Chapter VII: Part 7

Well, the summer has gathered up her corn-silk draperies, put on her rose-trimmed hat, and tripped over the border land at last. From the bend in the road that shall hide her from our view forever she lingers a moment to throw back a sunny glance at September, as he comes whistling down the lane, with plume of golden-rod in his hat. A glad good-bye to you, long-to-be-remembered summer of 1890! We are so glad to see you go that we are willing to forego your blossoms and your bird songs to be well rid of you. For three long months we have endured heat without precedent, drought and discomfort, flies and mosquitos, threatened thunder gusts and devastating cyclones, and we are so tired that we feel like shaking a stick at you now, to see you lingering to coquet with September. Hasten on, oh bright autumn weather, with your comfortable nights for sleep, and your royal days of sunshine and frost. We are longing for the time to come when the lamps shall be lighted early in the parlor, and the fire-glow shall once more shed its glory upon grandma's lovely hair and upon the gold of the children's restless heads; when the cat shall have leave to lie on the best cushion, and the voice of the tea-kettle, droning its supper monologue, shall alternate with the efforts of the older sister at the piano. By the way, do you know there is lots of solace to be found in an old music book of twenty years ago? Don't tell me that the music of to-day is as sweet all through as the melodies of long ago. Who sings such soul-ravishing duets to-day as "She Bloomed with the Roses," "Twilight Dews," or "Gently Sighs the Breeze"? I declare to you, my dear, that although I shall be considerably older some day than I am now, and although I have not fallen so far into the "sere and yellow" as to count myself among the old-fashioned and the queer, yet any one of those songs just mentioned will start the tears from my eyes as showers start from summer clouds.

* * * * *

Two little motherless children! Do you know the thought of a baby without a mother to cuddle it always brings the tears to my eyes? Traveling to distant New England with a father who, although kind, seemed some way unfitted to his duties, as a straight-legged chair might if used for a lullaby rocker, were two bits of folks, a boy and a girl, one four, the other two years old. The careful father brushed their hair very nicely and washed their mites of faces with great regularity. When he told them to sit still they sat still, and nobody was annoyed by their antics, but, oh, how it made my heart ache to watch the motherless chicks! If mamma had been there they would have climbed all over her, and bothered her a good deal, perhaps, with their clinging arms and kisses (it's a way babies have with their mammas!), but in the presence of their dark-eyed and quiet papa they behaved like little weasels in the presence of a fox. "Papa says we mustn't talk about mamma any more," lisped the boy. "'Cause she's gone to heaven." In the name of love, whose apostle I humbly claim to be, I longed to gather those little ones in my arms and have a dear, sweet talk about the mamma who had left them for a little while, and I wanted to say to the proper and punctilious papa: "Good sir, if you attempt to bring up these motherless mites without the demonstration of love you will meet with the same success your gardener would should he set out roses in a pine forest. Children need love as flowers need the southerly exposure and sunshine. When that boy of yours bumped his head, sir, it was your place to comfort him in something the way his dead mother might have done, rather than to have bade him 'sit up and be a man.'"

* * * * *

SLEEP'S SERENADE.

In cadence far,
From star to star,
Sleep's mellow horns are faintly calling;
Through dreamland halls
Sweet madrigals,
In liquid numbers drowsy falling.

Noiseless and still,
O'er star-watched hill,
Beneath the white moon's tender glances,
A host of dreams,
By wind-blown streams,
March on with gleam of silver lances.

A captive thou;
Then, yield thee, now,
While mellow horns are nearer calling;
And ringing bells,
And poppy spells,
Thy senses all in sleep enthralling.

O, hark; O, hear,
My lady, dear,
O'er woods and hills and streamlets flying,
The winding note
Of horns remote,
In softest echo dying--dying.

* * * * *

I had a dream the other night which was like, and yet unlike, the vision of fair women of which a poet once wrote. I dreamed that I sat within a court-room. Before me passed the meanest men and women God ever permitted to live, and upon them I was to pass the verdict as to which should carry off the palm. The scandal-monger came first, he or she who sits like a fly-catcher on a tree, snapping up morsels of news. He or she who is swelled full of conjecture whenever anybody commits an innocent indiscretion, as an owl blinks and ruffles up its feathers when the bobolink sings. He or she who goes about the world like a lean cat after a mouse. He or she who is always looking for clouds in a bright June sky, and slugs in roses and flies in honey. He or she whose heart is made of brass, and whose soul is so small it will take eleven cycles of eternity to develop it to the dimension of a hayseed. I was about to hand this specimen the banner without looking further when a being glided by me with a noiseless tread. She wore felt shoes and a mask. She spoke with the voice of a canary, yet had the talons of a vulture. She wore a stomacher made from the fleece of a lamb, and between her bright red lips were the tusks of a wolf. I recognized her as the hypocrite, the false friend; she who hands over your living bones for your enemies to pick, while you believe she is your champion and your defender. Following her came the man who keeps his horse standing all day with its nose in a nosebag. There was a groan like the sighing of wind in the poplars as he went by. Then came the merciless man who oppresses and torments the helpless and grinds the faces of the poor; and following him I beheld yet another monster--the worst of all in male attire. He came sneaking around a corner, with a smile on his lips and a devil in his eye, seeking to entrap innocent girlhood and unsuspecting womanhood. Then came the woman who gives her children to the care of servants while she goes downtown with a dog in her arms. Then came a lean-faced, weasel-eyed creature with the general expression of a sneak thief. I discovered her to be the representative of that type of women who coaxes her neighbor's hired girl away with promises of better wages. Then came the envious person whose evil passions are kindled like the fires of sheol at the prosperity of others, and who, because his own cup of life holds vinegar, is determined no other shall contain wine. I suddenly awoke without having bestowed the palm on any. Perhaps some of my readers may find it easy to do that for themselves.

* * * * *

Do you know which, of all the sights that confronted me yesterday in my rambles through the rainy weather, I pigeon-holed as the saddest? Not the little white casket, gleaming like the petal of a fallen flower, through the undertaker's rain-streaked window; not the woman with the lack-luster eye and the flippety-floppety petticoats who went by me in the rain silently cursing her bundles and the fact that she was not three-handed; not the poor old cab horse with his nose in a wet bag, and his stomach so tightly buckled in that he couldn't breathe below the fifth rib; not the man out of a job, with his gloveless hands in his pockets, trying to solve the problem of supper; not the little child under convoy of a stern and relentless dragon who yanked it over the crossings by the arm socket; not the starved and absolutely hopeless yellow dog, who sat in a doorway and wondered to himself if there was indeed a canine life that included occasional bones and no kicks; no, not any of these impressed me as the most gruesome of a great city's many sights. As I passed the corner of Washington and Dearborn streets I came face to face with a red-cheeked, wholesome boy of barely twenty years of age. He was leaning upon the arm of an elderly man, and at first I thought him ill, but it took but a second glance to see that he was drunk. Now, I consider that the very saddest sight a great city has to offer. When the old men are wicked there is some comfort in the thought that their day is nearly spent, and their worthless places may be soon filled with a nobler and a better stock, but a drunken and dissolute boy means just what it means for the fruit harvest when the blight gets into the blossom. The gathered apple that rots in the bin is bad enough, but the worm that destroys the fruit in the germ makes greater loss. Be thankful that the grave has taken to its protecting shelter the boy you loved so dearly, and of whom you were so proud, rather than that he should have grown to be a drunkard before his twentieth birthday.

* * * * *

We are each of us missing constant chances to bestow a kindness upon some needy soul for the reason that we dread being imposed upon by a case of causeless complaining. Is it worth while to keep our hearts stolid merely because we may be cheated in the bestowal of a nickel's worth of alms? I think not. You looked up from your work a few minutes ago and saw a little boy not much bigger than your thumb looking through the open doorway. He began at once a sing-song tale of woe about a sick mother and a father out of work--or in his grave, it doesn't much matter. At the same time he held out a paper of cheap pins to tempt a nickel from your store.

"I have no time to bother with such as you," you said, and turned your eyes back to your ledger. But still the boy droned on. You looked at him again and noticed that the small hand that held the pins was well kept and very, very thin. Then your eyes followed the diminutive form down to the feet; they, too, showed signs of somebody's care, although the shoes were shabby and the stockings thin.

"He is not an ordinary little beggar," you said to yourself. And then your gaze traveled upward again until it met his long-lashed Irish eyes, so full of trouble and of entreaty that they looked like twin Killarney lakes getting ready for rain.

"Poor little chap," you said, "of course I'll buy a paper of pins," and in so doing you stooped over and patted his head, perhaps, or called him "dear," so that he went away with the twin Killarney lakes all ready for a sunburst to follow the rain. That was an opportunity you nearly missed, but it brought a blessing sweeter than a Crawford peach. You didn't want the pins, but the little desolate heart wanted the kind word bestowed along with your nickel, and perhaps its bestowal shall be an impulse toward the light to a soul that cross words and constant refusals had already given a downward trend.

* * * * *

There stands a very young girl at the door of a drug store. She hesitates a moment and enters. "May I sit here and wait for a friend?" she inquires of the dapper clerk. "Certainly," he answers, and places a chair for her near the window.

That girl's father told her last night to have nothing more to do with young Solomon Levi. "He is a worthless fellow," said he, "and I have forbidden him the house." "Very well," said she, and this morning she has made the excuse to go to the grocery for yeast, and is waiting here for the graceless Solomon. By and by he will come, and she will listen to him and form plans for clandestine meetings. My dear, there is a stairway whose top lies in the sunshine, but whose lower steps lead down to endless shadow. Your pretty foot is poising on the upper stair--beware! And yet I think the father has been to blame also. These stern, non-explanatory parents are responsible for much of the ruin wrought in young people's lives. If the old rat would go with the young one now and then to investigate the smell of cheese, his restraining presence would do more good than all the warnings and threats beforehand. Temptations are bound to besiege the girls and bewilder the boys. Don't let us make a pit-fire out of moonshine and forbid every bit of innocent fun and frolic because there is a gayety that takes hold on death. Give the young folks a little more license, mingle with them in many amusements which you have been wont to frown upon, do not be so frightened if their light feet go dancing off the path now and then, and ten to one the end of the journey will be Beulah Land and peace. A good deal less faultfinding and a good deal more sympathy would be better all around.

* * * * *

There is no lot on earth so hard to bear as the lot of wedlock where love has failed. The slave's life is not comparable to it, for the manacles that only bind the hands may be laid aside, but those that fetter the heart not death itself holds the key to loosen. It fairly makes me tremble when I see the thoughtless rush young people make to enter what is by far the most solemn and responsible relation of life. They are like mariners who put to sea in flimsy boats, or like explorers who fit themselves with Prince Albert suits and buttonhole bouquets. Before you get through the voyage, my dears, you will encounter tempests as well as bonnie blue weather, and God pity you when your pleasure craft strikes the first billow, if it was made of caprice and put together with mucilage instead of rivets! As for the explorer and his dress suit, where will he be when the tigers begin to scent him and the air is full of great sorrows and little frets like flying buzzards and cawing crows?

Be an old maid in its most despised significance then; be a grubber and a toiler all the days of your life rather than rush into marriage as a hunted fox flies into a trap. There is some chance for the fox that flies to the hills, and for the bird that soars above the huntsman's aim, but what better off is the fox in the trap or the lark in a cage? There is a love so pure and ennobling that eternity shall not be long enough to cast its blossom, nor death sharp enough to loosen the foundation of its hold. Such love is born in the spirit rather than forced in the hot-house of the senses. It is an impulse toward the stars, a striving toward things that are pure and perfect and true. It grows in the heart as a rose grows in the garden, first a slip, then a leaf and finally the perfect blossom. No rose ever put forth a flower first, and then bethought itself of rooting and budding. Pray, dear girls, that this love may come to you rather than its poor prototype, so current in a world of shams and pretenses, whose luster corrodes with daily usage and turns to pewter in your grasp.

* * * * *

Once there was an old woman who died and went to glory. Now a great many old women have died and gone the same way, but this one was very tired and very glad to go. She had worked hard ever since she could handle a broom or flirt a duster. She had probably washed about 91,956,045 dishes in her life, had baked something less than a million of pies, and turned out anywhere between a quarter to half a million loaves of bread, to say nothing of biscuits. These figures are steep, but I am writing under the invigorating impulse of the grip! She had darned socks and hemmed towels and patched old pantaloon-seats between times, until her fingers were callous as agate. She had borne and reared lots of children and tended to their myriad wants. For forty-seven years she had done a big washing every week, and laundried more collars than a Canada thistle has seed-pods. At last she died. The tired old body burst its withered husk and let the flower free. The rusty old cage flew open and out went the bird. And when they buried her I suppose they were foolish enough to shed tears and put on mourning! As well expect all the birds to wear crape when dawn sets out its primrose-pot on the ledge of the eastern sky! But one friend of quicker perception than the rest, I am told, placed the following inscription on the tired old woman's gravestone:

Here lies a poor woman who always was tired,
For she lived in a world where much was required.
"Weep not for me, friends," she said, "for I'm going
Where there'll be neither washing, nor baking, nor sewing;
Then weep not for me; if death must us sever,
Rejoice that I'm going to do nothing forever."

* * * * *

There is just one thing in the latter part of the nineteenth century that never fails to bring success, and that is assurance. If you are going to make yourself known it is no longer the thing to quietly pass out a visiting card--you must advance with a trumpet and blow a brazen blast to shake the stars. The time has gone by when self-advancement can be gained by modest and unassuming methods. To stand with a lifted hat and solicit a hearing savors of mendicancy and an humble spirit. The easily abashed and the diffident may starve in a garret, or go die on the highways--there is no chance for them in the jostling rush of life. The gilded circus chariot, with a full brass band and a plump goddess distributing circulars, is what takes the popular heart by storm. Your silent entry into town, depending upon the merits of your wares to gain an audience or work up a custom, is chimerical and obsolete. We no longer sit in the shadow and play flutes; we mount a pine platform and blow on a trombone, and in that way we draw a crowd, and that is what we live for. Who are the women who succeed in business ventures of any sort? Mostly the mannish, bold, aggressive amazons who are unmindful of rebuffs and impervious to contempt. Who are the men who wear diamonds and live easy lives? Largely the politicians who have made their reputation in bar-room rostrums and among sharpers. Oh, for a wind to blow us forward a hundred years out of this age of sordid self-seeking and impudent assertiveness into something larger and sweeter and finer. Give us less yeast in our bread and more substance; fill our cups with wine rather than froth, and for sweet pity's sake hang up the great American trumpet and let "silence, like a poultice, come to heal the blows of sound."

* * * * *

Every day, for months, as I have taken my morning ride to town I have noticed a dog who bounds forth from a dooryard that overlooks the busy highway of the steed of steam and barks himself weak at the rushing trains. He really accomplishes nothing, but do you suppose you could convince his canine brain that he was not at once a reproach and a terror to the numerous trains that disturb his rest? He reminds me of certain people we meet all the way through life. They bark at trains continually while the Lord prolongs their breath, and the faster the train and the more it carries the louder they bark. They fondly imagine that the voice of their ranting protest accomplishes a purpose in the world. They are always barking at capital and at rich men and at corporations. They bark at people of courteous manners, and all the ways and customs of polite and gentle society, with fierce and futile yelpings. They bark at the swift advancement of the world from ignorance to enlightenment, from superstition to liberalism. They bark at the churches because they are on a train that has sidetracked Calvin. They bark at polite young men who wear clean linen, and call them dudes; they bark at women who have one or two ideas outside of fashionable folly and inane conventionalism, and call them cranks; they bark at everything on wheels, where wheels typify strength and achievement. They will go on barking, too, while the world finds room and maintains patience for them and their barking.

* * * * *

I think I have said before that I loathe meek people. But even if I have I am going to say it again. Your half-wits who sit and turn first one cheek and then the other to be slapped are not the sort for me. The man or woman, boy or girl, child or otherwise, that will endure direct insult day after day without resenting it ought to sell themselves at so much a pint for illuminating oil--that is all they are good for. I love a fighter, provided he foils gracefully and does not snatch out his sword in every brawling and unworthy cause. In the defense of woman, in the cause of honor, purity and truth; in battle against sordidness, and greed, and a lying tongue, let your blade flash like summer rain and your white plume outdistance the plume of Navarre! For God and mother, justice and honor, self-respect and the approval of our own conscience, let us go forward then with a chip, if need be, on each shoulder and a standard copy of the celestial army tactics in our side pocket! The Lord loves a good many things, cheerful givers and self-sacrificing widows with their mites, merciful men and sweet and noble women, but most of all, I think, he loves a valiant fighter in the cause of right.

* * * * *

Now it came to pass that there dwelt in a certain city of the land of the great lakes a woman called Lydia, sister to Simon, the shipwright. And Lydia, being comely and fair to look upon, was sought in marriage by one John, a dealer in spices and fine teas. And the years of their wedlock having outnumbered the fingers upon a man's two hands, it came to pass that they dwelt together in exceeding prosperity in a town near by the blue waters of a mighty lake.

And Heaven sent unto them children to the number of three, so that their hearts were exceeding glad, and the cords of their habitation were stretched from year to year. And it came to pass that the home in which they lived was spacious and full of salubrious air. Their beds, also, were of curled hair, and all their bed-springs of beaten steel. And bath-rooms made glad the heart of the dust-laden when summer dwelt in the land. Also there were cunningly devised screens of fine wire in all the windows, so that the marauding fly and the pestilential mosquito might not enter.

And the flesh increased from year to year upon the bones of Lydia and the children that heaven sent her, while they remained in the home that John, the tea merchant, had given them.

But it came to pass that the neighbors of the woman Lydia closed up the shutters of their dwellings, and one by one stole from town when the heat descended upon the land.

Then spake Lydia unto John, the vender of spices and fine teas, saying:

"Arise, let us go hence and dwell within a farm-house, where the children may leap together in the sweet-smelling hay, and I may comfort myself with flagons of cream."

But John, being a man among men, and accounted somewhat wise withal, would have restrained Lydia, saying: "Not so; for verily I say unto you, comfort abideth not in the dwelling of the farmer, neither does joy linger in the shadow of his doorway."

Now Lydia, being president of a Woman's Club and reputed of knowledge beyond the generality of womankind, would not listen, but beat her hands together, crying: "I prithee hold thy peace, for behold, I and the children heaven sent me will depart hence by to-morrow's chariot of steam, and will make our home with the gentle farmer and his sweet-breathed kine."

So John, being loth to war with the tongue, albeit he was heavy-hearted and walked with a bent head, purchased tickets for Lydia and the children heaven had given her.

And it came to pass that they left town by the train which men call "the limited."

Now the way of that train through the land is like unto the way of a ship at sea, or of a strong eagle that never wearieth. And the sufferings of Lydia were such that she sought relief in peppermint and found it not.

And the babes by reason of the swiftness with which they traversed a crooked land, were made ill and languished like sea-sick rangers of the deep.

Yet, after many hours, their torment abated not, so that, reaching their destination, the bodies of Lydia and her children were removed in a hack and hurried to an inn that was built near by.

And in the inn where they were fain to tarry until strength should be given them for further journeying, it chanced that a young babe lay sorely stricken with the whooping-cough.

Now, when Lydia knew this, her heart fainted with fear, and she prophesied evil.

For well she knew that her own babes had not had the disease, and that the time of their prostration was at hand.

So Lydia, being president of a Woman's Club, and accounted without a peer in the gift of words, sent for the keeper of the inn, that she might rebuke him.

And she opened her mouth impulsively and questioned him saying: "Why broughtest thou me and the children heaven gave me into thine inn knowing that contagious disease lurked within its gates?"

And the keeper of the inn shot out the lip at her and was undismayed.

And he cried, "Go to! And what wouldst thou of a public house? Thou talkest like one with little sense!"

And it came to pass that Lydia and her children departed thence by stage and sought the farm-house. And, arriving there, they would have laid themselves down to rest, being sorely bruised by reason of protracted stage-riding.

But the beds were made of straw and corded underneath with ropes. So that lying upon them caused the children to roar loudly, and they found rest from their lamentations, four in a bed, on the bosom of Lydia.

And, supper being served, it consisted of tinted warm water and gooseberries sweetened with brown sugar.

Now Lydia, by reason of her connection with the club, was enabled to speak boldly, and she called for cream.

But the wife of the farmer made answer, saying, "We have none."

And Lydia spoke yet again, saying, "Why, O woman of many wiles, hast thou no cream?"

And the woman made way with an insect that swam gaily in a pitcher of azure milk, and said gently, "Because we sell it to a neighboring dairy."

And Lydia said nothing, but remembering the words of John, the tea-merchant, wept silently.

And it came to pass that next morning the children went forth to leap in the hay.

And the farmer led them firmly away from the hay-mow by the tip of the ear, saying, "I allow no children to spoil my fodder."

And the morning of the second day, the woman Lydia, being starved for nutritious food, wended her way with her babes across a stretch of pasture land in search of wild blackberries.

And a beast, whose voice was baritone and whose approach was like the approach of a Kansas cyclone, bore down upon her and the children heaven had given her, while yet they were midway in the meadow. Now only by leaping could they save themselves.

And it came to pass that they leaped mightily and flung themselves over a five-barred fence.

And a snake made free with the draperies of Lydia, so that her hair whitened with fear, and between the beast with the baritone voice and the serpent she knew not which way to turn.

And the morning of the third day she wrote to John, the tea-merchant, saying only:

"My darling--Meet the first train that returns from this place to the dear city by the lake, for behold! I and the children heaven sent me are on our homeward way!"

* * * * *

IMPATIENCE.

A sweet little crocus came up through the mold,
And hugged round her shoulders her mantle of gold,
While tears of distress fringed her delicate eye,
Like rain drops that start from a showery sky.

"Where, pray, are those laggards, the violets blue?
The roses and lilies and daffodils too?
I really think it's a shame and a sin
This waiting so long for the spring to begin.

"The first day of April and only one bird
Since I lifted my head has uttered a word!
And search as I may all over the meadow
Not even a cowslip has shown its bright head, O--

"Misery me! Sure there's no use in waiting,
For something, no doubt, is the summer belating;
So I'll go back to bed, put on my lace night cap,
And snatch, for a fortnight, a nice little cat-nap!"

Down went little Gold-head, back to her pillow;
When, all in a twinkling, up over the hill, O,
The wind-flower host, with rose-tinted banners,
Marched into the world; Queen Summer's forerunners.

Her rose maids of honor, in filmiest laces,
Loitered and lingered in shy woodland places;
And white-vested lilies were ever at prayer;
Their vespers, the perfume that sweetened the air.

The apple trees blushed into delicate splendor;
The blue birds hung over in ecstasy tender,
While the gold powdered bee with helmet all dusty
Kept watch over the flowers, a sentinel trusty.

The robin sang love to his shy little sweetheart;
The orioles lashed their nests in the tree top;
The willows drooped low over swift water courses,
And murmuring brooks started fresh from their sources.

But down in the gloom, on her dream-haunted pillow,
As pale and as cold as the moon on the billow,
Forgot and unmissed by bird and by blossom,
The crocus slept sound in the earth's faithful bosom.

When at last she awoke, the spring had been banished,
Her forerunner flowers from the hillside had vanished.
And all of the bees had turned into stock brokers.
And even the birds had changed into croakers.

'Tis only by waiting we find our fruition;
To learn how to wait is a needed tuition.
The faint-hearted people who go to sleep fretting,
Will wake up at last too late for the getting.

* * * * *

If there is anything more utterly desolate than a poorly-conducted farm, preserve me from it. There is an ideal farm familiar to the writers of pretty tales, where everything is kept in apple-pie order throughout the year, and where one can walk broadcast, so to speak, in a spick and span white gown without attracting so much as the shadow of a shade of minutest defilement. We have seen pictures of such farms wherein sleek cattle stood around knee-deep in dewy clover, or lay serenely on polished hillsides, or meandered dreamily by crystal streams; wherein pale pink farm-houses with green gables and yellow piazzas, fairly scintillated from behind decorous foliage, and peacocks, with tails nearly as long as the Mississippi River, posed on the gate-posts; wherein neat little boys in variegated trousers rode prancing chargers down blooming lanes, and correct little girls in ruffled underclothing fed well-mannered chickens from morning till night. But the actual farm of the remote rural districts is about as much like its ideal picture as Esau was like a modern dude. Not long ago somebody suggested that I go and board for a fortnight at a farm-house. "You will have perfect rest," said my friend, "and that is what you need." So I went, and rather than again undergo the torments of the five days spent in that restful (?) spot I think I would cheerfully hire out with a Siberian chain-gang. In the first place there was no such a thing as rest possible after the first glimmer of each day's dawn. Every rooster on the farm, and there were millions of them, was up "for keeps" long before sunrise. Their united chorus smote the skies. One might as well have tried to sleep through Gettysburg's battle. A score or so of bereaved cows lamented all night for their murdered babies, and a couple of donkeys, kept purely for ornamental purposes, made sounds every half hour or so that turned my hair snow white with terror. After breakfast each day I used to walk down the hill and fish for pickerel in a river that had no current, and looked discouraged. "Walked," did I say? Nay, there was nothing so decorous as a walk possible down the slippery, stony descent which led to the haunts of the pickerel. When I didn't hurl myself down that hill, I slid down, and between the two methods I wrecked both muscle and shoe leather. The latter part of the way led through a pasture devoted to several cows and a bull. As I am more afraid of the latter than of death and all his cohorts, my morning walks ended in heart failures and had to be abandoned. Occasionally I would take a book and go out and sit in my hammock. Then the large roosters, each one of them at least seven feet tall and highly ruffled about the legs, would come around and look at me, so that I would have to go into the house to hide my embarrassment. I know of nothing harder to endure than the stare of a Brahma fowl, especially if one is a bit nervous and overworked. Nervous prostration has sprung from lighter causes.

Nothing happened while I was at the farm but meal time, and the intervals were so long between those episodes that I used to wonder daily at my own mission subsequent to the farm-life as one gropes for prehistoric clues. There was a man about the premises who walked to and from the village twice a day with a large brown jug. When I asked at different times what he fetched in the jug, not because I wanted to know, but merely to find a topic of conversation, I was successively told that it was "kerosene," "maple molasses," "buttermilk," and "vinegar." I wish I knew if I was told the truth every time, or if somebody tried to impose upon me merely because I was town-bred.

Occasionally we took rides over stony trails where boulders and ruts marked the way, and only the creaking of our bones broke the primeval silence. These rides were supposed to be part of the generous plan of contemplated rest, but a few more of them would have resulted in the rest from which there is no awaking. No, my dear, I am an ardent lover of the country, and I love it as the epicure loves a good dinner, or the musician loves music, but I will take it, please, without the accessories of a poorly-kept hoosier farm. I do not yearn for the defilements of a barn-yard that is never cleansed, nor for the frolicsomeness of pigs that wander at their own sweet will, nor for the clamor of aggressively alert poultry, nor for piscatorial delights. I love the country as God made it before greed and gain and all the abominations of man entered into and spoiled it. I love it clean and wholesome and sweet, as it was turned out of the workshop; its streams untainted, and their banks unbereft of beautiful trees; its hills still covered with verdure, and its winds uncontaminated with the scent of defiling drains and waterways.

* * * * *

I have seen him! Actually seen him! Shall I say the coming man? No, rather let us call him the vanished type, the stalwart, full-blooded, glorious "might have been" of nature. Not an exotic, but the indigenous growth of a soil fed by breeze and sun. No earmuffs about him; no cringing withdrawal into mufflers before the advance of winter blasts. No cowardly retreat into furry overcoats, mittens and gum shoes.

"Amber," said a fellow traveler the other day, "yonder is a man after your own heart. He has not worn an overcoat or heavyweight flannels for six years. He never buttons up his coat save when it rains. What do you think of him?"

"Think of him!" said I; "were it not for a lingering regard for the conventionalities, I should walk right over to that man and say: 'Sir, I thank you for the sight of a man--not a human lily bud! You have struck the right way of living, and you will be a hale and handsome man when the enfeebled race that surrounds you have toddled into the consumptive's grave or are sneezing upon their catarrhal pilgrimage to the tomb.'" The man was worth looking at, hale and hearty, his chest like the convex curve of a barrel, his eye like a falcon's.

"But," said my friend, "were I to throw aside my overcoat and go forth unprotected this freezing weather, the exposure would surely kill me!"

"No doubt it would," was my cheerful reply. "There are always a host to die before any reform is achieved or victory accomplished. You have coddled yourself so long between blankets and absorbed red-hot furnace heat until you haven't the stamina of an aspen leaf. Take a hot-house flower out of doors and it soon wilts. But mark the beautiful Edelweiss of the Alps--it thrives in the pure breath of eternal snow." But what is the use of talking? Although my tongue became a golden bell and my pen a gleaming flame, I could never convince you, my dear old, shivery, shaky public, of the advantage of fresh air and plenty of it, and the advisability of a generous cultivation of nature and her free gifts. As well expect to be nourished by looking at your food through an opera glass as hope to be strong and stalwart upon a homeopathic allowance of pure air and sunshine, or in spite of the devices you plan to shut yourself away and hermetically seal your body, as it were, from the sweet, health-giving influence of sun and wind and frost. Just stop a moment before you turn away from this subject, my dear, and hear a little story. I know the subject is a bore and that I am a crank, but listen. Once there was a grand beneficent power--call it God if you will--who planned a spot wherein to place some atom which he had shaped out of dust and vivified with a spark of his own life. He looked about a little, we will imagine, and finally settled upon a garden wherein to place these precious pensioners on his care. A roofless, wall-less spot full of draughts and dew, breezes and blossoms. He filled it with birds and carpeted it with grass, set rivulets running through it for "water works" and sunbeams and starbeams for "electric light" plants, etc. That is all I have to say. Like the Mother Morey legend my story is done before it is scarcely begun. But ask yourself the question, Why didn't God put his well-beloved models of the forthcoming race into a more sheltered place if there was so much danger in fresh air, draughts and chilly weather? Why didn't he seal them up behind double windows in an airless, sunless, hot and unhealthful home where the dear things could keep warm? Because he was God and knew everything, and not man and knew nothing.

* * * * *

Well, the old ship Time has put into port again to take on a new cargo of good resolutions, earnest resolves and patented schemes, before setting sail for the shores of a distant future. Ten to one she goes to pieces on the breakers before ever sighting land again, and a hundred to ninety-nine her cargo is thrown overboard before she reaches mid-sea. The channel is narrow and the rocks lie thick as peas in a marrowfat pod, and many more bales of choice merchandise find the bottom of the sea each year than are ever delivered to the good angel consignee. "I am going to be the best girl in all the world," says the poor little Captain on New Year's eve. Behold! the hours have not swung around the diurnal circle before there is a wild onslaught from shadowland, and the brave captain is left wounded on the field. Only a tender hand and tireless patience can set her on her feet again.

"I will eschew debt as I would poison, and starve before I will commit an indiscretion," cries the Doctor as he sets sail for the untried sea. Within the first watch he hauls down his colors from the mast head, captured by a pirate extravagance.

"I will be gentle of speech and courteous and sweet to all!" says the Young Person, and gayly steers for the open channel. Midway she encounters a rock of annoyance and the air is stormy with irritable words that fly and beat like stinging rain. Ah, well, my dear, thank the good Lord there are life-saving stations all along the shore, and no wreck was ever yet so hopeless but Infinite Love could set it afloat again.

* * * * *

"There is just one person born who has a right to this thoroughfare, and that is I!" muses the woman with the umbrella as she walks the crowded streets on a rainy day. "I am in possession of that part of the universe immediately contiguous to the spot on which I stand, and I shall make myself just as much of a nuisance as I choose. I shall jab out your eyes, and knock off your hat, and clip your ears, and stab your back with my umbrella tip just as often and as violently as I choose. I shall run into you from behind, and bump into you, and knock you down if I so desire, and none shall say me nay. I am not very tall, but all the better for my plans if I am not. If I were of the same height as you I should not be able to take you under the hat-brim as I do, and jab you in the nostril as I pass. If I choose to cut criss-cross through a crowd, who shall forbid me, being a woman? I can be just as rude and just as mean as I want to be, and who is going to hinder, so long as I wear a gown and call myself a lady? If I were a man and manifested the reckless thirst for universal carnage that I do you would call the patrol and bear me away to the lock-up; but being a poor little, innocent woman I have it all my own way."

* * * * *

I know a wife who is waiting, safe and sound in her father's home, for her young husband to earn the money single-handed to make a home worthy of her acceptance. She makes me think of the first mate of a ship who should stay on shore until the captain tested the ability of his vessel to weather the storm. Back to your ship, you cowardly one! If the boat goes down, go down with it, but do not count yourself worthy of any fair weather you did not help to gain! A woman who will do all she can to win a man's love merely for the profit his purse is going to be to her, and will desert him when the cash runs low, is a bad woman and carries a bad heart in her bosom. Why, you are never really wedded until you have had dark days together. What earthly purpose would a cable serve that never was tested by a weight? Of what use is the tie that binds wedded hearts together if like a filament of floss it parts when the strain is brought to bear upon it? It is not when you are young, my dear, when the skies are blue and every wayside weed flaunts a summer blossom, that the story of your life is recorded. It is when "Darby and Joan" are faded and wasted and old, when poverty has nipped the roses, when trouble and want and care have flown like uncanny birds over their heads (but never yet nested in their hearts, thank God!), that the completed chronicle of their lives furnishes the record over which approving heaven smiles and weeps.

* * * * *

There is one thing I learn day by day in my strollings about town, and that is that nobody is going to give me dollar values for half-dollar equivalents. In these days when the best of folks go mad on bargains we seem to think it is an easy thing to get something for nothing, but I have yet to see the day when we can. There are cheap restaurants where they serve you roast turkey for a quarter, but don't fool yourself! It is not the same kind of bird they serve in a high-class place for a dollar. You look at your check when you come out from an economical kitchen with a feeling of glee that you have got so much for so little. But how about the flavor that lingers in your mouth? How about the display of pine toothpicks and spotted linen? How about the finger-marked drinking glasses and damp napkins? No, no; poor as I am I would rather pay my dollar and get a dollar's worth of cleanliness and daintiness and flavor than save seventy-five cents and do without them. Sure as you live and sure as the world is operated on a self-accommodative basis, you never will get a first-water diamond without you pay first-water diamond equivalents.

* * * * *

The other day there was a little girl, scarce 16 years of age, who started away for the first time from home and mother. She was brave and gay in a new suit, new boots and a new hat with a feather the color of a linnet's wing. She carried a bunch of the loveliest sweet peas at her dainty waist and on her face there played a sunburst of smiles. She had not been five hours in the place appointed her to visit when her mother received the following letter:

"My Precious Mamma: I am writing this in my room before I am called to breakfast. None but God can know what I suffer! Not until I am in your arms once more will you know what I am going through! If you love me let me come home. Don't tell anyone, but let me come if you love me! Don't send the shoes--I shall not need them--but let me come home! Think what I must suffer so far away from you. I shall sell my ring and buy a ticket if you do not telegraph that I may come!"

And as I read the pathetic letter between my smiles and tears I thought to myself, is there anything on earth so hard to bear as homesickness--first homesickness, when the heart is new to sorrow? I would rather have any disease the laboratory of evil keeps in stock than one pang of what that little girl was suffering when she penciled that letter.

* * * * *

Around in a picture store on one of the avenues I chanced upon a painting that attracted not only myself, but a crowd of people from the street. It represented a lion's cage barred with heavy barriers of iron. On the floor of the den is the figure of a beautiful girl stretched in a deathlike swoon. There are orange blossoms in her hair, and the flush on her cheek has had no time to fade. Crouched by her side, one great paw on her breast and another at her waist, is a wrathful lion whose evident intention is to tear his victim into bonbon fragments. I wish somebody would explain that picture to me. I am tired conjecturing how the bride strayed into the lion's quarters, and where her husband was that he shouldn't be taking better care of her, and why there was nobody on hand to help at this critical moment portrayed on the canvas. Young married women are not supposed to be visiting zoological gardens when they ought to be changing their white satin favors for their traveling gowns. The picture seems a puzzler to all who watch it, and as the crowd is great the confusion of wits is catching.

* * * * *

THE TRYST.

Where a woodland path, like a silver line,
Winds by a woodland river,
And half in shadow, and half in shine,
The alders lean and shiver,
Where a forest bird has built him a nest
Low in the springing grasses,
And all the day long, with her wings at rest,
His mate the slow time passes;

Where a flood of gold through the forest dim
Tells when the noon is strongest,
And a purple fringe on the forest's rim
Proclaims when the shades are longest;
Where the dawn is only known from the night
By the birds that sing their sweetest,
And the twilight hush from the morning light
By the peace that is then completest;

Where only the flood of silvery haze
Shall tell that the moon is risen,
When down from the sky, like a meteor blaze,
Shall flutter her snow-white ribbon,--
I will meet you there, my lady love sweet,
When the weary world is sleeping,
And the frets of the day, that tireless beat,
Are hushed in the night's close keeping;

Not missing the world--by the world unmissed--
We two shall wander together,
And whether we chided, or whether we kissed,
There'll be none to forget or remember;
And when at the last asleep you shall fall,
By the shore of the musical river,
Of the crimson leaves I will weave you a pall,
And kiss you good-by, love, forever.

But the stars up above, and the waters below,
Shall sing of us, over and over;
Of the tryst that we kept in the years long ago,
In the woods by the beautiful river.

* * * * *

Transcriber's Notes:

Inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been retained from
the original.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected as follows:

Page 35: "blase" changed to "blase"
Page 53: "neighors" changed to "neighbors"
Page 98: "patroled" changed to "patrolled"
Page 129: "meed" changed to "need"

Punctuation has been corrected without note.

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