“W'at do you t'ink of it? On d' level! w'at d' youse really t'ink of it?

That Mike's a woild-beater; that's right; a woild-beater an' a wonder to

boot! I'd like to trade him for a yaller dawg, an' do d' dawg!”

“Did Dancer win?” I asked.

“Did Dancer win?” repeated Chucky; and his tones breathed guttural

scorn; “d' old skate never even finished. Naw; he gets 'round on d' back

stretch, stops, bites d' boy off his back, chases over be d' fence an'

goes to eatin' grass; that's what Dancer does. He's a dandy race horse,

or I don't want a cent! I'll bet me mudder-in-law on that Dancer some

day. I tells Mike to take a run an' jump on himself. Naw,” concluded

Chucky, with a great gulp, “Dancer don't win; War Song win.”

MOLLIE PRESCOTT

(Wolfville)

The Cactus” was the name bestowed upon her in Wolfville. Her signature,

if she had written it, would probably have been Mollie Prescott, at

least such was the declaration of Cherokee Hall.

“I sees this yere lady a year ago in Tombstone,” asserted that veracious

chronicler, “where she cooks at the stage station; an' she gives it out

she's Prescott--Mollie Prescott--an' most likely she knows her name, an'

knows it a year ago.”

As Cherokee was a historian of known firmness of statement, no one cared

to challenge either his facts or his conclusions. The true name of “The

Cactus” was accepted by the Wolfville public as Prescott.

“The Cactus” was personable, and her advent into Wolfville society

caused something of a flutter. Her mission was to cook, and in the

fulfilment of her destiny she presided over the range at the stage

station.

Being publicly hailed as “The Cactus” seemed in no wise to depress her.

It was even possible she took a secret glow over an epithet, meant by

the critical taste awarding it, to illustrate those thorns in her nature

which repelled and held in check the amorous male of Wolfville.

Women were not frequent in Wolfville, and on her coming, “The Cactus”

had many admirers. Every man in camp loved her the moment she stepped

from the Tucson stage; that is, every man save Cherokee Hall. That

scientist, given wholly to faro as a philosophy, had no time--in a day

before he met Faro Nell--for so dulcet an affair as love. Also Cherokee

had scruples born of his business.

“Life behind a deal box is a mighty sight too fantastic,” observed

the thoughtful Cherokee, “for a fam'ly. It does well enough for

single-footers, which it don't make much difference with when some gent

they've mortified an' hurt, pulls his six-shooter an' sends them lopin'

home to heaven all spraddled out. But a lady ain't got no business with

a sport who turns kyards as a pursoot.”

As time unfurled, the train of lovers to sigh on the daily trail of “The

Cactus” dwindled. There were those who grew dispirited.

“I'm clean-strain enough,” said Dan Boggs, in apologetic description of

his failure to persevere, “but I knows when I've got through. I'll play

a game to a finish, but when it's down to the turn an' my last chip's

gone over to the dealer, why! I shoves my chair back an' quits. An' it's

about that a-way of an' concernin' my yearnin's for this yere Cactus

girl. I jest can't get her none, an' that settles it. I now drops out

an' gives up my seat complete.”

“That's whatever!” said Texas Thompson, who was an interested listener

to the defeated Boggs, “an' you can gamble I'm with you on them views!

Seein' as how my wife in Laredo gets herse'f that divorce, I turns in

an' loves this Cactus person myse'f to a frightful degree. Thar's times

I simply goes about sobbin' them sentiments publicly. But yere awhile

back I comes wanderin' 'round her kitchen, an' bing! arrives a skillet

at my head. That lets me out! You bet! I don't pursoo them explorations

'round her no more. I has exper'ence with one, an' I don't aim to get

any lariat onto a second female who is that callous as to go a-chunkin'

of kitchen bric-a-brac at a heart which is merely pinin' for her

smiles.”

There were two at the shrine of “The Cactus,” who were known to

Wolfville, respectively, as Cottonwood Wasson and Cape Jinks. These were

distinguished for the ardour wherewith they made siege to the affection

of “The Cactus,” and the energy of their demands for her capitulation.

That virgin, however, paid neither heed to their court, nor took an

interest in the comment of onlook-ing Wolfville. She pursued her path

in life, even and unmoved. She set her tables, washed her dishes, and

perfected her daily beefsteaks by the ingenious process, popular in the

Southwest, of burning them on the griddles of the range, and all with a

composure bordering hard on the stolid.

“All I'm afraid of,” said Old Man Enright, the head of the local

vigilance committee, “is that some of these yere young bucks'll take to

pawin' 'round for trouble with each other. As the upshot of sech doin's

would most likely be the stringin' of the survivors by the committee,

nuptials, which now looks plenty feasible, would be plumb busted an'

alienated, an' the camp get a setback it would be hard to rally from. I

wishes this maiden would tip her hand to some discreet gent, so a play

could be made in advance to get the wrong parties over to Tucson or

some'ers. Whatever do you think yourse'f, Cherokee?”

“It's a delicate deal,” replied that philosopher, “to go tamperin'

'round a lady for the secret of her soul. But I shorely deems the

occasion a crisis, an* public interest demands somethin' is done. I wish

Doc Peets was yere; he knows these skirted cattle like I does an ace.

But Peets won't be back for a month; pendin' of which, onless we-alls

interferes, it's my jedgment some of this yere amorousness 'll come off

in the smoke.”

“Thar ought to be statoots,” observed Texas Thompson, with a fine air of

wisdom, “ag'in love-makin' in the far West. The East should be kept

for sech purposes speshul; same as reservations for Injuns. The Western

climate's too exyooberant for love.”

“S'pose me an' you an' Thompson yere goes to this young person, an' all

p'lite an' congenial like, we ups an' asks her intentions?” remarked

Enright. This was offered to Cherokee.

“Excuse me, pards!” said Texas Thompson with eagerness, “but I don't

reckon I wants kyards in this at all. 'The Cactus' is a mighty fine

young bein', but you-alls recalls as how I've been ha'ntin' 'round her

somewhat in the past myse'f. For which reason, with others, she might

take my comin' on sech errants derisive, an' bust me over the forehead

with a dipper, or some sech objectionable play. I allows I better keep

out of this embroglio a whole lot. I ain't aiming to shirk nothin', but

it'll be a heap more shore to win.”

“Thompson ain't onlikely to be plenty right about this,” said Cherokee,

“an' I reckons, Enright, we-alls better take this trick ourse'ves.”

The mission was not a success. When the worthy pair of peace-preservers

appeared in the presence of “The Cactus,” and made the inquiries noted,

the scorn of that damsel was excited beyond the power of words to

describe.

“What be you-alls doin' in my kitchen?” she cried, her face a-flush

with rage and noonday cookery. “Who sends you-alls curvin' over to me,

a-makin' of them insultin' bluffs? I demands to know!”

“An' yere,” said Cherokee Hall, relating the exploit in the Red Light

immediately thereafter, “she stamps her foot like a buck antelope, an'

lets fly a stovelifter at us; an' all with a proud, high air, which

reminds me a mighty sight of a goddess.”

At the time, it would seem, the duo attempted to show popular cause

for their presence, and made an effort to point out to “The Cactus” the

crying public need of some decision on her part.

“You-all don't want the young male persons of this village to take to

shootin' of each other all up none, do you?” asked Enright.

“I wants you two beasts to get outen my kitchen!” replied “The Cactus”

vigorously; “an' I wants you to move some hurried, too. Don't never let

me find your moccasin tracks 'round yere no more, or I'll turn in an'

mark you up.”

[Illustration: 0287]

“Yere, you!” she continued as the ambassadors were about to leave,

something cast down by the conference; “you-alls can tell the folks of

this town, that if they're idiots enough to go makin' a gun play over

me, to make it. They has shore pestered me enough!”

“Which I don't wonder none at Thompson bein' reluctant an' doobious

about seein' this Cactus lady,” said Enright, as the two walked away.

“She's some fiery, an' that's a fact!” observed Cherokee in assent.

The result of the talk with “The Cactus” found its way about Wolfville,

and in less than an hour bore its hateful fruit. The peaceful quiet of

the Red Light, which, as a rule, was wounded by no harsher notes than

the flutter of a stack of chips, was rudely broken.

“Gents who ain't interested, better hunt a lower limb!”

It was the voice of Cottonwood Wasson. The trained instincts of

Wolfville at once grasped the trouble, and proceeded to hide its many

heads behind barrels, tables, counters, and anything which promised

refuge from the bullets.

All but one; Cape Jinks. He knew it meant him the moment Cottonwood

Wasson uttered the first syllable, and his pistol came bluntly to the

fore without a word. His rival's was already there, and the shooting set

in like a hailstorm. As a result, Cottonwood Wasson received an injury

that crippled his arm for days, while Cape Jinks was picked up with

a hole in his side, which even the sanguine sentiment of Wolfville,

inclined to a hardy optimism at all times, called dangerous.

“Well!” said Old Man Enright, drawing a deep, troubled breath, after

the duellists were cared for at the O. K. House, “yere we be ag'in an'

nothin' settled! Thar's all this shootin', an' this blood-lettin', an'

the camp gets all torn up; an' thar's as many of these people now as

thar is before, an' most likely the whole deal to go over ag'in.”

“I shore 'bominates things a-splittin' even that a-way!” said Cherokee.

The next day a new face was given the affair when “The Cactus” was

observed, clothed in her best frock and with two violent red roses in

her straw hat, to take the stage for Tucson. The stage company reported,

in deference to the excited state of the Wolfville mind, that “The

Cactus” would return in a week.

“Goin' for her weddin' trowsoo, most likely,” said Dan Boggs, as he

gazed after the stage.

“Let's drink to the hope she wins out a red dress!” remarked Texas

Thompson. “Set up the bottles, bar-keep, an' don't let no gent pass up

the play. Which red is my fav'rite colour!”

No one seemed to know the intentions of “The Cactus.” The shooting would

appear to have in nowise disturbed her. That may have been her obdurate

heart, or it may have come from a familiarity with the evanescent tenure

of human life, born of her years on the border. Be that as one will, she

expressed not the least concern touching her brace of wounded lovers,

and took the stage without saying good-bye to any one.

“An' some fools say women is talkers!” remarked Jack Moore, the Marshal,

in high disgust.

Three days later Old Monte, the stage driver, came in with thrilling

news. “The Cactus” had wedded a man in Tucson, and would bring him to

Wolfville in a week.

“When I first hears of it,” went on Old Monte with a groan, “an' when

I thinks of them two pore boys a-layin' in Wolfville, an' their claims

bein' raffled off in that heartless way, I shore thinks I'll take my

Winchester an' stop them marriage rites if I has to crease the preacher.

But, pards, the Tucson marshal wouldn't have it. He stan's me off. So

she nails him; an' the barkeep at the Oriental Saloon tells me over

thar, how she's been organisin' to wed this yere prairie dog before she

ever hops into Wolfville at all. I sees him afterwards; an', gents! for

looks, he don't break even with horned toads!”

“Thar you be!” said Enright, making a deprecatory gesture, “another case

of woman, lovely woman! However, even if this Cactus lady has done rung

in a cold hand onto us, we must still prance 'round an' show her a good

time when she trails in with her prey. Where the honour of the camp is

concerned, we whoops it up! Of course the Cactus don't please us none

with this deal; but most likely she pleases herse'f, which, after all,

is the next best thing. Gents,” concluded Enright, after a pause, “the

return of the new couple will be the signal of a general upheaval in

their honour. It's to be hoped our young friends, Cottonwood an' Jinks,

will by then be healthful enough to participate tharin. Barkeep! the

liquor, please! Boys, the limit's off; wherefore drink hearty!”

“Which I has preemonitions from the first, this yere Cactus female is

a brace game,” remarked Texas Thompson, as he filled his glass; “that's

whatever!”

“Oh! I don't know!” replied Cherokee Hall thoughtfully. “She has her

right to place her bets to please herse'f, an' win or lose, this

camp should be proud to turn for her. Wolfville can't always make a

killin'--can't always be on velvet; but as long as the Cactus an' her

victim pitches camp yere, Wolfville can call herse'f ahead on the deal.

I sees no room for cavil, an' I yereby freights my glass to the Cactus

an' the shorthorn she's tied down.”

ANNA MARIE

Anna Marie was to be a new woman. She had decided that for herself. In

the carrying out of her destinies, Anna Marie had cut her hair short.

She also made a specialty of very mannish costumes, and, outwardly, at

least, became as virile as a woman might be with a make-up the basis of

which was bound to be a skirt.

Anna Marie was motherless, and at the age of nineteen, when she

determined to become a new woman, had no advice save her father's to

depend on. When she discussed an adoption of broader and more masculine

methods on her girlish part with her father, the old gentleman looked

puzzled, and said:

“Well, my dear! I have great confidence in your judgment. There is

nothing like experience, so go ahead. You will find, however, before you

have gone far, that you labour under many structural defects. The

great Architect didn't lay you out for a man, Anna Marie; you were not

intended for such a fate.” However, Anna Marie kept on. She was looking

for a fuller liberty and a wider field. She was too delicately and too

accurately determined in her tastes to be a fool to cigarettes, or swept

down in a current of profanity. Bad language she would leave to the real

man; in her career as a new woman nothing so vigorous was needed.

But men did other things, had other freedoms; and from that long male

list of liberties Anna Marie proceeded to pick out a line of freedom

for herself. She had had enough of that pent-up Utica which confines the

conventional woman. What she wanted was more room: that is, of proper,

decorous sort.

Of course, as Anna Marie proceeded up the long trail of masculinity, it

was noted by critics that she still continued essentially feminine as to

many common male accomplishments. She could not throw a stone, except in

that vague, pawey, overhand fashion usual with ladies, and which confers

on the missile neither direction nor force. And when Anna Marie essayed

to run, she still put everybody in mind of a cow trying to keep an

engagement.

While others noted those solemn truths, Anna Marie did not. She thought

she was making strenuous progress, and combed her short hair as a man

combs his, and walked with long, decided stride.

Anna Marie rode a bike, and decided to don bloomers for this ceremony.

She came to the bloomer decision hesitatingly, but made up her mind at

last. Secretly she regarded bloomers as the Rubicon. It was bloomers

which flowed between herself and the new woman in full standing; and

once Anna Marie had broken on the world in this ill-considered costume,

she would feel herself graduated, and no longer at school to Destiny.

Therefore, there dawned a day when Anna Marie came down the avenue on

her bike, be-bloomered to heart's content. She had made the plunge; the

Rubicon was crossed, and Anna Marie felt now like a female Cæsar who

must conquer or die.

On the bike-bloomer occasion Anna Marie was weak enough to hurry. She

put her unbridled steed to fullest speed, and flashed by the onlookers

like unto some sweet meteor. She blamed herself afterward for being

such a craven, but concluded that by sticking to her bloomers she would

acquire heart and slacken speed in time.

The worst feature about the bloomer business was that Anna Marie wotted

not how hideous she looked. She did not know that a printer on his way

to his case, caught a fleeting impression of her as she sped by, and

that he at once “put on a sub.,” took a night off, and became dejectedly

yet fully drunk. Nor did she wist that a nervous person was so affected

by the awful tout ensemble of herself, bike, and bloomers that he

repaired to Bloomingdale and sternly demanded admission as a right.

No; Anna Marie rode all too frightened and too fast to reap these

truths. Still, she might not have altered her system if she had known.

For Anna Marie was resolute. Bent as Anna Marie was on her completion as

a new woman, she resolved to inhabit bloomers and ride her two-wheeled

vehicle even unto a grey old age. How else, indeed, could she be a new

woman? A girl friend who had stood appalled at the vigour of Anna Marie

asked her as to the bloomers.

“They are good things,” observed Anna Marie. “There's a comfort in

bloomers which lurks not in the tangled wilderness of the ordinary

skirt. Their fault is that in donning bloomers one does not put them on

over one's head. It is a great defect. As it is, one never feels more

than half-dressed.” Anna Marie declared that the great want of the

day was bloomers, through which one thrust one's arms and head in the

process of harnessing.

Anna Marie had a brother George. This youth was twelve years of age.

George was essentially masculine. Anna Marie could see that, and it

came to her as a thought that in the course of becoming a new woman of

fullest feather, a good, ripe method would be to study George. Should

she do as George did, young though he was, she was sure to succeed.

George would do from instinct what she must do by imitation. Anna Marie

felt these things without really and definitely thinking them. It so

fell out that, without telling George, Anna Marie began to take him

as guide, philosopher and friend. And all without really knowing it

herself.

Unconsciously, George loved her all the better because of this, and,

moved by a warm, ingenuous lack of years, began to take Anna Marie into

his confidence like true comrade. Anna Marie encouraged his frankness.

“George,” said Anna Marie, one day, “whenever you are about to do

anything peculiarly boyish and interesting, always tell me, so that I

may join you in your sport.”

George said he would, and he did.

It so befell one day, as the fruit of this comradeship, that George

changed the channel of Anna Marie's manly determination, and caused her

to abandon the rôle of a new woman. This is the story, and it all taught

Anna Marie, with the rush of a landslide, that, however industriously

she might prune and train her habits to the trellis of the male,

she would never be able to bring her nature to that state of icy,

egotistical, cold-blooded hardihood absolutely necessary to the perfect

man, and therefore indispensable to the new woman. But the story.

“Anna Marie,” said George, coming on her one day, “Anna Marie, me and

Billy Sweet wants you.”

“What is it, George?” asked Anna Marie.

“We're going to hang a dog out back of the barn,” explained George. “Me

and Billy are to be the jury, and we want you for judge. Hurry up, now!

that's a good fellow!”

Anna Marie felt a shock at thought of taking the life of anything. Her

first feeling was that George was a brute--a mere animal himself. But

Anna Marie quickly reflected, that, whatever George might be, at least

his hardened sex was the promontory the new woman must steer by. She put

down the garment she was sewing and sought the scene of canine trial.

“You see, Anna Marie!” explained George, pointing to a saffron-coloured

dog, which stood with dolorous tail between his legs and looked very

repentant, “he murdered a kitten, and we are going to try to convict and

hang him. You sit down there by the fence, and the trial won't take a

minute. Billy and me have got our minds made up, and we won't take no

time to decide. There's the rope, and we're going to hang him to the

limb of that maple.”

Anna Marie felt worried. Still, she allowed herself to be installed, and

the trial proceeded. It was very brief. George produced the defunct

kitten,--which looked indeed, very dead,--with the remark, “Say, you

yellow dog! you're charged with murdering this cat; have you got

anything to say against being hung?”

The yellow cur feebly wagged his disreputable tail, and looked at Anna

Marie in a fashion of sneaking appeal. He said as plain as words: “Save

me!”

“I wouldn't hang the poor thing, George,” said Anna Marie, and she began

to pat the felon yellow cur.

“You're a great judge!” remonstrated George, indignantly. “It ain't for

you to decide; it's for me and Billy. We are the jury, and in favour of

hanging him, ain't we, Billy?”

Billy nodded emphatically.

“But, George,” expostulated Anna Marie, “it is so cruel! so brutal!”

“Brutal!” scoffed George. “Don't they hang folks for murder every day?

You wear bloomers and talk of being a new woman and having the rights

of a man! I have heard you with that Sanford girl! And now you come

out here and try to talk off a yellow dog who is guilty of murder, and

admits it by his silence! You would act nice if it was a real man and a

real murder case! Come on, Billy; let's string him up.”

Here George seized on the cowering victim of lynch law, and started

for the maple, where the rope already dangled for its prey. Anna Marie

became utterly feminine at this, and burst into tears. Her nineteen

years and her progress toward a new womanhood did not save her. In her

distress she turned to the other member of the jury.

Billy Sweet, at the age of thirteen, was an ardent admirer of George's

sister, loved her dearly, if secretly, and meant to marry her in ten

or fifteen years, when he grew up. At present he played with George

and kept a loving eye on his future bride. Anna Marie knew of Billy's

partiality, so she cunningly turned on this admirer, like a true

daughter of the olden woman.

“You think as I do, don't you, Billy?” And Anna Marie's tone had a

caress in it which made Billy's ears a happy red.

“Yes, ma'am!” said Billy.

George was disgusted.

“You are the kind of a juryman,” said George, full of contempt, “that

makes me tired. There, Anna Marie, take your yellow dog, and don't try

to play with me no more. You are too soft!”

Anna Marie felt that some vast deposit of good, hard sense lay hidden

in George's last remark. On her way to the house she did a good deal

of thinking, as girls whose mothers are dead do now and then. The

development of her cogitations was told in a remark to her girl friend:

“It's so tiresome, this being a new woman! I am going to give it up. I

am afraid, as father says, I am 'not built right.'”

And thus it ended. Marie is exceedingly the olden woman now. She has

beaten her sword into a pruning-hook, her bike into a spinning-wheel!

She no longer walks with long, decided stride. She is a woman in all

things, and will scream and chase a street car as if it were the last

going that way for a week, like the tenderest and frailest of her kind.

She has retracted as to bloomers. Anna Marie has returned to the agency,

and forever abandoned the warpath of a new and manly womanhood.

THE PETERSENS

(Annals of The Bend)

WHEN Chucky came into the little doggery where we were wont to

converse, there arrived with him an emphatic odour of kerosene. Also

Chucky's face was worn and sad, and his hands were muffled with many

bandages. To add to it all Chucky was not in spirits.

“What's the trouble?” I asked.

“We've been havin 'd' run in' of our lives,” replied Chucky, as he

called to the barkeeper for his usual bracer, “an' our tenement is just

standin' on its nut right now, an' that's for straight!”

“Tell me about it,” I urged.

“D' racket this time over to d' joint,” said Chucky, “is about a Swede

skirt named Petersen who croaks herself be d' gas play last night. D'

place is full of cops an' hobos an' all sorts of blokes, pipin' off d'

play, while a corner mug is holdin' an inkwest over d' stiff, see! What

you smells is d' coal oil on me mits. I soaks me hooks in it to take d'

boin away. Me Rag gives me d' tip; an' say! it's a winner at that. D'

boins ain't half so bad as dey was.”

“But I don't understand,” I replied. “How did you come to burn your

hands? If the gas was burning, I don't see how the woman could have

committed suicide.”

“Youse is gettin' away on d' wrong hoof,” said Chucky. “I don't boin me

fins over d' Petersen moll croakin' herself. I cremates 'em puttin' out

d' flames when d' Petersen kid takes fire d' day before. This inkwest

which d' cor'oner guy is holdin' to-day, is d' secont one. He holds d'

foist yesterday over d' kid.

“On d' level! I don't catch on to d' need of inkwests anyhow. If a

mark's dead, he's dead. It don't need no sawbones an' a mob of snoozers

to be 'panelled for a jury, see! to put youse on. It looks to me like

a dead case of shakin' down d' public for d' fees; these inkwests do,

Cor'ners, I s'spose, has to have some excuse for livin', so when some

poor duck croaks, dey comes chasin' 'round wit' a inkwest to see if

he's surely done up, an' to put a bit of dough in their kecks. Well! I

figgers it's law all right, all right, an' mebby it's d' proper caper.

Anyhow, I passes it up.

“What about this Petersen push? Well, if ever a household strikes it

hard, I'm here to say it's d' Petersens. When it comes to d' boss hard

luck story, I'll place me bets wit' that outfit every time.

“It's two spaces back when this Petersen gang comes ashore at Ellis

Island. There's t'ree of 'em; husband, wife, an' kid, see! Dey comes

in as steerage, an' naturally, d' Ellis Island gezebos collars 'em

an' t'rows 'em into hock d' moment dey hits d' pier. Nit; dey ain't

arrested. But youse is on, how dey puts d' clamps to emigrants. Dey

'detains' 'em, as it's called.

“Every mug who comes steerage has to spring his plant when he lands, an'

if he ain't as strong as $30, dey--d' offishuls--don't do a t'ing but

chase him back on d' nex' boat. He's a pauper, see! an' he gets d'

razzle dazzle an 'd' gran' rinky dink. Back he goes where he hails from,

like a bundle of old clothes. Paupers is barred at Ellis Island; dey

don't go wit' these United States, not on your overshoes!

“So d' Petersens is stood up, like I tells youse, at Ellis Island to see

be dey tramps. It toins out, nit. Dey ain't paupers. Petersen has more'n

enough money to get be d' gate, see! Petersen has a hundred an' fifty

plunks, an' bein' there's only t'ree, it's plenty to go 'round an' show

$30 for each.

“Still them Ellis Island snoozers detains d' Petersens a week just d'

same. D' place where dey stays is worse'n any holdover or station house

I'm ever in; an', bein' d' weather's winter, an' this 'detention' pen

is wet an' cold, Petersen himself cops off d' pneumonia an' out goes his

light before ever he leaves Ellis Island at all. Dey plants him in d'

graveyard dey has for emigrants, an 'd' wife an' kid comes over to d'

city alone.

“That's d' foist I knows of d' Petersens. D' mother an' kid takes a

back-room in our tenement; an' after dey gets 'quainted, she tells me

Rag about her man dyin'. She ain't so old, this Petersen woman, an' only

she's all broke up about her man croakin', she ain't a bad looker, see!

wit' blue eyes an' a mop of gold hair. D' kid's name is Hilda, an,'

except she's only seven years an' no bigger'n a drink of whiskey, she's

a ringer for her mother.

“Well! like I says, d' Petersens--what's left of 'em after d' man quits

livin'--organised in d' back room on our floor. An' because folks who

wants to chew must woik, d' Petersen woman gets a curve on an' goes to

doin' stunts wit' a tub. She chases 'round doin' washin', see!

“It's when d' old goil is away slingin' suds that I gets nex' wit 'd'

kid. She's dropped her ragbaby down be a gratin' one day an' her heart

is broke. She t'inks it's a cinch case of all over wit' d' poor ragbaby,

an' she's cryin' to beat d' band.

“But she gets it ag'in. Me an' a big fat cop who comes waddlin' along,

tears up d' gratin' an' fishes out Hilda's doll, an' after that me an'

her gets to be dead chummy; what youse might call * pals.'

“Hilda's shy at foist, an' a bit leary of me--I ain't no bute at me

best--but she gets used to seein' me about, an' as I stakes her to

or'nges onct or twict, at last she gets stuck on me.

“D' Petersens, an' me, an' me Rag is neighbours on d' same floor for

near two years. An' days when I comes home early, an' me breat' ain't

smellin' of booze--for d' kid welches every time she sniffs d' lush

on me, see!--I used to go in an' kiss Hilda same as she's me own. An'

between youse an' me,” and here a drop gathered in Chucky's cold eye,

“I ain't above tippin' it off on d' quiet, I t'inks a heap of this

young-one, an' feels better every time I gets me lamps on her.

“D' finish comes t'ree days ago. D' old goil Petersen is away woikin',

an' Hilda, for all it's so cold, is playin' in d' passage-way. There's

one of them plumber hold-ups fixin 'd' water pipe where it's sprung a

leak, an' he's got one of them dinky little fire pots which plumbers lug

'round wit' em.

“While this plumber stiff is busy wit' his graft, poor little Hilda

t'inks she'll warm her dolly's mits be d' blaze. She's holdin' her

ragbaby's hooks over d' plumber's fire as I comes up d' stairs; an' as

she hears me foot, an' toins smilin' to make sure it's me, her frock

catches, an' when she chases screechin' into me arms, she's a bundle of

live flame. Say! I'd sooner ten to one it was me, an' that's no bluff!

“I wraps me coat over her, an' gives d' fire d' quick smother, see! An'

I boins me dukes until it comes to bein' mighty near a case of stumps

wit' Chucky d' balance of his joiney to d' tomb.

“But what th' 'ell! It all don't do no good. D' poor kid has swallered d'

fire, an' she's d' deadest ever before even I takes her out of me coat.

“We lays Hilda out, me Rag an' me, on d' Petersens' bed; an' d' cor'ner

sucker, as I says at d' be-ginnin', comes sprintin' over an' goes to

holdin' his inkwests.

“Bimeby, d' mother gets home from her tubs, an' that's where d' hard

play comes in. Me Rag tells her as easy as she can; but youse could see

it was a centre shot all d' same. It soaked her where she lived.

“'Foist d' man, an' then d' baby!' says d' Petersen woman, as she sets

on d' floor an' mourns; 'now I'll soon go hunt for 'em.'

“Me Rag tries to get her to come in wit' us, but she won't stan' for it.

All t'rough d' night we hears her mournin' an' groanin' on d' floor be

d' side of little Hilda's coffin.

“D' kid's fun'ral was yesterday, an' a pulpit sharp from one of d'

Missions gets in on d' play, an' offishiates. Sure! it's a case of

Potter's Field--for d' mother ain't got d' dough to make good for a

grave--but me an' me Rag gets a car, an' takes d' mother out to see

little Hilda planted. No, she don't cry much at that; but me Rag toins

in an' don't do a t'ing but break d' record for tears. If Hilda was her

own kid, she couldn't have made more of a row. When it comes to what

youse might call 'd' outward evidences of grief,' me Rag simply lose d'

Petersen mother.

“D' mother was feelin' it all d' same. She keeps whisperin' to herself:

'Soon I'll go find 'em!' like that; an' that's d' limit of what youse

could get out of her.

“It's last night, after little Hilda's put away,--it's mebby, say, t'ree

this mornin', when wit'out a woid of warnin' me Rag sets up straight in

bed an' gives a sniff.

“'Be d' mother of d' Holy Mary! it's gas!' she says, an' nex' she makes

a straight wake for d' Petersen door.

“An' me Rag guesses right d' very foist time, like d' kid in d' song.

Gas it was; d' poor Petersen mother toins it on full blast. She's

croaked an' cold as a wedge, hours before we tumbles to her game.

“That's d' finish. As I states d' foist dash out of d' box, it's d'

dandy hard luck story of d' year. D' whole Petersen push is wiped out,

same as that bar-keep would swab off his bar. On d' dead! it's all too

many for me! What's d' use of folks bein' born at all, if dey's goin' to

get yanked in like that--t'ree at a clatter, an' all young!

“Do dey have re-latiffs? Some in d' old country, I takes it. There's a

note d' Petersen woman leaves for me Rag, astin' her to write d' hist'ry

of d' last round an' wind-up to d' folks at home, an' givin' d' address.

But me ownliest own says 'nit!' an* chucks d' note in d' stove.

“'Dey's better off not knowin',' says me Rag.”

BOWLDER'S BURGLAR

Bowlder's wife and offspring were away at the time; and the time was a

night last summer. Mrs. B. was in Long Branch, and Bowlder, left lonely

and forlorn, to look after the house and earn money, was having a sad,

bad time, indeed.

Not that Bowlder really lacked anything; but he missed his wife and

little ones. Where before the merry prattle of his children made the

racket of a boiler shop, all was solemn peace and hush. The Bowlder

mansion was like a graveyard.

Naturally Bowlder felt lonesome; and to avoid, as much as might be,

having his loneliness thrust upon him by the empty desolation of the

house, he made it a rule during his wife's absence not to go home until

3 o'clock A. M.

He was “dead on his legs” by that time, as he expressed it, and went at

once to sleep, before the absence of Mrs. B. began to prey upon him.

On the night, or more properly morning, in question, Bowlder wended

homeward at sharp 3. He had been missing Mrs. B. painfully all the

evening, and, to uphold himself, subscribed to divers drinks. These

last Bowlder put safely away within his belt, and they cherished him and

taught him resignation, and he didn't miss his wife as much as he had.

The hoary truth is that as Bowlder drew near his home, he had so far

conquered his sense of abandonment that he wasn't even thinking of his

wife. He was plodding along in the middle of the street for fear of

footpads, whom he fancied might be sauntering in the shadows on either

side, and was really in quite a happy, fortunate frame of mind. As

Bowlder turned in toward his door he was softly repeating the lines:

“'Tis sweet to hear the watch dog's honest bark,

Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home,

'Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark

Our coming, and grow brighter when we come.”

Not that Bowlder had a watch dog, honest or otherwise, to bay him

deep-mouthed welcome. And inasmuch as they had discharged the exile from

Erin, who aforetime did service as the Bowlder maid-of-all-work, when

Mrs. B. took flight for the summer, there was slight hope of an eye on

the premises to grow brighter when he came.

No; it was not that Bowlder was really looking for deep-mouthed bays or

brightening eyes; he was naturally musical and poetical, and the drinks

he had corralled had unlocked his nature in that behalf. Bowlder was

reciting the lines quoted for the pleasure he drew from their beauty;

not from the prophecy they put forth of any meeting to which he looked

forward. A remark which escaped Bowlder as he climbed his steps and

dexterously fitted his night key to the day keyhole showed this.

“I ought to have stayed at a hotel,” said Bowlder. “There's nobody here

to rake me over the coals for it, and I'm going to have a great head on

me when I wake up.”

Bowlder at last by mistake got his latchkey into the keyhole to which

it related, and the door swung inward. This was a distinct success and

Bowlder heaved a breath of relief. This door, which had grown singularly

obdurate since Mrs. B.'s departure, had been known to hold Bowlder at

bay for twenty minutes.

Bowlder had just cast his hat on the hall floor--he intended to hang

it up in the morning when he would have more time--and got as far on a

journey to the second story as one step, when a noise in the basement

dining-room enlisted Bowlder's attention. His curiosity rather than his

fears was aroused; another happy effect of his libations.

Without one thought of burglars, Bowlder deferred his journey upstairs,

and repaired instead to the dining-room below. Bowlder would investigate

the untoward noises which, while soft and light, were still of such

volume as might tell upon the ear.

“Wonder 'f the houshe is haunted?” observed Bowlder as he went deviously

below.

It has already been noted that Bowlder not once bethought him of

burglars. In truth he had often scoffed at burglars while conversing

with Mrs. B. on this subject so interesting to ladies. Bowlder had said

that no burglar could make day wages robbing the house.

It had all the thrill of perfect surprise then when, as Bowlder

turned into his dining-room, he beheld a bull's-eye lantern shedding a

malevolent stream of light in his face, and caught the shadowy outlines

of a tall man behind it who seemed engaged in pointing a pistol at him.

“Hold up your hands!” said the tall man, “and don't come a step further,

or out goes your light!”

[Illustration: 0307]

“Well! I like thish!” squeaked Bowlder, in a tone of querulous

complaint, at the same time, however, clasping his hands above his head;

“I like thish! What's the row here?”

The tall man made no reply, but came across and deftly ran his hands

over Bowlder for possible arms. Bowlder had no gun. The tall man seemed

satisfied, and stepping back, told Bowlder he might sit down on a chair

and rest his hands in his lap. Bowlder took advantage of the permission.

“Any 'bjections to me lighting a shegar?” queried Bowlder.

“Not at all,” said the tall man.

Bowlder was soon puffing away. Being friendly, not to say polite by

nature, Bowlder bestowed one on his visitor.

“Is it a mild cigar?” asked the burglar.

“Colorado claro,” said Bowlder.

“That's all right!” assented the other. “I don't like a strong smoke; it

makes my head ache.”

As the visitor lighted the cigar, Bowlder noticed that he wore a black

mask across his eyes, and that the latter shone through the apertures

cut for their convenience like beads. The mask gave Bowlder a chill

which the pistol had not evoked. Indeed, it came very near destroying

the whole force of the drinks he had accumulated.

When the stranger had lighted his cigar, Bowlder and he puffed at each

other a moment without a word.

“What are you doing in my houshe?” at last demanded Bowlder.

The stranger smiled and puffed on. Then he kicked a large sack with his

foot. Bowlder had not observed this sack before. As the stranger touched

it with his foot, it gave out a metallic clinking.

Bowlder's eyes roamed instinctively to the sideboard. There wasn't much

light; enough, however, to show Bowlder that the sideboard's burden

of silverware was gone. With such a start, Bowlder was able to infer a

great deal.

“Made a clean shweep, eh?” remarked Bowlder.

The masked stranger nodded.

“If you've got all there is loose and little in the houshe,” said

Bowlder--he was talking plainer every moment now--“you've got $1,500

worth. Been up-shtairs yet?”

Again the man of the mask nodded. Also he exhibited symptoms of being

about to depart.

“Don't go yet!” remonstrated Bowlder. “Want to talk to you. Did you get

the old lady's jewellery upstairs?”

Again the burglar nodded. He seemed disinclined to use his voice unless

it was necessary.

“Thash's bad!” remarked Bowlder reflectively; referring to the conquest

of his wife's jewellery. “The old lady won't do a thing but make me buy

her some more. And the worst of it is, she'll put up the figures on what

jimcracks you've got, and insisht they're worth four times their true

value. I'm lucky if she don't put it higher than $1,000. And they ain't

worth $200; you'll be lucky if you get that on 'em.”

The burglar looked hopeful as well as he could with a mask, but retorted

nothing to Bowlder. The latter mused sorrowfully over his wife's jewels.

“You see it putsh me in the hole!” said Bowlder. “I get it going and

coming. You come along and rob me; and then Mrs. B. comes home and robs

me again. Don't you think that's a little rough?”

The stranger said it was rough. He didn't nod this time, but used his

voice. Encouraged by the agreement with his views, Bowlder urged the

return of his wife's jewellery.

“Just gimme back what's hers,” said Bowlder, “and you can keep the rest.

That'll let me out with her, and I don't care for the balance.”

But the man of midnight stoutly objected. It would be a dead loss of

$200, he said, and worse yet, it would be unprofessional.

Bowlder thought deeply a moment. Then he took a new tack.

“Any 'bjections to taking a drink with me?” he asked.

“None in the world!” said the burglar.

Bowlder explored his coat pocket for a bottle he'd brought home to

restore him after his sleep. He proffered the bottle to the burglar.

“After you is manners!” said that person.

Bowlder drank and then the burglar did the same.

“You a Republican?” demanded Bowlder suddenly. “I s'pose even burglars

have their politics!”

“Administration Republican!” said the burglar; “that's what I am. I

believe in Imperialism and a sound currency.”

“I'm an Administration Republican, too,” remarked Bowlder. “I knew

we'd find common ground at last. Now, as a member of the same party as

yourself, I want to ask a favour of you. You've got about $1,500 worth

of plunder there; and yet, you see yourself, there's a good deal of

furniture you're leaving behind; piano upstairs and all that. I'll

play you one game of ten-point seven-up to see whether you take all or

nothing. Come, now, as a favour!”

The burglar hesitated. He feared there was a trap in it. Bowlder gave

him his word as a goldbug that he made the proffer in all honesty.

“If you win,” said Bowlder, “you can cart the furniture away to-morrow.

I'll order you a waggon as I go down, and you can sleep in the house and

see that I don't carry off anything or hold out on you.”

“But it ain't worth as much as what I've got,” demurred the burglar.

“Well, see here!” said Bowlder--sober he was now--“to avoid spoiling

sport I'll throw in my watch and $30. That's square!”

The burglar admitted that the proposal was fair, but stuck for seven

points.

“I like straight seven-up,” he said. “Make it a seven-point game and

I'll go you.”

Bowlder produced a deck of cards from the sewing-machine drawer. At the

burglar's own suggestion they lighted one gas jet.

“Cut for deal!” said Bowlder.

The burglar cut a ten-spot, Bowlder a deuce. The burglar had the deal.

The king of diamonds was turned as trump.

“Beg!” said Bowlder.

“Take it!” remarked the burglar.

The hands were played. Bowlder had the queen and six-spot of diamonds;

the marauder had the ten, nine, and seven of diamonds. Bowlder took

high, low and the burglar counted game.

“No jack out!” remarked Bowlder.

“No,” said the other. And then in an abused tone; “Say! you don't beg

nor nuthin', do you? The idee of a gent's beggin' in a two-hand game,

a-holdin' of the queen and six.”

They played three hands; Jack had been out once. Bowlder was keeping

score. It stood:

“Bowl, I I I I I I.”

“Burg, I I I I.”

It was Bowlder's deal. He riffled the cards with the deftness of one who

plays often and well.

“Bound to settle it this time!” said the burglar. “The score stands 6 to

4. You bet your life! I'll stand on the bare jack if I get it.”

Bowlder threw the cards around and turned trump with a snap. It was the

jack of clubs.

The burglar looked at it wistfully, even sadly.

“That's square, is it?” he said to Bowlder in a tone of half reproach.

“You ain't the party to go and turn a jack on a poor crook from the

bottom of the deck, and you only one to go?”

Bowlder assured him the transaction was perfectly honest.

“Yes, I guess it was,” said the burglar, rising. “I was watching you,

and I guess it was straight. It's just my luck, that's all. Well! I must

go; it's getting along towards 4: 30 o'clock.”

“Have a drink!” said Bowlder, “and take another cigar!”

The cracksman took a drink. Then he selected a cigar from Bowlder's

proffered case.

“If it's all the same to youse,” said the burglar, “I'll smoke this

later on--after breakfast.” And he put the cigar in his pocket.

“Here; let me show you out this way,” said Bowlder, leading the way to

the front basement door.

“I hates to ask it of a stranger,” said the burglar, as he hesitated

just outside the door, “but the Eight' Avenoo cars'll be runnin' in a

little while now, and would you mind lendin' me a nickel? I lives down

be the Desbrosses Ferry.”

Of course Bowlder would lend him car-fare. This somewhat raised the

burglar's spirits, made sad by seven-up. As he closed the door behind

him, the burglar looked back at Bowlder.

“Do you know, pard,” he said, “if it wasn't for my weakness for

gamblin', I'd been a rich man a dozen times.”

ANGELINA McLAURIN

(By the Office Boy)

Angelina McLaurin's was a rare face; a beautiful face. It had but one

defect: Angelina's nose was curved like the wing of a gull. This gave

her an air of resolution and command that affected the onlooker like a

sign which says: “Look out for the engine.”

Still, Angelina McLaurin was bewitchingly lovely, a result much aided

in its coming about by a form so admirably upholstered that to look upon

her would have made Diana tired.

It was a soft, sensuous September afternoon. Angelina McLaurin was

impatiently holding down a richly cushioned chair in the library of the

noble McLaurin mansion--one of those stately piles which are the pride

of Washington Heights. She was awaiting the coming of her affianced

husband, George Maurice St. John.

“Why does he prove so dilatory?” she murmured. “Methinks true love would

not own such leaden feet!”

As Angelina McLaurin arose to gaze from the window she rocked on the

tail of the ample Angora cat.

The cat made it a point to hang out in the library every afternoon. On

this occasion, while Angelina McLaurin was dreaming of her lover, the

cat had taken advantage of her abstraction to deftly bestow his tail

beneath the rocker of her chair. When Angelina arose, as stated, the cat

got the worst of it.

As the rocker came down on the cat's tail, the cat exploded into

observations in Angorese that are unfit for these pages. Angelina was

not only startled out of herself, but almost out of her frock. Angelina

and the cat arose hastily, and stood there panting.

As the shrieks of the wronged exile from Angora were uplifted into

space, the door of the library burst violently open.

“What is the matter, dearest? Are you injured? Why do you cry for help?”

It was George Maurice St. John who asked the question. As he did so, he

caught Angelina McLaurin in his powerful arms, while the Angora cat, his

worst fears now realised, chased himself down the hall with tail excited

to lamp-cleaner size.

“What is it, love?” asked George Maurice St. John, as he tenderly

unloaded his delicious burden onto a sofa, “Speak! it is the voice of

your George who bids you. Has any one dared to insult the coming bride

of a St. John?”

“Bear with me, George!” she whispered. “Believe me, I will be better

anon!”

After a few moments she recovered, and was able to smile through her

tears at the alarm of her dear one. Then she told George all: how the

cat had been ass enough to leave his tail lying around loose while

asleep; how, in the intensity of her waiting, she had put a crimp in it

with the fell rocker of the chair; and how the cat had been drawn into

statements, by sheer dint of agony, which it was impolitic as well as

useless to repeat.

“So I was just in time, Angelina, to relieve both you and the cat of

what was doubtless an awkward situation.” And George Maurice St. John

laughed gaily.

Then he kissed her with a fervour that left nothing to be wished for,

and Angelina took a brace and sat erect on the sofa.

“I feel better now!” she remarked.

George tried to get in another kiss, but she stood him off.

“Don't crowd your luck, dear!” she said, with a sweet softness. “I am

yours for ever, and there is not the slightest need for any excess of

osculatory zeal. You are to have me with you always, so set a brake or

two and take the grades easy.”

Thus repulsed, George Maurice St. John sat abashed. A pained look seamed

his features; he bit his lips and was silent.

*****

Daylight became twilight, and twilight retreated into the darkness of

a new night. It struck eight o'clock in the adjoining tower, and George

Maurice St John was a-hungered. His stomach was the first to tip it off

to him.

“Don't we feed to-night?” asked George Maurice St. John.

The lovers for two hours had chattered aimlessly, as ones wandering in a

wilderness of bliss. This was the first pointed remark.

“Anon! love; we will feed anon!” replied Angelina McLaurin dreamily.

“But, George, before we get in our gustatory work, I would a word with

you--indeed! sundry words.”

“Aim low, and send 'em along!” said George. “What is it my Queen would

learn from her slave?”

In his ecstacy he achieved a “half Nelson” on the lovely girl, and

caught her in the back of the neck with a kiss.

The Angora cat, who was stealthily threading the hall, intending to play

a return game with the library rug, gave a great convulsive start,

at the kiss, which carried him out of the mansion, and over the alley

fence.

“They're a mark too high for me!” said the Angora to himself.

Then inflating his lungs to the last limit of expansion, the Angora sent

a song of invitation down the line that set every Tabby in the block to

washing her face and combing her ears.

“Your Queen wants a square heel-and-toe talk, George,” said the sweet

girl, as she tucked up her silken locks, dishevelled by his caresses

into querulous little rings. “And your Queen wants straight goods

this time, and no guff! Oh, darling!” continued Angelina McLaurin in a

passionate outburst, “be square with me, and make me those promises upon

which my life's happiness depends!”

George Maurice St. John strained Angelina to his bosom.

“I'll promise anything!” he said. “What wouldst thou have me do? My

life, my fortune, my honour--my all, I lay at your feet! Monkey with

them as thou wilt.”

“Then listen!” said Angelina.

*****

“George, we are to be wedded in a month, are we not?”

“We are!” he cried exultantly; and again he essayed the “half Nelson,”

and attempted to bury his nose in her mane.

“Don't get gay, George!” she said mournfully, as she broke George's

lock, and gently but firmly pushed his bows off a point; “don't get

funny! but hear me.”

“Go on,” said George, and his tones showed that his failure pierced him

like a javelin. “We are to be wedded in a month. What then, lady?”

“George,” said Angelina McLaurin, and the tear-jewels shone in her eyes,

“don't think me unwomanly, but you know how I am fixed;--father and

mother both dead! I am an orphan, George, and must heel-and-handle

myself.”

“Even so!” said George, and his face showed his sympathy.

“Then, George, before we take that step to the altar,” she went on

steadily enough, but with a quaver in her voice which his ear, made

sensitive by great love, did not fail to detect: “before we take that

step, I say, from which there is no retreat, I must know certain things.

You must make me certain promises.”

“Name them,” he whispered, and his deep voice overran her like a melody.

“Then, George,” she said, “is it too much to ask that $100,000 worth of

property be settled upon me at this time?”

“My solicitors have already received my instructions to make it

a million.” George Maurice St. John's voice dwelt fondly on the

settlement. “It is but a beggarly ante in such a game of table-stakes as

this!” This time Angelina McLaurin did not decline his endearments. When

he let up, she continued:

“And it's dead sure I go to the Shore each summer?”

“It is a welded cinch,” he replied, as he drew her nearer to him. “You

take in the coast from Bar Harbour to the Florida Keys.”

“And servants?”

“A mob shall minister unto thee,” he said.

“Then I have but one more boon, George,” she murmured, “grant that, and

I am thine forever.”

“Board the card!” cried George; “I promise before you ask.”

“Say not so,” she said with a sweet sadness; “but muzzle your lips and

listen. You must quit golf.”

“What!” shrieked George, with an energy that sent the Angora backward

off a shed-roof of dubious repute, from which he was carolling to his

low companions; “what!” he repeated. “Woman, think!”

“I have thought, George,” responded Angelina Mc-Laurin, with an air of

sorrowful firmness. “There is but one alternative: saw short off,--saw

short off on golf, or give me up forever!”

“Is this some horrid dream?” he hissed, as he strode up and down the

library.

At last he paused before her.

“Woman,” he said sternly, “look on me! Is this some lightsome bluff, or

does it go? Dost mean it, woman?”

“Ay! I mean it!” answered Angelina, while her cheek paled and her breath

came quick and fast. “Don't make any mistake on that; I mean it. My talk

goes. And my hand is off my chips.”

“Is this your love?” he sneered, bitterly.

“It is,” she faltered. “I have spoken, and I abide your answer.”

“Then, girl,” said George Maurice St. John, and his words were cold and

hard, “all is over between us. You would drive me into a corner and take

away my golf! I say No! No! a thousand times, No!”

At this outbreak the curve in Angelina's nose became more intense. She

dried her eyes. Her features, too, became as flint. She even cut loose a

low, mocking laugh.

“Be it so!” she said; “sirrah, take your ring!”

He seized the bauble and ground it beneath his heel. As he did so her

strength failed her, and she sank to the floor.

“That knocked her out!” he muttered, and he started to count:

“One!--Two!--Three--Four!-”

“Oh, not necessarily!” she said, struggling to her feet. “I'm still in

it; and I say again, give up golf, or give up me!”

“The die is cast!” and as he spoke the fatal words, the eyes of George

Maurice St. John took on the firm, irrevocable expression of a fish's

set in death. “I wouldn't give up golf for the best woman that ever put

a dress on over her head. Maiden, you ask too much; you come too high!

Damsel, I quit you cold!”

*****

George Maurice St. John rushed from the scene. The ponderous door, as it

slammed behind him, echoed and re-echoed through the vaulted apartments

of the McLaurin mansion. Angelina McLaurin listened until his footsteps

died away far up the street.

“He has flew the coop on me!” she wailed.

Then she gave way to a torrent of tears. In her distress Angelina

McLaurin was more beautiful than ever. Two minutes! Five minutes! Ten

minutes went by! Her tears still fell like rain.

“I have turned the hose on my hopes!” she said.

This was the thought that crossed her mind; but she desperately womanned

(word coined since advent of new woman) herself to bear it.

Still afloat on the sad currents of her tears, her head bowed, a light

sound beat upon the tympanum of Angelina McLaurin. She looked quickly up

and squared herself to emit a glad cry, if one should be necessary.

What was it?

Something had come back.

True! it was the Angora cat.

As the Angora flung himself upon the rug with an air of reckless

abandon, Angelina McLaurin gazed at him with a wistful fixedness. One

eye was closed, his fur was torn, blood dripped from his lacerated ears.

He was, in good sooth, but a tattered Angora! Angelina McLaurin laughed

long and wildly.

“He, too,' has got it in the neck!”

DINKY PETE

(Annals of The Bend)

Do we have romances on t' East Side!” and Chucky's voice was vibrant

with the scorn my doubts provoked. “Do we have romances! Well, I don't

t'ink! Say! there's days when we don't have nothin' else.”

At this crisis Chucky called for another glass; did it without

invitation. This last spoke of and betrayed a sense of injury.

“Let me tell youse,” continued Chucky, “an' d' yarn don't cost you a

cent, see! how Dinky Pete sends Jimmy d' barkeep back to his wife. It's

what I calls romantic for a hundred plunks.

“Not that Jimmy ever leaves her, for that matter; that is, he don't

leave her for fair! But he's sort o' organisin' for d' play when Dinky

Pete puts d' kybosh on d' notion, an' wit' that Jimmy don't chase at

all, see!

“Jimmy d' barkeep is some soft in d' nut, see! Nit, he ain't really got

w'eels; ain't bad enough for d' bug house; but he's a bit funny in his

cocoa--mostly be way of bein' dead stuck on himself.

“An' bein' weak d' way I says, Jimmy is a high roller for clothes;

always sports a w'ite t'ree-sheet, wit' a rock blazin' in d' centre, big

enough to trip a dog. An' say! his necktie's a dream, an' his hat's d'

limit!

“What's a t'ree-sheet? an' what's a rock? I don't want to give you no

insultin' tips, but on d' square! youse ought to take a toim at night

school. Why! a t'ree-sheet is his shirt, an' d' rock I names is Jimmy's

spark! Of course, d' spark ain't d' real t'ing; only a rhinestone; but

it goes in d' Bend all d' same for a 2-carat headlight.

“Jimmy makes a tidy bit of dough, see! He gets, mebby it's fifteen bones

a week, an' I makes no doubt he shakes down d' bar for ten more, which

is far from bad graft. So it ain't s'prisin' one day when Jimmy gets it

stuck in his frizzes he'll be married.

“Jimmy's Bundle is all right at that. Her name's Annie, an' she's a

proper straight chip. An' that ain't no song an' dance; square as a die

she was. An' a bute! She was d' pick of d' Bowery crush, an' don't youse

doubt it.

“Well, Jimmy an' Annie goes on wit' their courtships, I takes it, same

as if dey lives on Fift' Avenoo. Annie's a mil'ner, an' while she don't

have money to t'row to d' boids, she woiks for enough so it's as good as

a stan'-off on livin', which is all her hand calls for an' all she asts.

If she don't quit winner after trimmin' hats a week, at any rate she

don't get in d' hole, see!

“Oh, yes; she an' Jimmy gets action on d' sights. Now an' then it's

Coney Island; then ag'in it's a front seat at d' People's; or mebby if

some of d' squeeze has a dance, dey pulls on their skates an' steps in

on d' spiel. An' say! as a spieler Annie's a wonder, an' don't youse

forget it. I has d' woid for it from me own Rag, an' when it comes to

pickin' out a dancer, you can trust me Rag to be dead on in a minute. D'

loidy can do a dizzy stunt or two on a wax floor herself when it comes

to a show-down.

“But about me romance. Jimmy has chased around wit' Annie, say it's

t'ree mont's. An' all this time his strong play is voylets, see! Annie

is gone on voylets, so each evenin' Jimmy toins in on Dinky Pete, who

sells poipers an' peanuts, an' some of this hard, bum candy you breaks

your teet's on. Dinky also deals a little flower game, wit' about a

5-cent limit, an' that's what gets Jimmy. Just as I says, each evenin'

Jimmy sticks in a nickel for a bunch of voylets at Dinky's an' sends

some kid--Dinky's joint is a great hang-out for d' kids--to take 'em up

to Annie.

“An' them voylets tickles Annie to death.

“At last all goes well, an' Jimmy an' Annie gets spliced. An' it's

all right at that! Me Rag, who calls on 'em, says Jimmy an' Annie's d'

happiest ever, an' gettin 'd' boss run for their money.

“It's about a year when Annie don't do a t'ing but have a kid. At foist

Jimmy likes it, an' lets on it's d' racket of his career. But after a

while Jimmy gets chilly--sort o' gets sore on d' kid. Me Rag gives me

a pointer it's mostly Annie's fault. She stars d' kid too heavy, an' it

makes Jimmy feel like a deuce in a bum deck; makes him t'ink he ain't so

strong--ain't so warm as he was. An' it toins out' Annie, bein' always

busy monkeyin' wit 'd' young-one, an' givin' Jimmy d' languid eye, d'

nex' news you get, Jimmy is back on d' street when he is off watch,

tryin' to pipe off some fun.

“I never knows where she catches on wit' Jimmy, but it ain't no time

when one of them razzle-dazzle blondes has him on d' string. She's doin'

d' grand at that, see! an' givin' him d' haughty stand-off.

“Mebby Jimmy met her on d' street onct or twict, when for d' foist time,

Goldie--which is this blonde tart's name--says Jimmy can come an' see

her.

“It's been mont's since Jimmy's done d' flower act at Dinkey Pete's. But

d' sucker t'inks it's d' night of his life, an' so he chases in an' goes

ag'inst Pete's counter for a bunch.

“This Dinky Pete's a dead queer little mug. He's a short, sawed-off

mark, wit' a humpy back an' a bum lamp. But you can gamble your life Î

Dinky Pete's heart is on straight, whether his back is or not.

“It's be chanct I'm in Dinky Pete's meself d' time Jimmy is out to meet

this blonde mash. Now, at d* time I ain't onto Jimmy's curves; I don't

tumble to d' play till a week later, when me Rag puts me on.

“W'at was I doin' in Dinky Pete's? Flowers? Nit; not on your life!

Naw; I wants to change me luck. I'd got d' gaff at draw poker d' night

before, an' I'm layin' for Dinky Pete for to rub his hump on d' sly.

Sure! Youse'll have luck out of sight. Only you mustn't let d' humpback

guy get on. If he notices you rubbin' his hump it'll give youse bad

luck, see!

“Jimmy comes in, an' at foist, be force of habit, I s'spose, he's goin'

to plunge on voylets. But he t'inks of Annie, an' he can't stand for it.

Wit' that, Jimmy shifts his brush an' tells Dinky Pete to toin him out

some roses.

“'An' make 'em d' reddest in d' joint, see!' says Jimmy.

“Dinky Pete's got his mits on some voylets, but when Jimmy says 'roses'

Dinky comes to a stan' still.

“' W'at! roses?' says Dinky Pete, an' his ratty eyes--one of 'em on d'

hog, as I states--looks dead sharp at Jimmy. 'Roses?' he repeats.

“'That's what I says!' is d' way Jimmy comes back.

“' Better take voylets,' says Dinky, an' he stops foolin' wit 'd'

flowers an' gives Jimmy d' gimlet eye.

“'Nit,' declares Jimmy; * I'm dead onto me needs. Give me roses.'

“'But roses won't last,' says Dinky, an' his look is sharp an' soft an'

sad all at onct. 'Roses won't last, an' that's for fair,' says Dinky,

'while voylets is stayers. Better take voylets, Jimmy!'

“But Jimmy gets sullen an' won't have no voylets, see! An' he swings an'

rattles wit' Dinky that he wants roses--roses red as blood.

“'Roses has thorns,' goes on Dinky, still holdin' his lamps on Jimmy

in d' same queer way; 'you don't want roses, Jimmy; you just t'inks you

want roses! Be a square bloke, Jimmy; be yourself an' take voylets!'

“An' I'm damned!” declares Chucky, “if Jimmy don't begin to look like a

whipped kid, an' d' foist t'ing I knows, he welches on roses, grabs off

a bunch of voylets big enough to make a salad, an' goes chasin' home to

Annie. Me Rag is there when Jimmy pours in.

“Say! It's d' finish of d' blonde! She ain't in it! Me rag, on d' quiet,

gives Annie d' chin-chin of her existence, an' shows her Jimmy ain't

gettin' a square deal. An' Annie--who, for all she's nutty about d' kid,

is a dead wise fowl just d' same--takes a tumble, an' from that time

she makes d' bettin' even money on* bot 'd' young-one an' Jimmy. D' last

time I sees Jimmy he stops to tell me that Annie's a peach, an' d' kid's

a wonder. An' he's lookin' like a nine-times winner himself. Now don't

youse call that a romance for Dinky Pete to get onto Jimmy's game so

quick, an' stickin' to him till he takes d' voylet steer? Ain't it a

romance? Well! I should kiss a pig!”

CRIB OR COFFIN?

I

YOUNG Jones stood in the telegraph office--the one at Twenty-third

Street and Broadway. There was an air of triumph about Jones, an

atmosphere of insolent sagacity, which might belong to one who, by some

sudden, skilful sleight had caught a starling. Yet Jones's victory was

in nowise uncommon. Others had achieved it many a time and oft. It was

simply a baby; young Jones had become a papa, and it was this that gave

him those frills which we have chronicled. The presence of young Jones

in the telegraph office might be explained by looking over his shoulder.

This is the message he wrote:

New York City, Dec. 8, '99.

Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps,

Albany, N. Y.

I still take it you are interested in the census of your family. Recent

events in this city have altered the figures. Don't attempt to write a

history of the tribe of Van Epps without consulting Sanford Jones.

“There!” said young Jones, “that ought to fetch him. He won't know

whether I mean the birth of a baby or Mary's death. If he doesn't come

to see her now, I will mark him off my list for good. I would as it

stands, if it were not for Mary.”

“Won't father worry, dear?” asked Mary, when young Jones repeated the

ambiguous message he had aimed at his up-the-State father-in-law.

“I expect him to shed apprehensive tears all the way to New York,”

replied young Jones. “But don't fret, Mary; I am sure he will come; and

a tear or two won't hurt him. They will help his eyes, even though

they do his heart no good. I don't resent his treatment of me, but his

neglect of you is not so easy to forgive.”

II

This was the story:

Back four years, Albany would have shown you young Jones opening his law

office in that hamlet. Mary was “Mary Van Epps.” At that time seventeen

years was all the family register allowed to her for age.

Her father, Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps, was one of the leading citizens

of Albany. While not a millionaire, he was of sufficient wealth to

dazzle the local eye, and he was always mentioned by the denizens of his

native place as “rich.”

Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps had a weakness. He was slave to the pedigree

habit. Never a day went by but he called somebody's attention to those

celebrities who aforetime founded and set flowing the family of Van

Epps; and he proposed at some hour in the future to write a history of

that eminent house. With his wealth and his family pride to prompt him,

it came easy one day for Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps to object with

decision and vigour to a match between young Jones and his daughter

Mary.

“They were both fools!” he said.

Then he pointed out that the day would never dawn when a plebeian like

unto Jones, without lineage or lucre, boasting nothing better than a law

office vacant of practice, and on which the rent was in arrears three

months, would wed a daughter of the Van Epps. Colonel Stuyvesant Van

Epps, in elaboration of his objection, showed that beyond a taste to

drink whiskey and a speculative bent toward draw poker, he knew of

nothing which young Jones possessed. Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps closed,

as he began, with the emphatic announcement that no orange blossoms

would ever blow for the nuptials of young Jones and Mary Van Epps.

Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps in his attitude will have the indorsement

of all good Christian people. He was right as a father. As a prophet

touching orange blossoms, however, he was what vulgar souls call “off.”

Of that anon.

III

YOUNG Jones more than half believed that Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps

was right. So far as whiskey and draw poker were concerned, he went with

him; but with Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps' objections to him, based on

the lack of pedigree and a failure of pocket-book, he didn't sympathise.

“I may be poor, and my family tree may be a mullein stalk, but I am

still a fitting mate for any member of the Van Epps tribe.”

Thus spake young Jones to Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps. He then took the

earliest private occasion to kiss Mary good-bye, give her his picture,

and make her his promise to wed her within five years.

“Would she wait?”

“I would wait a century,” said Mary.

Young Jones kissed Mary again after that. The next day Albany was short

one citizen, and that citizen was young Jones. Albany is short to this

day.

IV

Let us drop details. Good luck came to young Jones, hard on the lonely

heels of his evacuation of Albany. He was named a junior partner of

a New York City law firm. His income equalled his hope. He dismissed

whiskey and draw poker, and he wrote to Mary Van Epps:

“Could he claim her now?”

Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps said “No” again. Young Jones still lacked

ancestry, and a taste for whiskey and four aces still lurked in his

blood. Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps would not consent. This served for a

time to abate the bridal preparations.

V

Two years deserted the future for the past. A great deal of water will

run under a bridge in two years. Mary Van Epps was nineteen. She went on

a visit to a Trenton relative. Young Jones became abundant in Trenton

at that very time. They took in a parson while on a stroll one day, and

when that experienced divine got through with them they were man and

wife. They wired their entangled condition to Colonel Stuyvesant Van

Epps. He sent them a message of wrath.

“I cast Mary off for ever! Never let me see her face again!”

“Very well!” remarked young Jones as he read the wire; “I shall need

Mary myself, in New York. Casting her off, therefore, at Albany, cuts no

great figure. As for Mary's face, I will look at it all the more to make

up for her brutal dad's abatement of interest therein.”

Then he kissed Mary as if the feat were entirely fresh. And while Mary

wept, she still felt very happy. Next they came to a modest home in the

city.

VI

Two years more trailed the otners into history. Young Jones was held a

fortunate man. His work was a success. Whiskey and poker were now so far

astern as to be hull-down in the horizon. And he loved Mary better than

ever. She was the triumph of his life, and he told her so every day.

“It is certainly wonderful,” he said, “how much more beautiful you

become every day.”

This pleased Mary; and while her heart turned to her hard old father,

she did not repent that episode at Trenton, which changed her name to

Jones.

Once a month Mary faithfully addressed a letter, new and fresh each time

with the love that fails and fades not, to “Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps,

Albany, N. Y.” And once a month Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps read it,

gulped a little, and made no reply.

“I will never see her again!” Colonel Stuyvesant

Van Epps remarked to himself on these letter occasions.

All the time he knew he lived for nothing else. But he thought of his

family and mustered his pride, and of course became a limitless fool at

once, as do those who give way to an attack of pedigree.

But the Jones baby was born; and young Jones concluded to try his

hand on Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps. Mary wanted him to come, and that

settled the whole matter so far as young Jones was concerned. In his

new victory as a successful father, he felt that he could look down on

Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps. He therefore wrote the message referred

to in our first chapter with perfect confidence, that, turn as matters

might, he had nothing to fear.

“The past, at least, is secure!” said young Jones; “and, come what may,

I have Mary and the baby.” Both Mary and young Jones, however, awaited

the returns from Albany with anxiety;--Mary, because she loved her

father and mourned for his old face, and young Jones because he loved

Mary. They were relieved when the bell rang at 7 P. M., and a bicycle

boy handed in a yellow paper, which read: “Will be there to-morrow on

the 8:30.--Stuyvesant Van Epps.”

Mary was all gladness. Young Jones was calm, but gave way sufficiently

to say:

“Mary, we will call the cub 'Stuyvesant Van Epps Jones.'”

[Illustration: 0335]

VII

YOUNG Jones met Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps at the Forty-Second

Street station. The old gentleman had been torn by doubts and grievous

misgivings all the way down. What did young Jones' ambiguous message

mean? Was Mary dead? Was he bound to a funeral? or a christening?

Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps knew that something tremendous had happened.

But what?

Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps walked up to young Jones at the station, and

without pausing to greet him, remarked:

“Crib or coffin?”

“Crib!” said young Jones.

[Illustration: 0335]

Then Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps fell into a storm of tears, and began

to shake young Jones by the hand for the first time in his life.

VIII

The three happiest people in the world that night were Colonel

Stuyvesant Van Epps, Mary and young Jones. The baby was the one

member of the family who did not give way to emotion. He received his

grandfather with a stolid phlegm which became a Van Epps.

“And his name is Stuyvesant Van Epps Jones,” said Mary.

Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps kissed Mary again at this cheering news, and

shook hands with young Jones for the second time in his life.

That is all there is to a very true story. Colonel Stuyvesant Van Epps

lives now in New York City, and Albany is shy a second citizen. Mary is

happy, young Jones feels like a conqueror, and the infant, Stuyvesant

Van Epps Jones, beneath the eye of his grandsire, waxes apace.

OHIO DAYS

I--AT THE LEES

Aunt Ann, be we goin' to the spellin' to-night at the Block

schoolhouse?”

Jim Lee always called his wife “Aunt Ann.” So did everybody except her

daughter Lydia. She called Aunt Ann “Mother.” But to Jim Lee and the

other inhabitants of Stowe Township, she was “Aunt Ann Lee.”

As Jim Lee asked Aunt Ann the question, he threw down the armful of

maple wood and retreated to the back door to stamp the snow off his

boots.

“I want to know,” he said, “so's to do the chores in time.”

Aunt Ann was chopping mince-meat. She was a clean, beautiful woman of

the buxom sort. Her eyes were very blue, while her hair was very black

with not a strand of silver, for all her forty-seven years. Jim Lee held

Aunt Ann in great respect. Aunt Ann on her part was a tender soul and

true, although Jim Lee had found her quite firm at times.

“Now and then she's a morsel hard on the bit,” said Jim Lee,

descriptively.

Perhaps the two old-maid Spranglers meant the same thing when they said:

“There never was a body with blue eyes and black hair who didn't have

the snap in 'em.”

“Yes,” replied Aunt Ann to Jim Lee's question “yes, of course we'll go.

I've got to see Mrs. Au about some rag carpets she's weavin' for me, and

she be there. Better get the Morgan colt and the cutter ready, father;

we'll go in that.”

“That'll only hold two,” said Jim Lee. “How Lide goin' to go?”

“Lide's goin' with Ed Church. She's over to Jenn Ruple's now; she and

Jen are goin' to choose up for the spellin' bee. But she'll be back in

time, and Ed Church is comin' for her at half-past seven.”

Jim Lee's face showed that he didn't like Ed Church He said nothing for

five minutes, and pulling off his kip-skin boots began to give them a

coat of tallow.

“Where's Ezra?” at last he asked. Ezra was the heir of the house of Lee.

His age was eleven; he was twenty.

“Ezra's down cellar sortin' over that bin of peach blows,” said Aunt

Ann, busy with her mince-me; and chopping-bowl; “they'd started to rot.”

“I wanted to send him to the Corners for the mail,” suggested Jim Lee,

as he kneaded the wax tallow into the instep of his boot to soften the

leather.

[Illustration: 0341]

“You'd better hitch up the colt a mite early,” answered

Aunt Ann, “and go to the Corners before we start to the spellin'. Ezra's

got to churn as soon; he's done the peachblows.”

There was another pause. Jim Lee softly drew on his freshly tallowed

boots, and then stood up an tried them by raising his heels one after

the other bending the boots at the toes as if testing a couple of

Damascus sword blades.

“I don't like this here Ed Church sparkin' our Lide,” remarked Jim Lee

at last; “bimeby they'll want to get married.”

“Father!” said Aunt Ann, raising her blue eyes with a look of cold

criticism from the mince-meat she was massacring.

“Has he asked Lide yet?” said Jim Lee.

“No, he ain't,” replied Aunt Ann, “but he's goin' to.”

“How do you know?”

“How do I know?” repeated Aunt Ann, as she set the chopping-bowl on the

kitchen table, and turned to put a few select sticks of maple into the

oven to the end that they become kiln-dried and highly inflammable; “how

do I know Ed Church is goin' to marry Lide? Humph! I can see it.”

“I'm goin' to put a stop to it,” said Jim Lee. “This Church boy is goin'

to keep away from Lide.”

“Father, you're goin' to do nothing of the kind,” and Aunt Ann's eyes

began to sparkle. “You can run the farm and Ezra, father; I'll run Lide

and the house. The only person who's goin' to have a syllable to say

about Lide's marryin' when the time comes, is Lide herself. If she wants

Ed Church she's goin' to have him.”

“Aunt Ann, I'm s'prised at you upholdin' for this Church boy!” Jim Lee

threw into his tone a strain of strong reproof. “Ed Church drinks.”

“Ed Church don't drink,” retorted Aunt Ann sharply.

“How about that time two years ago last summer? Waren't Ed Church drunk

over at the Royalton Fair?”

“Yes, he was,” answered Aunt Ann, “and that's the only time. But so was

my father drunk once at a barn-raisin' when he was a boy, for I've heerd

him tell it; and I guess my father, William H. Pickering, was as good as

any Lee who ever greased his boots. One swallow don't make a summer, and

one drunk don't make a drunkard. Ed Church told me himself that he ain't

took a drop since.”

“I'm goin' to break up this nonsense between him and Lide, at any rate,”

said Jim Lee. His mood was dogged, and it served to irritate Aunt Ann.

“All you've got ag'inst Ed Church, father,” said Aunt Ann, “is that his

father voted ag'in you for pathmaster, and I'm glad he did. What under

the sun you ever wanted to be pathmaster for, and go about ploughin'

up good roads to make 'em bad, was more'n I could see. I'm glad you was

beat.”

“I'm goin' to stop this Church boy hangin' 'round Lide, jest the same,”

was the closing remark of Jim Lee. At this point he went out to the barn

to put some straw in the cutter and harness the Morgan colt. Aunt Ann

turned again to her duties.

“Father is so exasperatin',” remarked Aunt Ann, as she poured some

boiling water over a dozen slices of salt pork to “freshen it,” in the

line of preparing them for the evening frying-pan. “He'll find out,

though, that I'll have a tolerable lot to say about Lide's marriage.”

II--ED CHURCH AND LIDE

At half-past seven, Ed Church swung into Jim Lee's yard, with a horse

all bells, and a cutter a billow of buffalo robes. He did not dare leave

Grey Eagle, his pet colt, for Grey Eagle was restless with the wintry

evening air and wanted to go. So Ed Church notified Lide of his coming

by shouting, “House!” with a great voice.

Grey Eagle made a plunge at the sound, but was brought up by the bit.

“How'dy do, Ed,” said Lide, as she came out the side door. She looked

rosy and pretty with her muskrat muff and cape.

“Hello, Lide,” said Ed. “You'll have to scramble in yourself. I can

hardly hold the colt this weather, when he don't have nothin' to do but

eat.”

Lide scrambled in. As Ed Church stood up in the cutter to allow Lide a

chance to be seated, her face came close to his. Taking his eyes from

Grey Eagle for the mere fraction of a second, he kissed her dexterously.

Lide received the caress with the most admirable composure, and Ed

Church himself did not act as if the idea was a discovery or the

experiment new.

“Let him out, Ed!” said Lide, when they were well into the road.

There was a foot of snow on the ground. The fence corners showed great

drifts, while each rail of the fence had a ruffle of its own of cold,

white snow. As far as one could see in the moonlight, the fields to

each side were like milk. In the background stood the grey woods laced

against the sky. Here and there a lamp shone in a neighbour's window

like an eye of fire.

Stowe Township was out that night. The steady beat of the bells could

be heard ahead and behind. Ed Church sent Grey Eagle forward with long

strides, the cutter following over the hard, packed snow with no more of

resistance than a feather. Lide held her muff to her face, so that

she might open her mouth to talk without catching any of the flying

snowballs from Grey Eagle's nervous hoofs.

“It'll be a big spellin'-school to-night,” said Lide.

“Yes, I guess it will,” replied Ed. “I hear folks are comin' clear from

Hammond Corners.”

“If that Gentry girl comes,” said Lide, “mind! you're not to speak to

her, Ed. If you do, you can go home alone.”

Ed grinned with an air of pleased superiority.

“Get up,” he said to Grey Eagle. Then to Lide: “Go on! You're jealous!”

“No, I ain't!” said Lide, with a lofty intonation. “Speak to her if you

want to! What do I care!”

“I won't speak to her, Lide.”

Ed looked at his sweetheart to see how she received his submission. As

the road was level and straight at this point, and Grey Eagle had worn

away the wire edge of his appetite to “go,” Ed put his face in behind

the muskrat muff and kissed Lide again. The victim abetted the outrage.

“I saw ye!” yelled a happy voice behind. It was Ben Francis with Jennie

Ruple. They also were enthroned in a cutter.

“What if you did?” retorted Lide with a toss.

“Do it again if I want to!” shouted Ed Church with much joyous

hardihood.

“I never asked you to marry me yet, did I, Lide?” observed Ed Church,

after two minutes of silence.

“No, you didn't,” said Lide from behind the muskrat muff. The words

would have sounded hard, if it were not for the sudden soft sweetness of

the voice, which was half a whisper.

“Well, I'll do it now,” said Ed, with much resolution, but a little

shake in the tone. “You'll marry me, Lide, when we get ready?”

“Ed, what do you think father 'll say?”

Ed Church knew Lide's father found no joy in him. The next time his

voice took on a moody, half-sullen sound.

“Don't care what he says! I ain't marryin' the hull Lee family.”

“But s'pose he says we can't?”

“If he does, I'll run away with you, Lide,” and Ed Church's tones were

touched with storm. “I'm goin* to marry you even if all the Lees in the

state stand in the way!”

Lide crowded a bit closer to Ed at this, and, holding the muskrat muff

against her face to keep her nose from getting red, said nothing. Lide

was thinking what a noble fellow Ed was, and how much she admired him.

III--THE SPELLING SCHOOL

The Block schoolhouse was crowded. Lide and Ed made their way toward the

back benches. Jim Lee spoke to his daughter and growled gruffly at Ed.

The latter half growled back. Aunt Ann was all smiles and approval

of Ed. At this, Ed thought her the best woman on earth except his own

mother, and mentally put her next that excellent old lady in his heart.

It was a Mr. Parker who taught at the Block school-house. At 8 o'clock

he rapped on the teacher's desk with a ruler, and everybody who was

standing up hunted for a seat. Those who could find none--they were all

young men and boys--crouched down along the walls of the big school-room

and made seats of their heels. Mr. Parker came down from his desk

and opened the stove door with the end of the ruler. The stove--a

long-bodied air-tight--was raging red hot from the four-foot wood

blazing in its interior. When the door was opened the heat almost singed

Mr. Parker's eyebrows. At this he started back nervously, and Ben Weld

and Will Jenkins, two very small boys, laughed. The stove on its part

began to cool off and the cherry colour faded from its hot sides,

leaving them brown and rusty.

“Lydia Lee and Jennie Ruple have been selected to choose sides for the

spelling contest,” said Mr. Parker.

Lide and Jennie seated themselves side by side on the bench which ran

along the rear of the room. It was Lide's first choice.

“Ed Church,” called Lide in a low voice.

Several young persons giggled, while Ed, blushing deeply to have his

sweetheart's preference thus forced into prominence, blundered along the

aisle and sat down by Lide. It was Jennie's choice. Jennie selected Ben

Francis.

“Of course!” said Ada Farr in a loud whisper to

Myrtle Jones, “they'd choose their beaux first, so as to sit by 'em.”

There was no gainsaying the Farr girl's statement. The “choosing up,”

however, went on. At last everybody, young and old, from the grey-headed

grandpa to the five-year-old just sent to his first school that winter,

had been chosen by Lide or Jennie. Then Mr. Parker began to give out the

words.

Ed Church failed on the first word. It was “emphasis.” Ed thought there

was an “f” in it. He straightway sat down and spelled no more that

night. Lide made a better showing, and lasted through five words. She

tripped on “suet” upon which she conferred an “i.” Lide then joined Ed

among the silenced ones.

“Lide Lee missed on purpose,” whispered the Farr girl to her neighbour

Myrtle Jones, “so she could sit and talk with Ed.”

Jim Lee spelled well, but fell a prey to “moustache.”

At last only three were left standing--Nellie Brad-dock, a girl from

Hammond Corners, and Aunt Ann. Mr. Parker turned over to the back part

of the spelling book where the hard words lived. Nellie Braddock fell

before “umbrageous.”

The struggle between the girl from Hammond Corners and Aunt Ann was a

battle of the giantesses. The girl from Hammond Corners was the champion

speller of her region, and had spelled down every school so far that

winter. The interest was intense, as first to Aunt Ann and then to the

girl from Hammond Corners, Mr. Parker put out:

“Fantasy.”

“Autobiographer.”

“Thaumaturgie.”

“Cosmography.”

At last the girl from Hammond Corners tripped on:

“Sibylline.”

She made it “syb.” Mr. Parker had to show her the spelling book to

convince the girl from Hammond Corners that she had missed. She glanced

in the spelling book where Mr. Parker's finger pointed, and then burst

into tears. At this an unknown young man, presumably from Hammond

Corners, got up and excitedly declared the book to be wrong. Nobody took

any notice of him, however, and Aunt Ann Lee was named the victor. She

had spelled down the school.

IV--THE FIGHT

Ed CHURCH left Lide talking with the girls in the schoolhouse while

he went back to the waggon shed to get Grey Eagle and bring him and the

cutter to the door. As Ed was in the entry of the schoolhouse he was

stopped by little Joe Barnes.

“Say! Fan Brown's out there waitin' for you.”

“What about Fan Brown?” asked Ed Church.

Fan Brown was the bully of Hinckley. He boasted that he could thrash any

man between Bath Lakes and the Hinckley Ridge.

“He says he's goin' to wallop you for shootin' his dawg last summer,”

said little Joe Barnes.

“Joe, will you do something for me?” asked Ed.

“Yep!”

“You go and tell Lide Lee in there that I'm goin' over to Square

Chanler's to get a neck-yoke he borrowed and I'll be right back. Tell

her to wait in the school-house till I come.”

“He's afraid of Fan Brown and is runnin' over to Square Chanler's to get

the constable,” said little Joe Barnes to himself. For this he despised

Ed Church very much, but went in and delivered the message.

“All right!” said Lide, and then went on gossiping with the girls.

Ed Church stepped out of the schoolhouse and started for the

horse-sheds.

He noticed a knot of men standing at the rear corner of the building;

among them he discerned the stocky, bull-necked bully of Hinckley, Fan

Brown.

“Here he comes now!” said one, as Ed approached.

“Let him come!” gritted the bully; “I'll fix him! I'll show him whose

dog he's been shootin! As fine a coon dog, boys, as ever went into a

corn field. He shot him, and I ain't goin' back to Hinckley till I mash

his face.”

“What's the row here?” said Ed Church, walking straight to the little

huddle about Fan Brown. His tones were brittle and bold; a note of ready

war ran through them. Not at all the voice in which he talked to Lide.

“I understand somebody's lookin' for me. Who is it?”

“It's me, by G--d! You killed my dog last summer, and I'm goin'----”

“No, you ain't,” said Ed, interrupting; “you ain't goin' to do a thing.

You may be the bully of Hinckley, Fan Brown, but you can't scare me.

Your dog was killin' sheep; he was a good deal like you; but bein' a dog

I could shoot him.”

“Yes, and I ain't goin' back to Hinckley until I maul you so you won't

shoot another dog as long as you live.”

“Enough said!” replied Ed, “come right down in the hollow back of the

horse sheds, where the folks won't see, and do it.”

Just then a small, meagre man approached. He walked with a lounging

gait, and when he spoke he had a thin, mealy voice.

“What's the matter here?” piped the meagre little man.

His name was Dick Bond. He was renowned widely as a wrestler. Gladiators

had come from far and near, and at town meetings and barn raisings,

wrestled with little Dick Bond. Where a hundred tried not one succeeded.

He had not lost a “fall” for four years. His skill had given birth to a

half proverb, and when somebody said he would do something, and somebody

else doubted it, the latter would observe with laughing scorn: “Yes;

you'll do it when somebody throws Dick Bond.”

Such was the fell repute of this invincible little man that when his

shrill, light voice made the inquiry chronicled, a silence fell on the

crowd and no one answered.

“Who's goin' to fight?” asked Dick Bond more pointedly.

“I'm goin' to fight Fan Brown,” said Ed.

There was a load of ferocity in the way he said it, which showed that

Ed, himself, had a latent hunger for battle.

“I guess I'll go 'long and see it,” said Dick Bond pipingly.

“How do you want to fight?” asked Ed of Fan Brown when each had buttoned

up his coat tight to the chin. “Stand up, or rough and tumble?”

“Rough and tumble,” said Fan Brown savagely.

“All right!”

“Now, boys,” said Dick Bond when all was ready, “I'll give the word and

then you're goin' to fight until one of you says 'enough.' And remember!

there's no bitin' no gougin', no scratchin'.”

“Bitin' goes?” declared Fan Brown, in a fashion of savage interrogatory.

“Bitin' don't go!” replied the lean little referee, “and if you offer to

bite or gouge, Fan Brown, I'll break your neck. You'll never go back to

Hinckley short of being carried in a blanket.”

[Illustration: 0353]

The battle was brief and bloody. It didn't last ten minutes. When it was

over, Ed Church, bleeding, but victorious, walked back to the sheds to

get Grey Eagle. Fan Brown was unable to rise from the snow without help.

His face was beaten badly, and he was a thoroughly whipped person. Dick

Bond expressed great satisfaction, and in his high voice said it was a

splendid fight.

“But, Brown,” said Dick Bond to the beaten one, “I can't see how you got

it into your head you could lick Ed Church. Why, man! he was all over

you like a panther.”

The news of the fight ran like wildfire. Everybody knew of it before an

hour passed. It was a source of general satisfaction that Ed Church had

whipped Fan Brown, the Hinckley bully, yet no one failed to stamp the

whole proceeding as disgraceful; that is, among the older men at least.

Lide, however, when she heard of the valour of her lover felt a great

tenderness for him, and was never kinder than when they drove Grey Eagle

back from the Block schoolhouse spelling-bee that crisp winter night.

V--JIM LEE INTERFERES

MOTHER,” sobbed Lide, as she threw herself down on the chintz lounge

without pausing to take off her hat or cape, “father has just told Ed

never to come to the house nor speak to me again.”

Jim Lee and Aunt Ann got home before the lovers. The news of the broil

overtook them, however. Jim Lee declared it a scandal and a scorn.

“Now you see,” he said to Aunt Ann, “what sort of ruffian the Church boy

is!”

“Well, I'm glad he whipped that miserable Fan Brown,” said Aunt Ann.

“He's done nothin' for ten years but come over here to Stowe Township

and raise a fuss. I'm glad somebody's at last spunked up and thrashed

him. I'd done it years ago if I had been a man.”

“Aunt Ann Lee!” said Jim Lee, hitting the Morgan colt a blow with the

whip which set that sprightly animal almost astride the thills--“Aunt

Ann, do you tell me you approve of Ed Church lickin' Fan Brown?”

“Yes, I do,” retorted Aunt Ann, stoutly, “and so will Lide. If you

imagine, father, a woman finds fault with a man because he'll fight

other men you don't know the sex.”

Jim Lee moaned. Absolutely! for the first time in his life Aunt Ann had

shocked him. Not another word was spoken by Jim Lee all the way home.

Aunt Ann went into the house when they arrived, while Jim Lee remained

to put up the Morgan colt. He was busy in the barn when Ed and Lide

drove into the yard.

“Father came up to Ed,” sobbed Lide, as she lay on the lounge, “and

called him a brawler and a drunkard, and said he'd got to keep away from

me.”

“What did Ed say?” asked Aunt Ann, as she sat down by her daughter and

began, with kind hands, to take off her hat and cape. Every touch was

full of motherly love and tenderness.

“Oh! Ed didn't say much,” said Lide, giving way to long-drawn sighs; a

fashion of dead swell following the storm of sobs. “He said he'd marry

me whether father was willing or not. Then he drove away.”

Aunt Ann smiled.

“I guess Ed Church is pretty high strung,” said Aunt Ann, “but that

won't hurt him any.”

Jim Lee came in at that moment, looking a bit sheepish and guilty; but

over it all an atmosphere of victory.

“That Church boy will stay away now, I guess!” said Jim Lee, as he got

the bootjack and began pulling off his boots.

“Jim Lee, you're an awful fool!” observed Aunt Ann with the air of

a sibyl settling all things. “You're the biggest numbskull in Stowe

Township!”

“Why?” asked Jim Lee.

He was disturbed because Aunt Ann addressed him by his full name.

Experience had taught him that defeat ever followed hard on the heels of

his full name, when Aunt Ann made use of it.

“Never mind why!” said Aunt Ann.

And not another word could Jim Lee get from her.

VI--THEY DECORATE

It was a month after the spelling-school. Stowe Township was decorating

the Church for Christmas. For time out of mind Stowe Township had had a

Christmas tree at the Church, and everybody, rich or poor, high or low,

young or old, great or small, got a present if it were nothing but a

gauze stocking full of painted popcorn.

Aunt Ann, as usual, was at the head of the decorating committee.

The Church was full of long strings of evergreen, which Aunt Ann's

satellites were festooning about the walls, and to that end there was

much climbing of step-ladders, much standing on tip-toe, much pounding

of thumbs with caitiff tack-hammers, vilely wielded by girlish hands.

Occasionally some fair step-ladder maid gave the public a glimpse of a

well-filled woollen stocking as she went up and down, or stood on her

toes on the top step. At this, the young men present always blushed,

while the maidens tittered. Most people don't know it, but the male of

our species is more modest, more easily embarrassed, than the female.

The Christmas tree had just arrived. It had been contributed by “Square”

Chanler. The tree was a noble hemlock; thick and feathery of bough,

perfect of general outline. Old Curl, the Rip Van Winkle of Stowe, had

cut it down and hauled it to the church on “Square” Chanler's bob-sleds.

All the smallfry of the Corners had gone with Old Curl after the

Christmas tree, and were faithful to him to the last. Every one of them

was clamorously forward in unloading the tree and getting it into the

Church.

Then it was taken charge of by Aunt Ann, who put the smallfry to flight.

They were to be beneficiaries of the tree, and it was held that their

joy would be enhanced if they were not allowed to remain while the tree

was decorated, and were debarred all sight thereof until Christmas Eve,

when the presents would be cut from the boughs and bestowed upon their

owners.

One little boy had a cold, and Aunt Ann let him remain in the Church.

This little boy perched himself in a window where his fellows outside

might see and envy him. There was a three-cornered hole in the window

pane near him, and the little boy was wont every few moments to place

his mouth to this crevice and say to the boys outside:

“My! but you ought to see what Aunt Ann's tyin' on the tree now!”

“What is it?” would chorus the outside boys.

“Can't tell you!”

The boy with the cold became the most unpopular child in Stowe Township,

and several of his fellows outside in their agony threatened him with

personal violence.

“I'll lick you when I ketch you!” shouted children in the rabble rout to

the lucky child with the cold.

“I don't care!” said the child inside, “you just ought to see the tree

now!”

Lide Lee was aiding the others to festoon the church. Under the maternal

direction she was fitting tawdry little wax candles among the branches

of the Christmas tree, and tying on Barlow knives for all the little

boys, and “Housewives” for all the little girls.

Lide had not seen Ed save once since the spelling-school, and then she

met him in the village drug-store by chance. But they wrote to each

other, and some progress in this way had been made toward an elopement

which was scheduled for the coming Spring. Aunt Ann in the depths of her

sagacity, suspected the arrangement, but it gave her no alarm. As

for Jim Lee, so fatuous was he that he believed he had ended all ties

between his daughter and Ed Church.

While decorations were in progress in the church, Jim Lee suddenly drove

up.

“Aunt Ann,” said Jim Lee, after pausing to admire the garish display,

“Aunt Ann, I've just got a line from Ludlow, and there's goin' to be a

special meetin' of the board of directors of our Ice Company, and I've

got to mosey into the city.”

Jim Lee had an air of importance. He liked to appear before Aunt Ann in

the attitude of a much-sought-for man of business.

“Pshaw! father, that's too bad!” said Aunt Ann. “Can't you be back by

Christmas Eve?”

“No; Christmas Eve is only day after to-morrow, and the Ice Company

business ought to last a week, so Ludlow says.”

“Well!” said Aunt Ann, “if you must go, you must. Ezra can do most of

the chores while you're away, and I'll have Old Curl come and do the

heaviest of 'em.”

So Jim Lee kissed Aunt Ann, and then kissed Lide. This latter caress

was a trifle strained, for Jim Lee felt guilty when he looked at his

daughter; and Lide hadn't half forgiven him his actions toward her

idolised Ed. Since Ed had been forbidden her society, Lide loved him

much better than before.

Thus started Jim Lee for the city on Ice Company matters, Tuesday

afternoon. Christmas Eve was the following Thursday. Jim Lee would

return on the Monday or Tuesday after. He was fated to find some

startling changes on his coming back.

VII--AUNT ANN PLOTS

AUNT Ann found much to occupy her during the hours before Christmas

Eve. There were forty-eight of these hours. Aunt Ann needed them all.

For one matter she made Ezra drive her over to the County Seat. She

wanted to see her brother, Will Pickering, who was Probate Judge of the

County. Aunt Ann also dispatched a letter by trusty messenger to her

sister, Mary Newton, who lived at Eastern Crossroads, some seven miles

from Stowe. As a last assignment, Aunt Ann told Ezra to go over and ask

Ed to come up to the house.

“You'll be at the Christmas tree at the church tonight, won't you, Ed?”

asked Aunt Ann, after making some excuse for sending for him. She put

the question quite casually.

“Well! be sure and come, Ed,” said Aunt Ann. “And more'n that, be sure

and dress yourself up. I think I'll need you to help me get things off

the high limbs.”

Aunt Ann, as she led Lide to his side. “Now, Brother Crandall, if you

will perform the ceremony--the short form, please, and leave out the

word 'obey'--the distribution will be complete.”

“But the licence!” gasped the Rev. Crandall.

“There it is,” said Aunt Ann, “with my brother Will's seal and signature

as Probate Judge on it. You don't s'pose I had Ezra drive me clear to

the County Seat in the dead of winter for nothing?”

The ceremony was over. Ed and Lide were “Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Church;”

and the entire population of Stowe, some in tears, all in earnest, were

kissing the bride and shaking hearty hands with the groom. That latter

young gentleman was dazed and happy, and looked both.

“Now, Ed,” said Aunt Ann, after kissing him and then kissing Lide, “I'm

your mother; and I'll begin to tell you what to do. You put Lide in your

cutter and head Grey Eagle for Eastern Cross-roads. I sent Mary word you

were coming, and there's a trunk full of Lide's things gone over. Stay

a week. If you need collars, or shirts or anything, Mary will give you

some of John's. Stay a week and then come home. Father will be back from

the Ice Company Tuesday, and by Thursday of next week, when you return,

I'll have him fully convinced that all is ordered for the best, and

whatever is, is right. So kiss your mother again, children, and start.

I hear Grey Eagle's bells a-jingling, where Dick Bond's brought him to

the door.”

THE END