IN THE SHADOW OF THE GREAT WHITE MESA.
For many hours Todd Chalmers slept heavily and dreamlessly, like one who
will never again awaken. He had wandered blindly with reeling steps for
some time after losing a consciousness of his surroundings, and had thus
unwittingly penetrated a deep cleft of the great white wall that was the
last thing upon which his despairing gaze had rested. At the inner end
of this recess he stumbled and fell over a fragment of rock. There he
lay through the long night in what was, to all appearance, his last
sleep.
That it was not was owing wholly to his youth and the wonderful vitality
of a splendid constitution. Not more than one person in a thousand would
have lived to see another daylight under the circumstances; but our lad
was that one, and at length he began to show signs of returning life. He
moaned, shivered, and finally opened his eyes. For many minutes he lay
motionless, striving to remember what had happened and where he was.
At length he slowly and painfully sat up. His head ached as though it
would split, his eyes were blurred, his lips and tongue were swollen,
and his limbs were heavy as lead. Still, his long rest, together with
the chill of the night just passed, had restored him to life and to a
certain degree of strength.
Now, with the encouragement of even a slight amount of hope, he would be
ready to renew his struggle against the death that had so nearly
overpowered him.
Thus thinking, Todd withdrew his eyes from the picture of glistening
desolation disclosed through the narrow entrance of the cavern, and
began listlessly to examine his more immediate surroundings. Slowly his
gaze roved over the hopeless walls of rock, that rose so high as to be
lost in gloom, and it was not until he had turned so as to look squarely
behind him that he found anything to arrest his attention. Then his
curiosity was aroused by a gleam of reflected light coming from beyond
and over a rocky barrier that formed a rear wall of the cavern. This
barrier did not appear to be more than ten or twelve feet high, while
above it was an open space of a few feet more, through which streamed
the light that indicated an opening of some kind beyond.
Whatever might lie in that direction, it could not be worse than the
desert over which he had come, and it might be better. Of course that
was not at all likely, for he did not believe there was anything but
desert in that country. Still, it was worth investigating, and as Todd
did not feel strong enough to stand, he crawled painfully to the barrier
and up its easy slope.
[Illustration: HE GAZED LONG BEFORE HE COULD BELIEVE.]
Arrived at the top, and looking through the opening, he was greeted by a
sight so amazing that he gazed at it for nearly a minute in breathless
incredulity before he could believe in its reality. Instead of the
desert that he had expected, it seemed as though the very gates of
heaven had been suddenly opened to him.
Outspread before his astonished eyes was one of the loveliest valleys in
the world, filled with flowers, green grass, and waving trees. It was
not more than half a mile in width, and was bounded on the further side
by another lofty wall of white rock, similar to the one he had just
penetrated. The same wall extended entirely around the upper end of the
valley, which Todd could see on his left, though to the right it
stretched away beyond his range of vision, still enclosed by parallel
walls of sheer cliffs. Though most of it still lay in cool shadow,
certain portions of the verdant landscape were already sparkling in the
morning sunlight, and from all sides came the joyous song of birds. No
smoke rose from any part of the valley that he could see, neither was
there any sign of human habitation nor sound of voices. All was as fresh
and peaceful as though it were a new creation; but even if he had been
confronted by opposing ranks of enemies, Todd would not have hesitated
to scramble down the opposite slope and enter what still seemed to him
the vale of enchantment. Its abounding verdure indicated the presence of
water, for which our poor lad was longing so desperately that he would
have thrown away life itself in an effort to obtain it.
He had already regained the use of his limbs, and after a minute of
gazing, amazed and incredulous, he started in search of the life-giving
fluid, instantly forgetful of feebleness, aches, pains, and everything
else save the awful thirst by which he was choked. So concentrated were
his thoughts upon this one subject that he failed to realize that he was
following a distinctly marked pathway. Such was the fact, however, and
after a hundred yards it led him to the edge of that most beautiful
thing in all the world, especially when found in a land of deserts, a
spring of pure cool water. It bubbled up from a bed of exquisitely
colored sand, and was neatly walled about with rock.
It was fortunate that Todd plunged his whole head into the spring in his
frantic eagerness to drink of its water, for he was compelled to
withdraw it, gasping for breath before he had drunk a tenth part of what
he craved. Much as he longed to drink, and drink until he could hold no
more, he had sense enough to realize the danger of such a proceeding,
and the strength of will to restrain himself. So he only lay beside the
delicious spring, bathing his face and dabbling his hands in it, taking
moderate drinks at half-minute intervals, and feeling with each one a
new life coursing through his veins.
For an hour he remained thus in perfect contentment, devoutly thankful
for his wonderful deliverance from an awful death, and gaining strength
with every minute. Then the sensation of thirst gave way to that of
hunger. He had not thought of it before, but now he knew that he was
starving, and must eat something, even if it were only grass. So he
stood up and looked about him, recognizing for the first time that he
had followed a trail which still extended beyond the spring, beside a
stream that rippled merrily from it toward the centre of the valley.
Looking in that direction, Todd caught glimpses through the trees of a
pool or pond fed by the stream, and toward it he now made his way.
Although in the desperation of thirst he had rushed recklessly forward
in search of water, he now proceeded with all the caution that his
hunger would permit. The path that he was following and the artificial
walling of the spring indicated so plainly the presence of human beings
in the valley that he could not neglect the warning thus conveyed. "Of
course," he argued to himself, "none but Indians could live in so
isolated and out-of-the-world place as this, and while they might prove
friendly, the chances are that they might shoot in the flurry of a
sudden discovery. So I'll try and see them before giving them a chance
to see me."
Advancing thus slowly, and peering eagerly ahead, he had gone but a
short distance, when he was startled by the sight of a house, or rather
a stone hut, only a short distance in front of him, and near the pool he
had already noticed. For several minutes he stood motionless, regarding
it closely; then, as it presented no sign of being occupied, he moved
cautiously forward until he could command a view of its doorway, which
was closed by a curtain of skins. The walls of the hut were low, and a
stone chimney projected from its roof of coarse thatch.
It did not look to our lad exactly like an abode of Indians, nor yet
like that of a white man, and he wondered what race of people would
greet him when his presence should be discovered. He called twice,
"Hello the house!" but receiving no answer, stepped softly to the door
and looked in. The hut was empty, and Todd drew the curtain well back,
so as to obtain plenty of light for an examination of its interior.
A fireplace, a rude table, two equally rude stools, a bunk filled with
skins, and also a few earthenware vessels of crude design constituted
its sole furniture. The young explorer examined these things carefully,
in the hope of discovering something to eat; but, to his intense
disappointment, he did not find so much as a kernel of corn. Nor could
he learn anything concerning those to whom the hut belonged. Everything
was sufficiently primitive to be the work of Indians, and yet he had
seen equally rude furnishings in the cabins of certain white men whom he
had remembered.
That the hut had been recently occupied was shown by fresh ashes in the
fireplace, and by a jug of water that stood on the table. Who could its
owners be? What had become of them? How would they treat him when they
discovered his invasion of their premises? And where did they store all
their provisions?--were questions that the boy asked himself over and
over again. Above all, what was he to do for something to eat? For he
was now suffering almost as much from hunger as he had from thirst an
hour before. As he gazed moodily at the cold embers of the fireplace,
deliberating these questions, he was startled by the sound of feet just
outside the hut, and a voice, apparently that of a child, calling
plaintively for its mother.
"The folks have come home," he said to himself, "and in another minute
my fate will be decided." At the same time he stepped resolutely to the
doorway and looked out.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
[Illustration: STANDARDS IN MODERN LITERATURE
EDMUND GOSSE]
A few months ago one of the youngest of the group of eccentric writers
who call themselves "Symbolists" was paying a visit to London. The
conversation in a drawing-room happened to run on the province of the
Franche-Comté, and the guest remarked, as a curious circumstance, that
no poet had ever come from that part of France. Somebody ventured to
murmur the name of Victor Hugo. "Ah! sir," replied the young Symbolist,
with a charming air of deprecation, "but we don't consider Victor Hugo a
poet!" It is obvious that, for the present at least, this particular
expression of opinion will remain rare; it was conceived in the very
foppery of paradox, of course. But it is quite conceivable that such a
judgment might spread, might become common, might become authoritative
and universal. To our generation, at all events, Victor Hugo has
appeared to be the typical poet; he and Tennyson have been named side by
side as the very types of the imaginative creator, as purveyors of
inexhaustible poetic pleasure. That is what we have all thought; but
suppose that our grandchildren determine to think the opposite, what is
to be done? Manifestly we shall be too old to whip them and too weary to
argue with them. If they decide that Victor Hugo was not a poet, that
Dickens was not amusing, that Hawthorne wrote bad novels, we shall have
to go, indignant, to our tombs, but our indignation will not convert the
younger generation.
So far as the history of the world has yet proceeded, the standards in
literature have not been overturned in this rapid and revolutionary
manner. But nowadays, if things once begin to move, they move fast, and
we must be prepared for changes. In the parallel art of painting we have
seen the most violent and apparently the most final reversals of the
standards. It is very difficult to believe that various schools of art
which have enjoyed great popularity in the course of the present
century, and have fallen, will ever be revived. I had an uncle who
purchased the works of Mr. Frost, R.A., and a very bad bargain it has
proved to his family. Nothing is so deathly cold as the public interest
to-day in Frost; his brown satyrs and his wax-white nymphs, with
floating pink scarfs insufficiently concealing them, are not worth
sixpence now. We do not, as I have said, see these violent upheavals in
literature yet. No author who was praised and valued when Hilton or
Frost or George Jones were thought to be great masters of painting has
passed so utterly out of repute as they have. Hitherto, if a man of
letters has contrived to secure a certain amount of respect, the public
interest in him may dwindle, but it never quite disappears. Every now
and then somebody "revives" him, his poems are reprinted and praised,
his correspondence is published, he is respectfully admitted to have
been "somebody."
The first standard in literary matters is, obviously, excellence in
execution. In other words, to write singularly well, and to be
recognized as doing so, is to achieve fame, though not necessarily
popularity. But in using the word "standard" we accept the idea, not
merely of individual excellence, but of comparison with others. In
coinage, for instance, that is called the standard which unites in what
is practically found to be the most useful combination the elements of
precise weight and fineness. Again, there is a technical sense in which
a "standard" is a type of which all other measures or instruments of the
same kind must be exact copies. In yet another signification a standard
is an ensign or flag carried on high in front of a marching army for its
encouragement and stimulus. We have to consider in what degree, and how,
without forcing language, we can form a conception of a literary
standard of excellence in style which shall unite these various
definitions.
The precision of the eighteenth century offers us a very clear example
of the way in which the first of these ideas can be adapted to literary
illustration. When it was determined by universal consent to bind all
poetical writing down to set laws, and what was supposed to be the
precept of Aristotle, there was at first no modern standard of style.
The great object was to emulate the Latin poets; but as these writers
had used not merely another language, but other prosodical effects, a
different order of moral ideas, and totally distinct imagery, it was
necessary to find a modern substitute for imitation. Various English
poets wrote with force, but they lacked delicacy; others had fineness,
but with an insufficiency of weight. At length Pope came, who accepted
the theories of style which were current in his day, and acted upon them
with a more perfect balance of the qualities they demanded than any one
had done before him or has done since. The best parts of Pope's
writings, therefore, created a standard, and one which was of paramount
influence for nearly a century.
Again, those who invent forms of writing which are accepted by the world
of letters as valuable additions to what we may call the tools of the
author's trade, create standards in the second sense of the word. There
does not appear to be an indefinite degree to which these forms can be
created, and when once perfected they often remain for centuries
unaltered. For instance, when an early Tuscan poet, of the age of Dante,
invented the sonnet as we now possess it, he made a thing which has been
proved to be the best possible of its sort. Ingenious people, in various
languages, for centuries past, have tried to alter the form of the
sonnet, to add to it, to retrench it; all their suggestions have proved
vain, and it remains, in the best hands, exactly what its old Italian
maker devised it in a moment of inspiration. In a lesser degree, the
forms of prose are the result of invention and adaptation, and can be
referred back, more or less indefinitely, to a standard or type. Thus
the short story has certain limitations of length and character which
distinguish it from a novel or a play or a lecture, and in discussing
the merits of an example of this species of literature, we unconsciously
hold before our minds a norm or ideal of what a short story should be.
If we speak of it as highly successful, we think of it as a close copy
in form of a typical short story which should be universally
acknowledged as the best in every technical respect.
The third definition of a standard is one which may without difficulty
be applied to literature, but which is really a little more dangerous to
deal with than the preceding. If the standard is to be an ensign or flag
carried at the head of an army, we are confronted with an idea which is
less durable than those which we have considered. For if the army
marches with drums and trumpets, and all flags flying, it may not only
march to defeat instead of victory, but it may alter its direction, and
march back with no less pomp and noise than it marched forward. In these
conditions, its ensigns, instead of representing a fixed purpose, may be
the standards of irresolution and vacillation. We can find an exact
literary parallel for this in European taste in the seventeenth century.
The cleverness and fancy of writers, in prose and verse, and almost in
every country, led them to adopt methods of writing which strained to
the utmost the powers of language. Poetry, instead of being content to
walk and run, turned somersaults on the trapeze. As long as this was
done by very graceful and nimble intellectual athletes it gave great
pleasure, and the world of letters seemed marching to victory under this
ensign of imaginative acrobatism. But it speedily proved to have been a
mistake; the graceful athletes gave place to grotesque contortionists,
and the army of writers retreated in confusion, but slowly, doggedly,
and under the same standards of taste. There was no other way back to
health but to discard the existing ideals altogether; they were too
obstinately fixed in men's minds to make it possible to modify them.
If we are to form any opinion with regard to that question of the
literary standard, which democratic habits of thought tend to make every
day a more dangerous one, it is manifest that we must regard it from
these three points of view, or from a combination of them. The taste of
the public is a floating, a vague impression of an amateur body with
regard to a matter which is more precisely and sharply defined by a
consensus of experts. But the experts themselves are not united, and the
precision of their views only tends to darken counsel and reduce opinion
to chaos. Unhappily a piece of literature cannot be assayed mechanically
like a piece of coinage. Under the strictest rules that ever were
enacted and a régime the most academic conceivable, there will never be
anything like unanimity regarding the excellence of a literary product.
All we can hope to reach is a general agreement of the best-trained
minds, recurrent for so many generations as to become practically
durable.
Even in the most ancient cases, where it would be supposed that opinion
would finally have crystallized, we observe curious oscillations. Homer,
it is true, is accepted by all critics, in all nations, as the final
standard of what is admirable in heroic narrative poetry, and has for
centuries been so accepted. But what is the standard of Greek tragedy?
The study of classic criticism will show us that the standard has been
incessantly shifting from Æschylus to Sophocles and on to Euripides and
back again to Æschylus. If we wish to point to an authoritative type, we
must consider this triad as one, since no two generations agree as to
their comparative, though all to their positive merit. In like manner,
the relative value of Virgil and Theocritus, of Horace and Catullus, is
always shifting, according as the quality of the one or of the other
happens to appeal to one or to another habit of modern thought. Yet
antiquity obviously provides us with a standard of bucolic poetry, and
another of subjective and semi-social lyric, each of them settled now
beyond any probability of decay. People will go on preferring Theocritus
to Virgil, or Virgil to Theocritus, but no rational person is likely to
question again the excellence of the species of art of which these two
are the leading exponents. So there are those who prefer Dryden to Pope,
or Coleridge to Wordsworth, and to whom neither seem to present the
complete practitioner of a system. Yet no one denies, and it grows
increasingly probable that no one will ever deny, the authority of the
Pope-Dryden or of the Wordsworth-Coleridge standard of excellence, final
and unquestionable, in a particular department. Opinion, that is to say,
wavers as to the individual long after it has irrevocably accepted the
type.
In all consideration of the past we find ourselves securely guided by
the test of technical excellence. Nothing else has preserved the
principal writers of antiquity in esteem. Mr. Lowell called style "the
great antiseptic"; good writing, in other words, is the only chemical
product which can prevent literature from corrupting and fading away. In
the days of Shakespeare there were a dozen writers who had a just right
to consider themselves more "serious seekers after truth" than the
playwright of Stratford, for they discussed graver subjects and brought
forward a weightier array of facts. Their very names are now forgotten,
while his pages grow more brilliantly vital as the years pass on. The
fancy and tenderness of Shakespeare, the wit of Molière, the sublimity
of Milton, the wisdom of Goethe, are revealed to us and preserved for us
by their style, and without it would have sunk long ago in the ocean of
oblivion. Such phrases as "the matter is the important thing, not the
manner," "never mind how he says it, but find out what he has to
say"--which are common enough on the tongues and pens of those who have
secured no grace of delivery--are pure fallacies. Style is the
atmosphere without which what is written cannot continue to breathe; it
is the indispensable medium for rendering what a man has got to say
continuously audible to the world. These are truths which we might
suppose too obvious to need repetition, since the whole history of
literature proclaims them, yet so great is the natural love of slovenly
writing and vague thinking that this heresy about the matter being far
more important than the manner is incessantly recurring. It is needful,
once more, therefore, to say as plainly as possible that without a
distinguished and appropriate manner, that is to say, without style, no
"matter" will ever have the chance to reach posterity.
If once we resign this position as to the pre-eminent importance of
style we lose all means of measuring the standards of literature. As
long as excellence in writing is recognized as the main factor in the
formation of judgment, we are not likely to go very far wrong. We have
seen that those who permit themselves no other lamp than this may differ
as to the relative value of figures in a single group, but they unite in
their appreciation of that group itself. This is the case in the
criticism of ancient writers, and what other means have we of forming a
judgment about the moderns? As long as we are content to measure them as
we do their noble predecessors, we may make mistakes, but they will be
mistakes, not of principle, but only of detail. The moment that we allow
ourselves to believe that modern writing, the authorship of to-day, is
distinct in kind from that of the old masters, and can be measured by
different standards, we have resigned ourselves to a heresy, and are in
imminent peril of encouraging literary anarchy.
It is a mistake to be too yielding and shy in expressing a conviction
which has been gravely formed on serious grounds. Those who love the
more austere and splendid parts of literature will always find
themselves in a minority in every collection of persons. It is probable
that if the prestige of _Paradise Lost_ had to depend upon popular
suffrage, no majority of citizens in any part of the English-speaking
world would be willing honestly to admit that they admired it or could
read it with pleasure. That does not prevent it from being one of the
most glorious, most enviable and unique possessions of the race. On
questions of the literary standard it is the majority which is always
wrong. The majority likes a warm easy book, without pretension,
unambitiously written, on a level with the experience of the vast
semi-educated classes of our society. "One man, one vote," extended to
the domain of literary taste, would mean the absolute and final
extinction of all distinguished masterpieces.
But in every generation there is a remnant which occupies itself with
beauty and distinction. The individuals of this little group fight among
themselves about the details of excellence, but they guard, as in a pyx
or shrine, the primal idea of that excellence and a general sense of its
formal character. Outside this small class of experts there is a large
body of the public which recognizes its authority and is docile to its
directions. Again, outside is the vast concourse of persons competent to
read and write, but no more capable of forming an opinion than is the
dog that barks at their shadow or the discreeter cat that curls at their
fireside and says nothing. It has often occurred to me as a grave
speculation how long this vast dumb force of untrained readers will be
content to be silent. How long will they have the good nature to pretend
to respect the things which they cannot enjoy? Flattered as the average
man or woman is in these days, accustomed to hear the voice of democracy
praying for votes on every subject, how soon will the average reader
pluck up courage to say to himself, "I do not like the novels of
Thackeray nearly so much as I do those of E. P. Roe, and I do not intend
to allow anybody to persuade me that they are better?" Questioning the
standards of taste, refusing to bow to traditional canons of
criticism--this is the Red Spectre which I dread to see arise in the
midst of our millions of half-trained readers.
But the cure will probably come from the very nature of the disease. If
we put a dangerous power in the hands of the crowd by the infinite
facilities given nowadays to reading and the discussion of books, we
support the traditions of literature by giving unprecedented
opportunities to persons of native capacity to fortify themselves in the
truth. No boy, nowadays, in the whole English-speaking world, can wholly
refrain from indulgence in literary pleasures, if an appetite for such
enjoyments have been born in him. In some newspaper, in some cheap
reprint, that which is exquisite and final, that which is assimilated to
the inviolable standards of excellence, must meet his eye and be
accepted by him. The enemies of literature may become extremely
numerous; they will remain languid and blundering; its friends will be
always few, perhaps, but they will be ardent and active. That the good
tradition may be swamped for a time in some Commune of the intellect
seems to me very possible, but that it should be lost, that it should go
down altogether into the deeps of anarchical vulgarity, that, happily,
is not to be believed.
Meanwhile, every one who, however humbly, is devoted to what is nobly
and purely said in prose and verse, may do his or her part to prevent
even a temporary descent into barbarism. The only way to become
sensitive to what literary excellence is, is to study and re-study those
books which have stood the assaults of time, and are as fresh to-day as
when they were written. It is not to be expected that to any one taste
all these books, in their various classes, will appear equally
delightful. But it is from a wide acquaintance with these, and a
reverent and affectionate wish to discover their charm, that literary
appreciation grows. If once we are convinced that there is a standard,
that a well-written book is distinguishable from a dull and slovenly
one, that style is not a vain ornament, but as essential to literary
life as oxygen is to a human being, then, without affectation or
priggishness, every man may become a sober lover of the best, and may
feel that though certain specimens of literary work may go up and down
in public esteem, the central standards are firm and the laws of
intellectual beauty immutable.
[Illustration]
THE LAUGHY-MAN.
Ho, for the Laughy-Man! laughing all day,
Laughing the sunshiny hours away,
Laughing and kicking his little pink heels
Just to impress us with how good he feels!
Hey, for the Laughy-Man!
Ho, for his smiles!
Hail to the angels who taught him such wiles!
Ho, for the Laughy-Man! waking to play,
Waking to laugh at the first peep o' day,
Waking to churn up the blanket and sheet,
Like waves of the sea, with his fists and his feet!
Hey, for the Laughy-Man!
Ho, for his smiles!
Hail to the angels who taught him such wiles!
Ho, for the Laughy-Man! lying abed,
Lying there wagging his cherubin head,
Lying there, merry, a bundle of love
Sent to our home by the seraphs above!
Hey, for the Laughy-Man!
Ho, for his smiles!
Hail to the angels who taught him such wiles!
[Illustration: FOR SALE:--A WARRIOR
by Philip V. Mighels.]
There were seven kinds of Indians at the back of the largest hotel of
the Western town--dirty and dirtier, which is two; young and old, which
is four; male and female, making six; and one little clean pappoose.
This latter tiny bit of aboriginal humanity was a chubby, round-faced,
bright-eyed little tike, with the blackest of hair and the most bronze
of complexions. He was playing around alone inside a close high board
fence at the rear of the large hotel, his only shirt cut off at the
knees, displaying a fat brownish pair of dimpled legs that were warm
enough in spite of the fact of their bareness in the chilling air.
Presently around the corner came a trotting, smiling Chinaman, a vender
of vegetables. A long slender pole, carved flat and tapering toward the
ends, was balanced on his shoulder, and from either end, suspended by a
bridle composed of four strings, hung a huge bamboo basket.
As he halted within the gate of the high board fence he lightly swung
the receptacles to earth, rested his polished pole conveniently near,
lifted a mat containing the day's supplies for the cook within, and
carried it off to the kitchen.
Now it not very strangely befell that the vender of vegetables lingered
a time in the kitchen, for that exceedingly tempting and savory seat of
government was under the personal direction of another little yellow
man, who called his countryman "Wong," and gave him to drink of tea.
While the two engaged each other with inharmonious gutturals, a dusky
cranium and equally dusky countenance came poking out from another door.
Its owner was the negro porter, a grinning fellow, whose mania for jokes
of the "practical" description was developed to a degree positively
unhealthy. No sooner had he made himself certain that the yard was free
of observers, and occupied alone by the wee pappoose, than he stealthily
slipped from his place, and grabbed the scared little fellow by the tail
of his wholly inadequate shirt.
[Illustration]
The eyes of the miniature savage were apparently frozen wide open in an
instant, while paralysis made him utterly stoic and dumb. The Chinaman's
basket had a shallow tray in the top filled with beets; then an inside
receptacle, also shallow, filled with celery. Below this last were
cabbages, down in the bottom. These extra insides the negro quickly
lifted out with his unemployed hand; then a couple of the cabbages, as
large together as the wee pappoose, came forth with a jerk. In a second
more the silent Indian baby had been dropped within the basket, the
various trays had been properly replaced, and the darky had rapidly
hopped through the open door with his cabbages, doubling himself like a
nut-cracker and stretching his face in violent but silent laughter.
Out came Wong, beaming with the radiance of tea well swallowed. He
rearranged his pole, bent his stout Mongolian back, straightened up,
lifting his baskets, balanced them neatly, and trotted away with the
frightened baby Indian, but quite oblivious that such a lively vegetable
ever was grown.
Wong went singing up the street, or rather humming away about a "feast
of lanterns," and he thought on how soon he would be enabled to purchase
a wagon.
"Good-molling," he said, as he stopped at last at the rear of one of the
most imposing houses. "Velly fine molling."
"Good-morning, Wong. It's a little bit chilly," said a gray-haired woman
wearing glasses, rubbing her hands.
"Oh yeh, him feel lill bit chilly."
"What you got this morning?" she inquired.
"Oh, for callot, for cell'ly--velly nice for cell'ly--for turnip, for
squash, any kine." Then, as she hesitated, "potatoe?--for ahple?--for
cabbagee? Oh, lots um good kine, I tink."
She took a squash. "Did you say cabbage, Wong?"
"Oh yeh." He began at once to lift the tray. Next he hoisted forth the
shallow inside basket and reached for a cabbage.
[Illustration]
"Ki! yi!" he yelled. "Sumin--ah--got, yu nee mah! Kow long hop ti! Ha!
What you call um? Hi! for Injun debbil!" And he lapsed again into awful
Chinese exclamation points, and danced a fan-tan dango in a wonderful
state of excitement. "Hi! What you call um? Sumin-ah-got, no belong for
Wong! Huh!" Nerving himself for the fearful ordeal, he lifted the
squirming baby forth and dropped it quickly to the ground. No sooner did
the wild little thing find itself released than it scrambled to its feet
and ran at the skirts of the elderly lady--the only thing it
recognized--and clung there like a prickly burr.
"Mercy!" shrieked the lady. "Mercy! Where-- Wong, where did you get this
child--this savage child?" she demanded.
"Sumin-ah-got, no sabbee," said the terrified Wong, gathering baskets
and mats in a desperate haste. "Plitty click for whole lots um for Injun
come for nis one. Wong no takee. No see some nis one for baby befloh.
Somebody makee for tlick--you sabbee?--makee velly much tlouble. Kow
long hop ti! Yu nee mah!"
"But, Wong, you must take it back! I don't know anything about the
trick! I don't wan't the Indians coming here. Mercy!"
Wong, however, had rapidly fixed his pole in its place, and swung his
baskets clear of the ground, still jabbering wildly in his native
tongue, and trotted away with a double-quick motion.
"Wong! Wong!" called the agitated woman. "I can't throw him away! You
must take him back! Wong!" But the vender of vegetables, thoroughly
alarmed, had fled.
"Did yez call, Miss Hoobart?" said a voice from the door.
"Oh, Maggie! Oh dear! Oh! Oh! What shall we do?" cried the woman. She
was trying to shake her skirts of the brown little Indian, but he merely
clung the harder, and buried his face in the folds.
"Ach, wurra, wurra!" said Maggie. "Oi wudden't a t'o't ut. Phere did yez
git um?"
"Hush, you silly girl. It's an Indian baby, and Wong brought him--and he
ran away frightened--and somebody played it as a trick--and the wild,
infuriated Indian population may be down upon us at any moment to
recover the child!"
"Ach!" screamed the girl, jumping high in the air and glancing quickly
about. "Phy don't yez l'ave um in the sthrate, the turrible varmint?"
"What, a tiny child, Maggie? Suppose it should freeze to death? It
hasn't any clothing to speak of. Oh dear! I do wish Charles were home!"
"Phat yez goin' to do?" whispered Maggie.
"I don't know. Oh, I don't know! We've got to take him in, I suppose,
and wait for Charles." Accordingly she walked very gingerly in, while
the very diminutive savage continued to cling to the dress and hide his
face. "I don't see," she said, breathing easier when the door was
closed, "how I'm going to get him away from my skirt. Don't you think
you could take him away, Maggie?"
"Oi wudden' touch um for tin dollars!" cried the girl.
"What shall we do? He will never let go."
"Yez c'u'd l'ave um the skirt--take ut aff, an' put an anither wan, ye
moind."
"Yes, I can; that is just the thing." She slipped the outside garment in
a jiffy, and the baby sat down on the floor in the midst of the pile.
The warrior sat perfectly still, his big brown eyes and his wee red
mouth wide open, his chubby hands playing at random with the skirt.
"Oi moight go out an' infarm Misther Patrick Murphy, the gintleman
policemon, mum," ventured Maggie at length.
"Don't you dare to go and leave me an instant," said the woman. "There
is nothing in the whole wide world to do but to watch him every minute
and lock all the doors and wait for Charles. Oh dear! that I should live
to see such a terrible day!"
[Illustration]
So the barricades were placed on the doors, and the women brought their
chairs to sit and watch their very unwelcome prisoner. As the day grew
old it occurred to the lady that perhaps the child was hungry. She
prepared a piece of bread with molasses, and handed it out with the
tongs. With this the child emulated his parents, for he painted his face
from chin to eyes. This continued till the curtain lashes of the bright
brown eyes came drooping down; his chubby little face, with molasses
adornment, sank slowly to rest on the skirt. The women continued to
watch.
As the evening came on Miss Hobart paced the room impatiently. "Charles!
Charles, my brother!" she would say, "why don't you come? You ought to
know what a terrible, terrible trial it is!"
But the sound of his knock on the door, when he came at his usual time,
nearly made the women faint. A thin little man was Mr. Hobart, but
sensible, and not to be alarmed. He declared that the morning would be
time enough in which to clear the matter up.
"Oh, but it won't," said his elderly sister. "Suppose there should be a
night attack? They are very, very frequent--it's the Indian way of
proceeding!"
"Well," said he, "I'll go and tell the sheriff. He can hunt the parents
up and settle the whole thing in a minute."
"But," she protested, "the Indians are gone to their
tents--campoodies--out in the sage-brush long before this--that is,
providing they are not lurking around this neighborhood. And just fancy
a poor mother deprived of her child all night!"
"Well, what shall I do?"
"Suppose--suppose you take a lantern and go out to the wigwams. You are
not afraid?"
"No, of course I'm not; but what's the use?"
[Illustration]
In the end he found himself muffled, mittened, provided with the
lantern, packing the child--all wrapped in a blanket and fastened
loosely in with a shawl-strap--out in the sage-brush, floundering
aimlessly about in search of the Indian campoodies. Mile after mile he
trudged about in the night, shifting baby and lantern from hand to hand
as his arms grew weary, and growing more and more disgusted as it dawned
on his mind that all he knew of the way to find campoodies was to wander
toward the west in the brush, he shouldered the sleeping warrior and
made some lively tracks for home.
"There," said he, as he tossed the wee pappoose, blanket and all, on the
lounge, "you can leave it to snooze where you please, for I am going
right straight to bed."
His sister sat in a chair all night, dressed, and she waked a hundred
times from a dream of hideous Indian depredations. She was wearily
sleeping when her brother ate his breakfast and went. An hour later the
head of an old and silently whistling Indian appeared at the open
window.
[Illustration]
"Ketchum pappoose?" said this awful warrior, and his voice was barely
audible. She whirled around, saw the face, tried to scream, and failed.
"Injun Jim h-e-a-p sick," drawled the chieftain, who had satisfied
himself that his son and heir was present, the youngster being seated on
the floor--"h-e-a-p sick, heap likum biscuit-lah-pooh."
Miss Hobart rallied. "Perhaps," she thought, "Charles has pacified the
tribe." Then she said, "Oh, Mr. Indian Jim--James, is this your
son--your little boy?"
"Yesh, h-e-a-p my boy. Injun Jim heap likum biscuit-lah-pooh, h-e-a-p
sick."
"Are you sick? Poor man! you shall have all the biscuit you want. Here,"
she said, in a timid voice, as he tucked away a package of food, "is
your son--your nice little boy--very nice little boy; and I'm very
sorry--"
"Yesh, h-e-a-p nice--all same Injun Jim. You like buy um? Two dollar
hap, you buy um, h-e-a-p goot!"
"Mercy! Oh, oh!" she gasped. "He would sell it! Two dollars and a
half--and after such a night! Oh no--no, Jim--James--take him to his
yearning mother, please!"
As the warrior slowly shuffled away to the gate, leading his son and
heir by the hand, the bright little face was turned toward the woman who
was standing in the door.
"It is a beautiful child," she said. "I wish I had noticed before."
A LOYAL TRAITOR.
A STORY OF THE WAR OF 1812 BETWEEN AMERICA AND ENGLAND.
BY JAMES BARNES.