Chapter VI: Part 6

And the road was reached at last, and the blushing and beaming young lady set down upon her feet. She didn't say anything but reached out her hand to Jack, and led him on a run to the schoolhouse. The fire had been kindled into roaring strength by those first to reach the place, and all the soaked ones gathered about the stove and steamed there into relative degrees of dryness. Jack steamed with the rest, but he was in a dream--one of the blissful type.

In time the teacher returned, and with him a farmer and his hired man, and a team and a wagon-load of plank, too late for aid, even had aid been practicable. There was no school that afternoon. The teacher could not accuse any one of fault, nor blame the pupils that they had hesitated when he called them; while, on the other hand, he was deterred from saying anything commendatory of the waders. He suspected something, he couldn't tell exactly what, and he didn't propose to commit himself. The most he could do was to recognize the fact that the big boys should get to their homes as soon as possible and dry their boots and stockings. He dismissed the pupils, and so that eventful day was ended. Jack's boots were full of dampness still, and his feet were chilly, but as he walked home he walked on air.

The succeeding night was one of bitter cold, and the morning saw the ice upon the flats no longer yielding, but so thick and solid that wagons might be driven upon it anywhere without a risk. Even the lately opened space about the partly submerged jumper was frozen over, and the top of the Red Revenger showed where that interesting but ill-fated craft was fixed for some time to come. "On account of she's frozen in so deep, we'd better let 'er stay there," commented Billy; and so coasting, save upon ordinary sleds, was discontinued for the season. It was pretty near spring, anyhow.

The frost-decorated windows of the schoolhouse blazed in the morning sun, and was a glory on the heads of the girls. But no head was so bright, in the opinion of Jack Burrows, as that of Jennie Orton. Her brown hair gleamed like gold, and as for the rest of her--well he thought as he looked across the room, there was nothing to improve. It seemed hardly possible that only the afternoon before he had held that creature in his arms and carried her so three hundred feet or more. It was all true, though, and Jennie had smiled across at him just now. He was more deeply in love than ever, but his timidity had somehow much abated. She was as beautiful as ever, but she seemed more human. He felt that he could speak to her, make love to her, as he might to another girl. Of course he couldn't do it very confidently, but he could venture, and he resolved to ask leave to bring her to the spelling school that very evening. He did so, pluckily, at recess, and she consented.

As they were walking home that night, they fell naturally to talking of the grewsome adventure of the day before; and Jennie asked Jack, innocently, to explain to her the method by which he and Billy were accustomed to steer the Red Revenger. He explained fluently and with some pride, and she listened with close attention. When he had done she remained silent for a few moments, and then said quietly:

"You did it on purpose."

The young man was dazed. He could say nothing at first, but managed finally to blunder out:

"How did you know that?"

"I saw you and Billy look at each other, and saw you push down hard on the stake. Why did you do it?"

Jack was truthful at least, and, furthermore, he had perception keen enough to see that in his present strait was afforded opportunity for speaking to the point on a subject he had feared to venture. He was reckless now.

"I wanted to carry you ashore in my arms," he said.

There was, as any thoughtful girl would admit, really nothing in all this for Jennie to get very angry over, and, to do her credit, it must be added that she showed no anger at all. Of the details of what more was said, information is unfortunately and absolutely lacking, but certain it is that before Jennie's home was reached Jack's arm had found a place not very far from that which it had occupied the afternoon before.

They marry young in the country, but seventeen and eighteen are ages, which, even on the farm, are not considered sufficiently advanced for such grave venture, and so, though Jack's wooing prospered famously, there was no wedding in the spring. There was the most trustful and delightful of understandings, though, and three years later Jennie came from the town to live permanently on the farm, and her name was changed to Burrows.

"On account of the Red Revenger was a pirate craft, and took to the water naturally, Jack got braced up to begin his courting, and so got married," said Billy, in explanation of the event.

A MURDERER'S ACCOMPLICE

It is part of my good fortune in life to know a beautiful and lovable woman. She is as sweet, it seems to me, as any woman can be who has come into this world. She is good. She is not very rich, but she helps the needy as far as she can from her moderate purse. I have known her to attend at the bedside of a poor dying person when the doctor had told her that the trouble might be smallpox. I should say, at a venture, that this woman will go to heaven when she dies. But she will not go to heaven unless ignorance is an excuse for wickedness. If she does go there, it must be as the savage goes who knows no better than to do things which thoughtful people, to whom what is good has been taught, count as cruel and merciless. As the savage is a murderer, so is she the accomplice of a murderer, although it is possible that by the Great Judge neither may be so classified at the end, because of their lack of knowing.

I met this lovable woman on the street the other day, and we walked and talked together. She had only good in her heart in all she was planning to do. She had taste for outlines and color, and she was very fair to look upon. Her dress--"tailor-made," I think the women call it--set off her perfect figure to advantage, and her hat was a symmetrical completion of the whole effect. It was a neat, well-proportioned whole, the woman and her toilet, which I, being a man, of course, cannot describe. One of her adornments was the head, breast, and wing of a Baltimore oriole, worn in her hat.

I met this same woman again a day or two ago in another garb not less charming and artistic. We ate luncheon together, and it made life worth living to be with a creature so fair and good. In her hat this time was a touch of the sky when it lies over a great lake. It was the wing of a bluebird.

I know--or knew--four birds, and to know a fair bird well is almost equal to knowing a fair woman well, though they have different ways. Two of these birds that I knew were orioles and two were bluebirds. The two orioles and the two bluebirds were husbands and wives. I stumbled upon them all last year. The bluebirds had a nest in a hole in a hard maple stump in a clearing in St. Clair County, Michigan. The orioles' nest was well woven in pear shape, dangling from close-swinging twigs at the end of an elm limb which hung over a creek in Orange County, Indiana. The male oriole attended faithfully to the wants of his soberer-hued wife sitting upon the four eggs in their nest. He was gorgeous all over, in his orange and black, and as faithfully and gallantly as the male bluebird did he regard his mate, and he was, if possible, even more jealous and watchful in his unwearied care of her.

They made two very happy and earnest families. Each male, in addition to caring for his mate, did good in the world for men and women. Each killed noxious worms and insects for food, and each, in the very exuberance of the flush year, and of living, gave forth at times such music that all men, women, and children who listened, though they might be dull and ignorant, somehow felt better, and were better as well as happier human beings. But there was death in the air. The male oriole and the male bluebird had each a brilliant coat!

Young were hatched in each of these two nests--vigorous, clamoring young, coming from the eggs of the beautiful bird couples. The father and mother oriole and the father and mother bluebird, each pair vain and prettily jubilant over what had happened, worked very hard to bring food to the open mouths of their offspring. The young ones were growing and flourishing, and they were all happy.

One day, in St. Clair County, Michigan, a man armed with a shotgun went out into a clearing. The shot in the gun was of the kind known as "mustard-seed." It is so fine that it will not mar the feathers of the bird it kills. On the same day, possibly, or at least very nearly at the same time, a man similarly armed strolled down beside a creek in Orange County, Indiana. The man in Michigan wanted to kill the beautiful male bluebird who was bringing food to his young ones. The man in Indiana wanted to kill the magnificent male oriole who was feeding his young birds in the nest. It was not difficult for either of these two brutes to kill the two happy bird fathers. They were business-like butchers, just of the type of man who make the dog-catchers in cities--and they had no nerves and shot well. One of them took home a beautiful dead oriole, and the other took not one but two beautiful bluebirds, for as the male bluebird came back to the nest with food for the younglings, it so chanced that the female came also, and the same charge of shot killed them both.

"She isn't quite as purty as the he-bird," said the man, as he picked up the two, "but maybe I can get a little something for her."

The man who shot the oriole would have gladly committed and profited by a similar double murder had the mother bird happened upon the scene when he shot her orange-and-black mate.

These two slayers, who carried shotguns loaded with "mustard-seed" shot, went out after the beautiful birds, because from Chicago and New York had come into their country certain men who represented great millinery furnishing houses, and these men had left word with local dealers in the country towns that they would pay money for the beautiful feathers of bluebirds and orioles and other birds. The little local dealers were promised a profit on all such spoils sent by them to the great city dealers, and they had set the men with the shotguns at work. Mating time and nesting time are the times for murdering birds, because at that season not only is their plumage finest, but the birds are more easily to be found and killed. It is then that they sing their clearest and strongest notes of joy; then, that they hover constantly near their nests; and it is very easy to stop their music.

So there remained in the nest in the maple stump four little helpless orphan bluebirds, and in the swaying nest in the elm-tree over the brook were four young orioles with only the mother bird to care for them. The widowed oriole fluttered about and beat her wings against the bushes in vain search for her lost love--for birds love as madly, and, I have sometimes thought, more faithfully than do human beings. But her children clamored, and the oriole had the mother instinct as well as the faithful love in her, and so she went to work for them. She didn't know how to get food for them very well at first, for bird wives and husbands have in some ways the same relations that we human beings have when we are wives and husbands. The male oriole, who had been learning where the insects and worms are, where whatever is good for little birds is, all through the time while the female bird is sitting on the nest, must necessarily know much more than his wife as to where things to eat for the children may be found nearest and most easily and swiftly. That is the great lesson the male bird learns while the female is sitting on the eggs and maturing into life the new creatures whose birth and being shall make this little loving couple happy in the way the good God has designated one form of happiness shall come to His creatures, be they with or without feathers.

The forlorn mother did as best she could. She fluttered through brakes and bushes seeking food for her young, but her children did not thrive very well. She worked so hard for them--human mothers and bird mothers are very much alike in this way--that she became thin and weak, and with each day that passed she brought less food to the little ones in the wonderfully constructed nest which she and her husband had made in the spring, when the smell of the liverworts was in the air, and muskrats swam together and made love to each other in the creek below. She sometimes, in the midst of her trouble (the trouble which came because my sweet woman, must have a bird's feather in her hat) would think of that springtime homemaking, and then this poor little widow would give a little bird gasp. That was all. One day she had searched hard for food for her young, for as they grew bigger they demanded more and were more arrogantly hungry. As she perched to rest a moment upon a twig, beneath which in the grass were a few late dandelions, she felt coming over her a weakness she could not resist. As a matter of fact, the bird mother had been overworked and so killed. Birds, overpressed, die as human beings do. So the mother bird, after a few moments, fell off the twig upon which she had paused for rest, and lay, a pretty little dead thing down in the grass among the dandelions. Then, of course, her children gasped and writhed and clamored in the nest, and at last, almost together, died of starvation.

Days and days before this the history of the bluebird family had ended. The four little bluebirds, being merely helpless young birds, lone and hungry, did nothing for a few hours after their bereavement but call for food, as was a habit of theirs. But nothing came to them--neither their father nor their mother came. They didn't know much except to be hungry, these little bluebirds. They couldn't know much, of course, as young as they were, and being but bird things with stomachs, they just wanted something to eat. They did not even know that if they did not get the food they wanted so much the ants would come and the other creatures of nature, and eat them. But they cried aloud, and more and more faintly, and at last were still. And the ants came. They found four little things with blue feathers just sprouting upon them, particularly upon the wings, where the growth seemed strongest and bluest, but the four little things were dead. It was all delightful for the ants and the other small things; all good in their way, who came seeking food. The very young birds, which had died gasping, that a woman might wear bright feathers in her hat, were fine eating for the ants.

Of course, one cannot tell very well in detail how a starving young bird dies. It is but a little creature with great possibilities of song and beauty and happiness; but if something big and strong kills its father and mother, then there is nothing for it but to lie back in the nest and open its mouth in vain for food, and then it must finally, a preposterously awfully suffering little lump of flesh and starting feathers, look up at the sky and die in hungry agony. Then the ants come.

The story I have told of the two bird families and how they died is true. Worst of all it is that theirs is a tragedy repeated in reality thousands and thousands of times every year; yet the beautiful woman I tried to describe at the beginning of this account wears birds and their wings on her hat. It is because she and other women wear birds' feathers that these tragic things take place in the woods and clearings and open spaces of God's beautiful world. I say to any woman in all the world that she is wicked if she wears the feather of any of the birds which make the world happier and better for being in it. If women must wear feathers, there are enough for their adornment from birds used for food, and from the ostrich, which is not injured when its plumes are taken.

So long as my beautiful woman wears the feathers of the bluebird, the oriole, or any other of the singing creatures of God, I call her the accomplice of a murderer. I have talked to her, but somehow I cannot make her listen to the story of what lies back of the feathers on her hat. She is more accustomed to praise than blame. When this is printed I shall send it to her, and it may be that she will read it and grow earnest over it, and that her heart will be touched, and that she will never again deserve the name she merits now.

* * * * *

There are, it is said, certain savages--just barely human beings--called Dyaks. They have become famous to the world as "head-hunters." These Dyaks creep through miles of forest paths and kill as many as they can of another lot of people, and then cut off the heads of the slain and dry them, and hang them up, arranged on lines more or less artistically festooned about the place in which they live. This exhibition of dried and dead human heads seems to make these swart and murderous savages vain and glad. These people are, as we understand, or think we understand, but undeveloped, cruel, bloody-minded human creatures. They prefer dried human heads to delicate ferns showing wonderful outlines, or to brilliant leaves and fragrant flowers. They have their own ideas concerning decoration.

Upon a dozen or two of the islands in the Southern Pacific, where the waves lap the sloping sands lazily, and life should be calm and peaceful, there are, or were until lately, certain people who occasionally killed certain other people for reasons sufficiently good, no doubt, to them; and who thus coming into possession of a group of dead creatures with fingers, conceived the idea that the fingers of these dead, when dried, would make most artistic, not to say suggestive, necklaces. So they strung these dried fingers upon something strong and pliant, and wore them with much pride.

When I see the bright feathers of birds, slain that hats may be garnished for the thoughtless females of a higher grade of beings, I am reminded somehow of the Dyaks and of the wearers of the necklaces made of fingers.

A MID-PACIFIC FOURTH

The sun shone very fairly on a green hillside, from which could be seen the town of Honolulu, the capital of Hawaii. The sun makes some very fair efforts at shining upon and around those islands lying thousands of miles out in the Pacific Ocean. He was doing his best on this particular morning, and under his influence, so brightening everything, two little boys and a little jackass were having a good time near a long, low, rakish, but far from piratical-looking house upon the hillside already mentioned. One of the boys was white, one of the boys was brown, and the little jackass was gray. The name of the white boy was William Harrison, though he was always called Billy, and his father, an American merchant in Honolulu, owned the house near which the boys were playing. The name of the brown boy was Manua Loa, or something like that, but he was always called Cocoanut, the nickname agreeing perfectly with his general solid, nubbinish appearance. The name of the jackass was Julius Caesar, but he wore almost no facial resemblance to his namesake. The date of the day on which the little boys and the little jackass were out there together was July 3, 1897.

As far as the three playmates were concerned, there was a practical equality in their relations between Billy and Cocoanut and Julius Caesar. Billy's father was a rich white man, but Cocoanut's father was a native and of some importance, too; and as for Julius Caesar he was quite capable at times of asserting his own standing among the trio. He could be, on occasions, one of the most animated kicking little jackasses living upon this globe, upon which the moon doesn't shine quite as well as the sun does. On the occasion here referred to the little jackass stood apart with head hanging down toward the ground, silent and unmoving, and apparently revolving in his own mind something concerning the geology of the Dog Star. He could be a most reflective little beast upon occasion. The boys sat together on a knoll, their heads close together, engaged in earnest and animated and sometimes loud-voiced conversation. There was occasion for their lively interest. They were discussing the Fourth of July. They were about equally ardent, but if there were any difference it was in favor of Cocoanut, who, within the year, had become probably the most earnest American citizen upon the face of the civilized globe. His information regarding the United States and American citizenship had, of course, been derived from Billy, who had derived it from his father; and Billy's father had told Billy, who in turn had told Cocoanut, that by the next Fourth of July the Stars and Stripes would be flying from the flagstaffs of Hawaii, and that then, on the Fourth, small boys could celebrate just as small boys did in the United States. Thenceforth Billy and Cocoanut observed the flags above Honolulu closely, but neither of them had ever seen the Stars and Stripes lying flattened out aloft by the sea breeze. They had faith, though, and their faith had been justified by their works. They had between them, as the result of much begging from parents and doing a little work occasionally, gathered together probably the most astonishing supply of firecrackers ever possessed by two boys of their size and degree of understanding. There were package upon package of the small, ordinary Chinese firecrackers, and there were a dozen or two of the big "cannon" firecrackers which have come into vogue of late years, and the first manufacturer of whom should be taken out somewhere and hanged with all earnestness. They were now consulting regarding the morrow. Would the flag fly over Honolulu and could they celebrate? They didn't know, but they had a degree of faith. Then they wandered off somewhere with Julius Caesar and had a good time all day, but ever the morrow was in their mind.

It was early the next morning when the two boys and Julius Caesar were again on the point of hill overlooking Honolulu. It was so early that the flags had not yet been hoisted over the public buildings. Each boy carried a package, and these they unrolled and laid out together. The display was something worth looking at. Any boy who could see that layout of firecrackers and not feel a kind of a tingling run over him resembling that which comes when he takes hold of the two handles of an electrical machine wouldn't be a boy worth speaking of. He wouldn't be the sort of a boy who had it in him to ever become President of the United States, or captain of a baseball nine, or anything of that sort. But these two boys quivered. Cocoanut quivered more than Billy did.

Silently the two boys and Julius Caesar awaited the raising of the flags over Honolulu. Could they or could they not let off their firecrackers? They might as well, said Cocoanut, be getting ready, anyhow, and so he began tying strings of firecrackers together, adjusting cannon crackers at intervals between the smaller ones, and adding Billy's string of crackers to his own. When completed there were just thirty-seven and one-half feet of firecrackers of variegated quality. Billy looked on listlessly, and Cocoanut himself hardly knew why he was making this arrangement. The sun bounced up out of the ocean, a great red ball behind the thin fog, and bunting climbed the flagstaffs of Honolulu. With eager eyes the boys gazed cityward until the moment when the breeze had straightened out the flags and the device upon them could be seen. Then they looked upon each other blankly. It was not the Stars and Stripes, but the Hawaiian flag which floated there below them!

They didn't know what to do, these poor boys who wanted to be patriots that morning and couldn't. They sat down disconsolately near to the heels of Julius Caesar, who was whisking his stubby tail about occasionally in vengeful search of an occasional fly. It chanced that in the midst of this he slapped Cocoanut across the face, and that Cocoanut incontinently grabbed the tail, to keep it from further demonstration of the sort. Julius Caesar did not kick at this, because it was too trifling a matter. Far better would it have been for Julius Caesar had he kicked then and there, but the relation of why comes later on. Lost in their sorrows, Cocoanut and Billy communed together, and Cocoanut, in the forgetfulness of deep reflection began plaiting together the end of the string of firecrackers and the hairs in the tail of Julius Caesar. He was a good plaiter, was Cocoanut--they do such work with grasses and things in and about Honolulu, and lots of little Hawaiians are good plaiters--and it may be said of the job that when completed, although done almost unconsciously, it was a good one. That string of thirty-seven and one-half feet of firecrackers was not going to leave the tail of that little jackass except under most extraordinary circumstances.

A fly of exceptional vigor assaulted Julius Caesar upon the flank, and his tail not whisking as well as usual, because of the incumbrance, he missed the enemy at the first swish and moved uneasily forward for several feet. As it chanced, this movement left the other string of firecrackers fairly in the lap of Cocoanut. The boys were still discussing the situation.

"It's too bad; it's too bad," said Billy. "What'll we do?"

"I don't know," said Cocoanut.

"Do you think we dare let 'em off even if the flag didn't fly?" said Billy.

"I don't know," said Cocoanut.

"I believe I'll get on Julius Caesar and ride a little," said Billy, "and you throw stones at him and hit him if you can. It's pretty hard to make him run, you know."

"All right," said Cocoanut.

Billy rose and wandered over and mounted Julius Caesar, Cocoanut barely turning his head and watching the white boy lazily as Billy gathered up the bridle, which was the only equipment Julius Caesar had. It was then, just as Billy had fairly settled himself down, that an inspiration came to Cocoanut.

"Lemme let off just one little cracker," he said. "Mebbe it'll start Julius Caesar a-going," and Billy joyously assented.

Now Cocoanut had never seen the effect which a whole string of firecrackers can produce. He had assisted in firing one or two little ones, and that was all he knew about it. Billy didn't know that the string of firecrackers was attached to the tail of Julius Caesar, and Cocoanut himself had absolutely forgotten it. Cocoanut produced a match and lit it and carefully ignited the thin, papery end of the ultimate little cracker on the string, and it smoked away and nickered and sputtered toward its object.

There have been various exciting occasions upon the island whereon is Honolulu. There have been some great volcanic explosions there, and earthquakes and tidal waves. It is to be doubted, however, if upon that charming island ever occurred anything more complete and alarming and generally spectacular, in a small way, than followed the moment when the first cracker exploded of that string of thirty-seven and one-half feet attached to the tail of Julius Caesar. Cocoanut had expected one cracker to go off, but had anticipated nothing further. He was correct in his view, only as regarded the mere going-off of the cracker. What followed was a surprise to him and to all the adjacent world. There was a rattle and roar; the first two or three feet of small crackers went off; and then, as the first cannon cracker was reached with a thunder and blast of smoke, Cocoanut went over backward and away off into the grass, while Julius Caesar simply launched himself into space. It was all down-hill before him. He started for Australia. Anybody could see that. You couldn't tell whether he was going for Sydney or Melbourne, but you knew he was going for Australia in a general way. His leaps, assisted by the down-hill course, were something to witness. Cocoanut has since estimated them at forty feet a jump, while Billy says sixty--for both boys, it is good to say, are still alive--but then Billy was on the jackass and may have been excited; probably somewhere, say about fifty feet, would be the correct estimate. Talk about your horrifying comets with their tails of fire! They were but slight affairs, locally considered, for terrific explosions accompanied every jump of Julius Caesar, and comets don't make any noise. It was all swift, but the noise and awful appearance of Billy and Julius Caesar sufficed in a minute to startle such of the populace of Honolulu who were already awake, and there was a wild rush of scores of people in the wake of where Billy and Julius Caesar went downward to the sea. The extent of the leap of Julius Caesar when he finally reached the shore has never been fully decided upon, but it was a great leap. Billy, jackass, and fireworks went down like a plummet, and very soon thereafter Billy and jackass, but no fireworks, came to the surface again, and then swam vigorously toward the shore, for everybody and everything in Hawaii can swim like a duck. They were received by a brown and wildly applauding crowd of natives, and a minute or two later by Cocoanut, who had run like a deer to see the end of the vast performance he had inaugurated.

An hour or two later two boys and a little jackass were all together upon the hill again, the boys excited and jubilant and saying that they'd had a Fourth of July, anyhow, and the jackass in a doubtful and thoughtful mood.

The boys have grown amazingly since. The jackass seems to be about the same. But about the Fourth of July next at hand the boys won't have the same trouble they had in 1897.

LOVE AND A LATCH-KEY

This is the story of the circumstances surrounding the invention of Simpson's Electric Latch-Key, an invention with which everybody is now familiar, but regarding the origin of which the public has never been informed. There were reasons, grave ones for a time, why the story should not be told--in short, there was a love affair mixed with it--but those reasons no longer exist, and it seems a good thing to relate the facts in the case. They may interest a great number of people, particularly middle-aged gentlemen in the large cities. I know that for me, at least, they have possessed no little attraction.

Love proverbially laughs at locksmiths, but it is safe to say that before Simpson's Electric Latch-Key was known even that cheerful god would not have dared to smile in the presence of some of the problems connected with locks and keys. Now all is changed. The general use of the latch-key mentioned has increased the gayety of nations since the recent time in which this story is laid. Otherwise there would be no story to tell, as this is but the plain narration of the love and ambition which inspired, perfected, and triumphantly demonstrated the usefulness of the invention.

The North Side in the city of Chicago may put on airs as a residence district, and the South Side may put on airs as containing the heart of the vast business district of Chicago, but the West Side is as big as the two of them, and its population contains a large number of exceedingly rich men, who, like the rich men of the other sides, are as content with themselves for being "self-made," are just as grumpy, and with as many weaknesses. Some of these West Side rich men live on Ashland Avenue. There certainly lived and lives Mr. Jason B. Grampus, a great speculator, whose home has its palatial aspects.

West Side millionaires, like those on the other sides, are not infrequently the fathers of fair daughters. Sometimes they have only one daughter, and no sons at all, and in such cases the daughter becomes a very desirable acquisition for a young man of tact and enterprise. There is no law of nature which makes a millionaire's daughter less really lovable than other young women, and there is no law of nature which makes a young man who may fall in love with her, even though he be poor, a fortune-hunter and a blackguard. The young man who has a social position without money is in a perilous way. He may fall in love with a young woman with money, and then his motives will be impugned, especially by the parents. It depends altogether on the young man how he accepts the more or less anomalous position described. If he be strong, he adapts himself in one way; if he be weak, he does it in another.

Ned Simpson was not of the weaker sort, and he was desperately in love with the daughter of "old man Grampus." The fact that she would eventually be worth more than a million did not affect his love to its injury. He said frankly to himself that she was none the worse for that, but it must be asserted to his credit that he thought of her prospective money very little. He stood ready to take her penniless, on the instant. Unfortunately, he could not take her on any conditions. Mr. Grampus and Mrs. Grampus stood like mountains in his way.

Not that Simpson lacked social equality with the Grampus family. He was a young stockbroker, with expectations as yet unrealized, it is true, but with a good ancestry and with business popularity. By day he met old Grampus upon terms of equality. Old Grampus liked him, after a fashion. He had visited the Grampus house, had dined there often, had met the old lady with the purring ways, had met, also, the radiant daughter, Sylvia, and had fallen in love with the latter, deeply and irrevocably. He had made love cleverly and earnestly, as a fine man should, and had succeeded wonderfully.

Sylvia was as deeply in love with him as he was with her. They had solemnly and in all honesty entered into an agreement that they would remain true, each to the other, no matter what might come. Then he had approached the father, manfully explained the situation, and had encountered a reception which was a sight to see and an amazing thing to hear. The old man was striking when at his worst, and Simpson almost admired him for his command of explosive expletives. One likes to see almost anything done well. Simpson was ordered never to enter the house again. He contained himself pretty well; he made no promises, but he met that young woman almost every evening. Meanwhile, the young man and the old man met daily in a business way.

As a rule, the relations between a lover who has been figuratively kicked out of a house and the man who has figuratively kicked him out are somewhat strained. Still, young Simpson and old Grampus met down town in a business way, and it is only putting it fairly concerning Simpson to say that he showed a forgiving spirit--almost an impudently forgiving spirit, one might say. Light-hearted and careless as he seemed to be among his business associates, Simpson possessed a resolute character, and when he decided upon a course, adhered to it determinedly. He was not going to be desperate; he was not going overseas to "wed some savage woman, who should rear his dusky race"; but he was going to eventually have Miss Grampus, or know the reason why. He did not want to elope with the young woman; in fact, he felt that she wouldn't elope if he asked her, for she was fond of her father, and he knew that his end must be attained by vast diplomacy. Just how, he had not decided upon. But he felt his way vaguely.

"One thing is certain," he said to himself, "I must keep my temper and cultivate the old man."

He did cultivate Mr. Grampus, and did it so well that after a season the two would even lunch together. It was an anomalous happening, this lunching together, of a poor young man with a rich old one, who had refused a daughter's hand; but such things occur in the grotesque, huge Western money-mart. In Chicago there is a great gulf fixed between business and family relations. Grampus began to consider Simpson an excellent fellow--that is, as one to meet at luncheon, not as a son-in-law. A son-in-law should have money.

There was a skeleton in the Grampus closet, but it was not scandalous, and was never mentioned. Still, to old Mr. Grampus, the guilty one, the skeleton was real and terrible. He, the gruff, overbearing, successful man of business, the one beneath whose gaze clerks shuddered and stenographers turned pale, was afraid to go home at least four nights of the seven nights in the week. He was afraid to meet his wife.

A great club man was Mr. Grampus. He delighted in each evening spent with his old cronies, in the whist-playing, the reminiscences, the storytelling, the arguments, and the moderate smoking and drinking. Unfortunately, he could not endure well the taking into his system of anything alcoholic. He always became perfectly sober within three hours, but a punch or two would give a certain flaccidity to his legs, and when he reached his home the broad steps leading up to the vestibule seemed Alpine-like and perilous. He would almost say to himself, "Beware the pine-tree's withered branch, beware the awful avalanche." But after all it was not the danger of the ascent which really troubled him; it was what would assuredly happen after he had reached the summit. The disaster always came upon the plateau.

The man could fumble in his pockets with much discretion, and could always find his latch-key, for its shape was odd, but with that latch-key he could not find the keyhole in the door. There came a clamor always at the end. When finally he entered, Mrs. Grampus was as alive and alert as any tarantula of an Arizona plain aroused by a noise upon the trap-door of its retreat. And Mrs. Grampus was a wonderful woman. Talk about death's-head! Jason B. Grampus would have welcomed one in place of that pallid creature in a night-dress, who met him when he came in weavingly.

Mrs. Grampus, who was known to her husband's inner consciousness as Sophia, was a slender, blue-eyed woman, soft of voice and by day gentle of manner. Her health was not perfect. She knew this, and so did every one she met. While not an invalid, she in her imagination trembled on the edge of invalidism, and upon this subject she was almost loquacious. She was domestic in her tastes, and ambitious and devoted to her home and family.

She was a model wife and mother, and this, too, she knew; so did her family and friends, for this subject was second in her topics of conversation only to the state of her health; and, furthermore, she was peculiar and almost original in the perfection to which she had brought the fine art of nagging.

Let it not be imagined that she scolded, or said small, mean things, or used any of the processes of the ordinary nagger. Her methods were refined, studied, calculated, and correct. Her style of day-nagging was, to be explicit, to maintain perfect silence as to the grievance under which she suffered--indeed, this was often a profound secret from the first to the last; to adopt the look and bearing of a Christian martyr on the way to the stake, and to keep this demonstration up for days without a gleam of interruption. She shed no tears, made no reproaches; she just looked her agony, sitting, walking, doing anything. This was by day. But at night! How is it that women so have the gift of speech at night? Mrs. Grampus had it in a marvelous degree, and it was the speech which is a thing to dread, penetrating and long-continued. The nerves of Jason B. Grampus were gradually giving way. Some of the finest old gentlemen in every large city in the country know that one's physical condition differs with moods and seasons, and that what may be endured at one time cannot be at another. This lesson was brought forcibly to Jason B. Grampus one morning. He had passed his usual evening at the club, had gone home at the usual hour, and had encountered even more difficulty than usual in discovering the keyhole. He made more than the ordinary degree of noise, and had encountered even more than the usual hour or two of purgatory, subsequently. He came down town in the morning heavy-eyed, with a headache, and with spirits undeniably depressed. He sought what relief he could. He first visited the barber, and that deft personage, accustomed, as a result of years of carefully performed duty to the ways and desires of his customer, shaved him with unusual delicacy, keeping cool cloths upon his head during the whole ceremony, and terminating the exercise with a shampoo of the most refreshing character. An extra twenty-five cents was the reward of his devotion.

Mr. Grampus went to his business somewhat improved in physical condition, and by noon was almost himself again. Still, he had a yearning for human sympathy; he could not help it. He saw young Simpson at a table, the only acquaintance who happened to be in the dining-room when he entered, and, led by a sudden impulse, walked over, sat down opposite the young man whose aspirations he had discouraged, and entered into affable conversation with him. From affability the conversation drifted into absolute confidence. Jason B. Grampus could no more have helped being confidential that day to some one than he could help breathing. He told Simpson of his trouble of the night before, and concluded his account with the earnest and almost pitiful exclamation:

"I'd give fifty thousand dollars for a keyhole one could not miss." Simpson did not reply for a moment. He thought, thought--thought deeply--and then came to him the inspiration of his life. He looked at Grampus half quizzically, but in a manner not to offend, and as if it were merely a jest over a matter already settled, said:

"Would you give your daughter?"

Grampus looked at him puzzled, and then, responding to the joke which seemed but one of hopelessness, he said:

"Well--if I wouldn't!"

He was startled the next second by the uprising of Simpson, who grasped him heartily by the hand, and said:

"I've got the thing! It's a new invention! There is nothing like it in the world! It is going to revolutionize the social relations and make home happy. Write me a note, giving me permission to operate upon your front door!"

The old man sat dazed. It slowly dawned upon his mind that Simpson had caught him in a trap; but the word of Jason B. Grampus had never yet been violated. He thought rapidly himself now. Of course, the young lunatic could not do what he promised! That was impossible. No man could invent a keyhole which a man could not miss at night. There might be some annoyance to it all, but the young fellow could do as he pleased, only to be rebuffed again, this time with no allowance of a subsequent familiarity. And so they parted, the old man wearing a look somewhat perplexed, and the younger one, despite his assumed jaunty air, exhibiting a little of the same quality of expression.

As a matter of fact, Simpson had not the slightest idea of how such a keyhole and latch-key as he had promised could be made, save that on one occasion he had been the author of a practical little invention utilized in a box-factory, and felt that he had a touch of the inventive genius in his nature. But there was his friend Hastings. It was the thought of Hastings which gave him the inspiration when he spoke to Grampus. Hastings was one of the cleverest inventors and one of the most prominent among the younger electricians of the city. They were devoted friends, and they would invent the greatest latch-key in the world, or burn half the midnight oil upon the market. This he was resolved upon. He sought Hastings.

To Hastings Simpson unfolded his tale carefully, leaf by leaf, and interested amazingly that eminent young electrician. Hastings, though now married, the possessor of a baby with the reddest face in all Chicago, and perfectly happy, had himself undergone somewhat of an experience in obtaining the mother of that baby, and so sympathized with Simpson deeply.

"We'll invent that keyhole or latch-key, or break something," was all he said. There were thenceforth meetings every evening between the two--meetings which were sometimes far extended into the night; and the outcome of it all was that one morning, just as the sunbeams came thrusting the white fog over blue Lake Michigan, Simpson sought his own room somewhat weary-eyed, but with a countenance which was simply beatific in expression. The invention had been perfected! What that invention was may as well be described here and now. The first object to be sought was, naturally, a keyhole which could not easily be missed. Of course, this is a non-scientific description of it, but it may convey a fair idea to the average reader. First, instead of the ordinary keyhole there was something exactly resembling the customary mouthpiece through which we whistle upstairs from the ground floor of a flat seeking to attract the people who rarely answer. The only difference between it and the ordinary mouthpiece was that it was set in so that it was even with the woodwork of the door, and did not project at all. This mouthpiece tapered all around inside, and terminated in a keyhole which was rubber-lined. On the other side of this keyhole was a hard surface, padded with rubber, but having just opposite the mouth of the keyhole a small orifice extending through to a metal surface. That metal surface was a section of one of the most powerful horseshoe magnets ever invented in the United States, and was to be imbedded in the woodwork of the door.

It was a huge thing, reaching nearly across the door, and warranted to pull toward it anything magnetic of reasonable dimensions. The keyhole was all the design of Simpson, the electric part of the affair all the invention of Hastings. Combined, they made something beautiful and wonderful.

A key was made and magnetized so thoroughly that never before was a piece of iron so yearningly full of the electric fluid. The whole thing was adjusted against the wall of the room, and then the men brought in the magnetized key to ascertain if their invention would work in practice. Simpson was carrying the key. No sooner had he entered the door than something began to pull him toward the magnet. He walked sideways, like a crab, resistingly, and could not help himself; and then, just as he had nearly reached the bell-shaped keyhole, he was whirled around, as is the end child in a school playground when they are playing "crack-the-whip," fairly in front of the keyhole, and literally hurled toward it, while the key shot fiercely into the lock. But there was not a sound; the rubber cushion had obviated that.

Well, to say that those two young men were delighted would be to use but one of the commonplace, everyday, decent conversational expressions of the English language. They were simply wild.

Since their latest conversation Jason B. Grampus had engaged in no further communication with Simpson. He thought it best to avoid all relations with the young man who could jest on serious occasions; and yet underlying his upper strata of thought was a dim and undefined impression that he would hear from that young man again. He did.

The morning after the perfection of the invention Simpson called upon Mr. Grampus and calmly, coldly, and dignifiedly announced that his lock was complete, and that he was now about to install it in the Grampus front door. He suggested to Mr. Grampus that to avoid any encounters which might be embarrassing, the latter should suddenly discover some fault in his own front door--in the stained glass, or something of that sort--and have it taken off bodily and sent away to be remodeled; while a temporary door should be put in its place. The old gentleman listened amazed, and thought it all a farce; but then the word of Jason B. Grampus had gone out, and he must keep his word. "All right," he said.

So the front door was sent down town and another one put in its place, and in that front door down town Simpson and Hastings established and firmly secured the marvelous electric lock and keyhole. Then the door was sent back and put in its place. The same day Simpson called at the office of Mr. Grampus and handed him a key, the ring of which was big enough to hold at least two fingers. Mr. Grampus grinned sardonically over this continuation of the jest.

"That's a big ring," he said.

"I am confident you'll not find it any too large," was Simpson's respectful answer.

The old man grunted. "Will it unlock the door, and how? That is all I want to know."

"It will," said Simpson; and so they parted.

That evening Mr. Grampus spent a late evening at the club, and went home in apprehension. As he neared his residence the apprehension grew. He was wobbly, and he knew it. He ascended the steps with some difficulty, and began fumbling for his latch-key. He had forgotten all about the fact that he had a new one. The remembrance came to him only when he thrust his hand into his pocket, felt the huge key, and drew it forth. That instant he felt himself leaning forward. Then something happened. He was literally "yanked" toward that sunken keyhole. His hat smashed against the door (fortunately it was a soft one), and he found himself a minute later leaning against the entrance to his own house, grasping the handle of a latch-key which was in place and which would afford him admission without the slightest sound.

Never was a man who could walk in such condition, who, once inside a door, could not conduct himself with the utmost quietness. Grampus was no exception to the rule. He removed the key with a tug, closed the door softly and stepped into the drawing-room, where for three hours he slept, as sleeps a babe, upon the sofa. It has already been told that only three hours were required to enable Mr. Grampus to recover from three hours' indulgence at the club. He awoke refreshed and clear-headed as a man may be. He straightened out his hat, opened the front door quickly, pulled it to with a bang, as if he had just come in, and stalked upstairs in dignity. Never has a man more conscious and oppressive rectitude than one who has barely escaped a dreadful plight. No word came from the just-awakened terror in a night-dress. He had been saved--saved by Simpson.

The word of Jason B. Grampus had never been violated, and never could be. His first duty when he reached his office in the morning was to send for Simpson.