For they were out for liquor as a soldier is for blood;
They hustled through the forest, nor stopped until they saw
Biggs, wrapt in contemplation, beside his cabin door.
He rose to greet his visitors, and ask them for the news,
And said he was so lonesome that he always had the blues;
He hadn't seen a paper for eighteen months, he said,
And that had been in Japanese--a language worse than dead.
They satisfied his thirst for news, then thought they of their own,
And Miller looked him in the eye and gave a little groan,
And all six men across their mouths did pass a sun-burnt hand
In a manner most deliberate, which all can understand.
"We heard you keep a bar, good Biggs," the gentle Poet said!
"And so we thought we'd hold you up, and we are almost dead!"
He said no more. Biggs understood, and thusly spoke to them
In accents somewhat British and prefixed with a "Hem!"
"The bar you'll find a few yards hence as up that trail you go;
I never keep my liquor in the blooming 'ouse, you know.
Just mush along and take a drink, and when you are content
Come back and tell me, if you can, who now is President."
They mushed along, those weary men, nor looked to left or right,
But thought of how each cooling drink would trickle out of sight;
And very soon they found the goal they came for from afar--
_A keg, half full of water, in a good old gravel bar!_
THE BACKSLIDING BROTHER
BY FRANK L. STANTON
De screech owl screech f'um de ol' barn lof';
"You drinked yo' dram sence you done swear off;
En you gwine de way
Whar' de sinners stay,
En Satan gwine ter roas' you at de Jedgmint Day!"
Den de ol' ha'nt say, f'um de ol' chu'ch wall:
"You des so triflin' dat you _had_ ter fall!
En you gwine de way
Whar' de brimstone stay,
En Satan gwine ter roas' you at de Jedgmint Day!"
Den I shake en shiver,
En I hunt fer kiver,
En I cry ter de good Lawd, "Please deliver!"
I tell 'im plain
Dat my hopes is vain,
En I drinked my dram fer ter ease my pain!
Den de screech owl screech f'um de north ter south
"You drinked yo' dram, en you _smacked_ yo' _mouth_!
En you gwine de way
Whar' de brimstone stay,
En Satan gwine ter roas' you at de Jedgmint Day!"
YE LEGEND OF SIR YRONCLADDE
BY WILBUR D. NESBIT
Now, whenne ye goode knyghte Yroncladde
Hadde dwelte in Paradyse
A matter of a thousand yeares,
He syghed some grievous syghes,
And went unto the entrance gate
To speake hym in thys wyse:
"Beholde, I do not wysh to make
A rackette, nor a fuss,
And yet I fayne wolde hie awaye
And cease from livyng thus;
For it is moste too peaceful here,
And sore monotonous."
"Oh, verie welle," ye keeper sayde,
"You shall have your desyre:
Go downe uponne ye earth agayne
To see whatte you admyre--
But take goode heede that you shall keepe
Your trolley on ye wyre."
Ryghte gladde was goode Sir Yroncladde
To see ye gates unsealed.
He toke a jumpe strayghte through ye cloudes
To what was there revealed,
And strayghtwaye lit uponne ye grounde
Whych was a footeball field!
"Gadzookes!" he sayde; "now, here is sporte!
Thys is a goodlie syghte.
For joustynges soche as here abound
I have an appetyte;
So I will amble to ye scrappe,
For that is my delyghte."
He strode into ye hurtlynge mass,
Whence rose a thrillynge sounde
Of class yelles, sygnalles, breakynge bones,
And moanynges all arounde;
And thenne ye footeballe menne tooke hym
And pushed hym in ye grounde!
They brake hys breastplayte into bits,
And shattered all hys greaves;
They fractured bothe hys myghtie armes
Withynne hys chaynemayle sleeves,
And wounde hys massyve legges ynto
Some oryentalle weaves.
Uppe rose ye brave Sir Yroncladde
And groaned, "I hadde no wrong!
I'll hustle back to Paradyse,
And ryng ye entraunce gong;
For thys new croppe of earthlie knyghtes
At joustynge is too strong;
And henceforth thys is my resolve:
To staye where I belong!"
WINTER DUSK
BY R. K. MUNKITTRICK
The prospect is bare and white,
And the air is crisp and chill;
While the ebon wings of night
Are spread on the distant hill.
The roar of the stormy sea
Seem the dirges shrill and sharp
That winter plays on the tree--
His wild Æolian harp.
In the pool that darkly creeps
In ripples before the gale,
A star like a lily sleeps
And wiggles its silver tail.
A MOTHER OF FOUR
BY JULIET WILBOR TOMPKINS
"You are fortunate to find us alone, Mrs. Merritt. With four girls, it
is simply terrible--callers underfoot wherever you stir. You must know
something about it, with two daughters; so you can fancy it multiplied
by two. Really, sometimes I get out of all patience--I haven't a corner
of my house to myself on Sundays! But I realize it is the penalty for
having four lively daughters, and I have to put up with it."
Mrs. Merritt, the visitor, had a gently worried air as she glanced from
the twins, thin and big-boned, reading by the fire, to pretty, affected
Amélie at the tea-table, and the apathetic Enid furtively watching the
front steps from the bay window. Something in her expression seemed to
imply a humble wonder as to what might constitute the elements of high
popularity, since her two dear girls--
"Of course, mine have their friends," she asserted; it was an admission
that perhaps the door-bell was not overworked. "I enjoy young life," she
added.
"Oh, yes, in moderation!" Mrs. Baldwin laughed from the depths of the
complacent prosperity that irradiated her handsome white hair and active
brown eyes, her pleasant rosiness, and even her compact stoutness,
suggesting strength rather than weight. "But since Enid became engaged,
that means Harry all the time--there's my library gone; and with the
other three filling both drawing-rooms and the reception-room, I have
to take to the dining-room, myself! There they begin," she added, as
Enid left the window and slipped out into the hall, closing the door
after her. "Now we shall have no peace until Monday morning. You know
how it is!"
Mrs. Merritt seemed depressed, and soon took her leave.
The twins, when they were left alone in the drawing-room, lifted their
heads and exchanged long and solemn looks; then returned to their
reading in silence. When it grew too dark by the fire, they carried
their books to the bay window, but drew back as they saw a pale and puny
youth with a retreating chin coming up the front steps.
"The rush has begun," murmured Cora.
"Amélie can have him," Dora returned. "Let's fly."
They retreated up-stairs and read peacefully until tea-time. The bell
did not ring again. When they came down, Mrs. Baldwin eyed them
irritably.
"Why don't you ask the Carryl boys in to Sunday tea some time? They will
think you have forgotten them. And Mr. White and that nice Mr. Morton
who lives with him--I am afraid you have offended them in some way. They
used to be here all the time."
"They only came twice, and those were party calls," said Dora bluntly.
"My dear, you have forgotten," was the firm answer. "They were here
constantly. I shall send them a line; I don't like to have them think we
have gone back on them."
"Oh, I--I wouldn't," began Cora, but was put down with decision:
"When I need your advice, Cora, I will ask for it. Amélie, dear, you
look tired; I am afraid you have had too much gaiety this afternoon."
"Oh, I love it! It's the breath of life to me," said Amélie
rapturously. The twins again exchanged solemn looks and sat down to
their tea in silence. Mrs. Baldwin attacked them peevishly at intervals;
she was cross at Enid also, who had not kept Harry to supper, and
preserved an indifferent silence under questioning. "When I was your
age--!" was the burden of her speech.
"I must give a dance for you young people," she decided. "You need
livening up."
"Oh, lovely!" exclaimed Amélie.
"We have not had one this winter--I don't know what I have been thinking
about," Mrs. Baldwin went on with returning cheerfulness. "We won't ask
more than a hundred. You must have a new frock, Amélie. Enid, how is
your blue one?"
"Oh, all right," said Enid indifferently. Mrs. Baldwin turned to the
twins, and found them looking frankly dismayed.
"Well, what is it now?" she exclaimed. "I am sure I try to give you as
good times as any girls in town; not many mothers on my income would do
half so much. And you sit looking as if you were going to execution!"
"We--we do appreciate it, mother," urged Cora, unhappily.
"But we aren't howling successes at parties," Dora added.
"Nonsense! You have partners to spare." Mrs. Baldwin was plainly angry.
"No child of mine was ever a wallflower, nor ever will be. Never let me
hear you say such a thing again. You would have twice the attention if
you weren't always poking off by yourselves; and as it is, you have more
than most girls. You frighten the men--they think you are proud. Show a
little interest in them and see how pleased they will be!"
The twins looked dubious, and seized the first chance to escape. In
their own room they confronted each other dismally.
"Of course they will ask us, in our own house; we won't have to sit and
sit," said Cora with a sigh.
"But it's almost worse when they ask you for that reason," objected
Dora.
"I know! I feel so sorry for them, and so apologetic. If mother would
_only_ let us go and teach at Miss Browne's; then we could show we were
really good for something. We shouldn't have to shine at parties."
"We shouldn't have to go to them! Come on, let's do some Latin. I want
to forget the hateful thing."
Cora got down the books and drew their chairs up to the student-lamp. "I
know I shouldn't be such a stick if I didn't have to wear low neck," she
said. "I am always thinking about those awful collar-bones, and trying
to hold my shoulders so as not to make them worse."
"Oh, don't I know!" Dora had slipped on a soft red wrapper, and threw a
blue one to her sister. When they were curled up in their big, cushioned
chairs, they smiled appreciatively at each other.
"Isn't this nicer than any party ever invented?" they exclaimed. Dora
opened her books with energy, but Cora sat musing.
"I dare say that somewhere there are parties for our kind," she said,
finally. "Not with silly little chinless boys or popular men who are
always trying to get away, but men who study and care about things--who
go to Greece and dig ruins, for instance, or study sociology, and think
more about one's mind than one's collar-bones."
Dora shook her head. "But they don't go to parties!"
"Both Mr. Morton and Mr. White do, sometimes," Cora suggested. "They
aren't like the rest. I thought that tenement-house work they told us
about was most interesting. But they would call if they wanted to," she
added.
The twins in wrappers, bending over their books, had a certain
comeliness. There was even an austere beauty in their wide, high
foreheads, their fine, straight dark hair, their serious gray eyes and
sensitive mouths, pensive but not without humor and sweetness. But the
twins in evening dress, their unwilling hair flower-crowned and
bolstered into pompadours, their big-boned thinness contrasted with
Amélie's plump curves, their elbows betraying the red disks of serious
application, were quite another matter, and they knew it. The night of
the dance they came down-stairs with solemn, dutiful faces, and lifted
submissive eyes to their mother for judgment. She was looking charmingly
pretty herself, carrying her thick white hair with a humorous boldness,
and her smiling brown eyes were younger than their gray ones.
"Very well, twinnies! Now you look something like human girls," she said
gaily. "Run and have a beautiful time. Ah, Amélie, you little fairy!
They will all be on their knees to you to-night. Where is Enid?"
"Nowhere near dressed, and she won't hurry," Amélie explained. "Oh, I am
so excited, I shall die! What if no one asks me to dance!"
"Silly!" Mrs. Baldwin laughed. "I am only afraid of your dancing
yourself to death. Ah, Mrs. Merritt, how good of you to come with your
dear girls! And Mr. Merritt--this is better than I dared hope."
The rooms filled rapidly. Enid, after one languid waltz, disappeared
with Harry and was not seen again till supper. Amélie flew from partner
to partner, pouring streams of vivacious talk into patient masculine
ears. The twins were dutifully taken out in turn and unfailingly brought
back. Both Mr. White and Mr. Morton came, serious young men who danced
little, and looked on more as if the affair were a problem in sociology
than an entertainment. There were plenty of men, for Mrs. Baldwin's
entertainments had a reputation in the matter of supper, music, and
floors.
"After you've worked through the family, you can have a ripping old
time," Cora heard one youth explain to another; a moment later he stood
in front of her, begging the honor of a waltz. She felt no resentment;
her sympathies were all with him. She looked up with gentle seriousness.
"You needn't, you know," she said. "Dora and I don't really expect
it--we understand." He looked so puzzled that she added: "I overheard
you just now, about 'working through the family.'"
He grew distressfully red and stammered wildly. Cora came at once to his
rescue.
"Really, it's all right. We don't like parties, ourselves; only it is
hard on mother to have such sticks of daughters, so we do our best. But
we never mind when people don't ask us. Sometimes we almost wish they
wouldn't."
The youth was trying desperately to collect himself. "What _do_ you
like, then?" he managed to ask.
"Oh, books, and the country, and not having to be introduced to people."
She was trying to put him at his ease. "We really do like dancing: we do
it better than you'd think, for mother made us keep at it. If only we
didn't have to have partners and think of things to say to them!" She
held out her hand, "Thank you ever so much for asking me, but I'd truly
rather not." He wrung her hand, muttered something about "later, then,"
and fled, still red about the ears. Cora returned to her mother.
"Well, my dear, you seemed to be having a tremendous flirtation with
that youth," laughed Mrs. Baldwin. "Such a hand-clasp at parting! Don't
dance too hard, child." She turned to the half-dozen parents supporting
her. "These crazy girls of mine will dance themselves to death if I
don't keep an eye on them," she explained. "Amélie says, 'Mother, how
can I help splitting my dances, when they beg me to?' I am always
relieved when the dance is over and they are safe in bed--then I know
they aren't killing themselves. The men have no mercy--they never let
them rest an instant."
"I don't see Miss Enid about," suggested Mr. Merritt. "I suppose she and
her Harry--!"
"Oh, I suppose so!" Mrs. Baldwin shook her head resignedly. "The bad
child insists on being married in the spring, but I simply can not face
the idea. What can I do to prevent it, Mrs. Merritt?"
"I am afraid you can't," smiled Mrs. Merritt. "We mothers all have to
face that."
"Ah, but not so soon! It is dreadful to have one's girls taken away. I
watch the others like a hawk; the instant a man looks too
serious--pouf!--I whisk him away!"
Cora stood looking down, with set lips; a flush had risen in her usually
pale cheeks. Dora, setting free an impatient partner, joined her and
they drew aside.
"It does make me so ashamed!" said Cora, impulsively.
"I think mother really makes herself believe it," said Dora, with
instant understanding.
They watched Amélie flutter up to their mother to have a bow retied, and
stand radiant under the raillery, though she made a decent pretense of
pouting. Her partner vanished, and Mrs. Baldwin insisted on her resting
"for one minute," which ended when another partner appeared.
"Amélie is asked much more than we are, always," Cora suggested. Dora
nodded at the implication.
"I know. I wonder why it never seems quite real. Perhaps because the
devoted ones are such silly little men."
"Or seem to us so," Cora amended conscientiously. "Don't you wish we
might creep up-stairs? Oh, me, here comes a man, just hating it! Which
do you suppose he will--Oh, thank you, with pleasure, Mr. Dorr!" Cora
was led away, and Dora slipped into the next room, that her mother might
not be vexed at her partnerless state.
Mrs. Baldwin saw to it that the twins had partners for supper, and
seated them at a table with half a dozen lively spirits, where they ate
in submissive silence while the talk flowed over and about them. No one
seemed to remember that they were there, yet they felt big and awkward,
conspicuous with neglect, thoroughly forlorn. When they rose, the others
moved off in a group, leaving them stranded. Mrs. Baldwin beckoned them
to her table with her fan.
"Well, twinnies, yours was the noisiest table in the room," she laughed.
"I was quite ashamed of you! When these quiet girls get going--!" she
added expressively to her group. The twins flushed, standing with shamed
eyes averted. In the rooms above the music had started, and the bright
procession moved up the stairs with laughter and the shine of lights on
white shoulders; they all seemed to belong together, to be glad of one
another. "Well, run along and dance your little feet off," said Mrs.
Baldwin gaily.
They hurried away, and without a word mounted by the back stairs to
their own room. When their eyes met, a flash of anger kindled, grew to a
blaze.
"Oh, I won't stand it, I won't!" exclaimed Dora, jerking the wreath of
forget-me-nots out of her hair and throwing it on the dressing-table.
"We have been humiliated long enough. Cora, we're twenty-four; it is
time we had our own way."
Cora was breathing hard. "Dora, I will never go to another party as long
as I live," she said.
"Nor I," declared Dora.
They sat down side by side on the couch to discuss ways and means. A
weight seemed to be lifted off their lives. In the midst of their eager
planning the door opened and Mrs. Baldwin looked in at them with a
displeased frown.
"Girls, what does this mean?" she exclaimed. "Come down at once. What
are you thinking of, to leave your guests like this!"
The twins felt that the moment had come, and instinctively clasped hands
as they rose to meet it.
"Mother," said Dora firmly, "we have done with parties forever and ever.
No one likes us nor wants to dance with us, and we can't stand it any
more."
"Miss Browne still wants us to come there and teach," Cora added, her
voice husky but her eyes bright. "So we can be self-supporting, if--if
you don't approve. We are twenty-four, and we have to live our own
lives."
They stood bravely for annihilation. Mrs. Baldwin laughed.
"You foolish twinnies! I know--some one has been hurting your feelings.
Believe me, my dears, even I did not always get just the partner my
heart was set on! And I cried over it in secret, just like any other
little girl. That is life, you know--we can't give up before it. Now
smooth yourselves and come down, for some of them are leaving."
She blew them a kiss and went off smiling. After a dejected silence Dora
took up the forget-me-not wreath and replaced it.
"I suppose we might as well finish out this evening," she said. "But the
revolution has begun, Cora!"
"The revolution has begun," Cora echoed.
In the drawing-room they found Mrs. Baldwin talking with Mr. Morton and
Mr. White. They were evidently trying to say good night, but she was
holding them as inexorably as if she had laid hands on their coats; or
so it seemed to the troubled twins. She summoned her daughters with her
bright, amused glance.
"My dears," she said, "these two good friends were going to run away
just because they do not dance the cotillion. We can't allow that.
Suppose you take them to the library and make them wholly comfortable.
Indeed, they have danced enough, Mr. White; I am thankful to have them
stop. I will take the blame if their partners are angry."
She nodded a smiling dismissal. Disconcerted, wholly ill at ease, the
four went obediently to the library, deserted now that the cotillion was
beginning. The two men struggled valiantly with the conversation, but
the twins sat stricken to shamed dumbness: no topic could thrive in the
face of their mute rigidity. Silences stalked the failing efforts. Mr.
White's eyes clung to the clock while his throat dilated with secret
yawns; Mr. Morton twisted restlessly and finally let a nervous sigh
escape. Dora suddenly clasped her hands tightly together.
"We hate it just as much as you do," she said distinctly.
They turned startled faces toward her. Cora paled, but flew to her
sister's aid.
"We knew you didn't want to come," she added with tremulous frankness.
"We would have let you off if we could. If you want to go now, we won't
be--hurt."
They rose, and so did the bewildered visitors.
"I am afraid you have--misunderstood," began Mr. White.
"No; we have always understood--everybody," said Dora, "but we pretended
not to, because mother--But now we have done with society. It is a
revolution, and this is our last party. Good night." She held out her
hand.
"Good night," repeated Cora, offering hers. The guests took them with
the air of culprits; relief was evidently drowned in astonishment.
"Well, good night--if we must," they said awkwardly.
Mrs. Baldwin, looking into the library half an hour later, found the
twins sitting there alone.
"Where are your cavaliers?" she demanded.
"They left long ago," Dora explained sleepily. "Mayn't we go to bed?"
"Oh, for pity's sake--go!" was the exasperated answer.
In the morning the twins appeared braced for revolution. When a
reception for that afternoon was mentioned, they announced firmly that
they were not going.
"I think you are wise," said Mrs. Baldwin amiably. "You both look
tired."
They were conscious of disappointment as well as relief; it was the
establishment of a principle they wanted, not coddling. Three weeks went
by in the same debilitating peace. The twins were smiled on and left
wholly free. They had almost come to believe in a bloodless victory,
when Mrs. Baldwin struck--a masterly attack where they were weakest. Her
weapon was--not welcome temper, but restrained pathos.
"A mere fourteen at dinner and a few coming in to dance afterward, and
I do want you twinnies to be there. Now I have not asked one thing of
you for three weeks; don't you think you owe Mother some little return?"
"But--!" began the twins, with a rush of the well-known arguments. Mrs.
Baldwin would not combat.
"I ask it as a favor, dear girls," she said gently. They clung to their
refusal, but were obviously weakening when she rose to her climax: "Mr.
White and Mr. Morton have accepted!" She left them with that, confident
and humming to herself.
The twins stared at each other in open misery. Reappear now, after the
solemn declaration they had made to those two! Their cheeks burned at
the thought. They mounted to their room to formulate their resistance,
and found two exquisite new gowns, suitable for fairy princesses, spread
out like snares. "To please Mother" seemed to be written on every artful
fold. And Mrs. Baldwin was not a rich woman, for her way of life; such
gowns meant self-denial somewhere. The twins had tears in their eyes.
"But if we give in now, we're lost!" they cried.
Nothing more was said about the dinner, Mrs. Baldwin gaily assuming
success, but avoiding the topic. The twins wore a depressed and furtive
air. On the fatal day they had a long interview with Miss Browne, of the
Browne School, and came away solemn with excitement, to shut themselves
in their room for the rest of the afternoon.
A few minutes before the dinner-hour Mrs. Baldwin, triumphant in satin
and lace, paused at their door.
"Ready, twinnies?" she began, then stared as though disbelieving her
eyes. In the glow of the student-lamp sat the twins, books in their
hands and piled high on the table beside them; their smooth, dark hair
was unpompadoured, their shoulders were lost in the dark blouses of
every day.
"What does this mean?" Mrs. Baldwin asked shortly, fire in her eyes.
"Mother, we told you we could not go to any more parties, and why," Cora
answered, a note of pleading in her voice.
"We begin teaching on Monday in Miss Browne's school," added Dora more
stoutly. "We have tried your way for years and years, mother. Now we
have to try ours."
Mrs. Baldwin's lace bertha rose and fell sharply.
"Indeed. I am sorry to disappoint you, but so long as you live under my
roof, you will have to conform to the ways of my household."
"Then, mother, we can not stay under your roof."
"As you please! I leave the choice entirely to you." She swept out,
leaving them breathless but resolute.
"I am glad of it!" said Dora with trembling lips.