CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

A DOG'S TALE

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

WAS IT HEAVEN? OR HELL?

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

A CURE FOR THE BLUES

THE CURIOUS BOOK

THE CALIFORNIAN'S TALE

A HELPLESS SITUATION

A TELEPHONIC CONVERSATION

EDWARD MILLS AND GEORGE BENTON: A TALE

THE FIVE BOONS OF LIFE

Chapter I

Chapter II

Chapter III

Chapter IV

Chapter V

THE FIRST WRITING-MACHINES

ITALIAN WITHOUT A MASTER

ITALIAN WITH GRAMMAR

A BURLESQUE BIOGRAPHY

HOW TO TELL A STORY

GENERAL WASHINGTON'S NEGRO BODY-SERVANT

WIT INSPIRATIONS OF THE “TWO-YEAR-OLDS”

AN ENTERTAINING ARTICLE

A LETTER TO THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY

AMENDED OBITUARIES

A MONUMENT TO ADAM

A HUMANE WORD FROM SATAN

INTRODUCTION TO “THE NEW GUIDE OF THE CONVERSATION IN PORTUGUESE AND

ENGLISH”

ADVICE TO LITTLE GIRLS

POST-MORTEM POETRY (1)

THE DANGER OF LYING IN BED

PORTRAIT OF KING WILLIAM III

DOES THE RACE OF MAN LOVE A LORD?

EXTRACTS FROM ADAM'S DIARY

EVE'S DIARY

EXTRACT FROM ADAM'S DIARY

THE $30,000 BEQUEST

CHAPTER I

Lakeside was a pleasant little town of five or six thousand inhabitants,

and a rather pretty one, too, as towns go in the Far West. It had church

accommodations for thirty-five thousand, which is the way of the Far

West and the South, where everybody is religious, and where each of the

Protestant sects is represented and has a plant of its own. Rank was

unknown in Lakeside--unconfessed, anyway; everybody knew everybody and

his dog, and a sociable friendliness was the prevailing atmosphere.

Saladin Foster was book-keeper in the principal store, and the only

high-salaried man of his profession in Lakeside. He was thirty-five

years old, now; he had served that store for fourteen years; he had

begun in his marriage-week at four hundred dollars a year, and had

climbed steadily up, a hundred dollars a year, for four years; from

that time forth his wage had remained eight hundred--a handsome figure

indeed, and everybody conceded that he was worth it.

His wife, Electra, was a capable helpmeet, although--like himself--a

dreamer of dreams and a private dabbler in romance. The first thing she

did, after her marriage--child as she was, aged only nineteen--was to

buy an acre of ground on the edge of the town, and pay down the cash for

it--twenty-five dollars, all her fortune. Saladin had less, by fifteen.

She instituted a vegetable garden there, got it farmed on shares by the

nearest neighbor, and made it pay her a hundred per cent. a year. Out of

Saladin's first year's wage she put thirty dollars in the savings-bank,

sixty out of his second, a hundred out of his third, a hundred and fifty

out of his fourth. His wage went to eight hundred a year, then, and

meantime two children had arrived and increased the expenses, but she

banked two hundred a year from the salary, nevertheless, thenceforth.

When she had been married seven years she built and furnished a

pretty and comfortable two-thousand-dollar house in the midst of her

garden-acre, paid half of the money down and moved her family in. Seven

years later she was out of debt and had several hundred dollars out

earning its living.

Earning it by the rise in landed estate; for she had long ago bought

another acre or two and sold the most of it at a profit to pleasant

people who were willing to build, and would be good neighbors and

furnish a general comradeship for herself and her growing family. She

had an independent income from safe investments of about a hundred

dollars a year; her children were growing in years and grace; and

she was a pleased and happy woman. Happy in her husband, happy in her

children, and the husband and the children were happy in her. It is at

this point that this history begins.

The youngest girl, Clytemnestra--called Clytie for short--was eleven;

her sister, Gwendolen--called Gwen for short--was thirteen; nice girls,

and comely. The names betray the latent romance-tinge in the parental

blood, the parents' names indicate that the tinge was an inheritance. It

was an affectionate family, hence all four of its members had pet

names, Saladin's was a curious and unsexing one--Sally; and so was

Electra's--Aleck. All day long Sally was a good and diligent book-keeper

and salesman; all day long Aleck was a good and faithful mother and

housewife, and thoughtful and calculating business woman; but in the

cozy living-room at night they put the plodding world away, and lived in

another and a fairer, reading romances to each other, dreaming dreams,

comrading with kings and princes and stately lords and ladies in the

flash and stir and splendor of noble palaces and grim and ancient

castles.

CHAPTER II

Now came great news! Stunning news--joyous news, in fact. It came from a

neighboring state, where the family's only surviving relative lived. It

was Sally's relative--a sort of vague and indefinite uncle or second

or third cousin by the name of Tilbury Foster, seventy and a bachelor,

reputed well off and corresponding sour and crusty. Sally had tried to

make up to him once, by letter, in a bygone time, and had not made that

mistake again. Tilbury now wrote to Sally, saying he should shortly die,

and should leave him thirty thousand dollars, cash; not for love, but

because money had given him most of his troubles and exasperations, and

he wished to place it where there was good hope that it would continue

its malignant work. The bequest would be found in his will, and would be

paid over. PROVIDED, that Sally should be able to prove to the executors

that he had _Taken no notice of the gift by spoken word or by letter,

had made no inquiries concerning the moribund's progress toward the

everlasting tropics, and had not attended the funeral._

As soon as Aleck had partially recovered from the tremendous emotions

created by the letter, she sent to the relative's habitat and subscribed

for the local paper.

Man and wife entered into a solemn compact, now, to never mention the

great news to any one while the relative lived, lest some ignorant

person carry the fact to the death-bed and distort it and make it appear

that they were disobediently thankful for the bequest, and just the

same as confessing it and publishing it, right in the face of the

prohibition.

For the rest of the day Sally made havoc and confusion with his books,

and Aleck could not keep her mind on her affairs, not even take up a

flower-pot or book or a stick of wood without forgetting what she had

intended to do with it. For both were dreaming.

“Thir-ty thousand dollars!”

All day long the music of those inspiring words sang through those

people's heads.

From his marriage-day forth, Aleck's grip had been upon the purse, and

Sally had seldom known what it was to be privileged to squander a dime

on non-necessities.

“Thir-ty thousand dollars!” the song went on and on. A vast sum, an

unthinkable sum!

All day long Aleck was absorbed in planning how to invest it, Sally in

planning how to spend it.

There was no romance-reading that night. The children took themselves

away early, for their parents were silent, distraught, and strangely

unentertaining. The good-night kisses might as well have been impressed

upon vacancy, for all the response they got; the parents were not aware

of the kisses, and the children had been gone an hour before

their absence was noticed. Two pencils had been busy during that

hour--note-making; in the way of plans. It was Sally who broke the

stillness at last. He said, with exultation:

“Ah, it'll be grand, Aleck! Out of the first thousand we'll have a horse

and a buggy for summer, and a cutter and a skin lap-robe for winter.”

Aleck responded with decision and composure--

“Out of the _capital_? Nothing of the kind. Not if it was a million!”

Sally was deeply disappointed; the glow went out of his face.

“Oh, Aleck!” he said, reproachfully. “We've always worked so hard and

been so scrimped: and now that we are rich, it does seem--”

He did not finish, for he saw her eye soften; his supplication had

touched her. She said, with gentle persuasiveness:

“We must not spend the capital, dear, it would not be wise. Out of the

income from it--”

“That will answer, that will answer, Aleck! How dear and good you are!

There will be a noble income and if we can spend that--”

“Not _all _of it, dear, not all of it, but you can spend a part of it.

That is, a reasonable part. But the whole of the capital--every penny

of it--must be put right to work, and kept at it. You see the

reasonableness of that, don't you?”

“Why, ye-s. Yes, of course. But we'll have to wait so long. Six months

before the first interest falls due.”

“Yes--maybe longer.”

“Longer, Aleck? Why? Don't they pay half-yearly?”

“_That _kind of an investment--yes; but I sha'n't invest in that way.”

“What way, then?”

“For big returns.”

“Big. That's good. Go on, Aleck. What is it?”

“Coal. The new mines. Cannel. I mean to put in ten thousand. Ground

floor. When we organize, we'll get three shares for one.”

“By George, but it sounds good, Aleck! Then the shares will be

worth--how much? And when?”

“About a year. They'll pay ten per cent. half yearly, and be worth

thirty thousand. I know all about it; the advertisement is in the

Cincinnati paper here.”

“Land, thirty thousand for ten--in a year! Let's jam in the

whole capital and pull out ninety! I'll write and subscribe right

now--tomorrow it maybe too late.”

He was flying to the writing-desk, but Aleck stopped him and put him

back in his chair. She said:

“Don't lose your head so. _We_ mustn't subscribe till we've got the

money; don't you know that?”

Sally's excitement went down a degree or two, but he was not wholly

appeased.

“Why, Aleck, we'll _have _it, you know--and so soon, too. He's probably

out of his troubles before this; it's a hundred to nothing he's

selecting his brimstone-shovel this very minute. Now, I think--”

Aleck shuddered, and said:

“How _can _you, Sally! Don't talk in that way, it is perfectly

scandalous.”

“Oh, well, make it a halo, if you like, _I_ don't care for his outfit, I

was only just talking. Can't you let a person talk?”

“But why should you _want _to talk in that dreadful way? How would you

like to have people talk so about _you_, and you not cold yet?”

“Not likely to be, for _one _while, I reckon, if my last act was giving

away money for the sake of doing somebody a harm with it. But never mind

about Tilbury, Aleck, let's talk about something worldly. It does seem

to me that that mine is the place for the whole thirty. What's the

objection?”

“All the eggs in one basket--that's the objection.”

“All right, if you say so. What about the other twenty? What do you mean

to do with that?”

“There is no hurry; I am going to look around before I do anything with

it.”

“All right, if your mind's made up,” sighed Sally. He was deep in

thought awhile, then he said:

“There'll be twenty thousand profit coming from the ten a year from now.

We can spend that, can't we, Aleck?”

Aleck shook her head.

“No, dear,” she said, “it won't sell high till we've had the first

semi-annual dividend. You can spend part of that.”

“Shucks, only _that_--and a whole year to wait! Confound it, I--”

“Oh, do be patient! It might even be declared in three months--it's

quite within the possibilities.”

“Oh, jolly! oh, thanks!” and Sally jumped up and kissed his wife in

gratitude. “It'll be three thousand--three whole thousand! how much

of it can we spend, Aleck? Make it liberal!--do, dear, that's a good

fellow.”

Aleck was pleased; so pleased that she yielded to the pressure and

conceded a sum which her judgment told her was a foolish extravagance--a

thousand dollars. Sally kissed her half a dozen times and even in that

way could not express all his joy and thankfulness. This new access

of gratitude and affection carried Aleck quite beyond the bounds of

prudence, and before she could restrain herself she had made her darling

another grant--a couple of thousand out of the fifty or sixty which she

meant to clear within a year of the twenty which still remained of the

bequest. The happy tears sprang to Sally's eyes, and he said:

“Oh, I want to hug you!” And he did it. Then he got his notes and sat

down and began to check off, for first purchase, the luxuries which

he should earliest wish to secure.

“Horse--buggy--cutter--lap-robe--patent-leathers--dog--plug-hat--

church-pew--stem-winder--new teeth--_say_, Aleck!”

“Well?”

“Ciphering away, aren't you? That's right. Have you got the twenty

thousand invested yet?”

“No, there's no hurry about that; I must look around first, and think.”

“But you are ciphering; what's it about?”

“Why, I have to find work for the thirty thousand that comes out of the

coal, haven't I?”

“Scott, what a head! I never thought of that. How are you getting along?

Where have you arrived?”

“Not very far--two years or three. I've turned it over twice; once in

oil and once in wheat.”

“Why, Aleck, it's splendid! How does it aggregate?”

“I think--well, to be on the safe side, about a hundred and eighty

thousand clear, though it will probably be more.”

“My! isn't it wonderful? By gracious! luck has come our way at last,

after all the hard sledding. Aleck!”

“Well?”

“I'm going to cash in a whole three hundred on the missionaries--what

real right have we care for expenses!”

“You couldn't do a nobler thing, dear; and it's just like your generous

nature, you unselfish boy.”

The praise made Sally poignantly happy, but he was fair and just enough

to say it was rightfully due to Aleck rather than to himself, since but

for her he should never have had the money.

Then they went up to bed, and in their delirium of bliss they forgot and

left the candle burning in the parlor. They did not remember until they

were undressed; then Sally was for letting it burn; he said they could

afford it, if it was a thousand. But Aleck went down and put it out.

A good job, too; for on her way back she hit on a scheme that would turn

the hundred and eighty thousand into half a million before it had had

time to get cold.

CHAPTER III

The little newspaper which Aleck had subscribed for was a Thursday

sheet; it would make the trip of five hundred miles from Tilbury's

village and arrive on Saturday. Tilbury's letter had started on Friday,

more than a day too late for the benefactor to die and get into that

week's issue, but in plenty of time to make connection for the next

output. Thus the Fosters had to wait almost a complete week to find out

whether anything of a satisfactory nature had happened to him or not.

It was a long, long week, and the strain was a heavy one. The pair could

hardly have borne it if their minds had not had the relief of wholesome

diversion. We have seen that they had that. The woman was piling up

fortunes right along, the man was spending them--spending all his wife

would give him a chance at, at any rate.

At last the Saturday came, and the _Weekly Sagamore_ arrived. Mrs.

Eversly Bennett was present. She was the Presbyterian parson's wife, and

was working the Fosters for a charity. Talk now died a sudden death--on

the Foster side. Mrs. Bennett presently discovered that her hosts

were not hearing a word she was saying; so she got up, wondering and

indignant, and went away. The moment she was out of the house, Aleck

eagerly tore the wrapper from the paper, and her eyes and Sally's swept

the columns for the death-notices. Disappointment! Tilbury was not

anywhere mentioned. Aleck was a Christian from the cradle, and duty and

the force of habit required her to go through the motions. She pulled

herself together and said, with a pious two-per-cent. trade joyousness:

“Let us be humbly thankful that he has been spared; and--”

“Damn his treacherous hide, I wish--”

“Sally! For shame!”

“I don't care!” retorted the angry man. “It's the way _you _feel, and if

you weren't so immorally pious you'd be honest and say so.”

Aleck said, with wounded dignity:

“I do not see how you can say such unkind and unjust things. There is no

such thing as immoral piety.”

Sally felt a pang, but tried to conceal it under a shuffling attempt to

save his case by changing the form of it--as if changing the form while

retaining the juice could deceive the expert he was trying to placate.

He said:

“I didn't mean so bad as that, Aleck; I didn't really mean immoral

piety, I only meant--meant--well, conventional piety, you know; er--shop

piety; the--the--why, _you _know what I mean. Aleck--the--well, where

you put up that plated article and play it for solid, you know, without

intending anything improper, but just out of trade habit, ancient

policy, petrified custom, loyalty to--to--hang it, I can't find the

right words, but _you _know what I mean, Aleck, and that there isn't any

harm in it. I'll try again. You see, it's this way. If a person--”

“You have said quite enough,” said Aleck, coldly; “let the subject be

dropped.”

“I'm willing,” fervently responded Sally, wiping the sweat from his

forehead and looking the thankfulness he had no words for. Then,

musingly, he apologized to himself. “I certainly held threes--_I know_

it--but I drew and didn't fill. That's where I'm so often weak in

the game. If I had stood pat--but I didn't. I never do. I don't know

enough.”

Confessedly defeated, he was properly tame now and subdued. Aleck

forgave him with her eyes.

The grand interest, the supreme interest, came instantly to the front

again; nothing could keep it in the background many minutes on a

stretch. The couple took up the puzzle of the absence of Tilbury's

death-notice. They discussed it every which way, more or less hopefully,

but they had to finish where they began, and concede that the only

really sane explanation of the absence of the notice must be--and

without doubt was--that Tilbury was not dead. There was something sad

about it, something even a little unfair, maybe, but there it was, and

had to be put up with. They were agreed as to that. To Sally it seemed

a strangely inscrutable dispensation; more inscrutable than usual, he

thought; one of the most unnecessary inscrutable he could call to mind,

in fact--and said so, with some feeling; but if he was hoping to draw

Aleck he failed; she reserved her opinion, if she had one; she had not

the habit of taking injudicious risks in any market, worldly or other.

The pair must wait for next week's paper--Tilbury had evidently

postponed. That was their thought and their decision. So they put the

subject away and went about their affairs again with as good heart as

they could.

Now, if they had but known it, they had been wronging Tilbury all the

time. Tilbury had kept faith, kept it to the letter; he was dead, he had

died to schedule. He was dead more than four days now and used to it;

entirely dead, perfectly dead, as dead as any other new person in the

cemetery; dead in abundant time to get into that week's _Sagamore_, too,

and only shut out by an accident; an accident which could not happen

to a metropolitan journal, but which happens easily to a poor little

village rag like the _Sagamore_. On this occasion, just as the editorial

page was being locked up, a gratis quart of strawberry ice-water arrived

from Hostetter's Ladies and Gents Ice-Cream Parlors, and the stickful of

rather chilly regret over Tilbury's translation got crowded out to make

room for the editor's frantic gratitude.

On its way to the standing-galley Tilbury's notice got pied. Otherwise

it would have gone into some future edition, for _weekly Sagamores_ do

not waste “live” matter, and in their galleys “live” matter is immortal,

unless a pi accident intervenes. But a thing that gets pied is dead, and

for such there is no resurrection; its chance of seeing print is gone,

forever and ever. And so, let Tilbury like it or not, let him rave in

his grave to his fill, no matter--no mention of his death would ever see

the light in the _Weekly Sagamore_.

CHAPTER IV

Five weeks drifted tediously along. The _Sagamore _arrived regularly

on the Saturdays, but never once contained a mention of Tilbury Foster.

Sally's patience broke down at this point, and he said, resentfully:

“Damn his livers, he's immortal!”

Aleck give him a very severe rebuke, and added with icy solemnity:

“How would you feel if you were suddenly cut off just after such an

awful remark had escaped out of you?”

Without sufficient reflection Sally responded:

“I'd feel I was lucky I hadn't got caught with it _in_ me.”

Pride had forced him to say something, and as he could not think of any

rational thing to say he flung that out. Then he stole a base--as he

called it--that is, slipped from the presence, to keep from being brayed

in his wife's discussion-mortar.

Six months came and went. The _Sagamore _was still silent about Tilbury.

Meantime, Sally had several times thrown out a feeler--that is, a hint

that he would like to know. Aleck had ignored the hints. Sally now

resolved to brace up and risk a frontal attack. So he squarely proposed

to disguise himself and go to Tilbury's village and surreptitiously find

out as to the prospects. Aleck put her foot on the dangerous project

with energy and decision. She said:

“What can you be thinking of? You do keep my hands full! You have to be

watched all the time, like a little child, to keep you from walking into

the fire. You'll stay right where you are!”

“Why, Aleck, I could do it and not be found out--I'm certain of it.”

“Sally Foster, don't you know you would have to inquire around?”

“Of course, but what of it? Nobody would suspect who I was.”

“Oh, listen to the man! Some day you've got to prove to the executors

that you never inquired. What then?”

He had forgotten that detail. He didn't reply; there wasn't anything to

say. Aleck added:

“Now then, drop that notion out of your mind, and don't ever meddle with

it again. Tilbury set that trap for you. Don't you know it's a trap? He

is on the watch, and fully expecting you to blunder into it. Well, he is

going to be disappointed--at least while I am on deck. Sally!”

“Well?”

“As long as you live, if it's a hundred years, don't you ever make an

inquiry. Promise!”

“All right,” with a sigh and reluctantly.

Then Aleck softened and said:

“Don't be impatient. We are prospering; we can wait; there is no hurry.

Our small dead-certain income increases all the time; and as to futures,

I have not made a mistake yet--they are piling up by the thousands and

tens of thousands. There is not another family in the state with such

prospects as ours. Already we are beginning to roll in eventual wealth.

You know that, don't you?”

“Yes, Aleck, it's certainly so.”

“Then be grateful for what God is doing for us and stop worrying. You do

not believe we could have achieved these prodigious results without His

special help and guidance, do you?”

Hesitatingly, “N-no, I suppose not.” Then, with feeling and admiration,

“And yet, when it comes to judiciousness in watering a stock or putting

up a hand to skin Wall Street I don't give in that _you _need any

outside amateur help, if I do wish I--”

“Oh, _do_ shut up! I know you do not mean any harm or any irreverence,

poor boy, but you can't seem to open your mouth without letting out

things to make a person shudder. You keep me in constant dread. For you

and for all of us. Once I had no fear of the thunder, but now when I

hear it I--”

Her voice broke, and she began to cry, and could not finish. The sight

of this smote Sally to the heart and he took her in his arms and petted

her and comforted her and promised better conduct, and upbraided himself

and remorsefully pleaded for forgiveness. And he was in earnest, and

sorry for what he had done and ready for any sacrifice that could make

up for it.

And so, in privacy, he thought long and deeply over the matter,

resolving to do what should seem best. It was easy to _promise _reform;

indeed he had already promised it. But would that do any real good, any

permanent good? No, it would be but temporary--he knew his weakness,

and confessed it to himself with sorrow--he could not keep the promise.

Something surer and better must be devised; and he devised it. At

cost of precious money which he had long been saving up, shilling by

shilling, he put a lightning-rod on the house.

At a subsequent time he relapsed.

What miracles habit can do! and how quickly and how easily habits are

acquired--both trifling habits and habits which profoundly change us.

If by accident we wake at two in the morning a couple of nights in

succession, we have need to be uneasy, for another repetition can turn

the accident into a habit; and a month's dallying with whiskey--but we

all know these commonplace facts.

The castle-building habit, the day-dreaming habit--how it grows! what a

luxury it becomes; how we fly to its enchantments at every idle moment,

how we revel in them, steep our souls in them, intoxicate ourselves with

their beguiling fantasies--oh yes, and how soon and how easily our dream

life and our material life become so intermingled and so fused together

that we can't quite tell which is which, any more.

By and by Aleck subscribed to a Chicago daily and for the _Wall Street

Pointer_. With an eye single to finance she studied these as diligently

all the week as she studied her Bible Sundays. Sally was lost in

admiration, to note with what swift and sure strides her genius and

judgment developed and expanded in the forecasting and handling of the

securities of both the material and spiritual markets. He was proud of

her nerve and daring in exploiting worldly stocks, and just as proud of

her conservative caution in working her spiritual deals. He noted that

she never lost her head in either case; that with a splendid courage

she often went short on worldly futures, but heedfully drew the line

there--she was always long on the others. Her policy was quite sane and

simple, as she explained it to him: what she put into earthly futures

was for speculation, what she put into spiritual futures was for

investment; she was willing to go into the one on a margin, and take

chances, but in the case of the other, “margin her no margins”--she

wanted to cash in a hundred cents per dollar's worth, and have the stock

transferred on the books.

It took but a very few months to educate Aleck's imagination and

Sally's. Each day's training added something to the spread and

effectiveness of the two machines. As a consequence, Aleck made

imaginary money much faster than at first she had dreamed of making it,

and Sally's competency in spending the overflow of it kept pace with the

strain put upon it, right along. In the beginning, Aleck had given the

coal speculation a twelvemonth in which to materialize, and had been

loath to grant that this term might possibly be shortened by nine

months. But that was the feeble work, the nursery work, of a financial

fancy that had had no teaching, no experience, no practice. These

aids soon came, then that nine months vanished, and the imaginary

ten-thousand-dollar investment came marching home with three hundred per

cent. profit on its back!

It was a great day for the pair of Fosters. They were speechless for

joy. Also speechless for another reason: after much watching of the

market, Aleck had lately, with fear and trembling, made her first flyer

on a “margin,” using the remaining twenty thousand of the bequest

in this risk. In her mind's eye she had seen it climb, point by

point--always with a chance that the market would break--until at last

her anxieties were too great for further endurance--she being new to

the margin business and unhardened, as yet--and she gave her imaginary

broker an imaginary order by imaginary telegraph to sell. She said forty

thousand dollars' profit was enough. The sale was made on the very day

that the coal venture had returned with its rich freight. As I have

said, the couple were speechless, they sat dazed and blissful that

night, trying to realize that they were actually worth a hundred

thousand dollars in clean, imaginary cash. Yet so it was.

It was the last time that ever Aleck was afraid of a margin; at least

afraid enough to let it break her sleep and pale her cheek to the extent

that this first experience in that line had done.

Indeed it was a memorable night. Gradually the realization that they

were rich sank securely home into the souls of the pair, then they began

to place the money. If we could have looked out through the eyes of

these dreamers, we should have seen their tidy little wooden house

disappear, and two-story brick with a cast-iron fence in front of it

take its place; we should have seen a three-globed gas-chandelier grow

down from the parlor ceiling; we should have seen the homely rag carpet

turn to noble Brussels, a dollar and a half a yard; we should have seen

the plebeian fireplace vanish away and a recherche, big base-burner with

isinglass windows take position and spread awe around. And we should

have seen other things, too; among them the buggy, the lap-robe, the

stove-pipe hat, and so on.

From that time forth, although the daughters and the neighbors saw only

the same old wooden house there, it was a two-story brick to Aleck

and Sally and not a night went by that Aleck did not worry about the

imaginary gas-bills, and get for all comfort Sally's reckless retort:

“What of it? We can afford it.”

Before the couple went to bed, that first night that they were rich,

they had decided that they must celebrate. They must give a party--that

was the idea. But how to explain it--to the daughters and the neighbors?

They could not expose the fact that they were rich. Sally was willing,

even anxious, to do it; but Aleck kept her head and would not allow it.

She said that although the money was as good as in, it would be as well

to wait until it was actually in. On that policy she took her stand, and

would not budge. The great secret must be kept, she said--kept from the

daughters and everybody else.

The pair were puzzled. They must celebrate, they were determined to

celebrate, but since the secret must be kept, what could they celebrate?

No birthdays were due for three months. Tilbury wasn't available,

evidently he was going to live forever; what the nation _could _they

celebrate? That was Sally's way of putting it; and he was getting

impatient, too, and harassed. But at last he hit it--just by sheer

inspiration, as it seemed to him--and all their troubles were gone in a

moment; they would celebrate the Discovery of America. A splendid idea!

Aleck was almost too proud of Sally for words--she said _she _never

would have thought of it. But Sally, although he was bursting with

delight in the compliment and with wonder at himself, tried not to let

on, and said it wasn't really anything, anybody could have done it.

Whereat Aleck, with a prideful toss of her happy head, said:

“Oh, certainly! Anybody could--oh, anybody! Hosannah Dilkins, for

instance! Or maybe Adelbert Peanut--oh, _dear_--yes! Well, I'd like to

see them try it, that's all. Dear-me-suz, if they could think of the

discovery of a forty-acre island it's more than _I_ believe they could;

and as for the whole continent, why, Sally Foster, you know perfectly

well it would strain the livers and lights out of them and _then_ they

couldn't!”

The dear woman, she knew he had talent; and if affection made her

over-estimate the size of it a little, surely it was a sweet and gentle

crime, and forgivable for its source's sake.

CHAPTER V

The celebration went off well. The friends were all present, both the

young and the old. Among the young were Flossie and Gracie Peanut and

their brother Adelbert, who was a rising young journeyman tinner,

also Hosannah Dilkins, Jr., journeyman plasterer, just out of his

apprenticeship. For many months Adelbert and Hosannah had been showing

interest in Gwendolen and Clytemnestra Foster, and the parents of the

girls had noticed this with private satisfaction. But they suddenly

realized now that that feeling had passed. They recognized that the

changed financial conditions had raised up a social bar between

their daughters and the young mechanics. The daughters could now look

higher--and must. Yes, must. They need marry nothing below the grade of

lawyer or merchant; poppa and momma would take care of this; there must

be no mesalliances.

However, these thinkings and projects of theirs were private, and

did not show on the surface, and therefore threw no shadow upon the

celebration. What showed upon the surface was a serene and lofty

contentment and a dignity of carriage and gravity of deportment which

compelled the admiration and likewise the wonder of the company. All

noticed it and all commented upon it, but none was able to divine the

secret of it. It was a marvel and a mystery. Three several persons

remarked, without suspecting what clever shots they were making:

“It's as if they'd come into property.”

That was just it, indeed.

Most mothers would have taken hold of the matrimonial matter in the

old regulation way; they would have given the girls a talking to, of

a solemn sort and untactful--a lecture calculated to defeat its own

purpose, by producing tears and secret rebellion; and the said mothers

would have further damaged the business by requesting the young

mechanics to discontinue their attentions. But this mother was

different. She was practical. She said nothing to any of the young

people concerned, nor to any one else except Sally. He listened to her

and understood; understood and admired. He said:

“I get the idea. Instead of finding fault with the samples on view,

thus hurting feelings and obstructing trade without occasion, you merely

offer a higher class of goods for the money, and leave nature to take

her course. It's wisdom, Aleck, solid wisdom, and sound as a nut. Who's

your fish? Have you nominated him yet?”

No, she hadn't. They must look the market over--which they did. To start

with, they considered and discussed Brandish, rising young lawyer, and

Fulton, rising young dentist. Sally must invite them to dinner. But not

right away; there was no hurry, Aleck said. Keep an eye on the pair, and

wait; nothing would be lost by going slowly in so important a matter.

It turned out that this was wisdom, too; for inside of three weeks Aleck

made a wonderful strike which swelled her imaginary hundred thousand

to four hundred thousand of the same quality. She and Sally were in the

clouds that evening. For the first time they introduced champagne at

dinner. Not real champagne, but plenty real enough for the amount of

imagination expended on it. It was Sally that did it, and Aleck weakly

submitted. At bottom both were troubled and ashamed, for he was a

high-up Son of Temperance, and at funerals wore an apron which no dog

could look upon and retain his reason and his opinion; and she was a

W. C. T. U., with all that that implies of boiler-iron virtue and

unendurable holiness. But there it was; the pride of riches was

beginning its disintegrating work. They had lived to prove, once more,

a sad truth which had been proven many times before in the world: that

whereas principle is a great and noble protection against showy and

degrading vanities and vices, poverty is worth six of it. More than

four hundred thousand dollars to the good. They took up the matrimonial

matter again. Neither the dentist nor the lawyer was mentioned; there

was no occasion, they were out of the running. Disqualified. They

discussed the son of the pork-packer and the son of the village banker.

But finally, as in the previous case, they concluded to wait and think,

and go cautiously and sure.

Luck came their way again. Aleck, ever watchful saw a great and risky

chance, and took a daring flyer. A time of trembling, of doubt, of awful

uneasiness followed, for non-success meant absolute ruin and nothing

short of it. Then came the result, and Aleck, faint with joy, could

hardly control her voice when she said:

“The suspense is over, Sally--and we are worth a cold million!”

Sally wept for gratitude, and said:

“Oh, Electra, jewel of women, darling of my heart, we are free at last,

we roll in wealth, we need never scrimp again. It's a case for Veuve

Cliquot!” and he got out a pint of spruce-beer and made sacrifice, he

saying “Damn the expense,” and she rebuking him gently with reproachful

but humid and happy eyes.

They shelved the pork-packer's son and the banker's son, and sat down to

consider the Governor's son and the son of the Congressman.

CHAPTER VI

It were a weariness to follow in detail the leaps and bounds the Foster

fictitious finances took from this time forth. It was marvelous, it

was dizzying, it was dazzling. Everything Aleck touched turned to fairy

gold, and heaped itself glittering toward the firmament. Millions upon

millions poured in, and still the mighty stream flowed thundering

along, still its vast volume increased. Five millions--ten

millions--twenty--thirty--was there never to be an end?

Two years swept by in a splendid delirium, the intoxicated Fosters

scarcely noticing the flight of time. They were now worth three

hundred million dollars; they were in every board of directors of every

prodigious combine in the country; and still as time drifted along, the

millions went on piling up, five at a time, ten at a time, as fast as

they could tally them off, almost. The three hundred double itself--then

doubled again--and yet again--and yet once more.

Twenty-four hundred millions!

The business was getting a little confused. It was necessary to take an

account of stock, and straighten it out. The Fosters knew it, they felt

it, they realized that it was imperative; but they also knew that to do

it properly and perfectly the task must be carried to a finish without

a break when once it was begun. A ten-hours' job; and where could _they

_find ten leisure hours in a bunch? Sally was selling pins and sugar and

calico all day and every day; Aleck was cooking and washing dishes and

sweeping and making beds all day and every day, with none to help, for

the daughters were being saved up for high society. The Fosters knew

there was one way to get the ten hours, and only one. Both were ashamed

to name it; each waited for the other to do it. Finally Sally said:

“Somebody's got to give in. It's up to me. Consider that I've named

it--never mind pronouncing it out aloud.”

Aleck colored, but was grateful. Without further remark, they fell.

Fell, and--broke the Sabbath. For that was their only free ten-hour

stretch. It was but another step in the downward path. Others would

follow. Vast wealth has temptations which fatally and surely undermine

the moral structure of persons not habituated to its possession.

They pulled down the shades and broke the Sabbath. With hard and patient

labor they overhauled their holdings and listed them. And a long-drawn

procession of formidable names it was! Starting with the Railway

Systems, Steamer Lines, Standard Oil, Ocean Cables, Diluted Telegraph,

and all the rest, and winding up with Klondike, De Beers, Tammany Graft,

and Shady Privileges in the Post-office Department.

Twenty-four hundred millions, and all safely planted in Good Things,

gilt-edged and interest-bearing. Income, $120,000,000 a year. Aleck

fetched a long purr of soft delight, and said:

“Is it enough?”

“It is, Aleck.”

“What shall we do?”

“Stand pat.”

“Retire from business?”

“That's it.”

“I am agreed. The good work is finished; we will take a long rest and

enjoy the money.”

“Good! Aleck!”

“Yes, dear?”

“How much of the income can we spend?”

“The whole of it.”

It seemed to her husband that a ton of chains fell from his limbs. He

did not say a word; he was happy beyond the power of speech.

After that, they broke the Sabbaths right along as fast as they turned

up. It is the first wrong step that counts. Every Sunday they put in the

whole day, after morning service, on inventions--inventions of ways to

spend the money. They got to continuing this delicious dissipation until

past midnight; and at every seance Aleck lavished millions upon great

charities and religious enterprises, and Sally lavished like sums upon

matters to which (at first) he gave definite names. Only at first. Later

the names gradually lost sharpness of outline, and eventually faded into

“sundries,” thus becoming entirely--but safely--undescriptive. For Sally

was crumbling. The placing of these millions added seriously and most

uncomfortably to the family expenses--in tallow candles. For a while

Aleck was worried. Then, after a little, she ceased to worry, for

the occasion of it was gone. She was pained, she was grieved, she was

ashamed; but she said nothing, and so became an accessory. Sally was

taking candles; he was robbing the store. It is ever thus. Vast wealth,

to the person unaccustomed to it, is a bane; it eats into the flesh and

bone of his morals. When the Fosters were poor, they could have been

trusted with untold candles. But now they--but let us not dwell upon it.

From candles to apples is but a step: Sally got to taking apples; then

soap; then maple-sugar; then canned goods; then crockery. How easy it

is to go from bad to worse, when once we have started upon a downward

course!

Meantime, other effects had been milestoning the course of the Fosters'

splendid financial march. The fictitious brick dwelling had given place

to an imaginary granite one with a checker-board mansard roof; in time

this one disappeared and gave place to a still grander home--and so on

and so on. Mansion after mansion, made of air, rose, higher, broader,

finer, and each in its turn vanished away; until now in these latter

great days, our dreamers were in fancy housed, in a distant region, in a

sumptuous vast palace which looked out from a leafy summit upon a

noble prospect of vale and river and receding hills steeped in tinted

mists--and all private, all the property of the dreamers; a palace

swarming with liveried servants, and populous with guests of fame and

power, hailing from all the world's capitals, foreign and domestic.

This palace was far, far away toward the rising sun, immeasurably

remote, astronomically remote, in Newport, Rhode Island, Holy Land of

High Society, ineffable Domain of the American Aristocracy. As a rule

they spent a part of every Sabbath--after morning service--in this

sumptuous home, the rest of it they spent in Europe, or in dawdling

around in their private yacht. Six days of sordid and plodding fact life

at home on the ragged edge of Lakeside and straitened means, the seventh

in Fairyland--such had been their program and their habit.

In their sternly restricted fact life they remained as of old--plodding,

diligent, careful, practical, economical. They stuck loyally to the

little Presbyterian Church, and labored faithfully in its interests

and stood by its high and tough doctrines with all their mental and

spiritual energies. But in their dream life they obeyed the invitations

of their fancies, whatever they might be, and howsoever the fancies

might change. Aleck's fancies were not very capricious, and not

frequent, but Sally's scattered a good deal. Aleck, in her dream life,

went over to the Episcopal camp, on account of its large official

titles; next she became High-church on account of the candles and shows;

and next she naturally changed to Rome, where there were cardinals and

more candles. But these excursions were a nothing to Sally's. His dream

life was a glowing and continuous and persistent excitement, and he kept

every part of it fresh and sparkling by frequent changes, the religious

part along with the rest. He worked his religions hard, and changed them

with his shirt.

The liberal spendings of the Fosters upon their fancies began early

in their prosperities, and grew in prodigality step by step with their

advancing fortunes. In time they became truly enormous. Aleck built

a university or two per Sunday; also a hospital or two; also a Rowton

hotel or so; also a batch of churches; now and then a cathedral; and

once, with untimely and ill-chosen playfulness, Sally said, “It was

a cold day when she didn't ship a cargo of missionaries to persuade

unreflecting Chinamen to trade off twenty-four carat Confucianism for

counterfeit Christianity.”

This rude and unfeeling language hurt Aleck to the heart, and she went

from the presence crying. That spectacle went to his own heart, and in

his pain and shame he would have given worlds to have those unkind words

back. She had uttered no syllable of reproach--and that cut him. Not one

suggestion that he look at his own record--and she could have made, oh,

so many, and such blistering ones! Her generous silence brought a swift

revenge, for it turned his thoughts upon himself, it summoned before

him a spectral procession, a moving vision of his life as he had been

leading it these past few years of limitless prosperity, and as he

sat there reviewing it his cheeks burned and his soul was steeped in

humiliation. Look at her life--how fair it was, and tending ever upward;

and look at his own--how frivolous, how charged with mean vanities,

how selfish, how empty, how ignoble! And its trend--never upward, but

downward, ever downward!

He instituted comparisons between her record and his own. He had found

fault with her--so he mused--_he_! And what could he say for himself?

When she built her first church what was he doing? Gathering other blase

multimillionaires into a Poker Club; defiling his own palace with it;

losing hundreds of thousands to it at every sitting, and sillily vain of

the admiring notoriety it made for him. When she was building her

first university, what was he doing? Polluting himself with a gay

and dissipated secret life in the company of other fast bloods,

multimillionaires in money and paupers in character. When she was

building her first foundling asylum, what was he doing? Alas! When she

was projecting her noble Society for the Purifying of the Sex, what was

he doing? Ah, what, indeed! When she and the W. C. T. U. and the Woman

with the Hatchet, moving with resistless march, were sweeping the fatal

bottle from the land, what was he doing? Getting drunk three times a

day. When she, builder of a hundred cathedrals, was being gratefully

welcomed and blest in papal Rome and decorated with the Golden Rose

which she had so honorably earned, what was he doing? Breaking the bank

at Monte Carlo.

He stopped. He could go no farther; he could not bear the rest. He rose

up, with a great resolution upon his lips: this secret life should be

revealed, and confessed; no longer would he live it clandestinely, he

would go and tell her All.

And that is what he did. He told her All; and wept upon her bosom; wept,

and moaned, and begged for her forgiveness. It was a profound shock, and

she staggered under the blow, but he was her own, the core of her heart,

the blessing of her eyes, her all in all, she could deny him nothing,

and she forgave him. She felt that he could never again be quite to her

what he had been before; she knew that he could only repent, and not

reform; yet all morally defaced and decayed as he was, was he not her

own, her very own, the idol of her deathless worship? She said she was

his serf, his slave, and she opened her yearning heart and took him in.

CHAPTER VII

One Sunday afternoon some time after this they were sailing the summer

seas in their dream yacht, and reclining in lazy luxury under the awning

of the after-deck. There was silence, for each was busy with his own

thoughts. These seasons of silence had insensibly been growing more

and more frequent of late; the old nearness and cordiality were waning.

Sally's terrible revelation had done its work; Aleck had tried hard to

drive the memory of it out of her mind, but it would not go, and the

shame and bitterness of it were poisoning her gracious dream life. She

could see now (on Sundays) that her husband was becoming a bloated and

repulsive Thing. She could not close her eyes to this, and in these days

she no longer looked at him, Sundays, when she could help it.

But she--was she herself without blemish? Alas, she knew she was not.

She was keeping a secret from him, she was acting dishonorably toward

him, and many a pang it was costing her. _She was breaking the compact,

and concealing it from him_. Under strong temptation she had gone into

business again; she had risked their whole fortune in a purchase of all

the railway systems and coal and steel companies in the country on a

margin, and she was now trembling, every Sabbath hour, lest through some

chance word of hers he find it out. In her misery and remorse for this

treachery she could not keep her heart from going out to him in pity;

she was filled with compunctions to see him lying there, drunk and

contented, and never suspecting. Never suspecting--trusting her with

a perfect and pathetic trust, and she holding over him by a thread a

possible calamity of so devastating a--

“_Say_--Aleck?”

The interrupting words brought her suddenly to herself. She was grateful

to have that persecuting subject from her thoughts, and she answered,

with much of the old-time tenderness in her tone:

“Yes, dear.”

“Do you know, Aleck, I think we are making a mistake--that is, you

are. I mean about the marriage business.” He sat up, fat and froggy and

benevolent, like a bronze Buddha, and grew earnest. “Consider--it's more

than five years. You've continued the same policy from the start: with

every rise, always holding on for five points higher. Always when I

think we are going to have some weddings, you see a bigger thing ahead,

and I undergo another disappointment. _I_ think you are too hard to

please. Some day we'll get left. First, we turned down the dentist and

the lawyer. That was all right--it was sound. Next, we turned down the

banker's son and the pork-butcher's heir--right again, and sound. Next,

we turned down the Congressman's son and the Governor's--right as

a trivet, I confess it. Next the Senator's son and the son of the

Vice-President of the United States--perfectly right, there's no

permanency about those little distinctions. Then you went for the

aristocracy; and I thought we had struck oil at last--yes. We would

make a plunge at the Four Hundred, and pull in some ancient lineage,

venerable, holy, ineffable, mellow with the antiquity of a hundred and

fifty years, disinfected of the ancestral odors of salt-cod and pelts

all of a century ago, and unsmirched by a day's work since, and then!

why, then the marriages, of course. But no, along comes a pair of real

aristocrats from Europe, and straightway you throw over the half-breeds.

It was awfully discouraging, Aleck! Since then, what a procession!

You turned down the baronets for a pair of barons; you turned down the

barons for a pair of viscounts; the viscounts for a pair of earls;

the earls for a pair of marquises; the marquises for a brace of dukes.

_Now_, Aleck, cash in!--you've played the limit. You've got a job lot

of four dukes under the hammer; of four nationalities; all sound in the

wind and limb and pedigree, all bankrupt and in debt up to the ears.

They come high, but we can afford it. Come, Aleck, don't delay any

longer, don't keep up the suspense: take the whole lay-out, and leave

the girls to choose!”

Aleck had been smiling blandly and contentedly all through this

arraignment of her marriage policy, a pleasant light, as of triumph with

perhaps a nice surprise peeping out through it, rose in her eyes, and

she said, as calmly as she could:

“Sally, what would you say to--_royalty_?”

Prodigious! Poor man, it knocked him silly, and he fell over the

garboard-strake and barked his shin on the cat-heads. He was dizzy for a

moment, then he gathered himself up and limped over and sat down by

his wife and beamed his old-time admiration and affection upon her in

floods, out of his bleary eyes.

“By George!” he said, fervently, “Aleck, you _are _great--the greatest

woman in the whole earth! I can't ever learn the whole size of you.

I can't ever learn the immeasurable deeps of you. Here I've been

considering myself qualified to criticize your game. _I!_ Why, if I had

stopped to think, I'd have known you had a lone hand up your sleeve.

Now, dear heart, I'm all red-hot impatience--tell me about it!”

The flattered and happy woman put her lips to his ear and whispered

a princely name. It made him catch his breath, it lit his face with

exultation.

“Land!” he said, “it's a stunning catch! He's got a gambling-hall, and

a graveyard, and a bishop, and a cathedral--all his very own. And all

gilt-edged five-hundred-per-cent. stock, every detail of it; the tidiest

little property in Europe; and that graveyard--it's the selectest in

the world: none but suicides admitted; _yes_, sir, and the free-list

suspended, too, _all _the time. There isn't much land in the

principality, but there's enough: eight hundred acres in the graveyard

and forty-two outside. It's a _sovereignty_--that's the main thing;

_land's_ nothing. There's plenty land, Sahara's drugged with it.”

Aleck glowed; she was profoundly happy. She said:

“Think of it, Sally--it is a family that has never married outside the

Royal and Imperial Houses of Europe: our grandchildren will sit upon

thrones!”

“True as you live, Aleck--and bear scepters, too; and handle them as

naturally and nonchantly as I handle a yardstick. It's a grand catch,

Aleck. He's corralled, is he? Can't get away? You didn't take him on a

margin?”

“No. Trust me for that. He's not a liability, he's an asset. So is the

other one.”

“Who is it, Aleck?”

“His Royal Highness

Sigismund-Siegfried-Lauenfeld-Dinkelspiel-Schwartzenberg Blutwurst,

Hereditary Grand Duke of Katzenyammer.”

“No! You can't mean it!”

“It's as true as I'm sitting here, I give you my word,” she answered.

His cup was full, and he hugged her to his heart with rapture, saying:

“How wonderful it all seems, and how beautiful! It's one of the

oldest and noblest of the three hundred and sixty-four ancient German

principalities, and one of the few that was allowed to retain its royal

estate when Bismarck got done trimming them. I know that farm, I've been

there. It's got a rope-walk and a candle-factory and an army. Standing

army. Infantry and cavalry. Three soldier and a horse. Aleck, it's been

a long wait, and full of heartbreak and hope deferred, but God knows I

am happy now. Happy, and grateful to you, my own, who have done it all.

When is it to be?”

“Next Sunday.”

“Good. And we'll want to do these weddings up in the very regalest style

that's going. It's properly due to the royal quality of the parties

of the first part. Now as I understand it, there is only one kind of

marriage that is sacred to royalty, exclusive to royalty: it's the

morganatic.”

“What do they call it that for, Sally?”

“I don't know; but anyway it's royal, and royal only.”

“Then we will insist upon it. More--I will compel it. It is morganatic

marriage or none.”

“That settles it!” said Sally, rubbing his hands with delight. “And it

will be the very first in America. Aleck, it will make Newport sick.”

Then they fell silent, and drifted away upon their dream wings to the

far regions of the earth to invite all the crowned heads and their

families and provide gratis transportation to them.

CHAPTER VIII

During three days the couple walked upon air, with their heads in the

clouds. They were but vaguely conscious of their surroundings; they saw

all things dimly, as through a veil; they were steeped in dreams,

often they did not hear when they were spoken to; they often did not

understand when they heard; they answered confusedly or at random; Sally

sold molasses by weight, sugar by the yard, and furnished soap when

asked for candles, and Aleck put the cat in the wash and fed milk to

the soiled linen. Everybody was stunned and amazed, and went about

muttering, “What _can _be the matter with the Fosters?”

Three days. Then came events! Things had taken a happy turn, and

for forty-eight hours Aleck's imaginary corner had been booming. Up--up-

-still up! Cost point was passed. Still up--and up--and up! Five points

above cost--then ten--fifteen--twenty! Twenty points cold profit on the

vast venture, now, and Aleck's imaginary brokers were shouting

frantically by imaginary long-distance, “Sell! sell! for Heaven's sake

_sell_!”

She broke the splendid news to Sally, and he, too, said, “Sell!

sell--oh, don't make a blunder, now, you own the earth!--sell, sell!”

But she set her iron will and lashed it amidships, and said she would

hold on for five points more if she died for it.

It was a fatal resolve. The very next day came the historic crash, the

record crash, the devastating crash, when the bottom fell out of Wall

Street, and the whole body of gilt-edged stocks dropped ninety-five

points in five hours, and the multimillionaire was seen begging his

bread in the Bowery. Aleck sternly held her grip and “put up” as long

as she could, but at last there came a call which she was powerless to

meet, and her imaginary brokers sold her out. Then, and not till then,

the man in her was vanished, and the woman in her resumed sway. She put

her arms about her husband's neck and wept, saying:

“I am to blame, do not forgive me, I cannot bear it. We are paupers!

Paupers, and I am so miserable. The weddings will never come off; all

that is past; we could not even buy the dentist, now.”

A bitter reproach was on Sally's tongue: “I _begged _you to sell, but

you--” He did not say it; he had not the heart to add a hurt to that

broken and repentant spirit. A nobler thought came to him and he said:

“Bear up, my Aleck, all is not lost! You really never invested a penny

of my uncle's bequest, but only its unmaterialized future; what we

have lost was only the incremented harvest from that future by your

incomparable financial judgment and sagacity. Cheer up, banish these

griefs; we still have the thirty thousand untouched; and with the

experience which you have acquired, think what you will be able to do

with it in a couple years! The marriages are not off, they are only

postponed.”

These were blessed words. Aleck saw how true they were, and their

influence was electric; her tears ceased to flow, and her great spirit

rose to its full stature again. With flashing eye and grateful heart,

and with hand uplifted in pledge and prophecy, she said:

“Now and here I proclaim--”

But she was interrupted by a visitor. It was the editor and proprietor

of the _Sagamore_. He had happened into Lakeside to pay a duty-call upon

an obscure grandmother of his who was nearing the end of her pilgrimage,

and with the idea of combining business with grief he had looked up

the Fosters, who had been so absorbed in other things for the past four

years that they neglected to pay up their subscription. Six dollars due.

No visitor could have been more welcome. He would know all about Uncle

Tilbury and what his chances might be getting to be, cemeterywards. They

could, of course, ask no questions, for that would squelch the bequest,

but they could nibble around on the edge of the subject and hope for

results. The scheme did not work. The obtuse editor did not know he was

being nibbled at; but at last, chance accomplished what art had failed

in. In illustration of something under discussion which required the

help of metaphor, the editor said:

“Land, it's as tough as Tilbury Foster!--as _we_ say.”

It was sudden, and it made the Fosters jump. The editor noticed, and

said, apologetically:

“No harm intended, I assure you. It's just a saying; just a joke, you

know--nothing in it. Relation of yours?”

Sally crowded his burning eagerness down, and answered with all the

indifference he could assume:

“I--well, not that I know of, but we've heard of him.” The editor was

thankful, and resumed his composure. Sally added: “Is he--is he--well?”

“Is he _well_? Why, bless you he's in Sheol these five years!”

The Fosters were trembling with grief, though it felt like joy. Sally

said, non-committally--and tentatively:

“Ah, well, such is life, and none can escape--not even the rich are

spared.”

The editor laughed.

“If you are including Tilbury,” said he, “it don't apply. _He_ hadn't a

cent; the town had to bury him.”

The Fosters sat petrified for two minutes; petrified and cold. Then,

white-faced and weak-voiced, Sally asked:

“Is it true? Do you _know _it to be true?”

“Well, I should say! I was one of the executors. He hadn't anything to

leave but a wheelbarrow, and he left that to me. It hadn't any wheel,

and wasn't any good. Still, it was something, and so, to square up, I

scribbled off a sort of a little obituarial send-off for him, but it got

crowded out.”

The Fosters were not listening--their cup was full, it could contain

no more. They sat with bowed heads, dead to all things but the ache at

their hearts.

An hour later. Still they sat there, bowed, motionless, silent, the

visitor long ago gone, they unaware.

Then they stirred, and lifted their heads wearily, and gazed at each

other wistfully, dreamily, dazed; then presently began to twaddle to

each other in a wandering and childish way. At intervals they lapsed

into silences, leaving a sentence unfinished, seemingly either unaware

of it or losing their way. Sometimes, when they woke out of these

silences they had a dim and transient consciousness that something had

happened to their minds; then with a dumb and yearning solicitude they

would softly caress each other's hands in mutual compassion and support,

as if they would say: “I am near you, I will not forsake you, we

will bear it together; somewhere there is release and forgetfulness,

somewhere there is a grave and peace; be patient, it will not be long.”

They lived yet two years, in mental night, always brooding, steeped in

vague regrets and melancholy dreams, never speaking; then release came

to both on the same day.

Toward the end the darkness lifted from Sally's ruined mind for a

moment, and he said:

“Vast wealth, acquired by sudden and unwholesome means, is a snare. It

did us no good, transient were its feverish pleasures; yet for its

sake we threw away our sweet and simple and happy life--let others take

warning by us.”

He lay silent awhile, with closed eyes; then as the chill of death crept

upward toward his heart, and consciousness was fading from his brain, he

muttered:

“Money had brought him misery, and he took his revenge upon us, who had

done him no harm. He had his desire: with base and cunning calculation

he left us but thirty thousand, knowing we would try to increase it, and

ruin our life and break our hearts. Without added expense he could

have left us far above desire of increase, far above the temptation

to speculate, and a kinder soul would have done it; but in him was no

generous spirit, no pity, no--”

A DOG'S TALE

CHAPTER I

My father was a St. Bernard, my mother was a collie, but I am a

Presbyterian. This is what my mother told me, I do not know these

nice distinctions myself. To me they are only fine large words meaning

nothing. My mother had a fondness for such; she liked to say them, and

see other dogs look surprised and envious, as wondering how she got

so much education. But, indeed, it was not real education; it was only

show: she got the words by listening in the dining-room and drawing-room

when there was company, and by going with the children to Sunday-school

and listening there; and whenever she heard a large word she said it

over to herself many times, and so was able to keep it until there was

a dogmatic gathering in the neighborhood, then she would get it off,

and surprise and distress them all, from pocket-pup to mastiff, which

rewarded her for all her trouble. If there was a stranger he was nearly

sure to be suspicious, and when he got his breath again he would ask her

what it meant. And she always told him. He was never expecting this but

thought he would catch her; so when she told him, he was the one that

looked ashamed, whereas he had thought it was going to be she. The

others were always waiting for this, and glad of it and proud of her,

for they knew what was going to happen, because they had had experience.

When she told the meaning of a big word they were all so taken up with

admiration that it never occurred to any dog to doubt if it was the

right one; and that was natural, because, for one thing, she answered up

so promptly that it seemed like a dictionary speaking, and for another

thing, where could they find out whether it was right or not? for she

was the only cultivated dog there was. By and by, when I was older, she

brought home the word Unintellectual, one time, and worked it pretty

hard all the week at different gatherings, making much unhappiness and

despondency; and it was at this time that I noticed that during that

week she was asked for the meaning at eight different assemblages, and

flashed out a fresh definition every time, which showed me that she had

more presence of mind than culture, though I said nothing, of course.

She had one word which she always kept on hand, and ready, like a

life-preserver, a kind of emergency word to strap on when she was likely

to get washed overboard in a sudden way--that was the word Synonymous.

When she happened to fetch out a long word which had had its day weeks

before and its prepared meanings gone to her dump-pile, if there was a

stranger there of course it knocked him groggy for a couple of minutes,

then he would come to, and by that time she would be away down wind on

another tack, and not expecting anything; so when he'd hail and ask her

to cash in, I (the only dog on the inside of her game) could see her

canvas flicker a moment--but only just a moment--then it would belly

out taut and full, and she would say, as calm as a summer's day, “It's

synonymous with supererogation,” or some godless long reptile of a

word like that, and go placidly about and skim away on the next tack,

perfectly comfortable, you know, and leave that stranger looking profane

and embarrassed, and the initiated slatting the floor with their tails

in unison and their faces transfigured with a holy joy.

And it was the same with phrases. She would drag home a whole phrase,

if it had a grand sound, and play it six nights and two matinees, and

explain it a new way every time--which she had to, for all she cared for

was the phrase; she wasn't interested in what it meant, and knew those

dogs hadn't wit enough to catch her, anyway. Yes, she was a daisy! She

got so she wasn't afraid of anything, she had such confidence in the

ignorance of those creatures. She even brought anecdotes that she had

heard the family and the dinner-guests laugh and shout over; and as

a rule she got the nub of one chestnut hitched onto another chestnut,

where, of course, it didn't fit and hadn't any point; and when she

delivered the nub she fell over and rolled on the floor and laughed and

barked in the most insane way, while I could see that she was wondering

to herself why it didn't seem as funny as it did when she first heard

it. But no harm was done; the others rolled and barked too, privately

ashamed of themselves for not seeing the point, and never suspecting

that the fault was not with them and there wasn't any to see.

You can see by these things that she was of a rather vain and frivolous

character; still, she had virtues, and enough to make up, I think. She

had a kind heart and gentle ways, and never harbored resentments for

injuries done her, but put them easily out of her mind and forgot them;

and she taught her children her kindly way, and from her we learned also

to be brave and prompt in time of danger, and not to run away, but face

the peril that threatened friend or stranger, and help him the best we

could without stopping to think what the cost might be to us. And she

taught us not by words only, but by example, and that is the best way

and the surest and the most lasting. Why, the brave things she did, the

splendid things! she was just a soldier; and so modest about it--well,

you couldn't help admiring her, and you couldn't help imitating her;

not even a King Charles spaniel could remain entirely despicable in her

society. So, as you see, there was more to her than her education.

CHAPTER II

When I was well grown, at last, I was sold and taken away, and I never

saw her again. She was broken-hearted, and so was I, and we cried; but

she comforted me as well as she could, and said we were sent into

this world for a wise and good purpose, and must do our duties without

repining, take our life as we might find it, live it for the best good

of others, and never mind about the results; they were not our affair.

She said men who did like this would have a noble and beautiful reward

by and by in another world, and although we animals would not go there,

to do well and right without reward would give to our brief lives

a worthiness and dignity which in itself would be a reward. She had

gathered these things from time to time when she had gone to the

Sunday-school with the children, and had laid them up in her memory more

carefully than she had done with those other words and phrases; and she

had studied them deeply, for her good and ours. One may see by this that

she had a wise and thoughtful head, for all there was so much lightness

and vanity in it.

So we said our farewells, and looked our last upon each other through

our tears; and the last thing she said--keeping it for the last to make

me remember it the better, I think--was, “In memory of me, when there

is a time of danger to another do not think of yourself, think of your

mother, and do as she would do.”

Do you think I could forget that? No.

CHAPTER III

It was such a charming home!--my new one; a fine great house, with

pictures, and delicate decorations, and rich furniture, and no gloom

anywhere, but all the wilderness of dainty colors lit up with flooding

sunshine; and the spacious grounds around it, and the great garden--oh,

greensward, and noble trees, and flowers, no end! And I was the same as

a member of the family; and they loved me, and petted me, and did not

give me a new name, but called me by my old one that was dear to me

because my mother had given it me--Aileen Mavoureen. She got it out of a

song; and the Grays knew that song, and said it was a beautiful name.

Mrs. Gray was thirty, and so sweet and so lovely, you cannot imagine

it; and Sadie was ten, and just like her mother, just a darling slender

little copy of her, with auburn tails down her back, and short frocks;

and the baby was a year old, and plump and dimpled, and fond of me,

and never could get enough of hauling on my tail, and hugging me, and

laughing out its innocent happiness; and Mr. Gray was thirty-eight, and

tall and slender and handsome, a little bald in front, alert, quick in

his movements, business-like, prompt, decided, unsentimental, and with

that kind of trim-chiseled face that just seems to glint and sparkle

with frosty intellectuality! He was a renowned scientist. I do not know

what the word means, but my mother would know how to use it and get

effects. She would know how to depress a rat-terrier with it and make a

lap-dog look sorry he came. But that is not the best one; the best one

was Laboratory. My mother could organize a Trust on that one that would

skin the tax-collars off the whole herd. The laboratory was not a

book, or a picture, or a place to wash your hands in, as the college

president's dog said--no, that is the lavatory; the laboratory is quite

different, and is filled with jars, and bottles, and electrics, and

wires, and strange machines; and every week other scientists came there

and sat in the place, and used the machines, and discussed, and made

what they called experiments and discoveries; and often I came, too,

and stood around and listened, and tried to learn, for the sake of my

mother, and in loving memory of her, although it was a pain to me, as

realizing what she was losing out of her life and I gaining nothing at

all; for try as I might, I was never able to make anything out of it at

all.

Other times I lay on the floor in the mistress's work-room and slept,

she gently using me for a foot-stool, knowing it pleased me, for it

was a caress; other times I spent an hour in the nursery, and got well

tousled and made happy; other times I watched by the crib there, when

the baby was asleep and the nurse out for a few minutes on the baby's

affairs; other times I romped and raced through the grounds and the

garden with Sadie till we were tired out, then slumbered on the grass in

the shade of a tree while she read her book; other times I went visiting

among the neighbor dogs--for there were some most pleasant ones not

far away, and one very handsome and courteous and graceful one,

a curly-haired Irish setter by the name of Robin Adair, who was a

Presbyterian like me, and belonged to the Scotch minister.

The servants in our house were all kind to me and were fond of me, and

so, as you see, mine was a pleasant life. There could not be a happier

dog that I was, nor a gratefuler one. I will say this for myself, for it

is only the truth: I tried in all ways to do well and right, and honor

my mother's memory and her teachings, and earn the happiness that had

come to me, as best I could.

By and by came my little puppy, and then my cup was full, my happiness

was perfect. It was the dearest little waddling thing, and so smooth

and soft and velvety, and had such cunning little awkward paws, and such

affectionate eyes, and such a sweet and innocent face; and it made me

so proud to see how the children and their mother adored it, and fondled

it, and exclaimed over every little wonderful thing it did. It did seem

to me that life was just too lovely to--

Then came the winter. One day I was standing a watch in the nursery.

That is to say, I was asleep on the bed. The baby was asleep in the

crib, which was alongside the bed, on the side next the fireplace. It

was the kind of crib that has a lofty tent over it made of gauzy stuff

that you can see through. The nurse was out, and we two sleepers were

alone. A spark from the wood-fire was shot out, and it lit on the slope

of the tent. I suppose a quiet interval followed, then a scream from the

baby awoke me, and there was that tent flaming up toward the ceiling!

Before I could think, I sprang to the floor in my fright, and in a

second was half-way to the door; but in the next half-second my mother's

farewell was sounding in my ears, and I was back on the bed again.,

I reached my head through the flames and dragged the baby out by the

waist-band, and tugged it along, and we fell to the floor together in a

cloud of smoke; I snatched a new hold, and dragged the screaming little

creature along and out at the door and around the bend of the hall,

and was still tugging away, all excited and happy and proud, when the

master's voice shouted:

“Begone you cursed beast!” and I jumped to save myself; but he was

furiously quick, and chased me up, striking furiously at me with his

cane, I dodging this way and that, in terror, and at last a strong

blow fell upon my left foreleg, which made me shriek and fall, for

the moment, helpless; the cane went up for another blow, but never

descended, for the nurse's voice rang wildly out, “The nursery's on

fire!” and the master rushed away in that direction, and my other bones

were saved.

The pain was cruel, but, no matter, I must not lose any time; he might

come back at any moment; so I limped on three legs to the other end

of the hall, where there was a dark little stairway leading up into a

garret where old boxes and such things were kept, as I had heard say,

and where people seldom went. I managed to climb up there, then I

searched my way through the dark among the piles of things, and hid in

the secretest place I could find. It was foolish to be afraid there, yet

still I was; so afraid that I held in and hardly even whimpered, though

it would have been such a comfort to whimper, because that eases the

pain, you know. But I could lick my leg, and that did some good.

For half an hour there was a commotion downstairs, and shoutings,

and rushing footsteps, and then there was quiet again. Quiet for some

minutes, and that was grateful to my spirit, for then my fears began

to go down; and fears are worse than pains--oh, much worse. Then came a

sound that froze me. They were calling me--calling me by name--hunting

for me!

It was muffled by distance, but that could not take the terror out of

it, and it was the most dreadful sound to me that I had ever heard. It

went all about, everywhere, down there: along the halls, through all

the rooms, in both stories, and in the basement and the cellar; then

outside, and farther and farther away--then back, and all about the

house again, and I thought it would never, never stop. But at last it

did, hours and hours after the vague twilight of the garret had long ago

been blotted out by black darkness.

Then in that blessed stillness my terrors fell little by little away,

and I was at peace and slept. It was a good rest I had, but I woke

before the twilight had come again. I was feeling fairly comfortable,

and I could think out a plan now. I made a very good one; which was, to

creep down, all the way down the back stairs, and hide behind the cellar

door, and slip out and escape when the iceman came at dawn, while he was

inside filling the refrigerator; then I would hide all day, and start

on my journey when night came; my journey to--well, anywhere where they

would not know me and betray me to the master. I was feeling almost

cheerful now; then suddenly I thought: Why, what would life be without

my puppy!

That was despair. There was no plan for me; I saw that; I must say where

I was; stay, and wait, and take what might come--it was not my affair;

that was what life is--my mother had said it. Then--well, then the

calling began again! All my sorrows came back. I said to myself, the

master will never forgive. I did not know what I had done to make him so

bitter and so unforgiving, yet I judged it was something a dog could not

understand, but which was clear to a man and dreadful.

They called and called--days and nights, it seemed to me. So long that

the hunger and thirst near drove me mad, and I recognized that I was

getting very weak. When you are this way you sleep a great deal, and I

did. Once I woke in an awful fright--it seemed to me that the calling

was right there in the garret! And so it was: it was Sadie's voice,

and she was crying; my name was falling from her lips all broken, poor

thing, and I could not believe my ears for the joy of it when I heard

her say:

“Come back to us--oh, come back to us, and forgive--it is all so sad

without our--”

I broke in with _such _a grateful little yelp, and the next moment

Sadie was plunging and stumbling through the darkness and the lumber and

shouting for the family to hear, “She's found, she's found!”

The days that followed--well, they were wonderful. The mother and Sadie

and the servants--why, they just seemed to worship me. They couldn't

seem to make me a bed that was fine enough; and as for food, they

couldn't be satisfied with anything but game and delicacies that were

out of season; and every day the friends and neighbors flocked in to

hear about my heroism--that was the name they called it by, and it

means agriculture. I remember my mother pulling it on a kennel once, and

explaining it in that way, but didn't say what agriculture was, except

that it was synonymous with intramural incandescence; and a dozen times

a day Mrs. Gray and Sadie would tell the tale to new-comers, and say I

risked my life to save the baby's, and both of us had burns to prove it,

and then the company would pass me around and pet me and exclaim about

me, and you could see the pride in the eyes of Sadie and her mother; and

when the people wanted to know what made me limp, they looked ashamed

and changed the subject, and sometimes when people hunted them this way

and that way with questions about it, it looked to me as if they were

going to cry.

And this was not all the glory; no, the master's friends came, a whole

twenty of the most distinguished people, and had me in the laboratory,

and discussed me as if I was a kind of discovery; and some of them said

it was wonderful in a dumb beast, the finest exhibition of instinct they

could call to mind; but the master said, with vehemence, “It's far above

instinct; it's _reason_, and many a man, privileged to be saved and go

with you and me to a better world by right of its possession, has less

of it that this poor silly quadruped that's foreordained to perish”; and

then he laughed, and said: “Why, look at me--I'm a sarcasm! bless you,

with all my grand intelligence, the only thing I inferred was that

the dog had gone mad and was destroying the child, whereas but for the

beast's intelligence--it's _reason_, I tell you!--the child would have

perished!”

They disputed and disputed, and _I_ was the very center of subject of it

all, and I wished my mother could know that this grand honor had come to

me; it would have made her proud.

Then they discussed optics, as they called it, and whether a certain

injury to the brain would produce blindness or not, but they could not

agree about it, and said they must test it by experiment by and by;

and next they discussed plants, and that interested me, because in the

summer Sadie and I had planted seeds--I helped her dig the holes, you

know--and after days and days a little shrub or a flower came up there,

and it was a wonder how that could happen; but it did, and I wished I

could talk--I would have told those people about it and shown then how

much I knew, and been all alive with the subject; but I didn't care for

the optics; it was dull, and when they came back to it again it bored

me, and I went to sleep.

Pretty soon it was spring, and sunny and pleasant and lovely, and the

sweet mother and the children patted me and the puppy good-by, and went

away on a journey and a visit to their kin, and the master wasn't any

company for us, but we played together and had good times, and the

servants were kind and friendly, so we got along quite happily and

counted the days and waited for the family.

And one day those men came again, and said, now for the test, and they

took the puppy to the laboratory, and I limped three-leggedly along,

too, feeling proud, for any attention shown to the puppy was a pleasure

to me, of course. They discussed and experimented, and then suddenly the

puppy shrieked, and they set him on the floor, and he went staggering

around, with his head all bloody, and the master clapped his hands and

shouted:

“There, I've won--confess it! He's a blind as a bat!”

And they all said:

“It's so--you've proved your theory, and suffering humanity owes you a

great debt from henceforth,” and they crowded around him, and wrung his

hand cordially and thankfully, and praised him.

But I hardly saw or heard these things, for I ran at once to my little

darling, and snuggled close to it where it lay, and licked the blood,

and it put its head against mine, whimpering softly, and I knew in

my heart it was a comfort to it in its pain and trouble to feel its

mother's touch, though it could not see me. Then it dropped down,

presently, and its little velvet nose rested upon the floor, and it was

still, and did not move any more.

Soon the master stopped discussing a moment, and rang in the footman,

and said, “Bury it in the far corner of the garden,” and then went on

with the discussion, and I trotted after the footman, very happy and

grateful, for I knew the puppy was out of its pain now, because it

was asleep. We went far down the garden to the farthest end, where the

children and the nurse and the puppy and I used to play in the summer in

the shade of a great elm, and there the footman dug a hole, and I saw he

was going to plant the puppy, and I was glad, because it would grow

and come up a fine handsome dog, like Robin Adair, and be a beautiful

surprise for the family when they came home; so I tried to help him dig,

but my lame leg was no good, being stiff, you know, and you have to have

two, or it is no use. When the footman had finished and covered little

Robin up, he patted my head, and there were tears in his eyes, and he

said: “Poor little doggie, you saved _his _child!”

I have watched two whole weeks, and he doesn't come up! This last week

a fright has been stealing upon me. I think there is something terrible

about this. I do not know what it is, but the fear makes me sick, and I

cannot eat, though the servants bring me the best of food; and they pet

me so, and even come in the night, and cry, and say, “Poor doggie--do

give it up and come home; _don't_ break our hearts!” and all this

terrifies me the more, and makes me sure something has happened. And

I am so weak; since yesterday I cannot stand on my feet anymore. And

within this hour the servants, looking toward the sun where it was

sinking out of sight and the night chill coming on, said things I could

not understand, but they carried something cold to my heart.

“Those poor creatures! They do not suspect. They will come home in the

morning, and eagerly ask for the little doggie that did the brave deed,

and who of us will be strong enough to say the truth to them: 'The

humble little friend is gone where go the beasts that perish.'”

WAS IT HEAVEN? OR HELL?

CHAPTER I

“You told a _lie_?”

“You confess it--you actually confess it--you told a lie!”