Chapter III: The Fever of Neopalia (2)

The limits of space render it difficult to make even a summary enumeration of certain tendencies in figure painting which marked the years of the growth of this great landscape school. Gustave Courbet (born at Ornans in 1819, died in Switzerland, 1877), who might be classed both as a figure and a landscape painter, would demand by right a longer consideration than can be here given. Of his career as a champion of realism, as a past master in the peculiarly modern art of keeping one's self before the public, culminating in his connection with the Commune in Paris in 1871, and the destruction of the column in the Place Vendôme, there could be much to say. Courbet was, as a painter, a powerful individuality; of more force, however, as a painter of the superficial envelope than of the deeper qualities which nature makes pictorial at the bidding of one of finer fibre. His claim to be considered modern can be contested, inasmuch as it was only in subject that his work was novel. In manner of painting he was of a time long past, of a school of greater masters than he showed himself to be. With this reserve, however, as a vigorous painter, both of the figure and landscape, he is interesting; and as one of the first to look about him and find his subjects in our daily life, his work will live.

Curiously enough, the revival of the art of another epoch in the case of Saint Bonvin remained absolutely modern. By nature or by choice this painter (born at Vaugirard, near Paris, in 1817, and dying at St. Germain-en-Laye in 1887) is a modern Pieter de Hooghe; and as the Dutch masters addressed themselves to a painstaking and sincere representation of the life about them, in like manner Bonvin, bringing to his work much the same qualities, choosing as his subjects quiet interiors, with the life of the family pursuing its even tenor (or the still more placid progress of conventual life, like the "Ave Maria in the Convent of Aramont," in the Luxembourg), remains himself while resembling his prototypes. It is instructive to look at his "Servant at the Fountain," reproduced here, compare it with many of the pictures of familiar life like those of Wilkie, Webster, or Mulready, published last month, and note the unconsciousness of the work before us.

The work of a painter equally able, though suffering somewhat as representing an art with which we moderns have little sympathy, falls into comparison here, and undoubtedly loses by it. The unfortunate painter, Octave Tassaert, who was born in Paris in 1800, and lived there, undergoing constant privation, until he voluntarily ended his life in 1874, possibly found consolation for his hard lot in depicting scenes like that entitled "An Unhappy Family."

The lesson of the art of the men considered here is that of direct inspiration of nature, of reliance on native qualities rather than those acquired; and the impulse given by them has continued in force until to day. We have before us, as a consequence, two strongly defined tendencies which will control the future of painting. The first and strongest, for the moment, is the impressionistic tendency, with its negation of any pictorial qualities other than those based on direct study from objects actually existing. This would, if carried to a logical conclusion, eliminate the imaginative quality, and render the painter a human photographic camera. The other tendency is that which has existed since art was born, and which, though temporarily and justly ignored in periods when it is necessary to recreate a technical standard, always comes to the surface when men have learned their trade as painters. It is the desire to create; the instinct which impels one to use the language given him to express thought. The two tendencies are not incompatible; and in the end the artist will arise who, with certainty of expression, will express thought.

"SOLDIER AN' SAILOR TOO."

BY RUDYARD KIPLING,

AUTHOR OF "BARRACK-ROOM BALLADS," "THE JUNGLE BOOK," ETC.

As I was spittin' into the Ditch aboard o' the "Crocodile,"
I seed a man on a man-o'-war got up in the Reg'lars' style.
'E was scrapin' the paint from off of 'er plates, an' I sez to 'im:
"Oo are you?"
Sez 'e: "I'm a Jolly--'er Majesty's Jolly--soldier an' sailor too!"
_Now 'is work begins by Gawd knows when, and 'is work is never
through--
'E isn't one o' the Regular line, nor 'e isn't one of the crew--
'E's a kind of a giddy herumfrodite--soldier an' sailor too_!

An' after I met 'im all over the world, a-doin' all kinds o' things,
Like landin' 'isself with a Gatling-gun to talk to them 'eathen kings;
'E sleeps in an 'ammick instead of a cot, an' 'e drills with the deck
on a slue,
An' 'e sweats like a Jolly--'er Majesty's Jolly--soldier an' sailor too!
_For there isn't a job on the top o' the earth the beggar don't
know--nor do!
You can leave 'im at night on a bald man's 'ead to paddle 'is own
canoe;
'E's a sort of a bloomin' cosmopolot--soldier an' sailor too_.

We've fought 'em on trooper, we've fought em in dock, an' drunk with
'em in betweens,
When they called us the sea-sick scull'ry maids, an' we called 'em the
Ass Marines;
But when we was down for a double fatigue, from Woolwich to Bernardmyo,
We sent for the Jollies--'er Majesty's Jollies--soldier an' sailor too!
_They think for 'emselves, an they steal for 'emselves, an' they never
ask what's to do,
But they're camped an fed an' they're up an' fed before our bugle's
blew.
Ho! they ain't no limpin procrastitutes--soldier an' sailor too_!

You may say we are fond of an 'arness cut or 'ootin' in barrick-yards,
Or startin' a Board School mutiny along o' the Onion Guards;
But once in a while we can finish in style for the ends of the earth to
view,
The same as the Jollies--'er Majesty's Jollies--soldier an' sailor too.
_They come of our lot, they was brothers to us, they was beggars we'd
met and knew;
Yes, barrin' an inch in the chest an' the arms, they was doubles o'
me and you,
For they weren't no special chrysanthemums--soldier an' sailor too_.

To take your chance in the thick of a rush with firing all about
Is nothing so bad when you've cover to 'and, and leave an' likin' to
shout;
But to stand an' be still to the "Birken'ead" drill is a damn tough
bullet to chew,
And they done it, the Jollies--'er Majesty's Jollies--soldier an'
sailor too.
_Their work was done when it 'adn't begun, they was younger nor me an
you;
Their choice it was plain between drownin in 'eaps an bein mashed by
the screw,
An' they stood an' was still to the "Birken'ead" drill, soldier an
sailor too_!

We're most of us liars, we're 'arf of us thieves, an' the rest are as
rank as can be,
But once in a while we can finish in style (which I 'ope it won't
'appen to me);
But it makes you think better o' you an' your friends an' the work you
may 'ave to do
When you think o' the sinkin' "Victorier's" Jollies--soldier an' sailor
too.
_Now there isn't no room for to say you don't know--they 'ave settled
it plain and true--
That whether it's Widow or whether it's ship, Victorier's work is to
do,
As they done it, the Jollies--'er Majesty's Jollies--soldier an sailor
too_!

RACHEL.

BY MRS. E.V. WILSON,

AUTHOR OF "BARBARY," "A BLIZZARD," AND OTHER STORIES.

It was the middle of a short December afternoon. From the scholars in the little log school-house in the Stillman district rose a buzzing sound as they bent over their desks, intent on books or mischief, as the case might be. The teacher, a good-looking young man of twenty or thereabouts, was busy with a class in arithmetic when a shrill voice called out:

"Teacher, Rachel Stillman's readin' a story-book."

"Bring the book to me," said the teacher quietly; and the delinquent, a girl of about fourteen, slowly rose and, walking to him, placed a much-worn volume in his hands.

"Why," he said, glancing at the open page, "it is 'The Pilgrim's Progress.' No wonder you are interested. But you must not read it during school hours."

The child lifted to his face a pair of large blue eyes, beautiful with timid wistfulness, as she replied:

"I know I oughtn't, sir, but I wanted to see how they got out of Doubting Castle so bad."

He smiled. "I will give you the book after school; then you can read it at home."

"Oh, no," she whispered; "father won't let me read story-books."

"He surely would not object to this," answered the young teacher; "but I will keep it until recess to-morrow, and, never fear, Christian and Hopeful will outwit the giant yet."

The wistful eyes brightened, and, with a grateful smile, Rachel returned to her desk.

"First class in spelling, take your places," called the teacher.

Rachel belonged to this class, as did all the larger scholars, among whom was her brother, Thomas, two years her elder. The teacher had promised a prize at the end of the term to the member of the class obtaining the greatest number of head marks, and consequently a good deal of interest was taken in the lessons.

Rachel had been at the head of the class the evening before; therefore she now took her station at its foot. Tom, her brother, now was head, and for some time no change in position was made. But finally "somebody blundered," and Rachel, who was one of the good spellers, went up in the long line. Presently another word was missed, and now Rachel walked to the head. Tom pushed her spitefully.

"Another mark, Rachel," said the teacher, "for that is the end of the lesson."

The class resumed their seats, and, a few minutes after, school was dismissed for the day.

"Good-evening," said the teacher, as Rachel and a younger sister, a pretty, delicate child, passed him at the door. "Now, no worrying about Christian, Rachel."

"I won't," she laughed. "I guess he'll get out. Didn't he stand up to old Apollyon?"

"Like a good fellow," was the reply. "Hope I'll come off as well."

She looked at him inquiringly, but he had turned toward his desk, and the sisters set out on their half-mile walk home.

Let us precede them and see what manner of home it is to which these children belong.

The farm is a large one, the buildings substantial, and everything has a prosperous, well-to-do look. Mr. Stillman, the owner of these broad acres and the father of these three, Tom, Rachel, and Susy, as well as of three more girls and another stalwart son, is a stout, comfortable-looking man of forty-five or fifty. A glance at his close, thin lips and keen gray eyes would convince an observant person that he would make it very uncomfortable for any one in his power who might differ from him in opinion or dispute his authority. Just now he is chatting pleasantly with his hired man, and pays no attention to the children, who pass him on the way to the house.

Indoors Mrs. Stillman, a slender, fair-haired woman, who looks as if she felt she owed the world an apology for living in it, is preparing supper, assisted by her two daughters, Elizabeth, a sad-faced woman of twenty-four, and Margaret, a girl of eighteen, with her father's determined mouth and chin and her mother's large blue eyes and fair hair. The clock struck five as the school-girls entered the kitchen, a large room which in winter did duty as dining-room as well as cooking-room.

"Run in the sitting-room, girls, and get warm," said the mother. "Supper is almost ready."

"Oh, we're not cold; are we, Susy? I got another head mark, mother," said Rachel.

The mother smiled. "I hope you or Tom will get the prize. Where is he?" She was interrupted by a stamping of feet as the door was thrown open and Mr. Stillman, followed by the hired man and Tom, entered the room.

"Supper is ready," said Mrs. Stillman. "We were just going to call you."

"Well, I guess it will keep till we're ready," answered her husband, roughly. "Rachel, get some water; the bucket's empty, of course. Margaret, where's the wash-basin? Nothing in its place, as usual. Pity there wasn't two or three more girls lazyin' around!"

Nobody replied to this tirade. The hired man picked up the basin, Margaret handed a towel, Rachel brought the water, and soon the family were gathered around the well-spread table.

"I tell you," said Mr. Stillman, after a few mouthfuls of the savory food had apparently put him in a better humor, "I think we'll have fine weather for hog-killin' next week, and I never did have a finer lot of hogs."

"Oh, father," said Margaret, "don't butcher next week. Friday is Christmas day and--"

"Christmas!" interrupted her father. "Well, we always butcher Christmas week, don't we?"

"Yes, I know," she said, her lips trembling in spite of her effort to control herself. "But we never have enjoyed the holidays, and I thought maybe this year you--"

"We will do this year as we always have," broke in the father, angrily. "I suppose", with a look at his wife from which she shrank as from a blow, "this is one of your plans to have your girls gadding over the country."

"Mother never said anything about it," said Margaret, her temper getting the better of her; "but nobody else takes Christmas times to do their hardest and dirtiest work."

"Will you hush?" thundered the father. "What do I care what anybody else does? I am master here."

No one spoke again. The assertion could not be denied. He was master, and well his wife and daughters knew it.

Poor Mrs. Stillman! Two fortunate baby girls had died a few weeks after their birth, and the tears that fell over the little coffins were not half so bitter as those she shed when first she held their innocent faces to her heart. When on this evening the father had shown his authority, the two elder daughters rose from the table, and taking a couple of large buckets, went quietly out to the barnyard, and proceeded to milk the half dozen cows awaiting them.

It was nearly dark and very cold; but no word was spoken except to the animals, as the girls hurried through the work and hastened back to the kitchen, where Rachel and the mother were clearing away the supper-table and making the needful preparations for the early breakfast.

When all was finished the mother and daughters entered the large room adjoining the kitchen, which served as sitting-room for the family and bed-room for the parents, Mr. Stillman not permitting a fire kept in any other room in the house. Mrs. Stillman sat down with her knitting-work as close in the corner as possible; Elizabeth brought in a large basket of rags, and she and Margaret were soon busy sewing strips and winding balls for a carpet. The younger children were absorbed in their lessons at the table, where the father sat reading his newspaper.

All were silent, for to have spoken while father was reading would have been an unforgivable offence. At last, however, Mr. Stillman lifted his eyes from the paper, and addressing Tom, said: "Well, how did you get along at school to-day?"

"Oh, first rate," said the boy; but that lost head mark rankled in his mind, and he added, "Rachel was called up by the teacher."

"How was that, Rachel?" said her father sharply. Poor girl!--deep in the mysteries of long division, she did not hear him.

"Rachel," he repeated, "what were you called up in school for to-day?"

She glanced reproachfully at Tom. "I read a little in 'The Pilgrim's Progress,' father. It's not a story-book--"

"Never mind what it is. I send you to school to study, and you're not to touch any but your school-books."

"May I bring it home?" she faltered.

"Bring it home, indeed! No, miss. I guess you can find enough to do at home. Not another word more, or you will stay at home for good."

The child bent over her slate; but tears would come, and at last a sob burst forth.

"Clear out to bed, Rachel," said her father angrily. "I want no snivelling here."

Upstairs, in the cold, dark room, what bitter thoughts surged through the childish brain!

Mr. Stillman loved his wife and children. He wanted them to be happy, but in his way. He must choose their pleasures. If they could not be satisfied with what he chose for them, it was not his fault; it was their perversity. And as no two souls are alike, the attempt to fit a number of them by the same pattern necessarily caused suffering to the souls undergoing the operation.

Mrs. Stillman's sensitive organization was completely crushed; her eldest daughter's nearly so. Martha, the second daughter, had escaped by marrying a clever young man, who first pitied, then loved the daughter of his employer, and persuaded her to elope with him, assuring her of a happier home than she had with her father.

The marriage angered Mr. Stillman greatly, and all intercourse with the disobedient daughter was forbidden.

Margaret, the third daughter, also rebelled at the fitting process; and having a goodly portion of her father's determination, many were the sharp words that passed between them.

So far Rachel and Susan had given no trouble. He ordered them about as he did his dumb animals, and with no more regard to their feelings. With his sons it was different. They would be men some day. They must be treated with some consideration. At an early age, John, two years older than Elizabeth, was given a share in the stock and land to cultivate; so that when, at the age of twenty-four, he married, he had a "right good start in the world."

But his sister toiled early and late, washing, ironing, milking, churning, baking, nursing the younger children, sharing her mother's labors, and paid as her mother was--with her board and a scanty, grudgingly given wardrobe. She was now twenty-four, and had never had a five-dollar bill to spend as she pleased in her life--for that matter, neither had the mother. There are many Mr. Stillmans, "Are they honest men?" If father and son have the right to be paid for their labor, have not the mother and daughter? I leave the question with you.

Rachel carried a heavy heart to school next morning. The tinker's wonderful allegory to her was very real, and to leave her hero in that awful dungeon was almost more than she could bear. When at recess the teacher offered her the book, she did not take it.

"Father said," she began--then sobs choked her utterance. He understood, and after a moment's silence said: "I am interested in Christian as well as you, Rachel, and if you will sit here I will read to you." In all her after life Rachel never forgot these readings at intermission, which were continued not only until Christian reached the Celestial city, but until Christiana and the children completed their wonderful journey to the same place. Her gratitude to her young teacher would certainly have become love had she been a few years older. As it was, when in March the term closed, not even the prize as the best speller--a beautiful copy of "Pilgrim's Progress"--consoled her for the cessation of school.

As for the teacher, he was glad the winter's work--which had been undertaken and conscientiously carried through solely for the purpose of obtaining means to pursue the study of his profession--was over. He liked some of his scholars very much, Rachel especially; she was so interested in her studies, so intelligent and grateful, that when, with eyes swimming in tears, she bade him good-by, he felt a moment's sorrow at leaving her, and comforted her by telling her what a good girl she had been and that he would not forget her.

"You ought to have seen Rache an' Suse cry when old Gray bid us good-by," said Tom that evening at home.

"Did you cry?" asked Margaret.

"Guess not! Glad school's out; an' I'm never goin' any more."

"I wouldn't if I were you, bub," said Margaret; "you know enough now." She always called him "bub" when she wanted to vex him, "But old Gray, as you call him, will be somebody yet, see if he don't."

The entrance of Mr. Stillman closed the conversation, and Tom went out, banging the door after him. No wonder Margaret was getting ill-natured.

The winter was a long, dull season at Stillman's. Even her enjoyment at the few social gatherings she was permitted to attend in the neighborhood was marred by the knowledge that she could not entertain her young friends in return. She had attempted once to fix up the "spare room" and have a fire for some company, but her father had peremptorily forbidden it. "I'd like to know," he said, "why the settin'-room ain't good enough! If your company is too nice to be with the rest of the family they can stay away, miss."

And "they" generally did stay away after one visit. Mr. Stillman was not a success as a host, young people thought; and a young minister who came home from meeting one Sunday with Elizabeth was so completely abashed by the cool reception he met that not even the daughter's pleading eyes could persuade him to remain in her father's presence. A few weeks after, he went to a distant appointment; and Elizabeth's sad face grew sadder than ever.

Jim Lansing, the son of a widow who managed a farm and two grown sons with equal skill, was more successful. He usually brought his mother with him; and, while she entertained Mr. and Mrs. Stillman, Jim, the girls, and the carpet rags escaped to the kitchen.

But spring was near, and Margaret thought: "He can't keep us out of the spare room in summer; and, besides, we can be out-of-doors."

June came, with her blue skies, her singing birds, her wealth of beauty. But there was no time at Stillman's to enjoy it. A larger crop than usual had been put in, and extra hands employed, but not in the house. Why, there were five women, counting frail little ten-year-old Susy as one, and poor, delicate Mrs. Stillman as another! What extra help could they need, although washing and cooking must be done for all the men? You see, "hands" could be got much cheaper if they were boarded--and what else had the women to do?

It was true, mother was not as strong as she used to be; but she did not complain. She was only more shadowy and quiet; and Mr. Stillman told his daughters to "stir around" themselves, and not let their mother do all the work.

"Oh, dear," said Margaret one morning, as she and Rachel were bending over the wash-tubs, while Susy labored at the heavy churning and the mother and Elizabeth were preparing dinner. "I wish we could go to the picnic on the Fourth; everybody's going."

"Maybe we can," said Rachel, hopefully. "I heard father say the wheat was late this year, and he did not believe it would do to cut before the sixth. And oh, Margaret, I heard him say your calf would bring at least ten dollars; and if he gives you the money, you can get a new white dress and give me your old one. It is lots too small for you."

Margaret laughed. "Yes," she said; "father said if I could raise the calf I might have it. Didn't I have a time with it, though, it was so near dead! Of course I will fix my old dress up for you--that is, if I get the money. Sometimes I think father's queer; he did not give Elizabeth the money when he sold that colt he had given her." And both girls were silent.

Out in the barnyard, as the girls worked, Mr. Stillman and Tom were putting the pretty calf in the wagon preparatory to taking it to the butcher in the town a few miles distant. When the girls went in to dinner the men had finished theirs, and were lounging in the shady yard enjoying their nooning.

As they were about to sit down at the table, Mr. Stillman handed Margaret a package, saying, "There's your share of that spotted calf, Margaret."

"My share!" she exclaimed. "Why, you gave me the calf; you had no right to it."

As she spoke she opened the package and unrolled a piece of cheap lawn--yellow ground dotted with blue. She flung it angrily on the floor, and ran out of the room.

Mr. Stillman turned to Rachel after a moment of dumb amazement, and said: "You can have the dress, Rachel. I'll teach Margaret a lesson."

"I don't want it," she said. "You had no right to take Margaret's money. You did give her the calf, and when you sold Tom's pig you gave him his money."

"Nice girls you're raising, mother," said Mr. Stillman to his frightened wife. "They'll be turning us out of doors next. You pick up that lawn, miss."

Rachel did so. As she folded it, he went on: "That calf was mine. I only meant to pay her for caring for it."

"You should have told her so, then," said his daughter, facing him with eyes keen as his own; "but you told her if she could raise it she might have it, and, of course, she believed you."

He raised his hand as if to strike her; then, as she did not move or drop her eyes, he turned and left the room.

July came, but the Stillman girls did not go to the picnic. Tom and the "hands" did; and Mrs. Lansing and her boys stopped at Stillman's on their way and offered the girls seats in their wagon. But Mr. Stillman said his women had to get ready for the harvest hands who were coming next day, and Margaret said to Rachel bitterly: "We have no decent clothes to go in anyhow." And there was much washing, ironing, cooking, and churning done as the days went on. No wonder Mrs. Stillman grew paler and weaker, until even her husband noticed it, and brought her a bottle of bitters, and told the girls to "keep mother out of the kitchen," which they indeed tried to do. But how could the mother rest when there was so much to do? The girls could not manage as she could, and Elizabeth seemed "so poorly;" for the patient elder daughter, as the summer dragged along, had a pitifully hopeless look on her pale face, and went about listlessly, as if life had lost all interest for her.

At last there came a morning when the mother did not rise for breakfast.

"Hadn't we better send for Dr. Lewis, father?" said Elizabeth.

"Oh, no; your mother did not sleep much, it was so hot last night. She'll be up directly. You keep her out of the kitchen, and see you have dinner on time. We want to finish to-day, for I expect we'll have a storm, from the feel of the air."

Noon came. Dinner for a dozen hungry men was on the table, and still Mrs. Stillman was in bed. While the men were eating, Rachel slipped in to her mother. She was awake, but her flushed face and wild, bright eyes startled the girl.

"Oh, mother!" she cried, "you are very sick; you must have the doctor."

"No, dear," the mother answered; "father is too busy now. I'll be better after awhile. You go help wait on the table."

Rachel returned to the dining-room. "Take that fly-brush, Rachel," said her father. "Susy's no account; she's too lazy to keep it going."

Poor, tired little Susy, who had done a large churning that morning, crimsoned to the roots of her hair as she handed Rachel the brush and hurried out of the room.

When dinner was over Mr. Stillman glared into the room where his wife lay. "She is asleep," he said. "I guess she's all right."

"She hasn't eaten a thing to-day," said Rachel. "Hadn't she better have the doctor?"

"Well," said her father, impatiently, "if she's no better in the morning, I'll send for him;" and he went back to the field.

Rachel went for Mrs. Lansing, for she and her sisters grew frightened as the mother's fever increased. When that good woman came she saw at once the serious condition of her friend.

"I saw Dr. Lewis coming down the road in his buggy as I came," she said. "One of you hurry out and stop him."

When, about five o'clock, the rain began to fall in torrents, Mr. Stillman had the satisfaction of seeing the last load of grain driven inside the barn door; and, taking off his hat, he wiped the moisture from his face, saying: "Well, boys, we beat the rain; and I don't care if it pours down now."

He walked toward the house, and, to his surprise, saw the well-known figure of Dr. Lewis on the front porch. "Driven in by the rain," he thought. "I'll get him to give mother a little medicine."

"How are you, doctor?" he said, as he stepped upon the porch. "Lucky getting my wheat in, wasn't I?"

"Very," said the doctor, gravely; "but I am sorry to say I find Mrs. Stillman a very sick woman. You should have sent for me long ago." The husband was startled.

"Why," he said, "she has been going about until to-day. I guess it's this weather has made her so weak. She can't be very sick."

The physician was silent for a moment; then he said: "If there is not a change for the better soon, I fear she will live but a few days. I cannot understand how she has kept up;" and he turned and went into the sick-room.

For once the men at Stillman's ate a cold supper and did the milking. Mrs. Lansing took things into her own capable hands. John and his wife were sent for and came, and Jim Lansing quietly hitched up a team and went for Martha and her husband--poor Martha, who had not seen her mother for more than a year!

All night Mr. Stillman watched by the bedside or walked up and down the long back porch. It could not be she would die--his wife. It was the hot weather; she was just weak and tired. That was it, Mr. Stillman--worn out, tired; and rest was coming. When Martha came, the mother who had so longed for her did not recognize her.

"Mother, only speak to me!" cried the daughter in anguish; but the mother looked at her with dimming eyes that saw no more of earth, and muttered as she turned upon her couch, "Hurry, girls, it's nearly noon. Hurry! Father will be angry if he has to wait."

Then she grew quiet; only her restless hands, which her daughters vainly strove to hold, kept reaching out as if to grasp that unknown land she was so soon to enter; and before the sun was high in the morning Mrs. Stillman had found rest.

Her husband was stunned. With haggard face he bent over his dead. "If I had known," he said. "Oh, my wife, if I had known, I would have taken better care of you."

Ah, Mr. Stillman, you are not the only one who with remorseful heart cries, "If I had only known, if I had only known!"

Life went on as usual at Stillman's after the mother had left them. For a while the father was kinder, but as time went on the old habit was resumed. Elizabeth went mechanically about her work, and her father did not notice her evidently failing health. Her quietness was a relief to him; for Margaret was growing more defiant toward him, and quarrelled constantly with Tom, who, now that his mother's influence was withdrawn, became more and more meddlesome and overbearing in his conduct toward his sisters. The summer following Mrs. Stillman's death Mrs. Lansing's eldest son, Frank, took unto himself a wife; and late in the fall the neighborhood was electrified by the unexpected marriage of Mrs. Lansing and Mr. Stillman. Her boys, on learning her intention, had remonstrated; but she said: "You boys do not need me, and these girls do. Think of a young girl like Rachel saying, 'God had nothing to do with my mother's death. It was hard work killed her!' And when I tried to tell her of His goodness to His creatures, she said: 'Yes; He is good enough to men. All He cares for women is to create them for men's convenience,' And then there's little Susy, with a face like her mother's. Why, it just haunts me!"

"Well," said Jim, "things are in a bad fix over there; but it isn't Susy's face that haunts me, by any means."

His mother laughed. "I shall take care of Margaret," she said; "she and Elizabeth need some one to look after them. They are being worked to death."

Four years have slipped over the heads of the Stillmans--years well improved by Rachel and Susy at the academy in the town near their father's farm; years which gave Margaret's happiness into Jim Lansing's keeping, and made Jim a young man of whom his sisters were extremely proud. Even Elizabeth's sad face looks as if life might be worth living; for, under the second wife, life at Stillman's had taken on a different color. The spare room is a pretty sitting-room for the young folks.

"We don't want them always with us," says Mrs. Stillman, as she shows her husband the change she has made; for one of her peculiarities is that she manages her household affairs as she thinks best, taking it for granted that her husband will approve. As for Rachel, she enjoyed the change for the better; but now, to the bitter feeling which she cherished toward her father, was added a touch of contempt "See," she thought, "how he can be flattered into doing things; if my mother could have managed him so, she might have lived."

Rachel was mistaken; the new wife did not manoeuvre or flatter, she simply took her proper place as mistress of the house--not as a sort of upper servant, to be snubbed or praised at the master's humor.

Another summer had been added to Rachel's years when, one evening, Tom came home from town, and entering the dining-room, where she was preparing the table for supper, exclaimed: "Rachel, do you remember old Gray, as I used to call him, who taught our school the winter before mother died?"

"Yes," she said, "I remember him. Mother liked him."

"Well, I met him in town to-day. He's on that Sanders case. He knew me right off, and he's coming out here this evening; so fix up nice and be looking your sweetest. They say he's smart. I heard some of the old lawyers talking about him." And Tom caught his sister about the waist and waltzed her out on the porch.

"Rachel," said Susy, as in their own room the girls were dressing after supper, "you are very hard to please to-night and you seem nervous. What ails you?"

Rachel smiled. "I am thinking of old days, that is all," she said. But she entered the little parlor, where Tom and the guest were seated, in a perfectly self-possessed manner, saying, as she held out her hand:

"Good-evening, teacher. How goes the battle with Apollyon?"

And the young lawyer sprang to his feet, exclaiming: "Rachel! is it possible?" and he retained her hand and looked into her eyes so long that Susy, who had followed her into the room, and Tom declared that he fell in love then and there. However that may be, it is certain Mr. Gray showed a wonderful interest in Stillman's district. The trial in progress at Meywood was tedious, but his patience did not give out; and when some of the lawyers proposed to hold night sessions of court he objected earnestly, saying: "It would be too hard on the old judge."

But all things must end, and the case was at last decided in favor of Mr. Gray's client. As Rachel congratulated him on his victory, he said, with a look that brought the color to her face:

"How long must I stay in Doubting Castle, Rachel?"

"Why, dear me," she answered, saucily, "I did not think a promising young lawyer, as father calls you, ever got into such a dismal place!"

Then Susy came in, and the young man bade her good-by, but he whispered promise of speedy return to Rachel, and as he travelled homeward those wonderful eyes of hers seemed to haunt him.

"Who would have thought," he said to himself, "she could have become such a woman? No wonder I could not find a girl to suit me when she has been my ideal."

You see, he was trying to persuade himself he had thought of her ever since that term of school; and it may be, unknown to himself, those eyes had held him. At any rate, he says they did; and when, time after time, they drew him back to Stillman's, he at last made Rachel believe it, and with the little key of promise she delivered him from Doubting Castle.

Let us take one more look, two years later, at the Stillman homestead. There is a family gathering, and all the girls are present--Martha and Margaret, with their sturdy boys and rosy girls; Rachel, with her baby; and Susy, a gay young aunt, flits to and fro, playing with and teasing the little ones. Elizabeth, with unwonted brightness in her eyes, looks on, enjoying the merriment.

"Doesn't it seem odd," whispers Margaret, "that Lizzie's minister should come back after all these years."

"Yes," answers Rachel, in the same low tone. "I am so glad. She seems so happy."

The husbands are all present in the evening, and the old house is full of light and gayety. Rachel slips upstairs to put baby to bed; and as she sits in the room where so many miserable hours of her childhood were spent, her tears fall, thinking of herself and the dear, patient mother, who had suffered and died; and the old bitterness rises in her heart. Baby stirs and she hushes him, then lays him gently in the old cradle, and goes downstairs. Some impulse prompts her to enter the sitting-room instead of the parlor, where she thinks the family are all gathered.

As she opens the door she sees her father sitting, as of old, by the table on which the lamp is burning, and she half turns to go out; but something in his attitude touches her. He is not reading, for the newspaper lies untouched--he is looking at something in his hand.

She notices how gray his hair is, and how age is tracing lines on his face. "Are you feeling sick, father?" she asks.

"Oh, no," he says. "Look here, Rachel;" and he hands her a faded daguerreotype of her mother taken when she was a fair young bride. "I was thinking about her."

"How much like Susy," she said, with tears falling on the lovely face.

"Yes, only she was prettier," he answers. "I have been thinking of her so much lately, Rachel. I am going to do something that would please her. I have bought that pretty little place of Perry's, and I will put Martha and her husband on it. Dick's a good industrious fellow; but it's hard to make anything on a rented farm, and Martha's worried too much. You don't think any of the children will object?" and he looked anxiously in her face.

"Object? Why, they will be glad, father!" And dropping her head on his shoulder, she puts her arm around him for the first time in her life; and as she slips the little daguerreotype in his hand a sweet peace fills her heart and she thinks: "The bitterness is gone, and love fills its place." After awhile she joins the group in the parlor. They are singing to Susy's accompaniment on the organ.

"Sing 'Coronation,' Susy," she says, as she sits down beside her husband and glances lovingly in his face.

"What is it?" he whispers. "You are unusually happy."

"Yes," she answers. "I have had a vision of the land of Beulah, where Love is king."

CHAPTERS FROM A LIFE.

BY ELIZABETH STUART PHELPS,

AUTHOR OF "THE GATES AJAR," "A SINGULAR LIFE," ETC.

THE BURNING OF THE PEMBERTON MILLS.--THE STORY OF "THE TENTH OF JANUARY."--WHITTIER AND HIGGINSON.--THE WRITING AND PUBLICATION OF "THE GATES AJAR."

The town of Lawrence was three miles and a half from Andover. Up to the year 1860 we had considered Lawrence chiefly in the light of a place to drive to. To the girlish resources which could, in those days, only include a trip to Boston at the call of some fate too vast to be expected more than two or three times a year, Lawrence offered consolations in the shape of dry goods and restaurant ice-cream, and a slow, delicious drive in the family carryall through sand flats and pine woods, and past the largest bed of the sweetest violets that ever dared the blasts of a New England spring. To the pages of the gazetteer Lawrence would have been known as a manufacturing town of importance. Upon the map of our young fancy the great mills were sketched in lightly; we looked up from the restaurant ice-cream to see the "hands" pour out for dinner, a dark and restless, but a patient, throng; used, in those days, to standing eleven hours and a quarter--women and girls--at their looms, six days of the week, and making no audible complaints; for socialism had not reached Lawrence, and anarchy was content to bray in distant parts of the geography at which the factory people had not arrived when they left school.

Sometimes we counted the great mills as we drove up Essex Street--having come over the bridge by the roaring dam that tamed the proud Merrimac to spinning cotton--Pacific, Atlantic, Washington, Pemberton; but this was an idle, æsthetic pleasure. We did not think about the mill-people; they seemed as far from us as the coal-miners of a vague West, or the down-gatherers on the crags of shores whose names we did not think it worth while to remember. One January evening, we were forced to think about the mills with curdling horror that no one living in that locality when the tragedy happened will forget.

At five o'clock the Pemberton Mills, all hands being at the time on duty, without a tremor of warning, sank to the ground.

At the erection of the factory a pillar with a defective core had passed careless inspectors. In technical language, the core had "floated" an eighth of an inch from its position. The weak spot in the too thin wall of the pillar had bided its time, and yielded. The roof, the walls, the machinery, fell upon seven hundred and fifty living men and women, and buried them. Most of these were rescued; but eighty-eight were killed. As the night came on, those watchers on Andover Hill who could not join the rescuing parties, saw a strange and fearful light at the north.

Where we were used to watching the beautiful belt of the lighted mills blaze,--a zone of laughing fire from east to west, upon the horizon bar,--a red and awful glare went up. The mill had taken fire. A lantern, overturned in the hands of a man who was groping to save an imprisoned life, had flashed to the cotton, or the wool, or the oil with which the ruins were saturated. One of the historic conflagrations of New England resulted.

With blanching cheeks we listened to the whispers that told us how the mill-girls, caught in the ruins beyond hope of escape, began to sing. They were used to singing, poor things, at their looms--mill-girls always are--and their young souls took courage from the familiar sound of one another's voices. They sang the hymns and songs which they had learned in the schools and churches. No classical strains, no "music for music's sake," ascended from that furnace; no ditty of love or frolic; but the plain, religious outcries of the people: "Heaven is my home," "Jesus, lover of my soul," and "Shall we gather at the river?" Voice after voice dropped. The fire raced on. A few brave girls sang still:

"Shall we gather at the river,
There to walk and worship ever?"

But the startled Merrimac rolled by, red as blood beneath the glare of the burning mills, and it was left to the fire and the river to finish the chorus.

At the time this tragedy occurred, I felt my share of its horror, like other people; but no more than that. My brother, being of the privileged sex, was sent over to see the scene; but I was not allowed to go.

Years after, I cannot say just how many, the half-effaced negative came back to form under the chemical of some new perception of the significance of human tragedy.

It occurred to me to use the event as the basis of a story. To this end I set forth to study the subject. I had heard nothing in those days about "material," and conscience in the use of it, and little enough about art. We did not talk about realism then. Of critical phraseology I knew nothing; and of critical standards only what I had observed by reading the best fiction. Poor novels and stories I did not read. I do not remember being forbidden them; but, by that parental art finer than denial, they were absent from my convenience.

It needed no instruction in the canons of art, however, to teach me that to do a good thing, one must work hard for it. So I gave the best part of a month to the study of the Pemberton Mill tragedy, driving to Lawrence, and investigating every possible avenue of information left at that too long remove of time which might give the data. I visited the rebuilt mills, and studied the machinery. I consulted engineers and officials and physicians, newspaper men, and persons who had been in the mill at the time of its fall. I scoured the files of old local papers, and from these I took certain portions of names, actually involved in the catastrophe; though, of course, fictitiously used. When there was nothing left for me to learn upon the subject, I came home and wrote a little story called "The Tenth of January," and sent it to the "Atlantic Monthly," where it appeared in due time.

This story is of more interest to its author than it can possibly be now to any reader, because it distinctly marked for me the first recognition which I received from literary people.

Whittier, the poet, wrote me his first letter, after having read this story. It was soon followed by a kind note from Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Both these distinguished men said the pleasant thing which goes so far towards keeping the courage of young writers above sinking point, and which, to a self-distrustful nature, may be little less than a life-preserver. Both have done similar kindness to many other beginners in our calling; but none of these can have been more grateful for it, or more glad to say so, across this long width of time, than the writer of "The Tenth of January."

It was a defective enough little story, crude and young; I never glance at it without longing to write it over; but I cannot read it, to this day, without that tingling and numbness down one's spine and through the top of one's head, which exceptional tragedy must produce in any sensitive organization; nor can I ever trust myself to hear it read by professional elocutionists. I attribute the success of the story entirely to the historic and unusual character of the catastrophe on whose movement it was built.

Of journalism, strictly speaking, I did nothing. But I often wrote for weekly denominational papers, to which I contributed those strictly secular articles so popular with the religious public. My main impression of them now, is a pleasant sense of sitting out in the apple-trees in the wonderful Andover Junes, and "noticing" new books-with which Boston publishers kept me supplied. For whatever reason, the weeklies gave me all I could do at this sort of thing. In its course I formed some pleasant acquaintances; among others that of Jean Ingelow. I have never seen this poet, whom I honor now as much as I admired then; but charming little notes, and books of her own, with her autograph, reached me from time to time for years. I remember when "The Gates Ajar" appeared, that she frankly called it "Your most strange book."

This brings me to say: I have been so often and so urgently asked to publish some account of the history of this book, that perhaps I need crave no pardon of whatever readers these papers may command, for giving more of our space to the subject than it would otherwise occur to one to do to a book so long behind the day.

Of what we know as literary ambition, I believe myself to have been as destitute at that time as any girl who ever put pen to paper. I was absorbed in thought and feeling as far removed from the usual class of emotions or motives which move men and women to write, as Wachusett was from the June lilies burning beside the moonlit cross in my father's garden. Literary ambition is a good thing to possess; and I do not at all suggest that I was superior to it, but simply apart from it. Of its pangs and ecstasies I knew little, and thought less.

I have been asked, possibly a thousand times, whether I looked upon that little book as in any sense the result of inspiration, whether what is called spiritualistic, or of any other sort. I have always promptly said "No," to this question. Yet sometimes I wonder if that convenient monosyllable in deed and truth covers the whole case.

When I remember just how the book came to be, perceive the consequences of its being, and recall the complete unconsciousness of the young author as to their probable nature, there are moments when I am fain to answer the question by asking another: "What do we mean by inspiration?"

That book grew so naturally, it was so inevitable, it was so unpremeditated, it came so plainly from that something not one's self which makes for uses in which one's self is extinguished, that there are times when it seems to me as if I had no more to do with the writing of it than the bough through which the wind cries, or the wave by means of which the tide rises.

The angel said unto me "Write!" and I wrote.

It is impossible to remember how or when the idea of the book first visited me. Its publication bears the date of 1869. My impressions are that it may have been towards the close of 1864 that the work began; for there was work in it, more than its imperfect and youthful character might lead one ignorant of the art of book-making to suppose.

It was not until 1863 that I left school, being then just about at my nineteenth birthday. It is probable that the magazine stories and Sunday-school books and hack work occupied from one to two years without interruption; but I have no more temperament for dates in my own affairs than I have for those of history. At the most, I could not have been far from twenty when the book was written; possibly approaching twenty-one.

At that time, it will be remembered, our country was dark with sorrowing women. The regiments came home, but the mourners went about the streets.

The Grand Review passed through Washington; four hundred thousand ghosts of murdered men kept invisible march to the drum-beats, and lifted to the stained and tattered flags the proud and unreturned gaze of the dead who have died in their glory.

Our gayest scenes were black with crape. The drawn faces of bereaved wife, mother, sister, and widowed girl showed piteously everywhere. Gray-haired parents knelt at the grave of the boy whose enviable fortune it was to be brought home in time to die in his mother's room. Towards the nameless mounds of Arlington, of Gettysburg, and the rest, the yearning of desolated homes went out in those waves of anguish which seem to choke the very air that the happier and more fortunate must breathe.

Is there not an actual occult force in the existence of a general grief? It swells to a tide whose invisible flow covers all the little resistance of common, human joyousness. It is like a material miasma. The gayest man breathes it, if he breathe at all; and the most superficial cannot escape it.