Chapter XXXII (7)

They had reached a part of the cemetery which was not divided into lots, but formed a sort of burial commons for the behoof of the poor. It was used mainly by Germans, and the graves were principally those of children. The headstones were wooden, painted white, with inscriptions in black or gilt lettering. Humble edgings of white pebbles or shells, partly embedded in the earth, bordered some of the graves: artificial flowers, tinsel crosses, hearts and other such fantastic decorations lay upon the mounds. Putnam's companion paused with an expression of pity before one of these uncouth sepulchres, a little heap of turf which covered the body of a "span-long babe."

"Now, isn't that _echt Deutsch_?" began Putnam, whom the gods had made mad. "Is that glass affair let into the tombstone a looking-glass or a portrait of the deceased--like that 'statoot of a deceased infant' that Holmes tells about? Even our ancestral cherub and willow tree are better than that, or even the inevitable sick lamb and broken lily."

"The people are poor," she murmured.

"They do the same sort of thing when they're rich. It's the national _Geschmack_ to stick little tawdry fribbles all over the face of Nature."

"Poor little baby!" she said gently.

"It's a rather old baby by this time," rejoined Putnam, pointing out the date on the wooden slab--"Eighteen fifty-one: it would be older than I now if it had kept on."

Her eyes fell upon the inscription, and she read it aloud. "Hier ruht in Gott Heinrich Frantz, Geb. Mai 13, 1851. Gest. August 4, 1852. Wir hoffen auf Wiedersehen." She repeated the last words softly over to herself.

"Are those white things cobblestones, or what?" continued Putnam perversely, indicating the border which quaintly encircled the little mound. "As I live," he exclaimed, "they are door-knobs!" and he poked one of them out of the ground with the end of his cane.

"Stop!" she cried vehemently: "how can you do that?"

He dropped his cane and looked at her in wonder. She burst into tears and turned away. "You think I am a heartless brute?" he cried remorsefully, hastening after her.

"Oh, go away, please--go away and leave me alone. I am going to my brother: I want to be alone."

She hurried on, and he paused irresolute. "Miss Pinckney!" he called after her, but she made no response. His instinct, now aroused too late, told him that he had better leave her alone for the present. So he picked up his walking-stick and turned reluctantly homeward. He cursed himself mentally as he retraced the paths along which they had walked together a few moments before. "I'm a fool," he said to himself: "I've gone and upset it all. Couldn't I see that she was feeling badly? I suppose I imagined that I was funny, and she thought I was an insensible brute. This comes of giving way to my infernal high spirits." At the same time a shade of resentment mingled with his self-reproaches. "Why can't she be a little more cheerful and like other girls, and make some allowance for a fellow?" he asked. "Her brother wasn't everybody else's brother. It's downright morbid, this obstinate woe of hers. Other people have lost friends and got over it."

On the morrow he was to start for the mountains. He visited the cemetery in the morning, but Miss Pinckney was not there. He did not know her address, nor could the gatekeeper inform him; and in the afternoon he set out on his journey with many misgivings.

It was early October when Putnam returned to the city. He went at once to the cemetery, but on reaching the grave his heart sank at the sight of a bunch of withered flowers which must have lain many days upon the mound. The blossoms were black and the stalks brittle and dry. "Can she have changed her mind and gone South already?" he asked himself.

There was a new sexton in the gate-house, who could tell him nothing about her. He wandered through the grounds, looking for the old woman with the watering-pot, but the season had grown cold, and she had probably ceased her gardening operations for the year. He continued his walk beyond the marshes. The woods had grown rusty and the sandy pastures outside the city were ringing with the incessant creak of grasshoppers, which rose in clouds under his feet as he brushed through the thin grass. The blue-curl and the life-everlasting distilled their pungent aroma in the autumn sunshine. A feeling of change and forlornness weighed upon his spirit. As with Thomas of Ercildoune, whom the Queen of Faëry carried away into Eildon Hill, the short period of his absence seemed seven years long. An old English song came into his head:

Winter wakeneth all my care,
Now these leaves waxeth bare:
Oft in cometh into my thought,
Of this worldes joy how it goeth all to naught.

Soon after arriving at the hills he had written to Miss Pinckney a long letter of explanations and avowals; but he did not know the number of her lodgings, or, oddly enough, even her Christian name, and the letter had been returned to him unopened. The next month was one of the unhappiest in Putnam's life. On returning to the city, thoroughly restored in health, he had opened an office, but he found it impossible to devote himself quietly to the duties of his profession. He visited the cemetery at all hours, but without success. He took to wandering about in remote quarters and back streets of the town, and eyed sharply every female figure that passed him in the twilight, especially if it walked quickly or wore a veil. He slept little at night, and grew restless and irritable. He had never confided this experience even to his mother: it seemed to him something apart.

One afternoon toward the middle of November he was returning homeward weary and dejected from a walk in the suburbs. His way led across an unenclosed outskirt of the town which served as a common to the poor people of the neighborhood. It was traversed by a score of footpaths, and frequented by goats, and by ducks that dabbled in the puddles of rain-water collected in the hollows. Halfway across this open tract stood what had formerly been an old-fashioned country-house, now converted into a soap-boiling establishment. Around this was a clump of old pine trees, the remnant of a grove which had once flourished in the sandy soil. There was something in the desolation of the place that flattered Putnam's mood, and he stopped to take it in. The air was dusk, but embers of an angry sunset burned low in the west. A cold wind made a sound in the pine-tops like the beating of surf on a distant shore. A flock of little winter birds flew suddenly up from the ground into one of the trees, like a flight of gray leaves whirled up by a gust. As Putnam turned to look at them he saw, against the strip of sunset along the horizon, the slim figure of a girl walking rapidly toward the opposite side of the common. His heart gave a great leap, and he started after her on a run. At a corner of the open ground the figure vanished, nor could Putnam decide into which of two or three small streets she had turned. He ran down one and up another, but met no one except a few laborers coming home from work, and finally gave up the quest. But this momentary glimpse produced in him a new excitement. He felt sure that he had not been mistaken: he knew the swift, graceful step, the slight form bending in the wind. He fancied that he had even recognized the poise and shape of the little head. He imagined, too, that he had not been unobserved, and that she had some reason for avoiding him. For a week or more he haunted the vicinity of the common, but without result. December was already drawing to an end when he received the following note:

"DEAR MR. PUTNAM: You must forgive me for running away from you
the other evening: I am right--am I not?--in supposing that you
saw and recognized me. It was rude in me not to wait for you,
but I had not courage to talk with any one just then. Perhaps I
should have seen you before at the cemetery--if you still walk
there--but I have been sick and have not been there for a long
time. I was only out for the first time when I saw you last
Friday. My aunt has sent for me, and I am going South in a few
days. I shall leave directions to have this posted to you as
soon as I am gone.

"I promised to be here when you came back, and I write this to
thank you for your kind interest in me and to explain why I go
away without seeing you again. I think that I know what you
wanted to ask me that day that we went to the green-house, and
perhaps under happier circumstances I could have given you the
answer which you wished. But I have seen so much sorrow, and I
am of such a gloomy disposition, that I am not fit for cheerful
society, and I know you would regret your choice.

"I shall think very often and very gratefully of you, and shall
not forget the words on that little German baby's gravestone.
Good-bye.

"IMOGEN PINCKNEY."

Putnam felt stunned and benumbed on first reading this letter. Then he read it over mechanically two or three times. The date was a month old, but the postmark showed that it had just been mailed. She must have postponed her departure somewhat after writing it, or the person with whom it had been left had neglected to post it till now. He felt a sudden oppression and need of air, and taking his hat left the house. It was evening, and the first snow of the season lay deep on the ground. Anger and grief divided his heart. "It's too bad! too bad!" he murmured, with tears in his eyes: "she might have given me one chance to speak. She hasn't been fair to me. What's the matter with her, anyhow? She has brooded and brooded till she is downright melancholy-mad;" and then, with a revulsion of feeling, "My poor darling girl! Here she has been, sick and all alone, sitting day after day in that cursed graveyard. I ought never to have gone to the mountains: I ought to have stayed. I might have known how it would turn out. Well, it's all over now, I suppose."

He had taken, half unconsciously, the direction of the cemetery, and now found himself at the entrance. The gate was locked, but he climbed over the wall and waded through the snow to the spot where he had sat with her so many summer afternoons. The wicker chair was buried out of sight in a drift. A scarcely-visible undulation in the white level marked the position of the mound, and the headstone had a snow-cap. The cedars stood black in the dim moonlight, and the icy coating of their boughs rattled like candelabra. He stood a few moments near the railing, and then tore the letter into fragments and threw them on the snow. "There! good-bye, good-bye!" he said bitterly as the wind carried them skating away over the crust.

But what was that? The moon cast a shadow of Henry Pinckney's headstone on the snow, but what was that other and similar shadow beyond it? Putnam had been standing edgewise to the slab: he shifted his position now and saw a second stone and a second mound side by side with the first. An awful faintness and trembling seized him as he approached it and bent his head close down to the marble. The jagged shadows of the cedar-branches played across the surface, but by the uncertain light he could read the name "Imogen Pinckney," and below it the inscription, "Wir hoffen auf Wiedersehen."

HENRY A. BEERS.

STUDIES IN THE SLUMS.

VI.--JAN OF THE NORTH.

"You're wanted at 248, and they said go quick. It's Brita, I shouldn't wonder. Lord pity her, but it's a wild night to go out! Seems like as if the Lord would have hard work to find anybody, with the rain an' sleet pourin' an' drivin' so't you can't see a foot before your face. But He will."

"Yes, He will," the doctor's quiet voice answered. "Poor little Brita! I am glad her trouble is almost over. Will you come? Remember how dreadful the place is."

"More so for me than for you?"

"Surely, for I have been in the midst of such for twenty years, and among them all have never known a worse den than that in which these poor souls are stranded. If I could only see a way out for them!"

The doctor had not been idle as she spoke, and stood ready now in thick gray waterproof and close bonnet, her face a shade graver than its always steady, gentle calm. Jerry followed, his badge of deputy sheriff hastily put on, for the alley was one of the worst in the Fourth Ward, and, well as she was known through its length and breadth, here the bravest might shrink from going unattended. Out into the night, the wild wind and beating rain seeming best accompaniments to the brutal revelry in the dance-houses and "bucket-shops" all about. Here, one heard the cracked and discordant sounds from the squeaking fiddles or clarionets of the dance-music, and there, were shouts and oaths and the crash of glass as a drunken fight went on, undisturbed by policeman and watched with only a languid interest by the crowd of heavy drinkers. Up Cherry street, past staggering men, and women with the indescribable voice that once heard is never forgotten, all, seemingly regardless of the storm, laughing aloud or shrieking as a sudden gust whirled them on. Then the alley, dark and noisome, the tall tenement-houses rising on either side, a wall of pestilence and misery, shutting in only a little deeper misery, a little surer pestilence, to be faced as it might be.

"It's hell on earth," said Jerry as we passed up the stairs, dark and broken, pausing a moment as the sound of a scuffle and a woman's shrill scream came from one of the rooms. "Do you wonder there's murder, an' worse than murder, done in these holes? Oh, what would I give to tumble them, the whole crop of the devil's own homes, straight into the river!"

"Hush," the doctor said. "Stay, Jerry, a few minutes. You may be wanted, but there is not room for all in there."

As she spoke the door had opened, and a tall, gaunt woman in the distinctive Swedish dress stood before us and mutely pointed us in. It was hard to distinguish anything in the dim light of a flickering tallow candle placed in a corner to screen it from the wind, which whistled through cracks and forced the rain through the broken roof. On a pile of rags lay three children, sleeping soundly. By the table sat a heavy figure, the face bowed and hidden in the arms folded upon it, and on the wretched bed lay the wasted figure of the girl whose life was passing in the storm.

"Poor little Brita!" I said again, for as the doctor bent over her and took her hand the eyes opened and a faint smile came to the sweet, child-like face. Long braids of fair hair lay on the pillow, the eyes were blue and clear, and the face, wearing now the strange gray shadow of death, held a delicate beauty still, that with health and color would have made one turn to look at it again wherever encountered. The mother stood silent and despairing at the foot of the bed. The motionless figure at the table did not stir. There was no fire or sign of comfort in the naked room, and but the scantiest of covering on the bed.

The girl looked up faintly and put out her hand. "Pray," she said in a whisper--"pray for the mother;" but even as she spoke she gasped, half rose, then fell back, and was gone, the look of entreaty still in the eyes. The doctor closed them gently, the poor eyes that would never need to beg for help any more, and then the mother, still silent, came softly and touched the girl's face, sinking down then by the side of the bed and stroking the dead hands as if to bring back life.

The man had risen too and came slowly to her side. "I thank God she iss gone away from all trouble," he said, "but oh, my doctor, it iss so hard!"

"Hard!" the woman echoed and rose. "I will not hear of God: I hate God. There iss no God, but only a deffil, who does all he vill. Brita iss gone, and Lars and little Jan. Now it must be de oders, and den I know vat you call God vill laugh. He vill say, 'Ah, now I haf dem all. De fool fader and de fool moder, dey may live.'"

"Brita! poor Brita!" the man said softly, and added some words in his own tongue. She pushed him away, then burst into wild weeping and sank down on the floor.

"He will be her best comforter," the doctor said. "We will go now, and I will see them all to-morrow. That money will get the coffin," she added as she laid a bill on the table and then went softly out, "but the coffin would not have been needed if help could have come three months ago."

"I thought it was some drunken home," I said, "but that man can never have gone very far wrong. He has a noble head."

"No, it is only hard times," she answered. "Go again, and you will learn the whole story, unless you choose to hear it from me."

"No," I said as we stood under the shelter of the still unfinished Franklin Square Station on the elevated road, "I will hear it for myself if I can."

The time came sooner than I thought. A month later I went up the dark stairs, whose treacherous places I had learned to know, and found the room empty of all signs of occupation, though the bed and table still stood there.

"They're gone," a voice called from below. "They've come into luck, Pat says, but I don't know. Anyhow, they turned out o' here yesterday, an' left the things there for whoever 'd be wantin' 'em."

"Bad 'cess to the furriner!" said another voice as I passed down. "Comin' here wid his set-up ways, an' schornin' a bit of dhrink!"

"An' if ye'd take patthern of him yerself--" the woman's voice began, and was silenced by a push back into her room and the loud slam of the door.

"They have come to better times surely," the janitor said as I asked their whereabouts at the mission, "an' here's their new number. It's a quiet, decent place, an' he'll have a better soon."

After Cherry and Roosevelt and Water streets, Madison street seems another Fifth Avenue. The old New Yorker knows it as the once stately and decorous abode of old Dutch families, a few of whom still cling to the ancient homes, but most of these are now cheap boarding-Pouses and tenements, while here and there a new genuine tenement-house is sandwiched between the tiled roofs and dormer-windows which still hold suggestions of former better days. The more respectable class of 'longshoremen find quarters here, and some of the mission-people, who, well-to-do enough to seek quieter homes, choose to be as near as possible to the work waiting for them, and for more like them, in that nest of evil and outrage and slime, the Fourth Ward.

Brita's head was bowed on the table as I went in, and Jan's face was sorrowful as he looked toward her. "It iss not so alvay," he said. "She hass made it all so good, and now she dinks of Brita, dat vill not see it, and she say still, 'God iss hard to take her avay.'"

"How is it, Jan? Did work come all at once?"

"No, and yet yes. Shall I say it all, my lady?"

"Surely, Jan, if you have time."

"It iss de last day I vill be here in my home all day," he began, drawing one of the children between his knees and holding its hands fondly. "But see on de vall! It iss dat hass done some vork for me."

I looked to where he pointed. On the wall, near the small looking-glass, hung a round cap with hanging fox's tail--such a cap as the half-bloods of our north-western forests wear, and the peasants of the European North as well.

Jan smiled as he saw my puzzled look. "It iss vy I say I vill tell it all," he went on in his grave, steady voice. "Ven I see dat it iss to see de North. For, see, it vas not alvays I am in de city. No. It iss true I am many years in Stockholm, but I am not Swede: I am Finn--yes, true Finn--and know my own tongue vell, and dat iss vat some Finns vill nefer do. I haf learn to read Swedish, for I must. Our own tongue iss not for us, but I learn it, and Brita dere, she know it too. Brita iss of Helsingfors, and I am of de country far out, but I come dere vid fur, for I hunt many months each year. Den I know Brita, and ve marry, and I must stay in de city, and I am strong; and first I am porter, but soon dey know I read and can be drusted, and it iss china dat I must put in boxes all day, and I know soon how to touch it so as it nefer break.

"But dere is not money. My Brita iss born, and little Jan, and I dink alvay, 'I must haf home vere dey may know more;' and all de days it iss America dat dey say iss home for all, and much money--so much no man can be hungry, and vork iss for all. Brita iss ready, and soon ve come, and all de children glad. Yes, dere are six, and good children dat lofe us, and I say efery day, 'Oh, my God, but you are so good! and my life lofes you, for so much good I haf.' Brita too iss happy. She vork hard, but ve do not care, and ve dink, 'Soon ve can rest a little, for it iss not so hard dere as here;' and ve sail to America.

"But, my lady, how iss it it vas all so bad? For vork iss _not_. It iss true I haf a little in de beginning. It iss three year ago. I know some English I haf learn in sailing once to England, for de Finns go eferyvere to sail. I am not helpless so, and I am large and strong, and soon I go to de many, many china-stores--so many, I say, dat can nefer be to vant vork--and in one dey take me. But it iss not much money, dough I dink it so, for it iss alvay de rent--so much, and ve are strange and dey cheat us. And ven I am troubled most, and dink to ask for more, den quick it iss dat I haf none. De place iss failed--dat iss vat iss tell me--and I go home to Brita to say vat shall to do? I could dig, I vould go far off, but I haf not money; but I say, 'Ven I get plenty it shall be ve go to vere earth shall gif us to eat, and not starve us as here.' For soon it iss little to eat, and it iss dat ve sell clothes and such as ve must. I get vork--a little on de docks. I unload, and see men dat can steal all day from coffee-bags and much sugar, and soon time iss come dat ve are hungry, and men say, 'Steal too. It's hard times, and you _haf_ to steal.'

"Oh, dere iss one day! It iss here now. My little Jan iss dead, and Carl so sick, and all dat he must be vidout enough to eat, and my Brita vill get a dollar and a half a veek to sew--alvays sew and she is pale and coughs. I pray, 'O God, you know I vill not do wrong, but vat shall I do? Show me how, for I am afraid.' But it vas all dark. I cannot go home, for I haf not money. I cannot vork but one, maybe two, times a veek. And alvays I see my own _hungry_! I dink I could kill myself; but dat helps not, and I go avay, oh, eferyvere about New York, and beg for vork. And den eferyvere it iss said, 'He is a _tramp_,' and alvays dey tell me, 'No, ve gif not to _tramps_. Go to vere you came from.' I say, 'I am not tramps. My children are hungry. Gif me vork: I vant to eat for dem--not money, but to eat if you vill. Gif me a little vork.'

"I am dirty: Brita iss not dere to haf me clean. I vash as I can, in vater anyvere, but I sleep on de ground. I eat not often. I am vild truly, I know, and soon peoples are afraid. Den, my lady, I haf no more faith. I say, 'God, you haf forgotten me: you haf forgotten vat you promise. It may be God iss not anyvere.' So I come back, and I find dat my little Brita iss sick--so sick she cannot vork--and Brita my vife; she sew all she can, but it iss not enough. I go on de docks once more. 'No vork! no vork!' It iss de vord eferyvere. And one day, all de day long, ve haf nothing--no fire, nothing to eat, and dere iss no more anything to pawn, and I say, 'At last I vill steal, for vat else shall be to do?' And I go out and down to de dock, for I know a boat going out in de night, and I say, 'I too vill go.' But I go down Vater street. I know it not much, for first my home iss on de odder side, but ve are so poor at last ve are in Cherry street, and den vere you see us first. But den I am just come, and I go by de mission and hear all sing, and I say, 'I vill stay a minute and listen, for soon nefer again shall I sit vid any dat sing and pray and haf to do vid God.' So I go in, and listen not much till soon one man stands up, an' he say, 'Friends, I came first from prison, and I meant not efer to do more vat vould take me dere again. But dere iss no vork, even ven I look all day, and I am hungry; and den I dink to steal again. I vait, because perhaps vork come, but at night I go out and say, "I know my old ground. Dere's plenty ready to velcome me if I'm a mind to join 'em." And den, as I go, one says to me, "Come in here;" and I come in and not care, till I hear many tell vat dey vere, and I say, "I vill vait a leetle longer: I cannot steal now." And now vork has come, and if God help me I shall never steal again.'

"I stood up den. I said loud, 'I haf nefer steal. I belief in God, but now how shall I? My heart's dearest, dey starve, dey die before me. Dere iss no vork, dere iss no help. If I steal not, how shall I do?' I vas crying: I could not see. Then Jerry came. 'You shall nefer starve,' he said. 'Stay honest, for God _vill_ care for you, and ve'll all pray Him to keep you so.'

"And so, when meeting iss done, dey go vid me to see, and dere iss food and all dey can. Dey are God's angels to me and to mine.

"But, my lady, you know: you haf seen my little Brita. And efery day I look at her and see her going avay, so fast, so fast, and my heart breaks, for she is first of all. And den she iss gone, and still vork is not. You haf seen us. All de days dey say. 'Dere vill come vork soon,' but it comes not efer. And one morning I look in de chest to see if one thing may still be to pawn, and dere iss only my cap dat I keep--not to vear, no, but only to remember. And I sit, and it iss on my hand, and I hold de fox's tail, and again I am in Finland, and I see de foxes run on de ice, and I know vell dis one dat I hold de tail. Den quick I haf a thought. I look for a stick all about: dere iss but a little one for de fire, and no knife, but I get a knife from a man dat iss at de odder room, and I cut it and tie it. I vill not tell Brita vat I do, but soon I haf de tail vid a handle, and I put it inside my coat, and go to a store vere iss a man I haf seen dat vill make many things, and money sometimes.

"'Ha, Jan,' he said ven I show it, 'dis _iss_ a notion! I'll gif you ten dollar for dat notion.'

"'No,' I say. 'If you say ten dollar I know it vorth more, for I know vat you can do. But let it be more, and I may sell it.'

"Den he talk. Dere is risk, he say, and he must spend much money, but he say it vill _take_. Oh, I know dat vord, and ven he has talked so much at last he say he vill write a paper and gif me one hundred dollar, and make me a foreman ven he shall make dem. For he says, 'It iss vat all ladies vill vant--so soft to make clean in de beautiful cabinets, and de china on de vall so as dey hang it in great houses. Vid its handle for stiffness, den de soft tail vill go eferyvere and nefer break. It iss a duster, and best of all duster too, for nothing can efer break.'

"So now he hass rooms--dree rooms--and many people are to take dem, and to-morrow I go to show how one must hold all de tails, and dere is vork, all I can do; and ven money iss come I dink to go avay, but not soon, for I must help some dat haf no help. But oh, I dink of de little ones, and of Brita dat iss gone; and de moder she cannot haf rest, for all day she say, 'Vy must it be dey are gone, ven now iss plenty?'--'My God, it iss your vill. And not fery long, and you vill make us a home vid her.' It iss all right, my lady."

Jan lingers still in his last quarters. The mission holds him fast, and his grave, steady face is known to many a poor wretch just out of prison--many a tramp who has returned despairing of work and been helped to it by this man, himself a workman, but with a sympathy never failing for any sad soul struggling toward a better life or lost in the despair of waiting. Their name is legion, and their rescue must come from just such workers--men who have suffered and know its meaning. Men of this stamp hold the key to a regeneration of the masses, such as organized charities are powerless to effect; and already some who believe in this fact are seeking to make their work easier and to give the substantial aid that it demands. The poor are the best missionaries to the poor, and he who has gone hungry, suffered every pang of poverty and known sharpest temptation to sin can best speak words that will save men and women entering on the same path.

To this end Jan lives--as truly a priest to the people as if hands laid upon him had consecrated him to the work, but all unconscious what power it holds to the on-lookers, and only sure of the one word, the mission watchword--"Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, ye have done it unto Me."

HELEN CAMPBELL.

UNDER THE GRASSES.

What do you hide, O grasses! say,
Among your tangles green and high?
"Warm-hearted violets for May,
And rocking daisies for July."

What burden do you keep beneath
Your knotted green, that none may see?
"The prophecy of life and death,
A hint, a touch, a mystery."

What hope and passion should I find
If I should pierce your meshes through?
"A clover blossoming in the wind,
A wandering harebell budded blue."

DORA READ GOODALE.

"KITTY."

The Idler was hopelessly becalmed off Thomas's Point. Not a ripple could be seen down the Chesapeake, and the locusts and pines along the shore were shuddering uncomfortably with the heat of a July afternoon, hidden halfway to their tops in the summer haze. What was to be done? Five miles from home in a large sloop yacht filled with strangers from the North, the crew left behind to be out of the way, and every one thoroughly convinced that his neighbor was horribly bored!

Thornton gave the tiller a vicious shove, as if that would wake the yacht up, and glared forward along the row of parasols protecting fair faces from the sun and of hats cocked over noses that were screwed up with feelings too deep for words, and more intense than those produced by heat, he thought. By five o'clock we had sung every song that ever was written, and flirtations were becoming desperate. Mollie Brogden, comfortably lodged against the mast, was dropping her blue parasol lower and lower over one of the New York men as their conversation grew more and more intense with the heat, and Mrs. Brogden was becoming really alarmed.

The situation was maddening! Nothing on board to eat; soft-shell crabs and the best bill of fare of a Southern kitchen ordered at home for seven o'clock; a couple of fiddlers coming from "the Swamp" at nine; and Cousin Susan, the cook, even then promising little Stump Neal "all de bonyclábá he cu'd stow ef he'd jest friz dis yar cream fo' de new missis."

"It is too provoking for anything!" the new missis whispered to Thornton, as he stopped by his wife's side for an instant and moved on to consult with some of the married men who were smoking in luxuriant carelessness forward. Very little consolation he got there. Ellis from Annapolis said he had known calms last two days, and sundry forcible remarks were made when it was discovered that the last cigars were then in our mouths. This was the last straw. Thornton felt furious with every one, and muttered dark wishes that ante-war power might be restored to him over the person of Uncle Brian when we got home--if we ever did--as he reflected that that ancient African had guaranteed a breeze.

Mollie Brogden smiled lazily at him as Donaldson fanned her slowly, and waited until Thornton should pass, so that the talk which was leading up to the inscription of a clever piece of poetry on her fan might be continued.

"By the way, Donaldson," as a sudden inspiration seemed to strike Thornton, "did you ever hear anything more of Kitty after I left you at Christmas?"

The sweetness of that piece of poetry on the fan was never revealed. The blue parasol went up with a jump, and a look assured Donaldson that certain words had better have been left unsaid that afternoon if "Kitty" should not be satisfactorily explained. I felt sorry for him, for every one caught at the idea of something new, and the thought of an explanation to the whole of that boatload, keen for all sorts of badinage, would have tempted me overboard, I am sure. However, Donaldson smiled very composedly, and said he believed the family were still in Texas, although he had heard nothing more than Thornton already knew of their history.

Well, that simply made matters worse: Texas and Kitty were suggestive enough for anything, and I caught a whisper from Miss Brogden that seemed to imply that she doubted whether he had really been so inconsolable for last summer's diversions as he had tried to make her believe. That settled him, for I knew he had come down to Thornton's expressly to see her, and he assured us it was a very small story, but if we cared to hear it perhaps the breeze would come meanwhile, and he would try to give the facts exactly as they had come to his knowledge.

"We were a few hours out from Liverpool," he began, "and the smoking-room of the Russia was pretty well filled with all sorts of men, none of whom of course felt much at home yet, but who were gradually being shaken together by the civilizing influence of tobacco and the occasional lurches that the cross-chop of the Channel was favoring us with. I was sitting near the door with a man from Boston whom I found on board returning from a wedding-trip, and who, I discovered, had taken orders since leaving Harvard, where I had known him slightly as a bookish sort of fellow and not very agreeable; but as I was alone and his wife was quite pretty, I was glad to meet him.

"Well, we were running over old times, without paying much attention to the guide-book talk that was being poured out round us, when somebody laid a hand on my shoulder and one of the most attractive voices I ever heard asked 'if there was room for a stranger from Texas?' This formal announcement of himself by a newcomer made a little lull in the conversation, but my friend made room for him in our corner, and he quietly enveloped himself in smoke for the rest of the evening.

"He was not inattentive, though, to the drift of our talk, for when Hamilton mentioned having been at the Pan-Anglican, and spoke of the effect such conventions should produce, the Texan's cigar came out of his mouth and his blue eyes grew deeper in their sockets as he interrupted us with the remark: 'The conventions of all the Bible-men in the world would not have made La Junta any better if it had not been for Kitty. You know what Junta was before she came?' he continued, seeing us look a little surprised--'nothing but cards and drink, and--worse; and now'--and he laid his hand on his hip as if from habit--'now we have no trouble there any more.'

"The oddness of the expression 'Bible-men,' I remember, struck me at the time, but Hamilton made some explanatory reply, for the quiet force of the soft voice had a certain persuasiveness about it without the aid of his gesture, although the smoke was so thick that we could not see whether he carried the instruments of his country or not.

"Standing by the aft wheel-house, I found the Texan the next morning throwing biscuits to the gulls and gazing wistfully seaward.

"'Your first visit to Europe?' I said, steadying myself by the rail.

"'Yes, but I would give all last year's herd if I had never come, for Kitty is ill. I have travelled night and day since the telegram reached me, but La Junta is so far away I am afraid I shall be too late.'

"I wish I could give you an idea of his manner: it was more like that of a person who had just learned the language and was afraid of making mistakes, so hesitated before each word, giving every syllable its full value. He explained this simply enough afterward--that Kitty had broken him of swearing by making him think before he spoke."

"But you haven't told us who Kitty was," interrupted the blue parasol. "Was she light or dark?"--"his wife?"--"he wouldn't have dared!"--"a Texan wife?" and Mrs. Brogden looked very grave at the possibilities the flying questions aroused.

"No, she wasn't his wife; only the Yankee schoolmistress of La Junta. I never saw her. She must have been an angel, though, from his description; so I will leave the details for your acquaintance hereafter, Miss Brogden;" which outrageous flattery was received with contemptuous silence.

"She lived at Junta, and would canter over on Saturdays to Trocalara, the Texan's ranch, to teach his herdsmen's families. His partner, Parker, and he had a large cattle-ranch not far from the Mexican frontier, and Kitty could not have lived on a bed of roses, I fancy. Raids, stampedes and other border pleasantries were constantly occurring. I remember we thought him too gentle at first to have really hailed from the Plains; but one night, when Hamilton remonstrated with a man who, I believe, had allowed himself to get in that state described by the sailors as 'three sheets in the wind, and the fourth fluttering,' and was met with rather an uncivil reply, the Texan shut the offender up like a jack-knife with his heavy grip and the intimation that 'he proposed to settle the Bible-man's scores.'

"He grew quite intimate with Hamilton and me, and proved a delightful companion. He would quote readily from many of the later poets, and knew whole pages of Milton and Shakespeare by heart. Kitty had taught him these, he said, after she married Parker and came to live with him.

"'She made us read history-books first,' he said--'many, many volumes--but we soon got to like them better than anything else. The poetry _she_ read to us; and so we never went to the shows in Junta after she came. Kitty has a good husband, as fine a fellow as ever lassoed a steer, but she is too pure for Junta. Parker loves her, and I love her too, but both of us do not make up for her Eastern comforts. And so last year, as we made a good herd and there were no raids to speak of, I came to New York to get a few luxuries for her. She wrote me then to go to Paris and see the Exposition; so I went because I thought she knew best, and that if I had seen the world a little I should be nearer to her, and it would not be quite so hard for her out there. And now she is ill, and--I am here!'

"He turned impatiently away to ask the quartermaster what we were doing by the last log. The speed appeared to satisfy him, for he sat quietly down again and told us how it was that Kitty had come to live with them.

"'For two years, you know'--assuming that we did know--'she spent Saturdays at Trocalara, teaching our people how to read and write. They were very rough at first--we all are out there--and did not care much; but she interested them, and brought picture-books for the little ones, and by and by she said she would come out on Sunday and we should have church!' with a triumphant look at Hamilton and his Pan-Anglican attendance. 'Yes, we had had a priest there before, but he was shot in a row at Bowler's Paradise, and no one cared to apply for a new one.

"'Kitty came up to the ranch the first Sunday, and asked us to come with her. We refused at first, but after a while, when we heard the singing, we went down to the quarters, and found her sitting under one of the trees with all the young ones clustered round her; and we waited there and listened until we began to feel very sorry that we had played so late at Bowler's the night before.

"'But Parker had been in luck, and he swore he would get her as fine a piano as could be brought from the States (he was a half-Mexican by birth) if she would sing like that for us at the ranch.

"'She stood up then, with all the young ones looking on in amazement, the light and shade playing over her through the cool, dark leaves, and, turning her large gray eyes full on Parker's face, said she would if we would promise never to go to Bowler's again.

"'I think Parker expected her to refuse to come altogether, because we had no women there, and we had heard the people in Junta talking of her quiet, modest ways. But no, she never thought of herself: she only thought of the nights at Bowler's, and wanted to save us from the end she had seen often enough in two years in Junta. At any rate, the piano came, and Parker had it sent as a sort of halfway measure to her house in Junta, where she and her mother lived, and we were as welcome as the light there always.

"'You have no idea of her music. They told me at concerts in Paris that I was hearing the finest musicians in Europe, but they were not like Kitty. They played for our money--Kitty played for our pleasure: it makes so much difference,' he added as his fingers drummed an accompaniment to the air he whistled.

"'One night Parker and I were sitting in a corner at Bowler's when we heard a Greaser--a Mexican, you know--that Parker had refused to play poker with the night before ask who the señorita was that had taken the spirit out of Parker.

"'We both started forward instantly, but as the man was evidently ignorant of our presence, Parker checked me with a fierce look in his eyes that showed that the spirit of his former days would be very apt to put a different ending on the conversation if it continued in that tone.

"'"Kitty," came the reply, as if that settled the matter.

"'"Kitty? Ah, your American names are so strange! Kitty! But she is beautiful, is this Kitty! I met her in the Gulch road this afternoon this side of Trocalara. Caramba! how she can ride! The Parker has good taste: I drink to my future acquaintance with her."

"'As he raised the glass to his lips Parker stood behind his chair and whispered, "If you drink that liquor, by God it will be the last drop that shall ever pass your lips!"

"'The next morning they sold the Mexican's horse and traps to pay for burying him and for the damage done, and Parker lay in bed at Kitty's with that in his side you would not have cared to see.

"'Kitty never knew why he fought, and never even looked a reproach. It was not much--I had seen him cut much worse in the stockyard at home--but somehow he did not get well. The weeks slipped by, and each time I called Kitty would say he was a little better, and a little better, and oh yes, he would be back next week; but next week came so often without Parker that at last, when the time came for changing pastures, I went with the herd and left him still at Junta.

"'I would willingly have taken his place, look you, if I had known the result, but perhaps the other way was the best, after all; for now Kitty has two men to serve her,' he added meditatively.

"'When I got back to Junta in October, Parker was quite recovered, I found out at the ranch, but was in town that evening, so I went quietly into Kitty's house to surprise them. As I crossed the hall I heard Parker's voice. Could I have mistaken the house? was it really his voice I heard? Yes: he was telling Kitty how he had broken the three-year-old colt to side-saddle, so when she came to Trocalara she must give up her old pony. I knew then why Kitty had kept him there so long: he had lost his reason and she wished to keep me from knowing it!

"'But no. I stood still and listened, and heard him tell her how he had always loved her, apparently going over an old story to her. My God! I would as soon have told the Virgin I loved her! And then I heard her voice. "When I am your wife--" she began.

"'It all flashed on me in an instant then. I slipped noiselessly out, and if they heard "Odd Trick's" gallop on the turf it was not because his hoofs lingered too long there.

"'I can't remember how I passed that night. The revelation had been so sudden that the words seemed to be written in my heart and to be carried through every vein with each beat. "When I am your wife--" What would the result be? _Our_ Kitty was to be his wife? Could I still stay at the ranch? "When I am your wife--" and I loved her!

"'The next day I went into Junta and saw them both. I told Parker how the herd stood, and how the shooting had been in the mountains, but I never had the courage to look at her.

"'After a while she went to the piano and played "Home:" then she came and sat down by me and said, "I have told Parker I will go home with him: I will try to be a sister to you."

"'I believe I only stared at her, and then wrung Parker's hand and went out.

"'He married her the next month, and--and--Trocalara has been heaven ever since.

"'I never knew what a Christian was before she came: you know we have no faith in Texas in things we can't draw a bead on. But when she read me the story of the Scribes and Pharisees and Christ I felt ashamed to be like those Flat-heads and Greasers in the New Testament who did not believe in him; and now I feel sure of knowing some one in heaven, for Kitty has promised to find me there.'

"I forget a great many of the incidents he told us," Donaldson went on in the quiet that was almost equal to the calm around us; "and I dare say it would bore you to listen. But he certainly was the most extraordinary man I ever met. I can't do justice to his expressions, for they lack his soft voice and curious hesitation. I wish we had him here, though."

"Did you never hear of him again?" some one asked.

"Yes. When we reached New York I found him standing in his old place by the aft wheel-house in a dazed sort of way, with apparently no intention of going ashore; so I asked him what hotel he intended to stop at. His only answer was to hand me a letter dated some days before:

"'JUNTA, Texas.

"'Kitty died last night. It is a boy, and is named after
you--her last wish.

"'PARKER.'

That was all the letter said, but as I looked at his white face and burning eyes I saw it was what he had feared.

"As I bade him good-night at the hotel that evening he asked me, 'Do you really feel sure that I could find her--there?'

"'Yes: she said so, did she not?' I replied.

"'I will try,' he said simply.

"The next morning they found him with a bullet-hole in his temple. He had gone to find Kitty."

* * * * *

"Heads!" said Thornton as the boom swung over and the swirl from the Idler's bow told us the wind had come. As I changed my place I caught Miss Brogden's eye, and felt satisfied that Donaldson was forgiven.

LAWRENCE BUCKLEY.

A GREAT SINGER.

There are so few of them! The next generation will hardly understand how great were some of the lately-vanished kings and queens of the lyric drama. We who have passed middle age, who have heard Lablache, and Tamberlik, and Jenny Lind, and Viardot Garcia, and Alboni, and Giuglini in their prime, and Grisi, Mario, Sontag and Persiani with voices but a little the worse for wear, can sadly contrast the vocal glories of the past with those of the present. Who are the great singers of to-day? Two or three _prime donne_ and as many baritones. There is not a single basso living to suggest Lablache, not a tenor to revive the triumphs of Rubini, Mario, Giuglini or the subject of the present article.