[Illustration:
FEBRUARY 1899 10 CENTS
DIXIE.
A MONTHLY MAGAZINE.
THE DIXIE
BALTIMORE PUBLISHING CO.
Vol. I No. 2.]
_Terms: $1.00 a Year In Advance. 10 Cents a Number._
DIXIE
A MONTHLY MAGAZINE. FEBRUARY, 1899.
HENRY CLAYTON HOPKINS, Editor, 326 St. Paul St., Baltimore.
G. ALDEN PEIRSON,}
CLINTON PETERS, } Art Editors.
CHAS. J. PIKE, }
GEORGE B. WADE, Business Manager.
CONTENTS.
I. Frontispiece, Drawn by Lucius Hitchcock.
Illustration for “How Randall Got Into The Salon”.
II. If Like a Rose (Poem)—_Edward A. U. Valentine_ 3
III. Anna Evauovna—_Margaret Sutton Briscoe_ 4
Full Page Picture by Katharine Gassaway.
IV. Death and Love (Poem)—_William Theodore Peters_ 17
Illustration by Clarence Herbert Rowe.
V. Channoah—_Edward Lucas White_ 18
Head and Tail-Piece by G. A. Peirson.
VI. Here and There in Maryland—_Edward G. McDowell_ 33
(Eight Illustrations.)
VII. How Randall Got Into The Salon—_Clinton Peters_ 49
Illustrated by Frontispiece.
VIII. A Valentine (Poem)—_Maurice Weyland_ 56
IX. Elena’s Daughters—_D. Ramon Ortega y Frias_ 57
(To be Continued.)
Head-Piece by Chas. J. Pike.
X. Quatrain (Poem)—_H. C. H._ 78
XI. Extracts from the Log of the Rita 79
Illustrated by Numerous Sketches.
XII. The Four Fears of Our General (The Second Fear)—_Adele Bacon_, 95
Full Page Picture by Clinton Peters.
XIII. The Happiness of Being Nearsighted—_Walter Edgar M’Cann_, 113
XIV. “An Eighteenth Century Beauty” 117
Reproduction of the Miniature by Hugh Nicholson.
XV. Comment, 119
XVI. Books and Authors—_Edward A. U. Valentine_ 125
Copyright, 1899, by DIXIE PUBLISHING COMPANY.
[Illustration: _Drawn by Lucius Hitchcock._
_“He slowly pushed the massive door ajar, and the next instant perceived
he was standing in the actual, awful presence of the famous master”—(See
page 49)_]
[Illustration: DIXIE.]
VOL. I. FEBRUARY, 1899. NO. 2.
IF LIKE A ROSE.
If life were like a rose designed,
That proves its purpose to be fair
And with the grace its bud divined
Distils June’s sweetness on the air;
Then would the stubborn sheaths that hold
The flower of the heart’s ideal
Beneath the stress of time unfold
And what we dream become the real—
If life had but the rose’s art
And beauty burgeoned from the heart!
Then like the rose that o’er the grass
Spills leaf by leaf its lovely freight
And tho’ its purple fortunes pass
Is calm in an accomplished fate,
Might we with less reluctant will
Yield up the harvest of our hours,
Seeing the inner grace fulfil
Its promise in old age’s powers—
If life had but the rose’s art
And beauty burgeoned from the heart!
—_Edward A. Uffington Valentine._
[Illustration: ANNA EVAUOVNA
A STUDY OF RUSSIAN LIFE
_By Margaret Sutton Briscoe And M.A.R._]
They stood in the village street talking together, two little Russian
peasant girls, dressed in rough carpet skirts, thick leather boots, with
hair plaited in two long plaits and heads covered with bright kerchiefs
as became unmarried girls.
Grusha was larger and taller than Masha, and her coloring stronger, in
fact, she was stronger in all respects, and good-naturedly conscious of
her superiority. She stood looking down on Masha with a mischievous smile
on her red lips and in her black eyes.
“Is it that you mean to marry Ivan when he comes from the war, Grusha?”
Masha was asking.
Grusha laughed.
“Perhaps,” she replied lightly.
“Then you are a bad girl, Grusha. Why do you keep Alioscha dancing after
you?”
Grusha laughed again.
“What if he likes it? Alioscha would be more unhappy if I did not let him
do his dancing. And besides, I like him.”
“Do you mean to marry him then, Grusha?”
“Perhaps.”
Grusha caught Masha’s hand as she turned from her with a gesture of
anger.
“Come back, Masha, listen to me. Ask Anna Evauovna what I mean to do. She
knows all things, the old witch!”
Masha crossed herself, glancing over her shoulder.
“And she will know you have said that,” she answered.
Grusha’s face wore a reflected uneasiness for a moment.
“Bah!” she replied, shaking herself. “What harm can she do me!”
Masha nodded her head gravely.
“That was what Marusa said, and how did the Njania punish her? Has she
a child to call hers? And look at poor Julina. She defied the Njania
also, and has had children showered on her faster than she can breathe.
Her isba is like a beehive. Anna Evauovna can give you a draught that
will cure any sickness if she will, and oh! what fortunes she can tell,
Grusha! And what do we here in the village that she does not know of at
once?”
“Who teaches her and who tells her? Answer me that, Masha. Oh, you may
well cross yourself! Ask her if you want to know anything and if you are
not afraid of her teacher. Have done then. What are you after?”
While the girls talked, two of the young men of the village had crept
behind Grusha unseen. Each held one of her plaits in his hand as a rein,
and they began shouting as to a restive horse, when she struggled to
escape. Grusha’s heavy plaits were favorite playthings, never safe from
attack; for she was a belle in the village. In the confusion of the romp,
Masha turned away and walked off.
“I will go to Anna Evauovna,” she said to herself.
It is easy to state the positions of Grusha and Masha. They were only two
little Russian peasant girls, who worked in the garden of the Prince in
Summer, and about his great house in winter.
But for Anna Evauovna, the Prince himself could hardly have defined
her position. She had been Njania (nurse) to his children, and was now
housekeeper. Anna Evauovna was the only peasant on the estate who wore a
cap, who spoke a pure Russian, and wore dresses and shoes. She was older
by years than her actual days numbered, capable, resolute, silent and
invaluable to her employers. The peasants spoke to her with deference,
calling her Anna Evauovna. Behind her back they called her the old
witch, and the Princess had been appealed to for protection from her more
than once.
Anna Evauovna was in the housekeeping room assorting the house linen from
the wash, when Masha came to her and humbly proffered her request to know
the future.
The old woman looked up at the girl keenly.
“He who wants to know too much grows old too soon, Masha,” she said.
“Tell me only a little then, Anna Evauovna, but tell me that.”
“Have it your own way then, Masha. Open the drawer of the table and
look in the left hand corner, and you will find a pack of cards under a
wooden box that has a strange smell about it. Bring them to me, but no, I
forgot—the box has something lying open in it which you might touch and
find harmful.”
As Anna Evauovna opened the drawer herself, Masha made the sign of the
cross furtively.
The old woman turning sharply, caught the gesture, and the girl’s head
drooped in confusion.
Anna Evauovna’s eyes twinkled. She shuffled the cards and began to deal
them out on the table, glancing now and then at Masha, who sat opposite,
the light of the lamp falling on her round good-natured face, fair hair,
and solemn blue eyes.
“Ah! there you are,” said Anna Evauovna, as the queen of hearts fell.
“And there is a dark man near you—the king of clubs. Now mark, you are
nearer to him in thought than he to you. Ah! ah! ah! I thought so. Here
she comes, there lies the cause. The queen of clubs, a dark woman, lies
between you and him. She separates you.”
Masha bent forward breathless.
“And will she succeed, Njania?”
“We shall see. Who comes here? The king of diamonds—and near the queen of
clubs. Here is one who is away, very far away, but coming nearer. He is
thinking of the queen of clubs. ‘Is she waiting for me, is she waiting
for me,’ he is thinking. Look for yourself, Masha. The queen of spades,
emblem of all that is bad, lies across him, and thus it is easy to see
that he is worrying about the dark woman, your rival. Once more I will
lay the cards. Now see; the king of diamonds is thinking of a journey and
of home. The dark woman is restless, she thinks of the king of diamonds,
and then of the king of clubs. But how is this? The king of diamonds is
close to your dark rival, and the nine and ten of diamonds on either
side. A marriage!”
Masha clasped her hands.
“And does that leave the king of clubs to me, Anna Evauovna?”
Anna Evauovna swept the cards into a heap.
“God knows,” she answered. “Would you seek to know as much as He, Masha?”
“May the saints forbid!”
Anna Evauovna returned to her interrupted occupation, and Masha still sat
gazing at her, awestruck.
“Njania,” she said timidly, “is it right that a girl should keep a man
dangling after her, as a lash to a whip, if she means nothing by it?”
“You mean Grusha and Alioscha,” said Anna Evauovna shortly. “Is it not
her own affair?”
Masha blushed and hung her head.
“It was Grusha I thought of,” she stammered. “You know the very hairs on
our heads, Anna Evauovna.”
The Njania nodded, not ill pleased.
“I know what I know. Grusha thinks Ivan will marry her when he comes back
from the war.”
“Then why does she keep Alioscha waiting and sticking to her like a wet
leaf?” cried Masha passionately. “It is wicked, Njania, if she loves
Ivan.”
“Who said she loved Ivan!” answered Anna Evauovna drily. “Do all girls
love some one?”
“Did not you say that she loved him?” stammered Masha.
“I did not, my child. Njania is not to be fooled by a Grusha. Ah, but
she is a girl of wits, is Grusha, and so smooth to see. In still waters,
devils thrive, remember that, Masha.”
Masha’s lip quivered.
“But if she does not love Ivan, Njania, she may marry Alioscha.”
“Perhaps, who knows! It takes a wise man to tell the future, and a wiser
yet to tell a girl’s mind.”
“And she will surely marry Alioscha if Ivan has forgotten her by the time
he comes back,” added Masha more piteously.
Anna Evauovna laughed a dry chuckle and rubbed her hand on the girl’s
head.
“Your wits sharpen, little Masha. You may grow as wise as Grusha some
day.”
“Ivan does not write to her—I know that.”
“Now, now, as for writing, Masha, could Grusha read if he did? Ivan may
have been fool enough to remember her but even a peasant does not like
his love letters read from the house-tops.”
“But Grusha could take his letters to the doctor or the deacon. They
would read them to her alone.”
“Would they? A man is a man, doctor or deacon. He may keep another man’s
secret, but a woman’s—no. Come, child, Grusha will marry whom God wills,
and meantime, let her have rope. All is for the best. Did Grusha know
Ivan faithful to her, she would not have this curiosity which makes her
wish to wait and see how he will act when he finds her waiting. Meantime,
Alioscha is the best singer and dancer in the village. And what could the
village have to talk of but for her behavior? For your part, eat, drink,
sleep on the top of the stove at night, and work by day. Let each hold up
his share of the burden, and all will go well.”
Masha listened, sighed, and assented.
The next day, as Anna Evauovna was walking in the field near the village
street, she heard sounds of music, the clapping of hands and beating of
feet in measured time, and loud shouts. She might have walked to the isba
whence the sounds came, and inquired the cause, but that was not Anna
Evauovna’s way. She slipped behind a hedge, and walking along in its
shadow, reached the spot where the merry-making was taking place.
[Illustration: MASHA CLASPED HER HANDS
“AND DOES THAT LEAVE THE KING OF CLUBS TO ME?”
_Drawn by Katharine Gassaway._]
On a bit of ground in front of three of the principal isbas, the peasants
were assembled. A wooden bench had been brought out, and a plain deal
table, beneath which could be seen a wooden pail of vodka (brandy). On
the table stood a steaming samovar, a white stone teapot, some huge
pieces of rye bread, thick tumblers for tea, and a paper bag of lump
sugar. Spoons were not needed, as the sugar was held in the fingers and
nibbled between the sips of hot tea served in the glasses.
Ivan had returned, and this was his welcome.
The samovar had been borrowed for the great occasion; for not every
peasant can afford that luxury, and Ivan’s parents were not rich.
There were three musicians present, one playing on a concertina, one on
a trumpet-like instrument, which gave out bag-pipe sounds, and the other
on a melon-shaped guitar, strung with a few strings, on which he twanged
merrily.
The peasants kept time with feet and voice in barbaric medley. Ivan,
the hero of the day, sat at the centre of the table in an unsoldierly,
weary attitude, unkempt and unwashed. He had been tramping for days. The
trousers of his weather-stained uniform were tucked in his travel-worn
boots, and he wore a summer cap on his dark hair.
He was replying at his leisure to the numberless questions asked as his
fagged brain comprehended them, but when the table was cleared, and the
musician with the concertina leaped upon it, his loose linen trousers
tucked in his boots, his kaftan into his belt, his hoarse voice cheering
the company to the dance, Ivan sprang to his feet, and seizing Grusha as
his partner, danced more furiously than any.
Anna Evauovna, peering through the leaves, could see it all. Alioscha, as
eager in his welcome to the wanderer as Grusha herself, was now dancing
merrily also, and Masha was his happy partner. Her kerchief had fallen
back, leaving her good-natured, round face unframed, and exposing the
line of white forehead which had been protected from the sun. She was a
pretty picture.
The dance grew wilder, the voices louder, the stamping and clapping more
vehement. The musician on the table shouted more lustily as he danced
himself, now on one foot, now on the other, all over the table-top.
Anna Evauovna looked at Grusha’s excited face flushed with her exertion,
and then at her rival suitors, both of the same height, both well built,
and both with the same heavy square face and mass of thick hair. That
Ivan was fair, and Alioscha dark, seemed the only difference.
The old woman turned away with a wicked chuckle.
“There is not a pin to choose between them,” she said to herself, “Grusha
must draw lots.”
When, a little later, Masha came into the housekeeper’s room, breathless
and over-running with her news, Anna Evauovna could be told nothing. She
knew when Ivan had arrived, from where, by what roads, and, in fact,
everything. The only thing she did not know, or as Masha believed, would
not tell, was how Grusha would choose.
On her way home, Masha came across Grusha sweeping the leaves from a path
in the garden. She was alone, and Masha could not help questioning her.
“Grusha, Ivan has come back, what are you going to do now?”
Grusha leaned on her broom and looked at Masha’s earnest face. She
laughed aloud, but good-naturedly still.
“I am going to sweep this path when you stand off it,” she said, and
Masha could get no further satisfaction.
But the next day, Anna Evauovna was able, or willing, to relieve Masha’s
anxiety.
“She takes Ivan, and they are to be married in a week. Both get what they
want and have waited long for. Now we shall see what we shall see,” said
Anna Evauovna grimly.
Ten days later, as Anna Evauovna walked through the village, she stopped
at the door of the isba belonging to Ivan’s parents. There in the doorway
sat Grusha, the bride, peeling potatoes for the evening meal, as unmoved
and uninterested as if she had been peeling potatoes in Ivan’s doorway
for years. She had gone from one isba to another: She had peeled her
father’s potatoes, and now peeled Ivan’s—that was all.
“Good luck to you, Grusha,” said Anna Evauovna. “But I suppose you think
you have luck by the forelock, as Ivan was faithful to you in all that
time.”
“Yes,” answered Grusha indifferently, splashing a potato in the bowl of
water.
“You have all you waited for—if I may say so and bring no ill-luck.”
“I have everything,” Grusha replied without enthusiasm.
Anna Evauovna looked at the girl’s stolid face, and laughed aloud.
“But you have lost one thing that you can not get back, Grusha. You can
never again wonder if Ivan is going to be faithful. An unsatisfied wish
is a fine thing to have, my child.”
She walked off still laughing, leaving Grusha puzzled and vexed. At the
corner the old woman met the bridegroom and gave him greeting also.
“What a man you are, Ivan, to keep a girl faithful to you in all those
months. Were you not surprised at finding Grusha unmarried?”
Ivan scratched his head meditatively.
“I was surprised,” he said finally.
“And grateful?” asked Anna Evauovna.
“And grateful,” repeated Ivan, slowly.
“What would you have done if you had found her married?”
“Heaven bless me! If she had not waited, I could have found another.”
Anna Evauovna nodded.
“They grow thickly, these women, but now you can settle down quietly
after your wanderings, Ivan.”
Ivan turned his cap round on his hand, and shook his head.
“Wandering is not bad, Anna Evauovna. One sees men and women then. A man
does not care so much to live in one place after he sees the world. But
we shall get on nicely, I suppose.”
Anna Evauovna walked on, her wrinkled old face all puckered with laughter.
“That is what comes of what one waits and wearies for,” she said to
herself.
As she passed the hedge, behind which she had watched Ivan’s home-coming,
she heard two voices on the other side, and paused to listen. A man and a
woman were talking earnestly together.
“But you know it was you I always loved, Masha,” said the deeper tones.
It was Alioscha speaking.
Anna Evauovna went on her way, bending double with laughter. She did not
need to hear the answer Masha gave—for she knew all things, did Anna
Evauovna.
[Illustration: THE END]
[Illustration: “_Death and Love._”
_Drawn by Clarence Herbert Rowe._]
[Illustration: DEATH AND LOVE.]
Thus runs the maxim, “All are born to die.”
Grief follows joy as twilight follows day.
Old loves depart and beauty will not stay.
Wherefore, too sad to weep, henceforth must I
Encounter only Death, the Passer-By.
For every pleasure we with sorrow pay,
We are but dreamers, dreaming dreams by day.
Yet there be those who suffer cruelly
Who find a rainbow in their cup of tears.
Smiles beget smiles on faces sad as ours,
The pale moonlight silvers the sobbing sea.
One love supreme and constant through the years
Is dearer than fine rubies, sweet as flowers,
Sweet and as dear as that you gave to me.
—_William Theodore Peters._
[Illustration: CHANNOAH
BY EDWARD LUCAS WHITE]
The garden had been overgrown these three years. As the house was
tenantless nothing was ever trimmed or cut and the paths skinned over
with the green of intrusive weeds. The shrubs expanded into masses of
high dense leafage, the roses had run into long stems that covered
the walls or wound under the tall wavy grass, the annuals had seeded
themselves till they mingled in every bed, and the whole was a delightful
wilderness, more flowery than any wood and more woodland than any
garden. Milly and Jack regarded the place as their own special domain.
The house belonged to Milly’s father and they were left to enjoy the
garden unwatched and undisturbed. Because their fathers were partners
in business they had made up their minds to marry when they grew up and
they announced their intention with the preternatural seriousness of a
boy of five and a girl of three. As they were really fond of each other
they never wearied of being together and as a part of their precocious
program they cared nothing for other playmates. The garden was theirs
and they were each others’ and they lived in a community where children
were little overseen or tended. So they spent day after day in games of
their own invention, with no companion except a black kitten. Milly,
who was proud of her French, had named it Channoah and would have been
deeply grieved if anyone had insinuated that her pronunciation was far
from Parisian. Channoah was able to do without his mother when they
first began their games in the spring and was still a kittenish cat when
the autumn merged into winter. He entered into their sports with almost
a human interest and those long happy summer days made a background
for both the boy and the girl, which loomed up behind all their future
memories and where there were endless pictures of each other, in long
processions, punctuated and divided by various postures and contortions
of a coal-black kitten. As they grew older and their companionship
continued they had passwords all for themselves and jokes that no one
else entered into, all full of allusions to the same pet.
II.
It was a rather awkward boy who came home from college for his summer
vacation. He had not seen his native place since the autumn before, and
the letters which had told him he must remain at college, and which had
disclosed most tenderly the fall in the family’s fortunes had been worded
so carefully that he had not realized the full force of what had happened
and had chafed at his exile as if it were not inevitable. The first sight
he had of his mother waiting on the platform brought it all home to him.
Her dress told more than any words could have conveyed. He made a brave
effort to be bright and took care not to stare round him at the ugly
walls of the cramped and unfamiliar house, nor to look too curiously at
the furnishings. The gaps in the old belongings struck a chill to his
heart, but he chattered away about the college life to which he was to
return, and over their painfully frugal supper all were as cheery as old.
The talk was a trifle nervous and there was an anxiety to let no pause
occur, but nothing marred the warm greeting which had been made ready for
him and the meal ended naturally. The afternoon of talk had exhausted
most of what the greeters and the greeted had to ask and answer and
after they left the table the boy slipped into the entry and was hunting
for his cap among a litter of coats and capes, with a sick longing for
the old hall-piece and a strong distaste for the plain little walnut
hat-tree. The mother slipped out after him, shut the door noiselessly
behind her and asked:
“Where are you going, dear?”
“To see Milly, of course,” the boy answered.
“Has she written to you lately?” his mother queried.
“We haven’t written to each other at all,” he said. “I hate to write
letters, and it would make so much less for us to tell each other
afterwards.”
“You mustn’t go there, Jack,” she said, putting her hand lightly on his
shoulder with a caressing gesture.
“Why not?” he asked hotly, the blood rushing to his face.
“You know they have nothing to do with us any more, dear, since your
father and Mr. Wareham quarrelled.”
“I didn’t know it. You haven’t told me anything about what has happened.
And even if they have nothing to do with us, that wouldn’t make any
difference between Milly and me.”
“Isn’t it natural she should come to feel as her father and brother
feel?” the mother suggested tremulously.
“You mean she wouldn’t see me if I went,” he demanded, and he was growing
vexed and defiant.
“I did not mean that, dear. But her father might not allow her to see
you, and Albert always disliked you. And now they all hate all of us.”
“Why should they hate us? What have we done to them?”
“It was that selfish man ruined your father and people always hate those
they have wronged. Please don’t go, Jack.”
The boy twisted his cap in his hands and forced back his tears. He was
silent a moment and then he kissed his mother.
“It’s all right, mother dear,” he said, “I’ll go somewhere else. Thank
you for warning me.”
He went out into the dark. It was to the old garden that he walked. The
house was lit up and through the iron gate he saw trimmed and unfamiliar
shapes of shrubberies. He leaned against the bricks of the gate-post and
hated it all.
III.
A very lanky and gawky lad was waiting in the railway station at the
junction. He was loose-jointed and ill at ease in any position. His
clothes were mean and old and badly kept. His face was sad. For some time
now he had been waiting and he had hours of waiting before him. He had
looked over and over at everything in sight. Then a train came up and a
party of smartly dressed and handsome young men and women entered. The
lad’s face flamed. Jack had not seen Milly for years. His father and
mother were dead. He had to work at hard and uncongenial things to make
his living. He had as yet no self-confidence and while he saw dimly a
hope of better prospects, neither to himself nor to his employers was
anything apparent that made his lot easier. Milly was a very lovely girl
now. She was perfectly dressed and the centre of a merry party. The boy
watched her hungrily, but she never glanced toward him. Her friends
amused themselves in various ways, but it seemed to the onlooker that
Milly was the soul of each diversion. After a while she took out a pair
of scissors and began cutting out figures from paper. Jack recalled with
a fresh pang the hours he and she had spent so. She had a newspaper and
cut out large and small shapes, of men and women, of animals and other
more difficult subjects, all with so neat an eye for form and so keen an
appreciation of what was striking that her audience were carried away
with admiration and delight, and one or two who had never seen her do it
before were amazed beyond any powers of expression which they possessed.
Their train came before Jack’s and they rose, bustling, to go out.
Milly’s dark scornful-browed brother was with her and had stared at Jack
sarcastically. Milly had shown no sign of seeing him. The paper she had
was full of big advertisements and one sheet bore only six words on a
side, in broad black letters. Just as she stood up she cut out something,
while the rest were gathering up their belongings, and held it under
her thumb against a gaudily covered novel she carried in her left hand.
As she passed Jack she did not look at him, but he saw the thumb of her
glove move and a silhouette of an inky black kitten fluttered down upon
his knee. He took it up and stared at it. Then he saw her look back at
him from the door.
IV.
The german was a very dazzling and magnificent affair. The hall was
large and beautiful, splendidly lighted and most lavishly decorated. The
gathering was of people who were well satisfied with themselves and had
every reason to be so. John Henderson was as well satisfied with himself
as any man in the room. It gave him keen pleasure to be in that set
and to know that he had won his way into it. His life was now one made
delightful by every luxury and by the constant sensation of success.
Money came to him faster than he had any use for it and friends gave him
the most flattering evidences that he was valued and liked. He was a
tall strong young man, well-knit and lithe. His clothes became him and
he danced perfectly. He was not merely among these courtly people, but
welcome there. His partner’s name had a decidedly patrician sound. And
she was as handsome as any girl in the room, he said to himself, save
one. For opposite him sat Miss Millicent Wareham. Her beauty was at its
best in her yellow satin ball-dress, and she looked proud and elate. He
had encountered her often recently, and they had been more than once
presented to each other, but had exchanged no words save the formal
acknowledgement of an introduction. He could not make out whether she
disliked him or merely reflected her brother’s manifest antagonism. He
took care not to look at her openly, but he glanced toward her furtively
very often. Toward the end of the dancing she saw him approach her. Her
face set and she looked at him full in the eyes without any sign of
expression as he asked her to dance with him. But just when he uttered
the last words of his slowly spoken invitation he opened his hand and she
saw the favor he was offering her. It was a tiny kitten of black chenille
made on wire, with minute yellow beads for eyes. She blushed and smiled
at the same time as soon as she caught sight of it, rose graciously and
they whirled away together. Neither spoke at all and their separation
came almost immediately. Yet he felt more elated by that fragment of
a dance than by all the compliments of word and look he had had that
evening from men and women alike. She smiled at him again as she seated
herself and his heart leapt. He saw her as she was leaving, her wrap open
still and a bit of black on her yellow corsage.
V.
It was a dirty little square by the harborside, thronged with boatmen,
sailors of all nations ashore for a day’s outing, picturesque
cigarette-smoking loafers, fruit-sellers, negroes, uniformed police and
open-shirted porters. The shops facing it were dingy, the stones of
the quay awry in places, and the filth was more than is usual even in
Rio de Janeiro. Tawdry like every populous quarter there, it had yet
that pictorial air which all semi-tropical scenes, however much defaced
by man, never quite lose. To a stranger its most salient feature was
the clutter of six-sided, gaily-hued kiosques, which are scattered all
through the streets of Rio, many decorated with flags and each selling
lottery tickets, whatever else it might have for sale. By one, which
dispensed coffee in steaming cups and cognac in tiny thin-stemmed
glasses, stood an American talking to a Portuguese. The noticeable thing
about the Brazilian was that he was usual and commonplace in every way.
There was nothing in his form, features or dress which could possibly
have served to remember him by. One might have conned him for an hour
and after he was out of sight it would have been impossible to recall
anything by which to describe him so as to distinguish him from any one
of hundreds in the crowds of the capital. Not even his age could have
been specified or approximated to. He was deliberate in his movements,
watched his environment without appearing to do so and attracted no
attention. Now he sipped his brandy while his interlocutor drank coffee,
and the two talked in subdued tones. Discussing a purchase of ship
stores, one would say.
A boatman in a suit of soiled white duck was loitering near, looking over
the harbor. He sidled up to the American and cut in between speech and
reply, in a deprecating voice:
“You wan’ Macedo see you talkin’ at Guimaraens, senhor Hen’son?”
“Where’s Macedo?” the other demanded.
The boatman pointed and the two men followed his hand. A boat was
approaching across the sparkling water, and they saw the peculiar stroke
of the navy and police-boats, in which the men pull and then rest so long
with their oars poised that they seem hypnotized in mid-stroke and a
novice expects them to stay so forever.
“There Macedo now, comin’ from Nictheroy,” said the fellow meaningly.
“What do you want me to do, Joao?” the American asked.
“Oh, Guimaraens he wait anywhere, come back when Macedo gone. You get
in my boat, I row you roun’ pas’ those docks. Then Macedo won’ see you
’tall.”
The Portuguese disappeared softly into the crowd. The boat unobtrusively
threaded the swarm of small craft, whipped behind a lighter, doubled
the nose of the nearest pier, and drifted imperceptibly on while Joao
reconnoitred.
“I guess we get behin’ that Lamport and Holt lighter. I don’ know wha’
Macedo goin’ to do.”
They scraped along past the spiles of the wharf and then dexterous
strokes of the stubby oars kept them practically motionless under the
wharf’s planking, close to one spile.
“What on earth is that?” the passenger queried, and put out his hand to
the post. He grasped a watersoaked kitten, clinging desperately to the
slippery wood, and too exhausted to mew.
“A cat!” the American ejaculated. “I didn’t know you had cats in this
country. The city is knee-deep in dogs, but I haven’t seen a cat since I
came.”
“I guess he fall overboard from that Englis’ bark, what jus’ tow out,”
Joao said serenely. “That captain he got his wife too, an’ I see some
little cat along the children.”
The kitten was coal black, not a white hair on it, and very wet.
Henderson dried it with a handkerchief and warmed it inside of his
jacket. Presently Joao said:
“Macedo’s boat gone roun’ Sacco d’Alferes. I don’ see Macedo. You bett’
not go back.”
“Go round to the Red Steps, then,” came the indulgent answer.
They rowed past the ends of the long piers, all black with shouting
men in long lines, each with a sack of coffee on his head, or hurrying
back for another. Then they bumped through a pack of boats of all kinds
and Henderson stepped out upon the worn and mortarless stones. Joao
nodded and was off without any exchange of money. The morning was a
very beautiful one and this was the landing most frequented always. At
the top of the steps John paused in a whirl of feelings. Before him
stood Millicent Wareham in a very pretty yachting suit, and she was
accompanied only by her maid. She was looking alternately back toward the
custom-house and out over the bay. Secure in the fellow-feeling of exiles
for each other he stepped up and greeted her. She looked startled but a
moment and then her face lit with an expression of real pleasure and she
held out her hand. They had not had a real conversation since childhood
and yet she began as if she had seen him yesterday:
“I am so surprised. I had no idea you were here. We came only last week.
That is our yacht out there. When did you come?”
John looked once only at the yacht, but keenly enough never to mistake it
afterwards, and answered:
“I have been here a long time. I am on business, not pleasure.”
“We may be here some time, too. I like this part of the world and we mean
to go all round South America.”
John wondered who “we” might be. He knew her father was dead and he had
heard of the breaking off of her betrothal to a titled European. It was
her brother she was with, likely enough, but he hoped it might be some
party of friends instead.
“You’ll like it all if you like this,” he answered. “But I certainly am
astonished to see you. Few Americans come here as you have. And the odd
thing is that I was just thinking of you, too.”
She looked at him with an expression he remembered well from her
girlhood, and smiled banteringly:
“You mustn’t say that. You know you don’t really mean it. You are just
being complimentary.”
“I have documentary proof right here,” he laughed, sliding his hand
inside of his coat. The kitten was dry and warm now and it mewed hungrily.
“The dear little thing,” she exclaimed. “Give it to me, won’t you?”
“Indeed I will,” he said fervently. “I am glad to find so safe a
harborage for it. And ten times glad that I had the luck to find it just
in time to give it to you.”
She beamed at him, fondling the wriggling little beast.
“I am going to call it Channoah,” she said, mimicking her childish
pronunciation archly. The maid standing by, and the moving crowd all
about, they stood chatting some minutes. The sunrays danced on the
little waves of the harbor, the soft August weather of the sub-tropical
winter of the southern hemisphere was clear and bright, the yellow walls
of the custom house, of its warehouses, of the arsenal and military
school and the army hospital, strung out along the water-front, with the
bushy-headed leaning rough-trunked palms between and the red tiled roofs
above made a fine background. Beyond and above the round bulging green
Cariocas rose hill behind hill, topped and dominated by the sharpened
camel’s hump of Corcovado. From one of the islands a bugle call blew.
The throng hummed in many tongues. Then John asked:
“And may I hope to see you again before you leave?”
Her expression changed entirely, her face fell and she looked confused.
She said:
“I am afraid not. I quite forgot everything in my pleasure at seeing
a fellow-countryman and an old playmate. I could not deny myself the
indulgence of greeting you and then I quite lost myself, it was so
natural to be with you. But Bertie may be back any minute and it would
never do for him to know I have been talking to you. Please go now.”
Her manner was constrained and her air was resuming that distance and
hauteur which he was used to seeing in her.
“Goodbye,” she said, “and thank you for the kitten.”
John walked quickly to the coffee exchange and from out of the crowd that
filled it he had the satisfaction of seeing Albert Wareham pass and of
knowing that he did not notice him and could not suspect that Milly had
seen him. It was something to have even that secret between himself and
Milly.
* * * * *
After gun-fire no boat is allowed to move about Rio harbor or bay without
a formal signed, sealed and stamped permit from the authorities. All
night the half dozen fussy little steam-launches of the water-police are
shooting about on the dark water, cutting flashing ripples through the
trails of light which the shore lights shed over the bay and probing the
pitchy shadows with stiletto flashes of their search-lights. The penalty
for being caught without papers is forfeiture of the boat and a night in
the calaboose for all, and a rigorous trial for any suspected of intended
stealing or smuggling. Between the American and Norwegian anchorages a
small boat was moving noiselessly. It was after gun-fire but still early
in the night. The oars made no sound and the craft kept to the obscure
parts of the water. In the dead silence they preserved the two men in it
heard a faint puffing still far off. They were at the most exposed part
of their passage, far from any ship and farther from the nearest wharf.
By the sound the search-light would reveal them in a moment, they judged.
The launch was coming from the west, and to eastward of them, nearer the
entrance of the bay, was the anchorages for vessels temporarily in harbor
and for pleasure yachts. One said something and the rower began to do his
utmost, after turning toward the east. Henderson had seen that he had
but one chance. He knew what would happen to him if he were caught and
he could see no escape. He had sighted the Halcyon, Wareham’s yacht, and
formed his plan at once. If Milly was on her and her brother ashore he
might be saved. If not, he was no worse off for rowing up to her.
They had more start than they had thought and both began to regret they
had not kept on toward the wharves. The launch turned the light toward
them, but their distance was such that it only half revealed them. They
were near the yacht now and the gangway was not on their side. Joao
rounded the yacht’s stern and bumped on the lowest step, the launch
throbbing after them at top speed. Henderson stepped up the gangway. The
anchor-watch had not hailed them and he had his heart in his mouth at the
certainty that either the best or worst was coming. Before he reached the
deck a face leaned over the rail well aft and a soft voice asked:
“Who is that, please?” and the words were in English.
John’s heart leapt.
“Jack,” he answered with almost a cry of relief.
Just then a yellow glare swung round from aft and an excited voice called
out in Portuguese.
Milly took in the whole situation instantly. She had been told of the
regulations and she had heard of Henderson’s supposed real business in
Brazil. The instant the pulsations of the tiny engine ceased as the
launch slowed down she spoke clearly in French, with a pleased tone of
recognition in her utterance:
“Is that you, Captain Macedo? What did you ask?”
“Ah, Miss Wareham,” came the deferential answer, “ten thousand pardons. I
thought I was addressing the watch on your vessel.”
Miss Wareham said something in sharp low tones to someone behind her and
replied:
“Will not I do as well? I was in hopes you were coming to see me, Captain
Macedo.”
“I am on duty now, not on pleasure, alas. Did not a boat approach your
yacht just now?”
The keen reflector shone full on Joao and on Henderson as he stood on the
gangway.
“Certainly,” Milly said. “One of my friends has just come to call on
me. He is under my permit, I sent it ashore to him. Can’t you come up a
moment and meet him, Captain Macedo?”
The officer muttered something and then after a flood of apologies
uttered in a very vexed tone, the launch sheered off and bustled away.
Henderson went up the steps of the gangway and a rather conventional
greeting passed between him and his hostess. She said something to the
officer of the yacht and he disappeared into his quarters. The man on
watch was well forward, the maid sat under the farthest corner of the
awning, and Milly motioned him to a seat, herself sinking into her
deck-chair. He could not see her well by the cool starlight, but her
voice was friendly as her prompt action had been, and he was advised
of the presence of the kitten in her lap by its loud purring. He took
courage.
“I have much to thank you for, Milly,” he said, half hesitating over the
old pet name. “I was in a tight place but for your sharpness.”
“I hope I shall be forgiven for my falsehoods,” she said. “But that is
not what I want to talk to you about. I have heard about you on shore
and I am very much concerned. Sammy Roland had a great deal to say of
you. He tells me that everyone feels in the air the presence of plots to
overthrow Fonseca as he did with the emperor, and Sammy says that the
conspirators are buying arms and ammunition and that it is whispered
about that you are the chief of the foreign agents engaged in this
dangerous speculation. I am worried beyond expression to think of the
risks you run if this is true.”
John looked her straight in the eyes and she returned his gaze silently.
After some breaths he spoke.
“I know I ought to deny totally your insinuations, but I can not help
trusting you, Milly.”
“God knows,” she said, “you can trust me utterly.”
“And I will,” he replied. “This puts not only myself but others in
your power. You must not breathe a word of it, Milly. I am on just
the business you have heard of and on others like it. The profits are
something enormous and the risk is proportional. If I had not found
refuge behind your subterfuge and quickness I should be now under the
certainty of being shot before daylight.”
“Oh, not so bad as that, Jack,” she exclaimed in an excited whisper.
“They would never shoot an American citizen that way.”
“The matters I am mixed up in,” he answered, “are not things for which
one dares to ask the protection of any flag. I am as near to being a
pirate as one can come in these days. And Fonseca is a man who would
shoot me first and take the risk of the legation and consulate never
suspecting what had become of me, or even of having to reckon with them
if they did. He is quick and heavy-handed.”
“I do not think him as ferocious as you do, Jack,” she said; “but I
am quite as anxious about you as possible. Sammy’s gossip might be
exaggerated and generally is. But Mr. Hernwick is a very different
person. And he, while he has had nothing to say about you, has talked to
me a great deal about the general situation here. He says that Admiral
Mello is at the head of the malcontents and is preparing to lead a revolt
of the entire navy. You probably know more about that than Mr. Hernwick.
The thing that struck me was this. He says Mello is over-confident and is
going to bungle the entire plot from haste and temerity. If Mr. Hernwick
says that, don’t you think there is something in it.”
“Indeed I do,” Jack answered heavily. “I have had some glimpses of
something of the sort. Now can you solemnly assure me, Milly, that
Hernwick did say so? For I have half a mind to give up the whole matter
and all its golden promises of fortune. There is another opening for
me elsewhere, not so glittering but safer and fairly profitable. Mr.
Hernwick is a man I respect highly and no Englishman knows so much about
the tangle of intrigues which envelopes this nation. If he had said that
to me, openly and emphatically, I should act on it.”
“And won’t you believe me, Jack, and act on what I say? I am so anxious
about you?”
The night was clear and cool, the breeze soft and even, it was cosy under
the awning and it was very pleasant and very novel to have a woman so
interested in himself. He was silent a moment, his elbows on his knees,
leaning forward on the camp-stool on which he sat. The tiny ripples
swished under the counter as the yacht swung on her cable. A banjo
twanged on a vessel somewhere near, a military band was playing a native
air in one of the plazas by the water-front, the lights danced on the
surface of the bay, and the kitten purred. Jack sighed and said:
“It is hard to let slip such possibilities. But I’ll promise.”
She held out her hand to his and they clasped. It was a long pressure.
And then she began to talk of other things and to change the current of
his thoughts. They went back to the old days in the garden and she told
him much of her life in the years between and he also narrated much of
his. They recalled the old pass-words and mutual jokes for themselves
only. And through all their long talk the purring of “Channoah the
third,” as Milly called him, ran as a sort of undertone. Jack could not
recall any evening which he had enjoyed so much.
Milly even spoke of her brother and deprecated his hatred of Henderson.
She did not deny it nor try to excuse it, but her dexterous talk left
Jack soothed and feeling that however much her interest in himself was
merely friendly, it was certain that she did not share her brother’s
contempt for him.
The launch had been circling about a half a mile off or so. Now Joao blew
a soft low whistle. The coast was clear for them to slip ashore and Jack
said goodbye.
VI.
During the years following his abrupt departure from Rio Henderson
flitted about the Southern Hemisphere. He was in Australia, in South
Africa, and on many islands, but most of his time was spent in South
America, on one side or other of the Andes. In his last venture he saw
the face of death near and ugly and felt that he had lost some of his
nerve afterward. Likewise, as he himself expressed it, he had made his
pile. So he resolved to run no more risks, but to return to his native
land and settle down to enjoy his gains. Like many another wanderer he
fancied he would like to buy the house in which he had been a happy
child and he was not sure but he would find his native town a permanent
bourne.
He noticed the change in grade of the railroad as his train steamed in.
It entered the city now over a viaduct which cleared the streets on
trestles and crossed the main thoroughfare on a fine stone arch. Under
that arch he passed in the hotel omnibus. Just beyond it he noticed a
shop with cages of birds, stuffed animals and a pretty little black
kitten just inside the plate glass of the front. He noted the number and
meant to return later after he had had his supper.
A square or so farther on he saw pass him a handsome open carriage.
His heart stood still at sight of the figure in it. Milly saw him and
returned his bow with a cordial smile. She was still beautiful, with a
full-grown woman’s best charms. Very haughty she looked too, as became
the heir of the Wareham fortune. Henderson had heard of her brother’s
death sometime before.
About sunset John entered the animal-seller’s shop. The kitten was gone.
Could not say when it had been sold. Could not say to whom it had been
sold. Could not send to the purchaser and try to buy it back. Grumpy and
curt replies generally. John left the shop in a bad humor.
Flicking with his cane the tall grasses in the neglected spaces before
wooden front-yard fences John strolled in the twilight to the old garden.
The house was empty again and the garden had run wild. It was not the
wilderness he remembered but it had the same outlines and the same
general character. His heart warmed over it and memories thronged.
His feet carried him he knew not whither. In the late twilight he found
himself before the splendid Wareham mansion. He was vexed that he had
not been able to get that kitten and send it to Milly in a big box of
pink roses, like the roses in the old garden. Then he was vexed that he
had not thought to send her the roses anyhow, as soon as he had found he
could not get the kitten. Then he opened the gate, walked springily in
and rang the bell.
Yes, Miss Wareham was at home. The warm lamp-light which had led him
in shone from the room into which he was ushered. Milly was reading by
the lamp itself. She rose to greet him. Her yellow satin gown became
her well and her voice was sweet to his ears. Her words were cordial.
But what Jack noticed to the exclusion of everything else was the very
black kitten he had failed to purchase, tucked under her arm, purring
vociferously, and very becoming, it seemed to his eyes, to the color of
her dress. The instant he saw it he knew what he meant to say to her. And
the look in her eyes told him almost as plainly as the pet she fondled
what her answer would be.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: HERE AND THERE IN MARYLAND
BY EDWARD G. McDOWELL.]
[Illustration: _Near Pen-Mar, Western Maryland Railroad._]
[Illustration: _Old Mill Race, Walbrook._]
[Illustration: _Near Annapolis._]
[Illustration: _In Green Spring Valley._]
[Illustration: _The Old Liberty Road._]
[Illustration: _Tred Avon River._]
[Illustration: _On Gwynn’s Falls._]
[Illustration: _Smith’s Lane, Walbrook._]
[Illustration: HOW RANDALL GOT INTO THE SALON]
It was fully a minute before Joe Randall could summon up his courage to
knock. He was ordinarily a phlegmatic Englishman, not easily moved, but
to-day he was out of breath from an exceptionally long walk, and the
excitement which invariably attends the first visit of an inconsequential
young art student to the studio of a world-renowned painter. At length
he resolutely pulled himself together and rapped. He received in reply
a command, rather than an invitation, to enter. In obedience to the
imperative summons he slowly pushed the massive door ajar and the next
instant perceived he was standing in the actual, awful presence of the
famous Master. The shock produced on him by the sudden change from the
comparative darkness of the hall to the fierce, out-of-door light of the
studio, blinded and troubled him nearly as much as did the contrast of
his own littleness and poverty with the evidences of oppressive affluence
and power before him. In his confusion a large, weather-beaten canvas,
ill-tied and wrapped in an old journal, which he had carried under his
arm all the way over from the Latin Quarter to far-away Montmartre,
slipped from its flimsy envelope and fell with a resounding bang upon
the floor, thereby adding to his already great embarrassment. He stooped
nervously to pick it up, giving vent at the same time to a half audible
“_Bon jour!_”
He had timed his visit so as not to interfere with the Master’s morning
work, and noticed with a feeling of satisfaction and returning
confidence, that the model had gone, and that the Master himself was
languidly engaged in cleaning up his palette. The Master, on his part,
was evidently used to visits of the kind from other shabbily-dressed
young men, for he promptly roared back, “_Bon jour_,” and even added
“_mon ami!_” in tones in which it would have been difficult to detect
a single friendly note. The unexpectedness of the second part of the
greeting served partially to reassure Randall, and enabled him to explain
the cause of his intrusion.
“I have come,” he began in halting, broken French, “to ask you if you
will criticise a picture which I intend to submit to the Salon jury next
month? I am not a pupil of yours at present, although I have studied for
a short time under you at Julian’s,—before I entered Monsieur Rousseau’s
class at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, where I am now working. I have been
told that you are always willing to give advice to young men of your
profession, and especially to those who, like myself, have once been
members of your school.”
The Master, who was a fat, energetic little man of about sixty, glared
at the intruder from under a pair of bushy eyebrows, as though he were
trying to look him through and through and read if he had any other
motive in coming to call upon him; and then, with a movement bordering
on brusqueness, whisked the canvas from his trembling hand and placed it
on a vacant easel by his side. He intended no unkindness by his action,
as Randall soon found out for himself. He was only authoritative, and
this was his habitual manner towards friend and foe alike, as well as
the secret that underlay his success and power in the artistic world.
For power he certainly had; not the kind perhaps that comes from fine
achievement or a noble personality, but a sort of brutal, political,—and
as he put it, “administrative”—power, which caused him to be courted and
feared, and enabled him to make and unmake the reputations of countless
of his fellow craftsmen. It was an open secret that he managed the only
Salon then in existence practically as he pleased, and put in or put out
all those whom he happened at the moment either to like or dislike; that
he medalled, or left without recompense, whomsoever he chose; and that on
more than one occasion (it must be confessed to his shame) he had even
unjustly withheld the official honors from those who were most eminently
entitled to receive them.
He regarded the picture with the stony stare of the Sphinx for what
appeared to Joe Randall to be an eternity, and then, turning suddenly
towards him, said, with astounding candor—perfected by a long and
constant cultivation,—“Personally, I don’t like your picture at all: It
is a landscape, even if there are two unimportant little figures in it,
and landscapes, however well done, are of little consequence and prove
nothing. This one, with the exception of the distance, which is passably
good, is not comprehensively treated; the foreground is not at all right
in values and doesn’t explain itself; it is, in fact, a wretched piece of
work and spoils whatever small merit there may be in the picture. Can’t
you yourself see that it does so?”
Randall had thought his picture fairly good when he had taken it away
from his poor little studio in the Latin Quarter that morning, but here,
in the midst of all these gorgeous surroundings, he had to admit that it
looked insignificant enough.
“If I were in your place,” the Master continued, “I should not waste any
more time on _that_ production, but would paint a figure piece—a Jeanne
d’Arc, or some classical, or Biblical subject: pictures of this kind
always create a sensation in the Salon, and—get three-fourths of the
recompenses besides,” he added shrewdly.
“But it is too late to do that this year,” answered Joe; “there is barely
a month before the pictures must be sent to the Palais de l’Industrie.”
“That is true,” admitted the Master wearily.
“I must send this picture in,” continued Joe, “or nothing.”
“Then,” replied the Master promptly, “I would send in nothing.”
Randall was silenced and thoroughly discouraged by this rejoinder. He
thought bitterly over his want of success. He had sent pictures to the
three preceding Salons, and all of them had been declined. If he followed
the advice just given him he would have to wait a whole year before he
would have another chance to make his bow to the public as a real, a
professional painter. It was too maddening and the more he thought about
it the more miserable he became. He showed this state of feeling plainly
in his face, and the Master forgot himself long enough to notice it, and
to his own very great astonishment was touched.
“Is it very important that you should exhibit something this year?” he
inquired in a kinder voice.
“Yes,” replied Joe, nearly bursting into tears, “it is of the _utmost_
importance to me. I have been refused for three years in succession, and
if I do not get something into the Salon this spring, my father will
think that my picture has been rejected again, and will probably send for
me to come home and make me give up art.”
“In that case,” said the Master firmly, “_we must get you in_.”
He walked over to his Louis XV desk and picked up a small red note-book,
bound in Russia leather, which was filled with the names of his private
pupils and alphabetically and conveniently arranged.
“What is your name, young man?” he asked; and on receiving his reply, he
turned the page reserved for the R’s and wrote down hastily, “Randall,
J.—landscape.” “Now,” he went on, “do what I tell you! Go home and paint
up that foreground more carefully. Even _I_ could not get my associates
to vote for it as it stands. I will see to the rest—don’t worry! You can
count on me!”
Randall, light-hearted once more, expressed his thanks profusely for
these highly comforting assurances, and was on the point of departing
when the Master abruptly demanded, “Why didn’t you go to the Pere
Rousseau, instead of coming to me? He is your teacher now, not I!”
“I did go to him.” admitted Randall, blushing deeply, “and he said my
work wasn’t half bad, and⸺”
“But did you ask him to speak a good word for you to the jury?” inquired
the Master maliciously.
“Yes,” nodded Randall, smiling but blushing still more deeply. “I felt
that so many of the professors protected their pupils that it was only
fair that I should receive the same treatment.”
“Well! what then?” demanded the Master, ill-concealing an irrepressible
tendency to laugh.
“He became very angry and ordered me out of his place,” responded Joe.
“He said that any man who was not strong enough to get into the Salon on
his own merit, _ought_ to be thrown out.”
The Master was rolling over and over on his divan in a most indecorous
way, holding his plump hands on his plump sides, in an explosion of
merriment. Then, suddenly realizing how undignified his behavior
must appear, he recovered his composure with a jerk, and remarked
thoughtfully, with just a tinge of pity in his voice, “The Pere
Rousseau—the dear old man—always acts like that when he is requested to
protect anyone! He is a sort of modern Don Quixote and can’t understand
how matters are arranged to-day. If it weren’t for me—his best friend—he
wouldn’t see the work of many of his pupils in the Salon; and let me add,
young man, that it is a mighty good thing for you that you could say just
now you were a pupil of _his_ and not of some of the other so-called
artists I could name to you if I chose.”
The Master’s eyebrows became ominously contracted again, and he only
deigned to snap out a ferocious “_Bon jour!_” to the departing Randall,
omitting the more cordial “_mon ami_” of the first salutation.
The annual banquet given by the Alumni and the present students of the
Atelier Rousseau, was offered to that distinguished artist, as was usual,
just before the opening of the colossal Parisian picture show. It was
also, as usual, a very gay affair. The Pere Rousseau himself, affable
and stately, appeared punctually on the scene of the festivities and
was promptly ensconced in a huge armchair, thoughtfully placed half way
down a long vista of coarse, but snowy, tablecloth. Opposite to him, in
another similar armchair, sat his best friend—the Master, to whom Randall
had so recently gone for advice. He was radiant and happy; a sense of
duty well done pervaded his entire personality. The dinner—a truly
marvelous production at the price—was eaten with avidity by the younger
men, who were not used to such luxury every day, and with a good-natured
tolerance by Monsieur Rousseau, the Master, and those few of the guests
who had been born with silver spoons in their mouths, or whose feet
were, by their own creditable endeavors, firmly planted on the highroad
which leads to fame and fortune. Such small formality as existed at the
commencement of the feast gradually disappeared and, when the inevitable
champagne was finally brought forth, there were not over a hundred
individuals with a hundred diverse interests present, but one great human
family, presided over by a dearly loved and affectionate father. Then
speeches were made, and Lecroix, the most irrepressible, fun-loving man
in the school, became bold enough to produce a Punch and Judy booth from
a room nearby and proceeded to give an audacious parody on the Atelier
and its illustrious chief.
Randall not having heard from his picture, and dying to know its fate,
managed, under the pretence of seeing the performance better, to work his
way up close to the Master’s chair. The Master saw him and smiled: “It is
all right,” he whispered, “you are well placed, nearly on the line in the
_Salle d’Honneur_. Why, however, did you change your picture so much? The
distance was fairly good when you showed it to me at my studio, and you
ought only to have worked on the foreground. The changes you have made
in the composition were so badly done, and ill-advised, that I had to
fight hard, I can tell you, against a pack of over-conscientious fellows,
before I could get them to vote for it at all. If it hadn’t been lunch
time, and so many of them were hungry and wanted to leave, rather than
to dispute over pictures, I don’t think that even _I_ could have managed
them satisfactorily.”
“But,” interrupted Joe in astonishment, “I didn’t change the composition
a bit. I only altered the foreground as you told me to do.”
“Then there must be some mistake,” said the Master uneasily. “But no!
Here we are.” He produced his faithful note book from his pocket and
fumbled its pages until he came to the one devoted to the R’s, and
pointed to the words he had written over a month before, “Randall,
J.—landscape;” after which he had scribbled with a blue pencil the words
“Accepted” and “John.” “You did not give me your first name when I wrote
this here, so I copied it down afterwards from your picture when I saw
that it was safely and desirably hung. You see that it’s all right after
all: you almost made me feel for the moment as though there were some
error.”
“But there is a mistake!” groaned the young man in his agony, “my first
name is Joseph, not John, and you have protected some body else whose
last name and initial happen to be the same as mine.”
“_’Cre nom de nom!_” whistled the master profanely.
* * * * *
John Randall—an American from Vermont—returned from the Salon on
Varnishing Day. He sat down and wrote to his people across the water,
telling them triumphantly the news of his acceptance—the bare fact of
which he had cabled to them the week before. He described graphically the
memorable opening day, and thus ended up his letter:
“You have heard no doubt long ago that I have passed the difficult test
of the Salon jury, and that my very first picture has been accepted.
I am all the more pleased and proud over the result because it was
received _solely on its own merits_. I painted it by myself, without
any outside advice or criticism, and did not solicit the protection of
the professors of the school, as I found, to my disgust, so many of my
comrades were engaged in doing. Besides the fact of getting in under
these circumstances, I am also pleased to be able to tell you that the
hanging committee have seen fit to give me one of the very best places
in the whole Salon—in the Gallery of Honor. Having done so well with my
first picture, I feel that I am fully justified in anticipating a like
measure of success with my second.
Give my love to all at home, and believe me,
Most affectionately your,
JOHN RANDALL.”
—_Clinton Peters._
[Illustration]
A VALENTINE.
I send my heart across the years to you!
With all its humanness and all its waste;
With all that yet is tender and is true,
Though time has triumphed and youth’s hope disgraced.
What though the snows are gathered on the ground,
And bare the bough within the aching chill?
I think of you—and in my ear a sound
Breaks, and enraptures with its April thrill!
I hear the trailing hem of laggard Spring,
And daffodils seem leaning to my hand,
And on the air I glimpse the eager wing
Of birds that wander from a softer land.
And I forget—forget the world of loss,
The drift and change of things, the pain of age:
For dreams have turned to gold life’s gifts of dross;
A sweetness lingers on time’s yellowed page.
I send my heart across the years to you
As missive of the season’s hallowed day,
To you who make the heavens seem so blue—
Make love forget its livery’s grown gray:
—_Maurice Weyland._
[Illustration: ELENA’S DAUGHTERS
BY D. RAMON ORTEGA Y FRIAS]
_From the Spanish by L. Solyom._
CHAPTER I.
DOÑA ELENA, DOÑA LUZ, DOÑA ESTRELLA.
Never, either in the times when the Spaniards were ruled by a King who
was the best of cavaliers and worst of poets—yet still a poet—a King who
paid too much attention to pretty women, and none whatever to affairs of
state,—nor yet up to the present time, has any one known or hoped to know
the history of the famous Elena and her three daughters who have acquired
a fame scarcely inferior to her own. Yet it has become known. We know it,
and the reader shall know all that afterwards happened to these three
women and to their mother, who made them worthy of the celebrity which
they acquired.
Doña Elena used to affirm that she was the widow of an “Alcalde de casa
y corte” (a sort of justice of the peace), and that she was able to live
decently and at ease on the property consisting of her marriage portion
and what her husband had left her; and certainly she did live in this
style. She was very devout, went to mass every day, to confession and
communion every Sunday, and there was never a religious festival at which
she was not present. She received no visitors except a Dominican friar,
a very virtuous man; a gentleman who was very rich, old, and belonged
to the order of Santiago, who never left the cross except when he went
to sleep, and then only because he had another at the head of his bed;
and a retired captain, lame and one-eyed, who had once held an important
position in the Indies. Neither their age, characters, nor condition
could give rise to any suspicion, or give any reason for censure.
The widow had three daughters, grown to womanhood, and brought up in the
fear of God, as they must have been with such a mother. It was supposed
that they wanted to get married, which was very natural, yet as they
never gave any cause for scandal, it was impossible not to recognize
their virtue. As far as could be ascertained, the family was as honorable
as any other, and led a saintly life, yet the widow and her daughters
were looked upon with a certain avoidance, some distrust and some
fear. Why? Nobody knew. The suspicions, though apparently unjust, were
instinctive.
People persisted in their determination to see something mysterious in
the family, and that was enough. When the occasion arises, we shall
repeat some of the grave and extraordinary things that were said about
them, things touching the miraculous and supernatural; but, as no one
could affirm that he had actually seen anything, it was all hearsay, and
there was reason to suppose that an evil-disposed, hidden and despicable
enemy had spread these reports, in order to harm the widow and her
daughters with impunity.
Many people came to this sensible conclusion, but still there was always
some doubt left, and a lack of confidence was justifiable because the
_vox populi_ might be right, and it has always been considered better to
err on the side of prudence than that of daring.
If the enemy was some discarded suitor, who was resolved that no one else
should have what he could not obtain, he might well have rejoiced at
the success of his scheme, for it was not an easy thing for these three
girls to find husbands while such doubts and rumors concerning them were
afloat, in spite of the virtues which adorned them.
We are not sure how old Doña Elena was, and it was not an easy thing to
guess her age, for her looks varied. In the street, dressed in black
and wrapped in a cape, with her head bent and eyes fixed on the ground,
the only visible part of her face her large nose,—which was shaped like
the beak of a bird of prey and adorned with a black and white wart,
shaped like a sweet pea, a legacy of her misfortune,—she looked about
seventy. But at home, without the cape, with her face held erect, with
her abundant black hair which a young girl might have envied, with her
energetic movements and sharp, penetrating eyes, one could not have
imagined her over sixty.
From what we have been saying our readers will suppose that the widow
was ugly, and really her ugliness was perfection. She was very tall,
with a muscular and somewhat masculine form, a very large mouth, with an
overlip covered with a black down that resembled a moustache, with only
two large and sharp upper teeth remaining, with two patches of hair on
each side of her beard, a narrow furrowed forehead, thick bushy eyebrows,
and round sunken eyes. One of these, the left one, she invariably closed
when speaking rapidly or looking attentively at any object, while the
other then became very expressive, and it was impossible to avoid her
penetrating gaze. Her voice was heavy and obscure, sounding, whenever
she raised it, like an echo from the distance. Some of her ill-natured
detractors had even said that there was reason to doubt the sex of Doña
Elena, as she might as easily be a beardless man in disguise as a bearded
woman.
Now that we have described the widow, if not as she really was, at least
as she was known to the world, we will speak of her daughters. They did
not resemble the widow in the least. They were young, nineteen, eighteen,
and seventeen, and were all prodigies of beauty. They were called Sol,
Luz, and Estrella, and with the dark clouds of Doña Elena’s ugliness,
formed a heaven on earth.
Doña Sol’s face was somewhat dark, and oval, her hair black, and her
eyes of the same color, lazy, wide open, with glances penetrating and
expressive, such glances as set you on fire, and produce an effect
similar to that of an electric current. It was impossible to look at her
unmoved, for her lips were as provoking as her fiery eyes were burning,
and it was unnecessary for her to speak or smile to set the coldest
hearts on fire, and turn the heads of the steadiest.
Doña Luz was not so tall, and of somewhat fuller though wonderfully
perfect proportions, with a fair skin, chestnut hair, and large gray eyes
with long lashes, through which passed her sweet, quiet and melancholy
glances. There was always a slight smile on her lips, her words were
pleasant, she showed great tenderness and common sense, and was one of
those gentle spirits, who, instead of promising ineffable pleasures,
offer a sweet happiness and all the delights of an unalterable calm.
It is impossible to draw a correct likeness of Doña Estrella, who was
a spiritual and sublime being, one of those angels in human form,
apparently descended from Heaven to give us a conception of celestial
beauties. Her blonde hair, pure transparent azure eyes, slender form and
delicate shape presented a combination of unutterable charms. Sensible,
innocent, candid, and timid,—we repeat, it is impossible to give a
correct description of Estrella.
It seems impossible, too, that three girls such as we have tried to
describe could all fail to find husbands, but as we have observed, public
opinion was strongly rooted against them, and there were people who
firmly believed that their wonderful beauty was the work of Satan to lure
the innocent to destruction.
The four always went together to fulfil their religious duties, the
girls in front, the youngest first, and the mother bringing up the
rear that she might watch over them all, even with her left eye closed
as it usually was. Those who met the little procession, saw first
of all Estrella, whose timidity kept her eyes fixed on the ground,
and, impressed with the sentimentality and sublimity of her blushing
innocence, they looked up to see Doña Luz, full of artlessness and
enviable tranquility, showing her face like one who had nothing to fear
from malice; and finally, willing or unwilling, were compelled to meet
the running fire which darted from the eyes of Doña Sol—eyes that in
the street did not look upon you face to face, but slyly as if they did
not wish to see. After all these pleasant, fascinating and enchanting
visions, they beheld the round sunken eyes of the widow, eyes with pupils
like phosphorescent lights in the depths of some cavern, and her big nose
with the wart on it. And they would ask themselves if such a horrible
looking monster could really have given birth to such beautiful daughters.
In spite of all that was said about them, the influence of their charms
brought many daring wooers to the street inhabited by Doña Elena, and
the sounds of the guitar, and voices filled with deep emotion chanting
their sweet love songs, could frequently be heard there, yet no one of
these nocturnal troubadours could pride himself upon having noticed
the smallest opening of a window or balcony in the dwelling of these
bewitching women. It happened, too, that none of these serenades ever
ended in bloody affrays, as was frequently the case in those times, and
these are our proofs for the assertion that the young ladies never gave
rise to any scandal which could injure their reputation.
But curiosity is never hindered by obstacles and is perhaps more
tenacious than love itself, and so sometimes the lovers and sometimes
inquisitive outsiders attempted to bribe the servants of the widow,
but succeeded only in learning that there are some servants who are
incorruptible. Yet their attempts did not stop there, for the slyest of
all found some means of entering into relationship with the only three
persons who visited the widow, that is, the Dominican friar, the Knight
of Santiago, and the lame, one-eyed captain.
But the friar when approached on the subject only said:
“It is not permitted to clergymen to speak about their children of
the confessional, for this might lead to indiscretions which, however
harmless, might become dangerous in the end.”
The Knight of Celibacy would answer angrily:
“This respectable lady is my friend. I don’t know anything more.”
And the veteran, looking askance at the interrogator with his remaining
eye, would say, twisting his moustache angrily:
“Por Dios Vivo! What I detest most is an inquisitive person.”
And all this contributed to the fact that Doña Elena and her daughters
were looked upon as mysterious people.
We have now only to state that they lived in a large house in the street
called “de las Infantas,” which in those days began in “La Hortaleza”
street, and ended in a dirty alley, which formed an angle following the
garden wall of the convent of the Barefooted Carmelites.