"No, a big Newfoundland dog. He saw the little kitten near the water.
Now cats don't like the water, do they? They don't like a wet place.
What do they like?"
"Mice," said Joseph Zukoffsky, abruptly.
"Well, yes, they do; but there were no mice in my yard. I'm sure you
know what I mean. If they don't like _water_, what do they like?"
"Milk!"
"They like a dry place," said Mrs. R. B. M. Smith.
"Now what do you suppose the dog did?"
It may be that successive failures had disheartened the listeners; it
may be that the very range presented alive to the dog and them for
choice dazzled their imaginations. At any rate, they made no answer.
"Nobody knows what the dog did?" repeated the story-teller,
encouragingly. "What would you do if you saw a little white kitten
like that?"
Again a silence. Then Philip remarked gloomily, "I'd pull its tail."
"And what do the rest of you think?" inquired Mrs. R. B. M. Smith,
pathetically. "I hope _you_ are not so cruel as that little boy."
But fully half the children had seen the youngest assistant giggle at
"that little boy's" answer, and with one accord came the quick response,
"_I'd_ pull it too."
[D] Copyright, 1902, by McClure, Phillips & Co.
Fishin'?
(From the _New Orleans Times-Democrat_.)
Settin' on a log
An' fishin'
An' watchin' the cork,
An' wishin'.
Jus' settin' round home
An' sighin',
Jus' settin' round home--
An' lyin'.
"Ardelia in Arcady"[E]
(_Arranged by Maude Herndon and Grace Kellam._)
[From "The Madness of Philip," by Josephine Dodge Daskam.
McClure, Phillips & Co.]
When first the young lady from the College Settlement dragged Ardelia
from her degradation, she was sitting on a dirty pavement and throwing
assorted refuse at an unconscious policeman.
"Come here, little girl," said the young lady, invitingly. "Wouldn't
you like to come with me and have a nice, cool bath?"
"Naw," said Ardelia, in tones rivaling the bath in coolness.
"You wouldn't? Well, wouldn't you like some bread and butter and jam?"
"Wha's jam?"
"Why, it's--er--marmalade. All sweet, you know."
"Naw!"
"I thought you might like to go on a picnic," said the young lady,
helplessly. "I thought all little girls liked--"
"Picnic? When?" cried Ardelia, moved instantly to interest. "I'm goin'!
Is it the Dago picnic?"
The young lady shuddered, and seizing the hand which she imagined to
have had the least to do with the refuse, she led Ardelia away--the
first stage of her journey to Arcady.
Later arrayed in starched and creaking garments which had been made for
a slightly smaller child, Ardelia was transported to the station, and
for the first time introduced to a railroad car. She sat stiffly on the
red plush seat while the young lady talked reassuringly of daisies and
cows and green grass. As Ardelia had never seen any of these things, it
is hardly surprising that she was somewhat unenthusiastic.
"You can roll in the daisies, my dear, and pick all you want--all!" she
urged eagerly.
"Aw right," she answered, guardedly.
The swelteringly hot day, and the rapid unaccustomed motion combined to
afflict her with a strange internal anticipation of future woe. Once
last summer, when she ate the liquid dregs of the ice-cream man's great
tin, and fell asleep in the room where her mother was frying onions, she
had experienced this same foreboding, and the climax of that dreadful
day lingered yet in her memory.
At last they stopped. The young lady seized her hand, and led her
through the narrow aisle, down the steep steps, across the little
country station platform, and Ardelia was in Arcady.
A bare-legged boy in blue overalls and a wide straw hat then drove them
many miles along a hot, dusty road, that wound endlessly through the
parched country fields. Finally they turned into a driveway, and drew up
before a gray wooden house. A spare, dark-eyed woman in a checked apron
advanced to meet them.
"Terrible hot to-day, ain't it?" she sighed. "I'm real glad to see you,
Miss Forsythe. Won't you cool off a little before you go on? This is the
little girl, I s'pose. I guess it's pretty cool to what she's accustomed
to, ain't it, Delia?"
"No, I thank you, Mrs. Slater. I'll go right on to the house. Now,
Ardelia, here you are in the country. I'm staying with my friend in a
big white house about a quarter of a mile farther on. You can't see it
from here, but if you want anything you can just walk over. Day after
to-morrow is the picnic I told you of. You'll see me then, anyway. Now
run right out in the grass and pick all the daisies you want. Don't be
afraid; no one will drive you off this grass!"
The force of this was lost on Ardelia, who had never been driven off any
grass whatever, but she gathered that she was expected to walk out into
the thick rank growth of the unmowed side yard, and strode downward
obediently.
"Now pick them! Pick the daisies!" cried Miss Forsythe, excitedly. "I
want to see you."
Ardelia looked blank.
"Huh?" she said.
"Gather them. Get a bunch. Oh, you poor child! Mrs. Slater, she doesn't
know how!" Miss Forsythe was deeply moved and illustrated by picking
imaginary daisies on the porch. Ardelia's quick eye followed her
gestures, and stooping, she scooped the heads from three daisies and
started back with them. Miss Forsythe gasped.
"No, no, dear! Pull them up! Take the stem, too," she explained. "Pick
the whole flower."
Ardelia bent over again, tugged at a thick-stemmed clover, brought it
up by the roots, and laid it awkwardly on the young lady's lap.
"Thank you, dear," she said, politely, "but I meant them for you.
I meant you to have a bunch. Don't you want them?"
"Naw," said Ardelia, decidedly.
Miss Forsythe's eyes brightened suddenly.
"I know what you want," she cried, "you're thirsty! Mrs. Slater, won't
you get us some of your good, creamy milk? Don't you want a drink,
Ardelia?"
Ardelia nodded. When Mrs. Slater appeared with the foaming yellow
glasses she wound her nervous little hands about the stem of the goblet
and drank a deep draught.
"There!" cried the young lady. "Now, how do you like real milk, Ardelia?
I declare you look like another child already! You can have all you want
every day--why, what's the matter?"
For Ardelia was growing ghastly pale before them; her eyes turned
inward, her lips tightened. A blinding horror surged from her toes
upward, and the memory of the liquid ice-cream and the frying onions
faded before the awful reality of her present agony.
Later, as she lay limp and white on the slippery haircloth sofa in
Mrs. Slater's musty parlor she heard them discussing her situation.
"There was a lot of Fresh-Air children over at Mis' Simms's," her
hostess explained, "and they 'most all of 'em said the milk was too
strong--did you ever! Two or three of 'em was sick, like this one, but
they got to love it in a little while. She will, too."
Ardelia shook her head feebly. In a few minutes she was asleep. When
she awoke all was dusk and shadow. She felt scared and lonely. Now that
her stomach was filled and her nerves refreshed by her long sleep, she
was in a condition to realize that aside from all bodily discomfort
she was sad--very sad. A new, unknown depression weighed her down.
It grew steadily, something was happening, something constant and
mournful--what? Suddenly she knew. It was a steady, recurrent noise, a
buzzing, monotonous click. Now it rose, now it fell, accentuating the
silence dense about it.
"Zig-a-zig! Zig-a-zig!" then a rest.
"Zig-a-zig! Ziz-a-zig-a-zig!"
"Wha's 'at?" she said.
"That? Oh, those are katydids. I s'pose you never heard 'em, that's a
fact. Kind o' cozy, I think. Don't you like 'em?"
"Naw."
Another long silence intervened. Mr. Slater snored, William smoked, and
the monotonous clamor was uninterrupted.
"Zig-a-zig! Zig-zig! Zig-a-zig-a-zig!"
Slowly, against the background of this machine-like clicking, there grew
other sounds, weird, unhappy, far away.
"Wheep, wheep, wheep!"
This was a high, thin crying.
"Burrom! Burrom! Brown!"
This was low and resonant and solemn. Ardelia scowled.
"Wha's 'at?" she asked again.
"That's the frogs. Bull-frogs and peepers. Never heard them, either, did
ye? Well, that's what they are."
William took his pipe out of his mouth.
"Come here, sissy, 'n I'll tell y' a story," he said, lazily.
Ardelia obeyed, and glancing timorously at the shadows, slipped around
to his side.
"Onc't they was an' ol' feller comin' 'long crosslots, late at night,
an' he come to a pond, an' he kinder stopped up an' says to himself,
'Wonder how deep the ol' pond is, anyhow?' He was just a leetle--well,
he'd had a drop too much, y' see--"
"Had a what?" interrupted Ardelia.
"He was sort o' rollin' 'round--he didn't know just what he was doin'--"
"Oh! Jagged!" said Ardelia, comprehendingly.
"I guess so. An' he heard a voice singin' out, 'Knee deep! Knee deep!
Knee deep.'"
William gave a startling imitation of the peepers; his voice was a high,
shrill wail.
"'Oh, well,' s' he, ''f it's just knee deep, I'll wade through,' an' he
starts in.
"Just then he hears a big feller singin' out, 'Better go rrround! Better
gorrround! Better gorrround!'
"'Lord,' says he, 'is it s' deep 's that? Well, I'll go round then.'
'N' off he starts to walk around.
"'Knee deep! Knee deep! Knee deep!' says the peepers.
"An' there it was. Soon's he'd start to do one thing they'd tell him
another. Make up his mind he couldn't, so he stands there still, they
do say, askin' 'em every night which he better do."
"Stands where?"
"Oh, I d' know. Out in the swamp, mebbe."
Again he smoked. Time passed by.
Suddenly Mr. Slater coughed and arose. "Well, guess I'll be gettin' to
bed," he said. "Come on, boys. Hello, little girl! Come to visit us,
hey? Mind you don't pick poison vine."
Mrs. Slater led Ardelia upstairs into a little hot room, and told her
to get into bed quick, for the lamp drew the mosquitoes.
Ardelia kicked off her shoes and approached the bed distrustfully. It
sank down with her weight and smelled hot and queer. Rolling off she
stretched herself on the floor, and lay there disconsolately. At home
the hurdy-gurdy was playing, the women were gossiping on every step, the
lights were everywhere--the blessed fearless gas lights--and the little
girls were dancing in the breeze that drew in from East River.
In the morning Miss Forsythe came over to inquire after her charge's
health, accompanied by another young lady.
"Why, Ethel, she isn't barefoot!" she cried. "Come here, Ardelia, and
take off your shoes and stockings directly. Shoes and stockings in the
country! Now, you'll know what comfort is."
To patter about bare-legged on the clear, safe pavement, was one thing;
to venture unprotected into that waving, tripping tangle was another.
Ardelia stepped cautiously upon the short grass near the house, and with
jaw set felt her way into the higher growth. Suddenly she stopped; she
shrieked:
"Oh, gee! Oh, gee!"
"What is it, Ardelia; what is it? A snake?" Mrs. Slater rushed out,
seized Ardelia, half rigid with fear, and carried her to the porch. They
elicited from her as she sat with feet tucked under her that something
had rustled by her "down at the bottom"--that it was slippery, that she
had stepped on it, and wanted to go home.
"Toad," explained Mrs. Slater, briefly. "Only a little hop-toad, Delia,
that wouldn't harm a baby, let alone a big girl nine years old, like you."
"She's a queer child," Mrs. Slater confided to the young ladies. "Not a
drop of anything will she drink but cold tea. It don't seem reasonable
to give it to her all day, and I won't do it, so she has to wait till
meals. She makes a face if I say milk, and the water tastes slippery,
she says, and salty-like. She won't touch it. I tell her it's good
well-water, but she just shakes her head. She's stubborn 's a bronze
mule, that child. Just mopes around. 'S morning she asked me when did
the parades go by. I told her there wa'n't any, but the circus, an' that
had been already. I tried to cheer her up, sort of, with that Fresh-Air
picnic of yours to-morrow, Miss Forsythe, an s'she, 'Oh, the Dago
picnic,' s'she, 'will they have Tong's band?'"
"She don't seem to take any int'rest in th' farm, like those Fresh-Air
children, either. I showed her the hens an' the eggs, an' she said it
was a lie about the hens layin' 'em. 'What d' you take me for?' s'she.
The idea! Then Henry milked the cow, to show her--she wouldn't believe
that, either--and with the milk streamin' down before her, what do you
s'pose she said? 'You put it in!' s'she. I never should a' believed
that, Miss Forsythe, if I hadn't heard it."
"Oh, she'll get over it; just wait a few days. Good-bye, Ardelia. Eat
a good supper."
But this Ardelia did not do. Mr. Slater ate in voracious silence.
William never spoke, and Mrs. Slater filled their plates without
comment. Ardelia had never in her life eaten in silence. Through the
open door the buzz of the katydids was beginning tentatively. In the
intervals of William's gulps a faint bass note warned them from the
swamp.
"Better gorrround! Better gorrround!"
Ardelia's nerves strained and snapped. Her eyes grew wild.
"Fer Gawd's sake, talk!" she cried, sharply. "Are youse dumbies?"
* * * * *
The morning dawned fresh and fair; the homely barnyard noises brought a
smile to Miss Forsythe's sympathetic face, as she waited for Ardelia to
join her in a drive to the station. But Ardelia did not smile.
At the station Miss Forsythe shook her limp little hand.
"Good-bye, dear. I'll bring the other little children back with me.
You'll enjoy that. Good-bye."
"I'm comin', too," said Ardelia.
"Why--no, dear--you wait for us. You'd only turn around and come right
back, you know."
"Come, back nothin'. I'm goin' home."
"Why--why, Ardelia! Don't you really like it?"
"Naw, it's too hot."
Miss Forsythe stared.
"But Ardelia, you don't want to go back to that horribly smelly street?
Not truly?"
"Betcher life I do!"
"It's so lonely and quiet," pleaded the young lady. Ardelia shuddered.
Again she seemed to hear that fiendish, mournful wailing:
"Knee deep! Knee deep! Knee deep!"
They rode in silence. But the jar and jolt of the engine made music in
Ardelia's ears; the familiar jargon of the newsboy:
"N' Yawk evening paypers! Woyld! Joynal!" was a breath from home to her
little cockney heart.
They pushed through the great station, they climbed the steps of the
elevated track, they jingled on a cross-town car. And at a familiar
corner Ardelia slipped loose her hand, uttered a grunt of joy, and Miss
Forsythe looked after her in vain. She was gone.
But late in the evening, when the great city turned out to breathe, and
sat with opened shirt and loosened bodice on the dirty steps; when the
hurdy-gurdy executed brassy scales and the lights flared in endless
sparkling rows; when the trolley gongs at the corner pierced the air,
and feet tapped cheerfully down the cool stone steps of the beer-shop,
Ardelia, bare-footed and abandoned, nibbling at a section of bologna
sausage, cake-walked insolently with a band of little girls behind a
severe policeman, mocking his stolid gait, to the delight of Old Dutchy,
who beamed approvingly at her prancing.
"Ja, ja, you trow out your feet good. Some day we pay to see you, no?
You like to get back already!"
"Ja, danky slum, Dutchy," she said airily, as she sank upon her cool
step, stretched her toes and sighed:
"Gee! N' Yawk's the place!"
[E] Copyright, 1902, by McClure, Phillips & Co.
Meriel
BY MARGARET HOUSTON.
(From _Ainslee's Magazine_.)
"Let go my hand!" (A start of quick surprise.)
"How could you dare?" (A flash of angry eyes.)
And yet her hand in mine all passive lies.
"How rude you are!" (The rose-blush fully blown.)
"I trusted you!" ('Twould melt a heart of stone.)
And yet the little hand rests in mine own!
Oh, dainty Meriel--little April day!
However warmly pouting lips cry Nay,
That little hand shall rest in mine--alway!
The Old Man and "Shep"
(A true story.)
BY JOHN G. SCORER.
It was on the morning of the second day of the new year. The mercury
hovered a few degrees above zero. The winds that swept down from the
North were keen and biting, and the mist-like snow fell fitfully. An old
man, his once tall form bent by the burdens and sorrows of sixty odd
years, his step slow and shuffling, his clothes unkempt and tattered,
his long beard flowing down upon his breast, his eye still bright and in
his face lingering traces of refinement, made his way along the deserted
street. He was accompanied by a dog, whose long, shaggy hair indicated a
blooded ancestry. So emaciated was his form that even through his shaggy
coat could be seen the outline of his bony frame.
The two, master and dog, hobbled into the city's out-door relief
department. The dog at once curled himself up on a rug near a radiator
and was soon asleep, dreaming, perchance, of other and more prosperous
days, with "a virtuous kennel and plenty of food." The old man stood for
a time warming his benumbed fingers at the radiator. Presently one of
the clerks approached and asked him who he was and what he wanted.
"I am John Owens," he replied; "and I want to go to the infirmary. I am
ill, homeless and penniless."
"All right, my man," said the clerk, and at once wrote out a permit.
The old man took the permit, read it over carefully, and said: "It says
nothing about the dog. I want one for the dog, too."
"We can't give you one for the dog; we have no place out there for him.
You'll have to leave him behind."
"Leave my dog behind? No, sir," said the old fellow, straightening up
his bent form. "He's the only friend I have in this world. Why old
'Shep' has been my only friend for the last eight years. I had money,
friends and influence when he was a pup, and he had a better bed and
better food then than I have had for many a year. I had my carriages
once, and a man to drive them, too. I know it sounds strange, now.
Sometimes it seems like a dream. But never mind. When I woke up from
that dream I had only my wife Martha, my son George, and 'Shep.' Every
one else turned from me.
"My wife was a good, brave soul, but our reverses broke her down, and on
one spring day we laid her away beneath the daisies and the myrtle. Soon
after that my son George was taken from me by that stern monster, death,
leaving me alone--alone, with no friend but 'Shep.'
"Where do I sleep? Why, my boy, anywhere. You don't know how many warm
stairways there are. 'Shep' and I do, though, and we curl up together in
them when the officer on the beat isn't looking. Yes, poor fellow, he's
lame; had his leg broken. He got that trying to keep me out of the way
of a coal wagon two years ago, when I slipped on the icy street.
"Here's your permit, mister. I won't go out there unless 'Shep' goes
with me. He can't? Well, good-bye, good-bye, sir. Come on, 'Shep.' You
can't stay there all day. Just as much obliged," and the two passed out
into the cold again.
Who Knows
The Lily lifts to mine her nunlike face,
But my wild heart is beating for the Rose;
How can I pause to behold the Lily's grace?
Shall I repent me by and by? Who knows?
--_Louise Chandler Moulton_.
The Negro
BY BOOKER T. WASHINGTON.
(Adapted from the speech delivered at the opening of the Atlanta
Exposition.)
One-third of the population of the South is of the negro race. No
enterprise seeking the material, civil, or moral welfare of this section
can disregard this element of our population and reach the highest
success. I but convey to you, Mr. President and directors, the sentiment
of the masses of my race when I say that in no way have the value
and manhood of the American negro been more fittingly and generously
recognized than by the managers of this magnificent Exposition at every
stage of its progress. It is a recognition that will do more to cement
the friendship of the two races than any occurrence since the dawn of
our freedom.
Not only this, but the opportunity here afforded will awaken among us
a new era of industrial progress. Ignorant and inexperienced, it is
not strange that in the first years of our new life we began at the top
instead of at the bottom; that a seat in Congress or a State legislature
was more sought than real estate or industrial skill; that the political
convention or stump speaking had more attractions than starting a dairy
farm or truck garden.
A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel.
From the mast of the unfortunate vessel was seen a signal, "Water,
water; we die of thirst!" The answer from the friendly vessel at once
came back, "Cast down your bucket where you are." A second time the
signal, "Water, water; send us water!" ran up from the distressed
vessel, and was answered, "Cast down your bucket where you are." And a
third and fourth signal for water was answered, "Cast down your bucket
where you are." The captain of the distressed vessel at last, heeding
the injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full of fresh,
sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River. To those of my
race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land or who
underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the
Southern white man, who is their next-door neighbor, I would say: "Cast
down your bucket where you are." Cast it down in making friends in every
manly way of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded.
Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in domestic
service, and in the professions. And in this connection it is well to
bear in mind that whatever other sins the South may be called to bear,
when it comes to business, pure and simple, it is in the South that the
negro is given a man's chance in the commercial world, and in nothing
is this Exposition more eloquent than in emphasizing this chance. Our
greatest danger is that in the great leap from slavery to freedom we may
overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the productions
of our hands, and fail to keep in mind that we shall prosper in
proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labor and put
brains and skill into the common occupations of life; shall prosper in
proportion as we learn to draw the line between the superficial and the
substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life and the useful. No race can
prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field
as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not
at the top. Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our
opportunities.
To those of the white race who look to the incoming of those of foreign
birth and strange tongues and habits for the prosperity of the South,
were I permitted I would repeat what I say to my own race, "Cast down
your bucket where you are." Cast it down among the eight millions
of negroes whose habits you know, whose fidelity and love you have
tested in days when to have proved treacherous meant the ruin of your
firesides. Cast down your bucket among these people who have, without
strikes and labor wars, tilled your fields, cleared your forests,
builded your railroads and cities, and brought forth treasure from
the bowels of the earth, and helped make possible this magnificent
representation of the progress of the South. Casting down your buckets
among my people, helping and encouraging them as you are doing on these
grounds, and to education of head, hand, and heart, you will find that
they will buy your surplus land, make blossom the waste places in your
fields, and run your factories. While doing this you can be sure in the
future as in the past, that you and your families will be surrounded by
the most patient, faithful, law-abiding and unresentful people that the
world has seen. As we have proved our loyalty to you in the past, in
nursing your children, watching by the sick-bed of your mothers and
fathers, and often following them with tear-dimmed eyes to the graves,
so in the future, in our humble way, we shall stand by you with a
devotion that no foreigner can approach, ready to lay down our lives,
if need be, in defence of yours, interlacing our industrial, commercial,
civil and religious life with yours in a way that shall make the
interests of both races one. In all things that are purely social we
can be as separate as the fingers, yet one as the hand in all things
essential to mutual progress.