BOOK I

Produced by Al Haines.

[Illustration: Cover]

[Illustration: Gordon Marriott Page 38]

THE TURN OF THE BALANCE

By

BRAND WHITLOCK

Author of The Happy Average

Her Infinite Variety

The 13th District

With Illustrations by

JAY HAMBIDGE

INDIANAPOLIS

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

COPYRIGHT 1907

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY

MARCH

TO THE MEMORY OF

SAMUEL M. JONES

Died July 12, 1904

On the other hand, a boy was bound to defend them against anything that

he thought slighting or insulting; and you did not have to verify the

fact that anything had been said or done; you merely had to hear that it

had. It once fell to my boy to avenge such a reported wrong from a boy

who had not many friends in school, a timid creature whom the mere

accusation frightened half out of his wits, and who wildly protested his

innocence. He ran, and my boy followed with the other boys after him,

till they overtook the culprit and brought him to bay against a high

board fence; and there my boy struck him in his imploring face. He

tried to feel like a righteous champion, but he felt like a brutal

ruffian. He long had the sight of that terrified, weeping face, and

with shame and sickness of heart he cowered before it. It was pretty

nearly the last of his fighting; and though he came off victor, he felt

that he would rather be beaten himself than do another such act of

justice. In fact, it seems best to be very careful how we try to do

justice in this world, and mostly to leave retribution of all kinds to

God, who really knows about things; and content ourselves as much as

possible with mercy, whose mistakes are not so irreparable.

_From_ "A BOY'S TOWN"

_By_ WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS

THE TURN OF THE BALANCE

BOOK I

THE TURN OF THE BALANCE

I

As Elizabeth Ward stood that morning before the wide hearth in the

dining-room, she was glad that she still could find, in this first snow

of the season, the simple wonder and delight of that childhood she had

left not so very far behind. Her last glimpse of the world the night

before had been of trees lashed by a cold rain, of arc-lamps with globes

of fog, of wet asphalt pavements reflecting the lights of Claybourne

Avenue. But now, everywhere, there was snow, heaped in exquisite drifts

about the trees, and clinging in soft masses to the rough bark of their

trunks. The iron fence about the great yard was half buried in it, the

houses along the avenue seemed far away and strange in the white

transfiguration, and the roofs lost their familiar outlines against the

low gray sky that hung over them.

"Hurry, Gusta!" said Elizabeth. "This is splendid! I must go right

out!"

The maid who was laying the breakfast smiled; "It was a regular

blizzard, Miss Elizabeth."

"Was it?" Elizabeth lifted her skirt a little, and rested the toe of

her slipper on the low brass fender. The wood was crackling cheerfully.

"Has mama gone out?"

"Oh, yes, Miss Elizabeth, an hour ago."

"Of course," Elizabeth said, glancing at the little clock on the

mantelpiece, ticking in its refined way. Its hands pointed to half-past

ten. "I quite forgot the dinner." Her brow clouded. "What a bore!"

she thought. Then she said aloud: "Didn't mama leave any word?"

"She said not to disturb you, Miss Elizabeth."

Gusta had served the breakfast, and now, surveying her work with an

expression of pleasure, poured the coffee.

Beside Elizabeth's plate lay the mail and a morning newspaper. The

newspaper had evidently been read at some earlier breakfast, and because

it was rumpled Elizabeth pushed it aside. She read her letters while

she ate her breakfast, and then, when she laid her napkin aside, she

looked out of the windows again.

"I must go out for a long walk," she said, speaking as much to herself

as to the maid, though not in the same eager tone she had found for her

resolution a while before. "It must have snowed very hard. It wasn't

snowing when I came home."

"It began at midnight, Miss Elizabeth," said Gusta, "and it snowed so

hard I had an awful time getting here this morning. I could hardly find

my way, it fell so thick and fast."

Elizabeth did not reply, and Gusta went on: "I stayed home last

night--my brother just got back yesterday; I stayed to see him."

"Your brother?"

"Yes; Archie. He's been in the army. He got home yesterday from the

Phil'pines."

"How interesting!" said Elizabeth indifferently.

"Yes, he's been there three years; his time was out and he came home.

Oh, you should see him, Miss Elizabeth. He looks so fine!"

"Does he look as fine as you, Gusta?"

Elizabeth smiled affectionately, and Gusta's fair German skin flushed to

her yellow hair.

"Now, Miss Elizabeth," she said in an embarrassment that could not hide

her pleasure, "Archie's really handsome--he put on his soldier clothes

and let us see him. He's a fine soldier, Miss Elizabeth. He was the

best shooter in his regiment; he has a medal. He said it was a

sharp-shooter's medal."

"Oh, indeed!" said Elizabeth, her already slight interest flagging.

"Then he must be a fine shot."

Though Elizabeth in a flash of imagination had the scene in Gusta's home

the night before--the brother displaying himself in his uniform, his old

German father and mother glowing with pride, the children gathered

around in awe and wonder--she was really thinking of the snow, and

speculating as to what new pleasure it would bring, and with this she

rose from the table and went into the drawing-room. There she stood in

the deep window a moment, and looked out. The Maceys' man, clearing the

walk over the way, had paused in his labor to lean with a discouraged

air on his wooden shovel. A man was trudging by, his coat collar turned

up, his shoulders hunched disconsolately, the snow clinging tenaciously

to his feet as he plowed his way along. At the sight, Elizabeth

shrugged her shoulders, gave a little sympathetic shiver, turned from

her contemplation of the avenue that stretched away white and still, and

went to the library. Here she got down a book and curled herself up on

a divan near the fireplace. Far away she heard the tinkle of some

solitary sleigh-bell.

When the maid came into the adjoining room a few moments later,

Elizabeth said: "Gusta, please hand me that box of candy."

Elizabeth arranged herself in still greater comfort, put a bit of the

chocolate in her mouth, and opened her book. "Gusta, you're a comfort,"

she said. "Catch me going out on a day like this!"

Mrs. Ward came home at noon, and when she learned that Elizabeth had

spent the morning in the library, she took on an air of such superiority

as was justified only in one who had not allowed even a blizzard to

interfere with the serious duties of life. She had learned several new

signals at the whist club and, as she told Elizabeth with a reproach for

her neglect of the game, she had mastered at last Elwood's new system.

But Elizabeth, when she had had her luncheon, returned to the library

and her book. She stayed there an hour, then suddenly startled her

mother by flinging the volume to the floor in disgust and running from

the room and up the stairs. She came down presently dressed for the

street.

"Don't be put long, dear; remember the dinner," Mrs. Ward called after

her.

As she turned in between the high banks of snow piled along either side

of the walk, Elizabeth felt the fine quality of the air that sparkled

with a cold vitality, as pure as the snow that seemed to exhale it. She

tossed her head as if to rid it of all the disordered fancies she had

gathered in the unreal world of the romance with which she had spent the

day. Then for the first time she realized how gigantic the storm had

been. Long processions of men armed with shovels, happy in the temporary

prosperity this chance for work had brought, had cleared the sidewalks.

On the avenue the snow had been beaten into a hard yellow track by the

horses and sleighs that coursed so gaily over it. The cross-town

trolley-cars glided along between the windrows of the snow the big plow

had whirled from the tracks. Little children, in bright caps and

leggings, were playing in the yards, testing new sleds, tumbling about

in the white drifts, flinging snowballs at one another, their laughter

and screams harmonizing with the bells. Claybourne Avenue was alive;

the solitary bell that Elizabeth had heard jingling in the still air

that morning had been joined by countless strings of other bells, until

now the air vibrated with their musical clamor. Great Russian sledges

with scarlet plumes shaking at their high-curved dashboards swept by,

and the cutters sped along in their impromptu races, the happy faces of

their occupants ruddy in their furs, the bells on the excited horses

chiming in the keen air. At the corner of Twenty-fifth Street, a park

policeman, sitting his magnificent bay horse, reviewed the swiftly

passing parade. The pedestrians along the sidewalk shouted the racers

on; as the cutters, side by side, rose and fell over the street-crossing

a party of school-boys assailed them with a shower of snowballs.

Elizabeth knew many of the people in the passing sleighs; she knew all

of those in the more imposing turnouts. She bowed to her acquaintances

with a smile that came from the exhilaration of the sharp winter air,

more than from any joy she had in the recognition. But from one of the

cutters Gordon Marriott waved his whip at her, and she returned his

salute with a little shake of her big muff. Her gray eyes sparkled and

her cheeks against her furs were pink. Every one was nervously exalted

by the snow-storm that afternoon, and Elizabeth, full of health and

youthful spirit, tingled with the joy the snow seemed to have brought to

the world.

II

His house was all illumined; the light streaming from its windows

glistened on the polished crust of the frozen snow, and as Stephen Ward

drove up that evening, he sighed, remembering the dinner. He sprang

out, slammed the door of his brougham and dashed indoors, the wheels of

his retreating carriage giving out again their frosty falsetto. The

breath of cold air Ward inhaled as he ran into the house was grateful to

him, and he would have liked more of it; it would have refreshed and

calmed him after his hard day on the Board.

As he entered the wide hall, Elizabeth was just descending the stairs.

She came fresh from her toilet, clothed in a dinner gown of white, her

round arms bare to the elbow, her young throat just revealed, her dark

hair done low on her neck, and the smile that lighted her gray eyes

pleased Ward.

As she went for her father's kiss Elizabeth noted the cool outdoor

atmosphere, and the odor of cigar smoke and Russia leather that always

hung about his person.

"You are refreshing!" she said. "The frost clings to you."

He smiled as she helped him with his overcoat, and then he backed up to

the great fire, and stood there shrugging his shoulders and rubbing his

hands in the warmth. His face was fresh and ruddy, his white hair was

rumpled, his stubbed mustache, which ordinarily gave an effect of saving

his youth in his middle years, seemed to bristle aggressively, and his

eyes still burned from the excitement of the day.

"What have you been doing all day?" Elizabeth asked, standing before

him, her hands on his shoulders. "Battling hard for life in the wheat

pit?" Her eyes sparkled with good humor.

Ward took Elizabeth's face between his palms as he said jubilantly:

"No, but I've been making old Macey battle for his life--and I've won."

His gray eyes flashed with the sense of victory, he drew himself erect,

tilted back on his heels. He did not often speak of his business

affairs at home, and when he did, no one understood him. During the

weeks indeed, in which the soft moist weather and constant rains had

prevented the rise in the wheat market on which he had so confidently

gambled, he had resolutely and unselfishly kept his fear and his

suspense to himself, and now even though at last he could indulge his

exultation, he drew a long, deep breath.

"By Jove!" he exclaimed. "The snow came just in the nick of time for

me!"

"Well, you march right up-stairs and get your clothes on," said

Elizabeth as she took her father by the arm, gathering up the train of

her white gown, heavy with its sequins and gracefully impeding her

progress, and led him to the stairs. She smiled up into his face as she

did so, and, as he turned the corner of the wide staircase, he bent and

kissed her again.

Though the guests whom Mrs. Ward had asked to her dinner that night all

came in closed carriages, bundled in warm and elegant furs, and though

they stepped from their own doors into their carriages and then alighted

from them at the door of the Wards', they all, when they arrived, talked

excitedly of the storm and adjured one another to confess that they had

never known such cold. The women, who came down from the dressing-room

in bare arms and bare shoulders, seemed to think less of the cold than

the men, who were, doubtless, not so inured to exposure; but they were

more excited over it and looked on the phenomenon in its romantic light,

and began to celebrate the poetic aspects of the winter scene. But the

men laughed at this.

"There isn't much poetry about it down town," said Dick Ward. "No poet

would have called that snow beautiful if he'd seen it piled so high as

to blockade the street-cars and interrupt business generally." He spoke

with the young pride he was finding in himself as a business man, though

it would have been hard to tell just what his business was.

"Oh, but Dick," said Miss Bonnell, her dark face lighting with a fine

smile, "the poet wouldn't have thought of business!"

"No, I suppose not," admitted Dick with the contempt a business man

should feel for a poet.

"He might have found a theme in the immense damage the storm has

done--telegraph wires all down, trains all late, the whole country in

the grip of the blizzard, and a cold wave sweeping down from Medicine

Hat."

The slender young man who spoke was Gordon Marriott, and he made his

observation in a way that was almost too serious to be conventional or

even desirable in a society where seriousness was not encouraged. He

looked dreamily into the fire, as if he had merely spoken a thought

aloud rather than addressed any one; but the company standing about the

fireplace, trying to make the talk last for the few moments before

dinner was announced, looked up suddenly, and seemed to be puzzled by

the expression on his smooth-shaven delicate face.

"Oh, a theme for an epic!" exclaimed Mrs. Modderwell, the wife of the

rector. Her pale face was glowing with unusual color, and her great

dark eyes were lighting with enthusiasm. As she spoke, she glanced at

her husband, and seemed to shrink in her black gown.

"But we have no poet to do it," said Elizabeth.

"Oh, I say," interrupted Modderwell, speaking in the upper key he

employed in addressing women, and then, quickly changing to the deep,

almost gruff tone which, with his affected English accent, he used when

he spoke to men, "our friend Marriott here could do it; he's dreamer

enough for it--eh, Marriott?" He gave his words the effect of a joke,

and Marriott smiled at them, while the rest laughed in their readiness

to laugh at anything.

"No," said Marriott, "I couldn't do it, though I wish I could. Walt

Whitman might have done it; he could have begun with the cattle on the

plains, freezing, with their tails to the wind, and catalogued

everything on the way till he came to the stock quotations and--"

"The people sleighing on Claybourne Avenue," said Elizabeth, remembering

her walk of the afternoon. "And he would have gone on tracing the more

subtle and sinister effects--perhaps suggesting something tragic."

"Well, now, really, when I was in Canada, you know--" began Modderwell.

Though he had been born in Canada and had lived most of his life there,

he always referred to the experience as if it had been a mere visit; he

wished every one to consider him an Englishman. And nearly every one

did, except Marriott, who looked at Modderwell in his most innocent

manner and began:

"Oh, you Canadians--"

But just then dinner was announced, and though Elizabeth smiled at

Marriott with sympathy, she was glad to have him interrupted in his

philosophizing, or poetizing, or whatever it was, to take her out to the

dining-room, where the great round table, with its mound of scarlet

roses and tiny glasses of sherry glowing ruddy in the soft light of the

shaded candelabra, awaited them. And there they passed through the long

courses, at first talking lightly, but excitedly, of the snow,

mentioning the pleasure and the new sensations it would afford them;

then of their acquaintances; of a new burlesque that had run for a year

in a New York theater; then of a new romance in which a great many

people were killed and imprisoned, though not in a disagreeable manner,

and, in short, talked of a great many unimportant things, but talked of

them as if they were, in reality, of the utmost importance.

The butler had taken off the salad; they were waiting for the dessert.

Suddenly from the direction of the kitchen came a piercing scream,

evidently a woman's scream; all the swinging doors between the

dining-room and the distant kitchen could not muffle it. Mrs.

Modderwell started nervously, then, at a look from her husband, composed

herself and hung her head with embarrassment. The others at the table

started, though not so visibly, and then tried to appear as if they had

not done so. Mrs. Ward looked up in alarm, first at Ward, who hastily

gulped some wine, and then at Elizabeth. Wonder and curiosity were in

all the faces about the board--wonder and curiosity that no

sophistication could conceal. They waited; the time grew long; Mrs.

Ward, who always suffered through her dinners, suffered more than ever

now. Her guests tried bravely to sit as if nothing were wrong, but at

last their little attempts at conversation failed, and they sat in

painful silence. The moments passed; Ward and his wife exchanged

glances; Elizabeth looked at her mother sympathetically. At last the

door swung and the butler entered; the guests could not help glancing at

him. But in his face there was a blank and tutored passivity that was

admirable, almost heroic.

When the women were in the drawing-room, Mrs. Ward excused herself for a

moment and went to the kitchen. She returned presently, and Elizabeth

voiced the question the others were too polite to ask.

"What on earth's the matter?"

"Matter!" exclaimed Mrs. Ward. "Gusta's going, that's all." She said

it with the feeling such a calamity merited.

"When?"

"Now."

"But the scream--what was it?"

"Well, word came about her father; he's been hurt, or killed, or

something, in the railroad yards."

"Oh, how dreadful!" the women politely chorused.

"Yes, I should think so," said Mrs. Ward. "To be left like this without

a moment's warning! And then that awful _contretemps_ at dinner!" Mrs.

Ward looked all the anguish and shame she felt.

"But Gusta couldn't help that," said Elizabeth.

"No," said Mrs. Ward, lapsing from her mood of exaggeration, "I know

that, of course. The poor girl is quite broken up. I hope it is

nothing really serious. And yet," she went on, her mind turning again to

her own domestic misfortunes, "people of her class seem to have the most

unerring faculty for calamity. They're always getting hurt, or sick, or

dying, or something. The servants in my house suffer more bereavement in

the course of a month than all the rest of my acquaintance in a

lifetime."

And then the ladies took up the servant-girl problem, and canvassed it

hopelessly until the men were heard entering the library.

III

While Mrs. Ward was discussing her maid with her guests, Gusta was

hurrying homeward alone, the prey of fears, omens and forebodings.

There was the shock of this sudden news from home, and her horror of

what awaited her there; besides she had a strange feeling about leaving

the Wards in this way. The night had grown bitterly cold. The frozen

snow crunched with a whining noise under her heels as she passed swiftly

along. In the light of the arc-lamps that swung at the street

crossings, the trees along the curb cast their long shadows before her,

falling obliquely across the sidewalk and stretching off into the yard;

as she passed on, they wheeled, lost themselves in gloom, then appeared

again, stretching the other way. The shadows confused and frightened

her. She thought of Elizabeth and all her kindness; when would she see

Elizabeth again? With this horrible thing at home all had changed; her

mother would need her now. She thought of the hard work, with the

children crying about, and the ugly kitchen, with none of the things

there were at the Wards' to make the work easy. She would have to lug

the water in from the cistern; the pump would be frozen, and the water

would splash on her hands and make them red and raw and sore; they could

never be white and soft like Elizabeth's. She would have to shovel the

snow, and make paths, and split kindlings, and carry wood and coal, and

make fires. And then the house would never be warm like the Wards'; they

would eat in the kitchen and sit there all day long. The storm, which

had made no change at all at the Wards', would make it all so much

harder at home. Her father would be sick a long time; and, of course,

he would lose his job; the house would be gloomy and sad; it would be

worse than the winter he had been on strike.

The keen wind that was blowing from the northwest stung Gusta's face;

she felt the tears in her eyes, and when they ran on to her cheeks they

froze at once and made her miserable. She shuddered with the cold, her

fingers were numb, her feet seemed to be bare on the snow, her ears were

burning. The wind blew against her forehead and seemed as if it would

cut the top of her head off as with a cold blade. She tried to pull her

little jacket about her; the jacket was one Elizabeth had given her, and

she had always been proud of it and thought that it made her look like

Elizabeth, but it could not keep her warm now. She ran a few steps,

partly to get warm, partly to make swifter progress homeward, partly for

no reason at all. She thought of her comfortable room at the Wards' and

the little colored pictures Elizabeth had given her to hang about the

walls. An hour before she had expected to go to that room and rest

there,--and now she was going home to sickness and sorrow and ugly work.

She gave a little sob and tried to brush away her tears, but they were

frozen to her eye-lashes, and it gave her a sharp pain above her eyes

when she put her hand up to her face.

Gusta had now reached the poorer quarter of the town, which was not far

from Claybourne Avenue, though hidden from it. The houses were huddled

closely together, and their little window-panes were frosty against the

light that shone through the holes in their shades. There were many

saloons, as many as three on a corner; the ice was frozen about their

entrances, but she could see the light behind the screens. They seemed

to be warm--the only places in that neighborhood that were warm. She

passed one of them just as the latch clicked and the door opened, and

three young men came out, laughing loud, rough, brutal laughs. Gusta

shrank to the edge of the sidewalk; when she got into the black shadow

of the low frame building, she ran, and as she ran she could hear the

young men laughing loudly behind her. She plunged on into the shadows

that lay so thick and black ahead.

But as she drew near her home, all of Gusta's other thoughts were

swallowed up in the thought of her father. She forgot how cold she was;

her fingers were numb, but they no longer ached; a kind of physical

insensibility stole through her, but she was more than ever alive

mentally to the anguish that was on her. She thought of her father, and

she remembered a thousand little things about him,--all his ways, all

his sayings, little incidents of her childhood; and the tears blinded

her, because now he probably would never speak to her again, never open

his eyes to look on her again. She pictured him lying on his bed,

broken and maimed, probably covered with blood, gasping his few last

breaths. She broke into a little run, the clumsy trot of a woman, her

skirts beating heavily and with dull noises against her legs, her shoes

crunching, crunching, on the frozen snow. At last she turned another

corner, and entered a street that was even narrower and darker than the

others. Its surface, though hidden by the snow, was billowy where the

ash piles lay; there was no light, but the snow seemed to give a gray

effect to the darkness. This was Bolt Street, in which Gusta's family,

the Koerners, lived.

The thin crackled shade was down at the front window, but the light

shone behind it. Gusta pushed open the front door and rushed in. She

took in the front room at a glance, seeking the evidence of change; but

all was unchanged, familiar--the strips of rag carpet on the floor, the

cheap oak furniture upholstered in green and red plush, the rough,

coarse-grained surface of the wood varnished highly; the photograph of

herself in the white dress and veil she had worn to her first communion,

the picture of Archie sent from the Presidio, the colored prints of

Bismarck and the battle of Sedan--all were there. The room was just as

it had always been, clean, orderly, unused--save that some trinkets

Archie had brought from Manila were on the center-table beside the lamp,

which, with its round globe painted with brown flowers, gave the room

its light.

Gusta had taken all this in with a little shock of surprise, and in the

same instant the children, Katie and little Jakie, sprang forth to meet

her. They stood now, clutching at her skirts; they held up their little

red, chapped faces, all dirty and streaked with tears; their lips

quivered, and they began to whimper. But Gusta, with her wild eyes

staring above their little flaxen heads, pressed on in, and the

children, hanging on to her and impeding her progress, began to cry

peevishly.

Gusta saw her mother sitting in the kitchen. Two women of the

neighborhood sat near her, dull, silent, stupid, their chins on their

huge breasts, as if in melancholia. Though the room was stiflingly warm

with the heat from the kitchen stove, the women kept their shawls over

their heads, like peasants. Mrs. Koerner sat in a rocking-chair in the

middle of her clean white kitchen floor. As she lifted her dry eyes and

saw Gusta, her brows contracted under her thin, carefully-parted hair,

and she lifted her brawny arms, bare to the elbows, and rocked backward,

her feet swinging heavily off the floor.

"Where's father?" Gusta demanded, starting toward her mother.

Mrs. Koerner's lips opened and she drew a long breath, then exhaled it

in a heavy sigh.

"Where is he?" Gusta demanded again. She spoke so fiercely that the

children suddenly became silent, their pale blue eyes wide. One of the

neighbors looked up, unwrapped her bare arms from her gingham apron and

began to poke the kitchen fire. Mrs. Koerner suddenly bent forward, her

elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands, and began to cry, and to

mumble in German. At this, the two neighbor women began to speak to

each other in German. It always irritated Gusta to have her mother

speak in German. She had learned the language in her infancy, but she

grew ashamed of it when she was sent to the public schools, and never

spoke it when she could help it. And now in her resentment of the whole

tragic situation, she flew into a rage. Her mother threw her apron over

her face, and rocked back and forth.

"Aw, quit, ma!" cried Gusta; "quit, now, can't you?"

Mrs. Koerner took her apron from her face and looked at Gusta. Her

expression was one of mute appealing pain. Gusta, softened, put her

hand on her mother's head.

"Tell me, ma," she said softly, "where is he?"

Mrs. Koerner rocked again, back and forth, flinging up her arms and

shaking her head from side to side. A fear seized Gusta.

"Where is he?" she demanded.

"He goes on der hospital," said one of the women. "He's bad hurt."

The word "hospital" seemed to have a profound and sinister meaning for

Mrs. Koerner, and she began to wail aloud. Gusta feared to ask more.

The children were still clinging to her. They hung to her skirts, tried

to grasp her legs, almost toppling her over.

"Want our supper!" Jakie cried; "want our supper!"

"Gusta," said Katie, "did the pretty lady send me something good?"

Gusta still stood there; her cheeks were glowing red from their exposure

to the wind that howled outside and rattled the loose sash in the

window. But about her bluish lips the skin was white, her blue eyes

were tired and frightened. She dropped a hand to each of the children,

her knees trembled, and she gave little lurches from side to side as she

stood there, with the children tugging at her, in their fear and hunger.

"Where's Archie?" she asked.

"He's gone for his beer," said one of the neighbors, the one who had not

spoken. As she spoke she revealed her loose teeth, standing wide apart

in her gums. "Maybe he goes on der hospital yet."

Every time they spoke the word "hospital," Mrs. Koerner flung up her

arms, and Gusta herself winced. But she saw that neither her mother nor

these women who had come in to sit with her could tell her anything; to

learn the details she would have to wait until Archie came. She had

been drawing off her gloves as she stood there, and now she laid aside

her hat and her jacket, and tied on one of her mother's aprons. Then

silently she went to work, opened the stove door, shook the ashes down,

threw in coal, and got out a skillet. The table spread with its red

cloth stood against the window-sill, bearing cream pitcher and sugar

bowl, and a cheap glass urn filled with metal spoons. She went to the

pantry, brought out a crock of butter and put it on the table, then cut

pieces of side-meat and put them in a skillet, where they began to swim

about and sizzle in the sputtering grease. Then she set the coffee to

boil, cut some bread, and, finding some cold potatoes left over from

dinner, she set these on the table for the supper. It grew still,

quiet, commonplace. Gusta bustled about, her mother sat there quietly,

the neighbors looked on stolidly, the children snuffled now and then.

The tragedy seemed remote and unreal.

Gusta took a pail and whisked out of the kitchen door; the wind rushed

in, icy cold; she was back in a moment, her golden hair blowing. She

poured some of the water into a pan, and called the children to her.

They stood as stolidly as the women sat, their hands rigid by their

sides, their chins elevated, gasping now and then as Gusta washed their

dirty faces with the rag she had wrung out in the icy water. The odor

of frying pork was now filling the room, and the children's red,

burnished faces were gleaming with smiles, and their blue eyes danced as

they stood looking at the hot stove. When the pork was fried, Gusta,

using her apron to protect her hand, seized the skillet from the stove,

scraped the spluttering contents into a dish and set it on the table.

Then the children climbed into chairs, side by side, clutching the edge

of the table with their little fingers. Mrs. Koerner let Gusta draw up

her rocking-chair, leaned over, resting her fat forearms on the table,

holding her fork in her fist, and ate, using her elbow as a fulcrum.

When the meal was done, Mrs. Koerner began to rock again, the children

stood about and watched Gusta pile the dishes on the table and cover

them with the red cloth, and then, when she told them they must go to

bed, they protested, crying that father had not come home yet. Their

eyes were heavy and their flaxen heads were nodding, and Gusta dragged

them into a room that opened off the kitchen, and out of the dark could

be heard their small voices, protesting sleepily that they were not

sleepy.

After a while a quick, regular step was heard outside, some one stamped

the snow from his boots, the door opened, and Archie entered. His face

was drawn and flaming from the cold, and there was shrinking in his

broad military shoulders; a shiver ran through his well-set-up figure;

he wore no overcoat; he keenly felt the exposure to weather he was so

unused to. He flung aside his gray felt soldier's hat--the same he had

worn in the Philippines--strode across the room, bent over the stove and

warmed his red fingers.

"It's a long hike over to the hospital this cold night," he said,

turning to Gusta and smiling. His white teeth showed in his smile, and

the skin of his face was red and parched. He flung a chair before the

stove, sat down, hooked one heel on its rung, and taking some little

slips of rice paper from his pocket, and a bag of tobacco, began rolling

himself a cigarette. He rolled the cigarette swiftly and deftly,

lighted it, and inhaled the smoke eagerly. Gusta, meanwhile, sat

looking at him in a sort of suppressed impatience. Then, the smoke

stealing from his mouth with each word he uttered, he said:

"Well, they've cut the old man's leg off."

Gusta and the neighbor women looked at Archie in silence. Mrs. Koerner

seemed unable to grasp the full meaning of what he had said.

"_Was sagst du?_" she asked, leaning forward anxiously.

"_Sie haben sein Bein amputiert_," replied Archie.

"_Sein Bein--was?_" inquired Mrs. Koerner.

"What the devil's 'cut off'?" asked Archie, turning to Gusta.

She thought a moment.

"Why," she said, "let's see. _Abgeschnitten_, I guess."

"Je's," said Archie impatiently, "I wish she'd cut out the Dutch!"

Then he turned toward his mother and speaking loudly, as if she were

deaf, as one always speaks who tries to make himself understood in a

strange tongue:

"_Sie haben sein Bein abgeschnitten--die Doctoren im Hospital._"

Mrs. Koerner stared at her son, and Archie and Gusta and the two women

sat and stared at her, then suddenly Mrs. Koerner's expression became

set, meaningless and blank, her eyes slowly closed and her body slid off

the chair to the floor. Archie sprang toward her and tried to lift her.

She was heavy even for his strong arms, and he straightened an instant,

and shouted out commands:

"Open the door, you! Gusta, get some water!"

One of the women lumbered across the kitchen and flung wide the door,

Gusta got a dipper of water and splashed it in her mother's face. The

cold air rushing into the overheated kitchen and the cool water revived

the prostrate woman; she opened her eyes and looked up, sick and

appealing. Archie helped her to her chair and stood leaning over her.

Gusta, too, bent above her, and the two women pressed close.

"Stand back!" shouted Archie peremptorily. "Give her some air, can't

you?"

The two women slunk back--not without glances of reproach at Archie. He

stood looking at his mother a moment, his hands resting on his hips. He

was still smoking his cigarette, tilting back his head and squinting his

eyes to escape the smoke. Gusta was fanning her mother.

"Do you feel better?" she asked solicitously.

"_Ja_," said Mrs. Koerner, but she began to shake her head.

"Oh, it's all right, ma," Archie assured her. "It's the best place for

him. Why, they'll give him good care there. I was in the hospital a

month already in Luzon."

The old woman was unconvinced and shook her head. Then Archie stepped

close to her side.

"Poor old mother!" he said, and he touched her brow lightly,

caressingly. She looked at him an instant, then turned her head against

him and cried. The tears began to roll down Gusta's cheeks, and Archie

squinted his eyes more and more.

"We'd better get her to bed," he said softly, and glanced at the two

women with a look of dismissal. They still sat looking on at this effect

of the disaster, not altogether curiously nor without sympathy, yet

claiming all the sensation they could get out of the situation. When

Archie and Gusta led Mrs. Koerner to her bed, the two women began

talking rapidly to each other in German, criticizing Archie and the

action of the authorities in taking Koerner to the hospital.

IV

Gusta cherished a hope of going back to the Wards', but as the days went

by this hope declined. Mrs. Koerner was mentally prostrated and Gusta

was needed now at home, and there she took up her duties, attending the

children, getting the meals, caring for the house, filling her mother's

place. After a few days she reluctantly decided to go back for her

clothes. The weather had moderated, the snow still lay on the ground,

but grimy, soft and disintegrating. The sky was gray and cold, the mean

east wind was blowing in from the lake, and yet Gusta liked its cool

touch on her face, and was glad to be out again after all those days she

had been shut in the little home. It was good to feel herself among

other people, to get back to normal life, and though Gusta did not

analyze her sensations thus closely, or, for that matter, analyze them

at all, she was all the more happy.

Before Nussbaum's saloon she saw the long beer wagon; its splendid

Norman horses tossing their heads playfully, the stout driver in his

leathern apron lugging in the kegs of beer. The sight pleased her; and

when Nussbaum, in white shirt-sleeves and apron, stepped to the door for

his breath of morning air, she smiled and nodded to him. His round

ruddy face beamed pleasantly.

"Hello, Gustie," he called. "How are you this morning? How's your

father?"

"Oh, he's better, thank you, Mr. Nussbaum," replied Gusta, and she

hastened on. As she went, she heard the driver of the brewery wagon

ask:

"Who's that?"

And Nussbaum replied:

"Reinhold Koerner's girl, what got hurt on the railroad the other day."

"She's a good-looker, hain't she?" said the driver.

And Gusta colored and felt proud and happier than before.

She was not long in reaching Claybourne Avenue, and it was good to see

the big houses again, and the sleighs coursing by, and the carriages,

and the drivers and footmen, some of whom she knew, sitting so stiffly

in their liveries on the boxes. At sight of the familiar roof and

chimneys of the Wards' house, her heart leaped; she felt now as if she

were getting back home.

It was Gusta's notion that as soon as she had greeted her old friend

Mollie, the cook, she would rush on into the dining-room; but no sooner

was she in the kitchen than she felt a constraint, and sank down weakly

on a chair. Molly was busy with luncheon; things were going on in the

Ward household, going on just as well without her as with her, just as

the car shops were going on without her father, the whistle blowing

night and morning. It gave Gusta a little pang. This feeling was

intensified when, a little later, a girl entered the kitchen, a thin

girl, with black hair and blue eyes with long Irish lashes. She would

have been called pretty by anybody but Gusta, and Gusta herself must

have allowed her prettiness in any moment less sharp than this. The new

maid inspected Gusta coldly, but none of the glances from her eyes could

hurt Gusta half as much as her presence there hurt her; and the hurt was

so deep that she felt no personal resentment; she regarded the maid

merely as a situation, an unconscious and irresponsible symbol of

certain untoward events.

"Want to see Mrs. Ward?" the maid inquired.

"Yes, and Miss Elizabeth, too," said Gusta.

"Mrs. Ward's out and Miss Ward's busy just now."

Mollie, whose broad back was bent over her table, knew how the words

hurt Gusta, and, without turning, she said:

"You go tell her Gusta's here, Nora; she'll want to see her."

"Oh, sure," said Nora, yielding to a superior. "I'll tell her."

Almost before Nora could return, Elizabeth stood in the swinging door,

beaming her surprise and pleasure. And Gusta burst into tears.

"Why Gusta," exclaimed Elizabeth, "come right in here!"

She held the door, and Gusta, with a glance at Nora, went in. Seated by

the window in the old familiar dining-room, with Elizabeth before her,

Gusta glanced about, the pain came back, and the tears rolled down her

cheeks.

"You mustn't cry, Gusta," said Elizabeth.

Gusta sat twisting her fingers together, in and out, while the tears

fell. She could not speak for a moment, and then she looked up and

tried to smile.

"You mustn't cry," Elizabeth repeated. "You aren't half so pretty when

you cry."

Gusta's wet lashes were winking rapidly, and she took out her

handkerchief and wiped her face and her eyes, and Elizabeth looked at

her intently.

"Poor child!" she said presently. "What a time you've had!"

"Oh, Miss Elizabeth!" said Gusta, the tears starting afresh at this

expression of sympathy, "we've had a dreadful time!"

"And we've missed you awfully," said Elizabeth. "When are you coming

back to us?"

Gusta looked up gratefully. "I don't know, Miss Elizabeth; I wish I

did. But you see my mother is sick ever since father--"

"And how is your father? We saw in the newspaper how badly he had been

hurt."

"Was it in the paper?" said Gusta eagerly, leaning forward a little.

"Yes, didn't you see it? It was just a little item; it gave few of the

details, and it must have misspelled--" But Elizabeth stopped.

"I didn't see it," said Gusta. "He was hurt dreadfully, Miss Elizabeth;

they cut his leg off at the hospital."

"Oh, Gusta! And he's there still, of course?"

"Yes, and we don't know how long he'll have to stay. Maybe he'll have

to go under another operation."

"Oh, I hope not!" said Elizabeth. "Tell me how he was hurt."

"Well, Miss Elizabeth, we don't just know--not just exactly. He had

knocked off work and left the shops and was coming across the yards--he

always comes home that way, you know--but it was dark, and the snow was

all over everything, and the ice, and somehow he slipped and caught his

foot in a frog, and just then a switch-engine came along and ran over

his leg."

"Oh, horrible!" Elizabeth's brows contracted in pain.

"The ambulance took him right away to the Hospital. Ma felt awful bad

'cause they wouldn't let him be fetched home. She didn't want him taken

to the hospital."

"But that was the best place for him, Gusta; the very best place in the

world."

"That's what Archie says," said Gusta, "but ma doesn't like it; she

can't get used to it, and she says--" Gusta hesitated,--"she says we

can't afford to keep him there."

"But the railroad will pay for that, won't it?"

"Oh, do you think it will, Miss Elizabeth? It had ought to, hadn't it?

He's worked there thirty-seven years."

"Why, surely it will," said Elizabeth. "I wouldn't worry about that a

minute if I were you. You must make the best of it. And is there

anything I can do for you, Gusta?"

"No, thank you, Miss Elizabeth. I just came around to see you,"--she

looked up with a fond smile,--"and to get my clothes. Then I must go.

I want to go see father before I go back home. I guess I'll pack my

things now, and then Archie'll come for my trunk this afternoon."

"Oh, I'll have Barker haul it over; he can just as well as not. And,

Gusta,"--Elizabeth rose on the impulse--"I'll drive you to the hospital.

I was just going out. You wait here till I get my things."

Gusta's face flushed with pleasure; she poured out her thanks, and then

she waited while Elizabeth rang for the carriage, and ran out to prepare

for the street, just as she used to.

It was a fine thing for Gusta to ride with Elizabeth in her brougham.

She had often imagined how it would be, sitting there in the exclusion

of the brougham's upholstered interior, with the little clock, and the

mirror and the bottle of salts before her, and the woven silk tube

through which Elizabeth spoke to Barker when she wished to give him

directions. The drive to the hospital was all too short for Gusta, even

though Elizabeth prolonged it by another impulse which led her to drive

out of their way to get some fruit and some flowers.

In the street before the hospital, and along the driveway that led to

the suggestively wide side door, carriages were being slowly driven up

and down, denoting that the social leaders who were patronesses of the

hospital were now inside, patronizing the superintendent and the head

nurse. Besides these there were the high, hooded phaetons of the

fashionable physicians. It was the busy hour at the hospital. The

nurses had done their morning work, made their entries on their charts,

and were now standing in little groups about the hall, waiting for their

"cases" to come back from the operating-rooms. There was the odor of

anesthetics in the air, and the atmosphere of the place, professional

and institutional though it was, was surcharged with a heavy human

suspense--the suspense that hung over the silent, heavily breathing,

anesthetized human forms that were stretched on glass tables in the hot

operating-rooms up-stairs, some of them doomed to die, others to live

and prolong existence yet a while. The wide slow elevators were waiting

at the top floor; at the doors of the operating-rooms stood the

white-padded rubber-tired carts, the orderlies sitting on them swinging

their legs off the floor, and gossiping about the world outside, where

life did not hover, but throbbed on, intent, preoccupied. In private

rooms, in vacant rooms, in the office down-stairs, men and women, the

relatives of those on the glass tables above, waited with white,

haggard, frightened faces.

As Elizabeth and Gusta entered the hospital they shuddered, and drew

close to each other like sisters. Koerner was in the marine ward, and

Gusta dreaded the place. On her previous visits there, the nurses had

been sharp and severe with her, but this morning, when the nurses saw

Elizabeth bearing her basket of fruit and her flowers--which she would

not let Gusta carry, feeling that would rob her offering of the personal

quality she wished it to assume--they ran forward, their starched,

striped blue skirts rustling, and greeted her with smiles.

"Why, Miss Ward!" they cried.

"Good morning," said Elizabeth, "we've come to see Mr. Koerner."

"Oh, yes," said Koerner's nurse, a tall, spare young woman with a large

nose, eye-glasses, and a flat chest. "He's so much better this morning."

She said this with a patronizing glance aside at Gusta, who tried to

smile; the nurse had not spoken so pleasantly to her before.

The nurse led the girls into the ward, and they passed down between the

rows of white cots. Some of the cots were empty, their white sheets

folded severely, back, awaiting the return of their occupants from the

rooms up-stairs. In the others men sprawled, with pallid, haggard

faces, and watched the young women as they passed along, following them

with large, brilliant, sick eyes. But Elizabeth and Gusta did not look

at them; they kept their eyes before them. One bed had a white screen

about it; candles glowed through the screen, silhouetting the bending

forms of a priest, a doctor and a nurse.

Koerner was at the end of the ward. His great, gaunt, heavy figure was

supine on the bed; the bandaged stump of his leg made a heavy bulk under

the counterpane; his broad shoulders mashed down the pillow; his

enormous hands, still showing in their cracks and crevices and around

the cuticle of his broken nails the grime that all the antiseptic

scrubbings of a hospital could not remove, lay outside the coverlid,

idle for the first time in half a century. His white hair was combed,

its ragged edges showing more obviously, and his gaunt cheeks were

covered by a stubble of frosty beard. His blue eyes were unnaturally

bright.

Elizabeth fell back a little that Gusta might greet him first, and the

strong, lusty, healthy girl bent over her father and laid one hand on

his.

"Well, pa, how're you feeling to-day?"

"Hullo, Gustie," said the old man, "you gom' again, huh? Vell, der oldt

man's pretty bad, I tel' you."

"Why, the nurse said you were better."

"Why, yes," said the nurse, stepping forward with a professional smile,

"he's lots better this morning; he just won't admit it, that's all. But

we know him here, we do!"

She said this playfully, with a lateral addition to her smile, and she

bent over and passed her hand under the bed-clothes and touched his

bandages here and there. Elizabeth and Gusta stood looking on.

"Isn't the pain any better?" asked the nurse, still smilingly,

coaxingly.

"Naw," growled the old German, stubbornly refusing to smile. "I toldt

you it was no besser, don't I?"

The nurse drew out her hand. The smile left her face and she stood

looking down on him with a helpless expression that spread to the faces

of Elizabeth and Gusta. Koerner turned his head uneasily on the pillow

and groaned.

"What is it, pa?" asked Gusta.

"Der rheumatiz'."

"Where?"

"In my leg. In der same oldt blace. Ach!"

An expression of puzzled pain came to Gusta's face.

"Why," she said half-fearfully, "how can it--now?" She looked at the

nurse. The nurse smiled again, this time with an air of superior

knowledge.

"They often have those sensations," she said, laughing. "It's quite

natural." Then she bent over Koerner and said cheerily: "I'm going now,

and leave you with your daughter and Miss Ward."

"Yes, pa," said Gusta, "Miss Elizabeth's here to see you."

She put into her tone all the appreciation of the honor she wished her

father to feel. Elizabeth came forward, her gloved hands folded before

her, and stood carefully away from the bed so that even her skirts

should not touch it.

"How do you do, Mr. Koerner?" she said in her soft voice--so different

from the voices of the nurse and Gusta.

Koerner turned and looked at her an instant, his mouth open, his tongue

playing over his discolored teeth.

"Hullo," he said, "you gom' to see der oldt man, huh?"

Elizabeth smiled.

"Yes, I came to see how you were, and to know if there is anything I

could do for you."

"_Ach_," he said, "I'm all right. Dot leg he hurts yust der same efery

day. Kesterday der's somet'ing between der toes; dis time he's got der

damned oldt rheumatiz', yust der same he used to ven he's on dere all

right."

The old man then entered into a long description of his symptoms, and

Elizabeth tried hard to smile and to sympathize. She succeeded in

turning him from his subject presently, and then she said:

"Is there anything you want, Mr. Koerner? I'd be so glad to get you

anything, you know."

"Vell, I like a schmoke alreadty, but she won't let me. You know my

oldt pipe, Gusta? Vell, I lose him by der accident dot night. He's on

der railroadt, I bet you."

"Oh, we'll get you another pipe, Mr. Koerner," said Elizabeth, laughing.

"Isn't there anything else?"

"Naw," he said, "der railroadt gets me eferyt'ing. I work on dot roadt

t'irty-seven year now a'readty. Dot man, dot--vat you call him?--dot

glaim agent, he kum here kesterday, undt he say he get me eferyt'ing.

He's a fine man, dot glaim agent. He laugh undt choke mit me; he saidt

der roadt gif me chob flaggin' der grossing. All I yust do is to sign

der baper--"

"Oh, Mr. Koerner," cried Elizabeth in alarm, and Gusta, at her

expression, started forward, and Koerner himself became all attention,

"you did not sign any paper, did you?"

The old man looked at her an instant, and then a soft shadowy smile

touched his lips.

"Don't you vorry," he said; "der oldt man only got von leg, but he don't

sign no damned oldt baper." He shook his head on the pillow sagely, and

then added: "You bet!"

"That's splendid!" said Elizabeth. "You're very wise, Mr. Koerner."

She paused and thought a moment, her brows knit. Then her expression

cleared and she said:

"You must let me send a lawyer."

"Oh, der been blenty of lawyers," said Koerner.

"Yes," laughed Elizabeth, "there are plenty of lawyers, to be sure, but

I mean--"

"Der been more as a dozen here alreadty," he went on, "but dey don't let

'em see me."

"I don't think a lawyer who would come to see you would be the kind you

want, Mr. Koerner."

"Dot's all right. Der been blenty of time for der lawyers."

"Oh, pa," Gusta put in, "you must take Miss Elizabeth's advice. She

knows best. She'll send you a good lawyer."

"Vell, ve see about dot," said Koerner.

"I presume, Mr. Koerner," said Elizabeth, "they wouldn't let a lawyer

see you, but I'll bring one with me the next time I come--a very good

one, one that I know well, and he'll advise you what to do; shall I?"

"Vell, ve see," said Koerner.

"Now, pa, you must let Miss Elizabeth bring a lawyer," and then she

whispered to Elizabeth: "You bring one anyway, Miss Elizabeth. Don't

mind what he says. He's always that way."

Elizabeth brought out her flowers and fruit then, and Koerner glanced at

them without a word, or without a look of gratitude, and when she had

arranged the flowers on his little table, she bade him good-by and took

Gusta with her and went.

As they passed out, the white rubber-tired carts were being wheeled down

the halls, the patients they bore still breathing profoundly under the

anesthetics, from which it was hoped they would awaken in their clean,

smooth beds. The young women hurried out, and Elizabeth drank in the

cool wintry air eagerly.

"Oh, Gusta!" she said, "this air is delicious after that air in there!

I shall have the taste of it for days."

"Miss Elizabeth, that place is sickening!"--and Elizabeth laughed at the

solemn deliberation with which Gusta lengthened out the word.

[Illustration: Elizabeth]

V

"Come in, old man." Marriott glanced up at Dick Ward, who stood smiling

in the doorway of his private office.

"Don't let me interrupt you, my boy," said Dick as he entered.

"Just a minute," said Marriott, "and then I'm with you." Dick dropped

into the big leather chair, unbuttoned his tan overcoat, arranged its

skirts, drew off his gloves, and took a silver cigarette-case from his

pocket. Marriott, swinging about in his chair, asked his stenographer

to repeat the last line, picked up the thread, went on:

"And these answering defendants further say that heretofore, to wit, on

or about--"

Dick, leaning back in his chair, inhaling the smoke of his cigarette,

looked at the girl who sat beside Marriott's desk, one leg crossed over

the other, the tip of her patent-leather boot showing beneath her skirt,

on her knee the pad on which she wrote in shorthand. The girl's

eyelashes trembled presently and a flush showed in her cheeks, spreading

to her white throat and neck. Dick did not take his eyes from her. When

Marriott finished, the girl left the room hurriedly.

"Well, what's the news?" asked Marriott.

"Devilish fine-looking girl you've got there, old man!" said Dick, whose

eyes had followed the stenographer.

"She's a good girl," said Marriott simply.

Dick glanced again at the girl. Through the open door he could see her

seating herself at her machine. Then he recalled himself and turned to

Marriott.

"Say, Bess was trying to get you by 'phone this morning."

"Is that so?" said Marriott in a disappointed tone. "I was in court all

morning."

"Well, she said she'd give it up. She said that old man Koerner had

left the hospital and gone home. He sent word to her that he wanted to

see you."

"Oh, yes," said Marriott, "about that case of his. I must attend to

that, but I've been so busy." He glanced at his disordered desk, with

its hopeless litter of papers. "Let's see," he went on meditatively, "I

guess"--he thought a moment, "I guess I might as well go out there this

afternoon as any time. How far is it?"

"Oh, it's 'way out on Bolt Street."

"What car do I take?"

"Colorado Avenue, I think. I'll go 'long, if you want me."

"I'll be delighted," said Marriott. He thought a moment longer, then

closed his desk, and said, "We'll go now."

When they got off the elevator twelve floors below, Dick said:

"I've got to have a drink before I start. Will you join me?"

"I just had luncheon a while ago," said Marriott; "I don't really--"

"I never got to bed till morning," said Dick. "I sat in a little game

at the club last night, and I'm all in."

Marriott, amused by the youth's pride in his dissipation, went with him

to the cafe in the basement. Standing before the polished bar, with one

foot on the brass rail, Dick said to the white-jacketed bartender:

"I want a high-ball; you know my brand, George. What's yours, Gordon?"

"Oh, I'll take the same." Marriott watched Dick pour a generous

libation over the ice in the glass.

"Don't forget the imported soda," added Dick with an air of the utmost

seriousness and importance, and the bartender, swiftly pulling the

corks, said:

"I wouldn't forget you, Mr. Ward."

The car for which they waited in the drifting crowd at the corner was

half an hour in getting them out to the neighborhood in which the

Koerners lived. They stood on the rear platform all the way, because,

as Dick said, he had to smoke, and as he consumed his cigarettes, he

discoursed to Marriott of the things that filled his life--his card

games and his drinking at the club, his constant attendance at theaters

and cafes. His cheeks were fresh and rosy as a girl's, and smooth from

the razor they did not need. Marriott, as he looked at him, saw a

resemblance to Elizabeth, and this gave the boy an additional charm for

him. He studied this resemblance, but he could not analyze it. Dick

had neither his sister's features nor her complexion; and yet the

resemblance was there, flitting, remote, revealing itself one instant to

disappear the next, evading and eluding him. He could not account for

it, yet its effect was to make his heart warm toward the boy, to make

him love him.

Marriott let Dick go on in his talk, but he scarcely heard what the boy

said; it was the spirit that held him and charmed him, the spirit of

youth launching with sublime courage into life, not yet aware of its

significance or its purpose. He thought of the danger the boy was in

and longed to help him. How was he to do this? Should he admonish him?

No,--instantly he recognized the fact that he could not do this; he

shrank from preaching; he could take no priggish or Pharisaical

attitude; he had too much culture, too much imagination for that;

besides, he reflected with a shade of guilt, he had just now encouraged

Dick by drinking with him. He flung away his cigarette as if it

symbolized the problem, and sighed when he thought that Dick, after all,

would have to make his way alone and fight his own battles, that the

soul can emerge into real life only through the pains and dangers that

accompany all birth.

Marriott's knock at the Koerners' door produced the sensation visits

make where they are infrequent, but he and Dick had to wait before the

vague noises died away and the door opened to them. Mrs. Koerner led

them through the parlor--which no occasion seemed ever to merit--to the

kitchen at the other end of the house. The odor of carbolic acid which

the two men had detected the moment they entered, grew stronger as they

approached the kitchen, and there they beheld Koerner, the stump of his

leg bundled in surgical bandages, resting on a pillow in a chair before

him. His position constrained him not to move, and he made no attempt to

turn his head; but when the young men stood before him, he raised to

them a bronzed and wrinkled face. His white hair was rumpled, and he

wore a cross and dissatisfied expression; he held by its bowl the new

meerschaum pipe Elizabeth had sent him, and waved its long stem at

Marriott and Dick, as he waved it scepter-like in ruling his household.

"My name is Marriott, Mr. Koerner, and this is Mr. Ward, Miss

Elizabeth's brother. She said you wished to see me."

"You gom', huh?" said Koerner, fixing Marriott with his little blue

eyes.

"Yes, I'm here at last," said Marriott. "Did you think I was never

going to get here?" He drew up a chair and sat down. Dick took another

chair, but leaned back and glanced about the room, as if to testify to

his capacity of mere spectator. Mrs. Koerner stood beside her husband

and folded her arms. The two children, hidden in their mother's skirts,

cautiously emerged, a bit at a time, as it were, until they stood

staring with wide, curious blue eyes at Marriott.

"You bin a lawyer, yet, huh?" asked Koerner severely.

"Yes, I'm a lawyer. Miss Ward said you wished to see a lawyer."

"I've blenty lawyers alreadty," said Koerner. "Der bin more as a dozen

hier." He waved his pipe at the clock-shelf, where a little stack of

professional cards told how many lawyers had solicited Koerner as a

client. Marriott could have told the names of the lawyers without

looking at their cards.

"Have you retained any of them?" asked Marriott.

"Huh?" asked Koerner, scowling.

"Did you hire any of them?"

"No, I tell 'em all to go to hell."

"That's where most of them are going," said Marriott.

But Koerner did not see the joke.

"How's your injury?" asked Marriott.

Koerner winced perceptibly at Marriott's mere glance at his amputated

leg, and stretched the pipe-stem over it as if in protection.

"He's hurt like hell," he said.

"Why, hasn't the pain left yet?" asked Marriott in surprise.

"No, I got der rheumatiz' in dot foot," he pointed with his pipe-stem at

the vacancy where the foot used to be.

"_That_ foot!" exclaimed Marriott.

"Bess told us of that," Dick put in. "It gave her the willies."

"Well, I should think so," said Marriott.

Koerner looked from one to the other of the two young men.

"That's funny, Mr. Koerner," said Marriott, "that foot's cut off."

"I wish der tamn doctors cut off der rheumatiz' der same time! Dey cut

off der foot all right, but dey leave der rheumatiz'." He turned the

long stem of his pipe to his lips and puffed at it, and looked at the

leg as if he were taking up a problem he was working on daily.

"Well, now, Mr. Koerner," said Marriott presently, "tell me how it

happened and I'll see if I can help you."

Koerner, just on the point of placing his pipe-stem between his long,

loose, yellow teeth, stopped and looked intently at Marriott. Marriott

saw at once from his expression that he had once more to contend with

the suspicion the poor always feel when dealing with a lawyer.

"So you been Mr. Marriott, huh?" asked Koerner.

"Yes, I'm Marriott."

"Der lawyer?"

"Yes, the lawyer."

"You der one vot Miss Ward sent alreadty, aind't it?"

"Yes, I'm the one." Marriott smiled, and then, thinking suddenly of an

incontrovertible argument, he waved his hand at Dick. "This is her

brother. She sent him to bring me here."

The old man looked at Dick, and then turned to Marriott again.

"How much you goin' charge me, huh?" His little hard blue eyes were

almost closed.

"Oh, if I don't get any damages for you, I won't charge you anything."

The old man made him repeat this several times, and when at last he

understood, he seemed relieved and pleased. And then he wished to know

what the fee would be in the event of success.

"Oh," said Marriott, "how would one-fifth do?"

Koerner, when he grasped the idea of the percentage, was satisfied; the

other lawyers who had come to see him had all demanded a contingent fee

of one-third or one-half. When the long bargaining was done and

explained to Mrs. Koerner, who sat watchfully by trying to follow the

conversation, and when Marriott had said that he would draw up a

contract for them to sign and bring it when he came again, the old man

was ready to go on with his story. But before he did so he paused with

his immeasurable German patience to fill his pipe, and, when he had

lighted it, he began.

"Vell, Mr. Marriott, ven I gom' on dis gountry, I go to vork for dot

railroadt; I vork dere ever since--dot's t'irty-seven year now

alreadty." He paused and puffed, and slowly winked his eyes as he

contemplated those thirty-seven years of toil. "I vork at first for

t'irty tollar a month, den von day Mister Greene, dot's der

suberintendent in dose tays, he call me in, undt he say, 'Koerner, you

can read?' I say I read English some, undt he say, 'Vell, read dot,'

undt he handt me a telegram. Vell I read him--it say dot Greene can

raise der vages of his vatchman to forty tollar a month. Vell, I handt

him der telegram back undt I say, 'I could read two t'ree more like dot,

Mister Greene.' He laugh den undt he say, 'Vell, you read dot von

twicet.' Vell, I got forty tollar a month den; undt in ten year dey

raise me oncet again to forty-five. That's purty goodt, I t'ink." The

old man paused in this retrospect of good fortune. "Vell," he went on,

"I vork along, undt dey buildt der new shops, undt I vork like a dog

getting dose t'ings moved, but after dey get all moved, he calls me in

von tay, undt he say my vages vould be reduced to forty tollar a month.

Vell, I gan't help dot--I haind't got no other chob. Den, vell, I vork

along all right, but der town get bigger, an' der roadt got bigger, an'

dere's so many men dere at night dey don't need me much longer. Undt Mr.

Greene--he's lost his chob, too, undt Mr. Churchill--he's der new

suberintendent--he's cut ever't'ing down, undt after he gom' eferbody

vork longer undt get hell besides. He cut me down to vere I vas at der

first blace--t'irty tollar a month. So!"

The old man turned out his palms; and his face wrinkled into a strange

grimace that expressed his enforced submission to this fate. And he

smoked on until Marriott roused him.

"Vell," he said, "dot night it snows, undt I start home again at five

o'clock. It's dark undt the snow fly so I gan't hardly see der svitch

lights. But I gom' across der tracks yust like I always do goming

home--dot's the shortest way I gom', you know--undt I ben purty tired,

undt my tamned old rheumatiz' he's raisin' hell for t'ree days because

dot storm's comin'--vell, I gom' along beside dere segond track over

dere, undt I see an engine, but he's goin' on dot main track, so I gets

over--vell, de snow's fallin' undt I gan't see very well, undt somehow

dot svitch-engine gom' over on der segond track, undt I chump to get

away, but my foot he's caught in der frog--vell, I gan't move, but I

bent vay over to one side--so"--the old man strained himself over the

arm of his chair to illustrate--"undt der svitch-engine yust cut off my

foot nice undt glean. Vell, dot's all der was aboudt it."

Marriott gave a little shudder; in a flash he had a vision of Koerner

there in the wide switch-yard with its bewildering red and green lights,

the snow filling the air, the gloom of the winter twilight, his foot

fast in the frog, bending far over to save his body, awaiting the

switch-engine as it came stealing swiftly down on him.

"Did the engine whistle or ring its bell?"

"No," said the old man.

"And the frog--that was unblocked?"

Koerner leaned toward Marriott with a cunning smile.

"Dot's vere I got 'em, aind't it? Dot frog he's not blocked dere dot

time; der law say dey block dose frog all der time, huh?"

"Yes, the frog must be blocked. But how did your foot get caught in the

frog?"

"Vell, I shlipped, dot's it. I gan't see dot frog. You ask Charlie

Drake; he's dere--he seen it."

"What does he do?" asked Marriott as he scribbled the name on an old

envelope.

"He's a svitchman in der yard; he tol' you all aboudt it; he seen it--he

knows. He say to me, 'Reinhold, you get damage all right; dot frog

haind't blocked dot time.'"

Just then the kitchen door opened and Gusta came in. When she saw

Marriott and Ward, she stopped and leaned against the door; her face,

ruddy from the cool air, suddenly turned a deeper red.

"Oh, Mr. Dick!" she said, and then she looked at Marriott, whom she had

seen and served so often at the Wards'.

"How do you do, Gusta?" said Marriott, getting up and taking her hand.

She flushed deeper than ever as she came forward, and her blue eyes

sparkled with pleasure. Dick, too, rose and took her hand.

"Hello, Gusta," he said, "how are you?"

"Oh, pretty well, Mr. Dick," she answered. She stood a moment, and then

quietly began to unbutton her jacket and to draw the pins from her hat.

Marriott, who had seen her so often at the Wards', concluded as she

stood there before him that he had never realized how beautiful she was.

She removed her wraps, then drew up a chair by her father and sat down,

lifting her hands and smoothing the coils of her golden hair, touching

them gently.

"You've come to talk over pa's case, haven't you, Mr. Marriott?"

"Yes," said Marriott.

"I'm glad of that," the girl said. "He has a good case, hasn't he?"

"I think so," said Marriott, and then he hastened to add the

qualification that is always necessary in so unexact and whimsical a

science as the law, "that is, it seems so now; I'll have to study it

somewhat before I can give you a definite opinion."

"I think he ought to have big damages," said Gusta. "Why, just think!

He's worked for that railroad all his life, and now to lose his foot!"

She looked at her father, her affection and sympathy showing in her

expression. Marriott glanced at Dick, whose eyes were fixed on the

girl. His lips were slightly parted; he gazed at her boldly, his eyes

following every curve of her figure. Her yellow hair was bright in the

light, and the flush of her cheeks spread to her white neck. And

Marriott, in the one moment he glanced at Dick, saw in his face another

expression--an expression that displeased him; and as he recalled the

resemblance to Elizabeth he thought he had noted, he impatiently put it

away, and became angry with himself for ever imagining such a

resemblance; he felt as if he had somehow done Elizabeth a wrong. All

the while they were there Dick kept his bold gaze on Gusta, and

presently Gusta seemed to feel it; the flush of her face and neck

deepened, she grew ill at ease, and presently she rose and left the

room.

When they were in the street Marriott said to Dick:

"I don't know about that poor old fellow's case--I'm afraid--"

"Gad!" said Dick. "Isn't Gusta a corker! I never saw a prettier girl."

"And you never noticed it before?" said Marriott.

"Why, I always knew she was good-looking, yes," said Dick; "but I never

paid much attention to her when she worked for us. I suppose it was

because she was a servant, don't you know? A man never notices the

servants, someway."

VI

Ward had not been in the court-house for years, and, as he entered the

building that morning, he hoped he might never be called there again if

his mission were to be as sad as the one on which he then was bent.

Eades had asked him to be there at ten o'clock; it was now within a

quarter of the hour. With a layman's difficulty he found the criminal

court, and as he glanced about the high-ceiled room, and saw that the

boy had not yet been brought in, he felt the relief that comes from the

postponement of an ordeal. With an effect of effacing himself, he

shrank into one of the seats behind the bar, and as he waited his mind

ran back over the events of the past four weeks. He calculated--yes,

the flurry in the market had occurred on the day of the big snow-storm;

and now, so soon, it had come to this! Ward marveled; he had always

heard that the courts were slow, but this--this was quick work indeed!

The court-room was almost empty. The judge's chair, cushioned in

leather, was standing empty behind the high oaken desk. The two trial

tables, across which day after day lawyers bandied the fate of human

beings, were set with geometric exactness side by side, as if the

janitors had fixed them with an eye to the impartiality of the law,

resolved to give the next comers an even start. A clerk was writing in

a big journal; the bailiff had taken a chair in the fading light of one

of the tall southern windows, and in the leisure he could so well afford

in a life that was all leisure, was reading a newspaper. His spectacles

failed to lend any glisten of interest to his eyes; he read

impersonally, almost officially; all interest seemed to have died out of

his life, and he could be stirred to physical, though never to mental

activity, only by the judge himself, to whom he owed his sinecure. The

life had long ago died out of this man, and he had a mild, passive

interest in but one or two things, like the Civil War, and the judge's

thirst, which he regularly slaked with drafts of ice-water.

Presently two or three young men entered briskly, importantly, and went

at once unhesitatingly within the bar. They entered with an assertive

air that marked them indubitably as young lawyers still conscious of the

privileges so lately conferred. Then some of the loafers came in from

the corridor and sidled into the benches behind the bar. Their

conversation in low tones, and that of the young lawyers in the higher

tones their official quality permitted them, filled the room with a busy

interest. From time to time the loafers were joined by other loafers,

and they all patiently waited for the sensation the criminal court could

dependably provide.

It was not long before there was a scrape and shuffle of feet and a

rattle of steel, and then a broad-shouldered man edged through the door.

With his right hand he seized a Scotch cap from a head that bristled

with a stubble of red hair. His left hand hung by his side, and when he

had got into the court-room, Ward saw, that a white-haired man walked

close beside him, his right hand manacled to the left hand of the

red-haired man. The red-haired man was Danner, the jailer. Behind him

in sets of twos marched half a dozen other men, each set chained

together. The rear of the little procession was brought up by Utter, a

stalwart young man who was one of Danner's assistants.

The scrape of the feet that were so soon to shuffle into the

penitentiary, and leave scarce an echo of their hopeless fall behind,

roused every one in the court-room. Even the bailiff got to his

rheumatic feet and hastily arranged a row of chairs in front of the

trial tables. The prisoners sat down and tried to hide their manacles

by dropping their hands between their chairs.

There were seven of these prisoners, the oldest the man whom Danner had

conducted. He sat with his white head cast down, but his blue eyes

roamed here and there, taking in the whole court-room. The other

prisoners were young men, one of them a negro; and in the appearance of

all there was some pathetic suggestion of a toilet. All of them had

their hair combed carefully, except the negro, whose hair could give no

perceptible evidence of the comb, unless it were the slight, almost

invisible part that bisected his head. But he gave the same air of

trying somehow to make the best appearance he was capable of on this

eventful day.

Ward's eyes ran rapidly along the row, and rested on the brown-haired,

well-formed head of the youngest of the group. He was scarcely more

than a boy indeed, and he alone, of all the line, was well dressed. His

linen was white, and he wore his well-fitting clothes with a certain

vanity and air of style that even his predicament could not divest him

of. As Ward glanced at him, an expression of pain came to his face; the

color left it for an instant, and then it grew redder than it had been

before.

These prisoners were about to be sentenced for various felonies. Two of

them, the old man with the white hair and the negro, had been tried, the

one for pocket-picking, the other for burglary. The others were to

change their pleas from not guilty to guilty and throw themselves on the

mercy of the court. They sat there, whispering with one another, gazing

about the room, and speculating on what fate awaited them, or, as they

would have phrased it, what sentences they would draw. Like most

prisoners they were what the laws define as "indigent," that is, so poor

that they could not employ lawyers. The court in consequence had

appointed counsel, and the young lawyers who now stood and joked about

the fates that were presently to issue from the judge's chambers, were

the counsel thus appointed. Now and then the prisoners looked at the

lawyers, and some of them may have indulged speculations as to how that

fate might have been changed--perhaps altogether avoided--had they been

able to employ more capable attorneys. Those among them who had been

induced by their young attorneys to plead guilty--under assurances that

they would thus fare better than they would if they resisted the law by

insisting on their rights under it--probably had not the imagination to

divine that they might have fared otherwise at the hands of the law if

these lawyers had not dreaded the trial as an ordeal almost as great to

them as to their appointed clients, or if they had not been so indigent

themselves as to desire speedily to draw the fee the State would allow

them for their services. Most of the prisoners, indeed, treated these

young lawyers with a certain patience, if not forbearance, and now they

relied on them for such mercy as the law might find in its heart to

bestow. Most of them might have reflected, had they been given to the

practice, that on former experiences they had found the breast of the

law, as to this divine quality, withered and dry. They sat and glanced

about, and now and then whispered, but for the most part they were still

and dumb and hopeless. Meanwhile their lawyers discussed and compared

them, declaring their faces to be hard and criminal; one of the young

men thought a certain face showed particularly the marks of crime, and

when his fellows discovered that he meant the face of Danner, they

laughed aloud and had a good joke on the young man. The young man

became very red, almost as red as Danner himself, whom, he begged, they

would not tell of his mistake.

At that moment the door of the judge's chambers opened, and instant

silence fell. McWhorter, the judge, appeared. He was a man of middle

size, with black curly hair, smooth-shaven face, and black eyes that

caught in the swiftest glance the row of prisoners, who now straightened

and fixed their eyes on him. McWhorter advanced with a brisk step to the

bench, mounted it, and nodding, said:

"You may open court, Mr. Bailiff."

The bailiff let his gavel fall on the marble slab, and then with his

head hanging, his eyes roving in a self-conscious, almost silly way, he

said:

"Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye, this honorable court is now in session."

The bailiff sat down as in relief, but immediately got up again when the

judge said:

"Bring me the criminal docket, Mr. Bailiff."

The bailiff's bent figure tottered out of the court-room. The

court-room was very still; the ticking of the clock on the wall could be

heard. The judge swung his chair about and glanced out of the windows.

Never once did he permit his eyes to rest on the prisoners.

There was silence and waiting, and after a while the bailiff came with

the docket. The judge opened the book, put on a pair of gold glasses,

and, after a time, reading slowly, said:

"The State _versus_ Patrick Delaney."

The white-haired prisoner patiently held out two hands, marvelously

tatooed, and Danner unlocked the handcuffs. At the same moment one of

the young lawyers stood forth from the rest, and Lamborn, an assistant

prosecutor, rose.

McWhorter was studying the docket. Presently he said:

"Stand up, Delaney."

Delaney rose, kept his eyes on the floor, clasped a hand about his red

wrist. Then, for the first time, the judge looked at him.

"Delaney," he said, "have you anything to say why the sentence of this

court should not be passed upon you?"

Delaney looked uneasily at the judge and then let his eyes fall.

"No, Judge, yer Honor," he said, "nothing but that I'm an innocent man.

I didn't do it, yer Honor."

The remark did not seem to impress the judge, who turned toward the

lawyer. This young man, with a venturesome air, stepped a little

farther from the sheltering company of his associates and, with a face

that was very white and lips that faltered, said in a confused, hurried

way:

"Your Honor, we hope your Honor'll be as lenient as possible with this

man; we hope your Honor will be as--lenient as possible." The youth's

voice died away and he faded back, as it were, into the shelter of his

companions. The judge did not seem to be more impressed with what the

lawyer had said than he had with what the client had said, and twirling

his glasses by their cord, he turned toward the assistant prosecutor.

Lamborn, with an affectation of great ease, with one hand in the pocket

of his creased trousers, the other supporting a book of memoranda,

advanced and said:

"May it please the Court, this man is an habitual criminal; he has

already served a term in the penitentiary for this same offense, and we

understand that he is wanted in New York State at this present time. We

consider him a dangerous criminal, and the State feels that he should be

severely punished."

McWhorter studied the ceiling of the court-room a moment, still swinging

his eye-glasses by their cord, and then, fixing them on his nose, looked

wisely down at Delaney. Presently he spoke:

"It is always an unpleasant duty to sentence a man to prison, no matter

how much he may deserve punishment." McWhorter paused as if to let

every one realize his pain in this exigency, and then went on: "But it

is our duty, and we can not shirk it. A jury, Delaney, after a fair

trial, has found you guilty of burglary. It appears from what the

prosecutor says that this is not the first time you have been found

guilty of this offense; the experience does not seem to have done you

any good. You impress the Court as a man who has abandoned himself to a

life of crime, and the Court feels that you should receive a sentence in

this instance that will serve as a warning to you and to others. The

sentence of the Court is--" McWhorter paused as if to balance the

scales of justice with all nicety, and then he looked away. He did not

know exactly how many years in prison would expiate Delaney's crime;

there was, of course, no way for him to tell. He thought first of the

number ten, then of the number five; then, as the saying is, he split

the difference, inclined the fraction to the prisoner and said:

"The sentence of the Court is that you be confined in the penitentiary

at hard labor for the period of seven years, no part of your sentence to

be in solitary confinement, and that you pay the costs of this

prosecution."

Delaney sat down without changing expression and held out his hands for

the handcuffs. The steel clicked, and the scratch of the judge's pen

could be heard as he entered the judgment in the docket.

These proceedings were repeated again and again. McWhorter read the

title of the case, Danner unshackled the prisoner, who stood up, gazing

dumbly at the floor, his lawyer asked the Court to be lenient, Lamborn

asked the Court to be severe, McWhorter twirled his gold glasses, looked

out of the window, made his little speech, guessed, and pronounced

sentence. The culprit sat down, held out his hands for the manacles,

then the click of the steel and the scratch of the judicial pen. It

grew monotonous.

But just before the last man was called to book, John Eades, the

prosecutor, entered the court-room. At sight of him the young lawyers,

the loafers on the benches, even the judge looked up.

Eades's tall figure had not yet lost the grace of youth, though it was

giving the first evidence that he had reached that period of life when

it would begin to gather weight. He was well dressed in the blue

clothes of a business man, and he was young enough at thirty-five to

belong to what may not too accurately be called the new school of

lawyers, growing up in a day when the law is changing from a profession

to a business, in distinction from the passing day of long coats of

professional black, of a gravity that frequently concealed a certain

profligacy, and, wherever it was successful, of native brilliancy that

could ignore application. Eades's dark hair was carefully parted above

his smooth brow; he had rather heavy eyebrows, a large nose, and thin,

tightly-set lips that gave strength and firmness to a clean-shaven face.

He whispered a word to his assistant, and then said:

"May it please the Court, when the case of the State _versus_ Henry C.

Graves is reached, I should like to be heard."

"The Court was about to dispose of that case, Mr. Eades," said the

judge, looking over his docket and fixing his glasses on his nose.

"Very well," said Eades, glancing at the group of young attorneys. "Mr.

Metcalf, I believe, represents the defendant."

The young lawyer thus indicated emerged from the group that seemed to

keep so closely together, and said:

"Yes, your Honor, we'd like to be heard also."

"Graves may stand up," said the judge, removing his glasses and tilting

back in his chair as if to listen to long arguments.

Danner had been unlocking the handcuffs again, and the young man who had

been so frequently remarked in the line rose. His youthful face flushed

scarlet; he glanced about the court-room, saw Ward, drew a heavy breath,

and then fixed his eyes on the floor.

Eades looked at Metcalf, who stepped forward and began:

"In this case, your Honor, we desire to withdraw the plea of not guilty

and substitute a plea of guilty. And I should like to say a few words

for my client."

"Proceed," said McWhorter.

Metcalf, looking at his feet, took two or three steps forward, and then,

lifting his head, suddenly began:

"Your Honor, this is the first time this young man has ever committed

any crime. He is but twenty-three years old, and he has always borne a

good reputation in this community. He is the sole support of a widowed

mother, and--yes, he is the sole support of a widowed mother.

He--a--has been for three years employed in the firm of Stephen Ward and

Company, and has always until--a--this unfortunate affair enjoyed the

confidence and esteem of his employers. He stands here now charged in

the indictment with embezzlement; he admits his guilt. He has, as I

say, never done wrong before--and I believe that this will be a lesson

to him which he will not forget. He desires to throw himself on the

mercy of the Court, and I ask the Court--to--a--be as lenient as

possible."

"Has the State anything to say?" asked the judge.

"May it please the Court," said Eades, speaking in his low, studied

tone, "we acquiesce in all that counsel for defense has said. This

young man, so far as the State knows, has never before committed a

crime. And yet, he has had the advantages of a good home, of an

excellent mother, and he had the best prospects in life that a young man

could wish. He was, as counsel has said, employed by Mr. Ward--who is

here--" Eades turned half-way around and indicated Ward, who rose and

felt that the time had come when he should go forward. "He was one of

Mr. Ward's trusted employees. Unfortunately, he began to speculate on

the Board himself, and it seems, in the stir of the recent excitement in

wheat, appropriated some nine hundred dollars of his employer's money.

Mr. Ward is not disposed to ideal harshly or in any vengeful spirit with

this young man; he has shown, indeed, the utmost forbearance. Nor is the

State disposed to deal in any such spirit with him; he, and especially

his mother, have my sympathy. But we feel that the law must be

vindicated and upheld, and while the State is disposed to leave with the

Court the fixing of such punishment as may be appropriate, and has no

thought of suggesting what the Court's duty shall be, still the State

feels that the punishment should be substantial."

Eades finished and seated himself at the counsel table. The young

lawyers looked at him, and, whispering among themselves, said that they

considered the speech to have been very fitting and appropriate under

the circumstances.

McWhorter deliberated a moment, and then, glancing toward the young man,

suddenly saw Ward, and, thinking that if Ward would speak he would have

more time to guess what punishment to give the boy, he said:

"Mr. Ward, do you care to be heard?"

Ward hesitated, changed color, and slowly advanced. He was not

accustomed to speaking in public, and this was an ordeal for him. He

came forward, halted, and then, clearing his throat, said:

"I don't know that I have anything much to say, only this--that this is

a very painful experience to me. I"--he looked toward the youthful

culprit--"I was always fond of Henry; he was a good boy, and we all

liked him." The brown head seemed to sink between its shoulders. "Yes,

we all liked him, and I don't know that anything ever surprised me so

much as this thing did, or hurt me more. I didn't think it of him. I

feel sorry for his mother, too. I--" Ward hesitated and looked down at

the floor.

The situation suddenly became distressing to every one in the

court-room. And then, with new effort, Ward went on: "I didn't like to

have him prosecuted, but we employ a great many men, many of them young

men, and it seemed to be my duty. I don't know; I've had my doubts. It

isn't the money--I don't care about that; I'd be willing, so far as I'm

concerned, to have him go free now. I hope, Judge, that you'll be as

easy on him, as merciful as possible. That's about all I can say."

Ward sat down in the nearest chair, and the judge, knitting his brows,

glanced out of the window. Nearly every one glanced out of the window,

save Graves, who stood rigid, his eyes staring at the floor. Presently

McWhorter turned and said:

"Graves, have you anything to say why the sentence of this court should

not be passed on you?"

The youth raised his head, looked into McWhorter's eyes, and said:

"No, sir."

McWhorter turned suddenly and looked away.

"The Court does not remember in all his career a more painful case than

this," he began. "That a young man of your training and connections, of

your advantages and prospects, should be standing here at the bar of

justice, a self-confessed embezzler, is sad, inexpressibly sad. The

Court realizes that you have done a manly thing in pleading guilty; it

speaks well for you that you were unwilling to add perjury to your other

crime. The Court will take that into consideration." McWhorter nodded

decisively.

"The Court will also take into consideration your youth, and the fact

that this is your first offense. Your looks are in your favor. You are

a young man who, by proper, sober, industrious application, might easily

become a successful, honest, worthy citizen. Your employer speaks well

of you, and shows great patience, great forbearance; he is ready to

forgive you, and he even asks the Court to be merciful. The Court will

take that fact into consideration as well."

Again McWhorter nodded decisively, and then, feeling that much was due

to a man of Ward's position, went on:

"The Court wishes to say that you, Mr. Ward," he gave one of his nods in

that gentleman's direction, "have acted the part of a good citizen in

this affair. You have done your duty, as every citizen should, painful

as it was. The Court congratulates you."

And then, having thought again of the painfulness of this duty,

McWhorter went on to tell how painful his own duty was; but he said it

would not do to allow sympathy to obscure judgment in such cases. He

talked at length on this theme, still unable to end, because he did not

know what sort of guess to make. And then he began to discuss the evils

of speculation, and when he saw that the reporters were scribbling

desperately to put down all he was saying, he extended his remarks and

delivered a long homily on speculation in certain of its forms,

characterizing it as one of the worst and most prevalent vices of the

day. After he had said all he could think of on this topic, he spoke to

Graves again, and explained to him the advantages of being in the

penitentiary, how by his behavior he might shorten his sentence by

several months, and how much time he would have for reflection and for

the formation of good resolutions. It seemed, indeed, before he had

done, that it was almost a deprivation not to be able to go to a

penitentiary. But finally he came to an end. Then he looked once more

out of the window, once more twirled his eye-glasses on their cord, and

then, turning about, came to the reserved climax of his long address.

"The sentence of the Court, Mr. Graves, is that you be confined in the

penitentiary at hard labor for the term of one year, no part of said

sentence to consist of solitary confinement, and that you pay the costs

of this prosecution."

The boy sat down, held out his wrists for the handcuffs, the steel

clicked, the pen scratched in the silence.

Danner got up, marshaled his prisoners, and they marched out. The eyes

of every one in the court-room followed them, the eyes of Ward fixed on

Graves. As he looked, he saw a woman sitting on the last one of the

benches near the door. Her head was bowed on her hand, but as the

procession passed she raised her face, all red and swollen with weeping,

and, with a look of love and tenderness and despair, fixed her eyes on

Graves. The boy did not look at her, but marched by, his head

resolutely erect.

VII

Ward returned to his office and to his work, but all that day, in the

excitement on the floor of the exchange, during luncheon at the club, at

his desk, in his carriage going home at evening, he saw before him that

row of heads--the white poll of old Delaney, the woolly pate of the

negro, but, more than all, the brown head of Harry Graves. And when he

entered his home at evening the sadness of his reflections was still in

his face.

"What's the matter this evening?" asked Elizabeth. "Nerves?"

"Yes."

"Been on the wrong side to-day?"

"Yes, decidedly, I fear," said Ward.

"What do you mean?"

"I've sent a boy to the penitentiary." Ward felt a kind of relief, the

first he had felt all that day, in dealing thus bluntly, thus brutally,

with himself. Elizabeth knit her brows, and her eyes winked rapidly in

the puzzled expression that came to them.

"You remember Harry Graves?" asked her father.

"Oh, that young man?"

"Yes, that young man. Well, I've sent him to the penitentiary."

"What is that you say, Stephen?" asked Mrs. Ward, coming just then into

the room. She had heard his words, but she wished to hear them again.

"I just said I'd sent Harry Graves to the penitentiary."

"For how long?" asked Mrs. Ward, with a judicial desire for all the

facts, usually unnecessary in her judgments.

"For one year."

"Why, how easily he got off!" said Mrs. Ward. "And do hurry now,

Stephen. You're late."

Elizabeth saw the pain her mother had been so unconscious of in her

father's face, and she gave Ward a little pat on the shoulder.

"You dear old goose," she said, "to feel that way about it. Of course,

you didn't send him--it was John Eades. That's his business."

But Ward shook his head, unconvinced.

"Doubtless it will be a good thing for the young man," said Mrs. Ward.

"He has only himself to blame, anyway."

But still Ward shook his head, and his wife looked at him with an

expression that showed her desire to help him out of his gloomy mood.

"You know you could have done nothing else than what you did do," she

said. "Criminals must be punished; there is no way out of it. You're

morbid--you shouldn't feel so."

But once more Ward gave that unconvinced shake of the head, and sighed.

"See here," said Elizabeth, with the sternness her father liked to have

her employ with him, "you stop this right away." She shook him by the

shoulder. "You make me feel as if I had done something wrong myself;

you'll have us all feeling that we belong to the criminal classes

ourselves."

"I've succeeded in making myself feel like a dog," Ward replied.

VIII

The county jail was in commotion. In the street outside a patrol wagon

was backed against the curb. The sleek coats of its bay horses were

moist with mist; and as the horses stamped fretfully in the slush, the

driver, muffled in his policeman's overcoat, spoke to them, begging them

to be patient, and each time looked back with a clouded face toward the

outer door of the jail. This door, innocent enough with its bright oak

panels and ground glass, was open. Inside, beyond the vestibule, beyond

another oaken door, stood Danner. He was in black, evidently his dress

for such occasions. He wore new, squeaking shoes, and his red face

showed the powder a barber had put on it half an hour before. On his

desk lay his overcoat, umbrella, and a small valise. The door of the

glass case on the wall, wherein were displayed all kinds of handcuffs,

nippers, squeezers, come-alongs and leather strait-jackets, together

with an impressive exhibit of monstrous steel keys, was open, and

several of its brass hooks were empty. Danner, as he stood in the middle

of the room, looked about as if to assure himself that he had forgotten

nothing, and then went to the window, drew out a revolver, broke it at

the breach, and carefully inspected its loads. That done, he snapped the

revolver together and slipped it into the holster that was slung to a

belt about his waist. He did not button the coat that concealed this

weapon. Then he looked through the window, saw the patrol wagon, took

out his watch and shouted angrily:

"For God's sake, Hal, hurry up!"

Danner's impatient admonition seemed to be directed through the great

barred door that opened off the other side of the office into the

prison, and from within there came the prompt and propitiatory reply of

the underling:

"All right, Jim, in a minute."

The open door, the evident preparation, the spirit of impending change,

the welcome break in the monotony of the jail's diurnal routine, all

were evidenced in the tumult that was going on beyond that huge gate of

thick steel bars. The voice of the under-turnkey had risen above the

din of other voices proceeding from the depths of hidden cells; there

was a constant shuffle of feet on cement floors, the rattle of keys, the

heavy tumbling of bolts, the clang and grating of steel as the shifting

of a lever opened and closed simultaneously all the doors of an entire

tier of cells. These noises seemed to excite the inmates, but presently

above the discord arose human cries, a chorus of good-bys, followed in a

moment by those messages that conventionally accompany all departures,

though these were delivered in all the various shades of sarcasm and

bitter irony.

"Good-by!"

"Remember us to the main screw!"

"Think of us when you get to the big house!"

Thus the voices called.

And then suddenly, one voice rose above the rest, a fine barytone voice

that would have been beautiful had not it taken on a tone of mockery as

it sang:

"We're going home! We're going home!

No more to sin and sorrow."

Then other voices took up the lines they had heard at the Sunday

services, and bawled the hymn in a horrible chorus. The sound

infuriated Danner, and he rushed to the barred door and shouted:

"Shut up! Shut up!" and he poured out a volume of obscene oaths. From

inside came yells, derisive in the safety of anonymity.

"You'll get nothing but bread and water for supper after that!" Danner

shouted back. He began to unlock the door, but, glancing at the desk,

changed his mind and turned and paced the floor.

But now the noise of the talking, the shuffle of feet on the concrete

floors, came nearer. The door of the prison was unlocked; it swung

back, and there marched forth, walking sidewise, with difficulty,

because they were all chained together, thirteen men. Two of the

thirteen, the first and last, were Gregg and Poole, under-turnkeys.

Utter, Danner's first assistant, came last, carefully locking the door

behind him.

"Line up here," said Danner angrily, "we haven't got all night!"

The men stood in a row, and Danner, leaning over his desk, began to

check off their names. There was the white-haired Delaney, who had

seven years for burglary; Johnson, a negro who had been given fifteen

years for cutting with intent to kill; Simmons, five years for grand

larceny; Gunning, four years for housebreaking; Schypalski, a Pole,

three years for arson; Graves, the employee of Ward, one year for

embezzlement; McCarthy, and Hayes his partner, five years each for

burglary and larceny; "Deacon" Samuel, an old thief, and "New York

Willie," alias "The Kid," a pickpocket, who had each seven years for

larceny from the person; and Brice, who had eight years for robbery.

These men were to be taken to the penitentiary. Nearly all of them were

guilty of the crimes of which they had been convicted.

The sheriff had detailed Danner to escort these prisoners to the

penitentiary, as he sometimes did when he did not care to make the trip

himself. Gregg would accompany Danner, while Poole would go only as far

as the railway station. Danner was anxious to be off; these trips to

the state capital were a great pleasure to him, and he had that nervous

dread of missing the train which comes over most people as they are

about to start away for a holiday. He was anxious to get away from the

jail before anything happened to stay him; he was anxious to be on the

moving train, for until then he could not feel himself safe from some

sudden recall. He had been thinking all day of the black-eyed girl in a

brothel not three blocks from the penitentiary, whom he expected to see

that night after he had turned the prisoners over to the warden. He

could scarcely keep his mind off her long enough to make his entries in

the jail record and to see that he had all his mittimuses in proper

order.

The prisoners, standing there in a haggard row, wore the same clothes

they had had on when they appeared in court for sentence a few weeks

before; the same clothes they had had on when arrested. None of them,

of course, had any baggage. The little trinkets they had somehow

accumulated while in jail they had distributed that afternoon among

their friends who remained behind in the steel cages; all they had in

the world they had on their backs. Most of them were dressed miserably.

Gunning, indeed, who had been lying in jail since the previous June,

wore a straw hat, which made him so absurd that the Kid laughed when he

saw him, and said:

"That's a swell lid you've got on there, Gunny, my boy. I'm proud to

fill in with your mob."

Gunning tried to smile, and his face, already white with the prison

pallor, seemed to be made more ghastly by the mockery of mirth.

The Kid was well dressed, as well dressed as Graves, who still wore the

good clothes he had always loved. Graves was white, too, but not as yet

with the prison pallor. He tried to bear himself bravely; he did not

wish to break down before his companions, all of whom had longer

sentences to serve than he. He dreaded the ride through the familiar

streets where a short time before he had walked in careless liberty,

full of the joy and hope and ambition of youth. He knew that countless

memories would stalk those streets, rising up unexpectedly at every

corner, following him to the station with mows and jeers; he tried to

bear himself bravely, and he did succeed in bearing himself grimly, but

he had an aching lump in his throat that would not let him speak. It

had been there ever since that hour in the afternoon when his mother had

squeezed her face between the bars of his cell to kiss him good-by again

and again. The prison had been strangely still while she was there, and

for a long time after she went even the Kid had been quiet and had

forgotten his joshing and his ribaldry. Graves had tried to be brave

for his mother's sake, and now he tried to be brave for appearances'

sake. He envied Delaney and the negro, who took it all stolidly, and he

might have envied the Kid, who took it all humorously, if it had not

been for what the Kid had said to him that afternoon about his own

mother. But now the Kid was cheerful again, and kept up the spirits of

all of them. To Graves it was like some horrible dream; everything in

the room--Danner, the turnkeys, the exhibit of jailer's instruments on

the wall--was unreal to him--everything save the hat-band that hurt his

temples, and the aching lump in his throat. His eyes began to smart, his

vision was blurred; instinctively he started to lift his hand to draw

his hat farther down on his forehead, but something jerked, and

Schypalski moved suddenly; then he remembered the handcuffs. The Pole

was dumb under it all, but Graves knew how Schypalski had felt that

afternoon when the young wife whom he had married but six months before

was there; he had wept and grown mad until he clawed at the bars that

separated them, and then he had mutely pressed his face against them and

kissed the young wife's lips, just as Graves's mother had kissed him.

And then the young wife would not leave, and Danner had to come and drag

her away across the cement floor.

Johnson was stupefied; he had not known until that afternoon that he was

to be taken away so soon, and his wife had not known; she was to bring

the children on the next day to see him. For an hour Johnson had been

on the point of saying something; his lips would move, and he would lift

his eyes to Danner, but he seemed afraid to speak.

Meanwhile, Danner was making his entries and looking over his commitment

papers. The Kid had begun to talk with Deacon Samuel. He and the

Deacon had been working together and had been arrested for the same

crime, but Danner had separated them in the jail so they could not

converse, and they were together now for the first time since their

arrest. The Kid bent his body forward and leaned out of the line to

look down at the Deacon. The old thief was smooth-faced and wore

gold-rimmed spectacles. When the Kid caught his mild, solemn eye,

looking out benignly from behind his glasses, a smile spread over his

face, and he said:

"Well, old pard, we're fixed for the next five-spot."

"Yes," said the Deacon.

"How was it pulled off for you?" asked the Kid.

"Oh, it was the same old thing over again," replied the Deacon. "They

had us lagged before the trial, but they had to make a flash of some

kind, so they put up twelve suckers and then they put a rapper up, and

that settled it."

"There was nothing to it," said the Kid, in a tone that acquiesced in

all the Deacon had been saying. "It was that way with me. They were

out chewing the rag for five minutes, then they comes in, hands the

stiff to the old bloke in the rock, and he hands it to quills, who reads

it to me, and then the old punk-hunter made his spiel."

"Did he?" said the Deacon, interested. "He didn't to me; he just slung

it at me in a lump."

"Did Snaggles plant the slum?"

"Naw," said the Deacon, "the poke was cold and the thimble was a

phoney."

"Je's," exclaimed the Kid. "I never got wise! Well, then there was no

chance for him to spring us."

"No."

"It's tough to fall for a dead one," mused the Kid.

The other prisoners had been respectfully silent while these two thieves

compared notes, but their conversation annoyed Danner. He could not

understand what they were saying, and this angered him, and besides,

their talking interfered with his entries, for he was excessively

stupid.

"They gave me a young mouthpiece," the Kid was beginning, when Danner

raised his head and said:

"Now you fellows cut that out, do you hear? I want to get my work done

and start."

"I beg your pardon, papa," said the Kid; "we're anxious to start, too.

Did you engage a lower berth for me?"

The line of miserable men laughed, not with mirth so much as for the

sake of any diversion, and at the laugh Danner's face and neck colored a

deeper red. The Kid saw this change in color and went on:

"Please don't laugh, gentlemen; you're disturbing the main screw." And

then, lifting his eyebrows, he leaned forward a little and said: "Can't

I help you, papa?"

Danner paid no attention, but he was rapidly growing angry.

"I'd be glad to sling your ink for you, papa," the Kid went on, "and

anyway you'd better splice yourself in the middle of the line before we

start, or you might get lost. You know you're not used to traveling or

to the ways of the world--"

"Cheese it, Kid," said the Deacon warningly. But the spirit of deviltry

which he had never been able to resist, and indeed had never tried very

hard to resist, was upon the Kid, and he went on:

"Deac, pipe the preacher clothes! And the brand new kicks, and the

mush! They must have put him on the nut for ten ninety-eight."

"He'll soak you with a sap if you don't cheese it," said the Deacon.

"Oh, no, a nice old pappy guy like him wouldn't, would you?" the Kid

persisted. "He knows I'm speaking for his good. I want him to chain

himself to us so's he won't get lost; if he'd get away and fall off the

rattler, he'd never catch us again."

"Well, I could catch you all right," said Danner, stopping and looking

up.

"Why, my dear boy," said the Kid, "you couldn't track an elephant

through the snow."

The line laughed again, even the under-turnkeys could not repress their

smiles. But Danner made a great effort that showed in the changing hues

of scarlet that swept over his face, and he choked down his anger. He

put on his overcoat and picked up his satchel, and said:

"Come on, now."

Utter unlocked the outer doors, and the line of men filed out.

"Good-by, Bud," the Kid called to Utter. "If you ever get down to the

dump, look me up."

The others bade Utter good-by, for they all liked him, and as the line

shuffled down the stone steps the men eagerly inhaled the fresh air they

had not breathed for weeks, save for the few minutes consumed in going

over to the court-house and back, and a thrill of gladness momentarily

ran through the line. Then the Kid called out:

"Hold on, Danner!"

He halted suddenly, and so jerked the whole line to an abrupt

standstill. "I've left my mackintosh in my room!"

"If you don't shut up, I'll smash your jaw!"

The Kid's laugh rang out in the air.

"Yes, that'd be just about your size!" he said.

Danner turned quickly toward the Kid, but just at that instant a dark

fluttering form flew out of the misty gloom and enveloped Schypalski; it

was his wife, who had been waiting all the afternoon outside the jail.

She clung to the Pole, who was as surprised as any of them, and she wept

and kissed him in her Slavonic fashion,--wept and kissed as only the

Slavs can weep and kiss. Then Danner, when he realized what had

occurred, seized her and flung her aside.

"You damn bitch!" he said. "I'll show you!"

"That's right, Danner," said the Kid. "You've got some one your size

now! Soak her again."

Danner whirled, his anger loose now, and struck the Kid savagely in the

face. The line thrilled through its entire length; wild, vague hopes of

freedom suddenly blazed within the breasts of these men, and they tugged

at the chains that bound them. Utter, watching from the door, ran down

the walk, and Danner drew his revolver.

"Get into that wagon!" he shouted, and then he hurled after them another

mouthful of the oaths he always had ready. The little sensation ended,

the hope fell dead, and the prisoners moved doggedly on. In a second

the Kid had recovered himself, and then, speaking thickly, for the blood

in his mouth, he said in a low voice:

"Danner, you coward, I'll serve you out for that, if I get the chair for

it!"

It was all still there in the gloom and the misty rain, save for the

shuffle of the feet, the occasional click of a handcuff chain, and

presently the sobbing of the Polish woman rising from the wet ground.

Danner hustled his line along, and a moment later they were clambering

up the steps of the patrol wagon.

"Well, for God's sake!" exclaimed the driver, "I thought you'd never get

here! Did you want to keep these horses standing out all night in the

wet?"

The men took their seats inside, those at the far end having to hold

their hands across the wagon because they were chained together, and the

wagon jolted and lurched as the driver started his team and went bowling

away for the station. The Pole was weeping.

"The poor devil!" said the pickpocket. "That's a pretty little broad he

has. Can't you fellows do something for him? Give him a

cigarette--or--a chew--or--something." Their resources of comfort were

so few that the Kid could think of nothing more likely.

Just behind the patrol wagon came a handsome brougham, whose progress

for an instant through the street which saw so few equipages of its rank

had been stayed by the patrol wagon, moving heavily about before it

started. The occupants of the brougham had seen the line come out of

the jail, had seen it halt, had seen Danner fling the Polish woman aside

and strike the pickpocket in the face; they had seen the men hustled

into the patrol wagon, and now, as it followed after, Elizabeth Ward

heard a voice call impudently:

"All aboard for the stir!"

IX

The patrol wagon bowled rapidly onward, and the brougham followed

rapidly behind. The early darkness of the winter afternoon was

enveloping the world, and in the damp and heavy air the roar of the city

was intensified. The patrol wagon turned into Franklin Street and

disappeared in the confusion of vehicles. The street was crowded;

enormous trucks clung obstinately to the car tracks and only wrenched

themselves away when the clamor of the gongs became desperate, their

drivers swearing at the motormen, flinging angry glances at them. The

trolley-cars swept by, filled with shop-girls, clerks, working-men,

business men hanging to straps, reading evening papers in the brilliant

electric lights; men clung to the broad rear platforms; at every

crossing others attached themselves to these dark masses of humanity,

swarming like insects. The sidewalks were crowded, and, as far as one

could see, umbrellas balanced in the glistening mist.

The brougham of the Wards succeeded presently in crossing Franklin

Street.

"They were taking them to the penitentiary!" said Elizabeth, speaking

for the first time.

"I presume they were," said her mother.

"Harry Graves was among them," Elizabeth went on, staring widely before

her, her tone low and level.

Mrs. Ward turned her head.

"I saw his face--it stood out among the rest. I can never forget it!"

She sat with her gloved hands in her lap. Her mother did not speak, but

she looked at her.

"And that man--that big, brutal man, throwing that woman down, and then

striking that man in the face!"

Mrs. Ward, not liking to encourage her daughter's mood, did not speak.

"Oh, it makes me sick!"

Elizabeth stretched forth her hand, drew a cut-glass bottle from its

case beside the little carriage clock and mirror, and, sinking back in

her cushioned corner, inhaled the stimulating odor of the salts. Then

her mother stiffened and said:

"I don't know what Barker means, driving us down this way where we have

to endure such sights. You must control yourself, dear, and not allow

disagreeable things to get on your nerves."

"But think of that poor boy, and the man who was struck, and that

woman!"

"Probably they can not feel as keenly as--"

"And think of all those men! Oh, their faces! Their faces! I can

never forget them!"

Elizabeth continued to inhale the salts, her mind deeply intent on the

scene she had just witnessed. They were drawing near to Claybourne

Avenue now, and Mrs. Ward's spirits visibly improved at the sight of its

handsome lamp posts and the carriages flashing by, their rubber tires

rolling softly on the wet asphalt.

"Well," she exclaimed, settling back on the cushions, "this is better!

I don't know what Barker was thinking of! He's very stupid at times!"

The carriage joined the procession of other equipages of its kind. They

had left the street at the end of which could be seen the court-house

and the jail. The jail was blazing now with light, its iron bars

showing black across its illumined windows. And beyond the jail, as if

kept at bay by it, a huddle of low buildings stretched crazily along

Mosher's Lane, a squalid street that preserved in irony the name of one

of the city's earliest, richest and most respectable citizens, long

since deceased. The Lane twinkled with the bright lights of saloons,

the dim lights of pawnshops, the red lights of brothels--the slums,

dark, foul, full of disease and want and crime. Along the streets

passed and repassed shadowy, fugitive forms, negroes, Jews, men, and

women, and children, ragged, unkempt, pinched by cold and hunger. But

above all this, above the turmoil of Franklin Street and the reeking

life of the slums behind it, above the brilliantly lighted jail, stood

the court-house, gray in the dusk, its four corners shouldering out the

sky, its low dome calmly poised above the town.

X

"And how is your dear mother?" Miss Masters turned to Eades and wrought

her wry face into a smile. Her black eyes, which she seemed able to make

sparkle at will, were fixed on him; her black-gloved hands were crossed

primly in her lap, as she sat erect on the stiff chair Elizabeth Ward

had given her.

"She's pretty well, thanks," said Eades. He had always disliked Miss

Masters, but he disliked her more than ever this Sunday afternoon in

April when he found her at the Wards'. It was a very inauspicious

beginning of his spring vacation, to which, after his hard work of the

winter term, he had looked forward with sentiments as tender as the

spring itself, just beginning to show in the sprightly green that dotted

the maple trees along Claybourne Avenue.

"And your sister?"

"She is very well, too."

"Dear me!" the ugly little woman ran on, speaking with the affectation

she had cultivated for years enough to make it natural at last to her.

"It has been so long since I've seen either of them! I told mama to-day

that I didn't go to see even my old friends any more. Of course," she

added, lowering her already low tone to a level of hushed deprecation,

"we never go to see any of the new-comers; and lately there are so many,

one hardly knows the old town. Still, I feel that we of the old

families understand each other and are sufficient unto ourselves, as it

were, even if we allow years to elapse without seeing each other--don't

you, dear?" She turned briskly toward Elizabeth.