blocks of substantial homes and pleasant bungalows, but as her
half-starved, rickety old frame knew it: hard-paved streets that
hurt her feet; dreadful, unpaved ones where she stumbled in the ruts
and mud or choked with dust; the mountain winds of winter; the
wicked summer gusts that gather up adjacent Mexico and blow it to
the Mesa, only, a few days later, to resume the burden and with it
madly assail Mt. Franklin; the cruel summer heat when, afternoon
long, Estevan dozed in the cool 'dobe while she stood in the
pitiless glare, harnessed and helpless, envious of the paltry,
flapping shadow cast by the red rag that floated over the
abarroteria, telling, though she neither knew nor cared, that carne,
fresh carne, was for sale that day. And heat, glare, red rag,
dreadful streets of Chihuahuita, their memory association
was--flies, millions, billions, black, busy, buzzing, biting flies.
Now, even in her sleep, she heard them.
Disturbed in their myriad sleep, the flies buzzed mightily.
Estevan's heavy slap fell on her shoulder, and in the starry
darkness he hustled her out of the stall and into harness. Past dark
rows of 'dobes and one-storied shops--jog--jog; jolt--jolt over
rough tracks where the shrieking engines run; a smothered "'Spero"
brought the Little White Mare to an obedient halt in the black
shadow of a freight-car.
Men waited there for Estevan, there were signs and whispers. What
business of hers! She lowered her head to nose a pile of sacks; one
was torn; cautiously she smelled, then licked it. Heavenly! a
substance rough like salt, that turned magically on one's tongue to
smooth, slippery, ineffable sweetness! Sugar it was, a carload, sent
from dangerous Mexico to the safety of these United States. In the
deep shadow the thieves skilfully shifted the sacks from the car to
Estevan, who swung them into his cart.
Something amiss! The men muttered to each other, crouched, dropped
from cart to car, disappeared in the black beyond. Industriously the
Little White Mare nuzzled the torn burlap into whose folds the
delightful fodder was receding.
Dazzling light--big men--men different from
Estevan--everywhere--in the cart--around it at her head.
"Vamoosed! Hell take it!" was the verdict.
"And will you look who's here," cried the biggest, turning his torch
on the laden cart. "Lord love you, it's a haul for a Packard truck!
They sure got this old bonebag anchored! Must be a ton or two on
that wagon. Well, men, shift most of this to the patrol, seal the
car, and run in this outfit as evidence."
The Little White Mare stood at ease, contented, warm and sleepy,
while the big man at her head rubbed back of her ear in a delightful
and unaccustomed way.
The patrol whirled away.
"All right, Bourke," they called, "you can escort the corpse."
"Look out for the speed-cop, bo. It's four blocks to the boneyard."
Bourke swung into the driver's seat, clucked comfortably, and always
obedient, the Little White Mare turned from the freight yard into
the dusty road.
A strange creature, this man with the big, soft hands--no sharp,
jerking rein, the whip, forgotten; maybe he slept; when Estevan
slept he awoke with, always, a crueler lash.
For all animals Bourke had a tender friendliness, and the sight of
the scarred, decrepit back patiently jogging between the shafts
irritated him, as did the nervous wince the old mare gave when he
joggled the whip-handle in the broken socket. The idea grew in grim
delectability that she might, of her own habit, deliver her
tormentor to the law.
"Now's your chance to get even, old girl," he muttered; then louder,
"take me to him--_casa--sige casa!_"
Reins flat on her back, a full stomach and an easy mind, that
strange association memory said to the Little White Mare that it was
time to be at home, in the dirty stall, with the empty manger and
the sleeping flies.
Jog, jog, past the sleeping 'dobes, past the shops, into the
familiar alley--home, at last!
Bourke was gone; from the house beyond the stable partition came
Estevan's voice, high, whining, pleading.
A shrill whistle outside; other voices; the whir of the patrol
speeding townward; silence; sleep.
The Little White Mare was avenged.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
THE BLACK DOOR
By Gordon Seagrove
"Lieutenant Townley," said Captain Von Dee sharply, "as a spy you
will be executed in two hours. Pursuant to my custom you will be
given a choice in the matter. Either you may elect to be shot in the
customary manner, or you may pass through the Black Door which you
see behind me. State your choice when the hour comes."
Von Dee--"Von Dee the whimsical" they called him in the
trenches--turned to his reports while Lieutenant Townley was led
back to the cell. A great hopelessness fell upon the latter. So this
was the end then? All his hopes, his plans with regard to marriage
to Cecile were to be swept away. It was difficult to realize that in
another hour he would be separated by an unfathomable void from the
woman whom he loved like life itself and trusted like no man had
ever trusted woman before.
"Shot ... or the Black Door...." Von Dee's words came back to
him. What horrible fate--which legend held was worse than
death--met those who passed beyond the Black Door? He knew that not
one of death prisoners had dared to pass beyond it. Each had chosen
death at the hands of the firing squad.
A half hour passed. Then, suddenly, a scrap of paper fluttered into
his hands. He opened it and read:
"Choose the Black Door. I know." It was signed Cecile.
Now the hour for the execution could not come soon enough. Cecile
had remembered! Cecile had saved him. Perhaps behind the Black Door
he would only be maimed or crippled and could go back to Cecile. As
the guards led him into Von Dee's quarters his heart pounded gladly.
In the gloom of the room he could see Von Dee and a stranger
talking. In another moment he would tell Captain Von Dee that he,
Lieutenant Townley, elected to pass through the Black Door.
He waited. Apparently his presence was not noted. He could hear
scraps of conversation: "I've always maintained," Von Dee was
saying, "that, no matter how brave a man, he will choose a known
form of death rather than an unknown...."
There was a lull, and then the other voice said: "And you are the
only one who knows what lies beyond the Black Door?"
"No," Von Dee answered his brother. "A woman knows." Then he added
with a light laugh: "She was a former mistress of mine!"
Lieutenant Townley heard, trembled, turned white, then stiffened.
Von Dee was before him, talking. "Well, Lieutenant," he said, "do
you elect the Black Door?"
"I do not!" the prisoner answered. Von Dee nodded to the guards who
led Lieutenant Townley away. A moment later came the report of the
firing squad on the drill grounds.
"What did I tell you!" cried Von Dee to his brother. "Lieutenant
Townley, one of the bravest, couldn't face the unknown. He went the
usual way." For several moments he puffed his cigar silently, then:
"Birwitz," he asked suddenly, "do you know what lies beyond the
Black Door?"
The younger Von Dee shook his head.
"Freedom," said Captain Von Dee. "And I've never met a man brave
enough to take it!"
--------------------------------------------------------------------
THE MAN WHO TOLD
By John Cutler
Toward midnight in the smoking-room of the trans-Atlantic liner
Howard, the author, held forth on realism and romance. In one of his
pauses another of the company broke in:
"Realism," said the interrupter, "is but the word with which those
who can see nothing but the ordinary and humdrum in life try to
excuse their blindness to the romances that unfold themselves all
about us every day. The last time I heard the doctrine of realism
preached was in the home of a wealthy New Yorker who declared that
in his life there had never been the least tinge of the unusual or
the romantic. He had never fallen in love and never had any
adventures. Three days later in the morning he was found seated in a
chair on the piazza of his summer home dead from a stab wound
through the heart. Three hundred thousand dollars in cash which he
had received from the sale of a block of bonds was missing from his
office safe where he had placed it the preceding late afternoon
because his bank was closed. The only clue found to the murderer was
a blood-stained stiletto which was discovered between the Old and
the New Testaments in a big family Bible on a high shelf in the
library of the murdered man's summer home. The mystery of the murder
was never solved."
"The plot of a very interesting story," commented Howard and went on
with his monologue. A little later the party broke up. On his way to
his stateroom Winton, who had been one of them, dropped in at the
wireless room and sent a message.
Three days later at the New York pier the man who had interrupted
Howard was arrested for murder committed four years before. "I was
once a member of the force," explained Winton to Howard; "that
stiletto was never found until he told where to look for it that
night in the smoking-room."
--------------------------------------------------------------------
THE UNANSWERED CALL
By Thomas T. Hoyne
Six months of married life had not staled the two great adventures
in each week day of Delia Hetherington's placid existence--the
morning leavetaking and the evening return of her husband. His
departure was a climax of lingering kisses, admonitions, and
exhortations; his return a triumph. Did he not put all to the touch
with Fortune at every parting and go forth to strive all day, a
dauntless hero, 'mid motor juggernauts and rushing trolley cars,
'neath dangling safes and dropping tiles, beside treacherous
pitfalls and yawning manholes? But ever he bore a charmed life and
returned to his love in the dark of the evening with thrilling tales
of his salesmanship and of repartee to his boss.
Delia hummed a plaintive, childish melody as she set the little,
round dining-table for two persons. As is the habit of brides, she
laid the places side by side instead of opposite each other. A light
shadow of curiosity flickered across her mind, and she carefully
laid a saucer on the table to note the effect of a third place. She
snatched it up again, blushing, although there was no one else in
all the length and breadth of the four-room apartment where she and
Fred, upheld by the installment plan, had built their nest. She
resumed her singing, bird-like in its thin simplicity. Such a song,
one could imagine, Mrs. Cock Robin sang while awaiting the
home-coming of her mate.
A soft knocking at the back door drew Delia from happy contemplation
of the glistening forks that lay beside the two plates on the
dining-room table. She hurried into the kitchen, wisely remembering
Fred's insistence that she must never unlock the screen door to a
stranger before she discovered his design. No well-dressed youth
seeking to pay his way through college by getting subscriptions for
"The Woman's Life and Fashion Bazaar" could find in his patter the
countersign to win him admittance; no grizzled gypsy with shining
tins to barter for old shoes knew the magic word to make the hook
fly up under Delia's cautious hand.
But the man who stood on the narrow porch, panting like a Marathon
runner, was none of these.
"The steps," he gasped, pressing one hand over his heart, "too much
for me."
To climb the four flights of stairs to the Hetherington apartment at
the top of the building was a test for a strong man. He who knocked
at the screen door was slight in build and looked ill.
With quick sympathy Delia unhooked the door and pushed it open.
"Come in and sit down a minute," she said gently.
The man staggered across the threshold and dropped into the chair
she offered him. The screen door shut with a slam.
He shivered as if a draft of icy air had struck him.
"Close the inside door--quick," he panted; and Delia, under the
spell of her sympathy, obeyed without thought.
"It's too bad to trouble you," he said nervously, "but I'm not a
well man."
Delia handed him a glass of water. He sipped at it between gasps.
"Don't light the gas," he cried sharply.
Delia had scratched a match, for night was falling rapidly. She
snapped out the little flame and looked at him half afraid.
"Just let me rest a moment," he said. "There's no harm in me. I
couldn't hurt a baby if I wanted to."
He almost whimpered as he looked curiously around the room.
"You're all alone, eh? I'm glad you weren't afraid to let me in.
Some women would have left me standing out there."
"What would I be afraid of?" she asked simply, feeling uneasy
nevertheless.
"Oh, I don't know," he answered irritably. "Only most people seem to
be afraid of a sick man. They don't want him around. They won't give
him a chance."
"That can't be so," said Delia. "Every one naturally feels sorry for
a sick person."
"No, they don't," he contradicted roughly. "Do you know what would
happen if I fainted in the street? Do you think any one would help
me? Not much. I could lie there like a dog while the crowd went by.
The men would laugh; the women would say, 'Disgusting.' I know. It
has happened to me."
He coughed slightly and finished the glass of water.
A faint sound outdoors caught his ear. He stepped quickly to the
window and peered out. Starved and unkempt he looked, but a quaint
neatness about his clothing hinted at the regular habits of a
workingman.
He turned to Delia suddenly.
"I've got to tell you," he whispered swiftly. "They're coming up
here. You've got some sympathy for a man and you ain't afraid."
She looked at him and began to understand.
"I'm a thief," he said bluntly, and gulped on the word. "I stole a
few dollars and the police are after me."
"A thief!" she cried, staring at him. "I have no money."
"I know, I know," he mumbled in desperate hurry. "I don't want to
rob you. I want to get away. I was forced to do it."
"Forced!"
"We were starving. I'm married, the same as you are. Wouldn't your
husband steal for you?"
He stopped short and listened. Loud knocking sounded somewhere
below.
"All I want you to do is to let me out the front door; and don't
tell. Say you didn't see me."
Already he had shuffled through the dining-room, Delia following him
into the narrow, short, dark hall.
"If any one knocks don't answer," he whispered. "Don't light any
lights."
He opened the front door cautiously.
"They'll think no one's here." He turned and looked at her. "It'll
give me a chance--just a chance is all I want. You'll never be
sorry."
He closed the door softly behind him.
Delia stood listening, breathless.
Voices questioned and answered on the porch below, but she could not
distinguish the words. She felt as if she herself were guilty of
some crime.
Suddenly the telephone bell on the wall beside her rang with
startling abruptness.
She did not move. Heavy feet were mounting the stairs to the back
porch.
Again the telephone rang out against the stillness in the little
apartment.
She dared not move, but stood pressed against the wall. Through the
darkness she could see the doorway into the lighter kitchen like a
black frame.
The telephone rang again, long and insistently.
Heavy knocking shook the back door, but it got no response from
Delia. There was a pause of silence and then a voice cried out with
the rapidity of excitement:
"No one's home, Jim. He couldn't get through here."
This was what she had been listening for.
The noise of descending footsteps died away.
Delia sprang to the telephone and waited eagerly. But the bell did
not ring again.
* * * * *
"Any trace of him, Jim?" asked the desk sergeant, as the big
patrolman entered the police station.
"Naw. Anybody identify the body?"
"He had cards on him that gave his name and address. The poor guy
never knew what hit him. He didn't get the chance to give up his
dough; one white-livered sneak croaked him from behind with a piece
of lead pipe. We called up his home, but couldn't raise anybody."
--------------------------------------------------------------------
THE WOMEN IN THE CASE
By Mary Sams Cooke
Jack Burroughs' dog broke from him and made a sudden dive down the
first opening. The usual clear whistle made no impression. "Jim" was
off. Jack quickly followed, and to his relief saw a big Irishman
patting "Jim's" head; "Jim," with unmistakable signs of delight,
jumping up and down and rubbing against the man.
That started the strange friendship between Jack Burroughs, lawyer,
sportsman, and Dennis O'Sullivan.
Dennis lived in the last house on "Grasshopper Hill." It was a
little less ramshackle, a little more independent looking than the
rest of the row that faced on a small bluff above the railroad
tracks, and its garden bloomed like a rose. Dennis himself was
large, burly, rather red of face, but with the twinkling blue eyes
and the genial courtesy of the true son of Erin.
Later Dennis brought out to the almost palatial suburban home of
Jack Burroughs rare bulbs and old-fashioned flowers; Jack got Dennis
to help him in making his own garden beautiful.
As the war dragged its fearful way along they, strange to say, never
even mentioned it, until one day in June suddenly Jack said:
"Dennis, I have written to a cousin in England to know if it's
possible for me to get a commission in the English army."
Dennis looked up from the border he was working and demanded:
"For why and I would like to know?"
"Well, Dennis, you see, my great-grandfather was an Irish patriot,
and came over here during Emmet's rebellion; but now Ireland needs
me, and I'm going."
"From what part of the ould country was yer grandfather?"
"Oh, from near Lough Neagh."
"Are ye maning County Antrim, Misther Burroughs?"
"Sure, Dennis."
"Thin I'm yer boy, and will go with ye."
Jack was rather startled, but on second thought he decided to take
the risk.
"Dennis, will you sign the pledge if I take you?"
Dennis' blue eyes twinkled, and with a comical smile he lifted his
cap from his fiery head and said, "Shure, yer honour."
Both gardens bloomed gayly in the June sunshine; both men talked and
worked and planned in secret for their swift going. At last the
letter came.
Jack, as gay as a boy, went first to Dennis. "Come out to the house
to-night, Dennis, and we will make our final arrangements."
"Ye can count on me, and I will be that grateful to ye for the whole
o' me life."
With this letter held high, Jack, with "Jim" at his heels, gayly
waved it to a sweet girl that he caught a glimpse of on a
neighbouring porch.
"Can I come in, Eleanor?" he called.
The blue eyes gave him welcome. He sat on the lower step and,
leaning against the post, looked up at the girl.
"Eleanor, I am off to the war!"
The smile froze on the sweet lips, the slender, strong hands
clenched, but the girl's voice was quiet as she answered:
"I hardly understand, Jack."
Then he eagerly explained how his cousins in England, with the same
strain of Irish blood in their veins, were fighting--nay, some
dying--on the battlefields in France, and call had come to him, and
he must go.
He stood tall and straight, his gray eyes flashing--those eyes she
so loved--his head thrown back. Ah! The girl felt he would lead his
men even unto death. He gave his warm, merry smile; surely she would
understand.
"Sit down, Jack dear. Yes, I understand," she smiled into those
eager eyes; "but you do not understand. No, wait, please--you are
an American, Jack, first, last, and all the time; and now soon, only
too soon, your country might need all such men as you. You cannot
desert your country now! You cannot, cannot, Jack, dear!"
And Jack understood.
How to tell Dennis, how to break the news to him; what was he to
say?
As later he saw the big man walking slowly up the path Dennis
touched his cap to Jack.
"Will ye pardon me pipe, Misther Burroughs, being that low in me
mind I kinnot spake without it?"
Jack smiled.
"I am a bit low meself, Dennis."
"Well, I had best out with it like a man, Misther Burroughs. I went
to spake to me Nora and she said, 'Dennis O'Sullivan, have ye lost
the little bits o' wits ye be blessed with? Not one foot do ye stir
from your own country. Did ye not become an American citizen this
five years back?' And, shure, Misther Burroughs, 'twas true the word
she spake!"
--------------------------------------------------------------------
THE CAT CAME BACK
By Virginia West
Leonard Raymond was temperamentally a naturalist. Had circumstances
not compelled him to make a living he would no doubt have been an
Audubon, or a Gray. He spent his spare moments studying the habits
of the living things about town, English sparrows, pigeons, stray
cats, homeless dogs, and so forth. Old man Peterkin, whose wife kept
the boarding-house at which Raymond was getting his meals, who did
nothing but collect the board bills, grow fat, and hold the position
of church deacon, had told him that the crows in the cupola of the
Eutaw Place synagogue had been nesting there for eleven years.
Raymond did not know whether to regard that as an interesting item
about crows, or as evidence against Mr. Peterkin's veracity.
However, Mr. Peterkin and the crows have nothing to do with this
story.
In the backyard of the Linden Avenue house in which he lived with
his married sister Raymond raised flowers, and on Sundays and
holidays he would often go to the country to study the wild flowers
and the birds.
One summer evening he sat in the backyard among the flowers. He was
hot and lonesome, the thermometer being close to ninety, the family
being out of town, and no vacation for himself in sight. To-morrow,
he reflected, he would return to his post of teller in the bank, and
hand out more money than he would ever own in a lifetime; the day
after he would do the same thing----
His melancholy reflections were broken in upon by what seemed to be
a ball of fire on top of the tall board fence. In an instant it
disappeared, and he saw the long black form of a cat slide down the
fence, and light in the yard. The beast went to a garbage can in the
corner of the yard, sniffed about it, observed that the lid was on,
and then, turning the gleaming ball upon Raymond, sprang up the
fence and disappeared.
The same thing happened the next evening. On the third evening when
the cat appeared Raymond advanced cautiously, and tried to be
friendly. The cat hesitated, but when the man's hand was almost on
him he streaked up, and over the fence.
The following evening when Raymond walked uptown from the bank, as
he approached Richmond market he thought of the cat, and stopping at
a stall bought a small portion of meat.
The meat was put on the ground near the fence on which at the
regular time the cat appeared. The eye gleamed. Raymond was
wondering why both eyes did not gleam when the cat seemed to fall
straight down upon the meat. Raymond sat as still as a stone, and
heard the meat crunching between the cat's jaws. The animal was
licking its chops when he advanced--it met him halfway, and while
Raymond rubbed his fur, the cat purred. Sitting down upon a bench,
the cat leaped into his lap, curled up, and settled down for a nap.
Then it was that he found about the cat's neck a small chain with a
tag on it.
When he went into the house the cat followed him, and by the gas
light he read on the tag a Madison Avenue address. Also he observed
that the cat had but one eye, and forthwith he christened him
Cyclops. He wondered why a person who thought enough of the cat to
provide him with a chain and tag should have left him to search for
his victuals in alleys and backyards like an ordinary stray.
Cyclops stuck by Raymond like a twin brother. And every evening when
Raymond came from business he stopped in Richmond market and bought
meat for Cyclops. One day the man in the stall asked him if he were
a family man.
One Sunday morning Raymond strolled across Eutaw Place and up to the
Madison Avenue address. The house was closed for the summer, but the
policeman on the post told him who lived there.
Summer was nearly at an end when Raymond happened to see in the
paper that the people at the Madison Avenue house had returned to
town. Now, Raymond was an honest man--had he been anything else he
would not have been allowed to handle the bank's money, so on
Saturday evening with Cyclops under his arm, he sadly went up
Madison Avenue to return the cat to his lawful owner. Boys on the
street made personal remarks about the man and the cat, and Cyclops'
great eye turned green with wrath as he glared at them.
A coloured woman of the Mammy type answered his ring. She looked and
gasped. Before Raymond could explain she thrust her head into the
hall and shouted in strident tones:
"Come heah, Miss 'Liza! Bress de Lawd ef heah ain't yo' cat!"