The Project Gutenberg EBook of Quaint Courtships, by Howells & Alden, Editors

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Title: Quaint Courtships

Author: Howells & Alden, Editors

Release Date: December, 2005 [EBook #9490]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on October 5, 2003]

Edition: 10

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK QUAINT COURTSHIPS ***




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QUAINT COURTSHIPS


Harper's Novelettes


EDITED BY WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS AND HENRY MILLS ALDEN


1906




MARGARET DELAND

AN ENCORE


NORMAN DUNCAN

A ROMANCE OF WHOOPING HARBOR


MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN

HYACINTHUS


SEWELL FORD

JANE'S GRAY EYES


HERMAN WHITAKER

A STIFF CONDITION


MAY HARRIS

IN THE INTERESTS OF CHRISTOPHER


FRANCIS WILLING WHARTON

THE WRONG DOOR


WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS

BRAYBRIDGE'S OFFER


ELIA W. PEATTIE

THE RUBAIYAT AND THE LINER


ANNIE HAMILTON DONNELL

THE MINISTER




Introduction


To the perverse all courtships probably are quaint; but if ever human
nature may be allowed the full range of originality, it may very well be
in the exciting and very personal moments of making love. Our own
peculiar social structure, in which the sexes have so much innocent
freedom, and youth is left almost entirely to its own devices in the
arrangement of double happiness, is so favorable to the expression of
character at these supreme moments, that it is wonderful there is so
little which is idiosyncratic in our wooings. They tend rather to a
type, very simple, very normal, and most people get married for the
reason that they are in love, as if it were the most matter-of-course
affair of life. They find the fact of being in love so entirely
satisfying to the ideal, that they seek nothing adventitious from
circumstance to heighten their tremendous consciousness.

Yet, here and there people, even American people, are so placed that
they take from the situation a color of eccentricity, if they impart
none to it, and the old, old story, which we all wish to have end well,
zigzags to a fortunate close past juts and angles of individuality which
the heroes and heroines have not willingly or wittingly thrown out. They
would have chosen to arrive smoothly and uneventfully at the goal, as by
far the greater majority do; and probably if they are aware of looking
quaint to others in their progress, they do not like it. But it is this
peculiar difference which renders them interesting and charming to the
spectator. If we all love a lover, as Emerson says, it is not because of
his selfish happiness, but because of the odd and unexpected chances
which for the time exalt him above our experience, and endear him to our
eager sympathies. In life one cannot perhaps have too little romance in
affairs of the heart, or in literature too much; and in either one may
be as quaint as one pleases in such affairs without being ridiculous.

W.D.H.




AN ENCORE


BY MARGARET DELAND


According to Old Chester, to be romantic was just one shade less
reprehensible than to put on airs. Captain Alfred Price, in all his
seventy years, had never been guilty of airs, but certainly he had
something to answer for in the way of romance.

However, in the days when we children used to see him pounding up the
street from the post-office, reading, as he walked, a newspaper held at
arm's length in front of him, he was far enough from romance. He was
seventy years old, he weighed over two hundred pounds, his big head was
covered with a shock of grizzled red hair; his pleasures consisted in
polishing his old sextant and playing on a small mouth-harmonicon. As to
his vices, it was no secret that he kept a fat black bottle in the
chimney-closet in his own room; added to this, he swore strange oaths
about his grandmother's nightcap. "He used to blaspheme," his
daughter-in-law said, "but I said, 'Not in my presence, if you please!'
So now he just says this foolish thing about a nightcap." Mrs. Drayton
said that this reform would be one of the jewels in Mrs. Cyrus Price's
crown; and added that she prayed that some day the Captain would give up
tobacco and _rum_. "I am a poor, feeble creature," said Mrs. Drayton; "I
cannot do much for my fellow men in active mission-work. But I give my
prayers." However, neither Mrs. Drayton's prayers nor Mrs. Cyrus's
active mission-work had done more than mitigate the blasphemy; the "rum"
(which was good Monongahela whiskey) was still on hand; and as for
tobacco, except when sleeping, eating, playing on his harmonicon, or
dozing through one of Dr. Lavendar's sermons, the Captain smoked every
moment, the ashes of his pipe or cigar falling unheeded on a vast and
wrinkled expanse of waistcoat.

No; he was not a romantic object. But we girls, watching him stump past
the schoolroom window to the post-office, used to whisper to each other,
"Just think! _he eloped_."

There was romance for you!

To be sure, the elopement had not quite come off, but, except for the
very end, it was all as perfect as a story. Indeed, the failure at the
end made it all the better: angry parents, broken hearts,--only, the
worst of it was, the hearts did not stay broken! He went and married
somebody else; and so did she. You would have supposed she would have
died. I am sure, in her place, any one of us would have died. And yet,
as Lydia Wright said, "How could a young lady die for a young gentleman
with ashes all over his waistcoat?"

However, when Alfred Price fell in love with Miss Letty Morris, he was
not indifferent to his waistcoat, nor did he weigh two hundred pounds.
He was slender and ruddy-cheeked, with tossing red-brown curls. If he
swore, it was not by his grandmother nor her nightcap; if he drank, it
was hard cider (which can often accomplish as much as "rum"); if he
smoked, it was in secret, behind the stable. He wore a stock, and (on
Sunday) a ruffled shirt; a high-waisted coat with two brass buttons
behind, and very tight pantaloons. At that time he attended the Seminary
for Youths in Upper Chester. Upper Chester was then, as in our time, the
seat of learning in the township, the Female Academy being there, too.
Both were boarding-schools, but the young people came home to spend
Sunday; and their weekly returns, all together in the stage, were
responsible for more than one Old Chester match....

"The air," says Miss, sniffing genteelly as the coach jolts past the
blossoming May orchards, "is most agreeably perfumed. And how fair is
the prospect from this hilltop!"

"Fair indeed!" responded her companion, staring boldly.

Miss bridles and bites her lip.

"_I_ was not observing the landscape," the other explains, carefully.

In those days (Miss Letty was born in 1804, and was eighteen when she
and the ruddy Alfred sat on the back seat of the coach)--in those days
the conversation of Old Chester youth was more elegant than in our time.
We, who went to Miss Bailey's school, were sad degenerates in the way of
manners and language; at least so our elders told us. When Lydia Wright
said, "Oh my, what an awful snow-storm!" dear Miss Ellen was displeased.
"Lydia," said she, "is there anything 'awe'-inspiring in this display of
the elements?"

"No, 'm," faltered poor Lydia.

"Then," said Miss Bailey, gravely, "your statement that the storm is
'awful' is a falsehood. I do not suppose, my dear, that you
intentionally told an untruth; it was an exaggeration. But an
exaggeration, though not perhaps a falsehood, is unladylike, and should
be avoided by persons of refinement." Just here the question arises:
what would Miss Ellen (now in heaven) say if she could hear Lydia's
Lydia, just home from college, remark--But no: Miss Ellen's precepts
shall protect these pages.

But in the days when Letty Morris looked out of the coach window, and
young Alfred murmured that the prospect was fair indeed, conversation
was perfectly correct. And it was still decorous even when it got beyond
the coach period and reached a point where Old Chester began to take
notice. At first it was young Old Chester which giggled. Later old Old
Chester made some comments; it was then that Alfred's mother mentioned
the matter to Alfred's father. "He is young, and, of course, foolish,"
Mrs. Price explained. And Mr. Price said that though folly was
incidental to Alfred's years, it must be checked.

"Just check it," said Mr. Price.

Then Miss Letty's mother awoke to the situation, and said, "Fy, fy,
Letitia."

So it was that these two young persons were plunged in grief. Oh,
glorious grief of thwarted love! When they met now, they did not talk of
the landscape. Their conversation, though no doubt as genteel as before,
was all of broken hearts. But again Letty's mother found out, and went
in wrath to call on Alfred's family. It was decided between them that
the young man should be sent away from home. "To save him," says the
father. "To protect my daughter," says Mrs. Morris.

But Alfred and Letty had something to say.... It was in December; there
was a snow-storm--a storm which Lydia Wright would certainly have called
"awful"; but it did not interfere with true love; these two children met
in the graveyard to swear undying constancy. Alfred's lantern came
twinkling through the flakes, as he threaded his way across the hillside
among the tombstones, and found Letty just inside the entrance, standing
with her black serving-woman under a tulip-tree. The negress, chattering
with cold and fright, kept plucking at the girl's pelisse; but once
Alfred was at her side, Letty was indifferent to storm and ghosts. As
for Alfred, he was too cast down to think of them.

"Letty, they will part us."

"No, my dear Alfred, no!"

"Yes. Yes, they will. Oh, if you were only mine!"

Miss Letty sighed.

"Will you be true to me, Letty? I am to go on a sailing-vessel to China,
to be gone two years. Will you wait for me?"

Letty gave a little cry; two years! Her black woman twitched her sleeve.

"Miss Let, it's gittin' cole, honey."

"(Don't, Flora.)--Alfred, _two years!_ Oh, Alfred, that is an eternity.
Why, I should be--I should be twenty!"

The lantern, set on a tombstone beside them, blinked in a snowy gust.
Alfred covered his face with his hands, he was shaken to his soul; the
little, gay creature beside him thrilled at a sound from behind those
hands.

"Alfred,"--she said, faintly; then she hid her face against his arm; "my
dear Alfred, I will, if you desire it--fly with you!"

Alfred, with a gasp, lifted his head and stared at her. His slower mind
had seen nothing but separation and despair; but the moment the word was
said he was aflame. What! Would she? Could she? Adorable creature!

"Miss Let, my feet done get cole--"

("Flora, be still!)--Yes, Alfred, yes. I am thine."

The boy caught her in his arms. "But I am to be sent away on Monday! My
angel, could you--fly, _to-morrow_?"

And Letty, her face still hidden against his shoulder, nodded.

Then, while the shivering Flora stamped, and beat her arms, and the
lantern flared and sizzled, Alfred made their plans, which were simple
to the point of childishness. "My own!" he said, when it was all
arranged; then he held the lantern up and looked into her face, blushing
and determined, with snowflakes gleaming on the curls that pushed out
from under her big hood. "You will meet me at the minister's?" he said,
passionately. "You will not fail me?"

"I will not fail you!" she said; and laughed joyously; but the young
man's face was white.

She kept her word; and with the assistance of Flora, romantic again when
her feet were warm, all went as they planned. Clothes were packed,
savings-banks opened, and a chaise abstracted from the Price stable.

"It is my intention," said the youth, "to return to my father the value
of the vehicle and nag, as soon as I can secure a position which will
enable me to support my Lefty in comfort and fashion."

On the night of the elopement the two children met at the minister's
house. (Yes, the very old Rectory to which we Old Chester children went
every Saturday afternoon to Dr. Lavendar's Collect class. But of course
there was no Dr. Lavendar there in those days.)

Well; Alfred requested this minister to pronounce them man and wife; but
he coughed and poked the fire. "I am of age," Alfred insisted; "I am
twenty-two." Then Mr. Smith said he must go and put on his bands and
surplice first; and Alfred said, "If you please, sir." And off went Mr.
Smith--_and sent a note to Alfred's father and Letty's mother!_

We girls used to wonder what the lovers talked about while they waited
for the traitor. Ellen Dale always said they were foolish to wait. "Why
didn't they go right off?" said Ellen. "If I were going to elope, I
shouldn't bother to get married. But, oh, think of how they felt when in
walked those cruel parents!"

The story was that they were torn weeping from each other's arms; that
Letty was sent to bed for two days on bread and water; that Alfred was
packed off to Philadelphia the very next morning, and sailed in less
than a week. They did not see each other again.

But the end of the story was not romantic at all. Letty, although she
crept about for a while in deep disgrace, and brooded upon death--that
interesting impossibility, so dear to youth,--_married_, if you please!
when she was twenty, and went away to live. When Alfred came back, seven
years later, he got married, too. He married a Miss Barkley. He used to
go away on long voyages, so perhaps he wasn't really fond of her. We
tried to think so, for we liked Captain Price.

In our day Captain Price was a widower. He had given up the sea, and
settled down to live in Old Chester; his son, Cyrus, lived with him, and
his languid daughter-in-law--a young lady of dominant feebleness, who
ruled the two men with that most powerful domestic rod--foolish
weakness. This combination in a woman will cause a mountain (a masculine
mountain) to fly from its firm base; while kindness, justice, and good
sense leave it upon unshaken foundations of selfishness. Mrs. Cyrus was
a Goliath of silliness; when billowing black clouds heaped themselves in
the west on a hot afternoon, she turned pale with apprehension, and the
Captain and Cyrus ran for four tumblers, into which they put the legs of
her bed, where, cowering among the feathers, she lay cold with fear and
perspiration. Every night the Captain screwed down all the windows on
the lower floor; in the morning Cyrus pulled the screws out. Cyrus had a
pretty taste in horseflesh, but Gussie cried so when he once bought a
trotter that he had long ago resigned himself to a friendly beast of
twenty-seven years, who could not go much out of a walk because he had
string-halt in both hind legs.

But one must not be too hard on Mrs. Cyrus. In the first place, she was
not born in Old Chester. But, added to that, just think of her name! The
effect of names upon character is not considered as it should be. If one
is called Gussie for thirty years, it is almost impossible not to become
gussie after a while. Mrs. Cyrus could not be Augusta; few women can;
but it was easy to be gussie--irresponsible, silly, selfish. She had a
vague, flat laugh, she ate a great deal of candy, and she was afraid
of--But one cannot catalogue Mrs. Cyrus's fears. They were as the sands
of the sea for number. And these two men were governed by them. Only
when the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed will it be understood
why a man loves a fool; but why he obeys her is obvious enough: Fear is
the greatest power in the world; Gussie was afraid of thunder-storms, or
what not; but the Captain and Cyrus were afraid of Gussie! A hint of
tears in her pale eyes, and her husband would sigh with anxiety and
Captain Price slip his pipe in his pocket and sneak out of the room.
Doubtless Cyrus would often have been glad to follow him, but the old
gentleman glared when his son showed a desire for his company.

"Want to come and smoke with me? 'Your granny was Murray!'--you're
sojering. You're first mate; you belong on the bridge in storms. I'm
before the mast. Tend to your business!"

It was forty-eight years before Letty and Alfred saw each other
again--or at least before persons calling themselves by those old names
saw each other. Were they Letty and Alfred--this tousled, tangled,
good-humored old man, ruddy and cowed, and this small, bright-eyed old
lady, led about by a devoted daughter? Certainly these two persons bore
no resemblance to the boy and girl torn from each other's arms that cold
December night. Alfred had been mild and slow; Captain Price (except
when his daughter-in-law raised her finger) was a pleasant old roaring
lion. Letty had been a gay, high-spirited little creature, not as
retiring, perhaps, as a young female should be, and certainly
self-willed; Mrs. North was completely under the thumb of her daughter
Mary. Not that "under the thumb" means unhappiness; Mary North desired
only her mother's welfare, and lived fiercely for that single purpose.
From morning until night (and, indeed, until morning again, for she rose
often from her bed to see that there was no draught from the crack of
the open window), all through the twenty-four hours she was on duty.

When this excellent daughter appeared in Old Chester and said she was
going to hire a house, and bring her mother back to end her days in the
home of her girlhood, Old Chester displayed a friendly interest; when
she decided upon a house on Main Street, directly opposite Captain
Price's, it began to recall the romance of that thwarted elopement.

"Do you suppose she knows that story about old Alfred Price and her
mother?" said Old Chester; and it looked sidewise at Miss North with
polite curiosity. This was not altogether because of her mother's
romantic past, but because of her own manners and clothes. With painful
exactness, Miss North endeavored to follow the fashion; but she looked
as if articles of clothing had been thrown at her and some had stuck. As
to her manners, Old Chester was divided. Mrs. Barkley said she hadn't
any. Dr. Lavendar said she was shy. But, as Mrs. Drayton said, that was
just like Dr. Lavendar, always making excuses for wrong-doing!--"Which,"
said Mrs. Drayton, "is a strange thing for a minister to do. For my
part, I cannot understand impoliteness in a _Christian_ female. But we
must not judge," Mrs. Drayton ended, with what Willy King called her
"holy look." Without wishing to "judge," it may be said that, in the
matter of manners, Miss Mary North, palpitatingly anxious to be polite,
told the truth. She said things that other people only thought. When
Mrs. Willy King remarked that, though she did not pretend to be a good
housekeeper, she had the backs of her pictures dusted every other day,
Miss North, her chin trembling with shyness, said, with a panting smile:

"That's not good for housekeeping; it's foolish waste of time." Which
was very rude, of course--though Old Chester was not as displeased as
you might have supposed.

While Miss North, timorous and truthful (and determined to be polite),
was putting the house in order before sending for her mother, Old
Chester invited her to tea, and asked her many questions about Letty and
the late Mr. North. But nobody asked whether she knew that her opposite
neighbor, Captain Price, might have been her father;--at least that was
the way Miss Ellen's girls expressed it. Captain Price himself did not
enlighten the daughter he did not have; but he went rolling across the
street, and pulling off his big shabby felt hat, stood at the foot of
the steps, and roared out: "Morning! Anything I can do for you?" Miss
North, indoors, hanging window-curtains, her mouth full of tacks, shook
her head. Then she removed the tacks and came to the front door.

"Do you smoke, sir?"

Captain Price removed his pipe from his mouth and looked at it. "Why! I
believe I do, sometimes," he said.

"I inquired," said Miss North, smiling tremulously, her hands gripped
hard together, "because, if you do, I will ask you to desist when
passing our windows."

Captain Price was so dumbfounded that for a moment words failed him.
Then he said, meekly, "Does your mother object to tobacco smoke, ma'am?"

"It is injurious to all ladies' throats," said Miss North, her voice
quivering and determined.

"Does your mother resemble you, madam?" said Captain Price, slowly.

"Oh no! my mother is pretty. She has my eyes, but that's all."

"I didn't mean in looks," said the old man; "she did not look in the
least like you; not in the least! I mean in her views?"

"Her views? I don't think my mother has any particular views," Miss
North answered, hesitatingly; "I spare her all thought," she ended, and
her thin face bloomed suddenly with love.

Old Chester rocked with the Captain's report of his call; and Mrs. Cyrus
told her husband that she only wished this lady would stop his father's
smoking.

"Just look at his ashes," said Gussie; "I put saucers round everywhere
to catch 'em, but he shakes 'em off anywhere--right on the carpet! And
if you say anything, he just says, 'Oh, they'll keep the moths away!' I
worry so for fear he'll set the house on fire."

Mrs. Cyrus was so moved by Miss North's active mission-work that the
very next day she wandered across the street to call. "I hope I'm not
interrupting you," she began, "but I thought I'd just--"

"Yes; you are," said Miss North; "but never mind; stay, if you want to."
She tried to smile, but she looked at the duster which she had put down
upon Mrs. Cyrus's entrance.

Gussie wavered as to whether to take offence, but decided not to;--at
least not until she could make the remark which was buzzing in her small
mind. It seemed strange, she said, that Mrs. North should come, not only
to Old Chester, but right across the street from Captain Price!

"Why?" said Mary North, briefly.

"_Why_?" said Mrs. Cyrus, with faint animation. "Why, don't you know
about your mother and my father-in-law?"

"Your father-in-law?--my mother?"

"Why, you know," said Mrs. Cyrus, with her light cackle, "your mother
was a little romantic when she was young. No doubt she has conquered it
now. But she tried to elope with my father-in-law."

"What!"

"Oh, bygones should be bygones," Mrs. Cyrus said, soothingly; "forgive
and forget, you know. If there's anything I can do to assist you, ma'am,
I'll send my husband over;" and then she lounged away, leaving poor Mary
North silent with indignation. But that night at tea Gussie said that
she thought strong-minded ladies were very unladylike; "they say she's
strong-minded," she added, languidly.

"Lady!" said the Captain. "She's a man-o'-war's man in petticoats."

Gussie giggled.

"She's as thin as a lath," the Captain declared; "if it hadn't been for
her face, I wouldn't have known whether she was coming bow or stern on."

"I think," said Mrs. Cyrus, "that that woman has some motive in bringing
her mother back here; and _right across the street_, too!"

"What motive?" said Cyrus.

But Augusta waited for conjugal privacy to explain herself: "Cyrus, I
worry so, because I'm sure that woman thinks she can catch your father
again.--Oh, just listen to that harmonicon downstairs! It sets my teeth
on edge!"

Then Cyrus, the silent, servile first mate, broke out: "Gussie, you're a
fool!"

And Augusta cried all night, and showed herself at the breakfast-table
lantern-jawed and sunken-eyed; and her father-in-law judged it wise to
sprinkle his cigar ashes behind the stable.

The day that Mrs. North arrived in Old Chester, Mrs. Cyrus commanded the
situation; she saw the daughter get out of the stage, and hurry into the
house for a chair so that the mother might descend more easily. She also
saw a little, white-haired old lady take that opportunity to leap
nimbly, and quite unaided, from the swinging step.

"Now, mother!" expostulated Mary North, chair in hand, and breathless,
"you might have broken your limb! Here, take my arm."

Meekly, after her moment of freedom, the little lady put her hand on
that gaunt arm, and tripped up the path and into the house, where, alas!
Augusta Price lost sight of them. Yet even she, with all her disapproval
of strong-minded ladies, must have admired the tenderness of the
man-o'-war's man. Miss North put her mother into a big chair, and
hurried to bring a dish of curds.

"I'm not hungry," protested Mrs. North.

"Never mind. It will do you good."

With a sigh the little old lady ate the curds, looking about her with
curious eyes. "Why, we're right across the street from the old Price
house!" she said.

"Did you know them, mother?" demanded Miss North.

"Dear me, yes," said Mrs. North, twinkling; "why, I'd forgotten all
about it, but the eldest boy--Now, what was his name? Al--something.
Alfred,--Albert; no, Alfred. He was a beau of mine."

"Mother! I don't think it's refined to use such a word."

"Well, he wanted me to elope with him," Mrs. North said, gayly; "if that
isn't being a beau, I don't know what is. I haven't thought of it for
years."

"If you've finished your curds you must lie down," said Miss North.

"Oh, I'll just look about--"

"No; you are tired. You must lie down."

"Who is that stout old gentleman going into the Price house?" Mrs. North
said, lingering at the window.

"Oh, that's your Alfred Price," her daughter answered; and added that
she hoped her mother would be pleased with the house. "We have boarded
so long, I think you'll enjoy a home of your own."

"Indeed I shall!" cried Mrs. North, her eyes snapping with delight.
"Mary, I'll wash the breakfast dishes, as my mother used to do!"

"Oh no," Mary North protested; "it would tire you. I mean to take every
care from your mind."

"But," Mrs. North pleaded, "you have so much to do; and--"

"Never mind about me," said the daughter, earnestly; "you are my first
consideration."

"I know it, my dear," said Mrs. North, meekly. And when Old Chester came
to make its call, one of the first things she said was that her Mary was
such a good daughter. Miss North, her anxious face red with
determination, bore out the assertion by constantly interrupting the
conversation to bring a footstool, or shut a window, or put a shawl over
her mother's knees. "My mother's limb troubles her," she explained to
visitors (in point of modesty, Mary North did not leave her mother a leg
to stand on); then she added, breathlessly, with her tremulous smile,
that she wished they would please not talk too much. "Conversation tires
her," she explained. At which the little, pretty old lady opened and
closed her hands, and protested that she was not tired at all. But the
callers departed. As the door closed behind them, Mrs. North was ready
to cry.

"Now, Mary, really!" she began.

"Mother, I don't care! I don't like to say things like that, though I'm
sure I always try to say them politely. But to save you I would say
anything!"

"But I enjoy seeing people, and--"

"It is bad for you to be tired," Mary said, her thin face quivering
still with the effort she had made; "and they sha'n't tire you while I
am here to protect you." And her protection never flagged. When Captain
Price called, she asked him to please converse in a low tone, as noise
was bad for her mother. "He had been here a good while before I came
in," she defended herself to Mrs. North, afterwards; "and I'm sure I
spoke politely."

The fact was, the day the Captain came, Miss North was out. Her mother
had seen him pounding up the street, and hurrying to the door, called
out, gayly, in her little, old, piping voice, "Alfred--Alfred Price!"

The Captain turned and looked at her. There was just one moment's pause;
perhaps be tried to bridge the years, and to believe that it was Letty
who spoke to him--Letty, whom he had last seen that wintry night, pale
and weeping, in the slender green sheath of a fur-trimmed pelisse. If
so, he gave it up; this plump, white-haired, bright-eyed old lady, in a
wide-spreading, rustling black silk dress, was not Letty. It was Mrs.
North.

The Captain came across the street, waving his newspaper, and saying,
"So you've cast anchor in the old port, ma'am?"

"My daughter is not at home; do come in," she said, smiling and nodding.
Captain Price hesitated; then he put his pipe in his pocket and followed
her into the parlor. "Sit down," she cried, gayly. "Well, _Alfred!_"

"Well,--_Mrs. North!_" he said; and then they both laughed, and she
began to ask questions: Who was dead? Who had so and so married? "There
are not many of us left," she said. "The two Ferris girls and Theophilus
Morrison and Johnny Gordon--he came to see me yesterday. And Matty
Dilworth; she was younger than I,--oh, by ten years. She married the
oldest Barkley boy, didn't she? I hear he didn't turn out well. You
married his sister, didn't you? Was it the oldest girl or the second
sister?"

"It was the second--Jane. Yes, poor Jane. I lost her in fifty-five."

"You have children?" she said, sympathetically.

"I've got a boy," he said; "but he's married."

"My girl has never married; she's a good daughter,"--Mrs. North broke
off with a nervous laugh; "here she is, now!"

Mary North, who had suddenly appeared in the doorway, gave a questioning
sniff, and the Captain's hand sought his guilty pocket; but Miss North
only said: "How do you do, sir? Now, mother, don't talk too much and get
tired." She stopped and tried to smile, but the painful color came into
her face. "And--if you please, Captain Price, will you speak in a low
tone? Large, noisy persons exhaust the oxygen in the air, and--"

_"Mary!"_ cried poor Mrs. North; but the Captain, clutching his old felt
hat, began to hoist himself up from the sofa, scattering ashes about as
he did so. Mary North compressed her lips.

"I tell my daughter-in-law they'll keep the moths away," the old
gentleman said, sheepishly.

"I use camphor," said Miss North. "Flora must bring a dust-pan."

"Flora?" Alfred Price said. "Now, what's my association with that name?"

"She was our old cook," Mrs. North explained; "this Flora is her
daughter. But you never saw old Flora?"

"Why, yes, I did," the old man said, slowly. "Yes. I remember Flora.
Well, good-by,--Mrs. North."

"Good-by, Alfred. Come again," she said, cheerfully.

"Mother, here's your beef tea," said a brief voice.

Alfred Price fled. He met his son just as he was entering his own house,
and burst into a confidence: "Cy, my boy, come aft and splice the
main-brace. Cyrus, what a female! She knocked me higher than Gilroy's
kite. And her mother was as sweet a girl as you ever saw!" He drew his
son into a little, low-browed, dingy room at the end of the hall. Its
grimy untidiness matched the old Captain's clothes, but it was his one
spot of refuge in his own house; here he could scatter his tobacco ashes
almost unrebuked, and play on his harmonicon without seeing Gussie wince
and draw in her breath; for Mrs. Cyrus rarely entered the "cabin." "I
worry so about its disorderliness that I won't go in," she used to say,
in a resigned way. And the Captain accepted her decision with
resignation of his own. "Crafts of your bottom can't navigate in these
waters," he agreed, earnestly; and, indeed, the room was so cluttered
with his belongings that voluminous hoop-skirts could not get
steerageway. "He has so much rubbish," Gussie complained; but it was
precious rubbish to the old man. His chest was behind the door; a
blowfish, stuffed and varnished, hung from the ceiling; two colored
prints of the "Barque _Letty M_., 800 tons," decorated the walls; his
sextant, polished daily by his big, clumsy hands, hung over the
mantelpiece, on which were many dusty treasures--the mahogany spoke of
an old steering-wheel; a whale's tooth; two Chinese wrestlers, in ivory;
a fan of spreading white coral; a conch-shell, its beautiful red lip
serving to hold a loose bunch of cigars. In the chimney-breast was a
little door, and the Captain, pulling his son into the room after that
call on Mrs. North, fumbled in his pockets for the key. "Here," he said;
("as the Governor of North Carolina said to the Governor of South
Carolina)--Cyrus, she gave her mother _beef tea!_"

But Cyrus was to receive still further enlightenment on the subject of
his opposite neighbor:

"She called him in. I heard her, with my own ears! 'Alfred,' she said,
'come in.' Cyrus, she has designs; oh, I worry so about it! He ought to
be protected. He is very old, and, of course, foolish. You ought to
check it at once."

"Gussie, I don't like you to talk that way about my father," Cyrus
began.

"You'll like it less later on. He'll go and see her to-morrow."

"Why shouldn't he go and see her to-morrow?" Cyrus said, and added a
modest bad word; which made Gussie cry. And yet, in spite of what his
wife called his "blasphemy," Cyrus began to be vaguely uncomfortable
whenever he saw his father put his pipe in his pocket and go across the
street. And as the winter brightened into spring, the Captain went quite
often. So, for that matter, did other old friends of Mrs. North's
generation, who by and by began to smile at each other, and say, "Well,
Alfred and Letty are great friends!" For, because Captain Price lived
right across the street, he went most of all. At least, that was what
Miss North said to herself with obvious common sense--until Mrs. Cyrus
put her on the right track....

"What!" gasped Mary North. "But it's impossible!"

"It would be very unbecoming, considering their years," said Gussie;
"but I worry so, because, you know, nothing is impossible when people
are foolish; and of course, at their age, they are apt to be foolish."

So the seed was dropped. Certainly he did come very often. Certainly her
mother seemed very glad to see him. Certainly they had very long talks.
Mary North shivered with apprehension. But it was not until a week later
that this miserable suspicion grew strong enough to find words. It was
after tea, and the two ladies were sitting before a little fire. Mary
North had wrapped a shawl about her mother, and given her a footstool,
and pushed her chair nearer the fire, and then pulled it away, and
opened and shut the parlor door three times to regulate the draught.
Then she sat down in the corner of the sofa, exhausted but alert.

"If there's anything you want, mother, you'll be sure and tell me?"

"Yes, my dear."

"I think I'd better put another shawl over your limbs?"

"Oh no, indeed!"

"Are you _sure_ you don't feel a draught?"

"No, Mary; and it wouldn't hurt me if I did!"

"I was only trying to make you comfortable,--"

"I know that, my dear; you are a very good daughter. Mary, I think it
would be nice if I made a cake. So many people call, and--"

"I'll make it to-morrow."

"Oh, I'll make it myself," Mrs. North protested, eagerly; "I'd really
enjoy--"

"_Mother!_ Tire yourself out in the kitchen? No, indeed! Flora and I
will see to it."

Mrs. North sighed.

Her daughter sighed too; then suddenly burst out: "Old Captain Price
comes here pretty often."

Mrs. North nodded, pleasantly. "That daughter-in-law doesn't half take
care of him. His clothes are dreadfully shabby. There was a button off
his coat to-day. And she's a foolish creature."

"Foolish? she's an unladylike person!" cried Miss North, with so much
feeling that her mother looked at her in mild astonishment. "And coarse,
too," said Mary North; "I think married ladies are apt to be coarse.
From association with men, I suppose."

"What has she done?" demanded Mrs. North, much interested.

"She hinted that he--that you--"

"Well?"

"That he came here to--to see you."

"Well, who else would he come to see? Not you!" said her mother.

"She hinted that he might want to--to marry you."

"Well,--upon my word! I knew she was a ridiculous creature, but
really--!"

Mary's face softened with relief. "Of course she is foolish; but--"

"Poor Alfred! What has he ever done to have such a daughter-in-law?
Mary, the Lord gives us our children; but _Somebody Else_ gives us our
in-laws!"

"Mother!" said Mary North, horrified, "you do say such things! But
really he oughtn't to come so often. I'll--I'll take you away from Old
Chester rather than have him bother you."

"Mary, you are just as foolish as his daughter-in-law," said Mrs. North,
impatiently.

And, somehow, poor Mary North's heart sank.

Nor was she the only perturbed person in town that night. Mrs. Cyrus had
a headache, so it was necessary for Cyrus to hold her hand and assure
her that Willy King said a headache did not mean brain fever.

"Willy King doesn't know everything. If he had headaches like mine, he
wouldn't be so sure. I am always worrying about things, and I believe my
brain can't stand it. And now I've got your father to worry about!"

"Better try and sleep, Gussie. I'll put some Kaliston on your head."

"Kaliston! Kaliston won't keep me from worrying.--Oh, listen to that
harmonicon!"

"Gussie, I'm sure he isn't thinking of Mrs. North."

"Mrs. North is thinking of him, which is a great deal more dangerous.
Cyrus, you _must_ ask Dr. Lavendar to interfere."

As this was at least the twentieth assault upon poor Cyrus's common
sense, the citadel trembled.

"Do you wish me to go into brain fever before your eyes, just from
worry?" Gussie demanded. "You _must_ go!"

"Well, maybe, perhaps, to-morrow--"

"To-night--to-night," said Augusta, faintly.

And Cyrus surrendered.

"Look under the bed before you go," Gussie murmured.

Cyrus looked. "Nobody there," he said, reassuringly; and went on tiptoe
out of the darkened, cologne-scented room. But as he passed along the
hall, and saw his father in his little cabin of a room, smoking
placidly, and polishing his sextant with loving hands, Cyrus's heart
reproached him.

"How's her head, Cy?" the Captain called out.

"Oh, better, I guess," Cyrus said.--("I'll be hanged if I speak to Dr.
Lavendar!")

"That's good," said the Captain, beginning to hoist himself up out of
his chair. "Going out? Hold hard, and I'll go 'long. I want to call on
Mrs. North."

Cyrus stiffened. "Cold night, sir," he remonstrated.

"'Your granny was Murray, and wore a black nightcap!'" said the Captain;
"you are getting delicate in your old age, Cy." He got up, and plunged
into his coat, and tramped out, slamming the door heartily behind him;
for which, later, poor Cyrus got the credit. "Where you bound?"

"Oh--down-street," said Cyrus, vaguely.

"Sealed orders?" said the Captain, with never a bit of curiosity in his
big, kind voice; and Cyrus felt as small as he was. But when he left the
old man at Mrs. North's door, he was uneasy again. Maybe Gussie was
right! Women are keener about those things than men. And his uneasiness
actually carried him to Dr. Lavendar's study, where he tried to appear
at ease by patting Danny.

"What's the matter with you, Cyrus?" said Dr. Lavendar, looking at him
over his spectacles. (Dr. Lavendar, in his wicked old heart, always
wanted to call this young man Cipher; but, so far, grace had been given
him to withstand temptation.) "What's wrong?" he said.

And Cyrus, somehow, told his troubles.

At first Dr. Lavendar chuckled; then he frowned. "Gussie put you up to
this, Cy--_rus_?" he said.

"Well, my wife's a woman," Cyrus began, "and they're keener on such
matters than men; and she said perhaps you would--would--"

_"What?"_ Dr. Lavendar rapped on the table with the bowl of his pipe, so
loudly that Danny opened one eye. "Would what?"

"Well," Cyrus stammered, "you know, Dr. Lavendar, as Gussie says,
'there's no fo--'"

"You needn't finish it," Dr. Lavendar interrupted, dryly; "I've heard it
before. Gussie didn't say anything about a young fool, did she?" Then he
eyed Cyrus. "Or a middle-aged one? I've seen middle-aged fools that
could beat us old fellows hollow."

"Oh, but Mrs. North is far beyond middle age," said Cyrus, earnestly.

Dr. Lavendar shook his head. "Well, well!" he said. "To think that
Alfred Price should have such a--And yet he is as sensible a man as I
know!"

"Until now," Cyrus amended. "But Gussie thought you'd better caution
him. We don't want him, at his time of life, to make a mistake."

"It's much more to the point that I should caution you not to make a
mistake," said Dr. Lavendar; and then he rapped on the table again,
sharply. "The Captain has no such idea--unless Gussie has given it to
him. Cyrus, my advice to you is to go home and tell your wife not to be
a goose. I'll tell her, if you want me to?"

"Oh no, no!" said Cyrus, very much frightened. "I'm afraid you'd hurt
her feelings."

"I'm afraid I should," said Dr. Lavendar.

He was so plainly out of temper that Cyrus finally slunk off,
uncomforted and afraid to meet Gussie's eye, even under its bandage of a
cologne-scented handkerchief.

However, he had to meet it, and he tried to make the best of his own
humiliation by saying that Dr. Lavendar was shocked at such an idea. "He
said father had always been so sensible; he didn't believe he would
think of such a dreadful thing. And neither do I, Gussie, honestly,"
Cyrus said.

"But Mrs. North isn't sensible," Gussie protested, "and she'll--"

"Dr. Lavendar said 'there was no fool like a middle-aged fool,'" Cyrus
agreed.

"Middle-aged! She's as old as Methuselah!"

"That's what I told him," said Cyrus.


By the end of April Old Chester smiled. How could it help it? Gussie
worried so that she took frequent occasion to point out possibilities;
and after the first gasp of incredulity, one could hear a faint echo of
the giggles of forty-eight years before. Mary North heard it, and her
heart burned within her.

"It's got to stop," she said to herself, passionately; "I must speak to
his son."

But her throat was dry at the thought. It seemed as if it would kill her
to speak to a man on such a subject--even to such a man as Cyrus. But,
poor, shy tigress! to save her mother, what would she not do? In her
pain and fright she said to Mrs. North that if that old man kept on
making her uncomfortable and conspicuous, they would leave Old Chester!

Mrs. North twinkled with amusement when Mary, in her strained and
quivering voice, began, but her jaw dropped at those last words; Mary
was capable of carrying her off at a day's notice! The little old lady
trembled with distressed reassurances; but Captain Price continued to
call.

And that was how it came about that this devoted daughter, after days of
exasperation and nights of anxiety, reached a point of tense
determination. She would go and see the man's son, and say ... that
afternoon, as she stood before the swinging glass on her high bureau,
tying her bonnet-strings, she tried to think what she would say. She
hoped God would give her words--polite words; "for I _must_ be polite,"
she reminded herself desperately. When she started across the street her
paisley shawl had slipped from one shoulder, so that the point dragged
on the flagstones; she had split her right glove up the back, and her
bonnet was jolted over sidewise; but the thick Chantilly veil hid the
quiver of her chin.

Gussie met her with effusion, and Mary, striving to be polite, smiled
painfully, and said,

"I don't want to see you; I want to see your husband."

Gussie tossed her head; but she made haste to call Cyrus, who came
shambling along the hall from the cabin. The parlor was dark; for though
it was a day of sunshine and merry May wind, Gussie kept the shutters
bowed, but Cyrus could see the pale intensity of his visitor's face.
There was a moment's silence, broken by a distant harmonicon.

"Mr. Price," said Mary North, with pale, courageous lips, "you must stop
your father."

Cyrus opened his weak mouth to ask an explanation, but Gussie rushed in.

"You are quite right, ma'am. Cyrus worries so about it (of course we
know what you refer to). And Cyrus says it ought to be checked
immediately, to save the old gentleman!"

"You must stop him," said Mary North, "for my mother's sake."

"Well--" Cyrus began.

"Have you cautioned your mother?" Gussie demanded.

"Yes," Miss North said, briefly. To talk to this woman of her mother
made her wince, but it had to be done. "Will you speak to your father,
Mr. Price?"

"Well, I--"

"Of course he will!" Gussie broke in; "Cyrus, he is in the cabin now."

"Well, to-morrow I--" Cyrus got up and sidled towards the door. "Anyhow,
I don't believe he's thinking of such a thing."

"Miss North," said Gussie, rising "_I_ will do it."

"What, _now?_" faltered Mary North.

"Now," said Mrs. Cyrus, firmly.

"Oh," said Miss North, "I--I think I will go home. Gentlemen, when they
are crossed, speak so--so earnestly."

Gussie nodded. The joy of action and of combat entered suddenly into her
little soul; she never looked less vulgar than at that moment. Cyrus had
disappeared.

Mary North, white and trembling, hurried out. A wheezing strain from the
harmonicon followed her into the May sunshine, then ended,
abruptly;--Mrs. Price had begun! On her own door-step Miss North stopped
and listened, holding her breath for an outburst.... It came. A roar of
laughter. Then silence. Mary North stood, motionless, in her own parlor;
her shawl, hanging from one elbow, trailed behind her; her other glove
had split; her bonnet was blown back and over one ear; her heart was
pounding in her throat. She was perfectly aware that she had done an
unheard-of thing. "But," she said, aloud, "I'd do it again. I'd do
anything to protect her. But I hope I was polite?" Then she thought how
courageous Mrs. Cyrus was. "She's as brave as a lion!" said Mary North.
Yet had Miss North been able to stand at the Captain's door, she would
have witnessed cowardice.

"Gussie, I wouldn't cry. Confound that female, coming over and stirring
you up! Now don't, Gussie! Why, I never thought of--Gussie, I wouldn't
cry--"

"I have worried almost to death. Pro-promise!"

"Oh, your granny was Mur--Gussie, my dear, now _don't_."

"Dr. Lavendar said you'd always been so sensible; he said he didn't see
how you could think of such a dreadful thing."

"What! Lavendar? I'll thank Lavendar to mind his business!" Captain
Price forgot Gussie; he spoke "earnestly." "Dog-gone these people that
pry into--Oh, now, Gussie, _don't!_"

"I've worried so awfully," said Mrs. Cyrus. "Everybody is talking about
you. And Dr. Lavendar is so--so angry about it; and now the daughter has
charged on me as though it is my fault!--Of course, she is queer, but--"

"Queer? she's queer as Dick's hatband! Why do you listen to her? Gussie,
such an idea never entered my head,--or Mrs. North's either."

"Oh yes, it has! Her daughter said that she had had to speak to her--"

Captain Price, dumbfounded, forgot his fear and burst out: "You're a
pack of fools, the whole caboodle! I swear I--"

"Oh, _don't_ blaspheme!" said Gussie, faintly, and staggered a little,
so that all the Captain's terror returned. _If she fainted!_

"Hi, there, Cyrus! Come aft, will you? Gussie's getting white around the
gills--Cyrus!"

Cyrus came, running, and between them they get the swooning Gussie to
her room. Afterwards, when Cyrus tiptoed down-stairs, he found the
Captain at the cabin door. The old man beckoned mysteriously.

"Cy, my boy, come in here;"--he hunted about in his pocket for the key
of the cupboard;--"Cyrus, I'll tell you what happened: that female
across the street came in, and told poor Gussie some cock-and-bull story
about her mother and me!" The Captain chuckled, and picked up his
harmonicon. "It scared the life out of Gussie," he said; then, with
sudden angry gravity,--"These people that poke their noses into other
people's business ought to be thrashed. Well, I'm going over to see Mrs.
North." And off he stumped, leaving Cyrus staring after him,
open-mouthed.

If Mary North had been at home, she would have met him with all the
agonized courage of shyness and a good conscience. But she had fled out
of the house, and down along the River Road, to be alone and regain her
self-control.

The Captain, however, was not seeking Miss North. He opened the front
door, and advancing to the foot of the stairs, called up: "Ahoy, there!
Mrs. North!"

Mrs. North came trotting out to answer the summons. "Why, Alfred!" she
exclaimed, looking over the banisters, "when did you come in? I didn't
hear the bell ring. I'll come right down."

"It didn't ring; I walked in," said the Captain. And Mrs. North came
downstairs, perhaps a little stiffly, but as pretty an old lady as you
ever saw. Her white curls lay against faintly pink cheeks, and her lace
cap had a pink bow on it. But she looked anxious and uncomfortable.

("Oh," she was saying to herself, "I do hope Mary's out!)--Well,
Alfred?" she said; but her voice was frightened.

The Captain stumped along in front of her into the parlor, and motioned
her to a seat. "Mrs. North," he said, his face red, his eye hard, "some
jack-donkeys have been poking their noses (of course they're females)
into our affairs; and--"

"Oh, Alfred, isn't it horrid in them?"

"Darn 'em!" said the Captain.

"It makes me mad!" cried Mrs. North; then her spirit wavered. "Mary is
so foolish; she says she'll--she'll take me away from Old Chester. I
laughed at first, it was so foolish. But when she said that-oh _dear!_"

"Well, but, my dear madam, say you won't go. Ain't you skipper?"

"No, I'm not," she said, dolefully. "Mary brought me here, and she'll
take me away, if she thinks it best. Best for _me_, you know. Mary is a
good daughter, Alfred. I don't want you to think she isn't. But she's
foolish. Unmarried women are apt to be foolish."

The Captain thought of Gussie, and sighed. "Well," he said, with the
simple candor of the sea, "I guess there ain't much difference in 'em,
married or unmarried."

"It's the interference makes me mad," Mrs. North declared, hotly.

"Damn the whole crew!" said the Captain; and the old lady laughed
delightedly.

"Thank you, Alfred!"

"My daughter-in-law is crying her eyes out," the Captain sighed.

"Tck!" said Mrs. North; "Alfred, you have no sense. Let her cry. It's
good for her!"

"Oh no," said the Captain, shocked.

"You're a perfect slave to her," cried Mrs. North.

"No more than you are to your daughter," Captain Price defended himself;
and Mrs. North sighed.

"We are just real foolish, Alfred, to listen to 'em. As if we didn't
know what was good for us."

"People have interfered with us a good deal, first and last," the
Captain said, grimly.

The faint color in Mrs. North's cheeks suddenly deepened. "So they
have," she said.

The Captain shook his head in a discouraged way; he took his pipe out of
his pocket and looked at it absent-mindedly. "I suppose I can stay at
home, and let 'em get over it?"

"Stay at home? Why, you'd far better--"

"What?" said the Captain, dolefully.

"Come oftener!" cried the old lady. "Let 'em get over it by getting used
to it."

Captain Price looked doubtful. "But how about your daughter?"

Mrs. North quailed. "I forgot Mary," she admitted.

"I don't bother you, coming to see you, do I?" the Captain said,
anxiously.

"Why, Alfred, I love to see you. If our children would just let us
alone!"

"First it was our parents," said Captain Price. He frowned heavily.
"According to other people, first we were too young to have sense; and
now we're too old." He took out his worn old pouch, plugged some shag
into his pipe, and struck a match under the mantelpiece. He sighed, with
deep discouragement.

Mrs. North sighed too. Neither of them spoke for a moment; then the
little old lady drew a quick breath and flashed a look at him; opened
her lips; closed them with a snap; then regarded the toe of her slipper
fixedly.

The Captain, staring hopelessly, suddenly blinked; then his honest red
face slowly broadened into beaming astonishment and satisfaction. _"Mrs.
North--"_

"Captain Price!" she parried, breathlessly.

"So long as our affectionate children have suggested it!"

"Suggested--what?"

"Let's give 'em something to cry about!"

"_Alfred!_"

"Look here: we are two old fools; so they say, anyway. Let's live up to
their opinion. I'll get a house for Cyrus and Gussie,--and your girl can
live with 'em, if she wants to!" The Captain's bitterness showed then.

"She could live here," murmured Mrs. North.

"What do you say?"

The little old lady laughed excitedly, and shook her head; the tears
stood in her eyes.

"Do you want to leave Old Chester?" the Captain demanded.

"You know I don't," she said, sighing.

"She'd take you away _to-morrow_," he threatened, "if she knew I had--I
had--"

"She sha'n't know it."

"Well, then, we've got to get spliced to-morrow."

"Oh, Alfred, no! I don't believe Dr. Lavendar would--"

"I'll have no dealings with Lavendar," the Captain said, with sudden
stiffness; "he's like all the rest of 'em. I'll get a license in Upper
Chester, and we'll go to some parson there."

Mrs. North's eyes snapped; "Oh, no, no!" she protested; but in another
minute they were shaking hands on it.

"Cyrus and Gussie can live by themselves," said the Captain, joyously,
"and I'll get that hold cleaned out; she's kept the ports shut ever
since she married Cyrus."

"And I'll make a cake! And I'll take care of your clothes; you really
are dreadfully shabby;" she turned him round to the light, and brushed
off some ashes. The Captain beamed. "Poor Alfred! and there's a button
off! that daughter-in-law of yours can't sew any more than a cat (and
she _is_ a cat!). But I love to mend. Mary has saved me all that. She's
such a good daughter--poor Mary. But she's unmarried, poor child."

However, it was not to-morrow. It was two or three days later that Dr.
Lavendar and Danny, jogging along behind Goliath under the buttonwoods
on the road to Upper Chester, were somewhat inconvenienced by the dust
of a buggy that crawled up and down the hills just a little ahead. The
hood of this buggy was up, upon which fact--it being a May morning of
rollicking wind and sunshine--Dr. Lavendar speculated to his companion:
"Daniel, the man in that vehicle is either blind and deaf, or else he
has something on his conscience; in either case he won't mind our dust,
so we'll cut in ahead at the watering-trough. G'on, Goliath!"

But Goliath had views of his own about the watering-trough, and instead
of passing the hooded buggy, which had stopped there, he insisted upon
drawing up beside it. "Now, look here," Dr. Lavendar remonstrated, "you
know you're not thirsty." But Goliath plunged his nose down into the
cool depths of the great iron caldron, into which, from a hollow log,
ran a musical drip of water. Dr. Lavendar and Danny, awaiting his
pleasure, could hear a murmur of voices from the depths of the eccentric
vehicle which put up a hood on such a day; when suddenly Dr. Lavendar's
eye fell on the hind legs of the other horse. "That's Cipher's trotter,"
he said to himself, and leaning out, cried: "Hi! Cy?" At which the other
horse was drawn in with a jerk, and Captain Price's agitated face peered
out from under the hood.

"Where! Where's Cyrus?" Then he caught sight of Dr. Lavendar. "'_The
devil and Tom Walker!_'" said the Captain with a groan. The buggy backed
erratically.

"Look out!" said Dr. Lavendar,--but the wheels locked.

Of course there was nothing for Dr. Lavendar to do but get out and take
Goliath by the head, grumbling, as he did so, that Cyrus "shouldn't own
such a spirited beast."

"I am somewhat hurried," said Captain Price, stiffly.

The old minister looked at him over his spectacles; then he glanced at
the small, embarrassed figure shrinking into the depths of the buggy.

("Hullo, hullo, hullo!" he said, softly. "Well, Gussie's done it.) You'd
better back a little, Captain," he advised.

"I can manage," said the Captain.

"I didn't say 'go back,'" Dr. Lavendar said, mildly.

"Oh!" murmured a small voice from within the buggy.

"I expect you need me, don't you, Alfred?" said Dr. Lavendar.

"What?" said the Captain, frowning.

"Captain," said Dr. Lavendar, simply, "if I can be of any service to you
and Mrs. North, I shall be glad."

Captain Price looked at him. "Now, look here, Lavendar, we're going to
do it this time, if all the parsons in--well, in the church, try to stop
us!"

"I'm not going to try to stop you."

"But Gussie said you said--"

"Alfred, at your time of life, are you beginning to quote Gussie?"

"But she said you said it would be--"

"Captain Price, I do not express my opinion of your conduct to your
daughter-in-law. You ought to have sense enough to know that."

"Well, why did you talk to her about it?"

"I didn't talk to her about it. But," said Dr. Lavendar, thrusting out
his lower lip, "I should like to."

"We were going to hunt up a parson in Upper Chester," said the Captain,
sheepishly.

Dr. Lavendar looked about, up and down the silent, shady road, then
through the bordering elderberries into an orchard. "If you have your
license," he said, "I have my prayer-book. Let's go into the orchard.
There are two men working there we can get for witnesses,--Danny isn't
quite enough, I suppose."

The Captain turned to Mrs. North. "What do you say, ma'am?" he said. She
nodded, and gathered up her skirts to get out of the buggy. The two old
men led their horses to the side of the road and hitched them to the
rail fence; then the Captain helped Mrs. North through the elder-bushes,
and shouted out to the men ploughing at the other side of the orchard.
They came,--big, kindly young fellows, and stood gaping at the three old
people standing under the apple-tree in the sunshine. Dr. Lavendar
explained that they were to be witnesses, and the boys took off their
hats.

There was a little silence, and then, in the white shadows and perfume
of the orchard, with its sunshine, and drift of petals falling in the
gay wind, Dr. Lavendar began.... When he came to "Let no man put
asunder--" Captain Price growled in his grizzled red beard, "Nor woman,
either!" But only Mrs. North smiled.

When it was over, Captain Price drew a deep breath of relief. "Well,
this time we made a sure thing of it, Mrs. North!"

"_Mrs. North?_" said Dr. Lavendar; and then he did chuckle.

"Oh--" said Captain Price, and roared at the joke.

"You'll have to call me Letty," said the pretty old lady, smiling and
blushing.

"Oh," said the Captain; then he hesitated. "Well, now, if you don't
mind, I--I guess I won't call you Lefty; I'll call you Letitia?"

"Call me anything you want to," said Mrs. Price, gayly.

Then they all shook hands with each other, and with the witnesses, who
found something left in their palms that gave them great satisfaction,
and went back to climb into their respective buggies.

"We have shore leave," the Captain explained; "we won't go back to Old
Chester for a few days. You may tell 'em, Lavendar."

"Oh, may I?" said Dr. Lavendar, blankly. "Well, good-by, and good luck!"

He watched the other buggy tug on ahead, and then he leaned down to
catch Danny by the scruff of the neck.

"Well, Daniel," he said, "'_if at first you don't succeed_'--"

And Danny was pulled into the buggy.




A ROMANCE OF WHOOPING HARBOR

BY NORMAN DUNCAN


The trader _Good Samaritan_--they called her the _Cheap and Nasty_ on
the Shore; God knows why! for she was dealing fairly for the fish, if
something smartly--was wind-bound at Heart's Ease Cove, riding safe in
the lee of the Giant's Hand: champing her anchor chain; nodding to the
swell, which swept through the tickle and spent itself in the landlocked
water, collapsing to quiet. It was late of a dirty night, but the
schooner lay in shelter from the roaring wind; and the forecastle lamp
was alight, the bogie snoring, the crew sprawling at case, purring in
the light and warmth and security of the hour.... By and by, when the
skipper's allowance of tea and hard biscuit had fulfilled its destiny,
Tumm, the clerk, told the tale of Whooping Harbor, wherein the maid met
Fate in the person of the fool from Thunder Arm; and I came down from
the deck--from the black, wet wind of the open, changed to a wrathful
flutter by the eternal barrier--in time to hear. And I was glad, for we
know little enough of love, being blind of soul, perverse and proud; and
love is strange past all things: wayward, accounting not, of infinite
aspects--radiant to our vision, colorless; sombre, black as hell; but of
unfailing beauty, we may be sure, had we but the eyes to see, the heart
to interpret....

"We was reachin' up t' Whoopin' Harbor," said Tumm, "t' give the _White
Lily_ a night's lodgin', it bein' a wonderful windish night; clear
enough, the moon sailin' a cloudy sky, but with a bank o' fog sneakin'
round Cape Muggy like a fish-thief. An' we wasn't in no haste, anyhow,
t' make Sinners' Tickle, for we was the first schooner down the Labrador
that season, an' 'twas pick an' choose your berth for we, with a clean
bill t' every head from Starvation Cove t' the Settin' Hen, so quick as
the fish struck. So the skipper he says we'll hang the ol girl up t'
Whoopin' Harbor 'til dawn; an' we'll all have a watch below, says he,
with a cup o' tea, says he, if the cook can bile the water 'ithout
burnin' it. Which was wonderful hard for the cook t' manage, look you!
as the skipper, which knowed nothin' about feelin's, would never stop
tellin' un: the cook bein' from Thunder Arm, a half-witted, glossy-eyed
lumpfish o' the name o' Moses Shoos, born by chance and brung up
likewise, as desperate a cook as ever tartured a stummick, but meanin'
so wonderful well that we loved un, though he were like t' finish us
off, every man jack, by the slow p'ison o' dirt.

"'Cook, you dunderhead!' says the skipper, with a wink t' the crew. 'You
been an' scarched the water agin.'

"Shoos he looked like he'd give up for good on the spot--just like he
_knowed_ he was a fool, an' _had_ knowed it for a long, long time,--sort
o' like he was sorry for we an' sick of hisself.

"'Cook,' says the skipper, 'you went an' done it agin. Yes, you did!
Don't you go denyin' of it. You'll kill us, cook,' says he, 'if you goes
on like this. They isn't nothin' worse for the system,' says he, 'than
this here burned water. The alamnacs,' says he, shakin' his finger at
the poor cook, ''ll tell you _that!_'

"'I 'low I did burn that water, skipper,' says the cook, 'if you says
so. But I isn't got all my wits,' says he, the cry-baby; 'an' God knows
I'm doin' my best!'

"'I always did allow, cook,' says the skipper, 'that God knowed more'n I
ever thunk.'

"'An' I never _did_ burn no water,' blubbers the cook, 'afore I shipped
along o' you in this here dam' ol' flour-sieve of a _White Lily_.'

"'This here _what_?' snaps the skipper.

"'This here dam' ol' basket.'

"'Basket!' says the skipper. Then he hummed a bit o' 'Fishin' for the
Maid I Loves,' 'ithout thinkin' much about the toon. 'Cook,' says he, 'I
loves you. You is on'y a half-witted chance-child,' says he, 'but I
loves you like a brother.'

"'Does you, skipper?' says the cook, with a grin, like the fool he was.
'I isn't by no means hatin' you, skipper,' says he. 'But I can't _help_
burnin' the water,' says he, 'an' I 'low I don't want no blame for it.
I'm sorry for you an' the crew,' says he, 'an' I wisht I hadn't took the
berth. But when I shipped along o' you,' says he, 'I 'lowed I _could_
cook. I knows I isn't able for it now,' says he, 'for you says so,
skipper; but I'm doin' my best, an' I 'low if the water gets scarched,'
says he, 'the galley fire's bewitched.'

"'Basket!' says the skipper. 'Ay, ay, cook,' says he. 'I just _loves_
you.'

"They wasn't a man o' the crew liked t' hear the skipper say that; for,
look you! the skipper didn't know nothin' about feelin's, an' the cook
had more feelin's 'n a fool can make handy use of aboard a Labrador
fishin'-craft. No, zur; the skipper didn't know nothin' about feelin's.
I'm not wantin' t' say it about that there man, nor about no other man;
for they isn't nothin' harder t' be spoke. But he _didn't;_ an' they's
nothin' else _to_ it. There sits the ol' man, smoothin' his big red
beard, singin', 'I'm Fishin' for the Maid I Loves,' while he looks at
the poor cook, which was washin' up the dishes, for we was through with
the mug-up. An' the devil was in his eyes--the devil was fair grinnin'
in them little blue eyes. Lord! it made me sad t' see it; for I knowed
the cook was in for bad weather, an' he wasn't no sort o' craft t' be
out o' harbor in a gale o' wind like that.

"'Cook,' says the skipper.

"'Ay, zur?' says the cook.

"'Cook,' says the skipper, 'you ought t' get married.'

"'I on'y wisht I could,' says the cook.

"'You ought t' try, cook,' says the skipper, 'for the sake o' the crew.
We'll all die,' says he, 'afore we sights of Bully Dick agin,' says he,
'if you keeps on burnin' the water. You _got_ t' get married, cook, t'
the first likely maid you sees on the Labrador,' says he, 't' save the
crew. She'd do the cookin' for you. It 'll be the loss o' all hands,'
says he, 'an you don't, This here burned water,' says he, 'will be the
end of us, cook, an you keeps it up.'

"'I'd be wonderful glad t' 'blige you, skipper,' says the cook, 'an' I'd
like t' 'blige all hands. 'Twon't be by my wish,' says he, 'that
anybody'll die o' the grub they gets.'

"'Cook,' says the skipper, 'shake! I knows a _man_,' says he, 'when I
sees one. Any man,' says he, 'that would put on the irons o' matrimony,'
says he, 't' 'blige a shipmate,' says he, 'is a better man 'n me, an' I
loves un like a brother.'

"Which cheered the cook up considerable.

"'Cook,' says the skipper, 'I 'pologize. Yes, I do, cook,' says he, 'I
'pologize.'

"'I isn't got no feelin' agin' matrimony,' says the cook. 'But I isn't
able t' get took. I been tryin' every maid t' Thunder Arm,' says he,
'an' they isn't one,' says he, 'will wed a fool.'

"'Not one?' says the skipper.

"'Nar a one,' says the cook.

"'I'm s'prised,' says the skipper.

"'Nar a maid t' Thunder Arm,' says the cook, 'will wed a fool, an' I
'low they isn't one,' says he, 'on the Labrador.'

"'It's been done afore, cook,' says the skipper, 'an' I 'low 'twill be
done agin, if the world don't come to an end t' oncet. Cook,' says he,
'I _knows_ the maid t' do it.'

"The poor cook begun t' grin. 'Does you, skipper?' says he. 'Ah,
skipper, no, you doesn't!' And he sort o' chuckled, like the fool he
was. 'Ah, now, skipper,' says he, '_you_ doesn't know no maid would
marry me!"

"'Ay, b'y,' says the skipper, 'I got the girl for _you_. An' she isn't a
thousand miles,' says he, 'from where that dam' ol' basket of a _White
Lily_ lies at anchor,' says he, 'in Whoopin' Harbor. She isn't what
you'd call handsome an' tell no lie,' says he, 'but--'

"'Never you mind about that, skipper.'

"'No,' says the skipper, 'she isn't handsome, as handsome goes, even in
these parts, but--'

"'Never you mind, skipper,' says the cook. 'If 'tis anything in the
shape o' woman,' says he, ''twill do.'

"'I 'low that Liz Jones would take you, cook,' says the skipper. 'You
ain't much on wits, but you got a good-lookin' hull; an' I 'low she'd be
more'n willin' t' skipper a craft like you. You better go ashore, cook,
when you gets cleaned up, an' see what she says. Tumm,' says he, 'is
sort o' shipmates with Liz,' says he, 'an' I 'low he'll see you through
the worst of it.'

"'Will you, Tumm?' says the cook.

"'Well,' says I, 'I'll see.

"I knowed Liz Jones from the time I fished Whoopin' Harbor with Skipper
Bill Topsail in the _Love the Wind_, bein' cotched by the measles
thereabouts, which she nursed me through; an' I 'lowed she _would_ wed
the cook if he asked her, so, thinks I, I'll go ashore with the fool t'
see that she don't. No; she wasn't handsome--not Liz. I'm wonderful fond
o' yarnin' o' good-lookin' maids; but I can't say much o' Liz; for Liz
was so far t' l'eward o' beauty that many a time, lyin' sick there in
the fo'c's'le o' the _Love the Wind_, I wished the poor girl would turn
inside out, for, thinks I, the pattern might be a sight better on the
other side. I _will_ say she was big and well-muscled; an' muscles, t'
my mind, courts enough t' make up for black eyes, but not for
cross-eyes, much less for fuzzy whiskers. It ain't in my heart t' make
sport o' Liz, lads; but I _will_ say she had a club foot, for she was
born in a gale, I'm told, when the _Preacher_ was hangin' on off a lee
shore 'long about Cape Harrigan, an' the sea was raisin' the devil.
An', well--I hates t' say it, but--well, they called her 'Walrus Liz.'
No; she wasn't handsome, she didn't have no good looks; but once you got
a look into whichever one o' them cross-eyes you was able to cotch, you
seen a deal more'n your own face; an' she _was_ well-muscled, an' I 'low
I'm goin' t' tell you so, for I wants t' name her good p'ints so well as
her bad. Whatever--

"'Cook,' says I, 'I'll go along o' you.'

"With that the cook fell to on the dishes, an' 'twasn't long afore he
was ready to clean hisself; which done, he was ready for the courtin'.
But first he got out his dunny-bag, an' he fished in there 'til he
pulled out a blue stockin', tied in a hard knot; an' from the toe o'
that there blue stockin' he took a brass ring. 'I 'low,' says he,
talkin' to hisself, in the half-witted way he had, 'it won't do no hurt
t' give her mother's ring.' Then he begun t' cry. "Moses," says mother,
"you better take the ring off my finger. It isn't no weddin'-ring," says
she, "for I never was what you might call wed," says she, "but I got it
from the Jew t' make believe I was; for it didn't do nobody no hurt, an'
it sort o' pleased me. You better take it, Moses, b'y," says she, "for
the dirt o' the grave would only spile it," says she, "an' I'm not
wantin' it no more. Don't wear it at the fishin', dear," says she, "for
the fishin' is wonderful hard," says she, "an' joolery don't stand much
wear an' tear." 'Oh, mother!' says the cook, 'I done what you wanted!'
Then the poor fool sighed an' looked up at the skipper. 'I 'low,
skipper,' says he, ''t wouldn't do no hurt t' give the ring to a man's
wife, would it? For mother wouldn't mind, would she?'

"The skipper didn't answer that.

"'Come, cook,' says I, 'leave us get under way,' for I couldn't stand it
no longer.

"So the cook an' me put out in the punt t' land at Whoopin' Harbor, with
the crew wishin' the poor cook well with their lips, but thinkin', God
knows what! in their hearts. An' he was in a wonderful state o' fright.
I never _seed_ a man so took by scare afore. For, look you! he thunk she
wouldn't have un, an' he thunk she would, an' he wisht she would, an' he
wisht she wouldn't; an' by an' by he 'lowed he'd stand by, whatever come
of it, 'for,' says he, 'the crew's g-g-got t' have better c-c-cookin' if
I c-c-can g-g-get it. Lord! Tumm,' says he, ''tis a c-c-cold night,'
says he, 'but I'm sweatin' like a p-p-porp-us!' I cheered un up so well
as I could; an' by an' by we was on the path t' Liz Jones's house, up on
Gray Hill, where she lived alone, her mother bein' dead an' her father
shipped on a barque from St. Johns t' the West Indies. An' we found Liz
sittin' on a rock at the turn o' the road, lookin' down from the hill at
the _White Lily:_ all alone--sittin' there in the moonlight, all
alone--thinkin' o' God knows what!

"'Hello, Liz!' says I.

"'Hello, Tumm!' says she. 'What vethel'th that?'

"'That's the _White Lily,_ Liz,' says I. An' here's the cook o' that
there craft,' says I, 'come up the hill t' speak t' you.'

"'That's right,' says the cook. 'Tumm, you're right.'

"'T' thpeak t' _me!_' says she.

"I wisht she hadn't spoke quite that way. Lord! it wasn't nice. It makes
a man feel bad t' see a woman hit her buzzom for a little thing like
that.

"'Ay, Liz,' says I, 't' speak t' you. An' I'm thinkin', Liz,' says I,
'he'll say things no man ever said afore--t' you.'

"'That's right, Tumm,' says the cook. 'I wants t' speak as man t' man,'
says he, 't' stand by what I says,' says he, meanin' it afore G-g-god!'

"Liz got off the rock. Then she begun t' kick at the path; an' she was
lookin' down, but I 'lowed she had an eye on the cook all the time.
'For,' thinks I, 'she's sensed the thing out, like all the women.'

"'I'm thinkin',' says I, 'I'll go up the road a bit.'

"'Oh no, you won't, Tumm,' says she. 'You thtay right here. Whath the
cook wantin' o' me?'

"'Well,' says the cook, 'I 'low I wants t' get married.'

"'T' get married!' says she.

"'That's right,' says he. 'Damme! Tumm,' says he, 'she got it right. T'
get married,' says he, 'an' I 'low you'll do.'

"'Me?' says she.

"'You, Liz,' says he. 'I got t' get me a wife right away,' says he, 'an'
they isn't nothin' else I've heared tell of in the neighborhood.'

"She begun to blow like a whale; an' she hit her buzzom with her fists,
an' shivered. I 'lowed she was goin' t' fall in a fit. But. she looked
away t' the moon, an' somehow that righted her.

"'You better thee me in daylight,' says she.

"'Don't you mind about that,' says he. 'You're a woman, an' a big one,'
says he, 'an' that's all I'm askin' for.'

"She put a finger under his chin an' tipped his face t' the light.

"'You ithn't got all your thentheth, ith you?' says she.

"'Well,' says he, 'bein' born on Hollow eve,' says he, 'I isn't quite
all there. But,' says he, 'I wisht I was. An' I can't do no more.'

"'An' you wanth t' wed me?' says she. 'Ith you sure you doth?'

"'I got mother's ring,' says the cook, 't' prove it.'

"'Tumm,' says Liz t' me, '_you_ ithn't wantin' t' get married, ith you?'

"'No, Liz,' says I. 'Not,' says I, 't' you.'

"'No,' says she. 'Not--t' me' She took me round the turn in the road.
'Tumm,' says she, 'I 'low I'll wed that man. I wanth t' get away from
here,' says she, lookin' over the hills. 'I wanth t' get t' the
Thouthern outporth, where there'th life. They ithn't no life here. An'
I'm tho wonderful tired o' all thith! Tumm,' says she, 'no man ever
afore athked me t' marry un, an' I 'low I better take thith one. He'th
on'y a fool,' says she, 'but not even a fool ever come courtin' me, an'
I 'low nobody but a fool would. On'y a fool, Tumm!' says she. 'But _I_
ithn't got nothin' t' boatht of. God made me,' says she, 'an' I ithn't
mad that He done it. I 'low He meant me t' take the firth man that come,
an' be content. I 'low _I_ ithn't got no right t' thtick up my nothe at
a fool. For, Tumm,' says she, 'God made that fool, too. An', Tumm,' says
she, 'I wanth thomethin' elthe. Oh, I wanth thomethin' elthe! I hateth
t' tell you, Tumm,' says she, 'what it ith. But all the other maidth
hath un, Tumm, an' I wanth one, too. I 'low they ithn't no woman happy
without one, Tumm. An' I ithn't never had no chanth afore. No chanth,
Tumm, though God knowth they ithn't nothin' I wouldn't do,' says she,
't' get what I wanth! I'll wed the fool,' says she. 'It ithn't a man I
wanth tho much; no, it ithn't a man. Ith--'

"'What you wantin', Liz?' says I.

"'It ithn't a man, Tumm,' says she.

"'No?' says I. 'What is it, Liz?'

"'Ith a baby,' says she.

"God! I felt bad when she told me that...."

Tumm stopped, sighed, picked at a knot in the table. There was silence
in the forecastle. The _Good Samaritan_ was still nodding to the
swell--lying safe at anchor in Heart's Ease Cove. We heard the gusts
scamper over the deck and shake the rigging; we caught, in the
intervals, the deep-throated roar of breakers, far off--all the noises
of the gale. And Tumm picked at the knot with his clasp-knife; and we
sat watching, silent, all.... And I felt bad, too, because of the maid
at Whooping Harbor--a rolling waste of rock, with the moonlight lying on
it, stretching from the whispering mystery of the sea to the greater
desolation beyond; and an uncomely maid, wishing, without hope, for that
which the hearts of women must ever desire....

"Ay," Tumm drawled, "it made me feel bad t' think o' what she'd been
wantin' all them years; an' then I wished I'd been kinder t' Liz....
An', 'Tumm,' thinks I, 'you went an' come ashore t' stop this here
thing; but you better let the skipper have his little joke, for t'will
on'y s'prise him, an' it won't do nobody else no hurt. Here's this
fool,' thinks I, 'wantin' a wife; an' he won't never have another
chance. An' here's this maid,' thinks I, 'wantin' a baby; an' _she_
won't never have another chance. 'Tis plain t' see,' thinks I, 'that God
A'mighty, who made un, crossed their courses; an' I 'low, ecod!' thinks
I, 'that 'twasn't a bad idea He had. If He's got to get out of it
somehow,' thinks I, 'why, _I_ don't know no better way. Tumm,' thinks I,
'you sheer off. Let Nature,' thinks I, 'have doo course an' be
glorified.' So I looks Liz in the eye--an' says nothin'.

"'Tumm,' says she, 'doth you think he--'

"'Don't you be scared o' nothin',' says I. 'He's a lad o' good
feelin's,' says I, 'an' he'll treat you the best he knows how. Is you
goin' t' take un?'

"'I wathn't thinkin' o' that,' says she. 'I wathn't thinkin' o' _not_. I
wath jutht,' says she, 'wonderin'.'

"'They isn't no sense in that, Liz,' says I. 'You just wait an' find
out.'

"'What'th hith name?' says she.

"'Shoos,' says I. 'Moses Shoos.'

"With that she up with her pinny an' begun t' cry like a young swile.

"'What you cryin' for, Liz?' says I.

"I 'low I couldn't tell what 'twas all about. But she was like all the
women. Lord! 'tis the little things that makes un weep when it comes t'
the weddin'.

"'Come, Liz,' says I, 'what you cryin' about?'

"'I lithp,' says she.

"'I knows you does, Liz,' says I; 'but it ain't nothin' t' cry about.'

"'I can't thay Joneth,' says she.

"'No,' says I; 'but you'll be changin' your name,' says I, 'an' it won't
matter no more.'

"'An' if I can't say Joneth,' says she, 'I can't thay--'

"'Can't say what?' says I.

"'Can't thay Thooth!' says she.

"Lord! No more she could. An' t' say Moses Shoos! An' t' say M'issus
Moses Shoos! Lord! It give me a pain in the tongue, t' think of it.

"'Jutht my luck,' says she; 'but I'll do my betht.'

"So we went back an' told the cook that he didn't have t' worry no more
about gettin' a wife; an' he said he was more glad than sorry, an', says
he, she'd better get her bonnet, t' go aboard an' get married right
away. An' she 'lowed she didn't want no bonnet, but _would_ like to
change her pinny. So we said we'd as lief wait a spell, though a clean
pinny wasn't _needed_. An' when she got back, the cook said he 'lowed
the skipper could marry un well enough 'til we over-hauled a real
parson; an' she thought so, too, for, says she, 'twouldn't be longer
than fall, an' any sort of a weddin', says she, would do 'til then. An'
aboard we went, the cook an' me pullin' the punt, an' she steerin'; an'
the cook he crowed an' cackled all the way, like a half-witted rooster;
but the maid didn't even cluck, for she was too wonderful solemn t' do
anything but look at the moon.

"'Skipper,' said the cook, when we got in the fo'c's'le, 'here she is.
_I_ isn't afeared,' says he, 'and _she_ isn't afeared; an' now I 'low
we'll have you marry us.'

"Up jumps the skipper; but he was too much s'prised t' say a word.

"'An' I'm thinkin',' says the cook, with a nasty little wink, 'that they
isn't a man in this here fo'c's'le,' says he, 'will _say_ I'm afeared.'

"'Cook,' says the skipper, takin' the cook's hand, 'shake! I never
knowed a man like you afore,' says he. 'T' my knowledge, you're the on'y
man in the Labrador fleet would do it. I'm proud,' says he, 't' take the
hand o' the man with nerve enough t' marry Walrus Liz o' Whoopin'
Harbor.'

"The devil got in the eyes o' the cook--a jumpin' little brimstone
devil, ecod!

"'Ay, lad,' says the skipper, 'I'm proud t' know the man that isn't
afeared o' Walrus--'

"'Don't you call her that!' says the cook. 'Don't you do it, skipper!'

"I was lookin' at Liz. She was grinnin' in a holy sort o' way. Never
seed nothin' like that afore--no, lads, not in all my life.

"'An' why not, cook?' says the skipper.

"'It ain't her name,' says the cook.

"'It ain't?' says the skipper. 'But I been sailin' the Labrador for
twenty year,' says he, 'an' I ain't never heared her called nothin' but
Walrus--'

"The devil got into the cook's hands then. I seed his fingers clawin'
the air in a hungry sort o' way. An' it looked t' me like squally
weather for the skipper.

"'Don't you do it no more, skipper,' says the cook. 'I isn't got no
wits,' says he, 'an' I'm feelin' wonderful queer!'

"The skipper took a look ahead into the cook's eyes. 'Well, cook,' says
he, I 'low,' says he, 'I won't.'

"Liz laughed--an' got close t' the fool from Thunder Arm. An' I seed her
touch his coat-tail, like as if she loved it, but didn't dast do no
more.

"'What you two goin' t' do?' says the skipper.

"'We 'lowed you'd marry us,' says the cook, ''til we come across a
parson.'

"'I will,' says the skipper. 'Stand up here,' says he. 'All hands stand
up!' says he. 'Tumm,' says he, 'get me the first Book you comes across.'

"I got un a Book.

"'Now, Liz,' says he, 'can you cook?'

"'Fair t' middlin',' says she. 'I won't lie.'

"''Twill do,' says he. 'An' does you want t' get married t' this here
dam' fool?'

"'An it pleathe you,' says she.

"'Shoos,' says the skipper, 'will you let this woman do the cookin'?'

"'Well, skipper,' says the cook, 'I will; for I don't want nobody t' die
o' my cookin' on this here v'y'ge.'

"'An' will you keep out o' the galley?' "'I 'low I'll _have_ to.'

"'An', look you! cook, is you sure--is you _sure_,' says the skipper,
with a shudder, lookin' at the roof, 'that you wants t' marry this
here--'

"'Don't you do it, skipper!' says the cook. 'Don't you say that no more!
By God!' says he, 'I'll kill you if you does!'

"'Is you sure,' says the skipper, 'that you wants t' marry this
here--woman?'

"'I will.'

"'Well,' says the skipper, kissin' the Book, 'I'low me an' the crew
don't care; an' we can't help it, anyhow.'

"'What about mother's ring?' says the cook. 'She might's well have
that,' says he, 'if she's careful about the wear an' tear. For joolery,'
says he t' Liz, 'don't stand it.'

"'It can't do no harm,' says the skipper.

"'Ith we married, thkipper?' says Liz, when she got the ring on.

"'Well,' says the skipper, 'I 'low that knot 'll hold 'til fall. For,'
says he, 'I got a rope's end an' a belayin'-pin t' make it hold,' says
he, 'til we gets long-side of a parson that knows more about matrimonial
knots 'n me. We'll pick up your goods. Liz,' says he, 'on the s'uthard
v'y'ge. An' I hopes, ol girl,' says he, 'that you'll be able t' boil the
water 'ithout burnin' it.'

"'Ay, Liz. I been makin' a awful fist o' b'ilin' the water o' late.'

"She gave him one look--an' put her clean pinny to her eyes.

"'What you cryin' about?' says the cook.

"'I don't know,' says she; 'but I 'low 'tith becauthe now I knowth you
_ith_ a fool!'

"'She's right, Tumm,' says the cook. 'She's got it right! Bein' born on
Hollow eve,' says he, 'I couldn't be nothin' else. But, Liz,' says he,
'I'm glad I got you, fool or no fool.'

"So she wiped her eyes, an' blowed her nose, an' give a little sniff,
an' looked up, an' smiled.

"'I isn't good enough for you,' says the poor cook. 'But, Liz,' says he,
'if you kissed me,' says he, 'I wouldn't mind a bit. An' they isn't a
man in this here fo'c's'le,' says he, lookin' around, 'that'll _say_ I'd
mind. Not one,' says he, with the little devil jumpin' in his eyes.

"Then she stopped cryin' for good.

"'Go ahead, Liz!' says he. 'I ain't afeared. Come on! Give us a kiss!'

"'Motheth Thooth,' says she, 'you're the firtht man ever athked me t'
give un a kith!'

"She kissed un. 'Twas like a pistol-shot. An', Lord! her poor face was
shinin'...."

In the forecastle of the _Good Samaritan_ we listened to the wind as it
scampered over the deck; and we watched Tumm pick at the knot in the
table.

"Was she happy?" I asked, at last.

"Well," he answered, with a laugh, "she sort o' got what she was
wantin'. More'n she was lookin' for, I 'low. Seven o' them. An' all
straight an' hearty. Ecod! sir, you never _seed_ such a likely litter o'
young uns. Spick an' span, ecod! from stem t' stern. Smellin' clean an'
sweet; decks as white as snow; an' every nail an' knob polished 'til it
made you blink t' see it. An' when I was down Thunder Arm way, last
season, they was some talk _o' one o' them bein' raised for a parson!_"

I went on deck. The night was still black; but beyond--high over the
open sea, hung in the depths of the mystery of night and space--there
was a star.




HYACINTHUS



BY MARY E. WILKINS FREEMAN

The group was seated on the flat door-stone and the gravel walk in front
of it, which crossed the green square of the Lynn front yard. On the
wide flat stone, in two chairs, sat Mrs. Rufus Lynn and her opposite
neighbor, Mrs. Wilford Biggs. On a chair on the gravel walk sat Mr. John
Mangam, Mrs. Biggs's brother--an elderly unmarried man who lived in the
village. On the step itself sat Mrs. Samson, an old lady of eighty-five,
as straight as if she were sixteen, and by her side, her long body bent
gracefully, her elbows resting on her knees, her chin resting in the cup
of her two hands, Sarah Lynn, her great-granddaughter. Sarah Lynn was
often spoken of as "pretty if she wasn't so slouchy," in Adams, the
village in which she had been born and bred. Adams people were not,
generally speaking, of the kind who understand the grace which may exist
in utter freedom of attitude and motion.

It was a very hot evening of one of the hottest days of July, and Mrs.
Rufus Lynn wore in deference to the climate a gown of white cambric with
a little black sprig thereon, but nothing could excel the smoothly boned
fit of it. And she did not lean back in her chair, but was as erect as
the very old lady on the door-step, who was her grandmother, and who was
also stiffly gowned, in a black cashmere as straightly made as if it had
been armor. The influence of heredity showed strongly in the two, but in
Sarah showed the intervening generation.

Sarah was a great beauty with no honor in her own country. Her long
softly curved figure was surmounted by a head wound with braids of the
purest flax color, and a face like a cameo. She was very fair, with the
fairness of alabaster. Her mother's face had a hard blondness, pink and
white, but fixed, and her great-grandmother had the same.

Mrs. Samson often glanced disapprovingly at her great-granddaughter,
seated by her side in her utterly lax attitude. "Don't set so hunched
up," she whispered to her in a sharp hiss. She did not want Mr. John
Mangam, whom she regarded as a suitor of Sarah's, to have his attention
called to the girl's defects.

But Sarah had laughed softly, and replied, quite aloud, in a languid,
sweet voice, "Oh, it is so hot, grandma!"

"What if it is hot?" said the old woman. "You ain't no hotter settin' up
than you be slouchin'." She still spoke in a whisper, and Sarah had only
laughed and said nothing more.

As for Mrs. Wilford Biggs and her brother, Mr. John Mangam, they
maintained, as always, silence. Neither of the two ever spoke, as a
rule, unless spoken to. John was called a very rich man in Adams. He had
gone to the far West in his youth and made money in cattle.

"And how in creation he ever made any money in cattle, a man that don't
talk no more than he does, beats me," Mrs. Samson often said to her
granddaughter, Mrs. Lynn. She was quite out-spoken to her about John
Mangam, although never to Sarah. "It does seem as if a man would have to
say somethin', to manage critters," said the old woman.

Mr. John Mangam and Mrs. Wilford Biggs grated on her nerves. She
privately considered it an outrage for Mrs. Biggs to come over nearly
every evening and sit and rock and say nothing, and often fall asleep,
and for Mr. Mangam to do the same. It was not so much the silence as the
attitude of almost injured expectancy which irritated. Both gave the
effect of waiting for other people to talk to them, to tell them
interesting bits of news, to ask them questions--to set them going, as
it were.

Mrs. Lynn and her grandmother tried to fulfil their duty in this
direction, but Sarah did not trouble herself in the least. She continued
to sit bent over like a lily limp with the heat, and she stared with her
two great blue eyes in her cameo face forth at the wonders of the summer
night, and she had apparently very little consciousness of the people
around her. Her loose white gown fell loosely around her; her white
elbows were quite visible from the position in which she held her arms.
Her lovely hair hung in soft loops over her ears. She was the only one
who paid the slightest attention to the beauty of the night. She was
filling her whole soul with it.

It was a wonderful night, and Adams was a village in which to see a
wonderful night. It was flanked by a river, upon the opposite bank of
which rose a gentle mountain. Above the mountain the moon was appearing
with the beauty of revelation, and the tall trees made superb shadow
effects. The night also was not without its voices and its fragrances.
Katydids were shrilling from every thicket, and over somewhere near the
river a whippoorwill was persistently calling. As for the fragrances,
they were those of the dark, damp skirts and wings of the night, the
evidences as loud as voices of green shrubs and flowers blooming in low
wet places; but dominant above all was the scent of the lilies. One
breathed in lilies to that extent that one's thought seemed fairly
scented with them. It was easy enough, by looking toward the left, to
see where the fragrance came from. There was evident, on the other side
of a low hedge, a pale florescence of the flowers. Beyond them rose,
pale likewise, the great Ware house, the largest in the village, and the
oldest. Hyacinthus Ware was the sole representative of the old family
known to be living. Presently the group on the Lynn door-step began to
talk about him, leading up to the subject from the fragrance of the
lilies.

"Them lilies is so sweet they are sickish," said the old grandmother.

"Yes, they be dreadful sickish," said Mrs. Lynn. Mrs. Wilford Biggs and
Mr. Mangam, as usual, said nothing.

"Hyacinthus is home, I see," said Mrs. Lynn.

"Yes, I see him on the street t'other day," said the old woman, in her
thick dialect. She sat straighter than ever as she gazed across at the
garden of lilies and the great Ware house, and the cold step-stone
seemed to pierce her old spinal column like a rod of steel; but she
never flinched.

Mrs. Wilford Biggs and Mr. John Mangam said nothing.

"He is the handsomest man I ever saw," said Sarah Lynn, unexpectedly, in
an odd, shamed, almost awed voice, as if she were speaking of a
divinity.

Then for the first time Mr. John Mangam gave evidence of life. He did
not speak, but he made an inarticulate noise between a grunt and a
sniff.

"Well, if you call that man good-lookin'," said Mrs. Lynn, "you don't
see the way I do, that's all." She looked straight at Mr. John Mangam as
she spoke.

"I don't call him good-looking at all," said the old woman; "dreadful
white-livered."

Sarah said nothing at all, but the face of the man, Hyacinthus Ware, was
before her eyes still, as beautiful and grand as the face of a god.

"Never heerd such a name, either," said the old woman. "His mother was
dreadful flowery. She had some outlandish blood. I don't know whether
she was Eyetalian or Dutch."

"Her mother was Greek, I always heard," said Mrs. Lynn. "I dun'no' as I
ever heard of any other Greek round these parts. I guess they don't
emigrate much."

"I guess it was Greek, now you speak of it," said the old woman. "I knew
she was outlandish on one side, anyhow. An' as fur callin' him
good-lookin'--" She looked aggressively at her great-granddaughter,
whose beautiful face was turned toward the moonlit night.

It was a long time that they sat there. It had been a very hot day, and
the cool was grateful. Hardly a remark was made, except one from Mrs.
Lynn that it was a blessing there were so few mosquitoes and they could
sit outdoors such a night.

"I ain't heerd but one all the time I've been settin' here," said the
old woman, "and I ketched him."

Sarah, the girl, continued to drink, to eat, to imbibe, to assimilate,
toward her spiritual growth, the beauty of the night, the gentle slope
of the mountain, the wavering wings of the shadows, the song of the
river, the calls of the whippoorwill and the katydids, the perfume of
the unseen green things in the wet places, and the overmastering
sweetness of the lilies.

At last Mrs. Wilford Biggs arose to go, and also John Mangam. Both said
they must be goin', they guessed, and that was the first remark that had
been made by either of them. Mrs. Biggs moved with loose flops down the
front walk, and John Mangam walked stiffly behind her. She had merely to
cross the road; he had half a mile to walk to his bachelor abode.

"I should think he must be lonesome, poor man, with only that no-account
housekeeper to home," said the old woman, as she also rose, with pain,
of which she resolutely gave no evidence. Her poor old joints seemed to
stab her, but she fought off the pain angrily. Instead she pitied with
meaning John Mangam.

"It must be pretty hard for him," assented Mrs. Lynn. She also thought
it would be a very good thing for her daughter to marry John Mangam.

Sarah said nothing. The old woman, after saying, like the others, that
she guessed she must be goin', crept off alone across the field to her
little house. She would have resented any offer to accompany her, and
Mrs. Lynn arose to enter the house.

"Well, be you goin' to set there all night?" she asked, rather sharply,
of Sarah. It had seemed to her that Sarah might have made a little
effort to entertain Mr. John Mangam.

"No. I am coming in, mother," Sarah said. Sarah spoke differently from
the others. She had had, as they expressed it in Adams, "advantages."
She had, in fact, graduated from a girls' school of considerable repute.
Her father had insisted upon it. Mrs. Lynn had rather rebelled against
the outlay on Sarah's education. She had John Mangam in mind, and she
thought that a course at the high school in Adams would fit her
admirably for her life. However, she deferred to Rufus Lynn, and Sarah
had her education.

The Lynn house was a large story-and-a-half cottage, the prevalent type
of house in Adams. Mrs. Lynn slept in the room she had always occupied
on the second floor. In hot weather Sarah slept in the bedroom opening
out of the best parlor, because the other second-floor room was hot.
Mrs. Lynn went up-stairs with her lamp and left Sarah to go to bed in
the bedroom out of the parlor. Sarah went in there with her own little
lamp, but even that room seemed stuffy. The heat of the day seemed to
have become confined in the house. Sarah stood irresolute for a moment.
She looked at the high mound of feather bed, at the small window at the
foot, whence came scarcely a whiff of the blessed night air. Them she
went back out on the door-step and again seated herself. As she sat
there the scent of the lilies came more strongly than ever, and now with
a curious effect. It was to the girl as if the fragrance were twining
and winding about her and impelling her like leashes. All at once an
impulse of yielding which was really freedom came to her. Why in the
world should she not cross the little north yard, step over the low
hedge, and go into that lily-garden? She knew that it would be beautiful
there. She looked forth into the crystalline light and the soft plumy
shade,--she would go over into the Ware garden. With all this, there was
no ulterior motive. She had seen the man who lived in the house, and she
admired him as one from afar, but she was a girl innocent not only in
fact, but in dreams. Of course she had thought of a possible lover and
husband, and that some day he might come, and she resented the
supposition that John Mangam might be he, but she held even her
imagination in a curious respect. While she dreamed of love, she
worshipped at the same time.

When she had stepped lightly over the hedge and was moving among the
lilies in the strange garden where she had no right, she was beautiful
as any nymph. Now that she was in the midst of the lilies, it was as if
their fragrance were a chorus sung with a violence of sweet breath in
her very face. She felt exhilarated, even intoxicated, by it. She felt
as if she were drawing the lilies so into herself that her own
personality waned. She seemed to realize what it would be to bloom with
that pale glory and exhale such sweetness for a few days. There were
other flowers than lilies in the garden, but the lilies were very
plentiful. There were white day-lilies, and tiger-lilies which were not
sweet at all, and marvellous pink freckled ones which glistened as with
drops of silver and were very fragrant. There were also low-growing
spider-lilies, but those were not evident at this time of night, and the
lilies-of-the-valley, of course, were all gone. There were, however,
many other flowers of the old-fashioned varieties--verbenas
sweet-williams, phlox, hollyhocks, mignonette, and the like. There was
also a quantity of box. The garden was divided into rooms by the box,
and in each room bloomed the flowers.

Sarah moved along at her will through the garden. Moving from enclosure
to enclosure of box, she came, before she knew it, to the house itself.
It loomed up before her a pale massiveness, with no lights in any of the
windows, but on the back porch sat the owner. He sat in a high-back
chair, with his head tilted back, and his eyes were closed and he seemed
to be asleep, but Sarah was not quite sure. She stopped short. She
became all at once horribly ashamed and shocked at what she was doing.
What would he think of a girl roaming around his garden so late at
night--a girl to whom he had never spoken? She was standing against a
background of blooming hollyhocks. Her slender height shrank delicately
away; she was like a nymph poised for flight, but she dared not even fly
lest she wake the man on the porch if he were asleep, or arouse his
attention were he awake.

She dared do nothing but remain perfectly still--as still as one of the
tall hollyhocks behind her which were crowded with white and yellow
rosettes of bloom. She had her long dress wound around her, holding it
up with one hand, and the other hand and arm hung whitely at her side in
the folds. She stood perfectly still and looked at the man in the porch,
on whose face the moon was shining. He looked more than ever to her like
something wonderful beyond common. The man had really a wonderful
beauty. He was not very young, but no years could affect the classic
outlines of his face, and his colorless skin was as clear and smooth as
a boys. And more than anything to be remarked was the majestic serenity
of his expression. He looked like a man who all his life had dominated
not only other men, but himself. And there was, besides the appearance
of the man, a certain fascination of mystery attached to him. Nobody in
Adams knew just how or where he had spent his life. The old Ware house
had been occupied for many years only by an old caretaker, who still
remained. This caretaker was a man, but with all the housekeeping
ability of a woman. He was never seen by Adams people except when he
made his marketing expeditions. He was said to keep the house in
immaculate order, and he also took care of the garden. He had always
been in the Ware household, and there was a tradition that in his youth
he had been a very handsome man. "As handsome as any handsome woman you
ever saw," the old inhabitants said. He had come not very long before
Joseph Ware, the father of Hyacinthus, had died. Joseph's wife had
survived him several years. She died quite suddenly of pneumonia when
still a comparatively young woman and when Hyacinthus was a boy. Then a
maternal uncle had come and taken the boy away with him, to live nobody
knew where nor how, until his return a few months since.

There was, of course, much curiosity in Adams concerning him, and the
curiosity was not, generally speaking, of a complimentary tendency. Some
young and marriageable girls esteemed him very handsome, but the
majority of the people said that he was odd and stuck up, as his mother
had been before him. He led a quiet life with his books, and he had a
room on the ground-floor fitted up as a studio. In there he made things
of clay and plaster, as the Adams people said, and curious-looking boxes
were sent away by express. It was rumored that a statue by him had been
exhibited in New York.

Some faces show more plainly in the moonlight, or one imagines so.
Hyacinthus Ware's showed as clearly as if carved in marble. He in
reality looked so like a statue that the girl standing in the enclosure
of box with the background of hollyhocks had for a moment imagined that
he might be one of his own statues. The eyes, either closed in sleep or
appearing to be, heightened the effect.

But the girl was not now in a position to do more than tremble at the
plight into which she had gotten herself. It seemed to her that no girl,
certainly no girl in Adams, had ever done such a thing. Her freedom of
mind now failed her. Another heredity asserted itself. She felt very
much as her mother or her great-grandmother might have felt in a similar
predicament. It was as horrible as dreams she had sometimes had of
walking into church in her nightgear. She was sure that she must not
move, and the more so because at a very slight motion of hers there had
been a motion as if in response from the man on the porch. Then there
was another drawback. Some roses grew behind the hollyhocks, and her
skirt was caught. She had felt a little pull at her skirt when she
essayed a slight tentative motion. Therefore, in order to fly she could
not merely slip away; she would have to make extra motions to
disentangle her dress. She therefore remained perfectly still in the
attitude of shrinking and flight. She thought that her only course until
the man should wake and enter the house; then she could slip away. She
had not much fear of being discovered unless by motion; she stood in
shadow. Besides, the man had no reason whatever to apprehend the
presence of a girl in his garden at that hour, and would not be looking
for her. She had an intuitive feeling that unless she moved he would not
perceive her. Cramps began to assail even her untrammelled limbs. To
maintain one pose so long was almost an impossible feat. She kept hoping
that he would wake, that he must wake. It did not seem possible that he
could sit there much longer and not wake; and yet the night was so
hot--hot, probably, even in the great square rooms of the old Ware
house. It was quite natural that he should prefer sleeping there in the
cool out-of-door if he could, but an unreasoning rage seized upon her
that he should. She rebelled against the very freedom in another which
she had always coveted for herself.

And still he sat there, as white and beautiful and motionless as a
statue, and still she kept her enforced attitude. She suffered tortures,
but she said to herself that she would not yield, that she would not
move. Rather than have that man discover her at that hour in his garden,
she would suffer everything. It did not occur to her that possibly this
suffering might have consequences which she did not foresee. All that
she considered was a simple question of endurance; but all at once her
head swam, and she sank down at the feet of the hollyhocks like a broken
flower herself. She had completely lost consciousness.

When she came to herself she was lying on the back porch of the old Ware
house and a pile of pillows was under her head, and she had a confused
impression of vanishing woman draperies, which later on she thought she
must have been mistaken about, as she knew, of course, that there was no
woman there. Hyacinthus Ware himself was bending over her and fanning
her with a great fan of peacock feathers, and the old caretaker had a
little glass of wine on a tray. The first thing Sarah heard was
Hyacinthus's voice, evenly modulated, with a curious stillness about it.

"I think if you can drink a little of this wine," he said, "you will
feel better."

Sarah looked up at the face looking down at her, and all at once a
conviction seized upon her that he had not been asleep at all; that he
had pretended to be so, and had been enjoying himself at her expense,
simply waiting to see how long she would stand there. He probably
thought that she--she, Sarah Lynn--had come into his garden at midnight
to see him. A sudden fury seized upon her, but when she tried to raise
herself she found that she could not. Then she reached out her hand for
the wine, and drank it with a fierce gulp, spilling some of it over her
dress. It affected her almost instantly. She raised herself, the wine
giving her strength, and she looked with a haughty anger at the man,
whose expression seemed something between compassion and mocking.

"You saw me all the time," she said. "You did, I know you did, and you
let me think you were asleep to see how long I would stand still there,
and you think--you think--I was sitting on my door-step--I live in the
next house--and it was very warm in the house, so I came out again and I
smelled the lilies over the hedge, and--and--I did not think of you at
all." She was quite on her feet then, and she looked at him with her
head thrown back with an air of challenge. "I thought I would like to
come over here in the garden," she continued, in the same angrily
excusing tone, "and I did not dream of seeing any one. It was so late, I
thought the house would be closed, and when I saw you I thought you were
asleep."

The man began to look genuinely compassionate; the half-smile faded from
his lips. "I understand," he said.

"And I thought if I moved you would wake and see me, and you were awake
all the time. You knew all the time, and you waited for me to stand
there and feel as I did. I never dreamed a man could be so cruel."

"I beg your pardon with all my heart," began Hyacinthus Ware.

But the girl was gone. She staggered a little as she ran, leaping over
the box borders. When she was at last in her own home, with the door
softly closed and locked behind her, and she was in the parlor bedroom,
she could not believe that she was herself. She began to look at things
differently. The influence of the intergeneration waned. She thought how
her mother would never have done such a thing when she was a girl, how
shocked she would be if she knew, and she herself was as shocked as her
mother would have been.

It was only a week from the night of the garden episode that Mr. Ware
came to make a call, and he came with the minister, who had been an old
friend of his father's.

She lay awake a long time that night, thinking with angry humiliation
how her mother wanted her to marry John Mangam, and she thought of Mr.
Hyacinthus Ware and his polished, gentle manner, which was yet strong.
Then all at once a feeling which she had never known before came over
her. She saw quite plainly before her, in the moonlit dusk of the room,
Hyacinthus Ware's face, and she felt that she could go down on her knees
before him and worship him.

"Never was such a man," she said to herself. "Never was a man so
beautiful and so good. He is not like other men."

It was not so much love as devotion which possessed her. She looked out
of her little window opposite the bed, at the moonlit night, for the
storm had cleared the air. She had the window open and a cool wind was
blowing through the room. She looked out at the silver-lit immensity of
the sky, and a feeling of exaltation came over her. She thought of
Hyacinthus as she might have thought of a divinity. Love and marriage
were hardly within her imagination in connection with him. But they came
later.

Ware quite often called at the Lynn house. He often joined the group on
the door-step in the summer nights. He often came when John Mangam
occupied his usual chair in his usual place, and his graceful urbanity
on such occasions seemed to make more evident the other man's stolid or
stupid silence. Hyacinthus and Sarah usually had the most of the
conversation to themselves, as even Mrs. Lynn and the old woman, who
were not backward in speech, were at a loss to discuss many of the
topics introduced. One evening, after they had all gone home, Mrs. Lynn
looked fiercely at her daughter as she turned, holding her little lamp,
which cast a glorifying reflection upon her face, into the parlor whence
led her little bedroom.

"You are a good-for-nothin' girl," she said. "You ought to be ashamed of
yourself."

"What do you mean, mother?" asked Sarah. She stood fair and white,
confronting her mother, who was burning and coarse with wrath.

"You talk about things you and him know that the rest of us can't talk
about. You take advantage because your father and me sent you to school
where you could learn more than we could. It wasn't my fault I didn't go
to school, and 'twa'n't his fault, poor man. He had to go to work and
get all that money he has." By the last masculine pronoun Mrs. Lynn
meant John Mangam.

Sarah had a spirit of her own, and she turned upon her mother, and for
the time the two faces looked alike, being swayed with one emotion.
"If," she said, "Mr. Ware and I had to regulate our conversation in
order to enable Mr. Mangam to talk with us, I am sure I don't know what
we could say. Mr. Mangam never talks, anyway."

"It ain't always the folks that talks that knows the most and is the
best," said Mrs. Lynn. Then her face upon her daughter's turned
malevolent, triumphant, and cruel. "I wa'n't goin' to tell you what I
heard when I was in Mis' Ketchum's this afternoon," she said. "I thought
at first I wouldn't, but now I'm goin' to."

"What do you mean, mother?" asked Sarah, in an angry voice; but she
quailed.

"I thought at first I wouldn't," her mother continued, pitilessly, "but
I see to-night how things are goin'."

"What do you mean by that, mother?"

"I see that you are fool enough to get to likin' a man that has got the
gift of the gab, and that you think is good-lookin', and that wears
clothes made in the city, better than a good honest feller that we have
all known about ever since he was born, and that ain't got no outlandish
blood in him, neither."

"Mother!"

"You needn't say mother that way. I ain't a fool, if I haven't been to
school like some folks, and I see the way you two looked at each other
to-night right before that poor man that has been comin' here steady and
means honorable."

"Nobody asked or wanted him to come," said Sarah.

"Maybe you'll change your mind when you hear what I've got to tell you.
And I'm goin' to tell you. _Hyacinthus Ware has got a woman livin' over
there in that house._" Sarah turned ghastly pale, but she spoke firmly.
"You mean he is married?" she said.

"I dun'no' whether he is married or not, but there is a woman livin'
there."

"I don't believe a word of it."

"It don't make no odds whether you believe it or not, she's there."

"I don't believe it."

"She's been seed."

"Who has seen her."

"Abby Jane Ketchum herself, when she went round to the back door day
before yesterday afternoon to ask if Mr. Ware would buy some of her
soap. You know she's sellin' soap to get a prize."

"Where was the woman?"

"She was sittin' on the back porch with Mr. Ware, and she up and run
when she see Abby Jane, and Mr. Ware turned as white as a sheet, and he
bought all the soap Abby Jane had left to git out of it, so she's got
enough to get a sideboard for a prize. And Abby Jane she kept her eyes
open and she see a blind close in the southwest chamber, and that's
where the woman sleeps."

"What kind of a looking woman was she?" asked Sarah, in a strange voice.

"As handsome as a picture, Abby Jane said, and she had on an awful
stylish dress. Now if you want to have men like that comin' here to see
you, and want to make more of them than you do of a man that you know is
all right and is good and honest, you can."

There was something about the girl's face, as she turned away without a
word, that smote her mother's heart. "I felt as if I had to tell you,
Sarah," she said, in a voice which was suddenly changed to pity and
apology.

"You did perfectly right to tell me, mother," said Sarah. When at last
she got in her little bedroom she scarcely knew her own face in the
glass. Hyacinthus Ware had kissed that face the night before, and ever
since the memory of it had seemed like a lamp in her heart. She had met
him when she was coming home from the post-office after dark, and he had
kissed her at the gate and told her he loved her, and she expected, of
course, to marry him. Even now she could not bring herself to entirely
doubt him. "Suppose there is a woman there," she said to herself, "what
does it prove?" But she felt in her inmost heart that it did prove a
good deal.

She remembered just bow Hyacinthus looked when he spoke to her; there
had been something almost childlike in his face. She could not believe,
and yet in the face of all this evidence! If there was a woman living in
the house with him, why had he kept it secret? Suddenly it occurred to
her that she could go over in the garden and see for herself. It was a
bright moonlight night and not yet late. If the woman was there, if she
inhabited the southwest chamber, there might be some sign of her. Sarah
placed her lamp on her bureau, gathered her skirts around her, and ran
swiftly out into the night. She hurried stealthily through the garden.
The lilies were gone, but there was still a strong breath of sweetness,
a bouquet, as it were, of mignonette and verbena and sweet thyme and
other fragrant blossoms, and the hollyhocks still bloomed. She went very
carefully when she reached the last enclosure of box; she peeped through
the tall file of hollyhocks, and there was Hyacinthus on the porch and
there was a woman beside him. In fact, the woman was sitting in the old
chair and Hyacinthus was at her feet, on the step, with his head in her
lap. The moon shone on them; they looked as if they were carved with
marble.

Sarah never knew how she got home, but she was back there in her little
room and nobody knew that she had been in the Ware garden except
herself. The next morning she had a talk with her mother. "Mother," said
she, "if Mr. John Mangam wants to marry me why doesn't he say so?" She
was fairly brutal in her manner of putting the question. She did not
change color in the least. She was very pale that morning, and she stood
more like her mother and her great-grandmother than herself.

Mrs. Lynn looked at her, and she was almost shocked. "Why, Sarah Lynn!"
she gasped.

"I mean just what I say," said Sarah, firmly. "I want to know. John
Mangam has been coming here steadily for nearly two years, and he never
even says a word, much less asks me to marry him. Does he expect me to
do it?"

"I suppose he thinks you might at least meet him half-way," said her
mother, confusedly.

That afternoon she went over to Mrs. Wilford Biggs's, and the next
night, it being John Mangam's night to call, Mrs. Biggs waylaid him as
he was just about to cross the street to the Lynn house.

After a short conversation Mrs. Biggs and her brother crossed the street
together, and it was not long before Mrs. Lynn asked Mrs. Biggs and the
old grandmother, who had also come over, to go in the house and see her
new black silk dress. Then it was that John Mangam mumbled something
inarticulate, which Sarah translated into an offer of marriage. "Very
well, I will marry you if you want me to, Mr. Mangam," she said. "I
don't love you at all, but if you don't mind about that--"

John Mangam said nothing at all.

"If you don't mind that, I will marry you," said Sarah, and nobody would
have known her voice. It was a voice to be ashamed of, full of despair
and shame and pride, so wronged and mangled that her very spirit seemed
violated. John Mangam said nothing then. She and the man sat there quite
still, when Hyacinthus came stepping over the hedge.

Sarah found a voice when she saw him. She turned to him. "Good evening,
Mr. Ware," she said, clearly. "I would like to announce my engagement to
Mr. Mangam."

Hyacinthus stood staring at her. Sarah repeated her announcement. Then
Hyacinthus Ware disregarded John Mangam as much as if he had been a post
of the white fence that enclosed the Lynn yard. "What does it mean?" he
cried.

"You have no right to ask," said she, also disregarding John Mangam, who
sat perfectly still in his chair.

"No right to ask after--Sarah, what do you mean? Why have I no right to
ask, after what we told each other?--and I intended to see your mother
to-night. I only waited because--"

"Because you had a guest in the house," said Sarah, in a cold, low
voice. Then John Mangam looked up with some show of animation. He had
heard the gossip.

Hyacinthus looked at her a moment, speechless, then he left her without
another word and went home across the hedge.

It was soon told in Adams that Sarah Lynn and John Mangam were to be
married. Everybody agreed that it was a good match and that Sarah was a
lucky girl. She went on with her wedding preparations. John Mangam came
as usual and sat silently. Sometimes when Sarah looked at him and
reflected that she would have to pass her life with this automaton a
sort of madness seized her.

Hyacinthus she almost never saw. Once in a great while she met him on
the street, and he bowed, raising his hat silently. He never made the
slightest attempt at explanation.

One night, after supper, Sarah and her mother sat on the front
door-step, and by and by the old grandmother came across the fields, and
Mrs. Wilford Biggs across the street, and Mr. John Mangam from his own
house farther down. He looked preoccupied and worried that night, and
while he was as silent as ever, yet his silence had the effect of
speech.

They sat in their customary places: Mrs. Lynn and Mrs. Biggs in the
chairs on the broad step-stone, Sarah and the old woman on the step, and
Mr. John Mangam in his chair on the gravel path,--when a strange lady
came stepping across the hedge from the Ware garden. She was not so very
young, although she was undeniably very handsome, and her clothes were
of a fashion never seen in Adams. She went straight up to the group on
the door-step, and although she had too much poise of manner to appear
agitated, it was evident that she was very eager and very much in
earnest. Mrs. Lynn half arose, with an idea of giving her a chair, but
there was no time, the lady began talking so at once.

"You are Miss Sarah Lynn, are you not?" she asked of Sarah, and she did
not wait for a reply, "and you are going to be married to him?" and
there was an unmistakable emphasis of scorn.

"I have just returned," said the lady; "I have not been in the house
half an hour, and my father told me. You do not know, but the gentleman
who has lived so long in the Ware house, the caretaker, is my father,
and--and my mother was Hyacinthus's mother; her second marriage was
secret, and he would never tell. My father and my mother were cousins.
Hyacinthus never told." She turned to Sarah. "He would not even tell
you, when he knew that you must have seen or heard something that made
you believe otherwise, because--because of our mother. No, he would not
even tell you."

She spoke again with a great impetuosity which made her seem very young,
although she was not so very young. "I have been kept away all my life,"
she said, "all my life from here, that the memory of our mother should
not suffer, and now I come to tell, myself, and you will marry my
brother, whom you must love better than that gentleman. You must. Will
you not? Tell me that you will," said she, "for Hyacinthus is breaking
his heart, and he loves you."

Before anything further could be said John Mangam rose, and walked
rapidly down the gravel walk out of the yard and down the street.

Sarah felt dizzy. She bent lower as she sat and held her head in her two
hands, and the strange lady came on the other side of her, and she was
enveloped in a fragrance of some foreign perfume.

"My brother has been almost mad," she whispered in her ear, "and I have
just found out what the trouble was. He would not tell on account of our
mother, but poor mother is dead and gone."

Then the old woman on the other side raised her voice unexpectedly, and
she spoke to her granddaughter, Mrs. Lynn. "You are a fool," said she,
"if you wouldn't rather hev Serrah merry a man like Hyacinthus Ware,
with all his money and livin' in the biggest house in Adams, than a man
like John Mangam, who sets an' sets an' sets the hull evenin' and never
opens his mouth to say boo to a goose, and beside bein' threatened with
a suit for breach."

"I don't care who she marries, as long as she is happy," said Sarah's
mother.

"Well, I'm goin'," said the old woman. "I left my winders open, and I
think there's a shower comin' up."

She rose, and Mrs. Wilford Biggs at the same time. Sarah's mother went
into the house.

"Won't you?" whispered the strange lady, and it was as if a rose
whispered in Sarah's ear.

"I didn't know that he--I thought--" stammered Sarah.

Sarah did not exactly know when the lady left and when Hyacinthus came,
but after a while they were sitting side by side on the door-step, and
the moon was rising over the mountain, and the wonderful shadows were
gathering about them like a company of wedding-guests.




JANE'S GRAY EYES


BY SEWELL FORD


When _The Insurgent_ took its place among the "best six sellers,"
Decatur Brown formed several good resolutions. He would not have himself
photographed in a literary pose, holding a book on his knee, or propping
his forehead up with one hand and gazing dreamily into space; he would
not accept the praise of newspaper reviewers as laurel dropped from
Olympus; and he would not tell "how he wrote it."

Firmly he held to this commendable programme, despite frequent urgings
to depart from it. Yet observe what pitfalls beset the path of the
popular fictionist. There came a breezy, shrewd-eyed young woman of
beguiling tongue who announced herself as a "lady journalist."

"Now for goodness' sake don't shy," she pleaded. "I'm not going to ask
about your literary methods, or do a kodak write-up of the way you brush
your hair, or any of that rot. I merely want you to say something about
Sunday Weeks. That's legitimate, isn't it? Sunday's a public character
now, you know. Every one talks about her. So why shouldn't you, who know
her best?"

It was the voice of the siren. Decatur Brown should have recognized it
as such. But the breezy young person was so plausible, she bubbled with
such enthusiasm for his heroine, that in the end he yielded. He talked
of Sunday Weeks. And such talk!

Obviously the "lady journalist" had come all primed with the rather
shop-worn theory that the Sunday Weeks who figured as the heroine of
_The Insurgent_ must be a real personage, a young woman in whom Decatur
Brown took more than a literary interest. Possibly the cards were ready
to be sent out.

Had she put these queries point-blank, he would have denied them
definitely and emphatically, and there would have been an end. But she
was far too clever for that. She plied him with sly hints and deft
insinuation. Then, when he began to scent her purpose, she took another
tack. "Did he really admire women of the Sunday Weeks type? Did he
honestly think that the unconventional, wilful, whimsical Sunday, while
perfectly charming in the unmarried state, could be tamed to matrimony?
Was he willing to have his ideal of womanhood judged by this
disturbingly fascinating creature of the 'sober gray eyes and piquant
chin'?"

Naturally he felt called upon to endorse his heroine, to defend her.
Loyalty to his art demanded that much. Then, too, there recurred to him
thoughts of Jane Temple. He could truthfully say that Sunday was a
wholly imaginative character, that she had no "original." And yet
subconsciously he knew that all the time he was creating her there had
been before him a vision of Jane. Not a very distinct vision, to be
sure. It had been some years since he had seen her. But that bit about
the sober gray eyes and the piquant chin Jane was responsible for. He
could never forget those eyes of Jane's. He was not so certain about the
chin. It might have been piquant; and then again, it might not. At any
rate, it had been adorable, for it was Jane's.

So, while some of his enthusiasm in the defence of Sunday Weeks was due
to artistic fervor, more of it was prompted by thoughts of Jane Temple.
He did not pretend, he declared, to speak for other men; but as for
himself, he liked Sunday--he liked her very much.

The shrewd eyes of the "lady journalist" glistened. She knew her cue
when she heard it. Throwing her first theory to the four winds, she
eagerly gripped this new and tangible fact.

"Then she really is your ideal?"

He had not thought much about it, but he presumed that in a sense she
was.

"But suppose now, Mr. Brown, just suppose you should some day run across
a young woman exactly like the Sunday Weeks you have described: would
you marry her?"

Decatur Brown laughed--a light, irresponsible, bachelor laugh. "I should
probably ask her if I might first."

"But you _would_ ask her?"

"Oh, assuredly."

"And would you like to find such a girl?"

Decatur gazed sentimentally over the smart little polo-hat of the "lady
journalist" and out of the window at a sky--a sky as gray as Jane's eyes
had been that last night when they had parted, she to travel abroad with
her aunt, he to become a cub reporter on a city daily.

"Yes, I would like very much to find her," he replied.

Do you think, after this, that the interviewer waited for more? Not she.
Leaving him mixed up with his daydream, she took herself off before he
could retract, or modify, or in any way spoil the story.

Still, considering what she might have printed, she was really quite
decent about it. Leaving out the startling head-lines, hers was a nice,
readable, chatty article. It contained no bald announcement that the
author of _The Insurgent_ was hunting, with matrimonial intent, for a
gray-eyed prototype of Sunday Weeks. Yet that was the impression
conveyed. Where was there a girl with sober gray eyes and a piquant chin
who could answer to certain other specifications, duly set forth in one
of the most popular novels of the day? Whoever she might be, wherever
she was, she might know what to expect should she be discovered.

Having survived the first shock to his reticence, Decatur Brown was
inclined to dismiss the matter with a laugh. He had been cleverly
exploited, but he could not see that any great harm had been done. He
supposed that he must become used to such things. Anyway, he was
altogether too busy to give much thought to the incident, for he was in
the middle of another novel that must be ready for the public before
_The Insurgent_ was forgotten.

He was yet to learn the real meaning of publicity. First there appeared
an old friend, one who should have understood him too well to put faith
in such an absurdity.

"Say, Deck, you've simply got to dine with us Thursday night. My wife
insists. She wants you to meet a cous