[Illustration:
JANUARY 1899 10 CENTS
DIXIE.
A MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
THE DIXIE
BALTIMORE PUBLISHING CO.]
_Terms: $1.00 a Year in Advance. 10 Cents a Number._
DIXIE
A MONTHLY MAGAZINE. JANUARY, 1899.
HENRY CLAYTON HOPKINS, Editor, 326 St. Paul St., Baltimore.
G. ALDEN PEIRSON, }
CLINTON PETERS, } Art Editors.
CHAS. J. PIKE, }
GEORGE B. WADE, Business Manager.
CONTENTS.
I. Cover designed by G. Alden Peirson.
II. The New Year Frontispiece.
Drawn by Clinton Peters.
III. Frost (poem)—_Duncan Campbell Scott_ 1
IV. Dan Rice’s New Year Frolic—_M. G. McClelland_ 2
V. To —— (poem)—_Henry Clarion Hopkins_ 13
Illustration by Clinton Peters.
VI. The Man He Knew—_John P. Rogers_ 15
With Pictures by Chas. J. Pike.
VII. A Question (poem)—_Danske Dandridge_ 25
VIII. Love is Blind (prose poem)—_William Theodore Peters_ 26
IX. Some Picturesque Bits of Baltimore—_G. Alden Peirson_ 27
(Sixteen Illustrations.)
X. The Four Fears of Our General (The First Fear)—_Adele Bacon_ 43
XI. Bouquets 52
XII. “Hydrangias” 54
Reproduction of the Painting by Philip de Boilleau.
XIII. The Bogieman 56
XIV. Book Reviews—_E. A. U. Valentine_ 59
XV. Exchanges 63
Copyright, 1899, by DIXIE PUBLISHING COMPANY.
[Illustration: DIXIE.]
VOL. I. JANUARY, 1899. NO. 1.
FROST.
In lofty Nepal in the sheer, refined
Air of some frigid Himalayan vale,
Frost-charmed in ancient ice a sorcerer pale
Shrinks stars and frondes to things of faery-kind.
Now in the night when cold has stilled the wind,
When the snow shines like moonlight in the dale,
His crystals clothe the pane with magic mail,
Or build a legend hoar with rime outlined;
The spoils of dreamland dwarfed to atomies:
Incrusted gems, star-glances overborne
With lids of sleep plucked from the moth’s bright eyes,
And forests dense of ferns blanched and forlorn,
Where Oberon of unimagined size
Might in the silver silence wind his horn.
—_Duncan Campbell Scott._
[Illustration: DAN RICE’S NEW YEAR FROLIC
_BY M.G. MCCLELLAND._]
Among the mountain fastnesses the snow lay fifteen inches deep in the
open, a thing without precedent in the memory of the oldest hunter in the
Humpback region. The cowled peaks uplifted themselves, wanly, and lay
against a hard distance in mysterious, alien solitude.
In the midst rose Humpback, his indented crest losing outline for days
together by reason of the snow clouds that coifed it. In the hollows,
where many of the mountaineers lived, the snow was much deeper,
wind-drifted in swaths, fit to bury a man to the middle. Many of the
trails were blocked and, when the wind changed and a slight thaw set in,
followed by a freeze, the snow packed and crusted, which made travel bad
for people who had never even heard of snow-shoes. The wild creatures
suffered most, and whole covies of game birds perished in the drifts
from cold or starvation. On the other hand, minks, otters, foxes, and
nature’s other carnivorous children fattened apace, slipping about the
white frozen world, like demons of the inner circle, and feasting upon
the bodies of the dead.
As the cold increased, big game was driven from inaccessible haunts and
wandered afield in search of food, even venturing, by night, close to the
cabins and fodder-stacks of the people. Deer trails grew plentiful, and
the big cushioned track of bear could be seen in many of the hollows.
When the cold first swooped upon them, the people curled up like touched
caterpillars, and devoted every energy not frost-bitten to keeping
themselves warm. Their cabins were built on hygienic principles, and the
very earth beneath them was unaccustomed to the rigor of a hard chill.
After a week of it, finding themselves still living, the men began to
take interest and a hunting epidemic broke out and spread.
Dan Rice, the owner of good hunting dogs, became the most popular man in
the neighborhood and had his vanity so tickled that he decided to give
a party, just to show the folks what a fellow he was and what a figure
he could make when he set his mind to it. He had a big buck swung up by
its heels in his smoke-house, and nearly two flour barrels full of small
game, besides the intimate friendship of a distiller of “moonshine,” so
that he felt himself in a position to invite his friends to make merry
with him and “damn the expense.”
“’Twill thaw we-all up, an’ start the sap runnin’,” he explained to
his wife. “Thar’s plenty to do with, so you an’ the gals buckle on an’
don’t have no sparin’ an’ pinchin’. This here shindig have got to make a
record.”
Word of the extent and elegance of the preparations went around with the
invitations, and also that Mrs. Rice and her daughters would appear in
new calicos made specially for the occasion. Immediately every female
invited felt life unendurable without similar decoration, and domestic
atmosphere grew fevered with discussions of patterns and styles.
Tom Westley’s pretty little near-sighted wife secured the sweetest thing
in rosebuds on a dark red ground, and stitched away at it energetically.
Her baby was nearly three months old now and her interest in the outside
world was returning. The grooves of her life were well defined and
narrow, so that any extraneous happening became an event charged with
unbalancing excitement.
There was to be a big deer hunt with Rice’s hounds, as a preliminary
to the ball, and every able-bodied man about the district expected to
take part in it. Westley proposed to his wife to go over to the Rice’s
early in the day and let him join her there after the hunt, but got
flouted. Mrs. Rice would be run off her legs with the preparations,
her considerate little neighbor declared, and would be justified in
regarding premature arrivals with disgust. She—Susan Westley—was a
housekeeper herself and knew about these things. Besides, her own dress
was unfinished, and she had a making of soap in the lye which must be
attended to. Then it was arranged that Tom should meet her at a specified
fence corner, a quarter of a mile from their house, just before, or on
the edge of dark. The way to the fence was through a cleared field and
perfectly open. She knew it as well as she did her own door yard.
“Don’t git so fired up huntin’ that you forgit me,” she admonished, as
she gave her husband his breakfast on the important morning. “It’s a mile
over to Rice’s an’ woods nigh all the way. The moon won’t be up, time I
want to start n’other, so I’d be feared. Aim to be at the fence fust,
will you?”
“All right,” Tom acquiesced easily. “I’ll be thar sure as shootin’, so
thar aint no call to fluster. Don’t keep me waitin’ no longer ’n you can
help for it’s tarnation cold loafin’. Wrop the youngster up tight, or
he’ll freeze. He ain’t none too fleshy.”
He had the child on his knee and was feeding it with scraps of his own
breakfast, calmly confident that as the boy is father to the man that
which is good for him at one point of his development must be beneficial
all along the line. The baby was chipper and healthy, but exceedingly
small, a fact used to shame his parents by the possessors of more
stalwart off-spring.
Breakfast despatched, Westley handed the child to his wife, and invested
himself with a shaggy overcoat and coon-skin cap, made with ear-tabs and
a droll peak in front which stuck out keenly.
“You want to keep out ’n the bushes,” laughed his wife, as she opened the
door for him, “or somebody ’ll be shootin’ you for a b’ar. That thar peak
an’ your nose, comin’ together, makes a mighty good snout an’ all the
balance looks shaggy. Folks can’t hardly tell no dif’ence, fust look.”
Westley tweaked his cap further forward. “Ev’rybody aint short-ranged
like you,” he responded. “Thar’s a chance o’ ’em down out’n the mountains
folks say but I aint seed none. Wish I could. ’Twould be somethin’ to
brag about to kill a bustin’ big b’ar. Far’well, honey, take keer o’
yo’se’f, an’ don’t keep me loafin’ out yonder ’till ’tother fellows git
the fust shot off Dan’s vittles.”
Left alone, the little woman worked busily, trying to crowd into the
short daylight hours as much as they would hold. Her soap making required
more time than she had allowed for so that twilight had deepened to
night-fall before she had everything arranged to her mind and herself and
the child made ready for the expedition.
The snow clouds had disappeared, leaving a thin, keen atmosphere through
which the starlight could penetrate. This, with the snow-shimmer, made a
pallid, mysterious lustre, exciting to the imagination, but insufficient
for guidance, except in places where the way was open and familiar. The
path across the field was a foot under cover, but a big sycamore grew
near the trysting place by which it could be identified. The accustomed
aspect of the earth had vanished and in its place was illusion and
mystery.
Sue Westley hurried forward, hugging the cocoon which contained her baby
close to her breast. She crossed the field hap-hazard, straining her
near-sighted eyes for a glimpse of the sycamore, which was her objective
point. Ice-coated weeds uplifted themselves above the snow crust on
every side, and, when her skirts brushed against them, the ice broke and
fell off with a faint metallic tinkle. The crunching of the snow under
foot made her nervous, giving her the feeling of being followed, and
involuntarily she began to work herself into a panic of fear that Tom
would not meet her.
Her relief was proportionately great when, nearing the fence, she dimly
discerned something tall and bulky leaning against it. She quickened her
pace and became explanatory.
“I’m awful sorry I ke’p you waitin’, Tom, but I couldn’t git through no
quicker,” she said eagerly. “That thar soap done meaner ’en any truck
ever biled. Look, to me, like jedgment day’d git here afore it thimbled.
That threw me late milkin’ an’ feedin’, an’ thar was baby to dress an’ me
too. You’re nigh frozen I reckon, but we-all can walk rapid the balance
o’ the way. Here, take the baby whilst I unhook my dress. It’s caught on
a scrop o’ bresh.”
Scarcely noticing, she rested the child on the top-rail, steadying it
there with one hand, while she bent down and freed her skirt. The figure
beside the fence made no answer, but reached forward and drew the bundle
from under her hand.
Sue turned to the next panel, which was unincumbered by brush, and
climbed it with the agility of a monkey. Tom had remembered, and been
before her at the tryst. A warm glow of satisfaction was generated in
her heart and sent her spirits up to mischief heat. She sped forward,
with a laugh, and then turned and began jumping backwards, chattering
like a black bird. Tom must carry the baby awhile, she declared, her arms
were tired, and besides she wanted to frolic. Then she swooped sideways
and tried to grab up a handful of snow, but the hard crust defied her.
No matter; snow balling Tom might be fun, but there was the danger of
hitting the baby. She steadied herself and called out to him to hurry up
and join her. She wanted to hear about the hunt.
In the pause in her own volubility, made for reply, she suddenly became
conscious of an absolute silence, as of a vast void wherein nothing
moved, or breathed, except herself. She shivered, and her spirits began
to fall as rapidly as they had risen. Two explanations of this singular
silence, both equally obnoxious, swept into her mind. Tom was trying to
play a foolish practical joke; or else he had been drinking too much and
leaned on the fence drowsing and unable to move.
She started back at a keen run when the sound of a man’s whistle cleft
the stillness, arresting her steps and causing her to face about
uncertainly. Tom was crunching over the snow towards her, swinging a
lighted lantern and trilling like a mocking-bird.
Whatever shame he may have felt for his tardiness was effectually routed
by his wife’s wild demand for her child, and the sight of her excitement
when he, in his turn, inquired “what in thunder she meant?”
She threw up her hands with a cry that cut through him.
“You _were_ thar!” she wailed. “Thar by the fence, just now, waitin’ for
me. I seed you. An’ you took the baby whilst I turned myse’f loose from
the bresh. Whar is he? If you’ve hid him in the snow he’ll catch his
death. Quit foolin’, Tom, an’ git him for me! I’m skeered all to pieces
anyhow, an’ can’t stan’ no such as that. Git him for me!”
Bewildered to the verge of idiocy, Tom protested his innocence. He had
not seen the child since he left home that morning, and had no thought of
joking. He had only just gotten there. Luck had been good, which made him
late. Then he drew from her as connected an account of the occurrence as
her excitement would allow, and suggested that, owing to the imperfect
light and her own defective vision, she might have mistaken a brush heap
against the fence for a man and laid the baby in it. They went back at
once, Tom talking volubly to conceal unreasoning anxiety, and Sue frankly
terrified and moaning just above her breath.
At the place where Sue had crossed, the snow-crust was shattered in a
large circle; they scarcely looked at it, one swing of the lantern, low
to the ground, being sufficient to identify the spot. Midway of the
adjoining panel the crust was broken also, but less heavily, and Tom went
on his knees and examined the marks with the experienced eye of a hunter.
There were faint but plainly perceptible scratches on the snow, as though
claws had scraped downward as the crust sagged under weight. Tom examined
the fence, holding the lantern close and scanning the rails intently.
On several he found hairs, caught under splinters, and collected them
until he had quite a number between his forefinger and thumb. They were
something over an inch long, brown in color, and very fine and glossy—the
hairs of an animal. He laid them together in his palm, and held the light
so that his wife could see and realize the significance of the discovery.
No sound escaped either; they simply stared at each other, the face of
the father stiffening like stone, while that of the mother blanched to
the pallor of snow with the draining of blood from her heart.
The horrible truth seemed everywhere, in the earth, in the air, and to
shout itself through the spaces of the infinite.
Mistaking it for her husband, the woman had unwittingly given her baby to
a bear.
The man was the first to recover himself. His hunting experiences had
trained him to be prompt in emergency and ready in resource at all times,
but now, under this emotional stress, his brain worked with astonishing
quickness. Much time had already been wasted, and every second was
precious. The bear might still be at hand, in one of the adjacent
hollows. His lair was probably up among the heights, but he might stop
somewhere. Tom’s mind shied away from thought of that which might cause
delay, and harnessed itself to action. He must follow the trail on the
instant, going swiftly, with crest lowered and light to the ground. He
was unarmed except for a hunting knife in his belt, but, in his then mood
would not have hesitated to attack a grizzly with naked hands.
The first step of course was to rid himself of his wife. She stood as one
dazed, her eyes fixed upon him, but unseeingly. She seemed to be taking
no notice, but he knew well enough that if he should move she would
follow him. What he wanted was to prevent her from seeing, unprepared,
that which he might find: to get her away to some sheltered place where
there were other women. Knowing instinctively the value of domination to
one in her condition he laid his hand on her shoulder and ordered her as
if she were a child.
“Listen, Sue,” he said peremptorily; “I’ve got to have help, an’ have it
damned quick. You must run like a wild turkey over to Rice’s an’ rouse
up men an’ dogs an’ start ’em arter me. They kin ketch up my trail from
here. I’ve got to shove on at once. It’s the boy’s best chance.”
Hope and life sprang like a flame to Sue’s face. “Air thar _any_ chance?”
she demanded.
“Yes, if you’ll help me,” Tom answered, feeling drearily confident that
he was lying, but keeping on all the same. “B’ars have been knowed to
play with babies, like cubs, an’ never hurt a ha’r o’ ’em. Now, travel
like lightenin’!”
Sue pressed herself close to him and held his lips with a brief kiss. “If
the child’s dead ye must kill me,” she muttered, and, before he could
answer, fled away from him through the night.
How she got over to Rice’s Sue Westley could never describe. In her mind
was a confused jumble of forest and hillside which seemed to cut her off
from everywhere, and of a sinuous trail to which she held by instinct,
catching her garments on the bushes as she ran, stumbling, falling,
cutting her hands and bruising her body against broken ice and unexpected
up-juttings of granite. Her sun-bonnet caught on a low-hanging bough and
was jerked from her head, but she sped on unheeding; her abundant blond
hair shook from its coil and lay along her back like a half-twisted rope.
At last she won free of the woods and tumbled, rather than climbed,
over the rail fence surrounding Rice’s clearing, and raced in among the
revellers with her face white as chalk and her breath coming and going in
gasps.
They could make nothing of her story, at first, until Rice, a man gifted
with common sense, got her into a chair and made her swallow half a
tumbler of hot whiskey toddy. As the liquor got in its work her nerves
steadied and she was able to make them understand the situation and the
necessity there was for haste. Comment and question circulated like
lightning and excitement rose to fever heat. Bears, hunger-driven from
the heights, were known to be rambling about, so that the situation held
grim possibilities. It seemed probable that this very animal had had the
Westley pig-pen for his objective point and that he had just up-reared
himself to climb the fence when the woman appeared and thrust her baby
under his nose. All thought of jollification vanished like mist and every
able-bodied man in the crowd grabbed for his gun and whooped up the
hounds.
Tom, meanwhile, followed the dents in the snow-crust, thankful for his
own forethought in providing himself with a lantern. The moon would be
up after a little, but in the urgent present the necessity for light
was overwhelming. The trail led him through a jungly hollow and across
a long ridge into another hollow. Here some clearing for firewood had
been made and the trees were scattered at long intervals, with stumps
and brush heaps between, transformed by a mantling of snow into strange
similitudes.
As he entered the place, Tom was conscious of a soft increase of light
and glancing backward beheld a three-quarter moon disengaging herself
from the tree-tops. In a few moments she had won clear and was sailing
upward into unobstructed space, from whence she cast earthward rays which
were refracted from millions of snow crystals.
Tom held to the trail like a blood-hound, but near the centre of the
clearing he was brought up all standing by the most singular spectacle
his eyes ever beheld. Not fifty yards ahead was the bear, erect upon
his hind legs and gyrating slowly in a circle as though keeping time to
imaginary music. As Tom looked, the beast bent downward and cautiously
executed a somersault, grunting with joy in his own performance. Then he
moved backward in a straight line, as though to give himself headway,
and suddenly bounced toward the pivotal point of the circle, like a
trap-ball, landing close beside a small dark object plainly discernible
upon the snow. This he caught in his paws and rolled about softly,
playing with it as a cat plays with a kitten.
The wind, so far, had been in Tom’s favor, but, as the animal frolicked,
he veered about a bit and caught it full-tainted from the hunter’s
direction. He threw up his head uneasily and drew the scent into his
nostrils. Tom dashed forward at once, conscious that the smallest delay
would enable the bear to grab the baby and make off with it. He whipped
out his knife as he leapt and howled like a Comanche, hoping to strike
terror to the ursine soul. When he got to close quarters he dealt the
beast a crashing blow over the muzzle with his lantern, and, in the
momentary advantage so gained, contrived, with a strong shove of his foot
to send the baby skating along the snow-crust to a considerable distance.
Then the enraged animal rose on his hind legs and gripped him.
Tom lunged with his knife, but failed to strike a vital part and before
he could draw out and strike a second time, the bear had a good body grip
and was squeezing. Fortunately for Tom the bear was only medium sized,
while he, himself, was a big man and a fine wrestler. The breath was
being hugged out of him, but his right arm was free so that he was able
to match science against brute strength. Thrusting his forearm under his
adversary’s chin nearly to the elbow he made a lever of his own body and
forced the head up and backward until, to save his neck from dislocation,
the bear was compelled to loosen his grip and threw himself on his back,
with Tom uppermost. In the fall, Tom freed his other arm and got hold of
the hilt of his knife, which he began to saw about in the wound furiously.
How the battle would have ended, had the combatants been left to
themselves, is an open question. It was still undecided when the baying
of hounds came over the ridge and Dan Rice’s pack swept into the hollow
in full cry and threw themselves, _en masse_, upon the quarry.
After them came the hunters, traveling impetuously and in bunches. They
found Tom sitting on the bear’s carcass, with a small bundle hugged to
his breast and all the dogs squatting on their haunches about him in a
sympathetic semi-circle.
They bore home the bear and the baby in triumph and Sue Westley had to
stand some rough joking anent her mistake, which she minded no more than
the whistling of the wind. Why should she? Was not the baby alive and
crowing in her arms, and Tom the hero of the hour because of his prowess?
The fiddlers tuned up their instruments and the women set about restoring
to toothsomeness the belated supper, so that, despite the interruption,
the frolic came off hilariously and fulfilled Dan’s ambition by making a
record.
Two things alone blunted the edge of Tom’s satisfaction. One was that a
small iron ring was discovered in the bear’s muzzle, showing that at one
portion of his career it must have been accustomed to human dominance.
This probably accounted for its gentleness and antics with the baby, but
it also took the bloom off of boasting.
The other trouble was the publicity given the affair by the county
newspaper, which published the story in detail. This last, Tom regarded
narrow-mindedly, and denounced as an outrage.
“Its dog-goned impidence an’ meddlesomeness,” he fumed. “An’ if ’twarn’t
for makin’ bad wuss, by givin’ him another tale to yelp over, I’d
b’ar-bait that thar outdacious varmint in his own hollow. What sort
o’ trick is it to play on a fellow, to set all the state o’ Virginny
grinning like a ’possum at him bekase his own wife didn’t have enough
gumption to know him from a b’ar?”
At which protest his neighbors howled with derision and unfeelingly
reminded him that when certain adventures of _theirs_ had been made
public through the same medium he, Tom, had considered the matter vastly
amusing.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: _Drawn by Clinton Peters._]
TO ——
Thus I had dreamed in loving thee:
That beauty had not fitter place.
Nor any higher destiny,
Than in the oval of thy face.
That faith thy eager hand had sought
And led thy steps in open ways—
The love-light in thine eyes I thought
A light as honest as the day’s.
And in my dream no other lip
Had pressed thy forehead save mine own,
And thou hadst held in fellowship
No other heart, but mine alone.
How vain a dream in waking lost!
That leaves the dreamer in despair
To reckon up the bitter cost
And face the future if he dare!
Thy love is but a love of things:
A bit of lace, a clasp of gold,
A silken purse with liberal strings—
Thy heart is cast in shallow mold!
When hast thou thought to look within
And teach thine errant heart the way,
With conscience shriven of its sin,
Thine angel’s feet might tread some day?
Hadst thou to love no faith to give?
And knew’st thou not love’s wondrous gift—
The things for which ’twere best to live
To win, to weigh, to sort and sift?
Whatever act of thine did raise
A love-thought thou allow’d’st to die
Will wither in thine own dispraise
With every word that held a lie!
If ever I have caused thee pain,
My love has seen where danger stirr’d—
But thou hast deem’d my care in vain
Tho’ warning struggled in my word.
My hand was holy in thy hand,
My love, as far as love may be,
Was guiltless at my soul’s command—
God keep thy woman’s purity!
Did I in aught so fail thee, dear.
That thou hast turned thy love aside?
If thou would’st swell it with a tear
I’d bend my life to bridge the tide.
But this is weakness—born of pain!
How soon the heart forgets its wrong
And pleads for life and love again
With love as patient and as strong!
No longer will I humbly sue,
Or ask thy languid love to bless—
The years shall yield the good and true
Unknown in thy unworthiness.
—_Henry Clayton Hopkins._
[Illustration]
THE MAN HE KNEW
[Illustration]
[Until he becomes an artistic star of the first magnitude
(when he is apt to be as rich and as arrogant as the fabled
Indian Rajah,) the world is often exceedingly ungenerous to
the struggling young painter, however talented he may be. Even
Paris—usually so kind to budding genius—is sometimes guilty of
this offense. The following little narrative will prove the
truth of my statement.]
Little Barlow was very poor indeed and, what was much more serious,
had stretched his limited credit just as far as it would go. He didn’t
like to do this at all, but there was no help for it and it grieved him
sorely. Therefore he became daily more despairing and sick at heart as
one by one his most promising schemes for money making came to naught and
the trades-people presented their bills with a machine-like promptness
and inevitability.
He possessed only one living relative in America, a millionaire uncle—who
was addicted to the pernicious habit of endowing memorial hospitals and
colleges in total oblivion of his duty towards his only nephew. Little
Barlow had timidly approached this uncle for help the year before—when
he was suffering almost as badly from a similarly acute period of
ill-chance—and had received three hundred dollars by cable in return,
but, when the American mail arrived a week afterward, it brought with
it such an unnecessarily brutal letter that he heartily regretted that
by paying his creditors nearly all the money he had rendered himself
powerless to send it flying back across the ocean, accompanied by the
very choicest anathemas in his vocabulary.
The most exasperating feature of the letter was the offensive position
his uncle took in regard to his chosen work. He advised him to give it
up “as he did not seem to be a great success at it.” Success meaning to
him—as it does to so many other business men—solely and uniquely the
possession of the special faculty for making money.
[Illustration]
“Yet,” said Little Barlow to his patient little wife, “I don’t think I
have been a total failure, and won’t admit yet awhile that—even from
his point of view—I am not a success.” “No dearest,” she joined in
indignantly, “we won’t admit that at all;” and then she added proudly,
“we will show him some day that you will be rich as well as famous, and
will prove to him that he might have acquired far more lasting honor, at
very much less expense, by giving you a few well-paid orders now—and so
helping you over some rough places in your career—than he can ever gain
with all his vain-glorious memorials put together.”
Little Barlow kissed his thanks on the lips of his loyal little wife
and resumed: “I imagine sometimes that the old gentleman means well
but doesn’t understand our case. He went into business as a boy, made
all his money himself, and considers struggling was good for him and
formed his character, so I suppose he honestly thinks that that is the
very best training for an artist also. He doesn’t comprehend that we
depend for our actual livelihood on the caprice of the public (and are
often undeservedly worried thereby) or that we cannot paint directly for
money, or that if we do so our work is tolerably certain not to sell. You
can add up a column of figures, or measure calico, or weigh out sugar,
or sweep a room, or do a lot of other useful things with the idea of
remuneration for your pains in view, but you cannot write a great poem,
or compose a great piece of music, or paint a great picture—which must
be poetic and musical as well—with an eye solely bent on the acquisition
of the almighty dollar. I never in all my life painted but one of those
horrid affairs that we so suggestively call ‘pot boilers’ and that—heaven
help me!—has been knocking around my studio as a lesson ever since. There
seems to be something in it that proclaims it a monster to the least
intelligent, something mean about it which says money was the sole object
of its being born at all.
“On the contrary, if you paint a subject because you find it beautiful,
or interesting, or because you love to do it, it is astonishing indeed if
you do not find somebody else who would ‘love’ to have it and be glad to
pay what he can afford for its possession.”
Little Barlow had followed this theory consistently and had very little
left in his studio to sell. He had found that a great many people “loved”
his pictures; the only trouble was that the ones who “loved” and wanted
them the most had very little to give in exchange for them; and that
after the expenses for frames, canvases, paints, rents, taxes, models and
commissions had been deducted, there was scarcely anything remaining for
the sweet young wife, the two wee children, and little Barlow himself.
Still he hoped for better things in the future and worked on, as he had
always done, with a great joy in his heart.
Little Barlow had had a hard life of it and had practically “made”
himself, but in spite of all the sordid shocks his artistic nature had
received in that process it still remained intact and valiant. He had
also had his share of successes as well, although they did not exactly
come within his uncle’s definition of the word. He had had two drawings
and a prize painting hung on the walls of Julian’s, the title of
“Premier” in the admission examination at the Ecole des Beaux Arts and
an Honorable Mention and a Third Class Medal at the old Salon. When he
received his “Mention” he was so proud and confident of his powers that
he rashly rushed off and proposed to a charming little girl art-student
just as poor and as ingenious as himself.
[Illustration]
It was during his honey-moon—when he was blissfully happy—that he
produced his medal picture, and then there came a halt in his affairs
for lack of money, and the bills and the babies rolled in on him till
they had threatened to drown him altogether, and in sheer desperation
he composed his little plaint to his uncle which brought him the saving
three hundred dollars and, a week later, the awful letter that made him
red with shame for months afterward.
[Illustration]
In spite of all his resolves and struggles fate had been adverse to him
once more. He was in great difficulties, and the necessity of facing
an immediate danger was again upon him. It was of course useless and
entirely out of the question to write a second letter to the uncle,
whom he felt in his anger would willingly see them all slowly die of
starvation rather than help them further, provided, of course, they could
do so decently and quietly and not make any unpleasant scandal about it.
“I shall not write to him again, whatever happens,” he said, clinching
his fists; and then he added, with an altogether ugly look on his
usually placid face, “if the worst comes to the worst and we have to
shoot ourselves, or otherwise go under, it will make a great deal of
unfavorable talk at home and that,” he continued, smiling grimly, “is
something he won’t like at all.”
Little Barlow had not been indulging in any such gloomy reflections
the month before; on the contrary he had not been so hopeful and light
hearted for a long time. He had paid his rent and a big color bill (which
threatened to become malignant) with the compensation he had received
for a remarkably living portrait of a rich and titled Englishman.
“If I receive two more orders of the kind I will be on solid rock,”
he triumphantly asserted to his beaming little wife, “and there now
seems every prospect that I’ll get them. Lord Richemont was very much
pleased with my work—as was his friend Sir Garnet Walton—and they have
practically promised me at least one more order apiece. I will probably
have to go to London soon to paint Lady Richemont, and who knows what
will come out of the connections I may make there.”
Poor little Barlow’s day dreams were short lived, for toward the end
of the following week—when he was just upon the point of starting—he
received a letter from his patron telling him that Lady Richemont found
his portrait wonderfully good and true and liked it immensely, but that
she would be unable to pose for him for some time on account of a serious
and sudden illness which had pulled her down in strength and temporarily
altered her face. Then the bread bill dropped in, and little Barlow,
wearing an exceedingly serious and abstracted air, settled it with the
money he had reserved for his ticket to England, and the next day (out of
an almost cloudless sky) fell an unkind and unexpected thunderbolt, in
the shape of a legal summons from his frame-maker to pay one hundred and
forty seven francs still due.
Now this was needlessly cruel on the frame-maker’s part, for little
Barlow had ordered from him—or recommended his friends to order—nearly
six thousand francs worth of work in the past five years. But the
frame-maker suddenly “saw red,” as they say in France, and was in
financial troubles in his turn, and decided to fall on poor little
Barlow’s back with the entire and somewhat massive machinery of the
French law.
[Illustration]
“This document,” said little Barlow, gazing with mingled awe and
curiosity at the officially stamped paper, “calls for our immediate
attention. We are coming dangerously near to the point of being seized
and sold out, and, if that were ever to take place, it would mean a
complete and definite end to us.” While he was reflecting what it was
best for him to do under the circumstances, the postman once again passed
by and handed in another letter from London which when he had torn it
open and read it, eased his mind mightily. It informed him that if he
would accept £20 instead of the catalogue price of £30 for a last year
Salon picture—then exposed at the Crystal Palace—he could dispose of it
immediately.
He was so delighted at this unexpected good fortune that he caught his
little wife by the waist—although she held a baby in each arm at the time
and was in danger of dropping and injuring them seriously—and waltzed her
round and round the studio. Then he told her all about the good news,
and sat down and wrote a reply agreeing to let his picture go somewhat
reluctantly (for the looks of the thing) provided he was paid at once;
after which he sallied out and walked way over across town and deposited
it himself in the main post office of the rue du Louvre so that there
would be a little less chance of its going astray than by simply dropping
it in a branch office letter-box in the next street. Then he went home
and patiently waited for the response.
A whole week passed and it did not come and he was at length forced by
the actual necessities of life to borrow twenty francs from a friend
named Bolton. Toward the middle of the second week he got another ten
from an acquaintance named Sidney, but still the anxiously looked for
communication did not put in its appearance. Matters were assuming a
decidedly ominous aspect now—the frame-maker’s suit having been decided
against him by default—so he wrote a rather peevish letter to the
Secretary of the Exhibition which, after some further delay, elicited a
reply. In it he was told that the gentleman who had wanted his picture
had gone away for a short cruise on his yacht and had neglected as yet to
make known his ultimate intentions in regard to it.
[Illustration]
This note rendered little Barlow well-nigh desperate. What was he to do?
He remembered a kind friend, a Dr. Galt, who had offered to loan him a
little money once before (and whom he knew had a warm heart for all the
world), so he went over to his office on the rue St. Honore to ask him if
he could help him in his emergency, but Fortune was once again against
him and he learned with a sinking heart that the doctor had gone to
Edinburg to attend a medical congress then being held there and would not
be back for at least two weeks.
Then he returned to his studio, much discouraged and cast down, and told
his brave but sad little wife about this last and crowning disappointment.
“It’s no use,” said little Barlow despairingly, “every thing is against
us and we are now certain of being sold out. The danger is immediate and
our furniture may be seized at any moment. If I had only a little more
time I think I should be able to get the money somewhere, but the hundred
and forty-seven francs—and the twenty-five extra ones for costs—might
just as well be so many thousands, for I’m as powerless to raise them as
though they were. All the fellows who are likely to have any money to
spare are out of town and I’ve borrowed all I can from Bolton and Sidney.”
His wife knit her brow and reflected a moment; then she said slowly
but bravely, “I think I have found a way of paying the bill. It’s an
unpleasant way, but it’s the only one of which I know. We have pawned
practically all our silver and jewelry but _this_, and it’s right that
_it_ should go now;” saying which, she resolutely drew off her engagement
ring—daintily set with small diamonds and pearls—and held it out toward
her husband. “I hoped, dear, when you put it on my finger to have always
kept it there, but it’s best under the present circumstances that it
should leave it.”
Little Barlow refused to take it, with tears in his eyes at the
sacrilege, but she smiled at him cheerily and continued gently. “It is
off now and the damage is done, so don’t be gloomy, sweetheart, but take
it like a good boy. We won’t have to leave it at the _Mont de Piete_
permanently, for you are sure of getting some more money one of these
days, and then we can redeem it, and I will have another association with
it and will value it all the more on that account.”
So little Barlow was at length prevailed upon to go with it to the
_Succursale_ of the rue de Rennes, and borrowed the utmost which that
establishment would lend on it, which was only sixty francs.
“This partially solves the difficulty,” he said gloomily, on his return,
“but if we cannot raise a hundred and twelve francs more for the rest of
the bill and costs, we might just as well have nothing at all, for the
real good it will do us.”
“There is that Mrs. Harvey at the Hotel Continental,” suggested his wife
furtively; “she wrote to you last spring and asked you the price of the
little Salon picture which you had already sold. You called on her at the
time and she seemed affable and well-meaning, so why don’t you try her
now?”
“I don’t know that she’s in town, even,” little Barlow replied, “but if
she is, I’ve nothing left to sell her, and I don’t know how to beg. If it
were for anyone else, say Bolton or Sidney for instance, I might try to
do it, but for myself, or you, or the little ones—who after all are part
of me—I really couldn’t. I’m afraid I’ve too much pride left even yet!”
“Well,” said his wife, “if that is the only objection, I can suggest
an ingenious course of action for you. An idea, which is nothing short
of brilliant, has just occurred to me. _Why don’t you ask her for the
money as though it were for some one else?_ You can give her that
impression easily without telling an untruth. You can say that _you know
a man_—which you do, don’t you, you big goose?”—she rattled on, laughing
heartily—“_that you know a man who is in great trouble_—which is again
true, isn’t it? You can expatiate on the sad particulars of his case
just as much as ever you please, in fact the more you do so the better.
If this will save your pride and enable you to ask her for the money, I
don’t think, all things considered, the deceit is an unpardonable one.
We were given our wits by a kind Providence, and there’s no law that I
know of—either in Heaven or Earth—against our using them on desperate
occasions like this.”
Little Barlow, in spite of his sorry plight, joined his wife in a burst
of laughter on the conclusion of her monologue and rolled over and over
on the sofa in convulsions of irrepressible merriment.
“Yes,” continued his wife, laughing so that she could hardly speak,
“let’s save our pride and try to get out of our difficulty at the same
time. Mrs. Harvey thinks we are fairly well off, as we dress well,
have rather a swell looking studio and apartment, and appear tolerably
prosperous to the outside world, so she will never suspect she is
assisting you, whom, I am sure, however, she would much rather help
than a perfect stranger. However, to be doubly secure, we will start
a subscription book for the unhappy mortal, whose name you must not
disclose out of consideration for his sensitiveness, and I will put my
name down at the _very top of the list_ for sixty francs. You must also
make Bolton and Sidney each write down their names and the amounts they
have loaned you as if they were contributions.”
“You’re a genius,” said little Barlow admiringly, giving vent to a fresh
burst of laughter, “and I’ll take your advice. It’s too bad we’re obliged
to impose on the old lady’s credulity, but it won’t hurt her seriously,
and it will save us all from certain ruin; besides, we can pay her back
later when something lucky turns up.”
Accordingly, the next evening, little Barlow decked himself out very
carefully in his best suit, pinned a gardenia in the lapel of his coat,
and, looking exceedingly prosperous and handsome, called on Mrs. Harvey
at the hotel Continental. He was fortunate enough to find her at home,
and alone. He chatted with her pleasantly on all sorts of subjects, and
finally leading the conversation ’round with considerable tact to the
heart breaking case of THE MAN HE KNEW, surprised himself at the success
of his hypocrisy.
He told the old lady the most _navrante_ details of his situation, and so
worked on her sympathies with the probabilities of the wife and babies
becoming homeless, that she positively shed tears, and felt in her pocket
for her purse; and when—judging the moment to be opportune—he showed
her the subscription book, she tremulously wrote her name down for one
hundred francs and paid him the money then and there.
He felt rather mean and uncomfortable in taking it, but it meant life and
hope to him again, so he thanked her fervently for the MAN HE KNEW and,
promising to give her news of him in the near future, somewhat abruptly
took his departure.
His little wife was overjoyed at the success of her scheme; but they
still lacked twelve francs. This sum they finally raised by pawning a
silver belt-buckle, two broken scarf pins, and their four remaining
coffee spoons, and little Barlow was able to pay the horrid frame-maker
in full and tell him what he thought of him in perfect safety.
A fortnight later he received a check for £20 from the gentleman who
had been off on the boating expedition, and about the same time he got
word from Sir Garnet Walton that he could paint his portrait whenever
he chose. So he returned Mrs. Harvey’s contribution, with the heartfelt
gratitude of the MAN HE KNEW, and crossed the channel to a period of
great triumph and prosperity. He not only painted the portrait of Sir
Garnet Walton, but that of his mother, and his wife, and his little
daughter, and several of his friends.
He is out of the gloomy woods of poverty at last, and his feet are firmly
planted on the high road which leads to fame and fortune. Furthermore
he has learned to smile at his past misery and even to forgive his
short-sighted but benevolently inclined uncle for not alleviating it.
“I suppose, considering the trying situation, it was not inexcusably
wicked to impose, as I did, on old Mrs. Harvey’s kindness,” he remarked
one day to his wife; “but all the same it was steering rather too close
to a confidence game to suit my conscience altogether. I didn’t like the
business at all, but there are unfortunately many things in life which
border on untruthfulness of action but which one is compelled to do
nevertheless. This happened to be one of them.”
—_John P. Rogers._
[Illustration]
[Illustration: A QUESTION.
BY DANSKE DANDRIDGE.]
_My Psyche, straying in a glimmering night,_
_A flitting moth, o’er drenched and drowsy bloom._
_Sees the faint radiance from thy spirit’s room_
_And to that distant hope directs her flight._
_Thus, in forlornest need and longing-plight,_
_The lost bee flies to die in golden broom;_
_Thus hies the insect to the spider’s loom,_
_That dew-decked peril, flashing in the light._
_What wilt thou do? Thy splendor softly shade_
_That flies may quiver round it unafraid?_
_Or burn and dazzle, till the wings that soar,_
_Shrivelled and scorched, are useless evermore?_
_Or wilt thou draw the screen and close the bars,_
_That the poor baffled moth may seek the stars._
[Illustration: LOVE IS BLIND]
“Who knocks at the portal—so late?” whispered the little Greek maid.
“That may depend,” replied a clear voice outside, “some say I am a
friend, some a foe.”
The heart of the little Greek maid beat fast in her bosom. For three
nights she had heard this voice and for three nights a beautiful youth,
with silvery wings and his face concealed by a silver gauze, had appeared
to her in a dream.
“No, no, I have been forbidden to open the portal,” said the little Greek
maid.
“It is very cold and dark out here,” sighed the voice wistfully, “open
the portal but half way.”
“Only half way,” she replied, curiosity impelling her.
In this manner the beautiful youth, with silvery wings and his face
concealed by a silver gauze, affected an entrance.
“Oh, take the silver gauze from off thy face!” prayed the little Greek
maid.
“On a single condition,” answered the youth, “and that is, that I may
cover thy face with it. _In love, one, or the other, must always wear a
silver veil across the eyes._”
So she suffered him to bind the fillet about her forehead, but still she
could not see him.
“Oh, take the silver gauze from off my face!” prayed the little Greek
maid.
“In that case, I will be compelled to leave thee and never come again,”
he answered sadly.
But still she plead with him, whereupon he removed the silver gauze
from off her eyes and for the space of a second she gazed upon his
countenance, which shone resplendent, like the sun in his strength.
And she fell at his feet as one dead.
But when again she ventured to raise her face, he was gone!
—_William Theodore Peters._
[Illustration: SOME PICTURESQUE BITS OF BALTIMORE.
BY _G. Alden Peirson_]
[Illustration: _A glimpse of Mount Vernon Place, including the Washington
Monument and the Methodist Church. This site was covered by a dense
forest at the time the erection of the Monument was begun, in 1815._]
[Illustration: _Jones’ Falls, named in honor of one David Jones, who is
said to have been the first actual settler on the tract of land on which
Baltimore is built._
_He lived in 1661 on Front Street, at that time known as Jones’ Street._]
[Illustration: _Looking from under a Bridge at the Mouth of the Falls._]
[Illustration: _In Tyson Alley._]
[Illustration: _A Bit of the Falls near Monument Street._]
[Illustration: _A mile farther down the stream, showing the Front Street
Theatre, which was built in 1838, and formerly known as the “New Theatre
and Circus.”_
_The Booths, Charlotte Cushman, Jenny Lind, and many other celebrities,
appeared in this famous old play-house. At the present time its walls are
in a state of decay, and it is no longer used._]
[Illustration: _Marsh or Centre Market, and the rear of the Maryland
Institute._]
[Illustration: _At Locust Point, below Federal Hill._]
[Illustration: _In Little Pleasant Street, near Charles Street._]
[Illustration: _In a Shadowy Side Street._]
[Illustration: _In the vicinity of Richmond Market and Grundy Row._]