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Title: The Best Short Stories of 1920, and the Yearbook of the American Short Story
Author: Various, - To be updated
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Best Short Stories of 1920, and the Yearbook of the American Short Story" ***
THE
BEST SHORT STORIES
OF 1920
AND THE
YEARBOOK OF THE AMERICAN
SHORT STORY
EDITED BY
EDWARD J. O'BRIEN
EDITOR OF "THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF 1915"
"THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF 1916"
"THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF 1917"
"THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF 1918"
"THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF 1919"
"THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH STORIES," ETC.
[Illustration]
BOSTON
SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1919, by Charles Scribner's Sons, The Pictorial Review
Company, The Curtis Publishing Company, and Harper & Brothers.
Copyright, 1920, by The Boston Transcript Company.
Copyright, 1920, by Margaret C, Anderson, Harper & Brothers, The Dial
Publishing Company, Inc., The Metropolitan Magazine Company, John T.
Frederick, P. F. Collier & Son, Inc., Charles Scribner's Sons, The
International Magazine Company, and The Pictorial Review Company.
Copyright, 1921, by Sherwood Anderson, Edwina Stanton Babcock, Konrad
Bercovici, Edna Clare Bryner, Charles Wadsworth Camp, Helen Coale Crew,
Katharine Fullerton Gerould, Lee Foster Hartman, Rupert Hughes, Grace
Sartwell Mason, James Oppenheim, Arthur Somers Roche, Rose Sidney, Fleta
Campbell Springer, Wilbur Daniel Steele, Ethel Dodd Thomas, John T.
Wheelwright, Stephen French Whitman, Ben Ames Williams, and Frances
Gilchrist Wood.
Copyright, 1921, by Small, Maynard & Company, Inc.
TO
SHERWOOD ANDERSON
BY WAY OF ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Grateful acknowledgment for permission to include the stories and other
material in this volume is made to the following authors, editors, and
publishers:
To Miss Margaret C. Anderson, the Editor of _Harper's Magazine_, the
Editor of _The Dial_, the Editor of _The Metropolitan_, Mr. John T.
Frederick, the Editor of _Scribner's Magazine_, the Editor of _Collier's
Weekly_, the Editor of _The Cosmopolitan Magazine_, the Editor of _The
Pictorial Review_, the _Curtis Publishing Company_, Mr. Sherwood
Anderson, Miss Edwina Stanton Babcock, Mr. Konrad Bercovici, Miss Edna
Clare Bryner, Mr. Wadsworth Camp, Mrs. Helen Coale Crew, Mrs. Katharine
Fullerton Gerould, Mr. Lee Foster Hartman, Major Rupert Hughes, Mrs.
Grace Sartwell Mason, Mr. James Oppenheim, Mr. Arthur Somers Roche, Mrs.
Rose Sidney, Mrs. Fleta Campbell Springer, Mr. Wilbur Daniel Steele,
Mrs. A. E. Thomas, Mr. John T. Wheelwright, Mr. Stephen French Whitman,
Mr. Ben Ames Williams, and Mrs. Frances Gilchrist Wood.
Acknowledgments are specially due to _The Boston Evening Transcript_ for
permission to reprint the large body of material previously published in
its pages.
I shall be grateful to my readers for corrections, and particularly for
suggestions leading to the wider usefulness of this annual volume. In
particular, I shall welcome the receipt, from authors, editors, and
publishers, of stories printed during the period between October, 1920
and September, 1921 inclusive, which have qualities of distinction, and
yet are not printed in periodicals falling under my regular notice. Such
communications may be addressed to me at _Forest Hill, Oxfordshire,
England_.
E. J. O.
CONTENTS[1]
PAGE
#Introduction.# By the Editor xiii
#The Other Woman.# By Sherwood Anderson 3
(From _The Little Review_)
#Gargoyle.# By Edwina Stanton Babcock 12
(From _Harper's Magazine_)
#Ghitza.# By Konrad Bercovici 36
(From _The Dial_)
#The Life of Five Points.# By Edna Clare Bryner 49
(From _The Dial_)
#The Signal Tower.# By Wadsworth Camp 66
(From _The Metropolitan_)
#The Parting Genius.# By Helen Coale Crew 83
(From _The Midland_)
#Habakkuk.# By Katharine Fullerton Gerould 90
(From _Scribner's Magazine_)
#The Judgment of Vulcan.# By Lee Foster Hartman 116
(From _Harper's Magazine_)
#The Stick-in-the-Muds.# By Rupert Hughes 148
(From _Collier's Weekly_)
#His Job.# By Grace Sartwell Mason 169
(From _Scribner's Magazine_)
#The Rending.# By James Oppenheim 187
(From _The Dial_)
#The Dummy-Chucker.# By Arthur Somers Roche 198
(From _The Cosmopolitan_)
#Butterflies.# By Rose Sidney 214
(From _The Pictorial Review_)
#The Rotter.# By Fleta Campbell Springer 236
(From _Harper's Magazine_)
#Out of Exile.# By Wilbur Daniel Steele 266
(From _The Pictorial Review_)
#The Three Telegrams.# By Ethel Storm 293
(From _The Ladies' Home Journal_)
#The Roman Bath.# By John T. Wheelwright 312
(From _Scribner's Magazine_)
#Amazement.# By Stephen French Whitman 320
(From _Harper's Magazine_)
#Sheener.# By Ben Ames Williams 348
(From _Collier's Weekly_)
#Turkey Red.# By Frances Gilchrist Wood 359
(From _The Pictorial Review_)
#The Yearbook of the American Short Story,
October, 1919, To September, 1920# 375
Addresses of American Magazines Publishing
Short Stories 377
The Bibliographical Roll of Honor of American
Short Stories 379
The Roll of Honor of Foreign Short Stories in
American Magazines 390
The Best Books of Short Stories of 1920: A
Critical Summary 392
Volumes of Short Stories Published, October,
1919, to September, 1920: A Index 414
Articles on the Short Stories: An Index 421
Index of Short Stories in Books, November,
1918, to September, 1920 434
Index of Short Stories Published in American
Magazines, October, 1919, to September, 1920 456
FOOTNOTE:
[1] The order in which the stories in this volume are printed is not
intended as an indication of their comparative excellence; the
arrangement is alphabetical by authors.
INTRODUCTION
I suppose there is no one of us who can honestly deny that he is
interested in one way or another in the American short story. Indeed, it
is hard to find a man anywhere who does not enjoy telling a good story.
But there are some people born with the gift of telling a good story
better than others, and of telling it in such a way that a great many
people can enjoy its flavor. Most of you are acquainted with some one
who is a gifted story-teller, provided that he has an audience of not
more than one or two people. And if you chance to live in the same house
with such a man, I think you will find that, no matter how good his
story may have been when you first heard it, it tends to lose its savor
after he has become thoroughly accustomed to telling it and has added it
to his private repertory.
A writer of good stories is really a man who risks telling the same
story to many thousand people. Did you ever take such a risk? Did you
ever start to tell a story to a stranger, and try to make your point
without knowing what sort of a man he was? If you did, what was your
experience? You decided, didn't you, that story-telling was an art, and
you wondered perhaps if you were ever going to learn it.
The American story-teller in the magazines is in very much the same
position, except that we have much more patience with him. Usually he is
a man who has told his story a good many times before. The first time he
told it we clapped him on the back, as he deserved perhaps, and said
that he was a good fellow. His publishers said so too. And it _was_ a
good story that he told. The trouble was that we wanted to hear it
again, and we paid him too well to repeat it. But just as your story
became rather less interesting the twenty-third time you told it, so
the stories I have been reading more often than not have made a similar
impression upon me. I find myself begging the author to think up another
story.
Of course, you have not felt obliged to read so many stories, and I
cannot advise you to do so. But it has made it possible for me to see in
some sort of perspective, just where the American short story is going
as well as what it has already achieved. It has made me see how American
writers are weakening their substance by too frequent repetition, and it
has helped me to fix the blame where it really lies.
Now this is a matter of considerable importance. One of the things we
should be most anxious to learn is the psychology of the American
reader. We want to know how he reacts to what he reads in the magazine,
whether it is a short story, an article, or an advertisement. We want to
know, for example, what holds the interest of a reader of the _Atlantic
Monthly_, and what holds the interest of the reader of the _Ladies' Home
Journal_.
It is my belief that the difference between these various types of
readers is pretty largely an artificial difference, in so far as it
affects the quality of entertainment and imaginative interest that the
short story has to offer. Of course, there are exceptional cases, and I
have some of these in mind, but for the most part I can perceive no
essential difference between the best stories in the _Saturday Evening
Post_ and the best stories in _Harper's Magazine_ for example. The
difference that every one feels, and that exists, is one of emphasis
rather than of type. It is a difference which is shown by averages
rather than one which affects the best stories in either magazine. Human
nature is the same everywhere, and when an artist interprets it
sympathetically, the reader will respond to his feeling wherever he
finds it.
It has been my experience that the reader is likely to find this warmly
sympathetic interpretation of human nature, its pleasures and its
sorrows, its humor and its tragedy, most often in the American magazines
that talk least about their own merit. We are all familiar with the
sort of magazine that contents itself with saying day in and day out
ceaselessly and noisily: "The _Planet Magazine_ is the greatest magazine
in the universe. The greatest literary artists and the world's greatest
illustrators contribute to our pages." And it stops there. It has
repeated this claim so often that it has come to believe it. Such a
magazine is the great literary ostrich. It hides by burying its eyes in
the sand.
It is an axiom of human nature that the greatest men do not find it
necessary or possible to talk about their own greatness. They are so
busy that they have never had much time to think about it. And so it is
with the best magazines, and with the best short stories. The man who
wrote what I regard as the best short story published in 1915 was the
most surprised man in Brooklyn when I told him so.
The truth of the matter is that we are changing very rapidly, and that a
new national sense in literature is accompanying that change. There was
a time, and in fact it is only now drawing to a close, when the short
story was exploited by interested moneymakers who made such a loud noise
that you could hear nothing else without great difficulty. The most
successful of these noisemakers are still shouting, but their heart is
in it no longer. The editor of one of the largest magazines in the
country said to me not long ago that he found the greatest difficulty
now in procuring short stories by writers for whom his magazine had
trained the public to clamor. The immediate reason which he ascribed for
this state of affairs was that the commercial rewards offered to these
writers by the moving picture companies were so great, and the
difference in time and labor between writing scenarios and developing
finished stories was so marked, that authors were choosing the more
attractive method of earning money. The excessive commercialisation of
literature in the past decade is now turned against the very magazines
which fostered it. The magazines which bought and sold fiction like soap
are beginning to repent of it all. They have killed the goose that laid
the golden eggs.
This fight for sincerity in the short story is a fight that is worth
making. It is at the heart of all that for which I am striving. The
quiet sincere man who has something to tell you should not be talked
down by the noisemakers. He should have his hearing. He is real. And we
need him.
That is why I have set myself the annual task of reading so many short
stories. I am looking for the man and woman with something to say,--who
cares very much indeed about how he says it. I am looking for the man
and woman with some sort of a dream, the man or woman who sees just a
little bit more in the pedlar he passes on the street than you or I do,
and who wishes to devote his life to telling us about it. I want to be
told my own story too, so that I can see myself as other people see me.
And I want to feel that the storyteller who talks to me about these
things is as much in earnest as a sincere clergyman, an unselfish
physician, or an idealistic lawyer. I want to feel that he belongs to a
profession that is a sort of priesthood, and not that he is holding down
a job or running a bucket shop.
I have found this writer with a message in almost every magazine I have
studied during the year. He is just as much in earnest in _Collier's
Weekly_ as he is in _Scribner's Magazine_. I do not find him often, but
he is there somewhere. And he is the only man for whom it is worth our
while to watch. I feel that it is none of my business whether I like and
agree with what he has to say or not. All that I am looking for is to
see whether he means what he says and makes it as real as he can to me.
I accept his substance at his own valuation, but I want to know what he
makes of it.
Each race that forms part of the substance in our great melting pot is
bringing the richest of its traditions to add to our children's
heritage. That is a wonderful thing to think about. Here, for example,
is a young Jewish writer, telling in obscurity the stories of his people
with all the art of the great Russian masters. And Irishmen are bringing
to us the best of their heritage, and men and women of many other races
contribute to form the first national literature the world has ever seen
which is not based on a single racial feeling. Why are we not more
curious about the ragman's story and that of the bootblack and the man
who keeps the fruit store? Don't you suppose life is doing things to the
boy in the coat-room as interesting as anything in all the romances?
Isn't life changing us in the most extraordinary ways, and do we not
wish to know in what manner we are to meet and adapt ourselves to these
changes? There is a humble writer in an attic up there who knows all
about it, if you care to listen to him. The trouble is that he is so
much interested in talking about life that he forgets to talk about
himself, and we are too lazy to listen to any one who forgets to blow
his own trumpet. But the magazines are beginning to look for him, and,
wonderful to say, they are beginning to find him, and to discover that
he is more interesting and humanly popular than the professional chef
who may be always depended upon to cook his single dish in the same old
way, but who has never had time to learn anything else.
Now what is the essential point of all that I have been trying to say?
It is simply this. If we are going to do anything as a nation, we must
be honest with ourselves and with everybody else. If we are story
writers or story readers, and practically every one is either one or the
other in these days, we must come to grips with life in the fiction we
write or read. Sloppy sentimentality and slapstick farce ought to bore
us frightfully, especially if we have any sense of humor. Life is too
real to go to sleep over it.
To repeat what I have said in these pages in previous years, for the
benefit of the reader as yet unacquainted with my standards and
principles of selection, I shall point out that I have set myself the
task of disengaging the essential human qualities in our contemporary
fiction which, when chronicled conscientiously by our literary artists,
may fairly be called a criticism of life. I am not at all interested in
formulæ, and organised criticism at its best would be nothing more than
dead criticism, as all dogmatic interpretation of life is always dead.
What has interested me, to the exclusion of other things, is the fresh,
living current which flows through the best of our work, and the
psychological and imaginative reality which our writers have conferred
upon it.
No substance is of importance in fiction, unless it is organic
substance, that is to say, substance in which the pulse of life is
beating. Inorganic fiction has been our curse in the past, and bids fair
to remain so, unless we exercise much greater artistic discrimination
than we display at present.
The present record covers the period from October, 1919, to September,
1920, inclusive. During this period, I have sought to select from the
stories published in American magazines those which have rendered life
imaginatively in organic substance and artistic form. Substance is
something achieved by the artist in every act of creation, rather than
something already present, and accordingly a fact or group of facts in a
story only attain substantial embodiment when the artist's power of
compelling imaginative persuasion transforms them into a living truth.
The first test of a short story, therefore, in any qualitative analysis
is to report upon how vitally compelling the writer makes his selected
facts or incidents. This test may be conveniently called the test of
substance.
But a second test is necessary if the story is to take rank above other
stories. The true artist will seek to shape this living substance into
the most beautiful and satisfying form, by skilful selection and
arrangement of his materials, and by the most direct and appealing
presentation of it in portrayal and characterization.
The short stories which I have examined in this study, as in previous
years, have fallen naturally into four groups. The first group consists
of those stories which fail, in my opinion, to survive either the test
of substance or the test of form. These stories are listed in the
yearbook without comment or a qualifying asterisk. The second group
consists of those stories which may fairly claim that they survive
either the test of substance or the test of form. Each of these stories
may claim to possess either distinction of technique alone, or more
frequently, I am glad to say, a persuasive sense of life in them to
which a reader responds with some part of his own experience. Stories
included in this group are indicated in the yearbook index by a single
asterisk prefixed to the title.
The third group, which is composed of stories of still greater
distinction, includes such narratives as may lay convincing claim to a
second reading, because each of them has survived both tests, the test
of substance and the test of form. Stories included in this group are
indicated in the yearbook index by two asterisks prefixed to the title.
Finally, I have recorded the names of a small group of stories which
possess, I believe, an even finer distinction--the distinction of
uniting genuine substance and artistic form in a closely woven pattern
with such sincerity that these stories may fairly claim a position in
our literature. If all of these stories by American authors were
republished, they would not occupy more space than five novels of
average length. My selection of them does not imply the critical belief
that they are great stories. A year which produced one great story would
be an exceptional one. It is simply to be taken as meaning that I have
found the equivalent of five volumes worthy of republication among all
the stories published during the period under consideration. These
stories are indicated in the yearbook index by three asterisks prefixed
to the title, and are listed in the special "Roll of Honor." In
compiling these lists, I have permitted no personal preference or
prejudice to consciously influence my judgment. To the titles of certain
stories, however, in the "Rolls of Honor," an asterisk is prefixed, and
this asterisk, I must confess, reveals in some measure a personal
preference, for which, perhaps, I may be indulged. It is from this final
short list that the stories reprinted in this volume have been selected.
It has been a point of honor with me not to republish an English story,
nor a translation from a foreign author. I have also made it a rule not
to include more than one story by an individual author in the volume.
The general and particular results of my study will be found explained
and carefully detailed in the supplementary part of the volume.
As in past years it has been my pleasure and honor to associate this
annual with the names of Benjamin Rosenblatt, Richard Matthews Hallet,
Wilbur Daniel Steele, Arthur Johnson, and Anzia Yezierska, so it is my
wish to dedicate this year the best that I have found in the American
magazines as the fruit of my labors to Sherwood Anderson, whose stories,
"The Door of the Trap," "I Want to Know Why," "The Other Woman," and
"The Triumph of the Egg" seem to me to be among the finest imaginative
contributions to the short story made by an American artist during the
past year.
#Edward J. O'Brien.#
#Forest Hill, Oxon, England,#
November 8, 1920.
THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF 1920
#Note.#--The order in which the stories in this volume are printed is not
intended as an indication of their comparative excellence; the
arrangement is alphabetical by authors.
THE OTHER WOMAN[2]
BY SHERWOOD ANDERSON
From _The Little Review_
"I am in love with my wife," he said--a superfluous remark, as I had not
questioned his attachment to the woman he had married. We walked for ten
minutes and then he said it again. I turned to look at him. He began to
talk and told me the tale I am now about to set down.
The thing he had on his mind happened during what must have been the
most eventful week of his life. He was to be married on Friday
afternoon. On Friday of the week before he got a telegram announcing his
appointment to a government position. Something else happened that made
him very proud and glad. In secret he was in the habit of writing verses
and during the year before several of them had been printed in poetry
magazines. One of the societies that give prizes for what they think the
best poems published during the year put his name at the head of their
list. The story of his triumph was printed in the newspapers of his home
city, and one of them also printed his picture.
As might have been expected, he was excited and in a rather highly
strung nervous state all during that week. Almost every evening he went
to call on his fiancée, the daughter of a judge. When he got there the
house was filled with people and many letters, telegrams and packages
were being received. He stood a little to one side and men and women
kept coming to speak with him. They congratulated him upon his success
in getting the government position and on his achievement as a poet.
Everyone seemed to be praising him, and when he went home to bed he
could not sleep. On Wednesday evening he went to the theatre and it
seemed to him that people all over the house recognized him. Everyone
nodded and smiled. After the first act five or six men and two women
left their seats to gather about him. A little group was formed.
Strangers sitting along the same row of seats stretched their necks and
looked. He had never received so much attention before, and now a fever
of expectancy took possession of him.
As he explained when he told me of his experience, it was for him an
altogether abnormal time. He felt like one floating in air. When he got
into bed after seeing so many people and hearing so many words of praise
his head whirled round and round. When he closed his eyes a crowd of
people invaded his room. It seemed as though the minds of all the people
of his city were centered on himself. The most absurd fancies took
possession of him. He imagined himself riding in a carriage through the
streets of a city. Windows were thrown open and people ran out at the
doors of houses. "There he is. That's him," they shouted, and at the
words a glad cry arose. The carriage drove into a street blocked with
people. A hundred thousand pairs of eyes looked up at him. "There you
are! What a fellow you have managed to make of yourself!" the eyes
seemed to be saying.
My friend could not explain whether the excitement of the people was due
to the fact that he had written a new poem or whether, in his new
government position, he had performed some notable act. The apartment
where he lived at that time was on a street perched along the top of a
cliff far out at the edge of the city and from his bedroom window he
could look down over trees and factory roofs to a river. As he could not
sleep and as the fancies that kept crowding in upon him only made him
more excited, he got out of bed and tried to think.
As would be natural under such circumstances, he tried to control his
thoughts, but when he sat by the window and was wide awake a most
unexpected and humiliating thing happened. The night was clear and fine.
There was a moon. He wanted to dream of the woman who was to be his
wife, think out lines for noble poems or make plans that would affect
his career. Much to his surprise his mind refused to do anything of the
sort.
At a corner of the street where he lived there was a small cigar store
and newspaper stand run by a fat man of forty and his wife, a small
active woman with bright grey eyes. In the morning he stopped there to
buy a paper before going down to the city. Sometimes he saw only the fat
man, but often the man had disappeared and the woman waited on him. She
was, as he assured me at least twenty times in telling me his tale, a
very ordinary person with nothing special or notable about her, but for
some reason he could not explain being in her presence stirred him
profoundly. During that week in the midst of his distraction she was the
only person he knew who stood out clear and distinct in his mind. When
he wanted so much to think noble thoughts, he could think only of her.
Before he knew what was happening his imagination had taken hold of the
notion of having a love affair with the woman.
"I could not understand myself," he declared, in telling me the story.
"At night, when the city was quiet and when I should have been asleep, I
thought about her all the time. After two or three days of that sort of
thing the consciousness of her got into my daytime thoughts. I was
terribly muddled. When I went to see the woman who is now my wife I
found that my love for her was in no way affected by my vagrant
thoughts. There was but one woman in the world I wanted to live with me
and to be my comrade in undertaking to improve my own character and my
position in the world, but for the moment, you see, I wanted this other
woman to be in my arms. She had worked her way into my being. On all
sides people were saying I was a big man who would do big things, and
there I was. That evening when I went to the theatre I walked home
because I knew I would be unable to sleep, and to satisfy the annoying
impulse in myself I went and stood on the sidewalk before the tobacco
shop. It was a two story building, and I knew the woman lived upstairs
with her husband. For a long time I stood in the darkness with my body
pressed against the wall of the building and then I thought of the two
of them up there, no doubt in bed together. That made me furious.
"Then I grew more furious at myself. I went home and got into bed shaken
with anger. There are certain books of verse and some prose writings
that have always moved me deeply, and so I put several books on a table
by my bed.
"The voices in the books were like the voices of the dead. I did not
hear them. The words printed on the lines would not penetrate into my
consciousness. I tried to think of the woman I loved, but her figure had
also become something far away, something with which I for the moment
seemed to have nothing to do. I rolled and tumbled about in the bed. It
was a miserable experience.
"On Thursday morning I went into the store. There stood the woman alone.
I think she knew how I felt. Perhaps she had been thinking of me as I
had been thinking of her. A doubtful hesitating smile played about the
corners of her mouth. She had on a dress made of cheap cloth, and there
was a tear on the shoulder. She must have been ten years older than
myself. When I tried to put my pennies on the glass counter behind which
she stood my hand trembled so that the pennies made a sharp rattling
noise. When I spoke the voice that came out of my throat did not sound
like anything that had ever belonged to me. It barely arose above a
thick whisper. 'I want you,' I said. 'I want you very much. Can't you
run away from your husband? Come to me at my apartment at seven
to-night.'
"The woman did come to my apartment at seven. That morning she did not
say anything at all. For a minute perhaps we stood looking at each
other. I had forgotten everything in the world but just her. Then she
nodded her head and I went away. Now that I think of it I cannot
remember a word I ever heard her say. She came to my apartment at seven
and it was dark. You must understand this was in the month of October. I
had not lighted a light and I had sent my servant away.
"During that day I was no good at all. Several men came to see me at my
office, but I got all muddled up in trying to talk with them. They
attributed my rattle-headedness to my approaching marriage and went away
laughing.
"It was on that morning, just the day before my marriage, that I got a
long and very beautiful letter from my fiancée. During the night before
she also had been unable to sleep and had got out of bed to write the
letter. Everything she said in it was very sharp and real, but she
herself, as a living thing, seemed to have receded into the distance. It
seemed to me that she was like a bird, flying far away in distant skies,
and I was like a perplexed bare-footed boy standing in the dusty road
before a farm house and looking at her receding figure. I wonder if you
will understand what I mean?
"In regard to the letter. In it she, the awakening woman, poured out her
heart. She of course knew nothing of life, but she was a woman. She lay,
I suppose, in her bed feeling nervous and wrought up as I had been
doing. She realized that a great change was about to take place in her
life and was glad and afraid too. There she lay thinking of it all. Then
she got out of bed and began talking to me on the bit of paper. She told
me how afraid she was and how glad too. Like most young women she had
heard things whispered. In the letter she was very sweet and fine. 'For
a long time, after we are married, we will forget we are a man and
woman,' she wrote. 'We will be human beings. You must remember that I am
ignorant and often I will be very stupid. You must love me and be very
patient and kind. When I know more, when after a long time you have
taught me the way of life, I will try to repay you. I will love you
tenderly and passionately. The possibility of that is in me, or I would
not want to marry at all. I am afraid but I am also happy. O, I am so
glad our marriage time is near at hand.'
"Now you see clearly enough into what a mess I had got. In my office,
after I read my fiancée's letter, I became at once very resolute and
strong. I remember that I got out of my chair and walked about, proud of
the fact that I was to be the husband of so noble a woman. Right away I
felt concerning her as I had been feeling, about myself before I found
out what a weak thing I was. To be sure I took a strong resolution that
I would not be weak. At nine that evening I had planned to run in to see
my fiancée. 'I'm all right now,' I said to myself. 'The beauty of her
character has saved me from myself. I will go home now and send the
other woman away.' In the morning I had telephoned to my servant and
told him that I did not want him to be at the apartment that evening and
I now picked up the telephone to tell him to stay at home.
"Then a thought came to me. 'I will not want him there in any event,' I
told myself. 'What will he think when he sees a woman coming to my place
on the evening before the day I am to be married?' I put the telephone
down and prepared to go home. 'If I want my servant out of the apartment
it is because I do not want him to hear me talk with the woman. I cannot
be rude to her. I will have to make some kind of an explanation,' I said
to myself.
"The woman came at seven o'clock, and, as you may have guessed, I let
her in and forgot the resolution I had made. It is likely I never had
any intention of doing anything else. There was a bell on my door, but
she did not ring, but knocked very softly. It seems to me that
everything she did that evening was soft and quiet but very determined
and quick. Do I make myself clear? When she came I was standing just
within the door, where I had been standing and waiting for a half hour.
My hands were trembling as they had trembled in the morning when her
eyes looked at me and when I tried to put the pennies on the counter in
the store. When I opened the door she stepped quickly in and I took her
into my arms. We stood together in the darkness. My hands no longer
trembled. I felt very happy and strong.
"Although I have tried to make everything clear I have not told you what
the woman I married is like. I have emphasized, you see, the other
woman. I make the blind statement that I love my wife, and to a man of
your shrewdness that means nothing at all. To tell the truth, had I not
started to speak of this matter I would feel more comfortable. It is
inevitable that I give you the impression that I am in love with the
tobacconist's wife. That's not true. To be sure I was very conscious of
her all during the week before my marriage, but after she had come to me
at my apartment she went entirely out of my mind.
"Am I telling the truth? I am trying very hard to tell what happened to
me. I am saying that I have not since that evening thought of the woman
who came to my apartment. Now, to tell the facts of the case, that is
not true. On that evening I went to my fiancée at nine, as she had asked
me to do in her letter. In a kind of way I cannot explain the other
woman went with me. This is what I mean--you see I had been thinking
that if anything happened between me and the tobacconist's wife I would
not be able to go through with my marriage. 'It is one thing or the
other with me,' I had said to myself.
"As a matter of fact I went to see my beloved on that evening filled
with a new faith in the outcome of our life together. I am afraid I
muddle this matter in trying to tell it. A moment ago I said the other
woman, the tobacconist's wife, went with me. I do not mean she went in
fact. What I am trying to say is that something of her faith in her own
desires and her courage in seeing things through went with me. Is that
clear to you? When I got to my fiancée's house there was a crowd of
people standing about. Some were relatives from distant places I had not
seen before. She looked up quickly when I came into the room. My face
must have been radiant. I never saw her so moved. She thought her letter
had affected me deeply, and of course it had. Up she jumped and ran to
meet me. She was like a glad child. Right before the people who turned
and looked inquiringly at us, she said the thing that was in her mind.
'O, I am so happy,' she cried. 'You have understood. We will be two
human beings. We will not have to be husband and wife.'
"As you may suppose, everyone laughed, but I did not laugh. The tears
came into my eyes. I was so happy I wanted to shout. Perhaps you
understand what I mean. In the office that day when I read the letter my
fiancée had written I had said to myself, 'I will take care of the dear
little woman.' There was something smug, you see, about that. In her
house when she cried out in that way, and when everyone laughed, what I
said to myself was something like this: 'We will take care of
ourselves.' I whispered something of the sort into her ears. To tell you
the truth I had come down off my perch. The spirit of the other woman
did that to me. Before all the people gathered about I held my fiancée
close and we kissed. They thought it very sweet of us to be so affected
at the sight of each other. What they would have thought had they known
the truth about me God only knows!
"Twice now I have said that after that evening I never thought of the
other woman at all. That is partially true but sometimes in the evening
when I am walking alone in the street or in the park as we are walking
now, and when evening comes softly and quickly as it has come to-night,
the feeling of her comes sharply into my body and mind. After that one
meeting I never saw her again. On the next day I was married and I have
never gone back into her street. Often however as I am walking along as
I am doing now, a quick sharp earthy feeling takes possession of me. It
is as though I were a seed in the ground and the warm rains of the
spring had come. It is as though I were not a man but a tree.
"And now you see I am married and everything is all right. My marriage
is to me a very beautiful fact. If you were to say that my marriage is
not a happy one I could call you a liar and be speaking the absolute
truth. I have tried to tell you about this other woman. There is a kind
of relief in speaking of her. I have never done it before. I wonder why
I was so silly as to be afraid that I would give you the impression I am
not in love with my wife. If I did not instinctively trust your
understanding I would not have spoken. As the matter stands I have a
little stirred myself up. To-night I shall think of the other woman.
That sometimes occurs. It will happen after I have gone to bed. My wife
sleeps in the next room to mine and the door is always left open. There
will be a moon to-night, and when there is a moon long streaks of light
fall on her bed. I shall awake at midnight to-night. She will be lying
asleep with one arm thrown over her head.
"What is that I am talking about? A man does not speak of his wife lying
in bed. What I am trying to say is that, because of this talk, I shall
think of the other woman to-night. My thoughts will not take the form
they did the week before I was married. I will wonder what has become of
the woman. For a moment I will again feel myself holding her close. I
will think that for an hour I was closer to her than I have ever been to
anyone else. Then I will think of the time when I will be as close as
that to my wife. She is still, you see, an awakening woman. For a moment
I will close my eyes and the quick, shrewd, determined eyes of that
other woman will look into mine. My head will swim and then I will
quickly open my eyes and see again the dear woman with whom I have
undertaken to live out my life. Then I will sleep and when I awake in
the morning it will be as it was that evening when I walked out of my
dark apartment after having had the most notable experience of my life.
What I mean to say, you understand, is that, for me, when I awake, the
other woman will be utterly gone."
FOOTNOTE:
[2] Copyright, 1920, by Margaret C. Anderson. Copyright, 1921, by
Sherwood Anderson.
GARGOYLE[3]
By EDWINA STANTON BABCOCK
From _Harper's Magazine_
Gargoyle stole up the piazza steps. His arms were full of field flowers.
He stood there staring over his burden.
A hush fell upon tea- and card-tables. The younger women on the Strang
veranda glanced at one another. The girl at the piano hesitated in her
light stringing of musical sentences.
John Strang rose. "Not now, Gargoyle, old man." Taking the flowers from
the thin hands, he laid them on the rug at his wife's feet, then gently
motioned the intruder away. Gargoyle flitted contentedly down the broad
steps to the smooth drive, and was soon hidden by masses of rhododendron
on the quadrangle.
Only one guest raised questioning eyebrows as Strang resumed his seat.
This girl glanced over his shoulder at the aimless child straying off
into the trees.
"I should think an uncanny little person like that would get on Mrs.
Strang's nerves; he gives me the creeps!"
"Yes? Mrs. Strang is hardly as sensitive as you might suppose. What do
you say of a lady who enjoys putting the worms on her shrinking
husband's hook? Not only that, but who banters the worms, telling them
it's all for their own good?"
The mistress of Heartholm, looking over at the two, shook a deprecating
head. But Strang seemed to derive amusement from the guest's
disapproval.
Mockwood, where the Strangs lived, had its impressiveness partly
accounted for by the practical American name of "residential park."
This habitat, covering many thousands of acres, gave evidence of the
usual New World compromise between fantastic wealth and over-reached
restraint. Polished automobiles gliding noiselessly through massed
purple and silver shrubberies, receded into bland glooms of
well-thought-out boscage. The architecture, a judicious mixture of
haughty roofs and opulent chimneys, preened itself behind exclusive
screens of wall and vine, and the entire frontage of Mockwood presented
a polished elegance which did not entirely conceal a silent plausibility
of expense.
At Heartholm, the Strangs' place, alone, had the purely conventional
been smitten in its smooth face. The banker's country home was built on
the lines of his own physical height and mental breadth. Strang had
flung open his living-rooms to vistas of tree branches splashing against
the morning blue. His back stairs were as aspiring as the Apostles'
Creed, and his front stairs as soaring as the Canticle to the Sun. As he
had laid out his seven-mile drive on a deer track leading to a forest
spring, so had he spoken for his flowers the word, which, though it
freed them from the prunes and prisms of a landscape gardener, held
them, glorified vassals, to their original masters, sun and rain.
Strang and his love for untrammeled nature were hard pills for
Mockwooders to swallow. Here was a man who, while he kept one on the
alert, was to be deplored; who homesteaded squirrels, gave rabbits their
own licentious ways, was whimsically tolerant of lichens, mushrooms, and
vagabond vines. This was also the man who, when his gardener's wife gave
birth to a deaf and dumb baby, encouraged his own wife to make a pet of
the unfortunate youngster, and when he could walk gave him his freedom
of the Heartholm acres.
It was this sort of thing, Mockwooders agreed, that "explained" the
Strangs. It was the desultory gossip of fashionable breakfast tables how
Evelyn Strang was frequently seen at the gardener's cottage, talking to
the poor mother about her youngest. The gardener's wife had other
children, all strong and hearty. These went to school, survived the
rigors of "regents" examinations, and were beginning to talk of
"accepting" positions. There would never be any position for little
Gargoyle, as John Strang called him, to "accept."
"Let the child run about," the village doctors had advised. "Let him run
about in the sun and make himself useful."
But people who "run about in the sun" are seldom inclined to make
themselves useful, and no one could make Gargoyle so. It would have been
as well to try to train woodbine to draw water or to educate cattails to
write Greek. The little boy spent all of the day idling; it was a
curious, Oriental sort of idling. Callers at Heartholm grew
disapprovingly accustomed to the sight of the grotesque face and figure
peering through the shrubberies; they shrugged their shoulders
impatiently, coming upon the recumbent child dreamily gazing at his own
reflection in the lily-pond, looking necromantically out from the molten
purple of a wind-blown beech, or standing at gaze in a clump of iris.
Strang with his amused laugh fended off all protest and neighborly
advice.
"That's Gargoyle's special variety of hashish. He lives in a
flower-harem--in a five-year-old Solomon's Song. I've often seen the
irises kowtowing to him, and his attitude toward them is distinctly
personal and lover-like. If that little chap could only talk there would
be some fun, but what Gargoyle thinks would hardly fit itself to
words--besides, then"--Strang twinkled at the idea--"none of us would
fancy having him around with those natural eyes--that undressed little
mind."
It was in good-humored explanations like this that the Strangs managed
to conceal their real interest in Gargoyle. They did not remind people
of their only child, the brave boy of seven, who died before they came
to Mockwood. Under the common sense that set the two instantly to work
building a new home, creating new associations, lay the everlasting pain
of an old life, when, as parents of a son, they had seemed to tread
springier soil, to breathe keener, more vital air. And, though the
Strangs adhered patiently to the recognized technicalities of Mockwood
existence, they never lost sight of a hope, of which, against the
increasing evidence of worldly logic, their human hearts still made
ceaseless frantic attestation.
Very slowly, but very constructively, it had become a fierce though
governed passion with both--to learn something of the spiritual life
coursing back of the material universe. Equally slowly and inevitably
had the two come to believe that the little changeling at the lodge held
some wordless clue, some unconscious knowledge as to that outer sphere,
that surrounding, peopled ether, in which, under their apparent
rationality, the two had come to believe. Yet the banker and his wife
stood to Mockwooders for no special cult or fad; it was only between
themselves that their quest had become a slowly developing motive.
"Gargoyle was under the rose-arbor this morning." It was according to
custom that Evelyn Strang would relate the child's latest phase. "He sat
there without stirring such a long time that I was fascinated. I noticed
that he never picked a rose, never smelled one. The early sun fell
slanting through their petals till they glowed like thin little wheels
of fire. John dear, it was that scalloped fire which Gargoyle was
staring at. The flowers seemed to lean toward him, vibrating color and
perfumes too delicate for me to hear. _I_ only saw and smelled the
flowers; Gargoyle looked as if he _felt_ them! Don't laugh; you know we
look at flowers because when we were little, people always said, 'See
the pretty flower, smell the pretty flower,' but no one said, 'Listen
and see if you can hear the flower grow; be still and see if you can
catch the flower speaking.'"
Strang never did laugh, never brushed away these fantastic ideas.
Settling back in his piazza chair, his big hands locked together, he
would listen, amusing himself with his pet theory of Gargoyle's
"undressed mind."
"By the way," he said once, "that reminds me, have you ever seen our
young Solomon of the flower-harem smile?"
"Of course I haven't; neither have you." Young Mrs. Strang averred it
confidently. "He never has smiled, poor baby, nor cried--his mother
told me that long ago."
The banker kept his eyes on the treetops; he had his finger-tips nicely
balanced before he remarked, with seeming irrelevance:
"You know that nest in the tree we call the Siegfried tree?"
She nodded.
"The other day a bird fell out of it, one of the young ones, pushed out
by a housecleaning mother, I suppose. It killed the poor little
feathered gawk. I saw Gargoyle run, quick as a flash, and pick it up. He
pushed open the closing eyes, tried to place the bird on a hollyhock
stalk, to spread its wings, in every way to give it motion. When, after
each attempt, he saw it fall to the ground, he stood still, looking at
it very hard. Suddenly, to my surprise, he seemed to understand
something, to _comprehend_ it fully and delightedly. He laughed." Strang
stopped, looking intently at his wife.
"I can imagine that laugh," she mused.
Strang shook his head. "I don't think you can. It--it wasn't pleasant.
It was as uncanny as the rest of the little chap--a long, rattling,
eerie sound, as if a tree should groan or a butterfly curse; but
wait--there's more." In his earnestness Strang sat up, adding, "Then
Gargoyle got up and stretched out his hands, not to the sky, but to the
air all around him. It was as if--" Here Strang, the normal, healthy man
of the world, hesitated; it was only the father of the little boy who
had died who admitted in low tones: "You would have said--At least even
_I_ could imagine that Gargoyle--well--that he _saw_ something like a
released principle of life fly happily back to its main source--as if a
little mote like a sunbeam should detach itself from a clod and,
disembodied, dart back to its law of motion."
For a long time they were silent, listening to the call of an oven-bird
far back in the spring trees. At last Strang got up, filled his pipe,
and puffed at it savagely before he said, "Of course the whole thing's
damned nonsense." He repeated that a little brutally to his wife's
silence before in softened voice he added, "Only, perhaps you're right,
Evelyn; perhaps we, too, should be seeing that kind of thing,
understanding what, God knows, we long to understand, if we had
'undressed minds,' if we hadn't from earliest infancy been smeared all
over with the plaster-of-Paris of 'normal thinking.'"
Time flew swiftly by. The years at Heartholm were tranquil and happy
until Strang, taken by one of the swift maladies which often come to men
of his type, was mortally stricken. His wife at first seemed to feel
only the strange ecstasy that sometimes comes to those who have beheld
death lay its hand on a beloved body. She went coldly, rigidly, through
every detail of the final laying away of the man who had loved her to
the utmost power of his man's heart. Friends waited helplessly, dreading
the furious after-crash of this unnatural mental and bodily endurance.
Doctor Milton, Strang's life-long friend, who had fought for the
banker's life, watched her carefully, but there was no catalepsy, no
tranced woman held in a vise of endurance. Nothing Evelyn Strang did was
odd or unnatural, only she seemed, particularly before the burial, to be
waiting intently for some revelation, toward which her desire burned
consumingly, like a powerful flame.
Just before the funeral Strang's sister came to Doctor Milton.
"Evelyn!" in whispered response to his concerned look. "Oh, doctor, I
cannot think that this calmness is _right_ for her----" The poor,
red-eyed woman, fighting hard for her own composure, motioned to the
room where, with the cool lattices drawn, and a wave of flowers breaking
on his everlasting sleep, the master of Heartholm lay. "She has gone in
there with that little deaf-and-dumb child. I saw her standing with him,
staring all about her. Somehow it seemed to me that Gargoyle was
smiling--that he _saw_ something----!"
For long weeks Doctor Milton stayed on at Heartholm, caring for Mrs.
Strang. From time to time the physician also studied and questioned
Gargoyle. Questioned in verity, for the practised hand could feel rigid
muscles and undeveloped glands that answered more truthfully than
words. Whatever conclusions Milton arrived at, he divulged to no one but
Mrs. Strang. What he had to say roused the desolate woman as nothing
else could have done. To the rest of the world little or nothing was
explained. But, after the consent of the mother at the gardener's
cottage had been gained, Doctor Milton left Heartholm, taking Gargoyle
with him.
In the office of Dr. Pauli Mach, the professional tongue was freed.
Milton, with the half-quizzical earnestness habitual to him, told his
story, which was followed by the exchange of much interesting data.
The two fell back on the discussion of various schools where Gargoyle
might be put under observation. At last, feeling in the gravely polite
attention of the more eminent man a waning lack of interest, Milton
reluctantly concluded the interview.
"I'll write to Mrs. Strang and tell her your conclusions; she won't
accept them--her own husband humored her in the thing. What John Strang
himself believed I never really knew, but I think he had wisdom in his
generation."
Milton stood there, hesitating; he looked abstractedly at the apathetic
little figure of Gargoyle sitting in the chair.
"We talk of inherent human nature," said the doctor, slowly, "as if we
had all knowledge concerning the _possibilities_ of that nature's best
and worst. Yet I have sometimes wondered if what we call mentally askew
people are not those that possess attributes which society is not wise
enough to help them use wisely--mightn't such people be like
fine-blooded animals who sniff land and water where no one else suspects
any? Given a certain kink in a human brain, and there might result
capacity we ought to consider, even if we can't, in our admittably
systematized civilization, utilize it."
The Swiss doctor nodded, magnetic eyes and mouth smiling.
"Meanwhile"--in his slow, careful speech--"meanwhile we do what we can
to preserve the type which from long experience we know _wears_ best."
Milton nodded. He moved to go, one hand on Gargoyle's unresponsive
shoulder, when the office door swung open.
"Now this is real trouble," laughed a woman's fresh, deep-chested voice.
"Doctor Mach, it means using one of your tall measuring-glasses or
permitting these lovely things to wilt; some one has inundated us with
flowers. I've already filled one bath-tub; I've even used the buckets in
the operating-room."
The head nurse stood there, white-frocked, smiling, her stout arms full
of rosy gladioli and the lavender and white of Japanese iris. The two
doctors started to help her with the fragrant burden, but not before
Gargoyle sprang out of his chair. With a start, as if shocked into
galvanic motion, the boy sat upright. With a throttled cry he leaped at
the surprised woman. He bore down upon her flowers as if they had been a
life-preserver, snatching at them as if to prevent himself from being
sucked under by some strange mental undertow. The softly-colored bloom
might have had some vital magnetizing force for the child's blood, to
which his whole feeble nature responded. Tearing the colored mass from
the surprised nurse's arms, Gargoyle sank to the floor. He sat there
caressing the flowers, smiling, making uncouth efforts to speak. The
arms that raised him were gentle enough. They made no attempt to take
from him his treasures. They sat him on the table, watching the little
thin hands move ardently, yet with a curious deftness and delicacy, amid
the sheaf of color. As the visionary eyes peered first into one
golden-hearted lily, then into another, Milton felt stir, in spite of
himself, Strang's old conviction of the "undressed mind." He said
nothing, but stole a glance at the face of his superior. Doctor Mach was
absorbed. He stood the boy on the table before him. The nurse stripped
Gargoyle, then swiftly authoritative fingers traveled up and down the
small, thin frame.
* * * * *
Life at Heartholm went on very much the same. The tender-hearted
observer might have noted that the gardens held the same flowers year
after year, all the perennials and hardy blooms John Strang had loved.
No matter what had been his widow's courageous acceptance of modern
stoicism, the prevailing idea that incurable grief is merely "morbid,"
yet, in their own apartments where their own love had been lived, was
every mute image and eloquent trifle belonging to its broken arc. Here,
with Strang's books on occult science, with other books of her own
choosing, the wife lived secretly, unknown of any other human being, the
long vigil of waiting for some sign or word from the spirit of one who
by every token of religion and faith she could not believe dead--only to
her wistful earthly gaze, hidden. She also hid in her heart one
strangely persistent hope--namely, Gargoyle! Letters from Doctor Milton
had been full of significance. The last letter triumphantly concluded:
Your young John Strang Berber, alias Gargoyle, can talk now, with
only one drawback: as yet he doesn't know any words!
The rapidly aging mother at the gardener's cottage took worldly pride in
what was happening to her youngest.
"I allus knowed he was smart," the woman insisted. "My Johnny! To think
of him speaking his mind out like any one else! I allus took his part--I
could ha' told 'em he had his own notions!"
There was no doubt as to Gargoyle's having the "notions." As the slow
process of speech was taught and the miracle of fitting words to things
was given unto John Berber, alias Gargoyle, it was hard for those
watching over him to keep the riotous perceptions from retarding the
growing mechanistics. Close-mouthed the boy was, and, they said, always
would be; but watchful eyes and keen intuitions penetrated to the silent
orgies going on within him. So plainly did the fever of his education
begin to wear on his physical frame that wary Doctor Mach shook his
head. "Here I find too many streams of thought coursing through one
field," said the careful Swiss. "The field thus grows stony and bears
nothing. Give this field only one stream that shall be nourishing."
For other supernormal developments that "one stream" might have been
music or sports. For Gargoyle it happened to be flowers. The botanist
with whom he was sent afield not only knew his science, but guessed at
more than his science. His were the beatitudes of the blue sky; water,
rocks, and trees his only living testament. Under his tutelage, with the
eyes of Doctor Mach ever on his growing body, and with his own special
gifts of concentration and perception, at last came to Gargoyle the
sudden whisper of academic sanction--namely, "genius."
He himself seemed never to hear this whisper. What things--superimposed
on the new teeming world of material actualities--he _did_ hear, he
never told. Few could reach Berber; among fellow-students he was gay,
amiable, up to a certain point even frivolous; then, as each companion
in turn complained, a curtain seemed to drop, a colorless wrap of
unintelligibility enveloped him like a chameleon's changing skin; the
youth, as if he lived another life on another plane, walked apart.
Doctor Milton, dropping into the smoking-room of a popular confrère, got
a whiff of the prevailing gossip about his protégé.
"I'll be hanged if I can associate psychics with a biceps like Berber's;
somehow those things seem the special prerogative of anemic women in
white cheese-cloth fooling with 'planchette' and 'currents.'"
"You've got another guess," a growling neurologist volunteered. "Why
shouldn't psychic freaks have biceps? We keep forgetting that we've
dragged our fifty-year-old carcasses into an entirely new age--a
wireless, horseless, man-flying, star-chasing age. Why, after shock upon
shock of scientific discovery, shouldn't the human brain, like a
sensitive plate, be thinned down to keener, more sensitive,
perceptions?"
Some one remarked that in the case of Berber, born of a simple country
woman and her uneducated husband, this was impossible.
Another man laughed. "Berber may be a Martian, or perhaps he was
originally destined to be the first man on Jupiter. He took the wrong
car and landed on this globe. Why not? How do we know what agency
carries pollen of human life from planet to planet?"
Milton, smiling at it all, withdrew. He sat down and wrote a
long-deferred letter to Mrs. Strang.
I have asked John Berber if he would care to revisit his old home.
It seemed never to have occurred to him that he _had_ a home! When
I suggested the thing he followed it up eagerly, as he does every
new idea, asking me many keen questions as to his relatives, who
had paid for his education, etc. Of the actual facts of his cure he
knows little except that there was special functioning out of gear,
and that now the wheels have been greased. Doctor Mach is
desperately proud of him, especially of the way in which he
responds to _normal diversion-environments_ and _friendships_. You
must instruct his mother very carefully as to references to his
former condition. It is best that he should not dwell upon the
former condition. Your young friend, Gargoyle, sees no more spooks.
He is rapidly developing into a very remarkable and unconceited
horticulturist!
The first few days at Mockwood were spent at the little gardener's
cottage, from which the other youngsters had flown. Berber, quietly
moving about the tiny rooms, sitting buried in a scientific book or
taking long trips afield, was the recipient of much maternal flattery.
He accepted it all very gently; the young culturist had an air of quiet
consideration for every one and absolutely no consciousness of himself.
He presumed upon no special prerogatives, but set immediately to work to
make himself useful. It was while he was weeding the box borders leading
to the herb-gardens of Heartholm that Mrs. Strang first came upon him.
Her eyes, suddenly confronted with his as he got to his feet, dropped
almost guiltily, but when they sought his face a second time, Evelyn
Strang experienced a disappointment that was half relief. The sunburnt
youth, in khaki trousers and brown-flannel shirt, who knelt by the
border before her was John Strang Berber, Doctor Mach's human
masterpiece; this was not "Gargoyle."
"That is hardly suitable work for a distinguished horticulturist," the
mistress of Heartholm smiled at the wilting piles of pusley and sorrel.
White teeth flashed, deep eyes kindled. Berber rose and, going to a
garden seat, took up some bits of glass and a folded paper. He showed
her fragments of weed pressed upon glass plates, envelopes of seeds
preserved for special analyzation. "There's still a great undiscovered
country in weed chemistry," he eagerly explained, "perhaps an anodyne
for every pain and disease."
"Yes, and deadly poisons, too, for every failure and grief." The
mistress of Heartholm said it lightly as she took the garden seat,
thinking how pleasant it was to watch the resolute movements and
splendid physical development of the once weazened Gargoyle. She began
sorting out her embroidery silks as Berber, the bits of glass still in
his hand, stood before her. He was smiling.
"Yes, deadly poisons, too," agreeing with a sort of exultation, so
blithely, indeed, that the calmly moving fingers of the mistress of
Heartholm were suddenly arrested. A feeling as powerful and associative
as the scent of a strong perfume stole over Evelyn Strang.
Before she could speak Berber had resumed his weeding. "It's good to get
dictatorship over all this fight of growing," looking up for her
sympathy with hesitance, which, seen in the light of his acknowledged
genius, was the more significant. "You don't mind my taking Michael's
place? He was very busy this morning. I have no credentials, but my
mother seems to think I am a born gardener."
This lack of conceit, this unassuming practicality, the sort of thing
with which Gargoyle's mind had been carefully inoculated for a long
time, baffled, while it reassured Mrs. Strang. Also the sense of sacred
trust placed in her hands made her refrain from any psychic probing.
For a long while she found it easy to exert this self-control. The
lonely woman, impressed by the marvelous "cure" of John Berber,
magnetized by his youth and sunny enthusiasms back to the old dreaming
pleasure in the Heartholm gardens, might in the absorbed days to come
have forgotten--only there was a man's photograph in her bedroom, placed
where her eyes always rested on it, her hand could bring it to her lips;
the face looking out at her seemed to say but one thing:
"_You knew me--I knew you. What we knew and were to each other had not
only to do with our bodies. Men call me 'dead' but you know that I am
not. Why do you not study and work and pray to learn what I am become,
that you may turn to me, that I may reach to you?_"
Mockwooders, dropping in at Heartholm for afternoon tea, began to
accustom themselves to finding Mrs. Strang sitting near some flower-bed
where John Berber worked, or going with him over his great books of
specimens. The smirk the fashionable world reserves for anything not
usual in its experience was less marked in this case than it might have
been in others. Even those who live in "residential parks" are sometimes
forced (albeit with a curious sense of personal injury) to accept the
idea that they who have greatly suffered find relief in "queer" ways.
Mockwooders, assisting at the Heartholm tea-hour, and noting Berber
among other casual guests, merely felt aggrieved and connoted
"queerness."
For almost a year, with the talking over of plans for John Strang's
long-cherished idea of a forest garden at Heartholm, there had been no
allusion between mistress and gardener to that far-off fantasy, the life
of little Gargoyle. During the autumn the two drew plans together for
those spots which next spring were to blossom in the beech glade. They
sent to far-off countries for bulbs, experimented in the Heartholm
greenhouses with special soils and fertilizers, and differences of heat
and light; they transplanted, grafted, and redeveloped this and that
woodland native. Unconsciously all formal strangeness wore away,
unconsciously the old bond between Gargoyle and his mistress was
renewed.
Thus it was, without the slightest realization as to what it might lead,
that Evelyn Strang one afternoon made some trifling allusion to Berber's
association with the famous Doctor Mach. As soon as she had done so,
fearing from habit for some possible disastrous result, she tried
immediately to draw away from the subject. But the forbidden spring had
been touched--a door that had long been closed between them swung open.
Young Berber, sorting dahlia bulbs into numbered boxes, looked up; he
met her eyes unsuspiciously.
"I suppose," thoughtfully, "that that is the man to whom I should feel
more grateful than to any other human being."
The mistress of Heartholm did not reply. In spite of her tranquil air,
Evelyn Strang was gripped with a sudden apprehension. How much, how
little, did Berber know? She glanced swiftly at him, then bent her head
over her embroidery. The colored stream of Indian summer flowed around
them. A late bird poured out his little cup of song.
"My mother will not answer my questions." Young Berber, examining two
curiously formed bulbs, shook the earth from them; he stuffed them into
his trousers pocket. "But Michael got talking yesterday and told me--Did
you know, Mrs. Strang? I was thought to be an idiot until I was twelve
years old--born deaf and dumb?"
It was asked so naturally, with a scientific interest as impersonal as
if he were speaking of one of the malformed bulbs in his pocket, that at
first his mistress felt no confusion. Her eyes and hands busying
themselves with the vivid silks, she answered.
"I remember you as a little pale boy who loved flowers and did such odd,
interesting things with them. Mr. Strang and I were attracted to your
mysterious plays.... No, you never spoke, but we were not sure you could
not hear--and"--drawing a swift little breath--"we were always
interested in what--in what--you seemed--to _see_!"
There was a pause. He knelt there, busily sorting the bulbs. Suddenly
to the woman sitting on the garden bench the sun-bathed October gardens
seemed alive with the myriad questioning faces of the fall flowers;
wheels and disks like aureoled heads leaned toward her, mystical fire in
their eyes, the colored flames of their being blown by passionate desire
of revelation. "This is your moment," the flowers seemed to say to her.
"Ask him _now_."
But that she might not yet speak out her heart to John Berber his
mistress was sure. She was reminded of what Strang had so often said,
referring to their lonely quest--that actual existence was like a
forlorn shipwreck of some other life, a mere raft upon which, like grave
buffoons, the ragged survivors went on handing one another watersoaked
bread of faith, glassless binoculars of belief, oblivious of what
radiant coasts or awful headlands might lie beyond the enveloping mists.
Soon, the wistful woman knew, she would be making some casual
observations about the garden, the condition of the soil. Yet, if ever
the moment had come to question him who had once been "Gargoyle," that
moment was come now!
Berber lifted on high a mass of thickly welded bulbs clinging to a
single dahlia stalk. He met her gaze triumphantly.
"Michael says he planted only a few of this variety, the soft,
gold-hearted lavender. See what increase." The youth plunged supple
fingers into the balmy-scented loam, among the swelling tuber forms. "A
beautiful kind of ugliness," he mused. "I remember I used to think----"
The young gardener, as if he felt that the eyes fixed upon him were
grown suddenly too eager, broke abruptly off.
"Go on, John Berber. What you have to say is always interesting."
It was said calmly, with almost maternal encouragement, but the fingers
absorbed in the bright silks fumbled and erred. "Used to think"--words
such as these filtered like sunlight to the hope lying deep in Evelyn
Strang's heart.
But young Berber leaned upon his garden fork, looking past her. Over the
youth's face crept a curious expression of wrapt contemplation, of
super-occupation, whether induced by her words or not she could not
tell. Furtively Mrs. Strang studied him.... How soon would he drop that
mystical look and turn to her with the casual "educated" expression she
had come to know so well?
Suddenly, nervousness impelling her, she broke in upon his revery:
"How wonderful, with such dreams as you must have had, to be educated!
How very grateful you must be to Doctor Mach."
She heard her own words helplessly, as if in a dream, and, if the
unwisdom of this kind of conversation had impressed the mistress of
Heartholm before, now she could have bitten off her tongue with that
needless speech on it. Young Berber, however, seemed hardly to have
heard her; he stood there, the "Gargoyle" look still in his eyes, gazing
past his mistress into some surrounding mystery of air element. It was
to her, watching him, as if those brooding, dilated pupils might behold,
besides infinitesimal mystery of chemical atoms, other mysteries--colorless
pools of air where swam, like sea anemones, radiant forms of released
spirit; invisible life-trees trembling with luminous fruit of occult being!
When Berber turned this look, naked as a sword, back to Evelyn Strang,
she involuntarily shivered. But the boy's face was unconscious. His
expression changed only to the old casual regard as he said, very
simply:
"You see, I wish they had not educated me!"
The confession came with inevitable shock. If she received it with
apparent lightness, it was that she might, with all the powers a woman
understands, rise to meet what she felt was coming. The barrier down, it
was comparatively easy to stand in the breach, making her soft note of
deprecation, acknowledging playfully that the stress of so-called
"normal" life must indeed seem a burden to one who had hitherto talked
with flowers, played with shadows. Berber, however, seemed hardly to
hear her; there was no tenseness in the youth's bearing; he merely
gazed thoughtfully past her efforts, repeating:
"No--I wish they had not taught me. I have not really gained _knowledge_
by being taught."
Mrs. Strang was genuinely puzzled. Yet she understood; it was merely
_theories about life_ that he had gained. Again she called to mind a
sentence in Doctor Milton's letter: "I know that you have followed the
case in such a way as to understand what would be your responsibility
toward this _newly made_ human soul." Was it right to question Berber?
Could it be actually harmful to him to go on? And yet was it not her
only chance, after years of faithful waiting?
Trying to keep her voice steady, she reproached him:
"No? With all that being educated means, all the gift for humanity?"
The young fellow seemed not to get her meaning. He picked up the garden
fork. Thoughtfully scraping the damp earth from its prongs, he repeated,
"All that it means for humanity?"
"Why not"--urging the thing a little glibly--"why not? You can do your
part now; you will help toward the solving of age-long mysteries. You
must be steward of--of"--Mrs. Strang hesitated, then continued,
lamely--"of your special insight. Why--already you have begun--Think of
the weed chemistry." Had he noticed it? There was in her voice a curious
note, almost of pleading, though she tried to speak with authority.
John Berber, once called "Gargoyle," listened. The youth stood there,
his foot resting upon the fork but not driving it into the ground. He
caught her note of anxiety, laughing in light, spontaneous reassurance,
taking her point with ease.
"Oh--I know," shrugging his shoulders in true collegian's style. "I
understand my lesson." Berber met her look. "I had the gift of mental
_unrestraint_, if you choose to call it that," he summed up, "and was of
no use in the world. Now I have the curse of _mental restraint_ and can
participate with others in their curse." Suddenly aware of her helpless
dismay and pain, the boy laughed again, but this time with a slight
nervousness she had never before seen in him. "Why, we are not in
earnest, dear Mrs. Strang." It was with coaxing, manly respect that he
reminded her of that. "We are only joking, playing with an idea.... I
think you can trust me," added John Berber, quietly.
The surprised woman felt that she could indeed "trust" him; that Berber
was absolutely captain of the self which education had given him; but
that from time to time he had been conscious of another self he had been
unwise enough to let her see. She silently struggled with her own
nature, knowing that were she judicious she would take that moment to
rise and leave him. Such action, however, seemed impossible now. Here
was, perhaps, revelation, discovery! All the convictions of her lonely,
brooding life were on her. Temptation again seized her. With her longing
to have some clue to that spirit world she and her husband had believed
in, it seemed forewritten, imperative, inevitable, that she remain.
Trying to control herself, she fumbled desperately on:
"When you were little, Mr. Strang and I used to notice--we grew to
think--that because you had been shut away from contact with other
minds, because you had never been told _what_ to see, as children are
told, 'Look at the fire,' 'See the water,' and so forever regard those
things in just that way, not seeing--other things--Oh, we thought that
perhaps--perhaps----"
It was futile, incoherent; her tongue seemed to dry in her mouth.
Besides, the abashed woman needs must pause before a silence that to her
strained sense seemed rebuking. She glanced furtively up at the youth
standing there. It troubled the mistress of Heartholm to realize that
her protégé was staring gravely at her, as if she had proposed some
guilty and shameful thing.
At last Berber, with a boyish sigh, seemed to shake the whole matter
off. He turned to his bulbs; half at random he caught up a
pruning-knife, cutting vindictively into one of them. For the moment
there was silence, then the young gardener called his mistress's
attention to the severed root in his hand.
"A winy-looking thing, isn't it? See those red fibers? Why shouldn't
such roots, and nuts like those great, burnished horse-chestnuts
there--yes, and cattails, and poke-berries, and skunk cabbages, give
forth an entirely new outfit of fruits and vegetables?" Berber smiled
his young ruminating smile; then, with inevitable courtesy, he seemed to
remember that he had not answered her question. "I am not surprised that
you and Mr. Strang thought such things about me. I wonder that you have
not questioned me before--only you see _now_--I can't answer!" The boy
gave her his slow, serious smile, reminding her.
"You must remember that I am like a foreigner--only worse off, for
foreigners pick up a few words for their most vital needs, and I have no
words at all--for what--for what vital things I used to know--so that
perhaps in time I shall come to forget that I ever knew anything
different from--other persons' knowledge." Berber paused, regarding his
mistress intently, as if wistfully trying to see what she made of all
this. Then he continued:
"One of our professors at college died, and the men of his class were
gloomy; some even cried, others could not trust themselves to speak of
him.... I noticed that they all called him 'poor' Landworth.... I could
see that they felt something the way I do when I miss out on a chemical
experiment, or spoil a valuable specimen--only more so--a great deal
more." The boy knit his brows, puzzling it all out. "Well, it's queer. I
liked that professor, too; he was very kind to me--but when I saw him
dead I felt glad--glad! Why"--Berber looked at her searchingly--"I grew
to be afraid some one would find out _how_ glad!"
The young fellow, still anxiously searching her face, dropped his voice.
"You are the only person I dare tell this to--for I understand the
world--" She noted that he spoke as if "the world" were a kind of plant
whose needs he had fathomed. "But after that," concluded Berber,
speaking as if quite to himself--"after that I somehow came to see that
I had been--well, educated _backward_."
She moved impatiently; the youth, seeing the question in her face,
answered the demand of its trembling eagerness, explaining:
"Do you not see--I have--sometimes _known_, not 'guessed' nor
'believed,' but _known_ that death was a wonderful, happy thing--a
fulfilment, a satisfaction to him who dies--but I have been educated
backward into a life where people cannot seem to help regarding it as a
sad thing. And----"
"Yes?--Yes?" breathed the eager woman. "Tell me--tell me----"
But he had come suddenly to a full stop. As if appalled to find only
empty words, or no words at all, for some astounding knowledge he would
communicate to her, he stammered painfully; then, as if he saw himself
caught in guilt, colored furiously. Evelyn Strang could see the
inevitable limitations of his world training creep slowly over him like
cement hardening around the searching roots of his mind. She marveled.
She remembered Strang's pet phrase, "the plaster of Paris of so-called
'normal thinking.'" Then the youth's helpless appeal came to her:
"Do you not think that I am doing wrong to speak of these things?"
Berber asked, with dignity.
The mistress of Heartholm was silent. Recklessly she put by all Doctor
Mach's prophecies. She could not stop here; her whole soul demanded that
she go further. There were old intuitions--the belief that she and
Strang had shared together, that, under rationalized schemes of thought,
knowledge of inestimable hope was being hidden from the world. Here was
this boy of the infinite vision, of the "_backward educated_" mind,
ready to tell miraculous things of a hidden universe. Could she strike
him dumb? It would be as if Lazarus had come forth from the open grave
and men were to bandage again his ecstatic lips!
Suddenly, as if in answer to her struggle, Berber spoke. She was aware
that he looked at her curiously with a sort of patient disdain.
"The world is so sure, so contented, isn't it?" the youth demanded of
her, whether in innocence or irony she could not tell. "People are
trained, or they train themselves, by the millions, to think of things
in exactly one way." He who had once been "Gargoyle" looked piercingly
into the eyes of this one being to whom at least he was not afraid to
speak.
"Anything you or I might guess outside of what other people might
accept," the boy reminded her, austerely, "could be called by just one
unpleasant name." He regarded the face turned to his, recognizing the
hunger in it, with a mature and pitying candor, concluding: "After
to-day we must never speak of these things. I shall never dare, you must
never dare--and so--" He who had once been "Gargoyle" suddenly dropped
his head forward on his breast, muttering--"and so, that is all."
Evelyn Strang rose. She stood tall and imperious in the waning afternoon
light. She was bereaved mother, anguished wife; she was a dreamer driven
out of the temple of the dream, and what she had to do was desperate.
Her voice came hard and resolute.
"It is _not_ all," the woman doggedly insisted. The voiceless woe of one
who had lost a comrade by death was on her. In her eyes was fever let
loose, a sob, like one of a flock of imprisoned wild birds fluttered out
from the cage of years. "Oh no--no!" the woman pleaded, more as if to
some hidden power of negation than to the boy before her--"Oh no--no,
this _cannot_ be all, not for me! The world must never be told--it could
not understand; but _I_ must know, I _must_ know." She took desperate
steps back and forth.
"John Berber, if there is anything in your memory, your knowledge; even
if it is only that you have _imagined_ things--if they are so beautiful
or so terrible that you can never speak of them--for fear--for fear no
one would understand, you might, you might, even then, tell me--Do you
not hear? You might tell _me_. I authorize it, I command it."
The woman standing in the autumn gardens clenched her hands. She looked
round her into the clear air at the dense green and gold sunshine
filtering through the colored trees, the softly spread patens of the
cosmos, the vivid oriflammes of the chrysanthemums. Her voice was
anguished, as if they two stood at a secret door of which Berber alone
had the key, which for some reason he refused to use.
"I--of all the world," her whisper insisted. "If you might never speak
again--I should understand."
Berber, his face grown now quite ashen, looked at her. Something in her
expression seemed to transfix and bind him. Suddenly shutting his teeth
together, he stood up, his arms folded on his broad chest. The afternoon
shadows spread pools of darkness around their feet, the flowers seemed
frozen in shapes of colored ice, as his dark, controlled eyes fixed
hers.
"You--you dare?" the youth breathed, thickly.
She faced him in her silent daring. Then it seemed to her as if the sky
must roll up like a scroll and the earth collapse into a handful of dust
falling through space, for she knew that little Gargoyle of the
"undressed mind"--little Gargoyle, looking out of John Berber's trained
eyes as out of windows of ground glass, was flitting like a shadow
across her own intelligence, trying to tell her what things he had
always known about life and death, and the myriads of worlds spinning
back in their great circles to the Power which had set them spinning.
Not until after the first halting, insufficient words, in which the boy
sought to give his secret to the woman standing there, did she
comprehend anything of the struggle that went on within him. But when
suddenly Berber's arms dropped to his sides and she saw how he shivered,
as if at some unearthly touch on his temples, she was alert. Color was
surging into his face; his features, large, irregular, took on for the
instant a look of speechless, almost demoniac power; he seemed to be
swimming some mental tide before his foot touched the sands of language
and he could helplessly stammer:
"I cannot--It--it will not come--It is as I told you--I have been taught
no _words_--I _cannot_ say _what I know_."
His powerful frame stood placed among the garden surroundings like that
of a breathing statue, and his amazed companion witnessed this miracle
of physical being chained by the limitations of one environment, while
the soul of that being, clairaudient, clairvoyant, held correspondence
with another environment. She saw Berber smile as if with some exquisite
sense of beauty and rapture that he understood, but could not
communicate, then helplessly motion with his hands. But even while she
held her breath, gazing at him, a change came over the radiant features.
He looked at her again, his face worked; at last John Berber with a
muffled groan burst into terrible human tears.
She stood there helpless, dumfounded at his agony.
"You--you cannot speak?" she faltered.
For answer he dropped his face into his strong hands. He stood there,
his tall body quivering. And she knew that her dream was over.
She was forced to understand. John Berber's long and perfect world
training held him in a vise. His lips were closed upon his secret, and
she knew that they would be closed for evermore.
They remained, silently questioning each other, reading at last in each
other's speechlessness some comfort in this strange common knowledge,
for which, indeed, there were no human words, which must be forever
borne dumbly between them. Then slowly, with solemn tenderness, the
obligation of that unspoken knowledge came into Evelyn Strang's face.
She saw the youth standing there with grief older than the grief of the
world stabbing his heart, drowning his eyes. She laid a quiet hand on
his shoulder.
"I understand." With all the mother, all the woman in her, she tried to
say it clearly and calmly. "I understand; you need never fear me--and we
have the whole world of flowers to speak for us." She gazed pitifully
into the dark, storming eyes where for that one fleeting instant the
old look of "Gargoyle" had risen, regarding her, until forced back by
the trained intelligence Of "John Berber," which had always dominated,
and at last, she knew, had killed it. "We will make the flowers
speak--for us." Again she tried to speak lightly, comfortingly, but
something within the woman snapped shut like a door. Slowly she returned
to the garden seat. For a moment she faltered, holding convulsively to
it, then her eyes, blinded from within, closed.
Yet, later, when the mistress of Heartholm went back through the
autumnal garden to the room where were the books and treasures of John
Strang, she carried something in her hand. It was a lily bulb from which
she and Berber hoped to bring into being a new and lovely flower. She
took it into that room where for so many years the pictured eyes of her
husband had met hers in mute questioning, and stood there for a moment,
looking wistfully about her. Outside a light breeze sprang up, a single
dried leaf rustled against the window-pane. Smiling wistfully upon the
little flower-pot, Mrs. Strang set it carefully away in the dark.
FOOTNOTE:
[3] Copyright, 1920, by Harper & Brothers. Copyright, 1921, by Edwina
Stanton Babcock.
GHITZA[4]
#By# KONRAD BERCOVICI
From _The Dial_
That winter had been a very severe one in Roumania. The Danube froze
solid a week before Christmas and remained tight for five months. It was
as if the blue waters were suddenly turned into steel. From across the
river, from the Dobrudja, on sleds pulled by long-horned oxen, the
Tartars brought barrels of frozen honey, quarters of killed lambs,
poultry and game, and returned heavily laden with bags of flour and
rolls of sole leather. The whole day long the crack of whips and the
curses of the drivers rent the icy atmosphere. Whatever their
destination, the carters were in a hurry to reach human habitation
before nightfall--before the dreaded time when packs of wolves came out
to prey for food.
In cold, clear nights, when even the wind was frozen still, the
lugubrious howling of the wolf permitted no sleep. The indoor people
spent the night praying for the lives and souls of the travellers.
All through the winter there was not one morning but some man or animal
was found torn or eaten in our neighbourhood. The people of the village
at first built fires on the shores to scare the beasts away, but they
had to give it up because the thatched roofs of the huts in the village
were set on fire in windy nights by flying sparks. The cold cowed the
fiercest dogs. The wolves, crazed by hunger, grew more daring from day
to day. They showed their heads even in daylight. When Baba Hana, the
old gypsy fortune-teller, ran into the school-house one morning and
cried, "Wolf, wolf in the yard," the teacher was inclined to attribute
her scare to a long drink the night before. But that very night, Stan,
the horseshoer, who had returned late from the inn and had evidently not
closed the door as he entered the smithy, was eaten up by the beasts.
And the smithy stood in the centre of the village! A stone's throw from
the inn, and the thatch-roofed school, and the red painted church! He
must have put up a hard fight, Stan. Three huge dark brown beasts, as
big as cows' yearlings, were found brained. The body of big Stan had
disappeared in the stomachs of the rest of the pack. The high leather
boots and the hand that still gripped the handle of the sledgehammer
were the only remains of the man. There was no blood, either. It had
been lapped dry. That stirred the village. Not even enough to bury
him--and he had been a good Christian! But the priest ordered that the
slight remains of Stan be buried, Christian-like. The empty coffin was
brought to the church and all the rites were carried out as if the body
of Stan were there rather than in the stomachs of wild beasts.
But after Stan's death the weather began to clear as if it had been
God's will that such a price be paid for His clemency. The cold
diminished daily and in a few days reports were brought from everywhere
on the shore that the bridge of ice was giving way. Two weeks before
Easter Sunday it was warm enough to give the cows an airing. The air
cleared and the rays of the sun warmed man and beast. Traffic on the
frozen river had ceased. Suddenly one morning a whip cracked, and from
the bushes on the opposite shore of the Danube there appeared following
one another six tent wagons, such as used by travelling gypsies, each
wagon drawn by four horses harnessed side by side.
The people on our side of the Danube called to warn the travellers that
the ice was not thick enough to hold them. In a few minutes the whole
village was near the river, yelling and cursing like mad. But after they
realized that the intention was to cross the Danube at any cost, the
people settled down to watch what was going to happen. In front of the
first wagon walked a tall, grey-bearded man trying the solidity of the
ice with a heavy stick. Flanking the last wagon, in open lines, walked
the male population of the tribe. Behind them came the women and
children. No one said a word. The eyes of the whole village were on the
travellers, for every one felt that they were tempting Providence. Yet
each one knew that Murdo, the chief of the tribe, who was well known to
all, in fact to the whole Dobrudja, would not take such risks with his
people without good reason.
They had crossed to the middle of the frozen river in steady fashion,
when Murdo shouted one word and the feet of every man and beast stopped
short. The crossing of the river had been planned to the slightest
detail. The people on the shore were excited. The women began to cry and
the children to yell. They were driven inland by the men, who remained
to watch what was going on. No assistance was possible.
The tall chief of the gypsies walked to the left and chose another path
on the ice. The movement continued. Slowly, slowly, in silence the
gypsies approached the shore. Again they halted. Murdo was probing the
ice with his stick. We could see that the feet of the horses were
wrapped in bags, and instead of being shod each hoof was in a cushion
made of straw. As Murdo felt his way, a noise at first as of the tearing
of paper, but more distinct with every moment, came from somewhere in
the distance.
"Whoa, whoa, Murdo, the ice is breaking!" every one began to shout
excitedly. The noise grew louder and louder as it approached. One could
hear it coming steadily and gauge how much nearer it was. The ice was
splitting lengthwise in numberless sheets which broke up in smaller
parts and submerged gaily in the water, rising afterwards and climbing
one on top of the other, as in a merry embrace.
"Whoa, whoa, Murdo ..." but there was no time to give warning. With one
gesture Murdo had given his orders. The wagons spread as for a frontal
attack; the men seized the children and with the women at their heels
they ran as fast as their legs could take them. On the shore every one
fell to his knees in prayer. The strongest men closed their eyes, too
horrified to watch the outcome. The noise of the cracking of the ice
increased. A loud report, as of a dozen cannon, and the Danube was a
river again--and all, all the gypsies had saved themselves.
It was a gay afternoon, that afternoon, and a gay night also for the
whole village. It drank the inn out of everything. The gypsies had a
royal welcome. To all questions of why he had dared Providence, Murdo
answered, "There was no food for my people and horses. The Tartars have
none to sell."
Murdo and his tribe became the guests of the village. His people were
all lean. The men hardly carried themselves on their legs. Each one of
them had something to nurse. The village doctor amputated toes and
fingers; several women had to be treated for gangrene. The children of
the tribe were the only ones that had not suffered much. It was Murdo's
rule: "Children first, the horses next." The animals were stabled and
taken charge of by the peasants. The gypsies went to live in the huts of
the people in order to warm themselves back to life. Father liked Murdo,
and so the old chief came to live with us. The nights were long. After
supper we all sat in a semicircle around the large fireplace in which a
big log of seasoned oak was always burning.
I had received some books from a friend of the family who lived in the
capital of the country, Bucharest. Among them was Carlyle's Heroes and
Hero-Worship, translated into French. I was reading it when Murdo
approached the table and said, "What a small Bible my son is reading."
"It is not a Bible, it is a book of stories, Murdo."
"Stories! Well, that's another thing."
He looked over my shoulders into the book. As I turned the page he
asked:
"Is everything written in a book? I mean, is it written what the hero
said and what she answered and how they said it? Is it written all
about him and the villain? I mean are there signs, letters for
everything; for laughter, cries, love gestures? Tell me."
I explained as best I could and he marvelled. I had to give an example,
so I read a full page from a storybook.
"And is all that written in the book, my son? It is better than I
thought possible, but not so good as when one tells a story.... It is
like cloth woven by a machine, nice and straight, but it is not like the
kind our women weave on the loom--but it is good; it is better than I
thought possible. What are the stories in the book you are reading? Of
love or of sorrow?"
"Of neither, Murdo. Only about all the great heroes that have lived in
this world of cowards."
"About every one of them?" he asked again. "That's good. It is good to
tell the stories of the heroes."
He returned to the fireplace to light his pipe; then he came to me
again.
"If it is written in this book about all the great heroes, then there
must also be the record of Ghitza--the great Ghitza, our hero. The
greatest that ever lived. See, son, what is there said about him?"
I turned the pages one by one to the end of the book and then reported,
"Nothing, Murdo. Not even his name is mentioned."
"Then this book is not a good book. The man who wrote it did not know
every hero ... because not Alexander of Macedon and not even Napoleon
was greater than Ghitza...."
I sat near him at the fireplace and watched his wrinkled face while
Murdo told me the story of Ghitza as it should be written in the book of
heroes where the first place should be given to the greatest of them
all....
* * * * *
About the birth of people, I, Murdo, the chief of the gypsy tribe which
was ruled by the forefathers of my great-grandfather (who each ruled
close to a hundred years)--about the birth of people, I, Murdo, can say
this: That the seed of an oak gives birth to an oak, and that of a pine
to a pine. No matter where the seed be carried by the winds, if it is
the seed of an oak, an oak will grow; if it is the seed of a pine, a
pine. So though it never was known who was the father of Ghitza, we knew
him through his son. Ghitza's mother died because she bore him, the son
of a white man--she, the daughter of the chief of our tribe. It was
Lupu's rule to punish those who bore a child begotten from outside the
tribe. But the child was so charming that he was brought up in the tent
of one of our people. When Ghitza was ten years old, he worked alongside
the men; and there was none better to try a horse before a customer than
Ghitza. The oldest and slowest gathered all the strength it had and
galloped and ran when it felt the bare boy on its back. Old mares
frisked about like yearlings when he approached to mount them.
In his fifteenth summer he was a man, tall, broad, straight and lissom
as a locust tree. His face was like rich milk and his eyes as black as
the night. When he laughed or sang--and he laughed and sang all the
time--his mouth was like a rose in the morning, when the dewdrops hang
on its outer petals. And he was strong and good. If it happened that a
heavy cart was stuck in the mud of the road and the oxen could not budge
it, Ghitza would crawl under the cart, get on all fours, and lift the
cart clear of the mud. Never giving time to the driver to thank him, his
work done, he walked quickly away, whistling a song through a trembling
leaf between his lips. And he was loved by everybody; and the women died
just for the looks of him. The whole tribe became younger and happier
because of Ghitza. We travelled very much those days. Dobrudja belonged
yet to the Turks and was inhabited mostly by Tartars. The villages were
far apart and very small, so we could not stay long in any place.
When Ghitza was twenty, our tribe, which was then ruled by my mighty
grandfather, Lupu, happened to winter near Cerna Voda, a village on the
other side of the Danube. We sold many horses to the peasants that
winter. They had had a fine year. So our people had to be about the inn
a good deal. Ghitza, who was one of the best traders, was in the inn the
whole day. He knew every one. He knew the major and his wife and the two
daughters and chummed with his son. And they all loved Ghitza, because
he was so strong, so beautiful, and so wise. They never called him
"tzigan" because he was fairer than they were. And there was quite a
friendship between him and Maria, the smith's daughter. She was glad to
talk to him and to listen to his stories when he came to the smithy. She
helped her father in his work. She blew the bellows and prepared the
shoes for the anvil. Her hair was as red as the fire and her arms round
and strong. She was a sweet maid to speak to, and even the old priest
liked to pinch her arms when she kissed his hand.
Then came spring and the first Sunday dance in front of the inn. The
innkeeper had brought a special band of musicians. They were seated on a
large table between two trees, and all around them the village maidens
and the young men, locked arm in arm in one long chain of youth, danced
the Hora, turning round and round.
Ghitza had been away to town, trading. When he came to the inn, the
dance was already on. He was dressed in his best, wearing his new broad,
red silken belt with his snow-white pantaloons and new footgear with
silver bells on the ankles and tips. His shirt was as white and thin as
air. On it the deftest fingers of our tribe had embroidered figures and
flowers. On his head Ghitza wore a high black cap made of finest
Astrakhan fur. And he had on his large ear-rings of white gold. Ghitza
watched the dance for a while. Maria's right arm was locked with the arm
of the smith's helper, and her left with the powerful arm of the mayor's
son. Twice the long chain of dancing youths had gone around, and twice
Ghitza had seen her neck and bare arms, and his blood boiled. When she
passed him the third time, he jumped in, broke the hold between Maria
and the smith's helper, and locked his arm in hers.
Death could not have stopped the dance more suddenly. The musicians
stopped playing. The feet stopped dancing. The arms freed themselves and
hung limply.
The smith's helper faced Ghitza with his arm uplifted.
"You cursed tzigan! You low-born gypsy! How dare you break into our
dance? Our dance!" Other voices said the same.
Everybody expected blows, then knives and blood. But Ghitza just laughed
aloud and they were all calmed. He pinned the smith's helper's arm and
laughed. Then he spoke to the people as follows:
"You can see on my face that I am fairer than any of you. I love Maria,
but I will not renounce the people I am with. I love them. The smith's
helper knows that I could kill him with one blow. But I shall not do it.
I could fight a dozen of you together. You know I can. But I shall not
do it. Instead I shall outdance all of you. Dance each man and woman of
the village until she or he falls tired on the ground. And if I do this
I am as you are, and Maria marries me without word of shame from you."
And as he finished speaking he grasped the smith's helper around the
waist and called to the musicians:
"Play, play."
For a full hour he danced around and around with the man while the
village watched them and called to the white man to hold out. But the
smith's helper was no match for Ghitza. He dragged his feet and fell.
Ghitza, still fresh and vigorous, grasped another man and called to the
musicians to play an even faster dance than before. When that one had
fallen exhausted to the ground, Ghitza took on a third and a fourth.
Then he began to dance with the maidens. The fiddler's string broke and
the guitar player's fingers were numb. The sun went to rest behind the
mountains and the moon rose in the sky to watch over her little
children, the stars.
But Ghitza was still dancing. There was no trace of fatigue on his face
and no signs of weariness in his steps. The more he danced, the fresher
he became. When he had danced half of the village tired, and they were
all lying on the ground, drinking wine from earthen urns to refresh
themselves, the last string of the fiddle snapped and the musician
reeled from his chair. Only the flute and the guitar kept on.
"Play on, play on, you children of sweet angels, and I shall give to
each of you a young lamb in the morning," Ghitza urged them. But soon
the breath of the flutist gave way. His lips swelled and blood spurted
from his nose. The guitar player's fingers were so numb he could no
longer move them. Then some of the people beat the rhythm of the dance
with their open palms. Ghitza was still dancing on. They broke all the
glasses of the inn and all the bottles beating time to his dance.
The night wore away. The cock crew. Early dogs arose and the sun woke
and started to climb from behind the eastern range of mountains. Ghitza
laughed aloud as he saw all the dancers lying on the ground. Even Maria
was asleep near her mother. He entered the inn and woke the innkeeper,
who had fallen asleep behind the counter.
"Whoa, whoa, you old swindler! Wake up! Day is come and I am thirsty."
After a long drink, he went to his tent to play with the dogs, as he did
early every morning.
A little later, toward noon, he walked over to the smith's shop, shook
hands with Maria's father and kissed the girl on the mouth even as the
helper looked on.
"She shall be your wife, son," the smith said. "She will be waiting for
you when your tribe comes to winter here. And no man shall ever say my
daughter married an unworthy one."
The fame of our tribe spread rapidly. The tale of Ghitza's feat spread
among all the villages and our tribe was respected everywhere. People no
longer insulted us, and many another of our tribe now danced on Sundays
at the inn--yea, our girls and our boys danced with the other people of
the villages. Our trade doubled and tripled. We bartered more horses in
a month than we had at other times in a year. Ghitza's word was law
everywhere. He was so strong his honesty was not doubted. And he was
honest. An honest horse-trader! He travelled far and wide. But if Cerna
Voda was within a day's distance, Ghitza was sure to be there on Sunday
to see Maria.
To brighten such days, wrestling matches were arranged and bets were
made as to how long the strongest of them could stay with Ghitza. And
every time Ghitza threw the other man. Once in the vise of his two arms,
a man went down like a log.
And so it lasted the whole summer. But in whatever village our tribe
happened to be, the women were running after the boy. Lupu, the chief of
the tribe, warned him; told him that life is like a burning candle and
that one must not burn it from both ends at the same time. But Ghitza
only laughed and made merry.
"Lupu, old chief, didst thou not once say that I was an oak? Why dost
thou speak of candles now?"
And he carried on as before. And ever so good, and ever so merry, and
ever such a good trader.
Our tribe returned to Cerna Voda early that fall. We had many horses and
we felt that Cerna was the best place for them. Most of them were of the
little Tartar kind, so we thought it well for them to winter in the
Danube's valley.
Every Sunday, at the inn, there were wrestling matches. Young men, the
strongest, came from far-away villages. And they all, each one of them,
hit the ground when Ghitza let go his vise.
One Sunday, when the leaves had fallen from the trees and the harvest
was in, there came a Tartar horse-trading tribe to Cerna Voda.
And in their midst they had a big, strong man. Lupu, our chief, met
their chief at the inn. They talked and drank and praised each their
horses and men. Thus it happened that the Tartar chief spoke about his
strong man. The peasants crowded nearer to hear the Tartar's story. Then
they talked of Ghitza and his strength. The Tartar chief did not believe
it.
"I bet three of my horses that my man can down him," the Tartar chief
called.
"I take the bet against a hundred ducats in gold," the innkeeper
answered.
"It's a bet," the Tartar said.
"Any more horses to bet?" others called out.
The Tartar paled but he was a proud chief and soon all his horses and
all his ducats were pledged in bets to the peasants. That whole day and
the rest of the week to Sunday, nothing else was spoken about. The
people of our tribe pledged everything they possessed. The women gave
even their ear-rings. The Tartars were rich and proud and took every bet
that was offered. The match was to be on Sunday afternoon in front of
the inn. Ghitza was not in the village at all the whole week. He was in
Constantza, on the shores of the Black Sea, finishing some trade. When
he arrived home on Sunday morning he found the people of the village,
our people, the Tartars, and a hundred carriages that had brought people
from the surrounding villages camped in front of the inn. He jumped down
from his horse and looked about wondering from where and why so many
people at once! The men and the women were in their best clothes and the
horses all decorated as for a fair. The people gave him a rousing
welcome. Lupu called Ghitza aside and told him why the people had
gathered. Ghitza was taken aback but laughed instantly and slapped the
chief on the shoulders.
"It will be as you know, and the Tartars shall depart poor and
dishonoured, while we will remain the kings of the horse trade in the
Dobrudja honoured and beloved by all."
Oak that he was! Thus he spoke, and he had not even seen the other man,
the man he was to wrestle. He only knew he had to maintain the honour of
his tribe. At the appointed hour he came to the inn. The whole tribe was
about and around. He had stripped to the waist. He was good to look at.
On the ground were bundles of rich skins near rolls of cloth that our
men and women had bet against the Tartars. Heaps of gold, rings,
watches, ear-rings, and ducats were spread on the tables. Tartar horses
and oxen of our men and the people of the village were trooped
together, the necks tied to one long rope held on one side by one of our
men or a villager and at the other end by a Tartar boy. If Ghitza were
thrown, one of ours had just to let his end of the rope go and all
belonged to the other one. The smithy had pledged all he had, even his
daughter, to the winner; and many another daughter, too, was pledged.
Ghitza looked about and saw what was at stake: the wealth and honour of
his tribe and the wealth and honour of the village and the surrounding
villages.
Then the Tartar came. He was tall and square. His trunk rested on short,
stocky legs, and his face was black, ugly, and pock-marked. All shouting
ceased. The men formed a wide ring around the two wrestlers. It was so
quiet one could hear the slightest noise. Then the mayor spoke to the
Tartars and pointed to the Danube; the inn was right on its shore.
"If your man is thrown, this very night you leave our shore, for the
other side."
Ghitza kissed Maria and Lupu, the chief. Then the fight began.
A mighty man was Ghitza and powerful were his arms and legs. But it was
seen from the very first grip that he had burned the candle at both ends
at the same time. He had wasted himself in carouses. The two men closed
one another in their vises and each tried to crush the other's ribs.
Ghitza broke the Tartar's hold and got a grip on his head and twisted it
with all his might. But the neck of the devil was of steel. It did not
yield. Maria began to call to her lover:
"Twist his neck, Ghitza. My father has pledged me to him if he wins."
And many another girl begged Ghitza to save her from marrying a black
devil.
The Tartars, from another side, kept giving advice to their man.
Everybody shrieked like mad, and even the dogs howled. From Ghitza's
body the sweat flowed as freely as a river. But the Tartar's neck
yielded not and his feet were like pillars of steel embedded in rocks.
"Don't let his head go, don't let him go," our people cried, when it was
plain that all his strength had gone out of his arms. Achmed's
pear-shaped head slipped from between his arms as the Tartar wound his
legs about Ghitza's body and began to crush him. Ghitza held on with all
his strength. His face was blue black. His nose bled, and from his mouth
he spat blood. Our people cried and begged him to hold on. The eyes of
the Tartars shot fire, their white teeth showed from under their thick
lips and they called on Achmed to crush the Giaour. Oh! it seemed that
all was lost. All our wealth, the honour and respect Ghitza had won for
us; the village's wealth and all. And all the maidens were to be taken
away as slaves to the Tartars. One man said aloud so that Ghitza should
hear:
"There will not be a pair of oxen in the whole village to plough with;
not a horse to harrow with, and our maidens are pledged to the black
sons of the devil."
Ghitza was being downed. But, wait ... what happened! With the last of
his strength he broke the hold. A shout rose to rend the skies.
Bewildered Achmed lay stupefied and looked on. Tottering on his feet, in
three jumps Ghitza was on the high point of the shore--a splash--and
there was no more Ghitza. He was swallowed by the Danube. No Tartar had
downed him!
And so our people had back their wealth, and the people of the village
theirs. No honour was lost and the maidens remained in the village--only
Maria did not. She followed her lover even as the people looked on. No
one even attempted to stop her. It was her right. Where was she to find
one such as he? She, too, was from the seed of an oak.
* * * * *
"And now, son, I ask thee--if the book before thee speaks of all the
great heroes, why is it that Ghitza has not been given the place of
honour?"
The log was burning in the fireplace, but I said good night to Murdo. I
wanted to dream of the mighty Ghitza and his Maria. And ever since I
have been dreaming of ... her.
FOOTNOTE:
[4] Copyright, 1920, by The Dial Publishing Company, Inc. Copyright,
1921, by Konrad Bercovici.
THE LIFE OF FIVE POINTS[5]
#By# EDNA CLARE BRYNER
From _The Dial_
A life went on in the town of Five Points. Five Points, the town was
called, because it was laid out in the form of a star with five points
and these points picked it out and circumscribed it. The Life that was
lived there was in this wise. Over the centre of the town it hung thick
and heavy, a great mass of tangled strands of all the colours that were
ever seen, but stained and murky-looking from something that oozed out
no one could tell from which of the entangling cords. In five directions
heavy strands came in to the great knot in the centre and from it there
floated out, now this way, now that, loose threads like tentacles,
seeking to fasten themselves on whatever came within their grasp. All
over the town thin threads criss-crossed back and forth in and out among
the heavy strands making little snarls wherever several souls lived or
were gathered together. One could see, by looking intently, that the
tangling knotted strands and threads were woven into the rough pattern
of a star.
Life, trembling through the mass in the centre, streamed back and forth
over the incoming strands, irregularly and in ever-changing volume,
pulling at the smaller knots here and there in constant disturbance. It
swayed the loosely woven mass above the schoolhouse, shaking out glints
of colour from the thin bright cords, golden yellows and deep blues,
vivid reds and greens. It twisted and untwisted the small black knot
above the town hotel. It arose in murky vapour from the large knots
above each of the churches. All over the town it quivered through the
fine entangling threads, making the pattern change in colour, loosening
and tightening the weaving. In this fashion Life came forth from the
body which it inhabited.
This is the way the town lay underneath it. From a large round of
foot-tramped earth five wide streets radiated out in as many directions
for a length of eight or ten houses and yards. Then the wide dirt street
became a narrow road, the narrow board walks flanking it on either side
stopped suddenly and faintly worn paths carried out their line for a
space of three minutes' walk when all at once up rose the wall of the
forest, the road plunged through and was immediately swallowed up. This
is the way it was in all five directions from Five Points.
Round about the town forests lay thick and dark like the dark heavens
around the cities of the sky, and held it off secure from every other
life-containing place. The roads that pierced the wall of the forest led
in deeper and deeper, cutting their way around shaggy foothills down to
swift streams and on and up again to heights, in and out of obscure
notches. They must finally have sprung out again through another wall of
forest to other towns. But as far as Five Points was concerned, they led
simply to lumber mills sitting like chained ravening creatures at safe
distances from one another eating slowly away at the thick woods as if
trying to remove the screen that held the town off to itself.
In the beginning there was no town at all, but miles and miles of virgin
forest clothing the earth that humped itself into rough-bosomed hills
and hummocks. Then the forest was its own. Birds nested in its dense
leafage, fish multiplied in the clear running streams, wild creatures
ranged its fastnesses in security. The trees, touched by no harsher hand
than that which turns the rhythmically changing seasons, added year by
year ring upon ring to their girths.
Suddenly human masters appeared. They looked at the girth of the trees,
appraised the wealth that lay hidden there, marked the plan of its
taking out. They brought in workers, cleared a space for head-quarters
in the midst of their great tracts, cut roads out through the forest,
and wherever swift streams crossed they set mills. The cleared space
they laid out symmetrically in a tree-fringed centre of common ground
encircled by a main street for stores and offices, with streets for
houses leading out to the edge of the clearing. In the south-east corner
of the town they set aside a large square of land against the forest for
a school-house.
Thus Five Points was made as nearly in the centre of the great uncut
region as it could well be and still be on the narrow-gauge railroad
already passing through to make junction with larger roads. In short
order there was a regular town with a station halfway down the street
where the railroad cut through and near it a town hotel with a bar; a
post office, several stores, a candy shop and a dentist's office
fronting the round of earth in the centre; five churches set each on its
own street and as far from the centre of the town as possible; and a
six-room school-house with a flagpole. One mile, two miles, five and six
miles distant in the forest, saw-mills buzzed away, strangely noisy amid
their silent clumsy lumbermen and mill folk.
One after another, all those diverse persons necessary for carrying on
the work of a small community drifted in. They cut themselves loose from
other communities and hastened hither to help make this new one, each
moved by his own particular reason, each bringing to the making of a
Life the threads of his own deep desire. The threads interlaced with
other threads, twisted into strands, knotted with other strands and the
Life formed itself and hung trembling, thick and powerful, over the
town.
The mill owners and managers came first, bringing strong warp threads
for the Life. They had to have the town to take out their products and
bring in supplies. They wanted to make money as fast as possible. "Let
the town go to hell!" they said. They cared little how the Life went so
that it did go. Most of them lived alternately as heads of families at
home two hundred miles away and as bachelors at their mills and extract
works.
Mr. Stillman, owner of hundreds of acres of forest, was different. He
wanted to be near at hand to watch his timber being taken out slowly and
carefully and meanwhile to bring up his two small sons, healthy and
virtuous, far away from city influences. He made a small farm up in the
high south-west segment of the town against the woods, with orchards and
sheep pasture and beehives and a big white farm-house, solidly built. He
became a deacon in the Presbyterian church and one of the corner-stones
of the town.
Mr. Goff, owner of mills six miles out, kept up a comfortable place in
town to serve as a half-way house between his mills and his home in a
city a couple of hundred miles distant. He believed that his appearance
as a regular townsman had a steadying influence on his workmen, that it
gave them faith in him. His placid middle-aged wife accompanied him back
and forth on his weekly visits to the mills and interested herself in
those of his workers who had families.
Mill Manager Henderson snapped at the chance to run the Company store as
well as to manage several mills. He saw in it something besides food and
clothing for his large family of red-haired girls. Although he lived
down at one of the mills he was counted as a townsman. He was a pillar
in the Methodist church and his eldest daughter played the piano there.
George Brainerd, pudgy chief clerk of the Company store, was hand in
glove with Henderson. He loved giving all his energies, undistracted by
family or other ties, to the task of making the Company's workers come
out at the end of the season in the Company's debt instead of having
cleared a few hundred dollars as they were made to believe, on the day
they were hired, would be the case. The percentage he received for his
cleverness was nothing to him in comparison with the satisfaction he
felt in his ability to manipulate.
Lanky Jim Dunn, the station agent, thirty-three and unmarried, satisfied
his hunger for new places by coming to Five Points. He hated old settled
lines of conduct. As station agent, he had a hand in everything and on
every one that came in and went out of the town. He held a sort of gauge
on the Life of the town. He chaffed all the girls who came down to see
the evening train come in and tipped off the young men as to what was
doing at the town hotel.
Dr. Smelter, thin-lipped and cold-eyed, elegant in manner and in dress,
left his former practice without regret. He opened his office in Five
Points hoping that in a new community obscure diseases did not flourish.
He was certain that lack of skill would not be as apparent there as in a
well-established village.
Rev. Trotman had been lured hither by the anticipation of a virgin field
for saving souls; Rev. Little, because he dared not let any of his own
fold be exposed to the pitfalls of an opposing creed.
Dave Fellows left off setting chain pumps in Gurnersville and renewed
his teaching experience by coming to Five Points to be principal of the
school. Dick Shelton's wife dragged her large brood of little girls and
her drunken husband along after Fellows in order to be sure of some one
to bring Dick home from the saloon before he drank up the last penny. It
made little difference to her where she earned the family living by
washing.
So they came, one after another, and filled up the town--Abe Cohen, the
Jew clothing dealer, Barringer, the druggist, Dr. Barton, rival of Dr.
Smelter and a far more highly skilled practitioner, Jake O'Flaherty, the
saloon-keeper, Widow Stokes, rag carpet weaver and gossip, Jeremy
Whitling, town carpenter, and his golden-blonde daughter Lucy,
school-teacher, Dr. Sohmer, dentist. Every small community needs these
various souls. No sooner is the earth scraped clean for a new village
than they come, one by one, until the town is complete. So it happened
in Five Points until there came to be somewhat fewer than a thousand
souls. There the town stood.
Stores and offices completely took up the circle of Main Street and
straggled a little down the residence streets. Under the fringe of trees
business hummed where side by side flourished Grimes' meat shop, the
drug store with the dentist's office above, Henderson's General Store,
as the Company store was called, Brinker's grocery store, the Clothing
Emporium, McGilroy's barber shop, Backus' hardware, and the post office.
The Five Points _Argus_ issued weekly its two pages from the dingy
office behind the drug store. Graham's Livery did a big business down
near the station.
Each church had gathered its own rightful members within its round of
Sunday and mid-week services, its special observances on Christmas, and
Easter, and Children's Day. In the spring of each year a one-ring circus
encamped for a day on the common ground in the centre of the town and
drew all the people in orderly array under its tent. On the Fourth of
July the whole town again came together in the centre common, in fashion
less orderly, irrespective of creed or money worth, celebrating the
deeds of their ancestors by drinking lemonade and setting off
firecrackers.
After a while no one could remember when it had been any different.
Those who came to town as little children grew into gawky youths knowing
no more about other parts of the world than their geography books told
them. When any one died, a strand in the Life hanging above the town
broke and flapped in the wind, growing more and more frayed with the
passing of time, until after a year or so its tatters were noticeable
only as a sort of roughness upon the pattern. When a child was born, a
thin tentacle from the central mass of strands reached out and fastened
itself upon him, dragging out his desire year by year until the strand
was thick and strong and woven in securely among the old scaly ones.
The folk who lived at the mills had hardly anything to do with the Life
of Five Points. They were merely the dynamo that kept the Life alive.
They were busied down in the woods making the money for the men who made
the town. They came to town only on Saturday nights. They bought a
flannel shirt and provisions at the Company store, a bag of candy at
Andy's for the hotel and then went back to have their weekly orgy in
their own familiar surroundings. They had little effect on the Life of
the town. That was contained almost entirely within the five points
where the road met the forest.
* * * * *
The Life of Five Points had one fearful enemy. Its home was in the black
forest. Without any warning it was likely to break out upon the town,
its long red tongues leaping out, striving to lick everything into its
red gullet. It was a thirsty animal. If one gave it enough water, it
went back into its lair. Five Points had only drilled wells in back
yards. The nearest big stream was a mile away.
Twice already during the existence of the Life the enemy had started
forth from its lair. The first time was not long after the town had
started and the pattern of Life was hardly more than indicated in the
loosely woven threads.
Down in the forest the people saw a long red tongue leaping. With brooms
and staves they ran to meet it far from their dwellings, beating it with
fury. As they felt the heat of its breath in their faces, they thought
of ministers' words in past sermons. Young desires and aspirations long
dormant began to throb into being. They prayed for safety. They promised
to give up their sins. They determined to be hard on themselves in the
performance of daily duties. The Life suspended above them untwisted its
loosely gathered in strands, the strands shone with a golden light and
entwined again in soft forms.
With death-dealing blows they laid the enemy black and broken about
Grant's Mills, a mile away, and then went back to their homes telling
each other how brave they had been. Pride swelled up their hearts. They
boasted that they could take care of themselves. Old habits slipped back
upon their aspirations and crushed them again into hidden corners. Life
gathered up its loose-woven pattern of dull threads and hung trembling
over the town.
Worsting the enemy brought the people more closely together. Suddenly
they seemed to know each other for the first time. They made changes,
entered into bonds, drew lines, and settled into their ways. Life grew
quickly with its strands woven tightly together into a weaving that
would be hard to unloose.
The mill managers made money. They saw to it that their mills buzzed
away continually. They visited their homes regularly. Mr. Stillman's
farm flourished. His apple trees were bearing. The school children
understood that they could always have apples for the asking. The
Stillman boys did not go to school. They had a tutor. Their father
whipped them soundly when they disobeyed him by going to play in the
streets of the town with the other children.
Dave Fellows had finally persuaded Dick Shelton to take a Cure. Dick
Shelton sober, it was discovered, was a man of culture and knew, into
the bargain, all the points of the law. So he was made Justice of the
Peace. His wife stopped taking in washing and spent her days trying to
keep the children out of the front room where Dick tried his cases.
Dave Fellows himself gave up the principalship of the school, finding
its meagre return insufficient to meet the needs of an increasing
family. Yielding to the persuasion of Henderson, he became contractor
for taking out timber at Trout Creek Mill. He counted on his two oldest
sons to do men's work during the summer when school was not in session.
Fellows moved his family into the very house in which Henderson had
lived. Henderson explained that he had to live in town to be near a
doctor for his ailing wife and sickly girls. The millmen told Dave
Fellows that Henderson was afraid of them because they had threatened
him if he kept on overcharging them at the Company store.
Abe Cohen did a thriving business in clothing. He had a long list of
customers heavily in debt to him through the promise that they could pay
whenever they got ready. He dunned them openly on the street so that
they made a wide detour in order to avoid going past his store.
Dr. Barton had established a reputation for kindness of heart as well as
skill in practice that threatened his rival's good will. Helen Barton,
the doctor's young daughter, perversely kept company with her father's
rival. Every one felt sorry for the father but secretly admired Dr.
Smelter's diabolic tactics.
* * * * *
Long-forgotten was the enemy when it came the second time. On a dark
night when Five Points lay heavy in its slumbers, it bore down upon the
north side of the town. Some sensitive sleeper, troubled in his dreams,
awoke to see the dreadful red tongues cutting across the darkness like
crimson banners. His cries aroused the town. All the fathers rushed out
against the enemy. The mothers dressed their children and packed best
things in valises ready to flee when there was no longer any hope.
For three days and three nights the enemy raged, leaping in to eat up
one house, two houses, beaten back and back, creeping up in another
place, beaten back again. The school boys took beaters and screamed at
the enemy as they beat.
The older ones remembered the first coming of the enemy. They said, "It
was a warning!" They prayed while fear shook their aching arms. The Life
of the town writhed and gleams of colour came out of its writhings and a
whiteness as if the red tongues were cleansing away impurities.
The mill managers brought their men to fight the enemy. "We mustn't let
it go," they said. Mr. Stillman had his two sons helping him. He talked
to them while they fought the enemy together. He spoke of punishment for
sin. His sons listened while the lust of fighting held their bodies.
Helen Barton knelt at her father's feet where he was fighting the enemy
and swore she would never see Dr. Smelter again. She knew he was a bad
man and could never bring her happiness.
Lyda, eldest daughter in the Shelton family, gathered her little sisters
about her, quieting their clamours while her mother wrung her hands and
said over and over again, "To happen when your papa was getting on so
nicely!" Lyda resolved that she would put all thoughts of marrying out
of her head. She would have to stop keeping company with Ned Backus,
the hardware man's son. It was not fair to keep company with a man you
did not intend to marry. She would stay for ever with her mother and
help care for the children so that her father would have a peaceful home
life and not be tempted.
All about, wherever they were, people prayed. They prayed until there
was nothing left in their hearts but prayer as there was nothing left in
their bodies but a great tiredness.
Then a heavy rain came and the red tongues drank greedily until they
were slaked and became little short red flickers of light on a soaked
black ground. The enemy was conquered. One street of the town was gone.
People ran to the church and held thanksgiving services. A stillness
brooded over the town. Life hardly moved; the strands hung slack.
Thanksgiving soon changed to revival. Services lasted a week. The
ministers preached terrible sermons, burning with terrible words.
"Repent before it is too late. Twice God has warned this town." People
vowed vows and sang as they had never sung before the hymns in their
church song-books. The strands of Life leapt and contorted themselves
but they could not pull themselves apart.
The revival ended. Building began. In a few months a street of houses
sprang up defiant in yellow newness. In and out of a pattern little
changed from its old accustomed aspect Life pulsated in great waves over
the heavy strands. In and out, up and down, it rushed, drawing threads
tightly together, knotting them in fantastic knots that only the
judgment day could undo.
* * * * *
Mr. Stillman's sons were now young men. The younger was dying of heart
trouble in a hospital in the city. The father had locked the elder in
his room for two weeks on bread and water until he found out exactly
what had happened between his son and the Barringers' hired girl. Guy
Stillman, full-blooded, dark, and handsome, with high cheek bones like
an Indian, declared vehemently that he would never marry the girl.
Dave Fellows had taken his sons out of school to help him the year
round in the woods. Sixteen-year-old Lawrence had left home and gone to
work in the town barber shop late afternoons and evenings in order to
keep on at his work in the high school grades just established. He vowed
he would never return home to be made into a lumber-jack. Dave's wife
was trying to persuade him to leave Five Points and go to the city where
her family lived. There the children could continue their schooling and
Dave could get work more suited to his ability than lumbering seemed to
be. Dave, too proud to admit that he had not the capacity for carrying
on this work successfully, refused to entertain any thought of leaving
the place. "If my family would stick by me, everything would come out
all right," he always said.
Lyda Shelton still kept company with Ned Backus. When he begged her to
marry him, she put him off another year until the children were a little
better able to care for themselves. Her next youngest sister had married
a dentist from another town and had not asked her mother to the wedding.
Lyda was trying to make it up to her mother in double devotion.
Helen Barton met Dr. Smelter once too often and her father made her
marry him. She had a child born dead. Now she was holding clandestine
meetings with Mr. Daly, a traveling salesman, home on one of his
quarterly visits to his family. He had promised to take Helen away with
him on his next trip and make a home for her in the city.
* * * * *
It was a sweltering hot Saturday in the first part of June. Every now
and then the wind blew in from the east picking up the dust in eddies.
Abe Cohen's store was closed. His children wandered up and down the
street, celebrating their sabbath in best clothes and chastened
behaviour. Jim Dunn was watching a large consignment of goods for the
Company store being unloaded. He was telling Earl Henderson, the
manager's nephew, how much it would cost him to get in with the poker
crowd.
George Brainerd had finished fixing up the Company's accounts. He
whistled as he worked. Dave Fellows was in debt three hundred dollars to
the Company. That would keep him another year. He was a good workman but
a poor manager. Sam Kent was in debt one hundred dollars. He would have
to stay, too. John Simpson had come out even. He could go if he wanted
to. He was a trouble-maker anyway....
Helen Barton sat talking with Daly in the thick woods up back of the
Presbyterian church. They were planning how to get away undetected on
the evening train.... "If she was good enough for you then, she's good
enough now," Mr. Stillman was saying to his defiant son. "You're not fit
for a better woman. You'll take care of her and that's the end of
it...."
Widow Stokes' half-witted son rode up from the Extract Works on an old
bony horse. He brought word that the enemy was at the Kibbard Mill, two
miles beyond the Works. People were throwing their furniture into the
mill pond, he said. Every one laughed. Mottie Stokes was always telling
big stories. The boy, puzzled, went round and round the town, stopping
every one he met, telling his tale. Sweat poured down his pale face.
At last he rode down to Trout Creek Mill and told Dave Fellows. Dave got
on the old grey mule and came up to town to find out further news. The
townsfolk, loafing under the trees around Main Street and going about on
little errands, shouted when they saw Dave come in on his mule beside
Mottie on the bony horse. "Two of a kind," was passed round the circle
of business and gossip, and sniggering went with it. Dave suggested that
some one go down to see just what had happened. Jeers answered him.
"Believe a fool? Not quite that cracked yet!" Dave went about uneasily
if he had business to attend to, but keeping an eye searching out in the
direction of the Works.
In an hour or so another rider came panting into town. Back of him
straggled families from the mills and works with whatever belongings
they could bring on their backs. Fear came into the hearts of the
citizens of Five Points. They shouted in anger to drive away their fear.
"Why didn't you stay and fight it? What'd you come up here for?"
"Too big, too big," cried the lumber folk, gesturing back over their
shoulders.
Far off a haze was gathering and in the haze a redness appeared, growing
slowly more and more distinct. The townsfolk stared in the direction of
the Works, unwilling to believe. Some one shouted, "Better be ready!"
Shortly every pump in the town had its hand and everything that could
hold water was being filled for the oncoming thirsty beast.
Dave Fellows galloped down the long hills, around curves, across the
bridge at the mill and up again to his home, told his family of the
approach of the enemy, directed them to pack up all the easily moved
furniture, harness the two mules and be ready to flee out through the
forest past Goff's Mills to the next station thirty miles further down
the railroad. No one could tell where the enemy would spread. He would
come back the minute that all hope was lost. The boys must stay at home
and take care of the place. "Bring Lawrence back with you," his wife
called after him, and he turned and waved his hand.
When he got back into town thousands of red tongues were bearing down
upon the station street. The enemy belched forth great hot breaths that
swept the sky ahead of it like giant firecrackers and falling upon the
houses to the east of the town ran from one to another eating its way up
the station street towards the centre of the town. Family after family
left their homes, carrying valuables, dragging their small children, and
scattered to the north and south of the advancing enemy. The town hotel
emptied itself quickly of its temporary family. Jim Dunn left the
station carrying the cash box and a bundle of papers.
From building to building the enemy leaped. Before it fled group after
group of persons from stores and homes. Methodically it went round the
circle of shops, the most rapacious customer the town had ever seen.
Quarters of beeves in the meat shop, bottles of liquids and powders on
the drug-store shelves, barrels and boxes of food in the grocery store,
suits of clothing in Abe Cohen's, the leather whips and carriage robes
in the hardware store, all went down its gullet with the most amazing
ease.
Swelled with its indiscriminate meal, it started hesitantly on its way
up the street that led to the Presbyterian Church. Now people lost their
heads and ran hither and thither, screaming and praying incoherently,
dragging their crying children about from one place to another, pumping
water frantically to offer it, an impotent libation to an insatiable
god. They knew that neither the beating of brooms nor the water from
their wells could quench the enemy that was upon them. Red Judgment Day
was at hand.
Meanwhile a peculiar thing happened. The Life that was hanging above the
town lifted itself up, high up, entire in its pattern, beyond the reach
of red tongues, of gusts from hot gullets--and there it stayed while the
enemy raged below.
Dave Fellows harangued the men who were beating away vainly, pouring
buckets of water on unquenchable tongues. He pointed to the forest up
the street back of the Presbyterian Church. He was telling them that the
only thing to do was to call forth another enemy to come down and do
battle with this one before it reached the church. "Yes, yes," they
chorused eagerly.
Craftily they edged around south of the enemy, scorching their faces
against its streaming flank, and ran swiftly far up the line of forest
past the church. There it was even at that moment that Helen Barton was
begging Daly to remember his promise and take her with him on the
evening train....
The men scooped up leaves and small twigs and bending over invoked their
champion to come forth and do battle for them. Presently it came forth,
shooting out little eager red tongues that danced and leaped, glad to be
coming forth, growing larger in leaps and bounds. Dave Fellows watched
anxiously the direction in which the hissing tongues sprang. "The wind
will take it," he said at last. Fitfully the breeze pressed up against
the back of the newly born, pushing more and more strongly as the
tongues sprang higher and higher, until finally it swept the full-grown
monster down the track towards where the other monster was gorging.
"For God's sake, Henry, take me with you, this evening, as you
promised," Helen was imploring Daly. "I can't stay here any longer. My
father--I wish now I had listened to him in the first place, long ago."
Daly did not hear her. He had risen to his feet and holding his head
back was drawing in great acrid breaths. His florid face went white.
"What is that?" he said hoarsely. Through the thick forest red tongues
broke out, sweeping towards them. Helen clutched Daly's arm, screaming.
He shook her off and turned to flee out by the church. There, too, red
tongues were leaping, curling back on themselves in long derisive
snarls. Daly turned upon her. "You ..."
The two enemies met at the church, red tongue leaping against red
tongue, crackling jaws breaking on crackling jaws, sizzling gullet
straining against sizzling gullet. A great noise like the rending of a
thousand fibres, a clap of red thunder, as the body of beast met the
body of beast, and both lay crumpled upon the ground together, their
long bodies writhing, bruised, red jaws snapping, red tongue eating red
tongue.
Upon them leaped the band of men spreading out the whole length of the
bodies and beat, beat, incessantly, desperately, tongue after tongue,
hour after hour, beat, beat. Lingeringly the enemy died, a hard death.
Three days it was dying and it had watchers in plenty. Whenever a red
tongue leaped into life, some one was there to lay it low. In the
night-time the men watched, and in the day the women and girls. The men
talked. "We will build it up again in brick," they said. "That is safer
and it looks better, too." The women talked, too. "I hope Abe will get
in some of those new lace curtains," they said.
Meanwhile families gathered themselves together. Those whose homes were
gone encamped picnic fashion in the schoolhouse or were taken in by
those whose houses were still standing. Two persons were missing when
the muster of the town was finally taken. They were Helen Barton and Mr.
Daly. Jim Dunn said he wasn't sure but he thought Daly left on the
morning train. Daly's wife said he told her he was not going until
evening.
They searched for Helen far and wide. No trace of her was ever found.
Her father stood in front of the Sunday School on the Sunday following
the death of the enemy and made an eloquent appeal for better life in
the town. "The wages of sin is death," he declared, "death of the soul
always, death of the body sometimes." The people thought him inspired.
Widow Stokes whispered to her neighbour, "It's his daughter he's
thinking of."
Dave Fellows was the only person who left the town. He went back to his
wife when he saw that the town was saved and said, "We might as well
move now that we're packed up. The town is cursed." Two days later they
took the train north from a pile of blackened timbers where the old
station had stood. Lawrence went with them.
The enemy had eaten up all the records in the Company store, and had
tried to eat up George Brainerd while he was attempting to save them.
The Company had to accept the workers' own accounts. George was going
about with his arm tied up, planning to keep a duplicate set of records
in a place unassailable by the enemy.
Abe Cohen wailed so about his losses and his little children that Mr.
Stillman set him up in a brand new stock of clothing. Abe was telling
every one, "Buy now. Pay when you like." And customers came as of old.
Guy Stillman married the Barringers' hired girl. His father established
them in a little home out at the edge of the town. The nearest neighbour
reported that Guy beat his wife.
Lyda married Ned Backus. "Suppose you had died," she told Ned. "I would
never have forgiven myself. You can work in papa's new grocery store.
He's going to start one as soon as we can get the building done. Mama
will have a son to help take care of her."
Life, its strands blackened by the strong breath of the enemy, settled
down once more over the town and hung there, secure in its pattern,
thick and powerful. Under it brick stores and buildings rose up and
people stood about talking, complacently planning their days. "It won't
come again for a long time," they said.
FOOTNOTE:
[5] Copyright, 1920, by The Dial Publishing Company, Inc. Copyright,
1921, by Edna Clare Bryner.
THE SIGNAL TOWER[6]
#By# WADSWORTH CAMP
From _The Metropolitan_
"I get afraid when you leave me alone this way at night."
The big man, Tolliver, patted his wife's head. His coarse laughter was
meant to reassure, but, as he glanced about the living-room of his
remote and cheerless house, his eyes were uneasy. The little boy, just
six years old, crouched by the cook-stove, whimpering over the remains
of his supper.
"What are you afraid of?" Tolliver scoffed.
The stagnant loneliness, the perpetual drudgery, had not yet conquered
his wife's beauty, dark and desirable. She motioned towards the boy.
"He's afraid, too, when the sun goes down."
For a time Tolliver listened to the wind, which assaulted the frame
house with the furious voices of witches demanding admittance.
"It's that----" he commenced.
She cut him short, almost angrily.
"It isn't that with me," she whispered.
He lifted the tin pail that contained a small bottle of coffee and some
sandwiches. He started for the door, but she ran after him, dragging at
his arm.
"Don't go! I'm afraid!"
The child was quiet now, staring at them with round, reflective eyes.
"Joe," Tolliver said gently, "will be sore if I don't relieve him on
time."
She pressed her head against his coat and clung tighter. He closed his
eyes.
"You're afraid of Joe," he said wearily.
Without looking up, she nodded. Her voice was muffled.
"He came last night after you relieved him at the tower. He knocked, and
I wouldn't let him in. It made him mad. He swore. He threatened. He said
he'd come back. He said he'd show us we couldn't kick him out of the
house just because he couldn't help liking me. We never ought to have
let him board here at all."
"Why didn't you tell me before?"
"I was afraid you'd be fighting each other in the tower; and it didn't
seem so bad until dark came on. Why didn't you complain to the railroad
when--when he tried to kiss me the other night?"
"I thought that was finished," Tolliver answered slowly, "when I kicked
him out, when I told him I'd punish him if he bothered you again. And
I--I was a little ashamed to complain to the superintendent about that.
Don't you worry about Joe, Sally, I'll talk to him now, before I let him
out of the tower. He's due to relieve me again at midnight, and I'll be
home then."
He put on his great coat. He pulled his cap over his ears. The child
spoke in a high, apprehensive voice.
"Don't go away, papa."
He stared at the child, considering.
"Put his things on, Sally," he directed at last.
"What for?"
"I'll send him back from the tower with something that will make you
feel easier."
Her eyes brightened.
"Isn't that against the rules?"
"Guess I can afford to break one for a change," he said. "I'm not likely
to need it myself to-night. Come, Sonny."
The child shrank in the corner, his pudgy hands raised defensively.
"It's only a little ways, and Sonny can run home fast," his mother
coaxed.
Against his ineffective reluctance she put on his coat and hat. Tolliver
took the child by the hand and led him, sobbing unevenly, into the
wind-haunted darkness. The father chatted encouragingly, pointing to two
or three lights, scattered, barely visible; beacons that marked
unprofitable farms.
It was, in fact, only a short distance to the single track railroad and
the signal tower, near one end of a long siding. In the heavy,
boisterous night the yellow glow from the upper windows, and the red and
green of the switch lamps, close to the ground, had a festive
appearance. The child's sobs drifted away. His father swung him in his
arms, entered the tower, and climbed the stairs. Above, feet stirred
restlessly. A surly voice came down.
"Here at last, eh?"
When Tolliver's head was above the level of the flooring he could see
the switch levers, and the table, gleaming with the telegraph
instruments, and dull with untidy clips of yellow paper; but the detail
that held him was the gross, expectant face of Joe.
Joe was as large as Tolliver, and younger. From that commanding
position, he appeared gigantic.
"Cutting it pretty fine," he grumbled.
Tolliver came on up, set the child down, and took off his overcoat.
"Fact is," he drawled, "I got held back a minute--sort of unexpected."
His eyes fixed the impatient man.
"What you planning to do, Joe, between now and relieving me at
midnight?"
Joe shifted his feet.
"Don't know," he said uncomfortably. "What you bring the kid for? Want
me to drop him at the house?"
Tolliver shook his head. He placed his hands on his hips.
"That's one thing I want to say to you, Joe. Just you keep away from the
house. Thought you understood that when you got fresh with Sally the
other night."
Joe's face flushed angrily.
"Guess I was a fool to say I was sorry about that. Guess I got to teach
you I got a right to go where I please."
Tolliver shook his head.
"Not to our house, if we don't want you."
The other leered.
"You so darned sure Sally don't want me?"
Impulsively Tolliver stepped forward, closing his fists.
"You drop that sort of talk, or----"
Joe interrupted, laughing.
"One thing's sure, Tolliver. If it came to a fight between me and you
I'd be almost ashamed to hit you."
Through his passion Tolliver recognized the justice of that appraisal.
Physically he was no match for the younger man.
"Things," he said softly, "are getting so we can't work here together."
"Then," Joe flung back, as he went down the stairs, "you'd better be
looking for another job."
Tolliver sighed, turning to the table. The boy played there, fumbling
with the yellow forms. Tolliver glanced at the top one. He called out
quickly to the departing man.
"What's this special, Joe?"
The other's feet stumped on the stairs again.
"Forgot," he said as his head came through the trap. "Some big-wigs
coming through on a special train along about midnight. Division
headquarters got nothing definite yet, but figure we'll have to get her
past thirty-three somewheres on this stretch. So keep awake."
Tolliver with an increasing anxiety continued to examine the yellow
slips.
"And thirty-three's late, and still losing."
Joe nodded.
"Makes it sort of uncertain."
"Seems to me," Tolliver said, "you might have mentioned it."
"Maybe," Joe sneered, "you'd like me to stay and do your job."
He went down the stairs and slammed the lower door.
Tolliver studied the slips, his ears alert for the rattling of the
telegraph sounder. After a time he replaced the file on the table and
looked up. The boy, quite contented now in the warm, interesting room,
stretched his fingers towards the sending key, with the air of a culprit
dazzled into attempting an incredible crime.
"Hands off, Sonny!" Tolliver said kindly. "You must run back to mother
now."
He opened a drawer beneath the table and drew out a polished
six-shooter--railroad property, designed for the defense of the tower
against tramps or bandits. The boy reached his hand eagerly for it. His
father shook his head.
"Not to play with, Sonny. That's for business. If you promise not to
touch it 'till you get home and hand it to mama, to-morrow I'll give you
a nickel."
The child nodded. Tolliver placed the revolver in the side pocket of the
little overcoat, and, the boy following him, went down stairs.
"You run home fast as you can," Tolliver directed. "Don't you be afraid.
I'll stand right here in the door 'till you get there. Nothing shall
hurt you."
The child glanced back at the festive lights with an anguished
hesitation. Tolliver had to thrust him away from the tower.
"A nickel in the morning----" he bribed.
The child commenced to run. Long after he had disappeared the troubled
man heard the sound of tiny feet scuffling with panic along the road to
home.
When the sound had died away Tolliver slammed the door and climbed the
stairs. He studied the yellow slips again, striving to fix in his mind
this problem, involving the safety of numerous human beings, that would
probably become his. He had a fear of abnormal changes in the schedule.
It had been impressed upon every signalman that thirty-three was the
road's most precious responsibility. It was the only solid Pullman train
that passed over the division. This time of year it ran crowded and was
erratic; more often than not, late. That fact created few difficulties
on an ordinary night; but, combined with such uncertainty of schedule,
it worried the entire division, undoubtedly, to have running, also on an
uncertain schedule, and in the opposite direction on that single track,
an eager special carrying important men. The superintendent, of course,
would want to get those flashy trains past each other without delay to
either. That was why these lonely towers, without receiving definite
instructions yet, had been warned to increase watchfulness.
Tolliver's restlessness grew. He hoped the meeting would take place
after Joe had relieved him, or else to the north or south.
It was difficult, moreover, for him to fix his mind to-night on his
professional responsibility. His duty towards his family was so much
more compelling. While he sat here, listening to every word beaten out
by the sounder, he pictured his wife and son, alone in the little house
nearly a half a mile away. And he wondered, while he, their only
protector, was imprisoned, what Joe was up to.
Joe must have been drunk when he tried to get in the house last night.
Had he been drinking to-night?
The sounder jarred rapidly.
"LR. LR. LR."
That was for the tower to the north. It was hard to tell from Joe's
manner. Perhaps that would account for his not having called attention
to the approaching presence of the special on the division.
Pound. Pound. Pound. The hard striking of the metal had the effect of a
trip-hammer on his brain.
"Allen reports special left Oldtown at 9.45."
Joe had certainly been drinking that night last week when he had got
fresh with Sally.
"Thirty-three still losing south of Anderson."
He jotted the words down and sent his O.K.'s while his head, it seemed
to him, recoiled physically from each rapid stroke of the little brass
bar.
Sonny, sent by his mother, had come to tell him that night, panting up
the stairs, his eyes wide and excited. Tolliver had looked from the
window towards his home, his face flushed, his fists clenched, his heart
almost choking him. Then he had seen Joe, loafing along the road in the
moonlight, and he had relaxed, scarcely aware of the abominable choice
he had faced.
"NT. NT. NT."
His own call. Tolliver shrank from the sharp blows. He forced himself to
a minute attention. It was division headquarters.
"Holding twenty-one here until thirty-three and the special have
cleared."
Twenty-one was a freight. It was a relief to have that off the road for
the emergency. He lay back when the striking at his head had ceased.
It was unfortunate that Joe and he alone should be employed at the
tower. Relieving each other at regular intervals, they had never been at
the house together. Either Tolliver had been there alone with his wife
and his son--or Joe had been. The two men had seen each other too
little, only momentarily in this busy room. They didn't really know each
other.
"LR. LR. LR."
Tolliver shook his head savagely. It had been a mistake letting Joe
board with them at all. Any man would fall in love with Sally. Yet
Tolliver had thought after that definite quarrel Joe would have known
his place; the danger would have ended.
It was probably this drinking at the country inn where Joe lived now
that had made the man brood. The inn was too small and removed to
attract the revenue officers, and the liquid manufactured and sold there
was designed to make a man daring, irrational, deadly.
Tolliver shrank from the assaults of the sounder.
Where was Joe now? At the inn, drinking; or----
He jotted down the outpourings of the voluble key. More and more it
became clear that the special and thirty-three would meet near his
tower, but it would almost certainly be after midnight when Joe would
have relieved him. He watched the clock, often pressing his fingers
against his temples in an attempt to make bearable the hammering at his
brain, unequal and persistent.
While the hands crawled towards midnight the wind increased, shrieking
around the tower as if the pounding angered it.
Above the shaking of the windows Tolliver caught another sound, gentle
and disturbing, as if countless fingers tapped softly, simultaneously
against the panes.
He arose and raised one of the sashes. The wind tore triumphantly in,
bearing a quantity of snowflakes that fluttered to the floor, expiring.
Under his breath Tolliver swore. He leaned out, peering through the
storm. The red and green signal lamps were blurred. He shrugged his
shoulders. Anyway, Joe would relieve him before the final orders came,
before either train was in the section.
Tolliver clenched his hands. If Joe didn't come!
He shrank from the force of his imagination.
He was glad Sally had the revolver.
He glanced at his watch, half believing that the clock had stopped.
There at last it was, both hands pointing straight up--midnight! And
Tolliver heard only the storm and the unbearable strokes of the
telegraph sounder. It was fairly definite now. Both trains were roaring
through the storm, destined almost certainly to slip by each other at
this siding within the next hour.
Where was Joe? And Sally and the boy alone at the house!
Quarter past twelve.
What vast interest could have made Joe forget his relief at the probable
loss of his job?
Tolliver glanced from the rear window towards his home, smothered in the
night and the storm. If he might only run there quickly to make sure
that Sally was all right!
The sounder jarred furiously. Tolliver half raised his hand, as if to
destroy it.
It was the division superintendent himself at the key.
"NT. NT. NT. Is it storming bad with you?"
"Pretty thick."
"Then keep the fuses burning. For God's sake, don't let the first in
over-run his switch. And clear the line like lightning. Those fellows
are driving faster than hell."
Tolliver's mouth opened, but no sound came. His face assumed the
expression of one who undergoes the application of some destructive
barbarity.
"I get afraid when you leave me alone this way at night."
He visualized his wife, beautiful, dark, and desirable, urging him not
to go to the tower.
A gust of wind sprang through the trap door. The yellow slips fluttered.
He ran to the trap. He heard the lower door bang shut. Someone was on
the stairs, climbing with difficulty, breathing hard. A hat, crusted
with snow, appeared. There came slowly into the light Joe's face, ugly
and inflamed; the eyes restless with a grave indecision.
Tolliver's first elation died in new uncertainty.
"Where you been?" he demanded fiercely.
Joe struggled higher until he sat on the flooring, his legs dangling
through the trap. He laughed in an ugly and unnatural note; and Tolliver
saw that there was more than drink, more than sleeplessness, recorded in
his scarlet face. Hatred was there. It escaped, too, from the streaked
eyes that looked at Tolliver as if through a veil. He spoke thickly.
"Don't you wish you knew?"
Tolliver stooped, grasping the man's shoulders. In each fist he clenched
bunches of wet cloth. In a sort of desperation he commenced to shake the
bundled figure.
"You tell me where you been----"
"NT. NT. NT."
Joe leered.
"Joe! You got to tell me where you been."
The pounding took Tolliver's strength. He crouched lower in an effort to
avoid it, but each blow struck as hard as before, forcing into his brain
word after word that he passionately resented. Places, hours,
minutes--the details of this vital passage of two trains in the
unfriendly night.
"Switch whichever arrives first, and hold until the other is through."
It was difficult to understand clearly, because Joe's laughter
persisted, crashing against Tolliver's brain as brutally as the sounder.
"You got to tell me if you been bothering Sally."
The hatred and the cunning of the mottled face grew.
"Why don't you ask Sally?"
Slowly Tolliver let the damp cloth slip from his fingers. He
straightened, facing more definitely that abominable choice. He glanced
at his cap and overcoat. The lazy clock hands reminded him that he had
remained in the tower nearly half an hour beyond his time. Joe was
right. It was clear he could satisfy himself only by going home and
asking Sally.
"Get up," he directed. "I guess you got sense enough to know you're on
duty."
Joe struggled to his feet and lurched to the table. Tolliver wondered at
the indecision in the other's eyes, which was more apparent. Joe fumbled
aimlessly with the yellow slips. Tolliver's fingers, outstretched toward
his coat, hesitated, as if groping for an object that must necessarily
elude them.
"Special!" Joe mumbled. "And--Hell! Ain't thirty-three through yet?"
He swayed, snatching at the edge of the table.
Tolliver lowered his hands. The division superintendent had pounded out
something about fuses. What had it been exactly? "Keep fuses burning."
With angry gestures he took his coat and cap down, and put them on while
he repeated all the instructions that had been forced into his brain
with the effect of a physical violence. At the table Joe continued to
fumble aimlessly.
"Ain't you listening?" Tolliver blurted out.
"Huh?"
"Why don't you light a fuse?"
It was quite obvious that Joe had heard nothing.
"Fuse!" Joe repeated.
He stooped to a box beneath the table. He appeared to lose his balance.
He sat on the floor with his back against the wall, his head drooping.
"What about fuse?" he murmured.
His eyes closed.
Tolliver pressed the backs of his hands against his face. If only his
suspense might force refreshing tears as Sonny cried away his infant
agonies!
Numerous people asleep in that long Pullman train, and the special
thundering down! Sally and Sonny a half mile away in the lonely house!
And that drink-inspired creature on the floor--what was he capable of in
relation to those unknown, helpless travelers? But what was he capable
of; what had he, perhaps, been capable of towards those two known ones
that Tolliver loved better than all the world?
Tolliver shuddered. As long as Joe was here Sally and Sonny would not be
troubled. But where had Joe been just now? How had Sally and Sonny fared
while Tolliver had waited for that stumbling step on the stairs? He had
to know that, yet how could he? For he couldn't leave Joe to care for
all those lives on the special and thirty-three.
He removed his coat and cap, and replaced them on the hook. He took a
fuse from the box and lighted it. He raised the window and threw the
fuse to the track beneath. It sputtered and burst into a flame, ruddy,
gorgeous, immense. It etched from the night distant fences and trees. It
bent the sparkling rails until they seemed to touch at the terminals of
crimson vistas. If in the storm the locomotive drivers should miss the
switch lamps, set against them, they couldn't neglect this bland banner
of danger, flung across the night.
When Tolliver closed the window he noticed that the ruddy glow filled
the room, rendering sickly and powerless the yellow lamp wicks. And
Tolliver clutched the table edge, for in this singular and penetrating
illumination he saw that Joe imitated the details of sleep; that beneath
half-closed lids, lurked a fanatical wakefulness, and final resolution
where, on entering the tower, he had exposed only indecision.
While Tolliver stared Joe abandoned his masquerade. Wide-eyed, he got
lightly to his feet and started for the trap.
Instinctively, Tolliver's hand started for the drawer where customarily
the revolver was kept. Then he remembered, and was sorry he had sent the
revolver to Sally. For it was clear that the poison in Joe's brain was
sending him to the house while Tolliver was chained to the tower. He
would have shot, he would have killed, to have kept the man here. He
would do what he could with his hands.
"Where you going?" he asked hoarsely.
Joe laughed happily.
"To keep Sally company while you look after the special and
thirty-three."
Tolliver advanced cautiously, watching for a chance. When he spoke his
voice had the appealing quality of a child's.
"It's my time off. If I do your work you got to stay at least."
Joe laughed again.
"No. It only needs you to keep all those people from getting killed."
Tolliver sprang then, but Joe avoided the heavier, clumsier man. He
grasped a chair, swinging it over his head.
"I'll teach you," he grunted, "to kick me out like dirt. I'll teach you
and Sally."
With violent strength he brought the chair down. Tolliver got his hands
up, but the light chair crashed them aside and splintered on his head.
He fell to his knees, reaching out blindly. He swayed lower until he lay
stretched on the floor, dimly aware of Joe's descending steps, of the
slamming of the lower door, at last of a vicious pounding at his bruised
brain.
"NT. NT. NT."
He struggled to his knees, his hands at his head.
"No, by God! I won't listen to you."
"Thirty-three cleared LR at 12:47."
One tower north! Thirty-three was coming down on him, but he was only
glad that the pounding had ceased. It commenced again.
"NT. NT. NT. Special cleared JV at 12:48."
Each rushing towards each other with only a minute's difference in
schedule! That was close--too close. But what was it he had in his mind?
Suddenly he screamed. He lurched to his feet and leant against the wall.
He knew now. Joe, with those infused and criminal eyes, had gone to
Sally and Sonny--to get even. There could be nothing in the world as
important as that. He must get after Joe. He must stop him in time.
"NT. NT. NT."
There was something in his brain about stopping a train in time.
"It only needs you to keep all those people from getting killed."
Somebody had told him that. What did it mean? What had altered here in
the tower all at once?
There was no longer any red.
"NT. NT. NT."
"I won't answer."
Where had he put his cap and coat. He needed them. He could go without.
He could kill a beast without. His foot trembled on the first step.
"NT. NT. NT. Why don't you answer? What's wrong. No O. K. Are you
burning fuses? Wake up. Send an O. K."
The sounder crashed frantically. It conquered him.
He lurched to the table, touched the key, and stuttered out:
"O. K. NT."
He laughed a little. They were in his block, rushing at each other, and
Joe was alone at the house with Sally and the child. O. K.!
He lighted another fuse, flung it from the window, and started with
automatic movements for the trap.
Let them crash. Let them splinter, and burn, and die. What was the lot
of them compared with Sally and Sonny?
The red glare from the fuse sprang into the room. Tolliver paused,
bathed in blood.
He closed his eyes to shut out the heavy waves of it. He saw women like
Sally and children like Sonny asleep in a train. It gave him an
impression that Sally and Sonny were, indeed, on the train. To keep them
safe it would be necessary to retard the special until thirty-three
should be on the siding and he could throw that lever that would close
the switch and make the line safe. He wavered, taking short steps
between the table and the trap. Where were Sally and Sonny? He had to
get that clear in his mind.
A bitter cold sprang up the trap. He heard the sobbing of a child.
"Sonny!"
It was becoming clear enough now.
The child crawled up the steps on his hands and knees. Tolliver took him
in his arms, straining at him passionately.
"What is it, Sonny? Where's mama?"
"Papa, come quick. Come quick."
He kept gasping it out until Tolliver stopped him.
"Joe! Did Joe come?"
The child nodded. He caught his breath.
"Joe broke down the door," he said.
"But mama had the gun," Tolliver said hoarsely.
The boy shook his head.
"Mama wouldn't let Sonny play with it. She locked it up in the cupboard.
Joe grabbed mama, and she screamed, and said to run and make you come."
In the tower, partially smothered by the storm, vibrated a shrill cry.
For a moment Tolliver thought his wife's martyrdom had been projected to
him by some subtle means. Then he knew it was the anxious voice of
thirty-three--the pleading of all those unconscious men and women and
little ones. He flung up his arms, releasing the child, and ran to the
table where he lighted another fuse, and threw it to the track. He
peered from the window, aware of the sobbing refrain of his son.
"Come quick! Come quick! Come quick!"
From far to the south drifted a fainter sibilation, like an echo of
thirty-three's whistle. To the north a glow increased. The snowflakes
there glistened like descending jewels. It was cutting it too close. It
was vicious to crush all that responsibility on the shoulders of one
ignorant man, such a man as himself, or Joe. What good would it do him
to kill Joe now? What was there left for him to do?
He jotted down thirty-three's orders.
The glow to the north intensified, swung slightly to the left as
thirty-three took the siding. But she had to hurry. The special was
whistling closer--too close. Thirty-three's locomotive grumbled abreast
of him. Something tugged at his coat.
"Papa! Won't you come quick to mama?"
The dark, heavy cars slipped by. The red glow of the fuse was overcome
by the white light from the south. The last black Pullman of
thirty-three cleared the points. With a gasping breath Tolliver threw
the switch lever.
"It's too late now, Sonny," he said to the importunate child.
The tower shook. A hot, white eye flashed by, and a blurred streak of
cars. Snow pelted in the window, stinging Tolliver's face. Tolliver
closed the window and picked up thirty-three's orders. If he had kept
the revolver here he could have prevented Joe's leaving the tower. Why
had Sally locked it in the cupboard? At least it was there now. Tolliver
found himself thinking of the revolver as an exhausted man forecasts
sleep.
Someone ran swiftly up the stairs. It was the engineer of thirty-three,
surprised and impatient.
"Where are my orders, Tolliver? I don't want to lie over here all
night."
He paused. His tone became curious.
"What ails you, Tolliver?"
Tolliver handed him the orders, trembling.
"I guess maybe my wife at the house is dead, or--You'll go see."
The engineer shook his head.
"You brace up, Tolliver. I'm sorry if anything's happened to your wife,
but we couldn't hold thirty-three, even for a murder."
Tolliver's trembling grew. He mumbled incoherently:
"But I didn't murder all those people----"
"Report to division headquarters," the engineer advised. "They'll send
you help to-morrow."
He hurried down the stairs. After a moment the long train pulled out,
filled with warm, comfortable people. The child, his sobbing at an end,
watched it curiously. Tolliver tried to stop his shaking.
There was someone else on the stairs now, climbing with an extreme
slowness. A bare arm reached through the trap, wavering for a moment
uncertainly. Ugly bruises showed on the white flesh. Tolliver managed to
reach the trap. He grasped the arm and drew into the light the dark hair
and the chalky face of his wife. Her wide eyes stared at him strangely.
"Don't touch me," she whispered. "What am I going to do?"
"Joe?"
"Why do you tremble so?" she asked in her colorless voice, without
resonance. "Why didn't you come?"
"Joe?" he repeated hysterically.
She drew away from him.
"You won't want to touch me again."
He pointed to the repellant bruises. She shook her head.
"He didn't hurt me much," she whispered, "because I--I killed him."
She drew her other hand from the folds of her wrapper. The revolver
dangled from her fingers. It slipped and fell to the floor. The child
stared at it with round eyes, as if he longed to pick it up.
She covered her face and shrank against the wall.
"I've killed a man----"
Through her fingers she looked at her husband fearfully. After a time
she whispered:
"Why don't you say something?"
His trembling had ceased. His lips were twisted in a grin. He, too,
wondered why he didn't say something. Because there were no words for
what was in his heart.
In a corner he arranged his overcoat as a sort of a bed for the boy.
"Won't you speak to me?" she sobbed. "I didn't mean to, but I had to.
You got to understand. I had to."
He went to the table and commenced to tap vigorously on the key. She ran
across and grasped at his arm.
"What you telling them?" she demanded wildly.
"Why, Sally!" he said. "What's the matter with you?--To send another man
now Joe is gone."
Truths emerged from his measureless relief, lending themselves to words.
He trembled again for a moment.
"If I hadn't stayed! If I'd let them smash! When all along it only
needed Joe to keep all those people from getting killed."
He sat down, caught her in his arms, drew her to his knee, and held her
close.
"You ain't going to scold?" she asked wonderingly.
He shook his head. He couldn't say any more just then; but when his
tears touched her face she seemed to understand and to be content.
So, while the boy slept, they waited together for someone to take Joe's
place.
FOOTNOTE:
[6] Copyright, 1920, by The Metropolitan Magazine Company. Copyright,
1921, by Charles Wadsworth Camp.
THE PARTING GENIUS[7]
#By# HELEN COALE CREW
From _The Midland_
"_The parting genius is with sighing sent._"
#Milton's# _Hymn on the Nativity._
It was high noon, blue and hot. The little town upon the southern slope
of the hills that shut in the great plain glared white in the intense
sunlight. The beds of the brooks in the valleys that cut their way
through the hill-clefts were dry and dusty; and the sole shade visible
lay upon the orchard floors, where the thick branches above cast
blue-black shadows upon the golden tangle of grasses at their feet. A
soft murmur of hidden creature-things rose like an invisible haze from
earth, and nothing moved in all the horizon save the black kites high in
the blue air and the white butterflies over the drowsy meadows. The
poppies that flecked the yellow wheat fields drooped heavily, spilling
the wine of summer from their cups. Nature stood at drowsy-footed pause,
reluctant to take up again the vital whirr of living.
At the edge of the orchard, near the dusty highway, under a huge
misshapen olive tree sat a boy, still as a carven Buddha save that his
eyes stood wide, full of dreams. His was a sensitive face, thoughtful
beyond his childish years, full of weariness when from time to time he
closed his eyes, full of dark brooding when the lids lifted again.
Presently he rose to his feet, and his two hands clenched tightly into
fists.
"I hate it!" he muttered vehemently.
At his side the grasses stirred and a portion of the blue shadow of the
tree detached itself and became the shadow of a man.
"Hate?" questioned a golden, care-free voice at his side. "Thou'rt
overyoung to hate. What is it thou dost hate?"
A young man had thrown himself down in the grass at the boy's side.
Shaggy locks hung about his brown cheeks; his broad, supple chest and
shoulders were bare; his eyes were full of sleepy laughter; and his
indolent face was now beautiful, now grotesque, at the color of his
thoughts. From a leathern thong about his neck hung a reed pipe, deftly
fashioned, and a bowl of wood carved about with grape-bunches dangled
from the twisted vine which girdled his waist. In one hand he held a
honey-comb, into which he bit with sharp white teeth, and on one arm he
carried branches torn from fig and almond trees, clustered with green
figs and with nuts. The two looked long at each other, the boy gravely,
the man smiling.
"Thou wilt know me another time," said the man with a throaty laugh.
"And I shall know thee. I have been watching thee a long time--I know
not why. But what is it thou dost hate? For me, I hate nothing. Hate is
wearisome."
The boy's gaze fixed itself upon the bright, insouciant face of the man
with a fascination he endeavored to throw off but could not. Presently
he spoke, and his voice was low and clear and deliberate.
"Hate is evil," he said.
"I know not what evil may be," said the man, a puzzled frown furrowing
the smooth brow for a swift moment. "Hunger, now, or lust, or sleep--"
"Hate is the thing that comes up in my throat and chokes me when I think
of tyranny," interrupted the boy, his eyes darkening.
"Why trouble to hate?" asked the man. He lifted his pipe to his lips and
blew a joyous succession of swift, unhesitant notes, as throbbing as the
heat, as vivid as the sunshine. His lithe throat bubbled and strained
with his effort, and his warm vitality poured through the mouthpiece of
the pipe and issued melodiously at the farther end. Noon deepened
through many shades of hot and slumberous splendor, the very silence
intensified by the brilliant pageant of sound. A great hawk at sail
overhead hung suddenly motionless upon unquivering wings. Every sheep in
the pasture across the road lifted a questioning nose, and the entire
flock moved swiftly nearer on a sudden impulse. And then the man threw
down his pipe, and the silence closed in softly upon the ebbing waves of
sound.
"Why trouble to hate?" he asked again, and sank his shoulder deeper into
the warm grass. His voice was as sleepy as the drone of distant bees,
and his dream-filmed eyes looked out through drooping lids. "I hate
nothing. It takes effort. It is easier to feel friendly with all
things--creatures, and men, and gods."
"I hate with a purpose," said the child, his eyes fixed, and brooding
upon an inward vision. The man rose upon his elbow and gazed curiously
at the boy, but the latter, unheeding, went on with his thoughts. "Some
day I shall be a man, and then I shall kill tyranny. Aye, kill! It is
tyranny that I hate. And hatred I hate; and oppression. But how I shall
go about to kill them, that I do not yet know. I think and think, but I
have not yet thought of a way."
"If," said the man, "thou could'st love as royally as thou could'st
hate, what a lover thou would'st become! For me, I love but lightly, and
hate not at all, yet have I been a man for aeons. How near art thou to
manhood?"
"I have lived nearly twelve years."
Like a flash the man leaped to his feet and turned his face westward
towards the sea with outstretched arms, and a look and gesture of utter
yearning gave poignancy and spirit to the careless, sleepy grace of his
face and figure. He seized the boy's arm. "See now," he cried, his voice
trembling upon the verge of music, "it is nearly twelve years that I
have been a wanderer, shorn of my strength and my glory! Look you, boy,
at the line of hills yonder. Behind those hills lie the blue sea-ridges,
and still beyond, lies the land where I dwelt. Ye gods, the happy
country!" Like a great child he stood, and his breast broke into sobs,
but his eyes glowed with splendid visions. "Apollo's golden shafts
could scarce penetrate the shadowy groves, and Diana's silver arrows
pierced only the tossing treetops. And underfoot the crocus flamed, and
the hyacinth. Flocks and herds fed in pastures rosy with blossoms, and
there were white altars warm with flame in every thicket. There were
dances, and mad revels, and love and laughter"--he paused, and the
splendor died from his face. "And then one starry night--still and clear
it was, and white with frost--fear stalked into the happy haunts, and an
ontreading mystery, benign yet dreadful. And something, I know not what,
drove me forth. _Aie! Aie!_ There is but the moaning of doves when the
glad hymns sounded, and cold ashes and dead drifted leaves on the once
warm altars!"
A sharp pull at his tunic brought his thoughts back to the present. The
child drew him urgently down into the long grass, and laid a finger upon
his lip; and at the touch of the small finger the man trembled through
all his length of limbs, and lay still. Up the road rose a cloud of dust
and the sound of determined feet, and presently a martial figure came in
sight, clad in bronze and leather helmet and cuirass, and carrying an
oblong shield and a short, broad-bladed sword of double edge. Short yet
agile, a soldier every inch, he looked neither to the right nor to the
left, but marched steadily and purposefully upon his business. His
splendid muscles, shining with sweat, gleamed satinwise in the hot sun.
A single unit, he was yet a worthy symbol of a world-wide efficiency.
The man and boy beneath the tree crouched low. "Art afraid?" whispered
the man. And the boy whispered back, "It is he that I hate, and all his
kind." His child-heart beat violently against his side, great beads
stood out upon his forehead, and his hands trembled. "If you but knew
the sorrow in the villages! Aye, in the whole country--because of him!
He takes the bread from the mouths of the pitiful poor--and we are all
so poor! The women and babes starve, but the taxes must be paid. Upon
the aged and the crippled, even, fall heavy burdens. And all because of
him and his kind!"
The man looked at the flushed face and trembling limbs of the boy, and
his own face glowed in a golden smile that was full of a sudden and
unaccustomed tenderness. "Why, see now," he whispered, "that is easily
overcome. Look! I will show thee the way." Lifting himself cautiously,
he crouched on all fours in the grass, slipping and sliding forward so
hiddenly that the keen ear and eagle eye of the approaching soldier took
note of no least ripple in the quiet grass by the roadside. It was the
sinuous, silent motion of a snake; and suddenly his eyes narrowed, his
lips drew back from his teeth, his ears pricked forward, along the ridge
of his bare back the hair bristled, and the locks about his face waved
and writhed as though they were the locks of Medusa herself. Ah, and
were those the flanks and feet of a man, or of a beast, that bore him
along so stealthily? The child watched him in a horror of fascination,
rooted to the spot in terror.
With the quickness of a flash it all happened--the martial traveller
taken unaware, the broad-bladed sword wrenched from his hand by
seemingly superhuman strength, a sudden hideous grip at his throat,
blows rained upon his head, sharp sobbing breaths torn from his panting
breast ... a red stain upon the dusty road ... a huddled figure ...
silence. And he who had been a man indeed a few brief, bright years, was
no more now than carrion; and he who through all his boasted aeons had
not yet reached the stature of a man stood above the dead body, his face
no longer menacing, but beautiful with a smiling delight in his deed.
And then suddenly the spell that held the child was broken, and he
leaped out upon the murderer and beat and beat and beat upon him with
helpless, puny child-fists, and all a child's splendid and ineffectual
rage. And at that the man turned and thrust the child from him in utter
astonishment, and the boy fell heavily back upon the road, the second
quiet figure lying there. And again the man's face changed, became
vacant, bewildered, troubled; and stooping, he lifted the boy in his
arms, and ran with him westward along the road, through the fields of
dead-ripe wheat, across the stubble of the garnered barley, fleet-footed
as a deer, till he could run no more.
In a little glen of hickory and oak, through whose misty-mellow depths a
small stream trickled, he paused at last and laid the boy upon a soft
and matted bed of thick green myrtle, and brought water in his two hands
to bathe the bruised head, whimpering the while. Then he chafed the
small bare feet and warmed them in his own warm breast; and gathering
handfuls of pungent mint and the sweet-scented henna, he crushed them
and held them to the boy's nostrils. And these devices failing, he sat
disconsolate, the curves of his mobile face falling into unwonted lines
of half-weary, half-sorrowful dejection. "I know not how it may be," he
said to himself, smiling whimsically, "but I seem to have caught upon my
lips the bitter human savor of repentance."
Utter silence held the little glen. The child lay unconscious, and the
man sat with his head in his hands, as one brooding. When the sun at
last neared the place of his setting, the boy's eyes opened. His gaze
fell upon his companion, and crowded and confused thoughts surged
through him. For some time he lay still, finding his bearings. And at
length the hatred that had all day, and for many days, filled his young
breast, melted away in a divine pity and tenderness, and the tears of
that warm melting rolled down his cheeks. The man near him, who had
watched in silence, gently put a questioning finger upon the wet cheeks.
"What is it?" he asked.
"Repentance," said the boy.
"I pity thee. Repentance is bitter of taste."
"No," said the boy. "It is warm and sweet. It moves my heart and my
understanding."
"What has become of thy hatred?"
"I shall never hate again."
"What wilt thou do, then?"
"I shall love," said the boy. "_Love_," he repeated softly. "_How came I
never to think of that before?_"
"Wilt thou love tyranny and forbear to kill the tyrant?"
The boy rose to his feet, and his young slenderness was full of strength
and dignity, and his face, cleared of its sombre brooding, was full of a
bright, untroubled decision. The cypresses upon the hilltops stood no
more resolutely erect, the hills themselves were no more steadfast.
"Nay," he said, laughing a little, boyishly, in pure pleasure at the
crystal fixity of his purpose. "Rather will I love the tyrant, and the
tyranny will die of itself. Oh, it is the way! It is the way! And I
could not think of it till now! Not till I saw thee killing and him
bleeding. Then I knew." Then, more gravely, he added, "I will begin by
loving thee."
"Thou hast the appearance of a young god," said the man slowly, "but if
thou wert a god, thou would'st crush thine enemies, not love them." He
sighed, and his face strengthened into a semblance of power. "I was a
god once myself," he added after some hesitation.
"What is thy name?" asked the boy.
"They called me once the Great God Pan. And thou?"
"My father is Joseph the carpenter. My mother calls me Jesus."
"_Ah_ ..." said Pan, "... _is it Thou?_"
Quietly they looked into each other's eyes; quietly clasped hands. And
with no more words the man turned westward into the depths of the glen,
drawing the sun's rays with him as he moved, so that the world seemed
the darker for his going. And as he went he blew upon his pipe a
tremulous and hesitating melody, piercing sweet and piercing sorrowful,
so that whosoever should hear it should clutch his throat with tears at
the wild pity of it, and the strange and haunting beauty. And the boy
stood still, watching, until the man was lost upon the edge of night.
Then he turned his face eastward, whence the new day comes, carrying
forever in his heart the echoes of a dying song.
FOOTNOTE:
[7] Copyright, 1920, by John T. Frederick. Copyright, 1921, by Helen
Coale Crew.
HABAKKUK[8]
#By# KATHARINE FULLERTON GEROULD
From _Scribner's Magazine_
When they carried Kathleen Somers up into the hills to die where her
ancestors had had the habit of dying--they didn't gad about, those early
Somerses; they dropped in their tracks, and the long grass that they had
mowed and stacked and trodden under their living feet flourished
mightily over their graves--it was held to be only a question of time. I
say "to die," not because her case was absolutely hopeless, but because
no one saw how, with her spent vitality, she could survive her exile.
Everything had come at once, and she had gone under. She had lost her
kin, she had lost her money, she had lost her health. Even the people
who make their meat of tragedy--and there are a great many of them in
all enlightened centres of thought--shook their heads and were sorry.
They thought she couldn't live; and they also thought it much, much
better that she shouldn't. For there was nothing left in life for that
sophisticated creature but a narrow cottage in a stony field, with
Nature to look at.
Does it sound neurotic and silly? It wasn't. Conceive her if you
can--Kathleen Somers, whom probably you never knew. From childhood she
had nourished short hopes and straightened thoughts. At least: hopes
that depend on the æsthetic passion are short; and the long perspectives
of civilized history are very narrow. Kathleen Somers had been fed with
the Old World: that is to say, her adolescent feet had exercised
themselves in picture-galleries and cathedrals and palaces; she had
seen all the right views, all the right ceremonies, and all the
censored picturesqueness. Don't get any Cook's tourist idea, please,
about Miss Somers. Her mother had died young, and her gifted father had
taken her to a hundred places that the school-teacher on a holiday never
gets to and thinks of only in connection with geography lessons. She had
followed the Great Wall of China, she had stood before the tomb of
Tamburlaine, she had shaded her eyes from the glare of Kaïrouan the
Holy, she had chaffered in Tiflis and in Trebizond. All this before she
was twenty-five. At that time her father's health broke, and they
proceeded to live permanently in New York. Her wandering life had
steeped her in delights, but kept her innocent of love-affairs. When you
have fed on historic beauty, on the great plots of the past, the best
tenor voices in the world, it is pretty hard to find a man who doesn't
in his own person, leave out something essential to romance. She had
herself no particular beauty, and therefore the male sex could get on
without her. A few fell in love with her, but she was too enchanted and
amused with the world in general to set to work at the painful process
of making a hero out of any one of them. She was a sweet-tempered
creature; her mental snobbishness was not a pose, but perfectly
inevitable; she had a great many friends. As she had a quick wit and the
historic imagination, you can imagine--remembering her bringing up--that
she was an entertaining person when she entered upon middle age: when,
that is, she was proceeding from the earlier to the later thirties.
It was natural that Kathleen Somers and her father--who was a bit
precious and pompous, in spite of his ironies--should gather about them
a homogeneous group. The house was pleasant and comfortable--they were
too sophisticated to be "periodic"--and there was always good talk
going, if you happened to be the kind that could stand good talk. Of
course you had to pass an examination first. You had at least to show
that you "caught on." They were high-brow enough to permit themselves
sudden enthusiasms that would have damned a low-brow. You mustn't like
"Peter Pan," but you might go three nights running to see some really
perfect clog-dancing at a vaudeville theatre. Do you see what I mean?
They were eclectic with a vengeance. It wouldn't do for you to cultivate
the clog-dancer _and_ like "Peter Pan," because in that case you
probably liked the clog-dancer for the wrong reason--for something other
than that sublimated skill which is art. Of course this is only a wildly
chosen example. I never heard either of them mention "Peter Pan." And
the proper hatreds were ever more difficult than the proper devotions.
You might let Shakespeare get on your nerves, provided you really
enjoyed Milton. I wonder if you do see what I mean? It must be perfect
of its kind, its kind being anything under heaven; and it must never,
never, never be sentimental. It must have art, and _parti pris_, and
point of view, and individuality stamped over it. No, I can't explain.
If you have known people like that, you've known them. If you haven't,
you can scarcely conceive them.
By this time you are probably hating the Somerses, father and daughter,
and I can't help it--or rather, I've probably brought it about. But when
I tell you that I'm not that sore myself, and that I loved them both
dearly and liked immensely to be with them, you'll reconsider a little,
I hope. They were sweet and straight and generous, both of them, and
they knew all about the grand manner. The grand manner is the most
comfortable thing to live with that I know. I used to go there a good
deal, and Arnold Withrow went even more than I did, though he wasn't
even hanging on to Art by the eyelids as I do. (I refer, of course, to
my little habit of writing for the best magazines, whose public
considers me intellectual. So I seem to myself, in the magazines ...
"but out in pantry, good Lord!" Anyhow, I generally knew at least what
the Somerses were talking about--the dears!) Withrow was a stock-broker,
and always spent his vacations in the veritable wilds, camping in virgin
forests, or on the edge of glaciers, or in the dust of American deserts.
He had never been to Europe, but he had been to Buenos Aires. You can
imagine what Kathleen Somers and her father felt about that: they
thought him too quaint and barbaric for words; but still not barbaric
enough to be really interesting.
I was just beginning to suspect that Withrow was in love with Kathleen
Somers in the good old middle-class way, with no drama in it but no end
of devotion, when the crash came. Mr. Somers died, and within a month of
his death the railroad the bonds of which had constituted his long-since
diminished fortune went into the hands of a receiver. There were a
pitiful hundreds a year left, besides the ancestral cottage--which had
never even been worth selling. His daughter had an operation, and the
shock of that, _plus_ the shock of his death, _plus_ the shock of her
impoverishment, brought the curtain down with a tremendous rush that
terrified the house. It may make my metaphor clearer if I put it that it
was the asbestos curtain which fell suddenly and violently; not the
great crimson drop that swings gracefully down at the end of a play. It
did not mark the end; it marked a catastrophe in the wings to which the
plot must give place.
Then they carried Kathleen Somers to the hills.
* * * * *
It was Mildred Thurston who told me about it first. Withrow would have
rushed to the hills, I think, but he was in British Columbia on an
extended trip. He had fought for three months and got them, and he
started just before Kathleen Somers had her sudden operation. Mildred
Thurston (Withrow's cousin, by the way) threw herself nobly into the
breach. I am not going into the question of Mildred Thurston here.
Perhaps if Withrow had been at home, she wouldn't have gone. I don't
know. Anyhow, when she rushed to Kathleen Somers's desolate retreat she
did it, apparently, from pure kindness. She was sure, like every one
else, that Kathleen would die; and that belief purged her, for the time
being, of selfishness and commonness and cheap gayety. I wouldn't take
Mildred Thurston's word about a state of soul; but she was a good
dictograph. She came back filled with pity; filled, at least, with the
means of inspiring pity for the exile in others.
After I had satisfied myself that Kathleen Somers was physically on the
mend, eating and sleeping fairly, and sitting up a certain amount, I
proceeded to more interesting questions.
"What is it like?"
"It's dreadful."
"How dreadful?"
Mildred's large blue eyes popped at me with sincere sorrow.
"Well, there's no plumbing, and no furnace."
"Is it in a village?"
"It isn't 'in' anything. It's a mile and a half from a station called
Hebron. You have to change three times to get there. It's half-way up a
hill--the house is--and there are mountains all about, and the barn is
connected with the house by a series of rickety woodsheds, and there are
places where the water comes through the roof. They put pails under to
catch it. There are queer little contraptions they call Franklin stoves
in most of the rooms and a brick oven in the kitchen. When they want
anything from the village, Joel Blake gets it, if he doesn't forget.
Ditto wood, ditto everything except meat. Some other hick brings that
along when he has 'killed.' They can only see one house from the front
yard, and that is precisely a mile away by the road. Joel Blake lives
nearer, but you can't see his house. You can't see anything--except the
woods and the 'crick' and the mountains. You can see the farmers when
they are haying, but that doesn't last long."
"Is it a beautiful view?"
"My dear man, don't ask me what a beautiful view is. My education was
neglected."
"Does Kathleen Somers think it beautiful?"
"She never looks at it, I believe. The place is all run down, and she
sits and wonders when the wall-paper will drop off. At least, that is
what she talks about, when she talks at all. That, and whether Joel
Blake will remember to bring the groceries. The two women never speak to
each other. Kathleen's awfully polite, but--well, you can't blame her.
And I was there in the spring. What it will be in the winter!--But
Kathleen can hardly last so long, I should think."
"Who is the other woman?"
"An heirloom. Melora Meigs. _Miss_ Meigs, if you please. You know Mr.
Somers's aunt lived to an extreme old age in the place. Miss Meigs 'did'
for her. And since then she has been living on there. No one wanted the
house--the poor Somerses!--and she was used to it. She's an old thing
herself, and of course she hasn't the nerves of a sloth. Now she 'does'
for Kathleen. Of course later there'll have to be a nurse again.
Kathleen mustn't die with only Melora Meigs. I'm not sure, either, that
Melora will last. She all crooked over with rheumatism."
That was the gist of what I got out of Mildred Thurston. Letters to Miss
Somers elicited no real response--only a line to say that she wasn't
strong enough to write. None of her other female friends could get any
encouragement to visit her. It was perhaps due to Miss Thurston's
mimicry of Melora Meigs--she made quite a "stunt" of it--that none of
them pushed the matter beyond the first rebuff.
By summer-time I began to get worried myself. Perhaps I was a little
worried, vicariously, for Withrow. Remember that I thought he cared for
her. Miss Thurston's pity for Kathleen Somers was the kind that shuts
the door on the pitied person. If she had thought Kathleen Somers had a
future, she wouldn't have been so kind. I may give it to you as my
private opinion that Mildred Thurston wanted Withrow herself. I can't
swear to it, even now; but I suspected it sufficiently to feel that some
one, for Withrow's sake had better see Kathleen besides his exuberant
and slangy cousin. She danced a little too much on Kathleen Somers's
grave. I determined to go myself, and not to take the trouble of asking
vainly for an invitation. I left New York at the end of June.
With my perfectly ordinary notions of comfort in traveling, I found that
it would take me two days to get to Hebron. It was beyond all the
resorts that people flock to: beyond, and "cross country" at that. I
must have journeyed on at least three small, one-track railroads after
leaving the Pullman at some junction or other.
It was late afternoon when I reached Hebron; and nearly an hour later
before I could get myself deposited at Kathleen Somers's door. There was
no garden, no porch; only a long, weed-grown walk up to a stiff front
door. An orchard of rheumatic apple-trees was cowering stiffly to the
wind in a far corner of the roughly fenced-in lot; there was a windbreak
of perishing pines.
In the living-room Kathleen Somers lay on a cheap wicker chaise-longue,
staring at a Hindu idol that she held in her thin hands. She did not
stir to greet me; only transferred her stare from the gilded idol to
dusty and ungilded me. She spoke, of course; the first time in my life,
too, that I had ever heard her speak ungently.
"My good man, you had better go away. I can't put you up."
That was her greeting. Melora Meigs was snuffling in the hallway
outside--listening, I suppose.
"Oh, yes, you can. If you can't I'm sure Joel Blake will. I've come to
stay a while, Miss Somers."
"Can you eat porridge and salt pork for supper?"
"I can eat tenpenny nails, if necessary. Also I can sleep in the barn."
"Melora!" The old woman entered, crooked and grudging of aspect. "This
friend of my father's and mine has come to see me. Can he sleep in the
barn?"
I cannot describe the hostility with which Melora Meigs regarded me. It
was not a pointed and passionate hatred. That, one could have examined
and dealt with. It was, rather, a vast disgust that happened to include
me.
"There's nothing to sleep on. Barn's empty."
"He could move the nurse's cot out there, if he really wants to. And I
think there's an extra washstand in the woodshed. You'll hardly need
more than one chair, just for a night," she finished, turning to me.
"Not for any number of nights, of course," I agreed suavely. I was angry
with Kathleen Somers, I didn't know quite why. I think it was the Hindu
idol. Nor had she any right to address me with insolence, unless she
were mad, and she was not that. Her eyes snapped very sanely. I don't
think Kathleen Somers could have made her voice snap.
Melora Meigs grunted and left the room. The grunt was neither assent nor
dissent; it was only the most inclusive disapproval: the snarl of an
animal, proceeding from the topmost of many layers of dislike.
"I'll move the things before dark, I think." I was determined to be
cheerful, even if I had to seem impertinent; though the notion of her
sticking me out in the barn enraged me.
"You won't mind Melora's locking the door between, of course. We always
do. I'm such a cockney, I'm timid; and Melora's very sweet about it."
It was almost too much, but I stuck it out. Presently, indeed, I got my
way; and moved--yes, actually lugged and lifted and dragged--the cot,
the chair, and the stand out through the dusty, half-rotted corridors
and sheds to the barn. I drew water at the tap in the yard and washed my
perspiring face and neck. Then I had supper with Miss Somers and Melora
Meigs.
After supper my hostess lighted a candle. "We go to bed very early," she
informed me. "I know you'll be willing to smoke out-of-doors, it's so
warm. I doubt if Melora could bear tobacco in the house. And you won't
mind her locking up early. You can get into the barn from the yard any
time, of course. Men are never timid, I believe; but there's a horn
somewhere, if you'd like it. We have breakfast at six-thirty.
Good-night."
Yes, it was Kathleen Somers's own voice, saying these things to me. I
was still enraged, but I must bide my time. I refused the horn, and went
out into the rheumatic orchard to smoke in dappled moonlight. The pure
air soothed me; the great silence restored my familiar scheme of things.
Before I went to bed in the barn, I could see the humor of this sour
adventure. Oh, I would be up at six-thirty!
Of course I wasn't. I overslept; and by the time I approached the house
(the woodshed door was still locked) their breakfast was long over. I
fully expected to fast until the midday meal, but Kathleen Somers
relented. With her own hands she made me coffee over a little alcohol
lamp. Bread and butter had been austerely left on the table. Miss Somers
fetched me eggs, which I ate raw. Then I went out into the orchard to
smoke.
When I came back, I found Miss Somers as she had been the day before,
crouched listlessly in her long chair fondling her idol. I drew up a
horsehair rocking-chair and plunged in.
"Why do you play with that silly thing?"
"This?" She stroked the idol. "It is rather lovely, Father got it in
Benares. The carving is very cunningly done. Look at the nose and mouth.
The rank Hinduism of the thing amuses me. Perhaps it was cruel to bring
it up here where there are no other gods for it to play with. But it's
all I've got. They had to sell everything, you know. When I get
stronger, I'll send it back to New York and sell it too."
"Why did you keep it out of all the things you had?"
"I don't know. I think it was the first thing we ever bought in India.
And I remember Benares with so much pleasure. Wasn't it a pity we
couldn't have been there when everything happened?"
"Much better not, I should think. You needed surgeons."
"Just what I didn't need! I should have liked to die in a country that
had something to say for itself. I don't feel as though this place had
ever existed, except in some hideous dream."
"It's not hideous. It's even very beautiful--so wild and untouched; such
lovely contours to the mountains."
"Yes, it's very untouched." She spoke of it with just the same scorn I
had in old days heard her use for certain novelists. "Scarcely worth the
trouble of touching I should think--shouldn't you?"
"The beauty of it last night and this morning has knocked me over," I
replied hardily.
"Oh, really! How very interesting!" By which she meant that she was not
interested at all.
"You mean that you would like it landscape-gardened?" Really, she was
perverse. She had turned her back to the view--which was ripping, out of
her northern window. I could tell that she habitually turned her back on
it.
"Oh, landscape-gardened? Well, it would improve it, no doubt. But it
would take generations to do it. The generations that have been here
already don't seem to have accomplished much. Humanly speaking, they
have hardly existed at all."
Kathleen Somers was no snob in the ordinary sense. She was an angel to
peasants. I knew perfectly what she meant by "humanly." She meant there
was no castle on the next hill.
"Are you incapable of caring for nature--just scenery?"
"Quite." She closed her eyes, and stopped her gentle, even stroking of
the idol.
"Of course you never did see America first," I laughed.
Kathleen Somers opened her eyes and spoke vehemently. "I've seen all
there is of it to see, in transit to better places. Seeing America
first! That can be borne. It's seeing America last that kills me. Seeing
nothing else forever, till I die."
"You don't care for just beauty, regardless," I mused.
"Not a bit. Not unless it has meant something to man. I'm a humanist,
I'm afraid."
Whether she was gradually developing remorse for my night in the
cobwebby barn, I do not know. But anyhow she grew more gentle, from this
point on. She really condescended to expound.
"I've never loved nature--she's a brute, and crawly besides. It's what
man has done with nature that counts; it's nature with a human past.
Peaks that have been fought for, and fought on, crossed by the feet of
men, stared at by poets and saints. Most of these peaks aren't even
named. Did you know that? Nature! What is Nature good for, I should
like to know, except to kill us all in the end? Don't Ruskinize to me,
my dear man."
"I won't. I couldn't. But, all the same, beauty is beauty, wherever and
whatever. And, look where you will here, your eyes can't go wrong."
"I never look. I looked when I first came, and the stupidity, the
emptiness, the mere wood and dirt and rock of it seemed like a personal
insult. I should prefer the worst huddle of a Chinese city, I verily
believe."
"You've not precisely the spirit of the pioneer, I can see."
"I should hope not. 'But, God if a God there be, is the substance of
men, which is man.' I have to stay in the man-made ruts. They're sacred
to me. I'll look with pleasure at the Alps, if only for the sake of
Hannibal and Goethe; but I never could look with pleasure at your
untutored Rockies. They're so unintentional, you know. Nature is nothing
until history has touched her. And as for this geological display
outside my windows--you'll kindly permit me to turn my back on it. It's
not peevishness." She lifted her hand protestingly. "Only, for weeks, I
stared myself blind to see the beauty you talk of. I can't see it.
That's honest. I've tried. But there is none that I can see. I am very
conventional, you know, very self-distrustful. I have to wait for a
Byron to show it to me. American mountains--poor hulking things--have
never had a poet to look at them. At least, Poe never wasted his time
that way. I don't imagine that Poe would have been much happier here
than I am. I haven't even the thrill of the explorer, for I'm not the
first one to see them. A few thin generations of people have stared at
these hills--and much the hills have done for them! Melora Meigs is the
child of these mountains; and Melora's sense of beauty is amply
expressed in the Orthodox church in Hebron. This landscape, I assure
you"--she smiled--"hasn't made good. So much for the view. It's no use
to me, absolutely no use. I give you full and free leave to take it away
with you if you want it. And I don't think the house is much better. But
I'm afraid I shall have to keep that for Melora Meigs and me to live
in." It was her old smile. The bitterness was all in the words. No, it
was not bitterness, precisely, for it was fundamentally as impersonal as
criticism can be. You would have thought that the mountains were
low-brows. I forebore to mention her ancestors who had lived here: it
would have seemed like quibbling. They had created the situation; but
they had only in the most literal sense created her.
"Why don't you get out?"
"I simply haven't money enough to live anywhere else. Not money enough
for a hall bedroom. This place belongs to me. The taxes are nothing. The
good farming land that went with it was sold long since. And I'm afraid
I haven't the strength to go out and work for a living. I'm very
ineffectual, besides. What could I do even if health returned to me?
I've decided it's more decent to stay here and die on three dollars a
year than to sink my capital in learning stenography."
"You could, I suppose, be a companion." Of course I did not mean it, but
she took it up very seriously.
"The people who want companions wouldn't want me. And the one thing this
place gives me is freedom--freedom to hate it, to see it intelligently
for what it is. I couldn't afford my blessed hatreds if I were a
companion. And there's no money in it, so that I couldn't even plan for
release. It simply wouldn't do."
Well, of course it wouldn't do. I had never thought it would. I tried
another opening.
"When is Withrow coming back?"
"I don't know. I haven't heard from him." She might have been telling a
squirrel that she didn't know where the other squirrel's nuts were.
"He has been far beyond civilization, I know. But I dare say he'll be
back soon. I hope you won't put him in the barn. I don't mind, of
course, but his feelings might be hurt."
"I shall certainly not let him come," she retorted. "He would have the
grace to ask first, you know."
"I shall make a point of telling him you want him." But even that could
strike no spark from her. She was too completely at odds with life to
care. I realized, too, after an hour's talk with her, that I had better
go--take back my fine proposition about making a long visit. She reacted
to nothing I could offer. I talked of books and plays, visiting
virtuosos and picture exhibitions. Her comments were what they would
always have been, except that she was already groping for the cue. She
had been out of it for months; she had given up the fight. The best
things she said sounded a little stale and precious. Her wit perished in
the face of Nature's stare. Nature was a lady she didn't recognize: a
country cousin she'd never met. She couldn't even "sit and play with
similes." If she lived, she would be an old lady with a clever past: an
intolerable bore. But there was no need to look so far ahead. Kathleen
Somers would die.
Before dinner I clambered up or down (I don't remember which) to a brook
and gathered a bunch of wild iris for her. She had loved flowers of old;
and how deftly she could place a spray among her treasures! She
shuddered. "Take those things away! How dare you bring It inside the
house?" By "It" I knew she meant the wild natural world. Obediently I
took the flowers out and flung them over the fence. I knew that Kathleen
Somers was capable of getting far more pleasure from their inimitable
hue than I; but even that inimitable hue was poisoned for her because it
came from the world that was torturing her--the world that beat upon her
windows, so that she turned her back to the day; that stormed her ears,
so that she closed them even to its silence; that surrounded her, so
that she locked every gate of her mind.
I left, that afternoon, very desolate and sorry. Certainly I could do
nothing for her. I had tried to shock her, stir her, into another
attitude, but in vain. She had been transplanted to a soil her tender
roots could not strike into. She would wither for a little under the
sky, and then perish. "If she could only have fallen in love!" I
thought, as I left her, huddled in her wicker chair. If I had been a
woman, I would have fled from Melora Meigs even into the arms of a
bearded farmer; I would have listened to the most nasal male the hills
had bred. I would have milked cows, to get away from Melora. But I am a
crass creature. Besides, what son of the soil would want her:
unexuberant, delicate, pleasant in strange ways, and foreign to all
familiar things? She wouldn't even fall in love with Arnold Withrow, who
was her only chance. For I saw that Arnold, if he ever came, would,
fatally, love the place. She might have put up with the stock-broking,
but she never could have borne his liking the view. Yes, I was very
unhappy as I drove into Hebron; and when I finally achieved the Pullman
at the Junction, I was unhappier still. For I felt towards that Pullman
as the lost child feels toward its nurse; and I knew that Kathleen
Somers, ill, poor, middle-aged, and a woman, was a thousand times more
the child of the Pullman than I.
I have told this in detail, because I hate giving things at second-hand.
Yet there my connection with Kathleen Somers ceased, and her tragedy
deepened before other witnesses. She stayed on in her hills; too proud
to visit her friends, too sane to spend her money on a flying trip to
town, too bruised and faint to fight her fate. The only thing she tried
for was apathy. I think she hoped--when she hoped anything--that her
mind would go, a little: not so much that she would have to be "put
away"; but just enough so that she could see things in a mist--so that
the hated hills might, for all she knew, be Alps, the rocks turn into
castles, the stony fields into vineyards, and Joel Blake into a Tuscan.
Just enough so that she could re-create her world from her blessed
memories, without any sharp corrective senses to interfere. That, I am
sure, was what she fixed her mind upon through the prolonged autumn;
bending all her frail strength to turn her brain ever so little from its
rigid attitude to fact. "Pretending" was no good: it maddened. If her
mind would only pretend without her help! That would be heaven, until
heaven really came.... You can't sympathize with her, probably, you
people who have been bred up on every kind of Nature cult. I can hear
you talking about the everlasting hills. Don't you see, that was the
trouble? Her carefully trained imagination was her religion, and in her
own way she was a ritualist. The mountains she faced were unbaptized:
the Holy Ghost had never descended upon them. She was as narrow as a
nun; but she could not help it. And remember, you practical people who
love woodchucks, that she had nothing but the view to make life
tolerable. The view was no mere accessory to a normal existence. She
lived, half-ill, in an ugly, not too comfortable cottage, as far as the
moon from any world she understood, in a solitude acidulated by Melora
Meigs. No pictures, no music, no plays, no talk--and this, the whole
year round. Would you like it yourselves, you would-be savages with
Adirondack guides? Books? Well: that was one of life's little
stupidities. She couldn't buy them, and no one knew what to send her.
Besides, books deferred the day when her mind should, ever so little, go
back on her. She didn't encourage gifts of literature. She was no
philosopher; and an abstraction was of no use to her unless she could
turn it to a larger concreteness, somehow enhancing, let us say, a
sunset from the Acropolis. I never loved Kathleen Somers, as men love
women, but many a time that year I would have taken her burden on
myself, changed lives with her, if that had been possible. It never
could have been so bad for any of us as for her. Mildred Thurston would
have gone to the church sociables and flirted as grossly as Hebron
conventions permitted; I, at least, could have chopped wood. But to what
account could Kathleen Somers turn her martyrdom?
Withrow felt it, too--not as I could feel it, for, as I foretold, he
thought the place glorious. He went up in the autumn when everything was
crimson and purple and gold. Yet more, in a sense, than I could feel it,
for he did love her as men love women. It shows you how far gone she was
that she turned him down. Many women, in her case, would have jumped at
Withrow for the sake of getting away. But she was so steeped in her type
that she couldn't. She wouldn't have married him before; and she wasn't
going to marry him for the sake of living in New York. She would have
been ashamed to. A few of us who knew blamed her. I didn't, really,
though I had always suspected that she cared for him personally.
Kathleen Somers's love, when it came, would be a very complicated thing.
She had seen sex in too many countries, watched its brazen play on too
many stages, within theatres and without, to have any mawkish illusions.
But passion would have to bring a large retinue to be accepted where she
was sovereign. Little as I knew her, I knew that. Yet I always thought
she might have taken him, in that flaming October, if he hadn't so
flagrantly, tactlessly liked the place. He drank the autumn like wine;
he was tipsy with it; and his loving her didn't tend to sober him. The
consequence was that she drew away--as if he had been getting drunk on
some foul African brew that was good only to befuddle woolly heads with;
as if, in other words, he had not been getting drunk like a
gentleman.... Anyhow, Arnold came back with a bad headache. She had
found a gentle brutality to fit his case. He would have been wise, I
believe, to bring her away, even if he had had to chloroform her to do
it. But Withrow couldn't have been wise in that way. Except for his
incurable weakness for Nature, he was the most delicate soul alive.
He didn't talk much to me about it, beyond telling me that she had
refused him. I made out the rest from his incoherences. He had not slept
in the barn, for they could hardly have let a cat sleep in the barn on
such cold nights; but Melora Meigs had apparently treated him even worse
than she had treated me. Kathleen Somers had named some of the unnamed
mountains after the minor prophets; as grimly as if she had been one of
the people they cursed. I thought that a good sign, but Withrow said he
wished she hadn't: she ground the names out so between her teeth. Some
of her state of mind came out through her talk--not much. It was from
one or two casually seen letters that I became aware of her desire to go
a little--just a little--mad.
In the spring Kathleen Somers had a relapse. It was no wonder. In spite
of the Franklin stoves, her frail body must have been chilled to the
bone for many months. Relief settled on several faces, when we heard--I
am afraid it may have settled on mine. She had been more dead than
alive, I judged, for a year; and yet she had not been able to cure her
sanity. That was chronic. Death would have been the kindest friend that
could arrive to her across those detested hills. We--the "we" is a
little vague, but several of us scurried about--sent up a trained nurse,
delaying somewhat for the sake of getting the woman who had been there
before; for she had the advantage of having experienced Melora Meigs
without resultant bloodshed. She was a nice woman, and sent faithful
bulletins; but the bulletins were bad. Miss Somers seemed to have so
little resistance: there was no interest there, she said, no willingness
to fight. "The will was slack." Ah, she little knew Kathleen Somers's
will! None of us knew, for that matter.
The spring came late that year, and in those northern hills there were
weeks of melting snow and raw, deep slush--the ugliest season we have to
face south of the Arctic circle. The nurse did not want any of her
friends to come; she wrote privately, to those of us who champed at the
bit, that Miss Somers was fading away, but not peacefully; she was
better unvisited, unseen. Miss Somers did not wish any one to come, and
the nurse thought it wiser not to force her. Several women were held
back by that, and turned with relief to Lenten opera. The opera,
however, said little to Withrow at the best of times, and he was crazed
by the notion of not seeing her before she achieved extinction. I
thought him unwise, for many reasons: for one, I did not think that
Arnold Withrow would bring her peace. She usually knew what she
wanted--wasn't that, indeed, the whole trouble with her?--and she had
said explicitly to the nurse that she didn't want Arnold Withrow. But by
the end of May Withrow was neither to hold nor to bind: he went. I
contented myself with begging him at least not to poison her last hours
by admiring the landscape. I had expected my earnest request to shock
him; but, to my surprise, he nodded understandingly. "I shall curse the
whole thing out like a trooper, if she gives me the chance." And he got
into his daycoach--the Pullmans wouldn't go on until much later--a
mistaken and passionate knight.
Withrow could not see her the first evening, and he talked long and
deeply with the nurse. She had no hope to give him: she was mystified.
It was her opinion that Kathleen Somers's lack of will was killing her,
speedily and surely. "Is there anything for her to die of?" he asked.
"There's nothing, you might say, for her to _live_ of," was her reply.
The nurse disapproved of his coming, but promised to break the news of
his presence to her patient in the morning.
Spring had by this time touched the hills. It was that divine first
moment when the whole of earth seems to take a leap in the night; when
things are literally new every morning. Arnold walked abroad late,
filling his lungs and nostrils and subduing his pulses. He was always
faunishly wild in the spring; and for years he hadn't had a chance to
seek the season in her haunts. But he turned in before midnight, because
he dreaded the next day supremely. He didn't want to meet that face to
face until he had to. Melora Meigs lowered like a thunderstorm, but she
was held in check by the nurse. I suppose Melora couldn't give notice:
there would be nothing but the poor-farm for her if she did. But she
whined and grumbled and behaved in general like an electrical
disturbance. Luckily, she couldn't curdle the milk.
Withrow waked into a world of beauty. He walked for an hour before
breakfast, through woods all blurred with buds, down vistas brushed with
faint color. But he would have given the spring and all springs to come
for Kathleen Somers, and the bitter kernel of it was that he knew it. He
was sharp-faced and sad (I know how he looked) when he came back, with a
bunch of hepaticas, to breakfast.
The nurse was visibly trembling. You see, Kathleen Somers's heart had
never been absolutely right. It was a terrible responsibility to let her
patient face Withrow. Still, neither she nor any other woman could have
held Withrow off. Besides, as she had truly said, there was nothing
explicitly for Kathleen Somers to die of. It was that low vitality, that
whispering pulse, that listlessness; then, a draught, a shock, a bit of
over-exertion and something real and organic could speedily be upon her.
No wonder the woman was troubled. In point of fact, though she had taken
up Miss Somers's breakfast, she hadn't dared tell her the news. And
finally, after breakfast, she broke down. "I can't do it, Mr. Withrow,"
she wailed. "Either you go away or I do."
Withrow knew at first only one thing: that he wouldn't be the one to go.
Then he realized that the woman had been under a long strain, what with
the spring thaws, and a delicate patient who wouldn't mend--and Melora
to fight with, on behalf of all human decency, every day.
"You go, then," he said finally. "I'll take care of her."
The nurse stared at him. Then she thought, presumably, of Kathleen
Somers's ineffable delicacy, and burst out laughing. Hysteria might, in
all the circumstances, be forgiven her.
Then they came back to the imminent question.
"I'll tell her when I do up her room," she faltered.
"All right. I'll give you all the time in the world. But she must be
told I'm here--unless you wish me to tell her myself." Withrow went out
to smoke. But he did not wish to succumb again to the intoxication
Kathleen Somers so disdained, and eventually he went into the barn, to
shut himself away from temptation. It was easier to prepare his
vilifying phrases there.
To his consternation, he heard through the gloom the sound of sobbing.
The nurse, he saw, after much peering, sat on a dusty chopping-block,
crying unhealthily. He went up to her and seized her arm. "Have you told
her?"
"I can't."
"My good woman, you'd better leave this afternoon."
"Not"--the tone itself was firm, through the shaky sobs--"until there is
some one to take my place."
"I'll telegraph for some one. You shan't see her again. But I will see
her at once."
Then the woman's training asserted itself. She pulled herself together,
with a little shake of self-disgust. "You'll do nothing of the sort.
I'll attend to her until I go. It has been a long strain, and, contrary
to custom, I've had no time off. I'll telegraph to the Registry myself.
And if I can't manage until then, I'll resign my profession." She spoke
with sturdy shame.
"That's better." Withrow approved her. "I'm awfully obliged. But
honestly, she has got to know. I can't stand it, skulking round, much
longer. And no matter what happens to the whole boiling, I'm not going
to leave without seeing her."
"I'll tell her." The nurse rose and walked to the barn-door like a
heroine. "But you must stay here until I come for you."
"I promise. Only you must come. I give you half an hour."
"I don't need half an hour, thank you." She had recovered her
professional crispness. In the wide door she stopped. "It's a pity," she
said irrelevantly, "that she can't see how lovely this is." Then she
started for the house.
"I believe you," muttered Withrow under his breath.
In five minutes the nurse came back, breathless, half-running. Arnold
got up from the chopping-block, startled. He believed for an instant (as
he has since told me) that it was "all over." With her hand on her
beating heart the woman panted out her words:
"She has come downstairs in a wrapper. She hasn't been down for weeks.
And she has found your hepaticas."
"Oh, hell!" Withrow was honestly disgusted. He had never meant to insult
Kathleen Somers with hepaticas. "Is it safe to leave her alone with
them?" He hardly knew what he was saying. But it shows to what a pass
Kathleen Somers had come that he could be frightened at the notion of
her being left alone with a bunch of hepaticas.
"She's all right, I think. She seemed to like them."
"Oh, Lord!" Withrow's brain was spinning. "Here, I'll go. If she can
stand those beastly flowers, she can stand me."
"No, she can't." The nurse had recovered her breath now. "I'll go back
and tell her, very quietly. If she could get down-stairs, she can stand
it, I think. But I'll be very careful. You come in ten minutes. If she
isn't fit, I'll have got her back to bed by that time."
She disappeared, and Withrow, his back to the view, counted out the
minutes. When the large hand of his watch had quite accomplished its
journey, he turned and walked out through the yard to the side door of
the house. Melora Meigs was clattering dish-pans somewhere beyond, and
the noise she made covered his entrance to the living-room. He drew a
deep breath: they were not there. He listened at the stairs: no sound up
there--no sound, at least, to rise above Melora's dish-pans, now a
little less audible. But this time he was not going to wait--for
anything. He already had one foot on the stairs when he heard voices and
stopped. For just one second he paused, then walked cat-like in the
direction of the sounds. The front door was open. On the step stood
Kathleen Somers, her back to him, facing the horizon. A light shawl hung
on her shoulders, and the nurse's arm was very firmly round her waist.
They did not hear him, breathing heavily there in the hall behind them.
He saw Kathleen Somers raise her arm slowly--with difficulty, it seemed.
She pointed at the noble shoulder of a mountain.
"That is Habakkuk," said her sweet voice. "I named them all, you know.
But I think Habakkuk is my favorite; though of course he's not so
stunning as Isaiah. Then they run down to Obadiah and Malachi. Joel is
just peeping over Habakkuk's left shoulder. That long bleak range is
Jeremiah." She laughed, very faintly. "You know, Miss Willis, they are
really very beautiful. Isn't it strange, I couldn't see it? For I
honestly couldn't. I've been lying there, thinking. And I found I could
remember all their outlines, under snow ... and this morning it seemed
to me I must see how Habakkuk looked in the spring." She sat down
suddenly on the top step; and Miss Willis sat down too, her arm still
about her patient.
"It's very strange"--Withrow, strain though he did, could hardly make
out the words, they fell so softly--"that I just couldn't see it before.
It's only these last days.... And now I feel as if I wanted to see every
leaf on every tree. It wasn't so last year. They say something to me
now. I don't think I should want to talk with them forever, but you've
no idea--you've no idea--how strange and welcome it is for my eyes to
find them beautiful." She seemed almost to murmur to herself. Then she
braced herself slightly against the nurse's shoulder, and went on, in
her light, sweet, ironic voice. "They probably never told you--but I
didn't care for Nature, exactly. I don't think I care for it now, as
some people do, but I can see that this is beautiful. Of course you
don't know what it means to me. It has simply changed the world." She
waved her hand again. "They never got by, before. I always knew that
line was line, and color was color, wherever or whoever. But my eyes
went back on me. My father would have despised me. He wouldn't have
preferred Habakkuk, but he would have done Habakkuk justice from the
beginning. Yes, it makes a great deal of difference to me to see it
once, fair and clear. Why"--she drew herself up as well as she could, so
firmly held--"it is a very lovely place. I should tire of it some time,
but I shall not tire of it soon. For a little while, I shall be up to
it. And I know that no one thinks it will be long."
Just then, Withrow's absurd fate caught him. Breathless, more
passionately interested than he had ever been in his life, he sneezed.
He had just time, while the two women were turning, to wonder if he had
ruined it all--if she would faint, or shriek, or relapse into apathy.
She did none of these things. She faced him and flushed, standing
unsteadily. "How long have you been cheating me?" she asked coldly. But
she held out her hand before she went upstairs with the nurse's arm
still round her.
Later he caught at Miss Willis excitedly. "Is she better? Is she worse?
Is she well? Or is she going to die?"
"She's shaken. She must rest. But she's got the hepaticas in water
beside her bed. And she told me to pull the shade up so that she could
look out. She has a touch of temperature--but she often has that. The
exertion and the shock would be enough to give it to her. I found her
leaning against the door-jamb. I hadn't a chance to tell her you were
here. I can tell you later whether you'd better go or stay."
"I'm going to stay. It's you who are going."
"You needn't telegraph just yet," the nurse replied dryly. She looked
another woman from the nervous, sobbing creature on the chopping-block.
The end was that Miss Willis stayed and Arnold Withrow went. Late that
afternoon he left Kathleen Somers staring passionately at the sunset. It
was not his moment, and he had the grace to know it. But he had not had
to tell her that the view was beastly; and, much as he loved her, I
think that was a relief to him.
None of us will ever know the whole of Kathleen Somers's miracle, of
course. I believe she told as much of it as she could when she said that
she had lain thinking of the outlines of the mountains until she felt
that she must go out and face them: stand once more outside, free of
walls, and stare about at the whole chain of the earth-lords. Perhaps
the spring, which had broken up the ice-bound streams, had melted other
things besides. Unwittingly--by unconscious cerebration--by the long
inevitable storing of disdained impressions--she had arrived at vision.
That which had been, for her, alternate gibberish and silence, had
become an intelligible tongue. The blank features had stirred and
shifted into a countenance; she saw a face, where she had seen only odds
and ends of modelling grotesquely flung abroad. With no stupid pantheism
to befuddle her, she yet felt the earth a living thing. Wood and stone,
which had not even been an idol for her, now shaped themselves to hold a
sacrament. Put it as you please; for I can find no way to express it to
my satisfaction. Kathleen Somers had, for the first time, envisaged the
cosmic, had seen something less passionate, but more vital, than
history. Most of us are more fortunate than she: we take it for granted
that no loom can rival the petal of a flower. But to some creatures the
primitive is a cipher, hard to learn; and blood is spent in the
struggle. You have perhaps seen (and not simply in the old legend)
passion come to a statue. Rare, oh, rare is the necessity for such a
miracle. But Kathleen Somers was in need of one; and I believe it came
to her.
The will was slack, the nurse had said; yet it sufficed to take her from
her bed, down the stairs, in pursuit of the voice--straight out into the
newly articulate world. She moved, frail and undismayed, to the source
of revelation. She did not cower back and demand that the oracle be
served up to her by a messenger. A will like that is not slack.
Now I will shuffle back into my own skin and tell you the rest of it
very briefly and from the rank outsider's point of view. Even had I
possessed the whole of Arnold Withrow's confidence, I could not deal
with the delicate gradations of a lover's mood. He passed the word about
that Kathleen Somers was not going to die--though I believe he did it
with his heart in his mouth, not really assured she wouldn't. It took
some of us a long time to shift our ground and be thankful. Withrow,
with a wisdom beyond his habit, did not go near her until autumn.
Reports were that she was gaining all the time, and that she lived
out-of-doors staring at Habakkuk and his brethren, gathering wild
flowers and pressing them between her palms. She seemed determined to
face another winter there alone with Melora, Miss Willis wrote. Withrow
set his jaw when that news came. It was hard on him to stay away, but
she had made it very clear that she wanted her convalescent summer to
herself. When she had to let Miss Willis go--and Miss Willis had already
taken a huge slice of Kathleen's capital--he might come and see her
through the transition. So Withrow sweltered in New York all summer,
and waited for permission.
Then Melora Meigs was gracious for once. With no preliminary illness,
with just a little gasp as the sun rose over the long range of Jeremiah,
she died. Withrow, hearing this, was off like a sprinter who hears the
signal. He found laughter and wit abiding happily in Kathleen's
recovered body. Together they watched the autumn deepen over the
prophets. Habakkuk, all insults forgiven, was their familiar.
So they brought Kathleen Somers back from the hills to live. It was
impossible for her to remain on her mountainside without a Melora Meigs;
and Melora, unlike most tortures, was unreplaceable. Kathleen's world
welcomed her as warmly as if her exile had been one long suspense: a
gentle hyprocrisy we all forgave each other. Some one went abroad and
left an apartment for her use. All sorts of delicate little events
occurred, half accidentally, in her interest. Soon some of us began to
gather, as of old. Marvel of marvels, Withrow had not spoken in that
crimson week of autumn. Without jealousy he had apparently left her to
Habakkuk. It was a brief winter--for Kathleen Somers's body, a kind of
spring. You could see her grow, from week to week: plump out and bloom
more vividly. Then, in April, without a word, she left us--disappeared
one morning, with no explicit word to servants.
Withrow once more--poor Withrow--shot forth, not like a runner, but like
a hound on a fresh scent. He needed no time-tables. He leaped from the
telephone to the train.
He found her there, he told me afterward, sitting on the step, the door
unlocked behind her but shut.
Indeed, she never entered the house again; for Withrow bore her away
from the threshold. I do not think she minded, for she had made her
point: she had seen Habakkuk once more, and Habakkuk had not gone back
on her. That was all she needed to know. They meant to go up in the
autumn after their marriage, but the cottage burned to the ground before
they got back from Europe. I do not know that they have ever been, or
whether they ever will go, now. There are still a few exotic places that
Kathleen Withrow has not seen, and Habakkuk can wait. After all, the
years are very brief in Habakkuk's sight. Even if she never needs him
again, I do not think he will mind.
FOOTNOTE:
[8] Copyright, 1919, by Charles Scribner's Sons. Copyright, 1921, by
Katharine Fullerton Gerould.
THE JUDGMENT OF VULCAN[9]
#By# LEE FOSTER HARTMAN
From _Harper's Magazine_
To dine on the veranda of the Marine Hotel is the one delightful
surprise which Port Charlotte affords the adventurer who has broken from
the customary paths of travel in the South Seas. On an eminence above
the town, solitary and aloof like a monastery, and nestling deep in its
garden of lemon-trees, it commands a wide prospect of sea and sky. By
day, the Pacific is a vast stretch of blue, flat like a floor, with a
blur of distant islands on the horizon--chief among them Muloa, with its
single volcanic cone tapering off into the sky. At night, this smithy of
Vulcan becomes a glow of red, throbbing faintly against the darkness, a
capricious and sullen beacon immeasurably removed from the path of men.
Viewed from the veranda of the Marine Hotel, its vast flare on the
horizon seems hardly more than an insignificant spark, like the glowing
cigar-end of some guest strolling in the garden after dinner.
It may very likely have been my lighted cigar that guided Eleanor
Stanleigh to where I was sitting in the shadows. Her uncle, Major
Stanleigh, had left me a few minutes before, and I was glad of the
respite from the queer business he had involved me in. The two of us had
returned that afternoon from Muloa, where I had taken him in my
schooner, the _Sylph_, to seek out Leavitt and make some inquiries--very
important inquiries, it seemed, in Miss Stanleigh's behalf.
Three days in Muloa, under the shadow of the grim and flame-throated
mountain, while I was forced to listen to Major Stanleigh's persistent
questionnaire and Leavitt's erratic and garrulous responses--all this,
as I was to discover later, at the instigation of the Major's
niece--had made me frankly curious about the girl.
I had seen her only once, and then at a distance across the veranda, one
night when I had been dining there with a friend; but that single vision
of her remained vivid and unforgettable--a tall girl of a slender
shapeliness, crowned by a mass of reddish-gold hair that smoldered above
the clear olive pallor of her skin. With that flawless and brilliant
coloring she was marked for observation--had doubtless been schooled to
a perfect indifference to it, for the slow, almost indolent, grace of
her movements was that of a woman coldly unmindful of the gazes
lingering upon her. She could not have been more than twenty-six or
-seven, but I got an unmistakable impression of weariness or balked
purpose emanating from her in spite of her youth and glorious physique.
I looked up to see her crossing the veranda to join her uncle and
aunt--correct, well-to-do English people that one placed instantly--and
my stare was only one of many that followed her as she took her seat and
threw aside the light scarf that swathed her bare and gleaming
shoulders.
My companion, who happened to be the editor of the local paper, promptly
informed me regarding her name and previous residence--the gist of some
"social item" which he had already put into print; but these meant
nothing, and I could only wonder what had brought her to such an
out-of-the-way part of the world as Port Charlotte. She did not seem
like a girl who was traveling with her uncle and aunt; one got rather
the impression that she was bent on a mission of her own and was
dragging her relatives along because the conventions demanded it. I
hazarded to my companion the notion that a woman like Miss Stanleigh
could have but one of two purposes in this lonely part of the world--she
was fleeing from a lover or seeking one.
"In that case," rejoined my friend, with the cynical shrug of the
newspaper man, "she has very promptly succeeded. It's whispered that she
is going to marry Joyce--of Malduna Island, you know. Only met him a
fortnight ago. Quite a romance, I'm told."
I lifted my eyebrows at that, and looked again at Miss Stanleigh. Just
at that instant she happened to look up. It was a wholly indifferent
gaze; I am confident that she was no more aware of me than if I had been
one of the veranda posts which her eyes had chanced to encounter. But in
the indescribable sensation of that moment I felt that here was a woman
who bore a secret burden, although, as my informing host put it, her
heart had romantically found its haven only two weeks ago.
She was endeavoring to get trace of a man named Farquharson, as I was
permitted to learn a few days later. Ostensibly, it was Major Stanleigh
who was bent on locating this young Englishman--Miss Stanleigh's
interest in the quest was guardedly withheld--and the trail had led him
a pretty chase around the world until some clue, which I never clearly
understood, brought them to Port Charlotte. The major's immediate
objective was an eccentric chap named Leavitt who had marooned himself
in Muloa. The island offered an ideal retreat for one bent on shunning
his own kind, if he did not object to the close proximity of a restive
volcano. Clearly, Leavitt did not. He had a scientific interest in the
phenomena exhibited by volcanic regions and was versed in geological
lore, but the rumors about Leavitt--practically no one ever visited
Muloa--did not stop at that. And, as Major Stanleigh and I were to
discover, the fellow seemed to have developed a genuine affection for
Lakalatcha, as the smoking cone was called by the natives of the
adjoining islands. From long association he had come to know its whims
and moods as one comes to know those of a petulant woman one lives with.
It was a bizarre and preposterous intimacy, in which Leavitt seemed to
find a wholly acceptable substitute for human society, and there was
something repellant about the man's eccentricity. He had various names
for the smoking cone that towered a mile or more above his head: "Old
Flame-eater," or "Lava-spitter," he would at times familiarly and
irreverently call it; or, again, "The Maiden Who Never Sleeps," or "The
Single-breasted Virgin"--these last, however, always in the musical
Malay equivalent. He had no end of names--romantic, splenetic, of
opprobrium, or outright endearment--to suit, I imagine, Lakalatcha's
varying moods. In one respect they puzzled me--they were of conflicting
genders, some feminine and some masculine, as if in Leavitt's
loose-frayed imagination the mountain that beguiled his days and
disturbed his nights were hermaphroditic.
Leavitt as a source of information regarding the missing Farquharson
seemed preposterous when one reflected how out of touch with the world
he had been, but, to my astonishment, Major Stanleigh's clue was right,
for he had at last stumbled upon a man who had known Farquharson well
and who was voluminous about him--quite willingly so. With the _Sylph_
at anchor, we lay off Muloa for three nights, and Leavitt gave us our
fill of Farquharson, along with innumerable digressions about volcanoes,
neoplatonism, the Single Tax, and what not. There was no keeping Leavitt
to a coherent narrative about the missing Farquharson. He was incapable
of it, and Major Stanleigh and myself had simply to wait in patience
while Leavitt, delighted to have an audience, dumped out for us the
fantastic contents of his mind, odd vagaries, recondite trash, and all.
He was always getting away from Farquharson, but, then, he was
unfailingly bound to come back to him. We had only to wait and catch the
solid grains that now and then fell in the winnowing of that unending
stream of chaff. It was a tedious and exasperating process, but it had
its compensations. At times Leavitt could be as uncannily brilliant as
he was dull and boresome. The conviction grew upon me that he had become
a little demented, as if his brain had been tainted by the sulphurous
fumes exhaled by the smoking crater above his head. His mind smoked,
flickered, and flared like an unsteady lamp, blown upon by choking
gases, in which the oil had run low.
But of the wanderer Farquharson he spoke with precision and authority,
for he had shared with Farquharson his bungalow there in Muloa--a
period of about six months, it seemed--and there Farquharson had
contracted a tropic fever and died.
"Well, at last we have got all the facts," Major Stanleigh sighed with
satisfaction when the _Sylph_ was heading back to Port Charlotte. Muloa,
lying astern, we were no longer watching. Leavitt, at the water's edge,
had waved us a last good-by and had then abruptly turned back into the
forest, very likely to go clambering like a demented goat up the flanks
of his beloved volcano and to resume poking about in its steaming
fissures--an occupation of which he never tired.
"The evidence is conclusive, don't you think?--the grave, Farquharson's
personal effects, those pages of the poor devil's diary."
I nodded assent. In my capacity as owner of the _Sylph_ I had merely
undertaken to furnish Major Stanleigh with passage to Muloa and back,
but the events of the last three days had made me a party to the many
conferences, and I was now on terms of something like intimacy with the
rather stiff and pompous English gentleman. How far I was from sharing
his real confidence I was to discover later when Eleanor Stanleigh gave
me hers.
"My wife and niece will be much relieved to hear all this--a family
matter, you understand, Mr. Barnaby," he had said to me when we landed.
"I should like to present you to them before we leave Port Charlotte for
home."
But, as it turned out, it was Eleanor Stanleigh who presented herself,
coming upon me quite unexpectedly that night after our return while I
sat smoking in the shadowy garden of the Marine Hotel. I had dined with
the major, after he had explained that the ladies were worn out by the
heat and general developments of the day and had begged to be excused.
And I was frankly glad not to have to endure another discussion of the
deceased Farquharson, of which I was heartily tired after hearing little
else for the last three days. I could not help wondering how the verbose
and pompous major had paraphrased and condensed that inchoate mass of
biography and reminiscence into an orderly account for his wife and
niece. He had doubtless devoted the whole afternoon to it. Sitting under
the cool green of the lemon-trees, beneath a sky powdered with stars, I
reflected that I, at least, was done with Farquharson forever. But I was
not, for just then Eleanor Stanleigh appeared before me.
I was startled to hear her addressing me by name, and then calmly
begging me to resume my seat on the bench under the arbor. She sat down
also, her flame-colored hair and bare shoulders gleaming in the
darkness. She was the soul of directness and candor, and after a
thoughtful, searching look into my face she came to the point at once.
She wanted to hear about Farquharson--from me.
"Of course, my uncle has given me a very full account of what he learned
from Mr. Leavitt, and yet many things puzzle me--this Mr. Leavitt most
of all."
"A queer chap," I epitomized him. "Frankly, I don't quite make him out,
Miss Stanleigh--marooning himself on that infernal island and seemingly
content to spend his days there."
"Is he so old?" she caught me up quickly.
"No, he isn't," I reflected. "Of course, it's difficult to judge ages
out here. The climate, you know. Leavitt's well under forty, I should
say. But that's a most unhealthy spot he has chosen to live in."
"Why does he stay there?"
I explained about the volcano. "You can have no idea what an obsession
it is with him. There isn't a square foot of its steaming, treacherous
surface that he hasn't been over, mapping new fissures, poking into old
lava-beds, delving into the crater itself on favorable days----"
"Isn't it dangerous?"
"In a way, yes. The volcano itself is harmless enough. It smokes
unpleasantly now and then, splutters and rumbles as if about to
obliterate all creation, but for all its bluster it only manages to
spill a trickle or two of fresh lava down its sides--just tamely
subsides after deluging Leavitt with a shower of cinders and ashes. But
Leavitt won't leave it alone. He goes poking into the very crater, half
strangling himself in its poisonous fumes, scorching the shoes off his
feet, and once, I believe, he lost most of his hair and eyebrows--a
narrow squeak. He throws his head back and laughs at any word of
caution. To my notion, it's foolhardy to push a scientific curiosity to
that extreme."
"Is it, then, just scientific curiosity?" mused Miss Stanleigh.
Something in her tone made me stop short. Her eyes had lifted to
mine--almost appealingly, I fancied. Her innocence, her candor, her warm
beauty, which was like a pale phosphorescence in the starlit
darkness--all had their potent effect upon me in that moment. I felt
impelled to a sudden burst of confidence.
"At times I wonder. I've caught a look in his eyes, when he's been down
on his hands and knees, staring into some infernal vent-hole--a look
that is--well, uncanny, as if he were peering into the bowels of the
earth for something quite outside the conceptions of science. You might
think that volcano had worked some spell over him, turned his mind. He
prattles to it or storms at it as if it were a living creature. Queer,
yes; and he's impressive, too, with a sort of magnetic personality that
attracts and repels you violently at the same time. He's like a cake of
ice dipped in alcohol and set aflame. I can't describe him. When he
talks----"
"Does he talk about himself?"
I had to confess that he had told us practically not a word. He had
discussed everything under heaven in his brilliant, erratic way, with a
fleer of cynicism toward it all, but he had left himself out completely.
He had given us Farquharson with relish, and in infinite detail, from
the time the poor fellow first turned up in Muloa, put ashore by a
native craft. Talking about Farquharson was second only to his delight
in talking about volcanoes. And the result for me had been innumerable
vivid but confused impressions of the young Englishman who had by chance
invaded Leavitt's solitude and had lingered there, held by some
attraction, until he sickened and died. It was like a jumbled mosaic
put together again by inexpert hands.
"Did you get the impression that the two men had very much in common?"
"Quite the contrary," I answered. "But Major Stanleigh should know----"
"My uncle never met Mr. Farquharson."
I was fairly taken aback at that, and a silence fell between us. It was
impossible to divine the drift of her questions. It was as if some
profound mistrust weighed upon her and she was not so much seeking to
interrogate me as she was groping blindly for some chance word of mine
that might illuminate her doubts.
I looked at the girl in silent wonder, yes, and in admiration of her
bronze and ivory beauty in the full flower of her glorious youth--and I
thought of Joyce. I felt that it was like her to have fallen in love
simply but passionately at the mere lifting of the finger of Fate. It
was only another demonstration of the unfathomable mystery, or miracle,
which love is. Joyce was lucky, indeed favored of the gods, to have
touched the spring in this girl's heart which no other man could reach,
and by the rarest of chances--her coming out to this remote corner of
the world. Lucky Joyce! I knew him slightly--a straightforward young
fellow, very simple and whole-souled, enthusiastically absorbed in
developing his rubber lands in Malduna.
Miss Stanleigh remained lost in thought while her fingers toyed with the
pendant of the chain that she wore. In the darkness I caught the glitter
of a small gold cross.
"Mr. Barnaby," she finally broke the silence, and paused. "I have
decided to tell you something. This Mr. Farquharson was my husband."
Again a silence fell, heavy and prolonged, in which I sat as if drugged
by the night air that hung soft and perfumed about us. It seemed
incredible that in that fleeting instant she had spoken at all.
"I was young--and very foolish, I suppose."
With that confession, spoken with simple dignity, she broke off again.
Clearly, some knowledge of the past she deemed it necessary to impart to
me. If she halted over her words, it was rather to dismiss what was
irrelevant to the matter in hand, in which she sought my counsel.
"I did not see him for four years--did not wish to.... And he vanished
completely.... Four years!--just a welcome blank!"
Her shoulders lifted and a little shiver went over her.
"But even a blank like that can become unendurable. To be always
dragging at a chain, and not knowing where it leads to...." Her hand
slipped from the gold cross on her breast and fell to the other in her
lap, which it clutched tightly. "Four years.... I tried to make myself
believe that he was gone forever--was dead. It was wicked of me."
My murmur of polite dissent led her to repeat her words.
"Yes, and even worse than that. During the past month I have actually
prayed that he might be dead.... I shall be punished for it."
I ventured no rejoinder to these words of self-condemnation. Joyce, I
reflected, mundanely, had clearly swept her off her feet in the ardor of
their first meeting and instant love.
"It must be a great relief to you," I murmured at length, "to have it
all definitely settled at last."
"If I could only feel that it was!"
I turned in amazement, to see her leaning a little forward, her hands
still tightly clasped in her lap, and her eyes fixed upon the distant
horizon where the red spark of Lakalatcha's stertorous breathing flamed
and died away. Her breast rose and fell, as if timed to the throbbing of
that distant flare.
"I want you to take me to that island--to-morrow."
"Why, surely, Miss Stanleigh," I burst forth, "there can't be any
reasonable doubt. Leavitt's mind may be a little flighty--he may have
embroidered his story with a few gratuitous details; but Farquharson's
books and things--the material evidence of his having lived there----"
"And having died there?"
"Surely Leavitt wouldn't have fabricated that! If you had talked with
him----"
"I should not care to talk with Mr. Leavitt," Miss Stanleigh cut me
short. "I want only to go and see--if he _is_ Mr. Leavitt."
"If he _is_ Mr. Leavitt!" For a moment I was mystified, and then in a
sudden flash I understood. "But that's preposterous--impossible!"
I tried to conceive of Leavitt in so monstrous a rôle, tried to imagine
the missing Farquharson still in the flesh and beguiling Major Stanleigh
and myself with so outlandish a story, devising all that ingenious
detail to trick us into a belief in his own death. It would indeed have
argued a warped mind, guided by some unfathomable purpose.
"I devoutly hope you are right," Miss Stanleigh was saying, with
deliberation. "But it is not preposterous, and it is not impossible--if
you had known Mr. Farquharson as I have."
It was a discreet confession. She wished me to understand--without the
necessity of words. My surmise was that she had met and married
Farquharson, whoever he was, under the spell of some momentary
infatuation, and that he had proved himself to be an unspeakable brute
whom she had speedily abandoned.
"I am determined to go to Muloa, Mr. Barnaby," she announced, with
decision. "I want you to make the arrangements, and with as much secrecy
as possible. I shall ask my aunt to go with me."
I assured Miss Stanleigh that the _Sylph_ was at her service.
* * * * *
Mrs. Stanleigh was a large bland woman, inclined to stoutness and to
making confidences, with an intense dislike of the tropics and physical
discomforts of any sort. How her niece prevailed upon her to make that
surreptitious trip to Muloa, which we set out upon two days later, I
have never been able to imagine. The accommodations aboard the schooner
were cramped, to say the least, and the good lady had a perfect horror
of volcanoes. The fact that Lakalatcha had behind it a record of a
century or more of good conduct did not weigh with her in the least. She
was convinced that it would blow its head off the moment the _Sylph_ got
within range. She was fidgety, talkative, and continually concerned over
the state of her complexion, inspecting it in the mirror of her bag at
frequent intervals and using a powder-puff liberally to mitigate the
pernicious effects of the tropic sun. But once having been induced to
make the voyage, I must admit she stuck manfully by her decision,
ensconcing herself on deck with books and cushions and numerous other
necessities to her comfort, and making the best of the sleeping quarters
below. As the captain of the _Sylph_, she wanted me to understand that
she had intrusted her soul to my charge, declaring that she would not
draw an easy breath until we were safe again in Port Charlotte.
"This dreadful business of Eleanor's," was the way she referred to our
mission, and she got round quite naturally to telling me of Farquharson
while acquainting me with her fears about volcanoes. Some years before,
Pompeii and Herculaneum had had a most unsettling effect upon her
nerves. Vesuvius was slightly in eruption at the time. She confessed to
never having had an easy moment while in Naples. And it was in Naples
that her niece and Farquharson had met. It had been, as I surmised, a
swift, romantic courtship, in which Farquharson, quite irreproachable in
antecedents and manners, had played the part of an impetuous lover.
Italian skies had done the rest. There was an immediate marriage, in
spite of Mrs. Stanleigh's protests, and the young couple were off on a
honeymoon trip by themselves. But when Mrs. Stanleigh rejoined her
husband at Nice, and together they returned to their home in Sussex, a
surprise was in store for them. Eleanor was already there--alone,
crushed, and with lips absolutely sealed. She had divested herself of
everything that linked her to Farquharson; she refused to adopt her
married name.
"I shall bless every saint in heaven when we have quite done with this
dreadful business of Eleanor's," Mrs. Stanleigh confided to me from her
deck-chair. "This trip that she insists on making herself seems quite
uncalled for. But you needn't think, Captain Barnaby, that I'm going to
set foot on that dreadful island--not even for the satisfaction of
seeing Mr. Farquharson's grave--and I'm shameless enough to say that it
_would_ be a satisfaction. If you could imagine the tenth part of what I
have had to put up with, all these months we've been traveling about
trying to locate the wretch! No, indeed--I shall stay right here on this
boat and intrust Eleanor to your care while ashore. And I should not
think it ought to take long, now should it?"
I confessed aloud that I did not see how it could. If by any chance the
girl's secret conjecture about Leavitt's identity was right, it would be
verified in the mere act of coming face to face with him, and in that
event it would be just as well to spare the unsuspecting aunt the shock
of that discovery.
We reached Muloa just before nightfall, letting go the anchor in placid
water under the lee of the shore while the _Sylph_ swung to and the
sails fluttered and fell. A vast hush lay over the world. From the shore
the dark green of the forest confronted us with no sound or sign of
life. Above, and at this close distance blotting out half the sky over
our heads, towered the huge cone of Lakalatcha with scarred and
blackened flanks. It was in one of its querulous moods. The feathery
white plume of steam, woven by the wind into soft, fantastic shapes, no
longer capped the crater; its place had been usurped by thick, dark
fumes of smoke swirling sullenly about. In the fading light I marked the
red, malignant glow of a fissure newly broken out in the side of the
ragged cone, from which came a thin, white trickle of lava.
There was no sign of Leavitt, although the _Sylph_ must have been
visible to him for several hours, obviously making for the island. I
fancied that he must have been unusually absorbed in the vagaries of his
beloved volcano. Otherwise he would have wondered what was bringing us
back again and his tall figure in shabby white drill would have greeted
us from the shore. Instead, there confronted us only the belt of dark,
matted green girdling the huge bulk of Lakalatcha which soared skyward,
sinister, mysterious, eternal.
In the brief twilight the shore vanished into dim obscurity. Miss
Stanleigh, who for the last hour had been standing by the rail, silently
watching the island, at last spoke to me over her shoulder:
"Is it far inland--the place? Will it be difficult to find in the dark?"
Her question staggered me, for she was clearly bent on seeking out
Leavitt at once. A strange calmness overlay her. She paid no heed to
Lakalatcha's gigantic, smoke-belching cone, but, with fingers gripping
the rail, scanned the forbidding and inscrutable forest, behind which
lay the answer to her torturing doubt.
I acceded to her wish without protest. Leavitt's bungalow lay a quarter
of a mile distant. There would be no difficulty in following the path. I
would have a boat put over at once, I announced in a casual way which
belied my real feelings, for I was beginning to share some of her secret
tension at this night invasion of Leavitt's haunts.
This feeling deepened within me as we drew near the shore. Leavitt's
failure to appear seemed sinister and enigmatic. I began to evolve a
fantastic image of him as I recalled his queer ways and his uncanny
tricks of speech. It was as if we were seeking out the presiding deity
of the island, who had assumed the guise of a Caliban holding unearthly
sway over its unnatural processes.
With Williams, the boatswain, carrying a lantern, we pushed into the
brush, following the choked trail that led to Leavitt's abode. But the
bungalow, when we had reached the clearing and could discern the
outlines of the building against the masses of the forest, was dark and
deserted. As we mounted the veranda, the loose boards creaked hollowly
under our tread; the doorway, from which depended a tattered curtain of
coarse burlap, gaped black and empty.
The lantern, lifted high in the boatswain's hand, cleft at a stroke the
darkness within. On the writing-table, cluttered with papers and bits of
volcanic rock, stood a bottle and half-empty glass. Things lay about in
lugubrious disorder, as if the place had been hurriedly ransacked by a
thief. Some of the geological specimens had tumbled from the table to
the floor, and stray sheets of Leavitt's manuscripts lay under his
chair. Leavitt's books, ranged on shelving against the wall, alone
seemed undisturbed. Upon the top of the shelving stood two enormous
stuffed birds, moldering and decrepit, regarding the sudden illumination
with unblinking, bead-like eyes. Between them a small dancing faun in
greenish bronze tripped a Bacchic measure with head thrown back in a
transport of derisive laughter.
For a long moment the three of us faced the silent, disordered room, in
which the little bronze faun alone seemed alive, convulsed with
diabolical mirth at our entrance. Somehow it recalled to me Leavitt's
own cynical laugh. Suddenly Miss Stanleigh made toward the photographs
above the bookshelves.
"This is he," she said, taking up one of the faded prints.
"Yes--Leavitt," I answered.
"_Leavitt_?" Her fingers tightened upon the photograph. Then, abruptly,
it fell to the floor. "Yes, yes--of course." Her eyes closed very
slowly, as if an extreme weakness had seized her.
In the shock of that moment I reached out to support her, but she
checked my hand. Her gray eyes opened again. A shudder visibly went over
her, as if the night air had suddenly become chill. From the shelf the
two stuffed birds regarded us dolefully, while the dancing faun, with
head thrown back in an attitude of immortal art, laughed derisively.
"Where is he? I must speak to him," said Miss Stanleigh.
"One might think he were deliberately hiding," I muttered, for I was at
a loss to account for Leavitt's absence.
"Then find him," the girl commanded.
I cut short my speculations to direct Williams to search the hut in the
rear of the bungalow, where, behind bamboo palings, Leavitt's Malay
servant maintained an aloof and mysterious existence. I sat down beside
Miss Stanleigh on the veranda steps to find my hands sooty from the
touch of the boards. A fine volcanic ash was evidently drifting in the
air and now to my ear, attuned to the profound stillness, the wind bore
a faint humming sound.
"Do you hear that?" I whispered. It was like the far-off murmur of a
gigantic caldron, softly a-boil--a dull vibration that seemed to reach
us through the ground as well as through the air.
The girl listened a moment, and then started up. "I hear
voices--somewhere."
"Voices?" I strained my ears for sounds other than the insistent ferment
of the great cone above our heads. "Perhaps Leavitt----"
"Why do you still call him Leavitt?"
"Then you're quite certain----" I began, but an involuntary exclamation
from her cut me short.
The light of Williams's lantern, emerging from behind the bamboo
palings, disclosed the burly form of the boatswain with a shrinking
Malay in tow. He was jabbering in his native tongue, with much
gesticulation of his thin arms, and going into contortions at every
dozen paces in a sort of pantomime to emphasize his words. Williams
urged him along unceremoniously to the steps of the veranda.
"Perhaps you can get the straight of this, Mr. Barnaby," said the
boatswain. "He swears that the flame-devil in the volcano has swallowed
his master alive."
The poor fellow seemed indeed in a state of complete funk. With his thin
legs quaking under him, he poured forth in Malay a crazed, distorted
tale. According to Wadakimba, Leavitt--or Farquharson, to give him his
real name--had awakened the high displeasure of the flame-devil within
the mountain. Had we not observed that the cone was smoking furiously?
And the dust and heavy taint of sulphur in the air? Surely we could
feel the very tremor of the ground under our feet. All that day the
enraged monster had been spouting mud and lava down upon the white
_tuan_, who had remained in the bungalow, drinking heavily and bawling
out maledictions upon his enemy. At length, in spite of Wadakimba's
efforts to dissuade him, he had set out to climb to the crater, vowing
to show the flame-devil who was master. He had compelled the terrified
Wadakimba to go with him a part of the way. The white _tuan_--was he
really a god, as he declared himself to be?--had gone alone up the
tortuous, fissured slopes, at times lost to sight in yellowish clouds of
gas and steam, while his screams of vengeance came back to Wadakimba's
ears. Overhead, Lakalatcha continued to rumble and quiver and clear his
throat with great showers of mud and stones.
Farquharson must have indeed parted with his reason to have attempted
that grotesque sally. Listening to Wadakimba's tale, I pictured the
crazed man, scorched to tatters, heedless of bruises and burns,
scrambling up that difficult and perilous ascent, and hurling his
ridiculous blasphemy into the flares of smoke and steam that issued from
that vast caldron lit by subterranean fires. At its simmering the whole
island trembled. A mere whiff of the monster's breath and he would have
been snuffed out, annihilated in an instant. According to Wadakimba, the
end had indeed come in that fashion. It was as if the mountain had
suddenly given a deep sigh. The blast had carried away solid rock. A
sheet of flame had licked the spot where Farquharson had been hurled
headlong, and he was not.
Wadakimba, viewing all this from afar, had scuttled off to his hut.
Later he had ventured back to the scene of the tragedy. He had picked up
Farquharson's scorched helmet, which had been blown off to some
distance, and he also exhibited a pair of binoculars washed down by the
tide of lava, scarred and twisted by the heat, from which the lenses had
melted away.
I translated for Miss Stanleigh briefly, while she stood turning over in
her hands the twisted and blackened binoculars, which were still warm.
She heard me through without question or comment, and when I proposed
that we get back to the _Sylph_ at once, mindful of her aunt's
distressed nerves, she assented with a nod. She seemed to have lost the
power of speech. In a daze she followed as I led the way back through
the forest.
* * * * *
Major Stanleigh and his wife deferred their departure for England until
their niece should be properly married to Joyce. At Eleanor's wish, it
was a very simple affair, and as Joyce's bride she was as eager to be
off to his rubber-plantation in Malduna as he was to set her up there as
mistress of his household. I had agreed to give them passage on the
_Sylph_, since the next sailing of the mail-boat would have necessitated
a further fortnight's delay.
Mrs. Stanleigh, with visions of seeing England again, and profoundly
grateful to a benevolent Providence that had not only brought "this
dreadful business of Eleanor's" to a happy termination, but had averted
Lakalatcha's baptism of fire from descending upon her own head, thanked
me profusely and a little tearfully. It was during the general chorus of
farewells at the last moment before the _Sylph_ cast off. Her last
appeal, cried after us from the wharf where she stood frantically waving
a wet handkerchief, was that I should give Muloa a wide berth.
It brought a laugh from Joyce. He had discovered the good lady's extreme
perturbation in regard to Lakalatcha, and had promptly declared for
spending a day there with his bride. It was an exceptional opportunity
to witness the volcano in its active mood. Each time that Joyce had
essayed this teasing pleasantry, which never failed to draw Mrs.
Stanleigh's protests, I observed that his wife remained silent. I
assumed that she had decided to keep her own counsel in regard to the
trip she had made there.
"I'm trusting you not to take Eleanor near that dreadful island, Mr.
Barnaby," was the admonition shouted across the widening gap of water.
It was a quite unnecessary appeal, for Joyce, who was presently sitting
with his wife in a sheltered quarter of the deck, had not the slightest
interest in the smoking cone which was as yet a mere smudge upon the
horizon. Eleanor, with one hand in Joyce's possession, at times watched
it with a seemingly vast apathy until some ardent word from Joyce would
draw her eyes back to his and she would lift to him a smile that was
like a caress. The look of weariness and balked purpose that had once
marked her expression had vanished. In the week since she had married
Joyce she seemed to have grown younger and to be again standing on the
very threshold of life with girlish eagerness. She hung on Joyce's every
word, communing with him hour after hour, utterly content, indifferent
to all the world about her.
In the cabin that evening at dinner, when the two of them deigned to
take polite cognizance of my existence, I announced to Joyce that I
proposed to hug the island pretty close during the night. It would save
considerable time.
"Just as you like, Captain," Joyce replied, indifferently.
"We may get a shower of ashes by doing so, if the wind should shift." I
looked across the table at Mrs. Joyce.
"But we shall reach Malduna that much sooner?" she queried.
I nodded. "However, if you feel any uneasiness, I'll give the island a
wide berth." I didn't like the idea of dragging her--the bride of a
week--past that place with its unspeakable memories, if it should really
distress her.
Her eyes thanked me silently across the table. "It's very kind of you,
but"--she chose her words with significant deliberation--"I haven't a
fear in the world, Mr. Barnaby."
Evening had fallen when we came up on deck. Joyce bethought himself of
some cigars in his state-room and went back. For the moment I was alone
with his wife by the rail, watching the stars beginning to prick through
the darkening sky. The _Sylph_ was running smoothly, with the wind
almost aft; the scud of water past her bows and the occasional creak of
a block aloft were the only sounds audible in the silence that lay like
a benediction upon the sea.
"You may think it unfeeling of me," she began, quite abruptly, "but all
this past trouble of mine, now that it is ended, I have completely
dismissed. Already it begins to seem like a horrid dream. And as for
that island"--her eyes looked off toward Muloa now impending upon us and
lighting up the heavens with its sudden flare--"it seems incredible that
I ever set foot upon it.
"Perhaps you understand," she went on, after a pause, "that I have not
told my husband. But I have not deceived him. He knows that I was once
married, and that the man is no longer living. He does not wish to know
more. Of course he is aware that Uncle Geoffrey came out here to--to see
a Mr. Leavitt, a matter which he has no idea concerned me. He thanks the
stars for whatever it was that did bring us out here, for otherwise he
would not have met me."
"It has turned out most happily," I murmured.
"It was almost disaster. After meeting Mr. Joyce--and I was weak enough
to let myself become engaged--to have discovered that I was still
chained to a living creature like that.... I should have killed myself."
"But surely the courts----"
She shook her head with decision. "My church does not recognize that
sort of freedom."
We were drawing steadily nearer to Muloa. The mountain was breathing
slowly and heavily--a vast flare that lifted fanlike in the skies and
died away. Lightning played fitfully through the dense mass of smoke and
choking gases that hung like a pall over the great cone. It was like the
night sky that overhangs a city of gigantic blast-furnaces, only
infinitely multiplied. The sails of the _Sylph_ caught the ruddy tinge
like a phantom craft gliding through the black night, its canvas still
dyed with the sunset glow. The faces of the crew, turned to watch the
spectacle, curiously fixed and inhuman, were picked out of the gloom by
the same fantastic light. It was as if the schooner, with masts and
riggings, etched black against the lurid sky, sailed on into the Day of
Judgment.
It was after midnight. The _Sylph_ came about, with sails trembling, and
lost headway. Suddenly she vibrated from stem to stern, and with a soft
grating sound that was unmistakable came to rest. We were aground in
what should have been clear water, with the forest-clad shore of Muloa
lying close off to port.
The helmsman turned to me with a look of silly fright on his face, as
the wheel revolved useless in his hands. We had shelved with scarcely a
jar sufficient to disturb those sleeping below, but in a twinkling
Jackson, the mate, appeared on deck in his pajamas, and after a swift
glance toward the familiar shore turned to me with the same dumfounded
look that had frozen upon the face of the steersman.
"What do you make of this?" he exclaimed, as I called for the lead.
"Be quiet about it," I said to the hands that had started into movement.
"Look sharp now, and make no noise." Then I turned to the mate, who was
perplexedly rubbing one bare foot against the other and measuring with
his eye our distance from the shore. The _Sylph_ should have turned the
point of the island without a mishap, as she had done scores of times.
"It's the volcano we have to thank for this," was my conjecture. "Its
recent activity has caused some displacement of the sea bottom."
Jackson's head went back in sudden comprehension. "It's a miracle you
didn't plow into it under full sail."
We had indeed come about in the very nick of time to avoid disaster. As
matters stood I was hopeful. "With any sort of luck we ought to float
clear with the tide."
The mate cocked a doubtful eye at Lakalatcha, uncomfortably close above
our heads, flaming at intervals and bathing the deck with an angry glare
of light. "If she should begin spitting up a little livelier ..." he
speculated with a shrug, and presently took himself off to his bunk
after an inspection below had shown that none of the schooner's seams
had started. There was nothing to do but to wait for the tide to make
and lift the vessel clear. It would be a matter of three or four hours.
I dismissed the helmsman; and the watch forward, taking advantage of the
respite from duty, were soon recumbent in attitudes of heavy sleep.
The wind had died out and a heavy torpor lay upon the water. It was as
if the stars alone held to their slow courses above a world rigid and
inanimate. The _Sylph_ lay with a slight list, her spars looking
inexpressibly helpless against the sky, and, as the minutes dragged, a
fine volcanic ash, like some mortal pestilence exhaled by the monster
cone, settled down upon the deck, where, forward in the shadow, the
watch curled like dead men.
Alone, I paced back and forth--countless soft-footed miles, it seemed,
through interminable hours, until at length some obscure impulse
prompted me to pause before the open skylight over the cabin and thrust
my head down. A lamp above the dining-table, left to burn through the
night, feebly illuminated the room. A faint snore issued at regular
intervals from the half-open door of the mate's state-room. The door of
Joyce's state-room opposite was also upon the hook for the sake of air.
Suddenly a soft thump against the side of the schooner, followed by a
scrambling noise, made me turn round. The dripping, bedraggled figure of
a man in a sleeping-suit mounted the rope ladder that hung over the
side, and paused, grasping the rail. I had withdrawn my gaze so suddenly
from the glow of the light in the cabin that for several moments the
intruder from out of the sea was only a blurred form with one leg swung
over the rail, where he hung as if spent by his exertions.
Just then the sooty vapors above the ragged maw of the volcano were rent
by a flare of crimson, and in the fleeting instant of unnatural daylight
I beheld Farquharson barefooted, and dripping with sea-water,
confronting me with a sardonic, triumphant smile. The light faded in a
twinkling, but in the darkness he swung his other leg over the rail and
sat perched there, as if challenging the testimony of my senses.
"Farquharson!" I breathed aloud, utterly dumfounded.
"Did you think I was a ghost?" I could hear him softly laughing to
himself in the interval that followed. "You should have witnessed
Wadakimba's fright at my coming back from the dead. Well, I'll admit I
almost was done for."
Again the volcano breathed in torment. It was like the sudden opening of
a gigantic blast-furnace, and in that instant I saw him vividly--his
thin, saturnine face, his damp black hair pushed sleekly back, his lips
twisted to a cruel smile, his eyes craftily alert, as if to some
ambushed danger continually at hand. He was watching me with a sort of
malicious relish in the shock he had given me.
"It was not your intention to stop at Muloa," he observed, dryly, for
the plight of the schooner was obvious.
"We'll float clear with the tide," I muttered.
"But in the meantime"--there was something almost menacing in his
deliberate pause--"I have the pleasure of this little call upon you."
A head lifted from among the inert figures and sleepily regarded us
before it dropped back into the shadows. The stranded ship, the
recumbent men, the mountain flaming overhead--it was like a phantom
world into which had been suddenly thrust this ghastly and incredible
reality.
"Whatever possessed you to swim out here in the middle of the night?" I
demanded, in a harsh whisper.
He chose to ignore the question, while I waited in a chill of suspense.
It was inconceivable that he could be aware of the truth of the
situation and deliberately bent on forcing it to its unspeakable, tragic
issue.
"Of late, Captain Barnaby, we seem to have taken to visiting each other
rather frequently, don't you think?"
It was lightly tossed off, but not without its evil implication; and I
felt his eyes intently fixed upon me as he sat hunched up on the rail in
his sodden sleeping-suit, like some huge, ill-omened bird of prey.
To get rid of him, to obliterate the horrible fact that he still existed
in the flesh, was the instinctive impulse of my staggered brain. But
the peril of discovery, the chance that those sleeping below might
awaken and hear us, held me in a vise of indecision.
"If I could bring myself to reproach you, Captain," he went on,
ironically polite, "I might protest that your last visit to this island
savored to a too-inquisitive intrusion. You'll pardon my frankness. I
had convinced you and Major Stanleigh that Farquharson was dead. To the
world at large that should have sufficed. That I choose to remain alive
is my own affair. Your sudden return to Muloa--with a lady--would have
upset everything, if Fate and that inspired fool of a Malay had not
happily intervened. But now, surely, there can be no doubt that I am
dead?"
I nodded assent in a dumb, helpless way.
"And I have a notion that even you, Captain Barnaby, will never dispute
that fact."
He threw back his head suddenly--for all the world like the dancing
faun--and laughed silently at the stars.
My tongue was dry in my mouth as I tried to make some rejoinder. He
baffled me completely, and meanwhile I was in a tingle of fear lest the
mate should come up on deck to see what progress the tide had made, or
lest the sound of our voices might waken the girl in Joyce's state-room.
"I can promise you that," I attempted to assure him in weak, sepulchral
tones. "And now, if you like, I'll put you ashore in the small boat. You
must be getting chilly in that wet sleeping-suit."
"As a matter of fact I am, and I was wondering if you would not offer me
something to drink."
"You shall have a bottle to take along," I promised, with alacrity, but
he demurred.
"There is no sociability in that. And you seem very lonesome here--stuck
for two more hours at least. Come, Captain, fetch your bottle and we
will share it together."
He got down from the rail, stretched his arms lazily above his head, and
dropped into one of the deck chairs that had been placed aft for the
convenience of my two passengers.
"And cigars, too, Captain," he suggested, with a politeness that was
almost impertinence. "We'll have a cozy hour or two out of this tedious
wait for the tide to lift you off."
I contemplated him helplessly. There was no alternative but to fall in
with whatever mad caprice might seize his brain. If I opposed him, it
would lead to high and querulous words; and the hideous fact of his
presence there--of his mere existence--I was bound to conceal at all
hazards.
"I must ask you to keep quiet," I said, stiffly.
"As a tomb," he agreed, and his eyes twinkled disagreeably in the
darkness. "You forget that I am supposed to be in one."
I went stealthily down into the cabin, where I secured a box of cigars
and the first couple of bottles that my hands laid hold of in the
locker. They proved to contain an old Tokay wine which I had treasured
for several years to no particular purpose. The ancient bottles clinked
heavily in my grasp as I mounted again to the deck.
"Now this is something like," he purred, watching like a cat my every
motion as I set the glasses forth and guardedly drew the cork. He
saluted me with a flourish and drank.
To an onlooker that pantomime in the darkness would have seemed utterly
grotesque. I tasted the fragrant, heavy wine and waited--waited in an
agony of suspense--my ears strained desperately to catch the least sound
from below. But a profound silence enveloped the schooner, broken only
by the occasional rhythmic snore of the mate.
"You seem rather ill at ease," Farquharson observed from the depths of
the deck chair when he had his cigar comfortably aglow. "I trust it
isn't this little impromptu call of mine that's disturbing you. After
all, life has its unusual moments, and this, I think, is one of them."
He sniffed the bouquet of his wine and drank. "It is rare moments like
this--bizarre, incredible, what you like--that compensate for the tedium
of years."
His disengaged hand had fallen to the side of the chair, and I now
observed in dismay that a scarf belonging to Joyce's wife had been left
lying in the chair, and that his fingers were absently twisting the
silken fringe.
"I wonder that you stick it out, as you do, on this island," I forced
myself to observe, seeking safety in the commonplace, while my eyes, as
if fascinated, watched his fingers toying with the ends of the scarf. I
was forced to accept the innuendo beneath his enigmatic utterances. His
utter baseness and depravity, born perhaps of a diseased mind, I could
understand. I had led him to bait a trap with the fiction of his own
death, but he could not know that it had been already sprung upon his
unsuspecting victims.
He seemed to regard me with contemptuous pity. "Naturally, you wonder. A
mere skipper like yourself fails to understand--many things. What can
you know of life cooped up in this schooner? You touch only the surface
of things just as this confounded boat of yours skims only the top of
the water. Once in a lifetime you may come to real grips with
life--strike bottom, eh?--as your schooner has done now. Then you're
aground and quite helpless. What a pity!"
He lifted his glass and drank it off, then thrust it out to be refilled.
"Life as the world lives it--bah!" he dismissed it with the scorn of one
who counts himself divested of all illusions. "Life would be an infernal
bore if it were not for its paradoxes. Now you, Captain Barnaby, would
never dream that in becoming dead to the world--in other people's
belief--I have become intensely alive. There are opened up infinite
possibilities----"
He drank again and eyed me darkly, and then went on in his crack-brained
way, "What is life but a challenge to pretense, a constant exercise in
duplicity, with so few that come to master it as an art? Every one goes
about with something locked deep in his heart. Take yourself, Captain
Barnaby. You have your secrets--hidden from me, from all the
world--which, if they could be dragged out of you----"
His deep-set eyes bored through the darkness upon me. Hunched up in the
deck chair, with his legs crossed under him, he was like an animated
Buddha venting a dark philosophy and seeking to undermine my mental
balance with his sophistry.
"I'm a plain man of the sea," I rejoined, bluntly. "I take life as it
comes."
He smiled derisively, drained his glass, and held it out again. "But you
have your secrets, rather clumsily guarded, to be sure----"
"What secrets?" I cried out, goaded almost beyond endurance.
He seemed to deprecate the vigor of my retort and lifted a cautioning
hand. "Do you want every one on board to hear this conversation?"
At that moment the smoke-wrapped cone of Lakalatcha was cleft by a sheet
of flame, and we confronted each other in a sort of blood-red dawn.
"There is no reason why we should quarrel," he went on, after darkness
had enveloped us again. "But there are times which call for plain
speaking. Major Stanleigh is probably hardly aware of just what he said
to me under a little artful questioning. It seems that a lady who--shall
we say, whom we both have the honor of knowing?--is in love. Love, mark
you. It is always interesting to see that flower bud twice from the same
stalk. However, one naturally defers to a lady, especially when one is
very much in her way. _Place aux dames_, eh? Exit poor Farquharson! You
must admit that his was an altruistic soul. Well, she has her
freedom--if only to barter it for a new bondage. Shall we drink to the
happy future of that romance?"
He lifted to me his glass with ironical invitation, while I sat aghast
and speechless, my heart pounding against my ribs. This intolerable
colloquy could not last forever. I deliberated what I should do if we
were surprised. At the sound of a footfall or the soft creak of a plank
I felt that I might lose all control and leap up and brain him with the
heavy bottle in my grasp. I had an insane desire to spring at his throat
and throttle his infamous bravado, tumble him overboard and annihilate
the last vestige of his existence.
"Come, Captain," he urged, "you, too, have shared in smoothing the path
for these lovers. Shall we not drink to their happy union?"
A feeling of utter loathing went over me. I set my glass down. "It would
be a more serviceable compliment to the lady in question if I strangled
you on the spot," I muttered, boldly.
"But you are forgetting that I am already dead." He threw his head back
as if vastly amused, then lurched forward and held out his glass a
little unsteadily to be refilled.
He gave me a quick, evil look. "Besides, the noise might disturb your
passengers."
I could feel a cold perspiration suddenly breaking out upon my body.
Either the fellow had obtained an inkling of the truth in some
incredible way, or was blindly on the track of it, guided by some
diabolical scent. Under the spell of his eyes I could not manage the
outright lie which stuck in my throat.
"What makes you think I have passengers?" I parried, weakly.
With intent or not, he was again fingering the fringe of the scarf that
hung over the arm of the chair.
"It is not your usual practice, but you have been carrying them lately."
He drained his glass and sat staring into it, his head drooping a little
forward. The heavy wine was beginning to have its effect upon him, but
whether it would provoke him to some outright violence or drag him down
into a stupor, I could not predict. Suddenly the glass slipped from his
fingers and shivered to pieces on the deck. I started violently at the
sound, and in the silence that followed I thought I heard a footfall in
the cabin below.
He looked up at length from his absorbed contemplation of the bits of
broken glass. "We were talking about love, were we not?" he demanded,
heavily.
I did not answer. I was straining to catch a repetition of the sound
from below. Time was slipping rapidly away, and to sit on meant
inevitable discovery. The watch might waken or the mate appear to
surprise me in converse with my nocturnal visitor. It would be folly to
attempt to conceal his presence and I despaired of getting him back to
the shore while his present mood held, although I remembered that the
small boat, which had been lowered after we went aground, was still
moored to the rail amidships.
Refilling my own glass, I offered it to him. He lurched forward to take
it, but the fumes of the wine suddenly drifted clear of his brain. "You
seem very much distressed," he observed, with ironic concern. "One might
think you were actually sheltering these precious love-birds."
Perspiration broke out anew upon my face and neck. "I don't know what
you are talking about," I bluntly tried to fend off his implications. I
felt as if I were helplessly strapped down and that he was about to
probe me mercilessly with some sharp instrument. I strove to turn the
direction of his thoughts by saying, "I understand that the Stanleighs
are returning to England."
"The Stanleighs--quite so," he nodded agreement, and fixed me with a
maudlin stare. Something prompted me to fill his glass again. He drank
it off mechanically. Again I poured, and he obediently drank. With an
effort he tried to pick up the thread of our conversation:
"What did you say? Oh, the Stanleighs ... yes, yes, of course." He
slowly nodded his head and fell silent. "I was about to say ..." He
broke off again and seemed to ruminate profoundly.... "Love-birds----" I
caught the word feebly from his lips, spoken as if in a daze. The glass
hung dripping in his relaxed grasp.
It was a crucial moment in which his purpose seemed to waver and die in
his clouded brain. A great hope sprang up in my heart, which was
hammering furiously. If I could divert his fuddled thoughts and get him
back to shore while the wine lulled him to forgetfulness.
I leaned forward to take the glass which was all but slipping from his
hand when Lakalatcha flamed with redoubled fury. It was as if the
mountain had suddenly bared its fiery heart to the heavens, and a
muffled detonation reached my ears.
Farquharson straightened up with a jerk and scanned the smoking peak,
from which a new trickle of white-hot lava had broken forth in a
threadlike waterfall. He watched its graceful play as if hypnotized, and
began babbling to himself in an incoherent prattle. All his faculties
seemed suddenly awake, but riveted solely upon the heavy laboring of the
mountain. He was chiding it in Malay as if it were a fractious child.
When I ventured to urge him back to shore he made no protest, but
followed me into the boat. As I pushed off and took up the oars he had
eyes for nothing but the flaming cone, as if its leaping fires held for
him an Apocalyptic vision.
I strained at the oars as if in a race, with all eternity at stake,
blindly urging the boat ahead through water that flashed crimson at
every stroke. The mountain now flamed like a beacon, and I rowed for
dear life over a sea of blood.
Farquharson sat entranced before the spectacle, chanting to himself a
kind of insane ritual, like a Parsee fire-worshiper making obeisance
before his god. He was rapt away to some plane of mystic exaltation, to
some hinterland of the soul that merged upon madness. When at length the
boat crunched upon the sandy shore he got up unsteadily from the stern
and pointed to the pharos that flamed in the heavens.
"The fire upon the altar is lit," he addressed me, oracularly, while the
fanatic light of a devotee burned in his eyes. "Shall we ascend and
prepare the sacrifice?"
I leaned over the oars, panting from my exertions, indifferent to his
rhapsody.
"If you'll take my advice, you'll get back at once to your bungalow and
strip off that wet sleeping-suit," I bluntly counseled him, but I might
as well have argued with a man in a trance.
He leaped over the gunwale and strode up the beach. Again he struck his
priestlike attitude and invoked me to follow.
"The fire upon the altar waits," he repeated, solemnly. Suddenly he
broke into a shrill laugh and ran like a deer in the direction of the
forest that stretched up the slopes of the mountain.
The mate's face, thrust over the rail as I drew alongside the schooner,
plainly bespoke his utter bewilderment. He must have though me bereft of
my senses to be paddling about at that hour of the night. The tide had
made, and the _Sylph_, righting her listed masts, was standing clear of
the shoal. The deck was astir, and when the command was given to hoist
the sails it was obeyed with an uneasy alacrity. The men worked
frantically in a bright, unnatural day, for Lakalatcha was now
continuously aflame and tossing up red-hot rocks to the accompaniment of
dull sounds of explosion.
My first glance about the deck had been one of relief to note that Joyce
and his wife were not there, although the commotion of getting under
sail must have awakened them. A breeze had sprung up which would prove a
fair wind as soon as the _Sylph_ stood clear of the point. The mate gave
a grunt of satisfaction when at length the schooner began to dip her bow
and lay over to her task. Leaving him in charge, I started to go below,
when suddenly Mrs. Joyce, fully dressed, confronted me. She seemed to
have materialized out of the air like a ghost. Her hair glowed like
burnished copper in the unnatural illumination which bathed the deck,
but her face was ashen, and the challenge of her eyes made my heart stop
short.
"You have been awake long?" I ventured to ask.
"Too long," she answered, significantly, with her face turned away,
looking down into the water. She had taken my arm and drawn me toward
the rail. Now I felt her fingers tighten convulsively. In the droop of
her head and the tense curve of her neck I sensed her mad impulse which
the dark water suggested.
"Mrs. Joyce!" I remonstrated, sharply.
She seemed to go limp all over at the words. I drew her along the deck
for a faltering step or two, while her eyes continued to brood upon the
water rushing past. Suddenly she spoke:
"What other way out is there?"
"Never that," I said, shortly. I urged her forward again. "Is your
husband asleep?"
"Thank God, yes!"
"Then you have been awake----"
"For over an hour," she confessed, and I detected the shudder that went
over her body.
"The man is mad----"
"But I am married to him." She stopped and caught at the rail like a
prisoner gripping at the bars that confine him. "I cannot--cannot endure
it! Where are you taking me? Where _can_ you take me? Don't you see that
there is no escape--from this?"
The _Sylph_ rose and sank to the first long roll of the open sea.
"When we reach Malduna----" I began, but the words were only torture.
"I cannot--cannot go on. Take me back!--to that island. Let me live
abandoned--or rather die----"
"Mrs. Joyce, I beg of you...."
The schooner rose and dipped again.
For what seemed an interminable time we paced the deck together while
Lakalatcha flamed farther and farther astern. Her words came in fitful
snatches as if spoken in a delirium, and at times she would pause and
grip the rail to stare back, wild-eyed, at the receding island.
Suddenly she started, and in a sort of blinding, noonday blaze I saw her
face blanch with horror. It was as if at that moment the heavens had
cracked asunder and the night had fallen away in chaos. Turning, I saw
the cone of the mountain lifting skyward in fragments--and saw no more,
for the blinding vision remained seared upon the retina of my eyes.
Across the water, slower paced, came the dread concussion of sound.
"Good God! It's carried away the whole island!" I heard the mate's voice
bellowing above the cries of the men. The _Sylph_ scudded before the
approaching storm of fire redescending from the sky....
The first gray of the dawn disclosed Mrs. Joyce still standing by the
rail, her hand nestling within the arm of her husband, indifferent to
the heavy grayish dust that fell in benediction upon her like a silent
shower of snow.
* * * * *
The island of Muloa remains to-day a charred cinder lapped about by the
blue Pacific. At times gulls circle over its blackened and desolate
surface devoid of every vestige of life. From the squat, truncated mass
of Lakalatcha, shorn of half its lordly height, a feeble wisp of smoke
still issues to the breeze, as if Vulcan, tired of his forge, had banked
its fire before abandoning it.
FOOTNOTE:
[9] Copyright, 1920, by Harper & Brothers. Copyright, 1921, by Lee
Foster Hartman.
THE STICK-IN-THE-MUDS[10]
#By# RUPERT HUGHES
From _Collier's Weekly_
A skiff went prowling along the Avon River in the unhurried English
twilight that releases the sunset with reluctance and defers luxuriously
the roll call of the stars.
The skiff floated low, for the man alone in it was heavy and he was in
no greater haste than the northern night. Which was against the
traditions, for he was an American, an American business man.
He was making his way through the sky-hued water stealthily lest he
disturb the leisure of the swans, drowsy above their own images; lest he
discourage the nightingale trying a few low flute notes in the cathedral
tower of shadow that was a tree above the tomb of Shakespeare.
The American had never heard a nightingale and it was his first
pilgrimage to the shrine of the actor-manager whose productions
Americans curiously couple with the Bible as sacred lore.
During the day Joel Wixon had seen the sights of Stratford with the
others from his country and from England and the Continent. But now he
wanted to get close to Shakespeare. So he hired the skiff and declined
the services of the old boat lender.
And now he was stealing up into the rich gloom the church spread across
the river. He was pushing the stern of the boat foremost so that he
could feast his eyes. He was making so little speed that the only sounds
were the choked sob of the water where the boat cleaved it gently and
the tinkle of the drops that fell from the lazy oars with something of
the delicate music of the uncertain nightingale.
Being a successful business man, Wixon was a suffocated poet. The
imagination and the passion and the orderliness that brought him money
were the same energies that would have made him a success in verse. But
lines were not his line, and he was inarticulate and incoherent when
beauty overwhelmed him, as it did in nearly every form.
He shivered now before the immediate majesty of the scene, and the
historic meanings that enriched it as with an embroidered arras. Yet he
gave out no more words than an Æolian harp shuddering with ecstasy in a
wind too gentle to make it audible.
In such moods he hunted solitude, for he was ashamed to be seen, afraid
to be observed in the raptures that did not belong in the vocabulary of
a business man.
He had talked at noon about the fact that he and Shakespeare's father
were in wool, and he had annoyed a few modest Americans by comparing the
petty amount of the elder Shakespeare's trade with the vast total
pouring from his own innumerable looms driven with the electricity that
the Shakespeares had never dreamed of.
He had redeemed himself for his pretended brag by a meek admission:
"But I'm afraid my boy will never write another 'Hamlet.'"
Yet what could he know of his own son? How little Will Shakespeare's
father or his scandalized neighbors could have fancied that the
scapegrace good-for-naught who left the town for the town's good would
make it immortal; and, coming back to die and lie down forever beside
the Avon, would bring a world of pilgrims to a new Mecca, the shrine of
the supreme unique poet of all human time?
A young boy even now was sauntering the path along the other shore, so
lazily tossing pebbles into the stream that the swans hardly protested.
It came upon Wixon with a kind of silent lightning that Shakespeare had
once been such another boy skipping pebbles across the narrow river and
peering up into the trees to find out where the nightingale lurked.
Perhaps three hundred years from now some other shrine would claim the
pilgrims, the home perhaps of some American boy now groping through the
amber mists of adolescence or some man as little revered by his own
neighbors and rivals as the man Shakespeare was when he went back to
Avon to send back to London his two plays a year to the theatres.
Being a practical man, which is a man who strives to make his visions
palpable, Wixon thought of his own home town and the colony of boys that
prospered there in the Middle West.
He knew that no one would seek the town because of his birth there, for
he was but a buyer of fleeces, a carder of wools, a spinner of threads,
and a weaver of fabrics to keep folks' bodies warm. His weaves wore
well, but they wore out.
The weavers of words were the ones whose fabrics lasted beyond the power
of time and mocked the moths. Was there any such spinner in Carthage to
give the town eternal blazon to ears of flesh and blood? There was one
who might have been the man if----
Suddenly he felt himself again in Carthage. There was a river there too;
not a little bolt of chatoyant silk like the Avon, which they would have
called a "crick" back there. Before Carthage ran the incomprehensible
floods of old Mississippi himself, Father of Waters, deep and vast and
swift. They had lately swung a weir across it to make it work--a
concrete wall a mile wide and more, and its tumbling cascades spun no
little mill wheels, but swirled thundering turbines that lighted cities
and ran street cars a hundred miles away.
And yet it had no Shakespeare.
And yet again it might have had if----
The twilight was so deep now that he shipped his oars in the gloom and
gave himself back to the past.
He was in another twilight, only it was the counter twilight between
star quench and sun blaze.
Two small boys, himself one of them; his sworn chum, Luke Mellows, the
other, meeting in the silent street just as the day tide seeped in from
the east and submerged the stars.
Joel had tied a string to his big toe and hung it from his window. Luke
had done the same. They were not permitted to explode alarm clocks and
ruin the last sweets of sleep in either home. So they had agreed that
the first to wake should rise and dress with stealth, slip down the dark
stairs of his house, into the starlit street and over to the other's
home and pull the toe cord.
On this morning Luke had been the earlier out, and his triumphant yanks
had dragged Joel feet first from sleep, and from the bed and almost
through the window. Joel had howled protests in shrill whispers down
into the gloom, and then, untying his outraged toe, had limped into his
clothes and so to the yard.
The two children, in the huge world disputed still by the night, had
felt an awe of the sky and the mysteries going on there. The envied man
who ran up the streets of evenings lighting the gas street lamps was
abroad again already with his little ladder and his quick insect-like
motions; only, now he was turning out the lights, just as a similar but
invisible being was apparently running around heaven and putting out the
stars.
Joel remembered saying: "I wonder if they're turnin' off the stars up
there to save gas too."
Luke did not like the joke. He said, using the word "funny" solemnly:
"It's funny to see light putting out light. The stars will be there all
day, but we won't be able to see 'em for the sun."
(Wixon thought of this now, and of how Shakespeare's fame had drowned
out so many stars. A man had told him that there were hundreds of great
writers in Shakespeare's time that most people never heard of.)
As the boys paused, the air quivered with a hoarse _moo_! as of a
gigantic cow bellowing for her lost calf. It was really a steamboat
whistling for the bridge to open the draw and let her through to the
south with her raft of logs.
Both of the boys called the boat by name, knowing her voice: "It's the
Bessie May Brown!" They started on a run to the bluff overlooking the
river, their short legs making a full mile of the scant furlong.
Often as Joel had come out upon the edge of that bluff on his
innumerable journeys to the river for fishing, swimming, skating, or
just staring, it always smote him with the thrill Balboa must have felt
coming suddenly upon the Pacific.
On this morning there was an unwonted grandeur: the whole vault of the
sky was curdled with the dawn, a reef of solid black in the west turning
to purple and to amber and finally in the east to scarlet, with a few
late planets caught in the meshes of the sunlight and trembling like dew
on a spider's web.
And the battle in the sky was repeated in the sea-like river with all of
the added magic of the current and the eddies and the wimpling rushes of
the dawn winds.
On the great slopes were houses and farmsteads throwing off the night
and in the river the Bessie May Brown, her red light and her green light
trailing scarfs of color on the river, as she chuffed and clanged her
bell, and smote the water with her stern wheel. In the little steeple of
the pilot house a priest guided her and her unwieldy acre of logs
between the piers of the bridge whose lanterns were still belatedly
aglow on the girders and again in echo in the flood.
Joel filled his little chest with a gulp of morning air and found no
better words for his rhapsody than: "Gee, but ain't it great?"
To his amazement, Luke, who had always been more sensitive than he,
shook his head and turned away.
"Gosh, what do you want for ten cents?" Joel demanded, feeling called
upon to defend the worthiness of the dawn.
Luke began to cry. He dropped down on his own bare legs in the weeds and
twisted his face and his fists in a vain struggle to fight off unmanly
grief.
Joel squatted at his side and insisted on sharing the secret; and
finally Luke forgot the sense of family honor long enough to yield to
the yearning for company in his misery.
"I was up here at midnight last night, and I don't like this place any
more."
"You didn't come all by yourself? Gee!"
"No, Momma was here too."
"What she bring you out here at a time like that for?"
"She didn't know I was here."
"Didn't know--What she doin' out here, then?"
"She and Poppa had a turble quar'l. I couldn't hear what started it, but
finely it woke me up and I listened, and Momma was cryin' and Poppa was
swearin'. And at last Momma said: 'Oh, I might as well go and throw
myself in the river,' and Poppa said: 'Good riddance of bad rubbish!'
and Momma stopped cryin' and she says: 'All right!' in an awful kind of
a voice, and I heard the front door open and shut."
"Gee!"
"Well, I jumped into my shirt and pants and slid down the rain pipe and
ran along the street, and there sure enough was Momma walkin' as fast as
she could.
"I was afraid to go near her. I don't know why, but I was. So I just
sneaked along after her. The street was black as pitch 'cep' for the
street lamps, and as she passed ever' one I could see she was still
cryin' and stumblin' along like she was blind.
"It was so late we didn't meet anybody at tall, and there wasn't a light
in a single house except Joneses, where somebody was sick, I guess. But
they didn't pay any attention, and at last she came to the bluff here.
And I follered. When she got where she could see the river she stopped
and stood there, and held her arms out like she was goin' to jump off or
fly, or somethin'. The moon was up, and the river was so bright you
could hardly look at it, and Momma stood there with her arms 'way out
like she was on the Cross, or something.
"I was so scared and so cold I shook like I had a chill. I was afraid
she could hear my teeth chatterin', so I dropped down in the weeds and
thistles to keep her from seein' me. It was just along about here too.
"By and by Momma kind of broke like somebody had hit her, then she began
to cry again and to walk up and down wringin' her hands. Once or twice
she started to run down the bluff and I started to foller; but she
stopped like somebody held her back, and I sunk down again.
"Then, after a long time, she shook her head like she couldn't, and
turned back. She walked right by me and didn't see me. I heard her
whisperin': 'I can't, I can't. My pore children!'
"Then she went back down the street and me after her wishin' I could go
up and help her. But I was afraid she wouldn't want me to know, and I
just couldn't go near her."
Luke wept helplessly at the memory of his poltroonery, and Joel tried
roughly to comfort him with questions.
"Gee! I don't blame you. I don't guess I could have either. But what was
it all about, d'you s'pose?"
"I don't know. Momma went to the front door, and it was locked, and she
stood a long, long while before she could bring herself to knock. Then
she tapped on it soft like. And by and by Poppa opened the door and
said: 'Oh, you're back, are you?" Then he turned and walked away, and
she went in.
"I could have killed him with a rock, if she hadn't shut the door. But
all I could do was to climb back up the rain pipe. I was so tired and
discouraged I nearly fell and broke my neck. And I wisht I had have. But
there wasn't any more quar'l, only Momma kind of whimpered once or
twice, and Poppa said: 'Oh, for God's sake, shut up and lea' me sleep. I
got to open the store in the mornin', ain't I?' I didn't do much
sleepin', and I guess that's why I woke up first."
That was all of the story that Joel could learn. The two boys were shut
out by the wall of grown-up life. Luke crouched in bitter moodiness,
throwing clods of dirt at early grasshoppers and reconquering his lost
dignity. At last he said: "If you ever let on to anybody what I told
you----"
"Aw, say!" was Joel's protest. His knighthood as a sworn chum was put in
question and he was cruelly hurt.
Luke took assurance from his dismay and said in a burst of fury: "Aw, I
just said that! I know you won't tell. But just you wait till I can earn
a pile of money. I'll take Momma away from that old scoundrel so fast
it'll make his head swim!" Then he slumped again. "But it takes so
doggone long to grow up, and I don't know how to earn anything."
Then the morning of the world caught into its irresistible vivacity the
two boys in the morning of their youth, and before long they had
forgotten the irremediable woes of their elders, as their elders also
forgot the problems of national woes and cosmic despair.
The boys descended the sidelong path at a jog, brushing the dew and
grasshoppers and the birds from the hazel bushes and the papaw shrubs,
and scaring many a dewy rabbit from cover.
At the bottom of the bluff the railroad track was the only road along
the river, and they began the tormenting passage over the uneven ties
with cinders everywhere for their bare feet. They postponed as long as
they could the delight of breakfast, and then, sitting on a pile of
ties, made a feast of such hard-boiled eggs, cookies, cheese, and
crackers as they had been able to wheedle from their kitchens the night
before.
Their talk that morning was earnest, as boys' talk is apt to be. They
debated their futures as boys are apt to do. Being American boys, two
things characterized their plans: one, that the sky itself was the only
limit to their ambitions; the other, that they must not follow their
fathers' businesses.
Joel's father was an editor; Luke's kept a hardware store.
So Joel wanted to go into trade and Luke wanted to be a writer.
The boys wrangled with the shrill intensity of youth. A stranger passing
might have thought them about to come to blows. But they were simply
noisy with earnestness. Their argument was as unlike one of the debates
in Vergil's Eclogues as possible. It was an antistrophe of twang and
drawl:
"Gee, you durned fool, watcha want gointa business for?"
"Durned fool your own self! Watcha wanta be a writer for?"
Then they laughed wildly, struck at each other in mock hostility, and
went on with their all-day walk, returning at night too weary for books
or even a game of authors or checkers.
Both liked to read, and they were just emerging from the stratum of Old
Cap Collier, Nick Carter, the Kid-Glove Miner, and the Steam Man into
"Ivanhoe," "Scottish Chiefs," and "Cudjo's Cave." They had passed out of
the Oliver Optic, Harry Castlemon, James Otis era.
Joel Wixon read for excitement; Luke Mellows for information as to the
machinery of authorship.
Young as they were, they went to the theatre--to the op'ra house, which
never housed opera.
Joel went often and without price, since his father, being an editor,
had the glorious prerogative of "comps." Perhaps that was why Luke
wanted to be a writer.
Mr. Mellows, as hard as his own ware, did not believe in the theatre and
could not be bullied or wept into paying for tickets. But Luke became a
program boy and got in free, a precious privilege he kept secret as long
as possible, and lost as soon as his father noticed his absences from
home on play nights. Then he was whipped for wickedness and ordered to
give up the theatre forever.
Perhaps Luke would never suffer again so fiercely as he suffered from
that denial. It meant a free education and a free revel in the frequent
performances of Shakespeare, and of repertory companies that gave such
triumphs as "East Lynne" and "Camille," not to mention the road
companies that played the uproarious "Peck's Bad Boy," "Over the Garden
Wall," "Skipped by the Light of the Moon," and the Charles Hoyt
screamers.
The theatre had been a cloud-veiled Olympus of mystic exultations, of
divine terrors, and of ambrosial laughter. But it was a bad influence.
Mr. Mellows's theories of right and wrong were as simple and sharp as
his own knives: whatever was delightful and beautiful and laughterful
was manifestly wicked, God having plainly devised the pretty things as
baits for the devil's fishhooks.
Joel used to tell Luke about the plays he saw, and the exile's heart
ached with envy. They took long walks up the river or across the bridge
into the wonderlands that were overflowed in high-water times. And they
talked always of their futures. Boyhood was a torment, a slavery. Heaven
was just over the twenty-first birthday.
Joel got his future, all but the girl he planned to take with him up the
grand stairway of the palace he foresaw. Luke missed his future, and his
girl and all of his dreams.
Between the boys and their manhood stood, as usual, the fathers, strange
monsters, ogres, who seemed to have forgotten, at the top of the
beanstalk, that they had once been boys themselves down below.
After the early and unceasing misunderstandings as to motives and
standards of honor and dignity came the civil war over education.
Wouldn't you just know that each boy would get the wrong dad? Joel's
father was proud of Luke and not of Joel. He had printed some of Luke's
poems in the paper and called him a "precocious" native genius. Joel's
father wished that his boy could have had his neighbor's boy's gift. It
was his sorrow that Joel had none of the artistic leanings that are
called "gifts." He regretfully gave him up as one who would not carry on
the torch his father had set out with. He could not force his child to
be a genius, but he insisted that Joel should have an education. The
editor had found himself handicapped by a lack of the mysterious
enrichment that a tour through college gives the least absorbent mind.
He was determined to provide it for his boy, though Joel felt that every
moment's delay in leaping into the commercial arena was so much delay in
arriving at gladiatorial eminence.
Luke's father had had even less education than Editor Wixon, but he was
proud of it. He had never gone far in the world, but he was one of those
men who are automatically proud of everything they do and derive even
from failure or humiliation a savage conceit.
He made Luke work in his store or out of it as a delivery boy during
vacations from such school terms as the law required. He saw the value
of education enough to make out bills and write dunning letters. "Books"
to him meant the doleful books that bookkeepers keep.
As for any further learning, he thought it a waste of time, a kind of
wantonness.
He felt that Providence had intentionally selected a cross for him in
the son who was wicked and foolish enough to want to read stories and
see plays and go to school for years instead of going right into
business.
The thought of sending his boy through a preparatory academy and college
and wasting his youth on nonsense was outrageous. It maddened him to
have the boy plead for such folly. He tried in vain to whip it out of
him.
Joel's ideas of education were exactly those of Mr. Mellows, but he did
not like Mr. Mellows because of the anguish inflicted on Luke. Joel used
to beg Luke to run away from home. But that was impracticable for two
reasons: Luke was not of the runaway sort, but meek, and shy, and
obedient to a fault.
Besides, while a boy can run away from school, he cannot easily run away
to school. If he did, he would be sent back, and if he were not sent
back, how was he to pay for his "tooition" and his board and books and
clo'es?
It was Luke's influence that sent Joel away to boardin' school. He so
longed to go himself that Joel felt it foolish to deny himself the
godlike opportunity. So Luke went to school vicariously in Joel, as he
got his other experiences vicariously in books.
At school Joel found so much to do outside of his classes that he grew
content to go all the way. There was a glee club to manage, also an
athletic club; a paper to solicit ads and subscriptions for; class
officers to be elected, with all the delights of political
maneuvering--a world in little to run with all the solemnity and
competition of the adult cosmos. So Joel was happy and lucky and
successful in spite of himself.
The day after Joel took train up the river to his academy Luke took the
position his father secured for him and entered the little back room
where the Butterly Bottling Works kept its bookkeepers on high stools.
The Butterly soda pop, ginger ales, and other soft drinks were triumphs
of insipidity, and their birch beer sickened the thirstiest child. But
the making and the marketing and even the drinking of them were matters
of high emprise compared to the keeping of the books.
One of the saddest, sweetest, greatest stories ever written is Ellis'
Pigsispigs Butler's fable of the contented little donkey that went round
and round in the mill and thought he was traveling far. But that donkey
was blind and had no dreams denied.
Luke Mellows was a boy, a boy that still felt his life in every limb, a
boy devoured with fantastic ambitions. He had a genius within that
smothered and struggled till it all but perished unexpressed. It lived
only enough to be an anguish. It hurt him like a hidden, unmentioned
ingrowing toe nail that cuts and bleeds and excruciates the fleet member
it is meant to protect.
When Joel came home for his first vacation, with the rush of a young
colt that has had a good time in the corral but rejoices in the old
pastures, his first cry was for Luke. When he learned where he was, he
hurried to the Bottling Works. He was turned away with the curt remark
that employees could not be seen in business hours. In those days there
were no machines to simplify and verify the bookkeeper's treadmill task,
and business hours were never over.
Joel left word at Luke's home for Luke to call for him the minute he was
free. He did not come that evening, nor the next. Joel was hurt more
than he dared admit.
It was Sunday afternoon before Luke came round, a different Luke, a
lean, wan, worn-out shred of a youth. His welcome was sickly.
"Gee-min-_ent_-ly!" Joel roared. "I thought you was mad at me about
something. You never came near."
"I wanted to come," Luke croaked, "but nights, I'm too tired to walk
anywheres, and besides, I usually have to go back to the offus."
"Gee, that's damn tough," said Joel, who had grown from darn to damn.
Thinking to light Luke up with a congenial theme, Joel heroically
forbore to describe the marvels of academy life, and asked: "What you
been readin' lately? A little bit of everything, I guess, hey?"
"A whole lot of nothin'," Luke sighed. "I got no strength for readin' by
the time I shut my ledgers. I got to save my eyes, you know. The light's
bad in that back room."
"What you been writin', then?"
"Miles of figures and entries about one gross bottles lemon, two gross
sassaprilla, one gross empties returned."
"No more poetry?"
"No more nothin'."
Joel was obstinately cheerful. "Well, you been makin' money, anyways;
that's something."
"Yeh. I buy my own shoes and clo'es now and pay my board and lodgin' at
home. And paw puts the two dollars that's left into the savings bank. I
got nearly thirty dollars there now. I'll soon have enough for a winter
soot and overcoat."
"Gee, can't you go buggy ridin' even with Kit?"
"I could if I had the time and the price, and if her maw wasn't so
poorly that Kitty can't get away. I go over there Sunday afternoons
sometimes, but her maw always hollers for her to come in. She's afraid
to be alone. Kit's had to give up the high school account of her maw."
"How about her goin' away to be a great singer?"
Luke grinned at the insanity of such childish plans. "Oh, that's all
off. Kit can't even practice any more. It makes her mother nervous. And
Kit had to give up the church choir too. You'd hardly know her. She
cries a lot about lookin' so scrawny. O' course I tell her she's pirtier
than ever, but that only makes her mad. She can't go to sociables or
dances or picnics, and if she could she's got no clo'es. We don't have
much fun together; just sit and mope, and then I say: 'Well, guess I
better mosey on home,' and she says: 'All right; see you again next
Sunday, I s'pose. G'by.'"
The nightingale annoyed the owl and was hushed, and the poet rimed sums
in a daybook.
The world waited for them and needed them without knowing it; it would
have rewarded them with thrilled attention and wealth and fame. But
silence was their portion, silence and the dark and an ache that had no
voice.
Joel listened to Luke's elegy and groaned: "Gee!"
But he had an optimism like a powerful spring, and it struck back now
with a whirr: "I'll tell you what, Luke. Just you wait till I'm rich,
then I'll give you a job as vice president, and you can marry Kitty and
live on Broadway, in Noo York."
"I've got over believin' in Sandy Claus," said Luke.
Joel saw little of him during this vacation and less during the next.
Being by nature a hater of despair, he avoided Luke. He had fits of
remorse for this, and once he dared to make a personal appeal to old Mr.
Mellows to send Luke away to school. He was received with scant
courtesy, and only tolerated because he gave the father a chance to void
some of his bile at the worthlessness of Luke.
"He's no good; that's what's the matter of him. And willful too--he just
mopes around because he wants to show me I'm wrong. But he's only
cuttin' off his own nose to spite his face. I'll learn him who's got the
most will power."
Joel was bold enough to suggest: "Maybe Luke would be differ'nt if you'd
let him go to college. You know, Mr. Mellows, if you'll 'scuse my saying
it, there's some natures that are differ'nt from others. You hitch a
race horse up to a plow and you spoil a good horse and your field both.
Seems to me as if, if Luke got a chance to be a writer or a professor or
something, he might turn out to be a wonder. You can't teach a canary
bird to be a hen, you know, and----"
Mr. Mellows locked himself in that ridiculous citadel of ancient folly.
"When you're as old as I am, Joel, you'll know more. The first thing
anybody's got to learn in this world is to respect their parents."
Joel wanted to say: "I should think that depended on the parents."
But, of course, he kept silent, as the young usually do when they hear
the old maundering, and he gave up as he heard the stupid dolt returning
to his old refrain: "I left school when I was twelve years old. Ain't
had a day sence, and I can't say as I've been exactly a failure. Best
hardware store in Carthage and holdin' my own in spite of bad business."
Joel slunk away, unconvinced but baffled. One summer he brought all his
pressure to bear on Luke to persuade him to run away from his job and
strike out for the big city where the big opportunities grew.
But Luke shook his head. He lacked initiative. Perhaps that was where
his talent was not genius. It blistered him, but it made no steam.
Shakespeare had known enough to leave Stratford. He had had to hold
horses outside the theatre, and even then he had organized a little
business group of horse holders called "Shakespeare's boys." He had the
business sense, and he forced his way into the theatre and became a
stockholder. Shakespeare was always an adventurer. He had to work in a
butcher's shop, but before he was nineteen he was already married to a
woman of twenty-six, and none too soon for the first child's sake.
Luke Mellows had not the courage or the recklessness to marry Kitty,
though he had as good a job as Shakespeare's. Shakespeare would not let
a premature family keep him from his ambition.
He was twenty-one when he went to London, but he went.
London was a boom town then, about the size of Trenton, or Grand Rapids,
or Spokane, and growing fast. Boys were running away from the farms and
villages as they always have done. Other boys went to London from
Stratford. John Sadler became a big wholesale grocer and Richard Field
a publisher. They had as various reasons then as now.
But the main thing was that they left home. That might mean a noble or a
selfish ambition, but it took action.
Luke Mellows would not go. He dreaded to abandon his mother to the
father who bullied them both. He could not bear to leave Kitty alone
with the wretched mother who ruled her with tears.
Other boys ran or walked away from Carthage, some of them to become
failures, and some half successes, and some of them to acquire riches
and power. And other boys stayed at home.
Girls, too, had won obscurity by inertia or had swung into fame. Some of
the girls had stayed at home and gone wrong there. Some had gone away in
disgrace, and redeemed or damned themselves in larger parishes. There
were Aspasias and Joans of Arc in miniature, minor Florence Nightingales
and Melbas and Rosa Bonheurs. But they had all had to leap from the nest
and try their wings. Of those that did not take the plunge, none made
the flight.
Cowardice held some back, but the purest self-sacrifice others. Joel
felt that there ought to be a heaven for these latter, yet he hoped that
there was no hell for the former. For who can save himself from his own
timidity, and who can protect himself from his own courage?
Given that little spur of initiative, that little armor of selfish
indifference to the clinging hands at home, and how many a soul might
not have reached the stars? Look at the women who were crowding the
rolls of fame of late just because all womankind had broken free of the
apron strings of alleged respectability.
Joel had no proof that Luke Mellows would have amounted to much.
Perhaps, if he had ventured over the nest's edge, he would have perished
on the ground, trampled into dust by the fameward mob, or devoured by
the critics that pounce upon every fledgling and suck the heart out of
all that cannot fling them off.
But Joel could not surrender his childhood faith that Luke Mellows had
been meant for another Shakespeare. Yet Mellows had never written a
play or an act of a play. But, for that matter, neither had Shakespeare
before he went to London. He was only a poet at first, and some of his
poems were pretty poor stuff--if you took Shakespeare's name off it. And
his first poems had to be published by his fellow townsman Field.
There were the childish poems by Luke Mellows that Joel's father had
published in the Carthage "Clarion." Joel had forgotten them utterly,
and they were probably meritorious of oblivion. But there was one poem
Luke had written that Joel memorized.
It appeared in the "Clarion" years after Joel was a success in wool. His
father still sent him the paper, and in one number Joel was rejoiced to
read these lines:
THE ANONYMOUS
#By Luke Mellows#
Sometimes at night within a wooded park
Like an ocean cavern, fathoms deep in bloom,
Sweet scents, like hymns, from hidden flowers fume,
And make the wanderer happy, though the dark
Obscures their tint, their name, their shapely bloom.
So, in the thick-set chronicles of fame,
There hover deathless feats of souls unknown.
They linger like the fragrant smoke wreaths blown
From liberal sacrifice. Gone face and name;
The deeds, like homeless ghosts, live on alone.
Wixon, seated in the boat on Avon and lost in such dusk that he could
hardly see his hand upon the idle oar, recited the poem softly to
himself, intoning it in the deep voice one saves for poetry. It sounded
wonderful to him in the luxury of hearing his own voice upon the water
and indulging his own memory. The somber mood was perfect, in accord
with the realm of shadow and silence where everything beautiful and
living was cloaked in the general blur.
After he had heard his voice chanting the last long oh's of the final
verse, he was ashamed of his solemnity, and terrified lest some one
might have heard him and accounted him insane. He laughed at himself
for a sentimental fool.
He laughed too as he remembered what a letter of praise he had dictated
to his astonished stenographer and fired off at Luke Mellows; and at the
flippant letter he had in return.
Lay readers who send incandescent epistles to poets are apt to receive
answers in sardonic prose. The poet lies a little, perhaps, in a very
sane suspicion of his own transcendencies.
Luke Mellows had written:
"#Dear Old Joel#:
"I sure am much obliged for your mighty handsome letter. Coming to
one of the least successful wool-gatherers in the world from one of
the most successful wool distributors, it deserves to be highly
prized. And is. I will have it framed and handed down to my heirs,
of which there are more than there will ever be looms.
"You ask me to tell you all about myself. It won't take long. When
the Butterly Bottlery went bust, I had no job at all for six
months, so I got married to spite my father. And to please Kit,
whose poor mother ceased to suffer about the same time.
"The poor girl was so used to taking care of a poor old woman who
couldn't be left alone that I became her patient just to keep all
her talents from going to waste.
"The steady flow of children seems to upset the law of supply and
demand, for there is certainly no demand for more of my progeny and
there is no supply for them. But somehow they thrive.
"I am now running my father's store, as the old gentleman had a
stroke and then another. The business is going to pot as rapidly as
you would expect, but I haven't been able to kill it off quite yet.
"Thanks for advising me to go on writing immortal poetry. If I were
immortal, I might, but that fool thing was the result of about ten
years' hard labor. I tried to make a sonnet of it, but I gave up at
the end of the decade and called it whatever it is.
"Your father's paper published it free of charge, and so my income
from my poetry has been one-tenth of nothing per annum. Please
don't urge me to do any more. I really can't afford it.
"The poem was suggested to me by an ancient fit of blues over the
fact that Kit's once-so-beautiful voice would never be heard in
song, and by the fact that her infinite goodnesses will never meet
any recompense or even acknowledgment.
"I was bitter the first five years, but the last five years I began
to feel how rich this dark old world is in good, brave, sweet,
lovable, heartbreakingly beautiful deeds that simply cast a little
fragrance on the dark and are gone. They perfume the night and the
busy daylight dispels them like the morning mists that we used to
watch steaming and vanishing above the old river. The Mississippi
is still here, still rolling along its eternal multitudes of snows
and flowers and fruits and fish and snakes and dead men and boats
and trees.
"They go where they came from, I guess--in and out of nothing and
back again.
"It is a matter of glory to all of us that you are doing so nobly.
Keep it up and give us something to brag about in our obscurity.
Don't worry. We are happy enough in the dark. We have our batlike
sports and our owllike prides, and the full sun would blind us and
lose us our way.
"Kit sends you her love--and blushes as she says it. That is a very
daring word for such shy moles as we are, but I will echo it.
"Yours for old sake's sake. #Luke.#"
Vaguely remembering this letter now Joel inhaled a bit of the merciful
chloroform that deadens the pain of thwarted ambition.
The world was full of men and women like Luke and Kit. Some had given up
great hopes because they were too good to tread others down in their
quest. Some had quenched great talents because they were too fearsome or
too weak or too lazy to feed their lamps with oil and keep them trimmed
and alight. Some had stumbled through life darkly with no gifts of
talent, without even appreciation of the talents of others or of the
flowerlike beauties that star the meadows.
Those were the people he had known. And then there were the people he
had not known, the innumerable caravan that had passed across the earth
while he lived, the inconceivable hosts that had gone before, tribe
after tribe, generation upon generation, nation at the heels of nation,
cycle on era on age, and the backward perpetuity from everlasting unto
everlasting. People, people, peoples--poor souls, until the thronged
stars that make a dust of the Milky Way were a lesser mob.
Here in this graveyard at Stratford lay men who might have overtopped
Shakespeare's glory if they had but "had a mind to." Some of them had
been held in higher esteem in their town. But they were forgotten, their
names leveled with the surface of their fallen tombstones.
Had he not cried out in his own Hamlet: "O God, I could be bounded in a
nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I
have bad dreams--which dreams indeed are ambition; for the very
substance of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream--and I hold
ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow's
shadow."
After all, the greatest of men were granted but a lesser oblivion than
the least. And in that overpowering thought there was a strange comfort,
the comfort of misery finding itself in an infinite company.
The night was thick upon Avon. The swans had gone somewhere. The lights
in the houses had a sleepy look. It was time to go to bed.
Joel yawned with the luxury of having wearied his heart with emotion. He
had thought himself out for once. It was good to be tired. He put his
oars into the stream and, dipping up reflected stars, sent them swirling
in a doomsday chaos after him with the defiant revenge of a proud soul
who scorns the universe that grinds him to dust.
The old boatman was surly with waiting. He did not thank the foreigner
for his liberal largeness, and did not answer his good night.
As Wixon left the river and took the road for his hotel, the nightingale
(that forever anonymous nightingale, only one among the millions of
forgotten or throttled songsters) revolted for a moment or two against
the stifling doom and shattered it with a wordless sonnet of fierce and
beautiful protest--"The tawny-throated! What triumph! hark!--what pain!"
It was as if Luke Mellows had suddenly found expression in something
better than words, something that any ear could understand, an ache that
rang.
Wixon stopped, transfixed as by flaming arrows. He could not understand
what the bird meant or what he meant, nor could the bird. But as there
is no laughter that eases the heart like unpacking it of its woes in
something beyond wording, so there is nothing that brightens the eyes
like tears gushing without shame or restraint.
Joel Wixon felt that it was a good, sad, mad world, and that he had been
very close to Shakespeare--so close that he heard things nobody had ever
found the phrases for--things that cannot be said but only felt, and
transmitted rather by experience than by expression from one proud worm
in the mud to another.
FOOTNOTE:
[10] Copyright, 1920, by P. F. Collier & Son, Inc. Copyright, 1921, by
Rupert Hughes.
HIS JOB[11]
#By# GRACE SARTWELL MASON
From _Scribner's Magazine_
Against an autumn sunset the steel skeleton of a twenty-story office
building in process of construction stood out black and bizarre. It
flung up its beams and girders like stern and yet airy music, orderly,
miraculously strong, and delicately powerful. From the lower stories,
where masons made their music of trowel and hammer, to the top, where
steam-riveters rapped out their chorus like giant locusts in a summer
field, the great building lived and breathed as if all those human
energies that went to its making flowed warm through its steel veins.
In the west window of a womans' club next door one of the members stood
looking out at this building. Behind her at a tea-table three other
women sat talking. For some moments their conversation had had a
plaintive if not an actually rebellious tone. They were discussing the
relative advantages of a man's work and a woman's, and they had arrived
at the conclusion that a man has much the best of it when it comes to a
matter of the day's work.
"Take a man's work," said Mrs. Van Vechten, pouring herself a second cup
of tea. "He chooses it; then he is allowed to go at it with absolute
freedom. He isn't hampered by the dull, petty details of life that
hamper us. He----"
"Details! My dear, there you are right," broke in Mrs. Bullen. Two men,
first Mrs. Bullen's father and then her husband, had seen to it that
neither the biting wind of adversity nor the bracing air of experience
should ever touch her. "Details! Sometimes I feel as if I were
smothered by them. Servants, and the house, and now these relief
societies----"
She was in her turn interrupted by Cornelia Blair. Cornelia was a
spinster with more freedom than most human beings ever attain, her
father having worked himself to death to leave her well provided for.
"The whole fault is the social system," she declared. "Because of it men
have been able to take the really interesting work of the world for
themselves. They've pushed the dull jobs off onto us."
"You're right, Cornelia," cried Mrs. Bullen. She really had nothing to
say, but she hated not saying it. "I've always thought," she went on
pensively, "that it would be so much easier just to go to an office in
the morning and have nothing but business to think of. Don't you feel
that way sometimes, Mrs. Trask?"
The woman in the west window turned. There was a quizzical gleam in her
eyes as she looked at the other three. "The trouble with us women is
we're blind and deaf," she said slowly. "We talk a lot about men's work
and how they have the best of things in power and freedom, but does it
occur to one of us that a man _pays_ for power and freedom? Sometimes I
think that not one of the women of our comfortable class would be
willing to pay what our men pay for the power and freedom they get."
"What do they pay?" asked Mrs. Van Vechten, her lip curling.
Mrs. Trask turned back to the window. "There's something rather
wonderful going on out here," she called. "I wish you'd all come and
look."
Just outside the club window the steel-workers pursued their dangerous
task with leisurely and indifferent competence, while over their head a
great derrick served their needs with uncanny intelligence. It dropped
its chain and picked a girder from the floor. As it rose into space two
figures sprang astride either end of it. The long arm swung up and out;
the two "bronco-busters of the sky" were black against the flame of the
sunset. Some one shouted; the signalman pulled at his rope; the
derrick-arm swung in a little with the girder teetering at the end of
the chain. The most interesting moment of the steel-man's job had come,
when a girder was to be jockeyed into place. The iron arm swung the
girder above two upright columns, lowered it, and the girder began to
groove into place. It wedged a little. One of the men inched along,
leaned against space, and wielded his bar. The women stared, for the
moment taken out of themselves. Then, as the girder settled into place
and the two men slid down the column to the floor, the spectators turned
back to their tea-table.
"Very interesting," murmured Mrs. Van Vechten; "but I hardly see how it
concerns us."
A flame leaped in Mary Trask's face. "It's what we've just been talking
about, one of men's jobs. I tell you, men are working miracles all the
time that women never see. We envy them their power and freedom, but we
seldom open our eyes to see what they pay for them. Look here, I'd like
to tell you about an ordinary man and one of his jobs." She stopped and
looked from Mrs. Bullen's perplexity to Cornelia Blair's superior smile,
and her eyes came last to Sally Van Vechten's rebellious frown. "I'm
going to bore you, maybe," she laughed grimly. "But it will do you good
to listen once in a while to something _real_."
She sat down and leaned her elbows on the table. "I said that he is an
ordinary man," she began; "what I meant is that he started in like the
average, without any great amount of special training, without money,
and without pull of any kind. He had good health, good stock back of
him, an attractive personality, and two years at a technical
school--those were his total assets. He was twenty when he came to New
York to make a place for himself, and he had already got himself engaged
to a girl back home. He had enough money to keep him for about three
weeks, if he lived very economically. But that didn't prevent his
feeling a heady exhilaration that day when he walked up Fifth Avenue for
the first time and looked over his battle-field. He has told me often,
with a chuckle at the audacity of it, how he picked out his employer.
All day he walked about with his eyes open for contractors' signs.
Whenever he came upon a building in the process of construction he
looked it over critically, and if he liked the look of the job he made a
note of the contractor's name and address in a little green book. For he
was to be a builder--of big buildings, of course! And that night, when
he turned out of the avenue to go to the cheap boarding-house where he
had sent his trunk, he told himself that he'd give himself five years to
set up an office of his own within a block of Fifth Avenue.
"Next day he walked into the offices of Weil & Street--the first that
headed the list in the little green book--asked to see Mr. Weil, and,
strangely enough, got him, too. Even in those raw days Robert had a
cheerful assurance tempered with rather a nice deference that often got
him what he wanted from older men. When he left the offices of Weil &
Street he had been given a job in the estimating-room, at a salary that
would just keep him from starving. He grew lean and lost his country
color that winter, but he was learning, learning all the time, not only
in the office of Weil & Street, but at night school, where he studied
architecture. When he decided he had got all he could get out of the
estimating and drawing rooms he asked to be transferred to one of the
jobs. They gave him the position of timekeeper on one of the contracts,
at a slight advance in salary.
"A man can get as much or as little out of being timekeeper as he
chooses. Robert got a lot out of it. He formulated that summer a working
theory of the length of time it should take to finish every detail of a
building. He talked with bricklayers, he timed them and watched them,
until he knew how many bricks could be laid in an hour; and it was the
same way with carpenters, fireproofers, painters, plasterers. He soaked
in a thousand practical details of building: he picked out the best
workman in each gang, watched him, talked with him, learned all he could
of that man's particular trick; and it all went down in the little green
book. For at the back of his head was always the thought of the time
when he should use all this knowledge in his own business. Then one day
when he had learned all he could learn from being timekeeper, he walked
into Weil's office again and proposed that they make him one of the
firm's superintendents of construction.
"Old Weil fairly stuttered with the surprise of this audacious
proposition. He demanded to know what qualifications the young man could
show for so important a position, and Robert told him about the year he
had had with the country builder and the three summer vacations with the
country surveyor--which made no impression whatever on Mr. Weil until
Robert produced the little green book. Mr. Weil glanced at some of the
figures in the book, snorted, looked hard at his ambitious timekeeper,
who looked back at him with his keen young eyes and waited. When he left
the office he had been promised a tryout on a small job near the
offices, where, as old Weil said, they could keep an eye on him. That
night he wrote to the girl back home that she must get ready to marry
him at a moment's notice."
Mrs. Trask leaned back in her chair and smiled with a touch of sadness.
"The wonder of youth! I can see him writing that letter, exuberant,
ambitious, his brain full of dreams and plans--and a very inadequate
supper in his stomach. The place where he lived--he pointed it out to me
once--was awful. No girl of Rob's class--back home his folks were
'nice'--would have stood that lodging-house for a night, would have
eaten the food he did, or gone without the pleasures of life as he had
gone without them for two years. But there, right at the beginning, is
the difference between what a boy is willing to go through to get what
he wants and what a girl would or could put up with. And along with a
better position came a man's responsibility, which he shouldered alone.
"'I was horribly afraid I'd fall down on the job,' he told me long
afterward. 'And there wasn't a living soul I could turn to for help. The
thing was up to me alone!'"
Mrs. Trask looked from Mrs. Bullen to Mrs. Van Vechten. "Mostly they
fight alone," she said, as if she thought aloud. "That's one thing about
men we don't always grasp--the business of existence is up to the
average man alone. If he fails or gets into a tight place he has no one
to fall back on, as a woman almost always has. Our men have a prejudice
against taking their business difficulties home with them. I've a
suspicion it's because we're so ignorant they'd have to do too much
explaining! So in most cases they haven't even a sympathetic
understanding to help them over the bad places. It was so with Robert
even after he had married the girl back home and brought her to the
city. His idea was to keep her from all worry and anxiety, and so, when
he came home at night and she asked him if he had had a good day, or if
the work had gone well, he always replied cheerfully that things had
gone about the same as usual, even though the day had been a
particularly bad one. This was only at first, however. The girl happened
to be the kind that likes to know things. One night, when she wakened to
find him staring sleepless at the ceiling, the thought struck her that,
after all, she knew nothing of his particular problems, and if they were
partners in the business of living why shouldn't she be an intelligent
member of the firm, even if only a silent one?
"So she began to read everything she could lay her hands on about the
business of building construction, and very soon when she asked a
question it was a fairly intelligent one, because it had some knowledge
back of it. She didn't make the mistake of pestering him with questions
before she had any groundwork of technical knowledge to build on, and
I'm not sure that he ever guessed what she was up to, but I do know that
gradually, as he found that he did not, for instance, have to draw a
diagram and explain laboriously what a caisson was because she already
knew a good deal about caissons, he fell into the habit of talking out
to her a great many of the situations he would have to meet next day.
Not that she offered her advice nor that he wanted it, but what helped
was the fact of her sympathy--I should say her intelligent sympathy, for
that is the only kind that can really help.
"So when his big chance came along she was ready to meet it with him. If
he succeeded she would be all the better able to appreciate his success;
and if he failed she would never blame him from ignorance. You must
understand that his advance was no meteoric thing. He somehow, by dint
of sitting up nights poring over blueprints and text-books and by day
using his wits and his eyes and his native shrewdness, managed to pull
off with fair success his first job as superintendent; was given other
contracts to oversee; and gradually, through three years of hard work,
learning, learning all the time, worked up to superintending some of the
firm's important jobs. Then he struck out for himself."
Mrs. Trask turned to look out of the west window. "It sounds so easy,"
she mused. "'Struck out for himself.' But I think only a man can quite
appreciate how much courage that takes. Probably, if the girl had not
understood where he was trying to get to, he would have hesitated longer
to give up his good, safe salary; but they talked it over, she
understood the hazards of the game, and she was willing to take a
chance. They had saved a tiny capital, and only a little over five years
from the day he had come to New York he opened an office within a block
of Fifth Avenue.
"I won't bore you with the details of the next two years, when he was
getting together his organization, teaching himself the details of
office work, stalking architects and owners for contracts. He acquired a
slight stoop to his shoulders in those two years and there were days
when there was nothing left of his boyishness but the inextinguishable
twinkle in his hazel eyes. There were times when it seemed to him as if
he had put to sea in a rowboat; as if he could never make port; but
after a while small contracts began to come in, and then came along the
big opportunity. Up in a New England city a large bank building was to
be built; one of the directors was a friend of Rob's father, and Rob was
given a chance to put in an estimate. It meant so much to him that he
would not let himself count on getting the contract; he did not even
tell the partner at home that he had been asked to put in an estimate
until one day he came tearing in to tell her that he had been given the
job. It seemed too wonderful to be true. The future looked so dazzling
that they were almost afraid to contemplate it. Only something wildly
extravagant would express their emotion, so they chartered a hansom cab
and went gayly sailing up-town on the late afternoon tide of Fifth
Avenue; and as they passed the building on which Robert had got his job
as timekeeper he took off his hat to it, and she blew a kiss to it, and
a dreary old clubman in a window next door brightened visibly!"
Mrs. Trask turned her face toward the steel skeleton springing up across
the way like the magic beanstalk in the fairy-tale. "The things men have
taught themselves to do!" she cried. "The endurance and skill, the
inventiveness, the precision of science, the daring of human wits, the
poetry and fire that go into the making of great buildings! We women
walk in and out of them day after day, blindly--and this indifference is
symbolical, I think, of the way we walk in and out of our men's
lives.... I wish I could make you see that job of young Robert's so that
you would feel in it what I do--the patience of men, the strain of the
responsibility they carry night and day, the things life puts up to
them, which they have to meet alone, the dogged endurance of them...."
Mrs. Trask leaned forward and traced a complicated diagram on the
table-cloth with the point of a fork. "It was his first big job, you
understand, and he had got it in competition with several older
builders. From the first they were all watching him, and he knew it,
which put a fine edge to his determination to put the job through with
credit. To be sure, he was handicapped by lack of capital, but his past
record had established his credit, and when the foundation work was
begun it was a very hopeful young man that watched the first shovelful
of earth taken out. But when they had gone down about twelve feet, with
a trench for a retaining-wall, they discovered that the owners' boring
plan was not a trustworthy representation of conditions; the job was
going to be a soft-ground proposition. Where, according to the owners'
preliminary borings, he should have found firm sand with a normal amount
of moisture, Rob discovered sand that was like saturated oatmeal, and
beyond that quicksand and water. Water! Why, it was like a subterranean
lake fed by a young river! With the pulsometer pumps working night and
day they couldn't keep the water out of the test pier he had sunk. It
bubbled in as cheerfully as if it had eternal springs behind it, and
drove the men out of the pier in spite of every effort. Rob knew then
what he was up against. But he still hoped that he could sink the
foundations without compressed air, which would be an immense expense he
had not figured on in his estimate, of course. So he devised a certain
kind of concrete crib, the first one was driven--and when they got it
down beneath quicksand and water about twenty-five feet, it hung up on a
boulder! You see, below the stratum of sand like saturated oatmeal,
below the water and quicksand, they had come upon something like a New
England pasture, as thick with big boulders as a bun with currants! If
he had spent weeks hunting for trouble he couldn't have found more than
was offered him right there. It was at this point that he went out and
wired a big New York engineer, who happened to be a friend of his, to
come up. In a day or two the engineer arrived, took a look at the job,
and then advised Rob to quit.
"'It's a nasty job,' he told him. 'It will swallow every penny of your
profits and probably set you back a few thousands. It's one of the worst
soft-ground propositions I ever looked over.'
"Well that night young Robert went home with a sleep-walking expression
in his eyes. He and the partner at home had moved up to Rockford to be
near the job while the foundation work was going on, so the girl saw
exactly what he was up against and what he had to decide between.
"'I could quit,' he said that night, after the engineer had taken his
train back to New York, 'throw up the job, and the owners couldn't hold
me because of their defective boring plans. But if I quit there'll be
twenty competitors to say I've bit off more than I can chew. And if I
go on I lose money; probably go into the hole so deep I'll be a long
time getting out.'
"You see, where his estimates had covered only the expense of normal
foundation work he now found himself up against the most difficult
conditions a builder can face. When the girl asked him if the owners
would not make up the additional cost he grinned ruefully. The owners
were going to hold him to his original estimate; they knew that with his
name to make he would hate to give up; and they were inclined to be
almost as nasty as the job.
"'Then you'll have all this work and difficulty for nothing?' the girl
asked. 'You may actually lose money on the job?'
"'Looks that way,' he admitted.
"'Then why do you go on?' she cried.
"His answer taught the girl a lot about the way a man looks at his job.
'If I take up the cards I can't be a quitter,' he said. 'It would hurt
my record. And my record is the equivalent of credit and capital. I
can't afford to have any weak spots in it. I'll take the gaff rather
than have it said about me that I've lain down on a job. I'm going on
with this thing to the end.'"
Little shrewd, reminiscent lines gathered about Mrs. Trask's eyes.
"There's something exhilarating about a good fight. I've always thought
that if I couldn't be a gunner I could get a lot of thrills out of just
handing up the ammunition.... Well, Rob went on with the contract. With
the first crib hung up on a boulder and the water coming in so fast they
couldn't pump it out fast enough to dynamite, he was driven to use
compressed air, and that meant the hiring of a compressor, locks,
shafting--a terribly costly business--as well as bringing up to the job
a gang of the high-priced labor that works under air. But this was done,
and the first crib for the foundation piers went down slowly, with the
sand-hogs--men that work in the caissons--drilling and blasting their
way week after week through that underground New England pasture. Then,
below this boulder-strewn stratum, instead of the ledge they expected
they struck four feet of rotten rock, so porous that when air was put on
it to force the water back great air bubbles blew up all through the
lot, forcing the men out of the other caissons and trenches. But this
was a mere dull detail, to be met by care and ingenuity like the others.
And at last, forty feet below street level, they reached bed-rock.
Forty-six piers had to be driven to this ledge.
"Rob knew now exactly what kind of a job was cut out for him. He knew he
had not only the natural difficulties to overcome, but he was going to
have to fight the owners for additional compensation. So one day he went
into Boston and interviewed a famous old lawyer.
"'Would you object,' he asked the lawyer, 'to taking a case against
personal friends of yours, the owners of the Rockford bank building?'
"'Not at all--and if you're right, I'll lick 'em! What's your case?'
"Rob told him the whole story. When he finished the famous man refused
to commit himself one way or the other; but he said that he would be in
Rockford in a few days, and perhaps he'd look at Robert's little job. So
one day, unannounced, the lawyer appeared. The compressor plant was hard
at work forcing the water back in the caissons, the pulsometer pumps
were sucking up streams of water that flowed without ceasing into the
settling tank and off into the city sewers, the men in the caissons were
sending up buckets full of silt-like gruel. The lawyer watched
operations for a few minutes, then he asked for the owners' boring plan.
When he had examined this he grunted twice, twitched his lower lip
humorously, and said: 'I'll put you out of this. If the owners wanted a
deep-water lighthouse they should have specified one--not a bank
building.'
"So the battle of legal wits began. Before the building was done Joshua
Kent had succeeded in making the owners meet part of the additional cost
of the foundation, and Robert had developed an acumen that stood by him
the rest of his life. But there was something for him in this job bigger
than financial gain or loss. Week after week, as he overcame one
difficulty after another, he was learning, learning, just as he had done
at Weil & Street's. His hazel eyes grew keener, his face thinner. For
the job began to develop every freak and whimsy possible to a growing
building. The owner of the department store next door refused to permit
access through his basement, and that added many hundred dollars to the
cost of building the party wall; the fire and telephone companies were
continually fussing around and demanding indemnity because their poles
and hydrants got knocked out of plumb; the thousands of gallons of dirty
water pumped from the job into the city sewers clogged them up, and the
city sued for several thousand dollars' damages; one day the car-tracks
in front of the lot settled and valuable time was lost while the men
shored them up; now and then the pulsometer engines broke down; the
sand-hogs all got drunk and lost much time; an untimely frost spoiled a
thousand dollars' worth of concrete one night. But the detail that
required the most handling was the psychological effect on Rob's
subcontractors. These men, observing the expensive preliminary
operations, and knowing that Rob was losing money every day the
foundation work lasted, began to ask one another if the young boss would
be able to put the job through. If he failed, of course they who had
signed up with him for various stages of the work would lose heavily.
Panic began to spread among all the little army that goes to the making
of a big building. The terra-cotta-floor men, the steel men,
electricians and painters began to hang about the job with gloom in
their eyes; they wore a path to the architect's door, and he, never
having quite approved of so young a man being given the contract, did
little to allay their apprehensions. Rob knew that if this kept up
they'd hurt his credit, so he promptly served notice on the architect
that if his credit was impaired by false rumors he'd hold him
responsible; and he gave each subcontractor five minutes in which to
make up his mind whether he wanted to quit or look cheerful. To a man
they chose to stick by the job; so that detail was disposed of. In the
meantime the sinking of piers for one of the retaining-walls was giving
trouble. One morning at daylight Rob's superintendent telephoned him to
announce that the street was caving in and the buildings across the way
were cracking. When Rob got there he found the men standing about scared
and helpless, while the plate-glass windows of the store opposite were
cracking like pistols and the building settled. It appeared that when
the trench for the south wall had gone down a certain distance water
began to rush in under the sheeting as if from an underground river,
and, of course, undermined the street and the store opposite. The pumps
were started like mad, two gangs were put at work, with the
superintendent swearing, threatening, and pleading to make them dig
faster, and at last concrete was poured and the water stopped. That day
Rob and his superintendent had neither breakfast nor lunch; but they had
scarcely finished shoring up the threatened store when the owner of the
store notified Rob that he would sue for damages, and the secretary of
the Y. W. C. A. next door attempted to have the superintendent arrested
for profanity. Rob said that when this happened he and his
superintendent solemnly debated whether they should go and get drunk or
start a fight with the sand-hogs; it did seem as if they were entitled
to some emotional outlet, all the circumstances considered!
"So after months of difficulties the foundation work was at last
finished. I've forgotten to mention that there was some little
difficulty with the eccentricities of the sub-basement floor. The wet
clay ruined the first concrete poured, and little springs had a way of
gushing up in the boiler-room. Also, one night a concrete shell for the
elevator pit completely disappeared--sank out of sight in the soft
bottom. But by digging the trench again and jacking down the bottom and
putting hay under the concrete, the floor was finished; and that detail
was settled.
"The remainder of the job was by comparison uneventful. The things that
happened were all more or less in the day's work, such as a carload of
stone for the fourth story arriving when what the masons desperately
needed was the carload for the second, and the carload for the third
getting lost and being discovered after three days' search among the
cripples in a Buffalo freight-yard. And there was a strike of
structural-steel work workers which snarled up everything for a while;
and always, of course, there were the small obstacles and differences
owners and architects are in the habit of hatching up to keep a builder
from getting indifferent. But these things were what every builder
encounters and expects. What Rob's wife could not reconcile herself to
was the fact that all those days of hard work, all those days and nights
of strain and responsibility, were all for nothing. Profits had long
since been drowned in the foundation work; Robert would actually have to
pay several thousand dollars for the privilege of putting up that
building! When the girl could not keep back one wail over this detail
her husband looked at her in genuine surprise.
"'Why, it's been worth the money to me, what I've learned,' he said.
'I've got an education out of that old hoodoo that some men go through
Tech and work twenty years without getting; I've learned a new wrinkle
in every one of the building trades; I've learned men and I've learned
law, and I've delivered the goods. It's been hell, but I wouldn't have
missed it!'"
Mrs. Trask looked eagerly and a little wistfully at the three faces in
front of her. Her own face was alight. "Don't you see--that's the way a
real man looks at his work; but that man's wife would never have
understood it if she hadn't been interested enough to watch his job. She
saw him grow older and harder under that job; she saw him often haggard
from the strain and sleepless because of a dozen intricate problems; but
she never heard him complain and she never saw him any way but
courageous and often boyishly gay when he'd got the best of some
difficulty. And furthermore, she knew that if she had been the kind of a
woman who is not interested in her husband's work he would have kept it
to himself, as most American husbands do. If he had, she would have
missed a chance to learn a lot of things that winter, and she probably
wouldn't have known anything about the final chapter in the history of
the job that the two of them had fallen into the habit of referring to
as the White Elephant. They had moved back to New York then, and the
Rockford bank building was within two weeks of its completion, when at
seven o'clock one morning their telephone rang. Rob answered it and his
wife heard him say sharply: 'Well, what are you doing about it?' And
then: 'Keep it up. I'll catch the next train.'
"'What is it?' she asked, as he turned away from the telephone and she
saw his face.
"'The department store next to the Elephant is burning,' he told her.
'Fireproof? Well, I'm supposed to have built a fireproof building--but
you never can tell.'
"His wife's next thought was of insurance, for she knew that Robert had
to insure the building himself up to the time he turned it over to the
owners. 'The insurance is all right?' she asked him.
"But she knew by the way he turned away from her that the worst of all
their bad luck with the Elephant had happened, and she made him tell
her. The insurance had lapsed about a week before. Rob had not renewed
the policy because its renewal would have meant adding several hundreds
to his already serious deficit, and, as he put it, it seemed to him that
everything that could happen to that job had already happened. But now
the last stupendous, malicious catastrophe threatened him. Both of them
knew when he said good-by that morning and hurried out to catch his
train that he was facing ruin. His wife begged him to let her go with
him; at least she would be some one to talk to on that interminable
journey; but he said that was absurd; and, anyway, he had a lot of
thinking to do. So he started off alone.
"At the station before he left he tried to get the Rockford bank
building on the telephone. He got Rockford and tried for five minutes to
make a connection with his superintendent's telephone in the bank
building, until the operator's voice came to him over the wire: 'I tell
you, you can't get that building, mister. It's burning down!'
"'How do you know?' he besought her.
"'I just went past there and I seen it,' her voice came back at him.
"He got on the train. At first he felt nothing but a queer dizzy vacuum
where his brain should have been; the landscape outside the windows
jumbled together like a nightmare landscape thrown up on a
moving-picture screen. For fifty miles he merely sat rigidly still, but
in reality he was plunging down like a drowning man to the very bottom
of despair. And then, like the drowning man, he began to come up to the
surface again. The instinct for self-preservation stirred in him and
broke the grip of that hypnotizing despair. At first slowly and
painfully, but at last with quickening facility, he began to think, to
plan. Stations went past; a man he knew spoke to him and then walked on,
staring; but he was deaf and blind. He was planning for the future.
Already he had plumbed, measured, and put behind him the fact of the
fire; what he occupied himself with now was what he could save from the
ashes to make a new start with. And he told me afterwards that actually,
at the end of two hours of the liveliest thinking he had ever done in
his life, he began to enjoy himself! His fighting blood began to tingle;
his head steadied and grew cool; his mind reached out and examined every
aspect of his stupendous failure, not to indulge himself in the weakness
of regret, but to find out the surest and quickest way to get on his
feet again. Figuring on the margins of timetables, going over the
contracts he had in hand, weighing every asset he possessed in the
world, he worked out in minute detail a plan to save his credit and his
future. When he got off the train at Boston he was a man that had
already begun life over again; he was a general that was about to make
the first move in a long campaign, every move and counter-move of which
he carried in his brain. Even as he crossed the station he was
rehearsing the speech he was going to make at the meeting of his
creditors he intended to hold that afternoon. Then, as he hastened
toward a telephone-booth, he ran into a newsboy. A headline caught his
eye. He snatched at the paper, read the headlines, standing there in the
middle of the room. And then he suddenly sat down on the nearest bench,
weak and shaking.
"On the front page of the paper was a half-page picture of the Rockford
bank building with the flames curling up against its west wall, and
underneath it a caption that he read over and over before he could grasp
what it meant to him. The White Elephant had not burned; in fact, at the
last it had turned into a good elephant, for it had not only not burned
but it had stopped the progress of what threatened to be a very
disastrous conflagration, according to a jubilant despatch from
Rockford. And Robert, reading these lines over and over, felt an amazing
sort of indignant disappointment to think that now he would not have a
chance to put to the test those plans he had so minutely worked out. He
was in the position of a man that has gone through the painful process
of readjusting his whole life; who has mentally met and conquered a
catastrophe that fails to come off. He felt quite angry and cheated for
a few minutes, until he regained his mental balance and saw how absurd
he was, and then, feeling rather foolish and more than a little shaky,
he caught a train and went up to Rockford.
"There he found out that the report had been right; beyond a few cracked
wire-glass windows--for which, as one last painful detail, he had to
pay--and a blackened side wall, the Elephant was unharmed. The men
putting the finishing touches to the inside had not lost an hour's work.
All that dreadful journey up from New York had been merely one last turn
of the screw.
"Two weeks later he turned the Elephant over to the owners, finished, a
good, workmanlike job from roof to foundation-piers. He had lost money
on it; for months he had worked overtime his courage, his ingenuity, his
nerve, and his strength. But that did not matter. He had delivered the
goods. I believe he treated himself to an afternoon off and went to a
ball-game; but that was all, for by this time other jobs were under way,
a whole batch of new problems were waiting to be solved; in a week the
Elephant was forgotten."
Mrs. Trask pushed back her chair and walked to the west window. A
strange quiet had fallen upon the sky-scraper now; the workmen had gone
down the ladders, the steam-riveters had ceased their tapping. Mrs.
Trask opened the window and leaned out a little.
Behind her the three women at the tea-table gathered up their furs in
silence. Cornelia Blair looked relieved and prepared to go on to dinner
at another club, Mrs. Bullen avoided Mrs. Van Vechten's eye. In her rosy
face faint lines had traced themselves, as if vaguely some new
perceptiveness troubled her. She looked at her wristwatch and rose from
the table hastily.
"I must run along," she said. "I like to get home before John does. You
going my way, Sally?"
Mrs. Van Vechten shook her head absently. There was a frown between her
dark brows; but as she stood fastening her furs her eyes went to the
west window, with an expression in them that was almost wistful. For an
instant she looked as if she were going over to the window beside Mary
Trask; then she gathered up her gloves and muff and went out without a
word.
Mary Trask was unaware of her going. She had forgotten the room behind
her and her friends at the tea-table, as well as the other women
drifting in from the adjoining room. She was contemplating, with her
little, absent-minded smile, her husband's name on the builder's sign
halfway up the unfinished sky-scraper opposite.
"Good work, old Rob," she murmured. Then her hand went up in a quaint
gesture that was like a salute. "To all good jobs and the men behind
them!" she added.
FOOTNOTE:
[11] Copyright, 1920, by Charles Scribner's Sons. Copyright, 1921, by
Grace Sartwell Mason.
THE RENDING[12]
#By# JAMES OPPENHEIM
From _The Dial_
There is a bitter moment in youth, and this moment had come to Paul. He
had passed his mother's door without entering or even calling out to
her, and had climbed on doggedly to the top floor. Now he was shut in
his sanctuary, his room, sitting at his table. His head rested on a
hand, his dark eyes had an expression of confused anguish, a look of
guilt and sternness mingled.... He could no more have visited his
mother, he told himself, than he could voluntarily have chopped off his
hand. And yet he was amazed at the cruelty in himself, a hard cold
cruelty which prompted the thought: "Even if this means her death or my
death, I shall go through with this."
It was because of such a feeling that he couldn't talk to his mother.
Paul was one of those sensitive youths who are delivered over to their
emotions--swept now and then by exaltation, now by despair, now by
anguish or rage, always excessive, never fully under control. He was
moody, and always seemed unable to say the right thing or do the right
thing. Suddenly the emotion used him as a mere instrument and came forth
in a shameful nakedness. But the present situation was by all odds the
most terrible he had faced: for against the cold cruelty, there
throbbed, warm and unutterably sweet, like a bird in a nest of iron, an
intense childish longing and love....
You see, Paul was nineteen, the eldest son in a family of four, and his
mother was a widow. She was not poor; they lived in this large
comfortable house on a side street east of Central Park. But neither
was she well off, and Paul was very magnanimous; he had given up college
and gone to work as a clerk. Perhaps it wasn't only magnanimity, but
also pride. He was proud to be the oldest son, to play father, to advise
with his mother about the children, to be the man of the house. Yet he
was always a mere child, living, as his two sisters and his brother
lived, in delicate response to his mother's feelings and wishes. And he
wanted to be a good son: he thought nothing was more wonderful than a
child who was good to his mother. She had given all for her children,
they in return must give all to her. But against this spirit of
sacrifice there arose a crude, ugly, healthy, monstrous force, a
terrible thing that kept whispering to him: "You can't live your
mother's life: you must live your own life."
Once, when he had said something conceited, his mother had flashed out
at him: "You're utterly selfish." This stung and humiliated him. Yet
this terrible monster in himself seemed concerned about nothing but
self. It seemed a sort of devil always tempting him to eat of forbidden
fruit. Lovely fruit, too. There was Agnes, for instance: Agnes, a mere
girl, with a pigtail down her back, daughter of the fishman on Third
Avenue.
His mother held Agnes in horror. That her son should be in love with a
fishman's daughter! And all the child in Paul, responding so sensitively
to his mother's feelings, agreed to this. He had contempt for himself,
he struggled against the romantic Thousand and One Nights glamour, which
turned Third Avenue into a Lovers' Lane of sparkling lights. He
struggled, vainly. Poetry was his passion: and he steeped himself in
Romeo and Juliet, and in Keats's St. Agnes' Eve and The Pot of Basil....
It was then the great struggle with his mother began, and the large
house became a gloomy vault, something dank, damp, sombre, something out
of Poe, where a secret duel to the death was being fought, mostly in
undertones and sometimes with sharp cries and stabbing words.
Now, this evening, with his head in his hand, he knew that the end had
already been reached. To pass his mother's door without a greeting,
especially since he was well aware that she was ill, was so
unprecedented, so violent an act, that it seemed to have the finality of
something criminal. His mother had said two days ago: "This can't go on.
It is killing me."
"All right," he flashed. "It sha'n't. I'll get out."
"I suppose you'll marry," she said, "on fifteen a week."
He spoke bitterly:
"I'll get out of New York altogether. I'll work my way through
college...."
She almost sneered at the suggestion. And this sneer rankled. He
telegraphed his friend, at a little freshwater college, and Samuel
telegraphed back: "Come." That day he drew his money from the bank, and
got his tickets for the midnight sleeper. And he did all this with
perfect cruelty....
But now the time had come to go, and things were different. An autumn
wind was blowing out of the park, doubtless carrying seeds and dead
leaves, and gusting down the street, blowing about the sparkling lamps,
eddying in the area-ways, rapping in passing on the loose windows....
The lights in the houses were all warm, because you saw only the glowing
yellow shades: Third Avenue was lit up and down with shop-windows, and
people were doing late marketing. It was a night when nothing seemed so
sweet, or sane, or comfortable, as a soft-lighted room, and a family
sitting together. Soft voices, familiarity, warm intimacy, the feeling
of security and ease, the unspoken welling of love and understanding:
these belonged to such a night, when the whole world seemed dying and
there was only man to keep the fires burning against death.
And so, out of its tomb, the little child in Paul stepped out again,
beautiful and sweet with love and longing. And this little child said to
him: "Sacrifice--surrender--let the hard heart melt with pity.... There
is no freedom except in love, which gives all." For a moment Paul's
vivid imagination, which presented everything to him like works of
dramatic art, pictured himself going down the steps, as once he had
done, creeping to his mother's bed, flinging himself down, sobbing and
moaning, "Forgive me. Forgive me."
But just then he heard the stairs creak and thought that his eldest
sister was coming up to question him. His heart began a frightened
throbbing: he shook with a guilty fear, and at once he saved himself
with a bitter resurgence of cruel anger. He hated his sister, he told
himself, with a livid hatred. She always sided with his mother. She was
bossy and smart and high and mighty. He knew what he would do. He jumped
up, went to the door, and locked it. So--she could beat her head on the
door, for all he cared!
He packed. He got out his valise, and filled it with his necessaries. He
would let the rest go: the books, the old clothes. He was going to start
life all over again He was going to wipe out the past....
When he was finished, he anxiously opened his pocket-book to see if the
tickets were safe. He looked at them. It was now ten o'clock. Two
hours--and then the long train would pull out, and he would be gone....
To-morrow morning they'd come downstairs. His sister probably would sit
at the foot of the table, instead of himself. The table would seem small
with himself gone. Perhaps the house would seem a little empty.
Automatically they would wait for the click of his key in the front door
lock at seven in the evening. He would not come home at all....
His mother might die. She had told him this was killing her.... It was
so easy for him to go, so hard for her to stay.... She had invested most
of her capital of hopes and dreams and love in him: he was the son; he
was the first man. And now he was shattering the very structure of her
life....
Easy for him to go! He slumped into the chair again, at the table....
The wind blew strongly, and he knew just how the grey street looked with
its spots of yellow sparkling lamplight; its shadows, its glowing
windows.... He knew the smell of the fish-shop, the strange raw
sea-smell, the sight of glittering iridescent scales, the beauty of lean
curved fishes, the red of broiled lobsters, the pink-cheeked swarthy
fishman, the dark loveliness of Agnes.... He had written to Agnes. His
mother didn't know of it, but he was done with Agnes. Agnes meant
nothing to him. She had only been a way out, something to cling to,
something to fight for in this fight for his life....
Fight for his life! Had he not read of this in books, how the young must
slay the old in order that life might go on, just as the earth must die
in autumn so that the seeds of spring may be planted? Had he not read
Ibsen's Master Builder, where the aging hero hears the dread doom which
youth brings, "the younger generation knocking at the door"? He was the
younger generation, he was the young hero. And now, at once, a vivid
dramatization took place in his brain: it unwound clear as
hallucination. He forgot everything else, he sat there as a writer sits,
living his fiction, making strange gestures with face and hands,
muttering words under his breath....
In this phantasy, he saw himself rising, appearing a little older, a
little stronger, and on his face a look of divine compassion and
understanding, yet a firmness inexorable as fate. He repeated Hamlet's
words: "For I am cruel only to be kind." Blame life, fate, the gods who
decree that a man must live his own life: don't blame me.
He unlocked the door, crossed the big hall, stepped down the stairs. His
mother's door was shut. The younger generation must knock at it. He
knocked. A low, sad voice said: "Come." He opened the door.
This was the way it always was: a pin-point of light by the western
window, a newspaper pinned to the glass globe of the gas-jet to shield
his mother's eyes, the wide range of warm shadow, and in the shadow the
two beds. But his sister was not in one of them. His mother was
alone....
He went to the bedside....
"Mother!"
"Paul!"
He took her hand.
"Are you feeling better?" he asked.
"A little more quiet, Paul...."
"I am very glad...."
Now there was silence.... Then he spoke quietly, honestly, candidly. It
was the only way. Why can't human beings be simple with one another, be
sweetly reasonable? Isn't a little understanding worth more than pride
and anger? To understand is to forgive. Surely any one must know that.
Starting to speak, he sat down on the chair beside the bed, still
holding her hand....
"Mother, come let's talk to one another. You think perhaps I have
stopped loving you. It isn't true. I love you deeply. All this is
breaking my heart. But how can I help it? Can't you see that I am young,
and my life all before me? The best of your life is behind you. You have
lived, I haven't. You have tasted the sweet mysteries of love, the
agonies of death and birth, the terrors of lonely struggle. And I must
have these, too. I am hungry for them. I can't help myself. I am like a
leaf in the wind, like a rain-drop in the storm.... How can you keep me
here? If you compel me, I'll become a shadow, all twisted and broken. I
won't be a man, but a helpless child. Perhaps I shall go out of my mind.
And what good will that do you? You will suffer more if I stay, than if
I go. Oh, understand me, mother, understand me!"
His mother began to cry. She spoke at first as she always spoke, and
then more like a mother in a poem.
"Understand? What do you understand? You know nothing about life. Oh, I
only wish you had children and your children turned against you! That's
the only way that you will ever learn.... I worked for you so hard. I
gave up everything for my children. And your father died, and I went on
alone, a woman with a great burden.... What sort of life have I had?
Sacrifice, toil, tears.... I skimped along. I wore the same dress year
after year, for five, six years.... I hung over your sickbeds, I taught
you at my knees. I have known the bitterness of child-bearing, and the
bitter cry of children.... I have fought alone for my little ones....
And you, Paul! You who were the darling of my heart, my little man, you
who said you would take your father's place and take care of me and of
your sisters and brother! You who were to repay me for everything; to
give me a future, to comfort my old age, the staff I leaned on, my
comfort, my son! I was proud of you as you grew up: so proud to see your
pride, and your ambition. I knew you would succeed, that you would have
fame and power and wealth, and I should be the proudest mother in the
world! This was my dream.... Now I see you a failure, one who cares for
nothing but self-indulgence and pleasure, a rolling stone, a flitter
from place to place, and I--I am an old woman, deserted, left alone to
wither in bitterness.... I gave everything to you--and you--you give
back despair, loneliness, anguish. I gave you life: you turn on me and
destroy me for the gift.... Oh, mother-love! What man will understand
it--the piercing anguish, the roots that clutch the deep heart?... I
feel the chill of death creeping over me...."
The tears rolled down Paul's cheeks. He pressed her hand now with both
of his.
"Oh, mother, but I do understand! I have understood always, I have tried
so hard to help you. I have tried so hard to be a good son. But this is
something greater than I. We are in the hands of God, mother, and it is
the law that the young must leave the old. Why do parents expect the
impossible of their children? Does not the Bible say, 'You must leave
father and mother, and cleave to me'? Didn't you leave grandmother and
grandpa, to go to your husband? Can't you remember when you were young,
and your whole soul carried you away to your own life and your own
future? Mother, let us part with understanding, let us part with love."
"But when are you going, Paul?"
"To-night."
His mother flung her arms about him desperately and clung to him....
"I can't let you go, Paul," she moaned.
"Oh, mother," he sobbed. "This is breaking my heart...."
"It is Agnes you are going to," she whispered.
"No, mother," he cried. "It is not Agnes. I am going to college. I shall
never marry. I shall still take care of you. Think--every vacation I
will be back here...."
She relaxed, lay back, and his inventions failed. He had a confused
sense of soothing her, of gentleness and reconciliation, of a last
good-bye....
And now he sat, head on hand, slowly realizing again the little gas-lit
room, the shaking window, the autumn wind. A throb of fear pulsed
through his heart. He had passed his mother's door without greeting her.
And there was his valise, and here his tickets. And the time? It was
nearly eleven.... A great heaviness of futility and despair weighed him
down. He felt incapable of action. He felt that he had done some
terrible deed--like striking his mother in the face--something
unforgivable, unreversible, struck through and through with finality....
He felt more and more cold and brutal, with the sullenness of the
criminal who can't undo his crime and won't admit his guilt....
Was it all over, then? Was he really leaving? Fear, and a prophetic
breath of the devastating loneliness he should yet know, came upon him,
paralyzed his mind, made him weak and aghast. He was going out into the
night of death, launching on his frail raft into the barren boundless
ocean of darkness, leaving the last landmarks, drifting out in utter
nakedness and loneliness.... All the future grew black and impenetrable;
but he knew shapes of terror, demons of longing and grief and guilt
loomed there, waiting for him. He knew that he was about to understand a
little of life in a very ancient and commonplace way: the way of
experience and of reality: that at first hand he was to have the taste
against his palate of that bitterness and desolation, that terror and
helplessness, which make the songs and fictions of man one endless
tragedy.... Destiny was taking him, as the jailer who comes to the
condemned man's cell on the morning of the execution. There was no
escape. No end, but death....
He was leaving everything that was comfort in a bleak world, everything
that was safe and tried and known in a world of unthinkable perils and
mysteries. Only this he knew, still a child, still on the inside of his
mother's house.... He knew now how terrible, how deep, how human were
the cords that bound him to his mother, how fierce the love, by the fear
and deadly helplessness he felt.... What could he have been about all
these months of darkening the house, of paining his mother and the
children, of bringing matters to such inexorable finalities? Was he
sane? Was he now possessed of some demon, some beast of low desire?
Freedom? What was freedom? Could there be freedom without love?
And now, as he sat there, there came slow deliberate footsteps on the
stairs. There was no mistaking the sounds. It was Cora, his older
sister.... His heart palpitated wildly, he shook with fear, the colour
left his cheeks, and he tried to set his face and his throat like flint
not to betray himself. She came straight on. She knocked.
"Paul," she said in a peremptory tone, clothed with all the authority of
his mother....
He grew cold all over, his eyelids narrowed; he felt brutal....
"What is it?" he asked hard.
"Mother wants you to come right down."
"I will come," he said.
Her footsteps departed.... He rose slowly, heavily, like the man who
must now face the executioner.... He stuck his pocketbook back in his
coat and picked up his valise. Mechanically he looked about the room.
Then he unlocked and opened the door, shut off the gas, and went into
the lighted hall.
And as he descended the steps he felt ever smaller before the growing
terror of the world. Never had he been more of a child than at this
moment: never had he longed more fiercely to sob and cry out and give
over everything.... How had this guilt descended upon him? What had he
done? Why was all this necessary? Who was forcing him through this
strange and frightful experience? He went on, lower and lower....
The door of his mother's room was a little open. It was all as it had
always been--the pin-point of light, the shading newspaper, the
sick-room silence, the warm shadow.... He paused a second to summon up
strength, to combat the monster of fear and guilt in his heart. He tried
with all his little boyish might to smooth out his face, to set it
straight and firm. He pushed the door, set down the valise, entered:
pale, large-eyed, looking hard and desperate.
He did not see his sister at all, though she sat under the light. His
mother he hardly saw: had the sense of a towel binding her head, and the
dim form under the bedclothes. He stepped clumsily--he was trembling
so--to the foot of her bed, and grasped the brass rail for support....
His mother's voice was low and thick; a terrible voice. Her throat was
swollen, and she could speak only with difficulty. The voice accused
him. It said plainly: "It was you did this."
She said: "Paul, this has got to end."
His tongue seemed the fork of a snake, his words came with such deadly
coldness....
"It will end to-night."
"How ... to-night?"
"I'm leaving.... I'm going west...."
"West.... Where?"
"To Sam's...."
"Oh," said his mother....
There was a long cruel silence. He shut his eyes, overcome with a sort
of horror.... Then she turned her face a little away, and he heard the
faintly breathed words....
"This is the end of me...."
Still he said nothing. She turned toward him, with a groan.
"Have you nothing to say?"
Again he spoke with deadly coldness....
"Nothing...."
She waited a moment: then she spoke....
"You have no feelings. When you set out to do a thing, you will trample
over every one. I have never been able to do anything with you. You may
become a great man, Paul: but I pity any one who loves you, any one who
gets in your path. You will kill whatever holds you--always.... I was a
fool to give birth to you: a great fool to count on you.... Well, it's
over.... You have your way...."
He was amazed: he trembling there, guilty, afraid, horrified, his whole
soul beseeching the comfort of her arms! He a cold trampler?
He stood, with all the feeling of one who is falsely condemned, and yet
with all the guilt of one who has sinned....
And then, suddenly, a wild animal cry came from his mother's throat....
"Oh," she cried, "how terrible it is to have children!"
His heart echoed her cry.... The executioner's knife seemed to strike
his throat....
He stood a long while in the silence.... Then his mother turned in the
bed, sideways, and covered her face with the counterpane.... His sister
rose up stiffly, whispering:
"She's going to sleep."
He stood, dead.... He turned like a wound-up mechanism, went to the
door, picked up his valise, and fumbled his way through the house....
The outer door he shut very softly....
He must take the Lexington Avenue car. Yes; that was the quickest way.
He faced west. The great wind of autumn came with a glorious gusto,
doubtless with flying seeds and flying leaves, chanting the song of the
generations, and of them that die and of them that are born.
FOOTNOTE:
[12] Copyright, 1920, by The Dial Publishing Company. Copyright, 1921,
by James Oppenheim.
THE DUMMY-CHUCKER[13]
#By# ARTHUR SOMERS ROCHE
From _The Cosmopolitan_
There were many women on East Fourteenth Street. With the seeing eye of
the artist, the dummy-chucker looked them over and rejected them.
Kindly-seeming, generously fat, the cheap movie houses disgorged them. A
dozen alien tongues smote the air, and every one of them hinted of far
lands of poverty, of journeys made and hardships undergone. No better
field for beggary in all Manhattan's bounteous acreage.
But the dummy-chucker shook his head and shuffled ever westward. These
were good souls, but--they thought in cents. Worse than that, they
translated their financial thoughts into the pitiful coinage of their
birthplaces. And in the pocket of the dummy-chucker rested a silver
dollar.
A gaunt man, who towered high, and whose tongue held the cadences of the
wide spaces, had slipped this dollar into the receptive hand of the
dummy-chucker. True, it was almost a fortnight ago, and the man might
have gone back to his Western home--but Broadway had yielded him up to
the dummy-chucker. Broadway might yield up such another.
At Union Square, the dummy-chucker turned north. Past the Flatiron
Building he shuffled, until, at length, the Tenderloin unfolded itself
before him. These were the happy hunting-grounds!
Of course--and he glanced behind him quickly--there were more fly cops
on Broadway than on the lower East Side. One of them had dug his bony
fingers between the shabby collar of the dummy-chucker's coat and the
lank hair that hung down his neck. He had yanked the dummy-chucker to
his feet. He had dragged his victim to a patrol-box; he had taken him to
a police station, whence he had been conveyed to Jefferson Market Court,
where a judge had sentenced him to a sojourn on Blackwell's Island.
That had been ten days ago. This very day, the municipal ferry had
landed the dummy-chucker, with others of his slinking kind, upon
Manhattan's shores again. Not for a long time would the memory of the
Island menu be effaced from the dummy-chucker's palate, the locked doors
be banished from his mental vision.
A man might be arrested on Broadway, but he might also get the money.
Timorously, the dummy-chucker weighed the two possibilities. He felt the
dollar in his pocket. At a street in the Forties, he turned westward.
Beyond Eighth Avenue there was a place where the shadow of prohibition
was only a shadow.
Prices had gone up, but, as Finisterre Joe's bartender informed him,
there was more kick in a glass of the stuff that cost sixty cents to-day
than there had been in a barrel of the old juice. And, for a good
customer, Finisterre Joe's bartender would shade the price a trifle. The
dummy-chucker received two portions of the crudely blended poison that
passed for whisky in exchange for his round silver dollar. It was with
less of a shuffle and more of a stride that he retraced his steps toward
Broadway.
Slightly north of Times Square, he surveyed his field of action. Across
the street, a vaudeville house was discharging its mirth-surfeited
audience. Half a block north, laughing groups testified that the comedy
they had just left had been as funny as its press-agent claimed. The
dummy-chucker shook his head. He moved south, his feet taking on that
shuffle which they had lost temporarily.
"She Loved and Lost"--that was the name of the picture being run this
week at the Concorde. Outside was billed a huge picture of the star, a
lady who received more money for making people weep than most actors
obtain for making them laugh. The dummy-chucker eyed the picture
approvingly. He took his stand before the main entrance. This was the
place! If he tried to do business with a flock of people that had just
seen Charlie Chaplin, he'd fail. He knew! Fat women who'd left the twins
at home with the neighbor's cook in order that they might have a good
cry at the Concorde--these were his mutton-heads.
He reeled slightly as several flappers passed--just for practise. Ten
days on Blackwell's hadn't spoiled his form. They drew away from him;
yet, from their manners, he knew that they did not suspect him of being
drunk. Well, hurrah for prohibition, after all! Drunkenness was the last
thing people suspected of a hard-working man nowadays. He slipped his
hand in his pocket. They were coming now--the fat women with the babies
at home, their handkerchiefs still at their eyes. His hand slipped to
his mouth. His jaws moved savagely. One thing was certain: out of
to-day's stake he'd buy some decent-tasting soap. This awful stuff that
he'd borrowed from the Island----
The stoutest woman paused; she screamed faintly as the dummy-chucker
staggered, pitched forward, and fell at her short-vamped feet. Excitedly
she grasped her neighbor's arm.
"He's gotta fit!"
The neighbor bent over the prostrate dummy-chucker.
"Ep'lepsy," she announced. "Look at the foam on his lips."
"Aw, the poor man!"
"Him so strong-looking, too!"
"Ain't it the truth? These husky-looking men sometimes are the
sickliest."
The dummy-chucker stirred. He sat up feebly. With his sleeve, he wiped
away the foam. Dazedly he spoke.
"If I had a bite to eat----"
He looked upward at the first stout woman. Well and wisely had he chosen
his scene. Movie tickets cost fractions of a dollar. There is always
some stray silver in the bead bag of a movie patron. Into the
dummy-chucker's outstretched palm fell pennies, nickels, dimes,
quarters. There was present to-day no big-hearted Westerner with silver
dollars, but here was comparative wealth. Already the dummy-chucker saw
himself again at Finisterre Joe's, this time to purchase no bottled
courage but to buy decantered ease.
"T'ank, ladies," he murmured. "If I can get a bite to eat and rest
up----"
"'Rest up!'" The shrill jeer of a newsboy broke in upon his pathetic
speech. "Rest up again on the Island! That's the kind of a rest up
you'll get, y' big tramp."
"Can't you see the man's sick?" The stoutest one turned indignantly upon
the newsboy. But the scoffer held his ground.
"'Sick?' Sure he's sick! Eatin' soap makes anyone sick. Youse dames is
easy. He's chuckin' a dummy."
"'A dummy?'"
The dummy-chucker sat a bit straighter.
"Sure, ma'am. That's his game. He t'rows phony fits. He eats a bit of
soap and makes his mouth foam. Last week, he got pinched right near
here----"
But the dummy-chucker heard no more. He rolled sidewise just as the cry:
"Police!" burst from the woman's lips. He reached the curb, rose, burst
through the gathering crowd, and rounded a corner at full speed.
He was half-way to Eighth Avenue, and burning lungs had slowed him to a
jog-trot, when a motor-car pulled up alongside the curb. It kept gentle
pace with the fugitive. A shrewd-featured young man leaned from its
fashionably sloped wheel.
"Better hop aboard," he suggested. "That policeman is fat, but he has
speed."
The dummy-chucker glanced over his shoulder. Looming high as the
Woolworth Building, fear overcoming the dwarfing tendency of distance,
came a policeman. The dummy-chucker leaped to the motor's running-board.
He climbed into the vacant front seat.
"Thanks, feller," he grunted. "A li'l speed, please."
The young man chuckled. He rounded the corner into Eighth Avenue and
darted north among the trucks.
At Columbus Circle, the dummy-chucker spoke.
"Thanks again, friend," he said. "I'll be steppin' off here."
His rescuer glanced at him.
"Want to earn a hundred dollars?"
"Quitcher kiddin'," said the dummy-chucker.
"No, no; this is serious," said the young man.
The dummy-chucker leaned luxuriously back in his seat.
"Take me _anywhere_, friend," he said.
Half-way round the huge circle at Fifty-ninth Street, the young man
guided the car. Then he shot into the park. They curved eastward. They
came out on Fifth Avenue, somewhere in the Seventies. They shot eastward
another half-block, and then the car stopped in front of an
apartment-house. The young man pressed the button on the steering-wheel.
In response to the short blast of the electric horn, a uniformed man
appeared. The young man alighted. The dummy-chucker followed suit.
"Take the car around to the garage, Andrews," said the young man. He
nodded to the dummy-chucker. In a daze, the mendicant followed his
rescuer. He entered a gorgeously mirrored and gilded hall. He stepped
into an elevator chauffeured by a West Indian of the haughtiest blood.
The dummy-chucker was suddenly conscious of his tattered garb, his
ill-fitting, run-down shoes. He stepped, when they alighted from the
lift, as gingerly as though he trod on tacks.
A servant in livery, as had been the waiting chauffeur downstairs,
opened a door. If he was surprised at his master's choice of guest, he
was too well trained to show it. He did not rebel even when ordered to
serve sandwiches and liquor to the dummy-chucker.
"You seem hungry," commented the young man.
The dummy-chucker reached for another sandwich with his left hand while
he poured himself a drink of genuine Scotch with his right.
"_And_ thirsty," he grunted.
"Go to it," observed his host genially.
The dummy-chucker went to it for a good ten minutes. Then he leaned back
in the heavily upholstered chair which the man servant had drawn up for
him. He stared round him.
"Smoke?" asked his host.
The dummy-chucker nodded. He selected a slim panetela and pinched it
daintily between the nails of his thumb and forefinger. His host watched
the operation with interest.
"Why?" he asked.
"Better than cuttin' the end off," explained the dummy-chucker. "It's a
good smoke," he added, puffing.
"You know tobacco," said his host. "Where did you learn?"
"Oh, we all have our ups and downs," replied the dummy-chucker. "But
don't get nervous. I ain't goin' to tell you that I was a millionaire's
son, educated at Harvard. I'm a bum."
"Doesn't seem to bother you," said his host.
"It don't," asserted the dummy-chucker. "Except when the police butt
into my game. I just got off Blackwell's Island this morning."
"And almost went back this afternoon."
The dummy-chucker nodded.
"Almost," he said. His eyes wandered around the room. "_Some_ dump!" he
stated. Then his manner became business-like. "You mentioned a hundred
dollars--what for?"
The young man shrugged.
"Not hard work. You merely have to look like a gentleman, and act
like----"
"Like a bum?" asked the dummy-chucker.
"Well, something like that."
The dummy-chucker passed his hand across his stubby chin.
"Shoot!" he said. "Anything short of murder--_anything_, friend."
His host leaned eagerly forward.
"There's a girl--" he began.
The dummy-chucker nodded.
"There always is," he interrupted. "I forgot to mention that I bar
kidnaping, too."
"It's barred," said the young man. He hitched his chair a trifle nearer
his guest. "She's beautiful. She's young."
"And the money? The coin? The good red gold?"
"I have enough for two. I don't care about her money."
"Neither do I," said the dummy-chucker; "so long as I get my hundred.
Shoot!"
"About a year ago," resumed the host, "she accepted, after a long
courtship, a young man by the name of--oh, let's call him Jones."
The dummy-chucker inhaled happily.
"Call him any darned thing you like," he said cheerily.
"Jones was a drunkard," said the host.
"And she married him?" The dummy-chucker's eyebrows lifted slightly.
"No. She told him that if he'd quit drinking she'd marry him. She
stipulated that he go without drink for one year."
The dummy-chucker reached for a fresh cigar. He lighted it and leaned
back farther in the comfortable chair.
"Jones," continued the young man, "had tried to quit before. He knew
himself pretty well. He knew that, even with war-time prohibition just
round the corner, he couldn't keep away from liquor. Not while he stayed
in New York. But a classmate of his had been appointed head of an
expedition that was to conduct exploration work in Brazil. He asked his
classmate for a place in the party. You see, he figured that in the
wilds of Brazil there wouldn't be any chance for drunkenness."
"A game guy," commented the dummy-chucker. "Well, what happened?"
"He died of jungle-fever two months ago," was the answer. "The news just
reached Rio Janeiro yesterday."
The dummy-chucker lifted his glass of Scotch.
"To a regular feller," he said, and drank. He set his glass down gently.
"And the girl? I suppose she's all shot to pieces?"
"She doesn't know," said the host quietly.
The dummy-chucker's eyebrows lifted again.
"I begin to get you," he said. "I'm the messenger from Brazil who breaks
the sad news to her, eh?"
The young man shook his head.
"The news isn't to be broken to her--not yet. You see--well, I was
Jones' closest friend. He left his will with me, his personal effects,
and all that. So I'm the one that received the wire of his death. In a
month or so, of course, it will be published in the newspapers--when
letters have come from the explorers. But, just now, I'm the only one
that knows it."
"Except me," said the dummy-chucker.
The young man smiled dryly.
"Except you. And you won't tell. Ever wear evening clothes?"
The dummy-chucker stiffened. Then he laughed sardonically.
"Oh, yes; when I was at Princeton. What's the idea?"
His host studied him carefully.
"Well, with a shave, and a hair-cut, and a manicure, and the proper
clothing, and the right setting--well, if a person had only a quick
glance--that person might think you were Jones."
The dummy-chucker carefully brushed the ashes from his cigar upon a
tray.
"I guess I'm pretty stupid to-night. I still don't see it."
"You will," asserted his host. "You see, she's a girl who's seen a great
deal of the evil of drink. She has a horror of it. If she thought that
Jones had broken his pledge to her, she'd throw him over."
"'Throw him over?' But he's _dead_!" said the dummy-chucker.
"She doesn't know that," retorted his host.
"Why don't you tell her?"
"Because I want to marry her."
"Well, I should think the quickest way to get her would be to tell her
about Jones----"
"You don't happen to know the girl," interrupted the other. "She's a
girl of remarkable conscience. If I should tell her that Jones died in
Brazil, she'd enshrine him in her memory. He'd be a hero who had died
upon the battle-field. More than that--he'd be a hero who had died upon
the battle-field in a war to which she had sent him. His death would be
upon her soul. Her only expiation would be to be faithful to him
forever."
"I won't argue about it," said the dummy-chucker. "I don't know her.
Only--I guess your whisky has got me. I don't see it at all."
His host leaned eagerly forward now.
"She's going to the opera to-night with her parents. But, before she
goes, she's going to dine with me at the Park Square. Suppose, while
she's there, Jones should come in. Suppose that he should come in
reeling, noisy, _drunk_! She'd marry me to-morrow."
"I'll take your word for it," said the dummy-chucker. "Only, when she's
learned that Jones had died two months ago in Brazil----"
"She'll be married to me then," responded the other fiercely. "What I
get, I can hold. If she were Jones' wife, I'd tell her of his death. I'd
know that, sooner or later, I'd win her. But if she learns now that he
died while struggling to make himself worthy of her, she'll never give
to another man what she withheld from him."
"I see," said the dummy-chucker slowly. "And you want me to----"
"There'll be a table by the door in the main dining-room engaged in
Jones' name. You'll walk in there at a quarter to eight. You'll wear
Jones' dinner clothes. I have them here. You'll wear the studs that he
wore, his cuff-links. More than that, you'll set down upon the table,
with a flourish, his monogrammed flask. You'll be drunk, noisy,
disgraceful----"
"How long will I be all that--in the hotel?" asked the dummy-chucker
dryly.
"That's exactly the point," said the other. "You'll last about thirty
seconds. The girl and I will be on the far side of the room. I'll take
care that she sees you enter. Then, when you've been quietly ejected,
I'll go over to the _mâitre d'hôtel_ to make inquiries. I'll bring back
to the girl the flask which you will have left upon the table. If she
has any doubt that you are Jones, the flask will dispel it.
"And then?" asked the dummy-chucker.
"Why, then," responded his host, "I propose to her. You see, I think it
was pity that made her accept Jones in the beginning. I think that she
cares for me."
"And you really think that I look enough like Jones to put this over?"
"In the shaded light of the dining-room, in Jones' clothes--well, I'm
risking a hundred dollars on it. Will you do it?"
The dummy-chucker grinned.
"Didn't I say I'd do _anything_, barring murder? Where are the clothes?"
One hour and a half later, the dummy-chucker stared at himself in the
long mirror in his host's dressing-room. He had bathed, not as
Blackwell's Island prisoners bathe, but in a luxurious tub that had a
head-rest, in scented water, soft as the touch of a baby's fingers. Then
his host's man servant had cut his hair, had shaved him, had massaged
him until color crept into the pale cheeks. The sheerest of knee-length
linen underwear touched a body that knew only rough cotton. Silk socks,
heavy, gleaming, snugly encased his ankles. Upon his feet were correctly
dull pumps. That the trousers were a wee bit short mattered little. In
these dancing-days, trousers should not be too long. And the fit of the
coat over his shoulders--he carried them in a fashion unwontedly
straight as he gazed at his reflection--balanced the trousers' lack of
length. The soft shirt-bosom gave freely, comfortably as he breathed.
Its plaited whiteness enthralled him. He turned anxiously to his host.
"Will I do?" he asked.
"Better than I'd hoped," said the other. "You look like a gentleman."
The dummy-chucker laughed gaily.
"I feel like one," he declared.
"You understand what you are to do?" demanded the host.
"It ain't a hard part to act," replied the dummy-chucker.
"And you _can_ act," said the other. "The way you fooled those women in
front of the Concorde proved that you----"
"Sh-sh!" exclaimed the dummy-chucker reproachfully. "Please don't remind
me of what I was before I became a gentleman."
His host laughed.
"You're all right." He looked at his watch. "I'll have to leave now.
I'll send the car back after you. Don't be afraid of trouble with the
hotel people. I'll explain that I know you, and fix matters up all
right. Just take the table at the right hand side as you enter----"
"Oh, I've got it all right," said the dummy-chucker. "Better slip me
something on account. I may have to pay something----"
"You get nothing now," was the stern answer. "One hundred dollars when I
get back here. And," he added, "if it should occur to you at the hotel
that you might pawn these studs, or the flask, or the clothing for more
than a hundred, let me remind you that my chauffeur will be watching one
entrance, my valet another, and my chef another."
The dummy-chucker returned his gaze scornfully.
"Do I look," he asked, "like the sort of man who'd _steal_?"
His host shook his head.
"You certainly don't," he admitted.
The dummy-chucker turned back to the mirror. He was still entranced with
his own reflection, twenty minutes later, when the valet told him that
the car was waiting. He looked like a millionaire. He stole another
glance at himself after he had slipped easily into the fur-lined
overcoat that the valet held for him, after he had set somewhat rakishly
upon his head the soft black-felt hat that was the latest accompaniment
to the dinner coat.
Down-stairs, he spoke to Andrews, the chauffeur.
"Drive across the Fifty-ninth Street bridge first."
The chauffeur stared at him.
"Who you given' orders to?" he demanded.
The dummy-chucker stepped closer to the man.
"You heard my order?"
His hands, busily engaged in buttoning his gloves, did not clench. His
voice was not raised. And Andrews must have outweighed him by thirty
pounds. Yet the chauffeur stepped back and touched his hat.
"Yes, sir," he muttered.
The dummy-chucker smiled.
"The lower classes," he said to himself, "know rank and position when
they see it."
His smile became a grin as he sank back in the limousine that was his
host's evening conveyance. It became almost complacent as the car slid
down Park Avenue. And when, at length, it had reached the center of the
great bridge that spans the East River, he knocked upon the glass. The
chauffeur obediently stopped the car. The dummy-chucker's grin was
absolutely complacent now.
Down below, there gleamed lights, the lights of ferries, of sound
steamers, and--of Blackwell's Island. This morning, he had left there, a
lying mendicant. To-night, he was a gentleman. He knocked again upon the
glass. Then, observing the speaking-tube, he said through it languidly:
"The Park Square, Andrews."
An obsequious doorman threw open the limousine door as the car stopped
before the great hotel. He handed the dummy-chucker a ticket.
"Number of your car, sir," he said obsequiously.
"Ah, yes, of course," said the dummy-chucker. He felt in his pocket.
Part of the silver that the soft-hearted women of the movies had
bestowed upon him this afternoon found repository in the doorman's hand.
A uniformed boy whirled the revolving door that the dummy-chucker might
pass into the hotel.
"The coat-room? Dining here, sir? Past the news-stand, sir, to your
left. Thank you, sir." The boy's bow was as profound as though the
quarter in his palm had been placed there by a duke.
The girl who received his coat and hat smiled as pleasantly and
impersonally upon the dummy-chucker as she did upon the whiskered,
fine-looking old gentleman who handed her his coat at the same time. She
called the dummy-chucker's attention to the fact that his tie was a
trifle loose.
The dummy-chucker walked to the big mirror that stands in the corner
made by the corridor that parallels Fifty-ninth Street and the corridor
that separates the tea-room from the dining-room. His clumsy fingers
found difficulty with the tie. The fine-looking old gentleman, adjusting
his own tie, stepped closer.
"Beg pardon, sir. May I assist you?"
The dummy-chucker smiled a grateful assent. The old gentleman fumbled a
moment with the tie.
"I think that's better," he said. He bowed as one man of the world might
to another, and turned away.
Under his breath, the dummy-chucker swore gently.
"You'd think, the way he helped me, that I belonged to the Four
Hundred."
He glanced down the corridor. In the tea-room were sitting groups who
awaited late arrivals. Beautiful women, correctly garbed,
distinguished-looking men. Their laughter sounded pleasantly above the
subdued strains of the orchestra. Many of them looked at the
dummy-chucker. Their eyes rested upon him for that well-bred moment that
denotes acceptance.
"One of themselves," said the dummy-chucker to himself.
Well, why not? Once again he looked at himself in the mirror. There
might be handsomer men present in this hotel, but--was there any one who
wore his clothes better? He turned and walked down the corridor.
The _mâitre d'hôtel_ stepped forward inquiringly as the dummy-chucker
hesitated in the doorway.
"A table, sir?"
"You have one reserved for me. This right-hand one by the door."
"Ah, yes, of course, sir. This way, sir."
He turned toward the table. Over the heads of intervening diners, the
dummy-chucker saw his host. The shaded lights upon the table at which
the young man sat revealed, not too clearly yet well enough, the
features of a girl.
"A lady!" said the dummy-chucker, under his breath. "The real thing!"
As he stood there, the girl raised her head. She did not look toward the
dummy-chucker, could not see him. But he could see the proud line of her
throat, the glory of her golden hair. And opposite her he could see the
features of his host, could note how illy that shrewd nose and slit of a
mouth consorted with the gentle face of the girl. And then, as the
_mâitre d'hôtel_ beckoned, he remembered that he had left the flask, the
monogrammed flask, in his overcoat pocket.
"Just a moment," he said.
He turned and walked back toward the corner where was his coat. In the
distance, he saw some one, approaching him, noted the free stride, the
carriage of the head, the set of the shoulders. And then, suddenly, he
saw that the "some one" was himself. The mirror was guilty of the
illusion.
Once again he stood before it, admiring himself. He summoned the face of
the girl who was sitting in the dining-room before his mental vision.
And then he turned abruptly to the check-girl.
"I've changed my mind," he said. "My coat, please."
* * * * *
He was lounging before the open fire when three-quarters of an hour
later his host was admitted to the luxurious apartment. Savagely the
young man pulled off his coat and approached the dummy-chucker.
"I hardly expected to find you here," he said.
The dummy-chucker shrugged.
"You said the doors were watched. I couldn't make an easy getaway. So I
rode back here in your car. And when I got here, your man made me wait,
so--here we are," he finished easily.
"'Here we are!' Yes! But when you were there--I saw you at the entrance
to the dining-room--for God's sake, why didn't you do what you'd agreed
to do?"
The dummy-chucker turned languidly in his chair. He eyed his host
curiously.
"Listen, feller," he said: "I told you that I drew the line at murder,
didn't I?"
"'Murder?' What do you mean? What murder was involved?"
The dummy-chucker idly blew a smoke ring.
"Murder of faith in a woman's heart," he said slowly. "Look at me! Do I
look the sort who'd play your dirty game?"
The young man stood over him.
"Bannon," he called. The valet entered the room. "Take the clothes off
this--this bum!" snapped the host. "Give him his rags."
He clenched his fists, but the dummy-chucker merely shrugged. The young
man drew back while his guest followed the valet into another room.
Ten minutes later, the host seized the dummy-chucker by the tattered
sleeve of his grimy jacket. He drew him before the mirror.
"Take a look at yourself, you--bum!" he snapped. "Do you look, now, like
the sort of man who'd refuse to earn an easy hundred?"
The dummy-chucker stared at himself. Gone was the debonair gentleman of
a quarter of an hour ago. Instead, there leered back at him a
pasty-faced, underfed vagrant, dressed in the tatters of unambitious,
satisfied poverty.
"Bannon," called the host, "throw him out!"
For a moment, the dummy-chucker's shoulders squared, as they had been
squared when the dinner jacket draped them. Then they sagged. He offered
no resistance when Bannon seized his collar. And Bannon, the valet, was
a smaller man than himself.
He cringed when the colored elevator-man sneered at him. He dodged when
little Bannon, in the mirrored vestibule raised a threatening hand. And
he shuffled as he turned toward Central Park.
But as he neared Columbus Circle, his gait quickened. At Finisterre
Joe's he'd get a drink. He tumbled in his pockets. Curse the luck! He'd
given every cent of his afternoon earnings to doormen and pages and
coat-room girls!
His pace slackened again as he turned down Broadway. His feet were
dragging as he reached the Concorde moving-picture theater. His hand,
sunk deep in his torn pocket, touched something. It was a tiny piece of
soap.
As the audience filed sadly out from the teary, gripping drama of "She
Loved And Lost," the dummy-chucker's hand went from his pocket to his
lips. He reeled, staggered, fell. His jaws moved savagely. Foam appeared
upon his lips. A fat woman shrank away from him, then leaned forward in
quick sympathy.
"He's gotta fit!" she cried.
"Ep'lepsy," said her companion pityingly.
FOOTNOTE:
[13] Copyright, 1920, by The International Magazine Company. Copyright,
1921, by Arthur Somers Roche.
BUTTERFLIES[14]
#By# ROSE SIDNEY
From _The Pictorial Review_
The wind rose in a sharp gust, rattling the insecure windows and sighing
forlornly about the corners of the house. The door unlatched itself,
swung inward hesitatingly, and hung wavering for a moment on its sagging
hinges. A formless cloud of gray fog blew into the warm, steamy room.
But whatever ghostly visitant had paused upon the threshold, he had
evidently decided not to enter, for the catch snapped shut with a quick,
passionate vigor. The echo of the slamming door rang eerily through the
house.
Mart Brenner's wife laid down the ladle with which she had been stirring
the contents of a pot that was simmering on the big, black stove, and
dragging her crippled foot behind her, she hobbled heavily to the door.
As she opened it a new horde of fog-wraiths blew in. The world was a
gray, wet blanket. Not a light from the village below pierced the mist,
and the lonely army of tall cedars on the black hill back of the house
was hidden completely.
"Who's there?" Mrs. Brenner hailed. But her voice fell flat and muffled.
Far off on the beach she could dimly hear the long wail of a fog-horn.
The faint throb of hope stilled in her breast. She had not really
expected to find any one at the door unless perhaps it should be a
stranger who had missed his way at the cross-roads. There had been one
earlier in the afternoon when the fog first came. But her husband had
been at home then and his surly manner quickly cut short the stranger's
attempts at friendliness. This ugly way of Mart's had isolated them
from all village intercourse early in their life on Cedar Hill.
Like a buzzard's nest, their home hung over the village on the
unfriendly sides of the bleak slope. Visitors were few and always
reluctant, even strangers, for the village told weird tales of Mart
Brenner and his kin. The village said that he--and all those who
belonged to him as well--were marked for evil and disaster. Disaster had
truly written itself throughout their history. His mother was mad, a
tragic madness of bloody prophecies and dim fears; his only son a
witless creature of eighteen, who for all his height and bulk, spent his
days catching butterflies in the woods on the hill, and his nights in
laboriously pinning them, wings outspread, upon the bare walls of the
house.
The room where the Brenner family lived its queer, taciturn life was
tapestried in gold, the glowing tapestry of swarms of outspread yellow
butterflies sweeping in gilded tides from the rough floors to the black
rafters overhead.
Olga Brenner herself was no less tragic than her family. On her face,
written in the acid of pain, was the history of the blows and cruelty
that had warped her active body. Owing to her crippled foot, her entire
left side sagged hopelessly and her arm swung away, above it, like a
branch from a decayed tree. But more saddening than her distorted body
was the lonely soul that looked out of her tired faded eyes.
She was essentially a village woman with a profound love of its
intimacies and gossip, its fence-corner neighborliness. The horror with
which the village regarded her, as the wife of Mart Brenner, was an
eating sore. It was greater than the tragedy of her poor, witless son,
the hatred of old Mrs. Brenner, and her ever-present fear of Mart. She
had never quite given up her unreasoning hope that some day some one
might come to the house in one of Mart's long, unexplained absences and
sit down and talk with her over a cup of tea. She put away the feeble
hope again as she turned back into the dim room and closed the door
behind her.
"Must have been that bit of wind," she meditated. "It plays queer tricks
sometimes."
She went to the mantel and lighted the dull lamp. By the flicker she
read the face of the clock.
"Tobey's late!" she exclaimed uneasily. Her mind never rested from its
fear for Tobey. His childlike mentality made him always the same burden
as when she had rocked him hour after hour, a scrawny mite of a baby on
her breast.
"It's a fearful night for him to be out!" she muttered.
"Blood! Blood!" said a tragic voice from a dark corner by the stove.
Barely visible in the ruddy half-dark of the room a pair of demoniac
eyes met hers.
Mrs. Brenner threw her shriveled and wizened mother-in-law an angry and
contemptuous glance.
"Be still!" she commanded. "'Pears to me that's all you ever
say--blood!"
The glittering eyes fell away from hers in a sullen obedience. But the
tragic voice went on intoning stubbornly, "Blood on his hands! Red!
Dripping! I see blood!"
Mrs. Brenner shuddered. "Seems like you could shut up a spell!" she
complained.
The old woman's voice trailed into a broken and fitful whispering.
Olga's commands were the only laws she knew, and she obeyed them. Mrs.
Brenner went back to the stove. But her eyes kept returning to the clock
and thence to the darkening square of window where the fog pressed
heavily into the very room.
Out of the gray silence came a shattering sound that sent the ladle
crashing out of Mrs. Brenner's nerveless hand and brought a moan from
the dozing old woman!
It was a scream, a long, piercing scream, so intense, so agonized that
it went echoing about the room as tho a disembodied spirit were
shrieking under the rafters! It was a scream of terror, an innocent, a
heart-broken scream!
"Tobey!" cried Mrs. Brenner, her face rigid.
The old woman began to pick at her ragged skirt, mumbling "Blood! Blood
on his hands! I see it!"
"That was on the hill," said Mrs. Brenner slowly, steadying her voice.
She put her calloused hand against her lips and stood listening with
agonized intentness. But now the heavy, foggy silence had fallen again.
At intervals came the long, faint wail of the fog-horn. There was no
other sound. Even the old woman in the shadowy corner had ceased her
mouthing.
Mrs. Brenner stood motionless, with her hand against her trembling lips,
her head bent forward for four of the dull intervals between the
siren-call.
Then there came the sound of steps stumbling around the house. Mrs.
Brenner, with her painful hobble, reached the door before the steps
paused there, and threw it open.
The feeble light fell on the round, vacant face of her son, his
inevitable pasteboard box, grim with much handling, clutched close to
his big breast, and in it the soft beating and thudding of imprisoned
wings.
Mrs. Brenner's voice was scarcely more than a whisper, "Tobey!" but it
rose shrilly as she cried, "Where you been? What was that scream?"
Tobey stumbled past her headlong into the house, muttering, "I'm cold!"
She shut the door and followed him to the stove, where he stood shaking
himself and beating at his damp clothes with clumsy fingers.
"What was that scream?" she asked him tensely. She knotted her rough
fingers as she waited for his answer.
"I dunno," he grunted sullenly. His thick lower lip shoved itself
forward, baby-fashion.
"Where you been?" she persisted.
As he did not answer she coaxed him, "Aw, come on, Tobey. Tell ma. Where
you been?"
"I been catching butterflies," he answered. "I got a big one this time,"
with an air of triumph.
"Where was you when you heard the scream?" she asked him cunningly.
He gave a slow shake of his head. "I dunno," he answered in his dull
voice.
A big shiver shook him. His teeth chattered and he crouched down on his
knees before the open oven-door.
"I'm cold," he complained. Mrs. Brenner came close to him and laid her
hand on his wet, matted hair. "Tobey's a bad boy," she scolded. "You
mustn't go out in the wet like this. Your hair's soaked."
She got down stiffly on her lame knees. "Sit down," she ordered, "and
I'll take off your shoes. They're as wet as a dish-rag."
"They're full of water, too," Tobey grumbled as he sprawled on the
floor, sticking one big, awkward foot into her lap. "The water in there
makes me cold."
"You spoil all your pa's shoes that away," said Mrs. Brenner, her head
bent over her task. "He told you not to go round in the wet with 'em any
more. He'll give you a lashing if he comes in and sees your shoes. I'll
have to try and get 'em dry before he comes home. Anyways," with a
breath of deep relief, "I'm glad it ain't that red clay from the hill.
That never comes off."
The boy paid no attention to her. He was investigating the contents of
his box, poking a fat, dirty forefinger around among its fluttering
contents. There was a flash of yellow wings, and with a crow of triumph
the boy shut the lid.
"The big one's just more than flapping," he chuckled. "I had an awful
hard time to catch him. I had to run and run. Look at him, Ma," the boy
urged. She shook her head.
"I ain't got the time," she said, almost roughly. "I got to get these
shoes off'n you afore your father gets home, Tobey, or you'll get a
awful hiding. Like as not you'll get it anyways, if he's mad. Better get
into bed."
"Naw!" Tobey protested. "I seen pa already. I want my supper out here! I
don't want to go to bed!"
Mrs. Brenner paused. "Where was pa?" she asked.
But Tobey's stretch of coherent thinking was past. "I dunno!" he
muttered.
Mrs. Brenner sighed. She pulled off the sticky shoes and rose stiffly.
"Go get in bed," she said.
"Aw, Ma, I want to stay up with my butterflies," the boy pleaded. Two
big tears rolled down his fat cheeks. In his queer, clouded world he had
learned one certain fact. He could almost always move his mother with
tears.
But this time she was firm. "Do as I told you!" she ordered him. "Mebbe
if you're in bed your father won't be thinking about you. And I'll try
to dry these shoes afore he thinks about them." She took the grimy box
from his resisting fingers, and, holding it in one hand, pulled him to
his feet and pushed him off to his bedroom.
When she had closed the door on his wail she returned and laid the box
on the shelf. Then she hurried to gather up the shoes. Something on her
hand as she put it out for the sodden shoes caught her eye and she
straightened, holding her hand up where the feeble light from the shelf
caught it.
"I've cut myself," she said aloud. "There's blood on my hand. It must
'a' been on those lacings of Tobey's."
The old woman in the corner roused. "Blood!" she screeched. "Olga! Blood
on his hands!"
Mrs. Brenner jumped. "You old screech-owl!" she cried. She wiped her
hand quickly on her dirty apron, and held it up again to see the cut.
But there was no cut on her hand! Where had that blood come from? From
Tobey's shoes?
And who was it that had screamed on the hill? She felt herself enwrapped
in a mist of puzzling doubts.
She snatched up the shoes, searching them with agonized eyes. But the
wet and pulpy mass had no stain. Only the wet sands and the slimy
water-weeds of the beach clung to them.
Then where had the blood come from? It was at this instant that she
became conscious of shouts on the hillside. She limped to the door and
held it open a crack. Very faintly she could see the bobbing lights of
torches. A voice carried down to her.
"Here's where I found his hat. That's why I turned off back of these
trees. And right there I found his body!"
"Are you sure he's dead?" quavered another voice.
"Stone-dead!"
Olga Brenner shut the door. But she did not leave it immediately. She
stood leaning against it, clutching the wet shoes, her staring eyes
glazing.
Tobey was strong. He had flown into childish rages sometimes and had
hurt her with his undisciplined strength. Where was Mart? Tobey had seen
him. Perhaps they had fought. Her mind refused to go further. But little
subtle undercurrents pressed in on her. Tobey hated and feared his
father. And Mart was always enraged at the sight of his half-witted son.
What _had_ happened? And yet no matter what had occurred, Tobey had not
been on the hill. His shoes bore mute testimony to that. And the scream
had been on the slope. She frowned.
Her body more bent than ever, she hobbled slowly over to the stove and
laid the shoes on the big shelf above it, spreading them out to the
rising heat. She had barely arranged them when there was again the sound
of approaching footsteps. These feet, however, did not stumble. They
were heavy and certain. Mrs. Brenner snatched at the shoes, gathered
them up, and turned to run. But one of the lacings caught on a nail on
the shelf. She jerked desperately at the nail, and the jerking loosened
her hold of both the shoes. With a clatter they fell at her feet.
In that moment Mart Brenner stood in the doorway. Poverty, avarice, and
evil passions had minted Mart Brenner like a devil's coin. His shaggy
head lowered in his powerful shoulders. His long arms, apelike, hung
almost to his knees. Behind him the fog pressed in, and his rough,
bristly hair was beaded with diamonds of moisture.
"Well?" he snapped. A sardonic smile twisted his face. "Caught you,
didn't I?"
He strode forward. His wife shrank back, but even in her shivering
terror she noticed, as one notices small details in a time of peril,
that his shoes were caked with red mud and that his every step left a
wet track on the floor.
"He didn't do 'em no harm," she babbled. "They're just wet. Please,
Mart, they ain't harmed a mite. Just wet. That's all. Tobey went on the
beach with 'em. It won't take but a little spell to dry 'em."
Her husband stooped and snatched up the shoes. She shrank into herself,
waiting the inevitable torrent of his passion and the probable blow.
Instead, as he stood up he was smiling. Bewildered, she stared at him in
a dull silence.
"No harm done," he said, almost amiably. Shaking with relief, she
stretched out her hand.
"I'll dry 'em," she said. "Give me your shoes and I'll get the mud off."
Her husband shook his head. He was still smiling.
"Don't need to dry 'em. I'll put 'em away," he replied, and, still
tracking his wet mud, he went into Tobey's room.
Her fear flowed into another channel. She dreaded her husband in his
black rages, but she feared him more now in his unusual amiability.
Perhaps he would strike Tobey when he saw him. She strained her ears to
listen.
A long silence followed his exit. But there was no outcry from Tobey, no
muttering nor blows. After a few moments, moving quickly, her husband
came out. She raised her heavy eyes to stare at him. He stopped and
looked intently at his own muddy tracks.
"I'll get a rag and wipe up the mud right off."
As she started toward the nail where the rag hung, her husband put out a
long arm and detained her. "Leave it be," he said. He smiled again.
She noticed, then, that he had removed his muddy shoes and wore the wet
ones. He had fully laced them, and she had almost a compassionate
moment as she thought how wet and cold his feet must be.
"You can put your feet in the oven, Mart, to dry 'em."
Close on her words she heard the sound of footsteps and a sharp knock
followed on the sagging door. Mart Brenner sat down on a chair close to
the stove and lifted one foot into the oven. "See who's there!" he
ordered.
She opened the door and peered out. A group of men stood on the step,
the faint light of the room picking out face after face that she
recognized--Sheriff Munn; Jim Barker, who kept the grocery in the
village; Cottrell Hampstead, who lived in the next house below them;
young Dick Roamer, Munn's deputy; and several strangers.
"Well?" she asked ungraciously.
"We want to see Brenner!" one of them said.
She stepped back. "Come in," she told them. They came in, pulling off
their caps, and stood huddled in a group in the center of the room.
Her husband reluctantly stood up.
"Evening!" he said, with his unusual smile. "Bad out, ain't it?"
"Yep!" Munn replied. "Heavy fog. We're soaked."
Olga Brenner's pitiful instinct of hospitality rose in her breast.
"I got some hot soup on the stove. Set a spell and I'll dish you some,"
she urged.
The men looked at each other in some uncertainty. After a moment Munn
said, "All right, if it ain't too much bother, Mrs. Brenner."
"Not a bit," she cried eagerly. She bustled about, searching her meager
stock of chinaware for uncracked bowls.
"Set down?" suggested Mart.
Munn sat down with a sigh, and his companions followed his example. Mart
resumed his position before the stove, lifting one foot into the
capacious black maw of the oven.
"Must 'a' got your feet wet, Brenner?" the sheriff said with heavy
jocularity.
Brenner nodded, "You bet I did," he replied. "Been down on the beach all
afternoon."
"Didn't happen to hear any unusual noise down there, did you?" Munn
spoke with his eyes on Mrs. Brenner, at her task of ladling out the
thick soup. She paused as though transfixed, her ladle poised in the
air.
Munn's eyes dropped from her face to the floor. There they became fixed
on the tracks of red clay.
"No, nothin' but the sea. It must be rough outside to-night, for the bay
was whinin' like a sick cat," said Mart calmly.
"Didn't hear a scream, or nothing like that, I suppose?" Munn persisted.
"Couldn't hear a thing but the water. Why?"
"Oh--nothing," said Munn.
Mrs. Brenner finished pouring out the soup and set the bowls on the
table.
Chairs clattered, and soon the men were eating. Mart finished his soup
before the others and sat back smacking his lips. As Munn finished the
last spoonful in his bowl he pulled out a wicked-looking black pipe,
crammed it full of tobacco and lighted it.
Blowing out a big blue breath of the pleasant smoke, he inquired, "Been
any strangers around to-day?"
Mart scratched his head. "Yeah. A man come by early this afternoon. He
was aiming to climb the hill. I told him he'd better wait till the sun
come out. I don't know whether he did or not."
"See anybody later--say about half an hour ago?"
Mart shook his head. "No. I come up from the beach and I didn't pass
nobody."
The sheriff pulled on his pipe for a moment. "That boy of yours still
catching butterflies?" he asked presently.
Mart scowled. He swung out a long arm toward the walls with their floods
of butterflies. But he did not answer.
"Uh-huh!" said Munn, following the gesture with his quiet eyes. He
puffed several times before he spoke again.
"What time did you come in, Brenner, from the beach?"
Mrs. Brenner closed her hands tightly, the interlaced fingers locking
themselves.
"Oh, about forty minutes ago, I guess it was. Wasn't it, Olga?" Mart
said carelessly.
"Yes." Her voice was a breath.
"Was your boy out to-day?"
Mart looked at his wife. "I dunno."
Munn's glance came to the wife.
"Yes."
"How long ago did he come in?"
"About an hour ago." Her voice was flat and lifeless.
"And where had he been?" Munn's tone was gentle but insistent.
Her terrified glance sought Mart's face. "He'd been on the beach!" she
said in a defiant tone.
Mart continued to look at her, but there was no expression in his face.
He still wore his peculiar affable smile.
"Where did these tracks come from, on the floor?"
Swift horror fastened itself on Mrs. Brenner.
"What's that to you?" she flared.
She heard her husband's hypocritical and soothing tones, "Now, now,
Olga! That ain't the way to talk to these gentlemen. Tell them who made
these tracks."
"You did!" she cried. All about her she could feel the smoothness of a
falling trap.
Mart smiled still more broadly.
"Look here, Olga, don't get so warm over it. You're nervous now. Tell
the gentlemen who made those tracks."
She turned to Munn desperately. "What do you want to know for?" she
asked him.
The sharpness of her voice roused old Mrs. Brenner, drowsing in her
corner.
"Blood!" she cried suddenly. "Blood on his hands!"
In the silence that followed, the eyes of the men turned curiously
toward the old woman and then sought each other with speculative
stares. Mrs. Brenner, tortured by those long significant glances, said
roughly, "That's Mart's mother. She ain't right! What are you bothering
us for?"
Dick Roamer put out a hand to plead for her, and tapped Munn on the arm.
There was something touching in her frightened old face.
"A man--a stranger was killed upon the hill," Munn told her.
"What's that got to do with us?" she countered.
"Not a thing, Mrs. Brenner, probably, but I've just to make sure where
every man in the village was this afternoon."
Mrs. Brenner's lids flickered. She felt the questioning intentness of
Sheriff Munn's eyes on her stolid face and she felt that he did not miss
the tremor of her eyes.
"Where was your son this afternoon?"
She smiled defiance. "I told you, on the beach."
"Whose room is that?" Munn's forefinger pointed to Tobey's closed door.
"That's Tobey's room," said his mother.
"The mud tracks go into that room. Did he make those tracks, Mrs.
Brenner?"
"No! Oh, no! No!" she cried desperately. "Mart made those when he came
in. He went into Tobey's room!"
"How about it, Brenner?"
Mart smiled with an indulgent air. "Heard what she said, didn't you?"
"Is it true?"
Mart smiled more broadly. "Olga'll take my hair off if I don't agree
with her," he said.
"Let's see your shoes, Brenner?"
Without hesitation Mart lifted one heavy boot and then the other for
Munn's inspection. The other silent men leaned forward to examine them.
"Nothing but pieces of seaweed," said Cottrell Hampstead.
Munn eyed them. Then he turned to look at the floor.
"Those are about the size of your tracks, Brenner. But they were made
in red clay. How do you account for that?"
"Tobey wears my shoes," said Brenner.
Mrs. Brenner gasped. She advanced to Munn.
"What you asking all these questions for?" she pleaded.
Munn did not answer her. After a moment he asked, "Did you hear a scream
this afternoon?"
"Yes," she answered.
"How long after the screaming did your son come in?"
She hesitated. What was the best answer to make? Bewildered, she tried
to decide. "Ten minutes or so," she said.
"Just so," agreed Munn. "Brenner, when did you come in?"
A trace of Mart's sullenness rose in his face. "I told you that once,"
he said.
"I mean how long after Tobey?"
"I dunno," said Mart.
"How long, Mrs. Brenner?"
She hesitated again. She scented a trap. "Oh, 'bout ten to fifteen
minutes, I guess," she said.
Suddenly she burst out passionately, "What you hounding us for? We don't
know nothing about the man on the hill. You ain't after the rest of the
folks in the village like you are after us. Why you doing it? We ain't
done nothing."
Munn made a slight gesture to Roamer, who rose and went to the door, and
opened it. He reached out into the darkness. Then he turned. He was
holding something in his hand, but Mrs. Brenner could not see what it
was.
"You chop your wood with a short, heavy ax, don't you, Brenner?" said
Munn.
Brenner nodded.
"It's marked with your name, isn't it?"
Brenner nodded again.
"_Is this the ax?_"
Mrs. Brenner gave a short, sharp scream. Red and clotted, ever the
handle marked with bloody spots, the ax was theirs.
Brenner started to his feet. "God!" he yelped, "that's where that ax
went! Tobey took it!" More calmly he proceeded. "This afternoon before I
went down on the beach I thought I'd chop some wood on the hill. But the
ax was gone. So after I'd looked sharp for it and couldn't find it, I
gave it up."
"Tobey didn't do it!" Mrs. Brenner cried thinly. "He's as harmless as a
baby! He didn't do it! He didn't do it!"
"How about those clay tracks, Mrs. Brenner? There is red clay on the
hill where the man was killed. There is red clay on your floor." Munn
spoke kindly.
"Mart tracked in that clay. He changed shoes with Tobey. I tell you
that's the truth." She was past caring for any harm that might befall
her.
Brenner smiled with a wide tolerance. "It's likely, ain't it, that I'd
change into shoes as wet as these?"
"Those tracks are Mart's!" Olga reiterated hysterically.
"They lead into your son's room, Mrs. Brenner. And we find your ax not
far from your door, just where the path starts for the hill." Munn's
eyes were grave.
The old woman in the corner began to whimper, "Blood and trouble! Blood
and trouble all my days! Red on his hands! Dripping! Olga! Blood!"
"But the road to the beach begins there too," Mrs. Brenner cried, above
the cracked voice, "and Tobey saw his pa before he came home. He said he
did. I tell you, Mart was on the hill. He put on Tobey's shoes. Before
God I'm telling you the truth."
Dick Roamer spoke hesitatingly, "Mebbe the old woman's right, Munn.
Mebbe those tracks are Brenner's."
Mrs. Brenner turned to him in wild gratitude.
"You believe me, don't you?" she cried. The tears dribbled down her
face. She saw the balance turning on a hair. A moment more and it might
swing back. She turned and hobbled swiftly to the shelf. Proof! More
proof! She must bring more proof of Tobey's innocence!
She snatched up his box of butterflies and came back to Munn.
"This is what Tobey was doin' this afternoon!" she cried in triumph. "He
was catchin' butterflies! That ain't murder, is it?"
"Nobody catches butterflies in a fog," said Munn.
"Well, Tobey did. Here they are." Mrs. Brenner held out the box. Munn
took it from her shaking hand. He looked at it. After a moment he turned
it over. His eyes narrowed. Mrs. Brenner turned sick. The room went
swimming around before her in a bluish haze. She had forgotten the blood
on her hand that she had wiped off before Mart came home. Suppose the
blood had been on the box.
The sheriff opened the box. A bruised butterfly, big, golden, fluttered
up out of it. Very quietly the sheriff closed the box, and turned to
Mrs. Brenner.
"Call your son," he said.
"What do you want of him? Tobey ain't done nothing. What you tryin' to
do to him?"
"There is blood on this box, Mrs. Brenner."
"Mebbe he cut himself." Mrs. Brenner was fighting. Her face was chalky
white.
"In the box, Mrs. Brenner, _is a gold watch and chain_. The man who was
killed, Mrs. Brenner, had a piece of gold chain to match this in his
buttonhole. _The rest of it had been torn off._"
Olga made no sound. Her burning eyes turned toward Mart. In them was all
of a heart's anguish and despair.
"Tell 'em, Mart! Tell 'em he didn't do it!" she finally pleaded.
Mart's face was inscrutable.
Munn rose. The other men got to their feet.
"Will you get the boy or shall I?" the sheriff said directly to Mrs.
Brenner.
With a rush Mrs. Brenner was on her knees before Munn, clutching him
about the legs with twining arms. Tears of agony dripped over her seamed
face.
"He didn't do it! Don't take him! He's my baby! He never harmed anybody!
He's my baby!" Then with a shriek, as Munn unclasped her arms, "Oh, my
God! My God!"
Munn helped her to her feet. "Now, now, Mrs. Brenner, don't take on so,"
he said awkwardly. "There ain't going to be no harm come to your boy.
It's to keep him from getting into harm that I'm taking him. The village
is a mite worked up over this murder and they might get kind of upset if
they thought Tobey was still loose. Better go and get him, Mrs.
Brenner."
As she stood unheeding, he went on, "Now, don't be afraid. Nothing'll
happen to him. No jedge would sentence him like a regular criminal. The
most that'll happen will be to put him some safe place where he can't do
himself nor no one else any more harm."
But still Mrs. Brenner's set expression did not change.
After a moment she shook off his aiding arm and moved slowly to Tobey's
door. She paused there a moment, resting her hand on the latch, her eyes
searching the faces of the men in the room. With a gesture of dreary
resignation she opened the door and entered, closing it behind her.
Tobey lay in his bed asleep. His rumpled hair was still damp from the
fog. His mother stroked it softly while her slow tears dropped down on
his face with its expression of peaceful childhood.
"Tobey!" she called. Her voice broke in her throat. The tears fell
faster.
"Huh?" He sat up, blinking at her.
"Get into your clothes, now! Right away!" she said.
He stared at her tears. A dismal sort of foreboding seemed to seize upon
him. His face began to pucker. But he crawled out of his bed and began
to dress himself in his awkward fashion, casting wistful and wondering
glances in her direction.
She watched him, her heart growing heavier and heavier. There was no
one to protect Tobey. She could not make those strangers believe that
Mart had changed shoes with Tobey. Neither could she account for the
blood-stained box and the watch with its length of broken chain. But if
Tobey had been on the beach he had not been on the hill, and if he
hadn't been on the hill he couldn't have killed the man they claimed he
had killed. Mart had been on the hill. Her head whirled. Some place
fate, destiny, something had blundered. She wrung her knotted hands
together.
Presently Tobey was dressed. She took him by the hand. Her own hand was
shaking, and very cold and clammy. Her knees were weak as she led him
toward the door. She could feel them trembling so that every step was an
effort. And her hand on the knob had barely strength to turn it. But
turn it she did and opened the door.
"Here he is!" she cried chokingly. She freed her hand and laid it on his
shoulder.
"Look at him," she moaned. "He couldn't 'a' done it. He's--he's just a
boy!"
Sheriff Munn rose. His men rose with him.
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Brenner," he said. "Terrible sorry. But you can see how
it is. Things look pretty black for him."
He paused, looked around, hesitated for a moment. Finally he said,
"Well, I guess we'd better be getting along."
Mrs. Brenner's hand closed with convulsive force on Tobey's shoulder.
"Tobey!" she screamed desperately, "where was you this afternoon? All
afternoon?"
"On the beach," mumbled Tobey, shrinking into himself.
"Tobey! Tobey! Where'd you get blood on the box?"
He looked around. His cloudy eyes rested on her face helplessly.
"I dunno," he said.
Her teeth were chattering now; she laid her hand on his other shoulder.
"Try to remember, Tobey. Try to remember. Where'd you get the watch, the
pretty watch that was in your box?"
He blinked at her.
"The pretty bright thing? Where did you get it?"
His eyes brightened. His lips trembled into a smile.
"I found it some place," he said. Eagerness to please her shone on his
face.
"But where? What place?" The tears again made rivulets on her cheeks.
He shook his head. "I dunno."
Mrs. Brenner would not give up.
"You saw your pa this afternoon, Tobey?" she coached him softly.
He nodded.
"Where'd you see him?" she breathed.
He frowned. "I--I saw pa----" he began, straining to pierce the cloud
that covered him.
"Blood! Blood!" shrieked old Mrs. Brenner. She half-rose, her head
thrust forward on her shriveled neck.
Tobey paused, confused. "I dunno," he said.
"Did he give you the pretty bright thing? And did he give you the ax--"
she paused and repeated the word loudly--"the ax to bring home?"
Tobey caught at the word. "The ax?" he cried. "The ax! Ugh! It was all
sticky!" He shuddered.
"Did pa give you the ax?"
But the cloud had settled. Tobey shook his head. "I dunno," he repeated
his feeble denial.
Munn advanced. "No use, Mrs. Brenner, you see. Tobey, you'll have to
come along with us."
Even to Tobey's brain some of the strain in the atmosphere must have
penetrated, for he drew back. "Naw," he protested sulkily, "I don't want
to."
Dick Roamer stepped to his side. He laid his hand on Tobey's arm. "Come
along," he urged.
Mrs. Brenner gave a smothered gasp. Tobey woke to terror. He turned to
run. In an instant the men surrounded him. Trapped, he stood still, his
head lowered in his shoulders.
"Ma!" he screamed suddenly. "Ma! I don't want to go! Ma!"
He fell on his knees. Heavy childish sobs racked him. Deserted,
terrified, he called upon the only friend he knew.
"Ma! Please, Ma!"
Munn lifted him up. Dick Roamer helped him, and between them they drew
him to the door, his heart-broken calls and cries piercing every corner
of the room.
They whisked him out of Mrs. Brenner's sight as quickly as they could.
The other men piled out of the door, blocking the last vision of her
son, but his bleating cries came shrilling back on the foggy air.
Mart closed the door. Mrs. Brenner stood where she had been when Tobey
had first felt the closing of the trap and had started to run. She
looked as though she might have been carved there. Her light breath
seemed to do little more than lift her flat chest.
Mart turned from the door. His eyes glittered. He advanced upon her
hungrily like a huge cat upon an enchanted mouse.
"So you thought you'd yelp on me, did you?" he snarled, licking his
lips. "Thought you'd put me away, didn't you? Get me behind the bars,
eh?"
"Blood!" moaned the old woman in the corner. "Blood!"
Mart strode to the table, pulling out from the bosom of his shirt a
lumpy package wrapped in his handkerchief. He threw it down on the
table. It fell heavily with a sharp ringing of coins.
"But I fooled you this time! Mart wasn't so dull this time, eh?" He
turned toward her again.
Between them, disturbed in his resting-place on the table, the big
bruised yellow butterfly raised himself on his sweeping wings.
Mart drew back a little. The butterfly flew toward Olga and brushed her
face with a velvety softness.
Then Brenner lurched toward her, his face black with fury, his arm
upraised. She stood still, looking at him with wide eyes in which a
gleam of light showed.
"You devil!" she said, in a little, whispering voice. "You killed that
man! You gave Tobey the watch and the ax! You changed shoes with him!
You devil! You devil!"
He drew back for a blow. She did not move. Instead she mocked him,
trying to smile.
"You whelp!" she taunted him. "Go on and hit me! I ain't running! And if
you don't break me to bits I'm going to the sheriff and I'll tell him
what you said to me just now. And he'll wonder how you got all that
money in your pockets. He knows we're as poor as church-mice. How you
going to explain what you got?"
"I ain't going to be such a fool as to keep it on me!" Mart crowed with
venomous mirth. "You nor the sheriff nor any one won't find it where I'm
going to put it!"
The broken woman leaned forward, baiting him. The strange look of
exaltation and sacrifice burned in her faded eyes. "I've got you, Mart!"
she jeered. "You're going to swing yet! I'll even up with you for Tobey!
You didn't think I could do it, did you? I'll show you! You're trapped,
I tell you! And I done it!"
She watched Mart swing around to search the room and the blank window
with apprehensive eyes. She sensed his eerie dread of the unseen. He
couldn't see any one. He couldn't hear a sound. She saw that he was wet
with the cold perspiration of fear. It would enrage him. She counted on
that. He turned back to his wife in a white fury. She leaned toward him,
inviting his blows as martyrs welcome the torch that will make their
pile of fagots a blazing bier.
He struck her. Once. Twice. A rain of blows given in a blind passion
that drove her to her knees, but she clung stubbornly, with rigid
fingers to the table-edge. Although she was dazed she retained
consciousness by a sharp effort of her failing will. She had not yet
achieved that for which she was fighting.
The dull thud of the blows, the confusion, the sight of the blood drove
the old woman in the corner suddenly upright on her tottering feet. Her
rheumy eyes glared affrighted at the sight of the only friend she
recognized in all her mad, black world lying there across the table. She
stood swaying in a petrified terror for a moment. Then with a thin wail,
"He's killing her!" she ran around them and gained the door.
With a mighty effort Olga Brenner lifted her head so that her face,
swollen beyond recognition, was turned toward her mother-in-law. Her
almost sightless eyes fastened themselves on the old woman.
"Run!" she cried. "Run to the village!"
The mad woman, obedient to that commanding voice, flung open the door
and lurched over the threshold and disappeared in the fog. It came to
Mart that the woman running through the night with her wail of terror
was the greatest danger he would know. Olga Brenner saw his look of sick
terror. He started to spring after the mad woman, forgetful of the
half-conscious creature on her knees before him.
But as he turned, Olga, moved by the greatness of her passion, forced
strength into her maimed body. With a straining leap she sprawled
herself before him on the floor. He stumbled, caught for the table, and
fell with a heavy crash, striking his head on a near-by chair. Olga
raised herself on her shaking arms and looked at him. Minute after
minute passed, and yet he lay still. A second long ten minutes ticked
itself off on the clock, which Olga could barely see. Then Mart opened
his eyes, sat up, and staggered to his feet.
Before full consciousness could come to him again, his wife crawled
forward painfully and swiftly coiled herself about his legs. He
struggled, still dizzy from his fall, bent over and tore at her twining
arms, but the more he pulled the tighter she clung, fastening her
misshapen fingers in the lacing of his shoes. He swore! And he became
panic-stricken. He began to kick at her, to make lunges toward the
distant door. Kicking and fighting, dragging her clinging body with him
at every move, that body which drew him back one step for every two
forward steps he took, at last he reached the wall. He clutched it, and
as his hand slipped along trying to find a more secure hold he touched
the cold iron of a long-handled pan hanging there.
With a snarl he snatched it down, raised it over his head, and brought
it down upon his wife's back. Her hands opened spasmodically and fell
flat at her sides. Her body rolled over, limp and broken. And a low
whimper came from her bleeding lips.
Satisfied, Mart paused to regain his breath. He had no way of knowing
how long this unequal fight had been going on. But he was free. The way
of escape was open. He laid his hand on the door.
There were voices. He cowered, cast hunted glances at the bloody figure
on the floor, bit his knuckles in a frenzy.
As he looked, the eyes opened in his wife's swollen face, eyes aglow
with triumph. "You'll swing for it, Mart!" she whispered faintly. "And
the money's on the table! Tobey's saved!"
Rough hands were on the door. A flutter of breath like a sigh of relief
crossed her lips and her lids dropped as the door burst open to a tide
of men.
The big yellow butterfly swung low on his golden wings and came to rest
on her narrow, sunken breast.
FOOTNOTE:
[14] Copyright, 1920, by The Pictorial Review Company. Copyright, 1921,
by Rose Sidney.
THE ROTTER[15]
#By# FLETA CAMPBELL SPRINGER
From _Harper's Magazine_
In the taxi Ayling suddenly realized that there was no need for all this
haste. After twenty-five years, and a loitering, circuitous journey
home--six weeks to the day since he had said good-by to India--this
last-minute rush was, to say the least, illogical, particularly as there
was no one in London waiting for him; no one who was even aware of his
arrival. Indeed, it was likely that there was no one in London who was
aware of his existence, except, perhaps, the clerk of the club, to whom
he had telegraphed ahead for accommodations.
The rigidity of his posture, straining forward there on his seat, became
suddenly painful and absurd. He tried to relax, but the effort was more
than it was worth, and he sat forward again, looking out.
Yes, things were familiar enough--but familiar like old photographs one
has forgotten the significance of. The emotion had gone out of them. It
was the new things, the unfamiliar contours, that were most apparent,
that seemed to thrust upon his consciousness the city's gigantic,
self-centered indifference. Yet it was just that quality that he had
loved most in London. She had let him alone. She had been--he recalled
the high-flown phrase of his youth--the supremely indifferent friend!
Perhaps, he thought to himself, when one is fifty, one cares less to be
"let alone"; less for indifference as the supreme attribute of a friend.
He felt a queer sweep of homesickness for India, whence he had come; but
to feel homesick for India was ridiculous, since he had just come out
of India because he was homesick for England. He had been homesick for
England, he had been telling himself, for all those twenty-five years.
Well! here he was. Home!
Strange he hadn't thought of the automobiles and the electricity, and
the difference they would make.
The taxi backed suddenly, gears shifted, and drew up alongside the curb.
Looking out, Ayling recognized the high, familiar street door of the
club. Something about it had been changed, or replaced, he couldn't
quite make out what. The driver opened the door, lifted out Ayling's
bag, and deposited it expertly with a swing on the step. Then he waited
respectfully while Ayling fished in his pockets for change. Having
received it, he leaped with great agility to the seat, shifted gears,
chugged, backed and turned, and was abruptly round the corner and out of
sight.
At the desk, Ayling experienced a momentary surprise to find himself
actually expected.
"Mr. Ayling? Yes, sir. Your room is ready, I believe." The clerk rang a
bell, and began to give instructions about Mr. Ayling's luggage.
Ayling felt that he ought to ask for some one, inquire if some of the
old members were in; but, standing there, he could not think of a single
name except names of a few non-resident members like himself, men who
were at that moment in India.
"Will you go up, sir?"
"Later," said Ayling. "Just send up my things."
He crossed the foyer and entered the lounge. Here, as before in the
streets, it was the changes of which he was most aware--figured hangings
in place of the old red velours, the upholstery renewed on the old
chairs and divans. Strangers sat here and there in the familiar nooks,
strangers who looked up at him with a mild curiosity and returned to
their papers or their cigars. He wandered on through the rooms,
seeking--without quite saying so to himself--seeking a familiar face,
and found none. Even the proportions of the rooms seemed changed; he
could hardly have said just how; not much, but slightly, though, all in
all, the club was the same. Names began to come back to him; memories
resurrected themselves, rose out of corners to greet him as he passed.
They began to give him a queer sense of his own unreality, as if he
himself were only another memory.... Abruptly he turned, made his way
back to the desk, and asked to be shown to his room. There he spent an
hour puttering aimlessly, adjusting his things, putting in the time.
Then he dressed and went down to a solitary dinner. There was a great
activity in the club at that hour, comings and goings, in parties of
four and five. He found a kind of dolorous amusement in seeing now much
more at home all the youngsters about him seemed than he. And he had
been at home there when they were in the nursery doing sums.
Here and there at the tables were older men, men of his own age, and he
reflected that among them might easily be some of his boyhood friends.
He would never know them now. He searched their faces for a familiar
feature, watched them for a gesture he might recognize. But in the end
he gave it up. "Old town," he said to himself, "old town, by Jove!
you've forgotten me!"
That night he went alone to a theater, walked back through the crowds to
the club, and went immediately to bed. He was grateful to find himself
suddenly very tired.
The next morning he rose late and did not leave his room until noon,
when he went down to a solitary lunch. After lunch he stopped at the
clerk's window and inquired about one or two old members. The clerk
looked up the names. After a good deal of inquiry and fussing about, he
ascertained that one of the gentlemen was in China, one was dead, and a
third about whom Ayling also inquired could not be traced at all. Ayling
went out and walked for a while through the streets, but was driven back
to the club by the chill drizzle which suddenly began to descend.
* * * * *
He sat down in a chair near a window that had been his favorite.
Settled there, he remembered the position of a near-by bell, just under
the window-curtain.... Yes, there it was. He rang, and a waiter came--a
rotund, pink-faced, John-Bullish waiter, with little white tufts on each
cheek. Ayling ordered a whisky-and-soda, and when presently the waiter
brought it Ayling asked how long he had been in the service of the club.
"Thirty-five years, sir."
Ayling looked at the old man in astonishment. "Do you remember me?" he
asked.
The old waiter, schooled to remember at first glance if he remembered at
all, looked afresh at Ayling. "I see so many faces, sir--I couldn't just
at the moment say--"
"And I suppose," said Ayling, "you've brought me whisky-and-soda here,
to this very chair, no end of times. What's your name?"
"Chedsey, sir."
"Seems familiar--" He shook his head. "You don't recall a Mr.
Ayling--twenty-five or thirty years ago?"
"Ayling, sir? I recall there _was_ a member of that name.... _You're_
not Mr. Ayling, sir?"
"We're not very flattering, either of us, it seems. But then, privilege
of the aged, I suppose."
"Beg pardon, sir. I'm sorry--I ought to remember you."
"We're wearing masks, Chedsey, you and I."
"You're right, sir, I'm afraid."
They regarded each other, those two, Chedsey, rotund and pink, looking
down upon Ayling, long and lean, with fine wrinkles about his eyes, and
hair considerably grayed, wondering, both of them, why names should be
so much more enduring than they themselves had been.
It was not until Ayling had begun to ask Chedsey for news of old
friends, and chanced almost at once to mention Lonsdale, that both he
and the old waiter exclaimed in the same breath, "Major Lonsdale!" as if
the Major's name had been a key to open the doors of both their
memories.
"And you're young Mr. Dick Ayling! I remember you perfectly now!"
Chedsey beamed. How could he have failed to remember any one of those
gay young friends of the major's?
"And where," asked Ayling, "is the major now?"
"Major Lonsdale, sir--has been gone seven years. Hadn't you heard?"
Lonsdale gone! Lonsdale dead! Lonsdale had begun life so brilliantly.
Ayling did feel left over and old.
"What happened?" he asked, and Chedsey, glad to talk of the major, told
how he had left the club to be Major Lonsdale's man just after he came
back from the Boer War. How things hadn't seemed to go well with the
major after that; he lost money--just how, Chedsey didn't say, but gave
one to understand that it was a misfortune beyond the major's control.
In the end he was forced to give up his house, and Chedsey came back to
the club. A few years later the major was taken with pneumonia, quite
suddenly, and died. Did Mr. Ayling know Major Lonsdale's wife?
"Yes," said Ayling. "What became of Mrs. Lonsdale?"
"Here in London, sir."
"Wasn't there," asked Ayling, "a child, a little girl?"
"Ah, Miss Peggy, sir!" It was plain that "Miss Peggy" was one of
Chedsey's enthusiasms. A young lady now ... and soon to be married to a
fine young gentleman of one of the best Scotch families.... She'll have
a title some day.... Picture in the _Sketch_ recently--perhaps he could
find it for Mr. Ayling.
"Never mind," said Ayling, who was not thinking of Miss Peggy at all,
but of her parents, young Major Harry Lonsdale, and his pretty wife.--He
remembered her as a bride--Bessie, the major had called her--a graceful
young creature with brown hair and brown-flecked eyes, already at that
age a charming hostess in the fine old house Harry Lonsdale had
inherited from his father.
"They are living in Cambridge Terrace," Chedsey was saying. "Would Mr.
Ayling like the address?"
Ayling wrote down the address Chedsey gave him, and put it away in his
pocket, with no more definite idea than that some day, if opportunity
offered, he might look her up, for his old friend's sake.
He began to inquire about other men--Carrington, Farnsby, Blake. Dead,
all three of them--Farnsby only last spring. Was it some fate that
pursued his particular friends? But those men had all, he reflected,
been older than he. And yet, he recalled the words of his doctor:
"A man's as old as his arteries. You've been too long out here. Be
sensible, Ayling.... Go home--take it easy--rest. You'll have a long
time yet...."
Just a week later, to the day, Ayling stepped into a telephone-booth,
looked up Mrs. Lonsdale's number, and telephoned. He had not counted
upon loneliness.
* * * * *
At forty-five Bessie Lonsdale had encountered one of those universal
experiences which invariably give us, as individuals, so strong a sense
of surprise. She had discovered suddenly, upon completion of the task to
which she had so long given her energies, that she had become the task;
that she no longer had any identity apart from it. And her consciousness
of having arrived at exactly the place where hundreds before her must
have arrived had only added to the strangeness of her experience.
A week ago she had seen her twenty-year-old daughter off to the north of
Scotland for a month's visit to the family which she was soon to enter
as a bride. It seemed to her that Peggy had never been so lovely as when
she said good-by to her at the station that day, slim, fragrant,
shining-eyed, and looking very patrician indeed in her smart sable
jacket (cut from the luxurious sable cape that had been part of her
mother's trousseau), with the violets pinned into the buttonhole. And
Bessie Lonsdale had seen with pride and no twinge of jealousy the
admiration in the eyes of that aristocratic, if somewhat stern-faced,
old lady who was to be Peggy's mother-in-law, and who, with true Scotch
propriety, had come all the way down to London to take her home with
her.
"I don't like leaving you alone," Peggy had said, as they kissed each
other good-by. "You're going to let yourself be dull."
And her mother had patted the soft cheek, and replied: "I'm going to
enjoy every minute of it. I mean to have a good rest and get acquainted
with myself."
When, a few moments later, she waved them good-by as the train moved
slowly out of the station, Bessie Lonsdale had turned away with a
long-drawn and involuntary sigh--a sigh of thanksgiving and relief.
Peggy at last was safe! Her happiness and her future assured. All those
years of hoping and holding steady had come now to this happy end. Ever
since her husband's early death Bessie Lonsdale had centered herself
upon the future of her child. She had had only her few hundred a year
saved from the wreck of her husband's affairs, but she had set her
course, and, with an air of sailing in circles for pleasure's sake,
stood clear of the rocks and shoals. She had never borrowed; she had
never apologized; had never been considered a poor relation, or spoken
of as pathetic or "brave." Her little flat was an achievement. It was
astonishing how she had managed at once so much simplicity, so much
downright comfort, and so charming an atmosphere. She had done so much
with so little, yet hers were not anxious rooms, like the rooms of so
many women of small means. They had space, repose, good cheer, even an
air of luxury. It was the home of a gentlewoman who could make a little
better than "the best of things." She had even entertained a little, now
and then--more of late, now that Peggy's education was complete--but
this at the cost of many economies in the right quarter, and many
extravagances also rightly placed.
Call this "climbing" if you will, and a stress upon false values. Bessie
Lonsdale gave herself to no such futile speculations as that. She was
too busy at her task. She was neither so young nor so hypocritical as to
pretend that these things were to be despised. She had done only what
every other mother in the world wishes to do--to guide and protect her
child and see her future provided for; only she had done it more
efficiently than most; had brought, perhaps, a greater fitness or a
greater consecration to the task. And the success of her achievement
lay in the art with which she had concealed all trace of effort and
strain. Peggy herself would have been first to laugh at the notion that
her mother had had anything whatever to do with her falling in love with
Andrew McCrae. She believed that it was by the sheer prodigality of the
Fates that, besides being in love with her, romantically, as only a
Scotchman can be, young Andrew McCrae was heir to one of the most
substantial fortunes in all the north, and would succeed to a title one
day....
So Bessie Lonsdale had sighed her deep sigh of peace and gone back to
her flat. And because she had really wanted to be alone she had sent her
one faithful old servant away for a long-postponed visit to country
relatives. Then she had sat down to rest, and to "get acquainted with
herself." And in two days she had made her discovery. There was no
"herself." She had been Peggy's mother so long that Bessie Lonsdale as a
separate entity had entirely ceased to exist.
It was at the end of the week that Ayling telephoned. And, although she
had been avoiding even chance meetings with acquaintances, she found
herself asking Ayling, whom she had not seen for twenty-five years, and
whom she had known but slightly then, to come that day at five to tea.
She realized only after she had left the telephone that it was because
his voice had come to her out of that far time before she had become the
mother of Peggy, and because she had a vague sort of hope that he might
help to bring back a bit of the old self she had lost.
She was, when she thought of it, a little puzzled by his looking her up.
Had he and Harry been such friends?
Promptly at five he came. At the door they greeted each other with a
sudden unexpected warmth. And while he was clasping her hand and saying
how jolly it was, after all this time, to find her here, and she was
saying how nice it was to see _him_, how nice of him to look her up, he
was thinking to himself that he might have recognized her by the
brown-flecked eyes, and she was thinking, "He's an old man, older than
I--the age Harry would have been----"
"So you've come home," she said, "to stay?"
"Yes, we all do. It's what we look forward to out there."
"I know." With a little hospitable gesture and a step backward she
brought him in.
They had not mentioned the major who was gone, nor had they mentioned
the years that had passed since their last meeting, yet suddenly,
without any premonition, those two turned their eyes away from each
other, to avoid bursting senselessly into tears. An almost inconceivable
disaster, yet one for the moment perilously imminent.
Yet neither of them was thinking of Major Lonsdale nor of anything so
grievous as death; they were thinking of those terrifying little
wrinkles round their eyes, and of the little up-and-down lines that
would never disappear, and something inside them both gave suddenly
away, melted, flooding them inside with tears that must not be shed.
She held out her hand for his hat and stick. For an instant they both
felt a deep constraint, and as he was getting out of his coat each
wondered if the other had noticed it.
Ayling turned about and stumbled awkwardly over a small hassock on the
floor, and they both laughed, which helped them recover themselves.
"How long has it really been?" she asked, as she faced him beside the
fire.
"Twenty-five years." He smiled at her, shaking his head. "Twenty-five
years!"
"You _must_ feel the prodigal son!"
"Not until I came in your door just now, I didn't at all." And then,
without in the least intending to say it, he added, "You were the only
person in London I knew."
It was the first of many things he had not intended to tell. As it was
the first of many afternoons when they sat before the fire in her pretty
drawing-room--that gallant little blaze that did its best to combat the
gloom and chill of London's late winter rains--and drank their tea and
talked, the comfortable, scattering talk of old friends; although it
was not because of the past that they were friends, but because of the
present and their mutual need. They did not speak of loneliness; it was
a word, perhaps, of which they were both afraid.
When they talked of her husband, of the old house, the old days, she
felt herself coming back, materializing gradually again, out of the
past. Ayling said to himself that he could talk to Bessie Lonsdale of
things he had never been able to speak of to any one else, because they
had had so much common experience. For from the beginning Ayling had had
the illusion that Bessie Lonsdale, as well as he, had been away all
those years, and had just come back to London again. He had said this to
her as he was leaving on that first afternoon, and she had smiled and
said, "So I have, just that--I've been away and come back, and I hardly
know where to begin." Later he understood. For once or twice he met
there a few of her friends, people who dropped in to inquire what she
had heard from Peggy; people who talked of how they were missing Peggy,
of the time when she would be coming home, of her approaching wedding,
and one and all they commented upon the emptiness of the flat without
Peggy there, and how lonely it must be for dear Mrs. Lonsdale with Peggy
away.
"I seem to be the only person in London not missing Peggy," he said to
her one day. Her brown-flecked eyes looked at him straight for an
instant, and then slowly they smiled, for she knew that he understood.
She had not needed to tell him, for he had divined it for himself. Just
as he had not needed to tell her how much her being in London had meant
to him.
As it was, the incessant chill and dampness of the weather had done his
health no good. His blood was thin from long years of Indian sun, and he
found it a constant effort to resist. The gloom seemed even worse than
the cold, and, although he had thought that he should never wish for sun
again, after India, he did wish for it now, wished for it until it
became a sheer physical need. For the first time in his life he began to
feel that he was getting old. Or was it, he asked himself, only that he
had time now to think of such things? Bessie Lonsdale saw it, for her
eyes were quick and keen, and she had long been in the habit of
mothering. "It's this beastly London," she said. "I know!" And it was
she who made him promise to go away for a week in the country, where he
might have a glimpse at least of the sun. He remembered an inn at
Homebury St. Mary, where he had spent a summer as a child, and it was
there, for no reason except the memory of so much sun, that he planned
to go, "by the middle of next week," he said, "when Peggy will be coming
home."
They had been talking of her return, and he had confessed to the notion
that he would feel himself superfluous, out of place, somehow, when
Peggy came home. His confession had pleased her, she hardly knew why. As
for herself, she had had something of the same thought that when Peggy
came there would be--well, a different atmosphere.
She was looking forward daily now to a letter saying by what train Peggy
would return. On Thursday there arrived, instead, a letter from Lady
McCrae, begging that they be allowed "to keep our dear Peggy for another
ten days." The heavy weather had kept the young people indoors, and a
great many excursions which they had planned had had to be put off on
account of it. She said, in her dignified way, many things vastly
pleasing to a mother's heart, and Mrs. Lonsdale could do nothing but
write, giving her consent.
When she had written the letter and sent it off she began to be
curiously depressed, and she wandered through the flat, conscious at
last of just how much she had really missed Peggy's laughter, her
gaiety, and her swift young step. The week before her loomed longer than
all the time she had been away.
That afternoon she told Ayling her news, but it was not until she had
finished telling him that she remembered that he, too, would be going
away. She hadn't known until then how much his being there had meant.
"I don't know," she said, "how I shall put in the week! After all, I've
been missing her more than I knew."
It occurred to Ayling that, standing there before him with Lady McCrae's
letter, which she had been showing him, in her hand, she was exactly
like a little girl who was going to be left all alone.
The idea came to him suddenly. "Look here, Bessie; come down to Homebury
St. Mary with me! It would do you no end of good."
The quality of their friendship was clear in the simplicity with which
he made the suggestion, and the absence of self-consciousness with which
she heard it made.
"I should love it!" she said.
"Then come along. You've nothing to keep you here; the country's just
what you need."
She did not answer at once, but stood looking away from him, a little
frown between her eyes. She was thinking how absurd it would be to
object, and how equally absurd it seemed to say yes. It _was_ so nice to
have some one think of her as he thought of himself, simply, normally,
humanly, as Dick Ayling seemed to have thought of her from the first.
Then abruptly she accepted his simplification. "I'll go," she said.
"Good! I'll telephone through for a room for you.... When can you be
ready?" he asked.
"To-day--this afternoon. Let's get away before I discover all the
reasons to prevent! I won't bother about a lot of luggage--my big bag
will do."
"Great! I'll ask about trains."
All at once, like two children, they became immensely exhilarated at the
prospect before them--a week's holiday!
He went to the telephone and presently reported: "There's a train at
two-forty. Can you make it by then?"
She looked at the clock on the mantel. "We'll make it," she said.
He was getting into his coat. "I'll go on to the club, get my things
together, and come back for you at two-fifteen, then."
He rushed away, both of them almost forgetting to say good-by, and she
went into her bedroom to pack.
When, promptly at two-fifteen, he rang her bell, she was waiting, hat
and gloves on, and called out, "All ready!" as the taxi-driver followed
Ayling up for her bag....
* * * * *
The spring had come up to meet them at Homebury St. Mary. So Bessie
Lonsdale said to herself when she woke in her old-fashioned
chintz-curtained room. The sun shone in at the windows, the air was
balmy and sweet, and lifting herself on her elbow, she saw in a little
round swale in the garden outside a faint showing of green nestled into
the damp brown earth.
She got up, rang for a maid, who came, smiling, white-capped,
rosy-cheeked. She had coffee and rolls with rich country cream while she
dressed. Her room opened directly into the garden, and she put on stout
boots and a walking-suit and a soft little hat of green felt, and went
out. Ayling, who had evidently risen early, was coming toward her,
swinging a great, freshly whittled staff cut from the woods beyond the
inn. He called to her:
"You see! The sun _does_ shine at Homebury St. Mary!" And then, as if in
gratitude for so glorious a day, he wished to be fair to the rest of the
world, he added, as he came up, "I wonder if it's shining in London,
too."
"London?" she said. "London? There's no such place!"
"Glad you came?" he asked.
"Glad!" Her tone was enough.
"That's a jolly green hat," he said, and made her a little bow.
"Glad you like it," she laughed. "And that's a jolly staff."
He showed it off proudly. "Work of art," he said. "I made one just like
it when I was here the summer I was twelve--I remembered it this morning
when I woke up, and I came out to get this one."
She admired it critically, particularly the initials of the dark bark
left on, but suggested an improvement about the knob.
"By Jove! you're right," he admitted, and set to work with his knife.
They were like two youngsters out of school. All morning they idled
out-of-doors, exploring the little lanes that led off into the
buff-colored hills, returning at noon, ravenous, to lunch in the
dining-room of the inn, parting afterward in the corridor, and going to
their own rooms to rest and read. At four Ayling tapped at her door to
say that there was in the sitting-room "an absolutely enormous tea."
That night, before a beautiful fire in the sitting-room, they caught
each other yawning at half past nine, and at ten they said good-night.
It had been so perfect that the next day found them following the same
routine. And the next day, and the next. Bessie Lonsdale had not felt
for years so much peace and so much strength. In their morning walks
together her strength showed greater than his. The bracing air
exhilarated her, and she felt she could have walked forever in the
lovely rolling hills. Once she had walked on and on, faster and faster,
not noticing how she had quickened her pace, her head up, facing the
light wind blowing in from the sea. And, turning to ask a question of
Ayling at her side, his white face stopped her instantly.
"Oh, I _am_ sorry! Forgive me," she said.
He smiled, embarrassed, and waited a moment for breath before he said,
"It's just the wind; it's pretty stiff."
And she had said no more, because it embarrassed him, but she suited her
pace to his after that, never forgiving herself for her thoughtlessness.
And she chose, instead of the hill roads, the level, winding lanes.
For five perfect spring days they spent their mornings out-of-doors in
the sun, lunched, parted until tea, met at dinner again, and said good
night at a preposterously early hour. And they could not have said
whether they amused or interested or merely comforted each other.
Perhaps they did all three. At any rate, it was an idyll of its kind,
and of more genuine beauty than many less platonic idylls have been.
On the morning of the sixth day Bessie Lonsdale went out into the garden
as usual, to find the sky overcast with light, fleecy clouds. But the
air was soft, and she wandered about for half an hour before it occurred
to her that perhaps Ayling was waiting for her inside. She went in to
look, but saw him nowhere, and decided that he was sleeping late. She
waited until eleven, and then went out to walk by herself. But she did
not relish the walk because she was uneasy about Ayling. She was afraid
he was ill. She forced herself to go on a little way, but when she came
to the second turn in the road, she faced abruptly about and came back
to the inn. Still Ayling was nowhere about. He was not in the garden; he
was not in the coffee-room. She went to her own room and sat down with a
book, but she could not read. So she went into the corridor, searching
for some one of whom she might inquire. But no one was visible.
Ayling's room opened off of the little public sitting-room at the end of
the corridor. She went on until she reached the sitting-room, which she
entered, and then stood still, listening for some sound from beyond
Ayling's door. The silence seemed to grow round her; it filled the room,
it spread through the house. And then, propelled by that silence toward
the door, she put out her hand and knocked softly. There was no
response. She repeated the knock--twice--and only that pervading silence
answered her. She took hold of the knob and turned it without a sound;
the door gave inward and she stepped inside the room. The bed faced her,
and Ayling was lying there, on his side. Even before she saw his face,
her own heart told her that he was dead.... He lay there quite
peacefully, as if he had died in his sleep.
For an instant Bessie Lonsdale thought she was going to faint. And then,
moved by the force of an emotion which seemed to take possession of her
from the outside, an emotion which she could not recognize, but which
was irresistible and which, as the silence had propelled her a moment
ago, took her backward now, step by step, noiselessly, out of that
room; caused her to close the door after her, and, still moving backward
without a sound, to come to a stop in the middle of the little
sitting-room. For now that strange fear, premonition--she knew not
what--which seemed to have been traveling toward her from a great
distance, seemed suddenly to concentrate itself into a single name,
"Peggy!" ... Confused, swirling, the connotations that accompanied the
name took possession of her mind, of her body, her will. _Peggy was
threatened_.... Through this thing that had happened Peggy's happiness
might be destroyed! In a flash she saw the story--the cold facts printed
in a newspaper--as they would undoubtedly be--or told by gossips, glad
of a scandal to repeat: She, Peggy's mother--and Richard Ayling together
at a country inn--the sudden and sensational discovery of Ayling's
death.... She could see the stern face of Lady McCrae--the accusing blue
eyes of Andrew McCrae ... and Peggy's stricken face.
She tried to pull herself together--to think; her thoughts were not
reasoning thoughts, but unrelated, floating, detached....
Suddenly, by some strange alchemy of her mind, three things stood out
clear. They stood out like the three facts of a simple syllogism.
There was nothing she could do for Richard Ayling now.... No one knew
she was here.... A train for London passed Homebury St. Mary a little
after noon.
All the years of Bessie Lonsdale's motherhood commanded her to act. Her
muscles alone seemed to hear and obey. She was like a person hypnotized,
who had been ordered with great detail and precision what to do.
Soundlessly, she went from the room and down the length of the corridor.
In her own room she threw scattered garments into a bag, swept in the
things from the dresser, glanced into the mirror, and was astonished to
see that she had on her coat and hat. Then out through the door that led
to the garden, a sharp turn to the right, and she was off, walking
swiftly, with no sensation of touching the earth. A train whistled in
the distance, came into sight. She raced with it, reached the station
just as it drew alongside and came to a stop. The guard took her bag,
and she swung onto the step. It did not seem strange to her that she had
reached the station at precisely the same time as the train. It seemed
only natural ... in accordance with the plan....
At seventeen minutes past three o'clock Bessie Lonsdale hurried into a
telephone-booth in Victoria Station, called up a friend, and asked her
to tea. Then she took a taxi to within a block of the flat, where she
dismissed the taxi, went into a pastry-shop, bought some cakes, and five
minutes later she was taking off her hat and coat in her own bedroom.
She worked quickly, automatically, without any sense of exertion, still
as if she but obeyed a hypnotist's command. At four o'clock a leaping
fire in the drawing-room grate flickered cheerily against silver
tea-things, against the sheen of newly dusted mahogany; books lay here
and there, carelessly, a late illustrated review open as if some one had
just put it down, and dressed in a soft gown of blue crêpe, Bessie
Lonsdale received her guest. She was not an intimate friend, but a
casual one whom she did not often see. A Mrs. Downey, who loved to talk
of herself and of her own affairs. Bessie Lonsdale did not know why she
had chosen her. Her brain had seemed to work without direction,
independent of her will. She could never have directed it so well.
Even now, as she brought her in and heard herself saying easy, friendly,
commonplace things, she had no sense of willing herself to say them
consciously. They said themselves. She heard nothing that Mrs. Downey
said, yet she answered her. Later, while she was pouring Mrs. Downey's
tea, she remembered a time, over a year ago, when she had heard Mrs.
Downey say, "Two, and no cream." She put in the two lumps, and was
startled to hear her guest exclaim, "My dear, what a memory!" ... She
did not know whether Mrs. Downey told her one or many things that
afternoon. Only certain words, parts of sentences, gestures, imprinted
themselves upon her mind, never to be erased. She seemed divided into
two separate selves, neither of them complete--one, the intenser of the
two, was at Homebury St. Mary, looking down upon Ayling's still, dead
face; and that self was filled with pity, with remorse, with a
tenderness that hurt. The other self was here, in a gown of blue crêpe,
drinking tea, and possessed of a voice which she could hear vaguely
making the conversation one makes when nothing has happened, when one
has been lonely and a little bored....
All at once something was going on in the room, a clangor that seemed to
waken Bessie Lonsdale out of the unreality of a dream. It summoned her
will to come back to its control.
Mrs. Downey was smiling and saying in an ordinary tone, "Your
telephone."
Bessie Lonsdale rose and crossed the room, took the receiver from its
stand, said, "Yes," and waited.
A man's voice came over the wire. "I wish to speak to Mrs. Lonsdale,
please."
"I am Mrs. Lonsdale," she said in a smooth, low voice. Her voice was
perfectly smooth because her will had deserted her again. Only her brain
worked, clearly, independently.
"Ah, Mrs. Lonsdale; this is Mr. Burke speaking, Mr. Franklin Burke, of
the Cosmos Club. I am making an effort to get into touch with friends of
Mr. Richard Ayling, and I am told by a man named Chedsey, who I believe
was at one time in your employ, that Mr. Ayling is an old friend of your
family."
"Yes," she said, "we are old friends."
"You knew, then, I presume, that Mr. Ayling had gone away--to the
country some days ago."
"Yes," she said, again, "I knew that he had not been well and that he
had gone out of town for a week.... Is there--anything?" Her heart was
beating very loudly in her ears.
"I dislike to be the bearer of bad news, Mrs. Lonsdale, but I must tell
you that we have received a telephone message here at the club that--I
hope it will not shock you too much--that Mr. Ayling died sometime
to-day, at an inn where he was staying, at Homebury St. Mary, I
believe."
His voice was very gentle and concerned. She hesitated perceptibly, and
his voice came over the wire, "I'm sorry--very sorry, to tell you in
this way--"
She heard herself speaking: "Naturally, I--it's something of a
shock...."
"Indeed I understand."
Again she caught the sound of her own voice, as if it belonged to some
one else, "I suppose it was his heart."
"He was known to have a bad heart?"
"Yes; it has been weak for years."
"I wonder, Mrs. Lonsdale, if I may ask a favor of you. You know, of
course, that Mr. Ayling had very few close friends in London; you are,
in fact, the only one we have been able, on this short notice, to find.
For that reason I am going to ask that you let me come to see you this
afternoon; you will understand that there are certain formalities, facts
which it will be necessary for us to have, which only an old friend of
Mr. Ayling could give--that we could get in no other way...."
"I understand, perfectly."
"Then I may come?"
"Certainly." ... There was nothing else she could say.
* * * * *
She did not know how she got rid of her guest, what explanation she
made, nor how she happened to be saying good-by to her at the very
moment when the dignified, elderly Mr. Burke arrived, so that they had
to be introduced. Though she must have made some adequate explanation,
since Mrs. Downey's last words were, in the presence of Mr. Burke, "It's
always so hard, I think, to lose one's really _old_ friends."
Mr. Burke came in. He was very correct, very kind. He begged Mrs.
Lonsdale to believe that it was with the greatest regret that he called
upon so sad an errand; that he came only because it was necessary and
she was the only person to whom they could turn. He added that he had
known her husband, Major Lonsdale, in his lifetime, and hoped that she
would consider him, therefore, not so entirely a stranger to her.
She heard him as one hears music far away, only the accents and the
climaxes coming clear. He asked her questions, and she was conscious of
answering them: How long had she known Mr. Ayling?--He and her husband
had been boyhood friends; she had met him first at the time of her
marriage to Major Lonsdale. Had they kept up the friendship during all
these years?--No, she had heard nothing of Mr. Ayling since her
husband's death; she knew that he was in India; they had renewed the
friendship when he returned to England a short time ago.--Ah, it was
probable, then, that she knew very little about any attachments Mr.
Ayling might have had?--Here Mr. Burke shifted his position, coughed
slightly, and said:
"I ask you these questions, Mrs. Lonsdale, because of a very--may I
say--a very unfortunate element in connection with the case. It appears
that there was a woman with Mr. Ayling at the Homebury St. Mary inn."
Bessie Lonsdale waited, she did not know for what. Whole minutes seemed
to go by with the elderly Mr. Burke sitting there in his attitude of
formal sympathy before his voice began again.
"I have only been free to mention this to you, Mrs. Lonsdale, because of
the fact that you will hear of it in any case, since it must come out in
the formalities--"
"Formalities?" Her voice cut sharply into his.
"There will, of course, be an inquest--an investigation--the usual
thing. I have been in communication with the coroner's office by
telephone, and I have promised to drive down to Homebury St. Mary myself
this afternoon. He was away on another case, and will not reach there
himself until six. Meantime we must do what we can. They will
necessarily make an effort to discover the woman."
Bessie Lonsdale must have given some sort of involuntary cry, the
implication of which Mr. Burke interpreted in his own way, for he
changed his tone to say:
"I'm afraid, my dear Mrs. Lonsdale, that she was a bit of a rotter,
whoever she was, for she--ran."
"Ran?" She repeated the word.
He nodded. "Disappeared."
She did not know what expression it was of hers that caused him to say:
"I don't wonder you look so shocked. I was shocked. Women don't often do
that sort of thing...." She wanted to cry out that that sort of thing
didn't often happen to women, but he was going on. He had risen and was
walking slowly up and down before the smoldering fire, and in his
incisive, deliberate, well-bred voice he was excoriating the woman who
had been so cowardly as to desert a dying man. "Even if she hadn't
seriously cared, or if, for that matter, she hadn't cared at all, it
would seem that mere common decency.... It puts, frankly, a very
unpleasant light on the whole affair.... Ayling was a gentleman,
and--you will forgive me for saying so, I'm sure--just the decent sort
to be imposed upon, to allow himself to be led into the most unfortunate
affair."
She wanted to stop him, to cry out, to protest. But his words were like
physical blows which stunned her and made her too weak to speak. She
felt that if he went on much longer she would lose consciousness
altogether. Even now she heard only fragments of words.
Suddenly she heard the word "publicity." He had stopped before her and
was looking down at her.
"I think, Mrs. Lonsdale, that the thing we both wish--that is, we at the
club, and you, as his friend--is to do what we can to save any
unnecessary scandal in connection with poor Ayling's death. It is the
least we can do for him."
"Yes!" She grasped frantically at the straw. "Yes, by all means that!"
"You would be willing to help?"
"Yes, anything! But what is there I can do?"
He was maddeningly deliberate. "You are the only person, it appears--at
least the only person available--who has been aware of the condition of
Mr. Ayling's heart. You can say, can you not, with certainty, that he
did suffer from a serious affection of the heart?"
"He came home from India on account of it."
"Very well, then. It was also the verdict of the doctor who was called.
I think together we may be able to obviate the necessity of a too public
investigation--at any rate, we shall see. It must be done, of course,
before the official investigation begins. Therefore, if you will come
down with me this afternoon, in my car--"
"Come with you? Where?"
"To the inn, at Homebury," he said.
She was trapped ... trapped.... The realization of it sprang upon her,
but too late, for already she cried out, "Oh, I couldn't--I couldn't do
that!"
Mr. Burke was looking down at her. He loomed above her like the figure
of fate.... She was trapped.... There was no way out, and suddenly she
realized that she had risen and said: "Forgive me! To be sure I will
go."
"I understand," said Mr. Burke, "how one shrinks from that sort of
thing."
She did not know what she was going to do. She only knew that for this
step, at least, she could no longer resist. Again she had the sensation
of speaking and moving automatically, of decisions making themselves
without the effort of her will.
She asked how soon he wished to go, and he said, consulting his watch,
that they ought to start at once; his car was waiting in the street,
since he had planned to go on directly from her house. She excused
herself, and went to her room. She did not change her dress, but put on
a long, warm coat, her hat, her veil, her gloves, and made sure of her
key in her purse. Then she came out and said she was ready to go. He
complimented her, with a smile, on the short time it had taken her, and
she wondered if he had really seen her hesitation of a few moments
before. They went down the stairs together. At the curb a chauffeur
stood beside a motor, into which, with the utmost consideration for her
comfort, Mr. Burke handed her. Then he gave his instructions to the
chauffeur, and followed her in.
And there began for Bessie Lonsdale that fantastic ride in which she
felt herself being carried forward, as if on the effortless wings of
fate itself, to the very scene from which she had fled.
She had no idea, no dramatization in her mind, of what awaited her or of
what she intended to do. Her imagination refused to focus upon it; and,
strangely, she seemed almost to be resting, leaning back against the
tufted cushions, resting against the time when she should be called upon
for her strength. For she only knew that when the time came to act she
would act.
It was curious how she did not think of Peggy. She was like a lover who
has been set a herculean task to accomplish before he may even think of
his beloved.
Beside her, Mr. Burke seemed to understand that she did not wish to
talk. Perhaps he was thinking of other things; after all, he had not
been Richard Ayling's friend; it was only a human duty he performed.
Long stretches went by in which she saw nothing on either side, and
other stretches in which everything--houses, trees, objects of all
kinds--were exceedingly clear cut and magnified....
"I'm afraid," said Mr. Burke's voice, "that we're running into a storm."
Bessie Lonsdale looked up, and saw that those fleecy, light-gray clouds
which she had seen in the sky early that morning as she stood waiting
for Ayling in the garden of the inn, and which had been gathering all
day, hung now black and menacing just above her head.
It descended upon them suddenly; torrents ran in the road. The wind
veered, and sent great gusts of rain into the car. The chauffeur turned
and asked if he should stop and put the curtains up. Mr. Burke said no,
to go on, they might run through it, and it was too violent to last.
Meantime he worked with the curtains himself, and she helped. But it was
no use; they were getting drenched, and the wind whipped the curtains
out of their hands. Mr. Burke leaned forward and called to the chauffeur
to ask if there was any place near where they might stop.
"There's an inn about half a mile farther on. Shall I make it?"
"By all means."
They ran presently into the strips of light that shed outward from the
lighted windows of the inn. A half-dozen motors already were lined up
outside. They got out and together ran for the door.
Inside, the small public room was almost filled. People sat at the
tables, ordering things to eat and drink, and making the best of it.
They chose a small corner table, a little apart from the rest. The
landlord bustled up and took their coats to dry before the kitchen fire.
A very gay, very dripping party of six came in, assembled with much
laughter the last two tables remaining unoccupied, and settled next to
them, so that they were no longer in a secluded spot.
In a few moments there came in, almost blown through the door by a
violent gust of wind and rain, a short, stout, ruddy person, who, when
the landlord had relieved him of his hat and coat, stood looking about
for a vacant seat. The landlord came toward the table where sat Mrs.
Lonsdale and Mr. Burke.
"Sorry, sir," he said; "it's the only place left."
"May I?" asked the stranger, and at Mrs. Lonsdale's nod and smile, and
Mr. Burke's assent, he drew out the chair and sat down. The two men
spoke naturally of the suddenness of the storm, of the good fortune of
finding a refuge so near.
Bessie Lonsdale was glad of some one else, glad when she heard the
stranger and Mr. Burke fall into the easy passing conversation of men.
It would relieve her of the necessity to talk. It would give her time to
think; for it seemed, dimly, that respite had been offered her. Into her
thoughts broke the voice of Mr. Burke addressing her:
"How very singular, Mrs. Lonsdale! This gentleman is Mr Ford, the
coroner, also on his way to Homebury!"
The stranger was on his feet, bowing and acknowledging the introduction
of Mr. Burke. Bessie Lonsdale had the sensation of waters closing over
her, yet she, too, was bowing and acknowledging the introduction of Mr.
Burke. She had a vivid impression of light shining downward upon the
red-gray hair of Mr. Ford, as he sat down again; and of Mr. Burke saying
something about "the case," and about Mrs. Lonsdale being an old friend
of the dead man; about her having been good enough to volunteer to shed
whatever light she might have upon the case, and of their meeting being
the "most fortunate coincidence."
Mr. Ford signified that he, too, looked upon it in that way. They would
go on to Homebury together, he said, when the storm had cleared.
"I suppose," he asked, leaning forward a little, confidentially, "that
Mrs. Lonsdale knows of the--peculiar element----"
"The woman--yes," said Mr. Burke. And Bessie Lonsdale inclined her head
and said, "I know."
"And do you know who she was?"
She had only to make a negative sign, for Mr. Burke, with nice
consideration, anticipated her reply:
"Unfortunately, Mr. Ford, no one appears to have the least idea who she
might be. Mrs. Lonsdale, however, has been able to clear up a point
which may, I fancy, make the identity of the woman less important than
it might otherwise appear to be. Mrs. Lonsdale has known for some time
of the serious condition of Mr. Ayling's heart. It was because of it,
she tells me, that Mr. Ayling came home from India. Mrs. Lonsdale's
testimony, together with the statement of the physician who was called,
would seem to leave little doubt that it was merely a case of heart."
Mr. Ford was nodding his head. "So it would," he said. "Yes, so it
would." He stopped nodding, and sat there an instant, as if he were
thinking of something else. "If that's the case," he broke out, "what a
rotter, by Jove! that woman was!"
"Rotter, I think," said Mr. Burke, "was precisely the word _I_ used."
And Bessie Lonsdale listened for the second time that day while two
voices, now, instead of one, were lifted in excoriation of some woman
who seemed to grow, as they talked, only a shade less real than herself.
She had again the sensation of the words beating upon her like blows
which she was powerless to resist. She lost, as one does in physical
pain, all sense of time....
"However," Mr. Ford brought down his hand with a kind of judicial
finality, "if Mrs. Lonsdale will come on down with us now--the storm
seems to have slackened--we'll see what can be done." He turned in his
chair as if he were preparing to rise.
At the movement Bessie Lonsdale seemed to grow rigid in her chair.
"Wait."
Mr. Burke and Mr. Ford turned, startled by the strangeness of her tone.
They waited for her to speak.
"I can't go."
"Can't go?" They echoed it together. "Why not?"
"Because," said she, "I am the woman you have been talking about."
For an instant they sat perfectly motionless, the three of them. Then
slowly Mr. Burke and Mr. Ford turned their heads and looked at each
other, as if to verify what they had heard. Mr. Burke put out his hand
toward Bessie Lonsdale's arm, resting on the table, and he spoke very
gently indeed:
"My dear Mrs. Lonsdale, this is impossible."
"Impossible," she said, passing her hand across her eyes, "impossible?"
"Yes, Mrs. Lonsdale." He spoke reasonably, as if she were a child. "It
couldn't be you." He turned now to include Mr. Ford, who sat staring at
them both. "I myself gave Mrs. Lonsdale the news of Mr. Ayling's death,
over the telephone. She was at her home, in Cambridge Terrace, quietly
having tea with a friend; the friend was still there when I arrived. You
have been at home, in London, all day."
"No," she said. "No, Mr. Burke."
"I think," said Mr. Ford, also very gently indeed, "that perhaps Mrs.
Lonsdale is trying to shield some one."
Until that instant Bessie Lonsdale had no plan. She had only known that
she could not go with them to Homebury St. Mary, there to be recognized.
But something in the suggestion of Mr. Ford--in the tone, perhaps, more
than the words--caused her to say, looking from one to the other of
these two men so lately strangers to her:
"I wonder--I wonder if I could make you understand!"
They begged her to believe that that was the thing they wished most to
do.
"I did it"--she paused, and forced herself to go on--"because of my
daughter."
Intent upon her truth, she did not even see by the shocked expression of
their faces the awfulness of the thing they thought she confessed, and
the obviousness of the reason to which their minds had leaped.
Mr. Burke put out his hand again and laid it upon her arm, which
trembled slightly at his touch. "Mrs. Lonsdale," he said, and this time
he spoke even more gently, but more urgently, than before, "are you
_sure_ you wish to tell?"
"No," said Bessie Lonsdale, "but I've _got_ to, don't you see?"
Mr. Ford moved in his chair, and spoke, guarding his voice, judicially.
"Since we have gone so far, it will be even better, perhaps, for Mrs.
Lonsdale to tell it to us here."
Mr. Burke nodded, and they looked toward her expectantly.
"Yes, Mrs. Lonsdale?" said Mr. Ford.
An instant the brown-flecked eyes appeared to be searching for some
human contact which she seemed vaguely to have lost. And then she began
at the beginning--with her daughter's engagement to young Andrew McCrae,
her happiness, her security--and quietly, with only now and then a
slight tension of her body and her voice, she told it all to them,
exactly as it happened, without plea or embellishment. She had only one
stress, and that she tried to make reasonable to them--her child's
security.
And they waited, attentive and patient, for the motive to emerge, for
the beginning of that complication between her daughter and Richard
Ayling, which they believed was to be the crux of her narrative.
And as her story progressed their bewilderment increased, for never, it
appeared, had Bessie Lonsdale's daughter so much as heard of the
existence of the man who lay dead at Homebury inn. She seemed even to
make a special point of that.
They thought she but put it off against the time when it should be
forced from her lips; but her story did not halt; she was telling it
step by step, accounting for every hour of the time.
They waited for her to offer proof of the condition of Ayling's heart.
She did not mention it, except to say, when she came to relating the
moment of her discovery, that she had not thought of it; that even when
she opened the door of his room she did not think directly of his heart;
and only when she saw him actually lying there so peacefully dead did
she remember the danger in which he constantly lived. She seemed to
offer it as proof of the suddenness and completeness of her shock, and
in extenuation of the thing she afterward did.
Slowly, gradually, as they listened, and as the light of her omissions
made it clear, it had begun to dawn upon them that Bessie Lonsdale was
telling the whole of the truth. And by it she sought to disprove
_something_, but not the thing they thought.
She had paused, at the point of her flight, to attempt, a little
hopelessly, to make her impulse real to them. She spoke of the
inflexible honor of the McCraes, of the great respect which had for
generations attached to their name. Then suddenly, as if she saw the
utter hopelessness of making them understand, she seemed with a gesture
to give up abstractions and obscurities and to find in the depth of her
mother's heart the final simple words:
"Don't you see?" she said. "I hadn't thought how my being there at the
same inn with Mr. Ayling would look--and then, all at once, it came over
me. The whole thing, how it would look to the world, how it would look
to the family of my daughter's fiancé,--and that it might mean the
breaking of the engagement,--the wreck of her future happiness--don't
you see--I didn't think of 'being a rotter'--I only thought of her!"
They uttered, both of them, a sudden exclamation, as if they had been
struck. By their expressions one might have thought the woman the
accuser and the two men the accused.
"Oh, my dear Mrs. Lonsdale--!" they both began at once, but she stopped
them with a gesture of her hand.
"I don't blame you," she said, "I don't blame you. I _was_ a rotter, to
run, but I simply didn't think of myself."
Her tone, her gentleness, were the final proof. Only the innocent so
graciously forgive.
"And now," she was saying, a great weariness in her voice, "I've told
you. Do you want me to go on? It isn't raining any more."
"Perhaps, Mr. Ford--" Mr. Burke began. A look passed between them, like
a question and an assent.
"If you, Mr. Burke," said Mr. Ford, "will come on with me, I think we
can let your man drive Mrs. Lonsdale home. It will not be necessary for
her to appear."
Bessie Lonsdale's thankfulness could find itself no words; it was lost
in that first moment in astonishment. She had not really expected them
to believe. It had not even, as she told it, seemed to her own ears
adequate.
"I think," said Mr. Burke, seeing her silent so long, "that Mrs.
Lonsdale hasn't an idea of the seriousness of the charge she has
escaped."
"Charge?" she repeated--"Charge?--" and without another word, Bessie
Lonsdale fainted in her chair. And as she lost consciousness she heard,
dim and far away, the voice of Mr. Ford reply: "That--the fact that she
_hadn't_ an idea of it--and that alone, is why she _has_ escaped."
* * * * *
"I'm perfectly sure," said Peggy Lonsdale, on Saturday afternoon, "that
you _did_ let yourself have a dull time!" She was exploring the flat
before she had taken off her things, and had stopped to sit for a moment
on the arm of her mother's chair. "Anyway, mother dear, you didn't have
to think of me! That must have been a relief!"
She put down her head and kissed her, and Bessie Lonsdale patted the
fragrant young cheek.
"Oh, I thought of you occasionally," she said.
FOOTNOTE:
[15] Copyright, 1920, by Harper & Brothers. Copyright, 1921, by Fleta
Campbell Springer.
OUT OF EXILE[16]
#By# WILBUR DANIEL STEELE
From _The Pictorial Review_
Among all the memories of my boyhood in Urkey Island the story of Mary
Matheson and the Blake boys comes back to me now, more than any other,
with the sense of a thing seen in a glass darkly. And the darkness of
the glass was my own adolescence.
I know that now, and I'm sorry. I'm ashamed to find myself suspecting
that half of Mary Matheson's mature beauty in my eyes may have been
romance, and half the romance mystery, and half of that the unsettling
discovery that the other sex does not fade at seventeen and wither quite
away at twenty, as had been taken somehow for granted. I'm glad there is
no possibility of meeting her again as she was at thirty, and so making
sure: I shall wish to remember her as the boy of sixteen saw her that
night waiting in the dunes above the wreck of the "India ship," with
Rolldown Nickerson bleating as he fled from the small, queer casket of
polished wood he had flung on the sand, and the bridegroom peering out
of the church window, over the moors in Urkey Village.
The thing began when I was too young to make much of it yet, a wonder of
less than seven days among all the other bright, fragmentary wonders of
a boy's life at six. Mainly I remember that Mary Matheson was a fool;
every one in Urkey Village was saying that.
I can't tell how long the Blake boys had been courting her. I came too
late to see anything but the climax of that unbrotherly tournament, and
only by grace of the hundredth chance of luck did I witness even one act
of that.
I was coming home one autumn evening just at dusk, loitering up the cow
street from the eastward where the big boys had been playing "Run,
Sheep, Run," and I watching from the vantage of Aunt Dee Nickerson's
hen-house and getting whacked when I told. And I had come almost to the
turning into Drugstore Lane when the sound of a voice fetched me up, all
eyes and ears, against the pickets of the Matheson place.
It was the voice of my cousin Duncan, the only father I ever knew. He
was constable of Urkey Village, and there was something in the voice as
I heard it in the yard that told you why.
"Drop it, Joshua! Drop it, or by heavens----!"
Of Duncan I could see only the back, large and near. But the faces of
the others were plain to my peep-hole between the pickets, or as plain
as might be in the falling dusk. The sky overhead was still bright, but
the blue shadow of the bluff lay all across that part of the town, and
it deepened to a still bluer and cooler mystery under the apple-tree
canopy sheltering the dooryard. I never see that light to this day, a
high gloaming sifted through leaves on turf, without the faintest memory
of a shiver. For that was the first I had even known of anger, the still
and deadly anger of grown men.
My cousin had spoken to Joshua Blake, and I saw that Joshua held a
pistol in his hand, the old, single-ball dueling weapon that had
belonged to his father. His face was white, and the pallor seemed to
refine still further the blade-like features of the Blake, the aquiline
nose, the sloping, patrician forehead, the narrow lip, blue to the
pressure of the teeth.
That was Joshua. Andrew, his brother, stood facing him three or four
paces away. He was the younger of the two, the less favored, the more
sensitive.
He had what no other Blake had had, a suspicion of freckle on his high,
flat cheek. And he had what no one else in Urkey had then, a brace of
gold teeth, the second and third to the left in the upper jaw, where Lem
White's boom had caught him, jibing off the Head. They showed now as the
slowly working lip revealed them, glimmering with a moist, dull sheen.
He, too, was white.
His hands were empty, hanging down palms forward. But in his eyes there
was no look of the defenseless: only a light of passionate contempt.
And between the two, and beyond them, as I looked, stood Mary, framed by
the white pillars of the doorway, her hands at her throat and her long
eyes dilated with a girl's fright more precious than exultation. So the
three remained in tableau while, as if on another planet, the dusk
deepened from moment to moment: Gramma Pilot, two yards away, brought
supper to her squealing sow; and further off, out on the waning mirror
of the harbor, a conch lowed faintly for some schooner's bait.
* * * * *
"Drop it, Joshua!" Duncan's voice came loud and clear.
And this time, following the hush, it seemed to exercise the devil of
quietude. I heard Mary's breath between her lips, and saw Andrew wheel
sharply to pick a scale from the tree-trunk with a thumb-nail. Joshua's
eyes went down to the preposterous metal in his hand; he shivered
slightly like a dreamer awakening and thrust it in his pocket. And then,
seeing Duncan turning toward the fence and me, I took the better part of
valor and ran, and saw no more.
There were serious men in town that night when it was known what a pass
the thing had come to; men that walked and women that talked. It was all
Mary's fault. Long ago she ought to have taken one of them and "sent the
other packing." That's what Miah White said, sitting behind the stove in
our kitchen over the shop; that's what Duncan thought as he paced back
and forth, shaking his head. That's what they were all saying or
thinking as they sat or wandered about.
Such are the difficulties of serious men. And even while it all went on,
Mary Matheson had gone about her choosing in the way that seemed fit to
youth. In the warm-lit publicity of Miss Alma Beedie's birthday-party,
shaking off so soon the memory of that brief glint of pistol-play under
the apple-trees, she took a fantastic vow to marry the one that brought
her the wedding-ring--promised with her left hand on Miss Beedie's
album and her right lifted toward the allegorical print of the Good
Shepherd that the one who, first across the Sound to the jeweler's at
Gillyport and back again, fetched her the golden-ring--that he should be
her husband "for better or for worse, till death us do part, and so
forth and so on, Amen!"
And those who were there remembered afterwards that while Joshua stood
his ground and laughed and clapped with the best of them, his brother
Andrew left the house. They said his face was a sick white, and that he
looked back at Mary for an instant from the doorway with a curious, hurt
expression in his eyes, as if to say, "Is it only a game to you then?
And if it's only a game, is it worth the candle?" They remembered it
afterward, I say; long afterward.
They thought he had gone out for just a moment; that presently he would
return to hold up his end of the gay challenge over the cakes and
cordial. But to that party Andrew Blake never returned. Their first hint
of what was afoot they had when Rolldown Nickerson, the beachcomber,
came running in, shining with the wet of the autumn gale that began that
night. He wanted Joshua to look out for his brother. Being innocent of
what had happened at the party, he thought Andrew had gone out of his
head.
"Here I come onto him in the lee of White's wharf putting a compass into
the old man's sail-dory, and I says to him, 'What you up to, Andrew?'
And he says with a kind of laugh, 'Oh, taking a little sail for other
parts,' says he--like that. Now, just imagine, Josh, with this here
weather coming on--all hell bu'sting loose to the north'rd!"
* * * * *
They say that there came a look into Joshua's eyes that none of them had
ever seen before. He stood there for a moment, motionless and silent,
and Rolldown, deceived by his attitude, was at him again.
"You don't realize, man, or else you'd stop him!"
"Oh, I'll _stop_ him!" It was hardly above a breath.
"I'll _stop_ him!" And throwing his greatcoat over his shoulders, Joshua
went out.
You may believe that the house would not hold the party after that.
Whispering, giggling, shivering, the young people trooped down Heman
Street to the shore. And there, under the phantom light of a moon hidden
by the drift of storm-clouds, they found Andrew gone and all they saw of
Joshua was a shadow--a shadow in black frock-clothes--wading away from
them over the half-covered flats, deeper and deeper, to where the Adams
sloop rode at her moorings, a shade tailing in the wind. They called,
but he did not answer, and before they could do anything he had the sail
up, and he, too, was gone, into the black heart of the night.
It is lonesome in the dark for a boy of six when the floor heaves and
the bed shivers and over his head the shingles make a sound in the wind
like the souls of all the lost men in the world. The hours from two till
dawn that night I spent under the table in the kitchen, where Miah White
and his brother Lem had come to talk with Duncan. And among the three of
them, all they could say was "My heavens! My heavens!" I say till dawn;
but our kitchen might have given on a city air-shaft for all the dawn we
got.
It is hard to give any one who has lived always in the shelter of the
land an idea of the day that followed, hour by waiting hour--how folks
walked the beaches and did not look at each other in passing, and how
others, climbing the bluff to have a better sight of the waters beyond
the Head, found themselves blinded by the smother at fifty yards and yet
still continued to stare.
Of them all, that day, Mary Matheson was the only one who kept still.
And she was as still as an image. Standing half-hidden in the untidy
nook behind the grocery, she remained staring out through the harbor
mists from dawn till another heavy night came down, and no one can say
whether she would have gone home then had not the appalled widow, her
mother, slipped down between the houses to take her.
She was at home, at any rate, when Joshua Blake came back.
After all that waiting and watching, no one saw him land on the
battered, black beach, for it was in the dead hour of the morning; of
the three persons who are said to have met him on his way to Mary's, two
were so tardy with their claims that a doubt has been cast on them. I do
believe, tho, that Mother Polly Freeman, the west-end midwife, saw him
and spoke with him in the light thrown from the drug-store window
(where, had I only known enough to be awake, I might have looked down on
them from my bed-room and got some fame of my own).
She says she thought at first he was a ghost come up from the bottom of
the sea, with his clothes plastered thin to his body, weed in his hair,
and his face drawn and creased like fish-flesh taken too soon out of the
pickle. Afterward, when he spoke, she thought he was crazy.
"I've got it!" he said, taking hold of her arm. Opening a blue hand he
held it out in the light for her to see the ring that had bitten his
palm with the grip. "See, I've got it, Mother Poll!" She says it was
hardly more than a whisper, like a secret, and that there was a look in
his eyes as if he had seen the Devil face to face.
She meant to run when he let her go, but when she saw him striding off
toward Mary Matheson's her better wisdom prevailed; following along the
lane and taking shelter behind Gramma Pilot's fence, she waited,
watched, and listened, to the enduring gain of Urkey's sisterhood.
She used to tell it well, Mother Poll. Remembering her tale now, I think
I can see the earth misting under the trees in the calm dawn, and hear
Joshua's fist pounding, pounding, on the panels of the door.
It must have been queer for Mother Poll. For while she heard that hollow
pounding under the portico, like the pounding of a heart in some deep
bosom of horror--all the while she could see Mary herself in an upper
window--just her face resting on one cold, still forearm on the sill.
And her eyes, Mother Poll says, were enough to make one pity her.
It was strange that she was so lazy, not to move or to speak in answer
while the summons of the triumphant lover went on booming through the
lower house. _He_ must have wondered. Perhaps it was then that the
first shadow of the ghost of doubt crept over him, or perhaps it was
when, stepping out on the turf, he raised his eyes and discovered Mary's
face in the open window.
He said nothing. But with a wide, uncontrolled gesture he held up the
ring for her to see. After a moment she opened her lips.
"Where's Andrew?"
That seemed to be the last straw: a feverish anger laid hold of him.
"Here's the ring! You see it! Damnation, Mary! You gave your word and I
took it, and God knows what I've been through. Now come! Get your things
on and bring your mother if you like--but to Minister Malden's you go
with me _now_! You hear Mary? I'll not wait!"
"Where's Andrew?"
"Andrew? Andrew? Why the devil do you keep on asking for Andrew? What's
_Andrew_ to you--now?"
"Where is he?"
"Mary, you're a fool!"
Her voice grew if anything more monotonous; his, higher and wilder.
"You're a fool," he cried again, "if you don't know where Andrew is."
"He's gone."
"Gone, yes! And how you can say it like that, so calm--God!"
"I knew he was going," she said. "He told Rolldown he was going to other
parts. But I knew it before that--when he turned at the door and looked
at me, Joshua. He said it as plain: 'If _that's_ love,' he said, 'then
I'm going off somewhere and forget it, and never come back to Urkey any
more.'"
The deadness went out of her voice, and it lifted to another note.
"Joshua, he's got to come back, for I can't bear it. I gave you my word,
and I'll marry you--when Andrew comes back to stand at the wedding. He's
got to--_got_ to!"
Mother Poll said that Joshua stared at her--simply stood there and
stared up at her in the queer, cold dawn, his mouth hanging open as if
with a kind of horror. Sweat shone on his face. Turning away without a
word by and by he laid an uncertain course for the gate, and leaving it
open behind him went off through the vapors of the cow street to the
east.
As they carried him along step by step, I think, the feet of the cheated
gambler grew heavier and heavier, his shoulders collapsed, the head,
with the memory in it he could never lose, hung down, and hell received
his soul.
It is impossible in so short a space to tell what the next ten years did
to those two. It would have been easier for Mary Matheson in a city, for
in a city there is always the blankness of the crowd. In a village there
is no such blessed thing as a stranger, the membership committee of the
only club is the doctor and the midwife, and all the houses are made of
glass.
In a city public opinion is mighty, but devious. In a village,
especially in an island village, it is as direct and violent as any "act
of God" written down in a ship's insurance papers. A word carries far
over the fences, and where it drops, like a swelling seed, a dozen words
spring up.
"It's a shame, Milly, a living shame, as sure's you're alive."
"You never said truer, Belle. As if 'twa'n't enough she should send Andy
to his death o' drownding----"
"Well, I hope she's satisfied, what she's done for Joshua. I saw him to
the post-office last evening, and the hang-dog look of him----"
"Yes, I saw him, too. A man can't stand being made a fool of...."
So, in the blue of a wash-day morning the words went winging back and
forth between the blossoming lines. Or, in a Winter dusk up to the
westward, where old Mrs. Paine scuttled about under the mackerel-twine
of her chicken-pen:
"Land alive, it's all very well to talk Temp'rance, and I'm not denying
it'd be a mercy for some folks--I ain't mentioning no names--not even
Miah White's. But, land sakes how you going to talk Temp'rance to a man
bereft and be-fooled like Joshua Blake? Where's your rime-nor-reason?
Where's your argument?"
Or there came Miah White himself up our outside stair on the darkest
evening of our Spring weather, and one glance at his crimson face was
enough to tell what all the Temperance they had preached to _him_ had
come to. Miah turned to the bottle as another man might to prayer.
"By the Lord!" he protested thickly. "Something's got to be done!"
"Done? About what?" I remember my cousin peering curiously at him
through the smoke and spatter of the sausage he was frying.
"About Josh, of course, and _her_. I tell you, Dunc, 'tain't right, and
I'll not bear it. I'll not see Josh, same as I seen him this night,
standing there in the dark of the outside beach and staring at the water
like a sleep-walker, staring and staring as if he'd stare right through
it and down to the bottom of the sea where his brother lay, and saying
to himself, _Who's to pay the bill? Who's to pay the bill?_ No, siree!
You and I are young fellows, Dunc, but we ain't so young we can't
remember them boys' father, and I guess he done a thing or two for us,
eh?"
"Yes," Duncan agreed calmly. "But what's to be done?"
"God knows! But look here, Dunc, you're constable, ain't you?"
Duncan smiled pityingly, as if to say, "Don't be an idiot, Miah."
"And if you're constable, and a man owns a bill he won't pay, why then
you've something to say in it, ain't I right? Well, here's a bill to
pay, fair and square. All this wool she'd pull over our eyes about
Andrew and the India ship--as if _that_ made a mite of difference one
way or the other! No, siree, Dunc, she give her word to take the man
that fetched the ring--that man's Joshua--the bargain's filled on his
side--and there you are. Now, you're constable. I take it right, Duncan,
you should give that girl a piece of your mind; give her to understand
that, India ship yes, India ship no, she's got a bill to pay and a
man's soul to save from damnation everlasting."
All Duncan could do with him that night was to smile and shake his head,
as much as to say, "You're a wild one, Miah, sure enough."
About Mary's sullen, stubborn belief in the "India ship," pretended or
real as it may have been with her, but already growing legendary, I know
only in the largest and mistiest way.
It is true there had been a ship that looked like an east-going clipper
in our waters on that fateful night. Every one had seen it before dark
came on, standing down from the north and laying a course to weather the
Head if possible before the weather broke. It was Mary's claim that
Andrew had pointed it out to her and spoken of it--in a strange way, a
kind of a wistful way, she said. And later that night, what better for a
man on the way to exile than a heaven-sent, outbound India ship, hove to
under the lee of the Head.
Yes, yes, it was so--it _must_ be so. And when they laughed at her in
Urkey Village and winked sagely at her assumption of faith, then she
asked them to tell her one thing: had any one's eyes seen Andrew's boat
go down--actually.
"If Joshua will answer me, and say that he _knows_ Andrew went down! Or
if any of you will tell me that Andrew's body ever came ashore on any of
the islands or the main!"
It was quite absurd, of course, but none of them could answer that, none
but Miah White, and he only when he had had a drop out of the bottle and
perceived that it weighed not an ounce in either scale.
Picked out so and written down, you would think this drama overshadowed
all my little world. Naturally it didn't. You must remember I was a boy,
with a thousand other things to do and a million other things to think
of, meals to eat, lessons to hate, stones to throw, apples to steal,
fights to fight. I take my word that by the time I was nine or ten the
whole tragic episode had gone out of my head. Meeting Mary Matheson on
the street, where she came but rarely, she was precisely as mysterious
and precisely as uninteresting as any other grown-up. And if I saw
Joshua Blake (who, pulling himself by the bootstraps out of drink and
despair, had gone into Mr. Dow's law-office and grown as hard as
nails)--if I saw him, I say, my only romantic thought of him was the
fact that I had broken his wood-shed window, and that, with an air of
sinister sagacity, he had told several boys he knew who the culprit was.
(A statement, by the way, which I believed horribly for upward of
eighteen months.)
I believe that we knew, in a dim sort of way, that the two were
"engaged," just as we knew, vaguely, that they never got married. And
that was the end of speculation. Having always been so, the phenomenon
needed no more to be dwelt on than the fact that when the wind was in
the east John Dyer thought he was Oliver Cromwell, or that Minister
Malden did not live with his family.
John Dyer had been taken beyond the power of any planetary wind;
Minister Malden (as I have told in another place) had gone back to live
with his family: and I had been away to Highmarket Academy for two
years, before I had sudden and moving reason to take stock of that
long-buried drama.
It was three days after I had come home for the long vacation, and,
being pretty well tired out with sniffing about the island like a cat
returned to the old house, I sprawled at rest on the "Wreck of the
Lillian" stone in the graveyard on Rigg's Dome.
It was then, as the dusk crept up from the shadow under the bluff, that
I became aware of another presence among the gravestones and turned my
head to peer through the barberries that hedged the stone, thinking it
might be one of the girls. It was only Mary Matheson. Vaguely
disappointed, I should have returned my gaze to the sea and forgotten
her had it not been for two things.
One of them was her attitude. That made me keep on looking at her, and
so looking at her, and having come unwittingly to a most obscurely
unsettled age, I made a discovery. This was that Mary Matheson, at the
remote age of thirty, had a deeper and fuller beauty than had any of
the girls for whose glances I brushed my hair wet and went to midweek
prayer-meeting.
I find it hard to convey the profound, revolutionary violence of this
discovery. It is enough to say that, along with a sensation of pinkness,
there came a feeling of obscure and unreasoning bitterness against the
world.
My eyes had her there, a figure faintly rose-colored against the
deepening background of the sea. She stood erect and curiously still
beside a grave, her hands clenched, her eyes narrowed. In Urkey they
always put up a stone for a man lost at sea; very often they went
further for the comfort of their souls and mounded the outward likeness
of an inward grave. Well, that was Andrew's stone and Andrew's grave.
Some one in the Memorial Day procession last week had laid a wreath of
lilacs under the stone. And now, wandering alone, Mary Matheson had come
upon it.
I saw her bend and with a fierce gesture catch up the symbol of death
and fling it behind her on the grass. Afterward, as she stood there with
her breast heaving and her lips moving as if with pain, I knew I should
not be where I was, watching; I knew that no casual ears of mine should
hear the cry that came out of her heart:
"No, No, No! They're still trying to kill him--still trying to kill
him--all of them! But they sha'n't! They sha'n't!"
I tell you it shook me and it shamed me. I thought I ought to cough or
scuff my feet or something, but it seemed too late for that. Moreover
the play had taken another turn that made me forget the moralities,
quite, and another actor had come quietly upon the scene.
I can't say whether Joshua, seeing Mary on her way to the Dome, had
followed her, or whether he had been strolling that way on his own
account. He was there, at all events, watching her from beyond the
grave, his head slightly inclined, his hands clasped behind him, and his
feet apart on the turf. The color of dusk lent a greenish cast to his
bloodless face, and the night wind, coming up free over the naked curve
of the Dome and flapping the long black tails of his coat, seemed but
to accentuate the dead weight of his attitude.
When a minute had gone by I heard his dry voice.
"So, Mary, you're at it again?"
"But they sha-n-t!" She seemed to take flame. "It's not right to Andrew
nor me. They do it just to mock me, and I know it, and oh! I don't care,
but they sha'n't, they sha'n't!"
"Mary," said Joshua, all the smoldering anger of the years coming in his
voice, "Mary, I think it's time you stopped being a fool. We've all had
enough of it, Mary. Andrew is dead."
She turned on him with a swift, ironical challenge.
"You say it _now_? You _know_ now? Perhaps you've just made sure;
perhaps you've seen his body washed up on one of the beaches--just
to-day? Or then why so tardy, Joshua? If you _knew_, why couldn't you
say it in so many words ten years ago--five years ago? _Why_?"
"Because----"
"Yes, because? Because?" There was something incredibly ruthless,
tiger-like, about this shadow-dwelling woman. "Say it now, Joshua; that
you know of a certainty Andrew went down. I dare you again!"
Joshua said it.
"I know of a certainty Andrew went down that night."
"_How_ do you know? Did you _see him go down_? Tell me that!"
For a moment, for more than a long moment, her question hung unanswered
in the air. And as, straining forward, poised, vibrant, she watched him,
she saw the hard, dry mask he had made for himself through those years
grow flabby and white as dough; she saw the eyes widening and the lips
going loose with the memory he had never uttered.
"Yes," he cried in a loud voice. "You bring me to it, do you?" The man
was actually shaking. "Yes, then, I saw Andrew go down that night. I
heard him call in the dark. I saw his face on the water. I saw his hand
reaching up as the wave brought him by--reaching up to me. I could
almost touch it--but not quite. If you knew what the sea was that night,
and the wind; how lonely, how dark! God! And here I stand and say it out
loud! I couldn't reach his hand--not quite.... I've told you now, Mary,
what I swore I'd never tell.... _Damn you_!"
With that curse he turned unsteadily on his heel and left her. The
shadows among the gravestones down hill laid hands on his broken,
shambling figure, and he became a shadow. Once the shadow stumbled. And
as if that distant, awkward act had aroused Mary from a kind of
lethargy, she broke forward a step, reaching out her arms.
"Joshua!" she called to him, "Joshua, Joshua, come back!"
In the last faint light from the sky where stars began to come, her face
was wet with tears of pity and repentance; pity for the man who had
walled himself in with that memory; repentance for the sin of her
blindness.
"Joshua!" she called again, but he did not seem to hear.
It was too much for me. Feeling more shame than I can tell, and with it
a new gnawing bitterness of jealousy, I sneaked out of hiding by the
"Lillian" stone and down the Dome toward the moors.
"Good Grandmother!" I know I grew redder and redder as I walked. "I hope
I don't have to see _her_ again--the old thing!"
But I did, and that before many minutes had elapsed. For fetching back
into the village by the ice-house and the back-side track, I was almost
in collision with a hurrying shade in the dark under Dow's willows. It
was Mary. I shall not forget the queer moment of suspense as she peered
into my face, nor the touch of her fingers on my arm, nor the sigh.
"Oh--you're--you're the Means boy."
An embarrassment, pathetic only now in memory, came upon her.
"I--I wonder----" Her confusion grew more painful and her eyes went
everywhere in the dark. "You don't happen to have seen any
one--any--you haven't seen Mr. Blake, have you?"
"No!" I shook off the hand that still lay, as if forgotten, on my
outraged arm. "What you want of _him_? _He's_ no good!"
With that shot for parting I turned and stalked away. Behind me after a
moment, I heard her cry of protest, dismal beyond words.
"Why do you say that, boy? What do you mean by that?"
Having meant nothing at all, except that I would have slain him gladly,
I kept my bitter peace and held my way to the westward, leaving her to
find her way and her soul in the blind, black shadows under the
willow-trees.
No one who lived in Urkey Village then will forget the day it was known
that Mary Matheson was going to marry Joshua Blake, at last. An isolated
village is like an isolated person, placid-looking to dullness, but in
reality almost idiotically emotional. More than anything else, when the
news had run, it was like the camp-meeting conversion of a simple soul.
First, for the "conviction of sin," there was the calling-up of all the
dark, forgotten history, the whispered refurbishing of departed gossip,
the ghosts of old angers. Then like the flood of Mercy, the assurance
that all was well, having ended well. Everything was forgiven and
forgotten, every one was to live happily ever after, and there must be a
wedding.
Surely a wedding! The idea that Minister Malden should come quietly to
the house and so have it done without pomp or pageantry--it is laughable
to think how that notion fared at the hands of an aroused village.
Flowers there were to be, processions, veils, cakes, rice, boots, all
the properties dear to the heart of the Roman mob. In the meantime there
was to be a vast business of runnings and stitchings, of old women
beating eggs and sifting flour, of schoolgirls writing "MARY BLAKE" on
forbidden walls with stolen chalk. Dear me!
You might think Mary and Joshua would have rebelled. Curiously, they
seemed beyond rebelling. Joshua, especially, was a changed man. His old,
hard mask was gone; the looseness of his lips had come to stay, and the
wideness of his eyes. One could only think that happiness long-deferred
had come under him like a tide of fate on which he could do no more than
drift and smile. He smiled at every one, a nervous, deprecatory smile;
to every proposal he agreed: "All right! Splendid! Let's have it done--"
And one got the sense somehow of the thought running on: "--right away!
Make haste, if you please. Haste! For God's sake, haste!"
If he were hailed on the street, especially from behind, his eyes came
to the speaker with a jerk, and sometimes his hand went to his heart.
Seeing him so one bright day, and hearing two old men talking behind me,
I learned for the first time that the Blake boys' father had died of
heart-disease. It is odd that it should have come on Joshua now, quite
suddenly, along with his broken mask and his broken secret, his
frightened smile, and his, "All right! Splendid!"--("Make haste!")
But so it was. And so we came to the day appointed. We had a dawn as red
as blood that morning, and tho it was clear, there was a feeling of
oppression in the air--and another oppression of people's spirits. For
the bride's party had the "hack," and Mrs. Dow had spoken for the only
other polite conveyance, the Galloway barge, and what was to come of all
the fine, hasty gowns in case it came on for a gale or rain?
Is it curious that here and there in that hurrying, waiting afternoon a
thought would turn back to another day when a storm was making and a
tall ship standing down to weather the Head? For if there was a menace
of weather to-day, so, too, was there a ship. We seemed to grow
conscious of it by degrees, it drew on so slowly out of the broad, blue,
windless south. For hours, in the early afternoon, it seemed scarcely to
move on the mirroring surface of the sea. Yet it did move, growing
nearer and larger, its huge spread of canvas hanging straight as
cerecloth on the poles, and its wooden flanks, by and by, showing the
scars and rime of a long voyage put behind it.
Yes, it seems to me it would have been odd, as our eyes went out in the
rare leisure moments of that afternoon and fell upon that presence, worn
and strange and solitary within the immense ring of the horizon, if
there had not been somewhere among us some dim stirring of memory, and
of wonder. Not too vivid, perhaps; not strong enough perhaps to outlast
the ship's disappearance. For at about five o'clock the craft, which had
been standing for the Head, wore slowly to port, and laying its course
to fetch around the western side of the island, drifted out of our sight
beyond the rampart of the bluffs.
Why it should have done that, no man can say. Why, in the face of coming
weather, the ship should have abandoned the clear course around the Head
and chosen instead to hazard the bars and rips that make a good three
miles to sea from Pilot's Point in the west--why this hair-brained
maneuver should have been attempted will always remain a mystery.
But at least that ship was gone from our sight, and by so much out of
our minds. And this was just as well, perhaps, for our minds had enough
to take them up just then with all the things overlooked, chairs to
fetch, plants to borrow, girls' giggling errands--and in the very midst
of this eleventh-hour hub-bub, the sudden advent of storm.
What a catastrophe that was! What a voiceless wail went up in that hour
from all the bureaus and washstands in the length of Urkey Village! And
how glad I was! With what a poisonous joy did I give thanks at the
window for every wind-driven drop that spoiled by so much the wedding of
a woman nearly twice my age!
The lamps on the street were yellow blurs, and the wind was full of
little splashings and screechings and blowing of skirts and wraps when I
set out alone for Center Church, wishing heartily I might never get
there. That I didn't is the only reason this story was ever told. Not
many got there that night (of the men, that is), or if they did they
were not to stay long, for something bigger than a wedding was afoot.
The first wind I had of it crossed my path at Heman Street, a huge
clattering shadow that turned out to be Si Pilot's team swinging at a
watery gallop toward the back-side track, and the wagon-body full of
men. I saw their faces as they passed under the Heman Street lamp, James
Burke, Fred Burke, Sandy Snow, half a dozen other surfmen home for the
Summer from the Point station, and Captain Cook himself hanging on to
Sandy's shoulder as he struggled to get his Sunday blacks wriggled into
his old, brown oil-cloths. In a wink they were gone, and I, forgetting
the stained lights of Center Church, was gone after them. Nor was I
alone. There were a dozen shades pounding with me; at the cow street we
were a score. I heard the voices of men I couldn't see.
"Aground? Where to?"
"On the outer bar; south'rd end of the outer bar they tell me."
The voices came and went, whipped by the wind.
"What vessel'd you say? Town craft?"
"No--that ship."
"What? Not that--that--_India ship_!"
"Yep--that India ship."
"India ship"--"India ship!" I don't know how it seemed to them, but to
me the sound of that legendary name, borne on the gale, seemed strangely
like the shadow of some one coming cast across a stage.
I'll not use space to tell how I got across the island; it would be only
the confused tale of an hour that seems but a minute now. I lost the
track somewhere short of Si Pilot's place, and wading the sand to the
west came out on the beach, without the slightest notion of where I was.
I only know it was a majestic and awful place to be alone; majestic with
the weight of wind and the rolling thunder of water; the more awful
because I could not see the water itself, save for the rare gray ghost
of a tongue licking swiftly up the sand to catch at my feet if I did
not spring away in time. Once a mother of waves struck at me with a
huge, dim timber; I dodged it, I can't say how, and floundered on to the
south, wondering as I peered over my shoulder at the dark if already the
ship had broken, and if that thing behind me were one of the ribs come
out of her.
That set me to thinking of all the doomed men near me clinging to
slippery things they couldn't see, cursing perhaps, or praying their
prayers, or perhaps already sliding away, down and down, into the cold,
black caves of the sea. And then the shadows seemed to be full of
shades, and the surf-tongues were near to catching my inattentive feet.
If the hour across the island seems a minute, the time I groped along
the beach seems nights on end. And then one of the shades turned solid,
and I was in such a case I had almost bolted before it spoke and I knew
it for Rolldown Nickerson, the beachcomber.
He was a good man in ways. But you must remember his business was a
vulture's business, and something of it was in his soul. It came out in
good wrecking weather. On a night when the bar had caught a fine piece
of profit, I give you my word you could almost see Rolldown's neck
growing longer and nakeder with suspense. He would have made more of his
salvaging had he carried a steadier head: in the rare, golden moments of
windfall he sometimes failed to pick and choose. Even now he was loaded
down with a dim collection of junk he had grabbed up in the dark, things
he knew nothing of, empty bottles and seine-floats, rubbish he had
probably passed by a hundred times in his daylight rounds. The saving
circumstance was that he kept dropping them in his ardor for still other
treasures his blind feet stumbled on. I followed in his wake and I know,
for half a dozen times his discards got under my feet and sent me
staggering. Once, moved by some bizarre, thousandth chance of curiosity,
I bent and caught one up in passing.
Often and often since then I have wondered what would have happened to
the history of the world of my youth if I had not been moved as I was,
and bent quite carelessly in passing, and caught up what I did.
Still occupied with keeping my guide in eye, I took stock of the thing
with idle fingers; in the blackness my finger-tips were all the eyes I
had for so small a thing. It was about the size of a five-pound butter
box, I should say; it seemed as it lay in my hand a sort of an old and
polished casket, a thing done with an exotic artistry, broad, lacquered
surfaces and curves and bits of intricate carving. And I thought it was
empty till I shook it and felt the tiny impact of some chambered weight.
Already the thing had taken my interest. Catching up I touched
Rolldown's arm and shouted in his ear, over the roll of the wind and
surf:
"What you make of this, Rolldown?"
He took it and felt it over, dropping half his rubbish in the act. He
shook it. It seemed to me I could see his neck growing longer.
"Got somethin' into it," he rumbled.
"Yes, I know. Now let me have it back, Rolldown."
"Somethin' hefty," he continued, and I noticed he had dropped the rest
of his treasures now and clung to that. "Somethin' hefty--and valu'ble!"
"But it's mine, I tell you!"
"'Tain't neither! 'Tain't neither!"
He was walking faster all the while to shake me off, and I to keep with
him; our angry voices rose higher in the gale.
I can't help smiling now when I think of the innocent pair of us that
night, puffing along the sand in the blind, wet wind, squabbling like
two children over that priceless unseen casket, come up from the waters
of the sea.
"It's mine!" I bawled, "and you give it to me!" And I grabbed at his arm
again. But this time, letting out a squeal, he shook me off and fled
inshore, up the face of the dune, and I not far behind him.
And so, pursued and pursuing, we came suddenly over a spur of the dunes
and saw below us on the southward beach the drift-fire the life-savers
had made. There were many small figures in the glow, a surf-boat hauled
up, I think, and a pearly huddle of alien men.
But on none of this could I take my oath; my thoughts had been jerked
back too abruptly to all the other, forgotten drama of that night, the
music and the faces in Center Church, the flowers, the bridegroom, and
the bride.
For there on the crest before me, given in silhouette against the
fire-glow, stood the bride.
How she came there, by what violence or wild stratagem she had got away,
what blind path had brought her, a fugitive, across the island--it was
all beyond me. But no matter; there she stood before me on the dune at
Pilot's Point, as still as a lost statue, tulle and satin, molded by the
gale, sheathing her form in low relief like shining marble, her
stone-quiet hands at rest on her unstirring bosom, her face set toward
the invisible sea.... It was queer to see her like that: dim, you know;
just shadowed out in mystery by the light that came a long way through
the streaming darkness and died as it touched her.
Peering at her, the strangest thought came to me, and it seemed to me
she must have been standing there just so, not for minutes, but for
hours and days; yes, standing there all the length of those ten long
years, erect on a seaward dune, unmoved by the wild, moving elements,
broken water, wailing wind, needle-blown sand--as if her spirit had
flown on other business, leaving the quiet clay to wait and watch there
till the tides of fate, turning in their appointed progress, should
bring back the fabled ship of India to find its grave on the bars at
Pilot's Point.
She must have been all ready to go to the church; perhaps she was
actually on her way, and it was on the wind of the cow street that the
blown tidings of the "India ship" came to her ears. I can't tell you how
I was moved by the sight of her in the wistful ruin of bride's-clothes.
I can't say what huge, disordered purposes tumbled through my brain as I
stood there trying to cough or stir or by some such infinitesimal
violence let her know that I, Peter Means, was there--that I
understood--that I was stronger than all the men in Urkey Island--that
over my dead body alone should any evil come to her now, forever and
ever and ever.
As I tell you, I don't know what would have happened then, with all my
wild, dark projects of defense, had not the whole house of trance come
tumbling about my ears to the tune of a terrified bleating close at
hand. It was Rolldown Nickerson, I saw as I wheeled; my forgotten enemy,
flinging down the precious old brown casket he had robbed me of, and,
still giving vent to that thin, high note of horror, careening, sliding,
and spattering off down the sandslope. And as he vanished and his wail
grew fainter around a shoulder of the dune, another sound came also to
my ears. It was plain that his blind gallop had brought him in collision
with another denizen of the night; the protesting outburst came on the
wind, and it was the voice of Miah White--Miah the prophet, the avenger,
drunk as a lord and mad as one exalted.
There was no time for thought; I didn't need it to know what he was
after. Mary had heard, too, and knew, too; it was as if she had been
awakened from sleep, and her eyes were "enough to make one pity her," in
the old words of Mother Poll. Seeing them on me, and without so much as
a glance at the casket-thing which the roll of the sand had brought to
rest near her feet, I turned and ran at the best of my legs, down the
sand, around the dune's shoulder out of sight, and fairly into the arms
of the angel of vengeance. I can still see the dim gray whites of his
eyes as he glared at me, and smell the abomination of his curse. But I
paid no heed; only made with a struggle to go on.
"This way!" I panted. "To the north'rd! She's heading to the north'rd. I
saw her dress just there, just now----"
A little was enough to turn him. As I plunged on, making inland, I heard
him trailing me with his ponderous, grunting flesh. His ardor was
greater than mine; as we ran I heard his thick voice coming nearer and
nearer to my ear.
"'She shall come back,' says I, 'with the hand of iron,' says I."
As always in this exalted state his phraseology grew Biblical.
"'Thou shalt stay here,'" I heard him grunting. "'Here to the church
thou shalt stay, Joshua,' says I. 'And she shalt come back with the hand
of iron--the hand of iron!'"
"Yes!" I puffed. "That's right, Miah; only hurry. _There!_" I cried.
The rain had lessened, and a rising moon cast a ghost through the wrack,
just enough to let us glimpse a figure topping a rise before us. That it
was no one but Rolldown, still fleeing the mystery and bleating as he
fled, made no difference to the blurred eyes of Miah; he dug his toes
into the sand and flung forward in still hotter chase--after a
still-faster-speeding quarry.
I'll tell you where we caught Rolldown. It was before the church, within
the very outpouring of the colored windows. When Miah discovered who his
blowing captive was his rage, for a moment, was something to remember.
Then it passed and left him blank and dreary with defeat. The
beachcomber himself, pale as putty through his half-grown beard, was
beseeching us from the pink penumbra of the Apostle Paul: "You seen it?
You seen what I seen?" but Miah wouldn't hear him, and mounting the
steps and passing dull-footed through the vestry, came into the veiled
light and heavy scent of breath and flowers. Following at his heels I
saw the faces of women turned to our entrance with expectation.
Do you know the awful sense of a party that has fallen flat? Do you know
the desolation of a hope long deferred--once more deferred?
Joshua was standing in the farthest corner, beyond the pews where Miss
Beedie's Sunday School class held. Looking across the sea of inquiring
and disappointed faces, I saw him there, motionless, his back turned on
all of us. He had been standing so for an hour, they said, staring out
of a window at his own shadow cast on the churchyard fence.
It was a distressing moment. When Miah had sunk down in a rear pew and
bowed his head in his hands I really think you could have heard the
fall of the proverbial pin. Then, with a scarcely audible rustle, all
the faces became the backs of heads and all the eyes went to the figure
unstirring by the corner window. And after that, with the same accord,
the spell of waiting was broken, whispering ran over the pews, the
inevitable was accepted. Folks got up, shuffling their feet, putting on
their wraps with the familiar, mild contortions, still whispering,
whispering--"What a shame!"--"The idea!"--"I want to know!"
But some among them must have been still peeping at Joshua, for the hush
that fell was sudden and complete. Turning, I saw that he had turned
from the window at last, showing us his face.
* * * * *
Now we knew what he had been doing for himself in that long hour. His
face was once more the mask of a face we had known so many years as
Joshua Blake, dry, bitter, self-contained, the eyes shaded under the
lids, the lips as thin as hate. He faced us, but it was not at us he
looked; it was beyond us, over our heads, at the corner where the door
was.
There, framed in the doorway, stood the tardy bride, a figure as white
and stark as pagan stone, and a look on her face like the awful,
tranquil look of a sleep-walker. Neither did she pay any heed to us, but
over our heads she met the eyes of the bridegroom. So for a long breath
they confronted each other, steadily. Then we heard her speak.
"He's come!" she said in a clear voice. "Andrew's come back again."
Still she looked at Joshua. He did not move or reply.
"You understand?" I tell you, I who stood under it, that it was queer
enough to hear that voice, clear, strong, and yet somehow shattered,
passing over our heads. "You understand, Joshua? Andrew's come back to
the wedding, and now I'll marry you--_if you wish_."
Even yet Joshua did not speak, nor did the dry anger of his face change.
He came walking, taking his time, first along the pews at the front,
then up the length of the aisle. Coming down a few steps, Mary waited
for him, and there was a kind of a smile now on her lips.
Joshua halted before her. Folding his hands behind him he looked her
over slowly from head to foot.
"You lie!" That was all he said.
"Oh, no, Joshua. I'm not lying. Andrew has come for the wedding."
"You lie," he repeated in the same impassive tone. "You know I know you
lie, Mary, for you know I know that Andrew is dead."
"Yes, yes--" She was fumbling to clear a damp fold of her gown from
something held in the crook of her arm. "But I didn't say----"
With that she had the burden uncovered and held forth in her
outstretched hand.
She held it out in the light where all of us could see--the thing
Rolldown had discarded from his treasures, that I had picked up and been
robbed of in the kindly dark--the old brown casket-thing with the
polished surfaces and the bits of intricate and ghastly carvings that
had once let in the light of day and the sound of words--the old, brown,
sea-bitten, sand-scoured skull of Andrew Blake, with the two gold teeth
in the upper jaw dulled by the tarnishing tides that had brought it up
slowly from its bed in the bottom of the sea. And to think that I had
carried it, and felt of it, and not known what it was!
It lay there supine in the nest of Mary's palm, paying us no heed
whatever, but fixing its hollow regard on the shadows among the rafters.
And Joshua, the brother, made no sound.
His face had gone a curious color, like the pallor of green things
sprouting under a stone. His knees caved a little under his weight, and
as we watched we saw his hands moving over his own breast, where the
heart was, with a strengthless gesture, like a caress. After what seemed
a long while we heard his voice, a whisper of horrible fascination.
"_Turn it over!_"
Mary said nothing, nor did she move to do as he bade. Like some awful
play of a cat with a mouse she held quiet and watched him.
"Mary--do as I say--_and turn it over_!"
Her continued, unanswering silence seemed finally to rouse him. His
voice turned shrill. Drawing on some last hidden reservoir of strength,
he cried, "Give it to me! It's mine!" and made an astonishing dart, both
hands clawing for the relic. But my cousin Duncan was there to step in
his way and send him carroming along the fringe of the crowd.
The queer fellow didn't stop or turn or try again; sending up all the
while the most unearthly cackle of horror my ears have ever heard, he
kept right on through the door and the packed vestry, clawing his way to
the open with that brief gift of vitality.
It was so preposterous and so ghastly to see him carrying on so, with
his white linen and his fine black wedding-clothes and the gray hair
that would have covered a selectman's head in another year--it was all
so absurdly horrible that we simply stood as we were in the church and
wondered and looked at Mary Matheson and saw her face still rapt and
quiet, and still set in that same bedevilled smile, as if she didn't
know that round tears were running in streams down her cheeks.
"Let him go," was all she said.
They didn't let him go for too long a time, for they had seen the stamp
of death on the man's face. When they looked for him finally they found
him lying in a dead huddle on the grass by Lem White's gate. I shall
never forget the look of him in the lantern-light, nor the look of them
that crowded around and stared down at him--Duncan, I remember,
puzzled--Miah cursing God--and three dazed black men showing the whites
of their eyes, strange negroes being brought in from the wreck: for the
ship was no India ship after all, but a coffee carrier from Brazil.
But seeing Miah made me remember that long-forgotten question that the
lips of this dead man had put to the deaf sea and the blind sky.
"Who is to pay the bill? Who is to pay the bill?"
Well, two of the three had helped to pay the bill now for a girl's
light-hearted word. But I think the other has paid the most, for she has
had longer to meet the reckoning. She still lives there alone in the
house on the cow street. She is an old woman now, but there's not so
much as a line on her face nor a thread of white in her hair, and that's
bad. That's always bad. That's something like the thing that happened to
the Wandering Jew. Yes, I'm quite sure Mary has paid.
* * * * *
But I am near to forgetting the answer to it all. I hadn't so long to
wait as most folks had--no longer than an hour of that fateful night.
For when I got home to our kitchen I found my cousin Duncan already
there, with the lamp lit. I came in softly on account of the lateness,
and that's how I happened to surprise him and glimpse what he had before
he could get it out of sight.
I don't know yet how he came by it, but there on the kitchen table lay
the skull of Andrew Blake. When I took it, against his protest, and
turned it over, I found what Joshua had meant--a hole as clean and round
as a gimlet-bore in the bulge at the back of the head. And when,
remembering the faint, chambered impact I had felt in shaking the
unknown treasure on the beach, I peeped in through the round hole, I
made out the shape of a leaden slug nested loosely between two points of
bone behind the nose--a bullet, I should say, from an old, single-ball
dueling pistol--such a pistol as Joshua Blake had played with in the
shadow of apple-trees on that distant afternoon, and carried in his
pocket, no doubt, to the warm-lit gaiety of Alma Beedie's birthday
party....
FOOTNOTE:
[16] Copyright, 1919, by The Pictorial Review Company. Copyright, 1921,
by Wilbur Daniel Steele.
THE THREE TELEGRAMS[17]
#By# ETHEL STORM
From _The Ladies' Home Journal_
For two years Claire René's days had been very much alike. It was a dull
routine, full of heavy tasks, in the tiny crumbling house, in the
shrunken garden patch, and grand'mère--there was always grand'mère to
care for. Often in the afternoon Claire René wandered in the forest for
an hour. She was used to the silence of the tall trees; the silence in
the house frightened her. All the people in her land were gone away; the
great noise beyond had taken them. Sometimes the noise had stopped, but
the silence in the house, the silence in the garden, and the silence of
grand'mère never stopped. It was hard for Claire René to understand.
There was no one left in her land except grand'mère and Jacques. Jacques
lived in the forest and cut wood; in the summer time he shot birds, in
the winter time rabbits; Jacques was a very old man.
Claire René thought about a great many things when she walked in the
forest in the afternoons. She wondered how old she was. She knew that
she had been seven years old when her three brothers went away a long
time before. She would like to have another birthday, some day, but not
until Clément and Fernand and Alphonse came home again. Then they would
laugh as they used to laugh on her birthdays, and catch her up in their
big, strong arms, and kiss her and call her "Dear little sister."
Clément was the biggest and strongest of all; sometimes he would run off
with her on his back into the forest, and the others would follow
running and calling; and then at the end of the chase the three
brothers would make a throne of their brown, firm hands and carry Claire
René back to the door of the tiny house, where grand'mère would be
waiting and scolding and smiling and ruddy of cheek. Grand'mère never
scolded any more; she never smiled, and her cheeks were like dried figs.
Claire René didn't often let herself think of the day that such a
dreadful thing had happened. Many days after Clément and Fernand and
Alphonse had gone away, grand'mère had started to walk to the nearest
town four miles distant. She was gone for hours and hours; Claire René
had watched for her from the doorway until dusk had begun to fall; the
dusk had been a queer color, thick and blue; a terrible noise had filled
the air. Then the child remembered that her three brothers had told her
that they were going away to kill rabbits--like Jacques. At the time she
thought it strange that they had cried about killing rabbits. But when
she heard such a thunder of noise she knew it must be a very great work
indeed.
She was just wondering how there could be so many rabbits in the world,
when she saw an old, bent woman coming through the garden gate. It was
grand'mère; Jacques was leading her; she was making a strange noise in
her throat, and her eyes were closed. Jacques had stayed in the house
all the night, looking at grand'mère, lying on the bed with her eyes
closed. In the morning, Claire René had spoken to her, but she hadn't
answered. After days and days she walked from her bed to a chair by the
window. She never again did any more than that; grand'mère was
blind--and she was deaf.
Jacques explained how it all happened; Claire René didn't listen
carefully, but she did understand that her three brothers were not
killing rabbits, but were killing men. She knew then why they had cried;
they were so kind and good, Clément and Fernand and Alphonse; they would
hate to kill men. But Jacques had said they were wicked men that had to
be killed. He said it wouldn't take long, that all the strong men in
France were shooting at them.
Claire René had a great deal to do after that. She had to bathe and
dress grand'mère; she had to cook the food and scrub the floor and scour
the pots and pans. She kept the pans very bright. Grand'mère might some
day open her eyes, and there would be a great scolding if the pans were
not bright. Claire René also tended the garden; Jacques helped her with
the heavy digging. He was very mean about the vegetables; he made her
put most of them in the cellar; and the green things that wouldn't keep
he himself put into jars and tins and locked them in the closet. When
the summer had gone he gave Claire René the keys.
"Ma petite," he said, "you learn too fast to eat too little. You must be
big and well when your brothers come back."
All the winter long Claire René watched for her brothers. Once a
telegram had come, brought by a boy who said he had walked all the miles
of the forest. In the memory of Claire René there lay a hidden fear
about telegrams. Years before, grand'mère had cried for many days when
Jacques had brought from the town just such a thin, crackling envelope.
And Claire René knew that after that she had no longer any young mother
or father--only grand'mère and her three brothers.
Grand'mère had enough of sorrow. The telegram was better hidden in the
room of her brothers. Grand'mère would never find it there; it was far
away from her chair by the window, up the straight, narrow stairs, under
the high, peaked gable. Then, too, there was a comfort in that room for
Claire René; it was quiet; the great silence of downstairs was too big
to squeeze up the narrow way. Each day she would stroke and tend the
high white bed; each week she would drag the mass of feather mattress to
the narrow window ledge and air it for the length of a sunny day.
At evening she would pull and pile high again the snowy layers, as
quickly as her tired back could move, as quickly as her thin, blue
fingers could smooth the heavy homespun sheets and comforters. Quick she
must be lest Clément and Fernand and Alphonse come home before the
night fell over their sleeping place. When she placed the telegram under
the first high pillow (Clément's pillow) it made a sound that frightened
her.
In the evenings grand'mère's chair was pulled to the great hearth fire.
Claire René would watch the flamelight spread over the stonelike face.
Sometimes bright sparkles from the rows of copper pots and pans would
lay spots of light on the heavy closed lids.
Claire René would spring from her chair and kneel beside the dumb
figure. "Grand'mère!" she would call. "Do you see? Have you the eyes
again?"
Then the lights would shift, and her head would drop over her trembling
knees, and she would look away from the dry, sealed eyes of grand'mère.
She never cried; it might make a noise in the still, whitewashed room to
frighten her. Grand'mère might find the tears when she raised her hands
to let them travel over the face of her grandchild. It was enough that
once grand'mère had shivered when her fingers found the hollows in
Claire René's cheeks. After that the child puffed out her cheeks while
the knotted hands made their daily journey. Grand'mère's fingers would
smooth the sunny tangled hair, touch the freckled upturned nose; they
would pause and tremble at the slightest brush from the eyelashes that
fringed the deep, gray eyes.
Claire René would pile more logs on the fire and wonder what thoughts
lay in grand'mère's mind; wonder whether she knew that they had so much
more wood in the shed than they had food in the larder. She was clever
about cooking the roots from the cellar. But grand'mère's coffee was
weaker each day, and only once in a long while did Jacques bring milk.
Then he used to stand and order Claire René to drink it all, but she
would choke and say it was sour and sickened her; only thus could she
save enough for grand'mère's coffee in the morning.
There were many things to think about, to look at on the winter evenings
by the firelight: Clément's seat by the chimney corner, where he
whittled and whistled; Fernand's flute hanging on the wall; the books of
Alphonse on the high shelf over the dresser. Claire René found that her
heart and her eyes would only find comfort if her fingers were busy. She
would tiptoe to the dresser and bring out a basket, once filled with the
socks of her brothers. She would crouch by the fireside, first stirring
the logs to make more light for her work. It was long since the candles
were gone. It was the only joyous moment in the day when she handled the
dried everlastings that filled the basket. Always she must hurry, work
more quickly, select the withered colors with more care. The wreaths for
her three brothers must be beautiful, must be ready on time. Clément and
Fernand and Alphonse must be crowned, given the reward when they came
home from killing wicked men to save La Belle France!
All the months of the summer before she had watched and tended the
flowers. The seeds she had found in grand'mère's cupboard. Jacques had
scolded about the place that had been given them in the garden patch.
But Claire René had stamped her foot and strong, strange words that
belonged to her three brothers when they were angry came to her lips.
Jacques had looked startled and funny and had turned his head away; in
the end he had patted Claire René on her rigid shoulders and she thought
his eyes were just like wet, black beads.
On the other side of the hearth, away from grand'mère's chair, she
twined and wound the wreaths. No one must know. The Great Day _must_ be
soon! And in her heart she believed that on that day grand'mère would
open her eyes.
In the spring Claire René finished the wreaths. The very day she placed
them on the highest shelf in the dark closet under the stairs there had
come a knock at the door. She was stiff with terror. Jacques never
knocked; there was no one else. She clung to a heavy chair back while
the same boy who had come before entered slowly and placed a second
telegram in her numb fingers.
"I am sorry, mademoiselle," was all he said.
She watched him disappear through the garden gate; she listened until
his steps died in the forest. Grand'mère stirred in her chair by the
window; Claire René thought a flicker of pain traveled over the worn
face; she thought the closed eyes twitched; Madame Populet stretched out
her hands.
Claire René flew up the straight, narrow stairs; she placed the telegram
under Fernand's pillow; she pressed her fists deep into the feathers;
the crackle of paper made her heart stand still. There were tears
starting in her eyes; she held them back. Grand'mère had enough of
sorrow; she must never know of the second telegram in the house.
Thoughts came crowding into Claire René's mind. Why not tear up the
white-and-blue envelopes or why not show them to Jacques--in some way
throw away the fear that was eating at her heart? Then the great silence
of the house below seemed to creep up the narrow stairs and lay cold
hands on Claire René. Oh, why was it all so lonely! Where were her three
brothers? Why must the telegrams make so great a trembling in her heart
for them, make her kneel and pray that the Holy Mother would hold them
in her arms forever?
Her knees were stiff when she arose; her eyes were bright, but not with
tears; her back was very straight, her head held high, for was she not a
grandchild of Madame Populet? A sister to Clément and Fernand and
Alphonse, and through them, a child of France! She stood on her toes and
dropped three kisses on the pillows of her brothers. She was big enough
to keep the secret of her fear about the telegrams. It was better so.
She went downstairs singing. The sound was strange in her throat, but
she must finish the song. She stood behind grand'mère's chair, and laid
her hands on the still white head. When the last, high, treble note fell
softly through the room she looked out of the window into the forest.
There were threads of pale green showing on the tall trees; there were
tiny red buds starting from the brown branches of the pollard willow
that swept across the window ledge.
Claire René suddenly wanted to shout! She did shout! There was spring in
the world! There was spring in her heart, in her feet, in her tingling
finger tips.
She danced to the dark closet under the stairs. There they were, the
wreaths, for her three brothers! The deep golden one for Clément--he was
strong and square like a rock; the light golden one for Fernand--he was
pale and slight; the scarlet one for Alphonse--he was straight and tall
like a tree in the forest.
Claire René touched the three wreaths; they crackled dryly under her
touch; she turned away and shivered. What did they sound like? Oh, yes;
the crackling of the thin paper on the telegrams!
She shut the closet door softly, and went to kneel beside grand'mère's
chair and looked again into the forest. The buds on the sweeping willows
said "Yes"; the pale-green winding gauze through the tall trees
whispered a promise. She stood up and held out her arms; she had faith
in the forest; she believed what it said. Through a patch of flickering
sunlight she thought she saw three forms moving toward the cottage. It
was only the viburnum bushes dipping and swaying in the March wind,
against the sturdy growth of darkened holly.
The noise died away entirely as the spring advanced. The silence grew
greater and greater. There were few seeds for Claire René to plant in
her garden; there was little strength in her arms to work them. Weeds
covered the flower patch of a year ago. A few straggling everlastings
showed their heads above the tangle. Claire René had plenty of strength
to uproot them angrily and throw them into the overgrown path.
The three wreaths were still on the shelf in the dark closet under the
stair. Their colors were dimmed, like the hope in their maker's heart;
their forms were shrunken, like the forms of Claire René and grand'mère
and Jacques.
Grand'mère lay in her bed most of the day. Sometimes, when the sun shone
and the birds sang, Claire René would make her aching arms bathe and
dress grand'mère and help her into the chair by the window. Then she
would sit beside her and try to run threads through the bare places in
her frocks.
At times she thought of making frocks for herself out of grand'mère's
calico dresses, folded so neatly in the cupboard. But grand'mère, she
argued, would need them for herself when the Great Day came, when
Clément and Fernand and Alphonse would come with ringing laughter
through the forest--laughter that would surely open grand'mère's
eyes--and her ears. When the birds sang and the sun shone Claire René
believed that day would come.
Jacques was always kind. But he had become a part of the great silence;
almost as still as grand'mère he was. For hours he would sit and look at
Claire René bending over her sewing, over her scrubbing, over the
brightening of the pots and pans. Sometimes his shining black eyes
seemed to lie down in his face, to be going away forever behind his bush
of eyebrow.
Then she would start toward him and call: "Jacques, Jacques!"
He would always answer, straightening in his chair: "Yes, my little one,
be not afraid. Jacques is ever near."
Claire René would sigh and go back to her work and wish that she was big
enough to go out into the forest and shoot birds, as Jacques used to do.
She was very hungry. She was tired of eating roots from the garden.
She would like to lie down and go to sleep for the rest of her life, or
die and go to heaven and have the Holy Mother hold her in her arms and
feed her thick yellow milk. Jacques no longer brought even thin blue
milk. There was no coffee in the cupboard, no sugar, no bread--only
hateful roots of the garden.
Claire René no longer walked in the forest. Sometimes she would lie down
on a mossy place and look up through the tall trees at the patches of
blue sky overhead. She wondered whether the good God still kept His home
above, whether He, too, were hungry, whether the Holy Mother had work to
do when her back ached and her fingers wouldn't move and were thin and
bony, like young dead birds that sometimes fell from nests.
Once, when Claire René was thinking such thoughts, she saw Jacques come
running toward her. His eyes were bright and shiny, and she had a fear
that they might drop out of his head, as the quick breath dropped out of
his mouth.
"Listen, ma petite!" he cried.
He dropped on the mossy place beside her and rocked back and forth with
his hands clasped about his shaking knees. Claire René was used to
waiting. She waited until Jacques found breath for speech.
Then he told her how the "Great Man from America" was coming to save
France! How he was sending a million strong sons before him. How there
was hope come to heavy hearts!
Claire René wanted to ask a great many questions. But Jacques went right
on, talking, talking--about the right flank and the left flank and the
boches and the Americans. Claire René hoped his tongue would not be too
tired to answer one of her questions.
"What is America, my little one? Why, the greatest country in the world,
excepting France. Where is America, my little one? Why, across the
Atlantic Ocean, far from France."
Claire René sat very still with her hands in her lap. Jacques was a wise
man. He knew a great deal. All old people were wise; but such strange
things made them happy, far-away things that they couldn't ever touch or
see, things out in the big world that went round and round. She knew
that Clément and Fernand and Alphonse were out in the big world, going
round and round; but in her heart she saw them only in the forest, in
the garden patch, by the hearth in the tiny house, asleep in their high
white bed.
In these places she could still feel their arms about her, hear their
laughter, listen for their step. But out in the world! What were they
doing? How could she know? Jacques made her feel very lonely. Never once
did he speak of her three brothers; on and on he went about the "Great
Man from America."
Presently he ceased for a moment and held Claire René's cold hands
against his grizzled cheek. "But, my little one, why are you cold?"
Claire René looked for a long time into Jacques' shining eyes; then she
whispered: "My brothers!"
High among the tall trees of the forest the wind was singing and
sighing; beneath on a green moss bank Jacques gathered Claire René in
his arms; he gathered her up like a baby and rocked her back and forth.
He cried and laughed into the bright tangle of her hair.
"My poor little one! My poor little one!" he said over and over. Then he
released her from his arms and held her face between his knotted hands.
"Now, listen!"
She listened, and even before Jacques had finished a song began in her
heart--so strong and high and true that it reached up into the treetops
and joined in the chorus of the forest.
The words that came from the lips of Jacques made a great beating in her
ears. Could it be so--what he was saying--that the "Great Man from
America" had come to save all the Brothers of France? That soon, soon he
would send Clément and Fernand and Alphonse back to the tiny house in
the forest? That all the wicked men in the world would be no more? That
the great and terrible noise would cease--forever?
Jacques was very, very sure that he was right about it; he had read it
all in a newspaper; he had walked miles and miles to hear men talk of
nothing else.
Claire René asked where the great man lived.
"In Paris, ma petite."
"And what does he look like--the brave one?"
"He is grave and quiet, like a king."
"And has he on his head the crown of gold?"
"No, ma petite, but he has in his heart the Sons of France."
"And Clément and Fernand and Alphonse also?"
Claire René waited while Jacques passed his fingers through her hair.
"Yes, ma petite," he said at last.
Claire René wished that she had more hands and feet and lips and eyes
and more than such a little body to hold her joy. She made circles of
dancing about Jacques on their way back to the cottage. She said her
happiness was so great that she might fly up into the sky and laugh
from the tops of the trees. "Dear Jacques," she said as they paused at
the dried garden patch, "do you think to-morrow they will come--my
brothers?"
Jacques shook his head.
"Do you think one day from to-morrow?"
Again Jacques shook his head.
But Claire René was busy in her thoughts. She turned suddenly and threw
her arms about him. "Will you again walk the miles of the forest for
Claire René, will you?"
"But--why--for what reason, ma petite?"
She would send a letter! She would herself write to the "Great Man," and
tell him about Clément and Fernand and Alphonse, tell him how good and
brave they were, and about grand'mère and the silence of her eyes and
ears, and about--Claire René looked frightened and clapped her fingers
over her mouth.
No! She must forever keep the secret about the telegrams. Telegrams
meant sorrow; there must be only happiness in the house for the
brothers.
Long after twilight had fallen she pleaded with Jacques about the
letter. By the firelight that same night she would write. Grand'mère had
taught her to make the letters of many words; she knew what to say. In
the first light of the day Jacques could be gone to the post. And then!
Yes?
Not until he finally nodded his head was she satisfied. Then she
wondered why so suddenly he had become heavy with sadness. Why, when she
watched him trudge off into the forest, had he seemed to carry a burden
on his bent back?
She thought: "Old people are like that. Grand'mère is like that; she,
too, grows tired with the end of the day. They had so many long days
behind them to remember--grand'mère and Jacques. And the days ahead of
them?"
Claire René was often puzzled about their days ahead. They were so
tired! But they would be soon happy. And grand'mère would open her eyes
to see and her ears to hear when Clément and Fernand and Alphonse came
back again.
Claire René ate only a mouthful of her cooked roots on that evening. For
grand'mère she made a special brew of dried herbs from the forest and
baked a cake from the last bit of brown flour left in the cupboard.
Grand'mère was half the shape she used to be; the brothers would surely
scold when they saw her so gone away.
Claire René piled the logs high on the fire; she must have light for her
work, plenty of light. She searched the house for paper and envelope and
pencil and when she had written she threw the paper into the fire and
wept with a passion much too great for her years and her body. She had
forgotten the words; they wouldn't come. And who was she to be writing
to the "Great Man," a man like a king?
Until the dawn crept through the windows Claire René lay upon the hearth
by the dying fire, sobbing through her sleep. The first light of day
made her remember Jacques. He would be waiting! He had promised to go,
to walk to the post with her letter. She looked at the dark closet under
the stairs. She thought of the three wreaths; if she could make wreaths,
she could make letters! She bounded to her feet; she seized the last of
the paper and the bitten pencil; she struggled with the letters; she
wrote: "Dear Great Man: My brothers----"
A step in the still room startled her. Grand'mère was coming from her
room, fully dressed. Claire René flew to her side, but Madame Populet
stood erect; she walked alone to her chair by the window. Claire René
knelt beside her, and the hands that were laid on her head had a new
firmness in their pressure. And grand'mère was smiling!
Claire René thought: "She is happy this morning; she feels in the air
the gladness. I will make her a hot brew when I come back from Jacques."
She wrapped a dark cloak about her shoulders; in her hand was tightly
clasped the half-written paper and the pencil. At the doorway she turned
and called: "Good-by, grand'mère. Good-by."
Madame Populet was still smiling; her face was turned toward the forest
and, through the sweeping willow over the window, sunbeams laid their
fingers on the sightless eyes.
Two hours later Claire René walked through the forest singing. Her arms
were full of scarlet leaves and branches of holly berries. She wanted to
carry all the beautiful things she saw back to the cottage, to make the
place a bower, where she and grand'mère and Clément and Fernand and
Alphonse could kneel and thank the good God that they were again
together.
All the world was kind on this morning. Jacques had been waiting for her
at the door of his wooden hut. He had helped her with the letter. He had
set out straightway to the post. Claire René had stooped and kissed the
feet that had so many miles to go.
Jacques had cried out: "Ma petite, you hope too far."
But Claire René's mind and heart were a flood of joy; she had no place
for doubt, no time for sorrow. She came out of the forest and stood
looking at the tiny, crumbling house. No longer was she afraid of the
silence. In but a short time her three brothers would fill the air with
laughter; they would carry her on their backs around the house and into
the forest, and grand'mère would stand waiting and smiling--and perhaps
scolding; who could tell?
She pushed her way through the doorway. The berries and leaves made a
tall screen about her; she could barely see grand'mère in her chair by
the window. She laid the branches on the hearth.
"There!" she said. "That's good."
Grand'mère was very quiet in her chair by the window. Her hands were
folded over her breast. There was something between her still fingers.
Claire René looked again, and then she screamed.
Madame Populet's eyes were open; they were fixed on the thin
blue-and-white envelope clasped in her hands. Claire René pressed her
fingers into her temples; she was afraid to speak aloud.
She whispered: "The third telegram!"
Who had brought it? Who had given it to grand'mère? Why was she so
still? Why were her eyes open, without seeing? Claire René wanted to
scream again; but instead, she made her feet take her to the chair by
the window; she made her fingers pull the thin envelope from between the
stiff fingers. Grand'mère's hands were cold. Her silence was more
terrible than any silence Claire René had known before. The glazed, open
eyes looked as if they hurt; she closed the lids with the tips of her
fingers. She had seen dead birds in the forest and she knew that
grand'mère was now like them.
The telegram was better burned in the fire; there it could bring no more
sorrow. She watched the thin paper curl and smolder among the smoking
embers of last night's blaze. She looked again toward the still figure
by the window. If grand'mère was dead, why did she stay on the earth?
Why didn't the Holy Mother send an angel to carry her away into the
heaven of the good God?
Claire René began to tremble. What if the angels were too tired to come,
were as faint and hungry as she! What, then, would become of grand'mère?
Clément and Fernand and Alphonse would be very angry to find her so cold
and still and dead; they would be, perhaps, as angry to find her gone
away to heaven. But grand'mère had so much of sorrow here on earth;
Claire René thought the room was growing very dark; she flung her arms
above her head and faintly screamed. But there was no one to hear. She
fell on the hearthstone beside the red berries and the red leaves.
There was scarcely a breath left in her body when Jacques found her at
dusk.
Three days later she opened her eyes in her little bed beside
grand'mère's bed. Grand'mère's bed was smooth and high and white. Claire
René was puzzled.
She called: "Grand'mère!"
From the outer room the voice of Jacques replied: "Yes, ma petite; I am
here."
He came and put his arms about her; she laid her head against his rough
coat, but her eyes were turned toward the empty bed. She was trying to
remember.
Presently she sat up and asked: "Did the angel come and take grand'mère
and carry her to the Holy Mother in heaven?"
Jacques crossed his heart. "Yes, ma petite," he said.
Faintly Claire René smiled and faintly she questioned: "But, my
brothers?"
Jacques turned his troubled eyes away. She must wait, he said; when she
was strong they would talk of many things. He told her that he had
brought food to make her well, and that on the first warm day he would
himself carry her out into the sunshine of the forest; there she would
again run and sing and be like a happy, bright bird.
In the days that followed Claire René never spoke of grand'mère; she
never spoke of her three brothers. She lay in her bed and stared about
the quiet room. The silence was different, now that grand'mère was gone.
Everything was different.
Jacques gave her food and care, and every day he said: "In only a little
time you will be strong again, ma petite."
But something in his eyes kept her from speaking about Clément and
Fernand and Alphonse. Often she thought about the telegrams upstairs in
the high, white bed. She wondered if Jacques had found them there. Once
she heard him walking on the floor above. He was there a long time, and
when he came down his voice was queer and deep and his eyes were hidden
behind a mist.
He never spoke any more about the "Great Man from America." Jacques was
like grand'mère; he was old, he was full of sorrow. Claire René was
afraid to ask about her letter; she thought about it each day.
But on the morning she was carried to Clément's chair by the chimney
corner, she felt a great gladness spring in her heart. Yes; they would
come soon--her three brothers. To-morrow she would be strong enough to
walk alone to the dark closet under the stairs and look again at the
three wreaths on the highest shelf.
Claire René smiled in her sleep that night; she dreamed of laughter in
the house, of strong young arms about her, of quick steps and bright
eyes.
Once she awoke and must have called out, for Jacques was kneeling beside
her bed.
"Poor little one," he said, "you call, but there is only old Jacques to
come."
Claire René put out her hand and let it rest on the old man's head.
"Dear Jacques," she whispered, "always I will love you."
The sun was streaming through the tiny house the next morning. Jacques
had left Claire René sitting in the warm light of the open doorway while
he went to bring wood from the forest. There were no birds singing from
the leafless trees, but Claire René saw a sparrow hopping about on the
bright brown earth of the garden patch. She was wishing she had a great
piece of white fat to hang out on a tree for the bird's winter food;
wishing there were crumbs to leave on the window ledge, as grand'mère
used to do.
She was wishing so hard about so many things that she failed to see
three men coming out of the forest. They were tall and straight and
fair, and their eyes were as blue as the sky above their heads. Their
clothes were the color of pale brown sand and on their heads were jaunty
caps of the selfsame color.
Jacques was with them; he was making a great many motions with his
hands. They were all walking very slowly and talking very fast.
As they neared the house Jacques pointed to Claire René, and the three
strange men held back. Jacques came slowly forward. The sound of his
step on the hard ground interrupted Claire René's reverie; she looked up
and around. She saw the three men standing at attention beyond the
garden gate.
She threw back the heavy cloak wrapped about her; the thin folds of her
calico dress hung limply from her sunken shoulders, and above the wasted
child body the sun spun circles of gold in her tangled hair. She made a
slight quivering start toward Jacques, which passed into a rigid stare
toward the three figures beyond.
She was unaware when Jacques put a caressing, supporting arm about her
and said: "Listen, my child."
The three men were coming forward. One of them had a letter in his hand.
With kind eyes and bared heads they stood before the straining gaze of
Claire René.
"The letter is for you, ma petite." Jacques voice was infinitely tender;
the added pressure of his arm made Claire René conscious of his
presence; she suddenly clung to him and buried her face in his coat
sleeve. He went on to say: "The letter is for Claire René--from the
'Great Man from America'!"
The tangled head shook in the angle of his arm. Claire René was crying.
The tallest of the three men handed the letter to Jacques; he wiped his
eyes and turned his head away. The others shifted in position and
tightly folded their arms across their broad chests.
Jacques read:
_To Mademoiselle Claire René_: The soil of France now covers the
bodies of your three brothers, Clément and Fernand and Alphonse
Populet. The soil of France covers the Croix de Guerre upon their
breasts. The sons of France, and of America, hold forever in their
hearts the memory of their honor. We are all one family now--France
and America--and so I send to you three brothers--not in place of,
but in the stead of those others. They come to give you love and
service in the name of America.
Claire René slowly moved apart from Jacques. She stood alone with head
erect and taut arms by her sides. She hesitated a moment, then came
forward and held out her hands.
"Bonjour, messieurs," she said.
The tallest of the three men covered her hands with his own. "Little
friend," he said, "we can't make you forget your brothers; we want to
help you remember them. We want to do some of the things for you that
they used to do, and we want you to do a lot of things for us. We are
pretty big, it is true, but we need a little girl like you to sort of
keep us in order. We want to take you right along with us this very
day--to a place where we can care for you, and----"
But Claire René slipped with electric swiftness to Jacques' side; from
his sheltering arm she made declaration: "Never! I stay here with
Jacques--always." Then struggling against emotion she added with
finality: "I thank you, messieurs."
The tall man lingered with his thoughts a moment before he spoke; he was
standing close to Claire René and made as though to lay his hand upon
her hair, but drew back and said that they were all pretty good cooks
and that they were very, very hungry.
At this Claire René threw a frightened, wistful glance at Jacques.
The tall man interrupted hastily. He said they had brought food with
them, and would she allow them to prepare it?
Claire René nodded her head; her eyes looked beyond her questioner--out
into the lonely forest.
Jacques presently lifted her into his arms and carried her within the
house. With reverence he placed her in grand'mère's chair by the window.
Her ears were filled with distant echoes; her sight was blurred; speech
had gone from her lips. As through a dark curtain she saw the figures
moving about the room; far away she heard the clatter and the talk and
sometimes laughter.
After a long time Jacques came and held some steaming coffee to her
lips. He made her drink and drink again; a pink flush crept into her
cheeks; shyly she met the glances from the eyes of those three fair,
kind faces. Then her own eyes filled with tears and she lowered her
head.
The tallest of the three men came behind her chair and spoke gently,
close to her ear: "Our great and good commander, who sent us here, will
be very unhappy if you do not come. You see, he wanted the sister of
Clément and Fernand and Alphonse Populet to be a sister to some of his
own boys. It would help us a great deal, you know; we're pretty lonely
too--sometimes."
The collaboration in the faces of his friends seemed to put an instant
end to his effort and, as if an unspoken command were given, they all
sat down and made a prompt finish to the meal.
With no word on her lips Claire René watched from Grand'mère's chair by
the window. About her, figures moved like dim marionettes; they cleared
the table; they polished the copper pans; they sat in the chimney corner
and puffed blue circles of smoke above their heads.
Dimly she saw all this, but clearly she saw the inside of a great man's
mind. She, Claire René, had work to do; she was called--for France!
Long, slanting shadows from the sinking sun were streaking the wall of
the whitewashed room with slender, forklike fingers. Jacques and the
three men were knotted in talk beside the ruddy fire glow. Claire René
braced herself with a sharp sigh. No soldier ever went into battle with
a more self-made courage than hers.
Unseen, unnoticed, noiselessly she made her pilgrimage across the room.
In the dark closet, under the stairs, she reached for the wreaths. With
quick, short breath she gathered them in her arms. One moment she
lowered her head while her lips touched the faded crackling flowers. The
compact was sealed; her sacrifice was ready.
In that attitude she passed swiftly within the circle about the
fireplace. She came like a spirit of Peace with the wreaths in her arms.
Over and above the serenity in her face there dawned a joyous
expectancy. Yes; she could trust les Américains!
On each reverent, bowed head she placed her wreath; and when she had
finished, without tremor in her voice she said: "My brothers!"
FOOTNOTE:
[17] Copyright, 1919, by The Curtis Publishing Company. Copyright, 1921,
by Ethel Dodd Thomas.
THE ROMAN BATH[18]
#By# JOHN T. WHEELWRIGHT
From _Scribner's Magazine_
Ralph Tuckerman had landed that day in Liverpool after a stormy winter
voyage, his first across the Atlantic. The ship had slowly come up the
Mersey in a fog, and the special boat train had dashed through the same
dense atmosphere to the home of fogs and soot, London, and in the whole
journey to his hotel the young American had seen nothing of the mother
country but telegraph-poles scudding through opacity on the railway
journey, and in London the loom of buildings and lights dimly red
through the fog.
Although he had no acquaintances among the millions of dwellers in the
city, he did not feel lonely in the comfortable coffee room of his
hotel, where a cannel-coal fire flickered. The air of the room was
surcharged with pungent fumes of the coal smoke which had blackened the
walls and ceilings, and had converted the once brilliant red of a Turkey
carpet into a dingy brown, but the young American would not have had the
air less laden with the characteristic odor of London, or the carpet and
walls less dingy if he had had a magician's wand.
The concept of a hotel in his native city of Chicago was a steel
structure of many stories, brilliantly lighted and decorated, supplied
with a lightning elevator service running through the polished marble
halls which swooned in a tropical atmosphere of steam heat emanating
from silvered radiators. So it was no wonder that the young man felt
more at home in this inn in old London than he had ever felt in an
American caravansary.
The shabby waiter who had served him at dinner appeared to him to be a
true representation of the serving-man who had eaten most of David
Copperfield's chops, and drained the little boy's half pint of port when
he went up to school. It may be that Tuckerman's age protected him from
any such invasion of his viands, but in justice to the serving-man it
seems probable that he would have cut off his right hand rather than
been disrespectful to a guest at dinner.
After the cloth was removed, Tuckerman ordered a half-pint decanter of
port out of regard for the memory of Dickens, and, sipping it, looked
about with admiration at the room with its dark old panels. Comfortable
as he felt, after his dinner, he could not help regretting that he had
not had with him his old friends Mr. and Mrs. Micawber and Traddles to
share his enjoyment--the guests whom Copperfield entertained when "Mr.
Micawber with more shirt collar than usual and a new ribbon to his
eyeglass, Mrs. Micawber with a cap in a whitey-brown paper parcel,
Traddles carrying the parcel and supporting Mrs. Micawber on his arm"
arrived at David's lodgings and were so delightfully entertained. He
wished that he could see "Micawber's face shining through a thin cloud
of delicate fumes of punch," so that at the end of the evening Mr. and
Mrs. Micawber would feel that they could not "have enjoyed a feast more
if they had sold a bed to pay for it."
These cheery spirits seemed to come back to him from the charming
paradise where they live to delight the world for all time, and it
seemed to him that he could distinctly hear Mr. Micawber saying: "We twa
have rin about the brae, And pu'd the gowans fine," observing as he
quoted: "I am not exactly aware what gowans may be, but I have no doubt
that Copperfield and myself would frequently have taken a pull at them
if it had been possible."
His modest modicum of port would have seemed a poor substitute to the
congenial Micawber for the punch.
Finally he went up to bed, delighted to be given a bedroom candle in a
brass candlestick, and to find on his arrival there that the plumber had
never entered its sacred precincts, for a hat tub on a rubber cloth
awaited the can of hot water, which would be lugged up to him in the
morning; the four-post bedstead with its heavy damask hangings, the
cushioned grandfather's chair by the open fireplace, the huge mahogany
wardrobe and the heavy furniture--all were of the period of 1830. Back
to such a room Mr. Pickwick had tried to find his way on the memorable
night when he so disturbed the old lady whose chamber he had unwittingly
invaded.
So impressed was the young American with his transference to the past
that his stem-winding watch seemed an anachronism when he came to attend
to it for the night.
He settled down into the big armchair by the fire, having taken from his
valise three books which he had selected for his travelling companions:
"Baedeker's London Guide," "The Pickwick Papers," and "David
Copperfield." The latter was in a cheap American edition which he had
bought with his schoolboy's savings; a tattered volume which he knew
almost by heart; which, when he took it up, opened at that part of
David's "Personal History and Experience" where his aunt tells him of
her financial losses, and where he dreamed his dreams of poverty in all
sorts of shapes, and, as he read, this paragraph flew out at his eye:
"There was an old Roman bath in those days at the bottom of one of the
streets out of the Strand--it may be there still--in which I have had
many a cold plunge. Dressing myself as quickly as I could, and leaving
Peggotty to look after my Aunt, I tumbled head foremost into it, and
then went for a walk to Hampstead. I had a hope that this brisk
treatment might freshen my wits a little."
Ralph's sleep in the old bed was unquiet. He was transported back into
the England of the old coaching days, and found himself seated on the
box-seat of the Ipswich coach, next a stout, red-faced, elderly
coachman, his throat and chest muffled by capacious shawls, who said to
him:
"If ever you are attacked with the gout, just you marry a widder as had
got a good loud woice with a decent notion of using it, and you will
never have the gout agin!" Then suddenly the film of the smart coach,
with passengers inside and out, faded away, and Ralph found himself
drinking hot brandy and water with Mr. Pickwick, in a room of a very
homely description, apparently under the special patronage of Mr. Weller
and other stage coachmen, for there sat the former smoking with great
vehemence. The vision flashed out into darkness.
Then came deep, early morning sleep from which a sharp knock at his door
aroused him, and a valet entered with a hot-water can and a cup of tea,
saying: "Beg pardon, sir, eight o'clock, sir, thank you, sir."
Ralph's first inclination was to say "_Thank you_," but he restrained
himself from this in time to save upsetting the foundations of British
social life, and instead he asked:
"What kind of a morning is it?"
"Oh, sir, thank you, sir, if I should say that it is a nasty morning,
sir, I should be telling the truth indeed, foggy and raining, sir, thank
you, sir."
All the time he was quietly taking up Ralph's clothes, which were
scattered in convulsions around the room.
"Shall I not unpack your box, sir?" asked the valet.
Ralph stopped from sipping his tea to nod assent, and the man proceeded
with the unpacking with a hand which practice had made perfect.
"This is my first morning in London," observed Ralph. The valet
pretended not to hear him, being unwilling to engage in any line of
conversation which by any chance could take him out of the station in
life to which he had been called.
"What is your name?" finally asked the American.
"Postlethwaite, sir, but I answer to the name of 'Enery."
"Well, 'Enery, did you ever hear of a Roman bath in a little street off
the Strand?"
"A Roman bath, sir, in a little street off the Strand, sir? No, sir,
thank you, sir, my word, sir, the Italians never take baths, sir."
"They used to take them, 'Enery, and my guide-book says that there is
one of theirs to this day in Strand Lane."
The valet was silent as he continued his unpacking and arranging of
Tuckerman's clothes, and the latter felt a little uncomfortable as this
proceeding went on, for he was conscious of the inadequacy of his
outfit, not only in the eyes of an English servant, but in his own, for
he had purposely travelled "light," intending to replenish his wardrobe
in London; but the well-trained servant treated the worn-out suits and
frayed shirts with the utmost outward respect as he folded them up and
put them away in the clothes-press.
An hour later, on the top of a 'bus, Ralph sat watching the complicated
movement of traffic in the London streets, directed by the helmeted
policemen. It was before the days of the motor-car, an endless stream of
omnibuses, drays, hansoms, and four-wheelers, even at that early hour in
the morning was pouring through the great artery of the heart of the
world. This first ride on a London 'bus and the sights of the street
traffic were inspiring, but familiar to the mind's eye of the young
American. The Thames, alive with barges and steamers, the smoke-stained
buildings, the processions of clerks, the crossing and sweepers, the
smart policemen, the cab-drivers, the draymen, he knew from Leech's
drawings, and he was on his way, marvellous to relate, to the oldest
work of man in the city, in which the water flowed as it had been
flowing ever since London was Londineum.
He got off the 'bus at Strand Lane and found a little way down the
street the building he was looking for. It was a commonplace brick
structure, the exterior giving no hint of its contents. A notice was
posted on the black entrance door, stating the hours at which the bath
was open to visitors. Ralph found out that he had fifteen minutes to
wait before he could plunge head foremost into the pool. He walked
somewhat impatiently up and down the street, finding the waiting
unpleasant, for although it was not raining hard, the mist was cold and
disagreeable. After a few turns, he came up to the door again and there
found a young gentleman, dressed in a long surtout, reading the notice;
the stranger turned about as Ralph approached; his face was
smooth-shaven, his eyes large and melancholy, his whimsical, sensitive
mouth was upcurved at the corners, his waving chestnut hair was longer
than was then the fashion, the soft felt hat was pulled down over his
forehead as if to ward off the fog. He swung to and fro with his right
hand a Malacca joint with a chiselled gold head.
He bowed politely to Ralph, remarking:
"So you, too, are waiting for a plunge into the waters of the Holywell?"
"You are right, sir; I guess that we shall find the Roman bath cold this
morning."
"You are an American, are you not?"
"I am, and therefore, sir, I am a seeker after the curious and ancient
things of this city; it is my first morning in London."
"May I ask how you found out about this ancient bath? It is but little
known, even to old Londoners. I often come here for a plunge, but I
seldom find any other bathers here."
"Well, sir, I came across an allusion to it in 'David Copperfield,' just
before I retired last night, and I looked up the locality in my
guide-book."
"'David Copperfield'!" exclaimed the young man with a low whistle, and
he started off upon a walking up and down as if to keep himself warm
while waiting.
A moment later the heavy black door of the bathhouse was opened, and the
bath attendant stepped out on the threshold, looking out into the rain;
a dark-haired, heavily built man, with coarse features, a tight, cruel
mouth; if he had not been dressed in rough, modern working clothes, he
might well have been a holdover from the days of the Roman occupation.
"The admission is two shillings," announced the attendant as he showed
the American into a dressing-room, and as the latter was paying his fee
he saw the other visitor glide into a dressing-room adjoining his.
The bath was small, dark, and disappointing in appearance to the man
from overseas, to whom the term "Roman bath" had conveyed an impression
of vast vaulted rooms, and marble-lined swimming-pools. The bath itself
was long enough for a plunge, but too small for a swim, and a hasty
diver would be in danger of bumping his head on the bottom. The bricks
at the side were laid edgewise, and the floor of the bath was of brick
covered with cement. At the point where the water from the Holywell
Spring flowed in, Ralph could see the old Roman pavement. The water in
the bath was clear, but it was dark and cold looking.
As Ralph stood at the edge, reluctant to spring in, he saw the young
Englishman dart from his dressing-room like a graceful sprite and make a
beautiful dive into the pool. His slender body made no splash, but
entered the water like a beam of light, refracting as he swam a stroke
under water.
In a trice his face appeared above the surface, with no ripple or
disturbance of the water.
"I feel better already," he called out. "I passed such a terrible night,
almost as bad as poor Clarence's. How miserable I was last night when I
lay down! I need not go into details. A loss of property; a sudden
misfortune had upset my hopes of a career and of happiness.
"It was difficult to believe that night, so long to me, could be short
for any one else. This consideration set me thinking, and thinking of an
imaginary party where people were dancing the hours away until that
became a dream too, and I heard the music incessantly playing one tune,
and saw Dora incessantly dancing one dance without taking the least
notice of me."
"I too dreamed the night through," thought Ralph. "And am I dreaming
now?"
"I dreamed of poverty in all sorts of shapes. I seemed to dream without
the previous ceremony of going to sleep. Now I was ragged, now I ran out
of my office in a nightgown and boots, now I was hungrily picking up the
crumbs of a poor man's scanty bread, and, still more or less conscious
of my own room, I was always tossing about like a distressed ship in a
sea of bedclothes. But come, my friend, plunge in, for if you passed any
such night as mine, the clear cold water of Holywell Spring has
marvellous healing properties, and it will freshen your wits for
whatever the day may bring for them to puzzle over."
As he spoke he drew himself up on the opposite side of the bath from
Ralph, and watched the latter as he took a clumsy header, his body
striking the water flat, and sending great splashes over the room. When
Ralph, recovering from his rude entrance into the water, looked for the
other bather, he was gone. The cold water did not invite a protracted
immersion, so that Ralph scrambled hastily out of it, and after a rub
with a harsh towel, put on his clothes; then he noticed that the door of
the stranger's cubicle was open; he looked into it to say good-by to his
chance acquaintance, but it was empty, and in the corner he saw the
Malacca cane with the gold head. He picked it up and carefully examined
it; the head was of gold in the form of a face, eyes wide open,
spectacles turned up on the forehead.
"Great Cæsar's ghost!" exclaimed Ralph, "Old Marley!"
The attendant just then appeared, Ralph handed him the cane, saying: "I
found this cane in the other gentleman's dressing-room." The attendant
stared at him and said gruffly:
"None of your larks, sir; there wasn't no other gentleman, and that's no
cane; its my cleaning mop that I get under the seats with."
FOOTNOTE:
[18] Copyright, 1920, by Charles Scribner's Sons. Copyright, 1921, by
John T. Wheelwright.
AMAZEMENT[19]
#By# STEPHEN FRENCH WHITMAN
From _Harper's Magazine_
There is sometimes melancholy in revisiting after years of absence, a
place where one was joyous in the days of youth. That is why sadness
stole over me on the evening of my return to Florence.
To be sure, the physical beauties of the Italian city were intact.
Modernity had not farther encroached upon the landmarks that had
witnessed the birth of a new age, powerful, even violent, in its
individualism. From those relics, indeed--from the massive palaces, the
noble porches, the monuments rising in the public squares--there still
seemed to issue a faint vibration of ancient audacity and force. It was
as if stone and bronze had absorbed into their particles, and stored
through centuries, the great emotions released in Florence during that
time of mental expansion called the Renaissance.
But this integrity of scene and influence only increased my regrets.
Though the familiar setting was still here, the familiar human figures
seemed all departed. I looked in vain for sobered versions of the faces
that had smiled, of old, around tables in comfortable cafés, in an
atmosphere of youthful gaiety, where at any moment one might be enmeshed
in a Florentine prank that Boccaccio could not have bettered.
One such prank rose, all at once, before my minds eye, and suddenly, in
the midst of my pessimism, I laughed aloud.
I recalled the final scene of that escapade, which I myself had managed
to devise. The old café had rung with a bellow of delight; the victim,
ridiculous in his consternation, had rushed at me howling for vengeance.
But the audience, hemming him in, had danced 'round him singing a ribald
little song. The air was full of battered felt hats, coffee spoons,
lumps of sugar, and waving handkerchiefs. Out on the piazza the old
cab-horses had pricked up their ears; the shopkeepers had run to their
doorways; the police had taken notice. It was not every day that the
champion joker among us was caught in such a net as he delighted to
spread.
Where were they, all my jolly young men and women? Maturity, matrimony,
perhaps still other acts of fate, had scattered them. Here and there a
grizzled waiter let fall the old names with a shrug of perplexity, then
hastened to answer the call of a rising generation as cheerful as if it
were not doomed, also, to dispersion and regrets.
Then, too, in returning I had been so unfortunate as to find Florence on
the verge of spring.
The soft evening air was full of a sweetness exhaled by the surrounding
cup of hills. From baskets of roses, on the steps of porticoes, a
fragrance floated up like incense round the limbs of statues, which were
bathed in a golden light by the lamps of the piazza. Those marble
countenances were placid with an eternal youth, beneath the same stars
that had embellished irrevocable nights, that recalled some excursions
into an enchanted world, some romantic gestures the knack for which was
gone.
"After all," I thought, "it is better not to find one of the old circle.
We should make each other miserable by our reminiscences."
No sooner had I reflected thus than I found myself face to face with
Antonio.
Antonio was scarcely changed. His dark visage was still vital with
intelligence, still keen and strange from the exercise of an
inexhaustible imagination. Yet in his eyes, which formerly had sparkled
with the wit of youth, there was more depth and a hint of somberness. He
had become a celebrated satirist.
"What luck!" he cried, embracing me with sincere delight. "But to think
that I should have to run into you on the street!"
"I asked for you everywhere."
"In the old places? I never go to them. You have not dined? Nor I. Here,
let us take this cab."
He hurried me off to a restaurant of the suburbs. Under the starry sky
we sat down at a table beside a sunken garden, in which nightingales
were trying their voices among the blossoms, whose perfume had been
intensified by dew.
It was an old-time dinner, at least, that Antonio provided; but, alas!
those others were not there to eke out the illusion of the past. To each
name, as I uttered it, Antonio added an epitaph. This one had gone to
bury himself in the Abruzzi hills. That one had become a professor at
Bologna. Others, in vanishing, had left no trace behind them.
"And Leonello, who was going to surpass Michael Angelo?"
"Oh," my friend responded, "Leonello is still here, painting his
pictures. Like me, he could not live long beyond the air of Florence."
Antonio, in fact, could trace his family back through Florentine history
into the Middle Ages.
"Is Leonello the same?" I pursued. "Always up to some nonsense? But you
were not much behind him in those insane adventures."
"Take that to yourself," Antonio retorted. "I recall one antic, just
before you left us--" He broke off to meditate. Clicking his tongue
against his teeth, he gazed at me almost with resentment, as if I were
responsible for this depressing work of time. "No!" he exclaimed,
looking at me in gloomy speculation, while, in the depths of his eyes,
one seemed to see his extraordinary intelligence perplexed and baffled.
"That war of wit is surely over. The old days are gone for good. Let us
make the best of it." And he asked me what I had been doing.
I made my confession. In those years I had become fascinated by psychic
phenomena--by the intrusion into human experience of weird happenings
that materialism could not very well explain. Many of these happenings
indicated, at least to my satisfaction, not only future existences, but
also previous ones. I admitted to Antonio that, since I was in Italy
again, I intended to investigate the case of a Perugian peasant girl
who, though she had never been associated with educated persons, was
subject to trances in which she babbled the Greek language of
Cleopatra's time, and accurately described the appearance of
pre-Christian Alexandria.
"I am writing a book on such matters," I concluded. "You, of course,
will laugh at it----"
His somber eyes, which had been watching me intently, became blank for a
time, then suddenly gave forth a flash.
"I? Laugh because you have been enthralled by weirdness?" he cried, as
one who, all at once, has been profoundly moved. Yet laugh he did, in
loud tones that were almost wild with strange elation. "Pardon me," he
stammered, passing a trembling hand across his forehead. "You do not
know the man that I have become of late."
What had my words called to his mind? From that moment everything was
changed. The weight of some mysterious circumstances had descended upon
Antonio, overwhelming, as it seemed to me, the pleasure that he had
found in this reunion. Through the rest of the dinner he was silent, a
prey to that dark exultancy, to that uncanny agitation.
This silence persisted while the cab bore us back into the city.
In the narrow streets a blaze of light from the open fronts of
cook-shops flooded the lower stories of some palaces which once on a
time had housed much fierceness and beauty, treachery and perverse
seductiveness. Knowing Antonio's intimate acquaintance with those
splendid days, I strove to rouse him by congenial allusions. His
preoccupation continued; the historic syllables that issued from my lips
were wasted in the clamor of the street. Yet when I pronounced the name
of one of those bygone belles, Fiammetta Adimari, he repeated slowly,
like a man who has found the key to everything:
"Fiammetta!"
"What is it, Antonio? Are you in love?"
He gave me a piercing look and sprang from the cab. We had reached the
door of his house.
Antonio's bachelor apartment was distinguished by handsome austerity.
The red-tiled floors reflected faintly the lights of antique candelabra,
which shed their luster also upon chests quaintly carved, bric-à-brac
that museums would have coveted, and chairs adorned with threadbare
coats of arms. Beside the mantelpiece hung a small oil-painting, as I
thought, of Antonio himself, his black hair reaching to his shoulders,
and on his head a hat of the Renaissance.
"No," said he, giving me another of his strange looks, "it is my
ancestor, Antonio di Manzecca, who died in the year fifteen hundred."
I remembered that somewhere in the hills north of the city there was a
dilapidated stronghold called the Castle of Manzecca. Behind those
walls, in the confusion of the Middle Ages, Antonio's family had
developed into a nest of rural tyrants. Those old steel-clad men of the
Manzecca had become what were called "Signorotti"--lords of a height or
two, swooping down to raid passing convoys, waging petty wars against
the neighboring castles, and at times, like bantams, too arrogant to
bear in mind the shortness of their spurs, defying even Florence. In the
end, as I recalled the matter, Florence had chastened the Manzecca,
together with all the other lordlings of that region. The survivors had
come to live in the city, where, through these hundreds of years, many
changes of fortune had befallen them. My friend Antonio was their last
descendant.
"But," I protested, examining the portrait, "your resemblance to this
Antonio of the Renaissance could not possibly be closer."
Instead of replying, he sat down, rested his elbow on his knees, and
pressed his fists against his temples. Presently I became aware that he
was laughing, very softly, but in such an unnatural manner that I
shivered.
I grew alarmed. It was true that in our years of separation Antonio's
physical appearance had not greatly changed; but what was the meaning of
this mental difference? Was his mind in danger of some sinister
overshadowing? Were these queer manners the symptoms of an incipient
mania? It is proposed that genius is a form of madness. Was the genius
of Antonio, in its phenomenal development, on the point of losing touch
with sanity? As my thoughts leaped from one conjecture to another, the
tiled room took on the chill that pervades a mausoleum. From the bowl on
the table the petals of a dying rose fell in a sudden cascade, like a
dismal portent.
"The Castle of Manzecca," I ventured, merely to break the silence, "is
quite ruined, I suppose?"
"No, the best part of it still stands. I have had some rooms restored."
"You own it?"
"I bought it back a year ago. It is there that I----" He buried his face
in his hands.
"Antonio," I said, "you are in some great trouble."
"It is not trouble," he answered, in smothered tones. "But why should I
hesitate to make my old friend, whose mind does not reject weirdness, my
confidant? I warn you, however, that it will be a confidence weird
enough to make even your experience in such matters seem tame. Go first
to Perugia. Examine the peasant girl who chatters of ancient Alexandria.
Return to my house one week from to-night, at dusk, and you shall share
my secret."
He rose, averted his face, and went to throw himself upon a couch, or
porch-bed, another relic, its woodwork covered with faded paint and
gilt, amid which one might trace the gallants of the sixteenth century
in pursuit of nymphs--an allegory of that age's longing for the classic
past. I left him thus, flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling,
oblivious of my farewell.
Poor Antonio! What a return to Florence!
A week from that night, at dusk, I returned. At Perugia I had filled a
pocket-book with notes on the peasant girl's trances. The spell of those
strange revelations was yet on me, but at Antonio's door I felt that I
stood on the threshold of a still more agitating disclosure.
My knock was answered by Antonio himself, his hat on his head and a
motorcoat over his arm. He seemed burning with impatience.
"You have your overcoat? Good." And he locked the door on the outside.
We stepped into a limousine, which whirled us away through the twilight.
The weather made one remember that even in Florence the merging of March
and April could be violent. To-night masses of harsh-looking clouds sped
across the sky before an icy wind from the mountains. A burial-party,
assembled at a convent gate, had their black robes fluttering, their
waxen torches blown out.
"Death!" muttered Antonio, with a sardonic grimace. "And they call it
unconquerable!"
As we paused before a dwelling-house, two men emerged upon the pavement.
They were Leonello, the artist, and another friend of the old days,
named Leonardo. The unusual occasion constrained our greetings. The
newcomers, after pressing my hand, devoted themselves with grave
solicitude to Antonio.
He burst forth at them like a man whose nervous tension is nearly
unendurable:
"Yes, hang it all! I am quite well. Why the devil will you persist in
coddling me?"
Leonello and Leonardo gave me a mournful look.
We now stopped at another door, where there joined us two ladies unknown
to me. Both were comely, with delicate features full of sensibility.
Neither, I judged, had reached the age of thirty. In the moment of
meeting--a moment notable for a stammering of incoherent phrases, a
darting of sidelong looks at Antonio, a general effect of furtiveness
and excitement--no one remembered to present me to these ladies.
However, while we were arranging ourselves in the limousine I gathered
that the name of one of them was Laura, and that the other's name was
Lina. In their faces, on which the street-lights cast intermittent
flashes, I seemed to discern a struggle between apprehension and avidity
for this adventure.
The silence, and the tension of all forms, continued even when we left
the city behind us and found ourselves speeding northward along a
country road.
"Northward. To the Castle of Manzecca, then?" I asked myself.
The rays from our lamps revealed the trees all bending toward the south.
The wind pressed against our car, as if to hold us back from the
revelation awaiting us ahead, in the midst of the black night, whence
this interminable whistling moan pervaded nature. Rain dashed against
the glass. Through the blurred windows the lights of farms appeared, to
be instantly engulfed by darkness. Then everything vanished except the
illuminated streak of road. We seemed to be fleeing from the known
world, across a span of radiance that trembled over an immeasurable
void, into the supernatural.
The limousine glided to a standstill.
"Here we abandon the car."
We entered the kitchen of a humble farm-house. Strings of garlic hung
from the ceiling, and on the floor lay some valises.
As the ladies departed into another room, Antonio mastered his emotion
and addressed me.
"What we must do, and what I must ask you to promise, may at first seem
to you ridiculous," he said. "Yet your acceptance of my conditions is a
matter of life or death, not to any one here present, but to another,
whom we are about to visit. What I require is this: you are to put on,
as we shall, the costumes in these valises, which are after the fashion
of the early sixteenth century. Indeed, when our journey is resumed,
there must be about us nothing to suggest the present age. Moreover, I
must have your most earnest promise that when we reach our destination
you will refrain from giving the least hint, by word or action, that the
sixteenth century has passed away. If you feel unable to carry out this
deception, we must leave you here. The slightest blunder would be
fatal."
No sooner had Antonio uttered these words than he turned in a panic to
Leonello and Leonardo.
"Am I wrong to have brought him?" he demanded, distractedly. "Can I
depend on him at every point? You two, and Laura and Lina, know what it
would mean if he should make a slip."
Much disturbed, I declared that I wished for nothing better than to
return to Florence at once. But Leonardo restrained me, while Leonello,
patting Antonio's shoulder in reassurance, responded:
"Trust him. You do his quick wit an injustice."
Finally Antonio, with a heavy sigh, unlocked the valises.
Hitherto I had associated masquerade with festive expectations, but
nothing could have been less festive than the atmosphere in which we
donned those costumes. They were rich, accurate, and complete. The wigs
of flowing hair were perfectly deceptive. The fur-trimmed surcoats and
the long hose were in fabrics suggestive of lost weaving arts. Each
dagger, buckle, hat-gem, and finger-ring, was a true antique. Even when
the two ladies appeared, in sumptuous Renaissance dresses, their
coiffures as closely in accordance with that period as their expanded
silhouettes, no smile crossed any face.
"Are we all--" began Antonio. His voice failed him. Muffled in thick
cloaks, we faced the blustery night again.
Behind the farm-house stood horses, saddled and bridled in an obsolete
manner. Our small cavalcade wound up a hillside path, which, in the
darkness, the beasts felt out for themselves. One became aware of
cypress-trees on either hillside, immensely tall, to judge by the
thickness of their trunks. More and more numerous became these trees, as
was evident from the lamentation of their countless branches. In its
groan, the forest voiced to the utmost that melancholy which the
imaginative mind associates with cypresses in Italy, where they seemed
always to raise their funereal grace around the sites of vanished
splendors.
We were ascending one of the hills that lie scattered above Florence
toward the mountains, and that were formerly all covered with these
solemn trees.
But the wind grew even stronger as we neared the summit. Above us loomed
a gray bulk. The Castle of Manzecca reluctantly unveiled itself, bleak,
towering, impressive in its decay--a ruin that was still a fortress, and
that time had not injured so much as had its mortal besiegers; the last
of whom had died centuries ago. A gate swung open. Our horses clattered
into a courtyard which abruptly blazed with torches.
In that dazzle all the omens of our journey were fulfilled. We found
ourselves, as it appeared, not only in a place embodying another age,
but in that other age itself.
The streaming torches revealed shock-headed servitors of the
Renaissance, their black tunics stamped in vermilion, front and back,
with a device of the Manzecca. By the steps glittered the spear-points
of a clump of men-at-arms whose swarthy and rugged faces remained
impassive under flattened helmets. But as we dismounted a grey-hound
came leaping from the castle, and in the doorway hovered an old
maid-servant. To her Antonio ran straightway, his cape whipping out
behind him.
"Speak, Nuta! Is she well?" he demanded.
We followed him into the castle.
It was a spacious hall, paved with stone, its limits shadowy, its core
illuminated brilliantly with candles. From the rafters dangled some
banners, tattered and queerly designed. Below these, in the midst of the
hall--in a mellow refulgence that she herself seemed to give
forth--there awaited us a woman glorified by youth and happiness, who
pressed her hand to her heart.
She wore a gown of violet-colored silk, the sleeves puffed at the
shoulders, the bodice tight across the breast and swelling at the waist,
the skirt voluminous. On either side of her bosom, sheer linen, puckered
by golden rosettes, mounted to form behind her neck a little ruff. Over
her golden hair, every strand of which had been drawn back strictly from
her brow, a white veil was clasped, behind her ears, by a band of pearls
and amethysts cut in cabuchon.
Still, she was remarkable less for her costume than for the singularity
of her charms.
To what was this singularity due? To the intense emotions that she
seemed to be harboring? Or to the arrangement of her lovely features,
to-day unique, which made one think of backgrounds composed of brocade
and armor, the freshly painted canvases of Titian and the dazzling
newness of statues by Michael Angelo? As she approached that singularity
of hers became still more disquieting, as though the fragrance that
enveloped her were not a woman's chosen perfume, but the very aroma of
the magnificent past.
Antonio regarded her with his soul in his eyes, then greedily kissed her
hands. When the others had saluted her, each of them as much moved as
though she were an image in a shrine, Antonio said in a hoarse voice to
me:
"I present you to Madonna Fiammetta di Foscone, my affianced bride.
Madonna, this gentleman comes from a distant country to pay you homage."
"He is welcome," she answered, in a voice that accorded with her
peculiar beauty.
And my bewilderment deepened as I realized that they were speaking not
modern Italian, but what I gathered to be the Italian of the sixteenth
century.
* * * * *
I found myself with Antonio in a tower-room, whither he had brought me
on the ladies' retirement to prepare themselves for supper.
The wind, howling round the tower, pressed against the narrow windows
covered with oiled linen. The cypress forest, which on all sides
descended from our peak into the valleys, gave forth a continuous moan.
Every instant the candle-light threatened to go out. The very tower
seemed to be trembling, like Antonio, in awe of the secret about to be
revealed. For a while my poor friend could say nothing. Seated in his
rich disguise on a bench worn smooth by men whose tombs were crumbling,
he leaned forward beneath the burden of his thoughts, and the long locks
of his wig hung down as if to veil the disorder of his features.
Finally he began:
"In the year fifteen hundred my family still called this place their
home. There were only two of them left, two brothers, the older bearing
the title Lord of Manzecca. The younger brother was that Antonio di
Manzecca whose portrait you saw on the wall of my apartment in the city.
It is to him, as you observed, that I bear so close a resemblance.
"In a hill-castle not far away lived another family, the Foscone.
"The Lord of Foscone, a widower, had only one child left, a daughter
seventeen years old. Her name was Fiammetta. Even in Florence it was
said that to the north, amid the wilderness of cypress-trees, there
dwelt a maiden whose beauty surrounded her with golden rays like a
nimbus."
I remembered our entrance into this castle, my first glimpse of the
woman awaiting us in the middle of the hall, and the glow of light
around her that appeared to be a radiance expanding from her person.
But my friend continued:
"Between the two castles there was friendly intercourse. It was presumed
that the Lord of Foscone would presently give his daughter in marriage
to the Lord of Manzecca. Fate, however, determined that Fiammetta and
Antonio di Manzecca, the younger brother, should fall in love with each
other.
"Need I describe to you the fervor of that passion in the Italian
springtime, at a period of our history when all the emotions were
terrific in their force?
"At night, Antonio di Manzecca would slip away to the Castle of Foscone.
She would be waiting for him on the platform outside her chamber, above
the ramparts, overlooking the path across the hills. It chanced that by
the aid of vines and fissures in the masonry he could climb the castle
wall almost to that platform--almost near enough, indeed, to touch her
finger-tips. Unhappily, there was nothing there to which she could
attach a twisted sheet. So thus they made love--she bending down toward
him, he clutching with toes and hands at the wall, her whispers making
him dizzier than his perilous posture, her tears falling upon his lips
through a space so little, yet greater than the distance between two
stars.
"But almost everything is discovered. Antonio's meetings with Fiammetta
became known to his elder brother.
"One evening Fiammetta, from the high platform, saw Antonio approaching
while it was still twilight. All at once he was surrounded by servants
of his own house, who had been waiting for him in ambush. Before he
could move, half a dozen daggers sank into his body. Amid the thorns and
nettles he sprawled lifeless, under the eyes of his beloved. As the
assassins dragged his body away, there burst from the platform a
prolonged peal of laughter.
"Fiammetta di Foscone had gone mad."
* * * * *
At that tragedy, at least, I was not surprised. The Italy of the
Renaissance was full of such episodes--the murderous jealousy of
brothers, the obedient cruelty of retainers, the wreckage of women's
sanity by the fall of horrors much more ingeniously contrived than this.
What froze my blood was the anticipation gradually shaping in my mind. I
felt that this was the prelude to something monstrous, incredible, which
I should be forced to believe.
"She had gone mad," my friend repeated, staring before him. "She had, in
other words, lost contact with what we call reality. To her that state
of madness had become reality, its delusions truth, and everything
beyond those delusions misty, unreal, or non-existent."
His voice died away as he looked at his hands with an expression of
disbelief. He even reached forward to touch my knee, then sighed:
"You will soon understand why I am sometimes possessed with the idea
that I am dreaming."
And he resumed his tale:
"Antonio di Manzecca was buried. His elder brother found a wife
elsewhere. The Lord of Foscone married again, and by that marriage had
other children. But still his daughter Fiammetta stood nightly on the
platform of the Castle of Foscone, gazing down at the hill path, waiting
for her Antonio to climb the wall and whisper his love.
"Now she only lived in that state of ardent expectancy. The days and
weeks and months were but one hour, the hour preceding his last approach
to her. Every moment, in her delusion, she expected him to end that hour
by coming to her as young as ever, to find her as winsome as before. In
consequence, time vanished from her thought. And in vanishing from her
thought, time lost its power over her.
"Her father died; but Fiammetta still kept her vigil, in appearance the
same as on the evening of that tragedy. A new generation of the Foscone
grew old in their turn, but Fiammetta's loveliness was still perfect. In
her madness there seemed to be a sanity surpassing the sanity of other
mortals. For by becoming insensible to time she had attained an earthly
immortality, an uncorrupted physical beauty, in which she constantly
looked forward to the delight of loving.
"So she went on and on----"
The tower shook in terror of the gale, and we shook with it, in terror
of this revelation. My thoughts turned toward the woman below, who had
smiled at us from that aura of physical resplendency. I felt my hair
rising, and heard a voice, my own, cry out: "No, no!"
"Yes!" Antonio shouted, fixing his hands upon my arms. We were both
standing, and our leaping shadows on the wall resembled a combat in
which one was struggling to force insanity upon the other. He went on
speaking, but his words were drowned in a screaming of vast forces that
clutched at the tower as if in fury because the normal processes of
nature had been defied. Would those forces attain their revenge? Was the
tower about to thunder down upon the Castle of Manzecca, annihilating
her and us, the secret and its possessors? For a moment I would have
welcomed even that escape from thinking.
"Yes," he repeated, releasing my arms and sitting down limply on the
bench. "As you anticipate, so it turned out."
I was still able to protest:
"Admitted that this has happened elsewhere, to a certain degree. In
Victorian England there lived a woman whose love-affair was wrecked and
whose mind automatically closed itself against everything associated
with her tragedy, or subsequent to it. In her madness she, too,
protected herself against pain by living in expectation of the lover's
return. Because that expectation was restricted to her girlhood, she
remained a girl in appearance for over fifty years. Fifty years, that is
comprehensible!"
"The principle is the same," said Antonio, wearily. "Every mental
phenomenon has minor and major examples. But I will tell you the rest.
"The Foscone, also, finally moved to Florence. Their castle was left in
the care of hereditary servants, devoted and discreet. On that isolated
hilltop no chance was afforded strangers to solve the mystery of the
woman who paced the high platform in the attire of another age. Was
there, in the Foscone's concealment of the awesome fact, a medieval
impulse, the ancient instinct of noble houses to defend themselves
against all forms of aggression, including curiosity? Or was it merely
the usual aversion to being identified with abnormality? Some
abnormality is so terrifying that it seals the loosest lips.
"Now and then, to be sure, some servant's tongue was set wagging by
wine, or some heir of the Foscone confided in his sweetheart. But the
rumor, if it went farther, soon became distorted and incredible, amid
the ghost-stories of a hundred Italian castles, palaces, and villas. I
myself found hints in the archives of my family, yet saw in them only a
pretty tale, such as results when romantic invention is combined with
pride of race.
"But I was destined to sing another tune.
"Not long ago, the last of the Foscone's modern generation passed away.
There came to me an old woman-servant from the castle. It was Nuta, whom
you saw below as we entered.
"Why had she sought me out? Because, if you please, in the year fifteen
hundred one of my family had brought this thing to pass. It seemed to
Nuta, the fact now being subject to discovery by the executors of the
estate, that the care of her charge devolved upon me.
"At first I believed that old Nuta was the mad one. In the end, however,
I accompanied her to the castle. At dusk, concealed by the cypresses, I
discerned on the platform a face that seemed to have been transported
from another epoch just in order to pierce my heart with an intolerable
longing. I fell in love as one slips into a vortex, and instantly the
rational world was lost beyond a whorl of ecstasy and fright.
"I regained Florence with but one thought: how could she be restored to
sanity, yet be maintained in that beauty which had triumphed over
centuries? As I entered my apartment I saw before me the portrait of
that other Antonio di Manzecca, whom I so closely resembled, whom she
had loved, whose return she still awaited. I stood there blinded by a
flash of inspiration.
"At midnight my plan was complete."
* * * * *
As he paused, and the conclusion became clear to me, I was taken with a
kind of stupor.
"A few days later," he said, "as she stood gazing down through the
twilight, a man emerged from the forest, in face and dress the image of
that other Antonio di Manzecca. At his signal, servants in the old-time
livery of the Manzecca appeared with a ladder, which they leaned against
the ramparts. He set foot upon the platform. Her pallor turned
deathlike; her eyes became blank; she fainted in his arms. When she
recovered she was in the Castle of Manzecca.
"That shock had restored her reason.
"Now everything around her very artfully suggested the sixteenth
century--the furniture, the most trivial utensils, the costume of the
humblest person in the castle. Nuta attended her. The convalescent was
told that she had been ill in consequence of the attack on her lover,
but that he, instead of succumbing, had been spirited away and
stealthily nursed back to health. Again whole, he had returned to avenge
himself on his brother, whom he had killed. Meanwhile her father had
died. Therefore she had been brought from the Castle of Foscone to the
Castle of Manzecca to enjoy the protection of her Antonio, whom she was
now free to marry.
"All this was what she wanted to believe, so she believed it."
But Antonio's face was filled with a new distress. He rose, to pace the
floor with the gestures of a man who realizes that he is locked in a
cell to which there is no key.
"In the restoration of her mind," he groaned, "my own peace of mind has
been destroyed. Even this love, the strangest and most thrilling in the
world, will never allay the heartquakes that I have brought upon myself.
"With her perception of time restored, she will now be subject to time
like other mortals. As year follows year, her youthfulness will merge
into maturity, her maturity into old age, here in this castle, where
nothing must ever suggest that she has attained a century other than her
own. For me that means a ceaseless vigilance and fear. My devotion will
always be mingled with forebodings of some blunder, some unforeseen
intrusion of the present, some lightning-like revelation of the truth to
her."
At that he broke down.
"Ah, if that happened, what horror should I witness?"
The gale sounded like the hooting of a thousand demons who were
preparing for this man a frightful retribution. Yet even in that moment
I envied him.
To her beauty, which had bewitched me at my first sight of her, was
added another allurement--the thought of a magical flight far beyond
the boundaries imprisoning other men. If romance is a striving toward
something at once unique and sympathetic, here was romance attained.
Moreover, in embracing that exquisite personification of the
Renaissance, one might add to love the glamour of a terrible audacity.
And the addition of glamour to love has always been one of the most
assiduously practised arts.
* * * * *
At the bottom of the winding tower staircase, in the doorway of the hall
where she had greeted us, we paused to compose ourselves.
"At least," Antonio besought me, "when in doubt, remain silent."
We entered the hall. Under a wooden gallery adorned with carved and
tinted shields the supper-table was laid.
They awaited us, shimmering in their fantastic finery--the ladies Laura
and Lina, my old friends Leonardo and Leonello, and the ineffable
Fiammetta di Foscone. The visitors' cheeks seemed hectic from the
excitement of the hour; but her face was flushed, her eyes shone, for
her own reasons. As I approached her my heartbeats suffocated me. Yes, I
would have taken Antonio's place and shouldered all his terrors! Before
me the fair conqueror of time disappeared in a haze, out of which her
voice emerged like a sweet utterance from beyond the tomb.
"You are pleased with the castle, messere?"
As I was striving to respond, Antonio said to her, half aside, in that
quaint species of Italian which he had used before:
"He speaks our language with difficulty, Madonna, and in a dialect. This
disability will embarrass him till he finds himself more at home."
"Then let us sup," she exclaimed. "For since this new custom of a third
meal has become fashionable in Florence, no doubt you are all expiring
of hunger. So quickly does habit become tyrannous, especially when it
involves a pleasure."
In some manner or other I seated myself at the table.
The servants bore in, on silver platters, small chickens garnished with
sugar and rose-water, a sort of galantine, tarts of almonds and honey,
caramels of pine-seed. From the gallery overhead came the tinkle of a
rota, a kind of guitar. The musician produced a whimsical tune
suggesting a picnic of lords and ladies in the garden of an antique
villa, where trick fountains, masked by blossoms, drenched the unwary
with streams of water. But in the chimney of the great, cold fireplace
behind my back the wind still growled its threats; the voice of Nature
still menaced these audacious mortals, who were celebrating the
humiliation of her laws.
Beyond the candle-light the beauty of Fiammetta di Foscone became
blinding. In her there was no sign of an unnatural preservation, as, for
example, in a flower that has been sustained, yet subtly altered, by
imprisonment in ice. Nor did her countenance show in the least that
glaze of time which changes, without abating, the fairness of marble
goddesses surviving for us from remote ages of esthetic victory. But
wait; she was not an animated statue, nor any product of nature other
than flesh and blood! And the flesh, the glance, the whole person of
this creature from another era, expressed a glorious young womanhood. I
was lost in admiration, pity, and dread. For over this shining miracle
hovered the shadow of disaster. One could not forget the countless
menaces surrounding her.
If she should grasp the truth, if all of a sudden she should realize her
disaccordance with the world of mortals, what would happen to her before
our eyes? Would she succumb instantly? Or would she first shrivel into
some appalling monstrosity? This deception could not last forever. Might
it not end to-night?
Did the others have similar premonitions?
Their smiles seemed tremulous and wan, their movements constrained and
timorous. All their efforts at gaiety were impeded by the inertia of
fear. At every speech the lips of Lina and Laura quivered, the hands of
Leonello and Leonardo were clenched in a nervous spasm. Antonio
controlled himself only by the most heroic efforts.
What a price to pay for an illusion of happiness that was destined to a
ghastly end! Yet I would still have paid that heavy price exacted from
Antonio.
Fiammetta di Foscone became infected by our nervousness. At one moment
her mirth was feverish; at another, a look of vague uneasiness crossed
her face. Was our secret gradually penetrating to her subconscious mind?
Was she to learn the fact, and perish of it, not because of bungling
word or action on our part, but merely from the unwitting transmission
of our thoughts?
The others redoubled their travesty of merriment. They voiced the gossip
of a vanished society; the politics, fashions, and scandals of old
Florence. One heard the names of noble families long since extinct,
accounts of historic escapades related as if they had happened
yesterday. Fiammetta recovered her animation.
Her dewy eyes turned to Antonio. Her fingers caressed her
betrothal-ring, which was like the wedding-ring of the twentieth
century. And in this hall tricked out with lies, amid these guests and
servants who were the embodiment of falsehood, an oppressing atmosphere
of dread was clarified, for a moment, by the strength and delicacy of
her love.
They discussed the virtues of the Muses, the plagiarisms of Petrarch,
the wonders of astrology. Her uneasiness revived. In a voice more
musical than the rota in the gallery, she asked:
"My dear friends, would you attribute to some planetary influence a
feeling of strangeness that I receive at times, even from the air? I
demand of you whether the air does not have an unfamiliar smell
to-night?"
There was a freezing moment of silence.
"It is this great wind," muttered Leonardo, "that has brought us new air
from afar."
"Every place has its smell," was Leonello's contribution. "It is natural
that the Castle of Manzecca should smell differently from the Castle of
Foscone."
Antonio thanked his friends with an eloquent look.
"True," she assented, pensively, "every spot, every person, is
surrounded by its especial ether, produced by its peculiar activity.
This house, not only in its smell, but in its tenor of life, and even in
its food, differs vastly from my own house, which, nevertheless, is just
across the hills."
Antonio drained his goblet at a gulp. He got out the words:
"We are provincial, we Manzecca. Like a race apart."
"All old families, jealous of their integrity, are the same," ventured
Laura, who looked, nevertheless, as if she were about to faint.
"Or maybe," mused Fiammetta, "it is because I have been ill that things
perplex me, and sometimes startle me by an effect of strangeness. There
are moments when even the stars look odd to me, and when the
countryside, viewed from the tower above us, is bewildering. In one
direction I see woods where I should have expected meadows; in another
direction, fields where I should have expected woods. But then, I now
view the countryside from a tower other than my own, and see in a new
aspect that landscape with which I thought myself so well acquainted.
Does that explain it?"
How touching, how pitiable, was her expression, half arch, half
pleading, and so beautiful! "Oh, lovely and terrible prodigy!" I
thought, "draw back; banish those thoughts; or, rather, no longer think
at all--for you are on the edge of the abyss!"
Antonio spoke with difficulty:
"Dearest one, do not pain me by mentioning that illness of yours. Do not
pain yourself by dwelling on it in your mind. The past with all its
misfortunes is gone forever. Let us live in the present and contemplate
a future full of bliss."
A quivering sigh of assent and relief went round the supper-table. But
Fiammetta protested:
"I should not care to forget the past. It contained too much happiness.
The hours at twilight, when I waited on the platform of the Castle of
Foscone, and you clambered up the wall, are not for oblivion! Do you
remember, Antonio, how you once brought with you a bunch of little
damask roses, which you tossed up to me while clinging to the masonry?
Those roses became my treasure. The sweetest one of them I locked in a
tiny silver box which I kept always by me. That box came with me from
the Castle of Foscone. The key is lost; but you shall open it with your
dagger, and learn how I have cherished an emblem of that past which you
ask me to forget."
With a rare smile, she drew from the bosom of her gown a very small
coffer of silver, its chiseling worn smooth by innumerable caresses.
Poor soul! it was in her bosom that she had cherished this pretty little
box, more cruelly fatal than a viper.
Antonio, his jaws sagging, rose half-way out of his chair, then sank
back, speechless and livid. Unaware, eager, and imperious, Fiammetta
demanded:
"A dagger!"
Too late Antonio managed to put out a shaking hand in protest. Already a
fool of a servant had presented his dirk to her. In a twinkling--before
we could stop her--Fiammetta had pried back the lid.
The silver box, its oxidized interior as black as ink, contained, in
place of the damask rose that had bloomed in the year fifteen hundred,
only a few grains of dust.
* * * * *
There was no sound except from the wind, which yelled its devilish glee
round the castle and in the chimney of the fireplace.
She had risen to her feet. In her eyes, peering at the little coffer,
bewilderment gave place to dismay. But in our faces she found a
consternation far surpassing hers.
"Only dust?"
Antonio distorted his mouth in a vain effort to speak. At last, with a
frantic oath, he swept the silver box into the fireplace, where it fell
amid the brush-wood and inflammable rubbish piled ready for lighting
under the big logs.
Fiammetta had tried to stop him. Under her clutching hand, his
fur-trimmed sleeve had slipped up, exposing his forearm. She was staring
at his forearm.
"The scar?" she whispered. "Was it not here, when you raised your arm to
shield yourself against them, that you caught the first knife-thrust?
How long does it take for such a scar to pass entirely away?"
Lina and Laura sank back in their chairs. Leonello averted his face.
Leonardo turned away. Again Antonio tried to speak. The terror that held
us in its grip was communicated to Fiammetta di Foscone.
Her countenance became bloodless. Her teeth chattered. She murmured:
"What is happening to me? I am so cold!"
She sank down, amid billows of violet-colored silk, between Antonio's
arms, before the fireplace. Her veil, confined by the band of pearls and
amethysts, did not seem as white as her skin.
There was a hysterical babble of voices:
"She is dead! No, she has swooned! Bring vinegar! Rub her hands! Light
the fire!"
Then ensued a jostling of guests and servants, who crowded forward to
poke a dozen lighted candles at the brush-wood. In the midst of this
confusion Fiammetta sat before the hearth, her eyes half closed, her
head rolling against Antonio's shoulder, her throat, framed by the
little ruff, palpitating like the breast of an expiring dove. She was in
the throes of the emotions that had been at last transferred from our
minds to hers and that she was doubtless on the point of comprehending.
The brush-wood caught fire. At that flicker her eyelids opened. She
leaned forward. Under the brush-wood, already writhing in flames, was
the fragment of a modern Italian newspaper. One plainly saw the title,
part of a head-line, and the date.
Fiammetta di Foscone read the date.
As Antonio and I, between us, lifted her into a chair, she kept
repeating to herself, in a soft, incredulous voice, the date. And so
badly had our wits been paralyzed by this catastrophe, that none of us
could find one lying word to utter.
Antonio knelt before her, his arms clasping her knees, his head bowed.
He was weeping as if she were already dead. Her hands slowly stole forth
to close around his face and lift it up.
"Whatever it is," she breathed, "I still have you."
As she gazed, half lifeless, but still fairer than an untinted statue,
at his face, all at once her eyes became enormous. Pushing him from her,
she stood bolt-upright at one movement, with a heart-rending scream:
"A stranger!"
That scream was still resounding from the rafters when we saw her
fleeing across the hall, her head thrown back, her arms outspread, her
white veil and violet draperies floating behind her. Her jewels
glittered like the last sparkle of a splendid dream that has been doomed
to swift extinction. She vanished through the doorway leading to the
tower staircase.
"After her!" some one shouted.
Antonio was first; but at the doorway he stumbled, and Leonello, who was
second, fell over him. Vaulting their bodies, I gained the circular
staircase that ascended to the tower. I heard Antonio bawling after me:
"She will throw herself from the roof!"
The staircase was black, and the wind whistled down its well. At each
landing the heavy doors on either side banged open and shut. From
overhead there descended a long wail, maybe her voice, or maybe one of
the countless voices of the storm. As I neared the top, a door through
which I had just passed blew shut with a deafening report. I emerged
upon the roof of the tower in a torrent of rain. The roof was empty.
I peered over the low battlements. Close below me swayed the tops of
cypress-trees; beneath them everything was lost in the obscurity of the
night. Soon, however, the darkness was lighted by torches which began to
dart to and fro among the trees. By those fitful gleams I made out the
crouching backs of men, the livery of the Manzecca with its black and
vermilion device, helmets and sword-hilts, and finally upturned faces
that appeared ruddy in the torch-light, though I knew that in reality
they must be pallid. They called up to me, but the wind whipped their
voices away. I made signs that she was not on the tower. The faces
disappeared; again the torches wandered among the trees. Now and then I
heard a shout, the barking of the greyhound, and a woman--perhaps old
Nuta--in hysterics.
I began to descend the staircase. The last door through which I had
passed was so tightly wedged, from its slamming, that I could not open
it. I sat down on the steps to wait till the others should miss me.
What thoughts!
"Can it be true? Yes, it has happened, and I have seen the end of it!
This will kill Antonio. But then, none of us will ever be the same
again."
I was sure that my hair had turned white.
And she? A vast wave of pity and longing swept over me and whirled me
away into the depths of despair.
Now, I told myself, they have found her. And I fell to shuddering again.
Now they have brought her in, unless what they saw, when they found her,
scattered them, raving, through the woods. Now they are trying to soothe
Antonio, perhaps to wrench a weapon from his hand. Now surely they have
noticed my absence.
I cannot imagine what impulse made me rise, at last, and try the door
again. At my first touch it swung open.
Descending the staircase, I re-entered the hall.
* * * * *
They were all seated at the supper-table, which was now decorated with
flowers, with baskets of fruit, with plates of bonbons, and with favors
in the form of dolls tricked out like little ladies of the Renaissance.
The servants wore tail-coats and white-cotton gloves. Leonello and
Leonardo, Lina and Laura, even Antonio, had on the evening-dress
appropriate to the twentieth century. But my brain reeled indeed when I
saw Fiammetta, her hair done in the last Parisian style, her low-neck
gown the essence of modern chic.
The company looked at me with tolerant smiles.
"Well," exclaimed Antonio, "you have certainly taken your time! We
waited ages for you, then decided that the food was spoiling, and fell
to. There is your place, old fellow. I'll have the relishes brought
back."
I dropped into my chair with a thud. Leonardo, reaching in front of
Lina, took the fabric of my antique costume between thumb and finger.
"Very _recherché_," was his comment. "Do you wear it for a whim?"
"He is soaking wet," announced Lina, compassionately. "I think he has
been looking at the garden."
"A botanist!" cried Laura, clapping her hands. "Will you give me some
advice, signore? What is the best preservative for damask roses?"
"Water them with credulity," Leonello suggested.
And they all burst out laughing in my face, with the exception of the
beautiful Fiammetta.
Antonio, rising and bowing to me, spoke as follows:
"My friend, the sixteenth century bequeathed to us Florentines a little
of its cheerful cruelty and something of its pleasure in vendettas.
Casting your thoughts into a less remote past, you may retrieve an
impression of your last performance before your departure from the
Florence of our youth. Need I describe that performance? Its details
were conceived and executed with much talent. It made me, who was its
butt, the laughing stock of our circle for a month. Did we children of
Boccaccio impart to you that knack for practical joking? Remember that
the pupil does not always permanently abash his teacher. But come, let
us make a lasting peace now. If after all these years I managed to catch
you off your guard, you will never again catch me so. Let us forget our
two chagrins in drinking to this pleasant night, which, though I fancy
the fact has escaped you, happens to be the First of April."
While I was still trying to master my feelings, he added:
"I have forgotten to explain that Lina is the wife of Leonello, our new
Michael Angelo, who did that portrait of me in the wig and costume of
the Renaissance. Laura, on the other hand, is the wife of Leonardo. As
for our heroine, Fiammetta, she is the bride of your unworthy Antonio.
She has been so gracious as to marry me between two of her theatrical
seasons; in fact, we are here on our honeymoon. Why the deuce have you
never married? A wife might keep you out of many a laughable
predicament."
Leonello hazarded, "He is waiting to marry some lady who can describe,
in her trances, the cuisine of Nebuchadnezzar's palace, or the home-life
of the Queen of Sheba."
"Do no such thing," Antonio implored me. "And hereafter avoid the
supernatural like the plague. May this affair instil into your
philosophy of life a little healthy skepticism. There is no better tonic
than laughter for one who has caught the malaria of psychical research.
But even Nuta, my wife's old dresser at the theater, will tell you that
laughter is precious. You have given her to-night the first out-and-out
guffaw that she has enjoyed in years. She says it cured her of a crick
in the neck."
The fair Fiammetta, however, made a gesture of reproof, then held out
her warm hand to me.
"No, Antonio," she protested, "you have not been clever, after all, but
wicked. The worst of revenge is this: that it invariably exceeds its
object. To what do you owe this triumph? To his solicitude for you, to
his trust in you, which you have abused. Also, as I suspect, to his pity
for Fiammetta di Foscone, which I have ill repaid. In fine, we owe the
success of this trick to the misuse of fine emotions. That was not the
custom of Messer Giovanni Boccaccio." And to me, "Will you forgive us?"
All the others looked rather chop-fallen. But Antonio soon recovered. He
retorted:
"If you could have seen what an ass he made of me that time, you would
not at this moment be holding his hand. Look here, old fellow, she has a
sister who rather resembles her, and whose hand I have no objection to
your holding as long as you wish. We will introduce you to-morrow. Ah
yes, we will make you forgive us, you rascal, before we are done with
you!"
FOOTNOTE:
[19] Copyright, 1919, by Harper & Brothers. Copyright, 1921, by Stephen
French Whitman.
SHEENER[20]
#By# BEN AMES WILLIAMS
From _Collier's Weekly_
When he was sober the man always insisted that his name was Evans, but
in his cups he was accustomed to declare, in a boastful fashion, that
his name was not Evans at all. However, he never went farther than this,
and since none of us were particularly interested, we were satisfied to
call him Evans, or, more often, Bum, for short. He was the second
assistant janitor; and whereas, in some establishments, a janitor is a
man of power and place, it is not so in a newspaper office. In such
institutions, where great men are spoken of irreverently and by their
first names, a janitor is a man of no importance. How much less, then,
his second assistant. It was never a part of Evans's work, for example,
to sweep the floors. There is something lordly in the gesture of the
broom. But the janitor's first assistant attended to that; and Evans's
regular duties were more humble, not unconnected with such things as
cuspidors. There was no man so poor to do him honor; yet he had always a
certain loftiness of bearing. He was tall, rather above the average
height, with a long, thin, bony face like a horse, and an aristocratic
stoop about his neck and shoulders. His hands were slender; he walked in
a fashion that you might have called a shuffle, but which might also
have been characterized as a walk of indolent assurance. His eyes were
wash-blue, and his straggling mustache drooped at the corners.
Sober, he was a silent man, but when he had drunk he was apt to become
mysteriously loquacious. And he drank whenever the state of his credit
permitted. At such times he spoke of his antecedents in a lordly and
condescending fashion which we found amusing. "You call me Evans," he
would say. "That does well enough, to be sure. Quite so, and all that.
Evans! Hah!"
And then he would laugh, in a barking fashion that with his long, bony
countenance always suggested to me a coughing horse. But when he was
pressed for details, the man--though he might be weaving and blinking
with liquor--put a seal upon his lips. He said there were certain
families in one of the Midland Counties of England who would welcome him
home if he chose to go; but he never named them, and he never chose to
go, and we put him down for a liar by the book. All of us except
Sheener.
Sheener was a Jewish newsboy; that is to say, a representative of the
only thoroughbred people in the world. I have known Sheener for a good
many years, and he is worth knowing; also, the true tale of his life
might have inspired Scheherazade. A book must be made of Sheener some
day. For the present, it is enough to say that he had the enterprise
which adversity has taught his people; he had the humility which they
have learned by enduring insults they were powerless to resent, and he
had the courage and the heart which were his ancient heritage. And--the
man Evans had captured and enslaved his imagination.
He believed in Evans from the beginning. This may have been through a
native credulity which failed to manifest itself in his other dealings
with the world. I think it more probable that Evans and his pretensions
appealed to the love of romance native to Sheener. I think he enjoyed
believing, as we enjoy lending ourselves to the illusion of the theatre.
Whatever the explanation, a certain alliance developed between the two;
a something like friendship. I was one of those who laughed at Sheener's
credulity, but he told me, in his energetic fashion, that I was making a
mistake.
"You got that guy wrong," he would say. "He ain't always been a bum. A
guy with half an eye can see that. The way he talks, and the way he
walks, and all. There's class to him, I'm telling you. Class, bo."
"He walks like a splay-footed walrus, and he talks like a drunken old
hound," I told Sheener. "He's got you buffaloed, that's all."
"Pull in your horns; you're coming to a bridge," Sheener warned me.
"Don't be a goat all your life. He's a gent; that's what this guy is."
"Then I'm glad I'm a roughneck," I retorted; and Sheener shook his head.
"That's all right," he exclaimed. "That's all right. He ain't had it
easy, you know. Scrubbing spittoons is enough to take the polish off any
guy. I'm telling you he's there. Forty ways. You'll see, bo. You'll
see."
"I'm waiting," I said.
"Keep right on," Sheener advised me. "Keep right on. The old stuff is
there. It'll show. Take it from me."
I laughed at him. "If I get you," I said, "you're looking for something
along the line of 'Noblesse Oblige.' What?"
"Cut the comedy," he retorted. "I'm telling you, the old class is there.
You can't keep a fast horse in a poor man's stable."
"Blood will tell, eh?"
"Take it from me," said Sheener.
It will be perceived that Evans had in Sheener not only a disciple; he
had an advocate and a defender. And Sheener in these rôles was not to be
despised. I have said he was a newsboy; to put it more accurately, he
was in his early twenties, with forty years of experience behind him,
and with half the newsboys of the city obeying his commands and
worshiping him like a minor god. He had full charge of our city
circulation and was quite as important, and twice as valuable to the
paper, as any news editor could hope to be. In making a friend of him,
Evans had found an ally in the high places; and it became speedily
apparent that Sheener proposed to be more than a mere friend in name.
For instance, I learned one day that he was drawing Evans's wages for
him, and had appointed himself in some sort a steward for the other.
"That guy wouldn't ever save a cent," he told me when I questioned him.
"I give him enough to get soused on, and I stick five dollars in the
bank for him every week. I made him buy a new suit of clothes with it
last week. Say, you wouldn't know him if you run into him in his glad
rags."
"How does he like your running his affairs?" I asked.
"Like it?" Sheener echoed. "He don't have to like it. If he tries to
pull anything on me, I'll poke the old coot in the eye."
I doubt whether this was actually his method of dominating Evans. It is
more likely that he used a diplomacy which occasionally appeared in his
dealings with the world. Certainly the arrangement presently collapsed,
for Sheener confessed to me that he had given his savings back to Evans.
We were minus a second assistant janitor for a week as a consequence,
and when Evans tottered back to the office and would have gone to work I
told him he was through.
He took it meekly enough, but not Sheener. Sheener came to me with fire
in his eye.
"Sa-a-ay," he demanded, "what's coming off here, anyhow? What do you
think you're trying to pull?"
I asked him what he was talking about, and he said: "Evans says you've
given him the hook."
"That's right," I admitted. "He's through."
"He is not," Sheener told me flatly. "You can't fire that guy."
"Why not?"
"He's got to live, ain't he?"
I answered, somewhat glibly, that I did not see the necessity, but the
look that sprang at once into Sheener's eyes made me faintly ashamed of
myself, and I went on to urge that Evans was failing to do his work and
could deserve no consideration.
"That's all right," Sheener told me. "I didn't hear any kicks that his
work wasn't done while he was on this bat."
"Oh, I guess it got done all right. Some one had to do it. We can't pay
him for work that some one else does."
"Say, don't try to pull that stuff," Sheener protested. "As long as his
work is done, you ain't got any kick. This guy has got to have a job, or
he'll go bust, quick. It's all that keeps his feet on the ground. If he
didn't think he was earning his living, he'd go on the bum in a minute."
I was somewhat impatient with Sheener's insistence, but I was also
interested in this developing situation. "Who's going to do his work,
anyhow?" I demanded.
For the first time in our acquaintance I saw Sheener look confused.
"That's all right too," he told me. "It don't take any skin off your
back, long as it's done."
In the end I surrendered. Evans kept his job; and Sheener--I once caught
him in the act, to his vast embarrassment--did the janitor's work when
Evans was unfit for duty. Also Sheener loaned him money, small sums that
mounted into an interesting total; and furthermore I know that on one
occasion Sheener fought for him.
The man Evans went his pompous way, accepting Sheener's homage and
protection as a matter of right, and in the course of half a dozen years
I left the paper for other work, saw Sheener seldom, and Evans not at
all.
About ten o'clock one night in early summer I was wandering somewhat
aimlessly through the South End to see what I might see when I
encountered Sheener. He was running, and his dark face was twisted with
anxiety. When he saw me he stopped with an exclamation of relief, and I
asked him what the matter was.
"You remember old Bum Evans?" he asked, and added: "He's sick. I'm
looking for a doctor. The old guy is just about all in."
"You mean to say you're still looking out for that old tramp?" I
demanded.
"Sure, I am," he said hotly; "that old boy is there. He's got the stuff.
Him and me are pals." He was hurrying me along the street toward the
office of the doctor he sought. I asked where Evans was. "In my room,"
he told me. "I found him on the street. Last night. He was crazy. The D.
T.'s. I ain't been able to get away from him till now. He's asleep.
Wait. Here's where the doc hangs out."
Five minutes later the doctor and Sheener and I were retracing our steps
toward Sheener's lodging, and presently we crowded into the small room
where Evans lay on Sheener's bed. The man's muddy garments were on the
floor; he himself tossed and twisted feverishly under Sheener's
blankets. Sheener and the doctor bent over him, while I stood by. Evans
waked, under the touch of their hands, and waked to sanity. He was cold
sober and desperately sick.
When the doctor had done what could be done and gone on his way, Sheener
sat down on the edge of the bed and rubbed the old man's head with a
tenderness of which I could not have believed the newsboy capable.
Evans's eyes were open; he watched the other, and at last he said
huskily:
"I say, you know, I'm a bit knocked up."
Sheener reassured him. "That's all right, bo," he said. "You hit the
hay. Sleep's the dose for you. I ain't going away."
Evans moved his head on the pillow, as though lie were nodding. "A bit
tight, wasn't it, what?" he asked.
"Say," Sheener agreed. "You said something, Bum. I thought you'd kick
off, sure."
The old man considered for a little, his lips twitching and shaking. "I
say, you know," he murmured at last. "Can't have that. Potter's Field,
and all that sort of business. Won't do. Sheener, when I do take the
jump, you write home for me. Pass the good word. You'll hear from them."
Sheener said: "Sure I will. Who'll I write to, Bum?"
Evans, I think, was unconscious of my presence. He gave Sheener a name;
his name. Also, he told him the name of his lawyer, in one of the
Midland cities of England, and added certain instructions....
When he had drifted into uneasy sleep Sheener came out into the hall to
see me off. I asked him what he meant to do.
"What am I going to do?" he repeated. "I'm going to write to this guy's
lawyer. Let them send for him. This ain't no place for him."
"You'll have your trouble for your pains," I told him. "The old soak is
a plain liar; that's all."
Sheener laughed at me. "That's all right, bo," he told me. "I know. This
guy's the real cheese. You'll see."
I asked him to let me know if he heard anything, and he said he would.
But within a day or two I forgot the matter, and would hardly have
remembered it if Sheener had not telephoned me a month later.
"Say, you're a wise guy, ain't you?" he derided when I answered the
phone. I admitted it. "I got a letter from that lawyer in England," he
told me. "This Evans is the stuff, just like I said. His wife run away
with another man, and he went to the devil fifteen years ago. They've
been looking for him ever since his son grew up."
"Son?" I asked.
"Son. Sure! Raising wheat out in Canada somewhere. They give me his
address. He's made a pile. I'm going to write to him."
"What does Bum say?"
"Him? I ain't told him. I won't till I'm sure the kid's coming after
him." He said again that I was a wise guy; and I apologized for my
wisdom and asked for a share in what was to come. He promised to keep me
posted.
Ten days later he telephoned me while I was at supper to ask if I could
come to his room. I said: "What's up?"
"The old guy's boy is coming after him," Sheener said. "He's got the
shakes waiting. I want you to come and help me take care of him."
"When's the boy coming?"
"Gets in at midnight to-night," said Sheener.
I promised to make haste; and half an hour later I joined them in
Sheener's room. Sheener let me in. Evans himself sat in something like a
stupor, on a chair by the bed. He was dressed in a cheap suit of
ready-made clothes, to which he lent a certain dignity. His cheeks were
shaven clean, his mustache was trimmed, his thin hair was plastered down
on his bony skull. The man stared straight before him, trembling and
quivering. He did not look toward me when I came in; and Sheener and I
sat down by the table and talked together in undertones.
"The boy's really coming?" I asked.
Sheener said proudly: "I'm telling you."
"You heard from him?"
"Got a wire the day he got my letter."
"You've told Bum?"
"I told him right away. I had to do it. The old boy was sober by then,
and crazy for a shot of booze. That was Monday. He wanted to go out and
get pied; but when I told him about his boy, he begun to cry. And he
ain't touched a drop since then."
"You haven't let him?"
"Sure I'd let him. But he wouldn't. I always told you the class was
there. He says to me: 'I can't let my boy see me in this state, you
know. Have to straighten up a bit. I'll need new clothes.'"
"I noticed his new suit."
"Sure," Sheener agreed. "I bought it for him."
"Out of his savings?"
"He ain't been saving much lately."
"Sheener," I asked, "how much does he owe you? For money loaned and
spent for him."
Sheener said hotly: "He don't owe me a cent."
"I know. But how much have you spent on him?"
"If I hadn't have give it to him, I'd have blowed it somehow. He needed
it."
I guessed at a hundred dollars, at two hundred. Sheener would not tell
me. "I'm telling you, he's my pal," he said. "I'm not looking for
anything out of this."
"If this millionaire son of his has any decency, he'll make it up to
you."
"He don't know a thing about me," said Sheener, "except my name. I've
just wrote as though I knowed the old guy, here in the house, see. Said
he was sick, and all."
"And the boy gets in to-night?"
"Midnight," said Sheener, and Evans, from his chair, echoed: "Midnight!"
Then asked with a certain stiff anxiety: "Do I look all right, Sheener?
Look all right to see my boy?"
"Say," Sheener told him. "You look like the Prince of Wales." He went
across to where the other sat and gripped him by the shoulder. "You look
like the king o' the world."
Old Evans brushed at his coat anxiously; his fingers picked and twisted;
and Sheener sat down on the bed beside him and began to soothe and
comfort the man as though he were a child.
The son was to arrive by way of Montreal, and at eleven o'clock we left
Sheener's room for the station. There was a flower stand on the corner,
and Sheener bought a red carnation and fixed it in the old man's
buttonhole. "That's the way the boy'll know him," he told me. "They
ain't seen each other for--since the boy was a kid."
Evans accepted the attention querulously; he was trembling and feeble,
yet held his head high. We took the subway, reached the station, sat
down for a space in the waiting room.
But Evans was impatient; he wanted to be out in the train shed, and we
went out there and walked up and down before the gate. I noticed that he
was studying Sheener with some embarrassment in his eyes. Sheener was,
of course, an unprepossessing figure. Lean, swarthy, somewhat flashy of
dress, he looked what he was. He was my friend, of course, and I was
able to look beneath the exterior. But it seemed to me that sight of him
distressed Evans.
In the end the old man said, somewhat furtively: "I say, you know, I
want to meet my boy alone. You won't mind standing back a bit when the
train comes in."
"Sure," Sheener told him. "We won't get in the way. You'll see. He'll
pick you out in a minute, old man. Leave it to me."
Evans nodded. "Quite so," he said with some relief. "Quite so, to be
sure."
So we waited. Waited till the train slid in at the end of the long train
shed. Sheener gripped the old man's arm. "There he comes," he said
sharply. "Take a brace, now. Stand right there, where he'll spot you
when he comes out. Right there, bo."
"You'll step back a bit, eh, what?" Evans asked.
"Don't worry about us," Sheener told him. "Just you keep your eye
skinned for the boy. Good luck, bo."
We left him standing there, a tall, gaunt, shaky figure. Sheener and I
drew back toward the stairs that lead to the elevated structure, and
watched from that vantage point. The train stopped, and the passengers
came into the station, at first in a trickle and then in a stream, with
porters hurrying before them, baggage laden.
The son was one of the first. He emerged from the gate, a tall chap, not
unlike his father. Stopped for a moment, casting his eyes about, and saw
the flower in the old man's lapel. Leaped toward him hungrily.
They gripped hands, and we saw the son drop his hand on the father's
shoulder. They stood there, hands still clasped, while the young man's
porter waited in the background. We could hear the son's eager
questions, hear the older man's drawled replies. Saw them turn at last,
and heard the young man say: "Taxi!" The porter caught up the bag. The
taxi stand was at our left, and they came almost directly toward us.
As they approached, Sheener stepped forward, a cheap, somewhat
disreputable, figure. His hand was extended toward the younger man. The
son saw him, looked at him in some surprise, looked toward his father
inquiringly.
Evans saw Sheener too, and a red flush crept up his gaunt cheeks. He did
not pause, did not take Sheener's extended hand; instead he looked the
newsboy through and through.
Sheener fell back to my side. They stalked past us, out to the taxi
stand.
I moved forward. I would have halted them, but Sheener caught my arm. I
said hotly: "But see here. He can't throw you like that."
Sheener brushed his sleeve across his eyes. "Hell," he said huskily. "A
gent like him can't let on that he knows a guy like me."
I looked at Sheener, and I forgot old Evans and his son. I looked at
Sheener, and I caught his elbow and we turned away.
He had been quite right, of course, all the time. Blood will always
tell. You can't keep a fast horse in a poor man's stable. And a man is
always a man, in any guise.
If you still doubt, do as I did. Consider Sheener.
FOOTNOTE:
[20] Copyright, 1920, by P. F. Collier & Son, Inc. Copyright, 1921, by
Ben Ames Williams.
TURKEY RED[21]
#By# FRANCES GILCHRIST WOOD
From _The Pictorial Review_
The old mail-sled running between Haney and Le Beau, in the days when
Dakota was still a Territory, was nearing the end of its hundred-mile
route.
It was a desolate country in those days: geographers still described it
as The Great American Desert, and in looks it certainly deserved the
title. Never was there anything as lonesome as that endless stretch of
snow reaching across the world until it cut into a cold gray sky,
excepting the same desert burned to a brown tinder by the hot wind of
Summer.
Nothing but sky and plain and its voice, the wind, unless you might
count a lonely sod shack blocked against the horizon, miles away from a
neighbor, miles from anywhere, its red-curtained square of window
glowing through the early twilight.
There were three men in the sled; Dan, the mail-carrier, crusty,
belligerently Western, the self-elected guardian of every one on his
route; Hillas, a younger man, hardly more than a boy, living on his
pre-emption claim near the upper reaches of the stage line; the third a
stranger from that part of the country vaguely defined as "the East." He
was traveling, had given his name as Smith, and was as inquisitive about
the country as he was reticent about his business there. Dan plainly
disapproved of him.
They had driven the last cold miles in silence when the stage-driver
turned to his neighbor. "Letter didn't say anything about coming out in
the Spring to look over the country, did it?"
Hillas shook his head. "It was like all the rest, Dan. Don't want to
build a railroad at all until the country's settled."
"God! Can't they see the other side of it? What it means to the folks
already here to wait for it?"
The stranger thrust a suddenly interested profile above the handsome
collar of his fur coat. He looked out over the waste of snow.
"You say there's no timber here?"
Dan maintained unfriendly silence and Hillas answered. "Nothing but
scrub on the banks of the creeks. Years of prairie fires have burned out
the trees, we think."
"Any ores--mines?"
The boy shook his head as he slid farther down in his worn buffalo coat
of the plains.
"We're too busy rustling for something to eat first. And you can't
develop mines without tools."
"Tools?"
"Yes, a railroad first of all."
Dan shifted the lines from one fur-mittened hand to the other, swinging
the freed numbed arm in rhythmic beating against his body as he looked
along the horizon a bit anxiously. The stranger shivered visibly.
"It's a god-forsaken country. Why don't you get out?"
Hillas, following Dan's glance around the blurred sky-line, answered
absently, "Usual answer is, 'Leave? It's all I can do to stay here.'"
Smith regarded him irritably. "Why should any sane man ever have chosen
this frozen wilderness?"
Hillas closed his eyes wearily. "We came in the Spring."
"I see!" The edged voice snapped, "Visionaries!"
Hillas's eyes opened again, wide, and then the boy was looking beyond
the man with the far-seeing eyes of the plainsman. He spoke under his
breath as if he were alone.
"Visionary, pioneer, American. That was the evolution in the beginning.
Perhaps that is what we are." Suddenly the endurance in his voice went
down before a wave of bitterness. "The first pioneers had to wait, too.
How could they stand it so long!"
The young shoulders drooped as he thrust stiff fingers deep within the
shapeless coat pockets. He slowly withdrew his right hand holding a
parcel wrapped in brown paper. He tore a three-cornered flap in the
cover, looked at the brightly colored contents, replaced the flap and
returned the parcel, his chin a little higher.
Dan watched the northern sky-line restlessly. "It won't be snow. Look
like a blizzard to you, Hillas?"
The traveler sat up. "Blizzard?"
"Yes," Dan drawled in willing contribution to his uneasiness, "the real
Dakota article where blizzards are made. None of your eastern
imitations, but a ninety-mile wind that whets slivers of ice off the
frozen drifts all the way down from the North Pole. Only one good thing
about a blizzard--it's over in a hurry. You get to shelter or you freeze
to death."
A gust of wind flung a powder of snow stingingly against their faces.
The traveler withdrew his head turtlewise within the handsome collar in
final condemnation. "No man in his senses would ever have deliberately
come here to live."
Dan turned. "Wouldn't, eh?"
"No."
"You're American?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I was born here. It's my country."
"Ever read about your Pilgrim Fathers?"
"Why, of course."
"Frontiersmen, same as us. You're living on what they did. We're getting
this frontier ready for those who come after. Want our children to have
a better chance than we had. Our reason's same as theirs. Hillas told
you the truth. Country's all right if we had a railroad."
"Humph!" With a contemptuous look across the desert. "Where's your
freight, your grain, cattle----"
"_West_-bound freight, coal, feed, seed-grain, work, and more
neighbors."
"One-sided bargain. Road that hauls empties one way doesn't pay. No
Company would risk a line through here."
The angles of Dan's jaw showed white. "Maybe. Ever get a chance to pay
your debt to those Pilgrim pioneers? Ever take it? Think the stock was
worth saving?"
He lifted his whip-handle toward a pin-point of light across the stretch
of snow. "Donovan lives over there and Mis' Donovan. We call them 'old
folks' now; their hair has turned white as these drifts in two years.
All they've got is here. He's a real farmer and a lot of help to the
country, but they won't last long like this."
Dan swung his arm toward a glimmer nor' by nor'east. "Mis' Clark lives
there, a mile back from the stage road. Clark's down in Yankton earning
money to keep them going. She's alone with her baby holding down the
claim." Dan's arm sagged. "We've had women go crazy out here."
The whip-stock followed the empty horizon half round the compass to a
lighted red square not more than two miles away. "Mis' Carson died in
the Spring. Carson stayed until he was too poor to get away. There's
three children--oldest's Katy, just eleven." Dan's words failed, but his
eyes told. "Somebody will brag of them as ancestors some day. They'll
deserve it if they live through this."
Dan's jaw squared as he leveled his whip-handle straight at the
traveler. "I've answered your questions, now you answer mine! We know
your opinion of the country--you're not traveling for pleasure or your
health. What are you here for?"
"Business. My own!"
"There's two kinds of business out here this time of year. 'Tain't
healthy for either of them." Dan's words were measured and clipped.
"You've damned the West and all that's in it good and plenty. Now I say,
damn the people anywhere in the whole country that won't pay their debts
from pioneer to pioneer; that lets us fight the wilderness barehanded
and die fighting; that won't risk----"
A gray film dropped down over the world, a leaden shroud that was not
the coming of twilight. Dan jerked about, his whip cracked out over the
heads of the leaders and they broke into a quick trot. The shriek of the
runners along the frozen snow cut through the ominous darkness.
"Hillas," Dan's voice came sharply, "stand up and look for the light on
Clark's guide-pole about a mile to the right. God help us if it ain't
burning."
Hillas struggled up, one clumsy mitten thatching his eyes from the
blinding needles. "I don't see it, Dan. We can't be more than a mile
away. Hadn't you better break toward it?"
"Got to keep the track 'til we--see--light!"
The wind tore the words from his mouth as it struck them in lashing
fury. The leaders had disappeared in a wall of snow but Dan's lash
whistled forward in reminding authority. There was a moment's lull.
"See it, Hillas?"
"No, Dan."
Tiger-like the storm leaped again, bandying them about in its paws like
captive mice. The horses swerved before the punishing blows, bunched,
backed, tangled. Dan stood up shouting his orders of menacing appeal
above the storm.
Again a breathing space before the next deadly impact. As it came Hillas
shouted, "I see it--there, Dan! It's a red light. She's in trouble."
Through the whirling smother and chaos of Dan's cries and the struggling
horses the sled lunged out of the road into unbroken drifts. Again the
leaders swung sidewise before the lashing of a thousand lariats of ice
and bunched against the wheel-horses. Dan swore, prayed, mastered them
with far-reaching lash, then the off leader went down. Dan felt behind
him for Hillas and shoved the reins against his arm.
"I'll get him up--or cut leaders--loose! If I don't--come back--drive to
light. _Don't--get--out!_"
Dan disappeared in the white fury. There were sounds of a struggle; the
sled jerked sharply and stood still. Slowly it strained forward.
Hillas was standing, one foot outside on the runner, as they traveled a
team's length ahead. He gave a cry--"Dan! Dan!" and gripped a furry bulk
that lumbered up out of the drift.
"All--right--son." Dan reached for the reins.
Frantically they fought their slow way toward the blurred light,
staggering on in a fight with the odds too savage to last. They stopped
abruptly as the winded leaders leaned against a wall interposed between
themselves and insatiable fury.
Dan stepped over the dashboard, groped his way along the tongue between
the wheel-horses and reached the leeway of a shadowy square. "It's the
shed, Hillas. Help get the team in." The exhausted animals crowded into
the narrow space without protest.
"Find the guide-rope to the house, Dan?"
"On the other side, toward the shack. Where's--Smith?"
"Here, by the shed."
Dan turned toward the stranger's voice.
"We're going 'round to the blizzard-line tied from shed to shack. Take
hold of it and don't let go. If you do you'll freeze before we can find
you. When the wind comes, turn your back and wait. Go on when it dies
down and never let go the rope. Ready? The wind's dropped. Here, Hillas,
next to me."
Three blurs hugged the sod walls around to the north-east corner. The
forward shadow reached upward to a swaying rope, lifted the hand of the
second who guided the third.
"Hang on to my belt, too, Hillas. Ready--Smith? Got the rope?"
They crawled forward, three barely visible figures, six, eight, ten
steps. With a shriek the wind tore at them, beat the breath from their
bodies, cut them with stinging needle-points and threw them aside. Dan
reached back to make sure of Hillas who fumbled through the darkness
for the stranger.
Slowly they struggled ahead, the cold growing more intense; two steps,
four, and the mounting fury of the blizzard reached its zenith. The
blurs swayed like battered leaves on a vine that the wind tore in two at
last and flung the living beings wide. Dan, slinging to the broken rope,
rolled over and found Hillas with the frayed end of the line in his
hand, reaching about through the black drifts for the stranger. Dan
crept closer, his mouth at Hillas's ear, shouting, "Quick! Right behind
me if we're to live through it!"
The next moment Hillas let go the rope. Dan reached madly. "Boy, you
can't find him--it'll only be two instead of one! Hillas! Hillas!"
The storm screamed louder than the plainsman and began heaping the snow
over three obstructions in its path, two that groped slowly and one that
lay still. Dan fumbled at his belt, unfastened it, slipped the rope
through the buckle, knotted it and crept its full length back toward the
boy. A snow-covered something moved forward guiding another, one arm
groping in blind search, reached and touched the man clinging to the
belt.
Beaten and buffeted by the ceaseless fury that no longer gave quarter,
they slowly fought their way hand-over-hand along the rope, Dan now
crawling last. After a frozen eternity they reached the end of the line
fastened man-high against a second haven of wall. Hillas pushed open the
unlocked door, the three men staggered in and fell panting against the
side of the room.
The stage-driver recovered first, pulled off his mittens, examined his
fingers and felt quickly of nose, ears, and chin. He looked sharply at
Hillas and nodded. Unceremoniously they stripped off the stranger's
gloves; reached for a pan, opened the door, dipped it into the drift and
plunged Smith's fingers down in the snow.
"Your nose is white, too. Thaw it out."
Abruptly Dan indicated a bench against the wall where the two men seated
would take up less space.
"I'm----" The stranger's voice was unsteady. "I----," but Dan had turned
his back and his attention to the homesteader.
The eight by ten room constituted the entire home. A shed roof slanted
from eight feet high on the door and window side to a bit more than five
on the other. A bed in one corner took up most of the space, and the
remaining necessities were bestowed with the compactness of a ship's
cabin. The rough boards of the roof and walls had been hidden by a
covering of newspapers, with a row of illustrations pasted picture
height. Cushions and curtains of turkey-red calico brightened the homely
shack.
The driver had slipped off his buffalo coat and was bending over a baby
exhaustedly fighting for breath that whistled shrilly through a closing
throat. The mother, scarcely more than a girl, held her in tensely
extended arms.
"How long's she been this way?"
"She began to choke up day before yesterday, just after you passed on
the down trip."
The driver laid big finger tips on the restless wrist.
"She always has the croup when she cuts a tooth, Dan, but this is
different. I've used all the medicines I have--nothing relieves the
choking."
The girl lifted heavy eyelids above blue semicircles of fatigue and the
compelling terror back of her eyes forced a question through dry lips.
"Dan, do you know what membranous croup is like? Is this it?"
The stage-driver picked up the lamp and held it close to the child's
face, bringing out with distressing clearness the blue-veined pallor,
sunken eyes, and effort of impeded breathing. He frowned, putting the
lamp back quickly.
"Mebbe it is, Mis' Clark, but don't you be scared. We'll help you a
spell."
Dan lifted the red curtain from the cupboard, found an emptied
lard-pail, half filled it with water and placed it on an oil-stove that
stood in the center of the room. He looked questioningly about the four
walls, discovered a cleverly contrived tool-box beneath the cupboard
shelves sorted out a pair of pincers and bits of iron, laying the
latter in a row over the oil blaze. He took down a can of condensed
milk, poured a spoonful of the thick stuff into a cup of water and made
room for it near the bits of heating iron.
He turned to the girl, opened his lips as if to speak with a face full
of pity.
Along the four-foot space between the end of the bed and the opposite
wall the girl walked, crooning to the sick child she carried. As they
watched, the low song died away, her shoulder rubbed heavily against the
boarding, her eyelids dropped and she stood sound asleep. The next
hard-drawn breath of the baby roused her and she stumbled on, crooning a
lullaby.
Smith clutched the younger man's shoulder. "God, Hillas, look where
she's marked the wall rubbing against it! Do you suppose she's been
walking that way for three days and nights? Why, she's only a child--no
older than my own daughter."
Hillas nodded.
"Where are her people? Where's her husband?"
"Down in Yankton, Dan told you, working for the Winter. Got to have the
money to live."
"Where's the doctor?"
"Nearest one's in Haney--four days' trip away by stage."
The traveler stared, frowningly.
Dan was looking about the room again and after prodding the gay seat in
the corner, lifted the cover and picked up a folded blanket, shaking out
the erstwhile padded cushion. He hung the blanket over the back of a
chair.
"Mis' Clark, there's nothing but steam will touch membranous croup. We
saved my baby that way last year. Set here and I'll fix things."
He put the steaming lard-pail on the floor beside the mother and lifted
the blanket over the baby's head. She put up her hand.
"She's so little, Dan, and weak. How am I going to know if she--if
she----"
Dan re-arranged the blanket tent. "Jest get under with her yourself,
Mis' Clark, then you'll know all that's happening."
With the pincers he picked up a bit of hot iron and dropped it hissing
into the pail, which he pushed beneath the tent. The room was
oppressively quiet, walled in by the thick sod from the storm. The
blanket muffled the sound of the child's breathing and the girl no
longer stumbled against the wall.
Dan lifted the corner of the blanket and another bit of iron hissed as
it struck the water. The older man leaned toward the younger.
"Stove--fire?" with a gesture of protest against the inadequate oil
blaze.
Hillas whispered, "Can't afford it. Coal is $9.00 in Haney, $18.00
here."
They sat with heads thrust forward, listening in the intolerable
silence. Dan lifted the blanket, hearkened a moment, then--"pst!"
another bit of iron fell into the pail. Dan stooped to the tool-chest
for a reserve supply when a strangling cough made him spring to his feet
and hurriedly lift the blanket.
The child was beating the air with tiny fists, fighting for breath. The
mother stood rigid, arms out.
"Turn her this way!" Dan shifted the struggling child, face out. "Now
watch out for the----"
The strangling cough broke and a horrible something--"It's the membrane!
She's too weak--let me have her!"
Dan snatched the child and turned it face downward. The blue-faced baby
fought in a supreme effort--again the horrible something--then Dan laid
the child, white and motionless, in her mother's arms. She held the limp
body close, her eyes wide with fear.
"Dan, is--is she----?"
A faint sobbing breath of relief fluttered the pale lips that moved in
the merest ghost of a smile. The heavy eyelids half-lifted and the child
nestled against its mother's breast. The girl swayed, shaking with sobs,
"Baby--baby!"
She struggled for self-control and stood up straight and pale. "Dan, I
ought to tell you. When it began to get dark with the storm and time to
put up the lantern, I was afraid to leave the baby. If she strangled
when I was gone--with no one to help her--she would die!"
Her lips quivered as she drew the child closer. "I didn't go right away
but--I did--at last. I propped her up in bed and ran. If I hadn't----"
Her eyes were wide with the shadowy edge of horror, "If I hadn't--you'd
have been lost in the blizzard and--my baby would have died!"
She stood before the men as if for judgment, her face wet with unchecked
tears. Dan patted her shoulder dumbly and touched a fresh, livid bruise
that ran from the curling hair on her temple down across cheek and chin.
"Did you get this then?"
She nodded. "The storm threw me against the pole when I hoisted the
lantern. I thought I'd--never--get back!"
It was Smith who translated Dan's look of appeal for the cup of warm
milk and held it to the girl's lips.
"Drink it, Mis' Clark, you need it."
She made heroic attempts to swallow, her head drooped lower over the cup
and fell against the driver's rough sleeve. "Poor kid, dead asleep!"
Dan guided her stumbling feet toward the bed that the traveler sprang to
open. She guarded the baby in the protecting angle of her arm into
safety upon the pillow, then fell like a log beside her. Dan slipped off
the felt boots, lifted her feet to the bed and softly drew covers over
mother and child.
"Poor kid, but she's grit, clear through!"
Dan walked to the window, looked out at the lessening storm, then at the
tiny alarm-clock on the cupboard. "Be over pretty soon now!" He seated
himself by the table, dropped his head wearily forward on folded arms
and was asleep.
The traveler's face had lost some of its shrewdness. It was as if the
white frontier had seized and shaken him into a new conception of life.
He moved restlessly along the bench, then stepped softly to the side of
the bed and straightened the coverlet into greater nicety while his lips
twitched.
With consuming care he folded the blanket and restored the corner seat
to its accustomed appearance of luxury. He looked about the room, picked
up the gray kitten sleeping contentedly on the floor and settled it on
the red cushion with anxious attention to comfort.
He examined with curiosity the few books carefully covered in a corner
shelf, took down an old hand-tooled volume and lifted his eyebrows at
the ancient coat of arms on the book plate. He tiptoed across to the
bench and pointed to the script beneath the plate. "Edward Winslow (7)
to his dear daughter, Alice (8)."
He motioned toward the bed. "Her name?"
Hillas nodded. Smith grinned. "Dan's right. Blood will tell, even to
damning the rest of us."
He sat down on the bench. "I understand more than I did, Hillas,
since--you crawled back after me--out there. But how can you stand it
here? I know you and the Clarks are people of education and, oh, all the
rest; you could make your way anywhere."
Hillas spoke slowly. "I think you have to live here to know. It means
something to be a pioneer. You can't be one if you've got it in you to
be a quitter. The country will be all right some day." He reached for
his greatcoat, bringing out a brown-paper parcel. He smiled at it oddly
and went on as if talking to himself.
"When the drought and the hot winds come in the Summer and burn the
buffalo grass to a tinder and the monotony of the plains weighs on you
as it does now, there's a common, low-growing cactus scattered over the
prairie that blooms into the gayest red flower you ever saw.
"It wouldn't count for much anywhere else, but the pluck of it, without
rain for months, dew even. It's the 'colors of courage.'"
He turned the torn parcel, showing the bright red within, and looked at
the cupboard and window with shining, tired eyes.
"Up and down the frontier in these shacks, homes, you'll find things
made of turkey-red calico, cheap, common elsewhere----" He fingered the
three-cornered flap, "It's our 'colors.'" He put the parcel back in his
pocket. "I bought two yards yesterday after--I got a letter at Haney."
Smith sat looking at the gay curtains before him. The fury of the storm
was dying down into fitful gusts. Dan stirred, looked quickly toward the
bed, then the window, and got up quietly.
"I'll hitch up. We'll stop at Peterson's and tell her to come over." He
closed the door noiselessly.
The traveler was frowning intently. Finally he turned toward the boy who
sat with his head leaning back against the wall, eyes closed.
"Hillas," his very tones were awkward, "they call me a shrewd business
man. I am, it's a selfish job and I'm not reforming now. But twice
to-night you--children have risked your lives, without thought, for a
stranger. I've been thinking about that railroad. Haven't you raised any
grain or cattle that could be used for freight?"
The low answer was toneless. "Drought killed the crops, prairie fires
burned the hay, of course the cattle starved."
"There's no timber, ore, nothing that could be used for east-bound
shipment?"
The plainsman looked searchingly into the face of the older man.
"There's no timber this side the Missouri. Across the river, it's
reservation--Sioux. We----" He frowned and stopped.
Smith stood up, his hands thrust deep in his pockets. "I admitted I was
shrewd, Hillas, but I'm not yellow clear through, not enough to betray
this part of the frontier anyhow. I had a man along here last Fall
spying for minerals. That's why I'm out here now. If you know the
location, and we both think you do, I'll put capital in your way to
develop the mines and use what pull I have to get the road in."
He looked down at the boy and thrust out a masterful jaw. There was a
ring of sincerity no one could mistake when he spoke again.
"This country's a desert now, but I'd back the Sahara peopled with your
kind. This is on the square, Hillas, don't tell me you won't believe
I'm--American enough to trust?"
The boy tried to speak. With stiffened body and clenched hands he
struggled for self-control. Finally in a ragged whisper, "If I try to
tell you what--it means--I can't talk! Dan and I know of outcropping
coal over in the Buttes." He nodded in the direction of the Missouri,
"but we haven't had enough money to file mining claims."
"Know where to dig for samples under this snow?"
The boy nodded. "Some in my shack too. I--" His head went down upon the
crossed arms. Smith laid an awkward hand on the heaving shoulders, then
rose and crossed the room to where the girl had stumbled in her vigil.
Gently he touched the darkened streak where her shoulders had rubbed and
blurred the newspaper print. He looked from the relentless white desert
outside to the gay bravery within and bent his head, "Turkey-red--calico!"
There was the sound of jingling harness and the crunch of runners. The
men bundled into fur coats.
"Hillas, the draw right by the house here," Smith stopped and looked
sharply at the plainsman, then went on with firm carelessness, "This
draw ought to strike a low grade that would come out near the river
level. Does Dan know Clark's address?" Hillas nodded.
They tiptoed out and closed the door behind them softly. The wind had
swept every cloud from the sky and the light of the Northern stars
etched a dazzling world. Dan was checking up the leaders as Hillas
caught him by the shoulder and shook him like a clumsy bear.
"Dan, you blind old mole, can you see the headlight of the Overland
Freight blazing and thundering down that draw over the Great Missouri
and Eastern?"
Dan stared.
"I knew you couldn't!" Hillas thumped him with furry fist. "Dan," the
wind might easily have drowned the unsteady voice, "I've told Mr. Smith
about the coal--for freight. He's going to help us get capital for
mining and after that the road."
"Smith! Smith! Well I'll be--aren't you a claim spotter?"
He turned abruptly and crunched toward the stage. His passengers
followed. Dan paused with his foot on the runner and looked steadily at
the traveler from under lowered, shaggy brows.
"You're going to get a road out here?"
"I've told Hillas I'll put money in your way to mine the coal. Then the
railroad will come."
Dan's voice rasped with tension. "We'll get out the coal. Are you going
to see that the road's built?"
Unconsciously the traveler held up his right hand, "I am!"
Dan searched his face sharply. Smith nodded, "I'm making my bet on the
people--friend!"
It was a new Dan who lifted his bronzed face to a white world. His voice
was low and very gentle. "To bring a road here," he swung his
whip-handle from Donovan's light around to Carson's square, sweeping in
all that lay behind, "out here to them--" The pioneer faced the wide
desert that reached into a misty space ablaze with stars, "would be
like--playing God!"
The whip thudded softly into the socket and Dan rolled up on the
driver's seat. Two men climbed in behind him. The long lash swung out
over the leaders as Dan headed the old mail-sled across the drifted
right-of-way of the Great Missouri and Eastern.
FOOTNOTE:
[21] Copyright, 1919, by The Pictorial Review Company. Copyright, 1921,
by Frances Gilchrist Wood.
THE YEARBOOK OF THE AMERICAN SHORT STORY, OCTOBER, 1919, TO SEPTEMBER,
1920
ADDRESSES OF AMERICAN MAGAZINES PUBLISHING SHORT STORIES
#Note.# _This address list does not aim to be complete, but is based
simply on the magazines which I have consulted for this volume._
Adventure, Spring and Macdougal Streets, New York City.
Ainslee's Magazine, 79 Seventh Avenue, New York City.
American Boy, 142 Lafayette Boulevard, Detroit, Michigan.
American Magazine, 381 Fourth Avenue, New York City.
Argosy All-Story Weekly, 280 Broadway, New York City.
Asia, 627 Lexington Avenue, New York City.
Atlantic Monthly, 8 Arlington Street, Boston, Mass.
Black Cat, 229 West 28th Street, New York City.
Catholic World, 120 West 60th Street, New York City.
Century, 353 Fourth Avenue, New York City.
Christian Herald, Bible House, New York City.
Collier's Weekly, 416 West 13th Street, New York City.
Cosmopolitan Magazine, 119 West 40th Street, New York City.
Delineator, Spring and Macdougal Streets, New York City.
Dial, 152 West 13th Street, New York City.
Everybody's Magazine, Spring and Macdougal Streets, New York City.
Freeman, 32 West 58th Street, New York City.
Good Housekeeping, 119 West 40th Street, New York City.
Harper's Bazar, 119 West 40th Street, New York City.
Harper's Magazine, Franklin Square, New York City.
Hearst's Magazine, 119 West 40th Street, New York City.
Holland's Magazine, Dallas, Texas.
Ladies' Home Journal, Independence Square, Philadelphia, Pa.
Liberator, 34 Union Square East, New York City.
Little Review, 24 West 16th Street, New York City.
Little Story Magazine, 714 Drexel Building, Philadelphia, Pa.
Live Stories, 35 West 39th Street, New York City.
McCall's Magazine, 236 West 37th Street, New York City.
McClure's Magazine, 76 Fifth Avenue, New York City.
Magnificat, Manchester, N. H.
Metropolitan, 432 Fourth Avenue, New York City.
Midland, Glennie, Alcona County, Mich.
Munsey's Magazine, 280 Broadway, New York City.
Outlook, 381 Fourth Avenue, New York City.
Pagan, 7 East 15th Street, New York City.
Parisienne, 25 West 45th Street, New York City.
People's Favorite Magazine, 79 Seventh Avenue, New York City.
Pictorial Review, 216 West 39th Street, New York City.
Popular Magazine, 79 Seventh Avenue, New York City.
Queen's Work, 626 North Vandeventer Avenue, St. Louis, Mo.
Red Book Magazine, North American Building, Chicago, Ill.
Saturday Evening Post, Independence Square, Philadelphia, Pa.
Scribner's Magazine, 597 Fifth Avenue, New York City.
Short Stories, Garden City, Long Island, N. Y.
Smart Set, 25 West 45th Street, New York City.
Snappy Stories, 35 West 39th Street, New York City.
Sunset, 460 Fourth Street, San Francisco, Cal.
To-day's Housewife, Cooperstown, N. Y.
Top-Notch Magazine, 79 Seventh Avenue, New York City.
Touchstone, 1 West 47th Street, New York City.
Woman's Home Companion, 381 Fourth Avenue, New York City.
Woman's World, 107 South Clinton Street, Chicago, Ill.
THE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ROLL OF HONOR OF AMERICAN SHORT STORIES
OCTOBER, 1919, TO SEPTEMBER, 1920
#Note.# _Only stories by American authors are listed. The best stories are
indicated by an asterisk before the title of the story. The index
figures 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 prefixed to the name of the author indicate
that his work has been included in the Rolls of Honor for 1914, 1915,
1916, 1917, 1918, and 1919 respectively. The list excludes reprints._
(56) #Abdullah, Achmed# (_for biography, see 1918_).
Evening Rice.
#Aitken, Kenneth Lyndwode.# Born at Hamilton, Ont., Canada,
July 13, 1881. Education: N. Y. Public Schools and Ridley
College, Ont. Profession: Electrical Engineer. Was Manager,
City Electric Plant, Toronto, for four years. Chief interests:
writing and photography. First story: "Height o' Land,"
Canadian Magazine, 1904. Died in California Dec. 5, 1919.
From the Admiralty Files.
#Anderson, C. Farley.#
Octogenarian.
#Anderson, Jane.#
Happiest Man in the World.
(3456) #Anderson, Sherwood# (_for biography, see 1917_).
*Door of the Trap.
*I Want to Know Why.
*Other Woman.
*Triumph of the Egg.
#Anderton, Daisy.# Born in Bedford, Ohio. High School education.
First story: "Emmy's Solution," Pagan, Feb., 1919. Author
of "Cousin Sadie," a novel, 1920. Lives in Bedford, Ohio.
Belated Girlhood.
(3456) #Babcock, Edwina Stanton# (_for biography, see 1917_).
*Gargoyle.
(6) #Barnes, Djuna# (_for biography, see 1919_).
*Beyond the End.
*Mother.
#Benét, Stephen Vincent.# Born in Bethlehem, Pa., July 22,
1898. Education: Yale University, M. A. Chief interests:
"Reading and writing poetry, playing and watching tennis,
swimming without any participial qualification, and walking
around between this and the other side of Paradise with a
verse in one hand and a brick for my elders in the other like
the rest of the incipient generation." First story: "Funeral
of Mr. Bixby," Munsey's Magazine, July, 1920. Author of
"Five Men and Pompey," 1915; "Young Adventure," 1918;
"Heavens and Earth," 1920.
Summer Thunder.
#Bercovici, Konrad.# Born June 23, 1882. Dobrudgea, Rumania.
Educated there and in the streets of Paris. "In other cities
it was completed as far as humanly possible." Profession:
organist. Chief interests: people, horses, and gardens. First
short story printed at the age of twelve in a Rumanian magazine.
Author of "Crimes of Charity" and "Dust of New York." Lives
in New York City.
*Ghitza.
#Boulton, Agnes.# Born in London, England, Sept. 19, 1893, of
American parents. Lived as a child near Barnegat Bay, N. J.
Educated at home. First story published in the Black Cat.
Married Eugene O'Neill, the playwright, 1918. Lives in Provincetown,
Mass.
Hater of Mediocrity.
(2346) #Brown, Alice# (_for biography, see 1917_).
*Old Lemuel's Journey.
(56) #Brownell, Agnes Mary# (_for biography, see 1918_).
*Buttermilk.
Quest.
Relation.
#Bryner, Edna Clare.# Born in Tylersburg, Penn., and spent her
childhood in the lumbering region of that state. Graduate of
Vassar College. Has been engaged in teaching, statistical
work, reform school work, and eugenic, educational, and housing
research. Chief interests: Music and friends in the winter;
Adirondack trails in the summer. First story: "Life of Five
Points," Dial, Sept., 1920. Lives in New York City.
*Life of Five Points.
(1456) #Burt, Maxwell Struthers# (_for biography, see 1917_).
*Dream or Two.
*Each in His Generation.
*When His Ships Came In.
(56) #Cabell, James Branch# (_for biography, see 1918_).
*Designs of Miramon.
*Feathers of Olrun.
*Hair of Melicent.
*Head of Misery.
*Hour of Freydis.
#Camp, (Charles) Wadsworth.# Born in Philadelphia, Oct. 18,
1879. Graduate of Princeton University, 1902. Married, 1916.
On staff of N. Y. Evening Sun, 1902-5; sub-editor McClure's
Magazine, 1905-6; editor of The Metropolitan, 1906-9; European
correspondent, Collier's Weekly, 1916. Author: "Sinister
Island," 1915; "The House of Fear," 1916; "War's Dark Frame,"
1917; "The Abandoned Room," 1917; etc. Lives in New York City.
*Signal Tower.
#Carnevali, Emanuel.#
Tales of a Hurried Man. I.
#Chapman, Edith.#
Classical Case.
(2345) #Cobb, Irvin S.# (_for biography, see 1917_).
Story That Ends Twice.
#Corley, Donald.#
*Daimyo's Bowl.
(6) #Cram, Mildred# (_for biography, see 1919_).
*Odell.
Spring of Cold Water.
Wind.
#Crew, Helen Coale.# Born in Baltimore, Md., 1866. Graduate
of Bryn Mawr College, 1889. First short story, "The Lost
Oasis," Everybody's Magazine, Nov., 1910. Lives in Evanston,
Ill.
*Parting Genius.
#Delano, Edith Barnard.# Born in Washington, D. C. Married
in 1908. Author: "Zebedee V.," 1912; "The Land of Content,"
1913; "The Colonel's Experiment," 1913; "Rags," 1915; "The
White Pearl," 1916; "June," 1916; "To-morrow Morning," 1917.
Lives in East Orange, N. J.
Life and the Tide.
(456) #Dobie, Charles Caldwell# (_for biography, see 1917_).
*Christmas Cakes.
*Leech.
#Dodge, Louis.# Born at Burlington, Ia., Sept. 27, 1870. Educated
at Whitman College, Ark. Unmarried. In newspaper work in Texas
and St. Louis since 1893. Author: "Bonnie May," 1916; "Children
of the Desert," 1917. Lives in St. Louis, Mo.
Case of MacIntyre.
(36) #Dreiser, Theodore# (_for biography, see 1919_).
*Sanctuary.
(5) #Ellerbe, Alma and Paul# (_for biographies, see 1918_).
Paradise Shares.
(4) #Ferber, Edna# (_for biography, see 1917_).
*Maternal Feminine.
*You've Got To Be Selfish.
#Fillmore, Parker.# Born at Cincinnati, O., Sept. 21, 1878.
Graduated from University of Cincinnati, 1901. Unmarried.
Teacher in Philippine Islands, 1901-4. Banker in Cincinnati
since 1904. Author: "The Hickory Limb," 1910; "The Young
Idea," 1911; "The Rosie World," 1914; "A Little Question in
Ladies' Rights," 1916; "Czecho-Slovak Fairy Tales," 1919;
"The Shoemaker's Last," 1920. Lives in Cincinnati, O.
Katcha and the Devil.
#Finger, Charles J.# Born at Willesden, England, Sept. 25, 1871.
Common School education. Railroad Executive. Has traveled
widely in South America, including Patagonia, and Tierra
del Fuego. Spent more than a year upon an uninhabited island,
accompanied only by "Sartor Resartus." First story: "How Lazy
Sam Got His Raise," Youth's Companion, 1897. Author of "Guided
by the World," 1901; "A Bohemian Life," 1902. Lives in
Fayetteville, Ark.
*Ebro.
Jack Random.
(6) #Fish, Horace# (_for biography, see 1919_).
*Doom's-Day Envelope.
#Follett, Wilson.#
*Dive.
(4) #Folsom, Elizabeth Irons# (_for biography, see 1917_).
Alibi.
(12345) #Gerould, Katharine Fullerton# (_for biography, see
1917_).
*Habakkuk.
*Honest Man.
(5) #Gilbert, George# (_for biography, see 1918_).
Sigh of the Bulbul.
(1345) #Gordon, Armistead C.# (_for biography, see 1917_).
*Panjorum Bucket.
#Halverson, Delbert M.# Born on a farm near Linn Grove, Ia.
Educated at the State University of Iowa. First story: "Leaves
in the Wind," Midland, April, 1920. Lives in Minneapolis,
Minn.
Leaves in the Wind.
(4) #Hartman, Lee Foster# (_for biography, see 1917_).
*Judgment of Vulcan.
(56) #Hergesheimer, Joseph# (_for biography, see 1918_).
*Blue Ice.
*Ever So Long Ago.
*Meeker Ritual (II).
*"Read Them and Weep."
(25) #Hughes, Rupert# (_for biography, see 1918_).
*Stick-in-the-Muds.
#Hunting, Ema S.# Born at Sioux Rapids, Iowa, Oct. 8, 1885.
Educated at Fort Dodge High School, Ia., and graduate of
Grinnell College, 1908. Author of "A Dickens Revival." Writer
of one-act plays and children's stories. First short story:
"Dissipation," Midland, May, 1920. Lives at Denver, Col.
Dissipation.
Soul That Sinneth.
#Hussey, L. M.# Born in Philadelphia. Studied medicine and
chemistry. Director of a laboratory of biological research.
First story: "The Sorrows of Mr. Harlcomb," published in
the Smart Set about 1916. At present occupied with writing
a novel. Lives in Philadelphia, Pa.
Lowden Household.
Two Gentlemen of Caracas.
(6) #Irwin, Wallace# (_for biography, see 1919_).
Beauty.
#Johns, Orrick.#
Big Frog.
(256) #Johnson, Arthur# (_for biography, see 1918_).
*Princess of Tork.
(3) #Knight, (Clifford) Reynolds.# Born at Fulton, Kan., 1886.
Educated at Washburn College, Topeka, and University of
Michigan. Has been engaged in railroad and newspaper work.
Taught in the Signal Corps Training School at Yale during
the war. Now on the editorial staff of the Kansas City Star.
Chief interests: Books and music. First published story:
"The Rule of Three," The Railroad Man's Magazine, Oct.,
1911. Author: "Tommy of the Voices," 1918. Lives in Kansas
City, Mo.
*Melody Jim.
#Komroff, Manuel.#
Thumbs.
"#Kral, Carlos A. V."# Born in a country town in southern
Michigan, Dec. 29, 1890, of Czech-Yankee descent. Has lived
continuously since three years of age in one of the large cities
of the Great Lakes. Graduated from a public high school, but
was educated chiefly by thought and private study.
Landscape with Trees, and Colored Twilight with Music.
(6) #La Motte, Ellen Newbold.# Born in Louisville, Ky., of
northern parentage. Privately educated. Graduated from the
Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1902. Since engaged in social
work and public health work. Was in charge of the Tuberculosis
Division of the Baltimore Health Dept. for several years. Has
been living chiefly in Paris since 1913. Was in France with
a year's service in a Field Hospital attached to the French
Army. Spent a year in China and the Far East, 1916-7. Chief
interests: the under dog, either the individual or nation.
First short story: "Heroes," Atlantic Monthly, Aug., 1916.
Author: "The Tuberculosis Nurse," 1914; "The Backwash of
War," 1916; "Peking Dust," 1919; "Civilization," 1919.
"The Backwash of War" was suppressed by the British, French
and American governments. It went through four printings first,
and is now released again.
Golden Stars.
#McCourt, Edna Wahlert.#
*Lichen.
(6) #MacManus, Seumas.#
Conaleen and Donaleen.
Heartbreak of Norah O'Hara.
Lad from Largymore.
#Mann, Jane.# Born near New York City of Knickerbocker ancestry.
After college preparatory school had several years of art
education. Chief interest: wandering along coasts, living
with the natives, seeing what they do and hearing what they
say. First published story: "Men and a Gale o' Wind," Collier's
Weekly, Nov. 8, 1913. Lives in Provincetown, Mass.
Heritage.
#Mason, Grace Sartwell.# Born at Port Allegheny, Pa., Oct. 31,
1877. Educated privately. Married to Redfern Mason, the
musical critic, 1902. Author: "The Car and the Lady," 1909;
"The Godparents," 1910; "Micky and His Gang," 1912; "The
Bear's Claws" (with John Northern Hilliard), 1913; "The
Golden Hope," 1915. Lives at Carmel, Cal.
*His Job.
(6) #"Maxwell, Helena"# (_for biography, see 1919_).
Adolescence.
#Mears, Mary M.# Born at Oshkosh, Wis. Educated at State
Normal School, Wis. Unmarried. Journalist since 1896. Author:
"Emma Lou--Her Book," 1896; "Breath of the Runners," 1906;
"The Bird in the Box"; "Rosamond the Second." Lives in New York City.
Forbidden Thing.
(36) #Montague, Margaret Prescott# (_for biography, see 1919_).
*Uncle Sam of Freedom Ridge.
(6) #Murray, Roy Irving.# Born at Brooklyn, Wis., July 25,
1882. Graduated from Hobart College, 1904. First story:
"Sealed Orders," McBride's Magazine, Dec., 1915. Is a master
at St. Mark's School, Southborough, Mass.
Substitute.
(6) #Muth, Edna Tucker.#
*Gallipeau.
#O'Brien, Frederick.# Born in Baltimore. Educated in a Jesuit
school. Shipped before the mast at the age of 18. Tramped
over Brazil as a day laborer, and through the West Indies.
Returned to America and read law in his father's office. Wandered
without money over Europe, and was a sandwichman in London.
On the staff of the Paris Herald for a few months. Travelled
over the western states as a hobo, was a bartender in a
Mississippi levee camp, acted as a general with Coxey's
Army, became a crime reporter for the Marion Star, owned
by Senator Harding, Sub-editor of the Columbus Dispatch,
Labor Editor of the N. Y. Journal, an investigator of crime
in the Chicago slums, a freelance in San Francisco, and editor
of the Honolulu Advertiser. Lived with the natives in Hawaii,
published a newspaper in Manila, spent eight years as Far
Eastern correspondent of the N. Y. Herald, went through the
Russo-Japanese War, returned to Europe as a correspondent,
spent some years on a fruit ranch in California, engaged in
politics, owned two newspapers, and finally lived as a beachcomber
in Tahiti, the Society Islands, the Paumoto Islands and
Marquesan Islands. During 1920 he was in New York and
wrote "White Shadows in the South Seas." He has now returned
to Asia, leaving another book, "Drifting Among South Sea Isles,"
which is to be published immediately.
*Jade Bracelet of Ah Queen.
#"O'Grady, R."# is a pen name of a lady who lives in Des Moines,
Ia. She is a graduate of the State University of Iowa, and is
now engaged in newspaper work.
Brothers.
#O'Hagan, Anne.# Born in Washington, D. C. Graduate of
Boston University. Since engaged on newspaper and magazine
work. First story published about 1898. Chief interests:
Suffrage and housekeeping. Married in March, 1908, to Francis
A. Shinn. Lives in New York City.
Return.
(45) #O'Higgins, Harvey J.# (_for biography, see 1917_).
Story of Big Dan Reilly.
*Story of Mrs. Murchison.
Strange Case of Warden Jupp.
(5) #Oppenheim, James# (_for biography, see 1918_).
*Rending.
#Osbourne, Lloyd.# Born in San Francisco, April 7, 1868. Stepson
of Robert Louis Stevenson. Educated at University of Edinburgh.
Married 1896. Has been U. S. A. Vice-Consul-General at Samoa.
Author: "The Wrong Box" (with R. L. Stevenson), 1889; "The
Wrecker" (with R. L. Stevenson), 1892; "The Ebb Tide" (with
R. L. Stevenson), 1894; "The Queen vs. Billy," 1900; "Love,
the Fiddler," 1905; "The Motor-maniacs," 1905; "Wild Justice,"
1906; "Three Speeds Forward," 1906; "Baby Bullet," 1906;
"The Tin Diskers," 1906; "Schmidt," 1907; "The Adventurer,"
1907; "Infatuation," 1909; "A Person of Some Importance,"
1911; and other novels and short stories. Has written and
produced several plays. Lives in New York City.
East is East.
(345) #O'Sullivan, Vincent# (_for biography, see 1917_).
*Dance-Hall at Unigenitus.
(123) #Post, Melville Davisson.# Born in Harrison County, W. Va.,
Apr. 19, 1871. Graduate of West Virginia University in arts
and law, 1892. Married 1903. Admitted to the Bar in 1892.
Member of the Board of Regents, State Normal School. Chairman
of the Democratic Congressional Commission for West Virginia,
1898. Member of the Advisory Committee of the N. E. L.
on question of efficiency in administration of justice,
1914-15. Author: "The Strange Schemes of Randolph Mason,"
1896; "The Man of Last Resort," 1897; "Dwellers in the
Hills," 1901; "The Corrector of Destinies," 1909; "The
Gilded Chair," 1910; "The Nameless Thing," 1912; "Uncle
Abner: Master of Mysteries," 1918; "The Mystery at the Blue
Villa," 1919; "The Sleuth of St. James's Square," 1920. Lives
at Lost Creek, West Virginia.
Yellow Flower.
#Reindel, Margaret H.# Born in Cleveland, O., Dec. 2, 1896.
Graduated from Western Reserve University, 1919, and spent
a year at Columbia University. Now working in a New York
department store. First story published: "Fear," The Touchstone.
Lives in New York City.
Fear.
#Rice, Louise.#
*Lubbeny Kiss.
#Roche, Arthur Somers.# Born in Somerville, Mass., Apr. 27,
1883. Son of James Jeffrey Roche. Educated at Holy Cross
College and Boston University Law School. Married. Practised
law for two years. Engaged in journalism since 1906. Author:
"Loot," 1916; "Plunder," 1917; "The Sport of Kings," 1917.
Lives at Castine, Me.
*Dummy-Chucker.
(3) #Roche, Mazo De La.#
Explorers of the Dawn.
(234) #Rosenblatt, Benjamin# (_for biography, see 1917_).
*Stepping Westward.
#Rumsey, Frances.# Born in New York City in 1886. Educated
in France. Has lived chiefly in England and France, and now
passes her time between Normandy, London, and New York.
Married. First short story: "Cash," Century Magazine, August,
1920. Author: "Mr. Gushing and Mademoiselle du Chastel,"
1917. Translator: "Japanese Impressions," by Couchoud, 1920.
*Cash.
(5) #Russell, John# (_for biography, see 1918_).
Wreck on Deliverance.
#"Rutledge, Maryse."# Born in New York City, Nov. 24, 1884.
Educated in private schools, New York and Paris. Chief interests:
painting, tenting, canoeing, and hunting in Maine. Married
to Gardner Hale, the mural fresco painter. First story
published in the Smart Set about 1903. Author: "Anne
of Tréboul," 1904; "The Blind Who See"; "Wild Grapes," 1912;
"Children of Fate," 1917. Divides her time between Paris
and New York City.
House of Fuller.
#Ryan, Kathryn White.# Born in Albany, N. Y. Convent
school education. Married. Lived in Denver until 1919.
First story published: "The Orchids," Munsey's Magazine,
May, 1919. Lives in New York City.
Man of Cone.
#Saphier, William.# Born in northern Rumania in 1883. Comes
of a long line of butchers. Primary school education in Rumania.
Student at the Art Institute of Chicago for a short time.
Painter and machinist. Editor of "Others," 1917. Illustrator:
"The Book of Jeremiah," 1920; "Pins for Wings," by Witter
Bynner, 1920. First published story: "Kites," The Little
Review. Lives in New York City.
Kites.
(356) #Sedgwick, Anne Douglas# (_for biography, see 1918_).
*Christmas Roses.
(6) #Sidney, Rose.# Born in Toledo, O., 1888. Educated in private
schools and at Columbia University. "My profession consists
largely in trying to make odd holes and corners of the
earth into temporary homes for my army officer husband."
First published story: "Grapes of the San Jacinto," The Pictorial
Review, Sept., 1919. Now living in California.
*Butterflies.
(123456) #Singmaster, Elsie# (_for biography, see 1917_).
Miss Vilda.
Salvadora.
(345) #Springer, Fleta Campbell# (_for biography, see 1917_).
*Civilization.
*Rotter.
(23456) #Steele, Wilbur Daniel# (_for biography, see 1917_).
*Both Judge and Jury.
*God's Mercy.
*Out of Exile.
#"Storm, Ethel."# Born at Winnebago City, Minnesota. Lived
in New York City since early childhood. Privately educated.
Chief interests: decorative art, gardening, people. First published
story: "Burned Hands," Harper's Bazar, Nov., 1918. Lives in
New York City.
*Three Telegrams.
(5) #Street, Julian# (_for biography, see_ 1918).
Hands.
(3456) #Vorse, Mary Heaton# (_for biography, see_ 1917).
*Fraycar's Fist.
*Hopper.
Pink Fence.
#Ward, Herbert Dickinson.# Born at Waltham, Mass., June 30,
1861. Graduate of Amherst College, 1884. Married Elizabeth
Stuart Phelps, 1888; and Edna J. Jeffress, 1916. Author of
numerous books for boys and girls. Lives in Newton, Mass.
Master Note.
#Welles, Harriet Ogden Deen.# Born in New York City. Educated
in private schools. Studied art. Wife of Rear Admiral Roger
Welles, U. S. Navy. Author of "Anchors Aweigh," 1919. Lives
in San Diego, Cal.
According to Ruskin.
#Wheelwright, John T.# Born at Roxbury, Mass., Feb. 26, 1856.
Educated at Roxbury Latin School and Harvard University.
Profession: Lawyer. Has been interested in public affairs, and
has held appointive offices under the State of Massachusetts
and the City of Boston. Was one of the founders of the Harvard
Lampoon. On editorial staff of Boston Advertiser, 1882-3.
Author: "Rollo's Journey to Cambridge" (with F. J. Stimson),
1880; "The King's Men" (with John Boyle O'Reilly, F. J.
Stimson, and Robert Grant), 1884; "A Child of the Century,"
1886; "A Bad Penny," 1896; "War Children," 1907. Lives in
Boston, Mass.
*Roman Bath.
#Whitman, Stephen French.#
*Amazement.
*Lost Waltz.
*To a Venetian Tune.
(56) #Williams, Ben Ames# (_for biography, see_ 1918).
*Sheener.
#Wilson, John Fleming.# Born at Erie, Pa., Feb. 22, 1877. Educated
at Parsons College and Princeton University. Teacher, 1900-2;
journalist, 1902-5; editor San Francisco Argonaut, 1906.
Married, 1906. Author: "The Land Claimers," 1910; "Across
the Latitudes," 1911; "The Man Who Came Back," 1912; "The
Princess of Sorry Valley," 1913; "Tad Sheldon and His Boy
Scouts," 1913; "The Master Key," 1915.
Uncharted Reefs.
(6) #Wilson, Margaret Adelaide.# Educated at Portland Academy,
Portland, Oregon, and at an eastern college. Since then
she has lived chiefly on her father's ranch in the San Jacinto
Valley, California. First published story: "Towata and His
Brother Wind," The Bellman, about 1907. Lives at Hemet,
Cal.
Drums.
(5) #Wood, Frances Gilchrist# (_for biography, see 1918_).
*Spoiling of Pharaoh.
*Turkey Red.
(6) #Yezierska, Anzia# (_for biography, see 1919_).
*Hunger.
THE ROLL OF HONOR OF FOREIGN SHORT STORIES IN AMERICAN MAGAZINES
OCTOBER, 1919, TO SEPTEMBER, 1920
#Note.# _Stories of special excellence are indicated by an asterisk. The
index figures 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 prefixed to the name of the author
indicate that his work has been included in the Rolls of Honor for 1914,
1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, and 1919 respectively. The list excludes
reprints._
I. #English and Irish Authors#
(123456) #Aumonier, Stacy.#
*Good Action.
*Golden Windmill.
*Great Unimpressionable.
*Just the Same.
*Landlord of "The-Love-a-Duck."
#Barker, Granville.#
Bigamist.
#Beck, L. Adams.#
Fire of Beauty.
Incomparable Lady.
(12356) #Blackwood, Algernon.#
*First Hate.
*Running Wolf.
#Buchan, John.#
Fullcircle.
(6) #Burke, Thomas.#
*Scarlet Shoes.
#Dobrée, Bonamy.#
Surfeit.
(456) #Dudeney, Mrs. Henry E.#
Wild Raspberries.
(46) #Dunsany, Lord.#
*Cheng Hi and the Window Framer.
*East and West.
*How the Lost Causes Were Removed from Valhalla.
*Pretty Quarrel.
#Ervine, St. John G.#
Dramatist and the Leading Lady.
(2) #Gibbon, Perceval.#
*Connoisseur.
Knave of Diamonds.
Lieutenant.
#Holding, Elizabeth Sanxay.#
Problem that Perplexed Nicholson.
(4) #Lawrence, D. H.#
*Adolf.
#MacManus, L.#
Baptism.
#Merrick, Leonard.#
To Daphne De Vere.
#Monro, Harold.#
*Parcel of Love.
(456) #Mordaunt, Elinor.#
*Adventures in the Night.
*Ginger Jar.
#Nevinson, Henry W.#
*In Diocletian's Day.
#Owen, H. Collinson.#
Temptation of Antoine.
#Richardson, Dorothy M.#
*Sunday.
#Sinclair, May.#
*Fame.
(5) #Stephens, James.#
*Boss.
*Desire.
*Thieves.
(2) Walpole, Hugh.
*Case of Miss Morganhurst.
*Fanny's Job.
*Honourable Clive Torby.
*No Place for Absalom.
*Stealthy Visitor.
*Third Sex.
II. #Translations#
(4) #Andreyev, Leonid.# (_Russian._)
*Promise of Spring.
Anonymous. (_Chinese._)
*Romance of the Western Pavilion.
(6) #Blasco Ibáñez, Vicente.# (_Spanish._)
Old Woman of the Movies.
Sleeping-Car Porter.
(6) #"France, Anatole." (Jacques Anatole Thibault.)# (_French._)
*Lady With the White Fan.
#Ibáñez, Vicente Blasco.# (_Spanish._) _See_ #Blasco Ibáñez, Vicente.#
#Kotsyubinsky, Michael.# (_Russian._)
By the Sea.
(6) #Level, Maurice.# (_French._)
Empty House.
Kennel.
Maniac.
Son of His Father.
#Lichtenberger, André.# (_French._)
Old Fisherwoman.
#Louÿs, Pierre.# (_French._)
False Esther.
#Nodier, Charles.# (_French._)
*Bibliomaniac.
#Rameau, Jean.# (_French._)
Ocarina.
(4) #Saltykov, M. E.# (_Russian._)
*Wild Squire.
#Schnitzler, Arthur.# (_German._)
*Crumbled Blossoms.
#Thibault, Jacques Anatole.# (_French._) _See_ "#France, Anatole.#"
#Trueba, Antonio De.# (_Spanish._)
Portal of Heaven.
#Yushkevitch, Semyon.# (_Russian._)
Pietà.
THE BEST BOOKS OF SHORT STORIES OF 1920: A CRITICAL SUMMARY
#The Ten Best American Books#
1. #Brown.# Homespun and Gold. Macmillan.
2. #Cather.# Youth and the Bright Medusa. Knopf.
3. #Dwight.# The Emperor of Elam. Doubleday, Page.
4. #Howells,# _Editor._ Great Modern American Stories. Boni & Liveright.
5. #Johnson.# Under the Rose. Harper.
6. #Sedgwick.# Christmas Roses. Houghton Mifflin.
7. #Smith.# Pagan. Scribner.
8. Society of Arts and Sciences. #O. Henry# Prize Stories, 1919.
Doubleday, Page.
9. #Spofford.# The Elder's People. Houghton Mifflin.
10. #Yezierska.# Hungry Hearts. Houghton Mifflin.
#The Ten Best English Books#
1. #Beerbohm.# Seven Men. Knopf.
2. #Cannan.# Windmills. Huebsch.
3. #Dunsany.# Tales of Three Hemispheres. Luce.
4. #Easton.# Golden Bird. Knopf.
5. #Evans.# My Neighbours. Harcourt, Brace, and Howe.
6. #Galsworthy.# Tatterdemalion. Scribner.
7. #Huxley.# Limbo. Doran.
8. #O'Kelly.# The Golden Barque, and the Weaver's Grave. Putnam.
9. #Trevena.# By Violence. Four Seas.
10. #Wylie.# Holy Fire. Lane.
#The Ten Best Translations#
1. #Aleichem.# Jewish Children. Knopf.
2. #Andreiev.# When the King Loses His Head. International Bk. Pub.
3. #Annunzio.# Tales of My Native Town. Doubleday, Page.
4. #Brown and Phoutrides#, _Editors._ Modern Greek Stories. Duffield.
5. #Chekhov.# The Chorus Girl. Macmillan.
6. #Dostoevsky.# The Honest Thief. Macmillan.
7. #Hrbkova#, _Editor._ Czecho-Slovak Stories. Duffield.
8. #Level.# Tales of Mystery and Horror. McBride.
9. #McMichael#, _Editor._ Short Stories from the Spanish. Boni & Liveright.
10. #Mayran.# Story of Gotton Connixloo. Dutton.
#The Best New English Publications#
1. #Gibbon, Perceval.# Those Who Smiled. Cassell.
2. #Mayne, Ethel Colburn.# Blindman. Chapman and Hall.
3. #Mordaunt, Elinor.# Old Wine in New Bottles. Hutchinson.
4. #O'Kelly, Seumas.# The Leprechaun of Killmeen. Martin Lester.
5. #Robinson, Lennox.# Eight Short Stories. Talbot Press.
6. #Shorter, Dora Sigerson.# A Dull Day in London. Nash.
7. #Lemaître, Jules.# Serenus. Selwyn and Blount.
BELOW FOLLOWS A RECORD OF NINETY-TWO DISTINCTIVE VOLUMES PUBLISHED
BETWEEN NOVEMBER 1, 1918, AND OCTOBER 1, 1920.
I. #American Authors#
#The Honourable Gentlemen and Others# and #Wings: Tales of the Psychic#, by
_Achmed Abdullah_ (G. P. Putnam's Sons, and the James A. McCann
Company). In the first of these two volumes, Mr. Abdullah has gathered
the Pell Street stories of New York's Chinatown which have appeared in
American magazines during the past few years. As contrasted with Thomas
Burke's "Limehouse Nights," these stories reflect the oriental point of
view with its characteristic fatalism and equability of temper. Four of
these stories are told with the utmost economy of means and a grim
pleasure in watching events unshape themselves. "A Simple Act of Piety"
seemed to me one of the best short stories of 1918. The other volume is
of more uneven quality, and psychic stories do not furnish Mr. Abdullah
with his most natural medium, but contains at least three admirable
stories.
#Hand-Made Fables#, by _George Ade._ (Doubleday, Page & Company.) Mr.
Ade's new series of thirty fables are a valuable record of the war years
in American life. They are written in a unique idiom full of color, if
unintelligible to the foreigner. I think one may fairly say that Mr.
Ade's work is thoroughly characteristic of a large section of American
culture, and this section he has portrayed admirably. Undoubtedly he is
our best satirist.
#Joy in the Morning#, by _Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews_ (Charles
Scribner's Sons). This uneven collection includes two admirable stories,
"The Ditch" and "Dundonald's Destroyer," to which I drew attention when
they first appeared in magazines. The latter is one of the best realized
legends suggested by the war, while the former is technically
interesting as a thoroughly successful short story written entirely in
dialogue. The other stories are of slighter content, and emotionally
somewhat overtaut.
#Youth and the Bright Medusa#, by _Willa Cather_ (Alfred A. Knopf).
Fifteen years ago, Miss Cather published a volume of short stories
entitled "The Troll Garden." This volume has long been out of print,
although its influence may be seen in the work of many contemporary
story writers. The greater part of its contents is now reprinted in the
present volume, together with four new stories of less interest. These
eight studies, dealing for the most part with the artistic temperament,
are written with a detached observation of life that clearly reveals the
influence of Flaubert on the one hand and of Henry James on the other,
but there is a quality of personal style built up out of nervous rhythms
and an instinctive reticence of personal attitude which Miss Cather only
shares with Sherwood Anderson among her American compatriots. She is
more assured in the traditional quality of her work than Anderson, but
hardly less astringent. I regard this book as one of the most important
contributions to the American short story published during the past
year, and personally I consider it more significant than her four
admirable novels.
#From Place to Place#, by _Irvin S. Cobb_ (George H. Doran Company). I
have frequently had occasion to point out in the past that Mr. Cobb's
work, in depth of conception and breadth of execution, makes him the
legitimate successor of Mark Twain as a painter of the ampler life of
the American South and Middle West. In his new collection of nine
stories, there are at least three which I confidently believe are
destined to last as long as the best stories of Hawthorne and Poe. The
most noteworthy of these is "Boys Will Be Boys," which I printed in a
previous volume of this series. "The Luck Piece" and "The Gallowsmith,"
though sharply contrasted in subject matter, reveal the same profound
understanding of American life which makes Mr. Cobb almost our best
interpreter in fiction to readers in other countries. Like Mark Twain,
Mr. Cobb is quite uncritical of his own work, and two of these stories
are of merely ephemeral value. I should like no better task than to
edite a selection of Mr. Cobb's stories in one volume for introduction
to the English public, and I think that such a volume would be the best
service American letters could render to English letters at the present
moment.
#The Life of the Party#, by _Irvin S. Cobb_ (George H. Doran Company). I
shall claim no special literary quality for this short story which Mr.
Cobb has reprinted from The Saturday Evening Post, but America usually
shows such poverty in producing humorous stories that the infectious
quality of this wildly improbable adventure makes the story seem better
than it really is. It cannot be regarded as more than a diversion from
Mr. Cobb's rich human studies of American life.
#Hiker Joy#, by _James B. Connolly_ (Charles Scribner's Sons). This series
of stories about a little New York wharf-rat which Mr. Connolly has
reprinted from Collier's Weekly are less important than the admirable
stories of the Gloucester fishermen which first made his reputation.
They are told by the wharf-rat in dialect with a casual reportorial air
which is tolerably convincing, and it is clear that they are based on a
background of first-hand experience. Mr. Connolly's hand is not entirely
subdued to the medium in which he has chosen to work, but the result is
a certain monotony of interest.
#Twelve Men#, by _Theodore Dreiser_ (Boni & Liveright). These twelve
portraits which Mr. Dreiser has transferred to us from life represent
his impressions of life's crowded thoroughfares and his reactions to
many human contacts. More than one of these portraits can readily be
traced to its original, and taken as a group they represent as valuable
a cross-section Of our hurrying civilization as we have. Strictly
speaking, however, they are not short stories, but discursive causeries
on friends of Mr. Dreiser. They answer to no usual concepts of literary
form, but have necessitated the creation of a new form. They reflect a
gallic irony compact of pity and understanding. The brief limitations of
his form prevent Mr. Dreiser from falling into errors which detract
somewhat from the greatness of his novels, and as a whole I command this
volume to the discriminating reader.
#The Emperor of Elam, and Other Stories#, by _H. G. Dwight_ (Doubleday,
Page & Company). Those who read Mr. Dwight's earlier volume entitled
"Stamboul Nights" will recall the very real genius for the romantic
presentation of adventure in exotic backgrounds which the author
revealed. Every detail, if studied, was quietly set down without undue
emphasis, and the whole was a finished composition. In the title story
of the present volume, and in "The Emerald of Tamerlane," written in
collaboration with John Taylor, Mr. Dwight is on the same familiar
ground. I had occasion three years ago to reprint "The Emperor of Elam"
in an earlier volume of this series, and it still seems to be worthy to
set beside the best of Gautier. There are other stories in the present
collection with the same rich background, but I should like to call
particular attention to Mr. Dwight's two masterpieces, "Henrietta
Stackpole Rediviva" and "Behind the Door." The former ranks with the
best half-dozen American short stories, and the latter with the best
half-dozen short stories of the world. I regard this volume as the most
important which I have encountered since I began to publish my studies
of the American short story.
#The Miller's Holiday: Short Stories From the North Western Miller#,
Edited by _Randolph Edgar_ (The Miller Publishing Company: Minneapolis).
These fourteen stories reprinted from the files of the North Western
Miller between 1883 and 1904 recall an interesting episode in the
history of American literature. The paper just mentioned was the first
trade journal to publish at regular intervals the best short stories
procurable at the time, and out of this series was born "The Bellman,"
which for many years was the best literary weekly of general interest
in the Middle West. The North Western Miller printed the best work of O.
Henry, Howard Pyle, Octave Thanet, James Lane Allen, Hamlin Garland,
Edward Everett Hale, and many others, and it was here that Frank R.
Stockton first printed "The Christmas Wreck," which I should agree with
the late Mr. Howells in regarding as Stockton's best story. I trust that
the success of this volume will induce Mr. Edgar to edite and reprint
one or more series of stories from "The Bellman." Such an undertaking
would fill a very real need.
#Half Portions#, by _Edna Ferber_ (Doubleday, Page & Company). Edna Ferber
shares with Fannie Hurst the distinction of portraying the average
American mind in its humbler human relations. Less sure than Miss Hurst
in her ability to present her material in artistic form, her observation
is equally keen and accurate, and in at least two stories in the present
volume she seems to meet Miss Hurst on equal ground. "The Maternal
Feminine," in my opinion, ranks with "The Gay Old Dog" as Miss Ferber's
best story.
#The Best Psychic Stories#, Edited by _Joseph Lewis French_, with an
Introduction by _Dorothy Scarborough_ (Boni & Liveright). This very
badly edited collection of stories is worth having because of the fact
that it reprints certain admirable short stories by Algernon Blackwood,
Ambrose Bierce, and Fiona Macleod. If it attains to a second edition,
the volume would be tremendously improved by omitting the compilation of
irrelevant theosophical articles on the subject, and the substitution
for them of other stories which lie open to Mr. French's hand in rich
measure.
#Fantastics, and Other Fancies#, by _Lafcadio Hearn_, Edited by _Charles
Woodward Hutson_ (Houghton Mifflin Company). This collection of stories,
portraits, and essays which Mr. Hutson's industry has rescued from the
long-lost files of The New Orleans Daily Item and The Times-Democrat
belong to Hearn's early manner, when he sought to set down brief colored
impressions of the old, hardly lingering Creole life which is now only a
memory. In many ways akin to the art of Hérédia, they show a less
classical attitude toward their subject-matter, and are frankly
experimental approaches to the method of evocation by sounds and
perfumes which he achieved so successfully in his later Japanese books.
In these stories we may see the influence of Gautier's enamelled style
already at work, operating with more precision than it was later to
show, more fearful of the penumbra than his later ghost stories, and
with a certain hurried air which may be largely set down to the
journalistic pressure of writing weekly for newspapers. Notwithstanding
this, many of the stories and sketches are a permanent addition to
Hearn's work.
#Waifs and Strays: Twelve Stories#, by _O. Henry_ (Doubleday, Page &
Company). This volume of collectanea is divided into two parts. First of
all, twelve new stories have been recovered from magazine files. Three
of these are negligible journalism, and six others are chiefly
interesting either as early studies for later stories, or for their
biographical value. "The Cactus" and "The Red Roses of Tonia," however,
rank only second to "O. Henry's" best dozen stories. The second part of
the book is a miscellany of critical and biographical comment, including
also some verse tributes to the story writer's memory and a valuable
index to the collected edition of "O. Henry's" stories.
#O. Henry Memorial Prize Stories#, 1919, Chosen by the _Society of Arts
and Sciences_, with an introduction by _Blanche Colton Williams_
(Doubleday, Page & Company). The Society of Arts and Sciences of New
York City has had the admirable idea of editing an annual volume of the
best American short stories, and awarding annual prizes for the two best
stories as a memorial to the art of "O. Henry." The present volume
reprints fifteen stories chosen by the society, including the two prize
stories,--"England to America," by Margaret Prescott Montague, and "For
They Know Not What They Do," by Wilbur Daniel Steele. Five other stories
by Mrs. Frances Gilchrist Wood, Miss Fannie Hurst, Miss Louise Rice,
Miss Beatrice Ravenel, and Miss G. F. Alsop are admirable stories. The
selection represents a fair cross-section of the year's short stories,
good, bad, and indifferent, but the two prizes seem to me to have been
most wisely awarded, and I conceive this formal annual tribute to be the
most significant and practical means of encouraging the American short
story. Toward this encouragement the public may contribute in their
measure, as I understand that the royalties which accrue from the sale
of this volume are to be applied to additional prizes in future years.
#The Happy End#, by _Joseph Hergesheimer_ (Alfred A. Knopf). Mr.
Hergesheimer's new collection of seven stories is largely drawn from the
files of The Saturday Evening Post, and represents to some degree a
compromise with his public. The book is measurably inferior to "Gold and
Iron," but shows to a degree the same qualities of studied background
and selective presentation of aspects in character which are most
satisfyingly presented in his novels. In "Lonely Valleys," "Tol'able
David," and "The Thrush in the Hedge," Mr. Hergesheimer's art is more
nearly adequate than in the other stories, but they lack the
authoritative presentation which made "The Three Black Pennys" a
landmark in contemporary American fiction. They show the author to be a
too frank disciple of Mr. Galsworthy in the less essential aspect of the
latter's art, and their tone is too neutral to be altogether convincing.
#War Stories#, Selected and Edited by _Roy J. Holmes_ and _A. Starbuck_
(Thomas Y. Crowell Company). This anthology of twenty-one American short
stories about the war would have gained measurably by compression. At
least five of the stories are unimportant, and six more are not
specially representative of the best that is being done. But "Blind
Vision," "The Unsent Letter," "His Escape," "The Boy's Mother" and "The
Sixth Man" are now made accessible in book form, and give this anthology
its present value.
#The Great Modern American Stories: An Anthology#, Compiled and edited
with an introduction by _William Dean Howells_ (Boni & Liveright). This
is the best anthology of the American short story from about 1860 to
1910 which has been published, or which is likely to be published. It
represents the mellow choice of an old man who was the contemporary,
editor, and friend of most American writers of the past two generations,
and in his reminiscent introduction Mr. Howells relates delightfully
many of his personal adventures with American authors. Several of these
stories will be unfamiliar to the general reader, and I am specially
glad to observe in this volume two little-known masterpieces,--"The
Little Room" by Madelene Yale Wynne, and "Aunt Sanna Terry," by Landon
R. Dashiell. Mr. Howells' choice has been studiously limited to short
stories of the older generation, and without infringing on his ground,
it is to be hoped that a second series of "Great Modern American
Stories" by more recent writers should be issued by the same publishers.
The present volume contains an excellent bibliographical chapter on the
history of the American short story, and an appendix with biographies
and bibliographies of the writers included, which calls for more
accurate revision.
#Bedouins#, by _James Huneker_ (Charles Scribner's Sons). While this is
primarily a volume of critical essays on painting, music, literature and
life, it concludes with a series of seven short stories which serve as a
postlude to Mr. Huneker's earlier volume, "Visionaries." They are
chiefly interesting as the last dying glow of symbolism, derivative as
they are from Huysmans and Mallarme. I cannot regard them as successful
stories, but they have a certain experimental value which comes nearest
to success in "The Cardinal's Fiddle."
#Humoresque#, by _Fannie Hurst_ (Harper & Brothers). Miss Hurst's fourth
volume of short stories shows a certain recession from her previous high
standard, except for the title story which is told with an economy of
detail unusual for her. All of these eight stories are distinctive, and
six of them are admirable, but I seem to detect a tendency toward the
fixation of a type, with a corresponding diminishment of faithful
individual portrayal. The volume would make the reputation of a lesser
writer, but Miss Hurst is after all the rightful successor of "O Henry,"
and we are entitled to demand from her nothing less than her best.
#Legends#, by _Walter McLaren Imrie_ (The Midland Press, Glennie, Alcona
Co., Mich.). I should like to call special attention to this little book
by a medical officer in the Canadian army, because it seems to me to be
a significant footnote to the poignant records of Barbusse, Duhamel,
and Élie Faure. So far as I know, this is the only volume of fiction
written in English portraying successfully from the artist's point of
view the acrid monotony of war. I believe that it deserves to be placed
on the same bookshelf as the volumes of the others whom I have just
mentioned.
#Travelling Companions#, by _Henry James_ (Boni & Liveright). These seven
short stories by Henry James, which are now collected for the first time
with a somewhat inept introduction by Albert Mordell, were written at
the same time as the stories in his "Passionate Pilgrim." While they
only serve to reveal a minor aspect of his genius, they are of
considerable importance historically to the student of his literary
evolution. Published between 1868 and 1874, they represent the first
flush of his enthusiasm for the older civilization of Europe, and
especially of Italy. He would not have wished them to be reprinted, but
the present editor's course is justified by their quality, which won the
admiration at the time of Tennyson and other weighty critics. Had Henry
James reprinted them at all, he would have doubtless rewritten them in
his later manner, and we should have lost these first clear outpourings
of his sense of international contrasts.
#The Best American Humorous Short Stories#, Edited by _Alexander Jessup_
(Boni & Liveright). This collection of eighteen humorous short stories
furnish a tolerable conspectus of the period between 1839 and the
present day. They are prefaced by an informative historical introduction
which leaves little to be desired from the point of view of information.
The general reader will find the book less interesting than the
specialist, since a large portion of the volume is devoted to the
somewhat crude beginnings of humor in our literature. Apart from the
stories by Edward Everett Hale, Mark Twain, Frank R. Stockton, Bret
Harte, and "O. Henry," the comparative poverty of rich understanding
humor in American fiction is remarkable. The most noteworthy omission in
the volume is the neglect of Irvin S. Cobb.
#John Stuyvesant Ancestor and Other People#, by _Alvin Johnson_ (Harcourt,
Brace & Howe). This collection of sketches, largely reprinted from the
New Republic, is rather a series of studies in social and economic
relations than a group of short stories. But they concern us here
because of Mr. Johnson's penetrating analysis of character, which
constitutes a document of no little value to the imaginative student of
our institutions, and "Short Change" has no little value as a vividly
etched short story.
#Under the Rose#, by _Arthur Johnson_ (Harper & Brothers). With the
publication of this volume, Mr. Johnson at last takes his rightful place
among the best of the American short story writers who wish to continue
the tradition of Henry James. In subtlety of portraiture he is the equal
of Edith Wharton, and he excels her in ease and in his ability to
subdue his substance to the environment in which it is set. He
surpasses Mrs. Gerould by reason of the variety of his subject matter,
and as a stylist he is equal to Anne Douglas Sedgwick. I have published
two of these stories in previous volumes of this series, and there are
at least four other stories in the volume which I should have liked to
reprint.
#Going West#, by _Basil King_ (Harper & Brothers). We have in this little
book a reprint of one of the best short stories produced in America by
the war. While it is emotionally somewhat overtaut, it has a good deal
of reticence in portrayal, and there is a passion in it which transcends
Mr. King's usual sentimentality.
#Civilization: Tales of the Orient#, by _Ellen N. La Motte_ (George H.
Doran Company). Miss La Motte is the most interesting of the new
American story writers who deal with the Orient. She writes out of a
long and deep background of experience with a subtle appreciation of
both the Oriental and the Occidental points of view, and has developed a
personal art out of a deliberately narrowed vision. "On the Heights,"
"Prisoners," "Under a Wineglass," and "Cosmic Justice" are the best of
these stories. So definite a propagandist aim is usually fatal to
fiction, but Miss La Motte succeeds by deft suggestion rather than
underscored statement.
#Short Stories of the New America#, Selected and Edited by _Mary A.
Laselle_ (Henry Holt and Company). While this is primarily a volume of
supplementary reading for secondary schools, compiled with a view to the
"americanization" of the immigrant, it contains four short stories of
more or less permanent value, three of which I have included in previous
volumes of this series. It also draws attention to the admirable Indian
stories of Grace Coolidge. The volume would be improved if three of
these stories were omitted.
#Chill Hours#, by _Helen Mackay_ (Duffield and Company). We have come to
expect from Mrs. Mackay a somewhat tense but restrained mirroring of
little human accidents, in which action is of less importance than its
effects. She has a dry, nervous, unornamented style which sets down
details in separate but related strokes which build up a picture whose
art is not altogether successfully concealed. The present volume, which
reflects Mrs. Mackay's experiences in France during the war, is more
even in quality than her previous books, and "The Second Hay," "One or
Another," and "He Cost Us So Much" are noteworthy stories.
#Children in the Mist#, by _George Madden Martin_ (D. Appleton & Company),
and #More E. K. Means# (G. P. Putnam's Sons). Both of these volumes
represent traditional attitudes of the Southern white proprietor to the
negro, and both fail in artistic achievement because of their excessive
realization of the gulf between the two races. Mrs. Martin's book is the
more artistic and the less sympathetic, though it has more professions
of sympathy than that of Mr. Means. They both display considerable
talent, the one in historical portraiture of reconstruction times, and
the other in genial caricature of the more childish side of the
less-educated negro. The negroes whom Mr. Means has invented have still
to be born in the flesh, but there is an infectious humor in his
nightmare world which he may plead as a justification for the misuse of
his very real ability.
#The Gift, England to America#, and #Uncle Sam of Freedom Ridge#, by
_Margaret Prescott Montague_ (E.P. Dutton & Company, and Doubleday, Page
& Company). These three short stories are all spiritual studies of human
reactions and moods generated by the war, set down with a deft hand in a
neutral style, somewhat over-repressed perhaps, but thoroughly
successful in the achievement of what Miss Montague set out to do. The
second and best of these won the first prize offered last year as a
memorial to "O. Henry" by The Society of Arts and Sciences of New York
City. Good as it is, I am tempted to disagree with its interpretation of
the English attitude toward America in general, although it may very
well be true in many an individual case. Miss Montague suffers from a
certain imaginative poverty which is becoming more and more
characteristic of puritan art and life in America. From the point of
view of style, however, these stories share distinction in the Henry
James tradition only with Katharine Fullerton Gerould, Anne Douglas
Sedgwick, Arthur Johnson and H. G. Dwight.
#From the Life#, by _Harvey O'Higgins_ (Harper & Brothers). This volume
should be read in connection with "Twelve Men," by Theodore Dreiser.
Where Mr. Dreiser identifies himself with his subjects, Mr. O'Higgins
stands apart in the most strict detachment. These nine studies in
contemporary American life take as their point of departure in each case
some tiny and apparently insignificant happening which altered the whole
course of a life. Artists, actors, politicians, and business men all
date their change of fortune from some ironic accident, and in three of
these nine stories the author's analysis merits close re-reading by
students of short story technique. Behind the apparent looseness of
structure you will find a new and interesting method of presentation
which is as effective as it is deliberate. I regard "From the Life" as
one of the more important books of 1919.
#The Mystery at the Blue Villa#, by _Melville Davisson Post_ (D. Appleton
and Company), and #Silent, White and Beautiful#, by _Tod Robbins_ (Boni
and Liveright). These two volumes furnish an interesting contrast. The
subject-matter of both is rather shoddy, but Mr. Post displays a
technique in the mystery story which is quite unrivalled since Poe in
its inevitable relentlessness of plot based on human weakness, while Mr.
Robbins shows a wild fertility of imagination of extraordinary promise,
although it is now wasted on unworthy material. I think that both books
will grip the reader by their quality of suspense, and I shall look
forward to Mr. Robbins' next book with eager interest.
#The Best Ghost Stories.# Introduction by _Arthur B. Reeve_ (Boni and
Liveright, Inc.). Mr. French's new collection of ghost stories
supplements his volume entitled "Great Ghost Stories," published in the
previous year. I consider it the better collection of the two, and
should particularly like to call attention to the stories by Leopold
Kompert and Ellis Parker Butler. The latter is Mr. Butler's best story
and has, so far as I know, not been reprinted elsewhere. For the rest,
the volume ranges over familiar ground.
#High Life#, by _Harrison Rhodes_ (Robert M. McBride & Co.). Setting aside
the title story which, as a novelette, does not concern us here, this
volume is chiefly noteworthy for the reprint of "Spring-Time." When I
read this story for the first time many years ago, it seemed to me one
that Mr. Arthur Sherburne Hardy would have been proud to sign. It is not
perhaps readily realized how difficult it is to write a story so deftly
touched with sentiment, while maintaining the necessary economy of
personal emotion. "The Sad Case of Quag" exemplifies the gallic aspect
of Mr. Rhodes' talent.
#The Red Mark#, by _John Russell_ (Alfred A. Knopf). This uneven volume of
short stories by a writer of real though undisciplined talent is full of
color and kaleidoscopic hurrying of events. Apart from "The Adversary,"
which is successful to a degree, the book is uncertain in its rendering
of character, though Mr. Russell's handling of plot leaves little to be
desired.
#The Pagan#, by _Gordon Arthur Smith_ (Charles Scribner's Sons). It was
expected that when Mr. Smith's first volume of short stories should
appear, it would take its place at once as pre-eminent in the romantic
revival which is beginning to be apparent in the American short story.
This volume does not disappoint our expectations, although it would have
gained in authority had it been confined to the five Taillandy Stories,
"Jeanne, the Maid," and "The Return." Mr. Smith's output has always been
wisely limited, and "The Pagan" represents the best work of nine years.
These stories are only second in their kind to those of James Branch
Cabell and Stephen French Whitman.
#The Elder's People#, by _Harriet Prescott Spofford_ (Houghton, Mifflin
Company). Mrs. Spofford has collected in this volume the best among the
short stories which she has written since 1904, and the collection shows
no diminution in her powers of accurate and tender observation of New
England folk. These fourteen prose idyls have a mellow humanism which
portrays the last autumn fires of a dying tradition. They rank with the
best work of Miss Jewett and Mrs. Spofford herself in the same kind, and
are a permanent addition to the small store of New England literature. I
wish to call special attention to "An Old Fiddler," "A Village
Dressmaker," and "A Life in a Night."
#The Valley of Vision#, by _Henry van Dyke_ (Charles Scribner's Sons).
This volume of notes for stories rather than stories themselves calls
for no particular comment save for two admirable fugitive studies
entitled "A Remembered Dream" and "The Broken Soldier and the Maid of
France." These seem to me creditable additions to the small store of
American legends which the war produced, but the other stories and
sketches are rather bloodless. They are signs of the spiritual anæmia
which is so characteristic of much of American life.
#The Ninth Man#, by _Mary Heaton Vorse_ (Harper & Brothers). When this
story was published in Harper's Magazine six years ago, it attracted
wide attention as a vividly composed presentment of human passions in a
mediæval scene. The allegory was not stressed unduly, and was perhaps
taken into less account then than it will be now. But events have since
clarified the story in a manner which proves Miss Vorse to have been
curiously prophetic. In substance it is very different from what we have
come to associate with her work, but I think that its modern social
significance will now be obvious to any reader. Philosophy aside, I
commend it as an admirably woven story.
#Anchors Aweigh#, by _Harriet Welles_ (Charles Scribner's Sons). I think
the chief value of this volume is as a quiet record of experience
without any remarkable qualities of plot and style, but it is full of
promise for the future, and in "Orders" Mrs. Welles has written a
memorable story. The introduction by the Secretary of the Navy rather
overstates the case, but I think no one will deny the genuine feeling
and truth with which Mrs. Welles has presented her point of view.
#Ma Pettengill#, by _Harry Leon Wilson_ (Doubleday, Page & Company). I
must confess that temperamentally I am not inclined to rank these
humorous stories of American life as highly as many critics. I grant
their sincerity of portraiture, but they show only too plainly the signs
of Mr. Wilson's compromise with his large audience in The Saturday
Evening Post. They are written, however, with the author's eye on the
object, and Ma Pettengill herself is vividly realized.
#Hungry Hearts#, by _Anzia Yezierska_ (Houghton Mifflin Company). When I
reprinted "Fat of the Land" last year I stated that it seemed to me
perhaps the finest imaginative contribution to the short story made by
an American artist last year. My opinion is confirmed by Miss
Yezierska's first collection of stories, and particularly by "Hunger,"
"The Miracle," and "My Own People." I know of no other American writer
who is driven by such inevitable compulsion to express her ideal of what
America might be, and it serves to underscore the truth that the chief
idealistic contribution to American life comes no longer from the anæmic
Anglo-Saxon puritan, but from the younger elements of our mixed racial
culture. Such a flaming passion of mingled indignation and love for
America embodies a message which other races must heed, and proves that
there is a spiritual America being born out of suffering and oppression
which is destined to rule before very long.
II. #English and Irish Authors#
#Windmills: A Book of Fables#, by _Gilbert Cannan_ (B. W. Huebsch, Inc.).
This is the first American edition of a book published in London in
1915. Conceived as a new "Candide," it is a bitter satire on war and
international politics. While it ostensibly consists of four short
stories, they have a unity of action which is sketched rather than fully
set forth. In fact, the volume is really a notebook for a larger work.
Set beside the satire of Voltaire, Mr. Cannan's master, it is seen to
fail because of its lack of kindly irony. In fact, it is a little
overdone.
#The Eve of Pascua#, by "_Richard Dehan_" (George H. Doran Company). Two
years ago I had occasion to call attention to the quite unstressed
romanticism of Mrs. Graves' "Under the Hermes." The present volume is of
much less significance, and I only mention it because of the title
story, which is an adequately rendered picture of contemporary Spanish
life, much less overdrawn than the other stories.
#Poems and Prose#, of _Ernest Dowson_ (Boni and Liveright). Five of the
nine short stories by Ernest Dowson are included in this admirable
reprint, but it omits the better stories which appeared in The Savoy,
and in a later edition I suggest that the poems be printed in a volume
by themselves with Mr. Symons' memoir, and all the stories in another
volume which should include among others "The Dying of Francis Donne"
and "Countess Marie of The Angels."
#The Golden Bird and Other Sketches#, by _Dorothy Eastern_, with a
foreword by _John Galsworthy_ (Alfred A. Knopf). These forty short
sketches of Sussex and of France are rendered deftly with a faithful
objectivity of manner which has not barred out the essential poetry of
their substance. These pictures are lightly touched with a quiet
brooding significance, as if they had been seen at twilight moments in a
dream world in which human relationships had been partly forgotten. They
are frankly impressionistic, except for the group of French stories, in
which Miss Easton has sought more definitely to interpret character. The
danger of this form is a certain preciosity which the author has
skilfully evaded, and the influence of Mr. Galsworthy is nowhere too
clearly apparent. I recommend the volume as one of the best English
books which has come to us during the past year.
#My Neighbors: Stories of the Welsh People#, by _Caradoc Evans_ (Harcourt,
Brace and Howe). In his third collection of stories, Mr. Evans has for
the most part forsaken his study of the Cardigan Bay peasant for the
London Welsh, and although his style preserves the same stark biblical
notation as before, it seems less suited to record the ironies of an
industrial civilization. Allowing for this, and for Mr. Evans' bent
towards an unduly acid estimate of human nature, it must be confessed
that these stories have a certain permanent literary quality, most
successful in "Earthbred," "Joseph's House," and "A Widow Woman." These
three collections make it tolerably clear that Mr. Evans will find his
true medium in the novel, where an epic breadth of material is at hand
to fit his epic breadth of speech.
#Tatterdemalion#, by _John Galsworthy_ (Charles Scribner's Sons). This
volume contains the ripest product of Mr. Galsworthy's short story art
during the past seven years. Its range is very wide, and in these
twenty-three stories, we have the best of the mystical war legends from
"The Grey Angel" to "Cafard," the gentle irony of "The Recruit" and
"Defeat," and the gracious vision of "Spindleberries," "The Nightmare
Child," and "Buttercup-Night." Nowhere in the volume do we find the
slight touch of sentimentality which has marred the strength of Mr.
Galsworthy's later novels, but everywhere very quietly realised pictures
of a golden age which is still possible to his imagination, despite the
harsh conflict with material realities which his art has often
encountered. Perhaps the best story in the present collection is
"Cafard," where Mr. Galsworthy has almost miraculously succeeded in
extracting the last emotional content out of a situation in which a
single false touch of sentiment would have wrecked his story.
#Limbo#, by _Aldous Huxley_ (George H. Doran Company). This collection of
six fantasies in prose and one play has no special principle of unity
except its attempt to apply the art of Laforgue to much less adequate
material. Setting aside "Happy Families" as entirely negligible, and
"Happily Ever After" and "Eupompus Gave Splendour to Art by Numbers" as
qualified successes, the other four stories do achieve more or less what
they set out to do, although Mr. Huxley only achieves a personal
synthesis of style and substance in "The Death of Lully." The other
three stories are full of promise as yet unrealised because of Mr.
Huxley's inability or unwillingness to conceal the technique of his art.
#Deep Waters#, by _W. W. Jacobs_ (Charles Scribner's Sons). Mr. Jacobs'
formula is not yet outworn, but it is becoming perilously uncertain. His
talent has always been a narrow one, but in his early volumes his
realization of character was quite vivid, and his plot technique superb.
At least two of these stories are entirely mechanical, and the majority
do not rise above mediocrity. "Paying Off," "Sam's Ghost," and "Dirty
Work" faintly recall Mr. Jacobs' early manner.
#Lo, and Behold Ye!#, by _Seumas MacManus_ (Frederick A. Stokes Company).
Many of these chimney-corner stories are older than Homer, but Mr.
MacManus has retold them in the language of the roads, and this pageant
of tinkers and kings, fairies and scholars, lords and fishermen march by
to the sound of the pipes and the ribald comments of little boys along
the road. The quality of this volume is as fresh as that of those first
Donegal fairy stories which Mr. McClure discovered twenty-five years
ago. I think that the best of these stories are "The Mad Man, The Dead
Man, and the Devil," "Dark Patrick's Blood-horse," and "Donal
O'Donnell's Standing Army," but this is only a personal selection.
#The Clintons, and Others#, by _Archibald Marshall_ (Dodd, Mead and
Company). I believe that this is Mr. Marshall's first volume of short
stories, and they have a certain interest as a quiet chronicle of an old
social order which has gone never to return. The comparison of Mr.
Marshall's work with that of Anthony Trollope is as inevitable as it is
to the former's disadvantage. This volume shows honest, sincere
craftsmanship, and never rises nor falls below an average level of
mediocrity.
#The Man Who Understood Women#, and #While Paris Laughed#, by _Leonard
Merrick_ (E. P. Dutton and Company). These two volumes of the collected
edition of Mr. Merrick's novels and stories are of somewhat uneven
value. The best of them have a finish which is unsurpassed in its kind
by any of his English contemporaries, but there are many stories in the
first of these two volumes which are somewhat ephemeral. Mr. Locke in
his introduction to "The Man Who Understood Women" rather overstates Mr.
Merrick's case, but at his best these stories form an interesting
English parallel to the work of O. Henry. The second volume suffers the
fate of all sequels in endeavouring to revive after a lapse of years the
pranks and passions of the poet Tricotrin. The first five stories in the
volume, while they do not attain the excellence of "The Tragedy of a
Comic Song," are worthy stories in the same kind. The other seven
stories are frankly mawkish in content, although redeemed by Mr.
Merrick's excellent technique.
#Workhouse Characters#, by _Margaret Wynne Nevinson_ (The Macmillan
Company). This collection of newspaper sketches written during the past
fifteen years have no pretensions to art, and were written with a
frankly propagandist intention. The vividness of their portraiture and
the passion of their challenge to the existing social order warrant
their mention here, and I do not think they will be forgotten readily by
those who read them. This volume has attracted little comment in the
American press, and it would be a pity if it is permitted to go out of
print over here.
#The New Decameron#: Volume the First (Robert M. McBride & Co.). There is
more to be said for the idea which prompted these stories than for the
success with which the idea has been carried out. A group of tourists
seeking adventures on the Continent agree to beguile the tedium of the
journey by telling each other tales. Unfortunately the Nightingale does
not sing on, and the young Englishmen and women who have collaborated in
this volume have gone about their task in a frankly amateurish spirit.
The stories by W. F. Harvey and Sherard Vines attain a measured success,
and some mention may be made of M. Storm-Jameson's story, "Mother-love."
It is to be hoped that in future volumes of the series, the editor will
choose his contributors more carefully, and frankly abandon the
Decameron structure, which has been artificially imposed after the
stories were written.
#Wrack, and Other Stories#, by "_Dermot O'Byrne_" (Dublin: The Talbot
Press, Ltd.), #The Golden Barque, and the Weaver's Grave#, by _Seumas
O'Kelly_ (Dublin: The Talbot Press, Ltd.), and #Eight Short Stories#, by
_Lennox Robinson_ (Dublin: The Talbot Press, Ltd.). As these three
volumes are not published in America, I only mention them here in the
hope that this notice may reach a friendly publisher's eye. Up to a few
years ago poetry and drama were the only two creative forms of the Irish
Literary Revival. This tide has now ebbed, and is succeeded by an
equally significant tide of short story writers. The series of volumes
issued by the Talbot Press, of which those I have just named are the
most noteworthy, should be promptly introduced to the American public,
and I think that I can promise safely that they are the forerunners of a
most promising literature.
#The Old Card#, by _Roland Pertwee_ (Boni and Liveright, Inc.). This
series of twelve short stories depict the life of an English touring
actor with a quiet artistry of humor suggestive of Leonard Merrick's
best work. They are quite frankly studies in sentiment, but they
successfully avoid sentimentality for the most part, and in "Eliphalet
Cardomay" I feel that the author has created a definitely perceived
character.
#Old Junk#, by _H. M. Tomlinson_ (Alfred A. Knopf). It is not my function
here to point out that "Old Junk" is one of the best volumes of essays
published in recent years, but simply to direct attention to the fact
that it includes two short stories, "The Lascar's Walking-Stick" and
"The Extra Hand," which are fine studies in atmospheric values. I think
that the former should find a place in most future anthologies.
#By Violence#, by "_John Trevena_" (The Four Seas Company). Although John
Trevena's novels have found a small public in America, his short stories
are practically unknown. The present volume reprints three of them, of
which "By Violence" is the best. In fact, it is only surpassed by
"Matrimony" in its revelation of poetic grace and gentle vision. If the
feeling is veiled and somewhat aloof from the common ways of men, there
is none the less a fine human sympathy concealed in it. I like to think
that a new reading of earth may be deciphered from this text.
#Port Allington Stories#, by _R. E. Vernède_ (George H. Doran Company).
This volume of stories which is drawn from the late Lieutenant
Vernède's output during the past twelve years reveals a genuine talent
for the felicitous portrayal of social life in an English village, and
suggests that he might have gone rather far in stories of adventure.
"The Maze" is the best story in the volume, and makes it clear that a
brilliant short story writer was lost in France during the war.
#Holy Fire, and Other Stories#, by _Ida A. R. Wylie_ (John Lane Company).
I have called attention to many of these stories in previous years, but
now that they are reprinted as a group I must reaffirm my belief that
few among the younger English short story writers have such a command of
dramatic finality as Miss Wylie. It is true that these stories might
have been told with advantage in a more quiet tone. This would have made
the war stories more memorable, but perhaps the problem which the book
presents for solution is whether or no an instinctive dramatist is using
the wrong literary medium. Certainly in "Melia, No Good" her treatment
would have been less effective in a play than in a short story.
III. #Translations#
#When the King Loses His Head, and Other Stories#, by _Leonid Andreyev._
Translated by _Archibald J. Wolfe_ (International Book Publishing
Company), and #Modern Russian Classics.# Introduction by _Isaac Goldberg_
(The Four Seas Company). In previous years I have called attention to
other selections of Andreyev's stories. The present collection includes
the best from the other volumes, with some new material. "Judas
Iscariot" and "Lazarus" are the best of the prose poems. "Ben-Tobith,"
"The Marseillaise," and "Dies Iræ" are the most memorable of his very
short stories, while the volume also includes "When The King Loses His
Head," and a less-known novelette entitled "Life of Father Vassily." The
volume entitled "Modern Russian Classics" includes five short stories by
Andreyev, Sologub, Artzibashev, Chekhov, and Gorky.
#Prometheus: the Fall of the House of Limón: Sunday Sunlight: Poetic
Novels of Spanish Life#, by _Ramón Pérez de Ayala_, Prose translations by
_Alice P. Hubbard_: Poems done into English by _Grace Hazard Conkling_
(E. P. Dutton & Co.). Señor Pérez de Ayala has achieved in these three
stories what may be quite frankly regarded as a literary form. They do
not conform to a single rule of the short story as we have been taught
to know it. In fact, this is a pioneer book which opens up a new field.
The stories have no plot, no climax, no direct characterization, and at
first sight no plan. Presently it appears that the author's apparent
episodic treatment of his substance has a special unity of its own woven
around the spiritual relations of his heroes. It is hard to judge of an
author's style in translation, but the brilliant coloring of his
pictures is apparent from this English version. The nearest analogue in
English are the fantasies of Norman Douglas, but Pérez de Ayala has a
much more profoundly realized philosophy of life. The poems which serve
as interludes in these stories, curiously enough, add to the unity of
the action.
#The Last Lion, and Other Tales#, by _Vicente Blasco Ibáñez_, with an
Introduction by _Mariano Joaquin Lorente_ (The Four Seas Company). The
present vogue of Señor Blasco Ibáñez is more sentimental than justified,
but in "Luxury" he has written an admirable story, and the other five
stories have a certain distinction of coloring.
#The Bishop, and Other Stories#, and #The Chorus Girl, and Other Stories#,
by _Anton Chekhov_; translated from the Russian by _Constance Garnett_
(The Macmillan Company). I have called attention to previous volumes in
this edition of Chekhov from time to time. These two new additions to
the series carry the English version of the complete tales two-thirds of
the way toward completion. Chekhov is one of the three short story
writers of the world indispensable to every fellow craftsman, and these
nineteen stories are drawn for the most part from the later and more
mature period of his work.
#The Surprises of Life#, by _Georges Clémenceau_; translated by _Grace
Hall_ (Doubleday, Page & Company). Although this volume shows a gift of
crisp narrative and sharply etched portraiture, it is chiefly important
as a revelation of M. Clémenceau's state of mind. Had it been called to
the attention of Mr. Wilson before he went to Paris, the course of
international diplomacy might have been rather different. These
twenty-five stories and sketches one and all reveal a sneering
scepticism about human nature and an utter denial of moral values. From
a technical point of view, "The Adventure of My Curé" is a successful
story.
#Tales of My Native Town#, by _Gabriele D'Annunzio_; translated by _G.
Mantellini_, with an Introduction by _Joseph Hergesheimer_ (Doubleday,
Page & Company). This anthology drawn from various volumes of Signor
D'Annunzio's stories gives the American a fair bird's-eye view of the
various aspects of his work. These twelve portraits by the Turner of
corruption have a severe logic of their own which may pass for being
classical. As diploma pieces they are incomparable, but as renderings of
life they carry no sense of conviction. Mr. Hergesheimer's introduction
is a more or less unsuccessful special plea. While it is perfectly true
that the author has achieved what he set out to do, these stories
already seem old-fashioned, and as years go on will be read, if at all,
for their landscapes only.
#Military Servitude and Grandeur#, by _Alfred de Vigny_; translated by
_Frances Wilson Huard_ (George H. Doran Company). It is curious that
this volume should have waited so long for a translator. Alfred de Vigny
was an early nineteenth century forerunner of Barbusse and Duhamel, and
this record of the Napoleonic wars is curiously analogous to the books
of these later men. I call attention to it here because it includes
"Laurette," which is one of the great French short stories.
#An Honest Thief, and Other Stories#, by _Fyodor Dostoevsky_; translated
from the Russian by _Constance Garnett_ (The Macmillan Company). This is
the eleventh volume in the first collected English edition of
Dostoevsky's works. The great Russian novelist was not a consummate
technician when he wrote short stories, but the massive epic sweep of
his genius clothed the somewhat inorganic substance of his tales with a
reality which is masterly in the title story, in "An Unpleasant
Predicament," and in "Another Man's Wife." The volume includes among
other stories "The Dream of a Ridiculous Man," which, though little
known, is the key to the philosophy of his greater novels.
#Civilization#, 1914-1917, by _Georges Duhamel_; translated by _E. S.
Brooks_ (The Century Co.). This volume shares with Élie Faure's "La
Sainte Face" first place among the volumes of permanent literature
produced in France during the war. With more subtle and restrained
artistry than M. Barbusse, the author has portrayed the simple
chronicles of many of his comrades. He employs only the plainest
notation of speech, with an economy not unlike that of Maupassant, and
the indictment is the more terrible because of this emphasis of
understatement. Before the war, M. Duhamel was known as a competent and
somewhat promising poet and dramatist, and he was one of the few to whom
the war brought an ampler endowment rather than a numbing silence.
#Czecho-Slovak Stories#, translation by _Ŝárka B. Hrbkova_ (Duffield
and Company). I trust that this volume will prove a point of departure
for a series of books each devoted to the work of a separate
Czecho-Slovak master. Certainly the work of Jan Neruda, Svatopluk
Čech, and Caroline SvĚtlá, to name no others, ranks with the best
of the Russian masters, and the reader is compelled to speculate as to
how many more equally fine writers remain unknown to him. For such
stories as these can only come out of a long and conscious tradition of
art, and the greater part of these stories are drawn from volumes
published during the last half century. The volume contains an admirable
historical and critical introduction, and adequate biographies and
bibliographies of the authors included.
#Serenus, and Other Stories of the Past and Present#, by _Jules Lemaître_;
translated by "_Penguin_" (_A. W. Evans_) (London: Selwyn & Blount).
Although this volume has not yet been published in the United States, it
is one of the few memorable short story books of the season, and should
readily find a publisher over here. Anatole France has prophesied that
it will stand out in the history of the thought of the nineteenth
century, just as to-day "Candide" or "Zadig" stands out in that of the
eighteenth. These fourteen stories are selected from about four times
that number, and a complete Lemaître would be as valuable in English as
the new translation of Anatole France. The present version is
faultlessly rendered by an English stylist who has sought to set down
the exact shade of the critic's meaning.
#Tales of Mystery and Horror#, by _Maurice Level_; translated from the
French by _Alys Eyre Macklin_, with an Introduction by _Henry B. Irving_
(Robert M. McBride & Co.). Mr. Irving's introduction rather overstates
M. Level's case. These stories are not literature, but their hard
polished technique is as competent as that of Melville Davisson Post,
and I suppose that these two men have carried Poe's technique as far as
it can be carried with talent. The stories are frankly melodramatic, and
wring the last drop of emotion and sentiment out of each situation
presented. I think the volume will prove valuable to students of short
story construction, and there is no story which does not arrest the
attention of the reader.
#The Story of Gotton Connixloo#, followed by #Forgotten#, by _Camille
Mayran_; translated by _Van Wyck Brooks_ (E.P. Dutton & Company). Mr.
Brooks' translation of these two stories in the tradition of Flaubert
have been a labor of love. They will not attract a large public, but the
art of this Belgian writer is flawless, and worthy of his master. Out of
the simplest material he has extracted an exquisite spiritual essence,
and held it up quietly so as to reflect every aspect of its value. If
the first of these two stories is the most completely rounded from a
technical point of view, I think that the second points the way toward
his future development. He presents his characters more directly, and
achieves his revelation through dialogue rather than personal statement.
#Short Stories from the Spanish#; Englished by _Charles B. McMichael_
(Boni and Liveright, Inc.). The present volume contains seven short
stories by Rubén Dario, Jacinto Octavio Picón, and Leopoldo Alas. They
are wretchedly translated, but even in their present form one can divine
the art of "The Death of the Empress of China" by the Nicaraguan Rubén
Dario, and "After the Battle" by the Spaniard Jacinto Octavio Picón. The
other stories are of unequal value, so far as we can judge from Mr.
McMichael's translation.
#The Fairy Spinning Wheel, and the Tales It Spun#, by _Catulle Mendès_;
translated by _Thomas J. Vivian_ (The Four Seas Company). It was a happy
thought to reprint this translation of M. Mendès' fairy tales which has
been out of print for many years. It is probably the only work of its
once renowned author which survives the passage of time. Here he has
entered the child's mind and deftly presented a series of legends which
suggest more than they state. Their substance is slight enough, but each
has a certain symbolic value, and the poetry of M. Mendès' style has
been successfully transferred to the English version.
#Temptations#, by _David Pinski_; translated by _Isaac Goldberg_
(Brentano's). We have already come to know what a keen analyst America
has in Mr. Pinski from the translations of his plays which have been
published. Here he is much less interested in the surface movement of
plot than in the relentless search for motive. To his Yiddish public he
seems perhaps the best of short story writers who write in his tongue,
and certainly he can hold his own with the best of his contemporaries in
all countries. He has the universal note as few English writers may
claim it, and he stands apart from his creation with absolute
detachment. His work, together with that of Asch, Aleichem, Perez, and
one or two others establishes Yiddish as a great literary tongue. A
further series of these tales are promised if the present volume meets
with the response which it deserves.
#Russian Short Stories#, edited by _Harry C. Schweikert_ (Scott, Foresman
and Company). This is a companion volume to Mr. Schweikert's excellent
collection of French short stories, and ranges over a wide field. From
Pushkin to Kuprin his selection gives a fair view of most of the Russian
masters, and the collection includes a valuable historical and critical
introduction, with biographical notes, and a critical apparatus for the
student of short story technique. It is of special educational
importance as the only volume in the field. In the next edition I
suggest that Sologub should be represented for the sake of completeness.
#Iolanthe's Wedding#, by _Hermann Sudermann_; translated by _Adèle S.
Seltzer_ (Boni and Liveright, Inc.). This collection of four minor works
by Sudermann contains two excellent stories, one of which is full of
folk quality and a kindly irony, and the other more akin to the nervous
art of Arthur Schnitzler. "The Woman Who Was His Friend" and "The
Gooseherd" are less important, but of considerable technical interest.
#Short Stories from the Balkans#; translated by _Edna Worthley Underwood_
(Marshall Jones Company). This volume should be set beside the
collection of "Czecho-Slovak Stories," which I have mentioned on an
earlier page. Here will be found further stories by Jan Neruda and
Svatopluk Čech, together with a remarkable group of stories by
Rumanian, Serbian, Croatian, and Hungarian authors. Neruda emerges as
the greatest artist of them all, and one of the greatest artists in
Europe, but special attention should be called also to the Czech writer
Vrchlický, the Rumanian Caragiale, and the Hungarian Mikszáth. The
translation seems competently done.
#Modern Greek Stories#; translated by _Demetra Vaka_ and _Aristides
Phoutrides_ (Duffield and Company). While this collection reveals no
such undoubted master as Jan Neruda, it is an extremely interesting
introduction to an equally unknown literature. Seven of the nine stories
are of great literary value, and perhaps the best of these is "Sea" by
A. Karkavitsas. Romaic fiction still bears the marks of a young
tradition, and each new writer would seem to be compelled to strike out
more or less completely for himself. Consequently it is necessary to
allow more than usual for technical inadequacy, but the substance of
most of these stories is sufficiently remarkable to justify us in
wishing a further introduction to Romaic literature.
VOLUMES OF SHORT STORIES PUBLISHED IN THE UNITED STATES
OCTOBER, 1919, TO SEPTEMBER, 1920: AN INDEX
#Note.# _An asterisk before a title indicates distinction. This list
includes single short stories, collections of short stories, and a few
continuous narratives based on short stories previously published in
magazines. Volumes announced for publication in the autumn of 1920 are
listed here, though in some cases they had not yet appeared at the time
this book went to press._
I. #American Authors#
#Abdullah, Achmed.# *Wings. McCann.
#Abdullah, Achmed#, _and others._ Ten Foot Chain. Reynolds.
#Ade, George.# Home Made Fables. Doubleday, Page.
#Anderson, Emma Maria Thompson.# A 'Chu. Review and Herald Pub. Assn.
#Anderson, Robert Gordon.# Seven O'clock Stories. Putnam.
#Barbour, Ralph Henry.# Play That Won. Appleton.
#Benneville, James Seguin De.# Tales of the Tokugawa. Reilly.
#Bishop, William Henry.# Anti-Babel. Neale.
#Boyer, Wilbur S.# Johnnie Kelly. Houghton Mifflin.
#Bridges, Victor.# Cruise of the "Scandal." Putnam.
#Brown, Alice.# *Homespun and Gold. Macmillan.
#Butler, Ellis Parker.# Swatty. Houghton Mifflin.
#Carroll, P. J.# Memory Sketches. School Plays Pub. Co.
#Cather, Willa Sibert.# *Youth and the Bright Medusa. Knopf.
#Chambers, Robert W.# Slayer of Souls. Doran.
#Cohen, Octavus Roy.# Come Seven. Dodd, Mead.
#Comfort, Will Levington#, and #Dost, Zamin Ki.# Son of Power. Doubleday,
Page.
#Connolly, James B.# *Hiker Joy. Scribner.
"#Crabb, Arthur.#" Samuel Lyle, Criminologist. Century Co.
#Cram, Mildred.# Lotus Salad. Dodd, Mead.
#Cutting, Mary Stewart.# Some of Us Are Married. Doubleday, Page.
#Davies, Ellen Chivers.# Ward Tales. Lane.
#Deland, Margaret.# *Small Things. Harper.
#Dickson, Harris.# Old Reliable in Africa. Stokes.
#Dodge, Henry Irving.# Skinner Makes It Fashionable. Harper.
#Dost, Zami Ki.# _See_ Comfort, Will Levington and Dost, Zamin Ki.
#Dwight, H. G.# *Emperor of Elam. Doubleday, Page.
#Edgar, Randolph#, _editor._ *Miller's Holiday: Short Stories from The
Northwestern Miller. Miller Pub. Co.
#Ferber, Edna.# *Half Portions. Doubleday, Page.
#Fillmore, Parker.# *Shoemaker's Apron. Harcourt, Brace and Howe.
#Fitzgerald, Francis Scott Key.# Flappers and Philosophers. Scribner.
#Ford, Sewell.# Meet 'Em with Shorty McCabe. Clode.
Torchy and Vee. Clode.
Torchy as a Pa. Clode.
#French, Joseph Lewis#, _editor._ *Best Psychic Stories. Boni and
Liveright.
*Masterpieces of Mystery. 4 vol. Doubleday, Page.
#Gittins, H. N.# Short and Sweet. Lane.
#Graham, James C.# It Happened at Andover. Houghton Mifflin.
#Hall, Herschel S.# Steel Preferred. Dutton.
#Haslett, Harriet Holmes.# Impulses. Cornhill Co.
#Heydrick, Benjamin#, _editor._ *Americans All. Harcourt, Brace, and
Howe.
#Hill, Frederick Trevor.# Tales Out of Court. Stokes.
#Howells, William Dean#, _editor._ *Great Modern American Stories. Boni and
Liveright.
#Hughes, Jennie V.# Chinese Heart-Throbs. Revell.
#Hughes, Rupert.# *Momma, and Other Unimportant People. Harper.
#Huneker, James.# *Bedouins. Scribner.
#Imrie, Walter McLaren.# *Legends. Midland Press.
#Irwin, Wallace.# Suffering Husbands. Doran.
#James, Henry.# *Master Eustace. Seltzer.
#Jessup, Alexander#, _editor._ *Best American Humorous Short Stories. Boni
and Liveright.
#Johnson, Arthur.# *Under the Rose. Harper.
#Kelley, F. C.# City and the World. Extension Press.
#Lamprey, L.# Masters of the Guild. Stokes.
#Leacock, Stephen.# Winsome Winnie. Lane.
#Linderman, Frank Bird.# *On a Passing Frontier. Scribner.
#Linton, C. E.# Earthomotor. Privately Printed.
#McCarter, Margaret Hill.# Paying Mother. Harper.
#Mackay, Helen.# *Chill Hours. Duffield.
#MacManus, Seumas.# *Top o' the Mornin'. Stokes.
#McSpadden, J. Walker#, _editor._ Famous Detective Stories. Crowell.
Famous Psychic Stories. Crowell.
#Martin, George Madden.# *Children in the Mist. Appleton.
#Means, E. K.# *Further E. K. Means. Putnam.
#Miller, Warren H.# Sea Fighters. Macmillan.
#Montague, Margaret Prescott.# *England to America. Doubleday, Page.
*Uncle Sam of Freedom Ridge. Doubleday, Page.
#Montgomery, L. M.# Further Chronicles of Avonlea. Page.
#Morgan, Byron.# Roaring Road. Doran.
#O'Brien, Edward J.# Best Short Stories of 1919. Small, Maynard.
#Paine, Ralph D.# Ships Across the Sea. Houghton Mifflin.
#Perry, Lawrence.# For the Game's Sake. Scribner.
#Pitman, Norman Hinsdale.# Chinese Wonder Book. Dutton.
#Poe, Edgar Allan.# *Gold-bug. Four Seas.
#Post, Melville Davisson.# *Sleuth of St. James's Square. Appleton.
#Rhodes, Harrison.# *High Life. McBride.
#Rice, Alice Hegan#, and #Rice, Cale Young.# Turn About Tales. Century Co.
#Richards, Clarice E.# Tenderfoot Bride. Revell.
#Richmond, Grace S.# Bells of St. John's. Doubleday, Page.
#Rinehart, Mary Roberts.# Affinities. Doran.
#Robbins, Tod.# *Silent, White, and Beautiful. Boni and Liveright.
#Robinson, William Henry.# Witchery of Rita. Berryhill Co.
#Sedgwick, Anne Douglas.# *Christmas Roses. Houghton Mifflin.
#Smith, Gordon Arthur.# *Pagan. Scribner.
#Society of Arts and Sciences.# *O. Henry Memorial Prize Stories, 1919.
Doubleday, Page.
#Spofford, Harriet Prescott.# *Elder's People. Houghton Mifflin.
#Train, Arthur.# Tutt and Mr. Tutt. Scribner.
#Vorse, Mary Heaton.# *Ninth Man. Harper.
#Whalen, Louise Margaret.# Father Ladden, Curate. Magnificat Pub. Co.
#White, Stewart Edward.# Killer. Doubleday, Page.
#Widdemer, Margaret.# Boardwalk. Harcourt, Brace, and Howe.
#Wiggin, Kate Douglas.# *Homespun Tales. Houghton Mifflin.
#Wiley, Hugh.# Wildcat. Doran.
#Yezierska, Anzia.# *Hungry Hearts. Houghton Mifflin.
II. #English and Irish Authors#
#Baxter, Arthur Beverley.# Blower of Bubbles. Appleton.
#Beerbohm, Max.# *Seven Men. Knopf.
#Cannan, Gilbert.# *Windmills. Huebsch.
"#Dehan, Richard.#" (#Clotilde Graves#). Eve of Pascua. Doran.
#Dell, Ethel May.# Tidal Wave. Putnam.
#Dunsany, Lord.# *Tales of Three Hemispheres. Luce.
#Easton, Dorothy.# *Golden Bird. Knopf.
#Evans, Caradoc.# *My Neighbors. Harcourt, Brace, & Howe.
#Galsworthy, John.# *Tatterdemalion. Scribner.
#Graves, Clotilde.# _See_ "Dehan, Richard."
#Grogan, Gerald.# William Pollok. Lane.
#Hardy, Thomas.# *Two Wessex Tales. Four Seas.
#Hichens, Robert.# Snake-bite. Doran.
#Hutten, Baroness Von.# _See_ Von Hutten, Baroness.
#Huxley, Aldous.# *Limbo. Doran.
#James, Montague Rhodes.# *Thin Ghost. Longmans.
#Jeffery, Jeffery E.# Side Issues. Seltzer.
#Kipling, Rudyard.# *Man Who Would Be King. Four Seas.
#Lipscomb, W. P.# Staff Tales. Dutton.
#New Decameron: Second Day.# McBride.
#O'Kelly, Seumas.# *Golden Barque, and the Weaves's Grave. Putnam.
"#Ross, Martin.#" _See_ "Somerville, E. Œ.," and "Ross, Martin."
#Sabatini, Rafael.# Historical Nights' Entertainment, Second Series.
Lippincott.
"#Somerville, E. Œ.#," _and_ "#Ross, Martin#," Stray-Aways. Longmans,
Green.
"#Trevena, John.#" *By Violence. Four Seas.
#Vernède, R. E.# Port Allington Stories. Doran.
#Von Hutten, Baroness.# Helping Hersey. Doran.
#Wylie, Ida Alena Ross.# *Holy Fire. Lane.
III. #Translations#
"#Aleichem, Shalom.#" _(Yiddish.)_ *Jewish Children. Knopf.
#Andreiev, Leonid.# _(Russian.)_ *When the King Loses His Head.
International Bk. Pub.
#Andreiev, Leonid#, _and others._ (_Russian._) *Modern Russian Classics.
Four Seas.
#Annunzio, Gabriele D'.# _(Italian.)_ *Tales of My Native Town.
Doubleday, Page.
#Blasco Ibáñez, Vicente.# _(Spanish.)_ *Last Lion. Four Seas.
#Brown, Demetra Vaka#, and #Phoutrides, Aristides#, _trs._ (_Modern
Greek._) *Modern Greek Stories. Duffield.
#Chekhov, Anton.# _(Russian.)_ *Chorus Girl. Macmillan.
#Clémenceau, Georges.# _(French.)_ *Surprises of Life. Doubleday, Page.
#Coster, Charles de.# _(French.)_ *Flemish Legends. Stokes.
#Dostoevsky, Fedor Mikhailovich.# _(Russian.)_ *Honest Thief. Macmillan.
#Friedlander, Gerald#, _ed. and tr._ (_Hebrew._) Jewish Fairy Tales and
Stories. Dutton.
#Hrbkova, Sarka B.#, _editor._ (_Czecho-Slovak._) *Czecho-Slovak Stories.
Dutton.
#Jacobsen, Jens Peter.# _(Danish.)_ *Mogens. Brown.
#Level, Maurice.# _(French.)_ *Tales of Mystery and Horror. McBride.
#McMichael, Charles B.#, _translator._ (_Spanish._) *Short Stories from
the Spanish. Boni & Liveright.
#Maupassant, Guy de.# _(French.)_ *Mademoiselle Fifi. Four Seas.
#Mayran, Camille.# _(French.)_ *Story of Gotton Connixloo. Dutton.
#Pérez de Ayala, Ramón.# _(Spanish.)_ *Prometheus. Dutton.
#Ragozin, Z. A.#, _editor._ (_Russian._) *Little Russian Masterpieces.
4 vol. Putnam.
VOLUMES OF SHORT STORIES PUBLISHED IN ENGLAND AND IRELAND ONLY
I. #English and Irish#
#Andrew, Emily.# Happiness in the Valley. Charles Joscelyn.
#Barr, Robert.# Helping Hand. Mills and Boon.
Tales of Two Continents. Mills and Boon.
#Beerbohm, Max.# *And Even Now. Heinemann.
#Calthrop, Dion Clayton.# *Bit at a Time. Mills and Boon.
#Cole, Sophie.# Variety Entertainment. Mills and Boon.
#Conyers, Dorothea.# Irish Stew. Skeffington.
#Cross, Victoria.# Daughters of Heaven. Laurie.
#Drury, W. P.# All the King's Men. Chapman and Hall.
#Evans, C. S.# Nash and Some Others. Heinemann.
#Everard, Mrs. H. D.# Death Mask. Philip Allan.
#Forster, E. M.# *Story of the Siren. Hogarth Press.
#Frampton, Mary.# Forty Years On. Arrowsmith.
#Garvice, Charles.# Girl at the "Bacca" Shop. Skeffington.
#Gaunt, Mary.# Surrender, Laurie.
#Gibbon, Perceval.# *Those Who Smiled. Cassell.
#Green, Peter.# Our Kid. Arnold.
#Grimshaw, Beatrice.# Coral Palace. Mills and Boon.
#Harvey, William Fryer.# Misadventures of Athelstan Digby.
Swarthmore Press.
#Howard, F. Moreton.# Happy Rascals. Methuen.
#Key, Uel.# Broken Fang. Hodder and Stoughton.
#Knowlson, T. Sharper.# Man Who Would Not Grow Old. Laurie.
#Leo, T. O. D. C.# Two Feasts of St. Agnes. Morland.
#Le Queux, William.# Mysteries of a Great City. Hodder and Stoughton.
#McGuffin, William.# Australian Tales of the Border. Lothian Book Pub. Co.
#Mansfield, Katherine.# *Je Ne Parle Pas Français. Heron Press.
*Prelude. Hogarth Press.
#Mayne, Ethel Colburn.# *Blindman. Chapman and Hall.
#Mordaunt, Elinor.# *Old Wine in New Bottles. Hutchinson.
#Muir, Ward.# Adventures in Marriage. Simpkin, Marshall.
#Newham, C. E.# Gippo. W. P. Spalding.
#Newman, F. J.# Romance and Law in the Divorce Court. Melrose.
#O'Kelly, Seumas.# *Leprechaun of Killmeen. Martin Lester.
#Palmer, Arnold.# *My Profitable Friends. Selwyn and Blount.
#Paterson, A. B.# Three Elephant Power. Australian Book Co.
#Riley, W.# Yorkshire Suburb. Jenkins.
#Robins, Elizabeth.# Mills of the Gods. Butterworth.
#Robinson, Lennox.# *Eight Short Stories. Talbot Press.
"#Sea-Pup.#" Musings of a Martian. Heath Cranton.
#Shorter, Dora Sigerson.# *Dull Day in London. Nash.
#Smith, Logan Pearsall.# *Stories from the Old Testament.
Hogarth Press.
#Stein, Gertrude.# *Three Lives. Lane.
#Stock, Ralph.# Beach Combings. Pearson.
#Taylor, Joshua.# Lure of the Links. Heath Cranton.
#Warrener, Marcus and Violet.# House of Transformations.
Epworth Press.
#Wicksteed, Hilda.# Titch. Swarthmore Press.
#Wilderhope, John.# Arch Fear. Murray and Evenden.
#Wildridge, Oswald.# *Clipper Folk. Blackwood.
#Woolf, Virginia.# *Mark on the Wall. Hogarth Press.
II. #Translations#
#Chekhov, Anton.# _(Russian.)_ *My Life. Daniel.
#Kuprin, Alexander.# _(Russian.)_ *Sasha. Paul.
#Lemaître, Jules.# _(French.)_ *Serenus. Selwyn and Blount.
VOLUMES OF SHORT STORIES PUBLISHED IN FRANCE
#Ageorges, Joseph.# Contes sereins. Figuière.
#Arcos, René.# *Bien commun. Le Sablier.
#Boylesve, René.# *Nymphes dansant avec des satyres. Calmann-Lévy.
"#Farrĕre, Claude.#" Dernière déesse. Flammarion.
#Geffroy, Gustave.# Nouveaux contes du pays d'Quest. Crès.
#Géniaux, Charles.# Mes voisins de campagne. Flammarion.
#Ginisty, Paul.# *Terreur. Société anonyme d'édition.
#Herold, A. Ferdinand.# *Guirlande d'Aphrodite. Edition d'Art.
#Hesse, Raymond.# Bouzigny! Payot.
#Hirsch, Charles-Henry.# Craquement. Flammarion.
Lautrec, Gabriel de. Histoires de Tom Joé. Edition française
illustrée.
#Le Glay, Maurice.# Récits marocains. Berger-Levrault.
#Machard, Alfred.# *Cent Gosses. Flammarion.
*Syndicat des fessés. Ferenczi.
#Marie, Jacques.# Sous l'armure. Jouve.
#Mille, Pierre.# *Nuit d'amour sur la montagne. Flammarion.
*Trois femmes. Calmann-Lévy.
#Pillon, Marcel.# Contes à ma cousine. Figuière.
#Pottecher, Maurice.# Joyeux Contes de la Cicogne d'Alsace.
Ollendorff.
"#Rachilde.#" *Découverte de l'Amérique. Kundig.
#Régnier, Henri de.# *Histories incertaines. Mercure de France.
#Rhaïs, Elissa.# *Café chantant. Plon.
#Rochefoucauld, Gabriel de la.# *Mari Calomnié. Plon-Nourrit.
#Russo, Luigi Libero.# Contes à la cigogne. 2e série. Messein.
#Sarcey, Yvonne.# Pour vivre heureux.
#Sutton, Maurice.# Contes retrouvés. Edit. Formosa. Bruxelles.
#Tisserand, Ernest.# Contes de la popote. Crès.
#Villiers de l'Isle-Adam.# *Nouveaux Contes Cruels. Crès.
ARTICLES ON THE SHORT STORY
OCTOBER, 1919, TO SEPTEMBER, 1920
_The following abbreviations are used in this index_:--
_Ath._ Athenæum
_B. E. T._ Boston Evening Transcript
_Book (London)_ Bookman (London)
_Book (N. Y.)_ Bookman (New York)
_Cath. W._ Catholic World
_Chap._ Monthly Chapbook
_Cont. R._ Contemporary Review
_Edin. R._ Edinburgh Review
_Eng. R._ English Review
_Fortn. R._ Fortnightly Review
_Harp. M._ Harper's Magazine
_L. H. J._ Ladies' Home Journal
_Lib._ Liberator
_Liv. Age._ Living Age
_Lit. R._ Little Review
_L. Merc._ London Mercury
_M. de F._ Mercure de France
_Mir._ Reedy's Mirror
_Mun._ Munsey's Magazine
_Nat. (London)_ Nation (London)
_N. Rep._ New Republic
_New S._ New Statesman
_19th Cent._ Nineteenth Century and After
_N. R. F._ Nouvelle Revue Française
_Peop._ People's Favorite Magazine
_Quart. R._ Quarterly Review
_R. de D. M._ Revue des Deux Mondes
_Sat. R._ Saturday Review
_Strat. J._ Stratford Journal
_Times Lit. Suppl._ Times Literary Supplement
_Touch._ Touchstone (London)
_Yale R._ Yale Review
Abdullah, Achmed.
By Rebecca West. New S. May 8. (15:137.)
"Aleichem, Shalom."
Anonymous. New S. Mar. 13. (14:682.)
#Alexander, Grace.#
Thomas Hardy. N. Rep. Aug. 18. (23:335.)
#Alvord, James Church.#
Typical American Short Story. Yale R. Apr. (9:650.)
American Short Story.
By James Church Alvord. Yale R. Apr. (9:650.)
Andreyev, Leonid.
By Eugene M. Kayden. Dial. Nov. 15, '19. (67:425.)
By Moissaye J. Olgin. N. Rep. Dec. 24, '19. (21:123.)
By A. Sokoloff. New S. Nov. 15, '19. (14:190.)
Annunzio, Gabriele d'.
By Joseph Collins. Scr. Sept. (68:304.)
By Rebecca West. New S. June 5, (15:253.)
N. Rep. June 30. (23:155.)
Anonymous.
Buying $2,000,000 Worth of Fiction. Peop. Oct., '19. (12.)
Apuleius.
By Lord Ernle. Quart. R. Jul. (234:41.)
Arcos, René.
Anonymous. Times Lit. Suppl. Jan. 22. (19:48.)
#Bailey, John.#
Henry James. London Observer. Apr. 25.
Balkan Short Stories.
By Kate Buss. B. E. T. Oct. 18, '19. (pt. 3, p. 9.)
Balzac, Honoré de.
By Princess Catherine Radziwill. Book. (N. Y.) Aug. (51:639.)
By Sir Frederick Wedmore. 19th Cent. Mar. (87:484.)
By M. P. Willcocks. Nation. (London.) Mar. 20. (26:864) and Mar. 27.
Barnes, J. S.
Contemporary Italian Short Stories. New Europe. Nov. 27, '19. (13:214.)
Beaubourg, Maurice.
By Legrand-Chabrier. M. de F. 15 août. (142:5.)
#Beaunier, André.#
Pierre Mille. R. de D. M. 1 juillet. (6 sér. 58:191.)
Beerbohm, Max.
Anonymous. Nation. (London.) Nov. 22, '19. (26:272.)
By Bohun Lynch. L. Merc. June. (2:168.)
By S. W. Ath. Nov. 14, '19. (1186.)
#Bent, Silas.#
Henry James. Mir. June 3. (29:448.) June 24. (29:510.)
Beyle, Henri. _See_ "Stendhal."
Blackwood, Algernon.
By Henriette Reeves. Touch. May. (7:147.)
#Bourget, Paul.#
Prosper Mérimée. R. de D. M. 15 Sept. (59:257.)
Bourget, Paul.
Anonymous. Times Lit. Suppl. Sept. 30. (19:634.)
By R. Le Clerc Phillips. Book. (N. Y.) June. (51:448.)
#Braithwaite, William Stanley.#
American Short Story. B. E. T. Mar. 27. (pt. 3. p. 10.)
#Brooks, Van Wyck.#
Mark Twain. Dial. Mar. Nat. Apr. (68:275, 424.)
#Buss, Kate.#
Balkan Short Stories. B. E. T. Oct. 18, '19. (pt. 3. p. 9.)
#Cabell, James Branch.#
Joseph Hergesheimer. Book. (N. Y.) Nov.-Dec., '19. (50:267.)
#Calthrop, Dion Clayton.#
O. Henry. London Observer. May 2.
#Chekhov, Anton.#
Diary. Ath. Apr. 2. (460.)
Letters. XII. Ath. Oct. 24, '19. (1078.)
XIII. Ath. Oct. 31, '19. (1135.)
Chekhov, Anton.
Anonymous. Ath. Jan. 23, Feb. 6. ('20:1:124, 191.)
Anonymous. Times Lit. Suppl. Feb. 12, Jul. 15. (19:103, 455.)
By Edmund Gosse. London Sunday Times. Mar. 14.
By Robert Morss Lovett. Dial. May. (68:626.)
By Robert Lynd. London Daily News. Feb. 11.
By Robert Lynd. Nation (London.) Feb. 28. (26:742.)
By J. Middleton Murry. Ath. Mar. 5. ('20:1:299.)
By Robert Nichols. London Observer. Mar. 7.
By Charles K. Trueblood. Dial. Feb. (68:253.)
#Chew, Samuel C.#
Thomas Hardy. N. Rep. June 2. (23:22.)
#Child, Harold.#
Thomas Hardy. Book. (London.) June. (58:101.)
Clemens, Samuel L. _See_ "Twain, Mark."
#Collins, Joseph.#
Alfredo Panzini and Luigi Pirandello. Book. (N. Y.) June. (51:410.)
Giovanni Papini. Book. (N. Y.) (51:160.)
Gabriele D'Annunzio. Scr. Sept. (68:304.)
#Colvin, Sir Sidney.#
Robert Louis Stevenson. Scr. Mar. (67:338.)
#Conrad, Joseph.#
Stephen Crane. Book. (N. Y.) Feb. (50:528.) L. Merc. Dec., '19.
(1:192.)
Conrad, Joseph.
By Stephen Gwynn. Edin. R. Apr. (231:318.)
By Ford Madox Hueffer. Eng. R. Jul.-Aug. (31:5, 107.)
Dial. Jul.-Aug. (69:52, 132.)
By R. Ellis Roberts. Book. (London.) Aug. (58:160.)
By Gilbert Seldes. Dial. Aug. (69:191.)
Coppée, François.
By Joseph J. Reilly. Cath. W. (111:614.)
#Cor, Raphael.#
Charles Dickens. M. de F. 1 juillet. (141:82.)
Corthis, André.
Anonymous. Rev. de D. M. 15 juin. (6 sér. 57:816.)
#Coulon, Marcel.#
Rachilde. M. de F. 15 sept. (142:545.)
Couperus, Louis.
By J. L. Walch. Ath. Oct. 31, '19. (1133.)
Crane, Stephen.
By Joseph Conrad. Book. (N. Y.) Feb. (50:529.) L. Merc. Dec., '19.
(1:192.)
Cunninghame Grahame, R. B. _See_ Grahame, R. B. Cunninghame.
D'Annunzio, Gabriele. _See_ Annunzio, Gabriele d'.
#Deffoux, Léon#, _and_ #Zavie, Émile.#
Editions Kistemaekers et le "Naturalisme." M. de F. 16 oct., '19.
(135:639.)
Émile Zola. M. de F. 15 fév. (138:68.)
#Dell, Floyd.#
Mark Twain. Lib. Aug. (26.)
#Dewey, John.#
Americanism and Localism. Dial. June. (68:684.)
Dickens, Charles.
By Raphael Cor. M. de F. 1 juillet. (141:82.)
Dobie, Charles Caldwell.
By Joe Whitnah. San Francisco Bulletin. Jan. 3.
Dostoevsky, Fyodor.
Anonymous. Times Lit. Suppl. Sept. 23. (19:612.)
By E. M. Forster. London Daily News. Nov. 11, '19.
By Charles K. Trueblood. Dial. June. (68:774.)
Doyle, A. Conan.
By Beverly Stark. Book. (N. Y.) Jul. (51:579.)
Duhamel, Georges.
By Henry J. Smith. Chicago Daily News. Dec. 3, '19.
Dunsany, Lord.
Anonymous. Times Lit. Suppl. Dec. 11, '19. (18:737.) July 8. (19:437.)
By Clayton Hamilton. Book. (N. Y.) Feb. (50:537.)
By Norreys Jephson O'Conor. B. E. T. Oct. 22, '19. (pt. 3. p. 2.)
By Gilbert Seldes. B. E. T. Oct. 15, '19. (pt. 2. p. 4.)
By F. W. Stokoe. Ath. Aug. 13. ('20:2:202.)
By Marguerite Wilkinson. Touch. Dec., '19. (6:111.)
#Dyer, Walter A.#
Short Story Orgy. Book. (N. Y.) Apr. (51:217.)
#Edgett, Edwin F.#
O. Henry. B. E. T. Oct. 15, '19. (pt. 3. p. 4.)
W. W. Jacobs. B. E. T. Oct. 18, '19. (pt. 3. p. 10.)
Henry James. B. E. T. Apr. 10.
W.B. Maxwell. B. E. T. Nov. 22, '19. (pt. 3. p. 8.)
#Egan, Maurice Francis.#
Henry James. Cath. W. June. (111:289.)
"Eliot, George."
By H. C. Minchin. Fortn. R. Dec., '19. (112:896.)
By Edward A. Parry. Fortn. R. Dec., '19. (112:883.)
By Thomas Seccombe. Cont. R. Dec., '19. (116:660.)
#Enoch, Helen.#
W. J. Locke. Cont. R. June. (117:855.)
#Ernle, Lord.#
Apuleius. Quart. R. Jul. (234:41.)
#Erskine, John.#
William Dean Howells. Book. (N. Y.) June. (51:385.)
#Evans, C.S.#
W. H. Hudson. Book. (N. Y.) Sept. (52:18.)
#Ferber, Edna.#
By Rebecca West. New S. Apr. 3. (14:771.)
#Finger, Charles J.#
Hudson and Grahame. Mir. Nov. 27, '19. (28:836.)
Flaubert, Gustave.
By Marcel Proust. N. R. F. Jan. (14:72.)
By George Saintsbury. Ath. Oct. 3, '19. (983.)
By Albert Thibaudet. N. R. F. Nov., 19. (13:942.)
#Forster, E. M.#
Fyodor Dostoevsky. London Daily News. Nov. 11, '19.
Forster, E. M.
By Katherine Mansfield. Ath. Aug. 13. ('20:2:209.)
By Rebecca West. New S. Aug. 28. (15:576.)
Fox, John.
By Thomas Nelson Page. Scr. Dec., '19. (66:674.)
Gale, Zona.
By Constance Mayfield Rourke. N. Rep. Aug. 11. (23:315.)
#George, W. L.#
Joseph Hergesheimer. Book. (London.) Sept. (58:193.)
Giraudoux, Jean.
Anonymous. Times Lit. Suppl. Jul. 22. (19:470.)
By Albert Thibaudet. N. R. F. Dec., '19. (13:1064.)
#Goldberg, Isaac.#
Hungarian Short Stories. B. E. T. Oct. 8, '19. (pt.3. p.4.)
Ercole Luigi Morselli. Book. (N. Y.) Jul. (51:557.)
Amado Nervo. Strat. J. Jan.-Mar. (6:3.)
Spanish-American Short Stories. Book. (N. Y.) Feb. (50:565.)
#Gorky, Maxim.#
Reminiscences of Tolstoi. L. Merc. Jul. (2:304.)
Gorky, Maxim.
Anonymous. Times Lit. Suppl. Jul. 15. (19:453.)
By S. Koteliansky. Ath. Apr. 30. ('20:1:587.)
By J. W. N. S. Ath. Jul. 16. ('20:2:77.)
#Gosse, Edmund.#
Anton Chekhov. London Sunday Times. Mar. 14.
Henry James. L. Merc. Apr.-May. (1:673, 2:29.)
Scr. Apr.-May. (67:422, 548.)
Gozzano, Guido.
Anonymous. Times Lit. Suppl. Jul. 15. (19:450.)
Grahame, R. B. Cunninghame.
By Charles J. Finger. Mir. Nov. 27, '19. (28:836.)
#Gwynn, Stephen.#
Joseph Conrad. Edin. R. Apr. (231:318.)
#Hamilton, Clayton.#
Lord Dunsany. Book. (N. Y.) Feb. (50:537.)
Hardy, Thomas.
By Grace Alexander. N. Rep. Aug. 18. (23:335.)
By Samuel C. Chew. N. Rep. June 2. (23:22.)
By Harold Child. Book. (London.) June. (58:101)
By W. M. Parker, 19th Cent. Jul. (88: 63.)
By Arthur Symons. Dial. Jan. (68:66.)
Harte, Bret.
By Agnes Day Robinson. Book. (N. Y.) June. (51:445.)
#Hawthorne, Nathaniel.#
By Mary G. Tuttiett. 19th Cent. Jan. (87:118.)
Henriet, Maurice.
Jules Lemaître. M. De F. 1 juin. (140:289.)
"Henry, O."
By Dion Clayton Calthrop. London Observer. May 2.
By Edwin F. Edgett. B. E. T. Oct. 15, '19. (pt. 3. p. 4.)
By Edward Francis Mohler. Cath. W. Sept. (111:756.)
By Raoul Narsy. Liv. Age. Oct. 11, '19. (303:86.)
By John Seymour Wood. Book. (N. Y.) Jan. (50:474.)
Hergesheimer, Joseph.
By James Branch Cabell. Book. (N. Y.) Nov.-Dec., '19. (50:267.)
By W. L. George. Book. (London.) Sept. (58:193.)
Holz, Arno.
Anonymous. Ath. Apr. 9. ('20:1:490.)
Hook, Theodore.
Anonymous. Sat. R. Sept. 25. (130:254.)
#Hopkins, Gerard.#
Short Story. Chap. Feb. (25.)
Howells, William Dean.
Anonymous. N. Rep. May 26. (22:393.)
By John Erskine. Book. (N. Y.) June. (51:385.)
By Henry A. Lappin. Cath. W. Jul. (111:445.)
By Edward S. Martin. Harp. M. Jul. (141:265.)
By Arthur Hobson Quinn. Cen. Sept. (100:674.)
By Henry Rood. L. H. J. Sept. (42.)
By Booth Tarkington. Harp. M. Aug. (141: 346.)
Hudson, W. H.
By C. S. Evans. Book. (N. Y.) Sept. (52:18.)
By Charles J. Finger. Mir. Nov. 27, '19. (28:836.)
By Ford Madox Hueffer. Lit. R. May-June. (5.)
By Ezra Pound. Lit. R. May-June. (13.)
By Ernest Rhys. 19th Cent. Jul. (88:72.)
By John Rodker. Lit. R. May-June. (18.)
#Hueffer, Ford Madox.#
W. H. Hudson. Lit. R. May-June. (5.)
Thus to Revisit. Eng. R. Jul.-Aug. (31:5, 107.)
Dial. Jul.-Aug. (69:52, 132.)
#Huneker, James Gibbons.#
Henry James. Book. (N. Y.) May. (51:364.)
Huneker, James Gibbons.
Anon. Times Lit. Suppl. Aug. 12. (19:515.)
Hungarian Short Stories.
By Isaac Goldberg. B. E. T. Oct. 8, '19. (pt. 3. p. 4.)
Huxley, Aldous.
By Michael Sadleir. Voices. June. (3:235.)
Italian Short Stories.
By J. S. Barnes. New Europe. Nov. 27, '19. (13:214.)
Jacobs, W. W.
By E. F. Edgett. B. E. T. Oct. 18, '19. (pt. 3. p. 10.)
James, Henry.
Anonymous. Nation. (London.) May 8. (27:178.)
Anonymous. Times Lit. Suppl. Apr. 8. (19:217.)
Anonymous. Sat. R. June 12. (129:537.)
Anonymous. Cont. R. Jul. (118:142.)
By John Bailey. London Observer. Apr. 25.
By Silas Bent. Mir. June 3. (29: 448.) June 24. (29:510.)
By Edwin F. Edgett. B. E. T. Apr. 10.
By Maurice Francis Egan. Cath. W. June. (111:289.)
By Edmund Gosse. L. Merc. Apr.-May. (1:673:2:29.)
Scr. Apr.-May. (67:422, 548.)
By Ford Madox Hueffer. Eng. R. Jul.-Aug. (31:5, 107.)
Dial. Jul.-Aug. (69:52, 132.)
By James G. Huneker. Book. (N. Y.) May. (51:364.)
By Philip Littell. N. Rep. June 9. (23:63.)
By Desmond MacCarthy. New S. May 15. (15:162.)
By Brander Matthews. Book. (N. Y.) June. (51:389.)
By Thomas Moult. Eng. R. Aug. (31:183.)
By E. S. Nadal. Scr. Jul. (68:89.)
By Forrest Reid. Times Lit. Suppl. Aug. 12. (19:520.)
By Gilbert Seldes. Dial. Jul. (69:83.)
By J. C. Squire. London Sunday Times. Apr. 18.
By Louise R. Sykes. Book. (N. Y.) Apr. (51:240.)
By Allan Wade. Times Lit. Suppl. Aug. 19. (19:537.)
By A. B. Walkley. Fortn. R. June. (n. s. 107:864.) London Times.
June 16, Sept. 15.
By Sidney Waterlow. Ath. Apr. 23. ('20:1:537.)
By Edith Wharton. Quart. R. Jul. (234:188.)
#Johnson, Alvin.#
Mark Twain. N. Rep. Jul. 14. (23:201.)
#Kayden, Eugene M.#
Leonid Andreyev. Dial. Nov. 15, '19. (67:425.)
Keller, Gottfried.
By Alec W. G. Randall. Cont. R. Nov., '19. (116:532.)
Kipling, Rudyard.
Anonymous. Sat. R. Aug. 7. (130:113.)
By Richard Le Gallienne. Mun. Nov., '19. (68:238.)
By Desmond MacCarthy. New S. June 5. (15:249.)
By Virginia Woolf. Ath. Jul. 16. ('20:2:75.)
#Koteliansky, S.#
Tolstoy and Gorky. Ath. Apr. 30. ('20:1:582.)
Kuprin, Alexander.
Anonymous. Times Lit. Suppl. Nov. 27, '19. (18:691)
By Katherine Mansfield. Ath. Dec. 26, '19. (1399.)
#Lappin, Henry A.#
William Dean Howells. Cath. W. Jul. (111:445.)
Lawrence, D. H.
By Louis Untermeyer. N. Rep. Aug. 11. (23:314.)
#Le Gallienne, Richard.#
Rudyard Kipling. Mun. Nov., '19. (68:238.)
#Legrand-Chabrier.#
Maurice Beaubourg. M. de F. 15 août. (142:5.)
Lemaître, Jules.
Anonymous. Times Lit. Suppl. Sept. 2. (19:562.)
By Maurice Henriet. M. de F. 1 juin. (140:289.)
#Littell, Philip.#
Henry James. N. Rep. June 9. (23:63.)
Locke, W. J.
By Helen Enoch. Cont. R. June. (117:855.)
London, Jack.
Anonymous. Times Lit. Suppl. Aug. 12. (19:519.)
By Katherine Mansfield. Ath. Aug. 27. ('20:2:272.)
#Lovett, Robert Morss.#
Anton Chekhov. Dial. May. (68:626.)
Mark Twain. Dial. Sept. (69:293.)
#Lynch, Bohun.#
Max Beerbohm. L. Merc. June. (2:168.)
#Lynd, Robert.#
Anton Chekhov. London Daily News. Feb. 11.
Anton Chekhov. Nation. (London.) Feb. 28. (26:742.)
George Meredith. London Daily News. Jan. 30.
#Lysaght, S. R.#
Robert Louis Stevenson. Times Lit. Suppl. Dec. 4, '19. (18:713.)
#MacCarthy, Desmond.#
Henry James. New S. May 15. (15:162.)
Rudyard Kipling. New S. June 5. (15:249.)
"Macleod, Fiona." (William Sharp.)
By Ethel Rolt-Wheeler. Fortn. R. Nov., '19. (112:780.)
#Mansfield, Katharine.#
E. M. Forster. Ath. Aug. 13. ('20:2:209.)
Alexander Kuprin. Ath. Dec. 26, '19. (1399.)
Jack London. Ath. Aug. 27. ('20:2:272.)
#Martin, Edward S.#
William Dean Howells. Harp. M. Jul. (141:265.)
Masefield, John.
By Edward Shanks. L. Merc. Sept. (2:578.)
Maseras, Alfons.
By Camille Pitollet. M. de F. 15 août. (142:230.)
#Matthews, Brander.#
Henry James. Book. (N. Y.) June. (51:389).
Mark Twain. S. E. P. Mar. 6. (14.)
Maxwell, W. B.
By E. F. Edgett, B. E. T. Nov. 22, '19. (pt. 3. p. 8.)
Meredith, George.
By Robert Lynd. London Daily News. Jan. 30.
Mérimée, Prosper.
By Paul Bourget R. de D. M. 15 sept. (59:257.)
Mille, Pierre.
By André Beaunier. R. de D. M. 1 juillet. (6 sér. 58:191.)
#Minchin, H. C.#
George Eliot. Fortn. R. Dec. '19. (112:896.)
Mirbeau, Octave.
Anonymous. Times Lit. Suppl. Aug. 12. (19:518.)
#Mohler, Edward Francis.#
"O. Henry." Cath. W. Sept. (111:756.)
Morrow, W. C.
By Vincent Starrett. Mir. Oct. 30, '19. (28:751.)
Morselli, Ercole Luigi.
By Isaac Goldberg. Book. (N. Y.) Jul. (51:557.)
#Moult, Thomas.#
Henry James. Eng. R. Aug. (31:183.)
#Murry, J. Middleton.#
Anton Chekhov. Ath. Mar. 5. ('20:1:299.)
Stendhal. Ath. Sept. 17. ('20:2:388.)
Oscar Wilde. Ath. Sept. 24. ('20:2:401.)
#Nadal, E. S.#
Henry James. Scr. Jul. (68:89.)
#Narsy, Raoul.#
O. Henry. Liv. Age. Oct. 11, '19. (303:86.)
Naturalism. _See_ #Deffoux, Léon#, _and_ #Zavie, Émile.#
Nervo, Amado.
By Isaac Goldberg. Strat. J. Jan.-Mar. (6:3.)
"New Decameron."
Anonymous. Sat. R. Aug. 7. (130:113.)
By F. W. Stokoe. Ath. Aug. 6. ('20:2:172.)
#Nichols, Robert.#
Anton Chekhov. London Observer. Mar. 7.
Nodier, Charles.
By George Saintsbury. Ath. Jan. 16. ('20:1:91.)
#O'Brien, Edward J.#
Best Short Stories of 1919. B. E. T. Nov. 28, '19. (14.)
O'Brien, Fitzjames.
By Joseph J. Reilly. Cath. W. Mar. (110:751.)
#O'Conor, Norreys Jephson.#
Lord Dunsany. B. E. T. Oct. 22, '19. (pt. 3. p. 2.)
#Olgin, Moissaye J.#
Leonid Andreyev. N. Rep. Dec. 24, '19. (21:123.)
#Page, Thomas Nelson.#
John Fox. Scr. Dec., '19. (66:674.)
Panzini, Alfredo.
By Joseph Collins. Book. (N. Y.) June. (51:410.)
By Guido de Ruggiero. Ath. Feb. 13. ('20:1:222.)
Papini, Giovanni.
By Joseph Collins. Book. (N. Y.) Apr. (51:160.)
#Parker, W. M.#
Thomas Hardy, 19th Cent. Jul. (88:63.)
#Parry, Edward A.#
George Eliot. Fortn. R. Dec., '19. (112:883.)
#Phillips, R. Le Clerc.#
Paul Bourget. Book. (N. Y.) June. (51:448.)
Pirandello, Luigi.
By Joseph Collins. Book. (N. Y.) June. (51:410.)
#Pitollet, Camille.#
Alfons Maseras. M. de F. 15 août. (142:230.)
Pontoppidan, Henrik.
By J. G. Robertson. Cont. R. Mar. (117:374.)
#Pound, Ezra.#
W. H. Hudson. Lit. R. May-June. (13.)
#Proust, Marcel.#
Gustave Flaubert. N. R. F. Jan. (14:72.)
#Purcell, Gertrude M.#
Ellis Parker Butler. Book. (N. Y.) June. (51:473.)
#Quinn, Arthur Hobson.#
William Dean Howells. Cen. Sept. (100:674.)
"Rachilde." (Mme. Alfred Vallette.)
By Marcel Coulon. M. de F. 15 sept. (142:545.)
#Radziwill, Princess Catherine.#
Honoré de Balzac. Book. (N. Y.) Aug. (51:639.)
#Randall, Alec W. G.#
Gottfried Keller. Cont. R. Nov., '19. (116:532.)
#Raynaud, Ernest.#
Oscar Wilde. La Minerve Française. 15 août.
Read, Opie.
By Vincent Starrett. Mir. Nov. 6, '19. (28:769.)
#Reeves, Henriette.#
Algernon Blackwood. Touch. May. (7:147.)
Régnier, Henri de.
Anonymous. Times Lit. Suppl. Feb. 19. (19:118.)
#Reid, Forrest.#
Henry James. Times Lit. Suppl. Aug. 12. (19:520.)
#Reilly, Joseph J.#
François Coppée. Cath. W. Aug. (111:614.)
Fitzjames O'Brien. Cath. W. Mar. (110:751.)
#Rhys, Ernest.#
W. H. Hudson, 19th Cent. Jul. (88:72.)
#Roberts, R. Ellis.#
Joseph Conrad. Book. (London.) Aug. (58:160.)
#Robertson, J. G.#
Henrik Pontoppidan. Cont. R. Mar. (117:374.)
#Robinson, Agnes Day.#
Bret Harte. Book. (N. Y.) June. (51:445.)
#Rodker, John.#
W. H. Hudson, Lit. R. May-June. (18.)
#Rolt-Wheeler, Ethel.#
"Fiona Macleod." Fortn. R. Nov., '19. (112:780.).
#Rood, Henry.#
William Dean Howells. L. H. J. Sept. (42.)
#Rourke, Constance Mayfield.#
Zona Gale. N. Rep. Aug. 11. (23:315.)
#Ruggiero, Guido de.#
Alfred Panzini. Ath. Feb. 13. ('20:1:222.)
S., J. W. N.
Tolstoy and Gorky. Ath. Jul. 16. ('20:2:77.)
#Sadleir, Michael.#
Aldous Huxley. Voices. June. (3:235.)
#Saintsbury, George.#
Gustave Flaubert. Ath. Oct. 3, '19. (983.)
Charles Nodier. Ath. Jan. 16. ('20:1:91.)
#Seccombe, Thomas.#
George Eliot. Cont. R. Dec., '19. (116:660.)
#Seldes, Gilbert.#
Joseph Conrad. Dial. Aug. (69:191.)
Lord Dunsany. B. E. T. Oct. 15, '19. (pt. 2. p. 4.)
Henry James. Dial. Jul. (69:83.)
#Shanks, Edward.#
John Masefield. L. Merc. Sept. (2:578.)
Sharp, William. _See_ "Fiona Macleod."
Singh, Kate Prosunno.
Anonymous. Times Lit. Suppl. Sept. 2. (19:562.)
#Smith, Henry J.#
Georges Duhamel. Chicago Daily News. Dec. 3, '19.
#Sokoloff, A.#
Leonid Andreyev. New S. Nov. 15, '19. (14:190.)
Spanish-American Short Story. See #Goldberg, Isaac.#
#Squire, J. C.#
Henry James. London Sunday Times. Apr. 18.
#Stark, Beverly.#
A. Conan Doyle. Book. (N. Y.) Jul. (51:579.)
#Starrett, Vincent.#
W. C. Morrow. Mir. Oct. 30, '19. (28:751.)
Opie Read. Mir. Nov. 6, '19. (28:769.)
"Stendhal," (Henri Beyle.)
By John Middleton Murry. Ath. Sept. 17. ('20:2:388.)
Stevenson, Robert Louis.
Anonymous. Times Lit. Suppl. Dec. 4, '19. (18:701.)
By Sir Sidney Colvin. Scr. Mar. (67:338.)
By S. R. Lysaght. Times Lit. Suppl. Dec. 4, '19. (18:713.)
#Stokoe, F. W.#
Lord Dunsany. Ath. Aug. 13. ('20:2:202.)
"New Decameron." Ath. Aug. 6. ('20:2:172.)
#Sykes, Louise R.#
Henry James. Book. (N. Y.) Apr. (51:240.)
#Symons, Arthur.#
Thomas Hardy. Dial. Jan. (68:66.)
Oscar Wilde. Book. (N. Y.) Apr. (51:129.)
#Tarkington, Booth.#
William Dean Howells. Harp. M. Aug. (141:346.)
#Tchekhov, Anton.# _See_ Chekhov, Anton.
#Thibaudet, Albert.#
Gustave Flaubert. N. R. F. Nov., '19. (13:942.)
Jean Giraudoux. N. R. F. Dec., '19. (13:1064.)
Tolstoy, Count Lyof.
Anonymous. Times Lit. Suppl. Jul. 15. (19:453.)
Anonymous. New S. Aug. 7. (15:505.)
By Maxim Gorky. L. Merc. Jul. (2:304.)
By S. Koteliansky. Ath. Apr. 30. ('20:1:587.)
By J. W. N. S. Ath. Jul. 16. ('20:2:77.)
#Trueblood, Charles K.#
Anton Chekhov. Dial. Jan. (68:80.)
Fyodor Dostoevsky. Dial. June. (68:774.)
Edith Wharton. Dial. Jan. (68:80.)
#Tuttiett, Mary G.#
Nathaniel Hawthorne, 19th Cent. Jan. (87:118.)
"Twain, Mark."
Anonymous. Times Lit. Suppl. Sept. 23. (19:615.)
By Van Wyck Brooks. Dial. Mar. (68:275), and Apr. (68:424.)
By Floyd Dell. Lib. Aug. (26.)
By Alvin Johnson. N. Rep. Jul. 14. (23:201.)
By Robert Morss Lovett. Dial. Sept. (69:293.)
By Brander Matthews. S. E. P. Mar. 6. (14.)
#Untermeyer, Louis.#
D. H. Lawrence. N. Rep. Aug. 11. (23:314.)
Vallette, Mme. Alfred. _See_ "Rachilde."
Villiers de l'Isle-Adam.
Anonymous. Times Lit. Suppl. Dec. 4, '19. (18:711.)
#Wade, Allan.#
Henry James. Times Lit. Suppl. Aug. 19. (19:537.)
#Walch, J. L.#
Louis Couperus. Ath. Oct. 31, '19. (1133.)
#Waldo, Harold.#
Old Wests for New. Book. (N. Y.) June. (51:396.)
#Walkley, A. B.#
Henry James. Fortn. R. June. (n. s. 107:864.)
Henry James. London Times. June 16 and Sept. 15.
#Waterlow, Sydney.#
Henry James. Ath. Apr. 23. ('20:1:537.)
#Wedmore, Sir Frederick.#
Honoré de Balzac, 19th Cent. Mar. (87:484.)
Wells, H. G.
By Ford Madox Hueffer. Eng. R. Jul.-Aug. (31:5, 107.)
Dial. Jul.-Aug. (69:52, 132.) Reply by H. G. Wells.
Eng. R. Aug. (31:178.)
#West, Rebecca.#
Achmed Abdullah. New S. May 8. (15:137.)
Gabriele D'Annunzio. New S. June 5. (15:253.) N. Rep. June 30. (23:155.)
Edna Ferber. New S. Apr. 3. (14:771.)
E. M. Forster. New S. Aug. 28. (15:576.)
#Wharton, Edith.#
Henry James. Quart. R. Jul. (234:188.)
#Wharton, Edith.#
By Charles K. Trueblood. Dial. Jan. (68:80.)
#Whitnah, Joe.#
Charles Caldwell Dobie. San Francisco Bulletin. Jan. 3.
Wilde, Oscar.
Anonymous. Times Lit. Suppl. Oct. 30, '19. (18:605.)
By J. Middleton Murry. Ath. Sept. 24. ('20:2:401.)
By Ernest Raynaud. La Minerve Française. 15 août.
By Arthur Symons. Book. (N. Y.) Apr. (51:129.)
#Wilkinson, Marguerite.#
Lord Dunsany. Touch. Dec., '19. (6:111.)
#Willcocks, M. P.#
Honoré de Balzac. Nation. (London.) Mar. 20. (26:864.) and Mar. 27.
#Williams, Orlo.#
"Yellow Book." L. Merc. Sept. (2:567.)
#Wilson, Arthur.#
"New Decameron." Dial. Nov. 1, '19. (67:372.)
#Wood, John Seymour.#
O. Henry. Book. (N. Y.) Jan. (50:474.)
#Woolf, Virginia.#
Rudyard Kipling. Ath. Jul. 16. ('20:2:75.)
"Yellow Book."
By Orlo Williams. L. Merc. Sept. (2:567.)
Zola, Émile.
By Léon Deffoux and Émile Zavie. M. de F. 15 fév. (138:68.)
INDEX OF SHORT STORIES IN BOOKS
I. #American Authors#
NOVEMBER, 1918, TO SEPTEMBER, 1920
ABBREVIATIONS
_Abdullah A._ Abdullah. Honorable Gentleman.
_Abdullah B._ Abdullah. Wings.
_Andrews B._ Andrews. Joy in the Morning.
_Andreyev C._ Andreyev. When the King Loses His Head.
_Ayala_ Ayala. Prometheus.
_Cannan_ Cannan. Windmills.
_Cather_ Cather. Youth and the Bright Medusa.
_Chekhov D._ Chekhov. Bishop.
_Chekhov E._ Chekhov. Chorus Girl.
_Clémenceau_ Clémenceau. Surprises of Life.
_Cobb B._ Cobb. Life of the Party.
_Cobb C._ Cobb. From Place to Place.
_Connolly A._ Connolly. Hiker Joy.
_D'Annunzio_ D'Annunzio. Tales of My Native Town.
_Dostoevsky B._ Dostoevsky. Honest Thief.
_Dowson_ Dowson. Poems and Prose.
_Dreiser B._ Dreiser. Twelve Men.
_Dwight A._ Dwight. Emperor of Elam.
_Easton_ Easton. Golden Bird.
_Edgar_ Edgar. Miller's Holiday.
_Evans A._ Evans. My Neighbors.
_Ferber B._ Ferber. Half Portions.
_French B._ French. Best Psychic Stories.
_Galsworthy B._ Galsworthy. Tatterdemalion.
_Hearn_ Hearn. Fantastics.
_Henry B._ Henry. Waifs and Strays.
_Hergesheimer B._ Hergesheimer. Happy End.
_Holmes_ Holmes and Starbuck. War Stories.
_Howells_ Howells. Great Modern American Stories.
_Hrbkova_ Hrbkova. Czecho-Slovak Stories.
_Huneker_ Huneker. Bedouins.
_Hurst B._ Hurst. Humoresque.
_Huxley_ Huxley. Limbo.
_Ibáñez_ Blasco Ibáñez. Last Lion.
_Imrie_ Imrie. Legends.
_Jacobs A._ Jacobs. Deep Waters.
_James A._ James. Travelling Companions.
_Jessup A._ Jessup. Best American Humorous Stories.
_Johnson_ Johnson. Under the Rose.
_La Motte_ La Motte. Civilization.
_Laselle_ Laselle. Short Stories of the New America.
_Lemaître_ Lemaître. Serenus.
_Level_ Level. Tales of Mystery and Horror.
_Mackay_ Mackay. Chill Hours.
_MacManus A._ MacManus. Lo, and Behold Ye!
_Marshall_ Marshall. Clintons.
_Martin_ Martin. Children in the Mist.
_Mayran_ Mayran. Story of Gotton Connixloo.
_McMichael_ McMichael. Short Stories from the Spanish.
_Merrick A._ Merrick. Man Who Understood Women.
_Merrick B._ Merrick. While Paris Laughed.
_Montague A._ Montague. Gift.
_Montague B._ Montague. England to America.
_Montague C._ Montague. Uncle Sam of Freedom Ridge.
_Nevinson_ Nevinson. Workhouse Characters.
_New Dec. A._ New Decameron. Prologue and First Day.
_O'Brien A._ O'Brien. Best Short Stories of 1918.
_O'Brien B._ O'Brien. Best Short Stories of 1919.
_O'Brien C._ O'Brien. Great Modern English Stories.
_O'Byrne A._ O'Byrne. Wrack.
_O'Higgins A._ O'Higgins. From the Life.
_O'Kelly B._ O'Kelly. Golden Barque.
_Pertwee_ Pertwee. Old Card.
_Pinski A._ Pinski. Temptations.
_Post B._ Post. Mystery of the Blue Villa.
_Prize A._ O. Henry Memorial Prize Stories. 1919.
_Reeve_ Reeve and French. Best Ghost Stories.
_Rhodes_ Rhodes. High Life.
_Robbins_ Robbins. Silent, White and Beautiful.
_Robinson_ Robinson. Eight Short Stories.
_Russell_ Russell. Red Mark.
_Russian A._ Modern Russian Classics. (Four Seas Co.)
_Schweikert B._ Schweikert. Russian Short Stories.
_Smith_ Smith. Pagan.
_Spofford A._ Spofford. Elder's People.
_Sudermann_ Sudermann. Iolanthe's Wedding.
_Tomlinson_ Tomlinson. Old Junk.
_Trevena_ Trevena. By Violence.
_Underwood A._ Underwood. Short Stories from the Balkans.
_Vernède_ Vernède. Port Allington Stories.
_Vaka_ Vaka and Phoutrides. Modern Greek Stories.
_Van Dyke A._ Van Dyke. Valley of Vision.
_Vigny_ Vigny. Military Servitude and Grandeur.
_Vorse_ Vorse. Ninth Man.
_Welles_ Welles. Anchors Aweigh.
_Wilson A._ Wilson. Ma Pettengill.
_Wylie_ Wylie. Holy Fire.
_Yezierska_ Yezierska. Hungry Hearts.
#Abdullah, Achmed. (Achmed Abdullah Nadir Khan El-Durani El-Idrissyeh.#)
(1881- .)
**After His Kind. Abdullah A. 144.
***Cobbler's Wax. Abdullah A. 112.
*Disappointment. Abdullah B. 43.
*Fear. Abdullah B. 211.
***Hatchetman. Abdullah A. 41.
*Himself, to Himself Alone. Abdullah A. 241.
***Honourable Gentleman. Abdullah A. 1.
**Khizr. Abdullah B. 183.
Krishnavana, Destroyer of Souls. Abdullah B. 115.
***Light. Abdullah B. 231.
*Man Who Lost Caste. Abdullah B. 153.
*Pell Street Spring Song. Abdullah A. 73.
Renunciation. Abdullah B. 103.
**Silence. Abdullah B. 163.
***Simple Act of Piety. Abdullah A. 196. O'Brien A. 3.
Tartar. Abdullah B. 77.
That Haunting Thing. Abdullah B. 135.
***To be Accounted for. Abdullah B. 63.
***Wings. Abdullah B. 1.
#Ade, George.# (1866- .)
***Effie Whittlesy. Howells. 288.
#Aldrich, Thomas Bailey.# (1836-1907.)
***Mlle. Olympe Zabriski. Howells, 110.
#Allen, James Lane.# (1849- .)
Old Mill on the Elkhorn. Edgar. 133.
#Alsop, Gulielma Fell.#
***Kitchen Gods. O'Brien B. 3. Prize A. 253.
#Ames, Jr., Fisher.#
*Sergt. Warren Comes Back from France. Laselle 171.
#Anderson, Sherwood# (1876- .)
***Awakening. O'Brien B. 24.
#Andrews, Mary Raymond Shipman.# (_See 1918._)
***Ditch. Andrews B. 1.
***Dundonald's Destroyer. Andrews B. 299.
*He That Loseth His Life Shall Find It, Andrews B. 193.
**Her Country Too. Andrews B. 37.
Only One of Them. Andrews B. 137.
Robina's Doll. Andrews B. 283.
*Russian. Andrews B. 263.
**Silver Stirrup. Andrews B. 241.
**Swallow. Andrews B. 85.
*V. C. Andrews B. 163.
#Babcock, Edwina Stanton.#
***Cruelties. O'Brien A. 24
***Willum's Vanilla. O'Brien B, 34.
#Barnes, Djuna.# (1892- .)
***Night Among the Horses. O'Brien B. 65.
#Bartlett, Frederic Orin.# (1876- .)
Château-Thierry. Laselle. 199.
***Long, Long Ago. O'Brien B. 74.
#Beer, Thomas.# (1889- .)
*Absent Without Leave. Holmes. 1.
#Bierce, Ambrose.# (1842-1914.) (_See 1918._)
***Damned Thing. Reeve. 160.
***Eyes of the Panther. French B. 95.
***Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. Howells. 237.
#Brooks, Alden.#
**Out of the Sky. Holmes. 17.
#Brown, Alice.# (1857- .) _(See 1918.)_
***Told in the Poorhouse. Howells. 225.
#Brown, Katharine Holland.#
***Buster. O'Brien A. 43.
#Brownell, Agnes Mary.#
***Dishes. O'Brien B. 82.
#Bunner, Henry Cuyler.# (1855-1896.)
**Nice People. Jessup A. 141.
#Burnet, Dana.# (1888- .)
*Christmas Fight of X 157. Holmes. 39.
*"Red, White, and Blue." Holmes. 49.
#Burt, Maxwell Struthers.# (1882- .) (_See 1918._)
***Blood-Red One. O'Brien B. 96.
#Butler, Ellis Parker.# (1869- .)
***Dey Ain't No Ghosts. Reeve. 177.
"#Byrne, Donn.#" (#Bryan Oswald Donn-Byrne.#) (1888- .)
**Underseaboat F-33. Holmes. 61.
#Cabell, James Branch.# (1879- .)
**Porcelain Cups. Prize A. 210.
***Wedding-Jest. O'Brien B. 108.
#Cable, George Washington.# (1844- .)
***Jean-Ah Poquelin. Howells. 390.
#Canfield, Dorothy.# (#Dorothy Canfield Fisher.#) (1879- .) (_See 1918._)
***Little Kansas Leaven. Laselle 1.
#Cather, Willa Sibert.# (1875- .)
***Coming, Aphrodite! Cather. 11.
***"Death in the Desert." Cather. 273.
***Diamond Mine. Cather. 79.
**Gold Slipper. Cather. 140.
***Paul's Case. Cather. 199.
**Scandal. Cather. 169.
***Sculptor's Funeral. Cather. 248.
***Wagner Matinée. Cather. 235.
#Chester, George Randolph.# (1869- .)
Bargain Day at Tutt House. Jessup A. 213.
#Clemens, Samuel Langhorne.# _See_ "#Twain, Mark.#"
#Cobb, Irvin Shrewsbury.# (1876- .) (_See 1918._)
***Boys Will Be Boys. Cobb C. 96.
*Bull Called Emily. Cobb C. 382.
***Gallowsmith. Cobb C. 11.
Hoodwinked. Cobb C. 332.
John J. Coincidence. Cobb C. 259.
**Life of the Party. Cobb B. 11.
**Luck Piece. Cobb C. 156.
***Quality Folks. Cobb C. 206.
*Thunders of Silence. Cobb C. 55.
*When August the Second Was April the First. Cobb C. 302.
#Connolly, James Brendan.# (1868- .)
*Aboard the Horse-Boat. Connolly A. 53.
*Flying Sailor. Connolly A. 132.
*Good-bye the Horse-Boat. Connolly A. 105.
*Jack o' Lanterns. Connolly A. 6.
*London Lights. Connolly A. 214.
*Lumber Schooner. Connolly A. 27.
*North Sea Men. Connolly A. 187.
*Undersea Men. Connolly A. 79.
*Wimmin 'n' Girls. Connolly A. 159.
#Cook, Mrs. George Cram.# _See_ #Glaspell, Susan.#
#Cooke, Grace MacGowan.# (1863- .)
*Call. Jessup A. 237.
#Coolidge, Grace.#
**Indian of the Reservation. Laselle. 109.
#Curtis, George William.# (1824-1892.)
**Titbottom's Spectacles. Jessup A. 52.
#Dashiell, Landon R.#
***Aunt Sanna Terry. Howells. 352.
#Derieux, Samuel Arthur.# (1881- .)
*Trial in Tom Belcher's Store. Prize A. 192.
#Dobie, Charles Caldwell.# (1881- .) (_See 1918._)
***Open Window. O'Brien A. 61.
#Dreiser, Theodore.# (1871- .) (_See 1918._)
***Country Doctor. Dreiser B. 110.
***Culhane, the Solid Man. Dreiser B. 134.
***De Maupassant, Jr. Dreiser B. 206.
***Doer of the Word. Dreiser B. 53.
***Lost Phoebe. Howells. 295.
***Mayor and His People. Dreiser B. 320.
***Mighty Rourke. Dreiser B. 287.
***My Brother Paul. Dreiser B. 76.
***Peter. Dreiser B. 18.
***True Patriarch. Dreiser B. 187.
***Vanity, Vanity. Dreiser B. 263.
***Village Feudists. Dreiser B. 239.
***W. L. S. Dreiser B. 344.
#Dwight, Harry Griswold.# (1875- .) (_See 1918._)
***Bald Spot. Dwight A. 290.
**Bathers. Dwight A. 151.
***Behind the Door. Dwight A. 266.
***Emperor of Elam. Dwight A. 306.
***Henrietta Stackpole _Radiviva._ Dwight A. 32.
***Like Michael. Dwight A. 3.
**Mrs. Derwall and the Higher Life. Dwight A. 131.
***Pagan. Dwight A. 52.
**Retarded Bombs. Dwight A. 172.
***Studio Smoke. Dwight A. 252.
***Susannah and the Elder. Dwight A. 191.
***Unto the Day. Dwight A. 108.
***White Bombazine. Dwight A. 82.
#Dwight, Harry Griswold.# (1875- .) (_See 1918_) _and_ #Taylor, John R. M.#
***Emerald of Tamerlane. Dwight A. 221.
#Dwyer, James Francis.# (1874- .)
***Citizen. Laselle. 85.
*Little Man in the Smoker. Holmes. 79.
#Dyke, Henry Van.# _See_ #Van Dyke, Henry.#
#Edwards, George Wharton.# (1859- .)
**Clavecin-Bruges. French B. 54.
#Edwards, Harry Stillwell.# (1855- .)
**Elder Brown's Backslide. Jessup A. 109.
#Emery, Gilbert.#
"Squads Right." Holmes. 86.
#Empey, Arthur Guy.# (1883- .)
*Coward. Laselle. 181.
#Ferber, Edna.# (1887- .)
April 25th, As Usual. Ferber B. 36. Price A. 274.
*Dancing Girls. Ferber B. 280.
*Farmer in the Dell. Ferber B. 239.
*Long Distance. Ferber B. 148.
***Maternal Feminine. Ferber B. 3.
**Old Lady Mandle. Ferber B. 76.
One Hundred Per Cent. Ferber B. 201. Holmes. 95.
*Un Morso Doo Pang. Ferber B. 157.
***You've Got To Be Selfish. Ferber B. 113.
#Fish, Horace.# (1885- .)
***Wrists on the Door. O'Brien B. 123.
#Fisher, Dorothy Canfield.# _See_ #Canfield, Dorothy.#
#Freedley, Mary Mitchell.# (1894- .)
***Blind Vision. Holmes. 119. O'Brien A. 85.
#Freeman, Mary E. Wilkins.# (1862- .) (_See 1918._)
***Revolt of Mother. Howells. 207.
#French, Alice.# _See_ "#Thanet, Octave.#"
#Fuller, Henry Blake.# (1857- .)
***Striking an Average. Howells. 267.
#Garland, Hamlin.# (1860- .) (_See 1918._)
*Graceless Husband. Edgar. 142.
***Return of a Private. Howells. 248.
#Gerould, Gordon Hall.# (1877- .)
***Imagination. O'Brien A. 92.
#Gerry, Margarita Spalding.# (1870- .)
*Flag Factory. Holmes. 126.
#Gilbert, George.# (1874- .)
***In Maulmain Fever-Ward. O'Brien A. 109.
#Gilman, Charlotte Perkins Stetson.# (1860- .)
***Yellow Wall Paper. Howells. 320.
#Glaspell, Susan (Keating). (Mrs. George Cram Cook.)# (1882- .)
***"Government Goat." O'Brien B. 147.
#Goodman, Henry.# (1893- .)
***Stone. O'Brien B. 167.
#Haines, Donal Hamilton.# (1886- .)
*Bill. Holmes. 136.
#Hale, Edward Everett.# (1822-1909.)
*First Grain Market. Edgar. 181.
***My Double; and How He Undid Me. Howells. 3. Jessup A. 75.
#Hallet, Richard Matthews.# (1887- .)
***To the Bitter End. O'Brien B. 178.
#Harris, Joel Chandler.# (1848-1908.) (_See 1918._)
***Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, and the Tar Baby. Howells. 413.
#Harte, Francis Bret.# (1839-1902.) (_See 1918._)
***Colonel Starbottle for the Plaintiff. Jessup A. 170.
***Outcasts of Poker Flat. Howells. 143.
#Hastings, Wells.# (1878- .)
*Gideon. Jessup A. 260.
#Hearn, Lafcadio.# (1850-1904.)
***All in White. Hearn. 29.
***Aphrodite and the King's Prisoner. Hearn. 102.
***Bird and the Girl. Hearn. 150.
***Black Cupid. Hearn. 71.
***Devil's Carbuncle. Hearn. 40.
***El Vomito. Hearn. 136.
***Fountain of Gold. Hearn. 110.
***Ghostly Kiss. Hearn. 66.
***Gipsy's Story. Hearn. 174.
***Hiouen-thsang. Hearn. 211.
***Idyl of a French Snuff-Box. Hearn. 143.
***Kiss Fantastical. Hearn. 152.
***Little Red Kitten. Hearn. 33.
***Name on the Stone. Hearn. 98.
***One Pill-Box. Hearn. 183.
***Post-Office. Hearn. 227.
***Vision of the Dead Creole. Hearn. 92.
"#Henry, O.#" (#William Sydney Porter.#) (1867-1910.) (_See 1918._)
***Cactus. Henry B. 76.
*Church with an Overshot Wheel. Edgar. 1.
Confessions of a Humourist. Henry B. 52.
Detective Detector. Henry B. 82.
*Dog and the Playlet. Henry B. 90.
***Duplicity of Hargraves. Jessup A. 199.
Hearts and Hands. Henry B. 72.
Little Talk About Mobs. Henry B. 97.
*Out of Nazareth. Henry B. 32.
***Red Roses of Tonia. Henry B. 3.
**Round the Circle. Henry B. 17.
*Rubber Plant's Story. Henry B. 25.
*Sparrows in Madison Square. Henry B. 66.
"#Henry, O.#" (#William Sydney Porter#) (1867-1910), _and_ #Lyon,
Harris Merton.# (1881-1916.)
*Snow Man. Henry B. 102.
#Hergesheimer, Joseph.# (1880- .) (_See 1918._)
*Bread. Hergesheimer B. 193.
*Egyptian Chariot. Hergesheimer B. 55.
Flower of Spain. Hergesheimer B. 93.
**Lonely Valleys. Hergesheimer B. 11.
***Meeker Ritual. O'Brien B. 200.
*Rosemary Roselle. Hergesheimer B. 231.
**Thrush in the Hedge. Hergesheimer B. 283.
**Tol'able David. Hergesheimer B. 155.
#Holmes, Oliver Wendell.# (1809-1894.)
*Visit to the Asylum for Aged and Decayed Punsters. Jessup A. 94.
#Humphrey, George.# (1889- .)
***Father's Hand. O'Brien A. 125.
#Huneker, James Gibbons.# (1860- .)
**Brothers-in-Law. Huneker. 201.
**Cardinal's Fiddle. Huneker. 247.
**Grindstones. Huneker. 216.
Renunciation. Huneker. 256.
*Supreme Sin. Huneker. 177.
_Venus or Valkyr?_ Huneker. 225.
*Vision Malefic. Huneker. 261.
#Hurst, Fannie.# (1889- .) (_See 1918._)
**Boob Spelled Backward. Hurst B. 220.
**Even as You and I. Hurst B. 262.
*"Heads." Hurst B. 170.
***Humoresque. Hurst B. 1. Prize A. 148.
**Oats for the Woman. Hurst B. 45.
**Petal on the Current. Hurst B. 85.
**White Goods. Hurst B. 126.
*Wrong Pew. Hurst B. 300.
#Imrie, Walter McLaren.#
***Daybreak. Imrie. 7.
**Dead Men's Teeth. Imrie. 29.
***Remembrance. Imrie. 41.
**Storm. Imrie. 15.
#Ingersoll, Will E.#
***Centenarian. O'Brien B. 225.
#James, Henry.# (1843-1916.)
***Adina. James A. 223.
***At Isella. James A. 125.
***De Grey: a Romance. James A. 269.
***Guest's Confession. James A. 157.
*** Passionate Pilgrim. Howells. 43.
***Professor Fargo. James A. 87.
***Sweetheart of M. Briseux. James A. 53.
***Travelling Companions. James A. 1.
#Jewett, Sarah Orne.# (1849-1909.)
***Courting of Sister Wisby. Howells. 190.
#Johnson, Arthur.# (1881- .)
***His New Mortal Coil. Johnson 270.
How the Ship Came In. Johnson. 303.
***Little Family. Johnson. 237.
***Mr. Eberdeen's House. Johnson. 138.
**One Hundred Eightieth Meridian. Johnson. 115.
***Princess of Tork. Johnson. 1.
***Riders in the Dark. Johnson. 54.
*Two Lovers. Johnson. 183.
***Visit of the Master. Johnson. 203. O'Brien A. 131.
#Johnston, Calvin.#
***Messengers. O'Brien B. 237.
#Johnston, Richard Malcolm.# (1822-1898.)
*Hotel Experience of Mr. Pink Fluker. Jessup A. 128.
#Jones, Howard Mumford.#
***Mrs. Drainger's Veil. O'Brien B. 269.
#Kirkland, Caroline Matilda Stansbury.# (1801-1864.) Schoolmaster's
Progress. Jessup A. 18.
#Kline, Burton.# (1877- .)
***In the Open Code. O'Brien A. 149.
#Kompert, Leopold.#
***Silent Woman. Reeve. 60.
#La Motte, Ellen Newbold.# (1873- .)
**Canterbury Chimes. La Motte. 177.
*Civilization. La Motte. 93.
***Cosmic Justice. La Motte. 247.
*Homesick. La Motte. 65.
**Misunderstanding. La Motte 121.
***On the Heights. La Motte. 33
***Prisoners. La Motte. 141.
***Under a Wineglass. O'Brien B. 297. La Motte. 217.
**Yellow Streak. La Motte. 11.
#Lampton, William James.# ( -1917.)
**How the Widow Won the Deacon. Jessup A. 252.
#Leslie, Eliza.# (1787-1858.)
Watkinson Evening. Jessup A. 34.
#Lewars, Elsie Singmaster.# _See_ #Singmaster, Elsie.#
#Lewis, Sinclair.# (1885- .)
***Willow Walk. O'Brien A. 154.
#Lieberman, Elias.# (1883- .)
***Thing of Beauty. O'Brien B. 305.
#London, Jack.# (1876-1916.) (_See 1918._)
*When the World Was Young. French B. 1.
#Lummis, Charles Fletcher.# (1859- .)
*Blue-Corn Witch. Edgar. 120.
*Swearing Enchiladas. Edgar. 156.
#Lyon, Harris Merton.# _See_ "Henry, O.", _and_ #Lyon, Harris Merton.#
#Mackay, Helen.# (1876- .)
**At the End. Mackay. 3.
**Cauldron. Mackay. 95.
**Footsteps. Mackay. 178.
***"He Cost Us So Much." Mackay. 154.
**"Here Are the Shadows!" Mackay. 160.
**"I Take Pen in Hand." Mackay. 172.
**Little Cousins of No. 12. Mackay. 148.
**Madame Anna. Mackay. 143.
*Moment. Mackay. 188.
**9 and the 10. Mackay. 184.
**Odette in Pink Taffeta. Mackay. 20.
***One or Another. Mackay. 72.
***Second Hay. Mackay. 49.
*She Who Would Not Eat Soup. Mackay. 164.
*Their Places. Mackay. 35.
**Vow. Mackay. 168.
#MacManus, Seumas.# (1870- .)
***Bodach and the Boy. MacManus A. 51.
***Dark Patrick's Blood-horse. MacManus A. 32.
***Day of the Scholars. MacManus A. 117.
***Donal O'Donnell's Standing Army. MacManus A. 131.
***Far Adventures of Billy Burns. MacManus A. 71.
***Jack and the Lord High Mayor. MacManus A. 215.
**King's Curing. MacManus A. 163.
***Long Cromachy of the Crows. MacManus A. 196.
**Lord Thorny's Eldest Son. MacManus A. 180.
***Mad Man, the Dead Man, and the Devil. MacManus A. 1.
*Man Who Would Dream. MacManus A. 99.
**Parvarted Bachelor. MacManus A. 150.
***Quare Birds. MacManus A. 240.
***Queen's Conquest. MacManus A. 16.
***Resurrection of Dinny Muldoon. MacManus A. 263.
***Son of Strength. MacManus A. 248.
**Tinker of Tamlacht. MacManus A. 84.
#Marshall, Edison.# (1894- .)
**Elephant Remembers. Prize A. 78.
#Martin, George Madden.# (1866- .)
*Blue Handkerchief. Martin. 71.
*Fire from Heaven. Martin. 223.
*Flight. Martin. 1.
*Inskip Niggah. Martin. 120.
*Malviney. Martin. 252.
*Pom. Martin. 160.
*Sixty Years After. Martin. 276.
*Sleeping Sickness. Martin. 200.
#Matthews, James Brander.# (1852- .)
**Rival Ghosts. Reeve. 141.
#Montague, Margaret Prescott.# (1878- .) (_See 1918._)
***England to America. Prize A. 3. Montague B. 3.
**Gift. Montague A. 3.
***Uncle Sam of Freedom Ridge. Montague C. 3.
#Morris, George Pope.# (1802-1864.)
Little Frenchman and His Water Lots. Jessup A. 1.
#Morris, Gouverneur.# (1876- .)
Behind the Door. Holmes. 145.
***Unsent Letter. Holmes. 155.
#Mosley, Katherine Prescott.#
***Story Vinton Heard at Mallorie. O'Brien A. 191.
#O'Brien, Mary Heaton Vorse.# _See_ #Vorse, Mary Heaton.#
#O'Higgins, Harvey Jerrold.# (1876- .)
**Benjamin McNeil Murdock. O'Higgins A. 129.
**Conrad Norman. O'Higgins A. 171.
**District Attorney Wickson. O'Higgins A. 305.
**Hon. Benjamin P. Divins. O'Higgins A. 245.
**Jane Shore. O'Higgins A. 45.
***Owen Carey. O'Higgins A. 3.
**Sir Watson Tyler. O'Higgins A. 269.
***Thomas Wales Warren. O'Higgins A. 89.
***W.T. O'Higgins A. 217.
#Osborne, William Hamilton.# (1873- .)
Infamous Inoculation. Holmes. 166.
#O'Sullivan, Vincent.# (1872- .)
***Interval. Reeve. 170.
#Payne, Will.# (1855- .)
***His Escape. Holmes. 196.
#Pelley, William Dudley.#
***Toast to Forty-Five. O'Brien A. 200.
#Pier, Arthur Stanwood.# (1874- .)
Night Attack. Laselle. 119.
#Poe, Edgar Allan# (1809-1849.) (_See 1918._)
*Angel of the Odd. Jessup A. 7.
***Ligeia. French B. 61.
#Pope, Laura Spencer Portor.# _See_ #Portor, Laura Spencer.#
#Porter, William Sydney.# _See_ "#Henry, O.#"
#Portor, Laura Spencer.# (#Mrs. Francis Pope.#) (_See 1918._)
***Boy's Mother. Holmes. 217.
#Post, Melville Davisson.# (1871- .) (_See 1918._)
Ally. Post B. 243.
***Baron Starkheim. Post B. 333.
**Behind the Stars. Post B. 361.
**Five Thousand Dollars Reward. Prize A. 120.
*Girl in the Villa. Post B. 217.
*Girl from Galacia. Post B. 117.
**Great Legend. Post B. 55.
Laughter of Allah. Post B. 79.
**Lord Winton's Adventure. Post B. 265.
*Miller of Ostend. Post B. 199.
***Mystery at the Blue Villa. Post B. 3.
***New Administration. Post B. 29.
*Pacifist. Post B. 137.
***Sleuth of the Stars. Post B. 157.
**Stolen Life. Post B. 99.
**Sunburned Lady. Post B. 311.
**Wage-Earners. Post B. 291.
*Witch of the Lecca. Post B. 179.
#Pulver, Mary Brecht.# (1883- .)
***Path of Glory. Laselle. 133.
#Putnam, George Palmer.# (1887- .)
***Sixth Man. Holmes. 233.
#Pyle, Howard.# (1853-1911.)
**Blueskin, the Pirate. Edgar. 71.
**Captain Scarfield. Edgar. 14.
#Ravenel, Beatrice Witte.# (1870- .)
***High Cost of Conscience. Prize A. 228.
#Rhodes, Harrison (Garfield).# (1871- .)
***Extra Men. O'Brien A. 223.
*Fair Daughter of a Fairer Mother. Rhodes. 143.
Importance of Being Mrs. Cooper. Rhodes. 171.
**Little Miracle at Tlemcar. Rhodes. 115.
**Sad Case of Quag. Rhodes. 189.
***Spring-time. Rhodes. 213.
**Vive l'Amérique! Rhodes. 233.
#Rice, Louise.#
***Lubbeny Kiss. Prize A. 180.
#Rickford, Katherine.#
***Joseph. French B. 41.
#Robbins, Tod.#
*For Art's Sake. Robbins. 109.
*Silent, White, and Beautiful. Robbins. 1.
***Who Wants a Green Bottle? Robbins. 30.
**Wild Wullie, the Waster. Robbins. 71.
#Russell, John.# (1885- .)
***Adversary. Russell. 182.
**Amok. Russell. 374.
*Doubloon Gold. Russell. 59.
*East of Eastward. Russell. 301.
**Fourth Man. Russell. 327.
Jetsam. Russell. 273.
*Lost God. Russell. 219.
**Meaning--Chase Yourself. Russell. 251.
*Passion-Vine. Russell. 144.
**Practicing of Christopher. Russell. 114.
*Price of the Head. Russell. 356.
Red Mark. Russell. 9.
**Slanted Beam. Russell. 201.
*Wicks of Macassar. Russell. 97.
#Singmaster, Elsie. (Elsie Singmaster Lewars.)# (1879- .) (_See 1918._)
***Survivors. Laselle. 43.
#Smith, Gordon Arthur.# (1886- .)
**Bottom of the Cup. Smith. 67.
**City of Lights. Smith. 38.
***End of the Road. Smith. 138.
*Every Move. Smith. 249.
***Feet of Gold. Smith. 100.
***Jeanne, The Maid. Smith. 218.
Letitia. Smith. 283.
**Pagan. Smith. 3.
***Return. Smith. 345.
*Tropic Madness. Smith. 177.
*Young Man's Fancy. Smith. 315.
#Sneddon, Robert W.# (1880- .)
*Son of Belgium. Holmes. 262.
#Spofford, Harriet Prescott.# (1835- .)
**Blessing Called Peace. Spofford A. 179.
**Change of Heart. Spofford A. 27.
#Spofford, Harriet Prescott# (_con._)
***Circumstance. Howells. 22.
**Deacon's Whistle. Spofford A. 1.
*Father James. Spofford A. 197.
**Impossible Choice. Spofford A. 227.
**John-a-Dreams. Spofford A. 101.
***Life in a Night. Spofford A. 293.
*Miss Mahala and Johnny. Spofford A. 311.
**Miss Mahala's Miracle. Spofford A. 125.
**Miss Mahala's Will. Spofford A. 273.
***Old Fiddler. Spofford A. 147.
**Rural Telephone. Spofford A. 55.
**Step-Father. Spofford A. 77.
***Village Dressmaker. Spofford A. 243.
#Springer, Fleta Campbell.# (1886- .)
***Solitaire. O'Brien A. 232.
#Springer, Thomas Grant.#
*Blood of the Dragon. Prize A. 135.
#Steele, Wilbur Daniel.# (1886- .) (_See_ 1918.)
***Dark Hour. O'Brien A. 258.
***"For They Know Not What They Do." Prize A. 21.
#Stetson, Charlotte Perkins.# _See_ #Gilman, Charlotte Perkins Stetson.#
#Stockton, Frank Richard.# (1834-1902.)
***Buller-Podington Compact. Jessup A. 151.
***Christmas Wreck. Howells. 155. Edgar. 203.
#Street, Julian (Leonard).# (1879- .)
***Bird of Serbia. O'Brien A. 268.
#Sullivan, Francis William.# (1887- .)
Godson of Jeannette Gontreau. Holmes. 243.
#Tarkington, (Newton) Booth.# (1869- .)
*Captain Schlotterwerz. Holmes. 276.
#Terhune, Albert Payson.# (1872- .)
*On Strike. Price A. 56.
Wildcat. Laselle. 55.
"#Thanet, Octave.#" (#Alice French.#) (1850- .)
***Labor Question at Glasscock's. Edgar. 171.
Miller's Seal. Edgar. 104.
Wild Western Way. Edgar. 35. 35.
#Tracy, Virginia.# (1875- .)
***Lotus Eaters. Howells. 361.
"#Twain, Mark.#" (#Samuel Langhorne Clemens.#) (1835-1910.)
***Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County. Howells. 36.
Jessup A. 102.
#Van Dyke, Henry.# (1852- .)
*Antwerp Road. Van Dyke A. 15.
*Boy of Nazareth Dreams. Van Dyke A. 257.
**Broken Soldier and the Maid of France. Van Dyke A. 87.
City of Refuge. Van Dyke A. 21.
Hearing Ear. Van Dyke A. 137.
*Hero and Tin Soldiers. Van Dyke A. 231.
Primitive and His Sandals. Van Dyke A. 216.
**Remembered Dream. Van Dyke A. 1.
*Salvage Point. Van Dyke A. 237.
*Sanctuary of Trees. Van Dyke A. 37.
#Venable, Edward Carrington# (1884- .)
***At Isham's. O'Brien A. 293.
#Vorse, Mary (Marvin) Heaton. (Mary Heaton Vorse O'Brien.)#
***De Vilmarte's Luck. O'Brien A. 305.
***Ninth Man. Vorse. 1.
***Other Room. O'Brien B. 312.
#Welles, Harriet, Ogden Deen.#
**Admiral's Birthday. Welles. 33.
**Admiral's Hollyhocks. Welles. 128.
*Anchors Aweigh. Welles. 98.
**Between the Treaty Ports. Welles. 47.
*Day. Welles. 165.
**Duty First. Welles. 105.
*Flags. Welles. 251.
**Guam--and Effie. Welles. 214.
*Holding Mast. Welles. 186.
*In the Day's Work. Welles. 1.
***Orders. Welles. 79.
**Wall. Welles. 197.
#Weston, George (T.).# (1880- .)
**Feminine Touch. Holmes. 299.
#Wharton, Edith.# (1862- .)
***Mission of Jane. Howells. 170.
#Wilkins, Mary E.# _See_ #Freeman, Mary E. Wilkins.#
#Williams, Ben Ames.# (1889- .)
**They Grind Exceeding Small. Prize A. 42.
#Wilson, Harry Leon.# (1866- .)
*As to Herman Wagner. Wilson A. 281.
*Can Happen! Wilson A. 234.
*Change of Venus. Wilson A. 209.
*Curls. Wilson A. 303.
Love Story. Wilson A. 38.
*Ma Pettengill and the Animal Kingdom. Wilson A. 3.
*One Arrowhead Day. Wilson A. 145.
*Porch Wren. Wilson A. 178.
*Red-Gap and the Big-League Stuff. Wilson A. 76.
*Taker-Up. Wilson A. 259.
*Vendetta. Wilson A. 109.
#Wood, Frances Gilchrist.#
***Turkey Red. Prize A. 105.
***White Battalion. O'Brien A. 325.
#Wyatt, Edith Franklin.# (1873- .) (_See 1918._)
***Failure. Howells. 312.
#Wynne, Madelene Yale.# (1847-1913.)
***Little Room. Howells. 338.
#Yezierska, Anzia.# (1886- .)
***"Fat of the Land." Yezierska. 178. O'Brien B. 326.
*Free Vacation House. Yezierska. 97.
**How I Found America. Yezierska. 250.
***Hunger. Yezierska. 35.
**Lost "Beautifulness." Yezierska. 65.
***Miracle. Yezierska. 114.
***My Own People. Yezierska. 224.
**Soap and Water. Yezierska. 163.
**Where Lovers Dream. Yezierska. 142.
**Wings. Yezierska. 1.
II. English and Irish Authors
#Barr, Robert.# (1850-1912.)
*Dorothy of the Mill. Edgar. 53.
*Mill on the Kop. Edgar. 188.
#Barrie, Sir James Matthew.#(1860- .) (_See 1918._)
***How Gavin Birse Put It to Mag Lownie. O'Brien C. 111.
#Bax, Arnold.# _See_ "#O'Byrne, Dermot.#"
#Benson, Edward Frederic.# (1867- .)
***Man Who Went Too Far. Reeve. 85.
#Beresford, John Davys.# (1873- .)
***Lost Suburb. O'Brien C. 309.
#Blackwell, Basil.#
History of Joseph Binns. New Dec. A. 169.
#Blackwood, Algernon.# (1869- .)
***Man Who Played Upon the Leaf. O'Brien C. 176.
***Return. French B. 24.
***Second Generation. French B. 31.
***Woman's Ghost Story. Reeve. 108.
#Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Edward George.# (1803-1873.) (_See 1918._)
***Haunted and the Haunters. Reeve. 31.
#Burke, Thomas.# (1887- .)
***Chink and the Child. O'Brien C. 250.
#Cannan, Gilbert.# (1884- .)
***Birth. O'Brien C. 346.
***Gynecologia. Cannan. 107.
***Out of Work. Cannan. 159.
***Samways Island. Cannan. 1.
***Ultimus. Cannan. 49.
#Couch, Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller.# _See_ #Quiller-Couch, Sir Arthur
Thomas.#
#Cunninghame Graham, Robert Bontine.# (1852- .)
***Fourth Magus. O'Brien C. 214.
#Defoe, Daniel.# (1659-1731.) (_See 1918._)
***Apparition of Mrs. Veal. Reeve. 3.
#De Sélincourt, Hugh.# _See_ #Sélincourt, Hugh de.#
#Dowson, Ernest.# (1867-1900.)
***Case of Conscience. Dowson. 150.
***Diary of a Successful Man. Dowson. 133.
***_Dying of Francis Donne._ O'Brien C. 64.
***Orchestral Violin. Dowson. 165.
***Souvenirs of an Egoist. Dowson. 187.
*** Statute of Limitations. Dowson. 210.
#Easton, Dorothy.#
**Adversity. Easton. 117.
*Arbor Vitæ. Easton. 141.
*Benefactors. Easton. 137.
**Box of Chocolates. Easton. 92.
*Corner Stone. Easton. 130.
***Day in the Country. Easton. 209.
***For the Red Cross. Easton. 38.
***Frog's Hole. Easton. 30.
**Genteel. Easton. 69.
***Golden Bird. Easton. 11.
***Heart-Breaker. Easton. 56.
**Heartless. Easton. 200.
**Impossible. Easton. 19.
**It Is Forbidden to Touch the Flowers. Easton. 191.
**Laughing Down. Easton. 26.
**Madame Pottirand. Easton. 254.
*Miss Audrey. Easton. 185.
**Old Indian. Easton. 156.
**Our Men. Easton. 172.
***Shepherd. Easton. 123.
*Spring Evening. Easton. 77.
**Steam Mill. Easton. 48.
***Transformation. Easton. 52.
***Twilight. Easton. 83.
**Unfortunate. Easton. 228.
"#Egerton, George.#" (#Mary Chavelita Golding Bright.#)
***Empty Frame. O'Brien C. 88.
#Evans, Caradoc.#
***According to the Pattern. Evans A. 31.
***Earthbred. Evans A. 81.
***For Better. Evans A. 99.
***Greater Than Love. O'Brien C. 340.
***Joseph's House. Evans A. 155.
***Like Brothers. Evans A. 173.
***Lost Treasure. Evans A. 215.
***Love and Hate. Evans A. 11.
***Profit and Glory. Evans A. 231.
**Saint David and the Prophets. Evans A. 131.
***Treasure and Trouble. Evans A. 117.
**Two Apostles. Evans A. 59.
***Unanswered Prayers. Evans A. 199.
***Widow Woman. Evans A. 187.
#Galsworthy, John.# (1867- .) (_See 1918._)
***Bright Side. Galsworthy B. 75.
*Buttercup Night. Galsworthy B. 295.
***"Cafard." Galsworthy B. 105.
***Defeat. Galsworthy B. 27.
*"Dog It Was That Died." Galsworthy B. 147.
**Expectations. Galsworthy B. 227.
***Flotsam and Jetsam. Galsworthy B. 51.
***Grey Angel. Galsworthy B. 3.
*In Heaven and Earth. Galsworthy B. 169.
**Manna. Galsworthy B. 239.
Mother Stone. Galsworthy B. 173.
**Muffled Ship. Galsworthy B. 187.
***Nightmare Child. Galsworthy B. 283.
*Peace Meeting. Galsworthy B. 137.
*Poirot and Bidan. Galsworthy B. 179.
*Recorded. Galsworthy B. 117.
***Recruit. Galsworthy B. 125.
***Spindleberries. Galsworthy B. 209.
***Strange Thing. Galsworthy B. 255.
***Two Looks. Galsworthy B. 271.
#Graham, R. B. Cunninghame.# _See_ #Cunninghame Graham, Robert Bontine.#
#Grant-Watson, E. L.#
***Man and Brute. O'Brien C. 296.
#Hardy, Thomas.# (1840- .) (_See 1918._)
***Three Strangers. O'Brien. C. 1.
#Harvey, William F.#
**Beast with Five Fingers. New Dec. A. 29.
#Henham, Ernest G.# _See_ "#Trevena, John.#"
#Hewlett, Maurice (Henry).# (1861- .)
***Quattrocentisteria. O'Brien C. 126.
#Hudson, W. H.#
***Old Thorn. O'Brien C. 196.
#Huxley, Aldous.#
***Bookshop. Huxley. 259.
***Cynthia. Huxley. 245.
***Death of Lully. Huxley. 269.
**Eupompus Gave Splendour to Art by Numbers. Huxley. 192.
***Farcical History of Richard Greenow. Huxley. 1.
**Happily Ever After. Huxley. 116.
#Jacobs, William Wymark.# (1868- .) (_See 1918._)
Bedridden. Jacobs A. 98.
*Convert. Jacobs A. 112.
**Dirty Work. Jacobs A. 262.
*Family Cares. Jacobs A. 171.
*Husbandry. Jacobs A. 140.
*Made to Measure. Jacobs A. 51.
**Paying Off. Jacobs A. 29.
**Sam's Ghost. Jacobs A. 75.
*Shareholders. Jacobs A. 1.
*Striking Hard. Jacobs A. 234.
*Substitute. Jacobs A. 207.
Winter Offensive. Jacobs A. 199.
#James, Montague Rhodes.# (1862- .) (_See 1918._)
***Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book. Reeve. 18.
#Jameson, M. Storm-.# _See_ #Storm-Jameson, M.#
#Kipling, Rudyard.# (1865- .) (_See 1918._)
***Phantom Rickshaw. Reeve. 118.
***Three Musketeers. O'Brien C. 93.
***Wee Willie Winkie. O'Brien C. 99.
#Lawrence, David Herbert.# (1885- .)
***Sick Collier. O'Brien C. 332.
#Lytton, Lord. George Bulwer-.# _See_ #Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Edward George.#
"#Macleod, Fiona.#" (#William Sharp.#) (1856-1905.) (_See 1918._)
**Fisher of Men. O'Brien C. 117.
***Sin-Eater. French B. 126.
#Marshall, Archibald.# (1866- .)
*Audacious Ann. Marshall. 191.
*Bookkeeper. Marshall. 303.
*Builder. Marshall. 155.
*"In that State of Life." Marshall. 95.
*Kencote. Marshall. 3.
*Little Squire. Marshall. 175.
*Son of Service. Marshall. 63.
*Squire and the War. Marshall. 327.
*Terrors. Marshall. 41.
#Merrick, Leonard.# (1864- .)
**Antenuptial. Merrick B. 274.
**Antiques and Amoretti. Merrick B. 228.
***"At Home, Beloved, At Home." Merrick B. 29.
**Back of Bohemia. Merrick A. 293.
**Banquets of Kiki. Merrick B. 150.
*Bishop's Comedy. Merrick A. 344.
**Call from the Past. Merrick A. 383.
*Child in the Garden. Merrick A. 160.
***Dead Violets. Merrick A. 239.
*Favourite Plot. Merrick A. 259.
**Frankenstein II. Merrick A. 50.
***Lady of Lyons. Merrick A. 313.
***Laurels and the Lady. Merrick A. 81.
***Letter to the Duchess. Merrick A. 180.
***Man Who Understood Women. Merrick A. 1.
***Meeting in the Galéries Lafayette. Merrick B. 78.
***Monsieur Blotto and the Lions. Merrick B. 54.
***"On Est Mieux Ici qu'en Face." Merrick B. 11.
**Piece of Sugar. Merrick B. 127.
**Poet Grows Practical. Merrick B. 173.
***Prince in the Fairy Tale. Merrick A. 200.
*Reconciliation. Merrick A. 368.
**Reformed Character. Merrick B. 205.
*Reverie. Merrick A. 364.
**Tale That Wouldn't Do. Merrick A. 68.
*Third M. Merrick A. 326.
*Time the Humorist. Merrick A. 277.
***Very Good Thing For the Girl. Merrick A. 18.
**Waiting for Henriette. Merrick B. 251.
*With Intent to Defraud. Merrick A. 224.
**Woman in the Book. Merrick B. 102.
***Woman Who Wished to Die. Merrick A. 35.
#Middleton, Richard.# (1882-1911.)
***Ghost Ship. O'Brien C. 225.
#Nevinson, Henry Woodd.# (1852- .)
***Fire of Prometheus. O'Brien C. 157.
#Nevinson, Margaret Wynne.#
*Alien. Nevinson. 130.
"And, Behold the Babe Wept." Nevinson. 47.
*Blind and Deaf. Nevinson. 39.
Daughter of the State. Nevinson. 80.
*Detained by Marital Authority. Nevinson. 21.
*Eunice Smith--Drunk. Nevinson. 13.
"Girl! God Help Her!" Nevinson. 145.
*In the Lunatic Asylum. Nevinson. 118.
*In the Phthisis Ward. Nevinson. 80.
**Irish Catholic. Nevinson. 91.
*"Mary, Mary, Pity Women!" Nevinson. 53.
*Mothers. Nevinson. 104.
**Obscure Conversationist. Nevinson. 97.
*Old Inky. Nevinson. 75.
*Publicans and Harlots. Nevinson. 68.
*Runaway. Nevinson. 138.
*Suicide. Nevinson. 61.
**Sweep's Legacy. Nevinson. 126.
"Too Old at Forty." Nevinson. 115.
***Vow. Nevinson. 33.
*Welsh Sailor. Nevinson. 27.
*"Widows Indeed!" Nevinson. 134.
*"Your Son's Your Son." Nevinson. 110.
#Nightingale, M. T.#
*Stone House Affair. New Dec. A. 112.
"#O'Byrne, Dermot.#" (#Arnold Edward Trevor Bax.#) (1883- .)
***Before Dawn. O'Byrne A. 29.
***Coward's Saga. O'Byrne A. 84.
***"From the Fury of the O'Flahertys." O'Byrne A. 67.
***Invisible City of Coolanoole. O'Byrne A. 127.
***King's Messenger. O'Byrne A. 156.
***Vision of St. Molaise. O'Byrne A. 172.
***Wrack. O'Byrne A. 1.
#O'Kelly, Seumas.#
***Billy the Clown. O'Kelly B. 149.
***Derelict. O'Kelly B. 173.
***Haven. O'Kelly B. 134.
***Hike and Calcutta. O'Kelly B. 121.
***Man with the Gift. O'Kelly B. 200.
***Michael and Mary. O'Kelly B. 111.
***Weaver's Grave. O'Kelly B. 9.
#Pertwee, Roland.#
***Big Chance. Pertwee 1.
***Clouds. Pertwee. 243.
***Cure that Worked Wonders. Pertwee. 42.
***Dear Departed. Pertwee. 212.
***Eliphalet Touch. Pertwee. 67.
***Final Curtain. Pertwee. 271.
***Gas Works. Pertwee. 143.
***Getting the Best. Pertwee. 102.
***Mornice June. Pertwee. 165.
***Pistols for Two. Pertwee. 21.
***Quicksands of Tradition. Pertwee. 120.
***Red and White. O'Brien C. 278.
***Reversible Favour. Pertwee. 190.
Quiller-Couch, Sir Arthur Thomas. (1863- .) (_See 1918._)
***Old Æson. O'Brien C. 152.
#Robinson, Lennox.#
***Chalice. Robinson. 30.
***Education. Robinson. 96.
***Face. Robinson. 8.
***Looking After the Girls. Robinson. 18.
***Pair of Muddy Shoes. Robinson. 47.
***Return. Robinson. 1.
***Sponge. Robinson. 60.
***Weir. Robinson. 78.
#Sadler, Michael.#
Tumbril Touch. New Dec. A. 189.
#Sélincourt, Hugh De.#
***Birth of an Artist. O'Brien C. 322.
#Sharp, William.# _See_ "#Macleod, Fiona.#"
#Stevenson, Robert Louis.# (1850-1894.) (_See 1918._)
***Lodging for the Night. O'Brien C. 26.
#Storm-Jameson, M.#
*Mother-Love. New Dec. A. 78.
#Tomlinson, H. M.# (1873- .)
***Extra Hand. Tomlinson. 149.
***Lascar's Walking-Stick. Tomlinson. 140.
"#Trevena, John.#" (#Ernest G. Henham.#) (1878- .)
***Business Is Business. Trevena. 45. O'Brien C. 236.
***By Violence. Trevena. 13.
**Christening of the Fifteen Princesses. Trevena. 65.
#Vernède, Robert Ernest.# (1875-1917.)
Adventure of the Persian Prince. Vernède. 194.
Bad Samaritan. Vernède. 130.
Finless Death. Vernède. 178.
Greatness of Mr. Walherstone. Vernède. 33.
Madame Bluebeard. Vernède. 233.
Maze. Vernède. 301.
Missing Princess. Vernède. 251.
Night's Adventure. Vernède. 277.
Offence of Stephen Danesford. Vernède. 80.
On the Raft. Vernède. 218.
*Outrage at Port Allington. Vernède. 55.
Smoke on the Stairs. Vernède. 204.
Soaring Spirits. Vernède. 102.
Sunk Elephant. Vernède. 156.
"This is Tommy." Vernède. 13.
#Vines, Sherard.#
**Upper Room. New Dec. A. 178.
#Walpole, Hugh Seymour.# (1884- .)
***Monsieur Félicité. O'Brien C. 263.
#Watson, E. L. Grant.# _See_ #Grant Watson, E. L.#
#Wedmore, Sir Frederick.# (1844- .)
***To Nancy. O'Brien C. 75.
#Wells, Herbert George.# (1866- .)
***Stolen Bacillus. O'Brien C. 144.
#Wilde, Oscar# (#Fingall O'Flahertie Wills.#) (1854-1900.)
***Star-Child. O'Brien C. 47.
#Wylie, Ida Alena Ross.# (1885- .)
**Bridge Across. Wylie. 66.
***Colonel Tibbit Comes Home. Wylie. 133.
Episcopal Scherzo. Wylie. 267. 195.
**Gift for St. Nicholas. Wylie.
***Holy Fire. Wylie. 9.
***John Prettyman's Fourth Dimension. Wylie. 231.
***"'Melia, No Good." Wylie. 163.
***Thirst. Wylie. 28.
**"Tinker--Tailor--" Wylie. 97.
III. Translations
#Alas, Leopoldo.# ("#Clarín#"). (1852-1901.) (_Spanish._)
**Adios Cordera! McMichael. 97.
#Andreyev, Leonid Nikolaevich.# (1871-1919.) (_Russian._) (_See 1918._)
***Ben-Tobith. Andreyev C. 273.
***Dies Iræ. Andreyev C. 287.
***Judas Iscariot. Andreyev C. 45.
***Lazarus. Andreyev C. 131.
***Life of Father Vassily. Andreyev C. 161.
***Marseillaise. Andreyev C. 281.
***Silence. Russian A. 11.
***Valia. Schweikert B. 343.
***When the King Loses His Head. Andreyev C. 5.
#Annunzio, Gabriele D'.# (_Italian._) _See_ #D'Annunzio, Gabriele.#
#Artzibashev, Michael.# (_Russian._)
***Doctor. Russian A. 38.
#Ayala, Ramón Pérez De.# (_Spanish._)
***Fall of the House of Limón. Ayala. 77.
***Prometheus. Ayala. 1.
***Sunday Sunlight. Ayala. 163.
#Bizyenos, George T.# (_Modern Greek._)
***Sin of My Mother. Vaka. 57.
#Blasco Ibáñez, Vicente.# (1867-.) (_Spanish._)
*Compassion. Ibáñez. 36.
*Last Lion. Ibáñez. 15.
***Luxury. Ibáñez. 56.
**Rabies. Ibáñez. 61.
*Toad. Ibáñez. 26.
**Windfall. Ibáñez. 46.
#Caragiale, J.L.# (_Rumanian._)
Easter Candles. Underwood A. 49.
#Carco, Francis.# (_French._)
Memory of Paris Days. New Dec. A. 217.
#Čech, Svatopluk.# (1846-1908.) (_Czech._)
***Foltyn's Drum. Hrbkova. 55.
***Journey. Underwood A. 75.
#Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich.# (1861-1904.) (_Russian._) (_See 1918._)
***At a Country House. Chekhov E. 173.
**Bad Weather. Chekhov E. 269.
***Bishop. Chekhov D. 3.
***Chorus Girl. Chekhov E. 3.
***Easter Eve. Chekhov D. 49.
***Father. Chekhov E. 187. Russian A. 56.
**Ivan Matveyitch. Chekhov E. 279.
***In Exile. Schweikert B. 320.
**Ivan Matveyitch. Chekhov E. 245.
***Letter. Chekhov D. 29.
***Murder. Chekhov D. 89.
***My Life. Chekhov E. 37.
***Nightmare. Chekhov D. 67.
***On the Road. Chekhov E. 201.
***Rothschild's Fiddle. Chekhov E. 227.
***Steppe. Chekhov D. 161.
***Trivial Incident. Chekhov E. 227.
***Uprooted. Chekhov D. 135.
***Verotchka. Chekhov E. 15.
**Zinotchka. Chekhov E. 257.
"#Clarín.#" (_Spanish._) _See_ #Alas, Leopoldo.#
#Clémenceau, Georges.# (_French._)
About Nests. Clémenceau. 185.
***Adventure of My Curé. Clémenceau. 149.
*At the Foot of the Cross. Clémenceau. 87.
**Aunt Rosalie's Inheritance. Clémenceau. 45.
**Better than Stealing. Clémenceau. 125.
*Bullfinch and the Maker of Wooden Shoes. Clémenceau. 173.
**Descendant of Timon. Clémenceau. 19.
Domestic Drama. Clémenceau. 197.
*Evil Beneficence. Clémenceau. 101.
**Flower o' the Wheat. Clémenceau. 221.
**Giambolo. Clémenceau. 313.
*Gideon in His Grave. Clémenceau. 61.
*Gray Fox. Clémenceau. 137.
*Happy Union. Clémenceau. 263.
*Hunting Accident. Clémenceau. 301.
*Jean Piot's Feast. Clémenceau. 233.
*Lovers in Florence. Clémenceau. 287.
**Mad Thinker. Clémenceau. 113.
**Malus Vicinus. Clémenceau. 31.
*Master Baptist, Judge. Clémenceau. 161.
**Mokoubamba's Fetish. Clémenceau. 3.
*Simon, Son of Simon. Clémenceau. 73.
Six Cents. Clémenceau. 209.
**Treasure of St. Bartholomew. Clémenceau. 249.
*Well-Assorted Couple. Clémenceau. 275.
#D'Annunzio, Gabriele# (#Rapagnetta#). (1864- .) (_Italian._)
***Countess of Amalfi. D'Annunzio. 10.
***Death of the Duke of Ofena. D'Annunzio. 172.
***Downfall of Candia. D'Annunzio. 153.
***Gold Pieces. D'Annunzio. 83.
***Hero. D'Annunzio. 3.
***Idolaters. D'Annunzio. 119.
***Mungia. D'Annunzio. 140.
***Return of Turlendana. D'Annunzio. 56.
***Sorcery. D'Annunzio. 92.
***Turlendana Drunk. D'Annunzio. 72.
***Virgin Anna. D'Annunzio. 215.
***War of the Bridge. D'Annunzio. 192.
#Dario, Rubén.# (1867-1916.) (_Spanish._)
**Box. McMichael. 31.
***Death of the Empress of China. McMichael. 3.
*Veil of Queen Mab. McMichael. 21.
#De Vigny, Alfred.# (_French._) _See_ #Vigny, Alfred De.#
#Dostoevsky, Fyodor Mikhailovich.# (1821-1881.) (_Russian._) (_See 1918._)
***Another Man's Wife. Dostoevsky B. 208.
***Bobok. Dostoevsky B. 291.
***Crocodile. Dostoevsky B. 257.
***Dream of a Ridiculous Man. Dostoevsky B. 307.
***Heavenly Christmas Tree. Dostoevsky B. 248.
***Honest Thief. Dostoevsky B. 1.
***Novel in Nine Letters. Dostoevsky B. 145.
***Peasant Marey. Dostoevsky B. 252.
***Thief. Schweikert B. 79.
***Unpleasant Predicament. Dostoevsky B. 157.
#Drosines, George.# (_Modern Greek._)
***God-father. Vaka. 93.
#Eftaliotes, Argyres.# (_Modern Greek._)
Angelica. Vaka. 157.
#Friedenthal, Joachim.# (_German._)
***Pogrom in Poland. Underwood A. 195.
#Garshin, Wsewolod Michailovich.# (1855-1888.) (_Russian._)
***Signal. Schweikert B. 308.
#Gjalski, Xaver-Sandor.# (_Croatian._) _See_ #Sandor-Gjalski, Xaver.#
#Gogol, Nikolai Vasilievich.# (1809-1852.) (_Russian._) (_See 1918._)
***Cloak. Schweikert B. 40.
"#Gorki, Maxim.#" (#Alexei Maximovich Pyeshkov.#) (1868 or 1869- .)
(_Russian._) (_See 1918._)
***Chelkash. Schweikert B. 381.
***Comrades. Schweikert B. 361.
***Her Lover. Russian A. 67.
#Herrman, Ignat.# (1854- .) (_Czech._)
***What Is Omitted from the Cook-book of Madame Magdálena Dobromila
Rettigová. Hrbkova. 233.
#Ibáñez, Vicente Blasco.# (_Spanish._) _See_ #Blasco Ibáñez, Vicente.#
#Jirásek, Alois.# (1851- .) (_Czech._)
**Philosophers. Hrbkova. 225.
#Karkavitsas, A.# (_Modern Greek._)
***Sea. Vaka. 23.
#Kastanakis, Thrasyvoulos.# (_Modern Greek._)
***Frightened Soul. Vaka. 221.
#Klecanda, Jan.# (1855- .) (_Czech._)
***For the Land of His Fathers. Hrbkova. 241.
#Korolenko, Vladimir Galaktionovich.# (1853- .) (_Russian._ Q.)
***Old Bell-Ringer. Schweikert B. 334.
#Kunětická, Božena Víková-.# (_Czech._) _See_ #Vikova-Kuneticka,
Bozena.#
#Kuprin, Alexander.# (1870- .) (_Russian._)
***Cain. Schweikert B. 430.
#Lazarevic, Lazar K.# (1851-1891.) (_Serbian._)
**Robbers. Underwood A. 145.
#Lemaître (François Élie), Jules.# (1853-1914.) (_French._) (_See 1918._)
***Bell. Lemaître. 105.
***Charity. Lemaître. 175.
***Conscience. Lemaître. 277.
***Hellé. Lemaître. 189.
***Lilith. Lemaître. 91.
***Mélie. Lemaître. 259.
***Myrrha. Lemaître. 57.
***Nausicaa. Lemaître. 207.
***Princess Mimi's Lovers. Lemaître. 221.
***Saint John and the Duchess Anne. Lemaître. 117.
***Serenus. Lemaître. 11.
***Sophie de Montcernay. Lemaître. 237.
***Two Flowers. Lemaître. 125.
***White Chapel. Lemaître. 165.
#Level, Maurice.# (_French._)
*Bastard. Level. 197.
**Beggar. Level. 151.
***Blue Eyes. Level. 269.
**Confession. Level. 83.
*Debt Collector. Level. 3.
***Empty House. Level. 281.
**Extenuating Circumstances. Level. 71.
**Fascination. Level. 187.
**Father. Level. 115.
**For Nothing. Level. 127.
***Illusion. Level. 39.
***In the Light of the Red Lamp. Level. 49.
***In the Wheat. Level. 139.
***Kennel. Level. 15.
**Kiss. Level. 237.
**Last Kiss. Level. 293.
***Man Who Lay Asleep. Level. 175.
***Maniac. Level. 249.
*Mistake. Level. 59.
**Poussette. Level. 103.
*Taint. Level. 225.
*10.50 Express. Level. 259.
**Test. Level. 95.
***That Scoundrel Miron. Level. 211.
*Under Chloroform. Level. 163.
**Who? Level. 27.
#Machar, Joseph Svatopluk.# (1864- .) (_Czech._)
***Theories of Heroism. Hrbkova. 123.
#Mayran, Camille.# (_Belgian._)
***Forgotten. Mayran. 95.
***Story of Gotton Connixloo. Mayran. 1.
Mikszáth, Koloman. (1849- .) (_Hungarian._)
***Fiddlers Three. Underwood A. 217.
**Trip to the Other World. Underwood A. 209.
#Mužák, Johanna Rottova.# (_Czech._) _See_ "#Světlá, Caroline.#"
#Němcová, Božena.# (1820-1862.) (_Czech._)
***"Bewitched Bára." Hrbkova. 151.
#Neruda, Jan.# (1834-1891.) (_Czech._)
***All Souls' Day, Underwood A. 119.
***At the Sign of the Three Lilies. Hrbkova. 86.
***Beneš. Hrbkova. 81.
***Foolish Jona. Underwood A. 136.
**He was a Rascal. Hrbkova. 90.
***Vampire. Hrbkova. 75.
#Netto, Walther.# (_German._)
***Swine Herd. Underwood A. 233.
#Palamas, Kostes.# (_Modern Greek._)
***Man's Death. Vaka. 173.
#Papadiamanty, A.# (_Modern Greek._)
***She That Was Homesick. Vaka. 237.
#Pérez De Ayala, Ramón.# (_Spanish._) _See_ #Ayala, Ramón Pérez De.#
#Picón, Jacinto Octavio.# (1852- .) (_Spanish._)
***After the Battle. McMichael. 43.
**Menace. McMichael. 67.
**Souls in Contrast. McMichael. 81.
#Pinski, David.# (1872- .) (_Yiddish._)
***Beruriah. Pinski A. 3.
***Black Cat. Pinski A. 255.
***Drabkin. Pinski A. 171.
***In the Storm. Pinski A. 313.
***Johanan the High Priest. Pinski A. 101.
***Tale of a Hungry Man. Pinski A. 277.
***Temptations of Rabbi Akiba. Pinski A. 83.
***Jerubbabel. Pinski A. 131.
#Polylas, Iakovos.# (_Modern Greek._)
*Forgiveness. Vaka. 133.
#Pushkin, Alexander Sergievich.# (1799-1837.) (_Russian._)
***Shot, Schweikert B. 23.
#Pyeshkov, Alexei Maximovich.# (_Russian._) _See_ "#Gorki, Maxim.#"
#Šandor-Gjalski, Xaver.# (_Croatian._)
**Jagica. Underwood A. 181.
**Naja. Underwood A. 165.
"#Sologub, Feodor.#" (#Feodor Kuzmitch Teternikov.#) (1863- .) (_Russian._)
***White Dog. Russian A. 30.
#Sudermann, Hermann.# (_German._)
**Gooseherd. Sudermann. 341.
***Iolanthe's Wedding. Sudermann. 9.
***New Year's Eve Confession. Sudermann. 127.
**Woman Who Was His Friend. Sudermann. 109.
"#Světlá, Caroline.#" (#Johanna Rottova Mužák.#) (1830-1899.)
(_Czech._)
***Barbara. Hrbkova. 279.
#Svoboda, František Xavier.# (1860- .) (_Czech._)
***Every Fifth Man. Hrbkova. 105.
#Tchekhov, Anton Pavlovich.# (_Russian._) _See_ #Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich.#
#Teternikov, Feodor Kuzmitch.# (_Russian._) _See_ "#Sologub, Feodor.#"
#Tolstoï, Lyof Nikolaievich, Count.# (1828-1910.) (_Russian._)
(_See 1918._)
***God Sees the Truth but Waits. Schweikert B. 209.
***Master and Man. Schweikert B. 220.
***Three Arshins of Land. Schweikert B. 287.
#Turgenev, Ivan Sergievich#, (1818-1883.) (_Russian._)
***Biryuk. Schweikert B. 103.
***Lear of the Steppes. Schweikert B. 113.
#Vestendorf, A. Von.# (_German._) _See_ #Von Vestendorf, A.#
#Vigny, Alfred De.# (_French._)
***Laurette, Vigny. 43.
#Víková-Kunětická, Božena.# (1863- .) (_Czech._)
***Spiritless. Hrbkova. 135.
#Von Vestendorf, A.# (_German._)
***Furor Illyricus. Underwood A. 37.
#Vrchlický, Yaroslav.# (1853-1912.) (_Czech._)
***Brother Cœlestin. Underwood A. 3.
#Xenopoulos, Gregorios.# (_Modern Greek._)
***Mangalos. Vaka. 105.
MAGAZINE AVERAGES
OCTOBER, 1919, TO SEPTEMBER, 1920
_The following table includes the averages of American periodicals
published from October, 1919, to September, 1920, inclusive. One, two,
and three asterisks are employed to indicate relative distinction.
"Three-asterisk stories" are of somewhat permanent literary value. The
list excludes reprints._
______________________________________________________________________
| | |
| | NO. OF |PERCENTAGE OF
| NO. OF |DISTINCTIVE| DISTINCTIVE
PERIODICALS | STORIES | STORIES | STORIES
(OCT.-SEPT.) |PUBLISHED | PUBLISHED | PUBLISHED
| |___________|_____________
| | | | | | |
| | * | **|***| * | **|***
_________________________________|__________|___|___|___|___|___|_____
| | | | | | |
Atlantic Monthly | 19 | 18| 15| 11| 95| 78| 58
Century | 43 | 36| 25| 12| 84| 56| 28
Collier's Weekly | 97 | 24| 8| 4| 25| 8| 4
Cosmopolitan | 75 | 17| 7| 3| 23| 9| 4
Dial (including translations) | 19 | 19| 15| 11|100| 78| 58
Everybody's Magazine (including | | | | | | |
translations) | 75 | 23| 7| 0| 31| 9| 0
Harper's Magazine | 57 | 43| 32| 15| 75| 56| 26
Hearst's Magazine (including | | | | | | |
translations) | 76 | 17| 6| 4| 22| 8| 5
McCall's Magazine (including | | | | | | |
translations) | 41 | 15| 7| 3| 37| 17| 7
McClure's Magazine (including | | | | | | |
translations) | 53 | 24| 16| 13| 45| 30| 25
Metropolitan | 78 | 20| 12| 6| 26| 15| 8
Midland | 13 | 11| 11| 8| 85| 85| 62
Munsey's Magazine | 83 | 14| 5| 2| 17| 6| 2
New York Tribune (including | | | | | | |
translations) | 48 | 31| 5| 1| 63| 11| 2
Pagan (including translations) | 21 | 10| 8| 6| 50| 40| 30
Pictorial Review | 46 | 30| 28| 25| 65| 61| 54
Red Book Magazine | 117 | 17| 4| 2| 15| 4| 2
Reedy's Mirror (including | | | | | | |
translations) | 30 | 16| 8| 4| 53| 27| 13
Romance | 89 | 23| 6| 1| 26| 7| 1
Scribner's Magazine | 51 | 36| 23| 10| 72| 46| 20
Smart Set (including | | | | | | |
translations) | 127 | 51| 25| 14| 40| 20| 11
_________________________________|__________|___|___|___|___|___|_____
_The following tables indicate the rank, during the period between
October, 1919, and September, 1920, inclusive, by number and percentage
of distinctive stories published, of the twenty-one periodicals coming
within the scope of my examination which have published an average of 15
per cent in stories of distinction. The lists exclude reprints, but not
translations._
#By Percentage of Distinctive Stories#
1. Dial (including translations) 100%
2. Atlantic Monthly 95%
3. Midland 85%
4. Century 84%
5. Harper's Magazine 75%
6. Scribner's Magazine 72%
7. Pictorial Review 65%
8. New York Tribune (including translations) 63%
9. Reedy's Mirror (including translations) 53%
10. Pagan (including translations) 50%
11. McClure's Magazine (including translations) 45%
12. Smart Set (including translations) 40%
13. McCall's Magazine (including translations) 37%
14. Everybody's Magazine (including translations) 31%
15. Romance 26%
16. Metropolitan 26%
17. Collier's Weekly 25%
18. Cosmopolitan 23%
19. Hearst's Magazine (including translations) 22%
20. Munsey's Magazine 17%
21. Red Book Magazine 15%
#By Number of Distinctive Stories#
1. Smart Set (including translations) 51
2. Harper's Magazine 43
3. Century 36
4. Scribner's Magazine 36
5. New York Tribune (including translations) 31
6. Pictorial Review 30
7. McClure's Magazine (including translations) 24
8. Collier's Weekly 24
9. Everybody's Magazine (including translations) 23
10. Romance 23
11. Metropolitan 20
12. Dial (including translations) 19
13. Atlantic Monthly 18
14. Cosmopolitan 17
15. Hearst's Magazine (including translations) 17
16. Red Book Magazine 17
17. Reedy's Mirror (including translations) 16
18. McCall's Magazine (including translations) 15
19. Munsey's Magazine 14
20. Midland 11
21. Pagan (including translations) 10
_The following periodicals have published during the same period ten or
more "two-asterisk stories." The list excludes reprints, but not
translations. Periodicals represented in this list during 1915, 1916,
1917, 1918 and 1919 are represented by the prefixed letters a, b, c, d,
and e respectively._
1. abcde Harper's Magazine 32
2. bcde Pictorial Review 28
3. abcde Century 25
4. abcde Smart Set (including translations) 25
5. abcde Scribner's Magazine 23
6. McClure's Magazine (including translations) 16
7. Dial (including translations) 15
8. cde Atlantic Monthly 15
9. be Metropolitan 12
10. c Midland 11
_The following periodicals have published during the same period five or
more "three-asterisk stories." The list excludes reprints, but not
translations. The same signs are used as prefixes as in the previous
list._
1. acde Pictorial Review 25
2. abcde Harper's Magazine 15
3. de Smart Set (including translations) 14
4. McClure's Magazine (including translations) 13
5. abcde Century 12
6. Dial (including translations) 11
7. cde Atlantic Monthly 11
8. abcde Scribner's Magazine 10
9. ae Midland 8
10. ace Metropolitan 6
11. be Pagan (including translations) 6
_Ties in the above lists have been decided by taking relative rank in
other lists into account._
INDEX OF SHORT STORIES PUBLISHED IN AMERICAN MAGAZINES
OCTOBER, 1919, TO SEPTEMBER, 1920
_All short stories published in the following magazines and newspapers,
October, 1919, to September, 1920, inclusive, are indexed._
American Magazine
Asia
Atlantic Monthly
Catholic World
Century
Collier's Weekly (except Dec. 27)
Delineator (except Sept.)
Dial
Everybody's Magazine
Good Housekeeping (except Apr. and June)
Harper's Magazine
Ladies' Home Journal (except Mar.)
Liberator
Little Review (except Apr. and Sept.)
Metropolitan
Midland
New York Tribune
Pagan
Pictorial Review
Reedy's Mirror
Saturday Evening Post (except Jan. 31; Feb. 14, 21; Mar. 13, 20)
Scribner's Magazine
Smart Set
Stratford Journal
Sunset Magazine
Touchstone (Oct., '19-May)
_Short stories of distinction only, published in the following magazines
during the same period, are indexed._
Adventure (Oct.-Dec., '19; Jul.-Sept.)
Ainslee's Magazine
All Story Weekly
American Boy
Argosy
Black Cat
Cosmopolitan
Freeman
Harper's Bazar (except Oct., '19)
Hearst's Magazine
Holland's Magazine
Little Story Magazine
Live Stories
McCall's Magazine
McClure's Magazine
Magnificat
Munsey's Magazine
Parisienne
People's Favorite Magazine
Queen's Work (except Sept.)
Red Book Magazine
Romance
Short Stories
Snappy Stories
Telling Tales
To-day's Housewife
Top-Notch Magazine
Woman's Home Companion (except Sept.)
Woman's World
_Certain stories of distinction published in the following magazines and
newspapers during this period are indexed, because they have been
specially called to my attention._
Detroit Sunday News
Menorah Journal
Oxford Outlook
Pearson's Magazine
Red Cross Magazine
Popular Magazine
True Stories
_One, two, or three asterisks are prefixed to the titles of stories to
indicate distinction. Three asterisks prefixed to a title indicate the
more or less permanent literary value of the story, and entitle it to a
place on the annual "Rolls of Honor." An asterisk before the name of an
author indicates that he is not an American. Cross references after an
author's name refer to previous volumes of this series. (H) after the
name of an author indicates that other stories by this author, published
in American magazines between 1900 and 1914, are to be found indexed in
"The Standard Index of Short Stories," by Francis J. Hannigan, published
by Small, Maynard & Company, 1918. The figures in parentheses after the
title of a story refer to the volume and page number of the magazine. In
cases where successive numbers of a magazine are not paged
consecutively, the page number only is given in this index._
_The following abbreviations are used in the index_:--
_Adv._ Adventure
_Ain._ Ainslee's Magazine
_All._ All-Story Weekly
_Am._ American Magazine
_Am. B._ American Boy
_Arg._ Argosy
_Asia_ Asia
_Atl._ Atlantic Monthly
_B. C._ Black Cat
_Cath. W._ Catholic World
_Cen._ Century
_Col._ Collier's Weekly
_Cos._ Cosmopolitan
_Del._ Delineator
_Det. N._ Detroit Sunday News
_Dial_ Dial
_Ev._ Everybody's Magazine
_Free._ Freeman
_G. H._ Good Housekeeping
_Harp. B._ Harper's Bazar
_Harp. M._ Harper's Monthly
_Hear._ Hearst's Magazine
_Holl._ Holland's Magazine
_L. H. J._ Ladies' Home Journal
_Lib._ Liberator
_Lit. R._ Little Review
_Lit. St._ Little Story Magazine
_L. St._ Live Stories
_Mag._ Magnificat
_McC._ McClure's Magazine
_McCall_ McCall's Magazine
_Men._ Menorah Journal
_Met._ Metropolitan
_Mid._ Midland
_Mir._ Reedy's Mirror
_Mun._ Munsey's Magazine
_N. Y. Trib._ New York Tribune
_O. O._ Oxford Outlook
_Pag._ Pagan
_Par._ Parisienne
_Pear._ Pearson's Magazine
_Peop._ People's Favorite Magazine
_Pict. R._ Pictorial Review
_Pop._ Popular Magazine
_Q. W._ Queen's Work
_(R.)_ Reprint
_Red Bk._ Red Book Magazine
_Red Cross_ Red Cross Magazine
_Rom._ Romance
_Scr._ Scribner's Magazine
_S. E. P._ Saturday Evening Post
_Sh. St._ Short Stories
_Sn. St._ Snappy Stories
_S. S._ Smart Set
_Strat. J._ Stratford Journal
_Sun._ Sunset Magazine
_Tod._ To-day's Housewife
_Top._ Top-Notch Magazine
_Touch._ Touchstone
_True St._ True Stories
_T. T._ Telling Tales
_W. H. C._ Woman's Home Companion
_Wom. W._ Woman's World
(161) Page 161
(2:161) Volume 2, page 161
(_See '15_) _See_ "Best Short Stories of 1915."
_Owing to labor and transportation difficulties, the files of certain
periodicals which I have consulted this year are not absolutely
complete. I shall report upon these missing issues next year._
#Abbott, Eleanor Hallowell.# (#Mrs. Fordyce Coburn.#) (1872- .) (_See
1915, 1918._) (_H._)
Peace On Earth, Good Will to Dogs. Col. Dec. 13-20, '19. (5, 8.)
#Abbott, Helen Raymond.# (1888- .) (_See 1918._)
*Stop Six. Cen. March. (99:666.)
#Abbott, Keene.# (1876- .) (_See 1915, 1916._) (_H._)
*Cinders of the Cinderella Family. S. E. P. Oct. 18, '19. (12.)
Thumb Minus Barlow. S. E. P. Dec. 20, '19. (28.)
#Abdullah, Achmed.# (#Achmed Abdullah Nadir Khan El-Durani El-Idrissyeh.#)
("A. A. Nadir.") (1881- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
***Evening Rice. Pict. R. June. (8.)
*Hill Bred Yar Hydar. Am. B. Dec. '19. (11.)
**Indian Jataka. All. March 13. (108:2.)
*Pell Street Choice. Am. B. Nov. '19. (6.)
**Tao. Cen. Apr. (99:819.)
#Abt, Marion.#
Epithalamium. S. S. Sept. (63.)
#Adams, Charles Magee.#
Fathers and Sons. Am. May. (28.)
Todd's Plunge. S. E. P. Jan. 3. (41.)
#Adams, H. Austin.# (_See "H" under_ #Adams, Austin.#)
"Bugs, But No One's Fool." Sun. Sept. (43.)
#Adams, Samuel Hopkins.# (1871- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
*Guardian of God's Acre. Col. June 12. (18.)
*Home Seekers. Col. Apr. 10. (13.)
*House of Silvery Voices. Col. Mar. 20. (18.)
*Patroness of Art. Col. Jul. 17. (5.)
Pink Roses and the Wallop. S. E. P. Mar. 27. (12.)
#Addis, H. A. Noureddin.# (_See 1918._)
**Weaver. Asia. Jan. (20:13.)
#Addison, Thomas.# (_See 1915, 1916, 1918, 1919._)
Tricks in All Trades. Ev. Apr. (76.)
*#Ades, Albert.#
*Mme. Grandvoinet. N. Y. Trib. March 21.
#Agee, Fannie Heaslip Lea.# _See_ #Lea, Fannie Heaslip.#
#Aitken, Kenneth Lyndwode.# (1881-1919.)
***From the Admiralty Files. Cen. Dec. '19. (99:241.)
**Wee Bit Ghost. Met. March. (34.)
#Akins, Zoë.# (1886- .) (_See 1919._)
*Bruised Reed. Cos. July. (32.)
**Sister of the Sun. Cen. Dec. '19. (99:217.)
#Aldrich, Bess Streeter.# ("#Margaret Dean Stevens.#") (1881- .)
(_See 1919._) (_See 1916 under_ #Stevens, Margaret Dean.#)
*Across the smiling Meadow. L. H. J. Feb. (20.)
Ginger Cookies. L. H. J. Jan. (25.)
"Last Night, When You Kissed Blanche Thompson----." Am. Aug. (28.)
Marcia Mason's Lucky Star. Am. March. (23.)
Mason Family Now on Exhibition. Am. Nov. '19. (45.)
Mother Mason Gives Some
Good Advice. Am. May. (49.)
Tillie Cuts Loose. Am. April. (50.)
"#Alexander, Mary.#" _See_ #Kilbourne, Fannie.#
#Alexander, Nell Stewart.#
Cutting the Cat's Claws. L. H. J. Sept. (34.)
#Alexander, Sandra.# (_See 1919._)
According to Otto. Col. Mar. 27. (10.)
Goer. Met. Nov. '19. (34.)
"#Amid, John.#" (#M. M. Stearns.#) (1884- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917,
1918, 1919._) (_H._)
*Seravido Money. Mir. Nov. 20, '19. (28:812.)
#Anderson, C. Farley.#
***Octogenarian. S. S. Dec. '19. (119.)
#Anderson, Frederick Irving.# (1877- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
*King's Thumb. Ev. Dec. '19. (45.)
#Anderson, Jane.# (_H._)
***Happiest Man in the World. Cen. Jan. (99:330.)
#Anderson, Sherwood.# (1876- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
***Door of the Trap. Dial. May. (68:567.)
***I Want to Know Why. S. S. Nov. '19. (35.)
***Other Woman. Lit. R. May-June. (37.)
***Triumph of the Egg. Dial. Mar. (68:295.)
#Anderson, William Ashley.# (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1919._) (_H._)
**Black Man Without a Country. Harp. M. June. (141:90.)
Bwana Poor. S. E. P. Oct. 4, '19. (41.)
**Parable of Trifles. S. E. P. Nov. 8, '19. (28.)
#Anderton, Daisy.# (_See 1919._)
***Belated Girlhood. Pag. Jan. (37.)
*#Andreieff, Leonid Nikolaevich.# _See_ #Andreyev, Leonid Nikolaevich.#
#Andrews, Mary Raymond Shipman.# (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
*Broken Wings. Scr. Aug. (68:129.)
#Andrews, Roland F.# (_H._)
For the Honor of Sam Butler. Ev. Mar. (38.)
**Wallababy. Met. Aug. (38.)
*#Andreyev, Leonid Nikolaevich.# (1871-1919.) (_See 1916, 1917._)
(_See "H" under_ #Andreieff.#)
***Promise of Spring. Pag. Nov.-Dec., '19. (6.)
#Anonymous.#
*Bird of Passage. N. Y. Trib. Dec. 28, '19.
*His Last Rendezvous. N. Y. Trib. Nov. 30, '19.
*Incompatibles. N. Y. Trib. Nov. 23, '19.
***Romance of the Western Pavilion. Asia. May. (20:392.)
"Stranger." N. Y. Trib. May 30.
#Armstrong, LeRoy.# (1854- .) (_H._)
"Patsy, Keep Your Head." Met. Oct., '19. (29.)
#Aspinwall, Marguerite.# (_See 1918._)
First Rung. Del. Feb. (11.)
#Atherton, Sarah.#
Lie and the Litany. Scr. Aug. (68:186.)
*Necessary Dependent. Scr. June. (67:747.)
*Paths from Diamond Patch. Scr. Jul. (68:65.)
*#Aumonier, Stacy.# (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._)
***Golden Windmill. Pict. R. Oct., '19. (14.)
***Good Action. Cen. Aug. (100:454.)
***Great Unimpressionable. Pict. R. Nov., '19. (12.)
***Just the Same. Pict. R. Jul.-Aug. (12.)
***Landlord of "The Love-a-Duck." Pict. R. Jan.-Feb. (8.)
*#Auriol, Georges.#
Heart of the Mother. Pag. Jul.-Sept. (33.)
*#Austin, Frederick Britten.# (1885- .) (_See 1915, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
*Buried Treasure. Hear. Dec., '19. (14.)
*Yellow Magic. Red. Bk. Apr. (28.)
#Austin-Ball, Mrs. T.# _See_ #Steele, Alice Garland.#
#Avery, Hascal T.# (_See 1919._)
*Corpus Delicti. Atl. Feb. (125:200.)
#Avery, Stephen Morehouse.#
Lemon or Cream? L. H. J. Feb. (24.)
#Babcock, Edwina Stanton.# (_See 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
***Gargoyle. Harp. M. Sept. (141:417.)
**Porch of the Maidens. Harp. M. March. (140:460.)
#Bailey (Irene), Temple.# (_See 1915, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
Beggars on Horseback. S. E. P. Oct. 4, '19. (20.)
**Gay Cockade. Harp. M. Feb. (140:290.)
#Ball, Mrs. T. Austin.# _See_ #Steele, Alice Garland.#
#Balmer, Edwin.# (1883- .) (_See 1915, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_Hb._)
Acheron Run. Ev. May. (59.)
Jim Culver Learns the Secret of Teamwork. Am. Aug. (49.)
On the 7:50 Express. Am. April. (13.)
Paolina. Ev. Feb. (59.)
Santa Claus Breaks Into the Kelly Pool Game. Am. Dec., '19. (40.)
Upon the Record Made. L. H. J. Jul. (7.)
*#Bargone, Charles.# _See_ "#Farrère, Claude.#"
*#Barker (Harley), Granville.# (1877- .) (_See 1916._)
***Bigamist. Free. May 5. (1:176.)
#Barnard, Leslie Gordon.#
Jealousy of Mother McCurdy. Am. June. (39.)
Why They Called Her "Little Ireland." Am. July. (49.)
#Barnes, Djuna.# (1892- .) (_See 1918, 1919._)
***Beyond the End. Lit. R. Dec., '19. (7.)
***Mother. Lit. R. Jul.-Aug. (10.)
#Barratt, Louise Rand Bascom.# _See_ #Bascom, Louise Rand.#
#Barrett, Arabel Moulton.# (_See 1919._)
Little Brown Bird. Cath. W. Oct., '19. (110:29.)
#Barrett, Richmond Brooks.#
At Thirty-three. S. S. Sept. (55.)
Daughter of the Bernsteins. S. S. Jul. (83.)
Divine Right of Tenors. S. S. March. (73.)
*Satanic Saint. S. S. April. (103.)
#Bartlett, Frederick Orin.# (1876- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
Everlasting Hills. S. E. P. Mar. 27. (30.)
**Inside. Del. Jan. (7.)
Junior Member. S. E. P. Oct. 25, '19. (14.)
Later Boat. Ev. Apr. (68.)
Strip of Green Paper. Ev. Sept. (51.)
#Barton, C. P.#
*Life, Liberty, and Happiness. All. Apr. 10. (109:135.)
#Bascom, Louise Rand.# (#Mrs. G. W. Barrett.#) (_See 1915, 1916,
1918._) (_H._)
*Question of Dress. B. C. Jul. (13.)
#Bash, Mrs. Louis H.# _See_ #Runkle, Bertha (Brooks.)#
#Beadle, Charles.# (_See 1918._)
*Inner Hero. Rom. Nov., '19. (113.)
#Beale, William C.# (_See 1918, 1919._)
*Eternal Knout. Ev. Nov., '19. (34.)
#Beard, Wolcott le Cléar.# (1867- .) (_See 1915, 1919._) (_H._)
*Sun God Functions. Arg. Nov. 1, '19. (114:18.)
#Bechdolt, Frederick Ritchie.# (1874- .) (_See 1917, 1919._) (_H._)
Cleaning Up of Lathrop. S. E. P. May 15. (46.)
On the Lordsburg Road. S. E. P. Nov. 1, '19. (42.)
*#Beck, L. Adams.#
***Fire of Beauty. Atl. Sept. (126:359.)
***Incomparable Lady. Atl. Aug. (126:178.)
#Beer, Thomas.# (1889- .) (_See 1917, 1918, 1919._)
**Boy Flag. S. E. P. June 5. (12.)
*Cool. Cen. Sept. (100:604.)
Curious Behavior of Myra Cotes. Met. Oct., '19. (32.)
Lorena. S. E. P. Oct. 25, '19. (18.)
Poison Pen. S. E. P. Jul. 17. (16.)
*Refuge. S. E. P. Aug. 28. (18.)
Totem. S. E. P. Nov. 29, '19. (42.)
*Zerbetta and the Black Arts. S. E. P. Dec. 6, '19. (22.)
#Beffel, John Nicholas.# (_See 1915._) (_H._)
*Crosby Crew. Mir. Oct. 23, '19. (28:730.)
*Out of the Cage. Mir. Nov. 20, '19. (28:816.) 18, '19. (28:816.)
Seneca's Ghost House. Mir. Dec. 18, '19. (28:936.)
Woman at the Door. Mir. Dec. 11, '19. (28:899.)
#Behrman, S. N.# (_See 1917, 1918, 1919._)
*That Second Man. S. S. Nov., '19. (73.)
#Belden, Jacques.#
*Song of Home. Mun. Nov., '19. (68:230.)
#Benét, Stephen Vincent.# (1898- .) (_See 1916._)
*Funeral of John Bixby. Mun. Jul. (70:382.)
***Summer Thunder. S. S. Sept. (79.)
#Bercovici, Konrad.# (1882- .)
***Ghitza. Dial. Feb. (68:154.)
*Yahde, the Proud One. Rom. Aug. (100.)
*#Beresford, John Davys.# (1873- .) (_See 1916, 1917, 1919._) (_H._)
**Convert. Free. May, '19. (1:225.)
*"#Bertheroy, Jean.#" (#Berthe Carianne Le Barillier.#) (1860- .) (_See
1918, 1919._)
*Candlemas Day. N. Y. Trib. Aug. 29.
*From Beyond the Grace. N. Y. Trib. Feb. 1.
#Bidwell, Anna Cabot.#
Fairest Adonis. Cen. March (99:610.)
*#Binet-Valmer.# (_See 1918, 1919._)
Armistice Night. N. Y. Trib. Apr. 4.
*Withered Flowers. N. Y. Trib. Jan. 4.
*"#Birmingham, George A.#" (#Canon James O. Hannay.#) (1865- .) (_See
1915, 1917, 1918._) (_H._)
**Bands of Ballyguttery. Ev. Jul. (63.)
#Bishop, Ola.# (_See 1919._)
Dawson Gang. Met. Nov., '19. (52.)
Wilda MacIvor-Horsethief. Met. Feb. (42.)
*#Bizet, René.#
Devil's Peak. N. Y. Trib. Jul. 18.
*Lie. N. Y. Trib. May 16.
*#Blackwood, Algernon.# (1869- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
**Chinese Magic. Rom. June. (26.)
***First Hate. McC. Feb. (22.)
***Running Wolf. Cen. Aug. (100:482.)
*#Blasco Ibáñez, Vicente.# (1867- .) (_See 1919 under_ #Ibáñez, Vicente
Blasco.#)
*Caburé Feather. McC. Sept. (20.)
*Four Sons of Eve. McC. Jul. (8.)
*Mad Virgins. Ev. Dec., '19. (25.)
***Old Woman of the Movies. McC. May. (9.)
*Shot in the Dark. McCall. Jul. (6.)
***Sleeping-Car Porter. Del. Oct., '19. (15.)
#Bloch, Bertram.# (_See '18._)
Modern Improvements. S. S. Feb. (79.)
#Block, Rudolph.# _See_ "Lessing, Bruno."
#Blum, Henry S.#
Oil. Met. Aug. (34.)
#Boas, George.#
**Officer, but a Gentleman. Atl. Aug. (126:194.)
#Bodenheim, Maxwell.# (1893- .)
**Religion. Lit. R. May-June. (32.)
#Bois, Boice Du.# _See_ #Du Bois, Boice.#
#Boogher, Susan M.# (_See 1919._)
Mrs. Hagey and the Follies. L. H. J. Sept. (22.)
#Booth, Frederick.# (_See 1916, 1917._)
*Duel, Ain. Apr. (126.)
*#Bottome, Phyllis# (#Mrs. Forbes Dennis#). (_See 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
**Man of the "Chat Noir." Ain. June-Jul. (41.)
**Residue. Cen. Sept, (100:665.)
#Boulton, Agnes#, (#Mrs. Eugene G. O'Neill.#) (1893- .)
**Hater of Mediocrity. S. S. Jul. (119.)
*#Boutet, Fréderic.# (_See 1917, 1918._)
*Her Magnificent Recollections. Par. June. (37.)
*His Wife's Correspondents. Par. Sept. (65.)
**Laura. N. Y. Trib. Sept., '19.
*M. Octave Boullay. N. Y. Trib. Aug. 1.
*Two Dinners. N. Y. Trib. Aug. 22.
#Bowman, Earl Wayland.#
Blunt Nose. Am. Feb. (62.)
High Stakes. Am. Sept. (56.)
#Boyer, Wilbur S.# (_See 1917, 1919._) (_H._)
*Tutti-Frutti. Ev. May. (69.)
#Brace, Blanche.#
Adventure of the Lost Trousseau. L. H. J. Sept. (14.)
Tuesday and Thursday Evenings. S. E. P. Sept. 25. (20.)
#Bradley, Mary Hastings.# (_See 1919._) (_H._)
His Neighbor's Wife. Met. Sept. (25.)
Salvage, Met. May. (16.)
#Brand, Max.# (_See 1918._)
*Out of the Dark. All. March. 13. (108:9.)
#Breakspear, Matilda.#
Humberto, S. S. Jan. (108.)
#Brooks, Jonathan.#
Bills Payable. Col. Sept. 18. (5.)
Hand and Foot. Col. May 15. (14.)
High and Handsome. Col. June 19. (5.)
Hot Blood and Cold. Col. Aug. 7. (5.)
Rewarded, By Virtue. Col. Apr. 3. (5.)
#Brooks, Paul.#
Immolation. S. S. Sept. (101.)
#Brown, Alice.# (1857- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
*Captives. McCall. May. (6.)
*Mistletoe. W. H. C. Dec., '19. (23.)
***Old Lemuel's Journey. Atl. June. (125:782.)
#Brown, Estelle Aubrey.#
Elizabeth--Convex. L. H. J. Jan. (9.)
#Brown, Hearty Earl.# (1886- .) (_See 1918, 1919._)
Gold-Piece. Atl. Jul. (126:67.)
#Brown, Katharine Holland.# (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
*House on the Sand. W. H. C. May. (29.)
**Very Anxious Mother. Scr. Dec. 1919. (66:749.)
#Brown, Royal.# (_See 1917, 1918, 1919._)
Eighth Box. L. H. J. Dec., 1919. (14.)
Game for Quentina. L. H. J. June. (18.)
Too Much Canvas. L. H. J. Nov., 1919. (20.)
#Brown, W. S.#
*Albert Bean's Tranquillity. Dial. Mar. (68:306.)
#Brownell, Agnes Mary.# (_See 1917, 1918, 1919._)
***Buttermilk. Mir. Dec. 11, 1919. (28:887.)
**Coquette. McCall. May. (16.)
**Cure. Mid. Sept. (6:138.)
**Evergreen. G. H. Dec., 1919. (49.)
*Forty-Love. McCall. Jul. (16.)
**Grampa. Del. Apr. (24.)
*Intentions. Rome. Apr. (33.)
*Oxalis. Del. Feb. (21.)
***Quest. Mid. Sept.-Oct. '19. (5:220.)
**Red Fiddle. Arg. Jul. 31. (123:699.)
***Relation. Pict. R. June. (12.)
*Wannie--and Her Heart's Desire. Am. Jul. (44.)
#Brownell, Mrs. Baker.# _See_ "#Maxwell, Helena.#"
#Brubaker, Howard.# (1892- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
*Decline and Fall. Harp. M. Jul. (141:244.)
*Little Friends of All the Arts. Harp. M. Feb. (140:386.)
#Bruno, Guído.# (1884- .) (_See 1915._)
Adultery on Washington Square. Mir. Jul. 15. (29:563.)
*#Bruno, Ruby, J.#
*Unbreakable Chain. N. Y. Trib. Apr. 18.
Woman's Will. N. Y. Trib. July 11.
#Bryan, Grace Lovell.#
Class! S. E. P. Dec. 27, '19. (46.)
Rowena Pulls the Wheeze! S. E. P. July 31. (16.)
"You Never Can Tell--" S. E. P. Nov. 22, '19. (40.)
#Bryner, Edna Clare.#
***Life of Five Points. Dial. (69:225.)
*#Buchan, John.# (1875- .) (_H._)
***Fullcircle. Atl. Jan. (125:36.)
*#Buchanan, Meriel.#
Miracle of St. Nicholas. Scr. Aug. (68:137.)
#Buck, Oscar MacMillan.#
**Village of Dara's Mercy. Asia. June. (20:481.)
#Bulger, Bozeman.# (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1919._) (_See also_ #Terhune,
Albert Payson#, _and_ #Bulger, Bozeman.#)
Logansport Breeze. S. E. P. June, '19. (30.)
Real Shine. Ev. June. (25.)
#Burke, Kenneth.#
*Mrs. Mæcenas. Dial. Mar. (68:346.)
**Soul of Kajn Tafha. Dial. Jul. (69:29.)
*#Burke, Thomas.# (1887- .) (_See 1916, 1919._)
***Scarlet Shoes. Cos. Apr. (69.)
**Twelve Golden Curls. Cos. Mar. (37.)
*#Burland, John Burland Harris.# (1870- .)
*Green Flame. T. T. Apr. (27.)
**Window. L. St. Dec. '19 (94.)
#Burnet, Dana.# (1888- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._)
*Last of the Oldmasters. Ev. Jan. (37.)
Romance of a Country Road. G. H. Oct., '19. (34.)
#Burt, Maxwell Struthers.# (1882- .) (_See 1915, 1917, 1918, 1919._)
**"Bally Old" Knot. Scr. Aug. (68:194.)
*Devilled Sweetbreads. Scr. Apr. (67:411.)
***Dream or Two. Harp. M. May. (140:744.)
***Each in His Generation. Scr. Jul. (68:42.)
***When His Ships Came In. Scr. Dec., '19. (66:721.)
#Butler, Ellis Parker.# (1869- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
**Criminals Three. Pict. R. March. (16.)
**Economic Waste. Ev. Oct., '19. (46.)
*Jury of His Peers. Ev. Sept. (42.)
Knight Without Reproach. S. E. P. Nov. 8, '19. (69.)
Potting Marjotta. Col. Jan. 17. (11.)
"#Byrne, Donn.#" (#Bryan Oswald Donn-Byrne.#) (1888- .) (_See 1915,
1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
*And Zabad Begat Ephlal. Hear. May. (31.)
*Bride's Play. Hear. Sept. (8.)
#Cabell, James Branch.# (1879- .) (_See 1915, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
***Designs of Miramon. Cen. Aug. (100:533.)
***Feathers of Olrun. Cen. Dec., '19. (99:193.)
***Hair of Melicent. McC. Sept. (24.)
***Head of Misery. McC. Jul. (21.)
***Hour of Freydis. McC. May. (14.)
**Porcelain Cups. Cen. Nov., '19. (99:20.)
#Calvin, L.#
Twenty Stories Above Lake Level. Pag. Jul.-Sept. (16.)
#Cameron, Margaret.# (#Margaret Cameron Lewis.#) (1867- .) (_See 1915,
1916, 1917._) (_H._)
Personal: Object Matrimony. Harp. M. Apr. (140:621.)
#Camp, (Charles) Wadsworth.# (1879- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917,
1918._) (_H._)
Black Cap. Col. Jan. 24. (10.)
**Dangerous Tavern. Col. Jul. 24. (5.)
Hate. Col. Apr. 3. (18.)
***Signal Tower. Met. May. (32.)
#Campbell, Marjorie Prentiss.# (_See 1919._)
Guests for Dinner. Del. Mar. (11.)
Tight Skirts and the Sea. L. H. J. Dec., '19. (20.)
#Canda, Elizabeth Holden.#
Broken Glass. L. H. J. Feb. (15.)
*#Cannan, Gilbert.# (1884- .)
**Tragic End. Dial. Jan. (68:47.)
#Carmichael, Catherine.#
Fairy of the Fire-place. Met. June. (13.)
#Carnevali, Emanuel.#
Tales of a Hurried Man. I. Lit. R. Oct., '19. (16.)
Tales of a Hurried Man. II. Lit. R. Nov., '19. (22.)
Tales of a Hurried Man. III. Lit. R. Mar. (28.)
#Carson, Shirley.#
*Old Woman's Story. Hol. June. (11.)
#Carver, George.# (_See 1918._)
**About the Sixth Hour. Mir. March 18. (29:203.)
#Cary, Gladys Gill.#
It's So Hard for a Girl. L. H. J. Oct., '19. (18.)
#Cary, Harold.#
She and He. Ev. Feb. (31.)
*#Cary, Joyce.# _See_ "#Joyce, Thomas.#"
*#Casement, Roger.#
*Guti. (_R._) Mir. May 20. (29:415.)
#Casey Patrick#, _and_ #Casey, Terence.# (_See 1915, 1917._) (_See "H"
under_ #Casey, Patrick.#)
**Wedding of Quesada. S. E. P. Sept. 18. (12.)
#Casseres, Benjamin De.# (1873- .) (_See "H" under_ #De Casseres,
Benjamin.#)
*Last Satire of a Famous Titan. S. S. June. (79.)
*#Castle, Agnes (Sweetman)#, _and_ #Castle, Egerton.# (1858-1920.)
(_See 1917, 1919._) (_H._)
*Fair Fatality. Rom. Apr. (137.)
#Castle, Everett Rhodes.# (_See 1917, 1918, 1919._)
Ain't Men So Transparent--S. E. P. Nov. 22, '19. (61.)
Golfers Three. S. E. P. Oct. 18, '19. (49.)
#Cather, Willa Sibert.# (1875- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
**Her Boss. S. S. Oct., '19. (95.)
#Catton, George L.# (_See 1918._)
*Coincidence. Lit. St. Sept. (1.)
*Speaking of Crops. Arg. Mar. 6. (118:475.)
#Cavendish, John C.# (_See 1919._)
*Dawn. S. S. Dec., '19. (57.)
Last Love. S. S. Feb. (117.)
*Little Grisette. S. S. Nov., '19. (41.)
#Chadwick, Charles.#
Broken Promise. L. H. J. May. (27.)
#Chalmers, Mary.#
**Liberation of Christine Googe. Sn. St. March 18. (59.)
#Chamberlain, Lucia.# (_See 1917._) (_H._)
Policeman X. S. E. P. Mar. 27. (16.)
#Chambrun, Countess De.# _See_ #De Chambrun, Clara Longworth, Countess.#
#Chandler, Josephine C.#
Habeas Corpus. Pag. Nov.-Dec., '19. (35.)
#Chapin, Carl Mattison.# (_See 1915._) (_H._)
Too Much Is Enough. S. E. P. Oct. 25, '19. (46.)
#Chapman, Edith.#
***Classical Case. Pag. June. (4.)
*Emancipation. S. S. June. (99).
**Golden Fleece. Pag. Feb. (4.)
Inevitable Eve. S. S. Aug. (61.)
Mid-Victorians. S. S. Feb. (53.)
*Pandora. S. S. May. (85.)
*Question of Values. S. S. Sept. (29.)
Reductio ad Absurdum. S. S. Jan. (59.)
**Self-Deliverance, or The Stanton Way. Pag. Apr.-May. (12.)
#Charles, Tennyson.#
*Riding the Crack of Doom. Am. B. Apr. (18.)
#Chase, Mary Ellen.# (1887- .) (_See 1919._)
*Sure Dwellings. Harp. M. Nov., '19. (139:869.)
*#Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich.# (1860-1904.) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917 under_
#Tchekov.#) (_See 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
***At a Country House. (_R._) Touch. May. (7:126.)
#Chenault, Fletcher.# (_See 1917, 1918._)
On Nubbin Ridge. Col. Dec. 6, '19. (20.)
#Chester, George Randolph.# (1869- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917,
1919._) (_H._)
Pouff. Ev. Mar. (64.)
*#Chesterton, Gilbert Keith.# (1874- .) (_See 1919._) (_H._)
**Face in the Target. Harp. M. Apr. (140:577.)
*Garden of Smoke. Hear. Jan. (15.)
**Soul of the Schoolboy. Harp. M. Sept. (141:512.)
**Vanishing Prince. Harp. M. Aug. (141:320.)
#Child, Richard Washburn.# (1881- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
*Bomb. McC. Jan. (11.)
Thief Indeed. Pict. R. June. (6.)
#Church, F.S.# (_See 1919._)
How I Spent My Vacation. Scr. Aug. (68:155.)
#Churchill, David.# (_See 1919._)
Igor's Trail. Ev. May. (46.)
#Churchill, Roy P.# (_See 1919._)
Bold Adventure of Jimmie the Watchmaker. Am. May. (40.)
#Clark, (Charles) Badger.#
All for Nothing. Sun. Apr (40.)
Gloria Kids. Sun. Jul. (52.)
In the Natural. Sun. June (43.)
Little Widow. Sun. May. (36.)
Sacred Salt. Sun. Aug. (39.)
#Clark, Valma.#
*Big Man. Holl. Aug. (7.)
#Clausen, Carl.#
**Perfect Crime. S. E. P. Sept. 25. (18.)
*Regan. Rom. April. (114.)
#Cleghorn, Sarah N(orcliffe).# (1876- .) (_See 1917._) (_H._)
*"And She Never Could Understand." Cen. Jan. (99:387.)
#Clemans, Ella V.#
*Mother May's Morals. G. H. May. (25.)
*#Clémenceau, Georges.#
*How I Became Long-Sighted. Hear. Aug. (12.)
*#Clifford, Mrs. W. K.# (#Lucy Lane Clifford.#) (_See 1915, 1917._) (_H._)
Antidote. Scr. Sept. (68:259.)
#Clive, Julian.# (_See 1919._)
Climate. Mir. Nov. 27, '19. (28:835.)
Of the Nature of Himself. Mir. Feb. 26. (29:145.)
#Cobb, Irvin (Shrewsbury).# (1876- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
*It Could Happen Again To-morrow. S. E. P. Dec. 6, '19. (10.)
***Story That Ends Twice. S. E. P. Sept. 4. (8.)
*Wasted Headline. S. E. P. May 8. (10.)
*When August the Second Was April the First. S. E. P. Nov. 1, '19. (10.)
Why Mr. Lobel Had Apoplexy. S. E. P. Jan. 17. (8.)
#Coburn, Mrs. Fordyce.# _See_ #Abbott, Eleanor Hallowell.#
#Cohen, Bella.#
*"Children of the Asphalt." L. St. Jan. (75.)
*Chrysanthemums. Arg. May 29. (121:395.)
**Hands. Touch. Aug.-Sept. (7:383.)
*Roaches are Golden. L. St. Sept. (69.)
*Sara Resnikoff. Arg. Dec. 13, '19. (115:503.)
**Voices of Spring on the East Side. Touch. Jan. (6:195.)
#Cohen, Octavus Roy.# (1891- .) (_See 1917, 1918, 1919._)
All's Swell That Ends Swell. S. E. P. Nov. 8, '19. (12.)
Auto-Intoxication. S. E. P. Oct. 18, '19. (20.)
Gravey. S. E. P. June 19. (12.)
Here Comes the Bribe. S. E. P. Feb. 28. (12.)
Mistuh Macbeth. S. E. P. Apr. 17. (12.)
Night-Blooming Serious. S. E. P. Apr. 24. (12.)
Noblesse Obliged. S. E. P. Jul. 3. (14.)
Survival of the Fattest. S. E. P. Nov. 15, '19. (16.)
Ultima Fool. S. E. P. Jan. 24. (20.)
#Collins, Charles.#
Girl on the End. Met. Apr. (24.)
Sins of Saint Anthony. S. E. P. Dec. 20, '19. (16.)
When Marcia Fell. S. E. P. May 15. (20.)
#Comfort, Will Levington#, (1878- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._) _See also_ #Comfort, Will Levington#, _and_ #Dost,
Zamin Ki.#
Gamester. S. E. P. Nov. 29, '19. (28.)
#Comfort, Will Levington.# (1878- .), _and_ #Dost, Zamin Ki.# _See
also_ #Comfort, Will Levington.#
*Bear Knob. S. E. P. Jan. 10. (29.)
*Lair. S. E. P. Oct. 11, '19. (20.)
#Condon, Frank.# (_See 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
Any Nest for a Hen. Col. June 12. (10.)
Circus Stuff. Col. Jan. 31. (10.)
Fade Out. S. E. P. Nov. 1, '19. (54.)
*Jones--Balloonatic. Col. Mar. 13. (8.)
Sacred Elephant. Col. Oct. 4, '19. (28.)
#Connolly, James Brendan.# (1868- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
**Fiery Sea. Col. Feb. 21. (13.)
*Wimmin and Girls. Col. May 22. (12.)
#Cook, Mrs. George Cram.# _See_ #Glaspell, Susan.#
#Cook, Lyle.#
Dancing Shoes. L. H. J. May. (20.)
Wing Dust. L. H. J. Apr. (14.)
#Cooke, Grace MacGowan.# _See_ #MacGowan, Alice#, _and_ #Cooke, Grace
MacGowan.#
#Cooper, Courtney Ryley.# (1886- .) (_See 1917, 1919._) (_H._)
Thrill That Cured Him. L. H. J. Oct., '19. (29.)
Unconquered. S. E. P. June 5. (30.)
#Corbaley, Kate.#
Hangers-On. L. H. J. Nov., '19. (17.)
Pair of Blue Rompers. L. H. J. Jan. (15.)
#Corcoran, Captain A. P.#
Middle Watch. L. H. J. Jan. (26.)
#Corley, Donald.#
***Daimyo's Bowl. Harp. M. Nov., '19. (139:810.)
#Cornell, V. H.# (_See 1915._) (_H._)
His Big Moment. S. E. P. Sept. 11. (38.)
"#Crabb, Arthur.#" (_See 1917, 1918, 1919._)
Among Gentlemen. Col. Feb. 14. (21.)
Bill Riggs Comes Back. G. H. Jul.-Aug. (61.)
Harold Child, Bachelor. L. H. J. Oct.-Nov., '19. (11:28.)
In the Last Analysis. Col. Sept. 4. (10.)
Janet. Met. March. (42.)
Kiss. Met. Oct., '19. (21.)
Lanning Cup. Ev. Apr. (49.)
Little God of Hunches. Ev. Jul. (21.)
Masher. Met. Apr. (36.)
Max Solis Gives an Option. Met. Sept. (28.)
Mr. Dog-in-the-Manger. Del. Jul.-Aug. (16.)
More or Less Innocent Bystander. Met. Feb. (21.)
Queer Business. Ev. May. (9.)
Rape of the Key. Sun. Dec., '19. (37.)
Reformation of Orchid. Met. Jan. (38.)
Represented by Counsel. Met. Nov., '19. (26.)
Sammy, Old Fox. Ev. Sept. (21.)
Story Apropos. Col. March 13. (20.)
Tony Comes Back. Del. Jan. (12.)
Yielded Torch. Cen. Apr. (99:758.)
#Cram, Mildred R.# (1889- .) (_See 1916, 1917, 1919._)
*Concerning Courage. L. H. J. Feb. (7.)
**Ember. McCall. June. (12.)
Fade Out. Col. May 22. (21.)
***Odell. Red Bk. May. (58.)
Romance--Unlimited. Col. June 5. (18.)
***Spring of Cold Water. Harp. B. Aug. (50.)
**Stuff of Dreams. Harp. B. Feb. (72.)
***Wind. Mun. Aug. (70:413.)
#Crane, Clarkson.# (_See 1916._)
Furlough. S. S. May. (113.)
#Crane, Mifflin.# (_See 1919._)
Betrayal. S. S. March. (109.)
Captive. S. S. Nov., '19. (97.)
*Cycle. S. S. April. (73.)
*Impossible Romance. S. S. Aug. (37.)
Negligible Ones. S. S. Dec., '19. (73.)
Older Woman. S. S. Feb. (87.)
#Crew, Helen Coale.# (1866- .) (_H._)
***Parting Genius. Mid. Jul. (6:95.)
#Crissey, Forrest.# (1864- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917._) (_H._)
**Gumshoes 4-B. Harp. M. Dec., '19. (140:116.)
#Croff, Grace A.# (_See 1915._)
*Forbidden Meadow. G. H. Sept. (60.)
Minds of Milly. G. H. Jul.-Aug. (43.)
*Stroke of Genius. Rom. Sept (161.)
#Cummings, Ray.#
*Old Man Davey. Arg. Sept. 4. (125:110.)
#Cummins, T. D. Pendleton. "T. D. Pendleton."# (_see 1915, 1916._)
*Biscuit. Mir. Aug. 19. (29:644.)
"#Curly, Roger.#"
Tael of a Tail-Spinner. Harp. M. June. (141:137.)
Three on an Island. Harp. M. Aug. (141:409.)
#Curran, Pearl Lenore.#
Rosa Alvaro, Entrante. S. E. P. Nov. 22, '19. (18.)
#Curtiss, Philip (Everett).# (1885- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
Crocodile's Half-Sister. Harp. M. May. (140:824.)
First of the Cuties. Ev. Mar. (45.)
**Holy Roman Empire of the Bronx. Harp. M. Sept. (141:465.)
*Temperament. Harp. B. Mar. (52.)
#Dallett, Morris.#
Lost Love. S. S. Dec., '19. (75.)
#Davies, Oma Almona.# (_See 1915, 1918._)
Tunis Hoopstetter, Early Bloomer. S. E. P. May 15. (30.)
#Davis, Charles Belmont.# (1866- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1919._) (_H._)
His Sister. Met. Feb. (28.)
#Davis, Martha King.#
David Stands Pat. L. H. J. Jul. (30.)
Transplanting Mother. Am. Feb. (20.)
#Davis, Maurice.#
Droll Secret of Mademoiselle. S. S. Sept. (39.)
*Tradition of the House of Monsieur. S. S. May. (23.)
#Davron, Mary Clare.#
Ladies Who Loved Don Juan. Met. Dec., '19. (19.)
*#Dawson, Coningsby (William).# (1883- .) (_See 1915, 1916._) (_H._)
*Loneliest Fellow. G. H. Dec., '19. (17.)
#Day, Holman Francis.# (1865- .) (_See 1915, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
*Deodat's in Town. Red Bk. Apr. (38.)
Nooning at the Devilbrew. Col. Apr. 10. (10.)
Two Beans and Bomazeen. S. E. P. Oct. 25, '19. (12.)
#De Casseres, Benjamin.# _See_ #Casseres, Benjamin De.#
#De Chambrun, Clara Longworth, Countess.#
"Little Archie." Scr. Aug. (68:222.)
*#Deeping, (George) Warwick.# (1877- .) (_H._)
*Hunger and Two Golden Salvers. Rom. Jul. (73.)
*Pride and the Woman. Par. April. (109.)
*Secret Orchard. Rom. Sept. (96.)
#De Jagers, Dorothy.# (_See 1916._)
Mary Lou and the Hall-Room Tradition. Ev. Apr. (21.)
Polly Wants a Backer. Ev. Aug. (28.)
#Delano, Edith Barnard.# (_See 1915, 1917, 1918._) (_See "H" under_
#Barnard, Edith#, _and_ #Delano, Edith Barnard.#)
**Blue Flowers from Red. L. H. J. Sept. (10.)
*Face to Face. L. H. J. June. (7.)
***Life and the Tide. Pict. R. Apr. (27.)
#De La Roche, Mazo.# _See_ #Roche, Mazo De La.#
*#Delarue-Madrus, Lucie.# (_See 1917, 1918, 1919._)
*Rober. N. Y. Trib. Aug. 15.
#Delgado, F. P.# (_H._)
Monna. S. S. Feb. (125.)
#Denison, Katharine.#
My Father. Scr. Dec., '19. (66:757.)
*#Dennis, Mrs. Forbes.# _See_ #Bottome, Phyllis.#
#Derieux, Samuel A.# (1881- .) (_See 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._)
Old Frank Sees It Through. Am. Nov., '19. (56.)
**Terrible Charge Against Jeff Poter. Am. Feb. (38.)
*#Derys, Gaston.#
Rabbits. N. Y. Trib. Apr. 11.
*#Desmond, Shaw.# (1877- .) (_See 1919._)
*Sunset. Scr. Nov., '19. (66:577.)
#Dew, Natalie.#
Romance _and_ Mary Low. L. H. J. Nov., '19. (9.)
#Dickson, Harris.# (1868- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
*Breeches for Two. Cos. Mar. (85.)
*Relapse of Captain Hotstuff. Cos. Jan. (81.)
*Sticky Fingers. Cos. Apr. (85.)
#Dobie, Charles Caldwell.# (1881- .) (_See 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._)
***Christmas Cakes. Harp. M. Jan. (140:200.)
***Leech. Harp. M. Apr. (140:654.)
**Young China. L. H. J. Aug. (10.)
*#Dobrée, Bonamy.#
***Surfeit. Lit. R. Dec., '19. (15.)
#Dodge, Henry Irving.# (1861- .) (_See 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
Skinner Makes It Fashionable. S. E. P. Jan. 10. (5.)
Wrong Hat on the Wrong Man. S. E. P. Oct. 25, '19. (28.)
#Dodge, Louis.# (1870- .) (_See 1917, 1918._)
***Case of McIntyre. Scr. Nov., '19. (66:539.)
**Message from the Minority. Holl. Mar. (5.)
#Donnell, Annie Hamilton.# (1862- .) (_See 1915._) (_H._)
Beauty Hat. Del. June. (24.)
Crazy Day. Del. Dec., '19. (20.)
#Dost, Zamin Ki.# _See_ #Comfort, Will Levington#, _and_ #Dost, Zamin Ki.#
#Douglas, Ford.# (_H._)
Come-Back. S. S. June. (35.)
Home-Made. S. S. Aug. (27.)
Mr. Duncan's Gin. S. S. Jul. (75.)
#Douglas, George.#
*Three Ghosts and a Widow. Q. W. Aug. (12:213.)
#Dounce, Harry Esty.# (_See 1917, 1919._)
Mr. Torbert Malingers. Cen. Oct., '19. (98:758.)
#Dowst, Henry Payson.# (187*- .) (_See 1915, 1919._) (_H._)
Bonds of Matrimony. S. E. P. Jul. 31. (8.)
Bostwick Budget. S. E. P. Oct. 11, '19. (5.)
Cadbury's Ghosts. Ev. Feb. (48.)
He Needed the Money. S. E. P. June 26. (12.)
Pioneer and Pattenbury. S. E. P. Feb. 7. (3.)
Symbols. S. E. P. Oct. 4, '19. (16.)
#Dreier, Thomas.# (1884- .)
Broken Mirror. Met. Jan. (18.)
#Dreiser, Theodore.# (1871- .) (_See 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
***Sanctuary. S. S. Oct., '19. (35.)
#Drew, Helen.#
*Flag in the Dust. All. Feb., 28. (107:461.)
#Driggs, Laurence La Tourette.# (1876- .) (_See 1917, 1918, 1919._)
Curé of Givenchy. L. H. J. Oct., '19. (14.)
#Drucker, Rebecca.#
*Old Lace. (_R._) Mir. March 18. (29:233.)
#Du Bois, Boice.# (_See 1919._)
Ancestral Hang-Over. S. E. P. Jan. 3. (49.)
Come-Back of a Send-Off. S. E. P. Aug. 28. (20.)
Downfall of an Uplift. S. E. P. Dec. 6, '19. (46.)
Hortense the Helpful. S. E. P. June 5. (20.)
*#Dubreuil, René.#
*Estelle and Francis. N. Y. Trib. June. 20.
*#Dudeney, Mrs. Henry E.# (1866- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
***Wild Raspberries. Harp. M. Jan. (140:217.)
#Duganne, Phyllis.# (_See 1919._)
Extravagance. Met. Feb. (18.)
True Art. Met. Aug. (20.)
#Dunaway, Anna Brownell.# (_H._)
*Estate. Col. Jul. 31. (10.)
*#Dunsany, Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett#, _18th_ #Baron#, (1878- .)
(_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1919._)
***Cheng Hi and the Window Framer. S. S. Nov., '19 (2.)
***East and West. S. S. Dec., '19. (41.)
***How the Lost Causes Were Removed from Valhalla. S. S. Oct., '19. (1.)
**Opal Arrow-Head. Harp. M. May. (140:809.)
***Pretty Quarrel. Atl. Apr. (125:512.) Mir. Apr. 1. (29:284.)
#Durand, Ruth Sawyer.# _See_ #Sawyer, Ruth.#
#Dutton, Louise Elizabeth.# (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
Facing Facts. S. E. P. Sept. 18. (6.)
Framed. Met. Dec., '19. (15.)
#Dwyer, James Francis.# (1874- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
*Bridal Roses of Shang. Holl. Nov., '19. (5.)
*Bronze Horses of Ballymeena. W. H. C. Oct., '19. (23.)
*Devil's Glue. B. C. Feb. (37.)
Devil's Whisper. Col. Dec. 13, '19. (11.)
*Fair Deborah. Col. June 19. (10.)
Green Hassocks of Gods. Col. Aug. 28-Sept. 4. (5, 16.)
Little Brown Butterfly. Del. March. (23.)
*"Maryland, My Maryland!" Col. Mar. 20. (7.)
*Thin, Thin Man. Sn. St. Sep. 25. (61.)
Titled Bus Horse. L. H. J. Nov., '19. (23.)
#Dyer, Walter Alden.# (1878- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918._) (_H._)
*Mr. Geraniums. Holl. May. (14.)
*Phantom Hound. Top. Mar. 1-15. (145.)
#Eastman, Rebecca Hooper.# (_See 1915, 1919._) (_H._)
One Room and Bath. S. E. P. Apr. 3. (14.)
Salesman and the Star. S. E. P. May 8. (14.)
String-Bean House. G. H. Nov., '19. (39.)
#Edgelow, Thomas.# (_See 1916, 1917._)
Enchantment of Youth. Scr. Dec., '19. (66:739.)
*#Edginton, May.# (_See 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
**Man from Hell. S. E. P. Dec. 27, '19. (10.)
*Man's Size. S. E. P. Sept. 4. (12.)
#Edholm, Charlton Lawrence.# (1879- .) (_See 1915._) (_H._)
*Maker of Images. L. H. J. May. (17.)
**"Trouble Never Troubles Me." L. H. J. June. (20.)
#Edwards, Cleveland.#
*Dream That Would Not Fade. Arg. Aug. 21. (124:571.)
#Edwards, Frederick Beecher.#
Thank-You-Please Perkins. S. E. P. May 8. (30.)
#Eldridge, Paul.# (_See 1918, 1919._)
**Their Dreams. Strat. J. Apr.-June. (6:148.)
#Ellerbe, Alma Martin Estabrook.# (1871- .), _and_ #Ellerbe, Paul Lee.#
(_See 1915 under_ #Estabrook, Alma Martin#; _1917 under_ #Ellerbe, Alma
Estabrook#; _1919 under_ #Ellerbe, Alma Martin#, _and_ #Ellerbe, Paul
Lee.#) (_See "H" under_ #Ellerbe, Paul Lee.#)
***Paradise Shares. Cen. Jul. (100:312.)
*Wiped off the Slate. Am. Feb. (10.)
#Ellerbe, Rose L.# (_See 1917._) (_H._)
*Key to Freedom. L. H. J. Aug. (18.)
*#Ervine, St. John G(reer.)# (1883- .) (_See 1915, 1919._) (_H._)
***Dramatist and the Leading Lady. Harp. B. Aug. (36.)
#Evans, Frank E. (1876- .) (_See 1915, 1916._) (_H._)
*Pearls or Ap#ples? Ev. Jul. (32.)
#Evans, Ida May.# (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
Eternal Biangle. G. H. Feb. (33.)
#Evarts, Hal G.#
Bald-Face. S. E. P. Nov. 15, '19. (34.)
Big Bull of Shoshone. S. E. P. Nov. 1, '19. (46.)
Black Ram of Sunlight. S. E. P. Feb. 7. (5.)
Convincing a Lady. Col. Aug. 14. (10.)
Dog Town. S. E. P. Aug. 14. (12.)
Protective Coloration. Col. Dec. 20, '19. (19.)
Straight and Narrow. Sun. Nov., '19. (27.)
#Fargo, Ruth.#
Birthday Tale. Del. Feb. (19.)
*"Nobody Else's Home Seems Just Right." Am. Apr. (57.)
#Farnham, Mateel Howe.# (_H._)
One Day to Do as They Pleased. Del. Dec., '19. (8.)
*"#Farrère, Claude.#" (#Charles Bargone.#) (1876- .) (_See 1919._)
*Fall of the House of Hia. N. Y. Trib. Apr. 25.
#Ferber, Edna.# (1887- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
*Ain't Nature Wonderful! McC. Aug. (12.)
*Dancing Girls. Col. March 13. (5.)
***Maternal Feminine. McC. Feb. (18.)
**Old Lady Mandle. Col. Jan. 17. (5.)
***You've Got to Be Selfish. McC. Mar.-Apr. (14.)
#Field, Flora.# (_See 1918._)
**Mister Montague. Del. Nov., '19. (23.)
#Fillmore, Parker (Hoysted).# (1878- .) (_See 1916._) (_H._)
***Katcha and the Devil. (R.) Mir. Jan. 22. (29:59.)
#Finger, Charles J.# (1871- .) (_See 1919._)
*Canassa. Mir. Oct. 30, '19. (28:744.)
**Dust to Dust. Mir. Jul. 15. (29:561.)
***Ebro. Mir. June 10. (29:469.)
*Incongruity. S.S. Jan. (65.)
***Jack Random. Mir. Aug. 26. (29:660.)
*Ma-Ha-Su-Ma. Mir. March 18. (29:213.)
**Phonograph. Mir. Dec. 11, '19. (28:903.)
**Some Mischievous Thing. S. S. Aug. (119.)
#Fish, Horace.# (1885- .) (_See 1919._) (_H._)
***Doom's-Day Envelope. Rom. June. (43.)
#Fisher, Helen Dwight.# _See_ #Harold, Henry#, _and_ #Fisher, Helen
Dwight.#
#Fisher, Raymond Henry.#
*Yeng. Lit. St. June. (25.)
#Fitzgerald, Francis Scott Key.#
Benediction. S. S. Feb. (35.)
Bernice Bobs Her Hair. S. E. P. May 1. (14.)
Camel's Back. S. E. P. Apr. 24. (16.)
**Cut-Glass Bowl. Ser. May. (67:582.)
Dalyrimple Goes Wrong. S. S. Feb. (107.)
**Four Fists. Ser. June. (67:669.)
Ice Palace. S. E. P. May 22. 18.)
Offshore Pirate. S. E. P. May 29. (10.)
Smilers. S. S. June (107.)
#Flandrau, Grace Hodgson.# (_See 1918._)
Dukes and Diamonds. S. E. P. Nov. 22, '19. (50.)
Let That Pass. S. E. P. Apr. 17. (28.)
*#Fletcher, A. Byers.# (_See 1916, 1917, 1919._)
*According to Whang Foo. Hear. Jan. (32.)
*End of a Perfect Day. Hear. Mar. (33.)
#Flint, Homer Eon.#
*Greater Miracle. All. Apr. 24. (109:340.)
#Foley, James William, Jr.# (1874- .) (_H._)
*Letters of William Green. S. E. P. Oct. 11, '19. (109.)
*Letters of William Green. S. E. P. Nov. 8, '19. (46.)
#Follett, Wilson.#
***Dive. Atl. Dec., '19-Jan. (124:729; 125:67.)
#Folsom, Elizabeth Irons.# (1876- .) (_See 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._)
***Alibi. Sun. May. (49.)
Bain Twins and the "Detective." Am. Oct., '19. (51.)
*No Better Than She Should Be. Met. Mar. (32.)
#Foote, John Taintor.# (_See 1915, 1916, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
Allegheny. Am. Dec., '19. (11.)
#Ford, Torrey.#
Over and Back with Scuds. S. E. P. Oct. 25, '19. (57.)
#Foster, A. K.#
Rebel-Hearted. Touch. Apr. (7:10.)
#Foster, Maximillian.# (1872- .) (_See 1915, 1917, 1918._) (_H._)
Big-Town Stuff. S. E. P. Jan. 3. (18.)
Mrs. Fifty-Fifty. S. E. P. Nov. 1, '19. (6.)
#Fraiken, Wanda L.# (_See 1919._)
**Rubber-Tired Buggy. Mid. Aug. (6:105.)
*"#France, Anatole.#" (#Jacques Anatole Thibault.#) (1844- .) (_See 1919._)
***Lady with the White Fan. Strat. J. Apr.-June. (6:83.)
#Francis, Dominic.#
**Son of the Morning. Mag. Apr. (25:288.)
*"Woman--at Endor." Mag. Sept. (26:232.)
#Frazer, Elizabeth.# (_See 1915, 1916._) (_H._)
Derelict Isle. S. E. P. May 29. (18.)
#Frederickson, H. Blanche.#
Maiden Aunt. Met. May. (27.)
*#Freeman, Lewis R.#
"His Wonders to Perform." Ev. Sept. (60.)
#Freeman, Mary Eleanor Wilkins.# (1862- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917,
1918._) (_H._)
*Gospel According to Joan. Harp. M. Dec., '19. (140:77.)
#Friedenthal, Joachim.#
***Pogrom in Poland. (R.) Mir. Oct. 23, '19. (28:726.)
*#Friedlaender, V. H.# (_See 1916, 1918, 1919._)
*New Love. S. S. Sept. (117.)
*Rendezvous. Harp. M. Feb. (140:328.)
#Frost, Walter Archer# (1876- .), _and_ #Frost, Susan#, (_See 1916 and
"H" under_ #Frost, Walter Archer.#)
**His Hold. Ev. Jan. (24.)
#Fullerton, Hugh Stewart.# (_See 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
Jaundice's Last Race. Ev. Nov., '19. (119.)
#Gale, Zona.# (1874- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
Arpeggio. Ev. Mar. (68.)
Arpeggio Helps. Ev. Apr. (44.)
Barbara's Aunt Beatrix. G. H. Oct., '19. (53.)
Love in the Valley. G. H. Feb. (30.)
*Lovingest Lady. W. H. C. June (16.)
*#Galsworthy, John.# (1867- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
**Expectations. Scr. Dec., '19. (66:643.)
#Garrett, Garet.# (1878- .) (_See 1917._)
Gilded Telegrapher. S. E. P. Aug. 14. (20.)
Red Night. S. E. P. Apr. 2. (42.)
Shyest Man. Ev. Sept. (65.)
#Gasch, Marie Manning.# _See_ #Manning, Marie.#
#Gauss, Marianne.# (_See 1915._) (_H._)
**Justice. Atl. May. (125:613.)
#Geer, Cornelia Throop.# _See_ #Le Boutillier, Cornelia Geer.#
#Gelzer, Jay.#
**In the Street of a Thousand Delights. Sn. St. Aug. 4. (25.)
*#George, W. L.# (1882- .) (_See 1917._)
*Romance. Harp. B. Aug. (64.)
#Gerould, Katherine Fullerton.# (1879- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
***Habakkuk. Scr. Nov., '19. (66:547.)
***Honest Man. Harp. M. Nov., '19. (139:777.)
#Gerry, Margarita Spalding.# (1870- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917._) (_H._)
Food for the Minotaur. Harp. M. March. (140:488.)
*#Gibbon, Perceval.# (1879- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918._) (_H._)
**Abdication. Cos. Jul. (89.)
***Connoisseur. Cos. Oct., '19. (73.)
*Dark Moment. S. E. P. Apr. 3. (8.)
*Elopement. McCall. Mar. (8.)
**Heiress. Cos. Aug. (53.)
**Hostage to Misfortune. McC. Aug. (23.)
***Knave of Diamonds. McCall. May (5.)
*Last of the Duellists. McC. Dec., '19. (18.)
***Lieutenant. Pict. R. Mar. (10.)
*Spotless. S. E. P. May 8. (15.)
#Gibbs, A. Hamilton.#
Conqueror of To-morrow. S. E. P. Apr. 24. (30.)
#Giersch, Ruth Henrietta.#
In Old Salem. L. H. J. Dec. '19. (23.)
#Gilbert, George.# (1874- .) (_See 1916, 1918, 1919._)
*Cleansing Kiss. Mun. Mar. (69:253.)
*Old Yellow Mixing Bowl, T. T. Nov., '19. (35.)
***Sigh of the Bulbul. Asia. Jul. (20:563.)
#Gilchrist, Beth Bradford.# (_See 1919._) (_H._)
*Eyes That See. Harp. M. Oct., '19. (139:629.)
**Miracle. Harp. M. Jul. (141:217.)
#Gilpatric, John Guy.# (_H._)
*Black Art and Ambrose. Col. Aug. 21. (14.)
#Glaspell, Susan (Keating).# (#Mrs. George Cram Cook.#) (1882- .) (_See
1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
**Escape. Harp. M. Dec., '19. (140:29.)
Nervous Pig. Harp. M. Feb. (140:309.)
#Glass, Montague Marsden.# (1877- .) (_See 1915, 1916._) (_H._)
Cousins of Convenience. Cos. Jul. (26.)
#Godfrey, Winona.# (1877- .) (_See 1919._) (_H._)
Does Marriage Clip the Wings of Youth? Am. Feb. (51.)
Gods of Derision. Mir. Jan. 15. (29:38.)
#Goetchius, Marie Louise.# _See_ "#Rutledge, Maryse.#"
#Goldsborough, Ann.#
Answer to Joe Trice's Prayer. Am. Aug. (62.)
#Goodfellow, Grace.#
**In The Street of the Flying Dragon. Rom. Sept. (126.)
#Goodloe, Abbie Carter.# (1867- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
*McHenry and the Ghost-Bird. Scr. Jan. (67:105.)
**Return of the Monks. Scr. Oct. '19. (66:460.)
#Goodman, Henry.# (1893- .) (_See 1918, 1919._)
**Hundred Dollar Bill. Pear. Aug. (44.)
#Goodwin, Ernest.# (_See 1918._)
Very Ordinary Young Man. Met. Dec., '19. (50.)
#Gordon, Armistead Churchill.# (1855- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
***Panjorum Bucket. Scr. Feb (67:232.)
#Graeve, Oscar.# (1884- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918 1919._) (_H._)
Alonzo the Magnificent. S. E. P. Jan. 24. (16.)
Careless World. S. E. P. Dec. 13, '19. (16.)
Cyrilian Cycle. S. E. P. May 1. (22.)
Lydia Leads the Way. S. E. P. Nov. 1, '19. (14.)
#Grahame, Ferdinand.#
*Four Bits. Arg. June 12. (122:59.)
#Grandegge, Stephanie.#
Recapture. Pag. Feb. (20.)
#Granich, Irwin.# (_See 1916, 1917._)
*Two Mexicos. Lib. May. (29.)
#Granich, Irwin#, _and_ #Roy, Manabendra Nath.#
*Champak. Lib. Feb. (8.)
#Grant, Ethel Watts-Mumford.# _See_ #Mumford, Ethel Watts.#
#Grant, Louise.#
*In Search of Life. Touch. Mar. (6:358.)
#Graves, Louis.# (_See 1915._) (_H._)
I. D. R. 125. Met. Nov., '19. (48.)
*"#Greene, Lewis Patrick.#" (#Louis Montague Greene.#) (1891- .)
(_See 1918._)
*Man Who Stayed. Adv. Jul. 18. (106.)
#Greenfield, Will H.# (_See 1919._)
*Lost Lotos. Mir. Jul. 8. (29:548.)
#Greig, Algernon.#
"Oh You February 29." Met. Septa. (27.)
#Griffith, Helen Sherman.# (_See 1919._) (_H._)
Billy Allen's Coal-Mine. Del. Jul.-Aug. (18.)
"Poor Little Sara." Del. Apr. (21.)
*#Grimshaw, Beatrice.# (_See 1915, 1916._) (_H._)
*Devil's Gold. Red Bk. Feb. (59.)
*Maddox and the Emma-Pea. Red Bk. Rpr. (68.)
*When the O-O Called. Red Bk. Mar. (49.)
#Haines, Donald Hamilton.# (1886- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
Forty-Five. Ev. Feb. (50.)
#Haldeman-Julius, Mr.# _and_ #Mrs. Emanuel.# _See_ #Julius, Mr.# _and_
#Mrs. Emanuel Haldeman-.#
#Hale, Maryse Rutledge.# _See_ "#Rutledge, Maryse.#"
#Hall, Herschel S.# (_See 1919 under_ #Hall, H. S.#)
Beeves from the Arggentyne. S. E. P. Apr. 10. (32.)
Bouillon. S. E. P. Apr. 17. (8.)
Cat Clause. S. E. P. Mar. 27. (8.)
Chance. S. E. P. Nov. 22, '19. (8.)
Hot Metal. S. E. P. Dec. 27, '19. (18.)
Key Man. S. E. P. Jan. 24. (24.)
Promoted. S. E. P. June 12. (20.)
*Sacrifice. Red Bk. May. (83.)
Steel Preferred. S. E. P. Oct. 25, '19. (3.)
Stum Puckett, Cinder Monkey. S. E. P. Oct. 11. '19. (14.)
Wellington Gay. S. E. P. Feb. 7. (20.)
White Lines. S. E. P. Dec. 6, '19. (14.)
Yancona Yillies. S. E. P. Mar. 6. (20.)
"#Hall, Holworthy.#" (#Harold Everett Porter.#) (1887- .) (_See 1915,
1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
Ancestors. S. E. P. Dec. 6, '19. (20.)
Below the Medicinal Hundred. Ev. Oct., '19. (30.)
Bonds of Patrimony. S. E. P. Oct. 25, '19. (10.)
Ego, Sherburne and Company. S. E. P. Apr. 10. (16.)
Girl Who Couldn't Knit. Pict. R. May. (8.)
G.P. S. E. P. Jul. 17. (12.)
Humorist. Pict. R. Sept. (16.)
Long Carry. Col. June 5. (5.)
Round and Round and Round. Col. Sept. 11. (5.)
Slippery Metal. S. E. P. Jul. 3. (10.)
Sniffski. S. E. P. Aug. 28. (3.)
#Hall, May Emery.# (1874- .) (_See 1917, 1918, 1919._)
*Laying Captain Morley's Ghost. Arg. May 8. (120:547.)
#Hall, Wilbur (Jay).# (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._)
Art of Buying. S. E. P. Sept. 18. (14.)
Business Neurology. S. E. P. Feb. 7. (11.)
Johnny Cucabod. S. E. P. June 12. (5.)
Le Lupercalia. Sun. Feb. (39.)
Let the Seller Beware! S. E. P. Nov. 29, '19. (10.)
Martin Quest and Wife--Purchasing Agents. Am. Apr. (39.)
Melancholy Mallard. S. E. P. NOV. 22, '19. (13.)
Mercenary Little Wretch. Am. March. (41.)
Super-Soviet. Col. Mar. 27. (5.)
#Hallet, Richard Matthews.# (1887- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917,
1919._) (_H._)
*First Lady of Cranberry Isle. S. E. P. Nov. 29, '19. (18.)
Inspiration Jule. S. E. P. Nov. 8, '19. (58.)
**Interpreter's Wife. S. E. P. Oct. 11, '19. (42.)
Wake-Up Archie. Col. Feb. 14. (7.)
#Halverson, Delbert M.#
***Leaves in the Wind. Mid. Apr. (6:28.)
Red Foam. S. E. P. Dec. 27, '19. (14.)
That Dangerous Person. Ev. Nov., '19. (53.)
#Hamilton, Edith Hulbert.#
Anyone Can Write. S. E. P. Nov. 29, '19. (20.)
#Hamilton, Gertrude Brooke.# (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
On Whom the Ladies Dote. S. S. Feb. (89.)
Open Eyes. S. S. Jan. (41.)
Pause. S. S. Apr. (59.)
**Shall We Dine, Melisse? S. S. Nov., '19. (43.)
Where Is Your Mother? G. H. May. (47.)
#Hampton, Edgar Lloyd.# (_See 1915._)
Once One is Two. Met. Jan. (28.)
**Return of Foo Chow. Met. Mar. (13.)
#Hanford, Helen Ellwanger.#
**Willow Pond. Atl. Mar. (125:363.)
*#Hannay, Canon James O.# _See_ "#Birmingham, George A.#"
*#Haraucourt, Edmond.# (1856- .) (_See 1918._) (_H._)
Dies Iræ. N. Y. Trib. Jan. 25.
*Posthumous Sonnet. N. Y. Trib. Dec. 7, '19.
Skunk Collar. N. Y. Trib. May 2.
*Two Profiles in the Crowd. N. Y. Trib. Sept. 5.
#Harben, Will(iam) N(athaniel).# (1858- .) (_H._)
*Timely Intervention. Mun. Apr. (69:468.)
#Hardy, Arthur Sherburne.# (1847 .) (_See 1916._) (_H._)
**Mystery of Célestine. Harp. M. Mar. (140:442.)
#Haring, Ethel Chapman.# (_See 1916._) (_H._)
Giver. Del. Nov., '19. (21.)
Ten Dollars a Month. Del. May. (15.)
#Harold, Henry#, _and_ #Fisher, Helen Dwight.#
**White Petunias. Rom. Apr. (104.)
#Harper, C. A.#
Vestal Venus. S. S. Apr. (101.)
*#Harrington, Katherine.#
*O'Hara's Leg. Met. June (28.)
#Harris, Corra (May White).# (1869- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917,
1918._) (_H._)
*Widow Ambrose. L. H. J. Aug. (7.)
#Harris, Kennett.# (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
Beauty and the Butterflies. S. E. P. Dec. 13, '19. (59.)
Benny and Her Familee. S. E. P. Jan. 10. (10.)
Concerning Cautious Clyde. S. E. P. Oct. 18, '19. (8.)
Most Popular Lady. S. E. P. July 10. (5.)
Rosemary Risks It. S. E. P. May 8. (20.)
Triptolemus the Mascot. S. E. P. Aug. 21. (3.)
#Harris, May.# (1873- .) (_H._)
Back Again. All. Nov. 1, '19. (103:332.)
*#Harris-Burland, J. B.# _See_ #Burland, J. B. Harris-.#
#Harrison, Henry Snydor.# (1880- .) (_H._)
Big People. S. E. P. Nov. 29, '19. (3.)
#Harry, Franklin P.#
*Retribution and a Rabbit's Foot. T. T. Jul. (49.)
*Tan. Blu. Ox. 850. T. T. Oct., '19. (80.)
#Hartman, Lee Foster.# (1879- .) (_See 1915, 1917, 1918._) (_H._)
***Judgment of Vulcan. Harp. M. Mar. (140:520.)
#Harvey, Alexander.# (1868- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1918, 1919._)
Great Third Act. Mir. Dec. 18, '19. (28:923.)
#Haskell, Helen E.# (_See 1919._)
In Their Middle Years. Met. June. (31.)
#Hatch, Leonard.# (_See 1915._) (_H._)
Links. Scr. Sept. (68:312.)
#Hawley, J. B.#
Dancing Dog. S. S. June (51.)
*Tarnished Brass. S. S. Jul. (33.)
#Henderson, Victor.# (_H._)
Poor Old Thing. S. S. Jul. (103.)
#Hergesheimer, Joseph.# (1880- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
***Blue Ice. S. E. P. Dec. 13, '19. (8.)
***Ever So Long Ago. Red Bk. Apr. (23.)
***Meeker Ritual. (II.) Cen. Oct., '19. (98:737.)
***"Read Them and Weep." Cen. Jan. (99:289.)
#Hewes, Robert E.# (_See 1919._)
Pawnbroker of Shanghai. Met. Oct., '19. (34.)
#Hewitt, Lew.#
Third Woman. S. S. Aug. (111.)
#Hill, Mabel.# (1864- .)
Miss Lizzie--Parlor Bolshevist. Scr. Feb. (67:165.)
#Hinds, Roy W.# (_See 1918._)
*Debts. Arg. Jul. 24. (123: 458.)
*#Hirsch, Charles-Henry.# (1870-.) (_See 1918, 1919._)
*Autographed Mirror. N. Y. Trib. May 9.
#Holbrook, Weare.# (_See 1919._)
Feast of St. Cecile. Pag. Apr.-May. (47.)
*#Holding, Elizabeth Sanxay.#
**Patrick on the Mountain. S. S. Jul. (109.)
***Problem that Perplexed Nicholson. S. S. Aug. (117.)
#Holland, Rupert Sargent.# (1878- .) (_H._)
*Arcadians in the Attic. Scr. May. (67:618.)
Flying Man. L. H. J. Aug. (40.)
#Hollingsworth, Ceylon.# (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1919._) (_H._)
*Harp of a Thousand Strings. Col. Feb. 28. (9.)
**Mind of a Man. Col. Jan. 31. (5.)
*Pants. Col. Jul. 3. (5.)
#Holt, Henry P.# (_See 1915, 1918._) (_H._)
Devil Cat Meets Her Match. Am. June. (29.)
*In The Cabin of the Chloe. Sh. St. Aug. (173.)
#Hooker (william), Brian.# (1880- .) (_See 1915._) (_H._)
**Branwen. Rom. June. (132.)
#Hopper, James (Marie).# (1876- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
Education of Percy Skinner. Ev. May. (23.)
Pessimist Rewarded. Harp. M. Aug. (141: 351.)
#Horn, R. de S.#
*Joss of the Golden Wheel. B. C. Jul. (3.)
#Hostetter, Van Vechten.# Superwoman. S. S. Nov., '19. (53.)
They're All Alike. S. S. March. (99.)
#House, Roy Temple#, _and_ #Saint-Valéry, Leon De.#
**Count Roland's Ruby. Strat. J. Apr.-June. (6:143.)
#Hughes, Rupert.# (1872- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
*Broken Flange. Cos. Nov., '19. (67.)
*Father of Waters. Cos. Jan. (43.)
*Momma. Col. June 26. (5.)
***Stick-in-the-Muds. Col. Sept. 25. (5.)
#Hull, Alexander.# (_See 1917, 1918, 1919._)
**Argosies. Scr. Sept. (68:285.)
#Hull, Helen R.# (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._)
**Flaw. Harp. M. Oct., '19. (139:747.)
**Separation. Touch. Mar. (6:371.)
#Hunting, Ema S.# (1885- .)
***Dissipation. Mid. May. (6:47.)
***Soul that Sinneth. Mid. Aug. (6:128.)
#Hurst, Fannie.# (1889- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
**Back Pay. Cos. Nov., '19. (35.)
#Hurst, S. B. H.# (_See 1918, 1919._)
*What Happened Between. Rom. Jul. (146.)
#Hurwitz, Maximilian.#
*"Eili, Eili, Lomo Asavtoni?" Men. Feb.
#Hussey, L. M.# (_See 1919._)
**Believer. S. S. April. (29.)
**Family. Cen. Sept. (100:682.)
Father. S. S. Jan. (121.)
Gift of Illusion. S. S. June. (113.)
Hope Chest. S. S. Feb. (59.)
***Lowden Household. S. S. Aug. (97.)
*Memories. S. S. Nov., '19. (121.)
*Opponent. S. S. Oct., '19. (61.)
Renunciation. S. S. May (39.)
**Sisters. S. S. Nov., '19. (55.)
*Twilight of Love. S. S. Dec., '19. (43.)
***Two Gentlemen of Caracas. S. S. Dec., '19. (89.)
*#Hutchinson, Arthur Stuart Menteth.# (1880- .) (_H._)
**Bit of Luck. Ev. Feb. (66.)
*#Ibáñez, Vicente Blasco.# _See_ #Blasco Ibáñez, Vicente.#
#Imrie, Walter McLaren.# (_See 1919._)
*Wife Who Needed Two Chairs. S. S. June. (91.)
#Irwin, Inez Haynes. (Inez Haynes Gillmore.)# (1873- .) (_See 1915
under_ #Gillmore, Inez Haynes#; _1916, 1917, 1918, 1919 under_ #Irwin,
Inez Haynes.#) (_See "H" under_ #Gillmore, Inez Haynes.#)
*Long Carry. Met. Oct., '19. (42.)
#Irwin, Wallace.# (1875- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
***Beauty. McC. Aug. (8.)
Direct Action. S. E. P. Nov. 15, '19. (8.)
"Ham and Eggs." Pict. R. June. (18.)
Joke. S. E. P. Apr. 10. (12.)
Mr. Rundle's Exit. Pict. R. May. (34.)
Moonshine. S. E. P. Nov. 1, '19. (12.)
On to the Next. S. E. P. Jan. 24. (12.)
Waste Motions. S. E. P. Oct. 11, '19. (10.)
Wherefore Art Thou Romeo? S. E. P. May 22. (14.)
#Irwin, Will(iam Henry).# (1873- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
Copper Dan Imbibes. S. E. P. Dec. 20, '19. (12.)
In The Tower of Silence. S. E. P. Mar. 27. (20.)
There Is a Santa Claus. S. E. P. Dec. 27, '19. (20.)
#Ittner, Anna Belle Rood.#
*Old Glory Bill. Scr. June. (67: 686.)
#Jackson, Charles Tenney.# (1874- .) (_See 1916, 1918._) (_H._)
*Little Girl Who Never Saw a Hill. Arg. Mar. 13. (118:501.)
*#Jacobs, W(illiam) W(ymark).# (1863- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
*Artful Cards. Hear. Dec., '19 (17.)
#Jagers, Dorothy De.# _See_ #De Jagers, Dorothy.#
*#Jaloux, Edmond.# (_See 1918._)
**At the Telephone. N. Y. Trib. June 13.
**Poet's Revenge. N. Y. Trib. Feb. 8.
#Jenkin, A. I.#
Premonition. S. S. Aug. (45.)
#Jenkins, Charles Christopher.# (_See 1918._)
*Bayonet of Henry Laberge. Arg. Feb. 21. (118:154.)
*Man Beneath. Arg. Oct. 25, '19. (113:691.)
#Jenkins, George B., Jr.#
Four Faint Freckles and a Cheerful Disposition. S. S. Jan. (111.)
#John, W. A. P.#
No'th Af'ican Lloyds, Ltd. S. E. P. Aug. 7. (16.)
#Johns, Orrick.#
***Big Frog. S. S. Sept. (87.)
#Johnson, Arthur.# (1881- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
**Mortimer. Scr. Jan. (67:57.)
***Princess of Tork. Met. Aug. (15.)
#Johnson, Burges.# (1877- .) (_See 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
**In the Barn. Cen. June. (100:198.)
#Johnson, Olive McClintic.#
"Deep Ellum." Col. Dec. 20, '19. (14.)
"Didja Getcha Feet Wet?" Col. Feb. 21. (7.)
#Johnson, Olive McClintic# (_con._)
Disagreeable as a Husband. Col. May 29. (5.)
Great Grief! Col. June 26. (10.)
Moons--Full, Blue, and Honey. Col. Jan. 3. (12.)
Turquoise Skies. Col. Feb. 7. (10.)
#Joor, Harriet.# (_H._)
Passing of the Littlest Twin. Mid. Nov.-Dec., '19. (5:260.)
Ship Island Box. Mid. Nov.-Dec., '19. (5:263.)
#Jordan, Elizabeth (Garver).# (1867- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917,
1919._) (_H._)
*At the Dim Gate. S. E. P. Apr. 10. (5.)
*Luncheon at One. Col. Aug. 21. (5.)
#Jordan, Kate. (Mrs. F. M. Vermilye.)# (_See 1915._) (_H._)
Made Over. S. E. P. July 3. (12.)
*"#Joyce, Thomas.#" (#Joyce Gary.#)
**Bad Samaritan. S. E. P. July 3. (40.)
Consistent Woman. S. E. P. Aug. 21. (30.)
**Cure. S. E. P. May 1. (30.)
None But the Brave. S. E. P. Sept. 11. (18.)
**Piece of Honesty. S. E. P. June 26. (66.)
*Reformation. S. E. P. May 22. (20.)
Springs of Youth. S. E. P. Mar. 6. (30.)
#Judson, Jeanne.#
Her Man. L. H. J. Nov., '19. (13.)
#Julius, Emanuel Haldeman-# (1888- .), _and_ #Julius, Mrs. Emanuel
Haldeman-.#) (_See 1919._) (_See 1917, 1918 under_ #Julius, Emanuel
Haldeman.#
**Caught. Atl. Nov., '19. (124:628.)
#Kahler, Hugh MacNair.# (_See 1917, 1919._)
Babel. S. E. P. June 19. (6.)
Buckpasser. Sept. 11. (5.)
Hammer. S. E. P. Apr. 3. (12.)
KWYW. S. E. P. Feb. 7. (8.)
Lazy Duckling. S. E. P. Feb. 28. (6.)
Obligee. S. E. P. Jul. 17. (8.)
Sensible Year. S. E. P. May 8. (6.)
Wild Carrot. S. E. P. Aug. 7. (8.)
#Kavanagh, Herminie Templeton.# (_See "H" under_ #Templeton, Herminie.#)
**Bridgeen and the Leprechaun. L. H. J. Sept. (26.)
#Kelland, Clarence Budington.# (1881- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
Appetite for Marriage. Pict. R. Oct., '19. (24.)
Backwoods Chess. Ev. Sept. (27.)
Cheese in the Trap. Ev. June. (15.)
His Wife's Place. Ev. Nov., '19. (16.)
Ivanhoe Sagg's Keynote. Pict. R. Jul.-Aug. (28.)
Knots and Wind-Shakes. Ev. Apr. (39.)
Martha Jib on the High Seas. Pict. R. Sep. (27.)
*Mysterious Murder of Myron Goodspeed. Am. Sept. (20.)
Scattergood Administers Soothing Sirup. Am. Jan. (52.)
*Scattergood and the Prodigal's Mother. Am. Jul. (28.)
Scattergood Borrows a Grandmother. Am. Dec., '19. (20.)
Scattergood Dips in His Spoon. Am. Nov., '19. (50.)
Scattergood Invests in Salvation. Am. Mar. (28.)
Scattergood Matches Wits with a Pair of Sharpers. Am. Oct., '19. (40.)
Scattergood Meddles with the Dangerous Age. Am. June. (56.)
Scattergood Moves to Adjourn. Am. May. (62.)
Scattergood Skims a Little Cream. Am. Aug. (40.)
#Kelley, Leon.# (_See 1917, 1918._)
Carnival Queen. Pict. R. May. (6.)
"Speeches Ain't Business." Pict. R. Jul.-Aug. (14.)
#Kelly, Eleanor Mercein.# (1880- .) (_See 1915._) (_H._)
*Our Mr. Allerby. Cen. Apr. (99:737.)
#Kelsey, Vera.#
**Late Harvests. Sun. Mar. (40.)
#Kemper, S. H.# (_See 1915._) (_H._)
*O You Xenophon! Atl. Jul. (126:39.)
*#Kennedy, Rowland.#
*Flame. Dial. Feb. (68:221.)
**Preparing for Passengers. Dial. Feb. (68:228.)
*Talkin'. Dial. Feb. (68:224.)
#Kennon, Harry B.# (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._)
Grandmother's Ghost. Mir. Nov. 13, '19. (28:784.)
Odd Roman. Mir, Jan. 8. (29:30.)
Single Cussedness. Mir. Jul. 22. (29:581.)
#Kenton, Edna.# (1876- .) (_See 1917._) (_H._)
*Branch of Wild Crab. L. St. Sept. (55.)
#Kenyon, Camilla E. L.# (_See 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
His Professional Honor. Sun. June. (36.)
Lost Uncle. Sun. May. (41.)
#Kerr, Sophie.# (1880- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_See
"H" under_ #Underwood, Sophie Kerr.#)
*Genius. W. H. C. Feb. (21.)
Sitting On the World. S. E. P. Mar. 6. (16.)
#Kilbourne, Fannie. ("Mary Alexander.")# (_See 1915, 1917, 1918 under_
#Kilbourne, Fannie#, _and 1917 under_ #Alexander, Mary.#)
Betty Bell and the Leading Man. Del. Jan. (11.)
Getting Even with Dulcie. Am. May. (23.)
James Dunfield Grows Up. Del. Oct., '19. (22.)
Stealing Cleopatra's Stuff. Am. June. (23.)
#King, J. A.#
Solid Comfort. Am. Sept. (70.)
#Kirkland, Jeanne.#
*Old Miss Mamie Dearborn's Helmet. Pag. June. (22.)
Ralph's Return. Pag. Jul.-Sept. (22.)
#Knibbs, Henry Herbert.# (1874- .)
*Horse Deal in Hardpan. Pop. Sept. 20. (52.)
#Knight, (Clifford) Reynolds.# (1867- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918._)
***Melody Jim. Mid. Nov.-Dec. '19. (5:271.)
*#Kobrin, Leon.#
**Lithuanian Idyll. Cen. Dec., '19. (99:236.)
#Komroff, Manuel.# (_See 1919._)
***Thumbs. (_R._) Mir. Jan. 22. (29:55.)
*#Kotsyubinsky, Michael.#
***By the Sea. Asia. May. (20:411.)
"#Kral, Carlos A. V.#" (1890- .) (_See 1918._)
***Landscape with Trees, and Colored Twilight with Music. Lit. R.
Jan. (4.)
#Kraus, Harry.#
Interlude. S. S. Apr. (113.)
#La Motte, Elen Newbold.# (1873- .) (_See 1919._)
***Golden Stars. Cen. Oct., '19. (98:787.)
**Malay Girl. Cen. Aug. (100:555.)
*Widows and Orphans. Cen, Sept. (100:586.)
#Langebek, Dorothy May Wyon.# (_See 1919._)
**"Seven." Mid. June. (6:64.)
*#Langlais, Marc.#
Against Orders. N. Y. Trib. Nov. 2, '19.
#Lapham, Frank.# (_See 1919._)
Telegram That Johnny Didn't See. Am. Oct., '19. (21.)
#La Parde, Malcolm.#
Still Waters. Harp. M. Jul. (141:273.)
#Lardner, Ring W.# (1885- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
Beautiful Katie, S. E. P. Jul. 10. (14.)
Busher Pulls a Mays. S. E. P. Oct. 18, '19. (16.)
#Larson, Mabel Curtius.#
Spark. L. H. J. Feb. (13.)
*#Lawrence, David Herbert.# (1885- .) (_See 1915, 1917, 1919._) (_H._)
***Adolf. Dial. Sept. (69:269.)
#Lawson, Cora Schilling.# (_See 1919._)
"Which Woman, John?" Am. Mar. (56.)
#Lazar, Maurice.# (_See 1917._)
Heavenly Sophists. S. S. Dec., '19. (116.)
#Lea, Fannie Heaslip. (Mrs. H. P. Agee.)# (1884- .) (_See 1915, 1916,
1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
Crooked Stick. G. H. Jul.-Aug. (22.)
Happily Ever After. Del. Apr.
Miss Casabianca. Del. Mar. (9.)
Story Not Without Words. Del. June. (11.)
#Leach, Paul R.#
Nerves. Col. Jul. 10. (8.)
*#Le Barillier, Berthe Carianne.# _See_ "#Bertheroy, Jean.#"
#Lebhar, Bertram.#
Athletics for Cold Cash. S. E. P. Nov. 29, '19. (23.)
#Le Boutillier, Cornelia Geer.# (1894- .) (_See 1917, 1918, 1919 under_
#Geer, Cornelia Throop.#)
**Chaff. Scr. Aug. (68:204.)
Picking and Stealing. Col. Jan. 31. (17.)
#Lee, Jennette (Barbour Perry.)# (1860- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917,
1918, 1919._) (_H._)
Cat and the King. L. H. J. Oct., '19. (10.)
'Twixt Cup and Lip. L. H. J. Jan. (23.)
#Lee, Muna.# (_See 1915._)
*Dream. S. S. Oct., '19. (125.)
*Moonlight Sonata. S. S. Mar. (81.)
**Years Ahead. S. S. Dec., '19. (99.)
*#Lehmann, René.#
Sensation Hunter. N. Y. Trib. May 23.
#Lemly, Rowan Palmer.#
*Pagari. L. H. J. Apr. (24.)
#Leo, Rita Wellman.# _See_ #Wellman, Rita.#
"#Lessing, Bruno.#" (#Rudolph Block.#) (1870- .) (_See 1916, 1919._) (_H._)
Explosion of Leah. Pict. R. Jan.-Feb. (6.)
Treating 'Em Rough. Pict. R. Sept. (42.)
*#Level, Maurice.# (_See 1917, 1918, 1919._)
**Begar. Hear. Apr. (12.)
*Debt Collector. Hear. Nov., '19. (40.)
***Empty House. Hear. Sept. (20.)
**Extenuating Circumstances. Hear. Oct., '19. (25.)
***Kennel. Hear. Aug. (16.)
***Maniac. Hear. Mar. (12.)
***Son of His Father. Hear. Jul. (22.)
*Ten-Fifty Express. Hear. June. (33.)
#Leverage, Henry.# (_See 1917, 1918, 1919._)
**Sea Beef. B. C. Apr. (3.)
*Uncharted. Adv. Oct. 3., '19. (129.)
#Levick, Milnes.# (_See 1919._)
*In Court. S. S. Oct., '19. (123.)
**Jest in the Household. S. S. Dec., '19. (126.)
Out of Modoc. S. S. June. (71.)
#Levison, Eric.# (_See 1917, 1918._)
**Gloria in Excelsis. T. T. Jan. (63.)
*Home. T. T. June. (35.)
**Mordecai. T. T. Nov., '19. (41.)
*Where There Is No Light. T. T. Dec., '19. (29.)
#Lewars, Elsie Singmaster.# _See_ #Singmaster, Elsie.#
#Lewis, Addison.# (1889- .) (_See 1917, 1918, 1919._)
Mrs. Dinehart. Mir. Dec. 11. '19. (28:882.)
#Lewis, Margaret Cameron.# _See_ #Cameron, Margaret.#
#Lewis, Orlando Faulkland.# (1873- .) (_See 1918, 1919._)
*Alma Mater. Red Bk. June. (53.)
#Lewis, Orlando Faulkland# (_con._)
Case of Aunt Mary. L. H. J. Feb. (21.)
Man to Man. L. H. J. Jan. (13.)
#Lewis, Oscar.# (_See 1916._)
Face Is Unfamiliar. S. S. Mar. (41.)
Girl Who Accepted No Compromise. S. S. Aug. (65.)
#Lewis, Sinclair.# (1885- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._)
*Bronze Bars. S. E. P. Dec. 13, '19. (12.)
Danger--Run Slow. S. E. P. Oct. 18, 25, '19. (3, 22.)
Habeas Corpus. S. E. P. Jan. 24. (10.)
Way I See It. S. E. P. May 29. (14.)
*#Lichtenberger, André.# (1870- .) (_H._)
***Old Fisherwoman. Pag. Oct., '19. (6.)
#Lighton, William R(heem).# (1866- .), _and_ #Lighton, Louis Duryea.#
(_See 1916, 1917, 1918; and 1915, 1916, 1917, 1919, and "H" under_
#Lighton, William Rheem.#)
Why Olaf Proposed in the Month of March. Am. Jan. (38.)
#Lindsay, Donald.#
Old Violets. Pag. Jul.-Sept. (4.)
#Livingstone, Florence Bingham.#
Who Will Kiss Miss Parker? Sun. Dec., '19. (29.)
#Lockwood, Scammon.# (_See 1916._)
Girl Who Slept in Bryant Park. L. H. J. Feb. (26.)
#Loud, Lingard.#
Mister Jolly Well Murders His Wife. S. E. P. June 26. (20.)
Pink Knickers and the Desperate Ship. S. E. P. Apr. 17. (16.)
*#Louÿs, Pierre.#
**Birth of Prometheus. Mun. Oct., '19. (68:81.)
***False Esther. Mir. June 24. (29:511.)
#Lovewell, Reinette.#
All Mrs. Flaherty's Fault. Am. Nov., '19. (28.)
#Lowe, Corinne.# (_See 1917, 1919._) (_H._)
Single Fellows. S. E. P. Jan. 17. (10.)
#Lurie, R. L.#
Quick Work by Philip. Am. May. (57.)
*#Lyons, A(lbert Michael) Neil.# (1880- .) (_See 1916, 1919._) (_H._)
*Deputy. Ev. May. (44.)
**Mr. and Mrs. Oddy. Ev. Jul. (42.)
#Mabie, Louise Kennedy.# (_See 1915, 1917, 1919._) (_H._)
Mystery of the Red-Haired Girl, Am. Apr. (23.)
#McClure, John.# (_See 1916, 1917._)
*Tale of Krang. L. St. Nov., '19. (63.)
#McCourt, Edna Wahlert.# (_See 1915, 1917._)
***Lichen. Dial. May. (68:586.)
#McCrea, Marion.# (_See 1918._)
Miss Vannah of Our Ad-Shop. Ev. June. (44.)
#McDonnell, Eleanor Kinsella.#
Let's Pretend. L. H. J. Jul. (16.)
#MacFarlane, Peter Clark.# (1871- .) (_See 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
Guile of Woman. S. E. P. Apr. 10. (28.)
In the Game Called Life. L. H. J. May. (7.)
Mad Hack Henderson. S. E. P. Dec. 13, '19. (24.)
#McGibney, Donald.#
Come-Back. L. H. J. Jul. (18.)
Shift of Fate. L. H. J. Aug. (22.)
When the Desert Calls. L. H. J. May. (23.)
White Angel. L. H. J. June. (22.)
#MacGowan, Alice# (1858- .), and #Cooke, Grace MacGowan# (1863- .)
(_See 1915 under_ #Cooke, Grace MacGowan#; _1916, 1917 under_
#MacGowan, Alice#; _"H" under both heads._)
Little Girl Eve. S. E. P. June 26. (16.)
#McGuirk, Charles J.#
Fogarty's Flivver. Col. June 5. (23.)
#Mackendrick, Marda.# (_See 1919._)
Jean--In the Negative. Met. Mar. (29.)
*#MacManus, L.#
***Baptism. Cath. W. Sept. (111:780.)
#MacManus, Seumas.# (1870- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1919._) (_H._)
***Conaleen and Donaleen. Pict. R. Sept. (15.)
***Heart-Break of Norah O'Hara. Pict. R. Mar. (8.)
***Lad from Largymore. Pict. R. Jul.-Aug. (21.)
*#McNeille, Cyril ("Sapper").# (1888- .) (_See 1917, 1919 under_
"#Sapper.#")
*"Good Hunting, Old Chap." Harp. B. Sept. (52.)
*#Mac-Richard, J.#
Electric Shoes. N. Y. Trib. Jul. 25.
#Macy, J. Edward.#
*Sea Ginger. Scr. Sept. (68:343.)
*#Madrus, Lucie Delarue-.# _See_ #Delarue-Madrus, Lucie.#
#Mahoney, James.#
*Showing Up of Henry Widdemer. McCall. Aug. (12.)
#Mann, Jane.# (_See 1915._) (_H._)
***Heritage. Cen. Nov., '19. (99:47.)
#Manning, Marie. (Mrs. Herman E. Gasch.)# (_See 1915, 1916, 1917,
1918._) (_H._)
Liver Bank. Harp. M. Aug. (141:382.)
*#Marchand, Leopold.#
In Extremis. N. Y. Trib. Feb. 29.
#Markey, Gene.#
Bugler. Scr. June. (67:704.)
#Marquis, Don (Robert Perry).# (1878- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917,
1918._) (_H._)
Bubbles. S. E. P. Jul. 31. (10.)
*Kale. Ev. Sept. (46.)
*Never Say Die. Ev. Apr. (73.)
#Marquis, Neeta.#
Violets for Sentiment. S. S. Sept. (65.)
#Marriott, Crittenden.# (1867- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917._) (_H._)
*What Dreams May Come True. L. St. Mar. (27.)
#Marsden, Griffis.# (_See 1919._)
Enter Lucy. Sun. Aug. (25.)
Here Comes the Bride! Sun. Sept. (28.)
Marrying Them. Sun. Nov., '19. (20.)
Wrong Medicine. Sun. Jan. (26.)
#Marshall, Bernard.#
Spilled Beans. Sun. Feb. (29.)
#Marshall, Edison.# (1894- .) (_See 1916, 1917, 1918._)
Argali the Ram. Met. Jan.-Feb. (21:38.)
"Count a Thousand--Slow--Between Each Drop." Am. Mar. (44.)
**Elephant Remembers. Ev. Oct., '19. (17.)
Its Name Will Be Long-Ear Joe. Met. June. (34.)
"Never Stop--Never Give Up." Am. June. (14.)
*Shadow of Africa. All. Nov. 1, '19. (103:332.)
#Martin, Helen R(eimensnyder).# (1868- .) (_See 1919._) (_H._)
Birdie Reduces. Cen. May. (100:136.)
*#Martovitch, Les.#
**Dance. Dial. Jul. (69:47.)
*#Mason, Alfred Edward Woodley.# (1865- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917,
1918._) (_H._)
*Pilgrimage. Rom. Mar. (3.)
#Mason, Elmer Brown.# (_See 1915._) (_H._)
Does Money Talk? Col. Jul. 24. (16.)
#Mason, Grace Sartwell.# (1877- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
Charm. S. E. P. Jul. 24. (8.)
***His Job. Scr. Apr. (67:470.)
*Shining Moment. S. E. P. Jan. 17. (34.)
#Mason, Gregory.# (1889- .)
Jade Idol. Met. Feb. (23.)
#Mason, Laura Kent.#
On Receiving a Luncheon Invitation. S. S. Dec., '19. (53.)
#Masson, Thomas L(ansing).# (1866- .) (_See 1916, 1919._) (_H._)
"Nibs." Met. Oct., '19. (38.)
#Matteson, Herman Howard.# (_See 1918, 1919._)
He Is Singing to Me. Col. Dec. 20, '19. (12.)
"No Abaft This Notice." Sun. Apr. (33.)
"#Maxwell, Helena.#" (#Mrs. Baker Brownell.#) (1896- .) (_See 1918, 1919._)
***Adolescence. Pag. Apr.-May. (5.)
*Her First Appearance. Lib. May. (24.)
#May, Eric Paul.#
Proposal. S. S. Oct., '19. (34.)
#Means, Eldred Kurtz.# (1878- .) (_See 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
*Concerning a Red Head. Peop. Aug. (9.)
**Plumb Nauseated. All. Mar. 13. (108:19.)
*Prize-Money. All. June 26. (111:483.)
*Proof of Holy Writ. Mun. Sept. (70:645.)
*Ten-Share Horse. Mun. May. (69:605.)
#Mears, Mary M.# (_See 1915._) (_H._)
***Forbidden Thing. Met. Apr. (22.)
*#Merrick, Leonard.# (1864- .) (_See 1919._) (_H._)
*"I Recall a Seat." Harp. B. Jul. (50.)
*That Villain Her Father. S. E. P. Dec. 27, '19. (16.)
***To Daphne De Vere. McC. Feb. (13.)
#Merwin, Samuel.# (1874- .) (_See 1915._) (_H._)
*Utter Selfishness of J. A. Peters. McC. Mar.-Apr. (18.)
#Meyer, Josephine Amelia.# (1864-.) (_See 1915._) (_H._)
Cave Stuff. S. E. P. Oct. 25, '19. (53.)
#Mezquida, Anna Blake.# (_See 1915._)
Don't Be Too Sure--Mr. Hurd! Am. Jan. (11.)
#Michener, Carroll K.# (_See 1919._)
*Dragon-Tongued Orchid. Sn. St. Aug. 18. (51.)
*Golden Dragon. McC. Jul (18.)
#Milbrite, Felden E.#
Étude for the Organ. S. S. Aug. (126.)
*#Mille, Pierre.# (1864- .) (_See 1917, 1918, 1919._)
**"End of the World." N. Y. Trib. Mar. 14.
Truth of History. N. Y. Trib. Aug. 8.
#Miller, Alice Duer.# (1874- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1919._) (_H._)
*Slow Poison. S. E. P. June 12. (8.)
#Miller, Helen Topping.# (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1919._)
*B-Flat Barto. S. E. P. Apr. 17. (32.)
*Damour Blood. B. C. May. (19.)
#Miller, Mary Britton.#
**From Morn to Dewy Eve. Touch. Feb. (6:299.)
**Sicilian Idyl. Touch. Jan. (6:218.)
#Millis, Walter.#
*Second Mate. Adv. Aug. 3. (51.)
#Millring, Ruth Brierley.#
Homely Is As Homely Does. Del. Jan. (6.)
#Minnigerode, Meade.# (_See 1916, 1917, 1919._)
Ball of Fire. Col. Apr. 10. (15.)
Ground Floor Front. Col. May 29. (15.)
Jimmy Repays. Col. Feb. 14. (10.)
Monkeying with the Buzz Saw. Col. Mar. 6. (18.)
Mysteries. Col. Mar. 27. (13.)
Pure Gold. Col. Jan. 17. (12.)
#Mitchell, Mary Esther#, (1863- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
**"Vendoo." Harp. M. June. (141:107.)
#Mitchell, Ruth Comfort.# (#Mrs. Sanborn Young.#) (_See 1916, 1917,
1918, 1919._)
Bad Boy. Del. Apr. (20.)
Carriage Waits. Ev. Dec., '19. (34.)
Poor Mister Morrison. Mir. Dec. 11, '19. (28:876.)
#Mitchell, Ruth Comfort#, _and_ #Young, William Sanborn.#
Ranching of Nan. Del. Jul.-Aug. (7.)
*#Monro, Harold.#
***Parcel of Love. Lit. R. Nov., '19. (16.)
#Montague, Margaret Prescott.# (1878- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1919._) (_H._)
***Uncle Sam of Freedom Ridge. Atl. June. (125:721.)
#Mooney, Ralph E.# (_See 1919._)
Between Six O'Clock and Midnight. L. H. J. May. (9.)
Miss Kent Understands. S. E. P. Nov. 8, '19. (50.)
Professor Comes Back. L. H. J. Nov., '19. (21.)
*#Moore, Leslie.#
**Magician of Globes. Cath. W. Aug. (111:631.)
#Moravsky, Maria.# (1890- .) (_See 1919._)
**Bracelet from the Grave. Rom. Jul. (156.)
*Remembrance that Kills. L. St. Sept. (3.)
**White Camels. Met. May. (25.)
*#Mordaunt, Elinor.# (_See 1915, 1917, 1918, 1919._)
***Adventures in the Night. Met. June. (11.)
***Ginger Jar. Met. Nov., '19. (17.)
#Morgan, J. L.#
For the World's Championship. S. S. Jan. (31.)
Literature. S. S. Feb. (27.)
Personally Conducted. S. S. Oct., '19. (69.)
#Morley, Felix.#
*Legend of Nantucket. O. O. June. (2:214.)
#Moroso, John Antonio.# (1874- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
*Danny's Gold Star. L. H. J. Apr. (16.)
Glint of Gold. L. H. J. Dec., '19. (24.)
House in the Woods. L. H. J. Feb. (23.)
Sweet Sally Magee. L. H. J. Oct., '19. (32.)
#Mosher, John Chapin.#
Belle Hobbs. S. S. May. (63.)
#Mumford, Ethel Watts.# (#Mrs. Ethel Watts-Mumford Grant.#) (1878- .)
(_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1919._) (_H._)
*Look of the Copperleys. L. H. J. Apr. (8.)
Manifestation of Henry Ort. Pict. R. Jan.-Feb. (22.)
*Unto Her a Child Was Born. L. H. J. Dec., '19. (9.)
#Munsterberg, Margarete.#
*Silent Music. Strat. J. Jan.-Mar. (6:57.)
#Murray, Roy Irving.# (1882- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1919._)
***Substitute. Scr. Jul. (68:82.)
#Muth, Edna Tucker.# (_See 1915, 1916, 1919._)
***Gallipeau. Harp. M. Oct., 19. (139:721.)
Tidal Waif. Sun. Oct., '19. (39.)
#Myers, Elizabeth (Fettor) Lehman.# (1869- .) (_See 1915._) (_H._)
**Autumn Blooming. Pict. R. Oct., '19. (22.)
#Mygatt, Gerard.# (_H._)
Félice. S. E. P. Sept. 11. (20.)
Starter. S. E. P. Aug. 14. (8.)
#Neidig, William Jonathan.# (1870- .) (_See 1916 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
Bloodhound. S. E. P. Feb. 28. (10.)
*Brother Act. S. E. P. Jul. 31. (12.)
Shansi Woman. Ev. Aug. (9.)
Stained Fingers. S. E. P. Jul. 10. (18.)
Sweat of Her Brow. S. E. P. Jan. 24. (18.)
*#Nervo, Amado.#
**Leah and Rachel. Strat. J. Jan.-Mar. (6:7.)
*#Nevinson, Henry W(oodd).# (1852- .) (_H._)
***In Diocletian's Day. Atl. Oct. '19. (124:472.)
*#Newton, W. Douglas.# (_See 1915._)
*Life o' Dreams. Sn. St. Mar. 4. (75.)
#Nicholson, Meredith.# (1866- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
Housewarming. L. H. J. May. (28.)
My Roger. Del. Nov., '19. (8.)
#Niles, Blair.#
**Tropic Frogs. Harp. M. Apr. (140:671.)
*#Nodier, Charles.# (1780-1844.)
***Bibliomaniac. Strat. J. Oct.-Dec. (5:177.)
#Norris, Kathleen.# (1880- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1919._) (_H._)
Engine Trouble. G. H. Jul.-Aug. (28.)
Friday the 13th. G. H. Nov., '19. (17.)
"God's in His Heaven." G. H. Oct., '19. (15.)
Home. G. H. Sept. (27.)
Silvester Birch's Child. G. H. Mar. (30.)
With Christmas Love from Barbara. G. H. Dec., '19. (26.)
*#Noyes, Alfred.# (1880- .) (_See 1916, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
*Beyond the Desert. Red Bk. Aug. (57.)
Bill's Phantasm. S. E. P. Jan. 10. (20.)
*Court-Martial. S. E. P. Feb. 28. (18.)
*Troglodyte. S. E. P. Jan. 3. (22.)
*Wine Beyond the World. S. E. P. May 8. (5.)
#O'Brien, Frederick.# (_See 1919 under_ #O'Brien, Frederick#, _and_
#Lane, Rose Wilder.#)
***Jade Bracelet of Ah Queen. Col. May 22. (5.)
*Taboo of Oomoa. Harp. B. June. (60.)
#O'Brien, Mary Heaton Vorse.# _See_ #Vorse, Mary (Marvin) Heaton.#
"#O'Grady, R.#" (_See 1915._) (_H._)
***Brothers. Mid. Jan.-Mar. (6:7.)
#O'Hagan, Anne. (Anne O'Hagan Shinin.)# (1869- .) (_See 1918._) (_H._)
***Return. Touch. Jan. (6: 181.)
#O'Hara, Frank Hurburt.# (1888- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918._)
*Life of Eddie Slaggin. Pict. R. Apr. (24.)
Now Wasn't that Just Like Father! Am. Jul. (62.)
#O'Higgins, Harvey Jerrold.# (1876- .) (_See 1915, 1917, 1918._) (_H._)
***Story of Big Dan Reilly. McC. Mar.-Apr. (25.)
***Story of Mrs. Murchison. McC. May-June. (25, 27.)
***Strange Case of Warden Jupp. McC. Aug. (27.)
#Oliver, Owen.# (_See 1915._)
*Wanted: a Kind Fairy. Holl. Sept. (11.)
#O'Malley, Austin.# (1858- .)
**Strong Box. (_R._) Mir. May 27. (29: 437.)
#O'Neill, Agnes Boulton.# _See_ #Boulton, Agnes.#
#Oppenheim, James.# (1882- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
***Rending. Dial. Jul. (69: 35.)
#Oppenheimer, James.#
Sweet Kanuck. Met. Jan. (33.)
#Osborne, William Hamilton.# (1873- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
Amazing Indiscretion. Met. Apr.-May. (20, 18.)
Handsomely Trimmed. S. E. P. Aug. 21. (12.)
Rush to Cover. S. E. P. May 15. (12.)
Seeing Things Again. S. E. P. May 8. (18.)
Turn of the Wrist. S. E. P. Sept. 4. (32.)
#Osbourne, Lloyd.# (1868- .) (_See 1915, 1917, 1919._) (_H._)
***East Is East. Met. Apr. (11.)
Ghosts Go West. S. E. P. Dec. 13, '19. (20.)
#O'Sullivan, Vincent.# (1872- .) (_See 1916, 1917, 1918._)
***Dance-Hall at Unigenitus. S. S. Mar. (53.)
#O'Toole, E. J.#
First Snow. Cath. W. Jan. (110:476.)
*#Owen, H. Collinson.#
***Temptation of Antoine. Pict. R. Sept. (5.)
#Owen, Margaret Dale.#
*Point of View. All. Oct. 18, '19. (102:690.)
"#Oxford, John Barton.#" _See_ #Shelton, Richard Barker.#
#Paine, Albert Bigelow.# (1861- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
Being a Landlord. Harp. M. Nov., '19. (139:929.)
Murphy's Kitchen. Harp. M. Feb. (140:424.)
#Paine, Ralph Delahaye.# (1871- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1918._) (_H._)
*Mrs. Tredick's Husband. Scr. Mar. (67:297.)
#Pangborn, Georgia Wood.# (1872- .) (_See 1911, 1916, 1917._) (_H._)
*Andy MacPherson's House. Rom. Aug. (78.)
**Children of Mount Pyb. Harp. M. Dec., '19. (140:98.)
*When the Ice Went Out. Rom. May. (72.)
#Parkhurst, Genevieve.#
Blind Alleys. L. H. J. Dec., '19. (29.)
#Parkhurst, Winthrop.#
Holy Matrimony. Pag. Nov.-Dec., '19. (23.)
Law of Averages. S. S. Apr. (91.)
Spooks. S. S. Nov., '19. (107.)
#Parmenter, Christine Whiting.# (1877- .) (_See 1918, 1919._)
Christmas Magic. Am. Dec., '19. (29.)
"I Never Could Have Married Anybody Else." Am. Mar. (11.)
Jilted--Because of Her Clothes! Am. Feb. (29.)
Marcia Lets Her Conscience Take a Brief Vacation. Am. Jan. (20.)
Peach in Pink. Met. Jan. (42.)
#Parsons, Lewis.#
Dick Tresco and the Yellow Streak. Am. Mar. (62.)
Wonderful Dog with a Dual Nature. Am. Oct., '19. (14.)
#Partridge, Edward Bellamy.# (_See 1916._)
Floating Foot. Met. Aug. (31.)
*Loan Shark. Met. June. (18.)
#Pattullo, George.# (1879- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
Captain. S. E. P. Nov. 8, '19. (8.)
Madame Patsy, the Gusher Queen. S. E. P. May 22. (10.)
Oo, Là, Là! S. E. P. Dec. 6, '19. (30.)
*Romance of Thomás Dozal. S. E. P. June 19. (3.)
#Payne, Elizabeth Stancy.#
*Trying Age. Ev. Jan. (55.)
#Payne, Will.# (1855- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
*Age of Chivalry. Det. N. Jul. 18. (pt. 6 p. 6.)
*Eye for an Eye. Cos. Aug. (75.)
*Lucky Mary. Red Bk. Mar. (59.)
*Unbidden Guest. Cos. Sept. (75.)
#Pearce, Theodocia.#
Little Spice Out of Life. L. H. J. Aug. (20.)
#Pearsall, Robert J.# (_H._)
*Escape. Adv. Aug. 18. (166.)
#Pelley, William Dudley.# (_See 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._)
**Auctioneer. Pict. R. Jan.-Feb. (24.)
**Conversion of John Carver. Red Bk. Oct., '19. (23.)
*Devil Dog. Pict. R. Jul.-Aug. (26.)
*February-Third Joe. All. Feb. 28. (107:342.)
*They Called Her Old Mother Hubbard. Red Bk. Dec., '19. (64.)
*Trails to Santa Fé. Red Bk. Sept. (78.)
#Peltier, Florence.#
*Left-Handed Jingoro and the Irate Landlord. Asia. Sept. (20:802.)
"#Pendleton, T. D.#" _see_ #Cummins#, #T. D. Pendleton.#
#Perry, Clay.#
White Light. Met. June. (29.)
#Perry, Lawrence.# (1875- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
Dilettante. S. E. P. Jul. 24. (12.)
Lothario of the Sea Bird. L. H. J. Aug. (16.)
Matter of Sentiment. Scr. Oct., '19. (66:438.)
Real Game. Ev. Jul. (13.)
Spoiled Boy. Ev. Nov., '19. (22.)
#Perry, Montanye.#
Three Kings. Del. Dec., '19. (5.)
*#Pertwee, Roland.# (_See 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._)
Elizabeth Anne. S. E. P. May 15. (16.)
*Mary Ottery. S. E. P. Sept. 25. (14.)
Various Relations. S. E. P. June 5. (16.)
#Phillips, Michael James.# (_See 1919._) (_H._)
Silken Bully. S. E. P. Sept. 18. (10.)
*#Phillpotts, Eden.# (1862- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918._) (_H._)
*Amy Up a Tree. Del. June. (5.)
*Mother of the Rain. Rom. Mar. (78.)
*Tyrant. Cen. Feb. (99:450.)
#Pickthall, Marjorie L(owry) C(hristie).# (_See 1915, 1916, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
*Boy in the Corner. W. H. C. May. (17.)
*Name. Sun. Mar. (33.)
**Without the Light. G. H. Mar. (33.)
#Picón, Jacinto Octavio.# (1852- .)
***After the Battle. (_R._) Mir. Aug. 26. (29:664.)
#Polk, Paul M.#
*Prayer and Faith. Tod. Oct., '19. (5.)
#Porter, Harold Everett.# _see_ "#Hall, Holworthy.#"
#Porter, Katherine Anne.#
*Adventures of Hadji. Asia. Aug. (20:683.)
#Post, Melville Davisson.# (1871- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
*House by the Loch. Hear. May. (35.)
*Lost Lady. McCall. June. (10.)
***Yellow Flower. Pict. R. Oct., '19. (12.)
#Potter, Jane Grey.#
Lass Who Loved a Sailor. Scr. May. (67:603.)
Strong Arm. Scr. Feb. (67:224.)
#Pottle, Emery# (#Bemsley#). (1875- .) (_See 1917._) (_H._)
**Little House. Touch. Apr. (7:51.)
#Pottle, Juliet Wilbor Tompkins.# _see_ #Tompkins, Juliet Wilbor.#
#Pulver, Mary Brecht.# (1883- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
**Fortune's Favorites. Ev. Mar. (9.)
*Lucifer. Del. Feb. (7.)
*Wings of Love. Del. June. (13.)
#Putnam, Nina Wilcox.# (1888- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
Comme Si, Comme Ça. S. E. P. Nov. 15, '19. (10.)
Higher the Fewer. S. E. P. Oct. 11, '19. (16.)
Immediate Possession. S. E. P. Sept. 11. (29.)
Price of Pickles. S. E. P. May 15. (8.)
Ring-Around-a-Rosy. S. E. P. June 12. (16.)
Seeing's Believing. S. E. P. Jan. 3. (14.)
Spiritualism Frumenti. S. E. P. Apr. 10. (6.)
#Rabel, Du Vernet.#
Her Last Affair. L. H. J. Apr. (18.)
Kin of William the Norman. L. H. J. Jul. (22.)
Material Motives. Ev. Jan. (37.)
West Window. Met. Nov., '19. (30.)
You Can't Take That to Simpson's. Ev. Oct., '19. (24.)
*#Rameau, Jean.# (_See 1919._)
*Nouveau Riche Cat. N. Y. Trib. Feb. 15.
***Ocarina. N. Y. Trib. June 6.
*Prayer. N. Y. Trib. Mar. 7.
#Ramsay, Robert E.#
Tabitha Mehitabel Sweet. L. H. J. June. (27.)
#Ranck, Edwin Carty.# (1879- .) (_See 1916, 1918._)
Just Plain Dog. Met. Apr. (31.)
#Raphaelson, Sampson.#
Great Li'l' Old Town. Del. May. (14.)
#Ravenel, Beatrice Witte.# (1870- .) (_See 1919._)
Love Is Free. Harp. M. Feb. (140:346.)
*Something to Remember. Harp. M. Jan. (140:236.)
#Ray, Marie Beynon.#
*Lost Marquise. S. S. Mar. (33.)
*Pride of Race. Harp. B. Dec., '19. (70.)
#Redington, Sarah.# (_See 1919._)
Anne Thinks It Over. Scr. Nov., '19. (66:592.)
"Why I Dislike My Husband." Sun. June. (52.)
#Reese, Lowell Otus.# (1866- .) (_See 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._)
Bachelor. S. E. P. Feb. 7. (6.)
Behind the Velvet. S. E. P. Mar. 6. (12.)
Clink of the Spurs. S. E. P. Dec. 20, '19. (40.)
Foster Fathers. Col. Sept. 11. (8.)
Table Butte. Col. May 29. (12.)
*#Régis, Roger.# (_See 1916._) (_H._)
Test. N. Y. Trib. Feb. 22.
#Reid, M. F.#
Doodle Buys a Bull Pup. Ev. Aug. (64.)
*Initiation of Scorp-for-Short. Cen. Aug. (100:570.)
#Reindel, Margaret H.# (1896- .)
***Fear. Touch. Mar. (6:400.)
"#Relonde, Maurice.#" (_See 1917._)
*Holy Pilgrimage. Pag. Jan. (18.)
#Rhodes, Harrison (Garfield).# (1871- .) (_See 1915, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
*Fair Daughter of a Fairer Mother. Ev. Mar. (79.)
*Shy Ghost. McC. Sept. (29.)
*Small Frog. Harp. M. Dec., '19. (140:49.)
Style in Hats. S. E. P. Aug. 14. (16.)
Thomas Robinson's Affair with an Actress. S. E. P. Jul. 10. (10.)
#Rice, Alice (Caldwell) Hegan.# (1870- .) (_See 1915, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
Nut. Cen. Nov., '19. (99:1.)
#Rice, Cale Young.# (1872- .)
**Aaron Harwood. Cen. Jul. (100:346.)
*Lowry. Cen. Feb. (99:549.)
#Rice, Louise.# (_See 1918._) (_H._)
***Lubbeny Kiss. Ain. Oct.
*#Richardson, Dorothy M.#
***Sunday. (_R._) Mir. Oct. 16, '19. (28:709.)
#Richardson, Norval.# (1877- .) (_See 1917._) (_H._)
**Bracelet. McC. Jul. (29.)
*#Riche, Daniel.#
First Call. N. Y. Trib. Dec. 14, '19.
*Royal Canary. N. Y. Trib. Mar. 28.
#Richens, Christine Eadie.#
Inner Enemy. Del. Mar. (15.)
#Richter, Conrad.# (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
Cabbages and Shoes. Ev. Mar. (61.)
Making of "Val" Pierce. Am. Apr. (30.)
Man Who Hid Himself. Am. Jul. (21.)
#Rideout, Henry Milner.# (1877- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
*Toad. S. E. P. June 19. (16.)
#Rinehart, Mary Roberts.# (1876- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
Finders Keepers. S. E. P. Oct. 4, '19. (3.)
#Riper, Charles King Van.# _See_ #Van Riper, Charles King.#
#Ritchie, Robert Welles.# (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._)
*Odd Case of the Second Back. S. E. P. Jan. 17. (28.)
#Rivers, Stuart.# (_See 1918, 1919._)
*Circular Letter. Peop. Mar. (43.)
Fresh Guy. Met. Feb. (30.)
Genius. S. E. P. Nov. 15, '19. (50.)
#Robbins, Leonard H.# (1877- .)
"Ain't This the Darndest World!" Am. May. (70.)
Christmas Card. Met. Dec., '19 (42.)
Professor Todd's Used Car. Ev. Jul. (37.)
#Roberts, Kenneth Lewis.# (1885- .) (_See 1917, 1918, 1919._)
Pergola Preferred. Col. Oct. 4, '19. (15.)
#Roberts, Walter Adolphe.# (1886- .)
*Adventure of the Portrait. Ain. Mar. (111.)
#Robinson, Mabel L.#
Daughter of a Diplomat. Del. Mar. (19.)
Dr. Tam O'Shanter. Del. Nov., '19. (19.)
Dr. Tam O'Shanter Comes to Town. Del. Jan. (15.)
Sakes Alive! Del. May. (23.)
#Roche, Arthur Somers.# (1883- .) (_See 1915, 1917, 1918._) (_H._)
***Dummy-Chucker. Cos. June. (20.)
#Roche, Mazo De La.# (_See 1915, 1916, 1919._) (_See "H" under_ #De La
Roche, Mazo.#)
*"D'ye Ken John Peel?" W. H. C. Nov., '19. (14.)
***Explorers of the Dawn. Atl. Oct., '19. (124:532.)
#Roe, Vingie E.# (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
Black Rose of El Forja. Sun. Jul. (25.)
Land of Unforgetting. Pict. R. Sept. (10.)
"Let's Go with Honor." Sun. Oct., '19. (20.)
Monsieur Plays. Sun. Dec., '19. (17.)
Prides of Black Coulee. Pict. R. Mar. (12.)
Red Dapple. Ev. Aug. (22.)
Sign of High Endeavor. Met. Nov., '19. (38.)
Third Degree at Port O'Light. Met. Oct., '19. (13.)
*"#Hohmer, Sax.#" (#Arthur Sarsfield Ward.#) (1883- .) (_See 1915,
1916, 1917._) (_H._)
House of the Golden Joss. Col. Aug. 7. (10.)
Man with the Shaven Skull. Col. Sept. 18. (8.)
#Roof, Katharine Metcalf.# _(See 1915, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
**Exile. Touch. Feb. (6:314.)
#Rosenblatt, Benjamin.# (1880- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1919._) (_H._)
***Stepping Westward. Mid. Sept.-Oct., '19. (5:217.)
**Transformation. Strat. J. Oct.-Dec., '19. (5:217.)
*#Rosny, J. H.# _aîné._
Bolshevist Marat. N. Y. Trib. Sept. 26.
Girl in the Engraving. N. Y. Trib. June 27.
#Roy, Manabendra Nath.# _See_ #Granich, Irwin# _and_ #Roy, Manabendra
Nath.#
*#Ruby, J. Bruno-.# _See_ #Bruno-Ruby, J.#
#Rumsey, Frances.# (1886- .)
***Cash. Cen. Aug. (100:433.)
#Runkle, Bertha (Brooks). (Mrs. Louis H. Bash.)# (_H._)
Who's Who in America. Am. Oct., '19. (27.)
#Russell, Alice Dyar.# (_See 1919._)
Her Birthright. Del. Apr. (9.)
#Russell, John.# (1885- .) (_See 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._)
*One Drop of Moonshine. McC. Mar.-Apr. (27.)
***Wreck on Deliverance. Col. Oct. 4, '19. (5.)
Yellow Professor. Col. May 15. (12.)
#Russell, Phillips.# (_See 1918._)
*Troubadour. S.S. Jan. (115.)
"#Rutledge, Maryse.#" (#Maryse Rutledge Hale.#) ("#Marice Rutledge.#")
(#Marie Louise Goetchius.#) (#Marie Louise van Saanen.#) (1884- .)
(_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918 under_ #Van Saanen, Marie Louise.#)
(_See "H" under_ #Goetchius, Marie Louise.#)
***House of Fuller. S. E. P. May 29. (30.)
**Thing They Loved. Cen. May. (100:110.)
#Ryan, Kathryn White.# (_See 1919._)
***Man of Cone. Mun. Mar. (69:231.)
**Mrs. Levering. Mun. Jul. (70:346.)
**Sea. All. May 1. (109:454.)
*Swine of Circe. S. S. Feb. (99.)
#Ryerson, Florence.# (_See 1915, 1917, 1918, 1919._)
Babs and the Little Gray Man. Aug. (21.)
#Saanen, Marie Louise Van.# _See_ "#Rutledge, Maryse.#"
*#Sabatini, Rafael.# (1875- .) (_H._)
*Scapulary. Rom. Aug. (49.)
*#Saint-Valéry, Leon De.# _See_ #House, Roy Temple#, _and_
#Saint-Valéry, Leon De.#
#Saltus, Edgar (Evertson).# (1858- .) (_See 1915._) (_H._)
*Ghost Story. Mun. Jul. (70:224.)
*#Saltykov, M. Y. ("N. Schedrin.")# (_See 1917._) (_H._)
***Wild Squire. S. S. June (123.)
#Sangster, Margaret Elizabeth, Jr.# (1894- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1918,
1919._)
City Dust. G. H. May. (39.)
#Saphier, William.# (1883- .)
***Kites. Lit. R. Dec., '19.
**Wise Man. Lit. R. Mar. (7.)
#Sapinsky, Joseph.#
*Crazy Gambler Paul. McCall. June. (14.)
*"#Sapper.#" _See_ #McNeille, Cyril.#
#Sawhill, Myra.# (_See 1917, 1919._)
How Much Did Good Clothes Help Bob Gilmore? Am. Sept. (39.)
Rev. Mr. Deering Sues His Congregation. Am. Jul. (39.)
#Sawyer, Ruth.# (#Mrs. Albert C. Durand.#) (1880- .) (_See 1915, 1916,
1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
Glorious Comedy. L. H. J. Jan. (10.)
Simple Simon and the Fourth Dimension. Ev. June. (54.)
#Saxby, Charles.# (_See 1916, 1917, 1918._) (_H._)
*Betrayal. Ev. Mar. (27.)
*Cucharo. Met. Dec., '19. (37.)
*In Camera. Ev. Feb. (23.)
#Scarborough, Dorothy.# (_See 1918._)
**Drought. Cen. May. (100:12.)
#Schauffler, Margaret Widdemer.# _See_ #Widdemer, Margaret.#
*"#Schedrin#, N." _See_ #Saltykov, M. Y.#
#Scheffauer, Herman George.# (1878- .) (_See 1915._) (_H._)
*Brother of the Woods. Mun. Mar. (69:307.)
**Drama in Dust. Mun. Feb. (69:111.)
*#Scheffer, Robert.#
*Road of Long Ago. N. Y. Trib. Jan. 18.
*#Schnitzler, Arthur.# (1862- .) (_See 1916._)
***Crumbled Blossoms. Dial. June. (68:711.)
#Scoggins, C. E.# (_See 1919._)
Home for Ho Fat Wun. L. H. J. June. (10.)
#Scott, Arthur P.#
Yvette. Harp. M. Apr. (140:713.)
#Scott, Donna R.#
Convictions. Pag. Oct., '19. (23.)
#Scott, Margretta.# (_See 1915, 1916, 1918._)
*Mrs. Lionel Felker--Accompanist. Mir. May 13. (29:388.)
Spring at Schlosser's. Mir. Mar. 11. (29:180.)
#Scoville, Samuel, Jr.# (1872- .) (_H._)
Blackbear. L. H. J. Jan. (8.)
Cleanleys. L. H. J. Dec., '19. (7.)
#Seaman, Augusta Huiell.# (_See 1919._)
Dream Bread. Del. Oct., '19. (21.)
#Sedgwick, Anne Douglas. (Mrs. Basil, De Sélincourt.)# (1873- .) (_See
1915, 1916, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
***Christmas Roses. Atl. Nov.-Dec., '19. (124:674, 796.)
#Seeley, Herman Gastrell.# (1891- .)
*Craven. B. C. Aug. (46.)
#Seifert, Shirley L.# (_See 1919._)
Nicest Boy. Del. Jul.-Aug. (17.)
P. Gadsby--Venturer. Met. May. (23.)
Terry's Youthful Ideal. Met. Nov., '19. (15.)
To-morrow. S. E. P. June 19. (20.)
#Seifert, Marjorie Allen.# (1885- .) (_See 1918, 1919._)
**Lizzie. Mir. Jul. 1. (29:527.)
Shipwreck. Mir. Dec. 25, '19. (28:953.)
#Sélincourt, Mrs. Basil De.# _See_ #Sedgwick, Anne Douglas.#
#Senior, Mary.#
**"Died of Other Causes." Touch. Oct., '19. (6:47.)
#Sexton, Bernard.#
*How a Hermit Gained Kingdom and Treasure. Asia. Aug. (20:702.)
*Jackal and the Rats. Asia. June. (20:513.)
*King Discovers His First Gray Hair. Asia. Sept. (20:815.)
*Stonecutter and the Mouse. Asia. May. (20:378.)
*Tortoise Who Talked. Asia. Jul. (20:624.)
#Shawe, Victor.# (_See 1917, 1919._)
In the Big Timber. S. E. P. Oct. 25, '19. (21.)
Seattle Slim and the Two Per Cent Theory. S. E. P. Aug. 28. (12.)
#Shelton (Richard), Barker.# (_See 1916, 1917 under_ "#Oxford, John
Barton.#") (_See 1916, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
Bridegroom Cometh. S. E. P. Dec. 27, '19. (38.)
*Little of Both. Ev. May. (37.)
*Private Performance. L. H. J. June. (16.)
Subjunctive Mood. Ev. Aug. (49.)
#Shields, Gertrude M.# (1890- .) (_See 1918._)
*Her Promised Land. Cen. Jul. (100:393.)
#Shinn, Anne O'Hagan.# _See_ #O'Hagan, Anne.#
#Shipp, Margaret Busbee.# (1871- .) (_See 1917._) (_H._)
Closed Gentians. Cen. Dec., '19. (99:171.)
Priscilla and Her Penates. Ev. Jan. (69.)
#Shore, Nancy.#
**Secret of the Neals. Red Bk. Jan. (44.)
#Shore, Viola Brothers.# (_See 1919._)
Cast Upon the Waters. S. E. P. Jul. 10. (42.)
Dimi and the Double Life. S. E. P. Apr. 24. (18.)
"Hand That Jerks the Strings." Am. Jan. (27.)
We Can't Afford It. S. E. P. Dec. 6, '19. (16.)
Young Adventuress. S. E. P. June 19. (49.)
#Shute, Henry Augustus.# (1856- .) (_See 1919._) (_H._)
*Scholastic Fourth. Del. Jul.-Aug. (5.)
#Sidney, Rose.# (1888- .) (_See 1919._)
***Butterflies. Pict. R. Sept. (12.)
#Simpson, Robert.#
*Whoso Diggeth a Pit. Met. Feb. (15.)
#Sinclair, May.# (_See 1915, 1917._) (_H._)
***Fame. Pict. R. May. (10.)
#Singmaster, Elsie. (Elsie Singmaster Lewards.)# (1879- .) (_See 1915,
1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
*Madness of Henrietta Havisham. McCall. Feb. (5.)
***Miss Vilda. Scr. Jul. (68:98.)
***Salvadora. Strat. J. Apr.-June. (6:135.)
#Slyke, Lucille Baldwin Van.# _See_ #Van Slyke, Lucille Baldwin.#
*#Smale, Fred C.# (_See 1916, 1919._)
*Experts. Scr. Nov., '19. (66:624.)
#Smith, Elizabeth Parker.#
Algy Allen's Celadon. Scr. Dec., '19. (66:684.)
#Smith, Garret.#
*Host at No. 10. Met. Jan. (23.)
Old Hutch Lives Up to It. S. E. P. Feb. 28. (14.)
#Smith, Gordon Arthur.# (1886- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918._) (_H._)
**Bottom of the Cup. Scr. Mar. (67:355.)
*No Flowers. Harp. M. May. (140:785.)
They All Go Mad in June. Ev. June. (20.)
#Smith, Maxwell.# (_See 1919._)
Dated. S. E. P. Jul. 3. (18.)
Funny Fingers. S. E. P. Nov. 15, '19. (12.)
#Sneddon, Robert W.# (1880- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
*Bank of Love. Arg. June 12. (122:23.)
*Bonds of Bohemia. Arg. Jul. 17. (123:203.)
*Figures of Wax. Sn. St. Nov. 18, '19. (*7.)
*Full o' the Moon. L. St. May. (15.)
*"Golden Snail Is Born." L. St. Oct., '19. (19.)
*Guardian Angels of Charlot. T.T. Aug. (53.)
*Little Finot. Sn. St. Feb. 18. (33.)
*Love and Lions. Ain. Apr. (46.)
Solano, Solita.
Her Honeymoon. S. S. June. (57.)
#Solomons. Theodore Seixa.# (_See 1915._)
*In the Maw of the Ice. Adv. Sept. 3. (75.)
#Spears, Raymond Smiley.# (1876- .) (_See 1917, 1918._) (_H._)
Bump. Col. Feb. 28. (6.)
#Sprague, J. R.#
Expired Loans. S. E. P. May 1. (20.)
Factory Chasers. S. E. P. Jul. 3. (22.)
Nothing But Business. S. E. P. Jul. 10. (30.)
#Springer, Fleta Campbell.# (1886- .) (_See 1915 1916, 1918; see 1917
under_ #Campbell, Fleta.#) (_H._)
***Civilization. Harp. M. March. (140:544.)
*Romance. Mun. Aug. (70:556.)
***Rotter. Harp. M. Jul. (141:157.)
#Stabler, Harry Snowden.# (_H._)
*Zebra Mule. S. E. P. Jan. 17. (5.)
*#Stacpoole, Henry De Vere Stacpoole-.# (1865- .) (_See 1916,
1918._) (_H._)
*Middle Bedroom. All. Nov. 29, '19. (104:199.)
#Starrett, Vincent.# (_See 1918._)
End of the Story. S. S. Sept. (25.)
Penny Walk. Mir. Mar. 18. (29:205.)
#Stearns, M. M.# _See_ "#Amid, John.#"
#Steele, Alice Garland. (Mrs. T. Austin-Ball.)# (1880- .) (_See 1915,
1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
**Awake, Thou Sleeper! Wom. W. Apr. (7.)
Blossom in Waste Places. Am. Aug. (57.)
Same Old Corker. Am. Dec., '19. (54.)
#Steele, Rufus (Milas).# (1877- .) (_See 1915, 1917._) (_H._)
Trouble Doc. S. E. P. Nov. 22, '19. (32.)
#Steele, Wilbur Daniel.# (1886- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
***Both Judge and Jury. Harp. M. Jan. (140:179.)
*Clay and the Cloven Hoof. Harp. M. Oct.-Nov., '19. (139:683; 889.)
***Out of Exile. Pict. R. Nov., '19. (14.)
***God's Mercy. Pict. R. Jul. Aug. (17.)
*#Stéphane, B.#
*Adéle. N. Y. Trib. Jul. 4.
#Stephens, James.# (_See 1915, 1918._) (_H._)
***Boss. Dial. Apr. (68:411.)
***Desire. Dial. June. (68:277.)
***Thieves. Dial. Aug. (69:142.)
#Stetson, Cushing.# (_H._)
Third Light from a Match. Met. Aug. (32.)
"#Stevens, Margaret Dean.#" _See_ #Aldrich, Bess Streeter.#
#Stevenson, Philip E.#
*Reward of a Prodigal. Lit. St. June. (19.)
*#Stock, Ralph.# (_See 1915, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
Out of the Rut. Col. Jan. 10. (13.)
#Stolper, B. J.# (_See 1918, 1919._)
*New Moon. Rom. Nov., '19. (105.)
"#Storm, Ethel.#" (_See 1917._)
***Three Telegrams. L. H. J. Oct., '19. (20.)
#Strahan, Kay Cleaver.# (1888- .) (_See 1915, 1919._) (_H._)
Dollars and Sense. Am. June. (70.)
Imitation Paradise. Del. May. (10.)
Mr. Machiavelli. Del. Oct., '19. (23.)
#Street, Julian (Leonard).# (1879- .) (_See 1915, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
Case of Mrs. Allison. S. E. P. Dec. 6, '19. (5.)
***Hands. McC. Sept. (8.)
#Streeter, Edward.# (1891- .)
Back to Nature--and Back. S. E. P. Sept. 11. (12.)
*Laughing Horse of Gallup Street. S. E. P. Jul. 24. (3.)
#Stribling, T. S.#
Passing of the St. Louis Bearcat. Ev. Dec., '19. (51.)
#Stringer, Arthur (John Arbuthnott).# (1874- .) (_See 1915._) (_H._)
Cuff Shooter. S. E. P. May 22. (5.)
#Strunsky, Rose.# (_H._)
**Peter Karpovitch. Asia. Feb.-Mar. (20:214.)
*#Sugimoto, Hanano Inagaki.#
**Ivory Skull. Scr. Jan. (67:83.)
#Sullivan, Charles J.# (_See 1915._)
**From Out the Centuries. B. C. Apr. (25.)
#Sutphen (William Gilbert), Van Tassel.# (1861- .) (_H._)
Match-Maker. Harp. M. June. (141:45.)
#Swain, John D.# (_See 1918._) (_H._)
*Affairs at Baker's Bluff. All. Nov. 22, '19. (104:20.)
*Deadwood. Arg. Jul. 31. (123:561.)
Fighting Machine. S. E. P. Nov. 22, '19. (22.)
*From Appetites to Arcadia. S. E. P. May 15. (40.)
*Man Who Was Never Knocked Out. S. E. P. Aug. 21. (18.)
**Unfinished Game. Arg. Mar. 6. (118:443.)
*#Sylvaire, Dominique.#
Choice. N. Y. Trib. Oct. 5, '19.
#Synon, Mary.# (1881- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
*Night of the Charity Ball. Red Bk. Apr. (43.)
*On Scarlet Wings. Red Bk. Jul. (57.)
**Second-Best. McCall. Sept. (9.)
**Top of the Ladder. McC. Aug. (20.)
#Tanner, Marion.#
Enemy of Santa Claus. Cen. Dec., '19. (99:153.)
#Tarkington (Newton), Booth.# (1869- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
**Dishonorable Dolls. Met. Apr. (14.)
**Other Things of Life. Met. Jan. (15.)
#Tarleau, Lisa Ysaye.#
*Blue Roses. Atl. Nov., '19. (124:614.)
#Taylor, Anne Leland.# (_See 1918._) (_H._)
Man's Mind. S. S. Apr. (37.)
#Taylor, D. Wooster.#
Murphy's Mummy. Am. Nov., 10. (20.)
*#Tchekov, Anton Pavlovich.# _See_ #Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich.#
#Templeton, Herminie.# _See_ #Kavanagh, Herminie Templeton.#
#Terhune, Albert Payson.# (1872- .) (_See 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
Bean Spiller. S. E. P. Nov. 1, '19. (18.)
Dub of Peace. S. E. P. Jul. 24. (16.)
Foul Fancier. S. E. P. Sept. 18. (18.)
Heroine. S. E. P. Sept. 4. (16.)
Ringer. S. E. P. Aug. 21. (8.)
#Terhune, Albert Payson#, _and_ #Bulger, Bozeman.# (_See also_ #Bulger,
Bozeman.#)
*Yas-Suh, 'At's er Dog! S. E. P. Apr. 10. (20.)
#Thayer, Mabel Dunham.# (_See 1917._)
Little Clay Puppets. Met. June. (16.)
Uplifting Mary. S. E. P. May 8. (40.)
*#Thibault, Jacques Anatole.# _See_ "#France, Anatole.#"
#Thompson, James Henry.# (_See 1918._)
**$.89 Worth of Devotion. B. C. Jul. (21.)
#Tildesley, Alice L.# (_See 1916, 1919._)
Cabell Drives the Nail. S. E. P. Nov. 29, '19. (16.)
Lewis Dare. S. E. P. Sept. 11. (10.)
#Titus, Harold.# (1888- .) (_See 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
*Aliens. L. H. J. May (10.)
Crowded Hearthstone. Ev. Jul. (44.)
*#Tolstoy, Count Ilya.#
*Bolshevik Soldier. Ev. Oct., '19. (86.)
#Tompkins, Juliet Wilbor.# (#Juliet Wilbor Tompkins Pottle.#) (1871- .)
Great Man. S. E. P. Aug. 21. (16.)
Sic Semper. S. E. P. Apr. 17. (14.)
#Tonjoroff, Svetozar (Ivanoff).# (1870- .) (_See 1915, 1919._) (_H._)
Across the Bridge of Sighs. L. H. J. Oct., '19. (26.)
*From Hopeless Soil. L. H. J. Apr. (21.)
#Toohey, John Peter.# (1880- .) (_See 1919._)
Days of His Youth. Met. Dec., '19. (25.)
Prince There Wasn't. S. E. P. Apr. 3. (16.)
Water's Fine. S. E. P. Nov. 8, '19. (16.)
#Torrey, Grace.# (_See 1917, 1919._) (_H._)
Maroon-Colored, with Wire Wheels. S. E. P. Aug. 7. (20.)
Tone of Lafayette Arms. L. H. J. Dec., '19. (21.)
#Towne, Charles Hanson.# (1877- .) (_H._)
Upper Ten. S. S. Jul. (63.)
#Train, Arthur (Cheney).# (1875- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
Beyond a Reasonable Doubt. S. E. P. Sept. 11. (14.)
Dog Andrew. S. E. P. Nov. 15, '19. (20.)
Hocus-Pocus. S. E. P. Jan. 3. (24.)
*"Honor Among Thieves." S. E. P. Apr. 24. (20.)
In re Misella. S. E. P. Dec. 6, '19. (24.)
Kid and the Camel. S. E. P. Apr. 3. (20.)
Passing of Caput Magnus. S. E. P. Apr. 17. (20.)
Shyster. S. E. P. Aug. 7. (12.)
Ways That Are Dark. S. E. P. Nov. 29, '19. (8.)
#Train, Ethel Kissam.# (#Mrs. Arthur Train.#) (1875- .) (_See 1916, 1917._)
In the Garden. Met. Aug. (18.)
#Trapnell, Edna Valentine.#
*Old Lady. L. St. Oct., '19. (13.)
*#Trueba, Antonio De.#
***Portal of Hegaven. Strat. J. Apr.-June. (6:86.)
#Tuckerman, Arthur.#
*Black Magic. Scr. Aug. (68:166.)
#Turnbull, Agnes Sligh.#
Lost--a $2,500 Engagement Ring. Am. Sept. (47.)
#Turner, George Kibbe.# (1869- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
*Clank Clinkscales' Duodenum. S. E. P. Nov. 15, '19. (3.)
Gloama, the Beautiful Ticket Agent. S. E. P. Apr. 17. (6.)
Golden Name. S. E. P. Nov. 8, '19. (20.)
Old General Jazz. S. E. P. Oct. 4, '19. (8.)
#Ueland, Brenda.#
Good Natured Girl. Met. May. (36.)
Hootch Hound. Met. Sept. (23.)
#Underbill, Ruth Murray.# (_See 1917, 1918._)
Goldfish Bowl. L. H. J. Aug. (30.)
#Underwood, Edna Worthley.# (1873- .)
**Orchid of Asia. Asia. Aug.-Sept. (20:657, 771.)
#Underwood, Sophie Kerr.# _See_ #Kerr, Sophie.#
#Updegraff, Allan#, (1883- .) (_See 1915._) (_H._)
Harrying Fiend. Harp. M. Jan. (140:160.)
#Updegraff, Robert R.# (_See 1918, 1919._)
Old Specification. S. E. P. Sept. 18. (30.)
Rip Van Winkle Lands an Order. S. E. P. Nov. 29, '19. (12.)
#Upper, Joseph.#
Cheque. S. S. Feb. (101.)
Little Gray Doves. S. S. Feb. (76.)
Sisterhood. S. S. Mar. (125.)
"#Vail, Lawrence.#" (_See 1916, 1917, 1919._)
Conrad's Apology for Earth. S. S. March. (29.)
Passing of Don Quixote. S. S. Jul. (117.)
Swan Song of a Kiss. S. S. Sept. (111.)
Twilight Adventure. S. S. Apr. (51.)
*#Valdagne, Pierre.# (_See 1918, 1919._)
*Seat of the Right. N. Y. Trib. Sept. 12.
*#Valmer, Binet-.# _See_ #Binet-Valmer.#
#Van, Stephen Ta.#
Sheep-Face. S. S. Mar. (67.)
Sheep-Face II. S. S. May. (103.)
#Van De Water, Virginia (Belle) Terhune.# (1865- .) (_See 1916._) (_H._)
As Water Spilled on the Ground. S. S. May. (93.)
#Van Riper, Charles King.#
Hole in the Doughnut. S. S. Mar. (85.)
Triumph. S. S. May. (123.)
#Van Saanen, Marie Louise.# _See_ "#Rutledge, Maryse.#"
#Van Slyke, Lucille Baldwin.# (1880- .) (_See 1916, 1917, 1918._) (_H._)
Boy Who Missed the War. Del. Jan. (16.)
Man Who Was Tired of His Wife. Del. May. (7.)
You Have to Keep in Tune. L. H. J. Jul. (25.)
#Vermilye, Kate Jordan.# _See_ #Jordan, Kate.#
*#Volland, Gabriel.#
Black Siren. N. Y. Trib. Jan. 11.
*Original. N. Y. Trib. Nov. 16, '19.
#Vorse, Mary (Marvin) Heaton. (Mary Heaton Vorse O'Brien.)# (_See
1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
* Dream Killers. Rom. Jan. (38.)
***Fraycar's Fist. Lib. Sept. (17.)
***Hopper. Lib. Apr. (34.)
**House of Storms. W. H. C. Mar. (7.)
***Pink Fence. McCall. Jul. (5.)
*True Talisman. W. H. C. Aug. (11.)
#Waldo, Harold.#
*Old Twelve Hundred. S. E. P. Nov. 1, '19. (22.)
#Walker, Beatrice McKay.#
*Tomley's Gossoon. Holl. Jul. (11.)
*#Wallace, Edgar.# (1875- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
*Mother o' Mine. Met. Mar. (21.)
*#Walpole, Hugh.# (1884- .) (_See 1915._)
***Case of Miss Morganhurst. Pict. R. May. (17.)
***Fanny's Job. Pict. R. Jul.-Aug. (19.)
***Honourable Clive Torby. Pict. R. June. (10.)
***No Place for Absalom. Pict. R. Apr. (16.)
***Stealthy Visitor. Pict. R. Mar. (14.)
***Third Six. Pict. R. Sept. (8.)
#Walton, Emma Lee.# (H.)
*His Masterpiece. Am. Oct., '19. (49.)
*#Ward, Arthur Sarsfield.# _See_ "#Rohmer, Sax.#"
#Ward, Herbert Dickinson.# (1861- .) (_See 1916, 1919._) (_H._)
**Greater Than Creed. L. H. J. Apr. (22.)
***Master Note. L. H. J. Jan. (20.)
Under the Silk-Cotton Tree. L. H. J. Jul. (10.)
#Ward, Winifred.#
Skyscraper. Met. Aug. (26.)
*Sleeping Beauty. Touch. Dec., '19. (6:18.)
#Wasson, David A.# (_See 1915, 1916, 1917._)
Blind Goddess Nods. B. C. Dec., '19. (114.)
#Water, Virginia Terhune Van De.# _See_ #Van De Water, Virginia Terhune.#
#Waterhouse, Irma.#
*Aftermath. Cen. Mar. (99:584.)
*Closed Road. Cen. June. (100:165.)
#Weed, Dole.#
*Flying Hours. T. T. Feb. (117.)
#Weiman, Rita.# (1889- .) (_See 1915, 1919._)
Back Drop. S. E. P. Sept. 25. (8.)
Curtain! S. E. P. Dec. 20, '19. (8.)
#Weitzenhorn, Louis.# (1893- .)
Adventure of His Daily Bread. Met. May. (30.)
Adventure of the Code. Met. Apr. (18.)
Adventure of the Diamond Watches. Met. Mar. (23.)
#Welles, Harriett Ogden Deen.# (_See 1917, 1918, 1919._)
***According to Ruskin. W. H. C. June. (21.)
**Chinese Interlude. Scr. Apr. (67:431.)
*Distracting Adeline. Scr. May. (67:558.)
**One Hundred Years Too Soon. Scr. Dec., '19. (66:663.)
*Thrush. Harp. B. May. (80.)
#Wellman, Rita.# (#Mrs. Edgar F. Leo.#) (1890- .) (_See 1919._)
Clerk. S. S. Oct., '19. (117.)
**Little Priest of Percé. S. S. Aug. (107.)
*Spanish Knife. S. S. Jul, (39.)
*Two Lovers, Ain. Sept. (119.)
#Welty, Ruth.#
Crises. Pag. Jul.-Sept. (12.)
#Weston, George (T.).# (1880- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
Diplomatic Corps. S. E. P. June 5. (8.)
Fool of the Family. S. E. P. May 1. (18.)
Girls Don't Gamble Any More. S. E. P. Apr. 24. (8.)
Hard-Boiled Mabel. S. E. P. Apr. 3. (5.)
*#Wharton, Anthony.# (_See 1919._)
"Gingerbread for Two." Pict. R. June. (14.)
*Miss Ashton's House. S. E. P. Aug. 28. (16.)
#Wharton, Francis Willing.# (_H._)
Byway of Darby. Ev. Mar. (74.)
#Wheeler, Post.# (1869- .)
*Talking Skull. Rom. Sept. (77.)
#Wheelwright, John Tyler.# (1856- .)
***Roman Bath. Scr. Jan. (67:33.)
#White, Nelia Gardner.#
Girl Next Door to Old Pinchpenny's. Am. Sept. (27.)
#Whiting, Robert Rudd.# (1877- .) (_See 1915._) (_H._)
Romance of a Practising Ph.D. Scr. Oct., '19. (66:487.)
#Whitman, Stephen French.# (_See 1915, 1919._) (_H._)
***Amazement, Harp. M. Oct., '19. (139:654.)
**Last Room of All. Harp. M. June. (141:27.)
***Lost Waltz. L. H. J. Dec., '19. (26.)
***To a Venetian Tune. Harp. M. Nov., '19. (139:836.)
#Whitson, Beth Slater.# (_See 1916, 1917._) (_H._)
**Birthmark. True St. Nov., '19. (33.)
#Widdemer, Margaret.# (#Margaret Widdemer Schauffler.#) (_See 1915,
1917, 1918._) (_H._)
Changeling. Col. Jan. 10-17. (9:18.)
Secondary Wife. Del. Dec., '19. (13.)
#Wilde, Percival.# (1887- .)
Sequel. S. E. P. Sept. 4. (11.)
#Wiley, Hugh.# (1894- .) (_See 1917, 1918, 1919._)
*Christmas Drifter. S. E. P. Dec. 27, '19. (8.)
*Driftwood. S. E. P. Oct. 4, '19. (12.)
Excess Baggage. S. E. P. Sept. 25. (10.)
*Hop. S. E. P. Apr. 10. (8.)
*Jade. S. E. P. Mar. 27. (6.)
**Junk. S. E. P. June 12. (12.)
*Konkrin' Hero. S. E. P. June 26. (8.)
*Mister Lady Luck. S. E. P. Jan. 17. (14.)
Prowling Prodigal. S. E. P. Nov. 22, '19. (10.)
*Ramble Gamble. S. E. P. Jan. 10. (14.)
Red Rock. S. E. P. May 1. (10.)
*Solitaire. S. E. P. Sept. 4. (20.)
#Williams, Ben Ames# (1889- .) (_See 1917, 1918, 1919._)
*Another Man's Poison. Col Dec. 6, '19. (9.)
*Climax. Cos. Aug. (81.)
*Mine Enemy's Dog. Col. Jan. 10. (5.)
Most Disastrous Chances. Col Aug. 14. (5.)
Not a Drum Was Heard. Col. June 12. (5).
*Old Tantrybogus. S. E. P. Mar. 6. (8.)
***Sheener. Col. Jul. 10. (5.)
#Willie, Linda Buntyn.# (_See 1917._)
What Mother Had Always Wanted. Am. Apr. (66.)
#Willrich, Erica.#
Fulfillment. Pag. Oct., '19. (49.)
#Wilson, John Fleming.# (1877- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918._) (_H._)
*Class. S. E. P. June 26. (22.)
Dough Candles. L. H. J. Nov., '19. (18.)
Ninety Days. S. E. P. Jul. 17. (20.)
Number 1100. S. E. P. Feb. 7. (12.)
Salving of John Somers. Ev. Aug. (34.)
***Uncharted Reefs. McCall. Aug. (8.)
#Wilson, Margaret Adelaide.# (_See 1916, 1917, 1918._) (_H._)
**Cæsar's Ghost. Atl. Oct., '19. (124:483.)
***Drums. Scr. Dec., '19. (66:702.)
#Wingate, Robert.#
Rough-Shod Mr. Billings and Where His Ride Led Him. Am. Nov., '19. (38.)
#Winslow, Thyra Samter.# (1889- .) (_See 1917, 1918, 1919._)
Aunt Ida. S. S. Dec., '19. (103.)
**City Folks. S. S. Oct., '19. (53.)
Corinna and Her Man. S. S. May. (53.)
**Mamie Carpenter. S. S. Aug. (77.)
*Perfume Counter. S. S. Jan. (87.)
#Winthrop, Arthur.#
Mystic Rose. Lit. R. Jan. (21.)
#Wisehart, Karl.#
**Hunger. Cen. Feb. (98:483.)
#Witwer, Harry Charles.# (1890- .) (_See 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919._)
Ellen of Troy. Am. Jul. (68.)
Fool and His Money. Col. Jul. 31. (8.)
Freedom of the She's. Col. Jan. 3. (14.)
Girl at the Switchboard. Am. Feb. (44.)
League of Relations. Col. Apr. 3. (13.)
Leather Pushers. Round One. Col. May 15. (5.)
Leather Pushers. Round Two. Col. June 5. (9.)
Merchant of Venus. Col. Nov. 29, '19. (5.)
Nights of Columbus. Col. Mar. 20. (11.)
Paul and West Virginia. Am. June. (46.)
Payment Through the Nose. Col. Jul. 3. (8.)
So This Is Cincinnati! Col. Oct. 4, '19. (9.)
Taming of the Shrewd. Col. Aug. 28. (10.)
Word to the Wives. Col. Mar. 6. (8.)
*#Wodehouse, Pelham Grenville.# (1881- .) (_See 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
Ordeal by Golf. Col. Dec. 6, '19- (5.)
#Wolcott, Helen Louise.#
Reality. S. S. June. (65.)
#Wolff, William Almon, Jr.# (1885- .) (_See 1916, 1917, 1918,
1919._) (_H._)
Cellar Door. Col. Nov. 15, '19. (5.)
Middle of the Ladder. Col. Jan. 3. (8.)
Ugly Ducklings. Sun. Jan. (45.)
Wash Your Own Dishes. Col. Jan. 24. (8.)
#Woljeska, Helen.# (_See 1915._) (_H._)
Exquisite Episode. S. S. Feb. (68.)
#Wood, C. Rowland.#
Jimmie Pulls a Miracle. Ev. June. (62.)
#Wood, Frances Gilchrist.# (_See 1918._)
***Spoiling of Pharaoh. Pict. R. Oct., '19. (18.)
***Turkey Red. Pict. R. Nov., '19. (18.)
#Wood, Jr., Leonard.# (_See 1915, 1917._) (_H._)
Hills of To-Morrow. Scr. Mar. (67:316.)
#Woollcott, Alexander.#
**Old Woman of Margivrault Farm. Cen. June. (100:259.)
#Wormser, Gwendolyn Ranger.# (_See 1919._)
**Tumanoff. Sn. St. Oct. 18, '19. (33.)
#Worts, George Frank.# (1892- .) (_See 1918, 1919._)
Bonuses and Bunkers. Col. Feb. 7. (19.)
Cat and the Burglar. Ev. Apr. (54.)
Fine Feathers and Overalls. Sun. Apr. (45.)
#Wright, Richardson (Little).# (1886- .) (_See 1915, 1918, 1919._)
"Kitty! Kitty!" Del. Feb. (15.)
#Yates, L. B.# (_See 1915, 1916, 1918, 1919._) (_H._)
Hunches. S. E. P. May 22. (30.)
Reincarnation of Chan Hop. S. E. P. Jul. 3. (30.)
#Yezierska, Anna.# (1886- .) (_See 1915, 1918, 1919._)
***Hunger. Harp. M. Apr. (140:604.)
**"Lost Beautifulness." Red Cross. Mar. (35.)
**Wings. McCall. Sept. (11.)
#Young, Mrs. Sanborn.# _See_ #Mitchell, Ruth Comfort#, _and_ #Young,
William Sanborn.#
*#Yushkevitch, Semyon.#
***Pietà. Pag. Jan. (4.)
*#Yver, Colette.#
Good Queen's Christmas Eve. N. Y. Trib. Dec. 21, '19.
*#Zartarjian, Roopen.#
**Then Man Was Immortal. Asia. Sept. (20:821.)
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Best Short Stories of 1920, and the Yearbook of the American Short Story" ***
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