for a fear was in Ethel's heart which she had never known before. Anton
had lately been engaged in doing a portrait of her, and while she posed
for him she gave him lessons. The ardor which she had thrown into this
piece of work and the extraordinary success he was having with it came
to Ethel's mind now with a new and disturbing significance.
Next morning she got Florence to go to Anton with a message to say
that she was not well and could not pose for him, so that he would
have to work without her that day, in the little studio which they had
improvised.
"But how can he work without his model?" asked Florence.
"Oh, he can go on with the hair to-day. I gave him a great lock of mine
yesterday to paint from, when I had to leave. I wish I hadn't!" she
added, with a tone of sudden compunction.
Florence returned from her mission to say that Anton had decided not
to paint at all that day, and was full of concern for his teacher's
illness. But again the next day Ethel did not go, but remained in her
room writing page after page of one of those long letters. Anton passed
her window and looked up at her. His face was flushed and eager, and
very beautiful. In spite of all this, however, Ethel gave him a more
formal bow than he had ever received from her before. He had become
"poor Anton" to her also, now, and she was doing her best to manifest
her true sympathy for him.
The next morning when Ethel failed to come again, Anton went hunting.
Florence, who saw him just as he was setting out, learned that he was
going in search of a certain bird, whose wings Ethel had once expressed
a wish to have for a hat. The capture of these birds was a somewhat
dangerous enterprise, and when Ethel heard where he had gone she felt a
vague alarm.
* * * * *
All this was long ago.
Now, when tourists go to the Oetzthal, as they do in far greater
numbers than they did then, one of the sights pointed out is a certain
_andenken_, high up the mountain side, done with an exquisite art,
which separates it conspicuously from the rest of its class.
It has two sides. One is a fine portrait of a young Tyrolean peasant—a
model of fresh and vigorous beauty,—and the other is a representation
of the very spot on which it stands—not covered with verdure and
flowers, however, but with a great mass of sliding snow, whose terrific
rush downward is depicted with the power of a master hand.
Underneath there are a few words in German and in English, asking the
passer-by to pray for the repose of the soul of Anton Wald.
It was painted, the tourist is told, by a young American lady, who
spent a summer at Oetz, and was married immediately afterward. She
had given painting lessons to the young peasant, and had left this
_andenken_ of him.
No record exists of the additional facts that when Anton's body was
found the coveted bird was in his hand, and that in a little silk bag
around his neck was a fair tress of shining hair.
This _andenken_ Ethel carries in her heart.
The Man from Maine.
BY J. D. ELLSWORTH.
AS a Westerner, I was amused by the discreet sinfulness of Boston; but
when business called me to Maine, our down-east sister, whose temperate
example is always held before our eyes, I felt that I was about to set
foot on the stepping-stone of heaven. To provide against the serpent
that must inevitably haunt such an Eden, I filled my pocket flask with
the standard Western remedy for snake bites.
The train left the Union Station at nine in the morning, and
anticipating a stupid ride I went into the smoking-car to enjoy a cigar
and read my newspaper. The car was fitted up with mahogany card tables
and stationary cribbage boards. In the seats in front of me were three
traveling men.
"Play euchre?" said one of them, looking toward a lean, lanky stranger.
"Does it cost anything?"
"Not a cent."
"Well, then, I guess I'll come in," and he opened himself like a
jack-knife and strolled to his place. His thin, freckled face looked as
if it had been carved with a chisel, and his clothes were economically
cut to save cloth. Altogether, he had an air of Yankee thrift that
might suggest to a cynical observer that he had taken the rear seat to
save the interest on his fare while the conductor was making his way
through the car. There was a chill about him that suggested a diet of
ice-water, and when he cut the cards I half expected that they would be
frost-bitten by his touch.
As the train rushed over bridges and through suburban cities the
novelty of my surroundings so engrossed my attention that I did not
notice the card-players again until I heard the lean stranger say:
"I guess I'm going to be real sick. I never had such a fearful pain
before in all my life."
He put his hand on the pit of his stomach, and there were sharp
lines in his face that indicated intense agony. The dealer looked up
sympathetically, and his partner said:
"I've got a little something with me from Kentucky. Perhaps it might do
you good."
"I come from Maine," said the stranger, "and we don't drink rum down
there. But, as a medicine, I might take a few drops, if you don't think
it would go to my head."
The drummers assured him that something warming was just what he
needed, and a bottle was brought forth. The man from Maine took a
drink, cleared his throat, and seemed better at once. Then the game
went on.
Lounging back in my seat and watching the dissolving panorama of
snow-bound villages, I ruminated on the incident. It was impossible
not to pity the people of Maine, whose strict prohibition principles
deprived them of the gracious influence of a little stimulant in cases
of sudden illness.
At Lynn I was reminded of the euchre players as one of the drummers got
out and another passenger took his place. The last comer carried a gun
case and was dressed for a hunting trip. When we reached Salem at 9.35
the two remaining drummers left. The lean stranger and the sportsman
found two new partners and continued playing.
As I had finished my cigar and exhausted my newspaper, I tried to amuse
myself by watching the game. When the cards were passed to the lean
stranger he shook his head and pushed them over to his partner.
"Deal for me," he groaned; "I've got an awful pain in my side. It seems
like pneumonia, but it may pass in a minute."
The group looked solicitous, and the sportsman, taking a black bottle
from the pocket of his hunting-bag, said:
"Take some of this, man; you musn't fool with a pain like that."
"I come from the State of Maine," said the sufferer, "and I'm opposed
to strong drink. But, rather than delay the game, gentlemen, I'll take
a little as medicine."
"Of course; it's the only thing to do," interrupted the other players.
The man from Maine put the bottle to his lips, and then coughed and
said that he didn't know whether the liquor did it, but that he
certainly felt better.
At the town of Newburyport the lanky representative of the Pine Tree
State was left alone at the card table. I was becoming interested in
him. As we crossed the bridge over the Merrimac I lost sight of him for
a moment, but when the train had passed the State line I walked forward
in the car. My invalid friend was playing seven-up with a swarthy
stranger.
Dropping into a seat, I patiently waited for developments. We were due
to reach Portsmouth at 10.40. I looked at my watch from time to time
and then at the man from Maine. I saw that he began to get uneasy. His
face showed signs of suffering and he coughed violently. He went from
one spasm into another until it seemed that he could not recover his
breath.
The brakeman brought some water in a tin cup. The suffering man
motioned him away, gasping, "I wouldn't dare (cough) to take water
(cough); it makes it worse."
The swarthy stranger drew from his grip a pocket flask and handed it to
the sufferer. The spasmodic cough ceased for a moment, and a familiar
voice said:
"My friend, I hail from the State of Maine and believe in total
abstinence. I can't take a drink, but I'll just swallow a few drops as
medicine."
We rolled into Portsmouth as he handed back the half-emptied bottle.
There were tears in his eyes, but his cough was stopped.
When we reached North Berwick it seemed as if the very air was
different. It was Maine air and evidently agreed with the man who
claimed that State as his home. He settled himself in the corner of a
lonely seat and figured industriously on both sides of an envelope.
The car was almost deserted after we left Biddeford, and another change
came over the unfortunate representative of prohibition. In a very
low tone he asked a question of the conductor, who replied by shaking
his head decidedly. Then the man from Maine went forward into the
baggage car and returned with a pale, haggard face. I wondered how his
complaint would develop. Perhaps it was smallpox or measles by this
time.
A glance at my watch assured me that the sun had passed the meridian.
Bringing out the flask I had filled at Boston, and unscrewing the top,
I said, "Stranger, will you join me?"
"Thanks, very much," he replied; "I am a Maine man—"
As the train slowed up at Portland, the remainder of his sentence was
drowned in the gurgling sound of liquor that flowed gently and smoothly
as in a familiar channel.
[Illustration]
A Wedding Tombstone.
BY CLARICE IRENE CLINGHAN.
SO you never heard tell of Melindy Barbour's weddin' tombstone?"
said grandma in a tone of surprise. "For the land's sake, I thought
everybody knew about that."
I confessed the most abject ignorance and immediately drew up to the
fire. This was partly to gain information and partly because, although
the fireplace was wide and deep throated and big logs were blazing in
it, there were biting draughts of stinging November air coming in at
the loosely fitting door. For grandmother would not be persuaded to
leave the home that had been hers for fifty years, and which now showed
some signs of decay. She sat knitting vigorously by the firelight, for,
although she had all the modern conveniences of heating and lighting,
her big fireplace cast its ruddy glow out into the room through all the
long winter evenings. I was an angular schoolgirl of fifteen then, with
a great love of the romantic, and was on a four weeks' visit at the
old homestead. It seemed never to occur to grandma that, having been
raised in a different part of the country, the happenings at Ragged
Corner (where she lived) would naturally be unknown to me. She always
expressed fresh surprise at my ignorance on these subjects. After
knitting a few minutes in silence, she began:
"You've seen the old stone house down on the bank of the river, all
shut in with pines and evergreens? It's nigh a hundred years old. When
I was born it had been built ten years. When I was a young married
woman the Barbours came to live there, and they was proud, high-feelin'
people that nobody could get acquainted with. That's what made 'em
take it so dretful hard when—but here I am, way ahead of my story. You
see, Mr. Barbour embezzled or did something of that kind, and went to
prison. After he had been there a year he up and hung himself, and that
is the last of him so far as my story goes.
"Then his wife and little boy shut themselves up in the stone house and
never went outside the gate hardly. She'd had a good deal of schooling,
his mother had, and she taught him herself as long as she could, and
then he bought books and studied by himself. He tried going to school
when he was a small boy, but one of the scholars threw it at him about
his father, and Mortimer nearly killed him, and after that his mother
kep' him home. And she was such a proud woman, was Mis' Barbour, and
lofty and severe in her ways. She wouldn't let nobody sympathize with
her, which everybody wanted to, as there's so little going on in a
place like Ragged Corner. Mis' Barbour was real selfish with her grief,
so she got herself disliked, besides folks bein' suspicious after the
way her husband turned out. What did they live on? Oh, the boy farmed
it, and later they do say he wrote books on what they call natural
history, though to my mind it was the most unnatural stuff I ever heard
tell of,—all about beetles and bugs with three hundred muscles in their
heads, and as could carry twelve hundred times their own weight on
their own backs, which everybody knows he must have got up as he went
along. They were dretfully taken up with each other, he and his mother,
and she believed everything he said was so, even about the bugs and
beetles. But she was his own born mother, and that explains it.
"When she died, Mortimer liked to went crazy. He planted her grave with
vi'lets and pansies, and at the head was a white marble monument he
had gone to the city for—nothing nearer would suit him. But he didn't
display no taste. Nothing on it, my dear, but the old lady's name and
the date she died—not an angel, nor a cherub, or a lamb, or a broken
rosebud, nor a bit of verse. And yet he always seemed to set store by
her.
"Then Mortimer, he just stuck to the old house, same as ever, though
now he was alone. I used to wonder how it seemed to him late at night
hearin' the swash of the river and the sighin' of them pine trees. He
wore his hair long, as was the custom in them days, and it was curly up
at the ends, like the picture of John Wesley. But he had eyes that went
right through you and came out the back of your head. And he never set
foot into the meeting-house, nohow.
"Now, he was the last man in the village I'd ever said would got
married. But as sure as you set there, when the little milliner,
Melinda McAllister, came into the place, he was struck. That wasn't
nothing strange—all the young fellows was—but, mind you, _she was
struck, too_. No, you wouldn't 'a' thought it. Everybody warned her,
and told her about his father's hangin' himself in prison, and how
queer his mother was, and that Mortimer was as odd as Dick's hatband
and wouldn't come to no good. She listened, with her eyes big and cool
and a little hot patch of red on her cheeks like a daub of paint, but
she never said a word. That was Melindy McAllister all over, never to
say a blessed word, but go and do just as she saw fit. First we knew
they was engaged, and it was given out in meeting. Next day her aunt
she lived with came in to see me, and wrung her hands, sayin' she
wouldn't be surprised if Melindy was murdered before the year was out.
What can you think of a man who lives like a hermit, and had a crooked
father and a peculiar mother?
"But we wasn't prepared for the worst. A day or two before the wedding,
in comes old Mis' Johnson, and says, 'Shut up the doors tight,' says
she, 'and the winders. I've got something to tell you that'll make
your hair rise up,' she says, whisperin'-like. So I shut the door, she
a-workin' her hands together like one possessed. 'It's about Melindy,'
she went on. 'He's been and got a tombstone for her.' 'Who?' asked I,
as if I didn't know, but my knees knocked together and I felt a bit
sick. 'Mortimer Barbour,' says she. 'My grandson, Johnnie, was after
a bird's nest in a tree over in his yard. The limb broke, and down he
went right onto the roof of the old cornhouse, that hasn't been used
for years. It went in under him like tinder, and as soon as he could
pick himself up and found no bones broke, what should he see but a new
white gravestone, a-settin' up quite pert in a corner against some
rubbish. He went up to it, and he says as true as the Bible he saw
'Melinda Barbour' cut on it, and the date she is a-goin' to die.' 'I
don't believe it,' says I, but I was all a-faint, and had to go and
make us each a cup of tea, so we could bear up under it.
"As soon as I said I didn't believe it Mis' Johnson said we'd go
ourselves and _see_. And we did go, Mortimer bein' away in the
fields, and got into the cornhouse. It was towards dark, and we shook
with the cold, though it was a warm day in June. We'd brought a bit of
candle with us, and Mis' Johnson lit it, and then we saw—land sakes,
child, how scairt you look; don't get so near the fire, honey, you'll
be all ablaze. Where was I? Oh, we saw the stone, just as Johnnie
said, a real gravestone of white marble, and on it the name 'Melindy
Barbour,' with the date 'Sept. 5, 18—,' below it. But the rest we
couldn't make out. 'He's going to let her live three months, may heaven
forgive him,' says old Mis' Johnson, meanin' different from what she
said.
"The next day I went to Melindy, and told her the whole truth. And
would you believe it, she said she thought Mis' Johnson and I had no
business prying about other people's affairs? 'If he had bought me a
thousand gravestones I'd have him just the same,' says she. So they was
married the next day in the meeting-house, but Melindy was white as a
ghost, and she trembled so she could hardly walk. They went right away
on the cars, and we threw some old shoes after 'em, but all the wishin'
of joy was make believe, and I never saw a bride with such a white, set
face, never looking at her husband nor yet at us.
"They was away nearly three months; then they came back to the old
house. But folks said they wasn't happy, that she was as cold as a
stone, and he was always at his books and old insects. One day I got a
letter askin' me to come and see her. She was lyin' down on a lounge
when I got there, white and so thin, with big eyes with a sorry, hungry
look in 'em. But she had on a smart gown, and was as pretty as a
picture. As soon as we'd shaken hands and I'd taken off my bonnet and
mantilla, she says, 'Do you know what day to-morrow is?' Then I thought
it up, and said it was the 5th of September. 'The day I am to die,' she
says in a soft, quiet way. Then I up and asked her if Mortimer had been
ill-treatin' her, but she put up her finger, and said, 'Not a word to
my husband; he doesn't know I know it.' Then she said he was awful good
to her, but she couldn't get that gravestone out of her head day or
night. All at once it came to me how matters was; she'd been too proud
to give him up, besides her likin' him, too; and she'd been too proud
to tell him about it; and so betwixt the two the poor child was almost
beat out. She asked if I would go out to the cornhouse with her to see
the stone. She wanted to see it and was afraid to go alone.
"Then a queer thing happened. Mortimer had come into the next room
while she'd been talkin', and heard every word. I never saw anybody so
stirred up as he was when he came in. 'Is that tombstone what has stood
between us?' he said, and went on to explain that it had been ordered
for his mother. He was such a bad writer that the stone cutter mistook
the name Malviny for Melindy, and after the stone was half done it
was found out, and they made him pay for it. So, as it was his, they
brought it to him, and, not knowin' what to do with it, he'd just set
it up in the cornhouse and forgot all about it. Melindy, she began to
cry, and then they fell to huggin' and kissin' each other, as if they
hadn't met for years. I tried to put in a word to ca'm 'em, but they
saw me without seeing me, and heard me without hearing me, so I put on
my bonnet and mantilla and came away and left 'em.
"After that? Dear me, they was the happiest couple you ever saw. They
used the gravestone for a front doorstep, wrong side up, and it was
real pretty. Melindy was dretful proud of him, and believed every word
he wrote about them bugs and beetles, just as his mother did, which
only goes to show that the old sayin' is true, that love is blind."
[Illustration]
The Other One.
BY A. H. GIBSON.
I NEVER recall it without shuddering, though it happened over thirty
years ago.
I was then a young man, occupying a position of trust in the banking
firm of Dillard & Hatch. One day I was sent to carry five thousand
dollars in gold to Caleb Parton, a very eccentric man living in an
isolated house in a wild, hilly part of West Virginia.
Parton was the bank's heaviest depositor, and his wealth was said to
aggregate a half million. The day before, his servant, a large negro,
had appeared at the bank with a message requesting Dillard to send him
eight thousand dollars in gold. He arranged that I was to be the one
to carry the amount to him, and further suggested that I should make
the trip in a wagon, so that I could take back a cask of rare old wine,
which he begged to be permitted to present to the firm.
It was a hard journey over rough, stony roads, which were seldom
traveled, except by the plodding mountain folk of that region; and
not until two hours after sunset did I reach the queer stone dwelling
where Caleb Parton lived a hermit-like existence, shut away from all
the world. The place was a lonely one, in the heart of an uninhabited,
hilly tract of country covered with extensive forests.
I was impressed with the deepest sense of this loneliness, as I drew
rein before the solitary stone house. Hitching the horse to a tree, I
was guided up the indistinct path by a meager, yellowish light that
struggled through the panes of an upstairs window.
Although I knocked loudly at the door, it was fully ten minutes before
I heard any sound within. Then, half cautiously, the thick oaken door
opened, and a dark-faced, wiry man, somewhere between fifty and sixty,
looked out at me.
"Who are you?" he demanded.
"Hope, of the firm of Dillard & Hatch," I returned.
"Ah! It's you, come at last, is it?" he said, holding the lighted
candle so as to get a better view of my face. "Well, come in, Mr. Hope."
He led the way up a flight of stairs and through a hall into a wide
room, lighted by a brass lamp. The furniture was scant, but of a heavy,
antique pattern. A faded Brussels carpet covered the floor, and in one
corner stood a desk with a small iron safe near by. A narrow table in
the center of the room held a decanter and glasses with the remnants of
a lunch.
Motioning me to a chair, my strange host took the sacks of gold, which
I carried in a stout bag, and threw them against the safe. The clang of
the falling coins sounded dismally through the silent apartment.
"What a curse love and gold can be to a man!"
He spoke bitterly. I had never met Caleb Parton before, and as he
uttered these words I looked at him carefully. His face was of a dark
olive tint, while his deep-set eyes were small and intensely black.
They were full of magnetism and subtle cunning.
He became conscious of my scrutiny, frowned a little, then turned
toward the door.
"If you'll excuse me, Mr. Hope," he said, "I'll bring you up some
refreshments. You must be tired and hungry after your long ride."
In a short time he returned, bringing a tray on which was a choice
repast, with a bowl of strong coffee.
"You see I'm my own servant, Mr. Hope," he said, putting the tray on
the table. "My man, Joe, is off to a camp-meeting and won't be back
before daylight."
As I ate the lunch which Caleb Parton had brought me, he emptied the
gold from the sacks upon the floor and counted it over carefully.
"Correct!" I heard him chuckle to himself, as he flung the refilled
sacks into the safe.
After I had finished my lunch, Parton exhibited two fine pipes and
invited me to join him in a smoke.
"Excuse my oversight. There's not a drop of wine left in this
decanter," he said, after examining it.
"No matter," I returned. "I never drink wine."
"Tut, tut, man! you miss half your life. Now, I have a very choice
collection of wines. Come, I'll give you a peep at my vaults."
He arose as he spoke and took up a candle. I had no interest whatever
in wines, but I accompanied him.
Descending to the lower hallway, we passed through a long, dreary room,
then down narrow stone steps into a capacious cellar, walled on every
side with heavy masonry.
The place was damp and musty. Dust and cobwebs covered the casks and
bottles that littered the whole end of the cellar. My host did not halt
till we reached a heavy iron door fastened with a large, rusty padlock.
I noticed a demoniacal expression on Parton's face, as he held the
light close enough to the lock to examine it.
"No, it's never been meddled with," he remarked with a chuckle. "Ten
years is a very long time for a man to live on wine—but he was very
fond of wine—very—ha, ha!"
I looked at Parton in amazement, much puzzled as to the import of his
strange words and manner.
He turned to me with a quick gesture.
"A thousand pardons!" he said. "You think my actions strange. But—shall
I?—" a wild flash in his eyes. "Yes, Mr. Hope, you shall have the
story. I must tell it to some one. It's too good to keep. Ha, ha!"
"Take a seat," he continued, pushing a cask towards me, upon which I
dropped, not certain that I was not in the presence of a madman.
Taking up a bottle, he brushed the cobwebs from it, then, breaking off
the neck, passed it to me, saying: