Chapter X: Act I: , Scene IV. Enter Jack and Elsie with fairy flask and taper (1)

_Elsie._ Is this the room, Mr. Jack o' Lantern?

_Jack._ Yes, Elsie, this is the room where the King told me to take you and await his presence. What a pity it is the Prince--[_Stops_].

_Elsie._ Prince! what Prince?

_Jack._ Sh! walls have ears, Elsie, and, indeed, I forgot that the King had forbidden us ever to speak of him again. But I must be off to dance attendance on the Queen. Her majesty, be it said with all due reverence, is not over-sweet when her loyal subjects are slow to obey her commands. [_Exit, but immediately puts his head in the door._] Don't forget the magical water, Elsie. [_Exit._]

_Elsie._ That's so; I had forgotten that I must drink this. [_Looks at flask in her hand._] Jack says that it keeps anybody from growing old so fast; but if you get it from the fairies on Christmas eve, the way I did, you won't ever grow old. Oh dear! I don't want to be young forever. I want to grow up, and be sixteen. Then I'd wear my hair high, and have a long train. [_Struts up and down, but stops suddenly._] Well, I don't care, you couldn't play hop-scotch in a train. [_Looking about her._] I don't think this room's pretty, a bit. [_Catches sight of something shining on the wall._] Oh my! what's that shiny thing? Wouldn't it be fun if there were a secret door there, just like a story book! I'm going to see what it is. [_Stops._] Dear me! I forgot that horrid flask! [_Brightening up._] Maybe it'll make me nice and old, though. I'll take the old spring water first, anyhow, and then I'll see what that thing is over there. I wonder what will happen. [_Drinks._]

Curtain.

CRITTENDEN MARRIOTT

Crittenden Marriott, novelist, was born at Baltimore, March 20, 1867, the great grandson of Kentucky's famous statesman, John J. Crittenden, the grandson of Mrs. Chapman Coleman, who wrote her father's biography, and the son of Cornelia Coleman, who was born at Louisville, Kentucky, and lived there until her marriage. Mr. Marriott's mother, grandmother, and aunts translated several of Miss Muhlbach's novels and a volume of French fairy tales. The future novelist first saw Kentucky when he was nine years old, and for the two years following he lived at Louisville and attended a public school. From 1878 to 1882 he was at school in Virginia, but he spent two of the vacations in Louisville. In 1883 he was appointed to the Naval Academy at Annapolis, but two years later he was compelled to resign on account of deficient eyesight. He returned to Louisville where he clerked in an insurance office, the American Mutual Aid Society, which position he held until 1887, when he resigned and removed to Baltimore as an architectural draughtsman. He subsequently went to Washington, and from there to California. In 1890 Mr. Marriott joined the staff of the San Francisco _Chronicle_, and acted as representative of the Associated Press. Two years later he went to South Africa as a correspondent, tramping sixteen hundred miles in the interior, mostly alone. After this strenuous journey he returned to his aunt's home at Louisville, spending some of the time in Shelby county, Kentucky. He shortly afterwards went to New York as ship news reporter for _The Tribune_, which he held for six months. In 1893 Mr. Marriott went to Brazil for the Associated Press on the dynamite cruiser _Nictheroy_. The fall of 1894 found him again in Shelby county, this time meeting his future wife, a Louisville girl, whom he married in June, 1895. At the time of his wedding he was a newspaper correspondent in Washington. Mr. Marriott's health broke shortly afterwards, and from January to September, 1896, he was ill at Louisville. In 1897 he went to Cuba for the Chicago _Record_. When the now defunct Louisville _Dispatch_ was established, Mr. Marriott became telegraph editor, which position he held for six months in 1898. Although he has resided in Washington since leaving the _Dispatch_, he regards Louisville as his real home, and he has visited there several times within the last few years, his most recent visit being late in 1912, when he came for his sister's wedding. Since 1904 Mr. Marriott has been one of the assistant editors of the publications of the United States Geological Survey. At the present time he is planning to surrender his post and establish a permanent home at Louisville. Mr. Marriott's first book, _Uncle Sam's Business_ (New York, 1908), was an excellent study of our government at work, "told for young Americans." It was followed by a thrilling, wildly improbable tale of the Sargasso Sea, _The Isle of Dead Ships_ (Philadelphia, 1909), the scene of which he saw several times on his various journeys around the world. _How Americans Are Governed in Nation, State, and City_ (New York, 1910), was an adultiazation and elaboration of his first book, fitting it for institutions of learning and for the general reader. Mr. Marriott's second novel, _Out of Russia_ (Philadelphia, 1911), a story of adventure and intrigue, was somewhat saner than _The Isle of Dead Ships_. From June to October, 1912, his _Sally Castleton, Southerner_, a Civil War story, ran in _Everybody's Magazine_, and it will be issued by the Lippincott's in January, 1913. The love story of a Virginia girl, daughter of a Confederate general, and a Kentuckian, who is a Northern spy, it is far and away the finest thing Mr. Marriott has done--one of the best of the recent war novels. In the past five years he has sold more than one hundred short-stories, some fifteen serials, and his fifth book is now in press, which is certainly a most creditable record. He has published two Kentucky stories, one for _Gunter's Magazine_, the other for _The Pocket Magazine_ (which periodical was swallowed up by _Leslie's Weekly_); and he has recently finished a third Kentucky romance, which he calls _One Night in Kentucky_, and which will appear in _The Red Book Magazine_ sometime in 1913.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. Letters from Mr. Marriott to the Author; _Who's Who
in America_, (1912-1913).

THE ARRIVAL OF THE ENEMY[53]

[From _Sally Castleton, Southerner_ (_Everybody's Magazine_, June, 1912)]

With her heart beating so that she could not speak, she opened the door. She knew that she must be calm, must not show too great terror, must not try to deny the enemy the freedom of the house. She clung to the door, half fainting, while the world spun round her.

Slowly the haze cleared. Dully, as from afar off, she heard some one addressing her and realized that a boy was standing on the porch steps holding his horse's bridle--a boy, short, rotund, friendly looking, with gilt and yellow braid upon his dusty blue uniform; just a boy--not an enemy.

"Well, sir?" she faltered.

The boy snatched off his slouch hat with its yellow cord. He stood swinging it in his hand, staring admiringly at the girls. "General Haverhill's compliments," he said. "He regrets to cause inconvenience, but he must occupy this house as headquarters for a few hours. He will be here immediately." He gestured toward a little knot of horsemen, who had paused at the foot of the lawn and were staring down the valley with field-glasses.

Sally managed to bow with some degree of calmness. "The house is at General Haverhill's disposal," she answered steadily. "I am sorry that I have only one aged servant and therefore cannot serve him as I should."

The boy smiled. He seemed unable to take his eyes from her face. "Oh, that's all right," he exclaimed cheerfully. "We are used to looking out for ourselves. Don't trouble yourself a bit. The general only wants a place to rest for a few hours."

"He may have that," Miss Castleton smiled faintly. After all, there were pleasant people among the Yankees. Besides, it was just as well to conciliate while she could. "In fact, he can have more. Uncle Claban is a famous cook and our pantry is not quite empty. May I offer supper to him and his staff?"

Her tones were quite natural. She felt surprised at her lack of fear; now that the shock of the meeting was over, the danger seemed somehow less.

The subaltern's white teeth flashed. "Really, truly supper at a table, with a table-cloth! It's too good to be true. I'll tell the general." He turned toward the horsemen, who were coming toward the steps.

Sally waited, watching curiously. She felt 'Genie's convulsive grasp on her hand and squeezed back reassuringly. "Don't be afraid, dear!" she murmured. "They're only men, after all. Try to forget that they are Yankees, and everything will come right." She turned once more to meet her guests.

On all sides of the house the busy scene was rapidly changing. The dusty cavalrymen, saddle-weary after a hard ride, were taking advantage of a few hours' halt. The troopers, gaunt, sun-burned, unshaven, covered with mud and dust, moved about this way and that. Company lines were formed, and long strings of picketed horses munched the clover, while other strings of horses, with a trooper riding bare-back, half a dozen bridles in his hands, clattered toward the creek. Stacked arms glittered in the sunlight. Men with red crosses on their sleeves established a tiny hospital tent and looked to the slightly wounded who had accompanied the flying column. Some of the Castleton fences went for farrier's fires, and his hammer clanked noisily.

The troops were too thoroughly seasoned campaigners to get out of hand, but the officers were as tired as the men, and there was no little foraging. The clusters of cherries, the yellow June apples, and the welcome "garden truck" were temptations not to be wholly resisted.

It was all new and strange to Sally and, hard as it was to see the Castleton acres trampled and overrun, she watched the busy scene with unconscious interest.

The voice of the young officer recalled her to herself. "General Haverhill," he was saying, in deference to a half-forgotten convention. "General Haverhill--Miss--?" He paused interrogatively.

The girl bowed. "I'm Miss Castleton," she said.

"Miss Castleton." The general swept off his slouch hat. "I suppose Lieutenant Rigby here has told you that we must use your house?"

"Yes, general. Will you come in?"

The subaltern interposed. "Miss Castleton has offered us supper, general," he said.

The general smiled. He was a powerful-looking man of forty; the scar of a saber gash across his face gave it a sinister aspect, but his smile was pleasant. "You are--loyal?" he questioned doubtfully. The question seemed unnecessary.

"Yes--to Virginia!" Sally met his eyes steadily.

"Oh! I see!" Quizzically he contemplated the girl from under his bushy brows. "And this is--" he turned toward the younger girl.

"My sister, Miss Eugenia Castleton."

"Ah!" The general bowed. "I suppose you, too, are loyal--to Virginia, Miss Eugenia?" he said.

Perhaps it was the patronizing note in the question that touched 'Genie on the raw. Perhaps it was sheer terror. Whatever the cause, she flashed up, suddenly furious. "Oh!" she cried, stamping her small foot. "Oh! I wish I were a man! I wish I were a man!"

The grizzled Federal looked at her steadily, and not without admiration. "Perhaps it's lucky for me you're not," he answered, smiling.

Bowing, he stood aside to let the girls pass at the door, then clanked after them into the cool, wide hall with its broad center-table, its chairs and lounge--the lounge on which Philip Byrd had so lately lain--and the big black stove. To save their lives neither Sally nor her sister could help glancing at that stove.

It was Sally's part to play hostess, and she did it valiantly. "Please sit down, general," she invited. "If you will excuse me, I will see about supper." With a smile she rustled from the room, 'Genie following rather sullenly.

In the wide kitchen she dropped into a chair, trembling. Had she acted her part well, she wondered, or had she overdone it? Was it suspicion that she had seen in the general's eyes as she left him? Would he search--and find? How long would he stay? Philip was wounded, suffering, probably hungry and thirsty. If the Yankees stayed very long, he might have to surrender. What would they do to him? Would they consider him a spy and--and----

A hand clutched her and she looked up. 'Genie was on her knees beside her, flushed, tear-stained face uplifted.

"Oh, Sally, Sally!" she wailed. "Did I do wrong? Did I make him suspect? Oh, if anything happens to Philip through my fault, I'll die!"

Sally laid her hand on the bright hair of the girl beside her. "You didn't harm Philip," she comforted. "It wouldn't do for us to be too friendly. That would be the surest way to make them suspicious."

"But--but--he'll starve!"

"Oh, no he won't! I don't think they'll stay long. 'For a few hours,' that young officer said. But come!" Sally jumped up. "Come. Let's get supper for them. That'll give us something to do, and will keep them occupied--when it's ready. Men will always eat. Come!"

'Genie rose obediently, if not submissively. "Supper!" she flashed. "Supper! And we've got to feed those tyrants, with poor Philip starving right under their noses."

The elder sister smiled. "I'm sorry," she said gently; "but there are worse things than missing a meal or two. Perhaps it may be better for him, after all; for he must have some fever after that wound and that ride. Anyhow, we've got to feed these Yankees, so let's do it with a good grace. Men are easiest managed when they've eaten. If we've got to feed the brutes, let's do it."

FOOTNOTE:

[53] Copyright, 1912, by the Ridgway Company.

ABBIE CARTER GOODLOE

Miss Abbie Carter Goodloe, novelist and short-story writer, was born at Versailles, Kentucky, in 1867. In 1883 she was graduated from the Girls' High School, Louisville; and in 1889 she received the degree of Bachelor of Science from Wellesley College. The next two years were spent in studying and traveling in Europe. On her return to the United States Miss Goodloe made her home at Louisville, of which city she has been a resident ever since. Her first book, _Antinous_ (Philadelphia, 1891), a blank verse tragedy, was followed by _College Girls_ (New York, 1895), an entertaining collection of short stories of college life. Miss Goodloe's first novel, _Calvert of Strathore_ (New York, 1903), was set, for the most part, in the sunny land of France. _At the Foot of the Rockies_ (New York, 1905), a group of short stories, is Miss Goodloe's best work so far. Several of the tales are of great merit and interest, one enthusiastic critic comparing them to Kipling's finest work. The author spent one glorious summer in Alberta, Canada, surrounded by the Northwest Mounted Police, Indians, Englishmen, Americans, and the romance of it all quite possessed her. These were the backgrounds for the eight stories which have won her wider fame than any of her other writings. A winter in Mexico furnished materials for her latest novel, _The Star-Gazers_ (New York, 1910). The reader is presented to the late president of that revolutionary-ridden republic, Porfirio Diaz, together with the other celebrities of his country. The epistolary form of narration is adopted, and the result is not especially noteworthy. In no way does this work rank with _At the Foot of the Rockies_. The short-story is certainly Miss Goodloe's greatest gift, and in that field she should go far.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. Anna Blanche McGill's excellent study in the
_Library of Southern Literature_ (Atlanta, 1909, v. v);
_Scribner's Magazine_ (January, April, 1910; July, 1911).

A COUNTESS OF THE WEST[54]

[From _At the Foot of the Rockies_ (New York, 1905)]

She looked at the Honorable Arthur, abashed and weakly unhappy, and a wave of disgust swept over her. He was so big and stupid and irresolute. She would have liked him better if he had told her with brutal frankness that he no longer cared for her and wouldn't marry her. She had thought him grateful at least, and he wasn't even that. The affection he had inspired in her fell from her like a discarded garment. Suddenly she unfastened a button of her shirtwaist and drew from around her neck a little blue ribbon on which hung a seal ring. With a jerk she snapped the ribbon and slipped off the ring. She held it out to him.

"There," she said, cooly, "take it back to Rigby Park and give it to some fine English girl whom your father happens to know! I hope you'll enjoy your England. Montana's good enough for me!"

As she swept the Honorable Arthur with a scornful glance, she suddenly saw his jaw drop and a curious look spring into his eyes. Following the direction of his gaze she beheld two riders approaching at a hand gallop, a Mounted Police officer from Fort Macleod, whom she knew, and following briskly in his wake, a handsome Englishman of middle age. The hair about his temples was heavily tinged with white, but his complexion was as fresh and pink and white as a baby's, and he was most immaculately got up in riding things.

"It's the governor," she heard the Honorable Arthur whisper incredulously to himself.

The meeting between the two was cold and formal, after the fashion of the Anglo-Saxon male. Miss Ogden looked on in fascinated silence. The Earl of Rigby put up a single eyeglass and surveyed his son.

"By gad, my boy, I'm glad to see you again. You aren't looking any too fit, you know."

"Thanks, father--yes, I know it. When did you get here?"

"Just stepped off the train at Macleod two hours ago. Beastly train."

"Yes, isn't it? Howd'y do, Nevin?"

"Howd'y do, St. John? Howd'y do, Miss Ogden? Haven't seen you for a long while. May--may I--the Earl of Rigby, Miss Ogden."

The Earl of Rigby screwed his glass in again--it had fallen out when he had shaken his son's hand--and stared at the young woman before him.

"Awfully glad to meet you, I'm sure," he said, affably. "I--I had always understood that this country was an Eveless paradise. I'm glad to see I'm mistaken."

Miss Lily Ogden surveyed the Earl of Rigby imperturbably. Not one of the thrills which an hour before she would have supposed necessarily attendant on an introduction to a noble earl now disturbed her composure. Even his exaggeratedly polite compliment left her perfectly cool. He simply seemed to her an extremely handsome man, a good deal cleverer and stronger-looking than his son.

"This country wouldn't be a paradise at all without Miss Ogden," said Nevin, gallantly. "She's the best horsewoman in Port Highwood and she'll help St. John show you the country, my lord."

"Thanks, Captain Nevin." She smiled on him sweetly, showing the white, even teeth between the scarlet lips, and then she turned to the Earl of Rigby. "I shall be delighted to show you the country--specially as Mr. St. John is obliged to go away in two or three days."

"I should like nothing better," said the earl, with conviction.

"Have to go on the round-up," murmured the Honorable Arthur.

"That's hard luck," said Nevin, sympathetically. "Two weeks, I suppose."

"Yes--father'll have to stop for a bit at the Highwood House. I fancy he'll wish he were back in England!"

"Not if Miss Ogden will ride with me," observed the earl.

A curious light came into the girl's gray eyes.

"I could show your lordship a new trail every day for the two weeks, and at the end of the time I am sure you could not decide which to call the prettiest," she asserted.

"I dare say," assented the earl, eagerly; "but I would like to try."

"Oh, Miss Ogden will take good care of you," said Nevin. "And now, as you have two guides, if you will excuse me, I think I won't go on into Highwood. Your lordship's things will be sent over early in the morning. His lordship was so anxious to see you, St. John, that we couldn't even persuade him to mess with us to-night," he remarked, jocularly, to the Honorable Arthur. "And now I will turn back, I think. Good-bye!" He waved a gauntleted hand, and wheeling his horse set off at an easy canter for the fort.

A somewhat awkward constraint fell upon the three so left, which Miss Ogden dispelled by turning her horse toward Highwood, and riding on slightly ahead of the Honorable Arthur and his father. The earl gazed admiringly at her slim back.

"By gad, she's a beauty, Arthur, my deah boy, and she sits her horse perfectly."

"She's an American," remarked the young man, aggressively.

"She's beautiful enough to be English," retorted the earl, warmly. He spurred forward and rode at her right hand. The Honorable Arthur rather sulkily closed up on the left.

"I was just saying to Arthur, Miss Ogden, that he could go on the round-up and jolly welcome as long as you have promised to show me the country. I am most deeply interested in our Canadian possessions, you know," said the earl.

She shot him a glance from under the black lashes of her gray eyes which made the Earl of Rigby fairly gasp.

"I shall try my best to keep your lordship from being bored while Mr. St. John is away," she said, sweetly.

It was two weeks later, or to be perfectly exact, two weeks and four days later, that a half-breed was sent down to the Morgan round-up, twenty-five miles west of Calgary, with a telegram for St. John. The Honorable Arthur was so dirty, tired, dusty, and sunburnt that the half-breed had difficulty in picking him out from the rest of the dirty, tired, dusty, and sunburnt round-up crew.

The sight of the telegram filled the young man with an indefinable fear, and the paper fluttered in his trembling hand like a withered leaf on a windshaken bough.

"Meet the 2:40 from Macleod at Calgary. Will be on train. Most important.

RIGBY."

His swollen tongue and parched lips got drier, his cracked and tanned skin paled as he read and reread the message. Suddenly a joyous thought came to him. "The old boy's relented sure, and wants me to go back with him," he told himself over and over. He thrust his few things into the one portmanteau he had brought with him and made such good time going the twenty-five miles into Calgary that he had been pacing up and down the station platform for ten minutes when the train pulled in.

The Earl of Rigby, who had been hanging over the vestibule rail of the observation car, swung himself lightly down and cordially grasped his son's hand. The Honorable Arthur was struck afresh by the good looks and youthfulness of his aristocratic father.

"By Jove, Arthur, I'm glad to see you got my telegram, and I'm glad you got here in time. What? No, you won't need your portmanteau. The truth is," he gave an infectious laugh, "the Countess of Rigby--she was Miss Lily Ogden until last night, my deah boy--and I are on our way to England, and we couldn't leave the country without seeing you again. Won't you step into the coach and speak to her?"

FOOTNOTE:

[54] Copyright, 1905, by Charles Scribner's Sons.

GEORGE LEE BURTON

George Lee Burton, magazinest, was born at Danville, Kentucky, April 17, 1868. He was fitted at the Louisville Rugby School for the University of Virginia, from which he was graduated, after which he returned to Louisville, and studied law in the University of Louisville. Upon his graduation from that institution he was admitted to the bar, and he has since practiced his profession at Louisville with success. Mr. Burton began to write some years ago, contributing short-stories and sketches to the eastern periodicals. _The Century_ published his clever story, _As Seen By His Bride_; and _Ainslee's Magazine_ printed his _The Training of the Groom_, _The Deferred Proposal_, _Cupid's Impromptu_, and several other stories. His work for _The Saturday Evening Post_, however, has been his most noteworthy performance. For that great weekly he has written: _Getting a Start at Sixty_ (published anonymously); _The Making of a Small Capitalist_, _A Fresh Grip_, _A Rebuilt Life_, and _Tackling Matrimony_, the last of which titles appeared in two parts in _The Post_ for November 23 and November 30, 1912, was exceedingly well done. He has recently re-written _Tackling Matrimony_, greatly developing the story-part, and more than doubling its length, for the Harper's, who will issue it in book form early in the spring of 1913. Mr. Burton is a bachelor who has won wide reputation as a writer upon various phases of matrimonial mixups. He also has a certain sympathy with those who waste their youth in riotous living, but who win their true positions in the world after all seems lost.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. Letters from Mr. Burton to the Author; _Outing_
(May, 1900).

AFTER PRISON--HOME[55]

[From _A Rebuilt Life_ (_Saturday Evening Post_, March 23, 1912)]

"Well, sir, when I got out I was shipped back to my own town, or rather the town from which I had been sent up. I was born five hundred miles from there; but my people had died when I was young and I had drifted in there when I was only sixteen years old--I guess that makes it my town after all. Now, at thirty-five I was back there from the pen and I stayed there.

"Maybe that was a mistake. I guess it was harder for me; but I had that much fight left in me. I wanted to show people that there was still some man in me, even if I had spent ten years in the pen that I deserved to spend there. Besides, I wouldn't like to start off fresh in a new place and build up a little, and just as I got to going have somebody from my home town come along and tell everybody that respected me that I was a murderer and an ex-convict and a lowdown sort of nobody.

"I believe after all I'd rather start in as I did, back where they thought that about me to begin with, and build up fresh from that. I wanted to live down the killing and those ten years--and I believe I've sorter done it. It may sound foolish, but--though I don't excuse all that, remember--I have got to sorter respect myself again, and I tell you it feels good!

"They didn't have prison reform in that state then, with an employment officer and a job all ready to help a poor devil start out again when he got back to freedom. They gave me a suit of clothes and five dollars and shipped me back to the town I came from, then turned me loose as an ex-convict to hump for myself like the other "exes," branded by those years of living in there.

"It certainly seemed strange to see the place again. There had been many changes in those years. I put up at one of these twenty-five-cents-a-night men's hotels, and took fifteen-cent meals--skipping one every day to make my five dollars last longer; and I commenced looking for a job.

"There didn't seem any need of more help anywhere. I tried many of my old acquaintances to see if I could get a place--I did not seem to have any friends left! I found ten years in the pen seemed to wipe out the claim of being even an acquaintance with most of them. They all looked at me curiously, as if I was a different brand of man--a cannibal, or Eskimo, or something.

"I'd rather they wouldn't have showed so plain they thought me dangerous or worse; yet I'd have swallowed that if they had only given me work. They didn't though; some of them weren't as cold with me as others, but none of them had anything for me.

"Of course I tackled all sorts of strangers, too, for work; but usually they didn't have any--and when they had they wanted references. I couldn't blame them; I guess I had a sort of pasty face and hangdog look.

"They had such a habit of asking: 'Where did you work last?'

"'I've been away a long time--have not worked here for several years,' I would say.

"'Where did you work while you were away?' came next.

"'I worked at broom-making part of the time,' I got to answering.

"Then, like as not, the boss would look at me suspiciously and say: 'No, I don't believe I need you just now; if I do I will let you know. Where do you live?"

"When I gave the number of the bum lodging house he would look as if that settled it; he had known all along I wasn't any good. And I felt so shamed and low down all the time I looked like he was right.

"Five dollars don't last very long, even with two meals a day. I got work one day on a wrecker's force, tearing down an old building; but the foreman drove his men hard and I wasn't used to real work anyway. I couldn't stand up to it, and--I'm ashamed to tell it even now--I fainted about four o'clock that afternoon.

"Another day I got a place with the gang working repairs on the street-railroad tracks; but the man in charge said I was too slow and not strong enough--had better get some different kind of work. As if I hadn't tried everything I could! He didn't pay me for a full day either--said I wasn't worth it; and the worst was that I knew he was right. I was about at the end of my rope when my money gave out, and I was looking so weak and shamefaced that I didn't stand any sort of a chance. I got to feeling desperate.

"I remember that about this time I went in to answer an ad--'Man wanted as porter in well-established wholesale drug house.' The head of the place was a mild-mannered old man, who sat in the back office, but who always looked over the new men before they were employed. He began as usual:

"'Where did you work last?'

"'With the street-railroad gang,' I answered.

"'U-um! How long?'

"'One day,' I told him.

"'Ah!' he said, as if he had discovered something--'and before that?'

"'With a house-wrecking gang on Flint Street.'

"'Yes--how long there?'

"'Part of a day,' I said. 'I couldn't stand up to the work.'

"I thought he looked a little sympathetic then, but was not sure until he sniffed and asked the next question in a hard, thin voice:

"'And where before that?'

"I hesitated a moment; he looked at me more closely and said in that same tone:

"'Where?'

"I had been looked at and questioned so much that way and had got so raw about it that now I almost shouted: 'In the penitentiary!'

"'Why, bless my soul!' the mild little man gasped. 'No, I don't need you. Good day! Good day!'

"He looked so shocked and I felt so desperate that I could not help adding, while I looked at him hard:

"'I was put in for manslaughter too--voluntary manslaughter!'

"There wasn't any clerk in the room at the time.

"Oh, oh, indeed!' he gulped out, rising and backing away, big-eyed and trembly. He almost got to the back window before I turned and left.

"Maybe I didn't feel bitter and like 'what's the use--what's the use of anything!' I don't know what would have happened--I guess I'd have starved to death or worse--if it hadn't been for the hoboes' hotel--Welcome Hall--'Headquarters for the Unemployed,' as it's advertised.

"You don't know about the place? Well, sir, it's a dandy!--at least, that's the way I think about it--and a good many others do too. The worst of the hoboes won't go there if they can help it--they'd rather bum a dime and get a bed for the night in one of those ten-cent places.

"This Welcome Hall is a sort of industrial kindling-splitting joint. You blow in there and saw and split kindling for a bed and meals--you give them six hours' work.

"You see, in that way you can live off six hours' work a day and have some time left to look for a job. It's a good thing, and it's been a moneymaker too; it's the only charity I know of that's not a charity but a moneymaking concern. Of course people had to give it a place and start it; but it more than pays expenses, and at the same time helps to build up a man instead of making him a pauper or a deadbeat bum.

"I certainly was glad to find some place where I could at least earn my lodging and meals. I rested up some there and was glad I could just stay somewhere. Though I looked about for work a little, nearly every day, I lived along there for three weeks on my six hours a day of work--still out of a job. At last I guess my fighting blood got up again, I determined I would get a job of some kind, even if it was cleaning vaults. I decided no honest work was beneath me when it all seemed so far above me as to be out of reach.

"'If I keep my eyes open and am not too choosy I must find something to do,' I said to myself, and set out to look for it in earnest. It was Saturday morning, I remember, for I thought of the next day being Sunday, when I could not even hunt for work. I had walked a good way and asked for work at a lot of places without getting anything to do, when I saw an old negro man sweeping leaves off the sidewalk and washing off the front steps of a plain two-story house with a bucket of water and a cloth.

"'I may not be much account but I sure can do that,' I thought, and asked him how much he got for it.

"'For dese here, boss, I gits ten cents; but when I wuks all de way roun' to de back do' I gits some dinner th'owed in,' he said with a grin.

"That wasn't so bad; and 'boss'!--how good that sounded! I went on down the street feeling almost like a man again and not a down-and-out ex-convict.

"About a square away I began to ask at every house if they didn't want the leaves swept off and the front steps washed. Maybe I looked too much like a tramp or too much above one with that 'boss' still ringing in my ears--the first time I had been spoken to that way for more than ten years! Anyway I got turned down at first.

"At the tenth place, however, a two-story-and-attic red brick, they gave me a job. The woman asked me in a sharp voice, as if she were defending herself from being overcharged:

"'How much?'

"'Ten cents,' I answered, as meekly as I could.

"She seemed to think that was reasonable; and after waiting a minute, as if she wanted the work done and couldn't find any excuse for not letting me do it, she handed me a bucket and mop and broom and set me at it.

"I finished the job in about an hour; and I tell you I enjoyed that work! Beneath me? Why, it couldn't get beneath me--I was that low down in mind and living and even hope. I was just about all in, you understand; and I wasn't a plumb out-and-out fool.

"I have got that dime yet; see here," he said, holding out a brightly polished dime surrounded by a narrow gold band, which he wore as a charm on his watch-chain; "whenever I begin to feel ashamed of my work I look at that and get thankful, and remember how proud and happy I felt when that sharp-looking woman handed it to me. I had done a little extra work in cleaning up the yard, and she said as she gave it to me:

"'That looks a whole lot better! You certainly earned that dime.'

"I wouldn't have spent that money if I had had to go without food for two days! It seemed to put springs in my feet and I went down the street hustling for another job of the same kind. I found it before dinner; it was another ten cent job with twenty cents' worth of work; but I sure was glad to get it.

"I felt that, so long as Welcome Hall was making money, I was earning my way by those six hours of work a day, and I stayed on there for some time longer."

FOOTNOTE:

[55] Copyright, 1912, by the Curtis Publishing Company.

JAMES TANDY ELLIS

James Tandy Ellis, "Shawn's" father, was born at Ghent, Kentucky, June 9, 1868. He spent his boyhood days in one of the most romantically beautiful sections of Kentucky, on the Ohio river between Cincinnati and Louisville. He was educated at Ghent College and the State College of Kentucky at Lexington. Mr. Ellis has always been a great lover of Nature and his leisure-hours are usually spent with dog and gun or in angling. He engaged in newspaper work in Louisville and his character sketches soon made him well-known throughout the State. His first book, _Poems by Ellis_ (Louisville, Kentucky, 1898), contained some very clever verse. _Sprigs o' Mint_ (New York, 1906), was an attractive little volume of pastels in prose and verse. Mr. Ellis next issued three pamphlets: _Peebles_ (Carrollton, Kentucky, 1908); _Awhile in the Mountains_ (Lexington, Kentucky, 1909); and _Kentucky Stories_ (Lexington, 1909). His latest book, entitled _Shawn of Skarrow_ (Boston, 1911), is a novelette of river life in northern Kentucky, and the simple, direct manner of the little tale was found "refreshing" by the "jaded" reviewers. Colonel Ellis is now assistant Adjutant-General of Kentucky, and he resides at Frankfort, the capitol of the Commonwealth.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. Letters from Mr. Ellis to the Author; _Lexington
Leader_ (December 24, 1911).

YOUTHFUL LOVERS[56]

[From _Shawn of Skarrow_ (Boston, 1911)]

The winter had passed away. Shawn had been working hard in school, and under the encouragement of Mrs. Alden, was making fair progress, but Sunday afternoons found him in his rowboat, wandering about the stream and generally pulling his boat out on the beach at Old Meadows, for Lallite was there to greet him, and already they had told each other of their love. What a dream of happiness, to wander together along the pebbled beach, or through the upland woods, tell each other the little incidents of their daily life, and to pledge eternal fidelity. Oh, dearest days, when the rose of love first blooms in youthful hearts, when lips breathe the tenderest promises, fraught with such transports of delight; when each lingering word grows sweeter under the spell of love-lit eyes. Oh, blissful elysium of love's young dream!

They stood together in the deepening twilight, when the sun's last bars of gold were reflected in the stream.

"Oh, Shawn, it was a glad day when you first came with Doctor Hissong to hunt."

"Yes," said Shawn, as he took her hand, "and it was a hunt where I came upon unexpected game, but how could you ever feel any love for a poor river-rat?"

"I don't know," said Lallite, "but maybe, it is that kind that some girls want to fall in love with, especially if they have beautiful teeth, and black eyes and hair, and can be unselfish enough to kill a bag of game for two old men, and let them think they did the shooting."

"Lally, when they have love plays on the show-boats, they have all sorts of quarrels and they lie and cuss and tear up things generally."

"Well, Shawn, there's all sorts of love, I suppose, but mine is not the show-boat kind."

"Thank the Lord," said Shawn.

He drew out a little paste-board box. Nestling in a wad of cotton, was the pearl given to him by Burney.

"Lally, this is the only thing I have ever owned in the way of jewelry, and it's not much, but will you take it and wear it for my sake?"

"It will always be a perfect pearl to me," said the blushing girl.

FOOTNOTE:

[56] Copyright, 1911, by the C. M. Clark Company.

GEORGE HORACE LORIMER

George Horace Lorimer, editor and novelist, was born at Louisville, Kentucky, October 6, 1868, the son of Dr. George C. Lorimer (1838-1904), the distinguished Baptist clergyman and author, who held pastorates at Harrodsburg (where he married a wife), Paducah, and Louisville, but who won his widest reputation in Tremont Temple, Boston. His son was educated at Colby College and at Yale. Since Saint Patrick's Day of 1899, Mr. Lorimer has been editor-in-chief of _The Saturday Evening Post_. He resides with his family at Wyncote, Pennsylvania, but he may be more often found near the top of the magnificent new building of the Curtis Publishing Company in Independence Square. As an author Mr. Lorimer is known for his popular _Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son_ (Boston, 1902), which was one of the "six best sellers" for a long time. It was actually translated into Japanese. Its sequel, _Old Gorgon Graham_ (New York, 1904), was more letters from the same to the same. The original of _Old Gorgon Graham_ was none other than Philip Danforth Armour, the Chicago packer, under whom Mr. Lorimer worked for several years. Both of the books made a powerful appeal to men, but it is doubtful if many women cared for either of them. _The False Gods_ (New York, 1906), is a newspaper story in which "the false gods" are the faithless _flares_ which lead a "cub" reporter into many mixups, only to have everything turn out happily in the end. Mr. Lorimer's latest story, _Jack Spurlock--Prodigal_ (New York, 1908), an adventurous young fellow who is expelled from Harvard, defies his father, and finds himself in the maw of a cold and uncongenial world, is deliciously funny--for the reader! All of Mr. Lorimer's books are full of the _Poor Richard_ brand of worldly-wise philosophy, which he is in the habit of "serving up" weekly for the readers of _The Post_. That he is certainly an editor of very great ability, and that he has exerted wide influence in his field, no one will gainsay. The men who help him make his paper call him "the greatest editor in America;" and he is undoubtedly the highest salaried one in this country to-day. _The Post_, which was nothing before he assumed control of it, is one of the foremost weeklies in the English-reading world at the present time; and its success is due to the longheadedness and hard common sense of its editor, George Horace Lorimer.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The Critic_ (June, 1903); _The Bookman_ (October,
November, 1904); _Little Pilgrimages Among the Men Who Have
Written Famous Books_, by E. F. Harkins (Boston, 1903, Second
Series).

HIS SON'S SWEETHEART[57]

[From _Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son_ (Boston, 1902)]

NEW YORK, November 4, 189-.

_Dear Pierrepont_: Who is this Helen Heath, and what are your intentions there? She knows a heap more about you than she ought to know if they're not serious, and I know a heap less about her than I ought to know if they are. Hadn't got out of sight of land before we'd become acquainted somehow, and she's been treating me like a father clear across the Atlantic. She's a mighty pretty girl, and a mighty nice girl, and a mighty sensible girl--in fact she's so exactly the sort of girl I'd like to see you marry that I'm afraid there's nothing in it.

Of course, your salary isn't a large one yet, but you can buy a whole lot of happiness with fifty dollars a week when you have the right sort of a woman for your purchasing agent. And while I don't go much on love in a cottage, love in a flat, with fifty a week as a starter, is just about right, if the girl is just about right. If she isn't, it doesn't make any special difference how you start out, you're going to end up all wrong.

Money ought never to be _the_ consideration in marriage, but it ought always to be _a_ consideration. When a boy and a girl don't think enough about money before the ceremony, they're going to have to think altogether too much about it after; and when a man's doing sums at home evenings, it comes kind of awkward for him to try to hold his wife on his lap.

There's nothing in this talk that two can live cheaper than one. A good wife doubles a man's expenses and doubles his happiness, and that's a pretty good investment if a fellow's got the money to invest. I have met women who had cut their husbands' expenses in half, but they needed the money because they had doubled their own. I might add, too, that I've met a good many husbands who had cut their wives' expenses in half, and they fit naturally into any discussion of our business, because they are hogs. There's a point where economy becomes a vice, and that's when a man leaves its practice to his wife.

An unmarried man is a good deal like a piece of unimproved real estate--he may be worth a whole lot of money, but he isn't of any particular use except to build on. The great trouble with a lot of these fellows is that they're "made land," and if you dig down a few feet you strike ooze and booze under the layer of dollars that their daddies dumped in on top. Of course, the only way to deal with a proposition of that sort is to drive forty-foot piles clear down to solid rock and then to lay railroad iron and cement till you've got something to build on. But a lot of women will go right ahead without any preliminaries and wonder what's the matter when the walls begin to crack and tumble about their ears.

FOOTNOTE:

[57] Copyright, 1902, by Small, Maynard and Company.

SISTER IMELDA

Sister Imelda ("Estelle Marie Gerard"), poet, was born at Jackson, Tennessee, January 17, 1869, the daughter of Charles Brady, a native of Ireland, and soldier in the Confederate army. After the war he went to Jackson, Tennessee, and married Miss Ann Sharpe, a kinswoman of Senator John Sharp Williams of Mississippi. Their second child was Helen Estelle Brady, the future poet. She was educated by the Dominican sisters at Jackson and, at the age of eighteen years, entered the sisterhood, taking the name of "Sister Imelda." For the next twenty-three years she lived in Kentucky, teaching music in Roman Catholic institutions at Louisville and Springfield, but she is now connected with the Sacred Heart Institute, Watertown, Massachusetts. Sister Imelda's booklet of poems has been highly praised by competent critics. It was entitled _Heart Whispers_ (1905), and issued under her pen-name of "Estelle Marie Gerard." Many of these poems were first published in _The Midland Review_, a Louisville magazine edited by the late Charles J. O'Malley, the poet and critic. Sister Imelda is a woman of rare culture and a real singer, but her strict religious life has hampered her literary labors to an unusual degree.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The Hesperian Tree_ (Columbus, Ohio, 1903); letters
from Sister Imelda to the Author.

A JUNE IDYL[58]

[From _Heart Whispers_ (1905)]

Every glade sings now of summer--
Songs as sweet as violets' breath;
And the glad, warm heart of nature
Thrills and gently answereth.

Answers through the lily-lyrics
And the rosebud's joyous song,
Faintly o'er the valley stealing,
As the June days speed along.

And we, pausing, fondly listen
To their tuneful minstrelsy,
Floating far beyond the wildwood
To the ever restless sea.

Till the echoes, softly, lowly,
Trembling on the twilight air--
Tells us that each rose and lily
Bows its scented head in prayer.

HEART MEMORIES

[From the same]

In fancy's golden barque at eventide
My spirit floateth to the Far Away,
And dreamland faces come as fades the day.
They lean upon my heart. We gently glide
Adown the magic shores of long ago,
While memories, like silver lily bells,
Are tinkling in my heart's fair woodland dells
And breathing songs full sweetly soft and low.

When eventide has slowly winged its flight,
And moonbeams clothe the flowers with radiant light,
Ah, then there swiftly come again to me,
Like echoes of some song-bird melody,
Borne on the breeze from far-off mountain height,
Fond thoughts of home, and Mother dear, of Thee.

A NUN'S PRAYER

[From the same]

When lilies swing their voiceless silver bells,
And twilight's kiss doth linger on the sea,
I wander silently o'er the scented lea
By brooks that murmur through the sleeping dells,
And rippling onward, chant the funeral knells
Of leaves they bear upon their breasts. On Thee,
Dear Lord, I lean! The grandest destiny
Of life is mine. Within my heart there wells
For thee a deep love, and sweetest peace
Doth glimmer star-like on the wavelet's crest.
Grant, Thou, O Christ, its gleaming ne'er may cease,
Until Death's angel makes the melody
That calls my pinioned spirit home to Thee,
Then only will it know eternal rest.

FOOTNOTE:

[58] Copyright, 1905, by the Author.

HARRISON CONRARD

Harrison Conrard, poet, was born at Dodsonville, Ohio, September 21, 1869. He was educated at St. Xavier's College, Cincinnati. From 1892 until the spring of 1899 Mr. Conrard lived at Ludlow, Kentucky, when he removed to Arizona to engage in the lumber business at Flagstaff, his present home. While living at Ludlow he published his first book of poems, entitled _Idle Songs and Idle Sonnets_ (1898), which is now out of print. Mr. Conrard's second and best known volume of verse, called _Quivira_ (Boston, 1907), contained a group of singing lyrics of almost entrancing beauty. These are the only books he has so far published. "Some day," the poet once wrote, "I shall roll up my bedding, take my fishing rod and wander back east, and Kentucky will be good enough for me." He has, however, never come back. A new volume of his verse is to be issued shortly.

BIBLIOGRAPHY. Letters from Mr. Conrard to the Author; _Poet-Lore_
(Boston, Fall Issue, 1907).

IN OLD TUCSON[59]

[From _Quivira_ (Boston, 1907)]

In old Tucson, in old Tucson,
What cared I how the days ran on?
A brown hand trailing the viol-strings,
Hair as black as the raven's wing,
Lips that laughed and a voice that clung
To the sweet old airs of the Spanish tongue
Had drenched my soul with a mellow rime
Till all life shone, in that golden clime,
With the tender glow of the morning-time.
In old Tucson, in old Tucson,
How swift the merry days ran on!

In old Tucson, in old Tucson,
How soon the parting day came on!
But I oft turn back in my hallowed dreams,
And the low adobe a palace seems,
Where her sad heart sighs and her sweet voice sings
To the notes that throb from her viol-strings.
Oh, those tear-dimmed eyes and that soft brown hand!
And a soul that glows like the desert sand--
The golden fruit of a golden land!
In old Tucson, in old Tucson,
The long, lone days, O Time, speed on!

A KENTUCKY SUNRISE

[From the same]

Faint streaks of light; soft murmurs; sweet
Meadow-breaths; low winds; the deep gray
Yielding to crimson; a lamb's bleat;
Soft-tinted hills; a mockbird's lay:
And the red Sun brings forth the Day.

A KENTUCKY SUNSET

[From the same]

The great Sun dies in the west; gold
And scarlet fill the skies; the white
Daisies nod in repose; the fold
Welcomes the lamb; larks sink from sight:
The long shadows come, and then--Night.

FOOTNOTE:

[59] Copyright, 1907, by Richard G. Badger.

ALICE HEGAN RICE