Transcriber's Note: Italic text is denoted by _underscores_ and bold
text by =equal signs=.
[Illustration]
The Black Cat (Vol. I, No. 2)
5
CENTS
November
1895
Contents
=A Calaveras Hold-Up.=
Roberta Littlehale.
=From a Trolley Post.=
Margaret Dodge.
=An Andenken.=
Julia Magruder.
=The Man from Maine.=
J. D. Ellsworth.
=A Wedding Tombstone.=
Clarice Irene Clinghan.
=The Other One.=
A. H. Gibson.
=Stateroom Six.=
William Albert Lewis.
=Her Eyes, Your Honor!=
H. D. Umbstaetter.
THE SHORTSTORY PUBLISHING CO. 144 HIGH ST., BOSTON, MASS.
Copyright 1895 by The Shortstory Publishing Co.
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The Black Cat (Vol. I, No. 2)
A Monthly Magazine of Original Short Stories.
No. 2. NOVEMBER, 1895. 5 cents a copy. 50 cents a year.
Entered at the Post-Office at Boston, Mass., as second-class matter.
CONTENTS
Title Author Page
A Calaveras Hold-Up. Roberta Littlehale. 1
From a Trolley Post. Margaret Dodge. 9
An Andenken. Julia Magruder. 13
The Man from Maine. J. D. Ellsworth. 25
A Wedding Tombstone. Clarice Irene Clinghan. 29
The Other One. A. H. Gibson. 34
Stateroom Six. William Albert Lewis. 40
Her Eyes, Your Honor! H. D. Umbstaetter. 43
Advertisements. 50
A Calaveras Hold-Up.
BY ROBERTA LITTLEHALE.
ONE sunny summer noon of the year 1880, a man lay under a clump of
chaparral at the base of a scrub-oak, near a roadside in the Calaveras
foothills. He lay on his stomach, with his head on his arms; and the
flies crawled over the dirt on his clothes and the pistol at his belt,
only suffering disturbance because of the industry of the black ant
colony which had discovered meat among the bread crumbs that had fallen
from his pocket. He looked asleep, but, to one who might have seen,
there were slits in the sombrero that covered his head, and the eyes
behind them were not closed. Rather, they scarcely winked in the sober
scrutiny of their purpose.
The road here near the crest of the hill took a sharp right angle to
the north, and picked its way brokenly to the summit over rocks and
through stumps and standing trees. To the southwest below, it could
be seen for miles on its upward course, appearing and disappearing
among the open stretches and the woodland. The scrub-oak would have to
lengthen its fat shadow very perceptibly before the man would find it
necessary to get on his feet; so he allowed a portion of his attention
to revert to the cause of his being here.
Billy Owen was not analytical. He did not go back any farther than his
love for a woman as the representative cause of the present effect.
The spirit of his ancestors, trained to conquest and struggle, had
suffered a taint in the far gone years, and he had become the son of
an uncertain race. There were men of them rude in virtue as well as
strength, and men of them branded with a shifting eye and hunted step.
Billy had always had his pleasure with a gun in his hand until these
wondrous twelve months of his knowledge of Rudy. That that slight
person had no acquaintance with the manner of his former life was due
to the respect in which Billy held her. For himself, he couldn't get
rid of a troublesome pride when he called up the men—the brakemen,
and engineers, and inflated conductors—who had backed away from the
steel-ringed mouth of his Colt, his Betty. And the brakemen, and
engineers, and inflated conductors who hadn't backed away, and whom
Betty had spat at, gave him almost more pride than the treasures he had
borne off from under their bodies. But a man must be capering to more
than one tune if he's to dance in the open all of his life, so Billy
had been giving his later days to the panning for gold in secluded
spots of the California Sierras; and the first Sunday that he had lent
to the village and set apart for the play had been taken by Rudy! He
remembered it all very clearly. He had been so careful to shave. Men
must remember a moustache of straw color that brought out the steel
in his small gray eyes. He had not changed his working dress, for a
knife slips down a yawning boot-leg, and a flannel shirt yields best
to one's muscles in motion. A hat with a brim was given of the gods,
and Billy had drunk of the air and the anticipation, and sauntered with
carelessness into the street. Painted beer by the geyserful spouted
from pictured mugs at his every footfall, but he delayed that detail of
his social duty until he should have been invited, and continued his
march. It had seemed to him queer that the street was so empty. Only
occasional men swung in and out of saloon doors, and the rival hotel
chairs rested wholly idle. But it was not long before he found the
cause. A little paint-blistered church sat around the corner, and its
open doors had swallowed almost the entire populace. It seemed waiting
for more while the thin notes of its rejoicing bell chased each other
out on the air. Service must have been about to begin, for there was
only a girl standing out on the steps, and the horses in ranks along
the fences, who slept, or brushed flies, or hated their neighbors,
as their natures gave impulse. Billy sent the place over to a hotter
climate, and turned on his heel to shake off its dust just as the
restless eyes of a high-headed roan brought him to a halt.
It was then that he had heard a voice he felt he would never forget.
"There is room," it called.
Billy Owen had gone on looking over the roan. He was not the man to
waste Sunday in church.
"Father's to preach on fighting," he heard it again. "There are fights
that he stands by."
It was a voice, Billy thought, the bees would look for. He threw
her a glance that shouldn't reveal any weakness for the sort of
blood-spilling that the parson approved of, and straightway forgot to
look off again. Rudy Field was smiling at him, and Rudy was radiant
with the spirit of well-doing. The bell's noisy excitement had given
way to the voices of the people in an opening hymn of thanksgiving, and
the girl hurried off the steps, passed the horses, and laid her hand on
his arm.
"He says men ought to break each other's noses if there's cause; but
it's the cause," she added pregnantly, turning her eyes away towards
the church.
"If two men want to get up and fight just for the pleasure of
fightin'," said Billy, "and are glad to shake hands when one of 'em is
hollerin'?"
Rudy's gentle eyes gave out their inspiration.
"Come and see if he'll say," she said. And Billy went to his undoing.
It was never clear to him what the parson's fighting views really
were. There must have gone through them fiber of good sort, because
he remembered the noisy approval of his fellowmen. As for himself, a
straight little form and a thin little face, with a voice singing up to
the angels, left no consciousness of a judicial sort. After the last
rousing hymn and the dignity of the benediction, he had sat so still
that the church was emptying and the parson was up to him. If Billy had
wanted to, there would have been no escaping the zealous warmth of
purpose which drew him into the family life and the church life of this
country minister. The man had only Rudy and a rough little house, but
the restlessness of his energy used them both for his ends.
And the days had taken wings. Billy found through the hours of his
lonely working that there was something in his mind supplanting Betty
and the bodies which were testimony of his prowess and his power,—a
something which could not have borne the revelation of Betty and the
corpses. But the very instinct that had brought pride and lust of them
to Billy was not alive to a shame that threw them over altogether. In
the subtleness of conquest they were not the useful weapons.
Rudy's father had been Rudy's life, and she lay awake in the night now,
because a man strong in his youth and the power of his love was coming
between them. The atmosphere of her training had left her without the
protection of suspicion, and Rudy had only the education that her
frailness, their poverty, and shifting life could yield. Her femininity
showed her Billy Owen's masterful physique, his superior strength, and
tonic vitality. She had begun to have insight into Billy's will power.
But, of all men, he gave to her deference, and gentleness, and the
alertness of his interests.
And what she was conscious must come, came.
Two miners were hurt in an accident by fire, and the minister was
called for in the absence of the doctor. He had arranged to hold
services in a village three miles north, and Rudy was left to carry to
it the news of the church's closing. She put on a sun-bonnet and went
out to the barn. The old mare stepped listlessly into the shafts, when
a shadow fell over the floor, and Billy filled up the doorway.
"Your father said I was to look out that you got there." He laughed,
uncertain still of his welcome.
Rudy had dreaded the lonely twilight drive, and her face must have
spoken for her tongue had not; but Billy took up the harnessing with a
light on his own face that sent Rudy into the depths of her bonnet. She
kept on her side of the fat mare, and buckled and strapped in a tangle
of leather, with an indiscretion that sent her hands to the check at
Jane's head just at the moment when Billy's must meet them.
And Billy held them close, while Jane dropped her nose and sniffed
at some barley grains, indifferent to the fact that her toilet was
forgotten.
"Your father'd give me the word to fight the man that could take ye
from me now," Billy said.
And Rudy was whiter than the hair on Jane where it happened to be
clean.
"It's my father I shall never leave," she answered him.
"It's the father, His book tells ye, shall be left for the husband."
Billy dropped her hands to come around and take her in his arms.
"Say no more, girl, but the word you love me."
And Rudy had said it. And Rudy had sobbed over it, and laughed over it,
and sung over it before the message was delivered and Jane in her stall
again.
This was a perplexity Rudy's father laid in heaven's care. "There must
be something to live on," he had used as a protest. And what had always
made Billy's living but his revolver,—his Betty? The mining was snail's
pace at best, and with Rudy on his heart there was mad need of haste.
With everything at his hand and his Colt ready, there were only the
plans, which he straightway laid. Money for the northern mines passed
under his nose once every month. Mounted messengers were the things he
and Betty were used to, and the advantage of his isolated claim gave
him the chance for the doing in the hours of an unoccupied afternoon.
The flies lifted off on lazy wings as the figure under the chaparral at
the base of the scrub-oak heaved onto an elbow and measured the shadow.
With the sharp focus of quick sight, he turned to the road again. Down
in the far distance a cloud of dust hung in the air. The man went onto
his stomach again. The flies settled, the ants took up their burden,
and the summer sun burned over all.
On came the rolling dust, the four horses, the driver, the messenger,
and the passengers. They must have passed by Rudy's little house;
perhaps Rudy had been looking out at them. Well, the fools need not be
hurt—it is only to march to the music. The man bent one leg and rested
upon his knee to readjust the hot, black mask that covered his face. He
peered down the road again. The stage must be half up the last slope.
It was out of sight, but the snap of the whip came to his ears as a
signal.
"Betty," he whispered close to the barrel, and got on his feet. Against
the trunk of the dusty oak a man crouched, with his finger on the
trigger of a gun. A stage rocked into view with two betting men, a pale
little woman, and a Wells Fargo messenger, who sat on the box.
"Halt."
The horses came back on their haunches, the leaders in air.
Betty's steel-rimmed mouth had covered the crowd.
"Throw out your express box and unload your passengers."
Three men and a woman lined along the roadside with their hands to the
sky, and a green, brass-handled box lay in the dust.
"Out with your horses, my hearty, and line up."
The nerve of one man can undo the natural and customary methods of four
of his fellows. The driver took his team to the rear of his passengers,
and Billy stepped to the front with Betty as steady as became a
woman-of-war.
He ran his eye over the men. It would be time to release the woman when
danger was past.
"Fall to on that box," Billy directed. He signaled a man of generous
mold and ample manner, and the gentleman stood in his tracks.
"Two," said Billy. "One—"
But the man was in the middle of the road, willing and toolless. An axe
was dragged from the stage, and he sent the hot fury of his anger into
the strokes of the steel.
"Cut the mail pouches," came the next order, and the messenger writhed
under cover as he ripped with his knife.
At that moment fell the certain distant sound of approaching horses.
Heaven knows there was need of haste, and Billy stood over with curses
to emphasize the vigor of his threats.
Sweat fell from the men as he turned to the woman.
"Into the――" Billy began,—and Rudy was looking up at him! Rudy with
face like chalk, and the soul of her broken and bleeding.
God! but there is one thing no man can face—the faith of a woman struck
back into her heart!
Billy and the revolver wavered in one blindness, and the messenger
sprang to his feet.
"Get him," he cried, and his bullet went wide of the mark. Confusion
came with the moment. Men leaped to their pockets for weapons and
signaled the team coming up.
Billy wasted nothing of the aid Betty held for him. He plunged into the
brush at the east with his brain and his heart in the thrall of his
shock. About him spit, and crashed, and split a rain of bullets, and he
knew there were men of them ready to follow him on the spot.
He swore himself into energy, and beat on through the thick, thorny
underbrush with the hope of their disorder sustaining him. There was a
small stone corral some one had told him of—Rudy had told him of! It
was hemmed in with rocks, and buckeye, and chaparral. For a theater of
war it was safest for a man inside it, and there was only one approach!
Rudy had once found herb roots there.
He turned sharp to the south and trailed back again, conscious that his
scent was strong and his arm was true,—and to the devil with men who
had lived peaceful lives in the fields of their country!
Wet drops of something warm trickled down his back. There must be a
wound there. Billy forced his way along, cutting through tangles,
leaping the rocks, and scaling the boulders, only halting for seconds
to separate insect noises from that of the hunt of men. If he might
reach his corral there would be at least breathing space for further
campaigning. They were after him, hot on his trail, he knew, but the
resources of his race-people gave snap to his blood.
The long, slim shadows of the late afternoon had been swallowed in
the monotone of twilight when Billy Owen sat on his heels behind the
walls of a stone corral on the sheer slope of a Sierra hill. The
fever from his wound was racking his head, but the keenest pain that
he suffered was not from that. And there could be no moment of time
given over to the undisturbed thought of it. It was only the ever
present consciousness through the intensity of attention he imposed on
himself. His senses were preternaturally alert; they made record of the
night-millers' winging and the life of the lizards in the wall at his
face. The red leaves of a poison-oak vine served as his shelter, and
above this, and about it, and beyond it the chaparral, and the pines,
and the buckeyes watched. From behind the mass of summer foliage the
eyes of a man and the mouth of a gun were at aim and waiting.
But it was Rudy's face that was searing with fire the brain of the
man,—Rudy's face, which had known only love for him, and trust in him,
and pride of him. It went over him cold that her scorn of him might
set them on his track. She might guess what he would make for. They
had laughed at it as a robber resort. But the thought could not live.
Rudy's womanliness—
Hark! there could be no mistake—a step. He had been waiting hours for
it. It could come. He needed no change of movement to send it into
silence. There would be more of them behind. There must be no delay in
wiping them out.
There it comes again, on and up. The fool! Does he think his life is
worth juggling for? An unlodged stone trips jerkily down the hillside,
and some bats blacken the air over his head. Betty is so safe, and so
sure, and so ready that he will let the idiot come into her face.
A hand shows through the bushes at the gate of the corral. Billy is
forced to turn; it is some one who knows the run of the land. A black
figure thrusts through the branches and Betty throws out her ball of
death.
"Billy," he heard in its last terrible note of misunderstanding.
He sits in the open and holds her in his arms. Her black hair hangs
over her face, and he thrusts it back to clasp her against his breast,
against his lips.
At midnight they find Billy Owen, the bandit. There is a woman in his
arms, and their lives have gone out on a common search.
[Illustration]
From a Trolley Post.
BY MARGARET DODGE.
THE man looked discouraged. As he stood on the corner of the avenue,
his hands thrust into his overcoat pockets, his slouch hat pulled
down over his eyes, he seemed to be posing for an end of the century
statue of Resignation. For fifteen minutes he had been facing a purely
Bostonese combination of east wind and drizzling rain, while he waited
for one of the electric cars billed to pass that corner every five
minutes. There was no cab station within a mile, and his train left at
the other end of the town in half an hour. Besides, he lived in a city
where east winds never blew, and where L trains and cable cars whizzed
by with clockwork regularity. Consequently, he possessed few resources
for killing time on street corners. After he had read his paper, looked
over his memorandum book, and worn a path into the middle of the street
by continued expeditions undertaken in hope of sighting the delayed
car, he had backed up against the white trolley post, and fixed his
lusterless eyes upon the row of brownstone apartment houses that lined
the opposite side of the street.
Suddenly a gleam of hope lighted the gloomy eyes of the man at the
trolley post. Had the car, after all, taken a "spurt"? Had the wind
changed? No; the track was still clear as far as the eye could see; the
vane on the nearest church pointed unwaveringly to the east; but the
resigned man had made a pleasing discovery,—he had found a companion in
misery.
In the third-story side window of an apartment house diagonally
opposite, a picturesque, black-eyed youngster stood drumming on the
window-pane and scowling out into the brick-paved area on which the
window opened, with a disapproval that matched that of the man at the
trolley post.
Bud, too, was a stranger within the city's gates, and he, too, was
tired waiting for luck to take a turn. He had grown up in Texas, where
the sun shines for three hundred and fifty days in the year, and where
every day he could wander out upon the plains and kill something. And
now he had come to this cold, dismal city where he had to wear shoes
and a Fauntleroy suit, and stay in when the east wind blew. For two
hours he had been waiting for the sun to come out, and he had almost
reached the end of his resources.
Almost, but not quite. A moment later, as the resigned man watched the
little Texan standing with his nose flattened against the pane, his
round, bright eyes peering down into the mist, he saw him open the
window and, through the iron grating of the balcony, survey the scene
below. Then, with a coltish leap, Bud disappeared into the room.
A moment later his agile little body again wriggled out onto the
balcony. It was a small, rounded affair, filled with potted plants, and
situated on a perpendicular line with similar balconies which belonged
to the suites above and below. In the one immediately under that on
which the small boy stood was placed among the geranium plants and
India-rubber trees a glass globe containing several large goldfish.
Hanging out over the railing, Bud fixed his round eyes on the glass
globe and chuckled. Then he looked cautiously into the room behind
him. Apparently no one was in sight. Producing from the pocket of his
small trousers a fish-line and hook, he proceeded to lower it until the
duly baited hook landed among the goldfish. There was a deft twist of
the line, a splash, and a flop; something yellow and wiggling flashed
through the air, and a moment later a large goldfish lay breathing its
last in a big flower-pot, at the roots of an India-rubber tree.
Once more Bud chuckled. So did the man at the trolley post. He had now
waited half an hour, but for the moment he had forgotten the east wind,
the delayed car, and the train he wanted to catch.
Without loss of time, the boy again lowered his hook. Once, twice,
three times the operation was repeated, and then the boy unlooped
himself from the balcony and scraped one foot meditatively upon the
other. Four quarter-pound goldfish were now in the way of enriching
the soil at the base of the India-rubber tree—and the stream was fished
dry.
Did the balcony offer other worlds for this youthful Alexander?
Apparently not, for after chewing up several choice geranium blossoms
and practising with his bean-shooter upon a draggled sparrow he turned
to go.
The man at the trolley post frowned. Having seen two acts of a play, he
objected to being cheated out of the third.
Just then, however, the little comedy was continued by two new actors.
Around the corner appeared an Italian hand-organist leading by a
string a minute monkey gorgeously costumed in a green skirt, scarlet
jacket, and green and gold cap. As the melancholy Italian put down his
instrument and began grinding out "Daisy Bell," his hairy attendant
scampered across the pavement and began scrambling up the iron
balconies of the tall apartment house in quest of pennies.
A yawning grin convulsed Bud's small features. Flinging his fish-line
into a flower-pot, he climbed through the window and disappeared. He
was gone only a few moments, but when he returned he bore himself with
a new air. A large sombrero sat jauntily upon his black curls; from his
left arm hung a coil of rope, while his brown right hand brandished
above his head the loop of a lasso. As he stood there motionless, the
hand holding the lasso poised in the air, he looked a perfect pocket
edition of a Texas cowboy. The man at the trolley post would have
wagered a large sum that among the thirty-five thousand small boys
reported by the last census as living in Boston there wasn't another
boy like Bud.
Meantime the organist had changed his tune from "Daisy Bell" to "Hold
Your Head Up, Hogan," while the monkey had been making a triumphal
progress up the iron balconies. His gorgeous uniform, acrobatic leaps,
and hand-over-hand performances, together with his shrewd chatter and
the graceful twirl with which he pocketed coppers, had attracted every
child within a radius of four blocks. Pennies rained upon him like
roses on a favorite prima donna, and the little fellow was put to sore
straits to collect the rich shower. In Bud's absence he had traveled to
the topmost balcony of the seven-story apartment house, and was now
resting on the fourth on his downward progress, when his bright eyes
caught sight of another offering that was being thrust through the
window upon the second-story balcony of the next house by a child more
retiring than his neighbors. This house stood on the other side of a
common area, barely fifteen feet wide, and the railing upon which the
offering lay was directly opposite the one where the little beastie
crouched, but some ten feet below.
The monkey took in the situation with twinkling eyes. Then, after a
brief chattered soliloquy, he humped up his back and drew himself
together ready for a spring.
By this time the man at the trolley post was breathless with
excitement. To attempt to keep track of the boy and the monkey at the
same time was like watching a circus with two rings. By a quick glance,
however, he noted that while the monkey was gathering itself for the
leap the boy was standing erect, his eyes fastened on the monkey, his
fingers whirling the loop of the lasso above his head with the apparent
ease that means a deadly aim. Once, twice, the noose circled in the
air; the monkey quivered with the impulse to spring; but just then the
accident happened. The car arrived and the man from New York missed the
end of the play.
[Illustration]
An Andenken.
BY JULIA MAGRUDER.
ONE summer a party of American tourists was established at a small inn
in the little village of Oetz situated in the beautiful Oetzthal, one
of the upper valleys of the Tyrolean Alps. The Oetzthal is the deepest
valley of the Inn, and the most notable for its wild scenery, its
picturesque impressiveness, and its dangerous glaciers and falls.
Most of the party came for recreation, and the novel scenes and people
were a sufficient supply for that demand—as was the glorious fresh air
of the mountains for those who sought health.
The one member of the party who was a worker was, strange to say, the
youngest of them all,—an American girl who had been studying art in
Paris with great earnestness, and whose absorbing motive in coming
here was to paint. She had dozens of schemes in her head,—landscapes,
peasants, interiors, etc.,—and so eager was she to begin that when she
arrived at the little station after dark she felt herself consciously
impatient of the beautiful moonlight through which her drive to Oetz
was taken, and eager for morning to come.
She was very tired, however, and slept long, and when at last awakened
by her cousin, who was up and dressed before her, her first impulse was
to run to the window and look out.
"Stop, Ethel, you shall do nothing of the kind!" exclaimed her cousin
Florence. "That is just what I have come to prevent. I am going to
stand guard over you while you take your roll and coffee, and then drop
the curtains and make you promise not to lift them when I leave you to
dress."
Ethel, keen for anything that would enhance the flavor of the delicious
treat in prospect, gave the promise, and had kept it faithfully when
Florence returned, later, to take her out on a tour of inspection.
The young girl had equipped herself in her walking costume,—corduroy
skirt, flannel blouse, scarlet _beret_, and stout boots,—and was
ready for anything when her cousin led her from the room. So eager was
her own search for the picturesque that she ignored the fact that the
one or two people she encountered in going through the house might have
a similar interest, which must have been abundantly gratified at the
lovely vision which she made, with her golden hair twisted under the
red _beret_ and her lovely face aglow with expectation.
Before the front door was opened Florence produced a silk handkerchief,
which she tied firmly over her companion's eyes, making her promise
not to make any effort to remove it until she should be given leave.
Laughing delightedly and showing brilliant teeth between a pair of
fresh young lips, Ethel obediently consented to be led by the hand, up
a steep hill, to be faced round in a certain position, and then to have
the handkerchief whisked off, with a cry from Florence of:
"_There_, now!"
For some seconds the girl did not speak as she gazed about her.
She was standing in the center of a sort of court, which formed a
plateau on the crest of the hill. All around this court were low and
rudely constructed houses, whose front surfaces presented a mass of
decorations, indescribably brilliant. The plaster, which seemed very
smoothly and firmly made, was painted or stained in various colors
as a background; and upon these surfaces were painted pictures of
sacred subjects, the drawing and coloring of which were crude and
fantastic beyond description, though the decorative impression was most
picturesque and effective, especially with the added embellishment of
the brilliant blooming plants which overflowed the boxes placed across
every window. Petunias, pinks, sweet peas, poppies, geraniums, and many
other plants were here massed in a riot of colors, and long sprays of
vine fell down and fringed the borders of the pictures below. Every
available wall space was covered by one of these pictures—the favorite
subjects being the "Annunciation," the "Adoration of the Magi," the
"Birth of Christ," and constantly repeated representations of the "Holy
Family."
Most of the houses had two stories, and there was also a box containing
the blooming plants and vines fastened over every door; and as every
plant seemed at the very height of its bloom and perfection, and
every picture seemed as clean and free from weather stains as if just
painted, it is no wonder that Ethel received the impression so common
with those who first see this brilliant spectacle.
"What is it for?" she said. "I never saw anything so decorative and
brilliant, but I did not know it was any great gala day. Why didn't you
tell me? And what day is it?"
"No day at all; or, rather, no gala day," said Florence.
"Then what have they done this for?"
"For religion's sake, or beauty's sake, or a mixture of the two, I
suppose."
"You don't mean to say that they keep it like this all the time?"
"Yes, I do; until the frost kills the flowers, at least, and even then
the pictures remain."
"And is all this done by these ignorant peasants?" asked Ethel, flushed
with the delight of this new and strange impression.
"Of course. I should think you could see that the painting and drawing,
at least, were of peasant origin."
"It _is_ terrific in a way," said Ethel, scrutinizing with a
professional squint, which sat very prettily on her charming face, a
picture of the Holy Family which happened to be nearest to her; "and
yet," she went on, "there's feeling in that—quite wonderful feeling!
If that Virgin were not such a fright, she would really be quite
beautiful. Do you see what I mean?"
"Well, hardly," said Florence, with a smile.
"Of course not! but I do mean what I say. The tender feeling of that
face and figure are now completely subject to the grotesque form and
crude color which the poor ignorant painter must have suffered from
acutely—for he had a beautiful ideal in his mind when he did that."
"Well, you are even more knowing in art than I gave you credit for,"
said Florence, "if you can make that out. It seems to me to resemble
nothing so much as one of the jointed dolls, made of wood, and painted
with three colors,—white, black, and red,—which used to be the delight
of my infancy."
"I see that resemblance," said Ethel seriously; "but I also see
something else—very different. I wonder who does these things."
"I have inquired," Florence answered, "and I find that every generation
has its own local artist, who makes it a profession to do these
decorations, to paint the little wooden head-boards which serve as
tombstones here, and also to paint the _andenken_ which decorate
the surrounding country. You will see them by the dozen."
"_Andenken!_ What is that?"
"It is a little picture-sign, which is set up by the family or friends
of a person who is killed by any of the casualties which are so common
here, from avalanches or from falling rocks, which, once misplaced and
started, tumble down the mountain sides with increasing velocity, and
kill anything in their way. The shepherds here, who so often spend the
nights with their flocks on the mountain sides, are frequently killed
by them, and then, too, the inhabitants of this region are sometimes
overwhelmed with torrents of mud, ejected by the mountains—not a
very pretty thing to paint! But you will see dozens of these little
_andenken_ all about here, as they are always erected on the spot
of the disaster, and always consist of a pictorial representation of
it, and the passers-by are supposed to say a prayer for the repose of
the victim's soul."
"How strange! I think it seems rather sweet," said Ethel dreamily.
"The custom may be; the pictures are anything else, as you will soon
discover; although, since you admire this Virgin, there's no telling
what you will think."
"I do admire it!" said Ethel, looking toward it again, "I should like
to know something about the man who did it. Oh, to think what it would
be to him, to teach him to use his fingers and realize his ideals—for
that he has ideals I am certain. But where are all the people who
belong to these enchanted houses? And why is it that we see nobody
about?"
"They are all at work in the fields at this time of the day."
"But their houses are open!"
"Of course! They are never closed, except when the weather makes it
necessary."
"But people could go in and steal!"
"Yes, they could, but it seems they don't! One reason for such
uprightness may be that there is so very little to steal. Come and look
into this one!"
They advanced to the door, which stood wide open, mounted the low
steps, and looked in.
"How charming! How delicious!" exclaimed Ethel enthusiastically.
Florence answered with a laugh of amiable derision.
"Where the charm and delightsomeness come in, I must say I do not
pretend to see! An old room, with its low rafters stained black
with smoke, and a long earthenware stovepipe running through it
and threatening the life of those who pass under it!—an old stove
surrounded by—I will admit—the brightest bits of copper, and brass, and
tin that any housewife could boast—and a squatty little table piled up
with carrots, and onions, and cabbages! You, I suppose, will be wanting
to paint it next!"
"I want to paint it now, at once, this minute!" cried Ethel. "My
fingers fairly itch. I want to paint those copper cans, and brass
kettles, and iron pots with exactly this light upon them—and those
vegetables, too! Oh, if I only could, while the impression is so fresh
and strong upon me!"
"Well, so you can! you have only to fetch your easel and box and begin
at once."
"But I have not got permission, and there is no one here to ask!"
"No matter at all about that! These peasants are the most amiable
beings on earth. I have come to understand them very well. Go to work
and do your picture, and I promise to make everything right when the
family returns."
Urged by Florence, Ethel, who was really longing to make this picture,
ran back to the little inn for her box and easel, and was soon at work,
sketching in her picture rapidly, with an absorbed face, while Florence
sat by her and watched its progress and prepared herself to explain
things on the return of the family.
Ethel sat at her easel in the center of the old, low-roofed room,
her scarlet cap flung on the floor beside her and her golden head
shining tenderly under the smoky rafters. Her picture seemed to grow
by magic, and as she brought out the brilliant polish of metal on the
old vessels, and the soft bloom of vegetation upon the cabbages and
carrots, etc., on the table beneath, she was feeling that triumph of
achievement which sometimes comes to reward a painstaking artist for
much discouragement.
So absorbed was she that she did not notice Florence when she rose,
at the end of about two hours, and slipped quietly out of the house.
She had seen the family returning, and she went to meet them. Her
explanation, graciously and smilingly given, was received in the
same spirit, and the two women and several children had soon filed
noiselessly into the rear of the room and stood there, silent and
delighted, watching the progress of the young artist's work. Florence
had given them some coins, which to their frugal minds seemed an
inordinate price to pay for the privilege accorded, and they were
evidently in high good humor.
Presently Ethel, in a pause of her breathless interest, happened to
turn her head and catch sight of them. She had a brush between her
white teeth, but she smiled radiantly, and, taking it out, came forward
to greet them. She felt, however, a certain hesitation as to how to
deal with this strange people, and was glad to accept the word of
Florence that she had made everything right, and to express her thanks,
merely. At the same time she offered to stop work, in order that the
details of her study might be put into more active use. But the women
protested, declaring that dinner could wait until the picture was done,
and showing such evident desire that she should not interrupt her work,
that she consented to go on a little longer.
"But why does she not paint the Holy Mother and the Blessed Child, if
she can paint like that?" said one of the women aside to Florence.
"My nephew, Anton Wald, is a painter. He made the picture of the Holy
Family on the outside of our house, but he would not paint such things
as kettles and cabbages! He is the finest painter in the whole valley,
though he is angry if I say so, and sometimes he throws down his brush
and will not paint again for months, because he says the pictures in
his mind are beautiful, but that they are hideous when he puts them
down. That is only his strange way, though, for his pictures are most
beautiful, as you can see from the one on my house, and all the new
head-marks in the church-yard are done by him, and some most beautiful
_andenken_. The picture of Frau Muhlau's son, who was mashed
under a great rock, is a lovely thing; the saints have mercy on his
soul!" she added, reverently crossing herself.
"Where does this Anton live?" said Florence; "he would perhaps
like to see the Fraulein paint. She has learned in the greatest
painting-schools in the world, and has had the makers of the most
beautiful pictures to show her how they did it."
"He will be here to get his dinner by and by. He has no parents or
home, poor boy! he is a good lad, though queer at times, and I am glad
to have him to live with me. Ah, here he comes now!" she exclaimed.
"Hans ran to fetch him, I see, and has told him about the beautiful
lady and the picture."
At the same moment there appeared, through the back doorway of the
house, the figure of a tall young peasant, not dressed in rough farming
clothes, but in a nearer approach to the holiday attire of the Tyrolean
of that vicinity. He wore corduroy knee breeches, gray stockings, and
a brown coat which flared over a red waistcoat and broad striped belt.
The facings of his coat were also striped with red, as were his sleeves
about the hands. On his head was the wide Tyrolean hat of tan-colored
felt, faced with bright green, and trimmed with a bright green ribbon,
with streamers falling behind.
As he noiselessly entered the room and stood gazing at the beautiful
figure whose back was turned to him, he seemed not to see it, or be
conscious of the others who were present, for his eyes fixed themselves
eagerly on the canvas, and, as he looked, the eagerness deepened and
strengthened, until it changed into a radiance of delight that seemed
scarcely unmixed with awe.
As if unconscious of himself and his own act, he slowly removed his hat
and stood bareheaded and as if spellbound in his place, his gaze fairly
devouring the picture.
"The saints preserve us!" whispered the woman. "What a strange lad
this Anton is! one would think it was the Holy Virgin herself, in the
picture, instead of those old pans!"
"I don't think it is the subject that interests him so," said Florence,
"I think it is because he has never seen painting like that done
before. The Fraulein is a beautiful painter, and he—being a painter
himself—would be quick to see that."
Ethel, meanwhile, painted on unconscious. She was always wholly
absorbed in her work when it was "going," and Florence knew that she
had been as oblivious as sleep could have made her of all that had
happened around her.
But now, becoming conscious of her cramped position, and also of the
fact that she had successfully secured her impression, which was all
that she had aimed at, she laid her palette down, and, rising, turned
and looked about her. Satisfaction in her work had made her feel very
content, and she remembered also her obligation to these good people,
and the two things made her always beautiful smile now seem unusually
winning, as it rested upon Anton, who had advanced nearer to her than
had the others, and who now turned his worshiping gaze from the picture
to the painter's lovely face.
So ardent, concentrated, eager was that gaze that Ethel flushed under
it, looking lovelier than ever. Turning to the group who stood near
Florence across the room, she seemed, by a look, to ask an explanation.
"It is the young painter who did the Virgin that you admired," said
Florence in English.
Ethel's face lighted up with pleasure and recognition, and making
a step toward him, she held out her hand, and said in her pretty,
half-timid German:
"As we are both painters, we must shake hands."
But the young peasant, very white and startled looking, stepped back.
"It is not true," he cried. "Who has told you that I am a painter? I
am only a wretched dauber and cheat. I will never touch color or brush
again."
Ethel looked at him with a fervent gentleness.
"You are wrong," she said. "You will go to your work again, with a
love and earnestness such as you have never known. You think my little
picture here is good, and so it is, because I have been taught the way
to do a thing; but I, with all my study, have never done and can never
do such a picture as the one you have made on this house. The spirit
and soul of creation has been born in you, and not in me. You have only
to learn how and you will be an artist. I have already learned how, and
I am only a workman. Listen," she went on eagerly, "I am going to stay
here all the summer, and I am going to give you a lesson every day. I
can teach you all I know, and if you do as well as I expect, you will,
after that, go to Munich and study, or to Paris. The time will come
when you will offer me your hand, and I shall not dare to take it, as
you have not dared now."
The group of peasants, now augmented by the arrival of two men, looked
on in astonishment. Florence, comprehending both their wonder and the
cause which had produced it, made a hasty explanation, and hurried
Ethel away, helping her to gather up her belongings and to express her
thanks.
Just as they were ready to go, the young girl, with a quick impulse,
held out her little canvas to Anton, saying impulsively:
"I will give it to you. You can take it and study it carefully. It
may teach you something. When you are a great painter you shall give
me a picture of yours. And, remember, I shall expect you at the hotel
to-morrow, to arrange for your first lesson."
That was the way it began,—this intercourse between the two young
artists.
That evening, Ethel, looking more lovely than ever in a soft blue gown,
with her hair loose about her shoulders, sat alone in her room writing,
with a look of joy on her face. She wrote some of these sheets every
evening, and sent them off by post, twice a week. She had written
several pages with rapidity, and now paused and read them over with a
look on her face which showed how much her own subject interested her.
She took up her pen and went on:
"Now that I have described to you my wonderful young painter and his
really remarkable mural work, I must tell you about his painting on
the little wooden head-boards in the church-yard. Such a picturesque
little church it is, perched on a steep cliff, overlooking the lovely
valley through which the river winds, and beyond which the great
mountains rise immeasurably high! There is a cunning priest's house
near the church, with a fascinating old sun-dial on its walls (one
never sees a clock here). This little house is also founded upon a
rock—but, oh, how barren and empty it looks! and how lonely! You would
be filled with pity to see it! The church-yard is the tawdriest thing
you can imagine, with the graves hung about with bead flowers, faded
immortelles, and as many little images, and medals, and crosses as can
be got together; but the awful thing is the head-boards! These are made
of wood and every one is decorated with a picture of the departed and
his family, the living members of which are kneeling around his dying
bed, while the dead ones appear in a bank of clouds above. The horrible
distortion of these figures, and the grotesqueness of both the earthly
and heavenly garments, is something ghastly—and yet I could single out,
every time, those painted by my young Anton, by that truly wonderful
feeling and aspiration. Oh, I shall be proud of my pupil yet—and
already his feeling for his teacher amounts to veneration. (You, sir,
have never looked at me with such worshipful eyes, in your life!) I
gave him his first lesson to-day, and it was a thrilling experience! He
is going to take to it like a duck to water, and his love for beauty is
absolutely touching. I saw him looking, with a sort of hungry delight,
at the opal in my ring (my _dear_ ring!) Its marvellous color
changes were an evident feast to him. Oh, I am so glad Providence
guided me to this place. My Anton is such an interest and impulse
onward to me, and will help to beguile the long, weary, desolate, empty
days—until you come!"
In due time there came an answer to this letter, and, in turn, an
answer to that. And meanwhile every day Anton received a painting
lesson, and advanced by strides. It was a deliriously happy life into
which he had entered, and he seemed to others, and still more to
himself, to be new made. The glow of health which came into his cheeks,
and of fire into his eyes, made the strong young peasant suddenly
develop a radiant beauty, which was so striking and extraordinary that
Ethel could not resist such a model, and set to work to paint him.
She made a spirited and beautiful study of him on a small canvas,
painting him full length, in his Tyrolean costume, with the black
pointed hat, ornamented with its proud group of rare and perilously
purchased little feathers, for Anton was a sportsman as well as an
artist, and had won these trophies by his own skill and daring, and
many was the votive offering, so procured, which he laid at his young
teacher's feet. It was but natural that he should wish to make some
return for the hours of patient instruction which she daily bestowed
upon him.
So thought Ethel, but did her correspondent, perhaps, have, some other
idea?
One day she got a letter from him which contained this paragraph:
"You want me to explain why it is that I always refer to your pupil
as 'poor Anton!' It is truly because I pity him,—you most bewitching
of women! My own blessed ownership of you makes my heart gentle to
the rest of men—even including lowly Tyrolean peasants, who are, by
circumstances, quite removed from you. And I wondered if it were only
the dear opal ring which he looked at so hungrily that day. Do not
forget that it is far less beautiful than the hand which wears it. In
short, my own child, I would wish to put you a little on your guard—for
this poor Anton's sake!"