley to send you over a mule from Traverse."
Lydie, having lingered out her bit of kitchen work as long as she could, came and stood in the back of the room. In the heat of their man's quarrel over the gold mine they seemed to have forgotten her: yet instantly Scott turned to her and said, shortly but not unkindly:
"Want to go to bed now?" She saw that the door of his sleeping-place was open, and a mattress and roll of blankets had been carried out and thrown into one of the bunks. "All right," he finished. "You keep the room you had."
She went mutely, like a dog ordered to heel; but on the threshold she turned and burst out:
"You're leaving in the morning. What about me?"
"You'll go along." Lefty was brief.
"Now, Scotty—" Hitchcock jumped to his feet.
"Shut your head!"
"I'll be hanged if I do. Have some sense, can't you? 'N' I'm not goin' to sleep in that other room, neither, and give up my place to a—"
"Don't never say it," Scott stopped him. "Get yourself in there, like I told you to—see?—for your health."
The two eyed each other a long minute; then Hitchcock went slowly, like a man walking a shaky foot-log. When Scott turned to where Lydie had stood, she had slipped through her own door and shut it. He looked at the planks; a hand faltered out toward them. He turned sharply and followed Hitchcock, taking his time, while the other querulously protested, to drag out all his belongings into the living-room, ready to be packed.
It was not until this was completed, and Hitchcock had finally settled down and there was no sound from him, that Lefty went and tapped softly on Lydie's door.
"Asleep yet?"
"No-o-o." The girl's frightened tones sounded just behind the boards. "I—"
"All right. Five o'clock for ours. Shall I call you?"
"No—no. I'll be up—and get the coffee. I'll wake all right."
THE vast Northern night had shut down on that world of snowy peaks, of frozen steeps, against one of which the brown plank house with its fiery window eyes, its erected trail of smoke, made the one human challenge. After a time those windows were darkened; but Lefty, having packed, sat by the heater. It was nearly midnight. Hitchcock's long rasping snores had been sounding for hours, when the smoke-trail thinned itself to a mere tremble of warm air above the chimney-top. Lefty went and threw himself, dressed as he was, into the bunk, and pulled a blanket over him.
He scarcely thought to sleep; yet presently he lost himself, to be wakened by the smell of coffee and frying bacon, and—he thought—a light touch on his shoulder. For an instant he listened, bewildered, to Hitchcock still snoring. But there stood Lydie, dressed for the trail. The heater roared; a coffee-pot sat on it; there were plates and food at one end of the table.
"I—I'll put up the lunch while you eat." Lydie spoke very low. "I've had some coffee—it's all I want."
"In a minute," he said. "I'll feed the horse first," and hurried out.
When, he came back and was eating his breakfast, and afterward, while he was gathering up the things to pack them on the horse, he noticed that Lydie was white and woe-begone. There were deep circles under the wide-apart black eyes; her mouth trembled; she looked heart-sick. He pitied her, and his own heart was lead in his breast. What was he going to do with her—like that? It hurt him worst to see the effort she made, running here and there, waiting on him, trying to lift things too heavy for her strength. Nothing was said of it between them, but both were in haste to get away while the snores still sounded from the inner room.
AT last they were done and on the trail in front of the house.
"Are—are you just going to leave your share here?" she asked piteously—"your share of the Golden Hope?"
"No; there's a man at Traverse wants to buy it."
"Oh, you're going to Traverse? Will—you—stay there?"
"No. I'll take what I get for my share of this. It won't be much, but I can make a start somewhere else."
Scott had packed the old horse so that there was a seat left for the girl.
"You'll ride as much as you can. You'd never make Traverse in a day afoot. But it's pretty cold now. Will you start riding or walking?"
"Oh, walking."
They set off side by side, the lead-rope over Scott's shoulder. In silence they made the twisted, sudden descent for a mile below the house, and came out on the Bench, where the great valley lay spread wide and white before them. For some little time he had been aware of her deep, sobbing breaths; she had fallen a little behind him. Now he halted suddenly with:
"Come, let me put you up. You ought to be riding."
She came and stood in front of him, a world of mysterious entreaty in the great tear-drowned eyes, the wrung little face.
"When—when you go—go on from Traverse," she began huskily, "are you going to—take me with you?"
"Well, what would you expect?"
"I've got no right to expect anything. But I hoped you might—anyhow, for a while. Still, that's just as you please, of course."
"Just as I please—just as I please, Lydie? Well, then we'll be married as soon as we get into Traverse."
"Married! Oh, oh, oh! Was that what you meant? You would marry me—me!"
She burst into a storm of wild weeping, plunged at him, caught the front of his coat in two little shaking hands, to throw her head back and stare up into his face, then burrow in against him and hide her eyes.
"Why, Lydie—Lydie—why would you take it like that? You knew—of course you did—that the fellow I told you about that had been in the pen was me."
"Yes—a man!" came her muffled protest. "But when a girl's disgraced there's no chance for a new start."
For a minute he let her cry it out against his shoulder, patting her, murmuring to her. Then he lifted her and held her in his arms, baby fashion.
"You poor kid," he whispered. "You poor little kid! How much new start do you reckon you need?"
He kissed her gravely, lifted her to old Nell's back, and stood a moment looking up at her, his hands still round her waist, there in the great world of snow and sky and dawn that was like a fresh page, on which almost anything might be written.
They fronted the sunrise.
"That's where you belong," he said softly. "'Way up above me. But we'll make our new start together."
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
[advertisement]
