Chapter II (2)

Botts had given Dalny the correct size of the canvas, but he had failed to describe the picture covering it. It was a landscape showing the sun setting behind a mountain, the sky reflected in a lake; in the foreground was a stretch of meadow. The sky was yellow and the mountain purple; the meadow reddish brown. In the centre of the canvas was a white spot the size of a pill-box. This was the sun, and the centre of the color scheme. Radiating from this patch of white were thousands of little pats of chrome yellow and vermilion, divided by smaller pats of blue. The exact gradations of these tints were to produce the vibrations of light. One false note would destroy the rhythm; hence the hours of thought and of endless trying.

These colors were not to be bought at the ordinary shops. Certain rare oxides formed the basis of the yellows, while the filings of bits of turquoise pounded to flour were used in the blues. Louise did this, grinding the minerals by the hour, her poor thin hands moving the glass pestle over the stone slab. When some carefully thought-out tint was laid beside another as carefully studied, the combination meeting his ideal, he would spring from his seat, crying out:

"Louise! Louise! Light! Light!"

Then the little woman would hurry in and stand entranced.

"Oh! so brilliant, Adolphe! It hurts my eyes to look at it. See how it glows! Ah, it will come!" and she would shade her wistful eyes with her hand as if the light from the flat canvas dazzled her. These were gala hours in the musty rooms at the top of the old Studio Building.

Then there would come long days of depression. The lower range of color was correct, but that over the right of the mountain and near the zenith did not pulsate. The fault lay in the poor quality of the colors or in the bad brushes or the sky outside. The faded sister's face always fell when the trouble lay with the colors. Even the small measure of milk would then have to be given up until the janitor came bearing another letter with a foreign stamp.

Dalny knew nothing of all this, nor did anyone else in the building--nothing positively of their home life--except from such outside indications as the size of the can of milk and the increasing shabbiness of their clothes. Dalny had suspected it and had tried to win their confidence in his impulsive way; but all his advances had been met by a gentle, almost pathetic, reserve which was more insurmountable than a direct repulse. He also wanted to learn something more of the old man's methods. He had in his own earlier student days known an old professor in Heidelberg who used to talk to him about violet and green, but he never got any farther than talk. Here was a man, a German, too, perhaps--or perhaps a Swede--he could not tell from the name--some foreigner, anyhow--who was putting his theories into practice, and, more convincing still, was willing to starve slowly until they materialized.

Once he had cornered the old man on the stairs, and, throwing aside all duplicity, had asked him the straight question:

"Will you show me your picture? I showed you mine."

"Old Sunshine" raised his wide-brimmed hat from his head by the crown--it was too limp to be lifted in any other way--and said in a low voice:

"Yes, when it is a picture; it is now only an experiment."

"But it will help me if I can see your work. I am but a beginner; you are a master."

The good-natured touch of flattery made no impression on the old man.

"No," he answered, replacing his hat and keeping on his way downstairs, "I am not a master. I am a man groping in the dark, following a light that beckons me on. It will not help you; it will hurt you. I will come for you; I have promised, remember. Neither my sister nor I ever break a promise. Good-morning!" And again the shabby hat was lifted.

Dalny stood outside his own door listening to the old man's steps growing fainter until they reached the street; then he resumed his work on the green dress and puffy red face of the brewer's wife, correcting the errors he had made when she last sat for him, his mind unsatisfied, his curiosity all the more eager.

As the winter came on, Dalny began to miss the tread of the old man outside his door. The old sister never made any noise, so he never knew when she went up and down unless he happened to be on the stairs at the same moment. He knew the old man was at work, because he could hear his ceaseless tramp before his easel--walking up to his picture, laying on a pat of color, and walking back again. He himself had walked miles--had been doing it the day before in his efforts to give "carrying" quality to the shadow under the nose of the brewer's better half.

"I do not see your brother any more," Dalny had said to her one morning, after meeting her by accident outside his door carrying a basket with a cloth over it.

"No," she answered; "no; he cannot spare a moment these days. He hardly takes time to eat, and I do all the errands. But he is very happy." Here her face broke into a smile. "Oh, so happy! We both are----"

"And is the great picture finished?" he interrupted, with a movement as if to relieve her of the weight of the basket.

"Almost.... Almost.... Adolphe will tell you when it is ready. No--please, good Mr. Dalny--it is not heavy. But I thank you all the same for wanting to help me. It is a little hot soup for Adolphe. He is very fond of hot soup, and they make it very nice at the corner."

The day following this interview Dalny heard strange noises overhead. The steady tramping had ceased; the sounds were as if heavy furniture was being moved. Then there would come a pattering of lighter feet running in and out of the connecting room. Then a noise as if scrubbing was being done; he thought at one time he heard the splash of water, and even looked up at his own ceiling as if expecting a leak.

Suddenly these unusual sounds ceased, the old man's door was flung open, a hurried step was heard on the upper stairway, and a sharp knock fell upon his own door.

Dalny opened it in the face of the old man. He was bareheaded, his eyes blazing with excitement, his face flushed as if by some uncontrollable joy.

"Come--quick!" he cried; "we are all ready. It was perfected this morning. We have been putting things in order for you, for we do not ever have guests. But you must be careful--your eyes are not accustomed, perhaps, and----"

Dalny darted back without listening to the old man's conclusion, and threw on his coat. The faded sister was upstairs, and he must be presentable.

"And you like your picture," burst out Dalny, as he adjusted his collar and cuffs--part of the old man's happiness had reached his own heart now.

"Like it? It is not something to _like_, Mr. Dalny. It is not a meal; it is a religion. You are in a fog, and the sun bursts through; you are in a tunnel, and are swept out into green fields; you grope in the dark, and an angel leads you to the light. You do not 'like' things then--you thank God on your knees. Louise has done nothing but cry."

These words came in shortened sentences divided by the mounting of each step, the two hurrying up the stairs, "Old Sunshine" ahead, Dalny following.

The sister was waiting for them at the open door. She had a snow-white kerchief over her shoulders and a quaint cap on her head, evidently her best. Her eyes, still red from weeping, shone like flashes of sunshine through falling rain.

"Keep him here, Louise, until I get my umbrella--I am afraid. No; stay till I come for you--" this to Dalny, who was, in his eagerness, peering into the well-swept, orderly looking room. "Shut your eyes until I tell you--quick! under this umbrella" (he had picked it up just inside the door).

Dalny suffered himself to be led into the room, his head smothered under the umbrella, the old man's hand firmly grasping his as if the distance between the door and the masterpiece was along the edge of an abyss.

"Now!" cried the old man, waving the umbrella aside.

Dalny raised his eyes, and a feeling of faintness came over him. Then a peculiar choking sensation crept into his throat. For a moment he did not and could not speak. The thousands of little patches of paint radiating from the centre spot were but so many blurs on a flat canvas. The failure was pathetic, but it was complete.

The old man was reading his face. The faded sister had not taken her eyes from his.

"It does not dazzle you! You do not see the vibrations?"

"I am getting my eyes accustomed to it," stammered Dalny. "I cannot take it all in at once." He was hunting around in his mind for something to say--something that would not break the old man's heart.

"No! You cannot deceive me. I had hoped better things of you, Mr. Dalny. It is not your fault that you cannot see."

The old man had crossed to the door of his studio, had thrown it open, and stood as if waiting for Dalny to pass out.

"Yes, but let me look a little longer," protested Dalny. The situation was too pathetic for him to be offended.

"No--no--please excuse us--we are very happy, Louise and I, and I would rather you left us alone. I will come for you some other time--when my picture has been sent away. Please forgive my sister and me, but _please_ go away."

Weeks passed before Dalny saw either one of the old people again. He watched for them, his door ajar, listening to every sound; but if they passed up and down the stairs, they did so when he was out or asleep. He had noticed, too, that all was still overhead, except a light tread which he knew must be the faded sister's. The heavier footfall, however, was silent.

One morning the janitor opened Dalny's door without knocking and closed it softly behind him. He seemed laboring under some excitement.

"He's up at St. Luke's Hospital; they took him there last night," he said in a whisper, jerking his thumb toward the ceiling.

"Who?"

"'Old Sunshine.'"

"Crazy?"

"No; ill with fever; been sick for a week. Not bad, but the doctor would not let him stay here."

"Did the sister go?" There was a note of alarm in Dalny's voice.

"No, she is upstairs. That's why I came. I don't think she has much to eat. She won't let me in. Maybe you can get her to talk to you; she likes you--she told me so."

Dalny laid down his palette, tiptoed hurriedly up the stairs and knocked gently. There was no response. Then he knocked again, this time much louder, and waited. He heard the rustling of a skirt, but there was no other sound.

"It's Mr. Dalny, madam," he said in the kindest, most sympathetic voice that ever came out of his throat.

The door opened softly, and her face peered through the crack. Tears were in her eyes--old and new tears--following one another down her furrowed cheeks.

"He is gone away; they took him last night, Mr. Dalny." Her voice broke, but she still kept the edge of the door in her trembling hand.

"Yes; I have just heard about it. Let me come in, please; I want to help you. You are all alone."

Her grasp slackened, and Dalny stepped in. The room was in some confusion. The bed where her brother had been ill was still in disorder, the screen that had concealed it pushed to one side. On a table by his easel were the remains of a meal. The masterpiece still stared out from its place. The sister walked to a lounge and sat down.

"Tell me the truth," Dalny said, seating himself beside her. "Have you any money?"

"No; our letter has not come."

"What do you expect to do?"

"I must sell something."

"Let me lend you some money. I have plenty, for I shall get paid for my picture to-morrow; then you can pay it back when yours comes."

"Oh, you are so kind, but we must sell something of our own. We owe a large sum; the rent is two months due, and there are other things, and Adolphe must have some comforts. No, I am not offended, but Adolphe would be if he knew."

Dalny looked into space for a moment, and asked, thoughtfully, "How much do you owe?"

"Oh, a great deal," she answered, simply.

"What things will you sell?" At least he could help her in this.

The faded old lady looked up at Dalny and pointed to the masterpiece.

"It breaks our heart to send it away, but there is nothing else to do. It will bring, too, a great price; nothing else we possess will bring as much. Then we will have no more poverty, and someone may buy it who will love it, and so my brother will get his reward."

Dalny swept his eye around. The furniture was of the shabbiest; pictures and sketches tacked to the wall, but experiments in "Old Sunshine's" pet theories. Nothing else would bring anything. And the masterpiece! That, he knew, would not bring the cost of its frame.

"Where will you send it to be sold--to an art dealer?" Dalny asked. He could speak a good word for it, perhaps, if it should be sent to some dealer he knew.

"No; to a place in Cedar Street, where Adolphe sold some sketches his brother painters gave him in their student days. One by Achenbach--Oswald, not Andreas--brought a large sum. It was a great help to us. I have written the gentleman who keeps the auction-room, and he is to send for the picture to-morrow, and it will be sold in his next picture sale. Adolphe was willing; he told me to do it. 'Someone will know,' he said; 'and we ought not to enjoy it all to ourselves.' Then again, the problem has been solved. All his pictures after this will be full of beautiful light."

The auction-room was crowded. There was to be a sale of French pictures, some by the men of '30 and some by the more advanced impressionists. Many out-of-town buyers were present, a few of them dealers. Dalny rubbed his hands together in a pleased way when he looked over the audience and the collection. It was quite possible that some connoisseur newly made would take a fancy to the masterpiece, confounding it with some one of the pictures of the Upside-down School--pictures looking equally well whichever way they might be hung.

The selling began.

A Corot brought $2,700; a Daubigny, $940; two examples of the reigning success in Paris, $1,100. Twenty-two pictures had been sold.

Then the masterpiece was placed on the easel.

"A Sunrise. By Adolphe Woolfsen of Düsseldorf," called out the auctioneer. "What am I offered?"

There came a pause, and the auctioneer repeated the announcement.

A man sitting by the auctioneer, near enough to see every touch of the brush on "Old Sunshine's" picture, laughed, and nudged the man next to him. Several others joined in.

Then came a voice from behind:

"Five dollars!"

The auctioneer shrank a little, a pained, surprised feeling overspreading his face, as if someone had thrown a bit of orange-peel at him. Then he went on:

"Five dollars it is, gentlemen. Five--five--five!" Even he, with all the tricks of his trade at his fingers' ends, could not find a good word to say for "Old Sunshine's" masterpiece.

Dalny kept shifting his feet in his uneasiness. His hands opened and shut; his throat began to get dry. Then he broke loose:

"One hundred dollars!"

The auctioneer's face lighted up as suddenly as if the calcium light of the painter whom "Old Sunshine" despised had been thrown upon it.

"I have your bid, Mr. Dalny [he knew him]--one hundred--hundred--hundred--one--one--third and last call!"

Dalny thought of the gentle old face waiting at the top of the stairs, and of the old man's anxious look as he lay on his pillow. The auctioneer had seen Dalny's eager expression and at once began to address an imaginary bidder on the other side of the room--his clerk, really.

"Two hundred--two hundred--two--two--two----"

"Three hundred!" shouted Dalny.

Again the clerk nodded:

"Four--four!"

"Five!" shouted Dalny. This was all the money he would get in the morning excepting fifty dollars--and that he owed for his rent.

"Five--five--five!--third and last call! SOLD! and to you, Mr. Dalny! Gentlemen, you seem to have been asleep. One of the most distinguished painters of our time is the possessor of this picture, which only shows that it takes an artist to pick out a good thing!"

She was waiting for him in her room, her own door ajar this time. He had promised to come back, and she was then to go to the hospital and tell the good news to her brother.

With his heart aglow with the pleasure in store for her, he bounded up the stairs, both hands held out, his face beaming:

"Wonderful success! Bought by a distinguished connoisseur who won't let the auctioneer give his name."

"Oh, I am so happy!" she answered. "That is really better than the money; and for how much, dear Mr. Dalny?"

"Five hundred dollars!"

The faded sister's face fell.

"I thought it would bring a great deal more, but then Adolphe will be content. It was the lowest sum he mentioned when he decided to sell it. Will you go with me to tell him? Please do."

In the office of the hospital Dalny stopped to talk to the doctor, the sister going on up to the ward where "Old Sunshine" lay.

"Is he better?" asked Dalny. "He is a friend of mine."

The doctor tapped his forehead significantly with his forefinger.

"Brain trouble?" asked Dalny in a subdued tone.

"Yes."

"Will he get well?"

The doctor shook his head discouragingly.

"How long will he last?"

"Perhaps a week--perhaps not twenty-four hours."

The faded sister now entered. Her face was still smiling--no one had yet told her about her brother.

"Oh, he is so happy, Mr. Dalny."

"And you told him?"

"Yes! Yes!"

"And what did he say?"

"He put his arms around me and kissed me, and then he whispered, 'Oh! Louise, Louise! the connoisseur knew!'"

A POT OF JAM

After a fit of choking that could be heard all over the train the left lung of the locomotive gave out. I had heard her coughing up the long grade and had begun to wonder whether she would pull through, when she gave a wheeze and then a jerk, and out went her cylinder head.

Boston was four hours away and time of value to me. So it was to all the other passengers, judging from the variety and pungency of their remarks--all except one, an old lady who had boarded the train at a station near the foot of the long grade and who occupied a seat immediately in front of mine.

Such a dear old lady! plump and restful, a gray worsted shawl about her shoulders and a reticule on her arm. An old lady with a round rosy face framed in a hood-of-a-bonnet edged with ruffles, the strings tied under her chin, her two soft, human, kindly eyes peering at you over her gold-rimmed spectacles resting on the end of her nose. The sort of an old lady that you would like to have had for a mother provided you never had one of your own that you could remember--so comforting would have been her touch.

As the delay continued, the passengers made remarks. Some I cannot remember; others I cannot print.

One man in unblacked boots, with a full set of dusting-brush whiskers sticking up above his collarless shirt, smooth-shaven chin, red face, and a shock of iron-gray hair held in place by a slouch hat, said he'd "be doggoned if he ever knowed where he was at when he travelled on this road."

Another--a man with a leather case filled with samples on the seat beside him--a restless, loud-talking man, remarked that "they ought to build a cemetery at both ends of the road, and then the mourners could go in a walk and everybody would be satisfied, instead of trying to haul trains loaded with live people that wanted to get somewheres."

Another--a woman this time, in a flower-covered hat and shiny brown silk dress, new, and evidently the pride of her heart from the care she took of it--one of those crisp, breezy, outspoken women of forty-five or fifty--slim, narrow-faced, keen-eyed, with a red--quite red--nose that would one day meet an ambitious upturned chin, and straight, firm mouth, the under lip pressed tight against the upper one when her mind was made up--remarked in a voice that sounded like a buzz-saw striking a knot:

"You ain't tellin' me that we're goin' to miss the train at Springfield, be ye?"

This remark being addressed to the car as a whole--no single passenger having vouchsafed any such information--was received in dead silence.

The arrival of the conductor, wiping the grease and grime from his hands with a wad of cotton-waste, revived hope for a moment and encouraged an air of gayety.

He was a gentlemanly conductor, patient, accustomed to be abused and brief in his replies.

"Maybe one hour; maybe six."

The gayety ceased.

The bewhiskered man said, "Well, I'll be gosh-durned!"

The sample-case man said, "---- ---- ---- ---- ----" (You can fill that up at your leisure.)

The woman in the brown silk rose to her feet, gathered her skirts carefully in her hand, skewered the conductor with her eye, and said: "You've gone and sp'ilt my day, that's what you've gone and done;" and, receiving no reply, crossed the aisle and plumped herself down in the overturned seat opposite the dear old lady, adding, as she shook out her skirt:

"Dirt mean, ain't it?"

The Dear Old Lady looked at the Woman in Brown, nodded in kindly assent, gazed at the conductor over her spectacles until he had closed the door, and said in a low, sweet voice that was addressed to nobody in particular, and yet which permeated the car like a strain of music:

"Well, if we're going to be here for six hours I guess I'll knit."

Just here I began to be interested. The philosophy of the dear woman's life had evidently made her proof against such trivialities. Six hours! What difference did it make? There was a flavor of the _Mañana por la mañana_ of the Spaniard and the _Dolce far niente_ of the Italian in her acceptance of the situation that appealed to me. Another sun would rise on the morrow as beautiful as the one we had to-day; why worry over its setting? Let us eat, drink, and be merry--or knit. It was all the same to her.

I immediately wanted to know more of this passenger--a desire that did not in the slightest degree extend to any other inmate of the car. And yet there were restrictions and barriers which I could not pass. Not occupying the seat beside her or opposite her, but the one behind her, I, of course, was not on terms of such intimacy as would make it possible for me to presume upon her privacy. She was occupying her own house, as it were, framed in between two seat-backs turned to face each other, giving her the use of four seats--one of which had been usurped by the Woman in Brown. I had my one seat with my bag beside me, giving me the privileges of two sittings. Between us, of course, was the back of her own seat, over which I looked and studied her back hair and bonnet and shawl and--knitting.

Under the circumstances I could no more intrude upon the Dear Old Lady's privacy than upon a neighbor's who lived next door to me but whom I did not know and was separated from me only by an eight-inch brick wall. The conventionalities of life enforce these conditions. When, therefore, the Dear Old Lady informed me and the car that she would "knit," I got myself into position to watch the operation; not obtrusively, not with any intention of prying into her private life, but just because--well, just because I couldn't help it.

There was something about her, somehow, that I could not resist. I knew a Dear Old Lady once. She wasn't so stout as this old lady and her eyes were not brown, but blue, and her hair smooth as gray satin and of the same color. I can see her now as I write, the lamplight falling on her ivory needles and tangle of white yarn--and sometimes, even now, I think I hear her voice.

The Dear Old Lady before me felt in her pocket, pulling up her overskirt and fumbling about for a mysterious pouch that was tied around her waist, perhaps, and in which she carried her purse, and then she pinched her reticle and said to herself--I was so near I could hear every word: "Oh, I guess I put it in the bag"--and she leaned over and began unfastening the clasps of an old-fashioned carpet-bag, encased in a pocket-edition of a linen duster, which rested on the seat in front of her and beside the Woman in Brown, who drew her immaculate, never-to-be-spotted silk skirt out of the way of any possible polluting touch.

I craned my head. Somehow I could hardly wait to see what kind of knitting she would take out--whether it was a man's stocking or a baby's mitten or a pair of wee socks, or a stripe to sew in an afghan to put over somebody's bed. What stories could be written about the things dear old ladies knit--what stories they are, really! In every ball of yarn there is a thread that leads from one heart to another: to some big son or fragile daughter, or to the owner of a pair of pink toes that won't stay covered no matter how close the crib--or to a chubby-faced boy with frost-tipped ears or cheeks.

First came the ball of yarn--just plain gray yarn--and then two steel needles, and then----

Then the Dear Old Lady stopped, and an expression of blank amazement overspread her sweet face as her fingers searched the interior of the bag.

"Why," she said to herself, "why! Well! You don't tell me that--well! I never knew that to happen before. Oh, isn't that dreadful! Well, I _never_!" Here she drew out an unfinished gray yarn stocking. "Just look at it! Isn't it awful!"

The Woman in Brown sprang to her feet and switched her dress close to her knees.

"What is it?" she cried.

"Jam!" answered the old lady.

"Jam! You don't mean to say----"

"That's just what it is. Blackberry jam, that my Lizzie put up for John just before I left home and--oh, isn't it too bad! It's streaming all over the seat and running down on the floor! Oh my! my!"

The Woman in Brown gave a bound and was out in the aisle. "Well, I should think," she cried indignantly, "that you'd had sense enough to know better than to carry jam in a thing like that. I ain't got none on me, hev I?"

The Dear Old Lady didn't reply. She was too much absorbed in her own misfortunes to notice her companions.

"I told Lizzie," she continued, "just 'fore I left, that she oughter put it in a basket, but she 'lowed that it had a tin cap and was screwed tight, and that she'd stuff it down in my clothes and it would carry all right. I ain't never left it out of my hand but once, and then I give it to the man who helped me up the steps. He must have set it down sudden like."

As she spoke she drew out from the inside of the bag certain articles of apparel which she laid on the seat. One--evidently a neck handkerchief--looked like a towel that had just wiped off the face of a boy who had swallowed the contents of the jar.

The Woman in Brown was in the aisle now examining her skirts, twisting them round and round in search of stray bits of jam. The Dear Old Lady was still at work in her bag, her back shielding its smeared contents. Trickling down upon the floor and puddling in the aisle and under the seats on the opposite side of the car ran a sticky fluid that the woman avoided stepping upon with as much care as if it had been a snake.

I started forward to help, and then I suddenly checked myself. What could I do? The blackberry jam had not only soaked John's stockings, but it had also permeated. Well, the Dear Old Lady was travelling and evidently on the way to see John--her son, no doubt--and to stay all night. No, it was beyond question; I could not be of the slightest use. Then again, there was a woman present. Whatever help the Dear Old Lady needed should come from her.

"You ain't got no knife, I suppose?" I heard the Woman in Brown say. "If you had you could scrape most of it off."

"No," answered the Dear Old Lady. "Have you?"

"Well, I did hev, but I don't just know where it is. It would gorm that up, too, maybe, if I did find it."

"No, I guess the best way is to try and wash it off. I'll get rid of this anyway," the Dear Old Lady answered; and out came the treacherous jar with the crack extending down its side, its metal top loose, the whole wrapped in yellow paper--all of which she dropped out of the open window.

During this last examination the Woman in Brown stood in the aisle, her skirts above her ankles. It wasn't her bag, or her stockings, or her jam. She had paid her fare and was entitled to her seat and its surrounding comforts: I had a good view of her face as she stood in front of me, and I saw what was passing in her mind. To this air of being imposed upon, first by the railroad and now by this fellow-passenger, was added a certain air of disgust--a contempt for any one, however old, who could be so stupid and careless. The little wrinkles that kept puckering at the base of her red lobster-claw of a nose--it really looked like one--helped me in this diagnosis. Its shape prevented her from turning it up at anybody, and wrinkling was all that was left. Having read her thoughts as reflected in her face, I was no longer surprised that she continued standing without offering in any way to help her companion out of her dilemma.

The Dear Old Lady's examination over, and the intricacies of her bag explored and the corners of certain articles of apparel lifted and immediately replaced again, she said to herself, with a sigh of relief:

"Ain't but one stocking tetched, anyhow. Most of it's gone into my shoes--yes, that's better. Oh, I was so scared!"

"Everything stuck up, ain't it?" rasped the Woman. She hadn't taken her seat yet. It seemed to me she could get more comfort out of the Old Lady's misery standing up.

"Well, it might ha' been worse, but I ain't goin' to worry a mite over it. I'll go to the cooler and wash up what I can, and the rest's got to wait till I get to John's," she said in her sweet, patient way, as she gathered up the bag and its contents and made her way to the wash-basin.

The car relapsed into its former dull condition. Those of the passengers who were not experts and whose advice, if taken, would have immediately replaced the cylinder-head and sent the train in on time, were picking flowers outside the track, but close enough to the train to spring aboard at the first sign of life in the motive-power. Every now and then there would come a back-thrust of the car and a bumping into the one behind us. Some scientist who had spent his life in a country store hereupon explained to a mechanical engineer who had a market garden out of Springfield (I learned this from their conversation) that "it was the b'iler that acted that way; the engineer was lettin' off steam and the jerk come when he raised the safety-valve."

A brakeman now opened the door nearest the water-cooler, passed the old lady washing up, ran amuck through a volley of questions fired at him in rapid succession, and slammed the other door behind him without replying to one of them. In this fusillade the Woman in Brown, who had now turned over a flower-picking passenger's seat in addition to her own, had managed her tongue with the rapidity and precision of a Gatling gun.

One of those mysterious rumors, picked up from some scrap of conversation heard outside, now drifted through the car. It conveyed the information that another engine had been telegraphed for and would be along soon. This possibility the Sample-Case Man demolished by remarking in his peculiar vernacular--unprintable, all of it--that it was ten miles to the nearest telegraph station and it would take two hours to walk it.

The bottom having dropped out of this slight hope, the car relapsed into its dull monotony. No statement now of any kind would be believed by anybody.

During this depression I espied the Dear Old Lady making her way down the aisle. No trace of anxiety was on her face. The bag had resumed its former appearance, its linen duster buttoned tight over its ample chest.

The Woman in Brown was waiting for her, her feet up on the flower-picking passenger's seat, her precious brown silk tucked in above her shoes.

"Quite a muss, warn't it?" she said with rather a gleeful tone, as if she rejoiced in the Old Lady's punishment for her stupidity.

"Yes, but it's all right now. It soaked through my shoes and went all over my cap, and----" Here she bent her head and whispered into the Woman's ear. I realized then how impossible it would have been for me to have rendered the slightest assistance.

She had taken her seat now and had laid the bag in its original position on the cushion in front of her. My heart had gone out to her, but I was powerless to help. Once or twice I conned over in my mind an expression of sympathy, but I could not decide on just what I ought to say and when I ought to say it, and so I kept silent. I should not have felt that way about the Woman in Brown, who sat across from me, her two feet patting away on the seat cushion as if to express her delight that she had escaped the catastrophe (toes express joy oftener than fingers, if we did but know it). It would not have taken me five seconds to express my opinion of her--with my toes had she been a man.

The Dear Old Lady began now to rearrange her toilet, drawing up her shawl, tightening the strings of her comfortable bonnet, wiping the big gold spectacles on a bit of chamois from her reticule. I watched every movement. Somehow I could not keep my eyes from her. Then I heard her say in a low voice to herself:

"Well, the toe warn't stained--I guess I can work on that."

Out came the needles and yarn again, and the wrinkled fingers settled down to their work. No more charming picture in the world than the one now before me!

The Woman in Brown held a different opinion. Craning her head and getting a full view of the Dear Old Lady peacefully and comfortably at work, all her sorrows ended, she snapped out:

"I s'pose ye don't know I can't put my feet down nowheres. It's all a muck round here; you seed it when the jar fust busted, 'cause I heard ye say so. I been 'spectin' ye'd clean it up somehow."

Down went the knitting and up she got.

"Oh, I'm so sorry. I'll get a newspaper and wipe it up. I hope you didn't get none on your clothes."

"Oh, I took care o' that! This is a brand-new dress and I ain't wore it afore. I don't get nothin' on _my_ clothes--I ain't that kind." This last came with a note of triumph in her voice.

I watched the Dear Old Lady lean over the thin axe-handle ankles of the Woman in Brown, mop up a little pool of jam-juice, tuck the stained paper under the crossbar, and regain her seat. I started up to help, but it was all over before I could interfere.

The Dear Old Lady resumed her knitting. The Woman in Brown put down her feet; her rights had been recognized and she was satisfied. I kept up my vigil.

Soon a movement opposite attracted me. I raised my eyes. The Woman in Brown, with her eye on the Dear Old Lady, was stealthily opening a small paper bundle. She had the air of a boy watching a policeman. The paper parcel contained a red napkin, a dinner knife, and two fat sandwiches streaming with butter.

"Oh, you brought your lunch with you, did ye?" remarked the Dear Old Lady, who had unexpectedly raised her eyes from her knitting and at the wrong moment.

"Well, jes' a bite. I'd offer ye some, but I heard ye say that you were goin' to eat dinner with your son. That's so, ain't it?"

"Yes, that's so."

The needles kept on their course, the Dear Old Lady's thoughts worked in with every stitch. It was now twelve o'clock, and Boston hours away. John would dine late if he waited for his old mother.

The red napkin had now been laid on the seat cushion and the sandwiches placed side by side in full sight of the car. Concealment was no longer necessary.

"I don't s'pose ye left any water in the cooler, did ye?"

"Oh, plenty," came the reply, the needles still plying, the dear face fixed on their movement.

"Well, then, I guess before I eat I'll get a cup," and she covered the luncheon with the brown paper and passed down the aisle.

During her brief absence several important incidents took place. First there came a jerk that felt for a moment like a head-on collision. This was a new locomotive, which had been sent to our relief, butting into the rear car. Then followed a rush of passengers, flower-pickers, mechanical engineers, scientists, sample-case man, and, last, the man with the dusting-brush whiskers. He paused for a moment, located his seat by his umbrella in the rack overhead, picked up the paper parcel, transferred it to the other seat, the one the woman in Brown had just left, tilted forward the back, and sat down.

When he had settled himself and raised his head, the Woman in Brown stood over him looking into his eyes, an angry expression on her face. She held a cup of water in her hand.

"My seat, ain't it?" he blurted out.

"Yes, 'spec' it is," she snarled back, "long as you want it." And she gathered her skirts carefully, edged into the reduced space of her former seat, laid the cup of water on the sill of the window, and sat down as carefully as a hen adjusting herself to a nest, and, I thought, with precisely the same movement.

A moment more and she leaned over the seat-back and said to the bewhiskered man:

"Hand me that napkin and stuff, will ye?"

The man moved his arm, picked up his newspaper, looked under it, and said:

"It ain't here."

"Well, I guess it is. I sot it there not more'n two minutes ago!"

The man settled himself in his seat and began to read.

"Look 'round there, will ye? Maybe it dropped on the floor."

"It ain't on the floor. Guess I know a napkin when I see it." This came with some degree of positiveness.

"Well, it ain't here. I left it right where you're a-sittin' when I went and got this water. You ain't eat it, hev ye?" She was still in her seat, her head twisted about, her face expressing every thought that crossed her mind.

"No, I ain't eat it. I ain't no goat!" and the man buried his face in his paper. For him the incident was closed.

Here there came a still small voice floating out from the lips of the Dear Old Lady, slowly, one word at a time:

"Ain't you set on it?"

"Set on it! _What!_"

She was on her feet now, pulling her skirt around, craning her neck, her face getting whiter and whiter as the truth dawned upon her.

"Oh, Lordy! Jes' look at it! However did I come to! Oh!"

"Here, take my handkerchief," murmured the Dear Old Lady. "Let me help wipe it off." And she laid down her knitting.

Oh, but it was a beautiful stain! A large, irregular, map-like stain, with the counties plotted in bits of ham and the townships in smears of bread, with little rivers of butter running everywhere. One dear, beloved rill in an ecstasy of delight had skipped a fold and was pushing a heap of butter ahead of it down a side plait.

I hugged myself with the joy of it all. If it had only been a crock she had sat in, with sandwiches enough to supply a picnic!

And the stain!

That should have been as large as the State of Rhode Island!

BOOKS BY F. HOPKINSON SMITH

THE FORTUNES OF OLIVER HORN

With full-page Illustrations by Walter Appleton Clark. 12mo, $1.50

"It is long since more charming characters were brought together in one book."--New York _Times Saturday Review_.

"It is in the character-drawing that the author has done his best work. No three finer examples of women can be found than Margaret Grant, Sallie Horn, Oliver's mother, and Lavinia Clendenning, the charming old spinster."--Louisville _Courier-Journal_.

"Full of warmth and life, while its characters find a place quickly in one's heart."--Chicago _Record-Herald_.

"There will be a general unanimity, and that is in the cordiality with which readers will recommend it to their friends."--New York _Globe_.

"Its charm does not depend entirely upon the story, though that is perhaps as entertaining as any Mr. Smith has ever spun, but resides in its exquisite presentations of characters with whom it is a joy to become acquainted."--The Detroit _Free Press_.

THE UNDER DOG

Illustrated. 12mo, $1.50

"There is, of course, a certain tragic air in the run of them, but no real gloominess ... the optimism and natural good humor of the ingenious and versatile author shining in the saddest and most sentimental pages of the book."--New York _Evening Sun_.

"Mr. Hopkinson Smith's genius for sympathy finds full expression in his stories of human under dogs of one sort and another ... each serves as a centre for an episode, rapid, vivid, story-telling."--_The Nation_.

"Mr. Smith shows in the management of the short story, as he has shown so often before, the same command over his material and his instruments which he has shown in his novels."--New York _Tribune_.

"The touch is always light and delicate but sure, and the pictures presented seem very real."--Philadelphia _Public Ledger_.

COLONEL CARTER'S CHRISTMAS

With eight illustrations in color by F. C. Yohn. 12mo, $1.50

"The story rings true."--Brooklyn _Times_.

"Altogether the best character ever created by Mr. Smith."--Providence _Journal_.

"The dear old Colonel claims our smiles and our love as simply and as whole-heartedly as ever, and we thank the author for another glimpse of him."--_Life._