Chapter C: W. Wilmerding (3)

But all this is simply in support of the proposition that children can learn to read anyhow, and, assuming thus much to be demonstrated, we may pass to something else. _What_ is a weightier consideration in the matter of reading than either _how_ or _when_. As a question, it would be differently answered in different ages of the world. We know that Dr. Johnson once took a little girl on his knee and put her directly down again because she had not read "Pilgrim's Progress." The great lexicographer might take up and put down a good many children nowadays before he found the right one; and we need not think the worse of them on that account. We feel that even a child who had the advantage of Dr. Johnson's acquaintance ought not to be required to comprehend the Immortal Allegory. It is true he may have expected her to enjoy it without comprehending it, and that gives the case a different aspect. Considering how few books the little maid had of her own, and especially if it was an illustrated edition of Bunyan's works which, lying on the table, prompted the good doctor's question, one is half inclined to agree with him that the demons in the Valley of the Shadow of Death and the angelic forms which meet the Pilgrim as Two Men of the Land of Beulah ought to have enticed her imagination into reading, whether she understood or not.

Certain it is, at all events, that comprehension is not necessary to the appreciation of masterpieces. In an age less remote than Dr. Johnson's, although still antediluvian with respect to the now prevailing flood of juvenile literature, children often read and liked what they did not understand. There were fairy-tales, to be sure, even then, and tales popular and moral, also a few such books as "Amy Herbert" and "Laneton Parsonage," but children who were fond of reading soon had those by heart, and would then browse, perchance, in their elders' pastures, by which means it happened that one child used to derive no little satisfaction from the "True Account of the Apparition of Mrs. Veal to Mrs. Barlow." Told as it is with Defoe's inimitable circumstantiality, she was so far from understanding it as to rather more than half believe it. She knew well that ghosts at night-time, robed in white, were fabulous and never to be thought of, especially when one was alone in the dark; but a ghost that paid visits in broad daylight, dressed in bonnet and shawl like anybody else, and whose proceedings were gravely chronicled for grown persons and labelled _true_,--what were you to think of that? It may be remembered that when Mrs. Barlow asks Mrs. Veal any question the answering of which would seem to be inconsistent with her ghostly state, Defoe says, "However, she waived that;" and, _waive_ not being at that time in the vocabulary of the young reader, she always imagined Mrs. Veal putting the question away from her, as it were, with a motion of her hand, and gazing the while in stony silence at Mrs. Barlow. This dramatic situation was calculated to have a certain effect upon the nerves, and in fact it was then that the profound silence of the room, accentuated by the ticking of the clock, used to seem fraught with the possibility of a ghost abroad with her visiting-list, who might presently be _waiving_ such courtesies as even an unwilling hostess would feel constrained to offer.

Rather unhealthy reading, one would say, but yet not so bad as it sounds; for the book was no sooner shut than the whole impression dissolved, though it might be renewed at will, as it often was. It was in the same family that all the children at an early age took possession of "Oliver Twist" as a juvenile book. They wept over little Dick's farewell to Oliver, and shuddered when Nancy saw coffins, enjoying it all extremely, and taking in so little of it that it has appeared to them since as not one of the least of Dickens's glories that he could write a book about the scum of London which children may read and re-read well into their young girlhood without receiving even the shadow of an impression of any evil beyond pocket-picking and house-breaking and general hard-heartedness.

And so it might not be far from the truth to say that children can read anything. They can, and do, even now when they have a literature of their own; for persons who would be shocked at the idea of turning a child loose in an adult library, where things unsuitable might pass harmlessly over its head, think nothing of taking a book off a counter and presenting it to their little ones, they themselves knowing no more than the man in the moon what it contains, although certain that the contents, whatever they may be, will be readily assimilated by the youthful mind. Suppose simply that such a book is full of slang and bad grammar, the antediluvians had an advantage there: if you want that sort of thing to amuse children with, the language of thieves is peculiarly suitable, in so far that if ever the young people who devoured "Oliver Twist" had over among themselves any of the Dodger's and Charley Bates's racy expressions it was with a wholesome sense of its being highly improper; whereas one cannot imagine the little folk of to-day seeing any impropriety in an equally debased decoction of English--albeit somewhat more mildly drawn--when put into the mouths of children like themselves. Then, again, the ancient young people used to read Scott's and Cooper's novels, and found there much that was entirely beyond them, which they knew was only for grown persons, and therefore, though they read of love, courtship, and marriage, they remained as unsophisticated as before. But how is a child to be unsophisticated nowadays, when all these topics are manipulated for its especial benefit?--when there is a devoted boy in the story, and, in due course of time, proposal, engagement, and the wedding? In the same way one can affirm without fear of contradiction that the lads who formerly enjoyed pirates and Red Rovers from their parents' book-shelves had a healthier mental food than those who at present are provided with Rovers of their own, carefully adapted to their mental capacity, in the shape of small boys who meet the world single-handed and make their way to fame and fortune. Then, finally, were not the kings and courtiers, the Crusaders and Saracens, the Indians and pioneers of former days better training for the imagination than descriptions of picnics, skating-parties, and children's balls, enlivened with such small squabbles or adventures as are incident thereto? Realism has invaded even the children's department, and to that extent that there seems to be nothing left for fancy but to go off on a tangent in frantic imitation of Jules Verne or feeble copies of "Alice in Wonderland."

Of course this is not to deny that there are gems in children's literature which they may be thankful to possess and we may be glad to share with them: indeed, the foregoing observations should be taken simply to the effect that there is room for a choice among juvenile books, and very little choosing. We started out with the happy idea that reading-lessons cost nothing, and are come round to the conviction that it is a pity they are not expensive, that there is not some one who, for a consideration, would take the children in hand,--not only those who are expected to read by and by, but also the born readers,--and, through a judicious selection of what is within their range, gradually educate them up to a correct literary taste. For there is something sadder even than being totally unable to read, and that is reading a great deal and never anything worth while. What is worth while includes, naturally, much besides novels; but, then, a person who appreciates a good novel usually reads other good things; and, at all events, children must begin with fiction, and, even were they to end there, that this should be excellent of its kind is a step in the right direction. It would not be a bad aim to have in view that they should come by degrees to a just appreciation of Thackeray and his compeers. And where parents are unwilling--or, by reason of being themselves no readers, unable--to plan a course of reading to that effect, why, in all seriousness, should they not place the matter in the hands of some sound-minded family counsellor, who would thenceforward look after the children's literary taste, as the dentist looks after their teeth?

That would put an end to the singular anomaly by which parents, who doubtless mean to guard their sons and daughters from evil society as they would from the plague, know, as a matter of fact, nothing at all of their inmost companions. When the novel-devouring period is reached, this is especially remarkable: a mother may then look at her young daughter sitting apart, silent, entranced, drinking in what she takes for the true philosophy of life from some romance of modern society which has been recommended to her as "splendid" by the girls at school, and find no more appropriate reflection to make upon this spectacle than that "Mary is never so happy as when she is buried in a book." But one imagines the family counsellor, under similar circumstances, interesting himself or herself to discover what sort of a book it is that Mary is buried in, and, if it should prove to be a tissue of false sentiment, false pathos, and even false morals from beginning to end, directing her attention to that fact, and giving her as an antidote something which, whether grave or gay, amusing or affecting, should be written in good English and in sound taste.

GRACE H. PEIRCE.

MITHRA.

What comes with sound of stately trumpets pealing,
With flash of torches, flaring out the stars?
What majesty, what splendor slow revealing,
What mystery through the night's unfolding bars,
In gloom, cloud-multiform, delaying long,
Bursts into flower of flame and shower of song?

What march of multitudes in rhythmic motion,
What thunder of innumerable feet,
What mighty diapasons like the ocean,
Reverberating turbulently sweet
Through far dissolving silences, are blown
Worldward upon the winds' low monotone?

The mountains hear the warning and awaken,
In hushed processional issuing from the night,
Like Druid priests with mystic white robes shaken,
Communing in some immemorial rite:
Round their old brows burns what pale augury,
What benison, what ancient prophecy?

The sea has heard; through all its caverns under
Whither its giant broods have fled dismayed,
There goes a voice of wailing and of wonder:
"He comes, with gleaming spears and ranks arrayed,
And clang of chariot-wheels, and fire of spray:
We hear, we fear, we tremble and obey."

The earth has heard it, and, arising breathless,
Sets wide her doors and leans with beckoning palms
Over the quickening east: "Resistless, deathless
Father of worlds and lord of storms and calms,
Thou at whose will the seasons bloom and fail,
Dispenser and destroyer, hail, all hail!"

What are these prophecies and preludes golden,
Legends of light, and clarions that blow?
What is this secret of the skies, long holden
In star-girt solitudes, disclosing now?
'Tis manifest--'tis here; the doubt is done:
The day-heart leaps and throbs--behold the sun!

CHARLES L. HILDRETH.

A BACKWOODS ROMANCE.

The light of the just-risen moon shone upon the black letters of the guide-post which said that it was one mile to Clear Lake Settlement, and illuminated as lonely a region as could be found in the whole world. On one side of the snowy road a deep pine wood rose tall and dark against the evening sky. On the other were stretches of field and marsh-land, which, even when warm and green with summer, had a desolate aspect, with their background of low, monotonous hills, and both before and behind were more lonesome hills, more dreary fields, and black masses of woodland. Not one homely roof was visible in the hard, white moonlight, nor the glimmer of a lamp, nor a waft of chimney-smoke; not even the tinkle of a sleigh-bell or a foot-step was to be heard. The silence seemed whispering to the hills. One star glimmered in the orange after-glow of sunset.

It had been an unusually warm day for late December, and the faint, delicate scent of melting snow was still in the air, though it was growing crisp and cold and icicles were forming on the branches of the trees.

Two paths which diverged widely as they trailed through the woods came almost together as they reached the road, and presently from one of these paths emerged the dark figure of a man carrying a lighted lantern. Stepping into the road, he paused for a moment at the opening of the other path, and, hearing footsteps and a slow, grave voice humming an old love-song, leaned against the creaking guide-post and waited for the singer to approach. He was young, apparently not over twenty-eight or nine years, was dressed like a lumberman, and was of somewhat broad and clumsy build. But in his face, which was clearly revealed by the flickering flame of the lantern, though he stood in deep shadow, there was no coarse rusticity. The full but finely-formed features had a most gentle and amiable cast, resembling those of one of Raphael's cherubs in their halo of yellow hair. A grave smile lingered in his sea-blue eyes.

As he listened to the voice, however, a look, half amusement, half annoyance, crossed his mild countenance, and his smiling eyes became steel-colored and flashed with something like anger; but it was only for an instant.

"Halloo! that you out o' the woods, John Barker?" he called, in a smooth, pleasant tone.

"'Pears tew be; 'n' yeou, Reube Wetherbee,--it seems yeou're eout er the woods, tew."

"Of course I am; but then I don't hev ter travel twelve or fifteen miles ter git ter the settlement. How about the dance to-morrow night? Your camp goin' ter turn out?"

"Some o' the hands catilate ter go, I b'lieve."

"But a sober feller like you don't care for such kind er jollifications much, I reckon."

"I was thinkin' o' goin'."

"Ah! 'n' that accounts for your journey to the settlement to-night. Goin' to the tavern, of course. I say, man, we're bound there on the same arrand. What's goin' to be done about it?"

"What do you mean, Reube Wetherbee?" exclaimed Barker, with a deep frown upon his rugged features, which looked almost grotesque in the delicate moonlight.

"Oh, you know what I mean, well enough, John, and you may as well take it calmly. When two men take a farncy to the same woman there's likely to be some sarse between 'em; but that's no use. Now, we're both got to the same point on our way ter ask Drusy to go ter the dance. Your legs may be a little longer'n mine, 'n' if we should try a race you might reach the tavern a minute before me, 'n' you might not, for I'm pretty nimble 'n' all-fired long-winded. So I say, let's have things fair 'n' square. I've got a pack of cards in my pocket, 'n' I'm fur goin' into Jones's old camp--it's only a few steps beyond here, in the edge of the woods, you know--'n' playin' it out."

"I guess I kin resk it 'n' take my chances as they come," said Barker, in a voice which sounded husky and strange. And he took great strides along the crisp white road.

"Your chances! Why, you know, man, if I should get there first you wouldn't have the ghost of a chance, 'n' if we should get there at the same time do you s'pose she'd say yes to you 'n' no to me? To speak up frank, she don't seem to set great store by neither of us, but she favors me full as much as she does any other feller, that's certain. I doubt whether she'd go to the dance even with me, though. There's something the matter. Hang it if I don't sometimes think she's got another feller down-river where she come from. Still, she's been to Jones's pritty near a year now, 'n' he ain't put in an appearance, 'n' she never gets a letter from anybody, Mrs. Jones says."

"What is it to yeou, enyhow?" blazed Barker. "Keep yer suspicionin', as well as yer blarsted consate, ter yerself. I don't want ter hear yeou talk about her. Where's Henrietty Blaisdell? What right hev yeou ter take a farncy ter another woman, when yeou've been a-keepin' company with her for a year 'n' more? 'N' yeou pryin' raound ter see if Drusy gits letters--"

"Nonsense, John! As I said before, sarse won't set things straight, 'n' I've just as good a right as you or any other man ter make up to Drusy. I ain't bound to Henrietta."

"Rights seem diffrunt to diffrunt folks, I catilate. Enyhow, I hain't a-goin' ter listen ter eny more ov your tongue. I'm a-goin' along, 'n' you kin go ahead or foller as it suits you."

"Well, now, it seems ter me that we're in a kind ov embarrassin' fix, 'n' the cards would be a consolin' way to git out of it. If--"

"Come along, then, but quit chinnin' about Drusy."

And the two men turned back into the woods, in whose weird darkness the light of Reube's lantern was no more than that of a firefly. The moonlight stole into little openings, outlined the trees upon the glittering sward, and hovered like a ghost on the path before them. The camp was a somewhat ruinous affair, but had lately been occupied by a party of surveyors. With the blaze of a great fire its interior might have been cheerful, but, as it was, it seemed a ghostly, haunted place, filled with mysterious sounds and shadows. One feeble moon-ray struggled through the foliage of a tall pine-tree, and, reaching down the wide smoke-hole overhead, searched the ashes on the hearthstone with a pallid finger. The wind rustled among some dead vines which reached through the chinks between the logs, and made a creeping sound like footfalls over the snow-covered plank floor.

Wetherbee placed his lantern upon the creaking old shelf which served for a table, and, seating themselves upon a bench, the two men commenced their game with deep earnestness. Barker's features were white and set; his strong arm trembled as he handled the cards, and his breath came quick and hard.

It was as if he were staking his life upon the play, as if his whole fate were to be decided by it.

"Great Jupiter, man! don't look like that," said Wetherbee, regarding him for the first time as the game proceeded.

"I've been feelin' as if 'twas a case of life 'n' death myself, 'n', by George, it's no wonder, this place is so all-fired uncanny. They used ter say the camp was haunted; 'n' I b'lieve it."

A great gray owl, which had flown from his abiding-place in a hollow tree near by and perched upon the roof just on the edge of the smoke-hole, gave utterance to something which sounded like a mocking peal of laughter.

Both men started violently.

"Blarst the owl!" said Wetherbee angrily, throwing a piece of wood through the hole to frighten it away.

Then the play proceeded silently until finally Wetherbee, who had been steadily winning from the first, made the last deal and threw upon the table the lucky cards which decided him to be the victor.

"I knowed how 'twould be from the fust," said Barker; "but p'r'aps 'twon't make no great diff'rence, after all."

And the men left the camp and walked silently together to the settlement.

Jones's Tavern, as it was called, a large white house with a piazza in front and a long, low ell, stood in the midst of the primitive little settlement, and was a favorite retreat of the lumbermen whenever they had the good fortune to get out of the woods, as well as the stopping-place of the overseers and the men with supply-teams on their way to and from the camps.

"Here's two more fellers for the darnse," said the landlord, who was pouring out a glass of spiced cider for a sturdy young backwoodsman who had evidently just arrived. "A darnse is about equil to Fourth o' July, 'n' brings the boys out thicker 'n bees in a berry-pastur'. Haul up ter the fire 'n' hev somethin' warmin'. Soft weather fur lumberin', hain't it?"

With a nod and regretful glance at a handsome young woman who was wiping teacups at the other end of the room, which was extremely long and had a fireplace at one end and a cooking-stove at the other, Barker accepted the invitation. But Wetherbee, after exchanging greetings with the landlord and his companion, went over to speak to the young woman, and remained talking with her in an undertone for some time.

"The kitchen eend seems ter be the most 'tractable ter the fellers, in spite of hot cider," remarked the landlord, with a laugh. "'N' what's the mahter with yaou, John? Yaou 'pear ter be kinder daown 't the maouth 'n' absent-minded. Must ha' been pickin' up a gal. Well, a feller that's courtin' hain't no stranger tew affliction, thet's a fact. I wuz a bachelder once myself."

A deep crimson overspread Barker's honest countenance, but he did not open his mouth.

"Git eout, square!" said the other lumberman, roaring. "I b'lieve yeou was born a-jokin'."

The handsome young woman disappeared into the pantry. Wetherbee strode toward the group by the fireplace with an air of forced unconcern.

"Well, good-night, folks: I'm off," said he. "I'm a-goin' to help trim up the hall fur the dance, 'n' have got ter step pretty lively." And he made signs to Barker to follow him out of doors.

"She won't go with me, John," he said, as soon as they were alone. "As I said before, there's something the matter. But I ruther guess I shan't be obliged to go without company, anyhow."

Barker's face lighted up with a look of relief, and as he watched Wetherbee's retreating figure a little gleam of hope awoke in his breast. He stopped out under the stars a few moments for reflection, and the hope soon vanished.

"No; 'tain't no use," he said to himself. "She likes Reube better'n she does me, 'n' she wouldn't go with him. It stan's ter reason she should like him better. He's boss o' the gang, looks as smooth 'n' slick 's a parson, 'n' he's been a schoolmaster, tew. Then he's got sich kinder silky ways 'n' smiles. Not that I b'lieve in 'em much, but the wimmen-folks do. Still, 'twon't do no harm ter ask her, 'n' I reckon I'll do it, whuther er no."

When he entered the house again, the object of these reflections was still in the pantry, mixing bread which was to be set to rise for breakfast. She was a tall, rather slender young woman. A heavy mass of jet-black hair crowned her small, well-set head. Her eyes, to quote one of her backwoods admirers, were "jest the color o' swamp blue-berries, and hed the same sort o' shiny mist in them." Her skin was dark, almost swarthy, but a perpetual fire burned on her smooth, oval cheeks, deepening and fading according to her moods. She wore the usual every-day attire of the women of the region,--mistresses as well as "hired girls,"--a dark-print gown, but, like Ophelia's rue, "it was worn with a difference," fitting her lithe, graceful figure to perfection, and set off by a dainty band of white and knot of ribbon at the throat.

Barker entered the pantry, and stood watching her at her work with bashful admiration.

"Well, what is it, John?" said she, after an interval, looking up with a smile which disclosed unexpected dimples about her mouth.

"Drusy," said he, coloring to the roots of his stiff, reddish hair, "I don't s'pose it's of no use ter ask ye ter go ter the dance 'long o' me, seein' as you've refused Reube, that is so much likelier lookin' 'n' appearin' than I be; but I've footed it twelve mild out er the woods ter ask fur yer company, 'n' neow I hain't goin' back without hearin' yeour say abeout it, et least. I--"

"Oh, no, John; 'tain't the least use," said she, laughing and shaking her head, "I ain't going with any man. As I told Reube, I engaged more'n a week ago to be a beau for Mrs. Jones. The squire won't go, 'n' Tom ain't old enough to be much protection, you know, though he's going to drive down with us. P'r'aps, if I dance at all, I'll give you a dance when we get there."

"I hain't no gre't fist at dancin', 'n' I hain't sure o' goin' ef you won't go 'long o' me. Drusy, 'tain't none o' my business, 'n' I don't want ter meddle, but it 'pears as some folks have been a-sayin' thet you hev got a--a feller down-river. 'N' you're a-doin' jest right. Don't go back on him, Drusy, fur no man that you ever liked could stan' that,--never in the world. I don't catilate 'tis so 'coz you won't go 'long o' me, but--"

"What right have folks to say or think any such thing?" she asked indignantly, a painful crimson overspreading her whole face, her throat, and the tips of her small ears.

But the man's face was so white, so expressive of pain, that the look of anger melted into one of surprised pity.

"Drusy, we've got to git dinner fur twenty-five to-morrow. I'm afeard we shan't be very nimble fur the dance," said Mrs. Jones, appearing at that moment.

Barker disappeared, and a few moments later was walking swiftly back again to the camp, twelve miles through the lonely woods.

Contrary to prediction, the next morning was fair and bright, flushed with pink and warmed with sunshine to its golden heart. It was acknowledged to be the "beatinest" winter weather that ever was known,--a thaw that was not enough of a thaw to make the roads impassable, and without rain. The rude little settlement was alive long before the sun was up. Candles and lanterns flitted to and fro. The people were all eager and alert. Even the dogs and roosters seemed to feel the unusual excitement in the air, and gave vent to their most prolonged and jubilant utterances. The storekeeper opened his establishment at six o'clock, and found customers already waiting on the steps. Sledges and sleighs came tinkling in from the woods and remote clearings. One young girl, wearing moccasins and a jaunty bear-skin jacket, had walked five miles to borrow a white petticoat to wear to the dance. Another travelled ten, by way of an ox-team, to obtain a pair of open-work stockings from a friend who was asthmatic and could not go. Even dresses were lent for the occasion; and during his ten years' sojourn at the settlement the storekeeper had never reaped such a harvest as he did on that day.

Toward night the air grew crisper and colder, as it had done on the day before. The sledge-runners crunched over the snow, and there was a little frosty tinkle to the bells, which woke every wood-track with its cheery melody, floated down the ice-bound river, echoed across the lake and along the well-trodden main road. The hall at the Forks where the dance was to be held--a bare, unfinished apartment, built for the use of, but not yet taken possession of by, the town--was decorated in the most elaborate manner, but chiefly with small flags and strips of cloth in red, white, and blue, as if for some patriotic occasion. A stuffed eagle nestled in a bower of evergreen, holding a banner emblazoned with the stars and stripes in his huge bill. The clock was encircled in a wreath of paper roses, as was also the picture of Daniel Webster, which, having an oval frame, caused the great statesman to look as if he were masquerading for a May queen.

Barker arrived at the festive scene just in time to assist Mrs. Jones and Drusy from their sleigh. Dancing had already commenced, though it was not yet eight o'clock. And what a motley crowd it was which moved to the lively measures of "Money Musk"! Several of the ladies as well as the men were tripping the "light fantastic toe" in moccasins. Girls in calico gowns wore wreaths of artificial flowers upon their heads. Henrietta Blaisdell, a fat, shapeless girl with a freckled face, whose father owned more pine timber than any other man in the county, wore black silk, and was regarded with something like awe by the less fortunate ones in calico and homespun. Drusy was handsomer than ever, in a soft woollen gown of dull blue, with a red rose in the masses of her black hair and another at her throat. The schoolmistress, a pretty blonde, who was also a belle, wore white muslin, with a gay ribbon about her waist. Nearly all the men wore red shirts, but the tie of their cravats betokened careful study. Barker sported a gorgeous waistcoat, ornamented with brilliant flowers of all the colors in the rainbow, which he had purchased for the occasion from the cook at the camp, who had inherited it from an uncle that had died twenty years before. And from this same youth, who was too bashful to go to the dance himself, he obtained the loan of a pair of embroidered slippers which had been sent to him by a sister in the Far West. Wetherbee wore an ordinary cloth suit, made by a city tailor, and was by far the best-dressed and most gentlemanly-looking man in the room.

When Drusy appeared upon the scene he was dancing the first dance with Henrietta Blaisdell. He tossed her one of his pleasant smiles as he whirled breathlessly past, and her eyes followed him with a look which poor Barker would have given worlds to interpret as he stood sad and humble in all his unwonted magnificence by her side. The fiddler, who was a tin-peddler and a poet and the teacher of a "cipherin'-school," as well as a musician, played with great gusto, and was continually calling upon the dancers to "warm up 'n' shake their heels more lively."

"Here, you Joe, you're quick enough at figgers, but you don't handle them moggersons o' yourn in no kind er time," he shouted to a clumsy lumberman, whose partner, a stout, energetic young woman, was scarlet in the face with her exertions to drag him about to the fierce time of the music.

Drusy laughed. "I don't care about that kind of dancing," said she. "It's a reg'lar whirlwind."

"I was a-goin' ter ask ye ter dance 'long o' me, Drusy, only I was 'most afeard tew, fur I knowed I shouldn't keep step," said Barker timidly. "Reube seems ter be a-keepin' his balance fust-rate, but I hain't built so genteel es he is, nor hed the experiunce, neither." And he sighed deeply.

"I ain't going to dance at all, John. I'd much rather look on. I think it's real fun to see 'em scramble about."

He brightened at this, but soon became a prey to melancholy again, for as soon as the dance was over a crowd of men pressed to Drusy's side. Not even Henrietta Blaisdell or the pretty schoolmistress received half as much attention. The fact of her being a "hired girl" at the "tahvern" rather added to than detracted from her social importance, and there was a charm about her gay, gracious manner and bright beauty which was irresistible.

"Reube seems ter be tryin' tew make up with Henrietty ag'in," whispered one of the lumbermen to his sweetheart. "He's been kinder strayin' off in the direction of the tahvern lately; but pine timber's more takin' then good looks tew some folks."

"Likely ez not Drusy won't hev nothin' tew say tew him," said the girl. "That gawky-lookin' John Barker 'pears tew be hangin' raound her consid'able. 'Twould be kind er funny ef she should like him better." And she laughed scornfully.

Barker overheard this, and the girl's words, and, above all, her laughter, stung him to the quick. He leaned against the patriotic wall and meditated bitterly.

Reube came over and stood by Drusy's side, and they talked in a low, interested tone. She never talked to him in that way, never listened to what he had to say with such half-shy, half-coquettish attention. But she would not dance, even with Reube.

The sleigh-bells of some late-comers came tinkling up to the door.

"Why, Sam, what's kept ye so? It's 'most nine o'clock," exclaimed one of the lumbermen to a red-shirted comrade who came hurrying into their midst.

"Sick man at the camp. The doctor from the Mills hez jest been ter see him, but said he couldn't do nothin' fur him; reckoned he'd be a goner before mornin'."

"Sho! Who is it?"

"A feller by the name o' Seth Hardin'; boss in some lumber-consarn daown-river; stopped ter the camp over-night on his way up ter Grand Falls, 'n' was took with fever 'n' ravin' like a muskeeter 'fore mornin'."

Drusy's face, which was rosy and smiling as she stood watching the movements of a contra-dance, suddenly blanched, and she grasped a wooden pillar as if for support. Her very lips were white.

"What's the matter, Drusy?" said Wetherbee, in a tone of gentle solicitude.

She beckoned him aside.

"Reube," said she, the color surging into her cheeks again, "I must go out to Fernald's camp. I must go at once. Oh, Reube! could you take me there? Tom's gone over to the Point after his aunt Harriet with our team, and there's no knowing when he'll get back. I _can't_ wait! I _must_ go, this moment!" She clasped her hands tightly together and looked pleadingly up into his face. "Don't hesitate, Reube. That dying man is my husband."

"Your husband!" he exclaimed, with a strange flash in his mild blue eyes, and with a pallor which almost equalled her own overspreading his face for an instant. "I don't think you'd better set out for Fernald's camp to-night, Drusy, 'Tis fifteen miles at the shortest, over the worst road in the county. But if you think you must" (he glanced at Henrietta Blaisdell, who was looking reproachfully at him, in all her bravery of black silk), "I--I might find somebody to take you. Maybe the boy over to Scott's stable, he'd know the way."

Drusy gave him a look which he did not soon forget. Was there not more in it than baffled endeavor, than disappointed trust? Poor John Barker saw it, and it lingered in his mind also. It was continually flashing before his vision for years.

"Drusy," said John, "I hadn't no notion o' spyin' on yeou, but I was a-standin' where I couldn't help overhearin' what yeou said. Yeou looked kinder faint, 'n'-- Lemme take yeou ter Fernald's camp. I hain't got nothin' to stop here fur, 'n' I kin git my hoss harnessed in a jiffy. Some o' the fellers from eour camp rid in weth me, but they kin git a chance on other teams,--'n' if not, they kin walk. I hain't got nothin' but a hoss-sled to offer ye, but I guess I kin make it comfortable."

"Don't speak of that, John: I shan't forget your kindness in a hurry," said Drusy, with trembling lip.

The dance went on with jocund carelessness. Wetherbee disappeared with a flushed and frowning countenance.

The horse-sled glided swiftly along over the crisp white road. The hills were showing their barren beauty to the last look of the moon, which was sinking slowly out of sight. Sudden gleams of silver by the wayside betrayed the abiding-place of frozen streams. A tall maple-tree lifted its bare branches to the sky, like skeleton fingers clutching a star.

Drusy sat silent and motionless in the bottom of the sled, while Barker stood, tall and grim, beside her, holding the reins with a careful hand. It was necessary for him to stand, that he might be able to see the cradle-holes and humps in the road ahead of them, he said. The moon had disappeared when they entered the woods, and the dense darkness was only broken by an occasional star-gleam overhead and the red light of the lantern which hung on one of the stakes of the sled.

"Drusy, did you care fur thet man thet's sick out ter the camp--your--husban'?" said Barker, breaking the silence in a hesitating tone.

"Oh, I did once, John, but he treated me badly; he--" Her voice broke in a great sob; and after that neither spoke until they reached the camp, though it was nearly an hour later.

The way was long and rough, and the night was growing intensely cold. Once or twice he bent down and tucked the robes more closely about her. But she did not heed the cold: she was lost in her own thoughts.

The camp, which they reached just before midnight, made a bright spot in the darkness of the woods. The fire-light shone through every chink in its dark logs, making red bars upon the snow.

The sick man was sleeping, and by his side sat the cook, who was acting as nurse, an old man who had been a sailor and wore gold rings in his ears. He was sleeping also, and from two bunks on the opposite side of the camp came the audible evidence that others were in a like condition.

"Oh, he can't be so very bad: he can't be dying," said Drusy, seating herself on the deacon-seat at the foot of the sick man's bed and peering anxiously into his pinched and pallid face, which was illuminated by the rays of the great fire.

"'Pears ter be more comfortable; the fever's kind er left him; but the doctor says he's goin' fast. Sleeps 'most all the time now, but he's mostly out of his head yit, pore feller! I hain't seen him ser quiet's he is now fur days," said the old man drowsily.

Barker, having put up his horse, seated himself beside the cook, who speedily relapsed into slumber again, his grizzly head drooping upon his breast. Drusy crept on to the edge of the bunk and softly wiped away the heavy moisture from the dying man's brow. He tossed uneasily upon his bed of hemlock boughs, but did not waken: his breathing was a perpetual moan, his fingers picked restlessly at the bedclothing.

The wind rose and stirred about the camp like the rustle of mysterious garments, and blew fitfully the varied pipes in the pine boughs. The great logs on the fire were dropping to scarlet coals, but Barker hastened to pile on more fuel, though there was still sufficient warmth from the huge pile. And so the night wore on. Toward morning the sick man opened his eyes and fixed them steadily upon Drusy's face.

"Do you know me, Seth?" she asked, taking his hand within her own.

"Drusy, I ain't treated you well,--but you'll forgive me?" He spoke slowly and painfully, making the most of his feeble breath. "It's all over now, 'n' there's a little property left fur you. Squire Carter, down home, 'll tell you about it. It's in his hands."

"Oh, Seth," sobbed Drusy, "I have been wrong too. I wasn't half so patient 'n' forbearing as I ought to have been. I laid up things against you that I ought to have forgot. Forgive me."

He smiled, holding her hand with a faint pressure, then closed his eyes wearily and seemed to be sleeping.

Drusy choked down her sobs and watched him almost breathlessly. His breath grew fainter and fainter; he was quiet now, and seemed at peace.

The wind died away. The dawn marched, like some still procession, carrying flickering torches, into the woods. Tiny shafts of flame shot through the dark pine branches. There was a bustle and rustle as of light, hurrying feet. The clear clarion of the cocks sounded from distant clearings. And with the first rays of the sun the soul of the sick man departed into the Unknown.

"Ain't there nothin' I kin do fur ye 'baout the funeril, Drusy, or kerryin' news tew the mourners?" said Barker, as he was about to leave her at the door of the "tahvern," toward noon of the same day.

"No, thank ye, John; you're as kind as a brother; but his folks will attend to all these things. The doctor's notified them already. His father and two brothers are living down to Greenbush."

"Then I'll bid you good-by. I don't know when I shell see ye ag'in, Drusy."

Hastening back to his own camp, he told the overseer that he must find another man to take his place in the gang; and, another being at hand who was ready to take it, he started the very next morning on his way down the frozen Penobscot.

"I must put a good many more'n fifteen miles between us, or I can't stan' it," he said to himself. "She'll merry Reube in a year er tew, 'n' I won't never see her face ag'in. I warn't never superstitioned afore, but when we was a-playin' them cards in that blarsted old camp I felt how 'twas all a-goin' tew turn eout; as plain as A B C."

* * * * *

Four years passed away. Lake and river were unlocked by the spring rains and sunshine, and then locked again by the winter frosts. Axes rang in the pine woods, great logs went floating down the stream. Life at the settlement jogged on in the same old fashion. The lumbermen came out of the woods and flirted and frolicked with the girls and sat about the "tahvern" fire in the long evenings. The few festivals were carried on with the same old zest.

It was a bright afternoon. Drusy, who was still the hired girl at the tavern, in spite of the "little property" her husband had left her, was all alone in the kitchen, sitting pensively before the glowing stove. She was little changed, save for a shade more of sadness in her eyes and a somewhat fainter and more flickering fire upon her cheek.

Lost in thought, she did not heed the sleigh-bells which came tinkling up to the door, and a tall man, very much muffled in furs, had entered the house unawares and stood beside her chair.

"Oh, John, how glad I am that you have come!" she exclaimed, meeting his honest, ugly smile. And she sprang from her seat with both hands outstretched toward him, a glad light overspreading her whole face. "Where have you been all this time?"

"Daown-river, keepin' store. 'N' I shouldn't never 'a' come back, Drusy, only I heard haow you wouldn't hev Reube, 'n' he'd gone back 'n' merried Henrietty. When I heard that I says tew myself, 'Naow I'll go up 'n' try my hand, though 'tain't likely she'll hev enything favorable tew say tew a gre't, rough, hulkin' feller like me.' Tell me, Drusy, could yeou ever think o' hevin' me?"

"Could I ever? Why, I would have had you before, John, if you'd taken the trouble to come up 'n' ask me."

"Great Jupiter! tew hear yeou say thet!" he exclaimed, throwing his arms about her in a perfect rapture of joy.

And just then whom should fate send upon the scene but Reube Wetherbee! He came in unobserved by the absorbed lovers, and stood gazing upon them with a white face and flashing eyes.

"Reube, four years ago, as p'r'aps you'll remember, I played a game, 'n' lost. Now I've been a-tryin' my hand ag'in, 'n' won," said John, who turned suddenly and saw him there.

"So I should suppose," said Reube, with a great effort to be hearty and friendly as well as unconcerned. "And I reckon 'twill be a wedding this time instead of a dance."

SUSAN HARTLEY SWETT.

VAN.

He was the evolution of a military horse-trade,--one of those periodical swappings required of his dragoons by Uncle Sam on those rare occasions when a regiment that has been dry-rotting half a decade in Arizona is at last relieved by one from the Plains. How it happened that we of the Fifth should have kept him from the clutches of those sharp horse-fanciers of the Sixth is more than I know. Regimental tradition had it that we got him from the Third Cavalry when it came our turn to go into exile in 1871. He was the victim of some temporary malady at the time,--one of those multitudinous ills to which horse-flesh is heir,--or he never would have come to us. It was simply impossible that anybody who knew anything about horses should trade off such a promising young racer so long as there remained an unpledged pay-account in the officers' mess. Possibly the arid climate of Arizona had disagreed with him and he had gone amiss, as would the mechanism of some of the best watches in the regiment, unable to stand the strain of anything so hot and high and dry. Possibly the Third was so overjoyed at getting out of Arizona on any terms that they would gladly have left their eye-teeth in pawn. Whatever may have been the cause, the transfer was an accomplished fact, and Van was one of some seven hundred quadrupeds, of greater or less value, which became the property of the Fifth Regiment of Cavalry, U.S.A., in lawful exchange for a like number of chargers left in the stables along the recently-built Union Pacific to await the coming of their new riders from the distant West.

We had never met in those days, Van and I. "Compadres" and chums as we were destined to become, we were utterly unknown and indifferent to each other; but in point of regimental reputation at the time, Van had decidedly the best of it. He was a celebrity at head-quarters, I a subaltern at an isolated post. He had apparently become acclimated, and was rapidly winning respect for himself and dollars for his backers; I was winning neither for anybody, and doubtless losing both,--they go together, somehow. Van was living on metaphorical clover down near Tucson; I was roughing it out on the rocks of the Mogollon. Each after his own fashion served out his time in the grim old Territory, and at last "came marching home again;" and early in the summer of the Centennial year, and just in the midst of the great Sioux war of 1876, Van and I made each other's acquaintance.

What I liked about him was the air of thoroughbred ease with which he adapted himself to his surroundings. He was in swell society on the occasion of our first meeting, being bestridden by the colonel of the regiment. He was dressed and caparisoned in the height of martial fashion; his clear eyes, glistening coat, and joyous bearing spoke of the perfection of health; his every glance and movement told of elastic vigor and dauntless spirit. He was a horse with a pedigree,--let alone any self-made reputation,--and he knew it; more than that, he knew that I was charmed at the first greeting; probably he liked it, possibly he liked me. What he saw in me I never discovered. Van, though demonstrative eventually, was reticent and little given to verbal flattery. It was long indeed before any degree of intimacy was established between us: perhaps it might never have come but for the strange and eventful campaign on which we were so speedily launched. Probably we might have continued on our original status of dignified and distant acquaintance. As a member of the colonel's household he could have nothing in common with me or mine, and his acknowledgment of the introduction of my own charger--the cavalryman's better half--was of that airy yet perfunctory politeness which is of the club clubby. Forager, my gray, had sought acquaintance in his impulsive frontier fashion when summoned to the presence of the regimental commander, and, ranging alongside to permit the shake of the hand with which the colonel had honored his rider, he himself had with equine confidence addressed Van, and Van had simply continued his dreamy stare over the springy prairie and taken no earthly notice of him. Forager and I had just joined regimental head-quarters for the first time, as was evident, and we were both "fresh." It was not until the colonel good-naturedly stroked the glossy brown neck of his pet and said, "Van, old boy, this is Forager, of 'K' troop," that Van considered it the proper thing to admit my fellow to the outer edge of his circle of acquaintance. My gray thought him a supercilious snob, no doubt, and hated him. He hated him more before the day was half over, for the colonel decided to gallop down the valley to look at some new horses that had just come, and invited me to go. Colonels' invitations are commands, and we went, Forager and I, though it was weariness and vexation of spirit to both. Van and his rider flew easily along, bounding over the springy turf with long, elastic stride, horse and rider taking the rapid motion as an every-day matter, in a cool, imperturbable, this-is-the-way-we-always-do-it style, while my poor old troop-horse, in answer to pressing knee and pricking spur, strove with panting breath and jealously bursting heart to keep alongside. The foam flew from his fevered jaws and flecked the smooth flank of his apparently unconscious rival; and when at last we returned to camp, while Van, without a turned hair or an abnormal heave, coolly nodded off to his stable, poor Forager, blown, sweating, and utterly used up, gazed revengefully after him an instant and then reproachfully at me. He had done his best, and all to no purpose. That confounded clean-cut, supercilious beast had worn him out and never tried a spurt.

It was then that I began to make inquiries about that airy fellow Van, and I soon found he had a history. Like other histories, it may have been a mere codification of lies; but the men of the Fifth were ready to answer for its authenticity, and Van fully looked the character they gave him. He was now in his prime. He had passed the age of tell-tale teeth and was going on between eight and nine, said the knowing ones, but he looked younger and felt younger. He was at heart as full of fun and frolic as any colt, but the responsibilities of his position weighed upon him at times and lent to his elastic step the grave dignity that should mark the movements of the first horse of the regiment.

And then Van was a born aristocrat. He was not impressive in point of size; he was rather small, in fact; but there was that in his bearing and demeanor that attracted instant attention. He was beautifully built,--lithe, sinewy, muscular, with powerful shoulders and solid haunches; his legs were what Oscar Wilde might have called poems, and with better reason than when he applied the epithet to those of Henry Irving: they were straight, slender, and destitute of those heterodox developments at the joints that render equine legs as hideous deformities as knee-sprung trousers of the present mode. His feet and pasterns were shapely and dainty as those of the _senoritas_ (only for pastern read ankle) who so admired him on _festa_ days at Tucson, and who won such stores of _dulces_ from the scowling gallants who had with genuine Mexican pluck backed the Sonora horses at the races. His color was a deep, dark chocolate-brown; a most unusual tint, but Van was proud of its oddity, and his long, lean head, his pretty little pointed ears, his bright, flashing eye and sensitive nostril, one and all spoke of spirit and intelligence. A glance at that horse would tell the veriest greenhorn that speed, bottom, and pluck were all to be found right there; and he had not been in the regiment a month before the knowing ones were hanging about the Mexican sports and looking out for a chance for a match; and Mexicans, like Indians, are consummate horse-racers.