CHAPTER I

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THE WHITE FLAG

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BOOKS BY GENE STRATTON-PORTER

_Nature_

THE SONG OF THE CARDINAL

HOMING WITH THE BIRDS

BIRDS OF THE BIBLE

MUSIC OF THE WILD

FRIENDS IN FEATHERS

MOTHS OF THE LIMBERLOST

MORNING FACE

_Novels_

FRECKLES

AT THE FOOT OF THE RAINBOW

A GIRL OF THE LIMBERLOST

THE HARVESTER

LADDIE

MICHAEL O’HALLORAN

A DAUGHTER OF THE LAND

HER FATHER’S DAUGHTER

THE WHITE FLAG

_Poetry_

THE FIRE BIRD

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[Illustration: “What does my heart know of the heart of a child beating

beneath it?”]

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THE WHITE FLAG

BY

GENE STRATTON-PORTER

FRONTISPIECE

BY

LESTER RALPH

S. B. GUNDY TORONTO

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

GARDEN CITY NEW YORK

1923

------------------------------------------------------------------------

COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY

GENE STRATTON-PORTER

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION

INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN

COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE COMPANY

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES

AT

THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.

_First Edition_

------------------------------------------------------------------------

TO

THE BOYS AND GIRLS “GROWN TALL”

WITH WHOM, IN CHILDHOOD,

I PASSED UNDER

THE WHITE FLAG

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CONTENTS

I “He That Was Cold and Hungry”

II The Gifts of Light and Song

III An Inquisition According to Mahlon

IV “Strength from Weakness”

V The Verdict Goes Against Jezebel

VI The Golden Egg

VII Field Mice Among the Wheat

VIII A Secret Among the Stars

IX Sometimes Your Soul Shows

X A Trick of the Subconscious

XI The Driver of the Chariot

XII Those Who Serve

XIII Only Three Words

XIV The Cloud That Grew

XV The Last Straw

XVI The Eyes of Elizabeth

XVII “A Millstone and the Human Heart”

XVIII A Triumph in Millinery

XIX Rebecca Pronounces Judgment

XX The Decision Marcia Reached

XXI “Whatsoever a Man Sows”

XXII Behind the Lilac Wall

XXIII The Flag on Its Journey

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LIST OF CHARACTERS

MAHALA SPELLMAN, the Model Child

MAHLON SPELLMAN, the Dry-goods Merchant

ELIZABETH SPELLMAN, a Fine Lady

MARTIN MORELAND, the Harvester of Riches

MRS. MARTIN MORELAND, a Bewildered Wife

MARTIN MORELAND, Junior, a Chip from the Paternal Block

BECKY SAMPSON, Bearer of the White Flag

EDITH WILLIAMS, the Child of Discontent

MARCIA PETERS, the Bearer of Chains

JASON PETERS, Walking the Road

MEHITABLE ASHCROFT, Teacher of Room Five

PETER POTTER, the Village Grocer

ELLEN FORD, a Wild Rose

JEMIMA DAVIS, a Friend in Need

NANCY BODKIN, Who Believed in Face Values

Remainder of characters: School children, villagers, a minister, a

doctor, a lawyer, etc.

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THE WHITE FLAG

CHAPTER I

“HE THAT WAS COLD AND HUNGRY”

Elizabeth Spellman opened her eyes, turned on her pillow, and minutely

studied the face of her sleeping husband. To her, Mahlon Spellman was

not a vain, pompous, erratic little man of fifty. When she looked at him

she saw the man who had courted her, of whose moral and mental

attainments she had been so sure. She had visioned him as a future

deacon of the Methodist Church, a prominent member of the School Board

and the city council, and her vision had materialized; reality had been

better than the Dream. He was Chairman of the County Republican

Committee, frequently a delegate to state conventions, the Methodist

Sunday School Superintendent, the richest dry-goods merchant of the

town. As she studied his features that particular September morning, she

choked down a rising flutter of satisfaction. Mahlon, as he lay there,

represented success, influence, wealth. He slept as fastidiously as he

walked abroad; he seemed conscious of his dignity and pride even as he

lay unconscious.

Her home, of which she was inordinately proud, was his gift to her. The

very satisfactory life she was living was possible because she was under

the shelter of his sufficient hands. The child she mothered was the

offspring of her love for him. She did not know that the elements in him

which she mentally labelled “neat” and “thorough,” were denominated

“fussy” by his neighbours. She lauded the scrupulous cleanliness and

precision which kept him constantly flicking invisible dust from his

sleeve and straightening his tie. To her this only meant that personally

he was as scrupulous as she was herself; to her these traits never

revealed the truth that Mahlon was an egoist, who kept himself

constantly foremost in his own mind, a man selfish to a degree that

would have been unendurable had not his selfishness encompassed his

pride in her, their child, and their home as the fulfilment of one

branch of his personality. His craze for power she denominated laudable

ambition. The position in which he was able to place her socially, she

accepted as her due; she spent her days prettifying her really beautiful

home, doing everything in her power to pamper Mahlon physically, to

uphold and further his ambitions, because she was comfortably certain

that there was no eminence to which she could boost him that she might

not share in proud security with him. Among the demands of society, her

position as a Colonial Dame, a pillar of the Church, leader of social

activities, charities, and the excruciating exactions she bestowed upon

the office of motherhood, she was a busy person.

At that minute she sighed with satisfaction, thinking of her wonderful

achievement in marrying Mahlon Spellman; but with the thought came the

memory of the duties that such a marvellous alliance entailed. At the

present minute it was her duty to slip from their bed so quietly that

Mahlon, the bread winner, the bearer of large gifts, the roof of the

house, might have a few minutes more sleep. She slipped her feet into

her bedroom shoes, tiptoed to the closet, and gathering up her clothing,

stole softly to her one of the three bathrooms of the town, where, with

exacting care, she made her toilet for the morning, aided by the

magnificence of a tin tub and a marble bowl that absorbed stains with

disconcerting ease.

She glanced from the window to watch the small town of Ashwater waking

to the dawn of the first Monday of September. It lay among the hills and

valleys of rolling country. A river wound around it following a

leisurely course toward the sea. Ashwater was one of the oldest towns of

the state, peopled by self-respecting merchants, professional men who

took time to follow the ramifications of their business in a deliberate

manner, and retired farmers who were enjoying, in late life, the luxury

of being in close touch with social, political, and religious

activities.

It was early morning. The sun was slanting across the hills, showing the

country brilliant in autumnal foliage. A blood-red maple lifted like a

flame in her line of vision, and close to it was the tapestry of buckeye

and the rich brown of oak. The big white colonial house in which she,

the wife of the wealthy dry-goods merchant, lived, was surrounded with

gorgeous colour from every shrub, bush, and tree that would endure the

rigours of winter. She looked approvingly on the white picket fence that

shut off her small world from the worlds of her less fortunate

neighbours. She approved of the screening evergreens that made homing

places for the birds, and the gorgeous beds of chrysanthemums brocading

the smooth turf of the lawn. Her view from the bathroom window was

restricted, but mentally she envisaged her surroundings and knew that

they made a picture which would indicate to any passer-by that here was

a home of wealth and comfort. She was certain that any one going by

would think it a home of happiness.

She stood a minute before the mirror, studying her pretty little face.

She was nearly twenty years younger than her husband, an exacting woman,

perfectly capable of muttering “prunes and prisms” by the hour for the

shaping of her mouth as she moved about her occupation of being her

husband’s wife, her daughter’s mother, her own social Influence.

Elizabeth Spellman believed in Influence. It was her duty to set a

shining example. She had no vision of a modest candle—when she let her

light “so shine” she meant it to be a headlight, and of no mean

proportions at that. As she patted her hair in place, set the bow at her

throat with exact precision, she smiled with pleasure over the picture

her mirror held facing her. But Elizabeth Spellman was a woman who

firmly held duty above pleasure, or rather, who found her greatest

pleasure in her personal conception of her duty; so she turned from the

mirror, gathered up her belongings, and leaving everything in place,

went hurriedly down the hall. She softly opened a white door and her

eyes instantly sought a small bed, standing in a room made dainty with

pale pinks and blues. She hurried to the bed, and bending, laid her hand

upon the little girl sleeping there.

“Mahala,” she said softly, “you must wake up now, dear. It’s the first

day of school, you know, and you mustn’t spoil a year, that I hope will

be extremely beneficial to you, by being late. And certainly you must

not slight your other duties in order to be on time.”

Elizabeth Spellman said this because she was the kind of woman who would

say exactly this without the slightest regard as to whether her little

daughter were sufficiently awake either to hear or to understand it. She

said it in order to give herself the satisfaction of knowing that in

case Mahala did hear any part of it she would have got the right

impression. She believed in impressions quite as firmly as she believed

in influence—possibly even more strongly—for if one did not make a good

impression, she would lose her influence, or, fatal thing! have none to

lose. Elizabeth Spellman was a firm believer in the fact that, if the

twig is bent in the proper direction, the tree will be inclined in the

right manner.

Mahala opened her eyes and looked at her mother. Then she shut them and

tried to decide how long she might lie still before she made a move to

get up. She discovered that there was no time to waste that morning. A

firm hand turned back the covers and gripped her shoulder. So she

mustered a smile, swung her feet to the floor, and still half asleep,

stumbled down the hall before her mother.

Her bath thoroughly awakened her. She was old enough to have been of

some help to herself, but helping herself with her toilet was not a

point stressed by her mother, who took particular pride and pleasure in

bathing the exquisitely shaped little body under her hands. She examined

the ears particularly. She made sure there were no obtrusive “boos”

disfiguring the small nose by the use of a handkerchief stretched over a

hairpin. Mahala’s hair curled naturally around her face. Her mother

assisted the long heavy back hair occasionally. She now unwound the

golden curls from their papers and brushed them into place with

exquisite precision. Every small undergarment she put upon the child was

of fine material, hand made, elaborately trimmed. A mirror was lifted

from the closet and set upon the floor before which Mahala had to stand

and see that her stocking seams were straight in the back. The ruffles

of her pantalettes were carefully fluffed; her slippers were securely

buttoned. Her petticoats and her wide-skirted dress were in the height

of style and of expensive material. The finishing touch to her toilet

was a white apron having a full skirt, and wide shoulder pieces meeting

at the band, then curving to form deep pockets. From an open drawer a

handkerchief was taken from a box and carefully scented.

“Please, Mother, put some on me,” begged Mahala.

Elizabeth Spellman laughed softly. She tipped the contents of the bottle

against the glass stopper which she touched in several spots on the

golden curls and over the shoulders.

“My little girl likes to be sweet like a flower, doesn’t she?” she

asked.

And the child answered primly: “Yes, Mama, so that Papa will be pleased

with me.”

Whereupon her mother immediately kissed her and commended her for

thinking of anything that would be a pleasure to her father.

As she gathered up Mahala’s nightdress and turned the bed to air, she

said to the child: “Now run, dear, and waken your father, but remember

you must not muss yourself or spend too much time.”

Mahala hurried down the hall, softly opened the door to her parents’

bedroom, and poised on her tiptoes. Her heart was racing. Her eyes were

big pools having dancing lights. Her muscles cried for exercise. She

wanted to make a flying leap and land on the bed, but she knew what her

reception would be if she did; so she crossed the room very primly and

laid a soft hand on her father’s face.

“Papa, dear,” she said, “wake up! School begins this morning and you

won’t be in time to have breakfast with me unless you hurry.”

She leaned over and kissed him and patted his face, but, when he reached

up and drew her down in his arms, she was instantly on the defensive.

“Papa, be careful!” she cautioned. “Mother has my curls made and I am

all dressed for school. She wouldn’t like it if you were to muss me.”

Instantly Mahlon’s arms relaxed.

“No, she wouldn’t like it,” he said, “and neither would I. Give Papa

another kiss and run to your music, like a little lady.”

So Mahala hurried back to her room, where she took in her arms a

beautiful wax doll, almost as large as herself, carefully carrying it

down the stairs and into the living room. With her keen eyes she

surveyed this familiar place, but the same stiffly starched lace

curtains depended from the fringed lambrequins, the same gorgeous

flowers spread among the scrolls of the Brussels carpet, the same

mahogany chairs stood, each in its exact spot, each picture covered its

size in the original freshness of the wall paper. She could not see a

thing to arrest or interest her, so she proceeded to the parlour, where

the big square piano stood among the real treasures of the house:

rosewood sofa and chairs, a parlour table having leaves, cabinets for

books and bric-a-brac, a loaded what-not, and the roses of the velvet

carpet so big and so bright that it was a naughty trick of Mahala to

pretend she stubbed her toes and stumbled over them. Here the lace

curtains fell from velvet draperies and spread widely on the floor; a

china dog guarded glass-encased hair flowers on the mantel, while the

morning-glories climbing up the wall paper must have sprung from the

same exuberant soil that furnished the originals of the carpet roses.

Mahala swept this room also with a bird-alert glance and seeing not the

change of a fleck of dust anywhere, set Belinda on a chair beside the

piano stool and surveyed her minutely.

“Belinda, can’t you sit like a little lady?” she said reprovingly. “Two

curls over each shoulder, the rest down your back; heels touching, toes

out. If I got to wear a silk dress every day, let me tell you, I’d swish

it properly.”

She spread the silken skirts, fixed the curls, and placed a hymn book in

the hands of the doll. Carefully spreading her own skirts, she climbed

to the piano stool. Hearing her mother’s step on the stairs, in a sweet

little voice she began singing, to her own accompaniment: “I thank thee,

Father, for the light.” Then she slid from the stool, exchanged the hymn

book in the doll’s lap for a piece of sheet music, and climbing back,

began practising her lesson. She worked with one eye on the door of the

living room and the other on the keyboard. Every time her mother’s back

was turned, she stuck her feet straight out, and with propulsion

attained by setting her hands against the piano, whirled in a circle on

the stool, first to the left until the stool was too low, and then to

the right until the stool was the required height. She was so dexterous

at this that she could accomplish one revolution between the measures of

the music in places where a rest occurred. Her face was sparkling with

suppressed laughter whenever she feelingly struck a chord and then

accomplished a revolution before catching the next note and continuing

her exercise. But she was quite serious, seemingly intent upon her work,

when her mother stepped to the door to announce: “Your time is up,

Mahala. You have still a few minutes remaining that you might profitably

spend with your needle.”

Mahala slipped to the floor, put away her music and Belinda’s, and going

to the living room, took from a cupboard a small sewing basket. She sat

down in a rocking chair beside the window, placing the doll in a chair

near her. She put a piece of sewing into her hands and gravely reproved

her for careless work. Her own fingers were weaving a needle in and out,

executing a design in cross stitch in gaudy colours on a piece of

cardboard. When her mother was within hearing she leaned toward the doll

and said solicitously: “Now be careful, my dear child. You never will be

a perfect lady unless you learn to take your stitches evenly. No lady

makes a crooked seam.”

But, when her mother stepped to the adjoining dining room, with her

brows drawn together she said sternly to the doll: “Belinda, if you

don’t sit up straight and make your stitches even, I’ll slap you to

pieces. You needn’t look as meek as a mouse. I shall do it for your own

good; although, of course, it will hurt me more than it does you.”

When the breakfast bell rang, Mahala folded her sewing neatly, returned

to the basket the piece she had given Belinda, put the basket where it

belonged, and the doll on the sofa, and then walked to the dining-room

door. She held her apron wide at each side and made a low formal

courtesy to each of her parents exactly as if she had not seen them

before that morning.

Primly she said: “Good morning, Papa dear. Good morning, dear Mama. I

hope you slept well during the night.”

This drilling Elizabeth Spellman insisted upon because she considered it

very pretty when there were guests in the house. When there were not,

she thought it better to have it rehearsed in order that it should

become habitual.

When they were seated at the table Mrs. Spellman and Mahala bowed their

heads while Mr. Spellman addressed the Lord in a tone which was meant to

contain a shade more deference than he would have tried to put into

addressing the President or a Senator. He thanked the Lord for the food

that was set before them, asked that it might be blessed to their good,

prayed that all of them might execute the duties of the day faithfully,

and returned all of their thanks for the blessing they were

experiencing. Then they ate the food for which they had given thanks

because it was very good food. They had every reason to be thankful for

such cooking as Jemima Davis had accomplished in their kitchen during

all the years of their wedded life.

It was just as Mr. Spellman was buttering his fourth pancake that the

voice of Jemima Davis arose in the regions of the back porch in a shrill

shriek. Mahala laid down her fork and stared with wide, expectant eyes.

Mrs. Spellman started to rise from her chair. Mr. Spellman pushed back

his own chair and looked at his wife.

“Now, now,” he said admonishingly, “be calm. You are familiar with

Jemima’s divagations.”

Another shriek, wilder than the first, broke upon them.

“I will attend to this myself,” said Mr. Spellman.

Arising, he vanished in the direction of the kitchen. Finding that room

empty, he proceeded to the back porch and there, at the corner of the

house, he saw Jemima tugging at the rear anatomy of Jimmy Price. Jimmy

Price was the village handy-man. His task that morning was to mow the

Spellman lawn and trim the grass around the trees. Just why he should

have been standing on his head in the rain barrel was a question Mahlon

Spellman did not wait to ask until he had upset the barrel and allowed

Jimmy the privilege of backing out. When Jimmy lifted his drenched tow

head and sallow, freckled face, there was no need for explanation. In

one hand he grasped a pair of sheep shears which he used to clip the

grass around the snowball and lilac bushes. Exactly why or how he had

lost them in the barrel was not a matter of concern to his employer. At

the precise minute that Jimmy backed from the barrel, soaked and

spluttering, Mahlon was felicitating himself upon the presence of mind

which had kept his wife and daughter from witnessing a sight so

ludicrous. At the same time he realized that he could not so easily

control the neighbours and the street. Mahlon felt like a fool to be

seen in proximity to such a ridiculous sight, and he hated feeling like

a fool more than almost any other calamity that could possibly overtake

him. In a voice highly touched with exasperation he cried: “James Price,

is it quite impossible for you to perform your work without having some

sort of fool accident or doing some ludicrous thing every fifteen

minutes? Are you a man or a monkey? You don’t seem happy unless you are

making a back-alley spectacle of yourself,”—“and me,” Mahlon added in

his consciousness.

Jimmy wiped the muck of the barrel bottom and the water from his face,

and looked at his employer.

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” he said humbly.

“I wonder what for,” muttered Mahlon Spellman, and turning, marched back

to the dining room where he resumed his place. As Mahlon went, Jimmy

squared his shoulders, smoothed his dripping hair, set in place a tie he

was not wearing, and flipped a very real bit of soil from his sleeve in

Mr. Spellman’s best manner.

Jemima launched the back porch broom at Jimmy’s head and he dodged it

expertly.

“You poor bumpkin, you,” she cried. “Don’t you dare be aping the

master!”

“But I was merely following the natural impulses of a gentleman,” said

Jimmy, as he used the sheep shears to flirt slime from his sleeves,

while Jemima suddenly retreated, but not before Jimmy in deep

satisfaction noted her heaving shoulders.

Mrs. Spellman opened her lips and an inquisitive little “What——?”

escaped therefrom.

“Nothing of the slightest importance, my dear,” said Mr. Spellman,

waving his hand to indicate that the matter was of such slight moment

that it might be carried away in the wake of the gesture without

consuming any of their valuable time for its consideration.

Mrs. Spellman bowed her head in acceptance of her husband’s ultimatum.

Mahala distinctly pouted. In the back of her small head she knew that

her mother would leave the breakfast table and go immediately to the

kitchen for information. She would be sent to school and might never

learn why Jemima had screamed so wholeheartedly. It was not fair; but

then, Mahala reflected, there were few things that were fair where young

people were concerned. That being the case, she lingered at the table,

watched her chance, and slipped to the kitchen.

“Jemima, what made you scream so?” she whispered as she watched the

doorway behind her.

Jemima wiped the batter from the pancake spoon with expert finger: “That

half-wit Jim Price laid the sheep shears on the rain barrel,” she said

scornfully. “Of course they fell in and of course he went in head first

when he tried to get them out!”

Mahala clapped her hands over her mouth and danced until her curls flew.

“Careful, honey, careful,” whispered Jemima.

Instantly Mahala became a demure little maiden again. Her glance swept

the kitchen as it had the other rooms and rested on a basket of clothes

standing ready for the washerwoman. She backed to the table, asking

questions of Jemima, snatched up a fine big apple, and with a

swallow-swift dip, tucked it under the sheet covering the basket at the

handle, covered to be sure, yet visibly there to the experienced eye.

“Mahala, what are you doing?” asked her mother at the door.

Mahala’s swift glance took in her nightdress in her mother’s hands. She

lifted her face to Jemima: “Thank you for my good breakfast,” she said.

“Allow me, Mama!” She took the nightdress from her mother’s hands,

tucked it under the sheet at the handle opposite the apple, and ran

after her books.

“Jemima, did you ever see such a darling, thoughtful child?” asked

Elizabeth Spellman, and Jemima answered wholeheartedly: “I never did!

God bless her!”

Mahala watched the filling of her book satchel with an occasional

anxious glance toward the kitchen, but nothing happened; the apple had

not been discovered. With the satchel strap over her shoulder and a

bottle of ink in her hand, accompanied by her mother, Mahala went down

the front walk. Mrs. Spellman opened the gate for her, kissed her

good-bye, and stood waiting until she should turn to look back and throw

a last kiss from the corner, the rounding of which carried her from

sight.

All the neighbours were familiar with this proceeding. They were

familiar with the demure step and studied grace with which Mahala turned

the corner and threw back the kiss; and those whose range of vision

covered the corner were also familiar with the wild leap for freedom

with which the child flew down the street, the corner having been

accomplished with due decorum. She sped up the steps of an attractive

home, rang the bell and waited for a dark, lean little girl of her own

age, dressed quite as carefully as she, to join her on their way to

school.

The contrast between the children was very marked. Edith Williams was a

sallow little creature, badly spoiled in the home of the leading

hardware merchant whose only brother had died and left his child to her

uncle’s care. She was not attractive. She was full of complaining and

fault-finding. Her little heart bore a grudge against the world because

she had not health and strength with which to enjoy the money left by

her father, which her uncle would have allowed her to use had she not

been naturally of a saving disposition.

It was a strange thing that children so different should have been

friends. It is quite possible that their companionship was not due to

natural selection, but to the fact that they lived near each other, that

they constantly met going in the same direction to church, to school,

and to entertainments, and that they had been sent to play together all

their lives. This morning they kissed, and with their arms locked,

started on their way to school.

Two blocks down the street they passed a big brick house surrounded by a

thick hedge of evergreen trees inside a high iron fence having heavy,

ornate gates. There were a few large trees scattered over the lawn and a

few flowering bushes, while among them stood cast-iron dogs, deer, and

lions. This was the home of Martin Moreland, the wealthiest man in the

county, the president and the chief stockholder of the bank, a man whose

real-estate and financial operations scattered over several adjoining

counties.

While Mrs. Spellman had been dressing her little girl for school, Mrs.

Moreland had been trying to accomplish the same feat with her only son;

but her efforts had vastly different results. Junior was a handsome boy

of eleven, with a good mind. His mother was trying to rear him properly.

His father was ostensibly trying to do the same thing, but in his secret

heart he wanted his son to be the successor not only to his business but

also to his methods of doing business.

Mr. Moreland was a man of forty, tall and slender, having a fair

complexion, light hair, and a fine, athletic figure. His eyes were

small, deep-set, and penetrating, a baffling pair of eyes with which to

deal. They looked straight in the face every one with whom he talked and

reinforced a voice of persuasive import. But no man or woman ever had

been able to see the depths of the eyes of Martin Moreland, and no man

or woman ever had been perfectly sure that what his persuasive voice

said was precisely the thing that he meant.

Mrs. Moreland was five years older than her husband, and it was

understood in the town that he had married her because of her large

inheritance from her father. She tried to be a good wife, a good mother,

neighbour, and friend. She tried with all her might to love and to

believe in her husband, and yet almost every day she noted some tendency

in him that bred in her heart a vague fear and uncertainty, and years of

this had made the big, raw-boned, dark-haired, dark-eyed woman into a

creature of timid approaches, of hesitation. Sometimes there was almost

fear in her eyes when she looked at Martin Moreland.

This morning she had tried repeatedly to awaken her son. Over and over

she called to him: “Junior, you must get up and dress! Don’t you

remember that school begins to-day? You mustn’t be late. It would be too

bad to begin a new year by being tardy.”

From a near-by room Martin Moreland listened with a slight sneer on his

handsome face. When his wife left the boy’s room in search of some

article of clothing, he stepped to the side of the bed, shook Junior

until he knew that the boy was awake, and then slid a shining dollar

into his hand.

“Get up and put on your fine new suit,” he said. “You’ll cut a pretty

figure being late for school. The son of the richest man in town should

be first. He should show the other children that he is their natural

leader. Come now, stir yourself.”

Junior immediately slid out of bed and began putting on the clothing his

mother had laid out for him, slipping the money into a pocket before she

saw it. As he dressed, an expression of discontent settled on his

handsome young face. Everything in his home was sombre, substantial, and

very expensive, but he knew that it was not a happy home. At the last

minute he entered the dining room, wearing a shirt of ruffled lawn, long

trousers, and a blouse of dark blue velvet with a flowing tie of dark

blue lined with red. His wavy black hair was like his mother’s, so were

his dark eyes, but his face was shaped very much on the lines of his

father’s. He dropped to his chair and looked at the table with eyes of

disapproval.

“Why can’t we ever have something fit to eat?” he asked.

“That is exactly what I am wondering,” added his father.

Mrs. Moreland surveyed the table critically.

“Why, what is the trouble?” she asked anxiously. “Everything seems to be

here. The food looks all right. How can you tell that it doesn’t suit

you, when you haven’t even tasted it?”

“I am going on the supposition,” said the elder Moreland, “that Hannah

hasn’t greatly changed since supper last night, which wasn’t fit for a

dog.”

“Then I’d better discharge her at once, and try to find some one else,”

said Mrs. Moreland with unexpected spirit.

In his own way the banker retreated.

“What good would that do?” he asked shortly. “You would let the next

woman you hire spoil things exactly the same way you have Hannah. We

might as well go on eating the stuff she gives us as to have somebody

else do the same thing.”

Then he proceeded to eat heartily of the food that was set before him.

But Junior fidgeted in his chair, pushed back his plate, and refused to

eat anything until the clanging of the first bell on the school house

reached his ears. Then he jumped up, and, running into the hall,

snatched his cap from the rack and clapped it on the back of his head.

He stood hesitating a second, then, returning to the dining room, caught

up all the food he could carry in his hands, rushing from the house

without taking the satchel of books his mother had ready for him.

A minute later Mrs. Moreland saw them and hurried after him. He turned

at her call, but he would not stop. He went on down the street munching

the food he carried, while she stood looking after him, unconsciously

shaking her head. In her heart, depression and foreboding almost

equalled any hope she had concerning him, yet it was on hope for him

that she lived.

Earlier than any of these households, Marcia Peters opened a door that

led to a garret of her small house and called: “Jason!” As she stood

waiting to hear the sound of a voice that would indicate that the lad

was awake, her hand rested against the door casing in a position of

unconscious grace. She was unusually tall for a woman, her clothing so

careless as completely to conceal her figure. Her hair was drawn

straight back and wadded in a tight knot on the top of her head at the

most disfiguring angle possible. She did expert laundry work and mending

for a living. Her home was a tiny house, owned by the banker, on the

outskirts of town. She made no friends and very seldom appeared on the

streets.

“Jason!” she repeated sharply, and immediately thereafter she heard the

boy’s feet on the floor. A few minutes later he came hurrying down the

stairway on the run. If he had stopped to think of it, he might have

realized that most of his life he had been on the run. He ran all over

town, collecting and delivering Marcia’s work. Between times he ran

errands for other people for the nickels and dimes that they paid him.

Mostly he was late and ran to school. This continuous running on scant

fare kept him pale and lean, but the exercise developed muscle, the

strength of which was untried, save on work. There was a wistful flash

across his thin, homely face at times, and continuous loneliness in his

heart. Being the son of the village washerwoman he had always been

snubbed and imposed upon by other children, while he never had

experienced the slightest degree of mother love from Marcia. He milked

the cow, watered and fed the chickens, and then hurried to the Spellman

home to bring a big basket of clothes for his mother to wash. With these

he stopped at the grocery of Peter Potter, on Market Street, for

packages of food which he carried home on the top of his clothes basket,

and in handling them his fingers struck the apple. How good of Jemima

Davis! She had tucked in a teacake, a cooky, a piece of candy, or an

apple for him before. Next time he must surely thank her. The apple was

firm and juicy and tasted as if flavoured with flowers. He must surely

muster courage the next time to thank her, but not if Mrs. Spellman was

in the kitchen. She might not know that Jemima gave away her apples. He

had heard her say in a sweetly inflected voice when money was being

raised in church for foreign missions: “We will give fifty dollars”; but

he had never known her to give an apple to a hungry boy. Then a thought

as delicious as the apple struck him. Maybe——just maybe——He did not even

dare think it. But she never had joined the other children in trying to

shame him. Maybe——

His position in school always had been made difficult and bitter to him

by cruel, thoughtless children. It did not help that he had an excellent

mind and very nearly always stood at the head of his classes. In school

he had a habit of setting his elbows on his desk, grasping his head with

a hand on either side, and, leaning forward, he really concentrated. He

knew that his only chance lay in thoroughly learning his lessons. He

could not be clothed as were the other children, his mother’s occupation

shut him from social intercourse with them; he was not invited to their

little parties and merry-makings. If he ever rose to a position of

wealth and distinction like Mr. Moreland or Mr. Spellman, it must be

through thorough application during school hours, because he had short

time outside. The result was that his nervous fingers, straying through

a heavy shock of silky reddish hair slightly wavy, kept it forever

standing on end, and this, coupled with his lean, freckled face, made

him just a trifle homelier than he would have been had his mother

carefully dressed and brushed him as were most of the other children.

In school he allowed himself only one distraction. When he had pored

over a book until his brain and body demanded relaxation, then he

resorted to the pleasant diversion of studying the loveliest thing

Number Five afforded. He studied Mahala Spellman. He was familiar with

every flash of her eyes, every light on her face, each curl on her head.

When she folded her hands and repeated: “Our Father Which art in

Heaven,” during morning exercises, she was like an angel straight down

from the skies. When she hid behind her Geography and surreptitiously

nibbled a bit of candy, or flipped a note to Edith Williams, the

laughter on her face, the mischief in her eyes,—Heaven had nothing in

the way of angels having eyes to begin to compare with the dancing blue

of her eyes,—the varying rose of her cheeks, the adorable sweetness of

her little pampered body were irresistible.

Jason hurried into the kitchen. Setting the basket on the floor he

snatched off the groceries and laid them on the table and looked around

to see if there was anything further he might do that would be of help

before he left for school.

“That basket is about twice as heavy as usual,” he said, “I am afraid it

means a hard day for you.”

Marcia Peters looked at the boy and in the deeps of her eyes there was a

slight flicker that he did not catch. Neither did he notice that one of

her hands slightly lifted and reached in his direction; the flicker was

so impalpable, the hand controlled so instantly, that both escaped his

notice.

“Elizabeth Spellman entertained the Mite Society last week,” she said

tersely, “and, of course, she used stacks of embroidered linen and

napkins that I must send back in perfect condition. You had better take

your books and march to school now, and be mighty careful that you keep

at the head of your class. It’s your only hope. Never forget that.”

Jason crossed the room, and from a shelf in the living room took down a

stack of books. He never forgot.

“I’ll do my best,” he said, “but it isn’t as easy as you might think.”

“I don’t know what I ever did or said,” retorted Marcia, “that would

give you the impression that I thought anything about life was easy for

either one of us. ‘Easy’ is a funny word to use in connection with this

house.”

Jason found himself standing straight, gripping his books, and looking

into her eyes.

“I’m sorry you have to work so hard,” he said.

His glance left the face of the woman before him and ran over the small

mean kitchen, the plain, ugly living room. Without seeing it actually,

he mentally saw the house outside, and the unprepossessing surroundings.

There was a catch in his breath as he again faced Marcia.

“I’ll try very hard,” he told her, “and maybe it won’t be long until I

can be a lawyer or a doctor or rent a piece of land, and then I’ll take

care of you like a real lady.”

And again a close observer could have seen a stifled impulse toward the

boy on the part of the woman; but it was not of sufficient impetus that

the boy caught it, for he hesitated a second longer, then turning on his

heel, he ran from the room and made his way down the street, happy to

discover that for once he had plenty of time.

So it happened that at the same hour these four children were on the

different streets of Ashwater, all headed toward the village school

house, a grade and high school combined in one brick building designed

for the educational purposes of the town. The day labourers of the

village had passed over those same streets earlier that morning. The

people that the children met were doctors and lawyers going to their

offices, and the housewives of the village, many of them with their

baskets on their arms, going to do their morning shopping. Front walks

were being swept and rugs shaken from verandas. Walking demurely arm in

arm, chattering to each other, went Mahala Spellman and Edith Williams.

At the same time they saw an approaching figure and their arms tightened

around each other.

Down the street toward them came a woman that all the village knew and

spoke of as Crazy Becky. She wore the usual long, wide skirt of the

period, with the neat, closely fitting waist. Her dress was of a

delicately flowered white calico carefully made, her face and head

covered by a deep sunbonnet well drawn forward. The children were

accustomed to having only a peep of her face with its exquisite

modelling, delicate colouring, and big, wide-open, blue-gray eyes with

long, dark lashes. Sometimes a little person, passing her closely and

peering up, caught a gleam of wavy golden hair surrounding her face.

Over one shoulder, firmly gripped in her hand, was a long red osier cut

from the cornels bordering the river. From it there waved behind her as

she walked, a flag of snow-white muslin, neatly tacked to its holder and

carefully fringed on the lower edge. In the other hand she carried an

empty basket. On her face was a look of expectancy. Always her eyes were

flashing everywhere in eager search for something.

Seeing the children coming in all directions, she stationed herself on

the steps leading to the lawn of a residence that stood slightly above

the street, and facing the passers-by, she began to offer them the

privilege of walking under her white flag. In a mellow voice, sweet and

pathetic, she began timidly: “Behold the White Flag! Mark the emblem of

purity.” Then, gathering courage, she cried to those approaching her:

“If you know in your hearts that you are clean, pass under the flag with

God’s blessing. If you know that your hearts are filled with evil, bow

your heads, pass under, and the flag will make you clean.”

The people passing Rebecca acted in accordance with the dictates of

common human nature. Those who knew her, humoured her, and gravely

bowing their heads, passed under the flag to her intense delight.

Several strangers in the village who had not seen her before and did not

understand her pathetic history, stared at her in amazement and hurried

past. It had been such a long stretch from the days when John had cried

in the wilderness that he was forgotten. As always, there were the

coarse and careless who sneered at Rebecca and said rough, provoking

things to her. After these she hurled threats of a dreadful nature and

the serene beauty of her face was marred with anger for a few moments.

Edith Williams walked slowly and gripped Mahala tighter.

“Let’s run across the street,” she whispered. “I’m afraid of her.”

Mahala tightened her grip on her little friend: “I sha’n’t run from

her,” she said. “I’m not afraid of her. She’s never yet hurt anybody who

treated her politely. She only fights with naughty boys who tease her.

Smile at her and say: ‘Good morning! Please, may I pass under your

flag?’ and she will do anything in the world for you. Mama always walks

under Becky’s flag. Watch me and do it as I do.”

Then Mahala, who had been taught all her life that she was to set an

example for the other children of Ashwater, dropped her arm from

Edith’s, and gripping her ink bottle and her books, bravely concealed

the flutter of fear that was in her small heart. She marched up to

Rebecca and made her a graceful bow.

“Good morning,” she said with suave politeness. “Please, may I pass

under your flag this morning?”

Encouraged by the pleased smile Rebecca gave her, she added: “I try very

hard to be a good child.”

“God has a blessing for all good children. Pass under the flag,” said

Rebecca. She drew up her form to full height, extended her arm and held

the flag in the morning sunlight. There was beauty in her figure, there

was beauty in the expression of her perfectly cut face, there was grace

in her attitude, and the white banner, hanging from its red support,

really appeared like an emblem of purity. A queer thrill surged through

Mahala. She bowed her head and with precise steps passed under the flag

reverently.

Then Edith Williams repeated her words and walked under the flag also,

joining Mahala who was waiting for her. Close behind them came Junior

Moreland surrounded by a crowd of boys of whom he was evidently the

leader. He was a handsome lad in the morning light, and the beauty of

his face and figure was emphasized by his rich suit of velveteen, his

broad collar, and his tie of silk. The instant he saw Rebecca he

whispered to the other boys: “Oh, look! There’s Crazy Becky. Come on,

let’s have some sport with her.”

Immediately the boys rushed in a crowd toward Rebecca, led by Junior.

They made faces at her, they tried to snatch the flag which she held at

arm’s length high above their heads, they tweaked her skirts, and one of

them, more daring than the others, slipped behind her and pulled the

bonnet from her head by the crown, exposing her face and uncoiling a

thick roll of waving gold hair. In an effort to be especially daring, to

outdo all the others, Junior sprang high and snatched the flag from her

hand in a flying leap. Then he trailed it in the dirt of the gutter. He

pulled off his cap, and bowing from the waist before her, he offered the

soiled emblem to her. To Rebecca this was the most horrible thing that

could happen. Her deranged brain was firm in the conviction that it was

her mission in life to keep that flag snow-white, to use it as the

emblem of purity. Instantly, a paroxysm of anger shook her. Her face

became distorted; she dropped the flag and started after the offender.

Junior was afraid of Rebecca in a spasm of anger, because he knew that

the strongest man in town could not hold her when she became violent. So

he dodged from under her clutching fingers and ran toward the school

house.

Mahala and Edith heard the cries and turned just in time to see the

white flag polluted.

“Oh, the wicked, wicked boy!” cried Mahala. She dragged Edith out of the

way of the oncoming rush, but as she did so, her eyes swiftly searched

the board walk over which they had been passing. One of her feet moved

forward from beneath the hem of her skirts and a toe tip was firmly set

on the end of a loose board. As Junior approached, running swiftly, that

board lifted slightly so that he tripped over it and fell sprawling,

soiling his hands, his face, and sliding over the walk on his velvet

suit. Unable to stop in her rush after him, Rebecca tripped and fell on

him in a heap. Jason turned a corner and came in sight, reading one of

his books as he walked.

Instantly he understood. He dropped his books on a strip of grass

between the fence and the walk, and ran to Rebecca. He helped her to her

feet, and knowing her aversion to having her head and face seen by the

public, he flew to find and replace her bonnet. He found the white flag

and did what he could to straighten and clean it, and, as he put it into

her hand, he said to her: “Never mind, you can wash it, you know. You

can make it white again in only a little while. If I were you, I’d go

back home and wash it right away.”

The fact that some one was sympathizing with her, was helping her,

comforted Rebecca. She looked at Jason intently.

“You are a good boy,” she said. “You have a white soul. I will go back

and make the flag white again.”

She turned and went back toward the small house where she lived alone on

the outskirts of the village.

Junior stood scowling, beating the dust from his clothing. He was jarred

and angry. He wanted to reinstate himself, to dominate some one. Jason

was his legitimate prey. He advanced, blocking the other boy’s way.

Jason tried to extricate himself. He wanted to avoid trouble. He put out

his hands to keep the boys from pulling at his clothing and tried to

back from the crowd. As he did so he found Mahala Spellman by his side.

She had been in the same room in school with him ever since they had

begun going to school. To his amazement he heard her whisper at his

elbow: “Out early and late like you are, I bet you ain’t afraid of any

boy in the whole world.”

Jason stopped suddenly. His figure stiffened and straightened. A queer

light passed over his face. At his elbow Mahala whispered: “Carrying

those big, heavy baskets like you do, I bet your arms are strongest of

any boy in this town.”

Jason’s fists clenched. His arms flexed involuntarily. At his elbow came

the whisper: “Remember the bugs!”

Jason’s mind flew to a poem in one of the school readers. Into his brain

rushed the lines:

Three little bugs in a basket,

And hardly room for two—

and again, with the kaleidoscopic rush of memory:

Then he that was cold and hungry,

Strength from his weakness drew,

He pulled the rugs from the other bugs

And he killed them and ate them, too.

The son of the wealthiest man in town was standing before him, tweaking

his coat, tormenting him. Suddenly Jason doubled his fists and struck

his hardest blow. Junior fell back among the other boys. They started to

close in around Jason, but they found a valiant figure blocking their

way. With her arms stretched wide, stood Mahala. Her eyes were dark and

her voice was high and shrill.

“Now you just keep back, you mean boys!” she screamed. “You just keep

out of this! Junior started this, you just let him and Jason fight it

out!”

Because there is a thing in spirit, and a power in right and fair play

that a mob always feels, silent and acquiescing, the other children

stepped back, and as they did so, the velvet-clad Junior glanced around

him. On his face, it could be seen, that he was afraid. In his heart he

knew that he was wrong. He was smarting from Jason’s blow. He would have

liked to run, but he had his position to maintain as the leader of the

other boys; he had been their leader all his life. He was accustomed to

the admiration and the praise of the girls. There was nothing to do but

to prove that he was not a coward; so he drew up and rushed Jason. The

two began to fight. Jason was taller, more slender, a few months older,

and there was untested strength in his arms, in the back and the legs

that had carried heavy baskets of clothing and delivered bundles; the

body that had been scantily fed and thoroughly exercised was the

tougher, the quicker. Only a few blows proved to Junior that he was soft

and practically helpless in Jason’s hands. In the delirium of victory,

Jason seized the velvet coat at the neck and tore it off Junior. He

snatched a ball bat from the hands of one of the boys, and hanging the

coat on it, he waved it, crying: “Behold the black flag of riches! Pass

under it and be damned!”

Then the children shouted with laughter, which so intoxicated Jason that

he went to the further extent of dragging the coat through the gutter

exactly as Junior had dragged the white flag. He threw the soiled,

rumpled thing at Junior’s feet. At the wildness of his daring, the

children stood hushed and silent. Then, suddenly, they pretended to

threaten Jason, but it was evident to him that they were delighted, that

they were only trying to make Junior feel that they were sorry that he

had been thrashed and soiled.

It was Mahala who picked up the coat, crying: “Oh, Junior, your

beautiful new coat is ruined!”

She began brushing the dust from it with her hands. Jason stared at her

in amazement, which changed to a slow daze when he saw that her swift

fingers were enlarging an ugly tear across the front of the coat even

while, with a face of compassion, she handed it back to Junior.

So Jason “learned about women from ’er.”

Junior took the coat from her hands, smarting, crestfallen and soiled,

and turned back toward his home, choking down gulping sobs that would

rise in his throat, while the other children went to school. As they

started, Mahala worked her way from among the others and dropped back

beside Jason, who was left standing alone. “Did you find your apple?”

she whispered. She slipped her hand into her pocket, took from it her

dainty little handkerchief, and offered it to him to wipe the dirt and

perspiration from his face. Jason refused to accept it, but when she

insisted, he did take it; instead of using it for the purpose for which

it had been offered he slipped it into the front of his blouse. Seeing

this, Mahala suddenly ran to overtake the other children, but when she

reached Edith Williams she found her crying and shaking with

nervousness.

“I just hate you, Mahala Spellman,” she said. “I am never going to play

with you any more, not if you get down on your hands and knees and beg

me till you are black and blue in the face! I just hate you!”

Mahala met this with the sweetest kind of a smile.

“I’d like to know what I’ve done to you, Edith Williams,” she said

innocently.

“You know what you have done to me, and I tell you I hate you, and I am

going to tell your mother on you!”

Mahala looked at her reflectively.

“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if you did,” she said. “It would be

presackly like you. Doing things like that is why you haven’t got a

friend but me, and you have not got me any more. I’m done with you! You

needn’t hang around me any more.”

Then Mahala turned a little back, very straight, with very square

shoulders and a very high head, and marched down the street toward the

school house, while the other girls crowded around her, delighted that

she and Edith were having trouble.

Almost exploding with rage over his humiliation, hurt from his

punishment, and thoroughly frightened at the condition of his new suit,

Junior started back home, while with each step that he took in that

direction his mental stress increased. In culmination he entered the

room bellowing, while his father and mother were still at breakfast. His

mother threw up her hands and cried out in horror over his condition.

His father was not only shocked and angry over whatever it was that had

returned to him in such a condition the boy who was the pride of his

heart, the very light of his eyes, but he had a lively remembrance of

what that velvet suit had cost him and the pride he had taken in

purchasing it for Junior because he meant always that he should be the

best-dressed boy in the town. He seized Junior, shook him violently, and

raised his hand to strike, all other emotions submerged in the one

impulse that made money his God even above love. Junior tore from his

hands, and running to his mother, dodged behind her. His father pursued

him. Mrs. Moreland arose, spreading her skirts and her arms to cover

Junior.

“Wait, Martin! Wait!” she cried.

It was evident that her heart was bound up in the boy far above any

financial considerations, and it was also evident that she was afraid of

the angry man she was facing; but she was not so much afraid that she

was not willing to interpose her own body, if by so doing she could

screen the boy. At the same time she cried to him, “Junior! Tell your

father what happened to you. Explain!”

Under the shelter of her protection, Junior stopped crying. He wiped his

eyes and faced his father defiantly.

“If I was on the City Council like you are, I’d fix up the sidewalks of

this nasty old town so the boards wouldn’t fly up and throw folks down

and ruin their clothes,” he cried.

His father stared at him in amazement. Instantly Junior’s mother agreed

with him.

“That is quite true, Martin,” she said. “Only last week Jenny Sherman

tripped on a loose board on her way to church. She almost broke her knee

and ripped the whole front out of a very expensive silk dress. Some of

these days somebody’s going to sue this town for damages and you will

have the biggest part of them to pay. The only wonder is that Junior is

not in worse shape than he is.”

Reassured by her backing, Junior came from behind her, but he still held

her arm. Martin Moreland surveyed the pair scornfully.

“Will you please explain,” he said to his wife, “how merely tripping and

falling could get Junior into his present condition?”

Realizing that this was impossible, and anger and humiliation surging up

in him, Junior cried out: “Of course, just falling only started it. The

minute I was down that mean old coward of a Jason Peters took his chance

to jump on my back and start a fight when I couldn’t help myself. I took

off my coat and gave it to one of the boys to hold while I beat him up

as he deserved, and when he couldn’t do anything with me, before I saw

what he intended, Jason snatched my coat and tore it and dragged it in

the gutter on purpose.”

This immediately transferred Martin Moreland’s wrath and cupidity from

Junior to Jason.

“Why didn’t you tell your teacher?” he thundered.

“It happened on the street. I wasn’t fit to go to school,” Junior made

explanation.

The elder Moreland lost control of himself. His power had been defied.

The tangible proof of his wealth had been dragged in the gutter. The

child of his heart had been hurt and shamed. Martin Moreland did not

stop to remember that he had been at the point of hurting the boy

himself; what he really was overpoweringly angry about was that he felt

Junior’s condition to be a blow aimed vicariously at his own person. In

his heart he knew how many hands would be raised against him, if by

chance a first hand were raised by a leader. He knew what would happen

to any man attacking him; he would see to it that a blow struck at him

through his boy, even by another boy, should be so punished that another

offence of the kind could never occur. He turned to his wife.

“You see how quick you can wash Junior and put him into his other suit,”

he said. “I will take him back to school in the carriage. I intend to

have it understood by the Superintendent and the teachers that the son

of the heaviest tax payer and the president of the School Board has some

rights!”

An hour later the door of Room Five was suddenly flung wide and on the

threshold stood the imposing figure of the banker, beside him his son,

clothed in his second best suit, his composure quite recovered. The boy

marched in and found a vacant seat among his classmates. Miss Mehitable

Ashcroft dropped the book she was holding and stared at the banker. A

whiteness slowly overspread her face. She had been teaching school so

many years that she should have been fortified for anything; but she was

not. As she grew older the nerve strain of each day of noise and

confusion bit deeper into her physical strength. She lifted a bewildered

hand to smooth down the graying hair that dipped over her ears and

lifted to a meagre coil at the back, and then her hands fell and began

fingering the folds of a black calico skirt liberally sprinkled with

white huckleberries. Suddenly she found her voice and quaveringly she

said: “Good morning, Mr. Moreland. We are so glad to see you. Won’t you

have a chair?”

Mr. Moreland was a tall man with a heavy frame. The lines in his face at

that minute were not pleasant. He had eyes of intense vision; in anger

they were ugly eyes. They went flashing over the room from pupil to

pupil until they found and settled on the white face of Jason Peters.

There was something of the look on Jason’s face that was on the face of

the banker as their eyes met and clashed; a hate of arrogant

fearlessness. Martin Moreland lifted a shaking finger.

“I have come,” he said, “to accompany Jason Peters to the office of the

Superintendent. I will have it understood that while I am the president

of the School Board and while I am the heaviest tax payer in this town,

the sons of washerwomen, or the sons of any one else, will not

undertake, in a cowardly and underhand manner, to abuse my son.”

Martin Moreland was an imposing figure; he knew better than any one else

exactly how imposing. He never saw himself in a mirror or reflected on a

plate-glass window he was passing, without making sure that the imposing

part of him was well in evidence. He was at his tallest, his coldest,

his most arresting moment as he rolled out “my son” at the awed

children, pausing to allow his words to sink deeply, and well gratified

to note that they did.

The frightened children sat in silence in their seats. Mahala Spellman

looked at Jason, studying his set white face; then she glanced at

Junior, his head again lifted in prideful assurance; and then her gaze

travelled to his father. She studied him intently, and slowly upon her

little face there gathered a look of intense indignation. But on the

faces of the other children there could be seen only the deep impression

that had been made as to the power of riches.

“Jason,” said the teacher, “you will accompany Mr. Moreland to the

office of the Superintendent.”

For one instant Jason sat very still; then he arose and left the room.

It was a long time before he returned. When he came back his eyes were

dry but he was white and shaken. It was evident to every one that he had

been beaten until he was scarcely able to cross the room and reach his

seat.

Facing the school, Mehitable Ashcroft studied the children. She hated

herself as badly as she hated a number of them. She could see the

brilliant spot on the cheek and the bright eyes of Mahala Spellman. She

knew that if she asked her she would arise in her place and tell the

truth about what must have happened on the way to school. She knew that

she should have done this before she allowed Jason to leave the room.

She knew, too, that he should not have been sent to be beaten and

humiliated unless he deserved it. From what she knew of his character

and his work in school, she was certain that he did not deserve it. On

the faces of a part of the children she could read the message that they

were trying to convey to her that an injustice had been committed; that

she had countenanced an unfair thing. On the remainder of the faces she

could read the fact that they, too, had this realizing sense but that

they intended, the minute school was dismissed, to crowd around Junior

and follow his leadership. She had no doubt in her heart that whatever

had happened would be carried further and that Jason would again

experience taunts and treatment that were unjust. She stood there—hating

herself that she did nothing and said nothing. In looking back over the

years during which she had held her position because of many occurrences

of a similar nature, she might have found the answer as to why she was

already nervous and prematurely ageing—as to why she hated her

profession and herself. She had needed her position so badly, what she

must do to hold it had been made so clear to her.

At the noon hour as the children left the school grounds, Junior was

strutting proudly at the head of a group of boys, bragging about what

his father could do to the old Superintendent, about what he had done to

Jason, and about what was coming to any other boy who got smart with

him. While this was occurring on a corner Mahala passed by, surrounded

by a crowd of admiring little girl friends, who were followed by Edith

Williams, darkly frowning, walking alone.

Mahala’s quick eyes saw what was going on. Her heart was rebelling at

injustice. She stopped on the sidewalk, pointed her finger at Junior,

and began a sing-song chant:

“Cowardy calf, cowardy calf!

Teased a poor crazy woman

And got the thrashing he deserved for it.

Ran home bellowing to Papa

And told a lot of lies

To get a brave boy whipped.

Cowardy calf, cowardy calf!”

Then the other little girls and some of the boys, with the flexibility

of childhood, pointed their fingers at Junior and began shrieking,

“Cowardy calf!” until he was furious. But he was helpless among such

numbers as were ranged against him, so, breaking from the group, he ran

down the street with all his might. As far as he could hear, a shrill

chorus followed him: “Cowardy calf! Cowardy calf!”

Jason lingered in the lower hallway until the other children had left

the school grounds and were some distance ahead of him; then he

followed. In passing down Market Street on his way home, he saw Peter

Potter standing at the door of his grocery with a heaped basket in his

hand, looking up the street and down the street, evidently wondering why

his delivery wagon was not standing before his door as it should have

been. Instantly, Jason changed his course and headed toward Peter,

because he and Peter were friends. The time had been when Peter was the

leading grocer of the village, but he had not been able to make his way

against the new methods and the seductive advertising of an opponent

who, in recent years, had been able to take a good deal of his trade.

Peter was not suffering from either cold or hunger. His fifty years had

left his British face round and jolly. He was not sufficiently energetic

to exert himself to an extent that would bring him back his lost

opportunities. Instead of trying to regain his position, he tried by

closeness in all his dealings to recover his losses, but he only

succeeded in narrowing his soul, which had been fashioned rather narrow

in the making.

When he saw Jason coming toward him he began to smile. He had asked

several boys passing to deliver the groceries and they had refused; but

here was a boy who would not refuse. Here was a boy who frequently had

helped him for very small pay. Peter explained that, for some reason,

his wagon had not returned from the ten o’clock delivery and these later

orders were wanted for the dinners of some of his customers. Jason

immediately shouldered the heavy basket and started on a long trip

across town. When he returned the delivery slips, Peter understood that

Jason would not have time to go home for his dinner, so he cut him a

very small piece of cheese and gave him a handful of crackers to pay for

having delivered the orders. Jason started back to school munching as he

went.

His body was stiff and sore, but his heart was crushed. The boys knew

that he had tried to get away without trouble; several of the girls had

seen Junior push and maltreat him; at his elbow there had been the

whisper that nerved him—yet when his hour came he had stood alone. He

had felt Mahala’s eyes on him, but he would not let himself look at her,

in the fear that he would seem to be asking her help, and so involve her

in trouble. All of them, the teacher included, had kept still. He was to

understand that Junior was to do with him exactly as he chose. He was a

few months older, he was taller, he was stronger, but because he was

poor and Junior was rich, he must endure taunt, insult, even submit to

being pushed and pulled. A slow red rimmed Jason’s ears. He lifted a

hand to allay the pricking in his scalp. Would he follow alleys and back

streets, and dodge and hide from Junior, or would he meet him unafraid?

He had no reason to fear Junior, but he remembered strong men who deeply

feared the power behind the boy. As Jason slowly walked toward the

school house, his brain and blood were in tumult.

When the last companion left her, Mahala had two blocks for sober

reflection. She was ashamed of herself. She had incited Jason to strike

Junior; when his father came into the school room she should have faced

him bravely and cried out the truth. Maybe she could have saved Jason a

beating. Never having suffered a blow herself, Mahala did not fully

realize just what had happened to Jason. She did know that she had not

been brave or fair in school. At least she had shamed Junior on the

street and let him see what she thought of him. That made her feel

better, and Jason knew she felt sorry for him. He did know that; but

what must he think of her? And what ailed Edith Williams? Would Edith

start to school early and tell the other girls things that would make

them desert Mahala and be friends with her?

A daring thought flashed in Mahala’s brain. She knew how to hold her

ascendancy. Dinner was not quite ready when she entered the house. She

kissed her mother, and slipping to the living room, she snatched her

charm string from its place in the little mahogany sewing-table pocket,

and hid it in the folds of her dress. Her mother would attend the Mite

Society, held on Monday so that ladies of wealth might feel their

superiority through having freedom to attend, and those that worked

might gauge their inferiority by the amount of extra work they would be

compelled to do in order to find time for the meeting. Mahala felt

wildly daring; but her position demanded some risk. She darted across

the door yard, tucked the heavy glittering string in a grassy corner of

the fence, and managed her return unobserved. Now if only her mother

would not be so silly as to follow her to the gate—but she was! So

Mahala was forced to walk to the corner demurely, throw back a farewell

kiss, and disappear. Then she must wait a palpitant interval, fly back

on guilty feet, thrust a small hand through the fence, draw out the

precious charm string, carefully, and race headlong toward the corner

again. Safely past it, she might pause and hang the glittering length

around her neck in gleaming festoons to her knees. Edith Williams would

turn the other girls against her, would she? Mahala proudly swung the

string before her and made a tongue-exposing face at an invisible Edith.

She knew what would happen, and she was secure in her knowledge. The

first little girl who saw her ran straight to her side and remained; the

others came as they appeared around diverse corners—and remained. Every

one of them had a charm string, but what meagre little things compared

with the magnificence of the string of the merchant’s daughter who might

have the sample button from every emptied box as it left his shelves, to

whom wonderful buttons of brass and glass and bone and pearl came in

handfuls at every trip to New York to buy goods. Mahala’s eyes were

shining, her heart was throbbing. She knew the history of every button

on her string: “Post Commander Johnston cut that right from the vest of

his soldier suit, and that’s the top left-hand one from Papa’s dress

vest, and that is from the coat of Mama’s best friend——” she told them

over like a rosary as they slipped through her fingers—great,

brass-rimmed circles of glass with gay flower faces showing through,

carved insets of bird and animal, globes of every size, colour, and

cutting that ever held fast a garment worn by man or woman—Edith

Williams indeed!

Mahala could scarcely step for the eager crowd around her. She disposed

of the rule that charm strings were not to be brought to school by

leaving hers with the teacher with a polite little speech, and got it

safely back in place before her mother’s return from the Mite Society.

Such is the reward of a slight degree of daring. Edith Williams! Indeed,

twice over!

That night in her bedroom, when Mahala’s mother was undressing her, she

saw the empty pocket with eyes that nothing escaped, and exclaimed: “Oh,

Mahala! You couldn’t have lost your beautiful embroidered linen

handkerchief. I purposely make your pockets so very deep.”

Mahala hesitated. Her first impulse was to say that she had lost the

handkerchief because she knew that her mother would disapprove of her

even speaking to the son of their washerwoman. But her astute mother had

cut off that avenue of escape by pointing out the depth of her pocket.

So she assumed a look which she knew her mother considered angelic, she

clasped her little hands before her and lifted her face, exclaiming:

“Oh, Mama dear, please excuse me! I gave it to a poor boy to wipe his

tears.”

Instantly Mrs. Spellman gathered Mahala in her arms and kissed her

passionately. She sat down in a chair, drawing the child to her lap. She

was thoroughly delighted.

“Tell me, darling, tell me what happened,” she said.

Mahala, in detail, told of the troubles of the morning. She told

precisely the truth where it concerned Rebecca and the desecration of

the white flag. She left untold her part in any occurrence where she

knew her mother would disapprove. When the story was finished, Mrs.

Spellman felt that Junior Moreland was not being properly reared; that

Jason had been abused; and that her Mahala was growing into precisely

the kind of a woman that she wanted her to be. She went on undressing

the child with customary precision, hanging each of her garments upon a

hook, having her set her shoes in a certain spot with the toes even,

patiently and carefully brushing and stroking her hair and winding it

upon the curlers for the morning. Then together they knelt beside

Mahala’s bed while she said her prayers. Then the mother prayed. She

asked of the Lord that He would make of her little girl a good child, an

obedient child, and one having a fair mind and a tender heart. She

begged that Mahala might be given the courage always to set a good

example before her playmates. Then she tucked her into bed, kissed her

repeatedly, and turning out the lamp, she left her to go to sleep.

As soon as the door was closed Mahala threw back the covers and sat up

in bed. She listened until she heard the door of the living room close,

then she expertly scratched a match and relighted the lamp. She was so

accustomed to doing this that she managed the hot chimney without

burning her fingers. She took the big wax doll, a gift from her father

after one of his trips to New York, made it kneel beside the bed and

then, in exact imitation of her mother’s voice and mannerisms, she

prayed for the doll the same prayer that her mother had used for her, to

all intent. But if Mrs. Spellman had been listening she would have heard

her own tones and accents saying: “And Oh, our Heavenly Father, help my

little girl to always show the other bad, naughty children exactly how

they should behave, and how their hair should be curled, and how clean

their aprons should be, and how nice they ought to keep their slippers,

and how they should be polite to grown-up people, and slap each other

good and hard when they need it, and look like I do, and behave like I

do. Amen!”

Then she opened the door to the adjoining room, and slipping in, she

returned with an armload of clothing which she laid upon the bed. She

pressed down the wrapped-up curls and tied them with a handkerchief;

over them she put the carefully curled front which her mother wore with

her Sunday bonnet and then she put the bonnet on her head. She stripped

up her nighty and slipped into her mother’s hoop skirt, and pulling the

nightdress down over the circling hoops of the skirt, she looked at

herself in the mirror and clapped her little hands tight over her mouth

to suppress a shriek at the ludicrous aspect she presented. She unfolded

a Paisley shawl and arranged it over her shoulders; then she opened a

fan and posturing with it, minced up and down before the glass, wearing

on her face an expression of sanctified piety. She made a journey about

the room exactly in imitation of her mother, touching things here and

there and repeatedly making little speeches to the doll. Sometimes as

she passed the glass, she stuck out her tongue at her reflection, and

tilting her skirts, did daring improvisations, dancing to tunes she

softly hummed to accompany her performance.

When she was thoroughly tired of every ludicrous thing she could think

of to do, she proved how very efficient her mother’s teaching had been

by returning everything to its place in such an exact manner that the

estimable lady never realized that her precious possessions had been

touched.

In his home that night, Martin Moreland spent the supper hour telling

his wife, in Junior’s presence, what he had done at the school, how

terribly he had had Jason punished, and ended by admonishing Junior

always to let him know if he was imposed upon or any of the other

children did not treat him with respectful deference. He gave Junior a

piece of money, telling him to take his books and go to his room and

study his lessons for the coming day.

Junior said good-night to his father, kissed his mother, took up his

books, and obediently went upstairs to his room. There he promptly

climbed from the back window, slid down the slanting roof to a shed,

from which he jumped to the ground. Following the alleys, he made his

way down town where he spent the money for a deck of cards, a number of

clay pipes, and a package of smoking tobacco. Then he whistled at the

back gates of several of the boys who were his particular friends and

all of them crept up the alley beside the bankers house, entered the

barn loft, and made a deep nest in the hay so that the candle light they

used would not show from the outside. There they smoked and played cards

until it became so late that they dared not remain longer.

Jason hurried home from school, fed the chickens, which were pets of his

that he had bought with his earnings, milked the cow, and worked in the

garden until it was dark. Then he came to the house, carefully washed,

combed his hair, and sat down to a very scant supper that was awaiting

him. Marcia did not speak to him or pay the slightest attention to his

movements. She busied herself about the house or with some needlework.

It was her custom to mend all the lace and fine linen that needed

repairing in the washing that was sent to her, adding an extra charge to

her bill. When he had finished, Jason washed the dishes he had used, put

away the food, took his book, and sat down to a diligent study of his

lessons.

At an early hour Marcia ordered him to go to bed, so he climbed the

narrow stairway to the garret and undressed by the light of the moon

shining in the uncurtained window. He was so sore and stiff that he soon

fell asleep.

Immediately after he had gone, Marcia unlocked the door to one room of

the small house which was always closed. Jason had never even peeped

inside it. This room she entered and threw aside her working clothes.

She bathed, unloosed and combed out a coil of beautiful curling hair,

looping it in loose waves over her head. She rouged her cheeks and lips

and powdered her face, hands, and arms. She opened her closet door, and

taking out an attractive dress, put it on, transforming herself into a

startlingly beautiful woman. From a drawer she took a book and sat down

to read, but occasionally she lifted her head and listened intently.

Presently she arose and went through the living room and the kitchen in

the dark, and standing at the door, softly inquired: “Who is there?”

On hearing a low-voiced reply she opened the door and admitted Martin

Moreland, who led the way to her room. She followed, closing and locking

the door behind her, and turned to him with a smiling face, which

gradually changed to one of doubt and uncertainty when she saw that he

was in a state of almost ungovernable anger. His voice was shaking as he

gave her Junior’s version of what had happened during the day and then

she noticed that in his hand he carried a cruel whip. He told her that

he was going upstairs and beat the life half out of Jason. He was going

to teach him for once and all that he could not interfere with the son

of a rich man. He made the matter infinitely worse than it had been.

Then he started toward the door.

Marcia caught his arm.

“But, Martin,” she cried, “how are you going to account to Jason for

your presence here?”

And he retorted: “I don’t have to account to that brat for anything. He

may as well understand that I came to teach him a lesson. He may as well

know that I am master of this house, and of anything else of which I

choose to be master!”

As he started up the stairway Marcia followed him. Then, realizing that

Jason must not see her as she was, she turned back. She stood at the

foot of the stairs, her hands clenched, listening to the sounds that

came down to her. Several times she started up the stairs, but each time

she remembered, and white and shaking, kept from sight.

Finally, when the banker left Jason’s room, she went to her own, closed

her door and locked it on the inside. When he turned the knob she

refused admission, but after repeated hammering and threats she finally

yielded and unlocked the door. He entered, sat down in the best chair,

and lighting a cigar, began to smoke.

He said to her sneeringly: “You can take your time to cool off. That boy

has got to realize once and for all that it is quite impossible for him

to interfere in any way with any of the pleasures or the inclinations of

my son.”

Later she served him with wine and cake and delicious buttered biscuits,

and when he had made himself thoroughly at home, he took his leave.

After he had gone, she again locked herself in her room, tore off the

fine clothing she had worn, and throwing it aside, pasted down her hair,

slipped into her old dress, and, softly climbing the stairs, entered

Jason’s room. He was stretched on the bed in a light sleep, breathing

hard. His face was white and full of suffering. She stood over him,

looking down at him for a long time. Then she straightened the covers

and slipped from the room. She went back to her own room, locked the

door, and threw herself on her knees beside the bed, her arms stretched

out among the finery she had worn, her face buried in the silken covers.

In these homes and in this environment the four children advanced until

they entered the first year of high school.