Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

Away up in the great northland, even further north than the northern boundary of British Columbia, there lives a race of people who form, and have formed, no part of the great human civilization of the world which has been, and is going on in the more moderately climatic regions of the earth. For centuries they have lived apart, and have taken no notice of the big world which has been, and is living itself to death far from them down in the indolent south, where the sun could shine every day in the year--where it did shine every day that it was not cloudy, and where there was no long, dreary, dark midnight of at least four months' duration; where the sun did not dip beneath the horizon at about the beginning of October, and disappear, not to be seen again until the end of March; where, in some parts, there was no snow, while in others only for a few weeks during the year. No snow! no ice! Can you imagine such a condition? And up there it is almost the Eskimo's only commodity. He eats it, drinks it, lives in it, sleeps on it, and his castle is built of it. And he endures it year after year, from his babyhood to his gray days, and there appears no hope for him. Bare ground is a curiosity to the Eskimo; and there are no spring freshets. Their bridges across their streams are formed of ice; the very salt sea is covered with it; and they venture out on those great floors of ice in search of the polar bear and the right whale which form almost their only food, and supply them with their only source of clothing, heat and light. In the midst of his narrow and cramped circumstances the Eskimo can laugh at times as heartily as any other human, and he has grown extremely low in stature to accommodate himself to the small opening which gives access to his igloo (house). The average man or woman does not exceed much over four feet. No other explanation seems to have been offered by science for the extreme dwarfishness in stature of this curious race of people.

Like the polar bear--almost their only associate in those northern and frozen wilds--the idea never occurred to this people to migrate south where the earth is bare and warm, and is clothed in a green mantle; where the sun shines every day; where the land is flowing with milk and honey; where peaches and water melons grow, and where it is not necessary to go through a hole in the ice to take a bath. No, this strange people, whose food is ice, whose bed is ice, whose home is ice, and whose grave is ice, are part and parcel of the snowy north; and they live on, apparently happy and contented with their hard life and uncongenial environment. Where the white man begins to be uncomfortable, the Eskimo begins to be at home. Where the white man leaves off the Eskimo begins, and his haunts penetrate away into the far north--into the land of perpetual ice and snow. Where we go only to explore he builds his permanent abode.

But this is not a history of the geographical distribution of men; it is to be the story of an Eskimo who went astray according to the moral ideals of his immediate tribesmen.

Once upon a time there lived in this northland of which we have been speaking a young native who had mysteriously arrived at the conclusion that the life of an Eskimo was a very narrow and fruitless existence indeed, and that the conditions under which they lived were totally inadequate to supply the demands of a twentieth century human being. In the midst of the other members of the family he assumed an attitude of weariness and contempt for his associates and environs. "One may as well associate with a polar bear," he soliloquized. "Man was made to accomplish things; the Eskimo is no further advanced in the scale of living, organic beings, to all intent and purpose, than the polar bear, or the walrus. He is born, lives, eats, sleeps, hunts, kills, dies, and is buried in the cold frozen earth, if he does not fall through a hole in the ice into the bottomless sea. To the south of us is a great healthy world where men live; where they have discovered all that the world has to give, and where they enjoy those things to the utmost; where they read and write and take records of their doings. Me for the south!" he shouted, and he made up his mind to migrate at the first opportunity and be in the swim with men. "I must learn to read and write and think, even if I have to forget my own language," he declared.

Now, it came to pass that as he was soliloquizing as above one morning, a girl appeared before him. She was so muffled up in furs that only an Eskimo could distinguish whether the bundle was male or female. She sat down beside him and placed her short, stubby, muffled arm as far around his neck as it would go, and in this attitude she coaxed, and begged, and prayed, and argued with him, thinking that she might resurrect him to himself again. But when she found that his mania was for the south, she wept as only woman can weep the whole world over, even in the far north where the tears are in danger of freezing to her cheeks. But he, in his brutish, advanced-thought sort of way, pushed her from him.

"If you love me you will help me to go," he said. "If you love me you will stay," she responded.

He rose and moved towards his igloo; she followed. He crawled like a bear through the thirty feet or more of narrow tunnel which led into the hut proper. She did likewise. In the igloo he threw himself down on the ice floor among the squalor and quantities of bear meat in various stages of decomposition. The smell from the whale-oil lamp almost choked him. The girl sat down and continued to cling to him.

"Let me go to the south and I will make a lady of you," he said. "I will give you gold and silver and feather beds. These environs are not fit for a bear to hibernate in. Just think of our branch of the human family existing and suffering up here among the ice and snow for thousands of years and not having advanced one step from the hovel in which we were first produced? Is the Eskimo destined to everlasting failure--perpetual degeneration? Must you and I be satisfied and consent to endure this animal existence to the end of our days because it is our only heritage from our ancestors? No! I say, a thousand times no. I am ashamed of myself, my ancestors and my entire race," he shouted, and the girl almost trembled in fear of him. He must surely be demented. But she still clung to him, thinking that her enchanting presence might cure him. Thus love can be a very warm thing even up among the cold ice and snow. Their cold, half frozen cheeks came together and she kissed him. "Stay," she murmured, coaxingly, as only a woman can.

"I will take passage south," he continued unheedingly, "and will plunge myself into the midst of the big, busy, warm world, and will gain with one bound that social condition which it has taken the white man thousands of years to attain."

Now, after all, was this man not right, and is the Eskimo not to be pitied?

The girl, seeing that her whole world was about to vanish from her, left the igloo weeping, and again crawled like a bear through the narrow tunnel to the colder world outside.

One day when the sun was just about to make its appearance above the horizon, and the long night was nearly at an end, two half starved and partially frozen white men burrowed their way into our hero's igloo and asked for food and shelter. The night had been long, dreary, dark and cold, and the approaching return of the sun was welcomed like a prodigal. Is it a wonder then that the Eskimo worships the sun? It seems his only hope, his only comfort; and it would seem to him, more than to any other, the source of all life, his only friend in his dire need. The Eskimo offered the two strangers some meat, which they devoured greedily; and then they told a long, pitiful story. They were explorers. Their ship had been crushed hopelessly between masses of ice. Fifty had started on the long journey south. Provisions gave out. Men had dropped off daily. The trail was one long line of frozen corpses stretched out in the dark and silent night. They two alone had survived, so far as the strangers were able to tell. It was the usual tale of woe which befalls the Arctic or Antarctic explorers. Beginning happily, hopefully, buoyantly; ending in misery, sorrow and death. The strangers wanted a guide to lead them to the south--to civilization and warmth. They had not known what it was to be comfortable for two years; and they had not seen one square inch of bare ground during that period.

"Oh, for a sight of mother earth!" they shouted. "We would gladly eat the soil, and chew the bark from the trees." Thus one does not appreciate the most trivial and simple but indispensable things until one is deprived of them for a period of more or less duration.

Our hero agreed to guide them so far as his knowledge extended--even to the very gateway between the north and south lands--if they would guarantee to guide him from that point into their own big, beautiful world further on; they taking the helm when his usefulness as a guide would be exhausted; and he explained his ambition to them.

So, one morning when summer was approaching, and the sun, for the first time in the year was sending her streamers above the horizon, and when his sweetheart Lola stood with arms outstretched over the cold snow and ice towards him, pleading and sending forth her last appeal to his stony heart, he walked out across the white table-land towards the south, and was soon a small black speck in the far horizon.

When the strange expedition reached Dawson they discarded their hibernating costumes and substituted more modern ones, not so much because they were out of fashion, but because they rendered them somewhat uncomfortable. At this point the white men grasped the helm and the Eskimo followed. At Fort Fraser our hero discarded more of his clothing, and at Quesnel he became determined to strip himself. "I cannot stand this heat," he said; "why, it will kill me."

"Heat? Kill you?" exclaimed his two companions. "Why, the thermometer is scarcely above the freezing point. If this moderate climate makes you uncomfortable, what will be your condition in California? Why, you will melt away like a candle beside a red-hot stove." And thus they joked with him, not taking him seriously. So they sailed along and in due time reached Ashcroft. The Eskimo perspired to such an extent that his condition threatened to become dangerous. The slightest covering of clothing became a burden to him, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that his companions could prevent him from stripping himself naked. They persuaded him that he should return before it was too late, but he would not hear of it. "I have made my nest; I will sit in it to the bitter end," he said. They boarded the midnight train, and in a few moments he was fleeing to the sunny south a great deal faster than ever dog team or sledge had taken him across the frozen plateau. And the farther south he went the more he suffered from the heat, until he was in great danger of melting away. And then the truth dawned upon him; it had never occurred to him before. He was a fish trying to live out of water. He discovered that what his mind had pictured, and his heart had longed for, his constitution could not endure. He was doomed to live and die in the frozen north. Oh, those savage, unprogressive, half-animal ancestors! And for the first time he thought of his igloo, his dog teams, the polar bear, and the little woman who had pleaded with him to remain; and he saw her standing as he had left her with outstretched arms, while her very heart tissue was being torn asunder. "Oh, for the ice and snow and the long, dark night," he exclaimed; "anything but this awful heat." When they reached San Francisco he was almost insane, and his condition became critical; and, as if to punish him for his folly, the heat became intense for a few days. They rushed him to the sea shore and he plunged into the water, and refused to come out again. Those were the most congenial surroundings he had found since he left the frozen north. He was in such misery that he did not have time to enjoy the wonders of civilization which he had risked so much to see. Thus does distance lend enchantment to the view. This was an instance of how a man had grown up with his environment--had inherited qualities or weaknesses applicable to his surroundings, had breathed the air of one planet so long that the atmosphere of another was poison to him. He had envied others a lot which it was constitutionally impossible for him to emulate. And he wept for his hereditary infirmities and failings. Could a man be blamed for regretting his ancestors and cursing the fate, or the necessity which drove them into those northern fastnesses at the early stages of their existence? Here again the white man was to blame, for he, in his eagerness and greed, had seized upon the cream of the earth for himself and had driven all inferior or weaker peoples to all the four corners of the globe. And of all the unfortunate, subordinate races, the Eskimo was the most unfortunate, and their condition savored of discrimination on the part of the powers that governed or ordained things.

As our hero had only one ambition while in the north--an insane notion to go south--he had only one ambition while in California--an overpowering ambition to go north.

"Oh, for a mantle of snow, and a canopy of ice!" he shouted. "And, oh, for one touch on mine of my Lola's cold, sweet cheek. Oh, for the frozen, hopeless northland, even if its condition means the perpetual doom and obliteration of the whole Eskimo race!"

They shipped him north as fast as steam could carry him, and from Dawson he went on foot, becoming day by day more and more his natural self. When he neared his igloo he found his Lola standing with outstretched arms to welcome him even as she had mourned his departure, and he realized for the first time that the love and companionship of one woman is worth more than all the riches and wonders of the world put together. They embraced each other with the grip of a vice, in the awful power of their natures, and their affection was as genuine as the most civilized variety. And there he threw himself on the earth and hugged the snow of his dear northland.

Of the Sweet Young Things

Once upon a time in Ashcroft a very foolish young man married a very foolish young lady. They were foolish in so far as they had entered a matrimonial partnership without the preliminary requisite of love. He married because he wanted a wife, as all good men do; she married because she wanted a home, as all good women do. But, as we have said, they married too hastily in their eagerness for those mere mundane pleasures. Each had been known to lie awake many nights before their marriage summing up the situation, and putting two and two together; but, as they were both liberal in their political views, and had no conservative opposition, the two and two always made four without a decimal remainder, and the house voted for marriage with an overwhelming majority. So they became legally united before they were morally mature for love, and before they had formal introduction to the great things of the world. After the solemnization of their marriage they adjourned to a beautiful little home which had been made to order; and it was guarded by a beautiful garden of Eden.

For a short time everything went merry as the Ashcroft curlers' ball. Her happiness was all he lived for, and his comfort was the only excuse she could find for living. Nothing was too good for his Maud; no man was like her Manfred. They each congratulated themselves that they had hooked the best fish from the Thompson. There was nothing in the world outside of their own sweet lives. How others could live outside of _their_ sphere was a mystery to them; and the hugs and kisses which they did not treat themselves to daily would be of no commercial value as a love asset.

For the first few weeks they spent their evenings with their tentacles wound around each other so tightly that they would have passed for one animal; but they had not been welded by that permanent binding quality which is essential to perpetual happiness. Their natures seemed to blend, but it was only a case of superfluous friendship between them. They had no reason to fall out, no excuse to quarrel. They had one mind, one ambition, and they had agreed, mutually, to salt down a few "plunks" each payday for their anticipated gray days. In fact, they seemed better "cut out" for each other than many who marry loving desperately and savagely.

In a few sweet years they had a few sweet children, and life was one sweet dream. But they did not love each other, and without oxygen the lights ultimately became extinguished. But this was only because the ironies of fate had discovered that they were too happy, and that something must be done to damage their heavenliness.

The honeymoon might, otherwise, have lasted all their long lives without interruption. But fate decreed that the clouds should gather from the north, south, east and west to obliterate their sun. It happened in the shape of two monsters in the form of Flossy and Freddy. Flossy and Freddy were float rocks. They had been picked up by Maud and Manfred on their face value and welcomed to the family circle. They had been assayed at the provincial assay office and found to contain a valuable percentage of real collateral; so our hero and heroine could not be reproached for taking them into their arms and allowing them the freedom of their home pastures. But, ah! this is where the evil one sneaked on to the happy hearth-rug--they took the strangers into their arms. They were all young; and, moreover, human. What could they do when the failings of their ancestors of a million years took them in an iron grip and led them in a hypnotic spell toward the brink of ruin? They were as helpless as the Liberals in B.C. politics in the year 1912. We have often quoted that every one must love one of the opposite sex at least once in a lifetime, and our hero and heroine were not immune from this stern gravitation law, because they were only human after all. What was the consequence? Maud fell hopelessly in love with Fred, and Manfred lost his conscience, his manhood, his heart, his soul, his brains, his job and his salary over the Flossy vision. They had fallen foul of a strong Conservative party, and civil war broke out. The former happy couple looked upon each other as intruders, as disturbers of the peace. While before they could not get close enough, now they could not get far enough apart. Manfred would enjoy his evenings at the ball or opera with Flossy, while Fred would entertain Maud, much to her pleasure, at home. The wife hated to see her husband come home at all, but she went into hysterics when Fred arrived. When Fred and Flossy were away, or absent, goodness knows where, the once happy home was like a lunatic asylum, in which the mania with the inmates was a total disregard of each other, and where language was unknown. The husband and wife drifted further and further apart. They ceased to smile, ceased to know each other, ceased to see each other. They were like a lion and a tiger in the same cage.

As time went on the once happy home became a horrid prison. The children became detestable brats who were stumbling-blocks to their ambitions.

Manfred cooked his own meals, or ate at the "French" Café. Maud had to purchase food and clothing from the local emporium with money she had saved up before marriage while waiting table at the "Best" Hotel. Finance became frenzied, for Manfred spent both principal, interest and sinking fund on his affinity. Starvation and the cold world were staring them in the face, for the wolf and the collection man were howling at the door. The city cut off their light and water supply for non-payment of dues, and were about to seize the property for arrears; so they were on the water wagon and in darkness, but still they would not regain consciousness.

The usual course of events did not apply in this strange case. There was no jealousy floating on the surface on the part of the husband and wife. Maud ignored Manfred's insane attitude towards Flossy because she had the same love-blind sickness and could see no one but Fred. Far from being jealous, Manfred viewed his wife in the light of a white man's burden which he could not shake off. Christian's burden was fiction beside it. Flossy was the only star in his firmament--the only toad in his puddle.

The children were neglected, and ran wild in the bush. It was as though some great Belgian calamity had overtaken the household and had riven it asunder. The garden lost its lustre, irrigation was discontinued, the fruit trees lost their leaves prematurely; the very willows wept. The pickets fell from the fence unheeded; the stovepipe smoked, and the chickens laid away in the neighbor's yard. The house assumed the appearance of a deserted sty. Divorce was suggested inwardly--that modern refuge to which the weak-minded flee in seeking a drastic cure for a temporary ailment; and all this disruption in two hearts which had tripped along together so smoothly and pleasantly. Surely love, misapplied, is a curse. It is surely sometimes a severe form of insanity. If so, those two were insane, just waiting for the pressure to be removed from the brain. And, theirs was a pitiful and unfruitful case indeed. They were--

Thirst crazed; fastened to a tree,
By a sweet river running free.

In the meantime Fred and Flossy were having "barrels" of amusement at the expense of the demented ones. Fred and Flossy were perhaps in the wrong in causing such an upheaval in a very model household. But they were young, and the mischief had taken root before they suspected that any such danger was in existence. When the awfulness of the situation dawned upon them they looked at each other one day in the interrogative and agreed that the poisonous weed should be uprooted. But since it had grown to such proportions it was difficult to arrive at a means by which the evil could be strangled. Now Fred and Flossy loved each other, and the lady was just waiting for the gentleman to put the motion, so that she would have an opportunity to second it.

The thirst-crazed husband and wife, however, were too blind to observe that anything unusual existed between their two friends, and they continued to float down that smooth but awful river to destruction.

"Why does she not die?" whispered the demon within the man.

"Why does he not fall into the Thompson and get drowned for accommodation?" questioned the evil one in the heart of the woman.

At last the eruption became "Vesuvian," and the ashes from the crater threatened to re-bury Pompeii--we mean Ashcroft. Thoughts of suicide as the only means of relief bubbled up at intervals.

"Give me love or give me death," they shouted when the fever was at its highest.

It is impossible to say just how this war would have ended if an unforeseen neutral incident had not brought an influence to bear which made a continuation of the conflict an impossible and aimless task.

One day the deaf, and dumb, and blind husband and wife were sitting by the neutral hearth as far apart as it was possible to be removed and yet be able to enjoy the friendly heat of the neutral air-tight heater. The neutral cat jumped up on the husband's knee, but in his belligerent mood he dashed it to the floor. The wife picked it up and stroked its sleek fur. The neutral children were out in the garden abusing the flowers and breaking pickets from the fence; and one had an old saw and was sawing at the trimmings of the cottage like a woodsman sawing down a cedar at the coast.

There was rustling of a lady's skirt, and the tramp of hurried feet on the garden path outside. The next moment the door was pushed open and Fred and Flossy dashed in, laughing like to split their sides.

"You tell them," said Fred.

"No, you," said Flossy, blushing deeply.

"No, you," said Fred, and he seized Flossy's hand.

"Well, you know, Fred has--" she began.

"To make a long story short," said Fred, "we are to be married, and the date has been fixed for June."

When Vesuvius buried up Pompeii the people could not have been more horrified than the belligerent husband and wife. They looked at each other for the first time in six months. The man pitied the woman, and cursed himself for crossing swords with her. The woman at once recognized her husband as a hero, and was ashamed of herself. They each waited for the other to make the first confession, but it was left to both. They sprang into each other's arms and became welded for life in one beautiful but awful squeeze.

The fright had cured them. It had opened their eyes to the realization of the ridiculousness of the situation, and revealed the criminality of their past behavior.

The volcano ceased to pour forth lava. The earth-tremblings became still. The sun peeped out from behind the clouds. Manfred got back his job on the railway. The water and light arrears were paid up. The fence was repaired, and the garden irrigated. The children were called in from the woods and curried down. Kisses and smiles took the place of scowls and curses. The sideboard was replenished, and the hens were persuaded to work for their own family. Even the willows ceased to weep; and, oh, my! but it was a beautiful resurrection. And thus Paradise was gained again.

Of the Two Ladies in Contrast

Once upon a time in Ashcroft two ladies were thrown into the same society; because in Ashcroft there is only one class. When any function took place the glad hand was extended to one and all. For every dollar possessed by one of the ladies' husbands the other husband had five. Mrs. Fivedollars was very extravagant in her dress and domestic department, and Mrs. Onedollar was very envious and ambitious. The husband of the one dollar variety was more or less of a henpeck because he could not multiply his income by five and produce a concrete result.

It was a very predominating mania with Mrs. Onedollar to shine in society with as great a number of amperes as her rival; and this ambition gave rise to one of the greatest domestic civil wars that Ashcroft has even seen. Mrs. Fivedollars had no envy. There was no corner in the remote recesses of her heart rented by this mischievous goddess. She made no effort to "outfashion" fashion or to outshine her neighbors. What she displayed in dress did not extend beyond the natural female instincts for attire. Of course she had no cause to be envious, being by far the best dressed lady in town without undue effort. Mrs. Onedollar viewed the situation from a social apex, and the more she studied the situation the more she realized that the world was discriminating against her. From being the best of friends, they developed into the most deadly of enemies.

Now, it came to pass that the husbands of those two ladies were the best of friends. They met frequently in the "Best" and "Next Best" hotels and drank healths in the most harmless and jolly manner. They often met at their places of business and exchanged ideas. They had business relations with each other which terminated to the advantage of both. To quarrel with each other, to them, was much the same as to quarrel with their bread and butter. They had absolutely no ambitions with regard to their personal appearance. They had a suit of clothes each; when that was old or shabby they got another one. But, in this respect, man is very different from woman. All man wants is covering; a woman must have ornament, and she must equal, if not outshine, her neighbor. The tension between the two ladies became greater until it was almost at the breaking point. Several attempts had been made by the distracted husbands to unscrew the strings which they knew were about to snap, but the result was nil.

"The vixen," said the one. "The hussy," said the other; and when two ladies develop the habit of calling each other such queer pet names, a reconciliation seems very remote indeed.

The climax came at the annual Clinton ball. This was one of those historic functions to which everyone is extended a hearty invitation, and it is one of the great events of the season. The entire Lillooet, Yale and Cariboo districts participate--it is a regular meeting of the clans. And that year was no exception. All our friends were there, including our heroes and heroines. The music was throwing its waves of delightful chords through the hall and over the heads of the throng of dancers. Something happened! No one knew just what it was, but in the middle of the floor two ladies were seen tearing each other's hair and draperies. Heavens! it was our two heroines. The tension had reached the limit--the strings were broken. In a moment our two heroes were on the scene, and each one seized his bundle of property and rushed with it to safety. The two ladies were bundled into their autos and hurried home to Ashcroft in the middle of the night.

The next day a council of war was held by the two husbands and it was unanimously agreed that something must be done.

"I have it!" exclaimed Mr. Fivedollars. "Now, listen. I will take you in as a partner in business. I will give you twenty years to pay your share, and we will dress our wives exactly alike." The plan was adopted, and the result was phenomenal. Mr. Onedollar had at last multiplied his insignificant unit by five and had a concrete accumulation. The two ladies dressed themselves alike extravagantly, and all rivalry ceased. They became great friends again and lived happily ever after. And all this disturbance and discord of human hearts was over a miserable bundle of inanimate drapery.

Of the Ruse That Failed

Once upon a time in Ashcroft there lived a lady who had the wool pulled over her husband's eyes to such an extent that he had optical illusions favorable to the "darling" who deceived him. His most alluring illusion was a booby idea that his "pet" was an invalid, and she kept pouring oil on the joke to keep it burning, and pulled the wool down further and further so that hubby could not see the combustible fluid she was pouring into the flames. Her illness was one of those "to be continued" story kinds--better to-day, worse to-morrow--and she "took" to the blankets at the most annoying and inopportune moments; and every time she "took" an indisposition she expected hubby to pull down the window curtains and go into mourning. But he, the hardhearted man, would continue to eat and smoke and sleep as though no volcanic lava were threatening to submerge the old homestead. His sympathy was not enough; he should stop eating, stop sleeping, and stop smoking--he should be in direct communication with the undertaker and negotiating about the price of caskets.

His wife had the misleading conviction that when she was ill her case was more serious than that of anyone else. In fact, no one else had ever suffered as she suffered; their ailments were summer excursions to the antipodes compared with hers, and when hubby argued that all flesh was subject to ills and disorders, that almost every unit of the human species had toothaches and rheumatics, the argument was voted down unanimously by the suffragette majority as illegitimate argument.

Gradually hubby became convinced that his wife was an invalid, and he went into mourning as much as a man could mourn the loss of a joy that he had grasped for, and just missed in the grasping. He enjoyed the situation as much as a man could who had discovered that he had amalgamated himself with an hospital which was mortgaged for all it was worth to the family physician. Out of his salary of seventy-five dollars per month sixty-five was devoted towards the financing of the doctor's time payments on his automobile; the balance paid for food, clothing, water, light, and fuel, and supplied the wolf with sufficient allowance to keep him from entering the parlor in the concrete. But the philosopher, as all men must ultimately become, concluded to make the best of his bad real estate investment. He resigned himself to a life of perpetual, unaffected martyrdom. After all, it was his personal diplomacy that was at fault--he should not have bought a pig in an Ashcroft potato sack.

During the first year of their matrimonial failure they had rooms at the "Best" Hotel, and the girls carried breakfast to the bride's room seven mornings of every week at about 10.30, where the "invalid" devoured it with such greed and relish that they became suspicious and talked "up their sleeves" about her. Three days each week she had all meals carried up to her, and the girls wondered how she could distribute so much proteid about her system with so little exercise. The extreme healthfulness of her constitution was the only thing that saved this woman from dying of surfeit. The only occasions on which she would rise from her lethargy was to attend a dance or social of some kind given at Walhachin or Savona--she did not avoid one of them, and on those occasions she would be the liveliest cricket on the hearth, the biggest toad in the puddle, while the husband was pre-negotiating with the physician for some more evaporated stock in the auto. How she ever got home was a mystery, for she would be more disabled than ever for weeks to come. Of course she had just overdone her constitutional possibility--she said so herself, and she should know.

Whispers went abroad that she was lazy, and they became so loud that hubby heard them over the wireless telephone. He became exasperated. "My wife a hypocrite? Never! The people have hearts of stone--brains of feathers--they do not understand."

One day--it had never occurred to him before--he suggested that they consult a specialist in somnolence. But she would not hear of it; there was nothing wrong with her; all she wanted was to be left alone. In a short time hubby began to consider her in the light of a "white man's burden," and had distorted visions of himself laboring through life with an over-loaded back action.

One day the hotel proprietor advised him of a contemplated raise in his assessment to re-imburse the business for extras in connection with elevating so much food upstairs, which was not part and parcel of the rules and regulations of the house in committee. Besides, the accommodation was needless.

"Needless!" exclaimed hubby. "Would you degenerate a lady and gentleman wilfully. I will leave your fire-trap at once and cast anchor at the 'Next Best.'" The proprietor argued that his competitor was welcome to such pickings, so he made no comment on the debate.

The "Next Best" was "full up," as it always is, so they carried the living corpse out on a stretcher, and hubby went batching with his burden in a three-roomed house on Bancroft Street. When it became hubby's duty to cook the meals and carry half of them to bed for his better half every morning before breakfast he began to taste silly and smell sort of henpeck like. He persisted humbly, lovingly, self-sacrificingly, henpeckedly, however, until one morning his sun rose brighter than it had ever done before and he saw a faint glimmer of light through the wool that was hanging in front of him.

"Perhaps there is such a commodity as superfluous personal sacrifice to one's matrimonial obligations," he soliloquized. "Perhaps this spouse of mine with the pre-historic constitution can be cured by an abstract treatment. Is she ill, or is she playing a wild, deceitful part? Is she sitting on me with all her weight?" He was willing to allow her the usual proportion of female indisposition, but a continued story of such nightmare proportions was beginning to unstring his physical telephone system. So, to we who have no wool over our eyes, this was one of the most pitiful and criminal cases of selfish indolence, perhaps coupled with a belief that a husband, through his sympathy, will love a woman the more because of her suffering. No supposition, of course, could be farther from the concrete--a husband wants, requires, admires, loves, a healthy, active working-partner. Failing this the husband as a husband is down and out.

When hubby began to realize this an individual reformation was at the dawning. The very next morning no breakfast arrived by private parcel post.

"Harry," she exclaimed, "bring me my porridge and hot cakes; I am starving."

"If you are starving get up and eat in your stall at the table," said Harry, sarcastically, although it pained him.

"Harry!" she shouted, "you selfish beast!"

For diplomatic reasons Harry was silent.

Harry made an abrupt exit without waiting for adjournment, and went up town. A new life seemed to be dawning upon him. It was the emancipation from slavery. He went into the drug store, into the hardware store, into the hotels and all the other stores--he talked and laughed as he had never done before.

It was 3 a.m. the following morning when he found himself searching for the door-knob in the vicinity of the front window. Having gained an entrance, he was accosted by his wife, who exclaimed: "Harry, you drunk?"

"Well, y'see, it was the pioneer shupper," said Harry, and he tumbled into bed.

This was Harry's first ruse. His next move was an affinity. He would cease to pose as a piece of household furniture--a dumb waiter sort of thing.

At that time there was a vision waiting table at the "Best" who had most of the fellows on a string. Harry threw his grappling irons around her and took her in tow. This went on for some time without suspicion being aroused on the part of the "invalid," but the wireless telegraphy of gossip whispered the truth to her one day when she was wondering what demon had taken possession of her protector. She dropped her artificial gown in an instant and rushed up Railway Avenue like a militant suffragette. Just about the local emporium Harry was sailing along under a fair and favorable wind, hand in hand with his new dream, when he saw his legal prerogative approaching near the "Next Best" hotel. He dislodged his grappling-hooks in an instant, stepped slightly in advance, and feigned that he had been running along on his own steam. But she saw him and defined his movements. They met like two express engines in collision, and what followed had better be left buried underneath the sidewalk of the local emporium. There were dead and dying left on the field, and they reached home later by two rival routes of railway.

The stringency endured some days, which time she huffed and he read Charles Darwin. At the end of that period the ice broke, as it always does; the clouds rolled away, and the sun began to shine, and they began to negotiate for peace. They had a long sitting of parliament, and it was moved and seconded, and unanimously carried, that each give the other a reprieve. It meant the amalgamation of two hearts that became so intertwined with roots that nothing earthly could pull them asunder. It was the founding of one of the happiest homes in Ashcroft. He left his affinity--she left her bed. They became active working partners. Long years after he told her of his ruse. She laughed.

"You saved me," she said.

He endorsed the note, and they had one long, sweet embrace which still lingers in their memory.

Of the Real Santa Claus