Chapter II (4)

He promptly hid, and when Adnah arrived with the bathing suits, that young lady found her aunt calmly seated on the ground, holding Castor and Pollux each by a dripping collar.

"Leave my suit and return to the house at once with these dogs," directed Aunt Matilda without turning her head.

"Why, Aunt Mattie, what's the matter?"

"Nothing!" snapped Aunt Matilda in desperation. "Go back to the house and stay until I come. Ask no questions."

Adnah searched the scene in mystification for a moment.

"Yes, aunty," she suddenly said, and walked away in a flutter of excitement. She had caught the gleam of a bright eye peering at her from among the willows!

She burst into a spontaneous rhapsody of song as she went, trilling and warbling in sweet, untaught cadences, unconsciously like a bird singing to its mate in the springtime. She had a wonderful voice. The young man was sorry when she was out of hearing, but glad, too, for the water was beginning to pucker his cuticle in hard ridges like a wash-board.

"Now, young man," said Aunt Matilda, "I shall leave this bathing suit here for your use. I shall expect you to put it on and retire from the premises as quickly as possible."

"I must remain until nightfall," was the firm reply. "I must find my money and clothes. I should feel ridiculous to be seen in such clothing as that. You, yourself, would scarcely care to have me seen emerging from your premises, on Sunday especially, in such outlandish garments."

That last argument told. Aunt Matilda visibly weakened.

"Very well, then," she grudgingly agreed, "but at dusk--Mercy, young man, how your teeth do chatter! Are you getting a chill? I'll bring you a bowl of boneset tea and some dinner right away!" and she hurried off in much concern.

The young man lost no time in getting into that bathing suit, for the chill of the water was upon him. The suit consisted merely of a pair of blue bloomers that came just below his knees, and a blue blouse that split down the back and at the armpits the moment he buttoned it in front; still he was very grateful for it--grateful for the warm glow that began to pervade him the moment he had donned it. He put on his one sock and his shoes, his hat, collar, tie and cuffs to keep the dogs from getting them, and was quite comfortable when Aunt Matilda came bustling back with a bowl of steaming tea and a tray loaded with good things to eat.

She sat by admiring his appetite until he had finished, then she made him drink the boneset tea to the last drop. He talked admirably all through the "dinner," and it was with a sigh of almost regret that she started away with the empty dishes. She came back presently.

"You will find our summer cottage up in that direction," she pointed out. "We shall expect you to--to keep out of range during the day, but to report at the kitchen door at dusk, when you will be escorted to the road."

"I shall follow your instructions to the letter," he assured her, and she again slowly walked away. To save her, the man-hater could not think of another reasonable excuse for prolonging the interview. He was a most gentlemanly young man, and he had splendid eyes!

The male trespasser spent the next hour in hunting clothes and anathematizing dogs. His finds were confined strictly to rags and pairless arms and sleeves, and finally he gave up, with everything accounted for but worthless. Discovering a high, grassy plot near the creek, screened from the woods by a thick copse of hazel bushes, he lay down to think matters over and promptly fell asleep.

Perhaps half an hour later he slowly opened his eyes with the feeling that he was being compelled to awaken, and found Adnah seated quietly beside him, keeping the mosquitoes away from him with a gracefully waved hazel branch.

"Just sleep right on," she gently urged. "I often sleep for hours on hot afternoons in this very place."

"How did you come here?" he demanded, sitting up, startled.

"I hunted you," she confessed with a delighted little laugh. "I'm so glad you're awake at last and don't want to sleep any more. I felt just sure that your eyes were blue. And they are!"

Her delight at this fact was so obvious that he felt uneasy.

"You see, I listened outside the window while Aunt Mattie told Aunts Ann and Sarah all about you," she confidingly went on. "Aunt Sarah and Aunt Ann were for telephoning for the sheriff anyhow, but Aunt Mattie wouldn't let them. She likes you. So do I."

"Oh!" said the astonished young man. For the first time in his life conversation had failed him.

"Of course," said the girl simply. "Well, I waited until they all lay down for their after-dinner naps, and climbed out of my window so as not to disturb them. They do enjoy their naps so much, you know. I didn't find you at the pool but I just hunted until I did find you. I've been sitting here a long time watching you. You look so nice when you are asleep."

_Now_ what should he say? With any ordinary girl he could have found the answer, but this one had him floored.

"But you look ever so much nicer when you are awake," she further informed him, with a clear-eyed straightforwardness that was worse than disconcerting. In desperation he answered, with her own frankness, that she was nice looking herself. He meant it, too.

"I'm so glad you think so," she contentedly sighed. "I just knew we should like each other as soon as I saw you lying there asleep."

It was he who blushed, not the girl.

She partly raised up to recapture her hazel branch, and when she sat down again her shoulder remained lightly touching his arm. An electric thrill ran through him and tingled out at his fingertips, but he never moved a muscle. She looked up at him in peaceful happiness and he somehow felt very mean and unworthy. Her eyes made him uncomfortable. The whole trouble was that she was so honest--had never been taught to conceal her thoughts by the thousand and one spoken and unspoken lies of ordinary social intercourse. She was neither timid nor bold, but merely natural, with never a suspicion that conventionality demanded a man and a maid to leave a mutual liking unconfessed. It was rather rough on the young man. He was not used to having the truth fly around in such reckless fashion in his conversations with girls, and it bothered him.

"I'm not a bit afraid of you," she presently told him. "I knew all the time that Aunt Mattie was wrong. She told me that all men were dreadful, and that the first thing they did was to--to kiss a girl they liked."

"She knows nothing about it," he replied rather crossly. For some unaccountable reason he was angry with himself and with her.

"Indeed, she doesn't," she agreed, eying him thoughtfully. Presently she added: "I do not believe, though, that I should have minded it so much if she had been right."

Shade of Plato! He looked down at the tempting curve of her red lips. They were round and full and soft as the petals of a half-blown rosebud, warm and tender and sweet, with just the least trace of puckering to indicate how they could meet the pressure of other lips. He felt his heart come pounding up into the region of his Adam's apple, and he trembled as he had not done since his first attack of puppy love at the age of fourteen. His breath came and went with a painful flutter but he made no movement. If it had been any sort of a girl under the sun, especially if so attractive as this one, she would have been kissed until she gasped for breath; but he just couldn't do it. However, if she went so far as to _ask_ him to kiss her, _by George_! he didn't see how he was to get out of it!

"I should really like to kiss you," he admitted with a martyr-like sigh and a further echo of her own frankness, "but I shan't. Under the circumstances it would not be right."

He reflected, grinning, that mother would be proud if she could see him now, then he thought, grinning harder, of the boys at the club. If _they_ only knew!

"There, didn't I say so!" she triumphantly exclaimed. "I told Aunt Matilda that there certainly must be _some_ good men in the world!"

Good! He winced as certain memories of his careless youth began to do cake-walks up and down his conscience. Then he changed the subject.

She snuggled up closely to him, by and by, confidingly and unsuspicious, and just talked and talked and talked. It was very pleasant to have her there at his side, babbling innocently away in that sweet, musical voice. How pretty she was, how artless and trusting, how honest and how heart-whole! It came to him that his family and friends had for a long time been telling him that he ought to get married, and he began to see that they were right.

How delightful it would be to stay on forever in this enchanted grove with her. He presently found himself fervently saying it, though he had not intended such words to pass his lips. She took the wish as a matter of course. She had confidently expected him to feel that way about it, and, if he felt that way, to say so.

"Adnah Eggleson!"

They jumped like juvenile jam-thieves caught red-handed.

Aunt Sarah and Aunt Ann and Aunt Matilda rigidly confronted them, having stolen upon them unseen, unheard, unthought of, and they stood now in grim horror, merciless and implacable. They advanced in a swooping body, after one moment of agonizing suspense, and snatched Adnah into their midst, glaring three kinds of loathing scorn upon the interloping serpent.

"Has this person _kissed_ you, or attempted to do so?" hissed Aunt Sarah.

"Not yet," meekly answered poor Adnah.

"I assure you ladies--," began the serpent, but Aunt Sarah cut him short.

"Silence, sir!" she commanded. "We wish no explanations from you, whatsoever."

Thus crushing him, the little company wheeled and marched away, bearing Adnah an unwilling and impenitent captive, two of them ingeniously keeping behind her so that she should have no opportunity of even exchanging a backward glance with the serpent.

Left to himself the serpent moodily kicked holes in the turf. He had an intense desire to do something violent--to smash something, no matter what. He was furious with the trio of aunts. It was a shame, he told himself, to bury alive a beautiful and noble young woman like that, through a warped and mistaken notion of the world. What right had they to condemn a sweet and affectionate creature such as she to a starved and morbid spinsterhood? It was his duty to rescue her from the colorless fate that hung over her, and he would do his duty. He was unconsciously flexing his biceps as he said it.

Would he? How? Should he get out a search warrant or a writ of replevin? This whimsical view of the case only exasperated him the more as it presented the utter hopelessness of approaching her--of ever seeing her again--and, when the dogs came chasing an utterly inconsequential and useless butterfly in his direction, he pelted them with stones until they yelped. Hang the dogs, anyhow. It was all their fault!

Next he blamed himself. If he had only resisted that creek like a man he wouldn't have been a hundred miles from home without clothes or money, and silly about a girl he had never seen until that day.

Then he blamed the girl. Why, _why_ was she such a confiding and altogether artless and bewitching little fool? She wasn't! He remembered her eyes and abjectly apologized to the memory of her. She was everything that was sweet and pure and womanly--everything that was desirable in every sense--well-bred, well-schooled, unspoiled of the world, without guile or subterfuge, beautiful, healthy, honest. That had been the only startling thing about her--just honesty. It spoke ill for himself and the world in which he lived that this should have seemed startling! What a wonderful creature she was! By the Eternal, she belonged to him and he meant to have her! She loved him, too!

He sat down on the bank to think over this phase of the question. He had known her several years in the minute and a half since noon, and it was time this foolishness came to an end.

Time flies when youth listens to the fancied strains of Mendelssohn's Spring Song. He was surprised, presently, to note a strange hush settling down over the woods. A chill vapor seemed to arise from the water. There was a melancholy note in the tweet of the low-flitting birds. The rustling trees softened their murmur to a continuous whisper, soothing and caressing. The tinkle of the creek became more metallic and pronounced. Near by, down the stream, a sudden chorus of frogs burst into croaking, their isolated notes blended by the chirping undertone of the crickets and tree toads. There were other sounds, mysterious, untraceable, but all musical in greater or lesser degree.

He understood at last. These sounds, the rustling leaves, the flitting birds, the tinkling creek, the frogs, tree toads and crickets and those other intangible cadences, these were the instruments of nature's vast orchestra, playing their lullaby, languorous and sweet, for the drowsy day. It was dusk, and he was desperately in love with Adnah, and he had on a fool bloomer bath suit and no money, and he had to go back into civilization just as he was. Woe, woe, woe and anathema!

At the house he found a table set under a big oak tree back of the kitchen. Supper for one was illumined by the rays of a solitary lantern. Aunt Sarah and Aunt Ann, each with a pistol in her lap, sat grimly to one side. Adnah nor Aunt Matilda were anywhere to be seen, and he divined with a thrill that Aunt Matilda was acting as jailer to the young woman until he should be safely off the premises. Evidently she had been hard to manage. Bless the little girl!

He took off his hat as he approached and bowed respectfully.

"I should like you to know who I am," he began.

"You will please to eat your supper without conversation," Aunt Sarah sternly interrupted.

"I wish to pay my addresses to your niece," he protested, but the two ladies, finding rudeness necessary, clasped their hands to their ears.

"Kindly eat," said Aunt Sarah, without removing her hands.

He sat down and glared at the food in despair. He thought he heard Adnah's voice and the sounds of a scuffle in the house, and it gave him inspiration. He arose, and, leaning his hands on the edge of the table, shouted as loudly as he could:

"I am John Melton, of Philadelphia. I will give you as many references as you like. I wish your permission to write to your niece and, later on, to call upon her. May I do so?"

"Are you going to eat your supper?" inquired Aunt Sarah.

He gave up. He could not, as a gentleman, take Aunt Sarah's hands from her ears and make her listen to what he had to say. He turned sadly away from the table. The armed escort also arose.

"Please lead the way," requested Aunt Sarah. "The path leads directly from the front of the cottage to the road."

He had stalked, in dismal silence, almost half way down the winding avenue of trees, moodily watching the gigantic shadows of his limbs leaping jerkily among the shrubbery, when it occurred to him that the women could scarcely carry the lantern and pistols and still hold their ears.

"I am John Melton, of Philadelphia," he shouted, and looked back to address them more directly. Alas, the pistols reposed in the pockets of the two prim aprons, the lantern smoked askew at Aunt Sarah's waist, and both women were holding their hands to their ears!

He could not know that they had been whispering about him, however, and really, for man-haters, their remarks had been very complimentary. Not even that ridiculous costume could hide his athletic figure, his good carriage and pleasant address.

They were nearing the road when they heard a woman's voice shrieking for them to wait, and presently Aunt Matilda came running after them, breathless and excited.

"You must come back to the house at once, all of you," she panted. "Adnah is wildly hysterical. She insists that she must have this young man, monster or no monster--that she will die without him. I truly believe that she would!"

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Aunt Sarah. "Come on, then!"

It was Aunt Sarah who swiftly and anxiously led the way. At the door of the parlor she paused and confronted the young man.

"Remember," she warned, "that however impulsive our poor, misguided niece may appear, you _must_ not kiss her!"

Without waiting for reply she opened the door for him. Adnah, smiling happily through the last of her tears, sprang to meet him, and, seizing his hand, drew him down on the couch beside her.

"I'm going to keep you here always, now," she declared with pretty authority, as she locked her arm in his and interlaced their fingers.

He looked around at the aunts and suddenly longed for his own clothes. They had drawn their chairs in a close semi-circle about the couch and were helplessly staring. He felt the hot blood burning in his cheeks, on his temples, down the back of his neck.

"You _will_ stay, won't you?" Adnah anxiously asked him.

"I think I shall take you with me, instead," he replied, smiling down at her in an attempt to conquer his embarrassment.

Adnah rapturously sighed. The spectators suddenly arose, retiring to the far corner of the room, where they held an excited, whispered consultation. Presently they came back and sat down in the same solemn half-circle. Aunt Sarah ceremoniously cleared her throat.

"You will please to unclasp your hands and sit farther apart," she directed. This obeyed, she proceeded: "Now, Mr. Nelson--"

"Melton, if you please," corrected the young man, producing a business card that he had rescued.

"Oh!" exclaimed the aunts, exchanging wondering glances.

"We understood that it was Nelson," murmured Aunt Matilda. It seemed that the hands had not been so tightly clasped over the ears as he had thought.

Aunt Sarah gravely adjusted her glasses.

"'John Melton, Jr.,'" she read. "'Representing Melton and Melton, Administrators and Real Estate Dealers. General John A. Melton. John Melton, Jr.'"

There was a suppressed flutter of excitement and again the three aunts exchanged surprised glances.

"I think I may safely say, may I not, Sisters Ann and Matilda, that this quite alters the case?" was Aunt Sarah's strange query.

"Quite so, indeed," agreed Aunt Matilda, complacently smoothing her apron.

"Very much so," added Aunt Ann.

"Decidedly," resumed Aunt Sarah. "Your father, young man, handled the estate of our deceased Uncle Peter in a most upright and satisfactory fashion--for a man. So far, much is in your favor, since our unfortunate niece will not be contented without some sort of a husband. Your personal qualifications have yet to be proved, however. We presume that you can offer documentary evidence as to your own worth, sir?"

"Not for a day or so, unfortunately," confessed the young man. "The dogs destroyed all my papers. The only thing I could find was a portion of a brief note from my mother."

The three aunts, as by one electric impulse, bent forward with shining eyes.

"From your mother!" hungrily repeated Aunt Sarah. "Let us see it, if you will, please."

He produced it reluctantly. It was not exactly the sort of letter a young man cares to parade.

"'My beloved son,'" Aunt Sarah read aloud, pausing to bestow a softened glance upon him. "'I can not wait for your return to say how proud I am of you. Your noble and generous action in regard to the aged widow Crane's property has just come to my ears, through a laughing complaint of your father about your unbusinesslike methods in dealing with those who have been unfortunate. In spite of his whimsically expressed disapproval, he feels that you are an honor to him. Your sister Nellie cried in her pride and love of you when she heard--'"

The rest of the letter had been lost, but this was enough.

Adnah had gradually hitched closer to him, and now her hand, unreproved, stole affectionately to his shoulder. Aunt Matilda was wiping her eyes. Aunt Ann openly sniffled. Aunt Sarah cleared her throat most violently.

"Your references are all that we could wish, young man," she presently admitted in a businesslike tone. "We shall waive, in your favor, our objections to men in general. If we must have one in the family we are to be congratulated upon having one whose mother is proud of him."

Coming from Aunt Sarah this was a marvelous concession. The young man bowed his head in pleased acknowledgment and, by and by, crossed his legs in comfort as a home-like feeling began to settle down upon him. Suddenly observing their bloomered exposure, however, he tried to poke his legs under the couch, and twiddled his thumbs instead.

"And when do our young people expect to be married?" meek Sister Ann presently ventured to inquire.

"As quickly as possible," promptly answered the young man, smiling triumphantly down at the girl by his side. He was astonished, and rather pleased, too, to find her suddenly embarrassed and blushing prettily.

"I believe, then," announced Aunt Sarah, after due deliberation, "that you may now kiss our niece; may he not, Sisters Ann and Matilda?"

"He may!" eagerly assented the others.

"Very well, then, proceed," commanded Aunt Sarah, folding her arms.

The young man hastily braced himself to meet this new shock, then gazed down at the girl again. She was still blushing in her newly-found self-conscious femininity, but she trustingly held up her pretty lips to him, looking full into his eyes with the steady flame of her love burning unveiled--and he kissed her.

"Ah-h-h-h!" sighed the three man-hating spinsters in ecstatic unison.

A LETTER FROM A SELF-MADE MERCHANT TO HIS SON

BY GEORGE HORACE LORIMER

[From John Graham, at the London House of Graham & Co., to his son, Pierrepont, at the Union Stock Yards in Chicago. Mr. Pierrepont is worried over rumors that the old man is a bear on lard, and that the longs are about to make him climb a tree.]

LONDON, October 27, 189-

_Dear Pierrepont:_ Yours of the twenty-first inst. to hand and I note the inclosed clippings. You needn't pay any special attention to this newspaper talk about the Comstock crowd having caught me short a big line of November lard. I never sell goods without knowing where I can find them when I want them, and if these fellows try to put their forefeet in the trough, or start any shoving and crowding, they're going to find me forgetting my table manners, too. For when it comes to funny business I'm something of a humorist myself. And while I'm too old to run, I'm young enough to stand and fight.

First and last, a good many men have gone gunning for me, but they've always planned the obsequies before they caught the deceased. I reckon there hasn't been a time in twenty years when there wasn't a nice "Gates Ajar" piece all made up and ready for me in some office near the Board of Trade. But the first essential of a quiet funeral is a willing corpse. And I'm still sitting up and taking nourishment.

There are two things you never want to pay any attention to--abuse and flattery. The first can't harm you and the second can't help you. Some men are like yellow dogs--when you're coming toward them they'll jump up and try to lick your hands; and when you're walking away from them they'll sneak up behind and snap at your heels. Last year, when I was bulling the market, the longs all said that I was a kindhearted old philanthropist, who was laying awake nights scheming to get the farmers a top price for their hogs; and the shorts allowed that I was an infamous old robber, who was stealing the pork out of the workingman's pot. As long as you can't please both sides in this world, there's nothing like pleasing your own side.

There are mighty few people who can see any side to a thing except their own side. I remember once I had a vacant lot out on the Avenue, and a lady came in to my office and in a soothing-sirupy way asked if I would lend it to her, as she wanted to build a _crèche_ on it. I hesitated a little, because I had never heard of a _crèche_ before, and someways it sounded sort of foreign and frisky, though the woman looked like a good, safe, reliable old heifer. But she explained that a _crèche_ was a baby farm, where old maids went to wash and feed and stick pins in other people's children while their mothers were off at work. Of course, there was nothing in that to get our pastor or the police after me, so I told her to go ahead.

She went off happy, but about a week later she dropped in again, looking sort of dissatisfied, to find out if I wouldn't build the _crèche_ itself. It seemed like a worthy object, so I sent some carpenters over to knock together a long frame pavilion. She was mighty grateful, you bet, and I didn't see her again for a fortnight. Then she called by to say that so long as I was in the business and they didn't cost me anything special, would I mind giving her a few cows. She had a surprised and grieved expression on her face as she talked, and the way she put it made me feel that I ought to be ashamed of myself for not having thought of the live stock myself. So I threw in a half dozen cows to provide the refreshments.

I thought that was pretty good measure, but the carpenters hadn't more than finished with the pavilion before the woman telephoned a sharp message to ask why I hadn't had it painted.

I was too busy that morning to quarrel, so I sent word that I would fix it up; and when I was driving by there next day the painters were hard at work on it. There was a sixty-foot frontage of that shed on the Avenue, and I saw right off that it was just a natural signboard. So I called over the boss painter and between us we cooked up a nice little ad that ran something like this:

Graham's Extract:
It Makes the Weak Strong.

Well, sir, when she saw the ad next morning that old hen just scratched gravel. Went all around town saying that I had given a five-hundred-dollar shed to charity and painted a thousand-dollar ad on it. Allowed I ought to send my check for that amount to the _crèche_ fund. Kept at it till I began to think there might be something in it, after all, and sent her the money. Then I found a fellow who wanted to build in that neighborhood, sold him the lot cheap, and got out of the _crèche_ industry.

I've put a good deal more than work into my business, and I've drawn a good deal more than money out of it; but the only thing I've ever put into it which didn't draw dividends in fun or dollars was worry. That is a branch of the trade which you want to leave to our competitors.

I've always found worrying a blamed sight more uncertain than horse-racing--it's harder to pick a winner at it. You go home worrying because you're afraid that your fool new clerk forgot to lock the safe after you, and during the night the lard refinery burns down; you spend a year fretting because you think Bill Jones is going to cut you out with your best girl, and then you spend ten worrying because he didn't; you worry over Charlie at college because he's a little wild, and he writes you that he's been elected president of the Y.M.C.A.; and you worry over William because he's so pious that you're afraid he's going to throw up everything and go to China as a missionary, and he draws on you for a hundred; you worry because you're afraid your business is going to smash, and your health busts up instead. Worrying is the one game in which, if you guess right, you don't get any satisfaction out of your smartness. A busy man has no time to bother with it. He can always find plenty of old women in skirts or trousers to spend their days worrying over their own troubles and to sit up nights waking his.

Speaking of handing over your worries to others naturally calls to mind the Widow Williams and her son Bud, who was a playmate of mine when I was a boy. Bud was the youngest of the Widow's troubles, and she was a woman whose troubles seldom came singly. Had fourteen altogether, and four pair of 'em were twins. Used to turn 'em loose in the morning, when she let out her cows and pigs to browse along the street, and then she'd shed all worry over them for the rest of the day. Allowed that if they got hurt the neighbors would bring them home; and that if they got hungry they'd come home. And someways, the whole drove always showed up safe and dirty about meal time.

I've no doubt she thought a lot of Bud, but when a woman has fourteen it sort of unsettles her mind so that she can't focus her affections or play any favorites. And so when Bud's clothes were found at the swimming hole one day, and no Bud inside them, she didn't take on up to the expectations of the neighbors who had brought the news, and who were standing around waiting for her to go off into something special in the way of high-strikes.

She allowed that they were Bud's clothes, all right, but she wanted to know where the remains were. Hinted that there'd be no funeral, or such like expensive goings-on, until some one produced the deceased. Take her by and large, she was a pretty cool, calm cucumber.

But if she showed a little too much Christian resignation, the rest of the town was mightily stirred up over Bud's death, and every one just quit work to tell each other what a noble little fellow he was; and how his mother hadn't deserved to have such a bright little sunbeam in her home; and to drag the river between talks. But they couldn't get a rise.

Through all the worry and excitement the Widow was the only one who didn't show any special interest, except to ask for results. But finally, at the end of a week, when they'd strained the whole river through their drags and hadn't anything to show for it but a collection of tin cans and dead catfish, she threw a shawl over her head and went down the street to the cabin of Louisiana Clytemnestra, an old yellow woman, who would go into a trance for four bits and find a fortune for you for a dollar. I reckon she'd have called herself a clairvoyant nowadays, but then she was just a voodoo woman.

Well, the Widow said she reckoned that boys ought to be let out as well as in for half price, and so she laid down two bits, allowing that she wanted a few minutes' private conversation with her Bud. Clytie said she'd do her best, but that spirits were mighty snifty and high-toned, even when they'd only been poor white trash on earth, and it might make them mad to be called away from their high jinks if they were taking a little recreation, or from their high-priced New York customers if they were working, to tend to cut-rate business. Still, she'd have a try, and she did. But after having convulsions for half an hour, she gave it up. Reckoned that Bud was up to some cussedness off somewhere, and that he wouldn't answer for any two-bits.

The Widow was badly disappointed, but she allowed that that was just like Bud. He'd always been a boy that never could be found when any one wanted him. So she went off, saying that she'd had her money's worth in seeing Clytie throw those fancy fits. But next day she came again and paid down four bits, and Clytie reckoned that that ought to fetch Bud sure. Someways though, she didn't have any luck, and finally the Widow suggested that she call up Bud's father--Buck Williams had been dead a matter of ten years--and the old man responded promptly.

"Where's Bud?" asked the Widow.

Hadn't laid eyes on him. Didn't know he'd come across. Had he joined the church before he started?

"No."

Then he'd have to look downstairs for him.

Clytie told the Widow to call again and they'd get him sure. So she came back next day and laid down a dollar. That fetched old Buck Williams' ghost On the jump, you bet, but he said he hadn't laid eyes on Bud yet. They hauled the Sweet By and By with a drag net, but they couldn't get a rap from him. Clytie trotted out George Washington, and Napoleon, and Billy Patterson, and Ben Franklin, and Captain Kidd, just to show that there was no deception, but they couldn't get a whisper even from Bud.

I reckon Clytie had been stringing the old lady along, intending to produce Bud's spook as a sort of red-fire, calcium-light, grand-march-of-the-Amazons climax, but she didn't get a chance. For right there the old lady got up with a mighty set expression around her lips and marched out, muttering that it was just as she had thought all along--Bud wasn't there. And when the neighbors dropped in that afternoon to plan out a memorial service for her "lost lamb," she chased them off the lot with a broom. Said that they had looked in the river for him and that she had looked beyond the river for him, and that they would just stand pat now and wait for him to make the next move. Allowed that if she could once get her hands in "that lost lamb's" wool there might be an opening for a funeral when she got through with him, but there wouldn't be till then. Altogether, it looked as if there was a heap of trouble coming to Bud if he had made any mistake and was still alive.

The Widow found her "lost lamb" hiding behind a rain-barrel when she opened up the house next morning, and there was a mighty touching and affecting scene. In fact, the Widow must have touched him at least a hundred times and every time he was affected to tears, for she was using a bed slat, which is a powerfully strong moral agent for making a boy see the error of his ways. And it was a month after that before Bud could go down Main Street without some man who had called him a noble little fellow, or a bright, manly little chap, while he was drowned, reaching out and fetching him a clip on the ear for having come back and put the laugh on him.

No one except the Widow ever really got at the straight of Bud's conduct, but it appeared that he left home to get a few Indians scalps, and that he came back for a little bacon and corn pone.

I simply mention the Widow in passing as an example of the fact that the time to do your worrying is when a thing is all over, and that the way to do it is to leave it to the neighbors. I sail for home to-morrow.

Your affectionate father, JOHN GRAHAM.

FAREWELL

_Provoked by Calverley's "Forever"_

By Bert Leston Taylor

"Farewell!" Another gloomy word
As ever into language crept.
'Tis often written, never heard,
Except

In playhouse. Ere the hero flits--
In handcuffs--from our pitying view.
"Farewell!" he murmurs, then exits
R.U.

"Farewell" is much too sighful for
An age that has not time to sigh.
We say, "I'll see you later," or
"Good-by!"

When, warned by chanticleer, you go
From her to whom you owe devoir,
"Say not 'good-by,'" she laughs, "but
'Au Revoir!'"

Thus from the garden are you sped;
And Juliet were the first to tell
You, you were silly if you said
"Farewell!"

"Farewell," meant long ago, before
It crept, tear-spattered, into song,
"Safe voyage!" "Pleasant journey!" or
"So long!"

But gone its cheery, old-time ring;
The poets made it rhyme with knell--
Joined it became a dismal thing--
"Farewell!"

"Farewell!" into the lover's soul
You see Fate plunge the fatal iron.
All poets use it. It's the whole
Of Byron.

"I only feel--farewell!" said he;
And always fearful was the telling--
Lord Byron was eternally
Farewelling.

"Farewell!" A dismal word, 'tis true
(And why not tell the truth about it!);
But what on earth would poets do
Without it?

MY RUTHERS

BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY

[Writ durin' State Fair at Indanoplis, whilse visitin' a Soninlaw then residin' thare, who has sence got back to the country whare he says a man that's raised thare ot to a-stayed in the first place.]

I tell you what I'd ruther do--
Ef I only had my ruthers,--
I'd ruther work when I wanted to
Than be bossed round by others;--
I'd ruther kindo' git the swing
O' what was _needed_, first, I jing!
Afore I _swet_ at anything!--
Ef I only had my ruthers;--
In fact I'd aim to be the same
With all men as my brothers;
And they'd all be the same with _me_--
Ef I only had my ruthers.

I wouldn't likely know it all--
Ef I only had my ruthers;--
I'd know _some_ sense, and some base-ball--
Some _old_ jokes, and--some others:
I'd know _some politics_, and 'low
Some tarif-speeches same as now,
Then go hear Nye on "Branes and How
To Detect Theyr Presence." _T'others_,
That stayed away, I'd _let_ 'em stay--
All my dissentin' brothers
Could chuse as shore a kill er cuore,
Ef I only had my ruthers.

The pore 'ud git theyr dues _some_times--
Ef I only had my ruthers,--
And be paid _dollars_ 'stid o' _dimes_,
Fer children, wives and mothers:
Theyr boy that slaves; theyr girl that sews--
Fer _others_--not herself, God knows!--
The grave's _her_ only change of clothes!
... Ef I only had my ruthers,
They'd all have "stuff" and time enugh
To answer one-another's
Appealin' prayer fer "lovin' care"--
Ef I only had my ruthers.

They'd be few folks 'ud ast fer trust,
Ef I only had my ruthers,
And blame few business-men to bu'st
Theyrselves, er harts of others:
Big Guns that come here durin' Fair-
Week could put up jest anywhare,
And find a full-and-plenty thare,
Ef I only had my ruthers:
The rich and great 'ud 'sociate
With all theyr lowly brothers,
Feelin' _we_ done the honorun--
Ef I only had my ruthers.

THE DUTIFUL MARINER[4]

BY WALLACE IRWIN

'Twas off the Eastern Filigrees--
Wizzle the pipes o'ertop!--
When the gallant Captain of the Cheese
Began to skip and hop.

"Oh stately man and old beside,
Why dost gymnastics do?
Is such example dignified
To set before your crew?"

"Oh hang me crew," the Captain cried,
"And scuttle of me ship.
If I'm the skipper, blarst me hide!
Ain't I supposed to skip?

"I'm growing old," the Captain said;
"Me dancing days are done;
But while I'm skipper of this ship
I'll skip with any one.

"I'm growing grey," I heard him say,
"And I can not rest or sleep
While under me the troubled sea
Lies forty spasms deep.

"Lies forty spasms deep," he said;
"But still me trusty sloop
Each hour, I wot, goes many a knot
And many a bow and loop.

"The hours are full of knots," he said,
"Untie them if ye can.
In vain I've tried, for Time and Tied
Wait not for any man.

"Me fate is hard," the old man sobbed,
"And I am sick and sore.
Me aged limbs of rest are robbed
And skipping is a bore.

"But Duty is the seaman's boast,
And on this gallant ship
You'll find the skipper at his post
As long as he can skip."

And so the Captain of the Cheese
Skipped on again as one
Who lofty satisfaction sees
In duty bravely done.

[Footnote 4: From "Nautical Lays of a Landsman," by Wallace Irwin. Copyright, 1904, by Dodd, Mead & Co.]

MELINDA'S HUMOROUS STORY

BY MAY McHENRY

Melinda was dejected. She told herself that she was groping in the vale of despair, that life was a vast, gray, echoing void. She decided that ambition was dead--a case of starvation; that friendship had slipped through too eagerly grasping fingers; that love--ah, _love_!--

"You'd better take a dose of blue-mass," her aunt suggested when she had sighed seven times dolefully at the tea table.

"Not _blue_-mass. Any other kind of mass you please, but _not_ blue," Melinda shuddered absently.

No; she was not physically ill; the trouble was deeper--soul sickness, acute, threatening to become chronic, that defied allopathic doses of favorite and other philosophers, that would not yield even to hourly repetition of the formula handed down from her grandmother--"If you can not have what you want, try to want what you have." Yet she could lay her finger on no bleeding heart-wound, on no definite cause. It was true that the deeply analytical, painstakingly interesting historical novel on which she had worked all winter had been sent back from the publishers with a briefly polite note of thanks and regrets; but as she had never expected anything else, that could not depress her. Also, the slump in G.C. Copper stock had forced her to give up her long-planned southern trip and even to forego the consolatory purchase of a spring gown; but she had a mind that could soar above flesh-pot disappointments. Then, the Reverend John Graham;--but what John Graham did or said was nothing--absolutely nothing, to her.

So Melinda clenched her hands and moaned in the same key with the east wind and told the four walls of her room that she could not endure it; she must _do_ something. Then it was, that in a flash of inspiration, it came to her--she would write a humorous story.

The artistic fitness of the idea pleased her. She had always understood that humorists were marked by a deep-dyed melancholy, that the height of unhappiness was a vantage-ground from which to view the joke of existence. She would test the dictum; now, if ever, she would write humorously. The material was at hand, seething and crowding in her mind, in fact--the monumental dullness and complacent narrowness of the villagers, the egoism, the conceit, the bland shepherd-of-his-flock pomposity of John Graham. What more could a humorist desire? Yes; she would write.

Thoughts came quick and fast; words flowed in a fiery stream like lava that glows and rushes and curls and leaps down the mountain, sweeping all obstacles aside. (The figure did not wholly please Melinda, for everybody knows how dull and gray and uninteresting lava is when it cools, but she had no time to bother with another.) She felt the exultation, the joy and uplifting of spirit that is the reward--usually, alas, the sole reward--of the writer in the work of creation.

Then before the lava had time to cool she sent the story to the first magazine on her list with a name beginning with "A." It was her custom to send them that way, though sometimes with a desire to be impartial she commenced at "Z" and went up the list.

At the end of two weeks the wind had ceased blowing from the east. Melinda decided that though life for her must be gray, echoing, void, yet would she make an effort for the joy of others. She would lift herself above the depression that enfolded her even as the buoyant hyacinths were cleaving their dark husks and lifting up the beauty and fragrance of their hearts to solace passers-by. Therefore she ceased parting her hair in the middle and ordered a simple little frock from D----'s--hyacinth blue _voile_ with a lining that should whisper and rustle like the glad winds whisking away last year's leaves.

Then the day came when she strolled carelessly and unexpectantly down the village street to the post-office and there received a letter that bore on the upper left-hand corner of the envelope the name of the magazine first on her list beginning with "A." A chill passed along Melinda's spine. That humorous story--Could this mean?--It was too horrible to contemplate.

She took a short cut through the orchard and as she walked she tore off a corner and peeped into the envelope. Yes, there was a pale-blue slip of paper with serrated edges. She leaned against a Baldwin apple-tree to think.

How true it is that one should be prepared for the unexpected. Melinda had sent out many manuscripts freighted with tingling hopes and eager aspirations and with the postage stamps that insured their prompt return; how was she to know, by what process of reasoning could she infer that this, that had been offered simply from force of habit, would be retained in exchange for an æsthetically tinted check? She anathematized the magazine editor. (That seems the proper thing to do with editors.) She wanted to know what business he had to keep that story after having led her to believe that it was his unbreakable custom to send them back. It was deception, she told the swelling Baldwin buds, base, deep-dyed, subtle deception. After baiting her on with his little, pink, printed rejection slips, he suddenly sprung a wicked trap.

It was some time before Melinda grew calm enough to read the editorial letter. It ran:

_"Dear Madam--We are glad to have your tender and delicately
sympathetic picture of village life. There is a note of true
sentiment and a generous appreciation of homely virtue marking this
story for which we desire to add an especial word of praise. Check
enclosed._

_"Very truly yours,
"The Editor of A----."_

Melinda sank limply on the bleached, last year's grass at the foot of the tree. "Tender and delicately sympathetic picture"--"Generous appreciation!" She laughed feebly. The editor was pleased to be facetious. Having a fine sense of humor himself he showed his realization of the story by acknowledging it in the same vein of subtle satire.

She reread the letter and unfolded the slip of paper with serrated edges with changing emotions. After all it was not such a very bad story. She permitted herself to recall how humorous it was, how cleverly and keenly it laid bare the ridiculous, the unexpected, how it scintillated with wit and abounded in droll and subtle distinctions and descriptions--all--all at the expense of her nearest relatives and her dearest friends.

Melinda thought she would return the check and demand that her story be sent back to her or destroyed; but, reflecting that Punch's advice is applicable to other things than matrimony and suicide, she didn't. She resolutely put her literary Frankenstein behind her. She reasoned that in all probability the story would not be published during the lifetime of any of the originals of the characters; that even if the worst came to the worst, Mossdale was likely to remain in ignorance that would be blissful. The villagers were not wont to waste time on the printed word; in fact, such was the profundity of their unenlightenment, few of them had heard of the magazine with a name beginning with "A." Even John Graham paid little attention to the secular periodicals; besides, if absolutely necessary, John's attention might be diverted.

So Melinda went away on a visit. Her health demanded it. The doctor was unable to name her malady, but she herself diagnosed it as _magazinitis_.

Toward fall Melinda, entirely recovered, returned to Mossdale. Entirely recovered, yet she turned cold, unseeing eyes on the newsboy when he passed through the car with his towering load of varicolored periodicals, and rather than be forced to the final resort of the unaccompanied traveler, she welcomed the advent of an acquaintance possessed of volubility of an ejaculatory, eruptive variety. After many gentle jets and spurts of gossip much remained to be told, as the lady hastily gathered up her impedimenta preparatory to alighting at her home station.

"How like me in the joy of seeing you, to forget! What a sweet, clever story! And to think of _you_ having something published in 'A----'! I never was more surprised than when Mr. Ferguson brought home the magazine. Those delicious Mossdale people! I could not endure that the dear things should not see and know at once. The lovely hamlet is so--so remote, and I knew you were traveling. What a pleasure to send them half a dozen copies that very evening!--Yes, porter, that, too--_Do_ run down to see me soon, dear--Now _do_. _Good_-by!"

Melinda summoned the newsboy and bought the latest number of the magazine with a name beginning with "A." She turned to the list of "Contents" with feverish anxiety, then the book slid from her nerveless fingers. Her humorous story had been given to an eager public. She leaned back and gazed out at the flying telegraph poles and fields. Even the worthiest, the gravest, the finest, she reflected, has a face, that if seen in a certain light, will flash out the ignus fatuus of the ridiculous; but it is not usually considered the office of friendship to turn on the betraying light. Oh, well, her relatives would forgive in time. Relatives _have_ to forgive. It was unfortunate that John Graham was not a relative. "One thing, I know now how much Mrs. Ferguson cares because I got those six votes ahead of her for the Thursday Club presidency--Half a dozen copies!" Melinda said aloud as she caught sight of the spire of the Mossdale Church.

Her Uncle Joe met her at the station and kissed her for the first time since she had put on long dresses. Notwithstanding a foolish prejudice against tobacco juice Melinda received the salute in a meek and contrite spirit.

"Notice how many citizens were hanging around underfoot on the depot platform--so as you kinder had to stop and shake hands to get 'em out o' the way?" Uncle Joe queried as he turned the colts' heads toward home.

Melinda had noticed. "I suppose they came out to see the train come in," she suggested.

"Nope; not exactly." Uncle Joe explained, "Looking out for automo_biles_ and flying airships have made trains of cars seem mighty common up this way. Nope; the folks was out on account of you a-comin'."

"Me?" Having a guilty conscience Melinda glanced backward apprehensively and made a motion as though to dodge a missile.

"Yep; and you'll find a lot of the relations at the house a-waitin' for you."

"Why--what--? Now look here, Uncle Joe, there is no occasion to be foolish about a little--"

"Foolish? Now, mebby some would call it foolish, but us folks up the creek here we can't help feelin' set up some over findin' out we have a second Milton or a Mrs. Stowe in the fambly."

Melinda looked at her relative's concave profile in sick suspicion. Was the trail of the serpent over them all? But no, Uncle Joe was beaming mildly with the satisfaction of having shown that although the literary hemisphere was the unknown land, he had heard of a mountain and a minor elevation or two; he was, as she had always believed, incapable of satire.

For once Melinda was speechless. But Uncle Joe was likely to be fluent when he got started. He cleared his throat and turned mild, suffused, half-shamed blue eyes on his shrinking niece. "Yes, your piece has come out in the paper, Melinda, and your folks are all-fired pleased with you. I told Lucy this morning I wisht your poor Pap could come back to earth for just this one day."